All the Other Ghosts (Boyxboy Superhero AU Fanfic (Klaine))

Chapter 22

The ER on a New York night, gun wounds and overdoses and sprains, cursing and shouting and crying, there's nowhere to be alone. Blaine sits small on a plastic seat against the wall, elbows tucked in close with his phone in both hands, trying not to look at all the panic and frustration and hurry under the strip lighting, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who might look at him and see him for exactly what he is right now and break him. Trying to make himself small and invisible, god, he feels like he's been kicked in the throat, god, god, he has never understood Kurt so much as . . .

"His arm in two places, three of his ribs, stitches in his forehead and some pretty fantastic bruising, but he'll live." Mike had said, while Blaine pulled a shirt over his head and tried to stab his feet into his sneakers in the disused loft where they'd dumped his bag earlier. "It looks like he got hit by a car, what the hell hit him that hard?"

He switched his cell to his other ear, tugged the shirt down straight, kicked a shoe right on his heel, sucked his breath in. "Super. Another super. Is he - ?"

"Hasn't woken up yet, you should be here when he does, he's - he's not going to like this, if he wakes up and panics -"

He'd grabbed his bag up, already stumbling for the window again. "I know. I'm on my way, I know."

Now he sits and makes himself look at his phone, and his hands don't want to grip it right.

You have to do this. You can't not do this. Putting it off isn't going to make it any better, you want him asking you why you took so long to call and you have to tell him that you just couldn't face his voice . . . ?

He unlocks his phone, skims through his contacts, stops on Mr Hummel. He closes his eyes again, lifts the phone, holds it in both hands against his forehead, head down.

If he asks him why he, big shields and all, why he let it be Kurt and not him -

Why is the worst thing always not getting hurt . . . ?

He takes another shallow hospital-scented breath and hits call.

It's nearly three in the morning, and Blaine licks his lips, and knows what Mr Hummel will instantly think on getting a call from his superhero son's superhero boyfriend in the middle of the night. And when he picks up, sleep-rough voice too fast, the first thing he says is, "What happened?"

Blaine hears Carole's voice say gravely in the background, "Burt, what - ?"

He has to swallow. "I'm sorry - it's so late, sir -"

"What happened? Where is he?"

He pulls a hand back through his crazy hair and blinks up at the ceiling, makes himself say, "I'm at the hospital, waiting - for -"

Carole says in the background, "Burt, what happened?"

Mr Hummel says, too controlled, too low, "What happened to him?"

"He, um, he, he's -" He wants to say he's okay even though it's a lie, because it's a better thing to have to say than he's not dead. "His - arm and his, his ribs, he's - he hasn't woken up yet, he's . . ." He closes his eyes. He's surrounded by hurrying medical staff, by a porter pushing a trolley, a man walks past holding his own bloody arm tight. He says, too flatly, "They said it was a hit and run."

"I bet they did," Mr Hummel chokes and it's like a punch, Blaine keeps his eyes closed and bears it, has to swallow again. He can hear shifting, movement, he must be out of bed and finding clothes. Mr Hummel says, too strained, "In the mask?"

"Not - now. Not here." He wants to cry, he can't cry on the phone to Kurt's dad, not like this. "Just him."

"You are gonna send me the details on where you are, the hospital an' his room, I'm on the first flight I can catch over."

He says, very quietly, "Yes, sir."

The quiet metallic clink of a belt buckle as he dresses. "You okay?"

His mouth opens, he closes it again. He swallows, hard. He says, "I'm fine."

"Good. You tell him I'm comin'."

". . . yes, sir . . . I . . ."

"I'm guessin' you can't talk right now."

He looks up and he's scared of the room full of frightened hurt impatient exhausted people, every one of them a threat if they knew. "No. I -"

"So we'll talk when I get there. Just - look after him. Hold on, kid."

He hangs up. Blaine closes his eyes again, slumps back in his seat, lets the back of his head bump off the cold wall behind him. He bumps it off it a couple more times. How much longer - how much longer -

"Blaine Anderson?"

He looks up, into the professionally caring eyes of Mike Chang, first time he's actually seen him in doctor's scrubs, looking down at him with just too much tightness in his forehead. "We've got your boyfriend comfortable, if you want to see him."

Blaine tries to lift a hand to touch his face but his arm's suddenly too weak to raise that high. He just nods and pulls himself up in two unfolding jerks and with his cell in hand, he follows Mike through the hospital.

In the elevator a girl in a robe with a walking frame gets out on the third floor, leaving them alone. Blaine says, "Is he -"

"Still out of it, but he's stable, he's doing good. When he wakes up we'll get a better idea of his head but I've seen him get up from almost worse. He's okay."

"Do you think . . . his head . . ."

"No reason to think it's bad. You said he was talking earlier, right? We'll know when he wakes up. Hey." He grips Blaine's shoulder, shakes him a little. "The worst part's over, okay? No-one's going to die. No-one's cover is blown. It's just -"

The elevator stops, and Mike falls silent as the doors open. Blaine takes a breath in, puts his head back, says, "Okay." and steps out, pockets his cell, walks with Mike along the corridor to a room with the blind closed over its little glass window, opening and offering the door for Blaine.

He stares through it, at the end of a bed.

You can do this. You went barrelling into a bank heist this evening, you can't not walk into his hospital room . . .

When he sees him he doesn't think about anything else, doesn't even notice anything else, he's just on his knees next to the bed taking his hand from the covers - god, god, it's good just to see more colour in his skin than in those sheets - wrapping both of his hands around his with its hospital bracelet, whispering, "Hey, hey . . ."

Kurt's settled in the pillow just like he's sleeping except he never sleeps like that, laid out flat on his back - he curls on his side, he tucks his body to the shape of Blaine's, nuzzles in as close and innocent as an animal. He doesn't sleep with one arm in a cast arranged carefully over his chest. He doesn't usually have black-purple bruising across his forehead, horror movie stitches in a line just under his hair. He doesn't usually look this drained, this drawn, this far distant from Blaine . . .

But those are his perfect lashes against his perfect cheek, his perfect lips a little parted, a little dry . . . Blaine mumbles, without even thinking about it, "Didn't bring your chapstick."

Mike closes the door, carefully, behind himself. "I'm not officially on shift or anything, I said he was a friend and I stayed to help. He might need - I've seen him wake up kind of frantic before, when he thinks his identity's in danger. He might, um. We don't have many options here if he's loud. He might need sedating."

Blaine closes his eyes, shakes his head, closing his fingers around Kurt's hand. His voice is still getting caught in odd ways coming out of his throat. "Don't hurt him."

"It'll keep him from hurting himself."

Blaine wets his own too-dry lips. "You're better at keeping a secret identity than we are."

"Hey, he had a four year run of passing out bleeding on my couch without me having a clue who he was, he did pretty well."

Blaine opens his eyes and murmurs, "And you knew who I was within two minutes of him dropping me into your apartment."

"That's kind of down to him. He didn't want . . . he just wanted you to be safe."

They both go quiet, with Kurt unconscious in the bed. Blaine runs his thumb over his skin, cool and soft, up and down the hard edge of Kurt's metacarpal (you have lovely bones, the physical therapist in him has wanted to say more than once, keeping silent because he knows that's weird but oh he has beautiful bones) up to his still thumb. Mike says quietly, "Here. There's a chair, come on, don't wreck your knees like that, the hospital has enough to do already . . . how's your leg been?"

His knees ache, the cold of the floor more than anything, and he sits with a small grimace in the plastic chair. "It's been fine. Thank you, for that. Apart from the scar I wouldn't know it'd even happened." (Blink, Kurt, lift your head, smile at me . . .)

"My pleasure. Those Christmas cookies make a bit of excitement at one AM now and then completely worth it." Blaine looks up at him almost too tired to process and Mike grins, and Blaine, wearily, grins back.

He rubs his eye, takes Kurt's hand in his again, murmurs, "You - tonight, I don't know what I would have . . ."

"Not all of us have superpowers." Mike says evenly. "For some of us this is the best we can do and we want to do it, just as much as you guys must. And I wasn't lying about those cookies, Tina wants that recipe."

He watches Kurt's still face, closes his eyes, smiles, a little. "It's his, he'll take it to the grave. You know him and his secrets."

". . . I think he's always known, we've all always known, that if me and Tina had wanted to know who he was we could find it out. We just never would, all of us know that, we wouldn't do that to him. I know he trusts us. He just . . . I know he doesn't want us in danger."

"He doesn't want anyone in danger."

"You'd think he of all people would get what life is, huh?" Mike says, and Blaine opens his eyes, watches Kurt breathe, reaches up and, very gently, combs his hair to something a little more naturally Kurt than the spiked mess of it with the blood washed out. It's the one part of life Kurt never can accept, never can bear, people shouldn't be in danger, shouldn't suffer, can't he protect them from everything . . . ?

"Should've been shielding him," he mutters, and it comes out with his breath shaking a little he's so angry at himself, Kurt like this, like this, what the hell is the point of Blaine if every time he could actually do something he - "I should've been -"

"I'm fairly convinced that if you could have been then you, you know, would have been." Mike says, quietly. "I'm guessing it was more complicated than that."

Blaine holds his hand, and stares through his bruises, and thinks, Yes. There's only a single person on this planet who could have hurt him like that, because every night dozens try and the Ghost barely acknowledges their attempt but him - him -

If he hadn't been a super, Blaine would have killed him without even thinking about it.

Too much to think about, too much, he needs Kurt to make these things make sense, he needs . . .

Mike puts his hand on his shoulder. "You look like you could use a cup of coffee."

The laugh shocks him, and he rubs his eye, gives a tight, thin grin up at Mike. "That would - that would seriously make you my hero right now, yes."