Dec. 3, 2015, 6 p.m.
Kurt of So Many Days
While Blaine helps Kurt pack up his bedroom for one last time, Kurt comes across an old mini-scrapbook of memories he kept when he first entered Dalton Academy, and he shares it with his husband. Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble Challenge prompt 'day' and gives a nod to the Hummel Holidays prompt 'movies'.
K - Words: 1,022 - Last Updated: Dec 03, 2015 669 0 0 0 Categories: Angst, AU, Cotton Candy Fluff, Drama, Romance, Characters: Blaine Anderson, Kurt Hummel, Tags: established relationship, hurt/comfort,
“Here's the last box,” Blaine says, bringing Kurt the final empty box he bought to fill with stuff from his closet. They were leaving Lima – and this time, finally leaving it behind. No more emergency trips back to McKinley. No more bizarre schemes a la Sue. No more musicals to save. No more Glee Club to hold them back. They had already helped Rachel purge her childhood bedroom. Now they were doing the same for Kurt. They were going forward, leaving the stress and the drama of this town behind, and finishing what they had started in New York City. Blaine puts the box at Kurt's feet, but he doesn't lift his head from something he has in his hands. “If you want, I can go ahead and…what's this?” Blaine sits on the corner of Kurt's bed, beside his husband, who's flipping through an intriguing little miniature scrapbook that he's never seen before.
“This?” Kurt says in a wobbly voice. “This is a board book I put together when I went to Dalton. Just a pocket size reminder of how things were going to change for the better after I left McKinley. You know, so I wouldn't look back.”
“May I?” Blaine asks, reaching out a hand. Kurt hands the book over, tugging on Blaine's sleeve so he'll sit closer by his side. Blaine folds the book back up and starts from the beginning. The front of the book is decorated in the same fabulous flair – tinsel and glitter, buttons and significant stickers – that Kurt uses in all of his scrapbooking, but much of this is Dalton specific. There's the Dalton ‘D' on the front, a small photo of Pavarotti in his cage, and the title – “Kurt of So Many Days”.
“What's this mean?” Blaine asks, running gentle fingers along the words.
“Like Anne of a Thousand Days,” Kurt says, explaining the reference to the movie title. “How long it took Anne to win the king's favor, and then lose her life.” Blaine looks at him, sadness wrinkling his brow. “I was a little melancholy back then.”
“You were allowed,” Blaine says. “It wasn't the greatest time for you.”
“Well, I made this to remind me that things could be good from then on.” Kurt smiles, wanting to move on from any discussion of McKinley and the reasons he left – most specifically Dave.
Blaine turns to the first panel, and Blaine immediately knows what it is. How can he not? It's his school picture, the one he gave Kurt on the first day they met. Kurt kept the original hanging in his locker. He must have scanned this one to print out for this book. Across the bottom, in colorful cut-out letters, he glued the word courage. Blaine's seen this theme repeated in a lot of Kurt's scrapbooks and collages. Blaine remembers giving Kurt this advice, via text message, right before he confronted Karofsky. Blaine's glad it meant so much to him. There were times over the last few years when Blaine should have followed his own advice more closely, but luckily, he usually had Kurt to remind him.
Blaine turns to the next panel. It's a drawing done on a piece of paper ripped from a lined notebook – a red heart and arrow, with the words Blaine + Kurt written inside.
“And this?”
“Oh” – Kurt giggles – “this I drew on that morning when you proposed The Warbler Gap Attack. You know, when I thought you were going to sing and declare your love to me, but…”
“Nope,” Blaine interrupts, his face turning sour. “We don't talk about that.” He quickly turns the page. “And this bottle cap?”
“Ah” – Kurt smiles so hard his cheeks twitch – “that's from the Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza. You know, when you played drunken Spin the Bottle…and kissed Rachel Berry?”
Blaine swallows hard.
“We don't talk about that, either,” he says, and Kurt snickers. “Why would you keep that?”
“Because the next time she kissed you at The Lima Bean, you realized that you didn't want to date her.” Kurt shrugs. “Then I knew I still had a chance.”
Blaine's shoulders drop, and he sighs, somewhere between relief and regret.
“You always had a chance, Kurt,” Blaine says. “More than a chance. I should have told you that. It seems kind of moot now.”
Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's shoulder and squeezes. “Thanks for saying it now. It's still nice to know.”
The next panel is self-explanatory, and it makes the smile come back to Blaine's face. It's a yellow feather, a spattering of clear and red gems, a small flock of blackbird stickers, and the words, “Good Night, Sweet Prince” written in white glitter pen and Kurt's neat handwriting. Blaine knows this collage means so much more than an homage to a deceased canary. It represents, in Kurt's symbolic and artistic way, their first kiss.
Blaine closes the book carefully and hands it back to Kurt.
“All those days between that first time I saw you on the staircase and our first kiss,” Blaine says.
“There was more,” Kurt says, turning the book over in his hands, then assigning it to a box, “but I couldn't fit it all in there. Besides, after that day, I didn't really need it anymore.”
“And how many days before you knew you loved me?” Blaine asks, putting a hand over Kurt's, running his thumb over his wedding ring the way he always did when he touched Kurt's hand, to remind him this is real, this happened, despite everything that went on between them, they still ended up together in the end.
Like in When Harry Met Sally.
Kurt chuckles to himself, his cheeks turning pink, and Blaine loves that. He loves that after all these years – the kisses and the hotel rooms and the back seats and the fights, the break ups, the proposals, and the wedding – there are still some things that make Kurt blush.
“About three seconds,” Kurt admits.
“Yeah,” Blaine says, leaning over to kiss Kurt's cheek. “Me, too.”