At Last

The pictures still hung on the walls of the Hummel-Hudson home. A wedding in Lima, Ohio, nearly ten years ago. The frames held such memories. A tall, bald and awkward man, danced down the aisle in the top right hand corner of the wall. Next to him, a woman in white twirled a girl in a dress the color of an autumnal forest around a dance floor. A man in his 30s with slicked back blonde hair and gray suit was striking a pose on the stage behind them. Pictures of a group of questionably sane high school students, blurred because of their motion, were scattered around the wall, dancing, laughing, singing, smiling. All were beautiful pictures in their own right, but none of them held a candle to the one in the very center.

Two boys, one tall, brunette and gangly, the other average-sized, mousy-haired and rosy-cheeked, in matching suits. The taller one had one arm awkwardly wrapped around the other boy's waist, his other hand in his. They appeared to be dancing, the taller boy leading the other. Despite the seemingly uncomfortable position, they were beaming with delight. The lights from the stage made it look like the sun was setting behind them, blocking out the faces and bodies around them. Only they were in focus. The smaller boy's eyes were shining, more green than blue in the artificial light. The light weaved through his hair, bringing even more attention to the color in his cheeks. His partner looked down with half-lidded eyes and a wide smile, looking content, peaceful.

It was easily the favorite picture of the Hummel-Hudson family, but if you asked three-year-old Lydia Claire, who had just learned how to add 'est' into the end of every word, she would always say that she loved it the bestest. The girl in question toddled down the hall and into her room, ready for her nap. Her father, one of them at least, followed her closely. He was taller and had a stronger jaw, but the rosy-cheeked boy from the photo had changed very little in the last ten years. With a laugh, he scooped his daughter into his arms and tucked her into bed.

"Daddy!" little Lydia cried. "Lullaby!"

"But I can't sing you a lullaby at three in the afternoon, Lydia. It would ruin your bedtime lullaby, now wouldn't it?" he laughed.

"No. You sing the bestest lullabies. Auntie Cedes says so," she protested. But her eyes were already fluttering shut and before her father had the time to respond, she was snoring softly and snuggling into the large stuffed panda. He smiled at the toy. She had been so excited when her other father had won it for her, like Agnes from that movie her Auntie Rach had taken her to the other weekend.

"Why can't you stay this young forever, my dear?" he sighed, bending down to kiss Lydia's forehead before walking back to the living room. He stopped halfway down the hall. The wall of photos had been meticulously designed, every picture put it its place for a reason. The photo of himself, much younger, had been put in the middle as a juxtaposition (he had tried to explain it to Lydia, but she wasn't ready for such advanced interior design concepts yet) to the picture below it.

It was dated six years, almost to the day, after the first. The subject was the same: the two boys in matching suits on the dance floor, but the conditions couldn't have been more different. Instead of two boys, there stood two men, arms wrapped around each other so that their fronts touched. Low lighting, more romantic this time, light them up. The taller one had his arms comfortably looped around the other, his fingers splayed over the small of his back. Their foreheads were touching and the shorter one had his head inclined up in preparation for a kiss. The photo had been snapped just before their lips brushed, in the moment of anticipation when body heat, breath, eyes, and skin met. It was his favorite picture, for obvious reasons.

It was his wedding day.

A pair of arms encircled his waist and he automatically fell back into the broad chest of his husband.

"Say it again," he whispered, turning his head to press a feather-light kiss to this neck.

"But you must have heard it a thousand times in the last four years, love," the other laughed, giving his waist a squeeze.

"Say it again. Please. For me."

"I, Finn Hudson, take you, Kurt Hummel, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life. I, Finn Hudson, take you, Kurt Hummel, for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." Finn punctuated his words with kisses up and down the side of Kurt's face, nuzzling his nose in the space between his shoulder and jaw. "That photo doesn't do you justice, Kurt. None of them do," he said simply. "Your beauty is simply too stunning to ever be captured on film. Don't laugh like that, it's true!" he chuckled as his husband's body shook with giggles.

"You're my husband. You're supposed to say things like that," Kurt said, leaning up on his tip toes to kiss Finn's cheek.

"That doesn't make them any less true," he shrugged. He shifted his arms so that they were looped around Kurt's waist, pulling him closer so that he could rub his nose against his. Kurt giggled and closed the gap between them, pressing his lips against his husband's in a firm kiss. God, why did every kiss feel the first one? The one outside Kurt's apartment, rain pouring down from the New York night sky. The one that had made the hair stand up on the back of his neck and the world stop spinning for a moment, just a moment. It was the kind of kiss people spent their entire lives dreaming about. Kurt had been one of them, day dreaming in sophomore Spanish about a boy he had been certain he would never get. But get him he had, and kept him to boot. Sure, there had been other boys, but his heart had always come back to Finn. Always.

"I love you, Finn," Kurt breathed between kisses. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, Kurt," Finn said. "It took me a long time to realize it, but I love you. You know that, right?" he asked. Kurt's eyes raised to meet Finn's a slow, knowing smile crossed his lips.

"Yes. Yes, I do." He lifted his head for another kiss and released all of Finn but his right hand. "I left the record player in the den from when Lydia wanted me to dance with her this morning. Our song should still be out. Come dance with me? Like you did at our wedding?" he asked, already tugging Finn down to the stairs.

"Sure, Kurt. Sure." Finn smiled and followed him the rest of the way. He waited until Kurt had started the record player before pulling him close, his arms slipping easily into the familiar position. He slid his fingers into the spaces between his husband's as his hips started to sway with the music. It was a song they had danced to at least a thousand times since that blissful November night four years ago, but he could still picture it. Kurt looking stunning in his tuxedo, the dance floor empty save for the two of them, a reception full of on-lookers smiling. Mercedes Jones was standing with the band, looking as happy as Finn was. If he just closed his eyes, he could almost hear her sing it again...

At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
Oh, yeah, at last
The skies above are blue
My heart was wrapped up in clovers
The night I looked at you
I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I can call my own
I found a thrill to rest my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Oh, yeah when you smile, you smile
Oh, and then the spell was cast
And here we are in heaven
For you are mine
At last