The first thing Blaine did when he returned from his Monday classes was to pick up his laptop and log onto Tumblr, where he was pleased to find not two, but four messages in his inbox. The first one was from Sam.
‘ofc! spn bfore glee club lol!'

Blaine smiled faintly at that and wrote a quick reply; ‘Yeah, haha, awesome!'

The two next messages were from anons, and from the look of it, the same one.

‘Wow, I really liked your last fic. It was hilarious,"

‘Oh, and your 11 cosplay is awesome btw. You look adorable!'

Blaine blushed faintly at the compliments. He didn't get anons often and especially not ones that commented on how he looked.

‘Thank you so much!' he answered the first one and hit publish. ‘Thanks! Cosplaying 11 was a ton of fun!' he wrote on the second message, publishing it without thinking more about the comment on his appearance.

The last message was from Kurt.

“Bullies are idiots. I'm so sorry, Blaine, you didn't deserve that. No one does. But I can't afford to transfer schools. I can't leave. I'm stuck here. For the rest of my school life. It's sad, but it's true. Why shouldn't I run from my problems when it seems to be the only solution? I'm not special, Blaine. I'm nobody. I only have one option and I'm coping. Just.”

Blaine smiled sadly as he read Kurt's message. On one side, it was nice to have someone who understood him, but at the same time, no one deserved to know what that felt like. When even getting out of bed in the morning was a struggle. When you were constantly watching your back. When everything was happening all at once but no one seemed to notice.

‘Kurt, please don't say that. You're special. You're talented and smart and beautiful and caring and perfect. There are always options, even if you can't always see them. Trust me, Kurt, things do get better.'

He hit send without really thinking about it, which in hindsight he probably should have. He'd just called Kurt beautiful. He'd just called his all-time favorite fic writer beautiful. While giving him tips on how to deal with bullies. Well. That definitely didn't happen every day.

Pulling his books out from his bag he decided to try and multitask homework and Tumblr for a while before he had to get to warblers practice. It didn't work out very well, and he ended up having to run through the hall to make it on time, books lying forgotten on his normally so tidy bed.

When he arrived at the meeting he was surprised to find that he wasn't actually that late. Apparently he had run from his dorm to the common room in under two minutes. That would explain why he was so out of breath.

Settling down next to a curious looking Jeff he patiently waited for the rest of the warblers to join them. “Just on time, as usual,” Jeff muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up, I was busy,” Blaine said, and elbowed his roommate lightly in the stomach. Blaine didn't actually see his face, but he was ninety nine percent sure that Jeff rolled his eyes at him.

“Sure you were. Busy.”

“Jerk.”

Blaine was sure Jeff wanted to reply, but just then Wes banged his gavel sharply, getting their attention. “Last week of rehearsals before Sectionals, guys. You better bring your a-game, every single one of you,” Wes said, waving his gavel threateningly. “Let's get started then. Everybody up and in positions.”

The next hour passed in a blur of choreography, singing, harmonizing and a few gavel-related injuries, thankfully not for Blaine, before they all headed off, either for dinner or, for the few people who drove home every night, for the parking lot.

Blaine found himself at a table with Jeff, Wes and David, discussing Sectionals. “Relax, Wes, we've been rehearsing like crazy for months, there's no way we're gonna lose this,” Jeff said with an eye roll.

Wes glared at him. “We can't afford to assume anything, Sterling, but yes, I'd like to think that we're fairly good prepared. I'm not really worried about beating the Hipsters; they seem harmless, really, but the New Directions might be a bigger problem. Even though they lost Regionals last year, we can't underestimate them.”

Blaine picked absentmindedly at his food, not saying anything. He was thinking about his friend Sam, and his other spn friend who was in the New Directions. He and Sam hadn't talked about Sectionals at all, and Blaine had never seen them perform anything. Could they really be that good? Blaine found that, surprisingly, he didn't care. He was just ecstatic that he was meeting someone else who shared his crazy obsession.

And with this in mind, he went back to his dorm room with Jeff and finished his homework, before taking a quick shower and changing into his pajamas. As he returned to his bed and picked up his laptop again, he found himself thinking back to the message he'd sent Kurt.

He really hoped he hadn't been overstepping. They hadn't really been talking to each other for that long after all. But at the same time, Blaine felt at ease while talking to Kurt. As if simply seeing that user-name on his screen could pause everything, if just for a few minutes. As if Kurt could give him a break from everything else going on in his life. Every test, every paper, every hour of rehearsal and every lonely night revisiting the memories from last year. Kurt somehow made all that go away, just by talking to him.

That thought fresh in his mind, Blaine put his laptop down by his bed, muttered as goodnight to Jeff, and fell asleep with a smile on his face.