The man had stood over the boy for a good few minutes now. The strange warmth of his head had seeped through his boots; he could feel it on his feet. A slight draught waved down the hallway, catching those splayed brown locks and gently rippling them. His hands were still firm set on the gun, sights trained against the strange navy jacket, right over the heart. His finger stroked the trigger. But something didn’t quite fit in his disfigured mind. Taking one hand off the heavy weapon he began to bite at the knuckle of his first finger. What was it?

He took one step backwards, head cocking feverishly to one side. The boy’s forehead slid off his shoes and onto the floor with one more thudd. A ribbon of blood dragged after his foot; little rivulets splitting from it in either direction. Disgusted, the man lifted his foot and shook it, like a dog. Tiny drops scattered onto the walls.

Moving round to the side of the motionless body, he crouched down, like the hunter inspecting his kill. He’d seen something, something that was making him doubt, when the boy had spun towards him. Gently he nudged the barrel of the gun under the chest and lifted. One arm had been trapped underneath him as he’d fallen. The man grabbed it with his free hand and drew it out, pushing it to the side. The limp fingers flicked into the pooling blood. The man shuffled on his haunches, twisting the gun further, lifting the body even more. There. The breast of the jacket emerged into the half light. This kid wasn’t from McKinley. There was some weird crest, and a tie. The man snorted to himself; private school. Without a second look his yanked out his gun and turned on his heel, heading for the stairs the kid had charged down. He’d hid in the shadows behind the door when he’d heard the pounding feet overhead last time.

But not now.

"Everyone…" said the constant voice in his head.
-
The phone slithered across the tiled floor until it almost reached Karofsky. But he was watching the pain on Kurt’s face.
“What?” He hissed. “What is it? Is he out there? Jesus…”

Kurt’s head was shuddering, eyes staring horribly wide at the floor, eyelids flickering independent of each other.

Putting his uninjured arm down on the floor, Dave tried to lever himself up. What the hell had the kid seen? His legs slipped once, twice, on the greasy floor, but his back slowly slid up the racks of lockers. His head spun with pain.

“Kurt?”

He asked again, at as close a point to standing as he could manage. The boy’s mouth was open now, mouthing something that Karofsky couldn’t hear, his eye staring pleadingly.

“What? What are you saying?”

Tears bubbled in the corners of those eyes, streaming down either side of his nose, over those…those lips. Karofsky shut his eyes. God; have some control. But in the darkness his ears finally picked up the word.

“Bbb…Bbll….Bl…aine…”

Dave opened his eyes slowly. God, the kid was only thinking about his stupid Brokeback partner. With effort he pushed off his leaning position to move against the locker closest to Kurt, and bent slowly to retrieve his cell from the floor. He let his voice harden to his normal tone as he flipped the screen up.

“Bloody typical. Jesus, I thought even someone as Pride gay as you might have been able to forge about it for a minute when something like this is going…Whoa! Kurt!”

He threw out his arm instinctively, getting only a handful of his shirt before it slipped from his grasp; voice rising to almost a shout, as the younger boy suddenly rose and fled towards the door. Dave swore under his breath and stumbled after him.

“Kurt?! What the fuck are…?”

But then, his eyes falling over the top of the boy’s head, through the broken glass, he saw that same sight at the other end of the corridor.

Struck fully dumb, Karofsky could only watch as Kurt threw himself around the door and down the godforsaken hallway. Dave tried to follow Kurt out the door. But two steps told him he wouldn’t last the distance. He turned, vision swimming, and sank down onto the bench Kurt had just left. His huge chest heaved up and down; this was more than he’d ever had to deal with, more than his fabricated bravado could take. He heard a slight, scraping sound, as Kurt reached the other end of the hallway. He had to give it to him, the kid was brave, running like that to save someone without caring for himself. Dave leaned out and squinted down the corridor again (no one at school knew that he actually needed glasses, and wore them pretty much full time at home); he couldn’t make out who the shape was. Kurt was kneeling next to him, or her, or it…but after that he could make out nothing. Shit. Pain rippled down through the gashes in his arm, most of them still studded with glass, one, the highest right by his shoulder, was ominously circular and dark. With another gasp of pain he made to support it with his other again, and then suddenly remembered the cold weight in his hand.

It took two seconds for him to flip the phone open and dial the three numbers, then five more agonising beats for someone to pick up.

“Hello?”

“9-1-1, Emergency response. Police, ambulance or fire?”

Karofsky blinked a few precious seconds away; the words were harsh and real and seemed to echo endlessly off the stark walls. He sank his voice to a small whisper; but in his mind it made everything he said sound like another of the stupid rumours he passed on every day.

“Umm…um…police and ambulance, I guess…I mean, please…I…ah…”

The line clicked; a woman’s voice came through.

“Sir? You require both police and ambulance response; is that correct?”

“Yeah…yeah…listen, I’m in a school…there’s this guy, with a gun…and there’s other people…I…what…someone’s lying, he’s lying on the floor and…”

“Sir; are you at William McKinley High School, Lima, Ohio?”

“I…yeah. How did you kn…?”

“Can I ask what part of the building are you in?”

“Um, downstairs, in the boy’s locker room. But, please, listen, there’s someone hurt.”

Where was Hummel? What was he doing? He was right out in the open.

“Ok, sir, the police and ambulance crews are already on their way. We received a call approximately five minutes ago about the same situation. They’re on their way. Can you confirm to me how many casualties there might be?”

“Wait, what? From who?”

Some sort of sliding, dragging noise echoed from down the corridor.

A brief scrabbling at the other end of the line.

“A Miss Lopez. Can I ask your name, sir?”

“Karo…I mean, David…its David.” Santana had dialled 911; did that mean they were ok or what?

“David, I’m Helen. Everything’s under control, ok? Just explain to me everything that’s going on. Are you ok to speak?”

“What do you mean? Were they…were the others ok? They’re not with us; they had practice. But Kurt came down and now…now…”

His lips felt huge and stupid; his mind couldn’t make the words work.

“I don’t know David. But from what I can see there were no confirmed casualties reported in that call. How many other people are with you David?”

“Just…just one. No. Wait. Two.”

“Two. Ok, David, can you give me their names?”

“Um, Kurt Hummel. And I don’t know the other…they’re in the hallway; Kurt’s trying to help…but, please, you have to get here quick…”

“They’ll be there any minute David, any minute, ok? Just hold on here for me. Do you know where the intruder is?”

Simple answer.

“N-nnn-no.”

“Alright, alright. David…”

Karofsky’s teeth had begun to chatter in his skull; he felt himself crying like a baby. Everything was becoming realer and realer by the second. Where was Kurt? He wanted Kurt back. He didn’t want to be alone.

“David, you’re not alone; definitely not alone. Just be brave for me; can you do that?”

Had he said that out loud? She was treating him like a little kid, like some stupid, bloody little kid, but that was exactly how he wanted to be treated. He was so scared.

“Yeah…ahh…”

He couldn’t contain this stupid blubbering, but it was shaking his shoulder worse than ever.

“David, are you hurt?”

He tried to stand up, but didn’t dare move into the blade of light from the door; where was Kurt?

“David?”

He heard his own name, said in that weird form that only his father used, but the other words made no sense.

“No…no, you don’t understand…someone else is hurt. Kurt went outside. He went to go get them, but he hasn’t come back…he found me earlier…I…I think I’ve been shot…”

Deep in his own mind he knew that he made no sense, but the words seemed important. He had to say them. The last one seemed to leave a trail of pain through his mouth by just saying it. And Dave said no more. Because he’d managed to stagger to the door, physically pushing aside his own fear, and now pulled it open, the phone lying forgotten on the bench.

And there, less than two metres away, was Kurt’s shining face, broken with anguish. He staggered step after step, making almost no progress. But Dave wasn’t watching him. Because in Kurt’s weak arms, hardly used to carrying more than his satchel, lay a person, the one from the end of the corridor. Dark brown hair was splayed over his shirtsleeve, the face turned into his chest, in a dark navy jacket, with grey trousered legs supported awkwardly in the bend of his elbow. Something bright red had soaked into the front of Kurt’s shirt, blossoming from behind the boy’s head. And the cogs in Karofsky’s head began to turn again; he recognised that uniform. Jesus…this was the boyfriend, the whatshisname…but what was he doing here? Kurt hadn’t said anything abou…But he stopped himself.

Because somewhere in the distance a siren sounded and then cut out. No time for thinking. Dave rounded the door unsteadily, but then reached out his good arm and lifted the weight of the boy…Dean, or something like that, was his name, wasn’t it? Or Ben? And together, silent except for both of their tears, unconcealed from each other now, Kurt and Dave carried the terrifyingly light and limp figure through the door, collapsing as one into the space to the left of the door, which closed behind them with a splintering click.

“I…is…is he…?”

Karofsky, in no form of himself, could finish that question. He drew his arm away and sat back, stunned again, against the wall.

“No. No, no, nn-no.”

Kurt stuttered; but it wasn’t an answer, it was a prayer.

Cradling Blaine like an infant, with all the tenderness in the world, he slowly tipped his head away from his chest. The face was so pale; those parts which weren’t stained crimson. Kurt’s tears fell onto the beautiful face, mottling the already congealing blood. With one long finger he nudged the fringe aside, sweeping the clumped curls away.

“Please, Blaine. Please, please, please…”