Fic: ... Yeah, Still Good
So luckyjak gave me the following stripper!verse prompt:
we'll make our own family
And so I started writing.
And then there was this. And also this.
And now this:
Title: ... Yeah, Still Good.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Kurt, Quinn, Cooper, Blaine, Santana, Mercedes, Mike, Tina, Brittany, Artie, Wes, David Martinez, Holly Holliday, David (Warbler David), Burt, Sam, Puck. Jeremiah, Chandler, Emma, Rachel, Finn, Carole, and Joe all mentioned.
Words: About 5500
Warnings/Spoilers: Mentions teen pregnancy and parental abandonment, brief mentions of bullying.
Summary: Kurt has a father. Blaine has a brother. The rest of their family, they make for themselves.
Author’s Note: Stripper!verse, natch. Although I only promised drabbles for the prompts I was given, this obviously needed to be longer. So it is. This fic taps into the metric fuckton of backstory I've got worked out in my head for this fic; I might do an annotated version on LJ at some point if anyone has interest in that. Or you can ask questions, which I will answer. Whatever.
I do want to say from the start, however, that "Little David" is David Warbler (aka David Thompson, for purposes of this fic, also aka Black Canary onstage, because I can). Señor Martinez is, of course, David Martinez.
There are too fucking many characters named David on this show. In case you were wondering.
(Also, Holly Holliday quotes Lilo and Stitch during the story. Because I am obvious as fuck.)
It should be Finn, running after her, tracking her down to her hiding place in the third floor girl's room. It should be Finn's voice calling her name. At the very least, it should be Puck.
But it's not. Of course it's not.
It's Kurt Hummel.
"I know you're in here," he says, that high, distinctive voice, and Quinn hears the thump of the door falling closed behind him. "Look, I... I know you probably don't want to talk to me right now, and I don't blame you, and I'm not going to... But I didn't tell him, Quinn. I swear to God. I would never..."
"You should have," Quinn says; her voice breaks on the word should, but she doesn't let herself fall silent again, just sniffles and wipes at her eyes with a fistful of tissues, and keeps going. "I was lying to him. We both were, Kurt."
"I know," Kurt says, quietly. He steps into the room a little further; Quinn bends down enough to peek underneath the door of her stall, sees his highly-polished white Dr. Martens near the sinks, still a respectful distance away. "I... Where will you go, now?" His voice is even softer at that, sweet, a little childish.
She doesn't know a lot about Kurt's father, really; she doesn't know much about most of her classmates' parents, apart from Puck and Finn's mothers. She wonders if Kurt was ever scared before he came out of the closet; if he ever read articles about gay kids winding up on the streets and wondered if that was going to be him.
She never thought her parents would kick her out, not really. She thought her father would yell and her mother would cry and they might not talk for a while, but she never, ever thought they'd kick her out for real.
"It's Puck's baby," she says, and tries to sound confident and strong, tries to sound like the old Quinn. She just sounds desperate, so much so that even she can hear it. "He's been... I mean, he's tried. As much as I've been willing to let him, anyway."
Kurt doesn't say anything for a long time. His Dr. Martens turn to face the sinks; over the sound of water dripping from a broken tap and her own hushed sniffling, Quinn hears him setting things down on the metal shelf underneath the mirrors. "The hemorrhoid cream is for the puffiness," he says, finally, his voice carefully cheerful. "Don't overdo it -- just a dab. I realize our skin tones aren't exactly alike, but I think the concealer should hold you through the rest of the day. And I liberated an unopened mascara from the costume department, so."
Quinn swallows hard, pulls some more toilet paper from the roll. "Thank you," she says, so quietly she's not sure he's heard her.
"Quinn --" Kurt's boots squeak on the tiles when he turns; he steps directly towards the closed door of her stall, and she can hear the door shift when he rests his hand on it. "Just... I know we're not close, and I know there's a lot of... But if you think it's not going to work with Puck, or if you just need a break -- I won't let you be homeless, okay? I won't let that happen."
She knows she should say something at that, thank him or at least tell him not to worry or something, but her throat has closed up and she can't speak anymore. A few seconds pass, and then the door shifts again as he removes his hand from it and walks away.
The door swishes shut behind him, and he's gone.
*
"I appreciate it, Coop, I really do, but..." There's so much defeat in Blaine's voice that it makes Cooper a little sick, and he's actually almost starting to regret leaving Ohio, even though he knows that if he hadn't, he wouldn't be where he is now, couldn't offer what he's offering, if Blaine will only take it. "I mean, at least with OSU, you know, I'm a resident, so it costs less, and with scholarships, and... And I know UCLA's offer is good, but it's not..."
"I'll make up the difference," Cooper says, immediately, and Blaine just sighs, the sound of it rattling down the phone.
"Coop," he says, quietly. "I know you mean it, but..."
"Hear me out," Cooper says, and Blaine sighs again, but he doesn't interrupt. "Yes, I know I haven't always had the steadiest career, but. I've got a gig, now, and the pay is phenomenal, and it's consistent work, and I'm putting money away into savings, and I can afford this, Blaine, really." He only hesitates for a second before adding, "And I want this, Blaine. I want you here. With me. Yeah, I mean, things are changing, and it's getting better, but let's be honest, Ohio's kind of sucked for you. But L.A., Blaine. L.A. could be good for you. It could be great for you. Just... Just try it. For a year. And if you don't like it, we'll transfer you, and you can... But just try it, please? For me."
There's a pause, and then Blaine laughs, unexpectedly. "I think that's the longest you've ever gone without calling me Squirt," he murmurs, almost a little sheepish.
"Yeah, well. Every time I call you that, you get mad and stop listening to me, so."
Another pause. "Okay," Blaine says, finally. "Okay, I'll... Um. Only... I mean, I'm not sure how happy Mom and Dad are going to be, when I tell them, and... I mean, if I have to, could I maybe... If I could head out to L.A. a little before the start of the semester, that might be..."
"I'll be there for your graduation," Cooper promises. "If you want, we'll pack up right then and there and you can come back with me. I'm gonna take care of you, Blaine. I promise."
"I know," Blaine says, his voice quiet and husky like he's about to start crying, and Cooper can't do anything but look back at the calendar on the wall, with Blaine's graduation day circled in red. Less than a month. They'll make it work. They have to. "So tell me. I mean, you're usually, like, on the phone as soon as you get an audition, so... What's this new gig? What's with all the secrecy?"
"Um," Cooper says, and swallows hard.
*
What it comes down to is this: she doesn't really know a lot of people at UCLA. She has her roommate, who is loud and obnoxious and wears way too many neon zebra-striped items at one time but at least she doesn't get up too early, and she keeps her panties on her side of the room, and sometimes the two of them sing crappy nineties songs at the top of their lungs, and the truth is, they sound fucking fierce together. So that's Weezy, and then there's Blonde Brittany from the dance department, who has a killer body and naughty eyes and who likes it when Santana holds her hand when they walk to OSD so Brittany can meet with her service coordinator, and it's a little weird, because Santana's slept with girls before, but she's never really dated one, but she figures she's at college now, so it's okay. (It's weird, actually liking someone she's dating. She's never done that before.) And then Britt's got her friends, of course, this tall Asian kid who audits a bunch of dance classes while actually studying pre-med, and a guy in a wheelchair who has awful hair and worse clothing, and honestly it doesn't matter if his dick works or not, because looking like he looks? Kid's never gonna use it. And there's a couple of girls on the squad who aren't complete bitches, and Asian Tina from down the hall who apparently stuttered all through high school and now stands on a literal soapbox by the dorms and lectures fratboys on how douchebaggy they are, which is fucking hilarious. And so, okay, maybe Santana's got more friends than she thought.
The problem is, though, it's not the same.
The problem is that although there are kids from all over the world at UCLA, kids who've been through all kinds of things and have all kinds of stories, none of them grew up where she did. None of them went to high school with her; none of them saw the slushies get thrown or watched their classmates get shoved into lockers, none of them were there when the coach of the glee club got caught with one hand on a kid's thigh and the other on his shoulder. None of them ever had to give Quinn Fabray a bed to sleep in when her parents kicked her out. None of them ever sat, awkward and mute in their nice clothes with their hair slicked down, waiting to witness Quinn and Puck's marriage. None of them ever sat in the empty, abandoned choir room with Santana and listened to her talk on and on and on about how she was getting the hell out of this town and never looking back.
None of them know her story.
None, that is, except Kurt Hummel.
How exactly that translates to the two of them huddling in Santana's dorm room, eating ice cream and watching bad reality tv and not talking about anything at all, she has no idea. But Kurt's letting her eat the fudge-covered, peanut-butter-filled pretzels out of his pint of Chubby Hubby, so she's not really complaining.
And when Weezy comes in, takes one look at them, and immediately heads for the mini-fridge for her own pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk, Santana just budges over so her roommate can sink down on the other side of Kurt.
Besides, Weezy's as willing to share her chocolate-covered peanuts as Kurt is to share his pretzels.
(There was a time when Santana's friendship couldn't be bought with anything other than popularity or really nice bling. Now it's shared history and chocolate and "The Boy Is Mine," and Santana's not sure if that's better or worse. But it is a change, and her mom always said college would change her, so there you go.)
*
"I'm drunk," Wes realizes, swaying a little as someone's arm -- Blaine's arm, he thinks, because there's no watch because Blaine wears his watch on his left hand, and also because it's hairy, and Blaine's a little on the furry side, and he waxes where he needs to, but not everywhere -- tightens around his waist and pulls him in close, and he thinks that this should make things stop spinning, but actually, it just makes them worse. And then he's sitting down on something soft (guest-room bed, because Cooper actually has a guest bedroom, and Wes usually puts people to bed in it, because --) "I don't do this," he says, and Blaine gives him this weird sort of half-smile that should mean something, would mean something if Wes could just work through the fuzzy haze of that last shot of tequila, and he doesn't even drink tequila, he hates tequila, but Señor Martinez insisted, said that it was the only sure cure for... For being...
Blaine drops to his knees and starts untying Wes's shoes, and he indulges in one last moment of forgetfulness, one brief, fleeting thought of Victoria would kill me for this before he remembers that it doesn't matter anymore.
Tequila cures a broken heart, Señor Martinez said. Or at least it numbs the pain.
And that's why Wes drank tequila until he couldn't stand.
"But it still hurts," he says, quietly, and Blaine looks up at him with all the sorrow in the world in those wide hazel eyes of his, and it's a shame that Wes isn't inclined that way, because if he was, he would date the hell out of Blaine and Blaine would treat him right. Someone's going to get really lucky one of these days, and Wes can't help but be a little jealous of that. "It still..." He closes his mouth abruptly, swallows once, twice, shuts his eyes and swallows some more, and then finally manages to look over at Blaine. "You should maybe get the trash can."
Blaine just nods at him, then clambers up to his feet and hurries to the trash can, moving so fast it makes Wes dizzy, or it would if he weren't already dizzy. He is dizzy, and he is probably going to vomit profusely very, very soon, and it still hurts, and Señor Martinez has terrible ideas, and someone should tell him that. Wes would tell him that, but he doesn't know where Señor Martinez is. And also Wes can't open his mouth until the trash can is in front of his face, because of the vomit.
Then the trash can is there, and it's the suddenness of the movement, he thinks, way, way too fast and too soon, that drops him to his knees in front of it, clutching the sides for dear life as every single muscle in his body flexes, pushing out, and he's crying and his nose is running and oh God he thinks he just lost his spleen and this is the worst, the very worst...
"Never," Wes promises the trash can between heaving spasms. "Never again. Never."
And Blaine kneels next to him, and rubs one hand in firm circles over his back, and keeps him together.
*
"I can't do this," Tina says, and Mike has no idea what to do, so he just looks over at Kurt, still calmly pinning an enormous headdress to Tina's hair. "What if I forget my steps? What if the music starts skipping? What if my heel breaks, or I can't get my cheongsam open, or I lose a pastie or I trip on my fringe or I puke on the --"
"Then act like you expected it to happen," Kurt sighs, and pulls out a few more pins, shoving them into Tina's hair with what seems like totally unnecessary force to Mike, although Tina doesn't even flinch. "No one in that audience is expecting anything, Tina. They don't know what the act is supposed to be. Whatever happens, just... roll with it."
"But what if..." Tina starts, and stops, watching another girl move past to the mirrors. "They're just all so skinny," she whispers, and now it's Kurt's turn to glance at Mike.
Mike leans in and carefully presses a kiss to Tina's blood-red painted lips. Then he pulls back, grabs her lipstick and a brush, and carefully fixes any damage he made. "You," he says, calmly, "are the most gorgeous woman here. And you have the best costume," he adds, and Kurt inclines his head in Mike's direction, "and the best choreography. And you will blow their minds."
"I just..." Tina sighs and sags a little in her seat. Kurt pokes her sharply in the back, and she straightens up again. "I don't know. I mean, I feel like... I know I shouldn't be ashamed of my body, or my heritage, and I shouldn't hide who I am, and I'm not going to hide who I am, I just... It feels..."
"It always does," Kurt says, and finally stops stabbing Tina's head with bobby pins, instead gently patting her hair back into place with his fingers. "Trust me. It's always scary. But you go on anyway, because otherwise the fear wins. And that's a lot worse than dropping a pastie, trust me."
"Cho Chang?" A skinny blonde in a black shirt, black pants, headset on, sticks her head into the dressing room. "Cho Chang, come on. You're up."
"That's Chang Chang," Tina grumbles, pushing up to her feet. Her headdress doesn't wobble so much as a millimeter, so at least Kurt's pinning was effective. "Not Cho Chang. Chang Chang."
"Don't worry," Kurt says, quietly. "They'll know your name after this."
"They'd better," Tina says, still scowling, but then she drops her shoulders, blows them both a kiss, and hurries out to the stage, her heels click-clacking on the wooden floor.
Watching her go, Mike feels his stomach drop. But before he can start to really panic, Kurt's there, slipping an arm around his waist. "Yeah, it's scary on this end, too," Kurt says, sympathetically. "But trust me, Mike. She's gonna be magnificent."
"She already is," Mike says, and Kurt squeezes him a little bit before pulling away.
*
"And remember," Miss Holliday says, pulling unnecessarily at the hood of Little David's sweatshirt, like she can't bear to let him go any sooner than she has to. Except he's not Little David anymore, not really. Just David Thompson, formerly of Los Angeles, leaving to start his own software company in Sacramento with a nest egg of singles and fives. "We're not just a strip club. We're ohana. Ohana means family. And family means --"
"No one gets left behind," everyone choruses softly, Cooper and Wes and Señor Martinez and Little David and Blaine himself, although he can barely get the words out through the lump in his throat.
"If you need anything," Miss Holliday says. "You've got my number, you've got everyone's number. All you have to do is call."
"I will," David says, and reaches up to take her nervous, fluttering hands in his own, so very gentle. That was what Blaine always liked about Little David; he was always so gentle. "I promise. I won't be a stranger."
Miss Holliday just nods, starting to sniffle a little bit, and David pulls her in tight, hugging her hard. Then he's hugging everyone else, Cooper and Señor Martinez and then Blaine, and when he hugs Blaine he wraps him up tight and whispers "Take care of them for me."
And Blaine says, "I will. I promise."
He doesn't hug Wes; he reaches out and cups Wes's elbow with his hand, and Wes does the same to him, and they stand there like that, linked in their strange way, looking at each other without speaking.
And then he takes a step away, raises his hand, and when everyone else has lifted theirs too, he turns and leaves the room.
The moment he's gone, Miss Holliday bursts into loud, noisy tears, and Señor Martinez is quick to reach out and pull her in close, muffling her sobs against his chest. Cooper just looks at Blaine, and then looks at Wes, standing stock-still where he was when he and Little David had their moment, and then he looks back at Blaine again.
Then the two of them reach out, without even speaking, and take Wes by the arms, and spin him around, and lead him over to where Miss Holliday just keeps on crying, even when it's the four of them hugging her and not just Señor Martinez. Wes relaxes into them after a few seconds, one arm around Blaine's neck and the other around Cooper's waist, and he doesn't cry, but he hugs them like his life depends on it. But Miss Holliday just keeps crying and crying.
*
The kid's a lot smaller than Burt was expecting. Small, and weirdly clean-cut, with gelled hair slicked back on his head and a short-sleeved button-up, and a goddamn bow tie, and suspenders, and pants that stop a good three inches short of his shiny black shoes, and Burt would almost mistake him for an overly fashionable Mormon if he didn't know better. It almost makes him want to laugh, because seriously, this guy? This is Kurt's gay stripper boyfriend? This guy?
But then Kurt takes his gay stripper boyfriend by the hand and leads him forward, and the kid glances nervously over at Kurt before finally locking onto Burt, and he's wide-eyed and maybe a little pale, and Burt thinks once again about the other thing Kurt had warned him about (Blaine's parents... I guess they just never got used to the idea that he's... You know, that he's gay. So they don't really talk anymore). And Burt steps forward, sticks his hand out, and feels the weirdest sense of relief when Blaine reaches back. "Good to meet you, kiddo," he says. "Kurt talks about you all the time."
Blaine flushes a little bit; when Burt lets go of his hand, he immediately rubs at the back of his neck, like he's embarrassed. "It's nice to meet you too, Mr. Hummel," he says, and looks down at his shoes, and looks back up at Burt. He's actually a little smaller than Kurt is, and Burt's not sure why, but it kind of makes him feel warm inside.
"Call me Burt," he says, before turning to his son. "All right, you, get over here."
Kurt beams at him for just a second before pretty much hurling himself into his father's arms, and there's a little relief in the fact that although Kurt's a lot bigger and heavier than he was when he was just a kid, Burt can still scoop him off his feet without any real trouble. "Missed you," Kurt whispers, his cheek warm against Burt's, and Burt squeezes him tighter, lifts him a little higher, before finally setting him down on his feet.
"Missed you too," Burt says, grinning at his son. But his eyes slip past Kurt's shining face, over to the boy standing a few feet from them, something longing in his expression.
(They don't really talk anymore.)
"C'mon," he says, and reaches out, clapping one hand down on Blaine's shoulder and pulling him in towards the house. He's not quite ready to hug his son's gay stripper boyfriend, not yet, but maybe he will be before the weekend is over. "You need help with the bags? And don't tell me you packed lightly, Kurt; I sent you off to summer camp. I know damn well how much you can fit in a duffel bag."
"Which is why you shouldn't be helping, Dad, your heart --" Kurt protests, and Burt just laughs and keeps his hand on Blaine's shoulder as they head back towards the car.
Blaine's still stiff under his hand, but. Maybe before the weekend is over.
*
He finds himself sitting by the bonfire with this guy with a mohawk -- Puck, he's pretty sure -- just sort of watching as Mercedes grabs Santana's hands and the two of them twirl around, laughing, and God, Mercedes is pretty. Prettiest girl he's ever met, and he's stripped his way from Kentucky all the way to L.A., so he knows from pretty. And Puck's just sort of strumming the guitar in his lap, just something real gentle and slow, and Blaine's got his arms around Kurt's neck as they sway on the sand, neither one really leading, neither one following, just sort of swaying. And Cooper's sitting next to this blonde girl, and Sam can only see the back of his head, but he can tell that Cooper's eyes are on his brother, even as he's holding the blonde girl's hand, because that's how he's been all night.
Because Blaine's going to get married; Blaine's going to marry Kurt, and that has to be a little weird for an older brother to deal with. Sam wonders what he's going to do when Stacey and Stevie decide they're ready to up and get hitched. But they're not even in high school; it's too soon to be thinking about that. Hopefully, anyway.
It's weird, though, marriage. The way it joins all kinds of people, not just Blaine and Kurt, but their families, too. And yeah, near as Sam can tell, their families consist of one brother and one dad, but still. There's other kinds of family.
The tall asian guy runs past, carrying the kid with the glasses on his shoulders; his girlfriend chases after them, laughing and shrieking.
Puck asks, "So what are you gonna do about the bachelor party?"
Sam blinks at him for a second; he hasn't looked away from the fire, still strumming his guitar. "What do you mean?" he asks.
Puck just shrugs, shifts his hands a little higher on the neck, does some weird Eddie Van Halen riff for a second, then goes back to his languid strumming. Out there, back on the sand, Blaine has buried his face in Kurt's shoulder; Mercedes and Santana and Santana's friend Brittany are collapsed into a giggling heap. There's shouting and splashing from the water, presumably the asian guy and his girlfriend and the kid with the glasses. And Cooper just sits next to his blonde friend, and holds her hand, and watches his brother melt deeper into Kurt's arms.
"Well," Puck says. "I mean, Blaine's a stripper. Kurt's kind of a stripper, or he works with strippers, or whatever. So... how do you hire strippers for guys who are already strippers? That's not exciting. That's like... Tuesday. You know what I mean?"
Sam laughs, drinks his beer, shakes his head. "I don't know what we're gonna do," he says. "Cooper's going to be one of the best men, though; you could ask him."
"Hmm." Puck looks over at Cooper; the blonde girl he's sitting with has snuggled a little closer and looped one of her arms through one of his. Cooper has managed to tear his eyes off Blaine for a second; he's looking at the girl. He's too far away for Sam to see the look on his face, and he has to wonder what it could be. He's never really seen Cooper date anyone -- granted, he hasn't been in L.A. for much more than six months, but still.
The girl rests her head on Cooper's shoulder; Cooper rests his cheek on her hair. Sam just wishes he could see their faces.
"What's he like, anyway?" Puck asks. "This Cooper guy. He all right?"
"Nah, Cooper's great," Sam says, and doesn't actually understand the question for a few more seconds until he remembers Mercedes saying something, about the blonde being Puck's ex, maybe something about a baby, even. "I mean, yeah, he's kind of loud sometimes, and he has an opinion about everything and he is not scared to let you know it, but... He just..." He looks back at Cooper, his cheek still resting on the blonde girl's hair, arms still intertwined, everything about his body so much more relaxed than it was before. "He's a good guy," Sam finishes, because that's really all he can think of to say.
"Yeah," Puck says. "I mean, I guess he seems okay. Just, you know. Wondering. Whatever." He picks out another quick arpeggio, finishes up by slapping the palm of his hand against the strings to mute them, and glances up at Sam again. "Hey, man, you play?"
Sam laughs, rubs the back of his neck, stares at the sand. "I mean," he says, and clears his throat, and tries again. "I don't know, I guess... Because my family had some money problems, when I was younger, and I couldn't really work back then, so I just sold off what I had to sell, which wasn't much, but..." He laughs again, because he hasn't even answered the question yet. "I used to," he says. "But it's been a while."
Puck looks at him for a second. Then he shrugs, stands up, and quietly settles the guitar in Sam's lap. When Sam opens his mouth to protest, Puck just shakes his head. "You'll remember, dude," he says. "Trust me."
After a few fumbling false starts, Sam manages to pick out something that he vaguely recognizes. The next thing he knows, people are starting to cluster around the bonfire, calling out "Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!" and "Where they at?", laughing and holding onto each other's shoulders, and he still doesn't really know what song he's playing, but everyone else is singing and giggling and dancing up on each other, so he just keeps going.
"So why do I live this -- HEY! Must be the money!"
And it's weird, because it's not like they're all singing "Kumbaya" and roasting marshmallows or whatever -- there's been drinking, and people are still drinking, and Santana just goes from person to person and grinds up all over them (Mercedes laughs so hard when it's her turn that she falls down, and almost immediately winds up with the kid with glasses on her lap), and Kurt mimes out the phrase "36-25-34" with suspicious enthusiasm. But it really does kind of feel like family.
A dysfunctional, screwed-up family made up primarily of strippers, but still.
*
He never thought he'd have this.
Honestly, there were days when he never thought he'd have so much as a boyfriend, that he'd wind up living out some sad version of Never Been Kissed, where he'd have to sneak back into high school and try to find someone half his age who was desperate enough to make out with him. And even when he finally met Andy his freshman year at UCLA, and finally had someone, he never really thought... And some of it was feeling like he'd never find the right guy, but some of it was just... He never wanted just a ceremony for the sake of a ceremony. He wanted it to mean something. He wanted to be next-of-kin and emergency contact; he wanted to change his tax status. He wanted it to mean something, not just to him and his husband and his family, but to the law. And honestly, he wasn't sure it ever would.
But then it did.
And then there was Blaine.
And now there's... Now there's this.
He hadn't really planned on a big wedding. And it's not that big, really, but... There's Quinn, and Beth, and Puck. There's Santana and Brittany. Mercedes and Sam. Mike and Tina and Artie and Artie's friend Sugar who is wearing a pink faux fur hat to a wedding because apparently that's what she does. There's Wes and Little David and Señor David Martinez and Matt and Miss Holliday herself. Blaine's friend Emma and her new boyfriend, who looks strikingly like Idris Elba. Chandler and his boyfriend, holding hands in the third row. Jeremiah's plus-one, Trent, sitting by himself while Jeremiah skulks around the back with his camera. There's Carole Hudson, who's dating Kurt's dad now, and her son Finn, and it's weird to see someone that he had such a huge crush on in high school and realize how fast that sort of thing can fade, even as he falls more in love with Blaine with every passing day. And Finn's girlfriend from New York, who introduced herself to Kurt and Blaine by immediately launching into a fast-paced monologue about her two gay dads and how happy she is to see the younger generation following in their footsteps and how she's sure they'll all be great friends because they have so much in common, and...
And that's not even getting into the fact that there is literally a full row of drag queens right in the middle. Filling up his side and Blaine's side, with their purses on their laps and their gloved hands folded quietly on their prim, knee-length skirts.
He didn't even realize he knew that many drag queens.
The point is, it's a lot of people, and they're all there to see Kurt and Blaine get married, and that kind of blows Kurt's mind.
He looks over at his father for reassurance, gets a squeeze of the hand and a watery-eyed smile; when he looks over at Blaine, he sees him and Cooper doing the same thing. So he lets go of his father's hand, holds both out, and is rewarded by Blaine's hands slipping into his, gripping tightly. "Just so you know," Blaine says, quietly. "I'm going to be a wreck before we ever get to the kissing part. So I hope you brought a handkerchief."
"I love you," is all Kurt can say to that.
They're still holding hands when the officiant -- Quinn's ex-boyfriend with the dreadlocks and the bare feet and the degree in Religious Studies from Berkeley -- starts the ceremony. "Dearly beloved," he says, and Blaine sniffles audibly, and Kurt squeezes his hands tighter. "We are gathered here today..."
And Kurt never thought he'd get this, but here he is.
Here they are, together.