Notes: Written for the Klaine Advent prompt Day 3 - collapse. The title and inspiration comes from an NPR segment I was listening to of the same name, but, as with other one-shots I've written recently, this one is also personal. Warning for mention of injuries and bruises.
"Hey, baby. Are you ready to go yet?"
Kurt doesn't answer right away, sifting through the contents of a bag he's packed and re-packed at least two dozen times in the past hour. Not that he had much to pick up to begin with. Aside from his favorite costumes (that the NYCB was being gracious enough to let him have), he'd forgotten a few dance belts, a pair of shoes, and a leotard, all of which he'll probably end up tossing in the Goodwill bin anyway. He was really only back to shake some hands, say his obligatory good-byes, and fill out paperwork.
Finalize the details of his retirement.
But he needed this – to sit on the worn, wooden floor of the practice room one final time before it was all over. He had spent two decades here, having been accepted to the School of American Ballet before the end of high school. He'd learned here, taught here, performed here.
He'd also collapsed here – twisted his ankle on a landing three months ago and hit the floor so hard, he'd dislocated his shoulder. Ten years ago, it wouldn't have been that big a deal. He'd pop it back in, finish his lesson, then go home and ice up – no real harm done … or so he'd thought. Apparently, those injuries he'd muscled through – the sprained ankles, the pulled muscles, the bruised knees, the wrenched shoulders - had all started to add up.
They were all strikes against him.
At the time, he could shrug it off. His ankle and his shoulder would look gross for a while, but that's the price of being a dancer for the New York City Ballet. He wore those black-and-blues with pride, danced with his shirt off when he had them so that everyone could see, could marvel at his strength and perseverance.
His resilience.
But that was ten years ago. He's not the same man he once was, even though, in his heart, he feels like nothing's changed. He's still that sixteen-year-old boy standing on the stage in his high school auditorium, being told again that he was too "effeminate" to convincingly play a leading man. That was a turning point in his life. He'd had to decide then and there – should he accept rejection with grace and plug along, knowing that there would probably be more, similar rejections ahead? Or should he take this thing about himself that everyone else saw as a deficit and turn it into the greatest positive of his life?
In the end, he chose the latter. He quit his school's Glee club and theater program, and enrolled in ballet. Ballet had been his first real passion from back when he was six and life had yet to bombard him with its grim and inescapable realities - with death, and bullying, and heartbreak. He'd always been told that he had a natural, easy grace, and a fluidity of movement that couldn't be taught. It was simply innate. So he'd go to a place where those things were considered an asset.
He'd started with a simple recreation center class, something to get his feet wet, until a chance encounter with a guest director sling-shotted him to stardom – a private audition, followed by an offer of early enrollment and a scholarship. Before he knew it, mere weeks after he'd made up his mind to re-set his course in life, he was testing out of McKinley, taking the first plane out of Ohio, and moving to the city of his dreams.
New York.
It had seemed like a fairy tale. He couldn't believe that he, Kurt Hummel, who had a reputation for getting universal shit on, was getting everything he ever wanted. He finally felt like the person he saw when he looked in the mirror – a leading man.
But he'd had so many stars in his eyes clogging up his vision and cluttering up his brain that he forgot – not all fairy tales have happy endings.
His doesn't … save one.
He looks up at his husband with glistening eyes and a weak smile, and says: "No. No, I'm not ready." He sniffs, wipes a tear from his eyes. "You know, I've seen so many dancers retire during my time here, so many walk through those doors and never come back, and I knew, eventually, I would be one of them. But now that I'm doing it …" He shakes his head, fighting back tears he swore he wouldn't shed. "It's too soon."
"I'm so sorry," Blaine says. He's said it a hundred times already, and here he is, still saying it. In fact, I'm sorry is the first thing he ever said to Kurt when they met at Callbacks many, many years ago. Blaine was the bar's in-house pianist at the time, his part time job while he put himself through school. Kurt was passing him by, heading to the bar for a refill on his Diet Coke, but Blaine thought he was coming up to talk to him.
Hoping, more like, since, from the direction of his eyes and the intensity of his gaze, it was obvious Kurt was going to blow right by him. But Blaine thought now or never, right? He stood up, pushed his bench out a little too far, and before he could say a word of warning, Kurt hit the corner and tripped, head over heels, onto the floor.
(Every time Blaine recounts the story of the way they met, he always jokes that Kurt 'fell head over heels' for him. Kurt has yet to find it funny.)
Kurt landed on his palms, leaving them bloody. The corner of the bench tore through his pants and cut his knee. On top of that, he'd spilt the drink he was refilling down the front of his designer silk shirt. It was a disaster all around. Through numerous repetitions of "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!" Blaine offered Kurt a Band-Aid and some antibacterial ointment, but Kurt turned him down. He called Blaine a 'talentless, classless swine', and left.
Blaine never thought he'd see him again.
Until the next night, when Kurt returned with a single red rose, looked deep into his eyes, and said, "It's my turn to say I'm sorry."
Blaine wants to stop saying sorry and offer his husband more in the way of comfort and wisdom, but he doesn't know what else to say. He can't fix this, can't change it. A Band-Aid and a tube of Neosporin won't make this wound go away.
"Becoming a ballet dancer … it was a way to cope, a way to overcome. I knew I could do it, but I was also so used to be being pushed down despite my talent that I never thought it would actually happen. I didn't think it would become my life, that I would be lucky enough. Becoming Principal Dancer so quickly … it was a dream come true."
"And you deserved it." Blaine gets down on one knee in front of his husband. "Every minute of it."
Kurt nods. He's not being condescending. He worked hard for it, for everything he has. He did deserve it.
He doesn't deserve this.
"You know, they say a dancer dies twice." Kurt sniffs again. Blaine reaches into his pocket, pulls out a handkerchief, and passes it to his husband. "That used to terrify me."
"How does it feel now?"
Kurt chuckles hollowly, patting his eyes dry. "Painless."
"But … isn't painless a good thing?"
"No. Because when I leave here, I don't want it to be on my own two feet. I want you to wheel me out of here, crippled, unable to stand or walk. But I can stand …" He rises to his feet. "I can walk." He struts around his husband with regal posture, toes pointed as he follows the ghosts of his own steps around the room. "I can even arabesque." He considers trying it, but he decides not to, because what if he's wrong? What if he can't do it? He's already lost so much of his technique, watched it slip through his fingers in a frighteningly short amount of time. It would shatter his heart to know how much more he's losing by the day. "But beyond that, I'm finished. And I'm not ready to be."
"I know it seems like everything's over …" Blaine stands. He crosses the floor, and takes his husband's hands in his "… but this isn't an ending, Kurt. Your life isn't done. In many ways, it's a beginning. Think of all the traveling we can do now! The long vacations we can take! Don't think of this as retirement. Think of it as re-birth."
"That does sound nice," Kurt says, though the tone of his voice tells Blaine that's he's humoring him. "But I've never exactly been an R&R type of guy. I think I'd go crazy after a while. I need to be on stage. I need to perform."
"So, perform," Blaine suggests, grasping for something that might make Kurt feel better, that will bring the smile back to his face – the one he lost in this room the day he fell to the floor. "Maybe your spotlight here has dimmed, but there's always one somewhere. You used to talk about being on Broadway. We … we can start there! We'll get you a vocal coach, whip your voice back in shape. I graduated from NYADA, Kurt! One of the premiere performing arts schools in the country! I'm sure with your resume and my recommendation, you'd have professors bending over backward to get you back on the stage." Blaine pulls his husband to him, rests his forehead against his, desperate to make his heart whole again as quickly as possible. "You can do anything you set your mind to, Kurt! Anything!"
"Do you believe that?" Kurt whispers.
"I do, Kurt! I always have!"
A tear slides down Kurt's cheek, but he chuckles all the same. It's that same hollow laugh from before, but this time, more deeply gutted.
"Then you're lying to yourself, love."
Blaine jerks back a little, in hurt and disbelief. "How do you figure?"
"Because what I want to do is dance, Blaine. I want to spin, and leap, and soar. It's all I want to do. And I never will again."