It only hits him when he gets home. After Blaine took him out for celebratory coffee for getting parts in West Side Story did it hit him. Half way through his nightly moisturising routine does it Kurt Hummel that he dies. Tony dies at the end of West Side Story. And Blaine is playing Tony. How could he forget that, he thinks to himself - he's seen the movie and the musical versions countless times. It hits Kurt hard, he's going to have to watch Blaine die a total of seven times. He isn't ready to watch him go, Blaine only just came into Kurt's life. He was Kurt's everything, just as Kurt was Blaine's everything. And now Kurt would have to watch him die seven times over, and he can't even react. Kurt tries unsuccessfully to reason with himself, it's just play - just a story, Tony is the one who dies and Blaine is not Tony, none of it will be real.
But Kurt knows Blaine, and he knows that Blaine is an amazing and phenomenal actor. Unfortunately, the ex-Warbler also a very convincing one. He plays a part and he plays it well, even if he does lacks the sexual knowledge that Tony has. Artie may have told him that he needed to have had sex to properly portray a sexual scene, but Artie never said that Blaine had to die in order to portray Tony. Kurt washes his face, removing the evidence of the tears that had been streaming down since it hit him. The brunette climbs into bed and cries himself to sleep.
As they start table reads and later rehearsals, Kurt avoids that dreadful final scene, carefully and cleverly slipping away so he isn't there. He avoids helping Blaine practice the scene, his excuses becoming wilder and more absurd but Blaine leaves him be and never questions him. Kurt never lets on how hard that dreadful final scene is, too scared to show the weakness of it. He pushes through, successfully making it to the opening night having never seen that dreadful final scene. He's watched West Side Story multiple times to help him practice, but he always turns it off before Tony can remind him of what Blaine must do.
The auditorium is still as the final scene rolls around. Kurt stands in the wings, mentally preparing himself when a voice breaks through his thoughts, it's Blaine - dressed as Tony in a white dress shirt and mustard jacket.
"I thought I'd apologise in advance for dying on you." Blaine whispers with quiet humour, sneaking in a peck on Kurt's cheek.
Kurt masks his pain well, "stop fooling round and get out there. Don't worry about me I'll be fine," he tells him, shoving him forward.
Blaine meets his eyes, knowing that Kurt's not. Why else would the senior keep avoiding everything to do with this scene. He sighs quietly, pulls himself into character. Preparing to run on stage, he looks back and whispers lovingly, "I love you Kurt, and I will always return to you."
He bolts on, transforming completely into Tony as he screams out for Chino to COME AND GET ME – to come and kill him. Blaine as Tony screams out his emotions and brokenness, his mic peaking with the authenticity of the shorter boy's acting, the pain of Maria's death evident on his face. Kurt was struggling to see through the blurry lines of Blaine the person and Tony the character. He watches as the petite, tomboyish sophomore girl who plays Action - Adelle, comes on; he spots Rory as Chino running on and across the wooden stage, following Rachel's entrance as the very much alive Maria and the brief reunion between the two eloped lovers bef-
*BANG*
Blaine as Tony collapses into Rachel as Maria's arms and Kurt sees nothing but a gaping hole in his lover's chest overflowing with blood right and staining his mustard-coloured jacket where his heart is, he cannot help but to let out a small cry at the sight. He curses Rachel as Maria as she cradles him in her arms – that should be him there holding Blaine as he dies. Arms wrap around him and Kurt hardly notices the small comforts offered by Brittany and Santana. He listens as Blaine as Tony whispers his final words and his movement ceases completely. Try as he might Kurt cannot see any visible movement from Blaine. There is no indication of life Blaine's for he's as good as dead and Kurt wanted nothing more than to hold him, screaming louder than Rachel as Maria was, because the love of life, his whole world, his everything lay dead on the wooden stage.
His vision of the stage is obscured as Brittany gently dabs his eyes with some tissues and Santana quickly repairs his make-up. He knows that the two lovers were sympathising with him as he watched Blaine as Tony lie dead on the wooden stage. They walk with him as far as they can. Kurt smiles his thanks to them and hides behind the facade of Officer Kurptke, arresting Rory as Chino in a detached manner, and watches as the Sharks and the Jets pick up Blaine as Tony's limp body from the cold hard wooden stage and carry him off like they would a dead body in a coffin, because Blaine is as dead as ten feet under. He reaches the wings of the other side when tears begin to flow back down his face. Rory gives him a hug, the tall sophomore attempting to be as reassuring as possible. Santana and Brittany return and Rory slipped away, readying for the curtain call. The band plays as Kurt steals himself to face the audience again, Brittany carefully wiping away the fresh tears and Santana reapplying his make-up. Only up close could one see his fully red eyes - the only marker that he'd been crying. The music rolls and the cast move into positions. Brittany slips away to join the Jets girls in their call as Santana walks Kurt over to where she and Puck prepare to enter. Steeling himself once more Kurt as Officer Kurtpke graced the stage, leaving no outward sign of his internal distress. Then it happened.
Blaine walked out on stage, hand in hand with Rachel as his Maria, his smile was charming and dapper as it always was. He was alive, smiling and waving at the crowd – not a dead-never-coming-back corpse. Kurt's heart soar in the moment, allowing his smiles to expand tenfold with joy at his Blaine being alive. He walks with a giddy bounce in his step back to his dressing room, a happy smile on his face until he overhears a conversation between two Shark girls.
"Great opening night don't you think?"
"Amazing, can't wait for tomorrow night!"
"I don't want this to end, someone send me back to 1950s New York please."
It's not their fault for they didn't know, but they notice him let out a small sob – there were still six more performances. Kurt didn't know how much more he could take of Blaine as Tony dying in front of him.
The Shark girls approach him, asking if he is okay. He brushes them off and bolts back to his dressing room and hides. Hides from the reminders, from the sympathetic works and gestures, from the cold hard wooden stage. Allowing himself to cry, Kurt changes out of his costume and prepares to head to the after party at one of the senior's properties outside of Lima. Heading out, Kurt stops by the auditorium, sneaking onstage. He hopes to have a moment alone with the wooden stage, to pour out his grief onto it, to lay this weight on his shoulders onto its strong foundations. It's empty, a few lights still on but the large space is unoccupied. Everyone has gone and Kurt was left to mourn alone. Cautiously, the countertenor moves around the stage, noting all the marks left by the stage crew reminding them where set items belonged. And in between the one marked as 'Maria's Bed' and 'Sharks' rooftop scaffold' was where Blaine had died in the role of Tony. Kurt kneels and lets his grief pour out into the wooden stage, screaming louder than Rachel ever could – because this was real to Kurt. In his mind that gunshot was real, and Blaine had been taken from him. The smile he flashed during the curtain all was an illusion, Kurt's desire for his Blaine to return, to smile at him and hold him and promise that he'd never leave like that. Kurt screams and curses the wooden stage and all it has seen, for the weight it bore in the dead body of his lover. His sobs subside, leaving Kurt feeling empty inside. Is this how life without Blaine would be like?
"Kurt?" A smooth voice calls out. Blaine runs across the wooden stage and suddenly it doesn't feel so cold after all. "Kurt, what's wrong."
Kurt is stunned and all he can do is pull the short lead actor into his arms; feeling the warmth of his skin, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes and tears that stream down both their faces.
It takes him time, but he finds the words, "it was just so real," and Blaine understands immediately. Tony's death was too much for Kurt to witness.
"Kurt," he purrs, "I'm here now."
The senior shakes his head, pulling back to take Blaine in, "it felt real, like you had actually died and when you smiled at me during the curtain call it just seemed like it was all a dream. Like I'd wished so hard that you'd come back and then you did, but you'll be taken from me again," he cries, for he could never not stop crying at the thought of Blaine leaving him.
Blaine nods, softly stroking Kurt's cheek with his hand, "but I will always return. Tony will die and then I will come back to you. I can't leave you Kurt, it's like we're tied together," he smiles as hopefully as possible.
"But what about tomorrow, and next week and when I leave for college?" Kurt cries out, asking a question he doesn't really want answered. But Blaine does.
"I will return Kurt, always and always. I love you too much. And as for tomorrow and next week and when you leave for college – we'll take each day together one at a time. Look, why don't we just head back to mine and stuff our faces with junk food and watch some cheesy comedy show?"
Kurt conceded to his boyfriend's care and they walk out together, arms still wrapped around the other in a loving tangle. He doesn't know how he'll handle the rest of the shows, but for now he feels a little bit better about the whole situation.
Disclaimer: I owns nothings. Nothings I tells you!
A/N: The lines between fiction and reality are really blurry some days. I got this idea while re-watching Klaine in The First Time and remembering a story one of my friend's told me about her brother and his boyfriend being in RENT together but one was Roger and the other was Angel and apparently he cried a lot at the whole 'Angel dies' part. I'm low-key pissed at the show for never addressing that detail but meh. I fixed it. :D