Author's Note: Trigger warning in place for mentions of self harm. Tumblr prompt response.

Your breath shuddered—I don't think I have ever heard you inhale so quickly and heavily before—and I simply chalked it up to your silly tendency to feel undeserving of anything decent in your life. After all, we weren't doing anything that we hadn't already done before; even in light of recent events, this was familiar territory to both of us. So when you stopped me from undoing that top button of your jeans could you really blame me for my surprise? Your hand circled my wrist with gentle urgency, the imprints of your fingertips pulsing a desperation and eagerness into my blood that betrayed the self-conscious questioning in your anxious stare.

"I thought you wanted—"

"I-do," you rushed out the syllables as one combined word.

"Then why—"

"There's something that... that I..." Though adorable, this bashful approach was still so unlike you. I thought it was something you had left behind after our very long, very detailed discussion; your confidence had been returning and the sudden reappearance of that tumultuous quiver in your words had convinced my stomach to suddenly take up a career as a contortionist. "I didn't tell you everything..."

I was on my back already but I've never felt like I had hit the ground harder. What more was there? And how dare you keep any of it from me. We promised; you promised. It was supposed to be honesty from here on out; that was what we had agreed to. You took note of my alarm — how couldn't you when I was suddenly completely winded? — and, once again, gave evidence of your talent to combine words into a solitary, breathy syllable. "Not-about-him-or-what-happened," you paused for air and I waited for the explanation that I hoped would ease my heart back into place. "After we broke up, there was something that I—sort of a, um, a vice?"

"I'm not sure that I follow where you're going with all of this," I admitted. Your entire body slumped before you reluctantly—I say reluctantly because of the way you dragged your fingertips over my chest as you moved, delaying the loss of contact—climbed off of me. You bit your lip—chewed on it to the point where I wanted to stick my fingers between your skin and teeth and pry your lower lip away to rescue it from further abuse—and unbuttoned your pants yourself. Unsure of what exactly I was waiting for I propped myself up on my elbows and simply watched. The scene playing out was one I had witnessed more than a few times: from the way you worked those red pants down your slender hips, shimmying occasionally because they were perfectly too tight on you, to the black and white checkered boxers that would follow the red with a bit more ease. Instead of pooling up in a neat little pile on the floor when you dropped your pants over the edge of the bed, my vision filled with red again as you exposed your skin—this was definitely something new.

"I knew you were going to look at me like that," I heard the tears in your eyes through that uneasy quiver in your throat, my own eyes stuck staring at your mutilated thighs. The longer I looked the more colours jumped out at me: indigo, pink, burgundy, even faint white scars — you had made yourself a human canvas of your own despair. You tried to cover them up with checkerboards again and my hands were under the elastic waistband, keeping you from pulling them up, before the rest of my thoughts caught up with me.

"I don't want you to feel like you need to hide from me anymore, Blaine."

You trembled—a single, violent shake so powerful that I felt the dying, muffled remaining tremors through the mattress—and then the full weight of your body was against me. Your broad shoulders suddenly seemed weaker now, the withered remains of an angry boy I once knew; in fact, your entire being seemed lighter and frail. I wondered if I looked hard enough, would I see the hairline fractures in the rest of your delicate skin?

"But my, what a mess you've made of yourself, huh?" The laugh that followed held more anxiety than I initially intended. I wanted so badly to reassure you, but here I was in a similar pile of shambles.

"An awful mess..." You mumbled against my neck, sending vibrations down my spine. "Are you angry?"

"I'm... sad," I filled my hand with your springy curls and offered you all I could at this point: simple honesty. "That you had nowhere else to turn besides that."

"They're disgusting, aren't they?" I recognised the tone in your voice, the faint anger that had long since ebbed away. You hated yourself for this, didn't you?

"No, they're apart of the same beautiful boy whom I love every single inch of."

Anyone listening in might have thought we had broken up again based on the volume of sob that ripped right through you. Here you were with your pants down and tender, colourful lines crisscrossing on your skinny thighs; you couldn't keep from crying no matter what you tried—and I could tell you were giving it your all—but I don't think I've ever loved you more. This was an entirely new level of intimacy between us, something sacred and that would still have to be spoken about in whispers for a while. Perhaps it was selfish of me to think that way though. To claim your vulnerability as a sign of strength in our recently rekindled relationship — was that really so very wrong of me?

"How can you even say that?" You whimpered and pressed your palms to glassy eyes.

"Because its true," I answered your furrowed eyebrows like it was the easiest question in the world. In that moment, maybe it was. Maybe before all that had happened between us I would have reacted differently, screeched disgust or instinctively cringed. But we had been through too much lately. I had been given tiny glimpses into your complicated brain and wanted to get lost in the maze right there with you. "I do hope you won't do it anymore now though. That you know you can talk to me instead."

"Kurt," you exhaled my name the way you always do—airy and full of secrets—the way that always made my heart hiccup and beg you to whisper it again and again.

"I want to know how to keep you from ever feeling that way again," I lazily drew circles onto your biceps with my fingertips. "Tell me about them."

"What do you mean?" You shivered and asked in a quiet, lonely voice that did not belong to you.

"I'm going to guess that you remember when and why you did at least some—if not all—of them. Tell me about them: what you were feeling, what was happening. I want to know, if you want to share."

This was something big for us; I could see it in your eyes. The real leap of faith, a swan dive straight into the unknown.

"Are you sure?" Once upon a time your hesitation might have startled me, but not tonight. Not anymore. We were lovers anew and I wasn't going to let anything stand in the way of us again.

"I'm sure," you nestled against me, your heartbeat fluttering with such quiet intensity that I felt it against my skin. "Take your time."