It’s the day after Blaine agrees to attend McKinley’s Junior Prom, and they’re laying on Kurt’s bed, Blaine’s head pillowed on Kurt’s legs as they study (though, really, Kurt’s stashed the latest issue of Vogue inside his history book, a fact which Blaine chooses to ignore as he thumbs through his dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice, reviewing for his English final). Blaine is perfectly happy to waste his Saturday afternoon like this, in contented silence with his boyfriend, but Kurt has other ideas. He hasn’t stopped thinking about their conversation at Breadstix, about Blaine’s use of the words “beat the living crap out of us,” about the implications in that chilling phrase. Making up his mind, he brushes his hand through Blaine’s curls, gaining the other boy’s attention.

“Blaine?”

Blaine makes a soft noise of assent, the cap of his highlighter held between his teeth as he highlights a few lines he’d missed the first time around. Kurt takes a deep breath, phrasing his next question carefully.

“What did you mean, yesterday?”

Blaine freezes, his entire body stiffening. He refuses to meet Kurt’s eyes, though his grip on the highlighter becomes painfully tight as his hand stills over the page.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kurt sighs, dropping his hand from Blaine’s head to take the highlighter from his boyfriend.

“You know, Blaine. At Breadstix.”

Blaine bites his lip, folding the corner of his page over and setting the book aside, twisting until he’s sitting up, face to face with Kurt. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself before addressing Kurt’s question.

“The Sadie Hawkins.”

It’s a statement, not a question, and Kurt’s taken aback at the defeat in Blaine’s voice, the deep sadness that’s infused in the words. He goes to reach for Blaine’s hand, but the latter snatches it away, his eyes falling closed as he puts distance between them on the bed. Kurt worries his bottom lip, his hand falling to his side, as he urges Blaine to continue.

“Yes.”

There’s a long pause, longer than Kurt is comfortable with, before Blaine opens his eyes and meets Kurt’s directly.

“Why would you want to know about that, Kurt?” Blaine’s question isn’t harsh, or accusing, but rather genuinely curious. His hazel eyes are clouded over, the pain visible there almost making Kurt retract the entire train of thought. Almost.

“Because, Blaine, I’m worried about you. I want to make sure that this-prom-that it’s a good idea. For both of us.”

“That dance was a long time ago,” Blaine whispers, and Kurt notices for the first time that Blaine’s fingers are trembling, his hands clenched into fists in his lap.

“Only a few years.”

“But why do you need the specifics, Kurt? Why can’t we leave it at yesterday’s conversation?”

“Because, Blaine. I don’t want us to have secrets. I want to know everything that’s happened to you, everything you’ve gone through and overcome, everything that makes you Blaine.” Kurt trails off, bracing himself before continuing. “Because I’ve never experienced that, Blaine. I’ve been-I’ve been shoved, and pushed into lockers, and bullied, but I’ve never-I’ve never been-”

He can’t finish the thought, the images on the forefront of his mind too horrifying. Flashes of news stories float in his mind’s eye, images of ambulances and police cars, flashing lights and crying families. Names that he knows too well, that he has to know for fear of being added to that list. He can’t name it aloud, can’t give a definition to what Blaine suffered, because he suddenly realizes that will make it real.

“Gay bashed?” Blaine supplies bitterly, sensing Kurt’s despair. Those two words hang in the air between them, and Kurt finally understands exactly how badly Blaine suffered. Granted, Kurt knows he’d been waiting for it, but hearing Blaine say it is harder than he expected. Somehow, to him, there’s a difference between an abstract beating and a gay-bashing. The latter speaks to hatred that runs deep, anger that far exceeds anything David Karofsky has ever doled out. It speaks to grown men unable to comprehend that people just love who they love, adults and teenagers unable to deal with their own corrupted upbringing, who’d rather physically destroy someone than let them love.

Kurt feels physically ill then, as a single tear falls from Blaine’s eye, betraying how difficult it still is to talk about for him. Blaine, for his part, tries to push aside the fear he still feels, pretend that it doesn’t affect him as badly as it used to.

It does, though, no matter how hard he works to keep his facade, to pretend that everything is okay. It hurts every morning when he looks in the mirror, his eyes tracing the ugly surgical scar across his abdomen and the fading pink-white tissue on the side of his rib cage. It hurts when he sits in Dr. Frankley’s office twice a month, talks about school and the Warblers and Kurt, about how he’s adjusting to having a boyfriend in the public eye. It hurts when his father looks at him with disapproval, as he gets ready for dates with Kurt, as ignores the mumbled comments about “flaunting it” and “asking for it to happen all over again.”

“Blaine-”

“I don’t talk about it, really. I never did. Drove my psychiatrist crazy.” Blaine lets out a humorless laugh, whether at the irony in his statement or the fact he’d just admitted to having a psychiatrist, Kurt will never know. He remains frozen on the bed, feet from Blaine. He can’t bring himself to reach out again, can’t bring himself to move and break the tentative calm they have. Blaine seems so defeated, where just minutes before he’d been happy and at peace. Kurt feels horrible to be the one responsible, to be the one who’d made Blaine relive it so suddenly.

“I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s okay, Kurt. I mean, it’s not okay, none of this is okay, but I need-maybe I do need to talk about it. Maybe I’m finally ready.”

“Blaine, you don’t have to-”

Blaine holds up a hand, stopping Kurt’s protests and meeting his boyfriend’s eyes finally, holding his gaze. Kurt gasps at what he sees reflected back-the same pain and sadness, but a new determination, something hard that makes Kurt’s heart swell at the same time it constricts.

“I do. I want you to know, Kurt. I only-no one at Dalton really knows the whole story. I want you to, though. Because I really, really like you, Kurt, and I don’t want us to have secrets anymore. Not like this.”

“Blaine, if it hurts too much to talk about it, then-”

“It was March 1. 2009. Freshman year. My date’s name was Kyle Larson.”
- - - -

“Blaine, are you sure you don’t need me to pick you up afterwards? It’s not a problem, I can always-”

“Mom, please. Kyle’s dad is picking us up, it’s fine. I promise you, I’ll be fine. Can I go?”

Maria Anderson smiled, smoothing her son’s bangs over his forehead before pressing a kiss to his curls, pushing him gently out of the passenger door.

“Have a good time, sweetheart,” she called, waving back as Blaine paused at the entrance to the gym, grinning widely. She pulled away, leaving him to wait for Kyle outside before the dance began. Barely a minute later, the other boy in question appeared, smiling shyly as he took Blaine’s hand.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Blaine couldn’t contain a giggle as he and Kyle walked into the dance, hand in hand. He was at his first real high school dance, and he was holding hands with a boy. He really liked Kyle, had had a crush on him for nearly a year and a half before he’d actually come out in January. This was his first public declaration of his sexuality, something that, upon further reflection, might have been terrifying, but Blaine felt nothing but excitement as they danced and laughed all night.

Waiting for Kyle’s dad after, standing on the steps of the school under the stars, Blaine got his first kiss, a quick, tentative peck from Kyle before they both dissolved into a fit of giggles, collapsing on the steps next to each other as the night washed over them. Blaine reached for Kyle’s hand, entwining their fingers and smiling at the other boy.

“Thank you, for tonight. It was-it was awesome.”

Kyle returned the smile, his cheeks coloring as he squeezed Blaine’s fingers.

“It was. I’m really glad that there-that no one gave us trouble, you know?”

Blaine nodded, still slightly shocked that they’d gotten nothing worse than disapproving glares from other students all night. Both he and Kyle had grown accustomed to taunts and slurs, hurled at them every day from every social circle. They were the only “out” kids at the school, a fact that made them prime targets for their homophobic classmates, but the dance had been so drama-free that Blaine couldn’t even be bothered to think of the following week.

He should have known it wouldn’t last, Blaine would think for months later, as he struggled through therapy and surgeries and pain. That someone would have to ruin it.

- - - -
“Carter Russo and two of his buddies showed up then. His younger brother was in our year, but Carter was a senior. They came out of nowhere, but we couldn’t-I mean, what could we have done, you know?”

- - - -

“Well, well, well.”

A harsh voice rang through the parking lot, and Kyle’s hand immediately tensed in Blaine’s, their eyes both drawn to the source. Carter Russo was stalking towards them, flanked on either side by two of his basketball teammates.

“Looks like the fags are finishing the night off, huh?”

“Let’s just go, okay?” Blaine whispered, tugging on Kyle’s hand to pull them to their feet. The other boy was frozen, fear evident on his face as the three basketball players drew closer. “Kyle, let’s go.”

“I’m not sure where you think you have to go, Anderson. The party’s just getting started out here.”

Carter had reached them by that point, forcing Blaine to back up onto a higher step. He dropped his hands onto Blaine’s shoulders, exerting force so that Blaine stumbled, falling back to the steps. He dropped Kyle’s hand in the process, but the other boy continued to stand there, stunned.

“Carter, Kyle’s dad is on his way. I don’t know what you think you’re-”

“Shut up, Anderson,” Carter hissed, suddenly sending his fist glancing off Blaine’s jaw. The younger boy swayed, catching himself on his hands to avoid falling completely to the ground. He steadied himself, one hand flying up to cradle his jaw around the bruise he knew was already forming.

“What the fuck, Carter?”

“I don’t like that you’re a fag, Anderson. I don’t like that you thought you could bring him to this dance like you had some right to spread your fucking fairy dust everywhere.”

Blaine bit back a retort at a quick look to Kyle’s face. The other boy was shaking, his hands trembling at his sides as he watched the interaction between Carter and Blaine unfold.

“Just let us go, Carter. We’re not hurting you, we’re just trying to enjoy-”

“See, that’s where you’ve got it wrong, Anderson. I don’t want to see you parading this shit in front of me, okay? That, well, it makes me kinda sick to my stomach. And I think you should be taught a lesson, so I never really have to see this again, okay?”

“Not okay, Carter. You are so far from okay,” Blaine stammered, his words sounding a lot calmer than he felt as he tried to reason with the older boy. He caught a sudden whiff of breath as Carter leaned in again, and the pieces finally fell into place. “Have you-have you been drinking, Carter?”

“What’s it to you? Doesn’t change what’s happening here tonight, does it?”

Blaine swallowed convulsively as the other two closed ranks, and his arms were suddenly pinned behind his back, Carter looming in front of him. A quick glance to his left showed him Kyle in the same position, terrified tears starting to trail down the other boy’s cheeks.

“Carter, please,” Blaine whispered, trying one last time to appeal to reason.

“I don’t grant favors to fags,” Carter hissed, before sinking his fist into Blaine’s stomach.

- - - -

“It kinda turned into a shit show after that. I mean, the one guy kept holding me down, but Carter was-he was an animal. I don’t remember much after he got me on the ground. I think I hit my head, bounced it off one of the steps.”

Kurt sits in horrified silence, as Blaine quietly tells his story, relates the events in a way that is as detached as he can muster. It’s so much worse than he’d thought it would be, so much more human. Kurt isn’t sure what he expected, but he definitely hadn’t expected Blaine’s tormenters to be so horrifying. He can’t grasp the concept of another human being carrying that much hate around, acting on that hate. He shudders, looking back to Blaine.

“What-”

“They didn’t actually ever hit Kyle, strangely enough. But somehow-” Blaine’s voice breaks here, and he sucks in a shaky breath, continuing-”they pulled him down the steps. We were kinda in the middle, there was like half a staircase to the ground level.”

Kurt gasps, knowing exactly where this part of the story goes, but he lets Blaine continue.

“The sound his head made on the concrete, that was-” Blaine chokes over a sob, his tears falling in earnest know as he relates things no one else has heard-Kurt is the first, the only person he’s told this to-”that made me lose control. Oh, God, Kurt. I thought he was dead.”

“But he wasn-”

“I passed out for real then. Completely black. I don’t remember anything until the hospital.”

Blaine looks to Kurt again, sees his own tears mirrored in his boyfriend’s eyes. He sobs loudly, cutting himself off by pressing his forearm to his mouth.

“Could I-can I hug you, Blaine?” Kurt whispers, terrified to shatter the tenuous grip Blaine has but wanting nothing more than to be some mode of comfort. Blaine nods, and fists his hands in Kurt’s shirt, pulling the taller boy to him and burying his face in the curve of Kurt’s shoulder, sobbing in earnest now. Kurt gathers him in his arms, his own tears falling damp into Blaine’s hair as they hold onto each other.

“Do you want to keep going?” Kurt whispers into Blaine’s hair, rubbing comforting circles into his boyfriend’s back. “Do you think you can?”

Blaine nods weakly against Kurt’s neck, taking Kurt’s hand before pulling back slightly. He angles himself so he’s leaning on Kurt’s chest, Kurt’s warmth keeping him calm as he steadies himself to continue.

“Kyle’s dad apparently showed up ten minutes after I blacked out. I don’t remember any of this-it’s all what the police filled in for me later. The school was a mess. Ambulances and cop cars everywhere, the principal tearing her hair out that it’d even happened. It was on the news that night, I think. Someone told me that later, but I never saw the story.

They took us both to OSU. You know they’ve apparently got a really good trauma center? They flew Kyle out by helicopter, but I wasn’t that bad, really. They just took me in an ambulance.”

Kurt tightens his grip on Blaine’s hand, offering silent comfort. Blaine closes his eyes again, leaning back against Kurt.

“I was pretty bad too, though, I guess. They said at the hospital the medics had probably made a mistake, should’ve sent a second helicopter. Took something like six hours to even get me stable once we finally got there. I don’t really know-I was still unconscious. Didn’t wake up for three days.”

- - - -

“Blaine? Kid, can you hear me?”

Blaine moaned, attempting to roll his head weakly but stopped by something hard wrapped around his neck. His eyes flickered open, sliding shut again at the bright light.

“Get the light, Kate,” the first voice said, lowering in pitch as it sounded back at his ear. “Blaine? The light’s off. Can you open your eyes for me again?”

Blaine reluctantly complied, his eyes sliding open again and focusing on the face swimming in front of him. Said face broke into a grin, and the person straightened up, drawing Blaine’s focus to him.

“Blaine? My name is Dr. Consiglio. Can you understand me?”

Blaine attempted a nod, once again stopped by the device constricting the movement of his head.

“Blaine, blink once for yes and twice for no, okay? I’ll tell you about that collar in a bit, but I need you to answer some questions for me. Can you understand me?”

Blaine blinked once, opening his mouth to speak but finding his throat impossibly dry, his mouth cottony as he tried to work his vocal cords. The doctor smiled, reaching for a small cup on the bedside and gathering a few ice chips onto the spoon, tipping them carefully into Blaine’s mouth.

“This’ll help your throat,” he advised, spooning a few more as Blaine relished the cool liquid sliding down his throat. “Is that better?”

“Y-yeah,” Blaine whispered hoarsely, his voice barely louder than silent and incredibly rough.

“You’ll be sore for awhile yet, Blaine. We had a tube down your throat for the better part of three days.”

“Thr-”

“This is the first time you’ve been awake since you came to us, Blaine. Do you remember anything?”

Blaine closed his eyes, working his brain furiously but coming up with nothing. He opened them again, blinking twice before looking to the doctor.

“Wh-”

“You suffered a pretty bad assault about four days ago, Blaine. You’re in the hospital.”

“I-”

“You’ve been in the ICU since Saturday night, under my care. Your parents are here, but they’re currently in a meeting with your surgeon. Would you like me to explain a little about your injuries, Blaine?”

Blaine blinked once, and the doctor nodded, sliding a stool over to the bedside and sitting, resting a comforting hand on Blaine’s arm as he began to speak.

- - - -

“I’d fractured my right arm in three places, broke my collarbone too. Fractured a vertebra in my neck, hairline skull fracture, broken nose, a ton of broken ribs. And that was all the top half-my spleen’d ruptured, my liver lacerated-they had to do surgery to take out my spleen and repair some other internal damage. My right lung collapsed and they stuck a tube in to fix it. I’d also popped out my knee, strained the ligaments there. It was pretty rough.”

“Blaine-”

“The worst of it was that I just didn’t remember, then. I don’t think I wanted to, really. It all just hurt so badly, and I wanted to just fade away until it didn’t anymore.”

“Kyle?”

Blaine bites his lip, his eyes seeking the far wall as they gain a distant look.

“He was in a coma for six months. The fall gave him a really bad concussion and made his brain bleed. Broke his neck, and uh-it severed his spinal cord.”

“Oh, God,” Kurt breathes, his free hand covering his mouth as his tears speed up. He hadn’t thought the story could get worse after Blaine’s litany of injuries, but the idea that Kyle had been so irrevocably damaged by the attack made him sick.

“He’s in some kind of assisted living home now. His parents didn’t want-they couldn’t deal with having to help him, I guess. They sent him to Columbus.”

“Blaine-”

“I don’t want pity, Kurt. I can’t-I can’t deal with your pity. I just needed you to hear it all, okay? I go to therapy twice a month still, and all anyone ever does is look at me with pity. It’s a part of my past, and it’s a big part of my past, but I’d like to think I can leave it behind one day. That I’ll be stronger than this and be able to deal with this.”

“You already are strong, Blaine,” Kurt breathes, gathering Blaine in his arms again and pressing a kiss to his curls. “You have no idea how brave you are for sharing this with me. I’m-Blaine, I’m so, so sorry this had to happen to you. I want nothing more than to be able to take it all away.”

“I used to think that, too. Right after it happened, when I was still in the hospital and the stitches hadn’t even come out. I thought that if I just went back I’d find the words to talk Carter down, find some way to stop it all from happening.”

“But?”

“But I realized eventually I was just making myself sick over it. Carter would never have changed, and Kyle wasn’t ever going to get better-it took a long time to come to terms with that. I didn’t want to be changed like that, too. I didn’t want it to control me forever.”

“It isn’t-”

“It still does, though, sometimes. Despite my promises that it wouldn’t. It’s on my mind every time I take a shower, see the scars left behind and I hate them, Kurt. I hate that I’m stuck with reminders forever. I mean, at least I’m not Kyle, right?”

Blaine laughs bitterly, and Kurt’s heart breaks all over again. He surprises himself with his next question, with the boldness he doesn’t really feel but pretends to have.

“Can I see them?”

“What?”

“Your-your scars, Blaine? Can I-can I see them?”

Blaine freezes, and Kurt can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he contemplates the request.

“Why?”

Kurt doesn’t have an answer, doesn’t even know what made him ask the question. They’ve never been shirtless together, their heated make-out sessions confined to the back of Kurt’s Navigator or Blaine’s bed, stolen away in a half-hour here or there that they could gain. But Kurt suddenly wants to see, explore every piece of Blaine, every hurt that the world had doled out on him, that he’d overcome. He shrugs, and Blaine nods, his fingers toying with the hem of his t-shirt.

“They’re pretty-they’re pretty gross, Kurt. It’s why I never-why I’m so afraid-”

“It’s okay,” Kurt whispers, placing his hands over Blaine’s. Together they peel the t-shirt over Blaine’s head, leaving him bare-chested and vulnerable on the bed. Kurt’s eyes seek out the mark over the curve of Blaine’s rib cage, the line crossing his abdomen. Dozens of other, smaller scars litter his torso and arms, and Kurt suddenly wants to touch each of them, map out the pattern of Blaine’s painful past and ease any remaining hurt away.

“This is where the chest tube was,” Blaine whispers, pointing to the one over his ribcage. Kurt winces, realizing that at some point a tube had been shoved between Blaine’s ribs and into his chest, leaving behind only the small, healing scar. He’s overcome again by the desire to touch, and his fingers unconsciously trace the small line, stilling at Blaine’s sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt whispers, drawing his hand away.

“It’s okay,” Blaine replies, tipping Kurt’s chin up. “It doesn’t-it’s not like it hurts anymore. These are just reminders of-of what happened, of what I went through. I don’t-I wouldn’t want anyone else to know, Kurt.”

Kurt nods, and his fingers again find the chest tube scar, tears streaming down his face as he maps the history of pain across Blaine’s chest.

“That’s the surgical scar,” Blaine explains again, this time pointing to the longer one, the one crossing his abdomen and bearing evidence of what must’ve been staples that held it together. “That surgery took something like six hours, internal bleeding they couldn’t stop. Like I said, I don’t remember.”

“What are these smaller ones?” Kurt asks, his fingers tracing along Blaine’s arms and the marks he’s surprised he’s never noticed before.

“Lacerations. Some of them were deep, needed stitches.”

“I don’t-”

“When you hit someone with enough force, you can break the skin without anything sharp. I learned that at the hospital when I asked why my skin was so cut up.”

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers, his hands falling to his side.

“I know, Kurt. I-”

“I’m glad you confided in me,” Kurt says, pulling Blaine into his arms again. “I’m sorry that I pushed, but I’m not sorry you finally let go.”

Blaine sighs, closing his eyes and settling into Kurt’s grip.

“I’m not sorry, either,” he replies, fitting his head into the curve of Kurt’s shoulder as they sit together, Blaine still shirtless. “I needed-it feels like something has finally let go, inside me. I feel better than any of my visits to the shrink, somehow. I think I just needed to-”

“I’m glad you can trust me,” Kurt murmurs, dropping a kiss to Blaine’s shoulder and tangling their fingers together again. “I’m glad you’re going to face this fear with me next weekend.”

Blaine sighs contentedly, sinking further into Kurt’s grip.

“I’m still afraid, though. That this will happen again. That Karofsky or someone else will decide that we’re not allowed to be happy, and they’ll go after you, Kurt. I don’t think I can do this again.”

“You won’t have to, Blaine. I promise you, you won’t have to do this again. We’re both going to be okay.”