Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. They belong to Ryan Murphy and FOX.

"blah" – talking

'blah' – thinking

blah – flashback

Kurt knew they'd hadn't meant anything by it. This was Dalton, not McKinley. The students here were kind, and genuinely caring. They didn't throw him into dumpsters; they didn't viscously pelt him with flavoured, frozen ice shards. Dalton Academy was truly a safe haven, thanks to its zero-tolerance bullying policy. So Kurt knew that his fellow Warblers hadn't intended to hurt him when they'd locked both himself and Blaine into the small closet.

That didn't make it any easier, though. Blaine didn't seem any more than exasperated, and was calmly pleading with his friends to let them out. At the moment, Kurt wasn't sure he could manage to form words – he was struggling to breathe as it was. The closet wasn't very big and filled with boxes of sheet music, but with Blaine and Kurt in it, there was hardly any room to move. Kurt could feel Blaine's arm rubbing against his shoulder.

He could faintly hear his friends laughing outside. He knew they hadn't known he was claustrophobic, but he still couldn't help feeling furious at them.

Blaine had stopped yelling, seeming to realise that they weren't going to be let out anytime soon. He looked over in Kurt's direction now, noticing his friend hadn't said anything. Now that he was paying closer attention, he could hear Kurt's heavy breathing, growing quicker with every minute. He could feel the slight tremors through their connected arms. Apart from that, Kurt wasn't moving.

"Kurt, I'm not going to do anything to you that you don't want me to," he tried to reassure his friend, misunderstanding his reaction. "The other guys – they don't know what you went through – don't hate them…C'mon, Kurt, say something".

Kurt tried to pay attention to what Blaine was saying, but he couldn't get his mind off the fact that he was surrounded by six, very solid, very near walls. He didn't dare reach out, not wanting to feel how closed-in the closet was. Kurt heard Blaine shuffle next to him and then he felt something clamp down on his shoulder. He jumped violently, momentarily forgetting that it was just Blaine locked in here with him and letting his imagination run free, conjuring up all sorts of nightmarish ideas.
Wanting to escape from the foreign limb, he tried to twist away, but was stopped by the solid walls.

And that was when the hopelessness of his situation really hit. He knew he was starting to breathe faster, and he could feel the liquid building up in his eyes, but he was too busy feeling around him, looking for a way out of this hell. No matter which way he turned, there was only solid wood beneath his hands. He was going to die in here, enclosed in this tiny, wooden box – just like a coffin. He knew he was panicking and wasting precious air – who knew how long until they ran out.

'I can't breathe…I…I can't breathe…'

"Kurt? Kurt, what's wrong?" Blaine sounded panicked, which definitely didn't help Kurt's dilemma.

Blaine tried to reach out to his new friend again, but Kurt slapped his hands away. He could hear Kurt breathing fast – too fast – and whimpering quietly. He tried to put his arms around him, if just to stop him from hurting himself, but Kurt wouldn't be contained. He wanted out.

Blaine would willing admit to being scared when Kurt started screaming, begging with the other Warblers to let him out, and frantically pushing against the closet door. Occasionally, he would hit or kick out at the other walls surrounding them. He was wild, out-of-control. Nothing Blaine said could calm him down. Outside, the Warblers thought it was nothing more than an elaborate ploy, never once considering that Kurt really was in trouble.

Kurt seemed to run out of energy after five minutes of violent behaviour. He slumped against the door, weakly pushing at it with his thin arms. His breathing was getting worse, Blaine noticed, and every now and then he would let out something that sounded like a mix between a whimper and a moan. Blaine was just as frightened of this behaviour as he was of the chestnut-headed boy's earlier actions.

He'd brought Kurt to Dalton to help him heal. He knew the Warblers didn't mean anything nasty by their actions, but he knew right now, Kurt needed help. He wanted to protect the countertenor; wanted to hold him in his arms and keep him safe from the rest of the world; wanted to be his rock, his constant support. He couldn't stand to listen to Kurt, crying and hyperventilating not even a foot away and not be able to reach out and console him.

He started to bang on the closet door, shouting out to the Warblers, desperately trying to make them understand.

"Guys, maybe this isn't such a good idea…" Jeff's anxious voice rose over the muffled noise of Blaine's cries.

"They'll be fine," Nick replied, even though he didn't sound so sure.

"Jeff, if you open that door, you will be held solely responsible for the failure of operation Klaine," Wes warned with a rap of his beloved gavel.

"Oh God, no! If I have to sit through anymore of their flirty duets, their overall adorability or their god-damned obliviousness, you do NOT want to know what will happen. The sexual tension is so thick, you need a...Jeff?...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Thad almost screamed, racing to get up from his position behind the desk and reach Jeff in time.

Jeff, who had moved towards the closet, stopped and looked back, just in time to be roughly tackled to the ground by a navy and red blur that resembled one Senior Warbler council member.

"NEVER!" Okay, Thad did scream this time.

In the startled silence that followed, there was an ominous click. Thad's head lashed up to see Nick standing near the closet, hand on the handle and wearing a Cheshire cat grin. Thad was just about to scream outrage at the junior Warbler when two forms tumbled desperately out of the cupboard and fell to the floor.

Kurt didn't know how long he'd been pushing against the door; he didn't even know how long he'd been in this damn closet. He'd lost his voice a while back due to the screaming. His knuckles ached from where he'd hit them repeatedly on the walls. Next to him, Blaine had realised shouting was futile, and had slumped down into the corner as best he could. Every few minutes, he tried to reassure Kurt, but the brown-haired diva couldn't make sense of what he was saying, so preoccupied was he with trying to force himself to calm down and not think about the bleakness of his situation.

Next thing he knew, the door was swinging open and he all, but fell out. He tripped over his own feet in his rush to escape, and tumbled gracefully to his knees. He tried to gulp in air in between his desperate sobs, tears falling to splash against the decorated marble floor like tiny crystals breaking into sparkling shards.

He felt arms trying to wrap around him, and he reacted without thinking. He cried out, frantically pushing away the incoming person. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling away from the surrounding bodies of the Warblers. He needed space, damnit! He didn't want to be hugged and comforted if it meant being trapped in someone's arms.

"…Kurt…".

Blaine's voice. Filled with sympathy. Or was it pity? Before his friend could say anymore, Kurt was moving, crashing through the double doors and sprinting down the hallway. He took a left turn, then another left and then a right, never slowing down, looking anxiously for a way out. His breathing was ragged, sounding loudly in his own ears, accompanied by his footsteps on the slippery marble floor.
And suddenly LIGHT! and he was bursting through another set of double doors, but these ones much bigger and leading out into glorious openness.

Kurt kept running, almost tripping down the stairs, until he reached a moderately large, open section of lawn, free from overshadowing trees. He stopped, panting harshly. Finally beginning to calm down, he raised his face to the sky, taking in the giant, never-ending expanse of blue. He stretched his arms out the side, and waved them up and down a bit, as if to prove to his panicked mind that he really was free. Feeling the air slip between his spread fingertips never felt better.
He flopped down on his back and just laid there, content to stare at the sky for the rest of the afternoon; classes be damned.

Kurt wasn't sure how long he laid there, just staring up at the massive, unmarred canvas of blue, losing himself in its enormity, slowly calming. Eventually he felt another body lie down beside his, but far away enough so as not to freak him out again. Casually, he tilted his head to the side and was met with Blaine's warm, gold-hazel eyes. Blaine smiled gently at him, but Kurt could see the question in his eyes.

'Are you alright?' they seemed to ask.

Kurt smiled back, letting it reach his eyes. He knew he needed to explain to Blaine, at least. And he probably owed the Warblers an apology for his shocking behaviour. Blaine reached out his hand and lightly touched Kurt's fingers, as if asking if that was okay. Kurt's breath hitched, but he immediately calmed himself and gripped Blaine's hand loosely.

"You know I was bullied at my old school".

Blaine nodded, not saying anything.

"Well, I got tossed into dumpsters a lot – almost every morning for one year. Sometimes they shut the lid on me. I guess…I just developed it from then. The claustrophobia, I mean".

"Oh, Kurt, I'm so sorry you had to go through that…but you're here now. You're away from all that," Blaine reassured, as his thumb soothingly rubbed circles into his friend's palm. "You have to know that none of the students here are like that. They would never deliberately hurt you.

The guys feel terrible about this whole thing, you know…".

"I'm okay now. I know they didn't know. It…it wasn't their fault".

They were both silent for a while after that, admiring the nature around them. Blaine soon broke the silence.

"So do you want to go back to class?".

Kurt looked like he was considering it, but then he rolled his head to the side to look at Blaine again, and smiled. "I think I'm gonna stay here a bit more, but you can go if you need to".

"Nah, hope you don't mind, but you're stuck with me for the rest of the afternoon".

Kurt chuckled, before returning his gaze to the sky and ever-so-slightly tightening his grip on the fingers clasped in his. "Somehow, I think I'll manage".