For Sal. Inspired by a gifset and its tags by Sal (coffeeorderwrites) on Tumblr. I don't think I can link it here unfortunately. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
He settles into the chair next to Santana, who all but pounced on him the moment he walked through the venue door.
Santana can be a lot, but he's thankful for her on this particular day.
Because this particular day is Kurt Hummel's wedding day. Which means Elliott needs to be a supportive friend, he needs to be happy for Kurt and Blaine.
And being happy for your friend marrying his high school sweetheart is not the easiest thing to be, when part of you... doesn't really want him to be marrying his high school sweetheart.
It's nothing against Blaine. There was that one time Blaine showed up at his apartment with no warning, and he's heard about the jealous issues from Kurt, too, but really, Blaine's never done much to give Elliott a reason to dislike him.
And Elliott doesn't dislike him, not really.
He dislikes them.
It's not personal. He's pretty sure he'd feel the same way no matter who Kurt was marrying today.
And it's not that he wants to marry Kurt, either. Of course not. That would be absurd.
But... the idea of it, the idea of him and Kurt, is something that's always been a weight on his mind.
Kurt's wedding isn't the time or place to be dwelling on those thoughts.
"I love weddings," Santana says, leaning back in her chair.
Elliott looks at her skeptically. "Not to be rude, but you don't really seem like the 'loves watching other people in love' type."
"I'm not," she says, then leans over to whisper conspiratorially in his ear, "but I do enjoy comforting all the beautiful women who are sad they haven't found what the lucky couple has yet." She sits back in her chair and winks at him, "If you know what I mean."
Elliott rolls his eyes. "Please, don't act like you're going back to anyone else's hotel room when Brittany is right over there," he says, gesturing in her ex's direction.
"Shut up," she says, giving him a scowl and a harder-than-necessary smack on the arm before turning to her other side and jumping into a conversation with Quinn and Puck.
Relationships are complicated; that he understands.
But how the hell are non-relationships just as complicated?
He's heard all the details of Santana and Brittany's on-again/off-again relationship over the years – he's pretty sure Santana just likes to hear herself speak, sometimes – and it seems utterly exhausting. Sometimes he finds himself wondering why she doesn't just give up on it, if it's so complicated, except...
He knows why. Because you can't just turn your feelings off like that. And even if you think it won't work, you can't know for certain unless you try, and sometimes – especially right now – he's pretty sure that knowing you can't ever try is worse than trying and failing.
It's certainly harder to accept.
It's not that he wouldn't have tried. The timing was just never right. He values Kurt's friendship too much to risk messing things up between them, or messing up Kurt's relationship, and Kurt has always been with Blaine. When they met, Kurt was already engaged. If he's honest, he hadn't thought it was going to last; not that he planned to make a move the moment it ended or anything, of course not, he has more respect for Kurt than that and he wanted to be more than a rebound, anyway. But he hadn't thought they would actually get married, they're so young and they got together in high school and they were each others' first everything, really, and that just... doesn't happen, right?
Except, it does happen. It's happening, right now.
And there will be no more chances for KurtandElliott after today.
The music starts – an instrumental composition of 'Come What May', of course – and the wedding party straightens at the front of the room. The guests all shift in their seats, turning toward the back to watch as the grooms emerge, arm in arm, walking down the aisle together.
They both look stunning, he can't deny that. Suits and hair and accessories and hearts in their eyes as they can barely pull their gazes apart to walk down the aisle. They're so in love and clearly perfect together and it shouldn't hurt this much because he already knew that, he knows they're in love and they're perfect and he needs to be happy for them.
"Damn," Santana lets out under her breath.
"Yeah," Elliott agrees, hopes the woman beside him is too distracted to pick up on his tone.
They were never in love. Never will be in love, now, because Kurt is marrying another man.
But, oh god, they could have been.