Chapter 9
Hi guys! So I'll just put a huge disclaimer/warning on this chapter. Trigger warning for 9/11. I also just want to put it out there that I was only about 12 when 9/11 actually happened, and I'm not American. Even regardless of all of that, I obviously never could do justice to such a tragedy, especially in fanfic. I took a lot of liberties when writing this in terms of what could realistically happen and the way it actually occurred. I'm sorry if this offends/hurts anyone, my intent is only to place the characters in the midst of the event, and not to make light of the event or the real victims of it. Love you all as usual, your reviews make my day, so enjoy :)
"Deep pockets, my friend. That is the key." Cecily called to Blaine.
Blaine rolled his eyes at her and Ray remained silent as he strolled beside him.
"Central Park is good and all, but usually you're going to get people with coins in their pockets." She continued talking as she scoped out the forbidding skyscraper in front of them for a good place to busk.
"Around here, these people are so rich, they don't even have coins! You know what they have in their pockets Blainers my boy?"
Blaine shrugged, only half listening to her. He was pretty sure she was high as a kite.
"I'm going to go see if I can bum some change on the next block." Ray called to them as he turned to walk away. Blaine knew he couldn't stand it when Cecily was like this. He worried about her too much.
"Fifty dollar bills! Twenties, tens. Bills are your friend B-bear."
Blaine cocked his head, "Why is it that when you're high as fuck you always call me the most ridiculous names?"
Cecily sat down beside Blaine as he took out his guitar and she put on her best innocent face. "Why, I have no idea what you're talking about, Plain Blaine."
"Stop."
"My my, we're a little testy today aren't we, Sir Blaine Andersperm."
Blaine snorted. "You did not just make a pun about balls and hey, I'm allowed to be testy okay."
"'Scuse me, but you two pretty peacocks need to get your shit together because you and Kurt are endgame. Endgame." She repeated with a dramatic wave of her arms.
Blaine snorted.
"This from the girl who was just waiting to say I told you so when he dumped me."
Blaine noticed that Cecily's loud proclamations were attracting them a few strange looks from the passing businessmen.
"Fifty dollar bills, my ass." Blaine muttered.
"Your ass!" Cecily cried out. "Your ass is exactly the reason you should get back together with Kurt, Mr. Bottom Blaine."
"Wow, okay, no." Blaine turned bright red. "I only told you that because I was extremely drunk, you are not allowed to call me that."
"Extremely drunk my arse," she repeated in a terrible British accent. "You had like, two beers that night. Besides, no one cares if you like to take it up the bum, Blainey-kins."
"It's a free country, therefore you are free to be as ass-tacular as you please. You know what I always say: an orifice is an orifice. We shouldn't discriminate. This is America."
"Oh my god." Blaine buried his face in his hands as more people shot them dirty looks.
"I have a dream..." she began dramatically.
"Please god, no." Blaine began.
"I have a dream, that my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by whether they top or bottom, but by how loudly they can make their partners scream! "
"Martin Luther King is rolling over in his grave."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... some just like cock a lot more than others."
"You know what? I'm just going to start playing now and hope it drowns you out, okay?"
"Whatever you say, Bulge-asaurus. Sing your little heart out, Tricera-TOPS. No wait, that's Kurt."
Blaine decided to start playing instead of engaging with her. He played easy standards, too preoccupied to focus on anything other than the songs his hands knew by heart.
He hadn't been thinking when he walked out on Kurt. He had just been angry. Now that he had the night to settle into his feelings though, he was still hurt. It wasn't the first time they had had the argument, it was just the furthest they had ever taken it.
He had really thought that they were going to be happy. Forever. But this seemed to be a hurdle they just couldn't clear. No matter how many times they talked about it, they could never seem to agree on the subject of money.
Kurt wasn't shallow; that wasn't the issue. He just liked security. He was accustomed to a certain standard of living, and he was afraid of losing it.
Blaine on the other hand, knew what it felt like to have absolutely nothing. He knew that they would be okay, as long as they had each other.
Kurt just wasn't ready to make that leap.
He sighed heavily as he shifted his fingers into the familiar patterns against the neck of his guitar; he realized he had been singing without even thinking.
Even though it was early in the morning, the corner where they had set up was filled with people bustling about. They were in the business district, as Cecily had so crassly pointed out, and everywhere Blaine looked he saw men and women in suits and heels, talking on cellphones and sipping coffee.
He felt out of place. He usually avoided areas of town like this for that exact reason. He didn't need the judgmental stares. But Cecily had insisted that they would pull in the most money here, just a building over from the World Trade Center.
Cecily was now lying on her back on a bench near Blaine with her arms tossed over her eyes.
"Coming down Cec?" Ray called to her as he walked up, back from his excursion.
She grumbled in response.
"You doing okay, Blaine?" Ray asked quietly as he stood next to Blaine, looking at him earnestly from underneath his bushy eyebrows.
Blaine smiled sadly at him. "Yeah, Ray. I'll be okay."
Ray looked at him skeptically.
Blaine knew he saw right through his brave facade. "Kurt and I were always on borrowed time anyway. It was only a matter of time before the real world caught up with us."
"Bullshit." Ray muttered as he spat on the sidewalk. "You go back there and work this out with him."
"It's not that easy, Ray."
"Hey, sorry to break up this heartwarming Dr. Phil moment, but can you two keep it down? I'm trying to keep my brain from exploding over here." Cecily whined from her spot curled up on the bench.
"That's what ya get for that nasty habit of yours." Ray admonished.
Cecily stuck her tongue out at him before rolling off the bench. "I'm seriously going to puke up rainbows if I have to listen to any more of this fluffy shit, so I'm off. You two ladies have a nice heart to heart, I'm going to go curl up in a hole somewhere and die." She said as she rubbed her eyes furiously, smudging black eyeliner down her cheek.
They waved as she walked away before Ray turned back to Blaine.
"I don't think the problem is Kurt. I think it's you."
"Excuse me?" said Blaine.
"You've always had it in your head that you aren't good enough for him. It was the same way with Nathan. Because of your goddamned ass backwards parents, you've got this mistaken idea that you ain't any good, and that's just plain wrong."
Blaine gaped open mouthed for a moment. "I..."
"No, you listen here youngin' and you listen good. You gotta stop believing that you don't deserve to be happy. Just because you've lived this life, and seen a lot of bad things, doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you less. If anything, it makes you more. You're tougher and stronger and smarter for it. So quit gettin in the way of your own happiness youngin'".
"Ray," Blaine began before he noticed that something was wrong.
People all around them were talking and pointing towards the sky. Something had caught the attention of the business people, usually oblivious to the world around them. But Blaine noticed that several people had stopped in their tracks and were pointing upwards.
He barely had time to recognize that the shape in the air was a low flying plane before it hit.
Ray and Blaine stood paralyzed as people around them started to scream and run. Blaine couldn't understand what was happening. He couldn't think, he couldn't move.
Suddenly smoke filled the air, the cries of people all around them mixed with the sound of cracking, crumbling, confusion. Pieces of the building where the plane had hit were falling, smoke and flame engulfing the plane that was embedded in the side of the tower.
Blaine didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. They were standing directly in the path of the falling rubble that was breaking off the tower and hurtling towards them.
Blaine had only one thought before everything went black.
Good bye.
Cecily was a few blocks away when the plane hit.
For a moment, she thought it was all part of the elaborate hallucinations she experienced while high.
But the pounding in her head told her differently.
No, she was sober now. This was really happening.
She didn't know how long she stood there just staring at the plane embedded in the side of the World Trade Center tower.
It crossed her mind that it was almost pretty. The orange flame against the blue morning sky was a bright contrast, accented by the clouds of black smoke billowing from the tower.
It was only the screams of people in the streets that brought her back to reality.
Blaine, Ray.
They had been standing right underneath the building.
She ran.
She sprinted the few blocks, racing as fast as her smokers lungs would allow her.
People were swarming everywhere, and she pushed and squirmed to get to the spot where Blaine had been playing.
The air was thick with smoke and the police were already closing off the area around the building.
"Blaine! Blaine!" she found herself screaming his name, her voice hoarse and high pitched.
"Blaine! Ray!" she pushed forward even further, despite the force of the crowd pushing her backwards.
Everywhere, police and firefighters were trying to get people away from the building and under control.
Her screams were lost in the ruckus of people all around her, calling out names, crying, screaming.
"Blaine!" she called out desperately again as a police officer pushed her backwards. When she refused to be budged, he had to forcibly put his hands on her shoulders and shift her back.
Just as she was about to push back against the officer, she saw it and all the fight was knocked out of her.
Lying on the ground amongst the rubble was a smashed half of Blaine's guitar.
She stopped screaming. She stopped panicking. She stopped trying.
She vomited on the sidewalk.
An otherworldly calm settled over her and she knew.
She knew what she had to do. She turned in the opposite direction and despite her protesting lungs and shaking legs, she started to run.
Upon seeing the guitar, only one thought occupied her mind.
I have to find Kurt.
That very morning, Kurt woke up on the couch in the living room.
He grimaced as he cracked his neck, attempting to rub out the stiffness from spending a night on the couch.
Blaine would get it out for him, he gave the best massages.
But then he remembered, Blaine wasn't there to rub his neck. That was the reason he was sleeping on the couch in the first place. Blaine wouldn't walk in, smelling like coffee and holding the morning paper. He was gone.
The realization settled in his stomach and Kurt groaned, pulling himself off the couch.
He felt like shit, and all he wanted to do was curl back up on the couch and hide under a blanket for the day, but he decided to push through the urge to wallow and do something productive.
He decided to go for a run, and hope that the endorphins got him through most of the day.
As he walked towards the bedroom to change, he passed by the window and stopped dead in his tracks.
A black patch darkened the otherwise blue sky of the New York skyline.
There was smoke circling the World Trade Center towers.
His stomach dropped. What was going on?
He quickly shuffled back into the living room where he flipped on the TV to CNN.
Even after watching the coverage for several minutes, he still didn't understand.
He watched the somber looking news anchors repeat the same information over and over again.
Even they looked confused.
All Kurt could comprehend was that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center that morning around 8:45.
He lowered himself onto the couch when he realized his knees were shaking.
Suddenly, violently, he needed Blaine. He needed to see him, hold him, feel him.
Where was Blaine?
Surely he'd be home soon.
Consciousness was a curse. It was strange how he swam toward it, struggling, pushing against the black mass of unknown; but as soon as he broke the surface of quiet calm into consciousness, he regretted it. Consciousness was pain. Nothing else.
Blaine struggled against the darkness, trying to grasp anything other than pain. Everything beyond the edges of the pain was murky, like vision underwater, or slurred, like speech and alcohol.
Pain was the only constant, and he found himself sadistically clinging to it. It was at least some semblance of sanity in his murky dream between consciousness and the unknown. So he clung to it. When his mind stopped reeling, he tried to connect the pain to his body; if indeed he still had a body. But it seemed to be more engulfing than anything, too vast to connect with any one part of himself.
Without much hope of success, Blaine tried again to place the pain in something real, something corporeal, but body parts (their names and locations) seemed to be beyond his minds reach. He tried another track. How had he come to be here? What was here? When was here? But time, space, location, all eluded him.
The first thing he was able to grasp was a smell. It was acrid, tangy and burning. Every breath he took in was painful, thick and smoky.
Blaine could feel unconsciousness dragging him down again, and he struggled against it. He couldn't shake the feeling that if he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to open them again. He pushed against the crushing pain that was threatening to engulf him.
His body was giving out and the blackness started to creep up on the edges of his vision. Just as he finally lost consciousness, he realized the source of his pain with a flash of panic.
The neck of his guitar was embedded in his abdomen.