content warning: internalized/externalized homophobia, lots of f-slurs, strong language, offensive comments, mentions of drugs

Blaine's a real asshole in this one, I apologize in advance.

Chapter 9: A Decent Human Being

"I was talking to Puck," Nick says, and it's good to know that those two are still talking at least, though that's a lie and it's not good at all, and I can't even begin to emphasize how many dozen sarcastic comebacks I'd have for that if I cared enough to say them. I wonder if I ever cared, even when things were good. "Blaine," Nick says impatiently, and I move my gaze from the patch of grey backstage wall to him. I should be doing interviews right now. Seventy-six interviews. Two million to the exponent of pi. It's early afternoon, the venue full of rushed voices as the techs get everything ready for yet another show. We're waiting around like nothing ever changes. But it has to.

"God, what are you on?" Nick sighs restlessly.

"This and that," I reply truthfully. Whatever I managed to find, all in moderation. When have I ever done anything in excess?

"Listen. I didn't know about Quinn and Puck. You know I would've told you, right? If I had known. I mean, she left him, so maybe you two can just forget about it. We shouldn't let her be that thing."

That thing that breaks us apart. No, I was never going to let her be that person. Not for the band and especially not for me.

"She's still my girl," I say, not knowing what I mean by it. She still has the spare key to my place. She's cried plenty and apologized more, saying if she can live with my disgusting little episode with a roadie, I can surely live with her digressions. I don't know if I've said I'm sorry. Did I say it at some point? Did I mean it? She said that it's good now. That he's left and gone. Said I feel distant. Not to do with him, is it? Of course not. I fucked her to prove it. "A new page for us," I tell Nick, repeating Quinn's words. She said something about us maybe trying to take the next step together. The only step I can see us taking is over the ledge.

Puck's heart's been broken. I feel sorry for some reason.

"You want to talk about it?" Nick offers, and he doesn't actually want me to talk about it. I shake my head. "What about Kurt? You want to talk about him?"

I can hear Matt and Seb singing back in the dressing room, the sound resonating along the corridor and to us. Seb's over the moon that Kurt's gone. I'm fine with it. So he left. See who cares. Not me.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask Nick instead. He's clutching at straws. He's always been the guy trying to keep us together, but he knows we're a joke. He goes back and forth between Victoria and this band like he can't decide which one he should choose. But if there's something he's not, it's a quitter. He can't admit defeat. Can't walk away. Doesn't have it in him.

I lost. They all won. I can admit my loss.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" he now asks, ignoring my question, and what is this? Why the third degree? "God, get some fucking sleep, Blaine, and don't take anything." Nick steps forward and snatches the flask from my grip, and I protest and try to get it back, but he pockets it. "Kurt quit. Deal with it, alright? Don't- Don't do this pathetic booze and drugs routine because it's not a solution! What is it about him that riles you up? Why do you let him get to you?"

"I don't."

"Then pull yourself together," Nick says, disappointment clear in his voice.

He heads to the dressing room, and anger bubbles in me. Everyone just fucking leaves. Nick, Kurt. Like I'm that easy to leave behind. Like anyone has the right. I call out, "You and Vicky still on a break? How's that working for you? When you get back to fucking Cincinnati, you think Suzie will recognize you? Because I doubt it. I think she'll fucking cry." I sigh and close my eyes, listening to the bangs and shouts echoing around the corridors and rooms. God, Suzie will bawl her small eyes out.

Suddenly, a weight hits my side and I crash to the floor, and then it's a mess of hands and poorly aimed kicks and a struggle for glory, followed by loud, aggressive swearing, and then Puck and Ryder show up, and Beiste's pulled Nick off of me and is shoving Nick away as he curses that I better never as much as say the name of his wife or daughter again when I don't even fucking know or he will –

My lower lip feels sore, the taste of iron in my mouth. "I don't know what to do with you!" Ryder exclaims, hands up in the air as he stares at me on the floor and then after Nick and Beiste. "Don't know what to do anymore!"

"He hit me," I note.

"Good that someone did!" Ryder barks. "Go sleep it the fuck off!" He slams the wall as he goes, but Puck is still here, and maybe he's pleased. Probably is.

"And she chose you," he says disbelievingly, an angered look in his eyes as I get back to my feet. Why wouldn't she choose me? I'm a catch. Rich. Famous. Got a nice ass. "Are you honestly moping after Kurt? Fuck, that's so sick."

"Trying to forget Quinn, actually. Is it just me or has she put on some weight? Disgusting, really."

"You'd love for me to punch your lights out, huh?" he asks, and I'm not sure. Maybe. No. That'd hurt. No, that wouldn't be nice at all. "All summer you've only gotten drunk and fucked around, but now you've added insults to your repertoire. Fucking well done. Even Nick hates you now. I knew it wouldn't be good to have a fag on the crew, but fuck, I didn't realize it'd be because you'd get involved with him. Fuck! I told Thad that I didn't want a cocksucker on the bus, and I ended up with one in the band instead." He scoffs. "Still, at least I've seen both of you sissies take a punch. Makes me feel a bit better."

"Thad who?" I ask tiredly, trying to follow his train of thought and failing, though I fully grasp the overall message of 'I hate you'. "Oh," I then add. I know when I've seen Kurt get punched. St. Louis. He took it like a man. He looked fucking gorgeous, even with the blood on his face. A melody starts ringing in my head, a low, soft voice, and I think of Sam Evans and how he had a damn nice voice. I should've known he never ratted out Kurt. That would have mattered so much a month ago. Even two days ago. That would have made a difference, might have been a defining moment in my life. But now it doesn't matter. "It doesn't matter," I tell Puck. "None of it matters. All missed chances. That's all life is. Sam was just a fucking random guy, anyway. Would have gotten sick of me quickly."

"Sam who?" he now returns, and we miss each other, his thoughts there, mine here, and we'll never meet again, Puck and I. "Another boyfriend of yours?"

I grit my teeth. Kurt wasn't my –

"Out of curiosity, then, do you give or take, Anderson?" My guts twist on their own accord. Kurt's lips on my back, hushed encouragements as he pushes into me, and I tremble and come, loving every second of it.

"Leave," I finally say, feeling sick to my stomach. "Fucking go."

He gives me the onceover, shaking his head. "Sleep it off. We've got a show in a few hours. Even homos like you have to do their jobs."

"Funny how I'm still fucking the girl of your dreams," I note, and he looks murderous before he storms down the corridor. I check my pockets frantically, only then remembering that Nick took my flask. The fucker.

There's something sad about emptied venues after shows. The stench of people pressed against each other lingers in the air, and then all that's left is a void and paper cups and torn fliers and gig tickets and maybe a broken necklace somewhere in the mess of either a huge, empty hall now ringing with its nothingness or dancing amongst rows of emptied seats, like trampled bodies left on a battlefield. All proof that something happened here and is now over. Maybe a boy and a girl laid eyes on each other in the crowd tonight. Maybe someone found the person they are destined to be with. But not me. Not anyone who was on stage.

The more we bring people together, the more we fall apart. The more people disappear.

I shouldn't be surprised. People have always assumed they can just leave me. Even my mother. Really, should have known already then that I was doomed when she defied nature and didn't give a fuck.

"Mister Anderson?"

I tear my eyes off of the now empty stage and look to my side where the venue manager is staring at me apprehensively, holding a clipboard. He's older than me but treats me like I am far superior. It's dispiriting somehow, an inversion of the world.

"I'm about to lock the doors. You have to leave."

I take in a deep breath, fighting the nausea inside. Maybe it's something in me, something integrated I can't get rid of. Like I'm cursed. And all this, the success and the fame, are just more ways that the world is trying to tell me that I can have anything except what I want.

"I'm the only one left?" I ask.

"You are."

He didn't tell me anything I didn't know already.

He asks, "Are you feeling alright?"

I'm hungover and coming down, not really remembering much of the past twenty or so hours. He quit. We played a show. Quinn and I went to her place. Couldn't sleep. She tasted... Couldn't stand my thoughts. Went home. Popped some pills.

Instead of answering, I pick up the guitar gig bag that's been lying on the floor next to me, hauling it on one shoulder, and the man escorts us out of the backstage maze and into the night. It's raining a little, drizzling more like, and the man makes small talk, saying how they've promised rain all next week and that it's been a pleasure having us and that he hopes to see us again and goodnight. I manage to stop a taxi after standing in the rain for too long, climbing in, wiping water off my face and shrinking into the backseat unceremoniously. My body feels weak, my skin sweaty and clammy, but not from the show or the rain, just withdrawal.

When I get home, my suitcase blocks the way to the bedroom, open and half-empty. A gaping hole, a devouring mouth. I only need a few shirts to last the next week or so until we're done with the tour. I need to pack. I should be efficient for once, get everything ready.

I don't.

I walk to the bedroom and undress myself, letting the clothes drop into a pile at my feet until I am bare. Two girls fainted tonight. I can't understand what for. This body? It's just a shell.

I slip between the covers of my bed, eyes closing. The sheets have come stains on them and have that lingering smell of sweat in them. I need to wash them. Burn them. Throw them out entirely. They'll always smell like him.

He didn't show up tonight. Mason said that he's gone back to San Francisco, but I thought it was just more theatrics. It wasn't. We went on stage, played the last LA show, walked off stage, and he never arrived.

He'll come around, though, when we get to San Francisco. He'll come crawling back.

Kurt used to work at the Winterland Ballroom with Mason, and he told me he was looking forward to our two shows there, but now he isn't with us at all. Even the prospect of meeting old friends isn't enough to make him grit his teeth and bear my company. He couldn't stand the sight of me in the end. Mason, who hates me as much as everyone else if not more, is hanging out with the venue staff when I get off of the bus late afternoon. Sleep finally caught up with me after two nights of persistent insomnia, but I don't feel rested. Instead, I wake up and realize that this is reality and not a dream, and I fight off the bitter taste in my mouth.

Kurt will be here tonight. He's in San Francisco, anyway, so he will come. He's realized that he made a mistake, that he doesn't get to say no to me. I make the rules. He obeys. I half-expect him to be somewhere backstage already, talking to Beiste, setting up gear, restringing a guitar, giving me an apologetic look, and I'll accept. Of course I will if I see him repent as he should. I'll tell him how wrong he was to leave like that, and he'll say he's sorry, eyes full of regret, and I'll tell him to just forget about it, my hand on the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He'll close the gap between our lips.

But he's nowhere to be found.

Ryder is making notes of the merchandise boxes that have been piled up by the stage, and I walk over, trying to focus on the matter at hand. "When's soundcheck?" I ask, and he looks up as if mildly surprised to see me up and about.

"It's done. We did it without you. It's fine, really. You on something?"

"No." I don't even bother trying to sound defensive. I rub my nose, a shiver running through me. I don't need a mirror to know how I look, pale and tired, like some random junkie. I can handle the drugs and alcohol. I can too. "Kurt here yet?"

He looks at me incredulously. "He quit. Remember?"

"He's still got stuff on the bus."

Ryder scratches the side of his head, nodding, like trying to distract himself from something unpleasant. "Mason said he's taking that to Kurt later." He sighs. "Shitty on the other guys, them having to do Kurt's job. It's only for a few shows, though. We'll manage."

"I guess."

Ryder quickly escorts me to the dressing room where food is waiting, and I sit on the couch, stuffing my face with tasteless mini sandwiches. I keep waiting for Kurt to show up. Maybe he's just scared, knowing how badly he fucked up. I can be merciful.

The venue opens its doors, and he's not here. I start smoking to do something with my hands, knees bouncing, palms sweating, eyes darting to the door every few seconds. Sitting still eventually becomes too much so I wander around the backstage area instead, making sure I'm informed the second he arrives. The support band is getting ready, its members coming over to talk to me and tell me how much they appreciate the opportunity of opening for us, for me specially, for Blaine Anderson, how amazing they think I am, how my dedication is inspiring, the way I lay myself bare, and I try to smile, knowing I look hungover and disinterested. They leave me alone quickly.

"Well?" I ask Matt when he passes me, and he gives me a blank look, so I assume there is no news.

Kurt's not here when we go on. The crowd is jumping and cheering, and Puck and Nick walk on stage first, and Seb waits for a few seconds before he follows, increasing the volume of the yelling and whistling and clapping, and then finally I walk on. I feel like a ghost. The only way I know I exist is because they react to me.

"Beautiful San Francisco!" Seb is already yelling into his microphone when I get to my mic stand. "How you doing tonight?"

Not well.

The hall is huge. Hundreds upon hundreds of people blur together into a sea of heads, and when I look up, I see the people up on the balcony that encircles the center, and they're all standing and clapping too. Thousands of them. Four of us. I used to be fucking terrified of these situations, but now I don't even care.

We're three songs in when Matt hurries to hand me my next guitar. The kids are cheering and stomping, and Seb is talking bullshit into his microphone about how much we appreciate them coming out and supporting us, that's it's been one heck of a summer and that we're keeping it real. I grab Matt's arm as he's about to turn away. "Kurt here?"

"No!" he says, having to shout it over the noise. "He's not coming back, man." He might even look sympathetic for a second before his expression goes blank, like he remembers things he doesn't want to. I've always liked Matt for his objectivity, the way he sees himself as an outsider observing his surroundings, smoking up every day, lost in his thoughts. But even he can't retain that objectivity now, after finding out what two men were doing on that bus while he was on it. I'd be ashamed if I could. Instead I only feel fucking broken.

A girl front row is screaming for me to marry her.

Mason comes over to hand me my twelve-string guitar when we're about to kick into Miranda's Dream. "Do you know where Kurt is?" I ask him, not giving a fuck I'm on stage, that they want me to sing and jump for them like a marionette. I might sing stories, I might sing facts or sins or tragedies, but that doesn't mean that they have a right to me. And if I choose to question Mason in the middle of our show, then I will.

"Look –" Mason starts, and I know he's planning on lying, so I say, "Don't fuck with me. You know where he is, so don't start with me. Where is he?"

"B," Seb says, having walked over to us, guitar hanging around him, and he glares at me and nods at the crowd. Mason takes the opportunity to rush off stage, and I stare after him angrily. I plug in the guitar, marching to the mic stand, stepping on the right pedals. Let's play these fucking songs then.

When we finish the show and get off stage, Mason tries to hide behind Beiste to no avail. I take a hold of his arm and drag him away from the rest, glaring. "You tell me where he is."

Mason pulls himself to his fullest height, and he's taller than me – not surprising – trying to look decisive and impenetrable. "Not happening."

"Oh, we'll see about that," I say venomously, and his eyes widen a little as he takes a cautious step back.

Castro Street, San Francisco. Fag central. I should've known. It's after midnight, but the street is not deserted. Not at all. In fact, I think I've been eyefucked more in the past five minutes than I have been all summer, and that's saying something. It sickens me.

I keep carrying the small cardboard box that was used for Warblers t-shirts at some point but is now filled with Kurt's leftover belongings. I went through them in the taxi. A few books. Socks. Shirts I recognize. Meaningless shit that somehow amounts to one man's life, but Kurt should have more than this. It's like Kurt could disappear if he wanted to. He has before.

I finally spot the dry cleaners Mason told me about. At least he didn't lie about that. I stop outside the darkened windows, feeling out of place and angered by it, that he's reducing me to this, and I glare at the guy who walks past me, eyeing me up and down. "You fucking want something?" I snap angrily, and when he doesn't reply but keeps his eyes on me, I audibly mutter, "Fag."

The guy scoffs loudly but walks faster, and I quickly knock on the door of the shop. To my surprise, a light gets switched on almost instantly, though I was convinced that this was a hoax and Mason just said something to get me off his back.

The light from the back room illuminates a counter and behind it clothes racks, and I see the silhouette of a large man make his way over to the door. He's around forty, balding and large-built, a ball shaped head with two knowing eyes. I expect a man like him to have a low, booming voice, but when he opens the door and says, "Well, sweetheart, you're certainly not Mason," his voice is feminine and decorated with a lisp.

"No kidding."

"Feisty," he now adds, grinning.

"Is –"

"I know why you're here, honey," he cuts me off, leaning against the doorframe. He's studying me intensely with obvious curiosity, and he manages to stare me down. I notice that under the cuffs of his bell jeans, he's wearing high heels. High heels. "I've seen you in magazines. Saw you on TV once too. They play that one song constantly on AM radio."

"So they do."

"What does that make you then? The new Bob Dylan?" he asks, and when I remain silent, he goes on. "I don't like Bob Dylan much. Too depressing. Maybe you're the new John Lennon or Lou Reed or one of those guys. Twenty years from now, your name will be on that list, which is pretty funny if you ask me. I only see a very confused looking young man myself."

"I'm not confused," I object.

He laughs a little. "Well, aren't you precious."

"Is Kurt here?"

"You got a cigarette?" he counters, and I go through my pockets and find a half-full pack. He takes the entire thing, getting one out and pocketing the rest. "He's upstairs." He lights up the cigarette and sucks on the end greedily. "I think I'll go drop by the bar, see if I can get laid. Give you kids some privacy."

"That's not –"

"Really, don't worry about me interrupting anything. I'll be out all night."

"I'm not here for that," I snap angrily. Or maybe I am. Maybe I intend to do just that. Find him, not say anything, just push him on the nearest available bed and kiss every single inch of him before fucking him all night. Tell him to forget about it. It was just a stupid fight. Doesn't have to change anything. We can go back to what we had.

Please let it be that easy.

"Sure, darling. Whatever you say." He steps out, leaving me to hold the door open. He instantly starts walking away, but he looks over his shoulder to add, "It means something, you know. That you came." And then he walks on, high heels clicking against the concrete under his feet, a small sway to his hips.

"What the fuck?" I ask myself quietly before stepping inside. What kind of people does Kurt associate himself with?

I quickly get to the backroom, following the light that's on, and sure enough there are stairs going up. A door blocks the way at the top, but it's unlocked, and so I step into someone's apartment, presumably the guy's. I stand in a small, unlit hallway, hearing the radio crackling in one of the rooms but not knowing which one.

I walk on quietly before hearing guitar from the room to my left. A song. One of ours. One of mine.

I readjust my hold of the box under my arm before pushing the door open, and it gives way, creaking. It's a small bedroom if I choose to ignore how there's no actual bed, just a mattress and a chest of drawers, and on the mattress is a man sitting with his back to me, facing the window, and he's got a guitar that he's playing, humming along quietly. A green curtain covers the window, but the fabric isn't thick and red neon lights of the bar opposite flash through, a constant and sickening 'Open'. And this is where he's hiding. This is the kingdom he chose instead of me.

The floorboards creak under my feet as I step in, and Kurt asks, "So did they get back to you about that job, Terry?"

I pause, holding my breath. "I might have a job for you."

Kurt's up on his feet faster than humanly possible, holding the guitar by the neck and staring at me with wide eyes. He looks much like his brain is stuck processing what I struggled to do in LA: him. In this world. "What are you doing here?" he asks, speaking too fast.

"Brought you your stuff," I explain, now going to the chest of drawers and placing the box on top. Kurt's bag is on the floor by the mattress, clothes in two neat piles next to it, but that's it. Is this all the stuff he owns?

"Mason was supposed to bring me that."

"Guess you'll have to settle with me," I say, and he puts the guitar away, carefully placing it to lean against the wall. He seems to be in shock, and I try not to yell at him like I want to. Kurt has got to be the only person in this world who'd choose a dump like this over me. They all want me. The fans. The press. The world. I'm important. I matter. Fuck what my band says – they're all jealous. It's like the guy said, that I'm a legend in the making. And Kurt dares to claim he's not interested. "So Terry, did you say? He's a character."

He smiles uneasily. "He... Well, yeah. But he's a good guy. He helps people out. Usually kids that are new around here." He's not new but clearly doesn't have much to show for that. The shock seems to be fading, and instead he looks angered and hurt. It makes the fear in me that much more obvious, the one that hasn't gone away since he left. "What do you want?"

"What do you think I want?" I counter, staring him down.

"Last time I checked it was to fuck your girlfriend."

"Already took care of that."

His eyes thin dangerously. "Good for you."

I bite on my tongue, trying to keep my remarks to myself. Instead, I say, "We just played a show. Mason, Matt, and Beiste are stuck doing your job."

"Oh, so you're here on behalf of the road crew?" he asks disbelievingly.

"Maybe." Another lie. The band's happy he's gone, Beiste and Matt are pissed off at me and him alike, Ryder's just furious with Kurt, and Mason thinks I'm a cunt and that Kurt's better off leaving. No one else wants him there except for me. I stare at his bare toes and see the way the neon light illuminates them every four or so seconds. "God, I'm fucking pissed off at you," I then sigh without any venom at all.

"You're not on my good list either, you know."

I look up at him, feeling my insides knotting tight. Of course I'm not. He despises me as much as I despise him, but I have the right to act the way I do. I have excuses. The pressure. The expectations. I'm just human. I can't be that mythic figure that they are trying to carve out of me. He doesn't have any of those excuses. "Kurt, I'm asking you. I've come to this... I don't even know what to call this place," I scoff, looking around in disdain. "But I'm here. Alright? You won. So stop being a bitch and do as I say."

"I won?" he repeats disbelievingly. "I wasn't trying to prove anything! I'm not – You think I'm testing you? I quit, Blaine. What the hell is unclear about that?"

"You didn't actually quit."

"Uh, I did."

"You don't get to leave me!" I snap angrily.

"Where do you get off?" he asks quietly but with obvious rage in his tone, his eyes dark but not with want like they've so often been. The opposite of want. Repulsion. "You think you can control other people? Me? Fuck you! I do whatever I want, and I certainly quit whenever I want! And if that's all you came to say, then there's the fucking door. Have a nice life, you asshole."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Then I guess I'll do the honor," he snaps and walks to the door, but I'm quick to block the way, slamming the door shut when he tries to open it. His eyes are full of defiance, and it's amazing how all the small moments slip away somehow. The light touches. Hushed words. The warmth of his skin. And I'm so full of anger that I don't know what to do. I can bend anyone in this world to my will. Anyone, except him. He has nothing to show for himself, but he acts like he's in a position to choose. It's fucking arrogant.

"Kurt, I'm telling you."

"You don't even know what you're asking. You don't know how to treat people, you –"

"I was fine before you came along! I was fucking fine, and now I'm not! I'm a fucking mess! And it's your fault, all your fault, so you don't get to walk away from me!"

He swallows hard but seems resigned, and maybe where my anger turns me into a wreck, his brings him clarity. "I think it's time you leave."

"Stop fighting me on this!" I tell him angrily. I ignore the way my heart is hammering inside my chest. Fuck, I can't give him more than this. He has to accept that. Has to. "I need you on that bus," I say roughly.

He shakes his head and steps further away, backing away, from me, out of all people, like I'm a time bomb about to explode. I lean against the door, feeling stupid and desperate and bitter.

He looks a little sorry. Maybe. Or maybe I just hope that he is, that this is hurting him too. That the past few days have been as torturous for him as they've been for me. That he missed me. All of it. That sometimes it's all he can think of, and the loss hangs over him, pushing him down.

There's solemn determination on his face. "I've gone through too much to be someone's dirty little secret."

"Don't think so goddamn highly of yourself." When he narrows his eyes at me, I press on. "So you got jumped and beat up by some jocks. Am I, what? Expected to kneel at your feet because you had a rough time growing up? Join your fucking generation." Mentioning his past works flawlessly: his eyes flash dangerously and his hands curl into fists. Maybe he will try and take a swing at me. Nick already did, so why not him too? It'd be easier. We beat each other up, and it's closure. I won't have to think of him anymore. Don't have to miss him. "You'd be fucking lucky to be my dirty secret," I tell him.

He looks continually more disbelieving. "God, you – You waltz in here and try to tell me what to do! Like you own me, like you get to say this shit to me! You don't even want me," he snarls. "You want things you don't have. Right now, that's me. Other times, it's the band. When you have it, you resent it, and then the second it starts to slip away, you run back to them. You're just a confused little boy."

"Don't fucking belittle me!" I snap angrily. And I'm not confused. Terry said it, now Kurt's saying it, like I'm having an identity crisis of some kind. "You have no idea how much I've put on the line for you, you ungrateful fag!"

"That's it! Get the fuck out!" he barks, grabbing a hold of my arm, fingers digging in painfully, but it's soothing somehow. If I feel the pain, I still exist. He wrenches the door open and pulls us both out of the room and into the dark hallway. When I can't free myself from his hold, I shove him backwards. His hold of me loosens and his back slams again the wall loudly.

I see the outlines of his features in the dark, finding myself standing in the beam of light that comes from his room. "You're a fag but get offended when someone calls you that," I remark.

"Right back at you."

The fury in me bubbles over, a blinding rage from his insolence. "Don't you ever call me a fag, you –"

"I don't care anymore! You come to my home –"

"Your home?!"

"Whatever it is! You come here and you think you've got the right, but you don't!" he barks, but his voice is anguished and self-deprecating somehow. "I don't know what I was thinking. I fucking told myself early on to remember that you were just a selfish prick, but I forgot. I let myself- Just get the hell out, Blaine."

"I know what you were thinking! You got off on getting fucked by a rock star. Made you feel good. Got a rush out of it. Someone fucking famous! A nice step up from letting dirty middle-aged married men fuck your underage ass in motels! You're just like the rest of them! You use me, and then when I offend your stupid fucking feelings, you take off!"

"Fuck you!" he snaps fervently. "I never cared one fucking bit how famous you are! Fuck, you're not... you're not even a decent human being. You're cruel, and you're vile. I can't believe I was letting myself fall in love with you."

My response is automatic, rolling off my tongue instantly. "God, that would have been too pathetic even for me to bear."

My words hang in the air between us, ugly and hurtful.

"Get out," he whispers. There's an edge to his words, something painful that cuts through my skin like sharp glass. It's only then that his actual words reach my brain, and I feel breathless and hollow and panicked, like the entire world opens up somehow, the universe aligning in perfect sequence, and then it's gone as suddenly, deteriorating back into confusion and chaos.

"My pleasure," I return.

I find the door easily, banging it closed behind me, and I stomp down the stairs, feeling dirty and needing to leave that apartment, the building, the street, get away from him before this sickening feeling gets into my bones.

I sit on the steps of the gas station that's closed for the night, watching the cigarette smoke spiral up and into the dark. Matt's still taking a piss by the roadside though the night has swallowed him up, and I can't see him. The bus is parked in front of me, illuminated by the blinking light above my head. The door's open, and the driver's seat is empty, the radio quietly playing and reaching my ears. Nick's sitting on the steps of the bus, smoking like I am. He hasn't said a word yet. I haven't said a word either. Last time we spoke he managed to punch me.

He's flying straight to Cincinnati from Vancouver. Well, through Chicago. I heard him talking to Ryder since our manager needs to know where we are. I remember when we were younger and spent entire nights listening to the radio together, making bets which one of us could sing 'how do you do what you do to me, I wish I knew, if I knew how you do what you do to me, I'd do it to you' faster. It was innocent. Now it's this – barely out of Portland but far enough to be in the middle of nowhere, not near enough to be in Seattle yet. I didn't give a fuck about tonight's crowd and neither did he. Our performances are automatic. We don't have the heart.

Matt wanders back, readjusting the collar of his shirt. "You got a cigarette?" he asks me, and I go through my pockets and hand him one. He lights it himself, staring at us cautiously, like maybe worried Nick and I will start exchanging punches again. They all act so carefully around me now, or at least the roadies do. Even Mason, though he can't actually know what happened. What I said. What Kurt said.

But they know where I went and that I came back by myself. I'm not thinking about it anymore. Can't think about it.

My fingers have twisted around the cigarette I'm holding, snapping it in two.

The horror of continuity almost gets to me then. No break. No lull. Nothing. Back on the bus, back on the road, like it made no difference, like nothing ever happened or changed, and now we're driving to a new state, getting further and further away from California, San Francisco, Castro Street, a dry cleaners, a room in the apartment above it, watching the place become more and more miniscule and sinking into oblivion, vanishing off the map. And him with it.

The sensation of rising terror settles heavy in my chest, not accelerating but not fading away either.

"Is that a cat?" Matt asks, breaking the spell. I look up and follow his gaze to two glowing embers at the corner of the bus before they're gone. Matt walks off to investigate, and I lean against the gas station door behind my back, knees raised.

I know it's over, like it should have been before it even started. I could see it in the way he looked at me. Hate. Shame. Shame that he had been involved at all. Vile. Cruel. That's what he said. That's what I can't forget. That's what makes me feel pathetic. That I feel so much.

Nick clears his throat. "I don't know how long we can keep doing this."

I look at him, but he's focused on his shoes. He smokes languidly like he didn't just say what he did.

"The band?" I clarify, and he nods.

The rest of the guys are inside, fast asleep. I couldn't sleep. I tried to, but when I close my eyes, I see things, when it's too quiet, I hear things, and I twisted in the sheets, pulling them aside, and hidden in the crack between the mattress and the wall was a black t-shirt, soft and worn, white text on the front. Old No. 7. Tennessee Whiskey. Smelled like him.

"It's not working," Nick says, and he doesn't have to tell me that. It used to work. I used to call Puck and Sebastian both my best friends. Him too. I used to do a lot of things I no longer do. "There's too much shit we can't solve. Puck's a... He's a mess about the Quinn thing, and when Seb found out about Puck?"

"Yeah."

Seb went on a rampage, slamming doors and one guitar as he yelled that he was done playing with such an amateur band, that he fucked around but never the wrong people. Like Puck and Quinn. Nick and Victoria. Me and.

Nick sighs loudly, dropping the cigarette on the ground where it lies, emitting smoke into the air with a burning red tip. "I'm not your friend anymore, B."

The night's humid, endless black above our heads. No stars. No moonlight. Heavy, pregnant clouds just waiting for the right moment to start raining.

"I know that." It's a lie.

"Ryder keeps saying that we just need a break, but I don't see us ever getting back from this. He still thinks we'll go to Europe, but I just..." He sounds pained. At least he cares. Cared. I know he did. I know it must have been bad for it to come to this, worse than I ever realized.

We made a blood oath once. I had no siblings. He didn't have a brother. We must have been twelve.

So much for that.

If the two remaining shows are the last Warblers concerts ever, then what was it all for?

Matt returns, still smoking his cigarette. "The cat didn't want to play. Shame that." He rolls his shoulders. "Should we get back on the road?"

Nick stands up, readjusting his shirt slightly. Light catches the wedding ring on his finger. He's started wearing it now despite Ryder's fierce objections. He's made his choice. He's got his girls. What does he need an adopted brother for now?

He looks at me with calm brown eyes, and it's not a scrutinizing gaze at all but I feel myself shrinking from it, anyway. "I hope you get over him soon."

I look up at him in half-surprise, half-guilt. Matt clears his throat and pretends he didn't hear, and Nick disappears back onto the bus. Matt follows him, but I stay on the single step, feeling sick to my stomach.

It feels like something's been ripped in two inside me.

I look to the back half of the bus. I don't want to go back there, to that small gritty space, that bed where Kurt's slept, that place where we kissed for the first time since the first time, not that I kept count of the times after that. I lost count of the kisses. Of everything.

"You coming?" Matt calls out from the driver's seat. My legs feel weak as I stand up. The first drop of water lands on me as I walk over and climb the steps up. The doors close behind me, and Matt fiddles with the radio.

The thought of going back to the memories feels suffocating. Lying there and having to think of the bunk that's empty, how he's gone, how he's never coming back. His words. What he said. The look in his eyes. How he couldn't believe that he was letting himself fall in love with me. He was falling in love. Fuck, I can't even breathe.

"Can I drive?"

Matt looks at me in surprise. I used to drive every now and then on our previous tour. Matt was there so he knows that. Not on this tour. Not anymore. I'm too important now.

"I've got it."

"We're a fucking hour away from Seattle. I can drive," I say angrily. "You hate driving." He does. He constantly complains about it.

"Yeah, but you've never driven this bus."

"It's a bus. The road's straight. I can do it."

"You been drinking?"

"Nothing all day."

He looks skeptical but stands up, motioning me to sit down. I do, my fingers landing on the cool steering wheel as my feet find the pedals.

"Seatbelt."

"You serious?"

He nods, so I roll my eyes and oblige before switching the engine on. The bus jerks and inches forward, and I get us back on the road, the headlights sweeping across the asphalt of the highway, the yellow centerlines appearing and disappearing. It's raining now, the road glistening black. "Alright," Matt says after a few minutes. "Wake me up when we get there."

He disappears from my peripheral vision, and I lean back against the seat, letting the solitude engulf me. The radio is playing the newest hits, and when I hear the first three notes of Less Than Graceful, I switch stations, not wanting to hear my own voice. Classical music crackles through the speakers, a melodic and calm up and down of a piano. Chopin.

The rain keeps beating against the windshield, the wipers sliding across the glass swiftly. The sound of it mixes with the B flat minor key of the music. Kurt could do that too. Play any note at all, and he'd know which one it was. He was more talented than he let on, saying he had no interest in trying to be a musician. We certainly provided him with a warning example.

The second I let my thoughts stray to him, I feel nauseous. It's a sickening burn, and I know that I wasn't quick enough. He found a way in. Got into my bones.

I swear under my breath and lift my ass off the seat slightly, retrieving the flask from my back pocket. I had to steal it back from Nick behind his back. I keep one hand on the wheel as I unscrew the cork, bringing the mouth to my lips quickly. Vodka pours down my throat effortlessly.

And then I realize there is no solution or escape. It doesn't matter if I'm somewhere that's infested with memories of him or whether I'm on stage at a venue I've never been to. I can't shake it off. The feeling. The memories. And I want to tell him I'm so fucking sorry, but then I don't. I want to tell him to go fuck himself.

He didn't care about the hype. He didn't care that I froze up in interviews or that the only way I could get on stage was for him to whisper reassurances into my ear, fleeting kisses in a bathroom, something, anything for me to hold onto. To stop me from slipping in too deep. He knew all the things I never wanted anyone to know, and he was falling in love with me anyway. Me. Out of all the people in the world. And not that artificial me that the fans adore – that person doesn't even exist – but the actual me, and I don't even know who that is half the time, but he seemed to.

I turn the radio louder, my hands trembling and my heart beating like I'm running to my defeat, falling into something I can't climb out of. I bring the flask to my lips again; it's like water and has no effect that I can notice. I still feel the pain.

The rain is so hard that it's hammering the bus roof, hundreds of droplets beating against it, drumming and pounding into my brain. I've been driving faster since Matt left, flying along the pitch black road, and I feel weak and sick and tired.

I wanted him to love me.

I take in a shuddering breath and wipe my cheeks, shaking it off, shaking it off, but it's not going anywhere. The yellow centerlines aren't where they should be. They are right ahead of me, and the bus is in the middle of the road now, and I see headlights ahead that aren't ours. But it's like that morning in Arizona, when I smoked a cigarette by the side of the road and Kurt came over to talk to me, snapping my picture, telling me of his travels and smiling at me, and I could see a truck coming in the distance, knowing that it would never reach me. Reach us. That one moment stretched to infinity.

I want to remember that morning. I want to remember that feeling, that spark deep inside my chest whenever I looked at him.

Now he's gone.

It's just a Buick, the car that's honking and flashing its lights in the rain, and the highway almost seems flooded, like we're driving on a lake or a sea or an ocean.

Just a car.

But then we make impact out of nowhere, the infinity getting cut short. It's loud, the crash, and I get thrown forwards and then slammed backwards. The entire world tilts, balance and gravity ceasing to exist. The bus crashes to its side but doesn't come to a stop, sliding along, and the screech of metal is loud and sparks burn my skin. Blood and glass fill my mouth, but the radio keeps playing.

The radio keeps playing.

end of Vol.1