"Santana talked to him," Rachel whispered, her voice thick and scratchy. Just hearing herself say the words sent another plethora of shivers rocketing across her bones, and she let Kurt squeeze her again and rub her back once more.

Sitting on the couch with a thin blanket draped over her just enough to hide the horrible cast on her lower arm, Rachel could almost pretend it wasn't there. Except for the fact that its itchy heat made the rest of her feel cold, and contaminated, and dirty, and Kurt's arms were welcoming but constricting, and Santana looking at Rachel like she actually had died was making her retelling the story of what happened that much worse - and Blaine, innocent little Blaine, had his head in his hands and nobody to hold him, because Kurt was busy with her.

Not that he shouldn't have been. She was Rachel Berry and even a traumatic shooting incident wasn't going to kill her obsessive need to be the best and get all the attention she could. She'd accepted it a long time ago; there was nothing inherently wrong with it. She was a perfectionist, so what? Being the best was what made her feel her best, and that made perfect sense and everyone deserved to feel their best. And they also deserved attention. So she maybe wanted a bit more than others thought necessary. Why shouldn't she get it?

And she loved it, she really did. Even if, at the moment, she kept shaking at inopportune moments, and her voice kept breaking, and her torso was too hot but her legs were too cold, and she'd just been shot - at least she was being pampered.

However, Santana needed someone to hold her, too. She'd been through it a lot worse than Rachel had, even if she'd not actually been hit by a bullet. And Blaine obviously needed to be held, but after hearing them fight like they had in the bathroom (Rachel wished she hadn't soundproofed it, no matter how much her singing irritated Kurt when she was in the shower. The walls were thin, but they were soundproof, which made for being able to hear the really loud things but being incapable of discerning what they were through the muffles) she doubted that either of them would hold the other.

She wasn't sure how Blaine had gone from shouting to completely calm and supportive in just a matter of seconds, but he had, and not long after that he'd inquired quietly as to what happened. Santana had already given her statement to the police, so none of them were surprised when she suggested Rachel go first. Personally, Rachel didn't mind. It was nice to have Santana hand her over the spotlight, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she really ought to let them know just how much she loved them.

Because she appreciated herself enough to put other appreciations aside did not being she didn't have other appreciations. And the three people sitting in the room around her were her three biggest.

"She talked to him after she gasped," she repeated herself and added, and Blaine raised his head just enough to glance at Santana, and then he dropped it again when she didn't meet his eyes. "She said something, but I couldn't... I didn't hear. My ears were ringing and I was listening to see if she screamed, and I wasn't ready to hear her talk like she normally would."

"It's not your fault," Kurt whispered, his hands still massaging her.

Rachel shook her head, but didn't contradict him. "She didn't talk for long, and he was just - he was pointing his gun right at her face, and she looked... she looked sad, and like she understood him, and she didn't look at me, and I got so scared and I said - I said her name, and..." Rachel shivered again, and let herself be shushed by Kurt's comforting nothings in her ear as his hands kneaded the stress from her back.

But Rachel's voice had caught, and her eyes had filled, and she choked on her next words for long enough that Santana said, "When he heard her, he pointed the gun at her. I shoved her out of the way. Um, I... I tried."

Rachel looked up at Santana and saw what she hadn't earlier; she saw the fear and the horrible, gut-twisting, nauseating unnerved feeling she'd experienced already. And though she couldn't have been more grateful for Santana's hands having shoved her, Santana looked plagued by the fact that she hadn't done so soon enough.

"She did," Rachel confirmed. "He pointed the gun at me, and she pushed me out of the way. She saved my life."

Rachel was good at crying. She always had been. When she was acting, she made sure to pull the right muscles, to leave her face open. When she wasn't, her face pulled in a way that looked like she'd just taken a full bite of a lemon. Her face crumpled, and she blinked quickly, and her already-smeared makeup smeared again when she cried.

And she wasn't alone. Santana sat back in her chair and wiped at the corners of her eyes and said, trying to be calm, "Come on, I just didn't want to have to clean up the mess and listen to Porcelain mope forever."

Rachel laughed and it was real, but only because she knew Santana was saying the exact opposite.

"Then she grabbed the gun -" and Rachel couldn't help but mime it, because she knew her words wouldn't suffice, and when she saw her cast she bit back a heavy sigh. "She bent it back, and she snapped his wrist. Then she took it from him and hit him over the head with it. He yelled." She shuddered.

"It's okay," Rachel was reminded by Kurt, and she looked at Blaine to see how he reacted; when Kurt told her, "You're safe now," Blaine shook his head and dropped it lower. Rachel was the only one who saw.

Santana's version of the story was remarkably similar to Rachel's, something she noted while she was telling it. However, the entire time she was talking, she had a decision to make, and not one that was easy; behind and underneath the words she borrowed a lot from Rachel, she couldn't decide whether or not to lie about what she'd said and who she'd said it to.

But then suddenly she was there. She was at that part, and Rachel was looking at her intently, and Kurt was waiting with his eyebrows raised, and Blaine still had his head in his hands.

She looked at him, and he didn't look back, and she forced herself not to look at his ankles. "Blaine."

His hands fell from his face and he looked at her, waiting, his eyes gray and empty, and his face full of nothingness.

She didn't want to she didn't want to she didn't want to say, "It was him."

"Who?" Blaine asked, and he really was a good actor, and for the sake of Kurt and Rachel he pretended to be struck by the conversation, and whispered the words.

Santana swallowed. "The man, from that night outside the bar. The one that you said did... um, did the - the thing to you back at the Sa-"

"It was him?!" Blaine exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and Santana couldn't decide whether the rage that crossed his face was a good thing because she'd made him feel or a bad thing because she'd made him feel that.

"It was him," Santana said again.

"Who?" Kurt asked this time. Santana, once more, fought the urge to look at Blaine's ankles - which she had been doing since their "conversation" in the bathroom.

"Just a guy," Blaine answered Kurt, and Santana saw that his anger had vanished, and he smiled at Kurt to reassure him, and Kurt only looked more concerned. "Some guy I used to know that we ran into weeks ago. Not important."

"But it was important," Santana told him earnestly, fighting to get even the slightest ounce of passion out of the things he said again, desperate for it, clinging to it. "He recognized me."

Blaine's smile fell and he turned to her and said, in all seriousness, "How did you know?"

"He was shouting at me," Santana explained, "And when he saw it was me the gun was pointing at, his eyes got all wide and watery and the gun drooped a little. And I said... um, that's something we could discuss later. But he knew it was me."

"Santana..." Rachel called tentatively from the couch. "What did you say?"

Santana looked at each of them in turn. Rachel, who only wanted to know so she could understand the thing that was probably causing her a great deal of pain; Kurt, who wanted to know so he could understand what his boyfriend wouldn't tell him; and Blaine, who didn't want the others to know anything because he was so ashamed he didn't understand that they'd still love him anyway. And all of that was apparent on their faces, so blatantly obvious, that Santana told them, "I said "He's not okay" and he started crying."

"He's not okay?" Kurt repeated, "What did that mean? What does that mean?"

"It's nothing, I just - Rachel had just come to talk to me about it and -"

"Santana!" Rachel warned.

"She did?" Blaine inquired nervously.

"About what?" Kurt added, growing more demanding by the moment. "None of you are explaining anything to me."

"I just thought because of their past maybe if I said it he'd feel guilty -"

"Their past? What past? What happened?! Blaine -"

"It's not a big deal, Kurt -"

"We're talking about someone who just shot Rachel, this is a big deal!"

"Yeah, what was their past?" Rachel added her voice.

"Stop it, guys," Santana tried to get them to quiet down. "I shouldn't have said anything -"

"WOULD ALL OF YOU KNOCK IT OFF?!" Kurt roared, and Rachel squeaked and clamped her free hand over her mouth, and Santana jumped at the unexpected volume, and Blaine froze in place. Kurt's flushed face glared at all of them in their silence, and Rachel's eyes, already red and swollen, flickered between him and the floor; Santana held his gaze evenly when he got to her, refusing to back down; but Blaine couldn't even make himself look at his boyfriend. Kurt visibly wilted when he realized that. "Blaine... sweetheart, what aren't you telling me?"

"No, no, no," Santana cut in, and Kurt looked at her, his jaw set and his eyes blazing that she'd dare. "It's pretty clear he doesn't want to talk about it, so you don't get to make him. On top of that -" she continued loudly, when Kurt opened his mouth to protest, "- you don't get to scream at him and all of us and then call him a petname and be all soft and try to be gentle. That's not cool. It's emotional abuse and -"

"Kurt is not abusing me!" Blaine defended immediately, looking more scandalized at the idea that Kurt was abusive than that he was being abused.

"It's bullying, and bullying is abuse," Santana declared.

"Now, hold on," Rachel argued, "Kurt's not abusing him just because he got angry with everyone in the room for a second and calmed down. By that logic, every time they have a fight and make up it's abuse on both ends." Kurt nodded his agreement fervently.

"Well pushing people to uncomfortable limits isn't healthy, either," Santana pressed on.

"He's doing that to me, too, and I don't even think he knows it!" Kurt exclaimed in frustration.

"I am?"

They all stopped then, and not out of fear or surprise or disbelief, but because Blaine had suddenly become very small - in his mannerisms, in his speech, in his diction, in his words, in his appearance, in his everything. He had shrunken into himself impossibly fast, and Kurt inhaled sharply when he turned to face him - Santana had never seen a face that screamed without sound before that, but Kurt wore it.

"Not - not too badly," Kurt attempted weakly to take back his words. "You're not doing it on purpose and it's not like you're really upsetting me, I -"

"Kurt," Rachel whispered, shaking her head. "You don't - don't say that -"

"I'm not trying to say that I'm unhappy -"

"What if he is?" Santana curtailed him.

"I know he is," Kurt pleaded, "I know he's unhappy, but he's not telling me why, and I have to keep guessing and pretending things are okay -"

"I'm sorry," Blaine would have simply mouthed the words if they'd been any quieter - his head was back in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -"

"Okay, everyone, let's calm down," Rachel's shrill, anxiety-riddled voice took charge (or tried to). "It's four in the morning, we've been up all night, bad things happened, but we need to calm down -"

"We're leaving," Santana announced.

"Don't take him!" Kurt's voice rose again, in pitch and in volume, and Blaine's fingers rubbed at his temples.

"Don't make him so uncomfortable," Santana snapped.

"Can we please just sleep or something?!" Rachel cried out. "I'm tired, we should sleep."

"I'm not sleeping here," Santana said firmly. "And I don't want Blaine -"

"What does Blaine want?" Rachel exclaimed in exasperation.

"He can have my bed," Kurt offered.

"Stop..."

Nobody heard Blaine say it, because he didn't. He tried. And he failed.

"Are you really going to make him sleep alone in his boyfriend's bed when -"

"But he's not going to want me in it, and he's not sleeping on the couch!" Kurt yelled.

"He's sleeping in his own bed!" Santana shouted back.

"Let him decide!" Rachel screamed, just as loudly.

"Don't put him on the spot like that -"

"He's the one not telling me anything, if he tells me what he wants I -"

"Stop acting like the most important person in the relationship -"

"Clearly I'm not, Santana, I -"

"You are acting like it -"

"Would you two stop and look at him?!"

"I AM NOT! YOU'RE NOT IN THIS RELATIONSHIP SO STOP -!"

"I'M HIS BEST FRIEND AND ROOMMATE, I BET HE TELLS ME MORE THAN -"

"I KNOW FOR A FACT HE'S KEEPING SOMETHING FROM YOU -"

"WHAT?! NO, I JUST FOUND OUT THAT HE'S -"

"STOP!"

And they only obeyed because Blaine was the one who had shouted. "Blaine?" Rachel asked gently, and the boy with the scared face looked at her, and then at Santana, and then at Kurt. Santana didn't know what she looked like, or how she sounded, but she was suddenly very grateful Blaine had stopped them when he did, or she'd have told what he didn't want her to. And then it occurred to her that it should be told anyway, and she was angry again.

"I'll stay with Kurt," Blaine said quietly.

"What?" Santana yelped, and Kurt exhaled and brought his hands up to his face to wipe at it, like he did.

Rachel bit her lip. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Santana backed her more forcefully, "Are you -"

"I'm staying, Santana," Blaine mumbled decisively, and then took a deep breath and stood, never once making eye contact. "Just give me a few minutes to clean up -"

"B -"

"Don't," he warned her, his voice jagged, and his eyes met hers and they were bottomless, and she got very, very cold.

Blaine, however, wasn't cold. Or warm. Or hurt, or angry, or sad, or anything. And if he was, he couldn't feel it. Again. Again. How many times did he have to feel completely and totally barren? He thought he was supposed to be getting better. But it was so difficult to remain apathetic, so hard to look at people he loved and not feel that he loved them enough. It was hard not being enough. Without feelings, what was he? Even more worthless and untrustworthy than he was normally. And he knew that.

Looking at Santana, it was all he knew.

So he turned away, maybe so he could know other things, and said, "I'll be out in a few minutes."

He began walking towards the bathroom, but then Rachel's hand was around his wrist, and he paused and looked at her, and raised his eyebrows when he saw her mouth was open.

"Don't do it," she murmured, so quiet that the other two standing like statues couldn't hear.

"Do what?" he murmured back.

She winced. "You know... don't... do it."

It clicked in his mind a moment after she said it, and he ripped his hand away and whirled around to face Santana again. "How did you tell her?"

"Tell her?" Santana's face drained of color. "I didn't -"

"I told you not to not even two hours ago, Santana, and I've been with you the whole time -"

"Tell her what?" Kurt interjected, though he sounded mostly weary.

"That Blaine's -"

"Rachel!" Santana hissed.

Blaine spun back around and bolted to the bathroom as quickly as he could, his ears ringing with the full silence in the room that followed him out of it and only vanished once he'd slammed the door and stuck his hand out for the razor he'd seen in their earlier.

His hand found it faster than he'd planned to, and in the blackness of the room that came with not flicking on the light switch, the blade dug into his palm.

It was sharp and it was deeper than normal, and Blaine gasped and his body jerked back and away from it. No, no, no no no no no no... He hadn't been careful enough. He was always so careful, but he hadn't been, and now he was crying. And it was so fast, so fast he couldn't see, but as the blood pooled over the cut he could feel everything seeping in and it was... it was too much. He'd have rather been empty. He needed to be. But this was dealing with it, it was handling it - too much to handle, too strong, it was too much.

Blaine slumped against the wall and clutched his hand and felt every single tiny movement and grain and it was all so sharp and clear and too much and he was so scared and trembling and cold and alone and had nothing to help him and and and and and -

And didn't other people cut because they felt too much? Didn't they cut because they needed to bleed out their emotions instead of let them in?

And so, in desperation, he lurched forward and grabbed the razor again, and a small semblance of relief came with the jarring hurt of the slash accompanying the other one on his palm.

They'd all called someone immediately. And none of them called their families.

As soon as Blaine had vanished behind the loudly-closed door, Santana had dived for his phone and begun rifling through the contacts. It didn't take long to find the number she wanted - it was towards the beginning of the alphabet, and Blaine kept all contacts strictly under names for some reason and not nicknames.

She called it and held it to her ear, noticing how Kurt and Rachel were in the same position. She turned her back on them and let it ring. It only did so twice before the person on the other end said, "Hey, squirt! Nice timing, I just -"

"Cooper, it's Santana," she cut across. "Listen, I know it's unexpected, but have you noticed anything weird going on with Blaine?"

She remembered Kurt was in the room, so she lowered her voice and walked into Rachel's room, the curtain falling behind her; she barely noticed any of the details, she was so intently focused.

"Hi, Santana," Cooper greeted, slightly perturbed, and she slid into the chair in front of Rachel's desk. "Um, why?"

"I just need to know before I can tell you," Santana continued, rushing the words out without meaning to. "What have you noticed? What has he told you?"

"You tell me," Cooper said. "I know that something's going on, but I just figured he and my parents were fighting again. Is there something else?"

Santana drummed her nails against the desk. "Yes, and I'm not supposed to tell you, because he's been keeping it a secret since his graduation -"

"What's going on?" Cooper demanded.

Santana glanced at the clock on the wall and steeled herself against the reaction she'd receive. "They disowned him."

No response.

"Your parents disowned Blaine and pay him monthly to pretend he's not related to them."

Silence.

"It's why he doesn't need a job to help pay rent."

She could hear him breathing.

"Cooper?"

"Hold on, I'm looking for plane tickets."

Kurt called Sam.

"Hey, bro!" Sam greeted cheerfully, before the first ring was even done. "What's up? How is everybody?"

"That what I need help with," Kurt confessed. "Blaine's not - he's not telling me anything and it feels like he doesn't trust me but I know he does and maybe he thinks I don't trust him and I know I used to say it all the time that he broke my trust but -"

"Okay, dude, two things. Firstly; oh, come on, Kurt! He didn't break your trust, he broke your HEART. Don't even try to tell me that he's not the first person you'd expect to catch you if you tripped."

"I know, I know -"

"Oh, man, don't cry, please," Sam begged plaintively, confusion and early frustration blooming alongside his compassionate tone. "What's going on again? What's happening?"

"I need you to help Blaine," Kurt sniffed, blinking profusely.

Rachel called Tina.

Tina didn't pick up until the call was almost ended, but she did, after all, pick up, and she answered with, "Hey, Rachel."

"Hi, Tina, I need your help."

Blaine didn't come out in a couple minutes. He didn't come out in longer. In fact, though their conversations had all dragged on longer than they thought they would, they were all waiting around for him to come out long after they'd all hung up not only their first calls but their calls to their families to say they were alright.

All of them knew something was wrong, but when Kurt stood to go knock on the door, Santana pulled him back down and went to do it herself. Nobody argued with her - they just let her go, waited, and listened.

She rapped her knuckles against the door and called, "Anderson? You've been in there a while, are you alright?" She regretted her choice of words instantly; of course he wasn't alright. She could picture what he was doing behind the material and she was tempted to gag, but didn't.

"Yeah, I..." his voice was muffled, but she could make it out, and hear how it shook. "I could - I need help."

Blaine was asking for help?

It was such a foreign concept that Santana stood in shock for a moment instead of actually jumping into action like she should have. But as soon as it made sense, as soon as the words righted themselves in her head, she twisted the knob and shoved the door open and went to move in -

But jumped back and clasped a hand over her mouth to cut off her scream.

Blaine sat in the middle of the floor, a towel wrapped around his hand, and splotches and small pools of blood dribbling in trails all over the floor and sink and wall leading up to the light switch. He was pale, drained, tear-stained, shaking, and with his free hand trying to scrub away some of the blood that was drying on the tile around him. His hair was even more plastered to his head than normal by his sweat, which made him shine and glow, but in a way that looked anything but healthy - and when he moved his wrapped hand, she saw that the towel by his palm was stained crimson. A bottle of bleach that they kept in the big middle cabinet was sitting beside his cloth, and the air smelled strongly of a mixture of blood, sweat and the cleaning substance. She actually did gag that time, but choked it back down with watery eyes and slipped inside, closing the door and being glad she was quiet and hidden from view by the curtain.

"Blaine," she squeaked, looking at the mess.

"I know, I know," Blaine told her, and his voice wasn't even and dull, nor was it overly emotional - it was the perfect evenness that happened a lot in the middle of his "phases". She didn't want to know how he'd accomplished that - though she already did. "It's my hand, I didn't mean to the first time and it was really deep and it wouldn't stop bleeding, I'm just trying to clean up -"

"The first time?" Santana breathed. "How many times did you - on your hand? Don't you normally -"

"Yes, I normally cut my ankle," Blaine bit at her. "I went to reach for the razor but the lights weren't on and I missed and this happened, and then it got to be - I don't - will you just help me?"

"I'm trying to understand -"

"You don't need to understand, just help!"

She wondered how truly desperate Blaine must be to not only ask for help, but demand it. This was Blaine. The boy who thought he deserved less than nothing, the boy who would push everyone in front of him and refuse to let them fall behind because he thought of himself last and of the least value. Asking for help wasn't in his nature, it just wasn't. And demanding it either meant that he had suddenly overcome the problem they were dealing with at that moment - which clearly hadn't happened - or he knew he was incapable of doing things for himself and needed fixing in order to not hurt those he cared about.

So whatever he'd done would have an effect on all of them, or at least on Kurt, and it wouldn't be good and he didn't want to risk it.

"I can't help if I don't understand," Santana bit back. "How many times did you -"

"Four, okay?" Blaine shot at her, and slumped as soon as the words were out. He'd not once raised his head to look at her, but when he answered her his head dropped and his shoulders slumped and his scrubbing hand paused and in that moment he looked the part of the desolate person he was. "Four."

Santana repressed sucking in a huge breath at the words. "All of them deep?"

"No, only the first," Blaine replied, his voice much quieter, no force behind the words whatsoever. "The other three are on my ankle. Like normal."

"Jesus, Blaine, so all of this is from one cut on your hand?" she pieced together, looking around at the state of things.

"I'm just trying to clean it up -"

"You can't clean all of it up if it keeps bleeding," Santana pointed out, and stepped around the droplets of blood to kneel beside him, taking a deep breath and holding it to keep a lump from rising in her throat and to keep the smell further away for longer. "Let me see."

"What?"

"Let me see your hand," Santana clarified, and raised her own and held it out. "You didn't do this one on purpose, right? So it's no different than showing me a bruise from falling down. Let me see so I can decide if you need stitches."

"Stitches?" Blaine echoed, in a tone that implied he disagreed. He turned his head and looked at her - and he was Blaine. Not "free" Blaine that came after his cutting, not empty Blaine that came beforehand, but Blaine, in Blaine's honesty, and his fear, and she hated that it could only be reached by no less than four cuts. The thought made her almost physically sick.

"Yes, stitches," Santana confirmed. "I don't care if we were just at the hospital, we'll go back for you if we need to. Let me see."

"It's fine -"

"Nothing that looses this amount of blood and is still bleeding is fine," Santana told him. "Hand. Now."

Santana watched Blaine's fingers pull the blood-stained towel away from his palm, and she saw how clogged and full of the thick liquid it was, and then Blaine's hand was resting on hers face-up.

She felt her stomach twist sickeningly at the sight. There was a large, deep gash in the center of his palm, and she could actually see down into it because it was spread so far apart. It was gruesome, and there was still unmistakable tears of red forming at the edges and sliding slowly and thickly over the contours of his hand; There were blood trails that had dried already between his fingers and the entirety of his hand was sticky and warm. Not even six hours earlier Santana had felt the same kind of feeling pressed against her torso from Rachel's arm, and she looked down at the stain on her unchanged shirt that proved it.

So she screamed, "KURT!"

"What are you doing?" Blaine cried, attempting to pull back his hand, but Santana laced her fingers through his and grabbed their wrists so they were pressed together.

"Stand up," she ordered him, moving to do so herself. "KURT!"

"Stop it!" Blaine begged.

"Not until he comes," Santana said firmly. "KURT, COME ON!"

And then someone was knocking loudly. "Are you guys calling for me?" Kurt's voice, shrill with worry and fast with ideas, came through the material.

"YES, GET IN HERE!" Santana responded.

"No!" was the last thing Blaine managed to get out before the door swung open and Kurt's wide, blue, unsuspecting eyes saw the scene.

Blaine hated hospitals.

It was a hatred he and Kurt shared. Kurt's mother had died in a hospital, in a place that was supposed to bring and preserve and rehabilitate life but instead brought death. Blaine had woken up restrained to his cot after his Sadie Hawkins beating because he'd been thrashing about and causing more damage to himself. In a place that was supposed to bring safety and health and panaceas, he'd found himself tied down and bent out of shape so far it stunted his growth.

Not that he'd ever tell the others that. He'd been a perfectly normal-sized person before he took that beating. He didn't know if that was what had actually caused it or if it was just around that time he stopped growing, but he'd never grown as tall as he could have been.

Hospitals. The word in his head, on his tongue. Hospitals. It sounded dirty and tasted vile before he'd even spoken it out loud.

The knob on the door turned. In a room modeled with whites and pastels, the wooden door stood out, and its golden handle even more so. Blaine sat up straighter, prepared himself for the nurse to come back in with Santana. She'd said that she'd bring his roommate back to him when he told her he had one.

But Santana didn't walk through the door. Kurt did. Blaine didn't expect him, but it was so much effort to raise his eyebrows or ask him why he was there when he could simply stare at him and marvel in his tolerance. Honestly, how patient must a person be to deal with someone like him? Kurt must have been practicing being a Saint or something, because Blaine was not the kind of person one could just date without severe irritation.

"Your roommate," the nurse announced gently, smiling with no sincerity before shutting the door behind Kurt's designer clothing.

Blaine looked at Kurt and Kurt looked at him. His hair shone in the artificial lighting, wilder than normal, probably due to the hurriedness they'd been living for the past six and a half hours. The scarf he'd been wearing didn't adorn his neck, the jacket he had one didn't go with the rest of his outfit, but his jeans were still tight and his shirt was still unwrinkled. He looked, for all the world, as if he were a professional that had gotten so far in life he didn't need to try anymore, but for his face.

His eyes were... well, his eyes were Kurt's eyes. There's only so much eyes can tell you. Kurt had more than he could say in his; but he also had more than Blaine could read. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning, either, though his forehead was wrinkled with concern and concentration.

And then he let go of the small breath he'd been holding and it jarred in the air, and his arm rose and fell again by his side. "Blaine?"

Blaine swallowed. "Yes?"

Kurt nodded at the word - not to affirm anything, just to himself, as if to re-ascertain that he was, indeed, still there. "Are you - are you going to explain?"

"Explain?"

Kurt shifted his weight to his right leg uncomfortably. If Blaine tried shifting his weight, the horrible fabric of the chair would cling to him. "About why you were even going for the razor in the dark?"

Blaine swallowed again, and this time it was harder. "Ah."

Kurt allowed him the three minutes of silence it took him to gather his thoughts without once even shifting his weight back to his left leg. His breathing was even, he was silent - he offered no modifications to what Blaine prepared in his head, because he knew that Blaine needed it.

"I was going to cut," Blaine said, and brought his eyes back up to Kurt's face. It was obvious that Kurt had known that; it was also obvious he wished he could have believed a lie. "I missed and grabbed the blade instead of the handle."

Kurt stared at him for a moment longer, his gaze smoldering in a way it never had before, and then he took a small breath and said, "And did you cut anyway after you hurt your hand?"

Blaine silently noted that while Santana's approach was the ask-him-outright, she never could bring herself to say the name of the act he committed. Kurt was being soft, Kurt was being gentle, drawing it out slowly, and he had no trouble using the word. Blaine nodded.

It was as if every breath Kurt made was marked and it took the place of what would have been the ticking of the clock on the wall had it not been broken. And then he moved across the room, the stillness of the air abruptly disturbed by his walking over to his boyfriend and sitting in the chair beside him, draping his arm over his shoulder without hesitation.

Blaine looked at him, confused, but not unappreciative. For someone to know what he was and what he did and treat him normally regardless... it wasn't something even Santana had done.

"Tell me something you like," Kurt suggested, and he smiled at Blaine. If Blaine hadn't have heard him so many weeks ago - the sound still fresh in his mind - say that stupid "once a cheat, always a cheater" that announced he didn't trust him, he'd have melted into it.

As it was, it was difficult not to. Kurt's arm was heavy, but not in a way that was restraining. More like grounding. Grounding and warm and there, and the touch of his arm around Blaine, however loosely, was a luxury that Blaine had always adored. "I like this," he tried to say, but the sound got stuck in his throat halfway through and he looked down in shame.

But Kurt understood. "You like me talking to you?" he tried to clarify.

Blaine shook his head, but then changed his mind and nodded. "Yes," he answered, "But I meant... um, I meant I like you touching me."

"Mm," Kurt acknowledged, a bit of a purr in the murmur. Blaine looked up, and Kurt was still smiling. It both killed him to know that Kurt had to fake it for him. "I like it too."

Impossible. "Why?"

Kurt cocked his head a bit towards Blaine, and his eyes went to his fingers, which began tracing an odd pattern down his shoulder. "I'm not sure," he said. "Supposedly, the skin near ligaments that are involved in major joints like your elbows and your ankles are the most sensitive to touch, but that's only on the level of your skin." His fingers kept growing lower on Blaine's arm, and he had to lean closer to keep contact. "But areas like this, your shoulder, your arm, there aren't a tone of nerve endings there."

"There's some," Blaine disagrees, because he can definitely feel the lace Kurt's drawing inklessly on his upper arm.

"There are," Kurt agrees, "But not many. There are a ton of nerve endings in places like... your fingertips, for example." Kurt's fingers stopped drawing on Blaine's skin and began drumming rhythmically. "Or the back of your neck." Kurt withdrew his arm from around Blaine, but only to brush the base of Blaine's neck as he did so and rest his fingers on Blaine's collarbone, sending yet another jolt. Blaine shivered at the contact, a pang of feeling resounding through him, and he looked at Kurt in wonder. "It's one of your most erogenous zones." Kurt grinned then, oblivious to how lost in him Blaine was. "It's not even your most erogenous zone. I'm pretty sure I know all of them by now."

"I know you do," Blaine breaths, heat following the pattern Kurt's begun tracing again.

"Mm," Kurt says again, humming now. "But then there are sensory receptors in fingertips, also," he added, his voice lower. "And in lips. Your lips have a lot. It's different from nerve endings, because they only register touch, not how the touch feels. Sensory receptors tell you how it feels, how much you like it or dislike it - how much you need it." Kurt, still leaning in close, his nose brushing against Blaine's with his head turned, whispered, "Like this."

And then he kissed Blaine, and Blaine understood exactly what he meant. But when he tried to push forward into it, to give Kurt more room to seat himself comfortably, Kurt was pulling away, his face crumpling as it stopped touching Blaine's.

"God, I love you," were the next words out of his mouth, and they were so open and shaky and different from how he'd just been speaking that the tears quickly forming in his eyes actually pooled over before he was done speaking.

"Hey," Blaine protested softly, "No, Kurt, no." He reached his hands up to Kurt's face and cupped his cheeks, only barely touching him, but then his thumbs pressed over his cheekbones to wipe away the saltwater that fell so quickly. "I love you too. I love you to impossible ends, alright? And I'm -"

"I don't care," Kurt hiccuped, and when Blaine froze he followed it with a sob. "I don't! I know you love me. But you're doing this to yourself, hating yourself, and you're so amazing and you have no idea how amazing you are -"

"No, no, Kurt," Blaine said, "I don't need to hear this -"

Kurt shook his head vehemently and Blaine pulled his hands away. "No," he disagreed, with a firmness that was only reaffirmed by the tremble in it. "Nobody's told you that enough, even if we've tried to. You do need to hear it. You need to hear it every day, all the time, until you can hear it from yourself, too."

Blaine saw Kurt crying and he heard Kurt's words and he felt how Kurt quaked when he laid his hands back on his cheeks - and yet all of that was obscured by the haze of he doesn't trust me that had permeated his vision.

"I'm fine," he lied.

"You're not," Kurt said.

"I will be."

"That's not what I'm concerned with."

"Yes, you are," Blaine furrowed his brow. "You are concerned about the future, and me, and I don't know why, but you are."

"You don't -" Kurt said the words as if they were something so disgusting that if he were forced to pick it up he'd only pinch it with as little of his nails as he could, but then he choked, and more tears fell that Blaine instinctively reached for. "Because you're worth being concerned about, Blaine," he explained tearfully.

"I'm not," Blaine whispered.

"LIKE HELL YOU'RE NOT!"

Both of them jumped sharply at the sudden outburst accompanied by the slamming of the door into the wall as it was flung forcefully open. And there, standing in the doorway, looking nearly apoplectic with worry and anger, stood Cooper Anderson.