The Traveling Hoodie
title: The Brotherhood of the Traveling Hoodie; part 1/?
author: sbeiste aka tangerine
rating: pg-13...for now
characters/pairings: finn hudson, mike chang, eventual sam/kurt
disclaimer: i don't own, blah blah
author notes: inspired by the lovely people of Tumblr and the revelation that Chris, Harry, Chord, and Cory all wear an identical green hoodie at different times on the show (and in real life, in Chris' case). Re-written on February 3rd 2011.
summary: Four friends find a way to stay connected when their summer pulls them all apart.
It's dark.
Mike shuddered and hoisted himself into the open window of the auditorium. It was cold out, but he didn't feel it. His nerves were getting to him like they always did on nights like this. Nights when the moon was low and the world was dark and candlelight flickered center stage in the school auditorium. He brushed his jeans off and made his way quietly to the stage, hearing whispers as he went, seeing two figures outlined in the flickering glow. He sat down next to them with a small smile. "Where's Sam?"
Sam was late. As usual. They waited in the semi-darkness of the auditorium for a good ten minutes before they heard him climbing clumsily through the window backstage.
"Sorry," he said with an apologetic smile, sitting down in between Mike and Kurt. Kurt cleared his throat and Sam remembered to remove his sweatshirt - a dark green hoodie with white drawstrings - and hand it to Kurt, who promptly brushed the dust off of it and folded it neatly to set in the center of their circle.
He cleared his throat and said quietly, "Join hands," holding out each hand to the side, feeling Finn's too-warm skin and Sam's long cool fingers in his.
Okay so it was a little weird, this tradition of theirs. But it was tradition, and it had been going on since late February. Now it was mid-June. School had ended and they were each about to head off to their separate adventures or fates or miseries or dooms, depending on who you asked. This hoodie had brought them together in ways they couldn't quite explain, and now they'd be apart. Sam would be going to play in a junior baseball league in California for the next month and a half. Mike had to go visit his dad whom he hadn't seen in over a year in rural Michigan. Kurt had to attend his maternal grandfather's funeral in England and stay with his grandmother for a while, and Finn...well Finn had gotten himself a job as a stock boy at Wal-Mart.
Kurt gave Finn a gentle nudge with his elbow, and Finn nodded and looked around slightly awkwardly, as always, before starting up in a chant-like voice, "Oh green hoodie with magical powers and stuff. Give us the wisdom to...do the right stuff this summer and even though we'll be apart may we not be apart...in our hearts. And stuff."
Only Sam saw Kurt roll his eyes, and he had to fight a smirk. Finn wasn't the best at the whole Speaking to the Magical Inanimate Object thing. You would think differently, given his experience with certain kinds of sandwiches - the story of Grilled Cheesus had been wheedled out of him, and Sam found a great deal of amusement in the fact that Finn had actually believed a sandwich had caused his shoulder injury at the beginning of the year. But it was just the opposite. Finn's experience with Cheesus made him feel intimidated and awkward about the sweatshirt.
They all knew it was just a hoodie. It was just coincidence how it fit them all perfectly, how they had such great luck while they were wearing it, how they'd all found it by chance on the clearance rack at American Eagle. Kurt had wanted nothing to do with it but one cold March evening Sam had insisted he take it, and from that point he loved it just as much as they did.
"We're here tonight because we're about to embark on a journey," Mike said quietly, looking around the circle. "We're all going our separate ways and we need to come up with a way to stay connected."
Trading the hoodie off between them all summer had been Sam's idea. "My sister read this book about like traveling pants or something once. She told me all about it," he'd said to Finn in the hall on the way to English one day.
They worked out a schedule - Kurt was to have it first, for moral support, and from there it would go to Mike, then Sam, then Finn. If they needed to they could change the order, if any of them had a particular need for it. They would talk through phone calls and text messages every day. They wouldn't be apart, not really.
"Are you alright?" Sam asked as Kurt blew out candles and Finn gathered them into a cardboard box they'd brought with them. Kurt nodded solemnly, his throat feeling tight. "Yes," he said, but Sam could hear the waver in his voice. He put his hand on Kurt's shoulder for a moment, offering him a sad smile, lifting up his chin a little. "Smile," he said.
"I don't want to smile, Sam," he said, turning away and taking a deep breath. "I just want to get this over with."
Sam felt like something in him broke when Kurt's voice did.