I apologise in advance. And guys. GLEE'S BACK TODAY! *dies* Song is Falling Slowly by Once.

Blaine dropped down into the same seat at the same lunch table he was at yesterday, Kurt already sitting in the seat beside him. Blaine smiled at him fondly, feeling the strong urge to kiss his boyfriend that advanced on him almost every time he saw him. He refrained, however.

"Hey, you," Blaine said cheerily, a grin starting to form on his face. Kurt blushed, blue eyes growing wide and a small smile forming on his face.

"Hey to you too," Blaine chuckled, starting to eat his lunch after saying hello to the rest of Glee club that sat around the table.

"Back again?" Puck said to him, and Blaine wasn't so scared of the boy now. On seeing him in Glee club, he had realised that he wasn't as bad as he made out to be. And Blaine prided himself on his judgement of character.

"I'll be around for the rest of the week," Blaine answered, and the boy just nodded, before delicately opening his yoghurt in the strangest fashion that Blaine had ever seen. He glanced at Kurt in question, but Kurt just shook his head and chuckled.

Definitely not as bad as he had thought.

"Everything go okay?" Kurt asked him after a few minutes of talking to Rachel about some new gossip on someone that Blaine didn't know about.

"Of course. How were your classes?" Blaine said, picking at his food, too busy staring at Kurt to bother to satisfy his hunger.

"The normal, I suppose." He looked around wistfully, before adding, "I missed you, though."

Blaine was sure he blushed a fiery red, and he glanced down at the table. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to being with Kurt.

But now, he wasn't so sure if he'd get the chance to try.

Since he and Kurt had decided on telling Burt about the situation, they each had felt a sense of urgency and desperation to be together, since a niggling thought in the back of their minds told them that their time could be running out.

They hugged a little longer before they left for school. They walked a little closer. Were more affectionate towards each other, but keeping inside the boundaries so that there would be no chance of Burt – or anyone else – catching them in the act. Finn hadn't managed to refrain from giving them shifty and suspicious looks all throughout the morning. Blaine hadn't looked him in the eye since the incident, and he was sure that Kurt hadn't managed to either.

"Blaine! Did you do what I said and practice loads?" Rachel was pointing at him from the other side of the table, and looked so menacing that Blaine actually recoiled.

"Um…I couldn't. Not properly, anyway. It's a surprise for… um…" He realised what he was saying could give away their relationship to the whole of Glee Club, so he glanced at Kurt quickly to show Rachel who he was talking about. She relented after a moment, sighing.

"Well, don't expect me to not say 'I told you so' if it all goes pear shaped!" She shook her head in a scolding manner, and Blaine thought she was acting too like a worried mum to be sane.

"It'll be okay," he reassured her, even though he wasn't entirely sure of this himself. He was really nervous. He had managed to find Brad, the pianist, through Rachel's directions and had told him the song, but he hadn't ever practiced it with just a piano in the background, plus singing in front of people never failed to make him nervous. But, in a way, he was ready. He wanted to be a fully fledged member of a club that he was proud and excited to be a part of, full of people he liked and admired. He was finally getting that chance, and he wanted it to come as fast as possible.

He just had to make sure that he didn't vomit from nerves whilst singing, which was entirely plausible, judging by the way he felt right now.

He pushed his food away from him, perching his chin on his hand.

"Are you confident?" Kurt asked Blaine, and he froze for a second before shaking his head.

"Not at all. But it'll be worth it if I can pull it off," he said, voice wavering slightly, and Kurt gave him a reassuring smile.

They next half hour passed by quickly as Blaine talked to various members of the Glee club about a range of topics, mostly consisting of him as they asked him questions. He happily answered them, ranging from the home to his favourite musicals.

He felt like he belonged.

The bell rang too soon for his liking, and he grudgingly rose from his seat whilst the rest of the pupils did the same.

He and Kurt's classes were in roughly the same direction and Blaine silently followed Kurt down a more deserted corridor that Kurt knew was never busy.

"It'll be fine, you know. Your voice is beautiful," Kurt said, giving him a small smile. Blaine blushed again, staring at the floor as they walked.

"Thank you. Your voice is gorgeous too."

"Look who we found at last!" A voice came thundering down the corridor, seeping into Blaine and Kurt's brains immediately and eliciting an instant fear in them.

"We were looking for you yesterday, but we couldn't find you. We wanted to introduce the new Lady to the school!"

Blaine turned around and saw Karofsky and the exact same boys that were at the mall coming closer to him, grins plastered onto their faces and eyes alight by the fact that they had new pray.

There was only a few other students in the corridor, none of whom bothered about Blaine enough to butt in as Karofsky pushed him roughly to the ground. He heard Kurt's shocked scream as his head smacked off the floor.

"I hope you're enjoying McKinley so far. It's great to see you after our little meeting at the mall – I thought we were never gonna meet again! Say hello to Ricky when you see him again for me, will you? He's one of us."

Blaine felt a foot career into his side and he gasped in pain, curling up into a ball and closing his eyes. He felt tears slip from his eyes – he stupidly thought that he had escaped from this. He had hoped, but he knew deep down that his peace had to come to an end. He just hadn't expected it so soon.

"Get the fuck out our school, fag. We can't have another one of you prancing about spewing rainbows."

With one last kick to Blaine's thigh, Karofsky walked off, his gang in tow, high fiving and whooping as they went.

Blaine ached all over.

"Blaine? Blaine, talk to me, I'm here, it's okay, I –"

He unconsciously flinched away from Kurt's reassuring hand that had rested on his shoulder, causing Kurt to break his sentence off midway. Feeling a sudden panic settle over him, Blaine managed to struggle to his feet.

He took one look at Kurt who was still kneeling down, staring up at with an emotion that Blaine couldn't quite figure out.

He snapped. Fighting his voice of reason, he ran down the corridor, away from Kurt, away from everything.

Tears streamed down his face relentlessly as he suddenly found himself inside the boy's bathroom. He couldn't even remember his journey there; it had seemed like only one second ago he had ran away from Kurt.

He checked the cubicles to make sure no one else was there, before going over to the sinks and leaning on one of them, staring at his desolate face in the grubby mirror.

All he could feel was the sharp pain in his head, stomach and thigh.

He slowly slid down to sit on the floor, clutching his head in his hands, tiny sobs escaping from him fast and thick.

He felt broken.

Kurt sat in his seat, fidgeting restlessly, eyes locked on the door and waiting for Blaine to come in.

Kurt hadn't been able to catch up with him after he ran away. He had been terrified for him ever since, because alone, Karofsky could do more damage.

As if he hadn't done enough already.

Kurt had known from the moment in the mall when Karofsky saw them together that Blaine would be bullied when he came here. He just hadn't thought it would be so brutal and escalate so quickly. He hadn't done anything to stop it, hadn't reacted quick enough. If he had done something, anything, maybe Blaine wouldn't now be alone and in pain.

Everything had gone downhill so quickly.

Member after member of the Glee club filed in, laughing and acting normally, their minds not yet furiously worrying about Blaine's welfare. When Rachel finally walked in, Kurt asked her hurriedly if Blaine had been at their last class, to which she answered that no, he wasn't.

His panic had grown.

Mr Schue was well on the way to starting the lesson when a rather dishevelled Blaine trudged through the door, eyes downcast. He smiled slightly at Mr Schue as he limped towards the seat beside Kurt, and Mr Schue looked at him in concern when he saw him wince.

"Blaine? Everything okay?" Once he had collapsed in his seat with a soft gasp of what Kurt expected was pain, he nodded at Mr Schue.

"Okay..." The teacher trailed off, apparently not concerned enough to pry further as he continued talking about song choices for Sectionals.

"I'm so sorry, I couldn't find you, are you okay? How much does it hurt?" Kurt whispered, shuffling closer to Blaine. From here he could see the very faint tear tracks on both his cheeks. In that moment, all he wanted to do was collect Blaine in a hug and tell him everything would be okay.

Blaine shook his head slightly. "I'm fine, really," he said, giving him a half-hearted smile.

"Where did you go?" Kurt asked, settling his hand on Blaine's forearm instead.

"Bathrooms," he answered simply, and Kurt cursed himself silently for missing the most obvious place.

"I can see that you're not fine," Kurt said even more quietly, as he noticed a few of the kids leaning to look at Blaine and wondering what was wrong, and why he had been limping.

Blaine shrugged. "It hurts a bit, but it's not important." Kurt shushed him fiercely, frowning.

"Of course it's important. I care if you're hurt. I want to help." Blaine was just about to answer when Mr Schue interrupted their conversation.

"Blaine? You said you were auditioning today, right?" Blaine looked up at Mr Schue in confusion, as if he'd forgotten all about that, before realisation washed over his face.

"Uh, yeah. Do you want me to do it now?" He looked at Kurt, terror in his eyes, and Kurt stared back at him, worry set deep in his features.

"You don't have to if you're in too much pain," Kurt reminded him, but Blaine shook his head once again.

"If you don't mind, that would be great!" Mr Schue said. "We've all been looking forward to hearing you."

Blaine began his slow trek to the front of the room, limp just as prominent as before, and when he turned back around to face the club he could see multiple faces looking at him in concern. He glanced at Brad once, who nodded at him, before he stared resolutely at the floor.

His heart was beating at one hundred miles an hour, and looking at the floor seemed like the best way to calm his nerves.

Notes from the piano started flowing softly out from behind him and he took a deep breath, forcing himself to ignore the sharp pain in his stomach as he did so.

This would definitely not be his best performance.

I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out.

Before the chorus began, he chanced a look up at the occupants of the room. He was surprised to find most of them gaping at him with looks of disbelief on their faces.

He couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing. All he did know was that his stomach hurt like hell.

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Blaine had instructed Brad to end the song prematurely, unsure if he could deal with singing the whole thing due to nerves.

The next thing he knew, Kurt had flung himself into his surprised arms and everyone in the room was clapping loudly.

"I love you so much," Kurt said through the cacophony of sound, and Blaine drew in a deep breath, his heart beating even faster and tears springing into his eyes.

"I love you too."