Going for Broke

Chapter 8

It's the first time Blaine really sees Kurt cry.

He does, with sobs that rip up his throat and chest and tear through the air, jagged and rough and real. He clutches the blanket so tight around himself that his fingers turn white, and he keels over, gasping and choking and stumbling a bit on his feet. It's so sudden, and so violent, and Blaine doesn't know what he can do. Kurt has never seemed like someone to cry, but now it's as if he's stored it all up over the years, and he's exploded, fallen apart.

That's what happens when someone doesn't allow themselves to feel, Blaine realizes. It doesn't fade over time, or leak away through fingernails and hair follicles. The feeling just stays, and simmers, deep in your body, until it swells too big to stay hidden any longer. Sadness, rage, loneliness. Love.

It never really goes away.

He steps forward and grabs Kurt's shoulders before he can actually fall, pulling him up and pressing Kurt into his chest. Kurt's hands fist in his pajama shirt and he buries his face into the crook of Blaine's neck, breath hot and wet on Blaine's skin. He's shaking so hard that the blanket begins to slip, and Blaine quickly tugs it tighter, arms wrapping around Kurt and holding him, one hand on his side and the other on the back of his head, softly stroking.

"Shh..." he whispers, "Shhh..." He wants to say more, wants to promise Kurt that it will be okay, that he will be okay, but he can't. Not when...not if it's a lie.

Kurt's dying.

His body is so solid and strong and real, but suddenly Blaine might as well be clutching at ash, ready to be blown away with the next storm. Kurt's skin jumps beneath his fingertips, and it's almost like he's actually cracking apart, like he's made of eggshells that are being slowly crushed in Blaine's hands.

Kurt's dying. And he never told.

What would it be like, to carry that secret around with you, every day? To have it there, heavy and dark in the cavern of your heart? Would you feel it, Blaine wonders. Can you feel it when you're dying? Or is it just the knowledge there, waiting and eating at your insides? Can you feel yourself hollowing out? Hollow men, stuffed men...

Is that what Kurt feels, everyday? Does he cover it over with smiles and joking and layers of paint, every morning? Does he force it all further inside, batten it down with laughter, and present a face to the world that holds no trace of shadow?

Blaine holds Kurt tight as he sinks down to the floor, repositioning him into his lap and rocking slowly back and forth, back and forth, as Kurt cries and shakes and dies. Kurt's dying, he's dying, he's dying.

It seems impossible. He's Kurt—so opinionated and strong and passionate and alive. How can someone like that be dying? Death is for other people, people far away. Not Kurt. He doesn't deserve it.

But it's real, and it's happening, and there's nothing Blaine can do to stop it, so he just holds Kurt and lets him crumble apart, walls falling down, like the Roman Empire, strong and real and alive until it wasn't, until it was just ruins and a forgotten religion. The god Hephaestus, torn and crippled on the island of Lemnos, because even Gods can fall.

***

Kurt ends up getting dressed in some of Blaine's loosest sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt he won in a radio contest in college. His ankles poke a fair bit out from the hems of the sweatpants, leaving his feet cold and exposed, so Blaine digs up his pair of slippers from beneath the bed and gives Kurt those as well. They settle onto opposite ends of the couch, both armed with coffee cups. Kurt's eyes are pink rimmed and puffy, his nose scratched red. He watches Blaine, blinking slowly, lips and throat working over the coffee with small sips. He looks more vulnerable now than Blaine has ever seen him, fully clothed and awake. It's because he knows the truth now, Blaine knows. Because Kurt is staring at him, and they both know that Blaine could say one thing and break Kurt completely, break him so he can never be put back together.