A/N:

Blaine has been feeling so lost for so long, snief...this was hard to write. WARNING: the topic of cutting is discussed in this chapter, and will be explored beyond, if you might get triggered please don't read on. Cutting will not be the main focus of this story though, and nothing is really exactly as it seems to Kurt in the beginning.

That wrench around my heart

There is this awful glimpse of a moment that might very well stretch into a seemingly lasting hell, as it has so often before for Blaine when others had discovered what Blaine himself does not know how to name, never has - that moment, when the silence still growing around him and the only answer he has, but has never before dared to voice, is violently hammering against his heart from deep inside with more and more force, threatening to have him collapse.

But there is hold and hope this time.

There is Kurt's hand too, still running gently, palm warm and soft over his forearm.

Spending focus, offering love, the honesty of which even Blaine's fears cannot bring him to doubt – Kurt's loving gaze always there, deep and so warm for such a startling blue.

And Kurt's touch is so different from all the prodding touches and piercing stares he has ever felt from others when it comes to this.

He has given up years ago, long before Dalton to talk to anyone about this, to try to explain. Even the Warblers have no idea. Blaine functions expertly in the group, being a functioning member is appreciated. Opening up has always ment risking a breakdown. The Warblers, even though they don't know him all that well, not as well as some of them at least seem to think they do, they are the closest Blaine has to friends. I cannot risk being kicked out.

There are some who have, in the past, stopped and looked at him, questioning, maybe trying to offer something. Not sure...of anything but the fact that opening up had always brought more pain than relief, certainly never a feeling of closeness, alienation instead, Blaine had kept to himself the uncertainties that hold the pain deep within, what feels like miles and miles under his skin.

But now Blaine can feel his thoughts, his mind open to himself in ways he is not sure it ever has before, and it is terrifying, and it is…hope he feels with Kurt with him. Maybe now that I am not…that I don't feel so…alone, but he can already feel the workings of his mind stutter to a halt again, at the last word, trying to make out its echo inside the places he has spent so much time trying to convince himself are not filled with darkness, but empty. There are corners he does not want to turn, paths he has not taken in forever, it seems to him; maybe most tortured by the question what it will take for him to try.

Darkness, and it is like the thought alone drenches his whole mind…taking all light, all hopes sparked, to see.

Kurt can see, can see the moment all traces of happiness disappear from Blaine's features, can feel a shallow shiver, expertly suppressed, raise the hairs on Blaine's skin.

Kurt knows there must be dozens of scars covering Blaine's skin, can feel them under his touch. And it turns his stomach, but he does not allow it to do more. As shaken as he is by discovering this, all he finds himself thinking is, I wish I had known sooner. And then he finds himself hoping, since he cannot wish them to never have been at all, that the scars are old, that the boy he loves is not still seeing no other way.

There is no hesitation in Kurt's touch, no shift of his fingertips, no trying to make out shapes where the lines run. He is not trying to make sense of something that is Blaine's to explain, Blaine's story to tell.

There is No pity, No disgust, in Kurt's eyes, Blaine can hardly believe how lucky that makes him feel. How lucky he is to have Kurt.

Everyone who has ever found out before has tried to read him, like there is a message carved into his skin somewhere, or, behind his eyes.

But Kurt, Kurt is the one opening up to him now, offering a place of comfort, love and hold. Kurt is willing to listen to Blaine trying to spell out, what it is, it is so clear to Kurt …Blaine is not sure how to say. Blaine looks maybe even more lost to Kurt for a moment than that night at the side of the road, like…No one has ever simply waited for Blaine to…given Blaine the opportunity to try and say what it is that is tearing at him, so obviously, Kurt thinks, aching to be let out. And it might be so very ugly, the truth buried, but Kurt does not care, wants a part of the pain more than anything if it means …If it means Blaine will hurt less. And Kurt tries to put it into his eyes, to let Blaine feel that…I am here, I am not going anywhere.

Burt, Carole, and even Finn have noticed that something is happening at the other side of the table, minutes ago, when neither Blaine nor Kurt had responded to Finn's battle cry for a second round of "CAKE!" Blaine never fails to join in to that, and neither does Kurt, not when it comes to Carole's apple pie.

But with the way Blaine and Kurt have been wordlessly looking at each other for almost three minutes now, like there is no one else in the world, even Finn has known to stay quite, that something important is going on those few feet away from him, Burt, and Carole.

Blaine feels Kurt's right hand still on his arm, his left now coming to cup Blaine's right cheek, and suddenly there is this overwhelming warmth, and all the explanations and lack thereof stop to matter, because all Blaine can think with Kurt right there, all he can feel is, "I love you," and they hadn't said that yet.

"I love you too, Blaine."

And maybe this is what Blaine had to say and hear to fully open up, to be able to tell the rest, trust someone with…the fear his own questions bring, and with answers hoped to be untrue and so many drawn from his own darkest nightmares alone, even Blaine does not know if they are part of a reality long ceased to be, that he, even he himself cannot remember, has not dared to really try and remember…until now.

His right hand finding Kurt's left on his cheek, intertwining their fingers and moving them to his chest, to rest over his heart, Blaine trusts Kurt with everything, everything he knows for sure.

The first sound is a pleading sob of a name, "Kurt?"

"Yes?" Kurt replies softly.

"Kurt, I need…," another sob takes the last word and all meaning with it.

Beginning to trace along the skin on Blaine's forearm again, Kurt gently reassures Blaine of his presence, before he, losing eye contact with Blaine for a brief moment, leans in and whispers for Blaine alone to hear, "Blaine, I love you."

Moving back again, the boys reconnecting their eyes, it comes, with the first tears, all spilling out of Blaine's darkness, "I need help."

xxxx

There is a moment of heavy silence before Carole dares to try, What if I scare him? "Blaine? Burt has a health check next Tuesday."

Blaine looks at her frowning in confusion.

"Would you like to come along and talk to the doctor for a moment? She might be able to help."

"It...it is a woman?" Blaine asks with disturbing hesitation, fear showing he might have misheard.

And Burt hates that it seems to be so important to Blaine, hates his mind already rearing with what it might mean. "Yes, Kid."

Eyes, now fixed firmly on the table Blaine asks biting his lip in a voice just strong enough to still be heard, clearly afraid of the answer, "Can Kurt come?"

"Sweety, of course he can," Carole answers softly.

And Blaine nods, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing hard, "O-h-kay."

xxxx

Burt and Carole have a talk that night, about Blaine's parents, or rather about the fact that they know nothing about them.

"I don't think Kurt does either," Burt adds, worried.

But they decide quickly not to get them involved before they know more about what is torturing Blaine so.

xxxx

Kurt and Blaine find themselves on Kurt's bed not ten minutes after dinner, changed into PJs, Blaine's long sleeved, like, now that Kurt thinks about it, everything Kurt has ever seen him wear has been.

Sitting, Blaine in Kurt's lap, wrapped deep inside Kurt's embrace, Kurt's hand is again running up and down Blaine's left forearm. A touch Kurt knows to be, but yet does not understand why it is, comforting to Blaine. To Blaine it is a promise gently soothed into his long broken skin, that they will go looking for answers and questions together.

"Kurt?"

"Yes, Love."

And then Blaine is getting up and walking over to get something out of the pockets of the trousers he had been wearing all through dinner. A moment later he is back in Kurt's arms and holding out his hand between them, opening his palm slowly to reveal his marble puzzle piece infused with blue and green swirls, just like Kurt's.

With a smile and a kiss to Blaine's forehead Kurt reaches over to his nightstand, where he had earlier placed his, and now gently places his piece where it will always belong, with Blaine's, then covers Blaine's hand with his own palm, leans their foreheads together, fingertips coming to rest againast each other's wrists.

Eyes drifting shut, they stay like this for minutes.

At first Kurt does not know what he is feeling. He swallows all questions and stops himself from deliberately searching the skin with his fingertips or eyes for what he fears more than anything to be right to be the beginning of a scar situated so close to Blaine's palm Kurt's mind is screaming at him it can only mean one thing, then We have held hands so often, how have I never noticed before? But it has been winter and cold, and the clothes have been thick and long, and gloves have been worn so much of the time, and it is not like they have done more than hold each other, fully clothed, and kissed.

And Kurt is scared.

Then there is another shiver shaking Blaine, and Kurt is reminded that Blaine is scared too.

They climb under the covers together. Blaine comforted by Kurt's warmth reaching deeper than his skin, allowing for calm to settle with both of them between the sheets.

"I love you."

"I love you."

This night no one goes missing.

This night Blaine feels a little less lost in his own skin.