fic: Forget The World But You
Title: Forget The World But You
Author: Jakia
Word Count: 1780
Warnings: dead!Kurt, old people, and a character dying of Alzheimer’s and all that entails. Includes the death of a cat.
Summary: The worst part is that sometimes, he forgets Kurt’s even dead. One-shot. Klaine. Deathfic.
--
He forgets, sometimes. Really, that’s the worst part about it.
“Lizzie,” he breathes heavily into his phone, panicked and worried. “Lizzie, I can’t find your father. Where is he?”
“Oh Daddy,” his daughter, his little girl, now a grown woman with kids of her own, cries over the phone. “He died, remember? He died last year. His heart failed him, remember?”
He doesn’t remember: that’s why he called. His heart breaks. How is he still alive in a world where Kurt isn’t? “I didn’t remember. Thanks for letting me know, Lizzie.”
“Wait, Dad-“
He hangs up on her before she can say anything, and he sobs. He’s never liked crying in front of his kids, has always wanted them to think of him as someone strong, even if he’s not strong anymore-just a grey-haired old man with a fragile mind and a broken spirit.
He doesn’t answer the phone, even though it never stops ringing.
--
He visits Kurt’s grave every day.
His kids don’t like it. They would rather he stay at home, or even better, move in with one of them. And he’s thought about it, because he knows his memory is Not Good, and that makes him dangerous, but he can’t bear to move out of that house.
That’s his home, you know? The one he and Kurt had together, the one they raised their family in-where Addie said her first words, where Lizzie cried when her first boyfriend broke her heart, where Toronto broke the upstairs bathroom window pretending to be Spiderman.
That’s his home. How can he leave it?
So he stays at home, most days. He leaves early in the morning to visits Kurt’s grave, but then he comes back home, usually before breakfast. He feeds the cat, and then pours a bowl of cereal for himself. Then he feeds the cat again, because he can’t remember if he’s already fed her or not, and he doesn’t want her to be taken away from him because he can’t remember to feed her.
He plays piano. He gardens. He feeds the cat. He calls his children. He waters the garden. He bakes. He calls his children because he can’t remember how old his grandchildren are.
He talks to Kurt like he’s still there.
He feeds the cat.
--
He’s been keeping a journal: it helps. He sleeps beside it so when he wakes up in the morning and realizes Kurt isn’t there, he can read it and remember.
Every page looks the same.
At the top, it says in Blaine’s careful script:
Kurt is dead. He died a year ago because of his heart. He’s buried under the cherry tree at the top of the hill a few miles from here.
You have Alzheimer’s. You have three children, and seven grandchildren.
Toronto is 46. His wife’s name is Victoria. His son’s name is Henry, and his daughter’s name is Emma. Henry is 21, and Emma is 16. His phone number is 555-6718.
Elizabeth is 43. Her husband’s name is Zack. She has four kids-Adam (20), the twins Amy and Rose (17), and Carson (14). Her phone number is 555-3311.
Carson is not Kurt, no matter how much he looks like him.
Kurt is still dead.
Addison is 39. Her husband’s name is Isaac. She has one son, named Nathan (12). Her phone number is 555-7258.
Kurt is still dead.
REMEMBER TO FEED SPOOKY-CAT!!!
It helps. It also breaks his heart again every single morning, because for a few short, wonderful moments, he thinks he’s going to wake up beside Kurt again.
--
Blaine visits Kurt’s grave every day.
His kids wish he wouldn’t. They’re scared for him. They’re scared he’s going to go to the grave site, and not be able to find his way home, or crash his car, or something else awful that will make them orphans.
Not to mention, they don’t think it’s healthy, talking to a grave like it can talk back.
“Did you have to pick such a big hill to be buried under?” Blaine laughs like he does every morning, climbing up the hill with his cane. It’s not a big hill. When he was a young man, he didn’t even break a sweat climbing it.
He’s not a young man anymore, though.
He lies down beside Kurt’s grave like he used to lie beside Kurt in bed. He watches the sun rise, and he tells Kurt about his day yesterday. Sometimes he has a good day, and he can actually remember. Other days aren’t so good, and so he doesn’t talk much at all, and just enjoys the sky rise with Kurt beside him.
Sometimes he just makes stuff up, if he can’t remember what really happened. He thinks Kurt appreciates the story, if nothing else.
Sometimes he brings flowers. More often than not, he buys flowers, and then leaves them in his car until they die, or leaves them on the kitchen table, or Spooky-cat gets them.
It’s the thought that counts, right?
--
Addison, his youngest, wishes he would stop visiting Kurt’s grave every day.
She worries that one day, he’ll make his way to the gravesite, and then just decide to stay there, until he dies, too.
(She’s always been the smart one of the bunch.)
--
The cat dies of heart failure.
Blaine keeps feeding her, anyway.
--
“Spooky-cat isn’t eating any of her food. I’m worried about her.”
“…That’s because Spookie died, remember? A couple of days ago? We took her to the vet, and her heart failed her?”
“…Like Kurt.”
“Yes. Like Dad. I-I’m glad you remembered.” A pause. “Do you want me to come over?”
Blaine stares at a bottle of Kurt’s old heart medicine like it might contain his salvation.
“No, it’s fine. Don’t trouble yourself. Say hi to the kids for me.”
“I will. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, Lizzie.”
--
He gets up. He visits his dead husband’s grave. He goes home. Eats breakfast. Feeds his dead cat. Talks to his dead husband’s ghost. Talks to his children. Feeds his dead cat. Forgets to eat.
It’s hell.
--
“I’m so tired.” He tells Kurt, lying beside his grave, sitting on the exact spot his own body will rest one day. It’s almost like being in bed with him again, Kurt’s grave on the left, Blaine’s still-beating body on the right. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that’s where they are. “I know I promised you that I’d stay and look after the kids for as long as I could, that I wouldn’t take the easy way out and join you as soon as possible, but I’m not sure how much longer I can take this, Kurt.”
“I’m forgetting, Kurt.” He cries, with his forehead pressed against the cold stone of Kurt’s grave. “I look at our grandkids, and I don’t recognize them. I keep thinking they’re babies, but they aren’t, Kurt. The youngest is going to be a teenager soon. Can you even imagine--?” He sits up suddenly, and stares at Kurt’s grave like it can help. “ -And our children, Kurt. I forget how old they are. Toronto’s starting to go grey, and I think how can you be going grey? You’re only sixteen. But he’s not sixteen, Kurt. He’s-he’s-“
He cries harder. “I can’t even remember, Kurt. I don’t know how old he is.”
He wipes his eyes, and traces the words on Kurt’s tombstone. Loving husband, father, and friend. “I’m forgetting you, Kurt. I wake up every morning, and I think you’re going to be there beside me, and you’re not. And it hurts, Kurt. It hurts so much.” He lies back down on his side of the grave, staring up at the sky like it might give him answers. “I just want to stay here, with you. Is that so bad, Kurt?”
Kurt, as always, doesn’t talk back.
--
“I don’t think he’s happy.” Toronto tells his sisters, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
“I don’t think he needs to be alone,” Addison says, poking at the slice of birthday cake on her plate. “I know he doesn’t want to give up his independence, but he can’t be by himself all the time. It’s making him worse.”
“I think he misses Dad,” Lizzie says sadly, looking back into the living room where her dying father plays the piano fondly. “And I think he misses him so much it’s killing him.”
--
“…Kurt?”
“No, Grandad. I’m Carson, remember?”
“Oh. Right. I’m sorry Carson, it’s just-“
“I look like him, I know.” Not-Kurt smiles sadly before wrapping him in a hug. “I love you, Grandad.”
“…I love you too, Kurt.”
--
Blaine goes missing a few weeks later.
His children panic, of course. So do his neighbors, and the police.
They find him eventually, though, an hour’s walk away from the house, and missing a shoe.
“I was just looking for Spookie-cat,” he says when they find him, like it should have been obvious. “I think she got out somehow. I can’t find her anywhere.”
--
They put him in a nursing home after that.
He can’t visit Kurt every day.
He gets worse.
(He still can’t find his cat.)
--
It’s hard, watching your father die. Toronto has already had to bury one father; he doesn’t particularly want to bury the other.
It’s harder still though, to look at him and know he doesn’t recognize the world around him.
“You should go to bed, baby,” Blaine tells him, patting his hand like he might a child’s. ‘Baby’ is what Blaine has started calling everyone, because he’s not very good with names anymore. “It’s past your bedtime.”
Toronto Anderson-Hummel is forty-six years old. He hasn’t had a bedtime in a long time.
He kisses his father’s forehead, and tries not to cry. “I love you, Daddy.”
Blaine blinks, confused. “I love you too, baby. Say goodnight to your dad before you go to bed, okay?”
Toronto wipes his eyes. “I will, Dad, I promise.”
--
Blaine Anderson-Hummel dies a month later. They aren't sure how he got out of the nursing home, and are even more perplexed by how he managed to get a vehicle.
They do know, however, that he never looked more at peace than he did when they finally found him, lying right beside Kurt.
--
Kurt is waiting for him.
“Did you forget about little old me?” He asks, young again, full of life and beauty and innocence, with a giant smile on his face.
Blaine can’t help but kiss him.
“Forget you, Kurt? Never.”
He’s not lying.
--
END.
Author: Jakia
Word Count: 1780
Warnings: dead!Kurt, old people, and a character dying of Alzheimer’s and all that entails. Includes the death of a cat.
Summary: The worst part is that sometimes, he forgets Kurt’s even dead. One-shot. Klaine. Deathfic.
--
He forgets, sometimes. Really, that’s the worst part about it.
“Lizzie,” he breathes heavily into his phone, panicked and worried. “Lizzie, I can’t find your father. Where is he?”
“Oh Daddy,” his daughter, his little girl, now a grown woman with kids of her own, cries over the phone. “He died, remember? He died last year. His heart failed him, remember?”
He doesn’t remember: that’s why he called. His heart breaks. How is he still alive in a world where Kurt isn’t? “I didn’t remember. Thanks for letting me know, Lizzie.”
“Wait, Dad-“
He hangs up on her before she can say anything, and he sobs. He’s never liked crying in front of his kids, has always wanted them to think of him as someone strong, even if he’s not strong anymore-just a grey-haired old man with a fragile mind and a broken spirit.
He doesn’t answer the phone, even though it never stops ringing.
--
He visits Kurt’s grave every day.
His kids don’t like it. They would rather he stay at home, or even better, move in with one of them. And he’s thought about it, because he knows his memory is Not Good, and that makes him dangerous, but he can’t bear to move out of that house.
That’s his home, you know? The one he and Kurt had together, the one they raised their family in-where Addie said her first words, where Lizzie cried when her first boyfriend broke her heart, where Toronto broke the upstairs bathroom window pretending to be Spiderman.
That’s his home. How can he leave it?
So he stays at home, most days. He leaves early in the morning to visits Kurt’s grave, but then he comes back home, usually before breakfast. He feeds the cat, and then pours a bowl of cereal for himself. Then he feeds the cat again, because he can’t remember if he’s already fed her or not, and he doesn’t want her to be taken away from him because he can’t remember to feed her.
He plays piano. He gardens. He feeds the cat. He calls his children. He waters the garden. He bakes. He calls his children because he can’t remember how old his grandchildren are.
He talks to Kurt like he’s still there.
He feeds the cat.
--
He’s been keeping a journal: it helps. He sleeps beside it so when he wakes up in the morning and realizes Kurt isn’t there, he can read it and remember.
Every page looks the same.
At the top, it says in Blaine’s careful script:
Kurt is dead. He died a year ago because of his heart. He’s buried under the cherry tree at the top of the hill a few miles from here.
You have Alzheimer’s. You have three children, and seven grandchildren.
Toronto is 46. His wife’s name is Victoria. His son’s name is Henry, and his daughter’s name is Emma. Henry is 21, and Emma is 16. His phone number is 555-6718.
Elizabeth is 43. Her husband’s name is Zack. She has four kids-Adam (20), the twins Amy and Rose (17), and Carson (14). Her phone number is 555-3311.
Carson is not Kurt, no matter how much he looks like him.
Kurt is still dead.
Addison is 39. Her husband’s name is Isaac. She has one son, named Nathan (12). Her phone number is 555-7258.
Kurt is still dead.
REMEMBER TO FEED SPOOKY-CAT!!!
It helps. It also breaks his heart again every single morning, because for a few short, wonderful moments, he thinks he’s going to wake up beside Kurt again.
--
Blaine visits Kurt’s grave every day.
His kids wish he wouldn’t. They’re scared for him. They’re scared he’s going to go to the grave site, and not be able to find his way home, or crash his car, or something else awful that will make them orphans.
Not to mention, they don’t think it’s healthy, talking to a grave like it can talk back.
“Did you have to pick such a big hill to be buried under?” Blaine laughs like he does every morning, climbing up the hill with his cane. It’s not a big hill. When he was a young man, he didn’t even break a sweat climbing it.
He’s not a young man anymore, though.
He lies down beside Kurt’s grave like he used to lie beside Kurt in bed. He watches the sun rise, and he tells Kurt about his day yesterday. Sometimes he has a good day, and he can actually remember. Other days aren’t so good, and so he doesn’t talk much at all, and just enjoys the sky rise with Kurt beside him.
Sometimes he just makes stuff up, if he can’t remember what really happened. He thinks Kurt appreciates the story, if nothing else.
Sometimes he brings flowers. More often than not, he buys flowers, and then leaves them in his car until they die, or leaves them on the kitchen table, or Spooky-cat gets them.
It’s the thought that counts, right?
--
Addison, his youngest, wishes he would stop visiting Kurt’s grave every day.
She worries that one day, he’ll make his way to the gravesite, and then just decide to stay there, until he dies, too.
(She’s always been the smart one of the bunch.)
--
The cat dies of heart failure.
Blaine keeps feeding her, anyway.
--
“Spooky-cat isn’t eating any of her food. I’m worried about her.”
“…That’s because Spookie died, remember? A couple of days ago? We took her to the vet, and her heart failed her?”
“…Like Kurt.”
“Yes. Like Dad. I-I’m glad you remembered.” A pause. “Do you want me to come over?”
Blaine stares at a bottle of Kurt’s old heart medicine like it might contain his salvation.
“No, it’s fine. Don’t trouble yourself. Say hi to the kids for me.”
“I will. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, Lizzie.”
--
He gets up. He visits his dead husband’s grave. He goes home. Eats breakfast. Feeds his dead cat. Talks to his dead husband’s ghost. Talks to his children. Feeds his dead cat. Forgets to eat.
It’s hell.
--
“I’m so tired.” He tells Kurt, lying beside his grave, sitting on the exact spot his own body will rest one day. It’s almost like being in bed with him again, Kurt’s grave on the left, Blaine’s still-beating body on the right. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that’s where they are. “I know I promised you that I’d stay and look after the kids for as long as I could, that I wouldn’t take the easy way out and join you as soon as possible, but I’m not sure how much longer I can take this, Kurt.”
“I’m forgetting, Kurt.” He cries, with his forehead pressed against the cold stone of Kurt’s grave. “I look at our grandkids, and I don’t recognize them. I keep thinking they’re babies, but they aren’t, Kurt. The youngest is going to be a teenager soon. Can you even imagine--?” He sits up suddenly, and stares at Kurt’s grave like it can help. “ -And our children, Kurt. I forget how old they are. Toronto’s starting to go grey, and I think how can you be going grey? You’re only sixteen. But he’s not sixteen, Kurt. He’s-he’s-“
He cries harder. “I can’t even remember, Kurt. I don’t know how old he is.”
He wipes his eyes, and traces the words on Kurt’s tombstone. Loving husband, father, and friend. “I’m forgetting you, Kurt. I wake up every morning, and I think you’re going to be there beside me, and you’re not. And it hurts, Kurt. It hurts so much.” He lies back down on his side of the grave, staring up at the sky like it might give him answers. “I just want to stay here, with you. Is that so bad, Kurt?”
Kurt, as always, doesn’t talk back.
--
“I don’t think he’s happy.” Toronto tells his sisters, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
“I don’t think he needs to be alone,” Addison says, poking at the slice of birthday cake on her plate. “I know he doesn’t want to give up his independence, but he can’t be by himself all the time. It’s making him worse.”
“I think he misses Dad,” Lizzie says sadly, looking back into the living room where her dying father plays the piano fondly. “And I think he misses him so much it’s killing him.”
--
“…Kurt?”
“No, Grandad. I’m Carson, remember?”
“Oh. Right. I’m sorry Carson, it’s just-“
“I look like him, I know.” Not-Kurt smiles sadly before wrapping him in a hug. “I love you, Grandad.”
“…I love you too, Kurt.”
--
Blaine goes missing a few weeks later.
His children panic, of course. So do his neighbors, and the police.
They find him eventually, though, an hour’s walk away from the house, and missing a shoe.
“I was just looking for Spookie-cat,” he says when they find him, like it should have been obvious. “I think she got out somehow. I can’t find her anywhere.”
--
They put him in a nursing home after that.
He can’t visit Kurt every day.
He gets worse.
(He still can’t find his cat.)
--
It’s hard, watching your father die. Toronto has already had to bury one father; he doesn’t particularly want to bury the other.
It’s harder still though, to look at him and know he doesn’t recognize the world around him.
“You should go to bed, baby,” Blaine tells him, patting his hand like he might a child’s. ‘Baby’ is what Blaine has started calling everyone, because he’s not very good with names anymore. “It’s past your bedtime.”
Toronto Anderson-Hummel is forty-six years old. He hasn’t had a bedtime in a long time.
He kisses his father’s forehead, and tries not to cry. “I love you, Daddy.”
Blaine blinks, confused. “I love you too, baby. Say goodnight to your dad before you go to bed, okay?”
Toronto wipes his eyes. “I will, Dad, I promise.”
--
Blaine Anderson-Hummel dies a month later. They aren't sure how he got out of the nursing home, and are even more perplexed by how he managed to get a vehicle.
They do know, however, that he never looked more at peace than he did when they finally found him, lying right beside Kurt.
--
Kurt is waiting for him.
“Did you forget about little old me?” He asks, young again, full of life and beauty and innocence, with a giant smile on his face.
Blaine can’t help but kiss him.
“Forget you, Kurt? Never.”
He’s not lying.
--
END.