Title: Keeping the Balance
Author: sun_and_rain
Rating: PG-13
Warning: deals with issues of consent, homophobia, and memory loss
Summary: They met up once a week, to gather stories and fragments of memories like puzzle pieces. No one recognized the name when Kurt first spoke it–a name he'd found buried somewhere in his dreams–but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was important: "Blaine". Whatever had been taken from them had something to do with Blaine.
A/N: Part one of a two-part chapter! This one was giving me problems, and I felt so badly not updating on time, so I split Blaine's chapter in half. Hopefully the rest of it will come smoothly soon, but for now, here's the first half! I'm sorry for the wait. 3 Hello all you new readers, by the way! Thank you for the lovely reviews; it means so much that you're enjoying this story. I know it's intense-it's about to get a hell of a lot more complicated. Let's see what Blaine has to say about all of this!
P.S., I think I need a better summary for this fic. Anyone have any ideas?
Chapter Five A: Wonderful Thing, Wireless, Isn't It?
Someone's lips were—kissing. Someone was kissing him, opening their mouth and claiming—Kurt?
A tug of someone else's arousal hit his stomach, the taste on his lips beginning to sour into something new, tartly flavored like he'd never had before and—oh, his body was arching shuddering spasming and hot liquid vats of burning fire slashed deep grooves up his wrists arms, veins, bleeding out and up through his tongue, mouth, hands, fingers, interlaced like fake parodies of the hands they had once been holding, screaming, screaming but making no sound because the sound was boiling the sound was hot fire the sound was magic, Magic, wrenched out of him and ripping and—
Blaine cried out as he shoved, slamming a powerful urge to feel repulsed into the body above him. The connection between them broke off, brittle and sharp, and he coughed violently as the body was repelled to the other end of the room.
"Get—!" The rest of the sentence tangled in his throat as he caught sight of who had been kissing him: Sebastian. Blaine trembled as he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, finally letting himself acknowledge the low undercurrent of shock and attraction (and, powerfully, the repulsion he'd put there) that had felt too unfamiliar to be Kurt. His limbs shook. Fuck, his head was pounding.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" he demanded, voice too weak to be as authoritative as he wanted it to be. He licked his lips unconsciously, still tickling with the flavor of someone else (not Kurt), and he suddenly wanted to throw up. Sebastian stared at him with something resembling fear, eyes wide and wary in the corner of the room.
"You wanted me to," he answered slowly.
Blaine glared. "Bullshit."
"You did," Sebastian protested, and Blaine couldn't feel anything but alarm and indignation behind his words. "You kept going on about how hot it was, and to take away the heat, and I touched you and you started shaking—"
Blaine pushed once more to sit up and hissed as almost all of his muscles suddenly gave out. He hit the floor again painfully, knocking hard against the wood underneath him. When had he gotten to the floor? Hadn't he been sitting on the bed a few minutes ago? Hadn't—a pained groan escaped him as he tried again, body trembling too hard from exertion to even get on his hands and knees. He ended up back on the floor. It was so hot. The magic inside of his veins felt like millions of stinging cuts.
"What did you to do me?" he panted, trying to find Sebastian again through the haze beginning to flood his vision.
"I told you, you just started convulsing. I was trying to take away some of the magic." He couldn't tell if the annoyance was coming from Sebastian or downstairs (or himself). Dalton throbbed like wounded bruises through his blood cells, swelling his brain and his head, god, his head…
"Convulsing…" he murmured, curling onto his side as he tried once more to find the strength to get up. Small, trickling tears of sweat ran down his back and his neck as he grabbed the bed next to him and pulled to lever himself up. Worry, panic, anticipation, anger, wanting, fear… his mind was soaked in feeling like alcohol, and he felt drunk, dizzy—lightheaded—so tired, exhausted, like he'd just spent hours with the world on his back, and he couldn't tell who was who. It was so hot. "I don't remember," he began, breathless from the heat. "I don't remember that."
"Yeah, well, I'm told most people don't remember having a seizure, so…"
"A seizure," Blaine repeated blankly. His mouth was too dry to ably swallow back the rising panic at the word. A seizure? Fragments of a passage floated at the front of his mind from one of the books he'd dived into when he'd first agreed to Wes' plan: "…inability to sustain… temperature… febrile seizures, which are uncommon in adults but not unheard of…" This was getting too far, too fast, too much. He pulled, and slipped again, sliding down to the ground and letting his head thump back against the floor. A small cry escaped him as he tilted his head back, squirmed in the heat, hot, too hot, his eyes lidded and hazy. "God, it's too hot," he whispered. "I can't… focus, I can't move."
"That's the seizure, too," Sebastian's voice was suddenly much closer. Blaine blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. "The not-moving thing."
A hand on his wrist, stroking lightly, and Sebastian was suddenly so much louder around his heart. Smugness. Anticipation. Caution. "Are you going to freak out again if I try to help you this time?"
"That depends," Blaine said lowly, watching as Sebastian leaned in too close. "Are you going to try to kiss me again?"
He froze inches from Blaine's lips. Blaine watched warily as Sebastian met his gaze in challenge. He stayed where he was, too close and daring him to do something about it as his fingers slipped provocatively through Blaine's own. Blaine's breath hitched.
Sebastian smirked.
Blaine cried out this time when Sebastian tugged, an involuntary sound slipping from his lips as pleasure-pain flushed through him and his awareness sharpened to Sebastian's provocation, to his teasing, baiting half-smirk and the arousal singing so loud in his chest he couldn't tell whose it was anymore. All of his muscles tensed as heat was dragged out of him in strings, pulled into Sebastian's fingers—and Sebastian's lips, so close, too close, and Blaine jerked up briefly and missed meeting his mouth by decameters—and just as Blaine opened his mouth to—
He wrenched back as Sebastian let go and pulled away. His body felt warm again, as opposed to hot, muscles no longer too weak to move. Sebastian had made them new again. The itching of Sebastian's wanting for him crept under his skin like insects.
Blaine pushed himself up, standing on slightly shaky legs and moved as far away as possible.
Downstairs slipped inside the cracks of his body like insidious wisps of black smoke as he moved. Foreign emotion. His skin shifted uncomfortably as it built up like cholesterol inside of him.
"It's too much," he said, pressing his hands to stop the ache from starting in his head. "This isn't working."
"Looks like it's working fine to me." He felt Sebastian's eyes on him and he turned to face him.
"The fever spikes until I start having a seizure, and you come in who-knows-how-much-later to take away the heat?" Blaine leaned against the wall, too tired. "I need to find a way to stop it building, I need to…" He squeezed his eyes shut as his head gave a particularly nasty throb. "I need to block them off."
Sebastian was frowning. "Your head is still hurting?"
Blaine slumped against the wall as an argument downstairs spiked swords behind his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the pressure. "It just started up again," he breathed out.
"That was fast. It hasn't even been two minutes since we took it away."
"Mm."
"Maybe you should've let me kiss you after all." There was a light brush of good-natured teasing and a pinching of resentment accompanying the words. Blaine looked over at Sebastian.
"It wouldn't have made a difference. It builds too fast—there are too many people downstairs, and those stupid—" he glanced at the herbs hanging in the doorway. "I can't build walls, Andrew will know the second he steps into the room." And then he would know someone else had been visiting Blaine besides him, and all of Blaine's plans would collapse in the time it took Andrew to tear his walls back down. "I need to—" He breathed in sharply as a huge wave of frustration and fear rose up inside of him, and something cut off, suddenly, just as it had that first day he'd been following Rachel, just as it had with that girl—
Blaine slid down the wall, hiding his eyes in his hands and fighting tears. Get a hold of yourself. "I need those herbs gone," he rasped. "I need to be able to release it on my own, without your help. I need…" Giddiness clashed with dread clashed with yearning. Worry close by, anger farther away—or even closer, he couldn't tell—humor—too many, there was too much, he— "God, I can't focus!" he gasped. His head felt like it was going to split in half, and he couldn't tell if he was still breathing or just drowning inside an ocean of somebody else's tears—
A hand circled his wrist, the thumb caressing his pulse point. He inhaled a shaky breath as his attention began to narrow on the calculated grip of those fingers, the circular movements of that thumb. Leaning his head back against the wall, he tried his best to relegate the rest to background noise. Kurt was louder than the others now that he was touching him. An anchor. Kurt was his anchor. Let everything else drain away, just focus on the physical.
The thumb tracing circles into his skin.
The slow exhale of his lungs.
The dull, throbbing pressure of the blood in his head.
This is you. This is all you.
Focus.
…Kurt…
Blaine sighed a thank you and opened his eyes to see Sebastian kneeling in front of him, scrutinizing him carefully. Oh. His heart gave a frightened jolt. Not Kurt-that had been Sebastian.
"You're one fascinating piece of ass. I hope you know that," Sebastian told him seriously. Blaine felt humor twitch his lips.
"I—that's—a new one."
Sebastian's hand was still on his wrist.
"So…" he prompted. "You need…?" Blaine bit his lips, trying to keep the clarity Sebastian's hand afforded him while ignoring what the other boy was feeling.
"I need… something that will dull the effect of those herbs," he said slowly. "I can't take them down. But if I can get some kind of counteragent…"
"You can hide whatever I bring you," Sebastian finished for him. "So you can get some control back without anyone else knowing."
"Yes," Blaine said, sending a strange look Sebastian's way as a weird hostility radiated from him. Sebastian just smirked back.
"I'll go look a few things up," he said. "Talk to a few birds."
"All right…" Blaine answered slowly. Sebastian's hand was still on his wrist. Blaine glanced down at it curiously, and Sebastian didn't move.
Then:
"…You should stop visiting that boy," Sebastian suddenly blurted out. Blaine blinked in surprise. "It just makes you unaccustomed to how the real world feels. When you come back, you always have more trouble adjusting. You should just stay here. Let your mind adjust and get used to it."
Blaine's heart plummeted deep into his stomach, a swollen anger rising in his throat. "So what, are you saying you're on Andrew's side now?" he accused. Sebastian's hand tightened on his wrist and irritation flushed up his veins.
"I'm saying you're being stupid," he said fiercely. "Every time you visit that boy, you come back more and more unable to deal with all the shit that's being thrown at you. I'm not denying it's shit, Blaine, but you have to find a way to deal with it that doesn't mean running away."
"I'm not running away," Blaine said fiercely, jerking his wrist away from Sebastian's hold. The world slammed back into him, worries and exultation and laughter and irritation screaming loud in his ears. He breathed sharply and stood up. "We're not talking about this anymore."
Sebastian stood from his position on the floor, towering over him. His emotions were more distant now, but Blaine could feel the exasperation was coming from him as if he had never let go of his wrist. "I'm not going to keep helping you if you don't actually want to be helped!"
"I'm anchoring myself. Kurt is my anchor," Blaine told him, voice low. "I'm not running away."
Sebastian's eyes were heavy with judgment and Blaine felt it crawling down his neck.
"Then you need to find a different one," he said. "Because this one is dragging you under the water. I'm not sticking around to watch you drown, killer."
Blaine felt something inside of himself plunge, and his balance fell, as if he had moved forward expecting another upward step and landed on the same level he'd started on. His heart clenched in his chest, his eyes widening and Sebastian turned from him. Blaine's jaw worked silently as he watched him walk away, his ears ringing with words and implications he was having trouble processing. A sudden swell of terror inflated his lungs and he called after Sebastian urgently: "Bring the counteragent!" His body tensed as Sebastian ducked under herbs through the doorway, breath fluttering in his throat. "Sebastian!"
Knuckles rapped against the wall in acknowledgment. Blaine breathed again.
Sebastian disappeared around the corner, and Blaine stared at the distant window he had passed.
It was blue outside.
He leaned back against the wall and sucked on his bottom lip, staring at the cloudless sky.
…Let go of Kurt.
No.
He would never be able to do that.
His eyes slipped closed and he tilted his head back, breathing through the pain of his headache. Calm blue-green eyes swam behind his lids.
Blaine sighed and focused on them; on the almond shape of them, the curved eyelashes, the way they looked when squinted with a smile. The way they sparkled with a laugh. Cool, clear blue-green.
A poisonous anger gouged through his ribs and it was like someone had flicked still-burning embers into his blood. His legs gave out and he fell, hitting his shoulder against the wall as he tried to grab the stones for balance. His knees protested as they smashed into the floor, hands coming out to break his fall. His fingers curled into fists on the ground, his teeth clenching as he felt his skin begin to sweat again. Breathe through it. Breathe through it.
It was too loud in his head. Too sharp in his veins. Everything tensed.
Breathe through it. Breathe.
He let out a forceful huff of air as another stab of laughter-anger-hilarity sent thousands of pins pricking his skin, his mind fogging. These are your fingers. These are your toes. These are your hands. These are your arms. He felt himself curling up, setting his elbows down on the ground and hiding his head in between them. These are your feet. These are your knees. This is your head. Sebastian's final words echoed ominously around his brain. I'm not sticking around to watch you drown, killer. He fought a violent urge to retch as his body filled with foreign bodies, foreign energy, foreign emotion. This is your throat. This is your chest. This is your heart. His stomach quivered with the need to rebel rebel rebel and he slowly moved onto his side, careful movements coiling his body into itself. This is your face. These are your eyes. Blink and prove it. These are your eyes. This is you. These are you. This is what is you.
Blaine swallowed against the lump in his throat and pictured cool, cool blue-green. (Get used to it, Sebastian's voice whispered.) His eyes snapped open. Wide, they bore into the hanging herbs above the doorway.
It was so hot.
Blaine trembled, and stared. Find an anchor, breathe through it. This is you, breathe through it. He was so dizzy. He…
It was too hot.
…He couldn't. He couldn't, there was nothing else, there was no one else. He couldn't.
His eyes rolled up as the lids slipped shut.
He thought of Kurt.
