Chapter 5

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

 Blaine had yet to even attach the clock to the wall, so little time had he actually been in this apartment. It leant against the mantle, resting precariously on the wooden fire surround in the living room. It seemed to be mocking Blaine now; every second another reproach for how little he'd managed to solve in the last 67 minutes.

His beer lay unfinished where he'd abandoned it earlier and the chips were gradually softening in the discarded bowl. He needed Kurt to wake up. Needed this whole thing explained to him. And yet he knew Kurt had no answers. The man was just as confused as he was; more so even.

Tick, Tick, Tick.

 The TV. had moved on from the football game long ago and now some audience participation Psychic network show seemed to be on. Blaine watched as an overly large woman in her mid fifties waddled on to the stage clutching some dog-eared photograph and sat down, face hopeful in front of the host. A hush descended on the audience as they waited for the Medium to begin making his connection to the photograph, now blown up on a large screen behind the woman's head.

Blaine shook his head in annoyance at the woman and the audience, clearly being taken for mugs by the over enthusiastic ‘Psychic' now waving his arms across the stage in a dramatic and grand gesture. Cynicism. That had always been Blaine's thing. Scepticism and logic and rational thought. Nothing defied explanation, you just had to root out the problem and solve it.

 The woman on the screen was crying now and stroking her fingers down the host's face in an attempt to connect to her dead husband. Blaine looked away, unsure why he was getting so frustrated with the programme.

The movement meant his eyes lighted on the open doorway to his bedroom and he could make out the steady rise and fall of the blanket under which Kurt lay. He should drive to the hospital, he knew that. See for himself what Jane was talking about. But he knew he couldn't leave Kurt and a part of him already knew what he would find there anyway.

He couldn't bring himself to allow the thought to properly form in his head but he knew it was there, drifting around in the place where Blaine put everything he didn't want to accept was true. It was in good company with his first boyfriend's cheating on him at college and the reason's behind the attack at the Sadie Hawkin's dance at school when he was fifteen.

 Suddenly the air in the apartment seemed to shift and Blaine sensed a more certain movement in the next room. Trailing his eyes on the door again, Blaine saw Kurt standing against the frame, eyes sleep groggy still and hair in even more disarray than before.

Kurt stretched his neck, the movement making Blaine's eyes trail involuntarily along the sinewy tendons in the delicate skin there. He swallowed hard, his gaze following the line of Kurt's jaw up his throat to rest on his full, slightly swollen pink lips. He felt Kurt's eyes on him and guiltily dragged his gaze away to meet those blue eyes again; eyes that seemed to hold a slightly knowing grin in them at having noticed Blaine's observations. Blaine cleared his throat.

 "Better?" he enquired as Kurt moved into the living area, noticing how comfortable he looked in the apartment. Kurt's eyes fell to the bowl of chips balanced precariously on the sofa and the empty beer can sat on the coffee table and he tutted as he sat down, falling against the leather. 

"You do realise that sofa is a one off. It was upholstered especially for me with that fabric. Fabric, I might add, that was ridiculously expensive." His voice held a certain measure of sass but without malice. Blaine grabbed at the bowl and can and jumped up, fussing about with patting down the cushions and wiping crumbs on the floor.

"Sorry. Sorry" he said as he offered a lopsided smile towards Kurt. "I'm used to living like a student."

 Kurt waved his hand at him dismissively and motioned for him to sit down. "It doesn't matter I guess" he sighed. "It's not really my place to say now is it I suppose?" At the last line Kurt's head ducked down and he stared at his hands again. Blaine noticed the quiver in his voice and reached out to touch his hands, stilling the fingers that were worrying the knuckles repeatedly.

 "No look, this is still your home..... I guess. I'm just subletting while you're in the hospital..." His voice trailed off as he reached the elephant in the room between them. Kurt looked up carefully.

 "Did you call them?" he whispered, not meeting Blaine's eyes. Sighing, Blaine looked down at their still clasped hands and shifted slightly to face the other man on the sofa.

 "Yeah I did." He didn't say anything more, just watched for Kurt's reaction. The young man had started to shiver beneath his fingers and Blaine realised that Kurt knew something about this situation. Something he was unable to admit or offer up as any sort of explanation. Blaine continued gently.

"I spoke to a woman called Jane. She was up in the ICU unit. I pretended to be your brother actually." Blaine rubbed the back of his neck in a display of his embarrassment at the lengths he had gone to discover the truth about all of this. Kurt barely registered the admittance of the lie, merely looked up to search Blaine's own hazel eyes for some kind of answer.

 "Kurt...." There was a question in Blaine's voice that he hadn't intended to come out but the slight intonation at the end of Kurt's name made the other man shuffle uncomfortably. He kept his head down and his tongue darted out to wet his dry lips. Blaine didn't want to recognise how much the unconscious movement had sent a tingling sensation straight through him.

"You know don't you?"

It was whispered, barely audible, but the light, high notes of his breath passed across the space between them. Blaine said nothing, just squeezed Kurt's hands tighter in a silent acknowledgement that he knew something. What that was though, Blaine had yet to make sense of.

"I'm still in the hospital aren't I?"

Blaine nodded slightly. "Jane said you were...are... in a coma." He stumbled over the phrasing not knowing what to actually say. "She told me she'd checked on you at a time when I could see you lying in my bed."

He paused to look Kurt firmly in the eyes. "Kurt..? How can you be sleeping in my bed but also lying in a coma in Columbus ICU?

His voice was gentle, no accusation but the words made Kurt flinch. Blaine watched, feeling an aching in his chest as the beautiful blue eyes pooled with water and a tear slid down the porcelain skin of Kurt's cheek. He squeezed the pale fingers tighter and started up the smooth circular pattern he had been drawing earlier around the soft sensitive skin of his palm.

"I saw myself still there." Kurt began his voice a strange breathy quiver. "When I was in the room. I could see myself lying on the bed. Tubes and wires and beeping monitors and pale skin and cuts and grazes and bruises everywhere..."

He trailed off, his breath hitching slightly as a sob escaped his dry lips. Blaine said nothing; only held his gaze waiting for the younger man to continue.

 Regulating his breathing again, Kurt pushed onwards, searching for words that were not there.

"I...I remember turning my back on myself. Just walking out into the corridor of the hospital. No one stopped me. No one did anything. I just walked out. I came here." He stopped on the last words, his voice barely a whisper in the silent room. Only the rhythmic rotations of the fan ahead could be heard as the air hummed around them, electric.

Blaine knew it was his turn to speak but could think of nothing. What Kurt had told him defied belief and yet he accepted it. Too many of the pieces of this randomly designed jigsaw puzzle were falling into chaotic place and his mind throbbed with the effort to make sense of it. Kurt placed his other hand over Blaine's gently rotating fingers to stop the movement and implored him to look at him. 

 "What is happening to me Blaine?" 

The ache in his voice and the strangled sob that accompanied it knotted Blaine's stomach into a tight fist that seemed to slam up into his heart. With words failing him Blaine did the only thing he could think of. He closed what little distance was left between them and wrapped his arms around the shaking form, practically dragging the fragile boy into his lap and stroking his hand through the soft hair at the back of Kurt's neck.

He felt the muscles in his neck tighten under Blaine's administrations momentarily and then he felt him sigh, letting all fight evaporate out of him as a strangled gasp broke free and he clutched at Blaine's shirt. His body wracked with sobs as he curled himself tighter into Blaine's lap, nuzzling his neck against the curls that had sprung up after the steam from the shower.

Blaine just held him, gently rocking them together and running his fingers up and down the slender bones of Kurt's spine as the atmosphere thrummed on.

_________________________________________________________________________

The evening was edging further into night when Kurt gently uncoiled himself from Blaine's arms. Looking out of the window, Blaine could see the inky black sky sweeping across Columbus and the silence of the hour descended.

Kurt's body shifted and Blaine released his arms from the cocoon surrounding the boy. He felt his hair brush against his lips as he turned his head to look up at Blaine and Blaine's breath caught in his throat at the subtle change in atmosphere. The air felt charged suddenly with an electric current as he looked down into the still wet blue eyes and the skin on his arms prickled as ripples of excitement danced through his limbs.

They paused; looking at each other. Kurt's breath ghosted over Blaine's lips. His eyes flicked down as Blaine's tongue darted out to wet the sensitive skin and an unconscious groan was breathed out into the air between them. Neither knew who had made the sound but it stirred something in both men as the air crackled.

 Their lips met as one, both having moved at the same time, bridging the gap between them. Kurt's lips whispered over Blaine's in the gentlest touch that rendered the other man mute. His arms remained stiffly by his side as his brain seemed to momentarily short circuit, forgetting to connect the nerves in his lips to the signals in his head.

 Kurt pushed against him further, increasing the pressure of his lips against Blaine's and gently swiped his tongue across the sensitive skin of his lower lip. A broken, guttural sound groaned out of Blaine's mouth as Kurt took the opportunity of the parted lips to lick his way inside. Their tongues slid against each other, both men battling to invade the wet heat of each other's mouths and Blaine surged their bodies together.

His hand clutched at the back of Kurt's slender neck, winding through his damp hair and tugging lightly on it, almost as it trying to crawl his way inside the other man's skin. Kurt had pushed his chest flush against the solid muscles of Blaine and was now easing the other man back slightly, pressing his body into the couch cushions.

 Blaine couldn't breathe. Couldn't form a single coherent thought in his head while Kurt's body pressed against him; while his lips were mouthing over the sensitive skin of his neck, kissing behind his ear and nibbling on the stubble that rasped against the other man's soft, white cheek.

Somewhere in the back of his conscious he was aware that this was wrong; that he was taking advantage of a vulnerable man; that he was allowing a near stranger to rut against him and swallow his breath. But as Kurt's lips found their way back to his mouth again, he heard himself moan into the surging heat and he knew that reason had long since left him.

 "Kurt...." Blaine groaned as the other man's hands slid to his waist, stroking the skin above his belt that had been exposed by his rucked up shirt. "We should... nngh" his normal eloquence had deserted him and any thought of forming coherent sentences was lost as he felt a hand palming him through his jeans.

He was rock hard. Painfully uncomfortably hard and he clawed at Kurt's back, gasping against his lips. Kurt hadn't said anything, simply moaned against Blaine's neck and pressed his forehead into his chest as he panted above him.

He moved his hand to wind back into Blaine's curls again and Blaine was embarrassed by the needy whine that escaped his lips. The hand was replaced by Kurt laying his full length on top of Blaine and rucking his hips up sharply against his cock, straining in his too tight jeans.

The electric jolt of the connection sent some form of signal to Blaine's brain and he gasped, dragged himself out from underneath the exquisite heat above him, pushing against Kurt's chest.

 "No Kurt. We can't...." He was panting, struggling to drag some air back into his lungs and willing the ache in his jeans to calm down. Kurt was wrecked, laying splayed out on his front, fists curled against the cushion as he gradually levered himself up and backward to a sitting position. He looked up then and Blaine felt a tightening in his chest as he saw the hurt that momentarily flashed there before being replaced by a cocky smirk.

"Yeah, I guess that's not the best way to solve this...this..." he searched for the words again, his voice coming out breathy and light. "Well whatever THIS is.." he laughed a little awkwardly and rubbed at the back of his neck.

 Blaine had finally got some control of himself and once again sat down next to the other man, careful not to sit close enough to touch. He couldn't trust his body not to react again at the electricity of Kurt's skin. It had been a while and Blaine was embarrassed by how readily his body had responded to the feeling of another man against him. He didn't think he'd be able to muster the willpower to stop a second time.

 "I think we...um...just got carried away with the weirdness of all this maybe." He coughed slightly, trying to clear his throat, trying to convince himself that what he'd just said was true. He couldn't look at Kurt, didn't want to see what was going on behind those sparkling eyes. Kurt needed his help here; not some horny guy living in his flat and over complicating things.

The air still crackled with tension and neither man moved for a while, both lost in their own private struggles. Finally Kurt shifted to look at Blaine and quirked an eyebrow at him with a tiny smile playing across his lips.

 "I guess my coma body jumped in then before my brain could." He laughed slightly and knocked his shoulder against Blaine's "Come on. I think we both need some air and I think I need your help." His voice was still strangely light and breathy but he seemed calmer now; more in control. Blaine breathed in one more time and turned to smile at the man beside him.

 "I'm at your service" he said smiling. If both men noticed the double meaning dancing around the words between them, then neither had the energy or inclination to acknowledge it.