Chapter Text
May 8th, 2024
Rachel and Cooper’s wedding is absolutely lovely. Not that Kurt had any doubt that it would be, but it’s always nice to see it play out.
They’re currently swaying on the dance floor together, Rachel barely able to wrap her arms around Cooper’s neck. Close to them, Sam is dancing with his three-year-old daughter, the little girl on his feet, continuously trying to spin them around so that Mercedes can see them better from her chair near the dance floor. Mercedes can’t seem to stop smiling while watching them, her hand rubbing gently over her very-pregnant belly. Tina, only three months pregnant, is happily dancing with her wife, Quinn, rubbing their noses together in a far-too-adorable display.
Kurt, meanwhile, is sitting alone at the bar, watching his friends and their spouses have the time of their lives.
He sips his rum and coke, thinking about how he shouldn’t be so bitter. He loves his friends, he really does, and he feels shitty for feeling so frustrated watching them have a good time.
It’s just, well, Kurt thought he would have that by now. True love. He thought that by the time Cooper and Rachel finally got their act together, that he’d be long married, maybe even with a kid, like Sam and Mercedes. He thought that he’d be slow dancing with his husband at Rachel and Cooper’s wedding.
He shouldn’t complain. He has a fantastic job as a senior writer at Vogue, meaning he manages to live comfortably in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, something not a lot of his friends can boast of. He has a close group of friends that he would die for, and that he knows would die for him. His father and step-mother call him three times a week, and are currently planning on moving into a retirement center in New York to be closer to him in their final years. Really, he has a good life.
Still, he misses being in love. He misses having somebody to hold him when he wakes up. He misses kissing someone to say hello, and again to say goodbye. He misses having sex on a regular basis. He misses the feeling of seeing something he just knows his boyfriend will love, and of watching happily as he is proven right.
He just… he misses being in love. It’s the only thing missing from his life, and on days like today, where everybody is celebrating love and how amazing it is, he can’t help but feel that a little bit more than usual.
“Ugh,” a voice says to his side, and he turns to see Blaine hopping onto the bar stool next to him, eyes on the dance floor. “Can you believe how happy everybody is out there? Like, jeez, I get it’s a wedding, but stop rubbing it in us pathetic singles’ faces, right?”
Kurt sighs at the sight of him, heart speeding up a little in his chest.
Pathetic is right. Being with Blaine just makes him feel even worse than before. How sad is it that the only man Kurt can seem to form any romantic attachment to is his best friend’s younger brother?
His feelings for Blaine kind of hit him out of nowhere. He’d spent his entire life hoping that Blaine would get over him, and then six months ago, when Blaine drunkenly called him to inform him that he was so, so, over him, he suddenly felt empty. He felt disappointed. He didn’t want Blaine to be over him.
At first, he thought it was just some form of narcissism manifesting itself, but the next time he saw Blaine, he couldn’t deny it. Something had changed for him. He wasn’t just looking at Blaine, Cooper’s younger brother who had a crush on him. He was look at Blaine, an incredibly attractive twenty-four-year-old, who couldn’t stop making his stomach do flips.
Of course, it would figure that exactly when Blaine got over Kurt, Kurt fell in love with Blaine. Fate sure is a bitch.
The worst thing is, he’s pretty sure that the only reason he’s developed these feelings for Blaine is because Blaine is the only single gay man that he knows and can stand to be around.
Kurt shakes his head, taking another sip of his drink. “I’m trying to be happy for them, but my bitterness is winning out,” he admits.
Blaine chuckles. “I let my bitterness win when Kitty caught the bouquet,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s already engaged, she shouldn’t have even participated!”
“Sheesh, she’s engaged, too?” Kurt groans. “Why is everybody I know either married, or getting married, or having babies?”
Blaine shrugs. “That stage of life?”
“Must be,” Kurt says, finishing his drink. “I fucking hate it.”
Blaine stares at him for a few moments, making Kurt’s heart speed up. He chews on his bottom lip for a moment, then asks, “Is it because you miss Elliott?”
Kurt shakes his head instantly and forcefully. “No,” he says. “I mean, yes, I miss having him around, and being his friend, but no.”
“Are you sure?” Blaine asks. “I know that he—”
“Really, I’m sure,” Kurt says. “It’s not about Elliott. It’s just… I felt like I would be there with them by now, you know? I’m thirty, I’m ready. I want to be married.”
“That kind of sounds like it’s about Elliott,” Blaine says skeptically. “Are you regretting breaking up with him?”
“No,” Kurt says, as emphatically as he can. “Look, Elliott and I… it wasn’t right. I knew the second he got down on one knee. I don’t regret breaking up with him, outside of the fact that it lost me one of my closest friends.” He looks back out to the couples on the dance floor, sighing heavily. “I just want to be in love, and happy, with the man that I plan on marrying. Is that too much to ask?”
He looks back at Blaine, who is sucking on the inside of his cheek. He lifts his eyes to meet Kurt’s stare, then says the last thing Kurt expected him to say.
“It’s been ten years.”
Kurt’s heart skips a beat, then another. He feels like he can’t breathe. “What?”
“I don’t know if you remember, but it’s been ten years,” Blaine turns so that he’s facing Kurt completely.
Of course Kurt remembers. It’s been all he’s been able to think about for the past six months. But Blaine… Blaine is supposed to be over him. Blaine told him he was over him.
If he’s saying this now, though, maybe he isn’t. What other reason would he have to bring up Kurt’s promise from ten years ago?
Blaine stares Kurt down, almost unblinking, and Kurt swallows the dryness that has taken over his throat.
This feels like a giant ‘fuck you’ from the universe. Giving Kurt the possibility to actually and truly break Blaine’s heart. After all, what if he tells Blaine that he reciprocates his feelings, only to date him for a week and realize that he didn’t like him that way at all, he just liked the idea of him? He couldn’t bear it. He’s already hurt Blaine so much over the past twelve years.
But if his feelings for Blaine are genuine…
“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, clearly tired of Kurt’s silence. “I told you I was over you, and now I’m bringing this up…” he takes a deep breath, then says, “I get it. This, you and me, it’s never going to happen. I’m really sorry that I keep coming back to it when I know it makes you so uncomfortable.” He smiles, though it looks anything but happy. “I guess I’ll always be Cooper’s dorky younger brother in your eyes, huh?”
A myriad of memories hit Kurt at once, screaming at him that no, that’s not true and it’s never been true. Even when Blaine was thirteen, he was never just Cooper’s younger brother. Kurt’s never once in his life thought of him like that.
Blaine hops back off the barstool and Kurt watches him go, frozen on the spot, twelve years worth of memories flying through his mind, begging him for once not to let Blaine walk away.