FIC: A Conspiracy of Love
Media: Fanfiction
Title: A Conspiracy of Love
Rating: PG-13 to very, very light R. Higher-rated than the show only due to some swearing.
Spoilers: Up to and including AVGC.
Warnings: passing mentions of mental illness and suicide (wow, Merry Christmas, y'all), emphatic swearing, passing mentions of sex, extremely sappy referencing of Christmas movies, blatant character theft from major Hollywood blockbuster, run-on sentences, and also, this is the first fic I have ever completed and posted, in any fandom, so be warned of that too.
Word Count: ~8500
Summary: Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -- Hamilton Wright Mabi. 'Tis the season in Lima, Ohio, and gifts are given and recieved. Finn, Rachel, Kurt, Puck, Santana, Brittany, Blaine. Plus a few guests.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't own. I barely even own some parts of the plot. Please don't sue.
Author's note: is at the end.
Dedication: To weyrdchic, one of my newest friends, and to andnightsgrow, one of my oldest. Both of whom understand me perfectly. And to you, kurt_blaine, my new internet home. Merry Christmas.
Also, nielrian has done me a great honor and made a mind-blowingly amazing podfic of this: You can find it here.
Finn remembers going to the movies with his mom and his aunt one crisp November night when he was ten. It was right after they moved to Lima, and his aunt visited to see how they were settling in. His mom wasn't all that keen on him seeing their grown-up Christmas movie, but a child's ticket was cheaper than three hours with a sitter, so he sat between his mom and Aunt Gina, who told him to close his eyes at the naughty parts, and ate his Goobers. The movie was from England and Finn didn't understand a lot of the words and jokes, and there wasn't even one explosion, but he started paying serious attention to the kid who'd fallen in love with a girl at school. Finn wasn't sure about how he felt about any girls yet, but he liked that the grown-ups in the movie took the kid, Sam, seriously. Like his problems weren't stupid. Yeah, Finn really liked that. He spent most of the film wondering what Sam's crush looked like - probably really pretty, with blonde hair, like that Quinn girl who was in his class at his new school. He might have noticed her a little bit.
Sam was his age, and Sam was so cool. He totally learned to play the drums like a rockstar and when he finally played at the concert and Finn saw the girl that Sam was in love with, heard her sing to him, his heart hurt so much, in a good way. She looked nothing like Quinn Fabray. She was the most perfect thing Finn has ever seen.
For his next birthday, somehow, his mom procured drums.
But it was six years before Finn felt that same sensation: someone singing, his heart soaring and bursting. He'd almost forgotten why he started playing the drums - now he just kind of liked the noise. But he tried to bury the thumping, joyous ache and focus on what was important - Quinn, football, staying popular even though he always felt like a total dork inside.
Still, that Christmas, he found his mom's DVD and watched it, understanding most of the jokes this time, idly wondering if hot English girls would like his accent the way the American ones seemed to like Colin's, but mostly, mostly needing to see the girl.
It was still special, but she had nothing - nothing - on Rachel Berry.
Another year later - after the most weird and stupid and awful and amazing time of Finn's life - he has her. He has her despite everything, despite babies and slushies and bad dancing and jealousy and complete insanity. And that feeling, the painful, wonderful feeling Finn knows is love - he feels that every time he gets to watch her sing. Lots of other times in between too. But the best is when they sing to each other.
Even though Rachel's Jewish, Finn thinks she had probably seen this movie - at the wedding, he hears the girls giggle and plan a sleep-over for afterwards and his ears prick up when Tina demands they add this one to the list.
But that doesn't stop him picking up a sale copy of Love, Actually at the mall when he heads over to pick up his mom and Kurt on Black Friday. It isn't going to be his main 'seasonal gift' - as she calls them - to her, but he wraps it painstakingly and attaches a small label:
You are my Joanna.
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When Rachel thinks about the complete car-crash that was her attempt to regain a mother figure, she knows in retrospect that even if Shelby had been lovely, or kind, or willing, or even consistent, it never could have satisfied her, because Rachel was looking for her own copy of an irreplaceable woman.
Mallorie Hummel had been one of God's true gifts, and one of the few people in Lima that her dads could stand. Rachel had not mixed with many others outside of school as a child, but until she was seven, she'd had Kurt, and she'd had Mal.
Since before Rachel can remember, Kurt and Mal had been staples at their Seder table. In return, Kurt and Mal would bring Rachel colored eggs at Easter, and take her caroling at Christmas. But Hanukkah was always the best - after the lighting of the Menorah, Mal would open up Rachel’s grandmother’s old piano and Kurt and Rachel would dress up and sing together for hours - Disney Princess songs, showtunes they didn’t fully understand, and pop songs they certainly didn’t.
In her childhood, Rachel readily accepted the explanation for Kurt’s presence in her family life - that all their parents wanted Kurt and Rachel to grow up knowledgeable and informed of different cultures. It's a few years down the track when Rachel realizes that, while she's sure the religious diversity aspect was indeed true, Mallorie Hummel had another reason to want her son to experience the relative normality of Rachel’s family life. It was a master stroke, and Rachel regrets not being able to commend the woman for it. Because of course Mal knew her son, and feared what he might encounter, and she went out of her way to combat that - to show Kurt that anything he wanted was okay and normal before he ever had the chance to feel the inevitable sense of otherness from ignorant little children and their small-minded parents. Rachel admires beyond words the woman's determination to let her son learn that acceptance should be normal and to seek him out environments in which to flourish.
Looking at Kurt now, and his sheer determination to be himself and not make any excuses for it, she knows Mal succeeded, mostly. She wonders if Kurt himself has ever realized what his mother did for him since before he can remember.
Regardless of any ulterior motives on behalf of their parents, Rachel had loved playing with Kurt. She didn’t like playing at school - other kids called her bossy and didn’t like to be a part of her performances. But Kurt knew she had good ideas, and he bossed her right back with his own plans, which she always enjoyed just as much as her own. She used to imagine how they would be best friends forever and become famous on Broadway playing all the greatest roles against each other.
Her dads ask about him all the time.
“How’s Kurt?” they say, "What's he up to? How is he handling things?" and she feels too guilty to tell them the truth. They know that Rachel and Kurt are not as close as they once were. They know Rachel is not close to anyone. But they see Kurt around town, and she mentions his name from time to time, and they always ask. She can never bring herself to tell them the truth about Kurt. She shares his triumphs, his wins. But the whole truth, that she can not share. Not the diva-off, which she knows, in her heart, he let her win, and which she can never find the way to apologize for, even though she knows she didn’t do anything wrong. Not the awful makeover betrayal, which had hurt her more than she will ever let on, but which she instantly forgave because she understands how loving Finn Hudson can make someone go crazy, go cruel. But especially not the torment from their fellow students, which has happened to them all but is somehow becoming, for Kurt, much more sinister.
She knows she should tell them. She knows they could do something about it, knows how they'd feel to find out they'd been sitting by obliviously. But she does not know exactly what is happening, she only suspects, and she does not think Kurt will appreciate her prying. Instead she tries to be a friend to him, despite his confusion and rebuttal, and she takes it upon herself to use the resources given to her to protect him. Even though she is proud of all the men in Glee Club for supporting her aim, it still fails. Kurt leaves. Leaves the school, leaves New Directions, leaves her, and he doesn’t even know that it matters to her. She is jealous of Mercedes, of Tina, of Finn - they are allowed to express their dismay, shed tears. She is not. That is not her role in his life.
She misses him, like the feeling she gets when she leaves her necklace on her vanity by accident after a shower and her throat feels naked and wrong all day, her hand reaching up to check for it at sporadic intervals.
After Mal dies, the play-dates stop. The festive gatherings stop. Burt Hummel and his small, clear-eyed son retreat together, into a busy garage, a dimly-lit house, and a co-dependent relationship locking everyone else out. They do not celebrate anything. They do not commemorate anything. They just go on surviving, together, alone.
After Mal dies, Rachel reacts badly. She knows about death, but this time, she doesn’t understand what has happened or why. Mal wasn’t old, she didn’t seem sick. Her fathers hold her as she cries, and all they can tell her is that something bad happened to Mal, that she was sick, and it made her die. It’s five years later when Rachel finds out the truth, overhears the wrong end of a gossiper’s sentence at the drugstore and asks her one of her dads. At twelve, she finds out about the medication and the darkness, and her parents cry with her and try to make her understand what could lead someone to that windowsill in that high-rise hotel. They talk about how Mal was so strong for everyone else in her life, and that she had nothing left to be strong for herself with. It is their first full conversation about mental health and Rachel is already an anxious and neurotic pre-teen. Her dads impress on her heavily that sometimes sadness or fear can be more than fleeting, more than incidental, more than a natural reaction, and if she ever feels anything that scares her, she should tell them so they can make sure she’s okay. Four weeks later, she is attending bi-weekly therapy and she is genuinely not sure where she would be right now if she’d never found out about Mal, if she’d never had that conversation.
She makes a conscious decision to be strong only for herself. She falters at this - she falls in love too hard, and sometimes she shifts her whole energy reserve onto the object of her desire. But whether she's spending her strength on herself or on a man, she uses up her entire self on one fixed point, and she thinks maybe that's good enough. But she watches others and sees how they spread themselves around - sharing their strength with so many people, and she does not understand how they cope, being stretched so thin, giving so many people the opportunity to hurt them.
Kurt and Rachel grow up apart, yet by the time they come together again in New Directions, they have grown up so similarly that they do not know how to gel together - they both developed hard shells which clang and crash against one another. Rachel knows this isn’t right, they should both be sharing the same shell. Sometimes, she tries to boss him, like she used to, anticipating him bossing her back - the only person with ideas better than her own, the only person with her vision. Instead, she gets looks of disdain and she resents him for not wanting to take this journey with her, for rejecting her, for not seeing through her.
And then, somehow, when everything else in her life is falling to pieces, slowly, he comes back to her, and the days become a little more bearable. They do not talk about the distant past. They do not talk about the time Rachel put sugar in the latkes or fighting over Jasmine’s part in A Whole New World. They do not talk about Mal. But they talk about now - and they talk more than they have in the past ten years, since they were children together. Rachel drinks in every text, every Skype conversation, cherishing them and wishing that she had known the way to have this, to do this, to be this, in her early adolescence. They’d both been so alone the whole time.
When she sees him at Sectionals, she lets loose on him in a way that she hasn’t let loose on anyone in years. She can hear her own voice change and every single façade she’s ever put up falls away. She’s just herself, crazy, babbling Rachel, whom she works so hard to hide, whom only her dads have seen for a very long time. She doesn’t think about a single word she says - just says them, and she is rewarded with a hug and a few chips in his shell, little holes where she can poke a finger through and tickle the soft bits underneath.
She watches him perform, and has never seen him look so insecure and so happy. She wonders about the other boy - the matinee idol frontman, the most genuine performer she’s ever seen, who’s everything Jesse could never be. She wonders if he’s really let Kurt blow his mind - she very much hopes so.
When they tie with Dalton, she’s happy. She realizes that she couldn't be happier with the result, and it’s another step on the re-examination of self she’s been having this past year. She knows - she's known for a while, but now it's undeniable - she has strength to share now.
The weekend after Sectionals, she drives herself over to Kurt’s house, hoping that he is home and that Finn is not. She is in luck and catches him just as he’s starting the Navigator, and he winds down the window.
“Well hello. What brings you here, Rachel Berry?” he asks mildly, but with no venom, and she wonders if Finn has told him anything about what has happened between them.
“I came to give you this,” she says, and proffers a black velvet drawstring bag and an envelope.
Kurt looks at the gift with doubt and mild trepidation. Her mind flashes back to her seasonal gifts for the Glee Club last year, their first Christmas together - gold star lapel pins. She had handed them out and addressed the group: "There might only be room for one star in New Directions. But I have the utmost confidence that, as we progress and eventually part, without me in the picture sadly necessitating everyone else to take a back-up role, you will step forward and become the starring diva of your own life."
Rachel legitimately doesn't know why she said any of that. Sometimes, things like that just come out - they still do occasionally now, and she doesn't know if she even means them anymore. She wants so much, now, to share, to be close to people the way the rest of her fellow glee clubbers are all knitted into each other - not just to a single fixed point. She says things like that to keep on the defensive, to keep confident, to keep herself driven, like if she enforces these ideas, she is protected from those who would try and make her think badly of herself. But more and more she wishes she could feel safe in vulnerability, the way the rest of them do - depending on each other and reaching out. She wants it so much, has always wanted it, but now, she thinks it might be becoming more important to her than even her talent being respected, and that’s why she’s here now.
The nerves she’s been fighting off since she set the last stitches that morning finally overwhelm her and she realizes that she doesn’t know what she will do if he says no to what she's here to offer. Somehow, it suddenly seems like her entire future as a functioning member of the human race depends on repairing her relationship with this fragile, iron-clad boy.
Kurt loosens the drawstrings on the bag and tips out the contents - two satin yarmulkes; one navy blue, one white with Rachel's hand-embroidered gold stars around the border. He runs his fingers over the stitching, tilting his head, his face unreadable - Mal had taught them both to stitch right before she died. Rachel looks away as he opens the envelope, his eyes fixed on her as he reads aloud.
"The Berry Family cordially invite Kurt Hummel plus Guest to celebrate the Festival of Lights. 9 December 2010, R.S.V.P Rachel Berry. Please bring sheet music."
He’s giving her a look not all that dissimilar to when she'd described picturing her own funeral, and she quickly starts to babble. "I know you’re not... I know it’s a religious holiday and you probably don’t approve because I know you don’t believe, but Finn said your family was still following Christmas traditions so I thought you might still be okay with the Jewish traditions too, especially since Hanukkah is more of a historical commemoration really..."
"Rachel." he interrupts her softly. "Rachel, I’ll come."
"Oh." She feels her face break into the kind of goofy, bucktoothed smile that she claims she’d never be caught dead doing in front of a camera, that she secretly wishes someone would love enough to want to capture.
Kurt still looks a little hesitant. "When you say 'guest' does that mean..." he trails off, but she catches the look on his face and wickedly desires to investigate it.
"Well," she says, fixing him with a square look "you’re welcome to invite your father, but I did wonder if you might like to bring a date." Kurt blanches, and she hurriedly goes on. "Or just a new friend, from the Warblers? I'd love an opportunity to gauge the competition in a behind-the-scene environment." She smiles, hoping she implies that it’s a joke, that she’s past caring about that. "So if you wanted to bring..."
"Blaine." Kurt’s voice populates the space that Rachel leaves hanging, and the tone is so nervous and so fond that Rachel is a little taken aback.
"Blaine, yes," she goes on "he would be most welcome. I mean, we know navy looks good on him..."
"It really does, doesn’t it." And this time he’s so smug and cheeky that it warms Rachel’s heart. Kurt deserves this.
"Rachel," he says again, "thank you." He reaches a hand out through the window of the Navigator and she clutches it with both of hers, pressing it to her cheek, like Mal used to do to them both.
"And Rachel?"
"Yes?"
"I'm doing the Jasmine part. Don't argue."
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Puck knows he really needs to stop fucking Santana if he ever wants her to remember that he actually cares about her. And he totally does - not like a sister, because, dude, but like… like a friend. Cards on the table, she’s kind of his best friend. Again.
Puck has held a deadly respect for Santana since their second week of kindergarten when she stabbed him in the arm with a paintbrush. He’d tried to casually take a cookie that he totally thought she wasn’t gonna eat, because she’d had, like, eight, and she was a tiny little girl. But she soon proved that she could out-eat, out-glare, out-scream, and out-run him. She was also a hell of a biter. They were inseparable.
They would play at her house, annoying her two older brothers and avoiding the screaming newborn twins. Everything at Santana’s house was loud and bright, full of food and yelling and love. They always liked to play-fight, especially with swords, but when they were seven Santana’s oldest brother taught them to fight properly - when he was left to look after them by Santana’s mom. "Don’t tell Momma," Manuel told them "but I want my sister to be able to look after herself, and if she can’t, you’ll have to do it, Noah." Puck nodded solemnly - he worshiped Manuel, and, when, five years later, he’d got into his first real fight, he lost, but he broke the other guy’s nose with a trick Manuel had taught him.
A couple of years after Puck’s sister was born, Santana started asking more and more if she could come to Puck’s house to play. After a while, he realized why - she had her own baby brothers, but she really wanted a sister. Puck was more than willing to let Santana share his - the more Santana played Barbies with her, the less he had to do it. At first, he watched them and thought it was kinda stupid, but he ended up getting bored by himself and joined in. It was just like action figures anyway, and he soon got sucked into the stories Santana made up - she made them fun. When he was older, he realized just how little his sister was contributing to their play - she was probably too young to understand anything except grabbing at the toys.
It’s during one of these games in the summer before fourth grade that Brittany wanders into the Puckerman backyard and into their lives. With her blonde hair tied into very uneven pigtails, she just sits down and picks up an unused doll, making it say "meow! Mew mew miooow!"
Puck and Santana just look at each other and shrug. Brittany - who has just moved in two doors down from Puck - brings her own creatively barbered Barbies over the next afternoon, and nearly every afternoon after that. Sometimes, they all go back to Santana’s house and try to teach Brittany fighting games, but Britt never seems to quite get it. "We’ll just have to look after her too, I guess." Santana tells him, though what trouble this completely innocent and clueless girl could get into, Puck has no idea.
Despite all the talk, Puck has never had sex with Brittany. He never would. Sometimes he watches her and Santana get it on, and yeah, it’s hot, but if he really thinks about it, he knows he’s only there so Santana can do what she wants and not feel scared by it. He and Santana fuck when they’re alone - sometimes. Sometimes they talk. He knows that she slept with Finn, but he doesn’t tell anyone - not even Finn - because he’s done with hurting people pointlessly. He gathers from her story that neither of them gave a damn about it, and the only person it will damage is Berry. And Puck has no desire to hurt Berry - not like that, anyway. Puck has slept with enough people to know that sex can just be sex, and that sleeping with Santana in the past doesn’t affect how totally stupid Finn is about Berry, but he knows that Berry will not take it like that, so he says nothing.
There’s one person they don’t talk about. Ever. But he knows how Santana feels about the glee club, and singing, and how hurt she is when people - like Berry and Hummel - think that she doesn’t care as much as they do. So start acting like you give a shit, he wants to tell her, but realizes she’d tell him to take his own advice, so they keep each others’ secrets, of how much they really love those moments on stage and even the protectiveness they feel towards some of the more loser-ific members of their little group.
He knows she’s cheating on her Cheerios diet and always has been. He knows that she’s terrified that Brittany doesn’t - that Brittany doesn’t even understand why it’s wrong, just follows instructions without question. Sometimes she collects the diet sheets from Coach Sylvester and edits them before giving Brittany her copy.
Puck watches Santana - watches her watch other people. He knows she’s not who people think she is. Yeah, she’s turned two-thirds dude in attitude, but he remembers the first time she picked up his sister’s doll and announced they were going on a cruise ship. He remembers the first time she let Brittany curl her hair, and the first time she wore a dress she picked out herself (his mom's birthday dinner, they were eleven) He remembers seeing her cry when her mom wouldn’t buy her her very own Barbie, announcing that nine was too old to start playing with dolls.
He sees her watching Finn and Rachel, Mike and Tina and -- the others - with sadness, which she turns to a scowl whenever she remembers to. He knows the reason she sleeps around - the power makes her feel safe. He knows it isn’t those dudes - Finn or Mike or Sam - that she wants, but just the chance to be in that place, be a normal girlfriend, someone who feels safe without needing to be cynical and controlling. Puck’s not sure when that started happening - somewhere along the way they lost track, sometime after he meets Finn in middle school and Puck feels the desperate, twelve year old need to be cool. Finn played the drums, so Puck started learning the guitar and took on his nickname. Santana joins the junior cheerleaders, and Puck makes more guy friends. He guesses it was around then when hormones and conditioning made them start seeing all people of the opposite gender as objects - and, whether it was for show or for real, they started doing it to each other. She was always angry at the world, except for those quiet moments they’d shared, but the anger goes up several notches once the boys she knows start developing the interests of men.
The first time they hook up, tipsily at an 8th grade party, it’s soft and she calls him Noah, and the feeling of relief he gets nearly swamps him. Sometimes they say they’re dating, but they both know it’s only for show. It’s an easy way to explain their relationship, one that people don’t judge or question too much. Both of them know that it isn’t real dating, and he is always relieved that she never tries to make it legitimate. Sometimes they joke around - put on an act of swooning over each other, but they both know they’re laughing at each other behind their eyes. He cares about her, loves her even, but not that kind of love, and he knows they’re both looking elsewhere for that. They both prefer blondes.
He knows how she feels about Brittany, how she has always felt about Brittany. She never says so, but he knows. He’s not stupid, and knew that her childhood possessiveness would come to mean something more. What she does say is how she’s frustrated about Britt’s trusting nature, about how men disgust her. She takes it upon herself to sleep with every new guy to come along before Brittany does. She’s always eager to be the first and affirm which ones are total freaks - Puck reads between the lines and knows what she’s doing is checking that the guys are not dangerous before they get to Britt. Both of them know that if anything happened to Brittany, Puck would be on the guy within thirty seconds of finding out, but both of them know Britt herself could do absolutely nothing to prevent such a situation arising. He knows Santana feels guilty and responsible for Brittany’s behavior and reputation. He remembers overhearing Santana and Brittany having a conversation - a mild argument - before they started sixth grade, where Santana was trying to explain that they couldn’t hold hands at school, they both needed to get boyfriends and hold hands with them, maybe even kiss them. And Brittany, always keen to oblige Santana, went at it with gusto from there on in.
Puck wonders how much Santana regrets this now - he has noticed her outward affection towards Britt increase in the last couple of years and wonders how long it will take for her to want more, whether Brittany will ever understand or be capable of reciprocating the intensity with which he knows Santana is waiting, just waiting, to throw herself at someone with.
He knows that she keeps falling back into the hole that she’s dug for herself every time she tries to climb out of it. And the more she feels, the more she tries, the angrier she gets at herself and the worse she outwardly acts. He knows because he is exactly the same. As soon as he’s home from juvey - he refuses to think about the moment of insanity that lead him there, the idea of money and the ability to get out of here and feel that tiny hand resting on his thumb, no - she’s on the phone, asking to come over. His mom says she’s been calling for the last three days, checking when he’ll be back. They fuck, and he used to think they did it because they both liked it, or because it comforts her, but now he knows she’s just overcompensating and that’s when he knows it has to stop. He finds out from Artie - vaguely, since it came via Brittany - what had happened between Britt and Santana. Santana does not say a word about Britt and Artie dating, except to call Artie a loser, but he knows she’s secretly saying 'she’s safe with him, at least.' But they both know she won’t date Artie forever.
Puck doesn’t really do Christmas - certainly not at home, and he’s rarely had money before to give gifts to the Christians he knows. But after Mr Schue gets New Directions all caught up in the joy of the season, after they lose Christmas and win it back again, he goes to a mall on the outskirts of town - a place no one from his school would be shopping - and he busks. He wears a Santa hat and sings Bing and Frank. He makes enough money to buy something for everyone in the Glee Club, and wonders if he can get away with leaving them under Mr Schue’s tree anonymously. Then he wonders why he feels the need to hide his generosity, to be embarrassed by having the urge to reach out.
He finds Santana’s present with a minimum of trouble, a huge ring spelling out BITCH in rhinestone-studded metal. It’s actually for three fingers, molded together, and the blingey word would stretch nearly the whole width of a girl’s hand. He’s pretty satisfied with himself and heads into a toy store to get something for Berry - he was planning on the freakiest, most demented stuffed animal he could find. He’s stalking resentfully past a McDonalds service counter play set - no wonder the kids in this town have no hope if this is their idea of a children’s toy - when something stops him in his tracks.
The doll is, apparently, one of Barbie’s Three Musketeers. It’s got dark hair and skin, and is wearing a long princess dress, but the picture on the front of the box shows that its skirt detaches and turns into a cape. And it’s got a sword. A purple, glittery sword. He pulls the Bitch ring and examines it, and it reminds him of nothing more than knuckledusters capable of doing some serious damage with very little effort.
Three Musketeers Barbie costs $60 and Puck doesn’t even care about the look the shopgirl gives him as he pays for it and walks out without a bag.
At the party, he informally tosses his gifts to each member, some who look confused, while Mr Schue looks on approvingly. (He doesn’t look so thrilled when he opens the copy of The Ladykiller Puck has picked up for him.)
Brittany giggles when she opens her gift, and holds up her hand. “I totally get it! I’m Brittany, bitch!”
Santana’s level gaze meets his from across the room and he can tell that she, in fact, actually does get it. After Christmas, he thinks, we’ll teach her how to punch me in the face. He nods at Santana, just a tiny jerk of the chin, encouraging her to open at her as-yet untouched gift. She tears the paper off the front of the box, looks at it long enough to register what it is before shoving it in her gym bag, and stares out the window hurriedly, crossing her legs tightly and jiggling her foot at a manic pace. He knows this is Santana-language for trying not to cry. He texts her surreptitiously from across the room: Read the card and she rolls her eyes but obliges.
No one says you can’t be her hero and her princess too.
- Noah
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Rachel does not miss the grave smile or the warmth in Blaine’s gaze as he catches Kurt’s eye as the table toasts l’chaim. She wonders whether Kurt has processed it yet. She raises an eyebrow at Kurt as Blaine turns to shake hands with her father, and Kurt just raises one back at her, corner of his mouth twitching. She cannot wait for him to want to spill to her about this, and something tells her she won’t be waiting very long.
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LeBron has thoroughly trounced the Lakers, and Finn’s and Burt’s friends head home. Carole Hummel straightens the den, late Christmas night. Tugging the couch cushions back into place, she finds a brightly wrapped gift - a DVD, shoved deep into the sofa. She’s about to raise her voice, tell her boys there’s one last present, when she notices the paper is slightly ripped. She recognizes the cover through the tear, and flips the label open. Understanding dawns on her and she feels for her son, wishing she could bestow on him the wisdom about love that comes simply by living through it, living out a whole lifetime.
She places Finn’s gift carefully in the bottom drawer of the coffee table.
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"Thanks, bro" Mike calls out to Puck as he hops out onto the curb after an epic Halo tournament at Artie’s after Mr Schue’s party. It’s late Christmas Eve, and Puck’s finally finished playing chauffeur for his friends, but his evening isn’t quite done. For the sixth time that night, he checks on his last gift, in the trunk of his car. He gets back into the driver’s seat and starts heading towards the fancy side of town. He pulls over a few houses away from his destination, and stares up at the mansion for a while - such a huge, dead space for a family of two to share. Then, as fast as he can, he dashes up the few steps and leaves the wreath of holly and white blooms tucked beside a planter on the covered porch. He hopes it won’t freeze over and be ruined by morning.
Puck dreams of her again that night. She wears white roses in her hair.
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Kurt Hummel wakes up on Christmas morning by way of a throw-pillow to the face.
"Dude." Finn intones, standing over his bed, his arm drawn back holding another fluffy projectile. "It’s like, eight AM. I couldn’t hold off any longer."
Kurt considers rolling his eyes, turning his back on Finn, or starting a lecture on how they are not children, thank you very much, but a strange thrill overwhelms him. This is his first Christmas with Finn, with his brother. He yawns, stretches his arms slowly, and blinks kittenishly, then grins, showing all his teeth. He utters the fatal words:
"Race you."
He leaps from his bed and under Finn’s arm, his Cheerio skills giving him the edge on the sheer length of Finn’s stride, and takes the stairs two at a time, Finn hot on his heels. They crash into each other in the doorway of the den, gazing at the perfect tree for a moment before throwing themselves on the ground before it. Their thundering and shrieks bring the parents downstairs, and a half-hour later, Kurt’s discovered a few things. One, that Finn is a careful, finicky present-unwrapper who saves the paper and exclaims over Kurt’s ripping carnage; two, that he’s actually not a bad gift-giver (red leather steering wheel cover for the Navigator and a Sherpa hat in his Dalton house colors which is actually.. kind of perfect and he will absolutely be wearing it to the next soccer game that Blaine is playing in) and three, that he had pretty much forgotten what Christmas was meant to feel like.
After his mom died, he and his dad never did much for the holiday. They’d eat, sometimes see the relatives who insisted on checking up on him. It was tedious. They gave gifts to each other - usually something directly requested, or they picked something out together for the good of the household. It was very informal and Kurt had never minded - it never seemed to matter what they were missing out on, when they were already missing everything that mattered. But now, with Finn and Carole, who brought their own traditions, Christmas was something new and maybe a little bit magical. Finn had a strict rule that no one could ask for specific presents - they had to be picked out by the giver, as he claimed it took the fun out of everything to know what you were going to receive before you opened it. "Trees died so we could have Christmas, you know." he’d said "so the least we can do is not make using wrapping paper completely pointless." And Kurt was now inclined to agree, exclaiming and groaning in turn over gifts both fabulous and ridiculous. When Burt and Carole go back upstairs to dress properly, Kurt is owning Finn’s ass in Black Ops and laughing. They pause their game to make pancakes together, all four of them, and as they sit around the table Kurt looks at his family, this net that he has woven for himself, and genuinely can’t believe what has happened to his life.
It’s not perfect, far from it. He carries fresh wounds and old, and he doesn’t know if any of them will ever heal completely. But he thinks of Finn, dancing with him at their parents' wedding, and though he no longer harbors feelings for Finn - knows now they were just the tip of the iceberg of what he had the potential to feel for a boy - he wonders if Finn has any idea how much it means to him that he got to have such an important 'first' with the first boy he ever loved, how beautifully full-circle it was. He thinks of the safety of Dalton, rigid though it may be, and of watching the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal in the commons amidst a crowd of cheering boys, mostly straight, keeping tally of the votes, slapping him on the back. He thinks of Mercedes and Tina and Brittany and Mike, of Sam’s displays of nobility - of Puck, once his antagonist, offering to be his bodyguard. He thinks of Sue, and her terrifying yet constant championing of every aspect of him, and knows that it isn't just to spite Mr Schuester. He thinks of Rachel, and the edge of the precipice on which he knows they stand together, holding hands, ready to fall into what he knows could be the most brutal and intense friendship he will experience in his life. He thinks of Rachel’s dads slow-dancing as Blaine sings "The Very Thought Of You" at the Berry Hanukkah party. And he thinks of Blaine, and the unopened gift from him waiting downstairs in the basement. They have a Skype date - a Skype appointment tonight, to do their gift opening in real-time, and Kurt is excited and a bit jumpy, that Blaine had suggested taking time out of the day to spend with each other, even if it is via the internet.
Mainly, on the twenty-fifth of December two thousand and ten, for the first time in ten years, Kurt Hummel is just a boy, excited on Christmas morning, with his family.
By about five PM, the magic has worn off a little. He's eaten more than he feels comfortable with, he's been in his Juicy sweats all day, and the house is about to be trashed by the arrival of Puck, Sam, Mike, three employees from the garage, his Uncle Ed, his cousin Bryce, and a couple of people Kurt has never seen before in his life. They're all gabbling and high-fiving about the Lakers-Heat viewing party that the Hummels are hosting due to their 52-inch flat-screen that had been Kurt and Burt's last-year Christmas purchase.
He retreats to the basement. Four hours until he is meant to log on with Blaine. He showers and goes through all his usual routines. He goes through his closet, bookshelf, and DVD collection, re-sorting items and exchanging some things from his suitcase - he likes to mix up what he keeps at Dalton. He packs away all his gifts, adding some to the back-to-Dalton luggage. He sings his way through the entirety of The Fame Monster and then La Cage Aux Folles.
Still an hour and a half to go.
He eyes the large, shallow gift box on his dresser. A deep green ribbon is the only thing keeping him from discovering Blaine's present. He could totally open it, find out, and re-tie the ribbon right now. It will give him time to prepare an appropriate surprised face, to work in just enough joy and appreciation, even if it's something he hates. Goddamn, what if Blaine got him something that he hates? What if it completely taints his opinion of Blaine? Kurt is aware he is a pretty judgmental person. Or worse, what if it's something he loves so much that his over-the-top reactions might creep Blaine out? What if he cries?
No.
He sighs. He can't cheat. He promised. Seriously, Kurt feels he deserves an award or something for this exhibition of patience. He might as well be some sort of monk, or a ninja.
--
"I got you a present, by the way." Blaine says matter-of-factly and smiles at Kurt as they leave the last Warblers practice before break, where they'd completed a particularly lovely version of Lennon's 'War is Over'. Kurt feels a huge sense of relief wash over him, relief that he is not imagining that he and this confusing miracle of a boy are, at least most of the time, on the same page.
"Oh thank god," Kurt responds, "I've shopped for everyone else and I so wanted to get you something, but I didn't know if that would be too forward or weird or anything, or if I'd embarrass you..."
Blaine laughs. "Well, I would have been happy to give mine to you without expecting anything in return, of course, but I am glad you're up for it, we can trade, and open them together, and shriek like little girls."
"What, now?" Kurt asks as they head back to their wing. He hopes the answer is no because he doesn't actually have Blaine's gift yet - he thinks he knows what he wants to get, but hadn't quite made the decision whether he wanted to bestow Blaine with possibly-unrequited tangible evidence of his feelings.
"No, at Christmas, of course," Blaine says incredulously, "You can't open presents before Christmas."
"But we're not spending Christmas together," Kurt reminds Blaine slowly, wondering if Blaine planned to show up outside Kurt's door on Christmas dressed as an elf, with arms full of eggnog and mistletoe, or goddamn, if he'd misjudged again and the object of his affections was tragically thick, or if, in fact, he was missing something here. Really, any of these options held potential.
Blaine looks highly amused. "I know that." Option three. Oh well, it's better than some of the alternatives. "But you know, my birthday falls in semester and so I can't usually see my sister on the exact date." Blaine's sister is a sophomore at Northwestern, Kurt knows, and he has seen pictures of her. She has dark hair, like Blaine, but it's long, with thick curls that Kurt suspects Blaine also possesses, and is a little bit desperate to be allowed to see someday soon. He's not sure what this has to do with Christmas presents, though. Blaine continues.
"So on my birthday, she and I have Skype dates. She sends my presents to the school and I open them with her on Skype. It was her idea, but I thought that we could use it this Christmas. Would that be cool?" It's such a simple and good idea that Kurt is a little bit floored, and immediately agrees. Blaine leaves him at his door with a pleasant shoulder-squeeze, and Kurt makes to open it, but over his shoulder he watches Blaine go, and he almost can't believe his eyes when he sees Blaine do a little two-step and then jump, clicking his heels, right as he turns the corner at the end of the hall.
They exchange gifts, and a quick hug, right before their parents pick them up for the Christmas break. "Don't peek," Blaine commands him sternly as he hands over the gift box. "I know it looks easy to open, but it is an exercise in patience and honor. If you peek, I'll know." Kurt promises, and hands over his own gift - no fears about peeking there, Blaine is the most honorable person he's ever met. Plus, his present is wrapped intricately in four layers of paper. Finn would not be pleased.
--
Restless, but with his stupid honor intact, Kurt opens his computer and starts messing around. He checks Tom and Lorenzo and his heart swells a bit at the story about the couple in New York who started getting unexplained letters to Santa and fulfilling them. He logs onto Facebook to post the video on his wall when Rachel starts chatting to him, so that fills another forty-five minutes. They talk about his mom a little - they've started to, just about good memories, since Hanukkah, since Blaine asked how their tradition had started. It's getting easier and Kurt has found that he likes to recount his memories, even though it hurts a little, too. And Rachel sometimes remembers things that he doesn't, giving him back pieces of his mother that come alive in his mind's eye as soon as she reminds him. He is grateful for that, and tells her so.
At eight-fifteen, he logs on to Skype, just to check. Ten minutes later, Blaine logs on and calls him, and Kurt grins. He accepts the call and immediately gasps in delight - Blaine's wearing a big, green, cable-knit sweater and a Santa hat sat well back on his head - his product-free head full of short, tousled curls. "Hey!" Blaine says. "I know I'm early, but I.."
"Got impatient?" finishes Kurt. "Me too. Oh, my god, your hair, Blaine."
"I know, I know," Blaine groans, "but I was required to wear the hat by my little cousin and believe me, it looked way worse with my normal hair. It looked really creepy."
"No, it's great, seriously, you're lucky. I wish my hair was that versatile." Kurt insists, wanting to say I want to put my hands in it right now, you are the most adorable person in the history of creation. Blaine scrunches up his face in disagreement but Kurt isn't in the mood to argue about it. "So," he says, "I know we should exchange pleasantries and ask about the day, but seriously, presents?"
"Presents." Blaine agrees, picking up his gift from Kurt where it lay on the desk in front of him and waving it in front of the camera. Kurt quickly retrieves the box from the dresser and lays it in his lap. "So how do we do this?" he asks, uncertain. "One at a time, or together, or..."
"Let's go one at a time." Blaine decides, and then grins. "And since this was my idea, I'm going first."
"Not fair." Kurt retorts, but for all that he appreciates everything Blaine chooses to be, he kind of loves this messy, selfish side. Without it, Kurt would be scared Blaine was not a real human boy. "Go on then, Merry Christmas."
Neither of them say anything while Blaine unwraps Kurt's gift, and when Kurt can see that Blaine is through layer four and onto the actual leather box, he gets a bit worried when Blaine stays silent. But then, Blaine smiles quietly and breathes "Oh Kurt, it's perfect."
The brass harmonica is good-quality, Kurt knows - good enough to last Blaine's whole life and become an heirloom. It looks pretty, on the red lining of the case. He'd wanted to get something old-worldly, but a flask didn't seem quite right, jewelry seemed too intimate, and Blaine already had a pocket-watch. Kurt desperately hopes Blaine can actually play the harmonica and doesn't think it's totally lame, and so he's gratified when Blaine lifts the instrument to his lips and plays the intro to 'Mr Bojangles.', looking wonderfully soulful. Kurt wonders if he can get away with screen-capping it.
Blaine stops playing and smiles big at Kurt through the camera. "Thank you, Kurt. It's wonderful," and Kurt realizes it is his turn.
He's waited days and days to see what was inside this gold box, he's put way too much store on how whatever's inside will represent how Blaine feels about him, even though he's gone out of his way not to show his feelings too obviously with his own gift. He fumbles a little with the ribbon, wrestles off the wide flat lid, and bats away the layer of tissue protecting...
Oh.
Kurt extracts the ivory dinner jacket by the shoulders, shaking it out of its folds and holding it up, forgetting for a moment that he's obscuring the screen and Blaine's view. It's vintage, slim-fitting, with a single button, a wide shawl collar, and self-faced lapels. It's traditional, beautiful, a true leading man's attire, and while Kurt adores the look, and visions of these jackets have danced through his fantasies, he was never the one wearing them. He never expected to be someone's leading man. Is that how Blaine sees him?
"Kurt?" Blaine's voice calls him from a million miles away. "Kurt, do you hate it? It's okay if you don't like it, I should have known better than to think of getting you clothes, I don't know fashion like you do... Or if you have one like it already, I can probably exchange it..."
Kurt clutches the jacket to his chest with both hands and stares through the screen.
"You idiot," he says, amazed at Blaine, at his ideas, at his concern, at everything. "I love it. I never even imagined... oh, it's gorgeous."
Blaine grins and leans back in his chair, content. "I'm so glad. I pictured you in it, but I was nervous it might not be your style."
"It is now," says Kurt decisively. "I'll have to find a lot of excuses to wear it, though."
"Well," Blaine says, "We do have several formals at Dalton this semester. I have a feeling you'll be attending all of those. We even do Prom, you know." Blaine's smile is level, but even through the computer screen, his eyes shine with more wicked promise than someone in knitwear and a Santa hat should be legally allowed to display. "Ah. So the Warblers will be performing?" Kurt asks, lightly.
"Nope. Probably not." Blaine replies affably. "Now," he asks, "What are you doing for New Year's Eve? Because I know a party where that jacket definitely wouldn't be out of place, if you want to take it out for a spin."
--------------------------------------------
A.N. Hello. I started writing this just after Furt - the Finn/Rachel and Puck&Santana bits were completed well before AVGC came out. I was very gratified that Santana asked Santa for bling, as I'd already written Puck selecting it for her, even if she didn't end up with it. I knew I wanted to wait until after AVGC and tweak it to fit canon and luckily not much had to be changed, in fact some of AVGC was a little too perfect, I was thrilled it didn't Joss my plans.
A lot of this, especially the stuff about Santana and Rachel, is just my head-canon. This is my excuse to get it all down in writing. Thank you for putting up with it. But, for some reason, this story really started with me, for some reason, working out that Finn would have been around the same age as the kid in Love Actually when the movie came out at the cinemas. Don't ask me why I was thinking about this. Not a clue.
For anyone who hasn’t seen Love Actually, go RIGHT NOW and watch it… but this is the concert scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_WKfRDA8w
For those who aren’t Jewish, or don’t know any Jewish traditions or words - Seder is Passover, a yarmulke is a kippah, or one of these “tiny Jew hats.” L’chaim means “to life” and is a traditional toast.
Santana's Barbie is real. Sadly, so is the McDonalds playset.
I don’t care about basketball. At all. I Googled to see what sports games were happening on Christmas day, and I know LeBron James has a habit of winning.
Kurt watching the DADT repeal at Dalton is a direct reference to Baby Steps by lookninjas, which is one of the most worthy and beautiful stories that has been told in this fandom. I would like to thank her again for writing it. I hope she reads this story and makes it as far as this ridiculously long author's note.
If you don’t follow Tom and Lorenzo’s blog, Project RunGay, you should start. Aside from being smart and hilarious, they do amazing Glee reviews. The story about the gay couple in NYC is true and so, so epic, watch the video.
I would kill babies to see/hear Darren Criss cover Mr Bojangles, or alternately, anything of Cole Porter’s. MAKE IT HAPPEN, SHOW.
If you don't speak fashion, this is the style of Kurt’s jacket from Blaine - Kurt would probably tailor it to be slightly more fitted.
Lastly: If you seem to recognize Kurt's mother - it's funny, another bit of head-canon, for a very long time I've actually pictured Marion Cotillard as Kurt's mother - a French-American. And when they referenced her with the Vogue covers in Substitute, I squealed, and the image just cemented itself. I know nothing about Marion Cotillard herself, but I very much relate my image of her as Kurt's mother to Mal Cobb in Inception, and in the amazing fic by rageprufrock, Presque Vu. (Seriously, if you've seen Inception and liked it, read this story. It's probably the best fic I've ever read, in any fandom. It's my canon and when I re-watch Inception now, I cry, because of this.) Anyway, Kurt's mother is not Mal Cobb, but I've always latched on to the suicide idea with Kurt's mother, probably because it's how I lost my mother, and there's something about Mal/Marion that I picture when I think of Kurt's mother, and something about the way Mal and Dom's relationship is described in Presque Vu that makes me think of how a very chic woman, probably a lot like Kurt, would end up with a rough-and-ready guy like Burt, though I don't go into that aspect here.
edit: 13 December 2011 - Well, it's been a year, and I just saw Extraordinary Merry Christmas, which is a year after this story takes place. And Blaine plays the freaking harmonica. Good to see you're getting some use out of it, B.
Title: A Conspiracy of Love
Rating: PG-13 to very, very light R. Higher-rated than the show only due to some swearing.
Spoilers: Up to and including AVGC.
Warnings: passing mentions of mental illness and suicide (wow, Merry Christmas, y'all), emphatic swearing, passing mentions of sex, extremely sappy referencing of Christmas movies, blatant character theft from major Hollywood blockbuster, run-on sentences, and also, this is the first fic I have ever completed and posted, in any fandom, so be warned of that too.
Word Count: ~8500
Summary: Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -- Hamilton Wright Mabi. 'Tis the season in Lima, Ohio, and gifts are given and recieved. Finn, Rachel, Kurt, Puck, Santana, Brittany, Blaine. Plus a few guests.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't own. I barely even own some parts of the plot. Please don't sue.
Author's note: is at the end.
Dedication: To weyrdchic, one of my newest friends, and to andnightsgrow, one of my oldest. Both of whom understand me perfectly. And to you, kurt_blaine, my new internet home. Merry Christmas.
Also, nielrian has done me a great honor and made a mind-blowingly amazing podfic of this: You can find it here.
Finn remembers going to the movies with his mom and his aunt one crisp November night when he was ten. It was right after they moved to Lima, and his aunt visited to see how they were settling in. His mom wasn't all that keen on him seeing their grown-up Christmas movie, but a child's ticket was cheaper than three hours with a sitter, so he sat between his mom and Aunt Gina, who told him to close his eyes at the naughty parts, and ate his Goobers. The movie was from England and Finn didn't understand a lot of the words and jokes, and there wasn't even one explosion, but he started paying serious attention to the kid who'd fallen in love with a girl at school. Finn wasn't sure about how he felt about any girls yet, but he liked that the grown-ups in the movie took the kid, Sam, seriously. Like his problems weren't stupid. Yeah, Finn really liked that. He spent most of the film wondering what Sam's crush looked like - probably really pretty, with blonde hair, like that Quinn girl who was in his class at his new school. He might have noticed her a little bit.
Sam was his age, and Sam was so cool. He totally learned to play the drums like a rockstar and when he finally played at the concert and Finn saw the girl that Sam was in love with, heard her sing to him, his heart hurt so much, in a good way. She looked nothing like Quinn Fabray. She was the most perfect thing Finn has ever seen.
For his next birthday, somehow, his mom procured drums.
But it was six years before Finn felt that same sensation: someone singing, his heart soaring and bursting. He'd almost forgotten why he started playing the drums - now he just kind of liked the noise. But he tried to bury the thumping, joyous ache and focus on what was important - Quinn, football, staying popular even though he always felt like a total dork inside.
Still, that Christmas, he found his mom's DVD and watched it, understanding most of the jokes this time, idly wondering if hot English girls would like his accent the way the American ones seemed to like Colin's, but mostly, mostly needing to see the girl.
It was still special, but she had nothing - nothing - on Rachel Berry.
Another year later - after the most weird and stupid and awful and amazing time of Finn's life - he has her. He has her despite everything, despite babies and slushies and bad dancing and jealousy and complete insanity. And that feeling, the painful, wonderful feeling Finn knows is love - he feels that every time he gets to watch her sing. Lots of other times in between too. But the best is when they sing to each other.
Even though Rachel's Jewish, Finn thinks she had probably seen this movie - at the wedding, he hears the girls giggle and plan a sleep-over for afterwards and his ears prick up when Tina demands they add this one to the list.
But that doesn't stop him picking up a sale copy of Love, Actually at the mall when he heads over to pick up his mom and Kurt on Black Friday. It isn't going to be his main 'seasonal gift' - as she calls them - to her, but he wraps it painstakingly and attaches a small label:
You are my Joanna.
--------------------------------------------
When Rachel thinks about the complete car-crash that was her attempt to regain a mother figure, she knows in retrospect that even if Shelby had been lovely, or kind, or willing, or even consistent, it never could have satisfied her, because Rachel was looking for her own copy of an irreplaceable woman.
Mallorie Hummel had been one of God's true gifts, and one of the few people in Lima that her dads could stand. Rachel had not mixed with many others outside of school as a child, but until she was seven, she'd had Kurt, and she'd had Mal.
Since before Rachel can remember, Kurt and Mal had been staples at their Seder table. In return, Kurt and Mal would bring Rachel colored eggs at Easter, and take her caroling at Christmas. But Hanukkah was always the best - after the lighting of the Menorah, Mal would open up Rachel’s grandmother’s old piano and Kurt and Rachel would dress up and sing together for hours - Disney Princess songs, showtunes they didn’t fully understand, and pop songs they certainly didn’t.
In her childhood, Rachel readily accepted the explanation for Kurt’s presence in her family life - that all their parents wanted Kurt and Rachel to grow up knowledgeable and informed of different cultures. It's a few years down the track when Rachel realizes that, while she's sure the religious diversity aspect was indeed true, Mallorie Hummel had another reason to want her son to experience the relative normality of Rachel’s family life. It was a master stroke, and Rachel regrets not being able to commend the woman for it. Because of course Mal knew her son, and feared what he might encounter, and she went out of her way to combat that - to show Kurt that anything he wanted was okay and normal before he ever had the chance to feel the inevitable sense of otherness from ignorant little children and their small-minded parents. Rachel admires beyond words the woman's determination to let her son learn that acceptance should be normal and to seek him out environments in which to flourish.
Looking at Kurt now, and his sheer determination to be himself and not make any excuses for it, she knows Mal succeeded, mostly. She wonders if Kurt himself has ever realized what his mother did for him since before he can remember.
Regardless of any ulterior motives on behalf of their parents, Rachel had loved playing with Kurt. She didn’t like playing at school - other kids called her bossy and didn’t like to be a part of her performances. But Kurt knew she had good ideas, and he bossed her right back with his own plans, which she always enjoyed just as much as her own. She used to imagine how they would be best friends forever and become famous on Broadway playing all the greatest roles against each other.
Her dads ask about him all the time.
“How’s Kurt?” they say, "What's he up to? How is he handling things?" and she feels too guilty to tell them the truth. They know that Rachel and Kurt are not as close as they once were. They know Rachel is not close to anyone. But they see Kurt around town, and she mentions his name from time to time, and they always ask. She can never bring herself to tell them the truth about Kurt. She shares his triumphs, his wins. But the whole truth, that she can not share. Not the diva-off, which she knows, in her heart, he let her win, and which she can never find the way to apologize for, even though she knows she didn’t do anything wrong. Not the awful makeover betrayal, which had hurt her more than she will ever let on, but which she instantly forgave because she understands how loving Finn Hudson can make someone go crazy, go cruel. But especially not the torment from their fellow students, which has happened to them all but is somehow becoming, for Kurt, much more sinister.
She knows she should tell them. She knows they could do something about it, knows how they'd feel to find out they'd been sitting by obliviously. But she does not know exactly what is happening, she only suspects, and she does not think Kurt will appreciate her prying. Instead she tries to be a friend to him, despite his confusion and rebuttal, and she takes it upon herself to use the resources given to her to protect him. Even though she is proud of all the men in Glee Club for supporting her aim, it still fails. Kurt leaves. Leaves the school, leaves New Directions, leaves her, and he doesn’t even know that it matters to her. She is jealous of Mercedes, of Tina, of Finn - they are allowed to express their dismay, shed tears. She is not. That is not her role in his life.
She misses him, like the feeling she gets when she leaves her necklace on her vanity by accident after a shower and her throat feels naked and wrong all day, her hand reaching up to check for it at sporadic intervals.
After Mal dies, the play-dates stop. The festive gatherings stop. Burt Hummel and his small, clear-eyed son retreat together, into a busy garage, a dimly-lit house, and a co-dependent relationship locking everyone else out. They do not celebrate anything. They do not commemorate anything. They just go on surviving, together, alone.
After Mal dies, Rachel reacts badly. She knows about death, but this time, she doesn’t understand what has happened or why. Mal wasn’t old, she didn’t seem sick. Her fathers hold her as she cries, and all they can tell her is that something bad happened to Mal, that she was sick, and it made her die. It’s five years later when Rachel finds out the truth, overhears the wrong end of a gossiper’s sentence at the drugstore and asks her one of her dads. At twelve, she finds out about the medication and the darkness, and her parents cry with her and try to make her understand what could lead someone to that windowsill in that high-rise hotel. They talk about how Mal was so strong for everyone else in her life, and that she had nothing left to be strong for herself with. It is their first full conversation about mental health and Rachel is already an anxious and neurotic pre-teen. Her dads impress on her heavily that sometimes sadness or fear can be more than fleeting, more than incidental, more than a natural reaction, and if she ever feels anything that scares her, she should tell them so they can make sure she’s okay. Four weeks later, she is attending bi-weekly therapy and she is genuinely not sure where she would be right now if she’d never found out about Mal, if she’d never had that conversation.
She makes a conscious decision to be strong only for herself. She falters at this - she falls in love too hard, and sometimes she shifts her whole energy reserve onto the object of her desire. But whether she's spending her strength on herself or on a man, she uses up her entire self on one fixed point, and she thinks maybe that's good enough. But she watches others and sees how they spread themselves around - sharing their strength with so many people, and she does not understand how they cope, being stretched so thin, giving so many people the opportunity to hurt them.
Kurt and Rachel grow up apart, yet by the time they come together again in New Directions, they have grown up so similarly that they do not know how to gel together - they both developed hard shells which clang and crash against one another. Rachel knows this isn’t right, they should both be sharing the same shell. Sometimes, she tries to boss him, like she used to, anticipating him bossing her back - the only person with ideas better than her own, the only person with her vision. Instead, she gets looks of disdain and she resents him for not wanting to take this journey with her, for rejecting her, for not seeing through her.
And then, somehow, when everything else in her life is falling to pieces, slowly, he comes back to her, and the days become a little more bearable. They do not talk about the distant past. They do not talk about the time Rachel put sugar in the latkes or fighting over Jasmine’s part in A Whole New World. They do not talk about Mal. But they talk about now - and they talk more than they have in the past ten years, since they were children together. Rachel drinks in every text, every Skype conversation, cherishing them and wishing that she had known the way to have this, to do this, to be this, in her early adolescence. They’d both been so alone the whole time.
When she sees him at Sectionals, she lets loose on him in a way that she hasn’t let loose on anyone in years. She can hear her own voice change and every single façade she’s ever put up falls away. She’s just herself, crazy, babbling Rachel, whom she works so hard to hide, whom only her dads have seen for a very long time. She doesn’t think about a single word she says - just says them, and she is rewarded with a hug and a few chips in his shell, little holes where she can poke a finger through and tickle the soft bits underneath.
She watches him perform, and has never seen him look so insecure and so happy. She wonders about the other boy - the matinee idol frontman, the most genuine performer she’s ever seen, who’s everything Jesse could never be. She wonders if he’s really let Kurt blow his mind - she very much hopes so.
When they tie with Dalton, she’s happy. She realizes that she couldn't be happier with the result, and it’s another step on the re-examination of self she’s been having this past year. She knows - she's known for a while, but now it's undeniable - she has strength to share now.
The weekend after Sectionals, she drives herself over to Kurt’s house, hoping that he is home and that Finn is not. She is in luck and catches him just as he’s starting the Navigator, and he winds down the window.
“Well hello. What brings you here, Rachel Berry?” he asks mildly, but with no venom, and she wonders if Finn has told him anything about what has happened between them.
“I came to give you this,” she says, and proffers a black velvet drawstring bag and an envelope.
Kurt looks at the gift with doubt and mild trepidation. Her mind flashes back to her seasonal gifts for the Glee Club last year, their first Christmas together - gold star lapel pins. She had handed them out and addressed the group: "There might only be room for one star in New Directions. But I have the utmost confidence that, as we progress and eventually part, without me in the picture sadly necessitating everyone else to take a back-up role, you will step forward and become the starring diva of your own life."
Rachel legitimately doesn't know why she said any of that. Sometimes, things like that just come out - they still do occasionally now, and she doesn't know if she even means them anymore. She wants so much, now, to share, to be close to people the way the rest of her fellow glee clubbers are all knitted into each other - not just to a single fixed point. She says things like that to keep on the defensive, to keep confident, to keep herself driven, like if she enforces these ideas, she is protected from those who would try and make her think badly of herself. But more and more she wishes she could feel safe in vulnerability, the way the rest of them do - depending on each other and reaching out. She wants it so much, has always wanted it, but now, she thinks it might be becoming more important to her than even her talent being respected, and that’s why she’s here now.
The nerves she’s been fighting off since she set the last stitches that morning finally overwhelm her and she realizes that she doesn’t know what she will do if he says no to what she's here to offer. Somehow, it suddenly seems like her entire future as a functioning member of the human race depends on repairing her relationship with this fragile, iron-clad boy.
Kurt loosens the drawstrings on the bag and tips out the contents - two satin yarmulkes; one navy blue, one white with Rachel's hand-embroidered gold stars around the border. He runs his fingers over the stitching, tilting his head, his face unreadable - Mal had taught them both to stitch right before she died. Rachel looks away as he opens the envelope, his eyes fixed on her as he reads aloud.
"The Berry Family cordially invite Kurt Hummel plus Guest to celebrate the Festival of Lights. 9 December 2010, R.S.V.P Rachel Berry. Please bring sheet music."
He’s giving her a look not all that dissimilar to when she'd described picturing her own funeral, and she quickly starts to babble. "I know you’re not... I know it’s a religious holiday and you probably don’t approve because I know you don’t believe, but Finn said your family was still following Christmas traditions so I thought you might still be okay with the Jewish traditions too, especially since Hanukkah is more of a historical commemoration really..."
"Rachel." he interrupts her softly. "Rachel, I’ll come."
"Oh." She feels her face break into the kind of goofy, bucktoothed smile that she claims she’d never be caught dead doing in front of a camera, that she secretly wishes someone would love enough to want to capture.
Kurt still looks a little hesitant. "When you say 'guest' does that mean..." he trails off, but she catches the look on his face and wickedly desires to investigate it.
"Well," she says, fixing him with a square look "you’re welcome to invite your father, but I did wonder if you might like to bring a date." Kurt blanches, and she hurriedly goes on. "Or just a new friend, from the Warblers? I'd love an opportunity to gauge the competition in a behind-the-scene environment." She smiles, hoping she implies that it’s a joke, that she’s past caring about that. "So if you wanted to bring..."
"Blaine." Kurt’s voice populates the space that Rachel leaves hanging, and the tone is so nervous and so fond that Rachel is a little taken aback.
"Blaine, yes," she goes on "he would be most welcome. I mean, we know navy looks good on him..."
"It really does, doesn’t it." And this time he’s so smug and cheeky that it warms Rachel’s heart. Kurt deserves this.
"Rachel," he says again, "thank you." He reaches a hand out through the window of the Navigator and she clutches it with both of hers, pressing it to her cheek, like Mal used to do to them both.
"And Rachel?"
"Yes?"
"I'm doing the Jasmine part. Don't argue."
--------------------------------------------
Puck knows he really needs to stop fucking Santana if he ever wants her to remember that he actually cares about her. And he totally does - not like a sister, because, dude, but like… like a friend. Cards on the table, she’s kind of his best friend. Again.
Puck has held a deadly respect for Santana since their second week of kindergarten when she stabbed him in the arm with a paintbrush. He’d tried to casually take a cookie that he totally thought she wasn’t gonna eat, because she’d had, like, eight, and she was a tiny little girl. But she soon proved that she could out-eat, out-glare, out-scream, and out-run him. She was also a hell of a biter. They were inseparable.
They would play at her house, annoying her two older brothers and avoiding the screaming newborn twins. Everything at Santana’s house was loud and bright, full of food and yelling and love. They always liked to play-fight, especially with swords, but when they were seven Santana’s oldest brother taught them to fight properly - when he was left to look after them by Santana’s mom. "Don’t tell Momma," Manuel told them "but I want my sister to be able to look after herself, and if she can’t, you’ll have to do it, Noah." Puck nodded solemnly - he worshiped Manuel, and, when, five years later, he’d got into his first real fight, he lost, but he broke the other guy’s nose with a trick Manuel had taught him.
A couple of years after Puck’s sister was born, Santana started asking more and more if she could come to Puck’s house to play. After a while, he realized why - she had her own baby brothers, but she really wanted a sister. Puck was more than willing to let Santana share his - the more Santana played Barbies with her, the less he had to do it. At first, he watched them and thought it was kinda stupid, but he ended up getting bored by himself and joined in. It was just like action figures anyway, and he soon got sucked into the stories Santana made up - she made them fun. When he was older, he realized just how little his sister was contributing to their play - she was probably too young to understand anything except grabbing at the toys.
It’s during one of these games in the summer before fourth grade that Brittany wanders into the Puckerman backyard and into their lives. With her blonde hair tied into very uneven pigtails, she just sits down and picks up an unused doll, making it say "meow! Mew mew miooow!"
Puck and Santana just look at each other and shrug. Brittany - who has just moved in two doors down from Puck - brings her own creatively barbered Barbies over the next afternoon, and nearly every afternoon after that. Sometimes, they all go back to Santana’s house and try to teach Brittany fighting games, but Britt never seems to quite get it. "We’ll just have to look after her too, I guess." Santana tells him, though what trouble this completely innocent and clueless girl could get into, Puck has no idea.
Despite all the talk, Puck has never had sex with Brittany. He never would. Sometimes he watches her and Santana get it on, and yeah, it’s hot, but if he really thinks about it, he knows he’s only there so Santana can do what she wants and not feel scared by it. He and Santana fuck when they’re alone - sometimes. Sometimes they talk. He knows that she slept with Finn, but he doesn’t tell anyone - not even Finn - because he’s done with hurting people pointlessly. He gathers from her story that neither of them gave a damn about it, and the only person it will damage is Berry. And Puck has no desire to hurt Berry - not like that, anyway. Puck has slept with enough people to know that sex can just be sex, and that sleeping with Santana in the past doesn’t affect how totally stupid Finn is about Berry, but he knows that Berry will not take it like that, so he says nothing.
There’s one person they don’t talk about. Ever. But he knows how Santana feels about the glee club, and singing, and how hurt she is when people - like Berry and Hummel - think that she doesn’t care as much as they do. So start acting like you give a shit, he wants to tell her, but realizes she’d tell him to take his own advice, so they keep each others’ secrets, of how much they really love those moments on stage and even the protectiveness they feel towards some of the more loser-ific members of their little group.
He knows she’s cheating on her Cheerios diet and always has been. He knows that she’s terrified that Brittany doesn’t - that Brittany doesn’t even understand why it’s wrong, just follows instructions without question. Sometimes she collects the diet sheets from Coach Sylvester and edits them before giving Brittany her copy.
Puck watches Santana - watches her watch other people. He knows she’s not who people think she is. Yeah, she’s turned two-thirds dude in attitude, but he remembers the first time she picked up his sister’s doll and announced they were going on a cruise ship. He remembers the first time she let Brittany curl her hair, and the first time she wore a dress she picked out herself (his mom's birthday dinner, they were eleven) He remembers seeing her cry when her mom wouldn’t buy her her very own Barbie, announcing that nine was too old to start playing with dolls.
He sees her watching Finn and Rachel, Mike and Tina and -- the others - with sadness, which she turns to a scowl whenever she remembers to. He knows the reason she sleeps around - the power makes her feel safe. He knows it isn’t those dudes - Finn or Mike or Sam - that she wants, but just the chance to be in that place, be a normal girlfriend, someone who feels safe without needing to be cynical and controlling. Puck’s not sure when that started happening - somewhere along the way they lost track, sometime after he meets Finn in middle school and Puck feels the desperate, twelve year old need to be cool. Finn played the drums, so Puck started learning the guitar and took on his nickname. Santana joins the junior cheerleaders, and Puck makes more guy friends. He guesses it was around then when hormones and conditioning made them start seeing all people of the opposite gender as objects - and, whether it was for show or for real, they started doing it to each other. She was always angry at the world, except for those quiet moments they’d shared, but the anger goes up several notches once the boys she knows start developing the interests of men.
The first time they hook up, tipsily at an 8th grade party, it’s soft and she calls him Noah, and the feeling of relief he gets nearly swamps him. Sometimes they say they’re dating, but they both know it’s only for show. It’s an easy way to explain their relationship, one that people don’t judge or question too much. Both of them know that it isn’t real dating, and he is always relieved that she never tries to make it legitimate. Sometimes they joke around - put on an act of swooning over each other, but they both know they’re laughing at each other behind their eyes. He cares about her, loves her even, but not that kind of love, and he knows they’re both looking elsewhere for that. They both prefer blondes.
He knows how she feels about Brittany, how she has always felt about Brittany. She never says so, but he knows. He’s not stupid, and knew that her childhood possessiveness would come to mean something more. What she does say is how she’s frustrated about Britt’s trusting nature, about how men disgust her. She takes it upon herself to sleep with every new guy to come along before Brittany does. She’s always eager to be the first and affirm which ones are total freaks - Puck reads between the lines and knows what she’s doing is checking that the guys are not dangerous before they get to Britt. Both of them know that if anything happened to Brittany, Puck would be on the guy within thirty seconds of finding out, but both of them know Britt herself could do absolutely nothing to prevent such a situation arising. He knows Santana feels guilty and responsible for Brittany’s behavior and reputation. He remembers overhearing Santana and Brittany having a conversation - a mild argument - before they started sixth grade, where Santana was trying to explain that they couldn’t hold hands at school, they both needed to get boyfriends and hold hands with them, maybe even kiss them. And Brittany, always keen to oblige Santana, went at it with gusto from there on in.
Puck wonders how much Santana regrets this now - he has noticed her outward affection towards Britt increase in the last couple of years and wonders how long it will take for her to want more, whether Brittany will ever understand or be capable of reciprocating the intensity with which he knows Santana is waiting, just waiting, to throw herself at someone with.
He knows that she keeps falling back into the hole that she’s dug for herself every time she tries to climb out of it. And the more she feels, the more she tries, the angrier she gets at herself and the worse she outwardly acts. He knows because he is exactly the same. As soon as he’s home from juvey - he refuses to think about the moment of insanity that lead him there, the idea of money and the ability to get out of here and feel that tiny hand resting on his thumb, no - she’s on the phone, asking to come over. His mom says she’s been calling for the last three days, checking when he’ll be back. They fuck, and he used to think they did it because they both liked it, or because it comforts her, but now he knows she’s just overcompensating and that’s when he knows it has to stop. He finds out from Artie - vaguely, since it came via Brittany - what had happened between Britt and Santana. Santana does not say a word about Britt and Artie dating, except to call Artie a loser, but he knows she’s secretly saying 'she’s safe with him, at least.' But they both know she won’t date Artie forever.
Puck doesn’t really do Christmas - certainly not at home, and he’s rarely had money before to give gifts to the Christians he knows. But after Mr Schue gets New Directions all caught up in the joy of the season, after they lose Christmas and win it back again, he goes to a mall on the outskirts of town - a place no one from his school would be shopping - and he busks. He wears a Santa hat and sings Bing and Frank. He makes enough money to buy something for everyone in the Glee Club, and wonders if he can get away with leaving them under Mr Schue’s tree anonymously. Then he wonders why he feels the need to hide his generosity, to be embarrassed by having the urge to reach out.
He finds Santana’s present with a minimum of trouble, a huge ring spelling out BITCH in rhinestone-studded metal. It’s actually for three fingers, molded together, and the blingey word would stretch nearly the whole width of a girl’s hand. He’s pretty satisfied with himself and heads into a toy store to get something for Berry - he was planning on the freakiest, most demented stuffed animal he could find. He’s stalking resentfully past a McDonalds service counter play set - no wonder the kids in this town have no hope if this is their idea of a children’s toy - when something stops him in his tracks.
The doll is, apparently, one of Barbie’s Three Musketeers. It’s got dark hair and skin, and is wearing a long princess dress, but the picture on the front of the box shows that its skirt detaches and turns into a cape. And it’s got a sword. A purple, glittery sword. He pulls the Bitch ring and examines it, and it reminds him of nothing more than knuckledusters capable of doing some serious damage with very little effort.
Three Musketeers Barbie costs $60 and Puck doesn’t even care about the look the shopgirl gives him as he pays for it and walks out without a bag.
At the party, he informally tosses his gifts to each member, some who look confused, while Mr Schue looks on approvingly. (He doesn’t look so thrilled when he opens the copy of The Ladykiller Puck has picked up for him.)
Brittany giggles when she opens her gift, and holds up her hand. “I totally get it! I’m Brittany, bitch!”
Santana’s level gaze meets his from across the room and he can tell that she, in fact, actually does get it. After Christmas, he thinks, we’ll teach her how to punch me in the face. He nods at Santana, just a tiny jerk of the chin, encouraging her to open at her as-yet untouched gift. She tears the paper off the front of the box, looks at it long enough to register what it is before shoving it in her gym bag, and stares out the window hurriedly, crossing her legs tightly and jiggling her foot at a manic pace. He knows this is Santana-language for trying not to cry. He texts her surreptitiously from across the room: Read the card and she rolls her eyes but obliges.
No one says you can’t be her hero and her princess too.
- Noah
--------------------------------------------
Rachel does not miss the grave smile or the warmth in Blaine’s gaze as he catches Kurt’s eye as the table toasts l’chaim. She wonders whether Kurt has processed it yet. She raises an eyebrow at Kurt as Blaine turns to shake hands with her father, and Kurt just raises one back at her, corner of his mouth twitching. She cannot wait for him to want to spill to her about this, and something tells her she won’t be waiting very long.
--------------------------------------------
LeBron has thoroughly trounced the Lakers, and Finn’s and Burt’s friends head home. Carole Hummel straightens the den, late Christmas night. Tugging the couch cushions back into place, she finds a brightly wrapped gift - a DVD, shoved deep into the sofa. She’s about to raise her voice, tell her boys there’s one last present, when she notices the paper is slightly ripped. She recognizes the cover through the tear, and flips the label open. Understanding dawns on her and she feels for her son, wishing she could bestow on him the wisdom about love that comes simply by living through it, living out a whole lifetime.
She places Finn’s gift carefully in the bottom drawer of the coffee table.
--------------------------------------------
"Thanks, bro" Mike calls out to Puck as he hops out onto the curb after an epic Halo tournament at Artie’s after Mr Schue’s party. It’s late Christmas Eve, and Puck’s finally finished playing chauffeur for his friends, but his evening isn’t quite done. For the sixth time that night, he checks on his last gift, in the trunk of his car. He gets back into the driver’s seat and starts heading towards the fancy side of town. He pulls over a few houses away from his destination, and stares up at the mansion for a while - such a huge, dead space for a family of two to share. Then, as fast as he can, he dashes up the few steps and leaves the wreath of holly and white blooms tucked beside a planter on the covered porch. He hopes it won’t freeze over and be ruined by morning.
Puck dreams of her again that night. She wears white roses in her hair.
--------------------------------------------
Kurt Hummel wakes up on Christmas morning by way of a throw-pillow to the face.
"Dude." Finn intones, standing over his bed, his arm drawn back holding another fluffy projectile. "It’s like, eight AM. I couldn’t hold off any longer."
Kurt considers rolling his eyes, turning his back on Finn, or starting a lecture on how they are not children, thank you very much, but a strange thrill overwhelms him. This is his first Christmas with Finn, with his brother. He yawns, stretches his arms slowly, and blinks kittenishly, then grins, showing all his teeth. He utters the fatal words:
"Race you."
He leaps from his bed and under Finn’s arm, his Cheerio skills giving him the edge on the sheer length of Finn’s stride, and takes the stairs two at a time, Finn hot on his heels. They crash into each other in the doorway of the den, gazing at the perfect tree for a moment before throwing themselves on the ground before it. Their thundering and shrieks bring the parents downstairs, and a half-hour later, Kurt’s discovered a few things. One, that Finn is a careful, finicky present-unwrapper who saves the paper and exclaims over Kurt’s ripping carnage; two, that he’s actually not a bad gift-giver (red leather steering wheel cover for the Navigator and a Sherpa hat in his Dalton house colors which is actually.. kind of perfect and he will absolutely be wearing it to the next soccer game that Blaine is playing in) and three, that he had pretty much forgotten what Christmas was meant to feel like.
After his mom died, he and his dad never did much for the holiday. They’d eat, sometimes see the relatives who insisted on checking up on him. It was tedious. They gave gifts to each other - usually something directly requested, or they picked something out together for the good of the household. It was very informal and Kurt had never minded - it never seemed to matter what they were missing out on, when they were already missing everything that mattered. But now, with Finn and Carole, who brought their own traditions, Christmas was something new and maybe a little bit magical. Finn had a strict rule that no one could ask for specific presents - they had to be picked out by the giver, as he claimed it took the fun out of everything to know what you were going to receive before you opened it. "Trees died so we could have Christmas, you know." he’d said "so the least we can do is not make using wrapping paper completely pointless." And Kurt was now inclined to agree, exclaiming and groaning in turn over gifts both fabulous and ridiculous. When Burt and Carole go back upstairs to dress properly, Kurt is owning Finn’s ass in Black Ops and laughing. They pause their game to make pancakes together, all four of them, and as they sit around the table Kurt looks at his family, this net that he has woven for himself, and genuinely can’t believe what has happened to his life.
It’s not perfect, far from it. He carries fresh wounds and old, and he doesn’t know if any of them will ever heal completely. But he thinks of Finn, dancing with him at their parents' wedding, and though he no longer harbors feelings for Finn - knows now they were just the tip of the iceberg of what he had the potential to feel for a boy - he wonders if Finn has any idea how much it means to him that he got to have such an important 'first' with the first boy he ever loved, how beautifully full-circle it was. He thinks of the safety of Dalton, rigid though it may be, and of watching the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal in the commons amidst a crowd of cheering boys, mostly straight, keeping tally of the votes, slapping him on the back. He thinks of Mercedes and Tina and Brittany and Mike, of Sam’s displays of nobility - of Puck, once his antagonist, offering to be his bodyguard. He thinks of Sue, and her terrifying yet constant championing of every aspect of him, and knows that it isn't just to spite Mr Schuester. He thinks of Rachel, and the edge of the precipice on which he knows they stand together, holding hands, ready to fall into what he knows could be the most brutal and intense friendship he will experience in his life. He thinks of Rachel’s dads slow-dancing as Blaine sings "The Very Thought Of You" at the Berry Hanukkah party. And he thinks of Blaine, and the unopened gift from him waiting downstairs in the basement. They have a Skype date - a Skype appointment tonight, to do their gift opening in real-time, and Kurt is excited and a bit jumpy, that Blaine had suggested taking time out of the day to spend with each other, even if it is via the internet.
Mainly, on the twenty-fifth of December two thousand and ten, for the first time in ten years, Kurt Hummel is just a boy, excited on Christmas morning, with his family.
By about five PM, the magic has worn off a little. He's eaten more than he feels comfortable with, he's been in his Juicy sweats all day, and the house is about to be trashed by the arrival of Puck, Sam, Mike, three employees from the garage, his Uncle Ed, his cousin Bryce, and a couple of people Kurt has never seen before in his life. They're all gabbling and high-fiving about the Lakers-Heat viewing party that the Hummels are hosting due to their 52-inch flat-screen that had been Kurt and Burt's last-year Christmas purchase.
He retreats to the basement. Four hours until he is meant to log on with Blaine. He showers and goes through all his usual routines. He goes through his closet, bookshelf, and DVD collection, re-sorting items and exchanging some things from his suitcase - he likes to mix up what he keeps at Dalton. He packs away all his gifts, adding some to the back-to-Dalton luggage. He sings his way through the entirety of The Fame Monster and then La Cage Aux Folles.
Still an hour and a half to go.
He eyes the large, shallow gift box on his dresser. A deep green ribbon is the only thing keeping him from discovering Blaine's present. He could totally open it, find out, and re-tie the ribbon right now. It will give him time to prepare an appropriate surprised face, to work in just enough joy and appreciation, even if it's something he hates. Goddamn, what if Blaine got him something that he hates? What if it completely taints his opinion of Blaine? Kurt is aware he is a pretty judgmental person. Or worse, what if it's something he loves so much that his over-the-top reactions might creep Blaine out? What if he cries?
No.
He sighs. He can't cheat. He promised. Seriously, Kurt feels he deserves an award or something for this exhibition of patience. He might as well be some sort of monk, or a ninja.
--
"I got you a present, by the way." Blaine says matter-of-factly and smiles at Kurt as they leave the last Warblers practice before break, where they'd completed a particularly lovely version of Lennon's 'War is Over'. Kurt feels a huge sense of relief wash over him, relief that he is not imagining that he and this confusing miracle of a boy are, at least most of the time, on the same page.
"Oh thank god," Kurt responds, "I've shopped for everyone else and I so wanted to get you something, but I didn't know if that would be too forward or weird or anything, or if I'd embarrass you..."
Blaine laughs. "Well, I would have been happy to give mine to you without expecting anything in return, of course, but I am glad you're up for it, we can trade, and open them together, and shriek like little girls."
"What, now?" Kurt asks as they head back to their wing. He hopes the answer is no because he doesn't actually have Blaine's gift yet - he thinks he knows what he wants to get, but hadn't quite made the decision whether he wanted to bestow Blaine with possibly-unrequited tangible evidence of his feelings.
"No, at Christmas, of course," Blaine says incredulously, "You can't open presents before Christmas."
"But we're not spending Christmas together," Kurt reminds Blaine slowly, wondering if Blaine planned to show up outside Kurt's door on Christmas dressed as an elf, with arms full of eggnog and mistletoe, or goddamn, if he'd misjudged again and the object of his affections was tragically thick, or if, in fact, he was missing something here. Really, any of these options held potential.
Blaine looks highly amused. "I know that." Option three. Oh well, it's better than some of the alternatives. "But you know, my birthday falls in semester and so I can't usually see my sister on the exact date." Blaine's sister is a sophomore at Northwestern, Kurt knows, and he has seen pictures of her. She has dark hair, like Blaine, but it's long, with thick curls that Kurt suspects Blaine also possesses, and is a little bit desperate to be allowed to see someday soon. He's not sure what this has to do with Christmas presents, though. Blaine continues.
"So on my birthday, she and I have Skype dates. She sends my presents to the school and I open them with her on Skype. It was her idea, but I thought that we could use it this Christmas. Would that be cool?" It's such a simple and good idea that Kurt is a little bit floored, and immediately agrees. Blaine leaves him at his door with a pleasant shoulder-squeeze, and Kurt makes to open it, but over his shoulder he watches Blaine go, and he almost can't believe his eyes when he sees Blaine do a little two-step and then jump, clicking his heels, right as he turns the corner at the end of the hall.
They exchange gifts, and a quick hug, right before their parents pick them up for the Christmas break. "Don't peek," Blaine commands him sternly as he hands over the gift box. "I know it looks easy to open, but it is an exercise in patience and honor. If you peek, I'll know." Kurt promises, and hands over his own gift - no fears about peeking there, Blaine is the most honorable person he's ever met. Plus, his present is wrapped intricately in four layers of paper. Finn would not be pleased.
--
Restless, but with his stupid honor intact, Kurt opens his computer and starts messing around. He checks Tom and Lorenzo and his heart swells a bit at the story about the couple in New York who started getting unexplained letters to Santa and fulfilling them. He logs onto Facebook to post the video on his wall when Rachel starts chatting to him, so that fills another forty-five minutes. They talk about his mom a little - they've started to, just about good memories, since Hanukkah, since Blaine asked how their tradition had started. It's getting easier and Kurt has found that he likes to recount his memories, even though it hurts a little, too. And Rachel sometimes remembers things that he doesn't, giving him back pieces of his mother that come alive in his mind's eye as soon as she reminds him. He is grateful for that, and tells her so.
At eight-fifteen, he logs on to Skype, just to check. Ten minutes later, Blaine logs on and calls him, and Kurt grins. He accepts the call and immediately gasps in delight - Blaine's wearing a big, green, cable-knit sweater and a Santa hat sat well back on his head - his product-free head full of short, tousled curls. "Hey!" Blaine says. "I know I'm early, but I.."
"Got impatient?" finishes Kurt. "Me too. Oh, my god, your hair, Blaine."
"I know, I know," Blaine groans, "but I was required to wear the hat by my little cousin and believe me, it looked way worse with my normal hair. It looked really creepy."
"No, it's great, seriously, you're lucky. I wish my hair was that versatile." Kurt insists, wanting to say I want to put my hands in it right now, you are the most adorable person in the history of creation. Blaine scrunches up his face in disagreement but Kurt isn't in the mood to argue about it. "So," he says, "I know we should exchange pleasantries and ask about the day, but seriously, presents?"
"Presents." Blaine agrees, picking up his gift from Kurt where it lay on the desk in front of him and waving it in front of the camera. Kurt quickly retrieves the box from the dresser and lays it in his lap. "So how do we do this?" he asks, uncertain. "One at a time, or together, or..."
"Let's go one at a time." Blaine decides, and then grins. "And since this was my idea, I'm going first."
"Not fair." Kurt retorts, but for all that he appreciates everything Blaine chooses to be, he kind of loves this messy, selfish side. Without it, Kurt would be scared Blaine was not a real human boy. "Go on then, Merry Christmas."
Neither of them say anything while Blaine unwraps Kurt's gift, and when Kurt can see that Blaine is through layer four and onto the actual leather box, he gets a bit worried when Blaine stays silent. But then, Blaine smiles quietly and breathes "Oh Kurt, it's perfect."
The brass harmonica is good-quality, Kurt knows - good enough to last Blaine's whole life and become an heirloom. It looks pretty, on the red lining of the case. He'd wanted to get something old-worldly, but a flask didn't seem quite right, jewelry seemed too intimate, and Blaine already had a pocket-watch. Kurt desperately hopes Blaine can actually play the harmonica and doesn't think it's totally lame, and so he's gratified when Blaine lifts the instrument to his lips and plays the intro to 'Mr Bojangles.', looking wonderfully soulful. Kurt wonders if he can get away with screen-capping it.
Blaine stops playing and smiles big at Kurt through the camera. "Thank you, Kurt. It's wonderful," and Kurt realizes it is his turn.
He's waited days and days to see what was inside this gold box, he's put way too much store on how whatever's inside will represent how Blaine feels about him, even though he's gone out of his way not to show his feelings too obviously with his own gift. He fumbles a little with the ribbon, wrestles off the wide flat lid, and bats away the layer of tissue protecting...
Oh.
Kurt extracts the ivory dinner jacket by the shoulders, shaking it out of its folds and holding it up, forgetting for a moment that he's obscuring the screen and Blaine's view. It's vintage, slim-fitting, with a single button, a wide shawl collar, and self-faced lapels. It's traditional, beautiful, a true leading man's attire, and while Kurt adores the look, and visions of these jackets have danced through his fantasies, he was never the one wearing them. He never expected to be someone's leading man. Is that how Blaine sees him?
"Kurt?" Blaine's voice calls him from a million miles away. "Kurt, do you hate it? It's okay if you don't like it, I should have known better than to think of getting you clothes, I don't know fashion like you do... Or if you have one like it already, I can probably exchange it..."
Kurt clutches the jacket to his chest with both hands and stares through the screen.
"You idiot," he says, amazed at Blaine, at his ideas, at his concern, at everything. "I love it. I never even imagined... oh, it's gorgeous."
Blaine grins and leans back in his chair, content. "I'm so glad. I pictured you in it, but I was nervous it might not be your style."
"It is now," says Kurt decisively. "I'll have to find a lot of excuses to wear it, though."
"Well," Blaine says, "We do have several formals at Dalton this semester. I have a feeling you'll be attending all of those. We even do Prom, you know." Blaine's smile is level, but even through the computer screen, his eyes shine with more wicked promise than someone in knitwear and a Santa hat should be legally allowed to display. "Ah. So the Warblers will be performing?" Kurt asks, lightly.
"Nope. Probably not." Blaine replies affably. "Now," he asks, "What are you doing for New Year's Eve? Because I know a party where that jacket definitely wouldn't be out of place, if you want to take it out for a spin."
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A.N. Hello. I started writing this just after Furt - the Finn/Rachel and Puck&Santana bits were completed well before AVGC came out. I was very gratified that Santana asked Santa for bling, as I'd already written Puck selecting it for her, even if she didn't end up with it. I knew I wanted to wait until after AVGC and tweak it to fit canon and luckily not much had to be changed, in fact some of AVGC was a little too perfect, I was thrilled it didn't Joss my plans.
A lot of this, especially the stuff about Santana and Rachel, is just my head-canon. This is my excuse to get it all down in writing. Thank you for putting up with it. But, for some reason, this story really started with me, for some reason, working out that Finn would have been around the same age as the kid in Love Actually when the movie came out at the cinemas. Don't ask me why I was thinking about this. Not a clue.
For anyone who hasn’t seen Love Actually, go RIGHT NOW and watch it… but this is the concert scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_WKfRDA8w
For those who aren’t Jewish, or don’t know any Jewish traditions or words - Seder is Passover, a yarmulke is a kippah, or one of these “tiny Jew hats.” L’chaim means “to life” and is a traditional toast.
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Santana's Barbie is real. Sadly, so is the McDonalds playset.
I don’t care about basketball. At all. I Googled to see what sports games were happening on Christmas day, and I know LeBron James has a habit of winning.
Kurt watching the DADT repeal at Dalton is a direct reference to Baby Steps by lookninjas, which is one of the most worthy and beautiful stories that has been told in this fandom. I would like to thank her again for writing it. I hope she reads this story and makes it as far as this ridiculously long author's note.
If you don’t follow Tom and Lorenzo’s blog, Project RunGay, you should start. Aside from being smart and hilarious, they do amazing Glee reviews. The story about the gay couple in NYC is true and so, so epic, watch the video.
I would kill babies to see/hear Darren Criss cover Mr Bojangles, or alternately, anything of Cole Porter’s. MAKE IT HAPPEN, SHOW.
If you don't speak fashion, this is the style of Kurt’s jacket from Blaine - Kurt would probably tailor it to be slightly more fitted.
Lastly: If you seem to recognize Kurt's mother - it's funny, another bit of head-canon, for a very long time I've actually pictured Marion Cotillard as Kurt's mother - a French-American. And when they referenced her with the Vogue covers in Substitute, I squealed, and the image just cemented itself. I know nothing about Marion Cotillard herself, but I very much relate my image of her as Kurt's mother to Mal Cobb in Inception, and in the amazing fic by rageprufrock, Presque Vu. (Seriously, if you've seen Inception and liked it, read this story. It's probably the best fic I've ever read, in any fandom. It's my canon and when I re-watch Inception now, I cry, because of this.) Anyway, Kurt's mother is not Mal Cobb, but I've always latched on to the suicide idea with Kurt's mother, probably because it's how I lost my mother, and there's something about Mal/Marion that I picture when I think of Kurt's mother, and something about the way Mal and Dom's relationship is described in Presque Vu that makes me think of how a very chic woman, probably a lot like Kurt, would end up with a rough-and-ready guy like Burt, though I don't go into that aspect here.
edit: 13 December 2011 - Well, it's been a year, and I just saw Extraordinary Merry Christmas, which is a year after this story takes place. And Blaine plays the freaking harmonica. Good to see you're getting some use out of it, B.