Everything Changes (Fic)
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, Rachel/Finn (but the story is gen)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 3.22 "Goodbye" and "Rachel's Yearbook Message to Kurt Scene"
Word Count: 7,448
Summary: The more Kurt thinks about Rachel's yearbook message, the more he doesn't know what to make of it. Finn does, though. (Reaction fic to "Goodbye" and "Rachel's Yearbook Message to Kurt Scene".)
Author’s Notes: Thanks to punkkitten2113 and lavender_love00 for betaing and being thinky with me. Any errors are mine. Also, I don’t own Glee, and I don’t make any money writing this stuff.
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Dear Kurt, I love you so much. You’ve challenged me, inspired me, and taught me the importance of having a signature style. You’re the bravest, truest person I have ever met, and because of you, I’ll never apologize for who I am and how I look. Even with this nose. Thank goodness we’re going to be in New York together because I don’t think I could survive without my best friend and soulmate, which is what you are to me. I love you forever, and see you on Broadway. - Rachel Berry
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Kurt sits at a picnic table in McKinley's concrete courtyard, flipping through Rachel's yearbook in the filtered light of a cloudy May afternoon. Next to him, Blaine is frantically scratching out the solution to a geometry problem in his spiral notebook. His pencil slows, and he mumbles to himself almost inaudibly, the way he always does when he's checking over his work.
He looks up at Kurt and smiles. "I'm done," Blaine announces, setting down his pencil with a flourish.
"I'm not." Kurt sighs. He's spent the past half hour ostensibly searching for the perfect spot in which to write his dedication to Rachel, but actually making over half the student population of McKinley - and all the teachers except Ms. Pillsbury and Señor Martinez - in his head.
He can't sign next to his senior picture, because it's on the same page as Finn's. Part of it is taken up by Finn's inscription, and the rest is filled with Rachel's doodles of wedding bells and hearts.
(Kurt can hear Finn's voice exactly when he reads Finn's dedication, because it's mostly lyrics from his go-to shower song: What started out as friendship has grown stronger … I feel so secure when we're together. You give my life direction. You make everything so clear. [i] For the first time, it dawns on Kurt that the song isn't just a generic power ballad for when Finn needs to emote; he's singing it for Rachel every time. Something in Kurt's torso flutters; whether it's his heart or his stomach, he's not sure.)
And there's not a ton of room on the other photo pages - Rachel already passed the book around in Glee and had everyone sign the photo of them posing with the Nationals trophy, and the margins of the club pages are crowded with notes from members congratulating their leader on her commencement.
Kurt's known since he first glanced through the yearbook yesterday afternoon that the only place to sign would be exactly where Rachel had asked him to: on the white page in back - a wide, intimidating expanse that is somehow supposed to become alive, develop meaning and sentiment, with his words alone.
Blaine looks around and scoots in closer to Kurt. "You're having a hard time with this, aren't you? Figuring out what to write for her?"
Kurt nods.
"Is it the same reason you haven't written anything in my yearbook yet?"
Kurt shakes his head. "No. I haven't written anything in your yearbook because - well, we have yearbooks so we don't forget, right? Because all these people - we don't take them with us into the rest of our lives. When someone signs my yearbook, I think about looking at it in a few years and thinking, 'Oh, yeah, I remember her. Maybe I'll look her up on Facebook.'" He glances down at Blaine's hands, which are resting on his geometry notebook. Kurt thinks about wrapping his own around them, but he doesn't.
Instead, he looks back up, into Blaine's eyes. "It's like, we leave these pieces of ourselves on the pages because we might not be there for each other in person later. I want to write something in Rachel's yearbook, because even if we're at NYADA together and even if she gets married to Finn, it doesn't mean she'll be in my life every day. But I want you to be in my life every day, Blaine. You won't need to remember me by some words I wrote."
"Kurt." Blaine's eyes shine. He lowers one hand from the notebook and puts it under the table, palm up, on top of Kurt's thigh. Kurt follows, wrapping his own hand around it.
Kurt would really like to kiss Blaine now, but he doesn't. Instead, he says something that he hopes will be as good. "And then I think, well, I could write something, anyway, something we could read together in a few years to remember how we both were. I would list all the things I learned from you this year, and all the things I discovered about you, and how they make me love you even more than I already did - but they wouldn't fit in the book even if all the pages were blank."
Blaine blinks, stunned and slow, his mouth curling into that sweet, shy smile that is only for Kurt. Kurt lets himself breathe through this - through looking at Blaine, through the warmth of Blaine's hand, through the feeling that's been haunting him these past few weeks - that he's about to go over the edge of a precipice, and doesn't know whether he'll fall or fly.
His insides calm down a bit. He leans against Blaine, nudging their shoulders together. "So, no. It's not the same. I have a million things I want to write for you, Blaine. I just don't know which one to start with. And I should have a million things to write to Rachel, or at least a few thousand. We've been through so much together."
Blaine squeezes his hand. "It doesn't have to be perfect." Blaine smile widens into reassurance, then curls just so to become something mischievous and a little sexy. "Well, actually, everything you do is perfect by default, so -"
Kurt rolls his eyes and tries to follow it with a glare, but finds himself suppressing a grin instead. "You spoil me, Blaine."
"I only speak the truth."
Kurt lets out a little huff of laughter at the Moulin Rouge reference. If they were at home in his backyard, where the hedges protect them from nosy neighbors, he would kiss Blaine on the forehead. Instead, he gives Blaine's hand a final squeeze and lets it go so he can shut Rachel's notebook and put it in his satchel. "I came up with a few ideas this morning of what to write to Rachel, but then she gave me my yearbook in the library and I -" He slips his own copy of the yearbook out of his bag and hands it to Blaine. "It left me speechless."
"Good speechless or bad speechless?" Blaine takes the book, but he doesn’t open it.
"Um -" Kurt chews his bottom lip. "Mostly good, I think."
"You think?"
Kurt reaches over in front of Blaine and opens the book to the back, where Rachel signed it. "It was really sweet. It made me cry. But I kept rereading it during history to try to figure out how to respond and the more I did, the more confused my stomach got." He shrugs. "I might be a little weird."
Blaine raises an eyebrow and looks down at the calligraphied paragraph. He takes his time reading it - that's both the nice and frustrating thing about calligraphy, Kurt thinks, the way it forces you to slow down and read at the writer's pace - stopping in the middle to squeeze Kurt's arm and murmur, "You are the bravest and truest person I've ever met." He says nothing through the rest of the paragraph, though, and even when his eyes stop moving across the words, he keeps looking at the page, his brows knitting the way they did earlier when he was working on his geometry problems.
Kurt watches and waits. He wants to ask Blaine what he thinks, but he's not sure how to ask without revealing his own thoughts, and doesn't want to taint Blaine's reaction with his own.
Eventually Blaine looks up. His brows are still knitted. He looks confused. When he finally speaks, his question takes Kurt by surprise - even though it's the same thing Kurt's been wondering himself all day: "What did she write in Finn's yearbook?"
Kurt shakes his head. "I have no idea."
"I think if a guy had written this to you, I'd be a little jealous."
Kurt sighs. "Yeah."
"Was it the 'soulmate' part that upset you?"
Kurt nods. "Yeah." He grabs the ends of his scarf and twists them in his fingers. "I think if it had been 'kindred spirit,' I wouldn't have thought a lot about it. Because I see where she's coming from, in a way. We get certain things about each other that a lot of people don't get. But soulmate is a little -"
"Intense."
Kurt unwraps his scarf from his neck, spreads it on his lap to smooth the abused fabric. "I don't even believe in souls."
"Can a person have more than one soulmate?"
Kurt looks up from his lap and at Blaine. He's not sure why he's embarrassed about this, but he is. "I know that Wikipedia's not the most reliable source, but no, you can't. Not according to Plato or Judaism or Hollywood. The good news is that -according to Plato, at least - it's not necessarily romantic."
Blaine's eyebrows are still knit in confusion. Kurt has the urge to touch the dimple in their center, smooth it until all the concern is soothed from Blaine's face. "But what does that make Finn?" Blaine says.
Kurt has that feeling again of being on the precipice, except he's not feeling it on his own behalf. He's picturing himself as Finn, leaping out into life, certain he's going to fly and not realizing, until he's hurtling down toward the jagged rocks below, that he has no wings.
"I don't know what that makes Finn," Kurt says. "I don't know."
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"Maybe you can help me with this." Kurt is sitting on his bed, his door closed, his phone pressed to his ear. It's 11:32 p.m., and he's had too much coffee, and he's really glad that Blaine's still awake on the other side of Lima.
"What do you have so far?" Blaine's voice is patient, even though he has two exams tomorrow and Kurt's only pressing matter is getting the yearbook back to Rachel. It's silly to be freaking out about this, but Blaine makes it sound like both their deadlines are equally important.
"Are you sure? You were studying?"
"I was studying," Blaine answers. "And it was just review. If I don't understand this stuff by now, I'm not going to know it for the tests tomorrow. It's more important to talk to my boyfriend and go to sleep."
Kurt feels a little flush at the word 'boyfriend.' He wonders if he'll ever get immune to the power of that word. "Okay."
"So hit me," Blaine says.
Kurt looks down at the legal pad on his lap. It's full of words, and of long straight lines crossing each of them out. "I keep starting strong, but then I deteriorate."
"Okay, read me your most recent version."
Kurt groans out a weak protest, but begins: "'Dear Rachel, Your friendship has been a pleasant surprise. I love you a lot, which isn't something I would have expected when we started in Glee Club three years ago. It's nice to have had someone at McKinley who wants to get out of Lima and accomplish great things as much as I do. Even though I find some of the things you do bewildering, I'm glad we'll be in New York together next year. Don't be offended that I'm not calling you my soulmate, because I don't believe in souls or destiny or life after death. Also, I think Finn would think it was a little weird.'"
There is nothing but utter silence on the phone line.
"Blaine? You still there?"
"Um, yeah," Blaine says. "You're right. That … deteriorated."
"Well, at least I didn't add the line about how she needs to be careful with Finn because 'bros before hos.'"
"I'll say." Blaine doesn't laugh. "Do you mean that?"
"I don't mean she's a ho, no. And I don't think she's trying to hurt Finn, but … I think she's going to. And then they're going to want me to choose between them. And I don't want to choose. They both annoy me equally."
"And you love them both equally."
"Yes," Kurt says.
"Okay. So you don’t want Rachel to marry Finn, and you don't want to be her soulmate. What do you want for her?"
Kurt takes his pen and doodles spirals in the margins of his notepad. "Not to be the pot calling the kettle black, but I want her be a little less self-involved. Maybe to think about the consequences her actions have on other people. I mean, she's scared, so she wants to marry Finn, even though it's a really bad idea."
"Okay, she's scared. What's the opposite of that?"
"Courage?" Kurt says. "And maybe confidence? Because I don't think she thinks she's strong enough to face the world on her own."
"Write those down," Blaine says. "Courage and confidence."
Kurt does.
"And why are you friends with her?" Blaine says.
Kurt laughs. "Because she insisted on it and wouldn't take no for an answer."
"Persistence?"
"Yeah, that's part of it." Kurt understands where Blaine is going with this. He writes "persistence" down. "And she's strong-willed. I like that about her, even when I think I don't. And she feels things deeply." Kurt writes "strong" and "sensitive," down, too.
"Where do you want her to be in 10 years? Ignoring the whole marriage thing?" Blaine says.
"Well, definitely not as the lead in the Broadway production of Gypsy, because my gender-bending performance as Rose will have redefined the role for all time by then," Kurt teases.
"I hope so," Blaine says. "You deserve everything you want."
Kurt sighs. "So does Rachel. The things she honestly wants, I mean. Not just the things she thinks she wants because she's scared of changing."
"I think you know what to write, Kurt."
Kurt nods. "I think I do."
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The next morning, Kurt finds Rachel standing at his locker. Well, not standing, exactly. She's bouncing on the balls of her toes, looking ready to launch any moment into the ceiling.
She has an envelope in her hands. The return address is NYADA.
Kurt starts bouncing, too. "You got it!"
"I didn't open it yet, though." She looks fit to burst. "I know the value of a pinky swear."
"Have you told Finn yet?"
"Nope," Rachel says. Kurt expects a flicker of concern to cross her eyes, but she's still beaming. "I wanted to tell you first. I thought maybe it meant yours came, too." [K1]
"Not yet," Kurt says. "Maybe this afternoon."
Rachel starts to frown, but catches it before her mouth can fall too far. She smiles again, but it's her stage smile this time, not her honest one. "They probably sent them out in batches by last name."
"Maybe." Kurt tries not to think about it too much. He swallows the lump in his throat. "So, no NYADA letter to share, but I do have your yearbook." He takes it out of his satchel and hands it to her.
Her honest smile returns, as does the toe bouncing. "Can I read it now?" she says, not waiting for an answer as she flips open to the back page.
She reads it silently, her big brown doe-eyes becoming even more doe-like and wet with every sweep across the page. Kurt starts to cry, too.
"Kurt, I love you so much," she says when she's done, looking at him in a way that makes his heart break. He takes a Kleenex out of his satchel for her, another for himself. She hugs the book to her body, then puts it in her bag. "Why am I hugging my yearbook when I should be hugging you?" She reaches for him, grinning.
Her body always feels a little strange against his - not bad, just unfamiliar. She's so small, and she's not Blaine or his dad or Carole, and if he doesn't pay attention and turns the wrong way, her hair gets caught in his mouth. Every time, he expects her body to feel hard and wiry, like her ambition, but she's soft around the edges. Her shoulders round up, the tension goes out of her arms and her breasts squish against his ribs. She seems so malleable.
It's not like this when they've danced for Glee. Then, she's all muscle and control. But when she hugs him, it's like she lets go of everything else.
It's a little overwhelming.
"You understand me like no one else does," she says as she lets go of him.
That's a little overwhelming, too.
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Burt honks the horn of the Navigator. "You're gonna see him in two hours. Come on, Kurt!" There's no chiding in Burt's voice, though. It's all joy and laughter and pride.
The graduation ceremony was liberating. Kurt may no longer have any idea what he's doing next year, but he somehow feels victorious, anyway. He made it through four years (minus two quarters) at McKinley, and he came out stronger and, amazingly, less bitter than before.
So he's hugging Blaine in the middle of the parking lot like the world depends on it, because maybe it does, and he's kissing him on the cheek even though that goes against all his self-imposed rules about what he's willing to share with McKinley and what he isn't, and now that he's started, he can't stop - he kisses one spot on Blaine's cheek but then he feels sorry for having neglected the adjacent spot and kisses that, too, and the one next to it, and the one next, and Blaine laughs and blushes brighter with each point of contact and he's so irresistible and …
There's another honk. "Seriously, Kurt! Our reservations are in one hour and fifty-nine minutes and I know you're going to want to change your outfit at least three times before then."
Kurt can hear Finn chuckling from the back seat.
Kurt rolls his eyes and gives Blaine a final kiss - on the lips, this time. It's brief, but his heart still drops into his groin from the way their lips fit together so perfectly. "Thanks for being here with me, Blaine. And for the handkerchief. And for … everything." He squeezes Blaine's hand.
"I'm so proud of you," Blaine says. The afternoon sunlight dances across his face, in his eyes. To Kurt, he is light, itself.
"So will you meet us at the restaurant or come to my house and ride over with us?" Kurt says.
"I'll meet you there. Your car's a little crowded, and anyway, it'll give me a little more time to polish my hair." Blaine winks, all suave and self-possessed, and steps backward toward his car. Kurt blushes like a schoolboy, even though he is one no longer.
A loud throat-clearing comes from the direction of the Navigator, and Kurt starts walking toward it, looking occasionally over his shoulder to check Blaine's progress toward his own car. As he opens the back door of the Navigator, he turns and gives Blaine a Queen of England wave. Blaine, who's at his own car now, ready to sink into the driver's seat, laughs with a delight that sparkles across the parking lot.
Kurt doesn't call out "Goodbye," and neither does Blaine. They never say that word.
From the front seat, Burt gives Kurt a look that's probably supposed to be stern, but comes across more as amused. Carole stifles a giggle. "You ready to go, kid?" Burt says.
Kurt pulls on his seatbelt. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Next to him, Finn sighs. Finn leans his head against the window and stares out at the school as they pull out, watches the football field pass as Burt drives down Titan Road. Kurt's not sure if Finn's about to start crying. He's not sure if he should try to stop it.
But Finn doesn't cry. As Burt turns off Titan Road, Finn blinks his eyes and straightens his head, like he's trying to awaken from a trance. He turns to Kurt.
"How'd clearing out your locker go?" Finn says.
It's an odd question, but Kurt figures that Finn's not in a space for anything but small talk right now. "Well, I already did most of it yesterday. I just had to grab a couple pictures and my yearbook." Kurt doesn't mention the part about scrubbing it down with a Magic Eraser, because Finn would stare at him like he's a three-headed alien speaking in French.
"Hey," Finn says. There's a look on his face of a slow light dawning. "You never signed my yearbook."
Kurt shrugs. "You're my brother. It's not like you need a keepsake of me. I'm pretty sure you're never going to get rid of me even if you try."
Finn looks offended, but only slightly. "I wouldn't try," he says. He reaches under his seat and pulls his yearbook from his backpack. He hands it to Kurt. "I want you to sign it."
"Now?" Kurt says. "While the car is moving?"
Finn shrugs. "You can wait until later if you need to, dude."
Kurt nods. He doesn't really need the extra time, not like he did with Rachel, but he doesn't want his handwriting to go all jagged every time the car stops, so he slips the yearbook into his satchel to sign after dinner. He takes his own out and hands it to Finn. "Will you sign mine, too?"
"Hell, yeah. I already know what I'm going to say." The smile on Finn's face is broad and goofy like a four-year-old's. It's the same smile that made Kurt fall in love with Finn against all hope and all logic three years ago. It no longer sends Kurt dizzy the way it used to, but it still makes him feel overwhelming amounts of affection. It's just a different kind of affection, now.
Finn leans down to grab a pen from his bag and opens the yearbook to the back page.
Kurt's stomach goes cold. He'd forgotten about that.
Kurt knows the exact moment that Finn spots Rachel's gold star, because his eyes light up and his smile goes even bigger than it was before. "Oh, I'll sign right next to Rachel's," Finn says with all the excitement that he should have had over graduating.
Kurt wants to reach over and slam the book shut, or flip open to their senior pictures and force Finn to sign there, but it's too late. Finn's eyes have started moving over Rachel's dedication, laboring over the intricate calligraphy. Kurt watches the smile slowly drop off Finn's face as he moves down the paragraph, and he knows the instant that Finn hits the word "soulmate." He gets that lost-boy look on his face, befuddled and bewildered and a little betrayed - the other look that made Kurt fall in love with him all that time ago.
Kurt wants to say, I'm sorry. He wants to reach across the space between their seats and take Finn's hand and say, For what it's worth, it bewilders me, too. But he doesn't.
Finn closes the book and bends over to put it in his backpack. "It's too bumpy right now," he says. "I'll sign it later."
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Later, in his room, Kurt searches Finn's yearbook to see what Rachel wrote in there. He knows it's none of his business, and that knowing probably won't make any of this better, and might make it worse. But he does it, anyway.
He finds her dedication to Finn next to her senior picture. It's sweet, and heartfelt, and a little odd. She talks about loving Finn, and being glad that he's found his calling in New York (apparently she wrote it before the rejection letters), and how being prom queen and marrying the quarterback are dreams come true.
She doesn't say anything about Finn himself, though - his voice or his generosity or his sweet, vulnerable smile. She doesn't talk about how, when he puts his heart into his singing, the hard shell of life cracks open and it becomes a little easier to let things in.
She calls him her fiancé and her future husband, but she doesn't call him her soulmate.
She doesn't even call him her friend.
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Three weeks later, Kurt arrives home from the Lima Bean to find his stepmother in the kitchen, crying over chopped carrots.
"Carole? Are you okay?"
Carole wipes the back of her hand across her eyes. "I will be," she says.
"Is there something I can do?"
She nods and sniffles. "Go talk to Finn. He's in his room. I think he could use some non-parental support right now."
"Should I know what this is about first?"
Carole shakes her head. "I think you should hear it from him." She puts the knife down on the counter and wipes her hands on the dishtowel. Then she lifts the dishtowel to her face and starts blowing her nose into it.
"Carole, that's terrible for your skin. Let me get you some Kleenex."
He runs to the bathroom and grabs a box of tissues off the counter. When he gets back to the kitchen, Carole's filling a glass of water at the sink.
"Thanks, honey," she says as he hands her the box. With her left hand, she blows her nose. With her right, she takes a long gulp of water. "It's just," she says, staring out the window above the sink, "as a parent, you spend all your time trying to prepare your kid to be independent, to be able to make good decisions and live in the world on his own. But when he finally learns how to -" She starts sobbing again. Kurt takes the glass from her and sets it on the counter. He hands her a fresh Kleenex.
Carole takes a deep breath. "Really, Kurt. I'll be okay. I've been waiting for this moment for 18 years. But Finn - I don't think he was expecting it."
Kurt nods and squeezes her forearm. "Okay," he says. "But if you need anything later, let me know."
She smiles at him through her tears.
Upstairs, Kurt knocks on Finn's door. He doesn't expect an answer, and he doesn't get one. The music is blasting so loudly through Finn's earphones that Kurt can hear its tinny rhythm, but he can't quite catch what song it is. Not until Finn starts singing, off-key and his voice breaking, "Consider this, the slip that brought me to my knees, failed. What if all these fantasies come flailing aground? Now I've said too much." [ii]
It's been almost two years since Kurt's heard Finn sing that song. Back then, Finn thought it was actually about religion, and it seemed a strange choice at first to Kurt, since he'd never been convinced that Finn actually had religion in the first place. All the same, Finn seemed heartbroken enough when he sang it in front of the New Directions. Somewhere in the performance, Kurt realized that Finn wasn't mourning the loss of his belief. He was mourning the loss of his desire to believe.
Kurt tests the door handle. It's not locked, so he opens the door a crack and peeks inside. "Finn?" he says gently, but it doesn't get Finn's attention. Finn's sprawled on his bed, his back against the headboard. He's gazing blankly at his feet, nodding his head, trancelike, to the song.
Kurt pushes the door open a little wider and steps through the opening. "Finn." He uses his stage voice this time. It's probably loud enough for Carole to hear downstairs, but it's not a shout.
Finn doesn't look up, but he lifts a hand and waves Kurt in.
Kurt sinks down at the edge of the mattress next to Finn's knees. Finn takes out his earbuds and turns off his player.
"What happened?" Kurt says.
"Is Mom okay?" Finn's still not looking at Kurt. He doesn't seem to be avoiding it - he just doesn't seem able to have the energy to try. His eyes are unfocused. Kurt wonders if Finn can actually see anything that's in front of him.
"She'll be fine," Kurt says. "She's worried about you, I think." He wonders if he should touch Finn, if human contact might take him a little bit out of this shock that he's apparently put himself in. So he does, laying his hand carefully just below Finn's knee.
Finn does look up then. "Kurt -" He starts, but then he stops, open-mouthed and perplexed.
"What's wrong?"
Finn shakes his head. "Nothing's wrong. I've just made the best decision of my life, the only thing I've ever been really sure about - so I should be happy, right?"
Kurt feels a flicker of hope that Finn's called off the wedding, but he squelches it fast. "What did you decide, Finn?"
Finn gets a little of that dazed look back on his face. "I went back to the recruiter today and signed the papers," he says. "I joined the army."
"Oh." Kurt draws his hand away from Finn's knee as quickly as if he'd been burned.
"I know you don't approve, and Mom doesn't approve, and Burt doesn't approve because Mom doesn't approve. But I've been missing McKinley a lot these past few weeks, and it made me realize some things." Finn's looking at Kurt fixedly now, and Kurt understands that he's trying to explain something important, and regardless of how Kurt feels about this, he needs to be here for Finn. So he puts his hand back on Finn's leg, and Finn smiles just the tiniest bit.
"Like what?" Kurt says.
"I miss waking up every morning and knowing where I have to be, and what I have to do every minute of the day until I came back home. I miss being part of a team. I miss worrying about my teammates, and being a leader, and helping my team win."
Kurt nods.
"And you don't have those things in college. I mean, maybe I'd be on a team, but the classes aren't every day and you make your own schedule and you have to decide what classes you're even going to take, and I don't know what I would take, Kurt. I don't know what I like other than singing and playing Call of Duty and watching violent movies."
"You know the army's not like Call of Duty, right, Finn? If you get killed, you actually -" Kurt swallows. He can't finish his sentence.
"I know." Finn crosses his arms across his chest. "But I could also get killed driving on I-75."
"Don't remind me."
"And I believe in what our country does overseas, Kurt. I know you don't, and maybe some of the details aren't right, but I think we should be willing to put ourselves out there for people in other countries who need us."
Kurt's not about to enter into a discussion about whether all those people actually want us. He's willing to concede that in some cases, they do, and that's enough for him to bite his tongue in the moment. Instead, he asks, "Is this still about your dad?"
Finn uncrosses his arms, folding his hands together in his lap. "No. The thing about my dad scares me, actually. A lot. That's why I tried to do all those other things instead. Junior college and acting and running a garage or a pool cleaning business are all a lot safer." He shakes his head. "But every time I think of the army, it fits. I want to be part of a team and know I'm working for something bigger than myself. And I really like structure. School's only been out three weeks and I already feel like I'm going crazy. I have to call Rachel every morning so she can tell me what to do with my day."
Kurt pauses, chews on his bottom lip. "So what does Rachel think of all of this? Is that what's upsetting you?"
Finn looks down at his hands, something of a pout on his lips. He reminds Kurt of a scolded child. "I haven't talked to her about it."
"Finn," Kurt says, trying to fight the stern edge that creeps into his voice when he's perplexed, and let it melt into sympathy instead. "You're scheduled to marry her in less than two weeks."
"I know." Finn's face is earnest. "But I knew I had to do this. It's like Rachel going to New York. That's something she has to do no matter what, right? And this is something I have to do, no matter what. If we're really meant to be together, we'll work it out."
"I think married people are supposed to talk about these kinds of things."
Finn looks sheepish. "Have you been talking to Blaine about it?"
"About what?"
"About what you're going to do in the fall? Now that you're not going to NYADA."
Kurt nods. "Yeah, I have."
Finn turns away from Kurt to look out the window. Kurt follows Finn's gaze. There's a giant magnolia out there, and although it's dropped most of its flowers by now, there are still a few of them hanging on the branches closest to Finn's window, open like upside-down pink umbrellas in the sun.
"Is he your soulmate?" Finn says.
Kurt's silent. His stomach lurches the same way it does every time Kurt opens his yearbook to Rachel's dedication. He's been doing it a lot, hoping that one of these times he'll finally be able to puzzle out a meaning that is simple and unambiguous; one that leaves room for multiple soulmates and won't end in tears for anyone.
Kurt's eye catches on a magnolia flower that's lost one of its large petals. Its remaining petals are starting to wilt, the edges turning brown.
He turns back to Finn. "I don't really believe in soulmates, Finn. I think, to believe in them, I'd have to believe in souls and destiny and that we exist before we're born and after we die. And you know I don't believe any of that."
"Yeah, but -" Finn shakes his head. "What if a soulmate is just a person who fits? Who makes you feel like you're not alone, and you don't feel so lost when you're around them? And sometimes, when you don't know what to say, they understand you anyway? And they know what you need before you do?"
"I don't know," Kurt says honestly. "I mean, the first part - yes. But the second - he understands me better than anyone else, and we're good for each other, but we've still had our share of misunderstandings, and we don't always know what the other one needs. He's my best friend, but it's not perfect."
Finn tilts his head. "But is it close enough?"
"Yeah," Kurt says without hesitation. He feels a little like the wind has been knocked out of him, because it still catches him by surprise sometimes - that this is his life, that Blaine is a part of it, and that that tiny fact makes everything so much easier. "It's definitely close enough. He's like -" Kurt can think of only one phrase to describe it; it's a little embarrassing. "Okay, Finn, you have to promise not to laugh at the song reference."
Finn looks at him sincerely. "I promise."
"It's like, when I met him, I discovered that my life was a puzzle and he was the missing piece. Or maybe I was the puzzle piece that had been lost, and then I found him, and I knew that he was the place I needed to be. Either way."
Finn's mouth drops open in what is either contemplation or confusion. Even Kurt hasn't learned to always know the difference when it comes to Finn. "I don't think I know that song," Finn says. "It sounds kind of deep."
Kurt laughs. "I think you'd know that song if I played it for you, and it's not, really." [iii]
"But thinking of you as a puzzle works for me. You're kind of mysterious."
"I don't try to be."
Finn reaches over to his nightstand. He grabs the framed picture of himself and Rachel slow-dancing with their crowns on at this year's prom and holds it against his knees. He gazes at it for a long time.
Kurt sits and waits. He knows Finn's not done yet. There's still too much to be said, and a lot that will never be said. Kurt will never tell Finn that he knows he should be happy for his brother and for Rachel whenever he's reminded of this prom night; but instead, their victory is like the end of a lit cigarette pressing against his heart.
So much of Finn and Rachel's relationship is like that. It's too easy. It follows the storybook: boy meets girl, boy misunderstands girl, boy woos girl, boy and girl fight, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl become co-captains of the Glee Club, get all the solos and duets, get engaged, win prom king and queen and dance together triumphantly (not a bittersweet triumph over humiliation and adversity; but a clean, simple triumph that's earned by meeting people's expectations). Boy and girl get married. Legally. In Ohio.
Of course, it's not that simple. Kurt knows this. It only looks simple if you don't know the two main characters; if you haven't seen the way they talk past each other and pick at each other's wounds, the way they use each other's weaknesses (unintentionally, Kurt hopes) to their own advantage.
Kurt would laugh at it cynically, except - he loves them, and they're in love. As often as he's wished over the past two-plus years that they would just break up for good already, he's never doubted that. They are truly, hopelessly in love.
It makes everything worse.
Finn is still gazing at the photo. He's blinking so hard now that his eyes never fully open - they're just narrow slits on his face, oscillating in time with the tense movement of his jaw.
Kurt's seen this look more times than he'd like, whenever Finn's about to crumble.
"Finn." Kurt scoots up on the bed and puts his hand on Finn's shoulder.
Finn takes a deep breath. He swallows the impending tears back. He inhales again and shakes his head. He doesn't look up at Kurt. His words, when he finally speaks them, are barely audible:
"I don’t think I'm Rachel's missing piece."
Kurt doesn't have the strength, or the conviction, to argue. Finn isn't her missing piece, and neither is Kurt. Her missing piece isn't a person at all. She hasn't been searching her whole life for someone to understand her; she's been searching for fame.
So, instead, Kurt asks, "Is she yours, Finn?"
"I thought so. I mean, ever since we lost Nationals last year. She makes me brave, you know? I should have felt bad about losing, but all I cared about was having her back." Finn's mouth twists into an approximation of a smile. "And she told me that she didn't mind losing Nationals, either. So I let myself believe that maybe I was as important to her as being Barbra Streisand, you know? But lately, I keep remembering the other part of what she said."
"What's that?"
"She didn't mind losing Nationals because she'd have another chance at it and would win."
"Is that a problem?"
Finn looks up at Kurt. "I don't know. For me, it would have been worth it whether we had another shot at Nationals or not. Kurt, I never cared about winning Nationals for me. It only meant something to me because it meant something to the team. But for Rachel, winning is -" Finn's face contorts, and Kurt can see that Finn is fighting it. "She can tell me it's not, but in the end, I think winning, and fame, and Broadway -it's more important than anything else. She needs it. More than she needs -" Finn presses his eyes closed. "I've always known it, but I just keep hoping one day I'll wake up and it won't be true."
Finn holds his fists against his eyes to staunch the flow, but it's hopeless. The tears make their way out.
"Oh, Finn, honey." Kurt pulls his brother's face to his shoulder, lets him sob and gasp against it, doesn't let himself think too much about whether tears and snot and saliva will ruin a dry-clean-only shirt. Even he knows there are more important things than that.
He rocks Finn through the waves and eddies. It's all he can do. He wants to whisper things like "It'll be okay" and "You guys will work it out" and "You love each other; that's enough." But he can't, because he doesn't know if any of it is true.
He doubts, strongly, that it is.
-------
Kurt's not completely surprised when, at 3 a.m. the morning of the wedding, he wakes up to Finn's voice.
"Kurt, I need to talk to you."
"If you're looking for sex advice, I think you're supposed to go to your best man." Kurt rolls over and turns on his bedside lamp. "Not that I'm sure Mr. Schue would be of much help, but -"
"Kurt." Kurt realizes that Finn's voice isn't quite right. It's raspy and weak, but not in his normal, just-woken-up way. Kurt's eyes move up, and he registers that Finn is still wearing jeans and a polo and not his normal sleepwear of boxers and a t-shirt.
And then his eyes get to Finn's face and it's - heartbreaking. His eyes are red and the skin around them is puffy and pink, and so are his cheeks and nose, and there are tear streaks everywhere.
"Finn, you look -" Kurt scrambles to sit up against his headboard. He pats the space next to him. "Sit down. What happened?"
Finn sinks to the bed. "Nothing happened. It's all the same."
"The same?"
"Every conversation I have with Rachel, she tells me about another college in New York to apply to next year or another major I should think about and I keep trying to tell her I'm not going to New York but I don't, and sometimes it's because she doesn't stop talking but most of the time it's because I just - can't."
"Can't?"
"Because if I tell her about the army, she's going to talk about putting off NYADA even longer until I'm off active duty and I need her to - she just needs to go to New York."
Kurt's barely awake, but he still catches Finn's slip. "She needs to, or you need her to?"
Finn sniffles. "Both."
Kurt raises an eyebrow. He's discovered that the expression acts as a kind of truth serum on his stepbrother. It doesn't fail him now.
"Kurt, she needs to go because it's what she's wanted all her life, and I love that about her - that she knows what she wants and she goes after it with everything she has and she gets it and doesn't let go. And I'm afraid that if she puts of Broadway for me, she won't be Rachel anymore." Finn looks up, his brown eyes watery and searching. "I need her to be Rachel. I need to look up to her and wish I could be as strong as her."
"So what are you going to do?"
Finn nods, opens his mouth, closes it, wipes at a new tear that's started to run down his cheek. "Call off the wedding, I think."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
--------
If Finn had asked Kurt's advice on how to call off the wedding, it wouldn't have happened this way, with every one of the guests knowing about it before Rachel did. But Kurt can understand why Finn did it; it's hard to say no to Rachel. She would have worn Finn down by the time of the wedding and they would have gone through with it, anyway, against everyone's better judgment.
So Kurt doesn't let himself feel guilty as he stands at the train platform with the rest of the New Directions waiting for her to arrive for the train to New York.
When she gets there with Finn, she looks both more devastated and more hopeful than Kurt expected. She hugs him and for some reason it doesn't feel so strange this time. Maybe he's finally getting used to the shape of her body.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I wanted to stay for you, too."
Under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear, Kurt answers back, "Broadway's your missing puzzle piece. Go get her."
---END---
[i] "I Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon. Here's the Finn version.
[ii] "Losing my Religion" by REM. Here's the version Finn Hudson sang two years ago.
[iii] The song is "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. Here's the Blaine Anderson version.
Also here on tumblr. I love comments, but please don't mention any spoilers in them. I stay away from those as much as possible. Thanks!