"The dreams I had? Hmmm…" Kurt said thoughtfully. "I wanted to be a big Broadway star…"

"Come on, Kurt." Blaine complained immediately. "Tell me something I don't know yet. What a little Kurt Hummel dreamt of?"

"A sibling...I asked my parents on regular basis why I didn't have brother or sister since I was three. I wanted to be a big brother. To have someone to protect and love...My parents did try but...there were some medical conditions with my mother and when the hope for a possible conceiving came, she was in an accident."

"Kurt...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you sad." Blaine grabbed Kurt's hand and squeezed it. Kurt didn't talk about his mother often. He barely mentioned her once in a while and Blaine never asked for more. From what a little information he had, he knew how much Kurt loved her and missed her.

"It's okay, Blaine." Kurt sent him a little smile though his eyes were misty now. "I could choose another dream if I didn't want to talk about it…"

"I know it's not the same but you have Finn now..." Blaine told him softly and interlaced their fingers when he realized that Kurt wasn't going to let go of his hand.

"Yeah…" Kurt chuckled. "He is a great brother…"

"You'd have been an amazing big brother, Kurt."

"Thanks." They stayed quiet for a while, looking each other in the eyes.

"Aren't you tired?" Kurt broke the silence. "I woke you up pretty early…"

"I'm not...I'm pretty curious about your dreams and secrets now." Blaine smiled at him and subconsciously started to stroke Kurt's knuckles with his thumb.

"They are not so interesting…" Kurt said hesitantly.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm not going to push you..."

"It's not that…" Kurt sighed. "I'm afraid that if I start, I won't stop for hours...I've never talked about it with anyone...It's like opening Pandora's Box."

"It's up to you, Kurt. I'm here to listen for how long you need."

"I used to dream about my wedding." Kurt blurted and he was very aware that there wasn't a way back now. "When I was four, my parents took me to my first wedding. My mom's friend was getting married in Columbus and we went there together and I was a ring bearer. I remember how fascinated I was. It was like a fairy-tale with a princess and a prince. My mom and dad were smiling and dancing together and I kept asking them when they would get married and they struggled in explaining to me that they already had a wedding. After we came back, they showed me their wedding album for the first time and I spent the whole two weeks going through it several times a day." Blaine could see the scene right in front his eyes. He had caught a picture of a little boy with a big photo album on his knees downstairs. Kurt was the cutest kid he'd ever seen. Images of him being spellbound by weddings added even more sweetness to a boy that was adorning a photo on the shelf in the Hummel-Hudson living room.

"We went to several weddings in the next two years and my action figures were getting married to another person every other day. I don't think any kid could beat me in wedding role-plays. I mastered them." Kurt grinned proudly.

"So you have known you have wanted to get married since you were like four?"

"Yeah...I guess...My mom had a beautiful dress. It was full of colours and it reminded me of rainbows and meadows...I asked her if she would wear them at my wedding. She said she would if it made me happy. I was so proud that my mom would be the most beautiful woman there." Kurt chuckled. "I told my dad and he said that the bride is supposed to be the most beautiful woman at the wedding."

"Your dad kind of ruined it for you, didn't he?"

"He did. I asked my mom if I have to marry some girl because I don't want anybody to be prettier than her and she told me I can marry whoever I wanted. The only condition is to love them with my whole heart. I think she knew..."

"Knew what?"

"That there won't be any bride next to me by the altar…"

"So there is a wedding in your future plans?"

"Not necessarily...There is a soulmate...or at least I hope there is." Kurt looked at Blaine, ignoring how crazy his heart was beating. "When I find the one, I won't need a ring on my finger to spend the rest of my life with him. I think for legal purposes it's better to be married but if he doesn't want to, I won't force him. As long as I'm safe and happy with him and we truly love each other, there is no need for some paper to state that we are supposed to be together till death tears us apart."

"And if he wants the wedding?"

"Then there'll be one. But I'm not sure if I could go with one of my ideas from childhood. They were a little too much…"

"I doubt that. You can pull off anything."

"Well, I don't think anyone would want to marry between koalas in the zoo or on monkey- bars in the park." Blaine laughed and somehow he could picture himself standing in the zoo cage, surrounded by trees and koalas, holding Kurt's hand...Wow, where did that one come from?

"I would…" He whispered and blushed.

"Of course, you would. You would do anything to make people happy. I have no doubts that one day someone is going to win the lottery with you as a boyfriend."

"Tell me more about your wedding plans…" Blaine prompted him, not sure how to react to what Kurt had said. He would do anything to be a lottery win for someone...preferably Kurt and it scared the hell out of him. There was a friendship at stake if it didn't work out.

"There is nothing more...I stopped planning weddings when my mom died…There was no point in it since I knew she wouldn't be there..." A single tear slipped down Kurt's cheek and he blinked the rest of them away.

"Kurt, you don't have to…"

"I know. I want to, though…" He took a deep breath and smiled weakly at Blaine. "My parents were my everything. I was this weird kid with a high pitched voice and interest in arts and you know, girly things...I was too much of a girl for boys to play with me but still too much of a boy for girls to play with me...I didn't mind. Not really. My parents loved me the way I was and I was a happy child. I didn't miss company of other children. They could be very mean to me so I didn't dream to be with them. My mom taught me how to defend myself...How to be proud of who I am and how others' opinions don't matter while I know I'm not doing anything wrong. She did everything with grace and she was a great example how to deal with people. I watched her interact with others, whether they were nice or vile, she always treated everyone with courtesy but she never let anyone to bring her down. She walked with her head up and people loved her for her ability to always stand up for herself as much as they hated her for it because they were too weak to even try it for themselves. I could be such a nice person if she would have stuck around for just a little bit longer…"

"Kurt, you ARE a nice person." Blaine interrupted him firmly. "You are an amazing person, why…"

"I'm not, Blaine." Kurt cut him off. "I got really mean. I threw insults and didn't care who I hurt...there was a time during high school where I had nothing nice to say to anybody for days, my dad including...She wouldn't have been proud of me…"

"You were hurt, Kurt. People tend to protect themselves by being mean…"

"You don't do that…"

"Maybe I haven't been really hurt."

"I became bitter...Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if she was still alive...After she died, me and my dad grew apart…"

"Did you blame him for what happened with your mom?" Blaine dared to ask.

"No. Not for that. But I blamed him for her not coming back...I was eight; I didn't understand lot of things. She was on her way to the mall when a car crashed into her. She was dead in an instant. I was at school and no one was coming for me and I was worried. My parents never forgot to pick me up on time. Then our neighbour came and took me and I spent the night at her house. The next day my dad explained to me that mom wasn't with us anymore. I knew what it meant that someone was dead. But until then I thought that only old people die. My mom was thirty-four. I just couldn't comprehend how it was possible. My dad did what he could but it wasn't much. I cried, he held me. I asked questions, he answered me but it still wouldn't bring her back. He refused to put me into a poor orphan position so he made an official last farewell with family and friends and priest without me. He minimized my interaction with people who could pity me and make me uncomfortable. When they were lowering her body to her grave, it was just me and dad there. My dad was spending more and more time at work. I know now that with just one income it wasn't easy. Especially when he'd decided to open his own garage a year before my mom died so his business was still in the beginning. I went to our neighbour after school and waited for him. Then we had dinner, usually something he picked up on his way home. We barely talked but when I was crying at night he came and held me. I never saw him cry, though. I was so pissed at him for that. I was praying every night and begged God to send her back but it felt like no one was listening to my pleading. I started to think that they wouldn't let her go from heaven because my dad didn't want her here anymore…" The tears were now streaming on both of their faces and Kurt cursed himself for even starting the topic. The last thing he wanted was for Blaine to be sad.

"How long did you blame him?"

"About six months...One night I was thirsty so I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I was passing dad's bedroom, I could hear sobbing. The lights were on even though it was in the middle of the night and I immediately panicked. I pushed the door open and there he was. Sitting on the bed with mom's favourite sweater in his hands and he was crying. I threw myself on him and he wrapped his arms around me and held me like I was his last lifeline. I just kept saying that it's gonna be alright. The same thing he told me every single time I was in tears...I didn't cry with him. I knew I had to stay strong. I realized that day that all the time since my mom died my dad was being strong for me and I hated myself for thinking that he didn't love mom anymore. It got better after that. I opened up more to him. He did his best to catch up on me and my interests. We went to the theatre on my ninth birthday. It was torture for him but he did it anyway. I told him we would go to a football game for his birthday…"

"Did you go?"

"Yeah...it was just a game at McKinley, my future high school, but it was a game."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"It was torture." They both laughed and Kurt wiped Blaine's tears from his cheek.

"I didn't mean to make you sad."

"I wanna know more…" Blaine said eagerly. It was like a whole new world of Kurt Hummel was opening in front of him and he yearned for more.

"Besides few little secrets I had, there isn't much to tell...I was teased at school all the time. Boys picked on me and no one wanted to be friends with me because they were afraid that they would be a target as well. I never learnt to shut up and just let it be. When someone was treating me badly, I voiced my opinion. I fought with insults and witty remarks and it got me into even more troubles. My dad didn't know. I was a different person at home and at school. The teachers were too blind to notice something and for me it was everyday struggle of surviving. Singing and watching musicals was my escape from everything. I needed mom. I needed her to tell me I was not in the wrong. That it wasn't my fault that I was so mean. They bullied me but I verbally bullied them back. Yes, they had no idea what my insults meant but still...I was looking forward to starting high school. I thought that with more kids in there I could make some friends and I was stupid enough to think that kids were more mature in high school. I was such a fool. I ended up in a dumpster the first day I stepped on the ground of McKinley. They called it a "welcome newbies" tradition. I made a habit to avoid the area where the dumpsters were but it was pointless. If they wanted to throw me in it, they did it either way. One day they walked with me from the opposite side of campus and the teacher stopped by and praised them for how nice classmates they were being for befriending a new kid. Of course, my vocabulary for insults increased very quickly but the more I was talking back, the more attention I got and soon I was bullied daily. I was either tossed into a dumpster or into a locker. During my sophomore year I joined the glee club and since it was on the bottom of the food chain, it didn't really help with bullying. I got friends though. Rachel was a nightmare at that time. She wanted a spotlight just for herself and I was pissed. I didn't get why someone could have everything while I seemed to always lose but she was an outcast and we found the way to each other eventually...Oh, let's not forget slushie facials...It was worse than being in a dumpster."

"What is a slushie facial?" Blaine asked, confused.

"We had a slushie machine at school. They liked to throw the ice cold beverage into our faces."

"Oh my god!"

"Yeah...It was horrible. I lost a lot of great pieces from my wardrobe...The stains were impossible to clean...it still wasn't the worst part of my high school experience."

"What about teachers? Didn't they notice anything?"

"Sure, they did. They just didn't do anything about it. There was either a homophobia or hidden homophobia. Nothing in between."

"What was the worst part?" Blaine whispered.

"My junior year. I got used to general bullying but the things escalated that year. There was one football player...he couldn't pass by me in the hallway without tossing me into a locker or saying something offensive about gays or threatening me...I had so much on my plate already and he kept pushing me...I was lonely. No one really understood me. Not even my friends. My dad was dating Carol and he was happy but Finn and I were on rocks and I felt like it might be my fault if they wouldn't work out...then my dad had a heart attack. Everybody at school knew that he was in the hospital, in a coma. The football team actually layed off. They had enough dignity not to bully me while I was worrying about my dad. Well, the one who made me his regular target didn't stop but the rest of them were decent for a while."

"Didn't your friends do anything?"

"They were bullied as well. Not as much as I was but still…"

"Wasn't Finn a football player in high school?"

"He was. And some of the guys from the glee club as well. But they couldn't do anything. They occasionally got slushies from their teammates because they were in the glee club. I didn't expect them to do anything...I was living in constant fear. Not of the football team in general but of that one boy...One day I snapped. I found myself being tossed into a locker in the hallway for like billionth time that day and I just followed him to the locker room. We yelled at each other, spitted some insults and then he grabbed my face and kissed me."

"What?!"

"I've never told anybody. And I need you to swear not to say a word about it to a living soul. My parents can't find about that. He threatened to kill me if I said something. The whole thing blew out right before my dad's and Carol's wedding but I didn't tell them the whole story. They went to our principal and she expelled him but the school board let him come back after a week. It was the time when I almost transferred to Dalton."

"No way! We could have known each other for years!"

"Yes. But we couldn't afford more than one year there so I decided to stay. Dad and Carol didn't like it and they were willing to take a loan but Finn and I wanted to go to college out of state and I knew we would need money for relocating. I had only one goal - to get out of this shit hole."

"So you suffered another two years?"

"The bullying diminished. I think people were little afraid of being expelled. My friends came up with a schedule how to keep me company so I was never alone. It was frustrating. I couldn't even go to the bathroom without one of them! But it was sweet. There was an insult or a slushie once in a while but it was far from what it had used to be. I graduated and left while most of my tormentors stayed here. It was my personal victory."

"You left out the details…" Blaine pointed out. "It was an extended version of what I heard so far but you still keep details to yourself. What kind of insults? Were they calling you names? How bad you were hurt physically? You must have had bruises all over your body..."

"Details aren't important, Blaine. I won't be held responsible for your loss of faith in the human race…Your ignorance is your virtue. They broke me. They made me mean and vindictive and I had to fight hard to get back at least a shred of what I used to be while my Mom was still alive. You are everything that is good in this world, Blaine, and I don't want you to ever change. You didn't have to face such a cruelty and I'm glad for it."

"I did."

"You did what?"

"I did face the cruelty. But I wasn't brave enough to admit that sometimes there is injustice in the world without relevant reason because it would turn upside down everything I ever believed in and I wasn't ready for making new beliefs. I stayed that way for years. It was easy at Dalton but then the world came crushing in on me again in New York and I still didn't have the strength to do something so I isolated myself from others. I've never met someone more courageous and strong than you are, Kurt. You've been through hell, back and forth, and you still keep going. I admire you." Blaine was wearing a serious expression and Kurt froze. There was a lot unsaid when it came to Blaine but Kurt, not once, thought something worse than what he'd already hinted could have happened to him.

"What kind of cruelty?" Kurt asked alarmed.

"Cruelty of homophobic kids in a public high school."

"You never went to a public high school."

"But my friend did...and I underestimated the situation…"

"What did you do?"

"My mom was a dentist. She had her own practise in Westerville. Her nurse was a nice lady with a son of my age and we were best friends since I remember. He lived in a different part of the town but we visited each other pretty often. When we were twelve, he was supposed to go to a birthday party of his classmate. The girl was turning thirteen and she invited the whole class. He went to a public school while I was in a private one and he didn't want to go without me because the kids talked about playing spin the bottle. He didn't want to kiss anybody." Blaine smiled at the memory and continued. "He told me that he wasn't sure whether kissing a girl would be satisfying enough and I asked why. He said that he would rather kiss a boy but he doubted that there'd be any volunteers. So I volunteered. You know, for saving him from an embarrassment of not knowing what he was doing…"

"Oh, come on, Blaine. You just wanted to make out." Kurt nagged him and Blaine grinned.

"Well, there were some positive outcomes of it for me…"

"Did you have a crush on him?"

"No. We were friends. I didn't have feelings for him. It was just an experiment. My first kiss. It was nice, lasted about two seconds and then we burst into a laughter. We never kissed after that. But we kind of came out to each other that day. He never said anything at school and at the end of the eighth grade he was the only one who wasn't "dating" anyone. He thought that maybe in high school it'd be better. He was openly out from the first day and they were giving him a crap for it. I didn't understand. Dalton was different. No one cared there. There was a Sadie Hawkins dance at his school. He wasn't about to go but I convinced him that we should go. To show them that there is nothing wrong when a boy goes to a dance with a boy…"

"Please, tell me you didn't go."

"We did. We were glared at, gay - bashed and ridiculed. We called his dad an hour after we came and while we were waiting for him to pick us up, some guys came and beat us up."

"Oh my god!"

"I woke up in a hospital. Few broken bones and concussion."

"And your friend?"

"There were some problems with a spinal cord. He needed rehabilitation but fortunately, he was able to walk in the end. The last time I saw him was the dance."

"Why?"

"He didn't want to see me anymore after the attack. I guess he was blaming me for what happened. He was right after all. It was my fault. He didn't want to go…"

"It wasn't your fault, Blaine!"

"Wasn't it? I knew what he was dealing with at school and I made him go. If we had stayed home…"

"Blaine, look at me. It's not your fault. You believed you could change their point of view. You lived in a different world. You couldn't have known…"

"His family moved out...I have no idea what happened to him. I had nightmares for months. I went to therapy. Everywhere I went, I looked for an exit and I made sure I was standing close to it so I could escape if something happened...I was a very social kid but after the attack I had a tendency to shy away from people. That's when Nick and Jeff came into my life. We were friends before but not so close. They were a team and they didn't let anyone into their bubble. I quit the Warblers and they followed me around the school and annoyed the hell out of me while trying to persuade me to change my mind. One day they cornered me in the library and refused to let me go until I said that I'd come back. They witnessed my first panic attack. Nick helped me to get through it and they took me to my room. Since then I had the best protectors in the whole world. If someone as much as send a glance in my direction, they were ready to fight. The duo became the trio and the rest is history." Kurt was looking at him, biting his lower lip. The wheels in his head were moving fast and the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

"When your fans cornered you and…"

"Yep." Blaine didn't give him a chance to finish a sentence. "I had a flashback and panicked. It was the second time it happened and I hope I'll never have to go through it again."

"After all that happened to you, you still expect the good in people?" Blaine shrugged his shoulders at his question.

"What's the point in hating? What's the point in being negative? It just brings you down. It was one bad experience..."

"You had many bad experiences during your first years in New York."

"You had many bad experiences since you were a little child...Everybody has to have a bad experience at some point. Some people know how to deal with them, the others don't. I belong to the latter. I'm afraid of changing my thinking because I don't want to admit to myself that there might be something wrong with me..."

"There is nothing wrong with you. You're perfect."

"I am far from perfect but I have a role model and I aspire to be at least a half of a man he is."

"Who is it?"

"You." Blaine said and tapped Kurt's nose with his finger, making Kurt laugh.

"Well, I don't think very highly of me so I hope you won't succeed in this mission. I wouldn't change a thing about you."

"And I wouldn't change a thing about you, mister."

"Do you think we would be friends had I gone to Dalton?"

"I believe we would…" Blaine answered, thinking that maybe they would have been much more than friends.

"I was in a bad place. Maybe you wouldn't have been fond of me…"

"I had a hero complex in high school so I would have probably tried to save you…" Kurt giggled and shifted closer to Blaine. Blaine stopped breathing for a moment. Kurt didn't seem to notice. He comfortably rested his forehead against Blaine's chest, without realizing, that Blaine's heart was beating too quickly for it being healthy. Their laced hands were trapped between them and Blaine mustered the courage to stroke Kurt's hair with his other one.

"It was hard when my dad got married...My friends were too busy with their own lives to help me through it and honestly, I didn't expect them to. They were my own security service at school so I could feel save and it was enough."

"Did you like Carol?"

"I loved her from the first moment. She was perfect for dad, I knew it. And she never tried to replace my mom. That was the most important thing for me. She lost her first husband when Finn was two and she could relate to my dad and his grief...He wasn't alone anymore and I could see him smile lot more. I didn't need more."

"But you were lonely…"

"I was. I put all my hopes into leaving Lima and finding a better life in New York. I was desperate and I needed something to cling to. When we moved out from our old house, I understood why it was necessary. We created a new family and it wouldn't be fair to stay in one of the old houses. So Carol sold her house and dad ours and we came here. It was like the last piece of my mother was ripped out of me. My dad put all her stuff in our attic when she died. When we were moving out he asked if I wanted to keep something..." Kurt sniffled a little and Blaine let go of his hand so he could wrap his arm around him. "I'd already claimed her scarves collection a few years back and I had a bottle of her perfume so I said I only wanted the rainbow dress...as it turned out, there wasn't any rainbow dress anymore because my mom was buried in it.. I spent months on ebay in attempt to find the dress."

"Did you find it?"

"No...I found out later that it'd been made by my mom. I was finally ready to have the dress in my possession after years when I couldn't as much as think of it without crying, and instead I ended up empty handed. I had a big fight with dad about it. I accused him of being heartless because he'd known how much it had meant to me as a child and that he must have known I would want it at some point. He tried to explain that it had been the last thing on his mind when he'd been dealing with the funeral and he apologized a billion times but I was stubborn and hurt. Dad and Carol did their best to get me out of my funk but they didn't understand. They couldn't do anything to make it better. The only person who understood was Finn. The recliner we have in the living room belonged to his dad. Carol wanted to get rid of it when we were moving in here but Finn threw a fit and she kept it. My dad put it in the living room although Carol's idea was to keep it in Finn's room. Finn knew what I was going through and we became a lot closer. We might have our differences but he is my real brother. He did some crazy things that were supposed to help me and failed miserably but I appreciated the effort...I should probably stop talking." Kurt concluded and went silent.

"Why?" Blaine asked curiously and tightened his embrace when he felt that Kurt was about to pull away.

"Because I am an emotional wreck right now and I'm invading your personal space far more than a friend is allowed to."

"Are you uncomfortable?" A disappointment in Blaine's voice and the way he eased his arms around Kurt made Kurt frown.

"No. The contrary. I am very very comfortable…"

"So stay where you are." Blaine ordered and shifted a little so he was lying on his back with Kurt's head on his chest and Kurt's arm across his belly. "Just stay like this. I don't mind." Kurt nodded and closed his eyes. He was tired and a steady rhythm of Blaine's heart was easily lulling him to sleep.

"Kurt?" Blaine whispered into the silence, not sure whether his friend was already asleep or not.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it is possible to fall in love with someone who you initially considered a friend?"