Can you hear me calling out your name?  You know that Im falling and I dont know what to say.  Come along, baby, we better make a start - you better make it soon before you break my heart.

Everywhere – Fleetwood Mac

                Blaine hadn't known what to feel about the cuff at first.  He felt overwhelmed.  But it was perfect.  He knew it was perfect.  The blue reminded him of Kurt's eyes, the brown of his own.  It was weeks before he felt that he needed it – he tried to cope by himself but he could see the way his snappy short responses hurt Kurt.  He hated feeling like that: angry and guilty - especially when he had no reason to feel either. 

The feel of the soft, supple leather tight against his pulse point did something to Blaine.  It felt like being owned.  Like belonging to someone.  His mind flitted to the feeling of a necktie around his throat – a hand pulling him, leading him by it into the hotel room.  Blaine felt himself respond physically with mild surprise.  He had always liked wearing ties and bowties…

He was anxious when he walked back into the living room to Kurt.  They had not discussed this.  They had not discussed what Blaine needing this meant.  He'd been so surprised the first time Kurt had asked him to kneel for him – the relief had been exquisite.  He wondered what had made Kurt think to research in the first place.  He wondered why Kurt had bothered.  He wasn't worth this.  He was a freak for needing this.  For responding to this. 

He was brought away from his dark thoughts by Kurt's command to kneel.  Blaine hadn't detected Kurt notice him.  Blaine sunk to his knees and let himself float.

                She didn't know why she was on the floor.  Her knees hurt from the pressure on the solid wood beneath her but she did not feel the need to move.  She felt a hand idly stroking her hair; she hummed in appreciation and leant her head against his thigh.

Time was an abstract concept – she was aware of its passing but its units were inconsequential.  Somewhere clocks were ticking, somewhere rubies and quartz crystals were vibrating, somewhere electrons were changing energy levels.  Inconsequential.  Regardless, they would continue as sure as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.  One of the great certainties.  That and death.

The thought tickled.  Death.  She dealt with death on a daily basis.  Without it she would have no job.  She had spent hours musing on the subject – about how it was feared, yet so utterly natural.  About how the fear of it had spawned great works of fiction and art – attempts to immortalise the self in order to be remembered long after the physical had decayed and been absorbed and reborn.  How that fear could result in good works, charitable efforts, or be exploited with talks of punishments after death or by opportunists with creative business ideas.  She would not have a job were it not for death.

Something was wrong.  Where was she?  How was she here?  Her skin prickled and she felt sweat bead on her skin.  Her breathing ramped.  This was not right.  She was not supposed to be here.  The hand stopped running its fingers through her hair.

‘Blaine?'

Ho

                He was certain he had been dreaming.  He was overtired.  Yes.  That was it.  Kurt had not been convinced.

                ‘You weren't you, Blaine.  It was utterly creepy.  Your posture was all wrong and your accent changed, your gestures, the faces you pulled – it was all wrong.'

He could not explain it.  Kurt had been absolutely freaked out – that may be an understatement.  He had booked Blaine into the doctors under an emergency appointment and had rushed him there.  It was like déjà vu – sitting in the waiting room again, the sickening pine smell of the disinfectant, but this time he was not in disguise or under a false name.

The doctor was the same.  The questions were the same and like the last time Kurt fielded most of the questions.  This time however Blaine was more forthcoming about how long it had gone on for – about the time jumps, the headaches, the hallucinations, the other lives, everything.  Kurt had gone translucent and utterly quiet.  He may have lost it a little.

Blaine had been admitted immediately – no shoe laces, no belt, just a hospital gown.  He sat cross-legged on the hard bed in the white room with his head in his hands.  His headache had come back with full force and he had vomited violently as he had been led to the room.  The orderlies cleaned him up with deft hands and sympathetic smiles. 

He had no idea where Kurt was.  He had no idea what the pills they had forced him to take were and he had no idea what was going to happen.  They'd taken so many blood samples his arm felt heavy and he had heard talk of CT scans and MRIs.

They would not let him walk to the CT scanner – he was transported like an invalid in a wheelchair and helped onto the bed.  The iodine injection had been a cold burn in his veins and he had the sensation he was floating as the machine moved around him.

Back in the white room.  Blindingly bright.  He was given an injection and he was plagued by vivid dreams of being chased through dark car parks by an unknown assailant. 

He was losing it.  He was losing it.

He had no visitors.  Maybe he was not allowed them.  That was preferable to the other option – that no one wanted to visit.

His head ached constantly now - there was a ‘hot spot' by his right temple, and his ears rang with tinnitus that would not abate.  He was constantly nauseous and could not keep any food or liquid down.  They had hooked him up to an IV to stop him from dehydrating. 

No one would answer his questions.

Another CT scan and hushed voices.  An MRI and another load of pills.  The white room.  The white room.  More blood tests – he began to suspect they were merely selling his blood on the black market and keeping him like a heifer for milk.  Paranoia.

His dreams were dark – he was chased every night.  He woke soaked and screaming.  He was covered in spiders and fleas.  He scratched at them until his skin bled but the itch felt so good. 

They strapped down his ankles and wrists after that.  He calmed with the restraint.  He stopped asking questions.  He stopped breathing.