Chapter Four: You Light Up My Life

The next day in group Kurt fought hard against the urge to demand what information he was sure the prisoners had.  He knew it was best to be a little more subtle—particularly because he was new, and the inmates were still getting a feel for his personality, just as he was trying to discern what they were like.  He tried for casual first.

“So, big fight this weekend?”

The room was silent, everyone staring at him as though he had grown a second head.

“Really, dude?” one voice finally called out.  It belonged to a slender black man whose name Kurt couldn’t recall.  “Worse shit than that goes down here all the time.”

Kurt’s first instinct was to comment on how this was supposed to be a prison for non-violent criminals, but he thought better of it when he realized how stupid that would sound to these people.

“Okay,” he blinked slowly.  “Well, this is the first fight I’ve heard about since I got here.  I’m still trying to piece together how everything works.”

More silence. 

“You could say there’s a bit of friction between us prisoners,” Glasses finally spoke up, sounding like he was choosing his words with great care.  Kurt noticed suddenly that not only was Blaine gone, but Mohawk was missing as well.  Noah Pa… Noah Pu… Noah Puck-er-man?  NP!  he realized with sudden excitement.  “Puck and Rick use any excuse to get into it, and so when Rick started into Blaine….”

“Blaine was involved?” he asked a little hesitantly, trying to sound less invested than he truly was.

“Yeah,” Glasses said simply, giving him a pointed look that Kurt couldn’t read.  He didn’t speak for a long moment, and Kurt realized he was going to leave it at that.  Damn.

Kurt sighed.  It seemed he was going to get nowhere for now, but perhaps he could speak with Glasses alone after everyone else left.  “Alright, folks,” he tried to sound jovial.  “Who prepared a song for us this week?”

The time passed quickly after that, and to Kurt’s surprise he noticed that Glasses was lingering as everyone else left without any prompting.  Kurt nodded and smiled at Lucy as she finally finished a lengthy description of her favorite musical (which, to be honest, would have interested Kurt under any other circumstances) and slunk out the door.

“Mr. Hummel,” Glasses spoke by way of greeting as he tentatively wheeled closer.

“Kurt.  Call me Kurt, please.  Was there something you wanted?”

Glasses looked nervous but determined as he peered up at him.  “Kurt, then.  I know.”

“You know… what?”  Kurt’s brow furrowed and he wrung his hands, which he now noticed were beginning to sweat.  He couldn’t mean…

The other man looked around them as if trying to verify that they were indeed alone.  When he spoke, his voice was softer but also a bit conspiratorial.  “I know about you and Blaine.  That you’re soulmates.”

…that.  “But… what?  How?”  Kurt realized his mouth must be gaping open unappealingly and snapped it shut as he struggled for something better to say.  This couldn’t be good, could it?

“Blaine told me, of course.  He told Puck too.  The three of us are tight, in case you failed to notice.”  He was smiling up at Kurt a little too gleefully, and Kurt wondered if he had been trying to make him nervous before.

“I’m sorry, but what was your name again?”

“Artie.  Artie Abrams.”

Kurt stretched his hand out for the Artie to shake, still feeling awkward.

“So then you know… you’re…”

Artie laughed loudly then, the noise startling Kurt.  “I’m not going to rat you guys out, so chill.  I want to help.  And I know what went down this weekend, if you’d still like the 411.”

“Go on,” Kurt encouraged, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.

“So Blaine, well… everyone knows that he’s gay.  The guards all have access to that information, and some of the nastier ones like to make everyone’s business everyone’s business, if you get what I’m saying.  He’s taken a lot of crap for it pretty much since he got here, though there are those of us that don’t care.  Puck took a liking to him right away, and that helped because Puck’s kind of a big deal around here, you know, having been in the system for most of his life and all.”

Kurt didn’t know, but he nodded anyway.

“Blaine doesn’t just take it, but he’s not the type to get into a physical fight either, unless it’s truly unavoidable.  Puck is the type though; he practically itches for it.  So when we were in the cafeteria on Saturday, and Rick started laying into Blaine again…”

“What did he say?” Kurt was curious but also found himself feeling defensive.  The emotion was foreign to him, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Just the usual…” Artie said, but he stopped when he saw the look on Kurt’s face.  “Okay, then… so I guess some of the guys have noticed Blaine looking at you once or twice…”

“They know?!” 

“No,” Artie answered quickly, shaking his head.  “Of course they don’t know—Puck and I are the only ones, and we can keep a secret.  Blaine wouldn’t have risked telling us otherwise; he’d never risk you like that.  But they aren’t blind either, and they’ll use just about any excuse.”

“Okay,” Kurt spoke more to himself, willing his body to calm after the rush of panic.

“Anyway, Blaine was sitting there ignoring him as usual, but you could see that it was starting to really get to him this time.  Rick came closer, and I thought Blaine might actually jump him when your name was brought up, but then Puck beat him to it.   Blaine came to his senses then—I think he felt responsible—and he tried to break the fight up.  Of course the guards never see things that way.  And there you have it: Isolation.  I think this is only maybe the second time he’s been there.”

“What do they do to them?”

“Well I’ve never been, personally, but Puck’s been there plenty of times by now.  It’s not as bad as it sounds, really… I guess they just put you in a cell by yourself—a little sparser than the usual ones—and you don’t come out at all until they decide you’re ready.  You get all your meals and stuff taken to you there.  Blaine should be out soon, I think, but Puck really did a number on Rick this time so I don’t expect to see him for at least a week.”

“What can I do?  Do you think they’ll let me see him?” Kurt knew this last one was a long shot, but he had to ask.

Artie shook his head.  “No one sees them but the guards.  You could probably, if you really wanted to, but what excuse would you give?  It would look too suspicious.”

“Is there someone I can talk to then, maybe get him out early?”

“Again, suspicious.  Sylvester’s mean and crazy, but she’s clever.  She’d figure you out.  I think your best option is to wait it out.”

Kurt nodded at him solemnly, but inside his mind was spinning.  “Thanks, Artie, I appreciate the intel.  You won’t get in trouble for staying to speak with me, will you?”

“Nah,” Artie said with a grin from where he was now parked near the door.  “You could say they treat me a little special here.  It’s not like I can run away or anything.”  He gestured towards the wheels of his chair, then turned again to go.

“Wait, Artie, one more thing,” Kurt called out, moving towards him.  Artie paused.  “Has anyone ever tried to run away?  Has anyone been… successful?”

“Yes,” Artie replied, eyes glinting mischievously behind his glasses.  “Why don’t you ask Blaine more about that, the next time you see him?”

Kurt watched the Artie wheel down the hallway until he was out of sight, his mind heavy with more questions than he’d started with.

*******

More than once over the next few days, Kurt found his feet wandering in the direction of the Warden’s office, but Artie’s words of warning always echoed in his head and kept him from actually going in.  He had met Sue Sylvester only once—when he had interviewed for the job—but he thought that Artie’s judgment of the middle-aged woman was probably sound.

To his relief, he heard through the grapevine on Friday that Blaine had been released from Isolation the night before.  Somehow, it made Kurt even more eager and anxious to see him the next week.  What use were weekends, anyway?

As it turned out, this one was determined to drag on, even with Kurt putting in long hours at his father’s shop in a failed attempt to make the time pass more quickly.  He wondered how it was possible to feel so stressed and anxious when, at the same time, Blaine’s very existence in his life had brought him happiness and a sense of purpose he had never experienced before.

When they were finally reunited, Kurt all but rushing into Blaine’s arms at precisely eleven o’clock on Monday morning, the world seemed to tilt and right itself so assuredly that Kurt wondered how he’d missed the feeling of wrongness that had been there for so long.  He’d felt it, of course, but it hadn’t made any sense until now.

He pulled back in Blaine’s embrace to glare at him.  “Don’t you ever, ever do that again!  A whole two weeks without you… days spent worrying… not knowing where you were, if you were okay!  I don’t know whether to kiss you or to slap you right now…”

To his further annoyance, Blaine merely looked amused.  “I’d much prefer the former, I think.”

Kurt opened his mouth to chastise him again but he never got there, because Blaine had closed the small distance between them swiftly and was kissing him so certainly and hungrily that Kurt wasn’t sure how he was still standing.  When he finally pulled away, Kurt found himself staring after him in a daze.  Blaine merely chuckled and swooped in for another quick peck on the lips.

They settled together on the couch as they so often did, this time with Blaine’s head resting in Kurt’s lap. 

“Artie filled me in on what happened.  I guess you guys are friends?”

“Yeah,” Blaine smiled.  “Artie and Puck kind of took me under their wing when I first arrived, showed me the ropes.  We’re pretty close.  It’s hard to trust people in here, but I’d trust those two with my life.

“I’m glad you have friends you can count on,” Kurt said, then paused, considering his next words.  “Artie mentioned something about running away when we spoke, and he said to ask you?  Have you guys talked about that?”

“We’ve discussed it, yes,” Blaine admitted.  “Never seriously until you got here.  Now I have more of a reason to leave.  They’re willing to help get me out of here, if that’s something we want.  But you need to really think about it, Kurt.  You’ve got a life here, and this would change everything.  If I escape, we would need to leave the country… for good.”

“I’m not going to say that the thought doesn’t scare me,” Kurt conceded, “but I don’t have much going for me here, not really.  Nothing in my life has ever brought me meaning and purpose like you do.  Now… I can see it, how we could really have a life together, how I could really live for the first time in a long time.”  He closed his eyes tight, then opened them and met Blaine’s.  “It hurts,” he said simply, “letting myself feel hope.”

Blaine reached up to brush his hand gently along his soulmate’s face.  “Oh, Kurt.  I know it hurts, but it’s so worth it for me.  You’re worth it.  Everything is so much more now that I have you.  We have to try, I think, to have it all.  We owe it to ourselves.  We have to try to get out of here and be free.  There’s so much I want to be with you.”

Kurt smiled down at him softly.  “You’re already everything.  But yeah, I do think you’re right.  Getting you out of here, going somewhere where we can be together… that’s worth it.  But how?”

“It’s going to take some thinking and possibly a few miracles, but having Artie and Puck will help a lot.  Puck’s agreed to be a distraction, if necessary, and Artie… well, he’s invaluable.  Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Artie’s the tech guy around here.  He can break into anything.  Rumor has it he was a hacker, and that’s why he’s here… that’s not the real story, which I’m not at liberty to share.  But they trust him, far more than any of the other inmates, because what harm could he ever do?” Blaine smiled smugly.

“What’s Puck in here for then?”

“Oh, this and that… drugs I think, this time.  He’s been in and out for years on different charges, so it’s hard to remember for sure.”  Blaine peered up at Kurt, his face changing into something more serious, and squeezed his hand.  “The three of us have been discussing escape for a couple months now.  Not with any real intent, but still.  I think we’re good on the inside.   The problem is going to lie in getting through the gate.”

“And if we can get through the gate?  What comes then?”

Blaine shook his head.  “I guess we still have some pretty major details to hash out.  It’s going to take time, Kurt, but I’ll talk to the guys, okay?”

“Just be careful,” Kurt pleaded.  “Please don’t get yourself put away again.  I don’t think I could stand not seeing you for that long.  This is already hard enough as it is.”

“I know baby,” Blaine soothed, pulling himself up to sit beside Kurt and leaning close so that their foreheads pressed together before abruptly jerking back.  “Hey, weren’t you supposed to sing for me last week?”

Kurt blushed.  “Oh yeah, that.”

“There’s still time today,” Blaine prodded eagerly.  “Come on, I’d like to hear you.  It’s only fair!”

“I haven’t practiced in a week,” Kurt protested weakly.  “I’m not sure the mood is right…”

“Please,” Blaine interrupted with a whine.  Looking at his face, Kurt suddenly understood what everyone meant when they talked about ‘puppy eyes.’  He was finding it quite impossible to say no.

Kurt stood hesitantly.  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Really?  Of course not, Kurt, I love you!  I’m sure it will be beautiful!”

Kurt nodded and busied himself with setting up the CD player.  Soon a lovely, haunting melody filled the air.  Blaine appeared to recognize the song and his face softened, his eyes fixed attentively on his soulmate as Kurt began to sing.

So many nights I sit by my window

Waiting for someone to sing me his song

So many dreams I kept deep inside me

Alone in the dark but now you've come along

And you light up my life

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my days

And fill my nights with song

Rollin' at sea, adrift on the water

Could it be finally I'm turning for home?

And finally, a chance to say,

"Hey, I love you"

Never again to be all alone

'Cause you, you light up my life

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my days

And fill my nights with song

And you, you light up my life

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my days

And fill my nights

Fill my nights with song, with song

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my days

And fill my nights with song

It can't be wrong when it feels so right

'Cause you, you light up my life

My life, my life, my life oh