Blaine made his way to his seat and turned to the boy extending a hand, “I’m Blaine, I’ll be showing you around.”

“Kurt,” he said softly returning the hand shake. Blaine noticed the boy’s hand was cold, the way his got when he was nervous. He also could help but feel there was a rehearsed rigid feel to the way Kurt grasped his hand, not too light, not too firm. Meeting his gaze, he saw the uncertainty in the gorgeous (dammit Blaine, you just met the guy!) eyes that were simultaneously ocean blue and evergreen overcast with cloudy gray. Unconventional…hmm, he rolled the word Mrs. Perry had used around in his mind, trying to get a read on the boy.

Now Kurt was no expert on handshakes but he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to take this long. The boy, Blaine, had been holding his hand for several moments now, staring at him and was making him slightly uncomfortable, especially considering he was staring right back. “Yeah, um, thanks, that’s very….nice of you,” he said breaking the gaze and glancing around the room.

“Sure thing,” Blaine said with a smile removing his hand and returning to his notes.

Kurt let out a sigh as he did the same.

xxx

The sound of the bell was practically simultaneous with the stampede that was a horde of private school boys basically racing to lunch.

Blaine smirked, thinking of the short-cut he used everyday which left them baffled when they stormed into the cafeteria to find him already in line. Today however he hung back, as Kurt had yet to move but stared with wide eyes as the boys flew past him and out the door.

“Woah,” he whispered when the last cleared the room, then he noticed Blaine standing beside him, bag packed up and on his shoulder. He jumped up and hurriedly started shoving things in his own bag. “Oh! Sorry, we’re probably supposed to be with them huh? Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you back, I just—oh no, are we going to be late, I—“

“Relax Kurt,” Blaine stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder, as he leaned over to pick up his bag. “Its just lunch, we can take our time. And yet you’ll notice no one will be rushing when it is actually time for class. Boys will be boys,” he laughed, flashing a wide easy grin as Kurt stood.

“Oh, okay,” Kurt said, calmed by the explanation. Blaine turned and walked to the door, looking back halfway through when he realized Kurt hadn’t moved.

“You coming?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kurt said, quickly following him out into the hall.

“So,” Blaine began as they made their way to the cafeteria, “Where are you from?”

Kurt’s mind flooded and emptied at once. Miss Rowe and he had gone over all the typical questions a new student would be asked, trying to stick to the truth as much as possible without really addressing his…situation. As such they had ended up with a bunch carefully worded, vague responses Kurt was now trying desperately to remember.

“Uh, I’ve moved around a lot.” He said.

Blaine glanced at him with a quirk of the eyebrows, “Okay…so where were you last?”

A newspaper heading flashed in Kurt’s mind, bold letters across the top proclaiming Chicago Daily Tribune. “Chicago,” he whispered.

“Ah, the windy city, cool!” Blaine responded enthusiastically, only gaining a noncommittal hum of acknowledgement from Kurt. He hadn’t really seen very much of it. In fact, for someone who had been all over the country, he had a remarkably small experience of the world.

“Uh…” Blaine drawled, trying to find something to spark conversation with the guy. “So what do you like to do?”

“What do you mean?” questioned Kurt, not sure what he was getting at.

“Like in your spare time, for fun you know?” Blaine continued. “Hobbies? Interests? That sort of thing.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Kurt said, mentally slapping himself for missing something so obvious, but hey it’s not exactly like he’d ever been asked that before. It required a frame of reference unknown to him just a few short months ago. He shook his head, realizing Blaine was looking at him, waiting for answer. “I…” Kurt let his eyes dropped to the floor suddenly finding the flooring fascinating. It shouldn’t be a hard question, he knew, but there was really only one thing, and it was so complicated.

Blaine was fairly oblivious most of the time, but he wasn’t dense. This wasn’t exactly a deep question and yet Kurt was definitely hesitating, struggling for words, and his eyes were glued to the floor. Blaine didn’t really wanted to push it, but if he was going to be hanging out with the kid for at least the next couple days he would need something to talk about. Then again…. “Mrs. Perry said you like music,” he offered.

“Oh, yeah, well I like to sing,” he breathed. “I play the piano a bit,” he continued trying to block out images of a grinning woman out of his head, “and…dance, kind of.” He said, lips quirking as he adjusted the details.

The hesitance in Kurt’s answer, the confliction in his voice, there was something more there, Blaine noted. Still he decided to let it go. “Cool! I’m in the Warblers, our glee club. You should come to practice, try out!”

Kurt knitted is eyebrows together trying to figure out if he could make any sense out of the boys excited sentence. He huffed, Miss Rowe had advised that when (if in Kurt’s mind) he made friends or spent considerable time with someone he would have to own up to being a little well…unaware. He didn’t really think it’d be this soon, but he couldn’t really see another way out of this. Blaine seemed nice enough, hopefully he wouldn’t laugh. “Sorry, what’s a glee club?” he asked.

“Uhh…its like a show choir…” Blaine trailed off seeing no sign of recognition in the boy’s eyes.

Kurt sighed, feeling utterly ignorant. “And that is?”

Blaine’s eyebrows quirked, a bit of bewildered amusement in his eyes, but before he could respond Kurt continued, “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s a stupid question, it’s just—where I’m from—no I mean,” he stopped taking a deep breath trying to form a coherent explanation. He really had no ability to lie, but Miss Rowe had advised him that while he certainly was allowed to share his story, others might not know how to…react, and it would be prudent to keep the specifics of it to himself, playing it off as innocence until he settled in and grown to know and trust some of the other students. So being vague was his middle ground, because he was so much better at that. “I just haven’t really gone to school with other kids before, or even been around other people that much…I’ve been….” he searched for the word Miss Rowe had supplied him with, saying that while it didn’t quite fit, it should placate anybody asking questions. “…kinda sheltered, I guess,” he finished hoping that was the right one.

Wow, Blaine thought as he watched the kid struggle to explain himself, He is trying so hard. Blaine had no idea what Kurt meant when he said sheltered but he was fairly sure that it was a little more extreme than he was letting on. This kid’s story was really starting to intrigue him. But as he looked at Kurt, looking so, utterly ashamed that he didn’t know what a show choir was, he knew now was not the time. Now was time to befriend this kid, because Blaine could practically feel the void around him of anyone like that. And plus he wanted to befriend him, make those gorgeous eyes stop staring at the ground, make that incredible voice speak freely, make those lips smile. Yeah, it sounds like you want to be friends, that little voice in the back of Blaine’s head to which he banished all his undapper thoughts, remarked sarcastically. He quickly pushed it back into its little corner of his mind, and focused on the boy in front of him, who was now scuffing his foot into the floor.

“Hey, it’s not stupid,” he reassured him, a gentle hand on the shoulder finally getting him to raise his eyes, before they flashed away quickly, but at least not down this time. “Everybody’s raised differently, its nothing to be ashamed of.”

Kurt’s eyes met his in an expression Blaine couldn’t read, not that he was observing much other than their sudden shocking shade of blue.

Kurt meanwhile was desperately searching for something in Blaine’s face that assured him what he said was genuine and not just comforting words. Something to make him believe that the truth wouldn’t scare him off, because although she’d never been so forward with it, Kurt was intuitive enough to know that’s what Miss Rowe had been getting at when she had advised him against being open about himself. What he knew as the only way of life might be disturbing to others, she had explained.

He couldn’t really understand why or wrap his head around that, couldn’t bring himself to be ashamed of it as Blaine had insinuated. Still her warnings had put adequate doubt in his head that the idea that Blaine didn’t necessarily care about his background was enough to make him hope that he wouldn’t have to keep up the shallow act forever. For that was the thing he was ashamed of. That he was so bad at this, despite all the guidance given to him in the last few months, he really was so, well ignorant of the world. And it was that knowledge that spurred the little nagging thought in the back of his mind. You don’t belong here, you don’t deserve this. God! You’re too stupid to even remember a freaking cover story without butchering it. But maybe, maybe if someone knew, someone like Blaine, he could learn.

“A glee club, or a show choir,” Blaine continued drawing back Kurt’s attention, “is a group of people, generally at a school, who like to sing and put together musical performances and compete in choir competitions, usually in costume, or in our case uniforms, and sometimes even a little dancing is involved,” he explained, nudging Kurt in the shoulder with a wink as they reached the cafeteria.

“Oh,” was all Kurt could manage as his mind absorbed the information. Singing, performing…like—no.

“So what do you say?” Blaine asked as they made their way through the buffet line, “Want to come check it out, we have practice after school today.”
“Sure,” Kurt said biting his lip. He was really confused. “Can you excuse me for a second,” he asked Blaine.

“Uh, yeah sure,” Blaine said noticing the way Kurt’s eyebrows were pulled together impossibly tight over darkened eyes as he bit his lip.

“Thank you,” he said before fleeing the room. Blaine shrugged before grabbing both their trays and heading to a table with his friends.

Kurt’s head was spinning with questions. He didn’t know if he was scared, or excited, or what. He needed guidance, and as much as he felt helpless doing it he knew where he could get it.

Pulling out the cell phone he’d been shown how to use he quickly found Miss Rowe’s number and hit send.

She picked up on the second ring, “Kurt?”

“Miss Rowe! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you so soon, it’s just, I…”

“Don’t worry about it Kurt, I told you, you can call me for anything. Is something wrong?”

“I…I don’t know, I’m so confused,” he confessed

“That’s alright Kurt. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on and I’ll see if I can help.”

So Kurt went over he and Blaine’s conversation about glee club. “…and he asked me if I want to come check it out after school. I don’t know what to do. I mean I want to sing, I do. I will. But you said that I didn’t have to anymore. That I wasn’t going to. It wasn’t like that here. I don’t what I’m supposed to do with that, who I’m supposed to be. I’m sorry, I’m screwing up already. I just can’t put it together. Blaine seems nice, he seems like you. But he wants me to sing, and I’ve always only sung for Ma—“

“Kurt,” Miss Rowe cut him off as began talking faster and faster, verging on hysterics.

He yelped at the sudden interruption, “Sorry. I’m sorry, I just…”

“It’s alright, Kurt,” she said. “I meant what I said. No one is going to make you sing. I’m sure Blaine is a nice kid if he showing you around. He asked you if you wanted to come to glee club practice. Asked, no ones making you do anything.”

“Oh,” Kurt said, feeling like he was saying it a lot that day, but hey, he was taking in a lot. Like the prospect of making a decision based on what he wanted. “Well what do you think I should do?”

“You should do what you want Kurt,” she began, “If you feel comfortable going and you think Blaine is nice it could be fun, and help you make friends. Plus, music has certainly proven to be calming for you. However I will say this, if you do choose to go I don’t think you should join, at least for now. Singing could be a great comfort for you Kurt, but I think you need to take a break from performing for a while to make it really something positive. Just, sing for yourself for a while, and maybe in the future you can share it, because you want to. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, actually it does,” he laughed softly glad something did.

“Good, you know, despite what you might think, you’re very intuitive about this stuff. You just need a little direction right now, but in no time you will start to see it yourself.”

“Thanks,” Kurt replied blushing, “I hope you’re right.”

“Oh, just trust me,” she said. Trust, yeah Kurt thought I could trust her, I can.

“Alright, thank you, I think I’m going to go, check it out like he said. I just won’t sing.”

“That sounds like a good plan Kurt. I’ve got to go, good luck!” she said warmly.

“Bye,” Kurt said closing the phone. He took a breath and re-entered the cafeteria, his gaze quickly finding Blaine at a table with several other boys. He made his way over tentatively.

Blaine glanced up as he neared, “Oh hey, Kurt!” he said patting the seat next to him which Kurt took, glad it was at the end, slightly overwhelmed by the table full of boys. “You only had a couple slices a bread on your tray so I just grabbed a bit of everything,” Blaine added gesturing to the plate in front of Kurt.

He glanced down at it and his eyes bulged slightly. He knew normal teenage boys had big appetites, but seriously?!?!?! He couldn’t eat that in a month. However he just smiled at Blaine and said “Thanks,” and began to pick through it.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Blaine said glancing around to see that the rest of the boys were wrapped up in a rather dramatic conversation about changing the piping on their Warblers’ jackets. He turned to Kurt and said in a hushed tone, “You know you only have to come to Warblers practice if you want to, I just figured because you like to sing…well, just don’t feel pressured or anything.” He had noticed the way the boy had fled and could not imagine why but certainly didn’t want to force anything.

“No, no, I’d like to,” Kurt said, surprising himself at the confidence in his voice. “Just to check it out though, I think I should take some time to settle in and adjust before I get involved, you know?” He said using the phrase Blaine so often concluded his thoughts with, liking the ring it had.

“Yeah, sure, that makes sense.” Blaine responded smiling, knowing himself he was far too happy to hear Kurt was coming even for a day.

He turned to the rest of the table, “Hey guys, Kurt here is gonna come by Warbler practice today!” He said excitedly.

Suddenly Kurt was barraged with voices.

“Awesome!”

“What’s you’re favorite song?”

“What do you sing?”

“RED PIPING OR BLUE?”

“GUYS!” Blaine shouted, silencing the buzz, “It is seriously unfair for you to unleash your insanity on anybody that is not accustomed or prepared for it!” he lectured, his serious tone marred by his grin and the way his eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Blaine right guys,” Kurt recognized Wes from History class speaking up, “We are making a terrible impression of the dignified organization that is the Dalton Academy Warblers,” he said sitting a little straighter.

It was at this moment that the boys sitting across from Wes launched a spoon full of peas into his face.

“DAVID!” he roared jumping up and taking off after the boy who was already well clear out of his seat and laughing manically.

Kurt swore his very blood froze at the roar, but he noticed that same gleam Blaine had just had in his eyes in Wes’s and his heart began to beat again. He was fully placated when the other boy, David, stopped dead and turned around, catching Wes as he slammed into him and swinging him around, causing him to join in the laughter.

Blaine turned laughing to take in Kurt’s shocked face. “They’re like three-year olds when you put them together, but you get used to it, somehow, I swear.”

Kurt observed how the two boys returned to the table with huge smiles, even as Wes growled playfully, “You will pay for that, Thomson,” He turned to Blaine with a wicked grin. “How do you feel about another Katy Perry number?” Blaine’s gleeful shout was simultaneous with David’s desperate “NO!” as he slammed his head on the table, as everyone else laughed.

The dynamic was completely foreign to Kurt, but he agreed. It was definitely something he could get used to.