Title: Reverb

Fandom: Glee

Rating: Teen

Length: ~200,000 words, 7300 this part

Pairings: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel

Summary: Post-Michael thru Season 4, Blaine's just a little unwell, and it's not long before everyone can tell. Physical and Mental illness. Hurt/Comfort. If Robin Cook wrote for Glee and General Hospital, the story would probably go like this.

Warnings/Triggers-Overall: Long term physical illness, mental illness, grossly dramatized medical situations, mentions of violence, depression, anxiety, mentions of self-harm(not cutting), implied sexual situations (non-graphic), canon character death

Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only. I do not own Glee or the characters and can therefore not be paid for this. It's a labor of love.

Foreword: I will try to make this the only longish author note in the story. I don't know what I'm doing here, posting fic for a show that has been over for years. I tried to resist it. I tried to fight it, but when it came down to it, I haven't been able to write anything other than musings about things like, "How to Ride Shoulder-In on the Outside Rein to Maintain Uphill Balance Without Losing the Haunches During the Transition to Half Pass," in at least six years. I imagine most of the people reading this got an Author Alert and were expecting Supernatural fic. So, I should just say now, that I only watch Supernatural to get the episodes off my DVR so my husband can record whatever he needs the room for. I don't hate the show, but I'm not inspired by it anymore. This is not Supernatural fic, and none of the unfinished SPN fic is going to be finished. There are several reasons for this, from loss of inspiration to flat out performance anxiety and confidence issues, but it's for those very reasons that I have written 20 chapters of this story without posting it in order to make sure that's not going to happen here.

This story will be around 200,000 words long, and I've written 160,000 since February of this year. I don't know if anyone's left to read it, but no matter how hard I tried to talk myself out of writing it, it refused to let me go. I have twenty chapters written, and I know exactly where it's going and how it's going to get there. It should be around Twenty-five chapters.

I suppose the correct term for this story is AU, since it diverges from canon. However, I choose to think of it as a Glee Universe Expansion Pack to enhance all things Klaine. I'll be honest. I apparently stopped watching the show in Season Four, though I can't remember actually making any decision to do so. When I started streaming it on Netflix over Christmas break last year, I realized I'd never seen the ending, and while I didn't care for how they got there, I actually like how the story ended for all my favorite characters. So, this fic will expand on the story, leave out some parts of canon, move some things around, add in some elements that weren't there in canon, and basically touch on all of my angst/hurt/comfort/fluff/medical drama/romance kinks (and I mean all of them, note the word count) without actually changing how the characters end up at the end of the show. So, while that's happy for most, if a character died in canon, they die in this story. I don't want to change their future, just how they get there. I also adopted a few elements of fanon which have never actually been refuted by canon, like the reason for Blaine being a year behind Kurt in school and Carole being a nurse by trade. I also might have a redemption fetish and probably tried to fix a few characters. I don't think that changes how they end up, either.

I really just wanted to give Blaine a medical condition so I could write H/C, but the deeper I got into it, the more I realized my canon Blaine is mentally ill, seriously, whether they actually come out and say it or not. So, I had to address that, too.

This is epic and often internal, though I made a hugely concerted effort to do away with pages and pages of introspection, but it's also Glee, so there are laughs, lots of implausible drama, parody, and music. This is also me, so there will be ellipses, run on sentences, and sentence fragments. I write how I think, which is not grammatically correct. I'm aware of that. There will, however, be no ridiculous epithets; all characters are addressed by their names or a pronoun. There will be no graphic sex but tons of innuendo and implied sexual situations. And there is no cussing.

Also, there's very little of the Season Four New Directions characters, because I hated all of them except Kitty. Sorry.

I promise not to beg for reviews at the end of every chapter, because no one likes that, and I honestly expect there's no one to read it, anyway. This is a true labor of love. However, I will point out now that I am not one who is gifted with the superpower of word vomit. I agonize over every single. one. By my estimates, it takes me at least twenty minutes to write what it takes a reader one minute or less to read, not including the time I spend pondering how a scene should go and then re-editing it after it's written. These are massive chapters. Most of them are 7 to 10,000 words, sometimes more. If you read all that and liked it, please let me know. I don't have a planned posting schedule, but plan on once or twice a week, at least until I've finished writing it.

Now, places everyone!

On with the show.

Reverb: Chapter One

Burt Hummel had gone selectively deaf to the squeak of his truck door and the solid, heavy thud it made when he slammed it shut, rattling the glass inside the frame. Parked in the driveway outside the Anderson house, however, it seemed louder than he remembered. He couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious in his dingy work clothes and sweat-stained cap from the tire shop, but there was no need for embarrassment, no one around to see.

The houses on this street loomed stately, twice the size of the Hudson Hummel's, at least, but paying for them must've trumped actually living there. Not a single other car was visible at the midday hour(1). The entire neighborhood had an unlived in quality about it that Burt didn't much care for. Not so much as a barking dog suggested anything more substantial than the names on the mailboxes had taken residence there, a shoe box diorama of suburbia.

Blaine's house appeared no more homey looking than the rest. If Burt hadn't known for a fact that Blaine was laid up in his room, waiting for the swelling in his eye to go down enough so they could do the surgery to repair this corneal scratch, he would have had no problem believing the whole neighborhood was vacant. He knew Blaine's mom had been keeping longer hours at her office so that she could take the day of Blaine's surgery off. Pam had seemed both relieved and gracious that Burt offered to check in on Blaine during the day while she was out, but she hadn't expounded on the whereabouts of Blaine's father other than to say he was 'out of town.'

It was none of Burt's business, but at the same time, it chapped his ass that Blaine was left to fend for himself all day while he was injured. It wasn't exactly convenient for Burt to drive across town during his work day either, but he was the boss and had a capable staff that needed him less than Blaine did right then.

Besides, this wasn't just a casual check-in. Today, he had news to deliver. He'd made Kurt promise not to call or text Blaine to tell him about the NYADA letter. Burt wanted to see the look on Blaine's face himself when he found out Kurt was a finalist.

He'd be so proud.

Burt tried the doorbell. He hated the idea of waking Blaine, if he was asleep, but didn't feel right letting himself in even though Pam had told him where to find the key under the deck in the side yard. To be honest, Burt couldn't see himself squatting down to retrieve a key from under the deck and then making it back to standing without a whole lot of creaking and groaning. There was a reason he'd installed hydraulic lifts at the garage. Too many years of climbing under cars the old-fashioned way had made him... well, old.

The chime of the doorbell sounded like the gong of a clock big enough to sit in the middle of a courtyard somewhere, and it echoed through the interior of the house for at least five full seconds before dying away. Certain that Blaine could not possibly have missed it, Burt waited a solid two minutes with no response before pressing the button again.

As the last ding-dong faded, Burt heard the door mechanism click as though it had been unlocked electronically, and an intercom next to the door squawked with a burst of static. "It's open, Mr. Hummel."

Blaine was expecting him, then. Burt turned the knob and went inside even more self-conscious of his steel toes leaving marks on the immaculate tile in the entryway than he had been about his old truck parked in the drive. The staircase stretched upward from just inside the foyer and looped back around in the middle to the second floor hallway. Burt couldn't help but imagine that the Anderson family Christmas tree was fifteen feet tall and went up next to the stairwell, so they could decorate it over the rail and add the topper from the landing. He felt small standing at the bottom looking up, and his practical, head of household persona didn't want to imagine the cost of the heating bill to warm that place in the winter.

Work boots eerily muted on the carpet runner, he made his way up to Blaine's room at the top of the stairs and knocked on the door. "Blaine?"

"Come in." The voice sounded strange through the door.

"Hey, kid," Burt greeted as he stepped inside, "How you doin' today?"

Blaine was propped against the upholstered headboard, dressed in navy pajamas with white piping, hair askew and bleary-eyed. Various textbooks and binders littered the rumpled bedclothes, but Blaine didn't try to keep them in any semblance of order as he struggled to sit up straighter from where he was leaned back against a pile of pillows. His one good eye blinked at half speed, head held stiffly atop his neck. The one hand he had absently splayed across his chest fell into his lap and he pushed himself up with the other arm, his ever-present, charming smile a little crooked and forced beneath the eyepatch.

"I'm hanging in there," Blaine grinned. He gestured to the avalanche of makeup homework sliding off his lap. "Just practicing my learning by osmosis technique. Figured if I couldn't read more than half a page at a time, I'd try sleeping under them and see if the knowledge just wormed its way in on its own." His fingers wiggled a halo around his head.

"How's that working out for you?"

A weak laugh. "Yeah, it's not." He flinched with the laugh, his forehead tight and furrowed. "I'm not really supposed to be reading, because they don't want me to strain my other eye, so I thought I'd do some math, because…"

"Because math isn't reading," Burt chuckled, shaking his head. "You know it wouldn't kill you to just follow doctor's orders and take it easy."

"You sound like Kurt." Blaine grinned and sank back into his pillows, a wistful expression on his face that reminded Burt of all the times a family movie night had encroached on a PG-13 rating of its own down at the far end of the sofa when the boys thought he wasn't looking.

One arm snaked up from where it was crossed over Burt's chest and slid over his chin to the back of his neck as he tried to smear the knowing smirk off his face. The kid had it bad.

"He says I'll throw off my whole perception of space and end up poking him in the eye when we…"

Burt coughed loudly, because he didn't really want to know about what his son and his boyfriend did to get close enough to put someone's eye out or what they were putting it out with. While he managed to drown the tail end of that particular thought stream, it did nothing to deter Blaine from rambling on.

"And I know I'm supposed to take it easy, but I have all this work to do, and it's not going to get done if I don't do it, right?" He was suddenly more animated, arms gesticulating above the clutter that hemmed him in. Then, with a helpless shrug, "Besides, it's not like I have anything else to do besides think about how this stuff is just piling up by the hour. So, I get all anxious until I can't stand it anymore and try to at least catch up on the reading, and then I remember why I'm not supposed to be reading in the first place."

He scrubbed a hand over his face and up into his hair stretch out behind him with a shake of his head. After a thoughtful pause he shivered, looking Burt in the eye. "You never think about how much you move your eye when you read until you can actually feel it moving." He fisted a handful of hair, groaning in frustration. "It moves so much! It's like I have bugs under my eyelid, and they're crawling around." His one eye went wide, some disturbing thought apparently worming its way to the forefront of his mind. "You don't think that's possible, do you?" he asked.

Burt opened his mouth to speculate as to whether he thought anything was under Blaine's eyepatch other than his eye but never actually managed to get a word in.

"You know, like maybe mites or something? I mean, there are ear wigs, right? Are there eye mites? Where would they live, do you think? In my eyelashes?" By then Blaine was patting the area around his injured eye with his fingertips as if looking for evidence that eye mites were setting up house on his face. "God, I hope not. Kurt loves my eyelashes!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there kid," Burt snickered as he reached out to pull Blaine's hand away from his face. "I'm no doctor, but I'm sure if there were bugs living in your eyelashes, they were all smothered by the ointment. You've been using the ointment they gave you at the E.R., right?" He patted Blaine's shoulder to impart some reassurance.

Blaine sagged against the pillows again. "Oh yeah, that's probably true. You're really smart, Mr. Hummel."

"And you're high as a kite," Burt smirked. "I don't know about the ointment, but whatever they gave you for pain is doing a number on you."

"Not really," Blaine shrugged. "That stuff makes me dizzy, so I only take it when I want to go to sleep. But I feel like all I've been doing is sleeping." His gaze darted around the room, unfocused. "I guess I'm just a little stir crazy."

"Ah." Burt acknowledged, not entirely sure he believed the last dose had actually worn off. "I can relate to that. I spent so much time on the couch after my heart scare that I practically wore the numbers off the television remote. I never watched less than three shows at the same time." He looked around him. "At least, if you've got to be laid up for a while, you've got some pretty nice digs to do it in. I can see why Kurt spends so much time here."

Blaine huffed a laugh toward one of his pillows. "No, I really don't think you do."

Burt didn't want to think about the implication behind that statement. He wasn't stupid. He knew Blaine's parents were hardly ever home and that there was ample opportunity for the boys to get up to… mischief here, but they were good boys. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. Yup. Good boys.

Suddenly uncomfortable, he busied himself by taking in his surroundings. He'd only been to Blaine's room once before, and Kurt had been with him. Now, he felt a little like he was invading the kid's privacy. Trying not to look like he was looking for incriminating evidence, he gawked around awkwardly, hands in the pockets of his coveralls, gathering in whatever he could see and using the new imagery to fill in the gaps he had in his mental picture of the boy his son was in love with.

Nothing stood out as unusual- bookshelf full of mostly nonfiction, biographies, texts and whatnot, some audio visual type memorabilia, an old camera, something that was either a pair of opera glasses or really tiny binoculars, various awards, mostly musical, except for...

"Horses?" he pointed at the seemingly random horse trophies atop the dresser. "Do you ride, Blaine?"

Blaine shrugged dismissively. "I used to. Ponies, actually. I only competed for a few years, Medium and Large Pony Hunters. My parents and my trainer thought I should've moved up to the Medal classes, been the next Jessica Springsteen," he shrugged, "but that just seemed like a good way to take something fun and turn it into a full time job. You have to have a whole other level of passion for it to take on that kind of commitment." He smashed his pillows flat and flopped down, face up to the ceiling. "Wouldn't have minded meeting Bruce, though."

Burt chuckled, working his bottom lip out since he had absolutely no idea what a pony would be hunting other than, maybe carrots, or what a medal class was.

"But hey," Blaine added, "If you ever need someone to go charging in on a fiery steed," one arm levitated off the bed as if wielding a sword, "I'm your guy."

Feeling more at ease, Burt removed his hat and sat down in the leather armchair by the bed. Blaine shuttered his eyes, fingers massaging the space between.

"You doin' okay?"

Blaine seemed distracted for a second, the hand in his lap creeping back up to its former position splayed over his chest. His head ensconced between the swells of his pillows, he met Burt's gaze from beneath a fan of eyelashes, still grinning with his normal charm. "Yeah." He waved a hand around his head. "It just turns out that an eye injury is a lot like a toothache. It radiates through your whole head." He grimaced. "I guess for some people, the brain just doesn't know how to deal with the stimulation, or something, and thinks everything hurts. Feels like I've got a red hot fire poker wedged in my skull, but apparently, it's not real. It only feels real."

"Don't kid yourself," Burt argued. "If it feels real. It's real. Do you need some more pain medication? I can leave if you want to sleep."

"Nah, that stuff only lasts a couple hours before it wears off, and I can only take so many in a day. I'm trying to wait until right before Kurt gets here to take another one. That way I'll be able to enjoy the company better, and he won't..."

"He won't freak out worrying about you," Burt supplied, because Kurt most definitely would be freaking out if he could see the pain etched over Blaine's features now. "I've been there," he added with a nod, recalling the time he'd spent recovering from his heart attack while simultaneously trying to prevent Kurt from having one of his own. Frowning, he glanced at his watch. "School doesn't get out for two more hours, and then there's Glee practice. You sure you wanna tough it out 'til then?"

Blaine shrugged and let his head loll. "I'll manage. As long as it doesn't get any worse. It just kinda sucks right now, is all."

Burt took a beat to soak in the situation, rolling up his cap between his hands, then tossed it onto the bedspread beside Blaine's knee. "Well, here's to a little less suck in your day. This is not just a courtesy call. I come bearing the cure for your day of suck. Or, as we regular joes would say, good news."

Blaine lifted an eyebrow in interest, tilted his chin, "Oh yeah?"

"Kurt got his NYADA letter today. He's a finalist!" Burt felt his entire expression split open, beaming.

Blaine actually lifted his head then, his smile taking over his whole face. One hand raised overhead somewhere between what the kids called 'raising the roof' and hallelujah, he dropped his head to his chest in relief, barely blinking back the pride. "That's amazing! I knew he'd get it!"

Burt couldn't help but lean across the side of the bed to pat Blaine's knee, knowing Blaine had played a major part in getting Kurt through the hell that was last year. When Blaine lurched up to a sitting position once more, Burt went one further and pulled him into a hug. "We really got us a good one, didn't we?"

"We sure did."

"Gosh, that's… crazy. He's going to kill it in New York." The last statement came out quieter, more reverent than the rest, and Blaine clapped Burt's shoulder, giving it one last squeeze before starting to pull away. Burt let him fall back against the bed, the grin still broad despite the deepening furrows in his brow.

"I made him promise not to call you or text you about it. I wanted to be the one to tell you."

Blaine huffed a single chuckle, ducking his head away. "That's so sweet of you. You didn't have to come all the way over here, though. You could've called."

"No, no I couldn't," Burt insisted. He smoothed over the wrinkles in his coveralls, sitting back in the chair, hands on his thighs. "I wanted to see your face… and I… I wanted to thank you, Blaine."

"Thank me?" Blaine's brow furrowed for a different reason, managing to be as expressive as ever, even with one eye covered. "For what?"

"Don't sell yourself short, kid. I know you went out of your way to look out for Kurt, even before the two of you were…" Burt gesticulated, opening and closing his hands and bunching up the coveralls beneath them in the process, "well, together. I worry about him, you know? I do my best to prepare him, but I can't go out there with him, and I honestly can't even begin to understand what it's like for him, for both of you, out there. It's so much harder for you guys…"

"Because we're gay," Blaine offered.

"Frankly, yes." Burt leaned forward, then, hands clasping, as he looked Blaine in the eye. "And I gotta say, I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to wrap my head around the idea that my son has a boyfriend, but… I know what kind of a place he was in before he met you, and I'm not sure he would've come out the other side of it without you." A beat. "Don't get me wrong. I always knew there was this fierce, amazing person inside of him, but I only ever really saw it at home. He never really let it come out until he met you. You've been really good for him and to him, and I just wanted to thank you for that."

He could tell he'd said too much as Blaine blinked back at him, mouth opening and closing, hand scrubbing at the back of his neck.

"Just hold that thought, okay?" Burt assuaged. "I'm not finished. I know it can't be easy for you to think about Kurt going off to New York, especially after you transferred schools and everything to be there for him. So, I just want to make sure you know that I'm always available if you need anything. Anything at all. I have a feeling next year is going to suck pretty bad for both of us, but if we've gotta go through the suck, we might as well do it together, right?"

Blaine smiled again a slight blush across his cheek as the tension drained out of him. "Yeah. I'd like that."

"Anytime," Burt nodded. He stood, picking up his cap, fully prepared to say his goodbyes and head back to work before things could get awkward again. "Is there anything I can get you before I head back to the shop?"

A shadow slipped over Blaine's features, accompanied by a small flinch as he leaned back into the pillows once more. "Umm, no. I, uh, think I'll just try to take a nap."

"You sure? I could sit with you until you fall asleep. Those guys down at the shop actually don't need me today."

Blaine considered the offer, but then said, "No, I'm not very good company right now, anyway." He took half a breath before seeming to get an idea, "but if you wouldn't mind, there is one thing…"

"Sure, anything."

It took some searching, but the plastic champagne flutes ended up being right where Blaine said they'd be, and Burt toted them back to Blaine's bedroom along with the cold diet soda in preparation for the celebratory toast Blaine wanted to give Kurt when he arrived. He let himself back into the room with just a short knock, found Blaine sitting up the way he had been when Burt arrived the first time, one hand splayed across his chest, massaging over the pocket in his pajama top. His face was drawn and distracted, gaze unfocused when Burt set the soda and glasses down on the nightstand.

"What you thinking about so hard?"

Blaine startled and looked up, "Oh, hey, Mr. Hummel."

"Burt."

"Burt." He swallowed and blinked a few times, cleared his throat. "Nothing really. Just a little fuzzy, I guess." Blaine switched on the charm, smile amping up another two notches as he looked up. "Hey," he said, gesturing toward the dresser. "Did you know I used to ride?"

Burt's stomach did a little flip as he tried to work out the expression on Blaine's face and noted the kid seemed genuinely sincere. "Yeah, Blaine. In fact, we just talked about that not even half an hour ago."

"We did?" Blinking as though he was having trouble focusing, Blaine folded his arms across his chest, thumbs pointed up, and let his head fall back. "Huh. Guess this headache's worse than I thought."

"I guess," Burt agreed, eyes narrowing as he tried to gauge the situation. Something just didn't sit right with him. The kid didn't remember what they'd talked about less than an hour ago, and he was being left in charge of his own medication?

Despite having been prepared to leave, Burt took a seat. Kurt didn't need to be freaking out worrying about Blaine, but somebody probably needed to be. "Get some sleep, kid."

"Aren't you going back to work?"

"Actually, I've been meaning to catch up on my reading." A copy of Celebrity Beat magazine lay on the nightstand, and Burt picked it up, flipping it open to a random page to feign reading as he kicked his feet up on the bedframe to get comfortable. "This thing got a crossword puzzle?" He reached for the pen he kept in the pocket of his coveralls only to discover he'd lost it for the third time already that day. Forgetting where he was, he reached toward the nightstand.

Blaine opened his eyes just as Burt's fingers closed around the drawer pull, the words, "Maybe a sudok…" suddenly cut off as he surged forward and slammed the drawer shut, cheeks burning red. He swallowed hard and gestured toward the magazine Burt was holding. "It's upside down." An obvious deflection. "You shouldn't read that way. Might strain your eyes."

Still a little stricken by the lightning fast reflexes Blaine still commanded despite his faulty depth perception, Burt somehow convinced himself he hadn't actually had a chance to see inside the drawer before it slammed shut. He glanced back at the magazine, more than willing to be diverted from the horrors he hadn't actually, not really very clearly at all, barely even recognized and probably just imagined based on memories of his own teenaged nightstand stash. He couldn't wait, in fact, to check out the magazine if it helped him forget how much time Kurt had been spending here, of late. It actually was upside down. He probably could've read it that way. After all, he'd had no trouble a second ago with the words 'Trojan' and 'K-Y' which were also, incidentally, upside down.

Oh boy.

"Uh, yup. So it is," Burt conceded, flipping the magazine right side up and pretending to read the headline. "What's this 'Hunger Games,' everyone's talking about? That one of those reality cooking shows you two are always watching?"

Blaine's laugh sounded almost like a sigh of relief. "Thanks for hanging out with me, Mr. Hummel."

"Get some sleep, kid."

Blaine didn't feel the least bit sorry about sniping at Mr. Schuester, but with choir practice being held hostage by the Rachel/Finn drama orchestrated by one Sebastian Smythe, he didn't see the point of sticking around, either. Life was too freaking short.

He needed to go a few rounds with the punching bag, but his heart was already racing, and it was still the middle of the day. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth together in an effort to swallow down the bile that'd been sloshing at the back of his throat all morning, and the burn made it painful to take a full breath, even though it sounded like wind rushing in his ears on every in and out.

Too much of what was going on outside had wormed its way in.

He knew he was supposed to let it go. He had that follow up appointment coming right after Regionals, and he didn't want to sit through another lecture about managing his stress and laying off the caffeine. He almost lost an eye, for chrissakes! Of course, he'd been stressed. One weird blip on the screen during his surgery, and now he had to give up coffee (which was really, really hard to explain away) and 'try not to let things get to him so much.'

Sure. Okay. If it would make his mom stop looking at him like she was trying to read his mind and please, please get his brother to give up the idea that he needed to come for a visit, then Blaine would lay off the caffeine.

The rest, though?

Well, bottling that stuff up- stuff like Sebastian, and New York, and Dad, and Cooper- that's how he knew he was alive. That's how he tapped into the music and the music tapped him back. He didn't know how to tone that down.

Intense.

Blaine didn't know any other way to be. Wouldn't be that way, even if he did. What would be the point?

Young and in love, nearly blinded, betrayed, abandoned, and soon to be left behind- he had plenty of energy to draw on. If he didn't tap into it, the thrum under his skin and between his rib bones would bounce around until it blew him apart, one giant feedback loop of vibration, the wavelengths crashing together, tighter and faster until it shorted him out.

He didn't mean to snap when Kurt found him in the auditorium working the kinks out of "Cough Syrup(2)."

"Forget about Sebastian!" Immediately apologetic, he opened his hands as if to smooth the air between them, eyes closed as he tried to calm his roiling gut. " I'm not mad at you. I just don't want to waste any more time on him."

No more time not singing. No more time waiting to come down on his own. No more time waiting for this scab to fall off.

Too much loomed over him, too many things, unresolved and fractured, quivered inside of him, but he could still sing. The music still thrummed despite the growing fissures splitting him apart.

Sing. He just needed to sing. That would dull the ache in his chest, stop his hands from trembling, and purge all that stale air from his lungs.

"You wanna hear it?"

As songs went, "Cough Syrup," wasn't one that lent itself to dancing and theatrics, nothing poppy or bouncy he could use to work up a sweat and collapse later in exhausted oblivion. It was more emotional than what he usually picked, but exactly what he needed today, with Kurt sitting right there looking at him like Blaine was never going to have to let him go. Like Dalton's zero tolerance bullying policy that had once given them an umbrella to shelter beneath hadn't just left Sebastian Smythe free to ruin everything another day.

Kurt was still here.

Blaine didn't have to wonder whether he was supposed to hold tighter to every moment or start loosing them now so it would be easier later.

Kurt was still here, live and in full color, like Blaine hadn't just spent weeks with his entire head splitting open, praying he'd be able to see Kurt with both eyes when the patch finally came off.

Kurt was still here, and so was Blaine, if a little worse for wear.

Inspiration? Sure. He had plenty.

He was losing his mind, losing his mind, losing control.

The drum beat in unison with the thump in his chest, reverberated through his whole body, a punch in the air to shake it out, feet running in place, because nothing about him could still. His own teeth felt loose in his mouth and caught in his throat.

This song wasn't about pounding anything out. He had his punching bag for that. This song was about the reverb, about the ache in his chest that vibrated in his teeth, throttled his larynx, made his vision grey out around the edges. It was the scream that erupted at just the breaking point between too much and not enough, that little bit of feedback on what was going on under his skin, kept him in tune with his life no matter how tight the frequency between the love and the pain, between old hurts and the dread of what was to come, no matter how overpowering the bass.

It was staring back at all those fishes in the seas that stared at him first.

Blaine sang to live and to purge out all the poison, relieve the burn under his breastbone, and shock him back into some kind of clarity.

He didn't need to use the whole stage, just the boiling blood in his veins and a microphone stand-the blood to pound in his ears, arms overhead, and splay his fingers like lightning rods- the stand to cling to at the end of a windmill spin, when the sparks had fizzled out, and he was heavy, dropping like so many spent welding shots to the floor.

Another cold heart for the zombies in the park.

Maybe life was too short to even care at all, but while it was thrumming through him and out of him, everything felt better.

Life restored, the way it should be.

Blaine flew apart.

He met Kurt's gaze across the stage, a gaping hole in his soul. His breath stuttered as he ground out the last notes, his voice so much diamond dust and gravel, and curled in on himself. He deflated, knees trembling together, tiptoes straining against the gravity of a black hole.

Out with the bad, and one more spoon of cough syrup down, one more breath of fresh air in.

Except, the song ended, and there was still no air. No breath restored him. The thrumming didn't die. The ache didn't dull. For a second, his chest tightened and his head spun, knuckles whitening as he clung a little too tightly to the microphone stand. The world tilted forward on its axis, greyed out around the edges, and he was falling.

Until he wasn't.

Kurt was there, hands in the hair at the back of Blaine's neck, mouth open on Blaine's mouth, just enough clash of teeth and slide of tongue. The tilt ended with Blaine's hand fisted in Kurt's shirt, his lungs full of Kurt's air, and the microphone stand rolling on the floor. If Kurt held him up and did most of his breathing for him until the world snapped back into focus, well, that's what love was. What love does.

oh-oh-oh.

Okay, so that song was… not really Regionals material. It would probably make a great soundtrack for one of the new indie films Artie was working on. Kurt suggested as much, as he slid down off his stool, but the glazed over expression on Blaine's face- hands still white-knuckled around the mic stand, his entire body curled around it as he breathed raggedly- told him Blaine wasn't hearing a word.

The way he swayed, spent and shaking, like the music was the only thing that had held him up, did things to Kurt, some of them entirely inappropriate for the school auditorium.

Mostly, though, it hurt. Kurt had always been a little envious of Blaine's ability to tap the raw emotional energy of a song.

But not that song.

Kurt approached, leery of the crackling air, especially after Blaine's earlier outburst, but Blaine's half-lidded eyes, his hollowed out posture drew Kurt like light into a black hole. The microphone stand clattered to the stage and turned a lazy half-circle around the pedestal as Blaine abandoned it for Kurt. For Kurt's hair between his fingertips. For Kurt's jawbone locked between Blaine's thumbs. Kurt held him up, let his extra height stretch out everything that was crumpled inside him. Kurt's arms wrapped in the small of his back.

A little bit of teeth. A little more tongue. And air. All the air Blaine needed, Kurt was more than willing to give.

Kurt let himself be breathed in, marveled at the thrum of Blaine in his arms and held on until the swaying stopped. Blaine broke the kiss first but kept his forehead pressed to Kurt's, cold sweat and pressed powder. His hands slid down the back of Kurt's neck, shoulders, and biceps, then dropped. Kurt held on just a little longer, massaging his thumbs into Blaine's slouched shoulders before he stepped back.

"Mmm, you're shaking." He pulled Blaine against his side, steering him off the stage with an arm around his waist, head tilted against his shoulder. "You wanna talk about it?

"About what?"

"Oh, I don't know. How about you snapping at Mr. Schue earlier, and at me, and what exactly that song is supposed to be inspiration for?"

Blaine huffed with a sideways grin, "I don't know. I guess I've just been a little on edge, but I feel better. The singing helps. You help, Kurt."

"Just doing my boyfriendly duty," Kurt shrugged. "Not that kissing you breathless will ever be an inconvenience."

Blaine turned them face-to-face, his hands massaging Kurt's shoulders, chin tilted downward at that angle that made his eyes darken behind his lashes and made Kurt's heart pound just a little harder and lower in his chest. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty inspired to blow off lunch in favor of a nice trip to the props closet." His fingers snaked into Kurt's belt loop and gave a little tug toward the wings of the auditorium, sashaying backward with a smug grin.

Kurt knew deflection when he saw it. Blaine was an expert at deflection.

Kurt was an expert at deflecting deflection. As tempting as the offer was - oh Gaga, was it tempting- Blaine's hair was still damp with cold sweat, and he was still shaking enough that Kurt could hear his breath waver.

"Considering it's beans and franks day in the cafeteria and your hair is doing that amazing thing where it shrugs off the gel and gets all crazy curly on the ends, that offer is not off the table," Kurt said, "but first we need to talk, Blaine."

Kurt put the brakes on until Blaine's fingers slid from his belt loops, his hands dropping to his sides as he stepped back. Arms crossed, hand to elbow, and shoulders slumped beneath his red sweater, Blaine turned away before scrubbing at the back of his neck with a sigh.

"I thought that's what we were doing."

"That?" Kurt asked, gesturing to the fallen mic stand, the stage already vacated by the band. "That wasn't talking, Blaine. That was you singing some creepy, vaguely unhealthy song, and putting so much of yourself into it that you're wrecked at the end, not to mention scaring the hell out of me in the process."

"Sorry, uh, I'm sorry, Kurt." Blaine shook his head. "I wasn't trying to…"

"No, don't apologize." Kurt took Blaine's elbow and turned him back around. "Look, I know you're still not okay with what went down with the Warblers. Those guys were your friends, and what they did to you was not okay. Someone should have been punished for that."

"Ya think?" There was barely any heat in it, just a resignation that reminded Kurt of their first real conversation last year, Warbler front man to terrible but endearing spy. And what had Blaine said then?

Hey, if you're gay, your life's just going to be miserable. Sorry.

Dalton had been Blaine's sanctuary, where he'd come to believe that didn't have to be the case, and now that he'd left, the misery was back. Kurt hadn't missed it. He'd just hoped he was bigger than the shadow.

"No, I know," Kurt replied. "And I wish I could make them pay, but we're just going to have to wait a little longer and beat them on the stage, where it counts."

Blaine nodded, his breath a little steadier. "I know, too, Kurt. It's just…" His mouth opened, but tripped over the words.

Kurt pulled him into a hug. "Until then, if you're hurt, or, or betrayed, or just plain righteously pissed off, you need to say so. It can't be healthy to wind yourself up in knots like this."

Blaine's voice cracked when he nodded, "Thank you, Kurt. For listening. Even if it is to creepy, vaguely unhealthy songs. And for hearing. I think I just needed to vent. So, thank you."

"Mmm, you're welcome." Kurt kissed him again, tenderly this time, and sighed as the bell sounded. "Just never sing that song again, okay?"

Blaine bit his lip, eyes crinkling as he smirked. "Deal."

Kurt took his hand and swung as they headed for the stairs. "We're gonna have to pass on the props closet, though. I'm pretty sure that couch has bedbugs."

If Blaine was still breathless and a little wobbly the entire rest of the day, well, that was Dave Karofsky's life almost ending, not Blaine's. The McKinley faculty held a mandatory assembly in the gymnasium the next day, but most of the student body was speculating via whispers and huddled discussions around cell phone screens the entire afternoon before, just as soon as the first homophobic slur had appeared on Karofsky's Facebook page.

The actual suicide note didn't get posted until after school hours, but people knew before then what they would do, if that was them.

And Blaine spent the night consoling Kurt who hadn't answered the calls.

Which was why, the next day, when Mr. Schuester moved Glee practice to the auditorium and gave his little spiel about teetering over the ledge and finding something to pull you back, it all seemed... hollow... deficient... lacking.

Blaine had to give the guy props for trying, for trying to intervene. No doubt he'd heard that these things tended to inspire copy cats. He had to say something. Kudos to him for dredging up that painful memory of what, for him, must have seemed the lowest point in his life, and it was probably just the right emotional frequency for most of these kids.

But Blaine couldn't help but feel the way he did when Schue tried to rap. It had the right beat and the right rhyme, but barely scratched the surface of what it was meant to be.

The world was full of things to live for, most of them way better than peanut butter. Did anyone really need Schue to point that out? The problem was never not knowing there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

"The problem isn't finding something to live for. The problem is just living when it takes every ounce of energy to get through the moment you're in."

Blaine hadn't even realized he'd spoken aloud until Kurt responded.

"You, who?"

Kurt's hand tightened in his and stopped him in his tracks. They'd filed out of the auditorium in silence, lost in their thoughts as they made their way back to their lockers to pack up for the day.

"Blaine?"

"Hmm?"

"You, who, Blaine?" Kurt seemed a shade paler than normal, if that was even possible, his eyes wider and brighter. "You said, 'when it takes every ounce of energy to get through the moment you're in.' Who's the 'you' in that sentence, Blaine?"

Okay, he loved Kurt. He did. Not just school boy infatuation, either. He loved him, but Kurt did tend to read into things way too much.

"I don't know. Maybe Dave?" Blaine smiled and swung his arm around Kurt, bumping his head on his boyfriend's shoulder as he steered them back down the hallway.

"Suuure," Kurt granted, reluctantly, his feet only just sliding along enough so that Blaine wasn't physically dragging him. The way his eyes squinted said he wasn't buying Blaine's explanation. "And how would you know what Dave was thinking?"

"C'mon, Kurt. I think we can all relate on some level."

Kurt halted again. "No. No, we can't all relate. We can sympathize. We can try to understand, but we can't all relate, not unless we've actually been on the ledge ourselves."

Okay, so maybe hypervigilant was the word of the day. Five syllables of suffocating, cloying, attention that made Blaine's skin crackle like it was about to slough off.

"Kurt, I was just thinking out loud. Maybe it wasn't grammatically correct. I don't have autocorrect installed on my brain-mouth filter. Pronoun agreement be damned.- Which is why I always let you proofread my English assignments before I turn them in."

"Exactly! Which is why I know that you always use 'you' as a pronoun when you're interjecting your own thoughts, and why I always change it."

He didn't just do it in writing. Kurt, there is a moment when you say to yourself...

"I thought you just hated second person narrative." Okay, so now they were talking about perspective and not necessarily pronoun agreement, but Blaine knew Kurt's buttons and pushed them at will.

"Second person is just first person once removed!" Kurt exclaimed, true to form, before shaking his head. "But that is entirely beside the point."

"Removed from what, exactly?"

A shrug. "Reality? It's like first person in denial when you're trying to say something but don't want to admit it's you saying it. Like you can just take it back later, because you never really owned it in the first place."

"You, who?" Deflect. Deflect. Deflect.

"Oh no, you are not turning this around on me, Blaine Anderson."

A beat.

"Look...Kurt. I was just processing." Blaine straightened the collar of Kurt's loosely buttoned shirt, pulled the knot of the crazy leather zipper tie back to dead center, all the while summoning his most charming eye twinkle and grin. "It's been a rough couple of weeks for all of us. But the truth is, I don't need Mr. Schue to remind me that there are things worth living for. I have you." His hands finished with the tie, Blaine's thumbs stroked along Kurt's jaw. "In the first person."

I've been looking for you forever.

Kurt smiled for the first time all day. "That you do." He looked around to see if the hallway was still empty before leaning in for a kiss.

As if to prove the point, Blaine broke the kiss into a series, light brushes of lips punctuated with endearments. "I love you." Kiss. "I adore you." Kiss. "I want you." Kiss.

He left one out.

Blaine must've still been once removed from the reality of how much he needed that kiss. You shouldn't let your happiness be defined by someone else. But then, he never could get his pronoun agreement right inside his head. He needed Kurt for that.

"And Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"I want you to call me. If you can ever 'relate' to Dave, call me. I will always answer."

Blaine nodded, because it was Kurt, and Kurt believed it, but Blaine had heard it all before. He bit the inside of his lip, hating that he'd somehow caused Kurt to make a promise Blaine knew no one could keep. He'd come to accept long ago that something about himself eventually made everything good turn bad. He couldn't do that to Kurt, to them. He'd be more careful, choose his words more wisely.

With a searching look that bounced back and forth between them, Blaine smoothed his hands over Kurt's biceps and dropped his gaze before linking their arms together and heading down the hall. He'd choose his words more wisely from then on.

Or just say nothing at all.

-TBC

AN1 : In our universe, Westerville is 2 hours away from Lima, but in Glee universe the Warblers hang out at the Lima Bean and Sam delivers pizza to Dalton, so it's apparently a lot closer, like Lima Heights adjacent close. Burt can drive there during the day, no problem. Remember, in Glee universe they're still playing high school football after Christmas, apparently, so I have no problem accepting that the geography is shifted as well.

AN2: The song, in case you didn't catch it, is "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giant