We ruined ourselves. I have never honestly thought that we ruined each other. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a letter to Zelda Fitzgerald.
One day, people swarmed Wall Street like ants and furiously shook worthless papers in the air. Good things don't last, he repeated to himself as he walked pass them. It had been a marvelous party but the time to pay the bill and go home with their hangover had arrived.
1931, Ohio
Rachel Berry had been famous, she told him as they dragged his suitcases up the stairs of his childhood home.
"I was a singer." She nodded desperately at her inattentive brother-in-law. "This one time, Valentino was in the audience. He told me I was the best singer he'd ever heard."
"How about that." He mumbled, opening the door to his room. Rachel Hudson looked uncomfortable and out of place, fingers twisting in her ugly floral dress. He took a deep breath before looking at her. "I wouldn't mind hearing you sing, someday." She smiled brightly at that and then walked down the hall, a spring in her step.
Kurt and Burt Hummel had always had a curious relationship. When Kurt was young, Burt hadn't known how to deal with a son that stayed inside and dreamed of the city lights, all at once. Now, Kurt didn't know how to deal with a dying father.
They had almost lost the farm. That had been Kurt's reason to come back home for the first time in years. New York and Chicago had all the excitement of a wake. When he got home, he found a father that was dragging himself through the house, mumbling and limping.
It took all his strength not to turn around and walk out of the door.
In the end, they managed to save the farm. He had splurged, it's true, but there had been a sizeable amount of money he'd kept hidden from anyone and never touched, just in case. He handed them a wad of bills without a second's hesitation and Finn's eyes widened like saucers.
He walked past a quiet Finn Hudson and into the room. It smelled like sickness and sweat and he wanted to leave and never come back. But he did that once and it didn't work, so he sighed and sat on the creaky chair next to the bed.
Burt Hummel looked weak and fragile, breathing with difficulty. Kurt took a deep breath.
"Do you realize what's happening, dad?" The only answer was the shallow breathing to his right. "You're dying. You're going to leave and never come back." His father's blue eyes were set on him.
"There's a lot of things I never told you about me. Things that you'd be ashamed of. And I never told you because I'm a coward, dad. Even if we'd never seen each other again, I couldn't bear to know that I'd disappointed you." He had stated to choke up and took a deep breath before continuing.
"I'm a deviant, dad." He spat the word out with disgust. He wasn't any more of a deviant as any other man. "I like men, dad. I like to talk to them, I like to kiss them and I like to sleep with him." Telling him this when he can't speak anymore, where is your bravery, a corner of his mind whispered to him.
"And I'm sorry for this, dad. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before and I'm sorry I'm telling you now." He let his head fall, tears blurring his vision. He didn't notice when Burt's fingers tried to reach his hand.
The funeral was on a Monday and by Tuesday, Kurt was gone.
In March of 1936, Kurt Hummel received a telegram. He closed the door behind the messenger, took one look at it and let it fall from his irresponsive hand.
CAN I SEE YOU STOP I'M DYING STOP
Kurt found Dave Karofsky in the veterans hospital in New Jersey.
"Are you a relative?" The doctor asked. Kurt could see through his fake concern. He didn't care. Dave was just one of many.
"He's my friend." He's the love of my life.
He looked painfully small and weak, lying on that hospital bed. He felt a burning in his eyes, as he looked at him, and his fingers touched the cold glass. He blinked rapidly before opening the door and drawing closer to the hospital bed. He wanted to cry when he noticed the book on the bedside table. It was one of his.
He didn't. Instead, he sat down and watched Dave's chest rise and fall as he slept.
He took him home with him.
"You make a good nurse." Dave commented as Kurt brought him his dinner.
"Don't get used to it." He said while lighting a cigarette. "Once you get better, I want to see you carry your weight."
"Kurt…" Dave said quietly.
"Once you get better." He cut him off and reached for the ashtray.
The doctor said it was cancer.
Dave lasted a year, which was quite impressive. In Kurt's opinion, it was terribly ironic that it was the happiest year of their lives.
"Why are you so calm? Shouldn't you be angry?" Kurt asked him one day, when they were lying in bed.
"I've been living on borrowed time since the war. Trust me, between dying in the trenches and dying here, I got the best deal." He reached around to kiss him and the subject is never brought up again.
It wasn't perfect. They got annoyed at each other, and snapped and said things they didn't mean but two hours later it was all forgotten. Sometimes, when Dave was feeling better, he'd get up, play Rudy Vallee's record and grab a laughing Kurt by the waist. It wasn't dancing as much as it was swaying in place.
It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
In those moments, Kurt held on to Dave's shoulders, feeling the cheap cotton under his fingers and didn't think.
As time goes by
On February 2nd, 1937, Kurt woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning, and Dave Karofsky didn't wake up at all. He knew what happened when the chest doesn't rise and fall. Kurt let his hands trail up the body's arm and traced the contours of the face.
He was so much thinner. It was odd that he never noticed. For him, Dave Karofsky was still the young man in the uniform he had met 19 years ago. The body lying next to him could be as old or as thin as it wanted, but it was not Dave Karofsky. That didn't stop him from holding on to him desperately.
5 hours later, he got up from the bed, washed his face, got dressed and called the morgue.
On February 4th, he carefully dressed Dave in his uniform, fixed his hair and nails and sat with the body.
"Do you remember Paris?" He gave a small smile. "Sometimes I wonder where all that went. Mercedes, Mike, everyone. I honestly never thought it would pass so quickly." He raised a hand to wipe at his eyes. "Remember those three days, I think it was in Montparnasse. We were all so drunk, but nobody slept, hopping from one party to the next. Sometimes I wonder why we were all so desperate to kill ourselves."
Kurt looked down before shaking his head with a smile.
"Whatever the reason, we loved didn't we? Madly and stupidly and painfully, but it was love. It has to count for something. If it doesn't, then what's the point?"
Why are you talking to a corpse?
He stood, looked around to ensure he was alone and bent down to kiss cold lips.
In 1940, Kurt met a young man called Gavroche, who wanted to be a singer. He was too young for him and Kurt felt like a disgusting old man, but he never cared before. He reminded him of himself when he was younger and that inspired an almost twisted sense of protectiveness. It was narcissism at its best, but once again, he was too tired to care.
Gavroche was not him, though. Of course he wasn't. The things that had molded him were nothing more than faint childhood memories for the younger man. Nevertheless, Gavroche provided company and a warm body at night. During that year, he revised his masterpiece, written over 20 years, in a haze of alcohol and ruin and music.
He knew it wouldn't be published unless someone edited out half of it, to be acceptable for the delicate sensibilities. He finished it anyway, leaving detailed instructions not to change a single comma and dedicated it to David. Always David.
Gavroche leaves him when he's halfway through the epilogue and he barely glances up from the page.
Kurt Hummel lives long enough to see another generation of bright faced young men go off to war and have they learned nothing. He packs his things, gives the landlady the key to his apartment and then goes home to die.
It's seems wrong that Ohio has changed so little over the years, but at same time it makes sense in a strange way. His brother comes to pick him up at the train station. He grabs his suitcases and throws them in the back of his Plymouth pickup truck without saying a word.
"What are you doing here?" Finn asks him once they're seated inside, Kurt absently running a hand over the leather seats. Kurt tells him and Finn shakes his head and grips the wheel tightly in his hands. "Damn you, Kurt."
"I know." He gives a short cynical laugh and not another word is uttered during the ride.
He can feel death drawing near. It's like a shadow hanging over him and he can't shake it off nor does he have the energy for it. Two weeks after he arrives, he closes himself in his room, staring at the wall in front of his bed.
He remembers almost hanging out of the Model T, with a champagne bottle in his hands, as they drove down the streets of Paris. He remembers every mad thing he ever did, every single thing that kills him young and he finds he can't honestly regret a single one.
The week before his last is spent snapping at everyone who comes near to him. Finn's poor daughter has learned to come in as quickly as she can, drop the lunch tray on his bedside table and leave before he utters a word. Kurt knows he should feel bad but he's too tired to feel anything except anger.
He's furious, furious that Dave isn't here with him. What was his idea, being the first to die? He was the sensible one, or at least as sensible as he could be, whilst Kurt was the one tap dancing at the edge of the world. It isn't fair and in those moments where rage consumes him, he sobs loudly enough for his brother to hear and pretend he didn't.
Finn sends a telegram to his wife, and Brittany arrives with Santana. He wants to be angry at them, because they made it together, while Dave's lying six feet under and he's on his way there himself, but he finds that he can't.
Brittany looks beautiful, with her blond hair in a pompadour. She sits on the edge of his bed with a bright smile, like there's nothing wrong with that situation at all, and Kurt's deeply grateful. Santana doesn't make a single comment and he feels almost betrayed.
Finn and Santana leave the room and close the door silently behind them. Kurt and Brittany share a look and giggle like naughty children.
She swings her long legs and crawls under the covers before smiling at him and he burrows his head in the crock of her neck.
"Thank you." He whispers as Brittany hums Ain't We Got Fun and runs her long fingers through his hair.
Kurt Hummel dies an old man at the young age of 42.