"You're not going to school tomorrow," Kurt's dad says on the way home from the hospital.

Kurt, who's been staring at his hands in his lap, studying the thin red imprints caused by Dave's bandaged hand clutching his so hard, looks over. "What?"

His dad is clutching the steering wheel, staring straight ahead down the narrow highway. "You're not going back there. Not until the kids who did this are caught. And it's not something I'm prepared to argue with you about, Kurt, so...it's not open for debate."

Kurt frowns. "I've got...tests, and-"

"And they have an obligation to keep their students safe. Until they get their act together, I could give a damn about their tests." He glances over at Kurt. "I talked to your coach. She says there are cops involved and Figgins is already on top of things, so it shouldn't be long. But if you're right, if they hurt this kid so bad just because he's gay, you really think I'm going to send you back while they're still around?"

Kurt hesitates. He's almost surprised that until this moment he didn't actually think about himself as a target.

"It could have been you, Kurt." His dad is staring straight ahead again, and he speaks those words as if from moment one it's all he's thought about. "Now I may not be able to protect you from everything that's ever gonna hurt you, but I'm pretty sure that when there are monsters at your school attacking gay kids and putting them in the hospital, I'm allowed to keep you away from that."

Kurt studies his dad's profile.

"Gonna argue? Because I'm in a really weird mood right now, kid. I can't promise it'll go well."

"No," he says, watching his dad's fingers around the steering wheel. His knuckles are white, he's clutching so hard. "I won't argue."

His dad nods, but doesn't speak.

Kurt hasn't given himself any thought. He hasn't given any thought to the fact that whoever did this is still out there. And that's strange: Kurt - who is very aware of his flaws as much as his strengths - can tend towards being self-absorbed.

"I'm gonna drop you off at home," his dad says suddenly, still staring straight out like he can't lose focus for a moment. "I've got something I need to do. Finn won't be home for a few more hours. Are you gonna be okay alone for a while?"

"Where are you going?"

His dad hesitates. "You're not coming."

Kurt looks over. "Dad. Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna go have a talk with Paul Karofsky."

Kurt sits back, looking at his hands though the red lines have all vanished. "I'm going."

"What did I just say?"

Kurt pictures Dave in his bed, the moment Kurt mentioned his dad, the pause that came and went before Dave changed the subject by mentioning the policeman who was trying to talk him into pressing charges. Kurt's confusion lingers - Paul Karofsky seemed so understanding. He didn't seem to care what Kurt was, he took Kurt's word against his own son.

Kurt draws in a breath and nods to himself. "I'm going."

"The hell you-"

"Dad." Kurt twists in his seat enough to face his dad. "I get it, okay? You want to protect me and you couldn't. Not from this, so now you're trying to keep everything else away from me. I get that, but...but you can't."

His dad doesn't miss a beat. He glances through the rearview mirror, flicks on the turn signal, and slides off the highway onto the dirt shoulder, pulling them to a stop. He shifts the car into park and looks over at Kurt.

"It's too late," Kurt says before his dad can say anything. "I'm involved now. The moment I saw him on the ground I was involved, and you can't keep me from knowing what's happening now or I'll never be able to deal with it."

His dad shakes his head, his eyes pained.

"It's not your fault, dad." Kurt leans in, letting his backpack fall to the floor in front of his seat. "Maybe Mr. Schue shouldn't have taken me with him to the gym yesterday, but he didn't know what was going on. Maybe Coach Sylvester shouldn't have mentioned me when she called him for help, but she was a little freaked out and she said Dave was saying my name."

He swallows, trying not to think about that part of it. There is way too much inside his head waiting to be freaked out over, he can't keep adding to the list.

But he's started this little argument, he has to see it through. "Dave was scared they would come after me next. That's why he asked about me. You can't blame him for that. He promised me he'd keep me safe, dad, and..." Kurt shakes his head - he's getting sidetracked.

He draws in a steeling breath. "I'm involved now, and it isn't anybody's fault. I can't help Dave or even deal with what I saw enough to help myself unless I know what's happening. I need to see this through, and I can. I can handle it."

His dad shakes his head, but a little less vehemently. "I don't know if I can handle you handling it, Kurt."

Kurt meets his eyes and smiles, faint but clear. "I'm strong, dad. You've always let me be strong. Don't stop now when I really need it."

There's a pause. His dad sags back against the seat and frowns at the road ahead of them.

"I know you're worried," Kurt says quietly. "But...can you help me worry about Dave for a while, instead of worrying about me? Even if they hurt him because he's gay like me, it still happened to him. Not me."

His dad shakes his head, his jaw tight, but throws the car into drive and pulls them back out onto the road.

A minute later they're passing the exit that would have taken them home, and Kurt lets out a small sigh and sits back.

"Stubborn kid." His dad watches the coming exits for wherever he needs to turn off to get to the Karofsky house. "But you're staying in the car."

Kurt hesitates, but nods. It's not everything he wanted, but he'll learn more even in the car than he would have at home. And his dad's hands are still shaking, so maybe this is a good time for a compromise.

It's a nice house. A wide spread, two stories, a neatly trimmed yard and a new car in the driveway. Kurt thinks he heard somewhere that Dave's dad is a lawyer, but he wouldn't swear to it. The man makes money, that's pretty clear.

Kurt's dad walks right up to the door and knocks so hard that Kurt can hear it in the car. After a minute the door opens, and after another pause Kurt's dad moves inside. The door shuts, and everything falls still and silent outside.

Kurt reaches for his backpack, digging out his phone and sitting back in the passenger seat.

Blaine, Mercedes, Finn. Blaine again.

He sighs and taps Blaine's name.

"Kurt?" Blaine answers after one ring, breathless.

Guilt gnaws at Kurt a little. "Hi."

"Where are you? Mercedes said you left school again?"

He fights to keep from rolling his eyes - the concern is nice, really, even if it's misplaced. "I should have never given you her number. I'm fine, Blaine. Dad came and got me to go..."

"Go where? Kurt...I'm trying to be patient here but..."

"I know. I'm sorry. Just..." He can't tell Blaine everything. The last time he told one of Dave's secrets to Blaine, it didn't end well. The problem is, he can't tell him anything without telling him everything.

"Did you get my emails? About Karof-"

"Okay, hang on." Kurt draws in a breath. "Don't talk about Dave right now, okay? It's really not...not a good time for that talk, Blaine."

"Fine. Then tell me what happened so I can stop speculating."

"He was hurt." That's safe, right? Even Finn knows that much. "He's the one they had to get the ambulance for yesterday. He's hurt, and he needs help."

There's a pause, and a short, contained sigh. "You didn't read the emails, did you?"

"What are you talking about?" Kurt looks back towards the quiet house. There's no way to tell what's going on behind those walls. He should have been more stubborn about going inside with his dad.

"Kurt. Look, just hear me out. Guys like Karofsky..."

"Blaine. I said-"

"They're manipulators, Kurt. Seriously. This guy wasn't above assaulting you, I'm sure he'd be willing to hurt himself if he thought it would get your attention."

"I said stop that!" Kurt has no real right to get angry at Blaine, when he's the one keeping everything from Blaine. He can't get mad. If Blaine knew the truth he would shut up, and Kurt's the one keeping the truth from him. He can't get angry. He can't blame his poor, worried boyfriend.

He does anyway.

"That's enough, Blaine. When you're ready to have a conversation with me that doesn't involve you badmouthing Dave Karofsky, call me back. Until then you can just keep getting your news from Mercedes."

That's all he says, and he hangs up the phone, and he lets it drop onto his lap as he stares out at the house.

The phone rings, and he ignores it. It rings three more times before the front door opens again - Blaine once more, Mercedes twice. Kurt can tell because he's given them both ringtones. They're the most important people in his life outside of his dad, after all.

He ignores them, nothing getting his attention or stealing his focus until the moment that front door opens.

His dad's got a big, worn duffel bag over his shoulder, and his face is red and angry. He moves around the car and throws the bag in the backseat, climbing in and starting the engine without even looking at Kurt.

Kurt watches the house, but there's no movement from inside. No one watching at the window, no one at the door.

He waits until they're on the road. "What happened?"

His dad shakes his head, but lets out a slow breath like steam whistling from a kettle. "Some people have no right to call themselves parents."

Kurt swallows, wondering. Wanting to argue again, uselessly, that Paul Karofsky seemed so nice.

He doesn't ask because when his dad is troubled by something he usually tells Kurt what it is. He usually gives a clue.

Which he does, as they pull onto their own street. He slows the car, looking ahead at Carole's car in the driveway which means they're not going to have any time to talk privately in the house. He pulls the car in front of the house, shuts the engine, and doesn't move.

Kurt turns to him, waiting.

"If I ever..." His dad rubs his face, that overwhelmed look in his eyes that Kurt has had to see far too often. "If I've ever made you think that anything in the world is more important to me than you..."

"You haven't. Not once."

"Anything, Kurt." His dad frowns at him. "Not the garage. Not the house. Not Carole, not Finn. They...they might become as important, but nothing is more important to me than you are. I don't care who you love or what you do. I don't care if you snap and kill a guy for wearing white shoes after Labor Day."

Kurt wants to smile at that, but he can't.

"I'm your dad, you got that? I don't have to approve of everything you do. I don't have to like all your ideas or understand everything you do. It doesn't matter. I'm your dad, you're my kid. That's the only thing that's important."

Kurt knows all this. He's got the kind of faith in his dad that he doesn't have in anything or anyone else in the world. They went through a few bad things to get where they are, and he doesn't need to be reminded of where they stand now.

But he knows his dad isn't saying this stuff for Kurt. This has nothing to do with Kurt. This is his dad facing down another dad who didn't make the same choices, and being utterly baffled by it.

Kurt looks back at the worn old duffel bag in the back seat. "Just because he's gay?" he asks quietly, even though he knows the answer already.

His dad follows his eyes and sighs. "Feels like the whole world should be as far along as you are, doesn't it?" He reaches out and lays a hand on Kurt's arm, then opens his door and moves to get the bag from the back seat.

Kurt climbs out of the car and grabs his backpack, stuffing his phone in his pocket.

"If he needs a place," his dad says as he moves around the car, "we've got a room here. If that's what you want, Kurt. If you feel safe with that."

Kurt nods. "He doesn't scare me anymore, dad."

It's the entire rest of the world he's suddenly unsure about, not Dave.

When Dave sees the duffel bag the next morning his eyes widen, but if it's a surprise he shakes it off fast. He sits up in his bed, working the control to raise the back up higher.

"You're not in school."

Kurt smiles bigger than he feels like smiling. "You're a good excuse to play hooky."

"Great, we can both flunk together."

"Solidarity, brother." Kurt holds up a fist solemnly. "Go Team Rainbow."

Dave's wan little smile-like thing fades away fast. He nods at the bag. "Was he here?"

"No." Kurt moves to the bed and sets the duffel down. He went through some of the stuff his dad grabbed from Dave's house, left the clothes and things in their guest room at home. He brought the things he thought a boy imprisoned in a hospital room might want. "We kind of...stormed your house? Yesterday? My dad did, anyway. I think he was hoping he could talk..."

Dave unzips the bag. He snorts. "How'd that go?" He doesn't bother to wait for an answer he already knows. He pulls out an iPod and headphones and this time his smile is almost real. "Oh. Thanks. Daytime TV is..."

"Soaps and Supermarket Sweep. I know, it's tragic."

Dave sets the iPod on his lap and doesn't reach for the bag again. "You didn't talk to him, did you?"

"Your dad? No. My dad wouldn't let me in."

"Probably a good thing." Dave toys with the iPod, scrolling through screens, but his eyes are barely following what he's doing.

Now's his chance to ask straight-out, but Kurt feels oddly hesitant when he speaks. "Your dad...he didn't seem all that homophobic to me. Before."

"He isn't." Dave doesn't look away from the iPod. His mouth quirks up, but it's the kind of smile a hundred-year-old man should have. It's tired and bitter.

"I don't understand," Kurt says quietly.

"You want another secret, Fancy?"

"I..." Kurt frowns. "That's not what I..."

"Sure you do," Dave goes on over Kurt's words. "Here, you'll get a fucking kick out of this one." He holds out the iPod.

Kurt studies him for a moment, but takes the device hesitantly. "What...?"

There's a list of playlists on the screen. The standard Recently Added and Most Played, and one called Gym, and right above that, one called Fancy.

Kurt blinks and looks up at Dave.

Dave isn't looking at him. He's toying with the cord to the ear buds, practically strangling them in his hands.

Kurt tries to smile. "Is that where you hide your Gaga?"

Dave's eyes shutter. He shrugs, looks towards the door. "My head's killing me. Fucking nurse should have been here by now."

"Do you need me to get someone?"

There's a pause. Dave strangles that thin white cord between bandaged fingers, and he drops back against the pillow and shuts his eyes.

Kurt feels like he's not following along fast enough. He has no idea what's going through Dave's head. That's something he couldn't have guessed at even before this thing happened.

He looks down at the iPod, and goes into the Fancy playlist.

He doesn't recognize any of the songs. They don't seem like Gaga-ish guilty pleasures, though, that's obvious.

"The doctor..."

His eyes go back to Dave instantly.

Dave stares at the ceiling. "He said they were only keeping me for 48 hours. Because of my head, in case I get brain damaged or whatever. Don't know how they could tell, though. What's the difference between a dumb jock and a guy with brain damage?"

Kurt leans against the side of the cot, sitting precariously. "That sounds like the set-up to a joke. Anyway, you're not dumb. Your dad said you used to make good grades, right? And we have a guest room."

Dave looks over.

"If that's what you're thinking about." Kurt smiles. "I mean...if you want. Coach Sylvester might have a room or something, and she's kind of weirdly worried about you right now, but..."

"Right? She was here again this morning, before school." Dave looks back at his hands, like he's trying to laugh off Sue Sylvester's presence but he can't. "Why would you even offer that?"

Kurt hesitates. There's not an answer to that question that doesn't involve flashbacks to the locker room floor.

"Where were you staying?" he asks instead. "The last few days?"

"With..."

Dave stills suddenly. His face loses color. His hands go lax, the thin cord threaded through his fingers going slack.

Kurt's gut clenches. He leans in. "Dave?"

Dave shuts his eyes again, but it's not a headache that makes his face contort. The pain etching itself into his features isn't physical.

Kurt reaches out, touching his hand instantly. "Dave, what?"

"Z," Dave says, reaching up and planting his palms against his temples like his headache just got especially bad. His voice is raw. "I was staying with Z."

Kurt grabs the duffel bag and sets it on the floor before it can fall. He sets the iPod on the cot. A horrible thought comes to him as he watches the color drain from Dave's face.

He has no idea what kind of relationships overbearing jocks have with each other, but he knows that before the revelation about Karofsky being gay he had rarely ever seen Karofsky without Azimio at his side. They're best friends. Even the people who don't know them at all, the people they hate, like Kurt, even Kurt knows that. No one messes with one of them without ending up having to take on both.

Everyone knows that.

Dave can shut his eyes from view and blame a headache, but Kurt is darkly sure of what's really wrong.

"Was he..." It hurts to push the question out. "Was he one of the ones who...?"

"No." Dave draws in a breath. "But he's the one who knew."

"Knew what?"

"About me." Dave's breathing is getting faster, tighter. He stares at his hands, the tangle of wires from the headphones. "I went to stay at his place when dad kicked me out. Finally told him why he kicked me out, and...the next day..." He looks up at Kurt, and there's pain in his eyes stronger than anything his dad's brought out in him so far. Maybe stronger because Dave has always expected his dad to turn his back. "Was he in school yesterday?"

Kurt hesitates. The morning classes yesterday were pretty much a blur, but he did go to French. And the seat beside his stayed empty.

He shakes his head, and regrets it when Dave instantly slumps and brings his hands up to his head. He grinds the heel of his hand into his temple like he's fighting even worse pain.

"But..." Kurt talks fast, and Gaga only knows why he's trying to play devil's advocate for a guy who's bullied him his entire high school life. "But a bunch of the team missed school. Puck said like half the team was gone."

Dave snorts wetly. "Circling the fucking wagons. Jesus."

Kurt almost thought Puck was making that stuff up. Half of his bad-ass stories are fictional, everyone knows that and Puck's cool with everyone knowing it. Apparently not this one, though.

"Standard fucking procedure, like this was some...fucking prank. And Z is..." He snorts again, but it's frail and cracked and he's starting to breathe a little faster.

Kurt doesn't like Azimio. A bully with a sense of humor is just as big a bastard to the kid getting bullied. He isn't playing devil's advocate because he thinks Azimio is a good guy. He just can't watch Dave fall apart again.

He talks fast - too fast. "But that's the thing, isn't it? If it's standard for you guys to skip school just because some guy on the team tells you to circle the wagons, that doesn't mean you know what it is you're helping hide. Right?"

Dave scrubs at his eyes, looking away from Kurt towards the wall.

"It doesn't mean he had anything to do with it. Does it?"

"It's a hell of a coincidence if he didn't," Dave says, his voice thick. "He said...that night, he was bugging me and bugging me, like my dad's so fucking great I must have done something seriously wrong to get kicked out, and he wanted to know what. He had my fucking back, he said. Fuck!" Dave digs his palms into his eyes, shuddering. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"That's a dumb question," Kurt answers, soft and pained. He reaches for Dave's arm, but when Dave jerks at the touch his hand flies off again and he freezes.

What is he supposed to say? What does he do? He doesn't know how to deal with this, how does he help someone else deal with it?

Dave draws in a breath, a gasp of air. He swallows once, then twice, like he's fighting back the urge to vomit. "If I had killed somebody," he says, his voice raw with the sobs he won't let himself give in to, "he would have helped me hide the body. But I'm fucking gay, so suddenly every fucking day since we were eight years old means dick. Like I'm a stranger. And the next day the whole fucking team knew, and they..."

His voice gives, and with a wrenching sound he covers his face with his bandaged hands.

"Dave." Kurt's voice is pathetic, barely audible. He can't watch Dave fall apart again, but it's happening, and if there's a right thing to do he doesn't know what it is. He's a seventeen year old glee kid, he doesn't know a single thing.

He moves up the bed, sitting awkwardly at Dave's waist. "Dave, please." He reaches out, braced for another jerk, another flinch away, but his fingertips brush the sleeve of Dave's robe and grasp there and make their way down his arm and Dave doesn't pull away.

"I can't..." Dave breathes like he's drowning; gasping, watery breaths. "Why? I don't under...understand. Why did they do this?"

"Please..." Kurt says again, and he has no idea what he's asking for until the moment Dave's arms drop and Kurt's hands reach out in their place. He has no idea what he's begging for until Dave gives in and leans towards him, and Kurt gets his arms around him and pulls him close. When Dave's sobs shake Kurt instead of just the silent bed, Kurt knows it's what he needed.

He doesn't shush Dave or waste breath lying to him about how everything's okay. He shuts his eyes and tries to focus on his breathing, on staying calm and just being whatever it is that can be of any use to Dave right now.

Dave is probably four inches taller than Kurt, with a hundred pounds of muscle packed on him that Kurt doesn't have. But while Kurt sits there holding on to him, Kurt feels like the solid one of the two of them. Like without him here Dave would all but dissolve into the floor beneath them.

His dad has always called him strong, and Kurt has never felt it so keenly as he does right now. Or else no one has ever needed it so badly.

He doesn't know what he's doing. He's a kid, he's dealing with things that are way outside his experience. He knows how to sing songs about bad things, but despite Mr. Schue's claims to the contrary, there isn't a song in the world that could make a dent in fixing something as messed up as this is.

But he holds on to Dave and he feels that strength that his dad sees in him, and he knows that he can do this. He won't be perfect, he'll just...be strong, and whatever good that does will have to be enough.

Dave falls asleep with wet tracks down his face and his fingers curled tight around Kurt's shirt. His grip relaxes as he sleeps.

Kurt doesn't leave. He moves to the chair beside the bed, but he pulls it up closer and makes sure he can reach Dave easily if he needs to.

He sits for a while, watching him, feeling drained and wrung out and strangely enervated. He needs to do something, it's eating at his mind in the silence. But he doesn't want to leave Dave, so to kill those thoughts he takes Dave's iPod and sticks the buds in his ears, and he finds a random song on the Fancy playlist to listen to.

The voice is familiar, but the song isn't. A guitar and drums and a thin, stretched voice. Kurt expected a fabulous dance mix or something - what else would Dave put on a list named after Kurt? And he doesn't understand what this song has to do with him until he shuts his thoughts up enough to listen to some of the lyrics.

It's just you and me against me/One, I get the feeling that it's two against one/I'm already fighting me, so what's another one?/The mirror is a trigger and your mouth's a gun/Lucky for me, I'm not the only one.

He turns it off.

His dad used to tell him not to listen in on people's conversations if he wasn't ready to hear bad things, and this is way too much like that. He doesn't want to know this - what Dave thinks about him, or how he's made Dave feel.

There was a time so damned recently when Dave was just Karofsky. Just another bully jock, and then a violent closet case, and then...just a miserable kid whose entire life was an act. All those stages Karofsky had seemed to take on in Kurt's head, but the entire time Kurt was only seeing this tiny piece of his mask, and not him. Never once him.

That idea burns in him, because there are people in the world who should know Dave for who he is. His dad, his best friend. Those people should be the ones Dave can lean on, not Kurt. Not someone who makes him feel like that song felt.

Kurt saw the hate in Karofsky's eyes during every stage of their dramatic relationship so far. He can't stand the idea that it's been directly inside this entire time. That Kurt, who is a stranger as much as Dave is a stranger to him, is the one here for him. Kurt's house is the only shelter he's been offered, and the people who should know Dave for who he is would all rather have that self-loathing Karofsky instead.

When he leaves Dave's side it's only because he doesn't want to wake him up.

"Porcelain. What's wrong?"

"I need information." He speaks softly into the phone, though the nurse has come by and slipped some kind of medication into Dave's IV that makes his sleep even deeper.

Coach Sylvester only hesitates for a moment. "What kind of information?"

"I need an address. Can you look up a student for me?"

"Are you about to do something ridiculously stupid, sunshine?"

"Probably."

"Do I want to know what it is?"

"Nope."

Another pause, but not long. "Alright. Keep talking."