The voice told him to paint what he wanted. Now, Blaine had to decide what that was.

The answer was simple.

Blaine wanted an ending.

That’s what he had thought right before he heard that silent command.

He wanted it all to end – the pain, the sadness, the hallucinations, but mostly, his life without Kurt.

So that was the secret then. He would paint an ending to it all – his ending. How this all plays out starting with Kurt dying, these days of torture, and then … well, however Blaine thought to do himself in. He hadn’t given it any thought. It was a simple thing to say that he wanted to end his own life, but the logistics of it were another monster entirely. Here he had spent the past few days feeling like his days were numbered, that his body would tear itself to pieces, but he was slowly getting better.

So the task fell on him.

Blaine returned to his easel. He tossed the ruined canvas aside and replaced it with a longer one, one with enough room to create a multiple panel work. He collected up his pallet, satisfied with the acrylics that were left and not giving a second thought to the puddle of paint he was standing in. He picked up a brush, not particularly concerned with whether it was camel hair or synthetic, medium tip or broad, and held it over the churning sea of tacky paint. He needed to choose his first color, one that would tie together the overall theme.

That should be relatively simple. He was painting a triptych of his own death. He would start with black or red.

But when he tried to dip the bristles into one of those two colors, he found the brush called somewhere else. He clenched his teeth and tried again with the same frustrating result – he’d reach for the red, but the brush was pulled to the blue.

“Fine,” he growled. “Fine, fine, fine, fucking fine!” He pulled up a huge dollop of Ultramarine Blue and hurled it at the canvas, letting the paint drop carelessly with an obscene sounding sploitch, the hulking mass crawling grotesquely down.

“Well, that’s mature,” Kurt said, watching as Blaine put the finishing touches on his latest painting. “I don’t think the gallery is going to want that one.”

“I don’t care,” Blaine returned, not bothering to look at his husband standing by his side. “Paintings are all about emotion, how they make you feel, and this one’s making me feel better.”

“A painting of us barbecuing the neighbor’s dog?” Kurt tilted his head to the side to take in the vivid imagery of a smug Blaine, dressed in a toque and a gingham apron that said ‘Kiss the Cook’ across the front, tongs raised triumphantly, and in their metal grip, the charred leg of Roy and Sylvia Harding’s Airedale Terrier, Mitzy.

“You know, I would think you would have more sympathy. The little jerk bit me,” Blaine griped, indicating his bandaged hand.

“You bit him back!” Kurt chuckled. “I think that makes you even.”

“I don’t,” Blaine mumbled.

Kurt inched closer to the painting, appreciating quietly all the detail Blaine had put in – the grain in the wood of the red washed picnic table; the springy hair on the carcass of the dead dog; even Kurt’s own ensemble of capris pants and a tailored Marc Jacobs shirt, with his signature hippo broach affixed to the lapel.

Blaine watched his husband’s eyes as they traveled over his work, his lip pinched between his teeth, his brow furrowed in concentration. Kurt turned his head suddenly, blushing at getting caught admiring his husband’s handiwork on such a gruesome subject.

Owing to love, knowledge, and familiarity, added with a dash of the fact that, after so many years of sharing the same heart and the same mind, they often thought alike, both men moved in at the exact same time for the kiss that seemed to linger in the air, waiting for them to experience it.

Kurt gave a sidelong look at the painting and chuckled when he noticed how close his face was to a screaming and horrified Sylvia Harding, rending her clothes in an expression of her grief.

“Okay, I’ve got to get away from this thing.” Kurt ducked his head and caught a glimpse of Blaine’s bandaged hand, a spot of red blossoming on the wrapping. “Oh, sweetheart!” He took Blaine’s hand in his and started to undo the gauze. “We have to rewrap this so it doesn’t get infected.” Kurt tutted disapprovingly. “I wish you would let me take you to the hospital.”

“Why? When I’ve got you here to play my nurse?” Blaine put his pallet down and wrapped an arm around Kurt’s waist, dragging him close.

Blaine wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Kurt pulled a face of mock horror.

“Come on, Kurt,” Blaine whispered. “I think I need to undress so you can take my temperature.”

Kurt threw his head back and laughed. Then he kissed Blaine on the mouth, chuckling when his husband released him to undo the buttons of his shirt one-handed.

“You know,” Kurt whispered against Blaine’s lips, grimacing at the confession he was about to make, “charred dog notwithstanding, it really is an excellent painting.”

Blaine stepped back to view his work, but once again, what had started out as one thing had developed into another. He had painted several paintings within a painting – an image of himself standing and staring at a painting with Kurt by his side, staring at a painting of Blaine staring at the same painting with Kurt by his side, standing and staring at the same painting on and on for infinity. In the painting, Blaine wore the same clothes he did now, his untidy curls plastered flat on one side of his head, his pallet dangling from his hand with the paint swirled together in a blotchy mess. Blaine regarded the painting closely, his heart racing. If Kurt was standing a behind him and to the right in all these paintings, could that possibly mean …

Blaine jumped when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned, and a face closed in on his - cool lips pressing gently against his mouth. Blaine’s heart stopped when the face pulled away and he saw those blue eyes that he missed more with every passing day.

Kurt looked perfect, his ethereal beauty completely intact, the way Blaine remembered him. Kurt smiled at his husband, sorrow shifting his features.

“It really is an excellent painting,” he said, motioning to Blaine’s artwork with a nod of his chin.

Blaine didn’t want to look away, but he felt compelled to look back at the painting when Kurt mentioned it. Blaine had painted forever - the two of them together, stretching on into the future for an eternity. If he had to be honest with himself, that’s what he wanted.

He didn’t want to die. He wanted his husband.

He turned back to Kurt, to ask him how he could make that happen, but Kurt was gone.

***

Blaine spent the following three days straight at his easel, the words paint what you want repeating in his ears. He didn’t eat, he didn’t sleep. All he did was paint. He wanted his life with his husband back, so he started from the beginning, when he and Kurt first met. Blaine painted Kurt on the staircase at Dalton Academy, the sun shining in from the glass dome ceiling creating a halo effect. He looked like an angel in his leather blazer and sunglasses, trying to sneak his way into the “lair of the competition” as he had put it on many occasions. He painted the way Kurt’s eyes held his the first time he sang to him – Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” in the senior commons. He painted the blush that had risen to Kurt’s cheeks when Blaine sang a particularly racy verse, and the admiration in his expression when he was done and Kurt applauded.

He painted a young Kurt auditioning for NYADA, emphasizing those say something hips that never failed to capture Blaine’s imagination.

He painted the phone call they shared over Thanksgiving after Blaine had cheated on him, showing Kurt sitting on his fire escape in New York City with Blaine standing beneath a ladder on the McKinley High School stage, waiting to perform. Then he painted every phone call after on a wall-size canvas in multiple panels, changing their features as they aged, and on their respective ring fingers - faint at first, but becoming darker as time passed and they fell deeper in love - a single red thread that connected them.

During the course of those days, Blaine burned through his acrylics and had to call in a favor to another local artist to get more. While he waited for his shipment to arrive, he sketched. He went through sketch pad after sketch pad, finally resorting to paper from his printer, and after that, the newspapers stacked by the front door, waiting to be recycled. He painted and sketched his and Kurt’s entire life together, and when he was done, when the final painting was set aside to dry, he waited for something to happen. A voice. A giggle. Another kiss.

Anything.

Blaine climbed into bed, his muscles sore, his eyes crossed from exhaustion. He fell asleep waiting and awoke the next morning to the sun warm on his face, his skin and clothes thoroughly stained, and his husband nowhere to be seen.

He felt like a fool. A grief stricken fool, but still a fool. He had made it all up in his mind. He had indulged in this fantasy for far too long, missed his deadlines, and pushed aside his plans.

Well, not any more.

Blaine knew what he needed to do, and he had the adrenaline coursing through his body to actually do it, along with a bottle of Xanax, a bottle of Halcion, and two bottles of vodka.

With any luck, it would be quick and painless.

He hurried into a living room littered floor to ceiling with pictures of Kurt, paintings of Kurt, charcoal sketches on every possible surface of Kurt, moving to the walls when he ran out of paper and his replacement paints and canvases had not yet arrived. There were so many images of Kurt throughout the room that Blaine almost missed him, wandering through the paintings, fingers hovering over, tracing the outlines of his own face. Blaine came within inches of him on his way to the kitchen, stopping short at the intense look in his shimmering eyes.

Kurt still looked ethereal, but he also looked real.

“They’re beautiful,” he gasped, gazing at them in awe. “Every single one is just … beautiful. They may be your finest work.”

Blaine felt himself choke. This had to be a dream, because the reality was too fantastic to believe. But Kurt’s eyes looked sad, and Blaine didn’t understand why.

“Are you really here?” Blaine asked. “Or are you going to haunt me forever?”

Kurt quirked an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

“I want you here,” Blaine said. “I need you, Kurt. I need you to come back to me.”

Kurt looked at the paintings and drawings. “You painted my past, Blaine.” He reached out to caress an image of the two of them locked in an embrace, eyes closed as they kissed, caught up in their own little world as parents with children and park vendors raced by, eager to get out of the sudden downpour. Even Blaine had to admit that it looked so real, he could almost see the people move, the children struggle to break free and splash in the puddles, Kurt’s lips against his.

It was their first kiss as New Yorkers.

It was an epic kiss.

“I need you to paint my future,” Kurt explained, beginning to fade. “Then, you can have me.”

Blaine shook his head, exhaustion turning desperation to anger. He had painted for three days straight just to have Kurt. Now here he was, disappearing again because Blaine hadn’t done enough.

“What future, Kurt? You didn’t get a future! You didn’t get a future because of me! Because I fucked up!” Blaine was screaming, even though he didn’t mean to. He was lost, lonely, and felt like he was going crazy. He was standing in the center of what could easily be labeled the creepiest memorial to his dead husband ever, arguing with a ghost. But none of that mattered because Blaine was tired of waiting, tired of being tested and taunted. He had a future planned for him and Kurt, and he was ready to get back to it.

“You’re here now! I don’t care if I never paint again! I don’t want to paint! All I want is you!”

But Kurt shook his head, backing away, his body becoming more and more faint with every step. Blaine panicked. He rushed at Kurt, determination in his blood-shot hazel eyes, ready to claim back his life and his husband, but as Blaine reached Kurt, he dissolved before Blaine’s eyes. Blaine stood alone in the mid-morning light, listening as the rest of the world sprang to life outside – birds singing, insects chirping. Blaine hadn’t realized that while Kurt was there everything had gone quiet, like time had stopped. But now it marched back on with absolutely no respect at all for Blaine’s frustration and pain.

“Fine,” Blaine said, a scowl souring his features. “If that’s the way you’re going to be about it, then we’ll play this game your way.”

Blaine put a blank canvas on his easel and grabbed a different pallet. This pallet contained various bright oils – a medium he wasn’t all too fond of, but he didn’t want to waste time rummaging through his acrylics for the colors he needed when this one was so readily available.

Besides, Blaine considered oils a bitch to work with. It seemed fitting.

Blaine didn’t even take a moment to regard the canvas, to try and search out the painting hiding within. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Kurt, in his bed, naked and panting with want, skin flushed with desire, writhing against the sheets as he dreamed of Blaine joining him beneath the covers and relieving him of his agony.

Blaine attacked the canvas, and not just with a brush. He moved through the paint with his fingers as he defined the muscular lines of Kurt’s arms. He cut through the oil with his pallet knife, giving depth and dimension to the comforter on the bed. He sliced and manipulated, the colors blending till what he had intended to be a simple portrait of his husband lying in bed became the culmination of all his passion, bleeding through his pores and coursing from his fingertips. Unlike his other paintings, which took a matter of hours, this one he worked on all day. He didn’t notice when the sun began to sink into the horizon and the room became black.

He knew Kurt’s body so well he could paint it with his eyes closed.

And the image was perfect – Kurt’s alabaster skin glowing against a frame of red satin sheets, plump lips parted, hooded eyes searching, his arm outstretched, pointing to where Blaine stood beside his masterpiece.

Blaine stared at the painting, and the more he looked, the more he could swear that Kurt’s image was breathing.

Blaine set his pallet down and ran a grungy hand through his hair, spreading paint along with it over the strands. He was worn out, breathless, almost completely spent, but one word from Kurt, his beautiful Kurt, would have sent him running to their bed.

If Kurt were there.

If Kurt was still alive.

He touched the frame of the canvas as a breeze spiraled through the room, carrying with it the most incredible sound.

“Blai-ne,” a voice called to him. “Blaine, when are you coming to bed?”

Blaine wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t. A single noise, a single movement, and the voice on the wind might be scared away.

But he needed to know.

“K-Kurt?” Blaine stammered, sure that only the silence of the house would answer him.

“Blaine …” The voice - so light, so fair, so enticing and heartbreaking and miraculous - answered instead. “Please, stop painting and come to bed. You have all day to paint. We only have the night to spend together.”

Blaine backed away from the painting, gazing at it in reverence, expecting it to do something other-worldly … or maybe disappear. But it didn’t. The painting remained, and so did Kurt.

“Blaine Anderson-Hummel! I am going to count to five and if I …”

Blaine made it to him in three seconds, and that night, while making love to the man he thought he’d never see again, he realized something so incredible, so indefinable, he felt no reason to try and explain it.

He could spend the rest of his life with his husband, as long as he painted it that way.

***

“Oh, Blaine!” Kurt whispered, clutching tightly to his husband’s arm. “They’re gorgeous! Every single one of them is your best work, hands down!”

“You say that because you’re in every single one of them.” Blaine walked Kurt from painting to painting, stopping long enough in between so that his husband could examine each and every intricate detail of the individual pieces.

Kurt bobbed his head from side to side before he answered. “True, true. I do lend a certain, how do you say, sophistication to your art. I won’t lie.”

Kurt didn’t go out in public often – at least, not where anyone knew them. But being photographed by the paparazzi couldn’t be avoided. Blaine had shot from semi-famous to superstardom in a few short months, all thanks to his muse.

Blaine tried his hardest to make Kurt as inconspicuous as possible so he could accompany him to the gallery and see his artwork hung and lighted, properly on display. That was a magical moment, Kurt always said - wandering through the paintings the night before the public got the chance to see them, knowing that he was one of the first people to ever lay eyes on them.

Kurt was dressed in head to toe black by way of a gorgeous Vivienne Westwood-esque suit of Blaine’s design, his head covered in a stylish Asian-inspired silk scarf, with large Jackie O sunglasses obscuring his face. Blaine and Kurt walked huddled close together, appearing like a normal couple to anyone who saw them. Speculation circulated quickly when Blaine emerged from his cottage after months of isolation, with a stack of new paintings in the back seat of his Mustang, that Blaine Anderson-Hummel, no longer the grieving widower, had found himself a new muse.

At first, the art community criticized him harshly, but they quickly forgave him, falling completely in love with his newest work – an homage to the brief but brilliant life of his fashion designer husband and high school sweetheart, Kurt Hummel. Only Kurt and Blaine’s overjoyed families knew the truth. They might not understand completely, but they didn’t care, as long as they got Kurt back … especially Burt, who’d said he didn’t care if Kurt were the devil himself. He was just ecstatic to have his son, in whatever form, on earth.

“How many are there?” Kurt gazed down the line of paintings, trying to take them all in at once, including the one that made this trip possible – a painting of him and Blaine strolling through the gallery, dressed the way they were now, admiring Blaine’s art. It was the painting that greeted visitors on their way in, and was titled (appropriately) “An Afternoon at the Gallery with Kurt”.

“Right now … about one-hundred and fifty.”

Kurt snapped his head left to look into his husband’s proud face, jaw dropped in disbelief.

“One-hundred and fifty? That’s almost …” He did some calculations in his head, coming up with an answer that was mind-boggling “… five months we get to spend together!”

“Try two-and-a-half years,” Blaine corrected, preening with delight at the wide-eyed stare his revelation earned him.

“Two and a half years?” Kurt gasped. “But … but how?”

“This is how.” Blaine escorted Kurt through a set of double doors to a larger room, where the walls had been re-painted white to better display the art. The room held easily eighteen wall-sized murals, each with a multitude of different panels depicting Blaine and Kurt vacationing in Paris, sitting in a gondola in Venice, exploring the Grand Canyon, or just ‘living’ – washing dishes, walking a dog, shopping at the supermarket … and quite a few of them making love.

Kurt was quiet for a long time, staring at the next few years of his life as Blaine had planned them, and for a moment, Blaine started to fear that this wasn’t what Kurt wanted.

“Kurt?” Blaine felt an unnerving weight settle in his chest. He didn’t want to lose Kurt. Not again. But what had he forgotten? What was missing? “Kurt? For the love of God, Kurt! Tell me …”

“I love them!” Kurt sniffled, throwing himself into Blaine’s arms. “I love it! All of it! Our life together! It’s wonderful!”

“You really like it?” Blaine asked, a little overwhelmed by Kurt in his arms, surrounded by images of their future.

“I do!” Blaine wasn’t done holding him, but Kurt pulled away, eagerly leading his husband farther in the room to examine those paintings as well. “But now we have to start planning farther ahead,” Kurt insisted. “I mean, where are the paintings of me sewing and designing? I fully intend on working.”

“What?” Blaine looked dumbfounded. “How do you …?”

“We’ll cross that bridge later,” Kurt said, dismissing Blaine’s objection with the wave of his hand. “And if you get a dog, I want a cat. And I expect you to make me age gracefully - no premature balding or pot belly. I mean, you’ve seen my dad.”

Blaine rolled his eyes, but he listened carefully, setting Kurt’s notes to memory.

“Of course,” he said, placing a kiss to the top of Kurt’s head, over the scarf, wishing it was Kurt’s beautiful, walnut-colored hair tickling his nose with its sweet scent of jasmine and vanilla. “But, what would you like to do now? The show doesn’t open till tomorrow. We have the whole day.”

Kurt’s lips curled into a devilish grin. He walked straight to a painting done in muted, neutral shades, of the two of them in bed, Blaine hovering over Kurt’s body, looking down at Kurt with lust blown eyes, occasional highlights of black and red suggesting exactly what moment of desire the painting portrayed.

“This one.” Kurt’s voice turned silky, a wash of subtle seduction that made Blaine burn to take his husband right there, right then. “I want this one.”

“You just want to have sex,” Blaine teased, taking Kurt’s arm.

Kurt’s eyes twinkled as he pulled Blaine towards the door.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said, biting his lower lip and giving Blaine the perfect inspiration for his next painting.