#saundersabergowitz

“At least you were wearing your helmet!” Kurt chided, fussing over him on his crutches as they took the tiny, scary elevator down into the subway to head back home from the emergency clinic. “But what a shame about the pants…”

“The other color I have them in looks better on me anyway,” Blaine had said, smiling gamely and trying to block out the pain. Kurt gave him a sweet smile back, and a little kiss pecked to his lips as they ventured out onto the train platform.

That was over a week ago, though, and while his knee still stings a little bit from the crash, it’s nothing compared to the sting of annoyance every time Blaine’s painful-but-minor injury is just enough to incapacitate him from doing something that’s otherwise negligibly easy.He’s had to curb his natural habit of bouncing his leg when he’s bored or antsy in class because he’ll knock it against the underside of his desk. He drops his pen doing homework, and it rolls under the bed - but he can’t put any pressure on his swollen knee, so he has to slide to all the way flat on his side and worm underneath, pushing himself back to standing mostly with his arms.  Even getting dressed in the morning is a nightmarish annoyance, taking care to give his injury space in his pants as he slides them on, careful not to snag the fabric over his stitches.

God, the stitches. The gash they’re holding together has mostly closed up, but the flesh around it is still swollen from the impact, and some days, Blaine’s not sure it isn’t the stitches themselves digging into his inflamed skin that are hurting him worse than the itchy, healing cut beneath. He’s hoping to head back in and get them taken out Wednesday, but when even his gentle washcloth is too much for it during his Sunday afternoon bath, he can’t help but groan. Loudly.

“Just take them out yourself,” says Santana, when he’s complaining about it at their group dinner later that night. 

“Oh, yeah,” agrees Jesse. “We used to do it all the time in Vocal Adrenaline, there was no time to actually go to the hospital for something that trivial. If it’s making it harder to perform - “

“Or, you know, actually live your regular life,” Elliot cuts in, shooting Jesse a look. “Since that seems to be the actual problem here.”

“Is that entirely safe?” asks Kurt, who - much like Blaine - seems to be healthily skeptical of a course of action proposed by Santana and seconded by Jesse. 

“If you can wait till Wednesday, definitely wait till Wednesday,” says Elliot. “For a real doctor. But it’s what, six stitches? If the swelling is too bad and it’s pulling or whatever, you can do it yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” says Blaine, eating another bite of Kurt’s kale baked pasta, and then Brittany excitedly wants to show them all something she found on her phone, and they drop it, and move on. 

Blaine wakes in the middle of the night with his knee throbbing, and their afghan caught in his stitches because Kurt’s twisted up in the entire top sheet that usually goes between. Even his exasperated fondness for Kurt’s cute tendency to hog blankets can’t override this. He hobbles to the bathroom, not even bothering with his crutches, and takes a pair of nail scissors from the medicine cabinet. He sits on the toilet and props his injured leg up on the edge of the bathtub. He stares down at his dumb busted knee and the six stitches and - 

He can’t do it. In his unguarded, three-in-the-morning mind, every awful hospital memory Blaine has swirls and eddies together - post-Sadie Hawkins, post-Michael Jackson dance-off, Sam’s nasty staph infection from when he lived in that apartment of weird models, Kurt’s horrible attack…. He’s suddenly beyond paranoid of messing his leg up even worse, his blood throbbing in his ears just as much as in his irritated knee, and his hands are shaking. 

“Sweetie, you all right?” comes Kurt’s bleary voice, and Blaine looks up from his leg to see his husband standing in the doorway, squinting at him in the light of the bathroom, still mostly asleep but waking up quick.

“I’m - I’m fine,” Blaine manages, giving him a weak smile. “It’s just my damn stitches. I think Santana was right.” 

Blaine can tell when Kurt notices the nail scissors in his hand, and he crosses over to him, kneeling next to him and rubbing at his thigh up under the bottom hem of his boxers, just above his infuriating knee. “You haven’t done it yet though?”

“I…I can’t,” Blaine murmurs, but then he realizes - “But you could?”

“Blaine?”

“I don’t do - too well with things like this, I guess,” Blaine admits. He laughs at himself a little. “Can you believe I ever thought I might try to be a doctor?” 

“You wanted to help people. You still do.”

“Yeah. But you - “ Blaine takes Kurt’s hand in his own, rests them together on his thigh. “You’re so - steady. Such a sure hand, you know stitching, and you’re…you’re kind of my rock, with things like this, you know. You’re the only one I trust to do this.”

Blaine places the scissors into Kurt’s hand, and Kurt studies on them, intently, but only for a moment. His eyes are back on Blaine’s in no time, and he smiles, warm and strong.

“In sickness and in health, as they say.” He pops back up off his knees and leaves the bathroom, returning immediately with his phone, where he’s already tapping something out into Google.

“Okay,” Kurt says. “Clean it up, elevate it, and then just…one by one, until they’re all out. Tweezers, too, I think.” He reaches over Blaine into the medicine cabinet again, then for the washcloth at the back of the shower, and then settles back on the floor. Blaine still has his leg on the bathtub, but Kurt tugs gently on it, until it’s resting up along his own shoulder, instead.

“Oh,” Blaine breathes. Kurt smiles at him, fondly, easily, and strokes at the sensitive back of his knee, which maybe should feel ticklish but right now - definitely doesn’t. Kurt dabs the damp washcloth gently over Blaine’s busted knee, slow and oh-so careful, and Blaine’s breath catches in his throat. He sits up a little straighter and elevates Blaine’s leg even higher.

“You’ll let me know if - if I hurt you?” Kurt says.

“I promise,” says Blaine.

Cradling his leg close, Kurt pushes tenderly against Blaine’s swollen skin with one hand, and uses the other to catch the loop of the first suture with the scissors. When he’s sure he’s got all thread and no scab, he snips, quick and adroit. He trades off with the tweezers and tugs the black thread out of Blaine’s leg. It feels a little like the strange, tight slide of plucking a wayward hair, but it only stings for a second - it actually, weirdly, feels kind of cool. It’s definitely a relief, and Blaine loses himself so much in the sensation that he almost doesn’t realize Kurt’s already nearly done with the second one.

“You’re doing so well, sweetie,” Kurt murmurs, pressing a kiss to Blaine’s calf. The third and fourth ones are tightest, sewn in over the worst part of the wound, and Kurt has to tug a little harder to get them loose and then out. But it never hurts; the relief after it’s out is cool and palpable, and the tug and slip of the stitches leaving his skin - coupled with the way Kurt is kneeling in front of him, taking such good care of him and being so gentle but so steady - is kind of way more satisfying and pleasurable than Blaine thinks it should be.

When all six stitches are all the way out and Kurt is dabbing at his skin again, his warm strong hands wrapped so careful around Blaine’s leg, Blaine can’t help but let out a soft little moan, sinking into the soft sensation of Kurt’s skin against his own.

“Mmmh,” Kurt says, his wide, teasing smile beaming out from his eyes now, too. “You’re doing so well,” he says again, and then he presses his mouth full to the inside curve of Blaine’s knee, wet and lush and utterly certain. The kiss slides up, higher and then just a little bit higher still, past the point where Blaine’s the most swollen and up to the soft, trembling stretch of his inner thigh. His eyes slide closed a couple of times but always come back to Blaine’s when they’re open, watching him, caring for him. Loving him.