I love you, too.

I love you, too.

Blaine's words kept repeating over and over again in Kurt's head in a wonderful, heart-stuttering loop that made his lips twitch up into a smile and his heart swell.

A boy was in love with him; Blaine was in love with him.

He kept reminding himself of that, the fact still inducing shock and disbelief in spite of the many times he'd replayed the memory. It just seemed too good to be true. He had been told almost daily since the age of thirteen by his homophobic classmates that no one would ever want him, and yet here he was at seventeen with a boy declaring his love for him; it was like a dream.

Shy smiles had followed their admissions. Then there had been some more kisses, a few sweet words murmured into each other's ears, soft caresses and gentle brushes of skin, followed by yet even more tender kisses. Several times Blaine's gaze had lowered to Kurt's bruised ribs, his eyes filling with pain and distress each time as he ghosted his fingers over the cut, the pads of his fingers only barely brushing the stained skin. Every time this happened Kurt had taken the hand hovering at his side and laced their fingers together, pressing a kiss to Blaine's knuckles followed by another one to his mouth, reassuring that it would be alright.

After a while Blaine had mentioned the late hour and Kurt had pulled his pyjama shirt back on before helping Blaine tidy away the first-aid kit. A goodnight kiss later and Kurt was lying in bed with a wide smile on his face as he relived the moment Blaine told him he loved him over and over again.

Never in a million years would he have guessed that he would find love in Ohio; he'd been positive he would have to wait until he was at college in New York City before he even got his first boyfriend, and now here he was with both, and still in Lima. He had never thought it would happen, but then again, he had never counted on meeting someone like Blaine.

If someone had told him a year ago that he would fall in love with a homeless boy living in his attic he would have laughed and suggested they pay a visit to a counsellor. He had never really given much thought to his particular type of guy, but after his stupid crush on Finn he never would have guessed Blaine would be the kind of guy he would fall for. Blaine was everything he had never known he wanted, everything he hadn't known was missing from his life until he had met him.

With a happy sigh he rolled over in his bed, the smile on his face slipping briefly when the movement tugged at his bruised ribs. He did feel really guilty keeping the full extent of his bullying from Blaine and his family, especially since they all believed he shared everything important with them. Blaine finding out tonight, though a shock, had taken a huge weight off his shoulders and he felt more capable of coping with it. He knew he would have to tell his dad and Carole at some point, but the thought of all the strain and worry it would put them under, the potential effect on his dad's health, and his complete lack of belief that the bullying would ever stop completely made him reluctant.

Gnawing anxiously on his bottom lip, Kurt weighed his options, his hand unconsciously drifting up to brush lightly over his ribs every now and then, applying just enough pressure so that the barest hint of pain was felt. He could tell his dad and Carole the whole truth tomorrow, answer all their questions, watch his dad get wound up into an angry, agitated state, create a dark cloud to hover over their Christmas holidays. Or he could wait until he was back at school to tell them. They would still get worked up, but it wouldn't be so bad since they could go to the school and take some sort of action straight away. The final option he had was not telling them at all; he only had half a year left before graduation, after all, and he'd coped with the bullying for several years now. He could last for another few months without letting them know.

The final option didn't appeal to him at all - he didn't like keeping things from his father, especially something big like this, and Blaine had been the only exception to his self-made rule to not hide anything important from his dad, and that was only because his situation was so fragile and unique. He knew the truth would come out at some point, and he couldn't bear the thought of how disappointed his dad would be in him for keeping it a secret.

The thought of ruining the joyous mood of Christmas, however, was almost as unappealing. There was really only one viable option for him.

A quick glance at the clock told him that it was after two in the morning, so Kurt pushed the thoughts and worries aside for the time being and closed his eyes. He knew Blaine would want more answers about his bullying than he had given him earlier, so he would talk to his boyfriend about it when he woke up and make a final decision about where to go from there with his input.

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair. Carole had left early to go on one of the final Christmas shopping trips, Burt was absorbed in reading the newspaper as he sipped at his coffee, and Finn was once again absent, either still in bed or out of the house, which was a bit of a disappointment to Kurt, who had hoped their discussion about Blaine the other day would mean he'd make an effort to apologise and sort things out between them. The kitchen was silent save for the faint hum of the refrigerator and the occasional rustle of pages.

Blaine and Kurt were sitting next to each other, Blaine's chair close to Kurt's as it always was whenever Burt was in the room with them, and it was hard, so very hard, for Kurt not to just reach over and take Blaine's hand or lean closer and rest his head on his shoulder. The air between them seemed to crackle with electricity and every muscle in Kurt's body strained to reach for the boy he loved.

He slipped up every now and then and snuck quick glances at Blaine as he lifted his coffee mug to his mouth, and would let his arm brush against Blaine's as he set it back down on the table. Twice he caught Blaine looking at him: the first time he had been watching him chase the last piece of fruit around the bowl with a fond smile on his face. When Kurt's gaze had drifted sideways as he popped the small wedge of melon into his mouth, their eyes had met for a few brief seconds until Burt had turned a page of his paper and Blaine had looked away hastily, his cheeks tinged with a light blush. The second time Blaine was frowning down at his side, his teeth nibbling on his bottom lip in a seemingly unconscious gesture. He only appeared to realise what he was doing when he looked up at Kurt's face with worry in his large hazel eyes to find Kurt watching him.

After that the unanswered questions and the untold details about Kurt's bullying hung in the silent kitchen, and Kurt just wanted breakfast to be over so he and Blaine could go somewhere they wouldn't be interrupted to talk about it.

The small slapping noise of his dad setting his folded paper aside made Kurt jump slightly in his seat as he was pulled out of his thoughts. Across the table from him his dad was stretching, one of his joints giving a faint pop.

"You boys going to help with these decorations?" he asked, his eyes flicking between Kurt and Blaine.

"Oh." Kurt shot a quick glance in Blaine's direction to find him looking to Kurt for the answer. "Yeah, of course." After everything that had happened yesterday he'd forgotten about the plans to put up all the Christmas decorations today. That explained Finn's absence; he would be out getting the tree.

Nodding, Burt gathered up his empty coffee mug and newspaper before getting to his feet. "You two can go bring everything in from the garage, then." He placed his mug in the dishwasher and headed for the door. "I'm gonna call Finn and see where he's got to and clear the space for the tree."

Once the sound of Burt's footsteps had faded, Blaine relaxed out of the slightly tense state he was always in whenever the older man was around.

"So, it looks like we'll be spending the day putting up Christmas decorations," he said, smiling as Kurt gave in to temptation and entwined their fingers.

"Only if you want to," Kurt told him. "You don't have to help if you don't want to."

Blaine shook his head. "No, I want to," he assured hastily. "I've never decorated a house for Christmas before."

Blinking in surprise, Kurt froze in the midst of tracing random patterns onto the back of Blaine's hand with his thumb. "Never?" he repeated.

"Never," Blaine confirmed with a hint of bitterness. His gaze grew distant, caught up in the images of his past playing in his mind's eye. "My parents never really got into the Christmas spirit, and they always paid some interior designer to decorate the house for Christmas for all of their dinner parties. They had some kind of unspoken competition with their friends on who had the best decorated house and hosted the best parties."

Kurt stared at his boyfriend as this new little titbit slowly sunk in. "Well," he said, in as bright a voice as he could muster, "we can try and make up for all those years you missed today." Pushing his current thoughts aside, he got to his feet, tugging Blaine up with him. "Come on!"

After quickly clearing up their breakfast dishes, Kurt led the way into the chilly garage. He let go of Blaine's hand when they reached the shelves mounted on the far wall and scanned the neat rows of boxes, occasionally tilting his head slightly to one side to read the label scrawled at an angle across the front in marker.

"So, we need all these boxes here," Kurt said, pointing at the right-hand side of the lowest shelf. "And these ones as well." He indicated the rest of the boxes near the top that were marked as being Christmas decorations. "You can do the lower shelves. I'll have to do the higher ones you can't reach," he teased, shooting Blaine a smirk as the shorter boy pretended to scowl.

They worked in silence, the only noise coming from the scraping of the cardboard boxes against the metal shelves as they pulled them down, the occasional soft jingle of a bell or clink of baubles from inside them, and their shuffling of feet. It was so easy, so relaxed and domestic that Kurt found himself really enjoying the simple, mundane task. He smiled contently as he stretched for a smaller box sitting on the highest shelf and winced at the strain on his tender side. He tried not to react too much so Blaine wouldn't notice, but he was unable to prevent the soft hiss of pain.

"Are you ok?" Blaine asked, looking over immediately with a concerned expression and setting down the box in his hands. "You should be careful; some of them are really heavy."

Kurt nodded, trying to force a smile and pretend that's all it was, just a too-heavy box, but when he tugged another one towards him the sharp twinge of pain jabbed at his ribs again and he pressed a hand to his side without thinking.

Blaine was beside him in an instant. "It's your ribs, isn't it?" he asked quietly, his forehead creased with worry and his eyes full of concern. Kurt bit his lip and gave a small nod in conformation and Blaine raised a hand to ever so lightly caress his bruising. "You shouldn't be doing this if it's hurting you. I can get something to stand on to reach the higher shelves."

Kurt nodded again and whispered a quick thanks before moving to fetch Blaine something to stand on, but was stopped by Blaine's hand on his arm. He looked back up at his boyfriend to find that his frown had deepened and his eyes were searching the length of Kurt's body. They stood for a moment, Kurt caught under Blaine's gaze, until Blaine leaned forward and brushed a kiss to Kurt's cheek before turning away.

There was more of the contented silence as Kurt fetched a crate for Blaine to stand on and they pulled down the last few boxes.

"How long has it been that bad?" Blaine spoke up suddenly and Kurt knew what he was referring to straight away. He toed at a box by his feet, feeling a little nervous despite Blaine's calm tone.

"Um, that was the worst it's been. I've received some fairly large bruises on my back and ribs before, but nothing as bad as this," Kurt replied quietly, sounding almost timid as he worried about how much Blaine was going to ask and what his reactions would be when he found out the whole truth.

Blaine nodded slowly. "Where are we taking these decorations?"

"The decorations?" Kurt repeated blankly, the sudden change in topic throwing him. "Oh, they're- The living room."

They had made several trips between the garage and the living room and had moved most of the boxes of decorations inside when Blaine brought the subject up again.

"You never told Carole about it like you said you would, did you?" he asked as they crossed the garage to fetch the last few boxes.

Kurt came to a halt and spun slowly round to face his boyfriend, meeting his gaze and shaking his head guiltily. "I- I was going to tell her, but I knew there was no way she would hide it from my dad and I didn't want him worrying about me, and then the bullying wasn't too bad for a while so I-"

A hand placed over his mouth cut him off and Blaine gave a small, empathetic smile. "It's ok," he assured. "I understand. I've been in your situation before; I know how you feel." He moved his hand away from Kurt's mouth and rested it on his shoulder instead, rubbing soothingly at it with his thumb. "I know how easy it is to start keeping everything to yourself, but if you bottle all of it up inside you it can become dangerous."

"I'm not-" Kurt began, but Blaine cut him off again.

"You're talking to me about it, I know, but I can't help when you're at school and Kurt, you should really tell your family," Blaine said in a serious voice. "You can't keep this a secret from them. I didn't have a supporting, loving family like you do to help me, so please use yours, Kurt. This bullying has gone too far."

Kurt nodded. "I'll tell them, I promise," he swore. "But, can you-" He hesitated for a second. "Can you be there with me when I do?"

Blaine nibbled on his bottom lip. "Kurt, I don't think this is something I should be there for; it's a private matter between you and your family." He absently straightened out the neckline of Kurt's sweater.

"Please," Kurt begged.

His hand stilling by Kurt's neck, Blaine nodded. "Ok, I'll be there."

Smiling in grateful appreciation, Kurt leaned in and kissed him. "Thank you." He paused for a moment, and then said, "I'm not telling them until after the Christmas holidays are over, though. I don't want to ruin the holidays with something like this."

A small frown creased the skin between Blaine's eyes.

"You don't think that's a good idea?" Kurt guessed.

Blaine gave his head a small shake, the frown line smoothing out. "If that's the time you think is best to tell them then go with that; I'm not going to try and persuade you to do otherwise - you never do that with me. Just as long as you do tell them before it gets worse."

Kurt nodded. "I promise." He reached up to cover the hand Blaine still had resting on his shoulder with his own. A soft smile spread across Blaine's face when Kurt laced their fingers together and

Kurt just had to duck his head to the side and press a kiss to the side of Blaine's wrist. "I wanted to tell you for a while, you know," he said.

Blaine, who had been looking at their entwined hands where they rested on Kurt's shoulder, glanced up at him with slight confusion in his eyes.

"I knew how I felt about you for over a week and I spent the last few days trying to find the right moment to tell you," Kurt explained. His smile widened. "I wanted it to be perfect for you, to be really romantic, where you forgot all of your worries and you got a happy memory to keep forever. But I just had to tell you last night."

Blaine's eyes closed for the briefest of moments as he gave his head a tiny shake, and when he opened them again they were a shining golden-hazel and filled with a breath-taking amount of love. "I didn't need a big moment with flowers or candles to make it perfect," he said in a soft voice. "A natural moment where those three words just had to be said, where they came straight from the heart without being part of a planned speech was perfect to me - you're perfect to me."

Heart soaring, Kurt leaned in to kiss him, squeezing the hand still resting on his shoulder when an ‘I love you' was murmured against his mouth. He tilted his head to deepen the kiss and Blaine had just begun clutching him closer when the loud slamming of a car door jolted into Kurt's awareness.

"I've got the tree!" Finn's voice called happily from the other side of the garage door.

Kurt reluctantly drew away from Blaine. "We should get the last of these decorations inside." He nudged a box with his foot. He laughed in delight as Blaine hooked an arm around his waist and snuck in one last kiss, his mood soaring from love and the giddy happiness that only Christmas-time could bring.

The house was decorated, the tree was glittering in the corner of the living room, the yard had transformed into a dazzling winter wonderland, and the delicious smells of cooking wafted through the house. Christmas was just around the corner. As December twenty-fifth drew closer, the amount of time the Hudson-Hummel family spent together increased, significantly so when Carole finished work for the year and Burt left the running of the garage to his employees for the last few days before it closed for Christmas. They watched Christmas movies together during lazy afternoons spent indoors while snow drifted passed the windows, ate Christmas cookies made from Kurt's own recipe as a fire crackled in the grate and the tree lights twinkled, and decorated gingerbread men and houses on the eighteenth to mark one week until Christmas Day, as per their tradition.

Being a kind of honorary member of the family, Blaine was included in all of these activities as well, but he always felt uneasy during them. Although he was a lot more comfortable with living in the house now, he still felt like an intruder whenever he was included in the family moments, a feeling that strengthened as Christmas Day drew closer.

With the holiday meant to be spent with family fast approaching and seeing the Hudson-Hummels joyfully prepare and look forward to the day filled Blaine's head with other, more depressing thoughts. This was his first Christmas since he had run away from home, the first Christmas without his family. Though Christmas in the Anderson household had never had the feelings of warmth and love that currently filled the Hudson-Hummel home, it was still Christmas, still a day Blaine had spent with his parents and, in the earlier years, Cooper, still a day relatives visited and jokes and stories were told, and though the day was structured and proper, it was the one day a year an insult or degrading comment never left either of his parents' lips; it was the one day a year Blaine felt something close to happiness.

It hurt watching the way Kurt and his family were around each other and Blaine couldn't help but wonder why his family had never been like that, why he had never been able to experience a Christmas like this or have a family who behaved as the Hudson-Hummel's did all the time; it hurt so much.

It hurt too much.

As the feelings of being an outsider increased, Blaine began to distance himself from the rest of the household. He avoided being downstairs if he could, choosing to stay in his room instead, and made excuses for why he couldn't join in with them: he was tired, he wanted to finish the schoolwork he'd been set for over the holidays, he had a bit of a cold and didn't want anyone else to catch it...

They always accepted his excuses without question, Kurt managing to hide nearly all of his disappointment, and while the family enjoyed themselves downstairs, Blaine would lie on his bed staring up at the ceiling, the old feelings of worthlessness and abandonment rising inside him as he wondered what his parents and Cooper were doing now and if any of them ever thought about him these days. Following this train of thought always led to tears and he would have to roll over and bury his face in his pillow to muffle the wrenching sobs and ragged, choked breaths - he didn't want to put a damper on everyone else's Christmas with his issues.

He found Christmas Eve especially difficult. It seemed like every few minutes his brain would dredge up an old memory of Christmas-time with his parents, and this would always lead to him torturing himself by picturing the inside of the Anderson house at that very moment, all professionally decorated, and wondering yet again why he didn't have a family who loved him. These thoughts never failed to cause at least a dozen different emotions to hit him with the force of a freight train and he kept having to duck out of whichever room he was in to have a minute or two alone to try and reign it all in, frantically gulping in large lungfuls of air and blinking around the prickling in his blurring eyes.

It got a little easier in the afternoon when Kurt and Finn went to a local homeless shelter as part of something their Glee club was doing since Blaine was able to retreat to his room without arousing suspicion - Burt and Carole knew he was still uneasy being around Burt when he didn't have Kurt there with him. Crying made him feel better, enough so that he would be able to get through the remainder of the day without hurting quite so much, and when Kurt and Finn returned in the late afternoon he washed his face, checked to make sure the red puffiness had cleared from his eyes and face, and went downstairs where he was able to greet Kurt with a smile.

He was actually starting to feel a little positive by the time dinner was over. His wounds were starting to scab over again and he walked through to the living room wearing a smile that wasn't feigned for the first time that day. With his improved mood came courage and he had decided to take another step towards trusting Burt. He knew Kurt's father was a kind, generous man who would never cause him any harm, but there was a deeply ingrained mistrust inside him that had been planted there by his own father that made it hard for him to trust him. He was determined to uproot this instinctual unease and today seemed a good day to work on doing it.

He had just left Kurt and Carole in the kitchen, doing the final preparations for tomorrow's Christmas dinner, and was going to join Burt and Finn in the living room. With his heart racing, he paused by the doorway, listening to Burt and Finn talking as he took a last few settling breaths and attempted to stop the visible trembles running through his body before he entered the room.

‘You can do this,' he told himself firmly. ‘Even if you don't fully trust Burt yet, you trust Kurt; it will be fine. You can do this.'

Exhaling deeply and nodding to himself, he moved to enter the room, but froze when he heard his name from inside.

"-Blaine going to stay here?" Finn was saying. "Why doesn't his own family want him home for Christmas? It's weird having him here."

Stumbling backwards, Blaine felt a stab of pain to his chest as the air froze in his lungs and tears sprung to his eyes. Finn was right: it was weird, him being here. His family didn't want him at Christmas and members of this family clearly felt the same way. He felt like some sort of undesirable heirloom that was passed around between people, nobody really wanting it but agreeing to keep it for a little while anyway.

Unwanted.

‘Why doesn't his own family want him home for Christmas?'

Rejected.

‘You're not my son.'

Abandoned.

‘You're not alone in this, you're never going to be alone again - I promise.'

It was hard to breathe. It was hard to think. He needed air and he needed space and he needed to think. It was all too much.

Turning away from the sounds of Burt and Finn singing along to carols coming from an old record player Burt had dug out - "Because the crackle adds to the mood of the song" - Blaine headed for the front door and opened it quietly.

Outside the snow was falling thickly and the deep layer covering everything in the street made it lighter than it usually would be as the moon reflected off the dazzlingly white snow. Hunching his shoulders against the frigid air, he stepped out into the night and, with his thoughts whirling like the snowflakes tumbling to the ground around him, and without a destination in mind, set off down the street.