Reverb: Chapter Two

Blaine did everything he was supposed to up to and through Regionals. . . which they ROCKED, of course. His caffeine addiction was mostly kicked, temporarily replaced by an ibuprofen dependency, because caffeine withdrawal sucked. Hammering out his rap solo for the competition had provided ample outlet for the niggling perfectionist in him to knock off some jagged edges, and while the whole Karofsky situation was unfortunate and an unexpected source of stress, there'd been a tenuous truce and reconciliation with the Warblers as a result. His and Kurt's sex life wasn't exactly lacking either, but lately with the passing of Regionals and the halfway mark of the school year, Blaine was even more aware of just how soon that was going away. He couldn't really say if that was adding to or reducing his stress load. Still, two out of three wasn't bad.

Which was why it kinda pissed him off that Cooper still hadn't cancelled his visit. Not only did Blaine know for a fact that his brother was only coming because their mom asked him to make sure Blaine didn't miss his follow up appointment while she was out of town, but there was no way having Coop there wasn't going to crank the stress meter to ten.

Even Kurt picked up on it.

"Are you okay? You seem a little preoccupied?"

"Oh, well, my brother's in town. He's picking me up. Taking me out to lunch." He left out the part about how they were taking the rest of the afternoon off, too. Kurt really didn't need to know that his mother had grown an overprotective streak. After his eye surgery, the surgeon had only mentioned that one (maybe two) errant blips on the monitor as an afterthought. He'd been sure then, as Blaine was sure now, that it was just a normal reaction to stress and caffeine. No point escalating his mother's hysteria over nothing.

Though he definitely would've "accidentally" forgotten about that doctor's appointment if Cooper wasn't coming to babysit.

Then, as if on cue, there he was, Cooper Anderson, in the flesh, every bit as much of a self-centered jackass as Blaine remembered. And everyone was just as smitten with him as they always were. Maybe the six years separation since he'd last spent any significant time with his brother made Cooper a little easier to swallow, or maybe Blaine was just glad for the distraction, but their old Duran Duran mashup turned out to be way more awesome than Blaine remembered.

Or, at least it was, right up until they actually got to lunch. Blaine was a perfectionist, and Cooper was the reason. One comment about his performance being "pitchy" and "lacking theme," and Blaine was done with the B.S.

"Can we just cut the crap, Coop?" he huffed, his fork clattering onto the plate atop his barely touched salad. "I know you're only here because Mom asked you to come, so you can just save yourself the trouble and go back to L.A., now. I wouldn't want you to put yourself out."

Cooper straightened from where he was slouched against the side of the booth and turned in his seat to face Blaine, half a breadstick still in his hand, the other half still wadded up in his cheek. "Hey, hey, hey." He had to stop there to finish chewing.

"Don't hey, me," Blaine snapped. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the cushion.

Cooper swallowed with as much over practiced melodrama as everything else he did then motioned for the nice waitress and asked her to bring him another Coke in that same awful Irish accent he'd been practicing since they sat down.

"Dude, what's the scratch? I thought you were supposed to be working on your Zen."

"I am. And you being here is not helping!"

"C'mon! I'm trying to help. Laughter?" he flourished, "The best medicine?"

"And what is funny about you reminding me that every single thing I do is wrong.?"

"I wasn't trying to..." Cooper took a beat, nodded, and folded his hands. A long exhale later, and he either conceded or just elected to postpone that part of the conversation for later. "Never mind. You're right. You're right; Mom asked me to come here, because she's worried about you."

"I knew it."

"BUT, I wouldn't have come if I wasn't worried about you, too, bud."

"What? Why?" Blaine shrugged without uncrossing his arms. "I'm fine. I'm always fine."

"Are you?" Coop asked. "Because first there's the whole Dad situation..."

"That's not new, Coop. Dad hasn't really been around in forever. Mom and I do fine without him." He didn't say they shouldn't have to and that he wished everyone would just go ahead and call it what it was-separation. Instead, they played this stupid game where Dad was gone overseas, Syria of all places, and they all tried to pretend that Mom didn't tell him to go and that there was a distinct chance he'd never come back. The whole timing of his departure-while Blaine was still recovering from being attacked at his old school and struggling to catch up to the Dalton curriculum-had only complicated things. On top of that, Security made it so difficult to send or receive any type of communication that Blaine had given up trying, and judging by the lack of so much as a happy birthday phone call or a congratulations for landing the lead in West Side Story, so had his father.

It was probably a little pathetic that he'd half hoped the transfer from Dalton to McKinley might elicit some kind of argument, because Blaine was not some needy brat who resorted to pissing off his parents for attention. He just also wasn't the type to accept that no news was good news. He didn't care, anyway. He had his own life and his own friends. He stayed busy, productive even. He definitely didn't miss any of his father's awkward, half-baked attempts at bonding. Really. He'd never been close with his Dad. No sweat off Blaine's back if that never changed. None.

Cooper didn't look convinced, "and then you had to have surgery for your eye."

"Which is now healed up just fine.

"And apparently there was a suicide attempt at your school."

"Not my school," Blaine corrected. "Next town over, and I only met the guy like twice, so..."

Cooper sighed. "Look. I know you think you're fine. You're tough. I get it. But since that doctor pointed out that you might have something else going on, Mom is worried that you're letting things get to you more than you're letting on. Just like…" his eyes dropped, and he pushed himself back in the seat. "She thought you'd talk to me since you won't talk to her. You need to be straight with us, Blaine, because we can't help you if you won't let us know what's going on."

"Nothing is going on with me, Coop. It's high school. It's stressful. And yeah, I'm a little pissed that Kurt's leaving for New York in the fall while I have to finish school here, but it's nothing like before."

"Are you sure?" Coop asked. "Because if you need to go back on the..."

"I don't need to go back on the meds! Is that really what Mom's worried about?"

"She's just worried. That's all. And she just wants to make sure you're taking care of yourself."

"I am. And honestly?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really happy most of the time. I have Kurt and, and New Directions. I box. I play the piano, sing. I have lots of outlets. I manage just fine. Although..."

"What?"

"I am a little pissed they made me give up coffee."

Cooper laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, let's get the all clear from the doctor, then, and I'll buy you coffee on the way home. Just a small one, though."

Blaine smirked and picked up his fork. "My brother, the enabler."

Several hours into the follow up, and not only had Blaine not had his coffee yet, but he was starting to suspect that the 'precautionary' tests he'd been told were only to 'rule out' anything were getting tedious and oddly specific. He'd been poked, prodded, x-rayed, attached to enough wires and leads to power a small city, and forced to run on a treadmill until he thought he would pass out. An endless parade of specialists, all with cardio-something attached to their names, looked at his monitors and scans, nodding and whispering amongst each other. None had really talked to Blaine himself aside from when he first came in.

"Any fainting or dizziness?"

"No."

"Shortness of breath?"

"No."

"Chest pains?"

"No."

"Blackouts?"

"No."

Was he anxious, depressed, stressed? Any significant changes in his life or diet... blah, blah, blah. After a while, they'd all seemed like just different ways of asking the same question, and really, how was Blaine supposed to know what was normal and what wasn't? Isn't that what the tests were for?

And all this because he'd had an 'episode' while he was under anesthesia for his eye surgery. He supposed if they found anything, he should send Sebastian a thank you note for making sure he got checked out.

At least Cooper was having a blast. He tried out a new accent on every doctor, nurse, or specialist, even had one convinced that he was a set of identical twins in which one twin was always conveniently in the bathroom or stepped out to use the phone.

Meanwhile, Kurt thought the Anderson brothers were catching a matinee performance of The Hunger Games and was currently lamenting over text the fact that they'd have to sustain an apocalyptic destruction of civilization in order for him to have a chance at becoming a Capitol stylist, the career for which he'd obviously been born. Blaine admitted that he hadn't cared for the selection of Josh Hutcherson in the role of Peeta, but that he was sort of crushing on him by the end of the movie.

"Blaine Anderson."

He and Cooper looked up from their phones in synchronicity, belying the fact that they were both at the end of their patience. The receptionist-Kayla, though her friends called her Kiss, as she'd informed Cooper when she got him to autograph the back of her name badge-smiled sweetly as she motioned down the hall.

"The doctor will see you now."

Cooper took both of her hands in his as they passed and leaned over the desk to say, "Thank you so much. It's been a delight, truly," and headed down the hall with a wink.

It occurred to Blaine as they sat down across from Dr. Schwartzmann that the name was familiar somehow, but he had been introduced to the man earlier, one amongst the seeming throngs, so that was probably the reason. They exchanged formalities, briefly. Blaine shook the cardiologist's hand and smoothed his palms over his thighs as he took a seat. The doctor lowered a pair of reading glasses into position from where they were pushed up on his forehead as he opened a manila folder.

"Well, we haven't got all the results back, just yet, but we do have some significant findings we can share at this time," he began. "As you know, the surgeon who performed your recent surgery made a note in your chart that you had an episode of what appeared to be an abnormal heart rhythm while you were under anesthesia. As I know you've been told, these kinds of things are not that out of the ordinary and can usually be attributed to anxiety, stress, caffeine, any number of everyday environmental factors."

"Yes, sir, but my family doctor recommended we get it checked out, anyway."

"And it's a good thing, you did." The doctor folded the cover of the file back underneath the rest of the folder and laid his hand atop the stack of papers before leaning back in his chair to meet their eyes. "We're still waiting on the genetic panel to come back, and I'll most likely recommend some more tests based on those results, but what we were able to determine today is that you are experiencing an arrhythmia. We were able to detect it during the exercise stress test and during the recovery afterward."

"So what does that mean, exactly?" Cooper this time. He had his elbows braced on the arms of the chair, fingers tip-to-tip at chin level, thumbs toward his chest.

"It doesn't always mean anything," Schwartzmann answered. "Most people experience some form of irregular heartbeat from time to time, and there are several forms of benign arrhythmia that are more an effect of an individual's anatomy than anything else. However, we were able to induce this arrhythmia more than once and to record that its duration was well into a range that would present a health risk if left untreated."

"What kind of risk, exactly?" Cooper asked.

"In the case of a ventricular tachycardia, which is what we're looking at here, the lower chambers of the heart start to beat too quickly. If the tachycardia goes on for an extended period of time, there's always the chance that it will lead to what we call a fibrillation. When that happens, the heart doesn't have a concerted beat at all, but quivers, effectively halting cardiac activity. Unfortunately, for a lot of people with this type of arrhythmia, the first sign anything is wrong is cardiac arrest."

Cooper's hands dropped to the arm rests. "So, now we're calling sudden death a 'potential health risk?'"

"Undiagnosed and untreated, that is a possibility," the doctor assuaged. "Under proper medical supervision, it's highly treatable."

"Well," Blaine had to clear his throat, "how, how do you treat it?"

"Ultimately, that decision will be made based on what we determine to be the root cause of the problem."

"What could that be?" Blaine asked.

"Most likely one of a number of congenital defects. We'll be able to pinpoint it better once we set up some additional testing. You indicated no family history, so that would tend to exclude some potential candidates, but like I said, we'll get the genetic panel back and coordinate our efforts based on that. We'll set you up with a Holter monitor, which is a portable heart monitoring system that you can wear for 48 hours to help us determine the frequency of your episodes and the conditions in your day to day activities that might cause them to occur. I'm sending your x-rays to Wexner along with your other results to see if they can schedule you for a cardiac MRI, possibly a biopsy. Once we have a definite diagnosis, our treatment plan will be tailored to that. For now, though, we'll get you set up with that Holter."

Nothing the doctor said was particularly difficult to understand or even all that grim, from what Blaine could make out, but...

Seeming to take in the shell-shocked expressions from the other side of the desk, the doctor gave a pinched smile and closed the file. "Look. Most likely this is one of any number of conditions that is readily managed and treated with medication. You should consider yourself lucky that we've found it. These types of arrhythmias are mostly only dangerous in their undetected phase. Now that we're aware of it, we have the upper hand."

Upper hand or not, Blaine couldn't escape the feeling that he'd just been punched in the gut.

Despite the doctor's reassurance that finding this condition was the best possible thing that could have happened to him, Blaine couldn't help but notice that he'd gone into the office feeling fine and hadn't really felt fine since. Only part of his discomfort could be directly attributed to the ridiculous spiderweb of leads and wires currently taped to his chest. Hidden under several layers of clothing or not, the Holter monitor made him glaringly self-conscious. He was sure everyone knew it was there, and he really didn't want anyone finding out there was anything going on with him. Not just yet. He wanted some time to come to terms with it himself, first. Even Cooper had agreed he deserved at least that much privacy and had refrained from mentioning anything about their brother bonding day.

The worst part about the monitor-okay the second worst part, since the absolute worst was trying to keep Kurt at arm's length without him getting suspicious-was the journaling. He was supposed to write down everything he did and everything he felt while he did it. According to the tech who'd fitted him with the device, if he had the type of abnormal heartbeat the doctor said he had, then there was a good chance he'd felt it already and just hadn't known what it was he was feeling. Heck, he was a seventeen year old boy. There was so much going on in his body, his own hormones were probably having palpitations. But now that he knew what to notice-dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain, among other things-he kind of felt like that all the time.

Being with Kurt made his heart race and breath stutter. So did whaling on a song, perfecting a dance step, and pounding the crap out of his punching bag. That was his reverb. He kind of lived for that feeling, tuned into it. What was he supposed to feel like if that was wrong somehow?

Mostly, he was pissed because he couldn't use the shoulder strap on his messenger bag and had to carry the damned thing like a briefcase.

And when the hell were they going to give him back his coffee?

"Why are you writing this down?"

Maybe he actually wasn't pissed at Cooper for a change, but his so-called Master Class on acting was a joke. Blaine didn't know how anyone could be buying that crap. Pointing? Really?

"That's not true at all. That's terrible advice." Blaine knew when he said it that Cooper would most likely have a scathing, belittling comeback prepared and waited for it with arms crossed.

Cooper said nothing.

Later, in his NCIS scene, Blaine was sure Cooper gave him that line in retaliation for his earlier comments. Because really, how was anyone supposed to say, "There's a rumor that Sgt. Pembroke was a transvestite," with any kind of conviction? No amount of finger pointing was going to save that one, so of course Blaine opted to leave it out.

"Scene. Scene. Good work, buddy."

And here Blaine had thought they were doing NCIS, not the Twilight Zone. Picking up his bag by the stupid handle, he made the dramatic choice to exit stage left.

Cooper made the dramatic choice to follow him down the hall and ambush him with a hug in front of the library. It pissed Blaine off that he really needed that right then.

Blaine lost track of when exactly this whole medical crisis of his started to feel less like a bump in the road and more like the road had disappeared altogether, leaving him in a holding pattern while his satnav recalculated.

He could remember the day Cooper went back to L.A., could remember the flight number and departure gate like he was the one boarding the plane. The afternoon his mother had to cancel all her appointments to drive him to Wexner for the cardiac MRI was a Wednesday. It rained. The day he started taking the beta blocker, they served fruit salad in the cafeteria, and though he'd eaten it probably a dozen times before, that was the day he realized it had grapefruit in it.

He was suddenly hyper aware of every flutter in his chest-whether it was a palpitation or just acid reflux-every hitch in his breath, how cold his hands felt.

But he forgot that, that Wednesday he went to Wexner, he was supposed to meet Kurt to look at sheet music for his NYADA audition. The day they finally, effing finally got a diagnosis, he missed Booty Camp to make the appointment, and Kurt had been so excited to show Blaine his newly polished jazz shoes now that he'd found peach colored shoe polish.

When Chandler was blowing up Kurt's phone, Blaine wasn't so much surprised that it was happening as he was that it had been happening for days.

Maybe he should've just confessed to Kurt, then, about what was really going on with him, but right then, he didn't feel like he owed anyone anything, least of all the one he was trying to protect. So, if he got pissed and said some things he totally meant, in anger, well, that happened, and maybe it was for the best, but he wasn't sorry. Sorry was just one thing too many, and Blaine was too damned tired to pick that up.

Except, the day he was diagnosed, as they were leaving Dr. Schwartzmann's office, not really looking anywhere but inward, he and his mother bumped headlong into Burt Hummel in the waiting room. It wasn't like they were at the dentist's office. And his mother was a big girl. She wouldn't need to take her kid out of school during lunch to make her own appointment. Besides, the receptionist had just handed them the card with his next appointment written on it next to Blaine's name.

"Hey, Mr. Hummel."

"Blaine..." and something about the set of his jaw, slightly exaggerated bob of his Adam's apple said he was barely keeping it together.

Blaine was sorry for that.

"Brutal honesty is the cornerstone of any relationship. I want you to feel like this is a safe space for you to air your differences." And really, there was no way Ms. Pillsbury had any idea what she was getting herself into. The bubble that had been rising in Blaine's chest for days, chased by the one that had been building there for months, had lodged in his throat, the membrane surrounding it already stretched to transparency.

Blaine was nothing if not well-rehearsed in the art of hanging onto the last tenuous threads of control, though, and he wasn't quite ready to let go just yet. What he wanted to say was that he'd really rather say nothing, and that he hated being put on the spot, that he hadn't really processed how he felt about things just yet and didn't really have the energy to worry about how Kurt would process them, too.

Instead, he ranted about Kurt's habit of snapping his fingers at waitstaff.

What he wanted to say was that he really wished he'd put two and two together sooner and realized that he'd recognized the name of his heart specialist because he'd seen the card on the Hummel's refrigerator door no less than a dozen different times. If he'd remembered Kurt play fighting off an afternoon kiss battle/study break in the kitchen by hiding behind the freezer door, or if Blaine had actually taken that moment to notice the collection of business cards and emergency numbers on the door instead of leering at Kurt's still visible ass below the door, maybe he wouldn't have been blindsided when he bumped into Burt Hummel coming out of his last doctor's appointment, his hands full of pamphlets and prescriptions for beta blockers. If he'd paid attention, maybe he wouldn't be obligated now to tell Kurt what was going on before Burt could do it.

Instead, he told Kurt to stop putting bronzer in his moisturizer.

He wanted to admit that he'd been secretly relieved that Burt hadn't bought his hastily made up cover story and had instead, in true Burt Hummel fashion said, "If there's anything you need, kid, anything, anytime, you know where to find me." He wanted to say it made him feel better, less alone than he had since Cooper went back to L.A.

Instead, it just reminded him that Kurt was leaving, too.

And that was the ice that froze the bubble in his chest, left it to shatter, the shards raking their way out, his voice choked and halting.

"It's like New York is the only thing we talk about now, Kurt, and it's like you can't even wait to get out of here. How's that supposed to make me feel? In a few months, you're going to be gone... and I'm going to be right here. By myself."

"You're right. I have been distant," he continued, unable to stop the hemorrhaging, "and I'm sorry, but I've had some things going on that I wasn't comfortable talking about. I've been keeping them from you and telling myself it was because I didn't want to distract you from your NYADA audition, because I couldn't live with myself if I did anything to keep you from reaching your dreams."

Kurt leaned over and tilted Blaine's chin up to meet his gaze. "Oh, honey, you can tell me anything. I love you, and I thought you knew that all of my dreams begin and end with you. New York, NYADA, all of it only matters because I know you're going to be right there with me someday. I could never do any of it without you."

"I love you so much."

"I love you, too." Blaine let himself be pulled into Kurt's hug, let it linger a little longer as he solidified his resolve, "Now what were you afraid to tell me?"

Blaine sucked in a damp breath, blinking rapidly as he reached for his bag and unzipped it. The pamphlets he pulled out were the same ones his doctor had handed him once they finally had a name for his condition. "They found something, when I had my eye surgery. Coop came back to take me for some tests while Mom was out of town." He slid the brochures up onto Ms. Pillsbury's desk next to the jar of lotion with the cow spots on it, the title partially obscured by the glare from the overhead light.

Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy: ARVC

"I have a heart condition." He noted the tremble in Kurt's hand as he reached to pick up the paper and rushed to relieve some of the tension. "But before you freak out, you should know that I'm not sick, okay? It's a condition, and they can control it with medication for decades. Once it's diagnosed, almost no one dies from this."

He knew he'd said too much when the tremble in Kurt's hand worked its way up to his chin, his eyes shimmering as he said, "Almost?" Then, "Oh, Blaine..." and Blaine was wrapped in Kurt's arms, both of them shaking too hard to speak anymore.

-TBC

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