AN: A few warnings for this one: physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, language, angst, and confusion. I know this took forever. I have several legitimate excuses, this summer is insane, but I wont bother you with them. Anyway, this was tough to write and I really really need your feedback on this one badly, so please review? Okay I'm nervous already ughhhh don't hate me even if you hate the chapter asdfghjkl;

Kurt stretched, exhausted, feeling relief set into his cramped frame as he detangled his legs from the sheets and poked his tiny head up from it's pillow to pull out the knots in his neck. He wiggled his toes, eyes still shut to the morning light, pointing his feet like a ballet dancer and simply making himself as long and lean as possible. He reached his arms out to the sides, letting the tension flow from his tight shoulders down to his ten spiny fingers.

And then he realized that only five of those fingers were empty.

A thick, calloused hand was twined with his own, grasping onto him for dear life, causing his skin to go white and his fingertips to throb as his circulation was cut off. With a jerk, he tried to rip his own hand away, flopping his body to the side, and rolling like a log until his arm was pulled taught by the other.

He tried to yank his hand free, to pull and twist and spasm his fingers until they were free, but his efforts seemed futil, leaving him weeping, eyes now shut so tight in fear of the world around him that he was beginning to see stars. Kurt felt another hand, similar in it's large size and rough texture, snaking his way up his other arm, pausing at his bicep and applying pressure, pinning him to the bed. He trashed and wailed, but was only greeted by another hand, which repeated the procedure to his opposite arm, and then two others to his legs.

Digging his heels into the sheets and thrusting his neck back at an awkward angle, he lifted his hips toward the ceiling, crying and yelling and suddenly realized that he was begging, "Oh god, please, please... let me go, oh God no no no, let me go - PLEASE!" through his tears.

But suddenly his voice ran out, his pleas choked off by two hands on his throat, fingernailes digging into his flesh as the palms pressed tighter and tighter and oh, god, he couldn't breathe, and Kurt was going to die. He was going to die and suddenly he opened his eyes for the last goddamn time and - David Karofsky.

Kurt let out a scream and finally collapsed on the bed.

He'd only meant to wake him. Blaine had only meant to pull him from the nightmare that had left him squirming and yelping on the bed, his face impossibly contorted into a mask of fear and pain. How could he have known that the real nightmare, Kurt's real nightmare, was reality?

Blaine's mind hardly registered Burt's strong grasp on his shoulders, pulling him from behind into his chair beside Kurt and the doctors adjusted Kurt's wires and IVs and whatever other shit they'd stuck into him over the past few days.

"Blaine, Blaine, shhhhhh, calm down, kid. Calm down." Shifting his hand to perch on Blaine's shoulder, Burt began to quiet the boy's wracking sobs. Blaine hadn't even noticed his crying, the only tears he noticed were Kurt's.

It wasn't even that he had made Kurt cry, because he hadn't and he knew he hadn't. It was that the sight of his face had rendered Kurt unconscious, shut Kurt's previously wide and terrified eyes as if it was all too much to handle.

Should Kurt be afraid of him? Blaine wasn't all too sure. Kurt wasn't the first to sob at the touch of Blaine in a bed not too different from this one.

Oh fuck, he was bawling a quite a bit harder now, wasn't he? Pathetic.

While Kurt slept soundly, his blood swirling with drugs and chemicals that kept him doing so, Burt and Carole, who had been sitting out in the waiting room with a disgruntled Finn, managed to persuade Blaine into abandoning his position, knees tucked to his chest, on his tiny chair for a trip to the hospital cafeteria. The food was mediocre at best, the conversation dry and forced, but he supposed the company may have been brilliant and different circumstances, with a smiling Kurt at his side.

The though of Kurt that way, beside him, grinning warmly and introducing Blaine to his strung-together family, as they described themselves, tugged at Blaine's mind. He liked Kurt a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Something about the way his eyes lit up when he spoke of his father and Carol, the blush that crept into his cheeks when skirting around the edges of his iffy past with his newfound brother, and the way his head tolted a bit to the side when recalling tales of baking cookies or reading stories with his late mother, inspired Blaine.

In Kurt's company, Blaine always felt a sort of spark in his chest, a longing to know the boy before him. He wanted to know the quirks and fears and inner workings of the mind that made Kurt Kurt. He knew the boy's sob story, his glittering personality as well, but he needed more, he needed to know the reason for each hearbeat, each intake of breath. He needed to know Kurt inside and out, because Kurt was fascinating and sometimes Blaine needed a friend like that, the type of friend who would sit and talk and smile just because, and listen and nod and think when things were screwed up like they so often were.

That was how Blaine justified his iffy meal of mystery meat and chips: Kurt would want him to eat up because Kurt was selfless, and Blaine was his friend. His friend of just five days, but his friend nonetheless.

"You ready to go, Blaine?" Blaine had hardly touched his food, but he followed Kurt's family out the doors of the cafeteria, stopping on the way to dump out the contents of his tray into a garbage can, earning a fierce eye from Carol that he shrugged off quickly.

Blaine hated these walks through the hallways, where whispers of BlaineAndersonisinagain froze on polite faces in the forms of wary glances and pitying smiles no matter how many times he assured the staff that he had been on neither end of the injury this time and he was only helping a friend and sure he'd tell his father you'd said hi, even if the last bit was a lie.

Kate strolled toward them in a pair of sea foam green scrubs, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, heels clicking against the tile.

"He's awake," she said, and Blaine could see Burt's shoulders fall as he let out a heavy, loud breath. The poor man hadn't known what the morning's accident meant for Kurt, none of them could have.

"Blaine?" The girl's startling blue eyes met his and she grinned. They'd developed a sort of deranged understanding over the course of the past few days. She still knew nothing of his reasoning for staying in the big white building he hated so much, but she knew that he hated it that he didn't deserve the way it tortured him, and she acted accordingly. "He's been asking for you," her eyes darted to the others standing in the hall.

"He isn't upset with you, kid," Burt mumbled, noticing the way Blaine's face screwed up at the idea of facing Kurt alone, "Probably just wants to talk things through. We'll," he gestured to himself, Carol, and Finn, the latter standing awkwardly against the wall, eyes fixed on his hands, "head out for a bit, pick up some stuff from the store and the house. You need anything from home? We could swing by there."

"That would be great, if you don't mind." Burt shook his head and grinned, "Most of my stuff is at Dalton, I board over there, but if you could pick up a few tee shirts from my closet and maybe a pair or two of jeans - middle drawer - that would be great. Oh and uh..." red began to flood his stubbled cheeks and he began to avoid Burt's eyes in embarassment, choosing instead to focus on the speckled tile below him, "a pair of boxers? Top drawer."

"You're folks..."

"Business trip. Spare key is under the mat. Oh, and help yourself to... whatever." Blaine plucked a pad of sticky notes and a pen from the nurses station, glancing at Kate to make sure it was alright, and jotted down his address before handing it to Burt. "It's not all that far from here."

"Alright, well, we'll be back in a few hours, call if you, er, need anything and, well, good luck in there." Burt shifted his weight awkwardly between his two feet before slowly turning and following the length of the hallway to the door, his family trailing along behind him.

"You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Blaine spared a hopeful glance at Kate before stepping through the door she help open for him.

Kurt lay small and pale on the bed, his porcelain skin interrupted here and there by streaks and splotches of reds and purples, just as it had been that morning. He looked very much the same, and very much different. His eyes had hardened, sharpened and intensified with some sort of vindiction Blaine didn't understand. His mouth was upturned in a slight smirk that looked plastered on, the rest of his face unaffected.

Blaine heard the door shut behind him, and suddenly they were alone.

"Hey," he managed.

"Hey." Kurt's voice was cool and rough from lack of use.

"I just had lunch with your family. Your dad decided to run home and pick up a few things. If you needed anything in particular I could cal-"

"Did you know that they've been sending people in to interrogate me?"

"Wait... what?"

"Yeah. The nurses, and doctors, and some Sherlock Holmes folks without the trench coats have been coming in all day, asking all kinds of questions. It's like a bad movie."

"What have you been telling them?"

"I don't remember anything."

Blaine took an involuntary step back, "You don't... remember anything? Nothing? Kurt-"

"Blaine, I remember everything." Kurt sounded so sure, so strong even as he lay there barely breathing, that his words left Blaine dumbfounded.

"But you just-"

"You just asked me what I told them. And I just answered. 'I don't remember anything.' Just playing my part in this flop film. That's how it goes, isn't it? Determined detectives, confused victim, handsome prince..." he blushed at this regretfully, and looked away from Blaine for a moment. "I'm still waiting for some comic relief, it's all a bit on the heavy side so far, but I'm sure Finn's got that covered. Has tripped up the stairs yet?"

Mouth agape, Blaine shook his head, "Kurt..."

"Blaine."

"I... you have to... what happened was a serious issue, Kurt. If you remember, you have to... just tell me, okay? You can tell me? Or, you know what, Burt, too! Your dad will listen, or Carol, or Finn, or anybody, Kurt, just... you have to tell. I'm just so scared for you, Kurt, and-"

"You're scared for me, Blaine? Are you? Maybe I'm not telling because I'm just the littlest bit scared too!" His words smacked at Blaine like a whip, his tongue smashing against his teeth as he forced his fears and pains to fit into tiny snide remarks like he so often did.

"I'm sorry, Kurt." And he was. "I realize that I have no right to even try to understand what you're going through right now, and taking that hurt and fear and turning it into self-pity is incredibly selfish and I apologize. I just... tell me what to do, Kurt. Do you want me to leave?"

Kurt sighed in frustration and what sounded like resignation, and shot Blaine a question of his own, "Why are you here, Blaine?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that I don't even know you, Blaine, and you sure as hell don't know me. God, I can't even figure out why I called you, I really don't, I just... why are you hanging out with my family, and having my dad bring your clothes over, and skipping school to sit by my bed and watch me sleep and scream and talk under the influence of medication in between sponge baths and episodes of Judge Judy? Why in God's name are you sticking around?" Kurt's eyes were sad and glistening with tears, but his face was a hard mask, angry because, god damnit he was sick of this bed and this hospital and this situation, and Blaine understood that.

That didn't mean it hurt any less.

Blaine ran a hand through his messy curls, the other clenching and unclenching as his body swayed and shook in frustration, anger, and an overwhelming sadness that he couldn't have placed if he'd noticed it, "Just..." he whispered weakly, "tell me what you need."

"I need a fucking answer, Blaine! Why are you here?"

"I just... I don't know!" Blaine shouted.

"Well," Kurt's voice grew calm and thoughtful, despite Blaine's outburst, "Then you might as well sit down, and get comfy. Who knows how long it'll take you to figure it out?"

Blaine stumbled forward and collapsed into his previous throne next to the hospital bed, tears blurring his vision and wetting his cheeks. "Shit, Kurt, I don't even know, I'm just... I'm sorry. I feel so stupid, just..."

Kurt shushed him and slowly raised a bandaged hand to Blaine's cheek. His fingers were undamaged, and soft against Blaine's cheek as they wiped away the tears they found there. Blaine's watery eyes met Kurt's for a moment, and the hand stilled and Blaine let out a quiet laugh, smiling because for just a second, he'd let things just be real, and if that wasn't a crazy big step for him, he didn't know what was.

"Kurt?"

"Mmhm?"

"This morning, did I... do I frighten you, Kurt?"

"Blaine," Kurt's eyes were slowly closing, his voice becoming more shallow as he began to drift away - away from Blaine and the nurses and the men who came and asked him questions he had too many answers to, "You might want to figure out the answer to this riddle too, while you're all nice and comfy, but you're the only thing in this world that doesn't frighten me right now, and I dunno why. Now... hold my... h-hand."

And Blaine did.

Hot, heavy mouth on his, tongue exploring, lips uttering words that meant nothing and everything all at once: faggot, homo, hummel, but not "Kurt," never Kurt.

Pressing pressing, pressing him into the lockers, fingers crawling, pulling at his clothes, ripping at his skin, searching, fighting, begging for entrance, desperate for flesh and feeling and contact.

Dave's fingers running down his sides. Dave's fingers pulling his hips forward. Dave's fingers toying with the waistband of his jeans, pulling down, letting the brisk air touch and chill pale skin. Zippers and buttons proving fragile beneath thick football-player hands.

Moans of "fuck," "God, yes," mingling with piercing shrieks and whines and begging, pleading, "pleasenodon'tpleasenostopstop" that received no response, no recognition, just touches and squeezes and fingers, fingers, fingers all over, and in his hair, around his neck, and under his shirt and pants that weren't there; never stopping, never satisfied.

Footsteps in the hallway and "shit shit shit," and pushing and falling, head on tile, cleats stomping, his own screaming. Face on floor, face on face, hand on face, screaming screaming.

Clutching at fabric to break yet another fall, the clang of metal, gruff cursing, white tile, shit shit, stomp, screams. Fist to face, fist to shirt, being pulled, pulled, up and closer to an angry face, and angry man, a scared little boy, "I will kill you."

AN: I really don't know with this, guys. That last sequence was sort of written as it came to me, unedited and I was so nervous about it. Also, if you couldn't tell, it's a dream sequence. The actual events will be laid out clearer a little bit later, right now you're sort of trapped inside Kurt's mind, so it's all a bit confusing. I didn't want to get too graphic, but I didn't want to skip over it like it didn't happen, so I sort of just… wrote my mind. That makes no sense but whatever, let me know if you hate it. Yay for the longest chapter yet! Also it's 3 in the morning so if there are 456865 typos, I'm sorry. If you have questions of concerns, feel free to talk to me on my Tumblr: dumbhuman-likeyou! Review, review, review!