Fic: The Wisdom of Wildflowers - Part 4/9 +epilogue
Title: The Wisdom of Wildflowers
Rating: NC-17 overall
Word Count: 35000, 5500 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.
Four
When Rachel finally slides into the rental car, nearly two hours later than they had planned on leaving, she looks sombre. Hiram and Leroy wave from the front lawn and Kurt stays quiet, changing the playlist to his more melancholy showtunes to fit the mood.
“I called Quinn to let her know we were running late,” Kurt tells her after they've listened in silence to Memory and Come To Me.
Rachel nods her head but doesn't speak again for three more songs.
“I won,” she says, still staring out the passenger side window. “The Tony last night. I won.”
“Oh my God, Rachel! I forgot all about that! Oh, sweetie, I'm so proud of you! Congratulations. You'll be there for the next one,” he adds when he sees the tears in her eyes.
She shrugs her shoulders. “I don't care about that, not really. I'm just... This trip and all of our old friends and Santana... and Brittany - it puts things in such horrible perspective, doesn't it?”
It's Kurt's turn to shrug. He grips the steering wheel more tightly. He knows exactly what she means. And he's worried about this week, this time with all of his old friends and how difficult it's going to be to return to his life afterwards and probably not see them again for years once more.
“What are we doing, Kurt? We live and breathe our jobs; we don't allow ourselves to connect to people on a personal level. What will we have left when I can't get any more roles and you're no longer a coveted designer? What do we have then? Only each other. Co-dependency just like Quinn said.”
Kurt rolls his eyes and grinds his teeth together. It's not that she's wrong, but he doesn't want to deal with this right now. He has enough on his plate with all of his confusing feelings and sorrow over Brittany and well, he doesn't want to admit it, but seeing Blaine again. “And what do you suggest we do about it?” He feels a slight level of guilt at being so snappish.
“Well, I... I think we should, um... we should have a baby.”
There is a long moment of silence. “What?” Kurt asks, his voice loud in the confines of the car. “Together?”
“Yes, of course. We work well together. We could easily raise a child. Sure our family would be a little... unusual, but that's okay.”
Kurt just stares at her incredulously for half a second before turning back to glare out through the windshield. Is she insane?
“God, Kurt, it's not like I'm suggesting that we have sex or anything... You can just put it a container and I'll -”
“Rachel, I am not turkey bastering my semen into your body! End of discussion!”
“Why? Don't you want kids? You used to want kids. We made plans and they didn't work out so we need new ones!”
The truth is that Kurt hasn't wanted kids since he and Blaine broke up when he was eighteen. Kids were a part of those plans. The path of his life has twisted and turned and ventured far away from the one he had been on back then. The things he wants are different. The things he can have are different.
“No, Rachel. I'm not having a kid with you. It's not even up for consideration. Please stop.”
“Why not? What's wrong with me? You're my best friend and we both have stellar genes. We're both stable, mentally and financially. I don't see the problem here!” She is angry now, but mostly hurt, gesticulating wildly, her face red.
“The problem is that I'm not in love with you! And I'm not -” Kurt softens his voice, bringing the volume down and taking a deep breath. “I don't want to have a baby unless it's with someone I'm in love with. I love you, Rachel, but it's not enough. Not for me. I'm sorry.”
They don't speak much the rest of the drive to Quinn's lake house. Kurt ignores Rachel's sniffles and tries not to think about the past. He tries not to think about Blaine.
The first person he sees after he pulls into the driveway is the person he's been attempting to block from his mind. He looks like he's been waiting. Scratch that - he looks like he's trying to look as though he hasn't been waiting, when in fact he has. Kurt smiles a little. Blaine never was very subtle.
He comes down from the wraparound verandah with a hand in his pocket and a smile on his face just as Rachel unbuckles her seat belt with more force than strictly necessary and pitches herself from the car. As she storms past, Blaine gives her a little wave and then turns to Kurt and makes a face.
Kurt shuts his own door and rolls his eyes. “Thanks for helping with the luggage!” he yells after her.
Blaine follows him around to the trunk of the rental. “Long drive?” he asks.
“Ugh,” Kurt says by way of answer and pushes open the trunk. “Rachel had a bit of a breakdown. I had to fend her off as she tried to convince me to impregnate her.” Kurt rolls his eyes to himself. He's still shocked that she even suggested it, let alone got upset with him when he refused. He pulls her suitcase out of the trunk more roughly than he should and drops it on the ground.
Blaine reaches down and sets it back upright on Quinn's dusty driveway. “So... um, are you?”
Kurt pulls his own suitcase up by its handle and hefts it out of the trunk. “What?” When he turns around Blaine is making a rounded motion over his stomach area. Kurt screws up his face in a horrified expression. “Jesus. No!”
Blaine gives him a crooked smile and Kurt shakes his head and tries to look stern before fishing his satchel and laptop out of the trunk and slinging it across his body.
“You guys would make pretty damn adorable babies.” Blaine looks like he's trying to hold in a laugh at Kurt's glare.
“We would make high pitched, obnoxious, self centred, evil little brats,” he informs Blaine and slams the trunk.
Blaine laughs, shaking his head. “But, seriously though... is she okay? She seemed a little...”
Kurt heaves a sigh and looks up at the house. “Yeah. She's just... She won a Tony last night -”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And, well, she always said after she won her first Tony, she would have her first baby. And she's single, so... She's always dealt badly with things not going according to her life plan.”
“I think we all have trouble with that,” Blaine says. Kurt glances at him out of the corner of his eye; he's wearing a bittersweet sort of smile.
“Rachel is worse than most. Her life plan is pink and sparkly and tacked up on the inside of her closet.”
Blaine turns to look at him and laughs.
“Not even kidding, Blaine. I think she made it when she was thirteen. She puts little stars beside things when she accomplishes them. It's more than a little frightening.”
Blaine laughs again and gives him a fond smile that makes Kurt's stomach flutter like it's full of pop rocks. “You ready to go inside?” he asks.
Kurt turns away and looks back up at Quinn's lake house. He's been coming here for a weekend here, a vacation there, ever since she inherited it from her grandmother five years before. It's calming and familiar, as should be the people inside. But he still worries. He hates getting attached only to have the things he loves ripped out from under him just as he's begun to need them. He's been good at keeping people at arm's length since high school. And he had been before then too - before these people. They burrowed and forced their way into his life and his heart and changed him irrevocably. He's not sure he's ready for that again.
“I need a cigarette,” he breathes out.
“You smoke?” Kurt startles a little. He'd almost forgotten Blaine was there next to him.
“No. I mean... I did once for about a week. My first fashion week to be exact. But then I kept imagining all the ways Dad would kill me if he found out and I stopped before it could become a crutch. It's hard sometimes, though. A lot of people in the fashion industry smoke. Something to do instead of eating,” he adds on, trying to lighten the mood after he realizes how much he's been babbling. He just doesn't want to be judged, least of all by Blaine.
“But you love eating.”
Kurt grins. “That I do. And speaking of food - do I smell barbeque? Because I am starving. All I had to eat during the drive was half of a tofurkey sandwich and a pint of Rachel's hysterical tears.”
“You're terrible,” Blaine says with a little giggle.
“She nearly made me run off the road! I thought she wanted to have sex with me, Blaine. It was gross and traumatizing, and now I have to share a bedroom with her. Don't judge me for tempering my anxiety with a little harmless mockery!”
Kurt grabs Blaine by the sleeve of his shirt and drags him, laughing, into the house.
Blaine helps him take the luggage up to his usual room where Rachel is staying with him in order to give her usual room to Tina and Mercedes. Kurt knows that Quinn had planned on Santana staying with her in the master bedroom, but he wonders how she's managed to squeeze everyone else in. There are many bedrooms in the house, but even still, it's a lot of people.
As he sees when he ventures out into the back yard with Blaine. He ignores the way Rachel is muttering to Quinn over in the far corner near the hammock, obviously recounting their disastrous conversation in the car. Quinn keeps shaking her head and trying to calm Rachel down. Finn gives him a big grin and a wave from the lawn chairs where he sits chatting with Mike and Artie. Puck and Tina are manning the barbeque, flipping burgers and steaks and laughingly having a sword fight with their tongs. Sam is telling some sort of fish tale to Sugar, complete with wild gesticulations as she keeps giggling and sipping a very colourful concoction through a twirly straw. Santana sits over near the tree line with Mercedes, chatting quietly and constructing a daisy chain. These people. Kurt loves each and every one of them. They're missing Joe and Rory and Unique and the few who joined after Kurt graduated, but they've sent messages and flowers and love in their absence. And it was this group who Brittany requested be here at Quinn's. They are the little messed up family whom she loved.
Blaine places a hand on Kurt's back, warm and comforting. He must see how Kurt is hesitating. Kurt wonders what he thinks are his reasons. Mercedes comes over with bear hugs, Santana trailing behind with her ring of daisies.
“You're lookin' skinny, Kurt! Let's get a burger into you!” Mercedes says with a wink and kisses him on the cheek.
Santana side-eyes Mercedes and comes up and threads her arm through Kurt's and places the daisy chain on his head like a crown. “There you go. Pretty as a princess,” she says. Her smile doesn't carry its usual evil but Kurt rolls his eyes at her anyway, playing along.
He and Blaine walk over to the barbeque to get something to eat at Mercedes' insistence, each taken by the arm and guided in that direction. Puck greets him with hard slap on the back and half 'bro hug' and gets them each a burger while Tina grabs Kurt and jumps up, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“You're here!” she yells. “I was starting to get worried that you got lost!”
“No, no, just running behind. I like to be fashionably late and all that.”
Blaine holds out the plate with his burger on it and a bit of tossed salad, dressing on the side. Kurt takes the plate without comment and Blaine smiles at him and reaches up to adjust his crown of daisies. “You're a little crooked to be fashionable,” he jokes, setting it right and making a ta-da gesture with his hands.
“Why thank you. How could I ever live with myself if my crown of flowers wasn't nestled properly in my hair?”
“How indeed.” Blaine grins at him, and he looks down at his plate of food and tries to ignore the pop rocks going off in his stomach again. He lifts up the top of the burger bun to find his burger already dressed with everything he likes. “Oh, sorry. I should have asked if you still like it with all of that...” Blaine looks embarrassed, his cheeks taking on a bit of a flush that is a pretty rare occurrence. Or at least it was ten years ago.
“No, it's perfect. Thanks.”
“I'm just going to get one, too,” he says, avoiding Kurt eyes and turning towards the barbeque.
“Okay,” Kurt says weakly. He wanders over to take the empty seat next to Finn, noticing how Blaine's eyes search him out as soon as he turns away from the barbeque. He feels guilty for leaving but he hates awkwardness. He avoids it as much as he possibly can and he didn't want to presume that he should wait to eat with Blaine. He's trying to decide whether or not to call him over when he loses his chance - Rachel has finished berating him behind his back to Quinn and has snatched Blaine up, leading him over to sit with her on the back steps.
Kurt stares down at his plate of food. It's exactly the way he takes it, right down the raspberry vinaigrette on the side. Blaine still knows these things. He still remembers. Kurt picks at his food and allows himself to be pulled into the conversation with Finn and Artie, happy for the distraction.
He slips away to his room after finishing up to change into something that isn't wrinkled from driving all afternoon. Rachel comes to find him after a few minutes; he can feel her presence lurking in the doorway and tells her to come on in a shut the door.
“I just wanted to apologize,” she says in a quiet voice. “It was wrong of me to assume that you would just go along with my idea, and even more so for me to be angry with you for saying no. I'm sorry. I'd bake you cookies if we were at home.”
Kurt sighs and pulls a shirt out of his suitcase. “I'm not mad at you, Rachel. I understand how you're feeling. It's okay.”
“I don't think you do... But that is okay,” she backtracks when Kurt turns around and gives her a look. “It's just... I see what's happening, and I'm...”
“Nothing is happening, Rachel. I have no idea what you're talking about.”
She nods at him and doesn't elaborate. “I feel so alone.”
Kurt drops his clothes on the bed and turns to give Rachel a hug. “You are not alone. You've got me and Quinn. The three musketeers the same as we've been ever since Quinn moved to New York. You're not alone, Rachel.”
They stand in the middle of the room locked in an embrace for several moments before Rachel goes up on her tiptoes to press a dry kiss to his cheek before excusing herself. “Come on out and play with us,” she sing-songs as she goes, closing the door behind her.
When he finally follows Rachel back outside, he finds that the alcohol has come out. Finn had been sipping on a bottle of beer while chatting, but Kurt hadn't really noticed anyone else besides Sugar partaking, not until Santana pulled out several bottles of wine and some tequila. And then someone got the blender and ice and limes and... Before Kurt knows it he is three sheets to the wind, sucking some unknown number of margarita through one of Sugar's twisty straws and reclining on the grass with Rachel and Quinn, their heads close together in a circle and their bodies stretched out like starfish. It is dark and he can hear the others laughing in the distance and mulling about on the back porch.
“You should have seen his face!” Rachel and Quinn fall into a fit of giggles, having a great time mocking Kurt for his reaction to Rachel's wanting to make a baby with him. Now that Rachel has had most of a bottle of wine and a couple of margaritas, she can find humour in the situation. “He totally thought I was asking him for sex!”
“And weren't you secretly? I wouldn't mind a crack at him. He's got a huge -”
“Quinn Fabray!” Kurt chastises, cutting her off before she can traumatize him for life. “You're supposed to be the good one!”
“Oh come on, Kurt. We all know it's true,” Quinn says. Kurt can feel Rachel's soft hair brush against the side of his face as she nods her agreement. “We should totally have a threesome.”
Quinn and Rachel break into a fresh wave of laughter, rolling over to Kurt's side, and then partially on top of his body as he struggles under their tickling hands.
“Get off me, you hussies!” Kurt wiggles out from under them and sits up, but not before a wet smacking kiss is placed on the side of his face. He wipes away the saliva and lip gloss and rubs his soiled hand in the grass. Quinn and Rachel continue to cackle and roll around next to him. “Go over to the bushes and have your threesome if you want, but leave me out of it!”
“But there are only two of us,” Rachel argues.
“Your combined insanity can be your third.”
Quinn snorts indelicately and Rachel purses her lips and peers up at him. “Come on, Kurt. It's been aaaages since you had sex with anybody. And I live with you, so I should know.”
“Well, not that it's any of your damn business, but I don't like meaningless sex. Even if the person... people... are someone I care about. It's just so... meaningless.”
“You don't say?” Quinn smirks from where she's laid out flat on her back.
“Shut up,” Kurt tells her.
“Well it seemed like a good idea to me,” Rachel says.
“That's because you're drunk.”
“So are you.”
“Touché.” Kurt looks at the plastic margarita glass that's he's still clutching in his hand, even though it mostly spilled when he was attacked by the girls. He tips it and lets the remainder of the syrupy concoction drip onto the lawn and sets the empty cup upright next to Rachel. He uses his hands to lift himself up and to his feet, where he sways slightly before steadying himself and turning towards the lake. At least he's pretty sure that's where the lake is.
He bends over to fix his pants and straighten his shirt and runs a hand through his hair. He feels strange and dishevelled and knows that it doesn't matter, as everyone else is in the same boat and likely wouldn't care even if they weren't. But it matters for some reason. He can't remember what that reason is, but it must be important.
“Where are you going?” Rachel asks, squinting up at him as though he is bright, as though he is pointing a light directly at her eyes. He's not quite sure what it is she's going for exactly with that face.
“Skinny dipping,” he lies. Quinn cackles and rolls half on her side.
“You are not going skinny dipping,” Rachel argues.
“At least not without us,” Quinn adds and waggles her eyebrows suggestively.
Kurt huffs, pretending to be angry. “No way. You've already spent a worrisome amount of time thinking about my dick as it is,” he says.
Rachel lets out a squawk of a laugh and Quinn giggles into her sleeve. Kurt takes a step away from the pair of them only to be tackled about the legs by Rachel. He's not expecting it and falls forward onto his face with a loud thump and an oof. Rachel throws herself across his legs and makes a triumphant noise.
“Maybe you'd let us come along if we bring Blaine,” Quinn says in a knowing voice. That's why. That's why Kurt cares how put together he looks. He remembers at the same time as he realizes how ridiculous that is. He lets out a groan and a scoff both at once and the combination sounds a bit like a wounded animal or a bird mating call. In his drunkenness he contemplates how apt that comparison is while Rachel ooohs from her place across the backs of his legs. Kurt grumbles at them, the words lost in the grass where his face is currently pressed.
“What was that?” Quinn asks. She sounds smug again and he wants to smack her. She's already gone on for twenty minutes all about how worried Blaine had been when Kurt was late and how he kept asking her if she was sure he was coming. Kurt thinks he probably asked her in passing and she's making a big deal out of nothing. Though that is much more Rachel's style than Quinn's. But he's admitting nothing.
“Shut up,” he says. He sighs internally afterwards. Those two words say it all, really.
“That's what I thought,” Quinn says. Kurt contemplates hitting a girl.
“You can't go swimming, Kurt,” Rachel says, her loud voice piercing and obnoxious. She seems to have missed the entire conversation he's just had with Quinn, despite her oohhs and aahhs. “You might drown and I love you too much.”
“Okay, fine,” Kurt says. “Let's just go to bed then. I drank too much.”
“Woot! Threesome!” Rachel crows.
Kurt crawls out from underneath her and gets shakily to his feet. “No! If either of you touches me below the belt, I'm dousing you in fire retardant chemicals!”
“That stuff's fire retardant?” Rachel asks, a naughty grin on her face, looking up at him from where she now lies on her back. “Who knew?”
“Rachel Berry!” Kurt winces at the pitch and volume of his voice. He sees heads turn in their direction from where a group is playing poker on the back porch.
One of their number leaves the group and wanders over, a grin on her face. “What kind of shenanigans are going on over here? It sounds like a cat's being murdered.”
“Nah, that's just Kurt,” Rachel says happily and flops over onto her front.
Kurt scowls at her. She sounds like a dying cat just as much as he does. “Mercedes! Save me! They're molesting me!”
“And who's to say I won't join in, Kurt?”
“You are engaged to be married, Miss Jones! That's it, I'm outta here!”
Mercedes joins Rachel and Quinn in their cackles as Kurt turns away and flounces towards the lake.
“No swimming!” Rachel hollers.
Kurt turns abruptly and shouts back, “I'm not swimming!”
“Shake your booty a little more,” one of them yells. Kurt isn't sure which one it is. He turns and begins walking backwards, waving a finger at them.
“That's okay. We appreciate the view from the front just as much,” Quinn says.
“Perverts!” Kurt scolds them loudly. He hears the three of them and several more people cackle as he makes his way down towards the water.
He stops to stare at the stars, resting against the trunk of a leafy tree. Its roots stick out of the earth, winding patterns that he tells himself to be careful of so he doesn't trip in his inebriated state. The stars are bright and numerous and so lovely. One of the main downfalls of living in New York is never seeing the stars. He's gone to the planetarium plenty of times and he loves it, but it's not the same. It doesn't bring back memories of his mom and hot chocolate and fluffy blankets wound around him as tight and as warm as her arms. It doesn't remind him of love and happiness and potential the way the stars always did when he was young. He remembers going out to the country with Blaine one night before they were a couple - best friends - and the awkward tension between them that he tried to push aside then, because both he and Blaine had convinced themselves that he wasn't interested in Kurt that way. Even when Blaine had cuddled up next to him for warmth and his eyes were shining brighter than the full moon, Kurt never let himself believe it was for any particular reason.
He's pulled from his reminiscing by Finn. He stumbles out of the trees, tugging up his zipper one handed, a bottle of beer clutched in his other hand. Kurt starts to greet him, make a joke about peeing in the bushes and being careful of poison ivy, when he catches the look on his stepbrother's face. “What the hell was that?” Finn asks, gesticulating back towards the house with his beer bottle. Some liquid sloshes out of the mouth of the bottle and splashes onto his bare wrist. Kurt just stares dumbly, tempted to glance behind himself to see if there is someone else standing there who Finn is actually talking to. Finn bugs out his eyes as if to say, hello, but Kurt just shakes his head. “You were all over them!” he accuses.
“Um... what?”
“Rach and Quinn. The only two girls I have ever loved and you're just rubbing it in my face!”
Kurt rolls his eyes and Finn looks all the angrier. “I think you're forgetting Sarah and Joanne and Holly. Anyway, they're my best friends, Finn. And, God, it was high school. Get over it.”
Finn huffs out a sarcastic sort of laugh and takes a long pull from his beer, then tosses the empty bottle into the trees. “You're one to talk,” he says. “I've seen you looking at him. All your crappy, failed relationships - you're still looking at him. So don't 'it was high school' me.”
Kurt is tempted to tell Finn that it wasn't the same, but he doesn't really think that will help his case at the moment. It certainly won't calm Finn down any. “You're drunk, Finn -”
“Whatever, man. Whatever.” He stomps away towards the lake and Kurt suddenly understands Rachel's vague panic when he had jokingly claimed that he was going swimming.
“Please stay away from the water, Finn.” He gets no response. “Finn!”
“Well, that sobered me up quickly,” he mutters to himself. He continues down to the dock, hoping to find his brother and if he can't talk some sense into him, he can at least keep an eye on him. Instead he finds Santana sitting on the aged wood all by herself, her legs bent and arms wrapped around her knees.
“What the hell was that?” she asks as he approaches, her voice flat.
“Nothing. He's just drunk. He didn't mean it.”
“Guess you haven't stopped.”
“Stopped what?”
“Making excuses for people who act like giant raging assholes. Especially that asshole in particular.”
Kurt sighs and takes a seat next to her on the dock. He slides off his shoes and socks and dips his feet in the motionless water. It's still sun-warmed from the unseasonal heat of the day. “He's not an asshole.”
“Uh huh.” She follows his lead and lets her feet dangle into the lake. “He just accused you of trying to steal his ladies. Has he even met you? Or himself? Neither one of you has got ladies.”
“What are you talking about? I've got me a whole harem of ladies,” Kurt says and elbows her playfully in the side. His joke works and she laughs a little.
“Hags maybe.”
“A hag harem,” Kurt says with a giggle. “Hummel's Hag Harem.” Okay, so maybe he is still drunk. He looks over at Santana. Her tentative smile has dropped and she looks melancholy again, staring out at the water but seeing nothing. He reaches over and wraps his arms around her small frame. “Come here, you.”
“What are you doing?” she asks, voice wry.
“Cuddling you.”
“Well, stop it.” There is no force behind her command. Kurt wonders how many people have bothered to hug her today, with all of their reuniting and eating and drinking and telling old stories.
“Nope.”
She sighs loudly, pretending to be put upon, but snuggles more deeply into the circle of his arms. “Fine.”
They're quiet for a long time, the two of them staring now, at the reflection of the small fingernail sliver of the moon on the water and the lights from the houses on the other side of the lake. They let their feet dip in and out of the water, the faint sloshing loud next to the far off chirping of crickets and the distant sounds of their friends laughing and talking by the house.
“When was the last time you were happy?” Santana asks, her voice so quiet that he has to strain to hear her. “Not just, oh this is nice, but blissfully, all-encompassingly happy?”
“I don't know,” Kurt says. His voice comes out just as quiet, just as hesitant as Santana's.
“I saw her one day - she was sitting... just sitting in the living room, in the window seat. There was a wash of sunshine all over her and she glowed and they said, they said it was in remission, they said...” She takes a deep breath and gathers herself for a moment before continuing. “At that moment, she turned and smiled at me and I felt so much love and peace and I was so happy. Happy like I hadn't been in years. Maybe happier than I'd ever been. I thought I was getting another chance... another chance to love her. I thought I was -”
She breaks down again, her tears soaking through Kurt's shirt and dampening his skin. “You did, Santana. You did. You loved her and she loved you. You will always be able to cherish that. You got it back, even if it was only for a short time, it was important.”
She nods against his chest. “Six months. I had six months and then it was all, you have cancer that is likely incurable, and here I am... One year later and she's just... gone. Not in another state. Not in another city, gone forever. I'll never be able to kiss her or smell her or laugh at her silly jokes. How is that fair?”
Kurt has no answer for her. He knows how unfair it is. Knows it first hand. He tries to give her all the comfort he can without words as she sniffles and grasps his arm and touches their slippery feet together in the water.
He holds Santana and thinks about what she asked. Happiness. It's always been such a fleeting thing in his life, true happiness. He sometimes has great things happen at work that he wants to shout from rooftops, but those triumphs pass all too quickly. He knows it's because he has no one to share them with. He's tried with several men over the years, but none of them were the right fit. They were never interested enough, or else they were too interested and scared him away because he just couldn't see the future involving them past the short amount of time he could be bothered putting into the relationship. And they always had flaws that needled at him until he could no longer stand it. He's always gotten more fulfilment from his friends and family than his romantic entanglements.
But all-encompassing happiness? He thinks and thinks - the first time Anna Wintour complimented one of his designs? No. That was good, but not bliss. He slots through memories in his head, cataloguing them and taking them apart like files. He finally settles on one - his stomach dropping, then swooping as he went down and rushed back up, around and around and around again, laughing. He could hear Rachel screeching below and Finn's deep booming chuckle as he teased her. Next to him Blaine smiled, his eyes twinkling, happy, in love. In love with Kurt. He used to look at him as though he hung the moon. Like he would do anything for him and all he had to do was ask. No one else has ever made Kurt feel so much with a single glance. The Ferris Wheel dropped again, and Blaine clutched Kurt's hand, laughing as Rachel squealed again from the seat below. They had ridden it over and over that day, had kissed at the top like the cheesiest of clichés. Blaine had fed him sticky pink cotton candy and they had licked it off of each others' fingers, trying and failing to be seductive and ending up falling all over each other laughing. Then bumper cars, beating Rachel and Finn soundly as they drove around in circles, unable to get in synch while Kurt and Blaine smashed into their car over and over from all sides. Kurt and Blaine had no trouble getting in synch. They were always in synch. Until they weren't.
The smile falls from Kurt's face and he hugs Santana tighter, suddenly needing her closeness just as much as she needs his.
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