When Blaine entered Warblers rehearsal later that day, he came to a sudden halt as he gaped at the giant screen that was somehow manoeuvred to stand in front of the council table. About half the Warblers were sitting around it, watching the screen with great interest as Don't stop believing by Journey sounded through the room.

Only it wasn't Journey performing the song; it rather looked like some sort of competition. A show choir competition, to be more precise.

Moving closer to the screen, Blaine realised with a start what his friends were watching. This must be New Directions' last year's Regionals performance. He had to admit, they were good. Not that he'd expected anything less, of course.

"Spying on the competition, guys, really?" Blaine glanced around as Flint walked in, rolling his eyes at the others.

Blaine watched as Wes glanced at the screen, frowning slightly, before turning back to Flint. "We didn't mean to."

"You didn't mean to spy on the competition?" Flint asked, sounding astonished.

"So… you're saying that this screen was already here and the performance was already playing and you accidentally sat down and watched?" Blaine asked, finding the whole situation to be both odd and funny, in a way.

"No, we did all that ourselves," Nick replied. "We just… didn't realise that we were spying on the competition." Still, he looked at screen with the same, if not bigger, interest as before.

Jeff eventually cracked under the combined pressure of Flint and Blaine. "We just really wanted to see Kurt."

Thad nodded earnestly. "And we figured it would be too creepy to collectively stalk him on Facebook, so we asked Nick to point him out in a performance."

"It's not really out fault that the only New Directions videos on Youtube are the ones from last year's competitions," David muttered.

"We weren't even paying any attention to what all the other people in his club were doing," Jeff said unashamedly, grinning proudly.

Blaine, however, didn't really know how to react to that. Apparently, his friends had all taken to somewhat obsessively stalking his boyfriend – not that they knew Kurt was his boyfriend – on the internet. He hoped that New Directions weren't returning the favour.

"For some reason, you sounded saner when you were just spying on the competition," Flint decided, finally sitting down on a couch. Blaine couldn't agree more.

Wes cleared his throat. "Let's put the screen away now, alright? We've got a meeting to hold, after all."

Before any of the younger Warblers came in, the room was put back in its normal state. There was no trace of anyone having spied (accidentally or not) on the competition. Blaine would need to question Wes about the matter later, though – after all, hadn't he and David (or whoever it had been) already seen Kurt before? He would never understand his friends.

During rehearsal, they ran through Hey, Soul Sister at least a dozen times before Wes was convinced that they were actually on schedule and ready to win Sectionals – even though that wasn't in another two weeks.

When Blaine walked back to his dorm after rehearsal, Nick called after him, "Hey, Blaine, wait up!"

"Hey, Nick," Blaine said as Nick caught up with him. "Is anything the matter?"

Nick shook his head. "Not really. Just wanted to make sure there are no hard feelings about me crashing your date yesterday."

"It wasn't a date, Nick," Blaine reminded him. "And if it hadn't been you, it probably would've been someone else, so no, no hard feelings."

Nick grinned at him. "You know," he started pensively, "the next time you're going to hang out with Kurt and a friend, you should totally tell one of the guys that are still single to tag along. James, for instance. He could… distract Kurt's friend, and you'd have him all to yourself."

"That's ridiculous," Blaine told him, though telling himself to remember that idea for a later time. Who knew when it could come in handy. "Besides, Kurt and I go for coffee all the time, so that's plenty of alone time, right?"

A snort came from Blaine's other side, and it seemed that Jeff had caught up with them as well. "Obviously, it's not enough alone time, or else you and Kurt would be dating by now."

This was probably the millionth time since Blaine had gotten back at Dalton on Saturday that one of his friends mentioned him dating Kurt (and there had also been another million times they'd mentioned it before then), and Blaine had to act all aloof and pretend nothing was going on. To make it all even worse, he felt guiltier each time it was mentioned, and he was starting to think that his friends actually knew that he and Kurt weren't just friends but were waiting for him to crack and just tell them.

Which was right about… now. He knew he should probably discuss this with Kurt first, but he couldn't keep it in any longer.

"Blaine?" Nick poked his shoulder. "Are you still alive down there?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "You're only, what, half an inch taller than me?"

"What happened? You completely zoned out," Jeff commented.

"Come on," Blaine said, stalking off towards his room, knowing without looking back (or using his ears – Nick and Jeff were pretty loud) that they'd follow. After all, they were very curious by nature.

Once they were in Blaine's dorm, Blaine closed the door and turned towards his two friends, who just stared back at him, and then at each other, non-understandingly.

"Blaine?" Nick asked again. "What's this all about?"

"You can't tell anyone else about this," Blaine told them urgently. "You can't."

"About what?" Jeff asked, his usual carefree demeanour having disappeared almost entirely.

"We're dating," Blaine blurted out. "Kurt and I – well, sort of. We've only been… together for a few days, after all."

"Oh my God, really?" Nick asked enthusiastically, while Jeff wore such a big grin Blaine was worried that his face might split in half. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Seriously, Nick and Jeff were worse than pre-teen girls sometimes.

"Because we didn't want anyone to find out just yet," Blaine replied. "I haven't met most of Kurt's friends yet, but from what Kurt's told me, they won't take too kindly to him dating a member of another show choir so shortly before a competition. And judging from Wes' reaction when I told all of you about that… I think he'd agree with them. Besides, like I said, we just got together. Neither of us has got any clue whatsoever about what to do and we just… want to take it slow. And that includes the telling other people part." He frowned for a moment. "I personally doubt my parents will like it very much, come to think of it."

Both his friends were grinning like Christmas had come early now. "So we're the first people you've told?" Jeff asked excitedly.

"Yes, you are, and that's also why you should keep it quiet for a little while longer. We'll tell everyone after Sectionals – maybe even at Sectionals, the details are still a little vague. We're keeping it under wraps for now."

"We're honoured," Jeff told him sincerely while he and Nick saluted. "You can count on us, Blaine."

"And we're really happy for you," Nick added. "I take back everything I said about you two, and especially Kurt, being so oblivious."

Jeff nodded. "So, now that we're done being sappy, I'm in desperate need of some action-packed video-gaming. Let's go."

o-o-o-o-o

That evening, Kurt called again, something which Blaine was almost oddly happy about. He'd come to find he really liked hearing his boyfriend's voice every day. Something seemed to be wrong, though, but Blaine couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. Kurt sounded off, somehow.

Filing that away for later, he decided to talk about something else first. "Hey, Kurt," he said cautiously, not quite knowing how to break the news to his boyfriend. He hoped that Kurt wouldn't get too mad at him. When Kurt hummed in response, he decided to just spit it out. "I told the guys. About us. Nick and Jeff – they know."

"They know?" Luckily, Kurt didn't exactly sound angry. Just... shocked.

"I know, and I'm sorry, Kurt." A little bit of grovelling wouldn't hurt, though, Blaine decided. "They just kept going on about what a shame it was we weren't dating and how silly we were being… I just felt so guilty."

"Okay," Kurt said quietly. "Okay, so… two of your friends know. And you're absolutely sure that they won't tell anyone else?"

Blaine hesitated for a moment. Jeff and Nick had promised not to tell anyone, but to be honest, he knew that the two of them often couldn't contain certain things if they were really happy about something. Apparently, Kurt had sensed his hesitance as well.

"It's not that I don't want anyone to know," he said. "I just… don't think that it'd be a good thing to have everyone know right now." Then, he added, "I understand the guilty feeling, though. Mercedes talked about you all day. She thinks that we ignored her a little too much last night. If I tell her, though… besides the fact that I'll probably never hear the end of it, it'll be only a matter of hours before the entire group knows. I love them, insanity and all, but I don't want to know what they'd do if they found out about us now."

"I'm pretty sure Nick and Jeff won't tell your friends, so you don't have to worry about that," Blaine tried to comfort him. "I wish I could say they'll keep their mouths shut, but sometimes, they don't even realise they've said something they shouldn't have said until after the damage is done. It'll all be fine, though, I'm sure of it."

"Let's hope so," Kurt muttered, and again, Blaine detected… something in his voice, but he couldn't be too sure what it was.

Deciding to let it slide for now, he asked, "Did Mercedes say anything else about last night, or does she just think I'm this guy who's trying to steal her best friend away from her?"

Kurt laughed at that for a second before replying. "She doesn't think that. She told me you're a very well-mannered guy, with no sense of fashion whatsoever, and who seems to make me happy even though you're too blind to see how fabulous I am."

"Did she talk to the others, by any chance?" Blaine asked curiously. "I'm pretty sure Nick was talking for hours, even though he'd met you for only about five minutes or so."

"She didn't, actually," Kurt responded. "Not that I know of, at least. Most of our friends spend all their time with their significant others and even if they're not, I doubt they're very interested in hearing about my life. Unless, of course, it involves me dating a member of a competing show choir."

Some time later, when Blaine had finished telling Kurt about his friends' rather… interesting attempt at learning more about him, there was only silence. "Kurt?" he asked worriedly. "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Kurt replied, breathing heavily for some reason. "Really, Blaine. It's – fine."

"Kurt," Blaine repeated. "Something's obviously bothering you. You know you can tell me, right?" When Kurt didn't respond, Blaine asked, almost afraid of the answer, "Does it have to do with the bullying?"

It took a moment, but eventually, Kurt replied, "Yes. It does. It's nothing I can't handle, though. Karofsky's… been getting worse, lately, but for some reason, the other guys – Sam, Mike… Artie, even though he's in a wheelchair, and Puck, although he can't do much or he'll go straight back to juvie, they're all helping out a little. They're sort of sticking up for me now, sometimes, even though it's not really their problem."

And while Blaine was more than grateful that Kurt's friends finally seemed to acknowledge the fact that the bullying Kurt had to deal with was getting out of hand, he frowned nevertheless. Deciding to file Kurt's final remark away for later discussion, he asked, "What about Finn?" Kurt hadn't mentioned his soon-to-be-stepbrother, after all. "Is he doing something too?"

"Finn's… kind of worried about his reputation," Kurt muttered. "It's fine. He already has to deal with the fact that our parents are getting married, so…"

"So he should be the first person to stand up for you," Blaine said. He would do so himself, but the fact that they went to different schools made it a little difficult.

"Blaine," Kurt admonished him. "It doesn't matter."

"We'll talk about this later," Blaine said. "How's the wedding planning going?"

That appeared to be a good question, as Kurt then proceeded to tell him all about the upcoming wedding. Blaine honestly didn't know why the bride- and groom-to-be had opted to get married so quickly (in only a few days!), but for Kurt, is seemed to be no problem.

"You're coming, right?" Kurt asked at some point.

"I am?" Blaine asked, surprised. "I'm invited to your parents' wedding? Isn't that a little… too soon? They don't even know we're together."

"You're still a good friend," Kurt reminded him. "Plus, my dad likes you. And even if you weren't invited, I'd just take you as my… non-date, or something."

"To keep up appearances." Blaine grinned. "Sure, I'd love to come."

Again, Kurt was silent, but it was a different silence this time. "Is it a bad thing that I miss you already?" he asked, and Blaine could almost hear the slightly abashed smile.

"I miss you too," Blaine reassured him. "I suppose that's all part of the deal, right?" Kurt seemed to agree with that. "Hey, you know what?" he suddenly asked. "Wes scheduled an all-afternoon Warblers practice tomorrow, even though we hardly need it seeing as he decided today that we're perfectly on schedule. I could come to McKinley to see you, perhaps?"

"You can't just bail on them," Kurt exclaimed, sounding shocked.

Blaine shrugged. "It'll be fine. I'll explain everything to Wes later. Besides, they'll probably just going to watch a movie if I'm not there. Or run through the back-up singing. The council knows I'm practising all the time, so it shouldn't be much of a problem."

"You really don't need to do that," Kurt replied quickly, but Blaine shook his head, remembering too late that Kurt couldn't see him.

"But what if I want to?"