Sue peeked into the nursery, making sure that Robin was still sound asleep in her new crib. She'd only just moved out of her bassinet over the weekend, and Sue was still wont to check on her more often, victim to the anxiety all new mothers (not just those in their, late, late thirties) faced. Satisfied that her daughter was sleeping soundly, she shut the door and went across the hall to her own room just long enough to drop her robe on the end of the bed and grab the baby monitor off the nightstand before heading down the hall. She picked up the keys to her Le Car, bypassing those for her newly purchased Mom Mobile. The sensible sedan Robin's car seat stayed fastened in had a commendable propensity for keeping all four tires on the road, a feat the Le Car never quite mastered.
"Thanks again, Grace," she said, taking her coat from its hook by the door and passing off the baby monitor to her live in nanny. "I know this is your night off. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't an emergency."
"I don't mind, really," Grace dismissed, her long, dark hair loose from its normal single braid due to having been interrupted in the middle of preparing for bed. "I'm sure she'll be asleep for another few hours, anyway. Just drive safely. It must be some emergency to have you going out in this weather."
Sue cast a wary glance toward the window. The snow pelting the glass had picked up considerably in its intensity in the last hour or so, and a drift was already forming on the outside pane. It was coming down in clumps large enough to cast shadow puppets on the far wall where they crossed the beam of the streetlight. Good thing she'd had those custom snow chains installed on the Le Car, even though it had been like pulling teeth finding anyone on the Le Car forums that knew where to put the label. (She'd gone with the consensus and fixed the Le Tire Chain label underneath the one for Le Hubcap.) Front wheel drive could be tricky on anything with a coefficient of friction lower than that of gravel.
"It is." Most days she would've dismissed a frantic phone call from a high school student as an ill-advised prank or a ridiculous ploy for attention, most definitely the latter coming from Tina Cohen-Chang, but there'd been something in the voice on the other end of the line. "One of my kids is having a medical crisis, and his parents can't be reached. Someone needs to go check on him. Hopefully, I won't be long."
"Take your time," Grace said with a wan smile. "Robin's no trouble at all."
Sue gave a curt nod, fixing the collar on her coat. "I appreciate it. I'll make sure your paycheck reflects that you're at least as useful as the most highly skilled french fry basket dumper in the tri-county area." Grace gave her a knowing smirk, and Sue was out the door before she could hear what she was sure would've been a creatively scathing comeback. As much as she enjoyed the comfortable banter and trading of quips she shared with her nanny, now was not the time.
By the time she parked in the Andersons' driveway, the actual snow had let up some, but the wind had picked up considerably, blowing what had already fallen into swirling demons that chased their own tails across the road before piling into sand bar drifts that rocked the Le Car on its unstable chassis. If this kid's mom really was stuck in Detroit, Sue didn't see her getting a flight back into Columbus any time soon, let alone making the hour long drive to Lima. She sincerely hoped this wasn't a real emergency.
That hope died a short, painful death, heralded by the banshee wail of one Ms. Tina Cohen-Chang who had the door open before Sue could even knock.
"Coach Sylvester! Coach Sylvester! Thank God you're here!" The day (or night) any one of those glee kids was glad to see her must surely be the first day of the Apocalypse. Below their feet, Hell was freezing over. Either that, or this was an actual emergency and not some overly dramatic teenage angst. "Blaine tried to call his mom, but first, all he got was her voicemail, and when her plane landed, she called back right away, but she can't get back because of the storm, and she told us to call Mr. Schuester, but he and Miss Pillsbury are out of town for last minute wedding business, which is why Finn is filling in for him tomorrow, and we thought about calling Finn, but he doesn't really count as an adult, I don't think, so we called you, and..."
Sue forced a scowl and raised her hand to halt the incessant yammering. Closing her eyes, she said, "While I'm sure that some part of your hormonally challenged psyche thought it was a good idea to tell me that I was your absolute last option, and I should be flattered that you exhausted every other possibly avenue by which to spare me the trouble of trudging my way over here in this late season blizzard, I'm going to have to insist that you go home before the weather gets any worse. I'm sure your parents are worried."
Tina took a breath and let it out, probably preparing to argue, her head swaying somewhere between a nod and a shake. "But Blaine..."
"Isn't going to feel any better if you get in a wreck." And Sue wouldn't do anyone any good with a hyperactive wannabe diva buzzing around her head like a mosquito.
She deflated. "My dad has been blowing up my phone," she seemed to concede.
Sue squinted, taking in Tina's swollen, reddened eyes and drooping cheeks as she kept casting nervous glances up the stairs. "Are you okay to drive?"
She paused, clearly fighting an inner war, before nodding sharply and reaching for her coat which was hung on a hook by the door.
"Is he upstairs?" Sue asked.
Tina nodded, pulling her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. "He has that thing in his chest that's supposed to stop his heart from going haywire. It shocked him while he was sleeping, and he..." she blinked rapidly, her chin quivering as her eyes glassed over, "he freaked out, but the app says he's okay. He doesn't need to go to the hospital or anything, and he already has an appointment on Friday, but," her fingers fumbled at the buttons as she closed the coat, "he already wasn't feeling well. I think he needs to sleep, but he's afraid it will happen again. He won't come out of the bathroom. He called Kurt, though. Kurt's really good at calming him down." She beckoned toward the stairs, brushing at her cheek with one woolen sleeve as she sniffled. "I-I have to get my bag and let Blaine know I'm leaving." Sue didn't miss the hesitation at the bottom step as if she needed to summon up the courage to go back in. "I'll take you up."
Blaine's room wasn't exactly what Sue expected from a teenage boy's bedroom. Rather, it smelled a lot better than any teenaged boy she could recall, but then, she mostly only encountered them in the hallways, drowning in body wash and cheap cologne, or in the locker room, where every odorous fume they were trying to camouflage with the body wash and cologne reared its ugly head only to be re-doused. She didn't get a chance to notice much more than the smell, or lack thereof, before Tina poked her head into the adjoining bathroom, drawing her attention.
"Blaine? Sweetie? Coach Sue is here. I hate to... well, my dad will kill me if I don't get his car home before they issue a storm warning. Do you need me to get anything before I go?"
Sue didn't hear an answer, but Tina nodded before saying, "Tell Kurt 'hi' from me, okay? Feel better." Tina only met her eyes for a moment, her mouth working around something she ultimately decided not to speak aloud before she ducked past Sue and out the door.
Sue lingered outside the bathroom for a few beats, not because she didn't know how to take charge of a situation by making a suitable entrance, but because something in Tina's demeanor reminded her of that Norman guy from 'Psycho' every time he addressed his mother off camera. She'd have been a lot more comfortable if she knew for certain that was her Cheerios co-captain in there and not a mummified corpse. After all, she hadn't actually heard from Blaine at all and was going entirely on the word of a girl who'd changed identities from stuttering Goth to steampunk heroine to angry, whiny diva the way Kurt Hummel changed scarves. It was entirely possible that Anderson wasn't the only one with a mental condition she needed to be concerned about.
Plus, there was the whole issue of walking in on a teenaged boy in his en-suite bathroom.
"Oh, for Pete's sake." Removing her coat and tossing it onto the bed, she pushed back the sleeves on her blue velour track/lounge suit and barged in, arms crossed over her chest. "Well isn't this just fantastic. Less than two weeks after Midwest Championships, and my co-captain is throwing himself an all-night navel gazing party when he should be brainstorming ideas for our Nationals competition."
At first, there she was met by nothing but mess. The shower curtain had been pulled down, the rod askew in the corner of the bathtub, and whatever tubes and bottles had been out for easy access were now only accessible from one's hands and knees, shampoo and body wash in unhygienically close proximity to the toilet brush. The air was thick, acrid with sweat and what was probably vomit, though, thankfully the toilet looked to have been flushed. The towels looked to have been folded when they hit the floor after having the hanging bar snapped beneath them, and beneath the clutter, there was no tell-tale grime to indicate this was an accumulation of normal boy mess. This had been a recent storm of some considerable intensity.
And in the eye of it all, one Cheerios co-captain.
She stopped short upon actually getting a look at the captain in question. Definitely not a mummifed corpse. But not much better. Scrunched down between the commode and the bathtub (nice, full bath. Sue's own en-suite only had a walk-in shower.) Blaine's hair had long since sweated free of the gel and was clinging around his ears and forehead where it wasn't whorling about in uneven waves, and the parts of his face she could see glistened with a mixture of sweat from the heat of the confined space and what looked like tears. They weren't even the good kind of tears, borne of ridicule and intense overtraining, the likes of which Sue used to self-evaluate her effectiveness as a coach and a mentor.
These were tears meant for a mother.
While she occasionally referred to her charges as 'her kids,' only one had ever awakened the protective streak she'd formerly reserved for her sister, Jeanie, and even that was something she'd never admit aloud. None of them really ever escaped her self-imposed stereotypes of spoiled, entitled, lazy, whiny and privileged enough for her to feel anything parental toward them. Well, not a parent any of them would actually want, anyway.
In the absence of her ability to be what Blaine needed, she did the next best thing.
"That's enough, Short Stuff. Unless you've got your ass planted in a sitz bath back there, wipe that snot off your face and pull yourself together. As a rule, my evenings belong to my infant daughter and her live-in caregiver. They are reserved for folding cloth diapers and trading one-liners over an irish hot cocoa. You are not even a distant twentieth place on the list of people, and I use that term loosely, that I want to spend several hours trapped in a bathroom with during a snowstorm."
She jutted her chin toward the phone he had pinched between his shoulder and ear, arms wrapped too tightly around his knees to leave room for his elbows to bend in the tight space and hold it with his hands. "I'll wait while you finish your phone sex with Porcelain. You have two minutes." She turned her attention to the medicine cabinet, not even allowing a pretense of politeness as she swung the door open, though she may have let her facade slip as soon as her back was turned and the mirror safely faced a wall. She wasn't surprised to find a thermometer inside, which she scooped up unceremoniously. She was surprised that it was one of the old-fashioned glass ones. She thought everyone had gone digital eons ago. It served the lazy human nature best, after all. Then again, the kid was a music theater geek, or something. The thermometer was likely a prop for all she knew.
Slamming the cabinet door shut once more, she noted in the mirrored reflection that Blaine had raised himself off the floor and was seated on the edge of the tub, scrubbing at his eyes and cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt while he finished his phone conversation. She didn't know exactly what the gadget on the side of the sink was, but she figured it must be important, since he had it nearby, and took that, too, shoving it down into the front pocket of her track jacket before striding out of the room to wait.
Blaine slunk out of the bathroom while Sue was gazing at her own reflection in his bedroom window, wondering just how it was she managed to find herself in such a predicament, completely out of sorts as to what exactly she was supposed to be saying or doing while that little, niggling protective streak of hers kept trying to peck, peck, peck its way out through her carefully constructed shell.
"I-I'm sorry," Ms. Sylvester, he stammered, fidgeting with his phone even though the screen was dark.
"Don't be ridiculous," she scowled. "Did you give yourself a congenital heart condition?"
"N-no..."
"And were you doing something foolish like jumping on the bed and singing showtunes that would knowingly exacerbate that condition?"
"No, I was asleep."
"Then you have nothing to apologize for other than the incredibly monotone color scheme in this room. I'm surprised, actually. I'd have thought Porcelain would have taught you better."
His red-rimmed eyes blinked up at her before dropping to the floor. "You didn't have to..."
"I'm sure your mother would disagree," she interrupted, clapping a hand on his shoulder and directing him toward the bed, where she pushed him into a sit, even though he had to stand on tiptoe to do so, shimmying back until his feet no longer touched the floor. "And while I'm not your mother, I am someone's mother and far from the heartless, self-absorbed monster I make myself out to be." She stood back, looking down on him with an appraising gaze now that she could see him.
He was obviously shaken, shaky, still shaking with a fine tremor he was trying to still by fisting his hands in the duvet. His phone was plopped beside him in its own blanket canyon, and he had a defeated hunch to his shoulders she wasn't used to seeing. He was usually so carefully defiant in her presence, to remind her she didn't own him despite the way she'd stepped in to shield him from the heat of the school board. She wasn't sure if it was the hunch of his shoulders, but he looked softer somehow, too, a slight pooch around the waist that could well be the result of decreased physical activity, though it reminded her a little too much of the swelling Jean developed whenever her congestive heart failure started to progress ahead of her medication's ability to keep the symptoms in check.
Reaching out to grasp his face so that she could feel for swollen glands, she tilted his head up to meet her gaze. "So, you wanna tell me what happened?"
He hesitated, swallowing hard as he blinked rapidly.
"You know, I may not be a doctor, but my sister, Jean, who you never had the pleasure to meet, was born with a heart defect. It's actually one of the major known complications of Down's. We managed it her whole life until she passed from pneumonia as a result of congestive heart failure. For at least the last thirty years of that life, I was her medical power of attorney, so I'm no stranger to doctor speak." She turned his head side to side, noting that his complexion was more pale than flushed as it had been while he was locked up in the bathroom with little to no air circulation. She bent, moving her thumbs over his cheekbones in order to get a better look in his eyes, which were glassy and red from crying, but otherwise normal. "I am, however, pretty incompetent when it comes to mind-reading." She patted his cheek, then stood up. "I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."
He crumpled then, hugging his arms to his chest and ducking his chin as a fresh wave of tears burst out. She tried to contain her grimace. The kid was an ugly crier. She had a real weakness for ugly crying. "Th-that's just it, I-I,I don't know." His whole chest heaved as he sucked in a breath. "I'm doing everything they tell me to. E-every-everything, and s-still..." He shut his eyes, steeling his jaw shut as his nostrils flared around another stifled gasp. "I'm supposed to be getting better," he cried, head tilted to the side as if it was suddenly too heavy to hold upright. "But I don't f-feel any better," he hiccupped.
"So... what?" Sue prodded with a shrug. "You're okay wearing your big boy panties so long as everything's working the way it's supposed to, but the first time you have a setback, you decide you're wasting your time and just give it all up?"
"No!" He spat, bottom jaw jutting out slightly. And there was that spark she was going for.
"Really?" She pressed. "Because the pathetic, sniveling, superhero alter ego reject sitting before me is not the same poised, pint-sized, and freakishly charming young man that became Student Council President, co-Captain of the Cheerios, and by association, role model for every student at McKinley."
"You don't understand," he grumbled, chin tilted into his shoulder. At least he had his breathing under control again.
"Try me," she offered.
He bit his lip. refusing to meet her gaze. So, she did what she did best. Pulling out the thermometer with a flourish she said, "Well, if you won't open your mouth," she drew out the word suggestively, "I know another way we can proceed."
Then, he actually did flush bright red, before huffing, "Iwasasleep."
"What's that, Fenster? I don't speak 'Usual Suspects.'"
"I. Was. Asleep," he repeated, no longer sobbing despite the tear tracks that continued to refresh themselves every time he blinked. "I didn't do anything wrong, and it still..." He swallowed, Adam's apple jumping. "I got shocked while I was sleeping. I didn't know anything was even wrong. If I didn't have the ICD…my Mom," a great shaking breath, "my Mom would've come home tomorrow and found me..."
Apparently, he'd found the point beyond which he couldn't let his mind go, because he went stone silent, face still like he'd turned off all the churning beneath the surface and just left if floating slack. His eyes met hers, then, holding her gaze for the first time since she'd shown up, dark shadows shrouded by clumps of sodden eyelashes with just her own reflection peering between.
And maybe she wasn't his mother, but she hugged him anyway, for the mother who couldn't be there, and the father that almost got there too late. Everyone was someone's baby, after all.
-#-
Kurt stared at his phone, half convinced that he'd misheard and Blaine hadn't just hung up in the middle of a very emotionally charged phone call because Sue Sylvester told him to. But when it didn't immediately ringback, and then didn't do so one minute, two minutes, or five minutes later, he blinked. Even dried out and burning, his eyes overflowed the reservoir dams in the deep corners when he clenched them shut in an effort to push down the tide of panic working its way up his throat with every echoing pound of the heart in his chest. He swallowed the backwash flooding his sinuses with a drawn out, sniffling inhale and forced his eyes open wide, then wider to override the reflex to shut down and curl in, squared up his shoulders and stood, precision like a toy soldier as his jaw clenched.
One crash, giggle, moan from three curtains over, and the cork came out, releasing every last one of his bottled up emotions, love, fear, powerlessness, and rage. He wasn't a violent man, had spent most of his formative years fighting back with his words, his mind, and his own success without raising a fist, despite his own accumulated aches and bruises. But that didn't mean he wasn't angry, that he couldn't be fierce, didn't know rage.
And he did.
He raged that he had to be run out of his own school in order to meet the love of his life. He raged because Baine hadn't hadn't run from his own in time. He raged that someone else's hatred brought them together only to keep them miles apart; that they were struggling, six hundred miles between them, when they should have been moving on with their lives together, that reward postponed by the amount of time they stole from Blaine. He raged that the fairy tale romance he'd dreamed of all his life contained as many elements of Grimm as Disney, that every phone call was exquisite in its careful balance of laughter through tears, so perfectly real in the way it breathed life through him by yoking him hand in hand with the certain uncertainty of death in all its soul reaping disguises.
Mostly he raged that, with all the advances in technology, the closing of geographical distances with virtual intimacy, it didn't allow his arms to reach through the phone and hold Blaine while he flew apart, didn't give his words the power to fix anything in the face of panic and terror, crying, screaming, suffocating, silent with no air and no time to string them together with anything but sobs of his own.
But seeing as how he couldn't change any of that, and wouldn't, because loving Blaine was both the heart of his ache and the beat in his heart, and he couldn't just turn it off, he'd have to do something else with all that righteous rage.
God help them all.
Striding through the loft without making any effort to silence his footfalls between the tamp of throw rugs scattered over the gouged hard wood, he covered the distance between his corner and Rachel's in half the number of steps it usually required.
Although it wasn't actually necessary to open the curtain to be heard, Rachel and Brody had been disrespecting that fact for the last hour, and Kurt returned the favor, covering his eyes with one hand before dragging the curtain back with the other, enough force in his grip to send more than one of the plastic drapery hooks clinking to the floor.
"All right you two! Knock! It! Off!" His inner Joyce DeWitt was satisfied by the surprised screams and subsequent scrambling punctuated by the thud of Brody's bare feet on the floor as he streaked over to the 'door' in a show of hyper masculine chivalry, too concerned about defending his lady to bother covering himself. Kurt's sense of justice, however, wasn't satisfied until a well-placed heel stomp onto the top of Brody's toes wiped that smug grin off his face and left him doubled over, pretentiously naked, fake-tanned ass aimed in the opposite direction.
He barely registered Rachel's, "Kurt?! What the..." from between the pillows where she was hunched up with the sheet pulled up to her chin before he yanked the curtain closed, pulling down enough of the hangers to leave half of it dragging on the floor and the rest rippling in a non-existent breeze.
As soon as he turned on is heel toward the kitchen, he knew he should be sorry, but he wasn't. He'd just spent the last forty-five minutes trying to convince his boyfriend, who was sick and scared out of his mind after just being electrocuted out of a sound sleep, that everything was going to be okay, while Rachel and Brody did their best to knock the paint off the wall behind their headboard.
And no, Kurt was not sorry for hating them just a little bit for not realizing the ignorance in their bliss.
He wasn't naive enough to believe that would be the end of it, but he utilized the sudden deafening silence to put on a kettle for tea, something cathartic in the whoosh as the burner ignited and the subsequent ticking of the metal expanding over the heat. Each ping and tick penetrated the cavity between his eyes the way the fizz from a soda sometimes did when he tried to drink it too soon after opening the bottle. Cupping an elbow in his opposite palm, he supported one arm across his chest as he pressed a thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose, he willed the anger to bleed off with each inhale and exhale. It was maybe working too well, the in and out of his breathing and the gradually rising pitch of the steam somehow drowning out the approaching footsteps.
When the kettle finally whistled, he opened his eyes and jumped to find Rachel standing next to him in her robe. Even though he wasn't sorry, roommate decorum and probably human decency dictated that he apologize, but instead he just blinked at her, holding onto the arm across his chest as if releasing it would somehow allow the two halves of his body, one still angry and restless, the other wrung out and bone weary, to separate and fall to the floor, until she reached past him and turned off the stove. She padded silently over to the cupboard and pulled down two cups. The one she handed him clanked and rattled against the stovetop when he tried to fill it, boiling water nearly splashing onto his shaking hand before she covered it with her own and finished the job, setting both cups on the table next to the lazy susan stocked with different varieties of tea and sweetener.
"Milk?" she asked, and he nodded, pulling out two chairs as she went to the refrigerator. She came back with the vegan soy/almond/coconut/whatever iteration she was drinking that week, and set it down hard enough to let him know she wasn't going back for the kind he usually took, and he supposed he deserved that, but the way she stood back arms crossed and eyebrows raised indicated she was hoping to get a rise out of him. He knew he was supposed to say that there was no actual cream in the milk substitute, which meant it only watered down the tea without enhancing it in any way, and she was supposed to comment about lemon curdling real milk and not wanting chunks in her beverage, but as it was, he'd added the 'milk' and honey to the cup and taken a sip before he even realized he'd forgotten the tea. Rachel scrunched up her chin and pushed back the sleeves on her robe before taking a seat beside him.
Once he corrected his omission, the caffeine in the tea seemed to even him out a little. At least his hands stopped shaking. Rachel must have taken that as a sign that it was safe to speak. "I'm sorry, Kurt. We didn't realize you were still home. It was our understanding that..."
"I know," he sighed, dropping his chin to his chest, "I said I was going to be in the library," his breath came out with a whoosh. "But B-B..." He shut his eyes again, exasperated at the way just thinking Blaine's name made his breath hitch and start the shaking all over again, in his chest this time instead of his hands. "Blaine called."
Again with the chin scrunch, this time accompanied by a slow nod as she took a sip of her tea and set it down. Blaine called all the time, and she knew Kurt's policy about always answering the phone, so he knew he was off the hook for not leaving when he said he would, but there was still the matter of assaulting her naked boyfriend who had yet to make an appearance on this side of the curtain.
He supposed he could spare an inquiry in lieu of an actual apology. "Is Brody...?"
"Nursing his bruised pride and really glad that you were only wearing your jazz shoes," Rachel supplied. She reached over and covered his hand with hers. "And Blaine?"
Try as he might to breathe deeply and stay calm, the breath he tried to take quaked all the way down, and the effort of trying to release it in a controlled fashion only made his throat tighten and the corners of his eyes impossibly tight. He ended up not being able to speak at all, choking on gulp after gulp of stale, half exhaled air while the flood gates behind his eyes busted wide open, tears running together and dripping down the back of his throat and the sides of his nose until he thought he'd drown. Then Rachel was there, the thick plush of her robe soaking up the water works as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head into her stomach. She didn't press for information, just held on, her fingers so small where they stroked over his shoulders and the back of his neck until he could get the words out on his own.
"H-h-he he got shocked," he stammered, his owns arms sliding up to her elbows so he could turn his head.
"Oh no... is-is he okay?" she asked.
"Y-es..." He attempted to nod but the movement of his head burrowing deeper into the plush of her robe turned it into a shake. "N-no. I mean, I think he's fine now, but when he called, he was..." He wrapped his arms around her, one more sob shaking through him, "He was so s-scared. And I couldn't do a-any-anything."
"Kurt, you answered the phone, didn't you?" She stepped back, holding him at arm's length with one hand while handing him a napkin with the other. Then she sat. "Look, I don't even claim to know what you a-and Blaine are going through, and admittedly, I 've got so much going on myself right now that I haven't really made much of an effort to understand, but I do know one thing with a fair amount of certainty."
"Which is?"
"Which is, if Finn and I had spent a little more time being available to each other and a little less time pining, we might not have broken off our engagement in such a messy fashion. Now, could I have stopped him from shooting himself in the leg and getting kicked out of the Army? No. And could he have stopped me from bumping into Brody in that dorm bathroom or ending up as Miss July's favorite verbal punching bag? Probably not. But I wish I'd had the chance to be there when he was in the hospital, and I can't help but wonder if I'd have been a little less miserable if I'd had him to talk to all those nights I was hiding under the covers in my bed while my roommate slept with half the student body."
"I know you're probably right, Rachel, but... but you didn't hear him. I hate knowing he's hurting and terrified and that I can't do anything."
She cupped the back of his neck with one hand, stroking at the short hairs above his collar. "But you do, Kurt. You love him, and that's everything. If it was nothing, then he wouldn't call." Kurt opened his mouth to protest, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips, "If it was nothing, and all it ever did was make you feel powerless and lost, then you wouldn't answer."
For an overly confident, driven, self-absorbed, and often obtuse-for-the-sake-of-being-obtuse little woman, Rachel sometimes knew just the right thing to say.
Or she'd memorized enough romantic comedy dialogue to plagiarize just the right sentiment. Either way, Kurt was glad she was his friend. He wrapped his arms around her, sniffling one last time and then jumping as his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He fumbled free of the embrace and tried not to smear the screen. "Pam... uh, Blaine's mom." Rachel raised her eyebrows and gestured for him to hurry up and answer it.
"Mrs. Anderson... Pam, I'm so glad to hear from you. Is Blaine...?"
"He's fine, honey. That Coach of his must have the magic touch. Apparently he fell asleep shortly after she got there. She says he maybe has a slight fever, coming down with a cold or something, but he's okay for now. Anyway, the snow's starting to let up and I'm on standby for the next flight back. I just wanted to let you know Blaine's okay, and... thank you. For talking with him when I couldn't. And I'll be sure to fill you in after he sees his doctor on Friday, since I know getting him to talk about that stuff is like pulling teeth."
Kurt laugh-sighed, the tension finally melting away. "Th-thank you, Pam. Thank you. Have a safe flight."
"He's okay," Kurt choked, pulling Rachel in for one last hug.
They both spun, tear tracks fresh on their faces, when the door to the loft slid open suddenly.
"Well isn't this touching. Please tell me you're not both on your periods, because they confiscated all my chocolate at the airport."
"Santana!" Kurt exclaimed.
"What are you doing here?" Rachel asked.
Santana shrugged at the luggage entourage strewn about her feet. "Isn't it obvious?" she smirked. "I'm moving in."
-#-
"Kurt, it's just a little cold." Blaine grinned tiredly and feigned exasperation at having had basically the same conversation three or four times already that morning. Kurt did know how to keep him distracted.
"Said everyone in every romantic tragedy ever, right before the cold turned out to be m-meningitis or cancer, congestive heart failure, West Nile Virus, Brain Eating Amoeba, or...or Rabies!"
Blaine dipped his head against his locker, only able to smirk because he knew, despite the alarmist tone in Kurt's voice, he was just taking all of their very real fears and pointing out how ridiculous and pointless it was to obsess about them. "I do not have Rabies."
"You can't know that," Kurt argued. "Your house has that big old attic, and I can't say for certain I didn't see any bats up there when I was putting away your Christmas decorations. I've seen stories, at least two of which were not discredited by Snopes, where bats flew into the duct system of a house through the basement or attic and bit people in their sleep."
"We don't have bats, either, and to be honest, whatever was in that cold buster kit of Tina's really did the trick. I feel mostly fine this morning, just a little sniffle."
"Tina? Really? Are you sure Sue didn't slip you one of those steroid injections she gave Mercedes at Nationals last year?"
"Um, no, but I am sure that I feel much better this morning, and that you are sleep deprived and rambling." He glanced over his shoulder at the trio bearing down on him from the other end of the hallway. "I can't believe you gave Santana your bed."
"I wouldn't say 'gave' is the operative term," Kurt grumbled. "She borrowed my room to change out of her traveling clothes and then rolled around naked on my duvet. Now I need to find time between Dance Class and Performance Vocal Calisthenics to make a laundry run."
"Well, you can practice your vocal calisthenics while your sheets tumble dry. The acoustics in the laundromat are usually pretty awesome." Blaine offered. "But speaking of running, I have to let you go. I think I'm about to get dressed down by McKinley's own Secret Society of Worry Warts."
"Hmm, say 'hi' to Tina and Sam for me," Kurt dismissed. "Counting down the days to Mr. Schuester's wedding, baby. Take care of yourself. Love you."
"Love you, too." Blaine barely got his phone switched off before his locker door caught a shove from behind him and slammed shut in his ear.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Blaine turned slowly to meet three glaring pairs of eyes. "Uh, hi, Tina... and Sam...Finn. I was getting ready to change out my homework for my third period Physics book." He motioned to the messenger bag, unzipped at his hip. "Is there a problem?"
"Yeah, dude, what are you even doing here?" Finn asked. "First, Tina comes to school looking like the last one standing at the end of 'Night of the Living Dead' with a story about how you were so sick you had a heart attack or something, and then you missed First and Second periods without bothering to text any of us and tell us where you were."
"Look, I'm sorry, Queen T, if I freaked you out last night." Blaine put on his most earnest expression as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. "I was a little freaked out myself, but I'm fine now. Your cold buster kit really did the trick, okay?"
She looked up at him, a tear in the corner of just one eye as she searched his face. "But your heart..."
He finished zipping up his messenger bag and started a slow walk down the hall toward his class with the three of them in tow. "I... had an episode, which my ICD resolved, and I'm fine now, or I will be once I kick the last of this cold. It's no big deal." Whether he actually believed that mattered little so long as he convinced them.
"Well, okay, if you say so," Sam begrudged, obviously not buying Blaine's dismissal as genuine, "but if you're so fine, how come you're late getting to school and didn't answer me when I texted you?"
"Since I... got shocked, I'm not allowed to drive, and..." he ducked his head because the next part was even more embarrassing than losing his driving privileges, "since I can't do any strenuous exercise, I had to wait for my mom to shovel the driveway herself and then bring me to school." He glanced up at the others, feeling his cheeks burn at the admission. "But the official story is, my car wouldn't start."
"Man, that sucks," Finn noted. "Why didn't you say something? Burt's got a plow attachment on the shop truck especially for driveways and parking lots. If you needed help, I could've put you on the list. You'd have been plowed out before breakfast."
Blaine nodded. "Thanks, man. That's exactly what Kurt said when he called me up five different times this morning to make sure I was really fine and too busy to answer your texts." He held up his hand, "Which I am, and I'm not talking about this anymore. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, during which I fully expect to find out that everything's working exactly the way it's supposed to, and I refuse to worry about this or let any of you worry about this until after that."
"Well, okay, then," Tina asserted, squaring up her shoulders as she stuck out her lower lip defiantly. "In that case, I have a diva week to win."
"Speaking of diva," Blaine segued, "Did you hear about Santana? She just moved in with Kurt and Rachel."
"She... what?" Finn and Sam responded in kind.
Tina halted abruptly, eyes glaring with more than the remnants of tears, and she pointed her finger at him, hand on hip. "Blaine Anderson, you did not just steal my diva thunder by mentioning Santana Lopez. She does not even go here!"
"Oh! Tina, I'm sorry! I..." He smirked, winking at Sam and Finn to show he knew exactly what he was doing. No way was he missing school and risk losing the privilege of taking off the next Thursday for Mr. Schue's wedding, and no way was he letting everyone hover around him like he was about to pass out, either. This day was about...Tina. And anyway, he was done thinking about last night. Or tomorrow, for that matter.
Tina's eyes narrowed to slits, her lips too tight to even whistle, "You guys are all. the. same. But this diva 'don't sweat da haters.' So get outta my grill and outta my way." With that, she stalked off and proceeded to win that Diva title, just like he knew she would.
Sam and Finn fell into her wake, one at each of Blaine's shoulders. "Seriously, though. Is that for real? Santana cohabitating in a room with no walls next to Kurt and Rachel?" Finn pried.
"And Brody, apparently," Blaine offered.
Blaine could have apologized, but he didn't. Instead, he relished the trading back and forth of raised eyebrows and silent, cringing 'ooohs.' Deflection was a fine art. He learned it from his mother.
-#-
Kurt loved Mr. Schue. He did. And he had no prior issues with Miss Pillsbury. In fact, he should probably thank her for inviting him to the wedding at all after he ralphed on her shoes sophomore year. Still, if there was a suggestion box, he would definitely be lodging a complaint about scheduling their wedding on a Thursday. Who did that? Okay, he got it. Valentine's Day. It wouldn't land on a weekday every year, and they had the rest of their married lives together during which neither of them would ever have an excuse for forgetting their anniversary, but seriously, they couldn't, like, get the license on Thursday and just have the ceremony on Saturday or something? He didn't know how it was working out for everyone else, but Kurt had class until late on Wednesday and wouldn't end up getting into Lima until nearly midnight, several hours after Rachel and Santana, and far too late to catch up with the rest of the graduates at the post-rehearsal reunion dinner at Breadstix.
He missed Mercedes and Puck and Quinn and the rest, but he really, really hated having to wait until the next morning to see Blaine.
He hated even more that Blaine had school on Friday and Kurt had to be back in New York for an early shift at the diner on Saturday morning, the only shift he could trade for his standing Wednesday and Thursday night closings.
He sighed, straightening the coat he had folded over his lap.
"You know, that coat won't do you much good if you're not going to wear it," his dad chided from the driver's seat. Kurt needed a ride over to Blaine's since Blaine was banned from driving for the time being. Kurt would drive them to the church in Blaine's Prius after his dad dropped him off, though he wasn't guaranteeing he'd be able to make the entire trip with both hands on the wheel. Hell, if Blaine looked half as good in person as he did in Kurt's memory, he'd be glad he had the coat to maintain some semblance of dignity.
"Um, I didn't want to crush my pocket square," Kurt dismissed, embarrassed at the gravel that had crept into his voice.
Burt chuckled knowingly. "And I suppose you didn't pack anything warm in that overnight bag you stashed in the back that you didn't think I knew about, either. You got plans you want to tell me about, or should I stay up half the night worrying about you freezing to death in a ditch somewhere?"
Kurt cupped a hand over the rising blush on the back of his neck and turned his face into the window, suddenly captivated by the lack of adequate snow removal service in this town. "I don't think staying warm will be a problem," he admitted.
Kurt could practically hear his father raising his eyebrows and smirking behind him. "Does Blaine's mother know not to expect him home, then? He's been sick recently, you know. She'll worry."
"It was her idea, actually." Kurt turned just enough so he could see his dad out of the corner of his eye, his chin still dropped, not because he was afraid of a reprimand but because the promise of that night felt sacred somehow, and he only wanted one other person in that sanctuary. "Part of her Christmas present to us. She paid for the room."
His dad rubbed a hand on the thigh of his jeans before straightening his cap and then trading it with the one on the wheel as he leaned his opposite elbow on the arm rest, his head leaning onto his fist. "That's a nice present," he smirked. "And I assume you were eventually going to tell me."
Kurt darted an eye across the cab. "Actually, I was kind of hoping to take one look at Blaine, yell 'don't wait up,' and then slam the door, hoping you'd get the hint."
Burt chuckled to himself. "Hint taken," he said. At least, that's what Kurt thought he said. It was hard to hear anything over the barrage of fireworks that exploded behind his eyes when he caught sight of Blaine gliding down the front steps of his house to meet them, his own coat folded over one arm, and looking more stunning than even the fantasy Kurt had conjured in anticipation of the moment. The truck was still rolling to a stop in the Anderson's driveway when Kurt opened his door. Only his father's firm grip on his bicep kept him inside the vehicle until it was safe to exit. "Kurt."
Kurt caught his breath and turned in his seat. "Dad?"
Burt nodded toward the back and then reached behind the seats before pulling out Kurt's overnight bag and shoving it into his arms. "You boys have a good time."
Kurt knew he was beaming when he said, "Thanks. And Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't wait up."
-#-
Despite the threat of pending spontaneous combustion, Kurt resisted the urge to run over, sweep Blaine up in his arms, and kiss him breathless until they both collapsed into the nearest snow bank. Instead he waited, swaying silently in place, his most demure expression curving the edge of his smile and the corners of his eyes as the snow crunched behind him and his father accelerated away, Blaine's hand raised in salutation until the truck rounded the corner out of sight.
Then, hoisting his bag over his shoulder, Kurt sidled over, outstretched hand taking the keys from Blaine's while pressing their palms together, fingers interlacing. Bending down, he opened the passenger side door of Blaine's Prius and stood a little too close to usher Blaine inside without brushing their entire bodies together from knee to shoulder. Blaine stopped him from drawing away too fast by grasping hold of the bowtie around Kurt's neck and peering up at him through his eyelashes. Kurt inhaled and averted his eyes before he got too drawn in, dropping his chin to Blaine's shoulder long enough to whisper. "You look amazing."
"I missed you so much," Blaine breathed into Kurt's throat before letting his hand slide down from the bowtie, across chest to elbow, before slipping into the car. Kurt was pretty sure he was going to go blind if his pupils dilated any farther out here in the glare of winter, so he met Blaine's gaze for just a second before shutting the door a split second behind one perfectly shined black shoe.
He didn't hurry crossing in front of the car, made sure to stand, let his suit fall just right as he straightened the strap of his bag over his shoulder and tried to let the frigid air cool his blood despite the heat of Blaine's keen stare as it bored laser beams through him and all his carefully fitted clothes.
By the time he dropped his bag behind the seat and slid inside, resisting the urge to squeak in surprise at finding himself practically on top of the steering wheel before adjusting the seat back, his face felt like an ice cap over a lava lake, melted to the point of cracking with steam geysers in his fingertips. He'd driven half a mile before he realized they were going the wrong way, a fact he would've missed entirely had Blaine not slid a hand onto his thigh and dropped his chin onto Kurt's shoulder close enough that he could feel more than hear the raspy, "Easy, tiger. I'd rather go straight to the hotel, too, but they're expecting us at the church." A beat passed while Blaine's fingers tightened suggestively, the goosebumps sparking over Kurt's skin from his scalp to the elastic of his socks having nothing at all to do with the dry February chill in the air. Then, as they eased the car around, Blaine turned the heat down and breathed just behind Kurt's ear, his cheek scratchy against Kurt's throat, even freshly shaven. "I think the defroster just broke. Better step on it before the windows fog up."
Kurt's foot stomped down on the accelerator.
Hotel, churching parking lot. Potato, potahto.
"Blaine, my coat is there for a reason."
"My hand is cold."
Kurt arched up out of his seat. "Ooomph."
"Warm it up for me."
"Nnnngh, where is that church?!"
-#-
By the time Mercedes dragged them from the back of the car and into the church, sans crushed pocket squares, Blaine and Kurt were at least fully reacquainted if less than satisfied and more than wrinkled. They narrowly missed being hit by a cab speeding away empty as Ms. Pillsbury hiked her dress up to avoid the flinging slush sprayed out behind it and jogged back inside with a slightly glassy-eyed smile in their direction. Kurt may have unceremoniously shoved Mercedes out of its path while wrapping his arm more tightly around Blaine to pull him closer. And he might, then, have held on long enough that Mercedes had to physically re-insert herself between them with a knowing huff, but the response was automatic. It's not like he could've helped it. Or would've, given how amazing Blaine smelled pressed up against him and buzzing with adrenaline.
It was probably a good thing that Mercedes walked between them as a buffer, because that chemical reaction was about five minutes from releasing the kind of kinetic energy that would require a change of clothes.
Kurt couldn't find it in himself to be apologetic. Not when Blaine was flushed and giggly, sparking with life and love the way Kurt hadn't seen him since before Nationals. Not when he was just as loopy himself, relying perhaps too much on the composure of his freshly tucked shirt and the crispness of his lapels to create an air of 'put together' when his blood was still fizzing with the potential to send him flying apart.
He couldn't help but feel as though they'd slid backwards through a time warp. Instead of passing through the narthex and into the nave of the church, they were sneaking out of the Common Room at Dalton. Pavarotti's teeny tiny and only half bedazzled casket was all but forgotten in the bottom of his bag as he relished the new sensation of Blaine's fingers, his boyfriend's fingers, between his, all the way up to the thin web of skin at the junction of knuckle and hand where he couldn't remember ever feeling another person's touch, new and perfect and blushing with the thrill of it.
This really was like starting all over again, only better, because nothing he'd imagined then about how good it could be came anywhere close to how good it was, and now, how amazing it was again.
It wasn't until they sat down in a pew and overheard Quinn and Santana sharing a rousing conversation that somehow made Al Roker and Mr. Schuester seem superior to the entirety of the male gender that Kurt realized he and Blaine hadn't actually talked about anything of substance since his dad dropped him off... 45 minutes ago. When he laced his fingers into Blaine's, mutually thwarting Tina's attempt to sandwich herself in between, he decided they didn't need words. Words they could have even separated by six hundred miles. This –the silent communication of breath and touch, proximity so tight that their auras, if they had them, must surely be mingling –this was what they'd been missing.
And now they weren't anymore.
He tried to follow the ceremony but tuned out when Mercedes sang, however beautifully, a lyric about husband being yoked to wife that threatened to spoil his mood with overthinking. Instead, he slid down in the pew just enough that his shoulder butted squarely against Blaine's, pinning the fabric between them, so when he stroked his thumb over the swell of Blaine's and pulled their hands into his lap, the cuffs of their shirt sleeves rode up and their wrists pressed together, thrumming pulse points and pounding hearts.
Will and Emma had their 'I do' moment(1), and then they were back again, in Blaine's car, and finally at the hotel with just the technicality of the reception between themselves and the room upstairs. In order to keep things from boiling over between them, they did the noble thing and went their separate ways to mingle.
Blaine felt bad for Tina, since she didn't have a date, and Kurt had missed the dinner with the other New Directions graduates so had catching up to do with Puck and Mike. Kurt made what passed as small talk but couldn't keep from brushing a hand over the back of his neck and ducking his head with a blush every so often only to catch Blaine's eyes on him over Tina's shoulder or behind Sam's back.
Kurt returned the attention, laughing a little too loudly at one of Puck's inappropriate jokes just to justify tossing his head up for a better view of the back of Blaine's suit pants between the tails of his coat, stretched all the tighter by Blaine's hands in the perfectly pleated front pockets. If her glassy-eyed pallor and slightly dismissive smile was any indicator, then he may have spun Mercedes on one too many turns when he invited her to dance as he tried to steer them closer to where Blaine was laughing and talking with Marley and Unique. He was on his way to talk to Finn, who seemed to be in some kind of funk that he assumed had to do with seeing Rachel, when Blaine motioned that it was their turn to sing. Not a moment too soon, either, since Rachel was making her way toward Finn, and pretty much every one of Kurt's electrons was dragging him toward the outermost orbitals of Blaine.
The fun, poppy beat of Depeche Mode's "I Just Can't Get Enough," was the perfect song to come back together on, flirty and cute with just enough energy to take the edge off the sexual tension without negating the spark of exhilaration they got from performing again together, feeding into each other to make that synergy that pulled the crowd onto the dance floor around them.
But if anything could've kept them from their room upstairs, it wouldn't have been the other guests, the small talk, or even the thrill of performance. It would have been the way it felt, after the song when they were finally, finally dancing together, slow shuffle and sway with Blaine's head on Kurt's shoulder, hands under the tails of suit coats, just stiff linen between fingertips and skin.
"It was a beautiful ceremony, wasn't it?" Blaine sounded nearly catatonic, dreamy and loose in Kurt's arms.
It was freaking adorable.
"Hmm, I guess," Kurt teased, shrugging just enough to roll Blaine's head closer to his own throat so he could relish in the tickle of loosening curls on the underside of his jaw.
Blaine curled closer, sliding his arms up to Kurt's shoulder blades from his waist as he chuckled low in his throat. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, weddings are nice, but I don't know if relationships really work." He tightened his fingers at Blaine's waist, knowing full well how ticklish he was there. "I mean, weren't Bethenny and Jason supposed to be forever?"
Blaine twisted himself away, lifting his head without straightening the tilt as he fixed Kurt in his gaze. Kurt could hardly refrain from kissing the lopsided grin off his face as Blaine parried with, "For every Bethenny and Jason, there is… a Will and a Jada." His bushy eyebrows quirked up as he smoothed the shoulders of Kurt's coat, feet still swaying between each other, "And a-a... Kurt and a Goldie."
Kurt pulled him back in, burying his chin behind Blaine's ear as he breathed, "I'm Goldie, right?"
He could feel Blaine's smile against his collar. "Of course." His voice was a full step lower and barely supported, with a raspy timbre that sent shivers down Kurt's spine when he said, "Just please tell me that, whether relationships really work or not, we're still going upstairs after this song."
Kurt closed his eyes and let his lips brush the shell of Blaine's ear, exhaling long and slow. "I'll get the key."
-#-
Kurt rolled over in the night, still loose and sated, the bed an unmade tangle of sheets hobbled around their shins, and reached for the bedspread they'd tossed in the chair before it could get soiled. He sat up just enough to drag it over to the bed and wafted it up into the air so that it could settle evenly over the two of them, the undershirts and boxers they'd thrown back on no longer keeping down the chill of dampened sheets and pillowcases beneath them. Still half awake, head pillowed on one arm, he let his free hand slip around Blaine's waist, fingertips seeking out the familiar dips and valleys, bone, muscle, and sinew loose and chilled several degrees cooler than when they'd slipped apart still panting and wrung out. He didn't know how long they'd been asleep, how long they had left to sleep, or whether what he really wanted to do with the rest of their time together was sleep at all, but he did know Blaine was too far away.
He was sunken too far into the down pillow and too tangled in the sheets, all of his limbs too sprawled to handle the concerted effort of moving. Instead, Kurt just curled his one arm into his chest, dragging Blaine along with it. Chest to back, the weight of the darkness and the months of forced separation behind them, Kurt let himself sink under a little deeper.
When his tongue slid a little too far down his soft palate, he woke again with a start, unsure where the snore had come from or if he'd heard it at all. A glance through slitted eyes assured him he hadn't disturbed Blaine, but part of him, a very specific part, was disappointed. Taking a deep breath, he weighed his options momentarily before rubbing his hand over Blaine's chest and nuzzling into his hair. Then he waited, a playful smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
A moment passed with no adorable sleep garbled mumble of protest.
A second with no ticklish twitch away from the breath on his neck.
A third with no deep, waking breath.
Kurt tried again, this time adding a thigh tucked up beneath the swell of Blaine's ass.
And again, whispering into his ear. "Blaine. If you open your eyes for me, we can get our money's worth out of this room before you have to get up for school."
No snuffling moan.
No scrape of cheek burrowing into pillowcase.
No... anything.
Kicked between the shoulder blades from somewhere inside, Kurt bolted upright.
"Blaine?"
Throwing back the bedspread, Kurt took in the awkward sprawl of Blaine's arms and legs, the curve of his spine from where Kurt had pulled him in earlier, like he hadn't moved at all since then. Eyes already darkly shrouded under long lashes and the eaves of thick brows seemed blackened, sunken in above lips the color of ash.
Beneath his fingers, cold flesh and still air, no tranquil breath... no beating heart.
"Blaine!"
-TBC
(1) Miss Pillsbury didn't do her runaway bride impression, because Will never went to Washington for the Blue Ribbon Panel and instead stayed to chauffer in his new show choir competition format. Since he was there to help with the wedding planning, and didn't leave her to deal with it on her own, she didn't have a meltdown (only almost-hence the cab speeding away without her), and they got married. Anyway, I never really got how her running off advanced the overall story at all other than to give Finn and Schue a reason to feud, which was ludicrous, anyway. Finn's already going to school in this 'verse. He doesn't need to be run off by Schue.