Chapter 30

The door clicked behind them with a sense of finality, the four walls of Blaine's home closing around them, keeping them safe from the rest of the world. Cooper hovered to the side, attempting to get hold of their dad on the phone. Part of Blaine just stood dazed, staring at the mundane pictures and trinkets in the entrance hall that seemed both familiar and alien at the same time. Kurt squeezed his hand, offering silent solace from the overwhelming situation.

"Blaine?" Agent Miller prompted softly, reminding them of her presence. "Do you need to sit down?"

Blaine shook his head, oddly wrong-footed, "No, no I'm good... I just..." He turned to Kurt, who was frowning worriedly at him.

"Blaine?"

An explosion of gold and silver sparks set fire to the angry spill of red and black, and Blaine found himself swaying visibly with the cacophonic clash of sudden emotions emulating from Cooper and – "Mom!"

Kurt's hand spasmed in Blaine's, his grip tightening as an eddy of insecurity from Kurt pulled at the edge of Blaine's senses.

"Blaine... oh my god... oh god..." His mom's words tripped and cracked as she slowly came down the stairs, disbelief colouring her every movement as her eyes drank in the scene in her home's entryway.

Her legs gave out just before she reached the bottom, and she sat heavily on the forth step, her hands covering her mouth as she tried to reign in her reaction.

"Hey Mom..." Blaine carefully squeezed Kurt's hand, before letting go. The emotions of his mother were scattered, conflicting explosions made all the more wayward by her attempts to tamp down on them for his sake.

A caught sob wrenched from his mom's throat, and Blaine dropped one knee to the first stair, bringing them eye level. She bit her lip, tentatively reaching out to brush her thumb against his cheek, leaving a wake of warmth. Blaine caught her hand and she returned the action with a disbelieving, watery smile. She shook her head, "This is silly – I don't even know what to say."

Blaine grinned, trying to throw some humour against his mother's strange melancholy, "Welcome home?"

A huffed laugh in reply, running in contrast to the undercurrent of guilty sparks that flickered from the touch, "Yes, that, but I think I owe you and Kurt a lot of apologies beforehand..."

Blaine frowned, unsure. Kurt? Why would his mom need to apologise to Kurt?

"No, you don't Mrs Anderson." Kurt's voice was soft at his elbow, a light touch to sooth the confusion. There was an undercurrent there, something that Blaine would draw out of Kurt later, when there weren't agents standing in his home, and reporters outside; when the night's events weren't fraught with uncertainty and fate unsure. But for now, Kurt's voice was confident, his gaze unwavering as he exchanged silent words with Blaine's mom in a single glance.

"What..."

"Perhaps we should move somewhere more comfortable for the boys, Mrs Anderson?"

The interruption of Agent Miller seemed to shake his mom, who was suddenly all business. "Of course, please."

They had only made it two steps into the living room when the front door burst open, and both their dads ran in heralded by a storm of purpose and desperate hope. Burt moved with no hesitation, sweeping Kurt into a crushing hug. In contrast, Blaine's dad held back slightly, a lifetime's worth of habits forcing him to tread with care when it came to Blaine.

So Blaine took the last two steps for him, sinking into his dad's arms and pressing his face into his chest, "I'm sorry we worried you."

His father's chest shook with a disbelieving laugh, "When the agent came to Burt's house to tell him you'd been found I couldn't believe it. We were just about to head out on another drive of the town, and then..." He trailed off, his voice choking, and Blaine felt a tug of guilt at his heart. He couldn't bear that he had caused his family so much pain. He must have been projecting slightly, because then his dad pulled back slightly, catching his chin so he was looking directly at him. "Hey, none of that. We're just glad you're home and safe, okay Blaine? Both of you."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," It was the agent again, "But we really can't afford to risk this much further. Not until we've had a proper medical assessment. Blaine, please..."

Blaine reluctantly pulled out of his dad's arms, grimacing. They had explained the situation to both boys in the car. As of this moment, everything was uncharted. Blaine and Kurt were breaking every rule in the book, and while the representatives from the Sense Protection and Incident unit were willing to bend slightly after witnessing first hand just how much Kurt apparently helped Blaine, their first priority was Blaine's wellbeing, and what they said were the rules.

"What's going on?" Blaine's dad asked, an edge to his voice.

Agent Miller's shoulders straightened, and her calm air of professionalism didn't waiver at Blaine's father's sharp words, "When we arrived on the scene, after being informed by the Lima Police Department of a potential sighting of the boys, the situation had already...deteriorated."

Kurt snorted, his arms folded, "Is that what you want to call it? Those two assholes nearly killed Blaine!"

"Kurt, it's okay." Blaine soothed softly. He could feel the delayed reaction of fear and horror rolling off Kurt in waves.

"You heard her earlier!" Kurt gestured angrily at Agent Miller, "They pushed you into an empathic episode that could have killed you!"

"What?" Cooper hissed. Blaine felt his family's shock of emotions hit him in a tempest of sparked lightning and burning embers.

In another time, another place, such a storm would have pulled him apart. Objectively, he knew he should be just as scared, shocked and confused as his family were, but that was before. Barely an hour ago, he had felt himself shatter in the middle of a dark Lima street, with the full knowledge that no strength of will or wishing hope could put him back together again.

All his life, Blaine had been made very aware of the facts of his 'condition'.

He knew many children of his ES level died in their late teens, the sensory stress too great for them to maintain any semblance of self. No one of his level had survived past the age of twenty four, and she had lived out the last three years of her life doped up to her eyeballs in an isolation ward.

Blaine had known that he would never last at McKinley for more than two weeks before breaking, but by then, he had just been too tired not to try for normalcy.

Kurt turned those two weeks into stolen months of happiness and life.

He had understood that after his first triggered episode, he would never be able touch someone who wasn't his mom, dad, or brother again.

Kurt's fingertips amongst a scatter of papers, as light a brush against Blaine's skin as the ripple of wry curiosity gently lapping at the shores of Blaine's senses.

He had decided he would never trust a friend enough again to tell them his ES level.

"I want to tell you the truth." Somehow, against all logic, Blaine had placed his faith in Kurt. And Kurt hadn't betrayed that trust.

He had accepted he would never kiss a boy.

Midnight oceans and golden sprays of stars, a perfect asymmetry dancing against twinned senses, beginning and ending with each other in a starscape of endless waves.

And that had been okay, in its own way. Accept and move on. Live life with every hour, every day, until you can't anymore.

In those shattering moments of lucidity on that dark Lima street, before his senses completely drowned him, Blaine had known with soul deep gratefulness just how much Kurt had helped him steal away those experiences, connections, and time, because to Blaine, they had always been just that. Blaine's time with Kurt had been borrowed, stolen, it had been snatches of someone else's life, completely impermanent and doomed to end. Blaine had known that as fact, deep down in his soul, even though he had honestly believed in Kurt with all his heart.

Instinctively, Blaine reached out and took Kurt's hand. The battering storm of emotions raged against him, crashing waves rising up in tempestuous chaos. But beneath the waves, the ocean held calm, it held silence, and peace, all encompassed in the warmth of Kurt's hand.

Blaine didn't believe in Kurt anymore. Kurt wasn't some fairytale, some last gift before his time ran out.

Kurt was fact; impossible fact, but fact nonetheless. He was solid, sure, and clear.

Blaine felt the tension in Kurt release, soothed away by Blaine's certainty.

"Blaine, please." Agent Miller sighed, looking pointedly at their clasped hands.

Blaine felt Kurt's fingers loosen, ever so slightly.

No. Enough.

He tightened his grip on Kurt's hand, the storm of his family's confusion swelling as he stared down the woman, eyes clear and jaw set. Kurt squeezed back, his exhausted fear washed away by Blaine's touch as much as his own touch shored up Blaine.

"You need to stop." Blaine spoke his words carefully, measured. "We're not letting go of each other again. We did things your way, we tried following the rules, listening to what you say is right, what's good for me. We're not going to do that anymore."

Pride swelled in Kurt, weaving gently in Blaine's chest, gaining courage. He stepped closer to Blaine, his other hand coming across to close over their clasped hands, squeezing. "I'm sick of hearing that I'm no good for Blaine. Since I've known him, I've heard it from my friends, from strangers, from people who love us," Kurt's eyes flicked to Blaine's mom, and another piece of the puzzle slipped into place for Blaine, however much he didn't want to believe it. "I refuse to listen to you anymore. We're good for each other, and I don't care if there isn't a medical instrument or sense doctor on the planet who can prove it scientifically, because I'm still not letting go of Blaine's hand."

Agent Miller sighed, almost pityingly, "It's not as simple as that, boys."

"Why?" Cooper asked bluntly, a wash of warm sunrise blooming in a brushstroke so unfamiliar to Blaine's senses that it took him a moment to recognise it as hope. "The last time I saw my baby brother, I could barely be in the same room as him without being terrified that my presence was making him worse. In the half hour I spent with him, we probably had the same conversation about twenty times. I said goodbye, because I knew that next time, we wouldn't even have that. And now... Blaine is back, not just the shadow he was in Dalton. And Kurt is the reason for that. So tell me how it isn't just that simple?"

Blaine swallowed, his throat tight, unused to hearing his older brother speaking so plainly and passionately when it wasn't from a script, but with his own words.

"Mr Hummel broke into a sense refuge, and removed a high risk patient." Agent Miller explained calmly. "I will not dispute that Kurt appears to have a positive effect on Blaine, but what he did was incredibly dangerous, and could have easily ended very differently. Until we understand Blaine's condition on a medical level, I'm afraid protocol has to be followed."

Kurt's shoulder pressed against Blaine's, "Which is what, exactly?"

"Blaine will need to be checked out by a sense doctor – alone. Once their assessment is complete, we can go from there. Dalton may also decide to press charges, although in situations such as these, sense refuges usually try to take the lead from the parents. And then of course there is the matter of the press. You two have made quite the impression."

"They didn't ask to." Mr Hummel folded his arms, an immovable mountain of steadfast support.

"No, they didn't," Agent Miller agreed quietly. At that moment, her partner came in from the hall, phone in hand, and nodded. Blaine's stomach lurched with uncertainty.

Blaine's dad rubbed his hand over his face tiredly, "You want the boys to go now, don't you?"

Miller's partner, Agent Ryan, nodded, "I've spoken with our superiors, and Blaine's sense doctor, Fiona Monroe at Columbus Sense Clinic. She agreed that while the best course at the time was to first bring them here, but she now wants to see both boys immediately. She said we need to ensure minimal sensory disruption for Blaine."

"No drugs, please," Blaine immediately begged. He hated how much his voice shook, how the jerk of fear jumped from Kurt to him and then back again. He had only just got his mind back, he couldn't bear losing himself again.

Agent Ryan smiled wonkily, and for the first time Blaine felt a spark of honest warmth, not carefully controlled blankness from the agent. "Actually, she recommended you both travel together, with your brother if possible. Apparently he was good for you following your first major episode, and she wants to maintain that stability for the drive."

Misplaced jealousy reared briefly from Blaine's parents, a lingering pain from their inability to help Blaine the first time around, but was nearly as swiftly tamped down, the old hurt quashed as Blaine's mom murmured, "Go with the boys and the agents, Cooper. We'll drive behind with Burt."

Just a few tests. They'd known this would happen, before they had left their haven at McKinley. Still, it didn't stop the creeping tendrils of doubt and fear winding their way around Blaine's throat. Kurt took a deep breath, and they exchanged a look.

They hadn't been separated yet. They could still prove it. Right?

TBC