Title: Just a Little Late
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: AU from halfway through Furt
Warnings: fighting, bullying, suggestions of ongoing assault but nothing graphic
Pairings/Characters: Kurt/Blaine
Word Count: 5,800

Summary: Blaine would help Kurt, if he could just figure out how.

Notes: This is AU from about halfway through Furt. Kurt never told anyone about Karofsky threatening him, so Karofsky was never expelled and Kurt never went to Dalton. Fast forward a couple months and life pretty much sucks. The title comes from "You Found Me" by The Fray. Written for the Kurt/Blaine KissKiss Exchange prompt. All the thanks in the world go to pyroclastic and rrrowr, for holding my hand all the way through and betaing at the last minute.

Blaine bounced on his feet, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, as he scanned McKinley High School's courtyard. He was stuck on the outside of the chain link gate, but Kurt was easy enough to spot. His bright yellow coat stood out amongst the red, blacks, and grays of most of the students.

"Kurt!" Blaine shouted. He attracted the attention of quite a few other students, but ignored them in favor of waving at Kurt.

The stunned look on Kurt's face was totally worth the two hour drive to Lima, Blaine thought.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt hissed as soon as he'd made his way over to the gate. He kept looking over his shoulder at where a handful of students were watching the two boys with interest.

Blaine grinned. "I thought we could get lunch," he said. Kurt looked back at him incredulously. "You've got a free period right after lunch today, don't you? Plenty of time to go out for something."

"You drove all the way up here for lunch?"

Blaine nodded. "We've got an in-service day," he explained.

Kurt was still looking at him warily. "I don't know…"

"Come on," Blaine wheedled. "I drove all the way up here to take you out for something that hasn't been deep fried. Don't leave me hanging."

Kurt was smiling a bit even as he shook his head fondly at Blaine. "Oh, fine. I'll meet you over by the door. I have to go sign out."

"Sure." Blaine smiled, watching Kurt head back across the courtyard for a minute before heading back towards the parking lot.

"You could have called, you know," Kurt said as soon as they were in the car. "Or texted. Then you wouldn't have had to shout across the whole school at me."

"But then you wouldn't have been surprised," Blaine pointed out with a grin.

"I also wouldn't have half the school gossiping about me. Not that they really need a reason for that," he added.

Blaine frowned. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Kurt said, rearranging his satchel on his lap. Blaine glanced at him for a moment before turning back to the road. "Where are we going, anyway?"

They wound up at Breadstix after Kurt rejected a few suggestions for fast food ("You promised me nothing deep fried."), settled into opposite sides of a booth. Kurt kept flipping through the menu after the waitress left with their drink order. Blaine knew he wasn't actually reading the menu, because after just a few trips here even Blaine had it memorized.

"The salmon sounds good," Kurt commented.

"Get whatever you want," Blaine said. Kurt glanced up at him briefly, frowning, before looking back down and turning the page. "So…" Blaine struggled for a topic. "How's school?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow, but answered anyway. "It's fine."

Now Blaine was the one raising an eyebrow. "Kurt…"

"It's nice to get away for a bit though. All that cinder block can get kind of claustrophobic, you know? Makes you kind of stir-crazy." He paused. "Though I guess not at Dalton. You've got that wood paneling."

"Yeah," Blaine said. He hadn't really come all the way to Lima to talk about the interior design of American high schools. "It's really okay?" he tried asking again.

"Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?" Blaine didn't say anything, so Kurt continued, "It sucks just as much as it ever has. But Coach Sylvester got rid of the slushie machine last week because it contained high fructose corn syrup and the smell of the artificial flavorings was offensive to her, so that's better. I can probably stop keeping a change of clothes in my locker."

"So Karofsky's left you—"

"Oh look, our drinks," Kurt said cheerily, far too happy to see two iced teas. The waitress just smiled at him as she handed him a paper wrapped straw.

Blaine let the question drop as they ordered food. He'd come here to distract Kurt, after all, to try and cheer him up. Bringing up Karofsky probably wasn't the best way to do that. "Did you see the reviews for the Spiderman musical?" he asked.

Kurt leaned back against the booth, crossing his legs under the table and nudging Blaine's shin as he did so. "Spiderman?"

"The musical," Blaine emphasized. Kurt was still giving him a bit of a look, asking "Seriously?" without saying a word, but Blaine just grinned. "Come on, superheroes plus Broadway. What's not to love?"

"Isn't it supposed to be awful?"

"Well…" Blaine shrugged. "Still. Spiderman. Flying through the air over the audience. You have to admit that'd be way better than a 3D movie."

Kurt was smirking at him. "I didn't realize you were a fan of comic books," he said.

"You never read Spiderman?" Blaine asked. Kurt shook his head. "Superman?" Another no. "Iron Man? Green Lantern? Flash?" No, no, and no.

Kurt was grinning now though. "You aren't going to start dragging me to see all those comic book movies now, are you?"

"Maybe just Green Lantern. It's got Ryan Reynolds in it."

"Oh, well in that case…" Kurt smiled. "I had no idea you were such a nerd," he said, nudging Blaine's leg again under the table. Blaine was pretty sure it wasn't accidental this time.

"I'm secretly a nerd," Blaine said. "You can't tell anyone. It'd ruin my image."

Kurt laughed. "Blaine, you're wearing a t-shirt that I'm ninety-nine percent sure came from Target. You don't have an image to ruin."

"Hey, I like Target. I can buy orange juice and Windex and jeans all in one trip."

Kurt looked vaguely horrified.

Blaine kept talking about random things through the rest of their lunch. An article in Vogue, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Inception getting completely cheated at the Golden Globes ("Did no one else see Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Were they watching the same movie?"). By the time he glanced at his watch and realized that they were going to be late, Kurt was actually meeting his eyes when he smiled. Mission accomplished.

The good mood Blaine had been carefully cultivating fell apart as soon as he pulled into the parking lot at McKinley. Kurt stared out the windshield at the front of the school like he was looking at a prison, his hands fisted tightly on the straps of his bag.

Just as Kurt was saying thanks and reaching for the door handle, Blaine asked, "Do you want to skip?"

Kurt turned to him with wide eyes. "I can't skip," he said.

"Sure, you can. We can… go to the mall or something. See a movie."

"I can't skip," Kurt repeated.

Blaine stopped. "Sorry," he said. "I just know you hate it here so…."

Kurt looked back at the school, quiet for a minute while Blaine gripped the steering wheel. Finally he said, "I can't skip. I've got glee practice this afternoon."

"Oh, right."

"Sorry," Kurt said, giving Blaine a small, apologetic smile.

"It was a stupid idea anyway. You shouldn't skip school."

"It's not like I'd miss anything," Kurt pointed out.

Blaine shrugged. "I'll see you later then?" he asked.

Kurt nodded. "I'll call you."

Blaine leaned across the divider, ignoring the parking brake jutting into his ribcage as he tugged Kurt into an awkward hug. After a moment Kurt raised one hand to rest on Blaine's arm, but otherwise didn't move. "See ya," Blaine said, pulling back.

Kurt gave him that same small, tight smile, before pushing the car door open. "Bye," he said. "Thank you for lunch."

"You don't have to thank me. Thanks for going."

Kurt grinned. "You don't have to thank me." The faint sound of a bell ringing made him look over his shoulder at the school again. "I better go. Bye."

"Bye," Blaine said, waving through the window when Kurt swung the door shut. He waited for a minute after Kurt had disappeared inside, then turned the car around to start the long drive back to Westerville.

"I'm not covering for you again," Wes said later that night, spinning around in his desk chair. "I'm pretty sure Ms. Gibson didn't believe a word I was saying."

"What did you tell her?" Blaine asked.

"That you had the bird flu and were planning on spending all afternoon worshipping the porcelain god." Blaine sighed. "Don't look at me," Wes told him. "At least you can say it was just a twenty-four hour thing."

"Thanks," Blaine said.

"What was so important you had to skip class and drive all the way to Lima anyway?"

Blaine shrugged, flopping down onto his bed. "Nothing, really. I'm just worried about Kurt." He stared up at the Christmas lights tacked to the ceiling, watching them blink from red to blue to green. "He's been acting different," Blaine explained.

Wes frowned. "Different?"

"Yeah," Blaine said, but didn't elaborate. It was easy to see that Kurt was depressed, but Blaine didn't think it would be very fair to discuss it with Wes. Wes was his friend, not Kurt's.

"He still calls you all the time, right?" Wes asked. Blaine nodded. "Well then," he said. "Now you just have to get up the nerve to ask him on an actual date, instead of these fake-dates you keep going on."

"We don't go on fake-dates," Blaine said, sitting up. "We just hang out. Friends do that."

Wes rolled his eyes. "Friends don't spend the time they're not on fake-dates staring into space and sighing." He leaned forward, elbows on the arm of his chair, and rested his chin on his hands as he gazed up at the ceiling and sighed dreamily.

"I do not do that." Blaine glared at him.

"Oh, yes you do."

Blaine crossed his arms over his chest. "See if I ever tell you anything again. I can't ask him out right now, anyway. He's too…" He searched for a word to describe what Kurt was going through and why a boyfriend was the last thing he needed. "He just needs a friend, not something else in his life to worry about," he finally settled on.

"Why would he have to worry about you?" Wes asked, frowning.

Blaine shrugged. He was trying to think of an answer when his cellphone started ringing. "Is it Kurt?" Wes asked with a smirk as Blaine looked at the screen.

Blaine flipped his friend off as he answered, "Hello?"

"Blaine, hi," Kurt said on the other end.

"Hang on a sec," Blaine told him, making his way towards the door so he could find someplace relatively private in the hallway to talk. He didn't want Wes overhearing the entire conversation.

Once he'd shut the door he said, "Hey, sorry. I had to get away from Wes. What's up?"

"Oh, um, nothing," Kurt said. "I was just…" he trailed off, and Blaine was distracted for a moment checking that no one else was lurking in the stairwell before he settled down against the window.

"Just what?" Blaine asked.

"I… It's nothing. Really, I probably shouldn't have called," Kurt said quickly. "I'll let you go. You were probably busy and I already talked to you earlier so—"

"Hey, it's alright." Blaine cut off the babble of words coming from the other line. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kurt said.

Blaine didn't need to be psychic to know that was a lie. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

"I just…" Kurt sniffed a bit, and Blaine wondered with a pang if he was crying. "It was just a really shitty day at school," Kurt finally said.

Blaine frowned, twisting to stare out the window. The sun had just set, and the dusk was rapidly turning into night. Kurt didn't usually curse. "What kind of shitty?"

"I don't know."

"Like… 'you failed your math test' shitty or 'you got slushied' shitty?"

Kurt was quiet for nearly a minute, then he said, "We don't have a slushie machine anymore, I told you."

"Oh, right." Blaine sighed, his breath fogging against the cold window for a moment. Kurt didn't offer any other information, so Blaine added, "You can tell me anything, you know?"

Kurt started to say something, but then stopped again. "I've got to go," he said. "Carole's calling me for dinner."

Blaine knew an excuse to get off the phone when he heard one and sighed again. "I mean it: anything. And you can call anytime."

"Thanks," Kurt said. "I really have to go though."

"Alright."

Blaine waited for Kurt to hang up first before he banged his forehead against the window's cold glass. Then he did it a couple more times.

The only communication Blaine had with Kurt for the rest of the week was through text message. As he laid across his bed, scrolling through the past weeks messaging thread, he realized that most of the texts were from him to Kurt. Kurt had only replied a handful of times, and most of those had been hours late.

Blaine was jerked out of musing over what exactly Kurt meant when he said, "I'm fine. How're you?" in response to a question about how his presentation in French had gone by Wes stomping into the room and slamming the door shut. He practically threw his bag across the room and seemed satisfied when it hit his nightstand with a loud thud.

"What's wrong?" Blaine asked.

Wes flopped down onto his own bed with a dramatic sigh. Blaine resisted rolling his eyes. "Girls suck," Wes said.

Blaine answered, "Yes. I know."

"No, you don't. You've never dated a girl."

"I dated Jennifer Warren."

Wes sat up. "You call that dating?" he asked. "You ran away when she tried to kiss you." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "That explains so much about your current love life."

Blaine glared at his friend half-heartedly. "I didn't run away." Wes raised an eyebrow. "I was twelve!" Blaine defended. "And she had on lipstick."

"You ran away," Wes repeated. He let out another sigh then and flopped back onto his bed. "Seriously though, girls suck."

Blaine eyed his phone and said, "Boys aren't much better."

"Did Kurt pick a fight with you because you don't spend enough time at home taking him out to movies and half of his friends are convinced he's making you up, so maybe he doesn't want you take him to prom after all?"

"Um… no."

"Lucky you, then."

"At least Brooke talks to you," Blaine pointed out. "All Kurt ever says is 'I'm fine' or 'Nothing's wrong.' He's an awful liar."

"What's actually going on?" Wes asked. "You've been moping around, worrying about him for a while now."

"I wish I knew," Blaine said. "He won't tell me anything."

Wes frowned. "What are you so worried about then?"

Blaine looked up at the ceiling. "There's a guy at school who's really giving him a hard time." He wasn't sure how much he ought to say. Wes had spent all of his school years within the relative safety of Dalton's strict policies, and while he had always been sympathetic to Blaine's problems with bullies, he didn't understand them at all.

"Just one guy?" Wes asked.

"No. Well, yes. There's one guy who's worse than everyone else."

Wes rolled over onto his stomach and propped his chin on his hand. "How's he worse?"

Blaine just shrugged. That really wasn't his story to tell, no matter that Wes didn't really know either of the people involved.

"Look," Wes said. "If you're that worried about him—and I can tell that you are—just go see him. Spend the weekend in Lima or something. Put the fear of God into whoever this bully is."

Blaine sat up. "Wes, you know what a Mastiff looks like?" Wes nodded. "This guy's like a Mastiff. And I'm like a Pomeranian."

"You're at least a Bichon," Wes told him seriously.

Blaine just glowered back at him.

Wes grinned, but said, "I'm serious. Go to Lima and spend the weekend with Kurt. If you get a chance, stand up to the guy for him. Stuff like that always gets me laid."

"Oh my god," Blaine groaned.

In the end, Blaine took Wes' advice and booked a hotel room in Lima for the weekend. He thought about calling Kurt first, but decided to surprise him again. Which was how Blaine found himself driving around the neighborhood he was certain Kurt lived in on Saturday morning, trying to remember which of these houses he had dropped Kurt off at before. He'd only actually dropped him off once and all the houses looked kind of alike. He should have written down the address or something. That probably would have made him look like a creep though. Blaine sighed, turning another corner and about ready to give in and just call Kurt when he spotted a black Lincoln Navigator in the driveway of a house halfway down the block. It had the shiny spinner rims Kurt liked so much. Score.

A very tall boy that Blaine assumed was Kurt's step-brother, Finn, opened the door. Blaine tried to smile charmingly as he took a step back. "Hello. Is Kurt home?"

"Uh… hang on," Finn said. He left the front door wide open as he went back inside to shout down a hallway, "Kurt! Who do you know that drives Bumblebee?"

Blaine glanced over his shoulder at the yellow Camaro he'd parked on the curb. From somewhere inside the house there was a muffled yell in response, and Finn shouted again, "Bumblebee!"

A few seconds later Kurt appeared. "What?" he was asking.

Finn pointed to the door. "Your friend. He drives Bumblebee."

"He…" Kurt was still frowning. "What?" He turned to look at the front door. "Blaine!" Blaine waved, smiling. "What are you doing here?" Kurt demanded.

"Taking you shopping?" Blaine suggested.

Kurt hadn't moved any closer to the door. Blaine wasn't sure if he should step inside or not because, while the door had been left wide open, no one had actually invited him in.

"Is your phone broken?" Kurt finally asked.

"No," Blaine said.

"Then why—"

"I like surprising you." Blaine smiled. Kurt was just kind of looking at him, so Blaine added, "You're not going to say no, are you?"

Kurt glanced at Finn, then looked back at Blaine. "Just a minute," he said, disappearing back down the hallway.

Blaine stuffed his hands into his pockets, smiling tightly at Kurt's step-brother. Finn didn't seem to notice that he was nervous because he came back over to the door to look out at Blaine's car again.

"Nice car," he said.

"Thanks," Blaine said, turning to look at the car as well.

"It doesn't really turn into Bumblebee, does it?"

Blaine looked up at Finn. "Um, no."

"Oh. I didn't think so. It'd be awesome if it did though, right?"

Blaine nodded. "Yeah. It would."

He was saved from this awkward conversation by Kurt reappearing, now wearing a hat and still buttoning his coat. "Okay, let's go. Bye, Finn," he said, shoving past his step-brother and attempting to pull the door shut.

"Hey wait. What am I supposed to tell Burt when he asks where you went?"

Kurt turned back, hand still on the doorknob. "Tell him I went shopping."

"With a guy?" Finn asked, glancing at Blaine.

"With a friend," Kurt emphasized.

Finn looked back and forth between them. "Yeah, okay."

Kurt rolled his eyes and finished pulling the door shut this time. They were nearly to the curb before he asked, "You really came all this way to go shopping with me?"

Blaine shrugged. "We can do something else if you want," he said, unlocking the car doors.

Kurt frowned at him across the hood of the car for a moment. "Shopping's fine."

Shopping was fine, for a few hours at least. Lima didn't have much in the way of designer boutiques—hell, it didn't even have Forever 21—but Blaine and Kurt wondered their way through Macy's and Hot Topic and even spent a little while cringing at some truly awful slogan t-shirts in Spencer's. They eventually wound up sitting on a bench in the food court, sipping coffees and people watching.

Blaine was feeling pretty proud of himself for getting Kurt to just laugh and joke around all afternoon, even if he still hadn't gotten Kurt to really tell him anything yet. He was about to point out a guy wearing green jeans (and not pulling them off at all) when he felt Kurt stiffen next to him. "What is it?" Blaine asked.

Kurt was staring over Blaine's shoulder, his face even paler than usual. Blaine turned to look, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "What's wrong?" he asked, turning back to Kurt. He reached out to gently loosen Kurt's white-knuckled grip on his coffee cup and took it from him before he crushed the Styrofoam. The movement seemed to shake Kurt out of his stupor, because he finally looked back at Blaine. "What's wrong?" Blaine asked again.

Kurt shook his head. "Nothing, I just—"

"Bullshit," Blaine said. Kurt's eyes widened. "What is it?" Kurt reached over to take his coffee back, but Blaine held onto it. "Kurt," he said.

"I thought I saw Karofsky," Kurt said. He was staring at some point on Blaine's chest as he said it, but glanced up again to look around the mall again quickly.

"You're sure?" Blaine asked, looking around as well. Looking himself was probably rather useless though, Blaine thought. He'd only ever met Dave Karofsky once before.

"Maybe," Kurt said. He reached for his coffee again and this time Blaine gave it back. Kurt brought it up to his lips to take a sip and Blaine noticed that his hands were shaking. "Can we leave?" Kurt asked, after looking around the mall again.

Blaine sighed. He almost ran a hand through his hair, but stopped himself at the last second when he remembered how much gel he'd used that morning. "Yeah, sure." He stood up, straightening his coat. "How about a movie?"

Kurt nodded. "Okay," he said, standing as well.

They were halfway back across the mall when Kurt suddenly stopped. Blaine turned back to find Kurt with his hands on his head and an "oh shit" expression on his face. "I lost my hat," Kurt said.

Blaine was kind of surprised neither of them had noticed that Kurt's hat had gone missing. "Where'd you lose it at?"

"I don't know," Kurt cried. "If I knew where it was it wouldn't be lost, would it?"

"We'll just retrace our steps," Blaine said soothingly. "We'll find it."

Kurt nodded, but didn't look like he believed him. They checked the food court first before moving on to a couple of other stores they'd been in and out of. When they got to the entrance of Macy's, Kurt pulled his shoulders back and seemed to be steeling himself. "Alright," he said. "You start on the bottom floor and I'll start on the third floor. Work in a counter-clockwise direction, and we'll meet halfway through the second floor. If neither of us have found it, I… I don't know what I'll do. It'll probably be embarrassing."

"We weren't on the third floor," Blaine pointed out. "That's the children's department."

"Oh, right. I'll meet you at the escalators then."

Blaine smiled. "Alright."

Kurt nodded to him solemnly and walked off. Blaine finally gave in to his urge to laugh, then started hunting for the hat. He found it sitting on a display of Martha Stewart plates. He remembered looking at the plates, but had no idea why Kurt would have taken his hat off there.

It hadn't taken very long to find, so Blaine sent Kurt a text telling him to come downstairs and looked through the displays of men's cologne next to the escalators while he waited for him to turn up. It wasn't until he'd sniffed every sample bottle and begun developing a bit of a headache that he realized it shouldn't be taking Kurt this long to walk through Macy's. Granted, Kurt was easily distracted by things at Macy's, but still.

Kurt turned out to be harder to find than his hat. Blaine had already made one circuit of the second floor and hadn't seen any sign of him. He dug his phone back out to try calling, but Kurt didn't answer.

Blaine frowned, turning in a circle as he looked around the store. Kurt wouldn't have left without him. He couldn't leave; Blaine had driven. Blaine headed towards the nearest dressing room, banging the door open and yelling, "Kurt?"

He didn't get a response and the only pair of feet under the doors had bright pink toenails.

Blaine tried all the other dressing rooms he could find. He didn't find Kurt and now all the employees were giving him funny looks when he walked past. Blaine stopped again at the escalators, but Kurt still wasn't there. His phone went to voicemail again, and Blaine cursed in frustration before he hung up. He leaned back against the wall and ran a hand through his hair. He needed to calm down. He didn't even know why he was so worried. Kurt had probably just gone to the bathroom or something.

He hadn't checked the bathroom!

Blaine had to ask where the bathrooms even were after he couldn't find them. He pushed on the door to the men's room, but it barely moved before bumping into something. Blaine frowned, pushing harder, and heard a muffled thud from somewhere inside. He froze, still pushing on the door, and yelled, "Kurt?"

His answer was a shout and another thud. Blaine shoved harder, but only succeeding in getting the door open about an inch. He couldn't see anything more than a sliver of beige tiles.

Blaine backed up as far as the hallway would allow, taking a deep breath and staring the door down. He could do this. He lowered his head and ran towards the door, slamming into it with his shoulder. The door burst open with a crash and he tripped on the large, overturned trash can, sprawling on the floor on his hands and knees. Blaine looked up—and up—into the stunned face of Dave Karofsky. Karofsky had one hand wrapped around Kurt's arm, holding him against the wall, and his other was curled into a loose fist that had dropped when Blaine burst into the room.

Blaine scrambled back to his feet, slipping a bit on the paper towels that were now scattered everywhere. Kurt was gaping at him from over Karofsky's shoulder, his hair a mess and his coat hanging open. Blaine stood as tall as he could, his hands balled into fists at his sides, as he looked Karofsky in the face. "Let him go."

Karofsky's shock at having Blaine burst in was rapidly turning into anger. He let go of Kurt with a shove that sent the other boy toppling to floor against one of the stall doors and turned to face Blaine. Blaine darted forward and shoved Karofsky towards the wall, then punched him in the face.

Fuck, that hurt, Blaine thought, trying not to shake his fist. Karofsky didn't look like the punch had fazed him much. Blaine tried to punch him again, but Karofsky knocked Blaine's arm away and swung his own fist forward.

The floor really hurt too, Blaine thought, when you landed on it like that. It also hurt quite a bit when someone outweighing you by at least fifty pounds landed on you and punched you.

Blaine tried to hit back, but he could admit that he was, in most aspects of his life, a pacifist, and that he really had no idea how to throw a decent punch, much less win a brawl against a boy who clearly did know how to fight. He tried, though. Kurt had grabbed one of Karofsky's arms and was trying to pull him off of Blaine without much success.

All of the commotion must have finally attracted the attention of someone else, because the next thing Blaine knew Karofsky was being pulled off of him by two burly security guards and Kurt was hovering over him, asking if he was alright.

Blaine nodded. "'M fine," he said, trying to sit up. He started swaying and Kurt grabbed his shoulders, lowering him back to the floor gently.

"Don't get up, you idiot. You're probably concussed."

"I'm fine," Blaine said again, enunciating carefully around the pain in his jaw.

Kurt looked at him incredulously.

"Okay, maybe I'm not," Blaine admitted. "You're not either though." He reached up to touch the side of Kurt's face, next to an eye that was rapidly swelling shut.

"I'm fi—"

"Kurt, if I'm not fine neither are you."

Kurt sighed, and looked up at the security guard that was approaching them. "We've got some paramedics coming," the guard said.

"I don't need paramedics," Kurt insisted.

The guard looked at Blaine. "What about you? Can you get up?"

Blaine tried to sit up again, with help from Kurt this time. "Is the room supposed to spin like that?" he asked.

Blaine eventually made it into a hospital room where he was left alone with just the sleeping occupant of the other bed. Kurt turned up a few minutes after Blaine had texted the room number to him, sporting a few bandages and a now purple left eye.

"How long do you have to stay?" Kurt asked, sinking into one of the empty chairs next to the bed.

"Just until my dad gets here," Blaine said.

Kurt just nodded, picking at invisible lint on the arm of the chair. "My dad's downstairs," he told Blaine. He wasn't wearing his coat anymore and the t-shirt he had on wasn't doing anything to hide the red hand prints still marking his neck and upper arms.

"What happened?" Blaine asked.

Kurt shook his head, staring hard at the blue blanket folded on the end of the bed.

"Kurt, come on. You've been telling me that nothing's going on for the last couple of months. Karofsky didn't attack you out of the blue."

"I already told the cops everything," Kurt said.

"You didn't tell me," Blaine said.

Kurt kept staring at the blanket, so Blaine reached out to grab his hand. "Hey," he said. "Look at me, alright? Whatever it is, you can tell me."

Kurt looked up at him and his eyes were watery. Blaine hadn't actually seen him cry since that day at Dalton, when he'd first told Blaine about being bullied, and Blaine tried to keep his own expression encouraging. He cared about Kurt a lot more now than he had then.

Kurt sniffed, wiping at his nose with his other hand, and finally said, "He threatened to kill me." He was so quiet Blaine almost didn't hear him. Even then, he didn't want to believe what he'd heard.

"What?" Blaine gasped. "Today? He was trying to kill you?" If Blaine had felt guilty for messing around before he'd started looking for Kurt before, he felt awful now. Kurt could have been killed.

"No, no," Kurt said. "Not today. Today he just—" Kurt broke off, then continued, "He said that a month ago."

"A month?" Blaine demanded. "He threatened to kill you a month ago and you didn't tell anyone?"

Kurt shrugged a bit, and mumbled, "It was more like two months."

Blaine just gaped at him. Well, at least that explained some of why Kurt had been so upset for the last two months. It had been more than just bullying. Blaine squeezed Kurt's hand. "Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

"Because. I was just…" Kurt shrugged. "I was scared I guess. He said he'd kill me if I told anyone he'd kissed me and then he…" He looked away again.

"He what?" Blaine asked. He was starting to dread the answer.

"He was just creepy," Kurt said, wrapping his free arm around his stomach. "He'd, I dunno, look at me, or touch me, and it was just," he shrugged a bit, "creepy."

Part of Blaine wanted to ask for more details. Part of him wanted to know every little thing Kurt had been hiding that had happened in the past two months. What had happened last week when Kurt had called him in tears? Had Karofsky looked at him or touched him then?

The other part of him was screaming at him to stop asking questions.

Blaine tugged on Kurt's hand, scooting over. "Come on," he said, patting the bed beside him. The look Kurt gave him was a bit indiscernible, but Kurt climbed up to sit on the bed, facing Blaine. Not quite what Blaine had been going for, since Kurt looked like he needed a hug more than anyone else Blaine had ever seen, but at least better than where they had been.

"What happened today?" Blaine asked. Kurt looked up at him, frowning. "I was waiting," Blaine explained.

"Oh," Kurt said. "He must've followed us or something, because he grabbed me right outside the bathroom and dragged me in." He shrugged again.

Blaine frowned, but figured he wasn't going to get anymore of the story than that.

"How'd you know to look for me?" Kurt asked.

"I found your hat," Blaine explained. "So I called, but you didn't answer your phone. And then I didn't see you anywhere upstairs, so I started looking in dressing rooms and getting yelled at by all the sales people and, I don't know, it was just kind of a feeling that I had to find you."

Kurt was grinning at him a bit. "A feeling?" he asked.

Blaine grinned back. "Yeah."

Kurt shook his head fondly, and Blaine scooted forward, letting go of Kurt's hand to pull awkwardly on his shoulder. Kurt went with the movement and leaned toward Blaine, wrapping his arms around his waist as Blaine circled Kurt's shoulders. Blaine buried his face in Kurt's shoulder, tightening his hold on the other boy despite the protest from his bruised ribs, and pressed a kiss against his collarbone through the fabric of his shirt.

After a minute or two of just silence, listening to his own heartbeat, loud in his ears, the quiet sounds of the hospital outside the door, and the faint snores of his roommate, Blaine gave Kurt another squeeze and said, "You don't have to hide stuff from me."

Kurt tried to pull away, and Blaine let him go reluctantly, keeping a hold of Kurt's hands. Blaine's own knuckles were red, but Kurt's hands looked worse. His usually manicured nails were torn and ragged and one wrist was encircled with a bruise that was just beginning to turn purple. "I feel like I'm always dumping my problems on you, though" Kurt said.

"That's okay," Blaine told him, catching Kurt's gaze and holding it. "I want to hear your problems. I want to be there for you."

Kurt let out a quick breath through his nose. "I have a lot of problems," he said.

"I don't care," Blaine told him. "They can be my problems too."

The prompt was "Damsel in distress." hee!