A/N: I know lots of you are waiting for more Klaine, or Kurt and Rachel, and I thank you all for your continued patience. I've had a lot going on in real life lately, and a lot of my writing time has been taken up with relationships and love :) Today is my one year anniversary of my first fic posting (over on LJ) and I wanted to post something new. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but as is par for the course, the characters refused to let me get my way. Thanks to you all for your support this past year; it means a lot, knowing my words have touched you in some way.

Also, not gonna lie, this is going to have dark places. I will warn now for discussion of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, homophobia, anti-gay bullying, and lots of swearing. I'm going to leave things as vague as possible, but if any of those things trigger you at all, this may not be the fic for you.

February 2012

released from circles guarded tight, now we all are chosen ones

Kurt sat in Mr. Schue's circle, listening to what may have been the best teaching moment Mr. Schue had ever had, letting his gaze trip over all the other kids. He understood Puck's questions, knew why someone would doubt the truth of what Mr. Schue was telling them, because it seemed like something so small. But he also saw Blaine, hands moving gently over the bare skin of his wrists, and the way Mike couldn't look at anybody, and felt his own body shift and curl.

Kurt knew Mr. Schue was right. Big or small, everyone had a moment, a breaking point.

Kurt had had plenty of them.

Blaine knewhe was giving everything away. He was trying to sit still, trying to focus on what Mr. Schue was saying, not on the way Kurt was breaking across the circle, not on the urge he had to run his thumb over the soft inside of his wrist. So he sat with his hands balled up under his chin, and hoped nobody would notice the gentle up-and-down motion of his thumb.

Mike's heart was thudding in his chest, heavy and hard. It had been all day, since he'd first heard about Karofsky. He hadn't been able to explain to Tina why he suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. Hadn't been able to look her in the eye at her gentle concern, and when Mr. Schue asked them to circle up on the stage, he hadn't been able to sit next to her. Instead, he settled next to Kurt.

He wasn't sure if that was for Kurt or for himself.

Puck's offhanded for cheating? dismissal of Mr. Schue's story made Mike's stomach flip. He knewwhat that felt like, being a disappointment. He'd spent his whole life hiding because he didn't want his father to see him that way. Even now, even after his dad started being more supportive of his dreams, Mike was still hiding.

Who he was.

What he wanted.

And most of all, the things he'd thought about doing when he hurt too much to get out of bed in the mornings.

He couldn't look at anyone, just sat there and stared at his hands in his lap.

He hoped nobody noticed.

"You okay?" Blaine's voice was low, and Kurt turned from his locker to meet Blaine's eyes.

"I think you already know the answer to that." Kurt didn't even try to hide his tears. It was pointless, they were just going to keep falling anyway.

"Yeah," Blaine said, taking his hand. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have stopped him. And I'll keep telling you that until you believe me."

Kurt yanked his hand away. "Don't you dare tell me you believe that crap. I couldhave. I could have been there for him. I could have answered my damn phone. I could have been a friend."

He slammed his locker closed and stalked up the hall. There were too many people around, too many eyes on him. He needed quiet and solace, and he wasn't going to get it in the hall. He let his gaze roam, seeking out an empty classroom or a quiet corner, and his tears just kept falling, splashing on his boots as he walked.

"Kurt!" Blaine tried to pull him close, but Kurt was so careful about them touching in public, he almost couldn't bear it.

"Just stop," he said. "Please. Just- please let me feel what I'm fucking feeling!" He wheeled on Blaine, felt his voice crack before he heard it. "Don't tell me I couldn't have stopped him, because I could have. I know it."

Blaine just tilted his head and looked at him. "You know."

"I know, Blaine. I could have stopped him. Because you stopped me." Kurt held his breath, waiting for Blaine to say something. To express surprise, or something, because they'd talked about a lot of things, but they'd never ever talked about this.

Instead, Blaine tugged him into the empty, darkened choir room and pulled him into a tight hug. "You never said."

Kurt pulled away, wrapped his hand around Blaine's wrist, letting his thumb rest over the spot Blaine had been fussing at during Glee. "Neither did you."

It wasn't something Blaine ever talked about. Not with his parents, not even with his therapist, though she'd asked him frequently at the beginning. He was pretty sure he lost every therapy bonus point he'd ever earned by keeping such thoughts out of his file, but he kind of didn't care. It wasn't anybody's business but his own, something thought out in the battered pages of his journal, then torn out and burned before anyone could find them. He always figured that if he'd really been serious, he'd have left the pages, been lesscareful, let someone see and know.

If he'd really been serious, he would have gathered pills or razors. He would have actually hada plan, not just the messy jumble of darkness in his head that told him he couldn't take the words or the fists or his father's empty disapproval for even one more day.

If he'd really been serious, he wouldn't be here, in this hallway with Kurt. He wouldn't be happy. He wouldn't be in love. If he'd been serious, he wouldn't be anything because he'd have been dead at 14.

Mike's skin had been crawling all afternoon. Tina kept looking at him like she didn't see him, and that felt weird because they were always so in sync with each other. He couldn't stop thinking about Dave Karofsky, and how bad things must have really been in his head to actually go through with it. Because Mike had been some bad places, had felt trapped by his own thoughts and fears in the past few years, and even in the very darkest moments he'd held off, just in case the next day was better.

And now he had Tina, and the scraps of paper that had born witness to his awful moments had been shredded, or flushed, or tucked into his jeans and tossed into public trash cans all over Lima.

The dark times were hissecret, and his alone.

Until he was wandering aimlessly from AP Chem to his locker after the last bell, and Kurt was quickly and silently in his space, voice low and intense.

"You understand, don't you," Kurt was asking, and Mike had to blink to make sure he was in the right moment.

"I don't-" he stammered, trying to get his thoughts under control.

"Dave. Mr. Schue. You understand." Kurt was adamant, and once Mike took a long, hard look into his eyes, he knew he couldn't lie.

"Yeah," he sighed, leaning against a bank of lockers and closing his eyes. "I understand."

Kurt nodded once, solemnly. "Okay," he breathed. "Tonight, 8 pm, the fire circle at Faurot Park. You needto be there, Mike."

Mike let his head loll back. He really didn't want to deal with any of this today. He was inexplicably exhausted, and he just wanted to go home and hide for a little while before meeting Tina for dinner with her family. "I don't know, Kurt. I have plans."

"This is important. Promise me." Kurt's tone was almost desperate, so Mike just sighed and nodded.

"Fine. I'll be there."

Kurt was gone as quickly and silently as he'd shown up, disappeared somewhere in the moments it took Mike to center himself back to the school hallway.

Now he really wanted to hide, because apparently he wasn't as invisible as he'd always thought.

Kurt let Blaine carry the wood to the fire circle while he took the blankets, but he didn't let Blaine start the fire. "Do you even know how?" he asked, taking the matches playfully from between Blaine's fingers.

"No," Blaine said. "Where would I learn how to do that?"

"I take it you weren't in Scouts."

"And you were?" Blaine's voice slid up into surprise.

"I was, for two years. After my mom died it was too much." Kurt crouched down and arranged the logs inside the ring of rocks. "But I learned how to make a mean fire," he said with a smirk. "It's fun to surprise people."

Blaine was warm behind him, his arms tight around Kurt's waist, and Kurt half-wished that it was just the two of them, that the evening was going to be a romantic one. He wished he'd answered Dave's calls. He wished lots of things, and more than anything he needed to talk about all of it with people who understood.

He poked at the fire, adding bits of twigs and newspaper until the flames were high and blazing hot. "I like fire," he said, leaning back against Blaine.

"Why? It takes. It destroys." Blaine opened his limbs to wrap them around Kurt, and Kurt settled there, warm and safe.

"Only if you don't mind it, forget to take care of it." He rested the back of his head against Blaine's shoulder. "Sometimes it feels like my heart."

"What feels like your heart?" A soft voice drifted over from behind them.

Kurt sat up, turning in Blaine's arms to see Mike shuffling awkwardly behind them.

"Fire," Kurt replied, angling his head to the blaze in the fire ring. "I'm glad you're here," he added, with a soft sigh. He'd been afraid that Mike was going to bail, which would have made this whole thing pointless. "Come sit."

"What's this all about, anyway?" Mike settled, cross-legged, next to he and Blaine, and wrapped his arms around himself.

"Dave," Kurt said, "and all of us. Because whether we meant to go through with it or not, we've all been where Dave was yesterday. We all thought about it. And I don't know about you guys, but I feel pretty lost right now."

"How did you know? I mean," Mike said, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket, "Tina doesn't even know."

"Because everyone else looked like they didn't understand Mr. Schue today, but you looked like you wanted to disappear." Kurt fixed Mike with an even stare, and something about the way Mike looked, anxious eyes darting from the fire to his own hands, to the spots where Kurt and Blaine were touching, clicked something in Kurt's mind.

"Is there- um. Is there something else going on, Mike?" Kurt wanted to reach out, put a hand on Mike's knee, but they had never been close like that, so he held back.

Mike shook his head. "Just lots of things nobody knows. None of it is important."

"Yes, it is," Blaine spoke up. "If it's in your head, it's important. And I think that's Kurt's whole point here, that the three of us together is safe."

Mike looked away, at the stick-shadows of the bare trees, the moon, the bright flame of the fire.

"I'm bisexual," he said, finally, and he crumbled.

Kurt knew it should have been him, moving to help, but instead it was Blaine who was there, catching Mike and holding him up.