"I'm going to visit David," Kurt announces that afternoon at lunch, like he's commenting on the weather or Mr. Schue's latest sweatervest. Tina's fork clatters into her salad plate, Mercedes frowns hard enough to burn, and Rachel's jaw gapes open like a mounted sea bass. Next to him, Puck swears, but Blaine doesn't see because he's staring at Kurt with eyes wide open, palpable incredulity making every inch of his body buzz.

Finn is the first to break the tense, shocked silence. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he offers. He looks concerned. They all do.

"I'm more than capable of thinking for myself," Kurt snaps, and Finn looks a little hurt but backs off anyway. From the opposite end of the table, Santana's lips turn up in silent approval, but her eyes stay sharply focused on Kurt.

Blaine glances down to where his left hand rests on Kurt's knee, and he squeezes gently so Kurt turns to look at him directly. "Finn has a point," he says quietly so the others won't hear him above the din of the cafeteria. The tautly-drawn line in Kurt's shoulders smooths out slightly. Blaine gives him a small half-smile; Kurt trusts him, he knows that as much as Kurt loves the people at this table, they haven't known the vulnerability, the tension of just living. He breaks eye contact with Kurt to chance a look in Santana's direction, because if anyone else would know what to say, it's her, but she remains silent as she jerks her head meaningfully toward the choir room door, just visible through the open cafeteria doors.

"Can we...can we talk about it?" Blaine loves that Kurt doesn't shut him out at the question like he would anybody else, doesn't fix him with the icy aloof glare that he'd turn on most other people.

I know you get me, so I let my walls come down.

"Come on." Kurt gets up, giving Blaine's hand a squeeze before walking out the double doors, Blaine following a safe distance behind.

Once settled, the quiet of the choir room thick around them, Blaine licks his lips, unsure of where to begin. Kurt doesn't seem to mind; they've got over half an hour of lunch left and he's always patient when Blaine can't find the words he wants right away. It's just one of the things Blaine loves so much about him.

"You're not the one responsible for Karofsky, Kurt." Just saying the name tastes bitter in his mouth, like swallowing ash; his teeth clench around the syllables and he thinks of the boy he met a year and a half ago and the boy who looks at him now with the same open, trusting face. He thinks fleetingly of that first kiss one year ago, how he had hoped to God it wasn't too late, waiting for his eyes to flutter shut with permission before moving in slow and deliberate, with precious care -- so unlike the kiss that had been stolen from him, a terrible secret tying the three of them together.

"I know it's not my fault. But I have to do something. I can't...I can't let him go through the rest of his life thinking like this, like he's not worth anything because of a handful of assholes who’re making his life a living hell."

"Kurt, listen to yourself!" Blaine can probably count on one hand the number of times he's raised his voice at Kurt, and none of them have come with this visceral need to make Kurt just understand. When Kurt's flinches, Blaine grabs for his hand, rubbing soothing apologetic circles into Kurt's palm. "I just mean -- that day at Dalton, when I met you -- " when you made my world whole, when you brought me to life, when I fell in love with the strength I saw in that beautiful boy " -- do you remember how you said those exact words to me? About him?"

Kurt lowers his eyes. "It's not that simple."

"Then explain it to me, because I'm sure as hell not getting it."

"Those guys...the ones that beat you up at Sadie Hawkins...would you forgive them if you could?"

"I -- " Blaine starts before pausing. "I don't think I would. I spent weeks in the hospital because of what they did. It took months of physical therapy to heal. I missed my finals and failed freshman year because my old school wouldn't take gay-bashing as an excused absence. I've got another year of Ohio left when I should be with you, making a life with you in New York next year, and I can't look at any of them -- think of them -- without remembering that it’s their fault."

It's Kurt's turn to soothe Blaine, scooting his chair closer and sliding an arm around his waist. He leans into Blaine, reclaiming Blaine's hand with his free one and resting his chin on Blaine's trembling shoulder.

"But if you knew that they did it out of fear?"

Blaine snorts. "Three guys against two kids overdue for a serious growth spurt? Yeah, plenty scared."

Kurt shrugs, and Blaine tips his head back a little, leans into the barely-there shift of Kurt’s chest against his side. “A wise man once said to me, ‘Prejudice is just ignorance, Kurt.’”

The back of his neck prickles with heat -- god, had he really sounded that douchey? -- but Kurt’s not laughing at him. If Kurt were anyone else -- no, if Blaine were anyone else -- he’d be rolling his eyes, but when he looks up all he can see is Kurt looking at him intently, without a trace of condescension.

Blaine sighs. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe people are just assholes. Maybe they were assholes, maybe Karofsky is just a giant asshole -- no, look, I’m sorry he tried to kill himself, but that doesn’t make him any less of an asshole for what he did to you, Kurt, don’t you see that?” By the end of it his voice breaks as Kurt tugs him closer, and -- oh god, maybe he’s the asshole for needing this, needing the warmth and closeness of Kurt when this -- it should be about Kurt, about Kurt and his stupidly too-big heart.

”I love you,” Kurt whispers into his hair, rubbing his back reassuringly.

“I know,” Blaine says with a watery smile.

”But,” Kurt continues, “can you honestly say to me that you wouldn’t -- do something, make a move, feel anything -- if you knew that they were feeling things now that you’ve felt, too?”

Blaine blinks, thinks about his own coming-out -- the shoves, the stares, the implicit message of you are not one of us. He’s never been one to let grudges simmer -- and if he’s being truthful? He would. He doesn’t hold grudges well, but he can’t not do something to help.

”Blaine, I won't forget what he did, or ever really come to terms with why he did it. Part of me doesn’t want to. But that doesn't mean I won't forgive him. He needs someone to talk to."

”David Karofsky isn’t -- he shouldn’t be your burden to shoulder, Kurt. He’s not your responsibility.”

”I know he isn’t,” Kurt says, and Blaine bristles -- don’t patronize me, don’t tell me what you think I want to hear; we’re better than that -- “but I want to do this. I don’t have to, but I want to.”

The resentment is gone as quickly as it came, resignation in its place. Kurt’s maybe (definitely) the best person he’ll ever know. Of course he wants to do this, of course he’s going to be there for the person who nearly cracked him in two. But maybe that’s Kurt coming out on top again, striding into Dave Karofsky’s tiny life to rebuild his pieced-together soul, to show him that there is a life to be lived and he is walking, breathing proof. And that maybe, in a roundabout way, it’s the sweetest revenge. You almost broke this boy, Blaine thinks with a dawning satisfaction, but you could never.

”I love you,” Blaine says, because it’s all he can say. That’s what everything comes down to. Kurt is not a porcelain doll, not a fragile thing; he is fierce and lovely and proud and strong. As much as Blaine wants to keep Kurt from ever hurting again, he can’t protect him forever.

They’ll fight, mostly against a world that will try to tear them down for daring to love each other. They’ll fight each other sometimes, too. But in the end they have each other, just love, and it’s enough to win a hundred battles, bridge a thousand galaxies.. He knows Kurt feels it too, because it’s written all over his lips, spelled out in his constellation eyes, how could he not, and when Kurt softly murmurs “I know,” Blaine lets himself smile. He can do this for Kurt. Kurt makes his own decisions, Kurt is the most compassionate person he’s ever met, Kurt will reach out towards his former bully not because he ought to but because he wants to. Kurt has a heart big enough to swallow Blaine whole, big enough to take on anything the world will throw at them. Kurt has a heart big enough to forgive, and he will never, ever be broken.