hamlet
April 7, 2013, 5:47 p.m.
Baby Steps: Prologue
T - Words: 1,085 - Last Updated: Apr 07, 2013 Story: Closed - Chapters: 1/? - Created: Apr 07, 2013 - Updated: Apr 07, 2013 80 0 0 0 0
Author's Notes: This is just the prologue, which is fairly vague. I'll start posting the actualy story soon - it will go back in time a bit to the beginning of everything. It'll be multi-chapter. Thank you for checking it out!! Disclaimer: Not mine. It's Fox's and Ryan Murphy's and other people's.
~~~~~
"C'mon, Blaine," Kurt urges, "Try it?"
Blaine's eyes look dull, like he's not ready to even think about trying to play. Kurt forces a smile and puts the guitar on Blaine's lap. The guitar that Blaine worked all of last summer for, even though Kurt rolled his eyes at Blaine's need for another guitar, and named Pascal after they went to see RENT. It was his pride and joy for a few weeks. But now, Blaine just looks at him at what might almost be a glare but stays silent. Meeting silence with silence seems awkward, so Kurt clears his throat when he sits down next to Blaine on the couch. They'd never had problems with being quiet before, Kurt thinks.
"Alright," Kurt says, pulling the neck of the guitar over his own lap. "You strum, I do the chords?" Blaine just stares down at the strings, his expression still unreadable. "So what song do we want to play?" Kurt asks, but Blaine doesn't answer him. Blaine never answers anyone, anymore. Kurt's lip is sore from how much he's been biting it lately, but he keeps biting it anyways and he bites it now. It just makes him so damn sad to see his boyfriend like this. He plucks at the strings a little, hoping it will spark something in Blaine's mind, maybe in his memory, but there's nothing. Finally Kurt says, "Blaine, I don't know how to play guitar. You've gotta work with me here."
"I don't want to do this. I can't." Blaine's voice is so quiet it might be considered a whisper. It's the most he's said all day and he sounds terrified. Like actually speaking will physically hurt someone.
"You can," Kurt encourages, trying not to let Blaine see how much that horribly insecure tone of voice actually does hurt him. "I know chords, you know the songs..." There's no answer. And when Kurt looks at Blaine's face again, he knows there's not going to be one. He takes a few deep breaths, because this is one of those days. One of the days where it's exactly like Dr. Charles said it would be. Where he just wants to scream at Blaine because he's not even trying to be happy. But he knows he can't; that it'd be incredibly counterproductive and ruin any progress they've made, even if Kurt feels like there's none that could possible be reversed anyways.
After a few minutes of quiet where Kurt swears Blaine hasn't moved once, Kurt's calm enough to try and think about how to approach this situation. Because while he's not allowed to get mad, he is going to do whatever it takes to get Blaine to actually do something today. Even yelling would be preferable to these empty days.
He decides to look up the chords on the internet. The first song he thinks of is Blackbird. If he contemplates the reasoning behind wanting to hear that song, he knows he'll either start crying or run away, or maybe both, so he doesn't. He just googles it.
Pulling the guitar onto his lap, Kurt starts trying to figure out the chords. It takes him a few tries, but finally he's pretty sure he's got an ok handle on them. At least, an ok handle for someone who doesn't actually play guitar besides a handful of self-taught songs. The entire time he's working the song out, Blaine doesn't make any indication that he recognizes, or even hears the music.
"Okay, this is super simplified, I know you know how to do it way better," Kurt admits. Silence. Kurt plays the intro, trying not to be obvious how hard he's looking for a reaction in Blaine's face. None so far. He takes a steady breath and sings.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Kurt doesn't stop playing when Blaine turns his head to look at Kurt's fingers. He knows if he stops, Blaine will stop. Not that he's doing much, but it's something and right now that's everything. Kurt keeps singing, trying not to let the lump in his throat interfere with his singing voice.
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see,
all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.
Suddenly this song has a whole different dimension of meaning to it that it had before. Before it was a Kurt-and-Blaine song. One about first kisses and trying new things, about finding the person you've always been waiting for, about being happy. Now Kurt takes in the lines about broken wings and sunken eyes and he feels very morbid, because all he can think about it the fact that the boy sitting next to him is only a shell, a half dead shell, of the person he loved. Still loves. And misses so, so dearly.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
He holds on to the last chord until the sound dies out. Halfway through the song Kurt looked away from Blaine and his emptiness and started looking at his fingers, and now he's afraid to look back. There's a part of him that wishes with undying ferocity that somehow, a simple song could fix Blaine. That Blaine will just start laughing and clapping and then pull the guitar in his own lap to play a far more complicated song from this weeks' top 40. But he knows better than to hope for even a small percentage of that happiness.
Which is why, when Blaine says in a tiny voice, "K-urt," Kurt's head snaps around so quickly he's sure he's hurt his neck.
It's hard to keep his voice from sounding too excited, when he replies, "Yes, Blaine?" There's a long quiet, and Kurt thinks maybe Blaine's done talking.
But then Blaine looks up at him and there's tears in his eyes, actual tears, and he whispers, "Thank you."
Kurt swallows. Nods. Swallows again, but there's still tears forming in the corners of his eyes he can not let out. He has to be the strong one here. He looks away for a second, quickly swiping his eyes and then smiling at Blaine, a proud and what he hopes doesn't look bittersweet smile.
Baby steps, he thinks. For right now, that's enough. That's everything.