Eventually, the flow of tears ebbed and with one last squeeze, Blaine let go of Kurt. He reached for some paper towels and dabbed at his nose,

“Sorry about that,” Blaine said, looking down at his coffee, “I’m a hot mess.”

Kurt’s heart ached a little for him but he said nothing as he followed Blaine’s lead and drank his coffee. He wondered if he could ever drink or smell coffee without thinking of Blaine. Coffee dates were so them. It was basic for them. Everything started with coffee and then just coffee became friendship and coffee and then finally it became boyfriends and coffee dates.

“Okay,” Blaine said once he finished his coffee, “we’re going to talk.”

Blaine pushed back from the counter and offered Kurt his hand which Kurt accepted. Blaine guided him toward the living room and sat them down on one of the Anderson’s overstuffed velvet couches. He sat cross-legged facing Kurt. With a sigh, he began,

“For a few weeks now I’ve been sort of, um, blacking out. At first I thought I was sleepwalking. I used to do that a lot as a kid.”

 “You sleepwalked?” Kurt interrupted, amused and relieved at the opportunity to liven the mood. Blaine smiled a bit, tilted his head and replied,

“Yeah, I used to walk around and pour myself cereal and sit in the bathtub with it and stuff like that”, Blaine said, steadily staring at the floor, “But this is different.”

He looked up at Kurt with a furrowed brow, as if afraid of what he was about to say next. He gripped Kurt’s hand tighter in his own.

“Sleepwalking is just what happens when your body won’t let itself fall asleep properly. This… it feels like the dream itself only I can’t wake up from it no matter how hard I try. When I do come back to myself it’s just like with dreams. I only sort of remember what happened.”

“So what has happened?” asked Kurt. Blaine sighed and let go of Kurt’s hand. He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes.

He uncrossed his legs before he replied, “I don’t know. I just wake up—come back to myself and I don’t know how I got to wherever I am. At first it just happened for like, seconds at a time and I thought it was just me spacing out but then the other day I had just finished brushing my teeth and I looked up into the mirror and then suddenly, I was standing in front of my closet fully dressed and I couldn’t remember having actually put on my clothes. And then yesterday—Kurt ,I am so  sorry I hurt you.”

Kurt rolled his eyes because he knew Blaine and he knew where this was going and really, his skin marked easily and if he was honest he was actually a little turned on when Blaine had been all… insistent. But Blaine carried on, “I can’t believe I hurt you.  I…. Kurt.”

Blaine looked down at his fisted hands as if steeling himself for something.

“Kurt, this time I bruised you. I don’t want to hurt yo—“

“Ugh. Shut up Blaine” Kurt interrupted Blaine’s sad speech, “If you’re trying to break up with me so you don’t ‘hurt’ me just don’t because A. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself. You don’t get to choose for me and B. then I’d have to sit around and pine for you and that’s just a little too angsty teenage novel for me. Plus, I hear pining is bad for your skin.”

Blaine simply stared at Kurt, mouth slightly agape and then said, “Kurt, I’m serious. I couldn’t control myself yesterday.  I can’t risk you getting hurt.”

“So you’re going to break up with me? You’re seriously going to treat me like I’m some precious porcelain bird?”

Blaine looked at a loss for words. Kurt carried on, “I love you, Blaine. I’m not going to leave you at the first sign of trouble. That’s just not me. Unless…”

Kurt hesitated while Blaine looked at him expectantly,  

“Unless, you don’t want me anymore.”

Blaine exhaled sharply and looked at Kurt incredulously, “Of course I want you. Always. So… much. In so many ways. I think that’s why it took over.”

“Wait. “It”? We’re calling your problem an “it”?”

Blaine frowned, “I don’t know what else to call this.”

Kurt was quiet for a moment while the gears in his head turned.

“Blaine, we need to figure this out” Kurt said, “what happens before your eyes do that thing.”

“Before my eyes do what thing?”, asked Blaine, fear taking over his features again.

“Oh god, you don’t know”, Kurt responded, trying to figure out how to best tell his boyfriend what he’d seen the previous night. Blaine let the silence speak for him, as he waited for Kurt to fill in the blanks.

“After I pushed you away, you looked at me—and well, I sort of thought I was imagining it but--” Kurt   paused, hesitating. He forced himself to go on, looking at Blaine straight in the eyes, not showing his fear, “your eyes went black. Completely.”

Blaine stopped breathing for a moment. He looked at his hands. He was at a loss for words.

“I don’t…”, he trailed off. Kurt could almost see his thoughts and the dark places they were headed for.

“It’s like I said, Blaine. We need to figure it out. Lists. We need lists” he said, standing up. Blaine rolled his eyes. He was tempted to laugh at his boyfriend and his penchant for organizing everything, even at a time like this.

Kurt walked toward the antique writing desk the Andersons kept in the corner of their sitting room. Kurt opened and closed a few of its compartments before coming back to the couch with a legal paper pad and pen.

“Okay, so what was the last thing you remember before blacking out yesterday?” Kurt asked, pen poised.

Blaine took a moment to gather his thoughts before answering Kurt. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he remembered Kurt’s eyes the night before.

“Well, you were making me try on all your clothes,” he began while Kurt scribbled away, “and then we were making out and then suddenly I was halfway across the room and you looked like you were about to cry.”

Kurt wrote on a pad for a moment after Blaine finished and then said, “So, clothes and kissing. Neither of those are new,” he said with a little smile. He was starting to think that maybe, just maybe this wasn’t as big a deal as he’d originally thought.  

“Well, there’s something else too but it’s not exactly… new” Blaine began, not meeting Kurt’s eyes, “I don’t exactly know how to explain it but…”

Kurt gave him an impatient look but remained silent as he waited, pen at the ready, for Blaine to carry on. Blaine was having trouble meeting Kurt’s eyes.

“It’s like, sometimes, when you look at me or when I think about you or when you kiss me, I sort of drift—not like spacing out or anything but, like, my tummy swoops and it feels sort of floaty, I think. Yeah, floaty. You make me floaty,” he finished, his words running together.

After a moment of silence, Kurt dropped the pad and pen on the coffee table in front of them and turned to Blaine, he put a hand on top of Blaine’s hoping to get him to look up. When he didn’t, he spoke his name out, trying to lace his voice with all the affection he felt at the moment, “Blaine”.

Blaine’s eyebrows knit as he looked up at him. Kurt looked him in the eyes, and tilted his head to the side a bit, a slow smile curving his lips. Blaine began to smile back but he blinked before the smile reached his eyes and there It was. Blaine’s eyes turned into opals

Kurt drew his hands back with a gasp. Blaine—It cocked it’s head to the side as if considering Kurt. Blaine blinked again and it was gone. Just like that.

It had lasted about three seconds but it was enough to leave Kurt in a shocked silence. Blaine, eyes normal again, frowned and knit his eyebrows.

“It just happened again, didn’t it?” Blaine asked, sounding both frustrated and scared.

Kurt nodded.