Welcome back to the land of my Kurt and Blaine!  This is the second part of Take All That I Am.  If you haven't read that yet, do that first. 

If you have, read along.  This is my second piece of fanfiction that features an age-gap.  Kurt is eleven years Blaine's senior and Blaine can still, sort of, be classified as a “bad boy.”

There are, as usual with the rest of my crazy stories, a lot of warnings that I want to make sure you know about.  This (at least in the beginning) is not the happiest of stories or situations for both our Blaine or Kurt.  You will see both of them with other characters in this story, but please know that Klaine is (ALWAYS) endgame. 

There's a lot of cursing, infidelity or mentions of it (but Kurt and Blaine don't cheat on each other), dark situations, speak of depression and suicide, anal penetration (this time, only on penises… not bananas), and a slew of other sexual mentions.  There's a hint of bondage and a little bit of BDSM.  Use of vibrators and lots of dirty talk.  There may or may not be a threesome at some point with an original character. 

At the end of the day, there's a lot of love and Kurt and Blaine wind up together.  I promise. 

Just enjoy the story and the hills and valleys they both have to take to find each other's hearts again, yeah?  I don't want to give away too much so that's where I'll leave you.  As always, if you have any specific questions or concerns, you know where to find me.

Becausehiships on tumblr, in case you forgot. 

Oh hey, I really want to thank @CynicalGlee again for reading and coaching and cheering me through this one.  She is my English teacher and I don't know what I would do without her, so go follow her incredible Twitter account.

Also, Christine.  She literally forced me to write when I was crying and screaming about hating it and she also screen-grabbed this one time I said I love editing in Facebook messenger.  I write until she cries and then I know it's decent.  She's my biggest fan and I, hers.  Thank you <3

Zinnia and Lynne – you guys are amazing friends, and Zinnia… my rock in the form of a beta.  You always felt what I needed you to feel in the words and thanks for not being a comma whore!  <3

ENJOY!

xxoo,

Nikkie

xK&Bx

A dark cloud of distraction stalks Blaine Anderson for two years as he mends into a man.  Just when he thinks his life can't get any lonelier, he finds himself on the receiving end of the most terrible news ever:  someone else has proposed to Kurt Hummel.

It's a detrimental situation to be in – the love of your life publicly professing his love to another.  There's nothing he can do about it because he's the one who let Kurt slip out of his fingers in the first place.  Kurt's gone… he's out of Blaine's life. 

This would destroy Blaine if that damned cloud of distraction weren't there to save him every single time he thought about it.

Meanwhile, Kurt's stuck between a rock and a hard place clear across the country; he must settle down and preferably before he turns forty, but probably not with him.  The current.  The only option.

When Kurt is finally faced with exactly the question he had been waiting for – will you marry me? – the first person who comes to mind is not the man down on one knee.  He calls someone he hasn't seen or heard from in ages and thus the sparks fly yet again, as they always did.  He seeks out Blaine to fix him.

A journey back to each other has the ex-lovers gasping for air with each flashback and reminder of all the good (and bad) times.  They're brought through the wringer not for the first time and certainly not for the last in their lives as they fight to survive the world together. 

Even subconsciously and from across the country, with different and multiple partners, it's always been Kurt and Blaine against the world.  With very separate lives, Blaine has a support system in one person and Kurt is still just his pretty boy.

The hills, they climb.  Into the valleys, they fall.  Sudden close proximity and a life-altering revelation that has Kurt on his knees begging for mercy forces them into a trust-ridden relationship for the second time and now they must learn what it's like to know and love the other as different, more mature individuals with lives that finally don't revolve around each other.  If they find they can't do this, it's unlikely they'll survive the aftermath of the second-most devastating breakup in the history of all breakups ever known.

Can they survive the rats nipping at their ankles?  Will Kurt ever stop resisting someone who's entirely meant to be with him?  Read on, in this second installment to Take All That I Am, and be whisked away into a world where nothing's perfect and everything is hard and Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson are still fighting to rise above it all.

xK&Bx

SHORT SYNOPSIS:

Life must go on, even after unexpected events that change everything.  Give It All Away takes two boys and thrusts them to maturity, forcing them both into a journey that proves that if you truly love someone, set him free.  If he comes back, paving the pathway to forgiveness all the while, he is yours forever.  You can give it all away just to get him back.

..

Chapter 1

Song used in this chapter: 
Great Big World Ft. Christina Aguilera – Say Something

July 2016

“Kurt.  Sit down.”

“If I do, it's over.  If I sit down, we'll talk about this and how it's just not working anymore and you'll walk out the door and down the stairs and you'll run away and you'll be in California until further notice and I'll never see you again and this will all have been for nothing.”  He's pacing the length of the room, viciously rubbing at his forehead.  “Why the fuck is this happening to me?  Why didn't you just let me fix you?”

“Pretty boy, please?”  Blaine's eyes are following Kurt like he's watching the U.S Open, live and in living color.  Kurt feels them on him, like Blaine's eyes can singlehandedly burn his soul. “We're gonna be fine.”

“I can't… we can't do the long distance, not when you didn't even talk to me about this.  How would that even work?  Am I supposed to trust you three-thousand miles away when I can't even trust that you'd come to me when we're living under the same roof?”  He stops and locks eyes with the absolute love of his life, throws his hands up in the air, and cries out in despair.  “Fuck, Blaine!”  He has venom oozing out of his teeth.  “What have you done to us?”

“Kurt.  Baby…”

Kurt pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and sighing deeply.  “Just go.  If you can't do New York anymore, just go.  You didn't even… talk to me.  I could have…” He trails off.  There are no words that are worth it without the other.

Blaine stands and tries to approach him.  He reaches out to graze Kurt's folded arm, lying neatly across his chest.  “We can make this work.  New York is… it's gonna kill me, Kurt.  I never said I wasn't willing to maintain a long dis-”
 
“I can't have you in my life anymore if it's going to be like this.  I don't want-” Kurt looks at him for the last time and turns to go, pausing after taking three short steps; he's hit a wall that determines his future.  The words taste like an infection he'll never rid himself of.

“You don't mean that.“

The silence is deafening. 

Finally, Kurt says, “A clean break would be the best.  Take care, okay?”  He ventures into the once-shared beautiful bedroom, glistening on top of Broadway, slamming the door to further vocalize his decision.

When he hears the front door slam right back, the sound out of his mouth is as though he's being brutally murdered.  This is more than goodbye.  This is the end.

xK&Bx

The downpour of rainwater is poison on Blaine's skin as he sprints to the subway then past it, straight onto the next stop and the next until he's run nearly four miles with his forty-five-pound carry-on bag.  He has five hours to spare before his flight takes off at an airport that's only a half-hour away, so he stays on foot until the island of Manhattan ends and he has the choice to either swim or cross the bridge to the airport.  He's made it a point to say goodbye to no one:  Kurt, Santana, Rachel.  He assumes the girls will take Kurt's side after this anyway, so what's the point?

He hails the last vacant cab at the edge of Manhattan and expects to cry himself all the way to JFK, but he's in denial.  There are no tears to be found.

He checks his phone ten times on the way to the airport.  At the haunting darkness of his screen and the lack of any missed notifications, he realizes now that he can't breathe without Kurt.  He continues on his journey to California anyway because staying in New York would ruin him and he needs to be selfish when it comes to his sanity for once.  He knows that he's meant to be with Kurt and it's bound to work itself out.

It's all Blaine's fault, there's no doubt in his mind.  His first year at Columbia revolved around only Kurt and not around making friends or study buddies like most freshmen are encouraged to do.  During this time, the gossiping started and seemed to get worse as the time went on.  He slowly became the hot topic of conversation:  Christian Anderson's son who was beaten nearly half-to-death for most of his teenage life.  He was the sole reason why one of the most known lawyers that everyone in the Ivy League case-studied at some point in their career was rotting away in a federal prison.  Knowing that his father was one of the most intelligent and shamelessly clever lawyers of his time, Blaine tried to offer nothing at all about his home life, but he couldn't be surprised when the relation finally came out.  Blaine's peers and professors are practicing lawyers and students; of course they can Google the shit out of anyone and anything they were remotely curious about. 

They weren't mean about it as they were subtle, and the pity only made it worse.  Terribly judgmental and still rather hurtful, it ate Blaine alive to the point where he felt he needed the walls again to get through his day.  He built them right back up, as he did when he first came out to his family.  He always felt the whispers behind him on his way to his next lecture, but they had no clue – no fucking clue – about what life was like with his father, and how badly the repercussions bled into other aspects of his life, so they had no right to offer their opinion.  Even if most of it was an obvious inner monologue and glares directed only at him, Blaine could tell when he was being judged unfairly.  It eroded him until he couldn't take it anymore.  He needed out and quick, if only for his own survival. 

It was after one comment from the living, breathing Regina George of Columbia early on in the second semester of freshman year that Blaine became interested in the process of applying to other schools and how it would look on a transcript if he were to transfer. 

“So, like, did your dad get you into Columbia as an apology or something?”

Blaine skipped his last class that day and ran straight to a hot steam shower, allowing the scalding water to assault his skin for almost an hour as he broke down every shield he'd previously held up on campus.  Kurt found him burnt to a crisp and lying naked on the floor of the shower when he got home from work later in the evening.  It took the four days following, complete with laziness and crying and Chinese food, to calm him down and force out the reasoning behind Blaine's growing depression.

From that point forward, Blaine never felt the same.  The spark of passion was gone and his walls had gone back up tenfold to more than just the people at Columbia, more indestructible than ever.  There was nothing anyone, Kurt included, could do to break them down this time contrary to firm efforts.

Throughout the sudden transformation, Kurt couldn't seem to find a way to fix Blaine.  He tried to offer more dates; he brought home little surprises like flowers and chocolates and adorable stuffed animals from Hallmark just because.  Blaine was deemed “unfixable” and there wasn't anything Kurt could have done to make it better.

Everything deflated flat as a rail with one sentence out of Blaine's mouth.  “I got into UC Berkeley.”

And then life went to shit.

xK&Bx

May 2018, two years later.

Kurt sneaks into the nearest Starbucks, his whole body damp and cold, and fishes a pen out of his bag.  He yanks a thick handful of napkins out of the canister on the last remaining empty table and starts to scribble nearly unclear words crooked on the first napkin.  Writing the letter that he's outlined in his head a billion times, now finally having a good enough reason.  He slouches over and thinks hard.  He makes it a point for this to be the only letter, lacing in small messages to other people who need them.  Death was always his destiny.

My Blaine,

Where are you when I need you the most?  I'm at the Starbucks on 70th Street, as though you're going to run in here from the rain, pick me up and twirl me, bruise my lips and paint your name all over them, as you used to when you and I were a we.  You would say you were on your way home early to surprise me, but you saw me in here so you had to come interrupt.  I wouldn't argue and we'd sip our coffee for the half block it took for us to get soaked again.

It's just started to rain.  The rain always reminds me of you because it was raining the day you left.  It's been raining ever since, at least metaphorically.  That's so cheesy, you'd make fun of me for saying that.

You know, I would have followed you anywhere you told me to.  I wish I had said that in the moment; that could have changed everything.  You didn't know that, though, and I've let you down.  I regret my time alone, my time without you, because I didn't realize that home has never been New York, Blaine; that home was always you.  So fucking cliché, right? 

I'm here and you're there and I feel so irrelevant without you.  I'm alone and it's my fault.  But I'm not alone, not really.  This person I've been dating (who will never be you) just proposed to me in Central Park.  I'm not even sure I like him. I wouldn't be able to spend my life with someone who isn't you, Blaine.  I can't surrender. 

My first reaction shouldn't have been to call you.  I told him I need time to think, time to collect my thoughts and figure out what I want.  Now that I'm sitting here, next door to our apartment… Upon running away from him, I know I won't accept it under any circumstance; I've always known that about any proposal that may come my way from anyone who isn't you.  I want to die because it wasn't you on a single knee, asking me for forever, as it should have been and God Blaine, I feel like I've ruined my entire life by letting you go that day.

What's the point of breathing if it can't be for you, with you?  I know we promised no goodbyes.  I'm sorry I have to say goodbye to you now.

The fact of the matter is that I needed you to be here with me, to be anywhere with me, and I know I should have paid more attention to how you were feeling and not how terrible life would be anywhere but New York.  We fell into a rhythm separately while we were together, and it wound up pushing us apart.  My agenda here was to make up for the first time I lived here and that wasn't fair to you at all.  You got lost in the shuffle when all I needed to do was be there.  It's about time I let the city do what it's always wanted to: chew me up and spit me out.  It's swallowing me up again, I feel it, and you are not here to pull me back to the surface like you always were.  I'm drowning, Blaine, and you can't be that fucking floating noodle thing I hold onto anymore.  I'm falling through this fucking black hole of a city that I can't escape and I can't survive it without the one person I've ever wanted next to me, so I guess I just… won't. 

I'm planning to just do you all a favor and speed up the torture.  It's the most selfish thing I ever thought to do, B, and I know what you're going to think of me once I succeed, but it hurts less knowing that I won't be here to hear your thoughts.  I know it's going to devastate my parents; maybe it will devastate you.  I think I just needed you to know because I always thought we'd have a happy ending, and if there's no happy ending, then I at least owe you this much.

There was never supposed to be a happy ending for me.  I know that now.  The death that's surrounded me just makes sense to me now, because my death is going to surround everyone else.

I know you know that I still have nightmares about that night and I don't want it to be your responsibility to take care of it anymore.  I don't want you to ever forget me and the way I loved you.  I don't want you to cry at the funeral.  I want you to be there for my parents.  Be there for Santana; she's the best friend I could have ever had, outside of you.  This will be hard on her and my parents – this will be the second loved one they've had to say goodbye to. 

Please, bond with Rachel.  She's gone through everything you are already and she can help you move on.  She and Finn were broken up when he died, and her strength now gives me faith that you will be fine.  You'll find someone else, someone you will wonder how you ever lived without, if you haven't already.  Be that person for someone else, Blaine.  Don't ruin yourself over me.  You always were too affected by me.  Rachel will help you.

I'm sorry, I wish we could have made our forever work, baby.  This is so much bigger than you, and I love you more than you know.  I don't want you to blame yourself, but I do want you to know that part of it is because it's not worth it without you.  My life was you and I am always yours regardless of whether or not I have a pulse.  I love you.  So much.  But I can't do this anymore without you.  I just don't know anything else anymore, B.  I love you.

-  Kurt

Death is something that can't ever be reversible; Kurt knows this.  He knows that it's a permanent fixture.  He is finally in touch with what he really wants for himself and so he decides to start a plan this week.  Although the timing of it all probably won't take place until after he gets back from Ohio, he'll work diligently to tie up the few loose ends he can think of off the top of his head.  It'll be pills, he's decided, and it won't happen at home.  He'll make a splash with this, if only for a showstopper at the very end.  He owes that much to himself.

Say something, I'm giving up on you.
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.
Anywhere, I would've followed you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.

He folds the napkin-letter three times until it's a small rectangle and he shoves it into his messenger bag.  As he looks around the dark coffee shop, he realizes that this isn't the place that holds all of the memories from the beginning of his relationship with Blaine, and for whatever reason, he cries harder until he's a blubbering mess who's kicked out by an angry assistant manager who says he's disrupting the workflow of the environment. 

Wiping his eyes dry, standing at the edge of the sidewalk, he gazes into the third floor bay window that used to be theirs.  He stands there for a few minutes, arms folded and warm tears streaming down his face yet again.

He is pulled out of his daydream by a loud call of his name, a vibration he feels in his bones, and a franticly waving boy across the street.  He shakes his head in a way that could almost be mistaken for fondly as he watches the man's next action.

Oliver's standing on the other side of the street with a large bouquet he must have gotten at the bodega on the corner.  Kurt's… person… dodges a few taxis wailing their horns at him and captures Kurt's mouth, connecting the two men fiercely, all of the energy coming from only Oliver's lips. 

“Jesus, Kurt!  I was so worried about you.  God, I'm so sorry.”  Oliver holds out the flowers to Kurt.  “Please tell me I didn't fuck this up.”

Kurt keeps his hands in his pockets.  Kurt's eyes feel wide and dry, almost like someone is currently gouging them with a fork.

Oliver looks at him intensely and continues.  “Just… take until after your vacation?  Do you want coffee?  Come on, you look exhausted.”  He goes to pull on the nook of Kurt's elbow.

Kurt rolls his eyes in response.  It is most definitely not a vacation, but Kurt can't really hold that against Oliver.  He simply doesn't know Kurt down to his core, like Blaine used to.  Kurt makes it a point to keep himself closed off to everyone.  Everyone since Blaine.  “Don't.  We're not even together.  You're just… we're just fooling around.”

“Kurt…”

“I'll call you when I'm back from Ohio.”  He escapes to the subway stairs, skipping two at a time until he's standing in front of the turnstile, watching a train pass through the station.  He doesn't intend on getting on it to venture home to Brooklyn; he's simply hiding out from Oliver.  After ten minutes, he retreats back up the stairs and takes a seat in Columbus Square next to a homeless guy with hundreds of dollars worth of cans in a shopping cart.  The guy is talking to the pigeons rather loudly, telling them his life story. 

Kurt observes for a few moments; he's trying to gather his own thoughts and talk himself out of what he knows will be very trying on both he and Blaine.  When the desire doesn't go away, he takes a deep breath and dials the number.  He thumbs at the napkin in his pocket.  It's been so long since they've spoken.  Blaine probably won't even pick up.

He patiently waits for the call to connect to Blaine's voicemail.

xK&Bx

He scrolls through his contact list of names, but he has no way of remembering their faces.  He hardly saves a number if only for the strict don't fuck a guy from the clubs twice rule he's made for himself.  Throwing his phone down next to him as he grunts in frustration, Blaine repositions his body in a lump on his empty bed.

The breakup took more from Blaine than he'd ever care to admit and even two years later, he's still sincerely affected by such a terrible loss and the fact that Kurt didn't follow after he told him to leave that day, although Blaine can admit that he really didn't give Kurt the opportunity.

He's on somewhat of a post-relationship sex-prowl, in dire need to find the feeling Kurt gave him again, at least sexually.  Nearly daily, he joins his buddies down at the gay bars and clubs, taking home a new piece of ass one hundred percent of the time.  He feels guilty after the fact, but he swears it's pleasurable in the moment.

He misses Kurt; he's not sure why they left each other when they were previously so perfect, besides the simple fact that New York was cursed.  Attending Berkeley and changing his major to a completely opposite career-path than that of his father is something that Blaine needed for his own sanity and no one could possibly argue with that, as long as it all works out for the both of them, happily, separately, in the end.  If it can't be him, he wants someone who truly deserves everything Kurt is.  He hopes Kurt is happy.  This has not been confirmed, though, because Burt, Carole, Santana, and Rachel all refuse to let him into the details of Kurt's life. 

Blaine shuffles back into his messy bedroom and finds Kurt's old hoodie he stole years ago and plops down on the bed.  He reaches for his phone as it buzzes and stares at the blinking indication of the caller ID telling him it's an “Unknown Number”.  Blaine holds the phone in the palm of his hand and watches the call go to voicemail.  He continues to stare, willing for it to come to life once again.  It does seconds later and the butterflies in his stomach flutter out of control.

“Hello?”

“Oh thank God, Blaine.  You answered.”

Kurt.  The blood in Blaine's veins runs ice cold.  There's something wrong.  They hadn't talked on the phone since… well, he can't remember the last time they heard each other's voice.

“Kurt?  Are you okay?”

“B, he proposed.”

“Ummmm, who?”

“I just wanted it to be you standing there, Blaine.  That was my first fucking thought, that's so fucked up.  Jesus!”

“You're… Jesus, Kurt.  You're engaged?  What the hell are you-”

“Blaine, no.  Fuck, no.  I mean, I didn't tell him anything, I just ran.  But no.  Of course I'm not.  Fuck, this was a mistake.  I've been fucking up for like, my entire life, shit, and New York is dumb and uninspiring and so fucking pointless without you.  I'm getting too old for this and I just… fuck!  You'd think I'd get a goddamned handle on it by now.  Dammit.”

Blaine listens and takes a deep breath.  He can do this; he has to do this, if only to make it up to Kurt for leaving him alone two years ago.  “No, no.  Come on, we promised we'd always be there for each other, no matter what.  Remember?  Take me… take me through it but spare the details?”  He laughs cowardly.  He knows that Kurt will know it's to cover up his true feelings.  He sighs.  “Kurt?”

Kurt whispers; it's barely audible.  “I miss you.”

“God, pretty.”

xK&Bx

Blaine remembers two years ago as if it were yesterday.

Four days after Blaine moved out west, he made the call.  He needed to make this better; he only wanted Kurt.  The number has been disconnected.  He immediately called Santana, who tells him to fuck off until she can get Kurt off the bathroom floor.  She'll call him when Kurt wants to talk.  She never called; not about Kurt, anyway.

Four days after Blaine selfishly left Kurt, he finds himself signing a lease for an adorable two-bedroom house straight out of Full House.  It's nearest the Castro District, so he naturally whisks himself away to the closest gay bar the very first night.  Apparently, he is especially desirable to the men in San Francisco, so he starts to have some fun.  He doesn't deal with the issues of the tremendous loss in his love or his confidence at this time; he just starts to notch his bedpost, one gorgeous California boy at a time. 

He gets an STD that night.  It's curable, yes… but a wake-up-call, nonetheless.

Hung over the next morning, day five without Kurt, he kicks the random boy out of his bed, officially vowing for these boys to never spend the night again.  He slams the door in the slut's face and opts to unpack the little that he brought with him.  He unwraps the single framed photo he has of him and Kurt from his graduation day and puts it on the kitchen counter. He tapes the engagement ring he'd been carrying around to the backside of the frame with some leftover packing tape.  There, it remains for the day he might need it again.  He hopes he'll need it sooner than later.

Blaine starts to make a few friends and treads carefully into this new territory of interacting with complete strangers.  There are a few people at school and he even exchanges numbers platonically with a couple he meets at the Hanson concert he goes to one night by himself.

xK&Bx

Another buzz relieves him from his own head, from the recollection of his past few years barely surviving.

Kurt:  I'm sorry for freaking out on you.  It was just instinct to call you in a time like that.  I'm sorry you had to deal with that.
Blaine:  Someone once told me to stop be so self-deprecating and I'm passing the advice onto you.  When is graduation this year?
Kurt:  Mmmm, next next Saturday.  You're… invited.
Kurt: If you want.
Kurt: It'd be nice to see you.
Blaine:  This is the most we've texted in two years, pretty.
Kurt:  Doesn't mean I haven't wanted to.
Kurt:  Shit, B.
Blaine:  You can be honest with me, Kurt. 
Blaine:  I still love you. 

Kurt's breath catches at the words.  He decides it's not time to respond in the way he wants to, because then all of this struggle would have been unnecessary all along.  He needs to resist this.

He logs onto his computer and changes the flight to leave in six hours instead of in six days, and he cancels his return flight.

Blaine:  Shit.  Sorry.  I mean, not that I do…love you… but just that I'm still saying it.  To you.
Kurt:  I'll be in Ohio tonight.
Blaine:  Noted. 
Blaine:  See you in the morning, then.

Resistance is not possible when it comes to Blaine Anderson.

Kurt: Love you too, B.
Kurt:  Always saving me.
Blaine:  Nope, that was always you.

Kurt throws his phone down on the bed and allows himself to squeal just this once.