My god, this headcanon is not only persistent, it is verbose. This is giant and super long and I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT HAPPENED. SORRY.
For those of you who need a refresher, Kurt and Blaine got engaged on the Brooklyn Bridge, Santana and Quinn are a couple, and I actually kind of like Isabel Bright, so whatever.
Also: more Facebook stuff and New Directions shenanigans in the next installment. Hopefully.
It's crazy.
That's Kurt's stance on the idea, and he's not backing down. Not "just-crazy-enough-to-work," not "crazy-awesome" or "crazy-brilliant," not the kind of crazy that Nikola Tesla or Marie Curie or the Wright Brothers used to invent science.
Letting Santana Lopez take charge of planning his and Blaine's wedding is just completely fucking crazy.
"You didn't even think about it!" she snaps when he says as much a week after the night they got engaged. Quinn's vegan lasagna has gone over very well for dinner, and Kurt has a portfolio to finish that he can do at the table while Quinn and Rachel and Blaine play Scrabble on the floor in front of the TV, and the temperature is below 90 degrees for the first time in weeks, and it would have been such a nice evening if not for Santana, who is standing at the kitchen counter, holding a beer and wearing her Cut A Bitch face. Usually Kurt knows to avoid this combination (preferably in an underground bunker somewhere) but not this time.
"I did think about it, Santana, and it took me almost a whole half of a second to decide that it's a totally awful idea." He crosses his arms and plants his feet firmly on the floor, staring Santana straight in the eye and ignoring the way Blaine, Rachel, and Quinn are all cringing like they think he's about to get a razor blade to the groin. "This wedding is mine, get your own."
"Oh for the love of God, you should be kissing my perfectly sculpted ass for even offering, Hummel," she says with a sneer, and takes a violent swig of her beer. When she'd first casually brought up this totally crazy and insane notion, Kurt had assumed she was joking; after he realized that she wasn't, he faced a very real dilemma of whether to be angry or confused or both and in which order.
"When the hell are you going to have time to plan a fucking wedding," Santana continues, pointing a red-painted finger at him, "especially a wedding that is as disgustingly fabulous as I know you're going to want it to be and still comes in under budget? Do you even know what goes into planning a wedding?"
"Do I even—I got my father married to Carole with doves that shit sequins! I know more about weddings than everyone who has ever been on Say Yes To The Dress, and you—"
"I am out of school for the summer," Santana interrupts fiercely, and suddenly she's advancing on Kurt, striding out from behind the kitchen island and heading right towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt sees Blaine twitch like he's about to jump to his feet, and even in the heat of battle Kurt can still appreciate how sweet it is that his boyfriend would be willing to dive in front of a psychopathic Latina lesbian for his sake.
It's the little things that count.
"I am out. Of. School," she repeats, now so close to him that her breasts are bumping up against the front of his shirt like the bulkhead of a warship, and he can smell the tang of beer and the tomato-basil scent of lasagna mingled on her breath. "I have shit all to do except work at the bar, which is about thirty hours a week less than you spend working for Vogue, and Blainey-boo has his stupid Christmas pageant or whatever—"
"It's an off-Broadway revue," Blaine splutters, but Santana's train never leaves the tracks.
"—so both of you are going to be all spazzed out and crying yourselves to sleep in a cloud of vanilla-scented candle fumes and whatever, I usually relish the opportunity to be reminded that everyone who is not me is weak and puny like a Smurf with both legs broken, but in this case I am not going to sit by and let you try to make your dream wedding happen when we both know that you'll be too busy and end up botching the whole thing like you botched that outfit with the kid gloves last Easter."
Kurt feels like someone has just rammed an ice pick down his spine. "You said you would never talk about that. Ever."
"I lied, Tweedledum," she says flatly, and not for the first time Kurt experiences a strong curiosity to see how hard one would have to yank Santana's hair before her scalp just peeled off.
"Well, whether or not you're a lying bitch, which you are, and whether or not I'm going to be too busy, which I'm not, there is no way on this Earth that I am letting you come anywhere near my wedding. There is absolutely good God damn way that—"
"Kurt, can I speak to you for a second?" Blaine suddenly peeps up. Tripping over himself just as he was gathering steam, Kurt loses valuable time trying not to swallow his own tongue, making it that much easier for Blaine to stand up, grab Kurt by the wrist, and drag him through the Privacy Curtain into their tiny makeshift bedroom.
"What gives!" he hisses, wrenching his wrist out of Blaine's grasp the second the curtain falls back behind them. "I was just about to shut the hellbeast down!"
"What if she's right?" Blaine says quietly. Kurt's mouth falls open, and he gapes at his boyfriend like Blaine told him that he'd joined a cult against the use of hair products.
"Excuse me?"
"Shhh, Kurt, I'm just saying, she's got a point." Blaine is unfazed by Kurt's astonishment, and continues speaking in an even and infuriatingly calm tone. "You're only getting more work to take home from the office, and I know you love it, and I know you want to do it, but it's exhausting as is, without planning some huge thing. And once I go into rehearsals I'll barely have the time to see you, let alone figure out how I'm going to marry you, and anyways I'm not good at that stuff like you are. But Santana—she may be a hellbeast, but you trust her, don't you?"
Kurt refuses to meet Blaine's eye, staring tight-lipped at the hanging grey curtain. Yes, all right, yes, he does trust Santana, at least he trusts her taste and her business smarts and her ability to get shit done for real. He's seen her mount some pretty impressive projects over the years, from the Bullywhips and Nationals routines to convincing NYADA's extension school to let her host an S&M/salsa-dance workshop, and truth be told, he's always admired the inhuman drive she seems to be able to muster out of nowhere (or, more likely, out of the flaming pits of Tartarus).
But letting her plan his wedding? For that matter, letting anyone plan his wedding, when he's spent endless hours, probably a cumulative decade of his life, poring over wedding magazines and bookmarking designer tuxedos online and generally lapsing into elaborate fantasies about his breathlessly romantic marriage to the love of his life? Granted, the fantasies themselves have changed over the years—in his earliest constructions, the wedding cake had a pony centerpiece and both he and his betrothed were wearing sequined denim vests—but still. It's what he's always dreamed of. It's what he never even dared to hope for in reality until he met Blaine. It's what he's earned after a long and intense relationship that sometimes seemed doomed and sometimes seemed to be all that kept him going.
How could he possibly let it go?
Kurt doesn't realize that there are tears forming in his eyes until Blaine's hand comes up and brushes them away. He swallows around a lump in his throat and manages to look back at Blaine—his Blaine, who is standing there with an understanding smile, who has only ever wanted Kurt to feel good and safe and loved, who is reaching out and folding him into a tight hug.
"It's just—I've just wanted to do this for a long time," Kurt says hoarsely into the curve of Blaine's neck. He feels Blaine nodding against his jaw.
"I know. And I would never, ever ask you to give it up unless I thought maybe there's a chance you could be even happier than if you held onto it." He pulls back a little and cups Kurt's face with both hands. "It's up to you, babe. No matter what, I'm with you one hundred percent."
"Love you," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine kisses him softly.
"Love you too." He pauses for a moment, the pads of his fingers pressing against Kurt's temples. "What do you think?"
Kurt sighs and closes his eyes. He can hear Quinn and Rachel whispering outside in the living room, probably trying to calm Santana down—although strangely he doesn't hear her reeling off medieval punishments and Spanish curses, as she often does when challenged. It occurs to him, like a little lightbulb switching on inside his head, that maybe Santana wasn't trying to be an undermining, controlling bitch by suggesting that she take over his wedding. Maybe she was just trying to help.
"I don't know…I want to, I want to so much, but—it's true, I mean, summer shoots are starting up and I'm going to have to be out running errands and researching and stalking writers for their pieces and everything, Blaine, fuck everything, it's true." He bites his lip and blinks back another pricking tear. "But I don't want to give it up completely. It's our wedding. I want us to be part of making it happen, not just show up like pinch batters right at the end."
"Pinch hitters."
"WHATEVER, BLAINE, THAT IS NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW."
"I know," Blaine says quickly, and it is a mark of how much Kurt loves him that he doesn't smack that smirking half-smile off Blaine's face. "I know it's not. But look, what about, like—what if you and I but mostly you kind of checked in and worked with Santana to plan everything? Like, she looks around for stuff and does research and she can find everything, put it all in one place, and then we can discuss? And consider? And choose? So it's still really us, but we trust her to narrow down the pool beforehand. And to respect our veto, of course," he adds hastily, and Kurt knows that Blaine knows that Kurt was about to say something about the outfits and how the sky would open up and bleed flaming hail before he let Santana Lopez decide what he was going to wear on his wedding day.
"I don't know," Kurt says slowly, but he's turning the idea over in his head and it doesn't seem so ludicrous and offensive anymore. In fact, the more generous side of his brain is thinking that it might even be a relief not to have to trawl through endlessly vulgar decorations and color schemes and venues, that maybe a lieutenant to scout the terrain would make the actual blazing of the trail that much easier. He chews on his lower lip and looks at Blaine from beneath his eyelashes; Blaine smiles reassuringly and waits for Kurt to get there.
"Fine," he sighs eventually, rolling his eyes. "Let's go tell Santana Lopez that she can get her filthy, evil hands all over the beautiful celebration of our legally-recognized love for one another."
"Which reminds me," says Blaine, catching Kurt around the waist just as he turns to step back through the curtain. He draws him close, and Kurt's stomach jumps pleasantly when Blaine presses his mouth to his ear and gives the lobe a gentle nip. "Doesn't matter who plans the thing, it's still going to be you and me and nobody else."
"We're gonna get married," Kurt agrees, smiling as Blaine kisses the pressure point by his temple. "Just like grown ups."
"Psht. We're not grown ups. We're maturity-challenged."
"You, maybe. I pay bills."
"Bills equal adulthood?"
"If not bills, then what?"
"I don't know. Voting? Legal drinking age? Health insurance?"
"Nope. Bills."
"Speaking of which, there'll be a lot of those."
"You're worth it."
"Careful. You say that now, but when Santana wants one of us to jump out of a cake…"
"Mmmm. Cake."
"We should have a lot of cake."
"I knew there was a reason I was marrying you."
If Kurt could pick any special night in the history of his life and make it last forever—and between the New Directions, New York, and working for the top fashion magazine in the world, he's got quite a few to consider—he would choose that night with Blaine, hands down.
But unfortunately, such a choice is still just fantasy, and it's far too soon before Kurt finds himself slowly rising from a warm, feathery world of Blaine- and wedding-related dreams into the equally warm but somewhat stickier and sweatier embrace of his fiancé. The sun is spilling into their corner of the loft through the tiny sliver of window that peeps out behind the Privacy Curtain, and its rays are pretty much poking Kurt in the eye. He raises his head and does some sleepy reconnaissance: clothes on the floor, uncapped bottle of lube and a couple condom wrappers on the nightstand, someone's keys (he and Blaine have matching New York Mets keychains from that one time Isabelle gave them a pair of comped tickets she didn't want) on top of the dresser, a gold ring on his left hand—
Oh. Right.
Kurt twists around carefully and looks down at his big spoon, who is actually sort of little. Blaine is doing that thing where he looks heartbreakingly beautiful asleep. His lips, parted slightly, are soft and rosy; the slope of his arm, from his shoulder to his elbow to his limp hand on Kurt's stomach, has an unearthly grace; his whole face is translucent and glowing, so deeply relaxed that he seems to shimmer between a flesh-and-blood person and one of Kurt's dreams. It also doesn't hurt that Kurt can see post-coital souvenirs all over Blaine's body, from the purplish-creamy hickies on his neck and chest to the thin red marks on his biceps from where Kurt's blunt nails had dragged him desperately closer last night.
Mine.
Kurt flexes the fingers of his left hand and watches the gold sparkle in the thin rays of morning sunlight. Man, he and Blaine have been together for five years and they still can't coordinate anything as simple as matching engagement rings. That's how it always is between them, really, an improvised and uneven kind of progress, where one of them bolts ahead and the other falls back, and they cross wires and mix things up and finally figure out that they each went so far in the opposite direction that they circled around and now they're back together, in some new and strange and wonderful place. The first time they had sex, the preparations for Kurt's departure and the subsequent catastrophe, the awkward escapades of getting back together—it's never simple between them, but that's okay, because if Kurt and Blaine had each other completely figured out then this would be about the most boring relationship on the planet.
Kurt pushes his hair back, sighs, lies down again and tries to snuggle backwards against Blaine's chest. He can coax himself back to sleep, the daylight is new enough that Santana and Quinn won't be coming home any time soon, and there is nothing he wants more in the world right now than to stay close to Blaine, melting in the freakish and awesome heat of his body, feeling his heart flutter up against Kurt's spine and reminding himself always that Blaine is his in the most way now, mine mine mine. He closes his eyes and yawns, lacing his fingers through Blaine's floppy hand and pulling his arm tight around his waist. Blaine mumbles in his sleep, lips brushing Kurt's ear, and he's already starting to doze off.
This time yesterday, he was Kurt Hummel, and that was all.
Now he's Kurt Hummel and something more—something small and dark-haired and beautiful as the rising sun.
"Good afternoon, Worthen & Partners, how may I help you?"
"Hi, Janine, it's Kurt. Can you patch me through to Quinn?" Kurt says breathlessly as he power-walks down 5th Avenue, a coffee tray from Starbucks clutched in one hand and a portfolio case in the other, with the phone clenched between his shoulder and ear.
"Can do, sugar. Hold on a second—" Janine's voice cuts short, replaced by a tinny ringing. Kurt swears as he tries to rebalance his latte and narrowly avoids slopping it all over his shirt front when a woman in green pumps runs her elbow into his ribs. It's one o'clock and the lunch lines have started forming at the food trucks, crowding the sidewalks and prompting the taxis to honk endlessly as hungry office workers spill over into the street. Not a good time to be late for a meeting six blocks downtown.
"Quinn Fabray, state your business," says a clipped, familiar voice, and Kurt rolls his eyes automatically.
"Jesus, Quinn, you're an intern, not Donald Trump."
"Trump can suck my dick," Quinn says nonchalantly. "What's up, Kurty-cat?"
"Don't call me that."
"Don't have a name starting with K."
"God, sometimes I really understand why someone would kick your sassy pregnant ass out of their house."
"I'm hanging up now, Kurt."
"Wait! Wait, wait, I'm sorry, I need a favor." Kurt dodges a parcel of chattering Wall Street interns and speeds up, the large glass building he's heading towards now coming into view several hundred feet away.
"You need a favor? Good job bringing up the shameful trauma of my teenage years."
"I said I'm sorry! Listen, would you please tell Santana that you hate eggshell?"
"…what?"
"Eggshell. Like the shade."
"Kurt—"
"She keeps harping on these eggshell pumps for the ladies in the wedding party and true they're sleek yet conservative but honestly nothing that comes close to the ground should be eggshell, it just doesn't bode well, and I can't say that to her because she'll just tell me I liked them last week, which I did, when I didn't realize that they weren't taupe, which I originally thought—"
"Enough." Quinn's voice is strung out on a thin line of exasperation. "I don't have time to plead your fashion cases to my girlfriend."
"But Quinn—"
"The whole point of the way you guys did this was that it was supposed to be you and her, not me and Rachel and Carole and Francesca and Michael and Tony and everyone else with the bad luck to know you getting dragged into it!"
"I'm just trying to make my wedding beautiful," Kurt says, dropping his voice to a calculated whine. There's a slurp in his ear as Quinn takes a sip of coffee.
"Cry me a river, Kurt. It's a fucking Friday and I have a billion briefs to go through before lunch, I'll probably already have to stay past eight, I'm not calling Santana just to—"
"You don't have to do it now! Just, y'know, at some point. In the near future."
"FINE. Fine, Jesus Christ, you demanding little jerk, I bet you were a mosquito in another life and hopefully someone squashed you good." And with that, the line goes dead just as Kurt reaches his destination. He pushes through the glass front door and crosses the air-conditioned lobby at a brisk pace, taking no pains to hide a triumphant smile.
Much as it pains him to admit it, Santana's involvement has proven to be a saving grace in this whole wedding thing. As it turns out, Kurt seriously overestimated how much time he would have this summer for sitting around and basking in a recently-engaged glow; after the weekend ends and he goes back to work and Blaine's rehearsals kick into gear, things go rather unsettlingly back to normal. The news spreads and settles, everyone congratulates them, and then - life goes on.
Being engaged doesn't mean that Kurt's article edits get done any faster, or that his appraisals are any more thorough, or that the numerous men and women associated with who demand his daily babysitting become any less needy. The topic rarely appears in conversation, simply because it's so far from relevant to the little daily catastrophes and weary nighttime commiserations of his regular schedule. He still arrives home exhausted every night, and often falls asleep in a sea of papers. The idea of then, on top of everything else, having to slog through a wedding catalogue in which he would find three worthwhile flower arrangements amidst a truckload of floral atrocities, makes his head ache.
So having Santana pop up every week or so with a dozen options for him to choose from - color coordinations, flowers, music, registry (PRESENTS) - is a tremendous relief. It's like a treat, to break out of the stress and sweaty summer heat for just a moment and recall that he is actually engaged, that this whole marriage thing is for real.
Because it is, it is, it is-he and Blaine aren't just high school sweethearts anymore, they aren't just the boringly-monogamous college boyfriends, they are actually going to a legitimate old married couple (only unlike the last time Kurt began thinking of their relationship as such, they are going to keep having sex, lots and lots and lots of sex). The officiality of it, the seriousness of the ceremony that will be performed, hangs around the edges of his mind like a whiff of earthy perfume, and during these brief moments of consideration, he takes a deep breath and shudders with delight as chills go down his spine.
Santana's attitude about wedding planning is the same kind of crackling ferocity that he used to assume she reserved solely for drinking contests and curbstomping drunk fraternity homophobes. On the occasions when she has something to show him and Blaine, the two of them will find themselves being yanked viciously onto the couch and pinned there with a searing look, while Santana holds up a massive 3-ring binder and flips through transparent plastic sleeves filled with clippings and printouts. Blaine, usually sore from dance rehearsals and already out of his depth when it comes to this, will nod and mumble and watch Kurt for his cues; Kurt, on the other hand, is almost always able to hold his own and coolly negotiate with Santana, except for the rare moment when he'll second-guess himself - i.e. the eggshell pumps - and then desperately find a way to backtrack after the fact, usually by enlisting an outside party to address his concerns and help him avoid being called a "whiny garden gnome with sugar plums for balls."
The other great thing about Santana taking charge is that she knows how to be cost-effective; Kurt is the first one to admit that when it comes to financial self-control, he is somewhat lacking in the clothing and decoration departments. After speaking to Burt and Carole and Blaine's parents, they've agreed to go for "traditional, but within reason:" Santana seems to have interpreted this as a carte blanche for her whimsy amidst the bargain basements and slashed-price deals of the matrimonial world. It pains Kurt to think of all the fabulous designer clothes and food and decorations that their limited budget deprives them of, but Santana has done such a good job hunting up diamonds in the rough that it's all he can do to calm his fluttering heart when he imagines himself wearing the sleek black tuxedo with the single-button, wide-pectoral cut and the notched lapels that appears circled in thick blue marker in the discount section of a wedding magazine.
This image is the one flashing through his head as he knocks on the black paneled door of the conference room he should have been in twenty minutes ago. With a deep breath and a roll of his shoulders, he banishes all thoughts of marital bliss and puts on his Professional Face, because that's what he has—one mask, then another, on and off, juggling Confident Kurt and Coy Kurt and Take-No-Shit Kurt, right up until he's done for the day and he gets to go home and be just Kurt, also known as Blaine's Kurt.
The real one.
The first time they have sex in New York is great.
They do what they haven't done since before they broke up—Valentine's Day, while fun as hell, featured a limited menu due to their lack of supplies (it's tacky to carry lube and condoms in your tuxedo pocket, regardless of the wedding-hookup cliché)—and Blaine, damn, Blaine upped his game. Say what you want about Sue Sylvester, but her aerobics classes give people the ability to flex muscles and bend joints that were previously undiscovered by science.
And that's just Blaine; between constant dance classes, being forced to eat mostly vegan due to Rachel's totalitarian attitude about the kitchen, and a somewhat self-conscious three-times-a-week gym routine, Kurt's body has changed so much that Blaine absolutely insists on spending five whole minutes kissing his way up and down every square inch of it, getting to know it again, paying the attention and showing the tenderness that he didn't feel permitted to when they were "just friends." Kurt is a little embarrassed at first, because he knows some spots are slimmer and some muscles are larger and more defined, but still, it's his body, and just because Blaine has always loved it doesn't mean he might not find some part of it that is suddenly unsatisfactory or off-putting. But one look at Blaine, one moment of raw, bare connection between them, and every shred of self-awareness falls away; he's able to fall forwards into those warm olive-brown arms and let Blaine work him up and down until he's trembling and rolling through the hips and clutching at Blaine's hair with sweat-slick fingers. All night, and into the next morning, they are not parted from one another.
It's great, and romantic, and feels so fucking good, and they don't talk.
This is the first night Blaine moves into the loft. The second time, one day later during Santana's extension class at NYADA and Rachel's rehearsal, is just as good, if not better. Kurt takes the lead this time, bending Blaine backwards against the kitchen counter and rubbing up against him with one hand twisted around and working the taut, hot places of his body, until they're both going crazy, then roughly turning him over and shoving his jeans down to his knees, biting the back of his shoulder and pulsing with pleasure at the low, filthy noise Blaine makes when Kurt thrusts for the first time.
It's great then too. And they still don't talk.
Third time, on the couch, in a wild hurry while Rachel runs out to get more cranberry juice and an onion. Blaine buries his face in Kurt's neck and ruts frantically and sucks a hickey so livid and wide that if Kurt weren't going blind with pleasure he would very put out. Their hands leave bruises on each other that show up by dinnertime, and every time Kurt feels a twinge of pain he smiles to himself.
No talking then either.
Fourth time—well, that's when things get tricky. Because it's not at home. It's at Monster, a little gay club that Santana discovered and where she's started dating a bartender. She takes them there one night, with their shitty fake IDs and a giddy rush of grown-up-fun. After two beers for Blaine and a kamikaze for Kurt, they start dancing hands on waists, smiling big, basking in the interested gazes of men who'll never get to do more than look; take a break, share another kamikaze, a shot of tequila each (Santana joins them and downs a double), and back to the dance floor, except this time it's less dancing and more loose, sweaty, open-handed groping, their hips slotting clumsily together and their harsh alcohol-breath hot on each other's lips.
Blaine leans his forehead against Kurt's and runs his fingers over Kurt's biceps. His touch is thick and hot, fingernails dragging blunt marks up and down the skin. Kurt pulls him close and lets one hand ghost over the back edge of his jeans. Blaine shudders and laughs a little, kissing Kurt's chin. Over his shoulder, Kurt can see a couple guys, late twenties, well-dressed, whispering and looking him and Blaine up and down. One of them makes eye contact with Kurt, smiles, raises his glass. Kurt smiles back, turns his head and sucks a hard kiss under Blaine's right ear; the look on the man's face is almost, but not quite, as satisfying as the sharp hiss from Blaine. The music pounds, Kurt's palm is sticky against Blaine's lower back, and they're both drunk and horny and alive.
Blaine pulls them outside without waiting too long, and shoves Kurt up against a lamppost, his kiss sloppy and his hips pushing insistently into the top of Kurt's thigh. Kurt gasps for breath, pushes Blaine back a little, tries to let the cool fall nighttime clear his head.
"Hold…hold up a sec," he says hoarsely, blinking a drop of sweat out of his eyes. Blaine is right up close to him, smelling like booze and heat and the tang of salt. He seems to shimmer in the light from the streetlamp, half-flesh and half-possibility, there for the taking if Kurt is ready to reach out. All they have to do is stumble to the subway, keep the transit makeouts down below indecent standards, and then find their way up the stairs and into each other.
Instead, Kurt says, "So are we both over it now?"
Blaine blinks, his eyes bright and a little unfocused. "What am I over—are what? Are we what, Kurt?"
"Y'know," Kurt mumbles, and a little portion of objectivity in his addled brain flickers with curiosity over just where the hell the rest of him is going with this introspective tangent, when he could be tongue-fucking his hot boyfriend in the West Village. "The whole break up. Me not talking to you, like enough, and you with—with some other guy, we're totally over it, right?"
"Kur…urt," Blaine says slowly, slurring disoriented, slowly coming down. He stops trying to climb Kurt like a jungle gym and moves back a step. "Over it?"
"I just want. To make sure. Because now everything is. And you're here."
"Huh?"
"I don't wanna guess about it." He feels unsteady now, panicked, like a kid who's started the car without knowing which pedal is the brake. "I don't wanna—because you cheated on me and I forgive you, I really so really really do, but I just—wanna make sure. That it's not a thing."
"How…could it be a thing?" Blaine asks, his voice small, his shoulders already slumping. Kurt puts a hand out without thinking, presses it flat against the damp fabric of Blaine's shirt, fingertips pressing into his clavicle. Blaine leans into the touch, but doesn't reciprocate. "I, I love you, and I'm sorry, and I don't know what else—"
"That's all." Kurt steps forward, his hand sliding down to pull reassuringly at Blaine's waist. "Just making sure that you're not still going to, like, try. And make anything up to me. No serenades. No sorry notes. No fight about bringing it—I mean, no bringing it up when we fight. You don't need to, ever, okay?"
"Kurt, I already—"
"Promise?"
Blaine's arms go around his neck, his forehead resting back on Kurt's. The air is humid and swimming with streetlight. People in tight clothing and severe makeup wash past them, New York's glamour children out to play. "Promise what?"
"That you won't try. To get something you already have." Trust, Kurt wants to say, I trust you now, and it's scary as shit but I still do, somehow. He wants to say that, but even drunk as he is, he knows it's a bad idea, and more than that, he's knows it's unnecessary. Blaine exhales, tequila fumes tickling Kurt's nose, and then slowly tilts his head up until their lips meet, and they kiss deep, hot, dizzy, underneath the golden midnight mist.
When they get home, sobriety has begun to set in, which is helpful because it makes it much easier for both of them to get it up, and also because neither of them feels like wild sex tonight. They take it slow, paying attention to every touch and every noise, drawing each other out and making discoveries—because after everything, they're new to each other still, perfect little ever-evolving mysteries that are impossible without love, real love, which is blind and endless and forever leaves you wanting one more time.
Kurt is totally prepared for this meeting. Like, really prepared, spreadsheets and everything, bitches. He's even kind of psyched for it, except for the being late part, and he's right in the middle of formulating the perfect flip reply to any comments upon his tardiness when the door opens and he sees Isabel, three inches shorter than normal in bare feet, framed against a deserted scattering of chairs ranged around a long glass table.
"There you are! Didja get my cappuccino?" she chirps, plucks the smallest cup out of the pulp-paper tray. Kurt blinks and follows her back inside the conference room as she flounces over to a chair and drops into it with a sigh, plunking the cappuccino down on the smooth red-leather daily planner that is the only thing sitting on the table. A table that, to the best of Kurt's knowledge, was supposed to be occupied by two designers, their respective entourages, and Isabel's new intern, Brent.
"Um...Isabel?"
"Yeah?" She takes a casual sip of coffee and flips open the planner, scanning an entry for next week. Kurt sits down carefully beside her, wriggling his own latte out of its slot.
"Not to be abrupt, but where the hell is everyone?"
"Oh, that." She waves her hand at him without even looking up. "Shelly had a meltdown when she found out about the thing with the head of her makeup division and that model from Bali, and then Alejandro's production house in Italy had an actual meltdown, something to do with a boiler malfunction and the ventilation system, it'll cost him a couple million, whatever, so we're going to postpone the meeting until the weekend and I'm going to the spa in an hour and they are going to remove an entire layer of skin from the tops of my feet. It's supposed to be glorious."
"Hmmm. Well, then." This is Kurt's well-learned response to anything Isabel says about spas, or millions of dollars, or models from Bali, pretty much anything that smacks of a life lived outside what most human beings consider reality. "So that's the week, then?"
"Yep! Go, relax, recharge, rewind. Take your soon-to-be hubby out to for a night on the town," Isabel says with a smile, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. Kurt sighs and takes a long, leisurely draught of latte.
"I wish. He's in rehearsal until midnight tonight. The show goes into tech at the end of the month."
"I saw the listing in the Times, looks like fun."
"Did you already buy your ticket?"
"Kurt, it's an original show going up near Christopher Street, I don't think it'll sell out three weeks before opening. Oh jeez, that pout - fine, fine, I'll book through Ticketmaster in the taxi," she laughs, throwing up her hands. Kurt sniffs and nods his approval. "It better be good, though. I don't usually do off-Broadway without being related to someone or a hefty bribe."
"It is good, I've seen it. The music's great, the jokes are snappy, Blaine is fantastic - "
"Oh, is he?" She cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. Kurt sticks his tongue out at her.
"He stands out."
"Of course he does, to you," she says with an affectionate smile, and Kurt can't help but smile back. Isabel loves to tease him about Blaine, ever since he told her that they'd gotten back together and she'd done the "I Told You So" dance for a whole minute, never mind the two columnists and the photographer who'd been in the room at the time. "So how're the wedding plans coming? Is there a date yet?"
"We're thinking around Christmas, actually," Kurt admits with a slight blush, one that Isabel would have no way of knowing has to do with his secret ambition to perform "What Christmas Means To Me," as a substitute for the traditional Christmas duet, at their wedding. "It's our favorite season, and everyone will be off work for the holidays. We'll do a little civil service here and then go back home for the party, and even though both of us would absolutely die to get married in New York, like married proper, there is absolutely no venue available that we could possibly afford and still manage to actually invite the number of - watch it!"
Kurt lunges forward and tugs Isabel's red planner out of harm's way, seconds before a flood of cappuccino from the dropped Starbucks cup spreads warm and brown across the glass tabletop. Isabel is staring at him as he hurriedly tries to mop up the spill with the three teeny napkins tucked into the paper tray, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.
"Isabel, what did you-are you okay? Isabel?" Neither his frantic swabbing or the concern in his voice is enough to rouse her, at least not until the worst of the cappuccino has been dealt with and Kurt has halfway risen to chuck the soggy napkins into a trashcan by the door. Just as he starts to sit back down, Isabel grabs his arm in a vice-grip.
"Ow! Pointy nails!"
"I know where you can get married," she says in a tone of hushed wonderment. Kurt freezes, still awkwardly leaning over the table, staring down at Isabel's long face.
"Wh-excuse me?"
"Gotham Hall." Each word is deliberate and slow, with its own echo of solemnity. Kurt's mind races, rifling through a catalog stuffed with three years of New York exploration to connect the name with a place-and when he finally arrives at the correct entry, he gasps before he can help himself.
"No. No," he says automatically, dropping back into his chair with a thud. Gotham Hall is a mindblowingly impressive building around 36th Street, with an exterior like a Greek temple and an interior like something out of a 1920's luxury hotel, all soaring columns and luxurious curtains, velvet furniture and crystal chandeliers. It's massive, able to fit more than a thousand people, and when Vogue hosted a show there last year he had spent the entire time taking surreptitious photos on Instagram and pretending he was a Disney character. The ballroom, even stuffed with fashion industry personnel and electronic equipment, made him want to cry and then smuggle Blaine in so they could waltz to "Tale as Old as Time."
And, it goes without saying, all of this costs more than Kurt will ever make in his entire life, plus two or three cycles of reincarnation.
"Isabel," he begins carefully, wondering how best to frame the facts of his limited funds to a woman who routinely buys replacement platinum bangles from Gucci because the old ones "lose their clink after a couple months." "That is so, so sweet of you to think of, really, and of course I would love to, but it's just-I mean, we have a budget to work with-"
"I need to give you a wedding present," she interrupts, a wide smile beginning to break out across her face. "The venue manager owes me fifty different favors for all the business I've sent her way, and I'll be seeing the owner in about half an hour while we get our feet peeled."
"I-I-" Kurt's head is spinning, visions of him and Blaine whirling together under the golden-lit dome above the ballroom colliding with Santana's marked-up bargain magazines. "That's crazy, Isabel, you can't-and near Christmas, they won't even have an opening, it's probably been booked up for years-"
"It was," she says smugly, poking him in the shoulder with one of her talon-like nails. "But if you are someone who is in the know, like me, and if you are someone with a steel-trap memory, like me, and if you are flawless, like me, then you will remember that TIME pulled out their expo reservation literally this morning, and there's a ten-day block hanging open right now, which won't be filled yet because it's the weekend coming up, and also, if you are me, then you will remember this conveniently right when your darling assistant and good friend mentions that he needs a place to marry the love of his life."
When she finishes, Isabel is straight up grinning, her Dusky Autumn-painted lips pulled wide across a huge smile, and it only gets bigger when Kurt realizes his mouth is hanging open and he shuts it with a click of his teeth.
"You...but...we can't just...oh my God, it's perfect," he whispers. Isabel leans forward and cups his face with one hand; even with four very spiky nails an inch away from his eyes, Kurt feels as safe and loved as he ever has. "Isabel, that would be perfect."
"I know," she says warmly. "And that's why I'm offering it to you. Because I'm going to tell you a secret, young man: there's a lot of compromises and low standards in this world, and you have to deal with them if you want to get by, but everyone-everyone, gay or straight, rich or poor, New York or Ohio-deserves something perfect. Even just once, something that is exactly as it should be. And when you have a chance at it, and it's something that really matters, then the people who love you have a responsibility to make it happen. So that you can know what it's like, and you can help the next guy have it too."
There are tears in Kurt's eyes, big fat ones that burn and threaten to fall, but he holds them back and swallows hard and very deliberately gathers Isabel's hands in both of his. Their eyes lock, and he remembers how even with her flakiness and her overspending and her occasional failure to give him his due credit, Isabel has been what can only be called the third mother to raise him. The amount of time they spend with each other, the passion they share for the art of clothing and the complexity of its arrangement on the human body, the love that has grown between them, is as precious to him as the warmth and caretaking he associates with Carole, or the perfumed wisps of sweetness with which he recalls his mother. Isabel brought him up in New York, in fashion, in being a person with dreams and big-city bravery. He trusts her to guide him, and in this moment, he finds that he trusts with his heart, and everything in it.
"Thank you." He swallows around the tangle of gratitude and joy and shock in his throat. "Thank you so, so much, Isabel."
"You're welcome, honey," she says, and kisses his cheek. She smells like expensive perfume and cappuccino. "Now let's get out of here. I've got some calls to make and some foot to lose."
The day Blaine moves in, temperatures in New York hover just above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, from sun-up to sun-down. Everybody wakes up absolutely soaked in sweat, despite the three fans Kurt found cheap online and the other three fans Santana brought home in a shopping cart with no questions asked. There is a desperate brawl for the shower, which of course only supplies lukewarm water, and then Rachel throws a fit because Kurt forgot to buy new soymilk AND regular milk and so the only cold beverage they have is expired orange juice and a bottle of vodka is the freezer, and then Santana threatens to slap Rachel, and then Kurt changes his outfit four times because he keeps sweating into his layers, and by the time Blaine shows up at the loft in an air-conditioned taxi with four suitcases worth of stuff, murder is fast becoming the sensible option for the household to embrace.
But he's Blaine, and when he's happy, truly happy, then the breezes seem cooler and the sun seems softer. Five minutes after seeing the condition of the loft and those within, he's run down to the corner bodega and bought a two-gallon jug of Poland Spring and a bag of ice, carrying it all upstairs himself, along with one of the four suitcases (Kurt takes two others, Rachel and Santana carry the third between them with minimal whining). He makes everyone a stiff drink of ice water, waits patiently for them all to refresh themselves, and restrains himself from throwing Kurt across the counter and kissing him senseless, instead giving his boyfriend a positively chaste peck on the lips and then bestowing the same upon Rachel and Santana's cheeks.
Kurt finds an Oldies station on the radio and they all sing along to the Beach Boys, while Rachel loots the fridge and makes them a big salad with pine nuts and cherry tomatoes for lunch. Half an hour since he arrived, and Blaine has put everyone in a mood that is, if not wholly cheerful, then much less conducive to homicide.
Once everyone has had something cold to drink, and once Santana has made herself a towel-turban and filled it with ice, the move-in begins—and ends, after much negotiating and handling of toothbrushes. Kurt has done a pretty good job of clearing out some space for Blaine in his drawers, and he's also bought a little round bureau that fits a lot but still tucks snugly in beside the bed as a combination chest of drawers/end table. With a little clever maneuvering-and with an impressive show of maturity on Kurt's part when he is forced to put some of his lesser-worn clothing into a box at the back of the closet ("You have literally worn that once, and after three martinis, and as a hat," Santana reminds him when he clings desperately to a vintage 1960's crimson-charcoal pinstriped cummerbund with pleated folds and a black silk cord)-they officially install Blaine into the loft as a full-time resident.
Santana and Rachel have found other accommodations for the night, because they are nice and loving and because Kurt paid them both thirty bucks to stay out until noon tomorrow. But before they go, Kurt decides to make a celebratory dinner for everyone, as a thank-you to the girls for the moving help and a proper welcome for Blaine. Since the heat has barely abated with the coming of evening, he decides to make a big pasta salad with garlic bread, which is a choice greeted enthusiastically by all.
As he stands at the counter cutting vegetables, Kurt finds his heart swelling with a massive influx of affection and domestic bliss. Everything looks even better than he had imagined in the long weeks spent waiting for Blaine to finally, finally, FINALLY move in. Now his boyfriend is standing by the stove in a tank top and a baggy pair of Cooper's old khaki shorts, stirring the pasta and laughing as Rachel tells him about her summer songwriting workshop while in downward facing dog (she's taken up restorative yoga and tries to practice most evenings). Santana, her ice-turban long since melted away, is making everyone vodka martinis with food coloring, fresh from a shower and wearing a XXL t-shirt that says, "Daddy's got a hankering."
"So, Hummel," she says suddenly over Rachel's anecdote about the parrot that their teacher kept in the back of the classroom. "I think we need to set down some house rules for you and the Littlest Gay."
"House rules?" Kurt replies, raising an eyebrow. This doesn't sound good. "What do you have in mine?"
"Well, for starters, there will be no having of any sex of any kind in any part of this loft, not while I am within a hundred and fifty feet of your sparkly gay wieners. UNLESS you get my special permission and also give me your white noise machine. And buy me a pack of earplugs from Costco."
"Are you serious?" Kurt says, setting the knife down so hard he barely avoids stabbing the table. "Are you actually fucking serious, Ms. I'll-Bring-Whoever-I-Want-Home-Whenever-I-Want-So- You-And-Rachel-Need-To-Lace-Up-And-Deal-Because-Th e-Lady-Train-Stops-Here-Now?"
"You're really terrible at nicknames, you know that?" she says without looking up from the martini that she is slowly and carefully dying a lovely shade of teal. "Take a chill pill, dude, I'm not saying y'all have to keep it in your pants for the rest of forever."
"I have had," Kurt continues, too incensed to let her finish speaking, "to listen to your random sex with random women for MONTHS now, including during finals and my God damn birthday, and you're trying to tell ME I have to regulate my sex life around your schedule?"
"Blaine actually lives here now, you're not just bringing him home for the night. I can't be always having to check whose dick is in what before I come in my own damn house."
"What the hell does it matter to you?" Kurt snaps, resuming his chopping with indignant intensity. "We can keep our volume down, and it's not like we'll be going at it on the living room floor or anything. If you don't know, why should you care?"
"Because we live here too, Dandelion. Respect that maybe Rachel and me don't always want to like, sit on the toilet or read a book and all the time try to tiptoe around so we don't disturb your dick-duo shenanigans." She looks him in the eye now, and although Kurt is still deeply annoyed by the self-righteousness with which she's approaching this topic, he grudgingly admits that her point is somewhat valid.
"Can we compromise? Me and Blaine will do our best to work around you and Rachel's schedules, and if we-need to, we'll try and let you know ahead of time that we want the place to ourselves."
Santana snorts and squeezes a single drop of red food coloring into an as-yet untouched glass; it billows out, the color of blood, stretching smooth tendrils through the clear alcohol. "Yeah, right. And we're just expected to pack up and move out whenever you feel happy in your private places? Try again, Hummel."
"Santana, give us a little credit. You know Blaine, and you know me. We aren't like that." He looks up just in time to catch that tell-tale softening in her jaw that means he's hit her small but sensitive helping of humanity. "We're in love, and we love to, y'know-"
"Ride each other like rednecks at a tractor expo?"
"MAKE LOVE. But we have a significant amount of self-control and also, like, jobs and school and life. We're not going to be having sex every single moment we possibly can."
"Which is basically the whole point of being a gay man, so y'all fail that pretty hard," she adds, giving him a half-smile. He rolls his eyes and dumps a pile of cucumber slices into the salad bowl. "But okay. Say we ease up a bit and make rule number one that your nookie stays out of sight, out of mind, and out of earshot, on pain of death and beatings, and if you absolutely have to bend Anderson over the kitchen table and invade the Philippines from southern ground-"
"For the love of God, Santana."
"Then we get fair warning and you wait until it's convenient for US before you arm the troops." Satisfied with her metaphor and her conditions, Santana offers him a highlighter-yellow martini, which he takes with narrowed eyes and a slow nod.
"...fine. But rule number two: you have to be able to hear Blaine and me say nice things to each other without mocking us into cardiac arrest."
"Mocking? MOI?" she asks with a hand pressed to her heart. Kurt doesn't even crack a smile. "But seriously, you know there is no way in hell I can live with the two of you and not let off some steam. I mean, just the way you gay babies look at each other is like being waterboarded with maple syrup. I have to call you out on it or I'll smother."
"Santana, if we're going to do this functionally-"
"Oh my God, FINE." She rolls her eyes and takes a large sip of her royal purple martini. "I'll lay off. But Jesus, you have to give me like a three-a-day quota or something, because y'all are too. Damn. Much. And you know it."
"Deal." Kurt begins to slice up a tomato. "Any other fascist demands?"
"Bet your Bedazzled ass. Rule number three: if you guys make it impossible to walk in the door without turning into a giant fucking third wheel, I will cut you. When you talk, you talk to the whole room, not just your little pepperpot over there."
"Fine."
"Rule number four: you're not allowed to have sex on my bed."
"Duh. Fine."
"Rule number five: you're totally allowed to have sex on Rachel's bed."
"Ew."
"Rule number six: if you're going to bring some skeeve from TriBeCa back here for a threesome, my camera is under the Yankees hat on my dresser and I want it in MP4 files, none of that .avi shit."
"In your dreams, Lopez. Anything else?"
"Yeah...rule number seven," she says slowly, swirling purple vodka in a slow circle. "Talk to each other."
Kurt looks up, surprised. This sounds less like Santana's familiar brand of obnoxious and more like...normal-people behavior. "What?"
"I said, talk to each other. I ain't up for another relationship implosion because you and Blaine can't be bothered to communicate. If you're going to force your love life onto your roommates, then you damn well better do whatever it takes to keep it from getting janky again, because I am not letting y'all lay down a duct tape partition between your separate sides of the loft. Keep your shit together." She levels her eyes at him, her gaze strong and serious. Kurt swallows and nods slowly.
"I know. We will."
"I'm not kidding, Kurt." Her voice changes again, a little quieter, a little more feeling. "I saw what you were like without him, what it did to you. To both of you. The world's bad enough already without two people who love each other letting some mundane crap fuck up what they have."
He looks at her, and then past for her for a moment, at Blaine standing over a pot of pasta, his hair curly and frizzed a little from the lack of gel, his shoulders broad between the tank top, his laugh sweet and genuine. It's a vision Kurt has had for years now, one that he buried deep for most of the past year and has only recently resurrected; now that it's real, not a vision at all but true, solid, actual, he suddenly realizes how precious it is, and how much its preservation depends on him. He and Blaine made the decision to get back together, and now they have to be accountable for it. They have to be honest and raw with each other, to put the integrity of their relationship before everything else. If they do that, then maybe-just maybe-this is really It for them.
"So is that it for the rules?" he says finally, leaving the vast uncertainty of the future to come back to here and now, with Santana and cucumbers and yellow martinis. Santana shrugs and finishes the last of her own drink.
"Guess so. Unless Blaine or Berry have something to say about it. Yo, hobbits!" she barks over her shoulder, interrupting Rachel in the midst of another workshop story. "We're coming up with rules for Klaine so they don't get the whole house covered in homo-goo. Thoughts?"
"Homo-goo?" Blaine asks with a slightly alarmed expression, but Rachel, far more used to Santana's vernacular, take it in thoughtful stride.
"Hmmm," she hums, coming gracefully out of camel pose. "I don't know. Maybe, like, everyone takes turns buying milk and toilet paper?"
"Oh for fuck's sake, Berry, I mean RULES, like for regulating their nasties. No humping on the couch, bottles of lube get separate recycling bin, that kind of thing."
"Excuse me?" gulps Blaine, flushing red, his eyes darting over to his boyfriend with a glint of panic in them. Kurt sighs and gives him a what-can-you-do? shrug as he dumps a pile of diced tomato into the salad bowl.
"Santana, you hook up on the couch on the regular, so don't even," he says lightly, reaching for the olive oil. Santana picks up Blaine's sky-blue martini and Rachel's chartreuse one before sticking her tongue out at him.
"Yeah, but biology dictates that my jolly-time juice isn't half as messy as yours. And there's two of you, so double the liquid volume."
"Okay, now we're done talking about that," says Rachel, looking squeamish. "How about, um, all hands in sight when you're not alone?"
"Where else would they be, exactly?" says Blaine with a quirk of his lips. Kurt stifles a giggle and starts to grind pepper. His heart is full, so full and warm and endlessly content that it feels like if he dares to really pause and dwell on what Blaine is making him feel, the sheer force of it might blow him apart like a nuclear bomb. And yet it's all he can do not to set down the pepper mill, climb over the table, and wrap himself around Blaine until there's no power on Earth that could coax its way between them.
"You have got to be shitting me." Blaine's eyes are the size of hubcaps and he sounds like he's got a small mammal trapped in his throat. Kurt smirks and leans on his boyfriend's shoulder, peering past him at the computer screen that is currently covered in pictures of Gotham Hall, beautifully lit, magnificent and majestic and theirs.
"It's pretty, isn't it?" he whispers, hyperaware that Santana, Quinn, and Rachel are all asleep in their respective "bedrooms." Blaine whips around in his chair, nearly giving himself a black eye on Kurt's elbow.
"Pretty? Kurt, this place is a friggin' palace," he hisses, barely able to keep his voice down. This is—it's where New York royalty gets married, Jesus, I'm like ninety-nine percent sure it's where actual royalty gets married, and it's huge, and look at—the thing, I…are you joking?" His eyes narrow suddenly, and he grabs the front of Kurt's shirt in a grip that will cause unforgivable wrinkles. "Kurt Hummel, if you are screwing around with me right now, then I swear to God, I'm pawning my engagement ring and using the money to buy a wiffle bat so that I can end you."
"How sweet," Kurt says coolly, prying Blaine's hand off of his clothing. "But I'm dead serious. Which, minus the 'serious' part, is what you'll be if you ever do what you just did to a freshly ironed shirt again."
"But it's, God, Kurt, it's huge! How are we supposed to fill that place with-and then everyone we know will-I mean, oh my God, I can't even begin to-"
"Honey? Breathe." Kurt reaches out and puts a solid hand on each of Blaine's shoulders, pinning him to the back of the chair. "If you have a panic attack and collapse, it will be difficult to convince the nice people in the pretty palace that we are functional adults who can get married without breaking their stuff or setting anything on fire."
"But Kurt, the money. It will cost so much, and I know Isabel is like family to you, but—but you can't just give a gift like this, can you?" he says helplessly, the Bambi eyes slowly blooming on his face. Kurt sighs and puts a hand on Blaine's cheek.
"I know, Blaine. It's a lot. But when Isabel wants to do something, she does it, and fast, and with a steamroller over anyone who disagrees with her. She faxed me the paperwork before nine o'clock, there's all sorts of forms and affidavits and stuff that looks like it's from Law & Order, and I don't understand most of it, but it's all signed. It's all done. I…I trust her. And I want this, for us, for me and you. Even when you get wrinkles in my shirt like this, Jesus, Blaine."
"Gotham Hall," Blaine says slowly, ignoring the admonishment. "We…are getting married…four days before Christmas…at Gotham Hall."
"Unless you'd rather rent out the veterans' community center back in Lima," Kurt suggests innocently, a smile only just tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Dad is friends with most of the guys there, I bet we could get a discount on table linens."
Actually, all he really manages to say is, "I bet we cou-" before Blaine launches himself out of the kitchen chair and grabs Kurt around his stomach, hoisting him like a sack of potatoes and spinning them round and round and round the loft. Kurt's chin bonks against Blaine's forehead and his arms are pinned at a particularly awkward angle but he couldn't care less in the world. Blaine is babbling muffled nonsense into Kurt's stomach, the loft is whizzing in circles around him, and for a moment, Kurt buries his hands in Blaine's hair and tilts his head back and smiles wider than he ever has in his life.
And things could have stayed so great, too.
Then Blaine makes a laudable attempt to go straight from twirling Kurt in the air to kissing the hell out of him, but between the centrifugal momentum and their respective height differences, it's a fool's mission right from the get-go. He trips, overbalances, and they both go crashing into the couch, Blaine's knees collapsing and his face buried in Kurt's solar plexus as Kurt bounces ass-first onto the cushions and then, carried by his own equal and opposite reaction, down onto the cold, gritty loft floor. It doesn't help that Blaine is apparently either unwilling or unable to release his hold on Kurt's waist, so that in addition to severely bruising the back of his shoulder and the side of his hip, Kurt gets the wind knocked out of him when Blaine's shoulder drives directly into his ribcage.
It seems likely that two people who each have minimum two years of intensive dance training might be able to handle such gravitational mishaps with at least a little dignity, perhaps a dash of stoicism. In reality, however, both Kurt and Blaine react to falling down with a series of shrieks, curses, and throat-scratching grunts, the least of which is enough to rouse a deaf sloth at twenty paces, let alone three twitchy and extremely irate young women sleeping ten feet away. Thusly, before Blaine can do more than roll halfway off Kurt and groan in pain, both Rachel and Quinn have stumbled out of their respective rooms, wearing pajamas and rather wild expressions.
"What the hell happened is something on fire," Rachel slurs, half-asleep. Kurt tries to answer, but his ribs feel like there's an anvil sitting on them and it's kind of hard to do anything but lie on the ground and suffocate.
"Blaine? Kurt?" Quinn rubs her eyes and squints at them, obviously trying to suss out the particulars of the situation. In response to the sound of his name, or perhaps to test whether or not his wrist is broken, Blaine lurches to the side and rolls completely onto his back, putting his weight on one arm and throwing the other across his eyes as though convinced that if he can't see Quinn, she can't see him. "Are you guys okay?"
"Yeah," Blaine says, his voice at a high and strangled pitch. "Just dandy."
"What the motherfucking fuckpants is going on," Santana snarls as she shoves her past Quinn, hair straggling out of her ponytail and plaid boxers bunched up under her ass. "Are you pissbitches serious right now? It's like two a.m."
"Sorry," Kurt manages on the teeny spoonful air that has leaked into his lungs. The ceiling above him begins to clear of bright spots and he notices a distinctly painful thrum around his left eye. "Accident."
"Oh my god," Blaine says in his weird high voice, and his worried face comes into view over Kurt's. "Kurt, your face."
"Did you fall down or something?" Rachel asks, coming all the way out of her room. She appears behind Blaine, purple nightgown slipping off one shoulder. "Is that why you're on the fl—oh my god, Kurt, your face."
"What?" He sits up, one hand coming up to gingerly prod the skin around his left eye, and wow, that hurts like a bitch. "What is it?"
"Damn, Hummel, that's one hell of a shiner," Santana comments blithely, leaning on Quinn's shoulder. Her girlfriend rolls her eyes and shimmies out from underneath Santana's elbow, coming over to kneel beside Kurt and gently tilt his chin up with one hand.
"Looks like something hit you in the face. Did you slip on the rug?"
"Something like that," Kurt hedges, wincing as Quinn touches his cheekbone softly and it twinges. "Is it really that bad?"
"No, babe, you look fine!"
"Yeah, Kurt, it's totally okay."
"Barely even noticeable."
"You look like a skinny gay panda," from Santana, and Kurt can tell from the way the other three cringe that she's telling the truth. He hoists himself off the floor—oh man, that is not a good feeling in his shoulder and his hip and his everything—and limps to the bathroom, where a split-second glance in the mirror over the sink confirms that yes, he has a magnificent black eye that is blooming ever wider and darker by the minute. He grits his teeth and tries to keep everything in perspective, because black eyes go away eventually and at least nothing's broken and it's not like Blaine meant to pull a fucking Three Stooges routine out of his ass and drop them both like a WWE piledriver.
"Kurt?" Blaine peeps from the bathroom doorway, and Kurt turns to see him staring anxiously inside, the three girls huddled behind him. "You okay?"
"Yes," Kurt says evenly, after taking a moment to compose himself. "Yes, I am fine, thank you." He walks up to Blaine and loops his arms around his boyfriend's neck. "Anything broken on you?"
"Besides my pride and dignity, no," Blaine says ruefully, and Kurt smiles, even though it hurts to do so. God, he loves this guy. What's an accidental black eye here or there if you get to spend your life with this kind of person?
"So can we go back to sleep now?" Santana huffs, hugging Quinn from behind and letting her head drop heavily onto Quinn's shoulder. "Or are you guys going to do some more wigger breakdancing on top of the furniture?"
And then Kurt remembers. Oh yeah. That's why we were spinning.
"You can head back to bed, Santana," he says airily, refastening his arms around Blaine. "Blaine and I will stay up a little longer though. Now that our wedding's got a venue, there's really no excuse for wasting time that could be spent on the details, know what I mean?"
"Excuse me? Who got a venue where now?" she says tiredly, raising an eyebrow. Quinn frowns and elbows Santana in the ribs.
"Honey, I thought you said you were going to start looking around next weekend, you didn't tell me—"
"Oh, Santana didn't find this one for us," Kurt interrupts, the familiar vibration of high, singing joy beginning to dance up and down his spine. "It's a gift, actually. From Isabel Bright? You know, my boss?"
"Isabel gave you guys a place to get married?" Rachel asks with a squint. "What, are you guys going to exchange vows in the storage closet? Because that would be kind of awesome."
"No, not at Vogue," Kurt says, although a little voice in the back of his brain remarks that it might not have been a bad idea. "Somewhere a little farther south, a little larger, with a little more razzle dazzle."
"Cut the crap, Hummel, what'd you score?" Santana snaps.
The name doesn't ring a bell. Neither does the address. The pictures online, on the other hand—
To put it another way, before the night ends, there is definitely more breakdancing on the furniture.