Blaine wakes up suddenly and the first thing he notices is that his pillow is soaked. He groans a little. Drool? Drink? Did Kurt knock over that damned glass of water in the middle of the night again?

And then Blaine really wakes up. He just stays as he is for a moment, propped up on his elbows staring at his pillow. Willing his mind to back up five seconds. He wants so badly to be unable to decipher that wet pillowcase, the wrinkled sheets, this empty bed. He wants to be mad at Kurt for knocking over the water in the middle of the night.

If he falls into the pillow he'll remember the dream. If he crawls out of bed he'll remember the reality. If he stays here he can keep making excuses.

Blaine's body settles for curling in on itself as small as it can go and his mind scrabbles at the little fleeing pieces of nightmare. He squeezes his eyes shut tight like that will deflect those fragmented images. He can feel tears on his face now, he guesses he didn't even stop crying when he woke up, and it doesn't matter now if his eyes are open or closed. He presses his face into the pillow so hard he can feel his nose against the mattress and he tries to break it, cartilage against fluff, but loses concentration when the first wave of vertigo hits.

Loud loud loud then quiet, so quiet, god please make a sound please PLEASE. I need your noise. I need your noise.

Blaine bites into white cotton to keep from letting out any noise but he couldn't scream if he tried.

The images all slam into him at once: Too bright. Too dark. Too much. Red, blue, red, blue, and that blinding white one that won't shut up and they are all talking over him but not a goddamned thing sounds like it should.

A phantom pain shoots through Blaine's side, curls his fingers deep into the sides of his pillow.

He's gripping that slender hand like it's a twig on a cliff that leads to only a black hole below and he won't let go until Kurt says "Blaine you're hurting me" because that is all he has ever to say but he's not saying anything. Blaine squeezes harder. He could squeeze just a little harder and he'd feel the crunch of bone, but Kurt hasn't said "stop" yet. It feels wrong.

He forces his hand open and lets go of the pillow, spreads his fingers out. He's had carpal tunnel, muscle spasms, it's all normal. Massage it. Write with the left. Keep up the therapy. Give it a rest. C'mon Blaine.

Someone has pushed Blaine away and he's sailing. But it doesn't feel like he has let go of Kurt at all. If he could see through the lights and the sounds and the skin and bone, he knows without a doubt that he would see his spirit leaping from him to meet Kurt's halfway and they'd dance like Kurt and Blaine do after a little of that cheap champagne on a good day and it would light up the entire fucking building and if everyone could see it no one would care about pushing Blaine in this bed down this hallway because they'd know that he wasn't even lying there anymore.

Blaine breathes shakily, tries to remember the coaching he got months ago. In, in, in, hold. Out, out, out. In, hold, out. Wait, was that therapy or voice lessons?

He catches sight of him when his head lolls, because they haven't pushed him very far. Or maybe they've pushed them both. Kurt's eyes are open and his head is tilted towards Blaine. Blaine looks in desparation for that wet shine in his eyes that means Kurt is not okay, that was there sixteen years ago when Dave kissed him and five years ago when Burt fell and it was there when he woke up just three months ago after a dream asking for his mom, and it isn't there but he does not feel relieved. He didn't know there was anything less okay than that shine but he is seeing something less okay now. He can't see anything in Kurt's eyes and god, fuck, please fucking god, he needs to move. He pushes as hard as he can and he is surprised when he actually plummets to the floor, and something very loud happens to his chest when he hits and someone very loud is running towards him and he needs to be fast but he is slipping over something wet on the floor and the loud person is six loud people and they are getting closer to him. He lunges forward and slips again. It's only because he slipped that he makes it as far as he does, and he is clinging to the metal leg of the bed that Kurt lies in. He reaches up and every part of his body seizes and everything is so sharp, and Blaine is certain that he has just died on the floor beside Kurt's bed, but he can't stop reaching up anyway, not until he has Kurt's hand again and one of them says "let go" and it'll probably be him, actually, because something is happening to him and he doesn't know what it is but he doesn't think he'll survive it. He tries to look down to find where the hurt is coming from and all he can see is that red on the floor he keeps slipping in but he has just found those fingers under the sheets and if he can just hold Kurt's hand he won't care when his body breaks into pieces.

Someone reaches Blaine then, but he's got Kurt now. He won't let go. They lift Blaine but they don't try to pull him away; instead he feels the bed sliding under him, and the second they rest his body there, he is torn apart. He feels sure that he's just broken one of Kurt's fingers because he squeezed when the pain that he thought was killing him just got so much worse. He lets go quickly. As soon as he does he realizes he shouldn't have and he reaches again but he's already going black. And the loud people are already surrounding him and Kurt, and that circle of unfamiliar faces is the last thing he sees before he passes out completely, the ghost of a slender finger still brushing his palm.

Blaine drops the attempted breathing exercise and just huffs into his pillow. He can't stop; it's like he's vomiting up oxygen, he doesn't want it inside him anymore. Doesn't care if he can't breathe. What use is breathing, anyway? Why should he be so indebted to his body? What has it done for him lately? What if Kurt is just there, on the other side, waiting, and all Blaine has to do is finally thank god give in?

Blaine gasps, finally gets a lungful of air, and his body collapses and stills. He knows what Kurt would say. What he would do if he knew what Blaine was thinking.

And Blaine is afraid of dying. Because he is so afraid of losing Kurt entirely. If he isn't there waiting, then the only place he can be is with Blaine; in Blaine's mind, in Blaine's heart; and if Blaine loses either of those things, he will have lost Kurt, and he cannot do that, even if he's already gone. He can't let go.

The pillow in Blaine's arms has been mauled and tear-soaked, and Blaine slowly releases it. He does not move after that. Only when light starts to stream very slowly from the blinds above the bedside table does he shift to face the left side of the bed. He closes his eyes and puts a hand out, splays his fingers in the air, and says "good morning." He can feel the sunlight hitting his fingertips. There is a curl falling over his eye, tickling his temple whenever his breath shakes it. His chest is warm. He closes his fingers and pulls his hand back to first touch his lips and then to rest above his heart. He keeps the sunlight and the small breath there, keeps the "good morning," puts them next to the fading lilt of Kurt's voice in response saying "Good morning, yourself."

Finally he rises.