chapter seventeen
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
interlude: from the outside looking in
chapter eleven
chapter twelve; part one
chapter twelve; part two
chapter thirteen
interlude: a long stretch of present
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
And it’s just them again.
Kurt and Blaine and Blaine and Kurt.
Just as it always has been.
Just as it always should be.
-
Winter turns to spring and spring turns to summer and they’re okay. Not happy, but okay.
-
They lie beneath the summer heat, shaded by the tree in their garden, and sing to each other. The petals in the tree rise and burst and fall onto them. Just as the birds greet each day with an aubade, so their voices close the sunset in the same way. But if they sit still enough, quiet enough, keep their heartbeat low - they can almost hear the sun move.
And sometimes, just as the first stars start to blink, they’ll kiss together beneath the lamp-lit moon, and it feels like home to both of them.
-
There are the afternoons which stretch long and lazy into each other, where there’s music and dancing and watching the rain and it’s like a little piece of eternity dropped into their hands that no one knows what to do with; minutes, hours, morning and evening. It’s all the same.
-
Blaine’s diary is on the desk as always, and Kurt sits up there one evening while Blaine sleeps again, just flicking through the pages of the past years, the words and lines and lives unfinished, the shards of Blaine’s mind embedded in the pages.
However, as Kurt flicks forward, he doesn’t recognise the words - or, at least, can’t remember Blaine writing them. But Blaine has to have written them; it’s his handwriting, his phrasing, the same words over and over again -
I am well and truly alive
I am wholly and undoubtedly alive
I am most completely and definitely alive
-
He shows this to Clare the next time she visits.
“That’s - Kurt, are you sure you don’t remember Blaine writing this?”
“Sure.”
“That’s amazing. What I could guess has happened is - you know I told you that his procedural memory was still there? It’s how he can still play all his music and do normal things most of the time. And it could be, possibly, that the very act of writing in a diary, kept in the same place, has become embedded there too; we have these things called schemas, things which are basically the procedures we go through day-to-day, like a morning routine or what you do at a restaurant, for example. And it could be that the repetition of the act of writing in his diary has meant that Blaine can now do it independently without being prompted because somewhere, he knows that he has to. It’s clever.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt through these years with both of you, it’s how amazing we, as humans are. You and Blaine, you’ve shown me just what we’re capable of, how strong we can be, how our bodies can bear the weight of everything and instead of getting weaker, we just fight it more. Your strength, Kurt - it’s inspiring and incredible and I -,” her grip tightens in the diary, her eyes flickering away, not making contact, “- I don’t know, Kurt. This whole thing. Eight years. So much has changed but there’s you and Blaine and I’ve seen you and how you’re always so constant and steadfast and just there and - ”
She falters as Kurt slips the diary from her grasp and locks her fingers with his own. Both of them smile through their own tears.
-
Dear Kurt,
I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you in a while! Broadway does take it out of you a lot.
I wish you could be here with me. Remember our dreams back at McKinley? The two of us, taking Broadway together. You could have made it, Kurt. If you hadn’t moved into writing like you did, if you auditioned more, you would have been incredible. Us, together.
I’ve just finished my run in Second Chances, and am about to start rehearsals for another new show, House. There’s a role in it that I can just see you playing as well. If only you could. But I understand. You have Blaine.
Anyway, I don’t want to keep going on in that line. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Both of you. I miss you so, so much, being able to see you, meet up for coffee all the time. I understand, of course. I know you can’t, what with having to care for Blaine and everything, and after last time, I don’t want to have to cause him any more trouble. It’s not fair on either of you.
Write back to me, anyway. I don’t want to fall out of touch again.
All my love to you and Blaine,
Rachel
xxxx
-
Dear Rach,
I’m happy to hear from you again. It’s been a while, right?
We’re fine. It’s never going to be the way it used to be, but we’re fine. And that’s all Blaine and I need right now.
I think about you all the time. Where you are now. Every time I see your name in an article, on a billboard in the city, all I can think of is you going from strength to strength. I’m so proud of you. I knew you would.
How’s the dating life going? How’s everything with you?
Sorry for such a short reply, but Blaine’s asking to go outside and I’m going to join him. Write back soon, though!
Love,
Kurt
X
-
With the post, Kurt expects Rachel’s reply, but instead finds a small package, carefully wrapped and stamped from London, England.
He opens it to find a DVD, blank-covered except for a few words in black marker pen.
IMAGINE: MEMORY
BBC
James Carter/Matt Williams
Thank you!
-
They sit together that afternoon and watch the documentary; it focuses half on Blaine and Kurt, and the other half on a female savant with highly detailed recall, contrasting the two cases.
Blaine points to Kurt through it, smiling, not knowing what’s going on except for the fact that his husband, the man he loves, is both with him and on the TV doing the performing he loves to do.
-
Rachel’s reply arrives the next morning.
Neither of them gets to read it.
-
The night is clear and the stars are scattered across the sky, haphazard.
Kurt takes one look out of the window, breathes lassitude against the glass, closes the curtains on an inhale before sliding into bed with Blaine.
He kisses the back of his neck, links their fingers.
-
And when Kurt wakes up, either sleep or Blaine has unlocked them.
Realisation hits him like a whip.
-
First call - Blaine’s favourite wandering places. The music room. The bathroom. The kitchen. The chairs in the living room. And all are empty, silent.
The fact that Blaine’s done this before doesn’t make it any less terrifying.
And when he notices the front door open, he doesn’t think twice before pulling on a coat, a pair of shoes and running out into the darkness.
-
Everything is trembling.
The ground shakes under his foot.
The trees in the garden, their slowly-retreating home, the familiar lines refracting.
Kurt’s shouts hang heavy and empty in the air and he runs.
-
He leans over the edge of the road, checks right, left, his heart a trapped bird beating frantically to escape.
“Blaine! Blaine!”
His voice is slowly draining, his breathing dry and harsh like a desert, but he keeps running along the path to where he can see a silhouette just outside the glow of the streetlight.
...that won’t move when called.
Kurt runs further through the grass lining the roadside to where the figure is, and the closer he gets, the more he can pick out Blaine’s features, his arms, legs, the way his back leans with each drop of each vertebra, and that he can’t move for crying.
Crying.
Blaine’s crying, but that means he’s not hurt, right?
Scared, confused, but safe.
-
Kurt takes Blaine’s face in his hands, strokes his hair, holds him, kisses him like he first did when they were seventeen.
So much has changed since then; Blaine’s hair is flecked with grey, the shadows a little deeper under his eyes, which, yet, have retained the same sweet glow.
It’s okay now, Blaine, you’re safe, please, come inside with me, get some sleep, you need to get some sleep Blaine, here, it’s okay
And Blaine adds a counterpart, humming over his shoulder, a gentle monotone of Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt KURT!
“Blaine, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
But Blaine’s staring into the distance, to something far away, eyes swinging from right to left right left right left -
Headlights.
Speeding.
Swerving across the road, unsteady, like the injured gymnast on the beam.
The tyres howl like dogs and Kurt’s pulling Blaine to his feet and urging him to run because maybe he can get the car to stop because it’s not safe and he could kill someone if he keeps going and Blaine Blaine you need to run just get out of the way please Blaine run you can’t stay here -
Blaine -
Run -
-
Of course it doesn’t work.
-
A body contorts through the air, twisting like ribbon or poison ivy. It’s poetic and lyrical and morbid and hypnotic and for a moment it might be okay - he’ll land on his feet and take a bow and accept the flowers thrown to his feet with a flourish.
But when it hits the ground, when blood seeps across the asphalt, when the limbs look contorted like a child’s discarded toy, it’s not going to be a triumphant end. It was never going to be.
-
The car slows for a moment, to the verge of a halt, then swerves away again.
And Blaine Anderson, a startled deer, treads silently to the other side of the road, touches his husband’s arm, his face, his back, gathers traces of blood on his fingers, whispers, “Kurt, Kurt, wake up. I’m alive, Kurt.”
-
The sun rises to a tear-stained backdrop.
It casts light over the trees that line each side of the road in legions, shielding Blaine, the lone soldier, leaning over the body of his wounded comrade.
He’s not stopped talking to Kurt, still waiting for a response. But no matter how many times he’s expressed his joy at being alive, or how many times he’s asked Kurt if he’s okay or told Kurt that he loves him, he’s simply left to wait for an answer that will never come.
And neither the skin turning cold like a tide, nor the blood of this war of living, nor the heartbeat frozen in time will help him understand otherwise.
-
In the early morning, a car pulls over to the side of the road.
“Sorry, we were wondering if anything was wrong and - ”
“Who are you?” Blaine blurts out, suddenly scared.
The couple in the car exchange a look, notice Kurt.
“I think we’d better call an ambulance.”
chapter eighteen