Chapter Text
June, 2040 (Kurt and Blaine are 45, Addie is 15, Declan is 13)
~~~~~
They all try to get together as often as possible but as people move away and the kids get older, it becomes harder and harder.
Everything just happened to line up and fall into place for this one perfect day. Maybe it’s because it’s finally summer, or maybe it’s because everyone was feeling extra motivated since DiDi and Ben are in town from the west coast.
Whatever the reason, Blaine can’t stop smiling. He hasn’t been surrounded by this many friends in years. Not all at the same time at least.
Kurt flits around checking drinks and making sure the kids are behaving while Blaine grills for a good portion of the afternoon. Addie comes over at one point to keep him company.
“DiDi asked if I want to go to California to see her this summer,” she says.
“Do you wah-want to go?” Blaine asks, squinting over at her through the smoke. The deal is, he and Kurt try not to pressure Addie about DiDi and vice versa. It’s too hard to make choices for other people, but when DiDi wants Addie to visit they do try to encourage their daughter.
“Of course!” Addie says. “So I'm allowed to go?"
“You know it.”
“Awesome, I’m totally getting this pierced,” Addie says, pointing at her tragus.
“You totally are not,” Blaine deadpans.
“I don’t know that you can stop me.”
“There’s no way Dum Dum will let you dah-do that.”
“Oh he will,” Addie says confidently.
“Have you considered how you’ll wear earbuds when you get it p-p-pierced?”
Addie’s expression slides from gleeful to scared. “I have not. You can’t wear earbuds?”
“I dah-don’t know, it just sssss-seems like the kind of thing that would irritate it," Blaine says, shrugging.
She rubs her ear. “I will take that information into consideration,” she says.
“You do that,” Blaine replies.
As afternoon slips into evening, the adults congregate on the deck while the kids start up a massive game of Manhunt that runs throughout the neighborhood. But the grown ups are rowdy enough that they barely notice.
“Remember that night,” Matt starts with a sly grin over at Blaine.
“This isn’t going to, to, to end well for me,” Blaine says from where he’s sitting on Kurt’s lap. “I can already tell.”
“That night that the guy hit on Blaine at the coffee shop?” Matt concludes.
“I-I-I can’t believe you brought that up. I thought we didn’t talk about that.” Blaine puts his face in his hands.
“We can talk about that,” Kurt says sitting up straighter. "We should talk about that. I would like to know more about it, in fact."
DiDi looks confused. “Was I there? Why I don’t remember this?”
“We weren’t there,” Julia says, patting her knee. “We weren’t part of the group yet.”
“There was a group before us?” DiDi asks, shaking her head.
“You’re not going to tell it right,” Rachel says, silencing Matt before he even gets to say another word.
“For fuck’s sake, how you people remember all this shit?” Puck asks.
Rachel sighs and rolls her eyes. “It was March. And not too cold, and open mic night.”
“Open mic night,” Blaine says dreamily. “I mmmm-miss open mic night.”
“You and Matt did open mic night like last year,” Kurt says.
“Not the same," Matt says.
“And this guy, out of nowhere starts flirting with Blaine,” Rachel continues. “So we all notice and no one says anything until we were back at the apartment.”
“I miss that apartment,” Kurt says.
“But when we mentioned it to Blaine and he was shocked.”
“We were all pretty shocked,” Matt says.
“I always felt kind of bad about it,” Tina says.
“What part?” Rachel asks.
“How shocked we all were that Blaine got hit on. Like we were saying that he wasn’t the kind of person who would get hit on.”
Blaine squints his eyes. “But, but, but I wasn’t the kind of pah-person who ever got hit on.”
“But we shouldn’t have been so shocked.”
“Buh-buh-ut I was shocked,” Blaine insists.
“Oh, stop fighting me on this.”
“No,” Blaine says, shaking his head. Everyone laughs because even in middle age Blaine isn’t exactly what you would call argumentative. “I’m ssss-serious! It was so unexpected! I didn’t even know it happened! If you guys hadn’t bah-bah-rought it up I, I, I would have never rrrr-realized.”
“You were so oblivious,” Kurt says.
Rachel turns to Puck. “Remember the first time you met Blaine?”
Puck squints. “No, I don’t. I don’t remember half the stuff you think I should remember.”
“You yelled at me,” Blaine says.
“I yelled at you?”
“To be fair, you were def, def, d-defending Kurt’s honor.”
“I remember the first time I met Blaine,” Didi says. “I mean, the first time I really met him. Not just seeing him from afar, or stalking him, or whatever.”
“You stalked Blaine?” Tina asked.
“Not on purpose or anything. He was just really interesting.”
“He is really interesting!” Tina says.
“But I totally wanted to marry him,” DiDi sys.
“I wanted to marry him the first time I met him too!” Matt says, putting his hand up to high five DiDi.
“Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. Who cares about that guy? Why are we, we, we always talking about him?” Blaine asks, rolling his eyes and leaning back on Kurt with his arms folded.
“I mean, really, in some ways, this group wouldn’t exist without you,” Julia says, leaning closer to Matt. “Like parts of it would, but not this particular configuration.”
They all look around at each other, thinking of the truth behind that statement.
“Those kids probably wouldn’t exist either,” Tina says, looking out over them. “I mean, mine would, you had nothing to do with me and James. But the rest of them…”
“Declan wah-would exist. I had nothing to do with his birth,” Blaine argues, watching him run across the yard, yelling something and pointing at Addie. Addie crosses her arms and yells right back.
“I know our kids wouldn't exist,” Julia says, rubbing Matt’s knee. “Like how would I have ever met Matt without you?”
“That’s an awful lot of r-r-r-responsibility guys,” Blaine says after a long moment.
“It’s kind of the truth though, poop,” Kurt says.
“I re-refuse to acknowledge this sssss-sentiment and would like to sah-sah-tate for the record that you all would have found each other wah-without me.”
“False,” Matt says.
“So false,” Julia says.
“Yup,” Rachel agrees. She nudges Puck with her elbow.
“Huh?” he says. “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I want to go play Manhunt with the kids.”
“I like that idea,” Blaine says.
Everyone decides to join the game.