This was given to me as a prompt for my drabbles a while back, but the idea that my quirky little mind came up with became somewhat elaborate and so it has become a oneshot instead :)
Hope y'all enjoy it :) xxxx
"Are you sure you're ready?" Kurt asks, brushing the skin on the back of Blaine's left hand with his fingers. Blaine nods, twisting his hand gently until their fingers entangle together, his forefinger and middle finger hooked with the same fingers on Kurt's right hand.
He can feel Kurt's body next to him; Kurt is stood behind him, so close that his chest is almost flush to Blaine's back, but he's stood slightly to Blaine's left: it's a protective stance, one that allows Blaine to know that Kurt is there for him, a compassionate shadow that's ready to pick him up when he falls, hold him when he cries and love him without question.
They stand there in silence, Blaine staring up at the familiar white-bordered windows and pale lemon-yellow front door of his mother's house and Kurt watching him do so, gently moulding his hand into Blaine's until they're joined by the simple action of holding hands, the unmistakeable hard band of Blaine's wedding ring distinct against the soft flesh of his husband's hand.
"We can always… come back tomorrow, or some other time?" he reminds Blaine gently, letting him know that the option is there for them to come back another time. It's only been three days, after all, since the news broke. They were there, in the cold, white hospital room as the heart monitor seemed to blare out the monotone of the flat line. Kurt waited patiently in the corridor, two cups of quickly cooling hospital-cafeteria coffee in his hands as Blaine and his brother cried into each other's shoulders and said their final goodbyes.
But Blaine shakes his head defiantly. "No," he states, "I need to do this; it needs to be done." Kurt admires him for doing this - really, he does - but he can't help the small frown that forms on his lips, concern evident in all of his features. He can't help feeling that this is all too soon, that Blaine is pushing himself to run before he's even stood. He recalls that morning, when, after two days of numb, silent mourning, Kurt awoke to find Blaine already up and out of bed, breakfast on the table and a plan in his head. Four hours later and here they were, outside the house Blaine's mother had bought after her divorce from Blaine's father eleven years ago. Here, she had finally been able to live the life she wanted, rather than one defined and restricted by Theodore Anderson's strict regime.
"Okay," Kurt concedes, reluctantly, "but if at any point you want to leave, just say so and we'll go." He gets a grateful squeeze of his hand and a small, acknowledging nod in reply, but no more words. After another pause, during which both of them stare contemplatively at the house in front of them, wondering what they'll uncover within, Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand once more as a signal that he's ready. Wordlessly, they walk together, Blaine pulling the front door key - complete with the purple tassel his mother took from an old cushion cover she found in a second-hand shop and attached to the key - out of his pocket and when they reach the door he lets it slip into the lock. With a click, they were opening the door and stepping inside.
With a click, Blaine was walking in on what would be one of the hardest experiences of his life.
Blaine's mom's bedroom floor is covered with books and albums, all of which Blaine has pulled down off of the grand bookcase in order to sort through them. There are photo albums of him and Cooper when they were children - a saddened pang in his chest reminds him of how his brother had yet to emerge from his grief since the day their mother had passed away, even Blaine's request for his brother to join him today having been turned down; Cooper had been incredibly close to their mother, well, both of them had, but Cooper had always been more dependent on her than Blaine due to his seemingly terminal bachelor status - full of pictures that Blaine hadn't realised his mother had kept. Their father had never been keen on the sentimental, and so Blaine has never seen these sorts of photos before - baby pictures of him in outfits that made Blaine wonder how his father could possibly have been surprised when he came out to him fifteen years later; first days at school; him and Cooper sat on the living room floor as Cooper taught him the careful art of playing with toy cars; Christmas mornings full of disciplined excitement under their father's watchful gaze; boxing days spent snuggled up with hot chocolate and gingerbread after their father had gone back to work; and then it melts into landscape shots of the woods beyond their garden; snow-covered village paths from winter visits to their grandmother's out in the countryside-
"That's a lot of books," Kurt comments as he leans against the doorframe, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows after an afternoon of shifting boxes and dusting shelves. His husband looks up at him with a slight surprised jolt; they've been working separately, in silence, for the last few hours, Kurt wrapping and packing the china and cutlery away for safe transportation later on in the kitchen whilst Blaine found himself in his mother's room, relaxing in the still-lingering scent of her perfume and the familiarity of her late-blooming personal style. He had thought it would be hard to be in her room again, but being surrounded by elements of his mother and her personality actually calms him. It lets him believe that she's still around, and allows the idea of her death to calmly float to the back of his mind. He's been so caught up in the photographs and the handwritten annotations that he's barely thought about it, but now that he's been brought back to reality he finds himself feeling a little overwhelmed, and he's glad that Kurt is there because he's not sure if he can keep up this bravado much longer. He offers Kurt a small, sentimental smile and gazes about him at the piles of books he's made; ones to give away, ones to keep, ones to ask Cooper about and ones that he didn't recognise. "What's that one?" Kurt asks, gesturing to the leather-bound album in Blaine's hands as he comes to kneel next to his husband.
"I found a photo album," Blaine tells him, not realising the lump in his throat until he's already talking. "I've never seen these pictures before." He allows his fingers to graze the edge of a photograph that is quickly becoming his favourite; it's Cooper, looking about twelve or thirteen, lounging on the sofa, his arm protectively around Blaine next to him, the younger Anderson cuddling up to his elder brother as they both seemingly watch television. Blaine suspects that his mother had taken it in secret, capturing a rare moment of peace and fraternal affection between her two sons, and he's glad that she did; he'll show it to Cooper later, and they'll realise just how close they were despite the memories of teasing and rough-housing that stereotypically comes with brothers.
"Is that you and Cooper?" Kurt asks, his eyes fixated on the same picture, and Blaine smirks at the sense of wonderment in his voice; Kurt has only heard stories of Cooper teasing Blaine when they were children, believing that they hadn't built up their now-affectionate relationship until Blaine was in his late-teens and Cooper in his twenties, when really it had been there all along.
"Yeah," Blaine smiles, allowing his thumb to brush over it once more. "These are all albums, too," he indicates a small pile of similarly-bound books - there's three or four of them - to his right, Kurt's gaze following, "but I haven't looked through them, yet; I got a bit caught up in this one," he admits, a small blush growing on his cheeks. Kurt offers him a smile, before his eyes dance across the other piles of books that surround them.
"These look interesting," he contemplates, reaching out to let his fingertips graze another small pile of bound books. They're smaller than the photo albums, and they look slightly more aged. Blaine watches as Kurt picks up the top one, a small, hard-bound green-leather book, and flips open the cover to reveal a page of elegant handwriting. Curious, he turns a few pages forward and discovers more of the same writing. "I think it's a diary," he muses breathlessly, amazed. Blaine puts the photo album in his hands down on the floor beside him, still open on the page of him and Cooper, and shuffles closer to his husband to examine the diary himself. Kurt offers it to him and hesitantly Blaine takes it, gazing in wonderment at what he recognises to indeed be his mother's handwriting. He absently flicks through a few pages, not letting his eyes settle on any words, just admiring her curved font that he recalls from birthday and Christmas cards from his childhood. Kurt picks up the next one, confirming that it's also a diary after flicking through the first couple of pages before returning it to the pile, not looking through it any further out of respect for Blaine's mother's privacy.
Blaine, meanwhile, is finally reading excerpts to himself. He skips through the ones which detail arguments between his parents, and the ones that describe yet another disagreement between Cooper and their father, and smiles at the ones that contain little stories and anecdotes about himself as an eager child desperate to please his mother with crayon drawings and badly-written poetry. Kurt sits silently next to him, watching his reactions, ready to jump in and comfort if Blaine needs him. Every now and again he casts a curious glance round the room, smiling at the framed pictures of the Anderson brothers at various ages that are dotted here and there.
When a gasp permeates the dusty silence, Kurt's on high alert and turns his full attention to his husband, automatically registering the expression on his face: Blaine looks pained, tears collecting in his eyes and his lips parted still from releasing the gasp. Kurt doesn't say anything, just places his hand reassuringly on Blaine's thigh and shuffling a little closer. He figures that Blaine has come across something particularly heart-wrenching, a particular memory, perhaps, or a touching note from his mother. "She knew," Blaine says simply, and that's all the information Kurt gets until he presses further.
"She knew? Knew what, honey?" Blaine's eyes are still glued to the page, frantically reading while Kurt waits patiently beside him.
"She knew… before anyone else. Before me, even. She knew…" he's whispering to himself now, and Kurt's growing concerned as a tear escapes to slide down Blaine's cheek. Blaine pushes the book into his husband's hands, wiping roughly at his cheek before leaning right into Kurt and hugging him tightly. Kurt transfers the diary into his left hand and holds his husband close with his right. "Read this bit," Blaine instructs, pointing to a paragraph that starts halfway down the left-hand page, and snuggles into Kurt's side while Kurt reads.
At dinner tonight Blaine was telling me and Cooper about a boy he'd met at school, and he was so animated and excited that it was hard to ignore just how much he's taken to this boy already. I doubt Cooper was listening, to be honest, but I was. He was telling me about how great this boy was, about how funny and kind he is, which all seems fair enough for a boy of twelve to say about a new friend. But then he commented on his eyes, and how the only way he could describe them was beautiful. And the same went for his smile, apparently. I may be wrong, but I am his mother, and my mother's instinct is telling me that this may be the start of a new chapter in Blaine's life.
As long as he's happy, and as long as whoever he loves, loves him back, I'll support him.
This is as far as Kurt can read, for the tears in his eyes are blurring his vision and causing the words on the page to blur together until they are unintelligible from each other. Silently he puts the diary down on the floor, the pages turning of their own accord until they come to comfortable rest in the centre of the book.
Kurt pulls Blaine closer to him, and that is how they remain for the next few minutes; silent, holding each other where they're sat on the floor in amongst piles of books.