Kurt arrived at school on Tuesday, the anticipation and fear still bubbling in his chest, anticipation of what was to come, fear of what was to come. But nothing came. Blaine wasn’t in their shared lessons and Kurt didn’t spot him once in the corridors between classes or in the cafeteria at lunch.

The week passed and Kurt felt himself physically relaxing; he knew the last time he had allowed himself this luxury with Blaine things had gone very wrong, very wrong indeed, but something told him that something was different now. There was something about the way the rest of Glee club was acting that told Kurt something was going on, and this something was to do with Blaine.

On Friday Kurt finally confronted Mercedes, he couldn’t work out what was going on at all, and the rest of the Glee club had spent the entire week exchanging glances that Kurt couldn’t read.

“Okay ‘Cedes, spill!” Kurt demanded during their free period, as they huddled together in the back of the library pouring over Spanish dictionaries. He looked up and gave her his “bitch please” glare as she opened her mouth to protest.

“’Cedes, I can see something is going on. The whole Glee club is looking at me funny, all these secret glances, what is going on?” Kurt asked, in a more demanding voice than he had planned.

Mercedes held Kurt's glare shamelessly, “You know I said I would do something, and yes I agreed not do anything that would mean I would get hurt?” she sucked in a breath, not quite meeting Kurt's eyes now but sat up confidently as Kurt stared her down. “Okay, okay, here’s what went down… We cornered Blaine, well, we planned to corner Blaine, then he sort of messed up our plan by showing up in the locker room but the rest of the Glee guys confronted him about him bullying you.” Mercedes explained kindly, watching Kurt's mouth drop open.

“Mercedes! You all could have gotten really hurt… You don’t know what he might have done!” Kurt said in an aggravated voice.

Mercedes shushed Kurt. “Don’t worry about us. Blaine got what was coming to him.” She cut in. “Puck and Sam both got a hit in, Blaine didn’t hurt anyone, he didn’t get a chance to hurt anyone.” Mercedes had to swallow a small laugh at the look on Kurt's face now. No, it wasn’t funny at all, she mentally agreed, but the look on Kurt's face was priceless. “Please Kurt don’t worry, no one got hurt, except Anderson. He had a bust nose and a black eye but nothing more.” She informed him. She hadn’t been happy that the confrontation had turned physical but the guys had made their point.

“Well I suppose that explains why he hasn’t been in all week, I guess.” Kurt nodded at his own realisation, though slightly taken aback that Blaine had been scared off so easily, he really didn’t seem the type to be as Kurt’s own previous warnings had no effect. Maybe he really was just the juvenile delinquent he appeared to be and only reacted to a physical warning. For a second Kurt had thought maybe there was something deeper to Blaine, some reason or rhyme as to why he acted the way he did. Kurt was just as confused as ever about the leather clad boy.

Kurt was distracted throughout the rest of their conversation which thankfully deviated away from the golden eyed boy and to Glee club in general where Kurt didn’t need to pay 100% of his attention to his best friends’ words and his occasional muttered responses and noncommittal nods were enough.

Later Kurt interrupted Mercedes latest rant about Rachel and her seemingly never ending solos.

“Hey, you know when you got the New Directions together to, you know, confront Blaine, you didn’t tell them about the, err, kiss?” Kurt asked in a worried tone, whispering the last word. He didn’t want the news spreading around the whole school because he knew exactly how much of a loud mouth both Rachel and Santana could be and he definitely didn’t trust the latter to keep something like this quiet.

Mercedes looked surprised at Kurt's sudden words. She was confounded for a moment, having been talking about Rachel and the sudden change in topic caught her off guard.

“Oh no, no, Kurt you don’t need to worry about that. I just said the bullying got worse. I wouldn’t tell them that, I know how this is making you feel, well I guess I don’t actually understand but I can see it’s hard for you, probably harder then I can even imagine so this is for you to tell if you ever wanted to talk to someone about it… which actually I think you should, you should tell your dad or Mr Schue.” She said, giving Kurt that protective look she often held after an incident with the old bullies like Karofsky.

“No way Mercedes, I'm not telling anyone, not unless he tries to do something more… but it seems Puck and Sam made an impact, unless he’s taken a week off to plot some huge scheme, though I doubt anyone would waste that much time on me…” Kurt trailed off, though not worrying about what Blaine would do to him; rather his loneliness overpowered him once more.

Everyone would think Kurt was scared of what Blaine might to do him. Blaine could hurt him physically, none of the New Directions questioned that, and they had promised to be like a private army to Kurt once Mercedes had come up with the plan. Mercedes thought Kurt was scared of Blaine kissing him again, or even doing something a lot, lot worse. She knew if the New Directions did become Kurt's private army Blaine would never get a chance to be alone with Kurt and so wouldn’t get that chance again.

But Kurt was scared of so much more.

He was scared of the way Blaine made him feel.

Every advance Blaine made reminded Kurt again and again how alone he was.

These feelings were what Kurt had learned to bottle away deep inside and never allowed himself to revisit those dark places. The feelings when he lost his mother, when he almost lost his father, and every time one of those bullies told him that being different really isn’t a good thing. Those words made him want to crawl back into his shell and never resurface. But he had learned to fight it, to tell himself he was better than them and one day he would get out of this small town and achieve something that nobody would be able to take away from him.

Kurt had learned to fight the derogatory words the jocks threw at him but Blaine was different. It was like he could reach inside of Kurt and see all of his insecurities and loneliness and knew exactly how to exploit those feelings. That was what Kurt feared; he feared all of those feelings resurfacing.