AN: Sorry for the long wait! This summer has been a lot busier than I thought, but I'm glad to crank this chapter out for you guys. It was originally a bit longer, but I didn't want to leave you guys hanging while I finished it up, so I split it up. The next chapter is more than halfway done and should go over quite a bit of what went down in the locker room. Enjoy!

There was a soft humming beside him, a wordless tune that was frustratingly impossible to place. His eyes fluttered open and suddenly his dark world became bright and shiny. He wondered for a moment if winter had come early, for it seemed as if a blanket of snow had fallen over his room, startlingly white and crisp. He assumed his father had turned on the heat because despite the white surrounding his petite frame, he was toasty warm. Yet again, perhaps he hadn't, considering the snow wasn't melting. That was odd. Even stranger was the fact that it had snowed at all, indoors at least. Was that even possible?

But oh, that wasn't snow, was it? It was a thin sheet wrapped around his body. The floor, walls, and ceiling all matched, as far as he could tell, although he didn't feel much like moving to check. Or breathing. Even that stirred his chest uncomfortably. Maybe if he sat up... but, oh, he couldn't do that either? That was strange. That was... wrong.

But suddenly it was right. Everything was right, because a soft hand had grabbed his. Kurt's body relaxed. The touch was gentle, but sure. It squeezed for a moment, and then retreated, slipping from Kurt's loose grasp, at which point he let out a soft whine and tightened his fingers around the others. He didn't want them to leave. They were warm and smooth and anchored him to reality even as his world blurred and spun in its spectacular whiteness, and the snow danced about him, putting an a fantastic show he could hardly pay close attention to.

"Kurt?" The hand was talking to him. It had a pretty voice, a boy's voice. Well, not the hand, maybe it wasn't the hand talking, but something connected to the hand. A person with a pretty boy voice. A pretty boy voice that had stopped talking after only muttering his name, which caused Kurt's lips to turn down into a pout.

"Why'd you stop?" He tried to say, but it came out as a breathy sigh, though his mouth formed perfectly the words he wanted to get out. It was incredibly aggravating, the way his voice stalled in his throat, and didn't flow all buttery and nice like the pretty boy voice beside him.

He turned his head, slowly as his neck was cramped up. For a moment he wondered how long he'd laid there and just why he was so stiff, but suddenly his eyes leveled with two pretty hazel ones that seemed to take up too much space in his muddled mind to leave room for any other needless thoughts. Kurt nearly cried out. It seemed dreadfully unfair that eyes so pretty and nice that matched a soft boy voice could be so sad. They were wet, almost as if visited by the dew fairies his mother had told him stories about, who danced on the grass while he slept and sprinkled drops of water on his lawn. The boy should have been smiling, Kurt thought that a boy so nice looking must have a lovely smile, and while the sparkle in his eyes was endearing, it made Kurt's heart ache in his chest.

"I can call your father up here for you, Kurt..." The voice was reluctant, but lingered on his name pleasantly. Blaine's hand began to slip from his once again, and the hazel eyes darted anxiously toward the door.

"Sta-ay..." Kurt managed. It felt like drowning, or sinking in quicksand. He felt like he was loosing himself in losing his ferocious grip on the other boy's hand, the only thing keeping him above the water, out of the grasp of faceless monsters who threatened to drag him from this beautiful dimension.

"Are you sure? I can... I can call him or a nurse or something."

"Silly Blaine..." because Blaine was the other boy's name. Blaine was the pretty boy with the pretty voice, the Warbler who had nearly assaulted him with an impromptu serenade or "Teenage Dream" and then spoken to him about life and how much it sucked, and made him feel like more of a person than he had in years, "I only need you."

Maybe those words had been said only in the desperation for the soft hand in his, but they'd worked, because Blaine nearly smiled, and then settled down deeper into his uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, his quiet humming lulling Kurt into a peaceful sleep.

The first thing Kurt noticed when he came to for the second time was that everything was brilliant and new, as if the world had shifted and become far more clear. The bright lights beat their way through his closed eyelids and tortured him, keeping him from dozing off again. What was once the soothing pulse of the monitors beside him was now a series of wailing beeps at various drastically sharp falsetto notes that pounded through his skull. Discomfort had become outright pain rooted in an unidentifiable source.

The second thing Kurt noticed when he came to for the second time was that his hand was empty. To be frank, this fact sort of pissed him off, because hadn't he told the hand to stay? Or, at least, the boy attached? There was breathing, and Kurt was pretty sure it wasn't his, so at least the boy had to be there next to him.

With an effort more laborous than Kurt could remember the simple movement ever requiring, he turned his head to the left and opened one eye, which was immediately blinded by the fluorescent lights hanging above him. After adjusting, it took in the body slumped over in a chair that had been dragged from the wall up to his bedside. Blaine was fast asleep, not quite snoring, but breathing heavily through his nose in such an irritating way that Kurt would have slapped him if he didn't look so darn peaceful and if he could figure out how to lift his hand from the bed.

Blaine's hair was tousled. It was adorable, really, to see the boy's curly locks free from product, although it was difficult for Kurt not to notice that they were a bit greasy and Blaine was such a boy, wasn't he, how hard was it to take a shower every once in a blue moon?

"Knock knock... you up, kiddo?" Kurt twisted his head back - ouch - and smiled, only half in control of the muscles in his face, apparently, up at his father. "Sorry I wasn't here, had to run down to the cafeteria and grab something to eat. How long have you been up? Not long, I hope?"

Not trusting his voice, Kurt simply shook his head before letting it sink a bit further into the pillow. "Tired," he coughed out.

"Course you are," Burt chuckled, "Only been sleeping for, what? Three days maybe? Three and a half?" He tossed himself down heavily in a chair that clashed horrendously with Blaine's, as only an eye so keen on colors and undeniably trained in the perfection of outfit coordination would have ever noticed. "I'm glad you're up, kiddo. Although the way things are going, I'm guessing the nurses will put you back to sleep just as soon as they know you're awake." He smiled sadly at his son before grinning a bit wider, "Well, what they don't know wont hurt 'em." Burt relaxed in the chair, stretching his feet out and bending his elbows at the armrests. "Kid's been cemented to that chair the whole time," he nodded over at Blaine's limp body, "I've left a few times, never for long or anything, but he's never left your side. How come I've never heard much about him?"

That sounded like the Blaine Kurt knew, or hardly knew, he supposed: steadfast in the simple things, and intoxicating sweet. Because he could have - should have - gotten up to grab a bite or lie down or, really, go home because nothing was keeping him here but a boy he'd only just met. But he hadn't, because...

Oh, right, Kurt had told him he needed him, hadn't he? Shit. That would make things awkward when Blaine woke up.

Which he had.

Well, shit.
Blaine had lifted his head just a bit, eyes still cast downward, his hands sloppily wiping the sleep from them and neglecting to stifle a loud yawn that nearly made Kurt giggle. Once he'd rubbed his face awake, he glanced upward, revealing the dark purple shadows beneath his hazel eyes, which hosted a tired, far-off look.

He still managed a smile in Kurt's direction, though, which was nice. At least it told Kurt he was still alive.

"Oh, hey." Oh hey to you too.

"Hi." Kurt's voice sounded like a dog's squeak toy. He noticed the way Blaine winced and knew immediately that the other boy had noticed just how weak he sounded. Kurt hated sounding weak. He was one to put up a strong front, to nip at heels with biting comments and sarcastic remarks even when broken up inside. But this was something physical, his one true superpower: his voice, was broken and sickly and weak. Like him.

"How are you feeling?"

"I've been better." It should have, could have been something funny, been something very Kurt, his way of brushing something so serious from his shoulders and plowing forward, but his words only made Blaine's smile look a little more forced, and his eyes look a little more sad.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry I let go of your hand."

"S'fine." Kurt failed to notice the way Blaine's eyes roamed over his scarlet cheeks, revelling in the flush of blood that told him Kurt's heart was still beating and he and so admirably ignorant to the more appropriate tone of their situation that he was blushing and schoolgirl-ing over something as simple as holding hands.

But to Kurt it was more than embarrassment over the overall awkwardness of begging to hold hands with a boy he'd only just met while half-lucid in a hospital bed. It was a complete and utter self-loathing that enveloped him, because vulnerable was the last thing, the very last thing that Kurt Hummel wanted to be, and vulnerable was the very first thing he'd made himself by reaching out for a hand to ground him when his world was spinning and whirling and the whites around him became too much. He was nearly sick with himself over having needed something, and having made that something a someone - or, at least, as someone's hand - and reaching for it like some sort of child. Kurt Hummel wasn't a child. He'd cooked meals, and sorted the mail, and done the shopping for himself and his father for years, he could take care of himself, thank you very much, and didn't need some pretty boy's soft hand to keep him from floating away.

"I can hold it again if you'd like... if it would help, I mean." Was that a hint of... of longing in Blaine's normally levelled voice?

"I said... 'm fine," Kurt breathed. His eyelids were becoming heavy again, and while all he truly wanted was Blaine's hand on his, he couldn't bring himself to ask for it.

"Oh, okay."

But as Kurt drifted off to sleep, the image of Blaine's kicked-puppy-dog expression still etched in his mind, he could have sworn he felt Blaine's hand grab at his and give it a reassuring squeeze that made Kurt think that maybe Blaine's hand had felt just a little bit empty too.

AN: So… short but I'm working on my characters, haha. How am I doing? I don't want to screw up our darling Kurt and Blaine, so let me know if you think they're a bit off or anything. Oh, and remember that this takes place right after NBK, so they hardly know each other yet, be Klaine is coming folks, no worries. Also, I seriously love all of you who have read, reviewed, alerted, and favorited. You are the best. Reviews are love and motivation (: See you next chapter!