Chapter 19:

 Music floated around him, soft and delicate in its caresses over his skin. He could feel a thick body behind him, strong arms wrapped around his waist as he relaxed into the soft blanket covering the ground they sat on. Tears were prickling his cheeks as he allowed the music to waft over his body and seep into him.

 **

 A figure pressed him into the wall of his apartment, whispering kisses across his neck, teeth scraping over his skin and biting sharply as they tugged his bottom lip into their mouth. Tongues moving together, desperate and searching and his own voice dragged out of him in ragged breaths as he pleaded to ‘feel' through the aching want and need.

 **

 Standing alone in the hospital room, staring down at his own inert body as it lay trapped on the bed amongst the wires and beeps and hissing apparatus.

 Each flash of memory surged through him like electricity over the next week. Some forged themselves into his brain while he was mid conversation with his father; Kurt left staring into the distance as if in a seizure while electrical currents pricked images into his head. Others woke him in the middle of the night, gasping and achingly hard as he felt the imprint of skin against skin and a burning throb deep inside him. Each one left him trembling, disorientated and boneless.

 He couldn't describe the feeling to his father, no matter how many times the older man had begged him to talk him through them. They made no sense to Kurt and would make even less sense to Burt; besides, some were so vivid they spread a deep flush across Kurt's cheeks as he could literally feel the sweat slicked body against him.

 It was always Blaine.

 Every time they hit, the curly haired, honeyed eyed face would be there. The tanned skin brushing against Kurt's own pale flesh and his hand clutching the other man's as if his life depended on the connection, on their conjoined limbs. He'd only seen Blaine the once in real life, when he'd woken up in the hospital for the first time and yet he couldn't erase the man from his head. He invaded everywhere.

 But what was more surprising to Kurt was that he didn't begrudge the presence; he didn't understand it, it didn't fit in his established reality and yet Blaine's face had become comforting to the other man. When he woke from the visions now, he felt a warmth settling through him that couldn't be explained but that soothed his racing heart and wrapped itself around him like the same strong arms he'd been dreaming of. It wasn't just images now. Kurt was starting to feel.

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 Kurt hugged his knees up underneath him as he curled into the corner of the sofa and cradled his mug of coffee. It was Saturday afternoon and he could hear the sounds of children playing football in the yard at the back of the apartment block, their giggles and calls drifting through the window intermittently. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the calm and familiarity of his home. His body had finally stopped aching and his bruised ribs no longer hurt quite so much when he breathed; it was the first day when Kurt had felt truly comfortable back in his own flat surrounded by his own things.

 His mind wondered back to the weeks running up to the accident. He could remember them clearly, even if he was unwilling to completely drag up those feelings again. He thought of the night before the crash, when he'd stared at himself in the mirror, blank and dull eyes watching him back. He'd listlessly drawn patterns into the condensation on the glass, unconsciously tracing the outline of his face and doodling a down-turned mouth over the childish impression before swiping his hand across it aggressively. Kurt wasn't sure what rock-bottom was but he let his eyes flutter closed at the realisation that that night may well have been it for him.

 And then the truck had hit him.

 And nothing seemed quite the same now. Kurt had started to realise the desperate feelings of loneliness that had plagued him in the months since Christmas, no longer preyed on his mind. He was still alone, in body and home but something had settled over his heart since he woke up and it no longer felt locked.

 It felt protected.

 Taking another sip of coffee, Kurt squished further into the cushions and suddenly felt something prodding his lower back with a sharp edge. Reaching behind him and pushing his fingers down the side of the couch, Kurt felt the book that had jabbed him. He pulled it out quizzically before registering what it was. It thudded into his lap as he dropped it in shock. His journal lay open, the pages flapping slightly in the breeze from the window.

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 Blaine raked his eyes around the room doing a final check that he'd picked up everything that gave any hint of him, before Kurt arrived that afternoon. The boxes were finally all shoved into the car and the living room was once again silent and bare. Blaine laughed without humour as he registered the emptiness of the flat. He'd been erased...yet again.

 Kneeling down, he shoved his hand under the sofa cushions, feeling for anything they may have left down the back of them after the carpet picnic the week before. His fingers brushed against something solid and he scrambled to gain purchase, pulling the object out. The black journal stared back at him, heavy in his hand.

 Sighing, Blaine slid his fingers between the pages and opened it, feeling his breath hitch at the now familiar curl of Kurt's handwriting. He'd opened it at one of the quotes and his eyes filled with tears as he read the inscription again,

 ‘Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'

 The words seemed to jolt into his brain and he felt a strange determination wash over him, mingled with the empty ache he'd become so used to over the last few days. Turning to the last page, Blaine reached for a pen.

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 Hitching his breath at the realisation of what was between those pages, Kurt reached tentatively for it. He knew what was written there of course, but the diary had been like a project for him; a depressing collection of his increasingly dark thoughts over several months and the fragile man wasn't sure he could delve back into those pages and revisit that part of himself. Knowing that true closure would only come from confrontation, Kurt pulled the book closer and flipped to the first page.

 Tears had filled his eyes as he read the final lines of the broken man he no longer recognised. The lyrics of the song on the last page resounded round his head and another memory inked into his conscious once again, not sharp or sudden but just flowing over him like the melody; his own mouth forming the words and breathing them into another pair of lips as he covered the millimetres between them. Blaine's face hovered before him, clear and distinct and reassuring. Kurt's eyes were closed and he could actually feel the breath of the other man whispering over his cheeks in the gentle hum of the afternoon. The air crackled.

 Pulling himself back from the fantasy, Kurt looked once again at the page before moving to close the book. His fingers caught on the corner of the back page and the journal fell open.

 The paper was inscribed with a different hand. Blue ink danced across the lines, unfamiliar and yet so distinct. Allowing his eyes to follow the curled lines of font, Kurt read the final quote:

 "Memories aren't stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, but in the spaces between any given two people."