Notes: Title from the lyrics to Duran Duran's "Falling Down", and a hat tip to various sci fi stories that have inspired elements of this, namely Firefly, Anne McCaffrey's novel Crystal Singer, and a dash of my favourite space station shows, Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For klaineadvent 2014.
You can find the music used in the story on my tumblr: tagged/BIHTG-soundtrack-music
Ache.
Kurt's left knee twinges sharp as it takes his weight down to the floor of the hangar bay. The cryo-sickness is always worse coming back in off the Andromeda run because of the short turnaround. It's three months there and back, but he feels aged three hundred years. It'll take days to feel right again. He winces and his right foot hits the deck. Pain in his ankle. An unshakable chill. Blurry vision. He needs a strong drink, a hot bath, and some intensive coddling. He has some time before the worst of it sets in.
He looks up at his ship, and then passes a diagnostic stick to the deck chief. "Betty's drive crystals are out of tune again," Kurt says. "Call Miss Berry this time."
"But, sir—"
"She owes me a favor."
Kurt straightens his shoulders and walks away with as much vigor as he can muster. His spine aches like someone's taken a pile driver to it. He takes the lift from the docking level to the gallery.
The Blue Bar on the Oasis station is his first destination. They have a piano, and cocktails with slices of real citrus on the rim. Sometimes he finds Blaine there, playing. It's where they first met.
But not tonight. Kurt sits at the battered wooden bar beneath the neon tubes and listens to the girl who's at the piano. She's painfully thin and pretty in a way that looks far too breakable, but she sings the standards with shining eyes and the soul of experience in her rich, clear voice. Her tip jar is full. Kurt sips his whiskey sour and tries the shake off the déjà vu. Everything feels too much like a memory when he's just woken up, but it's nice to be in the company of humans again.
He leaves the bar with the taste of lemon bright and bitter on his tongue and the whiskey smoke filling his nose. Kurt doesn't stop by his rented quarters on his way up to the top deck of the station. Blaine will run him a bath and wash his hair. Blaine will take care of him.
He comes to the familiar door, lays his hand upon it for a moment before pressing the bell.
It opens, and Kurt's breath catches in his throat.
"You look like hell," Blaine says with a smile, as he always does.
And Kurt leans against the open door jamb, looks into the beautiful face that he wishes were the home his heart yearns for, and he replies, "I'm definitely looking for some sin tonight."
Balance.
"You talk a good game," Blaine says from behind and above Kurt, who lies face down, half-asleep, freshly washed, and naked on the softest mattress in the entire universe. "And yet..." Blaine says with a put-upon sigh. And then one of the hands that's been so expertly squeezing the tension from Kurt's muscles swats Kurt across the backside. Hard. "Don't fall asleep on me, Kurt."
"Ow!" Kurt flinches, opens his eyes enough to glare over his shoulder. "I'm warm for the first time in months. Don't judge me." Staying awake through the first six hours after coming out of cryo is the hardest. There's a danger of coma. Only, after that passes then sleep becomes nigh impossible for days.
"You know I'm not," Blaine says.
"No," Kurt says as more warmth blooms where Blaine's hand landed. "You're not," he says with a sigh. The warmth trickles into tantalizing and welcome pleasure. Kurt shifts his hips against Blaine's bedding, tips his ass up for more. Blaine knows from experience what Kurt needs most this first night back among the living. The shock of pain and pleasure to push and pull and put him back into some kind of alignment and keep him awake. He's as out of tune as Betty.
Blaine strikes his buttocks again—swift and stinging—and Kurt bites his lip and moans.
"Too much?" Blaine asks him softly. He always asks.
"Not at all," Kurt says. "Keep going."
Cloud.
Blaine's got one of the best views on the station. Kurt sits on the edge of the bed looking out at the streaks of gold and crimson dust, bright in the light of their parent, a fading dwarf star. His ass is sore, inside and out, but he grins as he shifts his weight and stretches his arms over his head. His ass is all that's sore, and Kurt will enjoy it while it lasts. Blaine's a genius. Who is currently in the shower.
Kurt flops back into the pillows and traces shapes in the nebula with his gaze until he finds his favorites: the rocking horse that breathes fire, the swallow, the umbrella that's looking more like a mushroom these days. Time has passed.
It's silent up here, but for the wet patter of the shower. Kurt can close his eyes and pretend it's the rain on the roof of his childhood home. His stomach signals a tentative and nauseous kind of hunger and Kurt rolls to his belly. He reaches for the console on Blaine's night table.
He taps the display to life and shuffles through the delivery food options. Blaine usually eats something with him, so Kurt orders for him too.
Dessert.
"You made a cake?" Kurt asks from where he's sprawled shamelessly on Blaine's bed, one hand splayed across his overfull belly.
"Yes," Blaine replies, and he brings the plate and two forks over to the bed. His hair is still damp from the shower and curling around his ears. He's gloriously nude beneath a brief, open robe of midnight blue, but Kurt's appetite is piqued more by the scent of chocolate than it is by Blaine's body.
"With spoons and bowls and flour and eggs and butter and—whatever else goes into a cake?"
"I did," Blaine says.
"I didn't know you could bake," Kurt says.
"Three months ago, neither did I. But you told me once you missed homemade cake, so..." Blaine shrugs and sets the cake on the bed between them. "You need the calories."
With a grunt, Kurt rolls to his side and takes the fork Blaine offers him. "You don't need to work so hard to impress me, you know."
Blaine just smiles and tells Kurt to try the cake.
Evening.
He's supposed to be sleeping, but he's not. It's expected, but... Kurt knows how this part goes, and he never gets used to it. He blinks at the ceiling and feels the inevitable creep. It's like metal sliding along his nerves, and as if something's caught in his throat that he can't quite swallow. The anxiety will start soon, irrational and blinding.
He turns to the man sleeping beside him. Hesitates a moment before putting his hand on Blaine's shoulder and giving a gentle nudge. "Blaine?" he asks, tremulous and thin. A spike of animal terror shudders up his spine.
"I'm here," Blaine answers immediately, as if he hadn't been asleep at all. He takes Kurt's hand in a strong grip. "I won't leave you alone."
Fall.
The morning is the worst. He never remembers it as being the worst, but in the moment of it, it's always the worst. He's weak, trembling, and ashamed—and more tired than seems possible for his body to bear without actually dying. He cries softly against the pillow while Blaine gets him a glass of fortified juice.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Kurt says.
"There's a basin right here," Blaine says. He sets the glass on the night table with a thunk that reverberates bizarrely, makes Kurt's bones ache. He strokes Kurt's hair from his sweaty forehead. "It's okay if you do."
"I should go," Kurt says. He sniffs and tries to push himself up with reed-feeble arms.
"Stay," Blaine says. "As long as you want."
But Kurt knows all that means is 'as long as you've paid for.' He chokes on a sob, and falls back to the mattress.
Grace.
"I mean it," Blaine says.
Kurt bites back the reflexive Why? Instead he says, "Even after seven straight runs to Andromeda, I don't have enough credit to buy your contract."
"I've never asked you to," Blaine says. "And I'm not asking you for that now."
"But—?" Kurt tries to sit again, but only manages to rouse the queasy feeling in his belly to full blown nausea. He scrambles for the metal basin as Blaine pushes it toward him.
Once his stomach is empty and he's rinsed out his mouth, Kurt lies on his back, panting. Blaine runs a warm washcloth over his chest, soothing away the cold sweat.
"We barely know each other," Kurt says.
"I don't think that's true," Blaine says. "And I don't believe you do either."
"I don't understand what you're asking me for," Kurt says.
Blaine smiles. "I'm not asking you for anything."
Kurt doesn't understand. His hands shake as he covers his face.
Harmony.
The mattress bows beside Kurt as Blaine sits and sets the cloth aside. "It's worse every time you come to me, Kurt. You're not taking enough time to rebuild your strength between runs."
"I'm perfectly fine," Kurt says, and the lie cringes in his heart as he says it.
"You're not." Blaine's hand wraps around the biceps of his closest arm, which Kurt well knows is becoming flaccid with atrophy.
"So, what? Now you're judging me?" Kurt says bitterly. "When I'm... down like this? Am I no longer pretty enough for you?" Tears burn his vision, which he turns to the ceiling above him. He doesn't need to see the pity in Blaine's eyes. His heart thuds too hard behind his breastbone, but it doesn't feel vital.
Blaine actually laughs at him, a gentle huff of breath. "Is that honestly what you think I'm doing?"
"No," Kurt relents. He doesn't have the energy for indignation, especially not directed at Blaine. Especially not when Blaine's right.
"I need to do it three more times," Kurt says. He's budgeted so carefully. He could never manage it in less than ten unless he gave up on eating entirely, and ten has given him enough of a cushion he can afford Blaine. He only needs to endure three more runs. Only. The way the ache of it sits so long and heavy in his bones and hangs in his brain makes him doubt he can—but he won't give in. "That'll be enough."
It will be enough unless Rachel asks him to pay her, which she shouldn't. But as much as Kurt hates to call in a favor from her, he knows even if he can make three more runs, Betty can't, not with the way her drive was screaming coming in yesterday.
And Kurt would swear that an out of tune drive makes the cryosleep harder too, like the bad harmonics fuck with his brainwaves or the tissue in his body or something. The Guild tuner hasn't been able to keep Betty singing sweetly, and Kurt's in such poor voice these days, he can't do it himself. The pang of that regret is especially unsavory. But, he reminds himself, he could never make enough tuning drives anyway, not with how specific his voice is. And certainly not after blowing it out on that frigate, saving Rachel's ass.
It feels like more than a lifetime ago, but Rachel's still the best he knows.
"Enough for what?" Blaine asks eventually. "You've never told me."
Kurt turns his head to look at Blaine now. It's not pity he sees, but what he sees scares him even more. It's too much to lose, and he knows he can't keep it. "Um," Kurt says, and he has to swallow to keep his throat open. "My Dad needs a new heart?"