"Try a little tenderness."

[rockstarwarbler]

Who: Blaine Anderson and Kurt Hummel
What: TLC and hopeful suggestions
Where: Kurt, Quinn and Mercedes apartment
When: Saturday night

It was two in the morning, and Kurt was once again having a rough night. They went to bed around eleven and got a couple of hours sleep with Blaine spooned up behind Kurt, but just when it seemed like things would settle, Kurt was up with bad stomach cramps that led to a few trips to the toilet. He had tried to sneak out of bed and not wake Blaine, but it wasn't even five minutes before Blaine realised his absence, getting up to sit with him. Kurt was uncomfortable and miserable, and Blaine mostly just sat there in the living room while Kurt did what he needed to try and seek some comfort. Kurt had finally come to him and cuddled up next to him before Blaine got him to lie with his head in his lap. They both dozed on and off, but the cramps kept coming in waves.

They tried to keep quiet with Quinn and Mercedes asleep down the hall, but it was hard for Kurt to relax. Blaine was just finishing making a mug of peppermint tea when he heard the toilet flush in the nearby bathroom again and Kurt came back to the living room. Blaine brought the tea through and handed it to Kurt and then took the hot water bottle he just prepared out from under his arm so he could settle on Kurt's belly. "When all else fails, old home remedies can never hurt, right? I always remember having a hot water bottle when I was a kid and my tummy hurt. It had a fluffy cow cover," he said with a soft laugh. "I could always try rubbing your belly? You look exhausted, sweetheart. I just want to help."

Comments

[rockstarwarbler]

That just earned an emphatic shake of Blaine's head. "You're not a nutcase. You're not crazy. You're nothing like that. You've been sick, and we're working on that. You might still fight that for a long time to come, and it still doesn't make you crazy. Now just pause for a moment, sweetheart. You're starting to stumble right back into those traps of self-loathing because you're feeling threatened by what I've suggested. It was just a thought, okay? You don't have to do it. We can work something else out. At the end of the day, my apartment isn't that far away from yours. If this is too much and you're really not ready for that amount of changes, we'll just set it aside and forget about it. I'm not going to do anything that impedes on your recovery. You're my priority here. Yes, I would love to be able to be more easily accessible for you to help you when you get discharged, but if staying with Quinn and Mercedes is what you want, I'll just come visit a lot. Nothing is ever set in stone, Kurt," he reassured him with a smile.

"But for the record? I would never, ever feel stuck with you, Kurt. It's the opposite. I want an excuse to spend more time with you, and I want to take care of you. This was just the first option I came up with. I knew there was a high probability you wouldn't be comfortable with it, but I thought it was worth talking to you about it anyway. Maybe it's even a future possibility, huh? For when you're feeling better and back on your feet? We can take a look at it again then. We can just rock the epic sleepovers now. You can come stay at my place and I can stay at yours. You'll never make me feel stuck though. You make me happy, I love being with you, that's not stuck," he insisted.

[justbeingaqueen]

As Blaine continued to explain, Kurt could see clearly that Blaine really wasn't forcing him into anything. It wasn't a suggestion that he had to do by any means, and in fact, Blaine hadn't even been banking on it. All it was was Blaine trying to find ways to help Kurt and take care of him, and that just happened to be one of the options. It wasn't that Kurt wasn't used to being taken care of. Of course he was. He had amazing parents, an amazing brother, and amazing close friends who were all willing to help him and look after him unconditionally through all his bad times. But this was different. This was the first person Kurt had ever been in love with, and he had no obligation to be here or stay here through the tough times. He wanted to be, though, and Kurt's eyes teared up as he looked over Blaine's face right before a small smile began to play on the corners of his lips.

"I don't know how I got so lucky to find you. I know I nearly screwed it all up trying to push you away and I made everything to hard, but you stayed strong through it. You put up with all my shit. You don't push me for anything, and you just... just... you still love me, even when I've been at my worse. You've cleaned me up when I've been sick, you've sat close when I'm stuck in the bathroom, you've... you've fed me, for god's sake. I didn't think people like you existed in reality. Not where you can meet them and fall in love with them. And they love you back without wanting to change you. Everyone always had ulterior motives, but you don't. And I-I do... I want to spend more time with you and there's a big part of me that doesn't to go back to how life was before I got sick again. Maybe a change will help me break the vicious cycle? Change just sort of really freaks me out."