Blaine dropped his eyes to brush at the dust on his gray dress pants, his attention elsewhere as he attempted to remove every last speck of brown from the once spotless slacks. It was a distraction, surely, a way to ease his mind and give him a break from his thoughts and words. But really he was also just hiding, he had grown fairly accustomed to his father’s abusive ways, so much so that he started expecting it after awhile. It wasn’t exactly something he could predict per se, but as soon as his father walked into the house, slamming the door behind loudly enough so he could hear it all the way from his room on the opposite side of the house on the second floor, he knew what the rest of the night meant for him. He could’ve ran, or he could’ve hid, but he didn’t know better back then and he was so used to it that he wasn’t even aware he had a second option to simply taking it until James had told him that wasn’t normal, that it wasn’t what decent parents did to their kids. And that’s when he started hanging out away from home more often, spending time at James’ house or sitting at the coffee shop in order to wait out the inevitable for when he had to head back home for the night. But at least this way he could get his mind off of it for a couple hours, spend time with James and attempt to make sense of the growing feelings he had for his best friend. And when he finally wandered home it somehow didn’t seem as bad, even if his father kept him around longer and hit him harder for the usual reasons such as throwing his baseball talent out the window and shaming him for hanging around the kid…though he never used quite the same words.

Blaine ran his free hand over his face and his fingers through his somewhat disheveled hair, why won’t these memories go away? He sighed helplessly, there was simply too much going on through his mind, and every second that he took as a break from listening or talking to Kurt he had little flashbacks of the past, which in itself brought another short lived wave of emotions for him to deal with as he attempted to focus back in on the actor next to him. What he needed was a better distraction, something to completely get his mind off of everything…he could also just talk about it, but there was far too much to say and he didn’t have the emotional capacity or stability to get through all of that anytime soon, especially not tonight. Blaine turned his head towards Kurt when he spoke, and shrugged his shoulders lightly as his initial response, “There wasn’t really much I could do about it, and I became used to it after awhile. Plus, if anything I learned how to take a punch,” he muttered with an uncharacteristically dark laugh. Clearing his throat he shifted uncomfortably in the trunk of the car and crossed his feet, “It helped to some extent, what with the other individuals at school who didn’t exactly have the tolerance for him…” Him? Blaine mentally hit himself, he was fine with confiding Kurt on nearly anything he wanted to know, but James…he wasn’t so sure if he could talk about him just yet, though clearly the boy was constantly on his mind, if the occasional mention of a pronoun in the third person weren’t enough evidence of that. His eyes softened on Kurt, the overall genuine tone of his words meaning far more to the musician then he could ever really describe, or respond to for that matter. Blaine simply managed a small smile, beyond thankful for the drama major’s kindness.

“…Okay. I’m sorry, by the way. I know this isn’t exactly how we had planned the night going,” he murmured apologetically, feeling extremely bad for how things had turned out, for ruining what he had originally thought of as their first date - and boy was he wrong about that. To be honest though, he wasn’t really in the mood to be able to sit and fully appreciate a musical at the moment, so heading back to campus and maybe convincing Kurt to hang around in the dorms for awhile sounded like the best idea he could come up with…not to mention that he mentioned ‘talking’, which he didn’t have a problem with either. Blaine squeezed the actor’s hand and slipped out of the trunk, before gently pulling him to his feet and closing the door to the trunk closed behind the pair of them. He walked with the drama major to his side of the car, opening the passenger door and letting him slip inside before letting go of his hand and shut the door. Blaine made his way into the driver’s seat, unbuttoning his suit jacket and taking it off, hanging it over the back of his chair before buckling up and turning the car on. Glancing over at his friend thoughtfully he wanted to hold his hand again, to feel that comforting warmth of the man’s soft pale skin against his own more tan rough palm, their fingers intertwining in a way that would keep that safe atmosphere between the two of them. But he hesitated, and asked the first question that came to his mind instead, “Would you like to come over to my room? We can talk there, maybe try to watch an action movie,” he smiled somewhat amusingly, attempting to lighten the already dampened mood.

Hearing Blaine talking about his experiences with abuse caused Kurt to swallow harshly and somewhat loudly into the small space of the car. He never advertised that he’d been through it. Sure he mentioned bullying, which some maybe linked to physical abuse to some level or other which he received, but really he could compare that abuse to abuse from someone you should trust, who apparently loved you pretty easily. Sure he couldn’t compare it to a family member, but having a history with domestic violence during one of his failed relationships was something which Kurt was somewhat embarrassed of for allowing it to happen for so long, for forgiving it happening because when it came down to it, he had no one else; he’d been ostracized from the rest of his acquaintances at that time and his relationship was all that he had. Comparing Blaine’s experience with his own with Nick was somewhat of a short straw, because really he didn’t know what went down and he sure as hell wasn’t bringing up Nick in a conversation again because that was definitely history he didn’t want to have to go through talking about ever again. It had been impossible to admit anything, thankful for the course he’d taken in stage and television make up enough so he could cover any visible bruises pretty well and honestly he wouldn’t have said anything if his dad hadn’t walked in during an argument between them on one of his very few visits to New York. Then Kurt had completely just broken down. He’d never broken that badly before, he was hysterical and yet he still thought that it was entirely his fault for being a bad boyfriend, for provoking him. Part of him still thought it was something to do with his own actions which triggered it, but he tended to just glaze over that part of his past. It wasn’t something he dwelled on.

It was dangerous, purposefully forcing himself to forget a large section of his life, but really, it was a blur. Kurt gave a sad smile to Blaine’s explanation because he completely remembered this feeling. It was character building, going through something like that, in Kurt’s opinion anyway. He took a deep breath, lowering his eyes for a second before looking back up to Blaine. “Your friend?” Kurt prompted lightly, just to really understand what was going on here, to clarify and not to pry. The actor had already pinpointed that this was somewhat of a sore subject that he really shouldn’t bring up at all, since clearly it was still very painful for Blaine. Kurt honestly couldn’t feel anything but sympathy for Blaine, he did feel sorry for him having to go through anything at all. The amount of hurt he could feel from him was overwhelming, obviously he’d been through way more than Kurt had originally thought and really, the brunet just couldn’t help but feel that it wasn’t fair. Honestly, he could somewhat think that he didn’t necessarily deserve it if he wasn’t half as nice, but it wouldn’t have been so surprising in some odd way. But because Blaine was just so very Blaine, the fact that he’d been heartbroken, hurt physically, mentally and emotionally was in itself painful for Kurt to actually acknowledge at all.

Kurt let a small smile play on his lips before shaking his head lightly. “Don’t worry about it, I think we both needed this is a bit more than a musical and dinner. We can always reschedule, don’t apologize at all. He followed Blaine out of the car, treasuring the contact between them still. To anyone else it might have seemed pathetic that they were both practically clinging to eachother’s hands like some lifeline, but really, for Kurt at least, it made him feel safe and grounded again. He couldn’t hep but give a small chuckle at Blaine’s gentlemanliness. He had half a mind to tell him to stop, but part of him knew that it wasn’t a charade, it was just how Blaine was and in a way it made Kurt feel a little bit special because no one had ever treat him with this level of respect and genuinely meant it. He opened his mouth to protest to Blaine driving, he wanted to make sure he was okay to drive, but something stopped him, because Blaine seemed to have perked up a little and he didn’t want to bring him down if he needed this. Kurt lifted a hand to the knot of his tie, loosening it slightly and undoing the top button of his shirt, relaxing into the passenger seat for a moment before glancing over to Blaine as he got in and looked a little hesitant. The actor’s lips formed a small ‘o’ before he pursed them together and nodded lightly. Sure he was hesitant because this sort of invitation often ended badly, but this was Blaine and he trusted him enough to take a chance. “I’d love to.” He added a small, short breathy laugh to accompany their ongoing movie jokes before pulling the belt around him, letting his hand closest to Blaine remain slack near the belt join if he wanted it.