Based off a soulmate AU idea linked on my Tumblr. Mentions of injuries/violence and set in a hospital.

Kurt had felt like his head was spinning ever since Mr. Schue pulled him and Finn out of class that morning.

"I don't know how to tell you this, but...your father's in the hospital. The doctors think he had a heart attack, and they're doing everything they can. Carole already called you both out, and I'll make sure your friends collect your homework."

"Thanks, Mr. Schue," Finn had replied. Kurt couldn't say anything, too in shock to speak.

He still couldn't speak, really. What was he supposed to say when he got to the hospital and discovered his father unconscious in the ICU? How was he supposed to react? Screaming? Crying? Fainting?

"We're going to go get dinner, Kurt. Would you like to come with us?" Carole asked, snapping him out of his stupor for a moment.

"No, I'm not hungry," Kurt said quietly, even though it was already nine pm and he hadn't eaten since breakfast. "I'll wait here until you guys come back."

Carole squeezed his shoulder comfortingly before following Finn out of the room.

"C'mon, Dad," Kurt whispered, holding one of Burt's hands in both of his. "Wake up. Please."

He waited a moment, but there was no response other than a slight movement on the double-needled compass in Burt's wrist as the newer arrow followed Carole down the hall to the cafeteria.

Just as Kurt was finally about to let himself cry, he felt a tugging in his own compass wrist.

"What?" he said, staring down at his arm in amazement. "Now? Here? But who-"

A conversation outside Burt's room drew his attention.

"Jesus Christ, did someone take a baseball bat to his torso?"

"And steel-toed boots, from the looks of him. He's lucky they didn't burst any internal organs, but the concussion - God."

"He's covered in contusions. If he's even able to open his eyes when he regains consciousness, it'll be a miracle."

"I hope they find whatever kids did it. I may not really get gay people, but Christ, that doesn't mean I want them jumped outside a school dance."

"You and me both, Shelly."

They kept talking, but Kurt tuned them out, biting his lip in indecision.

"That's him, it's gotta be him," he said. "Who else would be making my compass go off right now? But I can't leave you, Dad, can I?"

"Who's here?" Finn asked, making Kurt jump. "Sorry, dude. Left my sweatshirt in here."

"I just felt my wrist go off," Kurt said as Finn grabbed his hoodie. "And those nurses were just talking about a boy who was brought in after being gay bashed at a school dance. Finn, it's got to be-"

"What are you waiting for?" Finn interrupted. "Dude, go see if it's him!"

"But my dad-"

"I'll stay here with Burt. Mom and I can trade off on eating. If your soulmate's here too, you've gotta go help him," Finn said, sitting down in the chair next to Kurt. "It's like...the law."

"It's not disloyal to Dad?" Kurt asked, not moving.

"How would it be? You're allowed to love your soulmate and your parents, aren't you? I mean, Rachel talks about her dads constantly, and we've been together for, like, forever now."

Kurt couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Finn. I swear I'll be back as soon as I can be."

"No worries, bro. Not like hospital food is something I hate to miss out on," Finn said.

Kurt followed his compass out of the room and three doors down the hall, where a nurse was placing a sign that said Blaine Anderson on a nameplate.

"Can I help you with something, sweetie?" she asked, turning to smile at him.

"I, uh. I think my wrist is pointing at him," Kurt said, nodding toward Blaine's room. "Maybe. I felt it go off a minute ago, and then there were nurses talking about a kid getting beaten up at a dance, so I figured…."

"Let me go see where his wrist is pointing," the nurse said seriously. "I'll be right back."

Kurt tried not to fidget as she strode into the room and closed the door behind herself. When she returned, she was smiling.

"Looks like you've found your soulmate, even if this isn't the way anyone wants to," she said. "Go in there and say hi. There have been studies showing that the presence of someone's soulmate helps them heal, even if they don't know they're there, and right now, your Blaine needs any help he can get."

She walked away, leaving Kurt to swallow once before he entered Blaine's room.

When he finally saw Blaine, he was glad he didn't have any dinner in his stomach to throw up.

Blaine was a mess, covered in purpling bruises and angry red lacerations. There was a cast on his left arm, stitches on his forehead and torso, and he had two black eyes. His breathing was harsh but fairly steady.

"Who did this to you?" Kurt whispered, walking closer but not touching Blaine yet. "Oh my God."

"Who are you?" a female voice asked from the doorway. When Kurt whirled around to see who was there, he had to assume the person he saw was Blaine's mother from how similar they looked.

"I'm Kurt. Kurt Hummel," he replied. "My compass points at Blaine's."

The woman's eyes widened, and she put her hands over her mouth. "I'm Pam, Blaine's mom. How did you find him here?"

"My dad's - a few rooms down," Kurt said, choking up midsentence. "I was sitting with him when I felt my wrist tug toward Blaine."

"Oh, honey," Pam said sympathetically. "Is there anything I can do?"

"My stepmom and stepbrother are in with him," Kurt said. "Finn - my stepbrother - told me to go down here and see if Blaine was really my soulmate."

"I'll give you a minute, then. The doctor wanted to debrief me outside anyways," Pam said. She reached out and squeezed Kurt's wrist. "I look forward to getting to know you better."

"Me too," Kurt said, a twisted little smile appearing on his face. "Thank you."

Pam just waved a hand and headed back out the door, where Kurt could see a doctor in a lab coat waiting.

"Well, your mom seems nice," he said, turning back to Blaine. "I hope that's a good sign for what you'll be like when you wake up."

Blaine's heart monitor beeped, showing a slight increase in rhythm.

"Keep fighting, Blaine. I might be back down the hall a ways, but I'm gonna be here when you wake up, okay? Don't you dare give up without us getting to meet properly first."

Kurt trailed a hand down Blaine's bed before heading back to his father's room. He didn't want to touch him when he still looked so fragile, and Pam deserved a moment alone with her son, too.

Still, he couldn't quite get the image of Blaine in his hospital bed out of his mind, even after he saw his dad again. If Kurt's hunch was correct, he was about to be doing a lot of walking between the two rooms.

Kurt skipped school the next day, to no one's surprise.

"Just keep up with your homework, okay?" Carole said as they arrived at the hospital. "I'm not above telling all the nurses on your floor to harass you into working."

"I will, Carole, I promise," Kurt said. "God knows I don't want to spend any more time in high school than legally required."

"Good. Finn's coming by after school and I'll be in once my shift ends, but you go in and out as you want. Burt won't be mad to find out you were with your soulmate if you're not there when he wakes up." Carole hugged him and went off in the other direction, leaving Kurt to take the elevator to the ICU on his own.

"One of them had better wake up soon, or I'm going to lose my mind," Kurt said to himself. "How is it fair that my dad and my soulmate are in critical condition at the same time?"

He dropped off his stuff in his dad's room, taking a moment to smooth some lotion onto Burt's dry hands before walking down the hall to Blaine.

"How is he?" he asked Pam.

"Better," she said, smiling. "The doctors think he'll wake up soon. Go in and see him, I need to go get more coffee."

Kurt waved as she left, then went in and sat at Blaine's bedside.

"Glad to see you listened to me," he said. "I can't wait to meet you, Blaine."

He reached out impulsively and took Blaine's hand, squeezing it once before just gently keeping it in his hold. It was warmer than Kurt expected, with short, rounded nails, but also a bit dry.

"God, this atmosphere is not good for anyone's skin," Kurt observed. He fished the tube of lotion out of his pocket and put a little on Blaine's hand as well, trying not to jostle it too much and cause him any more pain.

As he smoothed the lotion on, Blaine's fingers curled. Kurt stopped and pulled away, stunned, as Blaine's eyelids fluttered a moment later.

"Doctor!" Kurt yelled.

Blaine took a deep, raspy breath and opened his eyes. Not very wide - he probably couldn't, with how swollen they were - but they were undeniably open.

"Hi," he said, and his voice was so warm, even if it was faint. "Have we-"

"Look at your wrist," Kurt said, barely able to speak.

Blaine did, shifting his gaze and lifting his arm as much as he could. "Oh. There you are."

"Here I am," Kurt said, scooting closer. "I'm Kurt."

"Blaine. Everything hurts."

"The doctor's coming, she'll fix it," Kurt said just as the doctor entered the room.

She began to explain to them what his injuries were and how to work the pain medication pump that she put in his right hand. Kurt tried to listen, but he kept getting distracted by Blaine, beautiful, awake Blaine.

"Sleepy," Blaine said when she left.

"Take some medicine and go to sleep, honey," Kurt said, cupping Blaine's hand in his. "You need to heal."

"Don' go."

"I won't. I've got you, Blaine."

"Kurt." Blaine smiled slowly and fell asleep.

Kurt couldn't help but cry a little.

A week passed, and Blaine got stronger every day.

Burt, on the other hand, plateaued.

"He'll wake up, Kurt," Blaine said, squeezing Kurt's hand from his hospital bed. "If I pulled through, so can he. We both had you believing in us, after all."

"I don't think my belief in you is what woke you up," Kurt said, smiling in spite of himself.

"Well, there's no proof to the contrary, so I'm going with my gut," Blaine said with a smirk. "Banged up as it may be."

"You're ridiculous," Kurt said, laughing. "And if your gut's that banged up, are you sure you're good to try walking today?"

"I'm going stir-crazy just lying here," Blaine said. "The sooner I can walk, the sooner I get discharged."

"Not that I don't want you out of here, but I'll miss getting to see you everyday," Kurt said, a bit wistfully, as he helped Blaine sit up and dangle his legs off the side of the bed.

"I wouldn't worry about that just yet," Blaine said mysteriously. "Now c'mon, hoist me up?"

"So needy," Kurt teased. He let Blaine push on him with his good arm to get into a standing position, then immediately wound an arm around Blaine's waist to keep him from falling over. "Good?"

"Amazing," Blaine said, then blushed slightly.

Kurt pressed a kiss to his hair. "C'mon, Borat. Let's go for a walk."

"Hey!" Blaine said, scowling. "I'm recovering from serious injuries, and you tease me about my hair? I think my compass needs recalibrating."

"Not on your life," Kurt replied. He tightened his arm around Blaine a little more as they slowly made their way into the hall, hoping he wasn't pressing too hard against his stitches.

"Kurt. I can barely feel your arm around me. I'm not gonna break," Blaine said.

"You look a little more fragile than you feel, Blaine."

"And I appreciate the gentleness. But if I fall because you didn't have a good grip on me, that'll just hurt worse," Blaine pointed out.

Kurt instantly pulled Blaine closer, trying not to let the tingles he felt at the contact make him shiver.

"That's more like it."

"You just wanted to get as close as possible to cuddling without being indecent," Kurt accused, having learned a little about Blaine's snuggly tendencies already.

"So sue me," Blaine said, beaming up at Kurt.

"I'm on to you," Kurt said, smiling back. "Oh hey, Dad's room."

They stopped for a minute to wave at Finn and Carole, who were sitting with Burt. Carole had one of his hands in hers, and she gasped just as they were about to move on.

"He just flexed his fingers!" she said excitedly.

Kurt had to keep himself from dragging Blaine into the room at light speed.

"Dad?"

"Burt?"

"Honey, can you hear us?"

When Carole stood up to lean over Burt, Kurt took that moment to force Blaine to sit down in her chair.

"But I don't-"

"No, Blaine, you take my seat, sweetheart. Don't overexert yourself on your first day out of bed," Carole said firmly.

Blaine pouted a little but relaxed back into the chair, looking relieved.

"Who's Blaine?" asked Burt raspily.

Kurt whipped his head toward his father, who had his eyes open and was looking around blearily.

"Dad!"

"Why have we picked up another person in a hospital gown?" Burt asked. "Have I been out that long?"

"You've been out for a week, and Blaine's here because he's my soulmate," Kurt said, feeling his chest swell as he got to tell his dad the news for the first time.

"And he's in a hospital gown because?"

"The day of your heart attack, I got beat up at a school dance," Blaine said. "Kurt felt his compass go off when I was admitted a couple rooms away."

Burt made a noise that was probably supposed to be a whistle, but just came out as a wheeze. "Christ, Kurt, sounds like you had kind of a rough week. I'm sorry, buddy."

"It's not like you planned to have a heart attack, Dad," Kurt said, letting out a wet laugh.

Before Burt could reply, the doctor came in and started going through the list of what would happen next. Kurt took that moment to help Blaine up and back to his room - Carole would be able to fill him in later, in words he'd actually understand.

"So I guess we'll both have no reason to be here soon," Blaine said once he was back in bed.

"God, I'm so glad you're both okay. That first day here was one of the worst of my life," Kurt said, sighing in relief. "I still don't know how I'm going to let you out of my sight, honestly."

"What if you don't have to?" Blaine asked, getting a sly look on his face.

"Go on," Kurt said slowly.

"I obviously can't go back to East Westerville," Blaine said. "So I asked Mom if I could transfer to McKinley instead."

"Wha - you-"

"It took some convincing - she had already started filling out paperwork for Dalton - but I got her to agree," Blaine said, smiling. "I don't want to go somewhere you aren't, Kurt."

"But Dalton would be safer," Kurt argued. "I want you with me always, Blaine, but I want you alive, too."

"I can't let those assholes drive me out of public school," Blaine said firmly. "I get the allure of Dalton, but I have to stand and fight. You helped me be strong enough to wake up, Kurt. I can be strong enough to go back out into the world."

"You won't do it alone," Kurt said fiercely. "I'll be with you every step of the way."

"I'm so glad my compass pointed to you."

"And it always will."