Songbird

Title: I've Got An Insatiable Desire For Your Insides
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Klaine (casual), Finchel and Tike if you squint, a little bit of Kurt/Sebastian, previous Brittana
Spoilers: None other than that Sebastian exists - but not in the same antagonist capacity as is canon (although he is still kind of an antagonist).
Warnings: Drug abuse, alcohol consumption, self-harm, eating disorder, angsty AU, f-bombs.
Word Count: 6540
Summary: AU. Kurt and Blaine are both models participating in New York Fashion Week. They've been in a 'proper' casual relationship for almost a year. They never said they were exclusive, but Blaine always thought they were - and he'd always been around to catch Kurt when he fell and that was fine. But Kurt keeps playing dumb jokes and doing dumb things and they're at each other's throats all the time, and Blaine doesn't just want to fucking catch Kurt anymore - he wants something better.
Disclaimer: I don't own Panic! At The Disco's Kaleidoscope Eyes, Glee, Kurt, Blaine or any other characters/events mentioned.
A/N: This entire idea actually stemmed from a photo of Kate Moss on a catwalk smoking a cigarette. It's clumsily written, indelicate and imperfect. I just really wanted to write this - to write something. Also, hey I'm not dead!


It was an hour's drive to the Bana hotel from the airport. Finn had met him there and told him they were in a hurry to get back to the hotel so Kurt could get his rest before the first show tomorrow.
He hadn't seen Blaine in long weeks, and thought of the other man's face as he watched the purple smoke from his cigarette wreath out of the window of his limo and up towards the tattered sky. Finn followed behind in his own car.
It was damp out, but not raining. Kurt had hesitated to ask Finn if Blaine was also participating in this particular show. Everybody knew that he and Blaine had slept together - but the last thing Kurt wanted to do was give the impression to his manager that there was something more than simple mechanics that lay beneath the pale, pressed skin shapes they made semi-silently together in the night. God forbid, real emotions.
It was a long hour in the limo - the silence punctured by the hum of the radio in the front and Kurt's own gritty inhale-exhales. He went through six consecutive cancer sticks throughout the journey - tried not to overthink the reprocussions of this decision.
He hadn't eaten since the previous morning.
There was something about the pain in his throbbingly empty stomach that lifted him high above everybody else in his eyes - something that said to him that he was better than them, more evolved even, because he overcame the want and the need to let that pizza or portion of fries down his throat. Although Kurt knew that if he ever did slip, he could bring them back up through the same throat just as easily.
Blaine was the only one he had ever told, in words, about his reluctance to feed the pain with ice cream or Subway. Kurt told him he could deal with the tight thrum of emptiness below his ribs - that it wasn't so bad after a little while, as if this was some kind of tacit reassurance.
Despite Blaine's suffering from a massive hero complex, he resisted the urge to tell Finn about his top boy's disorder. After this, sex was never as casual as it used to be. Everything Kurt said seemed to Blaine to be so profound and frought with meaning - and everything Blaine did appeared to Kurt to be babying him. They fought a lot when they were together, and it always ended in some form of loud, angry sex. That tended to make it better. Nevertheless, Kurt decided time apart would benefit them and their tenuous relationship.
It would be the first time he had seen Blaine for almost a month, but it felt longer in his heart and his fingertips and the pit of his stomach. Every inhale felt like his sore ribs pulling in and he lit another cigarette to try and ease the throbbing between his undoubtably tarred lungs. Kurt quietly wondered if Blaine had changed any - he didn't think he himself had changed much, except that he may be thinner.
He let the thought bend in his head as the limo pulled to a stop under the well lit canopy of the entrance to the Bana hotel. This was the usual hotel, it held fond and fonder memories for Kurt inside its aging walls. The driver got out and opened the door for his passenger. Kurt stepped out and the driver shut the door and retreated to his seat behind the wheel as Finn pulled up behind them and heaved one medium-heavy case out of the back of the limo. He banged on the trunk with his fist and the engine started and the long black car moved off. Kurt didn't know the driver's name - nor had he ever, and nor had he ever thanked him.
He turned to the doors of the lobby and stood searching the crowds for familiar faces - tall slender models stood talking in groups with equally tall and slender champagne flutes continually topped up with only the best by hotel staff. Kurt breathed in the familiar smell of expensive wine and sex and fine furnishings.
"Things shouldn't get crazy until tomorrow - the press doesn't know we're checking you all in early this year." Finn walked to stand beside Kurt, rolling his case behind him. A valet parking assisstant releaved Finn of his car and keys and he escorted Kurt inside the doors and through the crowded lobby to the elevator down the hall to the left.
All of this, this glamourous life never ceased to amaze Kurt because the truth was, he never saw himself getting out of Lima. He never saw himself becoming a performer or a model or anything of any substance - and he certainly never saw his brother as his manager. But what will be will be - Kurt had never forseen Blaine either, and if anything had turned his life upside down it was that man.
They were staying on the sixth floor as usual - it was reserved this time of year especially for them. Four double room suites behind a locked door to acommodate all sixteen of them for the week. Kurt didn't want to think about how much this cost the agency - all he cared about was the fact that he never had to personally kiss goodbye to that money.
As soon as Finn opened the hallway door with the key the hotel had given him, Kurt was almost tackled to the ground by Quinn and Brittany. The air was immediately knocked out of his lungs and he coughed and gasped in surprise. "Oh my God you guys are literally trying to kill me!"
Two doors along the hall opened but Kurt didn't see a familiar brunette head of wild curls. Mercedes, another agency manager, hugged him and rejoiced his return. "I swear there is less of you every time you're here. Kurt, you need to eat something sweetie." It was a joke, he knew that, but he felt a painful tug in his stomach.
"So, where am I staying?" he effectively deflected. Mercedes rolled her eyes and pointed to the last door on the left, right at the end of the hall. "Cool. So do I have a roomie yet - and who are our neighbours?" Each room had its own door from the hallway, but each pair of rooms was joined with a door between them. Last year, Kurt had roomed with Quinn and their neighbours had been Santana and Brittany.
It was a good year, but Kurt and Blaine had kept having to talk Rachel into going to see Finn so they could fuck in Blaine's room, because Quinn would never leave theirs. She was pretty high profile, which meant even leaving the sixth floor was absolute chaos - she preferred to just stay in their room and only go out when she was needed for a fitting or a show.
"You don't have one yet honey, but your neighbours are Seb and Santana. Any preferences as to your roomie?" Her tone was filled with playful knowing.
Kurt's eyes narrowed but were not focussed on Mercedes, he was looking down the hall behind her. He couldn't see Blaine anyway - and he tried hard not to care. "The usual, Mercedes," he said off-handedly.
Mercedes' eyes widened and she huffed a surprised laugh, "Oh the usual huh? With cherries on top, Kurt?" He wasn't really paying attention, but he knew he'd just been made fun of. "You're fuck buddy isn't here yet - but when he is I'll make sure he's brought straight to you."
"You do that," Kurt said distantly. "So, wait - Brit and Santana aren't rooming this year?"
"Mm, I don't know what happened - but Brittany said she didn't wanna room with Santana. I don't know if Santana wanted any different - but she didn't seem terribly butthurt when Tina put her with Seb. I think it's a mutual thing."
"Don't mind if I extract myself from that clusterfuck right now," Kurt said flippantly, grabbing the handle of his waiting case and rolling it past Mercedes and right down the hall to the last door.
Kurt went inside and sat at the window without unpacking his case at all. He made it through an hour and a half and three cigarettes before the adjoining room door opened. He quickly stubbed the spent cigarette against the wooden windowsill, missing the ash tray, and turned to see if it was Blaine.
Santana stood at the door between rooms with a huge grin on her face. "Hey Porcelain I didn't know you were here!" He hadn't seen Santana in well over two months. It was nice to hear her voice again. "Where's your toy, doll face?"
It was a joke, he knew - again - it was a joke; but after Mercedes calling Blaine Kurt's fuck buddy he was a little bit edgier than he had been a couple of hours ago, no matter how many cigarettes he'd had. "He's not my toy, Santana," Kurt retorted quickly.
Had she not been so fierce, she may have recoiled - but this was Santana. More so, this was the Santana that saw right through Kurt's facade and saw only the edginess stemming from withdrawl symptoms. "So is it Blaine you're missing, or a hit?"
"Shut up," Kurt mumbled, lighting another cigarette.
"When was the last time you ate?" Just because he'd only ever told one person in words, didn't mean that almost every one of his maybe-friends (he was never sure if they were real or just aquaintences) knew.
"None of your fucking business," through their words Kurt hadn't noticed the door opening. Blaine dragged a case in and set it to the right of the door. "Get out."
"I only just got here," Blaine said with crooked smile.
Santana turned around first, smirking at Blaine almost predatoraly - Kurt, however, jumped and stubbed out his cigarette on his own hand. "Shit! Ow, fuck."
Santana started laughing immedately and Kurt shoved her away. She retreated through the inbetween door, giggling as she went. Kurt realised after she was gone, as he went to wash his wounded hand, that he never asked her about herself and Brittany.
"Let me see it," Blaine was behind Kurt at the sink as if in no time.
"I'm not retarded," Kurt said defensively, running the cold water over the back of his stinging hand. The cigarette had left an angry red circle embossed on his pallid skin.
Kurt saw Blaine raise his eyebrows in the mirror. "That stunt would beg to differ. Could I allude to the possibility that you just might have missed me?"
"You could try," Kurt said dryly - dangerously. It was this tone in his voice that told Blaine he wasn't in the mood to play. "But you might walk funny for a week."
Blaine pushed up behind Kurt, his hands coming to wrap around his torso. He spoke against the hollow under Kurt's ear, a weak spot. "I could go for that," his laughter vibrated through his chest, through Kurt's back.
Kurt's head dropped forwards. He'd missed the feeling of Blaine's body against his. It was something he could get used to - something he'd constantly miss when it wasn't there. "Bite me," he snapped angrily.
Blaine laughed and spun the other man around - he shoved Kurt backwards against the basin even though the faucet was still running. Their hips were suddenly ground together almost painfully. "You'd love that wouldn't you." It wasn't a question.

The first show the next day went entirely as planned, and as predicted - Finn insisted Kurt model several outfits he wouldn't have worn drunk and braindamaged; but Kurt didn't argue becuse Finn promised an early finish for him to go back to his room.
Kurt reluctantly modeled the garish shirts and terribly fitted pants - although he was sure they were designed to look as they did it didn't change the fact that they looked horrific.
Two hours in, Kurt broke the cycle of the rush of changing models and told Finn he would be back at his room. All Finn could do was nod as he attempted to help the stylists fix Santana's hair.
Kurt decided against a drive and opted to walk back to the hotel a few streets down from where the shows were taking place. Not many people he saw in the street realised who he was. A couple of them glanced at him twice, sometimes even three times but he knew it was merely because they couldn't quite place his face at all.
He liked it this way. He never really wanted to be well known and most of the time, he wasn't - but in places like this, around events like this where the people caught in the crossfire recognised his face from the advertisements. They wanted his autograph, or a photo with him, just to say that they'd met him. They didn't care about him - they didn't know him.
There were a few young girls in the lobby when he got back to the Bana hotel - they said his name over and over again like some obsessive chant. He pushed past them when they tried to swarm around him and told them he was in a hurry to get somewhere. He heard one of them mutter, "Asshole," almost under her breath.
He thought as he started up the stairs that she was right.
The sun was already setting over the horizon of endless buildings. Kurt thought it was kind of beautiful in a way. When he got to his room using the key to the hall Finn had given him and one of the two room keys he and Blaine possessed, he sat by the windowsill and watched the sun disappear behind the concrete mess of the city and smoked four cigarettes over the span of fourty minutes.
The welt on the back of his hand was livid and sore, trying to heal. Kurt picked off the beginnings of its recovery and blinked away the tears in the corners of his eyes from the sting of the cigarette smoke and the hazy throb of his self-injury.
He thought of the cuts he'd seen on Blaine's arm the night before - thought of how Blaine had been asking the stylists to only dress him in long sleeved shirts or sweaters at the show. The stylists argued, said showing forearm was sexy. Blaine had stared at them hard and they'd backed down. Kurt watched him the whole time, and when Blaine turned to look at him his eyes were like lasers, burning straight through him. Kurt had looked away quickly.
This was how Kurt knew Blaine was a hypocrite - and he felt almost better knowing this meant that not everybody had it together. In fact, he'd go so far as to say that nobody at all had it totally together, because if it was least likely to be any of them it was least likely to be Blaine. Kurt had, however, only wished that it could have been anyone but Blaine to allow him this realisation.
After he'd blown the smoke from the fourth cigarette, he poured a shakey line from a small canvas block. It was half empty already, but he felt no remorse. He straightened it up with a razor he kept beside it in a paper bag at the bottom of his case. Blaine knew about it, but he never had found it the first time. Kurt knew if he had, he would have tried to dispose of it.
By the time Blaine got back to their room at about ten that evening, Kurt was buzzy. On the bed was a mirror with the vaguaries of coke left on its surface. The razor was next to it and the canvas block was in the paper bag, also on the bed. Blaine's eyes went straight to it. Kurt was looking out of the window again.
"What do you think you're doing?" Blaine's voice was hard. Kurt knew he'd had a bad day.
"Looking," Kurt said sarcastically. The door slammed shut behind him and he jumped up off the chair and turned around, his back hitting the wall and providing him with time to find steadier footing. The room span, but Blaine's disappointed expression stayed in haunting focus.
"Stop it." Kurt was unsure of exactly what he meant. Stop looking? Stop being sarcastic? Stop lying? Stop doing coke, perhaps?
"Stop what?" he asked uselessly.
"This!" Blaine grabbed the mirror on the bed and threw it on the ground so it shattered into seven pieces - the same as the number of years of bad luck Blaine was now going to get.
"Seven years bad luck for that," Kurt remarked, again sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up!" Blaine's tone was furious. Kurt watched him pick up the paper bag from the bed. He held it up and shook it slightly as if to indicate to Kurt what he was about to do.
"Don't," he warned.
Blaine almost smiled. He moved right, towards the bathroom door. As soon as his hand touched the doorknob Kurt lunged forwards to try and grab the bag. Blaine pushed through the bathroom door and tried to tear the bag off the canvas and powder so it would be easier to flush. At an obvious disadvantage, he had to move fast as holding it above his head would do no good - Kurt was taller than him.
Kurt tried to grab his arms and his legs but Blaine threw himself to his knees faster than Kurt could realised what he was doing. The canvas turned inside out, and the fine white powder went down the toilet.
Kurt's hands followed it immediately and he tried to salvage anything, but while he was distracted with his hands in the bowl, Blaine flushed the toilet and the powder saturated and drained away with the spin of the water.
"I'm sorry," Blaine said quietly. He touched Kurt's back to try and be comforting but Kurt pushed him violently away. "It'll be okay!" Blaine tried.
"Fuck you!" Kurt's voice was a scream - a feral, animalistic yell. Blaine recoiled against the wall, still sitting on the floor. Kurt was almost sobbing into the toilet, his hands covered with water and wet cocaine.
Blaine got up slowly and moved back towards his almost-boyfriend, almost-lover. Kurt's body was heaving as he came down from the extraordinary high he had been flying on the wings of. Blaine touched his shoulders and Kurt tried to push him away but he was too weak - he didn't want to push him away enough to actually do so.
Blaine helped him up off the floor and led him over to the shower.
He turned the water on and waited for it to warm up before helping Kurt out of his vest and boxers and helping him in. He kept the door open and helped Kurt wash the toilet water and coke from his hands and arms. He ran his hands through Kurt's hair and rubbed his back comfortingly while Kurt let his muscles unwind and unknot under the stream of hot, hot water.
Kurt's body continued to involuntarily convulse as he cried. Blaine tried to talk him down as best he could. He talked about the show and Santana's hair being fucked up and Finn throwing a strop because of how resistant Kurt had been to the outfits he'd been asked to wear. Kurt tried to listen to Blaine's voice through the hazy sound of the water and the fog in his brain but it was hard.
After about forty minutes, Blaine turned the water off and helped Kurt towel himself dry. He dressed him in a pair of track pants he'd found in Kurt's case, and one of his own old grey sweaters. As Kurt was falling, he whispered that the sweater smelled like Blaine - and Blaine, in spite of the situation, smiled just a little bit.
Blaine took him to the bed and laid him down on the left, his hair still damp on the pillow. He knew Kurt would be mad at him in the morning for not helping him blowdry his hair as well but this was the best he could do. It was half eleven - Blaine didn't want to disturb every other exhausted model, manager and runner on their floor with the sound of a hairdryer.
"I'm sorry," Kurt whispered when Blaine laid down beside him so they were facing each other. Blaine touched Kurt's wet hair, hooked it behind his ear and smiled again.
"Why are you sorry?" He genuinely did wonder - but Kurt had already dropped off the face of the planet. Blaine tried to sleep too, but he couldn't.

When his eyes lit up the next morning the Earth felt unbearably grey - Kurt wanted to sleep all day. All day and all night until the end of time, he felt like there was no end in sight, no chance of feeling better than he did at that moment. His head hurt. His head hurt and his eyes hurt and his legs hurt. He hurt. He ached all over.
Blaine was up, already gone. Kurt rolled out of bed, holding the ability of his legs to carry him to higher standards than he should have. He fell to one knee, bracing himself with his left hand against the nightstand.
Kurt went to the bathroom and washed his face. His eyes were angry and bloodshot - what he would have given for a hair-of-the-dog-esque dose of what went down the toilet the night before. Blaine was nowhere in sight, but nevertheless Kurt focussed all his downtrodden fury on his maybe-lover.
Kurt got dressed feeling sorry for himself and got a lift to the show arena with Quinn and Sam. He wore dark sunglasses for the whole journey there and bought some painkillers from the corner store on the same street as the arena - the strongest he could swing without a prescription.
Finn might have yelled at him when he got in - Kurt couldn't quite remember. The makeup artists pampered him, powdered him in special remidies for puffy red eyes and bags and paled his skin to the correct level of mystery - this was sexy, apparently.
Kurt's head throbbed hazily through the painkillers for the whole day - and Finn wouldn't let him off early two days in a row even if he was dying. Kurt didn't make eye contact with Blaine all day, but caught sight of the bruises on his wrist. Kurt assumed this was a coping mechanism to avoid cutting - wrist-banging, he believed it was called. He didn't understand how it was any better, other than the fact that it wouldn't scar. Perhaps it was that it could easily be deflected in tabloids as part of the show, painted on in makeup as some kind of statement about the pieces.
At nine that evening Kurt gave in and took a ten minute break and had coffee and a low calorie breakfast bar from the wicker basket on the counter behind the stages. He felt guilty and sick when he ate it - like a failure as he swallowed it.
At ten o'clock when Kurt arrived back at the hotel by limo, he ignored Blaine and went straight up to their room. Blaine sighed and stopped in the cafe for a tea. When he reached Kurt he wished he hadn't stopped at all. His roomate was bent over the toilet with his finger shoved into the back of his throat.
Blaine slammed his tea down on the nightstand and wrenched Kurt back from the bowl. Kurt was caught off guard and greeted Blaine with a wet, hacking cough. "Fuck! What the fuck, Blaine?"
"Seriously? You couldn't just have that one hundred and eight calories? What was it gonna do?" Kurt's eyes burned into Blaine's, as if he could see straight through him and right into his soul. "God dammit Kurt, is food really that toxic?"
"Yes!" It was the same desperate, primal yell as the previous night. It was grating, and saddening. Blaine wanted to wrap Kurt up and do something, anything to try and fix him, but he knew he couldn't. He wished it was that easy but it wasn't.
"Fuck this. This is bullshit. You know it's bullshit. I can't deal with this anymore."
"So what, it's over? Is that what you're saying?"
"What's over? What? What the fuck do we have that could possibly be over? There's nothing there," Blaine said firmly, althought Kurt could see the hurt in his eyes.
It was that very moment at which the door from Santana and Sebastian's room opened and the latter stuck his head through the doorway. He seemed only minimally put off by the scene in front of him. "Hey you guys - wanna come to Mike and Tina's room? We got drinks and truth or dare - could be fun?" Everything that Seb had ever said had always sounded overtly suggestive to Kurt, he didn't know why. Seb was looking straight at him, that permenantly seductive look ever present in his eyes - that crooked smile looking more and more appealing by the second.
Kurt thought for a moment about this. Part of him wanted to say no and just sleep for days even though he knew he couldn't - he said yes, though, before he could consider the pros and cons.
"What?" Blaine's voice was incredulous.
"I'm going. It'll be fun," Kurt said with a self-righteous smirk, "Are you in?"
Seb smiled, "I'll see you there doll face." He disappeared and the door shut with a click that echoed.
"What the fuck is your angle here?" Blaine's eyes narrowed and Kurt turned to him, a look on his face as if he almost looked down on him.
"I don't have an angle. I like booze, I like friends, I like truth or dare, it's fun." I like revenge. Kurt knew if the opportunity arose to give Blaine the payback he deserved, he would take it in a heartbeat.
"Fine. I'm in." Blaine's tone was defiant, as if he was trying to piss Kurt off.
Kurt's eyes narrowed and he stood up from the bathroom floor. "Why?"
"To make sure you don't do anything stupid."
"Good."
"Fine."

They got dressed seperately - Kurt in the bathroom and Blaine in the part of the room with the bed and the bay window. It was twenty minutes later by the time they knocked on Mike and Tina's door. Puck answered it and let them in. Everybody was there except Rachel, Brittany, Finn, Artie and Mercedes. Nine of them all in a circle, plus Kurt and Blaine made eleven.
As soon as Blaine and Kurt joined the circle on the floor they were given drinks and Mike spun the bottle, no prelude. It landed on Santana and she picked truth.
This was the first of many mistake made that evening. Sam asked Santana what happened between her and Brittany. Santana tried to deflect but the circle became a riot of desperate chanting voices who wanted to know what was going on.
"I wasn't giving her what she wanted, I guess," she said vaguely.
"That's not a real answer," Tina argued.
"I'm a shit girlfriend," Santana said finally. The circle quieted. "I'm too aggressive, all I want to do is fuck and play around and she can't concentrate ever on her art because I'm always there distracting her. She says it's like I have no feelings, I never compliment her and anybody who looks at her I pretty much rip their head off. She hates me - and she's better off without me."
Everybody was quiet now.
Puck reached out to spin the bottle again, muttering, "Downer," under his breath. Santana let out a nervous laugh and watched the bottle spin, but Kurt could see the tears in the corners of her eyes. He knew he needed to talk to her later. She took a long swig of her Captain Morgan's and Kurt followed suit - letting the rum soften the edges of his brain.
The bottle slowed and landed on Sebastian. Needless to say, he picked dare. The circle quietly but surely approved.
Quinn looked at Kurt and the smirk never left her lips as she spoke. "Seven minutes in heaven," her voice was low and Sebastian's eyebrow quirked in surprise. "With Kurt."
Kurt heard Blaine swallow beside him.
"Screw you," Kurt mumbled under his breath as he stood up.
"You can use my room," Quinn smiled evily, her voice like poisoned honey. She handed over the room key and Sebastian took it from her. "Have fun."
The last thing Kurt saw in that room was Blaine downing the rest of his drink.
Kurt and Sebastian went into Quinn's room and shut the door. Even though he couldn't see them, Kurt knew that everybody else who had been in Mike and Tina's room was standing right outside the door, listening.
"I know you're pretty much in love with Blaine," Sebastian said, his voice low so that those outside couldn't hear them. "Doesn't leave much room to be interested in anybody else... Me, for example."
"No," Kurt said quickly. "I'm not in love with him. Not anymore, I don't think." His voice was still. Quietly sad.
Sebastian sat down on the bed and patted the covers next to him. "Sit down."
"He flushed my coke," Kurt blurted before he even took a step towards the other man.
"So... we're on the clock. You know what people usually do during seven minuts in heaven right?" Kurt nodded, feeling a tiny bit disgusted by the connotations attached to the game, "So we could fake it? Payback for your sweetheart."
It was an excellent idea, until Sebastian leaned forwards and kissed Kurt on the mouth. For a moment, Kurt kissed back, as well - but he pulled back when Sebastian's tongue pushed between his lips. "Fake it," Kurt repeated.
Sebastian smiled, almost disappointedly, and nodded. "Have it your way, sweet pea."
It started with a fake moan. Kurt reluctantly had to join in - to at least pretend his heart was in it (not really the right phrase pertaining to sex, fake or otherwise).
Kurt grabbed the boy next to him on the bed, pulled him up and shoved him hard against the door. From there he grabbed his arms and threw him back down on the bed. Sebastian groaned involuntarily, "Oh God," he said loudly, then in a lower voice, "Jesus, can we just fuck for real already?"
Kurt just looked at him. "Jump up and down on the bed," he whispered in the other man's ear, taking his shirt off.
Sebastian's eyebrows furrowed, "What are you doing?" He wondered if Kurt was taking him up on his offer - but given tht they had only three minutes left, it seemed unlikely.
"Inside out or buttoned incorrectly?"
Sebastian's initial confusion turned to a smile, "Inside out," he said quietly as he stood up on the bed, "And make sure you mess your hair up," he reached out and ran his fingers roughly through Kurt's hair from his place standing on the bed.
They made a big show of banging on the wall, pushing the bed back and forth - and Sebastian moaned so loudly and passionately that Kurt started blushing. Part of him wondered if Sebastian was putting on a show or emulating the real thing from his own experience.
There was banging on the door as the seven minutes drew to an end. "Come on you guys - to be continued in your own damn time." Santana, of course.
Kurt could hear them talking, all except for Blaine. The hall was buzzing as they stepped outside, and Blaine's eyes went straight to Kurt's haggggir and then to his inside out shirt - only half buttoned.
"What the fuck, man?" Blaine stepped up to Sebastian straight away, as if it was his fault. Kurt trusted Sebastian not to blow it straight away.
But this wasn't the reaction Kurt was aiming to ilicit. He was aiming for disappointment, or for lust as a result. He wanted Blaine to be jealous. He wanted to be dragged back to their room and fucked againt the wall because Kurt belonged to him.
"He asked for it, man," Sebastian said smugly, still playing along.
Kurt eyed him hard and Sebastian's smile dropped. "Don't," he said, realising it would only get worse if he didn't fess up right at that moment. In Blaine's eyes was blind anger. Pure hatred - and not just for Sebastian; for both of them.
"Why the fuck would you do that?"
"Blaine, we didn't fuck okay!" Kurt's voice cut through the chatter in the hall. All eyes were suddenly off the potential altercation between Blaine and Sebastian and on the potential clusterfuck between Kurt and Blaine. "We faked it, alright?"
Blaine was silent for a moment, "Why?" He seemed hurt now - genuinely confused.
"To piss you off, for what you did," Kurt whispered, his voice low to indicate that despite there were nine other people listening, this was attempting to be a private conversation. As hard as he was trying, though, Blaine appeared to be intent on making a scene. Intent on making an example of Kurt, even.
"For what I did? What I did?" Blaine's voice was getting higher and more angry. Everybody was silent. You could have heard a pin drop.
Kurt reached out and tried to touch Blaine's arm, tried to comfort him because he knew what would happen if he didn't. He knew what would happen if he left Blaine so high strung. Razor blade was modern man's best friend. "Don't fucking touch me!"
"Blaine-"
"Hey fuck you! I'm done with this!" And he walked off to the end of the hall, slamming and locking their door. It was then as if everybody suddenly decided that they needed to fuck off and they all started to clumsily dissipate, hurrying to their rooms and shutting the doors quickly so Kurt found himself standing in a very empty hallway.
Kurt cursed at the ceiling and kicked over a potted plant before he locked himself in the shared bathroom at the other end of the hall, considering that he couldn't retreat to his own room, and he didn't want to go to anybod else's because he didn't want to talk. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck." His back hit the door and he slid down to sit on the floor. The tears pushed at the corners of his eyes and instead of trying to blink them back he just let them fall. "Fuck. What the fuck have I done." He said it aloud to himself, as if it were not even a question. "Shit. God dammit."
He forced himself to stand after a while, and let himself into their room using the key he had kept in his pocket. "Blaine?" He didn't know what to expect - he'd never really known Blaine's reasoning, or wear he himself ranked on a scale of one to ten of 'things to cut because of'.
It had appeared his roomate had had the same idea as Kurt. He was sat against the wall in the bathroom, his eyes red and his face tearstained. Kurt was somewhat surprised at his fairly composed appearance. There was no blood - no steel companion.
"Blaine," he whispered.
"What do you want?"
"Erm, for the next week I live here, actually." He tried to make light of it, but even in his own opinion it wasn't working at all.
"Don't try and play this off like nothing happened. Fuck you."
"Not to be indelicate," Kurt said quietly, stepping towards the open bathroom door. "But you aren't... you-"
"I'm not cutting? Or banging my wrist against the tub?" Blaine's voice was cold - distant; like he'd broken off the connections to himself and now he was just a shell - as if for self-preservation.
"Yeah..." Kurt realised how it sounded when Blaine said it aloud. The words floated around them - abbrasive, harsh.
"Do you want to know why?" Kurt didn't speak but he nodded and Blaine laughed as he spoke in spite of himself. "Because I've realised something, Kurt - you aren't worth it. You just are not worth it."
Kurt felt like he'd been punched in the chest. He stepped inside the bathroom door and slipped down the wall again and sat beside the doorway on the floor. "But..."
"No buts, I can't do this anymore."
"But I think I love you," Kurt said suddenly, like an involutary tick.
Blaine looked up and their eyes met across the tiled room. "You what?"
"You're like my rock," Kurt said brokenly, "I... I don't know what to do when I'm not with you. You make me feel like everything's okay even when I damn well know it's not. You make the ache in my stomach feel like it's cramps - and not because I haven't eaten for three days. When everything's okay between us... I don't feel like I need the coke. And I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Well that's wonderful. Really, Kurt," Blaine said, not looking up. He went silent for long moments. Kurt could hear the faucet in the tub dripping. "I think I love you too."
Kurt dared to lift his eyes from the tiles in the corner of the room - but Blaine was looking down. "I'll help you," Kurt whispered.
This time Blaine did look up. "Help me with what?"
"You know what."
"The idea of you helping me with anything remotely self-destructive is kind of ridiculous," Blaine said with a nervous laugh.
"I'd like you to help me too," Kurt said softly. "In return."
"A symbiotic relationship," Blaine said, his tone impressed. "Nice try."
"I will try, I promise." Kurt insisted. "I'll try, if you will."
Blaine was quiet. "I'll try. 'Cause I guess we're all fucked up. I'd just like to be less fucked up, y'know?" Kurt nodded, and they sat silently together for twelve or thirteen long minutes.
"I do love you," Kurt said after that while. "I said I thought I did before. That was a lie. I do love you. I don't know when I started loving you. I just did and the lines got blurred."
"Good," Blaine said from the other side of the room. This time he looked at Kurt's eyes, "I don't know when I started loving you either. But I really do. A lot. I don't even really know why."
They stayed in there a while until the orange morning light fought through the bathroom window blinds. Blaine stood up at about six thirty and helped Kurt up off the floor. He took them both to bed and soothed Kurt to sleep with sweet nothings, as if nothing had ever been, or could ever be, wrong at all.

Title: Porcelain
Rating: R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Angst, f-bomb, character death.
Word Count: 4,958
Summary: Dying was easy. Living was hard.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them or Glee. Don’t own Bruno Merz’s For You Now.
A/N: So I made a big long list of words to use as a series of prompts to write something half-decent and hey guess what this is what came of it. The first word was doctor – so this is a prequel to Silk; so I guess if you haven’t read that yet, read this first and enjoy. Oh, and judging by the response to Silk, you might want tissues and a heart surgeon. This is supposed to be scattered and detached and not make much linear sense, as it’s supposed to document the unravelling of Blaine’s mind. Also, I felt it was necessary for this to have a soundtrack. You can find it here.

He couldn’t imagine how he’d tell Kurt if he wasn’t there with him.

Blaine wanted to go to the doctor’s alone because… well, he guessed the short and short of it was that he wanted to protect Kurt. Because if it was something awful then he didn’t have to tell him straight away and they could have a nice night or two before he dropped the bomb. And sure, Kurt would be mad – but it would have been worth it right? And he would have tried to explain that to Kurt. He thought of the way Kurt would cry. It broke his heart.

This wasn’t any better though. It turned out it was something awful.

There was a gap between being in the doctor’s office and them standing on the kerb trying to gather their thoughts. Blaine couldn’t remember where they’d parked the car. He tried not to blame it on the abnormalities in his brain. Blaine could barely look at his husband – so he looked down at his shoes instead. There was a scuff on the front of the left one; and suddenly the whole world became that scuffed boot.

Imperfect. Scarred. Irrevocably damaged.

“You okay?” Blaine’s voice was even. He surprised himself, being the one who spoke first, being the one who didn’t burst into tears. He was the sick one. He was the one who was going to die.

It was hard to come to terms with, though. Even inside his own head.

He could see out of the corner of his eye, Kurt shaking his head. “No.” The single, muted syllable was like a great shove. Blaine felt winded – like the air around him had been punctured like it was a balloon and now all the air was being let out of it at an alarming rate and Blaine couldn’t breathe.

All around him were colours. Rose petal shapes of green and violet and robin’s egg blue in the corners of his eyes. He hadn’t been able to rid them for days. But now they seemed to be getting worse – as if Kurt’s tone had triggered them too and they were intensifying as if on cue. Blaine didn’t pretend to understand the way his mind was working anymore. He took it as a sign of deterioration.

The doctor hadn’t actually said he was going to die, but Blaine knew he was.

Blaine knew that the doctor wouldn’t say it anyway – it didn’t matter if it was certain that he would die tomorrow, the doctor wouldn’t say it. In fact, he was pretty sure they weren’t allowed to. He (Blaine had forgotten his name already. He didn’t know whether to blame this on his regular forgetfulness or on the tumours – it seemed so suddenly easy to blame everything on them) had given Blaine a long, long prescription.

He and Kurt were supposed to be headed to the pharmacy, but they both found themselves rooted to their spots. Blaine found himself looking at his feet again, then at Kurt’s feet.

“We need to go get those prescriptions.” Blaine made the vaguest of head gestures towards the crumpled paper in Kurt’s hand. He’d given Kurt the piece of prescription-pad-paper the second they left the consultation room – his hands were shaking far too much to hold it steady enough to read.

Kurt blew out an unsteady breath and looked at Blaine for the first time since they’d left their house that morning. Blaine thought back to their house for a moment, thought about how he’d miss it. Then he thought about how he was being really melodramatic. Then he thought again, he really wasn’t. “Okay.”

Blaine couldn’t quite meet Kurt’s eyes; and soon, his husband’s gaze dropped.

Blaine wanted to ask if he could perhaps get more than a single word out of Kurt, but before he could say anything the other man had already moved off into the expanse of parked cars to find their SUV.

Blaine thought back to their conversation about sharing a car. He thought about their conversations about how it would be more practical and it would save money. He thought about their first conversation about sharing an apartment. About buying a house. About some day adopting a child, perhaps.

Blaine thought about how his mind was cruel, and relayed the strangest memories in quick succession, in a way that hurt more than was helpful or needed.

After they’d got Blaine’s medication they went straight home, and Blaine stood at the gate for a few long minutes and watched the sprinklers come on as Kurt walked down the path. He looked at the flowers his husband had planted and wondered if he’d ever really noticed them before. He looked at the tree by the living room window and thought about how it was probably as old as him.

“Are you coming?” Kurt’s voice isn’t frustrated, exactly – but it’s verging on annoyed.

Blaine looks at the younger man, standing in the doorway to their house – and he realises he’s missed so much. There was so much he hadn’t ever noticed in this way before – and it makes him sad.

He closes the distance between himself and his husband and kisses his forehead affectionately. “You’re beautiful,” he says firmly, “And I love you.”

“Don’t you dare,” Kurt says, his voice hardening without his permission.

Blaine knows exactly what the other man means but he won’t admit it. He pretends to remain ignorant because that’s what he wants to do to reality. He wants to ignore it – because if he doesn’t acknowledge it, it isn’t happening. “Don’t what?” His voice is quiet and innocent.

Kurt pushes him away almost forcefully and Blaine steps back to steady himself. Kurt closes the front door and turns the thumb-wheel to lock it. He looks at Blaine again, but there’s something frightened and angry in the back of his eyes this time, flickering and anxious. “Don’t you dare say your goodbyes.”


“I’m afraid of what will happen to me when you’re gone.” Kurt’s voice is small, scared – like a little boy. He and Blaine are stretched long across the sofa in the living room – but despite the domesticated, grounded feel of it all, Blaine still feels like they’re floating alone in a void of white and nothingness.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Lie.

“Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not about this.” Sometimes Blaine hates how Kurt can see right through him. Sometimes he thinks it’s almost disgusting how well he knows him. “If I’ve accepted it, you must have.” And there is almost humour in his voice. Almost.

Blaine is quiet for a moment and he hesitates before he speaks. “You haven’t accepted it,” he finally whispers. His voice is certain.

Kurt’s fingers ghost over the back of Blaine’s neck and the hair raises there in their wake. “I know,” the younger man whispers back.


Sometimes they sit on the balcony and watch the stars.

Blaine’s medication usually sets in earlier than it’s supposed to, but the doctor warned them that would happen because of how far along the cancer was. Blaine remembered Kurt’s face when the doctor told them the tumours were inoperable and all they could do was medicate him and wait. His mind was still being cruel. Blaine commended it on its only degree of consistency.

Everything else was changing – and Blaine hated the waiting game.

“Kurt?” His husband doesn’t speak, but he looks over at Blaine with a questioning expression, “Do you ever worry that they’ll hit us?”

Blaine looked back up at the sky and his eyes fluttered nervously across the stars like startled birds, “What do you mean baby?” Kurt has had a couple of glasses of wine. His mind has softened a little around the edges. Blaine kind of likes him like that. Kurt doesn’t drink often, not even now – but when he does, Blaine just kind of likes him calmer.

“The stars,” Blaine says quickly. He watches the glow fade as the barrier of the atmosphere blocks the falling lights, but he still can’t help worrying. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll crash right down and hit us? They’re falling pretty fast.”

Kurt brushes Blaine’s strange comments off as the usual. “They can’t hit us baby, don’t worry,” he whispers. He moves his deck chair closer to Blaine’s on the balcony, cupping Blaine’s shaking hand under his own. “Look,” he points up towards the sky with his other hand and Blaine watches another glow burn out. “They hit the atmosphere first, and then they’re gone. Poof.”

Blaine’s still worried. “Poof,” he repeats under his voice. Kurt’s arm slides over his shoulders and pulls him close, kissing the side of his head. Kurt tells Blaine he loves him, like he does every night. Blaine is sure he does this because he’s afraid Blaine might leave him in the night, trading the pain and medication for wings and white.

Sometimes Blaine wishes he could.


Secretly, Blaine sometimes went to hotels instead of work.

He never did anything wrong, or did anything bad there. His workplace never minded because they knew his situation. They didn’t know where he was any more than Kurt did. Sometimes he felt bad for lying to the man that he loved but sometimes he was sure Kurt would understand.

He just needed some time away from everything, it was as simple as that. Even just Kurt was overwhelming, sometimes.

Usually he just thinks. He lies on the bed and ignores his mobile phone ringing and the missed calls on the screen. Sometimes he falls asleep and forgets to take his medication. When he wakes up he feels like microwaved shit and promises himself he’ll never do that again – but he can never keep that promise.

His bones feel unnaturally heavy sometimes, and sometimes all he sees is blue. He doesn’t pretend to really understand anything anymore. The world seemed to get a whole lot more confusing when he got sick and he’d never been able to riddle it out again. Kurt was the only thing that was really clear. Everything else around Kurt was blurry and Blaine was uncertain of it all.

He wished it could be more like a fairytale. Like magic. With a happy ending. Like a cure. He wished there was a cure. Although he was sure everyone in his position did as well.

Blaine just wished it felt a little less like a punishment.


Kurt had rolls of film he’d got from his grandfather. Blaine found that they were an excellent thing to compare to the way that he felt when he was on his medication. They were grainy and black and white and old.

Blaine felt a million years old when he took the drugs. He felt like he could age ten years in ten seconds. He felt like he was old enough to die – which he knew he wasn’t.


Sometimes Kurt was okay, and sometimes he wasn’t.

Blaine used to know what Kurt was thinking all the time. Kurt was his best friend. Now, though, Blaine felt like he never knew what was going on inside the other man’s head. It was maddening. It was like he used to know him so well, and then suddenly he was an entirely different person.

Except the truly maddening thing was that Blaine knew this wasn’t true. The truth was that Kurt had not changed – he had. Blaine knew it was him that was different, not Kurt; and for some reason, that made him feel sicker than usual.

The sickness was something he could get used to. It was the pain that finished him every night and threatened to keep him in bed every morning. It was the interrupted eight hours in the night where he would inadvertently go cold turkey that almost killed him (that almost had him begging for death). When he woke up in the mornings he couldn’t move. More often than not, Kurt would have to get him his painkillers so he didn’t have to.

Blaine hated being so dependant on the other man, even though whenever he apologised Kurt just repeated their wedding vows. “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health.”

“I know,” Blaine would say, and Kurt would smile and bring him a glass of water.

On one of the better days, Blaine had awoken to Kurt reading recovery books in bed. Sometimes this would turn a better day into a dark day. “I love how you manage to remain unfailingly chipper, despite the situation,” Blaine said sarcastically when Kurt laughed quietly at the book.

Kurt looked over as soon as he realised that his husband was awake, and the smile dropped from his mouth. “Do you need me to get you your meds, baby?” His voice was low, concerned.

Blaine smiled and stretched, taking the book from his lover’s hands. He shook his head and threw the book off the bed and pulled Kurt down next to him. “I love you,” he whispered into the younger man’s ear.

Kurt only pressed his lips together and leaned into Blaine’s touch reflexively. “Mm, I love you too.” It had been a while since Kurt had told Blaine not to say his goodbyes, and Blaine took this as a good sign (however foolish it was for him to do so).

The only problem was that he knew, at some point towards the end (speeding towards them like a freighter, no sign of slowing down), they would have to say their goodbyes.


Sometimes the meds made Blaine lose his mind a little bit. Except the problem was that he wasn’t sure if it was the meds or the advancing of his illness.

That was what they called it, when they spoke to each other – the illness – because the truth was neither of them had the guts to actually say the cancer or the thing that is fucking killing you. Sometimes Blaine wished that he could call it that. He thought that maybe that would wake Kurt up a bit. Blaine was sure he was blocking it out completely.

Blaine wanted to make him think. God, sometimes he just wanted to fucking hit him (not that he ever would, though) and tell him that it really was all coming to an end quite soon. He wanted Kurt to face the facts – that in the near future he wasn’t going to be there for his husband, and he hated it. But it was a fact.

And you can’t not accept a fact.

Sometimes they argued a lot. It was usually the same. So much the same that usually Blaine knew the exact combination of words that were going to come out of his husband’s mouth. He hated fighting with Kurt – but sometimes his mind and his mouth didn’t cooperate; and then, to put no finer point on it, shit went down.

Because Kurt yelled at him and then Blaine got carried away. Sometimes his mouth just worked before he knew what was happening. “I hate it when you get like this!” It was the usual line. Blaine still hated it as much as the first time Kurt had said it – the only difference every time thereafter was that it no longer shocked or surprised him. But then again, nothing anymore shocked or surprised him.

“Well it’s not exactly like it’s my fault!” Kurt always felt awful when he said that. Like he’d done something worse than he’d actually done. Like he’d physically assaulted Blaine, rather than just thrown verbal abuse at him. He’d quiet, and then Blaine would speak in a softer voice. “I’m dying, aren’t I?” Even though he knew Kurt hated it when he did that. Almost more than he hated the disease itself.

“Stop it,” Kurt would beg. His voice would be a desperate whimper. He’d will Blaine to just obey his wishes. Just once. Just shut up.

“It’s true Kurt. I’m sorry. We can’t hide from it forever.” This was always said with no emotion – and Kurt was afraid that Blaine had detached himself completely from what was happening.

“Stop it!” He’d scream this time – the desperation spilling over and he’d weep.

It would always end the same. Blaine would take his fragile husband in his arms and try to cradle him into a calmer state, where he would maybe fall into a fitful, dreamless slumber – like he was the sick one.

Blaine didn’t mind pretending that he wasn’t the constantly broken one. He wasn’t damaged – and he could still look after his husband perfectly well, thank you. In fact, he thought it was worse for Kurt.

Dying was easy. Living was hard.


Towards the end Blaine argued with everybody. It seemed to be just what he did. You talked to Blaine, you got an argument.

Blaine argued with Finn about his brother. Because all Blaine was trying to do was make sure that when he was gone Kurt would be okay (even though he was sure he really wouldn’t). He thought they were lucky, even – because at least they knew the end was coming. It was cancer. It was slow, to some extent.

Finn, of course, didn’t want to hear any of it. He didn’t want to hear about how his brother in law was going to die, and how his step-brother was going to fall to pieces. Blaine told Finn that he wanted him to help Kurt when he spoke at Blaine’s funeral (if Kurt would – and he hoped he would).

Blaine told Finn, quite firmly, that he wanted him to make sure that Kurt didn’t just drop off of the face of the planet. He wanted Finn to make sure that his husband didn’t vanish and retreat into himself. He knew Kurt. He knew he had an overactive imagination at the best of times. He knew that him being gone would mean Kurt going to live there, instead of trying to get back to the real world. Because in the fantasy world there was no such thing as cancer – and he and Blaine would live forever.

Finn refused to accept it, though, when Blaine told him, “When I’m gone you have to look after him. I know you always have. But when I die—”

And he got angry because Finn would cut him off every single time with, “Blaine, you’re young. You aren’t—”

And he just snapped. “I’m not what? I’m not going to die? It doesn’t matter if I’m young, Finn! I’m obviously young enough to die! Look at this,” And Blaine pulls at his hair but it doesn’t come out, and Finn wonders what point he is trying to make by this, “It isn’t coming out is it? Do you know why that is? Because I’m so far gone there’s no point in trying chemo. Do you understand me?”

Blaine’s voice is faltering. Over the past few months he has become seemingly indifferent, but the mask of uncaring that he’s put on is cracking and the light is shining through them, shining in on what is really, and what has always been, simply a scared little boy. A scared little boy who doesn’t want to die.

Finn didn’t speak this time. Didn’t try to argue. Just nodded. “I am dying. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m leaving your brother all alone. I’m sorry I have to leave my husband.” He lets out a humourless laugh, “I don’t want to go but I have to.” And Blaine didn’t believe in God, but for some reason he used it as a poor excuse anyway. “Because for some reason, they need me more.”

Finn knew who he meant by ‘they’ but he didn’t think Blaine believed it. He knew Blaine believed that when you died it was just dark. Nothing. There was nothing for you. “Everything will be alright,” Blaine then supplies hollowly, even though he knows he’s lying.

“You know,” Finn finally speaks. “It’s not just Kurt losing something.” He isn’t trying to detract from his brother’s loss, Blaine knows that. Blaine knows Finn just wants him to know he cares. “When you die Kurt’s losing a husband, of course. But I’m losing a brother. And my parents are losing a son.”


Blaine argues with Burt and Carole too, when he tries to give them the letter.

He tells them that they have to wait a year before they give it to him because he wants Kurt to move on before they let him know that Blaine thought so far ahead. His intentions are pure and he just wants Kurt to know, in a year's time, that he was thinking about the future Kurt would have to have without him.

Burt wasn’t happy about it. He was mad about the fact that after a year Kurt might have some semblance of order in his life and to hit him with this would be cruel. It would be like taking back all the progress he might have made.

Blaine didn’t want to say it out loud but he was almost certain Kurt would have made no progress at all. But he did say it out loud, as much as it pained him. “And, please don’t take this as me saying he’s weak. He’s the strongest person I know… I just… If it was him… If it was him dying, I wouldn’t have moved on after a year.” He swallowed. “I’m just being realistic.”

Burt takes the letter – and it’s in a jiffy bag with what feels like a cassette inside. It’s a mixtape. Burt’s voice is still defiant. “Fine.”

“Please,” Blaine whispers. “Please do this for me. For your son.”

Carole looks down and takes a sharp intake of breath. Her voice is deadly low when she speaks, because she knows if she raises it even a little she will lose it. “You are our son too.”


At the end Kurt is there.

Blaine’s already had too many painkillers so he can’t have anymore, but it’s fucking agony and that’s an understatement. He thought the dying was easy. He thought that leaving was easy – and staying was hard.

“Kurt, it hurts so bad.” His voice is completely disconnected from his body – when he hears it inside his ears it doesn’t even feel like his own, and he feels Kurt’s chest shudder uncontrollably against his ear because Kurt has Blaine’s head pressed firmly into him so he can hold him through the worst of it. “This is it.”

“Don’t say that.” Kurt’s voice is defiant and desperate and his throat is seriously threatening to close up. Blaine is impressed his husband can even speak right then. Nobody else is there but Blaine knows Finn is in the waiting room.

Blaine called him, because he knew he was close to the edge (or at least as close as he’d ever been before) and he was sure the end was coming. And Blaine didn’t want Kurt to be alone. Even though he had to get the nurse to dial the number because it hurt too much.

The edge was a good way to describe it, Blaine thought briefly through the pain, trying to fight through the haze. He thought he was ready – to step off into oblivion, onto that invisible step that wasn’t really there.

“I have to go,” his voice is still fragmented, like he can’t grasp it back. It’s almost like his voice has been the first thing to go. He’s falling to pieces one by one – and his voice is gone already. It is somebody else’s voice now – or perhaps just suspended in Kurt’s memory forever.

Blaine thinks about all the people he had known in his life. He thinks about how young he is and briefly about how unfair. Then he thinks about how unafraid he is. How tired. How he is ready.

“No.” Kurt’s voice is the voice of a child. The voice of a scared little boy. He can’t even put sentences together now. Not in his mind and not with his mouth. He just utters over and over and over again, “No. No, no, no. Not now no. Not you. Not you, not now. Please not you!” He’s weeping.

“Please. Please don’t. Don’t cry. Don’t cry please.” Blaine’s begging. “No.” With all his strength. “I don’t… Please. I’m ready.”

“I’m not!” There’s the hugest lump in his throat right before the end. Blaine thinks it probably could have been bile. He couldn’t stand to see Kurt like this, so he shuts his eyes as tightly as he can.

“Everything will be alright now,” he whispers. “Alright. Everything will be alright now, alright.” He doesn’t know if he’s reassuring Kurt or reassuring himself. It hurts. Everything just hurts so badly and he won’t say it to Kurt but he wants it to be over already. “I love you. Kiss me. Please.”

“No,” Kurt begs. “Please. Blaine! Please, Blaine.”

Blaine squeezes Kurt’s forearms where his grip had been slowly loosening. Kurt had tried to ignore it but now he couldn’t. “Please.” Blaine’s voice gets firmer and he uses all the strength in him to push the final words out. “Kiss me goodbye. Please.”

And without another thought Kurt leans in and kisses Blaine’s lips. They’re cold, even though he’s not gone yet. But Kurt can tell he’s fading really fast. Kurt feels sick, even though he knows it’s infinitely worse for Blaine. He’d never wish this upon his worst enemy. “Blaine?”

At first, Kurt is sure that he’d just said it so quietly that Blaine hadn’t heard him. He is holding onto Blaine’s shoulders with all his strength and his body in involuntarily swaying back and forth (he refuses to admit to ‘rocking’ because that means he is seriously losing it). Blaine is barely moving anymore.

“You know,” Kurt whispers into Blaine’s ear as he begins to still. “There are those fairy tales that we used to read. Do you remember? That fairy tale book that my mother gave me?” He waited for an answer, needlessly. “If we were in one of those fairy tales, I’d kiss you and you’d get better,” he says bleakly. Then a cry as his voice seemed to shatter, along with his heart: “I’d kiss you and you’d get better.”

Blaine isn’t moving anymore.

“Blaine,” Kurt’s voice is a cry, helpless. And he knows Blaine is gone. And he rocks back and forth with him, because now he has lost it. Because if Blaine’s gone, he’s gone.


Dear Kurt,

So… It’s been a year. I was going to put Porcelain but I didn’t think you’d want jokes… Oh, wait. That was a joke, wasn’t it? Oops.
So I guess this letter is to tell you all the things that I wanted to tell you before I died (there, I said it – and I’m sorry) but you didn’t want to hear. Things like I love you. And goodbye.
I told myself I wanted to put in here – the main thing – about evening.
My mom told me a story once about an old woman who used to sit in her chair every night and watch the day fade into the night. She even said it with three syllables, ev-e-ning. My mom always asked me why the woman pronounced the three syllables instead of saying it like normal: eve-ning.
I never knew until now.
I think the way that my mind is unravelling (I know you hate that term – I’m sorry to use it but it’s the best way I can describe how it feels. It’s like a ball of wool and that crazy kitten that came to our door once: in shreds). I think because it’s changing I understand things in different ways.
I think it was because she loved it so.
And the best comparison I could think of was when I call you Porcelain. Because when I thought about it I realised that in high school when your Cheerios coach used to call you it she said it with two syllables like normal: Porce-lain. And so did I.
But then I noticed that when I started using it as a pet name I said it differently instead. Like somehow the connotations of the word had changed. Like it had changed as a name for you. I said it with three syllables instead: Por-ce-lain.
I guess that’s because I loved you. I still love you. And I know you still love me.
So I’m going to be really cliché and say that I don’t want you to die alone. I want you to go out and live your life and fall in love with another guy who blows your mind like you blew mine. I know you think he doesn’t exist but I think he does. I promise there’s someone else. Even though the thought of you with someone else makes me feel sick.
I just want you to know it’s okay. Because I love you. But now I’m gone.
And I made you this mixtape (well, a song on a cassette, really. I listened to it a lot in the hospital). The first song (the only song) is my favourite – and I’m going to be really cliché (again!) and quote the lyrics to end this letter because that is just who I was. I know you’re smiling at that.
Come away, come away leave it all far behind you. (And),
I can see, I can see the strength there inside you. (And),
Everything will be alright now, alright.
Just listen to it for a while. Let it sink in. I promise it will do you good. And I know you can’t take it’s advice straight away, but I want you to try.
I love you. And I miss you.
Blaine.

Soundtrack for Porcelain (prequal to Silk), the ones in bold italic are the most important ones:





• Hope – who am I to say
• Third eye blind – slow motion
• Marc Cohn – one safe place
• The cinematic orchestra – to build a home

• Suburban legends – bright spring morning (piano version)
• All American rejects – move along
• Death cab for cutie – what Sarah said
• Ray LaMontagne – let it be me
• Greg Laswell – girls just wanna have fun
• Benjamin Francis Leftwich – pictures

• Owl city – meteor shower

• Bruno Merz – for you now

Title: The Worst Things In Life Come Free To Us
Rating: R (F-Bomb)
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Angst.
Word Count: 867
Summary: Done with pretending to be okay all the time.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. Don’t own Ed Sheeran’s The A-Team.
A/N: Needed to write something angsty – and also let you all know that I’m not dead. No real plot, weak ending – sorry about that. So, yeah, essentially this is a bag of wank. I just wanted to write something.

There’s a knot right in the back of his throat. He tries to swallow it back down so it can tug in his chest instead because at least that would hurt less. It’s threatening to fold into tears if he tries to speak, so he just keeps his mouth shut.

He didn’t think it would hurt this much.

He’s surprised his legs work, but they do. They carry him all the way back to his dorm, in fact – where he locks the door and curls up on his bed. He feels like he could sleep for years. He doesn’t bother getting changed. That tells him that this is really it – he doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Creased Marc Jacobs? Kurt couldn’t give less of a flying fuck.

The lights are turned right down – so much so that they’re nearly off. He doesn’t want them off, though. He doesn’t know why. There seem to be a lot of things he doesn’t know these days though – like why he felt this way. He just wants to smile again. He thinks he must have fallen asleep for a little while, but he’s woken up from dreamless slumber by a voice near the door.

“Kurt?” Blaine’s voice is just a whisper in the dark – in fact, for a moment Kurt is sure he’s simply imagined it in his hazy delirium, until he sees the light pouring in from the slightly open door. He can see Blaine’s silhouette come into view as he slowly pushes the door further and further open, afraid of blinding his boyfriend.

Kurt can see the key in his hand. He remembers going to the mall with Blaine to get it cut. He knew they weren’t supposed to make duplicates of their dorm keys but he didn’t care. He remembers feeling exhilarated the whole time – he remembers the way it felt to break the rules with Blaine. The way it felt to break the rules for Blaine.

Now, though, he found it hard to care. Everything seemed colourless – and not just because the lights were turned down. The world was tasteless. There was no more excitement, no more exhilaration. Kurt couldn’t remember the last time he’d genuinely smiled. He remembered the last forced smile, though. He thinks that was the one that did it. That was the one that broke him. He just snapped like a twig.

Done with pretending to be okay all the time.

“I thought you were dead.” It’s a joke, but Blaine’s voice is humourless.

“I may as well be,” Kurt’s is hoarse.

“Don’t say that.” Blaine is at the side of the bed now. He kneels down and two fingers touch the back of Kurt’s neck. Blaine’s face comes into view in front of his. “Please.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” Kurt’s voice is a monotone – he can’t force anything more. Not even for Blaine. “I’m sorry.” The only emotion in his voice is desperation – and the tears are there in the back of his throat again and this time they come out. He folds – feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. “I don’t know what to do anymore.” He realises he hasn’t cried in weeks. He thinks that’s why the sadness is so intense – that’s why the sobs get clogged in his throat and his body heaves so suddenly he can’t contain it and Blaine’s arms wrap right round him immediately.

“It’s okay.” It’s useless. Blaine knows Kurt won’t believe him. He lets his boyfriend cry into his cardigan.

“It’s not, and I don’t know why.” Listening to Kurt say these things is breaking his heart and he partly just wants to leave and run away from all of this – but he knows he can’t, and he won’t. But he feels like there’s nothing he can do.

“You’re beautiful,” Blaine tries – and he feels a hitch in Kurt’s cries. He hopes it helps. He hopes that in some way he helps Kurt. He hopes that the way he holds him, or the way he kisses his forehead, or the way he tells him he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him helps. Blaine hopes Kurt knows how much he means to him – he hopes Kurt knows how empty he would be without him. He hopes Kurt knows he loves him. “And I love you.”

This makes the cries worse. They intensify and Kurt forces words. “Don’t ever leave me, okay? Don’t leave me alone.”

His genuine fear crushes Blaine’s heart. “I’m never going to leave you. I’m always going to be here, okay? Know that. I’ll never leave.” He means it, too. As sure as he was that he’d ever loved anybody in his whole life, he loved this broken boy in his arms. He was sure he always would – and that scared him a little.

“You know you’re all I’ve ever wanted?” Kurt’s voice is surprisingly steady, considering how hard he’s crying. “All I’ve ever wanted. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for somebody to notice. For somebody to love me. For you to love me.” He swallows hard. “And for you to hug me when I tell you I’m fine, and say ‘I know you’re not’.”

Title: The Dreams In Which I’m Dying
Chapter: One – Drawn To The Ones Who Never Yawn
Rating: NC-17 overall; this R for F-bomb
Pairing(s): Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Mental illness, eating disorders, self-harm, consent issues due to mental state – the usual swears and sex later on.
Word Count: 1,729
Summary: Mental institution AU. Blaine is a new orderly in the sanitarium that houses our dear Kurt Hummel; the often unfriendly, casually belligerent neighbourhood self-destructive head case – to phrase it not-so-gently.
Disclaimer: I do not own them; the title is from the song Mad World, which I do not own either. Chapter title belongs to Panic! At The Disco from the song Northern Downpour.
A/N: Sudden inspiration. I quite like this but updates might not be close together or consistent I’m just going to warn you right now.
Previous: Prologue


One – Drawn To The Ones Who Never Yawn

Kurt would in time discover that it was his silence, above all things, when amongst the loud, loud chaos of the ward that piqued Blaine’s interest.

He used to count the days when he first got there – determined to get out because he thought he was there for no real reason. He thought it was stupid and that his father had been foolish to put him there but as time went on and days blurred into nights and then days and nights all blurred together into one long ribbon of simple time, Kurt realised his father had not been so foolish after all. He was not ready to admit he had problems – was not ready to admit he may have been going crazy. It wasn’t something he could see himself ever confessing to anybody – even himself.

Days were structured there – just the way Kurt liked it. He liked routine and he liked normality and before he got there he had to admit that his life had none of that. School had just become something to miss every day and he’d stay in bed until early evening, so that when he got up he’d be awake until early the next morning. Kurt had effectively become nocturnal but it wasn’t that which bothered him, or bothered his father.

Burt couldn’t stand the sound of Kurt being sick in the toilet or the basin. He could stand the thought of his son sticking his fingers down his throat to make himself reach. Burt didn’t pretend to know what went on in Kurt’s head anymore – not that he really ever did, he guesses. Burt pretty much doesn’t pretend to know who his son is anymore.

Kurt often doesn’t know what goes through his head either. Thoughts aren’t neatly cut off from each other but instead they run on from one another like word-songs and poetry only it’s gibberish – just the kind Kurt likes as a mindless, needless hum – and he can barely understand any of it anymore. The voice inside his head isn’t his own anymore – and the voices outside are another thing entirely.

It was Blaine who brought Kurt his evening medication his first night working there.

The evenings were the times when all of the patients were neatly tucked away in their holes so the nurses could have a rest. They called it ‘private time’ and the name always made Kurt laugh because of its sexual connotations. Although he guessed he was probably half right because in general, private time consisted of the guys wanking and the girls crying and that was the short and short of it. Kurt couldn’t help but think having the new orderly bring Kurt his medication had been a poor decision on the nursing staff’s part. He didn’t think he was particularly unfriendly – but Doctor Valerie had once told him he had no social filter, and that tended to offend people more often than not.

His evening rations were two greens, and another pink. He knew the greens were sleeping pills and he’d probably take one and tongue the other and hide it in the hollow, unscrewable wooden post from the foot of the bed. He didn’t tell anybody about how he used this as a hiding place because he knew that then other patients would start doing the same thing – and then somebody would get careless and somebody would get caught, and then there would be mandatory searches and he’d be found out. It had taken him ages to work out the convenience of the unscrewable posts and he wasn’t about to have some stupid, callous head case ruin that for him. Not that he got along well enough with anybody to share his secrets, anyway.

“I don’t know why they did this to you,” Kurt whispered as Blaine held out the little white cup of pills along with a polystyrene cup of water to take them with. “I’m sorry.”

Blaine looked up at the boy sitting on the bed in front of him. Kurt took the cups from Blaine and quickly took his pills. “Excuse me?”

Kurt’s smile was haunting, “You’re new, right?” Blaine only nodded in response, “They could have given you a far friendlier ward. And if not, a far friendlier corridor.” He paused for a second as if to gauge Blaine’s reaction, “The girl next door, she killed her little brother when her parents forgot to give her the medication she really needs.”

Blaine’s heart leapt up into his throat. He was about ninety percent sure that Kurt was only trying to shake him up – but he knew deep down that all that meant was that he was ten percent sure that he was telling the truth, and he’d be lying if he said that didn’t frighten the shit out of him.

“What did you do?” His voice was small.

Kurt looked down and held out the two empty cups for Blaine to take. His hands were shaking – then Blaine realised that his own were too. “I make myself sick.” Kurt didn’t know why that was what he picked to tell him. There were plenty of things he had done, things that had been done to him. There were millions of reasons he was there – the millions of reasons to punish himself. The cuts, the deep depression, the dysfunctional family relationships. He didn’t know why he chose the bulimia. Probably because that was the least of it all.

Blaine’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion, “You make yourself sick? That’s—” But he couldn’t really finish his sentence. He wanted to say it wasn’t that bad but of course, it obviously wasn’t all – or Kurt would not be where he was; and if it was all, then it did really have to be pretty bad. Blaine wondered for a moment where Kurt found the time and privacy to make himself sick in the institution.

“Not so bad, right?” Kurt’s voice was soft. “Not so insane.” His smile wasn’t sickening or haunting this time – but it was wide and genuine and empty. “Of course, that isn’t all though. You know that. You’re far too pretty to be entirely stupid.”

Blaine looked down almost immediately – mainly because he didn’t want Kurt to see him blushing. This boy was insane. He knew that. “I’m not stupid,” he defended weakly.

“Hmm,” Blaine wasn’t watching Kurt but he could tell he was nodding. That was when Kurt got up and stood in front of Blaine and that was when Blaine looked up and met his eyes.

The nurses said if he didn’t speak, don’t initiate a conversation because you’ll fail – and they said if he spoke first, try and keep him talking because then you’re more likely to get out of there in one piece. “So, you’re gay?” It was, in retrospect, really fucking risky. Blaine didn’t know why he said it – because Kurt called him pretty, perhaps?

The nurses had failed to mention to Blaine that Kurt might try to jump him – might succeed in jumping him. But the thing was, their lips were only pressed together for about three seconds before Blaine shoved Kurt off him but even then, Kurt had already somehow managed to untuck Blaine’s black shirt from his black jeans. Blaine would be remiss if he didn’t admit he was kind of impressed.

Kurt squeezed his eyes shut in sudden realisation and sat down on the bed, dropping his head into his hands, “You’re straight,” he said in a low, humiliated voice. It wasn’t a question.

“No!” Blaine answered very quickly, “No. I’m gay.” Kurt opened his eyes to see that Blaine was nodding almost violently enough to shake fillings loose if he had any.

“Okay… Then…?” Kurt gestured with his hand for Blaine to continue, as if to try and coax an answer or a reason out of him.

Blaine laughed. “You’re a patient, Kurt,” he said simply. The laugh vanished, vapourous inside his words. Kurt nodded sarcastically, if it was possible to nod with sarcasm (and if it was, only Kurt), “I’m an orderly. I barely know you. You barely know me… You’re…” He didn’t want to say it. Insane, probably, I don’t know, he said inside his head.

“Say it. Go on. I know you’re thinking it. You may as well.” Kurt was incredibly calm about it (and Blaine tried to suppress, within his mind, that this confused him because all of the nurses seemed almost afraid to be around him – or at least uncomfortable).

“You’re not…” He bit his lip and sucked it up. “You’re not like everyone else.” Or rather, beat around the bush so as to pointlessly avoid the inevitable conclusion that Kurt was insane and that Blaine knew and thought it.

Kurt bit his lips together in an odd smile and nodded, “Yeah,” he said slowly, off-handedly, “That.” They were silent for a little while and Blaine decided he should probably leave. After all, the nurses had all said he should watch himself around Kurt Hummel, and if he hadn’t been verbally or physically abused yet (did the kiss count?), then it was sure to come right? The nurses wouldn’t lie to him, right? But as he turned, picking the medication tray up off of the bedside table, Kurt spoke again. “You won’t tell anyone?”

Blaine’s eyes met Kurt’s briefly and they were shadowed with something he would have called fear but with Kurt, he’d decided he wasn’t sure anymore. This boy was pretty backwards in general. What looked like fear, could perhaps not be fear at all. “What?”

“You won’t tell anybody what I did,” his tone told Blaine that it wasn’t actually a question. “You won’t tell anybody that I kissed you. It would be in your best interest if you kept it to yourself, I think.” Blaine held back a bitter, sarcastic laugh and an I think so too, yeah, “Besides, if they find out they’ll send me to lockdown.”

Blaine considered his options for only a few seconds, before realising he really only had one. “I won’t tell anybody. I’m not stupid.” Kurt’s eyes didn’t leave his face as he spoke. Blaine broke their gaze though, as he turned to leave.

Before he shut the door he heard Kurt mutter to himself (or perhaps to the voices in his head – or even out of his head, who knew), “Pretty and smart.”

Title: The Dreams In Which I’m Dying
Chapter: Prologue – Look Right Through Me
Rating: NC-17 overall; this PG
Pairing(s): Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Mental illness, eating disorders, self-harm, consent issues due to mental state – the usual swears and sex later on.
Word Count: 748
Summary: Mental institution AU. Blaine is a new orderly in the sanitarium that houses our dear Kurt Hummel; the often unfriendly, casually belligerent neighbourhood self-destructive head case – to phrase it not-so-gently.
Disclaimer: I do not own them; the title is from the song Mad World, which I do not own either.
A/N: Sudden inspiration. I quite like this but updates might not be close together or consistent I’m just going to warn you right now.


Prologue - Look Right Through Me

Everything felt blurry and rough around the edges when they gave him the medication. It was supposed to calm him down but in reality – or at least, his reality – his brain became the wildest and the most out of control on these occurrences.

He always knew he was a bit backwards, right from the start – but never this much. They gave him calming medication, his brain rushed out of control and unstoppable – they pushed the liquid sleep and his veins became alive with an unfathomable electricity that he couldn’t smother, he was unable to sleep for days. It was only when they left him quite alone and to himself that true rest would come to him – but even then, he was constantly exhausted.

In fact, it was in the line for medication that Kurt first saw Blaine.

It was a good day – or at least it had started off that way. Kurt had learned that he could never decide if it was a good or a bad day until right at the end of the day in question, when he would look back in frantic reflection and ponder the moments he’d used, and the moments he’d effectively thrown away. It was something that constantly bothered him – that time couldn’t run on day to day like an overdraft, but overnight your leftover minutes would be thrown out with the waste and you would be forced to start again, afresh. You’d never get the chance to make up for the lost minutes.

And of course, Kurt knew that lost minutes added up. Lost minutes turned into lost hours – and then faster than he knew it those lost hours turned into days and then weeks and then months and soon enough, he knew he’d find he’d wasted years and years with trivial things; and he’d never get them back. It was the thought that woke him in the night (that is, if he’d been sleeping at all).

When Kurt first saw him he didn’t know his name or who he was.

Kurt noticed his uncut nails when he got to the front of the line. His cuticles were bitten back as a self-punishment – it was as simple as the fact that he deserved it for being stupid and for being a disappointment and for being useless. There were a million other reasons, and a million other punishments, but those were the ones that he chose.

One of the nurses behind the desk – he never remembered their names, besides, they all blurred into one face and one name anyway; they were just nurses – handed Kurt a little paper cup with his medication inside. That day started off with two yellows and a pink – two unidentifiables and a mood stabiliser. Kurt had pretty much stopped caring what they were giving him – but there were the select few that he saved, just in case; and then, of course, if he saved enough there was the tiny idea in the back of his head (growing, growing; like a root or a weed in a garden – like a whisper turning into a scream) that he could get out of there if he wanted to, even if it was in a body bag.

Doctor Valerie introduced Blaine to the whole ward as a new orderly.

Kurt heard her voice in the very backs of his ears but he wasn’t paying attention. Sure, the new orderly was cute – but it didn’t matter because however cute he was, he was pretty much the enemy. Because the orderlies were just there to hold him down and force things on him that he didn’t want or need. Ultimately, and at the extreme end of the spectrum, they were murder weapons.

That was when one of the older patients flipped the table up and over and threw himself down against the leg as if to try and impale himself – and it all happened in a blur of sound and light broken and unbroken from the window with the blinds and Kurt laughed deludedly along with everybody else because that was just how it worked. He would be the first to admit that in that prison-like setting he was a sheep. Blaine the new orderly didn’t look too phased outwardly, but years and years inside as it were had taught Kurt to look beyond the cool exterior and sure enough, there flickering in the backs of his eyes was typical fear.

Nobody paid much attention after that – but then, nobody really ever did.

Extra Notes: just to reiterate, I really like this but there probably won't be consistent updates, although I'll try my hardest.

Title: What Have You Done?
Media: Art
Rating: R for the F bomb.
A/N: Accompaniment to this piece. Blaine feeling stupid about what he sent Kurt - and by extension what happened (whatever happened). Really unhappy with his face, for the record - he should look angrier. Also, his hair... you are not allowed to laugh at me for that. I hate this the more I look at it.

Edit: I forgot to put 'songbirdxo' on this. I can't be bothered to go and edit it and reupload it. But just know, it's mine.

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Title: Tattoo Bruises
Media: Art
Rating: PG for angsty implications.
A/N: Yeah, so I draw too. Idk where this came from really. So, I guess make of it what you wish - it's just some angsty Kurt. Going from his face, I'm thinking he feels really stupid and angry with himself. If you can't see, the phone says: From Baine - I'm so sorry. I'm quite proud of his face, in this, even though the legs are retarded. Also, woohoo for badly drawn bed sheets.

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Title: Let Me Be Empty
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine (established).
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Angst/fluff, swears, and insomnia, I guess.
Word Count: 2,385
Summary: Insomniac!Kurt and come-back-to-bed-baby!Blaine.
Disclaimer: Do not own them; do not own Sarah McLachlan’s Angel.
A/N: Insomniac!Kurt – I can relate.

Kurt knew what it was like to be so exhausted that the room dragged behind him when he moved his head. Just the slightest change in where he was and the whole world began to spin and shake and he had to steady himself against something solid so he didn’t spontaneously fall over – well, to him it wasn’t spontaneous, but to anybody watching, it would kind of look like he’d just thrown himself down on the ground. The room wasn’t really moving or spinning or shaking or dragging – but God dammit it felt like it was.

So he felt it was best to try and stay still – or at least as still as he could. Also, it was as if the more tired he became the more hyped up his brain got. It was as if it was hard enough to try and tune out his racing thoughts when he was trying to get to sleep but the longer it took the louder they got – and then the harder they were to push away and squash down. He’d been to the doctor a couple of times because occasionally, it got ridiculous, to the point where he was pretty much a walking zombie and Blaine got concerned – but all they did was give him a few different sets of pills that didn’t work. Of course, he took them anyway, because he wasn’t quite ready to accept that he might be beyond the help of medication.

Blaine had tried to help him sleep before. He wished he could say it worked but it didn’t. They just ended up watching TV almost all night – and besides, Blaine was the first one to fall asleep. When Kurt woke him up to carefully walk him over to his bed (because he knew Blaine would feel crappy in the morning if he slept with his head on Kurt’s lap across the sofa all night) Blaine was pretty mad with himself for falling asleep. Kurt recalls a bleary, “I’m so sorry Kurt, I— I wanted to try and—” But Kurt remembers cutting him off with a chaste kiss and pushing him down on the bed and wrapping him up in the sheets. It felt good to look after Blaine and make sure he got enough sleep and everything – especially seeing as it seemed Kurt could barely look after himself and make sure he got enough sleep.

Kurt didn’t mind that Blaine fell asleep on him. In fact, in a non-creepy, we’re-dating-so-it’s-okay way, he liked to watch Blaine sleep. He was adorable – and it didn’t make him hate him or something like it probably should because there he was sleeping soundly when Kurt couldn’t even get anywhere near unconsciousness; but no, it just made Kurt smile, and he’d play with his boyfriend’s hair and watch his eyelids flutter half-open, half-closed with the changing scenery or mood of his dreams. Kurt was pretty sure he could watch Blaine sleep for hours – in fact, he was pretty sure he had.

But now he was reading on the sofa, and Blaine was deep in dreamless slumber on the bed. He wasn’t composed or curled up, just sprawled across the bed sideways with the bed sheets half covering him, lying on his stomach with his head facing Kurt. That was the only thing Kurt disliked about sleeping with Blaine – that he kicked and shoved and sprawled in his sleep, without even knowing that he was doing so. Though, of course, loving Blaine so much Kurt had learned to get over it. Besides, it wasn’t like they shared a bed to sleep often – Kurt always started off in bed with Blaine at night, but as it quickly became apparent that sleep was not coming to envelop him just as it had swallowed Blaine whole, he would slowly and carefully – so he didn’t wake his sleeping boyfriend – move to the sofa and read a book or do some school work. He was falling behind; far behind, but he cared less and less the more tired he got, day by day.

Kurt finds himself getting lost in deep, deep thoughts often recently. Almost like his brain goes to another place entirely – as if completely detached from his body (almost like dreaming or sleeping, but minus the sleep or the comfort). Because of this, he doesn’t realise Blaine stirring on the bed. He doesn’t actually move, but opens one eye when he realises there isn’t any longer a warm body pressed up against his. Blaine swears it’s a sixth sense – he can tell when Kurt isn’t sleeping or when Kurt isn’t there or when Kurt isn’t okay. It’s this unease he can’t quite put his finger on because it isn’t tangible – but it’s awful and he hates it.

Blaine slowly drags his body from the bed, bringing the bed sheets off of the mattress to land on the floor by accident. Kurt doesn’t even move, and Blaine knows that he’s totally gone out. Blaine doesn’t know if Kurt’s taken any of the doctor’s medication that night, but he knows that these zoning out episodes are getting more frequent, and there are increasingly shorter time periods in between. And every single time, it seems that it gets more difficult to try and break Kurt out of it. And Blaine would be lying if he said he wasn’t really worried about his boyfriend.

There is a book laid spine down on Kurt’s bare thighs, and Blaine smiles sadly when he sees it’s the book they have been assigned for English Literature. He swallows hard before he sits down beside Kurt and takes his wrist, pulling him sideways so that he falls against Blaine’s chest. He suddenly snaps out of it and he grabs at Blaine’s shirt (which is actually Kurt’s blue pinstripe button-down shirt but Blaine loved the material, and better yet, it smelt like Kurt), momentarily scared and wondering where he is. “Oh, God… Blaine.” His voice sounds strange, but Blaine knows that’s just because he’s effectively just returned to the real world – and these little episodes where he leaves are starting to scare Blaine, like waking nightmares, or worse. “I’m sorry… I—”

Blaine presses a kiss to the top of Kurt’s mussed hair and that causes him to cut his own words off, “Don’t apologise baby.” Blaine’s voice is raw and hoarse from the dregs of sleep and Kurt moves closer to him, putting a hand affectionately on his thigh. “What are you doing?”

“I—” Kurt looked down at the book that had fallen closed between them for a clue, and Blaine knew that meant that he’d forgotten what he was doing. He bit down on his bottom lip. “I was trying to do some work… I’m falling really far behind and I thought— I don’t know, I thought I could maybe get some work done if I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway.”

Blaine knew he could only understand what Kurt was babbling on about because he knew him so well. He smiles sympathetically down at his boyfriend and buries his face in his hair, taking in his comforting scent. “Come back to bed, baby. Please.” Blaine’s voice is pleading, and Kurt finds it really hard to say no to him when he talks like that.

“There isn’t any point,” Kurt sighs. He sits back this time, so that his hand isn’t on Blaine’s thigh anymore and Blaine’s arm falls from around his shoulders. He’s looking at him in the eyes and Blaine stares straight back because he won’t let Kurt make him give in with his eyes. “There’s no point, Blaine. I know you mean well – but I can’t just lie there… I can’t just lie there and do nothing and my mind won’t shut up and it— I’ll go insane.”

Blaine knew Kurt was right. He couldn’t begin to understand what it was like not being able to switch off like that. He’d always found it relatively easy – aside from times when he was overly stressed or super worried about something in particular (a little more frequently than usual recently, actually, given the situation with Kurt’s lack of sleep). He couldn’t imagine what it was like to just lay there and listen to your mind buzz nonsense all night with no relief and no end in sight. He tried to be compassionate and he tried to show he understood (understood, mainly, the fact that he didn’t understand) and that he cared but it was hard.

“You’re going to go insane sitting here all night. You’re not getting any work done. You know that – I know that. Come back to bed. Please. I hate to see you like this. I need you by my side, okay? I need to know you’re okay. And if you’re next to me then I know that you’re not totally losing your shit over here.” It was a weak, weak reason. And he knew that Kurt was going to pick up on the fact that Blaine said he needed him by his side.

“Oh, you hate to see me like this?” Kurt’s tone was hard, and his voice was about half an octave higher than usual. Blaine could tell he was becoming irrationally angry and he seemed to be doing that a lot recently. His emotions were all over the place, in complete honesty, and there was nothing he could do about it. “How do you think it feels to be like this?” There were tears in the corners of his eyes and Blaine felt like his heart was breaking.

“Look,” Blaine’s voice had hardened too. He grabbed Kurt’s wrist and pulled, so they were a little bit closer on the sofa. “I love you, okay? I’m not trying to compare situations – or, or, I don’t know. I can’t begin to understand what this is like but all I can see is you pretty much tearing yourself apart, and I hate it—”

“Tearing myself apart?” Kurt lowered his voice – because no matter how tired he was or how angry he was he still accepted that there were other people trying to sleep in the rooms around them. “So basically what you’re saying, Blaine, is that I’m doing this to myself? Is that it?”

“That isn’t what I meant!” Blaine’s voice is desperate and Kurt can see that he means it and that he just misunderstood and he bites the inside of his cheek and looks down, letting out a deep, sad sigh.

“I don’t know what to do.” His voice cracks and his body shudders – and Blaine catches his arms and pulls Kurt forwards into his chest and the younger boy just sobs. “It’s— this is unbearable. I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t—” But he couldn’t carry on speaking because his words were fragmented with sobs and Blaine just held his shaking body and tried to calm him down, but it was proving difficult.

“I know,” he whispered in Kurt’s ear. “I know you don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do either. I just— I just have to sit here and watch you fall to pieces and I hate it. I don’t know how to help you and it kills me. I’m afraid it’s killing you.” He was being overdramatic, he knew that – but right then it felt like it really was killing Kurt; and that was killing Blaine.

Blaine’s words only make Kurt sob harder and Blaine just tries to contain the sounds and the shudders and he tries to stop the pain and the tears and he tries to kiss him better but it isn’t working – and it makes Blaine hate himself because there’s virtually nothing he can do. And he waits for a long time for before Kurt’s sobs subside and he looks down at the boy in his arms and of course he hopes that his eyes will be closed and that by some kind of magic Kurt would have fallen asleep against his chest – and Blaine would swear he wouldn’t move an inch until he woke – but his eyes were open and still wet, his eyelashes stuck together with tears.

“Come on.” The words escaped on a breath from Blaine’s mouth, and he lifted Kurt, in his arms, carefully up off of the sofa and carried him the twelve steps or so across the room to the bed. Blaine sat down against the pillows and the headboard with Kurt still in his arms, his head against Blaine’s chest – and Blaine reached an arm down to pull the bed sheets up to wrap around them.

That was when Blaine began to whisper words into the dimly lit room, the musical sound of his voice infiltrating Kurt’s ears and making him feel so calm and peaceful he could barely stand it. “Spend all your time waiting, for that second chance. For a break that would make it okay. There’s always one reason to feel not good enough – and it’s hard at the end of the day.” Blaine’s voice got closer and smaller and more beautiful with every word he softly sang, and Kurt pretty much felt like crying – but he felt the best he had in weeks. “I need some distraction – oh beautiful release. Memories seep from my veins.” Kurt forgot how amazing Blaine’s voice was, and how comforting he could be when he tried (or even when he didn’t try).

Blaine leaned down to whisper the words against Kurt’s ear because they were the most pertinent words he could think of in any song he’d ever heard for that exact moment, “Let me be empty, oh and weightless then maybe I’ll find some peace tonight.” Kurt knew the next words before Blaine even sang them: in the arms of an angel. And he thought it was ridiculously accurate.

Blaine was oh-so-gently rocking Kurt’s body back and forth in his arms and Kurt was sure it was the most perfect thing he had felt in his whole life – or perhaps that was the exhaustion talking. But for the first time in nearly four weeks Kurt felt like he maybe could sleep – and he certainly knew he could get used to Blaine signing him to sleep every night, whether he need it or not.

Title: I’ve Learned To Live Half Alive
Part: Epilogue
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: R
Wordcount: 1, 487
Spoilers: None.
Warnings (Overall): AU. Physical, emotional, drug and alcohol abuse (whoa), sexual situations, broken!Blaine, swears, self-harm.
Summary: If Kurt met Blaine before he snapped, if Blaine never met Noah and never went crazy – if Kurt saved Blaine from his father, instead of Noah only trying (and ultimately failing) to save him. Angsty fluff AU from the Let’s Kill Tonight ‘verse (as much of a paradox as that sounds). I wanted to prove how easily it can be changed – how easily Blaine could be the victim instead.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, don't own Jar Of Hearts (the title).
A/N: So this might not make sense unless you’ve read this (linked to the epilogue with previous chapter links therein). It’s part of that ‘verse but sort of like a ‘before that ‘verse’ sort of thing. That doesn’t make sense. Enjoy.
Previous: One, Two, Three, Four, Five


Epilogue

They’d been back in town for three weeks – and Blaine’s father had not shown his face. Blaine lived with Kurt in his apartment with him and his cat, Porcelain. It was lovely, it was perfect – but Kurt would be remiss if he didn’t admit that he knew Blaine thought he still didn’t belong with them.

Finn gave him a job at Glee, working in the back because he accepted the fact that Blaine was effectively no good with people – also, Kurt put in a word to Finn about how the unfriendly customers wouldn’t be a good thing to expose Blaine too. But then he felt like he was babying him so he asked Blaine instead of making the decision for him. Blaine confirmed it to him that he didn’t want to work with people.

Kurt didn’t blame him for not trusting anyone – he just hoped that after what they’d built together Blaine could maybe learn to trust him. He didn’t expect instant trust – just a modicum of dependence. Only it was as if Blaine thought he could never depend on anyone else because it would only get him hurt. Kurt desperately wanted to show him that wasn’t true – not with him.

He was getting better – there was no doubt about that, it was just Kurt really wanted to prove to Blaine that he was part of them now. He worked and Glee and he got along so well with everyone it was just like he, himself, couldn’t see that. It was almost like paranoia – he was convinced that they didn’t like him as much as they made out and they were just including him to appease Kurt. Again, Kurt was desperate to prove Blaine wrong. But it’s hard to change somebody’s core beliefs and Blaine’s distrust was ingrained into him right from the start, and Kurt was finding it frustratingly difficult to try and forge that connection between them, and between Blaine and his friends and family.

Blaine’s fears were totally unfounded, after all – despite what he thought they all really loved him. Puck thought he was hilarious, even though he was constantly nervous around anybody but Kurt. Finn felt his work was more than satisfactory and all of the girls got on really well with him too. But Blaine was insistent that Finn thought he did a crappy job and they were all just being friends with him to make Kurt happy, or because they pitied him. It wasn’t true. Even Kurt’s parents loved him – and that was really a big step for them because it effectively meant relinquishing primary affection from their son, for lack of a better phrase. They so easily accepted that pretty soon, Blaine could well come first with Kurt – or at least level with his family; and they did so because they knew how much he loved him.

Sometimes things were rough, and Blaine couldn’t understand why they put up with him or why he had a job – because in his opinion it was like he couldn’t do anything right. But deep down he knew that wasn’t true, and at the end of the day, there was always Kurt.

He was sprawled on the armchair with his legs hanging over the edge reading a book. Blaine didn’t know what it was but it looked confusing and really, really long and just recently he didn’t really feel like reading – not even Alice in Wonderland. “What’s wrong?” Kurt didn’t look up from his book, and Blaine felt a little thrill run through him going on the fact that Kurt could tell there was something not right with him from the air around them or the way Blaine looked at him or something. He wasn’t sure what it was, but whatever it was it only betrayed him to Kurt. He could see right through his mask.

But unfortunately, that didn’t stop Blaine trying to lie to him. “Nothing’s wrong.” But his smile was forced. He leaned against the kitchen counter as he turned around to face Kurt. He took a sip from the water he was holding, meeting Kurt’s eyes over the top of the glass.

Kurt still didn’t look up, but Blaine could tell he had stopped reading because his eyes stopped moving, focussing on one word on the page and he didn’t know why but it bothered him that he didn’t know what word it was – sometimes it felt as if his own mind had a mind of it’s own. “I know you better than you think I know you Blaine. I wish you’d let me in.”

Blaine put the glass down on the counter and looked hard at Kurt, “I did let you in,” he said firmly, “I let you into my life when I didn’t even know you. My friends, my friends— I just disappeared and they had no idea what was going on. With a stranger. I disappeared with a stranger for weeks.” He knew that he wasn’t stringing sentences together very well and he knew he wasn’t making much sense – and he knew he was pretty much just arguing for argument sake.

Kurt let out a sigh and sat up straight, putting his book down on the coffee table and finally looking at Blaine, “You know I’m not a stranger. You don’t really think that do you? Because if you do I don’t know why you’re still here.” Kurt knew that could be easily misunderstood by Blaine and that he probably shouldn’t have phrased it like that but he knew he couldn’t take it back after it had been said. Especially seeing as Blaine had this uncanny ability to latch onto mistakes and misconstrued statements like they were something he could live off of.

“Oh so you’re saying that you want me gone?” It was childish – Blaine knew that. And as soon as Kurt got up and strode over to him he knew he should never have said it. Kurt got so close that they were chest to chest – kiss-close. Blaine’s breathing picked up a little.

“You know that isn’t what I meant, Blaine,” Kurt’s voice is low and steady. He jabs a finger at Blaine’s chest even though it’s kind of awkward to do so because they’re standing so close but he felt it was needed to help get his point across. “You damn well know that this is where you belong – except I don’t know what you’re problem is, like, you don’t want to accept it or maybe you don’t really believe it. I don’t know – but it’s the truth. You belong here, and you belong at Glee. Your place is right here with me and that’s it.”

But there is still defiance in Blaine’s blood and he doesn’t want to accept what Kurt is saying right now. “You said you wanted me to leave.” No he didn’t, not really – but Blaine, for some reason, wanted to argue a bit longer. He wasn’t sure it was to prove to himself that Kurt would fight through his annoyingness and paranoia to keep him or just because he liked the heat of an argument. Blaine wasn’t sure about his mind anymore.

“That is not what I said,” Kurt’s voice is almost a growl, “I never want you to leave. I never—” He cuts himself off and corrects himself quickly. “I want this forever, okay? Why can’t you understand that?”

Blaine swallows hard and forces a, “But why?”

“Because I fucking love you!” He says it like it is the most obvious thing in the entire world – and he swears because he’s trying to detract from the seriousness of the statement but the truth is it isn’t working. It comes as a shock, even though they’d said it before. Except before it was maybe love – it wasn’t for definite. Now, though, Blaine knew that Kurt’s tone meant for definite.

“You love me?” He didn’t know why he asked – it was obvious. As much as he tried to deny it or tried to pick out faults he knew it was true. And it was absolutely terrifyingly real.

Kurt reached a hand out to touch his face, “You’re so fucking oblivious, Blaine.” he whispers, his voice low. Blaine just looks down, shying away from Kurt’s hand, but he’s smiling and Kurt can see a tear and it falls to the floor, catching the light from the open window like opal and shining a rainbow – just a fleeting few seconds of beauty in something Kurt really shouldn’t have found beautiful; Blaine crying, that was. “You’re perfect,” Kurt adds.

Blaine just let out a nervous laugh, but doesn’t say anything more. Kurt didn’t need him too – he just needed him to try and accept the truth of what he’d said; but he was almost certain that Blaine’s silence, as opposed to further argument, was progress at least. Because contrary to Blaine’s belief, things were getting better – and soon they would be perfect.

Extra notes: So, okay. Pointless epilogue is pointless it doesn't really have a plot or a point there's no real reason for it's existence other than that I said there'd be an epilogue. I don't super dislike this, but I don't love it.