Glee!fic: How To Survive pt III

[rainjoyswriting]

How To Survive, part III. See previously Truth & Consequences, part I and part II.
Disclaimer: If I'd got paid for it I wouldn't've had to keep interrupting writing it to go to sucky sucky work. Fanfiction, guys.
Rating: We're still R, still mostly for subject matter. Kids, go read And Tango Makes Three or something.
Warnings & spoilers: If you've read this far nothing will shock you, but beware the spoilers and the sensitive subject matter, guys.

Summary: The Hummels have a trick for getting through things; if you're still alive, count it as a win.


Notes: This was the hardest part to write and I am so fucking glad I never have to write it again. On a lighter note, on the bus today my iPod played Wake Me Up When September Ends and I lol'd all over the place because I'm such a massive bitch. In my defence I think Kurt would find it funny too. Maybe? Anyway, Kurt's song in this part is Joni Mitchell again because I think his voice would fit her music so well, and also because he's a complicated little thing, just like her songs.

During the day, mostly, he sleeps. Previously, pre-this, sleep had been parcelled out carefully because he really doesn't want to look tired but there's just never enough time in the day, not for school and homework and glee and Blaine and skincare and customising clothes and helping his dad in the garage and minding the house and everything else in the world he needs to do. But he has nothing else to do, now. He sleeps, and catches up on all the TV he's missed (and has Mercedes fill him in on the episodes before, because he doesn't remember those either), and works through the ten million messages on his phone. Apparently people worried.

Apparently people worried a lot.

It should make him feel better, but all it makes him feel is bad, touched inside with something bad, because all these messages were sent and Kurt wasn't there. Kurt can't think of those lost two weeks as being something he was there for and just doesn't remember, he thinks about them as if he didn't exist. He was there, in his life, getting on with things, and then he wasn't, and now he's back again and everyone else has had all this time he didn't get. So where was he?

At first he just doesn't think about it, because there's no real reason to. He's tired and on a lot of painkillers and he has three weeks of reality TV to catch up on. His inbox is a mess, even after deleting all the crap he'll never read there are a hundred and fifty emails to deal with and he just doesn't have the energy. And his friends visit now, every night before Blaine gets there at least someone comes over, Rachel is there to patronise him and fail to notice his sniping at her in return and Mercedes would clearly be all over him except she's scared to touch him; everyone is a little bit weird about touching him now, so he emails around a list of Places I Am Actually Not Hurt because it's a damn shorter list than the other option. It would have gone down better if Brittany understood the difference between left and right when she patted him a hard hello on the wrong shoulder entirely.

Mike brings him some crazy foul-smelling paste his mom made to heal bruises and Kurt makes grateful noises and has Finn throw it into the trash can at the bottom of the yard. Puck sits there head ducked and jaw working silently, hands in his pockets, and Kurt doesn't know what to say because they've never really interacted much. Puck shrugs his shoulders hard, mumbles, "Sorry, man." and Kurt really just doesn't understand what he thinks he's done, until he does.

"I don't think anyone could have stopped him," he says, gently. "I think it's been sort of inevitable for a while, and I really did not want to have to walk around that school with a bodyguard the whole time. Especially not one wearing those awful shiny jackets. And berets. My god. Getting beaten up was the better option."

Santana's the one who sits there looking weirdly pale - again, not someone he ever thought actually gave that much of a crap about him, but glee club is a strange and incestuous and fierce family unit when it comes to it - and actually asks. "So, what will you do now? Are you enrolling back at Dalton?"

Kurt stops bored channel hopping and stares at her. "What? Why?"

"What, like you can go back there now?"

"Well, yes." Her eyes go huge like he's said something crazy. "Of course I'm going back. Why wouldn't I?"

"Uh, because they beat the shit out of you and left you to die in a dumpster? It's a pretty definitive way to tell you you're not welcome, like, duh."

Kurt frowns, looks back to the TV, goes back to flicking through the shopping channels. "And my walking back in is my way of telling them that their opinion is irrelevant to me. They're not there anymore, anyway, they just expelled pretty much everyone who ever even looked at me in a strange way. I think I can survive the last few months before graduation without getting almost killed again now."

"It just doesn't sink in with you that you're not safe there, does it?"

"Karofsky's gone." Kurt says, hovering over a channel, wondering if he does need a mechanised cherry pitter before he skips on; if he made more pies his dad would only eat them anyway, and Kurt measures his cholesterol with the same frowning obsession that his dad now applies to Kurt's bruises and bones.

"Like that means everyone's okay with the gay now?"

"It wasn't about that. It was a hate crime because he hated me. It wasn't about me being gay, it was just about me being me."

Santana narrows her eyes as she stares at him, and he wonders how much she knows. Santana and Dave - Karofsky, he doesn't want to call him 'Dave' even in his head anymore, he needs distance - did 'date' for a while. Did he tell her? Even half of what he actually did to Kurt tells its own story, Santana's not stupid, she could piece it all together given a quarter of the information . . .

She shifts her folded arms, says uneasily, "You really think it's safe?"

"Yes." He turns his attention back to the TV. "Even if I didn't I'd still go back. They don't get rid of me that easily."

"He really did smack you damn hard in the head, didn't he?"

"So hilarious," Kurt says, going back to muse over the cherry pitter again, "that I don't dare to laugh in case I break all the rest of my ribs."

*

Blaine is the one who worries at it, like a terrier with a rag. Blaine's the one who can't let it go, Blaine's the one who makes him think about it because how can he not when Blaine refuses not to bring it up? Kurt's getting by not remembering and getting on with his life, Blaine has to pick at it all the time, never letting it heal. Blaine's angry, Kurt knows, angrier than Kurt is. Kurt feels mostly baffled and hurt, betrayed that after all they went through Karofsky turned out to be this anyway. But Blaine's just angry with that white hot purity of anger he gets, and he needs a target for it. Kurt doesn't want to talk about it but Blaine just won't let it go, seems to want Kurt to be as angry about it as he is. How can he be angry about it? He doesn't remember it.

But the more Blaine talks about it, and the more he very obviously doesn't talk about it in the silences, the more it begins to sting in the back of Kurt's mind too. He doesn't remember it. And he knows what happened, everyone's told him what happened, that Azimio and the rest of the walnut-brained football team must have tackled him somewhere, tied his hands up, gagged his mouth, handed him over to D- to Karofsky as a 'welcome back to being a meathead' present. Only Dave could never do less than kill him in that situation, he must have known in that moment that it was him or Kurt. Kurt knows Da- Karofsky isn't strong enough to deal with the consequences of his refusal to play by their rules and if he did only knock Kurt around a bit then Kurt's dad would be back in Figgins' office the same day and Kurt would have a lot more to say this time. So Karofsky just kept on kicking, and when they dragged him off and found that this could not be fixed with a trip to the nurse's office, they panicked, dumped Kurt and ran. Azimio at least came back later to see if there was anything left to save. He's emailed an explanation since, a not actually very sorry apology, god knows where he got Kurt's email address from. He types all in lower case. Kurt hates that. He also hates that he cannot bear to make himself vulnerable to Azimio by asking him what he did while all this was going on, but he can't. He just puts the email in a folder he never looks in, and doesn't reply.

Yes, Kurt knows what happened. What he doesn't know is what he did. He doesn't know if he struggled or acted resigned or dignified or terrified or furious. He doesn't know if he said anything before they gagged him. Doesn't know what happened when Karofsky actually saw him, doesn't know what he thought or felt, what was obvious or not on his face. He doesn't know and he'll never know, and it begins to ache, the not knowing. Did he scream? Would he have begged if he could? (No, he knows instantly; he's a Hummel, and ferociously proud, and however scared he was he would never have begged.) Did he cry, didn't he try to say anything to Dave, to make him realise that he can be more than someone who does this . . . ?

There's only one person who can tell him these things, and he's locked up far on the other side of town in a place Kurt's never dreamed of going. And how would he even get there? He stumps around the house on his crutch and his dad yells from upstairs or downstairs, "Siddown, Kurt!" like he's going to trip and bruise himself like one more would matter. He's not allowed out, not that he really tries to. He'd like to go shopping for some clothes the crutch won't ruin the lines of, but he doesn't much want to walk around with his face like this, the bruises are fading into unexpected greens and purples and yellows like his face is a Monet. And the cut on his forehead, now they've removed the gauze, is very obviously going to scar. He'll have that forever. He suspects the edge of a sneaker, stares at it in the mirror close to tears again before he fights them back (he will not cry over this), lifts his chin and looks away. The thing he can't remember gave him a mark he'll never be able to forget.

Fuck Karofsky.

With anger comes determination. He can ask him all the questions he wants, if he can just get to him. He doesn't even think to ask his dad the answer is so obvious. Blaine is not safe to be in the same building as Karofsky, Kurt couldn't bear for Blaine to get into any kind of trouble over this, his sweet hopeless boy doing something stupid and ending up in juvie too and getting destroyed by it? No. No. Never. Kurt will arrange matters so that that can never, never happen. Finn is too delicate about it all, Finn's the one who found him, Kurt does understand that it was probably quite traumatic to pull a potentially dead body out of a dumpster. But who else would cut class to drive Kurt to juvie to ask some hard questions of David Karofsky?

Of course.

Puck cuts more classes than he attends, and Puck clearly feels like he owes Kurt something now, and Puck even understands that juvie is a shitty, shitty place to be and it might do Dave some good to see that Kurt's not actually dead, since he did do the whole trying to hang himself thing immediately after the 'incident'. Because this is the dumbest thing about it all: maybe it's because he doesn't remember it, maybe it's because he knows how scared Dave is, maybe it's because once before Dave has said sorry to him and meant it - Kurt hates Dave, but he pities him so much that his throat hurts when he thinks about him in that place, alone and very frightened. He pities him appallingly, and doesn't know if the sight of him alive might help Dave out any. Dave clearly wished he hadn't done what he'd done, though Kurt doesn't yet know quite why. He thinks that there's a decent person buried in Dave terrified to just come out and be, because it's just so much safer to hide behind bullying and bullshit. Kurt lied for half of his life, mostly because he wished so hard that if he could lie well enough, the lies would become true. He's never going to lie again. Maybe this is the moment when Dave will realise it's the only option for him too.

He arranges it via email, because he needs to explain things carefully and privately to Puck. Puck agrees, obviously reluctantly. Kurt dresses carefully, slips on the biggest pair of sunglasses he owns to hide the worst remnants of the bruising, gingerly puts a hat on over that purple wound that will leave a gashed line forever on his forehead, and while the house is empty during the daytime he waits for Puck's knock. Kurt gets himself down the doorstep, into the car. He's still clumsy on the crutch but he's learning; once his ribs are better he should be able to work out routines with the crutch the same way Artie does with the chair, dancing is dancing, whatever tools you work with.

In the parking lot Puck chews his lip a bit and grips the steering wheel and shakes his head. "Not going in, man. I am not going back in there."

Kurt glances at him over his sunglasses. "I thought you loved it. I thought it was like a holiday camp for you."

Puck swallows, and there's a glossy sweat-sheen on his face. "If I smell that place again I'll throw up. I'm not going in there."

Kurt takes his face in for some time, then says, "Fine." and pushes his sunglasses back up. "Listen to the radio or something, I don't know how long this'll take."

"Are you okay - getting in and everything?"

"I've survived so far." He gets himself awkwardly out of the car, slams the door and leans back in through the window. "They're not going to strip-search me, are they?"

"Just try not to look suspicious."

In sunglasses and tweed trilby Kurt mutters, "Thanks." and swings off on the crutch for the visitors' entrance, and the sky's so blue, and the bricks of the building are a strange childish yellow against it, and now he's scared but he's been scared before and come through it. The trick is to just keep living.

*

Does it help?

That night he breaks down in front of Blaine, because maybe, finally, it has all been too much and he still can't understand it and he knows now that he never will. Blaine holds him and whispers to him like he has a direct line right into Kurt's brain everything Kurt needs to hear in that moment. Kurt's sweet hopeless boy, Kurt's sweet hopeless man, because he's so strong whenever Kurt needs to collapse and he loves him so much, he didn't know he was capable of feeling this. He would do anything for Blaine. He doesn't tell him because Blaine wouldn't understand it; didn't Kurt have to go talk to Karofsky, to keep Blaine safe from him?

The next day he wakes up, picks his fugly, fugly crutch up and tightens his jaw. He spends the entire day in the garage, spraying it glossy black, sticking perfect geometrical arrangements of jewels across it. One day he'll be able to shift to a cane and a brace, and after that he'll walk again and dance again. He will, he will, just like the sun comes up. But for now he needs this ready to go back to school with. He can clump around the house on a grotesque beige crutch but he is not going into school with it, there's no point in wearing an amazing outfit if you have this monstrosity at your side all day. By the time Blaine comes by Kurt's maybe a little high from glue fumes, and his back's stiff from hunching over the workbench. Blaine rubs his shoulders, says, "Very impressive. It looks like something Michael Jackson would have used."

"Do you think red or blue rhinestones on the handle?"

"You wear a lot of red."

"I'm thinking of having a blue period."

The iPod hooked into the speakers shifts on his Celine Dion mix to It's All Coming Back To Me Now and Kurt gives a bitter little snort. Blaine's thumbs rub his back and he says, "Your sense of humour got darker."

"Do you wonder?" Kurt murmurs. He doesn't really know what to say after Blaine's announcement last night, there's an odd . . . pressure, in the air between them, stormy awareness of change. This is a bigger step than any they've taken in a while. Kurt's always known that he's committed to Blaine for as long as Blaine will have him, but he's maybe only just understood for the first time that the sentiment is mutual, because Blaine is doing more than most seventeen year olds would do for their boyfriend. Also they had a giant fight about it, which Kurt doesn't think they properly resolved, which he thinks he lost. Normally Blaine will cave in to him to make him happy. Maybe Blaine understands better than Kurt what actually will make him happy, though.

He's back at school in mid November, easy now walking with the world's most fabulous crutch, head high, not giving a fuck about the way people stare at him. In glee club Mr Schue pulls a stool out for Kurt's first performance back where he belongs but Kurt gives it a disdainful look, shifts his weight and stands, and sings Joni Mitchell, Judgement Of The Moon And Stars; In silence, in a bell jar, still a song. It's about Beethoven but fuck it Beethoven never had to get up again after someone beat a week of his life out of his head and left him in a dumpster to die, it's Kurt's now. They're gonna aim the hoses on you, show 'em you won't expire. He keeps his back straight, chases the notes through, strong and true, he still has his voice. He still has a lot more than his voice.

During the applause he only looks at one person, who holds his hands out grinning to help Kurt back into the chair beside him. "You're amazing. You know that?"

"Yes." Kurt says calmly to the New Directions' newest member, who grins his wicked grin at him, like nothing in the world can delight him like Kurt does.

He slips away before lunch, says he's heading to the bathroom and no he doesn't need help. He uses Artie's ramp to get outside, it's a hell of a lot easier than the steps still. Behind the cafeteria, around the corner, there's a grim little alleyway next to the science block, concrete stairs leading down from the door to the kitchens, a couple of dumpsters. The ground is suspiciously clean. Kurt looks at it for a long time, thinks that you probably do put some effort into cleaning up after a student almost gets killed on the school grounds. Some caretaker had to come and rinse Kurt's blood off, scrub it out, make it clean and civilised again. He genuinely doesn't know how he feels about that.

He closes his eyes, draws his breath in, looks at the dumpsters.

He's been tossed in enough of these, he knows what it's like. Everyone used to joke about how many outfit changes Kurt got through in a day; didn't they wonder why? And to drop in unconscious, not able to break his fall or curl up to try not to cut his hands on anything, he imagines the hollow boom of the drop and his lips twitch for a second. He imagines lying in the dark. He swallows, and doesn't look away, and approaches the closer dumpster.

On the corner of its rim, barely there unless they're the only thing you're looking for, are three little drops that could be rust but aren't. Kurt stares at them. He wouldn't remember this, he would have been unconscious for this, but it feels like the part he can connect to the most, at least he can imagine it. The rest . . .

He hears footsteps but he recognises them, and doesn't turn around. Neither of them say anything for some time, and then Blaine says, "Does it bring anything back?"

Kurt closes his eyes, shakes his head, turns to him sighing. Strange to get used to Blaine never wearing the blazer again. "I don't think it's there to be retrieved, I think it's gone. I'm not burying it, it's not just difficult to get to, it's gone. He whacked it right out of my head."

Blaine looks him right in the eye and says, "He is never going to hurt you again."

No, Kurt thinks, lifting his hand, touching Blaine against the hairline where Blaine would have the scar if it wasn't on Kurt's forehead. No, he'll never hurt me again. Or you.

"Come on," Blaine says, touching his side, turning him for daylight and the cafeteria and the clamorous group of Kurt's friends waiting for him there. "I think they have a surprise for you in there."

"Rachel didn't bake one of her revolting vegan cakes, did she?"

". . . not so much of a surprise, then. Please at least act touched."

"So touched I can't even bring myself to cut into and eat it." Kurt moves at his side at the rhythm they've reached, so Blaine's walking pace and Kurt's crutching pace match the way their stride always used to. "Blaine?"

"Hm?"

"You . . . you really didn't have to do this."

Blaine's hand settles lower against his back. "Yes." he says, certain as the sun, sure as the stars. "I did."

"I'll be fine again soon."

"I know you will. And I want to watch you becoming fine again. I want to watch you being fine for the rest of my life."

The smile twitches, his entire face feels warm, he can't help Blaine doing these things to him. "If you're the rest of my life then I will be fine."

"Then that's another reason for me to do this. Ramp or steps?"

Kurt tilts his mouth as he thinks, says, "Steps." He needs to practise and he has Blaine to help. He always has Blaine to help.

Burt

What's the worst thing you can imagine happening?

Some people maybe don't have a worst thing, some people might have a list of very bad things. Burt has a list of very bad things, yeah, but he still has a worst thing.

Kurt's his son. Kurt's his only son; somehow he's started picking up a collection of boys he has to act as a father to but Kurt is his son, Kurt's the one he held as a wriggly baby, Kurt's the one with the Hummel pride and courage and stubbornness, Kurt's the one who is so much his mother's son he still makes Burt need to blink to clear his eyes some days, to see Kurt and not her. And no, if someone ever honestly asked, Kurt is not the son Burt would have chosen at his birth. No. He is so much better than that.

Burt has worried since Kurt was three years old, since the every-new-parent worries of tetanus and banged heads and what ifs because the very specific worries of his knowing and not knowing what the hell to do about it. He wouldn't have chosen this for his son and not just because he was an ignorant tool back then. They live in Lima. They don't live in New York or San Francisco, they don't even live in a nowhere city that's actually big enough to hide in, they live in Lima, and Burt has spent a lot of his life scared.

So they never talked about it, then. If Kurt was confused or worried or frightened he never asked his dad for help. Maybe he could feel Burt's fear. Burt's worst fear now, fourteen years down the line, is that Kurt felt his fear as disapproval and that's why he never brought it up. He needed his dad, and he was just scared that he didn't really have him at all.

No. That's not his worst fear.

Of course he's scared of Kurt getting hurt, or worse. He watches the goddamn news, he sees what animals people are, what they'll do to kids like Kurt who couldn't defend themselves if they wanted to. They've already been too close before. And even besides all that - even if not just for the fact that Burt's son is as gay as a Pride parade and refuses to feel in any way shamed or cowed about it in a conservative town -

The more he grows the more Burt sees that Kurt is the kindest, wittiest, sharpest, boldest person he's ever known. Kurt is Technicolor in a very drab world, Kurt's the brightest shiniest bauble on the tree and Burt knows that there's always some spiteful bastard who'll smash it just because they can. So he worries, all the time, though there are things he stacks against the worry. Despite his school, Kurt is rich in friends; the school generally treats him as at best a joke, but he has a pack of kids who'll rally around him every time. Finn and Kurt could have been brothers their whole lives already for the way they squabble and mind each others' backs. And now there's Blaine, and Burt had had plenty of worries about Kurt actually getting a boyfriend someday. He'd worried about douchey older guys who Burt would feel obliged to punch. He'd worried that he'd hate anyone for taking his son away from him. He'd worried about teenage boys, he knows what teenage boys are like, and Kurt is hardly more than a baby sometimes in his naivety, he'd worried that a little bit of sweet talk would be all it ever took to get his son in trouble.

But then his son brought home Blaine. They were friends, and then Blaine asked Kurt out - that was the way around it happened, Kurt told Burt revelling in the words, Blaine asked him - and ever since they've been inseparable, and Blaine is sort of hard to hate. He's a teenage boy but he's a well-mannered and old fashioned teenage boy (he likes doing little things for Kurt and Kurt likes having little things done for him, so they suit each other well) and while he clearly does not think everything he does through all the way, he means well. And like Kurt he is essentially, hopelessly, innocent. They're as blissfully naïve as each other when it really comes down to it. They hold hands and look at each other like that's about the most intense thing that could ever happen.

Is it a gay thing? Is it a testosterone thing in straight boys that they just think with their dicks and gay kids are somehow more advanced? Is it that Burt and his friends were clearly complete scum when they were kids? Is it because they actually talk all the time? Is it just them?

So Burt balances these things out. There's danger, yes, but there's always danger, and Kurt has his friends and his stepbrother and his boyfriend, and Kurt has Burt, and they'll all take care of him because god knows he returns the favour a hundred times over every day. Burt has a worst thing, but he keeps it far from his mind, he doesn't think about it. It's not going to happen. Things are fine.

Then on Tuesday afternoon he gets a call at the garage from Finn, who's in an ambulance, trying not to cry.

Burt sits. He has to. His knees collapse.

It is the worst thing he could ever have imagined happening, and it feels worse than in even the most evil of the nightmares.

*

It should be made simple and quiet and safe for them, a space for the family to just tremble their way through this, but there are things that have to be dealt with while Burt feels less able to deal with anything than he ever has in his life. He's lost someone he loved before, but then he had to cope, he had to be strong, because Kurt lost his mom and he was a kid for fuck's sake and he needed his dad to be brave. But if Finn wasn't there now Burt would collapse, would howl on the floor of the hospital, because the doctors tell him that they don't know how the lack of oxygen has affected Kurt's brain. They tell him that his kid might not be dead but he might be gone anyway. How is a parent meant to bear that?

There are police to talk to, and who talk to him, because Finn can't bear to directly tell him the details and Burt can't even take the details in. This did not happen to his son. His son did not have to live through that. His son did not get tied up and beaten half of the way to death and then tossed in a dumpster and left. Burt last saw him this morning, eating a bagel and talking to Blaine on his cell and tossing the paper bag of Burt's breakfast to him all at the same time, rolling his eyes at something Blaine just said, flitting Burt a smile of a goodbye. That kid did not live through that.

That kid will not die because of that.

If Finn wasn't there he would scream. There would be no dignity. He would beat the floor until his fists bled, tears and snot and spit, he would try to lose his own mind so he just didn't have to cope. But Finn is here, and Finn is a mess, Finn's the one who had to pull him out of the dumpster. Burt can't get angry with him, he looks so young and so sick. Kurt would never have submitted to a twenty-four hour guard even if Finn had tried to set it up, and damn it neither of them should have to think like that anyway. This isn't their fault, neither of them, Burt knows whose fault this is. So he tries, awkward with his own wounds, to comfort Finn, who just starts crying, which is pretty awful to watch in a seventeen year old six foot whatever football player. Burt hugs him, rubs his back, works on just breathing. When he seems to be mostly done with it he sends Finn off to wash his face, get himself together, okay? Go on. Take your time, kid.

It's when Carole gets there, just after, when he sees her hurrying up to him shaking her head with tears in her eyes, god the pain almost cracks his chest open, the heart attack wasn't this bad. He stands up to hug her and it just breaks him, the way she clutches and rubs at his back, the smell of her hair, he cries in sharp agonising sobs he can't control, he isn't breathing properly. She holds him through it. When he's just too tired to go on she sits him down and pulls out a tissue for each of them, and blows her nose with a honk like she really needed to do that. Which almost makes him laugh and that makes him cry more, until he makes himself stop.

They have to wait, while doctors do whatever they're doing to try to help Kurt out. They sit. Carole gets them coffee. It's so weird to just sit and wait, suspended out of time, like waiting in an airport lounge while invisible people decide if they can save his son or not. Finn sits slumped, staring at nothing, he looks like a zombie, he looks like he hasn't slept in a week. Burt's lost in his own thick spiral of the worst worst thoughts when really chirpy pop music starts playing and Finn's eyes shoot, stricken, to Kurt's bag, left beside Finn's chair because no-one knows what the hell to do with it, it's like having an amputated limb there without Kurt.

Burt gets his cell out because he just needs the noise to stop. When he sees the caller he thinks, Oh, god, no. He'd forgotten Blaine existed. He'd forgotten any world at all existed outside of this hospital in the last couple of hours. He cannot, cannot not tell the kid, but he desperately doesn't want to at the same time. They're all kids, Kurt and Finn and Blaine, why should they have to deal with this? What kind of world is this?

He closes his eyes, hits answer, hears Finn stand up and walk away. He swallows, and hears a second of silence on the line before Kurt's boyfriend's usually so mannered voice comes through harsh and sharp-edged. "Kurt, where are you, I have called about two hundred times and - and you know I would worry-"

He makes his voice come. "Blaine," he says, and it turns out he can still speak. "It's me, it's Burt. Kurt can't . . ."

There's a little pause, Burt can't even hear the kid's breath, and then he says far too calmly, "Where is he?"

Carole touches his shoulder. Burt breathes, breathes, if he can make himself believe that breathing is easy then Kurt can keep doing it too. "We're in the hospital."

Another little pause, and again too calm, like he's not actually surprised, "What happened to him?"

Burt puts a hand over his eyes, rubs them hard, strains his throat twice but he can't make the words come. What words can he use anyway, how can he possibly sugar coat this? Carole's hands dig tight into his shoulder and he can't take his hand off his eyes because if he sees her near tears he'll start again himself. He sucks his breath in and says, and it comes like the heavy sharp edges of flint up his throat leaving lacerations all the way, "They beat the hell out of him, kid."

There's another little silence, and he can hear the slight shifting of unsteady fingers on the phone at the other end. "Which hospital?"

Burt draws his breath in, lets it loose, draws it in, lets it loose. He sits up again, back straighter, he's a father and a mechanic, he knows what wrecks cars can become. "Are you driving? It's not good to drive when you just got bad news."

Blaine promises to take the bus and Burt doesn't know if he believes him or not, but he's begging, and Burt knows what Kurt and Blaine mean to each other. They're not dumb enough to risk their whole hearts like this if they didn't mean it. And Burt does just believe in first love. Burt's first love led to marriage and to Kurt, and if circumstances had been different he'd never have married Carole because he could certainly never have fallen out of that love. So he tells Blaine what he needs to hear, and Blaine thanks him mechanically, and then pauses and says, "I was going to ask if you're alright. I'm so sorry, Mr Hummel, I - I know -"

"Just take it steady." He swallows again. "Don't hurt yourself getting to him. He wouldn't want it."

"No, sir. Thank you. I'll be there soon."

He hangs up. Burt knows he's going to drive, and probably drive like a maniac. Why is it always the kids?

*

The cops come back to tell him that they've found David Karofsky and he'd tried to hang himself in his home. He's in the hospital now, they won't tell him where. Burt could almost laugh, could cry, what is he meant to say? Why did they stop him? Why didn't they just give him a hand back up so he could try again?

They tell him there's a police guard in the room, and Burt knows why. Would he kill him? Yes. If the kid's capable of this then he's not a kid, and Burt has no reason not to. But why he would try to kill himself - everything he's put Kurt through and what, now he feels guilty? Or he just knew the police were coming and he couldn't cope?

Everything would be easier if he'd just died. But Burt remembers Karofsky's dad and feels his jaw tighten, let go. If. If his kid does not pull through this? Then yeah, Burt will wish it right back on him. He should know half the agony that this is. But if Kurt can be alright, if there is any mercy left in heaven, if they just give him his boy back, he'll be a decent person. He will not wish this on another father. He will hope for him that this psychopath kid gets treatment or what the hell ever just as long as he is nowhere near Burt's boy ever again. If they just give him his son back, he'll be a fucking superhero of forgiveness. Just give him his son back . . .

Burt's just getting back to the waiting room from having learned this when Blaine arrives, looking pale and dumb and about twelve years old, and Burt lets the father take over. He grabs his shoulder because the kid looks ready to drop, and tells him off, and asks him if he's okay, and he sees Blaine spot the cops and some steadiness re-enters his eyes, his posture draws itself back together. Burt recognises himself, dealing with things because they have to be dealt with. And he does know that Kurt doesn't tell him everything, if a teenage boy did tell his dad everything he'd be a miracle or a freak, so as much as it hurts to know it, Blaine probably does know things Burt doesn't. Blaine goes off with the cops. They're gone a little while.

Burt waits until he's back, until they've all got a drink, they're as calm as they're going to get, to tell them about Karofsky. Finn just stares dumbly at him like today can't get worse (kid, it can). Blaine watches him with dark-bright eyes, apparently calm, and Burt's learning a lot today about the limits of the manners of the boy his son loves. Silently, they weigh each others' eyes up, and Burt isn't sure if this kid's got it in him or not.

It turns out he does. Burt's just standing up to follow him and Finn because he can hear their excited voices further down the corridor when a doctor comes through to tell them they can see Kurt. It's all Burt's been waiting for, because some idiot parental instinct in him says that he will see Kurt and somehow he will be able to make him better. Since he was a kid Burt's always been able to make Kurt feel better; he'll do it now, hold him somehow and fix everything.

When he sees him, it's the worst, worst thing.

*

Burt loses the days. Time has no meaning anymore, except when he remembers it for Blaine's sake. The kid won't go. At first Burt just doesn't have the strength to get into a fight about it, but he makes him go home in the morning and he turns up again a few hours later, he sends him off again and he comes back like a yoyo. The one holding the string is Kurt. He makes sure he makes Blaine go home on the nights, Burt can't in good conscience have the kid spending his nights here like the vampire Burt's become, no sense of light or dark, just Kurt's harshly lit room and time measured by nurses changing his drip. He feels sort of pleased, though, that clearly Blaine is going through some crazy sort of musical chairs with his car, his parents' cars, public transport, telephone calls, all of it just to get back here and to Kurt's side. The kid's got balls, he's smart and he's determined. Good. Kurt needs a boyfriend who can keep up with him.

They have the time, the two most important men in Kurt's life, to talk over him while he lays still like nothing can touch him anymore. Blaine confesses that yes, his parents are awkward about this. They don't mean to be but they're not ready for it yet, Blaine never intended to fall in love like this, he thought he'd save it for college or something but, well, Kurt. With a shrug like Kurt is just so obviously irresistible. Blaine and his parents have been getting by through just not talking about it, but this - 'this', Kurt's body trying to decide if there's any point in waking up - has made them anxious.

"They think it's like what I went through again," Blaine says into his coffee, holding the plastic cup carefully in both hands. "This is not what I went through. But I can't - tell them what's actually happened because it'll only make them more anxious. Please don't tell me that I should tell them the truth. They can't handle this, sir, and if they - I don't know, lock me in the house, I wouldn't be able to . . ."

Burt holds Kurt's hand, the one with the broken fingers, very carefully. Kurt's done this for him, too, held his hand in his hospital bed. Kurt was alone then, and still probably stronger than he is. "We should've had them over for dinner one night," he says, and then notices the tense he used and feels sick; all he meant was that they should have done it weeks ago, months ago, but it sounds like a death sentence. He settles his hand closer around Kurt's. His palm is still warm, still alive. "We should. When Kurt's up again."

Blaine stares into his coffee and keeps his face entirely still. Burt knows that Kurt is smarter than he is and his boyfriend goes to a fancy private school and probably is too. He probably understand what's happened to Kurt better than Burt does, but Burt cannot, will not accept the facts, it's his son. He has to wake up again and be Burt's son again. Yes Kurt's done this for Burt, cried over his hospital bedside and faced being left alone at sixteen but in the end, children are meant to lose their parents, it's a bargain made at birth. How can a parent face losing their child? How can life be like that, how can there ever be an after?

Carole convinces him to go home. He needs to get a proper wash, shave, catch an hour's decent sleep and eat some real food. He gets in and his body aches with exhaustion and the heavy pounding of three days' misery; he lowers himself onto the sofa, closes his eyes, feels as heavy as something chipped out of rock, and the familiar surroundings of home just settle around him like a blanket. He wakes up and doesn't understand where he is and when he checks his watch he swears, loud, because he left Kurt hurt in his hospital bed for eight hours, and kicks the coffee table so hard it flips over. He doesn't get a shave or shower or food, just heads straight back to the hospital, where Blaine hasn't moved and is singing to him again.

Music means a lot to them both. He knows what it means to Kurt, Kurt lives for music like a bird does. Burt likes some songs fine but he's not what you'd call musical, it was Kurt's mom who was interested, she played the piano like a cheerful angel. Kurt gets it from her. He knows the names of the notes and all that stuff. Blaine does too, and he knows that this is something they share, something Blaine maybe hopes will call Kurt back from whatever dark place he's gone. Burt hopes so too.

*

Burt goes for sandwiches. He thinks Blaine probably wouldn't eat if Burt didn't, Blaine looking shrunken today like he's hit the end of his steadiness, like there's no calm left, staring at Kurt's face with a weird quick light in his eyes. Burt's not actually Blaine's dad, and he's all out of wisdom in a world that can do this to Kurt, the most he can supply is a damp hospital sandwich. This is hollowing Burt out but Burt's not seventeen, Burt's in some way familiar with grief even if this grief is the worst and will always be the worst, he knows that all you can do is endure. But Blaine is just bewildered by it all, completely stricken like he never knew anything could feel like this and Burt realises that for those two, Kurt's usually the strong one. He can hardly judge the kid for that; Kurt's the strong one for Burt, too.

Blaine's singing again when he gets back, so he just stands outside the door for a bit, head a little bowed, because it sounds like a prayer. He knows Kurt doesn't believe in God (after this Burt doesn't know if he does either; bastard doesn't deserve Burt's belief for doing this to Kurt) but he believes passionately in people, in what they can be and what they should be. And this is a prayer for Kurt, not for any listening deity, Burt knows, so he just stands outside the door feeling old and tired and trying to decide when to open the door, slowly, to give Blaine time to stop and compose himself.

Then Blaine leaps up like he just got an electric shock through his chair.

It could only be because something very bad or very good happened. Burt bangs through the door and tosses his armful in the general direction of a chair because Christ Kurt is looking at Blaine, looking sleepy and very calm up at him, like there's nothing wrong in all the world, like he just woke up from a little nap. Blaine stares back with his eyes and mouth wide open. Burt grabs for the cord to call a nurse and pulls so hard he feels the end of it jerk almost to snap, gets a hand over Kurt's unhurt cheek and Kurt's eyes slip to him, drowsy and confused. His voice falls out of him. "Kurt, Kurt, can you hear me, you know me-?"

Kurt blinks, slowly like it takes effort, and his head jerks a little as he looks at Burt like he'd like to say something, but there's no strength for it. But there's a nurse already, and then there are more nurses and a doctor, and they ask him to wait outside while they do whatever they do and Burt walks on wavering legs down the corridor, finds Blaine sitting in the waiting room holding his cell phone in two shaky hands, looking up at him more obviously shaken than he has been in days. He's been crying but he's stopped now, dark-eyed and bleached by it. Burt walks right up to him and yanks him up into the hug, claps his back hard. The kid shakes a little and sucks his breath in sharp. Kurt's done the hardest part, his son's always been a damn hard worker. He'll get through. He'll be fine.

"He knew me," Blaine croaks.

"'course he did," Burt says, still holding him hard. "He'd know you anywhere."

*

There is nothing Burt will ever not be grateful for, not ever again.

'Awake' is relative. At first Kurt's just opening his eyes a bit, giving everyone confused, tired, vaguely pissed looks like it's their fault he so obviously feels so sluggish and drained. Sometimes he tries to talk; the first time he mumbles at Burt, "-th' light off. Too bright." Burt's breath cuts off. His hands go still around Kurt's. His voice is low and wrecked but it's still his voice, still Kurt. He clears his throat, says, "I can't turn it off, Kurt, the doctors need it."

Kurt's already asleep again.

One day, really quite suddenly, he's actually awake. Confused to hell and with clearly no idea of where he is or what happened, but the doctors act like it's natural, like it'll come back to him. Burt has to tell him what happened - the barest bones of what happened, he can't deal with the details, doesn't want to put Kurt through the details before Kurt has to deal with them. Kurt accepts it, frowning and nervous in the eyes but apparently resigned to it. He's not dumb, Burt's son, he knows the world he lives in, he doesn't act surprised about it, just sort of disappointed.

It doesn't come back. Not later that day, not the next morning, not the day after that. And he's Kurt again, tired and obviously in pain but he talks Burt into going home to sleep on a night - 'talks him into it' is literally what he does, a thousand words a minute until Burt's got his jacket in his hand and he's outside the room just because his ears are ringing so hard - and casually bullies Blaine and Finn into bringing him things, so, yes, he's Kurt. His mind is undamaged, he just doesn't remember it. Doctors ask him careful questions and Kurt gives them narrow-eyed and increasingly sarcastic responses. The cops come back twice, once when Kurt's too distressed to say anything even if he had anything to say, and again, later, for the back story since Kurt can't remember the actual attack, which Burt has to be there for.

Kurt picks at the bandages on his fingers until Burt puts a hand over his to make him stop. He keeps touching his tongue to the cut on his lip. And then he glances up at Burt and says, "Could you wait outside? While I tell them - something?"

"No." The response is instant and not up for argument. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't want any more secrets about what that bastard put you through."

Kurt gives him a glare, one entirely immoveable will against another, but Burt is not caving on this. Finally Kurt closes his eyes, shakes his head away. "They know, if they talked to Blaine already. They know everything, I know he'd tell them."

"Tell them what?"

Kurt pulls his hand out from under Burt's, closes his hands together over his stomach. "Karofsky's gay," he says, looking up at the cops, not looking at Burt. "He's extremely closeted and not okay with it. His feelings towards - me - are sort of complicated." Burt just stares at him, actually astounded by this, it's the last thing he expected to hear, he thought there'd be more violence or more threats but - Karofsky's gay? If he's gay too then why the hell would he do this to Kurt? Kurt folds his arms, not well because the right one's so stiff, gives a tight one-shouldered shrug. He says, "He kissed me once. I don't think - he ever knew how to deal with it. Or me. So." He waves a hand at his face. "This."

"He kissed you?"

"Dad," Kurt says. "This is not the time."

"When did he kiss you? Was this before or after he threatened to kill you?"

"Oh, before. Dad, don't freak out, I have a headache."

"Don't freak out? What the hell is wrong with that-"

"Dad."

"-fucking psychopath if he - is that what this is about? Because you wouldn't - wouldn't-"

"Oh my god. No. Because he's angry and confused and messed up, not - oh my god."

"Mr Hummel," one of the officers says, "if we could-"

"That kid needs locking up."

"He is locked up."

"They need to melt the key down."

"Mr Hummel, we are going to have to ask you to wait outside if you can't-"

Burt throws his hands up, sets his jaw, glares furiously at them while Kurt rolls his eyes in the bed and says, "I knew you would freak out."

"What the hell parent wouldn't freak out, he kisses you an' then makes your life hell for it?"

"Mr Hummel."

"I have such a headache," Kurt mutters, like it's everyone's fault.

*

Blaine knew. Burt doesn't ask him why he never told anyone, knows that Kurt probably made him promise not to. Kurt doesn't like discussing Karofsky, talks about him with a sort of tight-faced disgust but it's obvious that mostly he's disappointed in him, sort of worried about him, and Burt just thinks, what the hell? What does he have to do to you to make you glad he's locked up and away from you? Why should you find hating him harder than I do?

Blaine knew. Blaine's back at school now and still back at the hospital every evening, noticeably calmer if still not quite calm. Burt knows the feeling, Burt's full of rage he hasn't been able to spend too, there'll never be a chance to spend it and he knows that. But he can sense Blaine brooding on it, storing his rage up, cherishing his rage when his jaw gets tight like that before he touches Kurt's side and picks up something dropped before Kurt can hurt his ribs reaching for it, when he watches Kurt touching his fingertips to his own hurt mouth, for a second so fragile. He's young. Burt's got used to injustice, continued exposure dulls the shock of it, but Blaine keeps his rage close, hoards it, turns it in his hands and examines it minutely. Burt hears Kurt talking softly to him sometimes, talking him down to calm. There's no point in Burt interfering in Blaine's rage, how can Burt talk him out of an anger he feels when he lets himself? Kurt's not angry. God knows why. Maybe he'll be angry when he remembers.

He doesn't remember. The day Finn brings a bag of clothes in (Kurt looks ready to cry at how he's folded them) and Burt has to help Kurt get his shower - he's already installed the bars and handles in the bathroom at home, Kurt will be horrified at the drill holes in the tiles - he still just does not remember a thing, and is merely happy to be getting out of here. And Burt wonders if maybe it is a mercy. He doesn't want to see his son get wrecked by this the way it wrecks him and Kurt's the same kid as ever pretty much, quick-talking and bubbly with a butterfly's attention, flit-touch here and there to all the pretty things. Burt calls Blaine back into the room to help with Kurt's tie because Burt's pretty awful at them and Kurt can't get his right arm that high yet. He watches Blaine neatly flip, tuck, tighten it, while Kurt watches his face, and sort of sees them in twenty years' time, they fit in a way that feels like a promise. Blaine kneels down to tie Kurt's shoes and Kurt gives a little twitch of a smile, closes his hands on the edge of the bed, watches his every move.

Burt carries him up the staircase at home. He's heavy, yeah, he's not a kid anymore (yes, the parent in him says and will always say, he is), but he's not as heavy as he should be, like on some level he still is that wriggly baby who laughed his heart out when Burt bounced him overhead. Burt knows it would be easier for Blaine to get him out of his clothes - they sort of all know that, while Blaine waits outside and Kurt sits awkward with pain on the edge of his bed as his dad tries to get the boot off his bad leg. And Burt knows that it's not like there would be anything inappropriate happening while Kurt's in this state, but he's got to be responsible because god knows Blaine's parents aren't. He just does not understand those people. He needs to meet them just to stare at them like an exhibit in a zoo, parents who prize something more than their kid being happy, who does that? Burt doesn't think he's anything special for loving Kurt the way he does, it's just programmed into him, that's what parents do. What the hell made them so different, that pride or discomfort or anything means more to them than their kid just being himself?

It doesn't come back to Kurt. His friends come by one or two a night like they've organised themselves not to overwhelm him, and Burt knows that Kurt's mostly bored so he's glad they're taking the time. He hears them laughing in the lounge, they bring CDs and DVDs, they recount stories of school. Kurt does not act in any way distressed to think about that place. Because he doesn't remember, or because he just refuses to be afraid Burt doesn't know. The doctors tell him he should be fine to go back before Christmas and Kurt looks only pleased, while Burt thinks, Back there?

Maybe Burt's afraid like this because he has to be afraid for both of them, since Kurt refuses to be.

He's watching sports news when he hears their voices move overhead, and the low hum of the stair lift. He looks over, through the doorway to the hall where he can see Blaine walking down the last few steps ahead of Kurt, holding his hand and carrying the crutch, stopping as the lift stops to help him up again. They come through into the lounge and Blaine gets Kurt settled on the sofa, attentive as a mother hen, while Burt mutes the TV because something's definitely up. Blaine sits next to Kurt, and looks at him, then looks at Burt and says, "There's something I need to tell you, sir."

Burt. Burt Burt Burt. Jesus, Burt can't wait until they get to the point where Blaine will call him by his name but he suspects he'll have to wait until they're married for that. He flicks the TV right off, puts the remote down. "Okay. Tell me that it's good news because I am worn right out for bad news, son."

Kurt, who looks so tired it looks like he's been crying, gives Burt a weary look like he's being so overdramatic. Blaine looks at his hands in his lap, then looks up and says, "I'm transferring out of Dalton and enrolling at McKinley. I need to be with Kurt."

Kurt stares at him, and Burt frowns a little. "You talk about this with your parents?"

"Oh my god," Kurt says, but Blaine touches his arm before he can properly explode, and presses his mouth tight like he's trying not to laugh.

"I talked to my parents about this. They got a little too excited to 'talk'." He shakes his head. "It's my decision. I just thought you should know."

"You are not doing this. Why would you leave there? You love it there."

Blaine looks at Burt instead of Kurt. "It's the most practical solution to a lot of problems. I probably - I definitely should have done this months ago." His eyes slip to the carpet, because if he'd been at McKinley they all know that this would never have happened to Kurt. "And it's more important than ever now."

"What is wrong with you? You can't switch schools for me!"

Blaine turns to him, speaks firmly and calmly. "You are going to need help carrying your things while you're on the crutch. You're going to need someone to get things out of your locker and tie your shoelaces and carry your lunch tray. You can't even open doors yet. You're going to need a hand on the stairs and-"

"And I don't have friends? And I'm so helpless I can't do these things myself?"

"And," Blaine continues, without changing his tone of voice at all, "it's not even about you, Kurt. I need this. I know you don't need me, but I really do need this."

Kurt blinks, and touches Blaine's face. "Don't ever say -" His voice drops, he lowers his hand, and he says very quietly, "Of course I need you. Just - just not like this, Blaine."

Blaine's silent for a moment, then lifts his head again.

"I went through a fraction of what you went through and I ran away and I hid. And I've been hiding ever since. And yes, I do love Dalton, but - but I know why I'm there, and that's always going to be a part of it. And it's just time I stopped hiding, Kurt." He swallows. "If you can get up after this, I should be able to go to a normal school like everyone else does. It's long past the time I should have stopped hiding."

"But you will," Kurt pleads. "We graduate in no time at all, we'll go to New York, everything will be different, you don't have to do this now-"

Blaine draws his breath in. "I think one thing I've learned from this is that you do have to do things now, because you genuinely have no idea what might happen next." He looks across at Burt. "I've spoken to the staff at Dalton, I've contacted McKinley. I'm talking my parents around, slowly. But I know you should know about it, sir."

"It's not as good a school," Burt points out. "You thought about your education?"

"I think I'll still learn the important things."

"You can't do this." Kurt says, and Blaine looks at him again.

"Kurt, I need this. I need to be able to do this. And I'm sorry, I am sorry, but I am doing this, whatever you think about it. I don't care if you think I'm embarrassing. I need this, and I'm doing it."

Kurt just says, "I can't believe I'm hearing this. What is wrong with you?"

"Well, I'm in love with you and I finally regrew my spine. Though I don't actually think that those things are wrong."

"I cannot believe you. Of the ten thousand ridiculous things you do this is the most, most-"

"This is the most sensible thing I've done in a long time."

"You are not coming to babysit me, you-" Kurt makes a contained screaming noise, hauls himself up on his crutch and his dramatic flouncing to his room would be a lot more impressive if it didn't involve the stair lift. Blaine folds his arms, looks at Burt while it hums away. Burt understands that he is the only person who Blaine will allow to change his mind on this. Not his parents, and not Kurt. But if Burt says it's not a good idea, Blaine will submit, because Burt will know what's best for Kurt better than anybody.

Burt says, "You tell your father to give me a call. We need to talk about some stuff."

Blaine's jaw flexes, and he nods. They hear Kurt slam his door overhead and glance at the ceiling, then Burt turns the TV back on. "Give him five minutes. You watch much hockey?"

He hears them arguing overhead, later. Hears Kurt arguing, and Blaine sounding immoveable. He's heard them bicker before but Blaine usually caves. This time his voice never changes, and when he comes downstairs pulling his jacket on, he looks at Burt and now Carole in the lounge and he grins a little awkwardly but mostly just a grin. "He's tired. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Drive safe, kid."

"Goodnight."

Overhead, Kurt throws something at his wall.

*

Kurt's first day back at school Blaine arrives early, ties his shoelaces, shoulders Kurt's bag as well as his own. Finn's catching a ride in with them. Burt looks at the three of them in the hallway, Finn joking about Blaine's old blazer and Blaine straightening an imaginary tie, Kurt leaning on his sparkling crutch and squeezing his mouth with trying not to laugh, and something in him is a slow-moving not-quite-dread. He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel about Kurt going back there. Most of the bruises are gone, and there's only a fine line left to show for his split lip, but that mark on his forehead is still livid against his skin. He could comb his hair to cover it easy; Burt knows there's a reason why he doesn't, something more than pride or vanity, even though he knows how important both of those things are to Kurt.

At the garage that day everyone asks after Kurt and Burt gives tight smiles, tells them he's great, back at school today. Customers ask too, they noticed when he wasn't there on the weekends anymore. Burt always used to send the women over to Kurt, the women looking suspicious and embarrassed because no they don't have a clue how their car works and they expect to get patronised and ripped off; instead they get Kurt chattering at them while he fixes their exhaust that he loves their jacket and those are the most amazing knock-off Blahniks he's ever seen, where did they get them? What did people do before eBay, did they just go around looking sort of tragic all the time? No, there's nothing much wrong with it other than it's filthy and he is actually going to have to moisturise for the entire rest of the day. Just get someone to clean underneath the next time it's washed, think of the child labour of the abused mechanics' sons, okay?

Around lunchtime, he realises that the reason he's so tense is that he's waiting for a phone call. He sits down with the sandwich Kurt made him, a BLT without either the B or the damn mayo, and stares at the phone for a while, and knows that he'll probably never stop being scared. Kurt's his son. He wishes people would understand that. He's not anything he represents, he's not a label or a category, he's Burt Hummel's son, and Burt needs him.

Kurt picks up and says, "No-one has tried to kill me apart from Rachel with her disgusting cooking, thanks Dad."

"Just wanted to let you know this sandwich tastes like cardboard, Kurt."

"Then you probably shouldn't have killed all your taste buds drinking hot fat all those years. I need to get to history, I'll see you after school, okay?"

"Okay. I love you."

"Love you too. No afternoon snacks!"

He hangs up. Burt chews his mouthful, and the breath comes out through his nose. He doesn't know why love is like this, why love has to have more in common with fear than joy. He doesn't know if Kurt isn't scared because Kurt is young and still doesn't understand the worst of it, or because Kurt is older than his years, and wise, and brave.

That night Blaine helps Kurt cook and they eat as a family, as the family they are with little blood in common and much better reasons to care about each other than that. Blaine shrugs, calm and easy against Kurt's side, finally mellowed back into the boy Burt first met, earnest and bright and a little bit clueless. "The commute's longer but there's less homework to make up for it. I think I got the easier end of the deal, I don't know how Kurt did it for all those months."

"That's because your time management is awful, you get distracted by everything."

"I get distracted by you," Blaine says, and Kurt rolls his eyes.

"You get distracted by music and Youtube skits and 'really awesome clouds', I'm the one you have to text about all these things."

"It was a dinosaur crossed with a camel, how is that not the most amazing thing you've ever seen?"

"Seriously?" Finn says, looking up from his meal. Blaine starts drawing an illustrative shape in his pasta sauce and Kurt snaps, "Don't play with your food."

Carole has a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. Burt doesn't understand love, doesn't understand the tug of something inside him like the moon over a tide, the slow unstoppable heart-dragging wrench of it. But Kurt and Blaine's eyes meet and flick away again with a smile, and he wonders if they do, and if he'll learn from them.

He catches them kissing goodnight in the doorway, Kurt leaning on Blaine, Blaine holding him up eyes closed and looking helpless, and he realises that actually they don't have a damn clue either, it's always too much. But if they are just as lost as Burt is, at least they have each other now, at least they're not lost alone. Kurt always did want a boy he could hold the hand of at school, Burt knows. If Kurt had known then that the boy he'd get was this one, he might have died of a happy-induced heart attack right there and then and never have met him in the first place.

He clears his throat so they blink and part, and walks through to the lounge. "Easy Kurt, the kid's gotta drive."

Kurt makes a disgusted noise and Blaine laughs, says, "I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight Mr Hummel!"

"Drive safe."

As he sits next to Carole he hears Kurt's murmur of, "I love you." like he's not scared of this and not scared of anything, like vulnerability is nothing to be afraid of.

Burt puts an arm around Carole, and she touches his chest. He knows then that love has as much to do with hope as it does with fear, and both can be survived. The trick is to just keep living.