Scraped knees and gazed elbows
You can stand up, right?
You can carry your weight on twisted ankles?

Blaine waited for what felt like millennia before his mum went to sleep. She was crying, but of course she was crying, because mothers cry when boys come home with bruises blooming on cheeks and blood under nails. Fathers stand behind mothers, look on with a tight-lipped worry that finally surmounts their disapproval. The iciness was still there between them – having a gay son was never on Mr Anderson's list of familial accomplishments – but tensions had been levelling out in that month since coming out. Up until this night, and whatever this night would spark, that is. Maybe it'd cause some sudden thaw in the following days. Maybe his dad would look up from his newspaper when he spoke to him.

The boy moved tepidly off his bed. It'd been at least half an hour and the bedroom lights were off down the landing, so he made his move, gathering up his jacket and attempting to stand up. He managed it after a couple of moments, at the price of a grimace and a sharp pang of protest shooting up his calf; nevertheless, he powered through, and remembered to grab his keys before he limped out the front door.

Kurt lived across the street, one house down. Blaine remembered seeing him when they first moved in. He was only about five, then, and Kurt used to set up tea parties on his front lawn and perch on plastic stools with his mother, sipping pretend tea and gossiping pretend gossip. There was a period when he didn't come outside for a while, and Blaine remembered because he'd always stop outside his house and tug on Cooper's arm, whining to let him go and play.

“Why won't you let me play?”

“Kurt can't play right now.”

“But I miss playing, Coop'!”

“He can't, Blaine. Now hurry up.”

Eventually, the brother told him about Kurt's mum. He didn't complain again until the boy appeared out in his yard several weeks later, this time dragging his dad with him to the table. Burt Hummel was gruff, but he was nice. He asked “how are ya?” and genuinely cared how you answered.

The night air blew by and made Blaine acutely aware of where his injuries were; they were where the cold bit down, stung, like on his forehead or his knuckles. It was the red grazes pulsing there that he'd attempted to hide the most, albeit to little avail; the marks that showed he'd punched them, too. That he fought. He'd never wanted to actually fight anyone – maybe in theory, but hitting another person in practice snapped something inside of him, some part of him that wondered if he was becoming the people he hated. Dragging his jacket tighter around him, he glanced both ways down the street before crossing the road to approach Kurt's door. The neighbourhood was engulfed in a quiet that permeates your breaths and presses down on your ears. The crunch of his footsteps was swallowed in the dark.

Ring. Ring.

Thud, thud, thud.

Blaine wasn't sure if he was listening to his heartbeat or the steadily encroaching footsteps behind the door. When it cracked open, light poured from the hall onto the doormat and cut across Blaine's feet, and a pair of familiar eyes peered through, past the door chain.

“Blaine?” Kurt asked, confused. “I wasn't—Oh my god.” The door shut briefly, then was swung open wide, and the boy hastened to pull Blaine over the threshold. In the yellow light of the household, his injuries nearly shone: purpling bruises under his eyes, cut lips and grazed knuckles, and the way he was standing with all weight off his right foot. He wasn't sure he could stand at all with the expression on Kurt's face – the raw, untampered worry, the shock. He hated making Kurt feel like that. “What- What happened?”

The faint sound of the television from the living room dropped to a hum as the volume lowered. Blaine's throat worked.

“I wanted to see you.” His voice had taken on a quiet tone that sounded foreign on his lips.

“Your face, Blaine, what happened to your face?” Kurt responded, hands coming up to cup his jaw and turn his head to the side. Blaine's eyes fell shut when he felt fingers brush over his bruises. “Did somebody do this to you? Blaine, look at me.”

Reluctantly, the boy peeled his eyes open and met Kurt's; blue against hazel, wide and expectant. He felt himself shrink, regress to five years old again with scraped knees that needed plastering, and saw Kurt skip over to his side with a flowery band-aid he'd gotten from his mum. He sniffled and wiped his cheeks with chubby, uncoordinated hands, and Kurt peeled off the plastic and stuck his tongue out in concentration to place it on his skin.

“Is that better?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have to kiss it better or- or it doesn't work.”

“Oh!” Blaine's sniffling went away as soon as the boy pecked his knee. “There! All better.”

“There was- three guys, after the dance,” Blaine recalled. He didn't bother to give them names because it didn't matter. Not right now. “I was waiting to- to go and they just…They came out of nowhere, and this happened.” He looked down at his scuffed shoes and felt the tremor of his voice rattle deep in his chest, but no more words came out. It was like someone had stepped on a hose pipe and the minute their foot lifted, the water would come bursting out. And Blaine hadn't cried in front of Kurt in five years.

“What's goin' on?” When Blaine looked up again, he saw Burt Hummel in the living room door looking between the two of them with concern. The television remote was still clutched in his hand. “Are those bruises?” Blaine chewed his lip and nodded. “Who from? The boys at your school?” Another nod, this time fainter. He felt his fingers dig into his palms. “Have you shown your folks?”

“Dad,” Kurt cut in gently. The man glanced to his son, and his gaze lingered for a few moments like they were talking without words; then, he blew out a stressed, resigned breath.

“Okay. I'll lay off. You're free to stay if you want, Blaine,” he told the boy, hand half-raised to pat his shoulder before he thought better of it. It returned to his pocket and was replaced with a kind look in his eyes. “I'll be in here if you need me.”

Blaine tried to give him a grateful smile in return, but he wasn't sure how far it spread over his face. He could barely meet his eyes as it was. As soon as Burt had disappeared into the room was as soon as Kurt was turning back to him and reaching for his hand. “Come on, I'll- Blaine?” The boy's brows furrowed when Blaine kept his hands at his sides. “Blaine, I won't- I won't hurt you. Please?”

Blaine's eyes fluttered, looking from Kurt's face to his outstretched palms. Two days ago, he would've held them readily. But everything was different than two days ago. At least, it felt like it was.

Slowly, he put his hand in Kurt's and averted his eyes from the marks there. Sadly, Kurt did not; his fingers were peeled open like petals and Kurt's hands covered the indents of his nails on his palms, and out of the corner of his eyes, Blaine saw his face shift, a confabulation of emotions searching for dominance behind his eyes. Then, he looked at Blaine's face once more.

“You did the right thing.” A gentle squeeze of his fingers made Blaine look up to his eyes. Kurt's looked back, soft with sympathy. “You did the right thing,” he repeated, firm. “You didn't deserve what they did to you. And I'm- I'm going to help clean you up now. Okay?”

Blaine knew he didn't need to reply, because Kurt wouldn't have listened even if he had disagreed. That was how he was: headstrong and compassionate in equal measure, and it made something twist deep in his heart.

The way to Kurt's room had been programmed into his feet, so they carried him there on autopilot – with Kurt's hands, his gentle hands, serving as an anchor. Once he was inside and sat down on the bed, the boy disappeared from his side to enter the en suite and re-emerged with a damp cloth and an assorted selection of bottles. “They'll reduce the swelling,” Kurt explained at Blaine's wandering gaze, setting them down neatly on the bedside table and perching beside him on the sheets. “Look at me?”

Blaine did so, turning his torso towards Kurt. “You don't need to mother me, you know,” he said while Kurt began cleaning his friend's face. The cool wetness first hurt, then soothed, and Blaine bit back a grimace.

Kurt gave him a look, but didn't stop what he was doing. “When have I ever not mothered you?”

“Touché, but—”

“Stop moving your mouth.”

“—but—“

“Stop, Blaine.”

Huffing out a breath through his nose, he kept his lips together so Kurt could dab the cut there. Small, gentle brushstrokes over his skin that Blaine wished didn't sting. The air in Kurt's room was quiet and smelt vaguely of vanilla, the only sound apart from their breathing being faint remnants of the world outside; wind shuffling through the trees and a distant car alarm going off. But he couldn't relax. Maybe it was what happened to him, or maybe it was the slight tenseness radiating from Kurt's presence, but he felt an incessant need tug at the back of his mind: hide, hide, shrink, be small. A need he usually reserved for school, not for semi-still nights in Kurt's room with the boy sat so close to him and his hands moving from his face to—

Blaine jerked back involuntarily. Kurt paused, his hands still raised in the position they had been, fingers poised to unbutton his shirt. His eyes were calculating, observant and god, why does he notice everything? “It's only me,” he said softly. “I'm trying to help.”

“By taking off my shirt?”

“You're injured, Blaine,” Kurt stated plainly, “and this won't work with your shirt on.”

“My chest is fine.”

“Then let me see.”

“No, Kurt. It's only bruises, and I got checked out by my mom when I got home.”

“Let me see, Blaine,” Kurt reiterated in a firmer tone. “I know you're hurting. I know you.”

“No, you don't!” Blaine snapped back, and the sound run through the room like a bullet. Kurt's expression shifted and Blaine himself shifted on the bed, turning his head away and pulling his legs up. “We're not kids anymore,” he elaborated in a quieter, tighter voice. “I can't just jump back to my feet and- and get on my bike, try again. I can't. Because they're never going to stop and I'm going to have to hit back over, and over, and over. This is my life. Our lives,” he amended, glancing over at his friend again. “This—” He gestured to his face, “—can't be kissed better.”

Blaine saw Kurt's throat working, his lips part to speak before he swallowed his words again, and felt his chest twist with guilt. Of course he hasn't got anything to say. What would you say to that? ‘It's okay'? “I'm sorry,” he began, his tone weighted with every emotion on his chest. He dropped his legs and turned to face him again. “I didn't—”

“Shh.” Kurt was shaking his head. In the soft silence creeping back into the room, he reached out, and Blaine let the words melt off his tongue as he flattened a wayward curl at his temple. “I know this is bigger than falling off a bike, or out of a tree, and I know it hurts a lot more, too, but…” he whispered, moving closer altogether so knee touched knee with his gaze centred on Blaine's.

Then he kissed him.

Something short-circuited upstairs and it took Blaine a few seconds to shut his eyes and let Kurt in, leaning forward into the press of his lips: soft, plush, only hurting a little where his lip got split open earlier, boyish and quiet and Kurt – somewhere among his teenage nerves, he kissed back. Blaine's hand landed on the side of Kurt's face and Kurt's fingers kneaded the fabric covering his friend's shoulders. Then their lips parted and Blaine remembered how to breathe in the warm darkness his world had become for those few seconds. He felt the lift of Kurt's lips into a small, secret smile.

“But let me try,” he whispered.