The next morning Blaine woke with very little sleep and knocking on his door.

“Blaine, honey?” His mom said through the door, “We are all going out to lunch with Cooper while he’s still in town. We will leave in about thirty minutes, okay?”

The last thing that Blaine felt like doing was going out and having a cheerful lunch with his family. He wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the day, and probably the rest of the weekend, curled up in bed. But he had already disappointed one person. He didn’t want to disappoint his parents and brother too. So, he mustered up as much will as he could and tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible.

“O-okay. I’ll be ready soon.”

He heard his mother walk back down stairs, and he drug himself to the bathroom to start getting ready.

All day long he felt like he was going to break any second, but everyone was having such a nice time at lunch that he pulled himself together and shoved his feelings aside. He didn’t want to ruin the occasion by being weak. So he put on a happy face and sat with his family while they all talked and laughed throughout lunch.

Afterwards when they were leaving the restaurant and heading toward the car, Cooper stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, “Are you okay? You’ve been quiet,”

Blaine just nodded, “Yeah, I think I'm just getting a little bit of a headache,”

Cooper eyed him suspiciously, but let the matter go anyway.

Blaine spent the rest of the weekend in his room performing menial tasks, like cleaning and organizing, anything to keep his mind from wandering to the reason why he was so miserable in the first place.

~*~*~

“Blaine. Blaine, wake up.”

Blaine was awoken by Cooper shaking and poking him.

“Ugh, Cooper, stop. What time is it?” He looked over to his bedside table and the clock read 4:06 am.

“Fuck, are you serious? It’s a Monday, I have school in a few hours. What do you want?” Blaine grumbled while he tried to pull the covers up over his head. Cooper grabbed them and pulled them back again.

“I need you to take me to the airport. It will be fun brother bonding time!”

“What? Why do you need to go to the airport now?” Blaine groaned again.

“Because my flight leaves in two hours and it takes an hour to get to the airport and they say you need to be there at least an hour before your flight, so come on! I’ll even drive there, you just have to bring the car back home,”

“Ugh, fine!” Blaine begrudgingly got out of bed and went to throw some jeans on before following Cooper out to the car.

Even though he had an hour car ride to do nothing, Blaine found that he couldn’t go back to sleep. His mind had automatically gone to the fact that he would be going back to school that day, and consequently, possibly see Kurt.

He had still been trying to figure out what he had done wrong to cause Kurt to break up with him, and by this time he was just frustrated with the whole situation.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on over there, Squirt?”

“No.”

“Aww come on, this is supposed to be brother bonding time, remember? I can tell that you are upset about something, you have been acting weird all weekend. Sometimes it helps to talk about it. So come on, let it out,” Cooper made a sweeping gesture with his hand, which Blaine had to duck to avoid.

Blaine was still silent for a few moments before he finally said, “Kurt broke up with me.”

“What?! Why?”

“I don’t know.” Blaine felt his heart breaking all over again as he remembered it. Talking about it was not helping.

“Well, it’s his loss. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. He must be crazy or something to break up with you. He must be—“

“Coop. Stop.”

“What? I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“Yeah, and you trash talking him isn’t going to help.”

“Why not?”

Blaine wiped at his eyes as the tears were starting to form again, “Because I still love him.”

Cooper sighed, “Shit…”

“Stop saying that like it’s a bad thing.” Blaine mumbled out. 

“Well it doesn’t seem to be a very good thing at the present moment, Blainey.”

Blaine sighed, “What do I do?”

“Well it seems to me that you have two options,“ Cooper held up two fingers to emphasize his point.

“One, you can either forget about him,” Blaine didn’t like the thought of that, “Or, you can show him why dumping you was the stupidest decision of his life,”

“Cooper...”

“No, I’m serious! What did he tell you was the reason he broke up with you?”

“I think it came down to he thought I couldn’t handle the problems he has to deal with in his life.”

“And can you? Can you deal with it?”

“Yes.”

“And would you do anything for him?”

“Yes!”

“Then show him that.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Blaine was a little shocked by Cooper’s answer. He hadn’t really thought about trying to change Kurt’s mind, he had been to focused on trying to figure out what he had done wrong in the first place.

“Yeah, if he thinks that you can’t handle his shit, then show him that you can. Then, he will realize his mistake and come running back into your arms!”

Blaine thought about his brother’s suggestion for a while. Maybe he could do that. Maybe he could show Kurt that he really cared about him. Maybe he would be able to show him that he would do anything for him.

Blaine hugged his brother goodbye once they made it to the airport and then he had another hour drive back home to think of ways he might be able to catch Kurt’s attention.

~*~*~

Later that morning while Blaine was walking toward the entrance to the school he saw Quinn marching up to him angrily. Before he had a chance to say or ask anything she seized his wrist and began dragging him around behind the school.

Once they were near the bleachers and out of sight of the other students she let go of his wrist and shoved him against the wall.

“What the fuck happened?! “ She seethed. 

“Nothing,” Blaine replied as he gripped his bag, trying to remain calm and not get mad.

“Like hell nothing happened! Why would you do that?!” she stepped toward him threateningly.

“I didn’t! Quinn, he broke up with me!”

She stopped momentarily in her tirade to look at him with a shocked expression.

“He didn’t tell you that?” he asked, leaning back against the wall.

“No, he didn’t. Well then what did you do to make him dump you?” she accused him again.

“I don’t know… why are you blaming this all on me? I didn’t want to break up!”

“I’m blaming this on you because Kurt is pretty fucking upset about it, that’s why!”

This came as news to Blaine.

“Upset? What do you mean upset?”

“I mean like spent-the-weekend-on-my-couch-crying-and-watching-Moulin-Rouge-and-The-Notebook-on-repeat upset. I was lucky I got him to school today,”

Blaine sighed and dropped his head back to thump against the wall. “I don’t get it. He just left, with very little reasoning to back it up, and now you tell me that he is really upset, and I just… I just don’t get it…”

Quinn leaned up against the wall next to him, “I don’t get it either.”

They leaned against the wall next to each other in silence for a few more moments before Quinn spoke again.

“But, I will tell you this: Kurt is not stupid. He always has reasons for the things he does, and he is not the type of person to throw a relationship away willy-nilly. I’ll try to talk to him and see if I can get him to tell me anything.”

As she began to walk away she turned back to him, “I know it may not seem like it, given the way he has been acting lately, but by the way he talks about you to me, I can tell that he really cares about you.”

That hit Blaine harder than it should have. If he cared so much, but was still willing to leave him, then he must not care that much, right?

Still, Blaine wasn’t willing to give up yet. He spent the rest of the day trying to formulate a plan in his head.

~*~*~

The next day Kurt found himself wandering around the hallways aimlessly between classes. It had been three days since he broke up with Blaine, and he still felt terrible. He knew he probably seemed pathetic, how broken he was over somebody that he had broken up with. It was his own fault that he felt this way.  He had gotten attached so quickly, and he had been careless with the whole thing. But thinking back, he hadn’t really stood a chance, had he? As soon as he had seen Blaine on that first day of school, standing all by himself at his locker, Kurt knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay away.  Blaine had snatched his heart, and Kurt had willingly let him.

Kurt was broken out of his trance when he overheard a group of jocks that passed him.

“Yeah, and we’ll get Anderson after lunch, and that will teach him,”

Kurt stopped in his tracks. This was not supposed to be happening. Blaine was supposed to be left alone. He realized that he had to find Karofsky and figure out what was going on. As Kurt started moving again, seeking out the large neanderthal, he turned a corner to find one Blaine Anderson making his way down the hallway dressed much like he was the first day of school.

He was wearing bright colors and a close-to-florescent bow tie, and he definitely stood out. This was exactly what they had been trying to get him to avoid all year. The jocks didn’t like when people stood out besides them. Especially when it was in a way that they didn’t approve of, like wearing different clothes to catch attention.

“Shit…”

~*~*~

“Karofsky!” Kurt finally found him after one of his classes. “We need to talk.”

“What do you want, fairy?” Karofsky asked, not even sparing a look over his shoulder at Kurt.

“I thought we had a deal!” Kurt stormed after him.

“Well, we did, but then I got to thinking. That was a pretty convincing act you put on with Anderson that day after school. But that’s all it was, wasn’t it? It was all an act. How am I supposed to know whether you actually broke up with him or you two just put on a good show?”

“W-what? Are you serious? Of course I broke up with him, because you said you would leave him alone and back the fuck off if I did!” Kurt was about ready to punch something. Or maybe someone.

“Well then, I guess you can follow directions very well. But Anderson is stepping out of line anyway. The little small fry’s got nerves, but not for long. We will fix that,” Karofsky said as he continued to walk down the hallway.

“Dammit, Karofsky, what the fuck are you going to do?!”

“I think that a few slushies will teach him to not wear such hideous outfits anymore.”

“Why can’t you just leave him alone?!”

But Karofsky didn’t respond. He just kept walking down the hallway, leaving Kurt behind.

Kurt stood fuming in the middle of the hallway. He looked up at one of the hall clocks, he had only one period left before lunch, and after lunch the jocks were planning to attack Blaine. Kurt had to find him and try to warn him.

~*~*~

Blaine was standing in the bathroom washing his hands when he heard someone come in. He looked up to see Kurt standing by the door.

“Blaine, what the hell are you doing?”

Blaine looked back down into the sink. “I’m washing my hands,” he said as he turned off the water. “Personal hygiene is important, you know.”

Kurt let out a frustrated noise, “No, I mean why are you dressed like that? Or even, why are you still here? Don’t you know what’s going to happen?”

“No, I can’t say that I do,” Blaine replied as he dried his hands off.

“Karofsky and half of the football team are all planning to slushie you after lunch!” Kurt said throwing his hands up.

Blaine leaned up against one of the sinks, staring ahead, not looking at Kurt. “Are they now? Huh. Interesting.”

Kurt was getting even more frustrated that Blaine didn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as he should have been.

“Blaine. I don’t think you understand,” Kurt said as he moved to stand in front of Blaine. “They are all going to slushie you. One is bad enough, trust me, but an entire team is going to be awful. And also, once they do this, they aren’t going to stop. They are just going to continue to try and make you’re your life miserable, and it will just get worse. You can at least avoid today if you leave right after lunch, or even now, but you can’t just stay here and do nothing. You have to—“

“Kurt, stop.” Blaine said, cutting Kurt off as he started to ramble. “I think I can handle some slushies.”

“But you—“

“Stop,” Blaine grasped Kurt’s shoulders, cutting him off again. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’m not your responsibility or anything. I’ll be fine.” Blaine tried to give him a small reassuring smile.

“But, I…” Kurt tried to continue on, but when he couldn’t find the right words to say, they both just stayed in the silence for a few moments.

As they stood there Blaine could now clearly see the dark circles under Kurt’s eyes. Maybe Quinn was right, something had to be going on, but Blaine didn’t know how to go about trying to figure out what it was.

“Kurt?” Blaine bent down to try and catch Kurt’s eye, since he was staring at the floor. “Please tell me what’s going on?”

Kurt just averted his eyes more. “Nothing’s going on.”

Blaine sighed, and nodded, “Fine. If you say so.”

Blaine let go of Kurt and moved toward the door.

“Blaine?” Kurt called after him. Blaine turned back to him just as he was about to open the door.

“Please don’t do this,” Kurt pleaded.

Blaine just shrugged , “I’m not doing anything. I’m just going to mind my own business and continue on with my day.”

“Blaine…”

“You know I still love you, right?”

Kurt couldn’t help but let out a little gasp as he looked up to meet Blaine’s eyes. They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments before Blaine gave him a little nod and left the bathroom.

~*~*~

Kurt was a nervous wreck throughout lunch. He kept glancing over at both the jocks table and the table that Blaine was sitting at. They were all acting like nothing was going to happen. Especially Blaine. He laughed and chatted all through lunch like he had no idea what was about to happen.

It was driving Kurt crazy because he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t reason with Karofsky, he couldn’t get Blaine to leave, he couldn’t do anything.

When lunch was over and everybody flooded out of the cafeteria, Kurt tried to follow behind Blaine to see what he would do.  The hallways were crowded with students bustling to their classes, but as he turned a corner he finally found Blaine, standing at his locker taking out his books.

And walking down the opposite end of the hallway toward him was the group of jocks, lead by Karofsky, all carrying slushies.

Kurt didn’t think, he just reacted.

~*~*~

As Blaine closed his locker and turned around, he wasn’t surprised to see the group of jocks surrounding him. Karofsky was the one to step forward first with his cup of red slush. Blaine closed his eyes and backed against the lockers as Karofsky raised his cup, ready to throw it.

He waited for the ice cold impact, but when it didn’t happen, he was extremely confused.

He had heard the ice hit something, but it hadn’t been him.

He slowly opened his eyes, to see Kurt standing over him, hands bracketed against the locker on either side of Blaine’s head, breathing heavy, and with red ice dripping down his back.

“What the fuck, Hummel?!” Karofsky yelled at him. Kurt just ignored him and continued to look at Blaine.

Blaine was just as confused as everyone else there. “Kurt, what are you—“

“I love you.”

Blaine was stunned. “Wh-what? Really?”

Kurt nodded and leaned forward to touch their foreheads together, “I love you.”

Blaine couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he reached up to tangle his fingers in Kurt’s hair and he pulled him down for an eager kiss.

“Well don’t just stand there!” Karofsky shouted at the rest of the football team, who had been too shocked at the turn of events to do anything.  

The rest of the team seemed to snap out of their daze at that point and one by one they began throwing their slushies.

Once the slushie throwing had recommenced, Blaine broke away from the kiss. “Kurt, you have to move,” He said concernedly, grasping Kurt’s shirt, trying to move him out of the way. “You don’t have to do this.”

Kurt gritted his teeth and shook his head as another slushie hit his back. “No, I’m not going to let him do this to you,” he whispered as he huddled closer to Blaine to try and shield him even more.

Once Blaine realized that Kurt wasn’t going to move, no matter what he said, he just clung to him even tighter, to try and maybe help him endure the slushies until they were all over.

They remained there until the slushies had all stopped and all of the jocks had left. By the time Kurt pulled away, everyone else had filtered into their classes, leaving Kurt and Blaine alone in the hallway. Blaine had only gotten a little bit of slush on his hands and arms, but other than that was relatively dry. Kurt, on the other hand, was almost completely soaked. His back and sides were completely covered in shush as was his hair. Some of the ice was soaking into the front of his shirt, and he shivered as melting juice was running down his body.  

He was a complete mess, and Blaine knew he had to be cold and miserable. He quickly took Kurt’s hands and led him to the nearest bathroom.

~*~*~

Blaine started to run the hot water in the sink, and he guided Kurt’s head under the warm water. He washed Kurt’s hair, as tenderly as he could, to try and get out the slushy mess.

He was reminded of the first time that he and Kurt had interacted with each other, and Kurt had done the very same thing to him. He remembered how he had gently run his fingers through his hair to rid his curls of the gel he had been wearing that day.

Blaine finished washing his hair, but Kurt was still covered in slush.

“I have an extra set of clothes in my locker,” Blaine said. “I’ll go get them and you can change.”

Kurt nodded. “Okay, but it will look like I'm wearing a three-year-old’s clothes,” he said with a smirk.

Blaine smacked him on the arm, “Shut up, I’m not that short,” and he walked out of the bathroom to retrieve the clothes.

When Blaine returned to the bathroom he stopped short when he was met with the sight of Kurt peeling his undershirt off and draping it over one of the sinks, where his wet jacket and shirt were already placed.

When the door banged closed behind him Kurt turned to face him, as a blush spread across his face.

“Umm, I was getting cold, so I thought it would be best to get out of those,” he said motioning to the clothes in the sink.

Blaine walked over to him and handed over the fresh clothes and a towel, the whole time not being able to tear his eyes away from Kurt.

“That’s fine,” he said, looking back to meet his eyes.

After Kurt had dried himself off and lowered the towel again, Blaine caught sight of Kurt’s back in the mirror, and saw, once again, the old scars littered across his back from his past tormenting. Blaine moved to stand behind Kurt and he couldn’t help but run his hands across a few of the marks, wishing he could make them better.

He rested his forehead against the back of Kurt’s neck and let out a sigh, “Kurt…”

Kurt turned to face him, “It’s fine, Blaine. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s in the past,” he reached down and tangled their fingers together as he spoke. 

Blaine nodded after a moment of staring at their hands. He was happy to see them intertwined again.

“Kurt, you didn’t have to do what you just did.” Blaine said looking back up at him again. “I knew what they were going to do and I was fine with it. I was prepared for it, and I—“

“No,” Kurt cut him off. “I wasn’t going to let them do that to you. I am tired of them pushing me… Us around.”

“But, Kurt—“

Kurt put a finger over his mouth to silence him.

“Let me go change, and then we can talk about this, okay? I have some explaining to do.”

Kurt only removed his hand after Blaine had nodded in agreement.

After Kurt finished changing, he took Blaine’s hand and led him out toward the back of the school.

~*~*~

Kurt and Blaine were sitting facing each other under the bleachers behind the school. Their hands were in their respective laps, and their knees where slightly brushing where their legs were crossed. After neither of them had said anything for a while, Blaine spoke first. 

"So, are you gonna tell me what's going on now?" 

Kurt nodded, "Yeah, um.... I don't... I don't really know where to start..." 

"Well, what if I ask you about things that I am confused about?" Blaine said while still smiling at Kurt. He wanted to try and keep the mood light, and assure Kurt that he wasn't mad at him. 

Kurt readily agreed, thinking that was the best course of action, even if he thought that Blaine's questions would still be kind of hard to answer. 

"Okay, first question," Blaine said sitting up a little straighter. "Did you mean it when you said you loved me?" 

Kurt relaxed and smiled, that wasn't a very hard question. "Yes, of course. I love you." 

Blaine's smile grew bigger, "Okay, good. I love you too, by the way." 

Kurt couldn't help but chuckle at how ridiculous they were both being. "Question two?" 

"Right, question two." Blaine paused to think of what he would ask next. "Quinn told me the other day that you were at her house all weekend, and you were pretty upset." He said instead. 

Kurt seemed to shrink back a little at the mention of the weekend. "That's not really a question."

"Well, my question is, why were you so upset?" 

Kurt picked at a loose thread on his pants before he answered. "I was mad at myself for being so stupid and losing you," 

Blaine was even more confused. "But... You broke up with me."

Kurt glared at him, "Yes, I'm aware of that." 

"Did you... Did you not want to break up with me?" 

"Not particularly, no." 

"Then... Why did you?" 

Kurt laughed humorlessly, "and there, is where things start to get a little complicated." 

"What's complicated? You broke up with me when you didn't really want to, so there has to be some alternative reason why you did it," 

"There is. I just... I had to protect you," 

"By breaking up with me? No offense, Kurt, but I'm not exactly following your logic here. It doesn't seem like you could protect someone by not being around them when--" 

"Karofsky threatened me that he would do the same things to you that he did to me, only a lot worse, if I didn't break up with you!" Kurt said, exasperated. 

Blaine was struck silent as Kurt's words sank in. 

"So, I did. I tried to think of a way around it, but I couldn't. He had us cornered, and I couldn't find another way besides doing what he said. So even though it broke my heart, I did it." 

They were both silent for a while, Blaine trying to think of something to say, and Kurt waiting patiently. 

Blaine was trying to comprehend everything as all of the pieces started to click into place. 

"And... And just now, in the hallway? You stood up to him again, for me?" 

"Yes," Kurt said as he reached over and took Blaine's hands that were slightly shaking now, "I should have known never to trust anything he says. He promised that he would leave you alone if I broke up with you, but then I heard that they were all going to slushie you, and I knew that Karofsky wasn’t going to keep up his end of the bargain, and I'm not going to just stand by while he is trying to hurt you." Kurt shrugged, “So I got involved. I wasn’t just going to let them do that to you.”

Kurt brought one of his hands up to stroke Blaine's cheek as Blaine clutched at Kurt’s shirt, as if he was afraid he would float away. 

Blaine shook his head, "I can't believe you," he chuckled, "you really are amazing." 

Kurt moved forward to press his lips to Blaine's, in what he thought would be a small fleeting gesture, but Blaine quickly reciprocated the action, and he found he couldn't pull himself away from him again. 

Before either of them realized it, their kisses had become needy and desperate, and Blaine had practically crawled into Kurt's lap. 

"So," Blaine said between kisses, a little breathlessly, "where are we now? With us?" 

They kissed some more before Kurt responded. 

"Breaking up with you was the stupidest thing I ever did. Please be my boyfriend again? Please." 

"Yes. Yes, of course." Blaine gasped before he claimed Kurt's mouth again. 

When they broke away momentarily to breathe and Blaine started kissing and sucking down the side of Kurt's neck, Kurt remembered exactly where they were at the moment. 

"Why don't we-- ngh-- we should get out of here." He ran his fingers through Blaine's hair, loving being able to feel his curls again. "My uh... My house is empty..." 

Blaine pulled back to look into Kurt's eyes, searching for any sign of hesitation. When he found none, he nodded enthusiastically. 

"Yes. Yes, okay, let's go." 

He quickly stood up and pulled Kurt to his feet, and they headed toward the parking lot. 

~*~*~