Hi, I'm having one of those nights where the stars are too bright and my head hurts too much because I'm harbouring too many emotions. Also, I'm extremely tired and stressed, so I don't even know what I've written really, and I probably won't like it when I read it in the morning, but until then, here, a new chapter. Also, I like reviews. I don't get many. But they do help. Please. Okay. Bye.

~~~OOO~~~

"Kurt!" Oh Kurt!" Opening the door he hadn't looked at for a night and half a day had him met with a mid-air tackle from his father and step mother.

And he had told himself, chanted over and over in his head, that despite the hugs and the pleas for breaking down, that he would remain strong. He would not let Carole and Burt see him in the state he'd been after he'd left the hospital. He'd promised himself that. But, well, promises get broken all the time didn't they? And now here he was, in the foyer of his and Katie's home, surrounded by his second mother's warmth and her honey and home smell, and the tears were pouring from his eyes, and they wouldn't stop. Chokes long since held tight in the back of his throat were released in bitter and broken cries of 'help, I'm broken.' And Carole could do nothing but hug him as tight as she could and tell him that, really, "everything's going to be alright Kurt."

"No - no i - no it's not." And now the hiccups were starting. "how the hell" hiccup "is it" hiccup "supposed to" hiccup hiccup "get better when he's" and the hiccups were caught with sobs and cries and he was broken, shattered in a million tiny pieces and Burt looked up from hugging Katie in the most terrified look. Because he didn't know what to do. How the hell was he supposed to piece back his son, when he'd done such a horrible job himself.

But Carole seemed to know what to do. He hoped. And so did Kurt. Because his eyes were bleeding dry, and the tear stains were leaving permanent markings on his cheeks, and that was probably the saddest thing.

"You need to go start making some arrangements. That's what we're here for. We've got her" And Carole, the kindest woman in the whole entire world it seemed, looked at the perfect angel that was forever Kurt and Blaine's with tears in her eyes. But she looked back at the man who was her second son, and saw so much more. So much brokenness and pain and yearning and searching for a way to get out of the maze, she could have heard her heart break.

"Go on upstairs if you need to. Go look at old photos and cry and remember all the good times. But for now, Kurt, please don't remember the last few months in those rooms that smelt of death. Blaine wouldn't want you to remember that part."

And she was right, he knew of course, damn it.

"Go on upstairs, Burt and I will keep Katie occupied, I'll make you some tea if you wish, maybe we can talk later. Or you could just sleep."

Sleep sounded good.

No.

He mentally slapped himself on the head. He wasn't supposed to sleep. Because that's where the monsters came out and they would be horribly bad again tonight because well, death followed him everywhere and he wasn't ready for the night to take him anytime soon.

He trudged up the stairs to open the door he hadn't been able to bring himself to open since two days ago.

Because breathing it in, it smelt like sandalwood and coffee and oranges and cologne and it was a smell they had yet to put a name on at the perfume place, but to Kurt, it would forever be Blaine.

With the most painstaking glazed look in his eye, he somehow made it to the wardrobe that was littered with photo albums; he knew he had to start ringing people and organising things, but the how hell was he supposed to do it in this state? SO he rummaged through until he found what he was looking for, the lilac leather bound photo album that held the memories from their time at school. And there, right on top, was the picture someone had taken of Blaine and Kurt, in all their sixteen year old, private school boy innocence, holding hands as they made their way down a classically decorated hallway, that time they'd laid eyes on each other for the first time, the second time.

~~~OOO~~~

It was junior year, and there were daily slushie facials and locker pushing's to be looked forward too. Oh and better not forget the time he'd fallen in love with a boy that was to become his step brother, or the one that used lemon juice in his hair, and really was secretly gay, but didn't appreciate his attention. 'Life,' he told his diary, 'is so utterly crap right now. Why the hell am I even alive.'

Because he knew it wasn't getting better. Rachel was winning all the solos and he and Mercedes had seemed to drift apart. And well, he was completely lonely.

And the Glee boys had told him to go spy on the Warblers, and because, he had nothing better to do, he'd obliged, merely for the prospect of being surrounded by hundreds of guys, and there had to be at least one out guy there, didn't there?

So here he was, in a place that felt like somewhere where everyone belonged, so seemingly out of place, but in the moment it didn't matter.

And he was lost, so very lost, so out of place. What the hell was even going on? There were hundreds of boys he could have asked for help, but, oh, he had nice hair.

"Excuse me?" He tapped said boy on the shoulder and watched him whip around to meet his question.

What he hadn't been expecting was for the one boy he'd asked for help in the midst of a stampede of blazer-cladded, extremely attractive boys, to turn around and bore his heaven-meets-earth-combined-with-gold eyes right into his soul. And it took nothing but a spilt second to remember tea parties and dress ups, sleepovers and hugs, to remember the dreams he'd had and the times he'd cried, all of those times, wishing Blaine was there, by his side, stealing his kisses in the black of night. And he hadn't been. And he thought he never would be.

"Hi, I'm new here. Can I ask you a question?" He waited for recognition to flood Blaine's eyes, but it didn't.

"My name's Blaine."

Oh. Wait. What? HELLO! He wanted to yell. How could he not remember me? Kurt's mind was reeling.

"Kurt."

But then something crossed across his face, and yes, there was definitely a look of 'holy shit, how is this even - what' in his eyes, and his lips looked confused, caught between the urge to smile because the person he missed most in the world was standing right here, with perfect sea-blue eyes staring at him, or frowning, because Kurt had been the one to leave him in the first place.

"Kurt?"

"Hi Blaine, remember me?"

"What - what the hell are you doing here?"

But then the stampede took up again, and they were being carried along by hormone fuelled boys eager to skip class in hopes of picking up moves to use, or something like that.

Blaine took his hand, the wrong hand though, because they were running down an elaborate hallway that Kurt kept trying to take in, but the positioning was so awkward, and there was so much to see, so much to feel. Because he was in an unfamiliar place, with the most homey of homes touching his hands in the most relaxing, yet unfamiliar awkward way. Because he knew they were headed for a long overdue talk.

He was right, of course.

"As soon as I finish this performance, you and I have to talk, it seems."

And they were in a room, obviously the senior commons, and there were hundreds of boys dressed in dapper blazers and pants, eager to support the club that gave their school a name, other than just being prissy-rich boys. And well, the Warbler's didn't disappoint at all.

Because how could they, when Blaine was leading them, with his perfect pitch and gelled down hair, moving to the music, getting lost in the words of Katy Perry. And it was so breathtakingly beautiful to watch, because in the moments Blaine was entranced by the power of such simple music, Kurt could remember times when they had danced around the living room, or the cubby house, or the mall, without a care in the world, just like Blaine was now. Prickles started to fill his eyes. Well, it had been a stressful number of weeks, surely a flood of happier memories and the reappearance of the boy who made everything better was cause for him to be overly emotional and for tears to fall. But they couldn't. Because Blaine, Blaine with beautiful hair and perfect ears and piercing eyes that saw everything, was looking straight at Kurt, burning holes to the depths of his soul, him too, remembering falling asleep holding hands and watching Disney movies. And he was lost in the music, and childhood happiness, and Kurt was here. And he could tell him everything.

Be your teenage dream tonight.

Kurt, of course, was the first to break out into ellaborate claps of applause, and Blaine, being the lithering idiot he was, just had to go and wink at him in the most seductive way he knew how. Fuck.

~~~OOO~~~

Thirty one year old Kurt Hummel remembered the proceedings of that fateful rendezvous so well. Because they'd gotten coffees in an unspeakable silence, both waiting for the other to bring up the chain of words that would send memories and tears spewing from their mouths.

"So…." Kurt had tried to start the conversation off. "When did you come back to Ohio?"

"Oh. Um, two or so years ago?"

Kurt nodded.

"Dad got transferred back, Paris was getting a bit, ugh, too much work."

"And you've been at Dalton all this time?" There was another question burning in his throat, but Kurt hadn't been able to get to that right away.

"Well, no. I went to Meris for a while, but I was, um, harassed there, for reasons I'd rather not talk about right now, and so I came here. It's just so much safer." His voice trailed off, it was heartbreaking, the sadness that was clearly so obvious in Blaine's voice. All Kurt had wanted to do in that moment was to lean across the coffee table and take him into his arms and murmur sweet nothings in his ears about how everything would be okay. But Kurt didn't even know the problem at hand.

"And you like it here then?"

It seemed the safest thing to say without professing how much he missed Blaine with everything he had.

"Yeah, I love it. Especially the Warblers. Best sort of escape there is."

They both just nodded, in the awkward silence where they drank coffee in sync.

"What about you then, Kurt? What are you doing here?"

"Oh um." Crap. "I got sent here to spy on you guys, scope out the competition or something."

"Oh, so you're at McKinley?"

"Yeah." And he had never meant for his voice to sound that sad. But maybe it was a good thing, Kurt remembered now, because from there, everything had set into place.

But then he was just gone. There were tears brimming from places he never even knew oculd hold sadness. And his lips quivered in the most terrible type of sadness. He had never felt so broken. And Blaine watched him fall apart at the seams, and suddenly, he surrounded Kurt with the most recognisable sense of home and safety and 'everything's going to be alright, Kurt, I promise.'

And Kurt's sobs were caught in Blaine's blazer and he just didn't stop. Not even when Blaine murmured, "it's going to be okay." Or, "Whenever you want to talk, I'm here." Because, Kurt realized, Blaine was the problem wasn't he. Karofsky and Sam and everything else was nothing compared to Blaine. Blaine, who was holding him against himself; protecting him despite everything, it just felt so right.

"I – I can't talk about it – I can't yet."

"Shh, it's okay, when you're ready, I'm here to listen Kurt, I promise."

And Kurt knew he wasn't lying.

~~~OOO~~~

It was funny, Kurt thought, as he slid the photo back into place in the album, with tear stained cheeks and swollen lips from the sadness that kept eating at him, that the talk that would define the hate Blaine had had for him, had instead been the reminder that they were the only two people in the world, and no one else mattered.

And Kurt curled himself up in a ball, thinking over everything they had talked about when the sobs had died down and they were under stars, and every word they'd exchanged since then.

And once again, Kurt fell asleep clutching his pillow, tears falling in the absence, forever absence of his everything.