Friday was difficult. Blaine was worried about Kurt, and kept rereading the text messages from the night before. There were no hints as to why he needed to see Blaine face to face, or whether it was good or bad. Blaine somehow knew whatever the reason, it would not be good.

As he sat in his second period class, Blaine realized it was more than want he felt for Kurt. He was beginning to fall for the younger boy. The thought scared him, because Blaine Anderson did not do boyfriends, and he did not do feelings. He felt something for Kurt though.

Once class was over, Blaine went back to his dorm. Between worry and his freighting revelation there was no way he would be able to concentrate on class. He spent twenty minutes pacing in circled before giving up on sitting in the dorm.

The curly haired boy changed into some sweats and a tank top then headed to the gym to box. He had a good feeling that if he didn't hit something now, he might lose it on someone after he talked to Kurt. Plus, being nervous and worrying about someone was not something he was used to dealing with. His friends were idiots sometimes but they could take care of themselves. With them the only thing he had to worry about was how much money they'd have to pay to keep whatever shenanigans they got up to quiet. All of their families had enough money that price was not an issue.

Worrying about money and worrying about the wellbeing of another person were two totally different things though. For once, Blaine was helpless. He had no control over the situation, partially because he had no idea what was happening and partially because he was so far away. A part of him was sure if Kurt was closer, nothing would be able to happen without Blaine hearing about it immediately. Lima was a different world from the one he lived in, a world where his name had no clout with it.

Frustration bubbled through him, and he pushed himself farther, hitting the punching bag with more force. He lost himself in the rhythm of his punches and the sound of his fists impacting the bag.

"You have some serious anger issues, Blaine," a voice said making him jump.

He stopped hitting the bag and turned to find a tall blond standing behind him.

Jeff Sterling smiled at him, and then continued, "Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"What do you want?" he said.

"Wes and David are worried about you. I'm worried about you," the blond said.

Jeff and he grew up together. Their older brothers were best friend, and they'd been forced together numerous times during their childhood. The relationship he had with Jeff was different from the one he held with Wes and David. He was more like an annoying little brother Blaine couldn't seem to get rid of. They had a very affectionate relationship, and the blond could say and do things other people would be killed for.

"Why?" Blaine asked.

Jeff gave him a stern look.

"Why are you down here?" the dark haired boy asked. "You have anything that involves physical activity."

"It's lunch time. We felt someone should remind you that nutrition is necessary to survive. Our lead vocalist can't pass out from nutrition during practice. It looks bad. Besides, I want to go to New York. "

"You just got back from there last week," Blaine pointed out. "Besides, I won't be at practice."

"I'm going to Lima." Blaine pulled the tape of his hands and walked out the door. Food then shower, he decided. His friends would get over the fact that he wasn't even bothering to change out of the sweaty clothes.

"Lima?" the blonde boy asked as they walked down the empty corridor. A wry smile crossed his face. "This little twink has you wrapped around his finger, doesn't he?"

He gave his friend a harsh glare then said, "I'm not wrapped around anyone's finger. Kurt needs someone to talk to right now."

"You're dropping everything and skipping class to see Kurt. I thought you just wanted to fuck him."

"I'm still going to fuck him," Blaine said. "That doesn't mean I can't be his friend too."

"Friend? Befriending your toys isn't anything you've been interested in before. This really isn't like you."

"I'm enjoying this; it's all part of the hunt. I will have him under me though."

Jeff snorted. "Please don't ever say anything like that again!"

A genuine smile crossed the curly haired boy's face for the first time in weeks.

"Seriously though, Blaine," he said. "I think he's getting under your skin. You've been stressed out, especially today, and it has something to do with him. Don't deny it. There is no way in hell you would do something like this for any of your close friends, let alone one of your conquests."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Blaine said stopping just outside the doors to the dining hall.

Wes, David and Jeff's boyfriend Nick Duval were leaning against one of the walls chatting. The three were looking directly at Blaine.

"Feelings, Blaine. He means you're starting to develop feelings for Kurt," Wes said. The Asian boy threw an arm around his shoulder and together he and Blaine led their little group to the table.

"No, I'm not." Blaine glared at his best friend.

Thinking about the implications of his friend's statement terrified him. Deep down he knew it was more than want and curiosity that drew him to the younger boy. No one, not even them, could know how he felt though. Feelings made people vulnerable and Blaine Anderson did not do vulnerable.

"I think you're scaring him," Nick said from his seat next to Jeff.

"Yeah, just leave it alone for now," David agreed. "This could be good for him. We don't want to turn him off of the idea before it has a chance to get anywhere."

He was caught between wanting to hug Nick and wanting to stab the boy. At least his friends dropped the subject of him, Kurt, and everything their relationship or lack-there-of meant. Blaine honestly didn't know what he wanted from the younger boy anymore. A boyfriend would make too easy of a target, and the perfect way to get at him. Kurt deserved more than a simple fuck or a fling though. Blaine wanted to be the one that made the glass eyed boy happy.

Ignoring his friends taunting, he ate quickly then rushed up to his room. Then he spent twenty minutes trying to figure out what to wear. He wanted to impress Kurt, since the younger boy rarely saw him in anything other than his uniform.

By the time he left, he only had forty five minutes to reach McKinley before the schools classes got out. Thankfully, his car was fast. He broke every speed limit, but made it with five minutes to spare. He breathed a sigh of relief that Kurt wouldn't have to wait on him as he pulled into a parking space near the front entrance to the school.

Pulling his iPhone out, Blaine sent him a message.

(2:42)

To: Kurt

I'm here. :) I parked near the front door. Text me when you're on your way.

Not wanting his car to smell like an ashtray, Blaine stepped out of the car and lit a cigarette. A few people gave him curious looks as he leaned against the passenger door and watched the front of the school. He heard the bell ring in the distance a couple of minutes later.

Almost immediately after, his phone beeped.

(2:45)

From: Kurt

I have to stop by my locker, then I'll be there.

He smiled then slipped the phone back into his pocket. Looking up, he noticed that many of the students streaming out of the school were drooling over his car. A small smirk crept across his face at the envious looks they were giving him.

Finally, he saw the younger boy's form emerge. He started to smile then noticed the hurried way he was walking. Even from so far away Blaine could tell that the boy was scared. The answer followed moments later and two large football players exited the school, one of which he recognized as Karofsky.

Anger flared through him. Dropping the cigarette to the ground, he pushed away from the car and began walking towards the countertenor.

When he felt he was close enough to the other boy, he called out, "Kurt!"

Relief passed over the younger boys face almost immediately. He turned and walked towards Blaine.

When they were standing face to face, Blaine noticed the fear and pain in the younger boy's eyes. He wanted nothing more than to pull him into his arms in that moment, but held himself back. Doing that could potentially cause problems with the closeted football player. Problems Blaine did not want to deal with. He settled for a soft smile.

"Hi," Kurt said softly.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine. Can we leave though?" his voice was unsteady as he spoke. It was a lie. He definitely was far from okay.

"Yeah," Blaine said. "Come on." He turned to lead Kurt towards his car, placing a hand on his back softly.

He glanced back as they walked and noticed Karofsky staring at them. The look on the jock's face was something between disgust and jealousy. Blaine gave him a hard look before turning away. Karofsky and the other bullies could wait. Whatever was going on in Kurt's head was more important.

Several people had crowded around his car, admiring it. One of which was Finn. He and Blaine had met a couple of times when Blaine dropped Kurt off. Standing next to Finn was another guy in a letterman jacket with a Mohawk.

As the two boys approached the car, Finn hit his friend and said, "Dude! I knew it!"

"This car is so bad ass!" the friend said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Blaine saw Kurt give Rachel, who he completely over looked, a questioning look. Despite his dad owning a garage, the younger boy didn't know the first thing about cars. All he knew was it was an expensive BMW, but not quite how expensive. It was quite obvious his brother and…Puck knew. It took him a few minutes to place the face with the name. The younger boy had described his stepbrother's best friends a few times. Blaine liked having a face to put with the name.

"What's so special about the car?" Rachel asked.

"Dude, this is like a hundred thousand dollar car!" Finn said.

"And you can race it and shit," Puck added.

Both boys looked at the car's owner for confirmation.

"It was about one twenty, maybe a little more," Blaine said.

"Fuck! That's a lot of money," Finn said.

"How fast does it go?" Puck asked.

"The fastest I've gotten it to is about one thirty," Blaine told him smugly. "She's supposed to reach one fifty though."

"Dude! You have to let me drive it!" Puck said excitedly.

"I just wanna ride in it! I've never even touched anything so expensive," Finn said.

"Oh my god!" Rachel yelled at them. "It's just a freaking car! Can we go Finn? I have to meet with my vocal coach and I don't want to be late for the appointment." Her tone grated on Blaine's nerves.

"They're just being boys," Kurt said making Blaine smile. "It's an expensive car. Let them drool over it for a few minutes. Blaine and I have somewhere to be in a little while anyway."

The curly haired boy looked at him questioningly. He didn't realize Kurt had anything planned. "We do?" he asked.

"Yes." Then Kurt turned back to Rachel to continue the conversation they were having while he allowed the other two boys to fawn over his car.

The short answer caught him off guard.

Turning back to the car, he hit the unlock button on the key and opened the door. The car was convertible, but he rarely let the top down due to loose papers littering the back floorboard. He opened the door for Finn and Puck and allowed them to climb inside the car and look around. Being nice and allowing them to do this would help him get Kurt. Plus, it was amusing to watch the two be so enthusiastic about the car. It wasn't the most expensive car he owned. Actually, the car wasn't expensive at all by his standards.

Of course, Lima had a whole different view when it came to expensive. Kurt's father was considered well off here. In Blaine's world, they would barely be making it.

"You're so short!" Puck said discovering he didn't have any leg room when he tried to sit in the driver's seat.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of the mohawked boy crammed uncomfortably in the seat.

No one else approached the car for a while, though many of the male students stopped to stare at it. Blaine chuckled at their amazement. Karofsky and his friend approached them after a few minutes. He jock purposely ran into Kurt, knocking him sideways. Blaine focused his gaze on him.

"Nice ride, Lady boys," he said.

"Why don't you let us take it off your hands," his large friend said.

"Nice cars like this are ruined by that gross shit you do," he continued.

"It's disrespectful," the other jock said.

Blaine glared at them, his eyes darkening with anger. "Excuse you?" he said harshly as he gestured for Kurt, who looked close to tears, to get into the car.

"On second thought," Karofsky said as the younger boy opened the door, "I don't want nothin' a faggot's touched anyway."

His friend nodded in agreement.

"I think it's time for you to leave, Rich boy, and take the fairy with you. I'm tired of seeing his faggy face everywhere."

It took everything Blaine had not to leap over the car and beat the hell out the football player. The only thing that stopped him from losing it was Kurt's soft, terrified pleading for them to leave.

Blaine bid a quick farewell to Kurt's three friends, noting that the only person that seemed to care was Puck.

"I so wish I hit that asshole," Puck said while Blaine got into his car. After Blaine shot him a confused look, he explained farther. "I'm on probation. I'll go back to juvie if I get into a fight."

"You okay?" he asked Kurt once the doors were closed.

"No." he said, his voice shaking. "Let's just…Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"

It broke Blaine's heart to see tears in those beautiful glasz eyes. Kurt was too beautiful to cry.

No, you can't go there, his brain screamed at him. He closed his eye for a second and shook the thoughts away. "Okay," he said out loud and pulled out of the parking lot.

The ride was silent except for the radio playing softly in the background. Kurt stared out of the window, watching the world pass by. Every few second Blaine would glance towards him then back to the road. As they exited Lima, he took the younger boys hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly.

Kurt turned to look at him the moment their skin made contact. A small smile crept across his lips. "Thank you for doing this, Blaine," he said quietly.

"You don't have to thank me," came his soft reply. "I care about you. And you need someone to talk to. Someone outside of whatever the situation is."

"I…" Kurt started. "You care about me?"

"Yes." He had no idea what possessed him to admit it. He just couldn't take the miserable look on Kurt's face. An odd sense of relief washed over him, though it was immediately followed by a slight bit of dread.

"I care about you too," Kurt said.

Blaine smiled at him.

After a few more minutes of driving, Kurt finally asked, "Where are we going?"

"My house," was the driver's simple reply. He was smiling as he said it.

"Your house?" From the slightly scandalized tone, Blaine knew he was recovering for the most recent run in with the obnoxious bully. He couldn't help but wonder what else had transpired between the two to make Kurt so terrified of the jock.

"Yes. You wanted somewhere we could talk. It's the best place I know of."

"It's all the way in Westerville though."

"Yes, is there a problem with that?" Blaine was smirking.

"No!" Kurt squeaked out.

A laugh escaped Blaine's lips at the noise. Sometimes the younger boy was too adorable.

Kurt glared at him playfully, but stayed silent for the remainder of the ride.

As they neared his house, Blaine turned his attention more towards Kurt, curious to see his reactions. Even he had to admit the house and property, though ostentatious, were impressive to people that weren't as familiar with it as he, and he knew that Kurt had never seen anything like it up close.

Turing off the main road, a large gate with an "A" in the center of it loomed ahead of them. The younger boy sat up straighter when Blaine pressed the button to open the gate, which split right down the middle of the gate. Trees lined the drive for half a mile before opening to a large clearing where the house, if you could even call it that, was nestled.

The house was made of dark brown brick, with beige stones accenting the corners. More than two dozen large windows glittered in the afternoon sunlight, and five chimneys rose high above the two story structure.

"Oh my god," Kurt breathed, his eyes large with amazement.

Blaine smiled slightly at the boy's reaction. He could tell the countertenor wanted to say something, but couldn't pull his eyes away from the house long enough to. He let the younger boy stare as he pulled around the circular drive. It had an ornate fountain in the center of it that depicted scenes from Greco-Roman mythology.

When he stopped the car in front of the front door, Kurt finally turned his attention to Blaine. "You don't seriously live here," he said.

He laughed softly and said, "Come on, let's go inside."

They got out of the car, and Blaine led the younger boy into the house. The door was unlocked, it usually was. It was rare for there to be a reason to lock it.

Kurt stopped moving one they were inside. The floor of the entrance hall was marble, and above the double spiral staircase hung a crystal chandelier. The staircase itself was a dark cherry wood with a small balcony in the center.

"You live in a castle, Blaine," he said.

"It's not a castle," he chuckled. When he was a boy he did pretend it was, but that was a long time ago. Grabbing Kurt's hand, he said, "Let's go to my room so we can talk."

Up the stairs they went, moving slowly so Kurt could take everything in. As adorable as Blaine found Kurt's amazement at the house, he was getting slightly agitated. He tried not to let it show, but, they needed to talk. He needed to know what was going on. Doing that was impossible outside of his room.

Once they finally reached the top, Blaine walked to his bedroom and threw open the French doors. His bedroom was more of a suite, complete with a sitting room and two walk in closets. A small hallway led to a spacious bathroom. The sitting room had a fire place, which he rarely used, and a state of the art entertainment center. He ignored all of it, even the plush couch he loved to relax on and led Kurt through the archway into the actual bed room.

Blaine let go of the younger boy's hand, kicked his shoes off, and sat down on the bed.

Kurt stood there awkwardly for a moment, until Blaine said, "You can sit down, you know."

He pulled his shoes off then sat down. It took a few minutes for them to get situated. Blaine ended up leaning against his headboard, sitting Indian style with Kurt in the same position across from him.

"I'll give you a tour of the house later," Blaine told him. "Right now, I want to know what's going on."

He watched Kurt's eyes dart around nervously. The younger boy took a deep breath, and then said. "You remember what happened with Karofsky right after we met?"

"How could I forget? He sexually assaulted you." Blaine didn't like where this was headed, and the conversation had barely started.

"It was an unwanted kiss," Kurt said trying to deny the truth.

"That kiss was sexual assault, regardless of what you've convinced yourself of otherwise." His tone was harsher than it needed to be, but Blaine really couldn't help himself.

"Blaine!" Kurt said, flinching.

Immediately, he regretted his statement, but he couldn't take it back. He took the younger boy's soft hands in his and squeezed them lightly.

"Just let me talk, okay?" Kurt pleaded with him.

"Okay."

Neither boy made a move to pull their hands away as Kurt launched into his story.

"Things at school have been getting worse since that day. He hasn't done anything like that again, but Karofsky's been getting more…unpredictable."

"Unpredictable how?" Blaine tried his hardest to keep his tone even and not tighten his grip on Kurt's hands.

"He makes comments, sometimes they're suggestive, but usually they're really bad, like violent bad. He's more forceful when he shoves me into lockers, and more handsy about it." Tears fell from the boy's glasz eyes as he explained the living nightmare McKinley was turning into. "He grabs me when no one is looking, he keeps following me around classes. He taunts me, but there's always an undertone of something. I can't even think about what it might mean. If I'm not surrounded by people, I'm afraid of what he'll do. I can't tell anyone about it, most of them would over react. Mr. Schue and Coach Sylvester can't do anything about because other than shoving, no one ever sees anything he does. And he…"

Kurt stumbled over his words, becoming more hysterical as he spoke.

Blaine drew the crying boy towards him, turning him so his back was flush against Blaine's chest. He wrapped his arms around Kurt tightly. He pressed a light kiss to the boy's temple and said, "What else did he do?"

"He said he'd kill me if I told anyone else about what he's been doing. And about him kissing me."

Fury bubbled through Blaine's veins unlike anything he had ever felt before. Murdering Karofsky wouldn't be enough for him. Kurt had to leave McKinley. There was no way he could remain there, so far away from the safety only Blaine could provide for him. Kurt belonged to him and no one was allowed to mess with his things. His hold on the younger boy tightened.

"Everything's going to be okay, Kurt. I promise," he whispered softly, placing another kiss lightly to the boy in his arms' temple.

And it would. A plan was forming in the back of his mind that would not only tear Karofsky's world apart, but also ensure Kurt would be closer to Blaine. David Karofsky would regret ever even knowing Kurt's name when Blaine was finished with him, let alone being his number one tormentor. No one, he vowed, would ever lay a finger to Kurt's eyes again.