Title: Counting On Forever
Author: Oswald-Girl
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson
Time: Winter of senior year
Genre: Tragedy, Romance
Rating: T
Warning: Character death
Note: I started this long before "Born This Way" (or even "Original Song") aired, so in this story both Kurt and Blaine still attend and board at Dalton Academy.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Counting On Forever
Dalton Academy in Westerville, Ohio backs up to the edge of a small forest. The high trees were densely packed in near the school, but thinned out as one traveled into the wood. About fifteen minutes walking distance from the back wall of the school was a small secluded clearing only two students knew about.
Blaine Anderson had been coming here since he initially transferred to Dalton. Within his first week, he had been wandering alone behind the school when he stumbled across the place he would visit many more times. The uncharted trail he took became engrained in his memory after only a few trips to the clearing. Something about the isolation and the air of the forest was comforting to him. Whenever he had been feeling homesick or stressed, he would come to the tiny clearing and sit against the single fallen tree which lay across the space. When Kurt Hummel transferred, Blaine had entrusted his new friend with the location of his secret place.
It became their secret place. The place they came when they needed to talk or think or just be together. When the two finally started dating, Blaine often took the younger boy to their private spot in the woods for a picnic date or to simply lie in each other's arms. They had so many memories of the place, most of them happy. The clearing became synonymous with their relationship in Blaine's thoughts.
But now it was under entirely different circumstances that Blaine entered the clearing, this time alone.
The boy sighed heavily as he allowed his eyes to trail over the area he already knew so well. The trees rose up around him in a way that suddenly seemed intimidating. The ground was frozen and brown and dead, no longer covered in a warm, lively green. The fallen tree the boys had rested against now seemed cold and uninviting. The entire clearing now felt unnatural and wrong.
Of course, everything about life now felt unnatural and wrong.
It was a Sunday. Kurt had gone home for the weekend, but was supposed to return a little earlier than usual that afternoon so the two could fit in a little alone time before another hectic week began.
Blaine smiled to himself, relishing in the thought of spending time with his incredible boyfriend. They had not been together more than a few short, blissful months, but Blaine knew he was in love with the other boy, and he was going to tell the countertenor for the first time that night. Something about the way his heart started racing at the mere mention of Kurt or the way seeing Kurt smile made him want to smile or the fact that he would do anything— anything— for the other boy or—
But that is when his cell phone started to vibrate. Without giving it a second thought, he quickly flipped it open to answer.
"Blaine speaking,"
It feels stupid to admit, but the voice that answered him was not what Blaine had been expecting, because in all honesty, he had not bothered to expect anything at all. "Blaine?" he recognized the voice. It belonged to Burt Hummel, his boyfriend's father. "Blaine, something's happened to Kurt."
Stepping across the frozen ground gingerly, Blaine hesitantly reached out his hand to dust his fingers across the branch of a tree on the perimeter of the clearing. The bark was rough against his skin, but he did not mind. In a way, he was grateful to be able to feeling something, anything, else.
The tree was bare; no leaves remained on its thin branches. It was completely stripped of all visible signs of life. The cold December air had not treated the tree well.
Blaine spent the next three days sitting beside Burt in the generic waiting room of the hospital.
It was the sad result of some stupid car accident. Some stupid ice on some stupid road had caused some stupid car to spin out of control and hit a black Navigator that just so happened to have Kurt Hummel sitting behind the wheel.
And now Kurt was lying in a hospital bed.
The kids from New Directions and a few members of the Warblers flitted in and out of the hospital; all of them wanted to be there for their friend, but the only people who stayed were Blaine and Burt. Out of everyone, it made sense that they would be the ones who refused to leave; their entire existences revolved around Kurt. They did not speak much to each other during those three days, but when the doctors finally announced they were allowed to see Kurt, still unconscious, they alternated long hours sitting in Kurt's bland white-walled hospital room talking to him. Blaine had no way of knowing what the older Hummel said to his comatose son when he sat beside him, but Blaine spent his time alone with his boyfriend telling him all the things he wished he had said before the accident.
Mostly, he just wished he had told Kurt he loved him before he was faced with the boy's barely alive form in a hospital room.
Blaine ran his left hand through his dark hair, which he had left free of his hair gel, and breathed deeply for a moment. Kurt would have been pleased that his hair was loose; he always said it looked much better that way. Except that Kurt was not here, nor would he ever be. Not anymore.
That was when he lost it. Blaine sank to the frozen ground in the center of the clearing, shaking. His fingers desperately tried to dig into the solid earth, seeking anything with which to anchor himself to something that still felt real. The tenor pulled up a few dead leaves and, but nothing substantial. He should have expected as much; that was all life seemed to be after the accident. Even without a tether to keep him grounded, Blaine began to speak.
The days bled together in Blaine's memory. Every passing second seemed more hopeless than the last. He spent hours in Kurt's room, begging the small and broken boy to wake up. It was the same thing each day: enter Kurt's room, talk to him about simple things as if life were normal, come to his senses and plead with the lifeless boy to please, please open his eyes. If he opened his eyes, everything would be okay, Blaine was sure of it.
On the ninth day after the accident, after the nurses had shooed both him and Burt away from Kurt's bedside and into the waiting room, he had been sitting in the same chair, the third from the left, with Burt beside him. They had formed a strange sort of bond in those nine days. Blaine's own father had never been as supportive of Blaine as he always wished and he envied Kurt's relationship with Burt. But in those nine days, even without speaking frequently, Burt had become more of a parent to Blaine than his father ever had.
A doctor appeared. Blaine has no lasting recollection of what the man looked like, only the sound of his apathetic voice when Blaine and Burt were told the two words they had been dreading most.
"I'm sorry,"
"You left me Kurt. I know you didn't mean to, but that doesn't change the fact that you never woke up. And I don't know how to live without you now. God damn it, Kurt. I needed you, you were my world. I would have done anything for you and you couldn't even wake up."Blaine's voice rose steadily as his monologue progressed. No, this is not what he wanted. He could not be angry with Kurt. Kurt, who had never done anything wrong, who had been the center of Blaine's universe, who he loved completely and unconditionally and who loved him in return. Blaine took a deep breath. "That wasn't fair of me to say. It wasn't your fault. You didn't ask for that moron to lose control of his car. But it still happened. And I feel so alone."
Tears were forming in his eyes by this point. They had not spilled over, but Blaine knew they would soon. He did not care, he kept talking. He needed to say a few things and he knew he would never get the chance again.
"I don't know where to go from here. I'm eighteen and I feel like my life is over, which in a way it is, because you really were my life. And now you're gone. I feel like all the light is gone from the world. God, I am pathetic." He shook his head slightly. "I need you in my life, I feel so lost without you."
The funeral had been simple. New Directions and the Warblers were all in attendance as well as some of Kurt's extended family Blaine had never met. Surprisingly enough, Dave Karofsky had even turned up. He awkwardly sought Blaine out before the service began.
"Kurt was a good guy. I was such a jerk, and I regret that now." Dave looked as though he had wanted to say more, but he just gave Blaine a helpless look and whispered "I'm sorry for your loss," before making an escape.
His voice broke as sobs raked his body. The tears threatening to fall finally did. Blaine made no move to get up from his position on the ground and simply cried. He cried for the boy who looked so broken when they had first met. He cried for his best friend. He cried for the soaring voice he would never hear again. He cried for the boy he had fallen in love with. He cried for his boyfriend. He cried for the person he called his soul mate. He cried for all unspoken promises and unfulfilled dreams of a future together that would last forever. He cried for the boy he once swore he would marry one day.
At last he regained control of his voice.
"I know it's stupid for me to come here to talk to you. You're not here. You're at that damn cemetery. But I can't bear to go there and see that headstone. It just doesn't feel like you, Kurt. At least here we were happy together." And there was something else, something he did not dare speak aloud, for fear it would disappear. It almost felt like Kurt was in that clearing with him. Blaine could almost picture him, leaning against a tree on the opposite side of the clearing, grinning at Blaine with sparkling eyes.
He shook his head. As much as he always wanted to remember how beautiful Kurt looked when he smiled, it was too painful to think of him in the clearing where they had spent so many of their happiest moments together. Because all those moments seemed so far away now: back when they still had the promise of forever and a lifetime of happy moments stretching out in front of them.
"I don't know where you are now, or if you can hear me somehow, but I'm going to pretend you can because I need to tell you something, Kurt. I know I said it at the hospital, but… I just need to make sure you hear it. So don't think for a minute that this will be the last time I try to tell you, I swear it won't be. It just… seems like a good idea to say it here." Blaine paused and took a deep breath. "I… I love you, Kurt. I always have, and I always will. No matter what happens, I promise you that."
Finally, Blaine stood. He swept his eyes across the clearing once more before giving his best attempt at a watery smile.
"Forever,"