Glee!fic, Tip/Tilt pt III, the end
Very, very nervous about this.
Tip/Tilt part III, one of the most chopped-apart rewritten messes I've produced in a long time. Oh, dear ^^; Part I is here, part II here.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, be glad or just think how depressing the show would be.
Rating: R, for swearing and adult subject matter, and I mean that in every sense of the words. Kids, go read fluff instead.
Warnings and spoilers: I hardly even know where to begin with this one. All the warnings from previous parts apply, and here we get to add some truly terrible decisions made. I literally don't even know how to label the warning on some of the consent issues in here. I did tell you it got worse before it got better ^^;
Summary: Stop and think.
Note: I am so, so tired, I'm so sorry I haven't replied to previous comments yet, I know I haven't, I'm sorry. I was trying to hack this into shape, which was wrecking me a bit, and then I found the *perfect* music for it, which it turns out only wrecked me more! But I do recommend Ed Sheeran's Lego House and The A Team, anyway. And now I'm gonna go curl up somewhere with coffee and friends and be warm and happy for a bit because I'm just *tired*, sorry ^^;
". . . sorry. I know, Carole. My phone was on silent. I'm sorry."
Blaine blinks his eyes open, and unpeels his cheek from the pillow.
There's a boy sitting in his desk chair, knees folded up with his shins pressed against the edge of the desk so that he can rock himself, very slightly, from side to side; he's got a phone to his ear, one arm around his stomach, and eyes on his own bent knees as he listens, speaks.
"Just a friend, I don't know if you know him. Blaine." He looks across, catches Blaine's eye, his mouth twitches - recognition or a smile Blaine doesn't know, as he sits up in his bed, dragging a hand back through the wreck of his hair. "I'll be back later in the day. I'm sorry I worried you."
Kurt drops his head to the side, eyes running across the ceiling. "I know," he says. "I'm sorry." He listens for a moment, says, "Bye." and hangs up. "Good morning, Blaine."
Blaine licks his lips, clears his throat, rubs an eye - he's not good at mornings - and croaks, "Hey. You . . ."
"I borrowed some of your toiletries, I hope you don't mind. I didn't think you'd miss a little gel, given your impressive collection."
He's fully dressed, hair combed perfect, effortlessly awake at - Blaine checks his alarm clock - twenty to eight on a Saturday morning. "Carole's working a shift today, she noticed I was gone." Kurt says, wrapping both arms around his stomach now, knees pressed up near his face as his tips himself gently-gently side-to-side against the desk. "I'm sorry I woke you."
"S'okay. S'cool. Are you - um, do you want - breakfast?"
"I need to get back before Finn wakes up. It's all a great deal more than I want to explain to him."
"Um. 'kay. I can drive you . . ."
"I'm sure there'll be a bus."
"S'okay. I can . . ."
Kurt's smile tilts amused, and he pushes himself back from the desk with his crooked legs, stands up and stretches. He slides his phone into his pocket and walks to the bed, to Blaine's side. "Despite everything, I've never slept with a boy before. Which makes you my 'first'." He catches Blaine's jaw in one hand so he can whisper, "Thank you." to his ear and kiss his cheek, Blaine wishes he wouldn't do that, why does that send the blood shooting between his legs so fierce fast hot with want-?
"I - need to - bathroom."
Kurt steps back, folds his arms around himself. There's something about him that Blaine hasn't seen before, maybe - maybe last night he just broke whatever porcelain casing he'd made for himself, there's something . . . his face. His eyes, little things, his eyebrows. Like his facial expressions are defrosting.
He still looks too tired.
Since Blaine still hasn't moved or taken his eyes from Kurt's face, Kurt reminds him, "Bathroom?"
Blaine says, "Right." and shuffles to the other side of the bed, tosses the covers aside, slips out and quickly into the bathroom before it becomes too obvious to Kurt that he's trying to hide something; pyjamas are crappy camouflage.
*
When Blaine stops the car outside the house Kurt's actually living at this time, he keeps his hands on the wheel and doesn't know what to say. Because he doesn't know what's going on anymore, and he knows Kurt knows more than him but at the same time he doesn't think that Kurt does, not about this, about them. Whatever they are. Because -
What does it mean, that they kissed in this car last night? Does it mean something? Does it mean that they're friends who made a mistake? Is it a mistake if they both actually wanted it? But - if it means something then does it mean they're going out, does it make them boyfriends? Do you have to do something else to be boyfriends, they hang out all the time and now Blaine's tasted the insides of his mouth and - does it mean something? It means something. Doesn't it?
Everything's angled all wrong now, like the presence of Kurt shifts the foundations of Blaine's life crooked. He can't get steady on this listed ground to get his head together anymore, everything looks so different at forty-five degrees. Everything, the whole world, looks different from this crazy grounded-ship angle . . .
Blaine should know these things more. He should have researched them. He'd hoped all along that his first boyfriend would have more of a clue than him, would be able to supply a lead for Blaine to follow, something he could wing it from so it looked like he knew what he was doing until practise made that true. Instead he has a mess he can't understand and this new, constant low-level want that peaks and aches around this boy who's so drawn into himself with grief that he doesn't always acknowledge Blaine's presence when Blaine is right in front of him, and how the hell can Blaine expect Kurt to carry him too?
He looks across at Kurt, who unhooks his seatbelt and then just sits there, slowly rubbing his own elbows, holding his arms in close. He says, to the dashboard rather than Blaine, "There are things I haven't told you."
Blaine watches his face, but Kurt doesn't look up. He thinks about that (stop and think; yes, for once) and says slowly, "I haven't told you everything either. We could hang out more. Talk more. We could . . ."
The corner of Kurt's mouth twitches. "There are things," he says softly, closes his eyes and shivers his arms in closer around himself. "I don't even . . ."
Blaine keeps watching his face, and when Kurt doesn't move, he does the single bravest thing he's ever done his whole life long; he leans over and, with no idea what it might mean, touches Kurt's arm.
Kurt's head is up, his eyes are open, wide on Blaine's before his face goes quiet again, and sad. "You're not . . ." He stares into Blaine's eyes, licks his lips, and Blaine can feel that odd warm tension over them, the air singing - chemistry, he understands the term now, chemistry, he looks at Kurt and it's like dropping potassium into water the way everything flares. Chemistry: Kurt makes significant parts of him burn.
Kurt swallows. "You're probably the nicest person I've ever met," he says, his voice a little cracked. "I mean that as an honest compliment, Blaine, nice is so hard to find, sometimes. And I don't know why you're interested in me." He swallows again, face twisting like it hurts. "And I'm scared of how I'm going to fuck you up. Because-"
"It's okay," Blaine whispers.
"You don't know. I haven't told you things and - and I can't." His entire body changes, he sits up hard-boned in the chair all of a sudden, face tight again, and white as ice. "I can't - rely on you-"
"You c-"
"-when I'm only going to really hurt you and you won't want to be around me and then, and then what, then I have to go back to-?"
"It doesn't have to be like that, it doesn't, we can - we can -"
"What?" Kurt looks into his eyes, tired and angry, now. "We can what, Blaine? You don't know me. I don't think you even know you, I don't think you know what you want. I think maybe you just changed your mind about that blowjob and now you're trying to justify to yourself-"
"Don't-" His hand shocks back from Kurt's arm. "The hell are you-"
"So tell me you don't want it, do you think I'm stupid? Or what, last night you just lost your balance and your tongue happened to end up in my mouth?"
"I-" The blush comes so fast and so hot it makes him feel a bit sick. "I didn't mean to do that. I am sorry if - if it gave you the wrong impression. It was - I don't know what it was."
"I think you know exactly what it was, you just don't want to admit it even to yourself. Especially to yourself. So go ahead and tell me what the 'wrong impression' is, Blaine, because I haven't got a clue what impression you're actually trying to give me. After that I'm supposed to believe that you don't want to fuck me after all?"
"Jesus, not everything is about that!"
Kurt just snorts, and looks out of the passenger window. Blaine rubs his face hard, throws his eyes up and catches sight of the shattered rear window in the mirror, and the sigh comes out before he can stop it with a little grunt of god. Kurt glances back at him, looks at the mirror, looks over his shoulder. He swallows, closes his eyes. "I'll get it fixed. I'm sorry."
"I don't care about that. I just . . ."
His tongue trips but there aren't any words there. Stop and think, he's stopped but he's not thinking, he doesn't know how to think through this. Kurt takes a breath and says, "I'll email you the garage. If you tell them I sent you they'll take care of it." He opens the car door. "Thank you for last night."
"Kurt, wait-"
The door slams. Blaine fumbles his seatbelt off, opens his door but by the time his feet are on the cold tarmac the front door's already slammed as well. He stands there alone on a strange street, lost in too many ways, and he doesn't know how to fix this, he is in way over his head - but something in him grows warm and angry and stubborn and sure. He climbs back into the car, finds his phone, texts, I'm not giving up on you.
He blasts P!nk all the way back home, bangs the steering wheel in time, sings along loud. His mom sees him pull in and stares at the busted window and he tells her it happened last night, it was like that when he got out of a movie with a friend. It's fine, his friend knows a garage, it'll get fixed.
So he doesn't even realise he has the text until he's back in his room, taking his cell from his pocket to dump on his desk next to his computer. He skims the phone alive, opens it with his stomach twisting.
I need to work some things out.
Jesus. Kurt. Do you think. He sets his jaw, lets his breath out hard, walks in two tight circles and then stops and texts back, I'll be right here when you do.
He doesn't know what Kurt's working out. Hell, Blaine doesn't know anything. Stop and think: think about what?
*
Blaine's weekend is pretty much a slow-churning stew of thinking about Kurt.
In his room, too dark and too small, he thinks about the arctic landscape of him, snowy skin and iceberg eyes, green-blue like water frozen a thousand years ago, deep inside and away from the light. He thinks about all the Kurt he doesn't know but knows is there, underneath the surface, underneath those deceptively calm waters like it's safe to get close; There are things I haven't told you.
There are things Blaine hasn't told Kurt.
He hasn't told him that he thinks all the time how he could have done things differently. Could have not kissed him, could have kissed him earlier, could have asked him first. Could have convinced him that he's not some disgusting douchebag who just wants to use Kurt's hurt to get at his body like it's pretty obvious that other guys Kurt's known have done. Could have pleaded with him to reassure Blaine that he's not one of those douchebags, he's allowed to feel this way without being a dick, isn't he?
Because -
He's never been so aware of his own breath, his own body before.
Because he thinks about Kurt's body, about the lovely boyish angle of his hip, what the skin there must look like, pale and perfect stretched over the cupping bone. He thinks about - he just wants to kiss him everywhere. Everywhere, the insides of his wrists and his clever-bending knees and the blocky bone of his ankle, his stomach and his chest and the hollow of his breastbone, and each side of his adam's apple, and under his jaw, and under his ear, and his mouth his mouth his mouth. He wants to run his hands down his sides and feel his skin under his palms, his fingertips finding the spaces between his ribs, knowing his body, he wants too much, he can't stop.
And Kurt doesn't need this. Kurt doesn't need Blaine wanting this. Kurt needs a friend, Kurt doesn't need Blaine clamouring at him to make Blaine feel better, Blaine who's never lost anything that's meant anything doesn't need Kurt petting his head and telling him that he's a good person and he isn't disgusting and depraved for thinking that Kurt's beautiful and perfect and wanting to touch him. Because he's not, he's not that guy, he would never, never use Kurt, but - but is there any way, with Kurt so broken, to be with Kurt without using him? With Kurt so broken is it even possible for Blaine to love him?
Love. Jesus.
There's a certain freedom in being run aground like this, out of the water and all the world crashed suddenly crazy. He can't bullshit around Kurt, Kurt sees right through him, he can't get away with it. No-one has ever known him before, he's never let them do it, and it's astonishing how it feels to not be able to lie, how bizarrely safe he feels around Kurt. Kurt sees right through him but it's clear that Kurt doesn't actually judge him. Kurt sees through him and mostly just seems to wish Blaine would stop pretending - Kurt really embodies brutal honesty, and he expects the same of Blaine. No-one has ever done that before. No-one has ever before wanted to hear him.
And if I told you all my secrets, Blaine thinks, still too full of want, trying to distract himself from his body's turmoiled inner gnawing with as many clear, logical, unequivocal words as possible, if I told you all my secrets, I think they'd still be safe. I don't think you would ever actually screw me over. If I told you every way I'm weak I think you would just understand. I think -
I think too much about you. Please believe me: I do know what it means. I just don't know if we can.
His pillow smells of Kurt. He can't bear it. He puts it inside his wardrobe, lays there in the night chewing his lip, thinking thinking thinking while he throbs for want and he could cry, he really could, he could go into his parents' bedroom like he's six and had a nightmare and get his mom to hug him and stroke his hair, it's okay baby. It's not okay. Blaine is disgusting and the world ruined Kurt and he sees sometimes little flashes of what Kurt could (should) be and what they could (should) be and nothing's fair, none of it's fair, how is the world allowed to be so cripplingly, agonisingly unfair?
He can't bear it. He grips the waist of his pyjama pants until he hurts his hands. He can't bear it. He can't. He's not some kind of superhero, he needs things too much, he needs -
He masturbates face-down in that retrieved pillow, smelling of Kurt's hair and increasingly damp with Blaine's shame. Afterwards he feels sick, like he's used himself. He feels like an animal. He isn't safe to be around people.
He thinks about the flawless white of all Kurt's skin, and all he really wants is to hold him again.
*
When he gets back home from school and logs into Facebook, there's a message from Kurt waiting for him. Please message me when you see this. The 'please' sets a thrill running and then crashing with anxiety in Blaine's stomach. 'Please' means too much, needs too much. He drops his schoolbag, doesn't even change, types back, I'm here now. Do you want me to call you?
No. Kurt types, so quickly that he must have been sitting there waiting for Blaine. I can't talk. But I need to tell you something.
Blaine stares at the words, black on white, and thinks about the person he should be. He types, You can tell me anything.
There's a little pause, then Kurt starts typing. He types for a long time, hesitating often.
There are things I haven't told you. I know I need to. I don't know what you think you want from me, Blaine, but there are things you ought to know. You have a right to know them, rather than thinking the wrong things about me.
Kurt goes immediately back to typing. Blaine assumes that his role, for now, is only to read.
I know I told you things weren't good at school, and that the bullies mostly left me alone after my dad died. They did, mostly. when I went back to school they didn't even meet my eye, like I was too low by then for them to even shove around anymore. So they left me alone. For about three weeks everyone left me alone.
But then I was getting some stuff from my locker one day and someone banged me into it, and when I sat up on the floor it was this guy who'd always hated me worst, walking away. And I just felt like I'd been punctured, like I couldn't do it. I couldn't get by through every day without my dad, feeling like *that*, *and* getting unpredictably beaten on by some jock with an issue. I just couldn't. I know what you're going to think, I need you to understand, I couldn't *bear* it, Blaine.
So he would say things to me, and shove me into lockers whenever he passed me, but by then I was hanging around the parking lot of Scandals on a night picking up guys who were willing to pretend to believe that I was eighteen, and I'd learned enough. I'd learned enough to notice that when he walked towards me it wasn't my face he looked at first. And that when he got in my face, he kept looking at my mouth. And I might have been numb with grief and medication and lack of sleep but I am not stupid. I know exactly what his 'issue' was.
Blaine reads, and breathes, slowly. His stomach is beginning to feel unsettled in gravity, there's some kind of black hole in there, too heavy to weigh anything anymore.
So one day after he shoved me so hard I hit a locker and then the floor, I picked myself up and followed him. I couldn't do it, please understand. My dad wasn't there anymore. I always knew he would be there for me, if he'd been there I would have known he would have done something, but I didn't have anyone else to turn to. Please understand. I had to take care of it myself if it was going to get taken care of. I needed it to stop, I felt like I was going crazy, I didn't know what else to *do*. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted everyone in the world to just leave me *alone* and I didn't know what else to do.
Kurt types, Please understand. and then there's a pause, while he thinks, or works himself up to something, Blaine will never know. He already feels - something wrong, something very wrong, moving behind these words on the screen. He shifts in his chair, props his head on a hand, stares at them nervous. For the first time, he doesn't know if he wants to listen to Kurt. He doesn't know if he actually wants to know what this might be. The strange horrible lonely adult world Kurt lives in, Blaine doesn't know if he wants to know -
I followed him into the locker room. There wasn't anyone else there. I made him a proposition.
There's another pause, and Blaine knows now that this is beyond him. He just doesn't want to know. He can't bear it, he doesn't want to know.
Kurt types, Are you still there?
He needs something. Blaine's reaction to being needed is as immediate as a dog's drooling, though his fingers are too light and clumsy on the keyboard. Yes.
Kurt types, I told him that if he would otherwise just leave me alone then I would get him off once a week. It felt like extortion at the time, it felt like paying the mob. I have since realised that it's closer to prostitution.
Blaine touches his face, stares at the ceiling above his computer, touches his face. He types, Please tell me he said no.
He didn't say anything. He spluttered and yelled and punched a locker and stormed out. He found me the next day, though, to mumble a time and place at me.
Blaine would like to type Please tell me this isn't true but he can't. His hands have gone so heavy he just can't.
Kurt types, Every Monday lunchtime underneath the bleachers. Mostly he grinds off against my hip, if he takes too long I use my hand. I thought Mondays would at least get it out of the way early in the week, I didn't realise that it meant my whole weekend is nothing but knowing that it's coming. I know what you must think. I couldn't tell you. I shouldn't even tell you now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Blaine remembers, I don't like Mondays. He thinks he really could be sick, the sweat's gone cold all over him, he feels like he's ill from this. He types, Kurt you have to stop this.
Kurt types, It gets worse.
It can't. It can't, it can't get worse. How the hell can it get worse?
Today before he started he started mumbling at me again. Whether I was 'free' tonight to go to a restaurant two towns along to go to dinner. In separate cars. For his extremely distorted idea of a *date*. I think he thinks that this is normal. I think he thinks that this is a relationship. I think I've fucked him up at least as much as he's fucked me up.
Blaine flexes his hands a few times so he can type again. What did you say?
I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I started laughing. I couldn't control it. It hurt. There's a little pause, and Blaine knows the black sting of his deadpan humour by now, as the next line appears. I laughed until I cried.
Blaine picks up his phone, scrolls to Kurt's number.
He just stared at me and then shouted some things and then stormed off. I sat on the floor and laughed and laughed. I don't think my body remembered properly how to do it, it kept jarring something, it *hurt*. I couldn't stop. I just couldn't.
Blaine hits call.
There's a pause, while the phone rings, and then Kurt types, I can't talk, Blaine.
Blaine presses the phone between his ear and his shoulder, types, Please. You can listen, please.
There's a long pause, and Blaine stands up as if that will encourage Kurt to answer. Just when he thinks he'll get pitched to voicemail, the line clicks open. He sucks his breath in but there's no sound from the other end. "Kurt," he says, and stops. He swallows. "Kurt, you have to stop this. You have to. You have to tell him that it's not happening again."
Silence. Blaine licks his lips.
"Kurt, please. You're hurting yourself. You're letting him - I can come with you, you don't have to face him alone, I can - I don't know, okay? I don't know what the hell to do but I can try, I can - I'll do anything if you need it, if I can just think, I can-"
More text has appeared on the screen. He blinks at it, leans down.
Why can't you see that you can't help me
"Someone has to! God, Kurt-" He grabs at his hair, stares at their conversation, thinks he can hear Kurt's breath, just, down the line. "It has to stop. I'm not giving up, I want - I just want you to be happy, I know it won't be easy, I know it'll take a long time but Kurt you're - you can't keep doing this, you can't keep making yourself worse-"
Kurt types, I don't know what you get out of this.
Blaine closes his eyes for a second, puts a hand to his face. "Why can't I just want you to be happy?" he says, his voice too rough. "Why can't people just care about you and want you to be happy?"
He can definitely hear Kurt's breath now, quicker as if he's beginning to panic. "Please, Kurt, please, please. You have to let me help. You have to - tell a teacher or-"
He's typing again. Blaine stops, waits.
Social services will get involved. They'll think I'm 'disturbed'. I know I've made things worse but now all I can do is make it much worse one way or another, there's no better option.
"Let me help. Let me come with you, tell him to stay the hell away from you, Kurt, please."
Kurt types something, but there's a long pause before he actually hits send.
Now you know, and now you know what I really am.
"What you are is hurt, what do you - what did you think I would-? I don't-" God Blaine needs to be more coherent than this - "He is using you, he's hurting you, he never had any right in the first place to - to shove you around and then - then do this to you when - Kurt it just has to stop, all you're doing is hurting yourself even worse - please. Please, please, Kurt, promise me you'll stop it, please."
There's a long silence. He hears Kurt's breaths slow again, gradually, and then a sigh.
Kurt types, I would like you to rescue me. That is the most pathetic thing. Because I shouldn't let myself be the guilt you hang yourself with, I will only ever hurt you. And just because I shouldn't need this so much.
"Kurt-"
He sits down again in his desk chair, and rubs his eyes with one hand. "I don't know what to say," he croaks. "I'm sorry. I'm not - I'm not a superhero, I don't have a clue. I just want to help. And - if things had been different -"
He listens to Kurt's breath, soothing like the sea. He remembers him on the bed in this room, so calm, so trusting. He says quietly, "I want to say things to you. I want to - be things, for you. But - but there's just so much else - I don't know how I can - I don't want to be just another thing that hurts you."
There's another long silence, and then Kurt types, That other night is the best I've felt in nearly four months.
Now Blaine's throat hurts, now it's too much. He whispers, "Kurt please say something. Please, please say something."
Kurt types, I can't.
"Please, please."
I can't. My voice.
"Please try. Please."
There's a dragging pause, and then Blaine hears Kurt swallow, and on the second stuttered attempt he whispers, "Blaine."
And then he hangs up, logs out, locks himself down like the heart of the iceberg, nothing that Blaine can touch.
Blaine goes into the bathroom, and stands over his sink for a while until he's finally sure that he's not actually going to throw up.
*
Blaine texts him for half the night. He only gets two replies; Please please don't when Blaine says he's going to drive over, and, Don't. *Don't*. when he says he'll be at Kurt's school in the morning. He wakes to an email from Kurt, clipped and imperious and sure: Kurt will deal with the situation today. He will let Blaine knows how it goes, but Blaine is not to interfere. What leverage Kurt has is that the boy in question will want this to be as secret as possible, and Kurt walking up with someone else who already knows is not going to help Kurt's position as a holder of secrets. Blaine's only job is to wait.
It's not something Blaine's good at.
He texts Courage until his thumb hurts, until the buzz of Kurt's phone must be almost as constant as a heartbeat for him. It's the only thing he can do. He could keep hitting resend but he doesn't, he types it every time, seven letters are the only thing he can offer, whether Kurt ever knows it or not.
Already forced into the stopping, he thinks. He thinks a lot, while he should be paying some small fraction of attention in class. He thinks about being brave and holding Kurt when he sees him, not caring if he sounds like an idiot child, saying to him, I want to help, I want to be with you, I want to be allowed to want these things. He thinks about kissing him and it's like he's alight from the thighs to the stomach, illuminated electric pulses under his skin. He thinks about saying to him, Please let me -
Can you use the word 'love' so soon and with so much weight on it? Won't it just crack in his mouth, won't it mean so much it'll come out meaningless? Does he even know what it really means?
He thinks about Kurt pushing him away, or worse, letting him. He thinks about every person who's abused Kurt's pain to get something out of him, and how Kurt just lets them, and he thinks about Blaine being one of those people too. He thinks about Kurt trying to recover and Blaine forcing himself onto Kurt, accept me, love me, Kurt doesn't need this, Kurt needs -
That other night is the best I've felt in nearly four months.
And oh god, what he's been doing, what he convinced himself he had to do - Blaine can't think about it. Can't. It's like a conceptual block, when he tries to think about it it's like turning too quickly and smacking his head off an unexpected obstacle, he can't think about it (flawless white skin like nothing has ever touched him, like virgin snow). It isn't the same as Kurt picking up any guy he thinks might be halfway interested because sex is just something to do. It's - Blaine doesn't even know the word for it. Or he thinks he does, and that makes him feel so much worse.
Kurt hasn't told anyone else, he knows that much. He's trusted Blaine alone with this, with this worst thing but - no. He didn't trust Blaine with it. He obviously expected it to send Blaine running, he's been keeping it his dirtiest little secret because he was scared of how finally alone he would be once people knew (and now you know what I really am), because maybe when he was so numb he could bear it, just something else to endure because all of life was only something to be endured, but (That other night is the best I've felt) now he's begun to touch things that don't hurt again he must see it for what it is, what he's been doing. If Blaine has begun to defrost Kurt's feelings, all he's really done is unfrozen all that pain again, trickling like horror through his veins, cold and black and unbearable. And Kurt told him expecting him to leave him alone from then on, that was Kurt being honest for Blaine's sake, trying to scare him off, trying to protect Blaine from what Kurt is capable of, from what Kurt's done, oh god.
It makes Blaine feel worse, in every way. Kurt had acted like sex was something he used, when the reality is the absolute reverse, and all Blaine's done is make him realise that. And now you know - what does he think Blaine thinks? All he can think is how hurt Kurt is -
He thinks about the very tip of the iceberg he's allowed to see and everything underneath it, secret green as dark as the sea. He thinks about the things Kurt might think about, might still want. Because damaged as he is, it doesn't mean that he can't want, that he can't hope. Hurt as he is, Blaine thinks that Kurt is still brave enough to hope, just, just. Blaine has no right to be afraid of how hurt Kurt is - no right to be afraid of Kurt - Kurt needs so much more from him than cowardice. Kurt needs this from him. The only question left is how brave Blaine can be.
He gets a text as he's heading to his car after an endless day of school, the afternoon already gathering gloomy, an early December night brewing cold. Can you meet me?
It jolts his heart to his throat, it's so much more than he hoped for. Not a call, not online chat, Kurt there, Kurt physically there, he hasn't seen his face in three days and hasn't seen anything but his face in three days -
He texts back, ASAP. Where?
In the park. Kids' play area.
Blaine frowns at his phone, texts, Kurt, it's freezing. Either go indoors or I'm bringing coffee.
Kurt texts back, Decaf half-fat mocha, no cream.
Maybe Blaine will never get used to conversation with Kurt. Maybe Kurt will baffle him every time, and Blaine will never get used to the mystifying, dizzying delight of it. Good.
*
He heads for the only person in the park when he gets there - in the rich royal blue of the gathering dusk, no-one else is out here on a frozen Tuesday afternoon, with rooks settling noisy in the trees and the moon already half-risen and absurdly bright off the snow. Kurt's sitting on one of the swings, arms wrapped around the frozen chains and gloved hands at his mouth, breathing some warmth back into them, boots on the ground hold him steady. He looks up at Blaine's approach, gives a twitch of a smile but the smile breaks on Blaine's face because there's a dark bruise on one cheek, the side of his mouth, vivid against the pale of his skin, and a cut on the side of his forehead ringed in its own uneven dark aura.
Kurt's smile fades at Blaine's expression, and he settles his face calm, unhooks his arms from the chains, holds his hands up. "If you don't mind, it actually is freezing."
Blaine blinks, looks down at the cups, hands Kurt the right one. Kurt closes his hands around it, hugging it close. He murmurs, "Thank you." and swings a very little back and forth, keeping the flats of his boots to the ground. Blaine brushes the snow off the seat of the swing next to him, sits there with his shoes scuffing the mostly snow-swept ground as the swing settles itself steady again.
"What the hell happened? He-"
Kurt shrugs, and takes a sip of his drink. "Did you think he'd take it well?"
"He hit you? What happened?"
Kurt kicks the ground to swing himself a little higher. "I approached him in a corridor so there were plenty of people around and he hopefully couldn't explode too much. I told him what you wanted. That it was going to stop and he wasn't going to tell anyone because he would get into a lot more trouble than I would. That he was just going to leave me alone from now on. I told him it was best for both of us. I even said 'sorry', though I know I probably didn't sound it." He looks at the scuffed snow on the ground, says quietly, "I did mean it, even if I didn't sound it."
Blaine's hand tightens too much on the chain, it hurts. "I don't think you're the one who needs to apologise." He screws his face up, makes his hand go loose. The chain's cold and feels like it bit his skin through the glove, so he switches his cup between hands, tries to even out the variation of too hot, too cold. "What did he say?"
Kurt swings, warming his hands on his cup, boots tapping the ground on each pass, as perfectly balanced as a bird on a wire. "He stared at me, really stared at me, and I don't even know what he was thinking. For a second I thought he was going to start crying." Kurt looks up at the sky, lets his swinging slow. "Then he punched me. I sort of saw it coming but I didn't move quickly enough. He only hit me once, I got the cut banging into a locker. It's hard to be graceful when someone's just hit you in the face."
"He-"
"I don't really know what happened next." Kurt frowns at the snow-banked playground, just rocking himself back and forth on heel and toe of boot, now. "He started yelling. My head was ringing so much I don't even really know what he said. And then someone else was yelling and Finn was on him and everything started happening very quickly and violently. Mr Schuester was wading in, and just when he broke them up Santana came striding in and kneed him in the balls." Kurt rubs an eye, his breath huffs out white from his smile. "And Mercedes and Rachel helped me up, and I just felt like I'd landed on the moon. Everything was upside-down."
"You're okay," Blaine says, slowly.
Kurt nods, like it's not really important. "I saw the nurse. They called Carole, I told them not to. I didn't tell them what had been going on, I said he'd just never stopped bullying me and I'd confronted him, and it hadn't gone right. It's the most I've said under that school's roof in probably four weeks. They believed me. Being recently orphaned gets you some weight of sympathy, at least."
He takes another drink, and sighs, long and slow and not entirely unhappy. Blaine swallows, says, "Are you safe from him?"
"They suspended him, pending an expulsion hearing. Assaulting another student. Plenty of witnesses." He plays with his cup a bit. "I really screwed him up, didn't I? I didn't especially mean to. I really wasn't thinking about him at all. I just needed to parcel all the crap in my life into as small boxes as possible."
". . . I really wouldn't feel guilty, Kurt. He's the one who - he should be-" Blaine grits his teeth, there'll be the time to be too angry to think later. "I don't know if anyone could blame you for just surviving the last few months, and he never had any right to - to do that to you."
"I offered it."
"You should never have had to feel like you had to."
"It's the only thing I've ever felt sure of. Only thing I've ever been good at. The only thing I felt like I could trade with him."
"That's not true. That is so, so far from the truth, you're - Kurt, you're amazing, you must know that, don't you?"
". . . I don't know." Kurt's eyes are thoughtful on the sky but he doesn't actually look sad, not right now. "My dad used to tell me that all the time." He looks across at Blaine, smiles. He still looks tired - incredibly tired, and bruised now, but all Blaine sees is the moonlight bright in his eyes, and how his whole face moves with his mouth. Blaine knows he's been through hell, but he also knows that he never stopped going, however tempting the idea might have seemed. Blaine knows that he wants to make Kurt's surviving worth it, he's just scared of what he's going to have to risk, what he knows he has to -
Kurt licks his lips, says, "I owe you a lot more than I'm ever going to be able to repay, do you know that?"
. . . just being allowed to look at you is enough. Do you know that? "I'm just - I'm happy if you're happy, Kurt."
Kurt tilts his head, eyes thoughtful. "I don't know about 'happy'. Not yet. But I think it might have become an option again, at some point."
Blaine looks at him and he could suffocate on how brave Kurt is, to be here, back straight, sitting on a swing on a frozen December evening and just looking at Blaine; no-one will ever know what it's cost Kurt to still be here and be capable of this. Kurt saved himself. Kurt didn't need Blaine's courage, Kurt never needed rescuing, because he's always been brave enough to just still be here, despite everything.
Maybe Blaine has just enough courage too. He swaps his coffee between hands again, holds one out for Kurt.
Kurt looks at it, looks at his face, takes it.
They sit side by side, swinging slowly and erratically - their arms stretch and fold as the swings separate and reunite them - sipping coffee, alone in the dark.
Blaine says, "Were all those people who helped from your glee club?"
". . . yes. They're the only friends I've ever had."
"Except me."
Kurt squeezes his hand. "Except you."
"I bet they'd love you to come back."
Kurt's silent for a moment, and the chains of the swings creak overhead. "Not yet," he says, and looks at the ground. "Not yet."
It may be some time, Blaine knows, before Kurt feels undamaged enough to attempt other people, other people who know him already, who can see what he was and what he's become. It's guilt, he thinks, a lot of it - The last thing I said to him - an attempt to punish himself enough, but everything he did only made him feel worse, made him feel the need to do worse and worse. And now he feels guilty for screwing up someone who was perfectly willing to screw him up, to use and wreck him, when he was alone and defenceless and so close to disappearing -
Maybe all he needs from Blaine is a space where he can feel normal, unjudged, clean again. Somewhere he can hurt and it's not so sunk in all those other bad feelings as well. Somewhere he can begin to not hurt, and not feel guilty about that.
Blaine finishes his coffee, leans down to set the cup down beside the swing. He says, "Do you want to build a snowman?"
Kurt says, "Are you five?"
"It'll be fun."
"You are five."
"Come on." Blaine stands up, tugs at his hand. "Come oooonn, Kurt . . ."
Kurt looks up at him, tired and baffled and still something in his eyes looks hurt, and Blaine tries to understand why. He thinks, stop and think, fuck everything, and leans down and kisses him.
He tastes like coffee and chocolate and cold and Kurt.
When Blaine lifts his mouth away a little breeze steals their breath off white. Kurt blinks his eyes open, looks at Blaine's face, and Blaine pulls at his hand. "Come on. It'll be fun."
He's only realised for the first time himself that they can have both, they can be friends and more than friends, Blaine can still be there for Kurt when he's getting something back too. If Blaine is brave enough to ask, and trusts in Kurt enough. If Kurt trusts Blaine enough, because Kurt's always been brave. And it's taken some time but Blaine doesn't care about anything he's afraid of anymore, anything at all but Kurt.
Kurt comes up with his pulling hand, finally calm, like Blaine finally got it right.
*
They write the rules for love as they go along. No-one else can tell them how to make this work.
It's not like things are perfect; Kurt still goes quiet, like he only has a limited amount of words, like the gradual build up of sadness silences him all over again. But when he talks, he tells Blaine about his dad, and how much Kurt loved him however often he failed him, and how much he loved Kurt, and how Kurt didn't think that anyone else would ever love him like that, like he'd just be alone without him until he died.
And Blaine holds his hands, and kisses each cheek and his forehead, and then his mouth.
Blaine tells him about his own family, it's not like he could keep the air of permanent awkward hidden from Kurt so often in his house, and Kurt's eyebrows lower with a restrained, icy anger. He says, "But you're perfect. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard." like anyone not loving Blaine unconditionally must just be so fucking stupid. It makes him smile in a way he can't quite control, Blaine feels like his heart's that little bit safer now too.
Every now and then Blaine will still get a text in the middle of the night, at first the word Help and he knows what it costs Kurt to type that, but later sometimes not even a word. Kurt doesn't have to say anything. He touches Blaine through that phone line and Blaine picks his cell out from underneath his pillow, rolls onto his back, calls him in the dark. "'m here," he says, and yawns. "D'you want to talk?"
Silence means no. Blaine leaves the line open until he wakes up again, phone dropped onto the mattress beside him, where Kurt has texted him, Thank you.
*
It's two weeks before they move past just holding each other on Blaine's bed. Even kissing always has to be approached with care, though it's such bliss once they get into it, mouth on mouth, electric wet slide, it's beyond anything Blaine thought 'perfect' was. But it's two weeks, it's Christmas Eve, and Blaine is under orders that he's having a family Christmas tomorrow and that means a day without his boyfriend, almost permanently present and yet not always entirely welcome in this house. Things will never be perfect. He sees little indications of how close to perfect they could one day be, though, like when Kurt plays with the hem of Blaine's cardigan, tugs it a little, murmurs with his eyes low, "There is something you could give me to make it up to me, you know."
Blaine is painfully aware of his virginity, but Kurt is painfully aware of his lack of it. Blaine knows that Kurt wants this, he's wanted it badly, something to make him feel like he knows how to be clean again, the first sex Kurt's ever had that means what it should mean. He knows that Kurt's held back for Blaine's sake, never pushed, never even asked after that night in the park in the snow, not until now. Maybe tonight it's finally okay for both of them to want it.
Behind Blaine's bedroom door they undress each other carefully - it's cold enough that naked they hurry under the covers, skin everywhere and Blaine gasps, but then they don't really know what to do. Kurt holds his arms around his body like there might be visible handprints all over it, like he's embarrassed by it, and Blaine just can't stop blushing, and finally he straddles Kurt's hips and takes his arms away from his chest and holds them to the mattress, so he can just look, like he'd imagined for so long.
And just looking, he feels awed and heady and he's hard again for the first time since their clumsy undressing, without being touched. There can't be any embarrassment about being faced with this. He whispers to Kurt, "You know you're beautiful." and Kurt's eyes watch his, blinking, blue-green like a startled cat's.
They're too tentative with each other, too aware of too much, and it's awkward and too full of whispery nervous questions until Blaine can't hold it in any longer and starts giggling. He puts his head down, tries to swallow it, but he can feel Kurt's body jumping underneath his and then they're both gone, rolling a little in a limb-tangled clasp, laughing themselves breathless in a clumsy naked hug on Blaine's bed. They have to let the little hysterical explosions of it die off fully before they can try again, smiling now, Kurt's hands slipping down Blaine's back like playing down a harp's string, squeezing a little at his hip, his breath coming quicker as Blaine begins to lose it, noises coming out of him like a dog whimpering he can't keep down. His head jerks back as he comes and Kurt rolls his hips up, two more thrusts against him and his fingers dig in tight to Blaine's shoulders, he hisses his name out like a cat. Blaine groans, could go for round two just from that, sexiest thing that has ever happened in this poor deprived bed.
Instead they just lay there for a while, Blaine's head on Kurt's chest, sticky and unpleasant but in really the best way possible.
*
Blaine wakes up, slowly, then blinks rapidly and lifts his head. The lamp's on, and he's alone in the bed - but he's not alone in the room, and he relaxes at the sound of soft humming from the window.
Kurt's wearing his underwear and one of Blaine's buttoned shirts, perched on the windowsill with one leg dangling, looking out at the snow and humming. Little words escape him, now and then. He catches a note and follows its lovely swoop down. He sings under his breath, All your life.
Blaine rests his cheek on his arm, watches him.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Kurt hums the song out, and rubs his arms. Blaine says, "You're going to catch a cold." Kurt looks across at him, lets himself down from the windowsill and pads barefoot back to the bed, slips under the covers beside him again. His skin's cool, the shirt is cold, and Blaine hugs him closer, wriggles his hips up close to him, rubs his back. He says, "I think your glee club might be ready for you again soon."
"Mm, Rachel brought the same thing up at lunch, until Mercedes stood on her foot. Why are you so very eager to compete against me at Regionals?"
"Keeps things interesting? I just want to see you there."
Kurt runs his fingers through Blaine's hair, kisses the top of his head, says, "Hm."
They're quiet for a moment, while Blaine feels Kurt's skin grow warm, and he presses his cheek to the edge of Kurt's breastbone, thinks how perfect perfect perfect this moment is, like a gift. Like all moments. Life isn't white noise, he thinks, and runs his thumb across Kurt's shoulder. It's a song. Enjoy every note. You only hear it once.
Kurt says, "There's something I haven't told you."
Blaine's stomach tries to climb inside itself, nothing good ever comes of Kurt saying that, but he has to be brave, because Kurt shames him on a daily basis with his own easy courage. "Alright," he says, and strokes Kurt's shoulder. "So tell me."
Kurt's fingers play with a curl of his hair. "I stopped taking the tablets."
Blaine says, "What?"
"I stopped taking them. I didn't want to anymore, so I stopped."
". . . when?"
Kurt doesn't say anything for a second, then says, "That day I first met you for coffee."
Blaine listens to the very close, very steady beat of his heart, and Kurt strokes his hair.
"I left you there and I felt like I should have felt something about it, but I didn't feel anything properly anymore. But after that I felt like I'd like to try feeling things again, maybe. So I just stopped taking them."
". . . is that a good idea?"
"I told my counsellor. This week."
"What did she say?"
Kurt kisses the top of his head. "She asked me how I was feeling, and I said okay. Not amazing or anything. Okay. And I have you. I told her about you. And she said if I was feeling okay then maybe I didn't need them anymore anyway." His hand slips down through Blaine's hair, scratches soothingly at the back of his head, the little hollow of the base of his neck. "They were only to get me through until I didn't need them anyway. I think they were partially to turn me into enough of a zombie that I couldn't get myself together enough to kill myself. I don't want to now. I don't know if I ever did, I know I don't now."
Blaine listens to his heartbeat, so steady and strong. He knows that human bodies are mortal bodies, that he gets to have this warm beating body in his arms because it will one day die. But not yet, not yet, so young and so full of potential, closed up inside him like a butterfly waiting to crack open its wings. Not yet. He'll stay with Blaine. He wants to stay with Blaine.
Blaine kisses the side of his neck.
Kurt says, "I used to just deal with the minute I was in, I swear there was a week I didn't do anything but focus on breathing, just trying to manage every breath in and out. But then I had hours to get through, think about what you're doing, just get through this. Then there were days, and nights. Then weeks. And for a while . . ." His fingers slip deep into Blaine's hair, cupping his head safe against him. "I don't know when I'll go back into that choir room, but I know I will. I have a future tense again. That's nice."
Blaine murmurs, "It is." and hugs his arms in closer around him.
Kurt's voice has gone thick. "You've really put up with a lot from me."
"No, no, no." Blaine lifts his head, pushes himself up on his arms to kiss him, to fold Kurt in closer again at his side, face to face now. There are the fading shadows of bruises still on his face, evidence of what Kurt can survive, evidence that he's more than strong enough for Blaine too. "No," Blaine says, and traces his thumb over Kurt's cheek. "Best thing that ever happened to me. Most amazing person I've ever met."
Kurt puts a hand around Blaine's wrist, smiles at him, his eyes still sad. Blaine smiles back, even if it does hurt. Kurt can manage to do it, so.
Kurt swallows, says, "So, the money from the house went into a trust for when I'm eighteen. I've been thinking about what happens after I graduate."
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to know what you wanted to do after you graduate."
"Whatever you want to do?"
Kurt taps him between the eyebrows. "No. Think. What do you want to do."
Blaine watches his face, and he always finds it hard to think around Kurt. Stop and think; he can't think when he looks at Kurt looking at him, he's just ridiculously beautiful and he looks at Blaine like Blaine's the only thing in the world to look at, it's incredibly unsettling. "I guess college," he says. "Major in music and theatre."
"Have you thought about where?"
"Not Ohio, I know that much."
Kurt runs the backs of his fingers across Blaine's cheek. "Have you considered New York . . . ?"
Tip/Tilt part III, one of the most chopped-apart rewritten messes I've produced in a long time. Oh, dear ^^; Part I is here, part II here.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, be glad or just think how depressing the show would be.
Rating: R, for swearing and adult subject matter, and I mean that in every sense of the words. Kids, go read fluff instead.
Warnings and spoilers: I hardly even know where to begin with this one. All the warnings from previous parts apply, and here we get to add some truly terrible decisions made. I literally don't even know how to label the warning on some of the consent issues in here. I did tell you it got worse before it got better ^^;
Summary: Stop and think.
Note: I am so, so tired, I'm so sorry I haven't replied to previous comments yet, I know I haven't, I'm sorry. I was trying to hack this into shape, which was wrecking me a bit, and then I found the *perfect* music for it, which it turns out only wrecked me more! But I do recommend Ed Sheeran's Lego House and The A Team, anyway. And now I'm gonna go curl up somewhere with coffee and friends and be warm and happy for a bit because I'm just *tired*, sorry ^^;
". . . sorry. I know, Carole. My phone was on silent. I'm sorry."
Blaine blinks his eyes open, and unpeels his cheek from the pillow.
There's a boy sitting in his desk chair, knees folded up with his shins pressed against the edge of the desk so that he can rock himself, very slightly, from side to side; he's got a phone to his ear, one arm around his stomach, and eyes on his own bent knees as he listens, speaks.
"Just a friend, I don't know if you know him. Blaine." He looks across, catches Blaine's eye, his mouth twitches - recognition or a smile Blaine doesn't know, as he sits up in his bed, dragging a hand back through the wreck of his hair. "I'll be back later in the day. I'm sorry I worried you."
Kurt drops his head to the side, eyes running across the ceiling. "I know," he says. "I'm sorry." He listens for a moment, says, "Bye." and hangs up. "Good morning, Blaine."
Blaine licks his lips, clears his throat, rubs an eye - he's not good at mornings - and croaks, "Hey. You . . ."
"I borrowed some of your toiletries, I hope you don't mind. I didn't think you'd miss a little gel, given your impressive collection."
He's fully dressed, hair combed perfect, effortlessly awake at - Blaine checks his alarm clock - twenty to eight on a Saturday morning. "Carole's working a shift today, she noticed I was gone." Kurt says, wrapping both arms around his stomach now, knees pressed up near his face as his tips himself gently-gently side-to-side against the desk. "I'm sorry I woke you."
"S'okay. S'cool. Are you - um, do you want - breakfast?"
"I need to get back before Finn wakes up. It's all a great deal more than I want to explain to him."
"Um. 'kay. I can drive you . . ."
"I'm sure there'll be a bus."
"S'okay. I can . . ."
Kurt's smile tilts amused, and he pushes himself back from the desk with his crooked legs, stands up and stretches. He slides his phone into his pocket and walks to the bed, to Blaine's side. "Despite everything, I've never slept with a boy before. Which makes you my 'first'." He catches Blaine's jaw in one hand so he can whisper, "Thank you." to his ear and kiss his cheek, Blaine wishes he wouldn't do that, why does that send the blood shooting between his legs so fierce fast hot with want-?
"I - need to - bathroom."
Kurt steps back, folds his arms around himself. There's something about him that Blaine hasn't seen before, maybe - maybe last night he just broke whatever porcelain casing he'd made for himself, there's something . . . his face. His eyes, little things, his eyebrows. Like his facial expressions are defrosting.
He still looks too tired.
Since Blaine still hasn't moved or taken his eyes from Kurt's face, Kurt reminds him, "Bathroom?"
Blaine says, "Right." and shuffles to the other side of the bed, tosses the covers aside, slips out and quickly into the bathroom before it becomes too obvious to Kurt that he's trying to hide something; pyjamas are crappy camouflage.
*
When Blaine stops the car outside the house Kurt's actually living at this time, he keeps his hands on the wheel and doesn't know what to say. Because he doesn't know what's going on anymore, and he knows Kurt knows more than him but at the same time he doesn't think that Kurt does, not about this, about them. Whatever they are. Because -
What does it mean, that they kissed in this car last night? Does it mean something? Does it mean that they're friends who made a mistake? Is it a mistake if they both actually wanted it? But - if it means something then does it mean they're going out, does it make them boyfriends? Do you have to do something else to be boyfriends, they hang out all the time and now Blaine's tasted the insides of his mouth and - does it mean something? It means something. Doesn't it?
Everything's angled all wrong now, like the presence of Kurt shifts the foundations of Blaine's life crooked. He can't get steady on this listed ground to get his head together anymore, everything looks so different at forty-five degrees. Everything, the whole world, looks different from this crazy grounded-ship angle . . .
Blaine should know these things more. He should have researched them. He'd hoped all along that his first boyfriend would have more of a clue than him, would be able to supply a lead for Blaine to follow, something he could wing it from so it looked like he knew what he was doing until practise made that true. Instead he has a mess he can't understand and this new, constant low-level want that peaks and aches around this boy who's so drawn into himself with grief that he doesn't always acknowledge Blaine's presence when Blaine is right in front of him, and how the hell can Blaine expect Kurt to carry him too?
He looks across at Kurt, who unhooks his seatbelt and then just sits there, slowly rubbing his own elbows, holding his arms in close. He says, to the dashboard rather than Blaine, "There are things I haven't told you."
Blaine watches his face, but Kurt doesn't look up. He thinks about that (stop and think; yes, for once) and says slowly, "I haven't told you everything either. We could hang out more. Talk more. We could . . ."
The corner of Kurt's mouth twitches. "There are things," he says softly, closes his eyes and shivers his arms in closer around himself. "I don't even . . ."
Blaine keeps watching his face, and when Kurt doesn't move, he does the single bravest thing he's ever done his whole life long; he leans over and, with no idea what it might mean, touches Kurt's arm.
Kurt's head is up, his eyes are open, wide on Blaine's before his face goes quiet again, and sad. "You're not . . ." He stares into Blaine's eyes, licks his lips, and Blaine can feel that odd warm tension over them, the air singing - chemistry, he understands the term now, chemistry, he looks at Kurt and it's like dropping potassium into water the way everything flares. Chemistry: Kurt makes significant parts of him burn.
Kurt swallows. "You're probably the nicest person I've ever met," he says, his voice a little cracked. "I mean that as an honest compliment, Blaine, nice is so hard to find, sometimes. And I don't know why you're interested in me." He swallows again, face twisting like it hurts. "And I'm scared of how I'm going to fuck you up. Because-"
"It's okay," Blaine whispers.
"You don't know. I haven't told you things and - and I can't." His entire body changes, he sits up hard-boned in the chair all of a sudden, face tight again, and white as ice. "I can't - rely on you-"
"You c-"
"-when I'm only going to really hurt you and you won't want to be around me and then, and then what, then I have to go back to-?"
"It doesn't have to be like that, it doesn't, we can - we can -"
"What?" Kurt looks into his eyes, tired and angry, now. "We can what, Blaine? You don't know me. I don't think you even know you, I don't think you know what you want. I think maybe you just changed your mind about that blowjob and now you're trying to justify to yourself-"
"Don't-" His hand shocks back from Kurt's arm. "The hell are you-"
"So tell me you don't want it, do you think I'm stupid? Or what, last night you just lost your balance and your tongue happened to end up in my mouth?"
"I-" The blush comes so fast and so hot it makes him feel a bit sick. "I didn't mean to do that. I am sorry if - if it gave you the wrong impression. It was - I don't know what it was."
"I think you know exactly what it was, you just don't want to admit it even to yourself. Especially to yourself. So go ahead and tell me what the 'wrong impression' is, Blaine, because I haven't got a clue what impression you're actually trying to give me. After that I'm supposed to believe that you don't want to fuck me after all?"
"Jesus, not everything is about that!"
Kurt just snorts, and looks out of the passenger window. Blaine rubs his face hard, throws his eyes up and catches sight of the shattered rear window in the mirror, and the sigh comes out before he can stop it with a little grunt of god. Kurt glances back at him, looks at the mirror, looks over his shoulder. He swallows, closes his eyes. "I'll get it fixed. I'm sorry."
"I don't care about that. I just . . ."
His tongue trips but there aren't any words there. Stop and think, he's stopped but he's not thinking, he doesn't know how to think through this. Kurt takes a breath and says, "I'll email you the garage. If you tell them I sent you they'll take care of it." He opens the car door. "Thank you for last night."
"Kurt, wait-"
The door slams. Blaine fumbles his seatbelt off, opens his door but by the time his feet are on the cold tarmac the front door's already slammed as well. He stands there alone on a strange street, lost in too many ways, and he doesn't know how to fix this, he is in way over his head - but something in him grows warm and angry and stubborn and sure. He climbs back into the car, finds his phone, texts, I'm not giving up on you.
He blasts P!nk all the way back home, bangs the steering wheel in time, sings along loud. His mom sees him pull in and stares at the busted window and he tells her it happened last night, it was like that when he got out of a movie with a friend. It's fine, his friend knows a garage, it'll get fixed.
So he doesn't even realise he has the text until he's back in his room, taking his cell from his pocket to dump on his desk next to his computer. He skims the phone alive, opens it with his stomach twisting.
I need to work some things out.
Jesus. Kurt. Do you think. He sets his jaw, lets his breath out hard, walks in two tight circles and then stops and texts back, I'll be right here when you do.
He doesn't know what Kurt's working out. Hell, Blaine doesn't know anything. Stop and think: think about what?
*
Blaine's weekend is pretty much a slow-churning stew of thinking about Kurt.
In his room, too dark and too small, he thinks about the arctic landscape of him, snowy skin and iceberg eyes, green-blue like water frozen a thousand years ago, deep inside and away from the light. He thinks about all the Kurt he doesn't know but knows is there, underneath the surface, underneath those deceptively calm waters like it's safe to get close; There are things I haven't told you.
There are things Blaine hasn't told Kurt.
He hasn't told him that he thinks all the time how he could have done things differently. Could have not kissed him, could have kissed him earlier, could have asked him first. Could have convinced him that he's not some disgusting douchebag who just wants to use Kurt's hurt to get at his body like it's pretty obvious that other guys Kurt's known have done. Could have pleaded with him to reassure Blaine that he's not one of those douchebags, he's allowed to feel this way without being a dick, isn't he?
Because -
He's never been so aware of his own breath, his own body before.
Because he thinks about Kurt's body, about the lovely boyish angle of his hip, what the skin there must look like, pale and perfect stretched over the cupping bone. He thinks about - he just wants to kiss him everywhere. Everywhere, the insides of his wrists and his clever-bending knees and the blocky bone of his ankle, his stomach and his chest and the hollow of his breastbone, and each side of his adam's apple, and under his jaw, and under his ear, and his mouth his mouth his mouth. He wants to run his hands down his sides and feel his skin under his palms, his fingertips finding the spaces between his ribs, knowing his body, he wants too much, he can't stop.
And Kurt doesn't need this. Kurt doesn't need Blaine wanting this. Kurt needs a friend, Kurt doesn't need Blaine clamouring at him to make Blaine feel better, Blaine who's never lost anything that's meant anything doesn't need Kurt petting his head and telling him that he's a good person and he isn't disgusting and depraved for thinking that Kurt's beautiful and perfect and wanting to touch him. Because he's not, he's not that guy, he would never, never use Kurt, but - but is there any way, with Kurt so broken, to be with Kurt without using him? With Kurt so broken is it even possible for Blaine to love him?
Love. Jesus.
There's a certain freedom in being run aground like this, out of the water and all the world crashed suddenly crazy. He can't bullshit around Kurt, Kurt sees right through him, he can't get away with it. No-one has ever known him before, he's never let them do it, and it's astonishing how it feels to not be able to lie, how bizarrely safe he feels around Kurt. Kurt sees right through him but it's clear that Kurt doesn't actually judge him. Kurt sees through him and mostly just seems to wish Blaine would stop pretending - Kurt really embodies brutal honesty, and he expects the same of Blaine. No-one has ever done that before. No-one has ever before wanted to hear him.
And if I told you all my secrets, Blaine thinks, still too full of want, trying to distract himself from his body's turmoiled inner gnawing with as many clear, logical, unequivocal words as possible, if I told you all my secrets, I think they'd still be safe. I don't think you would ever actually screw me over. If I told you every way I'm weak I think you would just understand. I think -
I think too much about you. Please believe me: I do know what it means. I just don't know if we can.
His pillow smells of Kurt. He can't bear it. He puts it inside his wardrobe, lays there in the night chewing his lip, thinking thinking thinking while he throbs for want and he could cry, he really could, he could go into his parents' bedroom like he's six and had a nightmare and get his mom to hug him and stroke his hair, it's okay baby. It's not okay. Blaine is disgusting and the world ruined Kurt and he sees sometimes little flashes of what Kurt could (should) be and what they could (should) be and nothing's fair, none of it's fair, how is the world allowed to be so cripplingly, agonisingly unfair?
He can't bear it. He grips the waist of his pyjama pants until he hurts his hands. He can't bear it. He can't. He's not some kind of superhero, he needs things too much, he needs -
He masturbates face-down in that retrieved pillow, smelling of Kurt's hair and increasingly damp with Blaine's shame. Afterwards he feels sick, like he's used himself. He feels like an animal. He isn't safe to be around people.
He thinks about the flawless white of all Kurt's skin, and all he really wants is to hold him again.
*
When he gets back home from school and logs into Facebook, there's a message from Kurt waiting for him. Please message me when you see this. The 'please' sets a thrill running and then crashing with anxiety in Blaine's stomach. 'Please' means too much, needs too much. He drops his schoolbag, doesn't even change, types back, I'm here now. Do you want me to call you?
No. Kurt types, so quickly that he must have been sitting there waiting for Blaine. I can't talk. But I need to tell you something.
Blaine stares at the words, black on white, and thinks about the person he should be. He types, You can tell me anything.
There's a little pause, then Kurt starts typing. He types for a long time, hesitating often.
There are things I haven't told you. I know I need to. I don't know what you think you want from me, Blaine, but there are things you ought to know. You have a right to know them, rather than thinking the wrong things about me.
Kurt goes immediately back to typing. Blaine assumes that his role, for now, is only to read.
I know I told you things weren't good at school, and that the bullies mostly left me alone after my dad died. They did, mostly. when I went back to school they didn't even meet my eye, like I was too low by then for them to even shove around anymore. So they left me alone. For about three weeks everyone left me alone.
But then I was getting some stuff from my locker one day and someone banged me into it, and when I sat up on the floor it was this guy who'd always hated me worst, walking away. And I just felt like I'd been punctured, like I couldn't do it. I couldn't get by through every day without my dad, feeling like *that*, *and* getting unpredictably beaten on by some jock with an issue. I just couldn't. I know what you're going to think, I need you to understand, I couldn't *bear* it, Blaine.
So he would say things to me, and shove me into lockers whenever he passed me, but by then I was hanging around the parking lot of Scandals on a night picking up guys who were willing to pretend to believe that I was eighteen, and I'd learned enough. I'd learned enough to notice that when he walked towards me it wasn't my face he looked at first. And that when he got in my face, he kept looking at my mouth. And I might have been numb with grief and medication and lack of sleep but I am not stupid. I know exactly what his 'issue' was.
Blaine reads, and breathes, slowly. His stomach is beginning to feel unsettled in gravity, there's some kind of black hole in there, too heavy to weigh anything anymore.
So one day after he shoved me so hard I hit a locker and then the floor, I picked myself up and followed him. I couldn't do it, please understand. My dad wasn't there anymore. I always knew he would be there for me, if he'd been there I would have known he would have done something, but I didn't have anyone else to turn to. Please understand. I had to take care of it myself if it was going to get taken care of. I needed it to stop, I felt like I was going crazy, I didn't know what else to *do*. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted everyone in the world to just leave me *alone* and I didn't know what else to do.
Kurt types, Please understand. and then there's a pause, while he thinks, or works himself up to something, Blaine will never know. He already feels - something wrong, something very wrong, moving behind these words on the screen. He shifts in his chair, props his head on a hand, stares at them nervous. For the first time, he doesn't know if he wants to listen to Kurt. He doesn't know if he actually wants to know what this might be. The strange horrible lonely adult world Kurt lives in, Blaine doesn't know if he wants to know -
I followed him into the locker room. There wasn't anyone else there. I made him a proposition.
There's another pause, and Blaine knows now that this is beyond him. He just doesn't want to know. He can't bear it, he doesn't want to know.
Kurt types, Are you still there?
He needs something. Blaine's reaction to being needed is as immediate as a dog's drooling, though his fingers are too light and clumsy on the keyboard. Yes.
Kurt types, I told him that if he would otherwise just leave me alone then I would get him off once a week. It felt like extortion at the time, it felt like paying the mob. I have since realised that it's closer to prostitution.
Blaine touches his face, stares at the ceiling above his computer, touches his face. He types, Please tell me he said no.
He didn't say anything. He spluttered and yelled and punched a locker and stormed out. He found me the next day, though, to mumble a time and place at me.
Blaine would like to type Please tell me this isn't true but he can't. His hands have gone so heavy he just can't.
Kurt types, Every Monday lunchtime underneath the bleachers. Mostly he grinds off against my hip, if he takes too long I use my hand. I thought Mondays would at least get it out of the way early in the week, I didn't realise that it meant my whole weekend is nothing but knowing that it's coming. I know what you must think. I couldn't tell you. I shouldn't even tell you now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Blaine remembers, I don't like Mondays. He thinks he really could be sick, the sweat's gone cold all over him, he feels like he's ill from this. He types, Kurt you have to stop this.
Kurt types, It gets worse.
It can't. It can't, it can't get worse. How the hell can it get worse?
Today before he started he started mumbling at me again. Whether I was 'free' tonight to go to a restaurant two towns along to go to dinner. In separate cars. For his extremely distorted idea of a *date*. I think he thinks that this is normal. I think he thinks that this is a relationship. I think I've fucked him up at least as much as he's fucked me up.
Blaine flexes his hands a few times so he can type again. What did you say?
I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I started laughing. I couldn't control it. It hurt. There's a little pause, and Blaine knows the black sting of his deadpan humour by now, as the next line appears. I laughed until I cried.
Blaine picks up his phone, scrolls to Kurt's number.
He just stared at me and then shouted some things and then stormed off. I sat on the floor and laughed and laughed. I don't think my body remembered properly how to do it, it kept jarring something, it *hurt*. I couldn't stop. I just couldn't.
Blaine hits call.
There's a pause, while the phone rings, and then Kurt types, I can't talk, Blaine.
Blaine presses the phone between his ear and his shoulder, types, Please. You can listen, please.
There's a long pause, and Blaine stands up as if that will encourage Kurt to answer. Just when he thinks he'll get pitched to voicemail, the line clicks open. He sucks his breath in but there's no sound from the other end. "Kurt," he says, and stops. He swallows. "Kurt, you have to stop this. You have to. You have to tell him that it's not happening again."
Silence. Blaine licks his lips.
"Kurt, please. You're hurting yourself. You're letting him - I can come with you, you don't have to face him alone, I can - I don't know, okay? I don't know what the hell to do but I can try, I can - I'll do anything if you need it, if I can just think, I can-"
More text has appeared on the screen. He blinks at it, leans down.
Why can't you see that you can't help me
"Someone has to! God, Kurt-" He grabs at his hair, stares at their conversation, thinks he can hear Kurt's breath, just, down the line. "It has to stop. I'm not giving up, I want - I just want you to be happy, I know it won't be easy, I know it'll take a long time but Kurt you're - you can't keep doing this, you can't keep making yourself worse-"
Kurt types, I don't know what you get out of this.
Blaine closes his eyes for a second, puts a hand to his face. "Why can't I just want you to be happy?" he says, his voice too rough. "Why can't people just care about you and want you to be happy?"
He can definitely hear Kurt's breath now, quicker as if he's beginning to panic. "Please, Kurt, please, please. You have to let me help. You have to - tell a teacher or-"
He's typing again. Blaine stops, waits.
Social services will get involved. They'll think I'm 'disturbed'. I know I've made things worse but now all I can do is make it much worse one way or another, there's no better option.
"Let me help. Let me come with you, tell him to stay the hell away from you, Kurt, please."
Kurt types something, but there's a long pause before he actually hits send.
Now you know, and now you know what I really am.
"What you are is hurt, what do you - what did you think I would-? I don't-" God Blaine needs to be more coherent than this - "He is using you, he's hurting you, he never had any right in the first place to - to shove you around and then - then do this to you when - Kurt it just has to stop, all you're doing is hurting yourself even worse - please. Please, please, Kurt, promise me you'll stop it, please."
There's a long silence. He hears Kurt's breaths slow again, gradually, and then a sigh.
Kurt types, I would like you to rescue me. That is the most pathetic thing. Because I shouldn't let myself be the guilt you hang yourself with, I will only ever hurt you. And just because I shouldn't need this so much.
"Kurt-"
He sits down again in his desk chair, and rubs his eyes with one hand. "I don't know what to say," he croaks. "I'm sorry. I'm not - I'm not a superhero, I don't have a clue. I just want to help. And - if things had been different -"
He listens to Kurt's breath, soothing like the sea. He remembers him on the bed in this room, so calm, so trusting. He says quietly, "I want to say things to you. I want to - be things, for you. But - but there's just so much else - I don't know how I can - I don't want to be just another thing that hurts you."
There's another long silence, and then Kurt types, That other night is the best I've felt in nearly four months.
Now Blaine's throat hurts, now it's too much. He whispers, "Kurt please say something. Please, please say something."
Kurt types, I can't.
"Please, please."
I can't. My voice.
"Please try. Please."
There's a dragging pause, and then Blaine hears Kurt swallow, and on the second stuttered attempt he whispers, "Blaine."
And then he hangs up, logs out, locks himself down like the heart of the iceberg, nothing that Blaine can touch.
Blaine goes into the bathroom, and stands over his sink for a while until he's finally sure that he's not actually going to throw up.
*
Blaine texts him for half the night. He only gets two replies; Please please don't when Blaine says he's going to drive over, and, Don't. *Don't*. when he says he'll be at Kurt's school in the morning. He wakes to an email from Kurt, clipped and imperious and sure: Kurt will deal with the situation today. He will let Blaine knows how it goes, but Blaine is not to interfere. What leverage Kurt has is that the boy in question will want this to be as secret as possible, and Kurt walking up with someone else who already knows is not going to help Kurt's position as a holder of secrets. Blaine's only job is to wait.
It's not something Blaine's good at.
He texts Courage until his thumb hurts, until the buzz of Kurt's phone must be almost as constant as a heartbeat for him. It's the only thing he can do. He could keep hitting resend but he doesn't, he types it every time, seven letters are the only thing he can offer, whether Kurt ever knows it or not.
Already forced into the stopping, he thinks. He thinks a lot, while he should be paying some small fraction of attention in class. He thinks about being brave and holding Kurt when he sees him, not caring if he sounds like an idiot child, saying to him, I want to help, I want to be with you, I want to be allowed to want these things. He thinks about kissing him and it's like he's alight from the thighs to the stomach, illuminated electric pulses under his skin. He thinks about saying to him, Please let me -
Can you use the word 'love' so soon and with so much weight on it? Won't it just crack in his mouth, won't it mean so much it'll come out meaningless? Does he even know what it really means?
He thinks about Kurt pushing him away, or worse, letting him. He thinks about every person who's abused Kurt's pain to get something out of him, and how Kurt just lets them, and he thinks about Blaine being one of those people too. He thinks about Kurt trying to recover and Blaine forcing himself onto Kurt, accept me, love me, Kurt doesn't need this, Kurt needs -
That other night is the best I've felt in nearly four months.
And oh god, what he's been doing, what he convinced himself he had to do - Blaine can't think about it. Can't. It's like a conceptual block, when he tries to think about it it's like turning too quickly and smacking his head off an unexpected obstacle, he can't think about it (flawless white skin like nothing has ever touched him, like virgin snow). It isn't the same as Kurt picking up any guy he thinks might be halfway interested because sex is just something to do. It's - Blaine doesn't even know the word for it. Or he thinks he does, and that makes him feel so much worse.
Kurt hasn't told anyone else, he knows that much. He's trusted Blaine alone with this, with this worst thing but - no. He didn't trust Blaine with it. He obviously expected it to send Blaine running, he's been keeping it his dirtiest little secret because he was scared of how finally alone he would be once people knew (and now you know what I really am), because maybe when he was so numb he could bear it, just something else to endure because all of life was only something to be endured, but (That other night is the best I've felt) now he's begun to touch things that don't hurt again he must see it for what it is, what he's been doing. If Blaine has begun to defrost Kurt's feelings, all he's really done is unfrozen all that pain again, trickling like horror through his veins, cold and black and unbearable. And Kurt told him expecting him to leave him alone from then on, that was Kurt being honest for Blaine's sake, trying to scare him off, trying to protect Blaine from what Kurt is capable of, from what Kurt's done, oh god.
It makes Blaine feel worse, in every way. Kurt had acted like sex was something he used, when the reality is the absolute reverse, and all Blaine's done is make him realise that. And now you know - what does he think Blaine thinks? All he can think is how hurt Kurt is -
He thinks about the very tip of the iceberg he's allowed to see and everything underneath it, secret green as dark as the sea. He thinks about the things Kurt might think about, might still want. Because damaged as he is, it doesn't mean that he can't want, that he can't hope. Hurt as he is, Blaine thinks that Kurt is still brave enough to hope, just, just. Blaine has no right to be afraid of how hurt Kurt is - no right to be afraid of Kurt - Kurt needs so much more from him than cowardice. Kurt needs this from him. The only question left is how brave Blaine can be.
He gets a text as he's heading to his car after an endless day of school, the afternoon already gathering gloomy, an early December night brewing cold. Can you meet me?
It jolts his heart to his throat, it's so much more than he hoped for. Not a call, not online chat, Kurt there, Kurt physically there, he hasn't seen his face in three days and hasn't seen anything but his face in three days -
He texts back, ASAP. Where?
In the park. Kids' play area.
Blaine frowns at his phone, texts, Kurt, it's freezing. Either go indoors or I'm bringing coffee.
Kurt texts back, Decaf half-fat mocha, no cream.
Maybe Blaine will never get used to conversation with Kurt. Maybe Kurt will baffle him every time, and Blaine will never get used to the mystifying, dizzying delight of it. Good.
*
He heads for the only person in the park when he gets there - in the rich royal blue of the gathering dusk, no-one else is out here on a frozen Tuesday afternoon, with rooks settling noisy in the trees and the moon already half-risen and absurdly bright off the snow. Kurt's sitting on one of the swings, arms wrapped around the frozen chains and gloved hands at his mouth, breathing some warmth back into them, boots on the ground hold him steady. He looks up at Blaine's approach, gives a twitch of a smile but the smile breaks on Blaine's face because there's a dark bruise on one cheek, the side of his mouth, vivid against the pale of his skin, and a cut on the side of his forehead ringed in its own uneven dark aura.
Kurt's smile fades at Blaine's expression, and he settles his face calm, unhooks his arms from the chains, holds his hands up. "If you don't mind, it actually is freezing."
Blaine blinks, looks down at the cups, hands Kurt the right one. Kurt closes his hands around it, hugging it close. He murmurs, "Thank you." and swings a very little back and forth, keeping the flats of his boots to the ground. Blaine brushes the snow off the seat of the swing next to him, sits there with his shoes scuffing the mostly snow-swept ground as the swing settles itself steady again.
"What the hell happened? He-"
Kurt shrugs, and takes a sip of his drink. "Did you think he'd take it well?"
"He hit you? What happened?"
Kurt kicks the ground to swing himself a little higher. "I approached him in a corridor so there were plenty of people around and he hopefully couldn't explode too much. I told him what you wanted. That it was going to stop and he wasn't going to tell anyone because he would get into a lot more trouble than I would. That he was just going to leave me alone from now on. I told him it was best for both of us. I even said 'sorry', though I know I probably didn't sound it." He looks at the scuffed snow on the ground, says quietly, "I did mean it, even if I didn't sound it."
Blaine's hand tightens too much on the chain, it hurts. "I don't think you're the one who needs to apologise." He screws his face up, makes his hand go loose. The chain's cold and feels like it bit his skin through the glove, so he switches his cup between hands, tries to even out the variation of too hot, too cold. "What did he say?"
Kurt swings, warming his hands on his cup, boots tapping the ground on each pass, as perfectly balanced as a bird on a wire. "He stared at me, really stared at me, and I don't even know what he was thinking. For a second I thought he was going to start crying." Kurt looks up at the sky, lets his swinging slow. "Then he punched me. I sort of saw it coming but I didn't move quickly enough. He only hit me once, I got the cut banging into a locker. It's hard to be graceful when someone's just hit you in the face."
"He-"
"I don't really know what happened next." Kurt frowns at the snow-banked playground, just rocking himself back and forth on heel and toe of boot, now. "He started yelling. My head was ringing so much I don't even really know what he said. And then someone else was yelling and Finn was on him and everything started happening very quickly and violently. Mr Schuester was wading in, and just when he broke them up Santana came striding in and kneed him in the balls." Kurt rubs an eye, his breath huffs out white from his smile. "And Mercedes and Rachel helped me up, and I just felt like I'd landed on the moon. Everything was upside-down."
"You're okay," Blaine says, slowly.
Kurt nods, like it's not really important. "I saw the nurse. They called Carole, I told them not to. I didn't tell them what had been going on, I said he'd just never stopped bullying me and I'd confronted him, and it hadn't gone right. It's the most I've said under that school's roof in probably four weeks. They believed me. Being recently orphaned gets you some weight of sympathy, at least."
He takes another drink, and sighs, long and slow and not entirely unhappy. Blaine swallows, says, "Are you safe from him?"
"They suspended him, pending an expulsion hearing. Assaulting another student. Plenty of witnesses." He plays with his cup a bit. "I really screwed him up, didn't I? I didn't especially mean to. I really wasn't thinking about him at all. I just needed to parcel all the crap in my life into as small boxes as possible."
". . . I really wouldn't feel guilty, Kurt. He's the one who - he should be-" Blaine grits his teeth, there'll be the time to be too angry to think later. "I don't know if anyone could blame you for just surviving the last few months, and he never had any right to - to do that to you."
"I offered it."
"You should never have had to feel like you had to."
"It's the only thing I've ever felt sure of. Only thing I've ever been good at. The only thing I felt like I could trade with him."
"That's not true. That is so, so far from the truth, you're - Kurt, you're amazing, you must know that, don't you?"
". . . I don't know." Kurt's eyes are thoughtful on the sky but he doesn't actually look sad, not right now. "My dad used to tell me that all the time." He looks across at Blaine, smiles. He still looks tired - incredibly tired, and bruised now, but all Blaine sees is the moonlight bright in his eyes, and how his whole face moves with his mouth. Blaine knows he's been through hell, but he also knows that he never stopped going, however tempting the idea might have seemed. Blaine knows that he wants to make Kurt's surviving worth it, he's just scared of what he's going to have to risk, what he knows he has to -
Kurt licks his lips, says, "I owe you a lot more than I'm ever going to be able to repay, do you know that?"
. . . just being allowed to look at you is enough. Do you know that? "I'm just - I'm happy if you're happy, Kurt."
Kurt tilts his head, eyes thoughtful. "I don't know about 'happy'. Not yet. But I think it might have become an option again, at some point."
Blaine looks at him and he could suffocate on how brave Kurt is, to be here, back straight, sitting on a swing on a frozen December evening and just looking at Blaine; no-one will ever know what it's cost Kurt to still be here and be capable of this. Kurt saved himself. Kurt didn't need Blaine's courage, Kurt never needed rescuing, because he's always been brave enough to just still be here, despite everything.
Maybe Blaine has just enough courage too. He swaps his coffee between hands again, holds one out for Kurt.
Kurt looks at it, looks at his face, takes it.
They sit side by side, swinging slowly and erratically - their arms stretch and fold as the swings separate and reunite them - sipping coffee, alone in the dark.
Blaine says, "Were all those people who helped from your glee club?"
". . . yes. They're the only friends I've ever had."
"Except me."
Kurt squeezes his hand. "Except you."
"I bet they'd love you to come back."
Kurt's silent for a moment, and the chains of the swings creak overhead. "Not yet," he says, and looks at the ground. "Not yet."
It may be some time, Blaine knows, before Kurt feels undamaged enough to attempt other people, other people who know him already, who can see what he was and what he's become. It's guilt, he thinks, a lot of it - The last thing I said to him - an attempt to punish himself enough, but everything he did only made him feel worse, made him feel the need to do worse and worse. And now he feels guilty for screwing up someone who was perfectly willing to screw him up, to use and wreck him, when he was alone and defenceless and so close to disappearing -
Maybe all he needs from Blaine is a space where he can feel normal, unjudged, clean again. Somewhere he can hurt and it's not so sunk in all those other bad feelings as well. Somewhere he can begin to not hurt, and not feel guilty about that.
Blaine finishes his coffee, leans down to set the cup down beside the swing. He says, "Do you want to build a snowman?"
Kurt says, "Are you five?"
"It'll be fun."
"You are five."
"Come on." Blaine stands up, tugs at his hand. "Come oooonn, Kurt . . ."
Kurt looks up at him, tired and baffled and still something in his eyes looks hurt, and Blaine tries to understand why. He thinks, stop and think, fuck everything, and leans down and kisses him.
He tastes like coffee and chocolate and cold and Kurt.
When Blaine lifts his mouth away a little breeze steals their breath off white. Kurt blinks his eyes open, looks at Blaine's face, and Blaine pulls at his hand. "Come on. It'll be fun."
He's only realised for the first time himself that they can have both, they can be friends and more than friends, Blaine can still be there for Kurt when he's getting something back too. If Blaine is brave enough to ask, and trusts in Kurt enough. If Kurt trusts Blaine enough, because Kurt's always been brave. And it's taken some time but Blaine doesn't care about anything he's afraid of anymore, anything at all but Kurt.
Kurt comes up with his pulling hand, finally calm, like Blaine finally got it right.
*
They write the rules for love as they go along. No-one else can tell them how to make this work.
It's not like things are perfect; Kurt still goes quiet, like he only has a limited amount of words, like the gradual build up of sadness silences him all over again. But when he talks, he tells Blaine about his dad, and how much Kurt loved him however often he failed him, and how much he loved Kurt, and how Kurt didn't think that anyone else would ever love him like that, like he'd just be alone without him until he died.
And Blaine holds his hands, and kisses each cheek and his forehead, and then his mouth.
Blaine tells him about his own family, it's not like he could keep the air of permanent awkward hidden from Kurt so often in his house, and Kurt's eyebrows lower with a restrained, icy anger. He says, "But you're perfect. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard." like anyone not loving Blaine unconditionally must just be so fucking stupid. It makes him smile in a way he can't quite control, Blaine feels like his heart's that little bit safer now too.
Every now and then Blaine will still get a text in the middle of the night, at first the word Help and he knows what it costs Kurt to type that, but later sometimes not even a word. Kurt doesn't have to say anything. He touches Blaine through that phone line and Blaine picks his cell out from underneath his pillow, rolls onto his back, calls him in the dark. "'m here," he says, and yawns. "D'you want to talk?"
Silence means no. Blaine leaves the line open until he wakes up again, phone dropped onto the mattress beside him, where Kurt has texted him, Thank you.
*
It's two weeks before they move past just holding each other on Blaine's bed. Even kissing always has to be approached with care, though it's such bliss once they get into it, mouth on mouth, electric wet slide, it's beyond anything Blaine thought 'perfect' was. But it's two weeks, it's Christmas Eve, and Blaine is under orders that he's having a family Christmas tomorrow and that means a day without his boyfriend, almost permanently present and yet not always entirely welcome in this house. Things will never be perfect. He sees little indications of how close to perfect they could one day be, though, like when Kurt plays with the hem of Blaine's cardigan, tugs it a little, murmurs with his eyes low, "There is something you could give me to make it up to me, you know."
Blaine is painfully aware of his virginity, but Kurt is painfully aware of his lack of it. Blaine knows that Kurt wants this, he's wanted it badly, something to make him feel like he knows how to be clean again, the first sex Kurt's ever had that means what it should mean. He knows that Kurt's held back for Blaine's sake, never pushed, never even asked after that night in the park in the snow, not until now. Maybe tonight it's finally okay for both of them to want it.
Behind Blaine's bedroom door they undress each other carefully - it's cold enough that naked they hurry under the covers, skin everywhere and Blaine gasps, but then they don't really know what to do. Kurt holds his arms around his body like there might be visible handprints all over it, like he's embarrassed by it, and Blaine just can't stop blushing, and finally he straddles Kurt's hips and takes his arms away from his chest and holds them to the mattress, so he can just look, like he'd imagined for so long.
And just looking, he feels awed and heady and he's hard again for the first time since their clumsy undressing, without being touched. There can't be any embarrassment about being faced with this. He whispers to Kurt, "You know you're beautiful." and Kurt's eyes watch his, blinking, blue-green like a startled cat's.
They're too tentative with each other, too aware of too much, and it's awkward and too full of whispery nervous questions until Blaine can't hold it in any longer and starts giggling. He puts his head down, tries to swallow it, but he can feel Kurt's body jumping underneath his and then they're both gone, rolling a little in a limb-tangled clasp, laughing themselves breathless in a clumsy naked hug on Blaine's bed. They have to let the little hysterical explosions of it die off fully before they can try again, smiling now, Kurt's hands slipping down Blaine's back like playing down a harp's string, squeezing a little at his hip, his breath coming quicker as Blaine begins to lose it, noises coming out of him like a dog whimpering he can't keep down. His head jerks back as he comes and Kurt rolls his hips up, two more thrusts against him and his fingers dig in tight to Blaine's shoulders, he hisses his name out like a cat. Blaine groans, could go for round two just from that, sexiest thing that has ever happened in this poor deprived bed.
Instead they just lay there for a while, Blaine's head on Kurt's chest, sticky and unpleasant but in really the best way possible.
*
Blaine wakes up, slowly, then blinks rapidly and lifts his head. The lamp's on, and he's alone in the bed - but he's not alone in the room, and he relaxes at the sound of soft humming from the window.
Kurt's wearing his underwear and one of Blaine's buttoned shirts, perched on the windowsill with one leg dangling, looking out at the snow and humming. Little words escape him, now and then. He catches a note and follows its lovely swoop down. He sings under his breath, All your life.
Blaine rests his cheek on his arm, watches him.
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Kurt hums the song out, and rubs his arms. Blaine says, "You're going to catch a cold." Kurt looks across at him, lets himself down from the windowsill and pads barefoot back to the bed, slips under the covers beside him again. His skin's cool, the shirt is cold, and Blaine hugs him closer, wriggles his hips up close to him, rubs his back. He says, "I think your glee club might be ready for you again soon."
"Mm, Rachel brought the same thing up at lunch, until Mercedes stood on her foot. Why are you so very eager to compete against me at Regionals?"
"Keeps things interesting? I just want to see you there."
Kurt runs his fingers through Blaine's hair, kisses the top of his head, says, "Hm."
They're quiet for a moment, while Blaine feels Kurt's skin grow warm, and he presses his cheek to the edge of Kurt's breastbone, thinks how perfect perfect perfect this moment is, like a gift. Like all moments. Life isn't white noise, he thinks, and runs his thumb across Kurt's shoulder. It's a song. Enjoy every note. You only hear it once.
Kurt says, "There's something I haven't told you."
Blaine's stomach tries to climb inside itself, nothing good ever comes of Kurt saying that, but he has to be brave, because Kurt shames him on a daily basis with his own easy courage. "Alright," he says, and strokes Kurt's shoulder. "So tell me."
Kurt's fingers play with a curl of his hair. "I stopped taking the tablets."
Blaine says, "What?"
"I stopped taking them. I didn't want to anymore, so I stopped."
". . . when?"
Kurt doesn't say anything for a second, then says, "That day I first met you for coffee."
Blaine listens to the very close, very steady beat of his heart, and Kurt strokes his hair.
"I left you there and I felt like I should have felt something about it, but I didn't feel anything properly anymore. But after that I felt like I'd like to try feeling things again, maybe. So I just stopped taking them."
". . . is that a good idea?"
"I told my counsellor. This week."
"What did she say?"
Kurt kisses the top of his head. "She asked me how I was feeling, and I said okay. Not amazing or anything. Okay. And I have you. I told her about you. And she said if I was feeling okay then maybe I didn't need them anymore anyway." His hand slips down through Blaine's hair, scratches soothingly at the back of his head, the little hollow of the base of his neck. "They were only to get me through until I didn't need them anyway. I think they were partially to turn me into enough of a zombie that I couldn't get myself together enough to kill myself. I don't want to now. I don't know if I ever did, I know I don't now."
Blaine listens to his heartbeat, so steady and strong. He knows that human bodies are mortal bodies, that he gets to have this warm beating body in his arms because it will one day die. But not yet, not yet, so young and so full of potential, closed up inside him like a butterfly waiting to crack open its wings. Not yet. He'll stay with Blaine. He wants to stay with Blaine.
Blaine kisses the side of his neck.
Kurt says, "I used to just deal with the minute I was in, I swear there was a week I didn't do anything but focus on breathing, just trying to manage every breath in and out. But then I had hours to get through, think about what you're doing, just get through this. Then there were days, and nights. Then weeks. And for a while . . ." His fingers slip deep into Blaine's hair, cupping his head safe against him. "I don't know when I'll go back into that choir room, but I know I will. I have a future tense again. That's nice."
Blaine murmurs, "It is." and hugs his arms in closer around him.
Kurt's voice has gone thick. "You've really put up with a lot from me."
"No, no, no." Blaine lifts his head, pushes himself up on his arms to kiss him, to fold Kurt in closer again at his side, face to face now. There are the fading shadows of bruises still on his face, evidence of what Kurt can survive, evidence that he's more than strong enough for Blaine too. "No," Blaine says, and traces his thumb over Kurt's cheek. "Best thing that ever happened to me. Most amazing person I've ever met."
Kurt puts a hand around Blaine's wrist, smiles at him, his eyes still sad. Blaine smiles back, even if it does hurt. Kurt can manage to do it, so.
Kurt swallows, says, "So, the money from the house went into a trust for when I'm eighteen. I've been thinking about what happens after I graduate."
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to know what you wanted to do after you graduate."
"Whatever you want to do?"
Kurt taps him between the eyebrows. "No. Think. What do you want to do."
Blaine watches his face, and he always finds it hard to think around Kurt. Stop and think; he can't think when he looks at Kurt looking at him, he's just ridiculously beautiful and he looks at Blaine like Blaine's the only thing in the world to look at, it's incredibly unsettling. "I guess college," he says. "Major in music and theatre."
"Have you thought about where?"
"Not Ohio, I know that much."
Kurt runs the backs of his fingers across Blaine's cheek. "Have you considered New York . . . ?"