Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs and the plot

Blaine's first reaction to the scene was to rush other to the tiny boy, simply wrap his arms around him and never let go. Kurt looked so frail curled into a tight ball in the corner, it was as if the shadow he sat in was breaking the teen even more, but also hiding him away from everyone. Blaine wondered if Kurt had ever seeked help from the darkness before- the only darkness Blaine had ever known had nearly swallowed him whole.

His second reaction was to resist his first urge and run. He barely knew the boy anyway and it wasn't as if Kurt had ever seemed comfortable around him- their first night the only exception of course, although Blaine now put this down to nerves as Kurt seemed to lack the ability to say no. Kurt reminded Blaine so much of his past self which he had fought for years to be rid of- the scared looks, the jumpy flinches, the way he hid himself away and avoided human contact.

Taking a deep breath of courage, Blaine quietly approached his roommate, desperately trying not to startle him. The lonely boy didn't seem to hear him, he seemed to had shut down his normal senses against the world. Blaine was only a mere few feet away now and could clearly see the shudders that racked through Kurt's body and Blaine couldn't help but feel he should take responsibility for the drastic change in the boy from earlier. He seemed to have a talent for upsetting beautiful people, although personally Blaine thought, for Kurt, beautiful was an understatement. That however, he would keep quiet about. At least, for now.

Blaine cautiously bent down by the pale teen who hadn't seemed to had noticed him yet, too deep into his sadness.

"Kurt?"

The said boy instantly snapped his head up, tremors shaking through his slight figure even more violently as he jumped to his feet, trying to get as far away from Blaine as he possibly could in one bound. The twins in the lighting box gripped each other's hands in anticipation- the next few minutes could go any way.

"Kurt! Calm down, it's me, Blaine. Y'know the one who's probably been quite a bit of an idiot? Well...definitely. Anyway, calm down.. please?"

Blaine was thankful Kurt hadn't yet sunk into a flashback- they couldn't be good for him; Kurt suddenly pulled out a small book from his pocket along with a cheap biro pen. Hesitantly, keeping his eyes on Blaine and keeping his muscles tense as if in preparation to run, he scribbled something down before holding up the paper, pleading with his eyes.

'Please don't hurt me.'

A tear fell onto the notebook and Kurt dropped it as if it was infected, the loud thud as it hit the floor sounding like thunder as it echoed throughout the almost silent room. He had already accepted his fate, he simply attracted people who wanted to hurt him. Maybe it was his fault. If he hadn't been so openly gay in McKinley, Karofsky would never have hurt him the way he did; if he hadn't been born the way he was, the world may have never been so cruel. Kurt sunk down to the floor, his back now pressing against the wall, he just wanted Blaine to hurry up and get it over with.

"Kurt?"

The slender teenager refused to look up, the colour draining out of his face. He was told he would be safe here: he was told lies. Nowhere was safe for him, everyone simply wanted to see him hurt.

"Kurt, I'm not going to hurt you."

Kurt's ears pricked, why were people such liars?

"Do you remember what I said one of the first times I met you? I'm going to be by your side all the time. Kurt, please just look at me."

Inwardly, Kurt panicked as his heart picked up speed- a feat which surprised him as it was already going at least a hundred miles per hour. He knew he should probably obey, this was a direct order and he was too well familiarised with the consequences if he didn't. However, he outwardly made no movement, showing no response to the other boy.

"Okay, think about it this way, we share a dorm, Kurt. We've slept in the same room, if I wanted to hurt you, I had the perfect opportunity then. But I didn't, because I'm not like that and I'll never harm you in any way. Remember what makes Dalton different to any other school? Its no bullying policy. You're safe here. Please.. please Kurt, just look up."

Blaine was now on his knees beside the sobbing teen but keeping a short distance away so not to scare Kurt or invade his personal space.

"Kurt?"

A pair of wet, glasz eyes slowly raised to meet the hazel and Blaine's breath caught in his throat. Kurt gulped back a sob and nodded timidly to his notebook. Blaine, happy to have gained a reaction, obliged, delicately picking it up and handing it to him.

'Why?'

Blaine stared confusedly at the paper, "why what?"

'Why are you-' Kurt paused, crossing out what he'd just wrote and just getting straight to the point, 'what do you want from me?'

"Kurt...I- I don't want anything from you... I just want to help."

Kurt frowned, not believing Blaine- why would anyone want to help him? He was broken.

"Kurt? Do you... do you want to go back to the dorm? Not that this place isn't nice, it's just rather cold and I think being ill is the worst thing you could get right now."

Kurt bit back a harsh laugh, how could he get any more ill- he already had a disease, or at least, that's what Karofsky had told him. Instead, he nodded silently, standing up and refusing Blaine's helping hand, keeping Blaine at distance.

Nick and Jeff walked back into the main building having given up on their search. At least, Nick had, Jeff was still tugging at Nick's arm and trying to get him to go back outside to find Kurt- he didn't believe his boyfriend when he had told him that Kurt would be inside now anyway because of the rain.

"But Nicky! Maybe that's what Kurt wants us to think, he could still be out there!"

"It's raining."

"So?"

"He'd be soaked to the skin by now."

"Not if he was secretly a wizard and had used impervius on his clothes."

"Shouldn't he be at Hogwarts then?"

"Umm.."

"See?"

"Wait, no! What if he's lost and he's lost his wand? And his broomstick, because look at him, he's the perfect shape for a seeker, has been stolen by-"

"Nick! Jeff! Did you find him?"

The two looked around to see David running up to them from behind.

"Hey David! Great timing, you just saved me from Jeff trying to convince me that Kurt's a wizard."

"What?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction too. Anyway, have any luck finding Kurt?"

"Nah," answered David, frowning slightly, "I swear he's disappeared."

"Or using a disillusionment charm," cut in Jeff, seriously.

David looked at the blonde boy, wondering how the boy wasn't in an insane asylum yet. Thankfully, before he could voice his opinions, a grumpy looking Wes walked up to the from behind having came down the stairs.

"Hey Wes! Have you seen Kurt yet?" Nick asked, ignoring the death stare he got in return.

"What do you think?" He asked, sassily, "do I have the kid on my arm? The most I've seen is several dirty rooms," Wes made a disgusted noise at this, he had always been thought of as a neat freak, "not to mention finding Mikey and Connor having sex and then being invited to join!" He said the last three words with exasperation leaking from them and Jeff winced.

"So you didn't find him then?" David asked, earning him a sharp slap to his head from Wes. "Ow! Bitch!"

"Dick."

"Douche."

"Penis."

Jeff giggled childishly and Nick looked down at his curiously, a small smile playing on his lips. "He said penis."

For some stupid reason, that made all the boys begin to laugh and Nick gave Jeff a small kiss on the cheek, grinning as he did so: this was why he loved him.

"So no one found Kurt then?" Wes asked after each teen had recovered, "where's Blaine? Do you think he's found him?"

"Chances are he's 'found' the food store for the canteen or my redvines," answered Nick, "I never found out what happened to them anyway.."

Jeff ducked his head, a blush creeping onto his cheeks. Luckily, Nick didn't notice.

"Do you think we should try and find him? You know what happened last time he went into their- he got locked in the meat freezer somehow and the police nearly got involved when we couldn't find him. Actually, it was a miracle he didn't catch pneumonia."

"Urgh," said We, rolling his eyes, "I guess we'd better find him then- shall we check the kitchens first then?"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

David and Nick jumped in shock as the door of a nearby door swung open and two emerald eyed, identical boys stepped out, surprising all but Jeff who smiled widely at them. It was weird how the two had never been able to scare Jeff, it was like he always knew when they were going to pop up.

"Mr. Odaire will murder you two if you two have been messing about with his pens again," said Wes, still managing to keep up his strict act even though his heart was pounding loudly.

"Meh, what he doesn't know can't hurt him," they chorused together, ignoring the condescending look as they always did.

"What about if someone had a gun and shot him but he never saw the gunman, that would surely hurt him..?"

"Jeff! Don't give them ideas!" Theo and Fors merely shared a look, each silently agreeing to buy a fake gun soon and use it on Wes. It was always fun to annoy him as he was always rather uptight, especially when he was in full head warbler mode.

"Hang on, what were you saying about Blaine?"

"Well David-" started Theo, patronisingly.

"Kinda surprised he took his eyes off Wes long enough to notice what we said," muttered Fors under his breath as David refuted the idea loudly.

"Anyway, what I was saying,"

"Is that you shouldn't try to find Aladdin right now." Fors finished his brother's sentence, looking seriously at the four.

"Wait, is this one of your traps? Have you two locked him up somewhere or something?"

"Myrtle!" Fors faked a gasp at Nick, each soot haired boy looking offended to say the least, "do you really think we'd do something like that?"

"You trapped me and Jeff in a cupboard until and wouldn't let us out until we admitted our feelings for eachother.."

"But it worked!"

"Hey, maybe we should try that on Wevid," thought Theo aloud.

"Wevid?" Asked Jeff, cocking his blonde head to the side, leaning it on Nick's shoulder in curiosity.

"Yeah, Wes add David equals Wevid- simple math."

"Screw you two; we're both straight."

"You can't say you want to screw us and then say you're not gay, it doesn't work like that..."

"Fuck you."

"Like I said..."

Kurt perched on the corner of his bed, staring down at the floor as Blaine sat next to him, still keeping a short distance between them so as not to scare the pusillanimous boy.

"Kurt..."

The said teenager's eyes flicked up for a moment but quickly fell back to resting on the floor, wishing Blaine would just leave. Why should he care? Kurt didn't want his pity. However, Blaine wasn't usually very easily deterred and he was determined to get Kurt to trust him- even if it was just a little.

He bent down on his knees in front of his roommates, trying to catch his eyes in his own.

"Kurt. Look at me...please?"

Unwillingly, Kurt slowly raised his head, looking doubtfully at the lead warbler.

"I know you're scared- I probably caused most of it- but you don't need to be, I swear. I just need you to trust me on this."

Blaine was surprised to see Kurt shaking his head minutely, a tiny smile on his face although it didn't look like a happy one- it just showed sadness.

"Kurt, I promise you, I'm not lying."

Kurt continued to shake his head, now just looking confused and reaching for his notebook, shaking as of he expected Blaine to tell him off for doing so. Instead, Blaine just gave him an encouraging smile.

'You didn't cause most of the fear...but-'

Blaine curiously watched Kurt as he crossed out the 'but', what had he done? If he was honest, he was desperate to know so he could fix it and therefore possibly get Kurt to trust him but disliked the idea of pushing Kurt if he didn't want to say. That was probably one of the worst things someone could do, in Blaine's opinion, especially to someone like Kurt who was clearly very nervous about communicating.

Luckily (or unluckily, depends how you see it), Kurt caught the look and instantly began to look at the floor again, he knew trying to talk to anyone would be a bad idea, especially if Karofsky ever found out.

"Kurt, no, I'm sorry," apologised Blaine, not wanting Kurt to shut down again, "you don't need to say why, never feel like you have to do anything around me. If your uncomfortable just change the subject, I'll never pressure you into doing anything you don't want to and neither will anyone else here. Never think we'll get annoyed if you don't reply."

Kurt gave a tiny nod, looking at Blaine with an emotion Blaine had never seen before on him- a flicker of hope. The porcelain teen bit his lip, looking nervously at his book, as if deliberating something.

"What?" Blaine smiled, encouragingly.

Slowly, as if taking maximum thought over his words, Kurt wrote down a sentence in his shaking handwriting, holding it up for Blaine to see.