Chapter Twenty Seven

The ocean is limitless. It is a changeable force, a languid calm, a maelstrom ready to pull you under. It wields a terrible beauty, and an incredible power.

He had thought he had felt it all; felt the waves and the fleeting storms as they swept him away into their depths. But now...

What he had felt before had been mere flotsam to what flooded him now.

It had begun with a gentle lapping against the bridge of his senses, so gentle Blaine had barely even registered it. He had been lost in the suffocating darkness of drugs and silence, drowning in an airless smog that permeated his brain and leeched at his soul.

He didn't remember much from those days. His time in Dalton's isolation ward was a terrifying, gaping chasm in his memory, but the hours following the escape from the school were somehow even worse; fleeting glimpses of a warped world, twisted emotions swelling in his throat as he drowned in his own emptiness and isolation.

Reality is subjective.

There you are...

Strong arms slipped around Blaine's waist, a wash of calm against the swirl of his thoughts, "It's going to work out."

Blaine twisted his body so he could look at Kurt, taking a moment to enjoy the serene gaze of his boyfriend. "Who are you trying to convince?"

There it was, the deeper pull, the invisible deadly undercurrent of terror, panic, defensiveness. Blaine's senses were becoming solely tuned to Kurt, as if their time apart had stretched their bond so thin that the snap back had crashed them together into one person.

Kurt shook his head. "Me. Both of us. The empty auditorium. Take your pick." There was a swell of nerves with his words, scattering the reflection of stars as ripples across the glass-still surface of his emotions. Kurt sighed, letting out the tension in a long breath. "We can't stay here forever."

When you lived with the sort of life expectancy Blaine did, forever was a flexible measurement, but he didn't think it was the best time to raise that argument with Kurt. Besides, in his heart, he knew the other boy was right.

There was an outside world, no matter how much they had been trying to pretend otherwise.

It had been nearly a week since Kurt had rescued Blaine from Dalton, and the trap of his own mind. A week of wonderful solitude and tentative healing. Both of them still carried raw wounds, but they were better, stronger for it.

They were starting to think about people beyond each other. Kurt especially worried about his Dad, and Blaine carried a crawling guilt for his own family, who probably by now thought he was...dead...

"But how do we even begin?" Blaine asked, turning away from their locked gazes to lean back into Kurt's chest as they stood on the edge of the stage, "Call your Dad to pick us up from school?"

Kurt hooked his chin onto Blaine's shoulder, looking out into the expanse of dark empty seats. "I don't know. I guess we start by walking out the front door, and go from there."

Blaine's stomach lurched uncontrollably at Kurt's words, a sudden jerk of fear at the notion. "You make it sound so simple."

Kurt shook his head, a soft warmth against Blaine's neck, "It's not." The jerk of fear burst into a thousand harmless echos, skittering between them. There was a stretching quiet, and Blaine crossed his arms to lace over Kurt's where they rested around his torso. The action seemed to give Kurt courage to speak his thoughts out loud, "I'm scared they'll take you away from me. I'm scared they'll hurt you again."

The words were a murmur, solid and honest, hanging heavy in the air.

Blaine swallowed harshly, his voice as soft and quiet as Kurt's, "I'm scared they'll lock you up. I'm scared they'll steal my voice again and I won't be able to protect you."

Kurt nodded, acknowledging both their admissions. His fingers trembled nearly imperceptibly, and Blaine caught them in his own. He took a steadying breath, a comforting press against Blaine's back. "Tonight," he murmured.

Blaine's chest tightened, his fingers tense over Kurt's, "Okay."

Tonight. Tonight their brief forever ended. Tonight, the outside world would come flooding back, and try to tear them apart.

Blaine gritted his teeth. No. No, he wouldn't let them. He wouldn't let them take Kurt away.

But even as that thought solidified in his mind, a more powerful gripping suffocation surrounded him, filling him with a much stronger doubt. A doubt that had been laid as the foundation of his life...

From his family... Blaine doesn't know what he wants! He thinks he wants to go back to school but you know as well as I do that the moment he sits in a classroom full of emotionally chaotic teenagers he'll completely lose his sense of self! We'll lose our son!

From his doctors... During an episode Blaine won't understand what is happening to him. You must be prepared to take measures to protect him from himself in these instances. It may seem cruel at the time, but it's imperative that you are able to get him to medical help quickly and safely to minimise mental damage.

From books... Children of abnormally high empathic sense levels are typically impressionable, often characterised as naïve. In extreme cases they may never be recognised as a legal adult, if the individual is deemed unable to make choices independent of external emotional influence.

From the world... Damaged. Broken. Abnormal. Delicate creatures to be sheltered from society.

But Blaine did know what he wanted. He knew his own mind. He knew that he couldn't live without the gentle caress of Kurt against both his skin and his senses, so gentle and perfect. He knew that he loved Kurt with more than he had ever thought he could give.

His heart thrummed an irregular beat in his chest, and his mouth remained dry with the clenching fear warring under his skin.

Kurt's arms tightened around him, pulling Blaine from the mire of his thoughts. "I love you too."

With those four words, all tension drained from Blaine's body, and he allowed himself a shaky smile. Although the drugs were out of his system, he was definitely still prone to moments of unbalance. He didn't know what he would do if he didn't have Kurt to pull him back. "You're getting better at that."

Kurt grinned, suddenly shy, "I don't think I'll ever get used to it."

"I wonder if you'll be able to sense me without touch," Blaine said absently.

A thrill of muddled emotions flickered through Kurt too quick to identify. "I already have..."

Blaine twisted, turning completely in Kurt's arms to look him square in the eye, "When? Why didn't you tell me?"

"When you first told me you loved me." Kurt's eyes were soft, guilty and regretful with the murmured admission. "When I lied to you, and told you I didn't."

Blaine physically flinched, his throat tight as he tried to keep the accusation from his tone. "You felt what I was feeling in that moment, and you still walked away?"

Kurt shook his head furiously, "It killed me to leave you, to say those words, to throw what we had away. But I was convinced that if I stayed, that if I was selfish and kept hold of you, that my stupid ES level would actually kill you... It's why I stayed away for so long. I tried to convince myself that you were better off without me."

"And then Wes sent you my letters." Blaine filled in the gaps from what else Kurt had told him during the course of the past few days. He was surprised to realise that he didn't feel betrayed by Kurt's confession. If anything, it only made him even more angry at everybody else, and protective of his relationship with Kurt. What kind of a world did they live in, that Kurt would come to what seemed like such a natural conclusion?

Kurt's expression was still marred by guilt, "Blaine, I'm so sorry. I-"

Blaine surged forward desperately, capturing the other boy's face in his hands as he crushed his lips to Kurt's. Kurt stumbled slightly, his words cut off in a squeak of surprise.

When they broke apart, Kurt gave a breathy laugh, "Okay, I get it, no more apologies."

Blaine nodded, satisfied, leaning his body closer to press against Kurt's. "Good."

They fell into a soft silence, letting the unspoken haunting questions float away, to be dealt with when the time came to answer them.

What will happen when we leave?

How will we make them listen to us?

Will I fall asleep next to you tonight?

Will I wake up in your arms tomorrow?

Where do we go from here?

For the moment, the questions could stay away. For the moment, they had their forever, even if that forever could only last a few more hours.

TBC