Title: Keeping the Balance
Author: sun_and_rain
Rating: PG-13
Warning: deals with issues of consent, homophobia, and memory loss
Summary: 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 two! Finally! Sorry for the huge wait, everyone, real life got in the way. This month is going to be very off-and-on, because I'm in the middle of moving, so I apologize ahead of time if updating gets crazy. I will do my best to keep my update schedule fairly regular, but in the meantime, I appreciate your patience so, so much. You all have been wonderful and so understanding, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. For those of you lurking, don't be shy! Let me know what you think! Who knows-you might influence what direction the story goes in!
And now, without further ado:
Chapter Five B: Can You Walk Through That Valley A Little Faster?
Blaine left his body to find himself in Kurt's eyes. He traced the maps etched into Kurt's skin, read the constellations in his pupils, and tasted the unformed words that reminded him of what he was forgetting in the empty open room that was his prison back at Dalton. Kurt carried a part of him in his limbs and gave it unknowingly back to him whenever Blaine asked: reminding Blaine who he was, what he liked, what he thought of things.
How he felt.
Blaine didn't know how he felt anymore—not until he visited Kurt. Too many voices singing too many songs in his head made it hard to interpret what the individual tunes were—it was all just violins and pounding drums and blaring horns and piano, bass, guitar. Soon it would all be one huge, jumbled, indistinguishable noise, and Blaine hated that he was ending up just as Erickson wanted—all his efforts to fight it slowly revealed as useless. No matter how much or how often he tried to clear his head, he couldn't get himself to focus. He held himself in anxious anticipation that he would one morning wake up and find it already there: a thick oatmeal of loud that would coat his ears and his brain and his throat, and drive him as insane as his mother had warned him he would become were Dalton to find him.
But Kurt: he helped him fight it. Kurt helped him clear the noise—helped Blaine just be Blaine again.
Kurt was the only one who could drive everything else away.
There were days that Kurt came to him locked up and empty, and a red terror swelled Blaine's throat raw when he met Kurt's eyes and saw nothing in their reflection. On those days, he clung tighter, kissed harder, tried to force Kurt open and find the memories that had somehow drilled themselves deep into Kurt's subconscious while he'd been away. He needed Kurt to remember; Kurt was the only one who knew him, who could show him who he was—and with each passing day, it became harder and harder to remember what parts were his and what parts were others'. If Blaine lost himself completely and had no way to find himself again… he didn't know what he would become.
Worse, he did know what Kurt would become: a cold, limp corpse left for Burt and Carole and Finn to discover one horrible morning a few weeks' time from now when Kurt's body shut down. An empty container, graffitied in naively repetitious I love yous—words Blaine had stupidly written over and over and over, as if the phrase itself was something magical or protective or even—or even anything remotely helpful. As if by weaving it into Kurt's skin, Blaine could ensure Kurt would never forget him, would love him back, would—
Stay alive.
But it did none of that.
Kurt still looked at him sometimes with empty eyes. Kurt still forgot him when he woke up on a morning. Kurt was still going to die—and the more they stayed trapped in this stasis, sliding backward ten steps for every one they took forward, the harder Blaine fought to keep moving. Because what happened to him would happen to him: he had made his bed—that day three years ago, when he stepped out the front door and never thought to look back—and it would have been stupid to think he would have never had to lie in it after. But he could not—would not—bring Kurt down with him. Blaine had dragged him into this mess, so Blaine had to find a way to help him out of it.
Kurt had to survive this.
Or else… or else Blaine didn't know what. He would go insane. He would burn the world down. He would…
Fail.
Again.
He thought of Rachel; determined, lonely Rachel, who only needed a friend. Karofsky, who kept making the wrong choices but struggled so hard with thinking of the right ones. Finn, and Puck, and Mercedes.
Blaine hadn't even looked back at his parents that day Dalton had whisked him off.
Dark, horribly sad eyes flashed before him. Slitting wrists in a bathroom stall.
He had failed her, just as he had failed all of them—just as he had failed himself. Blaine had always been able to find a way out before. He could feel every secret anyone kept from him, and he was smart; he could get by. But it was different this time. He had underestimated how much Erickson's operation would cost him; how quickly he would lose control; how many people were truly on his side.
Wes had promised him he'd be there if Blaine ever wanted out. Blaine didn't know how much clearer he could be if running away didn't scream "I want out" to Wes. And Sebastian hadn't come back to visit him in weeks.
…Days…?
He couldn't tell time anymore. He couldn't tell anything anymore. His life consisted of Kurt, Andrew, and increasingly dissonant strings plucking inside the hollows of his body, too much and too quick for him to tell what emotions they were supposed to be playing.
He didn't think he could get himself out of this one. Not this time.
But he could get Kurt out.
He had to get Kurt out.
If he got Kurt out, maybe… maybe Kurt could make sure the bits of Blaine he carried with him would make it out, too.
"Blaine! Blaine, don't-!"
It was like she was speaking to him through jello. He saw her mouth moving out of the corner of his eye, but her words came to him delayed and muffled, fighting through the viscous liquid that suddenly made up the air around him only to fall limply, just short of his ears.
There was a boy outside. There was a boy, and he…
He couldn't…
Blaine's throat was dry, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth as he met dark eyes through the glass pane of the window. 'Come outside,' the boy mouthed. And, unthinkingly—he did.
"Blaine!"
Hands grabbed at him but he turned the doorknob anyway, and as he walked up to the boy, he felt himself getting fuzzy. The boy was so loud; Blaine had never heard anyone as loud or as clear or as… it was overwhelming—eagerness and hope and attraction, buzzing through his limbs as if he were floating, and so strong, aimed at Blaine, about Blaine, and Blaine had never felt anyone feeling things like that toward him—having spent two years feeling only his parents and the odd visitor who came to the door, suddenly being exposed to someone who felt so powerfully… who was… mesmerizing…
Electricity kicked down his chest.
"Blaine Anderson," the boy said. Blaine couldn't look away.
"How do you know my name?" he heard himself ask. The boy's face split into a grin, and a huge gust of triumph almost knocked Blaine over. He held out his hand and Blaine stared at it.
"I'm Andrew Jackson," he said.
"Like the president." Blaine kept his eyes on the hand.
Andrew smirked. "Exactly."
Andrew's intense anticipation sparked through his veins. Slowly, confused, Blaine grasped the hand in front of him.
"Blaine! Get away from him!" his mother's voice was suddenly clear as a bell. Blinking, he turned to—
It ripped through him like a chainsaw and he gasped raggedly as his knees gave, his eyesight whiting out and his body plummeting and something forced its way past his ribs, clawed down his heart and it was foreign, strange, bliss, agony, it was pain-pleasure-pain he was going to scream as it took hold of him and dragged—
Blaine choked on a soundless cry as it disappeared and he stumbled forward, into arms that circled him protectively, possessively, someone else's awe and giddiness wrapping ropes around his too-fast-beating shock. What was—what had—? He couldn't stop shaking.
"…contract with your family…" some man's voice was saying, and his mother answered back, angry, scared, and the man was regretful but firm, and his father was terrified, but all of them were watery and washed out compared to the boy—Andrew—holding him tightly in his arms.
"Against the terms," Blaine heard, and someone said, "he's not" and someone else said "you can't take him". Blaine couldn't think, his mind and body raw and exhausted.
What had just happened? What had he—?
"Magic," Andrew seemed to answer him.
His mother looked heartbroken.
Heat and rage and embarrassment and humor and fear jealousy heartache happiness-terror-hilarity-giddiness-vindictiveness-upset-resentful-harp-violin-guitar-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise-noise—
Kurt, please, where are you, please!
He clung to the arms that came to encircle him.
"You always were so easy," Andrew whispered in his ear, his voice suddenly coming to him as if through a broken radio. Blaine jerked back. "I just have to say the word and you'll obey, don't I?"
It was black and dark and Blaine growled and tore at the arms gripping him, marble, bronze, immovable. He elbowed, clawed, scratched, bit, and Andrew laughed, holding him closer, tighter. "We're made for each other, beautiful, and the more you try to fight it, the more you'll prove it true."
"Fuck you," Blaine snarled, molten violence bubbling up his bones. "Let go! Let—" He froze as he saw the body in front of him.
He was dead. Lying in front of him on the floor, and he couldn't look away; his own dead body staring vacantly back at him, burnt out from the inside, eyes liquefied amber and bleeding out scalding rivers of burning Magic, sizzling the skin beneath it, open-mouthed and caught in the middle of a noiseless scream. Dead. Dead. He was dead, but still living, trapped in Andrew's arms and watching as his corpse decayed in front of him, Magic eating him through like acid and—
No, it wasn't him. It was her.
And suddenly a surge of grief swallowed him whole, turning him boneless as water poured out his eyes, nose, mouth, filling him even as it emptied and it hurt—so—much—as she took the razor to her skin until it suddenly cut off and he couldn't feel anything and she was gone—
A cry pushed its way out of his throat, and he collapsed against the arms holding him.
A cloud of someone else's calm enveloped him, overpowering in its clarity.
Kurt.
"Shh," Kurt stroked his neck, and Blaine wept into his shoulder. "Shh." Blaine closed his eyes and swallowed thickly, willing himself to calm down. She was gone. It wasn't real. It had been a nightmare. He gulped down air, tried to slow his racing heart. Just a nightmare. Kurt's hand moved firmly up and down his back, sympathy pouring out of him and warming Blaine's skin. "You're all right," he said.
Blaine's heart plunged.
Oh.
Not Kurt.
Andrew.
Blaine let out a breath and slumped in defeat against the shoulder he had been crying into. Andrew's shoulder.
"That's it," Andrew said softly. "You can get through this. Just breathe."
Blaine slowly released his strangled grip on Andrew's shirt and let his arms fall. Heat crept up his neck and flushed through his blood. Andrew, not Kurt. This was his body.
"Someone just died."
"No," Andrew murmured. "No one's died, Blaine. You wouldn't be able to tell, not with me here."
Which was true: Blaine could feel Andrew so powerfully he couldn't get himself to focus on anyone else. Just like Kurt.
"…I felt it," he said blankly.
"You only think you did. No one died last time. No one's died this time."
Last time. Right. He had felt it last time, too. He had felt it so many times. But no one ever…
"I'm going mad," he breathed.
Andrew stilled. Then, he pressed his cheek against Blaine's. Cool. "You knew this was a side-effect," he said softly, lips brushing Blaine's cheekbone. "It's not permanent. You'll get through it."
Blaine breathed in sharply. He pulled back, placing a hand on Andrew's chest to lever himself up. Dazed, he walked away.
"I think I'm dying," he told Andrew as he walked. Nightmare images of his own corpse flashed in front of his eyes. He licked dry lips. "I think this is where I die."
A sharp needle of annoyance skid up his arm. "You're not dying," came Andrew's exasperated voice. "You're changing. There's a difference."
Blaine reached the bed, started tracing the wood-grain of the bed post with a numb finger. His arm tremored slightly as it moved. "I had another seizure today," he said, watching the minute shaking of his hand as he moved it. "I've had three this week."
Hands slithered around his waist, freezing, and he shivered, falling back against a strong chest. Andrew's calm flooded into him, soaking him in crashing waves of analytical fascination. Blaine tried to twist away, his head splitting open and his eyelids fluttering as Andrew held tighter.
"No, it's too hot for this," he rasped, fingers clawing at Andrew's skin. Andrew held fast.
"Don't you want the seizures to go away?"
"What?"
"The fever. Your body is still rejecting the emotion it takes in, that's why you're having seizures. It's building the fever to try to kill what it thinks are invaders."
He was shaking, he couldn't stop shaking. It felt like his skin was on fire. "Stop," he gasped as Andrew held him even closer. His head was pounding. "Fuck—get off of me."
"You need to accept this as a part of yourself. Stop thinking of this as some kind of attack. It'll stop the fever, and stop the seizures."
"Yeah," Blaine panted, beginning to feel lightheaded. "You know what else will stop the fever? Letting me have control over my own body. That would stop it real fast."
A knife of anger tore through his body, so strongly he jolted with it. "This is a part of you—you were made to take this and sustain yourself, you don't need anything else. You just have to let yourself accept it!"
He couldn't think—he was scalding. "Get off," he prayed, no longer sure how to move his lips. "Get off, get off, get off, get off…" Irritation flared, enveloping him in spikes of fire.
"Jesus, stop fighting this, Blaine!"
He lost his balance—was pushed?—and he felt something soft break his fall. The bed. He was on the bed. Blaine clutched at the sheets as Andrew grew mercifully dimmer, forcing himself to study the way the linen wrinkled, how it felt under his palm, what his shaking fingers felt like when he flexed them and how they curled back around the fabric again. You. This is you. Anchor yourself.
A trickle of disgust slid over his mind.
"You're incredible," Andrew said lowly. "You were just fine with dying when that self-righteous little pretty boy was going to kill you. But now you think you're going to die here and you're freaking out."
"I chose that," Blaine glared at the sheets. "I didn't choose this."
"Bullshit," Andrew spat. "Of course you chose this: you agreed to this!"
Blaine felt incredulous laughter bubble up in his throat. He pushed himself up, staring disbelievingly at Andrew. "I ran away," he said slowly. "That doesn't make you think I might have changed my mind?"
Andrew simmered, staying silent. Blaine huffed a delirious laugh and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.
"It's fine to be scared," Andrew finally spoke. "But this is going to do so much good for so many people. I know you see that. You saw it before."
Blaine slowly shook his head against the wall, baffled at how insanely twisted Wes' plan had made his life. I've never seen that, he wanted to say. "I see that it's breaking me down," he said instead to the red light of his eyelids. "I see that it's not going to work. And I'm going to die, stuck in a room with no door in a place I despise, filled to bursting with emotions that aren't mine. Just what I've always wanted."
Andrew's irritation pulsed through his blood.
"Well if you're determined to die, I may as well do you the favor of ensuring you have great company," he snarled. Blaine frowned. "Kurt Hummel's been getting a little to curious for my tastes—we're going to have to do something about that."
His eyes snapped open, a thrill of horror electrifying his veins. "What?" he gasped, pushing himself up off the bed. Andrew was already heading toward the door. "What does that mean? Andrew!"
Vindictive anger impaled him as Andrew stalked out the doorway. "You didn't think we'd leave a Fascinator like that all alone without a watch, did you?" was his only answer. Dread and terror and rage filled him, and he tore after Andrew, slamming up against a powerful, invisible wall as he tried to get to him through the doorway.
"Don't! Don't you dare touch him!" he cried after Andrew's retreating figure. He slammed again against the invisible restraints, heart beating too fast and too hard in his throat as the clarity that came from Andrew's presence slipped insidiously from his fingers with every step Andrew took. "Don't fucking touch him, you bastard! Andrew!" Blaine lost his breath as a jumble of feelings punched into him like thousands of arrows, grabbing onto the doorway as his knees began to buckle. The dried herbs tickled against his hair, and he jerked back, stung, stumbling into the room and pressing his palms hard into his eyes as the sheer amount of emotion grew louder in his head. Too hot too hot!
"Shit," he hissed, unexpected tears choking his throat. Oh god, where was Sebastian? Where was Wes? He wanted out. He wanted out, somebody, please, get him out. Please!
He didn't want Kurt to die. He didn't want anyone to die.
Oh god, please—he didn't want to die.
