Chapter 4: Of Bullies and Study Dates

Blaine

When Blaine got out of his car the next day and started walking across the parking lot he saw a commotion by the dumpsters many of his team mates hung out at every morning. He had arrived earlier than usual that day, anxious to see Kurt again and to make some progress, but he froze when he saw the big linebacker drag Kurt in the direction of the dumpster.

By the time his legs decided to work again, Kurt had already been thrown over the edge and his teammates were slowly walking off while teachers walked toward the school without even looking in their direction. Blaine felt his blood boil and he wanted to scream at them to do something, because now he understood why the jocks hung around the dumpster. Their movements were too practiced for it being the first time and his heart went out for Kurt. No wonder Kurt didn't trust Blaine when his own teammates were torturing him.

When he finally reached the dumpsters and he pulled himself up to look over the edge and saw Kurt wiping of what looked like yesterday's lunch. His eyes widened when he spotted Blaine before they hardened.

"Come to mock be?" he asked holding his head high, but Blaine could hear his voice crack. Blaine shook his head and offered Kurt his hand to help him climb out. Kurt pushed it away at first but after nearly slipping on something Blaine didn't even want to know what it was, he grabbed Blaine's hand.

The sudden extra weight pulled Blaine forward and he wished, not for the first time, that he were stronger and taller. He pushed his legs against the dumpster for leverage while Kurt held onto his hand as he climbed out. His hand fit perfectly into Blaine's he thought before shaking his head and turning to the task at hand. Kurt was still covered from head to toe in the contents of the dumpster and was unsuccessfully trying to clean himself off.

"I'm so sorry Kurt," he blurted out, horrified by his teammates behavior but Kurt just waved him off. "Don't bother, it's nothing I'm not used to." There was nothing Blaine could say to that so he went with an empathetic smile but Kurt just glared at him. "I don't need your pity. And now if you excuse me I need to get changed before the smell sticks."

Kurt pushed past Blaine but Blaine managed to keep up this time. "We are still on for working on the project right?" he asked as he followed Kurt to a side entrance. Kurt nodded. "I can't do this afternoon though. I need to wash those before my parents get home and see them," he said pointing at his ruined clothes before suddenly stopping in his tracks.

"I mean I don't want them to see because they'd just be worried," he quickly added and Blaine nodded. Keeping bullying from parents was something he understood. He had kept a lot of things from his dad as well, because he was worried about his heart, like the football team telling him he was only safe as long as they were winning.

"Hey, I get it. It's okay if we only do lunch in the library today. They had reached the door by then and Blaine knew Kurt would run off as soon as they were inside.

"By the way, I told my dad about you and he invited you over to dinner. Let me know if you can make it any time soon," he told Kurt and walked off before Kurt could say no or react to the announcement. If Kurt was angry he'd have to come to the library to talk to him.

Kurt

Kurt glared after Blaine as he made his way to an empty girls' bathroom to get changed. He hadn't wanted Blaine to find out about the dumpster tosses and was glad that Blaine usually arrive after he had already climbed out again and was on his way to school.

People usually looked the other way and Kurt hated the way Blaine had looked at him once he had managed to escape from the dumpster, covered in day old left overs.

It also wasn't like Kurt didn't want to see Blaine's dad again, it was just painful because as he remembered Burt had always been so kind to him, while his own dad was a total asshole. He had felt safe at Blaine's house because there was no yelling and punishment for misbehavior didn't mean bruises or being locked in his room. The nearly two years he had spent at Blaine's house had been the best of his life and that was just pathetic.

He longed for the day when someone noticed that something was wrong beyond the bullying but he was also afraid of that day, so he kept the few people who wanted to talk to him at bay.

If he had someone like Burt in his life he would report his parents in a heartbeat, but he had heard the horror stories, heard what happened to gay kids in the system. He couldn't risk it, taking his father's abuse over what he'd have to deal with there any day.

Stuffing yet another outfit into a plastic bag, food cushioned your fall but made it harder to clean up afterward, he stepped outside the bathroom and nearly collided with Rachel.

"I thought I saw you come in here," she told him cheerfully but Kurt tried to ignore her and walked over to his locker with Rachel following right behind him.

"Invitationals are in a week and I just wanted to personally invite you," Rachel told him as he retrieved his books from his locker, Rachel as usual not caring that people were starring at her. Kurt caught Blaine standing next to his own locker a few rows down watching his and Rachel's conversation, but when he realized Kurt had caught him, he looked away quickly.

Rachel was giving him an odd smile when he looked back at her, but that girl was crazy so who knew what was that about. When he looked back in Blaine's direction, he was surrounded by the cheerios again, the two girls he recognized from Glee performances each having linked their arms with him. Jealousy reared its ugly head for a moment and when he looked away he understood why Rachel was smiling at him that way. He'd seen her look the same way at the tall boy who was friends with Mohawk boy and the blond cheerleader who had a baby last year with Mohawk boy. He might not have friends at McKinley but not even he had missed the biggest scandal the school had had in years.

They both had to accept one thing, they weren't getting what they wanted. Blaine's invitation had been nice but he was sure Burt had put Blaine up to it, because there was no way popular Blaine Hummel would actually want to be his friend outside of the group project and he would definitely never date someone like Kurt.

He couldn't even let himself hope because he didn't know how much more heartbreak he could survive in his life.

Blaine

"So Rachel tells me she is trying to convert you to a Gleek as well," Blaine broke the silence. They had met up at the same table as the day before with Blaine already waiting for Kurt. Kurt had sat down silently, wearing different clothes than he had this morning, without mentioning what Blaine had asked him in parting. He looked even skinner in them and Blaine wanted nothing more than buy him an unhealthy lunch. Blaine wasn't going to push Kurt though. He had all the time in the world and he was going to listen to his dad's advice. He couldn't force anything but he could spend time with Kurt and let him no he wasn't alone anymore.

They had spent the first fifteen minutes on research – Blaine on his laptop and Kurt looking through books he had found in the library when Blaine asked the question. He was wondering by now how Kurt was turning in assignments when he wasn't carrying a computer around like most students did, but that was one more question he'd like the answer to, but knew that asking it would send Kurt to the hills.

Kurt looked up before quickly looking away and shrugging. "I don't know why she keeps asking. I'm really not that good." Blaine scoffed, because really, Rachel wouldn't keep bugging Kurt if he weren't incredibly talented.

"You were the perfect Jasmine to my Aladdin all those years ago. If your voice is still anything like that, you'd rule Glee," he told Kurt, finally verbally addressing the elephant in the room. Kurt either had already forgotten that he was pretending not to know Blaine or he was just caught up in the moment, because he smirked for a moment, before telling Blaine that maybe he was just too shy and that if Blaine was still as good as he was as Aladdin he was glad he was still singing.

Blaine wished he could talk to Kurt about what had happened with them in the past but he wanted Kurt to stay somewhat relaxed around him and so he was glad that before Kurt could realize what he had just admitted and freaked and Blaine spooked Kurt, they were saved by the bell and agreed to meet up again, the same time tomorrow, so Kurt could go home immediately when school was over.

Kurt

Without having to stay after classes with Blaine, Kurt got home twenty minutes after his last class had ended. Unfortunately his mom was already home and Kurt greeted her with a smile when he walked into the house, hoping she was in a good mood for once.

He stopped though when he saw the pile of dirty clothes on the coffee table, suddenly remembering that he had planed to wash them after his nap, but he had slept until the morning and had forgotten all about it when he realized he had slept through his first alarm.

"You want to tell me why we even buy you clothes if this is how you treat them?" his mom asked and Kurt took a step back. His mom had never hit him herself but what she was saying to him most of the time was bad enough.

"I'm sorry but it's not my fault," he tried to explain. "There are those boys at school who," he continued but his mom cut him off. "So you expect us to pay for this when you are too much of a girl to stand up to a bunch of boys. If you weren't a disgusting fag none of this would happen."

Kurt didn't have the strength to remind her that things like that had happened before he had even come out officially because in his mother's eyes, just existing was what was wrong about him. He couldn't count how many times she had told him she'd have aborted him if she had had the money, and lots of days he thought it would have been better if she had.

"I can't even look at you right now. Go to your room and don't show your face. If you treat the things we spend our hard earned money on like this, you don't deserve the food we pay for either."

Kurt was no stranger to being sent to his room without any food. Most days he got buy with what leftovers the new lunch lady gave him because he never had any lunch money and his mom sure as hell wasn't packing him any lunch.

Today it was harder than usual because he had spent lunch break in the library with Blaine and hadn't had anything to eat apart from two apples he had stolen from a neighborhood tree. Still, it could have been worse. Had his father been home, he would sure have some new bruises by now.

His dreams of a better future were the only thing keeping him going most days, and days like this, when his stomach hurt from the lack of food, were the hardest, were those days where he just wanted to take his dad's razor and slice his wrists so he wouldn't have to deal with all that anymore.

But he didn't want to give them the satisfaction. A few years ago, he had cut his own skin when the pain had become unbearable but he knew his parents would probably like it if they knew he was hurting himself so he had stopped after a few weeks. Still, there were days when he just wanted to end it all, even if that meant giving up and taking the easy way out.

Ignoring his stomach, he pulled out his books and started on his homework hoping it would distract him, but it wasn't easy that day. Spending the lunch break with Blaine had shown him for a brief moment how things could be, and now that he was back at home, it was harder to deal with it.

He was trying to finish an essay for his English class when heard a car drive up to the door and he tensed. The front door slammed shut and Kurt waited with baited breath before getting off his bed and turning the lock he kept reinstalling regularly.

Only a few minutes later, his dad, obviously drunk, started pounding his fists against the door, screaming profanities when it didn't open. Kurt curled up in a ball hoping his dad was drunk enough to give up soon. His door usually held but there had been one time when it hadn't and Kurt hadn't attended school for a week because of 'a cold'.

Luckily, this time his dad gave up after a few minutes and Kurt heard the stairs creek as he walked back downstairs. His stomach clenched again painfully, but Kurt tried to ignore it, glad he had escaped a beating.

He went to bed early, hoping sleep would help with the pain and slept fitfully, waking up every few hours. After getting dressed the next morning, he tiptoed downstairs but fortunately no one was downstairs. He found a hotpocket in the fridge and ate it without heating it up, afraid the microwave would wake up his parents.

He was still hungry when he left for school, and hoped the nice lunch lady would give him some left overs again.

And if he got lucky, Blaine would arrive late for school again so he didn't have to see him get thrown into a dumpster again.

Next up: Complications