Blaine spent the next couple of days mostly in the mattress room reading or playing his guitar. Often Kurt would stay with him, watching him, and sometimes Kurt would ask him to play a certain song, or teach him how to listen to music.

Other days Kurt would wake him up in the middle of the night and take him to the meditation room, saying that when they had just woken up they were already in contact with the spirit and that was the best time to meditate, because it would make it easier for them to leave their body behind.

Blaine found it exciting and impressing to listen to Kurt talk about the meanings of the different aura colors, and the effects of the nature on the soul.

His voice was so soft and soothing. Blaine had a theory that if Kurt started to read the phonebook or encyclopedia to him he would still listen as much as he did when he was talking about anything else.

One day they were sitting in the mattress room staring into each other’s eyes after Blaine had finished a song on his guitar. He didn’t know how long they had sat like that, but they both were thrown completely caught off guard when Gary burst into the room.

“You. Out.” Gary pointed at Kurt and gestured for him to leave the room.

Kurt looked confused at Blaine, as if he wanted Blaine to tell him whether he should leave or stay. Gary looked and sounded drunk, and his tone was aggressive.

“What? No. Gary stop - you can’t just… you can’t tell him to leave. We’re all allowed to be here, you know that!”

Blaine felt anger well up in him, and was about to stand up. He had no idea why it bothered him so much that Gary spoke to Kurt that way, but he wouldn’t sit back and witness it.

“Well, I wanna talk to my best friend, and it’s none of his business. So would you kindly get the hell out -”

Blaine started to stand up, but Kurt put a hand gently on his knee to hold him back.

“It’s okay. I’ll leave and come back later. Don’t worry about it. Such primitive talk isn’t going to offend me.” Kurt’s voice was as soft as always, but with the last sentence he turned his head and sent Gary a sharp look in a way that Blaine would never have guessed that Kurt would be in possession of.

“No. Really, Kurt. It’s not okay,” Blaine objected, and stood up and started to walk over to Gary.

“Listen, man. You’re going to go into one of the other rooms and sleep it all out -”

Blaine had placed his hands carefully on Gary’s shoulder trying to guide him out of the room, but Gary blew completely up at him.

“Hell fucking no! Do you seriously think I am gonna go and sleep while my best friend is in here being a fag? We all know that boy is homo, and you’re running after him like fucking puppy. At first I thought you just needed to get to know some people, but this is making me sick. It’s repulsive. What do you think your dad would say? He would kill you!”

“Stop, just STOP! I don’t wanna hear your bullshit. Just get the fuck off Kurt’s back. I don’t care how much shit you’re giving me, but don’t let your drunk piss out on Kurt. You know that in the morning you’re gonna creep back to me and be sorry, and frankly I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive you that easy this time.”

Blaine was scared of himself. He had never felt so much anger. He was shaking and felt like punching Gary, or bang his head against a wall.

“Your mom is sick again. Did you know that? She’s turning crazy again, Anderson. You know where they took her the last time, right? She’s going back. All of Lima is talking about it. You thought you kept it a secret for so long, b-”

Blaine took a few steps back, not sure what was happening to him, before he dumped back down on a mattress across the room from Kurt.

“Gary just - just go. Get sober somewhere, and get some water. You’re gonna have the world’s worst hangovers tomorrow.”

He didn’t sound angry anymore, and it felt like the adrenaline had frozen in his veins. He had no idea what Gary was talking about, but vivid images and bits of sound from his childhood were running wildly around in his head.

Gary sniffed cockily before he took a step backwards, hitting the wall before he left the room.

The silence that filled the room was booming. The buzzing from the voices in the rest of the commune sounded as if they were coming from under water. Blaine felt like he was being strangled, but he couldn’t move.

Before he knew it, Kurt was next to him letting his hand close around Blaine’s on the mattress between them.

Neither of them said a word, but that was one of the things about Kurt, he just knew.

*

"Blaine. Come on, he said he’s sorry. He was just really drunk. He didn't mean it that hard."

Quinn lit a cigarette before she offered the pack to Blaine, but he coolly declined.

"You know what, I don't care. I thought we were friends, but that just crossed the line. I don't even know how he could bring himself to say those things."

Blaine's pitch had reached a level he didn't feel comfortable representing himself in, so he reminded himself that it wasn't Quinn's fault.

"It's not like it was a secret. Everyone knows." Her voice was thick with resentment, and Blaine could see on her face that she had said more than she had meant to.

"Everyone knows what, Lucinda? What is it that everyone knows but me? Apparently I'm the only one clueless here?" Blaine snapped at her, seeing her lips form a thin line as he mentioned her birth name.

Quinn was a good girl raised by Christian parents that had named her Lucinda Quinn Fabray. She only went by the name Lucy, but as she started hanging out with her new friends she had started introducing herself as Quinn.

"Tell me something here; what is it that you're most upset about? What he said about your mom, or what he said about Tinkerbell there?"

Blaine looked at her in disbelief, not sure she had actually just said those words to his face.

"What?" He burst out in lack of coherent words for response.

In one fluid movement Quinn was sitting so close to him that he could taste the nicotine on his tongue.

"Do you want to fuck me, Anderson?" Quinn asked in a low sensual voice, her eyes flirting and her moist lips so close to Blaine's that they almost met. Blaine was just staring at her, frozen in the spot, unable to act.

Her eyes flickered between his for what felt like an eternity before she leaned back to sit against the cold wall.

"Yeah. I didn't think so," she said, a tint of hurt in her voice - or maybe that was just something he imagined.

She drew a long breath of the cigarette, letting the smoke out to surround her in a dark gray cloud, making her head completely disappear.

And all Blaine could think about - was Kurt.

“I remember when we were kids. Everyone was talking about how the Anderson woman had being taken away in the morning, and no one saw her until months later. My parents discussed it at the dinner table, feeling sorry for the boy. Blaine, everyone in Ohio knew about it. You were the boy with the crazy mom.”

Quinn butted her cigarette on the saucer in front of them, Blaine’s eyes burning into the ashes that were spread all over it.

“I didn’t know. I - I didn’t know what was wrong with her. No one told me anything. They just - told me she was sick, and that… that she was in the hospital,” Blaine said in a hollow voice, swallowing a knot, trying to keep his brain in check.

“Are you serious? How did you miss that?”

Quinn was genuinely shocked. She leaned in to sit closer to Blaine, letting a hand cup his cheek.

“I am so sorry, Blaine. It’s really awful. Gary should have known. You guys are best friends, he knew that you had no idea what had happened. He should have talked to you instead of - this.” Her voice was apologetic, and her eyes were big and sad. Her fingers smelled like tobacco, and her lipstick was cracking.

“We were friends. How come no one told me, huh? It’s unbelievable.”

Blaine stood up, having to stop himself from kicking over the stool next to the couch.

“Please, sit down would you -”

“Just do me a favor, Lucy, and leave me alone. You’re no better than he is.”

Blaine turned on his heel and was on his way out. He didn’t know where he was going, all he knew was that he needed to get out, get away.

*

For the rest of the week Blaine kept to himself. When he woke up in the morning before anyone else he put on his clothes and hurried out. He walked to multiple places: to the record store where Kurt had brought him, to the library, to the green patch by the playground, and didn’t return until late at night where he went directly to bed.

At first he planned on just going back to Ohio, returning to his broken home filled with lies, but he couldn’t stand the thought of facing his father and have the conversation while he was suffering in rage and confusion, knowing it would take a turn for the worst.

Monday night he came silently back to the commune that was buzzing with excitement and music, people painting signs and dancing. Blaine tiptoed to the mattress room doing his best not to be noticed, succeeding.

The room was completely dark and no one was there, so he let out a relieved sigh, undressed and laid down under the blanket, waiting to fall asleep.

“Talk to me,” Kurt’s soft delicate voice sounded through the darkness of the room.

He crossed the floor of mattresses and laid down, facing Blaine. His expression wasn’t expecting or waiting, it was soft and understanding.

“There’s been a lot of talk the last few days. About you, and Gary. About what happened and what he said. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just know that if you need to talk I will listen,” Kurt offered.

“Kurt. I’m so sorry for what he said. He didn’t have any right to -”

Kurt held up two fingers to his lips and hushed.

“Don’t be sorry. He was right. I am gay. I fall in love with boys instead of girls. But that is my cross to bear. Not yours. But that wasn’t what I was talking about. Your mom.”

He paused and closed his eyes, drew in a big breath and opened them as he exhaled, as if he was gathering courage to what he was about to say.

“I heard you talk to Lucinda the other day. What you don’t know is - I went to school with Lucinda. We grew up together, and when we got older she dated Finn for a few months our junior year of high school.”

He gazed into Blaine’s eyes, waiting for him to catch what it was that he was trying to tell him, so he didn’t have to say it out loud himself.

“When you told me about your mom I didn’t know that - I heard the stories too… about your family. I had no idea that it was you. Your family. But it’s wrong. You shouldn’t have heard this. Your family should have talked to you about your mom’s condition. I am sorry this happened to you.”

Kurt let the tip of his index finger stroke over Blaine’s hand, but quickly pulled it away like he was afraid that he had burned him.

“How is your mom? Is she feeling any better?” Kurt asked, his voice indifferent.

“She’s… she keeps saying that she’s fine. That nothing’s wrong. But I can hear in her voice that it isn’t true.” Blaine sniffed, his stomach turning over by hearing himself saying the words.

It was actually very nice to have Kurt ask about it. It was comforting to know that Kurt worried, that he didn’t forget about him as soon as they weren’t together. It felt like a promise. A promise of what, he didn’t know.

Yet, he wasn’t ready to talk over the delicate subject. He still wasn’t used to the thought about his mom being sick again - moreover, he wasn’t prepared to think about what her condition actually was.

Again it was like Kurt read his mind. Like he knew that this wasn’t the time or the place, that he wasn’t ready for this conversation, and that he needed something else to take his mom off his mind - and Kurt changed the subject.

“You know - Lucinda is in love with you. She has been for a long time. Since you started coming to the same parties back home. She talked about you when you weren’t there. ‘Blaine says this, Blaine did that.’” Kurt didn’t sound judging, just anticipating, as if he was holding his breath for an answer.

“Quinn is a lovely girl, but… she’s just not for me,” Blaine said, perplexed, unsure why Kurt was telling him this, yet stunned by how he hadn’t seen it.

He had talked to Quinn a few times, but never really engaged in a conversation with her. He couldn’t see any reason as to why she would ever have those kinds of feelings for him. It was insane - she was older than him, a gorgeous young girl and… that’s when it him. She was a girl. That’s what she was.

“Kurt I… how did you know?” Blaine asked out of nowhere, only realizing that there was no way Kurt would know what he was referring to by such a vague question.

“Oh aren’t you oblivious? Haven’t you seen the way she looks at you? Noticed how she licks her lips and pouts them? How she discretely moves closer to you when she can? It’s so clear,” Kurt said, as if Blaine had just asked him how he knew that the sky was blue and the grass was green.

Blaine felt himself blush and squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing and convincing himself that it was okay.

“No. Kurt. Not her. That - that you are gay. How did you know?”

He didn’t even know why he was asking. It didn’t matter to Blaine how people knew they were gay. He wasn’t gay, so it was completely irrelevant.

Usually he would never have asked anyone about something so private, but he wasn’t nervous. This was Kurt. He wouldn’t take it as an offense, or be hurt. Blaine didn’t have a single doubt that Kurt would open up and tell his story.

“I just did. To me it was more a question of knowing that I wasn’t into girls than knowing that I was into boys. When I was little I thought this was how it was - that boys liked boys and girls liked girls and sometimes boys and girls fell in love with each other. I didn’t think about it until I started school. So - to answer your question: I always knew.”

Kurt sounded as if he had prepared himself for the moment where he would have to tell Blaine about this. Like he had known that the moment would come - but how?

Had he expected Blaine to not be okay with it?

Blaine grew silent, letting the words fasten themselves in his mind, making space for them to work their way around.

Kurt let up a hand to cup Blaine’s cheek, smiling consoling at him through the dark.

“It’s okay, Blaine. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be ready when you’re ready,” Kurt said, voice soft and understanding - though understanding about what Blaine had no idea.

Did Kurt know something he didn’t?

Blaine didn’t know how to respond to that so he decided to keep quiet, feeling Kurt’s hand burning into the skin of his face, not wanting it to move.

This was something Blaine had never experienced before. He had always got the impression that being homosexual was something one found out after experimenting during their teenage years - that it was something they got used to, chose to be, not a way to be born.

Thoughts of how Kurt had struggled through his school years were racing through Blaine’s mind. As much as he wanted to picture Kurt as a happy child, he couldn’t. There was something triggering pictures of a sad lonely boy, instead of a happy socializing boy, and Blaine couldn’t figure out how anyone could live with that.

With the feeling of Kurt’s hand gliding from his cheek and down to rest on his jaw, a warm feeling radiating from the spot, Blaine fell asleep, a dream creeping in over him on how his father would react if he ever was to come home with the message that he was gay.