Blaine drove home in the Mercedes-Benz his parents had bought him for his 17th birthday just a few weeks ago, crying the entire time. He couldn’t believe what happened. It crushed him, knowing that everything he did with Jeremiah was a joke, for nothing. Jeremiah didn’t even take Blaine’s feelings into account, and the moment he stepped inside his house he started to cry. He fell back against the front door and dropped down to the ground. He sat there for who knows how long, puddling in a pool of his own tears.

He loved Jeremiah, he really did. He loved his looks, his personality (or what Blaine had seen of his personality, from what he learned today he had faked a good portion of it), his taste in music, and movies. He loved how Jeremiah always made him smile, and he loved how Jeremiah was intelligent. He wasn’t like most of the idiots in Ohio. Sure there was a better crop of guys at Dalton where he attended, but outside of his little haven of No Tolerance, most of them were born in the shallow end of the gene pool and thus looked at him with derision and scorn.

When he finally pulled himself up and dragged himself into his bedroom on the other side of the house, it was already 5 o’clock. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t thirsty. He wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything. Luckily for him his parents were out on a business trip, so he wouldn’t have to deal with any concerned parents and their awkward queries. But that one comfort did nothing to quell the pain that was in his heart.

They hadn’t kissed again since Monday. It was killing Blaine being so close to Kurt but not able to touch him. He thought it would be easier. He had gone years not touching or kissing anyone, but being in Kurt’s presence had this effect on Blaine that turned him into a mess. He was back to being a teenage boy again, it confused him. He hadn’t felt like this since he was 16 years old and in a very wrong and very forbidden relationship with Jeremiah. Could he really afford to get into the same situation once again?

Every piece of information that he learned about Kurt made him fall deeper and harder. His favorite movie and books (Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Giver from when he was in middle school). The fact that Kurt both fit the stereotype by loving Broadway and smashed it to pieces by holding the record at McKinley for the fastest reassembly of a carburetor… even the Shop Teacher couldn’t do it faster.

“What about your favorite book?” Kurt asked and Blaine groaned.

“How can you ask that of me? I will never be able to choose. I have favorites within specific genres, but I’d never be able to choose just one overall.”

Kurt chuckled at the very clich� answer given. “Fine, fine. Favorite fantasy book.” Blaine took a deep breath, and thought for a moment before finally deciding on a series of books.

“I know it’s a clich� but I’m going to have to say the Harry Potter series.”

They were having another one of their after school secret get to know each other sessions. If anyone walked into the room, Blaine would be busy reviewing paperwork Figgins sent to the staff as a whole that morning, and Kurt would be reading the latest book that Blaine assigned for class. In the meantime they both used it to learn as much about the other as they could. They couldn’t physically be together just yet, but that didn’t meant they couldn’t lay out the groundwork for if and when they could be.

“Really?”

Blaine nodded. “Call me crazy, but I fully believe that the Harry Potter books are the sole reason that your generation’s literacy rates aren’t as low as they could have been.”

“Sad fact,” Kurt agreed, having seen how his friends and classmates didn’t enjoy reading and avoided it at all costs; it saddened him because he had always loved to lose himself in a good book. “Not for me though, I’m pretty sure if you went to Lima Elementary, there would still be my name printed neatly in pencil on the borrower’s slip in every Hardy Boys book available.”

“Glad to hear someone didn’t mind reading as a kid. I’m always relieved when someone says they would rather read than watch TV with their friends as a kid.” Kurt looked away. There was something he was holding back. “What’s wrong?” Kurt sighed.

“I kind of didn’t have a choice in the matter. It was either learn to enjoy reading on my own, or be bored all the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t really have friends growing up. None of the boys wanted to play with me because I was too ‘girly’ and the girls still considered me a boy with ‘cooties.’ It wasn’t until high school that I actually made any real friends.”

“That’s horrible.” Blaine tried to console Kurt who shrugged it off.

“I really don’t care about it anymore. It hurt at the time, but I’m over it. I’ve got some great friends now and a fantastic brother; and who knows in a week and a half I might even have a bit more.” Kurt looked coyly at Blaine who grinned.

“You may indeed.”

It’d been a full week since they had broken up, Blaine refused to use the term dumped, with Jeremiah. It felt too needy, too pitiful and he didn’t want those words to be associated with him, though his actions spoke otherwise. He hadn’t left the house since; barely even leaving his bedroom, except to get something to eat and to use the bathroom. He kept skipping school, and everyone at Dalton was starting to get worried about him. The faculty would call home, but he wouldn’t answer when the phone rang, and let it go to the answering machine. His friends were getting worried about him. Incredibly worried which is why when they all sat around at Warblers’ practice to determine which one of them would go over to Blaine’s house to confront him, Wes was volunteered for the honor.

Ding Ding

Wes had rung the bell at least 5 times, but there was no answer. He could see that there was a light on in Blaine’s room. Sighing, Wes went around to the side of the house, and picked up the fake rock, that was home to a hide-a-key. The Andersons had told him and David where it was over a year ago. They had never a need to use it before now, but enough was enough. He unlocked the front door and marched straight into Blaine’s bedroom not bothering to knock. The sight before him however, was not what he was expecting.

It appeared that Blaine hadn’t bathed in days. His hair was disgusting with matted hair gel and there were food wrappers littered all around the room. Clothes were strewn around the room as if Blaine hadn’t done laundry in over a month. He saw Blaine was curled up on his bed with a book, reading intently, not paying attention to his friend who had just walked into the room. “Blaine?” He asked, but Blaine didn’t respond. Wes tried again, this time, walking over to the bed, carefully not to stop on any food crumbs or bugs, because there were a few of the creepy crawlies on the ground. “Blaine, what’s wrong?”

“Go away, Wes.” Blaine said, not looking up from his book. Instead of following through on the request of his best friend, he took the book out of Blaine’s hand and held it out of reach.

“What’s going on, Blaine?”

“Nothing, nothing is going on!” He says with a firm resolution, before getting up from the bed and pulling another book off his bookshelf, and flopping down onto his beanbag chair. Wes sighed.

“Blaine, c’mon tell me. You only get like this when something horrible happens. You haven’t gotten like this since last year when…”

“No one died Wes. Least of all my already deceased grandmother.” Blaine snaps before focusing back in on the book he had opened up to a random page and started to read. He’d already read every book on that particular shelf so it wouldn’t matter where he started from.

About forty minutes later, they had abandoned all pretenses of work and Kurt was just sitting in the chair next to the desk and they were busy talking about something Blaine saw on TV the night before. Kurt apparently wasn’t too interested in the topic, because his mind came up with an idea and wanted to test to see how far he could go. He placed his hand upon Blaine’s knee; Blaine just looked at it curiously, but said nothing. As Blaine continued to talk however, Kurt slowly began to move his hand higher, which is when Blaine realized what Kurt was doing.

“Oh would you look at the time? It’s already 4:30.” Blaine said, causing Kurt to pout.

“You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?” Kurt questioned, moving his hand up even further on Blaine’s leg.

“Kurt…” Blaine grasped Kurt’s hand and removed it from his body. Kurt sighed.

“I know.”

It was a sign that their discussion for the day was over, that they had to leave. Kurt stood up and packed away the books he had taken out. Blaine began to do the same. As Kurt picked up his copy of An American Tragedy he accidentally knocked his day planner to the ground. Blaine quickly bent over to retrieve it for him. The page it opened to when it fell was the following week.

Right there, plain as day was the word ‘B-Day’ written in bold red letters on September 27th’s date. Kurt looked up at Blaine’s smiling face and said “It doesn’t stand for Birthday y’know.”

Blaine smiled turned into an even bigger grin. He handed the book back to Kurt who was just about ready to go. Blaine pulled him into an embrace, something they’ve done every day since they had their second kiss, and he placed a soft kiss on Kurt’s head.

“I know.”

“Then what happened? Because last week you were happier than I’ve ever seen you. Now you’re moping and not even coming to school or to Warblers’ Practice? What gives, man?” Blaine sighs.

“Why do you have to butt in?” He glares up at Wes. “If I wanted your help, I’d ask for it.” Blaine snaps. Resigned, Wes decides that pushing it any more probably wouldn’t help matters.

“Fine. I’ll go. I just thought you’d want your homework. You’ve missed quite a bit. I got it from all your teachers before I left today. Mr. Walton asked me to remind you that your paper on Freud was due yesterday.” Wes dropped the pile of homework on Blaine’s desk and began to walk out when he heard a sob come from his best friend. He turned around and saw Blaine in tears. “Blaine?”

“Oh God Wes…” The dam breaks, and everything that happened between him and Jeremiah spilled out like word vomit into the air. Wes sits by patiently listening to everything that Blaine has to say, unsure of how to react. But when he hears that Jeremiah used Blaine for an experiment, he couldn’t be more outraged.

“That son of a bitch. Just today he was talking about Informed Consent of patients in psychological studies.” Wes was seeing red. How could this man, this psychologist, this teacher do something so horrible to such a nice guy as Blaine?

“Just forget it, Wes. I don’t want to know what he talked about today. In fact, I wouldn’t mind forgetting him all together.” He says, but he doesn’t mean it. Because as horrible as Jeremiah was to him, part of him is still in love with him, part of him will probably always be in love with him, and it hurts Blaine just to think about that fact.

“Blaine, you need to report this.”

“Wes, I was in a relationship with my teacher. He’s not the only one who could get in trouble here.” Blaine points out and Wes has to concede that there’s truth to that statement. While there was a clause in the Teacher’s Code of Conduct at Dalton, that they would not date students, there was also a clause in the Student’s Code of Conduct that they would act appropriately in all situations, and sleeping with your teacher, even if it wasn’t to get better grades, certainly didn’t fall under that prerequisite.

“He still needs to be punished.” Wes says and Blaine shrugs.

“I just don’t want to deal with him.”