A/N: I revised Chapter 1 a bit to give Blaine a less serious broken arm and for him to have a cast on already. The type of break I described originally (I believe) would have had him in bed for a few days, but I didn't want that. It is not entirely necessary to reread the previous part. The only scene altered was at the hospital. On another note, please let me know what you think. I've been seeing a lot of Blaine's past stories lately, so am not sure if I should really continue this because it's getting a little redundant.
When Blaine woke up the following morning, he decided that he wasn't going to let this set him back. He got past this once before; he was going to do it again, if not faster.
He tilted his head to the side and saw that Wes' bed was empty and a glance to his bedside clock indicated first period was halfway through. He wasn't too surprised with how late he slept in. Rather he was surprised he slept through Wes' alarm and the other's movements about the room to get ready for class. Regardless, Blaine saw that if he got up now, he'd probably make it to second period.
That decided he sat up gingerly from his bed, grunting as his left arm protested fiercely at the movement. He sat there for a while breathing through the steady throbbing pain that was his arm and knew he was due for another painkiller. They were in the medicine cabinet though, so he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and carefully pushed himself to his feet. He then shuffled his way to the bathroom to perform his usual morning routine.
Making it to second period was a theory at best. He had forgotten how long it could take to get ready with only one usable arm. It had taken twice as it normally would to get his uniform on and in the end he just settled on leaving on the t-shirt he had slept in the night before and tossed his blazer on over it. He also forwent the tie.
He gave himself the once-over in the bathroom mirror, eyed his curly hair but couldn't dredge up the energy to do anything about it and made a face at his pale complexion. His arm throbbed again demanding he do something about it. So, he opened the medicine cabinet and stared at the bottle of painkillers for a minute before opting for some ibuprofen instead. He'd fall asleep otherwise if he took what his doctor prescribed. Besides he was able to manage with over-the-counter medication before.
He took three pills and cupped a handful of water from the sink to ease them down his throat. He then carefully put his messenger bag onto his right shoulder, took a steadying breath, and left his room.
The hallways were deserted, as was the courtyard leading to his U.S. History class, but that wasn't too surprising as second period had started about twenty minutes ago. When he reached his classroom, he hesitated for a moment outside the door before giving himself a mental shake, inhaled another calming breath, and opened the door.
As expected the entire class immediately turned towards him, including Mr. Clarke and Blaine stood there frozen for a second, mind completely blanking.
Fortunately, Mr. Clarke broke the silence fairly quickly. "I was not expecting to see you this morning, Mr. Cartwright although I must say it is good to see you up and about." So soon after what happened was the unspoken dialogue, but Blaine chose to ignore it.
"I apologize for being late, Mr. Clarke," Blaine said, "It won't happen again."
"Considering the circumstances, your tardiness is perfectly understandable," Mr. Clarke said with a reassuring smile, which Blaine returned eventually. He then eyed him speculatively. "Are you certain you're up to sitting through my class today?" Blaine nodded his head with a level of certainty that had his teacher nodding along not too long after. "All right, but if you feel like leaving at any time, please do so."
"Yes, sir."
"Please take your seat then," the older man said, gesturing to the back of the room before turning back to the class. "Now, let's get back to McCarthyism."
As Blaine made his way to his seat, he received a few 'good to see you, man's', fist bumps, and smiles. Needless to say, it brightened his mood considerably and made his goal of returning things to normal seem more attainable.
Blaine settled into his desk, pulled out his notebook and pencil, and began taking notes.
He could do this.
oOo
Kurt entered McKinley and immediately noticed that something was up. The atmosphere in the school was a little subdued and the students he noted in the hallway were all whispering in low tones.
"Did you hear?"
"It's crazy."
"Heard he spent a night in jail because his parents wouldn't bail him out."
"I heard the guy was in surgery for hours."
"It was just the one guy though. Weird considering it's an all-boys school. Aren't they all, you know, homos?"
Kurt froze in mid step, an overwhelming sense of unease settling over him and he turned towards the voice. The sophomore must have noticed Kurt because he jumped all of a sudden, eyes widening at the intense look the countertenor was directing at him.
"Look," the kid backpedaled, "I didn't mean it that way, okay?"
Kurt disregarded the statement (because how else could you mean it) and asked instead, "What were you talking about?"
The boy glanced to his friend, who just held up his hands in an 'I'm not getting in the middle of this' gesture, before speaking. "Dave Karofsky. He beat up a kid yesterday in some boarding school. With a baseball bat. They arrested him."
The moment Karofsky's name was mentioned Kurt was put on full alert, his entire body going taunt like a bow string. "And?" he asked tersely.
The kid looked confused. "And what?"
"What school? Who was it? When did it happen?" he asked in rapid succession, his grip on the strap of his messenger bag tightening as he did.
"I already told you it was yesterday and how should I know?" the kid scoffed getting pretty fed up with the interrogation.
Kurt made a frustrated noise. "Useless! Everyone in this school is completely useless!" he practically shouted as he turned around, reached into his bag and pulled out his phone. He walked to his locker ignoring the muttered freak aimed in his direction and scrolled through his contacts until Blaine's name came up.
His thumb hovered over the name and he noticed his hand was trembling slightly. There was no reason to believe it was Blaine—that it was anyone he knew, but Karofsky knew who Blaine was, had threatened Kurt just yesterday if he told anyone about the kiss. Blaine knew about the kiss. Blaine went to a boarding school. Blaine was openly gay. But Blaine had texted him yesterday, his words bearing their usual witticism. Then again, he didn't respond to his query about how his day was. At the time Kurt owned it up to the other being busy, but now there was something undeniably sinister about the silence.
Kurt thumbed mobile and pressed his phone to his ear. The phone rang and rang before going to voicemail.
"Hey, this is Blaine. Leave a message."
Kurt exhaled a shaky breath steeling himself to sound as normal as possible. "Hey. It's me, Kurt. I—there's some talk going around and I just wanted to check to see if you were all right. Call me back as soon as you get this, okay? Talk to you soon."
Kurt ended the call, but continued to stare at his phone. Blaine was probably in class and couldn't answer his phone his brain reasoned. Blaine was fine.
Kurt rotated his phone and began typing a text.
Hey, can you call or text me as soon as you get this?
Kurt pressed send then clutched his phone to his chest, leaning against his locker as he waited for a response. Blaine was fairly good at responding to texts even if he was in class. So when fifteen minutes passed without anything happening Kurt was officially freaking out.
Without making the conscious decision to do so, he was already jogging to the entrance of the school maneuvering around the many students still trickling in.
"Kurt?"
Someone snagged his arm pulling him to a stop and he automatically tried to get himself free.
"Dude, what's wrong?"
Kurt finally looked up the arm that held him, saw Finn and blurted out, "I have to get out of here. Blaine, he—" Kurt shook his head. "Let go of me, Finn."
"Who?" Finn said looking even more confused. "Where are you going? School's about to start."
"I don't have time to explain this to you, Finn Hudson," Kurt hissed. "Let me go. Now."
Finn did so as if he was physically burnt, and Kurt continued his brisk trek out of McKinley.
He didn't notice he was followed until his keys were ripped out of his hands. Kurt spun around and completely snapped. "What do you think you're doing, Finn? Give those back."
Finn backed up, hands raised defensively as Kurt stalked towards him. "No way, man. You are at a hundred percent freak out, and you shouldn't be driving."
"Finn—"
"Look," Finn said in a placating tone, "I'll drive, okay? Wherever you want."
Kurt looked about ready to protest when Finn cut him off. "You're shaking, Kurt. You—Just let me drive, okay?"
The red haze that had filled Kurt's vision receded as he looked down at his hands that were indeed shaking uncontrollably. He clenched them into fists before inhaling a deep breath and releasing it slowly. "Okay," he finally relented and moved to the passenger's side of his Navigator. "Hurry up, Finn," he snapped when he noticed that the taller jock hadn't moved.
Finn high-tailed it to the driver's seat and started the car. "Where to?"
Kurt punched in the address into his GPS and Finn did a double take at the name that popped up. "Dalton Academy? Isn't that—"
"Just drive, Finn," Kurt said sounding tired. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head away from the other to stare out the window.
Finn didn't say another word, backed the car out of its parking space and drove off school property.
oOo
Wes was going to kill Blaine.
He had stopped by their room between second and third period to check up on the vocalist and saw that he was missing along with his uniform and bag.
Wes bit back a curse as he stormed out of his room and headed towards Blaine's calculus class. The moron would decide to go to class even after the doctor specifically told him to take it easy the first few days and to not jostle his arm too much.
Wes realized his anger may have been misdirected, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. He still didn't know who that guy was who broke Blaine's arm. No one was telling anyone anything. Not who the guy was, if this was just a random act of crazy, a hate crime, or one of the other hundred scenarios he and his friends had thought up during dinner the previous night.
Honestly, Wes never expected anything like this to happen, especially here at Dalton. Sure, he read about violent crimes in the news all the time, but experiencing something like this firsthand? Wes couldn't remember a time when he was so scared and angry and he hadn't even been there when Blaine got attacked. Paul had caught him as he was heading to AP physics, explained what happened in a panicked voice and how Blaine wasn't responding to them or letting anyone near him and Wes just took off.
Wes never wanted to see his friend—or anyone for that matter—in that position again. It was awful and terrible and reminded him how much this world sucked.
As flashes of yesterday came to mind, Wes started to jog across the quad wanting to see Blaine this second. Blaine may have developed into his current cool, charming, and confident self, but Wes also remembered the Blaine of three years previous: nervous, shy, and someone who jumped at any unexpected noise. Blaine always did his best to hide this vulnerable part of himself and that's what worried Wes the most because he wasn't sure what his friend would do to accomplish that. This naturally drew out his protective instincts. Wes was the eldest brother of four; he couldn't turn it off even if he wanted to.
There was still five minutes before the start of third period, so he had no qualms about walking into the classroom and zeroing in on Blaine who sat in the second row chatting to Erik.
Wes calmly placed the palms of his hands across Blaine's desk immediately calling attention to himself. He pasted a tight grin on his face. "Blaine."
Blaine's returning smile was slightly more wary. "Hey, Wes. Don't you have AP physics?"
Wes leaned on his hands until he was mere centimeters from Blaine and noted the lines of discomfort around the other's eyes and how his face was slightly pale. "May I have a word?"
Blaine opened his mouth, but Wes cut him off. "Outside. Please," he added as an afterthought.
Something shuttered in Blaine's expression—it was so quick that if Wes hadn't been paying attention he wouldn't have caught it—before the other agreed with a nod.
"I'll talk to you later, Erik," Blaine said as he stood up. Erik shrugged before turning to talk to another student Wes did not recognize.
They walked until they exited the building. Sound carried easily down the halls of the McGregor Building and as Blaine had a feeling that this conversation was not going to be a calm exchange, opted to just move it outside.
Once there, Blaine leaned against the side of the building feeling a little lightheaded. He was pushing himself, he knew that, and was actually considering heading back to his room before Wes showed up. The other looked pissed, and Blaine expected to be yelled at the moment they were alone; however, Wes was currently intent on rifling through his backpack from which he pulled out a granola bar. He then proceeded to tear open the wrapper.
"Here," Wes said holding the bar out to Blaine. "I know for a fact that you must be hungry considering you fell asleep before I got back from dinner last night and slept through breakfast."
Blaine accepted the bar, looked at it, and then at Wes as a genuine smile pulled at his cheeks. "Thanks," he said before taking a bite. He was hungry actually; didn't even notice until he saw the food.
Wes nodded. "You're welcome. Now what the hell do you think you're doing? You know the doctors said to take it easy and to skip school. What if someone bumped into you?"
Blaine took another bite knowing he was delaying the inevitable, but did so anyway. Wes merely folded his arms across his chest and waited patiently for Blaine to swallow.
Blaine sighed. "I feel better, okay? I don't want to fall behind in my classes."
Wes looked at him skeptically. "Bull shit."
bristled. "Look, I appreciate you looking out for me, for what you did yesterday, but I'm okay, all right? Let's just move on."
Wes stared at him as if he had grown a second head. "Are you insane? What—do you even hear yourself?"
Blaine stuffed the last bit of granola in his mouth before shoving the wrapper in his pants pocket. "I don't know what you want me to say."
Blaine was missing the point entirely and Wes was fairly certain he was being intentionally thick. Still, there were answers he wanted to know and this was a convenient opening if he ever heard one. "Well, for starters you can tell me who that guy was. Did you even know him?"
Blaine fell silent, not because he was debating on whether or not he would tell Wes the truth, but because he was trying to decide how much to tell him without breaking Kurt's trust. Up until now, Blaine had only mentioned to Wes how he was helping Kurt deal with some things at his school, never really going into the details because there was no reason to and although Kurt never told him directly not to, it was implied. Blaine owed it to Wes to tell him something though considering how the other had stuck by him this entire time and how truly concerned he looked. "Yea, kind of," he finally said. "He's from McKinley; Kurt's school."
"Kurt?"
Blaine frowned at Wes. "Yea...you know the guy who spied—"
"I remember who he is," Wes said looking mildly offended. "How could I not with all your mooning?"
Blaine was struck speechless for a moment before his hackles raised. "I was not—"
Wes gave him a pointed look. "Yes, you were. Believe me. Though I'm just wondering why he's here," Wes said pointing over his shoulder.
Blaine turned around to look and was surprised to see Kurt barreling down the quad towards them. Kurt looked like a man on a mission—a man dressed impeccably in black skinny jeans and a familiar blue Marc Jacobs jacket—although you could see the telltale signs of worry etched on his face. Not to mention the fact that his hair was slightly disheveled. That was most disconcerting of all. David and a mammoth teenager in a grey sweatshirt and jeans, who Blaine didn't recognize, trailed closely behind him.
Blaine frowned slumping against the stone wall behind him. He wasn't ready to see Kurt. He hadn't figured out what he was going to say to him yet. How'd he find out about this so fast?
Wes watched how Blaine's entire body grew tense and wary and he frowned as he looked back at the approaching group of people. He knew David wouldn't be hanging out with anyone untrustworthy especially after what happened yesterday. All the same, Wes sidled up alongside Blaine and waited with him as the others arrived, hoping his presence would calm the other down and that the encounter would provide him with some much needed answers.