By the end of his second day at McKinley, Blaine had almost met every single one of his new teachers other than social studies and music. He had decided to take music as an elective as there was honestly no other one that even remotely interested him (art or culinary arts? Yeah right.) so to tell with it. He was good at it and taking the class didn't mean he would have to actually show anyone anything. But for now, his main concern was how the hell he was going to get passed his Mom without her noticing his fresh black eye. He pulled his motorcycle into the drive away and thankfully, her car was not there. Blaine remembered that Maricar had a meeting with her financial advisor over in Westerville today so she would most likely still be a few hours away. He walked into the grand foyer and hung up his jacket. Maybe if he cooked dinner for them both, he could eat it before she got home and he wouldn't have to face her? Blaine had a bit of a history of coming home with various levels of injuries from fights he would get into but he was trying to be better so as to not worry Maricar now that she was dealing with the fall out of the separation from his father. 

He ended up cooking some cacio e pepe for them both and he plated up some for his mother, intended on leaving it on the side for her but as he was doing so, the front door opened and in walked his mother. She looked tired but content. Blaine panicked. He quickly put her plate down and turned around to run upstairs but just as he took the first step, her voice called;

"Something smells nice! Couldn't wait for me to get home to eat?" She said with a smile. She took off her kitten heels and hung up her blazer before turning to see her son heaving upstairs.

"Hey, come and sit with me. Tell me about your day." Blaine stood still on the stairs, trying to think of a way out of this. He couldn't tell her he was sick after he'd cooked a full meal and eaten it and he couldn't think of another excuse. He turned around slowly, trying to only show her the side of his face that wasn't bruised. 

"Um, it was fine. Classes are easy, I've got music tomorrow so that should be fun." He said quickly, still standing at an awkward angle to hide his face. Maricar furrowed her brows and walked up to her son. Blaine quickly reached up to his curly hair and messed it up a little so that it fell across his face. 

"What's wrong?" She asked with sincere concern in her voice. Blaine felt so disappointed in himself, this was supposed to be a fresh start for the both of them. Blaine couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes so he just looked down.

"Nothing Mom, I'm just wiped. Maybe we could talk tomorrow?" He turned around to walk back upstairs but was abruptly stopped. 

"Blaine. Look at me." His mother spoke with intent and Blaine's stomach dropped. He sighed and turned around slowly to look at Maricar. She inhaled sharply when she saw the dark shadow across Blaine's face. Maricar reached up to push the hair out of her sons eyes, causing Blaine to pull away in an attempt to stop her. He saw the unmistakeable look of disappointment wash over her face. She looked at him for a few seconds before finally asking;

"Are you doing to tell me what happened?" Blaine thought about the events that had caused his injury.

"It wasn't like those other times. This jock was picking on some kid so I told him to knock it off. He called me a fag so yeah, I hit him and he hit back. The teacher stopped us before it got out of hand." Maricar's face relaxed slightly but her eyes were still haunted with concern.

"And what did this teacher do? Are you in trouble?" She asked expectedly. Blaine looked down and thought about the fact that he actually hadn't gotten into trouble for it which now that she brought it up, seemed weird.

"No...but the other guy got suspended..." Blaine replied, trying to figure out why he hadn't been given at least a detention for it. Maricar raised her eyebrow at his in disbelief but must have caught onto the fact that her son was also trying to figure out why.

"Well, I'm proud of you for standing up for someone else but Blaine, don't let it happen again." She finished and gave him a small smile before turning to go back to the kitchen. Blaine nodded and continued upstairs, entering his room and picking up his guitar. He played around with a few chords and wrote down some lyrics, cutting and changing them as he strung a song together. Blaine found that after a shitty day, sometimes getting it out in song was the only real way to empty his mind. It didn't take away the heavy ache behind his eye but it at least took some of his thoughts away.

"I feel like a loser,

I feel like I'm lost,

I feel like I'm not sure if i feel anything at all.

But believe me I'm not helpless,

I just need someone to love.

So my situations rough.

That just makes me a dumb human, 

Like you."

Blaine continued to scribble down some notes and wrote a rough score before stuffing it into a drawer in his desk with multiple other pieces of music he had previously written. He let out a sigh and took out a cigarette. He never smoked in the house, but his window was right next to a slope that he could limb to sit on the roof. It had gone dark now so there was no risk of some passer by in this upper class neighbourhood seeing and snitching to his mother. He grabbed his lighter and snuck out quietly before crawling up perching on one of the roof slopes. He took a drag and inhaled the cold night air deeply, feeling the nicotine rush through his blood, causing a wave of dizziness which quickly passed. 

...

Kurt was exhausted when Cheerios practice finally finished on Tuesday afternoon but he had one more thing he needed to do before he went home. He texted his Dad to let him know he would be having dinner with Mercedes and he jumped into his car and drove towards her house. Kurt knocked on her door and she opened it but before he could even say anything, Mercedes spoke.

"If you're here to tell me to concede to Sue then you can turn your white ass around and leave." Kurt threw his hands up in defence at her abrupt greeting.

"Ok, calm down. I just wanna talk." He replied cautiously. Mercedes move to the side and let him in and Kurt followed her to her bedroom. They sat on her bed which was dressed in deep purple sheets and had a few cream fluffy pillows. Mercedes looked at Kurt with a plain expression, making it clear she wasn't going to start.

"I just wanted to make sure you were ok. I heard that you got into it with Sue and we all know how brutal she can be." Kurt said gently. He didn't want to upset Mercedes, she was his best friend, after all. Kurt watched as Mercedes looked down and shook her head. Kurt saw a tear fall from her face and he held her hand.

"Mercedes. Talk to me." Kurt pleaded.

"I was kidding myself. I don't belong on the cheerios, Kurt." Her voice was shaky and breaking as her tears fell.

"What are you talking about? You are beautiful. You know you are! Where's this coming from?" Kurt felt completely helpless, Mercedes had always been so confident in her beauty so this was such a shock.

"I know I'm all kinds of crazy sexy, don't get it twisted but I guess Sue calling me out for what I eat and my weight just cut me kinda deep. And I don't wanna be part of something if I can't be myself. I'm sorry Kurt, I know this was meant to be our thing and I'll still support you and everything but I can't do it anymore." Mercedes finished and look at Kurt, her eyes still twinkling.

"I get it. I don't want you to change anything about yourself. Thanks for telling me." Kurt smiled at Mercedes and he pulled her in for a big hug.

"ooooh okay, okay. Enough sadness because today the gods were smiling down on you boy." Mercedes pulled back from the hug as she spoke and Kurt furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Karofsky got kicked out! Becky told Brittany that it was that new kid Blaine that got him suspended!" Kurt of course, already knew this but didn't want Mercedes to find out about his clandestine meetings with Blaine. 

"Yeah, Sue actually told me about it. Don't you think it's kinda odd that after everything Karofsky has done to me, and all of us, that now he gets suspended? This isn't the first time he's been in a fight - remember last year when Sam and him got into it in the locker room? So why now?" Kurt still couldn't quite put all the pieces together. 

"I don't know but it's about time! I had to get my weave redone after one of those damn slushie facials he gave me last year." Mercedes retorted.

They spent the rest of the evening gossiping and talking about the first glee rehearsal as they ate their dinner before Kurt went home and got himself ready for the day ahead.

...

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Blaine? I need to get going for this meeting with the developers, I'll be home late again. Love you!" Maricar's voice woke Blaine up just enough for him to mumble back;

"Love you too." He checked his phone to see the time and groaned. 7.48am. Knowing he was going to be late for school anyway, Blaine was in no rush. He got in the shower and started to slowly get ready. Blaine was never someone who cared a lot about what he wore. At Dalton, he worse a uniform so he hadn't had the need to pick out clothes for school in a while. He ended up picking up the same black, ripped jeans he wore on his first day and pulled on one of his many band tees. This one was an old Guns and Roses tour tee from their legendary tour Appetite for Destruction. His Dad was a huge rock band junkie back in the day and collected tour merch which he handed down to Blaine once he started to show an interest in music. It was one of the few things he was grateful for from his father. 

Blaine slung his vans backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his bike helmet from the hook on the foyer before locking the doors and heading off to school. He pulled into the carpark with was full of cars but quiet as classes had started a good half hour ago. Whilst walking through the halls, he checked his schedule and saw that he had calculus first. Another class he was very good at but got bored in very quickly. After walking up the stairs to the first floor, he found his classroom and walked through the door to see that every one had already taken their seats and were getting out their books. 

"Mr Anderson, I presume?" Came a croaky voice. Mrs Walker was an older woman who looked at though she was around when calculus was invented. Blaine nodded once and she gestured for him to take a seat. There was a seat free in the second row right next to the window. He walked over and noticed that Kurt was sat behind his one. He smirked and sat down but Kurt didn't look up, he just continued getting his things out. Blaine sat down and took out his book before being handed a textbook for the year. Blaine opened it and looked through the table on contents to see that he would coast through this class. 

"Mr Anderson, we're starting on page 4 with integral calculus and accumulation." Mrs Walker carried on talking as she began instructing the class on how to do the calculations. Blaine mindlessly worked through the textbook for the first 15 minutes before he was interrupted by a loud sigh and the sound of a pen being dropped onto the table. He turned around and was met with Kurt's face which was leaning on his fist as he furrowed his perfectly shaped brows. Kurt looked bored and frustrated at the page he was reading. At least it was the right one this time. Blaine turned back around and carried on with his work. He heard a few more huff and groans from Kurt's direction and as everyone started packing their books away, he turned around again to speak.

"I don't like hearing you moan when it's not for me." Blaine spoke softly. Kurt looked up at Blaine for the first time that day.

"When and why I will ever need this is beyond me." Kurt ignored Blaine's suggestive comment and got straight to the point.

"You're ennui throughout class suggested that you understood all of that?" Kurt continued. Blaine raised his eyebrow in confusion at the unfamiliar word but didn't comment on it.

"Full of surprises. Let me tutor you and you can return the favour with French?" Kurt bit the inside of cheek as he contemplated it. He sucked at pretty much every math subject and Blaine really did seem to know what he was doing, even Mrs Walker seemed impressed when she walked passed and looked at his book. Plus maybe it would be nice to spend some time with Blaine where they had a focus.

"Fine. I want a B in geometry and calculus by Christmas though." Kurt spoke as though he was challenging Blaine. Blaine stifled a smile and nodded in acceptance.

"Friday night, your place?" Blaine asked. Kurt felt the heat rise in his face, he didn't think about the fact that they would probably be spending time at one of their houses. 

"Oh, um, I can't Friday but maybe Saturday?" Kurt was panicking at his own words, he knew his Dad and Carole were away visiting Carole's sister so he would have the house to himself. Whilst this would avoid any awkward situations with his Dad, it also meant he and Blaine would be alone.

"Cool. Text me your address." And with that, Blaine winked and walked away before Kurt could tell him he didn't have Blaine's number. Kurt knew he would be seeing Blaine again in homeroom and a few other classes before the weekend anyway so he didn't worry too much. And perhaps he could ask Blaine to go to the Lima Bean and study there instead so nothing would get out of hand?