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His nurse, Linda, tried to get him to eat after his shower, just like she always did. But Blaine was tired. He was so tired and he wanted to keep fighting but his body… he didn’t want food. He just… as much as he wanted to keep living, it just felt like it was time.
There was a rush of movement, worried voices, Kurt tried to coax him into eating. He wanted to do it for him, but he just couldn’t.
His mouth shut tight, he looked up at Kurt, his arm sliding up a little before what was left of his muscles failed him.
When Kurt looked back at him, there were tears in his eyes, a deep sadness that could only come from someone who’d been by his side for so long.
A worried, tense, conversation happened around him as his two nurses’ spoke to Kurt, and Blaine’s mind wandered decades into the past. There was once a time, decades ago, when he had felt self-conscious around Kurt. As though his body wasn’t good enough because he’d gained a little weight while Kurt looked fitter and fitter every day. Now though. Now he barely gave a thought to how he looked. He knew he was practically skin and bones, his muscle and body fat having slowly deteriorated, in the time since he’d been diagnosed.
Progressive supranuclear palsy: A rare brain disorder that started with serious problems walking and then quickly worsened to an inability to speak or move very much.
At first, they’d thought it was just age, until it became more and more pronounced, and soon he was unable to get up without help; His brain sending the message to his body, but nothing happening – his voice all but disappearing.
That was six years ago. Six long years of being able to hear and watch while losing his ability to move on his own or speak. Doctors’ appointments. Nurses coming in. Inevitably being confined to a hospital bed that was placed next to his and Kurt’s bed. Not even being able to wipe the tears from Kurt’s eyes or hold him close.
He was only 84. He should have had longer. Longer to be with Kurt, longer to be with his family. There was so much they had left to do, but he was just so tired and they’d known, for years now, that this is likely how he would die.
Within 24 hours of being taken off food and water, their family started arriving.
First Marc and his family arrived, the two grandkids – Kate and Sarah – talking about returning to college in a few weeks to start their junior year, while Marc sat holding one of his hands and his wife Susan sat behind him. Kurt was there, as always, holding his other hand, occasionally leaning over to whisper things to him – commenting on the grandkids, talking about Marc, one time even telling him about their dog, Liesel and how she was sitting by the girls, allowing them to pet her, but refused to take her eyes off Blaine.
Coco’s clan showed up around lunchtime the next day. She’d somehow managed to bring all four kids with her, even though her husband couldn’t make it and two of the kids were out of college and working now.
The following evening, the last of their children showed up. Rose, his favorite child (he’d never admit it, but they all knew it) arrived, having driven all day. Her wife Stacey and their two kids were with her, and they quickly joined the group of people around him.
Upon her arrival, Blaine grinned as widely as he could managed, lifting his arm a little, until he felt her hand in his. He squeezed it tightly. They were all here.
For an hour or two, energy was high in the room. There was laughter and talking and stories, but eventually, they fell into a lull, and Blaine could feel his breaths shallow out a little, calming down from all of the excitement.
Blaine wasn’t able to see all that well, but he could sense a somber mood forming. Everyone quietly watching him as Kurt held his hand and one of the grandkids sniffled in the corner.
If he could talk, he would be shouting at them all to stop just standing their staring at him, waiting for him to take his last breaths. Just because Rose had finally arrived, didn’t mean that he was going to up and die right then. He planned on enjoying this – their voices and their presence – for a while. Then he would die. He’d repeatedly heard he had three to ten days. He might not set out to defy that and magically last eleven days, but he was going to hold out for as long as he could. They were only on day four. Besides, it’d been too long since they’d all been together, with or without him, and he was going to revel in it for as long as he could.
He was ready to die, but he wasn’t ready to die just yet.
The phone blared loudly next to him and finally broke the tension. Liesel barked and someone made to move her out of the room, but was apparently unsuccessful because moments later, Blaine heard a loud snort of breath, right near his face. He lifted a finger, and immediately felt Liesel shove her nose under his hand.
The people around him laughed, Kurt reminding her to be gentle.
Blaine heard Liesel let out a soft whine, before she licked him and – if the sudden cries of “Liesel, no!” were anything to go by – tried to hop onto the bed, to cuddle like he used to cuddle her when she was sick. He smiled a little, unsure if his lips had actually moved in response, and felt the bed move, something warm coming to press against the bottom of his bony leg.
Voices started talking around him, blending together as his kids caught up with each other and Kurt smoothed back his hair, talking to Cooper on the phone.
Later that night, after most of the grandkids and kids had gone to bed – either in their apartment or down the street at a hotel – Blaine felt someone pick up his hand, before holding on to it.
“Hey honey,” he heard Kurt whisper, before pushing back some of his hair. “It’s me.” Blaine opened his eyes so Kurt knew he was awake and listening. “I know it’s time, but can you just hang in there for one or two more days for me?” He sniffed. “I’m not ready to be a widower yet. And I know you’ve been so so strong for me over the years but I need you to hang in there for a little while longer.” There was a long pause, where Kurt just stroked Blaine’s hand gently with his thumb. If Blaine could still produce tears, he knew they’d be streaming down his face right now. He was ready to go. Ready to stop fighting this daily battle of being trapped of barely being able to communicate. Of living in the shell of his body. He hated leaving Kurt though. But he had to. “No one else knows all the things you know about me,” Kurt continued, voice thick. “You’re my best friend, Blaine. You’re my life. What am I going to do when you leave me? We’ve been married for 65 years. What am I supposed to do?” His voice cracked, and Blaine squeezed his hand more tightly.
It was all he could do.
The following morning the family gathered around his bed once more – waking up Rose who had been sleeping in the bed next to him in the process – this time with a photo album.
Every once in a while, one of the grandkids would ask about a photo and as one of his kids or Kurt would reminisce, he’d be brought back to the adventures their family had had when the kids were young.
He smiled, actually smiled and managed to grip Kurt’s hand tighter as they went through an album from his and Kurt’s youth.
“Hey, dad,” Coco asked after a little while, “What’s this picture from?”
Blaine heard Kurt lean over, looking at the picture, before laughing a little. “Did we never tell you kids the story of my junior prom?”
“You wore a kilt to prom?” Rose asked.
Blaine’s mind flashed to the shenanigans that they got up to after the prom, despite Kurt being elected prom queen, and opened his eyes to look at Kurt as best he could.
Kurt squeezed his hand in response.
“Blaine wasn’t initially a fan of that actually. Back in our day it was much more dangerous to be out and proud in high school. Blaine got beat up,” Blaine’s hand tightened around Kurt’s automatically, with an ease it hadn’t had in years. Kurt squeezed back. “After a Sadie Hawkins dance that he attended before I knew him, so he had good reason to be nervous about standing out more than we already would. I was stubborn though, so I wore the kilt.
“And then,” Kurt sighed. “I got elected prom queen, and the prom king wouldn’t dance with me. I was standing in the middle of my class, who had all elected me as a cruel joke, wondering what I was supposed to do, when Blaine stepped out of the crowd.” Blaine felt Kurt kiss his forehead lightly before continuing. “He held out a hand and we slow danced together, in front of everyone.”
There was laughter and a few people started talking at once. Blaine’s tired brain drifted a bit, zeroing in on the feel of Kurt’s thumb on the back of his hand, and Marc’s hand slowly rubbing his back.
By the time he managed to return his attention to the conversation around him, Kurt was no longer sitting next to him. By the sound of it, it was just his kids, comparing memories of the three years they had spent living in London when Kurt and Blaine had performing there.
“Remember that time we snuck out?” Marc asked.
“You snuck out?!” Blaine heard Rose exclaim.
Coco’s laugh rung out. “Yeah, there was this midnight concert we wanted to go to but you wouldn’t let us, would you Papa?” Blaine opened his eyes, to look at Coco in what he hoped was an unamused stare. He hadn’t known they’d done that.
“I still can’t believe they didn’t catch us.”
“Didn’t catch you what?” Kurt asked, re-entering the room.
“Nothing!” Marc and Coco said quickly.
“What secrets are they telling you Blaine?” Kurt asked, settling down behind him. “What do you know that I don’t, huh?”
Kurt knew that Coco had been keeping track of Blaine’s breathing. He knew that she thought she was being discrete when she gave the other updates on it. But Kurt knew. Blaine’s breathing had gone from the steady seventeen breaths a minute of the past few days, to 21 breaths. To 30. He’d read the material. He knew this was it.
He didn’t want it to be but it was.
He sat there with his kids and Liesel – the grandkids either asleep in the apartment or at the hotel with their other parent – each of them touching Blaine in some way and conversing quietly. Kurt just listened and watched Blaine. Each pause between breaths causing his heart to launch into his throat.
It was all so unfair. They should have had more time. Blaine should have had more time. Good, kind, wonderful Blaine deserved to live until he was 120. But instead he just got this, and Kurt was going to have to learn how to live without him for the first time since he was 19.
The apartment was weirdly quiet after. The oxygen machine no longer running by Blaine’s bedside. Coco woke up her kids, informing them of Blaine’s passing. Marc and Rose called their spouses, who were to arrive imminently. He’d called the hospice nurse. She had to come and confirm death and then report it.
They all sat by Blaine’s bed silently beyond the tears.
Eventually, the rest of the family showed up and some of the grandkids got up to make breakfast.
All Kurt could do was sit there. What was he supposed to do now? He’d spent the last six years of his life being Blaine’s primary caretaker, his schedule revolving around Blaine and only Blaine. Aside from a nephew’s wedding, he hadn’t spent more than two hours away from Blaine since he retired.
He kept thinking about the medications he had to pick up for Blaine before remembering.
Life slowly picked back up around him. His kids forced him to go walk around a little and eat breakfast.
The nurse came.
The funeral home people came.
Kurt sat on the couch, Coco hugging him close, as he sobbed in front of his kids and grandkids.
Blaine was gone and yet somehow Kurt was still here.