Kurt kept a close eye on Blaine over the course of his first week in the warehouse.  He even spent extra time with Blaine to make sure he knew the machinery inside and out so that Blaine was that much more successful at what he was doing.  Despite that though, Blaine looked more and more exhausted with each passing day, and Kurt racked his brain to try and figure out why, going through his own memories of coming to the warehouse until it hit him.

“Hey Blaine.  Trouble sleeping?”  Kurt asked, peeking into the palette room assigned to Blaine and grinning as he saw his friend pulling the blanket right up over his nose, confirming his suspicions about why Blaine seemed so tired.

“Uh-huh…” Blaine grunted, turning towards Kurt but never taking the blanket off him.

“Is it the noise?”

“No… it was noisier in the recycling center with all the clacking and clinking of bottles and cans all the time…”

“The cot then?”

Blaine shook his head from behind the blanket, “No.  It's fine.  Firmer than the last one I had actually.”

“Well then… it can only be one thing…”  Kurt said with a knowing grin as he slipped into the small room and crouched down beside Blaine's cot.

“S'cold.” Blaine grunted, looking at Kurt with those amber eyes that were all too readable - at least to Kurt.

“Well we are in the center of a large concrete building that uses an insane amount of air conditioning to keep the foods we ship cold.”  Kurt tutted.

“How do people sleep then?”

“Well a lot of the guys, you'll notice, eat enough to keep a good layer of insulation on them.”  

Blaine huffed.  “No thanks.  What about you?”

“Well I….”  He set a pair of gloves and woolen socks then on the side of Blaine's cot that he had been keeping behind his back, “... use these.  I'll also have a hot shower before bed and try to fall asleep while I'm still warm, and if that all fails - hot tea helps me heat up.”

Blaine's cold nose peeked out then as he pulled the blanket down and reached to take the gloves and socks.  “Thanks…. “

“You're welcome.”

After that Blaine seem much better rested, and Kurt applauded himself for his good work on taking care of him.  It wasn't just the sleep though.  Kurt made sure to tell Blaine which foods were better for him to eat in the long run, how to check nutritional information on the packages, and how to avoid the stupid mistakes some of the other workers made that could get him hurt.  Blaine listened to it all, always thanking Kurt, always staying close to him when he could.

Of course, that only drew the ire of Karofsky, who now not only targeted Kurt, but Blaine as well, and if there was one thing Blaine did lack, it was the capacity to ignore the bully.

“Faggot.”
“Fatass.”
“Gaywad.”
“Lardo.”
“Fairy.”
“Neanderthal.”

“Stop it you two!”  Kurt snapped at them both, thoroughly exhausted with the exchange and the lack of work they were responsible for because they had been too focused on one-upping the other.  “Are you actively trying to get demoted!?”

Karofsky just grunted and glared at Blaine and Kurt in turn before going back to loading boxes of paper onto a freight truck.  From Blaine, Kurt got an apologetic look at least.

After shift, Blaine did apologize, but it spiralled from “I'm sorry” to “He just is a total jerk and you shouldn't let him get away with that.  It's not right.  He should….”

Kurt sighed, listened to all Blaine had to said, and then looked steadily back to his friend.  “What would be the point?”

Blaine blinked a few times, taken aback, “What do you mean what would be the point?”

“They're just words Blaine… You called me names too when we were younger.”

“But I was wrong!  You taught me… you showed me… prejudice is just ignorance.  Once I learned the truth I didn't use those words anymore.”

For all his general naivety, Blaine did have a point.  One that had Kurt staring deep into his soup and thinking for most of dinner until Blaine spoke up again.

“I know you want to be liked Kurt… you always have… but this guy isn't going to respect you if you just keep being nice and ignoring his insults.  You need to have courage.”

“Courage…”  Kurt huffed and looked back up to Blaine, “... what do you know about courage?”

“I know you have more of it than you think you do.  I know you're the strongest person I've ever known, and probably will ever know.”

Kurt cracked a smile over one side of his face.  That had to be the best compliment he had ever received, if not the most inaccurate.  He had never felt like a strong person.  He had never fought or argued, aside from with Blaine, and he certainly never stood up to people - especially the big ones that looked like they could snap him in half within a second.

But it was nice to know Blaine thought so highly of him anyhow.

Now whenever Karofsky said something or pushed past Kurt, instead of getting angry and protective, Blaine would instead mouth the word ‘courage' over to Kurt.  It was a simple little act, but one that lit up Kurt to the point he was almost wishing Karofsky would say something just so he could get that little word out of Blaine's mouth.

Until, of course, it went beyond small shoves and slurs.

Kurt had just finished up with a delivery man and was checking off the packing checklist item by item to make sure all the inventory was there when Karofsky more than shoved him in passing, instead launching Kurt back against the boxes and forcing him to stumble over his own feet as he tripped backwards and landed on his ass.  The whole scene elicited a chuckle out of Karofsky and Blaine wasn't even there to tell him to stand up for himself.

Regardless, the word courage flashed through his mind and he jumped up, ignoring the pain in his tailbone, and rushed after Karofsky with a yell.  

“Hey!  Hey! What is your problem?!”  Kurt cried, following Karofsky into the mens washroom.

“Excuse me?”  Karofsky huffed, glancing around the washroom.

“I said, what is your problem?!” Kurt said, pushing himself up on his toes to get in Karofsky's face.

“Besides you coming in here to look at my junk?”

“Oh right, every straight guy's nightmare.”  Kurt ranted freely, “That all us gays are out to convert or molest you.  Well guess what?  You're not my type!”

Karofsky stopped darting his eyes around, looking for backup for an exit, or whatever it was he was trying to do to get Kurt's face out of his own - but with that last statement spat right out of Kurt he stopped and looked right back at Kurt.

“That right?”

“Yeah.  I don't dig chubby boys who are going to be bald by the time they're thirty.”  He knew he was pushing things at this point, but it felt so good to get the words out of his system.

“Do not push me.” Karofsky said, a shudder in his breath as Kurt assumed he was readying himself for some retaliation.  An assumption confirmed when Karofsky brought a fist up and pointed it at Kurt, who glanced at it from the corner of his eye before spitting back.

“You going to hit me? Do it.”

He saw another tremble pass through Karofsky, who looked to be right on the edge.  Instead of feeling the fear his rational mind told him he should feel, Kurt instead felt liberated as Blaine's voice, speaking courage, flooded his mind with confidence he didn't know he had.

“Don't push me!”

“Hit me because it's not going to change who I am.  You can't punch the gay out of me anymore than I can punch the ignoramus out of you!”

That was it.  Kurt knew Karofsky's peak at been reached, and yet, he still stood, facing off with the ogre of a man, both red in the face and barely blinking.

“Get out of my face!”  It was more of a cry and less of a threat, and again Kurt shoved his rational thoughts telling him to back off to the back of his mind.

“You are nothing more than a scared little boy who can't handle how extraordinarily ordinary you are!”

On his last word, Kurt expected to be hit, he expected to be punched or kicked or spat on.  What he didn't expect was Karofsky's hand so rapidly unfurling and attaching itself to Kurt's cheek as Karofsky plunged his lips down on Kurt's.

That's when his rational mind came back into being, chirping a quiet “Told you so…” as Kurt froze in place, eyes going wider than they had ever been before.  When Karofsky pulled off, he looked at Kurt so insanely needy and tried to go in for a second kiss but Kurt managed to regain control of his arms and pushed Karofsky back with one hand as the other went to cover his mouth in shock and protection.

Oh fuck.

Karofsky gave him another look, slamming his hand against the wall as he spun in place to find an exit - the only one being behind Kurt since Kurt had been so insistent on corning Karofsky to give him shit.  Now it was clearly a terrible idea.

Kurt tried to pull himself back along the wall, give Karofsky passage to move past just so that he could get beyond feeling the need to be defensive and start processing what the hell just had happened, but the corridor into the washroom was so small, and Karofsky was so huge.

“You… you just can't…”  Karofsky stuttered, eyes rimmed with tears along the bottom before he pushed his meaty hands against Kurt's shoulders out of the blue, pinning him back against the wall and trying to reconnect their lips once more.

Kurt cried out, arms trying to shove Karofsky away again, though this time finding resistance as each attempt to push him away only led to Karofsky pinning him harder and pushing his mouth against his own with a greedier hunger Kurt didn't even know could exist.  Everytime he got even a fractional second of air, Kurt used it to wail, cry, yelp, or make noise.  This was a busy building, why the hell wasn't anyone else around?

Footsteps did come though, voices yelled, and Kurt was so overwhelmed by everything Karofsky that he couldn't tell who or what was there.  Karofsky's cheeseburger lips were making him gag, the smell of his sweat made his stomach turn, and the press of Karofsky's body on his just made Kurt wish he could be absorbed by the wall he was against.  The voices yelled some more and then Karofsky was forcibly detached from Kurt who stayed huddled against the wall.

“Kurt.. Kurt…”  One voice registered from the others and he looked towards the head with a mop of curls and overly bright brown eyes.  “Oh Kurt….”

It took him awhile to piece himself back together, but if anything was true about Kurt, it was that he was a fighter on the inside if not the outside.  Blaine stayed at his side the whole time he required to shake off the shock and then again when he was giving his statement to the bosses who were going through the camera footage at the same time he spoke.

Karofsky was led away in an officer's van.

On one hand, Kurt felt nothing but total relief, but on the other he did feel bad for Karofsky, who clearly felt so repressed and self-hating that his own homosexuality had tried to erupt out of him in what was a veritable emotional explosion.  

“You can take the rest of the day off.”  The bosses insisted, giving Blaine the same opportunity when they saw just how attached the two boys were.

Blaine made sure Kurt ate something, even though his stomach was in turmoil, and made sure Kurt showered, which Kurt spent an extra long time at in his efforts to wash away the smell of Karofsky.  Blaine even tucked Kurt into his bed for a nap and read him stories until Kurt was sound asleep.

Courage, his dreams reminded him, courage.

“I feel so guilty… I didn't know… I shouldn't have…”  Blaine admitted when Kurt had woken up and was finally up to talking about what all had happened.

“It's not your fault Blaine.  Not even for an instant.  Don't you dare think it is.”

“But… that was your first kiss right?  Shouldn't have been like that.”

Kurt shrugged, “I'm sure I'll have a better one later that will erase the memory.”  He couldn't help but eye Blaine's lips as he said it, wondering to himself if he should be that eager to taste Blaine's lip so soon after being forced into a kiss he didn't want by a guy who didn't seem to bother with his oral hygiene enough.

“I hope so Kurt…”  Blaine said, glancing up and connecting his eyes with Kurt's, “You deserve it.”