Fic: "My Body Betrays Me," Chapter Five, cont. Non-con Kurt/Karofsky, Kurt/Blaine -- COMPLETE!!!!!!
Chapter One: Dave
Chapter Two: Kurt
Chapter Three: Blaine
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part One
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part Two A and Part Two B
Click here to return to the first half of Chapter Five.
--
He’s able to find work, eventually, with a construction company that pays cash and doesn’t check his references or resume too closely. His bosses are questionable at best and his coworkers aren’t really worth talking to, but the work is easy enough. Three summers’ worth of experience helping his uncle renovate the family summer home is enough to give him some basic skills, and the rest comes pretty intuitively.
It takes another two months of living at the shelter before he’s able to find a place to live that’s cheap enough and doesn’t require legitimate references.
It’s a complete shithole. The wallpaper is ancient and peeling, and on his first tour he finds rat droppings in the kitchen. He takes it anyways.
There isn’t any point in getting to know his coworkers, or trying to make friends, because there’s nothing left in him for anyone to get to know. There’s never anyone else, either, because the only one that matters isn’t there anymore. He’s been hollowed out and left living, surviving every day for reasons he himself can’t even comprehend.
Some nights, the boy dreams of what-might-have-beens and a million lost chances. Of an apartment shared with a beautiful boy with a brilliant smile and bright blue eyes, who nods and grins and lets himself be kissed.
He wakes from those dreams sweat-soaked and panting, hands curling in the sheets and sick to his stomach with want and self-hate and revulsion.
--
After a month in the Hudson-Hummel household without anything to truly set his mind to, Kurt starts feeling slightly stir-crazy. He’s left the house, of course: going grocery shopping with Carole, or to the garage with his dad, and even once with Finn to help him pick out a dress shirt to wear on a date with his girlfriend. Practically as an act of defiance to himself, Kurt’s even started making every-other-day trips to the Lima Bean. It’s a local coffee shop with questionable cookies but very friendly baristas, and Kurt makes a point of bringing a book with him and sipping through at least one non-fat mocha before he leaves.
Being able to go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, to talk to whomever he wants... it’s overwhelming in a way that isn’t easy to explain. Kurt’s entire life has been limited, stunted. Not allowed to go to school until he was older, or discouraged from extracurricular activities, or scared to make real friends in case they decide to take advantage. Having so many opportunities available... it’s terrifying.
His dad, Carole, and Dr. O’Reilly keep telling him not to push himself, that it’s okay to move at his own pace. But staying home staring at walls isn’t making him any less anxious, and the days are too empty without something to fill them with. Re-integrating all of his Dalton possessions had been a nice task once his dad had brought them home, and having his own laptop again is pleasant. But none of it can quite hold his interest for long enough to stop things he’d rather not think about from lingering in his mind.
A month and a week after the day Burt took him away, Kurt asks his dad to start figuring out how to finish his last semester of junior year. Before long, pamphlets for summer school and correspondence learning begin piling up on the kitchen table.
Kurt knows that no one’s been able to find Karofsky, knows how much it kills his dad not to have anyone to punish for what happened. But in a way he won’t admit to anyone out loud, Kurt isn’t surprised. He told Dave to run, and didn’t seriously expect him to stop any time soon.
Being tucked away in his own little fortress doesn’t stop him from looking out the windows, however. He’s become a champion Facebook-stalker over the past weeks, mastering the art of looking and reading without posting anything. Kurt sits with his laptop in the living room and watches his friends comment on one another’s statuses, or post pictures of parties he didn’t attend, and clicks the links to the only-sometimes-funny things they post.
Kurt is just chuckling to himself over a parody of “Tik Tok” that David from the Warblers posted a few minutes ago when a comment pops up right beneath the video.
Blaine Anderson:
Ohmygod that is too perfect! Good one man! :)
Aside from a tiny part of Kurt’s mind that judges him for the lack of commas, everything in Kurt’s body seizes up immediately with jolted frustration. Blaine wrote that just now. He’s on this stupid website at this very moment, writing and talking and socializing.
I wish I could talk to him, Kurt finds himself thinking in frustration. Before he realizes, of course, that he can.
Kurt hesitates for a long moment, trying to figure out how to determine if he’s in a better place to talk to Blaine now than he had been a month ago. But he doesn’t have any idea how wellness is determined, really. How it’s measured, or quantified, or solved like an equation. Kurt cries less than he did when he first came home, yes, but characters calling one another “babe” on television still makes his hackles rise just as much as before. The memory of Blaine’s lips pressed against his own in the study room is quietly terrifying, but Kurt’s fallen asleep to the memory of Blaine holding him close during his breakdown in the abandoned classroom more times than he can count.
Mostly, however, all he can think about is how much he wants to talk to Blaine.
Biting his lip and taking a deep breath, Kurt clicks the “available to chat” toggle and sends out a message before he can think better of it.
Kurt Hummel: Hi. Are you there?
At once, the message looks about a billion times stupider than it did in his head. Breath almost catching in his throat, Kurt waits for a response. And waits. Self-doubt starts to flood his mind after a few seconds without a response, because oh, god, Blaine probably hasn’t thought about him in weeks. All at once he feels like a complete moron for expecting Blaine to have... to what? To have been waiting for Kurt to contact him with bated breath? It’s finals soon, and essays will be due, and Blaine always had tonnes of friends at Dalton that Kurt is sure filled any void he may have left quickly enough. Face heating up, he starts to type again.
Kurt Hummel: Never mind, don’t worry about it. Have a good night.
Blaine Anderson: nononoo! wait no plz don’t go
Blaine Anderson: typing one handed
Blaine Anderson: just taeks me a minute
Blaine Anderson: to respond :)
Seeing Blaine’s name on the screen feels like puzzle pieces clicking into place. He’s missed Blaine. With Karofsky... doing what he was doing, everything had been about surviving and making it through and finding a way to keep himself during everything. He had almost forgotten how close he and Blaine had been before everything happened. How much he’d genuinely liked Blaine when they were just two boys at school, learning one another and bantering over coffee.
It takes a second for the contents of Blaine’s messages to sink in, and Kurt raises an eyebrow in confusion before he realizes why Blaine must be typing with one hand. Guilt hits him in the stomach like a punch, and he remembers Karofsky slamming his foot down onto Blaine’s outstretched hand. The way he’d cradled it over his chest afterward; watching the nurse tape his fingers together.
Kurt Hummel: Oh, my god. Of course. I’m so sorry... does it still hurt?
Blaine Anderson: not r4eally anymore, its just sore
Blaine Anderson: but im trying to rest it up a bit for finals
Blaine Anderson: so they don’t hurt too much 2 write
Kurt Hummel: I’m sorry, Blaine.
Blaine Anderson: nono its fine!! Im just sorry i have 2 suck at tryping for u. i dont usually fail this much i promise!!
Kurt Hummel: No. No, Blaine, I’m just... I’m really sorry.
Blaine Anderson: ... kurt...
Swiping at his eyes, Kurt bites his lip and waits for more. The ‘Blaine Anderson is typing’ message stays at the bottom of the screen for an absurdly long amount of time before:
Blaine Anderson: is it maybee okay if i call u? theres a lot i wanna say but itstaking me so long to write this out. you dont have to say yes if that would make u uncmfortable, though
And since waiting on responses for so long is starting to make him feel physically anxious - and because the idea of hearing Blaine’s voice makes something warm and pleasant curl around his stomach - Kurt responds almost immediately.
Kurt Hummel: I’d like that. You still have my home phone number, right?
Blaine Anderson: i do yeah
Kurt Hummel: Call me in five minutes?
Blaine Anderson: okay :)
Kurt stares at the last message, still hanging on the screen for a long moment, before he takes a deep breath and shuts off his laptop. Grabbing the portable phone from its cradle on the coffee table, he grips it tight in his hand as he heads up the stairs. Knocking on Burt and Carole’s bedroom door elicits a warm ‘come in!’ from Carole almost immediately, so Kurt gently pokes his head inside.
His dad and stepmother are lying on opposite sides of their queen-sized bed, Carole with several file folders and a calculator on the sheets in front of her and his own dad with a worn paperback in hand. The soft red glow of the clock on their bedside table reads 10:36pm.
“Hey, buddy,” says his dad warmly, looking up at him from the book and marking the page with his thumb. Carole smiles at him. “What’s on your mind?”
“Just saying goodnight,” says Kurt, in a too-high voice. “And... and that Blaine’s calling in a few minutes. So if you hear talking from my room, it’s just him.”
Carole darts a look at her husband, but Burt just nods. “For sure. He sounds like a pretty okay kid. Just let me know if you need anything?”
Translation: come get me if you end up having some kind of freak out over this.
“I will,” says Kurt softly. The phone is still clutched tight in his hand.
“Love you,” says Burt, because they’ve all been saying it more since Kurt came home.
“I love you, too. Night, guys.”
Closing the door behind him, Kurt pads softly down the hall to his own room and shuts the door behind him. He turns on his bedside lamp and climbs on top of the sheets, every nerve on edge in anticipation for the phone to start ringing. He taps his foot as he waits.
It doesn’t take too long for the phone to ring, and Kurt picks it up on the first one. Finn’s taking a nap - not asleep for the night, taking a nap, good lord what that boy’s sleep schedule is like - and Kurt doesn’t want the noise to wake him.
“Hey,” Kurt says into the receiver, leaning back into the pillows.
“Hey,” comes Blaine back through the speaker. Warm, and low, and more than a little bit nervous. It’s the first time Kurt’s heard his voice in weeks. The sound of it makes such an array of emotions rush through him that Kurt doesn’t know which one to feel. Confusion. Guilt. Regret. Excitement. Doubt. Gratitude. The terrible strands of what must he want from me and does he even want to talk to me at all twine with he sounds good and I miss him in Kurt’s mind.
A small cough comes from the other end of the line. “Sorry,” says Blaine. “I’m just. It’s really nice to hear your voice again, Kurt. I really missed you.”
“Yeah,” says Kurt, fiddling with the tassel on one of his throw pillows. “I know. I mean, I feel the same.”
There’s a long pause.
“How are you doing?” Blaine asks, at almost exactly the same time Kurt says, “I’m so sorry.”
“Kurt. Please, you don’t have to - it’s fine. I promise you, it’s all fine.”
“I got you hurt,” Kurt whispers, and he can feel his throat growing tight even as he tries to shove the feeling down.
“I got off really easy, all things considered. I’m fine now. And I’ve had worse, and... and you know I was willing to. Whatever it took, Kurt, it didn’t matter.”
“I know,” says Kurt, hearing his voice grow thin. He scrubs at his eyes. “I know, and... and that’s what’s so scary, Blaine. I just... I feel like I barely know what to do with myself right now, and you’re so certain, and I don’t... I don’t even know if I can be what you want, and I’m so sorry -”
“Wait,” Blaine quietly interjects, sounding confused and as though he’s trying to calm Kurt down all at once. “Kurt... what are you thinking that I want you to be?”
Clutching at the blanket, Kurt can’t stop himself from letting out a choked laugh. “You kissed me, Blaine,” Kurt says, something hard creeping into his voice. “I think I can figure out what that means.”
“Kurt... ” Blaine sounds at a complete loss. “Kurt, no, I just - I can’t -” He cuts himself off, and Kurt can practically envision him running a hand through his hair in that trademark-Blaine-way. He wonders if his hair is curly and soft, or slicked down flat. Blaine takes a deep breath. “When I said I missed you, you know who I miss? My best friend. I miss being able to talk to him, and spend time with him, and laugh with him. And right now, my best friend is hurting, and I just want to make him feel better. You’re my best friend, Kurt. And... yeah, I... I care about you a lot. So much, but... you’re my friend before anything else. I’ll be whatever you want me to be, okay? Just that, and nothing more unless you say so.”
Kurt blinks. That... he wasn’t expecting that. For the briefest of moments, Kurt can hear Karofsky’s voice in his head, saying God, you were made for this. Can feel the sick feeling growing at the back of his throat and the revulsiondisgust powerlessness before he refuses to follow that train of thought any longer. Tries to tell himself that he’s not disgusting, or wrong, or broken. That there are reasons people might want to spend time with him that have nothing to do with the musky smell of sex or strangled groans or the slide of skin on skin.
For the most part, it almost works. Blaine’s words are like rubbing lotion on aching burns; he can feel some of the anxiety, some of the confusion begin to ebb away. It isn’t gone, but it isn’t the first thing on his mind, either.
“Oh,” Kurt says softly into the receiver.
“Yeah,” says Blaine, sounding more anxious than ever.
“I just... yeah,” Kurt chokes out. “God, I miss my best friend too,” he says, half-laughing and half-crying, swiping underneath his eyes. He hesitates for a moment, because the next part is not something he’s ever wanted to really say out loud. “I’ve never had a best friend before.”
There’s another long pause, but this one isn’t like the others. It’s a beat of respite, not an awkward hesitation. Because Kurt didn’t realize until just this moment how very, very much he’s missed having Blaine in his life. To talk to, and tease, and laugh with about nothing. And now Blaine is someone - the only someone - outside his family who knows everything. The whole story, not the edited-for-mass-consumption version. Someone he can be normal with, but who can sympathize about the abnormality and horror of those months. Someone who was literally willing to put everything on the line for him.
Kurt’s been missing his best friend so much it hurts, and until a few moments ago he didn’t even know he had a best friend.
“Tell me how it feels to have broken it,” Blaine prompts after a while. “Like, I just told you to do something and you don’t have to! Did your dad freak out? Is he happy? ”
“Oh, my god, Blaine. You have no idea,” Kurt begins, before launching into the story.
He talks about telling his dad, and how happy he was, and how surreal and amazing it feels to refuse any order he wants. He talks about Carole’s sweetness and Finn’s cluelessness, his therapist, and how claustrophobic it’s been starting to feel with nothing to do. Somehow that derails into a conversation about what one could do with spare time, which leads to a very silly discussion about knitting, which leads to Blaine jokingly suggesting that Kurt could start training to be a weightlifting champion with all his spare time, which somehow reminds Kurt to ask and what on Earth was all that about a Sadie Hawkins dance, anyways?
From there, the conversation turns to the bullying at Blaine’s old school and the post-dance beating that wound him up in the emergency room with two fractured ribs, a broken nose and arm, and a foot he couldn’t walk on for three weeks. They sympathize for a while about similar backgrounds before the conversation turns to Blaine’s recovery this time around, and the record-breaking amounts of ginger tea his mother made for him while he was at home, which leads to Blaine doing a very funny impersonation of an angry Mr. Anderson that Kurt suspects should probably be sad, but they just can’t stop laughing.
They talk, and talk, and talk about random things, important things, stupid things. Anything and everything until it’s three in the morning and Blaine’s starting to yawn and Kurt realizes that Christ almighty, Blaine, it’s a school night and Blaine responds with but we were having fun! and it takes another fifteen minutes to actually properly end the conversation.
And when Kurt, out of habit, goes to say goodbye with see you soon? and Blaine responds too-quickly with I’d love that, they end up making plans to get coffee together five days from now.
They finally say goodnight at three thirty in the morning, and when Kurt finally presses the ‘end’ button on the phone he’s grinning too-wide and just can’t stop. He reaches out into his own mind for a moment, brushes over the idea of seeing Blaine in person - and doesn’t even feel anxious. Nervous, a little, and excited. But the idea doesn’t scare in the same way it used to, a twisting ball of anxiety over what will I say and what does he want and things will never be normal with him again.
More than anything, Kurt feels relieved. Staying away from Blaine for a little while... it was the right decision. Kurt knows he isn’t well, not really, not by any stretch of the word. But before, the idea of seeing Blaine before had made him feel as though he was about to snap into two pieces; like spun sugar pulled too thin, so easy to shatter and break with the slightest of touches. Now, the notion of seeing Blaine in person feels... nice. Exciting, and pleasant. As though Blaine is someone to be with, and laugh with, and help him through this instead of another part of the problem to worry about.
There’s been so little to be happy about for so long, and Kurt feels like a man dying of thirst after being given a long drink. He changes into pyjamas, performs his nightly hygiene routine, and goes to sleep with a smile on his face and anticipation buzzing in his fingertips.
--
Days pass. Weeks, months, years in the same slide of day-after-day nothingness until the boy turns into the man. He uses a new name at every job he takes on, since none of them have his real information anyways. They’re all seedy and questionable and sometimes he gets ripped off, but it’s worth it to stay hidden and stay no one.
Eventually, he gets ID that’s fake for the name and not the age. The man discovers how alcohol can make him forget everything, can make him so spun-around shitfaced that he can’t remember where he is anymore. It helps him imagine, even if only for a little while, that things had turned out differently.
The morning after is always spent retching into filthy toilets and wishing he could get back the sense of possibility being drunk gives him. He’ll try again, that same night, but it never works in quite the way he wants.
The man without a name in a city that doesn’t care.
--
When Blaine pushes the glass-panelled door open and walks into the heat of the coffee shop five days later - called the Lima Bean, which is kind of adorably dorky in a way he can appreciate - he can’t stop himself from anxiously scanning the heads of the people inside. There’s an obviously pregnant woman in the far corner with a half-eaten Danish on a plate in front of her, and several businessmen in shabby-looking suits clustered around the table immediately in front of the door. A young woman with a stack of books and three empty coffee cups around her like a fortress, a sweaty-looking man in jogging shorts and runners, and -
And there he is.
For a moment, Blaine doesn’t recognize him without the Dalton uniform. Kurt is standing and leaning against the bar, chatting with a curvy barista with dark skin and a beautiful smile as she makes drinks. He’s far enough out of the way that other customers can easily grab their coffee once it’s ready, but he still shoots them a tiny ‘oops, sorry I’m in your way!’ look every time someone comes up. He’s wearing snug jeans that fit him in a way the standard-issue Dalton black slacks never could, tall boots, a long-sleeved brown shirt, and soft-looking cream scarf.
All at once Blaine doesn’t regret in the slightest the forty minutes he spent in front of the mirror before he drove here. Even when his mother had poked her head in, said “darling boy, are you going on a date?”, and he’d had to deflect for ten minutes before she grudgingly left him alone. He’d been serious about what he’d said to Kurt on the phone about missing Kurt’s friendship above anything else, but it was hard to not want to look his best.
Kurt turns to look at him, and when his eyes fall on Blaine they light up like something out of a movie. He turns and says something briefly to the barista, who smiles, before grabbing two mugs from off to the side of the bar.
“Thanks, Mercedes,” he hears Kurt say, before he turns back toward Blaine and nods toward a small unoccupied table in the back. Blinking, Blaine snaps out of it and moves to meet him there. Kurt is just finished putting the mugs down, straightening up when Blaine arrives.
There’s a long moment where the two of them pause, unsure of exactly what to say. They’ve had two more hours-long phone conversations since the first, so technically speaking Blaine should be completely caught up with ‘what’s happening with Kurt Hummel right now’. It’s the strangest feeling, though, seeing Kurt in person. For some reason, it feels as though they were never apart and like they never met in the first place all at once.
“Hey,” says Blaine at last, because he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Hey,” says Kurt in return, biting down briefly on his lip. “Medium drip, right?”
“I... wait,” Blaine blinks, eyes flicking down to the mugs on the table. One houses a chocolatey-looking drink, and the other is filled to the brim with dark liquid. No room for cream, just the way Blaine likes it. “You know my coffee order,” murmurs Blaine stupidly, mind flashing back to all the coffee dates and meet-ups they used to have when Kurt first transferred. They seem like a very long time ago.
“Of course I do,” says Kurt simply, wrinkling his nose. He reaches up and rubs his forearm, glancing down. “It’s just drip coffee, Blaine, it isn’t complicated.”
A laugh escapes Blaine’s throat before he can help himself, even though he isn’t sure if laughing is exactly appropriate right now. He has absolutely no idea what proper protocol is for a situation like this. Blaine licks his lips.
“Do you,” Blaine begins, gesturing vaguely down at the chairs. “Do you wanna sit down?”
“Not really,” says Kurt quietly, before taking two purposeful steps forward, wrapping his arms around Blaine’s neck, and pulls him into a tight hug. Shocked at the physical contact, Blaine tenses up and raises his hands in the air above Kurt’s back as though he might be electrocuted if he touches him. It’s - he’s - Kurt’s been through trauma, after all, and Blaine’s sure he doesn’t want -
“It’s fine,” murmurs Kurt against his neck, giving his head a tiny shake. There’s a beat - before ever-so-slowly, Blaine lowers his hands to rest on Kurt’s back. He’s positive they must be making a bit of a spectacle now, standing and hugging for so long in the busy cafe, but he just can’t bring himself to care. He closes his eyes. Kurt feels so solid and real and alive pressed up against him, nothing like the hollowed out and blank figure that had haunted Blaine’s nightmares for days after the confrontation in the clearing. He smells like hairspray, and laundry detergent, and Kurt.
“I missed you,” says Blaine quietly, the fingers of his left hand clenching into the material of Kurt’s shirt. There are other words there, in between the lines, but this is no place for them.
“Me too.” Kurt’s words are loud and close in his ear. “Thank you. For waiting for me... thank you.”
Eventually, they have to pull away. Laughing slightly and avoiding one another’s eye, they slide into their chairs and tuck into the table. Blaine blinks in surprise and stares when Kurt unexpectedly slides his hand overtop of Blaine’s outstretched one on the table. Kurt catches him looking down at their hands together on the table and inhales sharply.
“I’m sorry,” says Kurt, hand tensing to pull away. “If you don’t want -”
Before he can move, Blaine curls his fingers around Kurt’s hand.
“I do,” murmurs Blaine, giving Kurt’s hand a squeeze. Kurt lets out a breath across from him, relaxing into the contact. “I just didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“It doesn’t,” says Kurt simply, giving his head a tiny shake. His thumb traces patterns only he knows over Blaine’s wrist. It almost tickles, but not quite. Blaine nods.
“Okay,” he says. “You just have to tell me, yeah? Because I don’t... I won’t know what does make you uncomfortable unless you tell me.”
“Sure,” says Kurt quietly, staring down at their hands. His eyes look darker for a moment, and slightly far away. “I used to look forward to this,” he explains vaguely, thumb still moving in tiny circles. “When you’d hold my hand, or give my shoulder a squeeze. When it was happening. It was... it was really special to me. If that makes any sense.”
“When Karofsky was controlling you,” says Blaine, and Kurt nods; he doesn’t even flinch at Blaine’s stupidly mentioning Karofsky’s name, which makes Blaine blink in awe. He works to maintain a straight face, but inside something shatters quietly at the idea of desperately wanting something so simple. At Kurt, all those times they met in the library, desperate to tell him and be held by him and unable to say a word.
“I’m still working on it, you know,” Kurt says, looking down at the table. “Not feeling like... like people can tell, even if they don’t know me. That it makes people not want to touch me.”
“It doesn’t,” Blaine insists, but Kurt shakes his head.
“I know,” he says. “In my head, I know. But I’m still trying to... you know, feel it.” Kurt shakes his head. “Anyways,” he says, tone turning into something determinedly lighter. “I was hoping to maybe ask you something. Every Friday night my family has dinner - it’s stupid, just something since my mom died, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come this week? I know you’re probably really booked up with finals, but you can bring your books and study before if you need to, we’d totally understand.”
“I’d love that,” Blaine responds, feeling the warmth and excitement in his chest leak into his words. “I really would. I like your dad a lot, and I’d love to meet everyone else -”
“Wait,” interjects Kurt abruptly, eyebrow flying up into his hairline. “When did you meet my dad?”
“A few weeks ago, when he came to campus to get your things from you room? I helped him pack everything up. Well, sort of helped,” Blaine adds lamely, gesturing to his right hand. He looks up only to see Kurt with his lips pursed tense, shaking his head at some unknown frustration. “What?” Blaine asks, blinking. “He didn’t tell you?”
“That man,” says Kurt, still shaking his head. He lets out a sigh that Blaine knows him well enough to realize is more affectionate than frustrated. “I told him that we were taking some time apart, and he probably didn’t want to ‘pressure me into contacting you before I was ready’, oh my god. I can’t believe him sometimes.” Kurt lets out a little huff, reaching with his free hand to pick up his mug and take a sip.
“Did he pass on my hug?” Blaine asks eagerly, and Kurt very nearly spits mocha all over the table.
“That was from you?!” Kurt exclaims, eyes wide, and Blaine can’t help but laugh.
They sit there until their drinks are empty and longer, talking and laughing. Getting used to one another again, to being in the same room. To being friends. A couple of times, one of them says or does something that makes Kurt tense, and shake his head, and say can we talk about something else? - but those moments grow fewer and fewer as the conversation goes on. It isn’t taking Blaine long to figure out what kind of topics are fine, while others are sometimes, and fewer are not right now. Some things still surprise him, but he’s trying his best to figure it out.
They sit there until long after the staff begin cleaning up - fairly early, since they’re a small and privately-owned store - and the Mercedes girl even lets them stay a little past closing. Their hands stay clasped the whole time, sitting on the table. Every time Kurt laughs, he gives Blaine’s hand a little squeeze; the unintentional openness of the affection makes happy sparks fly in Blaine’s stomach. They sit until they finally get kicked out, and hug goodbye at the door.
And Blaine couldn’t be happier. Because his friend - his best friend - is letting him in again. Is letting him help, and be there, and hold his hand while they talk.
There are scars that both of them are going to take from all this, that aren’t going anywhere any time soon. He doesn’t think he’ll ever really, fully understand what Kurt’s going through. Can never possibly comprehend it all. But Kurt is going to let Blaine be part of the mending, and that... that means more than Blaine could ever convey with words, or songs, or the touch of a hand.
They wave at one another as they walk to their separate cars, and Blaine can feel the excited hum of next time underneath his skin.
--
Sometimes, he thinks about going back. About finding the boy with bright blue eyes and taking him away, caging him up and keeping him in the way that haunts his dreams.
Other times, he sits along the edge of the grungy tub in his awful apartment, holding the razor over his arm and wishing beyond belief that he could just do it. End it. Make it all go away, knowing that there’s no one in the world who could find him and pull him away from the brink. To not have to suffer through every day as nothing, as no one of consequence.
He never quite manages to do either.
--
It doesn’t take long before Blaine slides fully back into Kurt’s life again. He meets Kurt’s family, gets along with all of them right away. The only exception is a brief period which Finn spends eyeing him up and trying to look threatening before Kurt has to practically hit his brother over the head with something heavy. Kurt gets to meet Blaine’s parents, too, although both of them don’t tend to be in town on the same day for great lengths of time. They’re busy people, the Andersons, seeming to always have things to do and deals to close and charity lunches to organize.
Correspondence school is slightly frustrating, but the material is far below the level Kurt was expected to achieve at Dalton. He works in his own free time to read chapters and fill in worksheets, dragging essay files into online dropboxes. Kurt doesn’t know what he wants to do in September for senior year just yet, but he’s keeping his options open.
Even when summer rolls in like a wave of warmth and free time for Blaine, Kurt notices that his friend just spends even more time at the Hudson-Hummel house. Watching movies with them, or chopping vegetables as Kurt makes dinner, or even making good-spirited attempts to help out at the garage. He’s almost always around; a hand on Kurt’s arm, or his toes running up Kurt’s bare calf as they watch an episode of something together in Kurt’s bed with the door open, or knees knocking into one another under the dinner table.
Eventually, Kurt works up the courage to ask Mercedes-the-barista to go shopping with him for new summer clothes. They start meeting semi-regularly, for lunches and shopping but never coffee, sometimes with Blaine and sometimes without him. There aren’t any friends from his old high school to get back into contact with, but Kurt makes an effort with some of the Warblers. Contacts Jeff again, and Nick, and Wes and David, each of them prepped by Blaine with the safe-for-public-consumption version of his story. As if they haven’t guessed from the vague stories splashed across the news without names attached, with Kurt dropping out and Karofsky missing and Blaine with his face smashed in right after.
It’s nice, having friends again. Nice, and new, and so different without the underlying fear that used to lie just below the surface with every one of his friendships in the past.
But Blaine is always there more than anyone, larger in his mind. Dark and beautiful and so, so careful. Unreal and incredible in all the right ways. He still looks at Kurt the way he used to, months ago. As though he’s the most important person in the world.
He knows all of Kurt for who he is, and still looks at him in that exact same way.
--
Alcohol and self-hate rot the man from the inside out, and he disappears into the city of grime and dirt and litter, melding along the edges and fusing with it to become one. He doesn’t need an identity because there’s no one to share it with. Doesn’t need anyone else because there’s nothing left of him to share.
He self-destructs. Not quickly, in a blaze of fire and fury, but slowly. Over years and days, slipping away from anything he used to be. Nothing left inside a shell of a human being, everything that made him a person completely stripped away by his own hand.
--
They’re lying together on Kurt’s bed, the two of them, on a summer day that’s unseasonably sweltering even for August. Fully clothed except for their shoes, neatly lined up at the bottom of the bed. Door open to catch the breeze, they are a tangle of overlapping limbs and slightly sweat-sheened skin from the heat. There’s music playing on the radio; melancholy and drifting instrumentals, and a beautifully sad voice that lilts and sways along the notes.
One of Blaine’s legs is thrown idly over Kurt’s calf, and his head rests on Kurt’s shoulder. Every few minutes, Kurt’s hand reaches up to stroke through his loose curls. Blaine’s hand drifts along Kurt’s upper arm to the baseline of the music, steady and consistent, as it hums in the air. A day like any other, in the summer. Lazy and drawn-out, slowed with heat and time and one another. Neither of them have spoken for over thirty minutes.
“Do you ever wonder where he is?” Kurt asks eventually, breaking the silence. The question hangs in the air above them, drifting idly. He doesn’t have to specify who he’s referring to, even though Kurt has never asked this particular question before. For a long moment, Blaine thinks.
“No,” he lies at last, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. “I don’t. Do you?”
“No,” Kurt lies right back, voice soft and high in the air. Slowly, Kurt pushes himself half up onto one elbow. Their eyes meet. Silently, they acknowledge the untruth - and accept it. It’s a good lie, and one they’re both happy to pretend to believe. Because there’s no point in being anything other than what they are, and worrying about a day that might never come is best left to dark corners of the night. Blaine stares up at him, and Kurt stares back. For longer than should be comfortable, they hold one another’s gaze.
And ever-so-slowly, moving so carefully it aches, Kurt leans down and presses their lips together. It’s a soft kiss, short-lived and sweet, barely more than a brush of lips. Blaine’s eyes flutter closed despite the brevity of it, kissing back as gently as he knows how. Their first kiss was hard and fast, all misunderstandings and need and confusion. This, their second kiss, is none of those things. It is certainty, and care, and understanding, and a bone-deep knowledge and awareness of one another that’s been growing between them for months.
When Kurt pulls away, he whispers three words against Blaine’s lips. Blaine smiles, reaches up to run a hand down Kurt’s cheek, and says them back.
It isn’t the solution to anything. But it is a beginning.
They spend the rest of the day curled up into one other, letting the music drift around them in the air of the room, and prepare to face the future hand in hand.
The End
There is a podfic for this story.