Fragile.

The two of them decide it’s probably best to go in to class the next day, but Sam doesn’t expect Kurt to drive to his house, abuse the car horn he was provided with, and drive him in to school.

“You’re okay!” Mercedes yells when she spots her boy pulling Sam along behind him. She runs (or close enough) towards them and pulls them both into a tight hug.

“Careful,” Sam warns with a slight laugh, “nose.”

“Oh, right.” Mercedes replies with a soft giggle. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, they’re trying to get it just to heal right, and if it goes wrong I have to have surgery.” Sam says, his face clearly displaying the fact that this is something he does not wish to happen.

“It’s broken?” Mercedes asks, as if she’s somehow forgotten how it looked yesterday.

“Clearly.” Kurt replies for the blonde, who just stands and gapes at her. “I’m sure he didn’t just wake up and decide that facial plasters were an amazing accessory.”

Sam frowns at the older boy for a second before Quinn appears beside him and pulls him off in the other direction. Kurt and Mercedes watch absently as they talk quickly and animatedly, their voices quiet. Kurt noticeably strains to hear them until Mercedes hits him across the arm.

“Careful! This is from the new Marc Jacobs spring collection!” Kurt snaps, staring at the girl like she’d just shot someone in the middle of the hall.

“Sorry.” She laughs. “You were staring.”

“I was?” Kurt asks, almost surprised at himself even though he’s recently made somewhat of a habit of staring at one Samuel Evans.

“You like him, don’t you?” Mercedes muses, raising her eyebrows at her best friend. The boy turns away from the blonde and regards his best friend with a sceptical look.

“How on Earth could you tell, ‘Cedes?” He deadpans, staring at the girl in disbelief. She shrugs at him, biting back a small giggle.

“I’m just saying, Kurt.” She says with a smirk. “You might want to not stare as much. I don’t even know which team he plays for.”

She shrugs again. Kurt stares at her like she’s grown a second head.

“Did you really just use that metaphor, ‘Cedes?” He asks with a reluctant laugh. “I’m ashamed to say that I expected better.”

“You love me, white boy.” Mercedes continues with a laugh, rolling her eyes at her best friend as she turns and begins to rummage in her locker for her books.

“I suppose someone has to.” Kurt snipes back, winking at the girl when she glares at him from around the doors of their lockers. She pouts at him a little, but ultimately just laughs at him as she pulls out her Spanish textbooks.

Kurt spots Sam and Quinn disappear down the hallway and he watches them with an almost longing expression until Mercedes catches him and flicks him in the head to stop him.

In glee later that day, Mr Schue decides to scorn and yell at both Kurt and Sam for skipping yesterday’s meet to go to the hospital.

“Mr Schue, be reasonable.” Kurt retorts. Sam shrinks back in his chair. “He has a broken nose. You were sympathetic when Rachel broke hers.”

“That was a completely different matter!” The mentioned girl pipes up, but Kurt just waves his hand at her to silence her.

“I’m sorry, Kurt, but you shouldn’t have left glee club when I told you not to. You should’ve waited for the school nurse to get here.”

“He was bleeding!” Mercedes yells incredulously from the back of the room. Sam shrinks further back into his seat and Quinn watches him absently, resting a hand on his knee as some kind of comfort. It doesn’t work as well as he knows Kurt’s do.

The two members of the club argue furiously with Mr Schue until Sam finally can’t take it anymore and leaves. No one but Quinn notices, and she considers following him for a moment until she remembers what they’ve been discussing at every opportunity all day.

For the first time in his entire career at McKinley High, Kurt storms out of a classroom.

“Are my departures ever that perfectly timed?” Rachel asks Finn quietly in the silence that follows the departure of the flamboyant teen. Finn shrugs.

“Sometimes. I guess. I don’t really pay much attention.”

Rachel glares at him and sighs, sitting back in her chair, leaning away from him and folding her arms. She huffs. Finn just looks confused.

“Sam!” Kurt yells as he follows the blonde down the hall. Sam can’t, because of his stupid ankle, and Kurt won’t, because of his precious, expensive Marc Jacobs. “Wait up!”

The blonde finally stops, hesitating for a moment before turning to face the brunette.

“What?” He asks, perhaps too harshly and perhaps a lot angrier than he first planned on. Kurt shrinks away from him a little, but swallows and regains his composure.

“I was just wondering if you were okay.” Kurt asks quietly. “And I’m sorry for not coming after you right away.”

“I wouldn’t have got very far.” Sam scoffs, pausing for a moment to glare at his ankle as if it will fix something. “Not with this stupid thing anyway.”

Kurt smiles at him for a moment, rests his hand on his shoulder softly. He picks up his wrist and tugs at the bracelet that’s still tied tight around his wrist.

“It gets better.” He says again, quietly this time. “I didn’t just mean for things like that. I meant generally. If you just have a little hope, things will always get better.”

He smiles, looks up at Sam’s face to see that signature dopey grin starting to spread across his features again (okay, so he totally has a thing for slightly dim-witted jocks, what of it?) and he feels a soft blush start to spread across his porcelain cheeks.

“Thanks, Kurt.” The blonde replies with a small smile, but it’s still not as big as it was on the day they first met.

Kurt watches the blonde with an almost amused expression, his glasz eyes narrowing somewhat as he surveys the slowly slumping forward form of the younger boy.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Kurt asks, resting a hand softly on the younger boy's back, reaching up slightly to the taller teen.

Sam stares at him, hard and almost as if he can see through every lie and face and disguise Kurt has ever used or worn or hidden behind. Kurt swallows anxiously as the blonde's green eyes trace up and down his skinny frame for a few seconds.

"I don't understand you, Kurt." Sam says finally, hesitating for a moment as he sets a foot forward carefully and begins to move down the corridor.

"Why?" Kurt asks softly, following behind the other boy until he catches up and can walk beside him once more. "What's not to understand?"

"I don't know." Sam says with a gentle, almost delicate shrug. It's kind of out of character for him. "You're just telling me to believe and tell myself that everything will get better even though you can't tell it to yourself, and I don't get how you expect me to believe when you never show me that you can."

Kurt stares at the tanned blonde for a few seconds before nodding, as if telling him to continue in a simple gesture.

"You kind of remind me what I can do if I stay strong sometimes, Kurt." Sam continues, worrying his lower lip for a second as he panics internally over whether he's said too much. "I don't mean to creep you out or anything, but it kind of helps to see someone you know kind of know who kind of went through what you're going through. It kind of helps to know that it does kind of get a little better after a few months or years or whatever."

Kurt frowns a little at the blonde for a second, looking up at him to make up for the few inches different in their height. He takes in the confused, somewhat saddened expression on the younger teen's face. Sam looks at him for a second, and their eyes meet awkwardly for almost half a minute until Sam flinches and looks away, apparently embarrassed.

"Sam." Kurt says, somewhat softer than he usually would in this kind of situation. "Samuel. Look at me. Please."

The blonde sighs to himself and drags his eyes up from the dirty linoleum on the school floor so that he can fix his eyes on to Kurt's face.

"Yes?"

"Please don't be embarrassed. It's kind of nice for someone to tell me that they admire me rather than want to throw me in to a dumpster without a second thought for my wardrobe." The boy huffs gently, and the blonde boy laughs softly at him, at a volume he barely hears himself. He's kind of glad this kid burst in on him in the school gym bathrooms when he did, otherwise he'd pretty much be a friendless loser in a new school in a new state.

Kurt smiles at him, his expression merely confused as the younger boy smiles gently at him, his lips resting lopsided as he finally smiles properly.

"I like your smile." Kurt comments offhandedly, only realizing the potential implications of his words until the last syllable had escaped. He feels the soft heat of blush scatter across the tops of his cheekbones. Sam feels himself start to blush a lot more furiously and a lot darker than he'd ever care to admit that he could, his eyes downcast as his coal eyelashes scatter across his cheeks. Kurt watches him, and his heart stumbles a little in his chest. That's probably not a good thing, he realizes. In both the emotional and health side of things.

"Lor menari." Sam says quietly, and Kurt doesn't hear him. Even if he does, he says nothing and just takes hold of the younger jock's wrist and pulls him in the opposite direction to the choir room.

"Aren't we going back?" Sam asks, almost confused. Kurt rolls his eyes affectionately, purely and simply because the way he's always so confused and perplexed by simple things is really kind of cute.

"Nope." Kurt replies, popping the 'p' sound, still sounding eloquent and dignified in a way that Sam reminds himself to question him over at a later date. "They don't deserve our fabulous company -or our fabulous voices."

Sam smiles and laughs even softer than before, and Kurt decides that it's nice to see and hear the other boy laugh so much despite the situation. Kurt kind of likes when things like this happen.

He pulls them towards the bleachers (which have been almost permanently deserted since the football team started losing miserably again) and they settle themselves on the empty front row of seats by the team benches.

Sam sighs a little and surveys the field in front of him. He gave up football a few days ago -apparently the other players aren't too in to the idea of a gay or even bisexual team mate sharing a shower room with them.

"Why are we here, Kurt?" Sam asks quietly, not looking away from the dying, yellowed grass of the field. "I thought you hated football."

"I do." Kurt replies equally quietly, his eyes following the direction in which Sam is staring. "I just thought you'd like to be somewhere familiar for once."

"Can I tell you something, Kurt?" Sam asks softly, looking away from the field and squinting against the sun to take in the older boy's defined features.

"Yes, if you trust me with it." Kurt replies, turning to meet the younger boy's nervous stare. Sam swallows for a moment, kicks at the grass absently before looking back up again.

"I actually hate football. I only played it because my uncle told me it would 'fix my gay.'"