Warnings: Bullying and homophobic language, minor bullying and angst-overload! Spoilers up to and including The Rhodes Not Taken

Chapter 6

The first thing that Kurt was aware of as he woke up was the relentless pounding in his head. He blinked his eyes open and groaned as the world spun around him for several seconds before coming to an abrupt halt.

The second thing he noticed was that he was on the floor where he must have fallen asleep the night before. His heart sank as the events of the previous day came back to him.

He shrugged off the blanket that covered him (where had that come from?) and stumbled unsteadily to the mirror. He stared at his reflection in an almost disinterested way. His lip was swollen and encrusted with dried blood. His eyes were red and puffy and no amount of concealer was going to cover those bags.

His hair was also a lost cause but then Kurt guessed that was why God invented hats, or, to be more specific, Gucci fedoras.

He dressed quickly on auto-pilot. Fortunately he was so well-practiced at dressing fabulously he could do so instinctively (and if his shirt was un-ironed then he was the only person who would have noticed, and his mind was on other things).

He ascended the stairs, feeling the tension in the house like a physical force pushing his shoulders down and weighing heavily on his heart.

Kurt was both surprised and relieved to find the kitchen deserted. He knew he would have to face his dad at some point but if it could wait until Kurt and his stomach were friends again then that could only be a good thing.

His eyes were drawn to the kitchen table where a dozen or so empty bottles were resting haphazardly. He picked one up and sniffed it, discarding it quickly as his stomach clenched and taking a few deep breaths to bring his nausea back under control.

Beer. It would seem that both surviving Hummels were destined to suffer from

a severe case of "the morning after the night before" today.

Kurt's uneasiness intensified. Burt Hummel liked a few beers in front of the game as much as the next guy but Kurt had never known him to drink more than a couple of bottles.

Kurt wondered again how everything had gotten so surreal so quickly. Despite his dread at facing Mr. Schuester (not to mention Finn, his knight in shining puke-covered armor), he was looking forward to getting to school and back to normality.

Just a few short days ago his house had been the one place Kurt felt truly at home. Truly himself. Now the false normality surrounding Kurt seemed to mock him; how could everything look the exactly same when everything had changed so completely?

Kurt grabbed his messenger bag and left the house, slamming the door loudly behind him.

"Hey, Hummel."

Kurt was surprised that the main thing he felt as he spied the usual suspects waiting for him by the dumpster was relief – the familiarity of the scene strangely comforting.

Dave Karofsky was flanked by his infamous second in command Sam Anderson and another equally beefy hockey player that Kurt did not know the name of, despite having been manhandled by him on a frequent basis during his trips to the dumpster.

"Woah, what happened to your face?" Karofsky sneered.

"That is none of your business." Kurt replied, facing his adversaries with his chin held high.

"Bet it was a girl." Anderson grinned down at Kurt mockingly.

"Probably a pre-schooler." Karofsky added, smirking.

"Nah, I bet it was his daddy." Their friend snickered, "And who can blame him – I heard he's a hard-ass and it can't be easy having such a pussy for a son."

In a blaze of fury, Kurt flew at his nameless tormentor, striking him hard in the chest so that he fell back against the dumpster, banging his head and looking dazed.

"Woah homo, didn't know you had it in you." Kurt turned around and if he didn't know better he would have sworn he could see a glimmer of respect in Dave Karofsky's flinty eyes.

"Let me pass you ignorant bunch of evolutionary throwbacks." Kurt fumed, his fists clenched.

"Take it easy Shirley Temple." Karofsky put a meaty arm around Kurt's shoulders, grasping him more tightly as Kurt tried to flinch away. He guided him around the back of the dumpster where they were out of sight of the passing students and teachers.

Karofsky let Kurt go and he almost fell over in his haste to put some distance between himself and the hockey player.

Karofsky smirked down at him, "Turns out, you have more balls than we gave you credit for. We heard you got wasted at school yesterday. Chucked your cookies all over Ms. P."

Kurt realized this shouldn't surprise him, the McKinley High gossip grape-vine was notoriously fast-growing, but he cringed nonetheless.

"Truth is Hummel, we're impressed. And we have a proposition for you. A deal."

"A deal?" Kurt repeated doubtfully.

"Yeah, a deal" Anderson replied, a smug smile on his smarmy face, "You know - you scratch our backs, we'll scratch yours."

"Let me save us all some time." Kurt snapped standing his ground as the jocks moved closer, arms folded across his chest, "Aside from the fact that, metaphor or not, the very notion of scratching your backs makes me want to vomit into my Manolos; entering into any sort of deal with you bunch of troglodytes would be akin to selling my soul to sadist who invented polyester underwear."

The three jocks, stared at him, various degrees of confusion on their faces.

"In summary," Kurt said slowly, as if speaking to small children, "the answer is no. Now if you'll excuse me." He tried to push past them but was shoved back and he fell to the ground.

"You seem to be under the impression that you have a choice here, fairy." Karofsky snarled at him. "Here's the deal. You have access to alcohol – we want in. You play nice, we'll leave you and your freak-show buddies alone. No more slushie facials, no more swirlies, no more patriotic wedgies."

Karofsky reached down and pulled Kurt up by the collar of his shirt, slamming him against the side of the dumpster. Kurt tried to turn his head away, his already fragile stomach contracting at the sour stench of the hockey player's breath on his face.

"You say no and we'll make it our personal mission to torture and humiliate every single member of the glee club until they break. That includes Schuester."

"How do you think wheelchair kid would push himself round school if he had no arms as well as no legs?" Anderson asked, a look of false concern on his face.

"And we have extra special plans for your best buddy Jennifer Hudson, right guys?" Karofsky grinned menacingly, his fists still pressing into Kurt's throat.

"Oh yeah," Nameless jerk replied, "That's gonna be fun. They say the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

"You leave her alone." Kurt rasped, "If you touch any one of them I'll…"

"You'll what, twinkle toes?" Krofsky released Kurt who slumped back against the dumpster. Kurt stared up at Karofsky with undisguised hatred in his eyes but he remained silent. Karofsky smirked, "That's what I thought. Here's a list of our demands. You have 24 hours. We'll see you back here same time tomorrow."

Karofsky tossed a piece of paper at him and Kurt watched it drift to the ground as the three jocks left him and headed towards the school buildings.

Will looked up at the tentative knock, to see Kurt looking pale and miserable at the door.

"Come on in Kurt."

Kurt entered and closed the door behind him before perching gingerly on the edge of the hard, plastic chair in front of Will's desk. Will sighed as he looked at him, shame-faced and pale in front of him, and mentally discarded the furious dressing down he had planned to give his student. "You look terrible, Kurt."

Kurt gave him a sad shadow of a smile, "I'm ok. I'm really sorry about yesterday Mr. Schue."

"I'm sure you are," Will replied sadly, "I never want to see you in that state again, do you understand me? I'm disappointed in you Kurt."

"I'm sorry." Kurt said again in a small voice.

"It's Miss. Pilsbury you need to apologize to," Will replied sternly, "not to mention your fellow Glee club members. Kurt, you know Figgins is looking for any opportunity to finish New Directions. You could have put the whole club in jeopardy."

Kurt's shoulders slumped and Will took pity on him, "Kurt, it's ok, I'm not going to tell him and neither is Miss Pilsbury. But I need to know that this will never happen again. And I need to know where you got that alcohol."

"I told you, I found it." Kurt looked away from his teacher, not meeting his eyes.

Will sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "I'm not going to push you for the truth today but I want you to go away and have a good, long think about this. I trust you to make the right decision."

Kurt stood up, still not meeting his teacher's eye, "Can I go now?"

"Yes you can go. Kurt?" Kurt turned, his hand on the door handle. "What happened to your lip?"

Oh. Kurt had forgotten about that. "A door." He replied quickly. "I mean, I walked into one. Must have been the alcohol." He gave an awkward laugh, before turning back towards the door, "See you later Mr. Schue."

As he watched Kurt leave the room sadly, Will had the strangest feeling he was being watched. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and looked around uneasily, before shaking his head and chastising himself for being fanciful.

In a pot plant on the bookcase, hidden behind the leafy foliage a small, red light blinked on and off.

In the confines of her office Sue Sylvester stared at the screen in front of her a look of malicious triumph in her eyes.

She knew that installing that state of the art surveillance equipment in Schuester's office would pay off, even if she'd had to forgo two botox treatments to pay for it. It was that joke of a Glee club that was causing her to age prematurely anyway and they were going down and taking that freak of nature Will Schuester with them.

Let the games begin.

She picked up the phone and dialed Figgins' number.

A/N Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Sorry for taking so long to update – I have been having a crisis of confidence. I think I am back on track now for the next chapter at least