Disclaimer: I don't own any glee characters used or mentioned.
Oh and please allow me a little artistic license with a few facts here. Kays? I'll be as accurate as I can but I was not actually there, so I can't be as accurate as I'd like to be. Also, sorry that this chapter is kind of slow. I needed to set some things up.
Enjoy!
It was December 1944 and Blaine and Kurt were glad for once to be working near the furnaces. They were ashamed of such thoughts, but it was so cold outside and the fires were so warm.
Their guard was sitting in a chair, near the entrance to the furnace area, but every so often he would scoot his chair a little closer to the furnace and a little further from the door.
Blaine and Kurt ignored this man as they always did. Wishing he weren't there and they could 'bury' their dead in peace, so to speak.
As Blaine walked over to get the next body, Kurt swung the door shut on the furnace quickly and watched him.
His legs were unsteady and were shaking from having to carry all those people. It wasn't that they were extremely heavy, just that Blaine was growing more malnourished and weaker himself. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone. To Kurt, he didn't have to admit it. Kurt saw for himself how hard it was for Blaine to walk those few steps to the bodies and back, heaving them onto the rack.
As Blaine went back for another body, he stumbled and Kurt gasped quietly. However, Blaine regained his balance and continued walking. He grabbed another skeleton and brought it back over to the furnace, panting under the strain.
The dark-haired boy looked up at the pale face of his companion and Kurt attempted a grim smile which turned into more of a grimace.
Blaine grimaced back and turned back around for another body. They kept up their pace as usual, but Kurt was more distracted. He worried about Blaine. That stumble was only the beginning, Kurt knew. Before his father had been deemed unfit to work, there had been signs. He had stumbled more often than usual. He had had more trouble breathing than normal. He had tried to take breaks while he was not under the scrutiny of the guards, and then would jump back to action the minute one looked his way.
Kurt scrutinized Blaine's every move, picking up nuances of weakness.
When their work was done for the day and they had been escorted back to the barracks, Kurt glanced at Blaine with a worried expression.
Blaine caught his eyes and his brow furrowed as he said, "why do you keep looking at me like that Kurt?"
Kurt was a little taken aback. He had hoped his looks had been discreet. If he even looked at someone the wrong way, they were bound to be accused of being gay. "Like what?"
"Like I'm on death's doorstep or something." Blaine answered softly.
"Well," Kurt had to clear his throat before he continued. "It's just that, I remembered my dad today." He started, getting his bowl of watered-down 'soup.'
"And...?" Blaine asked getting his own bowl.
"Well," Kurt repeated. "You reminded me of him today, and not in a good way."
Blaine turned his confused, questioning gaze on him.
"Before he..." Kurt took a deep breath, "before he was considered unfit for work, he had a lot of struggles doing the work he was told to do. And lately, you've been breathing harder, and straining more to carry them. Then...when you tripped today..."
Blaine's face transformed from confusion to realization. "You're worried about me." He stated.
Kurt looked shocked. "Of course. You're my friend."
For some reason, when Kurt said "friend" Blaine's heart dropped. He felt confused and tired, very tired. "Well thanks for caring about me Kurt, but I'm fine. Really. That little stumble today was...nothing. I barely even remember it."
They had reached their bunks and both of them climbed in, turning on their sides to face the other.
Shots were fired outside, near a field set aside for 'exercising' prisoners. This was not a new occurrence and nobody screamed or really reacted, except for the prisoners that fell to the ground on the field, bullet holes in their bodies. They had to keep the furnace supplied somehow, not that anyone but Kurt Blaine and a select few others knew what happened on the other side of that wall.
It was a few weeks later, in early January before Blaine showed any sign of fatigue other than bags under his eyes. Kurt wouldn't have caught it, if it hadn't been for the guard who moved just slightly, suddenly more alert.
Kurt had been shutting the furnace door, just as Blaine slumped against the wall, using it's support to hold himself up.
The guard stood, staring at Blaine and this drew Kurt's gaze as well.
Blaine hurried to straighten himself and he moved over to pick up a body.
Carrying the body back though, he stumbled and this time he couldn't catch himself. He fell to the ground and couldn't help inwardly cursing as Kurt gasped softly by the rack, ready and waiting for the next body.
A few of the others working at the other three furnaces, glanced up at the scene unfolding before them, before going back to their own work, each silently praying for Blaine's well-being.
Kurt wanted to hurry forward to help Blaine carry the body, he was suddenly terrified. He remembered the feeling he'd gotten when they'd taken his father away from him and this was what it had felt like.
He couldn't loose another person he cared about. However, as he stepped forward he was stopped in his tracks, frozen with fear.
The guard who had been sitting in the chair had walked over to Blaine and was looming above him. He bent down slowly and said quietly, so only Blaine could hear him, "This might hurt a little but it's for your own good." Then a whole lot louder, as if he were putting on a show, he said, "What do you think you're doing? No resting here! Get up!"
He pushed his fist into Blaine's side, but then Blaine felt it under his stomach and felt the hand pushing up against his ribcage.
Blaine pushed himself up as best he could and found himself on his feet, thanks to the guard's assistance. "Now get to work!" The guard yelled again, causing Kurt to jump a little.
Blaine nodded and was about to pick up the body he had dropped, when suddenly it wasn't on the ground anymore. With a look of disgust the guard had picked up the body with one had and slung it onto the rack, as if he had been showing off his strength.
Startled, Blaine hurried back to get another body as Kurt shut the furnace door and glared at the guard as discreetly as he could.
However, he sent a word of thanks to whatever higher power might exist that Blaine hadn't been deemed unfit for work.
Blaine came back with another body and everything continued on like normal for the rest of the day.
As Kurt and Blaine were being escorted out to the other side of the wall, they passed their replacements going in. Apparently the furnaces stopped for no one.
Before their guard could disappear, Blaine turned to him and quietly said, "Thank you. I don't know..." he trailed off, feeling his thanks inadequate, but they were all that he could offer to this guard.
The guard shrugged. "My best friend was Jewish," he lowered his voice even further and then said, "so is my fiance."
Blaine looked a little surprised, but only nodded and whispered a thank you once again. Then the guard left them yelling that Blaine had better not mess up again. Kurt looked at Blaine shocked.
"Why on earth did you thank him?" Kurt asked, stunned. He said it a little louder than Blaine would have wished and Blaine said, "shh," very quietly before answering. "He helped me up when I tripped."
Kurt still looked confused so Blaine told him of his experience and munched on his moldy piece of bread as he told him.
His shock was still in place as they climbed into their bunks later that evening. Kurt couldn't believe that any German soldier could be so...hypocritical. He was being cruel to Jews and numerous other groups of people, yet his best friend had been Jewish. His fiance was Jewish and there was no telling where she was.
"How can someone be so...so two-faced like that?"
"He's scared." Blaine said, a sudden epiphany coming to him. "I'm sure he's not the only one out there like that. Him and his fiance probably got engaged before all of this..." he gestured around at the camp before continuing, "started. Then when the laws started changing more rapidly, they 'broke it off' or something and she went into hiding."
Kurt was a little taken aback but didn't say anything. "Well, he should've married her anyway."
"That wouldn't have done either one of them any good Kurt." Blaine said quietly. "Isn't that why you and your father distanced yourselves from, uh..."
"Carole?" Kurt asked.
"Right, Carole and her son, Finn right? You didn't want them being dragged into all of this with you. It was bad enough your dad put himself in that situation. Neither one of you could stand harming Carole and Finn. So you made sure to put some distance between the four of you."
Kurt was quiet. What Blaine was saying was true, but he didn't want to admit it.
"I bet he has his family hiding her or keeping tabs on her for him." Blaine said.
Kurt nodded and said, "it was my dad's idea to remove ourselves from Finn and Carole's lives. He could have just turned me in himself and then married Carole. He should have." Kurt said, looking on the verge of tears, even though he didn't have any more tears to cry.
Blaine gave Kurt a shocked look. "Kurt, your father wasn't about to let you come here and go it alone. He supported you when you needed him the most and he loved you. He wouldn't have done what he did otherwise."
Kurt nodded, but didn't say anything.
Blaine continued. "You amaze me, Kurt. You aren't scared to be who you are. Somehow they haven't been able to take that from you. They've tried but you just keep on clinging to who you are, even after they discriminated against you and branded you." He said, gesturing towards the pink triangle on Kurt's shirt.
"Yes, well it's not exactly high fashion, but then again I don't have many choices in here, so I figure the pink triangle was as good as I was going to get." He smiled and Blaine smiled back.
"How do you do it Kurt? How do you stay true to who you are? How have you survived here?"
"Well, there's still plenty of time for me to mess up, but I think the reason I can be who I am is because they branded me. That combined with the fact that my father came here with me and loved me without condition and accepted me for who I was has definitely helped. If he had rejected me, I probably would have done the same thing, and I don't know who I would be today. It's because of him mostly that I can be myself. I'm living for him now."
Blaine nodded and wished he could've had half the relationship with his father that Kurt had had with Burt.
That night, Blaine went to sleep thinking of all that Kurt had told him and wishing he could be that open with anyone, including himself. Blaine hid himself behind the facade his parent's created for him. He hid because his mother hid, his father hid, and for as long as he could remember that was what he'd been taught to do. Blaine realized that night that he didn't even know himself anymore and he vowed to figure out who he really was before he died, whenever that might be.
December rolled by quickly and moved into January faster than Blaine had ever remembered it doing before.
He hadn't even realized they had missed passover and Christmas until Kurt told him Merry Christmas on December 25th.
They didn't have any gifts to exchange so they told each other what they most wanted for Christmas, once Dachau was, if it ever was, liberated.
"I want to see Carole and Finn again." Kurt said. "I want to tell Carole my Dad loved her, and she was the closest thing I had to a mother in...well a long time."
Blaine would've asked about Kurt's Mom, but just then a guard strolled up towards their furnace and they had to be quiet.
When he walked away again, Kurt asked, "So what do you want for Christmas once this is all over."
"I want...to find someone who brings out the best in me, and loves me for who I am. No judgments, no unreasonable expectations, and no hiding behind a fake me that had been invented for me."
Kurt nodded. "Don't we all wish for that." He said wistfully.
Then they wasted away the rest of the day, coming up with luxuries that they'd love to have, just for fun.
Now it was a a stark and cold January and thoughts of Christmas wishes were gone. Blaine and Kurt couldn't do much other than focus on their 'job' and the seemingly endless number of bodies.
Blaine worried, secretly, that they'd been doing this job to long. Eventually the guards would decide he and Kurt were risky to keep around. They knew to much, Blaine didn't know if they'd make it to liberation whenever it came, but then he realized he couldn't do anything to help them by worrying about it so he tried to push those unpleasant thoughts to the back of his mind.
Kurt was also a favorite topic in his mind. He felt a strange need to protect Kurt. Strange because Kurt had made it this far as well as could be expected. True he'd had his father before, but Blaine could tell Kurt was a strong person. He figured his motivation for wanting to protect Kurt was because he cared about him like a little brother. Though, when Blaine thought about it, he just didn't see Kurt like a little brother. He saw Kurt as an equal, but simmering underneath all of his thoughts, Blaine knew it was more than that. Subconsciously he could tell there was more to his and Kurt's relationship.
Kurt on the other hand, knew exactly what he felt for Blaine. It made protecting him all the more difficult. He couldn't stand to have Blaine associated with him in that way. Blaine was here because he was a Jew. Kurt was here because he was gay. The difference was the world in general looked on Jews more kindly than homosexuals. At least, outside of Germany. Kurt was sure of it. So he tried not to look at Blaine directly, or touch him too often.
His actions only confused Blaine further and he spent most of January muddling through exactly how he felt about Kurt.
His epiphany came right at the end of January.
The two boys had been working together now for 3 or so months and Blaine realized how awkward Kurt acted around him. Sort of how girls had acted around Blaine in school. They giggled and gaped and the girls who were more shy avoided eye contact and tended to keep their hands close to their bodies.
Blaine had turned down more girls than he could count. Not because they were unattractive, some of them had been very pretty. Simply because Blaine was not attracted in the same way to any of them.
With Kurt things were different, he acted like a school girl with a crush sometimes, but there was an underlying fear in his eyes that also held him back and Blaine realized it hurt to see Kurt holding back his feelings. Blaine needed Kurt and cared about Kurt almost more than his father and certainly more than his own life. He just didn't fully grasp how to deal with the new found knowledge that he liked Kurt in that way.
The only thing he was sure of was he cared about Kurt and Kurt deserved someone who could always be there for him and protect him and his rights to like whom ever he wanted.
Hey, I'm sorry this chapter was really slow. I just needed some time to set some things up and hopefully the next chapter will move faster. We're nearing a major point in the story and I hope I do it justice. It may or may not come up in the next chapter, but in the next two for sure. Also I do plan on having a few other Glee characters in this story, but they'll come in later on.
Anyways, remember REVIEWS = LOVE! 3
Thankies,
OSK