#Finn being dead

[wowbright]

Fic: Recommend

Fandom/pairing: Glee, Kurt/Blaine

Event: December Klaine Fanworks Challenge 2023

Words: ~1500 words                                         

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Although Kurt's faith has changed, he still manages to get his temple recommend renewed.

Notes: This is part of my Mormon!Klaine universe. It takes place after Out of Eden, which I am still in the process of posting to AO3. It’s among the possibilities for their future. Mormonsplaining and mild warnings in tags.

* * *

Kurt and his parents had always planned for him to do Finn's temple work when he got back from his mission. It had seemed the right thing at the time, a fitting way to honor the two young men’s brotherhood and make it even more real.

They hadn't seen its one glaring flaw: they were all assuming Kurt would return from Germany with the same faith he'd taken with him when he’d left.

“I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get my temple recommend renewed when I get back,” Elder St. James said to Kurt on their Lufthansa flight to New York. He was on his third Milka mini chocolate bar snatched from the candy buffet near the bathrooms on the lower deck, and Kurt was on his fourth.

“Why?” Kurt said. “Gluttony’s not against the Word of Wisdom. Besides, if chocolate and cookies are all they're going to offer us between meals and we're growing young men, we kind of have no choice. Besides, that breakfast was hardly a breakfast.”

“European breakfasts never are,” agreed Elder St. James. “But it's not the Word of Wisdom I'm concerned about. It's that question about sustaining all the leaders. I'm not sure I can answer ‘yes’ to that in good conscience. I mean, I voted to sustain them at the last general conference, but since my vote doesn’t actually mean anything since they just ignore the abstentions and opposition votes, am I actually sustaining them?”

“You pray for them, don't you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I think that's what sustaining means—offering sustenance. With a child, that would mean giving them food and clothing and shelter and support and love. The leaders don't need those first three things from us, but they do need our support and love. And we show that by respecting them and praying for them.”

“Huh.” Elder St. James opened a fourth chocolate bar and took a thoughtful bite. “I suppose that works. I mean, it's not my fault that I can't actually sustain them in the vote sense, and the temple questions are supposed to be about things that are within our own control, so … Thanks, Elder Hummel. That helps.”

Kurt unwrapped his fifth chocolate. But before he could break off a piece, he started wondering if he was eating his feelings, trying not to think about what was actually happening, how he was currently vaulting through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, every second pulling him farther and farther away from Blaine and closer to a future that he couldn't envision. Hmmm. Maybe he should eat his feelings. It was better than thinking about that. Besides, he felt nowhere near full.

“Do you have any worries?” Elder St. James said.

Kurt had so many worries, he didn't know where to start. Maybe he could mention how he didn't actually understand how planes stayed in the air and it was rather disconcerting to be hovering over the Arctic when he could easily imagine the plane just dropping out of the sky and plunging them into the icy water to their untimely deaths, and while he didn't fear for his own salvation, he did rather like this life they were currently living and also, it would be terrible for his parents to lose two sons in so many years. But before Kurt could think about whether this was an appropriate response, Elder St. James clarified, “About your temple recommend questions?”

Kurt gave his one-time companion a sharp look. “What's that supposed to mean?” The recommend questions included one about the law of chastity, and while Kurt knew he had done nothing wrong, it would be better if rumors didn’t spread. Blaine was still inside the mission.

“Nothing in particular.” The vacant look behind elder St. James's eyes seemed to confirm his sincerity. “I mean, you’re such a Peter Priesthood I figured you wouldn't have trouble with any of them. But maybe I was hoping, just a little, that you were in the same boat as me.”

“What boat is that?” Kurt asked.

Elder St. James popped the rest of his chocolate bar into his mouth and chewed it slowly. He didn't speak again until he had swallowed it all. “I don't know. Not as excited about all this church stuff as I was when we were on the plane out here? I mean, I don't even know if I want to go to the temple again.”

"Well, the temple is –" Kurt looked over your shoulder to make sure no one was listening. He had, perhaps, become a little too used to speaking about the temple freely with Blaine. “–it's a lot different from every day worship. And the sessions are long. But I want to go back. I have work to do for my stepbrother.”

The necessity of that work, Kurt’s obligation to his family—they had nagged at Kurt as he’d weighed the risks of becoming physically intimate with Blaine. It had felt like another unfairness imposed on him by the church, forced to choose between loyalty to the family he came from and commitment to the family he was discovering in Blaine.

But as time passed and Kurt got closer to leaving Germany, denying the gift Blaine was offering him had begun to feel like a sin bigger than any lie Kurt might tell the bishop. And he had discovered just how true that was when they finally slept together: being intimate with Blaine, Kurt had felt for the first time what it must have been like to be one of those legendary first humans, before sin and pain existed, when they felt no shame in their nakedness or the bodies that had been gifted them. Their love was sinless because it grew from that same place without sin.

So it was with a clean conscience, upon returning to Ohio, that Kurt answered yes to his bishop’s question of Do you obey the law of chastity? Kurt’s actions with Blaine had been authentically chaste—reserved for one’s spouse, pure in conduct and intention, free of coercion, seeing the full humanity of the other person and loving them for it. Blaine was his other half in the truest sense, regardless of whether the church or the law recognized it.

Nor did Kurt have any qualms about professing his testimony in God the creator or in Jesus Christ or the restoration of the gospel—his faith in these things was even deeper than before he left on his mission, though in a way he would never have expected.

Even Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? was easy to answer the right way, because the only teachings “accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” were those that had come before the general conference for a vote of common consent. The Proclamation on the Family wasn't one of those things. And besides, he was pretty sure the question was mainly meant to root out polygamists.

Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple? and Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel? were harder. Kurt wasn't even sure he remembered all the covenants he had made in the temple. But the ones he remembered, and the ones he had honestly agreed to, with full understanding—he strove to keep those. As for keeping his life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel, he was more committed to doing that than he’d ever been, even if his understanding of “the gospel” was probably different than his bishop’s.

“Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?” the bishop asked.

“No,” Kurt answered.

“And finally,” the bishop said, “do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord’s house and participate in temple ordinances?”

No more or less than any other of God’s children, Kurt thought to say, but he knew it wasn't the answer the bishop was looking for and would only confuse him. “Yes,” Kurt said.

The bishop signed the recommend and sent Kurt on his way with a smile and a handshake and, “Now, don’t spend all your time at the temple. Your first priority now that you've gotten back from your mission is to find a wife.”

“Thanks for the advice," said Kurt, trying to accept it in the same well-meaning spirit it was given.

Then it was rinse and repeat with the stake president, and Kurt had his recommend. Alone in the car, he turned the card over in his hand, staring at the movement of light over its barcode and lettering. “Finn,” he said, “I hope you’re ready for this.”

[proximacalamity]

rotating him in my mind like a rotisserie chicken

[kingdomoftyto]

....... WAIT. IS THAT LORD MONOCHROMICORN???

[ryoryeonggu]

Sometimes I imagine about The Originals where Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah and Freya dealing with serious threats, ruling the city problems, dramatic fights, etc… then cutting to Finn and Kol doing the dumbest shits.

Comedic subplots with their self-discovery journey, like Finn with a list “Things I do before I k*ll myself” (probably including trying all kind of whiskeys and the cool stuff in the internet), Kol got a map and broke into secret vaults, crypts or mansions to steal things (and getting HIS dark objects back). They accidentally stumbled into the main plot (like the enemies’s secret meetings or overhearing some information), reported back to Freya or Elijah, continued to do their own things only to stumble into more family-related bs.

(and occasionally came back to the house only to watch dramas with popcorn and wine, then dipped)

And this is how I imagine one of their shared activities:

[willemdafinky]

We don’t know what happened to Farmworld Finn

[vampyxqh]

Me when I see Devon Bostick

[gh0stlain]

so does simons brain get uploaded into a computer before he dies like finns mom or is that a crazy idea

[melmedardasworld]

My TVDU men ranking

Klaus

Finn

Marcel

Elijah

Tyler

Witch!Kol

Kai

[julie-finlay]

Finlay Friday

13x05: "Play Dead", script extracts. Cringiest snippet of deleted dialogue under the cut.

[fakeoldmanfucker]

Ngl it's really frustrating to watch the first episode of Interview with the Vampire, with all of its lovely themes of religion and race and class and family and the nice cinematograhy...and then come to tumblr and see almost exclusively gifs of a sex scene that took up not even a tenth of the whole run time.

To be clear this isn't an attack on the content of the show itself; being able to show explicit and intimate scenes between same-sex couples is a battle that was been hard-fought and hard-won and 100% props to the show for including that scene. I just think that it's a bit disappointing to see the nuance of the story completely overshadowed by this one scene.

[plinchy]

Selfish bastard, I hate him (affectionate)

[ebisuslizard]

stop calling bylers delusional oml they’re getting unfathomable amounts of evidence to support the idea that they’re end game u guys are just mad that they’re probably right

[asimpleram]

I do think that there should be a fan fiction website that does not suddenly decide to delete your content based on arbitrary standards, especially if it’s through a mob vote, and one where you can post porn. The problem is, I hate how ao3 is run

[guideaus]

like its soo crazy there's a good 2 frames peaking into the foreshadowed mystery of the series abt our protagonists' great uncle's twin brother being spirited away, while the main casual plot involves a dumb boys vs girls thing, an antiblack stereotype character and his cop partner that are made fun of for being stupid, the one girl whse only point of existing seems to be getting made fun of for being masculine, soos who is also made fun of for being stupid, and the local crazy homeless man character somehow also shows up. its too much 😭😭

[icekingandbetty]

.

[lupismaris]

Oh. Ooohh. But if sailors love a ship to the point their love and dying to save her gives it a soul, would necromancy raise it.

Oh. Oooohhh.