Tears Stained
Chapter 16: Double Acts
Wes wakes up the next morning curled into someone else's side, it feels for a moment like he is back in his childhood bedroom with Ty after an evening of storytelling turning into a whole night, and the two of them falling asleep, eventually, in the early hours of the new day, cuddled close.
When Wes, limbs stirring, opens his eyes he finds a smiling Kurt looking at him. "Hey. This okay?"
Kurt keeps smiling, nods, "Thank you for staying the night."
"No problem," Wes smiles back. A slight frown crosses his face when he asks, "Is he still asleep? And have you slept at all?"
"Yeah, just woke up a moment ago. And he is still asleep. The heavier pain meds he is getting now, the first few days after the operation, must have knocked him right out." Looking back at the curly-haired boy sleeping on his other side Kurt adds, "If he is out much longer though we might have to wake him so he can take some more. How late is it?"
"Ten to nine," Wes supplies with a quick glance at the clock standing on the bedside table.
"Yeah, the meds are supposed to wear off in the next hour or so," Kurt replies wearily.
"Does he have to eat before he takes the pills?"
"Ideally. Although it has been hard getting him to eat anything much the past days since it happened."
Wes careful not to wake Blaine slips off the bed, "Can I try and make him something for breakfast?"
"Sure," Kurt replies, surprised by the offer but happy to give anything a shot.
"You stay here and I get everything ready. It won't take long."
"Thanks, Wes."
"Really no problem at all," Wes says heading towards the door.
Not twenty minutes later Wes comes back with three big glasses, and three drinking straws, putting them down on the table turns already again, "I'll be back in a second."
The next time he reenters the room he has a big pitcher in his hand Kurt recognizes as the one belonging to their mixer. It is filled with a creamy looking substance, gleaming in a delicious orangey color, streaks of white still visible in parts.
"Smoothies?" Kurt beams at him.
"Mango-Orange. I hope the cold won't be a problem," Wes adds, looking concerned.
But Kurt shakes his head in reassurance, "It's fine. We will just have to make him go slow, you know how he is capable of gulping down anything in seconds, regardless of technically still too hot or too cold."
Wes smiles wide, "I do. Once, playing truth or dare someone challenged him to an ice-cream eating contest and …."
"… ice-cream eating contest? What are you talking about," Blaine absentmindedly rubs at his healthy eye, only to hiss at the sting send by the simple movement through all his face. "Au."
"Babe?" Kurt asks, taking Blaine's hand gently in his own.
"I'm fine. I'm fine." Blaine adds still mumbling sleepily, "Stupid pain meds have worn off again. Maybe we could instead try another orgasm to …."
"Blaine!" Kurt cuts him off eyes wide.
Wes just stands there biting back a smile. Blaine has always done that, mumbled things without first thinking right after waking up. In fact, that is how Wes has come to learn most of the boy's little secrets, some big ones too.
"What?" Blaine asks confused by Kurt's tone, usually he laughs at '… remarks like …', only now does Blaine register fully that Kurt had most definitely not been talking to himself.
Blaine sits up entirely too fast not to end up feeling dizzy. He has to force the focus a bit, his eye still unadjusted to the new intrusion of sunlight, but there the person he had hoped for stands, beside the bed, "Wes!" It is a cry of joy and suppressed pain alike, instantly followed by a sob the tears - already bubbling up underneath the surface of the boy in his PJs, hair a wild mess of curls - are pushing forward, "Wes."
Even the pain shooting anew through his body at all the agitation cannot stop Blaine from jumping out of the bed and running around it to throw himself in Wes's arms. He is sobbing harder than Kurt had last night as soon as he feels Wes's arms closing around him. "Wes. Wes."
"I'm here," Wes reassures holding Blaine tight to his chest. "I'm here, Blaine. It's okay. It's okay," Wes keeps up the soothing whisper as Blaine continues to sob his heart out.
Once Blaine has grown quiet in his arms, minutes later, Wes asks, "Still need more pain meds, right?"
"Not letting go," Blaine murmurs back into Wes's shoulder, where he is resting his left cheek, pain from the pressure on his face be damned, 'I got you back.'
"Babe, you'll have to let go of him again some time," Kurt softly says, getting up from his place on the bed to stand with the two of them.
"Only if he promises not to disappear," Blaine mumbles somewhat sounding like a stubborn five-year old.
Kurt exchanges a compassionate smile with Wes, "He will be here for days."
"Really?" Blaine asks, directing the question at Wes by squeezing him tightly in his arms.
Wes squeezes right back, more careful than Blaine but clearly tangible to the boy, "Really, Dede."
At the nickname Wes feels Blaine trying to get even closer, whispering, tears half choking off his voice again, "Daisy."
"Dede?" Kurt asks utterly confused in a surprised whisper, "Daisy?"
"Blaine never told you, huh?" Wes asks smiling affectionately at Kurt.
Kurt just shakes his head in answer.
"Wanne tell him, or should I?" Wes softly asks Blaine. "Or don't you want Kurt to …?"
"You tell," Blaine answers still not showing any sign of intending to let go off Wes any time soon.
"Okay." Wes, shifting a little on his feet to look at Kurt then renewing his hold on Blaine continues. "We used to make up stories with each other, plans how we could leave our old lives behind and just jump right into a whole new one. One of the plans was about being drag queens together, and we jokingly made up names."
"Dede and Daisy?" Kurt asks smiling fondly.
"Yeah, well, we would have been pretty tame acts, I guess."
"A double act," Kurt supplies.
"A double act, no doubt," Wes echoes. Blaine audibly sniffling in his arms draws his attention entirely back to the boy, "You need your meds." And just like that Wes shifts from best friend to big brother.
"Are you at all hungry, Love?" Kurt asks placing a gentle hand on Blaine's lower back.
"Little," Blaine murmurs back.
"Wes made breakfast. What is it exactly, Wes?"
"Orange-Mango somoothies with yoghurt and just a little bit of oatmeal, you know because it's healthy. Oh and some crushed ice and apple juice of course."
"Sounds good," Blaine answers, sniffles slowly dying down, but now that he steps away a little from Wes Kurt finds Blaine instantly prodding at his bandaged eye.
"What's wrong?" Kurt asks, stepping forward worriedly.
"It feels all squishy," Blaine answers, voice full of nerves.
"Let me see?" Kurt asks already lifting his hands which he carefully uses to peel away the bandage's most outer layer when Blaine replies with a hesitant nod.
There is a red spot that two days ago would have scared the living hell out of Kurt, today though he knows better than to panic, "It's only from the tears, Babe, and a little bleeding, but only a tiny spot, nowhere nearly as bad as the last days," Kurt says softly.
"You promise?" Blaine asks, voice shaking in a way Wes has not heard in a long time, and that makes his insides twist with dread.
"Love," Kurt prompts Blaine to reopen his healthy eye, slipped closed for a moment, in fear, with the wish to hide away from all the bad in this. When Blaine looks back at him Kurt goes on, "I promise."
When Wes reaches over and takes one of Blaine's hands firmly in his own, Blaine lets out a shaky breath, "Ookay."
"Let's change the bandage, then breakfast and pain meds," Kurt prompts softly, holding out his hand for Blaine to take. Blaine only hesitantly lets go of Wes.
"You'll still be here," Blaine whispers, voice torn.
"I'll be right here," Wes hums back in the most reassuring way he knows how.
Kurt catches only another glimpse of Wes before they disappear into the other room, the young man sitting on the edge of the bed now, looking pale.
Kurt is a little unfocused through all of the new bandaging, but if Blaine notices he does not mention it, maybe lost in his own thoughts, nerves.
When Kurt reenters the bedroom alone for a second time, after getting some clothes for Blaine already a few minutes ago, Wes is still sitting there, looking a little less pale and a lot more upset.
"Wes," Kurt hurries forward, pulling Wes into his arms for a change, holding on tight. "It looks worse than it is, I promise. I promise, Wes."
"Where is he?" Wes brings out, voice strung out and wet.
"He wanted to get ready for the day. Did you know he hates moping around in PJs all day?"
"Yeah," Wes smiles weakly, they have had more than enough sleepovers at Dalton for that.
"I don't know how much my parents and the others have told you already, but the doctor yesterday said the operation went as well as it possibly could. And, you know, the usual other stuff about Blaine being young and that making his chances of everything going just fine even better."
"Good," Wes replies, still sitting there somewhat shaken as Kurt lets go and hesitantly stands back up to go and get out Blaine's pills. Wes takes a deep breath and tries to put on a reassuring smile though when the bathroom door reopens and Blaine comes back into the room.
In a mere moment Blaine is sitting right next to him, taking once more a firm hold of one of Wes's hands, "You're really here," Blaine whispers relieved.
Wes lets out a long shaky breath as he looks up and meets Blaine's genuine smile, the whole boy looking much more relaxed now than only minutes ago, 'Kurt, his family, is the best thing that has ever happened to you, isn't it?' Wes thinks as tears begin to sting in his own eyes for the first time since he has arrived here. Wes has seen Blaine broken, broken to pieces. There are cracks here sure, and fear and tears, but … but Blaine has not been broken again. And Wes feels so relieved and so exhaustingly overwhelmed.
"You and Kurt," Blaine says then, gaze soft in a way Wes knows all too well, from all the nights at Dalton of pained pasts, confessions hardly dared to be whispered, confessions of love too, felt to be required to hide before, "I love Katy Perry, Wes," "I love bowties and 70s disco music, Wes," "Wes, I … I … I love boys." "You and Kurt, Wes, you two are the best thing about being me. Don't let me lose you, please."
"I won't, Dede. I won't, I promise," Wes says, as the tears begin to fall across his face and he is pulled into Blaine's arms.