'Hey, man. You busy?'

Blaine, settled on his bed, looked up from his Latin homework to see David's head poking through the doorway. The older book looked unusually sombre.

'Not particularly,' Blaine said with a sigh, looking down at his book wearily. 'Trying to do homework, but it's not cooperating at all. Why? What's up? Troubles in David land?'

'No,' David said, shifting uncomfortably. 'A group of us were going to see Kurt. I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come with us.'

Blaine frowned, irritated. 'I told you, David, that I think it's great you're seeing Kurt so regularly, but like he apparently said, we're just different people. We're not good for each other.' The lie - and that Kurt was still living a lie for his friend, just as he'd said he would - choked Blaine every time, and he had to swallow slightly before continuing. 'Besides, you heard Patrick. He's uncomfortable with me hanging around Kurt.'

David eyed Blaine sceptically, stepping fully into the room and standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed. 'And you're going to let the insecure demands of a boy you've been dating for two weeks get in the way of this?'

'Get in the way of what?' Blaine asked, starting to feel a bit incredulous himself. He wasn't used to arguing with his friends, but David had been pushing the Kurt issue more and more lately and it was starting to drive Blaine mad. 'It's just coffee!'

David actually gaped at Blaine. Dropped his arms and stared in sheer disbelief. Something very uneasy started to stir in the pit of Blaine's stomach - David, for all that he had been interfering, always stayed quite composed. This was new, and Blaine didn't want to know why.

'Shit,' David muttered, staring at Blaine like he didn't know the boy sitting before him. 'Maybe I was wrong, and this isn't just an act. Maybe you actually don't care at all.'

'Care?' Blaine snapped, starting to panic a little bit more on the inside. This wasn't like David. 'What's going on? What don't I know?'

'You honestly missed it?'

'Missed what? This is getting ridiculous!'

'Kurt's been in hospital since the night before last. Two guys from his school got drunk at prom and kicked the shit out of him.'

Oh.

Oh... oh my... oh my God.

Blaine felt like someone had kicked the shit out of him instead. There were stabbing pains in his chest, and his windpipe might have collapsed. The room was shaking, blurred by tears. He- he couldn't even describe this feeling. The terror-agony-regret-anger-horror flying through his veins so fast his heart was going to give way, his brain was shutting down and imploding, and still he couldn't breathe...

'Woah, woah, Blaine!' Someone was shouting at him, shaking his shoulder. 'Crap, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dropped that on you like that, I was just so mad. Come on, man, snap out of it.'

Two warm hands, digging into his shoulders like vices, grounded Blaine slightly. He still couldn't see straight, but he managed to gasp out, 'How did you know? Why the fuck didn't you tell me?'

'His brother told me, but it's been all over his Facebook wall, too, everyone constantly asking for information about how he is. And we were all talking about it yesterday; I could have sworn you'd heard.'

But then David remembered that Blaine had seemed spaced out yesterday, his mask still in place but nothing behind it. He sighed, dropping his hands from Blaine's shoulders, and said sadly, 'You were so busy thinking about him that you completely missed us talking about him, didn't you?' When he got no response, he continued, 'We have to go if we're going to get there in visiting hours, and you're obviously in no state to come. Just don't stay here alone, ok? Go to the senior commons or call Patrick or something. Don't torture yourself.'

Yeah. You wouldn't want to torture yourself the way you tortured Kurt, would you? Blaine's thoughts taunted. He twisted his hands into the bedcovers and didn't acknowledge David, who left with a last concerned glance.

It took Blaine half an hour to come back to himself, to pull the pain back down to manageable levels so he could become aware of anything else again.

Oh, Kurt. His mind was full of pictures of two lines of handwriting, neatly printed on a piece of paper that was safely tucked inside the pocket of Blaine's bag. She walks on by, it's better if I stand to the side and let her catch her breath...

Kurt had left. Left for Blaine, because Blaine had been scared, scared of getting his pathetic feelings hurt. And so Kurt, who was so very beautifully brave, had gotten hurt instead. Hurt badly enough to land him in hospital.

Knowing Wes would probably be driving, Blaine sent David a message. What's wrong with him? How bad is it?

There was a long pause, each second marked by a painful, cracking beat of Blaine's heart. Eventually a reply came. You're alone, aren't you? Blaine, go to the commons or something, please.

For a minute Blaine just stared at the screen with helpless fury, before his phone vibrated again. A few broken ribs, a concussion, and a hell of a lot of bruising. He got off lighter than he could have because Rachel went looking for him and interrupted them.

Blaine cried for almost an hour, despite the fact that feelings this strong and sad were supposed to have left his life when he'd shut Kurt out.

Eventually, Blaine pulled himself together and logged onto his computer, wanting to see the posts that had been made to Kurt's Facebook wall. What he saw sparked mixed emotions. Kurt's wall was packed full of messages of concern, sympathy and love. People were all inquiring about how he was, sending him their support and telling him how amazing he was. And on one hand, it was great that Kurt had so many people who clearly embraced his individuality in the way it seemed only McKinley could, and wanted to be there for him. Blaine hadn't ever had a group of friends quite like that.

But it made Blaine so angry that all these people were so eager to help now, now that the bullies were out of the way and Kurt was seriously injured. Where had they all been when the bullying had first started to get out of hand? Where had they been while Kurt was attacked at his own prom? Hell, where had Kurt's so-called brother been this whole time? McKinley could embrace Kurt's quirks as much as it pleased, but that didn't matter for shit if they were still letting him get hurt.

Blaine's phone buzzed, and he snatched it up to read, Kurt seems to be doing ok. He'll probably go home tomorrow afternoon.

The message deflated Blaine's anger immediately and brought the guilt back in. He had no right to be angry at New Directions or any of the McKinley students. Not when he was the one who had driven Kurt back to that hellhole in the first place, and couldn't even be the friend that Kurt deserved.

Blaine didn't sleep the entire night. He ignored the world around him, wandering in circles around his own head until it hurt too much to think any more, and all he could do was stare at the wall closest to his bed. When everyone rose for classes the next morning, it was all too easy to convince the nurse that he needed a day off; she took one look at his pale, haggard face and had wrote him a pass.

It should have been harder to rebuff Patrick without causing a scene. The boy, while cheerful and generally easy-going, had an insecure streak a mile wide that had to be carefully managed. But Blaine handled his boyfriend dispassionately, shaking him off without effort; part of him was disturbed by how easy it really was, and how little emotion was involved in their interaction, even when he was basically kicking his boyfriend out with no explanation. But that was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? Simple, safe, keeping his heart protected?

Blaine went to see Kurt.

x

There was one phrase Kurt kept repeating. People crowded his bedside, pouring out their sympathy or regret, tactfully ignoring his torn skin and bruises, and consoling him about his ribs and concussion. Kurt would just smile weakly, gesture to the IV in his hand and say, 'Well, at least I'm not in any pain.'

And it was true that, at least, his head and ribs weren't hurting at all. That pain had been carried off by the river of analgesics flowing through his veins, courtesy of a very sympathetic doctor with a soft spot for persecuted teenagers. But there was still a tight, swollen feeling in his chest and a lump in his throat that no drug was taking away; and Kurt knew that it probably had very little to do with the work that had been done by Karofsky's shoe, and everything to do with the few memories the concussion hadn't taken away from that day. Dancing to Good Charlotte, swilling Puck's entire flask, coffee with David - David leaning over, expecting Kurt to handle this blow just like all the rest, and explaining who Patrick was.

It was a Tuesday, so most of the people who had been lingering in his room had been forced to leave for school or work. Burt, however, seemed to be able to sense that his son was still in pain, even if he couldn't tell that it was emotional instead of physical. He was being stubborn about staying.

'Dad, please just go. You can't leave Jack to run the shop without supervision - he'll blow it up. You know he will,' Kurt said wearily.

'I'm not comfortable leaving you when you're seriously unwell,' Burt said. 'You still look like you're in pain, and I'm worried about you getting confused or something.'

Kurt rolled his eyes. This was turning out into an exact replay of the same argument that they'd had yesterday - that had ended with his father going to work.

'I'm fine, Dad,' he said evenly, but with a subtle undercurrent of belligerence. 'I haven't been confused since Sunday night, and besides, I'm supposed to be sleeping.' He looked askance at the TV, which his family had spent significantly more time in the last two days watching than he himself had. 'How am I supposed to sleep with you here making noise?'

Burt sighed, gathering up his personal belongings. 'I should know better than to argue with you by now, shouldn't I?' he asked in what passed for fond exasperation. 'Fine, I'll go to work. But no leaving bed to go look for the latest copy of Vogue, or whatever it is you read. You'd better stay in bed and sleep until I get back to pick you up this afternoon.' And with that stern command, Burt went to work.

Kurt flopped back onto his pillows with a slight huff, wincing when that sparked a sharp jab in his chest and throb in his head. It was clearly almost time for another dose of whatever wonder pill his doctor had prescribed him. He snuggled down deeper, honestly planning on sleeping - or at least attempting to. New Directions was leaving for New York in nine days, and he was damned if a drunken altercation that he couldn't even remember was going to stop him from getting on that plane. If he had to sleep every hour except for rehearsals to get well in time, then he would.

He'd barely had time to get properly comfortable - even with the painkillers, a dull ache let Kurt know when his sleeping position wasn't good for his ribs - when there was a cough at the door. Thinking it was one of the nurses, Kurt rolled his head without much enthusiasm.

Instead, there was Blaine. Blaine, with huge bruises under his eyes, a pale face and shaking hands.

Oh.

Kurt kind of almost wished he hadn't sent his dad away, after all.

x

The first thing Blaine noticed when he entered Kurt's hospital room was that the boy was thinner. David had mentioned at some point that Kurt wasn't looking as healthy as he once had, but Blaine had resolutely ignored him at the time. It was hard to ignore, though, seeing Kurt's frame as he lay on his side, faced away from the door. It wasn't like he was skeletal, but there was a new sharpness to the shape of his shoulder, and you could see the curve of his shoulder blade so clearly, even under his loose shirt. Blaine coughed to stifle a gasp.

Kurt rolled to face the door, and for Blaine it was like finding out that Kurt had been hurt all over again. The boy's face was covered in marks; all the skin running down one side of the face had been badly grazed by what looked like asphalt, and a large blue-purple patch bloomed over the other cheekbone.

On recognising Blaine, Kurt sat up abruptly and the sheet fell away from him to reveal his torso, covered only by a light t-shirt. The terror-agony-regret-anger-horror was back again, swallowing Blaine whole without even trying. Kurt was scraped and bruised everywhere. Blaine's eyes were immediately drawn to a huge, ugly contusion that appeared to cover most of Kurt's upper arm, wrapping half way around and extending up into the sleeve of his shirt. Storm clouds, Blaine though dazedly. Especially against the snowy white of Kurt's skin, the heavy, violent swell of purple and deep red looked exactly like a storm cloud at sunset, ready to burst.

His eyes slowly drifted down further to see a bandage on Kurt's wrist. 'David said you only had broken ribs and a concussion,' Blaine mumbled, breaking his own reverie.

This seemed to startle Kurt out of whatever train of thought he'd been following, too. Glancing down to pick at the wrapping on his wrist, Kurt said, 'It's a very slight sprain, probably from when I first hit the ground. The bandage comes off tomorrow.'

'Probably?'

'I don't remember. I was drunk, and the concussion wiped most of my memories of the night. Karofsky and Azimio aren't talking about what happened, either.'

Kurt lifted his face again and their eyes locked. Just for a moment, Blaine was lost in something far more beautiful than any emotion he'd felt since that last kiss in the attic, oh so long ago. It felt so good that it broke his heart all over again.

'You have to come back to Dalton,' he said abruptly. 'You're not safe at McKinley now. This more than proves it.'

Kurt's eyes narrowed, and the beauty of the moment was lost. 'I was never safe. I chose to go back, knowing the risks. You're several weeks too late if you're going to try to convince me that Dalton's worth it just to be protected. Besides,' Kurt laughed hollowly, 'McKinley is now safer than it's ever been. The guys who did this are gone and they aren't returning.'

'But, Kurt, Dalton has a zero tolerance policy. Two guys gone doesn't mean the whole school will change. At Dalto-'

'Blaine, you don't get to have an opinion,' Kurt snapped, cutting in with surprising heat. 'You've well and truly lost the right to have any say in my life.'

Blaine softened, his face filling with remorse. 'I know, and I'm sorry. You have no idea. It's just... I...' Would he ever have an exchange with this boy in front of him where he didn't get lost for words? 'Kurt, I really am serious when I say you should come back to Dalton for your own safety. I know I've been a complete ass, but I'll try really hard to make things easier for you, and now you've made friends with David school won't be painful at all...' Blaine was rambling; it seemed that once his mouth actually got working, it couldn't figure out how to stop.

'Blaine, I know you saw my note - David told me. Do you really think school being painful was the tipping factor for me?'

Blaine was confused. 'I understood the message behind "She Walks", I'm pretty sure, and you can't know how guilty I am about you leaving just so I could keep living in my own little dream world. But you'd been pretty much letting me do that for a month before you left. I just assumed you...' he paused, having just realised how insulting this would sound to someone as strong as Kurt. 'I just assumed the final straw was when you couldn't take being alone like that any more.'

Blaine had tortured himself with that thought often enough since Kurt had left that he could almost get it out without flinching now. As deeply flawed as he was, he still didn't think of himself as a particularly cruel person. But ostracising Kurt, out of nothing more than fear and sheer ignorance of his actions, was one of the lowest things he had ever done. He was slowly reconciling himself to that.

Kurt, however, was glaring at Blaine with an outraged incredulousness that surpassed even David's from the day before. He was fully pushed away from his pillows now, spine drawn up stiff and straight, faced flushed in a way that couldn't be good for someone unwell enough to be in hospital. But Blaine couldn't think about that because even with the bruise on his cheek, Kurt was still stunning.

'Blaine, when you met me, I had already gotten through two and a half years at McKinley, most of those without friends,' Kurt said icily. 'Did you really think that a bit of indifference and isolation at an otherwise friendly school would bother me enough to go back to a place with a boy who threatened to kill me?'

Well, when you put that perspective on it... 'Why, then? What could have possibly been enough to drive you back?'

'What's Patrick like?'

Blaine blinked. 'What?' he asked, thrown completely off balance.

'Your boyfriend, Patrick. Does he deserve you?'

'What on earth does this have to do with why you left Dalton?'

Kurt pulled himself shakily out of bed, grabbing a hold of his IV and walking over to Blaine, who had never come further than just inside the doorway.

'Blaine, you're so blind,' Kurt said, almost gentle, his voice so soothing after all the anger of before. 'I was there, in the corridor, the day you asked Andrew out.' Kurt reached over to open the front pocket of Blaine's bag, still hanging off his shoulder. Blaine couldn't think with Kurt so close. The injured boy fumbled for a moment, eventually retrieving Blaine's iPod and headphones. 'I heard what Andrew said, about not wanting to date you when there was such a mess between you and me. I realised that even though we weren't talking to each other, I was still holding you back from moving on in your life. So I left. Don't you see? I was getting out of your way.'

Kurt smiled sadly at the horrified look on Blaine's face, watching as it slowly morphed into something not as sharp, but exponentially more painful. 'Now you see,' he concluded. Almost tenderly, knowing this would probably be the last chance he had to be close to Blaine in a very long time, possibly forever, he put the headphones in Blaine's ears. His fingers brushed the sides of the other boy's face as he did so, feeling the lightest of caresses from the edge of Blaine's curls on his fingertips, and the smooth slide of skin against skin. They both shuddered at the contact.

'Another Language Room song, from me to you,' Kurt said softly, once the headphones were in and he'd found the right song on Blaine's iPod. 'This will be the last. Three is enough to fill anyone's angst quota, even mine.' Not even the slight self-deprecation could break the solemnity of the moment, a tangible quiet that felt almost sacred. Kurt pressed play, tucking the iPod into Blaine's pocket and nudging him out the door, shutting it behind him.

When you kiss him
Kiss him with passion
Kiss him with everything you have

When you touch him
Let him inside you
Let him remind you you're alive
Or all my tears are in vain
And all my prayers

Blaine listened to the song on repeat all the way out of the hospital and back to Dalton. When he got to the school he dragged himself back to his room to find Patrick waiting for him.

'Hey there,' Patrick said, playfully tugging the headphones out of Blaine's ears. Blaine flinched. The music was gone, but the song kept playing in his head without skipping a second. 'Where have you been? I've been looking for you.'

Blaine looked up at his boyfriend, who was much taller than him even though he was younger. Took in the tufts of sandy hair sticking every which way and the warm brown eyes.

He took in the pale skin stretched over a slightly-too-thin frame, and then yanked the boy into a hard, desperate kiss. The kind that bruised.

Patrick, always easy going, always happy to do whatever Blaine wanted, immediately bent into the kiss with enthusiasm. Blaine pushed harder and harder, nipping at the taller boy's mouth, searching for something with his tongue and lips and hands, because his heart was too afraid to look...

When you hold him
Hold him so close
That every heartbeat
Moves your soul

Still Blaine kept deepening the kiss, guiding them in a stumble back against the wall, where he pinned Patrick regardless of their difference in height. He let out a dry, desperate sob, lips trembling against Patrick's tongue as he realised that he wasn't feeling anything. No matter how far he sunk into his boyfriend's mouth and arms, nothing was filling the big, gaping well drilling down from his heart to his soul. He clawed frantically at Patrick's Dalton shirt to find skin underneath, pressing his hands against the planes of the boy's chest, and he couldn't help it - tears started to run down his face when he realised that the skin didn't burn.

And if you love him
Love him forever
Love him the way you said you
Would with me

Or all my tears are in vain
And all my prayers are the same

Patrick raised his hands to grasp the sides of Blaine's face, and recoiled instantly when he felt the wetness of Blaine's cheeks. Seeing the redness in the shorter boy's eyes, he pushed him away onto the bed, straightening his shirt and sitting on the other side of the room, instantly wary. Blaine buried his face in his hands and tried to will his tears away.

'What's wrong?' Patrick asked after a moment, once he'd gotten his panting breath back under control.

'I don't want to talk about it,' Blaine mumbled.

Patrick exhaled with a whoosh, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling, occasionally stealing glances at his boyfriend. They hadn't been dating long, but this was the first time he'd seen Blaine anything like this - he'd only ever seen the bright, happy lead of the Warblers. This new Blaine was scaring him slightly.

They sat like that for half an hour, Patrick switching between contemplation of the ceiling and Blaine, Blaine never lifting his head out of his hands. Eventually, though, Patrick got impatient and went to sit next to Blaine, leaning up against the wall, not touching him but close enough to feel their proximity. Blaine finally raised his face but still didn't look at Patrick, instead looking straight ahead. Patrick would freely admit that he wasn't particularly good at reading people, but even he could see, looking into Blaine's eyes, exactly how far away he was.

Or all my tears are in vain
And all my prayers are the same

'What are you thinking about?' Patrick asked.

Not even the question was enough to draw Blaine back into the real world. His subconscious answered for him, while his thoughts stayed wherever they had been trapped. His answer was whispered.

'Storm clouds on snow.'