literature

Red Thread

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Literature Text

Evening was falling, and all was calm in the Anderson household. Tired after such a long day at work, Phillip Anderson lay slumped on the couch, the newspaper he had been reading before he had fallen asleep still spread across his lap. To prevent their eldest son, Cooper, from awaking his father, Diane Anderson kept the eight-year-old to the kitchen, reading him a bedtime story while she worked. Yet all the while, Diane was never more than four paces away from the cot, where a four-month-old Blaine was silently slumbering.
"'Now, the Prince was a clever man, and he wouldn't be fooled so easily'," Diane read in a hushed voice, spooning sugar into two mugs, "'and':-"   
Pausing mid-sentence, Diane turned away from what she was doing, sure that she had heard a rustling of sheets coming from within Blaine's cot. Upon hearing the sound again, followed by a few muffled moans, she placed Cooper's storybook down on the work surface, and approached the cot with a gentle smile.
"It's alright Blaine," she crooned, leaning down over the restless child, "I'm here my love. It's okay…"
Cooper, curious to know what was wrong with his baby brother, leapt down from his chair at the dining table, and bounded over to the cot to peer over the bars. With Blaine being so much younger than their first son, Phillip and Diane had worried that Cooper would take badly to the new addition to the family. And yet, surprisingly, the boy had been more than happy to have a baby brother, even if he sometimes treated him like a toy.
"What's up with Blainers?" he asked, lowering his voice cautiously when his mother hushed him.
"He's just having trouble sleeping," Diane whispered, lifting Cooper a little so he could have a better look at his brother, "see?"
"Mummy, I think he wants to know how the story ends. He can't get to sleep while the Prince is in danger – he needs to know whether he'll beat the trickster."
Laughing lightly, Diane nodded along with Cooper's theory, glancing up to the doorway where her husband now stood. Leaning against the doorframe, exhaustion was clear on Phillip's face, but he managed to smile warmly as he approached his wife, wrapping a loving arm around her middle as they gazed down into the cot.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Diane whispered, almost welling up with tears at the sight of the son they may never have had. She had never expected to get pregnant again, so long after Cooper's birth, but the surprise of Blaine's arrival had been a happy one nevertheless.
"He's perfect." Phillip agreed, placing his hand on Cooper's shoulder as he pressed a kiss to his wife's temple.
But what the Anderson family failed to see was the direction in which Blaine's deep brown eyes were looking. Now wide awake, the attention of the baby boy lying in the cot was fixed, unwavering, on his own wrist. Barely five months old, and Blaine Anderson could see something that the rest of his family were blind to, and it captivated him.  
Invisible to everyone else in the room, an unknown presence was leaning over the cot, and with nimble fingers, was tying a length of red string around Blaine's tiny wrist. Laughing quietly as he watched the string being looped into a bow, Blaine looked up at the presence that no one else could see, and though he did not know it, he was looking into the face of Fate. But in one moment, Fate was gone, leaving behind the length of red string, and the baby to whom it was tied.

This string was attached to Blaine for a reason. Regardless of time, place or circumstance, the invisible thread woven by Fate connects those who are destined to meet, and though it may stretch and tangle over the years, it would never break. The one end would remain with Blaine forever, looped around his wrist no matter how much he grew and changed. The other end…
Six months after he visited the Anderson family, Fate would once again pick up that thread, this time by its other end. Fate travelled all over the world, but this journey would take him once more to America, where a newborn baby was being cradled in its mother's arms.
And this baby's name was Kurt Hummel.

***

Alone in the hospital's waiting room, Cooper Anderson let out a weary sigh, holding his head in his hands. Beside himself with worry, and sick to the stomach of the endless waiting, he worked hard not to let his composure slip, and reveal the emotion that was hiding behind. The anger, the fear, the guilt.
All around, posters were plastered to the walls, each titled with the same catchphrase: 'Look After Yourself'. Cooper just wanted to tear them all down, rip them to shreds, as if that would somehow ease the guilt that he felt. 'Look After Yourself' – he let out a bitter sob as he read over those words again. Of course he could look after himself, but it was not himself that needed protecting! It was his little brother that needed protecting, and because of Cooper, he was in hospital. Drowning in his own guilt, Cooper let out another sob, collapsing down into a chair.
"Mr Anderson," called a voice from the hallway, and Cooper looked up, "I have news about your brother? Blaine?"
"Yes?" Cooper asked a little too quickly, leaping up and grabbing the doctor by the wrists, "Tell me!"
"He-he's stable, and we've managed to stop the bleeding and control his heart rate, but…"
"But what?" Cooper's voice was hysterical, and he shook the doctor roughly in his desperation for an answer. An answer he was not sure whether he'd like.
"He's comatose, Mr Anderson."
Nothing in Cooper's entire life hurt as much as those words. Nothing, not the punches he had taken, nor the heartbreak he had endured, could quite compare to that answer, and at that moment, Cooper felt as his whole world started crumbling around him. His little brother, his little Blainers…gone somewhere that he may never return.
"Take me to him…" Cooper whimpered, but his voice quickly rose to a wail as the doctor tried to sit him back down, "Let me see my brother!"
Cooper had always known that Blaine was different. In a way, he had always known that Blaine liked boys; he could still remember the day his brother had come home from school saying 'girls are icky', and that he much preferred his friend, Michael, to any girl in his class. But being gay had never got Blaine down, even when he had eventually worked it out for himself, and came out. It was something he had been strong about…up until now.
Cooper stood, almost blinded by his tears and weak at the knees, over Blaine's motionless figure. The bruises looked so dark, so deep, when put against the white of the hospital sheets, echoes of each blow that his attackers had dealt. Letting his eyes move from bruise to cut, Cooper uttered a small whimper with every mark he found, feeling his brother's pain as his own. Eventually, when his eyes fell upon Blaine's closed eyes, his empty expression, Cooper could stand no longer, falling down into the chair positioned beside the bed. Comatose. Blaine was gone, and it was all his fault.
"Oh Blaine," he managed to whisper, taking his brother's cold hand in his, "girls may be icky, but boys…boys are so, so cruel. Boys can do this."
The quiet click of a door opening pulled Cooper's attention away from his brother, and turning, his eyes fell on a young nurse, who had just slipped through into the room. Placing her clipboard down on the table, the nurse cast Cooper a sympathetic glance, before cautiously approaching the bed.  
"He'll get better," she spoke reassuringly, lifting Blaine's head a little to adjust his pillows, "he just needs time."
"But will he ever wake up?"
Pausing her work momentarily, the young lady averted her eyes, but she did not answer Cooper's question. She didn't know – nobody knew. All they could do was wait, and see whether Blaine was strong enough to pull through. Turning so that she could fix the tubes which were now snaking their way into Blaine's veins, the nurse found her voice again, hoping to distract Cooper from his sorrow, if only for a while.
"Those marks around his wrist…I have no idea where they came from. The rest of the wounds are explainable, after what happened to him, but those…I have no idea what could have caused them."
Confused and scared for what he might find, Cooper looked down to where his hands clutched Blaine's, slowly moving his fingers to reveal the boy's skin. At first, there appeared to be nothing, but as he looked closer, he gradually began to notice them - thin, red lines marking his brother's right wrist, as if something had been tied there, and had chaffed the skin raw. His breath hitching at the sight, Cooper brushed his fingertips over the wounds, cursing the heartless bastard who had hurt his brother.
"I should have been there, Blaine," he sobbed, no longer caring that the nurse watched him from across the bed, "I'm so, so s-sorry."

But those marks were not caused by Blaine's attackers, unlike the rest of his bruises and cuts. If Cooper had been able to see the thread of red string tied about his brother's wrist, he might have understood that the marks were where the string had been pulled taught, tugging at his skin. Where, while Blaine was being beaten within an inch of his life, the human on the other end had strained against the invisible thread, desperately trying to pull Blaine to safety. Because on the other end, Kurt Hummel felt Blaine's pain as clear as if it were his own, and now more than ever, the two were being drawn ever closer.
The thread connecting them would never break, and fate would bring them together, one day.
Based on the Chinese proverb that states that a red thread connects two people who are destined to meet, and though it may tangle or strain, it will never break.
Bit of Blaine's childhood, including little Cooper, and then a little of Cooper when he is older, after the night Blaine got beaten up at the dance. ):

Tell me what you think! <3
© 2012 - 2024 GypsyMaid
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DoctorGeet's avatar
Ohmygod....My heart...I have just been punched in the heart...

This legitimately made me cry. Just beautiful <3

lol i actually believe in the red string of fate