Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

A/N: I wrote this a good while ago. It's time to post. Here I go. Kind of AUish, in the sense that for this I assume that Cooper and Blaine are half-brothers, sharing only a father, and that they grew up largely apart.


Past and Present Memories

It is the weekend, and Blaine is staying at the Hummels', not for the first time.

They have just been sitting here, on Kurt's bed, for the last minutes, Blaine's whole body stiff and unmoving, ever since Kurt had asked about it, about the why?
That one why?

"I never go home, because, because ..., Kurt, I really, I really don't have one anymore. You once asked me why I always stay behind after the nursing home shows at that one place, why I organize for us to come to that one home more often than others."

"And you just changed the topic, joked about how great a pudding the kitchen serves after dinner there."

"And they do!" Blaine says, attempting a smile before swallowing hard, and just nodding, to himself more than Kurt maybe, then ..., "My grandmother, my mother's mother, she, she is at that home, and she has not been well the last two weeks, so I went there instead of Warblers' practice, and performances, and things. That home, it's not a bad home but ... she ... she could afford much more but she wants to be close to me, and Dalton is what she wants for me, she says, and without her I would never have survived." And now there are tears thick, and Kurt knows he has to allow Blaine to let them run free, flow heavy, so he offers up only a single hand, something to keep them connected, help Blaine stay grounded.

Blaine swallows around a sob and almost chokes as he takes Kurt's hand with a desperately small but honest smile.

"I'm here," Kurt whispers softly. "I'm here for you."

Blaine nods through more sobs, before he grows completely quite.

"Blaine ...? Love," and it is the first time Kurt has called him that.

"Kurt, my mom, she…," Blaine breaks off again, shaking his head in desperation,not wanting to think about any of this, but needing to, knowing he needs to, and the pain pulsing in his brain is unbearably sharp and dull in its depth at the same time. "My dad was always abusive, and my mom did not know what to do anymore. My grandmother says my mom only did it because she thought it was the only thing left to do to protect me after he had started beating me too ... as soon as I could walk. I was barely a year old." Kurt can just still make out Blaine's words now, between all the sobs, "It's like he needed a moving target. And it hurts, hurts so much, ... to think that was maybe all just a game to him, that we were just, just ... a game."

Blaine can feel the slight tremble in Kurt's touch now, knows Kurt must be fighting hard to keep it from growing; or mabe it is just Blaine imagining it, he cannot help but think, with his own emotions so out of control.

But there are too many tears falling between them, staining both of their jeans, to just be his own. Not that Blaine himself can tell through the permanent veil of new tears in his eyes.

Blaine knows Kurt has pieced it all together as the grip on his hand tightens in more than reassurance, in pain that Blaine does not own.

"You did not try to kill yourself," Kurt says understanding now.

Blaine had pretended for a long time, for weeks and weeks after they had gotten together and Kurt had first seen the cuts, faded already, on Blaine's skin, that they were no big deal; which Kurt of course had never once bought. But they had been old, wounds healed into scars faded, faded so far that some were bearly to be made out still, only those going deeper clearly there.

So Kurt, not wanting to push Blaine, had dropped it, after a red-faced Blaine had reassured him he was not cutting, and had even offered, to a deeply red blushing Kurt, to show him all of his body as often as he and whenever he wanted to check, to make sure, for both their peace of mind, for their relationship.

"No, no I did not. I would not. I would never, even when I felt so, so alone ... I couldn't ... not ever," Blaine says weakly. "But my mom did," Blaine adds in a choked whisper "...try. She could not ... she would not leave me with him, so she drugged me and ..., my arms ..., she just ... She gave me pills, but she wanted to make sure, so she ... cut. I ..."

There are only sobs then and tears, and neither boy knows for how long.

Later that night, lying wound around each other under the covers of Kurt's bed Blaine props himself up on his right elbow a little, then pushes back the pj sleeves covering his forearms.

He looks at Kurt intently, like saying he needs to share this past somehow, get some kind of present formed out of it, to heal from the inside.

In the next moment Blaine feels Kurt's warm touch on the marks of both arms.

"She tried only half heartedly. Nana always says that's why I survived. You can see it in the lines all shaky and so…"

"... hesitant?" Kurt offers.

"Yes, ... hesitant." Blaine smiles that weak smile again, that seems all he can ever muster talking directly about this, Kurt has seen it several times today alone.

"She didn't want you to die," Kurt says, carefully watching his boyfriend's face, touch on Blaine's broken skin sure.

"She did not really want me to die, no," Blaine whispers back, looking down.

A moment later, Blaine is buried deep in Kurt's warm, soft, gentle embrace. And they simply kiss, for a long while.

They put away the pain for tonight.

A week later Kurt is standing in a nursing home not far at all from Dalton, a place he only remembers fleetingly from Warbler performances. Kurt is gently holding the hand of an old woman, smiling, between the two of his, "It is so wonderful to meet you."


A/N: Hi, so I hope you like this, aslo, PLEASE, please, go and check out the stories of a friend of mine. Her work is so AMAZING! Tara621; she is fairly new to Glee fanfiction, but her writing style will blow you away. She is part of the writing group BETWEEN FRIENDS that I joined, and she has never gotten reviews from anyone outside the groups despite her stuff being so great. So I think it would just be so awesome to give her a proper welcome to this fandom by leaving some?! :) Thank you for reading!