Fic: Inverted Dreaming 1/4
Title: Inverted Dreaming
Artist: mizuirokandeya
Author: water_nix
Rating (art/fic if different): G/PG-13
Word Count: 18 500
Warnings (if any): mentions of bullying
Fic Summary: After years of hearing but never seeing, a way to the other side presents itself and Blaine leaps in without even thinking twice. On the other side, Kurt is counting down the days until he can escape, and wishing for a friend. Ultimately the decision lies with Blaine: stay with the source of his longing, or return to his own reality and his own family.
Written for the Kurt/Blaine reversebang. Many thanks to Keri for beta reading, and also to Allie, Mardy and Jeanne for being around to read things over and listen to me whine. Love you girls! And Mizu, for the lovely, inspiring art. I hope I did it justice! It was a pleasure to work with you. <3
You can find Mizu's art here. Please go give her some love!
Blaine is almost eight years old when they move into the house. He spends his first night in his new room curled into a ball on the bed, the boxes casting creepy shadows across the walls. He hears a faint, far-off crying that makes his heart beat fast and his tummy feel strange, and all he can do is lie on his bed with wide eyes and pretend it isn't there. Blaine is mostly good at pretending, but not on this night.
He wakes up in the morning with purplish marks under tired eyes and tear tracks dried on his cheeks.
The crying carries on for many nights - quiet and broken and hollow. Blaine doesn't know where it's coming from, but he wishes he could stop it. Not because it frightens him, though it does, but because whoever is sobbing sounds so utterly heartbroken that he wants them to feel better and not have to cry anymore.
* * *
Sometimes Blaine hears music. He recognizes it in parts - a chorus here, a melody there - but most of the time it is unfamiliar. Except, of course, for when it's The Beatles. At those times he can't help but hum along or sing quietly under his breath. Maybe his house is haunted, or maybe he's slowly going crazy, but hearing The Long and Winding Road tinkling through his ceiling is kind of nice. Especially when it's being sung by The Voice.
Because sometimes the music is accompanied by singing - a soft, delicate voice like bells that makes Blaine feel strange and haunted and lonely in a way that's different than usual. He imagines it is what angels must sound like, or maybe ghosts. He crawls under the blankets of his bed, huddles in to listen, though it makes him sad and at times afraid. He wonders if the person with the voice of an angel died in his house, maybe right there in his room, and is haunting him now. But if they wanted him to leave, why would they sing so beautifully? Surely they would shriek and throw his things around and leave bloody handprints and old creepy dolls, but instead he gets songs. He supposes that must mean they want him to stay. Maybe the ghost's loneliness is what makes Blaine feel so lonely - thoughts and feelings and despair leeching into him, making him tear up and his eyelids droop and his heart hurt.
* * *
At the age of fourteen, Blaine is grown up enough to turn aside the idea of ghosts. He still hears the music, the singing, the crying, and sometimes just talking - the sweet voice he's grown attached to after nearly seven years.
When he gets home from school one day, tears streaming and nose running, red-faced and shaking from the tauntings, there is something on the end of his bed.
He spots it as he's peeling off his soiled shirt - condoms filled with grape juice, what geniuses - and he pauses, one arm in and one arm out.
It's a sheet of stationary - heavy stock, cream with a black damask pattern around the edges. In the centre written in a loopy, black script are the words:
Somebody need me too much,
Somebody know me too well,
Somebody pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.
Somebody crowd me with love,
Somebody force me to care,
Somebody make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive.
It sounds like a song or a poem. Blaine doesn't recognize the writing or the stationary and should have no clue as to where the paper came from. And yet... his eyes flit automatically to the ceiling above.
There is some sense, something familiar lurking at the back of his mind that he can't seem to place. Sense memory sends his eyes skyward. But which sense? He stares up, reaching out a hand, wishing, not for the first time, for the person behind the voice to come to him. He feels like he needs them. He somehow knows that they could help.
He makes a decision, one he's been skirting around for years out of fear and a worry that it will be a dead end, and then what? Then what other options will he have? But he has to do it. He needs this person, this boy, and he needs him right now. He steels himself and goes in search of a flashlight, but not before placing the paper safely, reverently, in the drawer of his nightstand.
He pauses at the entrance to the attic, fear blooming anew in the pit of his stomach. He's considered doing this hundreds of times over the years, but he's never, ever come this close to going through with it. He thinks about the paper again, about the voice. Maybe the person, the boy, behind it has been trying to contact him. If that's the case, he really can't turn back now. He hears the crying in his mind and swallows. Maybe they need each other. Maybe the crying boy is just as beaten down and lonely as Blaine. He takes a deep breath and climbs the rickety ladder into the attic, the beam of his flashlight reflecting off the dust motes and cobwebs and wide, open wooden planks.
The hanging light bulb doesn't illuminate when he tugs on the chain and he sighs, his pulse racing even faster than before. Of course. But he's up there now and he's not going anywhere. He quickly maps out the house below, triangulating the area above his own bedroom and shuffles over, light unsteady in his hand causing the beams to bounce and sway across the walls and floor.
He inspects the area. Nothing. Nothing but dust an inch thick and an empty hat box shoved in a corner. With a forlorn sigh, he drops to his knees and runs his hands over the floorboards. They're prickly to the touch and he's about to pull back, mindful of possible splinters, when he feels it.
Warmth. An area of the floor about three feet wide is warm. It makes his fingers tingle with a buzz like electricity and when he leans down to take a sniff, that's strange as well - metallic and charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. He sits in the dark and dust until the warmth has left the planks of wood and the smell has all but dissipated from the air around him.
* * *
By the time Blaine has entered into his junior year of high school, he has grown used to the voice, the music, the strange things that appear out of thin air when he's not at home. He collects them, keeps them in a box under his bed and takes them out sometimes when he's feeling lonely. He never visits the attic again, somehow just knowing it is futile.
On a day like many others, he comes home humming a song he'd been practising with his choir, feeling good about their prospects at the upcoming competition. When he opens the door to his room he smells it - like ozone, the smell of rain. It's the same scent that permeates his room whenever the little presents are left for him to find.
He rushes forward, dropping his blazer and bag in a heap on the floor as he goes.
On the bottom of his bed there is a photograph, faded and tattered at the edges - a small boy laughing with a woman. He lifts it to his nose and takes a deep sniff - like the air before a summer storm, and something else homey and familiar like sunshine and warm bread. On the back there is a loopy scrawl, childish, but still recognizable from the other items he has hidden away beneath his bed. Kurt and Mom, it reads.
Kurt.
Blaine says the name aloud, lets it dance around in his mouth, shape his lips and lift his tongue to the roof of his mouth over and over again. And that's when he hears it. The singing.
It's louder than it's ever been, more clear. The voice he's been listening to with rapt attention since moving into this house, this room, it sounds stronger, more assured. Blaine smiles and lifts his face to the ceiling.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night...
There are lights flickering - rings of light - warm tones of red and orange and yellow, like sparks circling over and over on the plaster above him. He gasps and loses his grip on the photograph, leaving it fluttering to the floor. He reaches upwards without any conscious thought; reaches towards the light, towards the voice. It's getting louder now, clearer, and Blaine's eyes swim with tears at the emotion conveyed in the words, in the soft tenor of the voice. His favourite voice.
“Kurt,” he whispers again, fingertips warmed by the flickering circles of light.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
The light dies out as the song does the same, and Blaine is left, heavy breaths and pounding heart and tears tracking down his cheeks.
The next night, Blaine could swear he sees the light on his ceiling again, that it wakes him from his slumber, but when he pries open his sleep-encrusted eyes, it's gone.
*
On the morning of the show choir sectionals competition when Blaine rushes back to his room for his lucky tie, the rings of light are back, glowing brighter, circling faster than they had been the week before.
He can hear the voice, which he has begun to refer to as Kurt in his head since the afternoon he found the photograph, speaking to someone, but he can't make out the other side of the conversation. He drags his desk chair over, but decides it's not the sturdiest thing to try and stand on, so he jumps up on the table at the end of his bed.
He can feel the heat that the rings give off, warm like the sun after a long winter, but he can't quite reach. Cursing under his breath, he jumps down and runs from the room and into his parents' sitting room. He snatches one of the straight-back wooden chairs and carries it away with him.
His shoulders slump upon entering. The light is gone. He took too long.
“Blaine, aren't you in a hurry?” his mother asks, coming around the corner still putting on her earrings. “What are you doing with my chair?” She doesn't wait for a response to either question, just touches her dry lips to Blaine's cheek and continues on her way down the hall.
Blaine glances after her and then walks the rest of the way into his room, placing the chair next to his bed. For later. Just in case.
He forgets all about his lucky tie.
*
Blaine is exhausted after his team's post-win celebration. They'd changed out of their uniforms and had a party at Trent's. It's late; it's been a long day, and the pride and shine from winning is beginning to fade from Blaine's eyes.
His tired grin disappears very quickly once he sets foot in his bedroom.
It's been a while since he's heard crying. Especially crying like this - wet sobs, hitching breath, so broken and dejected.
Blaine's eyes shift quickly to the ceiling, glowing as he knew it would be, had almost known since entering the house. It's the smell, he decides. The smell always gives it away. Only it's even more pungent when the light is there than it is once it leaves, every time he's gotten there just after, finding the papers and pictures and trinkets it's left behind.
He moves quickly towards his bed, towards the chair he'd left, only to find that it's gone. His mother must have taken it away while he was at the competition. He curses and glances around, looking for a solution, trying to evaluate as the crying gets louder and more intense.
Blaine's eyes fill with sympathy tears. He can't go to his parents' room now, as they're both in bed asleep, and he knows he doesn't have the time to run downstairs for a chair from the dining room. He takes a deep breath and closes his door, then rushes forward, launching himself onto the table at the end of his bed without thinking. He stretches upwards, fingers reaching towards the swirling light, the warmth. The light is moving faster, spinning and shifting in tone and he can hear a low hum like a tuning fork. And the crying again. More crying.
“Kurt,” he says aloud, reaching, up on his tip toes now. If only he can make it. If only he can just touch the shifting light he can help. He can get to the voice. The crying. To Kurt. Please, the thinks. Come on. Please please please.
And then Blaine is moving. Being sucked up and inside. The light touches his skin: warm, then cool, then so hot it's nearly singeing him. He sucks in a breath and the air is electric - he can taste the particles shifting around him, feel the hum deep in his bones. He feels light and his stomach falls, bottoming out like the sensation of tipping over the highest drop on a roller coaster. And the smell, that familiar scent he's grown so accustomed to over the years, only stronger now. It's the deep, dank scent of mouldering earth and the metallic bite of ozone. Thunder. Lightning. Fire.
Then he's falling down, down like Alice through the rabbit hole, out of the warmth and the rain smell and the spin, and down. And when he hits, he hits hard.
There is rustling and something like a gasp when Blaine lifts his dizzy head, wincing at the pain in his elbow, which he's pretty sure collided directly with the cold floor he is lying upon.
He raises his head only to look into the startled cerulean eyes of the most beautiful boy he has ever seen.
*~*~*
When Kurt Hummel is eight years old, his mother dies of uterine cancer that metastasizes to her liver and he cries himself to sleep every night for over a month.
He hears people say things like: at least it was fast and a minimal amount of suffering, and he resolves to never speak to any of those people ever again in his life. His father tries to get him to talk about it, though even at his young age Kurt can tell how much it pains him to bring her up, but he remains stoic in his father's presence.
The truth is that he blames himself. If he hadn't kept nagging for a sister she would never have gone to the doctor to find out why she wasn't making one, and then maybe none of it would have ever happened. Kurt had just wanted a friend to play with; he didn't know something bad could happen.
So he waits until he's away from his father to cry about her. He doesn't want his dad to know that is was his fault. Dad is all he has now and he can't lose him, too. He will do everything in his power to make sure his dad keeps loving him.
* * *
Kurt knows he's different from the other kids. Not just because of their reactions to him, but because most of the time he just doesn't get it. He tries at first, to fit in, to see the attraction in the things that they like, the games they play. But he just doesn't. And they notice. They can tell he is faking it and they mock him for it, along with everything else. Everything that he is, and everything that he isn't. He learns to hide both of these things as often as is possible.
It starts with snide remarks and whispering behind his back and suddenly he can never find a partner when it's time to work in pairs at school. As time goes on it gets worse: more physical, and the remarks more aggressive, their words more specific, making deeper cuts. He tells himself over and over that he doesn't care as he's shoved around and his belongings are taken and his books and clothes graffitied. He tells himself that the slurs roll off his back like water off a duck. These people don't matter, and some day he'll get away from them, from this place, and he'll do what he loves and love who he wants and he'll meet other people who are different in all of the ways that he is. And then this will all be nothing but a horrible memory. It will all fall away. And it will be okay.
* * *
He loses himself in old movies and musicals - the romance and the catchy songs. He takes piano and voice lessons. He knows he's good, but he never sings in front of anyone but his teacher. He only practises when he's sure his dad is away, and his dad never asks any questions.
He watches Kurt sometimes, his eyes contemplative and a little bit worried, maybe even sad, but he never says a thing. Not about Kurt's extracurricular activities, not about his outstanding grades, and certainly not about the fact that he hasn't brought a friend over to the house since elementary school. He gives Kurt money for anything he could possibly need or want, buys him a fancy car for his sixteenth birthday, and leaves him to his own devices.
But Kurt knows his father loves him. Hears it in every bud and kiddo, and feels it with every squeeze of his shoulder.
That gets him through the worst of days. It gets him through the best of them, too.
When Kurt sits and sings, alone in his room, he feels filled with purpose and buoyed by something he can't see or understand, but craves all the same. He buys soundtracks and original cast recordings and pulls out all of his mother's old albums. He learns every piece of music he can get his hands on, jotting down lyrics and titles and making lists.
By the time he graduates high school he intends on being prepared. He will have a whole arsenal of music at his disposal for any manner of audition. He will escape this place and never look back.
* * *
He's done everything is his power to be invisible lately, and yet they can't just leave him alone. He checks through the house for his dad before trudging down the steps to his basement bedroom and tossing his messenger bag into the corner with a grunt. It slams against the wall and falls, opening and spilling out its contents all over the floor. Kurt lets out a laugh that he soon chokes on, gasping for breath, his eyes prickling with the formation of tears. He hates crying. Sometimes it feels like he's spent the better part of his life doing just that. He walks backwards towards his bed, sitting on the edge when the mattress hits the backs of his knees. He's trembling and lets his face fall forward into his open palms, lets the tears come, lets himself have this moment to break, to cry out the unfairness of the world.
He hasn't done a thing, hasn't said a thing, and yet they will not leave him alone. The taunting, the names, the slushies, the dumpster tosses - he's so tired of it all. He has never come out and said: yeah, I like boys, has never hinted at it, has never shown the slightest bit of interest in anyone. Hell, he only speaks to people if he has to, and that is a rarity. And yet they still call him the names, still follow him around and egg his car and throw water balloons at his house. They still know. It's not as though he could ever be any threat to them, as small as he is in comparison, not that he would be attracted to a single one of them anyway. As if. He would rather date a gorilla than their bad impersonations of just that.
He wipes at his eyes and wishes for the thousandth time that someone understood. That he had one single solitary person in his life who he could talk to about his confusion and his pain and his complete and utter exhaustion. But he doesn't. He shies away from people at school to avoid what ends up happening anyway. There is always Dad, a voice at the back of his head keeps telling him, but he can't do that. He promised himself long ago that he would do what he had to do to keep his relationship with his father as simple as possible.
Just one person who understands. A friend. Is that really so much to ask?
There is a strange humming sound. It starts out quiet, slowly growing in volume until he can hear it as plain as day. He sits up straight and wipes his eyes. His dad must be home, must be out in the garage working on something - surely that is the sound of some piece of machinery or another.
The pitch gets higher and he turns towards the sound just as there is a flash of light - a body tumbles down from the ceiling of his room and lands on the floor with a sickening thwack.
He jumps up from the bed, unsure whether to rush forward in order to offer assistance, or back away and hide. The person who fell looks like a boy about his age, but not like any of the boys he knows. He is small, compact, with wide shoulders and a trim waist. His long feet are bare and his pants are rolled up, showing the jutting bones of his ankles. He groans and turns, half sitting up, and Kurt feels compelled to move toward him. Just a little. Just to see if he's okay.
He notices the swirling pattern of light above him when he approaches the boy, feels it move his hair like a gentle breeze.
When the boy looks up, makes eye contact, Kurt lets out an involuntary gasp. He's lovely. His eyes are warm and wide, his lips full and red and soft-looking. Kurt doesn't know what to say, but the boy is just sitting there gaping at him, and he feels as though one of them should say something.
“How did you - Where did you - ?” Kurt stares into the brilliant golden eyes below him, in which he can see the reflection of the flickering light on his ceiling. But the boy, he just continues to stare back with his mouth hanging open.
Kurt is baffled, shocked, because well, God, a boy just fell out of his ceiling and he can still see it, though it's diminishing, fading out, the colours bleeding and blending into the paint. It's like a sort of portal or vortex, like something out of a movie about superheroes. He's watched a hundred and one of those movies with his father over the years, though he paid more attention to the guys in spandex than the actual plots.
“I'm Blaine,” the boy says at last, half breathless and cringing, cradling his left elbow in the palm of his right hand. His voice wavers slightly, but is melodious, pleasing to the ear. Everything about him is pleasing to the senses really. If he did fall out of a movie, it must have been an old black and white with courteous gentleman with slick-backed hair and handsome faces.
“Kurt,” he replies distractedly and the boy's eyes widen.
“It is you,” he says. “I mean, I recognized your voice, but I mean, you're Kurt -”
“You recognized my voice? What do you mean? We've never even met before -” Kurt feels panic bubble up inside. What if this is some prank his tormentors cooked up? Although, realistically, a swirling vortex in the ceiling? That might be beyond anyone's ability to manufacture.
“I know - I've - that thing -” The boy points up without looking. “I've been hearing you for years. But before tonight I couldn't... I couldn't get to you. I wanted to. I -” He looks shy suddenly and shifts, hissing in pain when he jostles his arm.
Kurt shakes his head, coming to his senses. Okay, there is a strange boy on his floor who just fell out of the ceiling, sure, but he's injured, and that should probably take priority. He leans down and offers a hand. “Let's get you up off the floor and I'll get some ice for your -” He motions to Blaine's elbow and he smiles the slightest bit, nodding, before letting his arm down slowly to his side and taking Kurt's outstretched hand.
His skin feels pleasantly warm to the touch and sends tingles shooting up Kurt's wrist and down his fingers. Blaine blinks up at him as he's hauled to his feet. After Kurt has helped him over to the bed and he's sitting, he withdraws. He sees Blaine's hand spasm, like it's attempting to reach back out of its own volition. Before Kurt can give in to his own desire and grab for the hand again, he turns on his heel and hurries out of the room with a quick be right back called over his shoulder.
He chooses a bag of frozen corn instead of an ice pack, since it will mould to the shape of the boy's - Blaine's - elbow much better. He stands and allows himself a moment to breathe, to pull himself together, and then he heads back in the direction of his bedroom.
“It's gone,” Blaine says when he gets to the bottom of the stairs.
“What?”
“The light thingy. It's just gone... again.”
“You mean you've seen it before?” Kurt comes around the corner and seats himself next to Blaine on the bed, taking his elbow with gentle hands. Blaine winces when the frozen bag comes in contact with his skin and Kurt gives him a sad half-smile.
“Yeah, I've just started to. I tried to get into it a few times, but it was gone before I got the chance. Pretty sure it's been opening for years though, just not while I was there.”
“You mean you crawled into that thing on purpose? Why would you do that?”
Blaine looks down to where Kurt is still holding the bag of corn to his arm and shrugs one shoulder. “I, um... I heard you. Crying I mean. I wanted to - Sorry.”
Kurt can feel the red as it floods over his face. “I was... I was just...”
“It's okay,” Blaine says, his eyes as soft as his voice. “I know it's none of my business. It's just that I've heard you so much... I feel like I know you. I wanted... I don't know. It doesn't matter now I guess.” He looks down at his hands. Kurt can see how he tries to hold onto his smile but it fades anyway. He says it doesn't matter, but it very obviously does. Kurt feels a fresh wave of tears tingle at the backs of his eyes. This strange boy, he somehow cares about Kurt. Kurt curls Blaine's arm in closer to his body and shifts the bag of corn into a better position.
“Where did you come from?” he asks quietly. “I mean, that... thing, where does it lead?”
“Um... Ohio.”
Kurt laughs. “Well, fortunately you aren't too far from home then. Or unfortunately if you hate Ohio as much as I do.”
“We're still in Ohio? Whereabouts?”
“Lima,” Kurt says with a roll of his eyes. “Yay.”
“Oh, that's not far at all. I live just outside of Westerville, heading in this direction.”
Westerville? Kurt wonders if Blaine hit his head as well as his elbow. “Um... where's Westerville? Never heard of it.”
Blaine scrunches up his face. “How is that possible? It's about ninety miles from here. Not far from Columbus.”
“Columbus?” Kurt is really beginning to worry about Blaine now. “As in Christopher?”
“As in the state capital,” Blaine says. “Please tell me you've heard of our state capital.”
“The capital of Ohio is Cleveland, Blaine,” Kurt says slowly, as though speaking to a child.
Blaine's brow furrows and he pulls his elbow away from Kurt. “I'm really - Can you google a map? I need to see - ”
“Google a map? Blaine, did you hit your head?”
“What? No. I'm - do you have a map of Ohio anywhere? I just... I need to check something.”
Kurt nods and gets up, heading towards the contents of his bag which are still spilled all over the floor in the opposite corner. He locates his phone and opens an app, searching up a map of Ohio. He hands it over to Blaine as he sits back on the edge of the bed.
Blaine studies it for several long moments before looking up with wide, frightened eyes. “This doesn't make any sense, Kurt. Where's Toledo? Why is Columbus called Argentia, and why the hell is the state next door Pennsylvania? It's supposed to be New York! What the hell is Pennsylvania?”
“No, that's right. It's always been that way, Blaine. Please don't freak out.”
“Don't freak out?” Blaine's breathing is stuttered and he runs a hand through his hair, pulling it out of its carefully placed arrangement. “Okay... Kurt, what's the capital of the United States of America, and please don't say that's not which country we're currently sitting in.”
Kurt rests a hand on Blaine's shoulder and tilts his head to one side, trying to smile, trying to calm Blaine down. “Of course we are, Blaine. And the capital is Washington D.C. of course.”
“Washington - What the heck is Washington D.C.?”
“Okay, wow, I have no idea what to tell you right now, but -”
“Have you ever heard of alternate realities, Kurt? Like even in science fiction? Because this is - Like, it's similar, but not right and I have no idea where I am right now.”
“But that's...” Kurt searches for a word that won't offend Blaine, but nothing comes, so he goes for it anyway. “...crazy. It's not possible, Blaine.”
“Possible like me falling through a tunnel of light that leads from my ceiling and into yours, you mean?”
“Suppose you've got a point there. But still... How? Why?” Blaine shrugs.
“I guess we should try to get it back,” Kurt says. “I mean, you don't want to be stuck here, right? It's not like I can drive you home to a place that doesn't exist.”
“We can try, but from what I've seen, it only shows up when it wants to. I couldn't make it show up before. And believe me, I've tried.”
Kurt looks down at him, but Blaine is looking away. He wonders why, why Blaine was so interested in finding him, knowing him. He supposes if it had been the other way around, if he had been the one who could hear Blaine, he would have been curious, too. And he wonders why only Blaine could hear him, why the portal of whatever it is only transported sound in one direction.
He stands up from the bed and pulls a chair under the bit of ceiling where the light had been. Standing on it, he reaches out to touch, only to find a slight buzz and gentle warmth, but the light does not reappear.
“Should we check upstairs? Maybe the other side of the... it?” he asks.
Blaine shakes his head. “I've tried that. There was residual heat, but nothing else.” He looks at Kurt like he's interested in the conversation, but something about his tone, or his eyes, tells Kurt that Blaine isn't all that interested in opening the portal. At least not at the moment.
They trudge up the stairs anyway, and Blaine attempts to help Kurt one-handed as he slides his dad's chair out of the way to feel the floor underneath. And Blaine is right - it's warm, but there is no other indication that anything was ever amiss.
Kurt pushes the chair back into place and sinks into it. Blaine shrugs and sits down on the couch across from him, still holding his elbow.
“Is your elbow okay?” Kurt asks, feeling like a jerk for waiting this long. “Do you need a doctor?”
Blaine shakes his head. “No. It's just bruised I think. It'll be okay in a couple of days.”
Kurt nods back at him. “I suppose we should get something to eat before my dad gets home. That way I can hide you in my room until we figure out what to do.”
Kurt waits for Blaine to say something, form some sort of response, but he's too busy staring out of the window. “Blaine?”
Blaine shakes his head as if to clear it and turns to Kurt. “It was after midnight when I went in,” he says. “And now...” He motions to the dull autumn sunshine that's streaming in through the window.
“It's not even 5 pm,” Kurt tells him. “That is just so -”
“Weird,” Blaine finishes. “You can say that again.”
*
When Kurt comes back down to his room after eating a mostly silent meal with his father, Blaine is all but passed out on top of his covers.
“Sorry,” he whispers when he spots Kurt. “I know I'm supposed to be hiding, but it's way past bedtime for me.”
“It's okay. I told him I was calling it an early night, so he won't bother us. And he always gives three quick raps on the wall at the top of the stairs before coming down. So you'll know it's him.”
“Three. Okay.” Blaine pauses for a moment before turning his face away. “I'm sorry you have to do this, Kurt.”
Kurt frowns, standing and staring down at Blaine's prone form. After a moment, he crawls onto the bed and kneels next to him. “I'm not about to send you away to God knows where, Blaine.”
“Why not? Most people would. Most people would have called the police.”
Kurt rolls his eyes and reaches out a hand to place on Blaine's back, but thinks better of it a second later and hastily pulls it back before Blaine can take notice of it suspended in the air above him. “I'm not going to call the police. I'm going to help you. We'll figure this out, or else that thing will open up on its own again and you'll be able to go home.”
“Yeah,” Blaine agrees with a sigh. “You're probably right. I...um... thank you though. I appreciate your not freaking out.”
Kurt stifles a soft laugh and Blaine smiles up at him. “I'll just move down to the floor... on the far side of the bed just in case your father does come down here.”
Kurt stops him with a hand on his shoulder, pulling it away quickly when he realizes what he's done. “You don't have to sleep on the floor, Blaine. I mean - you can if you want, but not on account of me. I mean - I don't mind if you want to stay up here. And you know, actually be able to sleep.”
He can't make eye contact after his ramble. Blaine probably thinks he's hitting on him, just like the idiots at school any time he even dares to look them in the eye. And this is so much worse, because he basically just invited Blaine to sleep with him. What is wrong with him?
But Blaine doesn't seem to care. He sits up and pulls down the covers, sliding under them and laying his head on a pillow with a contented sigh. “If you're sure,” he says, voice groggy.
Kurt just nods like an idiot, staring down at him for a moment before getting up to go change for bed.
When he climbs in next to Blaine, he's still in the exact same position - on his side, facing in Kurt's direction, knees bent and injured arm curled safely against his body. His breaths are deep and even and Kurt assumes he is asleep.
He tries to sleep on his right side so that he's facing away from Blaine, but Kurt never sleeps on that side and he's soon turning over, Blaine's sweet, peaceful face only inches away. Kurt's own breathing evens, his heart beats slow until the two of them are in synch.
“Kurt?” Blaine whispers into the dark of the room, voice raspy, heavy with the beginnings of sleep.
Kurt startles and his heart picks back up in speed. “Hmm?”
“I just wanted to say... Your voice...” Girly. Fruity. Faggy. “...is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life.”
Kurt hopes Blaine is too far gone to make out the tears in his voice when he replies. “Goodnight, Blaine.”
Just as Kurt is closing his eyes to sleep, he recalls what he'd been wishing for at the moment Blaine fell through the ceiling. But he doesn't dare to hope.
next
Artist: mizuirokandeya
Author: water_nix
Rating (art/fic if different): G/PG-13
Word Count: 18 500
Warnings (if any): mentions of bullying
Fic Summary: After years of hearing but never seeing, a way to the other side presents itself and Blaine leaps in without even thinking twice. On the other side, Kurt is counting down the days until he can escape, and wishing for a friend. Ultimately the decision lies with Blaine: stay with the source of his longing, or return to his own reality and his own family.
Written for the Kurt/Blaine reversebang. Many thanks to Keri for beta reading, and also to Allie, Mardy and Jeanne for being around to read things over and listen to me whine. Love you girls! And Mizu, for the lovely, inspiring art. I hope I did it justice! It was a pleasure to work with you. <3
You can find Mizu's art here. Please go give her some love!
Blaine is almost eight years old when they move into the house. He spends his first night in his new room curled into a ball on the bed, the boxes casting creepy shadows across the walls. He hears a faint, far-off crying that makes his heart beat fast and his tummy feel strange, and all he can do is lie on his bed with wide eyes and pretend it isn't there. Blaine is mostly good at pretending, but not on this night.
He wakes up in the morning with purplish marks under tired eyes and tear tracks dried on his cheeks.
The crying carries on for many nights - quiet and broken and hollow. Blaine doesn't know where it's coming from, but he wishes he could stop it. Not because it frightens him, though it does, but because whoever is sobbing sounds so utterly heartbroken that he wants them to feel better and not have to cry anymore.
* * *
Sometimes Blaine hears music. He recognizes it in parts - a chorus here, a melody there - but most of the time it is unfamiliar. Except, of course, for when it's The Beatles. At those times he can't help but hum along or sing quietly under his breath. Maybe his house is haunted, or maybe he's slowly going crazy, but hearing The Long and Winding Road tinkling through his ceiling is kind of nice. Especially when it's being sung by The Voice.
Because sometimes the music is accompanied by singing - a soft, delicate voice like bells that makes Blaine feel strange and haunted and lonely in a way that's different than usual. He imagines it is what angels must sound like, or maybe ghosts. He crawls under the blankets of his bed, huddles in to listen, though it makes him sad and at times afraid. He wonders if the person with the voice of an angel died in his house, maybe right there in his room, and is haunting him now. But if they wanted him to leave, why would they sing so beautifully? Surely they would shriek and throw his things around and leave bloody handprints and old creepy dolls, but instead he gets songs. He supposes that must mean they want him to stay. Maybe the ghost's loneliness is what makes Blaine feel so lonely - thoughts and feelings and despair leeching into him, making him tear up and his eyelids droop and his heart hurt.
* * *
At the age of fourteen, Blaine is grown up enough to turn aside the idea of ghosts. He still hears the music, the singing, the crying, and sometimes just talking - the sweet voice he's grown attached to after nearly seven years.
When he gets home from school one day, tears streaming and nose running, red-faced and shaking from the tauntings, there is something on the end of his bed.
He spots it as he's peeling off his soiled shirt - condoms filled with grape juice, what geniuses - and he pauses, one arm in and one arm out.
It's a sheet of stationary - heavy stock, cream with a black damask pattern around the edges. In the centre written in a loopy, black script are the words:
Somebody need me too much,
Somebody know me too well,
Somebody pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.
Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.
Somebody crowd me with love,
Somebody force me to care,
Somebody make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive.
It sounds like a song or a poem. Blaine doesn't recognize the writing or the stationary and should have no clue as to where the paper came from. And yet... his eyes flit automatically to the ceiling above.
There is some sense, something familiar lurking at the back of his mind that he can't seem to place. Sense memory sends his eyes skyward. But which sense? He stares up, reaching out a hand, wishing, not for the first time, for the person behind the voice to come to him. He feels like he needs them. He somehow knows that they could help.
He makes a decision, one he's been skirting around for years out of fear and a worry that it will be a dead end, and then what? Then what other options will he have? But he has to do it. He needs this person, this boy, and he needs him right now. He steels himself and goes in search of a flashlight, but not before placing the paper safely, reverently, in the drawer of his nightstand.
He pauses at the entrance to the attic, fear blooming anew in the pit of his stomach. He's considered doing this hundreds of times over the years, but he's never, ever come this close to going through with it. He thinks about the paper again, about the voice. Maybe the person, the boy, behind it has been trying to contact him. If that's the case, he really can't turn back now. He hears the crying in his mind and swallows. Maybe they need each other. Maybe the crying boy is just as beaten down and lonely as Blaine. He takes a deep breath and climbs the rickety ladder into the attic, the beam of his flashlight reflecting off the dust motes and cobwebs and wide, open wooden planks.
The hanging light bulb doesn't illuminate when he tugs on the chain and he sighs, his pulse racing even faster than before. Of course. But he's up there now and he's not going anywhere. He quickly maps out the house below, triangulating the area above his own bedroom and shuffles over, light unsteady in his hand causing the beams to bounce and sway across the walls and floor.
He inspects the area. Nothing. Nothing but dust an inch thick and an empty hat box shoved in a corner. With a forlorn sigh, he drops to his knees and runs his hands over the floorboards. They're prickly to the touch and he's about to pull back, mindful of possible splinters, when he feels it.
Warmth. An area of the floor about three feet wide is warm. It makes his fingers tingle with a buzz like electricity and when he leans down to take a sniff, that's strange as well - metallic and charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. He sits in the dark and dust until the warmth has left the planks of wood and the smell has all but dissipated from the air around him.
* * *
By the time Blaine has entered into his junior year of high school, he has grown used to the voice, the music, the strange things that appear out of thin air when he's not at home. He collects them, keeps them in a box under his bed and takes them out sometimes when he's feeling lonely. He never visits the attic again, somehow just knowing it is futile.
On a day like many others, he comes home humming a song he'd been practising with his choir, feeling good about their prospects at the upcoming competition. When he opens the door to his room he smells it - like ozone, the smell of rain. It's the same scent that permeates his room whenever the little presents are left for him to find.
He rushes forward, dropping his blazer and bag in a heap on the floor as he goes.
On the bottom of his bed there is a photograph, faded and tattered at the edges - a small boy laughing with a woman. He lifts it to his nose and takes a deep sniff - like the air before a summer storm, and something else homey and familiar like sunshine and warm bread. On the back there is a loopy scrawl, childish, but still recognizable from the other items he has hidden away beneath his bed. Kurt and Mom, it reads.
Kurt.
Blaine says the name aloud, lets it dance around in his mouth, shape his lips and lift his tongue to the roof of his mouth over and over again. And that's when he hears it. The singing.
It's louder than it's ever been, more clear. The voice he's been listening to with rapt attention since moving into this house, this room, it sounds stronger, more assured. Blaine smiles and lifts his face to the ceiling.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night...
There are lights flickering - rings of light - warm tones of red and orange and yellow, like sparks circling over and over on the plaster above him. He gasps and loses his grip on the photograph, leaving it fluttering to the floor. He reaches upwards without any conscious thought; reaches towards the light, towards the voice. It's getting louder now, clearer, and Blaine's eyes swim with tears at the emotion conveyed in the words, in the soft tenor of the voice. His favourite voice.
“Kurt,” he whispers again, fingertips warmed by the flickering circles of light.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
The light dies out as the song does the same, and Blaine is left, heavy breaths and pounding heart and tears tracking down his cheeks.
The next night, Blaine could swear he sees the light on his ceiling again, that it wakes him from his slumber, but when he pries open his sleep-encrusted eyes, it's gone.
*
On the morning of the show choir sectionals competition when Blaine rushes back to his room for his lucky tie, the rings of light are back, glowing brighter, circling faster than they had been the week before.
He can hear the voice, which he has begun to refer to as Kurt in his head since the afternoon he found the photograph, speaking to someone, but he can't make out the other side of the conversation. He drags his desk chair over, but decides it's not the sturdiest thing to try and stand on, so he jumps up on the table at the end of his bed.
He can feel the heat that the rings give off, warm like the sun after a long winter, but he can't quite reach. Cursing under his breath, he jumps down and runs from the room and into his parents' sitting room. He snatches one of the straight-back wooden chairs and carries it away with him.
His shoulders slump upon entering. The light is gone. He took too long.
“Blaine, aren't you in a hurry?” his mother asks, coming around the corner still putting on her earrings. “What are you doing with my chair?” She doesn't wait for a response to either question, just touches her dry lips to Blaine's cheek and continues on her way down the hall.
Blaine glances after her and then walks the rest of the way into his room, placing the chair next to his bed. For later. Just in case.
He forgets all about his lucky tie.
*
Blaine is exhausted after his team's post-win celebration. They'd changed out of their uniforms and had a party at Trent's. It's late; it's been a long day, and the pride and shine from winning is beginning to fade from Blaine's eyes.
His tired grin disappears very quickly once he sets foot in his bedroom.
It's been a while since he's heard crying. Especially crying like this - wet sobs, hitching breath, so broken and dejected.
Blaine's eyes shift quickly to the ceiling, glowing as he knew it would be, had almost known since entering the house. It's the smell, he decides. The smell always gives it away. Only it's even more pungent when the light is there than it is once it leaves, every time he's gotten there just after, finding the papers and pictures and trinkets it's left behind.
He moves quickly towards his bed, towards the chair he'd left, only to find that it's gone. His mother must have taken it away while he was at the competition. He curses and glances around, looking for a solution, trying to evaluate as the crying gets louder and more intense.
Blaine's eyes fill with sympathy tears. He can't go to his parents' room now, as they're both in bed asleep, and he knows he doesn't have the time to run downstairs for a chair from the dining room. He takes a deep breath and closes his door, then rushes forward, launching himself onto the table at the end of his bed without thinking. He stretches upwards, fingers reaching towards the swirling light, the warmth. The light is moving faster, spinning and shifting in tone and he can hear a low hum like a tuning fork. And the crying again. More crying.
“Kurt,” he says aloud, reaching, up on his tip toes now. If only he can make it. If only he can just touch the shifting light he can help. He can get to the voice. The crying. To Kurt. Please, the thinks. Come on. Please please please.
And then Blaine is moving. Being sucked up and inside. The light touches his skin: warm, then cool, then so hot it's nearly singeing him. He sucks in a breath and the air is electric - he can taste the particles shifting around him, feel the hum deep in his bones. He feels light and his stomach falls, bottoming out like the sensation of tipping over the highest drop on a roller coaster. And the smell, that familiar scent he's grown so accustomed to over the years, only stronger now. It's the deep, dank scent of mouldering earth and the metallic bite of ozone. Thunder. Lightning. Fire.
Then he's falling down, down like Alice through the rabbit hole, out of the warmth and the rain smell and the spin, and down. And when he hits, he hits hard.
There is rustling and something like a gasp when Blaine lifts his dizzy head, wincing at the pain in his elbow, which he's pretty sure collided directly with the cold floor he is lying upon.
He raises his head only to look into the startled cerulean eyes of the most beautiful boy he has ever seen.
*~*~*
When Kurt Hummel is eight years old, his mother dies of uterine cancer that metastasizes to her liver and he cries himself to sleep every night for over a month.
He hears people say things like: at least it was fast and a minimal amount of suffering, and he resolves to never speak to any of those people ever again in his life. His father tries to get him to talk about it, though even at his young age Kurt can tell how much it pains him to bring her up, but he remains stoic in his father's presence.
The truth is that he blames himself. If he hadn't kept nagging for a sister she would never have gone to the doctor to find out why she wasn't making one, and then maybe none of it would have ever happened. Kurt had just wanted a friend to play with; he didn't know something bad could happen.
So he waits until he's away from his father to cry about her. He doesn't want his dad to know that is was his fault. Dad is all he has now and he can't lose him, too. He will do everything in his power to make sure his dad keeps loving him.
* * *
Kurt knows he's different from the other kids. Not just because of their reactions to him, but because most of the time he just doesn't get it. He tries at first, to fit in, to see the attraction in the things that they like, the games they play. But he just doesn't. And they notice. They can tell he is faking it and they mock him for it, along with everything else. Everything that he is, and everything that he isn't. He learns to hide both of these things as often as is possible.
It starts with snide remarks and whispering behind his back and suddenly he can never find a partner when it's time to work in pairs at school. As time goes on it gets worse: more physical, and the remarks more aggressive, their words more specific, making deeper cuts. He tells himself over and over that he doesn't care as he's shoved around and his belongings are taken and his books and clothes graffitied. He tells himself that the slurs roll off his back like water off a duck. These people don't matter, and some day he'll get away from them, from this place, and he'll do what he loves and love who he wants and he'll meet other people who are different in all of the ways that he is. And then this will all be nothing but a horrible memory. It will all fall away. And it will be okay.
* * *
He loses himself in old movies and musicals - the romance and the catchy songs. He takes piano and voice lessons. He knows he's good, but he never sings in front of anyone but his teacher. He only practises when he's sure his dad is away, and his dad never asks any questions.
He watches Kurt sometimes, his eyes contemplative and a little bit worried, maybe even sad, but he never says a thing. Not about Kurt's extracurricular activities, not about his outstanding grades, and certainly not about the fact that he hasn't brought a friend over to the house since elementary school. He gives Kurt money for anything he could possibly need or want, buys him a fancy car for his sixteenth birthday, and leaves him to his own devices.
But Kurt knows his father loves him. Hears it in every bud and kiddo, and feels it with every squeeze of his shoulder.
That gets him through the worst of days. It gets him through the best of them, too.
When Kurt sits and sings, alone in his room, he feels filled with purpose and buoyed by something he can't see or understand, but craves all the same. He buys soundtracks and original cast recordings and pulls out all of his mother's old albums. He learns every piece of music he can get his hands on, jotting down lyrics and titles and making lists.
By the time he graduates high school he intends on being prepared. He will have a whole arsenal of music at his disposal for any manner of audition. He will escape this place and never look back.
* * *
He's done everything is his power to be invisible lately, and yet they can't just leave him alone. He checks through the house for his dad before trudging down the steps to his basement bedroom and tossing his messenger bag into the corner with a grunt. It slams against the wall and falls, opening and spilling out its contents all over the floor. Kurt lets out a laugh that he soon chokes on, gasping for breath, his eyes prickling with the formation of tears. He hates crying. Sometimes it feels like he's spent the better part of his life doing just that. He walks backwards towards his bed, sitting on the edge when the mattress hits the backs of his knees. He's trembling and lets his face fall forward into his open palms, lets the tears come, lets himself have this moment to break, to cry out the unfairness of the world.
He hasn't done a thing, hasn't said a thing, and yet they will not leave him alone. The taunting, the names, the slushies, the dumpster tosses - he's so tired of it all. He has never come out and said: yeah, I like boys, has never hinted at it, has never shown the slightest bit of interest in anyone. Hell, he only speaks to people if he has to, and that is a rarity. And yet they still call him the names, still follow him around and egg his car and throw water balloons at his house. They still know. It's not as though he could ever be any threat to them, as small as he is in comparison, not that he would be attracted to a single one of them anyway. As if. He would rather date a gorilla than their bad impersonations of just that.
He wipes at his eyes and wishes for the thousandth time that someone understood. That he had one single solitary person in his life who he could talk to about his confusion and his pain and his complete and utter exhaustion. But he doesn't. He shies away from people at school to avoid what ends up happening anyway. There is always Dad, a voice at the back of his head keeps telling him, but he can't do that. He promised himself long ago that he would do what he had to do to keep his relationship with his father as simple as possible.
Just one person who understands. A friend. Is that really so much to ask?
There is a strange humming sound. It starts out quiet, slowly growing in volume until he can hear it as plain as day. He sits up straight and wipes his eyes. His dad must be home, must be out in the garage working on something - surely that is the sound of some piece of machinery or another.
The pitch gets higher and he turns towards the sound just as there is a flash of light - a body tumbles down from the ceiling of his room and lands on the floor with a sickening thwack.
He jumps up from the bed, unsure whether to rush forward in order to offer assistance, or back away and hide. The person who fell looks like a boy about his age, but not like any of the boys he knows. He is small, compact, with wide shoulders and a trim waist. His long feet are bare and his pants are rolled up, showing the jutting bones of his ankles. He groans and turns, half sitting up, and Kurt feels compelled to move toward him. Just a little. Just to see if he's okay.
He notices the swirling pattern of light above him when he approaches the boy, feels it move his hair like a gentle breeze.
When the boy looks up, makes eye contact, Kurt lets out an involuntary gasp. He's lovely. His eyes are warm and wide, his lips full and red and soft-looking. Kurt doesn't know what to say, but the boy is just sitting there gaping at him, and he feels as though one of them should say something.
“How did you - Where did you - ?” Kurt stares into the brilliant golden eyes below him, in which he can see the reflection of the flickering light on his ceiling. But the boy, he just continues to stare back with his mouth hanging open.
Kurt is baffled, shocked, because well, God, a boy just fell out of his ceiling and he can still see it, though it's diminishing, fading out, the colours bleeding and blending into the paint. It's like a sort of portal or vortex, like something out of a movie about superheroes. He's watched a hundred and one of those movies with his father over the years, though he paid more attention to the guys in spandex than the actual plots.
“I'm Blaine,” the boy says at last, half breathless and cringing, cradling his left elbow in the palm of his right hand. His voice wavers slightly, but is melodious, pleasing to the ear. Everything about him is pleasing to the senses really. If he did fall out of a movie, it must have been an old black and white with courteous gentleman with slick-backed hair and handsome faces.
“Kurt,” he replies distractedly and the boy's eyes widen.
“It is you,” he says. “I mean, I recognized your voice, but I mean, you're Kurt -”
“You recognized my voice? What do you mean? We've never even met before -” Kurt feels panic bubble up inside. What if this is some prank his tormentors cooked up? Although, realistically, a swirling vortex in the ceiling? That might be beyond anyone's ability to manufacture.
“I know - I've - that thing -” The boy points up without looking. “I've been hearing you for years. But before tonight I couldn't... I couldn't get to you. I wanted to. I -” He looks shy suddenly and shifts, hissing in pain when he jostles his arm.
Kurt shakes his head, coming to his senses. Okay, there is a strange boy on his floor who just fell out of the ceiling, sure, but he's injured, and that should probably take priority. He leans down and offers a hand. “Let's get you up off the floor and I'll get some ice for your -” He motions to Blaine's elbow and he smiles the slightest bit, nodding, before letting his arm down slowly to his side and taking Kurt's outstretched hand.
His skin feels pleasantly warm to the touch and sends tingles shooting up Kurt's wrist and down his fingers. Blaine blinks up at him as he's hauled to his feet. After Kurt has helped him over to the bed and he's sitting, he withdraws. He sees Blaine's hand spasm, like it's attempting to reach back out of its own volition. Before Kurt can give in to his own desire and grab for the hand again, he turns on his heel and hurries out of the room with a quick be right back called over his shoulder.
He chooses a bag of frozen corn instead of an ice pack, since it will mould to the shape of the boy's - Blaine's - elbow much better. He stands and allows himself a moment to breathe, to pull himself together, and then he heads back in the direction of his bedroom.
“It's gone,” Blaine says when he gets to the bottom of the stairs.
“What?”
“The light thingy. It's just gone... again.”
“You mean you've seen it before?” Kurt comes around the corner and seats himself next to Blaine on the bed, taking his elbow with gentle hands. Blaine winces when the frozen bag comes in contact with his skin and Kurt gives him a sad half-smile.
“Yeah, I've just started to. I tried to get into it a few times, but it was gone before I got the chance. Pretty sure it's been opening for years though, just not while I was there.”
“You mean you crawled into that thing on purpose? Why would you do that?”
Blaine looks down to where Kurt is still holding the bag of corn to his arm and shrugs one shoulder. “I, um... I heard you. Crying I mean. I wanted to - Sorry.”
Kurt can feel the red as it floods over his face. “I was... I was just...”
“It's okay,” Blaine says, his eyes as soft as his voice. “I know it's none of my business. It's just that I've heard you so much... I feel like I know you. I wanted... I don't know. It doesn't matter now I guess.” He looks down at his hands. Kurt can see how he tries to hold onto his smile but it fades anyway. He says it doesn't matter, but it very obviously does. Kurt feels a fresh wave of tears tingle at the backs of his eyes. This strange boy, he somehow cares about Kurt. Kurt curls Blaine's arm in closer to his body and shifts the bag of corn into a better position.
“Where did you come from?” he asks quietly. “I mean, that... thing, where does it lead?”
“Um... Ohio.”
Kurt laughs. “Well, fortunately you aren't too far from home then. Or unfortunately if you hate Ohio as much as I do.”
“We're still in Ohio? Whereabouts?”
“Lima,” Kurt says with a roll of his eyes. “Yay.”
“Oh, that's not far at all. I live just outside of Westerville, heading in this direction.”
Westerville? Kurt wonders if Blaine hit his head as well as his elbow. “Um... where's Westerville? Never heard of it.”
Blaine scrunches up his face. “How is that possible? It's about ninety miles from here. Not far from Columbus.”
“Columbus?” Kurt is really beginning to worry about Blaine now. “As in Christopher?”
“As in the state capital,” Blaine says. “Please tell me you've heard of our state capital.”
“The capital of Ohio is Cleveland, Blaine,” Kurt says slowly, as though speaking to a child.
Blaine's brow furrows and he pulls his elbow away from Kurt. “I'm really - Can you google a map? I need to see - ”
“Google a map? Blaine, did you hit your head?”
“What? No. I'm - do you have a map of Ohio anywhere? I just... I need to check something.”
Kurt nods and gets up, heading towards the contents of his bag which are still spilled all over the floor in the opposite corner. He locates his phone and opens an app, searching up a map of Ohio. He hands it over to Blaine as he sits back on the edge of the bed.
Blaine studies it for several long moments before looking up with wide, frightened eyes. “This doesn't make any sense, Kurt. Where's Toledo? Why is Columbus called Argentia, and why the hell is the state next door Pennsylvania? It's supposed to be New York! What the hell is Pennsylvania?”
“No, that's right. It's always been that way, Blaine. Please don't freak out.”
“Don't freak out?” Blaine's breathing is stuttered and he runs a hand through his hair, pulling it out of its carefully placed arrangement. “Okay... Kurt, what's the capital of the United States of America, and please don't say that's not which country we're currently sitting in.”
Kurt rests a hand on Blaine's shoulder and tilts his head to one side, trying to smile, trying to calm Blaine down. “Of course we are, Blaine. And the capital is Washington D.C. of course.”
“Washington - What the heck is Washington D.C.?”
“Okay, wow, I have no idea what to tell you right now, but -”
“Have you ever heard of alternate realities, Kurt? Like even in science fiction? Because this is - Like, it's similar, but not right and I have no idea where I am right now.”
“But that's...” Kurt searches for a word that won't offend Blaine, but nothing comes, so he goes for it anyway. “...crazy. It's not possible, Blaine.”
“Possible like me falling through a tunnel of light that leads from my ceiling and into yours, you mean?”
“Suppose you've got a point there. But still... How? Why?” Blaine shrugs.
“I guess we should try to get it back,” Kurt says. “I mean, you don't want to be stuck here, right? It's not like I can drive you home to a place that doesn't exist.”
“We can try, but from what I've seen, it only shows up when it wants to. I couldn't make it show up before. And believe me, I've tried.”
Kurt looks down at him, but Blaine is looking away. He wonders why, why Blaine was so interested in finding him, knowing him. He supposes if it had been the other way around, if he had been the one who could hear Blaine, he would have been curious, too. And he wonders why only Blaine could hear him, why the portal of whatever it is only transported sound in one direction.
He stands up from the bed and pulls a chair under the bit of ceiling where the light had been. Standing on it, he reaches out to touch, only to find a slight buzz and gentle warmth, but the light does not reappear.
“Should we check upstairs? Maybe the other side of the... it?” he asks.
Blaine shakes his head. “I've tried that. There was residual heat, but nothing else.” He looks at Kurt like he's interested in the conversation, but something about his tone, or his eyes, tells Kurt that Blaine isn't all that interested in opening the portal. At least not at the moment.
They trudge up the stairs anyway, and Blaine attempts to help Kurt one-handed as he slides his dad's chair out of the way to feel the floor underneath. And Blaine is right - it's warm, but there is no other indication that anything was ever amiss.
Kurt pushes the chair back into place and sinks into it. Blaine shrugs and sits down on the couch across from him, still holding his elbow.
“Is your elbow okay?” Kurt asks, feeling like a jerk for waiting this long. “Do you need a doctor?”
Blaine shakes his head. “No. It's just bruised I think. It'll be okay in a couple of days.”
Kurt nods back at him. “I suppose we should get something to eat before my dad gets home. That way I can hide you in my room until we figure out what to do.”
Kurt waits for Blaine to say something, form some sort of response, but he's too busy staring out of the window. “Blaine?”
Blaine shakes his head as if to clear it and turns to Kurt. “It was after midnight when I went in,” he says. “And now...” He motions to the dull autumn sunshine that's streaming in through the window.
“It's not even 5 pm,” Kurt tells him. “That is just so -”
“Weird,” Blaine finishes. “You can say that again.”
*
When Kurt comes back down to his room after eating a mostly silent meal with his father, Blaine is all but passed out on top of his covers.
“Sorry,” he whispers when he spots Kurt. “I know I'm supposed to be hiding, but it's way past bedtime for me.”
“It's okay. I told him I was calling it an early night, so he won't bother us. And he always gives three quick raps on the wall at the top of the stairs before coming down. So you'll know it's him.”
“Three. Okay.” Blaine pauses for a moment before turning his face away. “I'm sorry you have to do this, Kurt.”
Kurt frowns, standing and staring down at Blaine's prone form. After a moment, he crawls onto the bed and kneels next to him. “I'm not about to send you away to God knows where, Blaine.”
“Why not? Most people would. Most people would have called the police.”
Kurt rolls his eyes and reaches out a hand to place on Blaine's back, but thinks better of it a second later and hastily pulls it back before Blaine can take notice of it suspended in the air above him. “I'm not going to call the police. I'm going to help you. We'll figure this out, or else that thing will open up on its own again and you'll be able to go home.”
“Yeah,” Blaine agrees with a sigh. “You're probably right. I...um... thank you though. I appreciate your not freaking out.”
Kurt stifles a soft laugh and Blaine smiles up at him. “I'll just move down to the floor... on the far side of the bed just in case your father does come down here.”
Kurt stops him with a hand on his shoulder, pulling it away quickly when he realizes what he's done. “You don't have to sleep on the floor, Blaine. I mean - you can if you want, but not on account of me. I mean - I don't mind if you want to stay up here. And you know, actually be able to sleep.”
He can't make eye contact after his ramble. Blaine probably thinks he's hitting on him, just like the idiots at school any time he even dares to look them in the eye. And this is so much worse, because he basically just invited Blaine to sleep with him. What is wrong with him?
But Blaine doesn't seem to care. He sits up and pulls down the covers, sliding under them and laying his head on a pillow with a contented sigh. “If you're sure,” he says, voice groggy.
Kurt just nods like an idiot, staring down at him for a moment before getting up to go change for bed.
When he climbs in next to Blaine, he's still in the exact same position - on his side, facing in Kurt's direction, knees bent and injured arm curled safely against his body. His breaths are deep and even and Kurt assumes he is asleep.
He tries to sleep on his right side so that he's facing away from Blaine, but Kurt never sleeps on that side and he's soon turning over, Blaine's sweet, peaceful face only inches away. Kurt's own breathing evens, his heart beats slow until the two of them are in synch.
“Kurt?” Blaine whispers into the dark of the room, voice raspy, heavy with the beginnings of sleep.
Kurt startles and his heart picks back up in speed. “Hmm?”
“I just wanted to say... Your voice...” Girly. Fruity. Faggy. “...is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life.”
Kurt hopes Blaine is too far gone to make out the tears in his voice when he replies. “Goodnight, Blaine.”
Just as Kurt is closing his eyes to sleep, he recalls what he'd been wishing for at the moment Blaine fell through the ceiling. But he doesn't dare to hope.
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