Darkness and Lights
"Fine, just go then!" Kurt shouted, flinging his hands above his head, his cheeks flaming as he puffed at his boyfriend. Blaine blinked at him, not sure whether or not to correct the situation now or give Kurt a chance to cool off before discussing it. Thinking about it, he couldn't even remember what the fight had been about. Surely something they had fought about before, which is why Blaine didn't know how to handle it. Usually he let Kurt have some space while he went out with some of his other friends and forgot about his worries for a while. So that's what he did. He left. Nothing more was said. He turned shyly and closed the door quietly behind him.
Blaine stumbled into the common room around 2 am. The lights were out, but the moon shone brightly and made the edges of the room glow, illuminating the path from the door to the sofa near the window.
He had been out with some friends for the fifth night in a row, arriving home drunk and giddy each time. Kurt was usually asleep on the couch waiting up for him, typically to scold him, or at least to make sure he came home in one piece. But ever since the fight, he had returned home to a shining, empty, hollow space.
Tonight when Blaine reached the couch, the pillows and blankets were strewn in their usual fashion and Kurt was nowhere to be found. The impression his body left was still warm as Blaine flopped onto the cushions. He was about to pass out when he heard the faint sound of running water coming from the next room.
He and Kurt shared a room, which made being a couple easier for everyone. Their bedroom was connected to a bathroom that branched off from the common room, which was the source of the noise Blaine was hearing. He fumbled to reach his feet and followed the sound. Steam filled the air and Blaine coughed, breathing in the thickness mixing with the fogginess in his head.
The steam was coming from the shower in long, furling clouds. He moved towards it, nearly taking down the curtain with him as he tripped over the corner of the rug in his way. Yanking it open, he found Kurt sprawled across the tub's basin, his shirt clinging to his body in a way Blaine would have found incredibly sexy under any other circumstance. No words escaped his lips as his eyes darted to Kurt's eyelids, drooping sleepily, then down to the tiny trail of red drying inside Kurt's pale wrist. Blaine's head was pounding from all the swift movements, but he launched forward, clutching onto Kurt with what little strength he could muster in his hazy state.
"Kurt! Kurt!" he shouted, his letters slurring. "Baby, wake up!" he shook him, tears flowing into the steady stream of droplets from the showerhead above. He climbed into the tub and curled his shaking body around the smaller boy's, nudging the water off with his shoulder.
Without the warm cascade upon his skin, Kurt suddenly stirred. Weakly, he swatted at the air, reaching for something or someone. His small hand landed on Blaine's cheek and his eyes fluttered open completely.
"Blaine?" he whispered, not a trace of anger in his tone. Blaine was relieved immediately, only caring that his boyfriend was awake and speaking to him.
"Yes, yes, it's me sweetheart," he hugged Kurt tighter, his own clothing now soaked through entirely. "I'm here."
Kurt blinked blearily, glancing down at his wrist wrapped loosely in Blaine's hand, and started to cry. His tears quickly turned to heaving sobs and Blaine cooed in his ear. "Shh, baby, it's okay. It's okay."
"No, it's not," Kurt responded. He had meant for the comment to be biting, a snap at his boyfriend who had abandoned him at the worst time, at his lowest point, but it came out as a feeble plea for attention.
Blaine pulled back slightly, holding up his hand that was clinging to Kurt's frail wrist, lightly running his wet fingers across the thin red lines that were beginning to bleed again from the moisture of Blaine's skin. "Are we going to talk about this?" Blaine inquired softly, not wanting to push Kurt. He knew Kurt was upset, seething maybe under the surface. But he knew that more importantly, Kurt was in a darker place—a place that Blaine himself was not unfamiliar with, a place that Kurt hadn't been in so long.
"You're drunk," Kurt finally responded, regaining some of his strength and with it, his dignity.
"I know," was all Blaine could say. Regardless, he clung to Kurt just the same, his eyes filling with tears again that ran into Kurt's hair, which was resting against Blaine's cheek.
"I want to talk about this," Kurt continued. "It's not what it looks like."
Blaine let out a sigh and kissed Kurt's forehead, not caring that they were in a horrible fight or that Kurt probably wanted to push him away. Blaine needed the kiss to hold him together—to hold them together.
Kurt didn't pull away. He needed it too. "But we can't talk about it now, not tonight. Not with you this way, with me this way," he breathed, not daring to look into Blaine's eyes. Blaine sighed again, a sigh of agreement.
Blaine contemplated sleeping there, the two of them tangled, too fragile to move, but thought better of it and helped his boyfriend up and into their bedroom. Kurt fell into bed, still wet, and was back asleep in moments. Blaine followed suit, climbing into his bed in his dripping clothes, his head pounding, his mind racing, his heart physically aching in his chest. They hadn't spoken another word since Kurt's final thought. Blaine hoped they could fix this in the morning.
The next day was thankfully Saturday. Blaine was supposed to be at soccer practice at noon, but when 11:30 rolled around, his fifth alarm reminding him of his splitting headache and the events of the night before, he decided to skip. Light was filtering in through the blinds on Kurt's side of the room and Blaine winced, squinting into the sun. He could see that Kurt was no longer in bed and slowly lifted his head to survey the room.
As he glanced around, thoughts and conversations from hours before flooding his mind, hitting him square in the chest, nearly knocking him backwards back into his pillow. He groaned and gently crawled out from under his blanket, touching his feet lightly on the cool wooden floor. He padded towards the bathroom, but upon seeing the shower, he lurched forward, clutching his stomach, just barely making it another step before he vomited.
Seconds later, Kurt appeared over his shoulder, crouching next to him, rubbing his shoulder. Kurt didn't need to hear it; he knew Blaine was thankful that he was kind enough to be there even if he was still confused or angry or whatever he was feeling about his boyfriend.
Blaine finally stopped throwing up and collapsed on the floor next to Kurt who was still massaging his back and arms with his small warm hands. "Thank you," Blaine choked out. Kurt nodded, expressionless. "We're a mess, aren't we?" Blaine asked, rhetorically. He knew the answer to his half of the situation. Part of him wanted Kurt to agree, but part of him knew Kurt wasn't really to blame.
Again, Kurt nodded, rubbing a bit harder. "Can we get you cleaned up so we can finally talk?" Kurt asked, a bit of urgency in his tone. It was Blaine's turn to nod. He couldn't bear to take a shower, not with the image of Kurt's broken body swirling in his cluttered mind. He picked himself up, leaned heavily against the sink, and began running the water. He dunked his entire face and head under the stream and let the cool current shake him back to normal. Kurt waited patiently in the doorway.
Blaine dried his face, quickly brushed his teeth, and turned back to Kurt. He wanted to reach out his hand, squeeze his younger boy's fingers, assure him that things would be okay. But he just nodded, letting Kurt lead the way into the common room, which was empty as it had been the night before.
Kurt thought it best for them to sit and talk about it face to face in a manner that wasn't too comfortable, so they wouldn't fall into their routine of losing their problems in each others' warm bodies. He pulled out a seat at the square wooden table at the room's center and Blaine did the same, positioning himself across from his boyfriend.
"I'm sorry," Blaine said, barely even sitting down. He opened his mouth to continue, but Kurt put up his hand to stop him.
"Me first." This wasn't unusual for a conversation between them, but something about this felt different. Uneasy.
"First, I want to say thank you," he began, earning a small smile from Blaine. "I know it wasn't easy for me to let you help me and I'm sure it wasn't easy for you to help." Blaine looked to speak again, but Kurt carried on. "Secondly, as I said last night, what you saw wasn't what it looked like." He paused, collecting his thoughts. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," he stated simply.
Blaine nodded, wanting to say more, but waited for Kurt to finish, knowing it would be better than interrupting.
"That was blood, however, that you saw on my wrist," Kurt went on, almost inaudibly. "When…." Kurt began to fall apart. "After our fight the other day, when I told you to leave, you….did."
Blaine went to interject again, but Kurt sniffled and waved his hand. "I know we've had our problems. We aren't without faults. I'm not and you're not. And this fight, I barely remember what it was about anymore," he blinked slowly, curbing his tears. Blaine nodded, agreeing that the fight was in the past. "But I never thought you would leave me, even if I begged, yelled, physically pushed you away. I always thought you'd keep fighting for me."
Kurt paused again, composing himself, fanning his eyes to stop them from leaking. Blaine's expression was broken, helpless. Kurt was giving him his chance to finally speak, but he couldn't. Kurt filled the silence. "I didn't think it was real. Couldn't believe you had closed the door on me, walked right out. And every night since, you've been doing the same. Closing doors, walking away, losing yourself in booze and music and heaven knows what else!" Kurt was growing hysterical. He hadn't wanted to, nor planned on it, but these things never go as intended.
Blaine finally protested. "Kurt, I thought you needed your space, needed some time. To cool off from whatever the hell we were going on about that night." It was strange that neither of them could even vaguely remember the argument. "I wanted to, tried to, give you what I thought you wanted. I left because you asked me to." He was growing impatient, trying to explain himself, but Kurt wasn't having it.
"I have never wanted you to go. Even when I told you to," Kurt said quietly, shoulders rising and falling with short, angry breaths. "I thought you would understand that."
"Understand?" Blaine shouted back, beginning to stand, tossing his hands up in surrender. "How am I supposed to know these things? You can't play games with your words and just expect me to figure out your codes, your patterns!" Blaine was shaking as well, tears brimming in his eyes.
"I'm not playing games, Blaine!" Kurt yelled back. "You're just supposed to know." With a final yell, he collapsed into his chair, breathing heavily, crying.
Blaine returned to his seat, equally frustrated. He didn't want to fight. He hated fighting, hated yelling. His parents had spent years doing it while Blaine pretended that his bedroom door blocked their screams. "I think I did know," he spoke up softly after a moment or two had passed.
Kurt looked up, blinking through his tears, and locked eyes with Blaine. His eyes asked 'what?' and Blaine tried to explain.
"That's how I found you last night. That's why I came to your side." It was all starting to click in his mind and he started to smirk, only slightly. "It took me days to realize it. And a lot of damage to my heart, my body, my brain, but I knew."
Kurt was no longer fuming. He was still crying, but his eyes began to gloss over as they stared into Blaine's, trying to understand.
"When I stumbled home last night I heard the sound of the water. I went to you, Kurt, I went to you!" Something began to build and swell in Blaine's chest and he couldn't stop talking, explaining, pleading with Kurt to make sense of the story. "If I hadn't come to you right then, God knows what would have happened!"
Kurt interrupted, "I said I wasn't trying to kill myself." The statement was weak, almost forced, as if he'd rehearsed it. Blaine blinked at him, waiting for more details. "Like I said…I didn't think it was real. I needed something, anything, to prove to me that this thing, your leaving, my solitude—that it was just a dream, this wasn't my reality. So…I made myself bleed. I needed to remind myself that I was alive."
Blaine's eyes went wide with concern as he abandoned his speech and went to Kurt, kneeling beside him at the table, resting his hand on the smaller boy's wrist, tracing the fading lines inside.
"I didn't want to die. I just needed to feel something real," Kurt sighed, finally letting himself collapse into Blaine, the two of them crumpling into a pile on the floor. Their heaving sighs and heavy tears meshed, both of them fumbling for each other desperately.
"I am so sorry, Kurt," Blaine whispered, maneuvering himself into a sitting position and pulling Kurt into his damp chest. "I'm just so….sorry."
Kurt was steadily crying, beads slipping down his porcelain cheeks, sniffling. "I'm sorry, too, Blaine. I can't go back to that dark place again," he whimpered. Blaine hushed him, kissing his hair sloppily and frantically.
"We don't have to, baby. There's no more dark. We're here together, in the light," he turned towards the window and squinted into the midday sunshine. Kurt looked over slowly and blinked back more tears.