A/N- Thanks for all the great feedback from everyone. I serious get all verklempt and flattered when people say that they like how Flint and Kurt are developing. I think its a great guilt!ship for Klaine fans personally.

And thank you especially to those who had a connection to Flint's situation with his family and grandmother. I hope it was respectful of the difficulty of facing an illness like this.

And don't worry...sad!Flint is a bit better now that he has Kurt around. Look forward to another movie night with the boys in the next chapter!


Flint's eyes were shut, but Kurt could tell that he wasn't asleep. He didn't know how long they had been sitting here, how long he had watched Flint with his head resting on the couch cushion. But he could hear his own stomach gurgling.

"Hey." Kurt said softly and Flint rolled his neck around to look at him. His eyes were clearer now. And Kurt couldn't help reaching out to smooth back a piece of his dark hair.

Flint sighed.

"Thanks for this."

"No problem. Dyou want to go to dinner? My stomach has decided its time for food."

Flint drew his eyebrows together in consideration for a moment, then slipped his hand from Kurt's to push himself up.

"Yeah. I'm kinda hungry."


Blaine saw the two boys sitting at the table, and moved towards them hesitantly. He wanted to sit with Kurt. He missed him kinda. But after their talk the other day, he didn't want to step all over the boundaries that had been set. Then he caught Flint's eye and was surprised when he motioned subtly to the free space along the table.

Blaine stepped forward, revealing himself to Kurt with a cautious wave.

"Hi! Am I intruding?" Kurt smiled at him, but quickly looked to Flint, with a questioning look.

"No, of course not. Grab a seat." Flint replied. Blaine slid into a space.

"How's the weekend going?" Kurt turned to Blaine, almost as open as he had ever been. Almost.

"You know...I went home last night, stayed there overnight. Homework all day today, so nothing thrilling."

"How's Neesha?" Kurt turned back to Flint to explain. "Blaine's family has this huge husky-german shepherd mix. I'm not huge on dogs, but he is such a big puppy that you can't help liking him."

Flint nodded along and chimed in on the discussion.

"We had a german shepherd and a St. Bernard when I was a kid. Luckily both male. I can't imagine what kind of goliath dog they would have produced otherwise." Blaine laughed.

He had always liked Flint well enough, to the degree that he had known him through Warblers and such.

But that didn't mean it wasn't still a bit awkward when Kurt apparently deemed it safe to leave them alone together and went off to the salad bar.

They caught each other's eye and looked down at their plates. Blaine frowned, running a finger around the edge of his water glass. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something, anything to say, but Flint beat him to it.

"It's okay Blaine. You guys are friends." It kinda wasn't okay, but Flint wasn't going to be that guy.

"Thanks. though...I really hope I wasn't interrupting anything by sitting here."

Flint laughed shortly.

"We were just talking."

"I know." Blaine returned, sounding shorter than he had intended. "I mean-"

But Flint didn't find out what he meant. Instead, a loud and clumsy knot of boys interrupted as they filled in around them, dropping down trays and clattering forks across the table.

Gareth slid into place across from Blaine, grimacing at his tray.

"This looks awful. I'm going to end up having pudding and cereal for dinner again." Kurt rolled his eyes as he returned and slid back into his seat.

"Then try the vegetarian option for once. It won't kill you."

Gareth looked at Kurt's plate and shook his head.

"I'm ethically opposed to tofu. Nothing should come in "curd" form."

"Except cheese." Simon chimed in from the other side of Blaine. Gareth nodded in firm agreement.

"Exactly."

Kurt looked to Flint with exasperation, but he just shrugged and smiled guiltily.

"I'd love to say I'm with you on this one Kurt...but I've curd a lot of arguments against the stuff."

Gareth snorted chocolate milk and Kurt just glared at Flint for his terrible pun.

"You are the biggest dork ever." He said with exasperation, but a hint of a grin. Flint just rested back in his chair, knitting his fingers together and stretching out his arms as he smirked back.

"You like it."

Kurt just rolled his eyes, but it was clear to everyone at the table that Flint wasn't completely wrong in that regard.

Blaine didn't really want to laugh, but he did, right along with the other boys. He wasn't sure about another guy being the one that Kurt looked for to make him smile and laugh and flash a look of disdain at. But he supposed this was just the way things were now.


They had been busy for the last few days, with school and Warblers and life in general. Flint and Kurt had tried to sit together at lunch on Tuesday, but ten minutes in Flint had got a phone call from Danielle, who apparently was having "boy trouble." Rather than actually getting a chance to hang out, Kurt spent the next half hour watching the one sided pantomime that was Flint on the phone with his sister.

"No, Danny, seriously though, I have to go. I am not trying to get rid of you. I haven't eaten my lunch and I have to go back to class in a few minutes. Yes. I'll talk to you later. Yeah. You too Danny." Flint slapped his phone on the table with a sigh and reached for his glass of water. "She is exhausting. I should have known after the boy story this weekend that I would get a call."

"Your little sister calls you about boy trouble?" Flint nodded, running his hands over his face for a moment.

"No matter how many times I ask her not to."

Kurt laughed both at his words and at his appearance. The motion of his hands had pushed the other boy's eyebrows into disarray.

"Come here."

Flint frowned, leaning forward slightly as Kurt moved in closer. He concentrated for a moment, using two fingers to smooth out one side and then the other.

"There. For a minute you looked like an angry owl."

"I do not!" Flint said indignantly. Kurt was still smiling, admiring the cute crinkle of the boy's brow.

"You totally did." Kurt reached up and gently poked the tip of Flint's nose. He was trying hard not to smile at back at Kurt's assured smile, when he realized how close the two of them were. His mouth went a bit dry again. Flint found his eyes flicking down to Kurt's lips, watching as the smile on them melted away and a tiny space opened between them.

But Flint was caught by a shift of colour in his peripheral vision and was suddenly reminded that they were sitting in the middle of the Dalton dining hall, surrounded by students and plastic trays, and this was not what he wanted his kiss with Kurt to be. Luckily, his brain kicked in on automatic, and he was suddenly chattering off and pulling back from Kurt, who may have let a bit of a flop find its way into his body language as he sat back as well.

"So, yeah, um...My sister, when I came out, decided that the most important thing about it was that now if she couldn't talk to Vanessa about boys she could talk to me. Which was kinda great that it was her biggest concern at the time, but now is getting totally terrifying because she's probably going to start dating soon and dating leads to kissing and..." Flint stopped stumbling over his words and looked at Kurt warily. "Did you..."

Kurt tried to look innocent, tried to act like he hadn't mumbled a sarcastic response of "except with us" when Flint had said that dating lead to kissing.

"No, nothing...what were you saying?" Flint frowned and his mouth opened and shut once.

"Uh. It's not important...So, uh, are you gonna be able to go to Warblers night tomorrow?"

Kurt nodded half heartedly.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Cool. Cool." Flint said absently, berating himself slightly in his head. Kurt pushed his tray away from him a bit sharply.

"I'm done. I'm going to go to class early, I want to see if Mr. Glenn will let my change my presentation topic."

Flint nodded hesitantly, knowing that he didn't want to leave things awkward. As Kurt slipped his bag over his shoulder, Flint reached out, his hand clasping along the other boy's wrist.

"Hey. I'm supposed to get snacks for tomorrow night. It's Jeff and my turn this week. Did you want to go shopping with me tomorrow after class? I know you were saying you were low on body wash or something. You could pick some up while we're there."

Kurt looked at the warm hand against his skin and shirt sleeve for a moment. He liked this boy. He really did. And whatever the heck was going on, it would sort out. Probably.

"Yeah okay, I'd like that."

Flint's fingers squeezed gently for a moment.

"Okay. I'll see you in a bit."


Flint looked at the back of Kurt's head, which was all he could see from his seat in bio class. He slipped out his phone, sliding it into his desk where the teacher couldn't see. He bit his lip for a minute, thinking about what to type.

"The back of your head is really cute." Flint pursed his mouth and pressed send. He hoped Kurt's seeming fondness of his really bad jokes would stand even when they weren't exactly getting along well.

He saw Kurt shift, likely in reaction to his phone vibrating, and bend down between him and Kyle, pretending to reach for a new pen. He slid his phone out of his blazer pocket and Flint knew he had read it, because as he sat back up he glanced back towards Flint with a wary, unsure look on his face. Flint smiled to himself, opening up the text that Kurt quickly sent back.

"Seriously?" Flint's thumbs flew quickly but cautiously inside the desk.

"No. That'd be weird. But I figured it could get you to look at me. I like your smile." He could flirt. He could compliment. Why couldn't he just balls up and kiss Kurt? He sighed and pressed send. He could just barely see Kurt's hands opening the message, but he caught the reluctant upturn of lips that Kurt tried to hide. Okay... He typed out another message.

"Can we study tonight? Make up for lunch?"

Kurt seemed to think about this for a minute, but eventually he caught Flint's eye and gave a barely perceptible nod. Flint smiled down at his notebook, stroking another treble clef into the margins. Okay. Maybe he didn't totally suck at this. At least not all the time.


Kurt had arrived at Flint's room that evening with a serious workload.

"While I'd love to think that studying could be code for watching a ANTM marathon or something, I actually have a huge load of stuff to do if I'm going to Warblers night tomorrow."

Flint pushed himself up off his bed to help Kurt with the armful of texts and binders.

"If you want to cancel and do your work that's okay." Flint offered, hoping it would be declined.

Kurt waved it off, and dropped his armful onto the middle of the bed before crawling to the open space at the foot.

"Unless you're planning on distracting me intentionally, I'd rather do it here than alone in my room. Better company." Kurt quipped happily, pushing a few books around.

"Okay. History class readings first, and then...geometry!" He feigned excitement as he picked up the two texts and laid them in his lap. "What about you?"

Flint shrugged, settling back against the head of his bed.

"Health class project. Just doing some research and trying to get pictures." He pulled his laptop back onto his legs. "Music?"

Kurt looked up, already reading his history assignment.

"Yes please."

Flint opened up his iTunes and put on a playlist of instrumentals. It filled the quiet between the two boys and the turn of pages.


Kurt looked up from his problem set to see Flint staring blankly at the far wall for the third time. Kurt put his book aside, tucking the pencil in to save his place and scooted forward. His movement caught Flint's attention and he looked up at Kurt questioningly.

"You're still thinking about the weekend?" Kurt asked quietly, both of them knowing what part of the weekend he was referring too. Flint shrugged, tilting his head to one side in acquiescence. Kurt just waited patiently for the other boy to find his voice.

"Do you ever feel like... you're supposed to be growing up, but you just...want to stay a kid?" Kurt looked intrigued and turned towards Flint, crossing his legs on the bed.

"What do you mean?" He had an idea, but Flint probably needed to flesh this out for himself as much s for Kurt.

"It's just...We're supposed to be growing up, and becoming adults, but..." Flint ground the palm of his hand into his eye. "Sometime I wish I could go back to knowing that adults were invincible. When you got overwhelmed, and you knew it was okay, cause someone else would come and fix it."

Kurt nodded along, humming his understanding.

"I can't even handle seeing my grandma, and my dad, he's the one who's really broken by it. I don't know what to do. I feel like I should fix it." Flint laughed breathlessly. "And I have no idea what I'm doing."

Kurt thought for a minute, watching Flint stare aimlessly across the bedspread, his hands unconsciously picking at the stitches in it. Then he climbed to his knees and crawled forwards over his own school books. When he was right next to the other boy he knelt again and waited for Flint to look him in the eye.

"Last year," Kurt started, placing his hands on his knees. "My dad had a heart attack." Flint's eyes crinkled in sudden concern, but Kurt waved away his questions and pushed on.

"And this was before Carole, and Finn, and for years, it'd just been me and my dad."

Kurt screwed up his mouth slightly as he paused, thinking of the months and years that they had lived off each other so precariously.

"And when he was unconscious, and I didn't know if he was going to make it, I kept having the weirdest thoughts. Not even the one's you'd think. Like having to tell family, or funerals, or stuff. I kept wondering how I was going to pay the mortgage on the house. Things I'd always known about, but never thought of you know? And then even after he woke up...suddenly it wasn't just...will he remember to get wheat bread instead of white at the store and will he take my car away of I spend too much at the mall? It was...is your will up to date, and have you taken your meds, and diets and rest and when do the bills have to be paid this month, and can we afford the hospital costs. It was so much more than just being sick. It was that...now he had to depend on me as much as I depended on him."

Flint was nodding along and Kurt's mouth softened into a sympathetic smile.

"And I would really like to tell you that it gets easier. But really...it doesn't. It's always difficult and we have to just...take it as it comes. Some of us sooner than others. But. I know what it's like. I know it's hard. And I'll be here if you want to talk, or not talk, or just sit."

"And hold my hand?" Flint wasn't smiling, but his eyes were soft and bright as he reached out and grabbed one of Kurt's hands.

Kurt laughed, letting his fingers slip in between Flint's.

"If you'll let me."

Flint huffed slightly, as though Kurt was being ridiculous.

"You know I will."

Kurt just smiled, rocking to the side to bump Flint's shoulder.

"As much as I want to stay here, I really should be heading off to bed." Kurt pushed forward, squeezing Flint's hand before he untangled his fingers. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Night." Flint replied, watching Kurt gather his things and slip from the room.

He laid back on the bed. It was nice to have someone besides Jeff to talk to.

It was even nicer that it was a boy who wanted to hold his hand. Flint couldn't help but hope he might also be a boy who actually wanted more than that from him. If only Flint could be brave enough to let him know he wanted it.