Sugar Baby

Twenty-Five

Kurt rubbed nervously at his bump, bopping his uninjured foot against his wheelchair as he watched Brittany and Jeff reading the letter he'd found, fretting over the lack of expression on their faces. "What do you think of it?" he asked desperately, wheeling closer to them and staring at their perfectly unreadable faces, hoping to find some flicker of their reaction to the letter. "Britt? Jeff? Please say something."

"I think that Blaine's in love with you, plain and simple," Brittany said softly, giving him a small, tight smile. "But you can't just trust in this letter. People can lie when they write things down, they can twist it and make things up. I think you need to get Blaine to at least say some of this to you without reading it off the paper like a script before you think about going back to him. We all know what he did to you, Kurt, and you shouldn't forgive him this quickly."

"If your partners did this to you, how long would you take to forgive them?" Kurt asked, snatching the paper back from Jeff and smoothing it out, tracing his fingers over the curls and points of Blaine's handwriting. "Come on, you're both madly in love with Santana and Nick. Britt, if Santana slept with her ex, would you wait months to let her back in? Jeff, if Nick cheated on you, would you even listen to people telling you there was some kind of minimum time needed to forgive him?"

"It's different-" Jeff started, but Kurt's head whipped around to look at him, eyes momentarily flashing.

"How is what Blaine and I are going through any different than what would happen to you and Nick if he cheated on you, or you cheated on him, or what would happen to any other committed couple in the world who were willing to try again after infidelity?" he asked haughtily, arching an eyebrow at the pair sitting on his bed. "Is it because I'm only seventeen? Because I'm younger than he is? Because I'm pregnant? Because I can tell you, I've been through a hell of a lot trying to make him see that I was here in front of him the whole time, and now he finally sees it, and my age isn't going to stop me. The fact that I'm pregnant doesn't change a thing. We're two adults in a consensual committed relationship, who love each other and want to try and get over the cheating."

He turned his wheelchair, a little clumsily, and started off to the kitchen, where he could hear Blaine's voice drifting from the room, talking quietly with Santana, obviously a conversation he didn't want to be overheard. But Kurt paused outside and sat in silence, listening as Santana told Blaine, "You know, if you want to ask him, you need to make him trust you again first. You can't just jump into this, Blaine, this is a lifelong commitment."

Before Blaine answered, Kurt knocked lightly on the door and peered around the edge to smile at the room's two inhabitants. "Blaine, can I talk to you alone please?" he asked softly, and Santana gave Blaine a warning look before she left and let Kurt in. Kurt sucked in a deep breath and looked up into Blaine's eyes as he held out the sheet of paper. "I found the letter under the mattress. I know you wrote every word of that, Blaine. All I'm asking is whether you meant it the way it reads. Did you?"

Blaine groaned softly, running a hand through his hair and snatching the paper from Kurt's grip. "Kurt, you...fuck, you were never supposed to read this. This wasn't for anyone to see, this was just me writing out what was in my head and trying to somehow make sense of it all, I have three more all just like it, you shouldn't have read this."

"That's not what I'm asking," Kurt whispered, his voice edged with cold, stronger than he'd heard himself in a very long time. "I'm asking if you writing that you're in love with me is the truth. Because if it's not, then I have nothing more to say to you. Five more weeks, and I'll be gone. Just answer the stupid question, Blaine."

There was a long moment of silence when Blaine simply stared at him, and Kurt's heart sank like a stone as he realised the truth. Blaine didn't love him. The letter had only been a lie, and everyone had been right about him. There was no reason to trust him, to keep chasing him after everything had just fallen to dust. "It's the truth," Blaine said softly, and Kurt's heart started beating even faster, almost desperately trying to flutter from his chest. "I'm in love with you."

Kurt stared at him, chest rising and falling rapidly as he heard his heartbeat echoing in his ears, Blaine gazing at him with his eyes open and shining with tears, coming closer and kneeling down to place himself at the same level as Kurt, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear and looking up at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to find that letter, I was going to tell you once you were on the mend, give you time to think it all over, please, I'm so sorry if you feel like I'm pressuring you, that was never my intention," he promised, and Kurt leaned carefully down to kiss him, fingers curled into his air.

But Blaine pushed him away and stood up, tears clinging to his eyelashes, as he said, "Don't, just don't, this isn't fair to you," and he stood up and walked out of the kitchen and left Kurt sitting in his wheelchair, staring into space with the warmth of Blaine's lips still lingering on his, the tears coming rapidly to his eyes.

And he refused to be the victim any longer. Blaine wasn't going to keep dictating his actions with his mood swings and irrational thinking and occasional showing of his softer, sweeter, more tender side. "Don't you dare walk out that door," he said icily. "You leave me now, you'll lose me forever. You're not walking away now, just because you're opening up to me and it scares you. You're staying, because I love you and you love me, and we're going to talk about this."

Blaine turned slowly, and pulled over a chair to sit beside Kurt, back to him as he made himself a mug of coffee and nervously sat down, gazing at him through the curtain of steam slowly rising in curlicues before his face. "I love you," he whispered, reaching for Kurt's hand. "You matter to me. I think I'm tipping into needing you, and I want to have this baby and a family with you. I can see so much of a future for us, and I don't want to lose you. But I know I made a huge mistake, and if you want to just turn around and leave, then I'll accept that."

"I don't want to leave," Kurt murmured. "I feel like I should want to, but I...I'm happy here. You broke my heart, but since I found that letter, I've come to understand that you did what you did to avoid the feelings you had for me, because they scared you. And I was in love with you before, but every time I tried to tell you I was interrupted, and I should've tried harder, because we could've avoided so much."

"Kurt, this was my fault, me and my communication issues and issues with intimacy and being borderline emotionally abusive because this is the manifestation of love I saw when I was growing up," Blaine said, gripping his hands tightly. "I've been treating you the way my father treated my mother, like a sex toy and nothing more than someone to be fucked and bear babies, and I'm so sorry. I never wanted to turn into him, I hated him when I was a kid."

"Not once have I felt like all I was was a sex toy or someone carrying your baby," Kurt assured him, utterly truthful. "No matter what, you were nicer than I would've thought you'd be to me. You took me to New York for Christmas when we'd known each other a month and a half, for Christ's sake. You could've left me when I found out I was pregnant and let me deal with it by myself, but you didn't, you took me in and you helped me and you made me fall so much more in love with you."

"Kurt, I'm sorry, I know you always hated Sebastian, and I'm sorry I slept with him, and I know it won't make you feel any better to say that it didn't mean anything, that I didn't let him kiss me because I felt like the kisses were yours, that I wanted to go back to you as soon as it was over but I felt too guilty, but I want you to take time and learn to forgive me, because I want you in my life and you can't be if there's still this bitterness between us," Blaine said softly, and Kurt blinked back tears and smiled at him.

He was still watching as Blaine's hand slid inside his blazer, fishing something out of an inside pocket, and his jaw dropped open as Blaine lowered himself to one knee, smiling gently up at him. "When I said I want a future and a family with you, Kurt, I really meant it," he murmured, his eyes lighting up with expectation. "Kurt, will you marry me?"

"Oh, Blaine, I...um...no," Kurt said, pulling Blaine to his feet and lowering the lid gently on the ring box. "There is no way we're in a position to get married right now. Can I take these five weeks while my ankle heals to think? Then I'll come back to you, about getting back together and me staying here instead of going back to Ohio, not about getting engaged."

"Of course," Blaine said softly, nodding and tucking the ring back into his pocket. "It was a stupid idea anyway. Shouldn't have even thought that you'd say yes." Kurt smiled softly at him, squeezed his shoulder, and leaned in to seal their deal with a sweet kiss.

Blaine still broke it, pushed him gently away, but now his eyes were shining with the hope of something new, a fresh start, and he gripped the handles on Kurt's wheelchair to steer him into the living room, where everyone was dancing around and laughing and chattering, and Kurt sat in the corner for the night, thinking everything over and watching his friends enjoying themselves, feeling, for the first time in years, a part of a family.