I'm a terrible author. I'm so sorry for leaving this so long without an update. I could list off excuses here but, as true as they are, they won't make up for my epic fail at updating. Anybody who's still with this story, thank you & I love you :D

Updates are probably not gonna go back to regular from now on. I had some free time to crank this out, rough as it is, so I did (:

Enjoy!

Blaine awoke to Kurt tossing and turning. He yawned and checked the clock, sighing when he read 5:30. They'd slept for four hours so he figured it was time to wake Kurt. He turned back to the boy whimpering in his sleep and shook him gently.

"Kurt, wake up." When he didn't get a response, he tried again, shaking Kurt a little harder. "Kurt, come on, we've been asleep for four hours. It's time to wake up." He groaned when Kurt still didn't stir, and sat up properly to get a hand on each shoulder, planning to just pull the boy up and into consciousness, but had to let go when Kurt screamed.

"Stop! Stop, please! Let go!"

Kurt squirmed more in his sleep and arched his back off the mattress, distressed. The lines on his face and tears leaking from his eyes told Blaine he needed to wake him, and fast. He got up to turn the lamp on Kurt's desk on and then rushed back to the bed. He tried everything he could think of, eventually settling on just shaking him and yelling his name to rouse him. This woke him fairly quickly and Kurt shot upright before collapsing into Blaine's arms, sobbing.

"Shhh. Shh, Kurt, it's okay. I'm right here."

"But, he- he tried to- oh God!" Kurt was somewhere between a panic attack and emotional breakdown, and Blaine was completely lost. He focused on getting Kurt's breathing under control, and when that was done, he just held him through the small aftershocks that shook his body.

"Kurt, what happened?"

"It was just a nightmare, sorry."

"Your nightmares seem pretty intense. What are they about?"

Kurt locked eyes with Blaine and gave him a look Blaine couldn't understand. He thought it contained fear and anger, but he couldn't be sure. Before he got a chance to figure it out, Kurt threw the covers from his legs and stood.

"Nothing. Come on, I want to watch more movies."

When he tried to walk out of the room, Blaine grabbed his wrist and stood to face him.

"Hold on. I told you we were going to talk when you woke up; I want to do that."

"What is there to talk about?"

"Plenty, Kurt. Like, your pill addiction -"

"It's not an addiction!"

"Let me finish! Your pill addiction, your nightmares, why you're losing so much weight, why you're pulling away from everyone, why you're hurting yourself and more. Can we please, please talk about that? I care about you, Kurt. It hurts more than I can describe watching you do this to yourself. And I only know you a couple weeks. I can't imagine how Burt, Carole, Mercedes, Finn or even that Santana girl are feeling."

"It's not that easy. You can't expect me to tell you everything right now."

"I don't. But I'd like to know a little, if you'll tell me."

Blaine stepped forward to take Kurt's hands into his own and lock their fingers, staring into his eyes. Kurt deflated at that and dropped his gaze. They were a silent for a few moments before Kurt looked up again.

"Can we at least go and make some coffee?" Blaine smiled at him and nodded, following him out of the room. He kept their fingers laced all the way to the kitchen and then watched Kurt busy himself making coffee. Blaine knew by Kurt's jerky movements that he wasn't looking forward to this. No one would look forward to this. But it had to be done in order to help Kurt.

Kurt settled across the table from Blaine and slid a cup to him. He sighed and looked at Blaine, "What do you want to know?"

Blaine looked slightly startled that Kurt was straight to the point, but recovered quickly. He supposed this was one of the few places Kurt felt comfortable, tucked away in his kitchen with just the two of them. "Uh, start easy, I guess. What are your nightmares about?"

"That is not easy." Kurt shot back immediately, and Blaine flailed mentally for a moment before deciding that if blunt is how Kurt wanted to play it, blunt is how it would be played.

"Ok. Pills then."

"I've already explained that to you." Kurt shied into his coffee and Blaine could feel the whiplash he'd have from Kurt's changing tones set in early.

"I guess. …Do you think you could give them up?"

"It's not… it's not that easy. I could definitely give them up, but they help an awful lot and I don't really want to."

"Well, we have to start somewhere and that's probably the easiest. Also, they're not helping. You're just telling yourself that so you don't have to admit you're addicted."

"I'm not addicted."

"I think you are, Kurt. Would you maybe consider calling or texting me instead of taking them?"

"I don't know…"

"Kurt, if you're not addicted, and you're just looking for something to help, why can't you give up and talk to me instead? I'd help." Blaine knew that Kurt recognized the challenge in his tone, and he hoped to God he'd take the bait.

"Fine. I'll give them up and talk to you instead." Mission accomplished.

"Awesome. And those cuts?" Blaine raised his eyebrows when Kurt opened his mouth to protest, "Don't do that either." Kurt nodded and Blaine smiled softly. "Let's go watch more movies."

Blaine spent the next movie and a half thinking about what to do next. He knew they probably couldn't kick Kurt's addiction on their own, but telling Burt would probably not end well.

In the end, he decided he'd confiscate all of Kurt's pills and tell Burt. He'd ask Burt to be subtle and hope for the best.

He turned to the boy nestled into his side and squeezed his arm, thinking he'd fallen asleep. Kurt hadn't, in fact, fallen asleep, and he turned quizzical eyes on Blaine immediately.

"Sorry, I thought you'd fallen asleep."

"It's ok, what's up?"

"Uh… I was thinking and… maybe going cold turkey is the best way to go about this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it might be easier if you aren't tempted. It might be easier if you let me take all your pills out of the house."

Kurt sat upright and leveled an extremely annoyed glare at Blaine. "That's completely unnecessary. I assure you, I can give up without being tempted."

Blaine guiltily turned his best, most subtle puppy dog look on Kurt. "Please? Just for my peace of mind."

Blaine watched multiple emotions flash across Kurt's face for a split second each. Disbelief, anger, contemplation and, finally, defeat. He eventually rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine. They're all in my bathroom cabinet."

Blaine stood to leave but Kurt made no move from the couch. "Uh, Kurt?" Kurt lifted his eyes from the screen briefly to look at Blaine and shake his head in a 'what?' kind of way, before turning back to the screen. "Uh, aren't you coming?" This time, Kurt didn't move his gaze from the screen.

"I'm sure you can find your way without my help, Blaine."

This time, it was Blaine who rolled his eyes. He left Kurt to be stubborn in the living room and took off up the stairs.

As soon as Blaine left the room, Kurt curled up into a ball and dropped his head to his knees. He was terrified. He didn't know what telling Blaine all of these things would mean in the future, or if he even should be doing it, but he was just so sick of feeling alone in the world. Blaine was wonderful. He was so earnest and seemed to genuinely only want to help Kurt, so what harm was it, right?

Wrong. Blaine could secretly be trying to get close to Kurt to break him into pieces or reveal his deepest secrets to the world. But Kurt knew that he wouldn't. He had no motive for something like that. But he was terrified of telling Blaine these things, of having Blaine decide it was out of their control and going further. He just didn't want to be hurt again. He felt like he could tell Blaine anything, everything. Blaine had been so persistent and, honestly, Kurt didn't want to struggle with these things anymore. He wanted to leave them in the past and get over them. Making the first move - telling Blaine everything - was just so difficult.

He thought of some of the things he hadn't told him yet - the extent of Karofsky's bullying, the extent of his self harm, the demons hiding in his nightmares - and shuddered. He never wanted anyone to find out about those things. But, God, did he want to stop suffering.

He spent the entire time Blaine was collecting his pills thinking. By the time he returned, Kurt had made a decision. He would tell Blaine everything. It didn't matter how long it took, he was just so sick of feeling like this. Blaine was a wonderful person, could it really hurt that much to let him in?

Blaine fell into the seat beside Kurt on the sofa and turned to face him, hands gripping 5 full bottles and boxes of medicine and 3 opened ones. "Is this everything?" he asked.

Kurt hesitated. He knew there was some in the first aid case in the kitchen, but Burt would probably be suspicious if they all disappeared at once. He told Blaine this and he nodded, "You're right. I'm just gonna go count them though."

"Okay." Kurt mumbled, not completely paying attention.

Blaine returned a few minutes later and they resumed watching their films in silence. Tense, awkward loaded silence.

Eventually, they decided on take out for dinner. Blaine offered to go and pick it up, saying he could ditch the tablets while he was gone so that Kurt didn't have them in the house all night tempting him.

While Blaine was gone, Kurt grabbed plates and utensils from the cupboards in the kitchen, placing them in the oven to heat. He leaned against the counter with nothing to do, arms crossed over his chest and eyes downcast. His mind was running a mile a minute, but he couldn't make sense of his thoughts. He gave up trying. All he was ever left with after trying to untangle his thoughts was a pounding headache and the desire to sleep for days.

They ate dinner in front of yet another movie and fell asleep around 11:00pm. Kurt woke at 3:00am to an empty living room and a shiver running up his back where Blaine had been. He heard soft murmuring coming from the kitchen and tip toed over to the closed door, wondering who Blaine was speaking to at this hour of the morning.

"I don't know, Mom. I want to help him but I don't know if he wants to be helped. Sometimes it seems like he does and he has no problem telling me things, and then other times he gets so defensive when I ask a question. He's constantly flipping between the two."

There was silence for a minute before Blaine sighed.

"I know he isn't, Mom, but I want to help. It hurts me to deal with this again, but I want to help him."

Kurt found himself desperately wishing he knew what Mrs. Anderson was saying on the other end of the line. He tried to fill in the blanks, but found he didn't know the woman, or her relationship with Blaine, well enough to.

"I already thought about that. I think I might, but only about some things."

"Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. Is that bad? I'm trying not to show it."

"Okay. Sorry for waking you. I love you too, Mom, night."

Kurt heard Blaine place his phone on the counter and rushed back to the couch as silently as possible, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.

Blaine placed his phone on the counter and dropped his head to his palms, scrubbing at his eyes. He felt awful for waking his Mom, but knew she wouldn't mind. He'd woken an hour after falling asleep, his mind racing trying to figure out what to do with Kurt. He'd watched the taller boy sleep for a while before deciding he needed his Mom's opinion. She was his best friend and he trusted her with absolutely everything. He knew she wouldn't mind the call.

Her words kept playing through his mind on loop, and he knew he'd gotten himself in too deep.

You've been through this before, Blaine, it's going to be so difficult… He isn't your responsibility… Maybe you should tell his Dad… I'm proud of you for wanting to help, baby… How bad is it?… Sweetie, are you falling for him?… Just be careful, I don't want to see you hurt, and God knows being heartbroken is the last thing that poor boy needs…

Sweetie, are you falling for him?

Fuck, he was.

Can you tell it was written in two parts, at two completely different points in time? Ahaha

Hope you enjoyed!