Fears Grow for Health of Westwood Creative Director
Elliott Murphy, Friday 23 September 2039

Fears are growing for the health of Kurt Hummel-Anderson, Creative Director of Westwood & Hummel. All of his public appearances have been canceled over the past few weeks, including most notably Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week earlier this month, and he was last seen at August's Metropolitan Fashion Gala looking noticeably pale and thinner than usual. Olivia Johnson, Mr Hummel-Anderson's spokesperson, last week cited reasons of exhaustion for the absences.

Mr Hummel-Anderson appears to have unofficially retired from public life for the present. His husband, chart-topping singer-songwriter and music producer Blaine Hummel-Anderson, declined to comment on the matter in a recent interview on The Today Show.

“We would ask that you respect our right to privacy, not only for the two of us, but for our children as well,” he said, before steering the interview back towards talk of the book he and Kurt have co-written; an abridged collection of entries from their long-running blog, Life During Fatherhood, which ran from 2023 to 2038.

Mr Hummel-Anderson has been Creative Director of Westwood since Vivienne's retirement at the age of 80, and the globally-recognized fashion house was re-branded (with her explicit permission) to Westwood & Hummel following her death at the age of 91 in 2032.

The fashion world seems somehow quieter without Mr Hummel-Anderson, and we wish him a speedy return.

*

Friday 30 September, 2039

"Daddy, when will the doctors come tell us what's wrong with Papa?"

Blaine took a slow, lingering sip from his cup of caffeine—the bitter sludge the machine served didn't deserve to be called coffee, and just why was it that hospital coffee never got any better?—and sighed, his foot bouncing up and down by the heel. "I don't know, Hep. We just have to be patient while they try to help him."

"Some smart-ass kid just tried to give me his seat on the subway. I honestly think it's time to think about hair dye, and I'd appreciate it if, as my husband, you'd support me in my choices," Blaine called out, pulling his key from the lock of the front door and closing it behind him with a resounding bang. Wiping the light sweat from his temples, he shucked out of his thin jacket and hung it up, momentarily pausing with his fingers still wrapped around the hook to let out a heavy sigh. "Also, just when is our nephew going to get sick of LEGOs? The guys in the store know my name now. And it has nothing to do with the whole 'being famous' thing."

There was no response, and Blaine stopped for a moment before entering the living room. He could hear soft music playing from upstairs—a cursory glance at his watch told him that, at 5:00pm, the twins were probably still doing their homework—but the usual smells of dinner cooking were decidedly absent. After setting his bag down by the couch, he meandered down the hallway toward the kitchen, running through dinner possibilities as he went—if Kurt hadn't already started making something, it probably meant that it was Blaine's once-weekly dinner night (which, maddeningly, changed every week)—but stopped short in the doorway as if he'd walked straight into a brick wall.

“I’m hungry,” Oliver complained sullenly, and Blaine’s jaw tightened by a fraction, but he deflated at the expression on his son’s face. There was barely-disguised fear in the twitch at the corners of his mouth, and abject terror laced through his blue eyes.

“Do you want some money for the vending machines, buddy?” he asked, reaching for his wallet. “There’s one just around the corner by the nurses' station.”

Oliver nodded, taking the bills and shoving them deep into his pocket. As he trudged across the waiting room, ratty denim hems alternating between trailing threads behind him and getting caught beneath the wrecked pair of DCs that Kurt abhorred, Blaine sighed. The twins had only officially been bona fide teenagers for a mere matter of months, and Oliver seemed to have embraced every stereotype he could.

“Twist, pick up your f—“ Blaine began, but cut himself short at the look on his son’s face as he turned around in the doorway. He smiled wanly, saying instead, “pick something good.”

"Kurt?"

For one moment, or it might have been one thousand, everything was horrifyingly still. Kurt lay on the kitchen floor, unmoving, his skin a pallid and waxy shade of white. There was no more music, no more humming refrigerator; a howling wilderness had taken its place that buffeted Blaine's mind around and around a single, terrible thought. As he began moving toward the floor, toward Kurt, his limbs felt impossibly heavy, like he was wading through thick, viscous honey.

Audrey, on the other hand, had seemed to grow quieter. Not exactly reclusive, but she had been spending more and more time in her room as of late, researching projects and extra credit assignments. She sat next to Blaine, hands folded in her lap with legs crossed and back ramrod straight, her eyes twitching toward every nurse that passed the waiting room.

“Hep,” Blaine said quietly, taking one of her hands in his and squeezing gently, “Papa's going to be just fine, okay?”

“How do you know that? Just last week we watched that documentary—“

“I know he’ll be fine because—because he has to be,” Blaine softly intoned, tightening his diaphragm to keep control of his voice. He was not about to shatter in front of his daughter, no matter how much his heart was palpitating and stuttering in time with the uneven rhythm he kept up with his foot. “No matter how hopeless, he's always been a fighter. He's always had...” He swallowed thickly. “Courage.”

The second his knees hit the floor and his hand grasped Kurt's, it was like catching up with himself—Kurt's unconscious features snapped into the sharpest clarity, and Blaine realized that the hand he was holding was warm.

"Wake up, sweetheart." Blaine's voice came out as a dry rasp, and he cleared his throat, squeezing Kurt's hand tighter while he used the other to check for a pulse beneath Kurt's jaw. "Kurt, wake up. Wake up. You promised you'd never... Dammit, Kurt, wake up."

Father and daughter sat silently as minutes dragged by, each seeming more bottomless than the one previous. Blaine's eyes rested, looking but unseeing, upon the standard issue clock mounted high on the wall in its inexplicable cage. Oliver returned, carrying three plastic containers of chicken salad and murmuring that Papa would skin them all alive if he found out they'd taken to eating chips and candy just because he was in the hospital, and Blaine's fingers dug into the plastic as if it were a lifeline.

All three were hungry without an appetite, and despite Oliver's earlier complaints and his grumbling stomach, he made no move to eat. Before long all three containers were moved to the simple, magazine-strewn coffee table, and Blaine had an arm around each of his children, Audrey and Oliver holding hands across his lap.

Blaine shook out his trembling hand and flexed his fingers before trying once more to find that tiny, vital sign that would mean his entire world wasn't about to be ripped from the ground by its roots. There. It was weak, and Blaine counted out eleven beats over fifteen endless seconds, but it was there. The small part of him that had already retreated, feet pounding towards the horizon, came racing back, and with fumbled motions he managed to retrieve his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and dial 911. The dispatcher's voice was kind, didn't get frustrated with him when Blaine couldn't answer all of his questions. "No, I don't know how it happened. He's not bleeding, but there's a huge bruise on the side of his neck. I don't know how long. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Please, just get someone here soon."

"Blaine, darlin'?"

When Daniel entered the waiting room at around 8:15PM, he was carrying a clipboard and his expression was grave. Blaine's heart surged into his throat, and through the sudden hush settling in his ears, he had to remind himself that Daniel always looked grave. They had been neighbors ever since moving to Brooklyn, and acquaintances much longer, given that Daniel and Julia Fleischman were Andrew’s parents.

“How is he?” Blaine asked as he stood on weak legs, Oliver and Audrey mirroring him in the moment that followed. Daniel gestured for them to sit back down, and he took the seat opposite.

"Kurt is pancytopenic, which means he has extremely low counts of all three blood cell types. Right now, his counts are almost non-existent,” Daniel explained. “We're running tests now to determine the cause, and he's receiving a blood transfusion to bring his counts back up.”

“What could it be?” Blaine asked automatically, before shaking his head and covering his mouth with his hand.

“It could be a number of things; some serious, some very easily treatable,” Daniel said, his tone one of reassurance. Retrieving a pen from the top pocket of his white coat, he regarded Blaine seriously. “What can you tell me about the symptoms Kurt has been displaying recently?”

Blaine's head snapped up at the twang of Julia's voice, and it took every last shred of energy to keep from breaking down right in front of her as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. As he came back to himself, the first thing that registered in his mind was the thick, homely scent of the pie that she was carrying on a folded-up dish towel. Ever the calm and collected Southern belle, when she caught sight of Kurt, she quickly put the pie down on the kitchen island and knelt next to Blaine. The only outwardly signs of her anxiety were the pursed set of her lips, the slight widening of her eyes, and the way she didn't automatically reach up to fix the few stray curls that had escaped from behind her ear.

"He's breathin'."

"Yes," Blaine answered, though it wasn't phrased as a question. "Julia, I don't even know what happened. I got home and found him like this."

“He’s been looking pale, paler than usual. Um, he’s been tired… His assistant mentioned that he’s been taking power-naps at the office lately,” Blaine said, wracking his brain for anything else out of the ordinary. Daniel nodded along, crossing off a few things on his clipboard. “He had a cold a few weeks ago, and he was coughing a lot, but…”

“Any jaundice, rashes or ulcers on the skin?”

Blaine shook his head, taking Oliver’s hand and feeling Audrey’s curl around his elbow. “Not that I know of,” he answered, and Daniel crossed off something else.

“Has Kurt complained of shortness of breath, or palpitations?”

“He was a little out of breath at the gym last week, but I just figured he was pushing himself too hard.”

“And what about bleeding? Has Kurt had any nose bleeds recently, or bruising that he can’t explain?”

“I don’t know, I…” Blaine trailed off, shaking his head again and sucking a steadying breath through his gritted teeth. He should have been paying more attention, he should have seen this coming, he should have made more of an effort to get things at the studio wrapped up quickly each day so that he could be at home more—

“Alright,” Daniel said gently, removing the half-moon glasses perched upon his nose and nodding at his clipboard. “Well, that’s certainly narrowed it down somewhat. We’re keeping him here overnight for observation, given how long he was unconscious for.”

"Ollie and Auds?" Julia asked, resting the back of her hand against Kurt's forehead.

"Upstairs," Blaine said automatically, and his stomach dropped even further. "Jesus, the kids. I didn't even think."

"Shh, darlin'. Of course you didn't. You stay with your husband, now, I'll go fetch Daniel and then we'll worry about the kids."

“Is he awake now? Can we see him, Dr Fleischman?” Audrey asked in a small voice, and Daniel smiled genially at her.

“Of course, my dear.”

They were cutting it close, with visiting hours ending at 9PM, but Blaine wasn’t about to waste minutes he could be spending by his husband’s side bemoaning the amount of time they had together—that was an important lesson that they’d learned all too well over the years, through separations as a result of both college and work. Daniel accompanied them the short distance down the corridor to Kurt’s room, and as Oliver and Audrey disappeared inside, Blaine stopped and turned to face him.

“You can be honest with me,” Blaine said. “Is this something serious, or something easily treatable?”

“We’ve subjected Kurt to a lot of tests this evening, and there will probably be a lot more,” Daniel said evenly. “In addition to presenting as pancytopenic, Kurt also has a very low reticulocyte count. If I were to make a guess, based upon the results so far and what you’ve told me… I’ve ordered a bone marrow biopsy to confirm, and to rule out a few other things, but I think what we’re looking at is aplastic anemia.”

“So what happens next?”

Daniel shifted his clipboard from one arm to the other and laid a comforting hand on Blaine’s shoulder. “What happens next is that you go spend some time with your husband and kids, because they need you right now. We won’t know anything until the morning, but I promise you that he is in the best possible hands. I have a great team, and we’re going to do everything we can,” Daniel assured him, and Blaine suddenly pictured him walking with a cane and berating three young doctors inside a glass-walled office.

"Thank you," Blaine breathed, though his attention was already back on Kurt, still lying motionless on the wooden flooring. Julia hurried through the back door and out into the yard, shouting for her husband at the top of her lungs. Blaine wrapped both of his hands around Kurt's, and held on even tighter, whispering, "Come back to me."

It took everything for Blaine not to let his shoulders slump, his knees buckle, and crumple bodily to the depressing green linoleum beneath his feet. The walls seemed to press in on him from all sides, the air was suffocatingly potent with the scent of bleach-masked sickness, and every last cell inside his body seemed steeled for impact. The impact of what, Blaine neither knew nor, really, wanted to know. Dragging his eyes up to meet Daniel’s, Blaine nodded and crossed the short distance between where they had been standing and the door to Kurt’s room.

The kids were already perched in chairs either side of Kurt’s bed, and Kurt was in the middle of a hushed reassurance that he was going to be perfectly fine when he caught sight of Blaine standing in the open doorway. After hesitating only for a second, Blaine moved across the room and wrapped his husband into a tight embrace, whispering a litany of gratitude against the too-cold skin of his neck.