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The letter arrived on a Thursday.
Well, to be accurate, the letter itself arrived a week prior to said Thursday. But as it was with all written correspondence addressed to a U.S. Senator, it went through various screening processes before it landed on someone’s desk who then decided if it was important enough to land on the senator’s desk itself. It was mostly a precaution to intercept hate mail or death threats, but a senator received quite a bunch of mail from vaguely crazy or lonely people as well, and not all of them were all that important.
This letter wasn’t any of those. It was written by a young teenage boy who just didn’t know whom he could turn to; a teenage boy who felt so alone, just like so many other boys his age that existed in shockingly high numbers all over the country. A teenage boy who had been beaten because he’d dared to show his love for another boy.
It was late on said Thursday when the letter found its way to Blaine’s office. He’d just come back from a string of endless meetings regarding the stricter punishment of environmental polluters, and he was tired. The office proper was empty, all desks abandoned. Kurt was nowhere to be found, but the light at his desk was still on so he was probably around somewhere. Blaine smiled to himself; Kurt was so dutiful, he never left before he hadn’t made sure Blaine didn’t need him anymore for the day, even if it meant working extra hours long after he should’ve gone home. Like tonight, for instance.
Blaine entered his own office and switched on the desk light. He was planning to check his messages - a neat pile of pink notes on the right hand side of his desk, sorted by urgency - and then leave. The letter, placed right in the middle of his desk, didn’t even catch his attention at first until he saw the blue post-it note stuck to it. On it, in Kurt’s neat script, was a simple ‘You should read this’. Curious, Blaine picked up the piece of paper and started reading. He was barely two paragraphs in before he sank down into his seat, his eyes still glued to the letter.
Tyler was sixteen, an up and coming baseball player in his school’s mediocre team. He was an okay student, was nice to his elders and worked part-time in a music store to help his parents with the mortgage. He’d never done anything to anyone, but then he’d fallen in love with this transfer student, a quiet and highly intelligent boy of the same age whose name was Jordan. Tyler had never experienced bigotry, despite having grown up in a more rural part of Ohio. He’d never thought he should be afraid of who he loved, so he came out.
The bullying started immediately. But they didn’t bully Tyler directly. They got to him by bullying Jordan. The teachers didn’t do anything, the school administration didn’t do anything. There was no proof, after all.
They got their proof when Tyler and Jordan were ambushed after a date to the movies.
And still, nobody did anything. Tyler’s arm was broken in three places, and his shoulder was so fucked up that he would probably never be able to play professionally. Jordan had been worse off. They didn’t know if he would make it, being in a coma ever since it happened. They’d beaten him over the head with a baseball bat.
Blaine’s hand was pressing hard into his forehead by the time he read that paragraph, his throat closed up tight. Memories came rushing back; the smell of dirt and rain and blood, the taunting voices and the pain in his hand when someone stomped on it ‘so he ain’t able to touch anyone in sin nomore’. Blaine swallowed hard, biting his lip, and forced the memories down so he could read the rest of the letter.
Tyler asked him why. Why people did that, why nobody did anything to change it, why nobody seemed to care. Blaine had to stop reading at that point, let the letter drop down on his desk and take a deep breath. He put a hand over his eyes and repeated the careful breathing exercises he’d learned after the assault, talked himself back down from the ledge so he wouldn’t hyperventilate.
The story touched Blaine in a place that had never truly healed. He’d been that boy, he’d lived through it, and while he’d come out the other end stronger than before, he’d still been emotionally scarred. The letter - the boy - made him stop in his tracks and remember.
After it had happened to him, he’d asked himself the very same questions Tyler was asking him now. He’d been fourteen and could understand the lack of support even less than Tyler could now, almost two decades after it had happened to Blaine. He’d thought that the world was about to change, that people were being more open and less intolerant. This letter was a harsh reminder of how much ground there was still to cover.
“You’ve read it?”
Kurt’s quiet voice startled him violently. His hand dropped immediately down to his lap and he tried to put on a brave mask, but as soon as he saw Kurt’s face, he stopped pretending. Kurt looked just as shaken and wrecked as Blaine felt. So he nodded and looked down at the letter, his hand reaching out to stroke a finger over his own name on the top.
Silence reigned for a long moment, neither of them willing to say anything. Or maybe they both had no idea what to say. But then Blaine heard Kurt take a deep breath. “It hits too close to home, doesn’t it?”
They’d never explicitly talked about it, but Blaine had always known that Kurt was gay. If you’d read up on Burt Hummel, it was inevitable to find out about his reasons for battling the injustices of the gay community. So yes, as soon as Blaine had made the connection, he’d known that Kurt was gay. But they’d never talked about either of their pasts or private lives; there’d never been a reason to do so.
Blaine nodded, rubbing an absent hand over his chest so it would stop hurting. They lapsed into silence again, mostly because Blaine didn’t know what to say. But then, out of the blue, he confessed, “I was these boys.”
His throat closed up all of a sudden and he had to swallow repeatedly so he wouldn’t start crying. Kurt made a strange sound in his throat at the admission and came over, but he just sank down in the chair opposite Blaine’s desk, not seeking any close contact. Blaine was pathetically grateful for that; he doubted he’d be able to tolerate anyone’s touch right now, not with the memories of violence so fresh in his mind.
They sat like that for a while, with Blaine battling his old demons and Kurt giving him space to do so. The silence was yet again broken by Kurt’s quiet voice saying, “I’ve been sexually harassed by a closeted jock in my junior year of high school.”
Blaine looked up at Kurt who didn’t meet his eyes. He was kneading his hands in his lap, frowning down at them. A short, bitter laugh escaped him before he continued, “To be honest, I’ve been bullied ever since I set foot into the building as a freshman. Dumpster tossing was one of my morning routines with the school jocks. I have no idea how I survived without them breaking me.”
“Because you’re strong, Kurt,” Blaine said, just as quietly so as not to spook him. Kurt looked up slowly, a doubt in his eyes that had never been there before today. Blaine’s chest ached at the sight.
“You’re strong, and you know what you want, and I’m sure you’ve always known that you would get out of there no matter what,” he continued, bolstered by every word he knew in his heart to be the truth. “You’re not the kind of person to just give up, that’s why they couldn’t break you.”
“Did they break you?”
Kurt’s blunt question took Blaine by surprise. He blinked, his words escaping him. Then he forced himself to think about it carefully. He let the memories of the time after the incident come back, and remembered the shelter he’d found at Dalton Academy, a haven where he’d been able to heal and get back on his feet. He smiled sadly.
“No,” he admitted. “They broke my hand and two of my ribs, but they never broke me.”
“You never talked about this in public,” Kurt said, looking a little unsure how far he was allowed to go with this topic.
Blaine shook his head, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I didn’t want it to define me,” he replied.
They fell into another silence before Blaine let out a bitter laugh. “They wanted to put me back in the closet, did you know that?”
Kurt looked surprised at the admission. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
Blaine nodded. “The party didn’t think I’d stand a chance if I was openly gay. I told them that I’ve been out since I was fourteen. I told them I was beaten up because I didn’t want to hide who I loved and I wouldn’t go back in the closet for anything or anyone so they just had to deal.”
Kurt stared at him, his mouth slightly open and a strange look in his eyes. Blaine had no idea what was going on in his head right now, but fuck if he didn’t want to know every last thought Kurt had.
In the end Kurt’s face softened, his eyes turning warm and tender when he said, “I’m glad you didn’t. You’ve been an inspiration for so many people.”
Blaine couldn’t help the smile tugging on his lips at the words, and Kurt smiled back without hesitation. They grinned at each other for a while before the whole reason for their impromptu late night meeting came back to him and his smile dimmed. Blaine sighed, his gaze wandering back to the letter. “I want to do something,” he admitted quietly. “But I have no idea what. Write back? That seems so... impersonal.”
Kurt didn’t say anything at first, and when Blaine looked back over he saw Kurt’s brows furrowed in thought. Then, “I think it would mean a lot to him if he knew that there are people who care, who want to change things for him. I don’t think he’d be offended if you ‘just’ wrote back.”
Blaine nodded, still not convinced, while his finger was playing with the edges of the letter. An idea formed in his head; a crazy idea, an idea he wasn’t sure was even possible with his insane schedule. But they were supposed to go back to Ohio anyway so maybe...
“I want to visit them.”
The words stood between them, almost as much a surprise to Kurt as they were to Blaine. But they were out there now, and he’d never been a coward so he added, “I don’t want to write, I want to visit them. I want to look them in the eye and tell them personally that they’re not alone. That I heard them. That I care.”
He saw Kurt’s nostrils flare and his eyes become suspiciously bright. Kurt swallowed, gaze never leaving Blaine’s face, and after a long moment he nodded. “I think that’s a good idea,” he croaked, clearing his throat a moment later. Blaine released a breath of relief that Kurt hadn’t shot his idea down immediately, and was touched by how supportive he was. Blaine knew that Kurt would do everything in his power to clear Blaine’s schedule as soon as they were back in Ohio. He’d make sure Blaine had the time to visit two hurt teenage kids and tell them their hurt was not ignored and that things would get better.
“I also think,” Kurt suddenly said, looking unsure again, “that it’s time you told your story.”
Something in Blaine’s chest froze up, then exploded into tiny shards of white hot pain that almost took his breath away. Tell his story? Let his vulnerabilities be seen by strangers, to be dissected on prime time TV? The thought alone made him feel boxed in and his palms sweat.
But then his gaze fell back on the letter, and the words depicting a scene that was too familiar, and a strength he didn’t know he possessed rose up in him, banishing the pain to a distant corner of his mind. He could tell his story if it would help a kid that didn’t understand the cruelty of this world right now. He’d gladly tell his story to this kid to show him that even if they’d knocked him down, it was up to him to pick himself up and make things happen for himself.
Blaine took a deep breath, raised his gaze back to Kurt’s and whispered, “You know what? I think you’re right.”