“Kurt? Kurt! What’s happening? Hey, look at me. Kurt!”

“Stop screaming, Blaine’s sleeping.” Kurt whispered.

“…Huh? What the heck are you talking about?” There was a pause, then someone started nearly jelling agina. “Hey, come on, look at me. Kurt! Wake up!”

“What –no, ‘m not asleep, Blaine is. So keep it down.” the teen said, looking a bit annoyed, but his eyes were still shut and his voice still sounded as he was somewhere in between asleep and awake.

“Just give it up already,” Kurt mumbled when the voice wouldn’t stop jelling for him to wake up. What was it talking about anyways? He was perfectly awake.

“Okay Kurt you need to look at me or I'm gonna have to carry you to the hospital, come on.”

The hospital? What?

“Oh for fuck sake this is getting scary come on Kurt –“

“Kurt!”

   Suddenly Kurt was back to at least half consciousness. He was confused to where he was exactly, but he knew it wasn’t comfortable. Nor was he in his little brother’s room finally breathing out after hours of trying to get him to fall asleep.

“…Wha–“ he mumbled, fumbling with his hands around him.

“Oh thank god.” said the voice in relief. He looked to his right and squinted his eyes to get a better look of who was sitting next to him. He failed completely.

“Who –?” he tried but he was so dizzy it was hard to even keep his eyes open.

“What’s goin’ on?” he managed finally.

“...Okay I’m taking you in to let the doctors get a look at you, ‘cause I don't know what the hell’s going on right now.”

Doctors?

“What, no!” he sat up a little straighter in his seat. “N–no doctors.” he said before his body caved forward and he hit his head in something cold and hard.

“Yes, doctors. Or at least a nurse. Come on.” the figure beside him said, and before he knew it, it was out of… wherever he was –maybe a car?–, and then a door on his left side opened and a pair of strong hands grabbed onto him, helping him to get out of… yup, it was definitely  a car.

“Wha’re doi–n?” Kurt slurred, trying his best to get out of the grip.

“I’m helping you. You need to have someone take a look at you.”

“Look a’ me?” he asked.

“Yes. A nurse or something. I don't know but someone who knows what’s going on.”

“Wha –no.” Kurt stopped, refusing to take another step.

“Le’ me go.” he ordered then.

“You can’t walk on your own Kurt. You're completely out of it.”

“No ‘m fine.” the boy insisted, though he obviously weren’t.

“I’m not letting you go Kurt you're gonna fall.”

How does this person know my name?

“No ‘m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No ‘m not!” he was suddenly angry but this didn’t help. Raising his voice only made him even dizzier. The sound of someone screaming inside his head became louder and he had to close his eyes not to throw up. The hand holding around his wrist tightened as well as the hold of his own left hand which was seemingly held around whoever it was’ shoulder. This was a stance that gave Kurt as much support as possible, and it was quite hard for Blaine to keep together with Kurt being quite a bit taller than him, but he wasn’t letting go. Of course Kurt was too out of it to notice this; that Blaine tried to hold him up from the ground, that his own legs were to barely any use at all. He didn’t even know it was Blaine who helped him in the first place.

  “’M fine just let me go,” grunted Kurt stubbornly.

“You’re gonna to fall if I do.” Blaine repeated.

“I’m not.” the boy said yet again, this time putting extra effort into getting the words out properly.

“Okay then. Just know that I warned you, and I'm not helping you up if you fall.”

Blaine carefully let go of Kurt, not really wanting to since he was about three hundred and eighty-six percent sure he was going to fall to the ground the second he did.
And just as he’d thought, the second he let go of the taller boy and he tried to stand up on his own, he failed completely and fell down on the asphalt.

“Okay.” Blaine said, shaking his head with a faint smile on his lips. He couldn’t help it; Kurt was behaving kind of adorable, even though he knew things were more than a little weird.

“That’s it I'm getting a wheelchair out here if I have to. We’re not goin’ anywhere until someone has had a look at you.”

Kurt furrowed his eyebrows, still fighting to hold his eyes open.

“No.” he said, whipping his head around in an attempt to shake it. “No.”

“Why not?”

Why do you have to be so stubborn? Blaine thought. It’s so obvious that things are pretty damn fucked with you right now so why won’t you just let me –

“’Cause they can’t do anythin’.” Kurt groaned loudly as he tried to get up from the ground.

“’M better of as far away from here as possible.” he said and suddenly Blaine stopped being so stubborn about getting him to walk the last couple of meters to the hospital entrance. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but there was something in his voice that just gave him a good enough reason to why he shouldn’t.

“Okay. Then I’m driving you home.” Blaine stated and bowed down to help Kurt up from the ground.

   “I can drive.” Kurt said when Blaine opened the door to help him get into the passenger’s seat.

“Oh, no.” he shook his head, his curls bobbing on his head as he did; something that this Kurt apparently found… amusing, maybe? Because a little grin spread on his face and he stretched out a hand to stroke his hair gently. Blaine was surprised at the gesture, to say the least, but that soon faded as his mind tried to take in the fact that it felt good. He liked the feeling of Kurt’s hand running through his hair. It was different, different from when other guys did it. Maybe mostly because those times it was always rough with arousal, maybe because their hands were usually sweaty and pulling sometimes a little too hard. But there was just something that felt really good when Kurt tangled his slender fingers in his curls.

A little giggle escaped Kurt’s lips and Blaine snapped back to reality.

Did he just giggle? Blaine thought to himself. He did.

It was odd hearing such a sound coming from Kurt Hummel’s lips, but it didn’t stop it from being the most adorable thing he’d heard in his life.

“What is it?” he had to ask when he’d finally managed to get the boy in place in the car seat.

“Y –you’re cute.” Kurt said with a little grin. And if they’d lived inside some kind of animated world, this would be the part where the character’s chin fell down on the ground and their tongue rolled across the street.

What? This was so weird. It was like Kurt was this over-sized five year old, really drunk kid and it was kind of really adorable at the same time as it was really scary.

Blaine didn’t answer him –what was he supposed to say?– instead he just closed the door and walked around the extremely rundown car and hopped in to get seated on the driver’s side.

To his relief, the key were still in its place, and he let out a little breath. Now he wouldn’t have to search Kurt’s pockets at least.

  “So how am I supposed to drive to get from here to your place?” Blaine asked, eyes still on the road. He’d only driven to Kurt’s… home once before and that had been with another person showing the way, and from a completely different place. He had no idea when and where to turn to get to the right spot.

“Kurt?” he asked when he didn’t get an answer. He waited a couple of more seconds for an answer, but when he heard a quiet little snoring sound coming from the other’s mouth he realized that he was just wasting his breath.

Kurt groaned and grabbed his head as he stirred back to life. He forced his eyes open, something felt off.

Very off. He sat up, feeling that whatever he’d slept on was way too soft to be his own mattress. It was warm in the room as well and the smell was different. He looked around him in confusion and found that he was sitting on a living room couch with a warm blanket tucked around him. The couch was standing in the middle of a room Kurt had never been in before. It was pretty normal to size, he guessed, and it looked like once it had been a really nice home. But now the place was pretty rundown. Of course there were still someone who cleaned and did everything they could to make things seem perfectly normal, but the stains on the low coffee table that seemed impossible to clean away and the stench of cigarette smoke drenching the sofa he was sitting in, gave away that this wasn’t the case. Also the ceiling, which no one thought of cleaning with the rest of the house, seemed like it was meant to be white, but was now a faint nuance of grey, probably from all the cigarettes that presumably had been consumed in the room, Kurt guessed.

 “What the hell…?” he mumbled, kicking his feet off of the comfy couch down on the floor, which was covered with a carpet, also full of stains.

A sound came from behind him as if someone was waking up and he turned his head to look from whom it came.

Okay things just went from really weird to really, very, super weird. Kurt thought.

“So you’re awake?”
“I guess? Uh, where are we?” he asked.

“I don't know; some random place I found. We’re in my house you smartass.”

Kurt glared at him. “Yeah, I kinda got that, but why am I here?”

“You –what do you remember?”

“Huh?” What the hell now?

“About yesterday?” Blaine said.

“I remember Scandals, and you suddenly appearing than that guy gave me a blow job and then when I came back there were some guy with you –what was his name?”

“Sebastian.” Blaine filled in.

“Right. Yeah I remember that and then I went to the bar to get something to drink and then we left and…” Kurt furrowed his eyebrows. “Did you drug me or something?”

“Ehm, no. Why would I?”

“I donno.” Kurt shrugged. “Just, my mind’s blurry after there and if I remember correctly you were the one who brought me my drinks. So what the heck happened?”

“You drove me home –“

“I what?” Kurt cut off. “Don’t tell me that we–“

“Wh –no.” Blaine shook his head with a little chuckle. “Don’t worry; nothing happened.”

Kurt relaxed a little. He did have tendencies to do stupid things when he wasn’t entirely sober. Or more stupid things than the once he did when he was sober. And of some reason, Blaine Anderson actually felt like one of those stupid things his drunk self would feel like doing.

“You drove me home and then… –“

“And then…?” Kurt asked, voice telling him to go on as well as asking him why he’d stopped in the first place.

“You drove me to the hospital and then I don't really know what happened exactly.”

“Wait –the hospital?” the boy asked, rubbing his face. What the hell had he been thinking?

“Yes?”

Kurt stared in front of him for a second, bits and pieces from the night before somewhat coming back.

“Okay… then why am I here? And what were we doing by the hospital in the first place?”

“I was just –how did you sleep?” Blaine asked, sitting up a little straighter in the armchair he was sitting in, and by the blanket wrapped around him it seemed like he’d slept there as well.

“That was a really bad try of trying to change the subject.” Kurt said with a little smile. “What were we doing going to the hospital?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Blaine said after a moment, looking just past Kurt’s face.

Kurt didn’t push it any further, he knew how it was not wanting to talk about stuff.

“Okay.” he said, and the boy in the armchair seemed a little surprised at the simple answer. “But I still don’t get what the heck I'm doin’ here, so that you still have to tell me.”

“Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that when I came back to the car you were sitting rocking back and forth mumbling stuff to yourself like you were in some kind of trans or some shit like that.”

Kurt felt himself paling as he understood what must have happened. The exact reason to why he’d stayed away from that place had happened.

“Did you hear something?”

“Ehm…” Blaine ruffled his curls, trying to get rid of his bedhead as much as possible. “Not much that I could actually understand. It was mostly just mumbling.” Kurt let out a little breath.

“But I did hear you telling me that…” Blaine chuckled, as if what he was going to say was just weird. This made Kurt a little worried to be honest, but he didn’t show it for the other to see.

“At one point you told me that I needed to be quiet ‘cause –Blaine was sleeping...?”

Oh fuck no. Kurt’s heartbeat quickened slightly at this new information. Not good.

“I'm sorry but I have to ask, what the hell was that about?” his hazel eyes squinted slightly when he furrowed his triangular eyebrows, a confused sort of smile on his lips.

“I –nothing.” he shook his head.

“Right.” Blaine said, probably understanding that what had really happen wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, just as why Blaine didn’t want to talk about why he’d needed to go to the hospital.

  “You want to use the shower?” Blaine asked after a while of silence, standing up from the armchair.

“What?” Kurt said, trying to untangle himself from the blanket he’d been loaned.

“The shower? Do you wanna use it?” the curly haired boy asked again, a look on his face which Kurt couldn’t really read.

“Uh, sure.” he mumbled, finally free from the blanket.

“It’s up the stairs, then the first door on the left. There’re towels in the closet.” he instructed shortly. “Oh, and you can use my shampoo.” Blaine said with a little yawn as he stretched his short body.  

Kurt just nodded silently. He looked around the room in search for the staircase. The room had a lot of interesting angles, he couldn’t help but notice. And maybe it wasn’t the most luxurious home, but Kurt would give anything to live there.

“Something the matter?” Blaine asked, coming back from the kitchen with a mug in his hands. He could see a faint trail of steam rising from it and Kurt could feel how much he wanted whatever was in Blaine’s hands.

“Um, no. No problems.” He shook his head, making it spin. “I’ll be right back I guess.” he said and started climbing the short staircase.

“First door on the left.” he mumbled to himself and opened the right door.

And this might’ve been nothing for a lot of people, just another every day thing. But to Kurt this was…surreal, almost. He could barely remember when he’d last showered in an actual bathroom. The last three years it’d been cold showers in the apartment and quick, but warmer at least, showers in the locker-room at school. It’d been so long since he’d last had the opportunity to take a hot shower behind a locked door.

Kurt walked around the bathroom. The walls were white and clean. There was a perfectly working water toilet in one of the corners and a shower in another. There was a little sink where you could chose both cold and warm water. The mirror over the sink was much, much bigger than the one in the apartment. Plus this one was clean and free from cracks.

It scared him a little, the mirror. He’d never liked those things. Especially not in a room with perfect illumination and a locked door. They had always loved playing tricks with him. Sometimes when he looked at himself he saw a teenage boy that was just a little too thin to be healthy, but that still had his good looks. He saw a pair of big, cyan eyes that had lost a little of their light, but still shone pretty bright in the pale face. He saw a little silver ring piercing through his left eyebrow and a little black ball just below his bottom lip. Sometimes when Kurt looked in the mirror he saw what he really was.

But sometimes, most of the times, he saw a nightmare.

Dark bags under dead eyes, hollow cheeks, damaged hair. Pain, abuse and a being trapped somewhere in-between life and death. That was the most common thing he saw when he looked at himself in a mirror, and it never failed to disgust him.

  Kurt forced himself to turn away from the mirror, not wanting to risk anything. He slowly began to peal of his clothes, still facing away from the mirror. There was nothing more in the world that he hated more than his own face, but his body. Seeing it without clothes always made him want to puke.

 His movement was slow as he walked over to the shower. He opened the plastic door hesitantly, almost as if he didn’t really believe it was there. Once he was inside he wasted no time. He turned on the water and stepped under it, gasping a little at the first second of contact with the hot water. He bent his head backwards, allowing the water to run over his face and down his body. He hummed quietly, lips still curved into a smile, loving the feeling of the water soaking his hair.

This is so amazing. He thought to himself.

In that moment Kurt wanted nothing more than to just stay there forever. Never leave, just stand there for the rest of his life and let the water wash over him. It felt so wonderful, like the water just washed away everything, took all the pain away for just a little while, washed away the walls that were always so forcefully shutting everyone and everything out. It’d been so long since he’d last felt like that, and more than that; it’d been so long since he’d let himself feel like that. Usually he refused to let himself appreciate the few moments when things didn’t suck as much as they usually did, because he knew that if he let himself enjoy it, it’d just be twice as hard once everything came crushing back down at him.

But now none of that mattered. He refused to think about the fact that this feeling was probably not going to last for long. Now he just let himself love what was happening. Because even though a hot shower might be something that most of us take for granted, Kurt didn’t anymore. So he was going to enjoy this and wouldn’t let anything come in the way.

“Dad come on, Blaine’s gotta take a bath; you forgot to change his diaper again.” He walked into the living room.

His father lay on the sofa as usual. He looked horrible. His stubble had grown into a full beard long ago, the bags under his eyes were so dark and heavy they almost seemed fake. The old man hadn’t changed his clothes for almost a month and probably hadn’t showered in that long either. His breathing was heavy and lazy, the man barely moved at all anymore. And when he did, it was to get to his car to drive to the nearest bar.

“Dad.” the boy repeated, hitting his father’s legs with a pillow. The man just grunted and muttered something that sounded a lot like ‘leave me alone’.

“Dad, come on,” the boy said, his voice now a little more stern, but the man wouldn’t have it. He just waved his arms around until he found his son’s body. He took a hold of it and pushed him away, eyes never opening.

The boy sighed.

“Dad you gotta take care of your son!” he said, a little angrily, but didn’t refer to himself. He’d stopped expecting his dad to take good care of him already.

“You do it if it’s so important.” his father grumbled.

“I’m eight years old dad, I shouldn’t have to.”

The man didn’t answer to this, hoping the boy would leave him alone. Then finally after a minute or so he could hear footsteps walking away from him and he was finally alone again.

   “Hi again there Blainey, let’s get you cleaned up shall we?” Kurt said in a soft voice, his eyes full of love as he looked down at his little brother, who was turning one just a few days from then.

 While Kurt was upstairs taking his shower, Blaine walked around the living room and kitchen in anxious circles. He didn’t know what to do while he was waiting. He found himself listening to the water hitting the floor, or the ceiling, again and again.

I’m not worried. I just want him to be done so he can get out of here.

This was what Blaine tried to tell himself over and over. But it got harder to lie to himself as each minute passed.

He’d seen the state Kurt had been in last night. He’d seen how things had moved in Kurt’s head as they talked of what had happen. Of course he’d left out the part where the other teen had repeated ‘It’s my fault. He’s dead and it’s my fault. All my fault.  I killed him. I killed him. It’s my fault.’ again and again like a mad person on the way to Blaine’s house. It had creeped him out pretty bad to be honest. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what must have happened in that guy’s life for something like that to happen just like that.

And now Kurt was upstairs in his shower. Had been for almost an hour now. But Blaine didn’t want to rush him so he forced is ridiculous nerves to take it easy and refused to go up there and see if everything was okay. Because come on, what would Kurt think of him if he came up and asked if he was okay and he really was? He’d probably laugh at him for being such a girl or something like that –not that he cared about being called a girl.

But really, what could possibly happen in a completely normal shower? What were the possibilities that something was actually wrong? Not very many.

   “Okay that’s it.” Blaine decided when it’d been nearly one and a half hour since Kurt went upstairs. And if not to see if things were okay, then to tell him to get the fuck out of the shower because it wasn’t at all necessary to be in there for that long.

 “Kurt? You okay in there?” he called, knocking on the door. “’Cause you’ve been in there for a pretty fucking long time.”

He put his ear up against the door, listening tensely. He could hear the soft sound of pouring water still running.

“What the hell is he doing in there?” he muttered to himself.

 “Kurt?” he called again. Still no answer.

“If you don’t answer me, imma come in, okay?” he said finally, expecting, or at least hoping for, an answer to that.

“Okay then.” He went to his room and looked for something thin and flat he could use to open the door. He grabbed a paperclip from his desk and went back to the bathroom door, easily opening the door from the outside. Seriously, those locks had to be one of the most unsafe locks ever; you could probably open it with your fingernails if they were long enough.

  “Kurt?” he asked and opened the door only an inch or two, not wanting to risk getting killed. But when there was still no answer he decided that he could kill him if he wanted to and opened the door enough to step inside.

The first he saw when he entered the bathroom was the fogged up mirror and the pile of clothes on the floor beside the shower. There was a thin layer of steam snaking and turning just under the ceiling and he could hear the low sound of water still pouring. But it sounded wrong, like it was stopped by something and couldn’t flow completely free. Plus, it didn’t change. When you shower ‘normally’, the sound of the water hitting the floor changes as you move around the showerhead. This told him that something really was wrong, that he hadn’t just imagined it. So Blaine opened the door to the shower cabin and he didn’t know what he’d expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t this.

Kurt was lying on his back, but still sort of on his side, back turned to Blaine. The shower handle lay pressed under the teenager’s body, and by that being blocked from flowing freely. His eyes were shut tightly, eyeballs frantically moving under the closed eyelids, and his mouth was hanging open slightly. His hands were clutched into tight fists, one of them grabbing his soaked hair. Kurt’s back were covered with scratch marks from his fingernails. They were all burning red and on some places it almost looked like he’d drawn blood.

Blaine looked at Kurt laying on the floor maybe a little longer than he should’ve, he just couldn’t help it. Because even though his body was so thin and even though you could see clear outlines of the male’s ribs, he was beautiful. He could see the many scars and even a few burn marks on Kurt’s wrists and thighs and it hurt him to know that he’d done that to himself. It just hurt. And it almost hurt a little that he found the boy so beautiful, too.

  After a minute or so Blaine got a hold of himself again and turned off the water, which was now freezing cold, and knelt down beside the naked body.

“Kurt?” he said, hesitantly reaching out a hand and placing in on one of his shoulders. It was cold and thin and almost felt fragile under his touch. This was weird since Kurt was always so physically strong and somehow it made the hurt in Blaine’s chest increase.

“You need to get up. You shouldn’t be laying here, you’ll get sick.” His tone was soft and caring. It almost came out of instinct after having had to live with his mother and her condition for so long.

Kurt moaned quietly and even though the sound was pretty adorable, it was troubling.

“Come on you’re not gonna go all zombie with me again are you?” he said, using both his hands to try to at least get him into a sitting position.

“W–what are you doing?” said Kurt, voice week and a little raspy.

Blaine, relieved that the other at least talked to him, let himself smile at how the taller wrinkled his nose, clearly still not completely conscious.

“I’m helping you.” he said. “Can you stand up?”

Was he overreacting? Was he being overprotective or something? He wasn’t, right? This was completely normal, right?

“Kurt,” he said again when all he did was shaking his head. Completely without thinking he let go of one of his thin shoulders and places his now free hand on Kurt’s cheek.

“Get a hold of yourself. I’m not gonna carry you again.” It’d been hard enough the night before to just carry him from the car to the couch, so he didn’t think he could manage to carry him down the stairs by himself.

Kurt hummed quietly and leaned further into Blaine’s hand resting on his cheek. This was absolutely not the reaction he’d expected. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but certainly not this. It would’ve probably made Blaine feel… something, he wasn’t sure, if he didn’t know that this was only proof that Kurt was still pretty out of it.

After thinking a second about what to do, the short boy stood back up and went to open the bathroom door, then the door to his own room. After pushing the books lying on his bed down on the floor, he went back to the bathroom and collected the biggest towel he could find from the bathroom closet.

   With a little groan he let Kurt go, letting him down in the bed as carefully as possible. Maybe he was being a little too careful, he wasn’t a baby after all. But he just looked so fragile, Blaine couldn’t help but treat him like a little child.

After forcing himself not to look at Kurt as he lay under Blaine’s covers, because that would be way too creepy, he went back downstairs to rest a little himself. At first he hadn’t felt like leaving Kurt alone in his room, in case he would start to scream as he’d done last night, or early morning, but he’d seemed fast asleep, and by that different from hours earlier, so this was enough for him to relax at least a little.

Blaine was pretty exhausted. He hadn’t slept well in… a long time, always having nightmares or waking up and having to rush and take care of his mother. It happened, of course, that he dared to escape to Scandals a while every now and again, but that was when either his mother seemed relatively well, or if she was hospitalized. But Scandals really didn’t help his sleep.

The boy tossed and turned as he tried to get comfortable on the lumpy sofa. A part of his mind that was still awake thought ‘How could Kurt sleep on this thing?’. Even sitting in the armchair for five hours, as he’d done whilst Kurt was on the couch, seemed more comfortable; and that had given him back pains to no end.

But even though it was so uncomfortable, he felt asleep almost instantly.

Okay if where he’d woken up last time was comfortable, he was in heaven now. No doubt about it. It was soft and warm and fluffy and it smelled… kinda wonderful, actually. He had no clear memory how exactly he’d gotten to what had to be heaven on earth, nor could he care less about this unimportant detail. He was way too busy enjoying the wonderful feeling of sleeping on clouds.

  Suddenly a loud honking sound split through the air and Kurt groaned angrily. Of course something had to come and ruin his wonderful mood.

Is it really too much to ask to get just a little bit sleep. Not much, just for a while. Please?

Another million honks sounded and then a car door slammed shut, followed by angry voices fighting over something, this became way too loud for Kurt to ignore and just go back to sleep.

For a moment he thought about getting up and shouting back at them to just shut the fuck up, but then he decided that that was out of the question since this would involve getting out of whatever wonderful place he lied in.

It felt like heaven, really. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been this comfortable, but the shouting eventually became too much to ignore and with another sleepy groan he forced his eyes open and he looked around him, trying to make out where he was.

He was in a bed, this he understood rather quickly, but whose bed it was he had no idea. It had to belong to someone who smelled incredible, that’s for sure, Kurt stated.

The room which the bed stood in was pretty small, but still large enough for whoever lived there. The walls were almost empty except for a poster of a band; three men that too Kurt looked ridiculous in trying to look as tough as possible, and in the middle of the guys, just in front of them, stood a young woman with long blond hair and black, round sunglasses. She too with a very serious look on her face. ‘The Pretty Reckless’ said a text hovering above their heads in thick, red, letters. He’d never really heard of such a band before, and this made him even more confused. If he didn’t know anyone who listened to this band, then where the heck was he?

Hang on a minute… Kurt looked around the room again. The desk, on the opposite side of the room from where he sat, was piled with schoolbooks and sheets of paper which seemed to be from school as well. The floor was over all pretty tidy, but over by the closed built into the wall, was a mess of tight jeans, some ripped, some looking completely new, dozens of white t-shirts, also looking pretty tight, along with some other pieces of clothing that looked pretty neglected. A grey pair of some kind of dress pants, and a red and dark blue blazer, looking a whole lot like a school uniform, being one of them.

Hang on a minute… thought Kurt again. I know who lives here.

It had to be Blaine, he decided, he was the only one he knew of who dressed like that while taking care of his school work, and who also had a reason to have a school uniform laying on the floor. Plus, he did have a faint memory of waking up on the boy’s couch and going up to borrow his shower.

That happened earlier today, right? He brought a hand up to his hair, and like he’d thought, it was still a little damp by the roots.

A moment later and he could feel his ears reddening as he remembered that he’d thought that Blaine… smelled good. What kind of thought was that even?

It was just because I was half-asleep, nothing else. He told himself, but to his frustration he had troubles believing it.

Why the fuck am I naked? Kurt thought seconds later when he found that he very much missed clothes completely.

Had Blaine undressed him or some weird shit like that?

No, right, he’d showered.

But still, if he’d showered, what the hell was he doing naked in Blaine Anderson’s bed? That didn’t make any sense…

  Wrapping a towel that lay down by his feet in the bed around his body, Kurt snuck to the bathroom, which was just across from what he now was one hundred percent sure had to be Blaine’s room.

And as he remembered, the clothes he’d worn the past day were laying where he’d left them. Though there was something about knowing that he was actually completely clean that made him not want to put on his old clothes, they hadn’t been washed properly since Quinn had thrown up all over them when they’d celebrated the New Year over at Santana’s place, and that was almost a year ago. Ever since then he’d had done with washing them in the sink with what little soap they had in the apartment from time to time.

 So after just standing there awkwardly for a while, looking down at the gray pile of clothes on the bathroom floor, he walked back to Blaine’s room and searched the floor for a pair of jeans that weren’t way too short for a normal-sized person and put them on. And don’t worry, he used his own underwear, no way he’d go that far with burrowing clothes from a guy he barely liked.

He faced a bit of a bigger problem when it came to a shirt, though. One could’ve thought that it was just for Kurt to grab one of the bigger white t-shirts, but he refused to wear any of them, thinking that then he’d just look too much like a Blaine wannabe. McKinley had gotten quite a few of those lately, boys that had seen how much some of the girls seemed to like him, and had tried to copy him as good as possible. The whole thing just amused Kurt, but also sort of disgusted and disturbed him to some part of no particular reason.

He was just about to pick up a plain black tank top when he heard someone coming into the room. Kurt could feel a pair of eyes on him and a little wave of embarrassment shot through him when he realized that the upper part of his body was still bare and completely visible.

“Stealing my clothes are you?” Kurt heard the little smirk in Blaine’s voice.

“Just borrowing.” he replied, back still turned. No way he’d turn around and let Blaine see the front side of his chest. No way he’d let Blaine see how disgusting he was.

He could hear his company drag itself over to the bed and sit down. Kurt quickly turned a little to the left so his back would remain turned to the other boy.

“You slept well, I hope?” Blaine said and for a second Kurt was surprised by the question.

“Uhm…–yeah.” he said, now turned around with the tank in place. Now he didn’t have to worry about being seen at least.

For a minute the two just looked at each other, not awkward, but not exactly comfortable either, then Blaine decided to break the silence.

“You know I’m starving,” he said, standing up. Kurt just nodded. What was he supposed to do while Blaine ate? Just sit and watch or something? Or maybe he should just get the hell out of there? He was sure Blaine wanted him out of his house as soon as possible.

“You want something?” asked Blaine from the door.

“Huh?”

“Do you want something to eat?” he repeated with a little chuckle at Kurt’s reaction.

“Uh yeah… sure?” he tried, but it was impossible not to make it sound like a question.

Blaine nodded and went back downstairs. Kurt backed and sat down on the bed, a faint smile reaching his lips as he took in what was going on.

He’d gotten to sleep in a reel bed, had taken a shower that lasted for more than five minutes and hadn’t included him having to worry about freezing his toes off. And now he was going to get to eat breakfast.

“Woah,” Blaine laughed as Kurt swallowed the last mouth of yet another sandwich and reached for the plate which had been full with fried eggs minutes earlier.

“You want the last one?” he asked, looking at Blaine, a hand already stretched out.

“Uh, no, I’m okay.” he answered, a little amazed by how much Kurt was eating.

  Being so incredibly hungry while he had fixed them something to eat, Blaine had ended up doing way too much of everything. He loved cooking, had done for as long as he could remember. He’d always loved helping his parents in the kitchen when he was a child, never got thought that it was only women who were supposed to take care of anything and everything related to the kitchen.

Before his parents had so suddenly split up, they had always seemed so happy, and one of the happiest times of the week were always when the whole family could cook the dinner together. So by this, Blaine had tendencies to overdo things when it came to preparing food, as well as doing too much. And this of course got even worse if he was hungry as a wolf.

 He’d ended up with a plate of ten fried eggs, twelve hot sandwiches with cheese and tomatoes done in the oven and a couple of peeled and sliced oranges and apples. Blaine had been so sure that Kurt would take one look at all this before ending up a laughing mess on the floor. But to his surprise, and part relief, the boy had just stared at the table for a moment before settling down, not saying a word of what a pussy he was or anything like that. He had been very careful in the beginning, shy almost, Blaine thought, like he wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. This had confused him at first, then he realized that… with the way Kurt seemed to live, he was probably not used to eat a real breakfast, maybe not anything at all. It seemed unreal to him, but judging by the boy’s thin body, this actually could be the case. The realization had felt like a punch to the gut of some reason. It was just so hard to imagine, seemed more like something out of a movie or book.

  But when Kurt had worked himself through seven of the eggs and had eaten what must’ve been eight of the sandwiches, Blaine started to fear for the other boy’s life. Surely no one could survive eating that much in such a short period of time, much less someone with a body as thin as Kurt’s, not a body which Blaine thought might be used to go the whole weekends without a proper meal if it had to.

  “Okay,” said Blaine in a little chuckle when Kurt reached for his ninth sandwich. “I think you’ve had enough.”

For a moment he could’ve sworn he saw something like guilt and embarrassment in the other’s pale face and big cyan eyes, but told himself that he must’ve been mistaken.

“Sorry.” Kurt said, and had he just said sorry to Blaine?

“…Don’t worry about it. Just don’t feel like calling 911 anytime soon.” he said and gave a half smile.

 “Ehm…” came a mumble from the other side of the table a moment later. “You think I could crash on the couch for a while?” Kurt had his eyes concentrated on a seemingly very interesting part of the table. “Not –if it’s of any trouble of course, I’m just kinda full.” he added quickly, and tried to smile at the end of the sentence, but failed.

“What –no, of course, go ahead.” Blaine said numbly, his head spinning with questions.

“Just,”

Kurt stopped halfway up from the kitchen chair.

“Who are you and what the heck have you done to Kurt Hummel?”

Blaine couldn’t stop the question from coming out. Because this was all so strange. This was not the Kurt Hummel he’d seen and sort of gotten to know, and sort of started to like –as a friend! – this was not the same guy, couldn’t be.

 To this, however, Kurt answered by giving Blaine the finger, and he was able to relax a little bit. Some part of the old Kurt was still there at least.

  Blaine gave himself another ten minutes sort of rest by the table before he ruffled his curls and stood up to begin and clear off the little table. For a moment he thought about washing everything properly so he wouldn’t have to do all that later, then decided that he was too tired –and too angry ‘cause the dishwasher still didn’t work and it’d been seven fucking months since it broke and he started to call whatever they called themselves and ask them to come and look what the fuck was up with the damn thing. He was getting real damn tired of having to wash all the dishes by hand nearly every day. He was a teenage boy; he had better things to do. (Even though he wasn’t sure what all those other things were half of the time.) Because sure, he loved cooking, but that didn’t mean he liked having to clean up after himself afterwards. That had always been so boring in his mind.

He opened his eyes sleepily. Once again he’d been woken up by the sound of something breaking followed by a loud, angry, voice.

Should he get out of bed? Should he go downstairs and help?

For a moment he lay and thought it through, then decided that there was no need. He probably wasn’t wanted down there anyways. So he turned around in his bed and put a pillow over his head, trying his best to shut out his father’s angry, drunken voice from a floor down. Trying his best to ignore what he was doing. It was probably nothing anyways.

So now what was he supposed to do? Kurt was lying on the sofa, looking as though he was asleep, so he couldn’t watch television. It was Sunday, if he wasn’t mistaken, so no way he was going to study. He’d already done all his homework anyways; everything was so easy at McKinley. His mother wasn’t home so he couldn’t go check on her, neither could he call Sebastian to come over since Kurt was there. He really needed a hobby, he realized.

Blaine had never really had the time to find himself any sort of hobby, since he was always so busy taking care of everything at home and so on. Every day after school he drove straight home, looked to his mother, made her something little to eat and gave her her medicines before driving to ‘The Lima Bean’, the little coffee shop that he’d snatched a job at last summer. It really wasn’t anything good with the job aside from free coffee, which he’d drunken so much of so he was starting to get really sick of it. And a little amount of money of course, which was a good thing since Marcie didn’t get too much from her insurance and whatnot. And he hated asking for money from the Smythes, they did enough as it was.

   A violent flinch and a couple of whispered words coming from the boy on the couch stopped Blaine’s train of thoughts and he walked over to sit on the coffee table, ending up just a meter or so from Kurt’s body. This was the closest he’d been to him except from when he’d had to carry him, and he couldn’t help but wonder what Kurt would think of this if he wasn’t awake. He’d probably snap at him and leave as quickly as possible, then avoid him completely for a couple of days.

“Kurt?” he said in a whisper when he furrowed his eyebrows tight together and let out a little whimper.

Is he having a nightmare or something again? Blaine thought, really hoping that wasn’t the case,bBecause he felt as if though Kurt had had enough of those.

He woke up again about an hour later with a bad feeling in his gut. There was a weird sound and a sort of heat coming from downstairs. At first he tried to just ignore this, it was probably nothing. But then when he turned to lie on his back and opened his eyes, after a second of his eyes adjusting to the darkness, he could’ve sworn there was something dark creeping across the ceiling of his room. Something… smoke-like.

With a sudden panic filling his body, the just turned fifteen-year old sat up in his bed and sprung to his bedroom door, flinging it open and stopped dead on the spot.

The little hall-like room outside his bedroom was filled nearly to half with a poisonous layer of thick, black, smoke. It became more and more, thicker and thicker for every second and he could barely breathe. From what he could see it came from downstairs and for another couple of seconds his body wouldn’t move an inch. He was completely frozen where he stood with his arms halfway up to his face. Then he had to breathe, and when he did so his lungs filled with smoke and he coughed and coughed until he got a hold of himself and covered his face as well as he could with one of his arms and ran back into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. It was getting bad quickly, more and more smoke was slipping in trough the gaps of the doorway and it took yet another moment for him to be able to think enough to figure out that he had to call 911 fast, before the whole house was burnt to the ground. He’d heard that once a place was on fire it could take only a couple of minutes before the fire had had time enough to have spread itself throughout the whole place. And he really didn’t want that to happen to the house he’d grown up in.

 The call was over just seconds after it started, and to this day the boy can’t remember how he’d managed to get out of the house.

All he can remember is how freezing cold it had been to stand on the snowy asphalt barefoot in his embarrassing pajamas, two framed photographs clutched tightly in his arms. He remembers how his panic had gotten worse when he’d realized that he was alone. He remembers seeing his father sitting calmly in his armchair, very much awake and aware what was happening around him, when he passed the living room in an attempt to get to his little brother’s room, and he remembers gasping for air and fighting away the dark when he could no longer breathe fresh air. He remembers the sound of his brother crying in his room and the faint sound of sirens just before the darkness won and he fell to the floor.