Chapter 10:

 "What do I tell him about how we know each other?" Blaine asked, stumbling alongside Kurt, trying to keep up with his rapid strides towards his car.

 "Just tell him...I don't know, that we're dating or something." Kurt said, slight irritation sliding off his tongue in his impatience to get to his house.

 "Won't he think that's weird? That he's not met me I mean?" Blaine stammered, catching up as they came to rest beside the vehicle.

 "No...just tell him it's early days or something. Make it up Blaine...Just...come on, you said you wanted to help."

 "I do...I'm just not sure what to say to him. I don't want to make things worse." Blaine looked down at his trainers, leaning awkwardly against the driver's side of the car and glancing at Kurt over the top of the hood. Kurt's eyes relaxed at the sight of the nervous man who had already done so much for him; who he'd already asked so much of. He smiled gently and reached across the top of the car to take Blaine's fingers in his own. 

 "You won't make things worse Blaine. I promise....I..I just really need to see him. Maybe he knows more about my condition.....maybe he has answers as to how I can get back to myself?" He trailed off at the end but squeezed Blaine's hand before pulling away and yanking open the door of the passenger side and sliding in. Blaine paused, arm still stretched on the roof before he collected himself and slid in beside the other man.

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 Kurt's house was typical of most that dotted the tree-lined streets of suburban Columbus but as Blaine pulled up outside where Kurt instructed him to, he felt a warmth descend over him at the sense of home that emanated from the white shuttered building. He turned to Kurt who was sitting wide eyed and trembling slightly, fingers white around his knuckles. Taking his hand gently in his own, he laced their fingers together again.

 "Courage." He said smiling and stroking the skin softly.  Kurt only swallowed hard and nodded back, reaching for the door handle.

 It was a long time before anyone opened the door after Blaine's initial tentative knock. Movement could be heard inside, approaching the door and Blaine steeled himself as it swung open to reveal a pair of red-rimmed eyes. The man that stood before him was stocky and thick set, his chest covered by a flannel shirt and a baseball cap pulled low over his bald head. The impression was of solidity and he exuded a power that made Blaine's heart knock against his chest again.

Beneath the gruffness of his mannerisms though, Blaine could clearly distinguish traces of Kurt, as different as they were. The eyes were softened with the same open kindness that Blaine saw in Kurt's and there was a delicacy to some of his facial features that he felt familiar with. At the moment though, those same eyes were observing Blaine with a mixture of suspicion and intrigue.

 "Can I help you?" Kurt's father said, his voice sounding weary and resigned. The sound seemed to startle Kurt and Blaine saw him reel backwards slightly, holding the doorframe for support, out of the corner of his vision. He registered the sinking disappointment that flushed the colour out of Kurt's already deathly pale skin at the realisation that his father couldn't see him. It made him ache to hold his shaking fingers again.

 "Um...hi...I'm Blaine." He stammered, hurrying on, "I'm a friend of Kurt's. Can I come in?"

 At the mention of his son's name, Kurt's father seemed to sink slightly, tiredness replacing the gruff exterior.  He moved aside, a motioned for Blaine to enter. "You better come in then." He said briskly.

 Blaine and Kurt stepped through the threshold and followed the older man into the kitchen.

 "Do you want a coffee? I've just made a pot." He called over his shoulder as they entered and Blaine moved to stand against the wall, awkward and uncomfortable. He nodded slightly.

 "Yeah..er.. that would be great. Thank you Mr Hummel." Kurt's father turned around quickly and looked him square in the face at the mention of his surname, narrowing his eyes as if trying to ascertain how this young man knew his son.

 "Call me Burt." He offered, smiling slightly. "Too many people at that damn hospital call me Mr Hummel." His voice was horse and gruff at the mention of the hospital and all three men winced at the word. "How'd you know Kurt anyways? Have we met?" Burt continued, proffering the cup of coffee and motioning for him to sit down.

 Blaine watched Kurt out of the corner of his eyes, moving soundlessly around the kitchen, stroking his fingers along worktops and pausing to rest when he reached the photographs tacked to the fridge door. He drew in a breath and turned back to Burt, smiling weakly.

 "We..uh...we're dating actually." He stuttered, not quite meeting the older man's eyes. Kurt's gaze flitted to his father, gauging his reaction, a slight flush creeping over his cheeks.

 "Really?" Burt had suddenly sat up a little straighter in his chair and was peering at Blaine over his coffee mug. "Kurt didn't mention he was seeing anybody."

 Blaine looked up, forcing himself to meet the man's gaze and watched as a flash of distrust mingled with what? Slight pride? Washed over Burt's face.  "We were pretty new...only a few weeks really before...before.." Blaine didn't want to say the word ‘accident' but it hung, unspoken in the air between them all. He stared down at his mug again.

 "Where did you meet?" Burt continued, eyes still suspiciously narrowed at the young man in front of him. Blaine felt Kurt's stare boring into the top of his head, willing him to come up with a plausible, convincing lie.

 "At school actually.." Blaine flinched as Kurt face palmed behind his father's head. Burt squinted at the younger man a little further.

 "McKinley? I know all of his friends from school."  He said suspiciously. "Never heard him mention a Blaine though." Panic surged through Blaine as he tried to clarify what he'd meant.

 "No. No. Not high school....Linton....where he works now." He rushed, sighing with relief as Burt's face relaxed slightly at the more convincing explanation.

 "Oh." Was all he said. "I see...so you a teacher too or something?" he added. Blaine thought on his feet, silently thanking his brief foray into acting at NYU in his second year.

 "No. Well sort of." He said, growing in confidence. "I'm a supply actually. Was teaching some of the kids guitar for a few weeks." He took another sip of coffee to prevent having to speak any more for a few minutes, withering under the close scrutiny of the older man. Burt suddenly felt sorry for the small, kind looking stranger hunched across from him. He softened his voice.

 "That's ..uh...good." he said again, slightly embarrassed. "That Kurt found you, I mean. He doesn't really have friends you know...not really since Glee club in High school. No-ones really around anymore. I worry about him."

 Blaine unconsciously looked towards Kurt again. He was staring at his father, tears welling in his eyes at Burt's admission. There was a brief hint of embarrassment on his face when he looked back at Blaine and the other man felt his heart break a tiny bit.

 "He's an amazing person" Blaine heard himself whisper quietly and both the other men's heads shot up to stare at him. Burt took in the small, curly haired man; no, boy, in front of him and felt himself soften towards him. Kurt just stared at Blaine, his eyes open and searching. Squirming under the scrutiny and clearing his throat, Blaine began again, remembering why they were here in the first place.

 "Um..so..I went to visit Kurt in the hospital last night. The school told me about the accident.." He started to explain only to be interrupted by Burt's nod of understanding.

 "So it was you they were talking about." Blaine looked up a little sheepishly. "They said some dark haired man had been seen in Kurt's room when I visited this morning. Hadn't been too pleased at the time." He continued. "but I'm glad you went to see him before..."

 Blaine and Kurt's heads whipped up to stare, slightly panicked at Burt, his unfinished sentence burning the air between them. Burt scratched the back of his neck nervously in a move that mirrored Kurt so exactly from the night before that Blaine faltered in his next question. Kurt's eyes burning into him bought him slamming back into focus.

 "Before what?" he breathed out, his breath ghosting over the coffee making it ripple across the surface of the mug. "Sir...before what?" he implored again, too frightened to meet Kurt's eyes staring wide with panic behind his father.

 Burt shifted off his seat, looking uncomfortably around the room and moving to deposit his mug in the sink. It echoed against the stainless steel and Blaine flinched as the man's fists clutched the edge of the basin, head down.

 Instinctively Kurt moved towards his shaking shoulders, reaching his hand out to wrap around his fathers solid forearms. For a brief moment Blaine thought he saw the muscles under Kurt's hand flex and a tiny shiver ripple down Burt's back but the bigger man released the sink and turned to face him. Kurt made an almost imperceptible move to the side, his head bowed and pain etched across his beautiful features.

"They want to turn off the life support."

 The air was sucked out of the room; dragged out like a vacuum, shrinking the space until all that remained was that one sentence strangling the breath out of Blaine and Kurt. The former, watched helplessly as Kurt desperately grabbed hold of his father's shirt, standing full in front of him and imploring the older man to just "see" him.

 "Dad!" he begged, achingly. "Dad..I'm here. Dad. Dad!" his words ripped out of him, tortured and pleading. "I'm here. Look at me....Can't you feel me? Dad? ...Feel me...please....Dad?"

 He clutched at fabric, skin, muscle; clawing his fingers at his father's body, screaming the words "feel me" over and over, pounding at the body that simply remained passive. Burt stood, unmoved by his son's desperate wails and gut-wrenching sobs.

 Blaine watched as Kurt's heart disintegrated into a thousand grains of sand at his father's feet.

 Ripped in two by the sight of an utterly broken Kurt, Blaine's own tears coursed down his ashen face, dropping off his chin and splashing the formica beneath. Burt was moved by the younger man's extreme reaction, shocked by the clear depths of his feelings towards his son. His own heart constricted at the lost opportunity for love he saw sat small and frail at his kitchen counter. 

 "They can't" Blaine whispered through his trembling breaths. "They can't. He's not gone. I know it. He's here. He's still here...." He watched Kurt move like a ghost, shrinking away from his father and turning to stare out of the window, his back rigid and blocking Blaine. Anger surged through the curly haired man suddenly and he slammed his fist down painfully on the table top. "How can you LET them? How can you just give up on him?" he shouted, his voice bitter between the sobs. 

Burt's face clouded with sorrow and rage, equally as broken as his son who stood unseen beside him.

 "You think I don't feel that? You think I don't know that already?" he yelled, voice jolting through Blaine as if he were being repeatedly punched in the gut. "You think I haven't sat here night after night for three god dammed weeks just thinking about that! Feeling the guilt. How can I do that? How can any father do that?" His volume had decreased but his voice was quivering on the edge of breakdown, the telltale hitch in his sentence that indicated the sobs that threatened to spill out.

 Blaine sat rigid on his stool, guilt contorting his features as the words stabbed at him. He watched the man in front of him age before his eyes, deep lines forming jagged scars across his forehead and skin sunken with the horrors he was living.

 "I've seen this Blaine. I've watched someone shrink away before me as their body rejects the life inside of them.....I've seen this before and it damned near killed me." Burt's voice was hard but controlled as he spoke now. Kurt had turned to watch him again, tracks of tears tracing memories over the contours of his cheeks.

 "I watched Kurt's mother whither away before me until she couldn't take even one breath without it cutting her in two with the pain." He had slumped back on the stool now, exhausted and frail. "She disappeared Blaine and I was left with a shell; an empty shell of a body that used to be my wife." His eyes searched Blaine who was trembling, wracked with empathy as he listened.

 "She'd left her body long before God took the flesh away" he said again, mouth drawn into a tight line. "I buried a hollow cage that had imprisoned my wife for two years"      His voice was steely, teeth gritted against his next words.

 "I won't do that to Kurt. I won't selfishly prolong his life if he's already gone Blaine."

 "But what if he's not gone." Blaine whispered, his own voice tiny in his ears.

 "He's gone. You telling me that when you visited him last night that he was there? You think the Kurt you knew was still in there?...because...because I looked this morning and I couldn't find him....I couldn't find him Blaine."

 His final words caught in his throat and he tugged off his baseball cap, wringing it desperately between his hands. Reaching out his own hands and placing them over Burt's, Blaine hoped Kurt could somehow feel this, the connection, through him. He spoke softly, drained of all fight but needing to try one last time.

 "He's there. He's still there. I felt it. I feel it." He implored "He just needs time to find himself again. To step back into his cage and then smash his way out again."

 Burt smiled, his face softening but not quite allowing full life back into his eyes.

 "I'm glad you came Blaine." he said gruffly. "It's good to know my boy had someone to feel this much for him."

 Blaine squeezed his hand once. "Has" he said definitively. "Has someone to feel for him" His eyes flicked up briefly, searching for Kurt's behind his father's head and the two men shared the briefest moment of shared pain, understanding, before he moved to gather up his bag.

 "I should be going." Blaine said a little more hurriedly, suddenly desperate for air in his lungs. "Just.." he paused then forged onwards, "Just..please...don't do it without telling me. I know you don't know me but...well...please..." he implored weary with emotion.

 Burt only nodded slightly, following Blaine to the door. Kurt trailed behind, limp and battered. They stood on the threshold again as Blaine said his goodbyes. His heart broke off another shard that seemed to stab against his ribs as he watched Kurt lean forward and press the lightest of kisses to his father's cheek before his dejected body turned and walked away.  As Burt reached to close the door, he turned slightly, paused and sighed.

 "Friday." He said brokenly. "If there's no change by Friday then we say our goodbyes"