Blaine visited Kurt every day. They talked about everything with each other; it was a deep and soulful connection. It was as if Kurt had all the time left in the world which meant that Blaine soon found the next two weeks flashing past in a blur. He never left Kurt’s side except for when he was scheduled to perform.

And he also never thought that he’d be waking up lying beside Kurt in his hospital bed.

…Or that he would be woken by the sound of four noisy people entering which was what had startled him out of his slumber. He had no idea how long he had been lying beside Kurt, no idea when Kurt’s head had fallen onto his chest, no idea when the two had fallen asleep together.

But they had been awoken by Kurt’s family entering the small room. Blaine had flushed red at being caught, not that they were, of course, doing anything inappropriate.

But Blaine couldn’t have been anymore wrong with assuming that they would have been upset.

Kurt stirred in Blaine’s arms and tried to sit up, and Blaine moaned inwardly at the loss of contact, instantly missing the heat and feeling of the weight of Kurt’s slender body against him.

Blaine’s only experience with family reactions was his own fathers negativity to Blaine coming out in eighth grade, but quite suddenly, here were Kurt’s family greeting him as though they had known him all his life.

The Hummel-Hudson family had instantly welcomed Blaine as one of their own as Kurt tried to tell his dad and stepmom, Burt and Carole, and stepbrother and best friend, Finn and Rachel, that Blaine had saved his life. Had Blaine not found him, he would probably be dead.

Blaine had blushed through the whole thing and had held Kurt tightly as he told his family about his diagnosis. This had led everyone to tears, and this time, Kurt couldn’t hide the fear and sadness in his eyes that Blaine had thought he had spotted when the doctor had first told him the news.

~*~

The following fortnight, Blaine had finished his last performance and he was on his way back to the hospital. None of the family had left Kurt’s side for those two weeks except to sleep in rooms in the hotel over the road. It had been a long couple of weeks, despite the first two having gone so fast, but in some ways Blaine had enjoyed it. He had gotten to know Kurt so much and he had fallen, fallen so hard. At times, Kurt would give in to his guilt and tell Blaine that his concern for him was unnecessary, but it was too late. From the moment Blaine had laid his eyes on the beautiful porcelain boy he had known then that everything about him would be beautiful and he was right. They had a connection that seemed to stem from years of knowing each other. Eventually, Kurt stopped questioning how he’d become so lucky to have Blaine in his life, even if it was towards the end.

Blaine was finding it difficult to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the picture of the doctor’s face speaking those two words flashed behind his eye lids. Two months. He couldn’t push the image from his mind or imagine what nightmares Kurt would be having. He always seemed so strong about it. It wasn’t fair – he had finally found the one person who made him feel whole and he was not ready to let him go yet. Time was ticking; it was running out, like the sands in an hour glass. Everyone knows you that you can’t stop sand from slipping between your fingers, no matter how tightly you held on. But Blaine was holding on anyway.

Very tightly.

Now that the show and his stint on Broadway were over, Blaine had made the decision that he would never leave Kurt. He had decided that he would be there, until the end.

It was a rare day in the hospital for Kurt and Blaine. Kurt’s family had finally given Blaine and Kurt some alone time. It was the first private time they’d had since the first night that Blaine and Kurt had been alone in the room. Rachel and Finn had gone for food in the hospital caf� and Burt and Carole were at the hotel getting some sleep.

For his part, it saddened Burt how he and his family had watched Blaine and Kurt grow closer over the past weeks. In fact, Burt couldn’t sleep; he hadn’t been able to since he heard the news. His thoughts kept him awake as he lay beside Carole in their room. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be; he shouldn’t be saying goodbye to his son, not yet. He was still a kid. He still had his whole life in front of him. Kurt hadn’t even had a boyfriend yet so Blaine could never understand the gratitude in which Burt felt towards him. How Kurt had winded up with cancer anyway was beyond Burt. He knew he himself hadn’t exactly had the healthiest history, but there was a chance Kurt had inherited it from his mom, Elizabeth. Now that she was gone too, it was hard to say. It was hard enough having to bury his wife but not parent should have to bury their child.

And now that Kurt had Blaine, Burt could see something in his son he had never seen before. Even though Kurt was sick, there was a light in his eyes whenever Blaine was around. Burt was happy Kurt had found that, but he only wished it hadn’t been too late, wished that Kurt could have had that and held onto it for longer.

~*~

All of Kurt and Blaine's constant flirting and cute exchange of comments hadn’t gone completely unnoticed, because the entire family could see exactly what was going on. Blaine may as well have been the person Kurt claimed him to be at the hospital. He looked down at the beautiful man in his arms and Kurt looked pale, paler than usual today, but a little brighter than when Blaine first set his eyes on him. Today the doctor was allowing him to go home. They had agreed on this since Kurt would be more comfortable in his own apartment, and since there was nothing more that could be done for him in the hospital. He would just have to take pain medication every day to stop from blacking out and to also avoid painful headaches.

That morning, when Blaine noticed Kurt wake up, he immediately greeted him. “Hey sleepy head…” he said smiling with that trademark puppy dog grin of his as he ran his hands through his hair. His usual gelled down style had of late been replaced with his natural curls which sprung out in every direction. Kurt smiled back, “Hey,” he chuckled softly, his voice a little raspy, watching Blaine messing up his own hair; he loved Blaine’s curls and reached up to play with them. Blaine looked extraordinarily dapper in the smoothed down style but the curls were hot. As Kurt thought this to himself he was also silently glad that his paleness from being ill hid the blush creeping up along his neck from his collarbone.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, in which the two boys had just starred at each other, star-crossed and doe-eyed, Blaine voiced a thought that been continually crossing his mind since the doctor had told Kurt he could go home.

“I’m going to miss you when you go, Kurt,” Blaine said, his tone filled with a sadness which Kurt could easily read.

Kurt shuffled so he was looking directly at Blaine, his own voice cracking a little when he spoke. “Will you not be visiting me?” he asked. Kurt had been hoping Blaine would, but he supposed Blaine had his own life, and they had only known each other a month. Kurt kicked himself internally for expecting anything from Blaine, let alone him coming to visit him in his home.

A look of shock crossed Blaine's handsome features, “No silly, I meant I’ll miss you when you go. But, I just thought since you were going home, you’d have your family, and well you wouldn’t want me to be there.” Blaine shrugged nervously.

Kurt smiled, “Of course I want you to be there Blaine - you saved my life! If it wasn’t for you, I could… I could be dead. I—I need you Blaine.” Kurt whispered the last part; he had known that fact from the moment the doctor had said he had bad news and Kurt hadn’t wanted Blaine to leave. “You have no idea what these last few weeks have meant to me. I mean, I’m so grateful you played along when I told the doctor you were my boyfriend or they would have kicked you out and now… n-now it kinda feels like… like you really are…. My boyfriend, I mean.”

Blaine smiled at Kurt’s words, an adorable smile Kurt noticed. “Well then if I am your boyfriend, you won’t mind if I do this…” And then before Kurt could think anymore, Blaine’s lips moved softly onto his. It took Kurt a moment to wrap his head around what was happening and then he sunk into the kiss, reciprocating the passion and heat that was flowing between their lips, the electricity sparking at every point their skin touched.

They broke apart, breathing heavily, gasping for air, as if they had just run a marathon. “Sorry,” Blaine whispered, a blush seeping through his olive toned skin. But Kurt smiled and pressed a delicate finger to Blaine's lips, “Shhh, I’ve wanted to do that for so long now actually...”

With those simple words Blaine's heart soared from within his chest. He had no idea how he could have fallen in love with just a few weeks of knowing someone but here he was. It had happened, and now he knew Kurt at least felt the same to some degree and well, that’s all the reassurance he needed to lean back in to kiss the taller boy once more.

Kurt tipped his head back giving Blaine easier access, and then after softly nibbling on Kurt’s lower lip, Blaine's tongue fought its way into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt hummed in the back of his throat, his toes curling and his hand clutching the collar of Blaine's t-shirt. Kurt kissed Blaine feverishly, those sparks of electricity burning from the points on their lips and through his body now, as if all the blood in their bodies had been replaced with fire now dancing through their veins.

Kurt gasped when Blaine's lips left his and though he moaned at the loss of contact, it was short-lived. Blaine latched onto his neck, finding the pulse point where he sucked and nibbled and licked lightly. Blaine now knew why Rachel had used the nickname ‘countertenor’ when talking animatedly to Kurt. The next moan to leave the taller boys lips was musical, high pitched and light and it filled Blaine’s stomach with butterflies.

Blaine pulled back from the kiss and his eyes met Kurt’s, the sapphire irises barely visible as his pupils had exploded with lust and Blaine's hazel orbs reflected this in his own eyes.

“Kurt, I… I don’t want to scare you or anything but I… I love you,” Blaine breathed softly, almost incoherently, “You make me feel like no one else ever has and have taught me so much about being a better person, a stronger person.” He whispered softly, their foreheads pressed together, letting out a sigh of relief having finally said what he had been positive he was feeling for so long now. Blaine looked at Kurt apprehensively, hoping he hadn’t said too much.

A smile lit up Kurt’s face, he no longer looked like the ill and fragile boy; he looked like a tall and strong man. “Blaine, I, you make me feel so alive. I don’t know what you could possibly gain from loving a dying man but,” Kurt paused. It was true. He may be dying but when Blaine was beside him he felt more alive than he had ever done in his whole life.

“I love you too,” Kurt said softly, another smile twisting his lips before kissing Blaine again softly, sweetly, moving a hand to the older boys jaw line and holding it.

From that moment Blaine had known, the same way he had from the first time he had met him, that he would never leave Kurt’s side, not for a second.

~*~

That was exactly what happened. That same day, when Kurt was discharged, he didn’t return to his own small apartment, but Blaine's slightly larger one, where Blaine settled him into the master bedroom.

Blaine cared for Kurt as if he had been there all along, not as if they had only met a few weeks prior. He went beyond to give Kurt everything he needed. He welcomed Burt, Carole, Finn and Rachel into his home like old friends. When the four left of an evening, Blaine and Kurt would spend hours laughing and smiling and talking; just being together, until Kurt would fall asleep in Blaine’s arms, Blaine following soon after, always staying awake long enough to watch Kurt fall asleep.

~*~