Going for Broke

Chapter 6

When Blaine tries calling Kurt that night, it goes straight to voicemail. The same with the next day. The same with every single day that week.

He can't concentrate at work. His stomach gnarls and works itself into little knots, and the numbers dance across his eyes, flickering in and out of vision too quickly to process. He realizes during his lunch break on Monday that he's gnawed all the fingernails on his left hand off—a habit he hasn't had for fifteen years now.

Every night he sits in his apartment and wonders if he should go to Darling Place and make sure everything is alright. What if Kurt is still sick, home alone all day with Santana at work? What if they don't have enough to eat? What if he needs medicine, but they can't afford it? What if Kurt has gotten worse, and is already lying in a hospital bed? Every night Blaine talks himself out of it, saying that Santana will take care of it, will take care of him, and Kurt will answer Blaine's next phone call with his customary, "What's up, Dapper Dan?"

He needs to believe this. The thought of Kurt in pain makes Blaine's fingers tingle and his throat feel tight. He can't breathe for worry.

He calls his mother instead, on the Thursday. It helps, a little, to hear her babble on about the new countertop in the kitchen and how much snow they've had, but the anxiety still eats at his insides, hollowing out a cavern in the middle of his body so that he needs to clutch his arms around his chest before he can sleep at night.

He remembers feeling like this once before. Only once, in the weeks after he came out to his parents. He remembers curling into bed at night and feeling the weight of his father's silence wash over him, disappointed and scared. He'd felt like his insides were turning into lead as he lay there, trying to hold himself together, trying not to cry, because men don't cry, and maybe if he didn't cry, his father would love him again.

He wants Kurt, then, so fiercely Blaine can almost feel him in his arms. He wants to hold him tight and never let go, and he wants to feel Kurt's arms around him too. He wants to feel Kurt's soft breath on his cheek, wants to nuzzle his head into Kurt's neck and just breathe in the scent of him, all soap and paint and sweat. He wants to fold Kurt into his chest and whisper promises of forever, and make everything else disappear. Because Kurt somehow always makes him feel like he's worth something. For everything else that he is—bewildering, dualistic, maddening, stubborn, witty, sarcastic—Kurt has always made Blaine feel like he's so much more than what he is.

Blaine can't stand it. He can't stand it because Kurt is so far away and probably cold and hungry, shivering under that ratty blanket in that jail cell bedroom. He can't stand it because Kurt won't answer his phone and Blaine can't think straight without hearing his voice. Because he never believed in soul mates but he can believe in two of the most unexpected people meeting and making the world shift bit by bit. Because Santana told him it will never work out. Because he knows she's right.

He can't stand it because he knows he's in love with Kurt Hummel and there is nothing he can do to fix it.

***

Kurt calls him on the Saturday. Blaine is still lounging around his apartment in his pajama bottoms, eating Honeycomb out of the box and feeling immensely sorry for himself as he watches reruns of 'Friends' on one of those generic comedy channels. When the phone rings, he makes it to the kitchen on the fifth ring and snatches it off the counter. He nearly spits cereal across the floor when he sees the caller I.D. He answers the call quickly and holds it to his ear. Before he can say anything though, a cross voice cuts him off. "Where are you?"

Blaine feels every muscle in his body instantly seize and relax at Kurt's voice, and his grip on the phone nearly falters. He catches it last second.