Something To Sleep To [15/?]
Title: Something To Sleep To
Chapter: 15/?
Author: wishof_wings
Betas: Becky, Izzy, & Em
Rating: R
Pairing: Klaine
Word Count: 2700
Summary: What started as a volunteer gig at Lima Memorial is slowly turning into a fairy tale for Kurt Hummel. Except Kurt is pretty doubtful that a kiss is going to wake his Prince Charming from his coma.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: AU, homophobia related violence
Author's Notes: I am really super, super sorry about the wait you guys! This chapter was kicking my ass but it's here, it's done! I also wanted to let you guys know that I will be posting this story on AO3 now that I have an account, but I haven't started transferring it all over yet. Soon though! I thank you so, so much for your patience.
Go back to the beginning.
The problem with ignoring something life altering is that, sooner or later, you have to address it.
But Kurt certainly isn’t ready to address it yet.
Blaine is gay. Gay. Gay gay gay gay gay.
Kurt is gay and Blaine is also gay.
Gay.
Kurt tries very hard not to think about it.
He knows that if he thinks about it, it will be all he can think about. It will sink into every crevice of his life until it’s impossible to avoid, and he’s not ready for it. Because Blaine being gay means that Kurt isn’t alone anymore, not the way he had thought he was. It means that there is someone else who knows, who understands in ways that Kurt’s dad or the Glee club never will. The fact that Kurt could have someone like that makes his heart falter because he’s wanted it so badly, for so long.
And now it’s right there. So close. Too close. But still not something he can reach.
Blaine being gay or Blaine being straight means little when Blaine is unconscious.
So Kurt doesn’t think about it to the best of his ability. Instead he works on an essay that isn’t due for three weeks and he reorganizes his closet. He cleans the kitchen, even the normally unreachable gap between the side of the fridge and the wall. He bakes cookies and then cleans the kitchen again, then he rewrites his essay.
It works, for the most part. By the time he goes to bed that night, he’s so exhausted that he isn’t plagued with the kind of self reflection that comes from lying in silence and staring into darkness.
He dreams again. Still vivid and so real that when he wakes up, panting and rutting against his mattress until he’s gasping and coming, he can still feel phantom fingers against his skin. When he comes back down to himself, he groans and flings an arm over his eyes.
Apparently, knowing that real Blaine is gay makes dream Blaine much more experienced.
Cooper had been a welcome, if not slightly strange, addition to Kurt’s visit the day before. He’d revealed small, little things about Blaine (like how he loves the color red, has always wanted a dog, and never wears his hair naturally curly) and Kurt had listened with rapt attention. But it had derailed him slightly from his original plans, so Kurt had made sure to seek out Carole before he floated home in his stupid Blaine-is-gay haze of happiness.
Apparently, haircuts are permitted as long as there is a staff member present. Carole had been happy to oblige.
So Kurt simply has to pass the time until Carole’s shift starts.
Not thinking about Blaine being gay.
Because that’s sure to go splendidly.
It’s Saturday, the first one Kurt has dared to visit on since he was chased away. But it had been at Carole’s urging that they do the haircut today, and Kurt had discovered some additional courage after his talk with Cooper. Blaine is important to Kurt, and he’s not letting something scare him away again.
For the second day in a row, Kurt isn’t alone when he enters Blaine’s room.
Kurt almost turns on his heel and leaves, but Mrs. Anderson looks up and sees him before he has the chance. Their eyes lock and Kurt knows he can’t leave now. If he leaves now, that’s it; that’s letting her win. And he’s not letting her win again.
Blaine’s copy of Oliver Twist is open in her hands and she’s dressed more comfortably than the last time Kurt had seen her. He wonders how long she’s been there.
With a sigh, she reaches behind her and sets the book down with the others, and Kurt realizes that, unlike last time, she’s sitting in the other chair and not Kurt’s.
“Good afternoon, Kurt,” she says, turning back to him, and he stills in surprise. He isn’t sure if it’s due to the fact that she remembers his name, the fact that she’s actually speaking to him, or how calming and lovely her voice is when it isn’t hollow or hysterical.
“G-good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson.” Kurt wrings his hands together, still barely a few steps through the doorway.
It falls silent and Kurt waits for it. He waits for her to tell him to leave, to yell at him for being there in the first place, but those things don’t come. Mrs. Anderson just watches him and Kurt thanks his thick skin that the stare doesn’t make him fidget.
“Cooper told me about you,” she finally says, her voice still soft, warm and soothing like tea. “How you’ve been coming to see Blaine.” She turns her eyes away from Kurt finally, looking at her son. “I must commend you, for going against what I said. I’m glad that someone was here for Blaine when I was too disillusioned to be.”
Kurt is shocked. If he’d been expecting anything from Mrs. Anderson, it certainly hadn’t been that. He wonders what happened between her and Cooper, what her eldest son had told her to make her realize everything she’d been doing wrong.
“I like the pajamas, by the way.” A small smile touches her lips and her eyes crinkle at the corners, and Kurt can’t help but see someone else there; someone kind and loving and full of life. “Thank you.”
Kurt blushes, fidgeting with embarrassment and casting his eyes around the room. It’s one thing for Carole to know about the pajamas, but Blaine’s mother?
I am going to die from embarrassment.
“Won’t you join me?” Mrs. Anderson gestures to the other chair and Kurt can’t even imagine doing anything but moving to sit in it. She reaches over Blaine, offering her hand, and Kurt debates for a moment whether he should do something proper like kiss the back of it or just shake it.
Shaking it seems like the safer bet.
“I’m Grace,” she says as their hands part, and Kurt’s voice finally decides to join the conversation.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He pauses. “Again.” This cracks a smile on her face, an amused lift to the left side of her mouth, but it disappears almost as quickly.
“Yes, I do owe you an apology, don’t I?” Mrs. Anderson-Grace, Kurt corrects himself-looks up through her eyelashes. They remind Kurt strikingly of Blaine’s. Before he can protest, she raises her hand to stop him.
“I really do. I won’t apologize for being surprised, because I was. And as a mother whose youngest son is in a coma, I hope you can understand that much.”
Kurt wants to tell her that he doesn’t hold it against her, not anymore, not after his talk with Carole. But he just nods, surprised at the relief that spreads across her features.
“But I-” She pauses, swallowing as if the words have stuck fast in her throat. “I regret the way I acted, and Cooper, he-He made me realize what I couldn’t see.” She looks at Blaine and smiles, albeit sadly, but it’s a smile nonetheless. “You saw it before I did, and you see it now, more than any of us do.” When she looks at Kurt again, her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Thank you for having the hope that we were so afraid to have.”
It’s silent, and Kurt feels so close to tears that he doesn’t even speak. The energy in the room feels charged, as if he’s on the precipice of something terrifying and exciting and entirely unknown. He has the sudden urge to hold his breath.
“You don’t know, do you?”
Kurt blinks rapidly as Grace stares at him, eyes curious but not unkind.
“With everything you no doubt know about my son, you don’t know why he’s here.”
Kurt opens his mouth, but realizes that he has no idea what he wants to say. That he almost typed Blaine’s name into a search engine but thought better of it? That he had tried to find out from Blaine’s nurse surreptitiously? That Kurt could have no doubt asked Cooper but had been too afraid of the answers?
She adjusts herself in her seat, the way one does right before telling a long story.
“I may be time that you do.”
Kurt sits back, shocked and gaping. Say something. He knows he should say something. Say something right now.
But he can’t.
“Blaine, he... He’s gay.” The word seems to come to her with difficulty and Kurt knows there’s a story there, but it’s not one he’s going to hear today. “He only came out to us a few months ago, I don’t-if he was out at school longer, he didn’t tell us. He didn’t tell us a lot of things, back then.”
She takes a long, slow breath, and Kurt can’t even begin to fathom what telling this story is like for her.
“A little over a month ago, there was a dance at his school.” Her voice breaks. “It was one of those girl-ask-boy ordeals, and Blaine was so... So adamant about going. He had a friend, Jeremy. My husband and I had never met him before, but one day Blaine comes home and tells us that he’s going to take Jeremy to the dance. That it’s only fair that he gets to go with whoever he wants.”
Kurt is staring at Blaine, unable to look at his mother, who is no doubt crying right at this moment.
“We...” Her voice stutters to a halt. “Jeremy’s father took them to the dance. Blaine went straight to Jeremy’s house after school to get ready, I didn’t even...” Kurt listens as she breathes erratically, trying to keep control of herself. “That night, I got a call from the hospital. They didn’t tell me very much, just that Blaine was in a critical condition I came in my robe and tennis shoes. My husband wore sweatpants.” She laughs weakly, like there’s some kind of joke there, and Kurt glances up in time to see her wipe at her eyes.
“The police were there when we arrived. They told us that a teacher had found Blaine in the parking lot with another student, and that they had both been brutally beaten, then abandoned. They asked us so many questions, and I just... I just wanted to see my son.”
Kurt realizes he’s holding Blaine’s hand and doesn’t remember grabbing it, but he’s gripping it tightly as if it will do something. Anything.
“He had a head injury. The doctor... He said Blaine’s head had been...” Her breath comes out in a long, whimpery stutter. “Had been slammed into the asphalt multiple times.”
“Internal bleeding, three broken ribs, a broken nose, severe bruising,” she listed solemnly. “I didn’t sleep that night, waiting for him to come out of surgery. I found out from the police that he’d taken more of a beating than the other student, than Jeremy, and after Jeremy’s accounts, they deduced that it was because Blaine had been protecting him from the brunt of it.”
Kurt’s heart grows tightly in his chest. There is so much he doesn’t know, but right here is a glimpse into the kind of person Blaine is. How could anyone ever do this to you?
“He stabilized. The doctor kept telling us that he was going to be fine, that he would recover. But a day passed, and then two, and then three. Blaine was still responding, then. He would scream in his sleep and I would try to soothe him, but he wouldn’t wake up. They kept telling us that he would.
“Tuesday evening after the dance, he fell into a coma. I was... Hysterical doesn’t even begin to cover it. I hadn’t gone home in days. I sat with him in the ICU every day. I was practically living here. Michael, my husband, he’s the one who decided to move Blaine to this room... More for me than for anything else.”
Kurt wants to ask so much. Wants to ask what happened to Jeremy, Blaine’s father, Blaine’s attackers. But something stops him every time he starts, the words lodging in his throat.
“Days passed and... I stopped staying with him. Every hour that passed was one step closer to losing Blaine forever, and I just... It felt like I’d already lost him.”
The tears are flowing without restraint down her cheeks now, her hands running down the scruff of Blaine’s cheek with all the tenderness and adoration a mother should have for her son.
“It never occurred to me that Blaine could wake up and that I wouldn’t be here. That he could wake up and be alone, after everything else he’s been through.” Her smile wobbles on her face as she turns to look at Kurt, her large, light eyes bright and sincere. “I will never be able to thank you enough.”
Kurt flushes deeply, looking down at where his fingers have laced with Blaine’s. It’s familiar and grounding against everything rattling in his head, an anchor in this situation he never thought he’d find himself in. When he does glance up again, Grace is watching the way he’s holding her son’s hand. She looks surprised, but not upset, and Kurt’s grateful for that, at least.
“You don’t have to, you know.”
Grace’s eyebrows raise, questioningly.
“Thank me, I mean. I... I’m here because I want to be.” His cheeks are flaming with embarrassment, because is he really saying this to Blaine’s mother of all people?
He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and sees Grace’s hand resting on Blaine’s stomach, palm up. He looks at it hesitantly before setting his free hand in hers. Her skin is soft and smooth, the same warm color as Blaine’s, and she grips his hand.
“All the more reason to thank you.” She smiles softly at him.
“I...” Kurt swallows, licking his lips before meeting her eyes. “I should be thanking you. For telling me about Blaine.” He squeezes the prone fingers laced with his.
“You care about my son,” Grace says evenly. “And right now, he needs people who care about him.”
It’s almost like permission. Permission for Kurt to keep seeing Blaine without guilt, because if his mother understands, why should it matter if no one else does?
Her shoulders perk up so suddenly that it almost startles him, and she squeezes his hand.
“You looked so happy coming in here, earlier. I apologize for making the mood so sombre.”
It makes Kurt want to laugh, as if sitting in a room with a coma patient is ever not sombre. But, thinking back on his time spent by Blaine’s hospital bed, Kurt can’t think of ever feeling sad for the right reasons. He’d come in upset over everything, from school, to Finn, to his dad, to losing the eBay auction for the Marc Jacobs jacket, but Kurt has never been sad because Blaine is in a coma.
Blaine has always seemed to be right there with Kurt, even though he hasn’t.
“You didn’t.” Well, she sort of has, but what is he supposed to say to that?
“I did, but that’s okay.”
This woman certainly keeps surprising him. Kurt can’t help but wonder how much of who Blaine is comes from his mom.
“Tell me about yourself, Kurt.” She finally lets go of his hand, shifting to sit primly, way a lady is taught. Or in a way that Kurt often tries to emulate.
“Um.” Where does he even start?
“Why were you in such good spirits today? I can’t quite believe it’s due to my son’s company.”
It is.
But, apparently, that is something that Kurt isn’t supposed to admit out loud.
“Actually, um, Blaine’s nurse-”
“Nurse Hudson?”
“Carole,” Kurt corrects almost immediately, gaining another look of surprise from Mrs. Anderson. He has to wonder how much about him is catching her off guard.
“Carole, then,” Grace relents, gesturing with a graceful wave of her hand for Kurt to continue.
“Well, she... Gave me permission to cut Blaine’s hair.”
This time Grace really smiles. It’s more amused than sad, crinkling her eyes and revealing a dimple in her right cheek. It makes Kurt want to smile. She reaches for Blaine’s hair, grabbing a few curls and smoothing them between her fingers softly.
“That sounds like an excellent idea.”
<< 15 >>
Chapter: 15/?
Author: wishof_wings
Betas: Becky, Izzy, & Em
Rating: R
Pairing: Klaine
Word Count: 2700
Summary: What started as a volunteer gig at Lima Memorial is slowly turning into a fairy tale for Kurt Hummel. Except Kurt is pretty doubtful that a kiss is going to wake his Prince Charming from his coma.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: AU, homophobia related violence
Author's Notes: I am really super, super sorry about the wait you guys! This chapter was kicking my ass but it's here, it's done! I also wanted to let you guys know that I will be posting this story on AO3 now that I have an account, but I haven't started transferring it all over yet. Soon though! I thank you so, so much for your patience.
Go back to the beginning.
The problem with ignoring something life altering is that, sooner or later, you have to address it.
But Kurt certainly isn’t ready to address it yet.
Blaine is gay. Gay. Gay gay gay gay gay.
Kurt is gay and Blaine is also gay.
Gay.
Kurt tries very hard not to think about it.
He knows that if he thinks about it, it will be all he can think about. It will sink into every crevice of his life until it’s impossible to avoid, and he’s not ready for it. Because Blaine being gay means that Kurt isn’t alone anymore, not the way he had thought he was. It means that there is someone else who knows, who understands in ways that Kurt’s dad or the Glee club never will. The fact that Kurt could have someone like that makes his heart falter because he’s wanted it so badly, for so long.
And now it’s right there. So close. Too close. But still not something he can reach.
Blaine being gay or Blaine being straight means little when Blaine is unconscious.
So Kurt doesn’t think about it to the best of his ability. Instead he works on an essay that isn’t due for three weeks and he reorganizes his closet. He cleans the kitchen, even the normally unreachable gap between the side of the fridge and the wall. He bakes cookies and then cleans the kitchen again, then he rewrites his essay.
It works, for the most part. By the time he goes to bed that night, he’s so exhausted that he isn’t plagued with the kind of self reflection that comes from lying in silence and staring into darkness.
He dreams again. Still vivid and so real that when he wakes up, panting and rutting against his mattress until he’s gasping and coming, he can still feel phantom fingers against his skin. When he comes back down to himself, he groans and flings an arm over his eyes.
Apparently, knowing that real Blaine is gay makes dream Blaine much more experienced.
Cooper had been a welcome, if not slightly strange, addition to Kurt’s visit the day before. He’d revealed small, little things about Blaine (like how he loves the color red, has always wanted a dog, and never wears his hair naturally curly) and Kurt had listened with rapt attention. But it had derailed him slightly from his original plans, so Kurt had made sure to seek out Carole before he floated home in his stupid Blaine-is-gay haze of happiness.
Apparently, haircuts are permitted as long as there is a staff member present. Carole had been happy to oblige.
So Kurt simply has to pass the time until Carole’s shift starts.
Not thinking about Blaine being gay.
Because that’s sure to go splendidly.
It’s Saturday, the first one Kurt has dared to visit on since he was chased away. But it had been at Carole’s urging that they do the haircut today, and Kurt had discovered some additional courage after his talk with Cooper. Blaine is important to Kurt, and he’s not letting something scare him away again.
For the second day in a row, Kurt isn’t alone when he enters Blaine’s room.
Kurt almost turns on his heel and leaves, but Mrs. Anderson looks up and sees him before he has the chance. Their eyes lock and Kurt knows he can’t leave now. If he leaves now, that’s it; that’s letting her win. And he’s not letting her win again.
Blaine’s copy of Oliver Twist is open in her hands and she’s dressed more comfortably than the last time Kurt had seen her. He wonders how long she’s been there.
With a sigh, she reaches behind her and sets the book down with the others, and Kurt realizes that, unlike last time, she’s sitting in the other chair and not Kurt’s.
“Good afternoon, Kurt,” she says, turning back to him, and he stills in surprise. He isn’t sure if it’s due to the fact that she remembers his name, the fact that she’s actually speaking to him, or how calming and lovely her voice is when it isn’t hollow or hysterical.
“G-good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson.” Kurt wrings his hands together, still barely a few steps through the doorway.
It falls silent and Kurt waits for it. He waits for her to tell him to leave, to yell at him for being there in the first place, but those things don’t come. Mrs. Anderson just watches him and Kurt thanks his thick skin that the stare doesn’t make him fidget.
“Cooper told me about you,” she finally says, her voice still soft, warm and soothing like tea. “How you’ve been coming to see Blaine.” She turns her eyes away from Kurt finally, looking at her son. “I must commend you, for going against what I said. I’m glad that someone was here for Blaine when I was too disillusioned to be.”
Kurt is shocked. If he’d been expecting anything from Mrs. Anderson, it certainly hadn’t been that. He wonders what happened between her and Cooper, what her eldest son had told her to make her realize everything she’d been doing wrong.
“I like the pajamas, by the way.” A small smile touches her lips and her eyes crinkle at the corners, and Kurt can’t help but see someone else there; someone kind and loving and full of life. “Thank you.”
Kurt blushes, fidgeting with embarrassment and casting his eyes around the room. It’s one thing for Carole to know about the pajamas, but Blaine’s mother?
I am going to die from embarrassment.
“Won’t you join me?” Mrs. Anderson gestures to the other chair and Kurt can’t even imagine doing anything but moving to sit in it. She reaches over Blaine, offering her hand, and Kurt debates for a moment whether he should do something proper like kiss the back of it or just shake it.
Shaking it seems like the safer bet.
“I’m Grace,” she says as their hands part, and Kurt’s voice finally decides to join the conversation.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He pauses. “Again.” This cracks a smile on her face, an amused lift to the left side of her mouth, but it disappears almost as quickly.
“Yes, I do owe you an apology, don’t I?” Mrs. Anderson-Grace, Kurt corrects himself-looks up through her eyelashes. They remind Kurt strikingly of Blaine’s. Before he can protest, she raises her hand to stop him.
“I really do. I won’t apologize for being surprised, because I was. And as a mother whose youngest son is in a coma, I hope you can understand that much.”
Kurt wants to tell her that he doesn’t hold it against her, not anymore, not after his talk with Carole. But he just nods, surprised at the relief that spreads across her features.
“But I-” She pauses, swallowing as if the words have stuck fast in her throat. “I regret the way I acted, and Cooper, he-He made me realize what I couldn’t see.” She looks at Blaine and smiles, albeit sadly, but it’s a smile nonetheless. “You saw it before I did, and you see it now, more than any of us do.” When she looks at Kurt again, her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Thank you for having the hope that we were so afraid to have.”
It’s silent, and Kurt feels so close to tears that he doesn’t even speak. The energy in the room feels charged, as if he’s on the precipice of something terrifying and exciting and entirely unknown. He has the sudden urge to hold his breath.
“You don’t know, do you?”
Kurt blinks rapidly as Grace stares at him, eyes curious but not unkind.
“With everything you no doubt know about my son, you don’t know why he’s here.”
Kurt opens his mouth, but realizes that he has no idea what he wants to say. That he almost typed Blaine’s name into a search engine but thought better of it? That he had tried to find out from Blaine’s nurse surreptitiously? That Kurt could have no doubt asked Cooper but had been too afraid of the answers?
She adjusts herself in her seat, the way one does right before telling a long story.
“I may be time that you do.”
Kurt sits back, shocked and gaping. Say something. He knows he should say something. Say something right now.
But he can’t.
“Blaine, he... He’s gay.” The word seems to come to her with difficulty and Kurt knows there’s a story there, but it’s not one he’s going to hear today. “He only came out to us a few months ago, I don’t-if he was out at school longer, he didn’t tell us. He didn’t tell us a lot of things, back then.”
She takes a long, slow breath, and Kurt can’t even begin to fathom what telling this story is like for her.
“A little over a month ago, there was a dance at his school.” Her voice breaks. “It was one of those girl-ask-boy ordeals, and Blaine was so... So adamant about going. He had a friend, Jeremy. My husband and I had never met him before, but one day Blaine comes home and tells us that he’s going to take Jeremy to the dance. That it’s only fair that he gets to go with whoever he wants.”
Kurt is staring at Blaine, unable to look at his mother, who is no doubt crying right at this moment.
“We...” Her voice stutters to a halt. “Jeremy’s father took them to the dance. Blaine went straight to Jeremy’s house after school to get ready, I didn’t even...” Kurt listens as she breathes erratically, trying to keep control of herself. “That night, I got a call from the hospital. They didn’t tell me very much, just that Blaine was in a critical condition I came in my robe and tennis shoes. My husband wore sweatpants.” She laughs weakly, like there’s some kind of joke there, and Kurt glances up in time to see her wipe at her eyes.
“The police were there when we arrived. They told us that a teacher had found Blaine in the parking lot with another student, and that they had both been brutally beaten, then abandoned. They asked us so many questions, and I just... I just wanted to see my son.”
Kurt realizes he’s holding Blaine’s hand and doesn’t remember grabbing it, but he’s gripping it tightly as if it will do something. Anything.
“He had a head injury. The doctor... He said Blaine’s head had been...” Her breath comes out in a long, whimpery stutter. “Had been slammed into the asphalt multiple times.”
“Internal bleeding, three broken ribs, a broken nose, severe bruising,” she listed solemnly. “I didn’t sleep that night, waiting for him to come out of surgery. I found out from the police that he’d taken more of a beating than the other student, than Jeremy, and after Jeremy’s accounts, they deduced that it was because Blaine had been protecting him from the brunt of it.”
Kurt’s heart grows tightly in his chest. There is so much he doesn’t know, but right here is a glimpse into the kind of person Blaine is. How could anyone ever do this to you?
“He stabilized. The doctor kept telling us that he was going to be fine, that he would recover. But a day passed, and then two, and then three. Blaine was still responding, then. He would scream in his sleep and I would try to soothe him, but he wouldn’t wake up. They kept telling us that he would.
“Tuesday evening after the dance, he fell into a coma. I was... Hysterical doesn’t even begin to cover it. I hadn’t gone home in days. I sat with him in the ICU every day. I was practically living here. Michael, my husband, he’s the one who decided to move Blaine to this room... More for me than for anything else.”
Kurt wants to ask so much. Wants to ask what happened to Jeremy, Blaine’s father, Blaine’s attackers. But something stops him every time he starts, the words lodging in his throat.
“Days passed and... I stopped staying with him. Every hour that passed was one step closer to losing Blaine forever, and I just... It felt like I’d already lost him.”
The tears are flowing without restraint down her cheeks now, her hands running down the scruff of Blaine’s cheek with all the tenderness and adoration a mother should have for her son.
“It never occurred to me that Blaine could wake up and that I wouldn’t be here. That he could wake up and be alone, after everything else he’s been through.” Her smile wobbles on her face as she turns to look at Kurt, her large, light eyes bright and sincere. “I will never be able to thank you enough.”
Kurt flushes deeply, looking down at where his fingers have laced with Blaine’s. It’s familiar and grounding against everything rattling in his head, an anchor in this situation he never thought he’d find himself in. When he does glance up again, Grace is watching the way he’s holding her son’s hand. She looks surprised, but not upset, and Kurt’s grateful for that, at least.
“You don’t have to, you know.”
Grace’s eyebrows raise, questioningly.
“Thank me, I mean. I... I’m here because I want to be.” His cheeks are flaming with embarrassment, because is he really saying this to Blaine’s mother of all people?
He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and sees Grace’s hand resting on Blaine’s stomach, palm up. He looks at it hesitantly before setting his free hand in hers. Her skin is soft and smooth, the same warm color as Blaine’s, and she grips his hand.
“All the more reason to thank you.” She smiles softly at him.
“I...” Kurt swallows, licking his lips before meeting her eyes. “I should be thanking you. For telling me about Blaine.” He squeezes the prone fingers laced with his.
“You care about my son,” Grace says evenly. “And right now, he needs people who care about him.”
It’s almost like permission. Permission for Kurt to keep seeing Blaine without guilt, because if his mother understands, why should it matter if no one else does?
Her shoulders perk up so suddenly that it almost startles him, and she squeezes his hand.
“You looked so happy coming in here, earlier. I apologize for making the mood so sombre.”
It makes Kurt want to laugh, as if sitting in a room with a coma patient is ever not sombre. But, thinking back on his time spent by Blaine’s hospital bed, Kurt can’t think of ever feeling sad for the right reasons. He’d come in upset over everything, from school, to Finn, to his dad, to losing the eBay auction for the Marc Jacobs jacket, but Kurt has never been sad because Blaine is in a coma.
Blaine has always seemed to be right there with Kurt, even though he hasn’t.
“You didn’t.” Well, she sort of has, but what is he supposed to say to that?
“I did, but that’s okay.”
This woman certainly keeps surprising him. Kurt can’t help but wonder how much of who Blaine is comes from his mom.
“Tell me about yourself, Kurt.” She finally lets go of his hand, shifting to sit primly, way a lady is taught. Or in a way that Kurt often tries to emulate.
“Um.” Where does he even start?
“Why were you in such good spirits today? I can’t quite believe it’s due to my son’s company.”
It is.
But, apparently, that is something that Kurt isn’t supposed to admit out loud.
“Actually, um, Blaine’s nurse-”
“Nurse Hudson?”
“Carole,” Kurt corrects almost immediately, gaining another look of surprise from Mrs. Anderson. He has to wonder how much about him is catching her off guard.
“Carole, then,” Grace relents, gesturing with a graceful wave of her hand for Kurt to continue.
“Well, she... Gave me permission to cut Blaine’s hair.”
This time Grace really smiles. It’s more amused than sad, crinkling her eyes and revealing a dimple in her right cheek. It makes Kurt want to smile. She reaches for Blaine’s hair, grabbing a few curls and smoothing them between her fingers softly.
“That sounds like an excellent idea.”
<< 15 >>