Kurt and Blaine, backdated to 4/26/13
Apr. 26th, 2013 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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om_mainBlaine asks about the scars on Kurt's back, and Kurt tells him what really happened in Florida
The movie had ended a long time ago, but both of them, it seemed, were reluctant to move. For awhile, they had talked--About the movie, about school, about the new CD Blaine had just downloaded... But, eventually the conversation had petered out and it had become what it was now--Lying together in a comfortable silence.
Tilting his head, Kurt pressed a soft kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead and then tucked his head back in against his, eyes closed. His fingers slowly ran through Blaine’s curls, his tail, which was wrapped around Blaine’s calf, traced lazy circles with its tip around his ankle bone. He loved getting to cuddle with him like this, to be this relaxed and this close to him. At some point, they’d have to move--Ben would come back, or the homework that was piling up would be too hard to ignore, or hunger would drive them from the room--but for now, he was going to stay right here.
Blaine smiled at the kiss, and willed himself to let him relax completely into it, and the warm embrace of his boyfriend. He wanted to, but it weighed heavy on his mind, wondering if something had happened, if he had someone to talk to. Kurt was the type that wouldn't bring it up, wouldn't put his problems on another person, especially when they were in the past. Even if he needed it, Blaine wasn't sure he would ask for it, and the thought of him dealing with something on his own made him sick. The only reason he hadn't said anything before now was because he didn't want to bring up bad thoughts, if his suspicions were correct, but he couldn't just ignore it forever, especially when it interrupted his thoughts while they were together.
"Kurt?" he started quietly, smoothing Kurt's hair down with his hand. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Kurt made a soft, questioning sound at his name, and then opened his eyes at the question that followed, “Of course. Always.” Though he had no idea what this could be about, it sounded serious, so he untangled himself from his boyfriend and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow to look at him. “What do you want to ask me?”
"Well," he started, then paused, considering. He had to phrase it right, be tactful and also not pressure him into answering if he didn't want to. It was ultimately none of his business, after all, even if his questioning came from a place of concern, not simple curiosity. "Sometimes when we're kissing...I've noticed you have these long stripes across your back." He could see them too, but not unless he looked for them, the thin lines hidden by the dark fur. "You don't have to tell me, but I worry about you, so I just wanted to ask." He stroked his fingers through the fur of his arm as he watched him, looking to see how he'd react.
It felt like all the air had left the room. Kurt stared at Blaine, speechless, expression stripped bare of any pretense and heart like a stone in his stomach. His eyes dropped to his hands and his head moved in a barely perceptible shake. “I did not,” he started quietly. “I did not think you would notice. I did not think anyone would.” He had honestly convinced himself that the scars on his back were unnoticeable as if they were just tiny paper cuts, and that, outside of the teachers, no one would ever have to know about them. Gott, he had been so stupid.
“You want to know where they are from?” Kurt asked after a pause. He had avoided talking about Jardine, telling the truth about his circus. In part because it was hard to. The words did not come easily, it was as if he didn’t even have the words. The memories were still too fresh, the nightmares still too real... And then he just... He did not want to frighten anyone with what had happened or what it could mean for other mutants. They all had so much to worry about already, they did not need something like that too.
Blaine felt like his heart had stopped at Kurt's stricken expression. He'd never seen anything like it on his face, and the fact that he was the one who'd caused it made him feel sick. "I'm sorry, I never should have asked. It was none of my business," he said quickly, and he moved in to touch him gently, a hand on his neck, eager to comfort him. "I'm sorry, Kurt."
Kurt shook his head and put his hand over Blaine’s. “No. No, do not be,” he quickly reassured. “Bitte, do not. You did nothing wrong. You just...just surprised me.” His hand squeezed the other boy’s and then he briefly glanced down again, stomach in tight, ugly knots. “I did not think you would noticed, but I...I do want to tell you.” He was glad, in a way, that Blaine had asked. He hated keeping things from him.
Blaine relaxed a little, not feeling quite as bad as he had before with Kurt''s reassurances. He turned to his side and pillowed his head on his arm, resting a hand on his hip. "If you're sure," he said quietly, slowly sliding up his hip to his ribs, then back again, his hand firm and soothing. "And I hadn't noticed, at first. You can't really see them, but I can feel them when I touch your back." So no one else would likely notice, was the unspoken reassurance, and he smiled gently at him.
The corners of Kurt’s mouth tugged up in a small smile. He felt a little better knowing that. The smile didn’t last though, gone as quickly as it had come, and he nodded, “I am sure.”
Kurt exhaled quietly. He looked down again, struggling to find those words again, trying to find how to begin. His fingers picked at the comforter and he swallowed, brow knitting, “I...I lied about Jardine’s circus. I was not going to be the star of his show. That is just what he told me.” He stopped there, throat tight, and when he spoke again, the words were rough with emotion. “He wanted me for his freakshow. That is what I was to be the star of. The Devil Boy.”
Rage burned in Blaine's gut, making him feel like his blood was boiling as he listened. That anyone would take him, Kurt, who was probably the kindest person he'd ever met, lie to him, and lock him up in a freakshow. The thought of it, people coming to gawk at him, made bile rise in his throat, and he grit his teeth. "That's horrible," he said, in a forced softness that clashed with the anger in his eyes.
Kurt cleared his throat, trying to swallow back the emotion that was welling up. “He drugged me,” he said quietly. “So I could not teleport away, but kept me conscious enough that I would not disappoint his guests. He locked me in a cage.” Regret and shame crawled over him and he felt sick and angry and sad, like it was this big knotted mess inside him, all of it tied up so close he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. “He whipped me my first day because I refused to be in his show. That is what the scars are from. He wanted to...” He swallowed and shook his head. “He said he was going to break me.”
Blaine bit at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from tearing up. It was so horrible, so far beyond his fears of how he could have gotten them. "I'm so sorry," he said, and he was, he felt it with everything he had. He wished desperately there was something he could have done, that he could have stopped it, or made it better, and he wanted fervently to have an hour alone with the man who had done this to him. The anger, the intensity of it, actually surprised him a little, but even that didn't lessen it.
"He didn't, though," he said quietly, and he leaned in to kiss his forehead, touching his arm. He didn't know if Kurt would want to be hugged, but he made just the barest effort to tug him forward, nothing more than an offer. "You're not a freak, or a devil, and he didn't break you."
Kurt moved closer to Blaine at the touch and nodded a little. He knew that, he told himself that, but it was still nice to hear. “Danke,” he said quietly, giving him a small smile. He rested a hand on Blaine’s side to bring himself just that little bit closer to him.
“I was there for three weeks. Professor Xavier saved me and brought me here,” Kurt said, bringing the story to a close. He was glad he could leave out details, that Blaine wouldn’t ask, and he wouldn’t have to tell him how he lived in his own sick and filth, or the things people had said about him, or how he had come very close to giving up. “I am sorry I did not tell you.”
Blaine made a confused face when Kurt apologized, then shook his head. "Don't apologize. You had every right not to tell me. Things like that...It's not the same as something that has to do with me. You can tell me anything, but you don't have to tell me everything."
Blaine pulled Kurt close to him now, stroking his fingers through the dark hair, gently untangling the snares that always seemed to get caught up in it. "Is that why you didn't really have anything when you first got here?"
Kurt curled in against Blaine, head tucked against his chest, “Ja. I do not know what they did with my belongings. Threw them away probably.” He hated that those things were gone forever. It was silly to get upset, he knew. Given everything that had happened, a few lost possessions were nothing in comparison. But, it did upset him, thinking of the family pictures he’d never see again, the well-worn copy of The Princess Bride that had been what he’d always read when he was sad, or the favorite shirt that had been thrown away like its belonging to him didn’t matter.
Blaine pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead, holding him tight. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly, wishing he could figure out something else to say, but coming up empty. What did you say about something like that, something so horrible? "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
A horrible thought occurred to Blaine, and he went through it in his head, the dates, the fact that Kurt had been there for three weeks. "You were there over your birthday, weren't you?"
Kurt hesitated and then nodded a little, “I left Germany a few days before.” He toyed with the end of one of Blaine’s sleeves, eyes following as he tugged and slid the cloth between his fingers. “I do not remember much about it.” Then, quietly, “There was a show that day, I remember that.” He was silent a moment and then his shoulders moved in a barely there shrug. “The days were a blur sometimes.”
There was a show that day. The sentence made another sick wave of nausea roll through him. It was disgusting, thinking of all these people looking at him, sick and caged, and doing nothing. Even if, somehow, they'd mistaken him for something else, an animal, anything, the fact that people just gawked instead of helping was awful and shocking.
Another thought filtered into his mind, too. If there were shows, people would have come to see him, and it was doubtful that Professor Xavier had managed to erase all of their memories. What if they went looking, now that the existence of mutants was known? What if they tracked him back to his family's circus, or worse, back to here? He felt cold at the thought, but kept from voicing it for now. Kurt was scared, and he didn't want to scare him more. Instead, he sat up and with a quiet, "C'mere," pulled him into his lap. He hugged him close, tucking his chin on his shoulder and just holding him there, his hand smoothing over his back.
Kurt leaned into Blaine, his head resting against his and his eyes closed. He felt exhausted and he felt sick, stomach in rolling nauseous knots. He felt like he wanted to crawl out of his fur. His fingers curled around the front of Blaine’s shirt and he exhaled quietly, curling in closer as he tried to relax. “Can we talk about something else for now?” he quietly asked after a moment. He just wanted to be close to his boyfriend and forget about what had happened for a little while.
Blaine nodded and rubbed at Kurt’s shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. “Yeah, of course, Kurt. Whatever you want.” He kissed his forehead, rolling through topics in his head, trying to think of something to talk about, something that wouldn’t be trivial after this. There wasn’t anything, so he just went with the first thing he thought of. “So, the new Star Trek is coming out soon. Have you seen those? I think you’d like it. One of the guys fences.”
“Does he?” Kurt asked, a small smile in his voice. The hand rubbing at his shoulders felt good and he felt himself relaxing a little against his boyfriend. “I have never seen the first one. I have not seen much Star Trek, just a few episodes that someone had recorded on an old VHS tape.” Another small smile. “After, Stefan kept joking I had Vulcan ears.”
He tilted his head to look at Blaine, “I liked what I saw. We will have to watch the movie sometime.” He was curious about the guy who fenced.
"We'll have to watch it sometime. They probably have it here." He combed his fingers through Kurt's hair and was quiet for a moment, then leaned in to kiss his forehead gently. "I really care about you, Kurt," he said softly, giving him a small smile. A part of him wanted to say that he loved him, but he didn't know if he did, not for sure. While he loved him dearly as a friend and he didn't understand the distinction between loving someone as a friend and then dating them verses being in love with someone, but there must be one, right? He knew he shouldn't say anything until he figured it out, as much as he wanted to right now, not wanting to risk messing things up over a misplaced attempt at making Kurt feel better. Besides, it was probably too soon, either way.
Instead, he curled in closer, kissing his shoulder in a few places as he hugged him tighter. "You're an amazing boyfriend."
Kurt smiled and tilted his head, kissing the underside of his boyfriend’s jaw. “So are you,” he told him, smiling again as he nuzzled him there and then kissed him again. “I am so lucky.” He rested his head on Blaine’s shoulder, forehead pressed lightly against his neck. His hand rested on the opposite side, thumb making slow swipes back and forth over it. “I really care about you too,” he added, voice soft. “I am so glad I met you. Everything that happened... It was horrible. I still have nightmares about it. But...it brought me here and I do not regret that.”
Blaine smiled sadly and kissed him soft again, the dull ache in his chest only becoming more pronounced at the thought of Kurt having nightmares, gasping awake, drenched in sweat, the way he always woke from his. "If you ever have nightmares and don't want to be alone, just text me. I'll leave it on for you." He kissed his lips again briefly, then again on his forehead. "You don't have to be alone."
The corners of Kurt’s lips tugged in a small smile and this warm feeling spread through his chest. He really was so lucky. “Danke. And neither do you,” he told Blaine, lacing their fingers as he softly kissed his cheek. “I am here for you too. Always and for anything, Spatzi.” Resting his head on Blaine’s shoulder, he ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, silent for a moment as he thought about everything they’d just talked about, how Blaine was still here like he always was. “Thank you,” he said again, this time in English and far quieter.
The movie had ended a long time ago, but both of them, it seemed, were reluctant to move. For awhile, they had talked--About the movie, about school, about the new CD Blaine had just downloaded... But, eventually the conversation had petered out and it had become what it was now--Lying together in a comfortable silence.
Tilting his head, Kurt pressed a soft kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead and then tucked his head back in against his, eyes closed. His fingers slowly ran through Blaine’s curls, his tail, which was wrapped around Blaine’s calf, traced lazy circles with its tip around his ankle bone. He loved getting to cuddle with him like this, to be this relaxed and this close to him. At some point, they’d have to move--Ben would come back, or the homework that was piling up would be too hard to ignore, or hunger would drive them from the room--but for now, he was going to stay right here.
Blaine smiled at the kiss, and willed himself to let him relax completely into it, and the warm embrace of his boyfriend. He wanted to, but it weighed heavy on his mind, wondering if something had happened, if he had someone to talk to. Kurt was the type that wouldn't bring it up, wouldn't put his problems on another person, especially when they were in the past. Even if he needed it, Blaine wasn't sure he would ask for it, and the thought of him dealing with something on his own made him sick. The only reason he hadn't said anything before now was because he didn't want to bring up bad thoughts, if his suspicions were correct, but he couldn't just ignore it forever, especially when it interrupted his thoughts while they were together.
"Kurt?" he started quietly, smoothing Kurt's hair down with his hand. "Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Kurt made a soft, questioning sound at his name, and then opened his eyes at the question that followed, “Of course. Always.” Though he had no idea what this could be about, it sounded serious, so he untangled himself from his boyfriend and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow to look at him. “What do you want to ask me?”
"Well," he started, then paused, considering. He had to phrase it right, be tactful and also not pressure him into answering if he didn't want to. It was ultimately none of his business, after all, even if his questioning came from a place of concern, not simple curiosity. "Sometimes when we're kissing...I've noticed you have these long stripes across your back." He could see them too, but not unless he looked for them, the thin lines hidden by the dark fur. "You don't have to tell me, but I worry about you, so I just wanted to ask." He stroked his fingers through the fur of his arm as he watched him, looking to see how he'd react.
It felt like all the air had left the room. Kurt stared at Blaine, speechless, expression stripped bare of any pretense and heart like a stone in his stomach. His eyes dropped to his hands and his head moved in a barely perceptible shake. “I did not,” he started quietly. “I did not think you would notice. I did not think anyone would.” He had honestly convinced himself that the scars on his back were unnoticeable as if they were just tiny paper cuts, and that, outside of the teachers, no one would ever have to know about them. Gott, he had been so stupid.
“You want to know where they are from?” Kurt asked after a pause. He had avoided talking about Jardine, telling the truth about his circus. In part because it was hard to. The words did not come easily, it was as if he didn’t even have the words. The memories were still too fresh, the nightmares still too real... And then he just... He did not want to frighten anyone with what had happened or what it could mean for other mutants. They all had so much to worry about already, they did not need something like that too.
Blaine felt like his heart had stopped at Kurt's stricken expression. He'd never seen anything like it on his face, and the fact that he was the one who'd caused it made him feel sick. "I'm sorry, I never should have asked. It was none of my business," he said quickly, and he moved in to touch him gently, a hand on his neck, eager to comfort him. "I'm sorry, Kurt."
Kurt shook his head and put his hand over Blaine’s. “No. No, do not be,” he quickly reassured. “Bitte, do not. You did nothing wrong. You just...just surprised me.” His hand squeezed the other boy’s and then he briefly glanced down again, stomach in tight, ugly knots. “I did not think you would noticed, but I...I do want to tell you.” He was glad, in a way, that Blaine had asked. He hated keeping things from him.
Blaine relaxed a little, not feeling quite as bad as he had before with Kurt''s reassurances. He turned to his side and pillowed his head on his arm, resting a hand on his hip. "If you're sure," he said quietly, slowly sliding up his hip to his ribs, then back again, his hand firm and soothing. "And I hadn't noticed, at first. You can't really see them, but I can feel them when I touch your back." So no one else would likely notice, was the unspoken reassurance, and he smiled gently at him.
The corners of Kurt’s mouth tugged up in a small smile. He felt a little better knowing that. The smile didn’t last though, gone as quickly as it had come, and he nodded, “I am sure.”
Kurt exhaled quietly. He looked down again, struggling to find those words again, trying to find how to begin. His fingers picked at the comforter and he swallowed, brow knitting, “I...I lied about Jardine’s circus. I was not going to be the star of his show. That is just what he told me.” He stopped there, throat tight, and when he spoke again, the words were rough with emotion. “He wanted me for his freakshow. That is what I was to be the star of. The Devil Boy.”
Rage burned in Blaine's gut, making him feel like his blood was boiling as he listened. That anyone would take him, Kurt, who was probably the kindest person he'd ever met, lie to him, and lock him up in a freakshow. The thought of it, people coming to gawk at him, made bile rise in his throat, and he grit his teeth. "That's horrible," he said, in a forced softness that clashed with the anger in his eyes.
Kurt cleared his throat, trying to swallow back the emotion that was welling up. “He drugged me,” he said quietly. “So I could not teleport away, but kept me conscious enough that I would not disappoint his guests. He locked me in a cage.” Regret and shame crawled over him and he felt sick and angry and sad, like it was this big knotted mess inside him, all of it tied up so close he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. “He whipped me my first day because I refused to be in his show. That is what the scars are from. He wanted to...” He swallowed and shook his head. “He said he was going to break me.”
Blaine bit at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from tearing up. It was so horrible, so far beyond his fears of how he could have gotten them. "I'm so sorry," he said, and he was, he felt it with everything he had. He wished desperately there was something he could have done, that he could have stopped it, or made it better, and he wanted fervently to have an hour alone with the man who had done this to him. The anger, the intensity of it, actually surprised him a little, but even that didn't lessen it.
"He didn't, though," he said quietly, and he leaned in to kiss his forehead, touching his arm. He didn't know if Kurt would want to be hugged, but he made just the barest effort to tug him forward, nothing more than an offer. "You're not a freak, or a devil, and he didn't break you."
Kurt moved closer to Blaine at the touch and nodded a little. He knew that, he told himself that, but it was still nice to hear. “Danke,” he said quietly, giving him a small smile. He rested a hand on Blaine’s side to bring himself just that little bit closer to him.
“I was there for three weeks. Professor Xavier saved me and brought me here,” Kurt said, bringing the story to a close. He was glad he could leave out details, that Blaine wouldn’t ask, and he wouldn’t have to tell him how he lived in his own sick and filth, or the things people had said about him, or how he had come very close to giving up. “I am sorry I did not tell you.”
Blaine made a confused face when Kurt apologized, then shook his head. "Don't apologize. You had every right not to tell me. Things like that...It's not the same as something that has to do with me. You can tell me anything, but you don't have to tell me everything."
Blaine pulled Kurt close to him now, stroking his fingers through the dark hair, gently untangling the snares that always seemed to get caught up in it. "Is that why you didn't really have anything when you first got here?"
Kurt curled in against Blaine, head tucked against his chest, “Ja. I do not know what they did with my belongings. Threw them away probably.” He hated that those things were gone forever. It was silly to get upset, he knew. Given everything that had happened, a few lost possessions were nothing in comparison. But, it did upset him, thinking of the family pictures he’d never see again, the well-worn copy of The Princess Bride that had been what he’d always read when he was sad, or the favorite shirt that had been thrown away like its belonging to him didn’t matter.
Blaine pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead, holding him tight. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly, wishing he could figure out something else to say, but coming up empty. What did you say about something like that, something so horrible? "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
A horrible thought occurred to Blaine, and he went through it in his head, the dates, the fact that Kurt had been there for three weeks. "You were there over your birthday, weren't you?"
Kurt hesitated and then nodded a little, “I left Germany a few days before.” He toyed with the end of one of Blaine’s sleeves, eyes following as he tugged and slid the cloth between his fingers. “I do not remember much about it.” Then, quietly, “There was a show that day, I remember that.” He was silent a moment and then his shoulders moved in a barely there shrug. “The days were a blur sometimes.”
There was a show that day. The sentence made another sick wave of nausea roll through him. It was disgusting, thinking of all these people looking at him, sick and caged, and doing nothing. Even if, somehow, they'd mistaken him for something else, an animal, anything, the fact that people just gawked instead of helping was awful and shocking.
Another thought filtered into his mind, too. If there were shows, people would have come to see him, and it was doubtful that Professor Xavier had managed to erase all of their memories. What if they went looking, now that the existence of mutants was known? What if they tracked him back to his family's circus, or worse, back to here? He felt cold at the thought, but kept from voicing it for now. Kurt was scared, and he didn't want to scare him more. Instead, he sat up and with a quiet, "C'mere," pulled him into his lap. He hugged him close, tucking his chin on his shoulder and just holding him there, his hand smoothing over his back.
Kurt leaned into Blaine, his head resting against his and his eyes closed. He felt exhausted and he felt sick, stomach in rolling nauseous knots. He felt like he wanted to crawl out of his fur. His fingers curled around the front of Blaine’s shirt and he exhaled quietly, curling in closer as he tried to relax. “Can we talk about something else for now?” he quietly asked after a moment. He just wanted to be close to his boyfriend and forget about what had happened for a little while.
Blaine nodded and rubbed at Kurt’s shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. “Yeah, of course, Kurt. Whatever you want.” He kissed his forehead, rolling through topics in his head, trying to think of something to talk about, something that wouldn’t be trivial after this. There wasn’t anything, so he just went with the first thing he thought of. “So, the new Star Trek is coming out soon. Have you seen those? I think you’d like it. One of the guys fences.”
“Does he?” Kurt asked, a small smile in his voice. The hand rubbing at his shoulders felt good and he felt himself relaxing a little against his boyfriend. “I have never seen the first one. I have not seen much Star Trek, just a few episodes that someone had recorded on an old VHS tape.” Another small smile. “After, Stefan kept joking I had Vulcan ears.”
He tilted his head to look at Blaine, “I liked what I saw. We will have to watch the movie sometime.” He was curious about the guy who fenced.
"We'll have to watch it sometime. They probably have it here." He combed his fingers through Kurt's hair and was quiet for a moment, then leaned in to kiss his forehead gently. "I really care about you, Kurt," he said softly, giving him a small smile. A part of him wanted to say that he loved him, but he didn't know if he did, not for sure. While he loved him dearly as a friend and he didn't understand the distinction between loving someone as a friend and then dating them verses being in love with someone, but there must be one, right? He knew he shouldn't say anything until he figured it out, as much as he wanted to right now, not wanting to risk messing things up over a misplaced attempt at making Kurt feel better. Besides, it was probably too soon, either way.
Instead, he curled in closer, kissing his shoulder in a few places as he hugged him tighter. "You're an amazing boyfriend."
Kurt smiled and tilted his head, kissing the underside of his boyfriend’s jaw. “So are you,” he told him, smiling again as he nuzzled him there and then kissed him again. “I am so lucky.” He rested his head on Blaine’s shoulder, forehead pressed lightly against his neck. His hand rested on the opposite side, thumb making slow swipes back and forth over it. “I really care about you too,” he added, voice soft. “I am so glad I met you. Everything that happened... It was horrible. I still have nightmares about it. But...it brought me here and I do not regret that.”
Blaine smiled sadly and kissed him soft again, the dull ache in his chest only becoming more pronounced at the thought of Kurt having nightmares, gasping awake, drenched in sweat, the way he always woke from his. "If you ever have nightmares and don't want to be alone, just text me. I'll leave it on for you." He kissed his lips again briefly, then again on his forehead. "You don't have to be alone."
The corners of Kurt’s lips tugged in a small smile and this warm feeling spread through his chest. He really was so lucky. “Danke. And neither do you,” he told Blaine, lacing their fingers as he softly kissed his cheek. “I am here for you too. Always and for anything, Spatzi.” Resting his head on Blaine’s shoulder, he ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, silent for a moment as he thought about everything they’d just talked about, how Blaine was still here like he always was. “Thank you,” he said again, this time in English and far quieter.
