It was something so small. He knew it was something small. But when it's nearly light outside and you haven't slept through the night, everything seems magnified.

You've reached the voicemail of Kurt Hummel—

The cool, calm voice of the automated lady rung through the room like a shot from a gun. Blaine bit down on his knuckle and tried again, ripping tear-stained eyes from the bed sheets and pointing them to the ceiling, as if he could see into the heavens beyond. Under the dwindling winks of stars, the house itself was as quiet as most nights; the water-wash of 6 o'clock light barely silhouetted his curtains and offered the room no warmth. The emptiness of his home seemed to permeate the walls and sink into Blaine's very bloodstream. It ran parallel to his loneliness.

You've reached the voicemail of—

A choked back sob that echoed off the walls. Blaine curled up tighter, back to his headboard, and buried his head in his knees. It was only a nightmare – a stupid, terrifying nightmare – but he needed to hear him, to speak to him and hear him reply if only to stop his heart beating so quickly. The dial tone burned holes in his eardrums and he pressed it ever closer to his ear, counting, praying, hoping.

The call was picked up on the last ring.

“Hello?” murmured a groggy voice at the end of the line.

“Oh my god.” The phrase fell off his tongue and his breath left him in one relieved wave. “Kurt. You're- Um, you're alright, aren't you?”

There was a rustling of sheets and a noncommittal mmph. “I won't be if I don't catch up on this lost beauty sleep,” he told him on a yawn. “It's 6:03 in the morning, B.”

Blaine allowed his eyes to close while his fiancé spoke. “Y-Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have woke you up, I…” A line appeared between his brows when he shook his head. “I'll let you go.”

“Blaine?” The boy could hear the sleep ebbing from Kurt's voice. “Is something wrong?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I'm fine. I am.” Blaine sighed, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “I just…had a weird dream.”

“Oh? Talk to me about it.”

“I don't want to keep you up—“

“Blaine.”

There was a silence where Blaine worried his lip, hesitation apparent in the air. Then, he spoke quietly, “We were getting chased through this giant building. It had, like, a million doors and hallways that all looked identical and every time we thought we found an exit, it just looped back into the corridors again.” He sniffed, wiping any leftover tear tracks from his cheeks. “I don't know what it was, but I could hear its footsteps, and when we got separated, they stopped and…and I heard you screaming. I heard you but I couldn't find you, and then- and then there was blood, on the walls and the floor, and something grabbed me.” In the static silence of the phone call, Blaine heard his voice shake. “It felt real, Kurt.”

“I know,” came Kurt's voice, soft. It sunk through Blaine's skin in gentle, soothing brush strokes. “But it wasn't, Blaine. It was just a dream. I'm completely fine.”

“I know you are. I'm sorry,” Blaine mumbled, shaking his head. “I got scared and panic-dialled you.”

“Don't worry about it. If someone's going to wake me up at this time, I'd rather it'd be you.” Blaine felt the smile in Kurt's voice and let his own lips curl up at the corners. “Do you think you can fall asleep again?”

Blaine debated it in his mind. “Maybe. Could you…” He let his question fall away. “No, forget it, actually.”

“No, hey, don't do that,” Kurt scolded, and Blaine couldn't help but smile wider at the playful firmness of his tone. “Finish your sentence.”

“I…Well, I was going to ask you to stay on the phone,” Blaine said quietly, slowly easing himself back under his covers and onto his side. “Hearing you breathe is calming, you know?”

There was a huff of breath down the line that almost sounded like a laugh. “Sorry,” Kurt apologised after. “You're just…incredibly cheesy. It's almost inspiring how cheesy you are. But yes,” he cooed, and the line crackled as Kurt laid down, too. “I'll put my phone next to me and, um, breathe for you. For me mainly, obviously, but also for you.”

Blaine turned his head into the pillow and switched the call to loudspeaker. “Thank you, Kurt,” he murmured, setting the phone down on the sheets next to him and closing his eyes. “I love you.”

“And I love you, too,” Kurt replied. “Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

A silence filled up the house again, but the heaviness had left the air, replaced by steady breathing and rhythmic heartbeats. Blaine lay under the canopy of early daylight as it fizzled away into his distant dreams and, somewhere lost in the bright lights New York city, he knew Kurt was laying with him.