Work Text:
Kurt was upset at Paul.
Everything had been going so well, it had been just like in a fairytale - Paul had taken Kurt under his wing and taught him to play the violin and they had fallen in love despite the laws, despite §175 - or, Kurt had thought they had fallen in love. Now, with what happened with that strange encounter with the burglar in Paul's home, with what had happened with the burglar revealing at he had been blackmailing Paul - and Paul had never told him!
Paul hadn't trusted Kurt enough to tell him.
Kurt had run, like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs, from Paul's home after that, with nothing more than a curt demand for Paul to not follow him. He had been overwhelmed, avoiding everyone he knew and choosing to play at bars and hotels, but as time passed and he thought more rationally, he knew that he couldn't stay away from Paul forever. Kurt had seen the papers, he had known of Paul deciding to go to the police about the blackmail (Kurt guessed his reaction to the whole thing might have given the man a new perspective), and today had been the court date, which would have ended only an hour or so ago. He had been tempted to attend, but Kurt felt it better for Paul to see him again outside of a situation like that, for them to have a conversation about all that had happened between them. So, that led him to where he currently was, staring up at Paul's entryway nervously. Now, looking up at the grand household of Paul Körner, Kurt thought that it looked... dull, grey and lifeless with the curtains drawn and the flowers limp and dry. It was a far cry from the once beautiful home that had awed Kurt when he had first approached Paul when he wanted to be taught the violin by the virtuoso. From what Kurt had seen in the recent weeks, Paul had come to resemble the state of the house currently as well, the once well renowned musician becoming visibly thinner and gaunt as journalists captured photos of him to display on the front page of the newspapers, visibly stressed and troubled.
With a sigh, and a twinge of anxiety, - he hoped Paul could forgive him for running - Kurt knocked firmly on the door.
The door fell open at his touch, as if it had been shut in a rush and hadn't completely latched.
"Paul?" Kurt stepped into the hall, peering around but seeing nobody. The curtains were tightly drawn, leaving the rooms gloomy and shadowy.
As Kurt stepped further into the room, he heard the sound of paper crinkling, and he looked down to see a paper, with Paul's familiar scrawl covering it.
Kurt picked the paper up and examined it.
Kurt's heart dropped.
'To whoever finds this,
The nature of my love was my guillotine, but I feel no regret. Whether I bed men or women should have had no influence on my status, on my life as a free man, but those who pen the laws have decided otherwise. By exposing a blackmailer - and therefore my sexuality - I have been shunned, seen as a failure and a shame to my family and company.
I am not ashamed of who I am or who I love, but I am tired of how the world treats men like me.
May those I love live to see a more accepting world, a world without §175.
- Paul Körner'
It was a suicide note.
Kurt dropped the letter, and ran deeper into the house, his blood ice-cold and his heart pounding with fear.
"Paul!" Kurt skidded through the dining room, noting - thankfully - that all the knives visible through the doorway to the kitchen were still secure in their block, and seeing no sign of Paul or even his butler. Kurt darted back out into the hall and turned the corner, flying down the steps into Paul's sitting room where his piano was, where they had spent so many lessons, and promptly froze.
There was Paul.
"Paul!" Kurt screeched, an agonizing cry that ripped itself from an already raw throat from days of crying, and darted forward.
Paul was slumped in an armchair, his chin fallen against his chest and his eyes lidded.
Paul wasn't alright.
"What did you do?" Kurt collapsed to his knees in front of Paul, looking up at the man's unnaturally pale and drained face, "what did you do?!"
"Kurt? you're here..." Paul murmured, his eyes taking a moment to shift over and focus on Kurt, "I didn't think... Paul blinked lazily, as if he was confused, and slowly uncurled his clenched fist. As his tension-whitened appendages lifted, plastic crinkled and crackled as his fingers released their tight grip on some sort of packaging that Kurt hasn't noticed before. From his time as a university student in a crowded and constantly loud dorm, Kurt recognized the packaging easily.
Kurt was too late...
"Sleeping pills..?" Kurt gulped, feeling as if a lump the size of a baseball was stuck in his throat as terror filled his bones, "how many did you take?"
Paul lazily blinked at him, not comprehending his question. Kurt wasn't even sure if he had heard him. If he was hearing anything at all.
"Paul, please," Kurt begged, desperate for anything except the answer he knew was right, "how much did you take?!"
"All..." Paul slouched even further down in his chair, his knees meeting Kurt's chest as he went limp, "all of them..."
"No," Kurt reached up to curl a hand around Paul's gaunt cheek, feeling how clammy it was as the severity of the situation settled over him, "why would you..."
"I couldn't live like this anymore Kurt," a tear dripped from Paul's eye, falling to trail down Kurt's cheek below, "I love you, so much, but our government... they were going to send me to prison. My company dropped me, nobody will speak to or even look at me on the streets, my father... he told me to."
"He told you to...?"
Paul stared at Kurt, an expression that broke Kurt's heart present in his cloudy eyes.
"To do this. He told me that if I was a man of honor..." a tear streaked down Paul's pale face, "that I would know what I needed to do."
Kurt felt rage spark in his heart at the justice system (justice, yeah, right), at the blackmailer, at Paul's family, at everyone who was involved in Paul's persecution. Paul had lost everything because of who he loved. For something that was natural, normal.
"We could have run away together," Kurt sobbed, his shoulders heaving as he watched the love of his life die, "we could have..."
"No..." Paul's eyes slipped shut, "no, we couldn't have..."
Kurt knew that Paul was dying, that he would be gone soon.
"Paul, no, Paul," Kurt gasped, fat tears dripping from his chin as he bent low over Paul's lap, tightly gripping at Paul's cold - why were they cold, they shouldn't be cold - hands as Paul choked above him, "Don’t go where I can’t follow, don't leave me here alone!"
"Kurt..." Paul wheezed, his weak breath tickling against Kurt's scalp, his hands weakly curling around Kurt's as Paul let his chin fall to rest on Kurt's hair, "I'm..."
"It'll be okay, we can call someone, we can get you to a hospital, they can..." Kurt rambled desperately, wishing that he lived in a fantasy world where he had found Paul early enough to save him from the overdose, but he couldn't.
"No," Paul was struggling to speak, his hands holding Kurt's with the strength of a babe, the pills taking effect, "it's... too late."
"I'm sorry," Kurt wept, "maybe if I had come back, if we had... I don't..."
"Not your fault," Paul pressed a kiss into Kurt's hair, his form trembling as the amount of pills he took wreaked havoc on his body, "it's not your fault. I love you, Kurt."
Kurt choked on a sob, tears pouring from his eyes.
"I love you Paul," Kurt buried his head in Paul's lap, unwilling to see the deathly pale shade that his lover's skin has taken on, "I love you."
As Kurt shook and cried clutching Paul's waist tightly, Paul murmured declarations of his love and comfort for as long as he could. Eventually, Paul's hands fell limply from Kurt's, his breathe no longer ruffling Kurt's hair, his lips no longer pressed against Kurt's scalp in a loving guesture.
He was gone.