Chapter 19

Author's Note:  I'm really sorry, you guys.  Just keep reading, I promise everything gets better.  Friendly reminder that there is no character death in this fanfiction!  Hang in there! : - )

The blood nearly chokes him as it slides down his throat with every swallow, pooling at the base of his stomach.  He hears the crack and the snap and now he can't determine if he's sideways or standing.  He opens his mouth to demand help; his moan goes unheard.  The pain is unbearable across the insides of his cheeks; he feels a gaping, warm hole on the side of his jaw.  His head is pounding, his leg bent at an inhuman angle; he can see the slash of bone at his shin.  He focuses on his breathing, on his ability to stay alive.  He lies still; he tries to keep himself together.  For Blaine. 

He's so tired; he closes his eyes. 

It's been almost a full hour.  The cops haven't shown up and both Burt and Kurt are missing in action.  Blaine paces the apartment in full, tapping Kurt's iPhone against his chin with an invisible melody.  What the actual fuck, where is everyone?

Blaine has to pee.

He sets the phone down on the coffee table and makes his way slowly but surely to the bathroom.  His eyes go straight to the bold text scribbled across the mirror, and suddenly his bladder isn't showing any warning signs.  Abort ship.  Mission:  Rescue Kurt from Christian Anderson – system is a go.  Oh fuck, it must be too late.  This day could not be going any worse.

He yanks the vibrating iPhone back off of the table, not even answering it because he knows what Kurt's dad needs him for.

He pockets Kurt's phone so it's next to his own and descends, zipping and soaring, making actual contact with every third stair or so.  His actions become a blur of wood, crisp air, and a sunrise that still hasn't pulled through altogether, even though the purples and pinks blend together rather nicely against the blue and white of the sky, creating a Lisa Frank painting right there for anyone's oohs and ahhs. 

Blaine's always running.  To or from, it doesn't matter.  He's just never in the right place at the right time.

The sight on street level is debilitating; Blaine's legs unlock and he collapses on the pavement.  There is yellow “Crime Scene” tape everywhere, skewed and blocking off random areas of the sidewalk. 

He knows that it's Kurt.  There is something wrong with his Kurt.  Kurt's dead.  Could Kurt be dead?  They hardly got any time together, that would be positively unfair of life to take him without warning and in the middle of an argument at that.

At a closer look, Blaine swallows nervously at the sight of the streaks of dark crimson painted into the concrete, leading around the corner and into the darkness of the alleyway.  He finds Burt's eyes and levitates to where he is standing next to an ambulance, peering inside the opened back door, his hand covering his mouth and water in his eyes.

“Mister Hummel… Where is-” Blaine follows Burt's eyes into the vehicle and thinks he might drop dead right then and there.  “Kurt!”  His body panics, and he's fighting against Kurt's father's chest.  He is somehow turned by Burt one-hundred and eighty degrees; his back faces his unconscious, frail, helpless boyfriend. 

“Blaine!  Stop!”  Burt has a hard grasp on the boy's biceps, “You'll hurt him more if you touch him now.  Stop fucking fighting me, kid!”  Blaine punches at his chest one last time for good measure, as if that's the one that will allow him to get closer to Kurt.  “Blaine! Fuck, relax, calm down!”  Burt wraps his arms around Blaine's body and pulls him into his chest for nothing but the restraint.

“Calm down?  My father just put a fucking hit on my boyfriend.  Is he breathing?  Is he okay?”  Blaine allows his throat to make a non-human sound as he turns out of Burt's hold and punches at the side door of the ambulance and effectively starts bleeding from swollen knuckles.  Please let Kurt be okay.

The next thing Blaine knows, he's shifting on a row of especially uncomfortable and discounted plastic chairs in a milk-colored waiting room that smells nothing short of antiseptic and death, ignoring another phone call from his brother.  His hand is wrapped and throbbing, laid across his chest.  He must have fallen asleep hours ago, as Kurt was going into surgery to have the bones in his leg reset; evidently, a pipe of some sort shattered his left tibia.  Blaine blankly wonders if he's lucky enough for Kurt to still be alive, as he himself lies on his back, monumentally unscathed except for the curve of the chair hitting each of his discs and minor self-inflicted pain only brought upon himself out of rage.  It's irritating, not painful.  He's at least satisfied with one minor detail today, and that's simply the location of Lima Memorial Hospital being within four miles of his extremist, bitter, homophobic father's house. 

Burt and Carole return and Blaine explodes upward to occupy only one seat.  He scratches at his ankle furiously, in an effort to remind himself to not get too crazy at whatever news they must have.  He leans his head against the wall behind the flimsy chair and side eyes Kurt's dad.

“He's okay, Blaine.”

“How do you know that, though?”  He lifts his head off the wall and runs his fingertips through his curls, then ruffles them.  He couldn't care less about the messy mop on the top of his head.

“Well, he just got out of surgery and he's in his room.  When he wakes up, we'll be able to see him.”

“Yeah.  Tell him I said hi.”  With sarcasm dripping, Blaine can't hide his apathy in hospital rules; it's fucking stupid that people you love must be related to you in order to see your bruises in your hospital room.  It's why Blaine's laid and stared at the ceiling alone a few times; no one related to him ever came to visit.  He finds comfort in knowing that maybe other people did but they weren't allowed to see him.  He's been there too many times, although they were quick and quiet visits that had him walking himself home after discharge.

Somehow, thanks to his father's influence around town, the Department of Child Protective Services never caught wind of exactly how many times Blaine had been in the hospital for bruised ribs and deep slices across his skin.

“Tell him yourself.”  Kurt's dad grinds his teeth and pinches at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer for a few seconds too long before looking back at his son's boyfriend.

Blaine knows Burt is only trying to withdraw a nasty comment thrown in Blaine's direction about his teenage attitude because Kurt probably asked him to try for him, and Burt would do anything for his son.  But then again, so would Blaine for his boyfriend.

“It's all my fault.”  Word vomit.

Burt sighs, softens his look, and sits next to him.  He holds a hand to the boy's shoulder, the way a father might.

“It is not your fault that you have a ruthless father, sweetheart.”  Carole chimes in because she knows guilt and she will not allow her last remaining son's somebody special to feel even a glitch of what she's been living with for years. 

She quickly occupies the seat on the other side of Blaine and takes his good hand and pulls her other hand up to his chin so he looks at her.  “No matter what happens between you and Kurt, you always have a home with us.  I don't care if you're forty-five and you haven't seen Kurt in twenty years.  You are always invited, no questions asked.”

Burt nods, “I think.”  Burt looks at Carole, then directly to Blaine.  “I think you'll be coming to my house for holidays with Kurt for a while.” He laughs awkwardly.  “I'm pretty sure you're stuck with my kid for a long time, Anderson.”

Blaine nods and scoffs through his tears.  “Fine by me.”  He mumbles and positions his chin to his chest to hide his smile, because among all this bad, he has managed to find Kurt and even Burt and Carole.

Blaine's not sure if Burt's eyes are shining out of joy that his son found someone to spend the rest of his life with, or tears of fear and anger toward his son's beat down for being gay in the first place.   Nevertheless, Blaine allows Carole to stroke the top of his hand with her thumb and nods shyly at Burt, who is staring daggers into his heart.  Or maybe that's the look of fatherly love.  He could never tell the difference. 

So they sit in silence for hours that feel like a week.  None of them know exactly how serious Kurt's injuries are, so they wait.  And then they wait some more.

Getting the living shit beat out of him doesn't hurt any less since the days of being thrown into dumpsters and locker indentations across his back.  The taste of iron seems to have conclusively disappeared from his mouth, although he cannot carry out any movement in his jaw without a stabbing, tear-worthy suffering.  He jolts his tongue where a molar toward the back used to be and analyzes the gaping hole until he only presumes that was his blood-breakfast's source. 

He's acquainted again with the known world, but still lethargic.  The anesthesia is wearing off at its own pace that Kurt can't help but try to move along by shifting his eyes briskly in hopes of appearing lively. 

He bends slightly, moaning greatly at the modest shift.  What knife is twisting, in the shape of my ribs?  Jesus!  He glances at his leg, casted in white (straight with a slight angle at the knee) and elevated in traction.  Awesome.  He tries to turn his head to observe his view but the plastic neck brace prevents the movement. 

His attention moves aimlessly to his last memory.  It's the glimpse of gorgeous, worried as all hell, frowning Blaine from the foyer at home before he rushed out to meet with… someone.  To meet with Christian Anderson!  After he wrecked my – our – apartment.  Where the fuck is Blaine?

The monotonous beep is refreshing, a constant reminder that he is still alive.  Kurt's blue eyes are black, one nearly swollen shut, and he feels the throb at his eyelid.  His body, for the most part, is numb or tingling and he lifts his good arm up slowly to watch how blurred and full of sparkly stars he can make it.  He laughs a little, touching his pointer to his thumb, entranced in the movement.  He blinks slowly; each blink means life. 

Kurt begins hyperventilating.  Please let Blaine be alright.  He panics.

Blaine's mind drifts to the first day he saw Kurt.  God, he was so gorgeous.  Maybe a bit sad, lonely even, but seemingly content, despite all the shit previously thrown at him.  Not much breaks Kurt Hummel, or so it seems.

Blaine remembers how dumb he was for not starting a conversation for weeks upon weeks, and he feels a short giggle release from the depths of his throat.  He remembers the first time they had sex, although their relationship was developing a bit backwards at that point.  It was the most intimate and real experience Blaine had ever had with anyone else.  He remembers the night Kurt essentially gave up on the resistance and how it's only gotten better since, although the argument they were fighting before the attack lingers in Blaine's mind.  He forces into happiness again; he remembers the day Kurt told him he loved him, and Blaine's initial thought was that it must have been a joke because no one could love him with almost an entire slice of pizza smashed into his mouth.  He remembers the teasing and the flirting and the incredible sex he's had since they both agreed to be boyfriends the night before Blaine's eighteenth birthday.  Blaine doesn't want to just remember Kurt, though.  He wants him.  Forever.  He can't lose Kurt, miss Kurt.  Not yet.  They haven't experienced enough together yet.  The stab at his heart is too sharp even now while he can't see him.  Blaine sighs; he can't get enough and hopefully he won't ever have to.

Although Blaine is younger, he wants to be the one that dies first.  It's selfish for him to put Kurt through such heartbreak, assuming he loves me the way I love him, but it's something that Blaine would never survive if the tables were turned.  Blaine vows to himself in that moment that he'll pull a Romeo and Juliet if need be, whether that time be today or fifty-five years from now.  The easy way out isn't always the best, but there's no other option as far as Blaine is concerned.  He vows to never walk the earth without Kurt's presence.

There's a ping in his heart; a sudden change that catches Blaine's breath in his throat, the feelings overwhelming and strong.  He feels like he's going to throw up, or cry, or both.  He needs to be the one to provide for Kurt.  Kurt is his family; he's the only family he's got.   Responsible adults supply their families with anything they need.  To have enough money for Kurt to live the way he wants to requires college.  College and an engagement ring, a wedding, a house without a mortgage.  Health insurance.  Happiness.  Eternity.  Fearlessly and forever.  Blaine's life has to change to keep Kurt safe and well.

It's nearly dinnertime before the doctor returns to the waiting room to let them know it's safe to go back to Kurt's room. 

Blaine glances at the police officers waiting idly in the corner until he's ready to talk.  They have already tried to talk to Blaine twice, but the tears are uncontrollable every time.  He promises that he'll be more comprehensible once he sees Kurt's open eyes for himself.  The cops nod and leave him alone, assuring to do so until he's ready to explain the happenings of this morning to them in full detail.  To make use of their time in the best way, they announce that they will now return to the apartment to take more pictures of the scene.  The burlier of the two slips Blaine his business card and they disappear.

He stares at the space previously occupied by the detectives, and stalls in standing, until Burt gives him an unexpected nudge that does nothing to keep him from tumbling over.  He catches his own feet just in time and he looks back at Burt and Carole who are still sitting.  The nurse is waiting for a family member to follow her back to Kurt.

“Go.”  Burt insists.

“I'm sorry, honey.  You're family?”  The nurse looks like she regrets the exact question at least seven times a day.

“Uhhhh, cousin?”

Carole stands, comfortable with the nurse.  Carole's entire career has been this hospital; the least they can do is allow all of Kurt's loved ones to visit.  “Adriana.  This is Kurt's…”  She looks down at Blaine, whose pupils are blown wide, screaming for help. 

Nurse Adriana does not believe the cousin bit. 

“This is Kurt Hummel's husband.”  Carole purses her lips and looks to her co-worker with hope twinkling fully in her eyes. 

“Very well.”  The nurse doesn't believe it at all, but there's nothing she can officially do.

Blaine releases the air from his lungs and follows her back to the love of his life. 

He's awake.  “Oh, pretty boy.”  Blaine rushes down and plops into the chair before grabbing Kurt's hand between both of Blaine's and kissing his knuckles.  “Hi.”  He brushes the piece of hair that he can only imagine Kurt's been annoyed with for hours.  “Can you speak, baby?”

Kurt shakes his head slightly, but grinning at Blaine.  Oh fuck, he's okay.  He opens his mouth a little and leans toward Blaine to show him the inside of his mouth, never taking his eyes off of his beautiful, endearing, adorable boyfriend.

“Got some teeth knocked outta ya, huh?”  Blaine sighs.  “Me too.  I have two fake ones in the back.  We can have the same battle wounds, kay?”  There's a beat.  “It's kind of a Christian Anderson signature move.”

Kurt smiles even bigger, clearly drugged on a massive amount of painkillers. 

“Jesus, Kurt.  I am so happy you're alive.  I love you so much.  You scared me so bad.  You're so fucking stubborn.”

Kurt groans, mumbling inaudible words and gazing into Blaine's eyes like it's just another day.

“I'm so sorry, baby.  I did this to you, oh God, I'm so sorry.”  Blaine kisses his forehead lightly and holds his lips there, closing his eyes and inhaling.  “I have to tell the cops everything.  And when you're ready, you should too.”

Blaine's eyes go blank, staring at the bleeping monitors above and to the right of Kurt's head.  He knows he needs to talk to the cops, but he can't find the strength in him until Kurt can explain too.  He's his only confidant and he really doesn't want to miss a major detail because his brain shorts out staring at cops, whom he's been intimidated by for his entire life.

Burt and Carole peak in for a visit with their son.

Blaine is glued to Kurt's side, rambling sweet nothings for anyone to hear.  Burt suggests he say goodbye for the night upwards of twenty times until he finally does.  The scene is straight out of a movie, complete with Blaine rushing back three times for another kiss and Kurt giggling loud and obnoxious every time, before being forced to sleep alone in an entirely different world five minutes up the road. 

“I miss you already.  I love you.”  He digs Kurt's phone out of his pocket and places it lightly on his chest.  “Text me if you're up to it.  I'll bring a charger tomorrow.”  Blaine nods, tears in his eyes.  All the odds have to be in their favor, after all of this shit, right?  “I love you, pretty boy.”

Kurt draws a heart with his fingers and points to Blaine, winking and smiling erratically all the while.

Blaine follows his boyfriend's parents out of the building, clutching his phone until his knuckles are wrapped around it and white with no circulation to his fingertips. 

It's not discussed at all, and he doesn't even say a word when Burt pulls into the driveway and unlocks the front door and leaves it wide open for Carole and Blaine to follow.

Blaine is staring at the iPhone screen in his hand, sitting on the edge of Kurt's high school bed.  He throws it toward the pillows and falls backward, pushing the heels of his hands to his eyes and willing himself not to cry. 

“Blaine, sweetie?”  He stands and shuffles to the door, opening it apprehensively.  It's Carole, with a collection of toiletries and two towels in her hands, piled so high she could hardly see over them. 

“Hi, honey.  I brought some stuff you can use while you're here.  Make yourself at home.”  She places the pile on the bed and tilts her head at him.  “Are you okay?”

Blaine looks to her and nods once.  “As long as he is.”

“Oh, honey.  He will be.”  Before Blaine can resist, she captures his upper body in a tight hug and holds the back of his head, swaying to make him feel better.  “This isn't your fault, Blaine.”

“He got to him through me!  How is this not my fault?”

“You can't control his actions.  You're beating yourself up over this for no reason, because Kurt will be fine and you will both come out of this so much stronger together.”

Blaine doesn't say a word but he considers this for the hour after Carole leaves his new bedroom. 

He rustles through Kurt's old desk and finds an empty notebook and a seriously obsessive collection of all types of writing utensils.  He writes.  It's the first step to provide for his family of two.

What is something you've overcome?

My father.  I've always had to overcome my father.  Since the beginning of my life, before I even came out as a gay man, before I had a boyfriend, he has always thrived for me to be the best.

Blaine rips the page out of the notebook and tosses it away.  He growls and starts again.  Victim, much?

I've had to overcome myself.  I am in constant competition with the lesser me, the boy who doesn't deserve a thing.

This time, he throws the entire notebook against the wall and plunges into the pillow behind him, screaming every profanity he's ever known.  Again, with the fucking victim mentality.

No, he won't let his father ruin his self-esteem anymore.  He thinks of the way Kurt encourages him, even when he doesn't say a thing.  He thinks about how he finally has a support system that's behind him every step of the way, regardless of what way he chooses.  He retrieves Kurt's notebook again, scribbling words fast and furious, barely legible since he's so into the moment.  He is writing quickly before the thoughts leave his head, never to be seen again. 

For some, “Blaine Anderson” is a preposterous good-for-nothing flop.  He is a screw-up who will never find the right path.  For others, I am a boy who has the potential to reformat the world to my own tune.  To one, I am the entire world.  To everyone else, I am disgusting, taboo, faggot, gay. 

My particular household in rural Ohio is just about the last residence a kid like me should live and be raised.  For the most part, I'll have you know that the kids at school are somewhat tame when it comes to teasing the gay kid who minds his own business.  Most of the adults who are set in their ways torment me around town, and can't seem to realize that equality regardless of who you kiss is a simple reference to human rights. (That's another essay.) 

It is my own blood and DNA that make my life a living underworld in the inmost layer of pure hell, seething and ripping me apart at every opportunity.  It is my immediate crew of relatives that pushes me down (literally and figuratively) every single day of my very existence.  Columbia or not, my countdown to escape and survival is anxiously stalked every morning with a Sharpie marker to the calendar.  They say you can't pick your family, so my family couldn't have possibly picked me.

I am not one to accept any form of compassion easily, especially when it comes to my sexuality and other situations I simply cannot control; I feel uneasy when someone looks at me with pity.  I've always taught myself to deal with the hand of cards I'd been dealt.  My parents tell me every day that I chose this.  “I made my bed so I have to lie in it.”  They say this with words; Dad says this with fists.  They reiterate their desires for my abortion, and had they known early on that I was to be a perverted monster, they wouldn't have even had sex that night nine months before my birth.  Evidently, my parents are not huge fans of Blaine Anderson.

Rock bottom came and went, then came again.  The singular distinction between then and now, though, is the love of my life that I've been lucky enough to find at some point in the midst of my downward spiral.  His presence is what keeps me driven, encouraged, and loved, in a world where I didn't even bother to love myself.  It's he who tells me that things will get better, and it's his words that I believe for the first time.  Things are finally looking up, Columbia University Admissions Officer, and I'm physically working toward my dreams of living in New York and obtaining an incomparable education, something I would have never considered only two years prior to my writing a detailed account of my past to explain my biggest accomplishment of overcoming the hate handed to me. 

Rock bottom was a dark place, and the most embarrassing mistakes were made.  Rock bottom was committing larceny more than once, solely for attention.  (They confiscated the thesaurus I stole from Barnes & Noble.  Just for the record, I don't need it.  This is my natural-born vocabulary, I swear.)  Rock bottom was a homophobic police officer slapping an ankle monitor on my leg to ensure I stay within a four-mile radius for at least a year of my life, and it was meeting with my parole officer and her stalking me all around town and everywhere I went to make sure I didn't steal again or leave school early.  (I wouldn't; I love to learn and read.  Books fascinate me.)  Rock bottom was not having enough heart in me to like, let alone love, any one person.  Rock bottom was trying to commit suicide, a quick slit or swallow of a pill and everything could have been over.  Rock bottom was being so dangerously close to the edge, nearly jumping to chase the self-esteem in me that had already escaped, plummeting to its death seconds before my body. 

Since I was a kid, even before I was officially and openly gay, no one believed in me, and I was reminded of this daily.  I grew up secondary to my brother; I was never good enough in anything I did.  I was never able to swing higher than him at the playground, or beat him in a race.  I was never able to catch the football or color in-between the lines.  I was taught at a young age that anything less than “extraordinary superhero” was never enough.

Because of the constant pressure when I was young, I am now especially motivated to follow my dreams and go beyond them, almost to the point of obsession.  The terrible part of all of this, though, is that I am in constant competition with myself.  A self-proclaimed perfectionist, I don't quit until it's superior to whatever you thought it could be by a long shot – whatever “it” may be. 

My current motivation to obtain “it” is the fact that I have to provide for the people I love.  While I'm at “it,” I have to be the best at doing so.  Columbia would only set the foundation for the rest of my life together with the person who never gave up on me, and saw me through until I was better.  Now, because of him, I can be the best.

With all of that said, if my father never found out about what I'd stolen, how I was caught, how I'd gotten arrested, I would have had no one's fist and hateful words to run away from.  I would have never escaped to the confined safe haven of the coffee shop where I met Kurt, and I would have never found the one person to turn my life around. 

I would still be an angst-ridden teenager spiraling and slipping further into a hell I might have never been able to recover from. I wouldn't have been close to ever considering college, let alone an Ivy League.  I believe in myself now.  I believe that I can do this.  That I will do this.

I, with the help of only one person, have proudly turned myself around.  Each sputter of hate and homophobia is chewed in and spit out, and I'm pretentiously using their negativity and yanking it fitfully by the balls.  (Sorry, I know that you are an especially prestigious institution, but I'm saying it like I'm seeing it, and balls were yanked with extreme force during my time of overcoming the negativity of my life.)

I love my boyfriend more than I've loved anyone else, seriously.  I know what you're thinking – high school relationships never last.  Maybe this one won't, but maybe it will.  I don't know what our future holds and I don't know if we're meant to be forever yet.  To be honest, I don't know much about anything. (All the more reason to enroll in an awesome school that could easily provide me with the knowledge I'm eager to absorb?) I do know, however, that I have been changed for the better by the simple allowance toward someone else loving me the way I deserve to be loved.  We may not have it all down perfectly, and there are always bumps in the road.  I believe I overcame my trials and tribulations because I loved myself through the process, and I allowed someone else to love me, too. 

By finding love, I overcame hate. 

Love conquers all, Columbia.

Hopefully, Columbia University is going to get a kick out of this.