Chapter 1

A slight breeze blew from over the Lake Erie, making the scorching heat just a little bit more bearable. The relatively secluded beach was practically empty, save for Kurt and Blaine’s blankets, towels and clothes spread over the sand. Kurt was lying outstretched on his back, his hands comfortably tucked under the nape of his neck and serving as a pillow. Despite the thick layer of sun cream he had applied on his skin, he could feel the sun almost burn it, while his complexion obstinately stayed ghost white.

They had already spent a week in Port Clinton, swimming in the lake, sunbathing (with various results), and doing everything there was to do during summer holidays in a small town on the lakes. In the evenings they would all go to a restaurant they still hadn’t tried, or barbecue in the small yard of their rented cottage. Usually during the days, Kurt and Blaine would leave Burt, Carole and Finn at the cottage and head to the Lake. Finn spent much of his time Skyping with Rachel anyway, so his mother could have a little alone time with her boyfriend.

A rustle of footsteps on sand disturbed Kurt’s thoughtless bliss in the sun, and he lifted an eyelid a fraction under his sunglasses. Blaine was coming back from a swim, water dripping from every inch of his body, his curls sagged around his face, a stream flowing from each. Unlike Kurt’s, his skin had darkened significantly since their arrival, a thin pale line peeking from over his wet swimming shorts.

‘What’s up?’

Kurt rolled his eyes, even though Blaine couldn’t see them through his glasses.

‘Nothing new since you left, um- fifteen minutes ago?’

‘Right.’

Blaine flopped onto his blanket, a damp outline of his body immediately appearing on the fabric. Kurt didn’t stir, and silence pervaded for a moment, broken only by the sounds of nature surrounding them.

‘Kurt?,’ Blaine started. His tone hadn’t been this uncertain in any of their conversations in months.

Kurt opened his eyes and sat up to look at Blaine, who was half lying, propped on his left elbow and facing his friend.

‘Yeah?’

‘I was thinking lately… I mean pretty much since the summer began… What would you say if I transferred to McKinley?’

Kurt’s jaw dropped so low it almost touched his blanket.

‘What?’

‘Me. Transferring. To McKinley. What do you think?’

Kurt pulled his eyebrows together, considering Blaine’s idea. A huge part of him wanted to shout out with joy and jump around like crazy, and telling his friend, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, please, do transfer!’ But another, relatively tiny voice in the back of his brain whispered, ‘No, no, it’s a terrible idea’.

‘Why would you want to transfer?,’ he asked eventually, his thoughts still fighting each other. ‘I mean, the Warblers even gave you a solo in the spring, right? And they said they would again… And Dalton’s such an amazing school. And what about the fact that you don’t live nowhere near Lima? And there’s the zero tolerance policy at Dalton…’

Blaine sighed; he wished his best friend was more excited about his idea, but he had to admit Kurt had a point.

‘Yeah, I know all that.’ He grimaced. ‘But apart from all that, what would you say if I transferred?’

This time, Kurt couldn’t resist and his lips curled up into a smile.

‘That would be amazing! I mean, I’ve got Mercedes and the others at McKinley, but having you around there would be just so much better. Did you think I wouldn’t want to have my best friend at the same school?’

‘Great.’ Blaine was now beaming, too. ‘And the rest I could figure out, I guess.’

‘How? You can’t really make McKinley as good a school as Dalton, or anything. The only thing you could theoretically do, is move to Lima, but I don’t really see that happening, either, not with your parents on their short, short leashes stretching just between your house and the hospital.’

Blaine kept on nodding, as Kurt pointed all this out, right again. There was, however, an idea that had crept into Blaine’s mind a little while ago, seeming entirely ridiculous, but beginning to make more and more sense every time he turned it around in his thoughts. Until now, though, he hadn’t mentioned it to Kurt.

‘Did I ever tell you I have an aunt?,’ he asked, lifting his eyes up at Kurt. ‘That my mother has a younger sister?’

‘No. You never mentioned an aunt.’ Kurt frowned, not understanding what Blaine was getting at.

‘Well, I have one. Supposedly, at least, I guess I haven’t seen her since I was like twelve or something.’ He noticed Kurt’s growing confusion, so he went to the point. ‘Anyway, she lives in Lima.’

Kurt’s eyebrows shot up, just to fall back into a frown a couple of seconds later.

‘So, you’re saying you’re going to ask your aunt to go live with her? And your parents to let you?’

‘Yup, that’s the plan.’

Another minute passed in silence, as Kurt was thinking Blaine’s idea over, mentally listing problems that could crop up.

‘What about Dalton? Won’t your parents mind if you go back to a public school?’

Blaine shrugged and lay back down onto his blanket.

‘I don’t think so. I used to go to a public school once, and they love bitching about the tuition at Dalton.’

‘There was also a reason you transferred to Dalton,’ Kurt pointed out in a small voice. ‘And it’s not like there are rainbows and cotton candy all over McKinley, you know that.’

The painful memory of the November night almost two years ago crossed through Blaine’s brain, but he pushed it back immediately. How bad would his luck have to be for anything like that to happen again? And he could deal with being served slushies to the face and even tossed into dumpsters, he’d persevered at Westerville North and then he hadn’t had a friend to have his back all the way.

‘I know. But at Dalton, I don’t really have any friends. I mean, there’s Wes, and David, and even Jeff or Nick, but we’re not as close as the New Directions, and definitely not as close as you are to me, so… It’s more of a social than an educational thing.’

Kurt smiled sadly in response, understanding perfectly what Blaine meant. Until recently, he could swear he only had Blaine, and maybe Mercedes to call friends, but gradually the Glee club seemed to be becoming a tight-knit group, brought together by Quinn’s mid-regionals labour and the ups and downs of all the complex relationships among the members.

‘And what about your aunt? Do you think she’d let you move in with her?,’ he asked.

‘No idea,’ Blaine sighed. ‘That’s the problem, I guess. But if I don’t try, I’m gonna regret it.’

‘Sure.’ Kurt slid his sunglasses up his nose, and returned to his previous position on his blanket. ‘Whatever you do, you know you can count on me, right?’

‘I know.’

Identical contended smiles arched the boys’ mouths.