A/N: This isn't over yet.

During the day, while Paul and Dave are at work and school respectively, Kurt sinks into the oblivion of sleep and doesn't eat until the two Karofskys come home and make dinner. He picks at the food, but he manages to eat some of it, if only to satisfy the two men across the table at him, the ones who keeps sending him so many worried glances.

Sleeping is all Kurt wants to do anymore. Curling up onto his side and willing the tears to fade as he wraps himself in covers and shivers on the guest bed, waiting for the blankness and vagueness of dreamy sleep is all he enjoys anymore. Even talking to Dave hurts, because Dave has been looking at him more and more with these… these intense emotions in his eyes that convey nothing but love, and it's the polar opposite of how Dave used to look at him, and he doesn't like it, it freaks him out, and he isn't sure if he wants to give in to it or pull away.

He decides, in the end, that he's making it up in his head. There is no way Dave would be in love with someone as fucked up as Kurt. And there is no way Kurt wants a relationship as fucked up as having a romantic one with his former bully. It just wouldn't work out.

So he waves the idea aside every time it comes by him, and instead, he spends his time sleeping, reading, or answering texts with minimally worded responses.

XXX

Months fly by like minutes. Sleeping blurs the days. Kurt feels a little frail, a little thin. He doesn't come out of the guest bedroom often. When he does, it's to eat a little to keep him going. When he does, he only speaks politely to Mr. Karofsky, and doesn't say much at all to Dave.

XXX

"Kurt?" Dave knocks on the door. "Hey, um. I was… uh. I'm on my way to Prom. Did you… I mean, I got an extra ticket in case you still wanted to go, just to… just to let go and forget and dance for a while, I guess. I don't know. Do you have something to wear? – Wait, who am I kidding, of course you do. You're… Kurt. Anyway, did you want to?"

Kurt huffs a sarcastic laugh. "Are you asking me to be your date to Prom, David?"

Dave winces form the other side of the door at the bitter tone. "Um… not really, but I'll drive you. Everyone knows you live with me, and they don't seem to care. Santana and I have gotten real close, and she's my date, actually, and we've started this anti-bullying project at school together. I think she did it to be Prom Queen, but I think it's a good idea anyhow. So you'll be… I mean, it's safe. No one will be a dick to you. And a lot of them know you're kind of in a rough spot lately, so… yeah."

"I highly doubt it," Kurt sighs. "But I do have a kilt I have been saving for the proper occasion…"

"Great! See? You should go to Prom with me. –Er! Just… you should let me drive you… to Prom. Yeah," Dave fumbles, and Kurt frowns and blinks, standing up from near the drawn window and opening the door.

Dave stands there, dressed in his best, his hair somewhat tamed, and his cheeks are blazing pink. Kurt glances him over. "You look nice."

"…Thanks," Dave mumbles, glancing away.

"I'll go."

Dave's head snaps back. "What? Really?"

"Yes. Give me ten minutes."

"Awesome! I mean, of course. Yeah, I'll wait."

Kurt shuts the door with a gentle click, unlike his usual aggressive slam.

XXX

Seven minutes later, Kurt is calling Dave inside to help him with his cufflinks. "I can't seem to get them, and it's driving me crazy!"

Dave chuckles and moves to assist Kurt. But Kurt's sleeves fall down some as he raises and bends his arm, and Dave sees the start of the scars.

He jerks back as if electrocuted, and gapes like a fish. "Kurt…" and he hasn't called the other boy by his first name yet, but he is now, because how can he ignore self-harm? It's… it's there, and it shows that Kurt feels alone and in pain, and that… that just tears Dave up inside, gives him niggling feelings he never thought he could ever feel, like radioactive maggots, acidic and burning and squirming and eating him alive.

Kurt follows Dave's gaze and quickly straightens his arm and pushes down his sleeve. "Never mind, I've got it." And he clips the cufflinks into place. Dave realizes with an even more sinking feeling in his gut that Kurt could do his own cufflinks all along; he just made an excuse to get Dave closer, but it blew up in Kurt's face, and how he's retreating back into himself.

"No, let me," Dave argues in a whisper, stepping forward and carefully taking Kurt's other wrist in his hands, listing his arm and pinning the cufflink in place, clicking it together. "There. Do you need anything else?"

"No, I'm fine. Let's get on with it."

XXX

At Prom, Kurt is named Prom Queen.

And Dave is Prom King.

It seems everyone is acutely aware of the fact that Kurt lives at the Karofsky household, and they think it's one big, hilarious joke to imply that Kurt and Dave are dating – which they aren't – and they don't seem to realize how damaging their little prank is to everyone involved.

Kurt bolts from the gymnasium, tears pouring down his face. Dave stands stiffly, not sure if he can move, and gulps.

Mercedes and Rachel follow Kurt out into the hallway and try to be his friends again, despite him having ignored their calls and texts for months.

"Kurt, baby, it's just a stupid joke, they don't mean it, they don't all know about Burt or Blaine –"

"Please, Kurt, it's okay, we can drive you home if you want, or take you to one of our houses –"

"That's right, boy, we don't want to be at the dance anymore if those jerks are going to be that way –"

"And really, I don't want to sing for those assholes either, so it's fine, we can have a girls' night in like we used to –"

"No" Kurt retorts firmly, wiping away his tears and staring both girls down. "Sam has been looking at you all night, Mercedes, so you should stay and get a dance in with him. And Rachel, I know how important it is to you, so you should stay and sing. I can handle this. I know that to do."

XXX

He strides back into the gym with a determined look on his face. Figgins, utterly lost, crowns Kurt without much comment. Kurt, however, stands up at the mic and proudly says, "I've earned this, because all the rest of you have your heads up your own rears and don't know that I lost a friend and a father this year, and that I have nowhere to go but to David's because no one else will take me, not even the Hudsons, because Finn's mother is soo saddened by my face to be near me. So yeah, thank you, this is a real honor; it just proves that I am a Queen amongst filthy peasants, and none of you deserve me."

He paces slowly down from the stage and is greeted by a circle in the middle of a sea of bodies as everyone stands shock still, heads hung low if they voted for him, and bearing confused faces if they didn't. Finn is among the hanging heads, but out of guilt of his mother. Rachel and Mercedes look on with worried faces.

Dave is nudged to move. He walks down and stands in front of Kurt, but when he opens his mouth to speak, all he can say is, "I'm sorry."

And then he, too, leaves. Retreats right out of the gymnasium with his crown tossed down on the wooden floor and his shoulders hunched high around his ears.

Because everybody Kurt loves leaves him in the end.

So Kurt gives the most empty smile of his life, bites back the sting of tears rising to his eyes again, and he extends a hand toward Rachel, and bring the good girl she is, she takes it.

And she dances with Kurt, and Santana picks up Dave's crown and leaves the dance to find him.

XXX

When Santana finds Dave, her face is streaked with tears from not winning Prom Queen, for being afraid of herself for being picked on as violently as Kurt if she were discovered for being what she is, a lesbian, and for no one giving Dave any sympathy.

"Hey, Teddy," she whispers as she sits down beside him outside on the sidewalk curb around the back of the school, near the student parking lot. Her nickname is her way of calling him a bear cub, his little gay label.

He's crying. She's never seen him cry. She instantly bursts into tears again and wraps her thin arms around him, and he buries his face in her shoulder.

"Do you know the worst part, San?"

"What?" she murmurs as she pulls away to look at him.

"I would love to dance with him. I want nothing more. But I'm so scared. I wish you had been named Queen instead. It would have worked out so much better."

"Yeah," Santana sighs, "It would have."

XXX

At home, Kurt refuses to come out of his room for three days, and he doesn't eat at all.

But he doesn't cut himself again, either.

Dave knocks every day, but he never receives an answer. He begins to worry if Kurt is even in there at all, or if he opened the window, popped out the screen, and fled.

But he is in there, because Kurt comes out a few times to use the toilet, and once to shower.

XXX

"I don't know what to do," Paul sighs. "I want to get him help, like a therapist, but I don't think he would welcome it very much."

"He wouldn't. I wouldn't if I were him," Dave mutters in reply. He pokes at his steak and potatoes, but he isn't very hungry. It's been six days since Prom. "Um. I was thinking He and I could maybe go to another school next year? He was ahead in his credits, so he could still be considered a senior next year if he takes no study halls and takes only full-credit courses, and then does a little correspondence or summer school this summer. I could help him, even do some of his work for him so he isn't too stressed. And… maybe if we're away from McKinley, and start fresh, it would be a lot better. Don't you think?"

Paul nods. "That might be best. Thank you, David. You're always thinking of solutions."

"That's why I'm in calculus," Dave jokes, but he doesn't smile as he says it. Then he's pushing his chair away and cleaning up dinner, another one that Kurt hasn't attended, and another one Dave hasn't eaten much of, either.

XXX

"Kurt," Dave says one night, late into the night after school has ended for the year. It's perhaps two in the morning, when Kurt might even be asleep, and Paul is definitely sawing logs upstairs. Dave isn't sure if Kurt is awake, but he sleeps most of the day away, but Dave prays it's made him an insomniac, and he will be awake to hear this.

"Hey. I don't know if you're up, but… I just. I want to help you go back to school next year. A different school, one that isn't McKinley. My dad and I have it all set up. You only need two correspondence courses this summer that you can do through the mail, so I'm going to do those for you to get you in next year. I want to bring you out of this. It's just… I think it would be good for you to start fresh somewhere. And maybe go to college, one you want, one that's far away from here, one that your father would be proud of you getting into. …Are you hearing me at all?"

There is a long pause, one during which Dave sways foot to foot and feels a little stuffy in the early summer air, waiting for the automatic air conditioning to kick on again, and he nearly leaves. But then, faintly, he hears Kurt's voice.

"Yeah, I hear you. Hold on."

There are bedsprings, slow and muted, and then the shuffling of socked feet. Then the door is open and Kurt is there, a bit gaunt and a bit too pale, dark circles under his eyes, small line of pimples at his hairline and on his chin, but still unquestionably attractive. His hair is free of product and yet, somehow, he smells vaguely of soap.

"Hey," Dave says, and he can't help a slight smile as he looks down into Kurt's eyes in the dim light of the night, sight aided solely by the streetlights leaking in through the windows of other rooms and the downstairs.

"Why are you trying so hard for me?" Kurt puzzles.

"Because," Dave shrugs, trying to come up with something reasonable. "We're… friends."

"Friends," Kurt scoffs. "Didn't think I had any of those left, it's been so miserable. No one gets it. No one."

"I want to try to," Dave whispers. "And you know that I really am sorry for what I used to… I hate that version of me, you know. The version that hurt you, taunted you. I'm beyond that now."

"I know you are," Kurt says softly, glancing down. "You're a good guy at the end of the day, Dave. You have a good heart."

"It comes with being a Boy Scout," he jokes weakly, smiling a little.

"I could use a Boy Scout," Kurt sighs. He steps aside and walks back into the room. "C'mere," he yawns.

Dave follows, uncertain, but as he ventures into the room – and it smells a bit stuffy, like too heavily of water and skin, but not stinky like sweat or body odor, just… like someone hasn't left it in a while, which Kurt hasn't. It smells nothing like how the guest bedroom used to smell, which was all dust and potpourri, like no one lived in it or stayed very long. He hadn't thought about how much impact a change of smells could make, but it stirs something woeful in Dave's stomach.

"David," Kurt begins, and he sits down on the bed and pats beside him, and Dave takes a seat furthest from him. "Is there any truth to it?"

"To what?"

"You and me," Kurt clarifies flatly, his toneless words and nonchalant face more than a tad intimidating.

"Um…"

"Because I know what a little boy with a crush does: he shoves the girl he likes, tugs on her ponytail, makes fun of her because he doesn't know how to handle his feelings. And then, later, he tries to make it up to her, because he really does like her, so he does favors for her, like carrying her books or walking her to class or buying her lunch. And I've been thinking, is that you and me? And why would it be, if it were? I'm nothing worth crushing on, not the way I am right now." And he says it all so matter-of-factly that it makes Dave angry.

"That's bullshit. If anyone, you're the most crush-worthy person. Even now, you're still keeping it together, still surviving, still holding strong, when others, people like me, would have taken the easy way out by now."

"You mean suicide."

Dave cringes at the word, but nods. "Yes, I mean that. After all the things that have happened to you this past year, I would done that. I know I would have, been when I realized I was… was gay… I wanted to then, too. Because… well, you saw how my mom acted around you. Now imagine how she would be around her own son."

Kurt pulls a face that is the most emotion he's shown in a long while. "I can't imagine, actually. If she stormed out and has been gone for as long as I'm here, I can't see how she would be with you. She might abuse you."

"She might, yeah. I've thought about that," Dave murmurs. "But that's just the thing, Kurt. I would have completely lost it. But you're just… you're amazing. You're not doing well, I know, but you're still here. And you have chances to keep going."

"But I don't want to move on. I miss him so much, Dave. My dad was all I had, he – And Blaine, too. I was just getting to know him, be his friend, and then some freak accident happened, and I lost him, too, and now I just want to… to – But I can't do it! I've tried, with my wrists, but I can't hurt myself that far. I want to be with him again so much, though. Without my dad, or anyone else, I just… I feel like I'm dead, but still unfortunately alive," he says, and he breaks down and shatters, falling through the abyss until he hands on something warm and solid: David's chest.

"Fuck, Kurt," Dave says brokenly, his voice cracking and jagged. "Don't say that, please don't. So many people wouldn't be able to handle losing you, too. I wouldn't. You don't understand how much I care about you."

"How can you? Just earlier this school year you bullied me so much. Was it a kid with a crush? Or were you just mad at me because I was the way you couldn't be, out and proud? But I wouldn't have come out, Dave, if I could help it. I'm too obvious, though, because I have this stupid voice and I like clothes and taking care of my skin and hair and nails, and it all points to one thing, and I hate it, because I would rather be like you, the one no one would expect at first glance to be gay, because all you wear are polo shirts and jeans, and you play hockey and football, and all your friends know you've been with more than one girl."

Kurt confesses all this through his wild weeping, his fingers shaking as they cling to the front of Dave's shirt, to the mattress below him, and he squeezes his eyes shut so hard that he sees an array of black, grey, and white zigzag patterns overlaid with stars, and it makes him dizzy and he kind of hurts and he just wants to throw up, but not even the bile will rise to his mouth, there's so little in his aching gut.

"Kurt," Dave says again, his voice quiet and so unlike him, and yet so endearing and sweet that Kurt sinks into him more and sniffles, eyes relaxing to being merely closed, not shut tight. "God. It's so backward, I always though you would be the one helping me out with my lame self-acceptance troubles, but that's okay, because you need it more, and this is better, because then I don't feel so anxious to tell you that… that I love you."

Kurt tenses in Dave's grip, but he doesn't push the thicker boy away. Instead, he brings both arms around Dave's waist and nuzzles his face deeper into the hollow of Dave's chest under his sternum, and for a fleeting second, he feels so, so much closer to being whole, his heart picking up a beat or two to being one step nearer to feeling alive again.