~Fifteen-year-old Kurt, Twenty-year-old Blaine~

There is nothing worse than not being grounded. Even the freest of spirits, those who surrender to their deepest temptations or court the passions of the sultry air of summer nights, must eventually rest their heads on solid ground. This ground may be a person, a belief, a passion, or a place, but we as people cannot thrive, cannot survive, with nothing to love, to hold, to lean on, to cry on. Without something solid and welcoming and warm to the heart, people become lost and meaningless souls who have surrendered themselves and their passions to fate in the struggle for sheer survival. And really, isn’t the loss of such a struggle an inevitability, at some point or another? We all lose at some point. The rich, the poor, the hopeful, the despairing – everyone loses. Yet the struggle is all that we have.

Kurt dipped a finger into the wash basin and twirled it round and round, watching the slight dip of water as it yielded to his touch. His finger altered the water for only a moment, the littlest ripple before he moved to another area, leaving the liquid forever unchanged as he was left alone, unable and unwilling to see his reflection in the darkness of the water.

Kurt could wash his face, clean his body, fluff his hair as he had done so long ago, back when he was young and innocent and hopeful for a future that promised only brightness and happiness, but really, what was the point? No one cared, no one would take a second look at the way his fur gleamed when he combed it in just the right direction. No one would ever feel the warm suppleness of his face when he moisturized it just properly. No one.

And really, who would notice anything? Who would notice if Kurt concealed a razor blade in his paw, brought the sharp and gleaming metal to his wrist, allowed the warm crimson of his blood to stain his matted fur?

“You’re up late,” noted a voice behind Kurt, causing him to jump. He cringed just the slightest bit, lacking the energy to summon the adrenaline that usually rose when he felt threatened. It had never helped him, anyway. Not at the shelter, not when there was no place to run.

“Alan.” Kurt breathed the cat hybrid’s name with sheer relief as he found himself face to face with his only friend in the shelter. They had each been sent away multiple times to various owners, but Kurt was grateful that fate had allowed their paths to cross at least occasionally.

“I missed you,” Alan said simply. His brown ears, darker and richer in color that Kurt’s, gently moved back and forth pensively and calmly. Emerald eyes glimmered with moonlight from the sole window in the darkness of the shelter’s back room.

Kurt had never been so grateful to see those eyes. “I missed you, too.”

There was nothing else to be said as the two wordlessly moved into each other’s arms, neither knowing whether it was from care for the other or the simple, primal need for contact with one’s fellow beings, for the feel of warmth and solidness underneath one’s hands. They craved the connection.

Kurt and Alan never spoke of their previous owners, neither wanting to be reminded of the world that faced them beyond the walls of the shelter. This was always their time to simply forget. But this time was different.

“How have you been?” Kurt murmured as they sank to the ground to sit against the cold, stone wall.

“It was… it was rough, Kurt. Really rough,” Alan admitted in a choked voice, unable to look Kurt in the eyes. Kurt didn’t need to meet his eyes to understand, already so intimately familiar with the hurt, the pain, and perhaps worst of all the numbness, the surrender to the inevitability of it all.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said.

Alan knew.

Kurt knew Alan knew.

But both knew that “sorry” had become meaningless as they sat in silence. Kurt supposed that it could be labeled a comfortable, familiar silence, yet that seemed too hopeful. No. Their silence was stale. Stale, fatigued, and weary.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Kurt whispered, gazing blankly into the darkness of the room, “I wonder about this. About our lives. About what this even is. About what life even is.”

“This is all I’ve ever known, all I ever will know. For me, this is… well, this. This is my world, Kurt. But you, I mean, you had a mom once, a family once.” Alan said, pensive. And then quieter, almost embarrassed, “What was it like?”

“Safe,” Kurt reminisced, weary. “Safe and whole. Like I was going somewhere. Like my life meant something to someone.”

“And now?” Alan already knew the answer, but somehow the fact that someone else was enduring the same life he was made him feel better, like there was something he could connect to in the midst of the dark chaos of his life.

“Hollow. Not even empty, just hollow, like I can’t even feel emptiness. And… I think the worst is just… my life’s stagnant, Alan. It’s heading nowhere. It’s heading nowhere slowly. And the way my last owner was…. I just think something’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Alan shook his head and leaned his cheek against Kurt’s, craving the warmth and contact.

“No, Alan, I’m – I’m serious. There's animals I see on the streets - they're comfortable, happy with themselves. Their owners - " tears stung Kurt's eyes - "their owners love them. They make their owners happy. I don't understand why I can't make anyone happy," Kurt choked, "Not even myself."

All too familiar with the sentiment, Alan just nodded, not bother to blink away the tears that gathered in fresh wells in his own eyes.

"I just..." Kurt was sobbing openly now. "Something is wrong with me, something must be wrong with me. I don't understand why no one can love me. Why does no one want me?"

The question was despairing. It did not demand an answer, and Alan had nothing to offer in response. They clung to each other from sheer desperation, because each was all that the other had.

"It has to get better, Kurt. It has to. It can't get any worse..." Alan whispered against the fur of the boy's head.

"And what if it doesn't? Then my life... it's stagnant, everything's stagnant,” he echoed the sentiment from before. “There's nothing, Alan. Nothing."

"I know, Kurt... I know." Alan sighed, rubbing his friend's arm until his sobs died down and they melted into each other.

"Thank you," Kurt murmured after a few moments into the silence that hung vacantly between them. "You're... you're the only constant thing in my life."

"Kurt, I..." Alan couldn't find the words to express his emotions and tilted his head to press a kiss to Kurt's mouth.

Kurt turned away. Alan's heart broke, but he understood. He knew that it wasn't right, not at that time, not in their relationship. Kissing, a simple touch of the lips, loving someone... it was a basic instinct, and well... Kurt had been there.

"I'm sorry, Alan. It's just..."

"No, Kurt, it's... I know. I understand. I'm sorry."

"I know."

Neither felt the need to say anything else as they faded into obscurity and the blackness of the night.

Seventeen-year-old Kurt, Twenty-Two-year-old Blaine

“There you go, honey, all fixed up,” Blaine smiled down at the young collie-hybrid as he handed a list of care instructions to her owner, an attractive-looking woman in her early thirties. “Would you like a balloon on your way out?”

“Oh, yes, Dr. Blaine,” the girl cried, wrapping her arms around his neck as he handed her an orange, smiley faced balloon. “Thank you!”

“Of course, dear.” Blaine gazed wistfully after the girl as she left. Seeing people like those two never failed to bring a grin to his face and a bounce to his step, perhaps because of the warmth between them or even the sheer rarity of kind and meaningful interactions in the world in which he had immersed himself.

The clinic he managed was severely under-funded, and even the considerable amount of money Blaine had managed to make with his musical and medical talents could only go so far towards providing the facility with proper medical supplies and sanitation. Blaine had made a name for himself amongst his colleagues as the motivator, the one who always had a smile on his face and a kind word for those who were depressed. He fought to keep a cheerful, chipper demeanor in the midst of the chaos that surrounded him, because in the end, his attitude was all that he had. But oh, it was hard.

He had immersed himself in the veterinary world so blindly and idealistically, seeking to make grand, sweeping changes in the lives of hybrids, to give them identities and self-worth and owners who would love and adore them. Yet the world was so big and he was but one person, and for every kind word that poured from his mouth with sincerity, thousands of cruel, demeaning ones were being spoken by “masters” throughout the world. At the end of the day, Blaine found himself sitting hollowly by his fireplace, confused and lost and just… empty inside. He needed to care for others, the instinct was embedded in the core of his being, it was everything that he lived for. Yet the more he cared for hybrids and was filled with, the more he felt an aching loneliness coming home to no one and feeling as though all his hard work had been for naught.

“See you tomorrow, honey,” Mandy, a fellow vet, called as Blaine shrugged on his coat to brave the chill of the outdoors.

Blaine smiled at the simple way Mandy called everyone ‘honey.’ It wasn’t demeaning as the word could so easily be – it just made everyone she met feel infinitely closer to her.

“I probably won’t be in tomorrow, being Christmas tomorrow and all, but… I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve tonight.”

“You too, Blaine. Got any plans for tonight? Some of us are heading over to the bar on Parker Street, if you’d like to join us.”

“Thanks for the invite, Mandy, but I have plans with a few old friends from vet school tonight. Rain check?”

“Absolutely.”

Blaine hummed a goodbye as swung open the cold metal door and made his way out onto the chill of the streets.

Blaine had always been a bit of a night owl – it wasn’t so much the fun, the parties, the randomness of the events that were sure to take place at night. It was moreso the feel of escape and freedom, the mystique of it all that was only enhanced on a night like Christmas Eve when sparkling lights glimmered across the town and carolers’ voices painted glorious colors across the black of night. For once, all was at peace and goodwill shaped people’s actions. The notion that it was all a fa�ade, all temporary, cross Blaine’s mind, but he was quick to push it aside to lose himself in the happiness Christmas had always brought to him when he was a child.

So it was with a wash of nostalgia and a sprig of happiness that Blaine strolled across town, shooting smiles at strangers, some who even deigned to return the sentiment. The chill of the night was of no consequence after all, not when the ground was draped in soft, fluffy snow.

Humming to himself, Blaine turned into a more vacant part of town and decided to risk the shortcut of an alley – there didn’t appear to be anyone down there, and there were people nearby.

The alley was darker than he had imagined, and Blaine picked up his feet more quickly, eager to reach the light on the other side. Part of him laughed lightly at how metaphorical the whole thing was. As he finally reached the end, he tripped over something or someone and spun around as he bent to apologize.

His heart swooped achingly throughout his body at the all-too-familiar sight that greeted him, and he ignored the stares as he knelt on the ground, as time seemed to stop.

A dead cat hybrid. Blaine’s eyes were wide as he took in the mass of chestnut, gray, and crimson, all melding into one another. His heart cried out as he saw how delicate and starved he was – had been – when he saw the bruised frailness of his ribs peeking out beneath tattered grey clothes. The worst of it all was not the blood-matted fur hanging from his tail and ears, the open wounds and bruises marring the paleness of his body, the once supple skin now stiff and cold. Nor was it the hollow beauty in the face Blaine just knew was once lively, the gentle curving peak of his nose, the long, curling eyelashes, the gorgeous, sprite-like points at the tips of his ears, the high forehead with once beautiful chestnut fur draped over it. No. The worst part was the black collar around his neck, pinching so tightly that the fragile skin beneath it was bruised and chafed, a delicate sea of purple and red against the white of his face.

Blaine reached a tentative, trembling hand down to touch the pale skin, and as the blood seeped over the fingers, the fresh warmth of it surprised him. Holding his breath and scarcely daring to allow hope to wash over his body, he trailed his fingers to a vein in the cat’s neck. He didn’t even know what to do, what to think as he felt a faint pulse thrumming beneath his touch. The body trembled slightly.

Ever so delicately, Blaine took off his jacket and placed it carefully over the boy, slid his arms beneath him, and pressed his body close to his own for warmth before standing to carry him off into the blackness of the night, to his home.