Title: muscles better and nerves more
Word Count: 3000
Summary: A follow-up piece to this story, first published the day after The Break-Up aired.
It's the summer, and they're living together again. Bodies and hearts and relationships don't heal in one long straight line - they heal in fits and starts, uneven and jagged.
Blaine is still here.
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: This is inspired by a comment reminder that I had actually written that first piece way back then. I had always wanted to add Blaine's piece to this story, it just took me a very long time to figure out what that was. Thanks to whisperyvoices for the reminder, and to istytehcrawk and stultiloquentia for wonderful (and rapid!) beta-reading.
Title: The New Year
Word Count: 3200
Summary: Kurt and Blaine need to have a talk. A story from the Learning and Labor – the Oberlin!AU universe.
Rating: PG
Author's Note: This is a tiny love letter - to that verse that will one day have more meat on its bones, and to the handful of people who still carry a torch for it. The story probably stands on its own, but it probably won't mean anything to you without the context, and for this one I unapologetically recommend reading the original story first. Many thanks to chiasmuslovesme, stultiloquentia, and suchalilyofthevalley for wonderful beta reads, and to the Interlude Press team for the perfect opportunity to look back and play a little bit longer.
The New Year
By the third week of November, Kurt has to make a decision.
He looks up when he realizes that he's come straight to Blaine's room instead of taking to the stairs to head to his own, and Blaine's opening the door and smiling at him.
So yes. There is also that.
Blaine laughs at him, grabbing at his scarf and pulling him forward, batting at his shoulders as he comes. "Oh no! It's snowing again?"
Kurt frowns at him while he fusses. Blaine is still in the soft sleep pants and t-shirt Kurt had left him in this morning. There's music playing soft and low, something light and driven by the synthesizer, but the curtains are still pulled tight, and the only light in the room are the twin lamps glowing over his desk and his bed. The room smells like morning, like dark roast and those cinnamon-apple oatmeal packets that Blaine likes, and Kurt is torn between bitter envy that Blaine doesn't have class on Thursdays and a ragged relief that he's still here, just like this. It had been hard to get up and out this morning.
There are a lot of reasons to be distracted, really.
Blaine unwinds Kurt's scarf from his neck and peels away his coat, stepping a few steps away to take them both over to the coatrack that Kurt had brought down from his own room earlier this week. It's been nice, having it here. There's been less jockeying for closet space in the last few days, especially when it's easier not to go back to his room in the morning to shower and change; Blaine's room is only four doors down from the men's bathroom on his floor, while Kurt has to cross almost the whole building to get to his.
Kurt kicks out of his boots and crawls onto the still-mussed bed, jeans and all, and pulls the blankets up until they pool over his lap. The bed's not warm — Blaine must have been up for a while, but his pillow is still shoved against the wall and he tucks it behind his back so he can lean against it.
Blaine comes back to bed too, curling up and lying down in Kurt's lap, slanting a smile up at him when Kurt's hands automatically end up in his hair. The roots are still damp, even though it's mostly dry to the touch, because Blaine has showered and gone right back into his sleep clothes.
"Mmm," he hums, while Kurt scratches at his scalp. "How was class?"
"Not as nice as this. I should have skipped."
"Told you."
Kurt tugs at his hair a little. "Please." What Blaine had said was, 'mkay, great, come back after?' half asleep while Kurt had clambered over him to remove himself from the twin bed they can't bring themselves to stop sharing so he could grab his phone from Blaine's desk and stop its blaring. When Kurt had showered and come back to the room to drop off his toiletries, grab his school bag, and pull his travel mug off his Keurig, Blaine had already sprawled over the bed, taking back over the tiny bit of space that Kurt had vacated, and had his face pressed into Kurt's pillow. He hadn't even moved.
Blaine doesn't blink, just beams up at him looking very self-satisfied. "9 am classes every day were not your best idea, admit it."
It's an argument they've had before, and he ends it the same way he always does. "I like having a schedule and getting them done early. Besides, it seems to have worked out fine for me, thank you," and he scratches a little harder at Blaine's scalp. He's pretty sure at least one 9 am class has worked out well for both of them.
"It's the exception that proves the rule." Blaine says this with his voice slurring, grinning ear-to-ear with his eyes closed, and Kurt is officially under no obligation to take him seriously.
"Do you want to go get lunch?"
"Mmm. Not quite ready to leave the building. Wanna take a nap?"
Kurt thinks about the deadline that's bearing down on him; they need to talk, and "take a nap" usually doesn't involve either talking or sleeping. "Taking a nap" means stripping down to their underwear and t-shirts and climbing back into Blaine's bed, where Blaine's mouth is warm and wet and sweet, and their legs scratch and slide against each other while their hands trace over each other, hidden under blankets. It's still not sex — nobody has been naked, nobody has come (well, together, anyway), and Kurt knows what sex isn't, at least — but it might as well be. It's as close as he's ever come, anyway, and it does what he wants sex to do, eventually, when it's time.
But he tips his head back against the wall and sighs. He wiggles his toes where they're still warming, and he knows what the bed will feel like, how close they'll have to be, and how Blaine will breathe against his neck. So cautiously he says, "Yes, but we need to have a talking nap."
Blaine's eyes flutter open while his brow furrows. "Bad talk?"
"I don't think so. We… I need to talk, you can listen."
Blaine nods, pushing himself up on his elbows so that he can stand up. Kurt throws back the blankets and starts by pulling off his socks.
"And you have to actually listen."
"I listen!" Kurt thinks that nobody should look that indignant when they're untying fleece pants.
"You get distracted very easily," he says, but he softens it with a grin. He doesn't mind, not at all — it's its own pleasure to be somebody's distraction, especially Blaine's.
"You know why," Blaine says, standing by the bed and watching while Kurt finishes with his pants and his sweater, until he's down to his underwear and his t-shirt, too.
He slips into the bed and scoots until his back is flush against the wall. The t-shirts are necessary for modesty, yes, but the bed is small and he's pretty sure that unless he wants the pattern of brick pressed into his skin of his back for the rest of his life, it's valuable protection, too. Blaine slips in right beside him, curling into him until their feet are tucked together, Blaine's ankle between his. His breath is sweet, apples and coffee and cinnamon toothpaste, and Kurt falls into the kiss like they're picking right up where they left off.
Which they are, really. And this is part of what he needs to talk about — it's been three weeks since the first time they kissed in this bed, and it's been two weeks since the first time Kurt spent the night, and it's been a week since his Keurig migrated down and four days since his coatrack followed it. His laptop hasn't been plugged in in his room since early November, when he'd run upstairs to get it and the charger and then never taken it back. Every single step of it has felt right, natural, so perfect and easy that even though part of him couldn't believe he was doing it, he just… did. Because doing it felt like a celebration, every time, and a little like something he was getting away with, and it's been…. Well really it's been intoxicating.
But it's time to make some sober choices, because he has Thanksgiving and then a deadline less than a week later, and it's not in his nature to leave himself this vulnerable. Not anymore, not if it ever was.
So he breaks the kiss, gently, eases Blaine out of it by kissing his nose, his cheeks, his eyelids. "Hey. I mean it, really."
"I know. I just like it." Blaine's eyes are bright and his smile is sweet.
He smiles back at him. "Yes. But."
Blaine pulls away the scant inch that he can without falling off the bed, and settles onto his own pillow, facing him. "Okay. Talking.
"Yes." Kurt reaches between them, finds the hand of Blaine's that isn't pinned under his body and takes it between his own. "So. It finally occurred to me this morning that we have to register for winter term in just over a week."
Blaine's eyes light up instantly. "And? Are we going to do it?" He pauses, watching him, his brows up. "Come on, say you will. Kurt, it will be perfect. And you know she's into it — she wants us to!" She does; their Media and Memory professor has been so into their project from the first time they presented their preliminary findings to the class, and she's written a few emails encouraging them to take it further, to use winter term to throw off their self-imposed rules about moving out of the 1980s and expand the scope of their study.
"I'm thinking about it. I was so sure, what I was going to do. I mean, my dad is already there, it's so perfect, and it would be easy. But…."
Blaine doesn't let him hang for even a moment. "But this would be amazing, Kurt, and it's so much closer to what you really want to do. DC will always be there and your dad has at least another term, but we've got some traction on this project, and I think we should run with it."
Blaine's right, of course. Oberlin requires its students to complete three winter terms, some kind of internship or expanded research paper or personal development project, and he's always expected to spend his first mandated January helping his dad in DC. He doesn't use his dad's new position for much — neither of them are used to it, even now — but they'd always planned it as a chance for Kurt to knock out a requirement and get his dad's filing back on track after the holidays. There is nothing special about what Kurt has planned, nothing except that it would give him a chance to spend more time with his dad. And then Kurt met Blaine, and now he has an exciting new set of choices about how to spend his time.
And this is as good an opportunity as he's going to get to ask, so Kurt takes a deep breath and says, "And how much of that is about this?" Kurt pulls Blaine's hand to his mouth, kissing at the tips of his fingers while he gazes up at him.
Blaine stares at him for a second, flutters his fingers against Kurt's mouth until he smiles, and then he laughs. "Kurt! Is that what's bothering you?"
Kurt looks at him, presses his head further into the pillow, and waits for the answer to his question.
Blaine blows out a breath and rolls onto his back as much as he can, pulling his hand away, and stares at the ceiling as he says, "I don't know. Probably a lot of it – 75, 80 percent, maybe? Why?" He turns his head, looking at Kurt, watching him for an answer.
Kurt gets stuck there for a second, watching him right back and waiting for some kind of signal until he reaches for him, pulling him back so that they're almost nose to nose, knees knocking up against each other and Blaine's breath washing across his mouth. "I have no idea. But it's been three weeks, and I haven't slept by myself in almost that long. I have no idea where it's going, and committing to this project means we're stuck together until at least February, and that's two months from now."
"It's been six weeks." Kurt smiles at the argument that's already become old and comfortable, because Blaine insists on counting that night at The Feve, even though Kurt has already presented his arguments for why that is cheating. "And you don't think we'll last that long?
He finally lets himself think about it then, and he already doesn't know how to imagine it — going to meals, seeing Blaine around, seeing him with somebody else. Dating anybody else. It's only been three weeks since he's had this and already he can't imagine losing it — it feels like so much longer. His voice is quiet, so careful, when he says, "I want us to. I think we will. But dating seems like a circus, and that was only the view from the outside. How am I supposed to know?"
Blaine's eyes soften, and he lifts his hand to rest it against Kurt's side, his fingers curling into his t-shirt. "I think we will too. But you're right. We haven't talked about it."
Kurt shakes his head a little and smiles at him — he's so earnest. He likes that about him best of all, the way he always tries.
Blaine's smile wavers at the edges, not quite making it to his eyes, before he blows out a heavy breath. Kurt slides one foot back and forth across Blaine's ankle. "So let's do that," Blaine says. "Let's… define the relationship."
It's the sigh and the tone of Blaine's voice that makes him freeze his foot mid-sweep — he hasn't heard him so detached in weeks. "Is that so bad?"
Blaine's hand flexes once against his side, a random flex or an aborted grab maybe, before his face relaxes into a sweetly sad smile and he closes his eyes for a split second. "No, Kurt. No. It's not. I think it's probably a good idea, you're right. It's just that the last time I did this, it didn't go well."
"Sebastian."
"Of course."
He kisses him again then, breaks his own rule and can't quite help it, because now he's been conditioned: Blaine mentions Sebastian, and Kurt kisses him. They've talked about him a lot, maybe too much, late at night when they should have been sleeping. They have these conversations while they're in bed that go everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Kurt talks about his dad, his family, his friends; he talks about the despair of not getting into NYADA, the way it felt like his life was ending before it ever even had a chance to really begin, and about what he hopes to find at Oberlin — work, community, friends. And even though he's never said it, he thinks now that part of what he was hoping to find at Oberlin, all along, was this: somebody he could talk to and hold in the dark, and somebody he could be quiet and fervent with, too.
Blaine talks about his parents, about his brother, who Kurt was very impressed to learn about, although the more he hears about Cooper the more he wishes Blaine would talk about him less; he's already disillusioned enough. Blaine talks about why he went to Dalton, the things that drove him there, and Kurt tells him about Karofsky and wishes over and over that they could have known each other earlier. And Blaine wishes for the same thing, and that always brings up Sebastian, so that they're talking in circles, working tirelessly at the same knots that have always tied each of them up, and learning how they fit together.
So he knows, of course, about how Blaine offered his heart to Sebastian; it's one of the first things he ever really knew about Blaine. All he wants is for Blaine to make an offer of his heart one more time, to somebody more worthy.
Blaine's face is serious when the kiss breaks this time, and he stares at him, silent and still until Kurt whispers, "So what do you want?"
Blaine's eyes drop to Kurt's chin, and his face is guarded as he says, "I want as much of you as you're going to let me have."
He tips his head forward, nudges Blaine with his chin to get him to raise his eyes. "Blaine."
He has such pretty eyes, Kurt thinks, especially now when they're wide and shining. "I mean it. I'm not going anywhere unless you make me. I mean it, Kurt."
And one more time, Kurt steels himself for a moment before he takes the leap, but just like when he first reached out for Blaine's hand the very first time, he's whisper-soft when he lands. "I'm falling in love with you."
He doesn't even need to hear the reply, not really. He's been some kind of sure of Blaine from the very beginning — from that very first email exchange, Kurt has felt like he knows him, at least a little, and it's only been three weeks but that's 21 days of almost constant contact, cocooned away in Blaine's very tiny single dorm room. He still watches with fascination and a rising sense of giddiness when Blaine says, "Me too."
"Okay," Kurt says, trying to hold his voice steady. "So however we define the relationship, it's… serious."
Blaine's smile is weak only because his mouth is a little wobbly, but it stretches to his eyes, and Kurt can't help smiling back at him when he whispers, "Yes, definitely."
Kurt breathes out a huge sigh, and makes the choice he always really wanted. "Okay. Okay then. I'll tell my dad at Thanksgiving. I'm not going to DC for winter break. I'm going to stay here, and we're going to do our project."
Blaine moves forward and buries his face against Kurt's neck. "Yeah. We are."
Later, Kurt will struggle to explain to his dad what it is about this project that makes it valuable without overusing the word "Blaine". Much later still, he'll realize how risky that was, how essentially wasteful and irresponsible, to define one of his three winter projects solely by whether his work partner was actually his boyfriend.
For now, though, Kurt feels light and loved and so warm, and like there's nothing they can't do together. It's snowing outside, and a feast is coming but for now they have coffee and oatmeal. Kurt is almost 20 years old and falling in love for the very first time, and there is no room to think about anything else.
"... and then Rachel and Mercedes got into it, again, and Santana couldn't shut up about it, of course, and I am just. I am so done with this. My turn, hand it over." Kurt's engagement ring clinks against the side of the bottle when he grabs it from Carole's hand, and his tiny grimace at the taste of the wine makes Burt smile. He's getting older, but he's not there yet, and that's just fine.
"Unreal. Last week Tina went on a rampage about how hard her life was. So much drama in one tiny room."
"And none of it is even mine!"
"So rude of them," Carole says, snatching the bottle back and drinking deep.
Kurt bumps against her shoulder before he slumps against her on the sofa. "It's not that it's not sad. I know, I remember. It's very sad."
When Carole pulls off the bottle it's with an audible pop, and Kurt looks at her sideways. "We've had sadder, kid. To hell with it."
Burt scrubs at his head and goes to get a beer. If they're bitching about Glee Club, he has a few years of things stored up to get off his chest.
Klaine Advent - COMBO MOVE Days 10, 11, 12 - "jigsaw", "key", "loft" (1500 words - R/light NC-17)
I’ve decided to go a little HIMYM with my advent fic; each one will be set the weekend of Kurt and Blaine’s December wedding.
These snippets are told in no chronological order; if they manage to hold together, I'll restring them in order once they're done, add any necessary interstitial scenes, and post the collected work on AO3.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Additional A/N: today is catchup day for me! As mentioned over here, I feel behind. Fills for 'jigsaw', 'key', and 'loft' are all included here. More later today, I think. Thanks to whenidance and dyrnekeeper for reading over this and dragging me from the depths of despair.
They’d talked about getting a room, about spending the night of their wedding in a place closer to the venue, but from the moment they walk back into their loft and toss their keys in a bowl, he’s glad they didn’t.
It’s not just their keys and coats they’re shedding; they both have bags that hit the floor, because it’s been a long day. Kurt had left that morning with his clothes in a bag, and Blaine had spent last night at Sam’s. Someone has been here, though, because the heat is on, the lamps are lit, and the dishes from last night are washed and nowhere to be seen. Gone, too, are the little things that have been cluttering up their living space for months - the binders, the folders, the sample boards. It’s not a hotel room, pristine in its homey anonymity, but it’s better.
He’d turned the lights on automatically as he walked through the door but he turns them back off right away, once he realizes that he’s ruining what someone has made for them - he thinks Carole, maybe. There’s nothing overt about it, nothing embarrassing, but somebody came here and made sure that they had a soothing place to come back to, something everyday romantic, a place where they already sing in the key of the refrigerator and in time to the hum of the heater.
He turns back to Blaine. He’s spent the entire evening by his side and he’s still not over how he looks in his suit; he’s not ever going to be over the soft smile he’s worn all day, even when he was being serious. And at the wedding he’d thought, while they danced in soft light and surrounded by their friends, that he’d never forget how Blaine looked then. And then he realizes that here, three steps from the door of their loft, light from a few lamps and the hood over the stove lighting his face, this moment is what he will remember from the night of their wedding.
He thinks about the photographer they hired, about the flickr pool they’ve set up for this weekend, about what facebook and albums will show, and this one memory he saves for himself.
---
He wakes up married, but first he just wakes up.
He drifts, first. His body's still tired, his legs a little sore for reasons he can't quite bring himself to care about, not when he doesn't have to move. The air is cold, and so he ducks his head a little more under the blankets, pressing his nose into the back of Blaine's neck to breathe against it. Every time he does a wash of warm air brushes down his chest, and Blaine sighs in his sleep when he pushes his foot under Blaine's.
He tightens his arm and stays there, just like that, for a few minutes more.
The next thing he knows, Blaine's hand is brushing over his, rhythmic and steady, and he fights his way out of the fog and the cold and the remnant of dreams to try to grab at Blaine's thumb. It's how they say good morning.
Blaine grunts at him, still barely awake, maybe, and lifts Kurt's hand to his mouth to kiss at it like he does when he's too comfortable to turn over. His breath and his skin are warm, but chill air leaks in when Blaine snakes their hands out to get to his mouth, and so Kurt makes a little sound of protest and presses against him, just a little closer.
He's still mostly asleep, so he only distantly notes that Blaine has pressed his engagement ring to his slack mouth just before he follows him back down into sleep.
When he finally wakes up, swims all the way to consciousness, he thinks it's because Blaine has just taken a big breath, that same one he takes every time he wakes up. It's not that he startles awake, it's just that Blaine surfaces from sleep like it's been suffocating him, like he needs a stiff hit of the good stuff to get him out of there.
(He doesn't know it, but he wakes up the same way. Everybody does. It's just that he's never woken up with anybody else.)
Blaine is still warm, and it's Sunday – he can feel it in his bones, the laziness that's waiting for him and then he remembers – the wedding was yesterday.
He lies there and thinks about the food, about the cake, about how great everybody looked. He remembers the dancing and the music and his dad and Carole and even Blaine's parents, and all of their friends. It was a good party, and the photos will be fantastic, and he glows with a job well done, the morning after a fantastic opening night.
He hums into the back of Blaine's neck, noses into his hair and drops a kiss. "Yesterday was good."
"It was," Blaine says. His voice is quiet, still a little sleep-rough. "You feeling okay?"
Kurt nods, makes a little noise. "Yeah. Didn't drink too much. You?"
"Mhm. Feel lazy, but."
They drift for a few more seconds, warm and lazy. And then Kurt remembers, and he kicks his foot a little against Blaine's. "But?"
"Mmm?"
He makes himself wake up just a little, enough to take his hand from Blaine's and sweep it down over his chest to rest on his belly. "You said you were lazy, but…?"
"Mmm," Blaine hums into what he knows is a smile, even if he can't see his face – he can hear it. And then he turns over and presses close again, so that they're nose to nose. "Yeah. I'm lazy, but-"
And he leaves it there, lets it hang, and Kurt pushes a little closer and drops a sleepy kiss against the curve of his mouth, humming a little question of his own back, and slipping his hand down to rest against the curve of Blaine's ass.
"But we didn't have sex last night," Blaine whispers, a wash of hot morning breath.
"Nope."
"I was so tired," Blaine says, his voice thick with awe.
"So was I. It was a good night, but I had to talk to… everybody. Being the groom was chattier than I expected. I don't know how Rachel does it."
Blaine smiles, soft and fond. "And we had all that food we had to eat."
"And wine we had to drink."
"Mmmm," Blaine hums. "Yeah. The reviews will be good. Go us."
Kurt snorts against him, lazily amused. He's waking up, though – he's becoming aware of everything he has to do today, yes, but he's also remembering more about yesterday, too.
"So we're technically unconsummated."
"Yep."
"Very risky behavior." Blaine kisses him then, which is good, because yeah. As soon as Blaine had moved in they'd discovered just one more way they fit together – they both like it in the morning.
It's lazy, like it can be on a Sunday, like it is most mornings, really. Nighttime is for adventure and play, but the mornings are good for the simplest pleasures, for starting the day with just a little bit of something that feels good. Blaine's hands are warm and his nose is cold, and he doesn't want to move too much, so he whispers, "c'mere," as he cups Blaine's ass in his hand and wiggles him just a little bit closer.
Blaine says, "'s cold, here," and reaches up to flip the covers under their heads. It's stuffy, almost too hot, but enough light seeps through their comforter that he can watch. He's always loved watching them together, the way that Blaine flushes and preens and shows off a little sometimes. That’s usually a nighttime indulgence, though, lit by soft lamps; morning is about chasing their own pleasure, eyes barely open and getting off alone together.
But now Blaine’s forehead is braced against his as he slips a hand between them, and they’re both watching, peering down between them as they bow their bodies away just enough to have a little space. Their feet slot together, and Blaine darts a grin up at him that he catches before they both look back down, watching their hands move across each other, soft and slow to start. “Well good morning, Mr. Hummel-Anderson,” Blaine whispers down their bodies, cradling him in a gentle palm.
Kurt huffs out a laugh and rubs his nose against Blaine’s, closing his eyes one more time. He doesn’t need to see to know how this will go, because they’ve been fitting against each other for years already.
I’ve decided to go a little HIMYM with my advent fic; each one will be set the weekend of Kurt and Blaine’s December wedding.
These snippets are told in no chronological order; if they manage to hold together, I'll restring them in order once they're done, add any necessary interstitial scenes, and post the collected work on AO3.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
Day 8
Additional special A/N for today: (1) shoutout to that hefty proportion of the North American Klaine contingent who saw this prompt and groaned because OH JUST WHAT I NEEDED MORE OF IN MY LIFE; and (2) there are some characters in here that I've never written before. Begging your tolerances as I find their voices, and feedback on those would be extra appreciated.
It was sleeting on the way in, for one thing. And it's not like Ohio never gets sleet; it's just that these are shoes she would never wear in Ohio. They're not even hers.
She's still not sure why she's here.
---
When the invitation had shown up, she had no idea how long it had been sitting in her dorm mailbox. She still sees her mom a lot, because she feels pulled back to Lima probably way more than is good. Unique says it's not healthy, anyway, and although Unique gives her a lot of space for their differences, she still knows her better than just about anybody – there aren't many people she would allow to say something like that, not anymore, but Unique has earned the right. And it's not like she never talks to people from high school, but who uses the mail anymore?
So she didn't get the invitation until just days before the response was due, and she'd pinned it on her bulletin board above her desk and just stared at it, and then she'd picked up the phone.
Unique didn't even get through her hellos before she blurted out, "Did you get invited to the wedding?"
Unique was quiet for a second, and then she said, "Yes. I am." She paused for a second, and then the words rushed out. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you - I didn't want to make you feel bad. How did you find out?"
"I didn't. I mean, I did – I mean I have an invitation here. I didn't get it until just now."
"Oh. OH! Yay, you're coming! Omigod this is gonna be fantastic – what are you gonna wear?"
"I have no idea. I mean – no, I mean, I just got it. I have no idea if I'm going."
"Oh, honey, you are coming. You can stay with me. Well, me and Mercedes and I think Quinn – we already got a room. Tina might stay with us, too. It'll be fine – you're tiny, you can squeeze in."
"No, I – I'm not sure if I have time. Or money. Or even if… why did they even invite me?"
"Uh, because you're Blaine's friend?"
"No, I know." And she does – Blaine is very good at facebook; even now, years after they shared a choir room and not much more, he always likes her statuses and will sometimes leave her funny messages, just to say hi. "We were just never that close, and I barely know Kurt – I didn’t expect –"
Unique sighed – a way too familiar sound, to be perfectly honest. "I know. You never expect anybody to like you."
And before they could get derailed by Unique's 1000th lecture about why she is good enough and people like her, she said, "Okay, I get it. Let's not. Just… help me figure out if I can actually do this."
Because it's weird, yes, and she has no idea if she can do this, but suddenly she wanted to, badly. She wanted to go to New York and see Unique and be in the city at Christmas and pretend like she belongs there. College is hard, and the dates might work, and if she could ask her mom and her aunts for cash for Christmas just a little early, and eat on the meal plan all semester like her scholarship pays for, and save just a little of her loan money, and maybe do some more of those psych experiments that they pay money for and do some babysitting or something… maybe she could do this, take a real grown-up adventure. Just this once.
Twenty minutes later she hung up the phone, and before she could think twice she dug a stamp out of her drawer.
Marley Rose was going to New York.
---
She couldn't wait to see Unique, and it would be great to see Mercedes and Tina again, but the Quinn of it all made her a little nervous. She barely remembered her, and she'd looked her up on facebook and she was so pretty, and recently graduted from Yale. Marley hadn't even dreamed of applying there, much less early admission. And then she hadn't thought to dress for the bus trip, because who would, and so she showed up in New York in jeans, an OSU sweatshirt, and boots but not the right boots – she felt every inch the Midwestern tourist she was by the time she'd shown up to their hotel. Quinn had been fine – polite, but not friendly, not really.
And then over a sandwich at Subway Unique had filled her in on the story there, which apparently came from Tina, and after that she just felt sorry for her – well, not sorry exactly, because who could feel sorry for a beautiful Yale student, but she felt more like she got her. She could imagine her in the choir room – she could wonder if Quinn ever missed how easy it was (even if it really really wasn't) like she sometimes did.
So when Quinn was doing her eyeliner in the bathroom at the same time that she was (Quinn's makeup bag was shiny and designer and didn't say 'Ziploc' on the side), she got nervous at the quiet and just asked her that, just as Mercedes started a run-through of her song for the opening of the wedding.
Quinn had put her eyeliner down and dug through her bag, and Marley had thought she had really put her foot in it, and the Quinn had pulled out a mascara wand and smiled and said, "Not for a long time, but right now? Yeah, I think I do."
Marley had smiled back at her, and went back to her makeup because at least the ice was broken, but Quinn went on. "When I left there, there was nothing left that I wanted. And that's still mostly true – most of the time I'm so glad to be gone. But, now, seeing everybody? It was sometimes easy there, wasn't it, just laying everything down for a few minutes because Regionals was coming up, and we could pretend that actually mattered."
"It mattered! It mattered a lot!" And, okay, that was the moment that Quinn was going to look down her nose at her, and honestly she wouldn't blame her one bit. She stared at herself in the mirror and willed the color in her cheeks to go back down.
"No." Quinn dropped her mascara in her bag and turned toward her, and Marley continued to focus on her lip gloss as Unique clapped in the other room, telling Mercedes, "girl, you got this." "You're absolutely right. It did matter. Look at us – it still does."
Marley turned to her and smiled, and Quinn said, "What size shoe do you wear?"
---
So it's sleeting outside, and she's in her roommate's dress and Quinn's shoes and somebody else's life.
The weather's rattling against the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Mercedes, and Unique is right next to her, vibrating almost out of her skin and the black leather number she's put together for tonight. She has a diet Coke in her hand, and the ice cubes numb her lips every time she takes another sip, which she's done a lot already, in just the few minutes they've been here.
And then the room is quiet. They're all standing around, pressed into the area that will probably get used for dancing later. She's between Tina and Unique, and Mercedes is in front of her and in an instant Tina and Unique are reaching out to touch her back, to press against her, and then the doors open.
They're entering from each side, Blaine on the right and Kurt on the left, followed by their parents. Somehow it hadn't hit her until just now – with the travel and the city and Quinn of it all, she hadn't realized that one of her friends was getting married. Damn.
Blaine looks… excited. She was there at the proposal, after all, for the before and the after, and so it's not like that's not a familiar look. She remembers being able to hear Blaine's words that day but seeing Kurt's face for the whole thing, and feeling like it was an intrusion – she was imagining herself there one day, sure, but it was… she didn't know him, not really, she only knew what Blaine said about him and what Tina and Sam and Artie let slip through, and so watching him shatter like that had been… it was almost too much.
So tonight she tries to watch Blaine's face, because it's really him she's here for – even though this trip was really about her, this wedding - for her - is about him. About finally getting to watch his dream come true, about seeing him get what he had always been reaching for during the one year of her life that she really knew him.
She fails, mostly. What she didn't really get back then was how much of Blaine went into his love for Kurt. When she can see them in profile together, watch them watching each other, she gets it. When Blaine speaks, Kurt watches his eyes, carefully, like he's weighing every word Blaine says against his own thoughts. And when Kurt answers him, Blaine's eyes flit over his face – to his eyes, yes, but down to his mouth, up to his hair, even down to where their hands are joined, like he needs to see all of him, just to be sure that yes, this is the right one.
Together they speak their vows, the simple words that everybody knows. She watches the space between them, the way that their feet start out a few inches apart and then shuffle together, bit by bit, until their feet are between each other's, 1-2-1-2, interlaced like their fingers. And she listens to their voices – Kurt is soft and strong and she can't hear anything in it except for what he wants a room full of people to, but Blaine is always so warm, so damn earnest, and by the end it seems like Kurt has melted just enough to take on some of that warmth, too, as he makes his own promises.
It's a simple ceremony, just a few minutes of sweet words and promises, really. But when it's over, she's surprised to realize that she's in New York, still, all that time. She'd forgotten that she was here in this fancy room, in somebody else's clothes, holding a glass of melting ice. The cubes rattle in the glass when she claps and hollers, when they kiss, and when she turns and looks around her, nobody is looking at her at all.
I’ve decided to go a little HIMYM with my advent fic; each one will be set the weekend of Kurt and Blaine’s December wedding.
These snippets are told in no chronological order; if they manage to hold together, I'll restring them in order once they're done, add any necessary interstitial scenes, and post the collected work on AO3.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
Day 7
Blaine sits back and looks around the table, loosens his tie and shrugs off his jacket and smiles. The room's getting warm, and he's full. Kurt's hand lands on his thigh and when he glances over, Kurt's chin is resting on his fist, watching the room. Blaine can see why.
The official dinner is over now, and although they started with just the wedding party, once the plates was cleared and they were lingering over drinks in the private dining room, friends started filtering in. They pressed into overflowing banquettes, drifted around the room to perch on the arms of chairs, slipped into laps and leaned over to steal sips of wine.
"And that is why humans are destined to go down with Mother Earth," Sam says right next to him, his hands spread wide and his face serious.
Artie shakes his head. "No, man. No way. There's a whole subgenre of movies about how that's not true. When this planet finally bites it, we are going to be long gone, and every science fiction writer in America knows it."
"No, see. Humanity grew up with this planet, and it's a part of us just like we're a part of it. We're interconnected and we can't live without her – we need her. Like on Battlestar Galactica, with the angels."
Artie sucks in a breath, cocks his head to the side and pauses with his mouth open and his brow furrowed. Blaine buries a smile in his napkin, and he's especially glad of it when Santana chimes in from Artie's lap, where she's fixing her makeup.
"Look, losers, not that anybody could tell from the way you two still drag down the collective coolness of our group of friends, but we all shot out of Lima like our asses were on fire, so I think it should be pretty obvious that the second we have a better option, we're out of here. That is some human nature." She snaps her mirror shut and uses her lipstick to point at Sam. "Also, the whole point of that show is that they were looking for a new home, after the sexy robots blew up their old one."
Sam and Artie are both staring at her, and she shrugs. "What? Starbuck was a formative experience."
Artie throws his arms around her and squeezes until she bitches, and once again Blaine understands the impulse. He reaches for the wine bottle again, nudges his knee against Kurt's, and smiles as he pours for them both.
I’ve decided to go a little HIMYM with my advent fic; each one will be set the weekend of Kurt and Blaine’s December wedding.
These snippets are told in no chronological order; if they manage to hold together, I'll restring them in order once they're done, add any necessary interstitial scenes, and post the collected work on AO3.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5
Day 6
Rachel and Mercedes are clustered around his dad on the sofa, looking through one of the photo albums from Kurt's early years that he'd been threatening to bring along for months. He thought he'd made it in the clear when they made it through the rehearsal dinner without any embarrassment, but as soon as they'd had their first cup of hot chocolate his dad grinned at him and held out his hand to Carole, and the three of them had been cooing on the sofa ever since.
He's in the kitchen with Carole, staying far away from his bare baby butt and stirring up the ingredients for their next pot of cocoa, when Rachel looks up and says, "Kurt, your mom was so pretty. You definitely got your eyes from her." He dashes in one more sprinkle of cayenne before he turns and bats them at her, but she's looking at Carole now, an apologetic smile on her face. And when he looks, Carole is smiling back.
Mercedes says something a little loud, something about the old house, and Carole looks down. Kurt holds his tongue for a full 30 seconds before he says, "I'm sorry it's still so hard."
She sighs, and when she looks up at him her eyes are sad. "It's getting better – you know it is. It's just this weekend."
Kurt nods. "I know. It has to be hard. I really am so sorry." She puts an arm around him, squeezing his shoulders. "I've been thinking about him, too. There are so many things that I think he should be here for, but this is a big one."
She tilts her head to rest against his, and together they watch the cocoa come together as he stirs it. There's nothing more to say, really – they know each other now, family in every way that could possibly count, and that kind of calm acceptance has always been part of what he likes about Carole. Finn had given them all a lot of things, but his mother was hard to beat.
Carole turns his head to press a kiss against his cheek, and she pulls away saying, "I have something for you."
He watches her cross to her bag and come back, a small black box in her hand. He turns down the heat on the cocoa and takes the box, glancing up to check on the rest of the house. His dad is smiling at him, but as soon as their eyes meet he turns the page and starts narrating Kurt's 1st birthday party.
The box is old, the gilding on the edge dulling a little with age, but when he pops it open he's astounded to see a beautiful vintage dresser set – onyx cufflinks, waistcoat studs, and shirt studs, in gleaming condition.
"It was my grandfather's. Nobody's sure where he got it. It's dated from the 30s and my grandparents were never wealthy – he wouldn't have ever needed formal clothes, so I have no idea why he had it. My mother gave it to Christopher when we got married, and she said that she remembered looking at it when she was a girl, that it was always sitting on her dad's side of the dresser when she was growing up."
His fingers glide over the onyx, the smooth stone making way to the rolled golden rims of the jewelry. "Oh, Carole."
"My dad always said that my grandmother must have stolen it – she was a housekeeper for Governor Lausche in the 40s – and oh, how my mother hated it when he said that." He looks up at her, smiles at the set of her eyes, at the happy memory she's lost in. "So we'll never know, really, where they came from. I like to think it was a gift, maybe, from the Governor." She looks at him. "It's a better story than assuming my grandmother was pocketing things."
"Maybe. Either way, they're gorgeous. I love them. Are you sure?"
"I'm very sure, Kurt."
"Why not dad? He has to be in formalwear all the time now."
She looks at him, studies his face for a while. "Did Rachel ever tell you about the pocket watch?" He shakes his head, and she continues. "When Finn and Rachel were getting married, back… years ago, now… I gave him Christopher's grandfather's pocket watch. It was always meant for him, and so were these. I had to hide them, back when Christopher started getting in trouble and nothing of value was safe in our house. I wrapped them both in a length of fabric and hid them in my sewing basket, because they weren't just valuable, they were our family, our history, and I wanted them for the baby that was coming. I always knew I would give them away when that baby got married."
He nods.
"I found the pocket watch when I was going through Finn's things after, and gave it to Rachel. It belongs to her – it belongs with her, because if Finn hadn't died it would have been with her all along. But these… Kurt, from the moment I knew you were going to become part of our family, I knew these were always meant to be yours. Who else could they possibly be for?"
"Carole. They – thank you. Thank you so much." He hugs her, squeezes her tight and buries his face in her hair. He feels – over on the couch Mercedes is laughing at his mother's hairdo, and it's too much. And then suddenly, he realizes, "Blaine is going to die of envy."
Carole laughs and pulls away, brushing at her cheeks. "Well, see, that's another reason they're obviously yours – you can share them. And I'm… Kurt, I'm so happy that you found someone so wonderful to share them with." She seems lighter now, happier, and Kurt pulls her against him again, just to drop a kiss on her cheek.
She pulls back and frames his face in her hands. "Okay?"
He nods. "Okay. I'll wear… I'm not in a waistcoat, but I'll wear at least the cufflinks tomorrow."
She nods, and pats his cheeks, both of them, and smiles at him. "Perfect. Now. Finish the cocoa? I'm going dry, here."
"Oh! Coming right up," he says, and he turns back to the stove while she drifts away, leaving him to put himself back together.
He turns the heat back on the stove, stirs the cocoa, and lets his gaze drift over to the box where he's propped it open so he can continue to stare at them. He can't believe it – they're so beautiful, and tomorrow he's getting married, and the weird, heartbreaking history of his weird, heartbreaking little family will be one more thing he can share with Blaine.
When he finally cuts the heat under the hot chocolate, he snaps the box closed and slips it in his pocket before he turns around to face the group on the couch. Rachel is looking at him, smiling sadly, but Carole is leaning over her, one hand resting on her shoulder, as she stretches forward to look at the first few years of Kurt's life.
I’ve decided to go a little HIMYM with my advent fic; each one will be set the weekend of Kurt and Blaine’s December wedding.
These snippets are told in no chronological order; if they manage to hold together, I'll restring them in order once they're done, add any necessary interstitial scenes, and post the collected work on AO3.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3
Day 4
Their heels strike the polished floors in rhythm as they walk up the hallway, and he likes the way they sound together – solid, steady, with a lifetime of learning each other's pace supporting them. The noise thunders down the corridor behind them, the sound of Hummel men preparing for battle together an echo of every time he's heard that sound – in hospitals, in schools, in the halls of Congress.
It's quiet here in the corridor, just the sound of their feet falling in unison, but in his head are all of the vows he'd made himself memorize. The service will be mostly traditional, because there is something in Kurt that reaches out to that thing in Blaine that loves old things, things that still work and hold true. Kurt had stood wide-eyed through an elaborate proposal once, though, and he'd be damned if he enters marriage without having his say and declaring his own terms. They'll repeat after the judge, and then they'll speak their minds, and if he can have both, he always will.
The door they stop in front of is old and dark, paneled, and he can hear voices and piano coming from the other side. Mercedes sounds gorgeous, like she always does, bringing the house to its feet in celebration. He smiles, because he loves her, but it feels false and so he lets it go. He hadn't expected, he thinks, to feel so solemn, so serious. He wonders if Blaine feels the same way, or if he's leaning against the door on the other side of the room, grinning and excited. He hadn't thought to listen for him when they'd been out in the bigger hallway; he'd been focused already on the feel of his dad by his side, and second-guessing their decision to have Carole seated. He's not second-guessing it now; right now he's glad it's just the two of them.
"Ready?" his dad says. His smile is sympathetic, and Kurt's pretty sure the sweat on his brow is, too – his dad can blame it on the suit all he wants, but he's pretty sure that he's gotten used to them by now. He smiles at his dad, who's been there for everything, who's already sent him into something similar once, and he wonders if his dad is thinking about that too.
He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at his dad's brow, then flips it to dab at his own, just in case. It goes back into his pocket, and he tugs at the bottom of his jacket to make sure the lapels hang just right.
The music quiets. He nods at the door, his dad raises one brow, and all he has to say is, "Ready," before his dad sweeps the door open, and Kurt takes one step forward, and then another.
