A/N: Rory46 you knew this was coming: This is for you. Thank you for being wonderful! Thank you for caring.
Getting Away
35: Water Is Wet
It is a fight that morning, turning away from the bedside table the paper-notebook is resting on and just '...just walking out there. I can do it. Just walk and talk ..."
Blaine makes it out into the hall before his breaths turn so agitated and shallow that he feels dizzy and closing his eyes has to lean his back against the wall to try and catch his breath.
He wants to call out for someone, but his throat won't stop closing up and his eyes won't open, lids too heavy.
Blaine's heart stands still, he is sure, for just a moment, when he feels himself being enclosed in a warm hold.
He cannot find the choice in his head, those buttons to push. There had always been these two big signs flashing behind his eyelids, taunting him into making a choice, both of them always feeling wrong, but the only ones there what else had he ever been supposed to do but choose one, Fight or Flight?
Blaine cannot say he in all honesty misses those days ... but he misses the simplicity. Now there are more buttons to choose from, '...so many more. And levers and doors, and windows ...,' and the thought alone makes him even dizzier, so he pulls the first lever he can reach, the one now closest, Hold On, and lets his tears roll.
There is a hand soft on his hair, and an arm steadying around his shoulders, and that is all Blaine can know, all he can feel right now. And it is enough, the knowledge he is allowed to let go, and there is someone there who won't let go of him, let him crumble to the floor or even kick him down. That's the past, 'It's the past. It's the past. It's in the past,' he reminds himself.
"You are safe here, Buddy. You are safe."
It is a dad's voice, laced with that typical mixture of concern and love and the fear and hope of doing and saying the wrong thing, the right thing. Blaine had not known it before he moved into this house. He had heard Burt using it with Kurt and then Finn, too.
Blaine has never been spoken to like this in his life, and ...
... and it would freak him out, properly, if there were not all those fond memories of Kurt and Burt and Finn smiling at each other connected to this.
"Burt," he croaks out, his voice feeling watery and weak in his throat, salty and bitter on his tongue.
"Yeah, Buddy?"
"Thank you."
The only change Blaine can feel is Burt holding him that little tighter, that little closer, like he is not that afraid anymore of hurting, of breaking Blaine.
The only change Blaine can hear is the wetness in Burt's voice, "Son, ... it's alright. It's all okay."