The fifth time Kurt wakes his father (and the whole house, actually) up screaming is the last straw.

He'd been so far gone he even punched Finn in the face when his stepbrother tried to restrain him. Then almost hit Carole. Burt sits Kurt down the next morning and lays down the ultimatum, with Finn awkwardly holding an icepack to his rapidly forming black eye. Kurt might feel guilty, except he's too pissed at himself for losing control like this. But he's going to therapy and he doesn't have a choice.

His dad says it's not because he's crazy, but it really kind of is. Sane people don't scream bloody murder every time their heads hit the pillow or attack their own family. He stomps around the rest of the day, barely even talking to Blaine.

The therapist's office is clean and smells like lavender and vanilla. She spends the first fifteen minutes waiting for Kurt to speak. Kurt spends it silently judging her. She's older, maybe in her fifties, and wears a plaid shirt with loose jeans. Her grey hair is in a braid that falls over her shoulder and her black glasses make her look wise and trustworthy.

Dr. Englund is really nice, if Kurt was being honest with himself. Which he wasn't. At all. Kurt moodily glares at the dark brown carpet.

"How have you been sleeping, Kurt?" She asks gently.

Kurt glares and picks at his jeans. Like she doesn't already know. They're the baggiest ones he owns.

"Your shirt should be burnt. Flannel is not attractive on anyone. And the mom-jeans went out of style like twenty years ago. Also your hair looks like shit and makes you seem a hell of a lot older and more unattractive than you really are." He snaps. "Didn't being a professional teach you anything? Or did you crawl out from the Stone Age just for crazy me?" Dr. Englund raises her eyebrows, amused. She actually doesn't look that bad. Maybe like a badass grandma. Blaine would like her. He's waiting outside the room. That was the one concession Kurt managed.

"I quite like my shirt." Dr. Englund replies smoothly. She uncrosses her legs and Kurt leans back into the plush chair. He will never admit it, but he's sulking. He can't help it. He's cried for so long over the past week that he's just angry now, lashing out at everyone. Rachel's left his room in tears more than once, and even Blaine yelled at him for sniping at Carole the other day. Kurt really kind of doesn't give a shit because everything in his life is so fucking unfair he thinks he deserves a little self-pity at this point.

"You're not too fashionable right now either, Kurt. Why would you say that is?"

Because my fashion is what got me attacked and almost raped, you miserable bitch! Kurt screams internally. Aloud, he only grunts and studies the wallpaper. It's striped, with alternating muted greens.

Dr. Englund nods slightly. "You're very angry."

"What gave me away?" Kurt scoffs bitterly. This was not his fault. It wasn't.

He didn't ask to be attacked.

He didn't ask to be arrested.

He didn't ask to be scared all the fucking time and he definitely didn't ask for the nightmares.

It just wasn't fucking fair.

His life was just coming together; why did it have to fall apart like this?

Except is IS your fault, you idiot, you moron, you offered yourself up on a silver platter, and now you're dragging everyone down with you. You think Blaine deserves this? Deserves a boyfriend that calls him crying every night and then makes him drive across Lima just for you when you won't even put out like every other boy? Does your father deserve to listen to people talk about his psycho gay son everywhere he goes, like he fucked up raising you when really, you've been flawed from the start? It's all YOUR FAULT, YOUR FAULT—

Kurt's eyes burn and his throat tightens and his vision goes watery but he won't fucking cry, he's not a weakling! He keeps his eyes trained on his knees.

There's shifting, then Dr. Englund sighs. "What do you know about the charges against you?" Kurt looks up at the question. Calmly, she meets his surprised gaze.

"Um," Kurt says. He tries to remember what the detectives said the night before. They had looked exhausted and worried. "Karofsky's parents have been keeping the police away, saying he's not ready and still recovering. Detective Adler thinks he remembers everything, though. He had looked scared when she tried to talk to him." Kurt took a deep breath. "Their lawyer said something about accepting the simple assault charges if I left out the—the s-s-sexual," Kurt stumbles over the word, but Dr. Englund just nods encouragingly, "assault part. And the hate crime part. And they won't pursue assault charges against me for putting him in a coma." Kurt's voice is hollow.

"Do you know what you want to do?"

"Detective Adler said—"

"Kurt," Dr. Englund interrupts firmly. "What do you want?"

It's the first time someone's asked him. What does he want? Kurt thinks about how scared Karofsky looked right before the locker room. He thinks about how terrified he was when Karofsky had him pinned.

He thinks about what Karofsky looked like, loaded up on the gurney with a halo of red around his face and oxygen mask over his mouth. About what his own chest looks like and the yellowing hickey on the side of his neck that's still going strong after a week and how he still can't take a deep breath without pain shooting through his ribs.

He could very possibly end up in jail. Karofsky might not, not if this goes to trial. But a trial would mean everything comes out, and that means outing Karofsky and Kurt knows just how vicious McKinley can be.

Kurt wants Karofsky to suffer.

But he doesn't want to be like him.

"I don't know," Kurt says honestly.

Dr. Englund just nods.

"I talked to Karofsky today."

"You did what?" Kurt stares at Blaine, who shrugs nonchalantly as he walks into Kurt's room, eating a chocolate chip cookie. Kurt has a lot of free time on his hand, and well. They were running out of Tupperware containers now. "Stop eating the damn cookie. Why would you do that Blaine?" Kurt's voice gets loud. He's not entirely sure why he's so mad about Blaine going to the hospital and confronting his attack, except he kind of is.

Karofsky is still unknown and dangerous, even handcuffed to a bed and with half his skull caved in. Words can hurt just as much as fists.

Like the complete moron he is, Blaine ignores Kurt's glare and stuffs the rest of the cookie into his stupid mouth. "Wens' oor nes' tera pee app'nent?" He says through the crumbs and Kurt rolls his eyes.

"Sometimes, I think you were raised in a barn," Kurt mutters, tossing Blaine his half-empty water bottle. Blaine just grins and takes a swig, burping loudly.

"I said, 'when's your next therapy appointment?' I want to make sure I can drive you." Even though Blaine is an absolute idiot, he does care.

The stress ball is on his bed, and Kurt picks it up instead of answering. It's bright green and squishy. Dr. Englund thought it might help his anxiety and Kurt squeezes it over and over, but the tension doesn't really fade. "Next Tuesday," he says. Then narrows his eyes. "Why'd you go see…him." He can't say his name. Can't.

Blaine holds out his hand and Kurt tosses him the ball. He's quiet for a while as he plays with it, changing it from hand to hand.

Something pricks at Kurt's memory. "Wait, doesn't he have a guard? I thought they weren't letting in visitors. Finn said he heard Azimio complaining about it." Kurt almost groans aloud at Blaine's sudden smirk.

"I may or may not have distracted the nurses and police by unplugging the heart monitor in Room 412 and had Puck raise a stink by yelling at the doctors for fifteen minutes." And Blaine looks entirely too smug and proud of himself, the delinquent.

"Blaine, Christ." Kurt has no words, so just settles for sending Blaine a very judgmental stare. He needs to head off that friendship; it can go nowhere good. He sighs. "Blaine, you really didn't have to—"

"Yeah I did." Blaine interrupts. He becomes very interested in his fingers. "It's my fault, you know." The words come out like it physically hurts Blaine, like they claw their way out his throat.

"What is?" Kurt's voice is a whisper. He thinks he knows what Blaine's talking about.

"He's not gonna save you. I know you told him. About me."
"I…didn't…"
"LIAR! He told me!"

Blaine has always blamed himself for things beyond his control because he's got a heart of gold like that. It's just that not many people get to see it; being blinded by the leather and the piercings and the lack of a brain-to-mouth filter. Gathering up his courage, Kurt sits down and tugs Blaine into a hug. He's better with contact now, though just with Blaine and sometimes Rachel. Finn still sends him into panic attacks with just a shoulder pat. "What did he say to you?" Kurt asks, and Blaine pulls him closer, arms wrapped around his waist. He won't look at Kurt.

"That I should have known." Blaine says, muffled by Kurt's t-shirt covered shoulder. "I should have known what he was close to doing and stopped him first. That he couldn't stop himself, and it was my responsibility to protect you, and I failed, and fuck, Kurt, he's right, he's so right, I'm so fucking useless," and Blaine cuts himself off with a short gasp and the stress ball falls to the floor with a soft thump as he clenches his fists against Kurt's back.

For the first time, Kurt thinks about how Karofsky's attack hurt more people than just himself.

Then he kind of wants to smack himself, because his boyfriend's been dealing with this misplaced guilt for over a week while letting Kurt just walk all over him. And scream at him a couple of times, because the medicines makes his mood swings just awful, but Blaine just takes it because he thinks he deserves it and he really, really doesn't.

"I'm not a princess." Kurt tells Blaine, but it really feels like he's talking to himself. "I don't need rescuing."

"Kurt—"

"No, I need to get this out." Kurt takes a second to breathe because everything is suddenly crystal clear and he's realizing a lot of things he should have thought about days ago. Things about himself and Blaine and Karofsky and how they're all tied together, and some of what Dr. Englund and he dad have been saying starts to sink in.

It's exhilarating.

"I don't blame you for anything." Kurt ignores Blaine's soft you should because Blaine's an idiot and not in charge of Kurt's feelings anyway. "I don't want to blame myself, either." Anger bristles up through his skin. "I…I know what K-K-Karofsky did to me wasn't my fault. The gay-panic defense he's trying to hide behind is absolute bullshit; I don't care what Bill O'Reilly thinks; he shouldn't have done what he did, and you weren't responsible for his actions." There's a foul taste in his mouth when Kurt remembers hearing the news the other night, coming down after his father began screaming at the TV about idiot newscasters who wouldn't know justice or common decency if they took a crap on their noses. It was Karofsky's own fucked up head and no one else. "You're not responsible for me," and it's wonderful and freeing to think about the attack like this, like it was just something that happened because some asshole didn't have the self-control to not try to rape someone else. "We can argue for days about how I should have told someone sooner like you wanted," and Blaine makes a face, but keeps quiet, "and how the administration should have stopped the bullying from the very beginning and how I should have worn looser clothes, but that just masks the real problem."

"I like your tight pants." Blaine says, because he likes it when Kurt laughs.

"I like them too." The jeans he has on now are too loose, and Kurt really hopes he can find the courage to wear his new ones tomorrow. He doesn't want to be afraid. "I didn't deserve what happened to me." Kurt says, surprised to find he halfway believes it for now.

Blaine looks Kurt up and down and cracks a small smile, hazel eyes holding something that might be pride. "You're amazing, you know that?"

Of course I am, the old Kurt scoffs, but the real Kurt only squeezes Blaine's hands. "I'm saying this shit now," Kurt admits, "and I know it, I do, but I'm afraid I'm going to forget sometimes." Because knowing something and believing something are completely different, and it's hard to remember that he deserves to be himself and wear his clothes and kiss his boyfriend when a few loudmouths scream that he's perverted and wrong and unnatural.

"That's what I'm for." Blaine rubs a hand down Kurt's arm, pouring in strength and confidence. "I mean." He falters, looking at Kurt nervously. "If you want me to be."

And Kurt sees that Blaine had been planning this conversation for days, mentally steeling himself for Kurt's inevitable blow-up and maybe break-up because Blaine really doesn't get how much Kurt loves him or how much he's saved Kurt. Over and over again. He just doesn't get it and Kurt kind of thinks it's Mr. Anderson's fault; Blaine's complete lack of self-confidence and overwhelming fear of abandonment.

He might be fucked up in more ways than one, but Kurt's not stupid enough to let Blaine go. Fuck the world, they deserve to be happy. Both of them. Together.

"Blaine." Kurt says, eyes like steel. He's never been so sure of anything in his life. "I'm never saying 'goodbye' to you."

The look of relief and love that washes over Blaine's face before he kisses Kurt is the best thing in the world, Kurt's pretty sure.

He won't let them go.