Kurt Hummel has become a lonely person. He spends too many minutes counting his fantasies and dwelling in the past. Trying to focus on the present moment depresses him - what else is there to feel? There's a sense of something, or lack thereof, in his chest, a pocket of emptiness waiting to be fulfilled. Not to be morbid, but he is finding lately that all he has to live for seems to be on hold, too far away, out of reach.
He's getting married someday, probably sooner than later knowing Blaine, but still not soon enough. He knows the band will take off because anyone who doesn't get weak in the knees over Pamela Lansbury's delicious reprises of Madonna's greatest hits is, well, a simpleton. And there are no simpletons in the city of New York. Except to make music means to make time which, between shifts at the diner and classes at NYADA (or NYU in Elliot's case), they could not do too often.
He enjoys companionship in Rachel and Santana when they're home and in sync with their moods. They like to marathon vintage sitcoms and bitch about the condescending theater nerds in their classes, because there's a kind of comfort in this common ground. But right now Kurt is alone.
He upends one of the mini-bottles of Smirnoff he got on the plane a few hours ago. He pinches the bridge of his nose, bracing himself for the flames to lick his throat. The remains of the clear liquid slosh inside its plastic encasement, until Kurt downs that as well.
With a grunt of distaste, Kurt sets the now-empty bottle down next to the other two. They stand in a jagged row, unkempt on the floor as Kurt tries to arrange them in his drunkenness. The one in the middle knocks over at his fumbling touch. The echo against the hardwood floor strikes the silence, sounding much too loud in his ears. He gives up organizing and lays on his back, watching the ceiling spin.
He misses Finn. He still misses his mom. And, pathetically because Kurt saw him this morning, he already misses Blaine.
Maybe Blaine texted him? Kurt reaches out, patting the ground for any indication of his iPhone, only to find another small bottle. He curls his fingers around its length and is about to bring it to his lips when the door to the loft opens. It sounds somewhat like an avalanche collapsing on his pounding temples.
"Kuuuuurt," Rachel sing-songs, adding to the wreckage that is Kurt's migraine. "How was your weekend in Lima? Please tell me you ventured to go farther than Breadstix."
When her voice meets no reply, Rachel calls out his name again, making her way into the sitting area. There she sees Kurt, sprawled on his back, attempting to chug the last bottle with the cap still on it. Gingerly, she kneels to his level and pries it from his hand. She guides him to sit up, testing the temperature of his forehead with her palm. Kurt groans, sending a vibration to her fingertips, now warm under the flush of his skin.
"Rachel?" Kurt asks in his haze, genuinely confused as he leans into her embrace. Then he adds, still unsure but not quite caring about who he's talking to, "Why am I so disconnected to the world?"
Kurt slurs his speech and seems to be aware of it because he pauses to find the best diction. "There's a hole right…" he takes her hand and slaps it over his heart, "in this general area. Feel it?"
Rachel squints, wanting to humor him but not knowing how. "No?"
"Exactly," Kurt huffs, looking frustrated and stupefied at the same time. "Missing so much. I am missing so much."
"You're a sad drunk," Rachel observes aloud, smoothing down Kurt's eyebrow in what she hopes is a comforting gesture. "What are you missing?"
"My fiancé," Kurt tries to say, but the word gets jumbled in his mouth, an accurate representation of what's happening in his head. "Where's he?"
"Where are you? That's the better question." Rachel sighs, brandishing the bottle she took in front of his face. Her voice softens when she asks, "If you drink enough Vodka, does it taste like the love you crave?"
"Def-definitely not," Kurt responds immediately. "I wish. But no, it only numbs the loneliness."
Rachel nods measuredly, cradling the little bottle to her chest like it's the unlikely cure to a foreign disease. Her eyes shine with unshed tears at the prospect of her best friend battling the same emptiness she feels every day. When Finn passed, both Kurt and Rachel had trouble mourning with so much going on. Apparently finals, rehearsals, and the city in general stopped for no one - including two people who lost the same amazing man: a brother to one and a lover to the other.
It's all catching up to them now.
"Do you want to talk to Blaine?" Rachel asks, silently thankful Kurt is too wasted to notice how her voice cracks.
"Yes, please," Kurt says, extending an expectant hand in Rachel's direction. She surveys their surroundings for his phone, which is perched against the back of the couch behind them. She speed dials Blaine before carefully placing it in Kurt's palm, enclosing his fingers around it with her own. His pinky brushes the speaker button, elevating the sound.
Blaine answers on the second ring with a sunshiny, "Hey, handsome. Ready for skin-sloughing?"
Rachel almost chuckles at the idea, but instead says, "Blaine? He's just a little hammered. Could use some cheering up. I suggest Evita."
Kurt hiccups and croons into the wrong end of the phone. "Don't cry for me, Argentiiiina…."
She hears Blaine clear his throat and produce a subtle, "Thanks, Rach," before joining his fiancé in the chorus. He fills in the beats Kurt skips, and together, though disjointed, they sound beautiful.
Rachel leaves them to it, untwisting the cap from Kurt's forgotten bottle of anesthesia. She brings the fire to her lips and waits for numbness to claim her.