Hey, guys. This is really quick, a nice angsty one shot to cleanse my palate, since I have been working really hard on DYWM. I wrote this months ago (pre-Klaine) about characters of my own creation, named Penelope and Marcus. I reread it tonight, realizing that they were Kurt and Blaine. So, with a little tweaking…
xXxXx
The horse's name was Chateau. That was because she was large, several hands tall, and pleasantly robust. Because she felt like home- her musky scented flesh swathed in a silken, shining coat the color of sand and accentuating with flying mane and tail of black. Blaine closed his eyes, for they were swimming, and leaned his head against the horse's neck. A breath in, hissed out. He lifted his head, leaving two dark tear spots on the sandy plane. The smell was familiar, the dirt, the flesh, the leather. He was with his Chateau. He was in his mansion. He was at home.
Blaine's curls fell around his neck, and he sighed, shaking them away. He grabbed the top of the saddle and kicked one leg into the air and falling intentionally backwards, landing, one leg on either side of the horse, in the saddle. Old cowhand trick. The horse slid into a smooth run beneath him, her cue for that trick. They ran together, in perfect tandem, reaching for something that was no longer there- reaching for the feeling of being free.
xXxXx
"A little ditty, 'bout Jack and Diane..."
"Two American kids growin' up-in-the-heart land!" He finished, standing in the carpeted living room, shag coming up between his toes. The radio blared a very familiar tune as Kurt grabbed his rucksack and went through the checklist that was on a bubbly sticky note. Notebook, pen, toothbrush, hairbrush, water bottle, locket, and sustenance. He looked at the last item, and skipped merrily into the kitchen grabbing a green apple that looked alright. He twirled it around in his pale fingers for a moment- the fluorescence hit it at angles so it shined this way and that. Pretty color. He placed it delicately into the rucksack, and the weight of it transported it to the very bottom of the sleek little bag, taking with it sheets of paper from the notebook. He threw the bag over his shoulder and looked at his watch, twitching in surprise when he saw the time and waltzed out the door and down a very long flight of steps, not glancing back at the studio apartment he left behind. It was when he leapt up, with perfect grace, onto the trolley as it went, heels clicking onto the cement of the car's floor, emblazoned with the crest of San Francisco- That is when he thought about it. That the freedom he had once had was flying away like the breeze through his hair.
xXxXx
They met over wine, in an air conditioned room deep in northern California. And they never, never would have expected it of the other. The Last Drink, as the smiling nurse called it, as if it were something that they would remember, that the whole world might remember. But that, in retrospect, would make sense. Fire burned their throats, and it made sense. Truly it did. And then, the fire filled Kurt's delicate lungs, and the meeting was abruptly over, almost as soon as it had begun.
xXxXx
Blaine couldn't speak. The cancers filled his lungs, climbed up his vocal chords like they were vines. And Kurt felt obligated. He was, after all, the only one who could properly sympathize. He only one who knew how it felt, trying to breathe, and your mouth filling with liquid instead. So he sat, crosslegged, on the end of his hospital bed, speaking for the both of them, reading Blaine's eyes, his expressions, laughing when Blaine looked sardonic and nodding in earnest, reworking and rewording when he looked fearful- the kind of fear that only Kurt was allowed to see. He asked him questions and he would nod or shake his head, eyes twinkling as they rarely twinkled. He loved it best when Blaine nodded or shook about his horse, who, because would have taken far too long, Kurt did not know the name of. But he knew she was beautiful. He thought he knew that she was the only one that Blaine ever loved, but he was wrong about that- unknowingly contradicting his own existence.
But at least Blaine was constant. The rock. The one thing Kurt was not for him, he was for Kurt. Because at random times over the months that they knew each other, his hair would lose its shining luster. His excited eyes would die into gray as still as clouds unmoved by wind. And Blaine sat in the chair, knowing that his patience, and his pain, would be rewarded with Kurt's health. After all, Kurt's upswings made the sickest days of Blaine's life also the happiest. Because being with him- it was a lot like pain, this pleasure. But pleasure it was. And so, he would always be Kurt's rock. He was Kurt's constance when he was ill, as Kurt was Blaine's life when he was not.
xXxXx
And the hand was dealt.
xXxXx
Two patients. Identical diseases. Identical and inevitable outcomes. Something had to give. Something had to break in the story for these two lovers who had only ever made love with their eyes, whose lips had only ever touched in the flush of his cheeks or the flexing of his hand. And something gave, broke, when Kurt went to sit on the end of Blaine's bed as he always did on a Saturday morning that dawned in the fall, unremarkable and unworthy of note. He was not there.
His bed was perfectly made, but he was not in it. All of his possessions had been cleared away. An orderly stepped into of the room. "He's gone." Those were the first words out of the mouth of the well-intentioned. The first words, which were immediately followed up with "to get a drink of water..." But Kurt was already tripping down the hallway, and into his room, throwing open a drawer and powering on a small laptop, thrusting it open and pulling up a generic search engine, typing Blaine's name. The first link that came told him the name of the stable, and the address. He scribbled the information haphazardly on his palm with a sharpie. He was about to shut the laptop off when something else caught his eye under the first link. A video. He clicked.
Blaine sang.
Blaine had a voice, a long, long time ago. It was beautiful.
Tears in his eyes, he pulled the portable IV out of his arm and gasped in pain- It hurt more than it should have, his heart was racing, it was hard to breath- he slipped out the window. Not seeing clearly, he got on the shuttle which would take him to the train, which would take him to his final home.
xXxXx
His room looked like it had been ransacked- even his precious rucksack gone, and that was when he knew. A room violated and disrespected, as is the hospital's way with its unclaimed dead. Kurt had no family left, he'd said so. Blaine bit down hard on his lip, and looked around. His attention was called by a laptop open. He walked over to the bed and glanced at it. He saw himself, full screen, mouth open, eyes foolishly happy. He was, in the paused video, singing. Had Kurt seen this? He liked to think so.
Blaine shivered, pulling the flannel of his pajamas around his too-thin body- the hospital rarely kept it this cold. He looked about. An open window, sent to him by an merciful angel who did not want him to live without Kurt. The only part of his life that seemed bright. He slipped through the window, and, wheezing slightly, walked. And walked. And walked.
xXxXx
He sat on a pile of hay. It had been easy enough to guess which horse was Blaine's, and even if he was wrong, he supposed it didn't matter. He was living the things he had described in looks, in the tilts of his eyes: the smell, the warmth, the prickly and yet safe feeling. He searched through the rucksack, trying to find the pen and notebook- he would want to record this moment, Three in the afternoon, thereabouts, and petting the nose of the sandy colored horse, and about to die. he wondered vaguely, when she didn't find it, if he could've kept the pen steady anyway. His fingers brushed something smooth. An apple, looking as if it had seen far better days, but not yet rotting or moldy -luck, he supposed. The horse whinnied its sweet breath into his ear; His last act was to feed it the pretty green apple- the horse caught it up in its teeth in time that it wouldn't fall when Kurt did, onto the dust strewn floor.
xXxXx
Blaine looked up at the apartment. The way Kurt had talked about it had not been very enthused. But if he could not find him anywhere else on earth, why not try where he last lived? He sighed. That was, in truth, an awful idea. And now, what could he do? He fell to his knees, and a bright white light came to him. He followed it until he found its source- the headlights for a trolley car, which he only recognized from his love's description. He boarded, willing to seize hold of any chance of death in a way that would that would memorialize his dying year, the best year of his life. And as the wind blew through his hair, and his rough, saddlegripping hands slid down the guardrail, he could pretend that those who surrounded him knew or care that he belonged to Kurt. But in reality, all those who surrounded him would only know and remember his time of death: 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
Fin.