For two weeks after the night they had spent together, the two boys had said not one word to one another. After a while Blaine had given up all attempts to be civilised and had taken to practically following the boy around. He wasn't so much being avoided anymore as ignored. Blaine sat in the background of Kurt's life hoping for some form of recognition. Kurt had made friends since he'd come to Dalton, his easygoing personality and rare singing voice had earned him the kind of respect that Blaine had been striving for since he arrived, but had never quite found. He observed Kurt carefully, decided that if he couldn't touch him them watching him was the next best thing. That way, when he dreamt at night, his dreams would be vivid, and every single detail would be correct. He could conjure faultless images of Kurt in his mind now, down to the last hair and freckle. Other boys had noticed a change in him, of course. He was now quiet, reserved and his eyes were watery with an absent look whenever anyone tried to talk to him. Blaine could feel a kind of mist around him, as if he was slowly slipping away form the real world. It was scary to think of how this had happened to him. When he had first arrived at Dalton it had been with a sense of hope, a sense of pride even and he had had the confidence that it was going to be okay if he tried hard enough to recover from his past. Now he spoke to know one, and couldn't remember any sort of pride or confidence ever having existed in his darkening mind. The thing that scared him most is that he didn't regret it. As long as he could feel something, it was better this way. So he continued to deteriorate, knowing it as wrong but finding no motivation to stop. He began to cut himself again, and he couldn't have told you why. He did it because he felt guilty, because he felt betrayed, because he felt lonely and unworthy and because he felt a relentless regret in the pit of his stomach all the time. It may only make him feel better for a few seconds, but it was the only thing Blaine had. So he went back to where he swore he never would and began to rely on a soft blade for company and his own gasps of pain for his music.

Kurt had not meant to leave it this long without a conversation; he just hadn't yet found any words to say. The fact was that he liked Blaine, maybe even loved him- he wouldn't know. He hadn't had any practice at this, and no one had ever told him it would be this difficult. Blaine had enchanted him since the first time they met and they had cared for each other in a way that Kurt couldn't erase, he knew that well. He hadn't run away because he wanted to, he'd run because he had no other option and because he wanted time to think and time to pull himself together so he could be better for Blaine. He wanted to be the lifeline now, not the burden, because he had always been the burden. He's burdened his dad because he'd never be the son he wished for; he'd burdened his friends by causing all that drama back at McKinley. There was nothing Kurt wanted more than to be the hero for once, but he knew that he wasn't cut out for that, at least not yet. It hurt him to see Blaine scarred the way he was and Kurt wanted it to be him that made those scars disappear. Blaine had shocked him, he had shocked himself, and he was in a panic.

Blaine's room was no longer neat and organised. Kurt took in his schoolbooks strewn all over the floor, his clothes neglected in a pile by the mirror and he noticed a pile of tissues beside Blaine's bed stained brown, but chose to say nothing about it. Blaine did not acknowledge his entrance, and Kurt hadn't expected him to. He just sat with wide eyes and locked at Kurt in a way that made him feel exposed, almost endangered, as if those eyes could swallow him up if they wanted to. He sat beside Blaine, hearing only his own nervous breathing cutting through a thick silence. Kurt found himself speaking at Blaine rather than too him, he knew that the other boy had nothing to say to him. Blaine sat still and listened to everything that Kurt said to him. Listened to how confused he was, how new things felt, how he was scared, worried and… sorry. Before Blaine knew it Kurt had a hand on his shoulder and was shaking him softly. The boys locked eyes for what Blaine approximated was an hour and Kurt thought was around 4 minutes. Blaine tried to touch Kurt's chest with a chaste hand, but was pushed away, rejected. Kurt kept talking, but Blaine heard not a word that he said as the young boy's hand touched his tear stained face and ran a soft finger over his damaged arm and whispered something in his ear. He sat with Blaine until the boy drifted off to sleep for the first time in days. Kurt smiled meekly, picked up a post-it, wrote three words on it and left.