Disclaimer: I don't own Klaine or Glee. Such is the nature of Fanfiction. :) Enjoy!

"I have to find Blaine."

Kurt was running, he was bolting, he didn't care who saw him with tears on his cheeks or little spots of tears on his shirt. He didn't care who laughed at the moment. They all probably thought it was just because he had lost, and he almost wanted them to think that because no, no, no, it was so much more than that.

Because now he wasn't going to get into NYADA, or any school in New York, because he was a failure. He had failed at getting the lead in the musical, he had failed to win the election, he had failed to be anything special and now he was going to live in Lima, Ohio forever and dear GOD, where was BLAINE?

And then he was pushing aside the door to the choir room so hard that it hit the wall and knocked a few picture frames to the ground.

And diving, lunging, plummeting into Blaine's arms.

Blaine had been waiting calmly.

He had seen the look on Figgins' face. It wasn't good. Something was wrong.

So he sat and didn't let himself analyze what was happening in that office. He had a tendency to think the worst, and didn't want to get himself all worked up when maybe, just maybe, nothing was wrong. For all he knew, Kurt could come barreling through that door and throw his arms around him and tell him that he had won the election.

Except that wasn't what happened.

When Kurt came barreling through the door there had been tears, so very many tears, and horrible ugly sobs that Kurt never let anyone see. It was all Blaine could do to catch his boyfriend and hold him and stand in shock as gulping, gasping sobs wet his neck and shoulder.

"Kurt," Blaine cried, his words muffled by the fact that his lips were pressed up against Kurt's hair. "What did he say? What's wrong?"

"They think I did it, but I didn't!" he choked out, "You believe me, don't you, Blaine? You don't think I did it? I thought about it, yeah, but I couldn't actually do something like that. I wished I was immoral enough to do it but I just ca– "

"Kurt!" Blaine tried to cut the babbling teenager off, but to no avail.

"I was actually almost proud of myself before this! I told myself that if I was going down, at least I was doing it honestly! But now they think I cheated, even though I didn't, and you believe me, right?"

"Yes, yes I will always believe you, love." Blaine murmured as his mind caught up. Figgins thought Kurt had cheated? "I know my boyfriend wouldn't cheat."

That brought Kurt to a whole new round of tears and left Blaine a bit bewildered. "But, Blaine, I thought about it! I considered it! I knew it was my only option and I–"

"But you didn't do it." Blaine pulled Kurt back and looked him in the eyes with both his guitar-calloused hands on his boyfriend's shoulders.

"No." Kurt sobbed out, "I couldn't actually do it. I knew how crass it would be, and I knew I couldn't live with myself after–"

"Then stop blaming yourself, Kurt. You didn't do this and they can't blame you for –"

"They can and they already did!" Kurt practically screamed, more upset now than Blaine had ever seen him. "Someone else stuffed the ballot boxes in my favor and I'm being suspended. I'm not class president and I'm being suspended! NYADA will never want me now."

Then Kurt flung himself once again into his lover's arms and dissolved into tears, just as wild and uncontrollable, except now there was no cajoling him back into speaking again.

But that didn't matter because Blaine was silent, his mind running at high speed.

"But if they found the person who stuffed the ballot boxes, then they couldn't suspend you, right Kurt?" Blaine got no response, as Kurt was sobbing far too hard to notice the question.

They ended up only staying in the choir room, with Blaine supporting Kurt as he bawled, for another five minutes. Kurt's legs had given out two minutes after they had finished speaking, and Blaine had compensated by kneeling them both on the floor while they held each other.

Kurt passed out from exhaustion, despair, and what had to be a massive headache after crying so hard only three minutes after that.

Blaine, meanwhile, had been planning.

After feeling the sobs slow and eventually stop altogether, he leaning back slightly to see if his boyfriend was ready to go home. He found the boy fast asleep, instead. He chuckled darkly and kissed Kurt's hair before lifting him easily (the boy was all skin and bones, not an extra sliver of either fat or muscle to be found), and carrying him to his car.

A quick trip to the Hummel-Hudson residence found Blaine transferring his boyfriend to the capable arms of one Burt Hummel, who seemed to understand what had happened. Burt nodded and emitted a gruff 'thanks,' before laying Kurt on the sofa in the living room and sending Blaine on his way.

Blaine was back at school a mere forty-five minutes after the final bell rang.

"Is Principal Figgins in?"

The McKinley High secretary took her time in looking up and assessing Blaine before replying that no, the principal would be back tomorrow at seven. Was there anything she could help him with?

Blaine could have punched something in frustration.

He turned to exit the office's glass doors, nearly bumping into an entirely too-tall figure on his way out.

"Hey, Blaine, what are you still doing here?" Finn probed, clapping a hand on Blaine's shoulder. "You look kinda pale, you should sit down."

The two boys navigated to the side of the hallway, where Blaine slumped against a row of lockers.

"Why are you still here, Finn?" He questioned, attempting to turn focus away from himself.

"Beiste kept the team late, we just ended practice. Now answer my question."

Blaine sighed. "I'm turning myself in… for stuffing the ballot boxes in Kurt's favor."

Finn's eyes grew as wide as saucers and he gaped wide enough to look like a fish.

"But… you didn't do it!"

Blaine rolled his head up slowly to meet Finn's eyes. "How do you know I didn't? He's my boyfriend, the most important thing in my life. How do you know I didn't do it to make his dreams come true?"

"Because Rachel did it!"

Finn realized what he had just said and clapped a hand over his mouth immediately.

"SHE WHAT?" Finn had never heard Blaine yell before. It was kind of scary.

"Dude, you can't tell anyone, she feels really bad. She –"

"NO!" Blaine screamed, "Your girlfriend is a monster! I told Kurt he had way too big of a heart to have forgiven her in the first place! First, she stabs him in the back and runs in the election she promised to support him in. Then, he forgives her and their friends for barely a week again and she screws him over by ruining every chance he has? What kind of –"

Finn didn't have any real answer to those accusations except for this: "She's turning herself in tomorrow!"

Blaine gaped for a while, opening and closing his mouth so many times that he looked even more like a fish.

Eventually Finn took a tentative step towards Blaine, resting a hand on his shoulder in a way that he hoped was calming.

"Look, dude, she feels really bad about it, and she promised that she would herself in," Finn continued, "so no harm done, right?"

The anger that had clouded Blaine's face turned into a steely look as he regarded the tall boy.

"Wrong. A LOT of harm done, actually." Blaine lifted his arm and plucked Finn's hand off of his shoulder.

And with that, Blaine stormed down the hallway and out of McKinley High, into his car, and home to his bed, where he clutched a pillow to his chest as he called his beautiful, teary boyfriend, assuring him that everything would be alright. He would make sure of it.

"Finn told me what you were trying to do."

Kurt's words startled Blaine from his deep concentration over a calculus textbook. A gentle face with clear blue eyes peered at him. They were the color of a renewed, fresh sky after a storm.

Rachel had turned herself in at the beginning of last period, returning and announcing her deed at the end of glee.

He and Kurt had returned to the Hummel-Hudson home soon afterwards for one of their usual after-school study dates.

That's what found Blaine sprawled over the bed and Kurt sitting at a desk as the question arose.

"Finn told you what?" Blaine sat up from his slumped position on the bed in defense.

"That you were going to turn yourself in for something you didn't do." Kurt shifted to the bed and took Blaine's hands in his own. "That you were willing to sacrifice yourself for me."

Blaine chuckled and kept his eyes trained on their joined hands. "It would hardly have been a sacrifice, Kurt. I want to see you succeed, and you being wrongfully accused of something like this just wasn't okay. I needed to save you, love.

I couldn't let anyone hurt you.." He whispered, raising his head to look Kurt in the eye.

"Oh, Blaine," Kurt countered, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend's neck and pressing his cheek to the perfectly gelled head of hair. Blaine automatically wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist.

"I love you," the fair-skinned boy began, "so, so very much. And I understand you wanted to see me succeed. I want to see you succeed just as much, you have to know that. That's why it's so upsetting to see you try to take something like this on for me."

Kurt pulled back and took Blaine's cheeks between his palms, resting their foreheads together.

"You will always be my hero," he continued, "but you don't have to save me from everything to continue to be my hero."

Blaine attempted to shake his head, even with it in Kurt's grasp. "No, but I had to. You getting into NYADA means everything to me, Kurt! You deserved to win the election and you deserve to get in! Instead to have you blamed for cheating? I would bear anything to fix that – getting banned from Sectionals, having it put on my permanent record, all of it would have been worth protecting you."

"But you don't have to protect me, Blaine!" Kurt cried in frustration before sighing and guiding the two of them to lie down on his bed, side by side, with their hands intertwined.

"There's going to be a lot of hate – a lot of pain flung our way during our lives together, love," Kurt continued at a whisper, "And I plan to be with you for my entire life, so I have to warn you early that I don't want you to take every discomfort for me. I don't want you to sacrifice your life away for me, and I know that if we don't have this discussion now, you very well may try to in the future.

You are so much more than my umbrella, Blaine. Don't focus on protecting me from life so much that you forget you live your own."

Blaine began to protest, but Kurt hushed him with a plea to let him finish. "You auditioned for the role of Bernardo instead of Tony for me in West Side Story, and then you try to take the blame for this whole ballot-stuffing fiasco.

You are the single most self-sacrificing, selfless, and noble person I know, and I'm so proud to be with you," Kurt reassured, "But that's exactly why I can't let you always do this. At least pick and choose the moments you sacrifice to protect me? I love you too much, and I hate to see you hurting for me."

Blaine took a shaky breath and squeezed Kurt's hands tighter after he had finished. "I understand, Kurt," he murmured, "Just… give me some time to think about what you've said?"

Kurt smiled and nodded, wrapping his arms tighter around Blaine and snuggling into his chest, eventually dosing off in the comfortable pose.

Blaine knew he couldn't always protect Kurt.

He knew about all of the pain, and the hurt, and the hate that would be flung their way. He accepted that afternoon that he could not keep every hurtful occurrence and word said about Kurt at bay. Kurt could fight his own battles, he knew that and he needed to let his boyfriend do so.

But yet, when Sebastian was drawing that ugly, disgustingly ugly, big gulp cup of he-knew-what out of the brown paper bag, none of that mattered.

Because he knew Kurt could fight his own battles, but when he stood so defenseless and so un-protected from harm, all Blaine wanted to do was protect him.

Yes there would be hate, hurt, and homophobic slurs flung their way for probably their entire lives, but at this moment, there was only one slushie being flung at Kurt's face.

And Blaine could handle that.

Blaine could take the humiliation, the cold slap to the face of one slushie, no problem. Of course, it turned out to be much more than that, but that only made Blaine triply glad he took that dive.

He could pick and choose the moments he jumped to sacrifice himself to save Kurt.

Blaine could let Kurt handle it, and then allow him to cry on his shoulder after a painful rejection.

Blaine could let Kurt handle it, and comfort him after a hurtful slur.

But for this moment and this slushie…

Blaine was protecting Kurt.

Review? Please? This was my first Klaine fanfic and I'd love some feedback on it.

I'm thinking about writing a hospital scene (post-slushie) or something similar, so let me know if you'd be interested.

Thanks for reading!