A/N: For some strange reason my e-mail preferences were set to an address that I rarely check, so it was days before I knew the response Chapter One got! It made me so happy! I got 30+ follows and some very nice reviews :) Virtual cookies for everyone. Chapter 2 is sad and even shorter than the first chapter. But if I don't make my chapters really short, there will probably be weeks between updates. Short and sweet. Well, bittersweet. Like I said, it's sad, so I'll put a joke at the end for you.
Two and a half hours. Blaine was two and a half hours late and Kurt had a strong suspicion he wasn't coming. He wasn't responding to his texts and Kurt didn't know if he should feel sad or furious. He tried to forget about it - he would ask Blaine about it at school on Monday - and reclined on his bed with a Vanity Fair.
Anything less than 500 thread-count should be outlawed.
This was not how Kurt wanted to spend his Saturday afternoon. At least no one else in his family was having an exciting weekend: his dad was upstairs watching daytime television, Finn was either playing video games or taking a nap (giants need plenty of rest just to haul themselves around) and Carole was getting her hair done. If Kurt had known he was going to get stood up, he would've accompanied Carole to make sure she didn't get another '80s hairdo - or worse, the "Rachel." That look went out with crop tops and Doc Martens. Kurt sank further into his Egyptian sheets as he rifled through the Golden Globes' style awards.
Natalie Portman looked like an intestinal polyp at the Golden Globes.
"Uh, Kurt?" Burt's voice spilled down from the floor above.
"Yeah, Dad?" Kurt replied.
"What kind of car does your friend Blake drive?"
Kurt sighed. "You mean Blaine?"
"Yeah, him."
"Um," Kurt said as he climbed off his bed and up the basement stairs, "some little blue Japanese thing. It cost him, like, twenty grand, but he's a trust fund kid." By the end of his sentence Kurt had reached the top of his stairs and was now face-to-face with Burt Hummel.
"Didn't you tell me he was coming to take you to the aquarium?"
"Yes," said Kurt, now thoroughly confused.
"Now, I don't want to scare you, Son, but maybe you should see this." Burt led Kurt over to the TV in the living room.
"Dad, what-" Kurt paused. His eyes grew in shock and his face completely drained of blood. On the screen before him was a live report from the scene of a local accident, a bright yellow banner flashing "BREAKING NEWS" across the bottom. A little blue car had flipped over and crashed right into an old tree. The tree's trunk had broken clean and the top three-quarters of the tree had fallen over on top of the car.
"Is that... that's not Blaine's car, is it?" Burt asked.
"It is," said Kurt, his eyes glazed over and no longer able to see clearly anymore.
But it can't be.
Kurt suddenly dashed back downstairs and grabbed his phone off his desk. He speed-dialed Blaine's cell and held the phone up to his ear with bated breath.
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
No answer. Kurt hung up and called again. And again. And again. Burt was standing at the top of the stairs, watching Kurt in distress. Kurt didn't know what to do, he just knew he needed to be with Blaine. Immediately. He bounded up the stairs and headed towards the front door, fulling intending to drive to Blaine. Burt caught up to him and grabbed Kurt's upper arm.
"Hang on, Son, you're not driving there."
"Yes I am, Dad. I-I have to." Kurt was pale and shaking slightly.
Burt thought for a second. "Okay, I'll tell you what. We'll go in my truck."
The drive was hell. Kurt's face slowly went from white to green and Burt was clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth shook inside his head. Burt needed to be there for his son right now. He thought he recognized the site of the crash on the news report, so he drove at full speed to get there.
They arrived at the site merely five minutes later - Blaine got so close to their house - and Kurt leapt out of the truck before it had even pulled to a full stop. He tripped over several yards of icy dirt until he reached the crowd - paramedics, firemen, a news crew and - and a petite woman holding a little girl's hand. Kurt stopped in his tracks and stared at her.
She saw him out of her periphery and turned to him. Her red-rimmed eyes looked just like Blaine's. She tilted her head and squinted at him, as if trying to figure out who he was. Then, she nodded solemnly and held out her free hand to him. Kurt took it and they stood in silence, holding hands. Burt caught up and put his strong hand on Kurt's shoulder. Betty, Kurt and Burt all stood perfectly still, looking straight ahead at the mangled car. A couple firemen were cutting through the twisted frame with power tools while their colleagues tugged at the sturdy ropes that had been tied around the broken tree.
Bonnie squirmed and whimpered. This reminded her of her grandma's funeral, when everyone was acting really sad and she just wanted to go play. It wasn't good that Blaine was stuck in his car, but there was a radio in there and he always kept candy in the glove compartment. Bonnie remembered when she found out about Blaine's candy stash.
"Bonnie, if you don't sit still you'll go flying through the windshield at the next stoplight."
"But I'm bored, Blaine!"
"It's just a ten-minute drive to school, you can sit still for ten minutes."
"Hey, Blaine, what's this?"
"Oh, that's my candy. Don't eat any."
"Why not?"
"It's there for emergencies."
"What kind of emergencies?"
"I don't know, like, if I get caught in an avalanche or something."
"Well, in that case you should have Big Red gum. It's like a fire in your mouth so you won't get too cold."
Then Bonnie remembered that she had snuck into Blaine's car and stolen a bag of sour worms a few weeks ago. She started to feel the heat of guilt rise into her face and she was ashamed. She started to cry and squeezed her mother's hand as tightly as she could.
Three long and painful hours later, Blaine was excavated from the remains of his car and loaded on a stretcher. Before Betty climbed into the ambulance to be with her son, she told Kurt to meet them at the hospital. She squeezed his hand one last time and smiled at him before saying, "You really are cute," then she and Bonnie got in the ambulance.
Burt said, "Come on, Kurt," and motioned toward the truck.
"In a minute, Dad." Kurt replied, and Burt headed over to the truck himself to wait for Kurt. Kurt crossed his arms across his chest and tensed every muscle in his body, scrunching his eyes shut, and then completely let go. It was a technique he had been using for years - if he couldn't get rid of mental tension, he would get rid of physical tension. He looked up at the car - it was surrounded by the red glass of the shattered brake lights and a stain of gasoline was seeping out onto the ground from under the crushed roof. He walked around the car to the driver's side and crouched down to look inside. The rearview mirror was hanging precariously from the cracked windshield and the dashboard had blood smeared across it. Kurt shuddered, jumped up, and ran towards the truck. When he reached the shoulder of the road, he slipped on a patch of black ice. He fell right onto his backside. He sat, shocked, for a moment, and then burst out laughing. His laughing was maniacal and sounded forced.
Burt got out of the truck and ran over to Kurt, bending down to him. "Are you okay, Kurt?"
But Kurt wasn't okay. Almost unnoticeably, Kurt's laughter turned into gasping sobs. His face turned dark red and tears streamed down his cheeks as he learned into Burt's shoulder, his entire body convulsing.
"Shh, it's okay, Kurt. It will be okay," Burt whispered as he held his boy tightly in his arms. Father and son sat on the ice for a long time, crying.
A/N: *sob* so sad. I promised you a joke, so here you go: Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the pee is silent! Next chapter will be from Blaine's POV again.
