Coda, Chapter 13 (Complete)

December 24th

Blaine knocked softly on the door to the guesthouse - though he always considered that term a bit of an overstatement. It was really more of a studio apartment built into the side of the house, a place where Cooper stayed or the occasional over-indulgent guest slept one off, and where Kurt had created an impromptu office space.

“Kurt? Are you still in here?”

He pushed the door open and peeked inside. Kurt - elbows deep in notepads, sketches and electronics - sat on the couch, computer in his lap, glasses pushed down his nose, oblivious to the intrusion.

“Kurt? It’s getting late.”

Kurt turned his head with a gasp, startled by Blaine’s voice.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt, but it’s getting late, and you’ve been at this for hours.”

“And it’s nearly Christmas,” Kurt said.

“And it’s nearly Christmas,” Blaine echoed. “Any chance you’d consider wrapping up for the night?”

Kurt pulled his glasses off, and closed his laptop.

Read More on A03      Read More on S&C

What started as a plan for a 1500-word ficlet has now concluded as a free-flowing, largely unplanned novella. Because of how I wrote this — without an advance plan, following where the story led — I can’t help but feel that I have given you only a draft of this story, so I am deeply grateful for all of you who have been reading along.

Someday, I may come back to organize and clean it up. It seems I have a hard time saying goodbye to these two.

My continued thanks to Buckeyegrrl, who created such lovely cover art, and to three magical people who dropped everything to try to sort out me free form prose each week: iconicklaine, justusunicorns and randomactsofdouchebaggery. You three save me from myself on the regular, and I am forever grateful.

In Vino Veritas,

Girlie

This was lovely, and for a variety of reasons:

1) It does exactly what a coda should do.  It isn’t a sequel.  It doesn’t try to drag you kicking and screaming back into the original world.  It just gently nudges you exactly where you not only want but need to go in order for it to resonate and feel organic.

2) It doesn’t repeat the tone or the intent or the plot or even the exact same character models of the original.  It gives you something new while replicating all the positive things that the original made you feel, just in a different setting and fashion.

3) It takes you somewhere further along, and introduces you to a new dimension of the characters you already love.  You thought you knew them–now you know them better, and maybe you want to slap them or hug them, but you know them better.

4) It presents natural, mature conflict without abandoning hope.  Too often “angst” in this fandom is just reduced to the chaotic fracturing of feelings and relationships, when really, conflict within relationships is so much more interesting and so much more challenging.  To preserve and work without giving up on each other is so much harder, and so much more rewarding.  I tip my hat to Girlie here because I enjoy drowning in the fantasy of mutual, emotional perfection so often that I rarely am able to approach this kind of real world honesty.

5) We talk about marriage constantly in the Klaine fandom but never really engage it.  Consider me engaged, here, because, damn.  Marriage is not a solution, and it does not make what you bring to the table simply “us” by virtue of itself.  Finding balance is the on-going goal of marriage, and you can love someone, or want to fuck someone every minute of every day, or both at the same time, and never find it.  And that’s okay, as long as you are always trying.

Oh wow, thank you so much. I’m hardly ever on tumblr any more, but this popped up on my phone. I’m really touched—thank you!

An Artist 👌🏻

^^^ Pretty much me at the Hollywood Bowl last night.

❤❤❤❤❤

I JUST FOUND THIS AMAZING VIDEO

Tiny Hedgehog Goes Camping, And His Pics Are The Best Thing You’ll See Today

(source, DO NOT DELETE)

How am I supposed to give this bird back to his owner when we’re starting a temptations cover band?

Excuse me this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

What happened in 4 hours is sped to 1 minute. #SuperBlueBloodMoon

Count Sudoku

No

Excerpt from The Republic of Love by Carol Shields

IT STARTED AGAINST A CHALKBOARD.

Until now, only @zane-riley has known how it ends. Get ready for the release of When It’s Time, the concluding chapter of the Go Your Own Way series, with a special sale of Go Your Own Way and With or Without You this week only on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents each.