A/N: Part B! And the end of Act One. The angst is back with a vengeance. Thank you all for your wonderfully kind comments, they keep me going! And a warm hello to all you new readers! Concrit is always welcome.

Mercedes opened her locker with a bang, and Kurt jumped, turning to stare at her in surprise.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I slamming my locker door and glaring at everybody without telling my best friend anything about why I'm in such a bad mood? I didn't notice." She took out a Spanish textbook and slammed the metal door shut. Kurt tensed, annoyance coiling tight across his chest.

"It's nothing," he said shortly as he spun his lock. He opened the door to his locker, whacking it against the metal beside it purposely as Mercedes continued to remain an unwanted presence by his side.

"You've been moody all day," she pointed out, face set in determination. "What's going on, Kurt?"

He glanced at her no-nonsense expression and all of the words that had been pressing back behind his teeth pushed forward, angry and vicious. You don't care enough to notice when I have a real problem, he wanted to snap, so it must be nothing serious if you're worried about it. Something ugly must have seeped into his eyes, because Mercedes subtly flinched a little in hurt and took a small step backward.

Blaine's expression, cracked open and bleeding from wounds Kurt's word had made, flashed like lightning across his mind. Please, just let me help you.

Kurt clenched his jaw against the sudden wave of miserable crashing up against his throat. It's not her fault. Mercedes was a friend, he reminded himself. This was a battle he didn't have to fight. He sighed heavily, the breath dragging down at his shoulders.

Fine.

"It's Blaine," he admitted, the information pulling at his teeth as it left. "He wanted to go with us to school today."

Mercedes lit up. "Oh, I have to judge his cuteness!" she exclaimed, straightening from her position against the locker and craning her head around Kurt, as if expecting to find Blaine hiding somewhere behind him. "Where is he?"

"Locked safely in the house where he belongs," he stated defensively.

"Kurt!" She radiated reproof.

"I'm not going to let him come into the warzone with me!" Kurt protested, forgetting his books for a moment. "With all the flirting he does? He'd become an immediate target!"

Which was a lie.

Well, not really. It wasn't that he didn't think Blaine would be singled out the minute he so much as looked at Kurt with those eyes of his; it was just that that wasn't really the major concern. If Blaine had been a normal person, just a boy he'd met in a store or on the street, the first thing he would have wanted to do would have been to bring him to school and show him off. A gorgeous, sweet, kind boy, just this side of perfect, who didn't treat him like a leper; whom girls would swoon over, flirt with, scheme about, until Kurt very kindly stepped in with oh, he's dreamy, darling, but I wouldn't get your hopes up; who would act around Kurt as he always did. Little touches, and winks, and grins reserved just for him—things that Kurt would flaunt to the rest of the school—that would proclaim I am wanted, with a knowing side of and you wish he wanted you, in large, bold letters above the resident gay pariah. Why wouldn't he want to bring Blaine to school?

But warning signs flashing bright and alarming in his mind's eye screamed EMPATH and NOT HUMAN—and he saw Blaine, walking through the halls of McKinley without any of his mental walls, filled to bursting with feelings that weren't his, that he wouldn't be able to control no matter how many people he tried to influence. And more than that: Blaine, just knowing the minute Karofsky passed by, all of the secrets Kurt had been painstakingly hiding. Tell anyone and I'll kill you. And Kurt wouldn't even have to tell him, wouldn't even have to point Karofsky out to Blaine, because Blaine would just feel it and it would all be over. Something would break, and Karofsky would find out, and it would all be over.

That couldn't happen.

Under no circumstances could that be allowed to happen.

No.

"I think you're being unfair to Blaine," Mercedes told him. "If he wants to go to school with you, clearly he thinks he can handle it."

Yes, but Kurt wouldn't be able to handle it. He opened his mouth to argue further when the bell rang.

Mercedes jumped. "Oh damn, I forgot I told Quinn I'd meet up with her before Spanish!" she looked off down the hallway. "Are we still on for Friday night? We are not dropping this here."

The last thing Kurt wanted to do right now was go bowling. "Let's talk about it at lunch," he said. "We'll pick it up where we left off." Mercedes grinned in thanks.

"Deal," she said, and headed off down the hallway. Kurt watched her go, feeling more than slightly guilty. Maybe bowling was a good idea. He hadn't spent too much time with Mercedes since his dad's heart attack—and the wedding, and everything with Blaine had happened. Time with his best girlfriend would do him good.

His locker crashed closed too-close next to him and he spun around, eyes wide, to meet Karofsky's intent ones. His heart dropped to the floor. The hallway was almost empty, everyone hurrying to their class, and they were practically alone—Kurt froze, muscles tensing into granite as Karofsky stared, unmoving, unspeaking—

A finger poked into his chest.

Dragged downward.

Slow, and obscene.

Kurt would have stepped back, or flinched, or—but he couldn't move, couldn't look at anything except the terrifyingly small little lift of the corners of Karofsky's mouth, the smile, and—oh god oh god oh god how low was that finger going to go, exactly, what was he supposed to do, why was he just staring like that, Kurt move, Kurt, move move move!

Karofsky pushed against one of the large wooden buttons of his sweater, forcing shaking breath out of Kurt's diaphragm. "Nice sweater," he said to him. And then he left, just as swiftly as he came.

Leaving Kurt shaking in the middle of the empty hallway.

The fuck was that?

He tried to draw in breath, to calm himself down, but he only swallowed against an encroaching rush of hysteria. He had to go to English CLASS. He had to pull himself together and go to English class, and get past this like he always did. But the Henley he was wearing suddenly itched against his skin, creeping wrongness down his arms like so many spiders and he kept waiting for someone to notice, to come up to him and ask him if he was aware that his sweater was made of insects and would he like a new one and yes yes Kurt would like a new sweater, please, just give him a new sweater, somebody! But no one asked, and no one came to wipe off the spiders, and if he stayed in this school one more minute he would rip apart, or rip it apart, and he had to leave, he had to go, take a breath and walk out of the school, you're in control, you're in control, you're—

He was out the door and slamming his car door before he even knew what he was doing, swerving down the street and speeding down the road, parking the car half-hazardly in the driveway and charging through the front door, tearing off his sweater. Blaine jumped up from the couch, alarmed, calling his name and rushing after him as he raced up the stairs but Kurt couldn't stop to talk to him because he had to change, he had to burn this sweater, he had to do something before the dam broke, and he slammed his bedroom door shut and threw the sweater into the corner of his room and that was when the levees burst open.

He hadn't cried since his dad's heart-attack, and it was stupid to cry now over a sweater but he couldn't, he couldn't do it anymore, he couldn't wear that sweater anymore, and no, he wasn't okay, it wasn't okay, this wasn't something he could deal with anymore. When would Karofsky decide to kiss him again? How low would the finger go next time, what piece of clothing would set him off tomorrow? When would the little smile become a full-on grin, or a laugh, or a hard-on? He had thought he had understood, had figured out what the problem was (just a scared little boy) but it was like Karofsky was getting a thrill out of terrifying him and Kurt couldn't wrap his mind around it, couldn't predict what would happen next, couldn't plan for eventualities and outcomes and shoulder the consequences if he couldn't understand what was going through his opponent's head. What if Karofsky actually killed someone, what if he decided to—? He was on the floor, and he couldn't stop trembling, trying desperately to stop the outpouring of water cascading down his face. He couldn't do this, he couldn't do this, he couldn't…

He heard the pounding first.

Piercing through the thunderstorm in his brain: someone was pounding on his door.

And then came the voice, unrelenting. Coarse—as if it had been crying too.

"—ease, Kurt, let me help! Please! Let me in! Kurt, let me in!"

It was like a magnet had snapped his attention into place.

Blaine.

Blaine, outside the door. He had wanted to come to school with him.

"Let me in," Blaine cried.

…Blaine could help him.

Kurt got up as if hypnotized, walking trance-like to the door. Let him in.

He stood, hot tears still slipping down his cheeks like afterthoughts, staring at the locked door in front of him. An option. Blaine was quiet, now, but Kurt could hear his labored breathing muffling against the heavy wood.

He reached out and turned the doorknob. Opened the door. Blaine's sudden intake of air entered with the cool breeze of the hallway.

Those hazel-honey eyes were rimmed red, the usually well-kept hair a mess. Blaine's chest moved unsteady as Kurt looked at him.

Let him in.

"Okay," Kurt rasped, the words scratching against his throat.

Let him in.

"Okay."

Blaine moved fast, attacked him in a hug, and they sank back down to the floor like weights were attached to their limbs.

"Okay," Kurt repeated into his shoulder, "Okay." And Blaine's arms wrapped strong and secure around him, heating support and release into his skin, and that unexplainable sense of safety and comfort that came from no magic at all—that made Kurt swell with the feeling that this embrace was right, the most right thing he had ever done—and Kurt cried again, but with relief—because he could—because it was okay.

"Okay," he breathed into Blaine. And Blaine turned into a truth, and warmed it back into his skin. Okay.