A/N: Wow, angsty fic is angsty. When dealing with your own grief, I find it therapeutic to take it out on fictional characters *shrug* but it will become less so as the chapters progress.

Also: hello, I'm English! If any Brit spellings have sneaked in, I do apologise.
As always, reviews are welcomed with open arms.

1.

Kurt wasn't there, but that doesn't mean he can't see it. Picture it oh-so-exactly, what hit where and when.

How when the car went through the red light, and hit the side of the taxi. The amount of force it must have hit with, to shatter the window's glass and turn the door into a crumbled mess, resembling tinfoil.
How when it hit, there was only that thin sheet of metal between the car and the passenger.
How hard it must have hit to rupture internal organs, shatter his shoulder and destroy all the bones of his right leg. How the glass must have fallen like shining, jagged hailstones and embed their shards into the passengers face, neck, any exposed skin.
The sickening sound of his spine, jolted too hard, snapping like a twig. The bones, left to grate against each other as the vehicle spun out of control across the street, ending up crashing into the side of a restaurant, killing the both drivers instantly.

Nothing can be as bad as Kurt's imagination. If he'd been in that taxi, things would have been better. For one thing, he wouldn't have to picture it anymore; he'd just know.

Another; David, ever the gentleman always opened doors for him, would have opened the taxi door and let him get in first, sliding along to the right, to the side that the car hit hardest. If he'd been there, maybe... Maybe David would have survived. And that would have been infinitely better than leaving Kurt alone.

It's Rachel who walks him home from the hospital. She won't let him get in a taxi and she won't let him go anywhere alone. "Just in case, Kurt." She says, "I just want you to be safe."
Which he knows is code for I don't want you to kill yourself.

"I'm too busy for anything to happen to me." He says, "Adele needs picking up from school in an hour. I have to… Work tomorrow."

"Finn's already told me to tell you he'll get her. And you cannot go to work. I'll kill you if you do." She winces at her choice of words. As if a word like that is going to hurt him. Rupture, and snap, and fracture hurt so much more.

"I-I'm s-"

"It's fine. Tell Finn I said thank you."

Outside his building, Rachel looks at him with wide, nervous eyes. "Do you- Should I come up?"

Kurt shakes his head. "Much as I appreciate it Rachel, I think I need to be on my own for a while okay?"
She hesitates before she lets him go up the dozen steps and disappear into the lobby inside.

Their apartment is exactly as they left it. Still their apartment. There's a coffee mug on the table, with a few last cold dregs in the bottom and a half eaten slice of toast from breakfast. A pair of Adele's tiny, now dry socks over the radiator. Dishes stacked up in the kitchen. And in every room, photographs, just one or two, all with meticulously dusted frames. Adele eating her first ice cream. First day at school. David pushing her on a swing. And the largest one, in the lounge, them on their wedding day. Kurt in a pale grey suit, and Marc Jacobs shirt. David in darker colours, and a look on his face as if he was expecting to wake up any second. The entire apartment smells like clean laundry and aftershave.

Kurt only just manages to make it to the toilet before he throws up. He's not eaten all day and the acid burns his throat.

When he thinks he's done and stands up, catches sight of a blue glass bottle of Jean Paul Gautier, and retches again. It stings his eyes, and he welcomes it.

He's there for half an hour before he finds the strength to drag himself into the bedroom. It's the bed that hurts him the most. More than seeing the aftershave he bought David as a Christmas present, more than the half-eaten toast and photographs. Its dark sheets are tangled in a way Kurt would usually loathe. Nagging David to make the bed if he got up last was a weekly event that never quite sunk in permanently. But today, he can see how the sheets tell a story. David's last morning. How they must have creased here when he rolled over onto his side, how the sheet tugged in that corner when he stood. There's still a dent in the pillow.

Kurt does the only thing left that makes any sense. He crawls into bed, and stays there.

"Kurt? Are you in here?!"

Is this his fault? Once, he might have wished David wasn't here. Not wished him dead but… In high school it was no secret they hated each other. Dave had made his life a misery. Kurt might have never wished him dead, but he certainly wished he wasn't around anymore.

But that was before- before… David had come out and moved schools after an attempted suicide when all his jock 'friends' on the football team turned against him. Kurt had been stunned and sympathetic. Of course he'd agreed to be David's friend after that, he'd been so determined that he should never go through something like that alone, no matter what he'd done in the past. Even after Kurt moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion, and David had gone to California to study sports and events management, they'd kept in touch. An email, a phone call every couple of weeks.

They stayed that way for five years. Five years. Distance keeping them from physically meeting, but still talking. And Kurt enjoyed talking to him. David was smarter than he'd thought, like he'd been dumbing himself down deliberately to fit in with his 'friends' all along. He was funny, and he was incredibly sweet. Maybe it was because he thought he had so much to make up for, so many years of torturing Kurt that he had to show him his new, better side. Kurt didn't care; he still thought he was sweet either way.

"Kurt? Open the door!" A rattle of a chain.

Five years. David became a PA to the manager of a division II soccer team and he was happy. It was so obvious in every text message, every postcard. Five years of friendly kindness until David told him he was coming to New York for a month, coming for work.

Kurt met David the evening he'd landed. He had no idea why he'd rushed to go home from work, instead of just going straight to Central Park to meet him. He had no idea why he'd changed his outfit twice and felt the need to completely restyle his hair.

"Kurt, I swear to God, I'm gonna break it down if you don't open up right now!"

He was convinced he was being stood up as he waited under the autumn leaves, tugging his cashmere scarf tighter around his neck. What was taking David so long? But he figured if he could wait five years, he could wait another hour.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. And it was such, such a good job Kurt was sitting down.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

David Karofsky was not the same guy who he had seen day in, day out at McKinley. He was… How much weight had he lost, oh my God. His once rounded jaw was now sharp and refined and scattered with designer stubble. His dark hair was neatly cut. And since when the Hell had he known how to dress? Kurt could see his navy suit was Armani a mile off, so gorgeous that he'd wanted to tear it off his back and- wait, what?!

But what had hit Kurt the hardest, struck him like a sledgehammer to the chest was his smile.

"Kurt!" The bedroom door flew open, and there was a hard, warm hand on his face, "Kurt!"

Kurt cracked open one eye. "I'm not dead yet Finn, if that's what you're worried about." More's the pity.

He heard Finn's sigh of relief. "Why didn't you answer?"

Kurt would have shrugged if he'd had the energy. "I'm tired, Finn. Can you please go away?"

"Don't you care where Adele is?"

"She's better with you and Rachel than with me."

"I-We don't know what to tell her. She keeps asking where you are. Where you both are. I mean, what the Hell do we tell her?"

"Tell her not to drink and drive."

Another sigh. "Kurt…"

"Go away, Finn."

"I can't. I-" A pause. "I kicked your door in. Lock's bust. What if you get robbed?"

"There's nothing in here worth stealing other than my wardrobe, and everyone else in this building is terribly unfashionable. I think I'll be just fine."

Kurt feels the bed dip as Finn sits down. Their bed. The bed only three people have ever been in, he and David and Adele on nights when she can't sleep. The bed they bought together without thinking about how the Hell they were going to get it up the stairs to their apartment. That they've made love in, and on, and on the floor next to it, when they can't quite make it all the way.

He sits upright and the back of his hand connects with Finn's face. "Get out!"

"What the-?!"

"Get out!" Kurt shrieks the words. What right did he have? This bed, this whole apartment… This was their apartment. And already it was the apartment with the lock Finn broke and the bed Finn sat on. It's too full of memories for new ones to replace them. Too full of memories of the sunlight through the curtains and David attempting to cook and Adele doing a better job of it than he was. There was no room here for anyone, anything else.

"Okay, okay! I'm leaving!"

But Finn doesn't leave. After he flees the bedroom, Kurt can hear the kettle boiling, the sound of a teaspoon hitting the edge of a mug. Kurt wants to scream. He settles for silent crying.