It begins with nonsensical screaming, waking Kurt from a dead sleep. He lies in bed for a few moments, trying to make out words. One voice is a women’s and he is almost positive it’s Melissa’s. Another is deep, definitely a man’s, but he doesn’t recognize it.

The voice is angry. Very angry.

Heaving a deep breath, Kurt grabs his phone off his bedside table, dialing Blaine’s number. It goes to voicemail.

“Hey, it’s me,” Kurt breathes into the phone. “It sounds like something’s going on at your house. Call me back as soon as you can. Love you. Bye.”

He is still sitting in bed and staring at his phone, debating whether or not he should call his father when a text comes in.

Blaine: Can you call the police, please?

His adrenaline kicks in and he types back an answer at rapid speed.

Kurt: Are you okay?

Blaine: I’m fine. Just call.

Kurt does so, explaining to a confused operator that no, he doesn’t know what’s going on, but there’s screaming and it hasn’t stopped. He stays on the line with her until he hears sirens.

Kurt: Can I come over?

Blaine: Stay there.

There’s more yelling, but now it’s just men. Melissa is no longer part of whatever is happening.

Kurt: What happened?

Blaine: Tell you later. Brb.

It’s twenty minutes before Blaine responds. Kurt tries hard not to panic, breathing in deep and listening to the silence now that the yelling has stopped.

Blaine: They’re gone. Go to sleep, Kurt.

Kurt: Yeah right. Can I come over now?

Blaine: No.

“That’s it,” Kurt mutters to himself as he hits speed dial. Blaine answers on the seconds ring.

“What happened?” he demands.

“Don’t worry about it, Kurt. Go to sleep.” Kurt can hear the anxiety under his reassuring tone.

“Who was that?” he demands.

“Sleep.”

“Blaine!”

“I’m hanging up. Don’t come over. I’m going to bed.”

Kurt waits for the line to disconnect, but Blaine stays on. “I love you,” Kurt whispers.

Blaine huffs out a breath. “I love you, too.” Then the line goes dead.

Kurt does try to go to sleep. He pulls the covers over his body, puts his phone down, and closes his eyes. He tries to think about something other than Blaine. This lasts exactly twelve minutes before he calls again. Blaine answers on the first ring this time.

“Blaine, please? I’ll make it quick,” he begs.

“Yeah.” Blaine’s voice is shaky. “I was just going to call you.”

“Should…should I bring a pillow?” Kurt asks.

Blaine breathes out heavily. “Yeah. Just don’t forget to leave a note this time.”

“Be there in three.”

Kurt snatches the pillow off his bed. Not for the first time, he appreciates that his bedroom-basement hybrid is as far from Burt’s bedroom as possible. There’s no need to tiptoe as he darts into the kitchen, scrawls out a quick explanation, and pins it to the fridge.

The summer air is humid, sucking Kurt’s pajamas to his skin. He is barefoot, the grass squishy between his toes as he dashes across the lawns. Blaine meets him on the porch, and Kurt wastes no time catching him in a kiss. Blaine’s lips are unresponsive.

“What happened?” he whispers, pushing Blaine back to arm’s length so he can examine his boyfriend.

Blaine’s hair is sticking up in the crazy way it always does ungelled. His eyes are damp, but he’s no longer crying, just staring at Kurt like his entire world has been torn apart.

“I-“ Blaine tries, sniffling hard. “I- can we just sleep? Please, Kurt?”

Kurt softens his tone. “Yeah, honey. Let’s go sleep.” He follows his boyfriend up the stairs and into the bedroom, tossing his pillow onto the bed from across the room. He gestures for Blaine to lie down first.

Blaine’s bed is a twin, not really big enough for two people, a fruitless attempt by their parents to keep them from sleeping with one another. They don’t do it that often, but they do it often enough so that Kurt easily slips into position, curling himself around Blaine as the two shift slightly to make themselves fit.

Despite their parents’ fears, they have never actually had sex. Fooled around, yes. A bit of oral, yes, but nothing they considered going all the way. Sleeping together is for cuddling. That’s always been the way their relationship works.

Blaine cries a bit more and Kurt plays with his hair and shushes him until the younger boy’s breaths even out. Kurt tries one more time right as Blaine starts to drift away.

“Who was that, Blaine?”                        

He has to hold his breath to hear Blaine’s answer, whispered almost inaudibly like if Kurt doesn’t hear it, it won’t be real.

“My father.”

* * *

Blaine does not elaborate further. He does not laugh, he barely smiles, and every day his fists clench tighter. Melissa doesn’t leave the house, and she’s never truly relaxed unless Blaine is home.  

Kurt tries everything. He badgers Blaine constantly with questions. He calls Cooper, but the number is disconnected. Burt is equally as clueless as Kurt. He promises to talk to Melissa, but she gives no more information than Blaine does.

As the summer starts to draw to a close, Blaine withdraws himself further. He turns down all invitations to hang out with their friends. He answers texts more less frequently, and it seems like the only time he responds is when Kurt physically marches down to his house and yells at his window.

“I was sleeping,” he always says, but his hair is slicked down and his eyes are clear.

There is one night, the night before school starts, when Kurt does not bother to go over to Blaine’s house. He wakes to cool hand pressed into his back and hot breath down his neck.

“I’m ready,” Blaine whispers.

Kurt rolls over to stare. “You’re ready?”

“I want to be with you.” Blaine’s gaze is steady and his lips stiff, but his eyes give him away. They’re filled with emotion, more than Kurt has ever seen.

“Okay,” Kurt responds.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

They take it slow and awkwardly. It’s made up of a lot of different elements that Kurt already knows. He knows what Blaine sounds like when he cums, he knows feel of Blaine’s body on his and the way Blaine’s eyes shine when he’s happy, but to have them put together like this, to feel the power to hurt and pleasure him in a way he never has before is different. It’s different in ways Kurt never could have imagined.

And it’s perfect. Not mechanically, but emotionally, it’s perfect.

Kurt drifts off to sleep with Blaine wrapped around him and dreams of forever.

* * *

When he wakes, Blaine is gone. In his place is a note. Kurt unfolds it eagerly, smiling.  

Kurt,

I never wanted to leave this way. I know this past month has been weird for both of us, but there’s a reason for it. You’re going to see some weird things on the news soon about my father. I can’t tell you everything that’s happening, but I’m safe. He didn’t get us. I promise.

I want to tell you everything, but I can’t, mostly because I don’t fully understand it myself. Cooper and Mom know, but most of this happened before I was born and no one is telling me anything. All you need to know is that the three of us are leaving. They already have Cooper there, but I don’t know where there is. Well, sort of. It’s Witness Protection. I’m not kidding. They are actually putting us in Witness Protection. Kind of crazy, right?

There are two main agents who have been talking with us, and I asked them how long this is going to be for. I hope it’s only for a while, but I don’t want to lie to you. They didn’t lie to me. They’ve been trying to find my father for fifteen years, and it hasn’t worked. He’s really good. Uncatchable, maybe.

I can’t talk to you or see you while I’m in the program. It’s for our safety. I was really angry at first. I might have tried to punch a government agent. Yeah, oops. Luckily I’m not being arrested.

My mom talked to me last night, and she said something. She said this is the part where I have to be an adult. You too. She said if we try to find each other, we’ll put everyone in danger. This is where we have to be mature.

I love you, Kurt Hummel. I love you more than anything in the world. I love the way your voice sounds, I love the way your lips taste, and I love how proud you are when you smile. I love you, and I’m going to miss you more than anything, but it’s because I love you that I’m not going to try to find you.

I’m breaking up with you now. You’ve got to love someone else, because I don’t want you to keep loving me. I want you to hate me, so this doesn’t hurt you.

You can hate me. Just please don’t forget me.

Love you until the day I die,

Blaine

* * *

Kurt Hummel dies just the tiniest bit that August morning. For a long time he acts dead, going through with the motions, but not really feeling much. One Friday night, the night of his seventeenth birthday, Kurt decides he wants to be dead. There’s not much to do. Hug his dad. Hug a couple of friends. Curse a couple of enemies. He doesn’t think of Blaine much. Blaine is not the root of the problem, he was just the solution for a while.

 Kurt never hesitates. He is one hundred percent certain. That’s why it’s such a surprise when he goes to press the blade into his skin and the most wonderful thing happens.

Kurt gets angry. The second the metal grazes him, he gets angry, because he is Kurt Hummel, and Blaine Anderson likes the way his voice sounds, how his lips taste, and thinks he looks proud when he smiles. He doesn’t deserve to feel this way, and because of that Kurt is angry.

He picks himself off the bathroom floor, ignoring the blood just barely welling up in cut on his wrist, and goes back into his bedroom. There, he shreds the pamphlets to every art school he was planning on applying to.

That night, the night Kurt turns seventeen, he signs himself up to take the ACT again. He applies for seven different essay-based scholarships. He adjusts his schedule for the next year, dropping glee club and taking all of the four Advanced Placement classes McKinley offers.

By the time the sun finally rises, Kurt is curled up in his bed where he’d once made to Blaine, tracing the writing of the boy who he hasn’t seen in nine long months.

For nine months, this letter has been hurt for him. It has been pain. Now it is a goal, because Kurt is not going to kill himself. He is going to fight.

And that’s how, seven years later, Kurt Hummel-Hudson ends up at the CIA, swiping at tears in the back of the elevator as he clutches his brand new identification card close to his heart.