Disclaimer/ Author's Note:

I don't own Glee…

...or Shakespeare for that matter.

Just my imagination.

And…my sadness, which, led to this being written.

Tears Unshed

His heart is pumping too hard, beating too fast, clenching the tender muscle painfully in his chest.

'Why…How am I doing this to myself. I don't want…I can't take this pain aany-any-more.'

Even his thoughts are stuttering now.

'And Kurt is about to show up any second,' Blaine keeps thinking with a torturous mixture of relief and regret. He is the one who called him after all – not wanting him to have to see him like this, again, but wanting him and needing him…close.

It is the onset of a new panic attack, coming, every time, with sickness and thoughts frantic, blurred.

The pain racing through his whole body - claiming it inch by inch until Blaine will not be able to stand it anymore just sitting here, still trying to hold on to himself - has outrun Kurt on his way to Blaine, about six minutes ago; has taken over too much already for Blaine to still find a single thought clear in himself. Digging for them hurts too much by now.

It has been almost seventeen minutes since Blaine's desperately panicky phone-call to Kurt.

xxxx

Kurt had seen the caller id, "Hey, Baby. Ready to come over? We still have plenty of time before the movie starts, so we could get some frozen yogurt on the way."

"Kurt?"

And it had not taken more than this one word, his name, spoken in a broken, weary tone, for Kurt to pick up on the pain building up in Blaine.

They had meant to go out for a movie tonight – take a stroll to the small independent cinema, only a couple of streets away from Kurt's home, showing old black-and-white movies two weekends every month. They had both hoped to get another great memory or two out of it, before…before Kurt has to leave...for good.

"No, not for good, Blaine, Love. Only for a little while, until I have my brilliant back…, with you," Kurt keeps clarifying every time now the future comes up - the near one…, the next year.

Because even with NYADA out of the picture, for now, Blaine knows Kurt has other options ready for the fall, too including New York, none including him. Well, not in the way Blaine longs them to so desperately. A fact Kurt has only truly become aware of mere weeks ago in Miss Pillsbury's office, when Blaine had almost broken down in tears, eyes wide, the boy so vulnerable, and in so much pain already…expecting the worst, not daring to hope for better, or more.

Blaine's panic attacks, which Blaine has been having for years and years, have grown, become that more, in a bad, the worst, way, and lately increased in number again - ever since the NYADA letter had arrived, informing Kurt he had been chosen as a finalist. Suddenly things had seemed so much more real, not only to Kurt, to Blaine too, and in such a different much less happy way.

But, with Blaine retreating more and more from him, Kurt had only learned about Blaine's attacks, weeks after they had already risen to an unbearable level again.

It had taken days for Blaine to fully let Kurt in again, even after the talk with the guidance counselor. Days to confess to Kurt that sitting in Kurt's bedroom, the hurt in Blaine's eyes, finding Chandler's texts had been about so much more already than Kurt had known then.

And Blaine is so sick of hating himself for thinking he can never be enough for Kurt…, sick of still doubting, still fearing to not be enough, not truly what Kurt needs.

'Damaged as I am.'

"Blaine, Baby," Kurt had been quick to react knowing what the tone in his boyfriend's means, "I'll be with you as soon as I possibly can be. Please. Pleeease don't do anythi…, please don't hurt yourself. Please."

xxxx

And it is hard for Blaine to forgive himself that, thanks to him, now, on an evening they had meant to spend happy in each others' arms,…they are both in pain.

'Kurt must be worrying himself sick right now.' Blaine cannot fight the thought, but is still fighting the urge to not grab a knife from the kitchen, a razor from the bathroom '…or pills, why not…pills. Make it all an end…forget, just be allowed to forget all the mistakes I have made, all the stupid…stupid….' Like he had once, years ago, tried to, in the hospital, to forget for good. When there had been nothing but pain, and no one like Kurt in his life, or Kurt's family.

The realization only hits Blaine now, for the first time, 'Kurt, Kurt has no idea about…,' about Blaine having actually tried to kill his pain, by killing himself with it, seeing no other way - the pain seeming to sit too deep in his every vein to every extract it completely. 'I can't tell him now.'

When Kurt walks in, only minutes later, he finds Blaine curled up on the floor next to his bed.

Blaine is resting, cowered in on himself, half against the bed's sideboard, half against the wall, left hand, twisted into his curls, free, in a way that…

'…must be painful…must hurt so much,' Kurt thinks, as he carefully steps closer.

Blaine is not crying, eyes vacant…but Kurt's tears spring forward as he sees Blaine's right hand repeat the hitting motion to his own head, and hears, upon stepping closer, the whispers of, "…stupid…stupid…how are you so stupid," repeated over and over by Blaine now completely spaced out.

Kurt does not rush forward, knows it will startle Blaine.

Experience he wishes he had never had to attain has taught him this over the last weeks.

So instead of rushing forward, Kurt, still crying silently, gets to his knees and curls himself against Blaine's right side, begins to hum softly only moments later.

Words never reach Blaine in this state, never.

Too something experience has taught Kurt. It is a lesson, Kurt is much more grateful for than the former.

The pain already build up inside Blaine, waiting, lurking, to erupt, seems to be especially bad tonight.

And…

…it does take Blaine a long time to come to again…, and Kurt does not stop a single second in his efforts to aid Blaine in bringing himself to again.

No matter how much Kurt wants his strength to be enough to pull Blaine back out of this state, he knows it takes for Blaine to be ready, takes for Blaine to allow himself to breathe again, as a whole, no matter how many parts there are Blaine desperately wants to cut out of himself and leave behind forever.

Finally, Kurt, eyes closed by now, still humming, head resting on Blaine's shoulder, feels Blaine steering noticeably next to him.

When Kurt lifts his head and opens his eyes he finds Blaine's eyes, big and sad, and glazed over with yet unshed tears, looking back at him, pleadingly.

"Baby," Kurt coos, gently cupping Blaine's left cheek.

"Kurt I…I…," and with the words come the tears too.

"I know, Baby. I know. We're okay, we're fine. Don't ever worry about that."

"I'm so sorry…sohooh, ssooohhry."

Kurt rests their foreheads together gently, "You have nothing, absolutely nothing, to be sorry for, Blaine. I want you to be honest about this with me. I love you more, only more, for being honest about your fears and pain. You do know that, yes?"

"I'm so scared of what will happen when you can't come and hold me anymore." 'Of what I might try…again. I want to tell you, so badly. I don't know how without hurting you. If you stayed because of what I did, so long ago, I could never forgive myself,' Blaine thinks, letting out a shuddering breath.

"Hey, heyyyyh. Don't. I…we…we will figure something out. I promise. You know that even if I am leaving, I'm not leaving you. I promised it once, and I'm promising you again, tonight: there might be a little more space between us for a while, but still," Kurt adds, sliding his palm softly from Blaine's left cheek onto his chest, over his heart, saying gently, "I will never leave you."

They don't go to see a movie that night, but they will the next day, add a moonlight walk in the warm summer breeze, playing with Blaine's curls, to Kurt's amusement, after. And there will be more than only two beautiful new memories made tomorrow night.

But today…, today, right now, the last of the sunlight streaming into Blaine's room through the spacious balcony windows (a balcony on which one of these summer days they will be falling over each other on, about a month from now, in the light of yet another full moon, reciting Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to each other, switching roles every other sentence, or scene, or whenever effortlessly, just because they can), Blaine allows himself to sink into Kurt's arms.

Kurt embraces the boy now shaking. A good sign to Kurt now, who has come to learn it means Blaine has moved through the worst of this episode prevented, the panic paralyzing as it had build in him, now ebbing away, leaving Blaine's body - leaving it shaking for a while that will pass, and after which he will truly be better again.

They stay like this for over twenty minutes more; Blaine sunken into Kurt's embrace, Kurt wrapped tightly around his boyfriend, still so very much in need of a presence, Kurt's presence, calming.

When they move, they do it right.

Out of this place, into a house that feels like a home to both of them, maybe to Blaine most of all because Kurt's presence is evident everywhere, in the Hummels' home.

Maybe because Blaine can begin to feel here, what Kurt needs him to not only know, but still realize fully before he can leave: that there are other arms wide open, other's embraces, other people who love Blaine, care about him, deeply.

They are sitting around the kitchen table, late that night, with Burt and Carole and a hot pot of tea the four of them share in front of them.

Blaine is resting his head on Kurt's shoulder, chairs scooted close together, Blaine clearly comfortable showing love, affection.

And it is here and now, sitting like this, that Kurt can feel hope again, the hope that '…Blaine will truly understand one of these summer days how deep he is loved, even in this screwed–up place of a world.'