Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.
A/N:
Tara621 this is for you. I finally made the time to write it. How do I still cry so much writing about Finn's passing? I hope this story is what you hoped for. Love, M
Gone
Since Finn's death they have turned their routine upside down.
After they had gotten back together and engaged Blaine had taken to visiting Kurt in New York every other weekend. Yes, it is expensive, but for one Blaine has quite a bit of money saved up from all those birthdays his parents and relatives could not be bothered to actually buy him anything for and had just chucked money at him, for another Blaine is not about to give the universe any chance ever again to steal Kurt away, or himself to grow desperate enough to lose his head once more.
And then ... Finn had died.
Was just ... just gone. From one moment to the next.
It is such a cliché, people leaving a hole in your life. And it is not really true either. There is no hole in Kurt's or Rachel's heart, or Carole's, or Burt's.
There is this huge bloody chunk of pain though were all the love for Finn used to be. And that love is still there too, probably more so than before, but that space is bursting with the pain fighting inside their chests for dominance. Loving Finn, these days, is impossible to do without pain.
And it should not hurt to love someone, but, with Finn gone, it does.
And you cannot just stop loving someone ... just because it hurts.
Months may have gone by since the funeral, but still Kurt comes home every other week. To hold Carole, to hug Burt. To be held too. Mostly by Blaine.
Kurt knows he cannot ever replace Finn, but he cannot let Carole forget that she has a family, that she is not all that desperately alone as - he can see these days in her eyes - she feels, some days. Most days. Mostly on the days something reminds her of Christopher and Finn. And hardly a single day goes by, his dad tells Kurt, that Carole does not burst into tears. Over and over.
This weekend, Burt tells Kurt he has asked Carole if she would want to move, maybe, to a new home.
Kurt has to bite back his own protests.
"She said no. Not yet anyway. Maybe one day, but she can't imagine letting go in that way yet."
Kurt nods, tears starting to gather in his eyes.
"She has started seeing a therapist again," Burt goes on. "Like she had for a while after Christopher died."
"Does it help?" Kurt asks hesitantly.
Burt heaves a big sigh before answering, "I, ... help is a big word right now. She says she feels like her head will explode if she does not ... do that, talk to someone who ..., who can be more objective about everything because they are not grieving for Finn, and Christopher, all over, themselves."
"She loves you," Kurt says softly.
"I know. I know she ...," another deep sigh, "she is just trying to help us go on ... without Finn. And she is trying so hard. I just wish sometimes she would talk to me about it all."
"One day she will. When she feels ready, and there is perspective again, somehow, and not only that fucking, stupid pain when we all think of Finn ..., talk about him."
Burt is holding Kurt tightly already where they are sitting on the living room couch when the tears burst from his eyes.
Most of the time Kurt and Blaine have together whenever Kurt comes to Lima now is spend baking in the Hummels' kitchen.
Yes, Kurt still does that, stress-bake.
He also hopes his baking will do something for Carole, although, "I'm not sure what," Kurt had confessed on his visit a month ago to Blaine, when they had curled up on Kurt's bed together after hours in the kitchen, Kurt's hair still smelling of vanilla when Blaine had placed a kiss to it, holding him tighter.
Today, when Blaine arrives at the Hummels' for his usual baking date with Kurt, it is Burt who opens the door. "Blaine?" he asks confused. "I thought Kurt had left to go see you hours ago."
Blaine's heart starts to race instantly, "What?" eyes wide.
He sees his own worry reflected in Burt's gaze. The rain has been pouring onto the streets all morning, what if something ..., "He didn't ... He didn't get to your place?"
It is a pointless question, Burt knows and so does Blaine, but he still chokes out a "No," head already spinning with a million possible scenarios, none ending happy or even so much as pleasant.
Blaine tries Kurt's phone. No one answers. Wringing out a heavy breath, Blaine asks, "Do you have any idea where ...?" Still as he is saying it the flare already goes off in his own head, "I'll check the cemetery. I'll call as soon as I get there."
So all that is left for Burt to do is nod and pull Blaine into a firm hug before Blaine runs back to his car and drives off.
Burt calling after him, "Be careful on the streets!"
Burt is itching to go himself, check somewhere, anywhere. But he knows it is foolish to just drive off when the cemetery is the first place he too would have checked; and Carole is coming back soon from her session with Dr. Verender. And he cannot let her come home to an empty house, not when he knows that at the moment that is the time she needs him most every week, to just ... be held tight through an afternoon of her head still spinning after therapy. It does not always, but a lot of the time. The talks with Dr. Verender painfilled.
Burt tries Kurt's phone again himself.
Nothing.
Burt closes his eyes and tries to keep breathing through the pain in his chest.
Fourteen minutes later he gets the call, "Burt, his car is here, he must be at ... at one of the graves." How does his nineteen year old boyfriend have so many loved ones buried here? Blaine is still struggling to comprehend it all, and judging from the silence he is met with on Burt's end, so is Kurt's father.
Blaine is, clutching an open umbrella in one hand, his phone in the other, already heading onto the cemetery grounds when he hears Burt ask, "You know where his mom is buried?"
"Yeah," Blaine says. "He ..., we came here sometimes when, when ..., on mother's day and that time when we disappeared for some hours on Christmas Day two years ago."
"Okay," Blaine hears Burt's voice watery in his ear. He stays on the phone with Burt, who asks after a moment, "Can you see him?"
"No one there," Blaine murmurs worriedly. "I'll, I'll go check Fi... ." He cannot say it.
But Burt knows already, understands what it is his son's fiancé cannot say, answers "Yeah."
It is another couple of minutes, Finn's grave in a very different part of the cemetery, until the small pathway leading to it comes into Blaine's view. The rain is so heavy now that it takes Blaine almost standing right beside him before he can make out Kurt cowering on the ground, amidst the stones, eyes fixed on one in particular.
Blaine swallows hard, bites back the 'Oh Kurt!' to not worry Burt more before he says, as composed as he can anyhow manage, looking at the cowering, drenched form in front of him, "He is here. I ... I need to go."
"Bring him home, Blaine. Please," Burt pleads.
"Yeah. Yes, Burt, I will, as soon as I can."
"Call, if you need me to get you."
"Okay. Bye."
"Bye," Burt answers still shaken but warmly, before they both hang up.
As soon as the phone is in his trousers' pocket Blaine is kneeling beside Kurt on what once was grass, now more resembling a muddy, torn up football field.
Blaine is desperately trying to hold on to his umbrella, while attempting, simultaneously, to pull Kurt's stiff, ice cold form into his arms and into the retreat the umbrella provides from the rain. But Kurt does not budge, there is no melting into the other boy's warm touch, no sound, he just keeps staring ahead at the stone that is here now for everyone to see, instead of his brother.
"Kurt, Love," Blaine pleads, "please, we need to get you home. You are freezing. Baby, please look at me. Kurt!"
The only response Blaine gets, if that is any reaction at all to him, is Kurt sinking his head, closing his eyes and pressing one hand flat to the cold, hard stone.
"How long have you been here, Love?" Blaine tries again.
"Not long enough," Kurt's voice is torn by tears Blaine could not possibly make out before with his eyes alone, washing with the rain down his fiancé's face in crystal clear streams.
"Please Kurt, if you got sick sitting here ...," but Blaine is cut off by Kurt.
"I'll never feel his heartbeat again. It was the best part about his hugs. Especially back when he was still so much taller than me. My head, my ears would always rest perfectly right there," Kurt presses his hand harder against the stone's center, slightly to the upper left corner, "and I could just listen to his heart while he held on." Kurt pauses, taking in a shaky, shallow breath. "After Sebastian hit you with that slushy Finn did not let go, he just hugged me, held me through all those hours of sitting in the emergency room, when we didn't know how bad it really was."
"Kurt," Blaine chokes, his own tears mixing in with rainwater now, gusts of wind making even Blaine's extra large umbrella that he had once bought for Kurt and him especially useless against the rain.
With one more press of his hand to the stone, a stuttering, whizzing sound, as he tries to take the first deep breath in maybe hours, Kurt turns to Blaine as he tries to get back up on his feet. He almost slips in the mud Blaine quick to drop his umbrella onto the ground, where Kurt's is lying too still, and steady Kurt, hands on Kurt's shoulders, pulling him into his arms a mere second later. "Baby, what were you thinking?"
"I miss him so much."
Blaine just holds on, his clothes, too, quickly getting soaked.
"It's not fair. He was trying so hard. He had just ... just found out what he wanted to do with his life, and then ... it's just over? It's not fair, not fair!" Desperately sad tears turn angry in that moment, but Kurt has no energy left for it to come out in more than his body shaking with more than only cold now.
It takes some time to gather up the umbrellas, still steadying Kurt, and for Blaine to lead the boy in his arms back to the car.
Burt is standing in the driveway and sobbing himself by the time he has Kurt, covered in mud and wet and cold to the bone, in his arms again. It is like that time all over, he is not even sure if Kurt remembers himself, so much was happening at the time, but two weeks after his mom's funeral eight-year old Kurt had stolen away from school and sat all morning at his mother's grave. Burt had found him there crying, grass stains all over Kurt's favourite pants, face raw from all the tears.
"How've you even gotten here?" Burt had asked that day, sitting with Kurt curled up in his lap still at his wife's grave quite some time after finding his son there.
"Walked," Kurt had whispered, hiding his face away in his dad's work clothes he had been wearing when he had gotten the call, instantly rushing out of the shop, having a lingering suspicion, and a lot of anger at the school for taking until after lunchtime to even notice Kurt was missing. After that he had promised his son to every day take him to eat lunch together, had promised him every day anew to pick him up the next again not only at lunch time but too after school and go visit his mom at her grave. And they had ended up doing that together for four whole months, until one day Kurt had said it was okay if they came mostly on the weekends. But Burt had still surprised him sometimes after that with lunch outside of school and visits to his mom too. It had meant the world to Kurt. To Burt just as much.
Right now Burt just pulls Kurt closer, and then Blaine too, the three men standing in the driveway, still in the pouring rain, holding on to each other.
"My boys. I love you so much."