Wrapping You In Love VI (Part B)
Once midnight hits, over half the food that Finn, Blaine, and Mr. Hummel have been steadily munching on is gone, and there is a period of quiet. The mood is calm, and Kurt's breaths are even against Blaine's hand, kind of luring Blaine to sleep. But something catches his eye and when he glances over at Finn, he sees the graduate shift and tense, face crumpled in unhappy thoughts, hands rubbing over his thighs. Over and over and over again. Something is wrong here, something is bothering Finn.
Blaine should have noticed this before, Finn has been getting steadily quieter and quieter. That is not like Finn.
Mr. Hummel starts telling another story of when Kurt was young, this time of when he wanted to be Kurt from The Sound of Music, and was trying to convince his grade three teacher to put on the play; and while Blaine would love to hear this story for the third time (mostly because Kurt hides his face in his hands and turns red as a rose and is basically adorable), he is watching Finn. Finn, who is fiddling with a cookie, and Blaine doesn't think he's ever seen a comfortable Finn play with his food before. And so, without really thinking about the fact that he's interrupting Mr. Hummel, he sits up a little straighter, bumping into a red-faced Kurt, and asks:
"Finn? Is everything okay?"
Finn's eyes rise high to meet his, wide and brown, and everything about him screams 'I am not prepared for this much attention!'
Kurt, still leaning against Blaine's side, sits up too, watching Finn. "Finn?" he says, his voice gentle.
And Blaine stares at Finn, watches him get more and more nervous, and something pricks at him. That little something that says, 'Blaine, you screwed up again.' But it's too late to take it back, everyone is watching them. Everyone is watching Finn.
It doesn't take long, just a quiet, "Finn, sweetie?" from Carole before Finn breaks down. It's the kind of dramatics that would have startled Blaine last year, but now, accustomed to the New Direction's insanity, he feels he should have expected something like this.
"I'm gonna join the army!"
The family kind of freezes, and even Blaine, still holding Kurt, lets his arm fall limp and loose. What? What was that?
And then there's this hushed intake of breath, and Mr. Hummel is saying, "Finn, this is a huge decision, are you sure about this?" and at the same time Kurt is asking, "Does Rachel know about this?" and then over that is Carole, "Finn, I thought we talked about this-!"
Basically, chaos reigns, and Blaine's head starts to spin, and if his head is spinning, then poor Finn's must be throbbing.
"I know!" he shouts after another moment of the others talking at him. "I know," he says quieter after they fall silent. "It's a big deal, but I've always felt like it's something I had to do. So I'm gonna do it." He looks over at Carole, and his eyes are big and sad, like a puppy that knows they've disappointed you but aren't sure how. "I'm sorry, Mom."
Blaine is afraid to look over at Carole, because if she cries, Blaine's heart just might break.
Kurt's hand suddenly flexes sharp on Blaine's and he says, "Finn. What did Rachel say about this?"
And then Finn's head drops, and Blaine remembers Rachel's text from earlier, and his suit neatly pressed and waiting in his closet, and thinks, Oh no.
"She, she doesn't know," Finn whispers; and Blaine's heart does this flippy thing that basically repeats his earlier thought of Oh no.
Kurt tenses, turns to Blaine, and Blaine knows what he's going to say, he's heard it all before. It's going to be something like, 'Well, that's a great way to start a marriage;' but this is different. And if Kurt wasn't hurting so much, he would know that. So Blaine turns their hands around, squeezes Kurt's hard, and whispers, "Shh, Kurt."
He doesn't often hush Kurt; Kurt probably does it to him far more. But sometimes, it's necessary. This is one of those times. Even if it does get him an incredulous look before Kurt's head snaps back towards Finn. He has to be understanding what is happening.
"Finn, are you saying what I think you're saying?" Mr. Hummel says quietly. Blaine looks over Kurt's head, sees the heavy, already-resigned expression in his face, and knows that Mr. Hummel gets it.
Finn swallows. "I can't... I can't marry her."
Kurt's entire body seizes up, straight and tall and as taunt as a string. Blaine tries to get an arm wrapped around him, but Kurt shifts just out of reach. And that stings, hard like an elastic band snapped on the inside of his arm. But at the same time, Blaine completely understands why.
The biggest problem Kurt has with Finn and Rachel's engagement is not that they're too young, even if that's what he tells them. Kurt is willing to marry Blaine, a fact that both thrills and terrifies Blaine because who finds their true love at sixteen?
(Them, apparently.)
But Finn and Rachel are not stable like Blaine and Kurt are. They fight, they have broken up and made up, cheated on each other, hurt each other, lied to each other... They do not have the kind of lasting material that Kurt and Blaine do. Not yet. Maybe one day they will (Maybe when they can go a full year without some crazy sort of drama, Kurt muttered one day. Blaine, who sometimes plays Devil's Advocate for Kurt because someone has to, reminded him that they hadn't even gone a full year without drama. Kurt had simply sent him a serious look and said, But we discussed it like adults and moved past it. Right? And Blaine couldn't really argue because he was right. Sebastian's and Tony's and Chandler's couldn't touch them or what they had.), but it is not yet. Maybe next year.
What also hurts is that they can get engaged, married, and possibly even divorced without even considering it, but Blaine and Kurt can't. It's not that easy for them; and seeing the two people who should understand that more than anything - Rachel with her two unmarried dads and Finn with his gay stepbrother - rub it in their faces, hurts in a way they can never probably explain to them. It's something Finn and Rachel should have already seen, and explaining the hurt and the why would make it hurt even more, because it meant they didn't care enough to have considered that.
Thoughtlessness sometimes bruises harder than simple cruelty. Cruelty can be explained away, like hatred. Thoughtlessness has no excuse.
"If I marry her," Finn continues, his voice soft and small, "she won't go to NYADA."
Kurt... can't possibly go any tighter; every inch of him is already immoveable and flexed. But with these words, Kurt's face goes white; white like the snow that gets caught up in his hair and melts away the hairspray and makes him squawk with fury; white like the flour Nana gets all over her hands while she teaches Blaine how to bake the perfect cookies for his boyfriend; white like Cooper's teeth before he goes for an audition. And Blaine doesn't care what Kurt might yell at him for; he reaches up and touches Kurt's biceps with gentle hands, trying to pull him back off the ledge.
"What," Kurt says dully - and it's spoken, not asked - "What do you mean by that?"
Finn swallows, stares at his large hands that have helped Blaine up from falling after an over-enthusiastic dance move, and says, "She wants to defer until next year."
If Kurt wasn't human, if he was a dryad like Blaine's fantasies have sometimes suggested, or a graceful willow, or the icy statue he sometimes comes across as, Blaine is positive those words would have caused him to snap in half, shatter into pieces, clean and sudden and awful. But Kurt is human; he breathes and bends and bleeds. So, instead, he starts to shake, these tiny tremors Blaine can only feel because he is gripping him; fingers trembling on his knees, hair shaking in place and eyelashes fluttering.
Blaine, himself, cannot feel anything, cannot let himself feel anything because as soon as he does he will be helpless to help Kurt, and that is not an option right now. So he pulls Kurt closer, tries to wrap his arms around him because he has to do something, he has to make Kurt stop shaking; and maybe treating it like hypothermia will work.
"Defer?" Kurt whispers. It's a breath in Blaine's ear, the last word of a dying man.
Kurt does not deserve this.
Whether or not Finn heard him seems irrelevant, as he's still speaking. "She says she doesn't want to go without us, so she's going to help us build up our resumes or something, I wasn't really listening, but then we can all go next year; but I don't want that-"
"I have to go." Kurt's breath is a hush, urgent and desperate. "Blaine, let me go." The words are too fast, too hurried; and Blaine lets him go, watches Kurt surge to his feet like a tsunami wave, one hand over his mouth like all the pain is going to come out of his mouth if he doesn't move fast enough, and runs towards the kitchen.
Blaine knows he's supposed to go after him, knows that everyone's expecting him to. But Blaine is actually stuck fast to his seat, like someone glued his pants to the couch (Trent did that once during Warbler practice to Nick; and the result had made Wes go pale with horror even as the Council had tried to regain control of the situation. Freshmen year had been fun). He can't go after Kurt until he knows more about the situation.
"Finn," Carole is saying. "Are you sure that's really what you want and you're not doing it for Rachel?" Blaine actually dares to look at her, and her face is scrunched up like she's trying not to cry, and her hands are held out, like she's pleading with someone.
"No, Mom," Finn says, and his voice is almost angry. "You know I've been thinking about this for a while; I want to do this for Dad."
"You don't owe your father anything, Finn-"
"I know that, Mom; but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do-"
And Blaine doesn't - can't listen to this anymore. It's twisting in his guts, hitting too close to home. It's pricking at a Blaine he was two years ago, a Blaine without a Kurt and Mr. Hummel to talk to, a Blaine whose relationship with his father was strained at best.
His relationship with his parents is still not great. It's a messed up world where Mama's boy Blaine Anderson finds it easier to talk to his father - a father who reminds him of some of the worst nights of his life - than his mother. But Mama is never home, and as Blaine gets older his father reminds him more and more of himself...
And that is rather terrifying.
But doing something because you feel you owe someone something, and not even consciously aware that what you are trying to do is pay a debt, is something Blaine can relate to all too well. He feels like his entire life has been spent trying to make things right: being a better behaved child to make up for Cooper's behavior, being the star of the show to prove Cooper's techniques right, being a mentor to Kurt to make up for running away from Thurston... the list goes on and on. It's only been in the last year that he's beginning to realize that he doesn't owe anybody anything. He is his own person, and his biggest responsibility is living a life that he can be proud of, regardless of what anybody else thinks.
It's a hard lesson to learn, and Blaine often falls back, tries to please people more than doing what he feels is right. Ultimately, Blaine doesn't feel strong enough to listen to this, not with his whole self determined to make things right for Kurt (but that's different because Kurt loves Blaine for all his Blaine-ness and wouldn't ever try to change him), and he can't keep a hold of himself.
So he bolts. Straight for the kitchen, where Kurt is bent over the sink, dry-heaving.
Blaine freezes, not at all prepared for this. He was expecting crying, sobbing, shrieking... But actual nausea? No. This is something completely different.
He steps over, listens to Kurt heave again, takes another couple steps, then so carefully asks, "Kurt?"
Kurt lifts his head, back still facing Blaine, and says, quite clearly, "I think I actually hate Rachel Berry."
Blaine's heart does this strange lurching thing that actually propels him forward, to touch Kurt's arm with a gentle hand. "You don't mean that, Kurt."
Kurt breathes in again, long and slow, then turns around, facing Blaine. His hands flutter at his sides, unsure of where to go now that they're not gripping the counter like he would crumble if he let go, but they eventually settle on the opposite elbow. Now, he's hugging himself, and Blaine is right here willing to hug him if he'd only let him. "Blaine. She wants to defer."
Blaine swallows, glances over at the sink, catches a glimpse of his reflection in the chrome of the faucet, sees his huge eyes, folded mouth, sees his helplessness. He tells it, "I know."
"Defer, Blaine." And Kurt's voice begins to tremble again, catching Blaine's focus. He sees now that Kurt is not hugging himself, but holding himself up, because his whole body is shaking. "She is going to put off going to NYADA. NYADA, Blaine."
He knows what Kurt is saying. Kurt would never give up NYADA, not for Rachel, not for Finn, not even for Blaine. And Blaine wouldn't want him to. Had Kurt been accepted, but refusing to go, he would be like Finn out in the living room, ready to do some desperate things in order to get Kurt out there. He'd even be willing to break up with him if it meant Kurt would be in New York. Kurt belongs in New York.
He never thought he'd be able to relate to Finn as well as he can tonight.
"Kurt," he tries to say, but gets cut off.
"Rachel Berry has my spot, my spot, Blaine; and she is going to defer?" By the end, Kurt is shrieking, which is kind of what Blaine was expecting would happen. His entire body is shaking, although Blaine can't quite tell if it's in anger, or desperation, or what.
Blaine just looks at him, because he doesn't know what Kurt wants him to say. There's nothing Blaine can do to make this better.
Kurt's eyes suddenly widen, all green sadness with grey angry streaks through them. He pulls back, like he's just realized he's been shouting at Blaine, and begins to shake even worse. "I'm, I'm sorry, I-"
And Blaine understands that Kurt's going to let him in now, so he takes another step so he can rest his hands on Kurt's arms, above his wobbly elbows. "Kurt. It's okay. Really."
Kurt's eyes go green, there is no grey (is there even a colour for this shade of sadness?). "No, Blaine," he whispers softly. "It's not. It's really, really not."
Slowly, so slowly because he might break him if he isn't careful, Blaine pulls Kurt into his arms. He takes him, rests Kurt's head on his shoulder, wraps one arm around his back, the other round his waist, and doesn't say anything. There isn't anything to say.
Kurt falls, willingly, into Blaine's arms. After a few moments of them simply breathing, his hands fall off his elbows and come to rest on Blaine's hips. They stay there, pressed together, Blaine's temple against Kurt's head (because Kurt has slouched just enough to make this possible, and it's not that Blaine is super short, but he's just short enough that little actions like that make a huge difference), letting their sadness seep through their clothes and into the other's skin. It feels heavy, but warm too, like sitting in a chair that someone just vacated.
Kurt hums suddenly, asks, in a small, almost teasing voice, "What? No song prepared for this?"
And Blaine thinks, thinks hard for a long moment, before singing in a soft voice, "I'll be your crying shoulder; I'll be love suicide. I'll be better when I'm older; I'll be the greatest fan of your life."
Ever since he's met Kurt, that song makes him think of him. It's the kind of sad love that all too often overshadows their relationship, like their love is forbidden and doomed or something.
He can feel Kurt's smile by the muscles shifting against his shoulder. "You're wrong," Kurt breathes. "You won't be better when you're older. That's impossible."
And it's things like that that makes Blaine's heart grow too big for his chest, so he feels too full for the moment and he wants to fly high, blown up with the helium of love or something. But because he is human, all he can do is stay where he is and hug Kurt a little tighter, hoping he won't melt into the floor.
There's another deep breath from Kurt, then he raises his head, pressing the side of his head against Blaine's. "Okay," he whispers. "Okay, I'm ready."
"You sure?" Blaine asks, because whatever Kurt does is going to hurt him.
And Kurt nods with his face still pressed against Blaine's, so Blaine slowly lets him go. Kurt smiles at him, sad but heartfelt, as he goes, and then one hand reaches down to entangle with Blaine's. Their fingers thread together like they were designed that way.
"C'mon," Kurt says. "Let's get started."
And then he leads Blaine back into the living room.
[Chapter Seven]