Through Someone Else's Eyes

I.
I went out for the groceries and I came back
with a heavy heart,
telling songs of long lost loving
to my faded old guitar.
And you don't hear me pining
for the things I've never known,
but your eyes are like stars and planets
and they're calling me home.

The groceries are always delivered on a Tuesday morning. His mother - or most often than not, Blaine himself - places the order of a Monday, and then Tuesday morning, the food and supplies are delivered to the apartment by the local grocery store. Their store in New York - no matter which hotel they're staying at this trip - is always the little privately owned convenience store just off Broadway, and the delivery guy is a tall lanky guy named Aaron with a flop of brown hair and a backwards cap who always hands Blaine the groceries with a smile.

But this morning is Tuesday and Aaron isn't knocking on the door, and Blaine knows he ordered the groceries yesterday. It takes him a minute to find the number, buried beneath yesterday's paper, and then he's dialling.

'Hello?' the owner of the grocer asks, obviously rushed off his feet by the slight gasp in his breath.

'Hi, it's Blaine Anderson. I was wondering if the delivery to Apartment 45 at the Bellington Hotel was on its way?'

'Oh!' the man says and he can hear the creak of the office chair as the owner sits down. 'Blaine! I'm really sorry, kid, but we've been run off our feet this week. One of the A&P round the corner is closed for renovations so everyone's coming to us, and your order was late on the list so it's coming tomorrow, okay?'

'But we have no food!' Blaine argues.

'Sorry, kid. You'll just have to come in and collect, Aaron doesn't have time to swing by your place and deliver when he's hardly getting a lunch break as it is.'

'I can't just-' he goes to continue angrily, but the sentence dies on his lips. What's really stopping him from stepping outside the hotel, walking a block to the grocers and picking up their shopping?

'Thanks,' he finishes instead and hangs up, replacing the phone on the counter.

It's easy, right? Just a few steps out the door, a few more to the elevator and down to ground level and then outside. Easy.

He's not agoraphobic, he's not scared of the outside, he just-

He doesn't go outside and meet people in person. He sits in his room and does schoolwork and writes poetry and-

Maybe he is just a little bit scared. Of what people are going to think of him, with his too pale skin, and bags under his eyes from not sleeping. He slips into the bathroom, examines his face in the mirror. Definitely pale, but at least he doesn't look too tired, especially if he splashes his face with water.

His clothes are presentable, his hair too, and if he just smiles - God, can he even remember how to smile? - he'll be able to pull off the image of someone who actually is a part of the world they live in. He slips his hands into his pocket, hums a tune that he hopes is uplifting, and slips out of the bathroom towards the front door, grabbing his wallet and key card from the counter.

It's only New York City. He's been here plenty of times before. It's not an alien thing, this city.

But as he steps out of the elevator and crosses the lobby, he wonders maybe it's not the city that's the alien.

Maybe it's him.

It's crowded and busy, the street, and he slips between pedestrians, one hand over his pocket to keep his wallet safe. The grocer is only a block or two away, only a block or two, but when he gets there, his heart is already high in his chest, beating heavily. His palms are sweating, the city is too big, and maybe he could get lost, and he feels fifteen again, unsure of the world.

The doors slide upon with the hum of automatic rotors and he slips into the cool atmosphere. The store is crowded and he pushes past customers, trying to keep his elbows and shoulders to himself. 'Hello?' he calls out as he battles his way towards the counter. 'Hello?'

'Kid!' a man says and he recognises the voice of the owner, as he must have recognised his own.

'Hey! Um, have you got my stuff somewhere?' he asks. The man gives him a thumbs up and disappears into a side room and Blaine wants to get out of here. It's too crowded. The world shouldn't be this crowded. Ohio, before they started moving, was never this crowded.

'Wait?' someone asks from beside him. The boys voice is high and light, it doesn't quite match his frame, but it matches him entirely, and Blaine turns away quickly, trying not to look, to stare. 'Did he just say he's getting your stuff?'

The boy puts his hands on his hips, turns slightly in Blaine's direction. He should meet his eye, he should respond, but he just rolls his lip between his teeth and mumbles, 'Yeah, I guess.'

'Because I've been waiting here for half an hour, and I'm still waiting! He just keeps telling me he's too busy, that my order hasn't been made up yet, but I called it in this morning!' This he calls towards the direction of the side room, and Blaine shrinks further back, doesn't answer.

'Normally,' the boy continues, and maybe he's used to holding his own conversation, because apparently Blaine isn't needed to make this work, 'I just get my stuff delivered, but apparently they're so backed up today that they can't get anything out to anybody. I mean, I come here for the good service, don't you? When did you order?'

'Uh-' Blaine murmurs. 'Yesterday.'

'Oh, that must be horrible! I guess I do ask for things quickly, but they should be able to get on it, right?'

He looks like he's about to start moving towards Blaine, but the owners voice is ringing out, and Blaine looks up, sees him carrying his bags out from the side room. Heaps of bags. For the first time, Blaine remembers how many groceries he actually ordered yesterday. He suddenly wishes he'd brought a backpack with him or something, so he might be able to get it all home.

'Wow, how many of you are there?' the boy beside him asks, the edge of a grin in his voice.

'Uh, two? And a half. Kind of.'

And then he can hear the smile slip from the other boys voice. 'Oh.' And that oh is like a deflating balloon, sinking down, down and settling in Blaine's gut like guilt.

'Um-' he says, trying to rectify the situation. What does he do? What does he say? Why is the boy suddenly upset? 'Me and my mum, and sometimes my brother.' The owner places the bags in his hands and he moves them around, trying to get a grip where the bags aren't going to break and collapse on the ground.

'Oh.'

And that oh surprises him, makes him turn around and catch the boys eye, catch it, and the bags nearly slip from his grasp.

He is breathtakingly beautiful. Slim, elegant face. Perfectly laughing mouth. Bright, impossibly blue eyes.

He tries to move, but maybe, just maybe, Blaine's feet are actually glued to the spot.

When Blaine first told his father he was gay, it wasn't a voluntary thing. Absolutely not, no. If Blaine had had it his way, his father would never find out, and would be turning in his grave when he did.

But he was thirteen and young, and when he wasn't liking girls the way his brother liked girls, he didn't know what he was supposed to do. When he called him out on it, asked him in that laughing, mocking tone, 'Has Blainey got a crush on Hannah Barker?' his heart raced, his skin burned and he wanted nothing more than to shout at him, pound his fists into him, scream, 'Don't talk about things you don't understand! I don't like girls! I like boys!'

And when he did, he only felt Cooper's hand catching his upper arm, dragging him out into the living room, saying in a calm, chilling voice, 'Did you hear what Blaine just said?'

It didn't matter that he didn't mean it, not like they thought he meant it, not like he knew. It wasn't like he was in love with his best friend or anything, he'd never been in love, he didn't know. He just knew that when he looked at girls, his heart was supposed to leap into his chest, and blood pump faster through his veins, but it didn't. He didn't get that feeling unless he was looking at boys.

And even today, he'd never met anyone who he'd actually wished to be with, longed for like his heart was trying to crawl out of his chest and meet the other's own. Not until now.

'Are you okay?' the boy asks, leaning down to meet Blaine, where he's desperately trying to gather the groceries he dropped and keep the boy's gaze all at once. He can't look away, can't break that contact now it's formed. Those eyes burn into his and he can't, he can't, he can't.

'Are you okay?'

'Um,' he manages to get out, reaches his hand out, captures the last bag he can see out of the corner of his eye and tries to stand up. His knees almost fall out beneath him, shaking too much to hold his weight, but the boy's hand is reaching for his elbow. His fingers - long, elegant, impossible fingers - are balancing him, holding him up.

'Let me walk you home. My groceries aren't going to be ready any time soon, anyway.'

His fingers aren't leaving, they're gripping gripping gripping, taking one of the heavy bags from his numb fingers and he feels so stupid. How can this boy - this perfect, impossible boy - be doing this to him?

'Where do you live?' he asks, shakes Blaine's arm slightly. 'Where are we going?'

'Uh- the uh- the Bellington.' He hopes he'll know where that is, because Blaine doesn't think he'd be able to find his way home at this rate, especially with the way he can't stop staring.

'Do I have something on my face?' the boy asks, lets his hand leave Blaine's elbow to brush against his own pale cheek. Blaine let's out a shaky breath.

The boy assures himself that nothing is there, holds out his now free hand for another bag of Blaine's groceries. 'Sorry, what was your name again?'

'Blaine.' The word is out of Blaine's lips before he can think about it.

'Blaine, hmm.' And when the boy returns it, his lips forming his name, he thinks he might just drop the bags all over again. 'Kurt.'

Kurt.

He nods stupidly, blinks quickly and tries to tear his eyes away enough to reach the door, the street and back home. Kurt's fingers are prying the bags away from his grasp, evening the load between them. He nods, gently, motions for Blaine to push his way out the door and then they're on the street, heading towards the hotel. The breeze is tight in Blaine's lungs but now that he's not looking at Kurt (Kurt, Kurt, Kurt) he can see, can guide his own way through the streets.

'How old are you, Blaine?' Kurt calls, raising his voice over the sound of the traffic. He's trying to catch his eye again, but Blaine keeps staring straight ahead. He can't get lost again, he can't let himself.

'Seventeen,' he says, ducks around a woman with a pram. 'Almost eighteen.'

'I'm nineteen.' Kurt's really good at answering the unspoken questions, continue a conversation without anything must there, but Blaine listens, takes it all in, and hopes someday he'll get to use this information, not matter how unlikely that chance. 'Just, though,' he continues. 'I'm a freshman at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.'

Blaine doesn't say I'm still in high school. He doesn't say I'm kind of homeschooled.

'What colleges are you looking at?' Kurt asks, and Blaine turns his head slightly, catches himself before he catches Kurt's eye, and then looks ahead quickly again.

'Uh, I'm not really sure yet.'

'What are you thinking of majoring in?'

Blaine had never thought about it before, never considered what going to college would mean. 'English,' he says. It's a slip of the tongue, too quick for him to really have thought about it, but now that it's out there it makes sense to him, simple easy sense.

'Oh, that sounds cool! I wish I understood my own language much better than I do! I'd love to major in English, but I suck at writing essays and all that kind of stuff. I'm a singer, a countertenor. I act as well. All that's easy for me.'

'Mm.'

'This is the hotel, right?' And they're there, at the revolving door, and Kurt still has Blaine's bags. He reaches out for them, but Kurt shakes his head. 'No, don't be silly, I'm walking you up to your apartment, you can't carry all this stuff on your own.'

Blaine presses the button for the elevator with shaky fingers.

Kurt slips into his apartment, into his space, and puts Blaine's bags down on the kitchen counter. 'Can I help you unpack?' he asks.

It's a simple question, a neutral, innocent question, but Blaine's eyes dart to the clock, desperate. He feels out of place, and this is the one place he doesn't feel out of place. It's almost three, his mother could be coming back from meetings any time from now on, or Cooper could be turning up for a quick meal, or any combination thereof. He turns back to Kurt, keeps his eyes lowered on the groceries.

'Um, my mother could be home soon. You should probably go.' He pulls the milk bottle from the bag and pushes it into the fridge.

'Oh.'

And that oh is so laden with things that Blaine doesn't understand, human emotions he only really hears in his mothers voice; that utter disappointment, complete loss of hope.

'But if you really want to, I guess it will only be a few minutes, right?'

He can see the smile, in his peripheral vision, twitch at the corner of Kurt's mouth. It is small, but it is there, and unlike when he sees the same look on his mothers face, Blaine's stomach swoops upwards.

Kurt steps closer, pulls out cereal and bread. 'Where do these go?' he asks. A quick point and he is being led in the right direction. He's good with groceries, remembers where things go from the few directions Blaine gives. After unpacking each bag, he twists it into a tight knot, places them in the centre of the bench.

He's quickly finished the bags on his side of the table, leaning over to glance at the receipt, and Blaine is still going on his, too caught up in giving Kurt directions and keeping himself from staring. He doesn't start on Blaine's side though, for which he is grateful, but instead swings his body towards and away from the bench, humming softly.

'What are you doing?' Blaine asks before he's even aware of the question.

'When do your parents get home?'

'My mother's an architect; I'm never quite sure.'

'And your dad?'

And that's the question, isn't it? How does Blaine tell a boy - a very attractive boy, despite the fact that he has no real assurance that he's gay - that his father is dead? And that he's glad about it?

'Um, my dad's not around anymore.'

'Divorce?' He words it as a question. Blaine's never heard it worded as a question before.

'No,' he says. 'No.'

And Kurt's eyes go big, glassy. 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I didn't realise, I didn't mean to be so rude!' He's backing away from the table, holding his arms close to himself as if trying to protect himself from Blaine. The door is behind him and he reaches blindly with one hand, snagging it and stepping out, away, out of Blaine's space.

He's already in the corridor when he whispers, 'My mother. My mother died when I was eight.'

But then he's gone, slipping from the apartment and down the corridor and Blaine can't move, can't think, is just standing there, wondering what happened.

He grips the edge of the island, holds himself upright, and his hand skids on the receipt. It's the same receipt that Kurt was studying so closely.

At one end, almost ripped away from the rest of the sheet, is a scrawled number, a phone number, followed by a bright smiling face. It's most definitely not the same face Kurt had when he slipped out the door.

Blaine rips the number fully off and slips it into his pocket.

II.
You've tipped my balance
and now I'm not sure where I stand.
Is it possible for you to leave my life as you entered it?
No!