a/n: I'm sorry.
The music lifted in a crescendo of voices around him. He stood amidst them, his voice rising and falling in a quiet, dim harmony. Everything was dim to him. The voices around him were raised in a hallelujah to the arched ceiling of the room.
There was a time that he felt safe here. Warm and comfortable. He remembered every breath he drew was echoed by another that should have stood only feet away, his voice more powerful than the others. Everything had once shone brighter than the stage lights he yearned for. Someone had loved him and cherished him. Had made him feel like a secret note in a melody someone found only after listening to it again and again. A particular intonation of words sang by the artist, or a particular note played by the band. Beautiful and overwhelming.
He'd once had that.
It'd been a victory to keep it all in. Weeks he'd ached. Weeks and weeks he'd kept his head up and ploughed on. There was a time when people knew exactly what he was feeling simply through his expression. He remembered that he'd once moved somebody. Now he'd closed himself off so far that he was indifferent to everyone. They told him it was okay to cry. To show weakness and grief. It was normal. It was normal to be broken inside?
The room was warm but he felt cold. So, so cold and it had been that way since the funeral. His father had stopped trying to talk to him about it. He'd almost tried to stop talking to him at all. He knew his father saw the pain under the layers he'd put over it. It was killing his father more than it was killing him.
It wasn't fair. Where was God? When was it his turn at happiness? Why did everything he felt happy about get torn from him so cruelly? Did God want to draw every aching breath from him and tear his heart right out that bad? He'd been there before. He'd walked that path and at one point he'd had someone to walk it with him. There was a time when he'd had someone to show everything to.
He couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't fight the heart-wrenching, aching hole in his chest any longer. It hurt. Everything hurt so badly. He wanted to crawl inside himself, not be stuck in a stuffy room with a handful of other boys singing expressionlessly and not have him there. He wanted to tear himself apart just to end it. He wanted to scream and throw things. Smash his heart to pieces, but it was already broken in two.
He'd had enough. He was tired of everything and the unfairness of it all.
The first sob escaped involuntary. The tears streamed and in his heart he knew nothing could fill that gaping ache. Everything he'd put into his own happiness had been wasted. His bones hurt and he felt like he was glass. Fragile and just a reflection of everything going on around him. He wasn't him. He'd put up walls and shown people what they wanted to see but it was wrong.
He put the white flag up. He couldn't deal. He wanted out.
Kurt sank to his knees with the grief and pain he'd holed up inside himself for the past few weeks because Blaine was dead and he couldn't take it anymore.
He shook and the pain of the sobs wracking through his worn body was nothing compared to the unbearable loss of his best friend and love.
He needed Blaine's arms around him. He needed his to press his lips so softly to him. He needed Blaine to smile and laugh and to make everything OK again. He needed his only source of hope back because God, he'd had enough. He'd had enough of this god forsaken hellhole. The one thing he'd relied on most and been so open with was snatched away without even an excuse. This black abyss inside him had eaten at him for weeks and he choked out a sobbing, choked "Blaine." that sounded tortured and mangled and finally everyone stopped singing.
They weren't Blaine. The Warblers were like family and the closest thing to Blaine that he could get but they weren't him. He couldn't live through them anymore. He couldn't kid himself that the voice humming around the corner or outside his room belonged to maybe a curly haired boy with a too bright smile and open eyes.
Wes joined him on the floor. Kurt couldn't see for the tears that burned white hot in his eyes but he made out Wes's arms wrapping themselves solidly around Kurt. He held him, and they rocked gently back and forth as Kurt sobbed.
Various Warblers crouched down and held Kurt. He took in their closeness, their comfort and solidity.
They just weren't Blaine.
He needed Blaine to be shushing him gently. It should be Blaine rubbing his back gently, whispering nonsense, comforting him with words. Blaine should be there but he's not. He's not coming back.
It's a small cry from what he needs. He grips Wes tighter. He folds in on himself and in the middle of a Warblers rehearsal three weeks after Blaine's death Kurt Hummel allows himself to grieve.
