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“It’s pretty,” Kurt murmured as he looked out at the skyline. New York was bustling under them, alive around them, and so full of energy that Kurt felt like he could taste it. He knew his voice was wistful when he said, “It’s so different from home.”
“S’okay, I guess?” Noah muttered. His voice wasn’t wistful, but Kurt chose to ignore that for the time being. “It’s just a lot of buildings and people and shit.”
Kurt rolled his eyes and let out a very undignified snort. Boys. “Yes, that’s true, but… there’s so much freedom here! Don’t you see it?”
Kurt pulled his gaze away from the landscape to study the boy beside him. His attempt at sneaking out of the hotel room had been thwarted by the Glock being awake. But, instead of turning him in or telling him to go back to bed, Noah had simply followed Kurt out of the hotel suite. He was wearing a ratty-looking pair of sweatpants that were undoubtedly soft and a tank top that showed off his very shapely shoulders, and Kurt quickly looked back at the city before he could be caught staring.
The city was safe. He could look at the city.
“There’s… there’s so much space. So many people. We could be anyone here!” Taking a deep breath, Kurt choked down the bead of emotion that swelled in his chest. It wouldn’t do to cry in front of Noah. His voice was soft when he murmured, “No one would know who I am. No one would know.”
“Don’t you wanna be known?” Noah asked. His voice was so adorably confused that Kurt could perfectly picture the crease between his brows, and he snuck a quick look to see the expression in the low light. “Isn’t that, like, your whole fuckin’ goal? You and Streisand talk about that shit all the time.”
“I would like to be famous one day, sure,” Kurt agreed as he leaned against the brick edge of the hotel’s roof. “I mean, who wouldn’t? Fame and riches and recognition… of course I want all of that. But… I want to be me first.”
Noah snorted like Kurt had something funny. He didn’t have it in him to look over, not when he could feel the weight of Noah’s gaze. “Oh c’mon, you trying to tell me you ain’t yourself every other day?”
“Not always,” Kurt murmured. He took a deep breath before he turned to find Noah watching him incredulously, both of the boy’s eyebrows high on his forehead. It was impossible to trap down his hysterical giggle and equally impossible to miss the way Noah’s expression seemed to melt in response.
It was too late—or too early, really—at night for Kurt to do anything with that, so he ignored it.
“I wear eccentric clothing to school. I sing with a high voice. I… I’m open about liking boys, but that’s because people have been calling me gay since before I knew what it meant.”
Taking another deep breath, Kurt forced himself to look away. The city seemed to twinkle in the darkness of pre-dawn. “I haven’t signed up for auto shop, even though I almost have my mechanics certification, and I work in my dad’s shop, but I never deal directly with customers because they might not like how I am or how I look or how I sound. I quit the swim team Freshman year, and I only joined the football team because of a very ill-advised crush on Finn, and then I joined the Cheerios for power, not because I wanted to be a cheerleader, and I still didn’t feel safe in the change rooms.”
Kurt shrugged a little helplessly as he tried to articulate how it felt to always, always wear some sort of mask. “It’s… It doesn’t feel like I’m ever really being myself. Does that make sense?”
He didn’t expect an immediate response and the following quiet was comforting. Noah was close, closer still when he shuffled right up to the edge of the roof and popped his hip against the ledge. He’d looked away, but Kurt felt like he could still feel the other boy’s attention.
This wasn’t the first time the two of them had ever spoken to each other, not after nearly two years in Glee together, but this was the longest and deepest conversation they’d ever had. The other boy’s mohawk was nice and tidy, obviously shaved right before they left, and there was a dusting of stubble across his jaw that looked even darker in the light. They weren’t friends, not really, but they were family in the weird way that Glee made them all family.
“Sometimes you wear a mask for so long that it starts to look like your face, ya know?” Noah asked quietly, his eyes still on the skyline. Kurt let out a little noise of surprise before he could pull it back. “Yeah, it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”
“No, it’s really not.” Turning to face the other boy head on, Kurt took a deep breath before he slowly reached out and placed a hand on Noah’s arm. When the other boy didn’t jerk away, he gently squeezed. “I do find it sometimes helps to talk about it, though. If you want to tell me, I’d be happy to learn what your mask is hiding.”
Noah met his gaze evenly. There was something defiant in his expression that Kurt didn’t know what to do with so he squeezed the other boy’s arm again and shuffled closer.
“I’m raising my sister,” Noah whispered into the night. Kurt did his best to school his expression, but he was sure some of his surprise leaked through when Noah chuckled at him. “My Ma’s a deadbeat who hoisted Sarah off to me like she meant nothing, so I’ve been raising my sister and I would’ve been fuckin’ fine raising Beth, too, but no one knew I was already basically a dad.”
Kurt couldn’t keep himself from shifting closer as Noah spoke. His tone was dark, hurting, and it made something deep in Kurt’s chest ache. “I’m so sorry, Noah,” he whispered. “I know that you wanted to keep Beth. It was obvious to anyone who was watching and, for what it’s worth, I think you would have done right by her.”
“Means a lot, Kurt,” Noah murmured. His voice was low and rough, and Kurt found himself swaying forward before he could stop himself. “No one else really considered me parent material. Hell, no one really considers me much of anything. I’m nothin’ in this stupid fuckin’ town.”
“I might not know you very well, but I know you’re not nothing, Noah Puckerman,” Kurt murmured forcefully. He squeezed Noah’s arm again and made sure to take a deep breath when the taller boy swayed even closer. “If nothing else, you’re a barbarian.”
Noah snorted, but this time it didn’t hold any humour. “What, ‘cause I’m dumb?”
“Because you’re big and strong, silly,” Kurt said softly, squeezing Noah’s arm again. It was a risk, but he didn’t like the way Noah’s eyes had dulled.
And if there was anything he knew about Noah, it was that the taller boy liked to flirt.
Oh, sure, that could be part of the mask, but it was a risk Kurt was prepared to take and he was pretty immediately validated when the other boy’s eyes lit back up.
“Ya think so, babe?” Noah asked with a sly grin that had Kurt rolling his eyes humorously. Then he flexed his arm, and Kurt had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep himself from making an inappropriate noise.
“Don’t make me say it again,” he murmured, but it was teasing at best.
“Awe, c’mon, baby, don’t you wanna be sweet with me?”
Kurt threw his head back and laughed at the ridiculous line, giggling freely as he leaned back against the hotel’s rooftop edge. When he calmed down, he found that the lightness still in Noah’s eyes bolstered something in him.
“Well, this is the city of dreams after all.”
“You sayin’ I feature in your dreams?”
“I don’t know, Noah, would that bother you?” Kurt meant it as another line, another bit of flirting, but his tone didn’t quite hit the mark and there was an underlying thread of insecurity that coloured his words.
He wasn’t surprised when Noah picked up on it, not with everything they’d already shared tonight.
“Nah, baby, that’s just another mask.”
Kurt let out a breathless little “oh” as he swayed even closer. At this point, Noah was all but caging him against the cool brick wall of the roof. This was not what Kurt had expected when he decided to sneak out of his hotel room to get a glimpse at the New York skyline, but he was certainly not complaining about the turn of events.
“We’re both more than the masks we were at school, Noah,” Kurt murmured as he looked up into the Glock’s eyes. “And in a place like this… we could be anyone we wanted to be. We could be ourselves.”
“I guess I can see the draw of that,” Noah whispered. “Be kinda cool to come back… ya know, when we ain’t on a glorified fieldtrip.”
“That almost sounded like an invitation.” Kurt was more breathless than he wanted to admit to himself. His heart was racing loudly in his chest, almost the only thing he could hear.
The purr of Noah’s baritone didn’t help. “Well I wouldn’t be comin’ on my own, babe.”
“God, you are a barbarian,” Kurt murmured, but then he leaned up and kissed him.
Noah didn’t seem to mind.
Not one bit.