The past few months—hell, the past year—Kurt's lost track of how many times he's completely broken down and just cried.

Not a just few tears here and there, but deep, heart-wrenching, chest-heaving, pain-filled sobbing until he can barely see through his swollen eyes and his throat hurts and his head feels stuffed with cotton.

Kurt cries a lot. It's at the point where he's too tired to even get embarrassed anymore, he just lets whoever is closest do their best to help him stop. Usually it's Blaine or Xena, but sometimes Burt. Once, Finn. Rarely Carole, but that's more because Kurt avoids her as much as possible. She's a wonderful person and she makes his father happy, but she's not his mom. He can't explain it. Once, he tried to tell his dad, but Burt just looked confused and a little hurt, so Kurt doesn't say anything now. He just dodges Carole's touches and hugs and talks and pretends not to see how her face falls every time he leaves her. He's not ready to let go of his mom yet.

He's getting better, though, especially after he started opening up and actually talking to Blaine about what he feels. Confronting Karofsky, strangely enough, helped too. Even Dr. Englund is impressed. Not that the nightmares stop, but they do slow down.

Kurt is used to crying.

But he doesn't exactly know how to deal with it when someone else breaks down before his eyes.

Even less so when the one breaking down is the same one that's been his rock for last six months.

When Kurt opens the door amid the frantically ringing doorbell, he's not prepared for the small body of compact muscles and curly hair that flies at him.

"Oof!" Kurt grunts out in surprise as arms wind around his waist and a head buries itself in his neck. "Blaine?" Kurt asks hesitantly, backing them up slightly so he can shut the door. Blaine doesn't answer, but his body shakes against Kurt's and he feels his shirt getting wet. Kurt gently strokes his fingers through Blaine's hair. It doesn't calm him this time.

"Kurt…"

He's not completely proud of himself, but Kurt panics a little at the sound of Blaine's defeated, upset voice. It's just not right; it's so not right to hear Blaine as anything other than fierce and strong and confident. So he ends up just holding Blaine tighter and rocking a little, still in the cramped hallway. A cold, wet nose nudges at his thigh and Kurt looks over Blaine's head to see a dejected Xena sitting next to them. She whines again and starts pawing at Blaine's leg; obviously hoping for a greeting or some love but Blaine only clutches Kurt to himself.

Burt comes out of the kitchen at Xena's whining and stares at the sight of his son's boyfriend practically wrapped around Kurt. He catches Kurt's eye in a clear what's going on and Kurt shakes his head minutely. Hopefully his dad will understand. Burt nods and whistles gently, drawing Xena away from their legs.

"C'mon, girl," Burt mutters, guiding her behind him. With a last worried look at the pair in the entryway, he leaves them alone. Kurt hears him softly telling Carole not to bother them and Kurt really fucking loves his dad. But he has to take care of his boyfriend now.

"Blaine, we're going to move to my room upstairs, okay?" Kurt says quietly, nudging Blaine's legs with his own. Blaine nods, but doesn't release his death grip on Kurt's shirt and they stumble a few steps until Kurt sighs. "Sweetie, if you don't let go we're going to fall down the stairs and break our necks, and I haven't picked out my funeral outfit yet." That gets a breathless chuckle and Blaine loosens his grip enough so that he could actually see the stair. He still squeezes Kurt's hand like he thinks he'll fall if he lets go.

Kurt's heart hurts when he realizes that.

Through gentle prodding and some pushing, Kurt somehow gets Blaine up the stairs and into his room, kicking the door closed behind him. Burt probably wouldn't approve but Kurt has a feeling this is private. Blaine releases his hand once they're through the doors and crosses the room to the bed, sitting gingerly on the edge. With his arms folded tight against his chest and his head bowed, Blaine looks so small.

Something pulls at Kurt's heart again, but he knows how Blaine reacts to prodding when he's upset so Kurt silently sits next to him, offering his hand. He lets out a relieved breath when Blaine retakes it. If nothing else, Blaine's still reachable.

They still don't speak, though Kurt rubs his thumb over Blaine's knuckles in a smooth rhythm. Out of the corner of his eye, Blaine's shoulders are shaking and he keeps lifting his other hand to his face and sniffing wetly, and fuck it, Kurt can't take much more. He's still more than a little freaked out about what could possibly have set Blaine off so badly especially because he's actually starting to lose feeling in his fingers from how tightly Blaine is squeezing.

"Blaine, honey?" Kurt finally says quietly. "Could you please loosen up some? My fingers are starting to fall asleep." He wiggles them a little and Blaine starts, staring at their entwined fingers. His cheeks flush with embarrassment and Blaine immediately tries to drop Kurt's hand.

"Sorry, I didn't mean…"

"I didn't say 'let go.'" Kurt interrupts, still holding on. Blaine cracks a smile, though he still won't look up. Instead he massages some feeling back into Kurt's fingers.

His eyes are red and puffy and his curls are a mess and he doesn't stop pulling on his earrings and Kurt knows this can't go on.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kurt asks softly. He doesn't exactly expect Blaine to spill everything right away, but he certainly doesn't expect the harsh scoff he gets.

"'Cause that's worked so well for you." Blaine snaps. His tone is bitter and resentful and Kurt narrows his eyes.

"Blaine." And ouch, that fucking hurt. Like a shot to the gut.

"Kurt." He finally looks up and glares, but at least he's talking instead of crying so Kurt counts it as progress.

"Come on. Let me be here for you. You're upset; tell me why." Kurt tries to be patient and squashes down his annoyance at Blaine's callous words. He's starting to get an idea of what Blaine went through with him; how hard Kurt's mood swings and trauma were to deal with. It's frustrating as hell to contain his urge to yell and shake him and ask what's wrong tell me so I can fix it but that's not what Blaine needs right now.

Blaine shakes his head and studies his feet, mouth turned into a deep frown. It's weird to see a position Kurt felt himself in so often from the other side. He almost laughs, but instead drops Blaine's hand so he can rub his boyfriend's back. Blaine's so tactile that any kind of touch helps him, so Kurt shifts closer until they're touching sides to legs, and Kurt lets his head drop on Blaine's shoulder with his arm around Blaine's waist. Blaine fits perfectly.

After another bout of silence where Kurt listens to Blaine's breathing start to hitch again and his chest shudder with every muffled breath, Blaine speaks up.

"It's fucking stupid," he mutters in a rough voice. Kurt sits up but doesn't stop his fingers from gently rubbing Blaine's hipbone.

"You're the one that told me that it doesn't matter how dumb something is, if it upsets you, it's important," Kurt says, echoing Blaine's words a few weeks ago. He really needs to tell Blaine more often how much he helps because that advice is some of the best he's ever heard.

Blaine shrugs defiantly.

"You came here," Kurt reminds him. "You came here, let me help you for once, okay? I'm not completely useless, I am good at cuddles." He tries to smile, but Blaine shakes his head again.

"I'm being a fucking idiot." Blaine rubs his face hard, like he wishes he could vanish. "You have enough problems without me dumping my shit on you. I shouldn't have come." He tries to stand but Kurt yanks his stupid boyfriend back down because they should have been over this crap weeks ago.

Fixing him with a glare, Kurt pins Blaine's hand to the bed. "What did we say about you making decisions for me?" Kurt growls.

Blaine gulps at Kurt's expression. "Um. Don't?"

"Exactly." Kurt releases him, but not before smacking his shoulder. "Stop being a moron and tell me what made you so upset." Tough love works wonders on Blaine.

"Aw, you make me so tingly when you get bossy—"

"Blaine!"

He scowls. "Alright, Christ." Blaine rolls his eyes, but his expression sobers up quickly. "It's not really one thing," he mutters.

Kurt leans in and knocks their shoulders together gently. "That's okay. You've been under a lot of stress lately, thanks to me."

"Nothing like you have."

"Don't, Blaine, I know I haven't exactly been the best boyfriend—"

"—I don't regret it, you know that?" Blaine seems so sure Kurt almost can believe it. "Not a single second. You're worth everything."

They pause.

"So why don't you believe that about yourself?" Kurt asks quietly. "We're a team, right? Soulmates. Two halves of the same coin." He laughs at Blaine's face wrinkling up in displeasure. "Yeah, it's cheesy as hell, but we're partners. We help each other." At least he gets a nod out of it. "Come on. I want to help."

Blaine lets out a long, deep sigh, but his shoulders relax ever so slightly. "I haven't been sleeping well," Blaine finally admits, still fiddling with earrings.

"Because of me?"

Guilt flashes over Blaine's face, but he nods. "Kind of. That's part of it; but some of it's just me. I never slept when I was a kid. Always a night owl." He shakes his head again, fingers moving faster over the earrings and Kurt reaches over and stills them with a touch. Blaine lets his hand be guided down into lap. "He just really got to me last week." Blaine mutters. He doesn't elaborate, but really, Kurt knows who Blaine means.

"You know he's wrong, right? You and I, Blaine, we're…" Kurt shrugs helplessly. "You're kind of it for me, okay? I know we're young and everything, but you are." How on Earth is Kurt going to be able to convince Blaine he's worth it? Because he is.

"I know." Blaine says and Kurt stares at him in surprise. Blaine smiles crookedly. "You're it for me too." A bubble of happiness starts to form in Kurt's chest. It pops at the next few words. "But Kurt, you're just…" Blaine lets his sentence trail off.

Something like fear settles in Kurt's stomach. "I'm what?" Kurt asks, suddenly nervous.

"You're you." Blaine says, like that answers anything. Kurt gives him a hard look and Blaine snorts. "I mean. You're amazing and you've got this perfect voice, and you're smart, and creative, and fashionable and you're gonna take the world by storm and get out of this shit town as soon as you graduate and me?" Blaine huffs out a laugh and looks up at the ceiling. "I'm nothing." He shrugs.

He acts like he doesn't care, like he's accepted it, but there's a tear running down Blaine's cheek and he wipes it away, scowling at his hand.

"That's not true," Kurt whispers.

Blaine snorts again. "I'm not good at anything. I always screw shit up; I can't do anything right. Everything always goes to hell when I'm involved; fuck, look at what happened to you!"

Christ, they just keep going to circles. Because he's told Blaine a million times that Karofsky wasn't his fault and he has to stop beating himself up about it.

Kurt wonders if Blaine's self-esteem is actually worse than his.

"Is that all that's bothering you?" Kurt asks in a low voice, half-scared of the answer. Predictably, Blaine frowns even more.

"'Course not." He crosses his arms and tenses. "I've been talking to Erica. Dad's girlfriend, y'know?" Kurt nods, wondering where this was going. It didn't sound good. "Yeah, well, Mom found out." Blaine sighs.

"And she was…"

"She was pissed. Really pissed." Blaine's leg starts bouncing up and down and the anger pours off of him. "She yelled at me for taking Erica's side; for abandoning her even though I wasn't, I was just trying to keep Erica safe! Dad's starting to scare her but she's being so stupid and she won't just leave and Mom doesn't get it at all, she still loves that bastard even after everything he's put us through!" Blaine stands up abruptly and faces Kurt. "She hates me," Blaine chokes out, and Kurt kind of wants to cry at the anguished look on his face. "She honestly hates me."

It takes a second for Kurt to get his voice unstuck.

"She doesn't…"

"Of course she does," Blaine chuckled bitterly, and it sounds so wrong coming from him. "She hates me. I ruined her life. My boyfriend's scared of me—" The vice around Kurt's heart squeezes. "—and he's gonna leave me when he finds someone better in—in New York or LA, or something and I'm nothing. I'm just fucking nothing." He looks at Kurt then. Resigned, bitter, angry, hurt, stressed, scared, and this cannot go on.

But how the hell can Kurt fix this when he's barely holding himself together?

Blaine's shaking again, arms wrapped tight around his stomach and sniffing mightily, like that will stop him from crying again. And Kurt knows what to do.

"Do you want some warm milk?" Kurt asks, startling Blaine.

Blaine stares at him and Kurt smiles serenely.

He's going to fix this. Not in one night, probably, but he will. This is something he can do.

Blaine deserves everything.

It takes a long time. There's more crying, more tears, yelling, screaming, and hugs, from both of them. But things get hashed out and feelings and insecurities get confessed and then reassured, and Kurt's so glad his dad decided to take Carole out to the movies and made Finn go to Puck's for the night.

It definitely helps when they start making out in the kitchen, mugs long forgotten and them caught up only in each other and warmth and love and closeness and trust and hot skin and frantic lips and firm muscles. Cooling down takes longer that night.

Xena gets locked downstairs behind the child gate and Kurt and Blaine spend the rest of the night curled up in Kurt's bed, trading chaste kisses and watching horror movies. Sacrifices had to be made for his boyfriend, and honestly, Kurt doesn't mind hiding his face in Blaine's neck during most of Grave Encounters. He smells nice.

Before he falls asleep, Kurt thinks, We're going to be okay.

About a week after Blaine's breakdown and rebuilding, Kurt practically skips his way into McKinley one morning. Everything is perfect. The sky is a bright blue, the air is warm and smells like flowers, and Imagine Dragons is surprisingly a really kick-ass band.

He'll have to thank Blaine for finding them, Kurt mentally reminds himself while trying to juggle Blaine's coffee and his iPhone.

"'Cause I'm on top the world, ey!" Kurt sings under his breath, ignoring the weird looks the other students send him. No one's bringing him down today. Plus he knows for a fact Rachel burst out into On My Own in Home Ec the day before after Finn told her that he's running for Junior Prom King with Quinn. This was so much less weird. "I'm on top of the world, ey! Been waiting on this for while now, paying my dues to the dirt." He catches sight of Blaine ahead, scowling at his locker and Kurt grins wider.

"I've been waiting to smile, ey! Been holding it in for a while, ey!" Kurt keeps singing and half dancing; startling Blaine, whose expression quickly morphs into a mix of amusement and uncertainty. "Take you with me if I can, been dreaming of this since a child. I'm on top of the world!" Kurt finishes, pulling out his ear buds and shoving them in his pocket.

"Told they're a fucking awesome band," Blaine says, raising an eyebrow. "And have we learned to stop doubting me when I tell you to listen to a new song?"

"You aren't bringing me down today, don't even try," Kurt can't stop grinning and it has to be weird, but fuck it. He hugs Blaine quickly and shoves the Lima Bean coffee cup at him, beaming at Blaine's confusion. "Medium drip with cinnamon and sugar, just the way you like!" Kurt explains, motioning for Blaine to drink up. Blaine hates mornings and coffee is usually the only thing that keeps him awake and happy. And Kurt likes making his boyfriend happy.

Blaine narrows his eyes suspiciously, but takes a gulp of the coffee obediently. "Shit, that's good. Um, you okay?" He closes his locker and leans against it, hip cocked out. Students walk by and glance at them, but Kurt doesn't care. It's an awesome day.

"I'm fine! I am so fine, today is fine, school is fine, everything is just…fine!" Oh Jesus, he sounds high, but he can't help it. He's just really happy and his feet keep bouncing and Blaine totally thinks he's insane.

Blaine takes another sip, raising an eyebrow. "You're in a good mood today," he comments.

"Mmmhmm." Kurt bites his lip and tries not to grin but he can't stop bouncing. "Ask me why." He can't wait.

Blaine still looks confused, but he's never been able to deny Kurt anything. "Okay, why are you acting like you snorted a bunch of happy pills this morning?" he drawls, laughing when Kurt smacks his shoulder.

"Blaine!" Kurt tries to glare but fails and laughs instead. So many people keep staring at him, oh Lord. "No! But…no nightmares," Kurt admits with a tone of wonder.

It takes a second for Blaine to understand and Kurt waits impatiently for Blaine to get it. "No…nightmares?" Blaine scrunches up his face in confusion but it clears almost instantly. "Wait, no nightmares? Kurt! That's fantastic!" Blaine laughs and smiles and Kurt's just so fucking happy.

Kurt lets his grin out and nods, grabbing Blaine in a tight hug. He remembers at the last second to be mindful of the coffee but nothing spills so he drops his head into the crook of Blaine's neck and just breathes. "It's just been a really long time, y'know?" Kurt says roughly into Blaine's shoulder. His throat closes up from emotion and Kurt clears it. "It feels really good. To be happy."

"You deserve it, babe," Blaine returns, sounding almost as choked. His scent surrounds Kurt, heart thudding reassuringly. "You're amazing."

For the first time in a long time, Kurt honestly believes him.