Going for Broke

Chapter 9

Santana doesn't spare Blaine a look when she returns from upstairs and heads into the kitchen to put on the water. She hums gently under her breath, expression soft, and she looks lovelier now with mascara smeared and lipstick rubbed off than she ever could with her fake face. She's younger, somehow, but also older, gentle, and Blaine wonders what she was like before all this, and he wonders what she has the potential to be. What could she do, if someday she managed to sweep up the glass fragments that must be scattered somewhere around her stomach, sweep them up and piece them together again into the heart they once were. Maybe an aorta or two would be in the wrong place, but could it still work the same?

He goes to her instead of waiting for her to acknowledge him, leaning against the counter and watching her prepare the instant coffee. "Is he still mad at me?"

"Furious." She nods. "He'll sulk up there for hours now."

Blaine sighs and drags his hand along his face, skin catching at the stubble there. "I shouldn't have done that," he admits.

"Done what?" she asks, putting on the water and hopping up on to the counter in her usual spot. He can smell the cloying scent of her perfume from here. It's sweet, yet bitter, and Blaine remembers his mother throwing out perfumes once they'd gotten too old and started to smell like this.

Blaine closes his eyes and massages his temples. Thinking about his mother's perfumes all lined up on the dresser isn't useful right now. "He told me not to involve you, and...and I should have respected that."

Suddenly, a warm hand encloses his own, and he opens his eyes to find Santana's face inches from his, taking up the whole of his vision. She really is beautiful, Blaine realizes in that second, once you can look past the shell she's built around herself, and he imagines several thousand young men would murder to be in his position right now. Or several thousand young women, he corrects himself.

He hopes she's able to find that girl, someday. But now, she's only found his eyes with her own.

"It was the right thing," she whispers. "I...I owe you one, right?"

Blaine shakes his head and pulls back a little. "No. It wasn't right."

Santana frowns and her nails dig sharply into his hand. "Hey. Look, no. It was."

When he just sighs, she rolls her eyes and slides off the counter, taking both his shoulders and gripping tight. "Look, hobbit, I know Kurt a lot better than you do, right? So when I say it was the right thing to do, just accept that I'm right, you're wrong, and move on."

She shoves away from him and heads back to prepare the coffee. Blaine's eyes flicker to the door to the upstairs. He'd sat down on the couch with Santana at his side for half an hour after Kurt had stomped upstairs, listening to brief frustrated shrieks and his name being used in a variety of very creative curses before things had calmed down and Santana had gone to check on him. It had been the guiltiest Blaine had ever felt in his life, and that included the time he'd accidentally hit his unprepared boxing instructor in the nose and broken it.

"Hey." Santana leans over the counter to snap her fingers in his face. "Would you listen? You did the right thing. Yes, Kurt's gonna go all head-bitch on your ass for the next month, but..."

"But what?" Blaine snaps.

She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "But," she says, "When he actually realizes that he wants to live, he'll thank you."

"But when will he realize?" Blaine asks desperately.

Santana lifts and drops one shoulder. "Dunno. I mean...it's Kurt." And there's the explanation. It's Kurt. It's always Kurt.