Cut the Cord
Chapter 23

He feels sick with nerves on the flight to New York which isridiculous because he’s only going to see Kurt for God’s sake—Kurt who he feelsmore comfortable with than anyone else on the planet. Except it could never be‘only’ Kurt because Kurt is so much more than that; Kurt is everything.

He declines the food pack that the air hostess tries toshove under his nose, shakes his head when Burt offers him some of his own, andspends the rest of the journey staring out of the window. He doesn’t know if helikes the feeling of being suspended in so much blueness, the clouds a blanketof white below. He’s never been scared of heights or air travel, but if hefocusses too hard on that stomach-swooping feeling of elevation it becomesdangerously similar to the drifting sensation he gets when his feet are firmlyplanted on the ground. He watches theever-switching horizon instead, gaze flicking every now and then to the littlemap on the seat in front of him, watching the time countdown to landing. Thelittle numbers move tantalisingly slow at first, but as they get closer to NewYork, they speed up and suddenly Blaine has the panicky urge to stop them.

Breathing as deeply as his lungs allow, he climbs over Burtand queues up for the tiny restroom, cursing the fact that everyone uses itbefore they land. It doesn’t help that the Christmas Eve flight is packed, everyonewanting to get home to friends and family at the last minute. He’s never beenaway for Christmas before and he feels like travelling should somehow underminethe holiday, make it less special, but it’s the first Christmas since he wassix (and still believed in Santa Claus) that he’s looking forward to. Ofcourse, it’s also the first Christmas that’s made him sickeningly nervous, butBlaine figures it’s still better than being stuck in his too-big house with hisfather’s silent opinions.

When it’s finally his turn in the restroom, he locks thedoor, then unlocks it and relocks it again, just to make sure. He stares at hisreflection in the little mirror, leaning against the sink as the plane jolts,and takes in his palled complexion, the dark circles smeared under his eyes. Hewishes he could be more attractive, just for a day, but this will have to do; he will have to do.

He uses the toilet and then splashes a bit of water on hisface, ignoring the knock on the door; there are too many people for the numberof toilets on board and they’ll just have to be patient. The lock on the doorjams for a moment when he tries to open it and he feels that exhilaratinglittle rush of What if I get trapped inhere? What am I going to do? It opens on the second attempt, though, and heignores the fed-up glares of the people waiting, heading back to his seatwithout meeting their eyes. He’s strangely disappointed that he didn’t getstuck in there, although he doesn’t know why; it would’ve been reallyembarrassing.

“Alright, buddy?” Burt asks, looking up from his footballmagazine as Blaine manages to climb back over his legs.

No, this was a bad idea and I can’t believe I let you talk me intothis.

“Yeah, just tired of sittingdown.” He answers, turning his attention back to the window. Burt seems to buyit, patting Blaine’s leg once before returning to his reading.

Ten minutes later, the captaintells them to prepare for landing and Blaine’s stomach jolts unpleasantly asthe usual spiel starts about seats being upright and placing hand luggage inthe overhead lockers. He double-checks that his seat can’t be made anystraighter and wonders why his insides feel horizontal. It’s like he was lyingdown and left his innards behind when he sat up, although he hasn’t reclinedthe chair at any point during the flight.

Landing and disembarking goes byin a hazy blur, Burt reminding him to get his rucksack from the overhead lockerand leading him towards baggage reclaim. He has only brought hand luggage forthe two-night stay, but Burt was forced to take a suitcase in order to bringKurt some more clothes from home. Blaine offers to carry it to the taxi for himand discovers pretty quickly that Kurt has either requested the delivery of hisfavourite lace-up, weighted boots, or Burt decided to bring several rocks withhim. He suspects the former and for some reason the knowledge that he’scarrying Kurt’s stuff makes him feel like he’s smuggled something all the wayfrom Lima. The NYPD officers stationed near the main doors barely look at him,but it feels like their eyes are boring through the fabric of the suitcase andhe wants to drop it, admit that they’re not his with his hands in the air.

He barely registers the hugebuildings flashing past as the taxi speeds them to Kurt’s apartment. He’s beento New York several times and whilst the awe at such a magnificent skyline willnever leave him, it feels a lot more fragile than the last time he visited. Italso seems to take a ridiculously small amount of time to fight through thetraffic and get to Bushwick. Blaine’s still mentally preparing himself,wondering what the hell he’s going to say. Is he meant to just pop out frombehind Burt, shouting ‘surprise!’ at the top of his voice? Is he meant to hidein the stairwell until they’ve had time to catch up? Is he meant to just walkin and see how long it takes for Kurt to realise? All three options seemabsurd, but then his presence in this city, after everything that’s happened, is absurd. He shouldn’t be here.

Burt seems to notice hisanxiousness because he starts talking about some pizza place down the streetthat’s meant to be amazing, presumably attempting to distract him. It doesn’twork, but Blaine appreciates the effort.

He takes the offending suitcaseonce more and lugs it up the stairs behind Burt, taking in the random graffition the walls. It’s definitely not the nicest neighbourhood there is, but Kurtand Rachel are students so he supposes it’s quite a good place for theirbudget.

When Burt raps on the door,eyebrows raised in anticipation, Blaine stops breathing. Kurt is on the other side of that door; there are literally only afew metres between them. It seems to take forever for the door to slide open,and when it finally does, it feels a lot like his senses are being overloaded.The first thing he notices is the smell of freshly-baked goodies, and Christmasexcitement, and something so very Kurt-like. He barely has time to register hischest tightening and then Kurt is there, standing in front of him in an apronBlaine recognises from past baking sessions, smile crinkling his face as hesees his dad.

Then, torturously slowly, Kurt’seyes flicker from Burt’s face to his lack of suitcase to Blaine who is stoodslightly behind him, clutching it like a lifeline.

“Blaine?”

It’s the first word out of hismouth and Blaine has a split second to work out whether he’s good-surprised orbad-surprised before he’s speaking again.

“I—Dad? You didn’t tell me Blainewas coming?”

“Yeah, well, I wanted it to bea—”

“—But I didn’t realise. I didn’tknow he’d be here and now—”

“Kurt, relax! I’m sure you canbake some more cookies or whatever.” Burt’s still grinning at what he perceivesto be Kurt’s melodrama, but Blaine’s starting to panic. Something isn’t right.

“No, you don’t understand—”

“Kurt? Is it your dad?” The voicecomes from somewhere behind Kurt and it fizzles through Blaine’s brain, forcinghim to put two and two together.

Kurt looks pained as he slidesthe door the whole way open and they all turn to look at the man—the tall,attractive, blond man—stood in thekitchen area, holding a tray of cookies and looking slightly confused. Blaineknows without question it’s the guy he heard on the phone; the British inflectionis unmistakable.

It doesn’t exactly feel likehaving the carpet ripped out from under his feet—it’s more like the whole worldfalling away, useless bits of scenery collapsing during a low-budget communitytheatre production, and leaving him stood on a tiny bit of floor, about to falloff at any second but unable to move. The worst part is that Kurt suddenlycan’t meet his gaze and that tells Blaine all he needs to know.

You’re not wanted here.