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“Do you need me to drive you?’ Walter asks. There’s more kindness in his words and on his face than Kurt maybe deserves.
He shakes his head. These are steps he has to take on his own away from an old life, old self. From old fears and ideas of how his life should be ordered and look like.
Kurt leaves his coffee on the table. He squeezes Walter’s hand and swallows a mess of emotions — regret and excitement and fear and fondness — before standing.
His feet slap the ground, rapid cadence at odds with his stuttering breaths and the words cluttering his head: forgive me, I love you, you’re so precious to me, I want to promise you everything.
~*~
Kurt’s skin is a shade of pale Blaine never tried to forget. Even when he was sure forgiveness was impossible, he never wished the memory of Kurt’s body from memory.
Dim light plays over Kurt, still trembling and gorgeously his, spread on the sheets with him. Blaine’s hand traverses that landscape. The pads of his fingers sketch the ebb of longing, the waxing joy of completion, down along Kurt’s ribs and the dimpling of nipples and the concave sweetness of his belly button.
Kurt turns onto his side; cobalt eyed and sleepy, hair falling and face so open and young that Blaine’s heart breaks from knowing that this Kurt has only ever been for him.
“Do you forgive me?” Kurt whispers, biting his lip, hand fluttering with fingers behind Blaine’s ear and then neck.
“Always,” Blaine promises, blinking hard and settling closer to him. “I learned that from you.”
~*~
Kurt finds Blaine at the wooden rail behind the seats. He pauses to take the moment in; Blaine’s perfectly gelled hair and the way his tuxedo flatters his slim waist, making his shoulders appear broader. The room buzzes with guests milling about. Blaine is a quiet moment in mild chaos. Kurt wants to run his hands over those shoulders, then down to hold one of Blaine’s hands.
Kurt quiets the hesitation that would have won months ago, because easy touch is a gift he wants to give Blaine and a permission he needs to learn to give himself.
Blaine startles when Kurt’s hands land on his shoulders, but the tension eases, gone by the time Kurt’s hand is on his.
~*~
“Can we—” Blaine darts a look behind Kurt at Brittany. “Can we have a second?” Kurt’s grip on his hands is bordering on painful. His eyes are bright with hope that can’t trust itself. Thankfully everyone files out without argument, although Sue flashes Blaine a five minute sign.
Maybe this is crazy. But isn’t that what they do, what they’ve always done? Their life together has always been an imperfect, perfect mess that only makes sense for them, that Blaine knows he only ever wants to share with Kurt.
Kurt’s shoulders soften as soon as they’re alone, but his eyes still speak volumes. Blaine thinks that maybe they both want to do this, but that fear is a specter they still carry.
“Do you think we’ll always be afraid?” he asks.
Kurt takes a minute, takes a breath, and steps closer. “I think…I think we’ll always make mistakes.”
“And it’s probably going to be hard.” Blaine acknowledges. Kurt smiles; it’s trembling and small but becoming sure.
“But the good things are the things I remembered most,” Kurt says. “The whole time we were apart.”
“So—”
“Let’s do it,” Kurt interrupts, then winces. “Sorry you were—”
Blaine closes his eyes against the sudden vertigo of fear and excitement. He can’t feel his fingertips. “Okay,” he whispers, and when he opens his eyes Kurt’s face is breaking apart, joy and fear and a little wildness, and when he kisses Blaine they share a breath that’s all of that and more.
Kurt pulls away, kisses Blaine’s fingers, and Blaine says, graveled and honest, “Promise me you’ll always try to remember the good things, and I will too.” Kurt tilts his head until his nose is against Blaine’s cheek, and his nod is small.
“Okay,” he says, soft against Blaine’s skin.
~*~
“Are you ready for this? I don’t know if I can, oh my god Brit—”
“Kurt,” Brittany turns to him. Her hand is curled around his bicep. Out in the sunlight her hair is light silk and for all of her anxiety this week, the calm she exudes is a balm to his rising nerves. “Don’t worry. I found my lucky charm and I got my wish. You’re going to be fine.”
Kurt tilts his head, then brushes her hair over her shoulder. “How does your lucky charm help me, exactly?”
Brittany rolls her eyes, “Because unicorns share luck silly.”
He hears the first notes of At Last from the barn and closes his eyes to take a breath. When he opens them, Brittany is smiling. “Brit, I—”
“I know,” she says, then kisses him fleetingly on the lips.
~*~
“Will you regret that it isn’t the dream wedding we planned?” Blaine leans over to ask Kurt. The barn is cacophonous with the notes of a happy crowd enjoying a meal. Kurt wipes his lips and turns to look at Blaine; his smile is very soft.
“This feels like a dream Blaine,” he says, and there’s nothing flippant in the tone.
“A good one?”
Kurt’s fingers brush his knee and squeeze gently. “The very best.”
~*~
There’s only one moment that Kurt lets himself see the empty spaces in the room; one rush of grief, and a yearning for people he’ll never have again. This is just one of many moments in his life he’ll wonder what it might have looked like to have had them here today.
But it’s a beautiful moment, remembering them with Blaine at his side. Bittersweet but not lonely, because this room is full of love, and he’s a part of that.
He looks up and Blaine’s eyes are on his, brilliant like they get when he’s moved. He kisses the corner of Kurt’s mouth and says, “you should ask your father to dance,” and Kurt is so thankful for this man who just knows.
~*~
The party is thinning, and with it, the dense air of so many bodies dancing. They’re dancing so slowly Blaine’s not even sure it qualifies; his feet hurt, but Kurt has him enfolded in his arms and for all of his exhaustion, Blaine doesn’t want the night to be over.
“Can you imagine how tired we’d be if we had actually planned to be in this thing?” Kurt asks.
“I was just thinking the same,” Blaine says. He smiles up at Kurt, and when Kurt’s eyes scan the room, Blaine knows it’s to judge if enough people have left that they can. There’s a promise to the night still and it fizzes through his muscles, dissipating the tiredness weighing them down moments before.
“You know what one of the perks of getting back together with someone before a wedding is?” Kurt asks. Mischief lines his smile and eyes.
“Hm?” Blaine responds. He traces the collar of Kurt’s shirt as subtly as he can.
Kurt leans in and his damp lips touch Blaine’s ear when he whispers, “Being ready for what happens after.”
Blaine closes his eyes and shivers into the crook of Kurt’s neck.
~*~
“I’m sorry I didn’t sing to you tonight,” Kurt confesses in a whisper, interrupting the sleepy rhythm of Blaine’s breath.
“Hrm? You did sing to me.” Blaine rolls back onto his side.
“No, I mean like you. How you do. To me,” Kurt tries to explain.
“Kurt,” Blaine puts an arm over Kurt’s hip over the sheet. “What are you talking about?”
“I—” Kurt licks his lips. “I want to be better at showing you that I love you.”
“Honey—” Blaine says. He sounds much more awake now.
“You aren’t ever afraid to let people see it. And you weren’t afraid to let me see it. I always told you I loved you but maybe I didn’t show you enough and I want to do better. You’d think at our own wedding I could—”
“Kurt, Kurt,” Blaine interrupts him with a kiss. “You don’t have to sing to me like I do to you for me to know you love me. There are hundreds of ways for us to show each other love, and none of them have to be the same, okay?”
“Alight,” Kurt says. “I still want to show you more though.”
“Okay,” Blaine whispers.
Kurt cups a hand around Blaine’s naked shoulder and reads the language of his skin. Blaine’s palm presses between Kurt’s shoulder blades and Kurt thinks of the ways they’ve learned, and forgotten, how to speak to one another. Of the work that being a work in progress requires.
He leans down and kisses Blaine’s chest where his heart beats, and when Blaine rolls onto his back, Kurt leaves his cheek there. The silence stretches between them. There’s no expectation that Kurt has to fix everything tonight, because tonight their world is full of starts and he can see no end in sight. Tonight that doesn’t feel like unceasing, daunting work as it once did. It feels like a labor of love.