“I really hope you aren’t dead.”

                When Blaine comes to once more, Kurt’s pale face is swimming above him, looking anxious.

                “I can’t deal with a dead guy on my lawn right now; I’m already late for school and-hey, are you okay?”

                Blaine’s breath is coming in short gasps, his body shaking as he hyperventilates. Kurt drops to the grass next to him, looking unsure of what to do for the strange boy that magically appeared in his yard. The grass is blurring together before his eyes and he has to blink rapidly to keep Kurt in focus.

“This. Isn’t…possible,” Blaine manages to huff out. “You’re. You’re Kurt.”

                Kurt gives him an odd look as Blaine tries to calm himself. He seems to be holding himself back from touching Blaine, even to try to comfort him. Blaine recalls Burt telling him about Kurt complaining about idiots who thought they could ‘catch the gay’ and his heart gives a painful squeeze.

                Blaine forces his breathing to steady, the world slowly clearing around him. He tells himself that panicking isn’t going to help this situation. It feels too real to be a fever dream, but the fact that his very much alive soulmate is kneeling next to him is hard to accept, to put it mildly.

                “Do you need me to call someone for you?” Kurt asks, voice gentler than it had been when he thought Blaine was drunk.

Blaine shakes his head, unable to look him in the eye. He shivers, suddenly very aware that his coat is on the hook in his kitchen and the only thing covering his chest is a thin t-shirt in the brisk morning air.

Kurt bites his lip, seeming to mull something over as he gets to his feet. “Tell you what. You can come inside, use the phone, call whatever drug dealer or pimp you need to, no questions asked, and we part ways. Deal?” He holds out a hand to help Blaine stand, and Blaine reaches out to take it on instinct.

Their fingers meet and pass through each other.

They both gasp and Blaine pulls his hand back towards his chest, staring at his palm as though he’s been burned.

Kurt’s staring at Blaine again, his own hand cradled protectively against himself. “What-“

Blaine swallows, thinking hard and looking from his hand to Kurt’s eyes.

“I think we need to talk, Kurt.”

--

They walk to the kitchen in awkward silence, Kurt’s schoolbag banging off his hip in a way that has Blaine mesmerized. Or it might be that he just really needs something else to focus on instead of the fact that Kurt is living and breathing in front of him.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Kurt’s ass is really, really nice.

Kurt props himself against the counter, watching as Blaine shuffles from foot to foot.

“You wanted to talk. So talk,” he says, crossing his arms defensively.

Blaine opens his mouth to reply, but a thundering on the stairs stops him and he turns around instinctively.

“Kurt? Shouldn’t you have left by now, buddy?”

Burt Hummel is staring straight through him.

For whatever reason, Blaine holds his breath, tries to will Burt into seeing him. It feels like there’s water swirling around in his brain as he vaguely hears Kurt make up a lie about over sleeping, sounding a little edgy. When Blaine faces him again, he notes that Kurt’s eyes are flicking from Blaine to Burt, looking confused.

If Burt notices his son acting strangely, he must chalk it up to him being overtired, because he simply walks further into the kitchen, walking through Blaine and not hearing Blaine’s gasp. He doesn’t see Kurt’s widened eyes as he shuffles through the refrigerator.

“Better get going, kiddo. You’ll be late.” Burt pats his son on the shoulder and is out the door, stepping again through Blaine. Blaine shudders at the feeling, meeting Kurt’s eyes when they hear a car pull out of the driveway.

“Kurt-“

“Stop.”

He does.

“I have no idea what is going on and I would really like some answers, but I don’t know if I can process why you’re apparently intangible, so can we start with your name?”

Kurt’s breathing hard by the end of his rambling question, looking terrified of Blaine. He presses hard to the kitchen counter, like he’s trying to put more distance between them. Blaine tries to mask the hurt.

“I’m Blaine,” he says instead. “And I’m your soulmate.”

The red string around his wrist jerks and burns suddenly, the length shortening rapidly and snapping tight to their eye level. Kurt gasps, grabs his wrist as he’s yanked forward a few feet.

Something isn’t right.

Instead of one string linking Kurt to Blaine, there’s a split. Another string, attached to the middle of theirs like it had been woven that way. If Blaine looks closely, he can tell that it leans more to him than to Kurt. He touches it lightly, feeling his own string quiver.

“Ah.”

“Ah? What do you mean, “Ah”? What the hell is going on?!” Kurt looks close to tears at this point, though Blaine guesses they’d be more angry tears than anything else.

He holds up his wrist, the strings moving with the motion and Kurt’s eyes following warily.

“This,” he says, pointing at the other string. “Leads to me. The other me.” He touches the place where the strings connect and all three give a shudder, loosening again.

Kurt’s phone chirps before he can say anything. He curses, bustling past Blaine as best he can without going entirely through him, and runs out the door. Blaine blinks, following him quickly.

Kurt seems to be fighting with his door handle, swearing at it when he can’t get it to yield. Blaine silently walks to the other side of the Navigator, opening the passenger door and climbing inside. He reaches across the console to pop the lock on Kurt’s door.

Kurt glares at him as he slams the door shut behind himself. Buckling quickly and throwing the car into gear, he backs out of the driveway before Blaine can sit down properly and latch his seatbelt. The jolt of motion throws him sideways into the dash.

“Sorry,” Kurt mutters, but he doesn’t really sound sorry at all.

Blaine huffs and flops into the seat, not bothering with the seatbelt. Kurt glares at him when they stop at an intersection.

“Put your seatbelt on. I don’t know if ghosts can die and I really don’t want to find out.”

Blaine rolls his eyes but buckles it anyway.

They spend the ride to Kurt’s school in a tense silence. Blaine notes the way that Kurt looks around anxiously, his eyes lingering on the dumpsters before he parks. He decides to ask about it later.

“At least I missed Karofsky and his gang of miscreants,” he mutters, shutting his door with unnecessary force.

“Who’s Karofsky?” Blaine asks, trotting up alongside him. Kurt groans.

“Why’re you following me?”

Blaine shrugs, giving him a charming grin. “What else am I going to do? It appears that no one but you can see me.”

Kurt snorts and walks faster. “You’re incredibly irritating, you know that?” he says, pushing the doors open. “First, you’re pretty much having a seizure on my lawn, then you’re a ghost, then you’re my soulmate, then you won’t leave me alone-“ he stops talking as he realizes that the hallway stragglers are staring at him. Blaine stifles a giggle as Kurt glares at them, sticking his nose in the air as he keeps striding towards his locker.

He pops open the small metal door and starts angrily shuffling his books. “We can’t talk in public,” he mutters lowly. “I don’t need them thinking I’m more of a freak than they already think I am.”

He bangs the locker shut and storms off quickly, leaving Blaine staring after him, open-mouthed. He doesn’t follow, the string around his wrist giving a sad twinge as he takes off in the other direction.

Blaine wanders for two bells, finding several interesting rooms but none that he wants to spend the school day confined to. Eventually he finds what looks like the choir room. He perches himself on the piano, looking around.

There seems to be a teacher’s office off to the side, and he decides to pick through it, see if he can find some information.

Aside from an outdated show choir handbook and an adorable picture of the glee club (Blaine can barely make out the lettering on the sign held by the wheelchair boy.) there isn’t much. A lamp, the picture, and an inspirational quote calendar make up the entire desktop and Blaine wonders if the teacher has another, more permanently used office.

He’s about to leave the tiny room and perhaps see how in-tune the piano is when the calendar catches his eye.

Underneath the usual feel-good quote reads the date.

November 5, 2010

Blaine swallows down the bile that has risen in his throat and grabs blindly for the rolling desk chair.

If this calendar is correct, then Kurt Hummel is going to die in four days.