Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.


Forest Fires

Chapter 1


It is not a conscious ache. Not for a long time.

And people who claim it is, who claim it is the presence of any feeling ...

... they don't know what they are talking about.

Feeling, in those moments, is the furthest thing away.

Because the fear, in those moments, is no longer a feeling, it is a part of you that grows and claims you and takes you over, and makes you hand you over yourself.

It make it, giving yourself away like a good option, like the option, the thing, the only thing to do.

Because not having to be ... you ... anymore feels like the only thing that will make it stop, make this stop.

The thing that you cannot describe, or grab and get away from you, get out of your life forever.

And the only thing you know is that you have to make it stop.

Because there is no feeling anymore, no air, no breathing.

You are too exhausted to feel anything at all.

Kurt hardly feels the phone in his hands, fingers numb, but body still somehow connected to his brain, motor skills running still eerily smoothly. Autopilot ... a strange state to be in. But there is too much inside and it wants out, and it is making its own way like a forest fire, always finding new paths to consume more of its own breathing ground.

Typing in the number would be an impossible task, but Blaine ... Blaine is still on his speed dial, still, ... after months. Alone. Apart. Split ... in half.

Even on the good days there is nothing whole.

And this, today, tonight, ... this is not a good day. This is a nightmare, and there are nightmares in his sleep, and there is no waking up, no falling asleep, there is not even much of a blurry inbetween.

Kurt does not remember the last free, deep and deeply relaxing breath he has taken. Not since stepping off that plane and back onto Ohio grounds.

In New York Elliott and Dani had kept him sane after everyone else had left, a busy performance schedule a welcome distraction, cuddling up with Elliott sometimes on the couch, endless movie marathons with Dani and her new girlfriend Sara, a bright, blue-eyed social sciences and law student who was working her way towards turning her volunteer work with homeless kids into a full-time career. Artie immersed so deep into a film project, seeing him was not really seeing him. Always a painfilled reminder of what had happened to his friends from way back when.

"Blaine," it is pleading, broken – conjuring up those sounds necessary to form the word, so well known to his mind, his tongue. Muscle memory carries the weak sound past his lips, nothing more.

"Hi, this is Blaine. I can't pick up right now, but it would be lovely to hear how I may help you. Please leave ... ."

Kurt's faster and faster heaved breaths drown out the rest of the message to his own ears.

It is a sudden, sharp pang, and then Kurt feels himself burning up from the inside, the cold sweat making his body boil more and more on the inside, trying desperately for a balance that cannot be reached, and Kurt is starting to feel sick with his shortness of breath, dizzy.

Everything is aching now with the tension held in, but building constantly, Kurt knows it will burst, will break him, burn him to the ground ... alive, and then force him to build himself up again and again, only to do all of this over. And the tears are not pain but frustration. Anger much more than fear, and then breathlessness again, as the anger ebbs away.

He is about to be broken down, much further than he has been in so long.

But before it can happen Kurt breaks off the call, ... and tries again.

Over and over.

Blaine shrieks up in his bed as his phone starts ringing with NotTheBoyNextDoor.

Through the first handful of calls he just sits there, confused, eyes full of sleep still, curls a wild mess, thankful that Dave is not here tonight, has already moved out and on with that Gale guy he had met at Scandels a few weekends ago for the first time. Blaine had been surprised, but not mad. How could he be mad at Dave for his head being somewhere else, when Blaine's head had almost constantly been '... somewhere else.'

Blaine is still starring at the screen of his phone as it lights up once more, song beginning to play again all over.


A/N: A big part of the rest to this story is already written, and there will be daily updates.