#klainefridays

8:00 a.m.

“Good morning, beautiful,” a chipper Blaine sings to his husband as he skips past Kurt’s work space on his way to the kitchen for his morning coffee. “Thank you for letting me sleep in this morning.”

“You’re welcome,” Kurt chuckles, rubbing his bleary eyes. Only Blaine would consider eight o’clock sleeping in.

“How are things going?”

“Great, great.” Kurt straightens his slouch and brightens his smile to give the impression that he’s been hard at work when he’s really been staring at the same page in his sketch book for three hours straight - sans yoga or shower, cucumber water forgotten in its pitcher in the fridge - trying to make the image on the page translate to the dress form in front of him. The truth is, the design that came to him the second he woke up seemed like a great idea in his head. On paper, however…a total train wreck. “Fantastic,” he lies, but he’d talked up how stressed he’s been about this project to Blaine so many times, Kurt doesn’t want him to worry. “I might get finished early today.”

“That’s wonderful! Maybe, when you’re done, we can go out and do something. You know, we haven’t seen a movie together in weeks,” Blaine says, excited that, on this one day that Kurt said he was going to be swamped, he might be able to pencil Blaine in.

“Sure,” Kurt says, his face tense from smiling. “Sounds like a plan.”

“If you need any help…”

“I won’t,” Kurt cuts in, hoping it’ll be true if he says it out loud, “but thank you.”

Kurt watches Blaine twirl on his heel and saunter away, whistling, of all things. Kurt waits till he’s out of earshot, looks back as his empty dress form, and groans.

“I’m screwed.”

8:09 a.m.

Relaxing on the sofa, a mug of Italian Roast sitting on the coffee table in front of him, Blaine catches up on his reading list, starting with Sphinx by Anne Garreta. It’s not a long book, but he’d put off reading it till today when he’d have the whole day to devour it the way it was meant to be devoured. But he gets to page 56 and becomes stuck, reading the same opening sentence six times. It’s strange, but he feels like someone’s watching him - absurd seeing as his husband’s hard at work and there’s no one else in the loft. Blaine has always sworn he’s felt a presence lingering in the enormous space. A benevolent presence, but one tired of the strife of slogging through its dreary existence, carrying its burdens from life with it into the beyond.

Blaine changes positions, goes back a page, starts to hum an upbeat tune, but he still can’t shake the feeling. He decides he’ll take a peek up, and if he sees something spooky and ethereal, no matter how innocuous, he’ll throw his husband over his shoulder and start running.

He counts to three, then looks up from his book.

A drawn face and bloodshot eyes stare mournfully at him.

“Jesus!” Blaine gasps, scurrying back on the sofa, but stops when he sees it’s not an apparition, just his distressed husband standing in the doorway.

“Kurt?” Blaine closes his book quickly, not even bothering to bookmark his page at the sight of frazzled Kurt – distraught, exhausted, violet bags peeking out beneath heavy lower eyelids. “Are you okay?”

Kurt slowly shakes his head.

“Do you need some tea?” Blaine asks.

Kurt nods wearily. Blaine smiles.

“I’m on it.”

10:17 a.m.

A clatter of keys and an optimistic, “Hey!” announces the arrival of Kurt’s husband, back from his emergency shopping excursion. “So, I got that Monkey Picked Oolong Tea you wanted from Teavana, though if you ask me it sounds like you should make sure you’re up-to-date on your shots before you drink that one.” Blaine balances several bags as he tries to pull his key from the sticky lock. “And the Triloka Feng Shui Incense you said would…what are you doing?” Blaine stops in the doorway when he spots his husband hanging from the ceiling in an upside-down lotus position. Blaine looks further up and examines the red straps attached to hooks embedded in the wood. They don’t own a ladder and all of their chairs are Kurt’s strappy flea market things. How did he even get them up there?

“I’m letting the blood in my body flow to my head in order to fuel creativity,” Kurt replies.

“Is it working?” Blaine asks, concerned that Kurt’s face seems to be turning an unnatural shade.

“No,” Kurt admits. “Plus, my left leg fell asleep half-an-hour ago.” He breaks from his graceful pose to wiggle his left leg, which starts him spinning like a ceiling fan. “And…grrr…I think I’m stuck.”

“Hold on,” Blaine says, rushing to the kitchen to put everything down. “I’ll come give you a hand.”

“That’s…that’s okay,” Blaine hears Kurt grunt as he arranges the bags so their contents stand on the right ends. “I think…if I just…move my arm here…”

“You know, Kurt,” Blaine calls out, “I think you should just wait until I…”

“Aaaaahhhhh!”

Thud!

Something hard hits the floor and Blaine cringes, rushing back out to the living room area.

“Kurt! Kurt, are you o---“

Blaine finds Kurt lying on his back, his cramping left leg stuck up, crookedly bent at the knee. From the looks of things, Kurt had prepared for such an eventuality by piling couch cushions and pillows on the floor, something Blaine missed with the paper bag of tea blocking his vision. The fall doesn’t look as bad as it sounded from the kitchen, but it probably hurts like sin.

“Well,” Kurt says, face beet red from hanging upside down, hair sticking out on end, looking up at his husband, “I got down.”

“Is anything broken?” Blaine asks, sincere in his concern but a single sniffle away from laughing himself to tears.

Kurt shifts uncomfortably on the pillows and hisses.

“I don’t think so,” Kurt says, “but I think we’ll be having sex doggy style for the next few weeks.”

Blaine’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, well…can we get started on that now?”

Kurt throws Blaine a look that makes him take a step back.

“Why don’t I go make you some tea?” Blaine suggests, heading for the kitchen.

“Good idea,” Kurt says, plopping down on the pillows to stare at the ceiling and await Blaine’s return.

12:07 p.m.

“Lunch, Kurt. Time to take five.” Blaine strolls through the curtain to Kurt’s work space, carrying Kurt’s spinach salad with chicken - what Kurt calls his working lunch since he can eat it one-handed. “I brought you your…hey, I thought you were working!” Blaine stops short when he sees his husband has relocated from his cutting table to the small futon by the far wall, DVR remote in hand, eyes glued to the mini flat-screen Rachel left behind.

“I am,” Kurt says, readjusting the cashmere blanket around his shoulders and lowering the volume on the TV. “I’m doing research. Looking for new, fresh trends in fashion.”

Blaine walks over to the futon. Stopping at Kurt’s side, he stays to see what exactly his husband is watching to find “new trends”. He can picture Kurt garnering inspiration from Jack Falahee’s character in How to Get Away with Murder – that mixture of Ivy League classic and laid-back business-ready chic that Kurt pulls off so well. Or borrowing from something Colin O’Donoghue would wear as Hook in Once Upon a Time – a tailored leather long-coat with pared down brass accents and a brocade vest underneath.

Kurt has a thing for vests.

Blaine focuses on the screen, his brows knitting together.

“Kurt, you’re watching re-runs of America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

Kurt grabs his salad from Blaine’s hands and curls further into his blanket.

“You don’t get to judge my process.”

1:23 p.m.

Blaine is already more than halfway through his book and he can’t put it down, but his eyes dart up at the sound of footsteps heading toward the loft door. Over the edge of his book, he raises an eyebrow at his husband, dressed in a black tank, and skin-tight bike shorts beneath a pair of looser black jogging shorts, earbuds dangling from his neck as he affixes his iPod into his arm band.

“Where are you going?” Blaine asks. “I thought you still had a ton of work to do.”

“I do,” Kurt says, bending his right knee and grabbing his foot behind his back, stretching his muscles, “but I thought, you know, fresh air, get the heart pumping.” He switches to his left foot. “I kind of flaked on yoga this morning, and that’s always the thing that jump-starts my creative flow.” He drops his left foot and twists at the waist. “So, I’m going to go for a run, just a few miles, and when I come back, I’ll be zipping those designs out. You’ll see.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, smirking behind his book where his husband can’t see, “but you do know it’s, like, thirty degrees outside. You may want to take a jacket.”

“I know, I know,” Kurt says, waving Blaine’s comment away, “but after I hit my stride, I’ll get warmed up. And besides, the cold will keep me awake.”

“Alright,” Blaine says, returning to his book. “Make sure you take your phone, and call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Kurt says with a definite eye-roll in his voice. “Love you.”

“Love you, more.” Blaine listens to Kurt leave, down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door. He looks at his watch, eyes following the movement of the second hand as it sweeps from number to number.

The hand doesn’t even make it all away around the face before Blaine hears footsteps racing up the stairs, keys clanging together, turning in the lock, and the loft door slide open.

“Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold…” Kurt chants as he slams the door shut and races to the bathroom, the shower water switching on a second later.

3:56 p.m.

“You know…” Kurt pauses, dropping to his elbows and lifting his ass higher in the air so Blaine can hit him deeper, “maybe…maybe I should have listened…oh God!...to you earlier.” Kurt arches his back and moans. “I think…this might be…the best idea…you’ve had yet.”

“Do you really think this is working?” Blaine asks, sweaty hands grabbing Kurt’s hips for leverage. “Technically speaking, this is forcing blood away from your brain, not toward it. Isn’t that the opposite of what you want?”

With a growl, Kurt slams himself back hard on his husband’s cock. “Less talk, Dr. Anderson. More fucking.”

5:08 p.m.

Thunk…thunk…thunk…thunk…

Blaine hears the rhythmic beat of something knocking against wood and wonders if Kurt has decided to try tribal drumming, maybe call up the spirits of ancient ancestors to help give him strength.

Not that they’d be Kurt’s ancestors, per se, but he probably wouldn’t turn anything away at this point.

Anything except for Blaine, which is slightly irritating, but Blaine can kind of understand. Kurt wants to do this on his own – or on his own with divine intervention.

It’s admirable. Frustrating, but admirable.

Blaine peeks in to Kurt’s work space and sees Kurt bent over, knocking his forehead against the only uncluttered square inch of his cutting table.

“Uh…Kurt?” Blaine asks, hesitant to interrupt this episode. Who knows? Maybe minor blunt force trauma might actually help. “Do you need…”

“No,” Kurt says quickly, still rapping his forehead against the table. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” Blaine says. He leaves, but only for a minute, coming back with a glass of water and six aspirin (he’d started with four, but then the banging got louder). Blaine puts them on a steady corner of Kurt’s table, and with one last look at his poor husband, returns to the sofa.

8:13 p.m.

Kurt trades the persistent thunking of his forehead against the table for the hum of his sewing machine and the snick-snick of a pair of Gingher scissors about an hour later, and Blaine silently cheers. That’s the sound of his man getting back into the groove. Kurt’s pretty consistent with regard to his work, but sometimes, when he hits a slump, it goes like this – a full day of nothing and then, zoom! He takes off running.

Still, Blaine stops by Kurt’s work space to make sure his husband’s okay. A silhouette against a white curtain as Blaine approaches, Kurt is a whirlwind, buzzing from one end of the space to the other, laying out fabrics, cutting patterns, pinning seams together. Blaine loiters quietly to watch his husband work. It’s quite the turn on to see Kurt owning this talent he has for creating something out of nothing. The fabric, the needle, the thread, were there from the start, but what it’s about to become – that’s all Kurt.

“Hey, Kurt. I’m throwing together some Fettucine Alfredo. Do you want some?” Blaine knows the answer, but he offers anyway. It would be nice if Kurt could take a break and share dinner with him, but Blaine’s not about to interrupt.

“I can’t,” Kurt says, skillfully re-threading his machine. “I can’t stop now. I think I’ve finally found my flow.”

“Well, good,” Blaine says, encouragement shoving aside his disappointment. “That’s good. Go with that. And maybe we can still catch a late show.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kurt says, lifting his fabric off the bed of the sewing machine and snipping the thread attached to the bobbin. “You look up times and listings. I’ll just…” Kurt drops off mid-sentence. Blaine chuckles.

Another day married to Kurt Hummel, Designer Extraordinaire.

Blaine wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world.

11:56 p.m.

Blaine’s head nods. He’d finished his book, and somewhere in the middle of a Grey’s Anatomy marathon, he started knocking out. Kurt’s sewing machine went silent sometime after Blaine finished his dinner, and Blaine hoped that was a good sign, that a satisfied Kurt would emerge from behind his curtain any minute to go out with him.

That was over an hour ago.

Gently snoring, his eyes shut but semi-conscious, he feels his hand lifted, his body being tugged upward. He opens his eyes a slit and sees a worn-out Kurt pulling him off the sofa.

“Come on,” Kurt says, “my eyes are crossing. We’re going to bed.”

“But…but what about your project?” Blaine asks, rising to his feet.

Kurt says nothing, gesturing with an unenthused hand in the direction of his work space. The curtain drawn back exposes the dress form standing in the corner, draped in a mashup of tailored pieces and unfitted ones, coming together in an eclectic combination of Kurt’s signature couture style, and something else, something original - formless, flowing, and kinetic.

Blaine blinks his eyes, not fully awake, trying to comprehend Kurt’s stylistic vision. He takes a few steps closer, squinting to see it more clearly.

“It’s…it’s fantastic!” he says.

“Really?” Kurt replies with more than a subtle hint of sarcasm.

“Yes!” Blaine fawns. “It’s bold! It’s epic! It’s so different from what you normally do! What do you call it?”

“I call it unfinished,” Kurt says, grabbing his husband’s hand and pulling him toward their bedroom.

“That’s…that’s amazing!” Blaine gushes, glancing back at it as they walk. “So, you mean it’s interactive? Oh, I get it! It changes from person to person depending on how they wear it or what they add!”

“I mean it’s unfinished,” Kurt deadpans, “as in I’m not done with it yet.”

Blaine misses a step and stumbles, over his words and his feet. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry. I thought…”

“Meh,” Kurt says. “I have till tomorrow evening. I’m not getting anywhere with it now. I think I’m just torturing myself at this point.”

Blaine sighs, shoulders drooping, body succumbing to his own tired and the fatigue coming off Kurt in waves. “I know you wanted to do this alone, but I wish you would have let me help.”

“Are you kidding?” Kurt turns to face his husband, Blaine’s gaze cast down, looking adorably forlorn. “You’ve been helping me all day – going out to buy me tea and bringing me lunch, cheering me on and keeping me company. I couldn’t have even gotten this far without you! I feel guilty that I took up your entire day off.”

“Well,” Blaine says, raising his eyes a smidge, “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it.”

Blaine moves forward for a kiss, but Kurt yawns, his sluggish hand barely making it in time to cover his mouth. As it passes, Kurt catches the slightly dejected expression on his husband’s face.

“Sorry about that,” Kurt laughs. “When you’ve gotta yawn…”

“It’s…it’s not that,” Blaine says.

Kurt tilts his head. “Then what is it?”

Blaine shrugs. “I’m happy knowing that I helped, but I wish I could have helped more. I mean, you wanted it done today. It’s all you talked about. And we didn’t get the chance to go out, which is also kind of depressing.”

Kurt thinks back over the day – a whole day he could have spent ravishing his husband wasted toiling away on that monstrosity, and it’s only partially done. Blaine’s right. That is depressing. As it is, they only got the chance to have sex once…but what a once that was.

Suddenly, Kurt’s not as tired as he was a second ago. He might be getting his second wind…possibly even a third. He gives Blaine’s hand a tug, tossing him a playful wink and a sultry (or trying to be) smile to go along with it.

Burt followed her in once Kurt and Blaine were safely back on terra firma. He collected some plastic cups and plates from their picnic basket, picking up a couple of bottles of pop from the cupboard, too.

Once they were all arranged on the table, ready to carry through, he waited in the kitchen until she was done on the phone, busying himself with clearing away some of the dishes on the drainer.

“Blaine seems like a nice kid,” he said. He’d been working so much recently that he hadn’t had a chance to make any of the parent’s days at school – missing the opportunity to meet his son’s best friend. He’d heard so much about Blaine over the dinner table, though, he felt like he knew him already.

“He is,” Elizabeth agreed as she grabbed some napkins and placed them on the pile of items to take into the family room. Burt smiled sheepishly, and she rubbed his arm. “I think he could be really good for Kurt, you know?”

“Do you think that Mrs. Peterson knew that when she assigned Kurt to be his kindergarten buddy?”

Elizabeth deliberated for a few seconds, fiddling with a hand towel. “I think,” she said, carefully watching her husband. “I think she knows that Kurt is special. And I think that Blaine is, too.”

Burt nodded.

“His brother dropped him off here,” she said, quietly, glancing over to check that the boys were engrossed in choosing their movie line-up. “I didn’t see either of his parents at the open-days at school. It was his Grandma who called to accept Kurt’s invitation to stay over.”

“Maybe they were stuck at work,” Burt offered. He knew all-too well the crippling, soul-crushing guilt which accompanied missing important events in a child’s life. Work was a necessary evil, but even working a job you loved couldn’t make up for all the things you only learned about through photos and reenactments

Elizabeth shrugged, throwing the towel she was holding toward the laundry. “Maybe. I just... I think he might need a bit of love, you know?”

Burt grinned. “Well, we have plenty of that to go around.”

“What if I spill my drink?” Blaine whispered, his eyes wide as they lay the blanket neatly on the floor.

Kurt smiled over at him. “My mom says the more stuff which gets spilled on the floor the better – then she’ll be able to replace the carpet sooner.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Look at it, it’s horrible! She says the material is cheap, and that is clear when you walk on it and you end up with fluff all over your toes,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Blaine shrugged and reflexively wiggled his toes, his socked-feet shielding him from such apparent horrors.

“Don’t worry about it, really!”

Kurt span around to the cabinet next to the TV, unconcerned with Blaine’s unease. “Let’s pick some movies out. We have a rule where everyone can say no to one movie each, so we need a selection. My dad will say no to My Fair Lady, so grab that one.”

Blaine frowned as he pulled the video carefully from the cupboard. “Why do you choose it if you know he’ll say no?”

Kurt looked out to the kitchen before leaning in close to Blaine, whispering conspiratorially. “Because then he can’t say no to anything else.”

Slowly, a grin appeared on Blaine’s lips. “You’re so smart!”

Kurt nodded. “Here, how about The Lion King? Aladdin? Toy Story? The Sound of Music?”

“I love all those movies,” Blaine grinned, holding his arms out straight so that Kurt could pile the videos onto them. Videos were surprisingly heavy, and Blaine gritted his teeth.

“My mom will probably say no to The Lion King,” Kurt grimaced as he stood back up, grabbing a couple of videos from Blaine, and putting them on the couch, motioning for him to do the same. “She says it’s too sad,”

“The others are good movies, too,” Blaine said. “I don’t want to make your mom sad.”

Kurt smiled. “Let’s go and grab my comforter from my bed, then when we’re done eating we can sit on the couch under it. My mom and I made it earlier in the year; it’s super comfy. In fact, you get mine, and I’ll get my mom and dad’s for them. When it gets late we have hot chocolate, and my dad says it always tastes better when you’re snuggled under a blanket.”

“Okay, I love hot chocolate!”

“My mom says it’s a movie-night tradition – that’s something you do a lot.”

“Blaine?” Elizabeth called from the kitchen. Blaine hopped back from the couch and hurried over to her.

“Yes, Mrs. Hummel?”

“I’ve told you, you can call me Elizabeth if you want, Blaine. I was just wondering, do your parents let you drink Coke?”

“Sometimes,” Blaine said, hands twisting together. “If I promise not to spill it, and not to jump on the furniture after I’ve had it.”

Elizabeth smiled, ruffling his hair a little. “Well, we don’t mind terribly if you do either of those things, but I’d advise you not to jump too much when you’re full of pizza.”

Blaine nodded.

“You and Kurt can have one glass of Coke, each. Then you’re back on juice for the rest of the evening, otherwise neither of you will sleep tonight. Kurt will have his with the pizza if you want to do the same?”

He deliberated for a moment, forehead crinkling as he did so. Elizabeth suppressed the urge to smooth it. “Yes, please.”

“Okay. Now, did I hear you were on comforter duty?”

“Yes. Kurt said that I could get his from his room while he gets yours for you and Mr. Hummel.”

“That’s a good plan. Kurt has a spare in the drawer underneath his bed, do you think you could manage to carry them both downstairs?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, you can always make two trips. I figure that two blankets would be useful, though, just in case you both fall asleep on the couch.” She crouched down, leaning in close to Blaine, and whispered, “Kurt is a blanket-stealer when he’s asleep.”

Blaine grinned at her, and she motioned zipping her lips, a gesture which he repeated.

Kurt appeared in the doorway, and she stood up and smiled at him. “What do you boys think about getting into your pajamas? They’d be more comfortable to relax in. Burt and I will do the same once the food has arrived.”

“Okay, mom,” Kurt grinned.

The boys dashed up the stairs, and by the time they were done with their jobs, the food was ready, the family room all set up (The Lion King safely back in the video cabinet), and Burt and Elizabeth were on the big couch in their pajamas.

The pizzas and sides sat in their boxes on the small coffee table, a pile of paper napkins next to them, plates resting on the blanket on the floor ready for Kurt and Blaine, small cups of Coke next to them.

Blaine hung back, only grabbing himself some pizza and fries after Kurt had picked his own food up. He sat carefully on the floor, balancing his plate on his knees.

“We chose Aladdin, first,” Elizabeth said as the opening credits played out into the room. “I hope that’s okay with you two?”

Kurt nodded, his mouth full of pizza.

“I love this movie,” Blaine said, grinning up at the adults on the couch.

Elizabeth watched fondly as he picked up his cup carefully in both hands, taking a small sip before setting it back down gently on the floor.

Eyes glued on the screen as the movie started, Blaine ate his food quickly, wiping his fingers on his napkin after every bite, mindful of keeping his greasy hands off the carpet.

They delighted in singing along with the music, regardless of whether or not they were in the middle of their food. Blaine was amazed that Kurt’s mom and dad joined in at times, too, even though Mr. Hummel grumbled a lot about it. He watched in disbelief as they proved time and time over that they knew all of the words – both sung and spoken.

Blaine found himself almost vibrating at times with the urge to get up and jump around when the music played. He’d promised Kurt’s mom that he wouldn’t climb on the furniture, though, and he didn’t want to risk not being invited back.

Kurt’s house was fun.

Once all the pizza was finished off, the movie was paused so that everyone could clean up. Blaine washed his hands carefully, grinning up at Kurt’s mom as she squirted some liquid soap onto his palms.

Back in the family room, Kurt and Blaine moved to the small couch, blankets covering their knees as they pressed up against each other, clutching their hot chocolate. Blaine wiggled his toes excitedly as the movie started to play out into the room once more.

He made it all the way through Aladdin and the start of The Sound of Music, but dozed off sometime after Sixteen Going On Seventeen, waking only when the closing credits were playing and Mr. Hummel was picking him up off the couch.

“Hey buddy,” he said quietly as Blaine blinked up at him. “You guys both fell asleep. Do you think you can stay awake long enough to brush your teeth?”

Blaine nodded sleepily, rubbing his eyes and looking over to see Kurt being carried up the stairs by his mom.

Burt followed quickly, setting Blaine down in the bathroom before going to grab his bag from Kurt’s bedroom. Kurt was sitting on the side of the tub, leaning heavily against his mom, and he smiled lazily up at Blaine before turning his attention back to squeezing out some toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

Before long, both boys were curled up and ready for sleep – Blaine on a cot on the floor next to Kurt’s bed.

Kurt’s mom pressed a kiss to Blaine’s forehead, and he wrapped his arms around her neck, breathing in cinnamon, and soap, and love.

“Sleep well, boys,” she said placing a plastic cup of water next to each of them, as Burt hugged them both.

“Night, guys,” Burt said.

Blaine was asleep before they’d even left the room.

The next morning found him kneeling precariously on a bar stool, mixing a bowl of homemade cookie dough as hard as he could without wobbling off his perch.

Kurt was sitting next to him, alternately pouring chocolate and peanut butter chips in at regular intervals and generally cheering him on.

“Great job, Blaine!” Elizabeth said as she came over to check on their progress. “Are you guys ready to spoon the mix out onto the sheets?”

Kurt hopped off his stool to grab some spoons from the drawer.

“There’s a ton of mix here,” Elizabeth said. “Do you want to take some cookies back home with you? I bet your brother eats a ton – I’ve heard horror stories about teenage boys.”

Blaine laughed. “One time he ate a whole loaf of bread in the afternoon and still had room for all his dinner and dessert.”

“Really?” Kurt asked, incredulous. He handed Blaine a couple of spoons and sat back on his stool.

“Yeah, I saw him do it.”

Elizabeth laughed fondly. “I think he’d like some cookies then. How about your parents?”

“They’re not home,” Blaine frowned as he concentrated on dropping the mixture in neat balls onto the tray. “But my Grandma might visit. I bet she’d like some.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Well, we’ll make sure you have enough to take back with you.”

“There’ll be enough to take to the garage, right?” Kurt asked, carefully filling the sheet in front of him.

“Of course – we need to keep the workers happy! And if you boys are helping out there this afternoon we can’t have you collapsing with hunger. Cookies are a necessity.”

Thirty minutes later, the boys were sitting at the small table in the kitchen, warm cookies on a plate between them and a glass of milk each.

“These are so good,” Blaine exclaimed. “I could eat a million of them.”

“Me too!” Kurt grinned, grabbing another cookie. “My mom makes the best cookies in the world.”

“You guys made these ones,” she corrected, taking a seat with them and picking up one from the plate for herself. She took a small bite and moaned appreciatively. “Good job – these are even better than the ones I make.”

Blaine smiled up at her, the beginnings of a milk moustache forming on his upper lip. “Really?”

“Sure! Next time I make a batch, I’ll send Kurt to school with some extra so that you can compare – but trust me, these ones are better.”

Her sentiments were echoed by the mechanics at Burt’s garage. During a mid-afternoon coffee break, they all gathered in the office – Kurt and Blaine perched on Burt’s desk in their too-big coveralls, each clutching a juice box in one hand and a cookie in the other.

“Hard workers and they bring in snacks for breaks – you need to hire these two already, Burt,” one of the mechanics laughed as he grabbed a second cookie for himself. “Who needs school, right?”

Kurt beamed up at him as Burt laughed.

Blaine gathers his coat, his messenger bag, and his book, and moves through a narrow forest of riders (the few who prefer to stand than sit as there are indeed open seats everywhere), walking to the far end of the train, to an area where there’s more than enough open space for him to sit. He takes a seat opposite another man reading, deciding that this will be the book nook corner of the subway car – a thought that makes him chuckle.

His chuckle makes the other man look up from behind his book.

Blaine sits, opens his book, and from a simple matter of directionality and proximity, their eyes meet.

The man chuckles back at Blaine, who’s captivated immediately by the blue eyes staring at him, and Blaine wonders briefly if this man – this gorgeous, fair-skinned man – read his mind. But then Blaine’s eyes flick to the cover of the book the man is holding up in his view, and he smiles.

They’re reading the same book.

But in that way that daily commuters acknowledge one another without starting a conversation lest it disturb their chosen ritual of getting lost in the journey, the man returns to his book, leaving Blaine to stare awkwardly at his beauty while he reads.

Blaine’s eyes drift back to his page. He starts over again where he left off. He reads the same sentence about twenty times before his gaze drifts back up to the edge of his book, and he stares at the man across the way.

He’s exceptional. He could be a model. It’s been known to happen, seeing models or singers or actors on the subway. Blaine sees their pictures in the society pages all the time. There was a Vine of Kanye West on a train going to Brooklyn, and Blaine swears he saw Christy Turlington on the L once.

If this man isn’t a model, then he might have missed his calling.

Whoever he is, he’s stunning. He’s sitting at an angle, caddy corner with the rail, his right leg crossed over his left, and those legs – they go on forever. His shoes and his clothes have to be designer something (Blaine gave up an interest in designer clothes when he traded a career in law for music and stopped being able to afford any), and look as if they were designed just for him. His walnut-colored hair defies gravity, and those eyes – if Blaine were more poetic, more…better with words, he could describe them as luminous, shimmering with an inner light, holding the secrets to the true magic in the world.

Or just plain glorious. That works, too.

He’s the kind of man Blaine would have dreamt about as a teenager. In fact, Blaine thinks he did dream about this man – back before a long slew of the wrong guy left a bad taste for fairy tales in Blaine’s mouth.

But maybe a man like this could take that bad taste away.

Blaine sits up straight in his seat, shifting his legs, trying not to look small and slouched. He blithely considers approaching the man, sitting in the seat beside him (or the next seat over, leaving one in between them out of respect) and striking up a conversation about the book they’re both reading. From the amount of read pages on the right-hand side of his book, they seem to be at about the same place in the story.

Maybe Blaine could do this for himself, he thinks. Go over and talk to this man. Introduce himself. Maybe this ride downtown is unnecessary, and everything he’s spending his inheritance to re-discover is actually lurking somewhere inside him. Maybe he doesn’t need doctors and psychiatrists to help him get his mojo back.

The man’s eyes shift up, probably at the feeling of Blaine’s eyes boring into his forehead, and Blaine’s gaze darts back down to his book, his breath racing, his pulse soaring, and a phenomenal amount of sweat pouring down his back in the space of a second.

Nope. He can’t do this alone. He needs help.

PTSD. When his therapist told him he had it, Blaine couldn’t believe it. He’d never been to war, hadn’t been abused by his parents. He’d actually had a really good time in high school, which he knows is rare. When he came out, he wasn’t bullied, wasn’t attacked. He had more support in his life than most people could ever hope to have.

What he didn’t have was a competent read on men. Not all men, just the ones he decided to date. The manipulation was subtle, the changes it made in his personality minor at first, until he started to doubt himself, every decision he made, every word out of his mouth.

His own self-worth.

It got to the point that he experienced major anxiety over little things, like trying to choose the white wine or the rose to go with his salmon almondine.

And he wasn’t even dating anyone at the time.

He had vague nightmares. He’d wake up feeling sad and scared, but with nothing to link it to. He became passive-aggressive. He let people walk all over him, even his students, and the oldest one he has is thirteen-years-old.

When Blaine had a level 100 panic attack during his first major audition in over a year, he knew he needed help. He found a therapist in the city, one who dealt specifically with victims of abusive relationships (though Blaine still wasn’t willing to admit to having been in any, too ashamed to let that thought root in his mind), but most importantly, a therapist who was sensitive and supportive to issues that affect homosexual men.

After a successful year in therapy, Blaine decided he wanted to try dating again. But the idea of meeting someone, of letting them into his carefully constructed life still very much held together by hopes and dreams terrified him.

His therapist – Dr. William Schuester - recommended The Healing Hands Institute of Lower Manhattan, a place that specializes in advocacy, rehabilitation, interpersonal relationships, meditation, New Age therapy, a full spectrum of neuro- and psychoanalysis…

…Sexology.

Blaine wasn’t even thinking of sex when he decided to rejoin the dating pool, but yeah, sure. He guesses they’d have to include that since, at some point, he’d like to get back to that.

That thought, coupled with the man across the way uncrossing his legs and re-crossing them again, licking his lips then his fingers to turn the pages, makes several uncomfortable things happen in Blaine’s body. His chest tightens, his stomach flips, his legs become restless, and his cock throbs, all simultaneously.

When the train slows and the stop signal chimes, Blaine nearly jumps out of his skin.

The train comes to a halt. The doors open and a mass of people flood the car. Blaine scoots to the far end of the bench to avoid the commuters rushing in. A sea of bodies flow in front of him. A gaggle of laughing teenagers opens the end door to cross over to the next car. Why people do that is beyond him. The train is stopped, just get in that car from the outside. Blaine grumbles about it in his head, turning his body away from the crowd to keep from having his knees knocked. He closes his book with his thumb keeping his place, and holds it to his chest so that the dust jacket doesn’t get ripped. He endures this tide of people until the final call sounds and the doors slide shut. Then he readjusts himself, settling back into his seat the way he was before. He peeks around the two men standing in front of him to the bench across the way. He knows the man, sitting closer to the doors, must have suffered a similar fate, and Blaine is eager to commiserate silently with him.

But he’s gone. He must have gotten off.

Blaine stands up to look out the window, ignoring the huffs and, “Watch it!” of the men he shoves out of his way. The train starts up again, begins to chug along, but Blaine doesn’t see him on the platform - not a perfectly coiffed hair of his head, not his stylish, tailored suit.

Not those eyes that sparkle like they’re full of stardust.

He’s gone.

Blaine sits back down, broken hearted that he’s lost this chance. He swore after he flubbed that audition that he wouldn’t let another opportunity pass him by, not because of self-doubt, and especially not because of fear. But he tries to look at the bright side. If he rides this train again at this same time, Blaine’s bound to run into him. He’s going to be coming this way a few times a week for therapy. Or, he can find a reason. But for now, he has to face the facts. He’s in no position to even think of asking a man like that out on a date. That kind of man probably has people throwing themselves at his feet all over New York. He doesn’t want to be just another creepy random guy. No. He’ll work through the steps and get his groove back. He’ll change, for the better, then Blaine will work up to him…

…provided Blaine can find him again.

Blaine gets off the subway three stops later. The train lets off right on the street he needs, which is convenient and welcome since, after nearly a decade, he still gets lost when he’s going somewhere for the first time. Blaine is no stranger to the commute downtown. Subways he can manage fine – hop on the right one and get where you want to go. It’s about as close to plug-and-play as you can get. But once he gets above ground with tons of new information thrown at him – people, busses, buildings, cars, noise - his mind becomes a mess.

Thank God for Google.

From the street view on Google Maps, the building he’s going to looked big, but in real life, it’s much larger than Blaine expected.

Blaine’s therapist rents a brown stone walk-up adjacent to a strip mall. Compared to him, Healing Hands must do an incredible amount of business.

Blaine walks into the lobby, takes the elevator up to the fifth floor, and there it is. The fifth floor. Healing Hands takes up the entire fifth floor. It looks more like a chic day spa than any medical office Blaine has ever been in – antiqued hardwood floors (probably for that trendy Cape Cod feel), distressed pearl-on-gold painted walls, soothing water features bubbling, accompanied by bamboo stems sticking out from cylinder glass vases, the bottom halves filled with colored stones, red upholstered club chairs set up to best take advantage of the row of picture windows, and to the far left, is that…a juice bar?

Blaine smirks.

At least he can see where his money’s going.

It strikes Blaine that it seems kind of quiet for a Tuesday morning. When Dr. Schuester made the appointment for him, he said that they could just fit him in. But Blaine sees no one, not a soul milling about. He hears a door open and a phone ring, but otherwise he’s alone. There’s a counter a few feet in front of him, but no receptionist in sight.

“Hello?” he calls out, making an effort not to be too loud and disrupt the peaceful atmosphere. He approaches the wrap-around desk, the thing an eyesore of gleaming white Lucite. His eyes sweep around, his mind considering whether this is really necessary or if it might be better to spend his $15,000 on a vacation in Malibu and a membership to Match.com, when a head of blonde hair appears behind the desk. Blaine leaps back an inch, startled, and she smiles wide.

“Good morning, and welcome to The Healing Hands Institute!” she says loudly.

Blaine looks left and right to see if anyone else might pop out of the woodwork.

“Hello,” he says. He waits for her to ask him what he needs, but she says nothing. She simply smiles.

Okay…

This woman, grinning fanatically at him, is also not what he expected. The receptionist at Dr. Schuester’s office is a prim woman in her mid-thirties, with a bob of copper hair and a warm, delicate smile. She’s polite, quiet, and constantly cleaning. But this woman looks so excited to see him, Blaine expects her to leap over the counter to shake his hand. She has an earbud in her right ear, bright green shadow on her eyelids, and her lips are the color of bubble gum fresh out of the wrapper. Her long, wavy hair is pulled into a ponytail high-and-tight on her head, and the first impression Blaine has is that she kind of reminds him of a cheerleader.

“Um, my name is Blaine Anderson,” he says as she pulls out her earbud and looks him over with cheerful sky blue eyes.

They’re pretty eyes, but they come nowhere close to the man on the train.

“Ah, yes. Blaine Anderson,” she says without consulting the clipboard of names in front of her. “You have an appointment at 10:15.” She stands from her desk and comes around to the front, her billowy floral blouse and pink skirt shifting on her frame as she walks. “Please, follow me.”

Blaine gives the receptionist a quick once over from behind as she leads him away, thankful that no one is around to see. He can’t help it. The cut of her triceps and the way her calf muscles move when she walks is mesmerizing. Blaine tries not to judge by appearances, but she has an impressively athletic build for someone who spends hours a day behind a desk. He wonders briefly what she does after work. Cross training? Running? Zumba? Or perhaps she’s one of those lucky few who just has good genes. Blaine’s older brother, Cooper, is blessed with the good genes in the family. He barely needs to lift a coffee mug to build muscle. He’s tall, blue-eyed, with fabulous skin, enviable hair, and he’s an actor. That kind of shadow isn’t easy to live under when you’re just a hair shy of 5’ 8”, have curls that frizz out everywhere (requiring a gallon of rubber cement to tame), and a single cronut can make you gain fifteen pounds.

Blaine sighs. He’s doing it again – acting like old Blaine and cutting himself down inside his head.

He takes a deep breath. He came to this place to leave old Blaine behind. From this moment on, he is new Blaine, and new Blaine doesn’t put himself down anymore.

The receptionist takes him down a long hall, passing a line of doors on both sides but no windows. They could be offices or supply closets for what he knows.

“My name is Brittany,” the woman says as they approach what looks like the double-doors to a conference room. “If you need anything – water, tea, coffee - just peek your head out and holler. I’ll hear you.” She opens the doors. “Wait in here, and your team will be with you in just a minute.”

“My team?” Blaine asks in surprise.

“Yup,” she answers with a nod, “your team. Welcome, and let The Healing Hands take care of you.” She backs out of the room, pulling the doors closed.

Blaine stares at the doors, stumped, but not by that cheesy tagline. He thought this was going to be a private consultation. How private is it if a whole team is assigned to his case? He suddenly feels even less confident about this decision, if that’s possible, but he’s already given them his charge card, and they’ve put a non-refundable deposit on hold. Besides, this is supposed to be for his own good, the solution to his problems. He has no intention of leaving.

He’s just eager to get it over with.

Blaine turns away from the doors to discover he’s right. He is in a conference room, and it’s overwhelmingly blah considering the décor of the waiting room – wood paneled walls, travertine carpet, an ovular wood table surrounded by high-back office chairs. He walks across the room and takes a seat at the far end, sitting in a plush brown chair that looks like it should be comfortable but is anything but. He reclines, but the chair pushes against him, resisting any effort on his part to relax, so he’s forced to sit bolt upright. He takes out his phone, opens his Flappy Bird app, and starts playing, mindlessly tapping his screen and focusing on the tedium of digital flying avian to relieve the anxiety he feels congesting his chest. He’d return to his book, but he doesn’t think he can concentrate on reading right now, because reading will remind Blaine of him, and that’s not the kind of distraction he needs.

He’s already antsy as it is.

Blaine doesn’t have to wait long. His little pixelated bird has only died seven times before the doors open again. Four men and one woman dressed in white coats over stylish business attire walk in. Blaine watches them fill five empty chairs at the opposite end, talking in low voices to one another and taking glances at him. They wait till they’re all seated, then the four men and one woman turn to look at him.

“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” the first person to sit - a man with intelligent but judgmental green eyes - says. “My name is Dr. Sebastian Smythe, and I am the director here at The Healing Hands Institute. Your therapist, Dr. Schuester, made this appointment with us because he feels you can benefit from the services that we offer.”

“Do you work with Dr. Schuester often?” Blaine asks, folding his hands, then unfolding them and laying them flat on the table. Three of the five doctors watch him. One makes notes.

“We have a long-standing working relationship with Dr. Schuester, yes,” Dr. Smythe answers dryly, not sounding too impressed. “He refers many of his clients to us.” He leaves it at that, cut and dry, as if the insinuation that he and Dr. Schuester actually ‘work’ together is offensive to him. “Let me introduce some of my colleagues. To my left is Dr. Adam Crawford and Dr. Jesse St. James. To my right is Dr. Carl Howell and Dr. Holly Holiday. We’re going to be your care team, Mr. Anderson.”

“Wow,” Blaine says, fidgeting while fighting not to fidget, “that’s a lot of people for one me and all my problems.”

“Well, we’re all experts in varying fields, as Dr. Schuester must have explained to you,” Dr. Crawford answers.

“He did,” Blaine says, folding his hands again.

“We like to treat the whole patient,” Dr. Howell adds. “Concentrating in different areas equally to determine the best course of action and the right treatment for each specific case.”

“We use many traditional as well as unique methods,” Dr. St. James adds. “Some technics that many centers like us won’t even recommend.”

Blaine’s eyes open wide. That sounds interesting…and ominous.

“Actually,” Dr. Smythe cuts in, “we are expecting one more gentleman, but he seems to be running a bit late.” He takes out his iPhone as he talks and checks his messages.

“Oh, really?” Blaine asks. “And who is that?”

“His name is Elliott Gilbert,” Dr. Holliday answers. “He’ll be your sexual surrogate.”

“Forgive me,” Blaine says, leaning forward in his chair. “My…my what now?”

“Sexual surrogate,” Dr. Crawford picks up. Someone who will help you re-establish your connection with your body and your sexual self. Someone who will take what you learn in therapy and continue with the practical application of it.”

“Practical application?” Blaine repeats. “So…do you mean that I’m going to…have sex with this person?”

“You and your surrogate will negotiate the parameters of your relationship when you meet,” Dr. Holliday says with a wink.

“Do I…need that?” Blaine asks, instead of asking the question that’s really on his mind, which is, ‘Is that legal?’

“You’re definitely within your rights to refuse if you don’t feel that you’ll be comfortable,” Dr. Smythe assures him. “But we’ve found that many of our patients who suffer from PTSD do have a great deal of success dating after interacting with one of our surrogates.”

“Yes,” Dr. Crawford says, his smile much kinder, much more genuine of the bunch. “They’re specially trained, they’re professional, they’re discreet…”

“I don’t know,” Blaine says. “I’m just not sure that I’d feel comfortable with…”

“Sorry I’m late,” a voice sounds outside the door before it even opens. A jingle of keys and the dull thud of a bag hitting the wood precedes the knob turning. “I got trapped a couple of blocks away when some guy’s scarlet macaw went crazy after it ran into another guy’s boa constrictor at Starbucks. Only in New York, right?”

Dr. Smythe turns quickly in his seat, obviously aware of the identity of the man behind the door before it opens, and he doesn’t seem pleased. His reaction makes Blaine curious beyond belief, but when the door finally does open, Blaine’s jaw drops.

It’s the man. The man from the train.

Elliott? That name doesn’t really suit him, but okay.

“We weren’t expecting you,” Dr. Smythe says, glaring at the man entering the room. “We were expecting Elliott. I specifically assigned Elliott to this case.”

The expression on Dr. Smythe’s face seems to communicate that he thinks what he says goes with this man, without argument, but the man smiles sweetly and rolls his eyes.

If Blaine had to guess, he would say that there was some history between these two.

Great, because this couldn’t be any more uncomfortable?

“Yeah, I know, I know,” the man says with a wave of his hand, “but he’s stuck in the High Desert. Something about an extreme yoga retreat, the Four Runner he rented overheated - it’s apparently a huge mess. He called early this morning from a rest stop and asked if I’d take his place. Do you mind?”

Dr. Smythe clenches his jaw - tendons standing out, a vein pulsing – and while the occupants of the room sit quietly and wait, he shakes his head. When he turns back to Blaine, he doesn’t look quite as congenial as before, which, frankly, isn’t much of a change.

“Kurt Hummel,” Dr. Smythe says through white teeth and a strained smile, “this is Blaine Anderson. Blaine Anderson, this is Kurt Hummel. And as of today, I guess, he’ll be the surrogate assigned to your case.”

Blaine stands as Kurt walks around the table toward him, depositing his bag into a chair and his book on the table beside Blaine’s, purposefully lining them up together.

“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” he says, extending a hand as he approaches. “May I call you Blaine?”

Blaine looks at the hand, then at Kurt’s smile, and those eyes. How could Blaine say no to those eyes?

“Yes, yes, of course,” Blaine says, taking Kurt’s hand and shaking it.

“So, what do you say, Blaine?” Kurt asks, keeping a hold on Blaine’s hand, and God if his hands don’t feel amazing? Soft and warm and…soft. “Do you mind me being a part of your team?”

“Actually,” Dr. Smythe says, rising halfway to his feet, looking like he’s about to come over and separate them, “Mr. Anderson says he doesn’t feel comfortable with the idea of a sexual surrogate, so we were thinking of just eliminating that from his treatment profile.”

“That’s too bad,” Kurt says, lowering his voice. Behind them, Blaine sees Sebastian stand an inch more, leaning their way, trying to hear Kurt’s voice. “I know you must be nervous about all this, but I promise, I won’t do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not here to make you uncomfortable, Blaine. Quite the opposite. I’m here to help you be more comfortable with yourself so you can get on with your life. And I have a feeling that you and I would work well together.” Kurt’s eyes dart over to the books sitting side by side on the table, then back at Blaine. “So, what do you think? Would you be okay with me on your team?”

Blaine blinks at Kurt, stunned, floored, overwhelmed, but mostly with the thought of ‘How in the hell did I get so lucky?’

“Will you let me help you?”

“Yes,” Blaine says, barely glancing back at Dr. Smythe seething behind them. “I think…I would very much like to work with you, Mr. Hummel.”

It’s ironic that one of the reasons why Kurt’s dad agreed to buy him the Navigator, despite the exorbitant sticker price, was it’s overall safety rating – 5-stars according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Consumer Reports. It also happens to have one of the highest side impact safety ratings among SUV’s in its price range. Had Kurt been hit by a sedan, a 4X4, or another SUV, he would have come out of this with flying colors, probably even walked away. But the 10,000 pound semi, skidding to a stop at 45 miles per hour, practically bent Kurt’s Navigator in half. Kurt’s not walking away from this one. He can’t feel his legs, and his arms - it’s like they never existed. His ears ring so loudly it blurs his vision. His head pounds like there’s a pickaxe chipping away at his skull, blurring it more. And there’s a sharp pain square in the center of his chest. He can’t move his head or his neck to look, but he doesn’t have to to know why that is. The airbag cracked his ribs, which he knew might happen. He’d heard stories. But the SUV’s secondary impact with a telephone pole went a step farther and crushed his chest. A liquid heat started coating his skin, soaking his shirt straight through to his wool coat. For a second, he was afraid it was gasoline. When he figured out that gasoline wasn’t what he was tasting, he realized it was something much, much worse.

It’s ten o’clock at night. Kurt was on his way to his dad’s house to celebrate his dad’s second completely clean PSA – another year over with no trace of prostate cancer in sight. He had driven to Lima from New York the minute Carole told him the news – nine full hours. Kurt was just about to find a place to pull over, to call his dad and tell him that he was ten minutes away. He had originally wanted to surprise his dad, but he was running late (traffic in the Holland Tunnel keeping him locked under the Hudson River on the Jersey side for over an hour), and he didn’t want his dad calling it a night before he got there. He decided to cross the intersection first and then find a place to park.

Kurt had been so worried that he wouldn’t make it in time - that he’d have to enter the house after the lights were out, sneak up to his old room, and sleep off his excitement for the night. And now here he is, pinned behind his steering wheel, fighting to breathe, his cell phone lost somewhere on the seat beside him.

There seems to be about a dozen people outside his SUV, cupping their hands to the window, peeking in to look at him. Whether they’re doing anything to help or just taking a look, Kurt doesn’t know. He can barely see anything but colored lights through the dark fog growing, but he thinks he saw a camera flash. Morbid sons-of-bitches. Well, let them take all the pictures they want, as long as they’re calling 9-1-1, too. He never held much faith in the collective intelligence of the people of Lima, Ohio, but he hopes somebody is trying to do something.

As the seconds tick, tick, tick by, a minute essence of calm in his head tells him that it won’t matter. Nothing they do is going to make a difference. And as numb as his body has started to become, in his head, he’s furious.

There’s so much he hasn’t done. He hasn’t graduated from NYADA. He hasn’t been to Paris. He hasn’t starred on Broadway, hasn’t written and directed his own musical, hasn’t ridden a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He hasn’t designed his own fashion line, hasn’t walked the runway during Fashion Week. Fuck, he hasn’t been featured in an issue of Vogue, and he works there.

He hasn’t fallen in love, won’t get to start a family. Hasn’t had a kiss in the rain.

Hell, he hasn’t even buckled down and gotten a cat.

But all of that is meaningless. Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans – isn’t that the way the saying goes? As his mind scurries to make new plans, to see his life after this tragedy, to work toward how he’s going to recover from this, he knows he’s lying to himself. He knows there’s nothing for him beyond this accident. He’s not leaving his Navigator alive. And he’s not just being overdramatic. He’s been in accidents before. He’s been in pain. He’s been beaten till his skull cracked, till he blacked out. But each time, there was a certain amount of knowing that things were going to be okay. Even if they seemed scary, even if they turned out to be completely life-altering, it was going to be alright because things get better.

Right now, he’s terrified, and there’s no sense in him whatsoever that things are going to be okay. More than anything, he wishes he had something to hold on to, something that he believed in to give him comfort.

His mom was religious. While she was dying of cancer, she held strong to her faith in God and heaven. She had even taught him a prayer or two. He remembers some of the rosary, and two or three of the more popular Commandments – no killing, no stealing, no coveting. He can’t see how those are going to help him. What did he believe in in life? He didn’t believe in God or heaven. He kind of made it a point not to believe in those things. He was so angry at the universe for the unfair things in his life - for his mother dying, for the constant bullying he suffered, for his father being sick and almost dying so many times. The only thing he really believed in was his father…and himself. In his own ability to change the world.

It’s a cold comfort for him now.

On some level, he really wishes he could have drunk the Kool-Aid, read the Bible and gone to church. It would have kept him locked in the closet for another decade, but maybe he’d be more at peace with this. Maybe he’d be ready to go, believing something was waiting for him on the other side – some kindly old man outside a set of pearly gates, who would look at him with a fatherly smile and say, “Don’t worry what everyone else says. You can come in, too.”

But it would have only been a worthwhile trade-off if he knew that he was going to die this early, and even then, maybe not.

And his father. What about his father? Is he really going to leave his father now, after everything he’s been through, having himself been near death and back? He’s already lost a wife and a stepson. Is he going to lose Kurt, too? Kurt had made a promise that his father wouldn’t. He swore that if his dad woke from his coma, he’d be with him every step of the way, helping him through his recovery, standing by his side to face whatever else came at him. It was the one promise he was going to fight tooth and nail to keep.

He tries to picture his father the last time he saw him, but all he can see is the look on his face when he gets the call about this.

Kurt knows he’s crying, knows that tears are falling down his face. He can’t feel them, but he knows they’re there, carving paths in the dust from the broken air bag and streaking his skin.

He’s going to die looking like shit. He could almost laugh, but he doesn’t know how to anymore.

Knock knock knock

“Sir? Are you okay, sir? My name is Pete Jackson of the Lima Fire Department. We’re going to have you out of there in just a…”

As sirens sound outside his window, as bright lights make their way through the haze and a voice calls out to him to relax, to stay calm, another voice – a softer voice, a more soothing, comforting voice – weaves into what’s left of his consciousness, trying to be heard. It’s a familiar voice, in that way that memories of lullabies, smells of home, and a long lost loved one’s touch are familiar. It’s printed somewhere inside him, and unlike the voice outside, demanding that he stay awake, he wants to listen to this one.

This voice calls him by name.

“Kurt…it’s okay, Kurt. You’re going to be okay.”

“We have an emergency medical crew here, and they’re going to break you out in a jiffy. So just…”

“Relax, Kurt. Everything is going to be…”

“…alright? Just listen…”

“…to the sound of my voice, Kurt. It’s time to let go.”

“We’re going to do the best we…”

“They can’t do anything else for you, Kurt. But it’s okay. It’s all okay. Let go.”

As the back and forth chorus of voices continue, the quieter voice starts winning. Kurt doesn’t want to go, but he can’t keep fighting anymore. He doesn’t have the strength, not this time. But all Kurt can think is he needs to get to his phone. He needs to reach his phone right away, because he feels it. He feels it going – life and time and future all slipping away, and he can’t stop it. He needs to reach his phone and push the call button. He needs to talk to his dad one last time and let him know that right here, right now, the last person he was thinking about was him. How much he loves him. How he doesn’t want to leave him. How he’s going to miss him.

How he’s so so sorr---

***

Kurt is cold. So cold. He’s never been this cold before, which is strange because one winter, when he was six, he fell through the ice while pretending to be Dorothy Hamill and into the Auglaize River. He was so frozen after his father pulled him out that he thought he would never be warm again. He had blacked out the second his body hit the water. Being six, he thought he had gone into hibernation, and when he woke up, he was convinced it was spring. His mother handed him a hot chocolate and his father put a fifth blanket over his body, and a day or two later, the world became right again.

But Kurt shouldn’t feel this cold.

He shouldn’t feel anything.

He’s dead.

That thought makes him shiver, something else he shouldn’t be able to do, either, but there he is, shivering.

And now’s the point when he goes hysterical.

“Hey, hey.” It’s the voice. “It’s okay.” That familiar voice. It’s returned. “It’s alright.” And it’s coming from someone standing in front of him. “You’re going to be fine.” Someone who puts a hand on his elbow and is helping him stand. “Just open your eyes, Kurt. You’re going to be alright.” Kurt’s almost incredulous to the thought of opening his eyes, but they blink on their own, opening up at the request of that voice, and there he is, standing in front of him, in what appears to be a landscape covered in snow – a man with dark, curly hair, tan skin, and warm, caramel eyes. A man smiling like Kurt’s arrival here, in the distinct middle of nowhere, is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

Kurt stands, straightens his legs (thank whoever, he can feel his legs again), and tightens his grip around the man’s hand (his hands – they’re back, too.)

“No,” Kurt says – a lame answer to a ridiculous question, “I…I guess not. Who are you?”

“My name’s Blaine,” the man says, brushing the loose flakes from Kurt’s coat. “Blaine Anderson.”

Kurt looks at him, tilting his head to one side, more confused by the appearance of this man in front of him than he is by ending up here, wherever he is.

“Do I…know you?” Kurt asks. “You seem awfully familiar.” Kurt corrects himself. “Your voice seems awfully familiar.”

A projection of images and a string of the same voice echoes in his head, memories of different dark times in his past – his life flashing before his eyes. During the trying times in his life, he’s heard it – when his mother passed away, when his father had his heart attack, when the jocks at school tossed him into the dumpster behind the parking lot.

It was the voice that promised him things would turn out okay.

It was the voice that reminded him that he was strong, that he could get through, that he would overcome.

It was the voice that once turned his hand away from a bottle of sleeping pills and toward his mother’s sewing machine.

The man smiles the kind of bashful smile with full lips, rosy cheeks, and downcast eyes that usually accompanies flirting. “Sort of,” he says. “I was assigned to you a long time ago. I’m kind of like your guardian angel.”

Kurt scoffs and shakes his head. “But I don’t believe in angels.”

“Well, just because you don’t believe in angels doesn’t mean we don’t believe in you.”

Kurt frowns at that comment. It’s witty and it’s dismissive, and it’s not what he needs. But Blaine smiles again. He squeezes Kurt’s arm and his body immediately becomes warmer, so Kurt thinks that for the time being he can forgive him.

“Isn’t this…I died,” Kurt says, still not grasping the concept. “Isn’t that the end?” Kurt looks around him, at the miles and miles of white sky, white snow, and nothing else. There seems to be no here here, but he’s somewhere, and that’s confusing. “Why am I still…around?”

It has to be the end. Isn’t that what he’s always thought? When he’s gone, he’s gone. Unless this is some kind of outlandish hallucination, and the fire department actually managed to get him out of his SUV and revive him.

No. They couldn’t have. He died. Kurt knows that for sure. Or close to sure.

He glances down at his feet, at the indentations he’s made – visual evidence that he is, indeed, here. He looks up from his prints in the snow – prints that shouldn’t be there and snow that shouldn’t exist – to Blaine, patiently waiting for him, smiling so bright his eyes dance.

“Death isn’t necessarily an end,” Blaine says. “It’s another part of life. In fact, some people think of this as a beginning.”

“A beginning?” Kurt asks. It’s almost too impossible, too absurd an idea to comprehend. Death is the black void, the great unknown. When the heart stops, the body no longer breathes, and the brain dies, there’s nothing left. How can the shutdown of a human body mean anything but over?

“Yes,” Blaine says. “An opportunity to do the things you didn’t get the chance to do on Earth. Do you have any of those?”

Kurt does – one in particular springing to mind when Blaine shifts his eyes down again, his cheeks turning slightly pinker.

“I do,” Kurt says, surprising himself for admitting it. “I definitely do.”

Blaine nods with a look of satisfaction on his face.

“Well,” Blaine says, reaching out a hand to Kurt, “maybe you can tell me about some of them.”

Kurt looks at Blaine’s hand lingering in the air, waiting for him to take it. If Kurt doesn’t take it, what happens? Does he disappear? He’s pretty much done that. And why not go with the man with the divine voice and the welcome-home smile? What else does Kurt really have to lose?

He reaches out a hand to Blaine and takes his. Blaine’s palm is soft, and his fingers thread through Kurt’s, curl in, and hold on tight. Kurt looks at their hands, joined together, and he smiles. Holding Blaine’s hand feels like calm and solace and relief, and in an odd way, perfect - like his hand has been searching for this one hand to hold his entire life.

“Oh my God, Ryan,” Serena – Ryan’s date – laughs, wiping her eyes with her napkin. She reaches across the table to touch his hand. Ryan’s eyes flick to her hand on his, and he smiles brighter.

Oh yeah, Blaine thinks, raising his wine glass and finishing the last of his Rose. They’re having a fabulous time.

Blaine rolls his wrist and checks the time on his watch. 9:45. He’s been sitting at the table next to theirs for over an hour, waiting. Blaine figured out thirty minutes ago that his blind date wasn’t coming. He’s gotten no texts. No calls. No apologies. No explanation why. Ryan and Serena might have a glowing future together, but his date for the evening is most definitely a bust. The wait staff knows it, too. Every time the waitress stops by to refill his water glass, it’s with a small, sad smile, and a sigh. She’s long since stopped asking him if he needs more time to order.

Blaine reaches for his cell phone, but stops with his hand on his pocket. He’s not going to be that guy. He’s not going to send another text. He’s not going to give this man an easy out, but he refuses to give him the benefit of the doubt and say, “Well, I guess you got caught up. Text me back and we can reschedule for another time.” But he wishes he knew why. Why doesn’t dating work out for him? He’s not a half-bad guy, if he does say so himself. He’s reasonably attractive (at least, he’s always thought so), he has a good job, he’s pursuing his passion. And he’s not asking for much. He’s not looking for the perfect man, just a nice one. One who might share some of his interests, like musical theater, exotic food, old black-and-white films, and the occasional Star Wars revival. But on the whole, he just wants to find a man who wants to spend time with him, get to know him, go to a movie with him, who maybe isn’t ashamed of doing cutesy, romantic things, like hold the door open for him, pull his chair out for him, or offer to split half his plate – the way Ryan did with Serena.

Ryan.

Blaine peeks back over at the happy couple.

As Ryan stares into Serena’s eyes and signals for the check, Blaine knows that he needs to face facts and get this over with. His roommate Rachel has, yet again, succeeded in finding him a date that’s not interested in actually dating. Where does she even find these guys? More to the point, why hasn’t he learned to say no? Unfortunately, he won’t get to gripe to her about it until Monday when she comes back from some live band karaoke cruise she went on with her dads, so Blaine has a long, lonely weekend of re-runs and cookie dough ice-cream to look forward to until then.

Blaine takes one last sip from the lukewarm water in his overfilled glass, and decides to ask for the check. He feels awful paying $7 for a single glass of wine, a half-eaten basket of rye rolls, and a wasted hour of their time. He plans on slipping in a $50 tip, hoping it will be enough that, if he ever does come back, they won’t remember him for not ordering and spit in his food.

He looks around the dining room in search of his waitress – a lovely young red-head with a permanent pout. He doesn’t see his waitress rushing toward his table, but a man – a tall, remarkably handsome man, cheeks flushed as if he’s been running in the cold, and brilliant blue eyes aimed his way, along with a warm, inviting smile.

“Oh…my…God, I am so sorry that I’m late,” the man says, pulling out a chair and sitting across from Blaine. “I wish I could say that I was stuck behind a seven car pile-up, or something monumental, but I really have no exciting excuse.”

The man smiles at Blaine, and Blaine looks suspiciously back, turning his head left and right, searching for an explanation.

“I…I’m sorry,” Blaine says, addressing the man, mostly through side-eye glances. “Are you looking for me?”

“Yes,” the man says, extending an arm across the table. “I’m your date for the evening. I’m Rachel’s friend, Carl.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow.

“You? You’re Carl?”

The man’s smile becomes wider, but in a tense sort of way, and he nods.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I am.” Blaine looks left and right again, obviously skeptical, and the man sighs. He folds his hand on the table. “Look, Blaine, I know I was supposed to be here at a quarter to nine, and I know you’ve probably called and texted a hundred times. I’m really, really sorry.” He looks down at his thumbs, fidgeting as he speaks. “I know this is going to sound lame, but I got caught up at work, and then I missed my train. I wanted to call you, but I left my phone at the office.” The man sighs again, deeper, the air leaving his body causing him to flatten a bit. “This has been a pretty awful day, all things considered, and I was really looking forward to this date tonight. I would like the opportunity to make it up to you.” The man looks up at Blaine through long, brown lashes, a sincere expression of regret on his face, eyes pleading for a second chance. “Will you let me try?”

Blaine doesn’t quite believe that Carl ever intended on showing up at all. But then, why is he there? Did some other plans he made fall through? Did he feel guilty for blowing Blaine off and turn around at the last minute? Blaine knows he has every right to leave - to stand up, say goodbye, and go on his merry way. But Carl did show up – the first of about three blind dates to even bother – so maybe Blaine should give him a chance.

He’s mulling it over when he catches sight of the man staring at him, a flirty smile on his lips that Blaine can’t help finding positively alluring.

“Please?” the man mouths, the hands he had folded on the table finding their way up to his chin to aid in his begging. “Please?”

Blaine smiles back and rolls his eyes to pry his gaze away from the man’s mouth.

“Alright,” Blaine says. “It sounds like you had a hard day. I can’t fault you for that.” The man looks relieved, but his smile turns slightly impish, and Blaine finds himself giggling without meaning to. “Why don’t we have a bite to eat and get to know each other?”

“Great,” Carl says. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

Blaine opens his menu and looks over the names and descriptions of the dishes he practically has memorized.

“I was thinking about having the salmon burger.”

“Ooo, that does sound good,” Carl says, opening his menu, “but you know, I come here a lot and I have to say, the Fettucine Alfredo is to die for. I always order it.”

Blaine scans the menu. Fettucine Alfredo is usually his go-to dish at any new restaurant. How did he miss it?

“That sounds good, too,” Blaine says with an indecisive whine.

Carl’s mouth twists at the corner while he considers those two options.

“I’ve got an idea,” he says, “you get the burger, I’ll get the Alfredo, and we can split. What do you say? Or does that sound too middle school?”

Blaine hides behind his menu, the smile on his face going from cautiously optimistic to ridiculous.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Blaine says. “We should totally do that.”

***

“Okay, so, we’re already running late, and it’s starting to rain…” Carl says, gesturing with his hands as he gets more into the story he’s telling, and Blaine watches, wide eyed. If Blaine thought Ryan was a good storyteller, it’s only because he hadn’t met this man yet. “Like Monsoon level downpour. We’re supposed to be on stage an hour ago, and she texts me and says, ‘Stall for thirty minutes.’ And I’m like, Stall? We were supposed to be singing the opening number already, how am I going to stall?” Carl pauses to catch his breath in the middle of a laugh, while Blaine’s already in tears, picturing Carl racing through the rain, trying to make it to the Gershwin Theater by curtain with his umbrella completely inverted, broken by an unforgiving gust of wind, and missing one shoe. “She gets to the theater, finally, but before the rain started, she had just finished getting a $250 spray tan…”

“$250!?” Blaine exclaims.

“Or something like that,” Carl says after a sip of water. “Whatever it was, it was insanely expensive.”

“And the rain ruined it?” Blaine guesses. He’s leaning across the table now, captivated by Carl’s every word, and Carl notices with the same flick of his blue eyes that Ryan did when Serena touched his hand.

“No,” Carl says, shaking his head, “her dog did. He got scared by the thunder and peed on her leg. She looked like an orange zebra! It was awful!”

“But…but wouldn’t the costume cover that?”

Carl, unable to say another word, puts a finger on his nose, indicating that Blaine is right, and they both start laughing. Carl wheezes and Blaine snorts, which makes them both laugh harder. The entire restaurant turns and looks their way, but neither one of them notices. Even if they did, they wouldn’t care.

Blaine, having ordered a second glass of wine, takes a healthy sip, but the buzz he gets from the alcohol is nothing compared to the one he already has from this date with Carl.

“I have to say,” Blaine says as the laughter dies down, “I was a little hinky about being set up, but Carl, this is going so well.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” Carl agrees, becoming suddenly quiet.

“I mean, I’ve never met a real live Munchkin before.”

Carl laughs, but it’s not like before - not as effervescent and carefree. Blaine looks down at the empty plates on the table, at the stray pieces of pasta and the crumbs from the burger they shared, not a single full bite left. As it turned out, they both ordered really well. Blaine didn’t think it was possible for two things to be so compatible.

“I know you had a rotten day, but thank you for showing up. This was probably the most perfect blind date ever.” Blaine watches Carl, concerned that his attention seems to be slipping away.

Before he gets to comment, Carl beats him to it: “Blaine, I have a confession to make.”

Blaine feels the butterflies that have been dancing in his stomach during dinner drop dead, as if hit by a sudden frost.

“Yes, Carl?”

The man flinches.

“My name…isn’t Carl,” he says. “It’s Kurt. Kurt Hummel. And I wasn’t your blind date. I’m not the man your friend set you up with.”

Blaine looks down at his hands, wiping them on the napkin in his lap.

“I had a feeling,” Blaine confesses. “I mean, you don’t seem like the type of man my friend would usually set me up with.”

“What kind of men does she usually set you up with?”

Blaine chuckles. “I don’t know, actually. They don’t tend to show up.” Kurt gasps, but Blaine has to ask, “I don’t understand…why? Why did you do this?”

“I came in after work for a drink, and I saw you sitting at this table, waiting for your date.” Kurt smiles. “I have to admit, I thought you were cute, so I kept looking. I heard you talking to the waitress and making jokes, and you sounded like such a nice guy. You told her about how your friend set you up, how excited you were. Then I heard you calling, saw you texting, and waiting and waiting and…

“And you took pity on me,” Blaine says with a grimace.

“No, I was angry,” Kurt says. “I was angry that some dumb fuck got the chance to have a date with such a great seeming guy like you, and he just bailed. Opportunities like that don’t come by all the time, Blaine, and he threw his away. But I saw an opportunity, and I took it. And no matter what you think about me now, I’m glad I did, Blaine. Because you’re great. You’re really great. And I hope that you’ll forgive me and let me take you out on a real first date.”

The table becomes quiet - Kurt watching Blaine, Blaine looking at his lap. The whole restaurant seems to have gone silent, as if everyone around them, who has listened to them laugh and talk and watched them share their meal, is waiting to see what Blaine is going to say. From somewhere off toward the kitchen door, Kurt thinks he sees a few of the waitresses peeking around a corner, watching their table a little too intently.

“What else was a lie?” Blaine asks. “Everything you said over dinner, was any of that true?”

“All of it,” Kurt says. “Everything I said, about living in Ohio, going to NYADA, performing in Wicked, it’s all true, I promise. Here…wait…” Kurt opens his jacket and reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone. He touches the screen, swipes it a few times, and then hands it to Blaine. “Take a look. I’ve had this phone forever,” Kurt says as Blaine flips through the photos. “There are some in there of me at NYADA, a couple from dress rehearsals at the Gershwin…oh, and we were in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There should be a picture of me on a float.” Blaine swipes through photo after photo of Kurt performing on stage, taking a selfie with a group of guys holding prop swords and shields, dressed in a black leotard and doing something that might be mime – Blaine can’t really tell. There are also pictures of Kurt standing outside the Gershwin Theater, of Kurt being fitted for his costume, having his makeup applied, and then there’s the float – a big impressive contraption made to look like Oz, with Glinda in a bubble, Elphaba on her broom, and down among the crowd of Munchkins, Blaine spots Kurt, singing full voice in the middle of whatever song they are performing.

So, Kurt is telling the truth.

“I don’t know, Kurt,” Blaine says, handing the phone back. “I mean, yeah, you’re telling the truth, but…”

“But…” Kurt asks, his smile fading.

Blaine shrugs. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“Fair enough,” Kurt says, slipping his phone back in his pocket. “But can I ask you a question?”

Blaine nods. “I guess.”

“What did you know about Carl before you showed up here to meet him?”

“Well, I…” Blaine sits there with his mouth open, expecting words to come out that don’t exist, because he didn’t know anything about Carl. Not even what he looked like. Rachel told him that he showed Carl a picture, and that Carl would know him when he saw him. But other than that, all he had was Rachel’s assurance that they would work well together. In reality, Carl could have stopped by at some point, seen Blaine waiting for him, and then turned around and left, and Blaine would have never known. But Kurt, on the other hand - he’s been talking to Kurt all through dinner. He knows where Kurt grew up, the name of his high school, that he lived with his father and his mother died when he was young, that he interned at Vogue when he first moved to New York City, and now he’s in the chorus of a Broadway play.

Blaine’s not sure he knows as much about his roommate, and he lives with her.

“You’ve got me,” Blaine says, shaking his head. “Alright, Kurt. You’re right. I would love to go on a real first date with you.”

Kurt reaches his hand across the table and Blaine takes it, and Blaine suddenly remembers the look Ryan had in his eye before he signaled for the check.

Kurt has a similar look.

Kurt raises his hand for the check, but after not seeing her for most of their meal, their waitress walks by and puts a plate down in the center of the table - a slice of cheesecake smothered in strawberries, with two forks.

“Uh, waitress?” Kurt calls to the woman before she can walk away.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s this?” he asks, confused by the sudden appearance of food.

“It’s cheesecake,” she says, as if that isn’t apparent. “It’s the house special.”

“But, we didn’t order dessert,” Blaine points out, looking at the cake and then back at the woman who delivered it.

“Blaine, we got a call on Wednesday from a parent who claims that you were rude to their son with regard to a failing grade. We’re going to need you to stay during your lunch hour for a parent-teacher meeting. Mom claims that’s the only time she can make it.”

“We’re going to have to add three extra rehearsals this week and next. I hope that’s not a problem for anyone, Blaine…”

“Did you actually take the time to practice the choreography for this number? I mean, what have you been doing this whole week? Sucking your thumb?”

“We’re going to need you to start seeing a vocal coach. Your upper register just isn’t as strong as it should be. Your falsetto is being drowned out by the chorus. I don’t know where you’re going to find the time. Make the time. It’s not my problem.”

“You know, if you don’t want to show more commitment to this production, I know about eight other guys I could call right now who would be happy to jump into your shoes at a moment’s notice. Look. I have them right here on speed dial.”

“I don’t care that you’re tired. I don’t care about your other job. I don’t care about your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your pet cocker spaniel. This show is all I care about. This performance is my baby, not all of you. So, if you’re not prepared to leave your loved ones, sacrifice your first born, and abandon everything you know to make this production a success, then there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”

It’s nearly the weekend, and Blaine’s home at a reasonable hour for once. He wipes the condensation off the bathroom mirror and looks at himself, his body stiff, hands gripping the lip of the sink, trying hard to remember how to breathe. His hair, still damp from the shower, clings uncomfortably to his cheeks, and he would brush it away if he could only convince himself to let go, that the world isn’t going to crash down around him, or get sucked into a vortex, dragging him into oblivion. He’s dressed in the monogrammed flannel pajamas his Dom bought for him, the ones that normally make him feel protected when Kurt’s not around, but they’re not doing their job well tonight. Soft strains of calming classical music fill the air. The atmosphere of the loft as a whole is peaceful, at ease.

But that doesn’t matter, because Blaine can’t stop shaking.

A week’s worth of stress, a week’s worth of pressure, a week’s worth of snide comments, complaints, condescension, and unnecessary demands squeeze Blaine like a vice. And now, Friday night, fourteen hours before the mandatory conference he can’t make, no matter how many times his job is threatened, because it coincides with dress rehearsals (a conflict he had taken the initiative to iron out months ago), it all becomes unbearable. The strain is working inside his brain, inside his body, sanding his nerves raw, setting the ends on fire. All he wants to do is run and scream until the frustration leaves his body, and his mind can start over fresh.

But he can’t do this alone. He needs help.

With the humid air from his shower covering his skin, he undresses, hanging up his shirt, then his pants, on the hooks behind the door. At the threshold of the bathroom, he gets down on his knees. He crawls the distance from the bathroom to the bedroom, and approaches his Dom, already lying in bed, getting ready to call it a night. Blaine stops when he reaches the damask dust ruffle and waits patiently to be acknowledged, what’s left of his tears staining his cheeks.

Kurt has been watching, ever since Blaine crawled into view, but he waited, seeing what his sub would do. Kurt looks down at him, raising a brow when he sees Blaine. It’s not unusual for Blaine to submit to Kurt in this way, it’s just…not entirely normal. Not with Blaine as visibly upset as this.

“What do you need, pet?” Kurt asks, putting his work away and focusing on the man kneeling on the hardwood floor by his side.

“A spanking, Sir. Please,” Blaine replies, timidly, hopefully, and as quickly as if Blaine had told Kurt that he needed to go to the emergency room, Kurt gets out of bed and walks to his chair in the living room - a straight back leather and wood chair he owns for just this purpose.

“Come, pet,” Kurt commands gently. On his knees, Blaine follows, relief filling his body at Kurt’s agreeing to fulfill his request without question.

Blaine doesn’t have to explain this need to his Dom. Kurt knows what Blaine is saying, what he’s asking for, without him going into detail.

Blaine’s not simply asking to be spanked. Kurt sometimes uses spanking as punishment. Sometimes he uses it as play. But this is not about any of that. It’s about pure submission. It’s about Blaine turning himself over to Kurt, putting himself in Kurt’s capable hands, releasing himself entirely in to his Dom’s care in order to find an escape from the world for a while.

Because Blaine doesn’t know any other way of saying that things are too difficult for him to handle right now.

That everything, even the things he loves and the careers he enjoys, are weighing him down.

That his head aches, his body aches, and everything from blinking to breathing, to just plain existing, is agonizing.

He feels scared. He feels lost.

And because he’s spent so much time at the theater and at school, so much time away from Kurt, he feels divided and alone.

Blaine needs to find his center again. He wants to feel whole. And that can only happen in the arms of his Dom.

It starts when Kurt pulls Blaine up by his arms, grabs him by the waist, and throws him over his lap. Kurt rarely just starts wailing away; not unless Blaine’s behaving like a brat. There’s a ritual to this, and it’s almost as sacred as the act of spanking itself. Kurt warms Blaine up, preparing his sensitive skin with rubs and light pats, working up from gentle smacks to blows with the flat of his palm, alternating sides to give Blaine a chance to recover in between. Steadily, Kurt quickens his pace, spanking harder, but maintaining a rhythm. With every swat – whether it’s barely noticeable, it stings, or it burns – each of Blaine’s problems melt away. The clutter in his head begins to clear. The worries that had bogged down his brain, messing with his memory so that he’d forget lines and entrances, the answers to proofs, or to buy milk on his way home, chip and shatter when Kurt’s hand connects with his skin.

Kurt didn’t command Blaine to count for him, but Blaine starts counting in his head. Force of habit, but it’s soothing, too, and every number takes Blaine away from himself, to that secluded spot where everything is cozy and dark, where there are never any bad feelings, where he can think lucidly and breathe deep.

And he does.

Long drawn inhales that fill his lungs with fresh, sweet air, reaching as far down as his soul.

When his breathing evens out and his entire body relaxes, Kurt eases up and slows down. He keeps his rhythm, but he goes back to the beginning, to the gentle pats, and now, gentler rubs.

He hears Blaine sigh – a contented sigh – and he stops.

“How’s that?” Kurt asks, running fingers through his sub’s hair, massaging his scalp in circles, and then stroking down his back. “Do you feel any better?”

“Yes, Sir,” Blaine mumbles, floating back to the world, reconnecting with his body, starting from his toes and merging on up. When the feeling returns to his ass, it’s hot and tender - perfectly sore.

“Good, pet,” Kurt says, rubbing Blaine’s shoulders while he talks, “now why don’t we get you in bed, get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you can tell me what this was all about.”