[FIC] Hard Lines: Chapter 4
Rating: PG-13 (Likely to turn NC-17 later, but undetermined)
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: Thank you for all the lovely responses I got about this story. I'll be posting every Friday for now.
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3
****
Blaine sat in his parent’s old bedroom, surrounded by half unpacked boxes and feeling completely overwhelmed. It was the first time he’d been home in over a week and he just wanted to be back in his old bedroom, not quarantined to the first floor of the house while his parents made due with his smaller bedroom upstairs. The move from his room upstairs to the master room on the first floor had happened at some point while Blaine had been in the hospital. A fall down the stairs had started this whole mess and nobody wanted to risk it happening a second time. As it was, he was barely able to use the crutches until his wrist brace was removed in a week. The stairs were just too complicated for him to master and, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, they were right to ban him from the second floor.
Though nobody wanted to say it out loud, everyone knew that a time was coming where Blaine wouldn't be able to leave his bed most days. He would rather the move happen now while he had some time to get used to it.
Still, it felt weird and claustrophobic, despite the bigger room. Maybe it was the pamphlets on the bedside table that he was supposed to be looking over. It was probably the post-it note with online support groups and 24-hour hotlines. In the kitchen, his parents couldn’t stop talking about treatment plans and second opinions and his iPod player hadn’t been brought down yet so he couldn’t drown out their voices with music.
His laptop was still open to the Travelocity page where his father had just bought them all tickets to Chicago so they could meet with another doctor. It just felt so pointless - three-hundred and fifty dollars a person round trip so that another doctor could tell him that there wasn’t anything to be done.
That money could have paid for a week of hotel rooms in the French Riviera.
Everything was too loud, too big and too much to take. Nobody had even asked him what he’d wanted since his outburst at the hospital where he’d demanded to be taken home. If they had, they’d know that the thought of chemotherapy terrified him. He didn’t want to be pumped full of chemicals and he sure as hell didn’t want to deal with radiotherapy. He still wasn’t even sure what all the letters and acronyms surrounding his treatments even stood for, much less what it entailed. He was sick enough as it was without it. He didn’t want his hair to fall out or to be throwing up more than he absolutely had to.
The more he tried to tell them that he wasn’t interested in treatment, the further they went into denial about his condition. They were ignoring him. Not that it was anything new for him, but this wasn’t some stupid argument over dinner reservations or piano lessons. This was his life. His very limited-time-left life.
To Kurt:
Rescue me
He typed that out, not being over dramatic in the least. He was climbing the walls in this house and he needed some fresh air - some space to think about what was happening to him without his mother trying to tell him how to feel about it. Kurt was just a quick excuse to run away for a little while. He’d always been good at that.
To Blaine:
That bad? :(
Kurt had no idea. Burt and Carole were different, they didn’t smother Kurt. Burt always gave Kurt space to make his own decisions. His mother didn’t understand why he was having such a problem with her hovering. It was like she’d forgotten that she hadn’t been around often for the past few months of his life due to her book tour. She’d been in and out of the house so often promoting her newest self-help book that he barely saw her more than a few minutes each day. He’d learned how to take care of himself. He didn’t need her standing over him all of the time. He didn’t want it.
To Kurt:
My mother might kill me before this tumor has a chance.
To Blaine:
Not funny. Don’t joke.
I’ve got at least five episodes of Treme to catch up and it’s not as fun to hate-watch alone. I’ll be there soon.
I’ll be there soon. It was like an answered prayer. He knew it was wrong to be texting Kurt. Even though he had promised to be there for Blaine, he deserved some distance, especially now. Kurt’s life had always been surrounded in death and it wasn’t fair for Blaine to bring more into it. He knew he had no right to expect Kurt to rush in and rescue him, but he sighed in relief anyway.
He threw his phone down on the mattress and took a steadying breath, calmed momentarily by the knowledge that Kurt would be there to take him away from this claustrophobic house. When he’d been stuck in the hospital, all he’d asked for was the chance to go home. Now he couldn't get far enough away.
With some difficulty, he managed to stand up, leaning heavily on one crutch as he hobbled around the room in search of where his school bag had been thrown. It was nearly impossible to make it to the desk and once he did, he nearly fell, but he remained upright through sheer determination.
He was grateful to find his bag on the chair and adjusted himself so that he was leaning almost all of his weight on the desk while he unbuckled the bag with one hand. He began tossing his books and notebooks out haphazardly, making room for some essentials. If he was going to be having a TV marathon at the Hummel’s, he’d need a few things. The good popcorn from the kitchen was a must since Kurt’s house was the only house in America that didn’t keep microwave popcorn on hand in the pantry. He’d need an extra sweatshirt since Burt didn’t believe in turning up the heat since Hummel men are cold-blooded. There was Kurt’s copy of Sleepless in Seattle that needed to be returned from months ago. A few books he’d wanted to recommend for Kurt to read also made their way inside until his bag was overflowing with stuff.
The floorboard creaked, signaling somebody’s arrival and he turned to see his mom making her way into the room.
“You really shouldn’t be moving around without our help,” she chastised him, taking his bag off of the chair and pushing him into it. She placed the bag on the desk so that he could continue on with what he was doing, satisfied that he couldn’t hurt himself so long as he was sitting down. He hated to admit it, but he felt more secure in the chair as well.
“Don’t forget to take your second pill,” she said, casually moving around the room to put away the clean clothes she’s been holding. He’d insisted that he could do his own laundry, but she refused to let him.
“Okay,” he said, barely looking up at her. He didn’t want to give her an opening to start in again with her pleading that he come to church with her in the morning. It wasn’t going to happen. If he hadn’t been to church since he’d come out of the closet, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go now that God had given him an inoperable tumor.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he packed up his bag. She put the laundry basket that she’d been holding down on the end of his bed and crossed her arms; she already knew what his answer was going to be.
“I’m going to Kurt’s,” he said, trying to shuffle out of his seat but his crutch had fallen beyond his reach and moving around was hard enough without the added complication of carpet to trip over.
“You can’t go, you’ve just had a craniotomy,” she said with a deep sigh, but that didn’t stop her from moving to pick up the crutch for him. She kept close to make sure he was stable before backing off at his annoyed glare. He might have been broken and have cancer, but he was still eighteen years old and he could be trusted to stand on his own.
“I won’t be driving,” he explained carefully. “What difference does it make if I’m on bed rest here or there?”
He couldn’t stand this house for another minute. The dark paint that his mother had favored just seemed horribly depressing to him. He wanted to be back in Kurt’s room with the pale walls and incredibly soft mattress. Kurt’s room had always been an oasis for him. One of the first places he really found himself - understood who he was and the kind of man he wanted to grow to be.
Well, he was never going to grow up to be that man, but the Hummel’s house was just as good as home as his own.
“I’m not letting you go,” she said. “All of your medication is here. What if something happens? You heard what the doctor said.”
“Yes, he said I have cancer. I’m not an invalid,” he argued with a roll of his eyes.
While expected, it was still unbelievable. He’d been coming and going since he was sixteen and old enough to drive. If she thought she could start policing his movements now, he had another thing coming.
“Listen, I don’t know how long Kurt’s going to stay in town for and I just want to spend some time with him before he goes back to New York,” he said, praying that she wouldn’t make him verbalized the unspoken before I die. He didn’t want to have to play the cancer card, but he wasn't above it either.
She stared at him with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. It was her way of letting him know that she wasn’t going to change her mind. He let out a deep sigh of annoyance. He got that she was being more protective now that they finally knew why he’d been so sick, now that she knew he had cancer and it wasn’t something she could heal away with the power of positive thinking, prayer and some homemade remedy that'd been passed down through generations of Filipinos.
He understood, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“This could be our last few weeks together,” he said.
It was dirty, dirtier than he’d ever had to play before, but he needed to get out. Moreover, he needed some time with Kurt after weeks of fighting. He needed to be able to talk to his best friend comfortably without his parents listening in on their every word from the next room over. He needed somebody to talk to that would actually listen to his feelings instead of just brushing them under the rug by telling him that he would be okay.
“Oh, Sweetheart,” she said, reaching out to stroke his cheek. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re not dying. That doctor in Chicago is supposed to work wonders. Don’t let this get you down. Think positively.”
He rolled his eyes. That mantra may have sold over a million books, but it had never done him any favors no matter how many times she said it. He wished there was a tactful way to ask her to stop. Not that it would help, she never listened to him.
“I need him,” Blaine said, voice sounding so open and vulnerable in its pleading. It was Kurt who finally taught him how to be strong and not just put on a brave face every day, but to actually believe in his own power. It’s Kurt that is going to get him through this.
It wasn’t anything against his family. He needed them just as much as he did Kurt, but currently Kurt wasn’t the one living in denial so he was one of the only people he could talk to and get genuine advice.
She looked at him with a curious tilt of her head, as if she was really starting to see him for the first time.
“Why doesn’t Kurt come over here, you two could stay in?” she asked, trying to find a compromise. He appreciated the effort; it was more than she usually did. He wasn’t budging on this though.
“Because you and Dad have confined us to the living room,” he explained, as if she’d somehow forgotten. She couldn’t be stupid enough not to see that he clearly wanted to be alone with Kurt. It wasn’t that he even expected anything sexual to happen. They were beyond that point. He wasn’t sure if Kurt would ever want that kind of relationship with him again after what he’d done with Eli, but it wasn’t outrageous to want some privacy.
“What if we changed the rules?” she asked. “You’re an adult now, it’s about time we gave you some more responsibility.”
“Changed the rules to what?” he asked, wondering out far she was willing to go with this.
It made him sick to know just how much the cancer was forcing everybody to change their lives. It had already forced Kurt into talking to him again where he’d sworn up and down that he never would speak to Blaine again after cheating. Cooper was talking about auditioning for a musical in Columbus even though he hated theatre. Now it was making his religious mother consider letting another man sleep in her son’s bed despite the almost weekly lectures he got about saving himself for marriage.
“Well, it’s probably alright if Kurt visits your room, so long as your father and I are home.”
“Mom,” he said with a bored look. “Kurt and I aren’t having sex. We probably won’t be having sex ever again, but I’m not a little kid anymore. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
She clicked her tongue distastefully at him, but relented with a roll of her eyes. “He can spend the night so long as he sleeps in the guest room.”
“Kurt and I have shared a bed before,” he said. It was more than he’d ever been willing to share with her before but he figured the time for secrets was long past. “We’ve shared my bed before. You heard Cooper, I’m not a virgin.”
“Blaine!” she said, scandalized and looking like she wanted to ground him forever and start quoting the Bible at him. To her credit, she managed to contain her anger.
“Mother.” He was already bored with his conversation. Kurt should be there any minute and he just wanted to leave already. He was beyond stir crazy - he was actually going crazy. “Where do you think I sleep when I go over to Kurt’s?”
“Fine,” she said, looking like she just agreed to murder. “Just try to be respectful.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, picking up his bag and putting it around his shoulder, moving to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m still going over to Kurt’s tonight,” he said.
“But I just said he could stay here.”
“Which is nice - I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m still going over there tonight,” he explained, doing his best to stay calm. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen the Hummels and I’m sure Kurt already told Carole I was coming so she’s prepared dinner.”
At his mother’s crestfallen look, he couldn’t help but feel guilty for leaving. She wasn’t a horrible person. She loved him and he knew that, it was just a bit much sometimes and he couldn’t deal with it today.
“Listen, I promise I’ll be back tonight - tomorrow morning at the latest,” he said. “I just need a day.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but bit her tongue.
“You’ll call me if you have any problems? No matter what time it is?” she asked, finally relenting.
“I promise,” he said, stumbling forward to give her a grateful kiss on the cheek.
“I want to talk to Kurt before you go.”
“Of course,” he said with a sigh of relief and slowly made his way into the kitchen to settle in for a bit. Kurt would be there any minute, but he knew his mother would want to go over all of his medications with him and that would take a while in itself.
“Where are you going?” Cooper asked, heating up some leftover Chinese food from the fridge.
“Don’t,” he said, stopping any questions before they could start.
“Your brother’s going to spend the night at Kurt’s while we finish moving all of his stuff downstairs,” his mom explained for him. Cooper raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t say anything more.
His dad trailed in and grabbed a plate of leftovers for himself. They all sat around the island, listening to Cooper talk about how one of his friends from New York was looking for a temporary place in LA for a few months while he shot a movie. Cooper was debating subletting his place so he could stay home.
“I don’t want you uprooting your life for me,” Blaine said as he stole a piece of sweet and sour pork. “You can fly home to visit and I could even come and visit you out there.”
“It’s fine, Baby Brother,” he said with a big smile. “My next commercial doesn’t shoot for four months and so long as Andy wants my apartment for the few months he’s in town, I’m not out any money. I can pick up some small acting or modeling jobs around here for extra cash.”
“I just don’t-”
“Stop,” Cooper cut him off. “I want to be here, okay? Just let me be your brother for once.”
Blaine looked at Cooper and didn’t see an ounce of bitterness or anger at having to move back home. Instead, he just saw his love. Cooper had been away from home for more than half of Blaine’s life and now he just wanted some time together. Blaine couldn’t argue with that.
“Alright,” he said with a small smile. “Maybe we could go see White Christmas in Columbus together.”
“I’d like that,” Cooper agreed. “Actually, Angie is playing the lead in Priscilla Queen of the Desert in January. I can probably get VIP tickets.”
“That’s great!” His mom chimed in from where she’d been putting together all of Blaine’s medicines and writing long notes about each one for Kurt. Blaine would have stopped her and said it was unnecessary, but he knew Kurt well enough to know that he’d be just as paranoid about his meds as she was.
“I still don’t understand why you two broke up,” his dad said.
“Please, just let it go, Dad,” Cooper said. “We’re just friends now.”
“But she was always so nice; you could use a nice girl. You won’t be young forever and I want some grandbabies,” his mom said, causing Cooper to roll his eyes and Blaine to snort.
“She’s married to Garret, you went to their wedding,” Cooper argued, looking to Blaine for help.
“No, this is Karma for throwing me under the bus at the hospital,” he chuckled.
The two of them continued to bicker playfully as the doorbell rang and his dad went to go get it since it would have taken Blaine a good ten minutes to make it to the door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson,” Blaine heard Kurt greet his dad and a few minutes later he entered the kitchen.
It sounded cheesy, but Blaine’s breath still caught a little every time Kurt entered a room. Like everything would stop and when it restarted again, suddenly breathing was easier and his heartbeat relaxed, like it recognized it wasn’t alone anymore. It was like that every single time and he prayed that never changed.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Kurt said politely as everyone exchanged greetings.
“I wanted to thank you again for coming over and moving most of Blaine’s stuff,” his mom said. “It was a big help.”
“Wait, you moved the stuff?” Blaine asked, surprised that he didn’t know this.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “My dad, Finn and Sam came over with me and we had most of it done in a couple of hours. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get it all finished, but we didn’t feel comfortable moving some of the personal stuff.”
“It’s fine, you did more than enough,” his dad said with a genuine smile.
It was the first time Blaine had ever seen his dad talk to Kurt with any sort of positive emotion. Usually, Blaine considered it a victory if his dad was apathetic towards Kurt. It was better than the blatant annoyance he used to get whenever he brought Kurt home.
It wasn't that his parents cared about him being gay, though that had taken him a long time to understand. They were just never crazy about Kurt because they thought that Blaine was too attached to him for how young they both were. His parents were constantly telling him how unhealthy it was. It had taken an entire summer to convince them to let him transfer to McKinley and even then, he’d been at Dalton an entire week before they’d relented.
“Did you boys want some dinner before you go?” his mom asked.
“No, thank you,” Kurt answered for them. “Carole’s cooking chicken and dumplings at home.”
“Seriously?” he asked, his face lighting up at the prospect. Blaine had spent many dinners with the Hummel-Hudsons and he loved everything Carole and Kurt ever fed him, but there was just something special about her chicken and dumplings that always found him eating third and sometimes even fourth helpings.
Kurt smiled at him knowingly. He didn’t need to say why Carole was cooking chicken and dumplings, Blaine knew it was because it was his favorite meal and that made him feel incredibly loved.
“In fact, we should probably get going so we aren’t late. You ready?” Kurt asked.
“Mom wants to go through all of the worst possible scenarios with you until you’re too terrified to take me in,” Blaine said, causing his mom to protest that she just wanted to make sure he was taken care of.
“Of course, I want to do whatever I can to help him,” Kurt said, giving Blaine a playful glare at his protest. It was then that Kurt seemed to look him up and down for the first time, taking in his red cardigan and blue striped shirt with a smile before frowning at his grey sweatpants like they were the most offensive things he’d ever seen.
“They are the only pants that fit over my cast,” he said defensively before Kurt could even start.
“Which wouldn’t have happened if you wore pants that actually fit you properly,” his dad teased. “I don’t know how you boys even breathe in those things you paint on yourselves.”
“The price of fashion,” Kurt said, not taking his dad’s ribbing to heart. “I can help you tailor some stuff to fit. I don’t know if I can handle you going out in public in sweatpants.”
Blaine looked at him hopefully, before he nodded, a silent promise. Blaine lit up in relief. He might not have looked like he walked off a runway the same way Kurt did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about fashion. He had been disappointed when he realized he wouldn’t be able to wear any of his favorite clothes for the next five weeks. Especially since he was still in the process of wooing back the only other person to fully appreciate his fashion sense.
“Why don’t you go get some of your pants packed for me to tailor and I’ll go over all the boring medical stuff with your mom,” Kurt suggested.
Cooper was nice enough to help Blaine pack up a small bag of some of his favorites, careful not to pack too many things so that he would have something to wear once the cast came off. By the time he was done, Kurt had thankfully wrapped things up with his mother and was hugging her goodbye at the front door like old friends.
“Call me if you feel sick,” she said, pulling him into a tight hug like he was leaving for months, not for the night.
“I will,” he promised, pulling back to kiss her on the cheek.
“Have a good night,” she said with a sad smile and waved.
“Let’s go, Tiny Tim,” Kurt said, taking his elbow to help him balance.
Blaine glared at him, good naturedly. “Is that it or do you have more saved up?”
Kurt smirked at him but didn’t comment further as they slowly made their way down the front steps and out to the driveway. He heard the door close behind them once they were safely to the car and Blaine couldn’t help but pull Kurt into a hug now that they had privacy.
“Thank you for coming,” Blaine said, unable to stop himself from smelling Kurt’s neck. He still wore the same cologne, the heady scent Blaine had picked out for him as a birthday present.
“Of course,” he said, pulling back with a faint blush and Blaine realized it was the closest they’d been since the break up. All of their touches before had been innocent enough to be considered friendly, but the way Blaine had nuzzled into him was anything but. He hoped he hadn’t crossed a line.
Kurt opened the door and it took a few minutes of fumbling to get him into the car and buckled up.
“I feel completely useless,” he grumbled.
“You’re much more patient about it than I would be,” Kurt reassured him and soon they were pulling out of the driveway.
“You know Sam’s not going to be there tonight,” Kurt commented, giving him a look like he was testing him. “He’s at Jake’s.”
“Okay,” he responded slowly, unsure what Kurt was getting at. “I wasn’t asking.”
“Weren’t you?”
Blaine didn’t know how to take that. If he’d wanted to see Sam, he would have called him. He knew that the two were still living under the same roof, but he wouldn’t call one just so he could see the other. Especially not with the way the two were getting along lately.
Blaine reached forward and turned up the radio to cover up the silence.
After a few minutes the tension in the air faded and Kurt commented on one of the songs that came over with a small smile-a silent apology. After that, the lack of talking wasn’t awkward but the conversation wasn’t overflowing as it once was when their lives intersected so seamlessly. Their lives had gone in different directions recently and every story Blaine would have usually told him just didn’t seem important now. Kurt was so much wiser and more mature now that he lived in the city; Blaine didn’t think he’d laugh at the New Direction’s latest drama the way that he used to. No, he’d look down on them like the silly, naive children they were and that was the last thing Blaine wanted.
He wanted to be good enough for Kurt again. He didn’t want Kurt to remember all the reasons he’d stopped picking up the phone the first time. This time Blaine would be more interesting. He’d keep all of his foolish daydreams to himself and only talk to Kurt about the things that mattered.
“So are you excited about the elections in Maryland, Maine, and Washington deciding to legalize same sex marriage?” Blaine asked, figuring he was safe if they talked about politics. That was an adult topic, right? “It’s a sign things have to be changing right?”
“Yeah, there was a pretty awesome party to celebrate at a gay club one of Isabelle’s friends snuck Rachel and I into. Sad it’ll probably never happen in Ohio,” Kurt commented.
So Kurt was going to clubs now. Interesting. Blaine hadn’t thought that was Kurt’s scene, but then again, maybe he didn’t really know what Kurt’s scene was anymore. He wondered if Kurt went out a lot and, if he did, how often he got hit on. He couldn’t imagine somebody as beautiful as Kurt being able to walk into a gay bar and not get showered with attention.
The thought caused his stomach to twist into knots as he tried to remind himself that he didn’t have a right to be jealous after what he’d done.
“All it would take is a federal law and Ohio wouldn’t have a choice,” Blaine said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter though, does it? It’ll never happen in my lifetime.”
“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt said, his voice strangled in his throat, causing the words to sound mangled.
“It’s alright. I always said I wanted to see a day where same-sex marriage was legal, and I guess I have. Just not in my state,” he said with a shrug, trying not to think too hard about it.
“It’s fine,” he reassured Kurt when it looked like he was about to cry. “It’s not like I’d have anybody to marry even if it was legal.”
Blaine looked over at Kurt whose eyes were purposefully glued to the road ahead. It was a long shot, but he’d hoped that Kurt might have argued with him. They fell into silence again, but this time the awkwardness settled in and was pressing down on them. The air was filled with thousands of unsaid words.
It had been stupid for Blaine to make that comment in the first place. He knew their relationship was nowhere near where it once was and he couldn’t expect Kurt to just jump back into those feelings.
“At least you saw repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’,” Kurt said with a chipper voice, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” he nodded along, smiling at the memory. “That was the day I transferred to McKinley.”
“That was a good day,” Kurt said and Blaine couldn’t tell if he was referring to the repeal, Blaine’s transfer, or the night that followed after the announcement. The night Blaine’s parents hadn’t been home and they’d gotten off for the first time together after some heated, celebratory rutting, causing them to make the rule about hands staying north of the equator. They hadn’t been ready for anything like that yet, though neither of them had regretted the happy accident, even if Kurt did have to go home in sticky pants.
“My mom said you could stay at my house,” he said, changing the topic before his mind could go too far with that thought, unfortunately, thinking about how Kurt was now allowed to sleep in his room did nothing to get rid of that visual.
“Interesting turn of events,” Kurt commented, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Blaine’s parents had always been incredibly strict about when and where Kurt was allowed into their house. “So why aren’t we?”
“I just need a break for the night,” he said. “Plus, I’ve missed your family.”
“Well, that’s good to know because my dad and Carole are beside themselves with joy that you’re coming over,” Kurt said. “You know they’ll always consider you one of their own.”
“They’re really great,” he said, not really sure what else to say to that.
He was happy, of course, but then again he didn’t know how Kurt felt about his parents loving him after everything that had happened. Had Kurt expected Burt to hate Blaine after everything? It didn’t sound like Burt had cared. Had Kurt even told him about why they’d broken up? He couldn’t imagine Kurt keeping that a secret, not with how close they were.
They pulled into Kurt’s driveway and Blaine already felt the warmth radiating out of the house. Kurt’s home was much smaller than Blaine’s but it never felt that way. Where Blaine’s house was big, it could often feel cold, especially when his parents were working late or out of town. Kurt’s house was homey and full of love. Blaine always imagined, once he grew up, that this was the kind of house that he would raise a family in.
Kurt moved around the hood of the car quickly so that he could help Blaine out of the car. Blaine reached for his crutch and secured it under his arm before they started walking, Kurt’s arm securely around his waist. He knew that Kurt was only trying to help him, that was all, but he couldn’t help but feel a flutter in his stomach as Kurt’s fingers accidentally brushed against bare skin.
Making up the driveway and through the pathway to the house was no problem with the two of them working in perfect synch, but the stairs were another issue entirely. Kurt’s home unfortunately had a good ten steps to the porch which was much harder to move around. Blaine had only had to work with the single step up to his own home and thus had no idea how to even begin tackling this issue.
“I could carry you?” Kurt said, but even he sounded doubtful.
Blaine closed his eyes and shook his head, knowing that he was going to have to resort to sitting down and pulling himself up each step one by one like he’d done when he was little and his feet were too short for the stairs. Could his life get any more embarrassing? It was like every move he made just screamed out what a train wreck he was, asking for people to abandon him because it wasn’t worth the effort.
Just as Blaine was moving to set down his crutch, Burt came out of the house and laughed at how pathetic the two of them looked. Between Burt and Kurt, Blaine was able to brace himself and hop awkwardly up the steps. It would have probably been quicker to let them carry him, but they saved his dignity and didn’t even offer, knowing he would be ashamed to let them.
Burt helped Blaine over to the kitchen table while Kurt ran back out to grab their bags. Carole was just finishing up setting the table.
“Everything smells delicious,” he said with a big smile, happy to be there for dinner. After Kurt had broken up with him, he thought his days at that dinner table were up. Sam had invited him over a few times since the breakup, but Blaine just hadn’t felt comfortable going over to the house knowing what he’d done. He was happy to see that they didn’t seem to be holding it against him.
“Well, eat up,” Burt said. “You’re going to need all the strength you can get.”
“I think you’re like really brave, Dude,” Finn said, nodding his head along like he did whenever somebody had a good idea for Glee club. As if fighting cancer was just as cool as finding the perfect song for Sectionals.
“Finn,” Kurt whispered harshly and Blaine was pretty sure there was a swift kick under the table if Finn’s grimace was any indication.
“It doesn’t feel brave at all,” he said quietly. “It feels like somebody’s chasing me with a gun and a giant stopwatch.”
Blaine regretted saying it the second he did because everyone looked down at their plates with equal looks of heartbreak and misery.
“So, are you excited about the bowl games coming up?” he asked, trying to bring things around to a lighter subject so everybody would go back to looking happy instead of depressed. This home was supposed to be filled with joy, not gloom.
“I’ll be happy if my team can pull their heads out of their asses and actually play,” Burt said, and with that the spell seemed to be broken and everybody went back to treating this as just another day, for which he was thankful.
****
“Now’s the time to run,” Blaine said, only half jokingly as they cleaned up after dinner.
Carole and Burt had already retired to the living room at Blaine’s insistence that they could handle the cleaning and Finn had gone out to meet up with some friends. Washing the dishes together was domestic and familiar, a routine they knew well. Sure, Blaine had to sit at a stool now to complete the task thanks to his broken leg, but apart from that, it felt like any other night together. Blaine washed while Kurt dried so that Kurt could give him a hard time when he didn’t wash things up to standard. In the past, this always resulted in Blaine flicking soapy water at him and Kurt would then kiss him into submission.
It was a dance they had done a million times, but Blaine didn’t think they were moving to the same song anymore. He wanted to know where Kurt’s head was at - he’d been trying to think of a way to get Kurt to tell him whether he was honestly going to stay here until the end came or not. He didn’t know how to bring it up though without sounding terribly selfish and needy. He needed to know what they were to each other.
“Please,” Kurt scoffed at him. “I need to be here now more than ever.”
“At least until you need to go back to New York,” he said, clearly fishing but there wasn’t any tactful way to bury his curiosity in a causal question.
“I’m not,” Kurt said, matter of fact as he began putting the dried pots and pans away.
“I’m sorry?” he asked, knowing he must have misheard him.
“I’m not going back to New York, not right now,” Kurt explained, but his back was to Blaine so he couldn’t see his face to know if Kurt was happy about this decision or if it was one he felt forced into.
“Kurt, you can’t stay here for me,” he argued. “What about Vogue? What about NYADA? You’re supposed to be reapplying for the spring.”
“I can reapply in the fall,” Kurt said, knowing the both of them heard the unspoken when you’re gone. “Isabelle is letting me work from Ohio. I can do a lot of my work from home and I can just fly back when there’s something pressing.”
“It’ll be expensive to fly back and forth,” he pressed, knowing that he couldn’t let Kurt do this no matter how much his brain was yelling at him to just shut up and let Kurt do this for him.
“I’ll be saving money on rent. I can afford it,” Kurt said.
“What about Rachel? You can’t leave her without a roommate,” he groaned.
“Santana’s quitting school and taking my place. She hates Kentucky,” Kurt said.
“There’s more reasons you can’t do this-” he said, hating how his mind was suddenly blank and he couldn’t think of anything to say. He rubbed at his temples as a headache began to form behind his eyes. Kurt must have noticed because he pulled a glass down from the cabinet and filled it with ice water before sliding Blaine’s medication for the night across the countertop.
“I’ve thought this through and I’m doing this. Unless you are trying to tactfully tell me that you don’t want me here?” Kurt asked, and his voice went up in a panic like it always did whenever he got self-conscious and worried. Blaine hated that he ever gave him a reason to doubt himself.
“Of course I want you here,” he said, carefully taking his pills to give himself time to choose his next words wisely. “New York is your dream. I’ve made a lot of selfish decisions lately and I don’t want to be the one constantly taking things from you.”
“There are more important things than Broadway. I made the choice to stay home, you didn’t ask me to.”
“I just feel like I’m ruining your life,” he said painfully. “We made all these plans for the future and now I’m making you come back home when I won’t even be here in a few months. That seems like the opposite of love. Aren’t you supposed to let your loved one go spread their wings?”
“Why would we let each other go at a time like this? We should both be selfish and hold on tight- enjoy every minute because we love each other and want every last second together,” Kurt said, pulling him into a hug.
“And I love you, until my dying day,” Blaine sang into his shoulder and he felt Kurt tighten up.
“Okay, suddenly that song is sounding less romantic,” Kurt said.
“Well, pretty soon I’ll be an impulsive, forgetful, evil lunatic. I think the time for romance is over,” Blaine said bitterly.
“Not possible,” Kurt said. “You’ll always be my Prince Charming.”
“Even when the tumor causes me to cheat on you and destroys everything I love?” Blaine said, still bitter.
“Can I ask you something honestly? Now that we know it was likely the tumor that led you to do it?” Kurt asked nervously, like he didn’t want to know the answer.
“Sure,” he said, he’d never been anything but open about what had happened, it was Kurt who hadn’t wanted to hear the details.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“Kurt-I already told you, I don’t understand what I was thinking,” he said, surprised they were suddenly back to this.
“No, I get what happened. The tumor impaired your judgment. You clearly couldn’t connect the cheating to something bad and I’m sure once you started fooling around your natural impulse was to keep going even though your brain would have usually said no. I get that you couldn’t exactly control it even though it still pissed me off... I just want to understand why this happened to begin with. Why was your impulse to go to somebody else and not me?” Kurt asked the ground and Blaine heart broke into a million little pieces at how small he sounded.
This wasn’t a question he wanted to answer because he knew how much it would hurt Kurt. How it would seem like Blaine was blaming him when he wasn’t. There was never a good reason to cheat.
“Blaine, please,” Kurt whispered. “If we want to prevent this from happening again, I need to understand what you were thinking.”
“I was lonely,” he said, quietly. He twisted the dish towel in his lap around, tying it into a knot and undoing it, only to tie it again, his hands anxious to do something.
“Of course you were, we both were,” Kurt said.
“No, it was different,” he said, hating how he was so quick to snap now. He mentally took a minute to calm down and remind himself that the tumor in his head didn’t have to turn him into a monster. He didn’t have to lash out and scream at everyone whenever he felt the rage hit.
“How was it different?” Kurt asked, not accusing, just curious.
“You had Rachel,” he said, feeling himself calm down again.
He wondered if all of his emotions would be as fleeting as the rage was. Would he soon only be able to feel happiness in such short bursts as well? He hoped that wasn’t the case, it sounded horrible.
“You had Rachel and Vogue and New York to keep you company. I was alone,” he explained. “Everyone I loved had left. I had to make brand new friends. It was incredibly isolating and then you stopped answering my texts right away. You started cutting calls short or missing Skype dates. You’d tell me to call at nine when you’d be home, then you wouldn’t answer.”
“I always get stuck at work later than I plan,” Kurt cut in, starting to make excuses before Blaine looked up and silently begged him to remain quiet so that Blaine could get through his speech.
He could already feel the headache starting to grow and he was getting tired. It was going to take all of his energy to get this story out. Blaine hadn’t quite gotten back into the groove of being up all day after napping every few hours in the hospital. Moving around with his cast was exhausting.
“I got to thinking that maybe - just maybe - we weren’t meant to be together. Maybe people were right and high school romances couldn’t last. I started thinking I had to prepare myself for the break-up because I knew it was only a matter of time before big exciting New York became exciting new boys who would be there like I couldn’t be. They would be so much more cultured and educated than I could ever hope to be and I wouldn’t be able to compete.”
“That was never going to happen,” Kurt said, miserably.
“You say that now, but I was convinced you would realize that you could do better than a high school boy in Ohio. So, I guess my mind just started seeking out other people to ease the pain. I don’t remember meeting Eli, but when he sent me that Facebook message, I did agree to it. I guess a part of me - a careless, terrified part of me just said ‘why not’ and I did.”
Blaine had to pause to take a sip of water. His vision was starting to blur a bit so he closed his eyes. The headaches didn’t usually come at night, but Blaine figured it had to do with all of the excitement of the day after a week of being cooped up in the hospital.
“Are you okay?” Kurt asked, putting his hand on the back of Blaine’s neck and massaging it like his mom had started doing whenever the headaches hit.
“Fine,” he said with a wave of his hand, and he was. He’d grown used to the pain enough by now that he could deal with it. “Can you just turn off the lights?”
Kurt moved to turn off the lights in the room until the only light was coming from a small bulb under the microwave. Blaine opened his eyes again, happy to see that the darkness helped some. The rest of the symptoms would pass given enough time.
“Sorry,” he said, then got back to the story. “Anyway, I felt so sick afterwards. I threw up every day that week and the following one. It’s why I didn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to tell you in person but I was so sick - I guess that was the cancer, too. I thought it was just the guilt. I guess my conscious kicked back in the moment I was finished...”
They both blushed when they realized the sexual connotation of the word. Blaine didn’t like to think about the things he’d let Eli do to his body and he was sure Kurt didn’t appreciate the visual.
“I guess once I left, I remembered how special and unique or love is - was?”
“Is,” Kurt corrected him tearfully and Blaine’s heart skipped a beat in desperate hope.
“I ruined it,” he said, feeling the ache of guilt like it had happened yesterday. “The worst part was that I didn’t even understand why. I just started to believe I was a horrible person and you deserved better- I am a horrible person and you do deserve better,” he corrected himself.
“We both do,” Kurt said, moving in closer so he could put his hands around Blaine’s neck. “I’m so sorry that you didn’t feel like I cared about you anymore. I guess I got caught up in my life and forgot that love is just as much give as it is take. I promise I’ll be better. Better yet, I’ll be here next time,” Kurt promised, pressing their foreheads together and staring into his eyes, unable to hide the tears in his eyes.
“I know it seems pointless to promise anything when I’m not in control of my own brain, but for what little it’s worth, I promise to never betray your trust again like that,” Blaine said.
“It’s worth a lot,” Kurt said. “For better, for worse, I’m here until the end.”
“This is starting to sound like a proposal,” he teased trying to lighting the mood before they both ended up sobbing.
“Well, you did promise yourself to me last year with a gum wrapper ring and I’m determined to hold you to it,” Kurt said, leaning down until their lips met for the first time since the break up.
The last time Kurt had kissed him was upon Blaine’s arrival in New York and Blaine still felt horrible for letting Kurt’s lips touch his after Blaine’s lips had been all over Eli’s body. It felt wrong then and it still felt wrong now, like he was taking something that wasn’t his to take.
Kurt pulled away first, looking confused until he noticed how hesitant Blaine was.
“I don’t like what you did, I never will, but I forgive you. I really do. Okay?” Kurt smiled at him and Blaine could tell that he genuinely meant it. It felt like Christmas morning and he’d been given a gift he’d been begging for but never in a million years thought he’d actually receive.
Blaine surged forward and kissed him again, holding both of his cheeks in his hand, trying to be gentle with the brace on his wrist and hoping it wasn’t terribly awkward for Kurt.
“Saying thank you isn’t nearly enough, but thank you,” Blaine said, keeping their lips close enough that they were touching but he still was able to talk.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.
They were interrupted by an amused clearing of the throat and that did feel like old times. Blaine had lost count at the number of times Burt had walked in on the two of them kissing, but he was always so surprised at how at easy Kurt was with it. He never got embarrassed like Blaine would have been if it had been either of his parents to walk in on them.
“In my kitchen boys, really?” he teased.
“Well, pretty soon you won’t have to worry about walking in on the two of us, will you?” he said, brushing the comment off like it was no big deal. It was better to minimize the fact that he was dying, it made it easier for him to digest the news. Otherwise, when he thought about it, it was this huge, overbearing thing following him around and torturing him.
Neither Kurt nor Burt looked amused though.
“Tough crowd,” he yawned, moving to stand up. It was getting late and he was tired. They had planned on watching Treme together but all Blaine could think about was getting to bed.
“Dad, can you help Blaine up to my room while I finish putting away the dishes?” Kurt asked and Blaine was thankful that he could tell how exhausted he was.
By the time Burt actually set Blaine down into the bed, Kurt had finished cleaning up the kitchen and was right behind him walking into the room.
“So, are we really at the joking stage of this already?” Kurt asked once they’d said their goodnights to Burt and shut the door safely behind them.
“Denial is the first stage, they say.”
Blaine flopped back onto the bed and made grabby hands at Kurt until he joined him on top of the comforter. It had been awhile since Blaine had really cuddled with somebody and now that they had mended things, he planned on taking full advantage.
Kurt pillowed his arms on top of Blaine’s chest and lay his head down; staring up at him studiously like he was trying to figure out a riddle.
“Are you going to talk to me about what’s going on? I know this isn’t just about your parents.”
He ran his hands through Kurt’s hair and tried to come up with the right words to say, the right way to explain himself. Nothing came out. He started to shake and his breathing became labored as he tried to hold in his tears. Kurt sat up and looked down at Blaine in concern. He shook his head and looked at Kurt, silently begging for help. He wasn’t sure what was happening and why the room suddenly felt like it was closing in on him.
There was a horrible choking sound. It took him a few minutes to realize that it was coming from him. His body was forcing him to let it out, to let go of all the fear he’d been trying to bury down deep.
Kurt stared at him, unsure of what to do while Blaine continued to shake. He tried to swallow his tears, but he couldn’t around the lump in his throat. His chest burned from the strain.
“Oh, honey,” Kurt said, pulling him into his arms.
“I’m dying,” he gasped.
“You’re just having a panic attack, it’s okay.”
“No, I’m going to die,” he finally cried and once the dam burst, it wouldn’t stop. He was sobbing the gross, ugly tears that made his nose run and his eyes puff up until he looked like an alien. There was nothing cute about the desperate way he was gasping for air and the tears just kept coming, each sob harder than the last. It felt like he was going to crack a rib with the force of his sobs and his head was ripping apart in agony, but he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to.
He tried to articulate the things he was feeling. He tried to explain how overwhelming and scary all of it was. All that he was able to get out was why and it’s not fair.
“Shhh, Shhh. Just breathe. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“I’m only eighteen,” he sobs, knowing that he’s being too loud. The entire house has to have heard him by now. “How is any of this okay? I have cancer! Can you fix that?”
Kurt looked at him, so sad and lost. They held onto each other tightly. Blaine was certain poor Kurt would have claw marks on his back at the way he was grabbing at him frantically. They took turns crying into each other’s shoulders - crying together. They took comfort in the fact that as horrible as things were, they weren’t alone in their anguish.
Blaine lost count of the number of times he thought he had it under control only to start crying again. He figured he had this coming. He’d managed to keep himself somewhat together since the diagnosis. He managed to hold his head high while his parents were freaking out, acting like he had accepted his fate. It was only a matter of time before he broke down.
He was grateful it was in front of Kurt and not his mother. She would have forced him to sign up for therapy or attend one of those support groups for kids with terminal diseases.
“We’re supposed to grow old together,” Blaine whispered into Kurt’s neck once the sobs had turned to random teardrops.
Kurt’s eyes were puffy and swollen and Blaine was pretty sure he’d popped a blood vessel in his eye with how red it was - Kurt would be horrified later - but he was still the most beautiful creature Blaine had ever seen. It was painful to know that he could have had a long life of nothing but mornings waking up next to this man, but he wouldn’t.
Kurt didn’t respond; there wasn’t much he could say. He knew that empty promises wouldn’t do them any good, but he couldn’t exactly say that it was alright either. Both of them were devastated at losing each other so soon. They were supposed to have time to spend learning what it’s like to live together. Time to wake up every morning in each other’s arms. There was supposed to be time to fight over the color of the couch or what type of milk to buy.
He was supposed to see Kurt perform on Broadway for the first time. They were going to get married, have a family and build a life together. It wasn’t right. Nothing they could say would make it right, so Kurt didn’t say anything.
Blaine spent the next hour bringing up all the things he would never do, whispering it into the night, unsure if Kurt was even listening to him or if he’d fallen asleep. Eventually he ran out of things he was going to miss out on and he fell asleep, too tired to keep his eyes open a second longer.
The next morning, he woke up to Kurt gently stroking his hair, careful to avoid the bald spot from his surgery. He knew Blaine was self-conscious about it. His free hand was playing on his cell phone.
“Angry Birds?”
Kurt smiled at him and shook his head, happy to see that he was awake. He tilted his screen in his direction to show him what he’d been working on. He had the notes app open on his phone and he was making a list.
Graduate high school
Have a relationship with my parents
Go on auditions with Cooper in LA
Make amends with the Warblers
Visit/meet extended family in the Philippines
Backpack through Europe
Learn Italian
Go skinny dipping at midnight in the south of France
The screen prohibited him from being able to see the rest of the list, but he got the gist.
“You did that when I was sleeping?” he asked, a lump in his throat.
“I wanted to remember everything you said so we wouldn’t miss any. I added ones that we’ve talked about in the past, too. You’ll have to let me know if I’m missing anything.”
He thought he should be used to it by now, but he was always surprised by the ways Kurt loved him. He didn’t serenade him loudly in the choir room every week like Rachel. There weren’t care packages sent to his door with twenty page love letters like his mother said his father had done for her when she’d moved back home for a year. His love was quiet and unassuming, but the littlest whispers into the wind found ways to echo back louder than any big sweeping gesture of Blaine’s ever could.
How could he have ever doubted Kurt’s love for him?
“I’m going to do everything I can to help you cross everything off this list,” Kurt promised him.
“Thank you,” he said with an adoring smile that he’d been told was incredibly cheesy by the rest of their friends but Kurt never seemed to mind.
His head was in Kurt’s lap by that point, preening as he continued to scratch at his scalp and play with the mess that was his hair. He reached up to hold onto Kurt’s free hand, wrapping it around his chest until he was trapped between the mattress and Kurt’s arms. He felt safer this way, calmer.
Blaine yawned, tired again even though he’d just woken up. It was barely after seven in the morning though and his body wasn’t yet accustomed to being awake so long after his time in the hospital. He’d survived the day yesterday with a single nap, but his body was punishing him today for it.
Kurt gave him a light kiss on the lips and they settled down to rest some more, wrapped in each other’s arms.
He had planned on telling Kurt about the treatment last night before his epic breakdown. He’d wanted to tell him how desperately he wanted to forgo chemo and radiation and just enjoy the time he had left without worrying over doctor’s appointments and test results. He was far too comfortable to move though, and he knew the admission would only upset Kurt. He should just let him get used to the idea that Blaine had cancer before springing that on him.
He could talk to him about it later, before he went home or another time. It wasn't like his parents were ever going to let him quit treatment anyway.
He snuggled in deeper to Kurt’s hold, enjoying being the little spoon. He missed the feeling of being held tightly. Of being cherished like he was something special. Someone that mattered. He counted his lucky stars, not for the first time, that he had such a wonderful, forgiving person in his life.
“Is there room on your cast for me, too?” Kurt whispered into his ear, Blaine nodded.
Kurt reached over Blaine to grab a sharpie out of the bedside drawer and moved down the bed with a determined look on his face as he began writing out in his fancy cursive letters. When he pulled away, he looked proud of himself and Blaine sat up so that he could read what had been written.
I’m never saying goodbye to you.
The words settled themselves in his brain like a mantra, clawing at him hungrily. They cuddled up again and it was several minutes before Blaine realized why he felt like he was being pulled in a hundred different directions.
Kurt wasn’t going to say goodbye to him.
“You aren’t going to get a choice,” Blaine whispered, but Kurt was already sleeping, his deep breaths tickling Blaine, reminding him that he was still there. That he’d always be right there.
The problem was, Blaine wouldn’t be.
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: Thank you for all the lovely responses I got about this story. I'll be posting every Friday for now.
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3
****
Blaine sat in his parent’s old bedroom, surrounded by half unpacked boxes and feeling completely overwhelmed. It was the first time he’d been home in over a week and he just wanted to be back in his old bedroom, not quarantined to the first floor of the house while his parents made due with his smaller bedroom upstairs. The move from his room upstairs to the master room on the first floor had happened at some point while Blaine had been in the hospital. A fall down the stairs had started this whole mess and nobody wanted to risk it happening a second time. As it was, he was barely able to use the crutches until his wrist brace was removed in a week. The stairs were just too complicated for him to master and, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, they were right to ban him from the second floor.
Though nobody wanted to say it out loud, everyone knew that a time was coming where Blaine wouldn't be able to leave his bed most days. He would rather the move happen now while he had some time to get used to it.
Still, it felt weird and claustrophobic, despite the bigger room. Maybe it was the pamphlets on the bedside table that he was supposed to be looking over. It was probably the post-it note with online support groups and 24-hour hotlines. In the kitchen, his parents couldn’t stop talking about treatment plans and second opinions and his iPod player hadn’t been brought down yet so he couldn’t drown out their voices with music.
His laptop was still open to the Travelocity page where his father had just bought them all tickets to Chicago so they could meet with another doctor. It just felt so pointless - three-hundred and fifty dollars a person round trip so that another doctor could tell him that there wasn’t anything to be done.
That money could have paid for a week of hotel rooms in the French Riviera.
Everything was too loud, too big and too much to take. Nobody had even asked him what he’d wanted since his outburst at the hospital where he’d demanded to be taken home. If they had, they’d know that the thought of chemotherapy terrified him. He didn’t want to be pumped full of chemicals and he sure as hell didn’t want to deal with radiotherapy. He still wasn’t even sure what all the letters and acronyms surrounding his treatments even stood for, much less what it entailed. He was sick enough as it was without it. He didn’t want his hair to fall out or to be throwing up more than he absolutely had to.
The more he tried to tell them that he wasn’t interested in treatment, the further they went into denial about his condition. They were ignoring him. Not that it was anything new for him, but this wasn’t some stupid argument over dinner reservations or piano lessons. This was his life. His very limited-time-left life.
To Kurt:
Rescue me
He typed that out, not being over dramatic in the least. He was climbing the walls in this house and he needed some fresh air - some space to think about what was happening to him without his mother trying to tell him how to feel about it. Kurt was just a quick excuse to run away for a little while. He’d always been good at that.
To Blaine:
That bad? :(
Kurt had no idea. Burt and Carole were different, they didn’t smother Kurt. Burt always gave Kurt space to make his own decisions. His mother didn’t understand why he was having such a problem with her hovering. It was like she’d forgotten that she hadn’t been around often for the past few months of his life due to her book tour. She’d been in and out of the house so often promoting her newest self-help book that he barely saw her more than a few minutes each day. He’d learned how to take care of himself. He didn’t need her standing over him all of the time. He didn’t want it.
To Kurt:
My mother might kill me before this tumor has a chance.
To Blaine:
Not funny. Don’t joke.
I’ve got at least five episodes of Treme to catch up and it’s not as fun to hate-watch alone. I’ll be there soon.
I’ll be there soon. It was like an answered prayer. He knew it was wrong to be texting Kurt. Even though he had promised to be there for Blaine, he deserved some distance, especially now. Kurt’s life had always been surrounded in death and it wasn’t fair for Blaine to bring more into it. He knew he had no right to expect Kurt to rush in and rescue him, but he sighed in relief anyway.
He threw his phone down on the mattress and took a steadying breath, calmed momentarily by the knowledge that Kurt would be there to take him away from this claustrophobic house. When he’d been stuck in the hospital, all he’d asked for was the chance to go home. Now he couldn't get far enough away.
With some difficulty, he managed to stand up, leaning heavily on one crutch as he hobbled around the room in search of where his school bag had been thrown. It was nearly impossible to make it to the desk and once he did, he nearly fell, but he remained upright through sheer determination.
He was grateful to find his bag on the chair and adjusted himself so that he was leaning almost all of his weight on the desk while he unbuckled the bag with one hand. He began tossing his books and notebooks out haphazardly, making room for some essentials. If he was going to be having a TV marathon at the Hummel’s, he’d need a few things. The good popcorn from the kitchen was a must since Kurt’s house was the only house in America that didn’t keep microwave popcorn on hand in the pantry. He’d need an extra sweatshirt since Burt didn’t believe in turning up the heat since Hummel men are cold-blooded. There was Kurt’s copy of Sleepless in Seattle that needed to be returned from months ago. A few books he’d wanted to recommend for Kurt to read also made their way inside until his bag was overflowing with stuff.
The floorboard creaked, signaling somebody’s arrival and he turned to see his mom making her way into the room.
“You really shouldn’t be moving around without our help,” she chastised him, taking his bag off of the chair and pushing him into it. She placed the bag on the desk so that he could continue on with what he was doing, satisfied that he couldn’t hurt himself so long as he was sitting down. He hated to admit it, but he felt more secure in the chair as well.
“Don’t forget to take your second pill,” she said, casually moving around the room to put away the clean clothes she’s been holding. He’d insisted that he could do his own laundry, but she refused to let him.
“Okay,” he said, barely looking up at her. He didn’t want to give her an opening to start in again with her pleading that he come to church with her in the morning. It wasn’t going to happen. If he hadn’t been to church since he’d come out of the closet, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go now that God had given him an inoperable tumor.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he packed up his bag. She put the laundry basket that she’d been holding down on the end of his bed and crossed her arms; she already knew what his answer was going to be.
“I’m going to Kurt’s,” he said, trying to shuffle out of his seat but his crutch had fallen beyond his reach and moving around was hard enough without the added complication of carpet to trip over.
“You can’t go, you’ve just had a craniotomy,” she said with a deep sigh, but that didn’t stop her from moving to pick up the crutch for him. She kept close to make sure he was stable before backing off at his annoyed glare. He might have been broken and have cancer, but he was still eighteen years old and he could be trusted to stand on his own.
“I won’t be driving,” he explained carefully. “What difference does it make if I’m on bed rest here or there?”
He couldn’t stand this house for another minute. The dark paint that his mother had favored just seemed horribly depressing to him. He wanted to be back in Kurt’s room with the pale walls and incredibly soft mattress. Kurt’s room had always been an oasis for him. One of the first places he really found himself - understood who he was and the kind of man he wanted to grow to be.
Well, he was never going to grow up to be that man, but the Hummel’s house was just as good as home as his own.
“I’m not letting you go,” she said. “All of your medication is here. What if something happens? You heard what the doctor said.”
“Yes, he said I have cancer. I’m not an invalid,” he argued with a roll of his eyes.
While expected, it was still unbelievable. He’d been coming and going since he was sixteen and old enough to drive. If she thought she could start policing his movements now, he had another thing coming.
“Listen, I don’t know how long Kurt’s going to stay in town for and I just want to spend some time with him before he goes back to New York,” he said, praying that she wouldn’t make him verbalized the unspoken before I die. He didn’t want to have to play the cancer card, but he wasn't above it either.
She stared at him with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. It was her way of letting him know that she wasn’t going to change her mind. He let out a deep sigh of annoyance. He got that she was being more protective now that they finally knew why he’d been so sick, now that she knew he had cancer and it wasn’t something she could heal away with the power of positive thinking, prayer and some homemade remedy that'd been passed down through generations of Filipinos.
He understood, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“This could be our last few weeks together,” he said.
It was dirty, dirtier than he’d ever had to play before, but he needed to get out. Moreover, he needed some time with Kurt after weeks of fighting. He needed to be able to talk to his best friend comfortably without his parents listening in on their every word from the next room over. He needed somebody to talk to that would actually listen to his feelings instead of just brushing them under the rug by telling him that he would be okay.
“Oh, Sweetheart,” she said, reaching out to stroke his cheek. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re not dying. That doctor in Chicago is supposed to work wonders. Don’t let this get you down. Think positively.”
He rolled his eyes. That mantra may have sold over a million books, but it had never done him any favors no matter how many times she said it. He wished there was a tactful way to ask her to stop. Not that it would help, she never listened to him.
“I need him,” Blaine said, voice sounding so open and vulnerable in its pleading. It was Kurt who finally taught him how to be strong and not just put on a brave face every day, but to actually believe in his own power. It’s Kurt that is going to get him through this.
It wasn’t anything against his family. He needed them just as much as he did Kurt, but currently Kurt wasn’t the one living in denial so he was one of the only people he could talk to and get genuine advice.
She looked at him with a curious tilt of her head, as if she was really starting to see him for the first time.
“Why doesn’t Kurt come over here, you two could stay in?” she asked, trying to find a compromise. He appreciated the effort; it was more than she usually did. He wasn’t budging on this though.
“Because you and Dad have confined us to the living room,” he explained, as if she’d somehow forgotten. She couldn’t be stupid enough not to see that he clearly wanted to be alone with Kurt. It wasn’t that he even expected anything sexual to happen. They were beyond that point. He wasn’t sure if Kurt would ever want that kind of relationship with him again after what he’d done with Eli, but it wasn’t outrageous to want some privacy.
“What if we changed the rules?” she asked. “You’re an adult now, it’s about time we gave you some more responsibility.”
“Changed the rules to what?” he asked, wondering out far she was willing to go with this.
It made him sick to know just how much the cancer was forcing everybody to change their lives. It had already forced Kurt into talking to him again where he’d sworn up and down that he never would speak to Blaine again after cheating. Cooper was talking about auditioning for a musical in Columbus even though he hated theatre. Now it was making his religious mother consider letting another man sleep in her son’s bed despite the almost weekly lectures he got about saving himself for marriage.
“Well, it’s probably alright if Kurt visits your room, so long as your father and I are home.”
“Mom,” he said with a bored look. “Kurt and I aren’t having sex. We probably won’t be having sex ever again, but I’m not a little kid anymore. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
She clicked her tongue distastefully at him, but relented with a roll of her eyes. “He can spend the night so long as he sleeps in the guest room.”
“Kurt and I have shared a bed before,” he said. It was more than he’d ever been willing to share with her before but he figured the time for secrets was long past. “We’ve shared my bed before. You heard Cooper, I’m not a virgin.”
“Blaine!” she said, scandalized and looking like she wanted to ground him forever and start quoting the Bible at him. To her credit, she managed to contain her anger.
“Mother.” He was already bored with his conversation. Kurt should be there any minute and he just wanted to leave already. He was beyond stir crazy - he was actually going crazy. “Where do you think I sleep when I go over to Kurt’s?”
“Fine,” she said, looking like she just agreed to murder. “Just try to be respectful.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, picking up his bag and putting it around his shoulder, moving to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m still going over to Kurt’s tonight,” he said.
“But I just said he could stay here.”
“Which is nice - I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m still going over there tonight,” he explained, doing his best to stay calm. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen the Hummels and I’m sure Kurt already told Carole I was coming so she’s prepared dinner.”
At his mother’s crestfallen look, he couldn’t help but feel guilty for leaving. She wasn’t a horrible person. She loved him and he knew that, it was just a bit much sometimes and he couldn’t deal with it today.
“Listen, I promise I’ll be back tonight - tomorrow morning at the latest,” he said. “I just need a day.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but bit her tongue.
“You’ll call me if you have any problems? No matter what time it is?” she asked, finally relenting.
“I promise,” he said, stumbling forward to give her a grateful kiss on the cheek.
“I want to talk to Kurt before you go.”
“Of course,” he said with a sigh of relief and slowly made his way into the kitchen to settle in for a bit. Kurt would be there any minute, but he knew his mother would want to go over all of his medications with him and that would take a while in itself.
“Where are you going?” Cooper asked, heating up some leftover Chinese food from the fridge.
“Don’t,” he said, stopping any questions before they could start.
“Your brother’s going to spend the night at Kurt’s while we finish moving all of his stuff downstairs,” his mom explained for him. Cooper raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t say anything more.
His dad trailed in and grabbed a plate of leftovers for himself. They all sat around the island, listening to Cooper talk about how one of his friends from New York was looking for a temporary place in LA for a few months while he shot a movie. Cooper was debating subletting his place so he could stay home.
“I don’t want you uprooting your life for me,” Blaine said as he stole a piece of sweet and sour pork. “You can fly home to visit and I could even come and visit you out there.”
“It’s fine, Baby Brother,” he said with a big smile. “My next commercial doesn’t shoot for four months and so long as Andy wants my apartment for the few months he’s in town, I’m not out any money. I can pick up some small acting or modeling jobs around here for extra cash.”
“I just don’t-”
“Stop,” Cooper cut him off. “I want to be here, okay? Just let me be your brother for once.”
Blaine looked at Cooper and didn’t see an ounce of bitterness or anger at having to move back home. Instead, he just saw his love. Cooper had been away from home for more than half of Blaine’s life and now he just wanted some time together. Blaine couldn’t argue with that.
“Alright,” he said with a small smile. “Maybe we could go see White Christmas in Columbus together.”
“I’d like that,” Cooper agreed. “Actually, Angie is playing the lead in Priscilla Queen of the Desert in January. I can probably get VIP tickets.”
“That’s great!” His mom chimed in from where she’d been putting together all of Blaine’s medicines and writing long notes about each one for Kurt. Blaine would have stopped her and said it was unnecessary, but he knew Kurt well enough to know that he’d be just as paranoid about his meds as she was.
“I still don’t understand why you two broke up,” his dad said.
“Please, just let it go, Dad,” Cooper said. “We’re just friends now.”
“But she was always so nice; you could use a nice girl. You won’t be young forever and I want some grandbabies,” his mom said, causing Cooper to roll his eyes and Blaine to snort.
“She’s married to Garret, you went to their wedding,” Cooper argued, looking to Blaine for help.
“No, this is Karma for throwing me under the bus at the hospital,” he chuckled.
The two of them continued to bicker playfully as the doorbell rang and his dad went to go get it since it would have taken Blaine a good ten minutes to make it to the door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson,” Blaine heard Kurt greet his dad and a few minutes later he entered the kitchen.
It sounded cheesy, but Blaine’s breath still caught a little every time Kurt entered a room. Like everything would stop and when it restarted again, suddenly breathing was easier and his heartbeat relaxed, like it recognized it wasn’t alone anymore. It was like that every single time and he prayed that never changed.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Kurt said politely as everyone exchanged greetings.
“I wanted to thank you again for coming over and moving most of Blaine’s stuff,” his mom said. “It was a big help.”
“Wait, you moved the stuff?” Blaine asked, surprised that he didn’t know this.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “My dad, Finn and Sam came over with me and we had most of it done in a couple of hours. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get it all finished, but we didn’t feel comfortable moving some of the personal stuff.”
“It’s fine, you did more than enough,” his dad said with a genuine smile.
It was the first time Blaine had ever seen his dad talk to Kurt with any sort of positive emotion. Usually, Blaine considered it a victory if his dad was apathetic towards Kurt. It was better than the blatant annoyance he used to get whenever he brought Kurt home.
It wasn't that his parents cared about him being gay, though that had taken him a long time to understand. They were just never crazy about Kurt because they thought that Blaine was too attached to him for how young they both were. His parents were constantly telling him how unhealthy it was. It had taken an entire summer to convince them to let him transfer to McKinley and even then, he’d been at Dalton an entire week before they’d relented.
“Did you boys want some dinner before you go?” his mom asked.
“No, thank you,” Kurt answered for them. “Carole’s cooking chicken and dumplings at home.”
“Seriously?” he asked, his face lighting up at the prospect. Blaine had spent many dinners with the Hummel-Hudsons and he loved everything Carole and Kurt ever fed him, but there was just something special about her chicken and dumplings that always found him eating third and sometimes even fourth helpings.
Kurt smiled at him knowingly. He didn’t need to say why Carole was cooking chicken and dumplings, Blaine knew it was because it was his favorite meal and that made him feel incredibly loved.
“In fact, we should probably get going so we aren’t late. You ready?” Kurt asked.
“Mom wants to go through all of the worst possible scenarios with you until you’re too terrified to take me in,” Blaine said, causing his mom to protest that she just wanted to make sure he was taken care of.
“Of course, I want to do whatever I can to help him,” Kurt said, giving Blaine a playful glare at his protest. It was then that Kurt seemed to look him up and down for the first time, taking in his red cardigan and blue striped shirt with a smile before frowning at his grey sweatpants like they were the most offensive things he’d ever seen.
“They are the only pants that fit over my cast,” he said defensively before Kurt could even start.
“Which wouldn’t have happened if you wore pants that actually fit you properly,” his dad teased. “I don’t know how you boys even breathe in those things you paint on yourselves.”
“The price of fashion,” Kurt said, not taking his dad’s ribbing to heart. “I can help you tailor some stuff to fit. I don’t know if I can handle you going out in public in sweatpants.”
Blaine looked at him hopefully, before he nodded, a silent promise. Blaine lit up in relief. He might not have looked like he walked off a runway the same way Kurt did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about fashion. He had been disappointed when he realized he wouldn’t be able to wear any of his favorite clothes for the next five weeks. Especially since he was still in the process of wooing back the only other person to fully appreciate his fashion sense.
“Why don’t you go get some of your pants packed for me to tailor and I’ll go over all the boring medical stuff with your mom,” Kurt suggested.
Cooper was nice enough to help Blaine pack up a small bag of some of his favorites, careful not to pack too many things so that he would have something to wear once the cast came off. By the time he was done, Kurt had thankfully wrapped things up with his mother and was hugging her goodbye at the front door like old friends.
“Call me if you feel sick,” she said, pulling him into a tight hug like he was leaving for months, not for the night.
“I will,” he promised, pulling back to kiss her on the cheek.
“Have a good night,” she said with a sad smile and waved.
“Let’s go, Tiny Tim,” Kurt said, taking his elbow to help him balance.
Blaine glared at him, good naturedly. “Is that it or do you have more saved up?”
Kurt smirked at him but didn’t comment further as they slowly made their way down the front steps and out to the driveway. He heard the door close behind them once they were safely to the car and Blaine couldn’t help but pull Kurt into a hug now that they had privacy.
“Thank you for coming,” Blaine said, unable to stop himself from smelling Kurt’s neck. He still wore the same cologne, the heady scent Blaine had picked out for him as a birthday present.
“Of course,” he said, pulling back with a faint blush and Blaine realized it was the closest they’d been since the break up. All of their touches before had been innocent enough to be considered friendly, but the way Blaine had nuzzled into him was anything but. He hoped he hadn’t crossed a line.
Kurt opened the door and it took a few minutes of fumbling to get him into the car and buckled up.
“I feel completely useless,” he grumbled.
“You’re much more patient about it than I would be,” Kurt reassured him and soon they were pulling out of the driveway.
“You know Sam’s not going to be there tonight,” Kurt commented, giving him a look like he was testing him. “He’s at Jake’s.”
“Okay,” he responded slowly, unsure what Kurt was getting at. “I wasn’t asking.”
“Weren’t you?”
Blaine didn’t know how to take that. If he’d wanted to see Sam, he would have called him. He knew that the two were still living under the same roof, but he wouldn’t call one just so he could see the other. Especially not with the way the two were getting along lately.
Blaine reached forward and turned up the radio to cover up the silence.
After a few minutes the tension in the air faded and Kurt commented on one of the songs that came over with a small smile-a silent apology. After that, the lack of talking wasn’t awkward but the conversation wasn’t overflowing as it once was when their lives intersected so seamlessly. Their lives had gone in different directions recently and every story Blaine would have usually told him just didn’t seem important now. Kurt was so much wiser and more mature now that he lived in the city; Blaine didn’t think he’d laugh at the New Direction’s latest drama the way that he used to. No, he’d look down on them like the silly, naive children they were and that was the last thing Blaine wanted.
He wanted to be good enough for Kurt again. He didn’t want Kurt to remember all the reasons he’d stopped picking up the phone the first time. This time Blaine would be more interesting. He’d keep all of his foolish daydreams to himself and only talk to Kurt about the things that mattered.
“So are you excited about the elections in Maryland, Maine, and Washington deciding to legalize same sex marriage?” Blaine asked, figuring he was safe if they talked about politics. That was an adult topic, right? “It’s a sign things have to be changing right?”
“Yeah, there was a pretty awesome party to celebrate at a gay club one of Isabelle’s friends snuck Rachel and I into. Sad it’ll probably never happen in Ohio,” Kurt commented.
So Kurt was going to clubs now. Interesting. Blaine hadn’t thought that was Kurt’s scene, but then again, maybe he didn’t really know what Kurt’s scene was anymore. He wondered if Kurt went out a lot and, if he did, how often he got hit on. He couldn’t imagine somebody as beautiful as Kurt being able to walk into a gay bar and not get showered with attention.
The thought caused his stomach to twist into knots as he tried to remind himself that he didn’t have a right to be jealous after what he’d done.
“All it would take is a federal law and Ohio wouldn’t have a choice,” Blaine said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter though, does it? It’ll never happen in my lifetime.”
“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt said, his voice strangled in his throat, causing the words to sound mangled.
“It’s alright. I always said I wanted to see a day where same-sex marriage was legal, and I guess I have. Just not in my state,” he said with a shrug, trying not to think too hard about it.
“It’s fine,” he reassured Kurt when it looked like he was about to cry. “It’s not like I’d have anybody to marry even if it was legal.”
Blaine looked over at Kurt whose eyes were purposefully glued to the road ahead. It was a long shot, but he’d hoped that Kurt might have argued with him. They fell into silence again, but this time the awkwardness settled in and was pressing down on them. The air was filled with thousands of unsaid words.
It had been stupid for Blaine to make that comment in the first place. He knew their relationship was nowhere near where it once was and he couldn’t expect Kurt to just jump back into those feelings.
“At least you saw repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’,” Kurt said with a chipper voice, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” he nodded along, smiling at the memory. “That was the day I transferred to McKinley.”
“That was a good day,” Kurt said and Blaine couldn’t tell if he was referring to the repeal, Blaine’s transfer, or the night that followed after the announcement. The night Blaine’s parents hadn’t been home and they’d gotten off for the first time together after some heated, celebratory rutting, causing them to make the rule about hands staying north of the equator. They hadn’t been ready for anything like that yet, though neither of them had regretted the happy accident, even if Kurt did have to go home in sticky pants.
“My mom said you could stay at my house,” he said, changing the topic before his mind could go too far with that thought, unfortunately, thinking about how Kurt was now allowed to sleep in his room did nothing to get rid of that visual.
“Interesting turn of events,” Kurt commented, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Blaine’s parents had always been incredibly strict about when and where Kurt was allowed into their house. “So why aren’t we?”
“I just need a break for the night,” he said. “Plus, I’ve missed your family.”
“Well, that’s good to know because my dad and Carole are beside themselves with joy that you’re coming over,” Kurt said. “You know they’ll always consider you one of their own.”
“They’re really great,” he said, not really sure what else to say to that.
He was happy, of course, but then again he didn’t know how Kurt felt about his parents loving him after everything that had happened. Had Kurt expected Burt to hate Blaine after everything? It didn’t sound like Burt had cared. Had Kurt even told him about why they’d broken up? He couldn’t imagine Kurt keeping that a secret, not with how close they were.
They pulled into Kurt’s driveway and Blaine already felt the warmth radiating out of the house. Kurt’s home was much smaller than Blaine’s but it never felt that way. Where Blaine’s house was big, it could often feel cold, especially when his parents were working late or out of town. Kurt’s house was homey and full of love. Blaine always imagined, once he grew up, that this was the kind of house that he would raise a family in.
Kurt moved around the hood of the car quickly so that he could help Blaine out of the car. Blaine reached for his crutch and secured it under his arm before they started walking, Kurt’s arm securely around his waist. He knew that Kurt was only trying to help him, that was all, but he couldn’t help but feel a flutter in his stomach as Kurt’s fingers accidentally brushed against bare skin.
Making up the driveway and through the pathway to the house was no problem with the two of them working in perfect synch, but the stairs were another issue entirely. Kurt’s home unfortunately had a good ten steps to the porch which was much harder to move around. Blaine had only had to work with the single step up to his own home and thus had no idea how to even begin tackling this issue.
“I could carry you?” Kurt said, but even he sounded doubtful.
Blaine closed his eyes and shook his head, knowing that he was going to have to resort to sitting down and pulling himself up each step one by one like he’d done when he was little and his feet were too short for the stairs. Could his life get any more embarrassing? It was like every move he made just screamed out what a train wreck he was, asking for people to abandon him because it wasn’t worth the effort.
Just as Blaine was moving to set down his crutch, Burt came out of the house and laughed at how pathetic the two of them looked. Between Burt and Kurt, Blaine was able to brace himself and hop awkwardly up the steps. It would have probably been quicker to let them carry him, but they saved his dignity and didn’t even offer, knowing he would be ashamed to let them.
Burt helped Blaine over to the kitchen table while Kurt ran back out to grab their bags. Carole was just finishing up setting the table.
“Everything smells delicious,” he said with a big smile, happy to be there for dinner. After Kurt had broken up with him, he thought his days at that dinner table were up. Sam had invited him over a few times since the breakup, but Blaine just hadn’t felt comfortable going over to the house knowing what he’d done. He was happy to see that they didn’t seem to be holding it against him.
“Well, eat up,” Burt said. “You’re going to need all the strength you can get.”
“I think you’re like really brave, Dude,” Finn said, nodding his head along like he did whenever somebody had a good idea for Glee club. As if fighting cancer was just as cool as finding the perfect song for Sectionals.
“Finn,” Kurt whispered harshly and Blaine was pretty sure there was a swift kick under the table if Finn’s grimace was any indication.
“It doesn’t feel brave at all,” he said quietly. “It feels like somebody’s chasing me with a gun and a giant stopwatch.”
Blaine regretted saying it the second he did because everyone looked down at their plates with equal looks of heartbreak and misery.
“So, are you excited about the bowl games coming up?” he asked, trying to bring things around to a lighter subject so everybody would go back to looking happy instead of depressed. This home was supposed to be filled with joy, not gloom.
“I’ll be happy if my team can pull their heads out of their asses and actually play,” Burt said, and with that the spell seemed to be broken and everybody went back to treating this as just another day, for which he was thankful.
****
“Now’s the time to run,” Blaine said, only half jokingly as they cleaned up after dinner.
Carole and Burt had already retired to the living room at Blaine’s insistence that they could handle the cleaning and Finn had gone out to meet up with some friends. Washing the dishes together was domestic and familiar, a routine they knew well. Sure, Blaine had to sit at a stool now to complete the task thanks to his broken leg, but apart from that, it felt like any other night together. Blaine washed while Kurt dried so that Kurt could give him a hard time when he didn’t wash things up to standard. In the past, this always resulted in Blaine flicking soapy water at him and Kurt would then kiss him into submission.
It was a dance they had done a million times, but Blaine didn’t think they were moving to the same song anymore. He wanted to know where Kurt’s head was at - he’d been trying to think of a way to get Kurt to tell him whether he was honestly going to stay here until the end came or not. He didn’t know how to bring it up though without sounding terribly selfish and needy. He needed to know what they were to each other.
“Please,” Kurt scoffed at him. “I need to be here now more than ever.”
“At least until you need to go back to New York,” he said, clearly fishing but there wasn’t any tactful way to bury his curiosity in a causal question.
“I’m not,” Kurt said, matter of fact as he began putting the dried pots and pans away.
“I’m sorry?” he asked, knowing he must have misheard him.
“I’m not going back to New York, not right now,” Kurt explained, but his back was to Blaine so he couldn’t see his face to know if Kurt was happy about this decision or if it was one he felt forced into.
“Kurt, you can’t stay here for me,” he argued. “What about Vogue? What about NYADA? You’re supposed to be reapplying for the spring.”
“I can reapply in the fall,” Kurt said, knowing the both of them heard the unspoken when you’re gone. “Isabelle is letting me work from Ohio. I can do a lot of my work from home and I can just fly back when there’s something pressing.”
“It’ll be expensive to fly back and forth,” he pressed, knowing that he couldn’t let Kurt do this no matter how much his brain was yelling at him to just shut up and let Kurt do this for him.
“I’ll be saving money on rent. I can afford it,” Kurt said.
“What about Rachel? You can’t leave her without a roommate,” he groaned.
“Santana’s quitting school and taking my place. She hates Kentucky,” Kurt said.
“There’s more reasons you can’t do this-” he said, hating how his mind was suddenly blank and he couldn’t think of anything to say. He rubbed at his temples as a headache began to form behind his eyes. Kurt must have noticed because he pulled a glass down from the cabinet and filled it with ice water before sliding Blaine’s medication for the night across the countertop.
“I’ve thought this through and I’m doing this. Unless you are trying to tactfully tell me that you don’t want me here?” Kurt asked, and his voice went up in a panic like it always did whenever he got self-conscious and worried. Blaine hated that he ever gave him a reason to doubt himself.
“Of course I want you here,” he said, carefully taking his pills to give himself time to choose his next words wisely. “New York is your dream. I’ve made a lot of selfish decisions lately and I don’t want to be the one constantly taking things from you.”
“There are more important things than Broadway. I made the choice to stay home, you didn’t ask me to.”
“I just feel like I’m ruining your life,” he said painfully. “We made all these plans for the future and now I’m making you come back home when I won’t even be here in a few months. That seems like the opposite of love. Aren’t you supposed to let your loved one go spread their wings?”
“Why would we let each other go at a time like this? We should both be selfish and hold on tight- enjoy every minute because we love each other and want every last second together,” Kurt said, pulling him into a hug.
“And I love you, until my dying day,” Blaine sang into his shoulder and he felt Kurt tighten up.
“Okay, suddenly that song is sounding less romantic,” Kurt said.
“Well, pretty soon I’ll be an impulsive, forgetful, evil lunatic. I think the time for romance is over,” Blaine said bitterly.
“Not possible,” Kurt said. “You’ll always be my Prince Charming.”
“Even when the tumor causes me to cheat on you and destroys everything I love?” Blaine said, still bitter.
“Can I ask you something honestly? Now that we know it was likely the tumor that led you to do it?” Kurt asked nervously, like he didn’t want to know the answer.
“Sure,” he said, he’d never been anything but open about what had happened, it was Kurt who hadn’t wanted to hear the details.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“Kurt-I already told you, I don’t understand what I was thinking,” he said, surprised they were suddenly back to this.
“No, I get what happened. The tumor impaired your judgment. You clearly couldn’t connect the cheating to something bad and I’m sure once you started fooling around your natural impulse was to keep going even though your brain would have usually said no. I get that you couldn’t exactly control it even though it still pissed me off... I just want to understand why this happened to begin with. Why was your impulse to go to somebody else and not me?” Kurt asked the ground and Blaine heart broke into a million little pieces at how small he sounded.
This wasn’t a question he wanted to answer because he knew how much it would hurt Kurt. How it would seem like Blaine was blaming him when he wasn’t. There was never a good reason to cheat.
“Blaine, please,” Kurt whispered. “If we want to prevent this from happening again, I need to understand what you were thinking.”
“I was lonely,” he said, quietly. He twisted the dish towel in his lap around, tying it into a knot and undoing it, only to tie it again, his hands anxious to do something.
“Of course you were, we both were,” Kurt said.
“No, it was different,” he said, hating how he was so quick to snap now. He mentally took a minute to calm down and remind himself that the tumor in his head didn’t have to turn him into a monster. He didn’t have to lash out and scream at everyone whenever he felt the rage hit.
“How was it different?” Kurt asked, not accusing, just curious.
“You had Rachel,” he said, feeling himself calm down again.
He wondered if all of his emotions would be as fleeting as the rage was. Would he soon only be able to feel happiness in such short bursts as well? He hoped that wasn’t the case, it sounded horrible.
“You had Rachel and Vogue and New York to keep you company. I was alone,” he explained. “Everyone I loved had left. I had to make brand new friends. It was incredibly isolating and then you stopped answering my texts right away. You started cutting calls short or missing Skype dates. You’d tell me to call at nine when you’d be home, then you wouldn’t answer.”
“I always get stuck at work later than I plan,” Kurt cut in, starting to make excuses before Blaine looked up and silently begged him to remain quiet so that Blaine could get through his speech.
He could already feel the headache starting to grow and he was getting tired. It was going to take all of his energy to get this story out. Blaine hadn’t quite gotten back into the groove of being up all day after napping every few hours in the hospital. Moving around with his cast was exhausting.
“I got to thinking that maybe - just maybe - we weren’t meant to be together. Maybe people were right and high school romances couldn’t last. I started thinking I had to prepare myself for the break-up because I knew it was only a matter of time before big exciting New York became exciting new boys who would be there like I couldn’t be. They would be so much more cultured and educated than I could ever hope to be and I wouldn’t be able to compete.”
“That was never going to happen,” Kurt said, miserably.
“You say that now, but I was convinced you would realize that you could do better than a high school boy in Ohio. So, I guess my mind just started seeking out other people to ease the pain. I don’t remember meeting Eli, but when he sent me that Facebook message, I did agree to it. I guess a part of me - a careless, terrified part of me just said ‘why not’ and I did.”
Blaine had to pause to take a sip of water. His vision was starting to blur a bit so he closed his eyes. The headaches didn’t usually come at night, but Blaine figured it had to do with all of the excitement of the day after a week of being cooped up in the hospital.
“Are you okay?” Kurt asked, putting his hand on the back of Blaine’s neck and massaging it like his mom had started doing whenever the headaches hit.
“Fine,” he said with a wave of his hand, and he was. He’d grown used to the pain enough by now that he could deal with it. “Can you just turn off the lights?”
Kurt moved to turn off the lights in the room until the only light was coming from a small bulb under the microwave. Blaine opened his eyes again, happy to see that the darkness helped some. The rest of the symptoms would pass given enough time.
“Sorry,” he said, then got back to the story. “Anyway, I felt so sick afterwards. I threw up every day that week and the following one. It’s why I didn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to tell you in person but I was so sick - I guess that was the cancer, too. I thought it was just the guilt. I guess my conscious kicked back in the moment I was finished...”
They both blushed when they realized the sexual connotation of the word. Blaine didn’t like to think about the things he’d let Eli do to his body and he was sure Kurt didn’t appreciate the visual.
“I guess once I left, I remembered how special and unique or love is - was?”
“Is,” Kurt corrected him tearfully and Blaine’s heart skipped a beat in desperate hope.
“I ruined it,” he said, feeling the ache of guilt like it had happened yesterday. “The worst part was that I didn’t even understand why. I just started to believe I was a horrible person and you deserved better- I am a horrible person and you do deserve better,” he corrected himself.
“We both do,” Kurt said, moving in closer so he could put his hands around Blaine’s neck. “I’m so sorry that you didn’t feel like I cared about you anymore. I guess I got caught up in my life and forgot that love is just as much give as it is take. I promise I’ll be better. Better yet, I’ll be here next time,” Kurt promised, pressing their foreheads together and staring into his eyes, unable to hide the tears in his eyes.
“I know it seems pointless to promise anything when I’m not in control of my own brain, but for what little it’s worth, I promise to never betray your trust again like that,” Blaine said.
“It’s worth a lot,” Kurt said. “For better, for worse, I’m here until the end.”
“This is starting to sound like a proposal,” he teased trying to lighting the mood before they both ended up sobbing.
“Well, you did promise yourself to me last year with a gum wrapper ring and I’m determined to hold you to it,” Kurt said, leaning down until their lips met for the first time since the break up.
The last time Kurt had kissed him was upon Blaine’s arrival in New York and Blaine still felt horrible for letting Kurt’s lips touch his after Blaine’s lips had been all over Eli’s body. It felt wrong then and it still felt wrong now, like he was taking something that wasn’t his to take.
Kurt pulled away first, looking confused until he noticed how hesitant Blaine was.
“I don’t like what you did, I never will, but I forgive you. I really do. Okay?” Kurt smiled at him and Blaine could tell that he genuinely meant it. It felt like Christmas morning and he’d been given a gift he’d been begging for but never in a million years thought he’d actually receive.
Blaine surged forward and kissed him again, holding both of his cheeks in his hand, trying to be gentle with the brace on his wrist and hoping it wasn’t terribly awkward for Kurt.
“Saying thank you isn’t nearly enough, but thank you,” Blaine said, keeping their lips close enough that they were touching but he still was able to talk.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said.
They were interrupted by an amused clearing of the throat and that did feel like old times. Blaine had lost count at the number of times Burt had walked in on the two of them kissing, but he was always so surprised at how at easy Kurt was with it. He never got embarrassed like Blaine would have been if it had been either of his parents to walk in on them.
“In my kitchen boys, really?” he teased.
“Well, pretty soon you won’t have to worry about walking in on the two of us, will you?” he said, brushing the comment off like it was no big deal. It was better to minimize the fact that he was dying, it made it easier for him to digest the news. Otherwise, when he thought about it, it was this huge, overbearing thing following him around and torturing him.
Neither Kurt nor Burt looked amused though.
“Tough crowd,” he yawned, moving to stand up. It was getting late and he was tired. They had planned on watching Treme together but all Blaine could think about was getting to bed.
“Dad, can you help Blaine up to my room while I finish putting away the dishes?” Kurt asked and Blaine was thankful that he could tell how exhausted he was.
By the time Burt actually set Blaine down into the bed, Kurt had finished cleaning up the kitchen and was right behind him walking into the room.
“So, are we really at the joking stage of this already?” Kurt asked once they’d said their goodnights to Burt and shut the door safely behind them.
“Denial is the first stage, they say.”
Blaine flopped back onto the bed and made grabby hands at Kurt until he joined him on top of the comforter. It had been awhile since Blaine had really cuddled with somebody and now that they had mended things, he planned on taking full advantage.
Kurt pillowed his arms on top of Blaine’s chest and lay his head down; staring up at him studiously like he was trying to figure out a riddle.
“Are you going to talk to me about what’s going on? I know this isn’t just about your parents.”
He ran his hands through Kurt’s hair and tried to come up with the right words to say, the right way to explain himself. Nothing came out. He started to shake and his breathing became labored as he tried to hold in his tears. Kurt sat up and looked down at Blaine in concern. He shook his head and looked at Kurt, silently begging for help. He wasn’t sure what was happening and why the room suddenly felt like it was closing in on him.
There was a horrible choking sound. It took him a few minutes to realize that it was coming from him. His body was forcing him to let it out, to let go of all the fear he’d been trying to bury down deep.
Kurt stared at him, unsure of what to do while Blaine continued to shake. He tried to swallow his tears, but he couldn’t around the lump in his throat. His chest burned from the strain.
“Oh, honey,” Kurt said, pulling him into his arms.
“I’m dying,” he gasped.
“You’re just having a panic attack, it’s okay.”
“No, I’m going to die,” he finally cried and once the dam burst, it wouldn’t stop. He was sobbing the gross, ugly tears that made his nose run and his eyes puff up until he looked like an alien. There was nothing cute about the desperate way he was gasping for air and the tears just kept coming, each sob harder than the last. It felt like he was going to crack a rib with the force of his sobs and his head was ripping apart in agony, but he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to.
He tried to articulate the things he was feeling. He tried to explain how overwhelming and scary all of it was. All that he was able to get out was why and it’s not fair.
“Shhh, Shhh. Just breathe. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“I’m only eighteen,” he sobs, knowing that he’s being too loud. The entire house has to have heard him by now. “How is any of this okay? I have cancer! Can you fix that?”
Kurt looked at him, so sad and lost. They held onto each other tightly. Blaine was certain poor Kurt would have claw marks on his back at the way he was grabbing at him frantically. They took turns crying into each other’s shoulders - crying together. They took comfort in the fact that as horrible as things were, they weren’t alone in their anguish.
Blaine lost count of the number of times he thought he had it under control only to start crying again. He figured he had this coming. He’d managed to keep himself somewhat together since the diagnosis. He managed to hold his head high while his parents were freaking out, acting like he had accepted his fate. It was only a matter of time before he broke down.
He was grateful it was in front of Kurt and not his mother. She would have forced him to sign up for therapy or attend one of those support groups for kids with terminal diseases.
“We’re supposed to grow old together,” Blaine whispered into Kurt’s neck once the sobs had turned to random teardrops.
Kurt’s eyes were puffy and swollen and Blaine was pretty sure he’d popped a blood vessel in his eye with how red it was - Kurt would be horrified later - but he was still the most beautiful creature Blaine had ever seen. It was painful to know that he could have had a long life of nothing but mornings waking up next to this man, but he wouldn’t.
Kurt didn’t respond; there wasn’t much he could say. He knew that empty promises wouldn’t do them any good, but he couldn’t exactly say that it was alright either. Both of them were devastated at losing each other so soon. They were supposed to have time to spend learning what it’s like to live together. Time to wake up every morning in each other’s arms. There was supposed to be time to fight over the color of the couch or what type of milk to buy.
He was supposed to see Kurt perform on Broadway for the first time. They were going to get married, have a family and build a life together. It wasn’t right. Nothing they could say would make it right, so Kurt didn’t say anything.
Blaine spent the next hour bringing up all the things he would never do, whispering it into the night, unsure if Kurt was even listening to him or if he’d fallen asleep. Eventually he ran out of things he was going to miss out on and he fell asleep, too tired to keep his eyes open a second longer.
The next morning, he woke up to Kurt gently stroking his hair, careful to avoid the bald spot from his surgery. He knew Blaine was self-conscious about it. His free hand was playing on his cell phone.
“Angry Birds?”
Kurt smiled at him and shook his head, happy to see that he was awake. He tilted his screen in his direction to show him what he’d been working on. He had the notes app open on his phone and he was making a list.
Graduate high school
Have a relationship with my parents
Go on auditions with Cooper in LA
Make amends with the Warblers
Visit/meet extended family in the Philippines
Backpack through Europe
Learn Italian
Go skinny dipping at midnight in the south of France
The screen prohibited him from being able to see the rest of the list, but he got the gist.
“You did that when I was sleeping?” he asked, a lump in his throat.
“I wanted to remember everything you said so we wouldn’t miss any. I added ones that we’ve talked about in the past, too. You’ll have to let me know if I’m missing anything.”
He thought he should be used to it by now, but he was always surprised by the ways Kurt loved him. He didn’t serenade him loudly in the choir room every week like Rachel. There weren’t care packages sent to his door with twenty page love letters like his mother said his father had done for her when she’d moved back home for a year. His love was quiet and unassuming, but the littlest whispers into the wind found ways to echo back louder than any big sweeping gesture of Blaine’s ever could.
How could he have ever doubted Kurt’s love for him?
“I’m going to do everything I can to help you cross everything off this list,” Kurt promised him.
“Thank you,” he said with an adoring smile that he’d been told was incredibly cheesy by the rest of their friends but Kurt never seemed to mind.
His head was in Kurt’s lap by that point, preening as he continued to scratch at his scalp and play with the mess that was his hair. He reached up to hold onto Kurt’s free hand, wrapping it around his chest until he was trapped between the mattress and Kurt’s arms. He felt safer this way, calmer.
Blaine yawned, tired again even though he’d just woken up. It was barely after seven in the morning though and his body wasn’t yet accustomed to being awake so long after his time in the hospital. He’d survived the day yesterday with a single nap, but his body was punishing him today for it.
Kurt gave him a light kiss on the lips and they settled down to rest some more, wrapped in each other’s arms.
He had planned on telling Kurt about the treatment last night before his epic breakdown. He’d wanted to tell him how desperately he wanted to forgo chemo and radiation and just enjoy the time he had left without worrying over doctor’s appointments and test results. He was far too comfortable to move though, and he knew the admission would only upset Kurt. He should just let him get used to the idea that Blaine had cancer before springing that on him.
He could talk to him about it later, before he went home or another time. It wasn't like his parents were ever going to let him quit treatment anyway.
He snuggled in deeper to Kurt’s hold, enjoying being the little spoon. He missed the feeling of being held tightly. Of being cherished like he was something special. Someone that mattered. He counted his lucky stars, not for the first time, that he had such a wonderful, forgiving person in his life.
“Is there room on your cast for me, too?” Kurt whispered into his ear, Blaine nodded.
Kurt reached over Blaine to grab a sharpie out of the bedside drawer and moved down the bed with a determined look on his face as he began writing out in his fancy cursive letters. When he pulled away, he looked proud of himself and Blaine sat up so that he could read what had been written.
I’m never saying goodbye to you.
The words settled themselves in his brain like a mantra, clawing at him hungrily. They cuddled up again and it was several minutes before Blaine realized why he felt like he was being pulled in a hundred different directions.
Kurt wasn’t going to say goodbye to him.
“You aren’t going to get a choice,” Blaine whispered, but Kurt was already sleeping, his deep breaths tickling Blaine, reminding him that he was still there. That he’d always be right there.
The problem was, Blaine wouldn’t be.