Blaine spent five days fighting his fever, barely able to move, completely unable to keep anything down, and he was grateful for every excruciating second of it. It gave him something to think about besides the inevitable. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t get better, and that the illness would do his job for him. He slept so deeply during that time, he thought he was dead, but instead of a peaceful eternity spent with Kurt, there was nothing – just endless darkness until he woke again.

And that scared him the most.

Because if there was nothing to go to after death, his Kurt wasn’t only gone in the physical sense. It meant that he no longer existed, and after their relatively short life together, Blaine would never see his beloved husband again.

On the sixth day, he had enough. His legs trembled and his insides threatened to turn him inside out with every step he took, but he didn’t care.

It was time to get started.

Blaine refused to look at his phone. He wasn’t going to check his messages or his emails. He didn’t want to see pleas from his parents and his brother, begging him to call them back, wondering how he was doing, asking him how they could help. He got a taste of that at Kurt’s funeral, and each idea his family had was the same.

“Let me take you out to Cali,” from his brother. “Some sun on your face, sand under your feet, the sea breeze in your hair. You’ll be a new man.”

“Let’s all go to Europe,” from his father. “We’ll take the year off and travel across the continent. It’ll take your mind off things. Maybe we can find a gallery willing to open up your new show there. Huh? Whaddya say?”

“Why don’t we go back to the Philippines?” from his mother. “Reconnect with family. You have cousins you haven’t seen in a dog’s age. It’ll be good for you.”

They all wanted to take him away from his life, from his troubles … from everything that reminded him of his husband. Blaine knew that they meant well, but he couldn’t. He had a connection to this house, not because it felt like a home, but because it felt like a mausoleum.

He couldn’t just leave.

He also couldn’t bear to see any messages from Kurt’s dad. He hadn’t called the man since the funeral. He felt like a heel for not letting Burt know that he was alive … for the time being. Kurt’s dad had always been the one authority figure in Blaine’s life who was the easiest for him to talk to. If he texted Burt or called him, Blaine would probably spill the beans, then everyone Blaine knew would be on his doorstep, ready to spend 24/7 sitting vigil by his bedside to make sure he didn’t down a bottle of pills.

It had occurred to Blaine that planning on killing himself was the worst way he could pay Burt Hummel back for his kindness, his acceptance, and his trust. The man had lost a wife, a stepson, and a son. Now, unbeknownst to him, he was about to lose a son-in-law, too.

In that vein, what Blaine was doing could be considered unforgivable.

But he couldn’t concern himself with that, so he switched gears to something that aggravated the heck out of him, something he wouldn’t be sorry to leave behind.

Blaine knew he’d probably accrued over a dozen messages from city hall, calling with ideas for his painting, and he couldn’t care less. They had paid him in advance. They would get what he chose to paint for them and like it. So what if they threatened to sue him? He’d like to see them try.

This first painting, the one Kurt had chided him for putting off, was supposed to be a dramatic landscape view from a hilltop east of the county where they lived. He had planned to drive up there and map out the area, do some preliminary sketches, gauge his perspective. But those plans had also included a picnic lunch with Kurt, and then outdoor sex on their favorite blanket. Considering that that was no longer an option, Screw it, he thought. I’m gonna wing it.

It wouldn’t be a stretch. Blaine had this particular location set to memory. He and Kurt had driven all over it in Blaine’s Mustang convertible. They knew the place by heart - where the roads led, the dips and curves that passed beneath the oak trees, where the creek crossed the old cow road, and the man-made trails that carved their lazy ways up and up.

He and Kurt had made love along most of those: in the back seat of his car parked hidden from view, even lying out on the grass under the sun on one or two more adventurous occasions.

One time in the rain.

Blaine sighed. He chose a blank canvas from a pile of prepped ones on the floor and dropped it unceremoniously onto his easel.

This wasn’t going to be his best work. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

Why put one hundred percent into it? If you’ve seen one stinking landscape, you’ve seen them all. As long as it was one step up from something he’d find hanging in a Marriott, it would be fine.

Blaine barely regarded the canvas before he started dropping paint on it, haphazardly in some cases, not giving a single fuck when the grass bled into the sky too far on one side, or how the hill looked more like a humpbacked snake than a majestically sweeping expanse of green. In his head, he could hear Kurt chuckling, that cute way he snorted when laughing got the best of him and he couldn’t stop. Blaine grinned at the thought of Kurt standing beside him, teasing him over how lopsided his painting was, how it looked like someone on hallucinogenic mushrooms had painted it, and how Blaine would shut him up by reaching out an acrylic stained hand and threatening one of his favorite Alexander McQueen shirts.

“Blaine Anderson-Hummel!” Kurt would screech. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” Blaine would reply, and very soon the painting would be abandoned, Blaine chasing after Kurt throughout the house, leaping over furniture and dodging drying canvases along the way. Kurt would race outside, betting that the open stretch of land would give him the advantage, but he would also start stripping off his precious shirt along the way, knowing he would get caught.

Kurt was more athletic than Blaine sometimes gave him credit for, and Blaine often wondered if Kurt let him catch up on purpose.

Eventually the chase would lead back to the house, the shirt discarded carefully on an obliging chair, and that’s when Blaine would win.

He always won.

He’d grab Kurt around the waist and drag his body against him, panting and flushed and simply perfect in every way. Paint would end up everywhere by the time they were done making love – stuck to Kurt’s hair where Blaine had run his fingers through it, streaking the wood boards where Blaine had raked his nails along the floor, a rainbow of fingerprints all over Kurt’s pale skin, down his chest where Blaine traced the outlines of his muscles, around his wrists where Blaine pinned him down, curling over his hips where Blaine held Kurt against him.

Blaine stopped daydreaming when he felt tears well in his eyes. He wiped his cheeks on the sleeve of his work shirt, blinking away memories of an afternoon spent lying in a colorful mess on the floor, capped off by Kurt rolling over onto Blaine’s body to make a masterpiece of his own.

Blaine looked at his painting, prepared to mock the disaster he had wrought as a way of leaving that memory behind. He pictured the travesty of having this worthless piece of shit hanging at city hall with his name emblazoned on a brass plaque underneath, and he felt wryly satisfied. But then he stopped … and he stared. His pallet slipped from his hands and crashed to the floor, spattering his shoes and marring the wood.

Gone was the bleeding paint and the humpback snake. At some point during his fantasizing, he had fixed the painting. It had changed from monstrosity to memory - and a vivid one at that - of the hillside in spring, wildflowers dotting the grass, the sun a suggestion in the quality of the light and the shadows it threw. If he had been aiming for perfection, consciously attempting to create a painting that conveyed beauty and the promise of new life, he would never have been able to come close to this. But recognition of his own exceptional technique wasn’t what drew his eye; it was the stretch of road in the distance. On it, a candy apple red Mustang driving along with its top down, and two passengers inside. Blaine assumed he was the one behind the wheel, but the man in the driver’s seat was most definitely Kurt, turning to wave over his shoulder, a sublime smile on his face.

He looked so happy, so carefree.

He looked so real.

Blaine reached out a hand, fingertips hovering over the place where Kurt’s face looked up at him.

“What the---?”

Honk, honk.

Blaine jumped at the sound of a car horn coming from his driveway, but once the surprise subsided, it swiftly turned to annoyance. The idea that someone who couldn’t get him by phone had driven all the way out to his house infuriated him.

Blaine considered not answering it out of spite, but the urge to throw open his door and hurl insults at this intruder was too overwhelming to resist. He left the painting on its easel and stomped through the house to the front door.

Honk, honk.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it!” Blaine screamed. “You’re so important, you can’t even get out of your car and ring the damn bell!”

Honk, honk.

“Come on, Blaine!” a familiar voice called. “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!”

Blaine stopped cold in his tracks. He tried to swallow the gigantic lump that had materialized in his throat at the sound of that voice, but he couldn’t. For what seemed like forever, he couldn’t make himself move.

Honk, honk.

“Blaine! Come on, baby! You promised we’d make love after lunch! I have the blanket!”

“Kurt?” Blaine breathed, running for the door. That was his impetus to move. To see his husband again, to hold him.

To make love to him.

“Kurt, honey?”

He couldn’t believe he was saying it, as if Kurt would actually be there. He wanted to slap himself for even thinking it was a possibility. But there he was, racing for the door, hoping against hope of what he would see once he opened it.

Honk, ho -

The sound cut off when the door flew open, and for a second – No. What’s less than a second? - Blaine heard a laugh and saw a flash of blue eyes in the passenger seat of his Mustang.

An uncovered Mustang he kept covered 24/7.

Blaine stood in the doorway, but his brain was still running, trying to reconcile what he was looking at.

A car. It was just a car. Nothing supernatural or special about it.

Blaine stepped outside slowly and looked closer at it, examining it to find an answer as to why a car he barely drove had been honking on its own, and how a cover that fit snuggly had suddenly blown off.

Blaine searched the driveway, the house, and the field beyond for some sign that someone, some stupid neighbor’s kid, had been pulling pranks. He covered the Mustang again, concentrating on something other than the image of Kurt standing in the driveway, honking the horn, praying it would stop his hands from shaking.

Blaine took one final look around before retreating back to the house. He double-locked the door behind him, feeling ridiculous when he did. He returned to the painting, to the peaceful hillside and the happy couple in the car driving off into the sunset.

A revulsion filled him.

It was too much.

It was all too much.

He couldn’t let city hall have this memory, and he couldn’t put on public display something that would never be again.

He grabbed a squeeze bottle of paint thinner and doused the painting, watching the colors run and drip, the couple in their little red car smearing down the canvas and disappearing over the edge. He watched until the picturesque hillside was reduced to nothing more than slop. Then he turned his back on his memories and went back to bed.

***

“Blaine! Are you going to wash my back or not?”

“Hold up, baby! I’m … uh … doing something”

“What are you …? Oh, God! Tell me you’re not masturbating again!”

“Ha! What if I am?”

“You know, my love, I’m pretty sure you’re going to wear that thing out with over use!”

“Never!”

“Then what are you …? Blaine! Are you sketching me!? I’m in the shower!”

“I know. That’s why I’m sketching you.”

“But, I’m naked, Blaine! And I … wait a minute … it can’t be that big, can it?”

“Yup.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“Are you …?”

“Kurt, I just spent half-an-hour with your dick in my mouth. I think I know how big it is.”

“Oh. Well, continue on, then.”

Blaine woke to the sound of his own laughing. He felt so light, so happy. He laughed so hard that tears leaked from his eyes, and he shook his head, which caused him to wake. The more conscious of his surroundings he became, the more aware he was of two things: a grainy sensation on his fingertips, and the muted sound of falling water.

It was raining again.

Blaine opened his eyes. He really didn’t want to, but he was curious as to the identity of the substance on his skin. Eyes adjusting, vision clearing, a sketch pad and a charcoal pencil came into view, lying beside him on the bed.

He had been drawing in his sleep.

It was unusual, but it had happened before. He lifted up on his elbows to get a better look at the drawing. It was crude, but amazingly, still one of his best. He blinked away more sleep in order to identify the subject.

Realization shot like an arrow through his chest, but he was somehow not surprised.

He had drawn Kurt taking a shower, hands tangled in his hair, steam rising around his body, a sly half-smile on his lips at being watched.

Blaine loved that smile.

He could get so lost in that smile.

He got lost in it now, so lost that he barely remembered the rain. But not rain, he began to realize as the memory dissolved and Blaine’s mind began to wake.

The shower.

And above the sound of falling water, he heard another, more magnificent sound.

The sound of someone humming.

Blaine bolted from his bed. It had to be real this time! There couldn’t be any doubt! The bathroom was only a few feet from the bed where he lay. He could hear the water and the humming as clear as day. Blaine raced into the bathroom. The air was thick with steam, the mirrors covered in condensation. His heart leapt as the sounds became louder, and then a telltale giggle.

“Blaine! Is that you? I …”

Blaine threw the curtains open, ready to embrace his wet husband with open arms.

Everything stopped.

No water.

Steam gone.

The mirrors unobscured and dry.

He stood in shock, staring, mouth agape, at an empty shower of cream-colored tile.

Blaine was caught between emotions. A desire to howl in anger welled up in his chest, along with the beginnings of a complete nervous breakdown.

He chose anger, feeling it best if he stayed sane a little longer.

With an animalistic growl, he tore down the shower curtain. He stormed through the bathroom, pulling the mirrors off the walls, tossing bottles left and right. He punched the tile, cracking the porcelain and cutting his hand. The sharp stab of pain pulled his focus. He stared at his bleeding hand, his chest burning as his heart pounded like a runaway train. He stood among the wreckage of the master bath and sighed. So much rage. So much sadness. So much useless destruction.

None of it was going to bring Kurt back.

Blaine made his way to the kitchen, past the wasted pallet on the floor, past the painting that still dripped acrylic, and headed for the sink. He turned on the cold water and stuck his hand underneath. Head bowed over the basin, he watched the blood from his cuts rinse away. His eyes drifted closed as the water soothed his stinging hand, and for a moment, he could imagine Kurt draping an arm around him, fussing over him, kissing his temples, massaging his neck, telling him everything would be alright.

When his hand went from stinging to numb, Blaine fumbled for the faucet handle with his eyes closed. He shut the water off and, in the silence, Blaine heard a sigh that wasn’t his own.

He didn’t want to open his eyes. He wanted Kurt back, but he was done seeing ghosts.

He wanted it all to end.

“Paint it,” he heard a quiet voice say. “Paint what you want.”

When Blaine opened his eyes, the blue eyes he knew had been there were gone.