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- At Rachel and Finn’s Almost-Wedding…
Kurt might admit out loud that he was being slightly unreasonable in his negative reaction to Rachel and Finn getting engaged in their senior year of high school. In his head, he knew he was being a complete hypocrite. Because ever since he had gone to New York last spring, the only thing he could concentrate on every moment was how much Blaine would love all of it. Then he knew he wanted to do exactly what Rachel was doing now--plan a future with his boyfriend, and a life with the man he loved, and to start it all off, have a wedding.
He didn’t say this at out loud, of course. First of all, Rachel had enough crazy going on right now, without her getting competitive with Kurt about this. Also, when Rachel and Finn first announced their engagement, Blaine was still home recuperating from his eye surgery, and that had been scary and overwhelming enough to make him focus just on Blaine’s recovery.
But could he really be blamed for making a few mental notes while helping Rachel work through the stack of wedding magazines her dads gave her?
It was Blaine who first mentioned it.
“So what kind of wedding do you want to have?” he asked Kurt, while focused on inserting his cufflinks into his dress shirt cuffs in the City Hall parking lot, before they went inside to join Rachel and the bridesmaids. Kurt was pulling the box of flowers from the back of the Navigator when Blaine spoke, and when he heard the words, Kurt froze for a minute, then looked straight at Blaine. He still wasn’t used to how Blaine could just say the important things straight out, without blushing or stuttering or freezing like Kurt always did.
“Blaine, did you just ask me… ” Kurt couldn’t quite repeat the words. He felt breathless.
Blaine laughed, and came over to help him with the flowers, and to place a quick kiss on his cheek while they were at the back of the car. “No, Kurt I’m not proposing to you right now. But some day, Kurt, don’t you want…?” Then Blaine started feeling a little breathless, until Kurt put the flowers back down and pulled him into a fierce hug, and whispered “yes,” and “yes, of course.” They both grinned, fully sure of each other in that moment, in a way they hadn’t been a few minutes ago.
Kurt said, “But in New York, where it’s legal.”
Blaine responded, “And at night.”
Kurt just grinned at him, adding, “With a champagne fountain.”
Blaine said, “And cheesecake instead regular,” and Kurt threw back his head and laughed then, but didn’t leave Blaine’s arms. They leaned into each other and stood there for a moment, both of them thinking about it.
- After They Got Engaged
Blaine was still slightly giddy as they finally prepared to leave from Dalton. Burt had transferred Kurt’s luggage to the back of Blaine’s car for the ride to the airport. He pulled Blaine in for a tight hug, and said “Welcome to the family, Kid” in Blaine’s ear, before letting him go and turning to Kurt. Blaine watched Kurt fall into his father’s embrace and let himself feel the moment. A long time ago, before Kurt left for New York, Blaine had known this moment would happen at some point. They had talked about it. More than once.
He thought they would be older. He thought they would both be in New York and he would propose to Kurt someplace urban and urbane: Central Park under a flowering cherry tree or at the chic coffee shop in Manhattan they would have found to replace The Lima Bean. But after they broke up and Kurt was in New York finding his own coffee shops while Blaine was stuck in Ohio, staring at the ceiling every night in his dark room, exhausted but unable to find sleep, he made himself stop thinking about proposing to Kurt.
At some point Blaine got used to it. Got used to not thinking about how he and Kurt would always end up here in his car, his ring on Kurt’s finger. But he never really believed that this moment wouldn’t happen. Because from the first time he kissed Kurt, it was always going to be them. Kurt knew it; Blaine knew it. And Blaine never really stopped knowing it, even when Kurt wouldn’t talk to him.
Even so, he knew how lucky he was to be here today, basking in the warm smile Kurt gave him over his dad’s shoulder, and Blaine just let himself be giddy. And maybe a little out of control with how happy it all made him feel.
They were quiet on the drive to the airport. Blaine glanced over at Kurt in the seat next to him as they pulled out of the Dalton entrance. Kurt was staring out the windshield, looking serious and a little nervous. Blaine reached over to take his hand. Kurt squeezed his fingers, looked over and smiled that smile that only Blaine saw when they were alone, the smile that filled Kurt’s entire face and reached all the way up to his eyes, warm on Blaine’s. That smile kept Blaine giddy all the way to the airport exit.
As Blaine pulled up to the Departures curb, Kurt suddenly said, “Two things.” He looked at Blaine and then away. Blaine could see the smile still lingering in his eyes, though.
“One, I love you and I really don’t want to go back to New York without you.”
Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand. “I know,” he said, “I know.”
“And two, what on earth are we going to do for our wedding to top that?”
With that they both laughed and smiled, and Kurt teased Blaine, “Rose petals from the ceiling Blaine? And a marching band?”
Blaine knew they were exactly where he had always known they should be. They were Kurt and Blaine again and they were going to get married. Finally. He laughed out loud with the pure joy of it and let the giddiness stay with him, sitting light on his shoulders.
Twenty minutes later Kurt texted him from the plane:
“There were four show choirs, Blaine. How are we going to top FOUR. SHOW. CHOIRS?”
- The Day Kurt Came Home From the Hospital
Burt had gone to check into his hotel with the promise to return in a couple of hours with soft take-out ( “Noodles, Kurt, or soup, so you don’t have to chew,”) and Blaine was bustling around the loft kitchen putting together a tray for Kurt with hot tea and a new ice pack for his ribs when he heard a noise from Kurt’s room. Blaine had been completely focused since he got the call from the Emergency Room two days ago. First he was focused on getting a taxi to take him to the hospital and then he was focused on calling Kurt’s dad and his own parents and texting all of their friends. Next he was focused on waiting for the doctor and repeating the doctor’s words, “He’s going to be okay,” over and over. Then he had to focus on letting Sam say the same words to him out loud so that he could really hear them, because he didn’t quite believe them when he just said them inside his own head. He’s going to be okay.
Blaine remained focused on standing guard outside Kurt’s hospital room when Burt came rushing in from the airport. Blaine knew the anger on his face was really pain. He had to focus on that because Kurt needed to be alone with his dad, and Blaine was going to keep everyone else out of that room while those two talked, even if he had to argue with Rachel and a couple of nurses about it.
So two days later, in the loft kitchen, Blaine was still focused on beingthereforKurt when he heard the noise and peered behind Kurt’s privacy curtain to make sure he didn’t need something. Kurt was out of bed, standing, swaying a little in a way that made Blaine nervous he would fall, staring at his reflection in the mirror. The bruise on his temple was still visible, and his black eye had darkened overnight. The cuts on his cheekbone and his lip were scabbing over, but still bothered him when he talked. Kurt caught Blaine’s reflection in the mirror behind his and turned to face him, tipping to one side as he did.
Blaine stepped over to him wordlessly and steadied him gently (oh, so gently, because of the bruising to his ribs) in a loose embrace. Kurt held himself taut, like a violin string tightened on the bow, and that one thing--feeling Kurt still tense, as though he needed to protect himself, here, in his own home, in his own room, in Blaine’s arms--was the thing that finally caused Blaine to break down, caused him to lose focus completely after all these days, and he found himself shaking in Kurt’s tight arms, crying and saying over and over, “I thought you would never wake up.”
Kurt shushed him, petted his hair, and made him sit down on the couch, even though the tea kettle was whistling. Then Kurt turned off the stove and came to sit down carefully next to Blaine, tangling their fingers together as he handed Blaine the Kleenex box with his free hand.
Then he tilted his jaw in that way that Blaine knew Kurt did when he was getting ready to get past something hard. The same way Blaine had seen him tilt his jaw before he was coronated prom queen and before going to visit David Karofksy in the hospital and when Blaine surprised him at Bryant Park two Christmases ago.
Blaine watched Kurt tilt his jaw now, and say quietly, “I think we need to start planning the wedding.” For the next two days, while he sat on the couch and healed, Burt hovered and Blaine texted him thirty times a day and brought flowers and chocolates and silly Get Well cards, Kurt planned menu options and flower arrangements and guest lists. He sent Burt out for wedding magazines and he put yellow stickies on almost every page. Blaine said “yes” to whatever Kurt wanted, even the really crazy ideas like renting out all of Ellis Island or getting the mayor to block traffic so they could lead a conga line of their guests up Fifth Avenue.
Later that week, after Blaine taped up Kurt’s ribs so that he could perform “I’m Still Here” for his Sondheim assignment and Burt had finally gone back to Ohio, Kurt asked Blaine to spend the night. They lay under the covers in Kurt’s bed, Blaine curled close to Kurt’s side, but not quite touching, in case his ribs were still sore. Kurt looked up into the dark and talked about wedding cakes and ice sculptures. Blaine could feel him start to lose the tension he had been holding since he came home, but even in the dark Blaine knew Kurt’s jaw was still tilted, and that Blaine couldn’t stop him from doing it.
Kurt got past the hard things in life in his own way, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. Blaine said quietly, “Why now?” even though he knew exactly what Kurt was going to say. Kurt said “Because I’m not going to let them touch us." And Blaine responded quietly, "Or what we have.” Blaine fell asleep that night, holding Kurt’s hand, and breathing in his scent, and listening to Kurt explain in a soft voice all about how they could record their own singing Save the Date cards.
- The Night Kurt Broke Up With Blaine
Later, Blaine would endlessly replay the conversation they had that night, berating himself for insisting on talking about the wedding. “I shouldn’t have pushed him about the restaurant, I was late, I should have just let him order dinner and not complained that I was doing all the work.” But as weeks went by, and Blaine moved back to his parents’ house in Ohio, and wrapped his head around the fact that he had lost everything he thought he ever wanted for himself--Kurt and New York and college. He started to realize that bringing up the wedding that night wasn’t the problem. The problem was much bigger than the guest list and the flavor of the cake and who would design Kurt’s tuxedo.
One day Blaine told his therapist that he thought maybe he had been focusing on the wedding to avoid all of the other problems he was having with Kurt.
“That’s interesting,” she said. “Let’s talk about that some more.”
Kurt tried not to think about that conversation ever again, especially the part where Blaine pleaded with him to change his mind and Kurt just sat there, stewing in his own anger and not listening to Blaine at all. Finally, when speed dating didn’t work and he couldn’t hold it together even to have a cup of coffee with the nice enough looking guy Elliott tried to set him up with and Kurt had spent months trying to “learn to appreciate being single” and ended up just crying himself to sleep every night curled up with Bruce the boyfriend pillow, he found a therapist and told her the whole story in the first session: how he found the love of his life in high school, how they were never meant to be apart, how he had blown it all up one rainy night because Blaine was late for dinner in the pouring rain and Kurt didn’t want to hear about how perfect the Mercer Kitchen would be for their wedding reception.
“Hmmm,” said his new therapist, peering at him over a steno pad. “Let’s talk about that some more.”
- On Their Honeymoon
Kurt brought it up only once. They rented a car in Boston to make the long drive down to Cape Cod and out to Provincetown. Route 3 was almost deserted, the late fall weather was chilly, and the sun was falling rapidly from the sky, even though it was only four in the afternoon. Kurt was driving the rental car, and Blaine could tell he was working up to say something. They used to have serious discussions while driving--something about keeping your eyes on the road and having to pay attention to traffic made it easier to say the hard things. He remembered that the first time it happened was when Kurt told him he was leaving Dalton to go back to McKinley. They had been driving to the Lima Bean after Warbler practice and Kurt was clutching the steering wheel of his Navigator so hard Blaine could see it through his knuckles. So he wasn’t really surprised now when Kurt said, “Do you want something else. Something just for us? Something in New York?”
Blaine knew he meant the wedding and that Kurt was really asking if he still meant it, that he wasn’t having second thoughts. Also, maybe, just a little, Kurt was asking because they both remembered how much time Blaine had spent planning the first wedding, the one that never happened, the one that Kurt called off. So even though Kurt was peering at exit signs, and carefully guiding the car down a narrow road along the Atlantic Ocean, he was really asking for Blaine’s forgiveness. Again.
Blaine shook his head decisively. “Nope. Not necessary.” Then Kurt was quiet until they pulled up to the hotel, parked the car and he looked at Blaine in the dying light. Blaine reached over to rub his thumb along Kurt’s wrist. They could hear the waves on the shore breaking behind the hotel.
“No, Kurt. We don’t need it. I don’t need it.”
Kurt heard him then and gave him a small nod. He let out his breath and smiled tentatively at Blaine. “Okay, then. Okay.”
- Their Wedding Day
They didn’t pick out the tuxedos or the rings or the venue. Kurt didn’t fuss over seating charts or worry that the salmon on the menu wouldn’t be fresh enough. Blaine didn’t even once think about how a barn in rural Indiana compared to some trendy restaurant in Manhattan.
Instead, Kurt looked at Blaine and asked him what they should do, and Blaine looked at Kurt, really looked at him, his eyes soft and full, the way he always did when he wanted Kurt to know how much he loved him, and he told Kurt, “I want to be married to you. I’ve always wanted to be married to you, since the day I watched you sing Blackbird at Dalton, and I don’t need to wait for another day to know that feeling isn’t going to change. But if you want us to wait for another day, we will.
"I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going to change my mind.”
Kurt knew that he had to be the one to tell Blaine that he was ready, that he thought they both were ready. And as he stood there, clutching Blaine’s hands, looking at Blaine look at him, with those soft, full eyes, Kurt didn’t think about the fact that he would never have chosen pink for the bridesmaids’ dresses, that his dad’s Aunt Marie wasn’t there, or that he didn’t even know what song Santana and Brittany had chosen for their first dance, but that it probably wasn’t Come What May.
Kurt thought about coming home from work every night to find Blaine waiting for him with a hug and those eyes. Kurt thought about waking up every morning and having to disentangle himself from Blaine, a notoriously clingy sleeper who also hogged the blankets. He thought about grocery shopping with Blaine, and arguing over who had to clean the bathroom, and singing duets in the car for the next fifty years. Kurt thought that he could finally see all of those little moments, unfolding in the future along with things that were bigger, hosting Christmas dinner in their own place, buying a house, even babies, although babies were really still pretty fuzzy in his mind, but that didn’t mean they would always be fuzzy. And Kurt knew that if there was anyone he wanted to do all of those things with, the little moments and the big, once-in-a-lifetime things, and all those things that were still fuzzy, it was with this man who stood in front of him right now, holding his hands, smiling a bit, and never once letting his soft, clear gaze leave Kurt’s face.
So on their wedding day, Kurt and Blaine put on tuxedos and rings that someone else picked out, and danced and sang with some of their friends but not all of them. They ate chicken instead of salmon and neither one them cared at all. Neither one of them had to say a word about it for them both to know that none of what that day looked like mattered at all.