Author's Note: This takes place after 4.04, obviously. Anonymous prompt on tumblr: Klaine reunion during Blaine's father's funeral. Please review if you like what you see!
Lilies—he would have hated lilies, Blaine thought as he stepped up to the mahogany casket. The room could hardly be constituted as full, but still he felt he was suffocating. His and Kurt's break-up eight months prior had been hard enough but this, he selfishly thought, had been the sordid icing on the whole rotten cake. While he and his father never saw eye to eye, he still imagined he'd have more time with him; time, he hoped, to lead his father gently into a land of understanding and acceptance. Instead, he was gone—lost from this world with the same narrow views he had tried to instill on Blaine.
Blaine had been so engrossed in gazing upon his father's ghostly pallor that he didn't notice when long, skeletal fingers—skin so paper-thin and delicate as porcelain—draped themselves over his own calloused hand. He didn't need to look up to know who it was, and—if he was being perfectly honest—he didn't know if he possessed the emotional stamina to face the bright blue eyes that were waiting there for him. Instead, he let his gaze linger a little longer on the vaguely prominent blue veins—just barely visible under white skin pulled so taut—of his guest's hand. The image, so obscure and unappreciated by others, was burned into Blaine's mind, something he owed to so many passion filled nights; he knew these hands quite well, his heart had always fluttered at the sight of those barely-there veins, yet their presence now confused him. These hands, those veins, the rest of the body they were connected to—none of them belonged here, especially beside Blaine.
"Brittany called me," his voice came softly; it was as serene as Blaine remembered it to be on lazy summer afternoons they spent sipping lemonade from a shared straw and laying, shirtless and sweaty, perfectly entwined with each other on a handmade hammock—made by Blaine himself—under the burning sun. "How are you holding—are—are you...okay?"
Blaine closed his eyes briefly, allowing himself only a second to fully absorb his boyfriend—his ex-boyfriend's concerned tone. He missed that; missed the subtle upturned syllables spoken in hushed whispers from one lover to the other. The smallest amount of pressure on his hand alerted Blaine he'd been taking too long to respond—had the opportunity to do so passed? Part of him, most of him, believed—up until that gentle squeeze—that he was in the presence of a ghost of his former happiness, hallucinating again from all of the anger and stress he forced himself to internalize on a daily basis. But the warmth of skin against skin, the reassuring Hey, are you here with me? squeeze he'd felt—they were real; he was really here, wasn't he?
"You're here," he said aloud, his thoughts commandeering his vocal chords in soft, staccato disbelief. "You're here," he repeated and turned his attention from their hands to those crystalline, expectant eyes which only grew all the more concerned with each passing second.
"Yeah, I'm—" Kurt started off strong and reassuring and faltered as his eyes found Blaine's, "I'm here." He hadn't known how he expected himself to feel upon returning, upon gazing into the face of his ex-lover: sorrow, anger, sympathy maybe, but whatever this feeling was though was... indescribable. He hadn't even hesitated once he'd gotten the call, had pushed aside all thoughts of "them" and all of their complications, and knew that he needed to be there for Blaine in the most basic, honest possible way one human being could be for another. But now...
All of the complications he'd tried to keep stifled for the brief visit were slowly resurfacing and becoming blatantly visible on his face. Blaine's expression had been fairly unreadable at first—numbed disbelief mingled with grief, if Kurt had to guess—but now Kurt recognised what it was morphing into: guilt. He'd seen so much of that expression so many months ago. Quickly, though reluctantly, Blaine slid his hand away from beneath Kurt's and the morbid monotony he adapted for his words made Kurt's heart pang horribly, "You didn't have to come, thank you for that though. It was nice to see you again."
And without so much as a smile or a moment's hesitation to linger on the beauty of his paradise lost, Blaine turned and left Kurt by the casket. Kurt, however, quickly followed after him until they were the only two souls occupying the parking lot behind the funeral home. "Blaine! Blaine, wait!" As if it was necessary for him to obey, Blaine halted so suddenly that Kurt nearly collided with him. "Where are you going?"
Blaine's fists were clenched tightly and trembling at his sides; it was only when he turned around that Kurt understood why—Blaine was digging his nails into his palms to control the collection of tears pooling around his eyes and threatening to fall. "I'm—I was giving us some space," he stated as though it was obvious.
"Blaine," Kurt started, eyes softening at the sight of this mess of a boy that had replaced the seemingly confident—and arguably cocky—teenager he'd fallen in love with.
"Don't," Blaine interrupted. "Just—you don't want to be here, be around me, I can see it on your face," he was struggling to keep himself together. "You're just too good of a person to not come right out and say that though. I—I'm sorry." Blaine shook his head, his hands still trembling as he dug little crescent moons into his palms.
"I care about you, Blaine. I always will," Kurt wanted to reach out and pry Blaine's hands open to stop him from mutilating himself. "It's not like I felt obligated to come, Blaine."
"Kurt, you don't have to be so nice to me just because my dad's dead," Blaine spoke so matter-of-factly, so desensitised and expectant of hatred that it disturbed Kurt. "I—I was such a—what I did to you—" he flinched, unclenching his hands reflexively and taking in the damage he'd caused himself. "You don't owe me this, you don't owe me anything. I'm—I know I've said it so many times, but I'm so sorry...Kurt."
Kurt stood, watching, and swallowed a few times. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to forgive Blaine for what happened, had told himself he would distance himself from Blaine and Lima and everything they had built until the pain ebbed away and he'd be able to separate himself from "Kurt and Blaine" because he needed to remember what it was like to just be "Kurt." Even now, he wasn't sure he was quite ready to forgive Blaine—poor "just Blaine" who was falling apart at the seams and such a far stretch from all right.
At least one thing was made definitely certain for Kurt as he closed the distance between them, as he took Blaine's slightly bloodied palms into his own hands, as he pressed two gentle kisses—one for each palm—into the raw, calloused skin: he still had feelings for this boy. "Shut up a second, okay?"
Blaine obeyed and kept his mouth clamped shut as he stared back at Kurt, slipping back into his disbelief of the boy's actual presence before him.
"I know I don't owe you anything, Blaine," he swiped his thumbs over the tiny crescent moon cuts on Blaine's palms to wipe away minuscule droplets of blood. "You're right, what you did to me—no, what you did to us it was... I didn't think I could ever bring myself to even look at you again, but… here I am."
"Kurt," Blaine half-whimpered, breathless, but Kurt held up his hand to stop him.
"Let me finish," he dropped his hand and exhaled a loud and breathy sigh. "I'm not saying I forgive you, Blaine, but," Kurt took one of Blaine's hands between his own and traced a thick vein with his finger—a gesture he reserved for nights he needed to soothe Blaine from heated rants about his now late father—as he spoke, "I don't doubt that you're sorry. That it was just a stupid mistake and that you've been punishing yourself for it ever since."
Blaine's mouth twitched, his eyes portraying his confusion but Kurt didn't need to hear him to know what he wanted to ask. "I don't know what happens now," Kurt extended his thumb's exploration to the length of Blaine's fingers. "All I know is that I don't want to lose you. Even after what happened."
Blaine swallowed, hard, a few times and stared at Kurt. He'd dreamt of forgiveness, of this very conversation, but now that it was happening he was afraid that's exactly what it was—another fantasy; a fantasy he often retreated to just to escape his self-hatred for a moment.
"Please say something, Blaine?" Kurt actually sounded nervous as he asked. And Blaine realised this wasn't his usual anxious tone; he sounded weighted down by something else.
"...are you doing this because you feel sorry for me?" He blurted out and began clenching his fists again. Kurt slid his palms against Blaine's, lacing their fingers, before Blaine could dig his nails in again.
"You're an idiot, Blaine," Kurt shook his head, his voice free of malice. "I want to work through all of this with you because I think we're worth it."
"You don't hate me?" Blaine searched Kurt's eyes, his face—he was determined to discover some little tell that would betray Kurt's words. But there was none; all Blaine saw was softened eyes and the hint of a smile tugging at Kurt's lips.
"I could never hate you," Kurt answered as though he couldn't quite believe Blaine had actually asked him. "I was angry and upset for a long time; I hated what you did but hate you? No. I don't have it in me to."
"And so now we...?" up until now Blaine had let his hands hang lifelessly in Kurt's, but he squeezed them hopefully, reassuring himself.
"I don't know, we wing it from here, I guess," Kurt answered with a nervous laugh, lending some semblance of peace to Blaine; at least they shared camaraderie in their anxious apprehension.
"I um, I got my acceptance letter for Julliard," Blaine mentioned suddenly. "I'm—I'll be in New York in about two months."
"Blaine, that's great!" Kurt pulled his hands out of Blaine's and opted for a congratulatory—slightly awkward—embrace.
"So maybe—I mean, if you would want—er, coffee... sometime?" Blaine stuttered out very inarticulately. "When I get there," he quickly added.
"Who says I want to wait until you get there?" Kurt pulled away slightly to offer Blaine a smile. "We should go after the service."
Blaine nodded, still in disbelief, and Kurt began to widen the distance between them as he slid his hand into Blaine's, starting to lead the way back inside. "Kurt?" Blaine stayed planted and Kurt stopped and turned around to face him again. "...you're here?"
Kurt simpered and took a step in towards Blaine, pressing their mouths together in a gentle, innocent kiss. "I'm here."