Part two

'So...' Blaine looked up at Kurt. As they had agreed, Kurt had gone home with Blaine after glee rehearsal, and they were now sitting cross-legged face to face on Blaine's bed. 'What do you want to know?'

Kurt cocked his head. His first instinct was to say 'Everything,' but he figured the situation was daunting enough for Blaine as it was, so he searched his mind for a simpler question that Blaine could reasonably answer.

'When did you know?' he asked finally.

'I was twelve,' Blaine replied and there was an awkward silence as Kurt waited for him to elaborate before realizing that he wasn't going to.

'Can I ask... how? How did you know?' Kurt prompted gently. 'Did it just come to you one day, or...?'

'Sort of, but not really.' Blaine sighed and ran a hand across his face. 'I don't know. It's difficult to explain.'

'Try?' Kurt asked him quietly, reaching out and running a soothing hand across one thigh, while Blaine bit his lip. 'It's okay. I'm not judging.'

'I always felt...' Blaine began. 'Sort of wrong. Off, somehow. Like I wasn't quite...' Blaine trailed off, and he seemed to be looking for words.

'This is really awkward, isn't it?' Kurt said after a few seconds of quiet, and Blaine let out a small sigh of relief.

'Yeah, sorry. I'm not really good at this. It's not that I don't want to tell you things,' he said quickly. 'I do. I'm just not sure how to explain everything. It doesn't always make sense, even to me.'

'I have an idea,' Kurt said as he stood up and held out a hand to Blaine. 'Come with me.'

Blaine frowned in confusion but took Kurt's hand, letting himself be led downstairs to the kitchen, where Kurt immediately began rummaging through the cupboards and picking things out, when he found an item he needed. Sugar. Flour. Baking soda. Kurt moved to the refrigerator next, muttering to himself, 'Eggs, butter... eggs, butter.'

'Kurt?'

'Mm?'

'What are you doing?'

'Checking that you have what we need for chocolate chip cookies,' Kurt said as though it was the most natural thing in the world, before he turned to face Blaine, 'Vanilla extract?'

'I- Top shelf,' Blaine replied slowly, pointing to the correct cupboard. 'Why?'

'Because,' Kurt responded, climbing a chair to be able to view the contents of the top shelf properly. 'Sometimes it's easier to talk when your hands are busy, and you aren't sat there, staring into the other person's eyes.' Kurt jumped off the chair, vanilla extract in hand. 'Trust me, it works. It's basically how Finn and I bond – I cook, and he pretends to help.'

'Alright.' Blaine grinned and moved to grab two aprons, handing Kurt one and putting on the other. 'Tell me what to do.'

'Turn on the oven? Three-fifty should do it.' Blaine moved to do as told while Kurt got started on measuring out butter and sugar, calling over his shoulder, 'So you said you knew at twelve. What was it like before? Were you just a huge tomboy or what? Take your time,' he added, keeping his eyes on the work in front of him.

'I was a tomboy, yes,' Blaine said, speaking slowly. 'But only really for the last few years before I came out. Like, from eleven onwards.' Kurt felt Blaine standing idly somewhere behind him.

'Mm-hm. Can you get the eggs?' Kurt asked him. 'Two.'

'For years before that I tried everything I could to be a normal girl,' Blaine continued, and Kurt heard the refrigerator open and close as Blaine spoke. 'I hung out with the girls. I tried to like the same things they did. I tolerated the dresses my parents bought me. Hoping that if I just kept at it, it would all start to feel right some day.'

'Was it horrible?' Kurt looked up at Blaine as he accepted the whipped egg mass from him. Blaine leaned against the counter and seemed to consider his answer.

'Back then? Not horrible, I guess, because I managed to convince myself that what I was feeling was normal. I only had my own experience to compare to, so I didn't know any different. And you know me, I'm not exactly hyper-masculine, so it wasn't all bad, I guess. But I still always felt apart from the other girls. It's difficult to explain and I don't know if it makes any sense, but I just had this innate feeling that I wasn't like them, I just didn't know how or why. It didn't occur to me that there was such a thing as transgender.'

They continued like this while they worked, Kurt taking charge of the baking and letting Blaine talk. Every so often Kurt would offer supportive comments and ask new questions, but now that he had started and the whole situation was less confrontational, Blaine spoke freely and didn't need much prompting to continue. He told Kurt about hitting puberty and how that was when he started to realize that something was wrong that time wasn't going to fix. He described how it was like the knowledge opened a door for him and the whole world finally made sense. He spoke about living with the knowledge for nearly two years until one Saturday afternoon in February about a month before his fourteenth birthday, when he finally came out to his parents. He talked about starting the local high school as boy, leaving his female persona behind him in middle school.

'But of course it wasn't that simple,' Blaine said, smiling ruefully as he set the timer for the cookies that were now baking in the oven. His eyes were on Kurt, but he looked distant. Kurt could tell that bad memories were resurfacing, and he desperately hoped that he wasn't doing more damage than good by asking all these questions. 'I could change my name all I wanted, but a lot of these kids had known me since I was six years old, and the ones that didn't were quickly told everything. Everyone knew. I was the school freak.'

'I'm sorry.' Kurt winced. His words seemed horribly insufficient.

'It didn't go on for that long.' Blaine shrugged, but his voice was tight with suppressed emotion. 'It was less than six months before I left that school for good.' Something told Kurt that it hadn't been a peaceful goodbye. He got up from where he was sitting and moved to stand closer to Blaine.

'What happened?' Kurt felt bad for asking, because for the first time since they had started the conversation upstairs, Blaine had become visibly uncomfortable, but at this point it was better to get it out, Kurt thought, likening Blaine's words to poison from a wound.

'It was-' Blaine swallowed, closing his eyes for moment. 'It's- I've told you about it before.'

'Sadie Hawkins,' Kurt guessed, and Blaine nodded. 'It wasn't just two gay guys getting bashed, was it?' Somehow in a twisted way that would have been better, Kurt thought.

'They hated Tyler as well for being gay, of course, but I think mostly he just happened to be there. And he dared to be friends with me.'

'Did they catch the guys that did it?' Kurt asked, looking for some glimmer of justice, but Blaine shook his head.

'We never knew who they were. Anyway,' he went on, clearly eager to change the topic. 'Things got better after that. I was out of school for the rest of the semester. I started T – testosterone that is – a few months later, and my parents enrolled me at Dalton where no one knew me and I could start high school over as boy, no questions asked. That's when things really started to get better.'

As Blaine continued to talk about the transfer to Dalton and the new experiences and friends he had made there, Kurt saw him look truly happy for the first time since the night before. If there had been any doubt in Kurt's mind about the validity of transsexuality, it went out the window, when Blaine described finally passing consistently to strangers on the street and living every day unquestioned in his male identity. His voice was quivering with pure unadulterated joy.

Blaine was still speaking about Dalton ten minutes later when they made their way back upstairs, Kurt clutching a plate of warm, freshly-baked cookies, and as he went on his stories became less and less about his life as a transboy and more about his life just as a boy. Even though Kurt had heard some of the stories previously, hearing them now made him smile more than he ever had before. Kurt couldn't help feeling like he was getting to know his boyfriend all over again. He wasn't a different person obviously. All these new pieces of information still added up to the same wonderful Blaine, only more so somehow. Kurt wasn't sure that made any sense, but it was the only way he could describe what he was feeling.

'Okay,' Kurt said when Blaine had finally trailed off, and he faked seriousness as he took Blaine's hands in his. 'Just tell me one thing, because you haven't really been clear about it. Did you or did you not love Dalton?' Blaine looked confused for a moment, but then he caught Kurt's teasing grin and chuckled.

'I'm sorry. I gush. It's just, that place changed my life.' Blaine crawled up on the bed, sitting against the headboard and indicating that Kurt should follow. He grabbed a cookie from the plate on the night table, breaking it in two and offering Kurt one half. 'Twice. First when I started and then again fourteen months later.' He turned his head and smiled fondly at Kurt. 'When I met you.' He placed a brief kiss on Kurt's lips, which quirked in an amused smile.

'Mmm. Remind me to thank Puck. He was the one who suggested that I go spy on you guys,' Kurt explained when Blaine frowned in confusion. 'Although he was a bit of an ass about it. And he called you "The Garglers."'

Blaine laughed. 'I'll be sure to thank him sometime. But for now...' Blaine sank further into a lying position and scooted closer to Kurt who accommodated him gladly. 'Cuddling. Without an audience this time, please.'

'Mm, yes... sounds lovely,' Kurt agreed, stifling a yawn, and they both fell quiet soon after. Kurt suspected that he wasn't the only one who hadn't slept much the previous night.

There was still a question on Kurt's mind though. Something that Blaine hadn't brought up and that Kurt had felt too embarrassed to ask about, unsure if he was crossing a line.

'Blaine?' he asked finally.

'Mm, what?' Blaine mumbled against Kurt chest, sending pleasant vibrations through Kurt's body.

'Are we done talking for today or can I still ask?'

'You can ask.'

'What about, like, equipment? I mean, hormones can only do so much, and you obviously haven't had surgery...'

Blaine lay still for a few seconds, but then he untangled himself from Kurt, who sat up to watch what he was doing. Blaine opened the top drawer in his dresser and spent a few moments rifling through it. When he turned back around he was holding up a black piece of fabric that at first glance looked a bit like a sports bra. He threw it at Kurt who caught it.

'It's called a binder,' Blaine said as Kurt examined it. The fabric was stretchy and double-layered and it had a sort of rough texture that Kurt couldn't imagine felt comfortable on a person's skin.

'You wear this everyday?'

'Well, that one's my extra. I only wear it when my other one is in the wash or if I need to double-bind.'

'Why would you need to do that?' Kurt asked, concern in his voice, as he stood and walked over to Blaine. The thought of a person wearing one of these was bad enough, but two? 'You're so flat already. No one would ever guess.'

Kurt reached out to run a hand across Blaine's chest, meaning to prove his point, but Blaine recoiled instantly. He backed into the dresser with a loud bang, causing several items on top of it to fall over, and Kurt jumped back in surprise.

'I'm- I'm sorry. Sorry,' Kurt stammered, snatching his hand back. Stupid stupid, he cursed himself. Use your head.

'It's okay.' Blaine hissed slightly, rubbing his back where he had banged it against a drawer knob. 'I'm fine. You just startled me, that's all.'

'I'm sorry,' Kurt repeated.

'You weren't to know,' Blaine said simply, waving the matter off. 'Anyway, to answer your question. It's not necessarily about other people. I pass pretty perfectly like this. Even if I went out wearing a dress and heels, people would still think "man in a dress". Rationally I know that, but unfortunately that's not how dysphoria works, and if you're having a particularly bad day, it just helps to know that those parts of yourself are hidden as far away as possible.'

'Promise me one thing?' Kurt asked, lifting his left hand slowly to cup the side of Blaine's face. 'Next time you have a bad day, you tell me about it, and we'll deal with it together.' Blaine covered Kurt's hand with his own, keeping it there for a few seconds, before gently pushing Kurt's hand away. It was a moment before he replied.

'Kurt, it gets... I'm fine most of the time – I deal – but it gets bad sometimes. Not- not "I-wanna-kill-myself" bad, but pretty bad, and I'm not sure you wanna be around that.'

'Well, I am. Besides what kind of boyfriend would I be, if I only wanted you when you're happy and smiley? Relationships don't work like that. Just promise me.' Kurt waited until Blaine gave a small nod, before he took a step back and, deciding he might as well be blunt about it, pointed at Blaine's crotch, where a slight bulge was visible in the tight pants he wore, and asked, trying his best not to sound awkward, 'What's that?'

'Ahh...' Blaine laughed awkwardly, and he was blushing slightly. 'That's called a packer. Hang on, I have an extra somewhere.' He went over to his bedside table, opened a drawer there and pulled out, well, a penis, which he placed on the bed for Kurt to inspect. It was flesh-colored and maybe four or five inches long and quite lifelike, Kurt thought. It even had testicles. He was tempted to reach out and touch it, curious to know what it felt like compared to his own, but he felt oddly like that would be crossing a line, so he kept his hands to himself.

'You can't, like, have sex with it or anything,' Blaine explained. 'It's just to create the, uhm, bulge.' He blushed again. 'Not all guys wear them, but I never leave the house without it. It helps, I guess.' Blaine trailed off and looked up at Kurt, whose eyes kept drifting to the packer. 'Is it weird? It's weird, I know-' Blaine made to grab the packer and the binder that was also on the bed, but Kurt stopped him.

'No no, it's fine,' Kurt said. 'It just takes some getting used to. I mean, this time yesterday I still thought you had a body like any other guy.'

'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay. It's just different.'

There was a knock on the door then, and before Blaine could respond it opened to reveal his father on the other side, a mobile phone in his hand.

'Blaine, your mom called, and she- Oh,' he interrupted himself, looking between Blaine, Kurt and the items on the bed between them. 'Hi, Kurt.'

'Hello, Mr. Anderson,' Kurt greeted politely as Blaine frantically covered the packer with the binder and then, apparently deciding that wasn't good enough, grabbed a pillow to cover both items. Mr. Anderson simply stared at the pillow.

'Dad? You had something to say?' Blaine asked coolly, and Mr. Anderson seemed to snap out of his reverie.

'Yes, sorry. Your mom called and she's on her way home. She's picking up dinner from that Thai place you like, and she wants to know what you want.'

'Oh. I dunno. Just get me a number eight with extra chili,' Blaine responded distractedly, and Mr. Anderson nodded before turning to Kurt.

'What about you, Kurt? Are you staying?'

'Thank you, but I should probably be heading home soon.' Blaine's father nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Kurt turned to Blaine with a light frown on his face. 'Was that as awkward as I think it was?'

'I'm being passive-aggressive,' Blaine told him casually.

'Why?' Kurt asked, half-amused. He knew that Blaine wasn't as close to his parents as Kurt was to his dad, but Kurt had never seen Blaine be anything but the picture of politeness around them.

'Remember when I told you about Thanksgiving? About my grandmother calling me a freak and all that?' Kurt winced but nodded. 'Did I tell you it happened during the big dinner, and that it wasn't just her, and that my dad basically sat back and let it happen?'

'He what? Why would he do that?'

Blaine simply shrugged. 'We came home on Sunday to Mom just screaming her lungs out at him. I don't think I've ever seen her so angry. It was kind of awesome,' he added, as though he was only just realizing this. 'Anyway, he did apologize, but I just can't be all buddy-buddy with him again after that. Not that I normally am.'

'But he's not against you being trans, is he? I mean, he wouldn't have allowed you to transition otherwise, would he?'

'No,' Blaine admitted slowly. 'I get the feeling he's more concerned that I'm not doing it right.'

'What does that mean?' Kurt asked, nonplussed. Blaine was quiet for a moment as he searched for words.

'Alright, so... in my dad's family, the way he grew up, it's like... men are men and women are women, you know?' Kurt nodded, rolling his eyes at the notion. 'It's stupid and old-fashioned, but that's what he was taught.'

'So, what? He's upset that you like show choir? That you'd rather talk about fashion than cars? That you're gay?'

'All I know is that after I came out as trans, he got obsessed with taking me out to all these stereotypically male bonding activities. Fishing. Playing video games. Car fixing. Baseball games. Playing basketball. And hedoesn't even like half those things. Most recently he's told me that maybe I shouldn't be doing musical theater since it's so girly, while encouraging me to get more serious about boxing. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.'

'I'm sorry,' Kurt sympathized. 'I thought he seemed different. A bit less rigid.'

'It doesn't matter.' Blaine tried to seem casual, handwaving the matter off. 'I'm done trying to please him.'