Fic: The Wisdom of Wildflowers - Part 1/9 +epilogue
Title: The Wisdom of Wildflowers
Rating: NC-17 overall
Word Count: 35000, 2400 this part
Characters/Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, Brittany/Santana, rest of New Directions, Burt Hummel
Spoilers: everything through Glease, veers away from canon after that
Warnings: character death
Summary: It's been ten years since Kurt set foot in the halls of William McKinley High School, but the death of a friend has him headed back to Lima and spending time with his old friends. The week brings sorrow, reminiscences, love, and maybe the chance to mend the tears in old relationships.
This past October I watched the film The Big Chill and found out shortly afterwards that a good friend of mine from high school had died. I started plotting this out after flipping through my yearbook, thinking I would likely never get around to writing it. I was wrong, as I generally am. It's complete and I will be posting chapters once or twice a week as I edit. Many thanks to Keri for being my beta and Allie for pre-reading and cheering me on. <3
One
And now, theatre fans! As you know the Tonys are this Sunday, and this just in - Broadway sweetheart Rachel Berry will no longer be attending, citing a family death as the reason for cancelling her appearance. She is the favourite to win Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her role in the new smash hit, Love, Regardless...
Kurt flicks off the television with one hand, stuffing his itinerary into the front pouch of his satchel with the other, and slumps back against the couch cushions. He tosses the TV remote onto the coffee table and reaches out, his fingers finding the hard corner of a red covered book. He fiddles with it, waiting. He feels like all he's been doing over the past four days is wait. Waiting for Rachel. Waiting for confirmation. Waiting for the day of his flight so he can go home and see everyone and make it all finally, definitively real. Not that he wants that, just the opposite in fact. He wants to wake up right now, having fallen asleep watching late night trash TV, and it all to have been a terrible, horrible, saddening dream. He would be able to wipe away the stains of tears that never seem to leave his cheeks, not since he'd gotten the call. Maybe then he could feel normal again, and not like someone has taken a metal scoop and hollowed out a part of him that can never be filled again.
He fiddles with the book some more, turning it face up and the right way so he can read the ugly font - a tacky gold with too much flourish. He wonders what the book would have looked like if she had taken her responsibilities seriously that year. How she would have reconstructed it - slightly manic... definitely colourful. He smiles a little. He finds that it hurts his face. He picks the book up, turning it over and over between his fingers before slipping it into his bag next to his itinerary.
Rachel finally emerges then. She doesn't make a grand entrance. There is no dramatic sweeping or words that try too hard to be elegant. He had been expecting that, but not this. She is tinier than usual and this more than anything makes him want to look after her. He gets up and takes her bag. She nods her thanks and they step into synch, wordlessly heading past the stacks of moving boxes lined along the walls and making their way to the door.
The ride to the airport is stuffy - the cab windows shut firm against the threat of rain. Kurt feels overwhelmed. It's difficult to breathe with the humidity and the driver's strong cologne and Rachel squeezing his hand, silently asking him to make things okay. He squeezes back. He needs someone to do the same, but he will wait his turn. He knows he will have a pinch hitter once they arrive at JFK.
Quinn meets them as they are checking their luggage, a shadow of herself. They all embrace; a group hug of teary-eyed misfits. Rachel sobs against Quinn's shoulder while Quinn pats her and stares into the distance with dark rimmed eyes that focus on nothing. Kurt wishes he knew what to say, but all he can do to comfort them is hold back his own tears and take each of their arms in turn. Holding back tears is something he's trained himself to do and do well. He's had years and years of practise.
Their flight is announced after well over an hour of sitting in the uncomfortable vinyl seats of the pre-boarding area, half-drunk coffees growing cold in their hands. “At least there's no delay,” Quinn says as she gets up from her seat, grabbing her bag and readying her phone and passport. Kurt nods and follows after her, Rachel bringing up the rear.
He stares out of the window as the plane begins taxiing down the runway, the steward giving a mostly ignored safety instruction four rows in front of him. Rachel and Quinn are sitting across the aisle. Kurt is relieved to be left alone with his thoughts for the next hour and a half. He needs to gather himself, ready himself for what's to come. He'd agreed to sing when he'd gotten the call; how could he decline such a request? But he doesn't feel ready. Not yet. And so he stares outside at the splashes of rainwater as they splat against the tiny oval window, streaking longer and longer the faster the plane goes until it begins to lift off from the ground, leaving only thin, angry trails that look a lot like tears.
Rachel is asleep, her head practically in Quinn's lap while Quinn rests hers against the cool glass of her window. Kurt would think her asleep as well, if not for the steady stroking of her fingers through the long, dark locks of Rachel's hair. He sighs to himself and turns back to the grey cloud cover. He wishes he could sleep as Rachel does, though he doesn't want to be visited by the dreams that have been plaguing him since Mercedes called him at work on Tuesday. He sees them at night, sees them as they once were - young and full of hope and so ignorant to the reality of the world outside of their own small town. He sees her, always bright, every strange thing she ever uttered suddenly taking on a sliver of meaning, no longer harebrained and foolish, but full of wisdom and forethought. Mystery.
“If I could have a single wish, I would make you sing for me,” she had said one day when Kurt was sad, depressed after having been rejected from NYADA, not sure what he was going to do. He had worried then that he would never be good enough. Though he'd thought she was only trying to make him feel better, her eyes had been without traces of platitudes. She'd probably only wanted him to sing, nothing more. He hadn't. But now, after ten years, she will finally get her wish.
He sighs and shifts in his seat. The humidity always makes him nauseous when he flies and he's tired of all of the grey outside the window. He reaches into his satchel for this laptop, his hand bringing up against the red book. He slides it out slowly and traces his fingers over the golden font on the cover.
The grad photos are near the back. He flips right to her without thinking it through, her bright smile matching the dim one that spreads across his face at the sight of her. All around her picture and stretching to the bottom of the page is her bubbly, purple scrawl:
Hey Kurt! :)
Even though I'm not graduating it's pretty cool that they still let me have a picture here. It's too bad you're not on this page with me - it could be the unicorn page! You get to be next to Finn though so I guess that's ok. You and me and Santana and your little elf Blaine should have a page together where we can have ladykisses and boykisses and pictures of cats and things that sparkle. But not golf, because Santana says she doesn't appreciate being asked to join that team just because she's lebanese.
Anyways - you'll always be my perfect unicorn and favourite ex-boyfriend. Even Lord Tubbington likes you and he thinks most people are peasants. We will always be special horned friends even when you move to heaven with Rachel and I join a team of ninjas to take down everyone who makes you feel sad. I love you Kurt. You will forever and always be one of my most special friends.
xoxoxo,
Brittany!
He's still smiling a little, though a few rogue tears have leaked from the corners of his eyes. He studies her signature for a moment, and then her eyes, her smile, the waves of her blonde hair. She is lovely. Was lovely. He sucks in a ragged breath and flips through the pages.
He ends up near the back on a black and white spread with a large, square photo of him and Blaine, entranced with one another on the bleachers at one of Finn's football games. He hadn't noticed it being taken. Hadn't noticed anything but Blaine's sweet eyes and the way he had to drink his hot chocolate with his left hand because he hadn't wanted to let go of Kurt's hand with his right. He smiles a little sadly, tracing their faces and down to their joined hands which he can't make out, but knows are there just the same. Blaine's dark, slanted writing fills up the space around the image, cutting across the header and through all of the empty space on the page.
My Dearest Kurt,
Well, you did it! You once told me your first priority was to finish high school and get out of Lima, and now you're nearly on your way! I'm so, so proud of you - of all your accomplishments, and all of your grace in dealing with the people who tried to keep you down. You're amazing, Kurt. I am wholly and truly humbled and blessed to have you in my life. I thank goodness every day for your terrible spying skills and for the fact that you chose me out of everyone on that staircase at Dalton to ask what was going on. I love you more than I ever believed to be possible. You are the love of my life and I cannot wait to get started on our next adventure.
I know my words are severely lacking; as you know I do so much better with the words of others. And seeing as this is a book and I can't sing to you from its pages, I'll just have to leave you with a few of those words. Written by Elton John, but from my heart:
So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen
And you can tell everybody this is your song
It may be quite simple but now that it's done
I hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world
With all of my love forever and ever,
Your boyfriend,
Blaine
Kurt had forgotten about this message; blocked it from his mind perhaps. It's been years since he's even cracked open this book. He stares down at the endearment, the promise, the love. It's been ten years. Ten years since they'd broken up - a terrible cold night in a park, Kurt's nose tingly and red and running when he got home, nearly sick with how hard he was sobbing. In ten years the fluttery feeling should be gone from his stomach. In ten years he shouldn't still feel a stab of pain in remembrance of broken dreams and time wasted on planning a life that never happened, that disappeared with four soul-crushing words. He shouldn't still care. He shouldn't still wonder, imagine what if. He doesn't usually; he doesn't dwell. But at times like this he feels mostly confused by feelings that never really went away as he grew out of his teens and well into his twenties.
He thumbs through some more, stopping when he finds their page: New Directions, National Show Choir Champions of 2012. He's about to see all of these people again. All but one. The lost girl.
He closes the book and holds it to his chest, turning back towards the window and the grey outside. It's only fitting. Even the sky is weeping.
Burt meets them in Dayton. Kurt had offered to rent a car and drive the three of them home to Lima, but Burt had insisted. He knew how upset they all were, he'd said. He didn't want Kurt driving.
He's a sight for very sore eyes and Kurt melts into him, presses his face into his warm, soft shoulder and holds on like he's just a kid again. The comfort of his father makes his breath hitch. He's a safe place. A safe place to break down. Kurt sucks it in instead and pulls back, blinking away the threatening sting of tears. Burt eyes him knowingly and takes his bag, greeting the girls and loading their luggage onto a cart to take to the car.
The house smells like Carole's perfume and a bit like the shop. As he unzips his boots and straightens them on the mat he can feel his father's eyes on him, taking stock, checking that he looks whole, not too damaged. He wishes it was due to the circumstances of this particular visit and not something that is commonplace, but he knows that is not the case. This is a ritual of theirs, Kurt and his dad, and Kurt is used to being contemplated with sad eyes like a fine toothed comb. Burt lets out a melancholy sort of sigh and turns away from his study, wheeling Kurt's suitcase into the hall. He hadn't liked what he found. He never usually does. Kurt supposes that it's only natural for his father to see through to the heart of him and how empty he is inside; he is the person who knows him best after all, and someone who has been intimately acquainted with loneliness.
It's just the two of them. Carole has gone out to dinner with Finn, probably to give them some space to talk. They sit down on the sofa with sandwiches and coffee and flip on the television. It isn't long before the food is abandoned and Kurt has slipped down, head resting on his father's shoulder, Burt's arm wound around his back.
“I liked that girl,” Burt says, his voice gruff with emotion. “She was kooky and sweet.”
Kurt nods against the fabric of his dad's shirt, now damp under his face.
“You doin' okay, kid?”
“Not really.”
“That's okay... That's okay.”
Burt's fingers card through his hair and he feels like a small child. It's comforting the way nothing else ever is.
next