Fragile.

Mr. Schue glances warily around the choir room as he walks through the door. He does a relatively quick headcount, frowning harshly when he discovers someone’s missing.

“Where’s Sam?” He asks, looking between the other members of the club. No one seems to know.

“Guys, this is serious. It’s the week before Regionals. Can someone call him?”

At this, Mercedes pulls her phone from her bag and quickly dials Sam’s cell phone from her contacts. She sits for a few moments, phone pressed to her ear, until the phone rings out and no one answers. She pulls the phone away and shrugs, shaking her head.

“That’s odd.” Mr Schue comments, sitting down by the piano. “I’m sure he’ll arrive soon.”

Sam does, in fact, arrive soon, but it’s not in a fashion that any of them really expected from him. He comes running through the door and struggles to slam it shut before turning and staring at them, taking a few heavy breaths before collapsing in a fit of tears.

Kurt and Mercedes exchange a nervous glance before the two of them stand and move over to the slumped blonde boy.

“Sam?” Kurt asks, sitting down opposite him and crossing his legs. “Sam, it’s okay.”

The blonde looks up through his bangs and sniffles loudly, whimpering a little as he does so. Kurt leans over and brushes his thick bangs out of his eyes. Kurt pauses for a second to take in Sam’s face; his nose is so obviously broken (Kurt practically kicks himself for not noticing) and his bottom lip is split and bleeding. He’s still crying, impossibly harder than before.

“It’s okay.” Kurt says pulling Sam in to a tight hug. “I just need to get you to a hospital.”

The two of them look up to see Mercedes negotiating furiously with Mr Schue, who is apparently reluctant to let them leave, and Kurt grabs Sam by the hand and pulls him from the room.

“Come on.” He urges, almost dragging Sam down the hall towards his car. He doesn’t notice that the other boy is walking awkwardly, avoiding putting weight on his right leg.

He makes sure that Sam is settled gently in to the passenger seat of his precious Navigator before quickly moving to the driver’s side and climbing in, in the most dignified way he can when in a rush.

“What hurts?” He asks Sam carefully, turning in his seat to survey the blonde. Sam swallows harshly, and it hurts, he notes, before he finally manages to speak.

“Everything.” He chokes out, and his voice is dry and gravelly, somewhat nasally due to the fact that his nose is pretty much shattered.

“What happened?” Kurt asks as he turns back to face the front of the car, pulling his seatbelt across his chest and starting the car.

“The hockey team apparently don’t take kindly to football players in glee who are apparently ‘faggots’.” He explains, gesturing as carefully as he can to avoid hurting himself. “I would’ve tried to fight them off, but there was only me and so many of them and it was useless and...”

He trails off and he feels the tears start again.

“I couldn’t even defend myself.” He says slowly, staring ahead and out of the glass windshield, as if admitting the most embarrassing thing ever known to human kind.

“Sam, it’s okay.” Kurt says reassuringly, moving one hand to rest on Sam’s knee. He doesn’t push him away, so Kurt counts it as a success.

“How is it ‘okay’?” Sam chokes out, tears catching themselves in his throat again. It’s embarrassing. “I just got my ass handed to me by a bunch of dicks on the hockey team. I’m supposed to be the quarterback, for fuck’s sake.”

Kurt squeezes Sam’s knee gently, although a little harder than before, and Sam winces softly from behind his bangs.

Kurt parks his car in the hospital parking lot, checking it’s locked at least four times –God forbid someone steal his beautiful baby. He steers Sam carefully in to the reception of the hospital, squeezes his elbow softly in what Sam perceives to be a gesture of support.

“You’re going to have to tell them what happened, Sam. I can’t.” Kurt explains gently, speaking in to Sam’s ear so that only he can hear the words.

“I can’t.” Sam stutters, his eyes wide and fearful as he stares, terrified, at the brunette boy standing beside him.

“Sam,” Kurt says, a little more stern than before, “you’re going to have to explain. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, I can’t tell them where you hurt or where you don’t. Sam, you’re going to have to do this, even just to help yourself.”

Sam swallows nervously, and Kurt ushers him towards the friendly looking woman at the desk.

“I need to see a doctor.” He says quietly, and she leans forward a little just to make sure she can hear him.

“What seems to be wrong?”

“I just got beaten up at school.” He swallows harshly, as if admitting it makes it even worse. “I don’t really know what they did but I’m pretty sure I’ve broken some things.”

She nods, types something hurriedly in to the computer that’s sitting in front of her.

“And can I take your name?”

“Samuel Evans.” The blonde says, almost reluctantly, eyes fixed on the –apparently fascinating- pattern in the floor tiles.

“Okay, thank you. Someone will call for you in a few minutes, Sam.” She explains, looking at him with a soft smile. “Feel free to take a seat while you wait.”

Sam nods numbly, his throat constricting and tightening as he fails to force out any speech. Kurt takes hold of his hand absently and pulls him towards two free seats in the far corner of the waiting room. He rests Sam’s hand on top of his knee and occupies himself by playing with his fingers. Sam watches him, half amused and half confused as to what he’s doing.

The doctor calls for Sam, and he gives Kurt a terrified ‘deer in the headlights’ kind of look, and Kurt urges him over.

“I’ll be right here when you get back. I promise.” Kurt assures him, hugging him softly and pushing him towards the doctor’s office.

Sam returns around forty five minutes later. He has a tape bandage stuck over his nose to hold it steady while it heals, his split lip has been treated and cleaned, and he has a too tight support bandage wrapped around his right ankle.

Kurt looks up from his wrist and spots him, moves over from his seat at the opposite side of the room quickly.

“I want you to have this.” Kurt says, holding out a hand braided rainbow friendship bracelet (that he’d just spent the past three quarters of an hour braiding obsessively). “So that whenever you’re down or sad or anything, you can look at it and remember that it gets better.”

Sam stares at him for a moment, confused.

“I’m not gay.” He says, even though he’s not even so sure of himself any more.

“I know.” Kurt says with a small nod. “I never said you were. I’ll just say that I’ve seen the way that you look at Finn sometimes, and I’m not sure it’s totally heterosexual either.”

Sam stares at the floor and blushes softly across the tops of his bruised cheeks.

“I won’t tell anyone.” Kurt says quietly, pulling Sam’s wrist closer to him and tying the carefully braided strings around his wrist gently. “I just want you to remember that it’s never as bad as it seems.”

“You should take your own advice more often, you know.” Sam says softly as the leave the hospital and move towards Kurt’s perfectly parked car.

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks, sitting down in the driver’s seat as Sam settles himself in to the passenger seat awkwardly.

“I mean that you’re telling me that it gets better, but you don’t seem to believe it yourself.” Sam explains softly, averting his eyes away from the petite brunette. Kurt laughs gently, the soft sound echoing somewhat through the car.

“Just because it appears I lose faith sometimes doesn’t mean I don’t believe it, Sam.” Kurt says simply, glancing at the blonde boy in the seat beside him. “I practically wake up saying it and fall asleep saying it every day. Just because it isn’t visible doesn’t mean that I don’t believe.”

He flashes Sam a small, reassuring smile, waits a few moments until the blonde finally returns it. It’s smaller than his usual dopey smile, but it’s good enough, and it makes Kurt feel slightly better about this whole situation.

“Do you want to go back to class?” Kurt asks as he starts the car and drives cautiously out of the hospital parking lot. Sam hesitates for a moment, swallows nervously and looks at the brunette, as if searching for some kind of support.

“Do you?” Sam asks, his voice still shaking and still nasally, the strips holding his nose in place forcing his voice to sound worse than it did before he got it treated.

“Not really.” Kurt replies with a delicate laugh. “I was kind of hoping you didn’t either.”

“Well, we won’t go back then.” Sam says with a small shrug. Kurt smiles at him, looking at him from the corner of his eye as he pulls the car on to the main road.

“Where are we going, then?” Sam presses, his voice confused and his eyebrows knitting together.

“I don’t know.” Kurt replies. “We’ll just drive until we get there, though.”

They find themselves in some park a few miles away from the hospital, and Kurt parks up the Navigator and pulls Sam by the hand in to a clearing a few feet away from the road.

“This kind of place doesn’t seem very you, Kurt.” Sam says as he turns around a few times, as if taking in the luscious surroundings.

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks in a sing song voice, sitting down on the grass at his feet, careful to avoid any and all remotely muddy looking spots that happen to be nearby.

“You don’t really seem like a dirty forest kind of kid.” Sam counters, dropping down on to the grass beside Kurt. “And all the expensive clothes you wear probably don’t like mud too much.”

“I can’t imagine they do like mud that much, Samuel.” Kurt laughs with a bemused smile. “But I like it here. It’s a good place to think.”

“Huh.” Sam says, looking up at the trees, as if asking some kind of question to them.

“Sam?” Kurt asks suddenly, tearing his eyes away from the greenery to survey the younger boy for a second. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” Sam says, sitting back and stretching his legs out, resting his weight on his arms as he squints up at the sky.

“Are you gay?” Kurt asks, looking away from the blonde and at the trees to his right. “I know you said you’re not, but I want you to know you can be honest with me.”

“I...” Sam hesitates for a moment, takes the weight off his arms and falls backwards and shuffles until he’s comfortably lying on his back in the clearing. “...I don’t really know. I guess so. Kind of.”

“That’s okay.” Kurt says in what he hopes is a reassuring way. “It’s fine to be unsure. I was for years.”

Sam looks over at the older boy with an expression that Kurt manages to interpret as disbelief. It is apparently hard to imagine Kurt as being anything other than flamboyantly proud of his sexuality.

“So, just so you know, if you ever need to talk, or just an understanding shoulder to sulk or cry on, you know where I am and where to find me, don’t you?”

Sam swallows nervously, crosses his legs, careful to avoid hurting his sprained ankle. He plays with the bracelet around his wrist anxiously. He nods.

“Thanks, Kurt.”