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The world stops for him at There's been an incident.
If Sam wasn't there, then he doesn't know how he would have made it to the couch before his legs gave out from underneath him, much less received the rest of the message. He tries but can't make it past that first hard swallow and shaky rebuttal: Don't be ridiculous, he's supposed to be at dinner with Rachel, he's fine. All he can do is listen to the surgical, clipped debriefing.
"I'll be there as soon as I can," he says at last, hitting the end call button numbly as every nerve ending in his body fires, a red alert crashing through his mind like a tidal wave. "We have to go to the hospital," he tells Sam, performing a one-eighty so fast he's swaying on his feet as he stands, and he's already babbling information as he grabs his coat, his keys, anything in reach, stuffing his pockets with Kurt's things -- oh god, Kurt's things -- and rushing headlong into Sam before he's caught in arms stronger than his shaken-apart muscles can take.
Sam's eyes flash with uncertainty, the daily quibbles forgotten in the midst of pandemonium. "Dude, what's going on?" he asks, refusing to let Blaine go even as Blaine fumbles to tuck keys into his pocket and shake his head wildly.
"Kurt's--" and it gets stuck in his throat and he feels sick over it, not knowing how bad it is and if Kurt will recover (of course he will, of course he will, don't say that don't say that don't say that) and how fast they can reach the emergency room on a Friday night in New York. "We need to go," he says instead, and the tears are already obscuring his vision but Sam must understand that much because they're out the door in thirty seconds with the proper attire for a cold winter's night.
Blaine doesn't care, really, couldn't care. He'd rather freeze to death than spend another moment wondering, unsure whether Kurt's breathing on his own or if a machine is doing that for him, if his ribs are killing him and if he's awake and in pain or still and comatose. He spends the entire taxi ride making himself hold the door handle and stare out the window at the streets, listening inanely to Sam talk on the phone, informing Mercedes in a low voice about the situation.
I'm heading out now; I'll call Artie, he catches, and he wonders if he should be relieved that Mercedes is on her way. He should be glad that he doesn't have to face this alone, at least. But all he can feel is the numbness creeping through his extremities, making the extra clothing feel useless, as if it's singularly responsible for his distant from Kurt.
Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
It's a mantra that becomes a coping mechanism in his brain, a trigger that pulls him back to the surface as he sinks deeper into obscurity, all else forgotten as Sam half-hauls him out of the cab and stuffs cash at the driver with a clipped thanks. He doesn't know how they got there or why it's so bitingly cold, but he's afraid, deeply afraid, and all he can think about is how Kurt was out in this weather, they mentioned an alleyway and what if he's hypothermic, what if he's frostbitten, what if they've already amputated his limbs for him and he'll never run or dance or play the piano again?
Heart hammering in his chest and threatening to send him through the gray, unyielding doors of the ICU on his own gurney, he follows Sam's lead to the register's counter, unable to connect two words together, only aware of a shaken head and a gentle but firm dismissal.
We have to see him.
I'm afraid you can't see him.
You don't understand, Blaine's his -- we have to see him.
He's in critical care, sir. I understand your concerns, but he's in good hands. We'll let you know when you can see him.
Critical care. Blaine's heart skips a beat, his hands lunging for the counter for support as his world tips dizzyingly from side to side.
But he's gonna be okay, right? Sam presses, propping Blaine up with an arm around his shoulders and outwardly oblivious to his sagging, trembling weight.
I can't say. We'll let you know as soon as you can see him.
And that's it.
There's a brief whirlwind of activity as Mercedes and Artie arrive, almost simultaneously, demanding details -- how is he? Is he okay? What happened?
Sam dumps Blaine unceremoniously into a heavily cushioned chair and reiterates the conversation with the receptionist to mutual grunts and other noises of displeasure, lost to Blaine's ears as he bows his head and curls his fingers in his hair because Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
Why won't they tell him anything?
But he knows why, remembers all too well the wild look on Cooper's face the first time he stepped into an ICU pod all too long ago. He'd seemed ghostly, otherworldly, as if he and Blaine had occupied separate spaces in time and Blaine's was inhabited by nothing but crushing darkness while Cooper's was under a storm. Or perhaps it was the other way around.
All Blaine knows is that sense memory, wafting into his thoughts like a fog as the others commune, forming a tiny huddle near him in the midst of dozens of other aggrieved loved ones and even unseen patients, clutching bloody rags to broken arms and nursing stomach-turning injuries of all manner of affliction. Rachel arrives at some point, but he barely notices her presence, only adds her number to the list of people who aren't Kurt and can't tell him anything about Kurt.
He huddles into his own skin and listens to the thunder crackling around him, the storm clouds pressing in as the conversation drifts to speculation, as a voice across time speaks to him.
"Hey, squirt."
His eyes are sore and he doesn't want to open them, but that voice -- singularly different from the indecipherable cacophony of doctors and nurses, drawing blood, stitching cuts, sticking him with devices and splinting his arm, none of it consensual, just a battle against time and the elements and a long, droning war he never asked for -- all of it coalesces into a single bright point, eyelids flickering open for the first time in hours as he tilts his head and stares blankly at the ragged figure near the door.
"Hey, Coop," he rasps, and it tastes like blood, every syllable an effort on a body already pushed to its limits, pushed beyond. "'Took you so long?"
"Had to catch a flight, B," Cooper says, staring at him like he's an animal, or an alien, but something far, far from human. His fingers twitch at his side, a muscle ticking in his jaw with an unspoken query, an unlaunched rant pushing at his throat until at last he clears it and says, "They didn't let me in right away."
Laughter at the absurdity of it all rises to Blaine's throat but never escapes the cradle of his broken body, mute and strangely detached as he responds in a lighter rasp, "That bad, huh?"
He feels a warm nest of hair settle against his shoulder and belatedly realizes that there's a person attached to it, settling an arm around his waist and squeezing tightly, pulling him back.
There are tears against his shirt, and he wants to ask but can't, because there are tears in his eyes, too, unshed but waiting, a crying fit that won't come till hours later already brewing.
Instead, he lets his body relax into the embrace, squeezes the hand that ventures onto his knee for solidarity, and they wait, she understanding his pain in a way he cannot and hopes not to ever know.
The tears flow steadily, and time passes, but he's never more conscious of anything but the slow sweep of his thumb against her skin, providing solace as much as taking it. He knows that she's afraid -- he's scared, too, scared out of his skin -- but he can find no words, can offer no comfort in the darkness and stillness.
All he knows is that while he healed and lived to tell the tale, there was a very different call one day that terminated with a singular crackle of He's gone.
Blaine doesn't remember much about the immediate aftermath, consumed as he was by world-crushing grief, but he remembers Kurt's body going rigid like a fracture line the moment he opened the door to let Blaine into the apartment, his body tensing before shuddering through an internal earthquake. He fell into Blaine's arms, clinging so viperously Blaine knew that he'd drown if he let go, wild-eyed and ashen-faced. It was easier, then, to distance himself from the reality of Finn's death, to put it past him and focus on Kurt instead, cradling him and shushing him and crying with him throughout it all because any pain was better than the truth.
It took hours before he ever got Kurt settled enough to venture cautiously, quietly, almost fearfully into Rachel's space.
"Rach?"
She doesn't move, barely speaks, but when he sits on the bed and very gently draws her into his arms, he feels the sharp edges of ribs. It makes him want to rip the monster that did this to her apart, a different sort of grief emerging from him, the same pain that lashes into the hard canvas of a punching bag because it's easier than bleeding to death emotionally.
Instead, he holds on, refuses to let go for a long moment, infusing her with every ounce of courage that he can.
And she never says a word, but if there's room for three in Kurt's cramped bed that night, it's for them, huddled in the dark and terrified of what being alone truly means.
Selfishly, Blaine knows, his thumb stroking slower and slower circles against Rachel's knuckles, her grip tightening on his knee with every passing second, their bodies huddled and shaped together in silent conversation, he's grateful that he could turn and bury his face in Kurt's shoulder, that he could hold Kurt's warm hard living body when the moment was too much, that he never had to turn and realize that empty space without a comforting hand to drape over his hip, his spine, his shoulder.
I'm never saying goodbye to you.
God, Blaine thinks, sniffling slightly because he refuses to entertain the thought but it's making his vision fuzzy anyway, it's clogging his throat and threatening to overwhelm his thoughts, you promised, Kurt.
He doesn't know how much time passes, but he understands in that moment the mutual terror, the mutual pain shared between them, and he's grateful for it, eventually turning into the embrace enough that it isn't so one-sided.
And they wait.
And wait.
And wait.
He thinks idly about how long Cooper sat alone in a quiet Ohio hospital waiting for answers, how gouged and war-torn he seemed by the time he finally staggered into Blaine's room, such a breath of fresh air to him.
I'm so glad you're here, Blaine remembers thinking, and knowing, gut-deep, with every ounce of his being.
He doesn't know how much time passes, but he stays low and reverential and silent so long that his muscles are cramped by the time they're roused.
His senses, overwrought, refuse to leap into overdrive, but they're raw and he braces for the worst, already knowing that he can't do it, can't face a single night without Kurt, can't face a single second of living knowing that Kurt's warm body won't be there, that his bright smile won't fill the space or his brilliant mind echo in the chamber of the open air.
"He'll be okay."
And it's like every ounce of grief drains out of him, every second of breathlessness spared, and he stares heavenward and supplicates to any divine being listening: thank you, thank you, thank you.
Beside him, near enough that he can still feel her, Rachel sags, relief etched in every line of her body, and even before they're taken back he turns and sweeps her into a bone-crushing hug, pressing his face against her hair and willing his tears not to spill out now or he won't have any strength at all for Kurt, and Kurt needs him, needs him, but he has to do this, too.
Thank you.
She doesn't say anything, squeezes him back and lets him go, but he hears it, nonetheless, and he keeps her close a moment longer before letting go.
It's not her singular responsibility for keeping Kurt alive, he knows, but she knows what it's like to lose, and knows what his fear is, and he feels safer with her, certain in every way that Kurt will overcome whatever is thrown his way as long as Rachel is there and won't let him go, either.
And he's rough and Blaine's throat forms a lump the second he sees him, but he's not broken, not dead, just battered and bruised and sore, needier and gentler and tenderer, but alive, alive, alive.
Groggy and half-comatose from his meds, he doesn't wake immediately and when he does he mostly clings vaguely to Blaine's hand, waking for short periods to moan his discomfort. In spite of the way his heart aches with sympathetic pain, Blaine relishes every instant of consciousness, so grateful for confirmation that his worst fears remain unfounded even as he urges Kurt to sleep, to rest, to heal. Kurt obliges easily and near instantly, his lips twitching in that familiar, albeit foggy and sore, way as Blaine presses gentle kisses to the unmarred parts of his face.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
"Love you, too," Kurt rasps, bled dry and tired, but Blaine's strong enough for both of them, emboldened by Kurt's beating heart and even breaths. He holds them together even as the rest of the world sinks into a gentle stupor, nighttime falling and friends departing one by one till it's just them and Rachel, forgotten in her corner but a sentinel, fending off nurses and pressing doctors for information while Blaine exists for nothing but Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
He doesn't know how much time passes but they're both sore by morning, stiff and cramped, Kurt's pain surging in the wake of a long night, and Blaine wants to cry because he's holding them up but God, he was so scared and holding them up any longer might break him apart, and then he rolls over gingerly and finds the coffees and the blankets and the note on the table.
Thought you might like these. -- R.
He gets Kurt settled as best he can with tender hands and gentler movements, not wanting to disturb any of his injuries as he drapes the blanket over him and helps him elevate enough to sip the coffee. Kurt's complexion returns to a more normal color, a tiny smile crinkling his tired expression as he drinks.
"I love her," he says, heavy and world-worn but happy, still, and Blaine squeezes his uninjured hand gently, gratitude emanating from every pore to see Kurt alive, not perfectly well, not by a mile, but alive.
"Me too," he agrees, and it's a while before he learns the story, what drove Kurt to leave on his own in the first place, and he knows he should resent her, but he can't, because he knows that little gesture is an I'm sorry as much an I'm so glad you're still here.
And when, two nights later, they're tucked in their own bed, Kurt carefully accommodated for maximum comfort and Blaine wedged gently against his side, he drifts away from the edge of sleep long enough to notice when the lamp beside them finally dims, a door closing moments after, quiet and fleeting.
In the morning, he makes them all blueberry pancakes; he buys her white roses that afternoon.
But that night, he merely tucks his cheek against Kurt's shoulder and falls asleep, vowing to never, ever say goodbye to him, either.