[FIC] Hard Lines: Chapter 8
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: This is the last of the completed chapters, so I'll be posting a little less frequently from here on out, but the story shouldn't have too many more chapters too it!
Tumblr // AO3 // FF.net
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7
****
Five days after their epic performance at school, Blaine found himself sitting in his living room with an old, now forgotten, episode of X-men playing in the background as Sam jumped up and down and told Blaine that he’d just married Brittany. He was grinning at him like it was the best news in the world and Blaine was trying to figure out at what point his friend had lost his mind. He’d known that Sam was under more stress than usual, but he’d never expected him to spontaneously get married because of it.
“I don’t believe this,” he said, burying his head in his hands.
“We wanted to invite you but we kept it private; you can come to the reception, though. We’re throwing a big party tomorrow night,” Sam said. “You can give us a congratulatory serenade then. You’ll need a speech, the best man always gives a speech.”
“The best man? Wh-” Blaine stopped himself before the conversation got off task. This was important. His best friend had gotten married to a girl who until two weeks ago was still lusting after Santana. “Has Brittany told Santana about this?”
“Why would it matter? They broke up,” he said.
“I don’t understand, you’ve only been dating a few weeks!” he exclaimed, trying to wrap his brain around how crazy this was all sounding.
“And we’ve only got a few more days to live,” Sam said. “There’s no other girl I want to spend this short forever with.”
“Where is this coming from?” he asked, trying to remain calm and understanding.
Sam was his friend, after all, and Blaine didn’t want to make him feel bad, but this entire thing was insane. At least when Rachel and Finn had gotten engaged they’d been dating for a long time. This came out of nowhere and the two of them were hardly mature enough to handle being married.
“Did you not watch the History Channel documentary that I recorded for you?” he asked. “They were real actors portraying real events, it’s totally happening.”
“Sam, what are you talking about?” he asked, completely frustrated.
“The world is going to end on December 21st, we only have two more days before we meet Q’uq’umatz, the feathered snake god,” Sam said, sounding manic.
“What?” he asked, rubbing at the headache that was starting to form.
“The Mayan Apocalypse is coming!” Sam said with such intensity that Blaine could tell this wasn’t a joke to him.
“Okay,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything else.
He knew that the two of them joked around about super heroes and evil villains a lot, but that was all it was - a joke. They enjoyed marathoning Teen Wolf and Buffy the Vampire Slayer when they weren’t busy running around stealing back nationals trophies. What teenage boy didn’t do stuff like that? This was different, though. Sam was serious. He honestly believed the world was going to end and he’d just made a life changing decision because of it.
He wasn’t exactly sure how approach this, but he knew he was going to have to think of something. Sam had been there for him in every way possible since the diagnosis. He put aside all of his own feelings about Blaine dying to make him feel at ease. Now Blaine needed to return the favor and try to figure out what was really going on with his friend. He couldn’t honestly believe that the end of the world was coming, could he?
“No, it’s not okay! The end times are here and nobody is taking this seriously,” Sam said, throwing himself down on the couch.
“I’m listening to you, okay?” he said, calmly. “Just talk to me. Tell me how you’re feeling?”
“I got married,” Sam said.
“So you said,” he responded, biting back a million retorts as to why getting married was a horrible idea.
“It all feels really surreal, you know? Like everything is hyper-intensified because the world is ending and every moment is the last time for something,” Sam explained. “It’s really cool to be able to be honest with everyone and be able to see the world from such a new perspective.”
“It’s cool?” he asked, unsure how the world ending could be considered cool. It sounded horrible and terrifying to Blaine, even if it was fiction.
Shit, Blaine had been thinking about his own death for a few weeks now and he’d yet to find any aspect of it refreshing. He wasn’t sure how Sam could possibly think the prospect of dying was fascinating.
“Yeah, I mean think of all the people that die without any sort of forewarning. Or the people that have to bury loved ones and how hard it must be to say goodbye to them, having to continue your life without them. We’re all going to die together and even though the dying part kind of sucks, we are lucky that we’re able to do it with the people we love most at our side.”
“Sam” he started, feeling his eyes start to well up as he began to realize where this was all coming from.
Sam was scared. He was facing a future where everyone was being forced to make decisions about their life and Sam had no idea what he was doing. They’d watched their friends graduate last year and go off to wonderful exciting futures that didn’t include them anymore. They were getting closer to graduating and ending their childhoods. Many of them would go out of state to school and never come back. Blaine wouldn’t even make it to graduation. They would all be saying goodbye soon and Sam would have to make a new home, with new people.
He was scared.
“And we don’t have to spend so much time worrying about the future anymore and graduation and all that stuff because we’re all going to go onto the next life together,” Sam continued. “We can just focus on the here and now. It’s kind of beautiful if you think about it.”
“Do you think that maybe you’re projecting, just a little bit?” he asked, wondering how much of Sam’s anxiety out was due to graduation and how much of it was to do with Sam having to stand by helplessly and watch Blaine’s impending death.
Blaine felt bad that he might have triggered this freak out, but he knew that Sam didn’t have anything to worry about. He would miss Blaine, of course. He knew that it wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to deal with his death - he wasn’t callous - but Sam would be fine. He’d get into college eventually. He would meet other friends and grow up and get married - at the appropriate age - and he’d have an amazing family. He had a future, he just needed to relax and let it happen naturally.
“Projecting? Like in geometry class when we draw those lines?” Sam asked.
“What?” he asked confused before shaking it off. It wasn’t important. “No. I just mean that this is a really stressful time for you right now. You still haven’t gotten your SAT results back and everyone is planning college trips and talking about early acceptances. It’s okay not to be sure about your future, a lot of kids our age aren’t. Then with me getting sick and the stress that’s probably causing, I just think that maybe you’re focusing on this apocalypse thing because it’s easier than trying to figure out what your own future is going to look like once this year is over and friends start moving away or, in my case, dying.”
“I know what the future holds - tsunamis and horrible sea monsters,” Sam said, standing up and glaring at Blaine like he’d betrayed him. “And this isn’t some thing, the science is all there. The world is ending on Friday whether you want to believe it or not.”
“What are you going to do if Friday comes and goes and nothing happens?” he asked.
“I have to go,” Sam said, shrugging off his concerns and grabbing his coat off of the coffee table.
“We need to talk about this,” he called after him, concerned at what other stupid decisions Sam might be planning for his ‘last days.’
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sam said.
“Sam-”
“You’re still coming to that party. You don’t get to bail on this just because we’re fighting. You’re my best man and I expect to see you there so we can spend the last day on Earth together. You can send your RSVP to Lord Tubbington,” he said before storming past Cooper who’d just walked into the house and was looking at them both like they’d gone crazy.
“What was that about?” Cooper asked as Sam slammed the door, causing them both to grimace.
“He thinks the world is ending in two days, so he got married,” Blaine groaned, throwing himself back on the couch and closing his eyes, hoping the pounding in his head would go away soon. Maybe Tina would know what to do...
“I’m telling you, if you would just let me film you and your insane friends we’d have a contract with a major network by now,” Cooper said, trying to lighten the mood, but Blaine didn’t think he’d be able to laugh as long as something was seriously wrong with Sam. It was bad enough that Kurt was still being passive aggressive with him every time he called, now he had to deal with Sam losing his mind, too.
****
The next morning, Blaine had his mom drop him off at the Hummel’s after his radiation treatment. He was sick of Kurt claiming that everything was perfectly fine when clearly he was upset. He was tired of superficial conversations and text messages back and forth and Kurt always finding some excuse not to come over to see him. He wanted his boyfriend back and if that wasn’t possible, he wanted to at least talk about it rather than go on pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.
“Are you here to see Sam?” Kurt asked after he opened the door and saw Blaine standing there.
Blaine’s heart dropped at the icy tone in Kurt’s voice, but he refused to turn around and give up. Somebody had to start the conversation between them and Kurt clearly wasn’t about to.
“I’m here to see you, Kurt,” he said, hating how small his voice sounded.
Kurt stared at him for so long that Blaine’s teeth had started chattering from the cold. It wasn’t until Blaine’s watch began beeping, signaling that it was time for him to take his medication, that Kurt finally stepped aside and waved him in. Usually, the two of them would have headed straight upstairs to Kurt’s room, it’s where they preferred to have serious conversations. Instead, Kurt led the way into the kitchen, causing the knot in Blaine’s stomach to increase. This didn’t feel right, it wasn’t them.
He sat down at the table and pulled the Ziplock bag full of his many prescriptions out of his satchel while Kurt fixed them both something to drink. The room was silent, neither of them knowing what to say. The tension in the room was obvious and it was pressing down on Blaine, making him feel like he was drowning. A glass of water was placed in front of him wordlessly. Blaine smiled his thanks and watched as Kurt pulled out his laptop and started typing away at what he could only assume was his latest Vogue assignment.
One by one, Blaine swallowed each of his pills and carefully put everything back into his satchel, dejected when Kurt never once looked up from his computer screen. Usually, he’d be hovering over him and triple checking that he’d taken everything correctly and hadn’t forgotten any of his prescriptions. It just wasn’t like him not to care. He hadn’t even criticized his red beanie that in no way, shape, or form went with the rest of his look today.
Blaine didn’t say anything. He patiently waited for Kurt to finish whatever it was he was working on, but he silently wondered if he ever would. Maybe Kurt would continue to ignore him until he finally gave up and left. Maybe that’s what Kurt was looking for, an excuse to leave. Was he pushing Blaine away? Did he want to be finished with him but didn’t know how to say it?
No, Blaine scolded himself. That was the kind of thinking that had lead him to cheat in the first place. It wasn’t true. Kurt loved him. He was just…
Well, Blaine wasn’t exactly sure what the problem was, but he wouldn’t find out by sitting here in silence.
“I’m sorry that I told you I was too tired to hang out, then went out with Sam. I wasn’t trying to blow you off, I promise,” he said, hoping that apologizing for the millionth time would do the trick.
“Okay,” Kurt said, not even looking up from his work.
“Please don’t do that,” he said, pathetically. “I’m being serious. I was sleeping but then he came over and told me about Unique and even though I felt horrible and wanted to stay in bed, I couldn’t not help. I wasn’t blowing you off.”
“I know,” Kurt said, finally shutting his laptop and pushing it out of the way.
“You do?” he asked, and Kurt nodded. “Okay, so then why are you giving me the cold shoulder.”
“I’m not.”
“You haven’t texted me more than one word responses in a week. Don’t even get me started on how one-sided our phone conversations have become,” he said, growing frustrated. “If you’re mad at me, then talk to me. Having cancer doesn’t mean that I’m going to suddenly break if you want to yell at me. I’m sure you’ve got at least a few snappy comebacks saved up that you want to use.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” Kurt said with a deep sigh.
“Then talk to me,” he said. “Let’s figure this out together, because clearly something isn’t working. Is it me? Do you not want to do this anymore?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt said, looking at him like breaking up was the craziest idea he’d ever heard. It calmed his nerves to know that Kurt wasn’t calling it quits, but it didn’t change the fact that something was still clearly wrong.
“Do you miss New York?” he asked.
“I guess, yeah, but that’s not what’s bothering me.”
“You have to tell me what’s wrong, or I can’t help you,” he said.
“I don’t know, okay?” Kurt snapped.
“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender until Kurt took a deep breath and calmed down. “Are you confused about how you’re feeling?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Kurt said.
“Can you try to explain it?” he asked, just hoping for Kurt to say something more than ‘I don’t know.’ Something that he could go on to try and figure out where it was that they’d messed up. Last week they’d been completely fine, Kurt had claimed to forgive him and it was like old times, now Kurt was keeping him at a distance and the only thing he had to go off of was that it had something to do with Sam.
“I can’t help but feel like you lied to me,” Kurt said.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, I told you what happened,” he said, frustrated. There was only so many ways he could explain himself, if Kurt didn’t believe him, then Blaine couldn’t make him.
“I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t tell me if you want to hang out with your friends,” Kurt said.
“Okay, and I don’t want you to get angry every time I do hang out with my friends,” he said pointedly.
True, he hadn’t meant to blow Kurt off so that he could hang out with New Directions. He really had intended to spend the entire day in bed. However, there would come a time when his friends invited him somewhere and Blaine was going to say yes. He didn’t want to have to feel guilty every time he wanted to hang out with his friends and not Kurt. They couldn’t possibly spend every moment together, it wasn’t healthy. Kurt had work to do and he’d want some distance away from him and he didn’t want to ever put himself in a position again where he didn’t have anyone to rely on apart from Kurt.
Sam was a good friend. Tina, Brittany, Sugar, they were all really great people and they gave him things that Kurt just couldn’t. They made him laugh when things got too serious. They weren’t afraid to hold him close in public, when he was feeling bad. At the same time though, they didn’t treat him like he was made of glass, just because he was sick. They didn’t take themselves too seriously, but they always had his back at the end of the day. They made him feel like a normal kid, despite everything, and that was important to him.
Blaine needed Kurt more than anybody else in the world. Kurt was the other half of his soul and no matter how cheesy that sounded, he honestly believed it to be true. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need his friends, too, and he needed Kurt to be okay with that. He never would have told Kurt he couldn’t hang out with Rachel or Mercedes. Kurt never would have let him dictate who he hung out with. So why did Kurt have a problem with his friends?
“It just makes me nervous that you would tell me one thing and then do something else,” Kurt said. “It makes me wonder what else you might lie to me about and I hate that.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I might have made many mistakes, but I’ve never been untruthful to you.”
“You don’t tell me everything,” Kurt said.
“When have I ever not told you something?” he asked. “I came to you when I cheated and explained what happened. I didn’t hide that even though I knew it meant we’d have to break up-”
“You didn’t tell me for weeks,” Kurt argued.
“I was sick and I wanted to be able to tell you in person rather than over the phone, I felt like you deserved that,” he said, pleading with him to understand. It wasn’t that he was trying to be sneaky, he’d always known that he would come clean to Kurt, he just hadn’t been able to make the trip up.
“I deserve you to not say one thing and do another,” Kurt said. “If you say that you’re tired and you just want to stay at home and rest, I’m going to assume that’s what you’re doing and I don’t want to have to start doubting that and wondering if you’re off sleeping with somebody else.”
“I’m not sleeping with Sam,” he said.
“Maybe he was right and I should have known that you were sick, but you should have talked to me about it, too,” Kurt said, catching Blaine off guard.
“What?”
Is that what Sam and Kurt have been fighting about this entire time? Whose fault it was that he’d gotten cancer? As if one of them was to blame for the fact that he was dying and no doctor knew how to fix him.
“You were sick for weeks and never said a word to me about it,” Kurt snapped at him angrily. “And part of that is my fault, I get that. I know that you don’t just come right out and say that you’re having problems and I should have known, but I was six hundred miles away! You should have told me.”
“I tried!” he yelled.
“Not hard enough!”
Blaine felt his temper snap and he slammed his hands down harshly on the table, causing one of the water glasses to knock over, but he didn’t bother to fix it. A rage took over his body and words started pouring from his mouth faster than he could stop them.
“Do you really want to sit here and get into all of this?” he said, viciously and he felt a sick feeling of joy at the way Kurt sat back in his seat and looked at him in fear. Inside, he was screaming at himself to stop, that this wasn’t him, but he just kept going, unable to control himself.
“Do you want me to bring up all of the times that I called you up after just throwing up, hoping you’d answer so that I could hear your voice? How many times I thought that all I needed to feel better was to hear your voice, only to get your voicemail whenever I called. Do you want me to talk about how you hung up on me when I was trying to tell you I missed you, that I needed you? I was hurting! I was sick for weeks and I just wanted you here, but I couldn’t even get a hold of you. Do you want me to talk about how I was wondering if some fancy New York guy had you spread out on his bed-”
“Stop it!” Kurt tried to cut him off, but Blaine just kept on going.
“Why else wouldn’t my boyfriend be home when he said he would be?” he asked.
“I was working!” Kurt yelled. “You don’t get to turn this around on me when you’re the one that sexted half of Ohio.”
There was a part of him that knew this wasn’t fair. That knew he needed to calm down and talk about this rationally, but rational wasn’t happening. He was tired from the radiation and sick from the chemo and he didn’t need this right now.
“Don’t act like you gave a damn about me,” he said. “You forgot about me the second you got that job.”
“Blaine, just calm down, this isn’t you,” Kurt said carefully, clearly afraid of what might happen if he didn’t get a handle on his temper, and the look of terror on his face hit him hard. It was like a switch had been flipped and suddenly all of his anger was melting away and he was back to feeling like himself again.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” he said, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s - it’s just the tumor,” Kurt said, inching closer to him and awkwardly patting him on the back, clearly uncomfortable now and that made him feel sick.
“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” he said, looking into Kurt’s eyes and trying to make him see that he was being sincere. “I do want to talk about this, rationally. I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“It sounds like you do,” Kurt said, cautiously.
“I cheated on you and that’s my fault,” he said. “It’s not yours.”
“No, it’s not,” Kurt said. “And I would appreciate it if you would tell your boyfriend that, too. I’m sick of him walking around like he’s so much better than me.”
“I want you to hear me clearly when I say this, Kurt,” he said, shifting in his seat so that he was facing Kurt properly. “Sam is not my boyfriend. He’s my friend. He’s a really good friend. I’m sorry if he’s giving you a hard time or making you feel like this is somehow your fault, but you should know that he’s not having the easiest time either right now. This is just as hard for him as it is for you. I’m not sleeping with him and I don’t plan to, but I’m also not going to stop hanging out with him just because we are back together. I need him and I hope you can understand that.”
“I know you’re not doing anything wrong,” Kurt said. “Deep down, I do know that you and Sam aren’t hooking up behind my back. I just - I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do, just keep talking,” he said, feeling better that at least they were getting somewhere, even if the idea of Sam and him hooking up was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard, at least Kurt was talking to him. They were always better when they communicated with each other. Every time they’d ever had a fight, it had been because one of them had stopped talking.
“I never used to be like this,” Kurt said, crossing his arms and legs, sitting up straighter in his seat and staring off into the distance. He was embarrassed about something, but Blaine couldn’t understand why.
“Like what?” he asked, pressing for more.
“Jealous,” Kurt said. “Anytime I see you with other people this monster takes over my body and I just feel like ripping the heads off of anyone that talks to you.”
“I can understand that,” he said, thinking back to all of the times he had felt jealous.
“You can?”
“Yeah,” he said with a small smile, trying to show Kurt that he wasn’t judging him. “I mean when you were texting Chandler, I honestly thought I was going to get sent to jail for murder. I went on Facebook and looked up every single Chandler that lives in Lima, trying to figure out who he was.”
“How’d that work out?” Kurt asked with an amused snort.
“There are fifty-seven Chandler’s in Lima alone,” he said.
“Seriously? Fifty-seven? How is that possible?”
“The Friends effect I guess,” he said with a shrug. “My point is, it’s okay to feel jealous sometimes. So long as you understand that Sam and I aren’t doing anything.”
“It’s not just Sam, it’s everyone,” Kurt said with a groan. “Tina posted a picture of you two hugging and my mind instantly went to that time you made out with Rachel and I thought I was going to throw my computer out the window. I hate feeling like this. I was never jealous before.”
“That’s not true, you got pretty jealous around Sebastian,” he said.
“That’s not the same, I never honestly believed you’d hook up with him before,” Kurt said.
“But you do now,” he said with a nod of his head, understanding exactly what Kurt was saying.
Now that Blaine had cheated on Kurt, nothing was certain anymore. Every look, every touch was going to be cause for concern when it came to Blaine. Kurt would always be wondering if it meant something more and Blaine only had himself to blame for that.
“I wasn’t lying when I said that I forgive you, I do. I still love you and I want to trust you again,” Kurt said, giving him a sympathetic look, like Blaine wasn’t the one who had caused this problem. It made him feel sick.
“But you don’t,” he answered for himself, thinking that it would hurt less saying it himself than having to hear Kurt say it - he was wrong. The way Kurt’s eyes filled with tears confirmed what he said was true and Blaine felt as if somebody had shoved their hand through his chest and ripped his lungs out.
“I know that you love me,” Kurt said with a shaky voice as tears fell down both of their faces. “I know that you didn’t want to cheat on me in the first place and that you’re sick. And maybe if you weren’t, I’d be able to believe it more when I hear you say that nothing’s going on, but I just - I can’t help but picture you with somebody else every time you’re not with me.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, needing to fix this somehow. “I mean, short of being with you every second of the day, I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I don’t think we can,” Kurt said. “I think we just have to deal with it.”
Blaine looked away and tried to blink back his tears, tried hard not to break down completely. It wasn’t fair to make Kurt feel worse than he already did for something that was Blaine’s fault. He just didn’t understand why this had to happen to him. Why did he have to get sick? Why did he have to have a tumor in his brain? As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was dying, but he had to have a tumor in the one part of his body that made it impossible for Kurt to trust him, because how could Kurt trust him when there was something eating away at his brain and forcing him to do things that he had no control over.
No matter how many times Blaine said that he loved Kurt, it wouldn’t matter. The tumor didn’t care about his relationship. It would do what it wanted whenever it wanted and Blaine couldn’t stop it. Kurt was being realistic. He knew that there would come a day where Blaine would act on his impulses and his lack of judgment skills would cause him to do something he’d regret. He didn’t want to hurt Kurt again, but he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen.
No matter how much they loved each other, it wasn’t fair to ask Kurt to stay with him.
“So we’re breaking up,” Blaine said, feeling worse than he had when he’d first been diagnosed. Feeling worse than when he’d been told that no surgery could save him. Dying was scary and real and more terrifying than anything else Blaine had ever experienced before… but dying alone? That was something he didn’t think he’d have the strength to do.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and curled in on himself as he began to sob. He felt Kurt’s arms around him and that only made him cry harder.
“Will you please stop saying that, no,” Kurt said. “We’re not breaking up.”
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” he cried.
Maybe Sam would be right and the world would end tomorrow and Blaine wouldn’t have to figure out how to live in a world where Kurt couldn’t be around him. It certainly felt like the world was ending - maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe they’d foreseen this very moment and had taken pity on him. Rather than make him go through months of horrible treatment that he didn’t want, rather than force him to learn what it felt like to have your body slowly betray you as it started to shut down with nobody to hold him close at night and kiss away the pain, they’d planned an apocalypse on his behalf.
“You don’t have to,” Kurt said, tearfully. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He turned his body into Kurt’s and buried his face into Kurt’s neck, allowing himself to take comfort in the warm arms around him. His own wrapped around Kurt and squeezed tight enough to bruise, but he couldn’t force himself to loosen his grip. It felt like if he let go, everything around him would disappear.
As Blaine took in a deep breath, trying to force air into his shrinking lungs, he caught a whiff of Kurt’s cologne. It was the same kind that Blaine had bought him for Christmas last year. God, they’d had so much time together and they’d wasted it on stupid things. The amount of time they’d spent watching TV and just sitting there next to each other, not taking advantage of the time they had left - they’d had no idea back then. No concept of how short a life together could really be. They’d just thrown it away like it didn’t matter.
Thinking back on all the time that they could have spent together, all the things that they should have done, it only made him cry harder.
He should have taken Kurt ice skating - he’d always wanted to teach him how, ever since they’d watched Go Figure on Disney Channel that one time and Kurt had confessed that he’d never been. They should have talked more, sung more duets, done anything. They had so many happy memories, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
“I’m so scared,” he whispered and part of him hoped that Kurt didn’t hear it because he’d been determined to be strong. His family was falling apart and Sam wasn’t doing much better and somebody had to be the strong one. Only, he couldn’t do it. Not all of the time, and now here he was, sobbing on Kurt’s shoulder like a little kid.
“I am, too, but you’re not alone,” Kurt said.
His tears started to subside, but his arms didn’t loosen their death grip. He tucked his head more comfortably on Kurt’s shoulder and tried to find solace in the loving way that Kurt was rubbing at his neck. Crying always made him feel drained, like he’d just run a marathon. His body was starting to protest against him for losing control like that and a headache made itself known.
He groaned in pain and Kurt seemed to sense what the problem was. Without being asked, he leaned over and pulled the Ziplock back out and began searching for the painkillers the doctor had prescribed him for cases like this. Once he found them and triple checked the instructions on the bottle, he helped Blaine sit up and take the medicine.
“I know it’s not fair for me to say this, but I honestly don’t think I’ll get through this without you,” he said.
“Blaine, stop it,” Kurt said, pulling him back into his arms and letting Blaine rest his aching head on his shoulder. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” he mumbled.
“Okay?” Kurt asked and he simply nodded.
Kurt let him rest against him in silence while they waited for the medicine to kick in. It was taking longer to take effect now that Blaine’s body wasn’t as quick to recover and he was going to have to ask about getting a stronger dose next time he went in. Between the radiation and starting chemo, he just wasn’t as strong as he used to be and it was getting harder to tough out the pain once it started. Truth be told, he wasn’t really sure how he managed to survive it as long as he had. He could still remember the months before his fall waking up every day with blinding pain and only having Advil to help numb it. Now he could barely manage on the prescription strength painkillers he had.
Kurt rubbed his back and sang to him softly as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on anything but the pain. Kurt always was able to soothe his aches faster than anyone else and soon he was feeling warm, content, and completely comfortable. When he opened his eyes again, he felt more like himself.
“You’re awake.” Kurt smiled down at him as he shut his laptop closed.
“Was I sleeping?” he asked, looking around confused. When had Kurt gotten his computer out again?
“For a little over an hour,” Kurt whispered, always careful to talk quietly to him after he’d had a headache, in case he was still hurting.
“You could have woken me up and moved me,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and praying that he didn’t drool on Kurt’s favorite sweater.
“Not for the world.”
He shifted around until he was sitting in his seat properly again, not entirely sure how he’d ended up practically in Kurt’s lap. He glanced down at the table and saw that the glass he’d spilled earlier had been cleaned up and a new ice water had been placed in front of him. He didn’t know how Kurt had managed to do that without moving and wondered if Carole hadn’t come home and helped out. He blushed, wondering if Kurt had explained just why the water had spilled in the first place. He was still embarrassed about losing his temper earlier. Kurt deserved better than an angry, bitter boyfriend and he didn’t want to turn episodes like that into a habit.
He picked up the water and took several sips, trying to rid himself of the dry mouth that always accumulated when he slept - a side effect of the radiation. When he was finished, Kurt took his hand in his own and brought it up to his lips. He couldn’t help but smile as Kurt placed a gentle kiss there, reminding him that he loved him. No matter how much they might fight, they still loved each other and that wouldn’t change.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better now,” he said, leaning in to kiss Kurt softly on the lips. “Thanks for letting me use you as a pillow.”
“Anytime,” Kurt said. “So, are we going to talk about why you have an electric razor in your bag?”
“Oh, that,” he said with a blush, training his eyes on the coffee stain on the table that had never come out no matter how much they’d scrubbed. Carole had become a drill sergeant about coasters after that and they’d never figured out whose fault the stain was.
“Yeah, that,” Kurt teased him.
In the midst of all of the crying, he’d completely forgotten that they were in there. Now, he was suddenly reminded why he’d come over in the first place.
“I actually need a favor,” he said, hating the fact that he even had to ask Kurt to do this, but he didn’t think he could go to his mother and he didn’t trust anybody else with something as delicate as this.
Kurt looked at him expectantly and so he took a steadying breath and continued, “My hair started falling out last week.”
He heard Kurt take a sharp intake of breath and he averted his eyes, not wanting to see the pitying look he was sure was there. It only made him feel more awkward about the entire situation.
“Blaine.”
“I thought I could ignore it, but I already have the one spot from the surgery and another one where I’m getting my radiation and I just… I don’t want to be eighteen with a receding hairline. I’d rather just embrace it and try to own it like Bruce Willis or something. That way nobody can make a joke out of it,” he finished, hoping he sounded confident, because he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to go through with this.
“Nobody would make a joke out of this,” Kurt said, reaching out to twist his fingers in a curl that had found its way loose and was sticking out from his hat.
“Still. I just want it over with. Every time I shower and pull out clumps of hair I feel helpless and I don’t want to be helpless. I want to be strong. Can you please just shave it all off?” he asked.
“You’re sure?”
“No,” he admitted. “But if you don’t do it, I’ll be bald by the end of next week anyway, so what does it really matter?”
Kurt nodded his understanding and stood up. With shaky hands, he reached into the bag and took out the supplies - scissors, shaving cream, an electric razor and a straight blade. Blaine carefully removed his hat, self-conscious about what Kurt would think once he saw how bad it had become. There were just so many places where he’s lost his hair that he couldn’t comb over it all anymore. He trained his eyes on the stain in the table and tried not to flinch when Kurt’s fingers ran through what was left of his hair. He felt hideous and not even remotely attractive, he wasn’t sure why Kurt hadn’t run out of the room screaming yet.
“You’re so brave,” Kurt said, kissing the back of his neck.
“I hate when people say that,” he admitted with a shake of his head.
“I know, but you’re handling this all with more grace than I could imagine and I’m proud of you for that.”
Kurt’s arms moved to untie his bow tie and Blaine caught them and pulled him down for a proper kiss, trying his best to make this normal, like this was something all boyfriends did together.
“You make me feel strong.” Blaine said, hoping it didn’t sound as cheesy as it did to his own ears.
“I bet you’ll still look like a handsome, classic, movie star when you’re bald.” Kurt gave him that smile, the one that made him feel like he hung the moon and he honestly wasn’t sure how he deserved it, but he didn’t fight it.
“That’s what you say now. Wait until we discover I have an awkward shaped head,” he said, trying to keep things light before he could get emotional again. It was just hair, after all. Who really needed it?
“Honey, with the way you mat down your hair every day, I’m sure we would have already discovered that long ago.”
“Touché,” he laughed.
Kurt tied a towel around his neck to try and keep the hair from getting onto his clothes, then moved to pick up the scissors.
“Here goes,” Kurt said, nervously.
“I’m not going to watch,” he said, closing his eyes tight and flinching at the sound of the first snip.
“Just think about something else,” Kurt said and he tried.
“I’m going to the orthopedic next week and if my X-ray comes back okay they’ll give me a walking cast,” he said, forcing himself to ignore the sound of the scissors snipping away right in his ear.
“That’s awesome,” Kurt said. “I guess that means I don’t have to try and convince you to let me bedazzle your crutches anymore?”
“If you can figure out a way to making a walking cast look badass, I’m all ears,” he said.
“I’m not going to color coordinate it to match your Nightbird costume, I have a limit to how much dork I’ll allow,” Kurt said. Blaine chuckled and opened his eyes, seeing the floor littered with little brown curls.
“I think I’m going to be nauseous,” he groaned as the enormity of what they were doing sank in. They were cutting off his hair. Now he wouldn’t only be the kid with cancer, but he’d look like the kid with cancer. People on the street would look at him and just know.
Oh God, this was a mistake.
“You!” Kurt exclaimed, sounding just as traumatized by the whole ordeal. “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this. I’ve never cut hair before!”
“You’re taking it all off, I’m not sure you can really mess that up,” he said, trying to bring a sense of calm back into the room so they could both make it through this. This was something that had to be done. “Besides, I would feel weird asking anyone else to do this.”
Kurt smiled down at him and thankfully didn’t mention how terrible it was that their lives had come to this. He didn’t mention how strange it was to be sitting in the middle of Kurt’s kitchen, shaving his head.
“At least your eyebrows are still perfect,” Kurt said, trying to put him back at ease as he moved to finish cutting off his hair.
“Don’t even joke, they are going to fall out soon,” he whined, self-consciously running his fingers over his face to check and see that they were in fact still there. “My eyelashes, too. At least that’s what everyone on the message boards says.”
“Well maybe the fact that they’re so thick will be a blessing,” Kurt said. “We probably won’t even notice if your eyebrows start to fall out, you have so much-”
“Leave me alone,” he interjected before Kurt could finish his sentence.
“Please, you know I always loved your eyebrows. I mean if there’s ever a role to play Peter Gallagher's son, you know that you’re shoo-in.”
“I knew you were lying about your crush on Mr. Cohen that day we watched The O.C. together,” he laughed.
“Like you didn’t have your own O.C. fantasies,” Kurt argued.
“Yes, I wanted to marry Ryan Atwood along with the rest of the world. That’s normal. Mr. Cohen was a dad,” he said in mock disgust.
“A hot dad,” Kurt laughed.
“You’re a freak,” he mumbled and thankfully, was too wrapped up in the conversation to even notice when Kurt plugged in the electric razor and began shaving the rest of his hair off.
“You told me once that Tom Hardy was going to be your second husband if we ever got a divorce,” Kurt said. “You don’t get to judge me.”
“Taylor Lautner, Tom Hardy,” Blaine said, holding up two hands and turning around to look at Kurt like he was crazy. No matter how much he loved Kurt, he was never going to get behind his obsession with Twilight.
“You’re going to lose an ear if you don’t sit still.” Kurt gestured to the clippers in his hand, shushed him and pushed at his shoulders until he turned back around.
“I’m just saying, Inception, Dark Knight Rises, I’m completely justified in my taste in men. If you don’t believe me, go look in a mirror,” he said.
“I could say the same to you,” Kurt said.
“Yes, I’m sure after today I’m going to be a real catch,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“You’re never going to stop being beautiful,” Kurt said and he smiled as their playful bickering stopped and they fell into a comfortable silence, the sound of the clippers not as terrifying anymore with his boyfriend at his side.
“So what are you doing tonight?” Blaine asked once they had finished and Kurt was sweeping all the hair off of the floor.
“Nothing really, why?” he asked.
“I’m supposed to be going to a wedding reception and I didn’t know if you wanted to be my date,” he said, thinking back to his conversation with Sam and worrying about him again now that he’d settled things with Kurt.
“What?” Kurt stopped, looking up at him confused.
“Sam and Brittany got married,” he explained, starting to pack up his back. It was getting later and he still needed to go home and change before heading out to the party tonight. He was pretty sure it was in bad taste for the best man to be late.
“I know,” Kurt said. “You should have seen my dad lose it on him at dinner yesterday.”
“Your dad did?” he asked, surprised when Kurt nodded his head. He didn’t think Mr. Hummel would be crazy about the idea of Sam getting married, but he’d also never seen the man yell and had a hard time picturing it. Mr. Hummel always struck him as a bit of a teddy bear, despite his rough outside appearance. “Poor Sam,” he added. “I didn’t take the news that well either.”
“Yeah, well he’s insane,” Kurt said with a roll of his eyes. “Do either of them even understand what it means to be married? This is worse than when Finn and Rachel got engaged.”
“I think he’s just having a rough time right now with everything that's going on,” he explained, defensively. He wasn’t the biggest fan of the wedding either and he thought it was crazy, but he cared about Sam and he wasn’t going to sit around and trash talk him with Kurt. Especially not given their relationship.
“You mean everything that’s going on with you?” Kurt asked.
“With me. With graduation,” he explained. “He’s so good at taking care of everyone else and I think we sometimes forget to stop and take care of him, too.”
“And Brittany is going to be able to do that for him?” Kurt asked, doubtfully.
“At least he’s not beating Jacob Ben Israel up with an umbrella,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing, different meltdown,” Blaine said. “It’s been a rough, weird year for everyone.”
“Okay,” Kurt said and looked like he was going to comment further but then thought better of it and returned to the topic. “My dad’s trying to figure out if Coach Beiste was even ordained to marry them.”
“Coach Bieste married them? Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “It can’t be real if she was involved. She wouldn’t let them make such a life changing decision without thinking it over first.”
“That’s what I tried to explain to my dad, but you know, he’s still looking into it,” Kurt explained. “It was weird, I guess I didn’t realize that my dad and Sam were that close, but he gave Sam the whole. ‘you matter’ speech and everything.”
“Yeah, well Sam’s had to spend a lot of time away from home in order to go to school here. Your dad’s been like a second father to him,” he explained.
“I guess,” Kurt said and Blaine could still sense some lingering tension there but he chose to ignore it.
“So will you come with me?” he asked.
“You’re still going to go to the reception even though you don’t approve?” Kurt asked.
“I’m going to be supportive until Friday passes, they realize the world hasn’t ended and I can convince him to file for an annulment,” he said.
“And if you can’t?” Kurt asked.
“Then I’ll be there to support him regardless,” he shrugged.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” Kurt asked.
“He’s been there for me more than I can possibly explain,” he said, sincerely. He didn’t want Kurt to read too much into his relationship with Sam, but he wasn’t going to diminish it either.
“I’m glad you two are such good friends,” Kurt said and he could tell that Kurt wanted to sound sincere - that he wanted to mean it - but he didn’t.
“But you don’t trust us,” he added for himself, looking down at the ground sadly.
“I’m trying,” Kurt said.
So it was back to this again, they were going to continue to have the same conversation over and over and never solve anything. Why couldn’t they just be past this already?
“I don’t know how else to convince you that I’m telling the truth,” he said, trying not to get frustrated.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” Kurt said and that made Blaine feel horrible, because he was never good at letting things be. He always had to be the one to fix things, to poke and prod until people opened up and let him help. He didn’t know how to let it go, but Kurt was telling him there wasn’t anything that could be done.
“I hate this.”
“I think that the two of us just need to realize that things might not be able to go back to exactly how they used to be and we need to give ourselves some time to adjust to our new relationship,” Kurt said.
“I don’t want to adjust, I want my best friend back,” he whined and didn’t even care how pathetic it might sound.
“You have your best friend and you have your boyfriend. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“It just feels like you’re a million miles away,” he said.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you about this,” Kurt said. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I don’t want you to not tell me things,” he groaned, that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. He wanted to get back to that point in their lives where they told each other everything.
“Same, I don’t want you to ever lie to me,” Kurt said.
“I won’t,” he promised.
“I want to believe you-” Kurt trailed off and Blaine knew what he was going to say. He wanted to believe him but he couldn’t trust him, not with the tumor causing him to act so out of control.
“I understand,” he said trying to remain calm and not jump to defend himself. Kurt was entitled to his feelings and he had to respect that. “I don’t like it, but I can’t argue with you about it. I just want us to work.”
“Me, too,” Kurt said.
“Okay, so can we just forget about this fight?” he pleaded. “I hate fighting with you.”
“Oh, yes please,” Kurt said. “There’s been so many things I’ve wanted to text you about all week.”
“Awesome,” he said. “You can tell me about it as you’re driving me home. I need you to help me find an appropriate best man suit to wear tonight.”
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: This is the last of the completed chapters, so I'll be posting a little less frequently from here on out, but the story shouldn't have too many more chapters too it!
Tumblr // AO3 // FF.net
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7
****
Five days after their epic performance at school, Blaine found himself sitting in his living room with an old, now forgotten, episode of X-men playing in the background as Sam jumped up and down and told Blaine that he’d just married Brittany. He was grinning at him like it was the best news in the world and Blaine was trying to figure out at what point his friend had lost his mind. He’d known that Sam was under more stress than usual, but he’d never expected him to spontaneously get married because of it.
“I don’t believe this,” he said, burying his head in his hands.
“We wanted to invite you but we kept it private; you can come to the reception, though. We’re throwing a big party tomorrow night,” Sam said. “You can give us a congratulatory serenade then. You’ll need a speech, the best man always gives a speech.”
“The best man? Wh-” Blaine stopped himself before the conversation got off task. This was important. His best friend had gotten married to a girl who until two weeks ago was still lusting after Santana. “Has Brittany told Santana about this?”
“Why would it matter? They broke up,” he said.
“I don’t understand, you’ve only been dating a few weeks!” he exclaimed, trying to wrap his brain around how crazy this was all sounding.
“And we’ve only got a few more days to live,” Sam said. “There’s no other girl I want to spend this short forever with.”
“Where is this coming from?” he asked, trying to remain calm and understanding.
Sam was his friend, after all, and Blaine didn’t want to make him feel bad, but this entire thing was insane. At least when Rachel and Finn had gotten engaged they’d been dating for a long time. This came out of nowhere and the two of them were hardly mature enough to handle being married.
“Did you not watch the History Channel documentary that I recorded for you?” he asked. “They were real actors portraying real events, it’s totally happening.”
“Sam, what are you talking about?” he asked, completely frustrated.
“The world is going to end on December 21st, we only have two more days before we meet Q’uq’umatz, the feathered snake god,” Sam said, sounding manic.
“What?” he asked, rubbing at the headache that was starting to form.
“The Mayan Apocalypse is coming!” Sam said with such intensity that Blaine could tell this wasn’t a joke to him.
“Okay,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything else.
He knew that the two of them joked around about super heroes and evil villains a lot, but that was all it was - a joke. They enjoyed marathoning Teen Wolf and Buffy the Vampire Slayer when they weren’t busy running around stealing back nationals trophies. What teenage boy didn’t do stuff like that? This was different, though. Sam was serious. He honestly believed the world was going to end and he’d just made a life changing decision because of it.
He wasn’t exactly sure how approach this, but he knew he was going to have to think of something. Sam had been there for him in every way possible since the diagnosis. He put aside all of his own feelings about Blaine dying to make him feel at ease. Now Blaine needed to return the favor and try to figure out what was really going on with his friend. He couldn’t honestly believe that the end of the world was coming, could he?
“No, it’s not okay! The end times are here and nobody is taking this seriously,” Sam said, throwing himself down on the couch.
“I’m listening to you, okay?” he said, calmly. “Just talk to me. Tell me how you’re feeling?”
“I got married,” Sam said.
“So you said,” he responded, biting back a million retorts as to why getting married was a horrible idea.
“It all feels really surreal, you know? Like everything is hyper-intensified because the world is ending and every moment is the last time for something,” Sam explained. “It’s really cool to be able to be honest with everyone and be able to see the world from such a new perspective.”
“It’s cool?” he asked, unsure how the world ending could be considered cool. It sounded horrible and terrifying to Blaine, even if it was fiction.
Shit, Blaine had been thinking about his own death for a few weeks now and he’d yet to find any aspect of it refreshing. He wasn’t sure how Sam could possibly think the prospect of dying was fascinating.
“Yeah, I mean think of all the people that die without any sort of forewarning. Or the people that have to bury loved ones and how hard it must be to say goodbye to them, having to continue your life without them. We’re all going to die together and even though the dying part kind of sucks, we are lucky that we’re able to do it with the people we love most at our side.”
“Sam” he started, feeling his eyes start to well up as he began to realize where this was all coming from.
Sam was scared. He was facing a future where everyone was being forced to make decisions about their life and Sam had no idea what he was doing. They’d watched their friends graduate last year and go off to wonderful exciting futures that didn’t include them anymore. They were getting closer to graduating and ending their childhoods. Many of them would go out of state to school and never come back. Blaine wouldn’t even make it to graduation. They would all be saying goodbye soon and Sam would have to make a new home, with new people.
He was scared.
“And we don’t have to spend so much time worrying about the future anymore and graduation and all that stuff because we’re all going to go onto the next life together,” Sam continued. “We can just focus on the here and now. It’s kind of beautiful if you think about it.”
“Do you think that maybe you’re projecting, just a little bit?” he asked, wondering how much of Sam’s anxiety out was due to graduation and how much of it was to do with Sam having to stand by helplessly and watch Blaine’s impending death.
Blaine felt bad that he might have triggered this freak out, but he knew that Sam didn’t have anything to worry about. He would miss Blaine, of course. He knew that it wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to deal with his death - he wasn’t callous - but Sam would be fine. He’d get into college eventually. He would meet other friends and grow up and get married - at the appropriate age - and he’d have an amazing family. He had a future, he just needed to relax and let it happen naturally.
“Projecting? Like in geometry class when we draw those lines?” Sam asked.
“What?” he asked confused before shaking it off. It wasn’t important. “No. I just mean that this is a really stressful time for you right now. You still haven’t gotten your SAT results back and everyone is planning college trips and talking about early acceptances. It’s okay not to be sure about your future, a lot of kids our age aren’t. Then with me getting sick and the stress that’s probably causing, I just think that maybe you’re focusing on this apocalypse thing because it’s easier than trying to figure out what your own future is going to look like once this year is over and friends start moving away or, in my case, dying.”
“I know what the future holds - tsunamis and horrible sea monsters,” Sam said, standing up and glaring at Blaine like he’d betrayed him. “And this isn’t some thing, the science is all there. The world is ending on Friday whether you want to believe it or not.”
“What are you going to do if Friday comes and goes and nothing happens?” he asked.
“I have to go,” Sam said, shrugging off his concerns and grabbing his coat off of the coffee table.
“We need to talk about this,” he called after him, concerned at what other stupid decisions Sam might be planning for his ‘last days.’
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sam said.
“Sam-”
“You’re still coming to that party. You don’t get to bail on this just because we’re fighting. You’re my best man and I expect to see you there so we can spend the last day on Earth together. You can send your RSVP to Lord Tubbington,” he said before storming past Cooper who’d just walked into the house and was looking at them both like they’d gone crazy.
“What was that about?” Cooper asked as Sam slammed the door, causing them both to grimace.
“He thinks the world is ending in two days, so he got married,” Blaine groaned, throwing himself back on the couch and closing his eyes, hoping the pounding in his head would go away soon. Maybe Tina would know what to do...
“I’m telling you, if you would just let me film you and your insane friends we’d have a contract with a major network by now,” Cooper said, trying to lighten the mood, but Blaine didn’t think he’d be able to laugh as long as something was seriously wrong with Sam. It was bad enough that Kurt was still being passive aggressive with him every time he called, now he had to deal with Sam losing his mind, too.
****
The next morning, Blaine had his mom drop him off at the Hummel’s after his radiation treatment. He was sick of Kurt claiming that everything was perfectly fine when clearly he was upset. He was tired of superficial conversations and text messages back and forth and Kurt always finding some excuse not to come over to see him. He wanted his boyfriend back and if that wasn’t possible, he wanted to at least talk about it rather than go on pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.
“Are you here to see Sam?” Kurt asked after he opened the door and saw Blaine standing there.
Blaine’s heart dropped at the icy tone in Kurt’s voice, but he refused to turn around and give up. Somebody had to start the conversation between them and Kurt clearly wasn’t about to.
“I’m here to see you, Kurt,” he said, hating how small his voice sounded.
Kurt stared at him for so long that Blaine’s teeth had started chattering from the cold. It wasn’t until Blaine’s watch began beeping, signaling that it was time for him to take his medication, that Kurt finally stepped aside and waved him in. Usually, the two of them would have headed straight upstairs to Kurt’s room, it’s where they preferred to have serious conversations. Instead, Kurt led the way into the kitchen, causing the knot in Blaine’s stomach to increase. This didn’t feel right, it wasn’t them.
He sat down at the table and pulled the Ziplock bag full of his many prescriptions out of his satchel while Kurt fixed them both something to drink. The room was silent, neither of them knowing what to say. The tension in the room was obvious and it was pressing down on Blaine, making him feel like he was drowning. A glass of water was placed in front of him wordlessly. Blaine smiled his thanks and watched as Kurt pulled out his laptop and started typing away at what he could only assume was his latest Vogue assignment.
One by one, Blaine swallowed each of his pills and carefully put everything back into his satchel, dejected when Kurt never once looked up from his computer screen. Usually, he’d be hovering over him and triple checking that he’d taken everything correctly and hadn’t forgotten any of his prescriptions. It just wasn’t like him not to care. He hadn’t even criticized his red beanie that in no way, shape, or form went with the rest of his look today.
Blaine didn’t say anything. He patiently waited for Kurt to finish whatever it was he was working on, but he silently wondered if he ever would. Maybe Kurt would continue to ignore him until he finally gave up and left. Maybe that’s what Kurt was looking for, an excuse to leave. Was he pushing Blaine away? Did he want to be finished with him but didn’t know how to say it?
No, Blaine scolded himself. That was the kind of thinking that had lead him to cheat in the first place. It wasn’t true. Kurt loved him. He was just…
Well, Blaine wasn’t exactly sure what the problem was, but he wouldn’t find out by sitting here in silence.
“I’m sorry that I told you I was too tired to hang out, then went out with Sam. I wasn’t trying to blow you off, I promise,” he said, hoping that apologizing for the millionth time would do the trick.
“Okay,” Kurt said, not even looking up from his work.
“Please don’t do that,” he said, pathetically. “I’m being serious. I was sleeping but then he came over and told me about Unique and even though I felt horrible and wanted to stay in bed, I couldn’t not help. I wasn’t blowing you off.”
“I know,” Kurt said, finally shutting his laptop and pushing it out of the way.
“You do?” he asked, and Kurt nodded. “Okay, so then why are you giving me the cold shoulder.”
“I’m not.”
“You haven’t texted me more than one word responses in a week. Don’t even get me started on how one-sided our phone conversations have become,” he said, growing frustrated. “If you’re mad at me, then talk to me. Having cancer doesn’t mean that I’m going to suddenly break if you want to yell at me. I’m sure you’ve got at least a few snappy comebacks saved up that you want to use.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” Kurt said with a deep sigh.
“Then talk to me,” he said. “Let’s figure this out together, because clearly something isn’t working. Is it me? Do you not want to do this anymore?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt said, looking at him like breaking up was the craziest idea he’d ever heard. It calmed his nerves to know that Kurt wasn’t calling it quits, but it didn’t change the fact that something was still clearly wrong.
“Do you miss New York?” he asked.
“I guess, yeah, but that’s not what’s bothering me.”
“You have to tell me what’s wrong, or I can’t help you,” he said.
“I don’t know, okay?” Kurt snapped.
“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender until Kurt took a deep breath and calmed down. “Are you confused about how you’re feeling?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Kurt said.
“Can you try to explain it?” he asked, just hoping for Kurt to say something more than ‘I don’t know.’ Something that he could go on to try and figure out where it was that they’d messed up. Last week they’d been completely fine, Kurt had claimed to forgive him and it was like old times, now Kurt was keeping him at a distance and the only thing he had to go off of was that it had something to do with Sam.
“I can’t help but feel like you lied to me,” Kurt said.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, I told you what happened,” he said, frustrated. There was only so many ways he could explain himself, if Kurt didn’t believe him, then Blaine couldn’t make him.
“I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t tell me if you want to hang out with your friends,” Kurt said.
“Okay, and I don’t want you to get angry every time I do hang out with my friends,” he said pointedly.
True, he hadn’t meant to blow Kurt off so that he could hang out with New Directions. He really had intended to spend the entire day in bed. However, there would come a time when his friends invited him somewhere and Blaine was going to say yes. He didn’t want to have to feel guilty every time he wanted to hang out with his friends and not Kurt. They couldn’t possibly spend every moment together, it wasn’t healthy. Kurt had work to do and he’d want some distance away from him and he didn’t want to ever put himself in a position again where he didn’t have anyone to rely on apart from Kurt.
Sam was a good friend. Tina, Brittany, Sugar, they were all really great people and they gave him things that Kurt just couldn’t. They made him laugh when things got too serious. They weren’t afraid to hold him close in public, when he was feeling bad. At the same time though, they didn’t treat him like he was made of glass, just because he was sick. They didn’t take themselves too seriously, but they always had his back at the end of the day. They made him feel like a normal kid, despite everything, and that was important to him.
Blaine needed Kurt more than anybody else in the world. Kurt was the other half of his soul and no matter how cheesy that sounded, he honestly believed it to be true. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need his friends, too, and he needed Kurt to be okay with that. He never would have told Kurt he couldn’t hang out with Rachel or Mercedes. Kurt never would have let him dictate who he hung out with. So why did Kurt have a problem with his friends?
“It just makes me nervous that you would tell me one thing and then do something else,” Kurt said. “It makes me wonder what else you might lie to me about and I hate that.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I might have made many mistakes, but I’ve never been untruthful to you.”
“You don’t tell me everything,” Kurt said.
“When have I ever not told you something?” he asked. “I came to you when I cheated and explained what happened. I didn’t hide that even though I knew it meant we’d have to break up-”
“You didn’t tell me for weeks,” Kurt argued.
“I was sick and I wanted to be able to tell you in person rather than over the phone, I felt like you deserved that,” he said, pleading with him to understand. It wasn’t that he was trying to be sneaky, he’d always known that he would come clean to Kurt, he just hadn’t been able to make the trip up.
“I deserve you to not say one thing and do another,” Kurt said. “If you say that you’re tired and you just want to stay at home and rest, I’m going to assume that’s what you’re doing and I don’t want to have to start doubting that and wondering if you’re off sleeping with somebody else.”
“I’m not sleeping with Sam,” he said.
“Maybe he was right and I should have known that you were sick, but you should have talked to me about it, too,” Kurt said, catching Blaine off guard.
“What?”
Is that what Sam and Kurt have been fighting about this entire time? Whose fault it was that he’d gotten cancer? As if one of them was to blame for the fact that he was dying and no doctor knew how to fix him.
“You were sick for weeks and never said a word to me about it,” Kurt snapped at him angrily. “And part of that is my fault, I get that. I know that you don’t just come right out and say that you’re having problems and I should have known, but I was six hundred miles away! You should have told me.”
“I tried!” he yelled.
“Not hard enough!”
Blaine felt his temper snap and he slammed his hands down harshly on the table, causing one of the water glasses to knock over, but he didn’t bother to fix it. A rage took over his body and words started pouring from his mouth faster than he could stop them.
“Do you really want to sit here and get into all of this?” he said, viciously and he felt a sick feeling of joy at the way Kurt sat back in his seat and looked at him in fear. Inside, he was screaming at himself to stop, that this wasn’t him, but he just kept going, unable to control himself.
“Do you want me to bring up all of the times that I called you up after just throwing up, hoping you’d answer so that I could hear your voice? How many times I thought that all I needed to feel better was to hear your voice, only to get your voicemail whenever I called. Do you want me to talk about how you hung up on me when I was trying to tell you I missed you, that I needed you? I was hurting! I was sick for weeks and I just wanted you here, but I couldn’t even get a hold of you. Do you want me to talk about how I was wondering if some fancy New York guy had you spread out on his bed-”
“Stop it!” Kurt tried to cut him off, but Blaine just kept on going.
“Why else wouldn’t my boyfriend be home when he said he would be?” he asked.
“I was working!” Kurt yelled. “You don’t get to turn this around on me when you’re the one that sexted half of Ohio.”
There was a part of him that knew this wasn’t fair. That knew he needed to calm down and talk about this rationally, but rational wasn’t happening. He was tired from the radiation and sick from the chemo and he didn’t need this right now.
“Don’t act like you gave a damn about me,” he said. “You forgot about me the second you got that job.”
“Blaine, just calm down, this isn’t you,” Kurt said carefully, clearly afraid of what might happen if he didn’t get a handle on his temper, and the look of terror on his face hit him hard. It was like a switch had been flipped and suddenly all of his anger was melting away and he was back to feeling like himself again.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” he said, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s - it’s just the tumor,” Kurt said, inching closer to him and awkwardly patting him on the back, clearly uncomfortable now and that made him feel sick.
“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” he said, looking into Kurt’s eyes and trying to make him see that he was being sincere. “I do want to talk about this, rationally. I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“It sounds like you do,” Kurt said, cautiously.
“I cheated on you and that’s my fault,” he said. “It’s not yours.”
“No, it’s not,” Kurt said. “And I would appreciate it if you would tell your boyfriend that, too. I’m sick of him walking around like he’s so much better than me.”
“I want you to hear me clearly when I say this, Kurt,” he said, shifting in his seat so that he was facing Kurt properly. “Sam is not my boyfriend. He’s my friend. He’s a really good friend. I’m sorry if he’s giving you a hard time or making you feel like this is somehow your fault, but you should know that he’s not having the easiest time either right now. This is just as hard for him as it is for you. I’m not sleeping with him and I don’t plan to, but I’m also not going to stop hanging out with him just because we are back together. I need him and I hope you can understand that.”
“I know you’re not doing anything wrong,” Kurt said. “Deep down, I do know that you and Sam aren’t hooking up behind my back. I just - I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do, just keep talking,” he said, feeling better that at least they were getting somewhere, even if the idea of Sam and him hooking up was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard, at least Kurt was talking to him. They were always better when they communicated with each other. Every time they’d ever had a fight, it had been because one of them had stopped talking.
“I never used to be like this,” Kurt said, crossing his arms and legs, sitting up straighter in his seat and staring off into the distance. He was embarrassed about something, but Blaine couldn’t understand why.
“Like what?” he asked, pressing for more.
“Jealous,” Kurt said. “Anytime I see you with other people this monster takes over my body and I just feel like ripping the heads off of anyone that talks to you.”
“I can understand that,” he said, thinking back to all of the times he had felt jealous.
“You can?”
“Yeah,” he said with a small smile, trying to show Kurt that he wasn’t judging him. “I mean when you were texting Chandler, I honestly thought I was going to get sent to jail for murder. I went on Facebook and looked up every single Chandler that lives in Lima, trying to figure out who he was.”
“How’d that work out?” Kurt asked with an amused snort.
“There are fifty-seven Chandler’s in Lima alone,” he said.
“Seriously? Fifty-seven? How is that possible?”
“The Friends effect I guess,” he said with a shrug. “My point is, it’s okay to feel jealous sometimes. So long as you understand that Sam and I aren’t doing anything.”
“It’s not just Sam, it’s everyone,” Kurt said with a groan. “Tina posted a picture of you two hugging and my mind instantly went to that time you made out with Rachel and I thought I was going to throw my computer out the window. I hate feeling like this. I was never jealous before.”
“That’s not true, you got pretty jealous around Sebastian,” he said.
“That’s not the same, I never honestly believed you’d hook up with him before,” Kurt said.
“But you do now,” he said with a nod of his head, understanding exactly what Kurt was saying.
Now that Blaine had cheated on Kurt, nothing was certain anymore. Every look, every touch was going to be cause for concern when it came to Blaine. Kurt would always be wondering if it meant something more and Blaine only had himself to blame for that.
“I wasn’t lying when I said that I forgive you, I do. I still love you and I want to trust you again,” Kurt said, giving him a sympathetic look, like Blaine wasn’t the one who had caused this problem. It made him feel sick.
“But you don’t,” he answered for himself, thinking that it would hurt less saying it himself than having to hear Kurt say it - he was wrong. The way Kurt’s eyes filled with tears confirmed what he said was true and Blaine felt as if somebody had shoved their hand through his chest and ripped his lungs out.
“I know that you love me,” Kurt said with a shaky voice as tears fell down both of their faces. “I know that you didn’t want to cheat on me in the first place and that you’re sick. And maybe if you weren’t, I’d be able to believe it more when I hear you say that nothing’s going on, but I just - I can’t help but picture you with somebody else every time you’re not with me.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, needing to fix this somehow. “I mean, short of being with you every second of the day, I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I don’t think we can,” Kurt said. “I think we just have to deal with it.”
Blaine looked away and tried to blink back his tears, tried hard not to break down completely. It wasn’t fair to make Kurt feel worse than he already did for something that was Blaine’s fault. He just didn’t understand why this had to happen to him. Why did he have to get sick? Why did he have to have a tumor in his brain? As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was dying, but he had to have a tumor in the one part of his body that made it impossible for Kurt to trust him, because how could Kurt trust him when there was something eating away at his brain and forcing him to do things that he had no control over.
No matter how many times Blaine said that he loved Kurt, it wouldn’t matter. The tumor didn’t care about his relationship. It would do what it wanted whenever it wanted and Blaine couldn’t stop it. Kurt was being realistic. He knew that there would come a day where Blaine would act on his impulses and his lack of judgment skills would cause him to do something he’d regret. He didn’t want to hurt Kurt again, but he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen.
No matter how much they loved each other, it wasn’t fair to ask Kurt to stay with him.
“So we’re breaking up,” Blaine said, feeling worse than he had when he’d first been diagnosed. Feeling worse than when he’d been told that no surgery could save him. Dying was scary and real and more terrifying than anything else Blaine had ever experienced before… but dying alone? That was something he didn’t think he’d have the strength to do.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and curled in on himself as he began to sob. He felt Kurt’s arms around him and that only made him cry harder.
“Will you please stop saying that, no,” Kurt said. “We’re not breaking up.”
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” he cried.
Maybe Sam would be right and the world would end tomorrow and Blaine wouldn’t have to figure out how to live in a world where Kurt couldn’t be around him. It certainly felt like the world was ending - maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe they’d foreseen this very moment and had taken pity on him. Rather than make him go through months of horrible treatment that he didn’t want, rather than force him to learn what it felt like to have your body slowly betray you as it started to shut down with nobody to hold him close at night and kiss away the pain, they’d planned an apocalypse on his behalf.
“You don’t have to,” Kurt said, tearfully. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He turned his body into Kurt’s and buried his face into Kurt’s neck, allowing himself to take comfort in the warm arms around him. His own wrapped around Kurt and squeezed tight enough to bruise, but he couldn’t force himself to loosen his grip. It felt like if he let go, everything around him would disappear.
As Blaine took in a deep breath, trying to force air into his shrinking lungs, he caught a whiff of Kurt’s cologne. It was the same kind that Blaine had bought him for Christmas last year. God, they’d had so much time together and they’d wasted it on stupid things. The amount of time they’d spent watching TV and just sitting there next to each other, not taking advantage of the time they had left - they’d had no idea back then. No concept of how short a life together could really be. They’d just thrown it away like it didn’t matter.
Thinking back on all the time that they could have spent together, all the things that they should have done, it only made him cry harder.
He should have taken Kurt ice skating - he’d always wanted to teach him how, ever since they’d watched Go Figure on Disney Channel that one time and Kurt had confessed that he’d never been. They should have talked more, sung more duets, done anything. They had so many happy memories, but it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
“I’m so scared,” he whispered and part of him hoped that Kurt didn’t hear it because he’d been determined to be strong. His family was falling apart and Sam wasn’t doing much better and somebody had to be the strong one. Only, he couldn’t do it. Not all of the time, and now here he was, sobbing on Kurt’s shoulder like a little kid.
“I am, too, but you’re not alone,” Kurt said.
His tears started to subside, but his arms didn’t loosen their death grip. He tucked his head more comfortably on Kurt’s shoulder and tried to find solace in the loving way that Kurt was rubbing at his neck. Crying always made him feel drained, like he’d just run a marathon. His body was starting to protest against him for losing control like that and a headache made itself known.
He groaned in pain and Kurt seemed to sense what the problem was. Without being asked, he leaned over and pulled the Ziplock back out and began searching for the painkillers the doctor had prescribed him for cases like this. Once he found them and triple checked the instructions on the bottle, he helped Blaine sit up and take the medicine.
“I know it’s not fair for me to say this, but I honestly don’t think I’ll get through this without you,” he said.
“Blaine, stop it,” Kurt said, pulling him back into his arms and letting Blaine rest his aching head on his shoulder. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” he mumbled.
“Okay?” Kurt asked and he simply nodded.
Kurt let him rest against him in silence while they waited for the medicine to kick in. It was taking longer to take effect now that Blaine’s body wasn’t as quick to recover and he was going to have to ask about getting a stronger dose next time he went in. Between the radiation and starting chemo, he just wasn’t as strong as he used to be and it was getting harder to tough out the pain once it started. Truth be told, he wasn’t really sure how he managed to survive it as long as he had. He could still remember the months before his fall waking up every day with blinding pain and only having Advil to help numb it. Now he could barely manage on the prescription strength painkillers he had.
Kurt rubbed his back and sang to him softly as he closed his eyes and tried to focus on anything but the pain. Kurt always was able to soothe his aches faster than anyone else and soon he was feeling warm, content, and completely comfortable. When he opened his eyes again, he felt more like himself.
“You’re awake.” Kurt smiled down at him as he shut his laptop closed.
“Was I sleeping?” he asked, looking around confused. When had Kurt gotten his computer out again?
“For a little over an hour,” Kurt whispered, always careful to talk quietly to him after he’d had a headache, in case he was still hurting.
“You could have woken me up and moved me,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and praying that he didn’t drool on Kurt’s favorite sweater.
“Not for the world.”
He shifted around until he was sitting in his seat properly again, not entirely sure how he’d ended up practically in Kurt’s lap. He glanced down at the table and saw that the glass he’d spilled earlier had been cleaned up and a new ice water had been placed in front of him. He didn’t know how Kurt had managed to do that without moving and wondered if Carole hadn’t come home and helped out. He blushed, wondering if Kurt had explained just why the water had spilled in the first place. He was still embarrassed about losing his temper earlier. Kurt deserved better than an angry, bitter boyfriend and he didn’t want to turn episodes like that into a habit.
He picked up the water and took several sips, trying to rid himself of the dry mouth that always accumulated when he slept - a side effect of the radiation. When he was finished, Kurt took his hand in his own and brought it up to his lips. He couldn’t help but smile as Kurt placed a gentle kiss there, reminding him that he loved him. No matter how much they might fight, they still loved each other and that wouldn’t change.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better now,” he said, leaning in to kiss Kurt softly on the lips. “Thanks for letting me use you as a pillow.”
“Anytime,” Kurt said. “So, are we going to talk about why you have an electric razor in your bag?”
“Oh, that,” he said with a blush, training his eyes on the coffee stain on the table that had never come out no matter how much they’d scrubbed. Carole had become a drill sergeant about coasters after that and they’d never figured out whose fault the stain was.
“Yeah, that,” Kurt teased him.
In the midst of all of the crying, he’d completely forgotten that they were in there. Now, he was suddenly reminded why he’d come over in the first place.
“I actually need a favor,” he said, hating the fact that he even had to ask Kurt to do this, but he didn’t think he could go to his mother and he didn’t trust anybody else with something as delicate as this.
Kurt looked at him expectantly and so he took a steadying breath and continued, “My hair started falling out last week.”
He heard Kurt take a sharp intake of breath and he averted his eyes, not wanting to see the pitying look he was sure was there. It only made him feel more awkward about the entire situation.
“Blaine.”
“I thought I could ignore it, but I already have the one spot from the surgery and another one where I’m getting my radiation and I just… I don’t want to be eighteen with a receding hairline. I’d rather just embrace it and try to own it like Bruce Willis or something. That way nobody can make a joke out of it,” he finished, hoping he sounded confident, because he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to go through with this.
“Nobody would make a joke out of this,” Kurt said, reaching out to twist his fingers in a curl that had found its way loose and was sticking out from his hat.
“Still. I just want it over with. Every time I shower and pull out clumps of hair I feel helpless and I don’t want to be helpless. I want to be strong. Can you please just shave it all off?” he asked.
“You’re sure?”
“No,” he admitted. “But if you don’t do it, I’ll be bald by the end of next week anyway, so what does it really matter?”
Kurt nodded his understanding and stood up. With shaky hands, he reached into the bag and took out the supplies - scissors, shaving cream, an electric razor and a straight blade. Blaine carefully removed his hat, self-conscious about what Kurt would think once he saw how bad it had become. There were just so many places where he’s lost his hair that he couldn’t comb over it all anymore. He trained his eyes on the stain in the table and tried not to flinch when Kurt’s fingers ran through what was left of his hair. He felt hideous and not even remotely attractive, he wasn’t sure why Kurt hadn’t run out of the room screaming yet.
“You’re so brave,” Kurt said, kissing the back of his neck.
“I hate when people say that,” he admitted with a shake of his head.
“I know, but you’re handling this all with more grace than I could imagine and I’m proud of you for that.”
Kurt’s arms moved to untie his bow tie and Blaine caught them and pulled him down for a proper kiss, trying his best to make this normal, like this was something all boyfriends did together.
“You make me feel strong.” Blaine said, hoping it didn’t sound as cheesy as it did to his own ears.
“I bet you’ll still look like a handsome, classic, movie star when you’re bald.” Kurt gave him that smile, the one that made him feel like he hung the moon and he honestly wasn’t sure how he deserved it, but he didn’t fight it.
“That’s what you say now. Wait until we discover I have an awkward shaped head,” he said, trying to keep things light before he could get emotional again. It was just hair, after all. Who really needed it?
“Honey, with the way you mat down your hair every day, I’m sure we would have already discovered that long ago.”
“Touché,” he laughed.
Kurt tied a towel around his neck to try and keep the hair from getting onto his clothes, then moved to pick up the scissors.
“Here goes,” Kurt said, nervously.
“I’m not going to watch,” he said, closing his eyes tight and flinching at the sound of the first snip.
“Just think about something else,” Kurt said and he tried.
“I’m going to the orthopedic next week and if my X-ray comes back okay they’ll give me a walking cast,” he said, forcing himself to ignore the sound of the scissors snipping away right in his ear.
“That’s awesome,” Kurt said. “I guess that means I don’t have to try and convince you to let me bedazzle your crutches anymore?”
“If you can figure out a way to making a walking cast look badass, I’m all ears,” he said.
“I’m not going to color coordinate it to match your Nightbird costume, I have a limit to how much dork I’ll allow,” Kurt said. Blaine chuckled and opened his eyes, seeing the floor littered with little brown curls.
“I think I’m going to be nauseous,” he groaned as the enormity of what they were doing sank in. They were cutting off his hair. Now he wouldn’t only be the kid with cancer, but he’d look like the kid with cancer. People on the street would look at him and just know.
Oh God, this was a mistake.
“You!” Kurt exclaimed, sounding just as traumatized by the whole ordeal. “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this. I’ve never cut hair before!”
“You’re taking it all off, I’m not sure you can really mess that up,” he said, trying to bring a sense of calm back into the room so they could both make it through this. This was something that had to be done. “Besides, I would feel weird asking anyone else to do this.”
Kurt smiled down at him and thankfully didn’t mention how terrible it was that their lives had come to this. He didn’t mention how strange it was to be sitting in the middle of Kurt’s kitchen, shaving his head.
“At least your eyebrows are still perfect,” Kurt said, trying to put him back at ease as he moved to finish cutting off his hair.
“Don’t even joke, they are going to fall out soon,” he whined, self-consciously running his fingers over his face to check and see that they were in fact still there. “My eyelashes, too. At least that’s what everyone on the message boards says.”
“Well maybe the fact that they’re so thick will be a blessing,” Kurt said. “We probably won’t even notice if your eyebrows start to fall out, you have so much-”
“Leave me alone,” he interjected before Kurt could finish his sentence.
“Please, you know I always loved your eyebrows. I mean if there’s ever a role to play Peter Gallagher's son, you know that you’re shoo-in.”
“I knew you were lying about your crush on Mr. Cohen that day we watched The O.C. together,” he laughed.
“Like you didn’t have your own O.C. fantasies,” Kurt argued.
“Yes, I wanted to marry Ryan Atwood along with the rest of the world. That’s normal. Mr. Cohen was a dad,” he said in mock disgust.
“A hot dad,” Kurt laughed.
“You’re a freak,” he mumbled and thankfully, was too wrapped up in the conversation to even notice when Kurt plugged in the electric razor and began shaving the rest of his hair off.
“You told me once that Tom Hardy was going to be your second husband if we ever got a divorce,” Kurt said. “You don’t get to judge me.”
“Taylor Lautner, Tom Hardy,” Blaine said, holding up two hands and turning around to look at Kurt like he was crazy. No matter how much he loved Kurt, he was never going to get behind his obsession with Twilight.
“You’re going to lose an ear if you don’t sit still.” Kurt gestured to the clippers in his hand, shushed him and pushed at his shoulders until he turned back around.
“I’m just saying, Inception, Dark Knight Rises, I’m completely justified in my taste in men. If you don’t believe me, go look in a mirror,” he said.
“I could say the same to you,” Kurt said.
“Yes, I’m sure after today I’m going to be a real catch,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“You’re never going to stop being beautiful,” Kurt said and he smiled as their playful bickering stopped and they fell into a comfortable silence, the sound of the clippers not as terrifying anymore with his boyfriend at his side.
“So what are you doing tonight?” Blaine asked once they had finished and Kurt was sweeping all the hair off of the floor.
“Nothing really, why?” he asked.
“I’m supposed to be going to a wedding reception and I didn’t know if you wanted to be my date,” he said, thinking back to his conversation with Sam and worrying about him again now that he’d settled things with Kurt.
“What?” Kurt stopped, looking up at him confused.
“Sam and Brittany got married,” he explained, starting to pack up his back. It was getting later and he still needed to go home and change before heading out to the party tonight. He was pretty sure it was in bad taste for the best man to be late.
“I know,” Kurt said. “You should have seen my dad lose it on him at dinner yesterday.”
“Your dad did?” he asked, surprised when Kurt nodded his head. He didn’t think Mr. Hummel would be crazy about the idea of Sam getting married, but he’d also never seen the man yell and had a hard time picturing it. Mr. Hummel always struck him as a bit of a teddy bear, despite his rough outside appearance. “Poor Sam,” he added. “I didn’t take the news that well either.”
“Yeah, well he’s insane,” Kurt said with a roll of his eyes. “Do either of them even understand what it means to be married? This is worse than when Finn and Rachel got engaged.”
“I think he’s just having a rough time right now with everything that's going on,” he explained, defensively. He wasn’t the biggest fan of the wedding either and he thought it was crazy, but he cared about Sam and he wasn’t going to sit around and trash talk him with Kurt. Especially not given their relationship.
“You mean everything that’s going on with you?” Kurt asked.
“With me. With graduation,” he explained. “He’s so good at taking care of everyone else and I think we sometimes forget to stop and take care of him, too.”
“And Brittany is going to be able to do that for him?” Kurt asked, doubtfully.
“At least he’s not beating Jacob Ben Israel up with an umbrella,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing, different meltdown,” Blaine said. “It’s been a rough, weird year for everyone.”
“Okay,” Kurt said and looked like he was going to comment further but then thought better of it and returned to the topic. “My dad’s trying to figure out if Coach Beiste was even ordained to marry them.”
“Coach Bieste married them? Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “It can’t be real if she was involved. She wouldn’t let them make such a life changing decision without thinking it over first.”
“That’s what I tried to explain to my dad, but you know, he’s still looking into it,” Kurt explained. “It was weird, I guess I didn’t realize that my dad and Sam were that close, but he gave Sam the whole. ‘you matter’ speech and everything.”
“Yeah, well Sam’s had to spend a lot of time away from home in order to go to school here. Your dad’s been like a second father to him,” he explained.
“I guess,” Kurt said and Blaine could still sense some lingering tension there but he chose to ignore it.
“So will you come with me?” he asked.
“You’re still going to go to the reception even though you don’t approve?” Kurt asked.
“I’m going to be supportive until Friday passes, they realize the world hasn’t ended and I can convince him to file for an annulment,” he said.
“And if you can’t?” Kurt asked.
“Then I’ll be there to support him regardless,” he shrugged.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” Kurt asked.
“He’s been there for me more than I can possibly explain,” he said, sincerely. He didn’t want Kurt to read too much into his relationship with Sam, but he wasn’t going to diminish it either.
“I’m glad you two are such good friends,” Kurt said and he could tell that Kurt wanted to sound sincere - that he wanted to mean it - but he didn’t.
“But you don’t trust us,” he added for himself, looking down at the ground sadly.
“I’m trying,” Kurt said.
So it was back to this again, they were going to continue to have the same conversation over and over and never solve anything. Why couldn’t they just be past this already?
“I don’t know how else to convince you that I’m telling the truth,” he said, trying not to get frustrated.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” Kurt said and that made Blaine feel horrible, because he was never good at letting things be. He always had to be the one to fix things, to poke and prod until people opened up and let him help. He didn’t know how to let it go, but Kurt was telling him there wasn’t anything that could be done.
“I hate this.”
“I think that the two of us just need to realize that things might not be able to go back to exactly how they used to be and we need to give ourselves some time to adjust to our new relationship,” Kurt said.
“I don’t want to adjust, I want my best friend back,” he whined and didn’t even care how pathetic it might sound.
“You have your best friend and you have your boyfriend. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“It just feels like you’re a million miles away,” he said.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you about this,” Kurt said. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I don’t want you to not tell me things,” he groaned, that was the exact opposite of what he wanted. He wanted to get back to that point in their lives where they told each other everything.
“Same, I don’t want you to ever lie to me,” Kurt said.
“I won’t,” he promised.
“I want to believe you-” Kurt trailed off and Blaine knew what he was going to say. He wanted to believe him but he couldn’t trust him, not with the tumor causing him to act so out of control.
“I understand,” he said trying to remain calm and not jump to defend himself. Kurt was entitled to his feelings and he had to respect that. “I don’t like it, but I can’t argue with you about it. I just want us to work.”
“Me, too,” Kurt said.
“Okay, so can we just forget about this fight?” he pleaded. “I hate fighting with you.”
“Oh, yes please,” Kurt said. “There’s been so many things I’ve wanted to text you about all week.”
“Awesome,” he said. “You can tell me about it as you’re driving me home. I need you to help me find an appropriate best man suit to wear tonight.”