Kurt Hummel was in deep shit. As soon as the boy had walked in the door, with his stupid perfectly styled curls and his stupid perfectly attractive face, he knew it would come to this. The almost desperate need to talk with him again, the butterflies in his stomach about what to do when the occasion finally arose. There were rules about this kind of thing, rules against growing interest in your overage-yet-still-so-young new patient, but he had never been a rule follower before now and damn it if that wasn’t coming back to bite him in the ass. Burt Hummel had warned him, “Follow your dreams kid, do what you want, but be prepared because your actions have consequences,” blah blah blah, of course Dad of course. Yes, I know I matter, thank you.

Why hadn’t he listened to that veritable temple of wisdom he had for a parent? Well he was listening now but fat lot of good it did him. The way he saw it, there were two choices, neither of which had clear-cut consequences. One: Cut his losses, and all ties with the curly haired menace that haunted his very dreams. Two: Fall madly in love with said curly headed spook and attempt to live happily ever after.

The last one would be so easy, or at least easier than the first option. The problem was, Kurt was quite sure it would tear his fragile control of his own world apart.

Kurt sighed as he pulled into the parking space a few steps away from his ground floor apartment, letting the natural rhythm he had known since age fourteen, push clutch, first gear, release clutch, emergency brake, soothe him in the way only a memory from childhood like working with cars could ever do. There was no denying that the meeting with the boy, BlaineBlaineBlaine his helpful libido reminded him, had shaken him up. Here was a bo-Blaine, who…. Well simply put embodied everything Kurt was scared of.

The second he walked through his door and flipped on his light Kurt was mauled by the vicious animal known as Drizzle the Fluffy. In reality, Drizzle was a thousand (read: eleven) year old black Labrador retriever that liked to pretend she was still a puppy and jump on anyone who wouldn’t bop her nose for it, but Kurt was a cat person who couldn’t stand dog hair on his clothes.

“Drizzle, sit.” He huffed exasperatedly. Obviously something had gotten the vile animal excited, but he didn’t actually care enough to find out what it was. “Drizzle… Drizzle, sit! Get off me you demon animal!”

”Hey! Is that any way to speak to my dog? Watch your mouth little brother.”

Kurt’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice of one of his favorite people in the world. His lips curled into a smirk as he saw Finn Hudson in the doorway to the small apartment’s rather large kitchen.

“Your dog was getting her black hair on my white blazer. You do the math, Hudson.” Relaxing his face into a welcoming grin he gently shooed Drizzle off and turned to hang said blazer on his coat rack. He didn’t honestly hate the dog. In fact, a sort of grudging respect had been formed for it when she had come to live with him. She was an excellent source of warm body on those nights his nightmares woke him up in a cold sweat.

Kurt turned around quickly as a crash and a curse sounded from the direction of Finn. “Ouch, shit, hey when did you put that coffee table there?”

Crap. There it was. Knock on the door, flash of light, dark indistinguishable shape staring him in the face. He shook his head violently to clear it of the images threatening to overwhelm him. He already knew tonight was going to be one of his extremely rare bad nights, but he would dust off his acting chops for Finn’s sake. “It’s always been there Finn, and you knock into it every time you’re at my house. Speaking of which, why are you at my house?”

“What, I have to have an excuse to come visit my little brother and my dog who he is oh so graciously taking care of?” Kurt gave him a Look as he flopped down on the couch. “OK, OK, I was raiding your recipe file again, Rachel keeps texting me saying she’s craving your vegan non-fat kosher apple brownies and I figured I’d-”

“Try and surprise her by sending them all the way to New York with a note saying you’d made them yourself yes I get it.” He flashed his step-brother an affectionate smile, but it faded quickly. “Finn you know you can always just ask me…”

“And further convince you that after eight years this chair is still inhibiting me from doing normal things like baking surprises for my long distance Broadway babe? No thanks Hummel. I’m gonna give you the same line I’ve been giving you since day one. I’m an amputee, not a fucking invalid.” Finn grinned that adorable grin only Finn Hudson could ever pull off and rolled past Kurt’s seat on the couch on his way back to the kitchen, ruffling his brother’s hair as he went by. “So you helping me or not?” He called back to his brother, who had not moved.

Kurt shut his eyes again and breathed very deeply through his nose. You’re stronger than this Hummel. You’re not damaged, you’re not a victim. You can call Abigail later and talk about this but right now you have to go in there and help your brother. As usual, his little pep talk worked. Freaking out, about Blaine, about Finn, about the memories, would all have to come later. Every patient was allowed a little relapse from time to time but this patient could damn well delay it until he was alone again.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The front door clicked shut and his happy grin faded. He grabbed the two things he knew he needed, his cell phone and the remote and sat down on the couch, hurriedly switching on the TV and flipping to one of his saved episodes of Law and Order. He quietly thanked whoever was listening that he didn’t have any patients tomorrow or the next day. He’d been dealing with his problem long enough to know he wouldn’t be fit to deal with anyone else’s for a couple days.

Shaking fingers punched in the familiar number and a shaking hand brought the phone to his face. Everything was shaking, he needed to hear her voice now or he was gonna lose it and damn it why wasn’t the show starting and he was still shaking and the phone was ringing but she wasn’t picking up and he couldn’t hold it in anymore and he was going to freak out he just knew it and-

“Hello?”

Shaky exhale. Eyes slid shut and from behind them he heard the opening notes of the show. “Ab…Ab…Abby.”

“Kurt what’s wrong?”

“Everything Abb. I-I,”

“Tell me about it Kurt. It’s been over two years since you’ve had to call me for something like this. Let’s talk, and we’ll get you through it together.”

He slowly exhaled as the combined comfort of his psychologist and friend’s voice and the sound of the drama playing on his TV screen brought him back to reality. “It’s been a bad day.”

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

“When… You… Come home… To me, I’ll wear a sweeter smile, and hope that for awhile, you’ll stay….”

Kurt knew his voice was wafting down the stairs to where Finn was watching football, but he couldn’t really be bothered to care. He knew Finn probably didn’t mind anyway, as long as he could still semi- hear the game. Kurt continued filing his nails and singing random snippets until he heard the doorbell ring. That had to be Mercedes, twenty minutes late for the start of their sleepover but the bitch out could wait until after he’d hugged her for saving him from boredom.

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve-”

Door swings open, strange man, two of them, strangers, black masks, what the hell is going on here, no, no you can’t just force your way into my house, no, you are supposed to be Mercedes, no, what’s happening, what's happening.

There’s a struggle and his relatively tiny body is thrown backward into the hall, it’s noisy and his brother, his big, football playing brother who is actually his step-brother but the step has never been important because they are brothers, hears the noise and his yelling and comes to check it out and no Finn, god no not Finn, stay back, go back to watching football and maybe all this will turn out to be a dream. But no, no, there’s a fight, and lot’s of yelling, and a gun shot, and a scream of agony, and his own scream of outrage, another gunshot, another scream of agony, and Kurt is just sitting there, and crying, and yelling, and not fatally hurt but he can’t move, he can’t move and everything is just… so…

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The next few months are anguish. Agony and recovery and more pain. Details trickle out. They didn’t manage to get anything after he blacked out because his neighbor, a man from Texas and so as such naturally owned a gun, had heard the shots, called the cops and ran into their house to deliver his own brand of cow-pony justice. They were from out of town. It was just a normal home invasion. It wasn’t a hate crime like they all feared. None of this made Kurt feel much better, but neither did it make him feel any worse.

That same neighbor, his name was Devin, he was now a cherished family friend, had saved Finn’s life by tying off his leg. But the leg was wrecked and there were gory details, about how badly the bone was splintered and how horribly the artery had been ripped, but Finn didn’t want Kurt to hear them. The leg was gone, there was no saving it. Apparently that never happened nowadays but it had happened to his big, football playing brother and that was all Kurt bothered to care about.

It was a long time before he even bothered to care about his own injury, a few well placed plates to fix his own semi-shattered bone, and his arm would never be quite the same so no dancing for you Kurt Hummel. No dancing ever again. I know you’ve already given up your dream of being on Broadway because New York is just not feasible with your dad’s health being the way it is and your finances being what they are, but no dancing either OK? You can still sing though. If you can even muster up the strength to find something to sing about.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Eventually he’d found Abigail, and after that everything got a little better. He worked through his issues. He found a real comfort in therapy, and when his head had finally cleared enough for him to see again, he found his calling in it as well. As soon as he was well enough, he went back to school and switched his major to psychology. And the rest as they say was history.

But he knew, no matter how 'fixed' he was, no matter how much better he was now than the shaking mass on the floor he had been, he knew something inside him would never be fully fixed. Something inside of him was broken. Something inside of him, despite years of therapy, despite being almost fully ‘fixed’, still intoned to him at the oddest moments so as to make him believe it wholeheartedly, that the world is an evil place Kurt. No place for love.