I got inspired to this silly little oneshot from the "Big Brother Wes" universe... kinda anyway ;) I couldn't get away to write it down until 23:45 my time so Midsummer is nearly over but anywho... I just had to do this.
There was no doubt about it in Kurt's mind, the Warblers were all crazy. It became very clear to him when Jeff and Nick came running to him when he arrived at David's house. They were wearing garlands made of birch and with flowers in them. The garlands were tied with yellow and blue ribbons. They even dared to put one of those horrible garlands on Kurt's neatly made hair! Kurt was not amused at all. Not even when Blaine hurried up to him, wearing the same thing, did he smile. He tried to remove the thing from his head but Blaine, Nick and Jeff objected. It was June 24th and for some reason the Warblers had invited Kurt to something called: "midsummer". Kurt had no idea what it was but agreed, it would be his last chance to see Wes before he went away to college again. Wes was home just for this "party" Blaine explained.
David's house was big and there were a lot of boys in there, not only Warblers or boys from Dalton, some of the boys were years older than Kurt and the Warblers. But Kurt realized they all had to have been Warblers because they all a: wore a pin with a warbler on it and b: everyone, one by one, hugged Wes happily. Kurt also grinned and hurried over and gave Wes a hug, ignoring that he didn't have one of those garlands on his head.
"Hi Kurt", Wes said hugging him. "Let me introduce you to some people here." Wes turned Kurt around to the four men in front of them.
"This is Otto Johnson", Wes explained. "He was a senior and the Warbler chairman when I was a freshman." Otto smiled at Kurt.
"Nice to meet you Kurt", Otto said shaking Kurt's hand. "Blaine and Wes have told us a lot about you."
"Only good things I promise", Wes said with a smile when Kurt glared at him. "This is Mark Connors, he was a senior when I first came to Dalton."
Kurt didn't know how old Wes was when he first came to Dalton, but he knew he'd been younger than the freshmen. Wes introduced Kurt to the last two men, one of them one year Otto's junior and the last one a senior along Mark. Kurt smiled at them and listened to their rambling. Soon David entered and told everyone the lunch was ready. Behind him he saw Rock and Fred leave the kitchen… not looking happy and their hands were wet. Kurt cocked an eyebrow and turned to Wes and Blaine.
"Fred and Rock got stuck scrubbing the new-potatoes", Wes explained and they headed outside.
Kurt stared openmouthed at the big thing in David's backyard. It was lying on the grass and looked like a bog cross with two rings attached to the horizontal part of the cross. It didlook like something else entirely… if you squinted your eyes a bit.
"What is that", Kurt asked Blaine and pointed at the thing in the grass.
"The May-pole", Blaine said happily and took Kurt's hand. "Come let's sit down and eat."
Kurt smiled at David's parents and the boys that he knew from school. There were a lot of people there. He looked at the table and it was full of food. It had a lot of potatoes, egg-halves, meat-lumps and small cans with something that looked like fish. The table was decorated with flowers and with streamers in blue and yellow.
"What is all this?" Kurt asked and held up a streamer. "Why is it blue and yellow?"
"Well to your right is the pickled-herring", Jeff explained happily. "The small glass in front of you is for nubbe."
"For what?"
"Like small Swedish shots."
"Swedish?" Kurt was confused and then a light went off in his mind. The blue and yellow… that was the color of the Swedish flag! Blaine noticed his confusion and nudged him.
"See that guy over there by David", Blaine asked nudging Kurt with his shoulder. Kurt looked and saw a young man with blonde hair and brown eyes talk to David with a smile on his face.
"Yeah", Kurt said.
"That's Kim Johansson", Blaine explained. "He was a Swedish transfer student when Wes had been a year at Dalton. (Wes was 13) He was a Warbler and started this Warblers' midsummer celebration tradition. So we have all Swedish midsummer specialties planned. We have the pickled herring, the shots that are called nubbe, the May-pole, the sauna, dans-band-music and the music for The Little Frogs."
"The what?"
"You'll see. Oh! Underage people get soda in our shots instead of liquor!" Blaine poured them some and when everyone had something in their small glasses Kim started to sing. The melody was melancholy.
Han't vi nå' brännvin är det sorgligt – Don't we have any booze then it's sad
Då är det sorgligt, ja då vill en bare dö – Then it's sad, yeah then you only wanna die
För han't vi nå' brännvin är det sorgligt – 'Cause don't we have any booze it's sad
Då vill en lägg sig ner och tvärdö – Then you want to lie down and die
Men har vi brännvin ja har vi brännvin – But if we have booze, if we have booze
Då kan vi dansa natten lång – Then we can dance the night away
Men har vi brännvin ja har vi brännvin – But if we have booze, if we have booze
Då kan vi dansa natten lång – Then we can dance the night away
Men han't vi nå brännvin är det sorgligt – But if don't have any booze it's sad
Då är det sorgligt, ja då vill en bare dö – Then it's sad and you only wanna die
För han't vi nå' brännvin är det sorgligt – 'Cause if we don't have booze it's sad
Ja då vill en lägg sig ner och tvärdö – Yeah then you only wanna lie down and die
"Cheers", everyone said and drank their small shots. Kurt looked at this Kim guy as if he was crazy. What on Earth had he been singing? Jeff laughed at the look on his face and turned to Kurt.
"Don't bother asking", Jeff said. "It's usually something crude or embarrassing they sing when they sing those schnapps-songs."
They ate the lunch and Kurt was surprised about the pickled-herring. It tasted really good. After that the oldest guys around the table headed over to the May-pole and started to raise it. Kurt and Blaine stood watching when Wes suddenly made his way in between them and put his arms around both boys. They didn't mind, it was big brother Wes after all and they hadn't seen him in a while.
"Did you know that pole thing is actually a fertility symbol", he asked and Blaine and Kurt stared at him. "The 'heathens' had a pole with a ring at the top that was meant to be the men's most private part that was making the earth fertile. When the Christians came they forced the 'heathens' to change it into a cross but they were allowed to add those rings on each side of the horizontal part."
"But that makes it look even more like a penis", Blaine said and Kurt blushed. That's why Wes said private parts instead of the word, Kurt still got embarrassed.
"How do you know that", Kurt asked looking at Wes.
"Kim told me", Wes said smiling. "Come on… it's time to dance and embarrass ourselves."
He pulled the boys with him towards the now risen May-pole and everyone else was gathering around as well. Kim stood by the May-pole with a stereo at the base, a laptop were hooked to it.
"Okay everybody gather round", he said happily. "It's time to dance the Little Frogs. Don't worry I have translated the lyrics for you and remember… this dance is so easy that small kids can do it in their sleep!"
Some of the boys laughed and Kurt wondered what the heck was going on. But he lined up with the others so that they all stood in a ring around the May-pole and they were all facing the same direction, because they were going to move around in a ring, walk around the pole. The music started and Kim sang, with help from some older graduated Warblers:
Little frogs, little frogs are funny to look at
Little frogs, little frogs are funny to look at
When they sang this part they were only walking around in the ring.
No ears, no ears, no tails do they have
No ears, no ears, no tails do they have
When they sang about the ears they walked around in the ring and held their hands to their ears, waving with them and when they sang about the tails the held their hands behind their backs and waved with their fingers again. Suddenly… they all started to jump, hands on their backs, forward in the same direction that they had been moving. Why? Well because the boys were singing:
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kou ack ack ack, kou ack ack ack,
kou ack ack ack ack kaa.
Kurt couldn't help but laugh at the whole thing, but he danced along even though he was feeling quite embarrassed by the whole thing. They sang another verse about pigs and then about the frogs again and they danced. They also sang something about a priest and his little birdie. In that song they held hands, to David's little sisters' delight, danced around the May-pole and at one part that went:
And she slipped here
And she slipped there
And then she slipped into the ditch
They first ran towards the middle so close to the pole as they could, then at the second phrase they backed out as far as they could without losing their grip on each other and at the last phrase they all fell into the grass.
Kurt was laughing as they ate their desert, strawberry cake. They had eaten a dinner that consisted of barbeque and some of the boys were bathing in the sauna, but only Kim was naked. He had called everyone else "fegisar*" a Swedish word that Kurt had no idea what it meant but he smiled when he saw the boys run from the sauna and jump into the lake, Kim naked and with a fine ass as Nick remarked. Kurt was still laughing at the look on Jeff's face. Wes was on one side of Jeff and he was patting the blonde on the shoulder supportively. Suddenly David's sisters came running over to them.
"Wes!"
"Thad!"
"Nick!"
The three girls shouted for one of the boys and they took said boys' hands in their own. Kurt heard them say something about picking seven flowers of different kind so that they could dream of the boys they were going to marry.
"But I'm not gonna marry a boy", Wes teased.
"No but I'm gonna marry you!" David's sister Lisa said happily. "So it'll help if you help me pick the flowers!"
"But honeys", Thad said smiling. "Remember the most important thing."
"What", Connie asked holding onto his hand.
"You can't say a word until tomorrow when you start picking those flowers."
"Right", Lisa said. "Come on Wessy!"
She started to pull on him and Wes 'gave up' and let himself getting dragged along. Thad and Nick declined politely so the three girls only dragged their older friend away chatting happily. Kurt guessed it was so that they could stand not talking for the rest of the night after that. Kurt smiled when he saw the three girls pull on Wes' arms eagerly, Lisa practically clutching his right hand to her small chest.
"So Lisa is going to marry Wes", he asked and turned to David, who snorted.
"She's said that since the first time she saw him", he explained. "But I won't allow."
"Why", Blaine teased.
"For one, he's my brother so it would be weird, two she's my sister and I don't want her to marry a friend of mine and three Wes is 19 and she is 9."
"So", Kurt asked smirking. "Some people that get married have a bigger age difference between them."
"Wes is not marrying her", David grumbled. "Lisa will lose her crush… soon enough."
"You wish", Nick said happily and they all laughed.
It was getting late and Kim pointed out to them that during midsummer back in Sweden the sun doesn't really go down during the entire night, they call it midnight sun. Kurt wished he could see that. Kim explained you could see the sun get to the horizon and sink a bit but then travel along it and rise again. Kurt leaned on Blaine as they sat by the lake watching the fire. Wes was back with them after walking around with the small girls, who were now abed and had not talked since they came back. Kurt watched Wes removing the garland he'd gotten from the girls from his head and Kurt felt on his own garland and smiled. Kurt knew the Warblers were all crazy… but this kind of crazy… he liked. He couldn't wait for next year.
Happy Midsummer all!
*The word fegisar is Swedish for cowards
