etrelibre | [CLOSED TO QUINN FABRAY] "Pictures of you, pictures of me..."

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[CLOSED TO QUINN FABRAY] "Pictures of you, pictures of me..."

Who: Kurt Hummel and Quinn Fabray
Where: Bungalows @ The Resort
Time of Day: Just after sunrise
Open or Closed: CLOSED

Kurt Hummel was sitting out on the balcony of the bungalow he shared with old friend (and current fag hag), Quinn Fabray. A large photo album was lying open on the outdoor table and he swirled a thick gold band around the tip of his finger on top of the glossy page as he stared off out at the waves of the beach. With his other hand, he brought a glass of amber liquor with ice to his lips and took a long sip. He couldn't believe he had been on this damn island two years, and he couldn't believe he was stuck here.

The triple shot of straight scotch was strong, and burned his tongue and the back of his throat as he swallowed. The ice tinkled against the side of the glass as he set it back down on the table and then grabbed up a packet of cigarettes from nearby and was soon lighting one up, blowing a stream of smoke off to the side absentmindedly. Some days, he stupidly entertained the notion of getting out of this place, but it wasn't going to happen. Then he entertained the idea of someone coming here to him, but he had given up hope of that happening too. Initially, he had booked himself to the brim with appointments for fashion consults that day, but now it was here, he wasn't sure he could face trying to convince trumped up women with fake boobs that they looked fabulous in a string bikini, so he cancelled all of his appointments, pleading a terrible case of food poisoning. He would try and sleep the day away if he could, but his mind wouldn't switch off. So getting drunk and getting lung cancer was the next best thing.

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Quinn was dressed for work already, but she was more than aware than Kurt had been awake all night. The light had been streaming in under her bedroom door, and she had heard him a few times in the bathroom when he got home from work at Aquatic Chaos, even if it had been his early finish last night. Something was up. He had been bitching her out snappily for no real reason for days. She was just in his line of fire, so she copped it. She sat down in the chair beside him, coffee in hand, as her hazel eyes landed on the booze. "Kurt! Are you serious? You're drinking at six am... and smoking? For god's sake," she scolded and took the cigarette from his fingers and stubbed it out on the table.

"Okay, Hummel. Spill. What is biting you? I keep telling you that you're in serious need of a lay, and now I'm going to emphasise that point. What is going on with you?" she demanded with a bitchy glare of her own.

Edited 2012-08-07 17:09 (UTC)

"And I keep telling you I'm married," Kurt bit out through gritted teeth. He watched as she stubbed the cigarette out and then unceremoniously snatched the packet back up to light a replacement. He cupped his hands around the end of of the cigarette so the seabreeze wouldn't interrupt the flame of the lighter and then both were thrown across the table. The smoke was blown out more roughly this time, and he picked up his drink to down the last of the liquor in it in one gulp.

He knew that it wasn't going to do any good getting angry at Quinn. He was misdirecting and she really was in his line of fire. They often copped each other's bad moods, and it was easy for him to forget that this Quinn here wasn't the one who had been his bridesmaid at his wedding. She had never had a seriously relationship, maybe never even been in love. That was a seriously hard part for Kurt right now. She wouldn't understand, no matter how much he tried to explain.

Edited 2012-08-07 17:14 (UTC)

Quinn put her hand over Kurt's with a soft squeeze. "Kurt, honey... it's been two years. You've got a really long time on the island ahead of you. You can't spend it forever alone. I know you miss him, and I know he was amazing. He was your perfect match and just the kind of guy you always deserved to have, but you can't wait for him. He might never come, and if he does, he might not even be the Blaine that you know and fell in love with. This place has its own agenda and we're just all pawns. I'm not going to push you, but please at least talk to me. What's the matter, babe?" she coaxed, and was seriously considering calling in sick to work herself just so she could sit and keep him company. She just wasn't sure company was what he wanted if he was drinking and smoking at 6am. This was very serious business.

She listened to the water lapping on the nearby shore and watched him for a few moments. He looked tired and drawn, and paler than usual, if that was even possible. All this time on the island and he still only had a faintly pale-almond sunkissed look to him. He never really tanned and suffered (loudly and bitchily, she might add) from sunburn if he wasn't careful. She would wonder why he had been sent to the island in the first place if she didn't know it was the lesser of two evils to being dead.

Kurt rubbed the back of his neck and then ashed his cigarette over the rail of the balcony as he slowly wet his lips. It was only after another puff of the cigarette that he finally answered. "It's two years," he began with a brief glance at her before he looked out at the aquamarine ocean with a frown. "Today would have been our two year anniversary... back in normal time back there, I mean. If I hadn't... you know..."

"I miss him, Quinn. I miss him every single day... every single hour. He was everything to me and we were going to be so happy. The next thing I knew I was here, and he wasn't. That was two years ago and I don't care how long it's been. He's my husband and I'm married. I have never stopped love him, it hasn't even faded. There is never going to be anyone else. I just wish every single night before I go to sleep that he will be sent here to me. I don't care if he doesn't even know me, or it's a different him. To just see him one more time..." Tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back. He held the cigarette between his middle and index fingers, and with his thumb and pinkie, picked up his wedding band and slipped it back onto his left hand. "I'd give anything to just hold him again."

Quinn just nodded comfortingly. Yes. She did know, and it was sobering as all hell thinking about it. Kurt had been her best friend for a long time. Back in the day, he and Mercedes had been her tag team of awesome, the people who always had her back, even when she'd hit her lowest lows, and, ironically, when they'd had to bitch at her for smoking and dying her hair a shade of pink that Kurt had firmly insisted wouldn't look good on a Care Bear. "Oh, honey," Quinn replied softly, reaching out to take Kurt's free hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

Quinn had seen Kurt and Blaine together. She knew full well the kind of love that they'd shared. Hell, she'd been at school the day after Kurt and Blaine had first made love, and she'd seen it written all over Kurt's face -- the love, the intimacy, the connection, and the sheer and utter joy. They were each other's first and only, and there was no changing that in Kurt's heart and mind, even if Quinn would've done anything to help him move on. "I know you do, Kurt... And God knows, if there was a way I could bring you two together again, I would do it, like it was my job. But Kurt... After all this time... Maybe... It's time for you to at least try?" Even as she said it, she knew it was useless. But it hurt seeing her friend in pain like this more than she even knew how to say. Especially when there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it.

Kurt tried to stop it, he really did, but even just at the mere thought of letting anyone close to him intimately that wasn't Blaine had him promptly bursting into tears. The cigarette had to be stubbed out so he could put his hand up over his face as it crumbled with misery. Usually he could keep a decent hold on his emotions over ending up here on the island without Blaine. He had arrived right before his apparent death, dumped on the beach unconscious and covered in blood. Puck had been here on the island, and as Kurt recovered (thank god for the fantastic surgeon here who dug the bullet out of him and saved his life), all the pieces of what occurred slowly came out when Kurt came to understand how the island worked.

His last memory of his home had been right after his and Blaine's wedding reception, they were just leaving for their honeymoon, stood out the front of the venue with all their family and friends to wave them off. Kurt had just jokingly tossed a bouquet that Quinn had caught and they were waiting on the limo to take them to the airport. Then it went blank... for obvious reasons. He had been shot by a gang of homophobes trying to protest their wedding. Shot, and then died in Blaine's arms there on the grass just a few minutes later. Puck came from a few years after the tragedy, but to this day, Kurt still hadn't had the courage to ask him how Blaine was because he feared the answer too much. Puck got this look in his eye whenever the subject had came up and it made Kurt terrified to ask. But thank god Puck had been there, or Kurt might have literally gone crazy with the island and trying to come to terms with his own death. If Puck hadn't told him it happened and he saw it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it and would have spent the time desperately trying to escape back to Blaine... a feat impossible. He was dead, and therefore stuck on the island forever. Alone. Without his husband.

He sobbed brokenly, letting himself on this day once again grieve for his lost husband. He missed Blaine so badly and the thought of moving on from his was impossible. "I-I c-can't..." he cried softly with a shake of his head. "I don't want to. Not while there is always a chance he might come here too. You never know. I'm here, Puck's here, you're here, Mike's here... it might happen, he might come back to me."

That was it. There was no way in hell Quinn was going in to work today. Not with Kurt stuck there without Blaine on their two year anniversary. Or what would've been, at least, in the real world. Not when he was drinking and smoking at sunrise and bawling his eyes out in longing for the only person he'd ever been in love with. Quinn could honestly say she'd never been in love. She'd definitely had strong feelings that she thought were love at the time, but that was forever ago... A lifetime really. She couldn't imagine the pain that Kurt was facing knowing that there was a chance he might never see Blaine again.

As far as Quinn could see, this was never going to get better. Everywhere except this island, Kurt Hummel was dead. And here, there was a part of her that wondered if he felt dead anyway without Blaine by his side. Like his life was over, even though he was still living it here, at least. She shook her head, standing up from her chair and moving over to lean over Kurt, wrapping her arms around him and gently rubbing his back.

"Shhh," she soothed, her hand continuing it's comforting caresses on her best friend's back and shoulder. "Kurt, honey, I know... I know you miss him, and yes, there's still hope that he could come here one day. I just don't know how much that is, and I wish I could make this all better for you, sweetheart. You know I do." Before she knew it, her eyes were tearing up, too. Tearing up with the knowledge that her best friend was hurting and miserable, and so damn lonely, and it hurt her to watch him hurt.

"I just want to go home. I miss home. I miss Blaine, I miss Dad, I miss having freedom," Kurt sobbed quietly. He knew it was probably inevitable that he would later lock himself in his bedroom, curled up in a ball under his covers and sob his heart out for hours on end, but right now, he just felt tired and weak in his grief that he wasn't quite ready to hit the apex of a sob fest. It would come, though. Every few months, it came and he just had to let it pass before he could get back up and brush himself off to face yet another day on the island. At least it wasn't exactly Groundhog Day. Each day wasn't the same, it was just different days in the same location. He had done well for himself here, established himself with things he really enjoyed and found a niche in designing for the pampered islanders who had come and still adored lovely expensive things with couture right up there on the list.

But he would forever have this hole that couldn't be filled by anyone but Blaine. He saw people around him all the time, friends he had come to make on the island, hooking up and having a good time. Hell, some of the people even god married, had babies. Some accepted they could be stuck on the island for a very, very long time and just worked with it. It's not like they would remember their island life if they ever found that ever-mysterious ticket home. Which did exist. People just disappeared all the time, going back to where they came from just as quickly as they appeared. Others had been there for years, grown old here, died here. Whether you went back home when you died of old age here, no one knew. Either way, Kurt was stuck. It was no secret that if you died back home and the island sucked you here, there was no going back because you couldn't go back to a dead body, could you? This was your second chance, like or lump it.

"I just want to know if he was... was okay..." It seemed stupid. If Kurt died in Blaine's arms, there was no way his husband would be okay with that. It was the level of okay Kurt was scared of, what he couldn't ask Puck. What if Blaine had never recovered from it? Never dealt with it? "I keep having this awful sick feeling inside that he's back there miserable and not in a life worth living. But if he is, why hasn't the island brought him here?" He hugged his arms tightly around himself with a tiny whimper. "I just want to feel him again."

Quinn pulled her chair around so that she could face Kurt, and she gently reached out to take his hands, holding one of his in each of her own tightly. "I know you do." Kurt's close connection to his father had never been a secret. Back when they'd been in school together, everyone had known full well that Kurt's dad was an amazing and loving father, and that he would've died to protect Kurt. And as the years had gone by, and Blaine had come into Kurt's life, Burt had been their biggest supporter. He'd stood proudly for Kurt, even run for, and won, a seat in Congress to do more for the greater good of gay rights, because of his son. It was a massive thing for Kurt to be not only without Blaine, but without Burt, without the two people he'd been closer to than even Quinn.

Leaning forward in her chair, Quinn rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms, quietly watching Kurt when she knew that words were useless. No matter what she said, it wouldn't erase, or even alleviate the pain that Kurt faced in losing the people dearest to him. In Quinn's case, the only people she truly missed were Mercedes and Santana, what with Kurt here with her. She'd left behind friends, sure, but no one as close to her as those. But to imagine leaving behind a husband, a father, and the beginning of a beautiful new life? Quinn couldn't even imagine.

Quinn knew just as well as Kurt did that Blaine wouldn't be okay. He would probably be just as miserable as Kurt was, only with the added horror of having his husband shot to death on their wedding day. It broke her heart to even imagine. The truth was, she'd even tried to talk to Puck about it once upon a time, but the man was decidedly closed off about the whole thing. When she'd brought up Blaine to him once, he'd gotten a dark, faraway look in his eyes, and had distinctly avoided her gaze, unable to say much more than, "Yeah... Yeah, we were still tight when I came here." She knew that Kurt had noticed, too. Blaine and Puck had been the best of friends in high school, and if Puck had come to the island years after Kurt's wedding and subsequent death, Quinn knew that he had been through the whole ordeal with Blaine. For better or worse. "All we can do is keep hoping that he comes here," she said softly, knowing there was very little comfort in that statement. "I wish there was some way to bring him, Kurt... I hate that you have to hurt like this. I'm so sorry." Pausing, she met Kurt's gaze. "Honey, come inside and let me make you some tea?"

Once Kurt had his hands free again, he reached over and made a grab for the box of tissues he had brought out with him, knowing he was going to inevitably need them. He pulled out way more than he needed and buried his face into the scrunched up wad. His sobs became muffled by them and he just sat there and cried for what felt like ages, but was only more like five minutes. He was mess by the time he managed to reign himself back in and he wiped at his eyes and nose, sniffling miserably. His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, his nose stuffed up, and his throat was stinging now. He really just wanted to get drunk so he could stop thinking for a little while, but if he honestly went on a bender this time of day, he would be hungover and miserable again by lunch time. His hangovers were always epic too. It's why he was never much a fan of getting distinctly drunk, and why, if he did do it, his friends knew there was usually a reason... ie, Blaine.

"M-Maybe I should talk to Puck?" he finally suggested in a tiny voice, looking down at the soggy mess of tissues in his hand. He was exhausted, getting very little rest the night before as his heart and head grew heavier and heavier knowing today was coming. He even went online to the island's internet system and scrolled through the list of open blogs to see if Blaine's name was there, that maybe he had arrived and someone forgot to tell Kurt. It was extremely irrational, but grief did that. Kurt knew Quinn was the CEO of the resort and she knew the names of every single arrival from the moment they checked in. Every islander had to check in to have a place to stay. Kurt would be the first to know if Blaine checked in... unless he wanted to live in a cave or something. "Maybe I can wrap my head around it all better if I do know what happened to Blaine after everything? He told me I got shot and that I died, so maybe he could tell me more? If I asked? If I just... just know, it might be easier..."

Quinn's hazel eyes were still misty with tears of her own as she watched her fag go through the same pain again. It was just the way things were. The whole stages of grief thing was real, but it was difficult to nail down in a situation like this one. It wasn't as if Blaine had been the one to die and Kurt was mourning his husband's death. How was someone supposed to mourn his own death? For all intents and purposes, he had lost his husband, but with no closure... No death, no funeral... No knowledge whatsoever of what had come next for Blaine. And it would never be something he recovered from unless and until Blaine was on this island with them.

"Maybe..." Quinn offered. She wasn't sure how helpful talking to Puck would be in easing Kurt's mind, but maybe Puck had some answers that at least would settle some of the questions in Kurt's mind. Patting Kurt's knee gently, she gave him a nod. "Maybe it would help. You can go and see him. I know he doesn't talk about it, but somehow I think... I think he would if you asked. Blaine... In the real world, Blaine and Puck were the closest of friends, and I know that protective thing he had going for Blaine applied to you, too."

Kurt caught a few more tears with the soggy Kleenex, sniffling miserably. All he wanted was to crawl into bed with Blaine and cuddle up with him in a little cocoon of covers shielding out the rest of the world whenever anything hurt or didn't feel good. He just missed feeling Blaine close him, feeling the warmth of his presence. Even some nights still Kurt would find himself getting up out of bed to go sit on the moonlight beach because it was easier to be alone there than in bed without Blaine where he belonged. He looked at his hand again, at his wedding ring that he had never taken off for more than a few minutes at a time. Blaine's name and their wedding date was engraved inside, and Blaine's matched Kurt's identically, except with Kurt's name. As long as there was still a chance Blaine could come here, Kurt would never not consider himself married.

"Blaine's not okay," he murmured quietly, eyes still down-turned. It was the first time he had said it out loud, even if for a long time he had known it in his heart. "That's why Puck won't talk about it. He knows Blaine isn't okay back there. It was two years on that Puck came from, he knows Blaine isn't okay and I... I don't know how to cope with that. Wouldn't they be looking after him without me? I don't get it. And you know the most awful part? Blaine wouldn't let us put the 'Til death us do part' line in our wedding vows, because he thought it would jinx things. He didn't want it in there. He wanted us to grow old together and die together, just like in The Notebook."

Well-honed fag hag skills meant that Quinn felt almost every emotion pass through Kurt without his ever having said a word. She knew this man well... Both of them knew each other better than they knew themselves sometimes, and Quinn's heart hurt when Kurt's hurt. She could see Kurt's eyes focused in on his wedding band. Two years. Two years without Blaine, and that ring had never once left Kurt's hand for any reason, except when absolutely necessary, and even then, it was sometimes a fight to get him to do it. Her hand rested against her chest, fiddling with the necklace Nick had given her for her last birthday... Or at least, her last birthday in island time.

Quinn didn't want to admit to Kurt that she was afraid he was right. There really wasn't any way that Blaine could be okay, and if he were, wouldn't Puck have told them? Wouldn't he have wanted to ease Kurt's mind? "Of course they'd be looking after him, babe," Quinn reassured him, though part of her knew that no amount of Puck and herself and Mercedes trying to help would ease the pain of what Blaine was going through in losing Kurt. "Oh, sweetheart," Quinn replied softly, her hand pressed to her chest as she swallowed against the lump in her throat. "I wish there were something I could do to bring him here. I would, honey. In a heartbeat... any of us would."

Kurt pressed his lips together for a moment, but just more tears rolled down his cheeks when he tried to blink them away. The lump felt like it was permanently stuck in his throat without abating. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another large drink. Very large drink. It had to be at least five or six shots he got into that glass, and he just threw it back, swallowing it all down in one go with a small hiccup. It burned his nose and throat, and it was probably lucky he didn't spit it out all over himself. He just didn't want to be sober right now. Why should he be? This day wasn't going to get any less painful.

"I'm stuck here without him and he's never going to come. Or if he comes, it will be the Dalton Blaine who doesn't even know me or care I exist. I don't even know what would be worse. Him not coming at all or that." He put the glass down heavily with a shake of his head and then grabbed up his packet of cigarettes. He pulled one from the pack with his lips and cupped his hand around it to light it up. He knew Quinn wasn't fond of him smoking, but he was an emotional smoker and managing a gay nightclub, it sort of came part and parcel when he had no intentions of hooking up there himself. He had many an invitation to screw in the back room, but the patrons had soon learned he was 100% hands off, and if they didn't respect that, it would be an extremely stupid move on their part after Kurt had literally punched someone out for trying to come onto him one night. "I'm so lonely, so... empty. I've been practically giving myself RSI lately thinking about him when I..." He just gave a flick of his fingers to finish the thought for him.

Watching Kurt hurt like this was without a doubt one of the hardest things Quinn had ever had to do. It wasn't like Kurt to drink like this, or smoke weed from time to time, a habit he probably thought she didn't know about, but Quinn wasn't dumb. She watched as he completely swallowed the glass of liquor, and shook her head silently. She was afraid for him, if she were honest. She couldn't lose him. He was her best friend, and she loved him more than she even knew how to say. She couldn't watch him do this to himself. But there was very little she could do besides what she was doing right now... Being here with him and for him while he fought to hold on.

"You don't know that for sure, darling," Quinn offered. "The whole timing of arrival thing here is strange. I mean, Puck was here for years before you came, and you left the real world at a point two years before him. It's a little crazy how it all works, and you know that. All we can do is keep hoping. And the thing is, Kurt... You and Blaine were more made to be together than any two people I've ever known. Surely the island has to understand that. I'm not sure what's going on or why he's not here, but that doesn't mean he's never coming." She didn't even bother trying to take this cigarette from him. There was no point, and arguing with Kurt when he was like this was a futile pursuit. "I know, honey," Quinn replied, crossing one leg over the other. There were a lot of heartaches that had happened along the way, but Quinn had Nick. She didn't have to be lonely here, because she'd found someone she cared very deeply for. Kurt wouldn't and couldn't do that. There was no one else. There was only Blaine for him, and as much as Quinn hoped he'd be able to let go and move on, Kurt was still clinging to the memory of his husband back home, and the life he'd dreamed of sharing with him. "I know you miss him, and you'll never stop seeing yourself as married to him, no matter what happens. I know, and that's what makes this whole thing so much harder."

Kurt just gave another weary shake of his head and ashed his cigarette into the crystal ashtray. He wet his lips, tasting the salty tears on them through the liquor that had burned the tip of his tongue. "I just always have this fear that he's going to come here right after his bashing. He doesn't know me, he was nearly beaten to a pulp. What he went through after that shaped who he was when I met him, but if we bring him here and go all Back to the Future on him and interrupt the... what is it? Space time continuum? He might never be the same person again. He might never love me. He might decide he wants to stay in the closet forever. That's my biggest fear. It's like an icy grip in my gut all the time that it might happen. I don't know what I would do if he came here not knowing me."

"If we're made to be together, why wasn't he brought with me?! Why did this place separate us at the worst time, and leave me here without him, and him back there without me?!" he cried in pent-up frustration. He wanted to hit something, but he couldn't even go to the gym and beat the shit out of a boxing bag because it reminded him too much of Blaine. He tried it once and ended up a sobbing, bawling mess on the gym floor that Jason had to peel up and deliver safely back to Quinn. "I'm tired, I feel sick. I need to go to bed," he said, abruptly stubbing out his cigarette and slamming the photo album shut.

"I wish I could promise that wasn't going to happen," Quinn replied. "We never know, though, how things like that get decided... I think that's the part that sucks worst of all." She'd often wondered what would happen if Nick had one day in the future gotten married and his other half showed up, or that by some strange twist of fate, Blaine would find his feet again, move on and marry someone else, and then show up here. But the fact of the matter was, Quinn was pretty damn sure that would never happen. She knew Kurt and Blaine... Knew how they were together. And if Blaine ever "moved on" from Kurt, it would be a shock to all of them. They belonged together, and it was as simple as that. No questions asked. There never had been any reason to think differently along the way.

"I don't know," Quinn admitted, shaking her head. "I don't know what's going on. I don't make the rules, sweetheart. I just play by them like everybody else." She was about to try and shift them back inside, hoping to get the liquor away from Kurt, when he made that decision himself. With a nod, she stood up with him, worried that he'd trip or loose his balance. Making her way with him down the hall to his room, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Goodnight, sweetheart," she said, giving his arm a gentle squeeze before he closed the door behind him.

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[CLOSED TO QUINN FABRAY] "Pictures of you, pictures of me..."

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