He wakes up with a start the next day and worried Blaine might have left again, he hurries to his room. But the boy is fast asleep and Kurt can’t help but stand there for a while and look at him. He seems like someone entirely different in his sleep. The weak sunlight falling in through the window lightening up his features; his soft curls falling gently around his face, long eyelashes touching his unharmed cheek and his face relaxed, lips slightly parted and hand tucked beneath his pillow. He looks so peaceful, and maybe for the first time Kurt can see that the boy on the floor is no older than himself, not more than sixteen or seventeen. A boy, just a boy.

Mercedes calls around lunch and wants to go shopping, but Kurt tells her he is not feeling well. She seems worried, but he convinces her it is a simple cold. Somewhere around four o’clock his father calls, and after he promises him everything is alright he falls asleep on the couch.

Kurt wakes up for the second time that day as the sun sinks low in the sky, shining in through their bottom floor window and hitting him in the face. When he opens his eyes the first thing he sees is Blaine, sitting on the soft carpet with his back against the table, he can’t help the warmth from spreading in his chest. But Kurt thinks he sees pain in the other boy’s eyes then, only for a short moment, even though he just as well could have imagined it, because in the next second the smirk is back in place.

“Finally time to wake up, Hummel?”

“You’re the one to talk, Anderson.”, he says in return and sits up.

“Yeah, about that. Thanks, you know, for letting me sleep here. Again.”

“Why are you sleeping here, Blaine?”, Kurt asks. “Why can’t you be at home? What is it your father wi-“

“I thought you enjoyed having me here?” Blaine interrupts. Kurt blushes and he hates it, but right now he has to ignore it because he wants answers.

“I’m serious, Blaine.”

“So am I.” He tries to rise, but Kurt puts a hand on his shoulder and forces him down again. He seeks his eyes.

“What happened to you, Blaine? Why are you like this?” He searches those big pools of hazel that so clearly shows the emotions that the boy wants everyone else to see, but not what lies underneath. “You stumble into my house, into my life, without a warning or even an explanation. I need to know what’s going on, what this is, what’s happening here. Why, Blaine?”

And suddenly, without a second to prepare himself, he is past that wall of ice the other boy has put up and the pain he sees is so intense it feels like he has been burned. A teardrop leaves Kurt eye before he can stop it and quickly makes its way down his cheek, big and salty. But before it can fall from his face Blaine’s thumb is there to sweep it away.

“Don’t cry for me.”, he whispers. “I’m not worth it.”

“I don’t believe you killed someone.”, Kurt whispers back, and there is a pause. A long one.

“I did.”, Blaine says finally, and Kurt can’t help but jerk a bit. Blaine notices and smiles sadly, but for some reason he decides to continue, takes a deep breath and begins his story:

“At my old school there was a Cindy Hawkins dance and I had just come out. So I asked a friend of mine, the only other gay guy in the school. While we were waiting for his dad to pick us up these three guys… attacked us.”

Kurt doesn’t move. Blaine seems to have traveled back in time, he is somewhere else, and his eyes are dark.

“I watched my friend get beaten senseless while one of the other guys held me back. I tried to get out of his grip, but it didn’t matter how much I kicked or jerked or screamed. I was stuck. It wasn’t until my friend lay unconscious on the ground - and there was so much blood everywhere, so much blood - that they stopped and turned to me. I guess they’d wanted me to see what I had to expect, but when the first punch hit something snapped inside me.”

Blaine pauses and meets Kurt eyes.

“You must understand that I’ve been solving things with my fists ever since I was a little kid, and when the teasing followed me as I grew up, I continued fighting it off in the only way I knew. So I reacted on instinct. And they never tell you how dangerous one well-aimed kick can be. Hell, you see movies where guys are thrown around like rag dolls, get beaten again and again, but then simply stand up, shrug it off and walk away. They never tell you how one misfortunately placed kick can kill someone, because it can. It did.” The pain which is so clear in Blaine’s eyes has created a bottomless hole in Kurt’s body, a dark crack sucking him down and making it almost impossible to breathe.

“And at Dalton?”, Kurt asks, nearly inaudible, because he doesn’t want to push him, but he has to know.

“My rumor reached Dalton before me, just as it did at McKinley.”, Blaine answers. He doesn’t sound hesitant, simply relieved. Relieved to finally tell someone, maybe relieved that someone finally asks. “I was a cold-blooded murderer, as simple as that. Don’t get me wrong, I can fight, I really can, but I have the disadvantage of my size. And to be able to survive at Dalton I had to accept the spot they’d created for me. No one dared to even come close.”

“Puck told me-“, Kurt begins, but Blaine interrupts him.

“About that guy they beat half to death the week he was there? Yeah, heard that story was going around. I got blamed for a lot of things I had nothing to do with.”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“And what good would that do? I let them believe I was behind it all and they left me alone. I could leave Dalton on behalf of good behavior.” Blaine’s laugh is cold, filled with the irony of his situation, but it seems like he doesn’t have enough power to continue. Kurt doesn’t know what to do, because his heart is bleeding and the pain is so powerful, but he takes the other boy’s face in his hands and lean their foreheads together. And Blaine takes a shaky breath then.

“So I came to McKinley. And there you where.”

Kurt’s chest tightens. “Me?”

“With your voice and your face and your attitude and that ass.” Blaine laughs again, warmer this time. “And I couldn’t help myself. But as soon as I realized you were actually someone I didn’t want to screw up I tried to stay away, leave you alone and out of this… this mess that’s me, but I couldn’t.” Blaine growls. “You have no idea what you do to me, Kurt. No idea.”

But Kurt knows, because he knows what Blaine does to him, how he infiltrates his thoughts and dreams and makes his whole body ache with longing and want. And when he closes the distance between them he tries to put all that into one kiss, tries to convey what he feels when their lips brushes against each another, show Blaine how sorry he is with the gentle touch of a hand against his bruised face and convince him that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore, because he has Kurt. And Kurt won’t let him down.

“Fuck.”, Blaine whispers as they pull apart, and Kurt realizes the other boy has finally given up to the tears when big drops leave his eyes. And Kurt can’t stand it, his heart will break, so he gently kisses them away, tasting the salty water on his lips.

“I’m sorry.”, Kurt says, because what else can he say?

“Yeah. Me too.”, Blaine answers.

They sleep in each other’s arms that night, curled together as close as possible in Kurt’s narrow bed.