DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee, nor am I associated with it or Ryan Murphy. I am just an out-of-college daydreamer who sometimes gets into these writing funks and ends up tossing out a story after letting the idea sit in my brain for a few days!

Sometimes You Need More Than Courage

By: xSlythStratasfaction (formerly known as LadyStrata821)

Pairing: Kurt x Blaine (friendship only)

A/N: I decided to write this after having nothing but Klaine stuck in my mind for a week. I tried to go back and rewatch a lot of the scenes the two of them had together and then I started wondering about the mysterious Blaine and his past. That's when I thought of perhaps writing something about him (I'm pretty sure many others have done this as well; I haven't gotten around to reading many Klaine fics, so if this idea has been overdone, I apologize!). Anyways, Blaine's story will be a mix of stuff that I've seen a few of my own gay/lesbian friends go through. This story is dedicated to those friends. I hardly see or hear from any of them very much anymore, but I still think of them! This takes place between the episodes of SEXY and ORIGINAL SONG!

WARNING: There's some language in here that may be offensive!

"Blaine? Blaine, darling?"

Maria Anderson tip-toed into the pitch black bedroom; her dark eyes struggling to gain focus in such a darkened room. She shuffled across the plush carpet until she felt her knees bump the firm mattress of her son's bed. Carefully, she leaned down and felt around until she felt the top of her son's curly head. She rested her hand upon his cheek.

"Blaine, sweetie, wake up and come downstairs for dinner."

Her son mumbled something in his sleep before he curled his body away from her. She heard him take a deep hiss of breath as he aggravated his back injury. Sighing, she reached out and patted around until she found his nightstand. She reached up and clicked on the tableside lamp, gazing down at her sleeping son.

He looked so broken, so small.

He was laying on his stomach, one of his legs pulled up towards his chest. One of his arms rested underneath his head and the other was stretched out over his pillow. A long line of drool stretched from his open mouth and stuck to his pillow. He looked adorable, much like he had when he was just a baby.

The only differences between her little baby Blaine then and her teenage son Blaine now were the dark bags under his eyes and the faint bruising on his body. He looked so frail, so pathetic. It honestly hurt her to see him like that.

"Blaine, please wake up. Please… before your father gets up here."

She reached out and placed a hand on his lower back, shaking it a bit, but quit when he jerked away from her violently. His body hissed again and she pulled away from him like she had just gotten burnt.

"Oh Blaine, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch your back… I forgot!"

He didn't respond to her; just curled up into himself some more before he whimpered and started to snore again.

"Is he ever going to get up?"

William Anderson's voice growled from within the doorway to the bedroom. The tall, light skinned man glared down at his sleeping son, obviously disgusted at what he saw.

"Why is he sleeping? At this hour, no less!"

Maria glanced at her son before turning back to her husband, "He's not feeling very well tonight, honey. I think we should let him sleep."

"Like hell I will," William countered. "Gary and Charlene are waiting downstairs for him at this very moment and I will not have Blaine's laziness keep us from enjoying a friendly dinner!"

He pushed past his wife and shook his son rather forcefully; his hands were pressed against Blaine's back, causing the boy to jerk forward and scream out in pain.

"Oh fuck! God damnit!"

Blaine practically jumped out of bed when he felt the searing hot pain enter his spine. He sat up quickly and found himself staring at both of his parents. His mother was watching him in sadness, her eyes downcast towards his lower back. His father, on the other hand, was staring at him intensely, as if he were uber pissed about something.

"You watch your language, young man!"

Blaine's eyebrows raised for a second. First off, he was very confused as to why his father was having such a fit at him… and secondly, why were his parents in his room? They hadn't paid diddly squat attention to him since he was suspended from school a few months ago and now all of a sudden, they wanted to be a family again. It was just too confusing for him.

"Why are you guys in my room?" He meant the question in all honesty, no snark, nothing. However, his father took his question as a smart-ass remark and blew up.

"How dare you try to tell me I cannot come into your room! I pay for the fucking bills in this house and I'm not about to let my stupid good-for-nothing son try to-"

"WILLIAM!" Maria jumped forward then, pushing her husband out of the way. "Stop this! Blaine doesn't understand why we're in here; he's still half-asleep! Stop yelling at him!"

But the damage was already done. Stupid good-for-nothing son… the words repeated themselves in Blaine's head over and over again and he felt his eyes water with embarrassment and shame.

"I don't give a rat's ass if he's half-asleep! He needs to get his ass downstairs for dinner RIGHT NOW! You hear me, Blaine? Right. Now."

Mr. Anderson then turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. Mrs. Anderson stared at Blaine for a moment before she expressed her opinion. "You should listen to your father, sweetie." And then she quietly followed her husband out of the room.

Blaine just sat there on his bed, confused and upset. He didn't know what was going on, but he was honestly afraid to find out.

Blaine's head was resting on Kurt's thigh now. As he talked, more tears leaked from his eyes and dampened Kurt's pant leg. The countertenor didn't mind though; just the fact that Blaine was curled up against him, practically bearing his broken soul to him, was enough to make Kurt want to offer his entire existence for Blaine to cry on.

"Did you go to the dinner?"

Blaine nodded slowly and brought his hand up to rest on Kurt's kneecap. When his fingers brushed the delicate area, Kurt shuddered. The curly headed boy in his lap almost jerked upwards, scared that he had pushed a boundary or something, but Kurt was quick to stop him.

"Don't move, Blaine. I'm just-" He paused for a moment, trying to think of an excuse to give for why he trembled at Blaine's touch. "I just, uh… I'm ticklish."

He heard a soft chuckle from Blaine in response.

"Sorry I-"

"Blaine." Kurt's voice was soft. He ran his fingers through Blaine's curls, now mostly all freed from their gelled state, "Don't apologize. There's nothing to apologize for."

The shorter boy nodded.

It had taken him a few minutes to actually roll out of bed, plus another half and hour to actually dress himself, but finally, Blaine exited his room and made his way towards the dining room.

He had no idea who his father invited over for dinner, but the last thing he was wanting was to get into another argument with his dad. He already got verbally lashed at earlier when he was jerked awake by his father and he wasn't wanting a repeat performance.

"After this, I'm going back to bed." He whispered this to himself as he painfully tip-toed down the stairs and entered the foyer.

"Blaine, darling, is that you? Hurry up! We're in the dining room."

His mother's voice sounded pained, as if she wasn't really wanting him to come into the dining room. Instead it sounded like she was just obeying her husband's orders. This hurt Blaine to think of. His mother was usually a very strong, loving woman, but as of late (especially after the hallway fight), she had morphed into this weak, backseat woman: always doing what her husband said. He didn't really want to know what was going on between his mother and father, but he was very sure that his sexuality had something to do with it.

Sighing, he placed a hand on the handles to the double doors leading to the dining room and swung them open slowly.

"Sorry I'm late, mother. I was just-"

Blue eyes.

Blue eyes and black hair.

Blue eyes and black hair and…Joshua.

All the air in Blaine's lungs seemed to fly out of his body at that very moment. Sitting before him were Josh's parents… and sitting next to them was none other than Joshua himself. The dark haired boy was sipping on a glass of ice water and his blue eyes were watching Blaine intently.

He hardly looked like the Joshua that Blaine had once been best friends with, hardly like the Joshua that Blaine had once been in love with. He was starting to look more sinister, more mean… like Leonard Addams.

Blaine coughed violently as his body realized that he wasn't getting any oxygen whatsoever into his lungs. His mother jumped up from her spot at the table and ran over to pat him on the back. He stopped her quickly though, before she could place her hands on his back. He really wasn't wanting to feel his spine on fire again.

"Oh, Maria, you are so right! He does look ill. Oh poor Blaine!"

Josh's mother, Charlene, stared at him with the same deep blue eyes that her son had. She had a napkin pressed to her lips and she seemed very concerned over the fact that Blaine was practically dry heaving in the dining room.

"If you are going to be sick in here, you'd better go the bathroom, Blaine!"

His father was pointing towards the double doors, gesturing to Blaine that he should leave immediately. However, Blaine just straightened up, taking slow breaths in and out, slowly allowing his lungs to expand with the air that he had forgotten to give them earlier.

"I'm very sorry about that," his voice came out small and meek. "I haven't been feeling well as of late."

He locked eyes with Joshua at that moment and the other boy downcast his gaze quickly. Upon seeing the quick glance away from his face, Blaine knew that Josh had felt something. Whether it be disgust or sadness or whatever, Josh wouldn't have turned his eyes away if he weren't feeling something.

Slowly, Blaine walked up to his seat at the table (unfortunately right across from Josh) and sat down. He tried as best as he could not to lean his back up against the high-backed chair and instead decided to sit on the edge of his seat.

"Blaine, your posture is horrendous. Sit up straight."

Hard hazel eyes stared back at his own as his father glared at him. Blaine didn't want to challenge his father, especially not after supposedly having challenged him back in his bedroom, so he carefully leaned back against his chair. Once his back touched the wooden backed chair, his body cringed, his face contorted, and a soft hiss escaped his lips.

This expression did not go unnoticed by Josh nor his family.

"Oh dear, Blaine. Are you alright? Something wrong with your back?" Josh's father Gary spoke up as he watched the smaller boy reach back and caress his throbbing spine.

"I'm fine, sir. Just a sports injury, that's all."

His mother bristled at his comments and objected, "No, it wasn't a sports injury, Blaine. Don't lie to all of us." She turned to her husband and their guests, "Someone has been beating Blaine up at school. He came home today with a horrid array of bruises all over his body and there's a massive one on his back. It looks like the markings of a fist."

"Oh my!" Charlene blinked in horror as she glanced at Blaine's flushed face. "Oh honey, why didn't you tell anyone?" She then turned to Joshua, "Did you know about this Joshua?"

Josh shook his head no and looked down at his feet.

"Maria, we will not talk about this at the table. This is Blaine's problem, not Charlene, Gary, or even Joshua's problem. We will deal with this." William Anderson was now glaring at his wife. He then turned his glare towards his son, who was watching Josh with a hurt expression on his face.

Mrs. Anderson rolled her eyes at her husband, suddenly feeling more brave than she had been in previous weeks. She turned back to her guests and continued, "I think the boy who has been hurting Blaine is that nasty Leonard Addams kid. He beat Blaine up a few months ago and ever since then, I think he's been bothering Blaine more and more."

The sound of Leonard's name coming from his mom's mouth made Blaine sick. He heard twin soft gasps come from across the table and he looked up to find both of Josh's parents staring at one another. Gary turned towards Blaine, then towards his son, and then back to Blaine, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to find words.

"Leonard has been doing this to you?"

Blaine said nothing and just stared down at his plate. Oh, they were having steak and potatoes for dinner. Oh, and broccoli too! It looked delicious. He continued to busy himself with what was on his plate until he felt everyone's eyes boring into him. Their gazes felt like fire on his skin. He looked back up at all of them and locked eyes with Josh, finding the ocean blue orbs narrowed in his general direction.

Snitches get stitches…

He kept his mouth shut, listening to the group of adults bicker and argue about Blaine's injuries and Leonard Addams' usually kind exterior. Kind exterior, my ass… Blaine's thoughts ran rampant with each account of abuse he had suffered at Leonard's expense.

"I never thought that Leonard could be like that. He's at our house almost every day and he's very kind and considerate. He has wonderful manners." Josh's mother commented.

"He's friends with Josh? Even after what happened a few months ago?"

"Maria! Who Josh is friends with has nothing to do with all this-"

"Shut up William! It does when it pertains to my son!"

"William, Maria, if we had known Leonard was like this, we would have never-"

"SHUT UP!" Josh's voice boomed over the adults in the room as he stood up from the dining table. His blue eyes were wild as he stared across the room at Blaine, who was watching him in fear. "You want to know why I'm friends with Leonard! Huh, do you?"

He leaned down over the table, his eyes still glaring at Blaine. "I'm friends with Leonard because I don't have to worry about him trying to make a move at me. I'm friends with Leonard because he doesn't have the hots for my body and doesn't try to catch a peek at me while I'm changing. I'm friends with Leonard beca-"

"FUCK YOU JOSH!" Blaine sat up so quickly that the chair he was sitting in went fumbling backwards onto the floor. It rolled up against the wall and stopped with a thud.

It was Blaine's turn to look wild now. His hazel eyes had grown dark and wide and his mouth was pulled into a horrid, yet depressing smile. Tears were streaming down his face now as he glanced at his former best friend. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to leap across the table and rip Joshua's face off with his bare hands. He kept his composure (or at least tried to) instead and slammed his hands down onto the table.

"FUCK. YOU. How can you sit here and spread all of this bullshit? HOW COULD YOU? I've never ONCE did any of those things to you. NEVER! And now you're gonna sit here and tell your parents and MY parents that I hit on you and all that bullshit!"

Joshua slammed his hands back down on the table in a challenge to Blaine, "You said you were in love with me! How the hell am I supposed to handle that? You're the only fag in the entire school and the last thing I need is for you to take me down with you!"

His words broke Blaine in two. For the gazillionth time that evening, the air left his lungs and he stood there breathless. A sob escaped his throat then as he collapsed against the table.

"Oh Blaine…"

His mother reached out towards him, but was blocked by her husband. Both of Josh's parents were watching him in shock.

"Blaine's gay?"

"He loves you, Josh? Honey, are you sure it's not like a brotherly love or something?"

Josh sneered as he answered his parents, "No. He's gay and he likes me. And if people figure that out, I'm just as good as dead. That's all Blaine's good for anyways."

"JOSHUA!" Maria Anderson stared at her son's former best friend in shock.

"He's right, Maria. People don't take too kindly to fags out here in Ohio. I mean, really. He's an abomination."

Neither of Josh's parents nor Maria could respond to what William had said. He was staring so hatefully at his son, who was still crumpled against the table shaking.

"We're good Christians, Maria. We go to church every Sunday, EVERY SUNDAY. Why is it that the devil has taken over our home and cursed us so?"

Blaine's eyes rose up to meet his father's gaze when he heard the man start to throw religion into the mix. "I'm just as religious as you are! That doesn't change just because I'm gay…"

"Do NOT claim yourself as a good Christian when all you are thinking about is sodomy! The Devil has turned you gay to punish us."

Blaine then sneered at his father, "The devil did NOT make me gay. God did."

This outburst awarded him an abrupt slap to the face. He stumbled backward from the force of the strike and looked up quickly to see who it was that slapped him so fiercely. At first strike, he would've imagined it was his father who had hit him, but after his cheek started to tingle in pain, he realized that it hurt a lot less than he thought it was going to. That only meant that someone else had hit him… someone smaller.

His mother.

She was standing in front of him, her hand still raised and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She looked back and forth from her son to her hand and after taking a long glance at her numbing fingers, she choked back a sob and launched herself into her husband's arms.

"Oh my, what have I done?"

She was sobbing then into her husband's chest. Josh and his parents were standing behind the two elder Andersons, dumbfounded at what had just occurred. Blaine was just staring at his mother in shock, still cradling his stinging cheek.

"Get out of here right now, Blaine. Right now!"

His father's voice echoed throughout the room as he roared commands at his scared son. His hazel eyes were once again wild with emotion and Blaine could see his upper lip twitch in anger.

"Get out of here before I do something I may regret."

"Like what? Call me a faggot? Call me an abomination? OR WHAT? DO YOU NOT REGRET THAT STUFF, DAD? HUH? DO YOU?"

Blaine stood his ground, challenging his father. He was standing as tall as he could, glaring upwards at his dad, feeling his entire insides churn and boil in ferocity. He felt like slaughtering every single person in that room at that very moment. All he wanted to do was spill blood. All he saw was red.

"NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL CHANGE ME, DAD. NOTHING. I'M GAY! GAY!"

He kicked over a chair with all the might he had and then turned to run out of the dining room. He tripped running up the stairs and busted his knee on the corner of the steps, but even that didn't stop him. Blaine just got back up and kept on running, running until he hit his bedroom. With a strangled cry, he threw open his bedroom door and ran inside. He went straight towards the bathroom and disappeared into there, locking the door behind him.

"FUCK THIS! FUCK EVERYTHING!"

There went the floodgates again.

This time it was Kurt who was crying so fiercely. Blaine had stopped crying halfway through the story, instead just sniffling a little bit here and there as he told about how he officially came out to his parents. He almost burst into tears when he started to talk about his mother slapping him across the face, but he just sighed sadly instead and choked back whatever tears had threatened to fall.

Kurt, on the other hand, was a blubbering mess.

He couldn't believe all of the crap that had happened to Blaine over the last few years. It was enough to make Kurt want to puke; he was so disgusted. How could someone so young have dealt with so much within the span of a couple years? And how could someone's parents be so uncaring… so heartless… so cruel?

"Sometimes when I replay that moment in my head, I just wish I stayed in bed instead of coming down to meet my parents for dinner."

Blaine's voice was soft and scratchy, obviously strained from so much talking and so much crying over the last few hours. He was still curled up against Kurt, his head laying on the younger boy's thigh.

He continued, "I wish I would've feigned sick and just slept all night long. If I had a time machine, I would use it just to go back to that moment and change the way I came out to my parents. In all fairness, I don't think it was fair to them the way I came out and-"

Kurt's body jerked away from his, causing Blaine's head to hit the mattress with a soft bounce. The blue eyed boy sat up on his knees, looking down at Blaine in horror.

"It wasn't fair to THEM how you came out? WHAT?"

Blaine stared at Kurt's face, noting his tear filled eyes and the tear tracks on his cheeks. "I thought that if I told them under different circumstances, things would've been different."

"Like hell they would've, Blaine! You heard them in the hallway that night. You heard how your father reacted! You heard-"

"My mother reacted differently that night than she did in the hallway, Kurt. When my dad and I started arguing about religion and everything, I knew that she was going to be conflicted. My mom is very religious, deeply so. When I said that God made me gay, I knew it had to have hurt her somehow. That's why she hit me."

"But God did make you gay." Kurt spoke this aloud, even though he didn't believe in God in the first place. He wanted to comfort Blaine somewhat.

"Yes, I suppose so." Blaine rolled his body over so that he was laying on his side and facing the wall. His red, swollen eyes stared intensely at the wall. "It's just that in my church, being gay is an abomination. That's why I questioned my feelings so much throughout my life. That's why it took me so long to actually figure out my feelings for Josh. I always thought they were feelings of admiration for a best friend or a hero, so to speak. Later on, I learned that the feelings I had were actual feelings of love… for another guy."

Kurt sat back on his bottom and pulled his knees up to his chest. He rested his chin in between his knees and closed his eyes. "Things like that are why I am not religious."

"You're not?"

"Nope," Kurt opened his eyes and trained his gaze onto the boy laying down beside him. "I don't believe in God, not after all the crap I saw throughout my life. I don't see what kind of fun it can be for some all-mighty person to mess up people's lives."

Blaine just nodded his head, but did nothing more.

"Is it bad that I feel that way?"

It was an innocent question that Blaine didn't really know the answer to. He started to pick at a loose string on his comforter while he thought of something to say.

"I mean," Kurt whispered, "I don't have any problems with people being religious, but-" He looked down at his socked feet, "I just don't believe in anything myself. I just believe we are here… and then we die."

"Whatever your beliefs are, I'm not going to judge you. You definitely aren't the first person- the first gay person- I've known to tell me that you don't believe in God." Blaine pulled the loose string from the comforter and tossed it over his shoulder. "I believe in God though. I believe he loves all of us, no matter who or what we are… just as long as you are a good person, you know?"

Kurt sighed, "Yeah…"

Then the two of them went silent for a while. Blaine continued to stare at the wall and Kurt continued to look at his feet. Minutes ticked away until finally someone said something.

It was Kurt.

"Did things… erm, ever get better, Blaine?"

Blaine sighed, rolling onto his back. He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the cream colored ceiling. "Eventually, Kurt. Eventually."

A/N: Once again, thanks to all my reviewers! I love you! No really, I do. I love reviews and since you give them to me, I love you too! YAY! Anyways, thanks again and I must seriously apologize for the ridiculous amounts of cursing I am using in this fic. I am writing this while dealing with a lot of family related drama, so I guess you could say that I'm taking out some of my anger on this fic, lol. But umm, yeah, anyways I'm sorry! Also, I must also say that I have no qualms against Christianity or any religion for that matter. The entire religion storyline between Blaine and his parents comes from something I saw an old friend deal with (it was tough, really tough). I mean no harm or insult to anyone who is religious or not religious. Please accept my sincerest apologies if I have offended you in anyway.