[FIC] Hard Lines: Chapter 5
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 // Chapter 4
****
While Kurt slept in for a few more hours, Blaine wasn’t ever able to fall back asleep. There wasn’t a headache this morning, for which he was grateful, but his mind was going a mile a minute and making it hard to sleep. He kept seeing images of himself with dry cracking skin and distorted features, like Voldemort or something out of a comic book. He knew in the back of his mind that the radiotherapy wasn't going to turn him into somebody from The Hills Have Eyes. Rationally, he knew that it was a common treatment to have and would help combat his cancer. That being said, he’d seen the pictures in his history books of Chernobyl babies; he just couldn't shake the fear that he was going to lose everything good in his life.
“Morning,” Kurt yawned, rolling onto his back to stretch out.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he replied. Now that Kurt was up, Blaine crawled out of bed and slowly hobbled his way into the bathroom to brush his teeth, busying himself with getting ready for the day. He needed to stay active in order to shake his nerves. Concentrating on a different task would help him avoid feeling like he was being chased.
“Your thoughts are loud,” Kurt said with a fond smile, following him to the bathroom.
He held out both of his arms, reaching for Blaine. Blaine didn't allow himself to be pulled into them, knowing Kurt had a habit of dragging them back to bed. Kurt hated mornings more than anybody Blaine had ever met and he didn't want to lay back down. The bed was full of nightmares and crippling depression. He needed to stay positive. Wasn't that the bullshit line his mother always fed him.
With enough positive thinking, Blaine, you can make anything happen.
“Is it your head?” Kurt asked with and unhappy frown, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
Blaine shook his head and went about brushing his teeth, eyeing the shower and wondering how he was going to manage taking one. His mother had bought him a cover to keep the cast from getting wet, but that wouldn’t solve the problem of having to stand on slippery tile on one leg. He’d just been taking baths for the past week, but baths made him feel like he was five years old and he wanted to be able to feel like a man again.
Men didn’t have foolish nightmares.
Blaine didn’t realize that he had been obsessively brushing his teeth until Kurt moved to grab his wrist. When he finally stopped resisting and put the toothbrush down on the counter, it was stained a light pink.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Kurt said, letting go of his wrist to cradle his face between his hands. “We’ll find something-”
“Please,” he cut him off, unable to hear it.
Blaine wasn’t the only one listening when the doctor told him that he was dying, but he seemed to be the only one that really heard it. There were only months, maybe a year with an intensive treatment plan. He’d heard the doctors discuss radiation versus chemotherapy treatments and central lines. He’d heard all the reasons why the tumor couldn’t be operated on. If they tried to take part of the tumor out, they risked damaging vital parts of his brain.
Blaine understood the facts of his situation. It was just hard to accept when everybody kept acting like ‘this too shall pass.’
It was hard to stay positive when his parents kept arguing over which top of the line cancer facility would be best.
It was hard to focus on enjoying his time left when Cooper kept filming everything, telling Blaine that he was going to want to show his kids one day when he was old and gray and, notably, still alive.
It was hard to not feel like the tumor was ruining him when everyone kept ignoring the truth. He’d thought Kurt had understood. After last night, he thought Kurt would be the one person not so deep in denial that Blaine couldn’t even get a word in without being told he would be ‘fine.’ But maybe he was wrong.
Kurt watched him for a long time, still cradling Blaine’s head in his hands. He watched him long enough for Blaine to begin feeling uncomfortable and start to fidget. Kurt tilted his head, trying to see something in Blaine’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak several times before changing his mind. He just watched, looking for an answer to a silent question.
Finally, after a very akward moment or two, he nodded.
“We could run away to Europe,” Kurt said, recognizing what Blaine needed wasn’t somebody fighting in his corner, but somebody to recognize that the fight was over and he just needed some comfort to soothe the pain of his loss.
“How would we pay for food?” Blaine whispered, closing his eyes and wishing Kurt’s words were a promise and not just a fantasy.
“We’d sing on the street for spare change,” he said, resting his forehead against Blaine’s and wrapping his arms around him. They began to sway back and forth, Blaine’s hands on Kurt’s waist were tight as he tried to balance with his one leg, dancing to the silent music only they could hear.
“With your voice, we’d get discovered in no time,” Blaine said, refusing to open his eyes. In his mind, it was just Kurt and him on the streets of Paris, trying to make their way on their own.
“We’d be whisked away to London to record our first album together,” Kurt said.
“We could row boats in Hyde Park,” he said with an easy smile.
“Or walk through Covet Garden,” Kurt replied.
“Stalk Kate and William?”
“Run away with me,” Kurt said.
His voice was so sincere that Blaine almost believed he was serious. He wanted to say yes, knowing that running away to spend his last days alone with the person he loved was the perfect way to spend the little time he had left.
Then he thought about leaving his friends behind. Thought about how Tina, Brittany and Sugar wouldn’t stop texting him and begging him to come back to school soon. Thought about how Sam dropped off a large stack of comic books to read so he wouldn’t get bored while he was recovering. Cooper’d agreed to move back home just so he’d be closer to Blaine. His mom and dad were desperately holding on to him because they didn’t know how to live in a world without him. They couldn’t bury their son.
He wanted to hug all of those people close and never let go and that wouldn’t be possible from 4,000 miles away.
“I want to,” he said, not knowing how to adequately explain himself. He always struggled to find the right words for every situation, speaking slowly and carefully. He didn’t like speaking before he could think. Words should paint a picture, they should be used to build towards something, not tear it down. Words mattered.
How did he tell Kurt that he wanted to give in and let himself die living a fantasy, but he didn’t know how to give up if everyone was going to keep holding on.
“Maybe we can talk your mom into a vacation,” he said.
“I barely convinced her to let me come to your house for a night,” Blaine responded, feeling defeated. The fantasy had been short lived and perfect, if only...
His life was going to be a long list of if only from now on.
****
Around six-thirty the next day, Cooper slipped into his room to wake him up gently. Blaine was exhausted. He hadn’t been sleeping the last two nights due to his frequent nightmares. He’d dreamed of so many horrible things it was hard to keep them all straight between the radiation poisoning, funerals and the particularly bad one in which everyone he loved was happy when he died.
“Mom’s got breakfast waiting for you,” Cooper said quietly, sensitive to the fact that Blaine’s headaches were usually worse in the mornings. “She wants you to have a nice meal before your first treatment.”
“Why? So I can throw it up later?” he mumbled grumpily, trying to pull the covers back over his head. “Tell her I’m not going.”
“Fat chance, Squirt.” Cooper pulled the covers down and ruffled his hair teasingly.
“Don’t call me that,” he grumbled, pushing Cooper’s hand away.
“Well, then get your lazy ass up,” he said, pulling on Blaine’s arms until he was sitting up.
He wasn’t in the mood to deal with his brother right now. He was on edge and could barely contain the rage that was boiling inside. He wasn’t even sure where it was coming from, but he was sure it had something to do with the treatment. The radiation he didn’t want but his parents were forcing on him because they ‘love’ him. It was complete bullshit and he wanted everyone to know it.
“No.” He shoved Cooper away, his hands instantly going into fists. He’d never been so eager to fight, but he was ready today. He felt like punching anyone that looked at him the wrong way. “I’m not going, okay? I’m serious. I’m eighteen and you can’t make me.”
“This is crazy, you have to go,” Cooper said, obviously frustrated. “Stop being such a spoiled brat and get downstairs before mom covers the entire kitchen in muffins. She’s stress baking and we’ve already got more cookies than any human could possibly consume in a lifetime.”
“What part of I’m not going did you not understand? Did they turn you into a complete idiot in LA or were you always this stupid?”
His voice was vicious. He didn’t even know he was capable of sounding like that. He knew he should stop, that this was getting out of hand, but he couldn’t. It was like something had snapped inside of him and he’d lost all control of himself.
“The part where if you don’t go, you die.” Cooper stood up and threw his hands out, obviously fed up with the situation.
“I’m dying anyways you piece of shit,” Blaine swore.
It sounded strange coming out of his mouth. He so rarely cursed to begin with. He threw the covers all of the way off of him and stood up out of bed, shoving Cooper to the floor in the process. He wanted to dramatically storm off to his bathroom, but the best he could manage with his cast was quickly hopping away. He settled for slamming the door behind himself, locking Cooper out.
He had no intention of leaving, ever. He’d opened his mouth to say that he was done with doctors, but each time he tried to talk about it, he was cut off. Now, he’d finally snapped. After little more than an hour’s sleep, he’d made up his mind. He wasn’t going to prolong his life with radiation when there was no chance of a cure. It was agonizing enough waking up in the mornings with blinding headaches, why would he want that to last any longer if he knew he was going to die anyway?
“This is just like you, Blaine,” Cooper yelled through the door, pounding on it several times and trying the lock before giving up. “You always throw fits for attention. Newsflash, it stopped being cute when you were four.”
“Fuck you,” Blaine screamed back.
He heard his brother leave the bedroom with a slam of the door. Blaine allowed himself the satisfaction of knowing that he’d won this round. He’d convinced Cooper to leave him alone. He was further impressed that his mother waited a solid half an hour before coming up and trying her luck at convincing Blaine to leave the bathroom.
“Blaine, Sweetheart,” she said gently knocking. “Can you open the door for me?”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could get away with cursing at his mother like he’d done Cooper, but he was not about to let her in either. He knew that the second his family got to him, they would drag him to the hospital kicking and screaming.
“I know you’re scared, Baby,” she said. “But you have to go to this appointment. You have to do this. If not for yourself, then for your family, Sweetheart. We love you and we need you to keep fighting this. You’re never going to get better if you don’t believe you can; if you don’t try.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. He didn’t understand how she could stand there and tell him the same psycho-bullshit she wrote in her self help books. He was dying of cancer, not depressed. This wasn’t a lack of motivation to get off the couch and finish his college degree or some other meaningless shit. This was a medical disease that had no cure. No amount of talking and self belief could combat that kind of science.
“Blaine Devon Anderson, you unlock this door this instant,” his father started to shout through the door. “We do not lock doors in this house.”
Blaine wondered how long he would have to sit in the bathroom before they left him alone. He hoped it was long enough that he missed his appointment. Then he could come out of his room, pack a bag, and run away. He didn’t ever have to come back to this place if he didn’t want to. That was the beauty of being eighteen.
He laid down in the soft rug of the spacious bathroom, rolling up a towel to use as a pillow. The cool tile under him felt nice and relaxing. On the other side, his parents and Cooper continued to talk at him for over an hour. He wondered why they hadn’t broken the door down yet, but then again, his parents had always believed in the importance of conversation rather than violence.
He started to feel his anger fade and was replaced with another feeling that he couldn’t quite put into words. It was part guilt over being so mean to Cooper, who was obviously only trying to help. It was part helplessness, like he had no voice in his family. As if his life would never be his own. There was another feeling, a more overwhelming one that was drowning him.
Fear.
He was terrified, but he didn’t understand why. He knew that his fear of radiation was completely irrational. He wasn’t actually going to turn into some mutant due to radiation. No matter what Artie might say, he wasn’t going to become The Incredible Hulk either. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself this though, he was still scared. He just didn’t understand of what.
Fighting? He thought he might be scared to fight. Shit, he knew he was scared to fight back against this crippling disease that was trying to take over his entire life. Why, though?
“Blaine?” Sam’s voice called him gently through the door.
He wondered who made the call. How desperate they must have been to decide that this might be a problem one of his friends could better solve. He wondered what made them call Sam instead of Kurt, not that he was complaining. Blaine wasn’t sure he could voice his fears to Kurt any easier than he could to his family, they all had too big a stake in Blaine’s future.
How guilty was Blaine going to have to feel if he opened the door for Sam but he hadn’t for his family?
“I’m not going to make you come out if you don’t want to, but could you please let me in?”
Blaine sat up, feeling a bit lightheaded from the sudden movement and scooted over towards the door. He paused with his hands on the handle, debating if he should open it or not. He wanted to see Sam. He knew it wasn’t healthy to lock himself in a dark bathroom with only his spiraling thoughts to keep him company and Sam was always great at helping him see reason. He’d kept Blaine from transferring back to Dalton a few weeks back, hadn’t he?
He wanted to talk to somebody, he just didn’t trust his parents not to drag him kicking and screaming to the hospital the second he opened the door.
“Your parents are leaving. They said they would wait downstairs so we could have some privacy. Just let me in. I haven’t perfected my X-Ray vision yet and I feel weird talking to you when I can’t see you,” he said.
“You talk to me on the phone all the time and you can’t see me,” Blaine responded.
“Quit being a dick and open the door,” Sam said, not unkindly.
Blaine turned the lock on the bathroom door, but he didn’t open it. He knew Sam would hear the click of the lock and make his own way inside. Blaine lay back down on the tile and stared up at the dark ceiling. A moment later Sam was sitting against the tub, patting his lap as if to invite Blaine to lay in it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, suspiciously.
“I don’t know, my mom always does it to me when I’m feeling bad,” Sam shrugged like he hadn’t thought about how weird it might be. He probably hadn’t. Sam never shied away from showing him affection just because Blaine was gay and he was straight.
“I’m flattered, but I’m taken,” Blaine said, teasing him.
“What? No? I mean... taken? So, Kurt got his head out of his ass?” Sam asked.
“Are you really here to talk about Kurt?”
“I’m here to talk about whatever you want, Dude,” Sam said. “You’re the one that locked yourself in a bathroom."
Blaine didn’t respond and he expected Sam to press him into saying more, to ask why he continued to lay on the dark bathroom floor, but he remained silent. Blaine let himself relax back into the peaceful darkness and tried to clear his thoughts. His mind kept drifting off to thoughts of death, though Blaine tried not to let himself linger there too long. It was a dangerous topic to think about for any period of time, but his brain just kept coming up with more questions the more he avoided thinking about it.
There were so many questions that he’d never know the answer to and he hated that. Blaine, who was always so prepared for everything, couldn’t prepare for this. He had no way of knowing how to. Not knowing what was ahead for him made his stomach twist up until he felt dizzying nausea.
What would happen to him once he lost the fight? Would it be easier to let go if he knew what to expect when the time finally came?
It should be easy to let go. All of the hard stuff would come before. All of the pain and the suffering would be the worst part. It was like he was holding onto a ledge by his fingertips and everyone kept telling him to keep holding on a little bit longer and help would come, but help wasn’t coming. It never would. All it would take for his pain to finally be over was to relax and let go. Falling would be easy, effortless. It would only be scary for a second and then it would be over.
The thought should have been more comforting than it was. Hell, he’d been telling himself for days that he welcomed that moment, that he’d accepted his defeat. He’d been trying repeatedly to tell his parents he had and they just wouldn’t listen.
So why did it terrify him so much?
“Do you really believe in God?” Blaine asked after almost half an hour of silence, not entirely sure why that was the question he decided to ask when there were so many to chose from and he already knew what Sam would say.
“I do,” Sam answered without a hint of doubt in his voice. He was so sure, so confident in his beliefs and Blaine respected that. He used to have that before he came out and had it beaten out of him. “Do you?”
Blaine didn’t respond right away, though any other time he’d been asked since starting high school he’d responded with a very loud no.
“I used to, but now? I guess I’m just hopeful none of it is true,” he finally responded.
Sam moved to lay down beside him. They were sitting too far away for a conversation this intimate.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked voice barely above a whisper, like he might scare Blaine off. Blaine looked over at him and could see the sad smile he was wearing. It wasn’t the pitying smile that everyone else gives him, there was understanding behind it. Less guilt, like everyone else believed they should have somehow prevented the cancer from happening.
“Why would I want some all powerful man to exist that claims loving other men - something I can’t help and wouldn’t change if I could - is wrong? If it’s true, then all these horrible things that have happened to me have been some sort of punishment for being gay. For choosing to live my life in sin. Getting bullied and beaten at my old school, Kurt breaking up with me, getting cancer? I don’t want to have to think of those things being my fault all because I didn’t try to pray away the gay.”
“Any God that doesn’t want you is wrong,” Sam said, reaching out to put a comforting hand over Blaine’s. “You’re one of the good guys and I don’t know where you’ve been going to church, but my God doesn’t turn away the good guys. He doesn’t even turn away the bad ones.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that God hates gays.”
“God doesn’t hate gays, Christians do, and only the really crazy fanatic ones at that. There’s a difference.”
“I’m not sure it matters at this point,” Blaine said, though he knew it did. He needed to sort out his beliefs before he died and come to terms with whatever high power was or wasn’t out there. The last thing he needed was to end up in eternal damnation.
They fell back into silence. Blaine tapped out the beat to some song on the tile anxiously, unaware that he was even doing it until Sam reached over to stop him. He’d been more fidgety recently. He was incapable of staying completely still for more than few minutes. It was silly, but on some subconscious level he was doing it to remind himself that he still had control over his own body. The times where he couldn't force his body to walk straight or speak clearly were becoming more frequent and he liked to appreciate the moments where he could control himself.
“What made you ask that?”
“What do you think happens to us when we die?” Blaine asked, his question is enough of an explanation for Sam.
“Is this why you locked yourself in here in the dark? Are you worried?” he asked.
“What if there’s nothing on the other side?” Blaine’s voice was wet and he realized that he’d started crying.
“There is, there has to be,” Sam said. “You just have to believe.”
“What if there’s not?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted, so quietly that Blaine barely heard him. He could hear the fear in Sam’s voice.
“How do you go from being this fully capable living being able to love, laugh, communicate and do all of these things and then you’re just gone? You’re buried in the dirt like you were never alive. What if there’s nothing else out there? How does all of this just disappear?”
“Do you want me to tell you what I think happens when you die?” Sam asked, his voice wet as well, it was the first time in over a week that Sam hadn’t been able act nonchalant and unaffected.
Blaine nodded, encouragingly.
“I don’t picture big golden gates and some angel with a checklist waiting to usher you into a city on top of the clouds. I just picture waking up to the same world you’ve always known, the house you grew up in, and everything’s just better. You know?” Sam explained and Blaine couldn’t help but close his eyes and picture it.
“The pain that you once carried around like five hundred pound luggage is gone and you feel more alive than you ever felt before. Everyone you’ve loved and lost is there and you can still look in on the people you left behind on these little boxes, like TVs. You never have to feel alone or scared again because you’re loved completely unconditionally for the first time in your life by everyone. There is no more violence or hatred in the world, it’s all melted away. You’ve been forgiven of any wrong you’ve ever done and you’re happy. The kind of happy you feel when you watch the person you love laugh until they cry because of something you’ve said. The kind of happy you got on Christmas morning when you still believed in Santa Claus and he managed to magically know exactly what you wanted. It’s not some magical place off in the distance that you’d need a rainbow bridge to get to. It’s your life, exactly as it is now without any of the suffering.”
He pictured it in his mind, waking up in his house and walking out the door without having to worry about grumpy old Mr. Green muttering about how the homosexuals were ruining the world as he walked past with his dog. He pictured walking hand in hand down the hallway with the boy he loved without feeling scared of getting harassed or hurt. It sounded perfect, more perfect than a house made out of gold could ever be.
Then he tried to remember all of the nightmares from the last two nights, the ones that had kept him from his appointment today, but it was difficult. He could remember the images of limbs falling off of his body, but it looked ridiculous now. Comical, the fear was starting to ebb away. He knew it wasn’t gone forever, but for a moment, Sam had painted him a nice enough picture to hold onto that eased his troubled mind.
“And gay, straight, or raised by Hitler, there is no way you wouldn’t end up there,” Sam continued. “Nobody could look at you and send you to hell. You are loving, compassionate, and hands down the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t promise you that there’s anything else out there, nobody can. But if there is, and I believe there is, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Let’s see if you still believe that when I come back from my treatment with a third arm,” Blaine teased, trying to lighten the mood. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the way turn the conversation had taken, but it was still awkward to talk to somebody that had such strong faith when his own was permanently in question.
"Nah, you'll at least come back with something cooler like telekinesis."
"Maybe one of the doctors will experiment with me and line my bones with aluminium-"
"No, I still get to be Wolverine. I'm not having this argument with you everyday, we rock, scissor, papered it and you lost."
"Fine," Blaine grumbled, not really that upset but he was still stubborn enough to refuse to give in without a fight.
“So, you’re going to go?” Sam asked, looking hopeful.
His gut sank down and settled in his toes as he thought about leaving the safety of the bathroom and going back out into the real world. He tried to picture himself at the hospital surrounded by other cancer patients, he could already see the guilty look on the nurse's face as she administered the chemicals that were only going to make him sick and wouldn’t do anything to cure him. It made him want to throw up and he hadn’t even started yet.
"I really don't want to," he admitted.
"Your parents will be there the whole time and I heard the Hummel’s talking, Kurt's coming, too," Sam said. "You won't have to be there alone. I’ll skip school if you want me there, too. Shit, all of Glee will."
“Will you promise me something?” Blaine asked, knowing he had no choice but to agree. His parents would be devastated if he didn't at least try the radiation. Cooper would never understand his decision. Kurt might never forgive him... He'd go, even if the thought scared him.
“Anything,” he responded without a moment’s hesitation.
“No matter how sick I get, no matter how bad it is, you'll still make sure I do something fun every day. I don't want to waste my time laying in dark bathrooms contemplating death."
"Is there a bucket list you want me to follow? Any last wishes?"
"Kurt's working on one," Blaine said. "I guess just make sure I get to spend time with everyone before I die."
"Easy enough."
"Actually," Blaine paused as the wheels in his head began to turn and he started to realize what he really wanted to do before he died-give everyone something to remember him by. "Can you find out what everybody's perfect day would be? Like not just with me, but in general. What would be number one on everybody's bucket list."
"Sure, why?"
"We're gonna make it all happen," he said with a bright smile.
For the first time since the diagnosis he actually felt calm and in control. He had a purpose. One last mission to complete and what could be better than putting a smile on each if his friends faces before he died. After all, their memories would be the ones that lived on long after he was gone. If he could give them something amazing to hold onto maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he was gone.
"I'm down, but word of warning, Brittany's number one is to build a time machine."
"I think between my cancer, being Student Council president and Sugar's money we can easily make that happen," he said, already mentally going through his closet for anything close enough to resemble the eleventh doctor.
"I'm incredibly glad you use your powers for good and not evil," Sam said. "Now can we get up and can you shower? You smell and your dad's going to break in any second."
"He won’t. You're fine."
"He was in the garage looking for the electric drill when I got here. You've got minutes."
Blaine groaned but moved to sit up. He felt gross after a night full of bad dreams. He was sweaty and grimy and didn't doubt Sam's claim that he smelled. Sam helped him stand up and patiently held onto his arm while Blaine waited for the room to stop spinning.
“Arms up,” he commanded, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head.
"Woah," Blaine exclaimed, surprised. "It usually takes some foreplay to get me out of my clothes."
“Like you haven't dreamed of me taking off your clothes, I'm stacked," Sam teased. "Your mom said you'd need help showering. Something about your stitches and the cast-"
"You can't just strip me down and bathe me," he replied, his cheeks hot. He was sure his face was as red as a fire truck.
"You want to undress yourself?" Sam asked, completely baffled that Blaine wouldn't want him helping him in the shower.
"Yes, that'd be nice, thanks," he said, looking at Sam liked lost his mind. "What were you going to do? Come in with me?" He teased, only finding the situation slight funny, the rest of him was mortified.
"If that's what you needed, sure," Sam shrugged. "You're my bro."
"Well, I'm good, I promise," he said.
"Cool, I'm still gonna sit here though in case you change your mind," Sam said, taking a seat at the vanity and pulling out his phone to play with, keeping his back to Blaine to give him some privacy.
"I'm glad you came over," Blaine said, honestly.
"Anytime, Dude."
****
As it turned out, Blaine wasn’t actually starting his radiation treatment that day, but instead was being put through a long series of tests and trial runs in something the oncologist kept saying was a simulation. It involved first injecting him with some dye and having another CT done, causing a momentary concern on his mother’s part that he would have another seizure due to his first one happening the last time he’d gotten a CT scan. Thankfully he survived seizure free, but he hadn’t been allowed to go home after that, which had been less than amusing to hear.
He’d then had to get fitted for a face mask which was supposed to help keep him immobile and in the exact same position every time, but it felt creepy and claustrophobic and he was pretty sure he looked like something out of a horror movie with it on. The machine that was supposed to deliver to radiation was big and completely intimidating to look up at, but he just closed his eyes and breathed, reminding himself that they would have to let him up eventually and after that he never had to come back if he didn’t want to. He could continue to lock himself in the bathroom every morning if that was what it took.
They’d taken a bunch of reference pictures and even forced him to get tattoos so they could position the radiation in the exact same spot every day. They were only the size of a freckle but there were three of them and they were blue, not exactly conspicuous. One was in the center of his forehead and the other two were by his ears.
Kurt assured him that they could cover it with makeup if he wanted, but it wasn’t that noticeable. Blaine knew he was lying, but let it go. The tattoos were just further proof that what he was going through was anything but normal. Maybe after watching all of this, his mother would stop living in denial. He could only hope.
After about five hours spent going from one office to another and back to the radiation room, Blaine was finally given a business card with his daily appointment schedule - Monday through Friday at ten am - and was allowed to leave.
“That was horrible,” he groaned as he slowly made his way out to where his dad was waiting at the curb for them.
“It won’t be that bad next time. They said you’d be in and out in less than thirty minutes each day,” his mom assured him as Kurt helped him into the car before kissing him goodbye and promising to follow him home so they could spend the night together.
“Yes, except next time they’ll be aiming high doses of radiation at my head and making me sick,” he argued.
“It’s only temporarily, the healthy cells will repair themselves,” she said.
He opened his mouth to remind her that it wasn’t going to repair him and that the cancer wasn’t going to go away - the most they could hope for was that the cancer would stop growing and he would die a slower death - but she sent him a look that left no room for argument.
Once they were back home, Blaine grabbed Kurt and locked them in his room so that they wouldn’t be bothered until at least dinner.
“Everything alright?” Kurt asked.
“I honestly don’t know the answer to that,” he said, throwing himself onto the bed face first. “Can we just take a nap and you can ask me that later?”
Kurt sat down on the bed and unlaced Blaine’s shoes, slowly taking them off before pushing and pulling at Blaine until he was comfortable under his cocoon of blankets.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.
“I’ve just got to grab my laptop first,” Kurt reassured him before pulling his bag closer to the bed and removing his shoes, crawling under the blankets with Blaine, computer in hand.
“Work?”
“Isabelle wants me to make notes about the new website design at Vanity Fair to see if we need to make any changes,” he explained, sounding so much older and more mature than Blaine when he talked about his job. Blaine was never going to be able to have that. He’d be a high school kid forever and even if he made it to graduation, he wasn’t going to be able to go to University or even get a job. He was stuck in a permanent state of inadequacy.
“You don’t have to stay with me, you can use my dad’s study if you need to get stuff done,” he said.
“Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t be comfortable anywhere else. Now get over here so I can play with your hair while I work.”
Blaine snuggled into Kurt’s shoulder as Kurt’s hands found their way into his hair, gently scratching at his scalp in a way he’d always found soothing. He tried not to think about how soon Kurt wouldn’t just be avoiding his bald spot, but avoiding touching his head altogether because all his hair would have fallen out.
He didn’t think Kurt was vain enough to stop loving him if he went bald, but he didn’t think it would turn Kurt on either. Just another worry he’d have to add to the growing list.
“Stop thinking so much and try to relax,” Kurt said, kissing the top of his head.
Blaine closed his eyes and did his best to obey orders, pleased to find he fell asleep easily, too exhausted to even dream.
****
After dinner, Blaine sat at his computer, scrolling through a message board for kids with terminal cancer. He’d promised his mom that he’d look it over and he knew she was going to check his web history to make sure he did. He’d expected to find hundreds of posts from emo kids contemplating the meaning of life, but he was pleased to find very little of those.
If anything, most of the posts on the board were helpful tips for getting through treatments and even posts for how to deal with family and friends who were refusing to accept the diagnosis. The posters told their stories, sure, but the stories were littered with ways to survive chemo easier, or things to do during radiation to keep from panicking. There were diet tricks to avoid nausea and links to the most realistic wig shops - not that Blaine was planning on wearing any wigs, but still. The information was useful, more useful than anything the doctors had told him, so far.
Blaine was surprised to find himself flipping through more of the posts than he’d expected, happy to hear advice from kids that were just like him. Nobody was trying to tell him to get through the treatment because it would save him, they were reminding each other that there were ways to still pretend their lives were normal. There were ways to make the treatment less intimidating and survive with enough strength to still enjoy life.
Kurt was laying on his bed, engrossed in his own work, which was more than fine with Blaine. It was comforting enough just knowing Kurt was there, they didn’t have to constantly talk about their feelings.
He glanced over and noticed a book that had been left of his desk and picked it up - The Death of Captain Marvel - obviously something Sam had given him if the six post-it notes attached, covered in his handwriting were any indication. He took a closer look at the notes and was surprised to see what looked like a poem.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas
Blaine had never thought of Sam as stupid, he’d always known Sam’s problem with academics was just that they didn’t hold his attention. He could remember years and facts when it came to publication dates of comic books and he could remember exactly how many episodes an old cartoon had run for, he just wasn’t one for the type of education school could offer. Blaine knew that Sam wasn’t a dumb blond and was more perceptive when it came to people than many realized.
Still, poetry wasn’t Sam’s forte and Blaine wasn’t entirely sure what had inspired him to even find the poem to begin with let alone write it all out for Blaine. He peeled each of the sticky notes off the cover and arranged them on the blank wall in front of his desk, not sure what it was about the words that spoke to him. It wasn’t anything his mother hadn’t said a million times over, but this was different. This wasn’t talking about positivity and miracles so impossible they would find a unicorn before they ever found a cure. These were fighting words. They were filled with anger and anguish and were yelling at him to stop sitting around and letting life get the better of him.
They were telling him to get angry enough to make his own miracle. To push and fight because he had a right to live. He had a right to live to be an old man.
Blaine opened up the cover to begin reading and found more sticky notes.
I’m pretty sure that Dylan guy just ripped off another, more important speech that I wanted to say to you in person (because my President Thomas J. Whitmore is epic) but I knew you’d get all weird about it and would be too embarrassed to hear the words I want you to know. So here they are-
“Mankind - that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July, will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice” We will not go quietly into the night! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”
And that was Blaine’s best friend. The stupid idiot who quoted Independence Day to him and cited it as more important than a famous, sixty year old Welsh poem. Blaine wouldn’t trade him for the world.
He picked up his phone and started dialing on autopilot.
“What are you doing?” Blaine asked once Sam picked up the other line, foregoing any formal greeting.
“I’m at Brittany’s watching her try to teach Lord Tubbington Zumba.”
“Did the vet say he was overweight again?”
“Have you seen the size of this cat?” he replied as if it was the stupidest question Blaine could have asked.
“Does that mean you two are on a date?” he asked, curious if Sam had finally asked Brittany out.
“No.”
“Then do you want to come over?”
“Yeah, cool dude,” Sam said. “Just me or?”
“President Whitmore can come, too, if he wants,” Blaine teased.
“So, you read it,” he said, his voice hesitant as if he didn’t know how Blaine was going to respond.
“I did,” he said slowly, leaving Sam’s unspoken question hanging in the air, unanswered. He didn’t know how he felt about the poem in general apart from the fact that it was sitting oddly in his stomach, making him jittery and feeling like he was supposed to be somewhere. Like he was supposed to be doing something.
“And for the record, I think that guy stole the poem from Independence Day, too," Blaine said, humoring Sam to get him to change the subject.
"Right?"
"Totally."
“So, we can talk about it or we can not talk about it,” Sam said, pushing him for more information but Blaine just didn’t know what to say. He knew that Sam had heard him earlier today when he said he didn’t want to have the treatment, but he hadn’t thought Sam would read into it that it was just because Blaine was scared of fighting and still failing.
Was that why Blaine was scared? he wasn’t even sure.
“Let’s not talk about it for now, okay?” he said, mostly because he didn’t even understand himself.
“I finally got Avengers Assembled to finish downloading,” Sam thankfully changed the subject.
“Only took you a month.”
“Yeah, well it’s over ten hours and nobody was seeding, so you should be happy it even finished at all.”
“Sam- come over,” he said, unsure why he suddenly felt the intense need to see Sam when Kurt was already here.
Kurt - the boy he used to tell everything to. The best friend he’d ever had and the only one he’d ever felt like he needed. That was before. Blaine still trusted Kurt and wanted to share things with him, but there was the flip side in which he’d grown used to telling Sam all of his secrets and it wasn’t a habit easily broken.
It wasn’t one he wanted broken.
“Hold on a minute,” Blaine said, putting the phone on mute before turning to Kurt. “You don’t mind if Sam comes over do you?”
“Sounds like you already invited him,” Kurt said with a careful raise of the eyebrow that usually meant Kurt was severely annoyed with him.
“He’s my best friend and he’s lived in your house for the last year, why do you two hate each other all of a sudden?” he asked.
“I don’t hate him. And it’s your house, invite whoever you want,” Kurt said.
“Why do I get the feeling that this is a test?”
Kurt didn’t respond for a moment or two which only solidified the fact that this was definitely a test and Blaine was probably supposed to be picking Kurt over Sam, but he didn’t think that was fair for him to dump his friends just because Kurt had taken him back.
Maybe that was the test? To see how easily Blaine could push his friends away for Kurt. If Blaine pushed everyone else away for Kurt, would that mean he failed? That he somehow prove his love and affection wasn’t a permanent thing?
“Can you just tell me what you want me to do here?” Blaine asked, frustrated.
“Let Sam come over,” he finally said. “We’re not the best of friends right now, but we can get along for your sake.”
“I’m probably supposed to be asking you why you guys are still fighting and trying to resolve it, but I’m not going to touch that.”
Kurt turned back to his work without another word and Blaine took the phone off of mute so he could resume his call with Sam.
“So, are you coming?”
“Okay, but when we inevitably do start reenacting scenes from the movie, I get to be Iron Man,” Sam bargained.
“Absolutely not, you’re Captain America and I’m Iron Man. It doesn’t make sense the other way,” he argued.
“But I’m always Captain America,” Sam groaned.
“Because it makes sense that way, did you not hear me?” Blaine laughed.
By the time Sam had arrived and they’d heated up some leftovers for him to eat, they’d decided to marathon Teen Wolf instead because Sam had made a fandom reference that Kurt hadn’t understood and both boys had determined it was essential for Kurt to be caught up to speed on one of their favorite shows. Kurt hadn’t been all that eager to agree, clearly trying to act like his taste was more superior than theirs, but Blaine knew he still loved Twilight so he didn’t have a leg to stand on. All it took was a picture of Tyler Hoechlin to get him to agree.
“If that boy says he loves Allison one more time, I swear to God I’m going to break the TV. We get it, Jesus,” Kurt’s commentary started up almost immediately and didn’t stop for the entire first season, causing Sam and Blaine to quietly seethe in fanboy rage.
“Leave Scott alone,” Blaine grumbled.
“This is all of the action of a full length season but none of the character development,” Kurt continued to complain. “They really should give them more episodes in a season or at least stop fighting long enough to have some character driven scenes?”
“Because Bella Swan is such a well rounded character,” Blaine snapped back.
“At least she’s better than this Isaac kid,” Kurt argued.
“Did he just... he insulted Isaac,” Sam said, looking at Blaine like he was going to explode.
“Kurt, how can you hate Isaac, he got locked in a freezer by his dad. You’re supposed to want to cuddle him and help him through this hard and confusing time in his life. He’s a kicked puppy. He’s orphaned and he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be relieved or distraught over it.”
“You two are really invested in this show, aren’t you?” Kurt asked, baffled.
“Sam, can you please help me out here?” he said, throwing his hands up in surrender. He didn’t understand how Kurt could fantasize about Jacob Black, but not understand the complexities that made the Teen Wolf gang amazing. Sure, most of the scenes relied on viewers picking up the subtext in order to see the character development, but that was half of the fun.
“Kurt, you can’t just insult Teen Wolf in front of us, it’s not cool, Dude,” Sam said. “Blaine here’s got a plan to marry Scott and have some complicated three-way with Danny.”
“You talked to Sam about a three-way you wanted to have?” Kurt crossed his arms and gave him a judgemental look.
“Mostly just to shut him up about banging Lydia but it backfired and he didn’t freak out at all.”
“Love is love,” Sam said with a shrug. “And the more the merrier, right?”
Kurt looked between the two of them with a curious look on his face but didn’t say anything else as they turned back to the show. In fact, Kurt didn’t make a single comment for the rest of season two. Blaine wasn’t sure if that should worry him or not, but he wasn’t going to bring it up and potentially start a fight when the evening was going so well.
****
The next day, Blaine’s mom tiptoed into the room as quietly as she could, but Blaine was still woken up. He’d always been a light sleeper.
“Is it time to go?” he asked, moving to sit up but she waved him away and whispered for him to go back to sleep.
“Sam, Honey, it’s time to get up, you’ve got to get ready for school,” she whispered and Sam groaned and tried to curl back under the covers for a moment or two, but eventually he woke up enough to satisfy her and she left.
“I guess we fell asleep,” Sam said, moving to get out of bed.
“You’ve still got a toothbrush under the sink,” he whispered, mindful of the fact that Kurt was asleep on the other side of him. Thank god his parents had invested in a King sized bed for him or last night would have been incredibly awkward for the three of them.
“Cool, I’ve got some extra clothes at school. I can get ready there.”
“It’s so weird that you’re getting ready to go to school and I’m not,” he said.
“You could come, we all miss you.”
“I’ve got radiation every day at 10, I can’t,” he explained.
“Well you’re always welcome to stop by Glee after school. You’ll always be part of the team and the girls have been asking about you.”
“Maybe sometime,” he said, not promising anything. He had no idea how he was going to react to the radiation treatments and from all the reading he’d done, it seemed like he was going to be pretty exhausted.
Sam went into the bathroom and quickly brushed his teeth before coming back out and putting on his coat.
“Hey, Sam?” Blaine called out quietly to get his attention and waiting until he looked up. “Thanks.”
“For joining in on the most vanilla threesome ever? No problem,” Sam said with a playful wink.
“For letting me have a night where we argued over Teen Wolf instead of cancer,” he said, honestly. Apart from Kurt, he’d never had a friend he could say these things to without them teasing him but he knew that he could trust Sam to always listen to him without judgement.
“You’re still that guy I run around wearing a mask for that tries to sell me on the merits of disco. No matter what you do or don’t do, whatever happens, that won’t change,” Sam said.
“I’ve been scared it would,” he admitted.
“We won’t let it,” Sam promised. “Sugar’s already bought a blue police box on Ebay and I got myself a Roman soldier costume. Once you figure out the perfect Doctor outfit all you have to do is call me and we can go back to fulfilling our pact of making our senior year as ridiculous and fun as it can possibly be.”
“Have a good day at school,” he said, waving goodbye as Sam walked out the door. Determined to get a few more minutes of sleep, he cuddled back into Kurt’s sleeping arms, not noticing how Kurt’s breathing wasn’t as deep as it usually was when he was asleep.
Blaine fully woke up an hour or so later, before Kurt, as usual. He crawled out of bed and moved over to his desk to pull open his laptop to do some research on Northwestern, where his parents were taking him that weekend. He hadn’t seen the point in seeing other doctors before, but there was part of his heart that was pulling at him to find out more. To see if the possibility of a cure was there. Maybe Sam was right. He couldn’t just go quietly into the night without at least fighting for the life he’d built here.
Somebody somewhere had to have some good news for him, right?
“Looking up the address of Tyler Posey so you can fanboy in person?” Kurt teased, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around him and look over his shoulder at the computer screen. His eyes moved over the homepage for Mayo Clinic before turning to look at him confused.
“I decided to do some research myself,” he answered Kurt’s silent question.
“Do your parents know about this?”
“No, and they aren’t going to,” he said with a warning look. “You know how relentless my mom is about finding a cure and the chances that we’d even find somebody willing to operate is slim.”
“But is that what you want? To find somebody to operate?” Kurt asked, his voice was heavily guarded.
“That operation could kill me,” he reminded Kurt.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what I’d do with a yes,” he admitted aloud, feeling just as lost as he’d been before. Deciding to start researching had done nothing to empower him, it had only made him feel more overwhelmed by all the different options and experimental trials.
“I was under the impression that you weren’t looking to find out,” Kurt said and Blaine could see it, the little spark of hope in Kurt’s eyes that he’d been trying so hard not to ignite. He didn’t want everyone believing that there was a chance he could live, it would only make them more unwilling to let go when the time came.
“Something Sam told me yesterday got me thinking, I guess,” he said, running his fingers over the post-it note poem on his wall.
“Sam?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, side-eying him and preparing himself for whatever quip Kurt was about to make about his friend.
“I’m not... I mean, I am. But I guess he’s not so bad. Last night wasn’t horrible,” Kurt surrendered with a deep sigh.
Blaine looked at Kurt, surprised at how quickly he’d changed his tune but, then again, Kurt had always zigged when he thought he would zag.
“He’s a good friend,” Kurt admitted, albeit regrettably.
“He is,” he smiled. “So are you.”
Blaine grabbed Kurt by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Even though they hadn’t made it around to brushing their teeth and Kurt would pull away in about ten seconds to yell at him about morning breath, Blaine didn't care. There was still nothing more perfect than being able to kiss Kurt again.
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 // Chapter 4
****
While Kurt slept in for a few more hours, Blaine wasn’t ever able to fall back asleep. There wasn’t a headache this morning, for which he was grateful, but his mind was going a mile a minute and making it hard to sleep. He kept seeing images of himself with dry cracking skin and distorted features, like Voldemort or something out of a comic book. He knew in the back of his mind that the radiotherapy wasn't going to turn him into somebody from The Hills Have Eyes. Rationally, he knew that it was a common treatment to have and would help combat his cancer. That being said, he’d seen the pictures in his history books of Chernobyl babies; he just couldn't shake the fear that he was going to lose everything good in his life.
“Morning,” Kurt yawned, rolling onto his back to stretch out.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he replied. Now that Kurt was up, Blaine crawled out of bed and slowly hobbled his way into the bathroom to brush his teeth, busying himself with getting ready for the day. He needed to stay active in order to shake his nerves. Concentrating on a different task would help him avoid feeling like he was being chased.
“Your thoughts are loud,” Kurt said with a fond smile, following him to the bathroom.
He held out both of his arms, reaching for Blaine. Blaine didn't allow himself to be pulled into them, knowing Kurt had a habit of dragging them back to bed. Kurt hated mornings more than anybody Blaine had ever met and he didn't want to lay back down. The bed was full of nightmares and crippling depression. He needed to stay positive. Wasn't that the bullshit line his mother always fed him.
With enough positive thinking, Blaine, you can make anything happen.
“Is it your head?” Kurt asked with and unhappy frown, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
Blaine shook his head and went about brushing his teeth, eyeing the shower and wondering how he was going to manage taking one. His mother had bought him a cover to keep the cast from getting wet, but that wouldn’t solve the problem of having to stand on slippery tile on one leg. He’d just been taking baths for the past week, but baths made him feel like he was five years old and he wanted to be able to feel like a man again.
Men didn’t have foolish nightmares.
Blaine didn’t realize that he had been obsessively brushing his teeth until Kurt moved to grab his wrist. When he finally stopped resisting and put the toothbrush down on the counter, it was stained a light pink.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Kurt said, letting go of his wrist to cradle his face between his hands. “We’ll find something-”
“Please,” he cut him off, unable to hear it.
Blaine wasn’t the only one listening when the doctor told him that he was dying, but he seemed to be the only one that really heard it. There were only months, maybe a year with an intensive treatment plan. He’d heard the doctors discuss radiation versus chemotherapy treatments and central lines. He’d heard all the reasons why the tumor couldn’t be operated on. If they tried to take part of the tumor out, they risked damaging vital parts of his brain.
Blaine understood the facts of his situation. It was just hard to accept when everybody kept acting like ‘this too shall pass.’
It was hard to stay positive when his parents kept arguing over which top of the line cancer facility would be best.
It was hard to focus on enjoying his time left when Cooper kept filming everything, telling Blaine that he was going to want to show his kids one day when he was old and gray and, notably, still alive.
It was hard to not feel like the tumor was ruining him when everyone kept ignoring the truth. He’d thought Kurt had understood. After last night, he thought Kurt would be the one person not so deep in denial that Blaine couldn’t even get a word in without being told he would be ‘fine.’ But maybe he was wrong.
Kurt watched him for a long time, still cradling Blaine’s head in his hands. He watched him long enough for Blaine to begin feeling uncomfortable and start to fidget. Kurt tilted his head, trying to see something in Blaine’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak several times before changing his mind. He just watched, looking for an answer to a silent question.
Finally, after a very akward moment or two, he nodded.
“We could run away to Europe,” Kurt said, recognizing what Blaine needed wasn’t somebody fighting in his corner, but somebody to recognize that the fight was over and he just needed some comfort to soothe the pain of his loss.
“How would we pay for food?” Blaine whispered, closing his eyes and wishing Kurt’s words were a promise and not just a fantasy.
“We’d sing on the street for spare change,” he said, resting his forehead against Blaine’s and wrapping his arms around him. They began to sway back and forth, Blaine’s hands on Kurt’s waist were tight as he tried to balance with his one leg, dancing to the silent music only they could hear.
“With your voice, we’d get discovered in no time,” Blaine said, refusing to open his eyes. In his mind, it was just Kurt and him on the streets of Paris, trying to make their way on their own.
“We’d be whisked away to London to record our first album together,” Kurt said.
“We could row boats in Hyde Park,” he said with an easy smile.
“Or walk through Covet Garden,” Kurt replied.
“Stalk Kate and William?”
“Run away with me,” Kurt said.
His voice was so sincere that Blaine almost believed he was serious. He wanted to say yes, knowing that running away to spend his last days alone with the person he loved was the perfect way to spend the little time he had left.
Then he thought about leaving his friends behind. Thought about how Tina, Brittany and Sugar wouldn’t stop texting him and begging him to come back to school soon. Thought about how Sam dropped off a large stack of comic books to read so he wouldn’t get bored while he was recovering. Cooper’d agreed to move back home just so he’d be closer to Blaine. His mom and dad were desperately holding on to him because they didn’t know how to live in a world without him. They couldn’t bury their son.
He wanted to hug all of those people close and never let go and that wouldn’t be possible from 4,000 miles away.
“I want to,” he said, not knowing how to adequately explain himself. He always struggled to find the right words for every situation, speaking slowly and carefully. He didn’t like speaking before he could think. Words should paint a picture, they should be used to build towards something, not tear it down. Words mattered.
How did he tell Kurt that he wanted to give in and let himself die living a fantasy, but he didn’t know how to give up if everyone was going to keep holding on.
“Maybe we can talk your mom into a vacation,” he said.
“I barely convinced her to let me come to your house for a night,” Blaine responded, feeling defeated. The fantasy had been short lived and perfect, if only...
His life was going to be a long list of if only from now on.
****
Around six-thirty the next day, Cooper slipped into his room to wake him up gently. Blaine was exhausted. He hadn’t been sleeping the last two nights due to his frequent nightmares. He’d dreamed of so many horrible things it was hard to keep them all straight between the radiation poisoning, funerals and the particularly bad one in which everyone he loved was happy when he died.
“Mom’s got breakfast waiting for you,” Cooper said quietly, sensitive to the fact that Blaine’s headaches were usually worse in the mornings. “She wants you to have a nice meal before your first treatment.”
“Why? So I can throw it up later?” he mumbled grumpily, trying to pull the covers back over his head. “Tell her I’m not going.”
“Fat chance, Squirt.” Cooper pulled the covers down and ruffled his hair teasingly.
“Don’t call me that,” he grumbled, pushing Cooper’s hand away.
“Well, then get your lazy ass up,” he said, pulling on Blaine’s arms until he was sitting up.
He wasn’t in the mood to deal with his brother right now. He was on edge and could barely contain the rage that was boiling inside. He wasn’t even sure where it was coming from, but he was sure it had something to do with the treatment. The radiation he didn’t want but his parents were forcing on him because they ‘love’ him. It was complete bullshit and he wanted everyone to know it.
“No.” He shoved Cooper away, his hands instantly going into fists. He’d never been so eager to fight, but he was ready today. He felt like punching anyone that looked at him the wrong way. “I’m not going, okay? I’m serious. I’m eighteen and you can’t make me.”
“This is crazy, you have to go,” Cooper said, obviously frustrated. “Stop being such a spoiled brat and get downstairs before mom covers the entire kitchen in muffins. She’s stress baking and we’ve already got more cookies than any human could possibly consume in a lifetime.”
“What part of I’m not going did you not understand? Did they turn you into a complete idiot in LA or were you always this stupid?”
His voice was vicious. He didn’t even know he was capable of sounding like that. He knew he should stop, that this was getting out of hand, but he couldn’t. It was like something had snapped inside of him and he’d lost all control of himself.
“The part where if you don’t go, you die.” Cooper stood up and threw his hands out, obviously fed up with the situation.
“I’m dying anyways you piece of shit,” Blaine swore.
It sounded strange coming out of his mouth. He so rarely cursed to begin with. He threw the covers all of the way off of him and stood up out of bed, shoving Cooper to the floor in the process. He wanted to dramatically storm off to his bathroom, but the best he could manage with his cast was quickly hopping away. He settled for slamming the door behind himself, locking Cooper out.
He had no intention of leaving, ever. He’d opened his mouth to say that he was done with doctors, but each time he tried to talk about it, he was cut off. Now, he’d finally snapped. After little more than an hour’s sleep, he’d made up his mind. He wasn’t going to prolong his life with radiation when there was no chance of a cure. It was agonizing enough waking up in the mornings with blinding headaches, why would he want that to last any longer if he knew he was going to die anyway?
“This is just like you, Blaine,” Cooper yelled through the door, pounding on it several times and trying the lock before giving up. “You always throw fits for attention. Newsflash, it stopped being cute when you were four.”
“Fuck you,” Blaine screamed back.
He heard his brother leave the bedroom with a slam of the door. Blaine allowed himself the satisfaction of knowing that he’d won this round. He’d convinced Cooper to leave him alone. He was further impressed that his mother waited a solid half an hour before coming up and trying her luck at convincing Blaine to leave the bathroom.
“Blaine, Sweetheart,” she said gently knocking. “Can you open the door for me?”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could get away with cursing at his mother like he’d done Cooper, but he was not about to let her in either. He knew that the second his family got to him, they would drag him to the hospital kicking and screaming.
“I know you’re scared, Baby,” she said. “But you have to go to this appointment. You have to do this. If not for yourself, then for your family, Sweetheart. We love you and we need you to keep fighting this. You’re never going to get better if you don’t believe you can; if you don’t try.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. He didn’t understand how she could stand there and tell him the same psycho-bullshit she wrote in her self help books. He was dying of cancer, not depressed. This wasn’t a lack of motivation to get off the couch and finish his college degree or some other meaningless shit. This was a medical disease that had no cure. No amount of talking and self belief could combat that kind of science.
“Blaine Devon Anderson, you unlock this door this instant,” his father started to shout through the door. “We do not lock doors in this house.”
Blaine wondered how long he would have to sit in the bathroom before they left him alone. He hoped it was long enough that he missed his appointment. Then he could come out of his room, pack a bag, and run away. He didn’t ever have to come back to this place if he didn’t want to. That was the beauty of being eighteen.
He laid down in the soft rug of the spacious bathroom, rolling up a towel to use as a pillow. The cool tile under him felt nice and relaxing. On the other side, his parents and Cooper continued to talk at him for over an hour. He wondered why they hadn’t broken the door down yet, but then again, his parents had always believed in the importance of conversation rather than violence.
He started to feel his anger fade and was replaced with another feeling that he couldn’t quite put into words. It was part guilt over being so mean to Cooper, who was obviously only trying to help. It was part helplessness, like he had no voice in his family. As if his life would never be his own. There was another feeling, a more overwhelming one that was drowning him.
Fear.
He was terrified, but he didn’t understand why. He knew that his fear of radiation was completely irrational. He wasn’t actually going to turn into some mutant due to radiation. No matter what Artie might say, he wasn’t going to become The Incredible Hulk either. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself this though, he was still scared. He just didn’t understand of what.
Fighting? He thought he might be scared to fight. Shit, he knew he was scared to fight back against this crippling disease that was trying to take over his entire life. Why, though?
“Blaine?” Sam’s voice called him gently through the door.
He wondered who made the call. How desperate they must have been to decide that this might be a problem one of his friends could better solve. He wondered what made them call Sam instead of Kurt, not that he was complaining. Blaine wasn’t sure he could voice his fears to Kurt any easier than he could to his family, they all had too big a stake in Blaine’s future.
How guilty was Blaine going to have to feel if he opened the door for Sam but he hadn’t for his family?
“I’m not going to make you come out if you don’t want to, but could you please let me in?”
Blaine sat up, feeling a bit lightheaded from the sudden movement and scooted over towards the door. He paused with his hands on the handle, debating if he should open it or not. He wanted to see Sam. He knew it wasn’t healthy to lock himself in a dark bathroom with only his spiraling thoughts to keep him company and Sam was always great at helping him see reason. He’d kept Blaine from transferring back to Dalton a few weeks back, hadn’t he?
He wanted to talk to somebody, he just didn’t trust his parents not to drag him kicking and screaming to the hospital the second he opened the door.
“Your parents are leaving. They said they would wait downstairs so we could have some privacy. Just let me in. I haven’t perfected my X-Ray vision yet and I feel weird talking to you when I can’t see you,” he said.
“You talk to me on the phone all the time and you can’t see me,” Blaine responded.
“Quit being a dick and open the door,” Sam said, not unkindly.
Blaine turned the lock on the bathroom door, but he didn’t open it. He knew Sam would hear the click of the lock and make his own way inside. Blaine lay back down on the tile and stared up at the dark ceiling. A moment later Sam was sitting against the tub, patting his lap as if to invite Blaine to lay in it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, suspiciously.
“I don’t know, my mom always does it to me when I’m feeling bad,” Sam shrugged like he hadn’t thought about how weird it might be. He probably hadn’t. Sam never shied away from showing him affection just because Blaine was gay and he was straight.
“I’m flattered, but I’m taken,” Blaine said, teasing him.
“What? No? I mean... taken? So, Kurt got his head out of his ass?” Sam asked.
“Are you really here to talk about Kurt?”
“I’m here to talk about whatever you want, Dude,” Sam said. “You’re the one that locked yourself in a bathroom."
Blaine didn’t respond and he expected Sam to press him into saying more, to ask why he continued to lay on the dark bathroom floor, but he remained silent. Blaine let himself relax back into the peaceful darkness and tried to clear his thoughts. His mind kept drifting off to thoughts of death, though Blaine tried not to let himself linger there too long. It was a dangerous topic to think about for any period of time, but his brain just kept coming up with more questions the more he avoided thinking about it.
There were so many questions that he’d never know the answer to and he hated that. Blaine, who was always so prepared for everything, couldn’t prepare for this. He had no way of knowing how to. Not knowing what was ahead for him made his stomach twist up until he felt dizzying nausea.
What would happen to him once he lost the fight? Would it be easier to let go if he knew what to expect when the time finally came?
It should be easy to let go. All of the hard stuff would come before. All of the pain and the suffering would be the worst part. It was like he was holding onto a ledge by his fingertips and everyone kept telling him to keep holding on a little bit longer and help would come, but help wasn’t coming. It never would. All it would take for his pain to finally be over was to relax and let go. Falling would be easy, effortless. It would only be scary for a second and then it would be over.
The thought should have been more comforting than it was. Hell, he’d been telling himself for days that he welcomed that moment, that he’d accepted his defeat. He’d been trying repeatedly to tell his parents he had and they just wouldn’t listen.
So why did it terrify him so much?
“Do you really believe in God?” Blaine asked after almost half an hour of silence, not entirely sure why that was the question he decided to ask when there were so many to chose from and he already knew what Sam would say.
“I do,” Sam answered without a hint of doubt in his voice. He was so sure, so confident in his beliefs and Blaine respected that. He used to have that before he came out and had it beaten out of him. “Do you?”
Blaine didn’t respond right away, though any other time he’d been asked since starting high school he’d responded with a very loud no.
“I used to, but now? I guess I’m just hopeful none of it is true,” he finally responded.
Sam moved to lay down beside him. They were sitting too far away for a conversation this intimate.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked voice barely above a whisper, like he might scare Blaine off. Blaine looked over at him and could see the sad smile he was wearing. It wasn’t the pitying smile that everyone else gives him, there was understanding behind it. Less guilt, like everyone else believed they should have somehow prevented the cancer from happening.
“Why would I want some all powerful man to exist that claims loving other men - something I can’t help and wouldn’t change if I could - is wrong? If it’s true, then all these horrible things that have happened to me have been some sort of punishment for being gay. For choosing to live my life in sin. Getting bullied and beaten at my old school, Kurt breaking up with me, getting cancer? I don’t want to have to think of those things being my fault all because I didn’t try to pray away the gay.”
“Any God that doesn’t want you is wrong,” Sam said, reaching out to put a comforting hand over Blaine’s. “You’re one of the good guys and I don’t know where you’ve been going to church, but my God doesn’t turn away the good guys. He doesn’t even turn away the bad ones.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that God hates gays.”
“God doesn’t hate gays, Christians do, and only the really crazy fanatic ones at that. There’s a difference.”
“I’m not sure it matters at this point,” Blaine said, though he knew it did. He needed to sort out his beliefs before he died and come to terms with whatever high power was or wasn’t out there. The last thing he needed was to end up in eternal damnation.
They fell back into silence. Blaine tapped out the beat to some song on the tile anxiously, unaware that he was even doing it until Sam reached over to stop him. He’d been more fidgety recently. He was incapable of staying completely still for more than few minutes. It was silly, but on some subconscious level he was doing it to remind himself that he still had control over his own body. The times where he couldn't force his body to walk straight or speak clearly were becoming more frequent and he liked to appreciate the moments where he could control himself.
“What made you ask that?”
“What do you think happens to us when we die?” Blaine asked, his question is enough of an explanation for Sam.
“Is this why you locked yourself in here in the dark? Are you worried?” he asked.
“What if there’s nothing on the other side?” Blaine’s voice was wet and he realized that he’d started crying.
“There is, there has to be,” Sam said. “You just have to believe.”
“What if there’s not?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted, so quietly that Blaine barely heard him. He could hear the fear in Sam’s voice.
“How do you go from being this fully capable living being able to love, laugh, communicate and do all of these things and then you’re just gone? You’re buried in the dirt like you were never alive. What if there’s nothing else out there? How does all of this just disappear?”
“Do you want me to tell you what I think happens when you die?” Sam asked, his voice wet as well, it was the first time in over a week that Sam hadn’t been able act nonchalant and unaffected.
Blaine nodded, encouragingly.
“I don’t picture big golden gates and some angel with a checklist waiting to usher you into a city on top of the clouds. I just picture waking up to the same world you’ve always known, the house you grew up in, and everything’s just better. You know?” Sam explained and Blaine couldn’t help but close his eyes and picture it.
“The pain that you once carried around like five hundred pound luggage is gone and you feel more alive than you ever felt before. Everyone you’ve loved and lost is there and you can still look in on the people you left behind on these little boxes, like TVs. You never have to feel alone or scared again because you’re loved completely unconditionally for the first time in your life by everyone. There is no more violence or hatred in the world, it’s all melted away. You’ve been forgiven of any wrong you’ve ever done and you’re happy. The kind of happy you feel when you watch the person you love laugh until they cry because of something you’ve said. The kind of happy you got on Christmas morning when you still believed in Santa Claus and he managed to magically know exactly what you wanted. It’s not some magical place off in the distance that you’d need a rainbow bridge to get to. It’s your life, exactly as it is now without any of the suffering.”
He pictured it in his mind, waking up in his house and walking out the door without having to worry about grumpy old Mr. Green muttering about how the homosexuals were ruining the world as he walked past with his dog. He pictured walking hand in hand down the hallway with the boy he loved without feeling scared of getting harassed or hurt. It sounded perfect, more perfect than a house made out of gold could ever be.
Then he tried to remember all of the nightmares from the last two nights, the ones that had kept him from his appointment today, but it was difficult. He could remember the images of limbs falling off of his body, but it looked ridiculous now. Comical, the fear was starting to ebb away. He knew it wasn’t gone forever, but for a moment, Sam had painted him a nice enough picture to hold onto that eased his troubled mind.
“And gay, straight, or raised by Hitler, there is no way you wouldn’t end up there,” Sam continued. “Nobody could look at you and send you to hell. You are loving, compassionate, and hands down the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t promise you that there’s anything else out there, nobody can. But if there is, and I believe there is, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Let’s see if you still believe that when I come back from my treatment with a third arm,” Blaine teased, trying to lighten the mood. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the way turn the conversation had taken, but it was still awkward to talk to somebody that had such strong faith when his own was permanently in question.
"Nah, you'll at least come back with something cooler like telekinesis."
"Maybe one of the doctors will experiment with me and line my bones with aluminium-"
"No, I still get to be Wolverine. I'm not having this argument with you everyday, we rock, scissor, papered it and you lost."
"Fine," Blaine grumbled, not really that upset but he was still stubborn enough to refuse to give in without a fight.
“So, you’re going to go?” Sam asked, looking hopeful.
His gut sank down and settled in his toes as he thought about leaving the safety of the bathroom and going back out into the real world. He tried to picture himself at the hospital surrounded by other cancer patients, he could already see the guilty look on the nurse's face as she administered the chemicals that were only going to make him sick and wouldn’t do anything to cure him. It made him want to throw up and he hadn’t even started yet.
"I really don't want to," he admitted.
"Your parents will be there the whole time and I heard the Hummel’s talking, Kurt's coming, too," Sam said. "You won't have to be there alone. I’ll skip school if you want me there, too. Shit, all of Glee will."
“Will you promise me something?” Blaine asked, knowing he had no choice but to agree. His parents would be devastated if he didn't at least try the radiation. Cooper would never understand his decision. Kurt might never forgive him... He'd go, even if the thought scared him.
“Anything,” he responded without a moment’s hesitation.
“No matter how sick I get, no matter how bad it is, you'll still make sure I do something fun every day. I don't want to waste my time laying in dark bathrooms contemplating death."
"Is there a bucket list you want me to follow? Any last wishes?"
"Kurt's working on one," Blaine said. "I guess just make sure I get to spend time with everyone before I die."
"Easy enough."
"Actually," Blaine paused as the wheels in his head began to turn and he started to realize what he really wanted to do before he died-give everyone something to remember him by. "Can you find out what everybody's perfect day would be? Like not just with me, but in general. What would be number one on everybody's bucket list."
"Sure, why?"
"We're gonna make it all happen," he said with a bright smile.
For the first time since the diagnosis he actually felt calm and in control. He had a purpose. One last mission to complete and what could be better than putting a smile on each if his friends faces before he died. After all, their memories would be the ones that lived on long after he was gone. If he could give them something amazing to hold onto maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he was gone.
"I'm down, but word of warning, Brittany's number one is to build a time machine."
"I think between my cancer, being Student Council president and Sugar's money we can easily make that happen," he said, already mentally going through his closet for anything close enough to resemble the eleventh doctor.
"I'm incredibly glad you use your powers for good and not evil," Sam said. "Now can we get up and can you shower? You smell and your dad's going to break in any second."
"He won’t. You're fine."
"He was in the garage looking for the electric drill when I got here. You've got minutes."
Blaine groaned but moved to sit up. He felt gross after a night full of bad dreams. He was sweaty and grimy and didn't doubt Sam's claim that he smelled. Sam helped him stand up and patiently held onto his arm while Blaine waited for the room to stop spinning.
“Arms up,” he commanded, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head.
"Woah," Blaine exclaimed, surprised. "It usually takes some foreplay to get me out of my clothes."
“Like you haven't dreamed of me taking off your clothes, I'm stacked," Sam teased. "Your mom said you'd need help showering. Something about your stitches and the cast-"
"You can't just strip me down and bathe me," he replied, his cheeks hot. He was sure his face was as red as a fire truck.
"You want to undress yourself?" Sam asked, completely baffled that Blaine wouldn't want him helping him in the shower.
"Yes, that'd be nice, thanks," he said, looking at Sam liked lost his mind. "What were you going to do? Come in with me?" He teased, only finding the situation slight funny, the rest of him was mortified.
"If that's what you needed, sure," Sam shrugged. "You're my bro."
"Well, I'm good, I promise," he said.
"Cool, I'm still gonna sit here though in case you change your mind," Sam said, taking a seat at the vanity and pulling out his phone to play with, keeping his back to Blaine to give him some privacy.
"I'm glad you came over," Blaine said, honestly.
"Anytime, Dude."
****
As it turned out, Blaine wasn’t actually starting his radiation treatment that day, but instead was being put through a long series of tests and trial runs in something the oncologist kept saying was a simulation. It involved first injecting him with some dye and having another CT done, causing a momentary concern on his mother’s part that he would have another seizure due to his first one happening the last time he’d gotten a CT scan. Thankfully he survived seizure free, but he hadn’t been allowed to go home after that, which had been less than amusing to hear.
He’d then had to get fitted for a face mask which was supposed to help keep him immobile and in the exact same position every time, but it felt creepy and claustrophobic and he was pretty sure he looked like something out of a horror movie with it on. The machine that was supposed to deliver to radiation was big and completely intimidating to look up at, but he just closed his eyes and breathed, reminding himself that they would have to let him up eventually and after that he never had to come back if he didn’t want to. He could continue to lock himself in the bathroom every morning if that was what it took.
They’d taken a bunch of reference pictures and even forced him to get tattoos so they could position the radiation in the exact same spot every day. They were only the size of a freckle but there were three of them and they were blue, not exactly conspicuous. One was in the center of his forehead and the other two were by his ears.
Kurt assured him that they could cover it with makeup if he wanted, but it wasn’t that noticeable. Blaine knew he was lying, but let it go. The tattoos were just further proof that what he was going through was anything but normal. Maybe after watching all of this, his mother would stop living in denial. He could only hope.
After about five hours spent going from one office to another and back to the radiation room, Blaine was finally given a business card with his daily appointment schedule - Monday through Friday at ten am - and was allowed to leave.
“That was horrible,” he groaned as he slowly made his way out to where his dad was waiting at the curb for them.
“It won’t be that bad next time. They said you’d be in and out in less than thirty minutes each day,” his mom assured him as Kurt helped him into the car before kissing him goodbye and promising to follow him home so they could spend the night together.
“Yes, except next time they’ll be aiming high doses of radiation at my head and making me sick,” he argued.
“It’s only temporarily, the healthy cells will repair themselves,” she said.
He opened his mouth to remind her that it wasn’t going to repair him and that the cancer wasn’t going to go away - the most they could hope for was that the cancer would stop growing and he would die a slower death - but she sent him a look that left no room for argument.
Once they were back home, Blaine grabbed Kurt and locked them in his room so that they wouldn’t be bothered until at least dinner.
“Everything alright?” Kurt asked.
“I honestly don’t know the answer to that,” he said, throwing himself onto the bed face first. “Can we just take a nap and you can ask me that later?”
Kurt sat down on the bed and unlaced Blaine’s shoes, slowly taking them off before pushing and pulling at Blaine until he was comfortable under his cocoon of blankets.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.
“I’ve just got to grab my laptop first,” Kurt reassured him before pulling his bag closer to the bed and removing his shoes, crawling under the blankets with Blaine, computer in hand.
“Work?”
“Isabelle wants me to make notes about the new website design at Vanity Fair to see if we need to make any changes,” he explained, sounding so much older and more mature than Blaine when he talked about his job. Blaine was never going to be able to have that. He’d be a high school kid forever and even if he made it to graduation, he wasn’t going to be able to go to University or even get a job. He was stuck in a permanent state of inadequacy.
“You don’t have to stay with me, you can use my dad’s study if you need to get stuff done,” he said.
“Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t be comfortable anywhere else. Now get over here so I can play with your hair while I work.”
Blaine snuggled into Kurt’s shoulder as Kurt’s hands found their way into his hair, gently scratching at his scalp in a way he’d always found soothing. He tried not to think about how soon Kurt wouldn’t just be avoiding his bald spot, but avoiding touching his head altogether because all his hair would have fallen out.
He didn’t think Kurt was vain enough to stop loving him if he went bald, but he didn’t think it would turn Kurt on either. Just another worry he’d have to add to the growing list.
“Stop thinking so much and try to relax,” Kurt said, kissing the top of his head.
Blaine closed his eyes and did his best to obey orders, pleased to find he fell asleep easily, too exhausted to even dream.
****
After dinner, Blaine sat at his computer, scrolling through a message board for kids with terminal cancer. He’d promised his mom that he’d look it over and he knew she was going to check his web history to make sure he did. He’d expected to find hundreds of posts from emo kids contemplating the meaning of life, but he was pleased to find very little of those.
If anything, most of the posts on the board were helpful tips for getting through treatments and even posts for how to deal with family and friends who were refusing to accept the diagnosis. The posters told their stories, sure, but the stories were littered with ways to survive chemo easier, or things to do during radiation to keep from panicking. There were diet tricks to avoid nausea and links to the most realistic wig shops - not that Blaine was planning on wearing any wigs, but still. The information was useful, more useful than anything the doctors had told him, so far.
Blaine was surprised to find himself flipping through more of the posts than he’d expected, happy to hear advice from kids that were just like him. Nobody was trying to tell him to get through the treatment because it would save him, they were reminding each other that there were ways to still pretend their lives were normal. There were ways to make the treatment less intimidating and survive with enough strength to still enjoy life.
Kurt was laying on his bed, engrossed in his own work, which was more than fine with Blaine. It was comforting enough just knowing Kurt was there, they didn’t have to constantly talk about their feelings.
He glanced over and noticed a book that had been left of his desk and picked it up - The Death of Captain Marvel - obviously something Sam had given him if the six post-it notes attached, covered in his handwriting were any indication. He took a closer look at the notes and was surprised to see what looked like a poem.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-Dylan Thomas
Blaine had never thought of Sam as stupid, he’d always known Sam’s problem with academics was just that they didn’t hold his attention. He could remember years and facts when it came to publication dates of comic books and he could remember exactly how many episodes an old cartoon had run for, he just wasn’t one for the type of education school could offer. Blaine knew that Sam wasn’t a dumb blond and was more perceptive when it came to people than many realized.
Still, poetry wasn’t Sam’s forte and Blaine wasn’t entirely sure what had inspired him to even find the poem to begin with let alone write it all out for Blaine. He peeled each of the sticky notes off the cover and arranged them on the blank wall in front of his desk, not sure what it was about the words that spoke to him. It wasn’t anything his mother hadn’t said a million times over, but this was different. This wasn’t talking about positivity and miracles so impossible they would find a unicorn before they ever found a cure. These were fighting words. They were filled with anger and anguish and were yelling at him to stop sitting around and letting life get the better of him.
They were telling him to get angry enough to make his own miracle. To push and fight because he had a right to live. He had a right to live to be an old man.
Blaine opened up the cover to begin reading and found more sticky notes.
I’m pretty sure that Dylan guy just ripped off another, more important speech that I wanted to say to you in person (because my President Thomas J. Whitmore is epic) but I knew you’d get all weird about it and would be too embarrassed to hear the words I want you to know. So here they are-
“Mankind - that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July, will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice” We will not go quietly into the night! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”
And that was Blaine’s best friend. The stupid idiot who quoted Independence Day to him and cited it as more important than a famous, sixty year old Welsh poem. Blaine wouldn’t trade him for the world.
He picked up his phone and started dialing on autopilot.
“What are you doing?” Blaine asked once Sam picked up the other line, foregoing any formal greeting.
“I’m at Brittany’s watching her try to teach Lord Tubbington Zumba.”
“Did the vet say he was overweight again?”
“Have you seen the size of this cat?” he replied as if it was the stupidest question Blaine could have asked.
“Does that mean you two are on a date?” he asked, curious if Sam had finally asked Brittany out.
“No.”
“Then do you want to come over?”
“Yeah, cool dude,” Sam said. “Just me or?”
“President Whitmore can come, too, if he wants,” Blaine teased.
“So, you read it,” he said, his voice hesitant as if he didn’t know how Blaine was going to respond.
“I did,” he said slowly, leaving Sam’s unspoken question hanging in the air, unanswered. He didn’t know how he felt about the poem in general apart from the fact that it was sitting oddly in his stomach, making him jittery and feeling like he was supposed to be somewhere. Like he was supposed to be doing something.
“And for the record, I think that guy stole the poem from Independence Day, too," Blaine said, humoring Sam to get him to change the subject.
"Right?"
"Totally."
“So, we can talk about it or we can not talk about it,” Sam said, pushing him for more information but Blaine just didn’t know what to say. He knew that Sam had heard him earlier today when he said he didn’t want to have the treatment, but he hadn’t thought Sam would read into it that it was just because Blaine was scared of fighting and still failing.
Was that why Blaine was scared? he wasn’t even sure.
“Let’s not talk about it for now, okay?” he said, mostly because he didn’t even understand himself.
“I finally got Avengers Assembled to finish downloading,” Sam thankfully changed the subject.
“Only took you a month.”
“Yeah, well it’s over ten hours and nobody was seeding, so you should be happy it even finished at all.”
“Sam- come over,” he said, unsure why he suddenly felt the intense need to see Sam when Kurt was already here.
Kurt - the boy he used to tell everything to. The best friend he’d ever had and the only one he’d ever felt like he needed. That was before. Blaine still trusted Kurt and wanted to share things with him, but there was the flip side in which he’d grown used to telling Sam all of his secrets and it wasn’t a habit easily broken.
It wasn’t one he wanted broken.
“Hold on a minute,” Blaine said, putting the phone on mute before turning to Kurt. “You don’t mind if Sam comes over do you?”
“Sounds like you already invited him,” Kurt said with a careful raise of the eyebrow that usually meant Kurt was severely annoyed with him.
“He’s my best friend and he’s lived in your house for the last year, why do you two hate each other all of a sudden?” he asked.
“I don’t hate him. And it’s your house, invite whoever you want,” Kurt said.
“Why do I get the feeling that this is a test?”
Kurt didn’t respond for a moment or two which only solidified the fact that this was definitely a test and Blaine was probably supposed to be picking Kurt over Sam, but he didn’t think that was fair for him to dump his friends just because Kurt had taken him back.
Maybe that was the test? To see how easily Blaine could push his friends away for Kurt. If Blaine pushed everyone else away for Kurt, would that mean he failed? That he somehow prove his love and affection wasn’t a permanent thing?
“Can you just tell me what you want me to do here?” Blaine asked, frustrated.
“Let Sam come over,” he finally said. “We’re not the best of friends right now, but we can get along for your sake.”
“I’m probably supposed to be asking you why you guys are still fighting and trying to resolve it, but I’m not going to touch that.”
Kurt turned back to his work without another word and Blaine took the phone off of mute so he could resume his call with Sam.
“So, are you coming?”
“Okay, but when we inevitably do start reenacting scenes from the movie, I get to be Iron Man,” Sam bargained.
“Absolutely not, you’re Captain America and I’m Iron Man. It doesn’t make sense the other way,” he argued.
“But I’m always Captain America,” Sam groaned.
“Because it makes sense that way, did you not hear me?” Blaine laughed.
By the time Sam had arrived and they’d heated up some leftovers for him to eat, they’d decided to marathon Teen Wolf instead because Sam had made a fandom reference that Kurt hadn’t understood and both boys had determined it was essential for Kurt to be caught up to speed on one of their favorite shows. Kurt hadn’t been all that eager to agree, clearly trying to act like his taste was more superior than theirs, but Blaine knew he still loved Twilight so he didn’t have a leg to stand on. All it took was a picture of Tyler Hoechlin to get him to agree.
“If that boy says he loves Allison one more time, I swear to God I’m going to break the TV. We get it, Jesus,” Kurt’s commentary started up almost immediately and didn’t stop for the entire first season, causing Sam and Blaine to quietly seethe in fanboy rage.
“Leave Scott alone,” Blaine grumbled.
“This is all of the action of a full length season but none of the character development,” Kurt continued to complain. “They really should give them more episodes in a season or at least stop fighting long enough to have some character driven scenes?”
“Because Bella Swan is such a well rounded character,” Blaine snapped back.
“At least she’s better than this Isaac kid,” Kurt argued.
“Did he just... he insulted Isaac,” Sam said, looking at Blaine like he was going to explode.
“Kurt, how can you hate Isaac, he got locked in a freezer by his dad. You’re supposed to want to cuddle him and help him through this hard and confusing time in his life. He’s a kicked puppy. He’s orphaned and he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be relieved or distraught over it.”
“You two are really invested in this show, aren’t you?” Kurt asked, baffled.
“Sam, can you please help me out here?” he said, throwing his hands up in surrender. He didn’t understand how Kurt could fantasize about Jacob Black, but not understand the complexities that made the Teen Wolf gang amazing. Sure, most of the scenes relied on viewers picking up the subtext in order to see the character development, but that was half of the fun.
“Kurt, you can’t just insult Teen Wolf in front of us, it’s not cool, Dude,” Sam said. “Blaine here’s got a plan to marry Scott and have some complicated three-way with Danny.”
“You talked to Sam about a three-way you wanted to have?” Kurt crossed his arms and gave him a judgemental look.
“Mostly just to shut him up about banging Lydia but it backfired and he didn’t freak out at all.”
“Love is love,” Sam said with a shrug. “And the more the merrier, right?”
Kurt looked between the two of them with a curious look on his face but didn’t say anything else as they turned back to the show. In fact, Kurt didn’t make a single comment for the rest of season two. Blaine wasn’t sure if that should worry him or not, but he wasn’t going to bring it up and potentially start a fight when the evening was going so well.
****
The next day, Blaine’s mom tiptoed into the room as quietly as she could, but Blaine was still woken up. He’d always been a light sleeper.
“Is it time to go?” he asked, moving to sit up but she waved him away and whispered for him to go back to sleep.
“Sam, Honey, it’s time to get up, you’ve got to get ready for school,” she whispered and Sam groaned and tried to curl back under the covers for a moment or two, but eventually he woke up enough to satisfy her and she left.
“I guess we fell asleep,” Sam said, moving to get out of bed.
“You’ve still got a toothbrush under the sink,” he whispered, mindful of the fact that Kurt was asleep on the other side of him. Thank god his parents had invested in a King sized bed for him or last night would have been incredibly awkward for the three of them.
“Cool, I’ve got some extra clothes at school. I can get ready there.”
“It’s so weird that you’re getting ready to go to school and I’m not,” he said.
“You could come, we all miss you.”
“I’ve got radiation every day at 10, I can’t,” he explained.
“Well you’re always welcome to stop by Glee after school. You’ll always be part of the team and the girls have been asking about you.”
“Maybe sometime,” he said, not promising anything. He had no idea how he was going to react to the radiation treatments and from all the reading he’d done, it seemed like he was going to be pretty exhausted.
Sam went into the bathroom and quickly brushed his teeth before coming back out and putting on his coat.
“Hey, Sam?” Blaine called out quietly to get his attention and waiting until he looked up. “Thanks.”
“For joining in on the most vanilla threesome ever? No problem,” Sam said with a playful wink.
“For letting me have a night where we argued over Teen Wolf instead of cancer,” he said, honestly. Apart from Kurt, he’d never had a friend he could say these things to without them teasing him but he knew that he could trust Sam to always listen to him without judgement.
“You’re still that guy I run around wearing a mask for that tries to sell me on the merits of disco. No matter what you do or don’t do, whatever happens, that won’t change,” Sam said.
“I’ve been scared it would,” he admitted.
“We won’t let it,” Sam promised. “Sugar’s already bought a blue police box on Ebay and I got myself a Roman soldier costume. Once you figure out the perfect Doctor outfit all you have to do is call me and we can go back to fulfilling our pact of making our senior year as ridiculous and fun as it can possibly be.”
“Have a good day at school,” he said, waving goodbye as Sam walked out the door. Determined to get a few more minutes of sleep, he cuddled back into Kurt’s sleeping arms, not noticing how Kurt’s breathing wasn’t as deep as it usually was when he was asleep.
Blaine fully woke up an hour or so later, before Kurt, as usual. He crawled out of bed and moved over to his desk to pull open his laptop to do some research on Northwestern, where his parents were taking him that weekend. He hadn’t seen the point in seeing other doctors before, but there was part of his heart that was pulling at him to find out more. To see if the possibility of a cure was there. Maybe Sam was right. He couldn’t just go quietly into the night without at least fighting for the life he’d built here.
Somebody somewhere had to have some good news for him, right?
“Looking up the address of Tyler Posey so you can fanboy in person?” Kurt teased, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around him and look over his shoulder at the computer screen. His eyes moved over the homepage for Mayo Clinic before turning to look at him confused.
“I decided to do some research myself,” he answered Kurt’s silent question.
“Do your parents know about this?”
“No, and they aren’t going to,” he said with a warning look. “You know how relentless my mom is about finding a cure and the chances that we’d even find somebody willing to operate is slim.”
“But is that what you want? To find somebody to operate?” Kurt asked, his voice was heavily guarded.
“That operation could kill me,” he reminded Kurt.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what I’d do with a yes,” he admitted aloud, feeling just as lost as he’d been before. Deciding to start researching had done nothing to empower him, it had only made him feel more overwhelmed by all the different options and experimental trials.
“I was under the impression that you weren’t looking to find out,” Kurt said and Blaine could see it, the little spark of hope in Kurt’s eyes that he’d been trying so hard not to ignite. He didn’t want everyone believing that there was a chance he could live, it would only make them more unwilling to let go when the time came.
“Something Sam told me yesterday got me thinking, I guess,” he said, running his fingers over the post-it note poem on his wall.
“Sam?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said, side-eying him and preparing himself for whatever quip Kurt was about to make about his friend.
“I’m not... I mean, I am. But I guess he’s not so bad. Last night wasn’t horrible,” Kurt surrendered with a deep sigh.
Blaine looked at Kurt, surprised at how quickly he’d changed his tune but, then again, Kurt had always zigged when he thought he would zag.
“He’s a good friend,” Kurt admitted, albeit regrettably.
“He is,” he smiled. “So are you.”
Blaine grabbed Kurt by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Even though they hadn’t made it around to brushing their teeth and Kurt would pull away in about ten seconds to yell at him about morning breath, Blaine didn't care. There was still nothing more perfect than being able to kiss Kurt again.