Blaine can’t sleep.

He shakes all over, shakes too much, like he has caught a chill beneath his skin that he can’t ward away, even huddled under Kurt’s thick comforter, with his boyfriend’s arms around him. His mind is fractured, his thoughts scattered. He finds it hard to keep track of them, or to hold on to a single one. Thinking about simple things that should keep him grounded – his phone number, his address, his middle name - become painful. And then, in the middle, he recoils. Maybe he shouldn’t be thinking of those things, things that could be used to identify him, locate him. Not when God knows how many people have access to his head.

He tries to empty it, make it blank. But every time he finds quiet, a moment of nothing, something interrupts – a thought, a memory, a voice, a conversation - and none of it belongs to him. He thinks about going for a jog, figuring the cold air and physical exertion will clear his head, but he doesn’t want to run into any other ghosts … or worse, the men Jake spoke of. Apparently, the thugs who beat Kitty, raped Kitty, and shot her through the skull aren’t the big baddies. There’s someone else Blaine has to worry about out there, someone he doesn’t know exists.

Someone he has yet to see.

How does he defend himself, and Kurt, when he doesn’t know who’s after them? Or why?

What if these other people have psychic abilities, too? Does Blaine really have psychic abilities? Nothing like this has ever happened to him before, so he isn’t exactly sure what to call it. Conveniently, Jake disappeared before he could relay that information. Blaine tries to summon him back. He thinks about Kitty, pictures her eyes, her face, her voice, her murder, and uses those to try and lure Jake into his mind. He even tries calling out for Kitty, the prospect of actually making contact with her scaring him half to death. But he has no luck on either account, and he feels defeated.

Then there are the others – the people Jake spoke about, the ones that Kitty gave him. Jake had been the first, that black lady a sort of second, but they wouldn’t be the last. There are more than just them. Blaine can feel them, and they could show up at any time - in Blaine’s apartment, at his work, while he’s in the toilet. Or he could be zapped to wherever they are. And then what? What would happen? And when would that be? The uncertainty is maddening. Blaine hears them, their existence a low hum throughout his body. Sometimes they laugh, one of them even screams, but then they’re gone. For hours, there’ll be silence, and then another will come back. He sees things he’s sure aren’t meant for his eyes. He sees the moon, but not over New York City. He sees a restaurant kitchen, smells veal and garlic cooking.

Then nothing.

For over an hour, everything goes back to normal except that he’s not, and he knows it. He’s finally ready to try and sleep when he feels a touch on his shoulder. He thinks it’s Kurt. He’s about to say something to him, but he blinks, and suddenly he’s staring into the face of a beautiful Latina, with shining brown eyes, smiling at him … but not at him. It lasts less than a second, and then she’s gone.

Well, he was right before. He’s not going to sleep, and he doesn’t want to be alone. Not that he is alone. He’s destined not to be alone, for however long that lasts. But he needs his boyfriend. He doesn’t just need the distraction; he needs Kurt. He needs the connection he has with him, a connection to a person he chose.

A connection that belongs to him alone.

He turns in Kurt’s arms, feeling guilty that he’s waking up his boyfriend, who’s been blissfully dead to the world this whole time. At least, that’s what Blaine thought. But the reality has been much different, hidden from him while he’s had his back turned. Kurt might be lying still, but he doesn’t look calm - his brow drawn in at the center, his teeth clenched, his jaw tensed from the pressure he’s putting on it. His lips move, angrily telling someone in his head what for. What happened tonight was horrible and frightening for Blaine, but watching him go through it, helpless to stop it, must have been as bad for Kurt.

Blaine remembers feeling that same way when Kurt was attacked a few years back. Walking home from a dinner date with a friend, he came across two homophobic assholes beating up a gay man, and Kurt ran to his rescue. The victim ended up ditching Kurt, leaving Kurt to get beat up instead. Blaine received the call at home when Kurt was en route to the hospital. He ran out so quickly, he almost forgot to put on his jacket or lock the loft door. But along the way, he got caught in a net of unfortunate mishaps. His bus got stuck in traffic. The train he diverted to broke down. The taxi he caught after that ended up behind a three car pile-up. It was a mess, and the whole time, Blaine felt too far away.

Useless.

Kurt is a force of nature, fiercely protective of everyone in need, especially the people he loves. Looking at Kurt, his eyes closed, feverishly defending Blaine to the voices nagging his brain, Blaine knows Kurt is the most wonderful, most compassionate, most caring man that he has ever met. The irony of their relationship, though, is that the two of them met while Kurt was being bullied at school. It had gone on daily for years, and no one seemed to notice. The few people who did notice, didn’t seem to care. Kurt wasn’t actively searching for a safe space at the time. In fact, he’d given up hope that he could find some peace and normalcy in his life. But he ended up finding that at Dalton.

Along with finding Blaine.

Blaine helped Kurt confront his high school bully. He helped Kurt overcome the stigma of being the only out gay person at his school. Blaine was there for Kurt, held his hand, stood up for him, transferred schools to be with him, and it felt good. Blaine loved being his boyfriend’s protector. But more and more, Kurt has grown beyond the need to have Blaine protect him. He’s become stronger, more confident, more secure with who he is, his identity, and how he presents that identity to others. He doesn’t need to hold Blaine’s hand anymore. In fact, there have been several times when Kurt has forded ahead and led the charge when Blaine would have stood fast and waited.

Kurt is a fearless, self-sufficient man. He isn’t a delicate flower who needs his boyfriend to protect him.

He doesn’t rely on Blaine.

But ever since they moved to New York, Blaine has begun to rely on Kurt.

He’s relying on Kurt now, to get rid of the fear within him. He needs to have the one person that belongs only to him.

He kisses Kurt on the cheeks, on the eyelids, on the mouth. Kurt’s lips stop moving, his tirade over, and his eyelids pop open.

“Oh God!” He laughs, gasping as if his heart stopped and restarted in the space of those kisses. “Blaine! You’re awake. You scared the crap out of me!”

“Did you think it was someone else?” Blaine kids, but Kurt doesn’t buy into the façade. He sees through Blaine’s attempt at humor. He knows that Blaine’s not okay. He felt him tossing and turning, heard him mumbling in his sleep, calling out names Kurt didn’t recognize.

He heard Blaine crying.

Kurt puts a hand to Blaine’s cheek. “Baby, what’s wrong? Please, tell me.”

“Nothing,” Blaine lies. “Nothing’s wrong.”

But Kurt knows better.

“Blaine, you know that whatever it is, whatever’s bothering you, no matter how it sounds, you can talk to me.”

“I know,” Blaine says, pulling Kurt against him, “but I … I don’t want to talk right now. I just need …” He kisses Kurt’s forehead, his hairline, the bridge of his nose, hoping his actions will speak for him because his mind just wants to shut down.

Kurt moves to fit better against him, returning kisses to his chin, traveling along his jaw to his neck. “It’s all right. I understand.”

Kurt throws a leg over Blaine’s hip and rolls on top of him, but Blaine pushes back, pins him to the mattress, and Kurt lets Blaine have him the way he needs him. Blaine undresses Kurt, kissing his way down his body. He moves so slowly, he’s gone beyond taking his time, but Kurt doesn’t argue, and he doesn’t tease him.

He doesn’t say anything when Blaine’s breathing hitches, when it sounds like he’s choking down a sob.

Blaine makes his way back to Kurt’s chest, up the column of his neck, and kisses Kurt’s mouth with his eyes open. He doesn’t want Kurt to disappear. He doesn’t want to end up somewhere else. He needs to live in this moment, needs to figure out a way to keep the magic/spirits/hallucinations from taking over without his permission.

“Oh, God … Blaine,” Kurt moans when his boyfriend’s fingers explore, toy, dip inside and scissor before slipping out and venturing elsewhere. “Oh, yes, Blaine. Oh God …”

“… Santana …”

It rings in Blaine’s head, clear as the sunlight seeping in below the curtains, but it’s more than that. It’s imprinted in his blood, turns everything inside him to ice. Blaine’s first instinct is to stop when he hears a woman’s voice moan that name inside his head - not Kitty’s voice, one of their voices - but he keeps going for Kurt’s sake. He doesn’t want Kurt to know anything is wrong. Kurt will want to talk about it for certain, and Blaine can’t risk that. He moves quickly - spreads Kurt’s legs, lubes up, and buries himself inside his boyfriend’s body. Kurt yelps in surprise, but as Blaine doesn’t seem to be taking his time about things anymore, Kurt winds his legs around his boyfriend’s hips and holds on tight.

“Oh, God …”

“… Santana … oh, Santana …”

“Blaine, I … I love you …”

“Santana …”

“I ...”

“… want you …”

“… Blaine …”

“… Santana …”

“Fuck!” Blaine grunts, squeezing his eyes shut and shoving his head into the pillow beside Kurt’s left ear. Kurt moans, locking his legs tighter, under the impression that Blaine is close to cumming, and he lets himself go with it.

Blaine takes a breath and holds it. He focuses on his physical presence, and tries to let his body run the show without him while he gets his mind straight, but he made the mistake of closing his eyes … which means he’ll have to open them again. And when he does, Kurt might not be there. But Blaine can’t hide. The ghosts or whatever will find him eventually.

It’s only a matter of time.

He opens them slowly, a sliver with each inhale of breath, hoping he’ll glimpse the unexpected before he has to come face to face with it. He suspects he already knows. He can feel it by way of a peculiar buzzing in his head, a pinging in his body that wasn’t there before, announcing its arrival.

When his eyes open, Kurt is gone.

He can still hear Kurt’s voice - his sweet, high moans; his breathy pants; signs that he’s so, so close - but beneath Blaine is a woman, her long, blonde hair spilling over the pillow; blue eyes wide with alarm, but not frightened. She’s completely naked, and he knows that wherever she is, she has to be having sex with someone – with Santana – right at this moment. She gasps when she sees him, surprised, but completely turned on. She’s not Kitty.

She’s one of them.

“Blaine,” she whispers.

He shakes his head, muttering, “No, no, no,” and she disappears. He’s looking at Kurt again, head thrown back, hands locked on Blaine’s forearms, pounding his hips against Blaine’s body, siphoning the ecstasy from his stilled hips. Blaine holds on to this image, keeps his eyes open till they burn. He can’t leave Kurt. Kurt can’t disappear.

Kurt swoops up to kiss him, but before their lips touch, Blaine sees the blonde woman, and this time, he’s kissing her. She moans into his mouth. It’s delicious, sinful, fulfilling, but he feels himself backing away.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to. He really wants to.

But he doesn’t want to.

Not because he feels like he’s cheating, though he kind of does, even with Kurt right there, unaware of anything going on. This woman doesn’t feel like a separate entity. She’s a part of Blaine, somewhere inside him. She’s in his head, in his body, flowing through his veins like blood and filling up his lungs like oxygen. She’s in his thoughts, her fantasies aligning with his until not only are he and she having sex on his bed, but somewhere in between what’s real and what’s illusion, Kurt and Santana are making love, too, in this blonde woman’s room, somewhere in California.

Which means that she’s fucking Kurt, and Blaine doesn’t want that. He wants Kurt for himself. He wanted to keep this one thing for him and him alone. But now that’s gone, too, and he didn’t have a choice. None of this was his choice. This woman, Brittany (he knows because of Kitty’s voice in his head, and her partner enthusiastically calling out her name with every bang of her headboard against some distant wall) is with him, while having an intimate moment of her own, which is why the universe, or whatever, chose this moment to connect them.

Fuck!

“Blaine?” Kurt’s brow wrinkles with concern. “Are you alright? I don’t think you’re cumming, baby.”

“I am,” Blaine lies, and he hates that it’s becoming a habit.

“Blaine” – Kurt runs a hand up Blaine’s arm – “you’re trembling! Are you sure you’re …”

“Can we not talk about this?” Blaine begs, moving when he realizes he’d stopped and Kurt’s been doing most of the work. “Please, just … not right now.”

“Okay. Okay.” Kurt pulls Blaine down to his body. “We won’t talk about it.”

Blaine nods, thankful that he doesn’t have to explain more than that.

That he doesn’t have to lie again.

He wraps his arms around Kurt’s torso and hugs him till he’s finished, finding too late the closeness that he craved.

He can’t let Kurt know. Kurt can never know. This is going to be Blaine’s secret, Goddammit, no matter what it costs. He’s going to take it with him to his grave.

Kurt cums with his teeth in Blaine’s bicep and, “I love you,” on his lips, starry-eyed and sated in Blaine’s arms. But Blaine’s orgasm is weak, his head too wrapped up in complicated scenarios and worries and fear. He can’t be carefree with Kurt like this. Not yet. Not with all these people he’s carrying with him.

Maybe not ever again.