Broken windows and empty hallways

A pale, dead moon in a sky streaked with grey

Human kindness is overflowing

And I think it’s going to rain today

His black shoes scuff the front step as he steps out into the dark day. Rain pelts down on him and an umbrella opens to shield him from the incessant rain, he glances to his left and smiles slightly at his friend, grateful for the effort. He looks up as the horse-drawn hearse trundles past and stops just past the front gate. His heart breaks all over again and reaches out to the coffin beyond the glass and flowers, blazing his love’s name in varieties of blue, red, white and purple.

An arm comes around him and helps him forward; the older man looks at him, his green eyes filled with tears much like his own hazel ones. They step forward together and out into the harsh, unforgiving world that took away the most important thing to the both of them. He looks back at the taller man following behind as he sniffles and the woman by his side as she gasps at seeing the hearse, the child she took into her heart and loved as her own, lying inside, his cold body protected by the white wooden box.

They reach the hearse and he presses his hand against it, tears flowing down his face. He gasps as the sobs come and the pain builds in his chest. Life wasn’t meant to go this way.

They line up behind the hearse, Burt by his side, Finn on the other, Carole clutching her husband’s hand and Rachel clinging to Finn’s side, distraught as the rest of them. The other New Directions, Mr.Schue and Coach Sylvester behind them, ready to process down to the graveyard, a final show for the young star that had brung so much to all of their lives.

His heart rips apart with every movement, with every crunch of gravel and wet slap of feet as the rain soaks the ground, a tiny piece of him falls away.

“We are here today to say goodbye to Kurt Hummel, to remember his life and be together in these moments. His life, so tragically cut short, was filled with struggles and triumph, happiness and sadness, love and loss, honesty and integrity above all. Kurt was a special young man who brought light and happiness to all who knew him. He was a singularly honest, strong willed young man who treated his friends with respect and love. He was a devoted son and brother, bringing his family together and bringing his family happiness and giving them pride in everything he did. He was an intelligent young man, an incredible singer and a talented actor. He was, possibly more than anything, determined to gain the happiness he so deserved and did anything and everything to get it. In this, he gained acceptance, love and a strong relationship with the person he loved. He was a loving boyfriend; giving himself and everything he had to the young man he chose to love and cherished him without limits. Today we gather to say goodbye, to grieve and find in each other a way of coping, knowing that in loss we never truly get over those we love, but we can accept the pain into ourselves and learn to live and become what Kurt would want us to be. We will go on from this place and live, knowing that the light Kurt left in our hearts will never go out.”

He watches the coffin lower into the ground as their old teacher speaks and his heart dies as the coffin lands with a dull thud. He stands, his hazel gaze forever on the nameplate as others walk around, throw their flowers onto the casket and murmur words of love and goodbye.

Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles

With frozen smiles to chase love away

Human kindness is overflowing

And I think it’s going to rain today

He releases Kurt’s fashion line, Kurt’s partners pushing the release date as a tribute to the young man. His own dreams died the second the phone rang, in the rush to the car, the slam of the hospital doors as they yielded to his strong arms and in the sad shake of the doctor’s head as his world fell apart. His love. His beautiful, gorgeous, loving, creative, talented, perfectly imperfect husband gone. His precious blood smeared over a roadside in Manhattan courtesy of a drunk driver. It had been a nightmare for his father, of all of them. The million ways he could be stolen, robbed of his only child and their favourite person, death in the form of a car, simply crossing the street high up on the list.

It’s a resounding success, of course. Hundreds of people come up to him, offering their condolences, platitudes from people who never truly knew the young man. Never knew the way his stunning eyes changed colour, how hard he’d worked, how their hands slotted into each other’s perfectly from the second they met and how much they loved each other.

He’s looking through old boxes one day and a small, battered red box falls out of one of them. And his broken, dead heart stops.

Suddenly he’s back in that hallway, bathed by the daylight as it spilled through the glass doorway, making his then boyfriend and soulmate glow as they spoke.

~~

“If that’s an engagement ring, my answer’s yes.”

“Kurt, just open the box. It’s a promise ring. I made it out of gum wrappers, Juicy Fruit-“

“Wrigley’s, my favourite! Is that a bowtie? B-but what are you promising?”

“To always love you, to defend you even if I know you’re wrong, to surprise you, to always pick up your phone call, no matter what I’m doing. To bake you cookies, at least twice a year and to kiss you wherever and whenever you want, but mostly just to make sure you remember how perfectly imperfect you are…”

~~

He collapses to the floor, gut-wrenching sobs filling the apartment, his mind filled with memories of them as teens falling head-first into an intense love that would change them both, as young adults months later, insecure and needy, promising love and truth to each other. As adults, conquering the world together, enduring a year apart, college, inevitable fights and making up staying deeply in love, their engagement and wedding, their first few years as a married couple, forging their ways in the world and finally the day his world ended.

Lonely, ohh lonely

Tin can at my feet

Think I’ll kick it down the street

That’s the way to treat a friend

About a year after they say goodbye to his beloved they have to say goodbye to Burt. The older man had never truly gotten over losing his son, wasting away little by little over the year and finally giving in to the weak heart that had been with him since his heart attack years ago. If you asked anyone who knew and loved the man, they’d tell you it was a broken heart that finished Burt Hummel off.

Mourners gathered the way they had almost a year ago, people filled Lima’s cemetery and talked about the indomitable man who’d taken on life, love and politics with the passion and determination he’d passed on to his son. He’d been a juggernaut of a man, one that had run off the rails after Kurt died. He turns away from the grave after the platitudes have been given and before the hole is filled, not looking at the stone next door that bears the name of his husband. He shrugs off Finn’s arm and walks away, flying back to New York the next morning.

Slowly he pushes away everyone he’s ever loved. He ignores the other New Directions’ calls, he tells Finn to stay away from him, he stops going to Rachel’s shows and tells Carole he’s never going back to Lima again.

He uses Kurt’s fashion house that he still has control of to keep him busy and slowly forgets how to sing. He stops gelling his hair and dressing like a character from Grease and starts wearing his wedding bands around his neck and the promise ring he gave to Kurt on his finger, ignoring the looks of confusion and sympathy from those he meets.

Finn passes him on the streets a few months later and does a double take, by the time he realises and goes to run back, he’s vanished from sight.

Bright before me, the signs implore me

To help the needy and show them the way

Human kindness is overflowing

And I think it’s going to rain today

He gives all of his money and the money from the fashion line to performing arts charities, hoping that it will help people like him and Kurt and the New Directions to fulfil their own dreams one day. Everyone needs a chance and he knows that if he believed in Heaven, Kurt would be smiling down on him in that moment. He spends time with some of the kids he’s helped, their hopeful, optimistic faces and voices sometimes too much for him and he remembers Kurt, his life and vitality and the way his eyes sparkled when he sang.

He has no heart to tell them that they can have all the talent in the world but one moment can ruin everything, though another door opened but then another moment can see everything smashed into a million pieces, like him.

He knows he’s dying. His skin doesn’t shine anymore, his eyes are dull and almost black where they used to be hazel, his hair is flat and doesn’t curl the same way it used to when he tried to fight it to stay flat. He barely sleeps, barely eats. His mind replays the last few words his perfect, beautiful husband said to him before he died and he sees his gorgeous face and those piercing eyes every time he closes his eyes.

“I’ll see you later, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It plays over in his head like a bad punchline. Later. Later. A later that never came. A man stolen from the world, so much yet to do, to change, to create. A love stolen from his arms, so many promises, so many firsts still uncrossed from the list. First house, first pet, first child, the first fashion line that he still released for the love of his life.

He sat in their apartment a lot, flicking through photos, remembering their past. Meetings on staircases, duets at Christmases, whispered I love you’s, coffee dates, summer days of laughter, winters snuggled up together, rivals that almost tore them apart, heated touches spilling into words of desire and slides of skin on skin, moans of pleasure that drifted into slow lovemaking and hot pounding.

Memories shining in glitter, broken dreams strewn through the dust.

Fingers touched his neck. His eyes flickered open, dark hazel met light brown and a hand slipped into his, murmurs breaking through the haze, only just able to be heard over the beeps to his side. Many people surrounded his bed, friends he’d pushed away, tears in their eyes.

He let his eyes slip closed, a sigh escaping his lips.

Ahead of him was a bright, shining light. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes but found it caught by another. He looked up and into glasz eyes and a beautiful smile. His breath catches as they smile at each other. Later, finally.

“I wondered when you’d turn up.” The lilting voice whispered.

“I had to make sure you weren’t coming back.” He replied.

The angel smiled, his porcelain skin showing no signs of the damage he’d seen with his own eyes.

Together they walked forward, into the light and Finn swore he saw Blaine smile as he slipped away.