Notes:
I was originally going to be hip and say, "I don't know what this is or where it came from xD" but that's not at all true. I know exactly what this is, and it's very personal. I haven't been writing very much because of issues I'm having - with life and with health that are affecting my ability to think. I've been hoping things would get better, but they're not. They're kind of getting worse. This doesn't mean I'm not writing anymore. It just means that writing is so much more difficult. And the way Kurt and Blaine feel in this one-shot - this is the way I've begun to feel. So if you guys want to do something, to the best of your abilities and to which your mind, body, and wallet can allow, I'm begging you to do it. Because you never know when that opportunity to do the thing you love might start to slip away. I love you all. And for anyone who's first instinct is to get science-y with me, don't. It's a metaphor, you walnuts.
"What do you think you're going to miss the most?" Kurt asks.
"I don't know." Lying side by side in the bed of Kurt's dad's old pickup truck, Blaine's eyes dart from the sky overhead to his friend's face, unsure where he should be looking. It's not a difficult question, but he still doesn't know. No one prepares you for this. You might think about it from time to time, let yourself get a little morbid, but you never think it's going to actually happen. So prepared? Nope. Not an inch. "You mean besides heat, food, and sanity?"
"Yeah," Kurt chuckles. "Besides all of that."
"I don't know if there's anything better than all that," he teases halfheartedly.
"Well, give it a shot."
"Okay, okay," Blaine says, quietly reprimanding himself after hearing Kurt's tense tone. "Laying out by the lake. Rainbows after a summer shower, taking a nap on the lawn with God rays warming my face ..."
Kurt snickers, but it sounds like a sniffle. "You're a sappy bastard, Blaine Anderson. Do you know that?"
"It gets worse," Blaine admits, turning his face completely from the puffy clouds floating in the steadily darkening sky up above, finally certain as to where he wants to be looking when all's said and done.
"Does it?"
"A-ha."
"What? Are you about to tell me how you're going to miss prancing through fields of wildflowers? Or jogging at dawn, watching the sun peek up over the horizon?"
"I'm going to miss seeing your face every day," Blaine replies softly, reaching out a hand and threading his fingers with Kurt's. He feels Kurt gulp hard at his touch, sees him wince with longing when their palms slide together.
"I-I brought a flashlight with me," Kurt jokes. Gallows humor. "It has a twelve hour battery so … you know … there's that."
"What are you going to miss, Kurt?" Blaine asks. It's a cruel question, crueler than it had been for him. They'd both had high hopes, dreams for the future, but much of what Kurt cares about is already gone – his mother, his father, his stepbrother. He had intended on living for them, succeeding for them, carrying their memory with him wherever he went, inserting it into everything he did, win awards in their honor.
The only thing Kurt has left, besides his swiftly dying dreams, is his friendship with Blaine.
Kurt breathes in deep, his voice shaking before he gets a word out. "I'm … I'm going to miss the fact that you and I didn't get together in the end." Blaine watches Kurt close his eyelids tight, a single tear rolling down his cheek. That's not all he's going to miss. Blaine knows. It's just the only thing he can say without completely falling to pieces.
That's why they came here. To stay glued together for a while longer.
"Well …" Blaine scoots over, coming nose to nose with Kurt as the light around them fades "… it's the end now, and here we are."
"Yeah." Kurt nods sadly. "Here we are."
With nothing left to say, Blaine kisses Kurt. Kurt kisses him back, and for a moment, the world disappears. They'd driven outside of town so they wouldn't have to witness the chaos, wouldn't have to hear the screams. They'd planned on driving to New York, but that fell through once they saw the traffic on the highway. So they took the first exit they could reach, found a street that headed up, and kept going in that direction. It was deserted. With everyone trying to get out, they expected it would be.
They reached the peak in record time.
Miles away from Lima, high atop the foothills with only a handful of other cars beside them, a handful of other lovers embracing the same fate they'd decided to embrace during the short time they had left, they thought they could escape the panic.
But they hadn't gone far enough.
There's a second more of silence before the people in the town below them cry out in terror, wails of realization ripping through the air …
… as the sun hanging high in the September sky burns out.