"We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreements, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons."

~Salman Rushdie, The Washington Post 10/02/2001

.

It was something Kurt had recognized back in high school: in order to get respect, you had to demand it, no matter how mortifying or frightening the situation.

Blaine had long made a lot of noise about being proud of his homosexuality, about proving bigots wrong by refusing to back down, but the truth was that he hated conflict and his early experiences with physical violence made him terrified of the possibility that an argument could escalate into more.

But if there was one thing Kurt had taught him it was that courage was more than just a word.

Inhaling deeply, Blaine straightened his shoulders and marched into Dr. Vincent Behren's wood-lined office. School policy or no, Blaine knew this particular professor disliked gays. He was constantly tossing around comments about the degradation of modern society and had even shown outright admiration for a politician who was famous for claiming that only a man and a woman in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship could ever truly understand what a relationship was, or even what love was. It made Blaine's blood boil.

He was prepared to let the issue go in order to keep the peace, but Dr. Behren had given him a C- on his midterm when, especially after looking at the work of some of the other students in his class, he knew he deserved at least an A.

"Mr… Anderson, isn't it? What can I do for you?"

"Sir, with all due respect, I'd like to contest the grade you gave me on my midterm paper."

"Do you have it with you?"

Blaine quickly dug it out of his bag and handed it over, glad his hands weren't shaking like the nervous clench of adrenaline in his gut suggested they should.

"Ah. Yes. Your argument was weak and your sources lacked credibility. Why do you think you deserve a higher grade?"

"Lacked credibility? Sir, half my sources are first-hand accounts from members of the Mattachine Society of Washington. I quoted Time Magazine and analyzed memos on the subject from the State Department and McCarthy himself. Not to mention I used part of Eisenhower's executive order on security requirements for government employees as the starting point for the entire paper. How much more credibility do you want my sources to have?"

"The assignment was to write a paper about the social effects of Cold War mentality on American culture. Can you really back up your claim that the Lavender Scare was influential enough to affect the thoughts and actions of a wide sector of American society at the time? That it was in any way equal to the consequences of the Red Scare?"

Blaine blinked in astonishment. "Yes. It was a smaller part of the whole, obviously, but thousands of people lost their jobs, had their lives ruined, simply because even the insinuation that they were gay made them security threats."

"And what does that have to do with Cold War mentalities?"

"Everything. If people weren't so scared of the Communist threat they wouldn't have been afraid that gays in the government could be blackmailed into leaking classified information to the Russians, something which could have been easily remedied by not making government jobs conditional on perceived or genuine heterosexuality in the first place."

"I don't teach subjunctive history in my class, Mr. Anderson."

"It's not subjunctive history, it's the same argument the Mattachine Society of Washington made at the time. The fact that they didn't achieve their goals is irrelevant. That they had those goals and the reasons behind why they had them is what matters, and one of those reasons relates back directly to the Lavender Scare and Cold War mentality in America in the 1950s.

"I completed the assignment within the parameters you set. Just because I didn't focus on the blacklisting of people in the media or McCarthyism more broadly doesn't mean I don't deserve an A."

Dr. Behren crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with an unimpressed look on his face. Blaine resisted the urge to gulp.

.

"Did you convince him?" Kurt asked before Blaine even had the chance to sit down at their usual café table. Blaine took a sip from the perfectly prepared cup of coffee waiting for him before he answered.

"He raised it to a B. He said I didn't focus enough on the Cold War aspect of things but that he admired my passion for my subject. Then he invited me to register for his history seminar next semester," he shook his head. "I'm so confused."

"Well, if he invited you to take another one of his classes that must mean he likes you, right?"

"I don't even know what it means at this point. My GPA is still shot."

"Honey, I think you can live with a B on your record. You're still practically perfect in every other way."

Blaine laughed into his cup. "I'm not Mary Poppins, Kurt."

"Mm, good thing too, cause as much as I love Julie Andrews, she's one of the last people I'd ever want to take to bed. All those girl parts – euch."

Blaine laughed even harder and tried to will his face to return to a more normal color. He'd never get used to Kurt making sex jokes in public.

"Seriously, though. I'm so proud of you for confronting him today. I know you were nervous about it."

Blaine shrugged. "It's what you would have done." Kurt smiled at him and he got up the nerve to finally try to say what he'd been wanting to for years. He could just never figure out how before. "You… inspire me to be more like the person I want to be. You're so brave, Kurt. And you don't let anybody give you crap about anything. I – you have no idea how much I wish I could do that."

"You're brave too, you know," Kurt said, reaching across the table for his hand and squeezing it when Blaine gave it to him. "You're just brave in a different way. A more polite way."

Blaine huffed out a laugh and took another sip of his coffee with his free hand.

"I admire you for that so much, Blaine. People respect you because you're always so respectful of them. I have too much of a temper to be able to get away with that."

"Not to mention a wickedly sharp tongue," Blaine said, rubbing his thumb suggestively across that back of Kurt's fingers.

"Is that supposed to be some sort of proposition?"

"I don't know. Is it working?"

Kurt blushed lightly and looked away, grinning widely out the window at all the people walking far too fast to possibly appreciate how gorgeous the weather was.

"Well," he said, turning back. "I suppose you do deserve some sort of reward for being such a crusader for the cause. I can probably afford to skip the rest of my classes today. What about you?"

"Oh definitely," Blaine nodded, hoping he didn't look quite as turned on as he felt. They were still in public, after all.

"Then I guess we should go home so you can tell me exactly how I should use my tongue."

"Mm."

They stood up and quickly disposed of their coffee cups, linking their hands together as they went out the door.

Blaine grinned. He would always fight for this, for them.

And here it ends. For some reason, I thought this project might take longer to finish. Oh well.

Once again, thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited and subscribed to this fic.

If you're curious about the subject of Blaine's paper there's a book called (surprise, surprise) The Lavender Scare by David K. Johnson. I first heard about it in my Gay and Lesbian American History class in college, which is incidentally the first place I heard of Harvey Milk (I can't believe they let Chris flub that line...). LGBT history is fascinating, but unfortunately still pretty much in it's infancy in terms of resources unless you're willing to dig. The Lavender Scare for instance is actually the only book on its topic that's been published as far as I know. So here's to the future when such history will be common knowledge.