Notes: Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble prompts bury/cinnamon, candle/camera. This has a twist ending, and it's sad. That's all the warning you're getting. Don't come at me if you take the risk and get upset.
"So we've decided on the music, the lighting, the bed sheets, the color of the walls, the temperature of the room, and foot and forehead massage. Is there anything else you can think of? A book you'd like to have read to you? Or flowers maybe?" Blaine asks, fingers templed beneath his chin.
Kurt scrunches his nose. "No. No flowers. Flowers are a little too … tired in my opinion. But I would like some candles. Scented ones? Cinnamon and nutmeg, something that smells like a Christmas cookie, cuz, you know, tis the season."
Kurt laughs at his attempt at a joke. But as at ease as he looks, it sounds forced.
"Of course," Blaine says, as if every choice Kurt makes isn't driving hooks into his soul. It's bad enough this is happening to Kurt in the first place, but happening at Christmas? Blaine can't even begin to fathom what that must feel like.
Blaine knows what it feels like for him.
It makes him want to rip his heart out of his own chest. It would be less painful than this.
Kurt opens his mouth to speak, another witty remark by the sparkle in his eyes, but despite that, his voice comes out reed thin. "And no cameras." Kurt chuckles to cover clearing the pins and needles from his throat. "The paparazzi have already had their fair share of field days with me. I can't imagine what they'd do with this."
"No cameras. Promise." Blaine watches Kurt go back over the room, running his fingers over fabric swatches on the bed, taking a second glance at the paint samples on the wall. They're doing a complete renovation, from the lights on the ceiling to the finish on the wood floor. Kurt made it big on Broadway right out of high school, but designing has always been his passion. On the road the way he's been, he hasn't had much time to redecorate.
As they say, no time like the present.
Kurt wraps his arms around his waist as he goes over the details, his face pinched with discomfort. There's conflict within him (along with other things). On the outside, he's a façade of calm, peace. But inside he must be screaming.
Blaine takes a deep breath to steady his stomach. The best thing he can do for Kurt is help him maintain the calm, make his insides match his outsides.
He fails before he starts.
"Have you thought about where you want to be …?" Blaine can't finish that sentence. As professional as he is, having planned this same event for so many other people, he can't rely on professionalism now. Because Kurt isn't just any other person. He's the person Blaine has loved for so damned long. He's the person Blaine still loves, and always will.
Till death do they part.
That was their original deal, but it didn't turn out that way.
It took over a decade for Blaine to get over losing Kurt to his career, but he'll never get over losing Kurt like this.
"Buried?" Kurt finishes with a sad smile. "At Forest Lawn. Between my mother and father."
Blaine nods, cursing himself for not being better than this, not being stronger. A week ago, Kurt called Blaine with the news.
Stomach cancer.
After years of keeping a super close eye on his blood pressure, his cholesterol, and his prostate, this he did not see coming. Kurt said he started Googling death doulas the second he left his oncologist's office. Blaine's name was the first one that popped up, and he took it as a sign. Because regardless of where their lives have taken them, they swore they'd be there for one another.
It might be a tall order, all things considered, but Kurt was calling that promise in now.
"Oh, Blaine." Kurt walks over, puts an arm around Blaine's shoulders, and just like that, years after their last goodbye, Kurt is comforting him when it's literally Blaine's job. And Kurt is good at it. Where Blaine is concerned, he always was. "I know that after we broke up, things got a little rough. And I'm sorry I didn't keep in better touch than Christmas and birthday cards. But I'm so glad you're willing to do this for me." Blaine's head drops at the sound of Kurt's acceptance. He can't help it. He should be holding it high, but his neck can't seem to bear the weight. He thought he'd cried himself dry over this. Again, he was wrong. Kurt ducks his eyes to catch Blaine's, shimmering with tears. "No matter how it ended, no matter how long it's been, you're the best friend I have in the entire world. You know me better than anyone alive. How could I die without you?"
