Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
A/N:
This just …, it feels like this story found me.
This declaration of love kept growing and growing. I hope my words are met with as much love as I put into them.
Addie117, this is for you. This is how much I love you.
For Ever For All Ways
It is their first vacation abroad, Kurt and Blaine celebrating that second time they had found the courage to be more than friends, in the midst of college madness that one New York autumn day several years back … today.
Standing on this hill, in the middle of the English countryside, all hills and green, the skies part gray but open, so open with swirls of blue and white, big white clouds piled high are driven past their eyes by autumn gusts of wind.
Leaves are flowing, gliding through the sky in a way, so effortless and powerful that it makes them seem like they will dance forever, never fall again back to the hills Kurt and Blaine have been climbing all day to get this view, to feel this much one with this world as they do not know how not to with each other.
They scoot closer to each other – not for the cold slowly filling the late afternoon hours but for the warmth they can always feel even in the dead of the darkest winter nights with each other close.
"We're here."
"We're here."
Their movements are slow, but so precise, so deliberate, they leave no room for it being doubt slowing either of them down. It is the same care, care alone that tugs at Kurt's lips, brings forward a smile so gentle Blaine's heart aches and melts and does a million things at the same time swirling, sparking with life looking at the man with him.
A moment later they are buried in each other's embraces deep, both breathing that little harder with feelings thrumming strong through them.
"I wanted to wait. I don't know why anymore."
Blaine is about to ask for what when Kurt takes one step back and in the wellies he is wearing goes down on one knee before him.
Blaine can feel his heart pounding in his ears. And his insides shake when he sees Kurt pull out a little box, not unlike the one Blaine had given him for their first Christmas together, years and years ago now, in high school.
"Blaine Devon Casander Anderson, will you spend the rest of your life with me?"
"Kurt," Blaine says as he kneels down with Kurt and wraps his hands around the box and Kurt's hands in which it is cradled with such care it makes Blaine's heart beat even stronger with happiness, with love.
As Blaine looks up from the box and finds Kurt's eyes again, glistening with hope, they stay lost to the world in each other for a moment.
Both men's hands still cradled around the box Blaine leans forward and invites Kurt's lips, as soon as he touches them into a deep kiss. It takes a while to break apart again.
They both know it is not about a wedding, not about a ceremony of any kind for the world or anyone but the two of them.
Right here, right now, this is them, this is all they need.
"Yes, Kurt Avery Elizabeth Hummel. Yes! I had promised it to you long before you ever asked."
Kurt is smiling shyly as his fingers begin to move under Blaine's and he flips the tiny box open.
Blaine lets out a laugh so full of joy for a moment if echoes in the hills around them before it ebbs away. "Kurt."
Kurt is not sure Blaine's eyes have ever been fuller of warmth and love looking at him.
And then recognition dawns on Blaine and his eyes grow wide at the ever pinker turning tinge in Kurt's cheeks. "It is the box, isn't it?"
Kurt just keeps on smiling wider and wider, briefly biting his lower lip. Then he nods, "Yes."
There is a flicker of incredulousness on Blaine's face mixed in with all the happiness and joy as he timidly whispers, "I thought you threw everything away when we first split up?"
Smile soft still Kurt's right hand comes up to gently cup Blaine's left cheek, "I didn't. I couldn't. I never stopped loving you, not once. Blaine, I have loved you every single day of my life since I first laid eyes on you, since you first took my hand and showed me that I was not as alone as I had felt then already for so long, too long. You helped me realize that I … that I did not have to be afraid anymore, it was you. It has been you all along. I have loved you every single day. And it made so many things so much harder for a while, but I, being here with you, I would not have it any other way."
Kurt is tenderly wiping away the tears that keep streaming down Blaine's face.
When Blaine buries himself in Kurt's arms, Kurt gently asks, "Want to put the rings on, or are they going to make you feel silly?"
Kurt can feel Blaine's arms tighten around him before he hears him say, "Never silly. Not silly at all. Loved. How can one person love this much?" Blaine asks, eyes full of admiration and overflowing with love of his own as he and Kurt carefully get back on their feet from the slightly muddy ground. And Kurt just shrugs, smiling, like loving Blaine is the most natural thing in the world to him. And really, it is.
"How did you get the measurements so perfectly right? I remember how the ring I made you hardly fit at all," Blaine asks, eyes watching wide as Kurt gently takes the deep blue gum wrapper ring – infused with silver – and slides it with great care onto Blaine's middle finger.
"Remember how I asked for your measurements for gloves I wanted to make you for Christmas this year some months back?"
"Am I still getting those too?" Blaine asks teasingly as he, box now resting back in Kurt's palm, picks up Kurt's deep blue ring – infused with silver too – and slips it onto Kurt's middle finger of his right hand. "Kurt, why the middle finger, why our right hands?" Blaine asks, more serious again as he tenderly traces along the lines of the ring on Kurt's skin, knowing Kurt always has reasons for things important to him in their detail.
Kurt slips the ring box back into his coat pocket. "You are the center of me. You will always be at my core. I wanted to show that. I want you to know that when you look down at your hand, for the rest of our lives."
"For the rest of our lives," Blaine echoes lovingly, awe laced into his voice.
Kurt, holding out his left arm to invite Blaine to lean into his side, asks "Should we go back? Warm up?"
Kurt's left arm winding around Blaine's waist Kurt feels Blaine's right come around his own, Blaine resting his head on Kurt's shoulder almost instantly.
With a bright smile on his lips Kurt presses a kiss to Blaine's wild weathered curls and places his right hand over Blaine's on his hip, rings resting together as fingers intertwine, hands warm each other.
"And the right hand?" Blaine whispers smiling, because he had guessed even before asking the first time, if you can call it guessing a question asked with such certainty as to what the answer would be.
"It is the first part of me you ever touched, and I of yours. When it comes to our bodies anyway."
A/N: I feel like I have somehow stolen from Shakespeare in Blaine's answer to Kurt. I feel like Juliet says something like it in the balcony scene. *looks around the room eyes shifting innocently* But it fits so well.