A/N: I was planning on expanding this but I'm not sure any more. So for now it's a one-shot. In the future there may be more.


Who Knew

Kurt falls into the chair in a graceless way that is so unlike his normal self but he can't even care as the chair legs scrape the hardwood floor he'd finally convinced his parents to get to replace the tattered and torn carpet. His whole world is caving in on him and expanding to infinity at the same time and his head is spinning and his breath is short and it isn't until he catches a movement from the corner of his eye that he realizes Blaine is still standing there, still waiting for him to say something. He licks his lips, tongue dry and scratching at the chapped skin and he makes a mental note to buy chapstick and then he realizes what's going on and can't stop laughing because it's just so damn funny that he's worried about chapped lips when his whole world had been turned upside down.

"Cancer," He says when he finally pulls himself together and the word isn't as huge as he thought it would be to say and it slips past his lips as easily as if he was talking about the newest issue of Vogue. He's pretty sure he's in shock but between the aching numbness that made his legs collapse from under him and the pull of cracked lips as he talks are too distracting. It's an effort to drag his eyes up from the floor where they're tracing along the grain of the wood, leaping over imperfections to pick up a new strand that he follows to the end until he reaches the edge of his eyesight and then it's too much effort to turn his head because he thinks if he moves at all he's simply going to fall apart, but he manages to make it to where his gaze is locked with Blaine's and he tries to look and see some imperfection, some hint of the disease that's apparently been eating away at his boyfriend for the past several months without him even realizing. But Blaine is perfect and whole and standing there looking so achingly sad that it actually hurts Kurt that they're so far apart but now he's afraid to touch Blaine, afraid that somehow he'll hurt Blaine. Or maybe he's worried about catching cancer, even though he knows it isn't contagious and even if it was, he'd been exposed to every part of Blaine so often in the last few weeks that it would be too late for him anyhow.

"Leukemia," Blaine corrects, seemingly out of habit but Kurt's screaming and there are tears now and he's not longer sitting but standing and his hands are flying and he doesn't know what he's saying except that he doesn't really mean what he says because he doesn't hate Blaine. When Blaine's arms wrap around him he stiffens and stops shouting and then relaxes in to the familiar embrace and buries his head in Blaine's shoulder and just breathes in the smell that's sweet and tart at the same time and reminds him of that day in the mall when they walked around trying different scents, each one more disgusting than the last until their noses hurt and then they ended up buying the one with the best bottle, a stupid clear thing with silver on the edges and a cap of twisting silver and gold and topped with a ridiculously large fake diamond that Kurt would twist to catch the light when he was lying on Blaine's bed sometimes. His arms come up at last and return the hug that's more like an anchoring weight keeping him from floating away from his body to somewhere that doesn't hurt so much, and he's never felt so at home and so alone at the same time.