100 Days

100 Days – borogroves

156,638 words — 52 chapters — complete

Kurt and Blaine have been best friends (and nothing more) since the age of six. Now college graduates, they take a roadtrip around the USA, visiting every state in 100 days. Fifty states. Two boys. One love story.

         

This fic. It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. It is so wonderfully put together, with additional content on Kurt and Blaine’s separate blogs which includes Q&A sessions, photos, music. The premise of the story is fantastic in itself, but the execution? There are metaphors in this fic which make your head explode for their sheer beauty (a fact which I have often told the author about – and she is so modest). It is no surprise at all that this story is making its way into a published book. If you only read one more multichaptered Klaine fic, make it this one.

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Excerpt

Blaine stood outside the R.V., the thumb of his left hand tracing around the patterns on his pocket watch casing, the fingers of his right absently swinging the keys back and forth. It was just after sunset and the sky was somewhere between periwinkle and cobalt. The stars hadn’t yet made their twinkling appearance, though Blaine doubted if they would even be visible through the thin layer of cirrostratus that had contained the late-September humidity since mid-morning.

The entire summer had been leading to this point. All the hours logged on Google Maps and Wikipedia; all the vetoes cashed in when debating movie choices; all the grease that got lodged beneath his stubby fingernails as they fixed up the R.V. outside Burt’s shop. All of it done in the name of a bond that they could trace back sixteen years, to a day not dissimilar to this one.

Blaine met his best friend in the entire world for the first time on a Saturday in late September, when he finally jumped out of the big U-Haul truck that had carted his family’s entire life all the way from Fredericksburg. It felt good to finally be outside and moving around after having to stay still for so long, so long he could barely contain himself. He felt like he was about to pop, he had so much energy.

Once he had helped his dad take out all the little boxes and earned himself a grin and a high five, all that was left were the big pieces of furniture that only his big brother, Cooper, could help with. His mom told him to go ride his bike since they’d just unpacked it, and to go make friends with the other little boy circling the junction at the other end of the quiet street, since they were going to be neighbors and all.

Soon enough, Blaine’s bright green bike—his first big boy bike—was drawing level with the boy’s blue one, and they rode to the end of the street with shy smiles before coming to a stop near the bright yellow fire hydrant.

“My name’s Blaine,” he said, holding out his hand like he’d seen the grown-ups do.

“I’m Kurt,” the boy replied, firmly shaking Blaine’s hand once. “Do you like singing?”

“I love singing! Disney’s my favorite. My big brother Cooper always says I’m real good,” Blaine proclaimed proudly, and Kurt grinned.

“I love singing, too. I sing with my Mommy every day. Maybe you can be my friend and come sing with us,” Kurt said, twisting his hands together and looking at Blaine shyly. Blaine couldn’t understand why he was so hesitant; he had super-cool clothes—his shoes matched his bow tie and everything—and the most awesome bike that even had streamers on the handlebars. Blaine totally wanted to be friends with him—all he’d ever wanted was a real friend.

“Let’s be best friends!” Blaine yelled excitedly, and Kurt grinned so wide that it almost split his face right in two. Blaine couldn’t help but smile back, and he turned his bike around to face the direction they’d come. “Race you to my house!”

Everything was mostly the same. A little rougher, a little more well-worn and weathered, a little faded and fuzzy around the edges—but the same. It was the reason Blaine had reached this itchy plateau of completion, having done all that he could here. He had hoped, in the dark and cold hours of winter night in London, that he would be able to stick it out here upon returning, but even a week after getting back and spending every waking minute with Kurt, he had known that it wasn’t enough. There were places he needed to be, though he didn’t know where. All he knew was that he needed to get the hell out of Maine.

“Yes, Dad, I’m sure we have everything!”

Blaine grinned at the irritation in Kurt’s voice as he exited through the front door of his cozy little house, the house in which Blaine had always felt more at home than in his own. Burt and Carole were right behind him, both wearing the same expression they had the day he and Kurt had left for Bowdoin—and college was only a couple miles from sleepy, whimsically-named Merrymeeting Road.

Kurt hugged each of them in turn—as always, Blaine noted, Carole rather more briefly than his dad—and beckoned Blaine over.

“Watch out for each other, you two,” Burt instructed, hands on both of their shoulders and his shop cap tilted back on his head. Blaine caught Kurt’s eye and grinned. “I want you both home in one piece.”

“Yes, sir,” Blaine replied.

“Kid, how many times? I’ve known you sixteen years. It’s ‘Burt’.”

“Old habits die hard,” Blaine said, and the familiarity of the words that so easily rolled from his tongue brought the point into startling focus—he was truly doing this. Getting out. And he was going to miss these people, this tight, dysfunctional little family that he’d long been expected to call his own.

“Okay,” Burt said, sharp inhale and all business, “get outta here.”

Kurt crooked his fingers and saluted in a way that Blaine hadn’t seen him do since the Unmentionable Flannel Phase, and Burt chuckled, pulling him into one last bear hug. Blaine could hear him whisper something to Kurt but couldn’t discern the words, and when he stepped back, Kurt’s face was noticeably flushed. Blaine had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking—be safe, he wondered with thoughts that meandered back to a sixteen-year-old Kurt practically battering down his front door, red-faced and clutching a handful of pamphlets.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kurt muttered, avoiding everyone’s eyes, and turned on his heel with an awkward wave.

“You’ll figure it out, sweetheart,” Carole intoned with a meaningful look that preceded a dry, tip-toed kiss to his cheek. “Just see him, alright?”

“What do you mean? See who?” Blaine asked, but Carole simply shook her head and gave him a little push in the direction of the R.V., where Kurt sat waiting in the passenger seat.

“Time to go,” she said gently, and Blaine took a step back. One last look at Kurt’s house, one last tentative and nervous smile back at Burt and Carole, one lasting closing of the front gate behind him, and his excitement was overwhelmingly threatening to burst out of his skin. He pulled open the door to the cab of the R.V., stepped up and swung himself into the driver’s seat, taking a moment to run his hands over the textured leather steering wheel cover before pulling the door shut with a satisfying thud and fastening his seat belt.

“Stoke the fires,” Kurt said wryly, rolling down his window.

“Start the engines,” Blaine finished.