Glee: Wedding Song: Chapter 1

By Wilde Abrams
@WildeAbrams on Twitter

Authors Notes: This story takes place 4 years after Artie’s graduation from high school, during the spring of his senior year at The Brooklyn Film Academy in New York. I’d like to give a special thank you to MyGoldStar who beta read this story and to Fire Girl125 who read and offered feedback on early drafts of some portions of this story.

x x x x

Twenty year old Kitty Wilde awoke snuggled up in bed next to her boyfriend Artie Abrams in the apartment the two of them shared in New York, where they both attended college. He was a senior at the Brooklyn Film Academy, and she was a sophomore at NYU. Kitty and Artie had met and fallen in love during her sophomore year at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. He had been a senior honor student who dreamed of making movies, and she had been a sophomore head cheerleader, but despite their age and social differences they’d met and fallen in love in Glee Club. They had started out gradually and cautiously as friends, but by spring the chemistry and passion between the two of them had become undeniable, and they had begun dating just before prom. At first they had kept their relationship private, but when it became apparent that it was going some where, they had take it public. Following her own graduation from WMHS, Kitty relocated to New York to be with him and to attend college herself. Other than a brief separation after he graduated, and a two week tiff between them a couple years ago, they had been together ever since.

His body stirred and he open his eyes, gazing into hers.

“Mmm… Well, hello there…” He said smiling.

“Well, hello there, yourself,” she answered, giving him kiss. “Good morning, sleepy head.”

“Have I told you how much I love you lately?” He asked.

“Yes,” she answered with a sexy grin, “twice, just last night.”

He leaned over nuzzled her neck and began nibbling her earlobe and whispered, “Well, no wonder I was so tired this morning… A certain amazing girlfriend wore me out last night.”

“Mmm,” she cooled. “The pleasure was all mine.”

He moved away from her ear and the two of them shared a passionate kiss.

“I love you so much,” he told her.

“I love you too,” she whispered softly.

She lay her head on his chest and he began running his fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes and smiled in contentment as she lay there, her bare skin against his. She could hear his heart, and she knew that it beat only for her.

Five years ago she could not imagine having the feelings for another person that she had for this man. She never used to believe in romantic love. She’d never really seen that in her own parents marriage, or among her friends, and the few dating relationships she’d had as a teenager had all gone sour, so she came to the conclusion that the romantic love you saw in commercials, television, movies and romance novels, was fiction created to sell things to gullible female consumers.

That all changed as she got to know Artie and her friends in Glee club. She had known there was something different about him from the moment she met him, but because of their differences she hadn’t considered dating him at first, but instead she discreetly became friends with him. Once she joined the cast of the school musical that he co-directed that year and later the Glee club, she’d been able to be more open with their friendship, at least amoung that group. But she had dated other guys and kept everyone at arms length emotionally. When she realized that he was developing a crush on her, she had done her best to discourage it. But he had kept at it and by the time prom rolled around, she realized she was developing reciprocal feelings for him.

They had dated the rest of the school year, including attending his senior prom together, and that had been one of the happiest times of her life. When he graduated, they could not bare to break up, nor had they seen any examples of long distance relationships working so they agreed, at her suggestion that they were allowed to see other people if they wanted during the separation, with the intention of renewing their relationship when she graduated unless things changed for one or both of them. But that had only lasted a few months before they abandoned that idea and just decided to do long distance, and as it turned out, they had beaten the odds and it had worked for them, because four years later they were still together and happy.

Being in New York together had been very good for their relationship. Freed of all of the high school drama, they were free to be themselves and just be together. She was no longer the bitch popular cheerleader and he was no longer the wheelchair geek. They were just Kitty and Artie.

They had been very happy together for the last four years, and in recent weeks she had begun to yearn to take the next step in their relationship.

# # # #

Artie lay there in bed with his girlfriend, the amazing Kitty Wilde with her head on his chest. As he ran his hand through her long, silky soft hair and gazed into her eyes he thought about the last five years of his life.

He felt like the luckiest man in the world. In high school he had been an outsider. Between his high grades, glee club membership, dreams of making movies, as well as his glasses and his wheelchair, few people were willing to be friends with him, and even fewer had been willing to date him. His first girlfriend had been his best friend Tina Cohen-Chang. They had dated off and on their freshman year. But, when she revealed that the stutter she’d had the entire time he’d known her had been fake, they had broken up. Once he’s gotten over the shock and forgiven her for lying, they had gotten back together and dated the rest of the school year and into the summer. But she had begun dating Mike Chang, one of their clubmates, at Asian Camp before she has broken up with Artie, which she did promptly upon getting home. He’d been so distraught over it that the following fall he’d convinced his friend Finn to help him join the football team. Once on the team he began dating cheerleader Brittany Pierce. But when he confessed that he was still in love with Tina, she decided to ‘help’ him get over her by taking his virginity. But rather than be something to celebrate for him, especially in light of how they weren’t sure he was fully functional in that way due to his spinal injuries, it turned out to be traumatic for him when it became apparent that it had meant nothing to her because, by her own admission, she’d slept with half the school. But he had later forgiven her and they had dated for several more months until he found out that she’d been cheating on him with Santana Lopez. The following year he’d met and began perusing Sugar Motta, but she only agreed to date him when she didn’t have any other better options. She never actually agreed to be in an official relationship with him and after about a year of chasing her, he gave up when she started dating Joe Hart. He hooked up with Mrs. Pillsbury’s niece Betty on Valentine’s Day as a rebound to get over Sugar.

He’d been attracted to Kitty Wilde from the moment he met her, and in retrospect he’d probably developed a crush on her fairly early on. He’d been really sad when she had severed ties with he and the rest of the glee club the second week of school after first inviting them to join her lunch crew. But to his surprise she’d continued to be receptive to his efforts to befriend her as long as no one else saw. He wondered if that would end when she didn’t get the role she wanted in Grease, but she surprised him once again by not only excelling in her admittedly small role in the musical, but also saying yes to the invitation to join Glee Club, an idea she’d previously rejected.

At first Kitty was very standoffish in Glee, but once the truth of what had happened between she and Marley (bullying her into an eating disorder) had come out and blown over, she began to mellow, and over time she began to embrace and even seemed to enjoy their Glee Club assignments. In particular he remembered a particular spandex catsuit, and a Spice Girls outfit, not to mention what happened in the ‘Mamma Mia!’ performance during ‘Guilty Pleasures’ week.

She sang and danced and was often partnered with him, once it became apparent that the two of them sounded awesome together. She was one of the strongest and most versatile singers, and clearly one of the the most talented dancers. But, to his surprise, she had never once to his knowledge complained about being partnered with him, the only wheelchaired member.

The more time they spent together the more he got to know her, and the closer they got. She’d dated Puck’s brother Jake for a brief time, and later dated Puck himself, though it later came out that the latter was mostly just for show, and Artie had to admit to being more than a little jealous of them. It wasn’t that he thought he actually had a chance with her, but the thought of her with the two bad boys made him squirm. The school shooting incident had shaken all of them up, but it had shaken her to the core. She’d become genuinely remorseful of her past misdeeds, and begun to apologize to those she’d harmed in the past, including Marley and Unique. She and Artie had bonded after that and also become closer.

Then that spring she’d shocked everyone by sticking out her neck and helped him be honest about his uncertainty, conquer his fears, embraced his passion, and accept his acceptance into film school. Their relationship had never been the same after that and before long they began dating, discreetly at first, but eventually very publicly.

They dated the rest of the year, including going to prom together, and after a few months of being free to see others after he graduated, they had renewed their exclusive relationship and been dating ever since. When she graduated from high school she moved to New York to be with him. He moved out of the Bushwick apartment he’d been sharing with most of the other glee alumni, and the two of them got a place together.

He really loved Kitty more than anyone else besides his parents, and was looking forward to taking the logical next step in their relationship in another two years after they were both out of college.

# # # #

The two love birds continued to snuggle into the late morning. It was Saturday, and one of the few days of the week that they were able to sleep late, and they had discovered early on in their relationship that physical affection and intimacy, both sexual and non-sexual was an important part of their relationship.

They were kissing again when Kitty’s phone buzzed, and she groaned as she reached over to the nightstand to retrieve it.

She sighed; it was Marley.

“Marley is reminding me that we are doing lunch today,” Kitty told him, starting to get up.

“‘Mmm,” he told her with a grin, “just as I was about to show you how much I loved you for a third time….”

Kirty, stopped in her tracks and said, “Marley can wait,” before tossing her phone aside and returning to her lover’s arms and sharing a passionate kiss with him.

# # # #

“How exactly does that work?” Marley asked in a hushed voice, two hours later. “You know…. Sex with a disabled person….”

“Marley,” Kitty said in full voice, “his penis works just fine!”

Marley blushed a bright crimson, glancing from side to side worried that people would overhear as the two women sat alone in their booth at the Spotlight Diner waiting for their lunches to arrive.

“He still has the use of his hips, in case you forgot from Twerking week in glee club.” Kitty continued, slightly softer, confident that her friend had been suitably embarrassed by her semi-offensive question. “I suppose I do a little more ‘work’ than I would with someone who had full use of his legs, but I’ve never really thought about it because it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I love him and he loves me, and we’re expressing that love.”

“You two are so adorable,” Marley said. “When are you getting married?” She asked jokingly with a smile on her face, recovering from her momentary embarrassment.

“As soon as he asks me,” Kirty responded with a straight face.

“Wait,” Marley stared at her friend. “You’re serious?”

“You seem surprised…?”

“So, if he asked you tomorrow, you’d say yes?”

“In a New York minute.” Kitty answered confidently.

“You’re sure he’s the one? You’re sure you’re ready to get married?”

“Next month it will be 4 years since we started dating, although we’d known each other for months before that as you know. We’re still together and still as happy as we’ve ever been. It’s time to get ready to take the next step in our relationship,” Kitty told her friend.

“Have you talked about it?” Marley asked.

“Not recently,” she answered, “but a year or so ago we talked about getting married after graduation.”

“Well if you’re ready, why don’t you ask him?” Marley suggested.

“No,” Kitty told her best friend, “I may be a modern woman, but I’m still traditional in some ways too. I want my wedding to be in a church, with a white dress, and I want my boyfriend to propose to me in a romantic way.

“I know that he will propose when he’s ready, and that I will love however he does it, because I love him.”

Just then their lunches arrived, and the topic of conversation turned to the more casual topic of their spring classes.

# # # #

“Artie,” Ryder asked, “I really admire what you seem to have with Kitty. I’ve heard you’ve done your share of dating, how did you know that it was love with her? I mean, there has to be more to it than sex, right?”

The two of them sat together in the the common area of the younger mans dorm while the two girls had lunch.

“Oh, definitely, Ryder,” Artie told his younger friend. “It’s easy to take your clothes off and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your self to someome, letting them into your heart; your soul, spirit, thoughts, fears, future hopes and dreams….now that’s being naked.

“Out of all of the women I’ve dated, Kitty is the only one I’ve had that kind or connection with. When I realized that was beginning to happen between Kitty and I, on both sides, that’s when I realized that what was going on between us was real love.”

“I guess I don’t know what you mean,” Ryder explained.

“We both know that when we met her, Kitty was a very closed off person. She used her snark and her flat out meanness to push people away and would rarely if ever do anything nice without an ulterior motive.”

“Yeah,” Ryder answered. “The first time I met her she was torturing Marley, and I called her a bitch.”

Artie chuckled. “Yeah; back then I think she felt threatened and reacted … Negatively … ”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Ryder added. “She bullied her into an eating disorder.”

“Yes,” Artie said, saddened by the memory. “Like I said, she was downright mean back then. But what you may not know is that she and I formed a sort of discreet friendship shortly after we met, even before she joined glee club. She would have denied it if anyone seemed to notice or heaven forbid actually said anything about it. But we did begin getting to know eachother and she did let me in little by little. She began showing genuine concern for me, and every once in a while she would share a little bit of herself.

“Then, after the school shooting, I was the one she sought comfort with. We spent almost the entire day together afterward. She finally let her guard down and I started to see that what I’d always suspected was true, that deep down inside she wasn’t the person she lead others to believe that she was. After she stuck her neck out, even going so far as to get my mom involved, to get me to embrace my passion and move here for film school, I knew there was something deeper between us.

“As we got to know eachother more openly, both before and after we began dating, I knew that she really cared. She paid attention and shared with me, and vice versa, and out relationship deepened. Our time apart after I graduated, and her reaction to believing that I had moved on, really brought into focus how deeply we cared about eachother.

“It’s hard to explain. But our relationship is the most important thing in our lives and we both know we want to spend the rest of our lives together.

“What brought this on, if I may ask?” Artie wanted to know. “Problems between you and Marley?”

“I don’t know,” Ryder answered. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out where we stand. We’ve been dating since high school, but we’ve been taking it so slow that I wonder if we’re really going anywhere. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Artir told him. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you really want to know what she’s thinking and feeling, you are going to need to ask her.”

“I guess you’re right,” Ryder responded. “Thanks.”

# # # #

Later that day, Marley and Artie sat together in the editing room, where he was working on his senior film project that she was helping him with the music for.

“Artie,” she asked him, “can I ask you a question? I think I need some advice from a guy friend.”

“Sure, Marley,” he told her. He stopped what he was doing. “How can I help?”

She pulled her chair closer to him.

“Can we keep this just between the two of us?”

“Of course,” he reassured her.

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, deciding exactly how she was going to word it. Then she took a deep breath and began to speak. “What’s it like actually living with Kitty?”

“Well,” he began. “It’s definitely forced us to get closer, a lot closer. When you’re dating, you typically only see eachother at your best, after you’ve each had the time to primp and prepare. That basically went out the window. We found that we have a lot less privacy and quickly realized that we didn’t know each other a fraction as well as we thought we did. It was a bit of culture shock, getting used to each other’s idiosyncrasies, but I think that overall it’s been really good for our relationship, and I am glad we did it. It’s eliminated the few doubts I had about our future together.”

“That’s good,” Marley responded, hinting. “I know she feels the same way. She’s really looking forward to taking the next step in your relationship.”

But Artie didn’t get the hint and changed the subject.

“Why?” he asked. “Are you thinking about moving in with Ryder?”

“I don’t know,” she answered sheepishly. “How did you broach the subject of moving in togather with Kitty?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Marley answered, “She just told me you were moving in together off campus when I asked her if she needed a dorm roommate when we talked about going to college here.”

“Believe it or not, it was her idea,” he told her. “When we reconciled after our separation after I graduated, we decided that once she graduated she would only apply to colleges in and around New York so we could be closer together.”

“Yeah,” she answered. “That much I know.”

“Over the next year and a half, she came to visit me here several times. I was living with the rest of the alumni in Rachel and Kurt’s loft apartment at the time. One thing she noticed right away was that, in addition to the lack of any real privacy – each of our bedroom “walls” we’re little more then sheets – was the loft wasn’t very handicapped friendly. For example I had to go to the YMCA or men’s locker room on campus in order to shower.

“I wasn’t privy to all the details, but she apparently talked to her parents, who were paying for her college since they made too much to get much for financial aid – remember, her dad’s a lawyer – and they agreed to pay for an apartment rather than living in dorms. She explained the situation with me and somehow got them to agree to let me live with her and get a place that met my needs better, under the condition that it was TWO bedroom apartment,” he explained.

Marley rolled her eyes.

“I was eager to escalate our relationship, given the fact that we’d been doing long distance for so long, and not being able to shower in my own home and the lack of privacy was really beginning to bother me, so of course I agreed to it. It also enabled me to bring the rest of my stuff from Lima.”

“That was so awesome of them!” Marley said.

“Yep,” Artie said. “It completely blew me away! I’d always thought that her dad didn’t like me that much.”

“So your future in-laws are paying your rent?” She asked, teasing.

“Yeah,” he told her. “It’s expensive living in New York when you have a college student’s income. I do help out with bills and other expenses just like I did when I was in the loft. For example I pay for most of the groceries with excess scholarship money.”

She nodded.

“So,” Artie asked, changing the subject. “Are you wondering if you and Ryder moving in together is something you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s a huge step for us, and we’ve been taking it slow.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking it slow, but you can’t go slow forever. Have you talked to him about it yet?”

“No,” she answered. “I’m pretty sure he’d be interested if I did, but I’m just afraid of what it would do to our relationship.”

“If you want to advance your relationship, you are going to have to take some risks,” he told her. “If you really want the get to know each other, that’s a sure fire way to do it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she confided. “That he’s going to find out things about me that he doesn’t like.” She looked down as if she were ashamed.

“Marley,” Artie said, rolling closer to her, reaching out and placing his hand on her shoulder. “Ryder has been in love with you since the day he first laid his eyes on you. Half the reason our production of Grease was as successful as it was is because he wasn’t really acting when he played opposite of you.” She blushed slightly. “I highly doubt there is anything he could learn about you that would phase him that much.

“Why did you ask me this instead of Kitty anyway?” He asked. “We’re good friends, but we both know you’re closed to her than me.”

“Because you and I have one thing in common that she and I don’t,” Marley answered. “Body image issues. If Ryder and I moved in together it would be very hard to keep some things to ourselves. I remember how uncomfortable you were when they tried to draft you into that glee club calendar in high school.”

He nodded.

“So, you’re talking about nudity here?” He asked. “Forgive me, but I guess that I’ve always assumed that you and he were….intimate by now.”

She nodded, flushing a bright crimson, but understanding what he was saying. She couldn’t blame him because she was the one who brought it up.

“We are, we have been since senior year,” she told him. “But doing it, usually hurriedly, after a date isn’t the same thing as actually living together all the time, and it’s not as if we have the opportunity that often, both living in dorms with roommates. We rarely have a room to ourselves for any length of time. That’s not something you and Kitty have to deal with.”

“What makes you think that Kitty doesn’t have body image issues?” He asked. “Because I can assure you that she does.”

“Are you kidding me? I have a hard time believing the girl who sang ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ with me sophomore year in that cat suit has body issues.”

“Well,” Artie said. “You’ve never lived with her, and clearly you don’t know her as well as you think you do. Trust me, she definitely does. She’s just really good at masking them from most people. I’m surprised she hasn’t said anything in your girl talk sessions.”

“I’m not sure what you are talking about,” she answered, feigning ignorance.

“You’re her BFF, Marley, I have no illusions that you don’t know way more about our relationship than I’m probably comfortable with. But yeah, our mutual body issues are something we’ve had to deal with. But it’s okay because it’s brought us closer, and it’s not an issue between us anymore.”

“Wow,” she said.

“All I can tell you is that if you and Ryder do move in together, it will definitely take your relationship to a new level of intimacy. The question is whether or not the two of you are ready for that. everything I’ve gotten from him myself makes me think he would be receptive to the conversation if you were to bring it up, so I’d say the ball is in your court if you want to have the conversation.”

She smiled, leaned in, gave him a hug, and said, “Thanks Artie, you’re a good friend. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Any time,” he assured her. “You, Ryder, and the other former glee club members are like my brothers and sisters. Well, except for Kitty, of course, because that would be gross. I’ll always be there for you.”

# # # # # #

So there you have it, the first chapter. I hope it was worth the wait for those of you who saw the teasers on Twitter. For those of you who didn’t, please follow me @WildeAbrams for updates, discussion, and the occasional spoiler. ~W.A.