"Can you guys…" He clears his throat, eyes locked on the too-pale hand between his fingers. "Can you guys give me a minute?"

A pause, and then a couple sures and yeah mans. Sam, he thinks, claps a hand on his shoulder, squeezing for just a second too long, but then they're all out, and he's alone. He fingers the IV port in Kurt's hand, afraid to look up.

"I don't know if you know this," he murmurs, "but getting bad news from Rachel is about a hundred times worse than getting bad news from anyone else. She calls me and she's hysterical, like I'm supposed to figure out through her crying what happened. I mean, knowing her, she…she probably accidentally left her umbrella on the subway or something and is going through withdrawal or…" He drifts off.

The steady beeping should have become a background noise by now, something that Blaine's brain has tuned out and assimilated as part of his environment. But he hears every blip, every note that is now the most important sound in his world. His eyes move up to the monitors that don't really make any sense—

Remember when you wanted to be a doctor, Blaine? Remember when you thought about going into medicine? Would you know something, now, if you had? Would you be able to help him? Would he be here, unconscious and broken like china dropped from a dewy fire escape, if you weren't so selfish, so eager for the limelight? Would he? Would he?

—until they finally gain the courage to slide over to the black and blue chipped face. His first thought when he walked in was What if it scars? because he won't be able to handle Kurt if he has to deal with facial scarring but now he's just laughing to himself because there is nothing he won't be able to handle with Kurt once he wakes. up.

"Hey," he whispers, squeezing Kurt's fingers. "What're you doing? Kurt Hummel, you are in the city that never sleeps. How dare you stay out for so long? This—" He chokes for a moment. "This whole city is going to pass you by if you don't wake up. Um." He reaches up to brush a hair away from Kurt's forehead. His skin is clammy and cold, like the subway after a heavy rain—

Nothing at all like the burning heat of their last night in the loft together, skin slick with sweat and absolutely on fire. Nothing like tongues on torsos and lips on lobes and hands on hips. Nothing like the way the words I love you were scorched into his skin for everyone to see. Nothing like the need that seeped from his pores as though his very essence was dependent on the way Kurt rocked into him, on the way Kurt's body surrounded his in a haze of safety and protection and ownership. Nothing. Nothing.

—but his fingertips lingered for just a moment. "Your dad's on his way. I think Sam called him. I'm not sure. They…they said he was really worried about you, and I know how you feel about making your dad worry, so why don't you—just—wake up and be okay, okay? Just—everything will be better if you please open your eyes Kurt, please—"

"Blaine?" Sam's small voice echoes into the room like a gunshot, and Blaine collapses onto the bed. Sam's arms are there a moment later to pull him in close as Blaine sobs. Angry, horrified sounds rip from his throat as he punches Sam in the chest over and over and over, anything to get the feelings out. Blaine won't be made a widower before he can legally drink, before he's even married, he won't. Kurt will wake up because if he doesn't then Blaine ceases to exist too, Blaine who was never really a person without Kurt, no matter what everyone else says. Blaine breathes when Kurt breathes, and once Kurt stops Blaine becomes an echo in a void, a footnote in the epic poem of human history, a memory for no one to share.

"He'll be okay," Sam whispers into Blaine's hair, rocking him back and forth. Blaine feels the eyes of his friends on him through the window of Kurt's room, but they don't matter. The eyes he needs are closed to him, and until they open, Blaine is a book slammed shut.

TUMBLR: nothingbutgoneness