Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
A/N: So it has been a felt forever, but tonight, feeling the pressure of changes needed in my life, I broke down again and hurt myself. I know, I am no idiot, but I sure feel so very stupid tonight, more so than scared. Maybe that is a step in the right direction. *sigh* I hope my weirdness in life at least brought you a story worth your time. Thanks for, you know, just being around, felt loneliness, no matter how real or not, is hard. Now I am thinking of Rose in Titanic, talking about standing in a full room and screaming on the top of her lungs but no one even seems to notice let alone react to it. So, long story short, I needed to write, and here is what came about doing so, trying my best to not let go of me completely.
Too Close
It is too easy to rip it all open again.
And there is not one reason, there are four dozen and more swimming in Blaine's head, too many to make out a single one ... but fear.
There is no pleasure but an ease about it that gives him comfort already as he steals down into the deserted kitchen in the middle of the night, no one around to judge him, no one around to see, no one to help him, to allow him to feel what really is twisting his insides too tight, so tight he feels sick. It would be so good to be able to do that, unravel instead of inflicting more pain, creating distractions. But doing it alone, doing anything alone but numbing the already too ordinary feeling pain with more, feels far too scary, huge, shattering.
The knife he has developed almost a fondness for is still there where he has hidden it in one particular cupboard behind a bunch of pans and pots he knows are hardly ever used at all.
Blaine barely makes it back into his room, locking the door behind himself before he is crouching against the wall, breathing hard as the cold metal penetrates the skin already worn by scars.
You might think it would hurt less, breaking the dead skin all over, but the flesh under still rips the same, bleeds the same - Blaine no less human under the marks he knows others would call disfiguring, disgusting. They have. It was the only thing his parents did. Call him things. No offer of help. Not even sympathy. Just another disappointment from their ridiculous farce of a son. A silent sufferance on their part, waiting for him to solve the problem. It is almost as if they do not even care it is in one way or another.
Only with the blood running over his cold skin Blaine remembers his promise. It is all still so new, unexpected. His head swimming he will in the days to come stay amazed that he remembered at all, his whole life changing tonight with that thought, that warm little spark inside him, carefully nurtured already, over weeks ... with love. Feeling love, loved, it does not shake and change your whole world from one second to the next but if you find a way to allow it to stay, that warming unknown and therefore for a long time in ways uncomfortable feeling, if you allow it to stay, it can inspire you to grow, in all the right ways. Help you to heal.
Pain is so familiar, too well known, ... and Kurt, Kurt is so new in his life still.
Why are new promises so hard to keep?
But then, remembering Kurt, all else is forgotten for just long enough tonight to act.
Blood stains the floor all over Blaine's room as he blindly struggles to remember where he put his phone before he had crawled into bed, exhausted and unable to sleep, only to get back up and find that knife later.
His breathing is heavy when his fingers finally hold the small device and he shakily dials. Despite having hardly moved, Blaine's heart is hammering against his insides as if he had just run a half-marathon.
It feels like forever, Blaine's heart beating away, till Kurt answers, "Blaine?"
"I'm, ... I ...," Blaine hick-ups between sudden sobs.
"Blaine. Tell me, what's wrong?" Kurt has his suspicions, they had a talk some weeks ago, for the first time lying shirtless together on Kurt's bed, the marks, so many marks fresh, red, burning, so sensitive to Kurt's touch.
"I'm sorry," Blaine brings out. "I'm so sorry. I didn't even realize I ..., I didn't plan it. I mean I did, maybe. ... I got the knife and then, it just made so much sense. For those moments that it took me to do it ... it all made sense. I don't want that, I ... I don't. I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm just, just so used to it being me."
"Blaine," Kurt says softly, biting back his own fear hard.
"I don't know why I think it is okay to hurt me," Blaine chokes out, more tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Because your parents are assholes who never, never told, never allowed you to feel you deserve to be loved!" Kurt wants to scream it down the line. No he wants to scream it right in Blaine's parents' faces. He hopes one day he will get the chance. But tonight he says instead, "Please, let me and dad come pick you up?"
Burt had walked in on them lying there shirtless, had gotten the explanations he had demanded, too, and made the boys promise to ask for his help if they should ever, EVER need it.
Blaine is too exhausted to protest, "I ..., I'll wait on the lawn."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Blaine?"
"Yes?" it is no more than a sad whisper.
"I love you."
The reply comes in a broken echo, "I love you, too," before the line goes dead on Blaine's side and Kurt is out of his bed in a flash, running down the hall to his parents' bedroom.
When Kurt and his dad reach the Andersons' house it is pitch black, not a single window even remotely alight, so it takes them a moment to spot him, the figure cowering on the front lawn.
Forehead resting on arms folded over drawn up knees, Blaine could not make himself smaller if he tried. And possibly he has.
Burt spots him first, "Kurt, there."
"Blaine," Kurt whispers to himself as he, unfastening his seatbelt, almost getting tangled in it at the speed he tries to exit the car, jumps out onto the asphalt and before he has even time to think about the possible state of his pyjamas' trousers is kneeling with Blaine on the wet grass, pulling him into his arms.
For a single moment Blaine struggles, tries to push off whoever is trying to drag him to his feet and back into that house.
Only when the hold around his shoulders lingers, stays, warm and solid ... there – no hands grabbing and tearing on his limbs - does it register and he asks timidly, "Kurt?"
"I got you. I'm here. Please, come home with us. Please."
"Kiddo, we can always turn the guest room into yours, the offer still stands," Blaine hears Burt, Blaine's face buried in Kurt's warm jumper, covering his pyjamas and chest.
"Blaine, please, it is too cold out here, you are not even wearing anything but those shorts and a t-shirt," Kurt murmurs soft and quiet, not once mentioning the dried streaks of Blaine's own blood still clearly visible, even in the dark, on Blaine's left forearm and his light clothes.
Blaine had not noticed how little he actually had been wearing, stumbling out of the house, and wanting, needing to get out of that place, out from under that roof, but now, made aware, a shiver runs through him. "I'm so tired," Blaine breathes heavily.
Trying to, Kurt quickly finds out, it is impossible to get Blaine back onto his own feet tonight, so Kurt gathers the shaking boy in his arms and lifting him into the car's backseat follows him in a moment later.
Kurt bundles Blaine up in a blanket he always keeps in the car, because he himself tends to get cold on long drives.
Burt driving extra carefully, Kurt holds Blaine the whole way back home.
"Can I stay?" Blaine sounds almost as if he is begging when he asks the question twenty-nine minutes into the drive, the boy sounding as if he is expecting a resounding no, voice unsteady with fear and more so desperation.
"Blaine, of course" Kurt hums softly, trying to sound reassuring, trying to take away as much of the need Blaine seems to feel for fear as he can.
The scared whimper Blaine lets out before whispering "Yes?" tells Kurt it is not working, not this deep into the night.
And Kurt thinks maybe Blaine needs to hear it from, well, someone other than him, "Dad, can Blaine stay?"
"Blaine, as long as you want us in your lives you're always, ALWAYS welcome to come and stay with us. As long as you need to, and as long as you want to."
"Thank you," Blaine croaks, Kurt only feeling reassured Blaine does believe them when he feels Blaine snuggling deeper into his arms, arms winding around Kurt's middle, holding on just as tight as Kurt is holding on to him, even as both boys drift closer and closer back towards sleep.
It will take some time for Blaine to wake up happy again, but one day, Kurt by his side, he does.