It happens when they’re still at least a half hour outside Lima. Kurt is humming along to his Wicked playlist, Blaine dozing with his head resting against the passenger side window of the Navigator. They’re going on the thirteenth hour of a drive made longer by the spotty snowstorms and bad road conditions they’ve hit between New York and Ohio, and Kurt wants nothing more than to sink into his bed and sleep for a day.

He sneaks a glance at his boyfriend, smiling as he takes in Blaine’s open mouth, the way his head rolls against the window when Kurt hits a bump. They’d both made it out of Ohio, finally, Blaine coming out to meet him in New York after the break they’d taken during Kurt’s first year had made them both miserable. They’ve had their problems, sure, but the distance and the fact that Blaine goes to school at nearly the opposite end of the island means they’ve learned to work through them. As it is, Blaine’s planning to spend the holiday season at the Hummel house, his own house too empty and uninviting

It’s as Kurt’s turning back to face the road fully that everything seems to go wrong at once. He feels the car hit a slick patch on the road, and everything’s suddenly out of his control. Kurt wrestles with the wheel, his knuckles white as he attempts in vain to keep the car straight. Everything he’s ever learned about winter driving flashes through his mind, but he can’t remember-is he supposed to brake? Put his foot on the gas? Do anything?

He ends up braking, which is the wrong move. The car fishtails, Kurt losing all control as they spin out across the ice. He keeps his hands on the wheel, keeps his eyes straight ahead, and silently hopes against hope that they’ll come to a stop on their own. They’re not so lucky-the car comes to rest against the fence that runs alongside the road on their right, and Kurt momentarily whites out as he feels, more than he sees, the airbags deploying as the car finally settles.

When he comes to less than a minute later, the car is hissing and the airbags are already deflating. He takes quick stock of his body, noting that, aside from a vague soreness in his neck he feels mostly okay. A quick glance over at Blaine reveals that his boyfriend hasn’t been quite so lucky. The glass of the window is splintered where Blaine’s head must have made contact, and there’s blood streaking down the side of Blaine’s face.

Kurt curses under his breath, unbuckles his own seatbelt with difficulty and reaches over the center console to rest his fingers on Blaine’s carotid. The pulse beneath his fingers is steady and strong, and a quick survey of Blaine’s body shows no other visible damage. Even as Kurt’s dropping his hand to Blaine’s shoulder Blaine is blinking awake, groaning in a mixture of pain and confusion.

“Kurt? Wha-”

“We hit black ice, spun out into a fence. I think we’re mostly okay though, are you-is there anything besides your head?”

Blaine pauses, biting his lip as he does his own survey. He goes to shake his head, thinks better of it and answers verbally.

“Just my head. Kurt-where are we?”

“Back road outside Lima. I think the car’s in bad shape, though. I’m going to get out and check.” Kurt digs in the console for a moment, producing a stack of napkins that he keeps in there for spills. He reaches across, presses them to the cut on Blaine’s temple and places Blaine’s own hand over them, pressing down.

"Keep pressure on that. I think you’re fine, but I wouldn’t be shocked if you have some kind of concussion. I’ll be right back, okay? See if you can get cell reception out here.”

Blaine pulls his phone from his back pocket, careful to keep his right hand pressed to his own forehead as he does so. He frowns, thumbing over the screen before looking up at Kurt.

“I’ve got nothing.”

“Keep trying. I’m going to check the car.”

He pulls his peacoat tight around his torso as he steps into the biting wind, around to the front of the car. Kurt swears quietly as he takes stock of the damage-they’d hit the fence more or less head on, and the front of the car is crumpled, faint curls of smoke rising into the freezing air. It’s definitely not driveable in its current state, and he’s going to have to put in some serious work in to get his dad to help him fix it.

Sighing, Kurt gets back into the driver’s seat, pulling his own phone out as he shuts the door behind him. The temperature in the car has already dropped several degrees as a result of the heat malfunctioning, and he can see Blaine trembling finely when he glances over to check on him.

“You still doing okay?”

“The bleeding’s slowed, yeah. It’s just-it’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, the car’s done for until we can get it towed. I’m not surprised the heat cut out. Do you have an extra coat?”

“Just this one,” Blaine replies, drawing his Northface tighter around his body. His heavier coats are tucked in the closet in his room, left there in favor of space. He almost wishes he’d brought them out to New York in August, as silly as it had seemed at the time. The cold is already seeping through his thin layers and he’s not sure if his shivering is a product of that or the pain radiating from his head.

“Did you get any service yet?”

“Still searching. You?”

“I’ve got one. I’m going to try to call my dad.”

The call drops three times before Kurt gives up, depositing the phone in the cup holder with a groan.

“Nothing. This sucks.

“You’re telling me,” Blaine laughs, somehow finding humor in the situation despite his pounding headache and the blood coating his fingertips, the tremors wracking his body. He's not sure if he actually finds this funny, though, or if he's laughing merely for Kurt's benefit.

“Someone will come by,” Kurt states, putting more confidence in the statement than he actually feels. “Someone will stop.”

Blaine accepts the lie at face value, let's his head rest agains the head rest of the seat even as Kurt tries to connect a call again.

- - - -

“Blaine?”

It’s been awhile since the crash now, and their car is still the only one on the road. Kurt’s starting to feel the effects of the cold, seeping into his bones through his heavy coat. He’s pulled a few blankets from their bags, draped them mostly around Blaine who’s shivering full-force now, his lips tinged blue and his breathing too shallow for Kurt’s liking.

“Are you awake?”

Blaine moans, rolls his head on the car seat to face Kurt. He’s having trouble opening his eyes, but at least the bleeding from his head has ceased, the sticky liquid congealing along the side of Blaine’s face.

“‘M tired.”

Kurt pays closer attention then, notices his own teeth chattering as he faces Blaine fully. They’re both shivering now, the cold all-encompassing but Kurt doesn’t know what else to do. Neither of them has had reliable cell-service, and there hasn’t been a single car on the road since they crashed. Kurt frowns, reaching across the console to entangle Blaine’s fingers with his.

“Are you cold?”

“N-no-not really. I just-I wanna go home, Kurt. Can we go home?”

It’s not the first time he’s asked-Blaine’s slurring his words and repeating himself in a way that makes Kurt incredibly nervous, and he keeps asking Kurt how long until they can go home. Kurt flashes back to high school first aid classes, cataloguing Blaine’s symptoms one by one as he attempts to remember-lethargy, confusion, cyanosis, shivering-he thinks Blaine might be showing the beginnings of hypothermia (and Kurt wonders if he himself isn’t far behind), but he’s having trouble remembering what to do.

“I’m trying to get us home, Blaine. I don’t have cell service, neither do you. I don’t-I don’t know what else to do Blaine.”

“‘mmmm head hurts, Kurt,” Blaine replies, rolling his head back towards the window in distress. Kurt’s really worried now, watching Blaine slowly deteriorate in front of him. They need help-they needed help hours ago but he’s not sure how much longer Blaine can hold out like this (how much longer he can hold out like this).

“Hold on,” Kurt murmurs, sliding across the console into the seat with Blaine. He finally locks onto something his required training had taught him, and realizes he needs to conserve Blaine’s body heat, his own body heat. He’s not sure the best way to do this, but vague memories of giggling about having to get naked with girls is what makes him remember. It seems fairly stupid-taking off layers in an attempt to conserve heat-but he's definitely warmer than Blaine is at the moment, and it's the best he can offer.

“I’m going to take your shirt off, Blaine,” he says with no prelude, causing Blaine to blink up at him as Kurt slips his arms around Blaine’s torso.

“….what?”

“We gotta get you warm, and this is the easiest way, okay? Trust me?”

Blaine’s too out of it to really process, but he lifts his arms complacently as Kurt peels off the Northface and Blaine’s two layers of shirts. Kurt drops them on the floor, reaching to shuck his own layers before pulling Blaine into his arms again, chest-to-chest. Kurt slips his own coat over the two of them, pulling up the few blankets they’d managed to scrap together until they're huddled under as much warmth as they can muster. He holds Blaine close, their breath mingling as they breathe the same air, snuggled as closely as possible to get as warm as they can.

Kurt keeps his arms wrapped around Blaine’s back, holding the smaller boy to him tightly. He frowns as he feels Blaine trembling in his arms, the tremors occasionally strong enough to unsettle Kurt in the seat. Kurt himself is slowly giving into his own shivering, but it’s clear that Blaine is quickly deteriorating-Kurt’s almost sure that’s because of the head wound, but he’s no trained professional and can’t make an official assessment.

Kurt’s not sure what he’s supposed to do next-it’s clear that both he and Blaine need help, and quickly, but they’re in the middle of nowhere. He keeps trying his cell (no longer attempting to reach Burt but now 9-1-1), but to no avail. So Kurt settles for holding Blaine close, their bare torsos sliding against each other every time Blaine shifts fitfully in his arms, but sensuality is the farthest thing from Kurt’s mind as he strokes a hand up Blaine’s back. He’s acutely aware how dangerous their situation is, how close they both are to falling asleep and never waking up. Blaine’s been teetering on the edge of unconsciousness for awhile now, and Kurt thinks he should keep Blaine awake, somehow, but his thoughts are muddled and he’s not sure what to do. Something far in the back of his mind is screaming at him that he should keep Blaine talking, but he himself is having so much trouble forming coherent thought that it flits away before he can give it pause.

They stay like that for close to an hour, Kurt holding Blaine to his chest as his own breathing slows, becomes more shallow. Blaine’s fully unconscious by the time Kurt can finally (finally) connect to the 9-1-1 operator, explain their situation and plead for help. Blaine’s chest is sliding against his own, dry and rough because there’s nothing between them besides the cold-Blaine’s barely breathing and it seems even his shivering has died down, his body trying to conserve as much energy as possible. Kurt’s shivering more than enough for both of them, clutching Blaine to his chest and chattering their details over the phone before the call cuts out, the service dying.

He only hopes it’s enough, because he doesn’t want to die like this, doesn’t want Blaine to die like this. He waits as long as he thinks he can, finally succumbing to the pull of unconsciousness as the lights of the ambulance appear in his rearview mirror.

- - - -

Blaine wakes to a steady beeping by his head and a warm sensation in his arm. He experimentally wiggles his fingers, finds them restricted between someone else’s. He pulls himself out of the fog of unconsciousness, blinks fully awake before his eyes rest on Kurt’s form at his side. The other boy is asleep in his chair, an IV of his own running into his arm, suspended above the chair he’s seated in.

Blaine tightens his fingers, draws Kurt out of sleep and into full consciousness.

“You’re awake,” Kurt says after he focuses on Blaine, a gentle smile curling at his lips.

“It would seem. What-”

“We wrecked on the way home. Do you-”

“I remember being in the car. How did we-”

“I finally got through to 9-1-1. The found us eventually.”

“Are you-”

“I got off easy. Some whiplash, mild hypothermia. You were a lot worse. You scared me for awhile there, Blaine.”

“I scared-”

“You’ve got a grade 2 concussion. You’ve been asleep for awhile now, and the head injury-compounded with the hypothermia we were all worried for awhile.”

“But-”

“But you seem okay, and no one seems to think there will be major consequences. They put you on warm fluids and had you on a ventilator for a coupe hours after as you got in and reversed the hypothermia pretty quickly. Your core temperature is still lower than they'd like-none of them are very subtle when they talk about you, but they said you’re lucky. That we’re both lucky.”

“Lucky,” Blaine echoes, processing the sentiment in his head. His skull feels like it’s about to pound open, but other than that he feels relatively normal. He can tell the fluids entering his vein through the IV are warmed, by the flush he feels spreading from the point of insertion, and he must be on some kind of mild painkiller judging by the haziness edging his vision, but he feels generally okay. He supposes they both are lucky, because Kurt doesn’t seem to be injured and he himself doesn’t feel all that badly, so he grins slyly at his boyfriend and tugs him closer by their entwined fingers.

“I guess we are,” he whispers, pressing his lips to Kurt’s. “I seem to remember some slightly kinky cuddling in the car, though.”

Kurt pulls back, feigning indignant surprise.

“You would’ve died, Blaine. I’m not that easy-you usually have to take me out to get my shirt off, but you were on the edge of-”

Blaine cuts off any further protest with another kiss to Kurt’s lips, and Kurt relaxes onto the bed between Blaine’s legs, curling their fingers together when they break apart.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Kurt whispers, smiling against Blaine’s lips even as he remembers the urgent press of flesh against flesh, the sheer difference between then and now. Blaine's skin is covered by a scratchy hospital gown where's Kurt's own torso is clad in a worn McKinley Titans t-shirt. Kurt thinks he might prefer this to the desperate clinginess of the night before, but he doesn't voice that sentiment.

“I’m glad you are, too,” Blaine returns, sealing their mouths together and pulling Kurt against him.

They came close to the edge the night before, and Blaine knows that Kurt must be harboring a secret fear about what could have happened. But they both survived, and they both made it out of the car, more or less alive and whole.

So Blaine can’t help but hold his boyfriend to him, unknowingly mirroring the position the paramedics had found them in the night before. It’s not the ideal start to Christmas break-but Blaine would give up everything to stay in Kurt’s arms like this forever.