AN: Yeah, I know I have like a gazillion (huge exaggeration, but it feels like it) WIP's going on right now. I am trying my hardest to update all of them, but I got started with this on tumblr and have just been sucked in by it. Huge thanks to Gaelen (peevesthepoltergeist on tumblr) who gave me the story prompt and kinda spread word for this! This is an AU where Rachel and Blaine are siblings, aka Anderberry AU as they've been called a lot. The first three to five chapters will be snippets of them growing up, until Blaine's junior year / Kurt's senior year. The rating will also probably go up in the future, but for now, it'll stay at T. And. Yeah. That's about it. Enjoy~
Blaine blinked back tears as he fell down, the dirt wet from last nights storm. He instantly felt the mud seep into his clothing, and he bit his lip as the kids above him laughed at him.
"Go play dolls with your sister again, only real boys play football with us," the tallest one told him, a toothy grin present on his lips. Blaine could only get up and ball his fists up as he ran, away from the little trail, and back into the comforting confines of his house's fence.
"Yeah, go play with your little dolls!"
"Look guys, he wet himself."
"Little Anderberry wet himself."
"Stupid little fag."
The last comment made him only more upset, and he frantically twisted the doorknob to his front door in hopes that it was unlocked. After a couple of seconds of not opening, Blaine realized he had been turning the door knob the wrong way, and fell down as the door swung open at the force of his last turn.
More laughter rang from the road outside, and he slammed the door shut in hopes that it would shut them up. It helped muffle them, but he could still hear them shouting out insults and laughing at him.
Sniffling, he took the steps upstairs two at a time, looking for his older sister. His daddies were currently out at the grocery store, and had hired a sitter to look over them for those thirty minutes they'd be out. He had caught a glimpse of the sixteen year old girl that was introduced to him as Shannon when he had fallen on his face, but from what he saw, she was glued to the phone talking about someone named Slut and how she liked sucking on stuff. Blaine could only sum it up to there being a person named Slut who liked sucking on Tootsie Roll Pops; who didn't?
Reaching the top of the stairs, he immediately made a bee line for Rachel's room. Opening the door, he saw his sister on the rug playing with dolls. He was close to just throwing himself at her, but then he noticed him.
Rachel wasn't alone. A little boy sat in front of her, studying the clothing on one of Rachel's doll. He was probably Rachel's classmate, Blaine thought to himself as he stood in the doorway awkwardly. The boy had pale skin, paler than Blaine's papa, who was pretty pale compared to his daddy. His brown hair wasn't long, but it wasn't short either, and it was a nice brown colour that reminded Blaine of the living room table his papa had bought the other day. Mahawgoney or something like that. And his eyes. Blaine couldn't help but be surprised when he saw his eyes. They were a bright blue colour. Like the ocean, he quickly noted.
He's pretty, Blaine thought. Really pretty.
"-God, Blaine! Blaine? Blaine, are you listening to me?"
Blinking, Blaine looked at his older sister, who was now standing up, her hands at her hips.
"W-what? Sorry Rach, I didn't hear you," He mumbled, and Rachel let out a huff of breath, blowing her long brown hair out of her face.
"I asked you why you're all muddy and dirty. It's icky," She told him, before wrinkling her nose. "Blaine, were you trying to play with Roger down the street again?"
Blaine could only look down at the ground. Rachel let out a small sigh.
"Daddy and papa told you that you couldn't play with them. They're mean to you."
"I'm sorry."
Rachel just looked down at her dolls, before realizing that their was still a guest in the room. She brightened up, and grinned.
"Maybe you can play with me and Kurt! He just moved in down the street with his daddy, and came over to play," Rachel said, jumping up and down while clapping.
Kurt. Blaine repeated the name again, and was glad to have a name to put on the face. It was a pretty name. Kurt.
"Sure," Blaine said quietly, before turning to Kurt.
"Hi, I'm Blaine."
The little boy stood up, and smiled weakly.
"I'm Kurt."
Rachel immediately grinned, and took Blaine's hand.
"Come on, we were just about to play house!" She said before sitting down, tugging Blaine along with her. She instantly picked up the two boy dolls she had, one black, one white. Kurt and Blaine both watched as she stood them up and pronounced them husband and husband.
"Kurt, should they have a little baby boy or baby girl?" She asked, distracted as she concentrated on making the two dolls dance together.
"Uh, a baby girl," Kurt replied, watching her struggle to make the dolls dance gracefully. Soon though, she just gave up on the idea and stuck them together and sort of just moved them around on the rug in circles.
"Blaine, come up with a name for the girl," Rachel said, as the dolls kept 'dancing', and she reached blindly next to her to pick up a girl doll. Blaine just looked at her, and looked over at the pile of dolls that she was rummaging through. Once he saw the one she picked, he immediately knew what he would name her.
"Elizabeth," He said with a grin, and she beamed.
"That's a lot better than what you gave me last week. Kurt, can you believe he wanted me to name a little girl Butter?" Rachel said with a giggle, before turning to Kurt. She frowned slightly, and put down the dolls.
"Kurt, you ok?" She asked, and Blaine looked over at Rachel's new friend. He was frowning, and his eyes were getting watery. Blaine could feel his heart pound against his chest; what did he do to make him so sad?
"Yeah, I'm ok," Kurt mumbled, before blinking his eyes a few times and wiping at his nose with his hand. Rachel pouted.
"No, you're not ok," She pointed out, and Kurt pulled his knees up to his chest. Blaine watched him as his cheeks became pink, and looked at Rachel.
"Leave him alone Rach," He told his sister, and Rachel looked over at him, ready to argue. He just shook his head, and put his arms against his chest. She immediately scowled at him, before looking back at the dolls. Blaine happily averted his gaze back to the dolls too, giving Kurt space.
It was silent for a few moments, aside from the soft sniffs Kurt did periodically. Just as Blaine was about to tell Kurt he liked his cardigan, Rachel opened her mouth.
"You know, I think we should go downstairs. I think daddy and papa are gonna be home soon, and Shannon is doing who knows what," Rachel declared as she stood up quickly. She skipped out of the room, whistling the tune to "Funny Girl". Blaine got up, and looked down at the floor. He was glad he ended up sitting on the wood part of the floor, because papa would have gotten a bit sad over Rachel's pink rug getting so dirty.
He was about to walk out of the room after Rachel, but he realized Kurt was still sitting on the floor, looking at the doll Blaine had named Elizabeth. He walked back over to him, and smiled nervously at him.
"Come on Kurt, Rach is really bossy when she doesn't get her way," Blaine told him, before sticking out his hand. Kurt looked up slightly with a small smile, and took Blaine's hand as he got up. His blue eyes weren't as shiny as they had been before, and his face was slowly losing the pink tint it had before.
"I know, she insisted I come in and play with her. When my dad said it was ok she dragged me here," Kurt told him, and Blaine laughed.
"Sounds like Rache-" Blaine started to say, before Rachel's voice traveled up the staircase.
"Blaine, get down here, daddy and papa are back!" Rachel called out from the bottom of the stairs, and Blaine looked over at Kurt.
"Come on, you can meet daddy and papa. If we're lucky, they might give us some snacks," Blaine told Kurt, and Kurt brightened up a bit. He nodded, and tugged on Blaine's hand as he walked out of the room. Blaine let Kurt drag him down the steps and to the front door, where his daddy and papa were coming in with bags of groceries and talking to Shannon.
"Yeah, they were like little ange-" Shannon was telling them, but stopped short when she saw the state of Blaine's clothes. Blaine looked down at himself, and realized he hadn't changed out of the dirty, wet clothes had had on.
"I tripped and fell outside daddy," Blaine explained, and his papa wrinkled his nose.
"You ok buddy?" He asked, putting aside the groceries on the small table next to the door and kneeling down to examine just how badly ruined his son's clothes were. Blaine nodded.
"Yep! And me and Rachel made a new friend today, Kurt," Blaine said, stepping aside slightly so they could see all of Kurt. His papa smiled, and held out his hand.
"I know, we were just talking with his daddy," He said, and Kurt hesitantly held out his hand that wasn't entrapped in Blaine's. Blaine watched his papa shake it gently, before standing up. Blaine's daddy closed the door as Shannon left, and handed his bags to his husband as he put the keys on the hook.
"I hope you like grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup Kurt," he said with a gentle smile. "Your dad said it'd be fine if you stayed for lunch."
Kurt nodded, and looked down at his feet.
"Thank you sir," Kurt said politely, and Blaine's daddy just continued to smile before squeezing Kurt's shoulder and picking up the bags on the table on his way to the kitchen. Kurt looked up as Rachel skipped over to them, a microphone in hand.
"They like you," She stated, before handing the microphone to Kurt. "I hope you like to sing Kurt, because we're going to play karaoke while my daddies get lunch ready. You can use my sparkly pink on today only because you're a guest and papa said I need to be nice to my guests."
Kurt looked down at the pink, bedazzled microphone in confusion, and Blaine just leaned towards him slightly before whispering into his ear, "I told you she was bossy."
This made Kurt laugh, and Rachel took that as a confirmation. She started walking back to the family room, before looking over her shoulder.
"Blaine, that means you too. You'll just have to clap for me and Kurt," She told her little brother, and this made Kurt laugh even more. Blaine could only smile. Kurt's laugh was really pretty, Blaine decided. Like the rest of him.
Blaine followed Rachel back to the family room, swinging his arm back and forth, forcing Kurt to do the same, since they were still holding hands. This made Blaine laugh, and he began to hum the tune the twelve dwarfs did when they began walking back home after a long day of work from the movie Snow White. Kurt looked over at Blaine, surprised, before he began to hum the tune along with him.
When they reached the family room, Rachel was running around, rearranging the chairs, and setting Blaine's toys and stuffed animals on them. She took Blaine by the hand and sat him down next to Mr. Wuffles and Velvet, before taking Kurt's hand and leading him to the front of the room.
Blaine's hand suddenly felt lonely without the feeling of Kurt's hand holding them, but he soon decided it was worth it when he heard Kurt start to sing 'Part of Your World' from Ariel (The Little Mermaid) with Rachel. Yep, he thought to himself as Kurt sang the closing notes to the song. Totally worth it.
Blaine opened the door slowly, wary of the warning Kurt's daddy had given him on how Kurt might be a bit mean at first. He had heard Kurt crying since he had been upstairs talking to his daddy with Kurt's daddy, and had been itching to go cheer his friend up. It was only after his daddy had made sure Blaine wouldn't push Kurt too hard if he didn't want to talk that he was finally let loose. He went down the steps two at a time, ignoring Kurt's repeated 'go away' and 'get out's that he managed to croak out in between his crying.
"I said go awa-" Kurt shouted, a tissue box sitting next to him, his knees bent up to his chest as he let tears fall down his face freely. He stopped short when he saw that it wasn't his dad this time, and he couldn't figure out if he was sad, mad, or happy that Blaine was there.
"Hi," Blaine said quietly, standing awkwardly at the end of the steps. After a few seconds of neither one of them saying anything, he made his way over to Kurt's bed and sat down next to the tidy and small pile of tissues on top of a sheet of paper. Kurt must be really sad if he didn't care enough to throw the tissues out, Blaine thought, but not too sad if he thought to keep his bed clean.
"Go away," Kurt said weakly. He had stopped crying loudly, but the tears still streamed down his face as he looked at something in front of his feet. Brows furrowed, Blaine looked to see a picture of a much younger Kurt and a really pretty lady laughing and smiling at the camera, with Kurt on a swing and the lady pushing him. Her hair was a much darker brown, but her eyes matched Kurt's exactly. And they had the same nose. That must be Kurt's mommy, Blaine thought.
"Is... Is that your mommy?" He asked hesitantly, and Kurt whipped his head to Blaine, before looking back at the photograph he had in front of him. He instantly flipped it onto its back, showing off the back of the frame.
"K-Kurt?" Blaine asked, and Kurt began to cry loudly. Even louder than he had been when Blaine had opened the door. Quickly, Blaine forgot about his daddy's warning on giving Kurt a little bit of space and pulled him into a huge hug, feeling Kurt shudder and shake against him as he began to sob loudly. Blaine had heard the door open upstairs, and heard the adults talk in hushed voices before the door closed again. He held Kurt as he cried and cried, the sobs getting quieter and quieter, until it was him just hiccuping and sniffling.
Kurt slowly pulled away from Blaine, and dried his face with the sleeve of his shirt.
"Her name was Elizabeth," Kurt said, his voice raspy and crackly. Blaine looked down at the photo, which Kurt had just flipped back over to look at. A small little memory tugged at him, he ignored it for that time. Scooting over a bit, he put his head on Kurt's shoulder, almost like to say 'I'm here'. After a few moments, Kurt put his head on top of Blaine's, and started to tell him stories about his mommy.
Blaine listened as Kurt told him her favorite colour was the sunset, and how she loved to make chocolate chip pancakes with Kurt on Saturday mornings before his dad woke up. He patiently said nothing as Kurt told him how she used to take him to the park by their house every day before he had to attend school, and how she would take him every Sunday afternoon when he was in school. He watched how animated Kurt would get talking about how they would swing and race to see who could reach the sky. He held Kurt's hand as he talked about how she got sick, and got a little better before she got sicker and sicker.
Blaine could only bite his lip as he tried not to cry when Kurt started to cry again, telling him about how everything seemed to just stand still when his mommy died. Kurt's dad hadn't been much better than Kurt, and their Aunt Jamie looked after them for a few weeks before she went back to New York and they moved to this side of Lima. And that's when Blaine remembered what had been nagging at him.
The first day he met Kurt, he named the doll Elizabeth.