A/N: I don't really know about this chapter. It took me a lot longer to write than the others, and I don't know if I got across the right emotions and feelings that I wanted to. But regardless, posting now that my exams are over, please review, I believe it will be help me a heap (: ENJOY
~~~OOO~~~
It's funny the way dreams act.
They say it's a reminder of the last thing you thought of until your breathing finally evened out. But sometimes, it's like your brain takes these thoughts, and matches them up to something else, another memory from a lifetime. And patchworks them together with pretty cotton and somehow, even though they shouldn't, they fit. And the two meshed memories have become the dream. And it's not one of those dreams that leaves you entangled in the blankets, or makes you wake up in a sweat.
No. It's one of those dreams that you remember for the whole entire day, until you go to think about it again, and maybe write it down, and then it's gone. The dream's gone. And the way the sand was supposed to feel, and the colour of the trees and the shirt you were wearing, swept from the face of the brain in a moment of thought. So you just have to try and not to think about it, but let it consume you at the same time. Do you know the type of dreams? The dreams that leave you waking up in a wet patch on the pillow, where your eye was only seconds before, but somehow, you can't remember why you were crying, because the dream was so happy. But maybe it's because it was so happy, that somehow it makes you sad.
"Maybe the world's just a fucked up place," were the first words to leave Kurt's mouth as he rolled over the next morning, almost crushing his daughter where she was still curled into a little ball.
Kurt had had one of those dreams. It was beautiful. It was everything. Somehow, the reminiscing he did last night, matched up with the talk he'd had with his daughter, and the smell of antiseptics, and the visit to the cemetery, and the feel of rain on his eyelashes, brought back a series of mismatched events form whenever and wherever, but somehow, they all fitted into the reality of what had happened.
He'd had dreams of a lifetime of memories. Of before he was eight and felt his life tugged from under his feet. He had memories of starry nights and sweaty foreheads pressed together in desperation. And clinging fingers and guitars and serenading in the choir room and kisses under the ocean's waves and swinging children.
But the one that stood out the most was a continuance of the memories that had flooded his addled brain the night before. How shitty life had been for him after Blaine had left the first time. Even as an eight year old, had he known what it meant; shitty would have summed it up pretty damn well.
~~~OOO~~~
After he had heard the conversation about the moving Anderson's, he thought better then to tell his best friend. No matter how much he wanted to handcuff Blaine to his side so they never would be parted, he knew that whoever was the one to tell him, would hurt him the most. And even an eight year old couldn't carry that kind of baggage along, no matter how much they themselves were hurting and broken.
The Hummel's were just about to sit down for dinner that night, the smell of cookies still lined the rooms in the house, and it smelt like safety, and like everything would be okay.
And then the door was opened and slammed shut, and a running mess of unruly black hair lifted up to show red eyes and shaking hands. Without saying anything, Kurt got up and enveloped his best friend in a best friend hug. They fell to the floor at the same time.
Kate watched on with tears in her eyes, she scrutinized the pain in her boys. Their cries couldn't be muffled, not even by the falling rain and thunder, nor the arrival of Dakota and Mike. The boys sat there in one heap, arms enclosing the other, foreheads pressed together, and the same tears falling.
Seconds or minutes or hours or days later, they finally spoke.
"I can't leave you Kurt. You're my best friend in the whole wide world." He paused to wipe his eyes and let a hiccupped sob escape his lungs. "Who am I going to do special best friend Eskimo kisses with in Paris? No one there can keep me as warm as you can."
"I know Blaine, I know. But you're gonna make lots of new friends! And you're gonna eat lots of snails! And frogs and yummy bread. And you're gonna visit that big 'A' we always said we wanted to see. And you're gonna learn another language! How cool is that gonna be?"
Kurt hoped he didn't look half as sad as he felt as he tried to comfort Blaine. It was tearing him up just as much as him, but he couldn't let him see. He had to be the strong one. He needed to be.
"You're right." Sob. "You're right, and I'll come back whenever I can. And you'll come visit me too won't you Kurtie?"
"Of course I will Blainey. We'll always be best friends too okay. Don't you forget that. Not even when you made yourself a nice group of French speaking friends to keep you sane at school. We'll always be best friends. And one day in the future, we'll be best friends in the same town together okay."
Blaine nodded his head, and wiped away the last of the tears on his face, and reached up to do the same to Kurt's cheek. He left his small palm on the taller boy's cheek for just a little while, so Kurt could lean into it. And for them to just sit there like that, until they both fell asleep and were carried up to Kurt's bed.
They woke up the next morning cuddled together. Blaine's small head against Kurt's pale eight-year-old chest. Their hands were joined in the middle, and at the foot of the bed was a pile of cookies and a CD.
"Kurt," it said, "I know you don't know how to use the computer very well, so here's a song I found. I want you to give this CD to Blaine, and it will be your song forever okay. I love you, and I'm sorry that this is happening. Love, mummy"
Kurt held the CD. Blaine wouldn't be leaving for another 4 days; he would wait till the last night to give him the special song, whatever it was. It had to be something about best friends. His mummy knew how much it meant to him. It would be a pretty song too. And even when they were oceans apart, it would bring them together.
Blaine woke. His best friend looked so pretty in the morning haze of tiredness and unwillingness.
"What are we gonna do today?"
"Everything," Blaine answered.
~~~OOO~~~
The two boys spent the next couple of days with each other every minute of the day. The played dress ups, hide and go seek, went to the park and swung on the swing set, and see-sawed, and built sandcastles, and baked cupcakes and brownies, and watched Disney movies, and sung songs, and gave each other lots and lots of Eskimo kisses.
But somehow, their full full full days made time go too quickly, and soon enough, hey! It was Saturday night and it was Blaine and his mummy and daddy's last night in Lima, and Kurt wouldn't see his best best best friend in God knows how long.
They spent their last night together, lying down on the bit of roof under Kurt's window where they could see the stars. They weren't saying anything, but they had their hands clenched tight, but it was funny how the two boys had a pull. Like they could always tell what the other was thinking or feeling no matter what they were saying otherwise. It was some weird telepathic connection that got annoying sometimes, but right now it was their saving grace. As both of them were leaking silent tears, that deafened the heavens.
And suddenly, Kurt was up and through the window, bringing his CD player towards them, and the opening chords of a song strained the air. And then Kurt's hand was back in Blaine's. But his eyes were locked on the little circles of hazel he'd first looked into three or so years ago.
I wish I knew you,
way back when,
It was their first day of kindergarten, neither the boy with the pretty brunette hair or the boy with the uncombed black mop would let go of their mother's legs. And there was their teacher talking about love and hope to their parents.
before you were a part of my plans
I think that we would have been friends.
It was them on their first day at elementary school, they'd sat next to each other in class, and shared PB and J sandwiches and apple juice at lunch and held hands as they crossed the school.
There's only time to live our lives,
and you'll be the one that's by my side.
It was their first sleepover, they'd spent the afternoons playing dress ups and having tea parties with Kurt's stuffed toy collections. And they'd watched the Little Mermaid and Mulan because they were their favourite movies, and they could both sing, so they sang along to all the songs, and fell in fits of laughter when their voices turned stupid. And they'd fallen asleep holding hands.
and I can promise you that,
you'll always be my best friend.
It was a montage of Eskimo kisses. It was a mosaic of whispering wishes of warmth and hope to the other. It was a lifetime of friendship, compressed in those short years of feeling safe, and loved, and needed, and warm.
Till the end when we part,
I will give you my heart
And it was the moment Kurt found out he was being separated from his best friend. And it was some weird vision of the future where they were in uniforms, and smiling, because they were together again, and they were watching their favourite movies and eating cookies.
and I promise I'll love you, with all that it is
and I'll promise to be there whenever you need me
because, you'll always be my best friend.
And now it was just them, sitting on a blanket under the stars on Kurt's roof. Holding hands and locked eyes. And it was all of their memories, all of their laughs and tears and happy memories and costume changes and performances, and kitchen and science experiments and bike rides, and Klaine patrol and watching football and being pushed around in trolleys. And it was them cuddling and saying I love you, but not in a gross-mummy-and-daddy way, the other kind of way, when there's one person who means more to you than anyone else, even your favourite stuffed animal or your favourite actor.
Kurt joined in to sing the last five lines.
You'll always be my best friend.
You'll always be my best friend.
You'll always be my best friend.
You'll always be my best friend.
You'll always be my best friend.
And with that, they knew it was time for Blaine to go. There were no words either of them could say to the other, but everything that had passed through one's mind in that song, had passed through the others. So with a final hug, a final squeeze of the hands and a final Eskimo kiss, Kurt whispered, "I hope this keeps you warm, always"
"Because you don't deserve to be cold." Blaine finished.
And they kissed the others foreheads and withheld the tears until Kurt saw Blaine walk across the street and get into his parents car. Kurt shouted out a final 'goodbye and I love you!' Until he saw the car pull away from his little street in the middle of nowhere to move on to bigger and better things. Bigger and better things without him in it.
And then he couldn't take it anymore. All of the tears he'd been holding in since he found out Blaine was leaving escaped in a torrent of surging salty leaks that stung like blood and made his body shake and his breathing go as shallow as it had ever been. And then there was this pain in his chest, where his heart should be. It was a hole. It was a ginormous hole in his chest the size of the Grand Canyon. And somehow, Kurt knew there would always be one there. Because Blaine was gone. And nothing would ever be right again.
~~~OOO~~~
Somehow the memories had brought back the dream he had been trying to think of and trying not to at the same time. It was him and Blaine, sitting on thrones they had had in their elementary school days. Except they weren't six or seven years old in the dream, they were their twenty-eight year old selves, with tiara's on their heads and Disney music playing over the speakers. Except they weren't really in the playground. The life-size chess board did not stretch out in front of them. They were instead on a hill. Sitting next to swings, and their thrones were deep red and purple.
Below them ran rivers and creeks, and they could see forests, and the ocean and the type of sunrise that reminds you 'Oh my god. I'm alive.' And they just sat there, in their thrones, with their twenty-eight year old selves holding hands, listening to eight year old music and seeing a work of art collectors would kill for tight in front of their eyes. But somehow, all they could see was the other.
They drank in every feature from the fleck of gold in Blaine's eyes, to the hairline on Kurt's head. The way Blaine's hands felt when they were heated by the sun and the precious way Kurt crossed his legs.
And Blaine whispered in a sing song voice, "Boy can I tell you a wonderful thing? I can't help but notice you staring at me," that made them both laugh and smile because they were untouchable. And they were in love. And they were oh so happy.
But then the earth broke underneath them and they were falling falling falling into a pitch of nothingness, and their hands were separated, and it was dark dark dark and everything just felt so wrong.
And then there had been tears and screams and shouts and laughs and hugs and kisses and then suddenly, they were atop of thrones once more, and they'd changed so much, but it was play because they had the other's hand again.
And then suddenly, there was a sound behind them, and a little throne appeared in the middle. Fitting so seamlessly in between. Replacing the clenched hands of the two men with one of her own little hands in each one.
If it hadn't been a dream, it would have made for the ultimate family photograph. It should have been the ultimate family photograph. But it wasn't. Because nothing's ever that perfect.