The wind is whipping around them harder than ever, like it wants to blow Kurt away. It buffets him from side to side and stings his eyes but he stays rooted to the floor, bound by invisible chains.

“Please!” He screams until his throat is raw. “Please, no, god, please -“

Blaine is crying. In every other dream, Blaine has shown no emotion, not in his voice or his face or his mannerisms. In every other dream, Blaine is a blank slate, an empty shell, cold dead eyes staring into Kurt and seeing nothing. In this dream, there is a steady stream of tears trickling down his cheeks, and his chest heaves with sobs as he balances on the rail.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine whispers.

“Blaine!”

Blaine closes his eyes. His lashes are wet and clumpy with tears, and the sky behind him is dark and thick with fast-moving clouds. They look ready to swallow him whole.

“I’m so sorry.”

“No!”

In this dream, he’s too late.

Blaine tips back and falls.

In every other dream, Kurt would wake up at this point. In this dream, whatever binds him is suddenly torn away, and he can run, race across the balcony that seems to go on for miles and crash into the railing. He grips it tight as if afraid he’ll be torn away too.

In this dream, he leans over the rail, helpless, and watches Blaine fall.

---

After a week of the dreams getting quickly, steadily worse, Kurt hasn’t slept through the night once, and every night he wakes up in a cold sweat, hyperventilating, trying to hard not to scream. Blaine will be there, sleeping curled up next to him and probably hogging all the blankets, the jerk. Kurt will risk a touch, just long enough to prove that he’s there and alive.

But it’s been a week and Kurt feels stretched thin. There’s nothing to do, he can’t stop himself from dreaming, but if he could… he would give up a lifetime of good dreams to stop seeing this, to erase the image of Blaine falling, falling, falling from his mind.

His exhaustion shows at work, too, not one decent design in a week and all of his co-workers are staring at him like he’s suddenly crippled. Today he nearly falls asleep at his desk twice before Miranda, the pretty young secretary with an impeccable taste in scarves, lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and asks if he wants a double shot of espresso in his coffee when she goes out for the midday coffee run.

The coffee barely starts to wake him up when his phone rings, Blaine’s number flashing on the screen, and Kurt’s stomach plummets. Blaine never calls him. They have each other’s numbers in case of emergency but Blaine never uses his phone, not to call Kurt. Something is wrong, horribly wrong, Amelia is hurt or Blaine is in trouble or -

His hands fumble with the phone, nearly dropping it and hanging up before he manages to answer it and lift the phone to his ear. “Blaine?” He says, panic already creeping its way into his voice. He tries to tell himself that Blaine must need him to pick something up from the store or wants to know if he should order takeout for dinner, maybe it isn’t anything too awful…

The line crackles, and through it Kurt hears the sound of quiet sobbing. He starts packing up his things without even realizing he’s doing it. “Blaine, talk to me, what happened?”

“I - I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you at work…”

“Don’t worry about that, tell me what happened!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Blaine!” He snaps, but only because he’s terrified. Blaine sobs. “Did you take something? What did you do?”

“N-no. No. I didn’t t-t-take anything. But.” His breath shudders, deafening in Kurt’s ear. “I need you to stop me.”

Oh god oh god oh god. Kurt scrambles, crumpling the pages of his sketchbook as he shoves it into his bag, hoisting it over his shoulder as he sprints toward the exit. He covers the speaker on the phone as he calls out to a confused Miranda and the frightened interns, “It’s my husband, I’m sorry, I have to go” before shoving the door open and rushing to the elevator. “Blaine, don’t do anything, okay?” He says firmly, trying to stop his voice from shaking.� It doesn’t work. “Just - stay right where you are, don’t move, I’m on my way, okay? Are you safe?” Please don’t be on the balcony, please don’t, please…

“I don’t know.” Blaine gasps out. “I - I can’t, I can’t…”

“You’re going to be okay, I promise, just don’t do anything, please.”

“Just come home, please come home.”

“I’m on my way. Keep talking to me, okay? Tell me what’s happening.” Adrenaline keeps him going as he runs through the maze of a parking garage, finds his car, shoves everything into the passenger’s seat and fumbles with the keys. After a few tries the engine roars to life.

“…Are you driving?”

“Yes, I’m coming home, it’ll only be a few minutes I swear -“

“Don’t drive and talk to me at the same time, what fucking good will it do if you get in a wreck -“

“I’m not hanging up this phone, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Blaine, don’t you dare, I need to you keep talking, please -“

It’s too late, the line goes dead. Kurt growls in frustration and tosses the phone off to the side. He would call back, but he knows that Blaine won’t answer and it’ll just waste precious time. Instead, he focuses on driving, ignoring the speed limits as much as he can, who cares about the law when Blaine needs him?

All he can think about are his dreams, and he’s never been superstitious or believed that dreams mean something but it’s too much to be a coincidence. And hasn’t Blaine been distant, since their talk, since they decided to break things off? He’s gone back to spending most of his time in his room, refusing to eat or go out or act like a functional human being more than necessary. Exactly like when he first came to stay with Kurt. Why hadn’t Kurt tried to talk to him? Why hadn’t he noticed?

All my fault. This is my fault. His mind is bombarded by images of Blaine falling, Blaine lying on the floor with an empty bottle of painkillers lying next to him, Blaine with his wrists torn and shredded, oh god Kurt is going to be sick -

Panicking isn’t going to help Blaine. It’s that thought that calms him down. He has to be the strong one here even when everything is falling apart at the seams. Blaine needs him, Blaine asked for his help; that alone gives him hope. He has to be calm, and strong, and unbreakable, Blaine’s port in the storm, like he’s always tried to be.

The tires squeal as Kurt parks outside the apartment, barely slowing down, and he somehow manages to remember to lock the doors before rushing inside. He ignores the doorman and makes a beeline for the elevator, but almost wishes that he had taken the stairs, the elevator seems so slow. But then before he knows it he’s at the third floor, and then unlocking the door to the tiny apartment, and then he’s inside.

Blaine isn’t at the balcony, that’s the first thing he notices, and he’s not sure if he should be relieved, or if Blaine’s broken body is waiting at the bottom. He doesn’t dare look, just heads straight for the bedrooms - the doors are open, no one inside - and then last, the bathroom.

Blaine is curled up in the corner, wedged between the medicine cabinet and the bathtub, and when Kurt pushes the door open, his head shoots up, staring at Kurt with wide eyes like he hadn’t expected to see him. In his right hand he holds a razorblade, where he got it Kurt has no idea, he thought he’d hidden anything Blaine with which could hurt himself. His left hand is clenched tight, knuckles white from pain, and a steady trickle of blood runs from the two cuts across his wrists. It drips onto the floor and stains the white tiles, Blaine’s clothes, his skin.

Kurt wants to vomit. He wants to scream and cry and run away and puke. He doesn’t do any of those things, adrenaline still keeping him bizarrely calm on the outside. He snatches the bloodstained razor out of Blaine’s limp fingers, tossing it in the trashcan. “Thought I’d gotten rid of all of those,” he says, voice strained.

Blaine blinks, tears welling up and spilling over to join the stains already streaking his cheeks. “I tried to stop,” he rasps. “I tried. I swear I tried, Kurt, I’m sorry -“

“Shh.” Kurt kneels down next to him, cupping his cheek in his hand and thumbing away a stray tear as it falls. “Shh, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay.” He can’t tell if he’s lying or not. There’s every chance that Blaine will never be okay again and there’s nothing Kurt can do. “You didn’t take anything?” He asks frantically. “This is all you did?” Blaine nods. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Okay.” Blaine isn’t going to die. He’s the furthest thing from okay but he isn’t going to die, not if Kurt can stop the bleeding. He grabs a clean washcloth and wets it before sitting down in front of Blaine again, cleaning away as much of the blood as gently as he can. There’s just so much, so bright red and horrible, but he’s not going to die, Kurt won’t let him.

Medicine cabinet. Peroxide, first aid kit, bandages. Specific steps he can focus on. He holds Blaine’s arm over the bathtub, uncapping the bottle of peroxide to clean out the cuts. They aren’t deep, he can see once all the blood is washed away by the bubbly liquid, but the skin there is so fragile, so many veins, so many places to bleed from.

“You don’t have to -“ Blaine begins.

“Yes I do. Just - just let me take care of you. Please.” Blaine stares at him for a moment and then nods, no longer resisting as Kurt cleans the cuts. His hands are gentle, tender, careful not to add to the hurt. He moves on autopilot so he doesn’t have to think, the only thoughts in his mind heal, nurture, protect.

He gets out the never-before-used roll of gauze bandages and tape, and cradles Blaine’s bleeding arm in his lap. He doubts that Blaine ever did this, bothered to patch himself up when he cut before - stark white bandages would only make it all more obvious. But Kurt can’t let him go without doing something, so as gently as he can, he wraps the gauze around Blaine’s bleeding wrists, unsure of how much to use so erring of the side of caution and using a bit too much. Blaine slumps back against the wall as Kurt works, eyes closed, world-weary and drained, no fight left, bled away with the rest of him.

“Why do you cut?” Kurt asks softly, watching as Blaine blinks up at him. He’s not sure if keeping Blaine talking is the best thing or not, he doesn’t know anything, but it’s all he can think of to do. Don’t let him close up, not again. Don’t lose him.

Blaine hesitates. “I know it’s stupid -”

“No, it’s not stupid - I’ve just never really understood it. Wanting to die, I - I wish I didn’t understand, but I do. But when I wanted to end it, I was looking for the most painless way possible. I don’t understand why you want to make it hurt more.”

Blaine shakes his head, breaking eye contact to stare at his own hand, at Kurt’s long, deft fingers as they work. “I… don’t know how to explain it, really,” he says. “It made it better for a while. Or I thought it did, I don’t know. It’s not the same now. It was like… like a release, I guess - it was pain that I could control. Because I hurt inside, every single day, and cutting was like… letting that out. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of.” It’s one of those things that Kurt won’t ever completely understand. He tapes the bandages together, making sure it’s not too tight but still enough to hold, and then he just holds Blaine’s hand in his lap as he listens to Blaine talk.

“It’s not the same anymore, it doesn’t feel good. Just hurts.” Blaine’s breath turns shaky, eyes big and watery and red-rimmed. “I thought… I really thought I was getting better. I tried so hard not to let it take over again, but I can’t, I’m not strong enough for this.” His chin trembles again, threatening more tears.

“You are doing better, you are, this is just - a bump in the road. You’ll get through it, we will and you’ll be stronger for it. Right?” His grip on Blaine’s hand tightens. He says it like it a promise, though he knows that there is no way he can promise this.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why should I bother? I’m so useless, I’m pathetic - you can’t even leave the fucking house without worrying that I’m going to do something stupid. And I couldn’t even finish it, I called you anyway even though I told myself I wouldn’t - fuck, I’m a coward, too.” He groans, curling up tighter into a little ball on the floor.

”No.” Kurt reaches out, hooking his fingers under Blaine’s chin and lifting it to make him look into Kurt’s eyes. He’s not going to let Blaine close himself off like this, not again. “Don’t say that. You’re not a coward. You remember how hard it was when you started talking to Naomi? Admitting that you needed help? It is hard, to say that you need someone, isn’t it? Calling me wasn’t cowardly, Blaine. That was the bravest thing you could do.” He makes himself smile, hoping it looks reassuring. “I’m so proud of you.”

Blaine watches him, scrutinizing his face for any sort of lie and finding none. His breath shudders out of him in one big gust, lips pressed together as if to seal away more tears. “What’s the point of me?” He whispers. “Why shouldn’t I just end it?”

Kurt spends a long time thinking on it. He could answer flippantly. With most people, Kurt is ashamed to admit, he would probably pass the question off as melodramatic, looking for attention. And maybe it is. But he knows Blaine, well enough to know that this is a real question, and it deserves a real answer. All the while Blaine watches him, just waiting.

“You’re an amazing father,” Kurt says softly. Blaine scoffs, glancing away. “You’re the - the most incredible man I’ve ever known - you’re the best thing that ever happened to me and you’re such a good person and you’re stronger than this and - and Blaine, I don’t want you to die.” He cups Blaine’s cheek in his palm and lets Blaine lean into the touch, eyes closed, trembling underneath Kurt’s fingers. Their grip on each other’s hands turns painful, but Kurt doesn’t pull away. “Please,” he says, not even embarrassed at how scared he sounds. He can’t help it. This is so much scarier than seeing Blaine in the hospital, even if he was closer to death then than he is now. That was sterile, clean and clinical. In his head he knew what had happened, could see the scars to show for it, long and straight up and down Blaine’s arm. But he couldn’t connect it to this; to shaking fingers gripping razorblades and slicing open skin, and blood, so much blood. It hadn’t hit him then, not really, how close he was to losing Blaine.

Blaine is beautiful-precious-broken, guilty of terrible things but underneath it all so good, and if he can’t make it through, then what chance does Kurt have? What chance does anyone have when someone like Blaine is on the edge of shattering to pieces?

“I don’t think I want to die,” Blaine says, interrupting Kurt’s thoughts. “Not really, because I know dying won’t make anything better, but - I just want it all to stop. Just for a second, I just need it to stop, and cutting used to do that for me but - but not anymore.”

“Then what does help? Something not destructive. Something that isn’t hurting yourself.”

“You,” Blaine says. His eyes widen and his face turns bright red.

“…me?” Kurt’s voice sounds strange in his own ears, too high-pitched. Blaine hesitates, then turns his head to the side, eyes still closed, and presses the lightest of kisses to Kurt’s palm. He stays there even after, holding Kurt’s hand to his cheek, breath warm against Kurt’s skin.

Oh, Kurt thinks. He should be panicking but he just feels oddly serene. He lifts Blaine’s hand, careful of the fresh bandage, and kisses the tip of each finger, and then one more to the center of his palm. He wants to say, “I love you.” If almost losing Blaine again has proven anything, it’s that Kurt does love him, deep down. He wants to whisper it into Blaine’s skin, imbed it there and make him believe it. Wants to kiss away his tears.

He’s not ready. Someday. Soon, if he can find the courage.

“You make me want to find a reason to stay,” Blaine whispers, lips moving against Kurt’s skin. Kurt’s breath hitches. “I’m just… so tired.”

“I know.” He strokes Blaine’s cheek with his thumb, back and forth. His cheeks are damp and streaked with salty tears. Protect, Kurt’s instincts scream. Protect, protect, protect. “Come on, let’s get up, we don’t want to be in here.” The tiny room is suffocating him.

Blaine stays close as they walk down the hall toward the guest room. He lets Kurt guide him, rest a hand on the small of his back. He’s not an invalid or a child but Kurt needs this, too, to take care of him, and he thinks that Blaine can see that. Heal. Nurture. Protect. They’re his deepest instincts, and Blaine brings out all of them. It’s the only way he can deal with this.

Blaine sits down on the edge of the bed, trembling slightly, avoiding Kurt’s eyes. Kurt wonders what to do now. “What do you need from me?” He asks softly.

“Just…” Blaine hesitates. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I didn’t want you to see me like this.” He looks terrified, and it makes Kurt’s heart clench. “You can go back to work, if you want, I’ll be fine -”

�“I’m staying.” Kurt says, too firmly to allow for argument. He sits beside Blaine, shoulder to shoulder, the bed bouncing a little under the added weight. That’s why he’s here. That’s why he exists, to hold Blaine up when he’s about to fall. “I’m staying right here for as long as you need me and you don’t get to apologize for it.”

“I’ll always need you.” It’s barely even a whisper, but Kurt hears it. He wraps an arm around Blaine’s shoulders, pulling him in close, and to his surprise Blaine only stiffens up for a moment before curls up into Kurt’s side. It has to be a good sign, right? That Blaine asked for his help, that he’s accepting comfort. Kurt has to believe that this is a good sign.

“I’ll always be here,” he murmurs.

After a while, Blaine’s breathing steadies out, his body relaxing against Kurt’s. Kurt glances over to see the worry lines of his face smoothed out, only at peace while sleeping. He takes a moment to just look, his throat tightening at the sight. He’s perfect when he sleeps, all his burdens finally taken away.

Kurt gently lays him down on his side, careful of his bandaged arm, tugging the covers up to his chin. Blaine mumbles something but doesn’t wake up, snuggling deeper under the covers. After a few moments of watching him, Kurt leans down and brushes his hair away from his eyes, presses a kiss to his brow, and thinks, please be okay.

He needs to keep moving. Keep working and taking care of things. He calls Rachel first, begging her to pick Amelia up from school. “It’s Blaine, I - I can’t leave him,” he explains, his voice still rough from tears he refuses to shed. She agrees immediately, and he’s so grateful he could kiss her when she doesn’t ask why he can’t leave Blaine alone.

The next call is for work, apologizing for running out without warning, tells them he’ll just have to wait and see if he can make it in in the morning. Last, he calls Naomi, schedules a last-minute appointment for early in the morning. There’s only so much he can do, that he can understand - he needs her help as much as Blaine does. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, he can’t stop shaking, feeling like he might be sick any moment.

Don’t think about it, he tells himself. Keep moving. He whips up the fasted dinner he can think of that Amelia will actually eat, letting it simmer on the stove while he waits for her to get home. Blaine sleeps on, and Kurt spends the next hour in the bathroom, scrubbing the bloodstain off the floor. No matter how much bleach he uses, no matter how long he spends cleaning, he thinks he’ll always be able to see it, dark red against white.

---

Blaine’s eyes flutter open and stare straight into Amelia’s, huge hazel eyes that look just like his. She’s kneeling by the bed, chin propped on her hands and her elbows propped on the mattress, staring at him intently.

“Hi, baby,” he mumbles, wincing at how throaty his voice is. He sits up a little, rubbing at his crusty eyes. Kurt isn’t there anymore; he must have slipped out while Blaine slept. He has the distinct feeling of being woken from a dream, but it’s already fading. Something about drowning, maybe. He should have tried drowning, it’s always sounded kind of romantic.

“Daddy says dinner is ready,” Amelia says. “Are you sick, Papa? Is that why you’re sleeping?”

“Sort of. No. I don’t know.” His wrist aches, his head aches, everything in him aches. The cuts are barely more than skin deep, but they feel worse. He can’t figure out what he’s more ashamed of - that he tried, again, or that he called for help. Again. I’m so proud of you, Kurt had said, which doesn’t make sense, what is there for him to be proud of?� Kurt says he’s brave, but he feels anything but. If he were brave, he wouldn’t be looking for a way out.

“Papa?” He blinks. Amelia is still watching him, brow furrowed. “Are you gonna eat dinner? It’s spaghetti night! Maybe we can have ice cream if we eat all our food!”

“I’m not really hungry,” he says apologetically. “But you go earn that ice cream. Maybe I’ll come get leftovers later.” He won’t, but maybe it’ll placate her. She worries more than Kurt does. His heart skips a beat at the thought of Kurt, Kurt who was so gentle as he wrapped up Blaine’s arm, Kurt who saw him at his most vulnerable. Kurt who genuinely thinks that Blaine is brave.

It’s immediately clear that this isn’t the answer Amelia wants. She frowns and looks down at the floor. After a moment she asks, so quietly Blaine almost doesn’t hear her, “Do you still love me, Papa?

Blaine’s breath catches in his chest, and he sits up straight. “What? Of course I love you! Come up here.” Amelia climbs up onto the bed, sitting cross-legged in front of him, still avoiding his eyes. “Baby, why would you ask something like that?”

“Because…” She sniffles. “B-because you’re always sad, and you never want to play with me or read books with me or do my homework with me anymore. And when I want to play with you, you always say maybe later. And D-d-daddy says it’s not my fault but you’re always sad, Papa.” She rubs her eyes, looking almost angry at the tears pooling there. Amelia throws fits and tantrums over the tiniest things, but she doesn’t get upset over things that matter. Not until now.

You were hurting her too and you never even noticed. He feels sick. “Look at me,” he says softly. She does. “Of course I love you. Nothing will ever make me stop loving you, Amelia, don’t ever think that, okay? I love you so much.”

She nods, her bottom lip still trembling. “But you keep going away.” He must look confused, because she clarifies. “When you’re sad. You go away, and you leave me and Daddy behind and I hate it, Papa. Please stop being sad.”

Blaine swallows. He’d never really thought of it that way, in the strange yet simple terms that only a child could understand. He supposes that he does disappear in a way, lost in his own thoughts and his own self-hatred, and this week it’s been worse. “It’s… it’s really complicated. I can’t help it. And I know I’ve been no fun lately, and I’m really sorry, but I’m trying to do better.” It’s a lie, and he knows it, wasn’t this afternoon all about giving up on getting better?� “I’m so sorry.”

“I just want you to be happy again,” Amelia whispers.

“Oh, honey…” She’s wrapped up in his arms before he can even think about it; he clutches her tight to his chest and presses his cheek to her tangled mass of hair, hands broad and spread out across her back. Her arms wrap around his chest, only just meeting on the other side.

I want to be happy too, he thinks. I just don’t know how.

He’d wanted to die. For so long, all of it building up until he couldn’t bear it anymore, he’d wanted to die, so why does it only hit him just now that dying means leaving her? It means leaving Kurt, and everyone who should have loved him but left anyway, and her. He’d known it but he hadn’t thought about it, thinking about it hurt too much.

How could I want to leave you? He blinks back burning tears of shame as she snuggles into him. It’s been a week since he’s held her like this, and he hadn’t even noticed that he was distancing himself from her as well as Kurt. �How could I leave you, my baby, my angel, my perfect thing…? For so long, she’s been the only thing he has. How could he let his stupid depression overpower that?

Never again.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You didn’t sign up for this, you deserve have a better papa than me.” He kisses the top of her head, drawing in a deep breath. “It’s not going to get this bad again, okay? I promise. I won’t let it, I won’t. I’m not going to let it control me anymore.” He isn’t even talking to Amelia anymore, not really, it’s like he’s challenging himself.

A part of him recoils. That horrible part that constantly pleads for him to just end it all. It hasn’t stopped, in the weeks and months since he came to stay with Kurt, since he started therapy, since he started feeling like he could almost be happy again - this was still bubbling under the surface, gathering strength and waiting to strike when he was weakest. Now he’s angry, angry at everything that brought him to this point, but most especially at himself, for being so pathetic. But it’s anger that makes him stronger, makes him able to say no. �You’re stronger than this, whispers Kurt’s voice in his head. He’s starting to believe it.