Once he’s got himself back together, taking long minuets in the bathroom to shore himself up, putting on his appearance like an armor, he makes his way downstairs. In the kitchen he finds his brother, staring into a container of ice cream. He’s not even eating, just staring, as if the ice cream can answer his questions. Kurt doesn’t speak, instead he grabs a spoon and sits. This is not the time to worry about calories, and he could care less that it’s gross to eat directly out of the container, because right now, he doubts that there’s going to be any left. It might be cliché, but he can think of nothing better than to eat his feelings right now. All of them.

For a while, it’s companionable silence and the sound of them eating ice cream with determination. So when Finn breaks into the silence, cracking into it, Kurt is jolted from the sort of dream-like state he’s entered, back in the present.

“What are you guys fighting about?” Finn’s not even looking at him, instead he’s examining the fudge chunk caught in his spoonful of ice cream.

“What makes you think we’re fighting?” He’s resenting Finn, resenting the reality he’s supposed to be thinking about, because a few minutes ago it was all chocolate and the gratification of an immediate need and it didn’t hurt so fucking bad. So he’s sharp, he’s bitter and hard and Finn is the one who’s going to bear the brunt of it.

“I might be slow, but I’m not dumb.” Luckily, it’s Finn, who’s grown used to Kurt’s wicked tongue.  Kurt can only sigh, because he’s forgotten this, forgotten that he can’t talk his way around Finn any more.

“I don’t want to really talk about it. I fucked up.” He shrugs, eating more ice cream, but it’s not working any more, and he puts his spoon down in frustration. Finn’s looking at him, this knowing look, too serious and, god, old.

“Is that why you didn’t tell him about Dad?” It’s not a question he’s expecting; in fact he’s so surprised he bites his tongue.

“Ow! Fuck, what?”

“Did you not tell him about Dad because you guys were fighting? Cause that’s really kind of low Kurt.”

“No, jeez Finn, no! It’s not like that, I just…I didn’t see him before stuff happened, I didn’t have a chance to talk to him, that’s all.”

“You couldn’t call him?” Finn’s looking at him, so direct it’s a little unnerving, and for a moment Kurt wants to snap at him, to butt out, to mind his own business.  But he can’t because now he sees, now it is so clear why Blaine is upstairs and he is down here, and he was right, it was so much more than just a kiss. Because he’d forgotten, in his fear and panic, about Blaine. Not just that Blaine was there, to call and to lean on and to help him, but that to Blaine, this was family. That Burt was his family too, and Kurt had ignored and trampled all over that in his selfishness.

“Fuck.” His head hits the table with a thump, and he’s so far gone he can’t even tell if he’s hurt himself. They sit like that for long minutes, air humming with the sound of the refrigerator while Kurt tries to think of a way to fix this, a way to make some sort of amends for being so callously selfish and stupid and short sighted.  Even he can’t blame Blaine for being so upset; Kurt had sent a pretty clear message through his actions; this is my family, these are my problems.

And god, this is so fucked up; his head is a hot mess of emotions that he cannot begin to process. Some small part of his brain knows this. He can’t even begin to think about his father, about what’s happened and what is to come. He’s hungover still, which feels like small penance, a sharp counterpoint to the wreckage he’s created in his relationship. He can’t cure his hangover, and he has no control over his father’s health, and Kurt knows he’ll be damned if he’s going to let the best thing in his life fall apart. Because this, this thing with Blaine, is something he can maybe fix. If he can just clear his head long enough to think of a way.   

He has an idea, a way he might be able to fix things, but the timing is all wrong and this isn’t what he’d planned on at all. But then again, nothing ever is.  Tomorrow he’ll have to talk to doctors and in a few days they’ll find out if his father really has cancer and the day after that, who knows what will be coming. It may be all kinds of wrong, but he can’t imagine waiting another day, another hour, to fix this, to show Blaine just how much he means.

Because it was never that Kurt didn’t think of Blaine as family, it was just that for those jarring moments, Kurt hadn’t been thinking about anyone else at all. Had been so scared, just boneless and blurred with fear, and it was too much. Too much like when his father had had the heart attack; so many of the same fears, undiluted by time, rushing through him. And like before, through the roaring in his ears, was this little voice, Please don’t let this happen, I can’t be an orphan, please don’t leave me. Over and over and he’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t an orphan, that he had Finn and Carole.

And Blaine. Always Blaine. Beautiful Blaine who loves him at his worst, who writes bad poetry on post it notes and hides them around the apartment for him to find. Who knows that Kurt only likes apples bought from the grocer three blocks out of their way.  Seventeen year old Blaine who had confessed, embarrassed and a little heartbroken, that he sometimes wished Burt was his father.  A boy who had always so longed for family, for the comfort of acceptance; the boy who was positively giddy upon finding his own pile of presents under the Christmas tree, their first visit home from college. And not, Kurt had known, because of the presents. Because they signified so much more, because they meant that Blaine was really and truly family.

It’s a sharp pain, just inside his chest, when Kurt remembers this. Realizing how much Blaine has always wanted to be a part, to be included. Kurt has so long taken for granted that Blaine felt like family; this, forgetting to include him, forgetting that Blaine would want to know about his father for Blaine’s sake, and not just because Kurt needed comfort; it’s the worst thing he could have done. Worse than kissing Jason. So much worse.