"Cancelled? What? Why?" Slightly embarrassed by the word vomit coming from his mouth, Blaine quickly shut it, blinking at Kurt curiously.

The other boy smiled apologetically. "We figured it would be best. Do you know Sue Sylvester, from Sue's Corner?"

Blaine thought for a moment. "The blond woman in the tracksuit who has an opinion about everything and seems to hate everyone who doesn't agree with her?"

Kurt nodded. "That's her. Apparently, she prepared something about arts in high school for the opening night of Rocky Horror. We decided that we'd better see it as a warning and not risk the Glee club getting cancelled."

"But why?" Blaine was still puzzled. "There's nothing she could do about it, could she?"

"Sue Sylvester is the cheerleading coach at our school," Kurt informed him. "She's at constant war with our Glee director, something about the budget. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but she's always searching for reasons to bring the club down." He seemed to think for a moment. "According to our director, if she had aired that particular episode on the opening night, there would've been a lot of uproar about our show. It would bring negative attention to the school and our club, and the principal might deem it appropriate to get rid of our Glee club."

"Is it really that bad?" Blaine asked, frowning slightly.

"You have no idea how often New Directions has almost ceased to exist in just over a year," Kurt replied wryly. "Anyway, let's talk about something else, okay? I don't think we should really be talking about our Glee clubs, especially with Sectionals coming up."

Blaine nodded and took a swig from his latte. "That's fine with me," he replied. Honestly, they could talk about anything, as far as he was concerned – Kurt being here at all was enjoyable enough in itself.

"Did your car give you anymore trouble?" Blaine looked up just in time to catch a fleeting smirk on Kurt's face and he managed to resist the urge to stick out his tongue.

"No, it didn't," he said defiantly. His parents had been a different story entirely. After he had told them why he was so late, they had spent the rest of the weekend telling him off. He himself didn't think it was such an unfortunate timing for his car to break down. But maybe that was just him. And maybe he wasn't the most unbiased person to ask the opinion of. "So thanks," he added in an afterthought, when Kurt didn't react.

The other boy smirked again. "I really should've counted the amount of times you've thanked me so far," he told Blaine.

"You would've lost count by now," Blaine countered, knowing that he wasn't exactly helping his own case by saying this.

"Probably," Kurt agreed, grinning wickedly.

Blaine was very glad that Kurt had, eventually, warmed up to him. He had no idea how he could've convinced him to meet him for coffee if Kurt had remained as stoic and… well, cold as he had at first appeared.

"I still can't believe you actually work in a car shop," he said, even though they'd had that discussion already the week before. It seemed impossible to think it was only a week ago that Blaine's car had started breaking down close to Lima – they'd kept in touch almost constantly this entire week, so it was like they had known each other for much longer.

"It's one of the few things my dad and I can bond over," Kurt admitted, staring down at the table. "You know, I'm actually glad that Finn has two left hands as well as two left feet. Well, when it comes to cars, that is, and dancing. He's an okay football player."

"Finn?" Blaine prompted. In all the texts they'd exchanged, Finn wasn't a name that had come up.

"Oh, I hadn't told you about that yet," Kurt said, sounding surprised. "Sorry, I thought – well, Finn's my dad's girlfriend's son. My almost stepbrother, if you will. He's one of the co-captains of New Directions."

"You're talking about your Glee club again," Blaine warned him, smiling a little. "So… why is it a good thing that this Finn doesn't know anything about cars?"

Kurt looked a little sullen now, and Blaine wondered if he was being too nosy again. "He and my dad have so much in common already," Kurt responded in the end. "It's like Finn's the son my dad always dreamt of having but never had."

Shifting uncomfortably, Blaine stared at the table for a moment before looking back at Kurt. He couldn't really come up with anything to say to that, but it was obvious that this was a rather upsetting topic for Kurt.

"That… sucks," he commented in the end. Less than a second later, he felt like smacking himself. "But uh – what about your mother, then?" he continued, eager for a topic change.

"She died nine years ago," Kurt replied, looking even more sullen than before, and Blaine was just about ready to strangle himself. Way to get a guy to like him.

"I'm sorry," he therefore said. "I – didn't realise. Gosh, I'm really asking you all the wrong questions…"

"That's fine," Kurt tried to wave it off as nothing. "It's not like you're the first to ask." In an afterthought, he added, "Or maybe you are. People generally aren't all that interested in me. At least not in my personal life." Seeing Blaine's confused face, he explained, "They're mostly interested in throwing me in dumpsters, or throwing slushies at me, stuff like that."

"How can you say that like those are normal things to do?" Blaine asked, gaping slightly. "That sounds awful. They shouldn't be doing that."

"It is normal," Kurt replied with a shrug. "For me, at least. And for the other kids in Glee club – well, partly. The slushies, and the name-calling. We're sort of at the bottom of – and I'm doing it again. Sorry."

"No, it's fine with me, don't apologise." Blaine was grinning again. "You must really love it."

"It's the best part of school," Kurt muttered. "No, scratch that. It's the only good part about it." With a deep sigh, he continued, "Can we just talk about something else? I must sound like some awfully depressed teenager right now, and I can assure you, I'm not."

So then, Blaine found himself talking about the Warblers, because if Kurt loved his Glee club so much, Blaine might as well talk about his. The other boy's eyes were as wide as saucers when Blaine mentioned that the Warblers were actually pretty popular in school.

"You're kidding," Kurt just said flatly. "There are actually schools where being in Glee club isn't frowned upon? You're popular? We are like the biggest losers in school."

"Really? How's that even possible?" Now it was Blaine's turn to be shocked.

"Singing and dancing is deemed… gay, by the jocks, and they're the popular kids in school. Even the other guys – they're all on the football team, ironically enough, have to deal with a lot of shit for being in Glee club. And the girls – half of them are on the cheerleading squad, so they're relatively safe, but the others are deemed losers as well."

"But you're still there. You haven't given up yet, your club still exists. That's good for something too, isn't it?" Thankfully, this earned Blaine a true smile.

"Yeah, that's true," Kurt admitted. "We're like one big family. It's nice."

"See?" Blaine said. "I don't really think of my fellow Warblers as family – the club's nice and all, but we've never had to fight for its existence. We sort of take it for granted, so we take each other for granted."

"So what is your family like?" Kurt asked curiously. "Your real family, I mean. You know about mine now – you know my dad, you know what he does… you know about my stepbrother and stepmum…"

"Fair enough," Blaine laughed. "I… don't have any brothers or sisters. My father works for the government – as does my mother, as a matter of fact. I don't exactly know what it is they do, but apparently, they're important. Last weekend was one of the few these past months that they were both home. They're… alright, with me being gay, but I could tell last week that they're not quite as supportive as your dad."

"My dad's great," Kurt said with a smile. "So your parents are important people, then? You don't seem like a typical spoilt rich brat," he mused, then hastily shut his mouth. "Sorry, that came out wrong – "

"No, that's fine," Blaine told him hastily. "People tend to assume that pretty often. But there are a lot of those kids at Dalton, so…"

"How charming," Kurt said with a grin. "So it's a typical boarding school for kids with rich parents, hm?"

"Sort of," Blaine admitted. "Okay, not everyone necessarily boards there, but the biggest part of the student population comes from a rich and important family. The fees are pretty high, too. But of course, the education is fantastic, and there's a zero-tolerance policy against bullying." He knew he'd told Kurt most of this the weekend before as well, but Kurt had been working on his car at the time, and probably hadn't been paying much attention.

"There is?" Kurt looked positively delighted by this. "That sounds great, Blaine. But – why did your parents send you to a public school in the first place?" Kurt sounded curious now. "If they could've afforded to send you to Dalton from the beginning, why put you through the misery of having to attend a… normal school?"

"The bullying was never that bad in middle school," Blaine replied, staring at his plate with great interest. "I mean, sure, there was quite a lot of name-calling, but it got much worse pretty early on in high school. I couldn't walk down a hallway without getting some homophobic slur thrown at me. I guess I wasn't strong enough to deal with that, so I ran." He was fully aware of the degree of contempt and self-hatred must be audible in his voice.

"Hey," Kurt said. "Blaine – you're not weak, alright? You're not a coward, or anything. Those bullies, they're the cowards. They feel so bad about themselves that they have to bully someone else to feel remotely good about themselves. It's sad, but we're the ones who'll eventually get stronger and make it to the top, not them. They'll be the ones working for us later. No – they'll work for the ones who work for the people who work for us."

"Thanks, Kurt," Blaine responded, smiling at the boy in front of him. "You're right. We're much better than them."

"Of course I'm right," Kurt huffed, but Blaine could easily detect the amused glint in his eyes.

"Is that how you get through the day?" he suddenly asked. "Sorry – was that too much?"

"No, it's fine," Kurt said, sounding slightly nervous. "But yeah, it is." He let out a hollow sounding laugh. "You need something like that to survive all the abuse you suffer as one of the losers in public school." With a shrug, he added, "I'm fairly sure the entire club has a similar mantra."

Blaine was about to repeat the fact that they should not even have to have such a mantra, but he was sure that Kurt was aware of this himself. He quickly changed the topic – there were, after all, so many other things they could talk about that didn't have anything to do with their own lives. And though Kurt seemed momentarily disappointed that Blaine wasn't really into fashion, and though Blaine felt the same way when Kurt announced that he wasn't what you'd call a big football fan (or one at all, even), there was still much to discuss. Like the newest Broadway shows and the latest Vogue, and all kinds of things Blaine normally didn't talk about, because none of his friends at Dalton knew anything about those subjects, or were interested in them.

It was refreshing, to say the least.

Even though they were only supposed to have lunch together, they stayed where they were for much longer than that. Not that Blaine minded – or Kurt, he figured. The other boy didn't seem to have a problem with speaking his mind, so if he was bored, he probably wouldn't hesitate to say so.

"We might as well order some dinner soon," Blaine commented jokingly as he checked his watch. Kurt eyed him disbelievingly.

"You're kidding," he said. "It's really that late already?"

"Did you have to be somewhere?" Blaine asked worriedly. That wasn't good.

Thankfully, Kurt shook his head. "No, I don't, but I guess my dad will be wondering what's taking me so long. Won't your parents?"

"They're not home at the moment," Blaine replied. "I'm just staying at Dalton for the weekend. It's no big deal, I'm used to it." Nevertheless, Kurt looked concerned for a moment, before he snapped out of his daze.

"Maybe we should go, though. There's always next weekend, right?"

Blaine could just feel his face lighting up. "You mean you want to do this again?" He was sure his stomach was doing somersaults.

Kurt looked vaguely amused. "Sure, why not? I mean, if you don't have anything coming up…"

"No, I don't," Blaine hastily replied. "Nothing at all. Next weekend sounds fantastic. And we can always text, right?"

"Right, how could I forget?" Kurt said, rolling his eyes playfully.

Before Kurt could even pull out his wallet, Blaine had paid the bill already, insisting that he pay, as he had been the one to invite Kurt for lunch. Kurt retaliated by saying that in that case, he'd pay next weekend – something Blaine felt almost obligated to prevent, but he'd worry about that in a few days. Not while he was driving back to Dalton – he was already distracted enough by the fact that he'd just had lunch with Kurt, and they were doing it again next week.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Almost two weeks later, after rehearsal, Blaine was just itching to text Kurt. Not that he normally wasn't, but now, the urge was even bigger. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed a quick message.

Did you hear the news about Sectionals yet? ;)

He didn't need to wait for too long before Kurt replied, which wasn't unusual.

You bet. Prepare to lose, Anderson ;)

Blaine laughed out loud at that. Lose? He didn't think so. Although he didn't like the thought that them winning would mean New Directions (and, most importantly, Kurt) losing, he was too psyched by the prospect that maybe, just maybe, they could win Sectionals this year. No Vocal Adrenaline in sight – it was like a dream come true for the Warblers.

Does this mean we have to stop hanging out?

He certainly hoped not, but after hearing Kurt's horror story about Jesse St James, he wouldn't be too surprised. Luckily, Kurt didn't see a problem here.

I don't see why. Same place, same time, this weekend?

Grinning, Blaine typed a reply. Sure, this news meant that he'd have to refrain from asking Kurt out properly until after the competition, but he could wait.

I'll meet you there :)