The Prince and the Blackbird Book One:

ways to fall apart

Prologue- goodbye means nothing at all

Two little boys are swinging side by side on the playground. Around them, the other children laugh and shriek. A man on a bench watches them with a fond expression that seems to be masking something like sadness. But the boys are focused on their swinging, pumping back and forth in exaggerated motions with serious looks on their tiny faces. One of them has dark curls gelled back by a careful hand, and even then a few spring loose onto his forehead. The other has a small sweep of brown and yellow upright on his head.

"B-Bl-Bl," he struggles to say, frowning, and the one with the dark curls shakes his head.

"Don't you remember? I told you that you could say B, if it was easier than Blaine." He looks imploringly at the brown-haired boy.

"Oh yeah. B," he starts over and stops abruptly, pouting. "I forgot what I was gonna say."

This causes Blaine to break into giggles, which makes the other boy pout more until he succumbs to laughter as well. Blaine lets himself stop pumping as hard so that he can focus on watching the way his friend's nose crinkles. When the laughter ceases, he says, "Let's get off, Kurt. I'm tired."

"Okay," Kurt agrees. He jumps smoothly from the swing, leaving it still swinging in high arcs behind him. "Blaine, did you see?" he says excitedly, clapping his red gloved hands. "Can you do that?"

"I don't know." Blaine wrinkles his nose and skids his tidily sneakered feet against the woodchips before sliding off carefully instead. "I don't want to fall off. Just in case."

"You should try jumping," Kurt says. He considers it briefly, then adds "Another day. We've been swinging a long time."

"Where's your dad? We could go to your house and watch movies." Blaine looks around, making sure that no one can overhear, before he leans into Kurt and whispers, "I have a secret to tell you."

"That sounds like fun," Kurt says with a wide grin. "Daddy! Blaine and I are ready to go home." He tugs at the plaid sleeve of the man on the bench.

"All right, kiddos," says the man. "Let's go."

*

Back at Kurt's house, they curl up on the couch with a bowl of buttery popcorn thanks to Kurt's adept microwave skills and watch as Snow White plays with forest animals onscreen. "Blaine?" Kurt says quietly, knowing that his dad is just next door. "Did you want to tell me your secret now?"

Blaine's eyes immediately flick from the movie to Kurt. They are a chocolaty brown swirled into gold that remind Kurt vaguely of a drink that a woman stirred in the kitchen a not-so-long time ago, a drink that tasted sweet and a woman that was beautiful and a kitchen, a house that was happier. They make him sad and he doesn't know why.

"Can your dad hear?" Blaine says, drawing Kurt back to the present. Blaine looks nervous. He shouldn't be nervous, Kurt thinks. It's just a secret. And Blaine knows Kurt won't tell.

"No." To be sure, Kurt dials up the volume on the TV a little. "Now he definitely can't." He knows that Blaine likes to be sure. Blaine is cautious where Kurt is more reckless. That thought makes Kurt smile. Seeing his smile, Blaine seems to relax a little. He takes a deep breath that Kurt can feel through the thick wool blanket that separates them. Kurt looks at him thoughtfully. This must be an awfully important secret, he thinks, not just lean-over-and-whisper- "Hi" loudly in someone's ear for laughs. He turns slightly to face Blaine. He wants his friend to know that he's got his full attention.

"Promise you won't tell," Blaine says. The nervousness has come back, Kurt can tell.

"Of course not," he says softly. "You can trust me, Blaine. I'm your best friend."

"And I'm your best friend, right?" Blaine says, a tiny doubt flickering through his eyes as he says the words. Kurt hates that doubt. It's tiny as an ant but it makes a world of difference to Blaine. He wishes he could squash that doubt easily as he could the ant.

"Yes, Blaine. You're my best friend." He smiles encouragingly at Blaine and almost takes his hand—it's what his dad does whenever he wants to comfort Kurt, and Kurt wants to comfort Blaine as much as possible right now. But something in Blaine's expression tells him that his friend is mustering all his courage in this moment, and if Kurt reached out to him it would startle him away.

"I like boys," Blaine whispers, and Kurt resists the urge to raise his eyebrows. That's not really a secret, he thinks. He likes boys too—he likes Blaine and his dad and his other friend Sam—those are boys.

Already Blaine sees Kurt's confusion and is shaking his head. "Not just like friends," he says quietly. "Like-like. I like boys—like that." He looks at the movie playing on the TV. "Like how Snow White likes Prince Charming."

Kurt knows if he doesn't get it, Blaine is going to be upset. And he does get it—kind of. He just doesn't get why it's such a big deal or a secret. Because now that he's thinking on it, he likes boys like Snow White likes Prince Charming too, and it never occurred to him to tell anyone that, certainly not as big secret. But he's not going to ask Blaine that. It's clearly personal. "Me too," he says instead, and gives Blaine a hopeful grin. "I like boys like that too. It's okay." He knows that if he tells Blaine it's okay, Blaine will believe him and feel better. And he wants Blaine to feel better. So he hugs him just in time to miss the rather shocked expression on Blaine's features and then the happiness that spreads warmly over the shock as Kurt's small arms wrap around his friend to hold him close.

"I love you," Blaine says in Kurt's ear, and Kurt smiles in surprise against Blaine's shoulder. He doesn't know why Blaine is telling him that. But he knows that loves Blaine back. He's Kurt's best friend. He watches movies with him and doesn't tell when he sprinkles cinnamon sugar on the buttered popcorn and thinks that Kurt is brave—he's never said that he thinks that Kurt is brave, but Kurt knows and he thinks Blaine is brave too.

"I love you," Kurt says. "You're my best friend and you're very brave."

His voice is muffled by the blankets that are containing them, and his face is kind of squashed into the back of the couch, so he doesn't see Blaine's little face light up with a smile too big for it. "You think I'm brave?"

"I know you're brave," Kurt replies.

"Even if I don't jump off the swing?"

Kurt giggles. He can't help it. "You're not afraid of jumping. You're afraid of falling. That's okay. Want to know a secret?"

Blaine nods, pulling back from the hug. He looks at Kurt, eyes wide and earnest. He can't believe how lucky he is to have Kurt as a friend. He doesn't say that, though. He just listens.

"I'm afraid of falling, too," Kurt says. "It's really scary. But it's fun to jump. And it's fun to land. It's good to know how you're going to get somewhere and where you're going to go. But it's the in-between stuff that's super scary."

"You're smart," Blaine says, smiling at Kurt. "You're my favorite person, Kurt. More than my mommy and daddy."

"More than Cooper?" Kurt smiles back.

Blaine makes a face. "Definitely more than Cooper! He takes my puzzles away. And he calls me Squirt now. I don't know why."

"You're my favorite person," Kurt whispers. He reaches for Blaine's hand and Blaine gives it to him. On the TV screen, Snow White is taking a bite of the poisoned apple. Kurt winces as she falls to the floor. "If I had an Evil Queen trying to kill me, would you save me?" He knows it's a silly question. But Blaine takes it seriously, chewing on his lower lip and looking at the movie while he thinks. Kurt thinks that Blaine is a good friend to not make fun of him. Best friend, he reminds himself. He smiles at that.

"Yes," Blaine says finally. "It would be scary. But you'd be worth saving. Maybe a good fairy could make me braver and magical so I could fight the Evil Queen!"

"You're already brave, silly, remember?" Kurt says. "I'd save you too. We could be each other's princes!"

Blaine thinks this over. "Does that mean we'd share true love's kiss?"

Kurt blushes immediately and Blaine looks embarrassed for asking. But Kurt still wants to answer. He wants to not make fun of Blaine for asking silly questions, like how Blaine does for him. "I don't know. Not if you didn't want to."

"Okay," Blaine says, yawning. "I'm glad I told you my secret, Kurt. And I'm glad you told me yours."

"Me too," Kurt says. They watch the rest of the movie in silence.

*

When he hears the fuzzy noise of the movie ending and the video needing to be rewound, Burt sets aside his book, gets up from his armchair in the library and goes to check on the boys. They're asleep and cuddled next to each other. As Burt takes the cassette out of the video player, he wonders why the volume on the TV appears to be turned up louder than normal.

***

"Where's Dalton?" Kurt asks, brow wrinkling in confusion. He hopes it's not too far away from Lima. If he could visit Blaine every so often, his best friend's transition to middle school wouldn't be so difficult for either of them.

"Westerville," Blaine says, and Kurt is about to smile and say it's not so bad, when—"But it doesn't matter. It's a private boarding school, Dad says. They don't allow that many visits."

Kurt frowns in frustration. "But—won't we still see each other during breaks? And weekends?"

"My parents want me to stay there on weekends too," Blaine informs him miserably. "And it's a private school. The breaks there don't align with the ones that you have at Lima Middle."

"Ugh," Kurt says, grimacing at the sound of his school's name. "I don't want to go there without you, Blaine. I'm scared." He casts his eyes downward and bites his lip, not bothering to try to swing. They'd come to the playground for old times' sakes, Blaine had explained (both blatantly ignoring the fact that they'd last been to the playground a week ago), because this would be his last chance to be with Kurt before school started and he went to Dalton.

"I'm scared too," Blaine says now, kicking a pebble through the woodchips. "We have to wear uniforms and everyone's really strict and—" He lowers his voice. "Kurt, I don't think you're allowed to be gay there."

"What? That's ridiculous," Kurt says, frowning so deeply his forehead creases up. "Being gay is just who you are. Are they gonna take a part of you away or something?"

"They're gonna try," Blaine says solemnly. "I read about it online. It's really—I can't—" The tears aren't coming out of his eyes, but Kurt can see them pooling in the corners. This is why, he realizes slowly, Blaine has been pulling away from his touch lately. He's trying to, well, to not act as gay or whatever. But that's stupid. Because you can't pretend you're something that you're not, and Kurt knows that. He also knows that Blaine might get mad at him if he hugs him right now. And the third thing he knows is that Blaine really needs a hug right now. Even if he doesn't want it.

Kurt takes Blaine's hand instead, despite the overwhelming urge that has been coming over him more and more often, the one that tells him to envelop Blaine and keep him safe from his parents and Dalton and everything bad in the world. He takes Blaine's hand and says quietly, not meeting Blaine's eyes, "You're still my prince, right?"

Blaine doesn't answer.

Kurt swivels his eyes back towards his friend, who is giving soft sniffs and who has tears leaking from red, swollen eyes and who has one unruly curl in the front of his hair by the neat part that will not succumb to the gel and always has been so and always will be, and he thinks that Blaine looks kind of beautiful and courageous and very much like a prince.

He doesn't say that.

Kurt always had a way with words, ever since he was young, but when it really matters what he's going to say, it seems that his mind goes blank and he can't think. It's infuriating.

So he just holds Blaine's hand and lets his thumb stroke the skin between Blaine's thumb and forefinger and says, "You're still my prince. You know that?"

Blaine lifts the hand that isn't holding Kurt's and wipes his eyes with his sleeve. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." He drops his hand again and lifts the corners of his mouth weakly at the same time.

Kurt may only be ten, but he knows what Blaine is doing. He's pretending that it's all okay and that it's gonna be fine and that nothing will change. But that's not true. And Kurt knows, because when his mother died, his dad did the exact same thing. This may not be the same kind of change, but Kurt knows enough that he needs to do something more. He can't think of what that might be—just that he needs to do something.

"Blaine," Kurt says, then stops. Words will not make this better. He knows that. Blaine has been quieter and more drawn in towards himself lately and he smiles when Kurt tries to fill the silence but it's awkward. Blaine doesn't need awkward. He needs comfort.

Kurt takes Blaine's and his clasped hands and slowly bring them closer to him. He studies them, the way their fingers interlock perfectly, how that Blaine's knuckles are a little bigger than his, and how Kurt's fingers drape over the back of Blaine's hand and can almost touch his wrist, if Kurt strains, and he can feel the steady beat of Blaine's heart in his pulse. He pretends to not notice the way Blaine is watching him out of the corners of his teary eyes, how his eyes follow their hands together, but how they stray to Kurt every few seconds and linger there.

Kurt stops examining their hands. He leans down slightly and his other hand reaches and finds Blaine's knee—he hears a quiet gasp and he hopes that it's a good kind—and he brushes his lips softly across Blaine's knuckles.

"Kurt." Blaine breathes out, and doesn't pull away. Kurt feels tears starting to form in his own eyes, though he doesn't know why at first, then he does—Blaine didn't pull away. "My prince," Blaine says, and Kurt looks through his eyelashes because he's scared, he's scared of losing Blaine and he's scared of what will happen to him at Dalton and he's scared of what will happen to him at Lima Middle without Blaine anymore, and even though he's Blaine's prince, he doesn't feel all that brave.

"I—" Blaine says, and swallows, and starts over. "I'm gonna miss you so much." He's crying again, and Kurt's crying too, and the ground beneath the swings is wet with their tears. "I can't say good-bye to my best friend."

Kurt looks at Blaine then, needs to see him, needs to make sure he understands. "No," Kurt says firmly, and feels strong despite the tears dripping off his chin. "No, Blaine. I'm never—I'm never saying good-bye to you. I promise."

Blaine blinks once and takes in a shaky breath and presses their hands to his heart in one fluid movement that both shocks Kurt and touches him deeply.

"I won't be allowed," Blaine says, "to love you. At Dalton."

"I know," Kurt says. He does know. It's terrible and unfair and he can't help it, he has to ask: "But will you anyways?"

"Yes, Kurt, yes," Blaine says, kind of breathless, and Kurt takes his hand from Blaine's knee and uses it to brush the freed curl out of his eyes and they smile shyly at one another. It's not the first time they've used that word, and it's been a year since the first time saying it, but it's the first time they really know what it means.

And it will be the last time they use that word for a long while since.