Kurt H. HELP ME. Im at glee rehearsal and theyre arguing about song choices and its so boring that I dont even care anymore.

Blaine A. I thought that was why you wanted to be at school today.

Blaine A. Your dad would have let you stay home some more.

Kurt H. It WAS. But not anymore. This is the worst.

"What do you think, Kurt?" Mister Schuester asked, snapping Kurt out of his daydream. He looked up from his phone.

"Hm? Oh, its fine." Everyone glared at him in shock, because Kurt was not usually one to sit passively throughout these conversations. There needed to be someone who would debate against Rachels suggestions to stop it from being a dictatorship and he was willing to argue with her about them.

"Are you okay?" Mercedes asked him once general conversation had diverted away from Kurt again, "who are you texting, anyway?" A whole week had gone by since Darcy had been kidnapped by JetCat, since Jeff and Nick had kissed, since Burt had met Blaine.

"Im fine, honestly."

"And the second part of that question?" If Kurt was going to introduce the concept of the LARP to his best friend now seemed like as good a time as any, and answering with the full truth as to who he was texting would mean answering follow up questions about where he had met anyone worth texting outside of glee.

"His name is Blaine," Kurt said quietly, near mumbling to try and avoid more attention being drawn to them. Mercedes face lit up.

"Youre texting a boy? A friend boy? A boyfriend?"

"A friend, yes. From my roleplaying group?" Mercedes wrinkled up her nose.

"The Monday-Wednesday-Friday thing?"

"Yeah, thats it."

"You like him," Mercedes said confidently.

"I like him," Kurt admitted. He looked down at his phone again to see another message had come in.

Blaine A. Doesnt Marley do glee club with you?

Kurt H. Nope, shes terrified of Rachel.

Blaine A. Ah, I see.

Blaine A. Rachel Berry, Rachel?

Kurt H. Thats the one. You know her?

Blaine A. Ive seen her at some auditions and stuff.

Blaine A. Marley really is a lot like Glam, huh?

Blaine A. You know, with how scared she is of anyone vaguely more authoritative than her.

Kurt H. Rachel does not deserve to be likened to the fabulousness that is JetCat.

Blaine A. Ah. I see how it is.

"Kurt, can you put your phone down for two minutes and pay attention?" Rachel snapped. He suppressed a laugh at her timing. Kurt held up his hands in defencelessness before he picked the phone back up as Rachel carried on her next tangent, her attention sufficiently diverted from whether or not he was using his phone.

"I have told you like, three times now to stop texting your boyfriend," Mercedes said, far gentler than Rachel.

Kurt H. Mercedes keeps telling me to stop texting my boyfriend and pay attention.

Blaine A. I thought you didnt have a boyfriend? ;)

Kurt tried not to let the wink emoticon get the better of him, especially when he had suggested to the others that he would put his phone away soon. Was it wrong of him to think of it as being flirty?

Kurt H. She means you, you know.

Blaine A. I know, I was just teasing you. Im only your boyfriend for two and a half hours or so at the most per week.

Kurt H. Thats true. That includes today :D

Blaine A. Yes! Except no Nightarcy date, since Darcy is still trapped in Jets lair. :(

Kurt thought that maybe he should interpret the emotion behind it better than seeing it as disappointment that they werent roleplaying a date. Perhaps in good time they would be able to go on dates without the characters to hide behind. It already felt so natural to hold his hand or hug him, and he felt himself drifting to fantasies of other kinds of physical affection. I wasnt that he didnt love their playful, flirty banter, but he couldnt help thinking about Blaines lips. A lot.

Kurt H. When WILL Nightbird come to save him?

Blaine A. All will be revealed in time.

Kurt H. You might get an angsty Darcy.

"Kurt, if you dont concentrate Im going to confiscate your phone," Rachel threatened. Kurt looked up to find her standing right up close to him, looming over him. He didnt think it was possible for such a short girl to loom. She held out her hand expectantly, and Kurt slid his phone into his pocket. Rachel sighed but accepted the answer, returning to the whiteboard which had a list of song choices drafted up on it. "Okay, so to recap, Sam and Quinn will open with The Time of My Life, then our best shot is an upbeat group number, for which we have these ideas-" Rachel circled a group of bullet points, "and then Ill sing a solo to close, which I will personally hand pick."

"Wait, this is what I was missing?" Kurt exclaimed. They still had time to argue, after all.

By the end of glee they hadnt gotten much farther with their debating of the set list. They were settled on Sam and Quinns duet (Kurt suspected that Rachel thought they needed enough advance warning to practice it), but they were no closer to deciding which songs their others would be. They had managed to talk Rachel out of a solo all to herself and into a song where they could rotate the solos, as so that she couldnt be the one to pick just for the sake of showcasing her own vocal range, though the exact song was still to be chosen.

With the school near silent as they left, the glee club made their way out to the parking lot to collect their cars. There werent many cars still there, but that was how it always was. Everyone had usually gone home by the time their practice was over, except a few teachers or other clubs. They themselves only stayed for the sake of their club. "Kurt!" Marley said, walking quickly towards his small group of glee members. Kurt hadnt even noticed her waiting.

"Hey, Marley," Kurt greeted, "do you want to come to the session with me? We can drop by your place to grab your costume, if you want."

"Yeah, that would be great!" Rachel glared at Kurt and Marley.

"Kurt, what are you doing hanging around freshmen nobodies?" Rachel asked. Marley visibly cowered in on herself, trying desperately to avoid confrontation with Rachel. Kurt knew how threatened by her she already felt, and he wasnt going to let her feel any worse in Rachels presence.

"Excuse me?" Kurt said, stopping walking and causing the group to stop around him. "Rachel, this is Marley, a friend from my Live Action Roleplaying group. Yes, my friend. Newsflash, Rachel, youre just a junior nobody. Were all nobodies. Glee club is the epitome of being nobody. Marley has been a better friend to me in the last three weeks than you have been in the last three years." Rachel just blinked at him, surprised at the outburst. Kurt felt oddly proud by how he handled the situation. He wasnt one to keep quiet when he disagreed, but he wasnt used to standing up for himself or anyone else.

Kurt kept walking and Marley and Mercedes followed, but the rest of the group seemed to stay startled and didnt move right away. He heard someone consoling Rachel, though he had no clue why, but Kurt couldnt care less. "Where did that come from, Kurt?" Mercedes asked, "You just sassed Miss Berry. Hard." He smiled proudly.

"Were friends?" Marley said finally.

"Of course were friends, Marley. Why wouldnt we be?" Kurt said. He unlocked his car as they neared it. Marley didnt respond, but Kurt took that to be a positive sign of her acceptance. He wasnt surprised that she was being quieter, even more timid than usual, after a confrontation with Rachel.

"Could I come with you, Kurt?" Mercedes asked almost shyly, though she paled in comparison to Marleys introversion, "I want to meet your other friends. Im just worried about you, boo, and I need to know what these other friends of yours have that we dont."

Kurt sighed. "Is this about Blaine?" Mercedes shrugged and Marley laughed quietly to herself knowing the full extent of Blaine and Kurts relationship. Maybe the way he had called Marley his friend, even one of his better friends, had set Mercedes off. He thought that she probably getting defensive about their friendship.

"You know he used to never come to the socials before you started?" Marley said. Mercedes gave Marley a look to ask for further details, but Marley wasnt really used to interpreting Mercedes gossip facial expressions.

"You can come with us, if you want. Just... try not to ask too many questions?" Kurt continued as he was ignoring the girls, she agreed and they all got into the car, stopping off by Marleys house briefly before heading to the park.

Kurt put on his leather jacket and Marley put her cape on as they walked towards the group, Mercedes in tow looking surprised by how they were adjusted to their routine of finishing off their costumes almost in sync. "Superheroes?" Mercedes asked in clarification, and Kurt nodded. "Which one is your boy?"

"The one in the black bodysuit," Kurt pointed out, "Behave, Jones." The group started to diffuse almost as soon as they got to it, so Kurt introduced Mercedes to Erica and Luke, who stayed sitting on the bench. Hadley scurried off as he approached them, clearly still embarrassed about what had happened with Blaine. Kurt seemed to be the only other person to know about what she had said about Blaine, and he didnt blame her for wanting to keep it that way.

"Shouldnt you be in a holding pen in a lair somewhere?" Erica teased Kurt.

"Shouldnt you be kidnapping everyone else?" Kurt replied, "and shouldnt you be trying to save us?" he said in Lukes direction.

"Its not my fight, yet. White Wings is suspiciously absent, and I can coach Mercedes through the session, if you want?" Kurt looked hopefully at Mercedes, asking permission nonverbally to run off and join in. She rolled her eyes.

"Go on, Kurt." He was quick to leave and join the others who had been kidnapped sitting on the grass not too far away. He watched as Mercedes replaced Erica on the bench, and Luke began to point things out to her, chatting amiably. He figured they would be having a similar conversation to the one he had had with Erica the first week he had stumbled across them.

Kurt looked around the cluster. This had been the first time since Kurt had been part of the roleplay that everyone had been put together so closely and he could really examine the dynamics of the characters and the conversations that they had. Darcy and Hawkbeak were the first two to have been kidnapped by JetCat and Glameow, but in the last few sessions they had been joined by Unique, Yvonne, Braxton, Drew, and Constable Carlton. It was only as Erica settled herself down in front of Kurt that he realised how much time he had passed observing the group. She rested her chin on her hands with her arms propped on her knees, ignoring Hadleys whining, Nick and Leos harmless in character flirting, Jeffs glaring in their direction and Uniques boredom at the whole set up.

"I need to crack your mystery, Darcy," Erica said, "what makes you so special that the Nightbird cant resist you?"

"Maybe you should ask him that," Kurt replied with a sigh, "you know, when he turns up to save us, finally."

"Youre more than hero bait to me, my dearest Darcy. I cant just let him turn up until youve finished working with me. Tell me the whole story. How did you end up in Dreamweaver?" Kurt felt like he had repeated Darcys back story hundreds of times since he had been there.

"I finished studying overseas; this is where my family is. Also, the newspaper in town is in desperate need of a new editor, and I can do that once I work my way up the ranks, which Im sure will happen since I have so much insider knowledge about the heroic and villainous happenings in the town. What makes me so important to you? What have I got that makes me so much more special than any of these others?"

"Besides your insider knowledge, as you say? Thats what Im trying to figure out, sweetie. Whatever you have is what he has. There is some advantage he has from picking you up, and I just cant work out what that is."

"Im not a tactic," Kurt said defensively.

"Of course not. I guess well just have to ask him after all, huh?" Erica smiled wickedly and turned around. "Glameow? Bring him in." Marley led Blaine into the middle of the group, his hands held firmly behind his back as he struggled against her grip. He looked at Kurt with the most dejected facial expression Kurt had ever seen on him.

"Darcy..." Blaine breathed out. Kurt stood up and tried to approach him, but Erica was quick to grab him before they were in touching distance of one another. Kurt tried to reach for Blaine, thinking about how long Darcy and Nightbird had been separated, all the missing and longing and new love, but was quickly grabbed again by Erica.

"Glameow, why dont we leave these boys to their reunion? Let him go," Erica said, releasing Kurt herself, "do have fun with our new friends too, Glam." She took off, running towards the bench, leaving the new arrivals with the group. Marley realised what had just happened to her character and sat down, leaving Kurt and Blaine to it. Blaine closed the gap, wrapping his arms around Kurt. For a moment he felt relieved, and realised that was all Darcy, then came the familiar fluttery feeling that Kurt was hugging Blaine.

"Im so glad youre okay," Blaine said, "you are okay, right? She didnt hurt you?" Kurt shook his head.

"No, Im good. Better now that youre here, boyfriend." He let the word hang for a moment, and he watched as Blaine smiled fondly at the memory of Nightbird and Darcys last date before the kidnapping and they had discussed the terminology.

"Even though I cant save you?" Blaine said, biting his lip as he waited for Kurts response.

"I dont always need saving."

"Savings kind of my thing, though." Kurt shook his head.

"Not today, it isnt. Come and sit with me. Tell me about whats going on with you." They sat down on the grass and Blaine wrapped one of his arms around Kurt, who let his head rest on Blaines shoulder. The simple closeness made Kurt feel simultaneously relaxed and on edge, calm and excited, comfortable and fidgety. He wondered for a moment how the others perceived their relationship. The kind of contact they had on days like today was beyond friendship, but maybe that was only their characters. Kurt didnt think he was that convincing of an actor.

"Mostly Ive been planning how to save this group, but clearly it didnt work," Blaine explained, "Id like to say that you werent my biggest priority because I care about everyone, but youre especially important to me."

"If it had been any of the other Defenders who had come in here I wouldnt have been as happy to see them."

"None of the others have my good looks and wit." Kurt looked around the group to find that most of them had started to fade away from the crowd and were clustered by the bench. He didnt want to leave the comfort of sitting so close to Blaine, but they needed to rejoin the others. They seemed to realise that everyone was looking at them at about the same time and both stood up, making their way over to the gathering.

Mercedes was quick to reattach herself to Kurts side, looping her arm through his. Erica ran through a couple of quick notices, and soon everyone was preparing to leave. "Can you introduce me to him?" Mercedes asked Kurt quietly. He sighed lightly but nodded, leading her across the group to Blaine. He knew she would have a lot of questions, since the two had been effectively cuddling for so long.

"Hey, Kurt," Blaine said smiling brightly at the pair, "I cant stay, I have a piano lesson to go to."

"Oh, thats okay," Kurt replied, "good work today."

"You too. Darcy really gets all the emotions, huh?"

"Only since a certain nocturnal avenger has swooped in." Blaine laughed and checked his phone.

"I really need to go now, Im so sorry." Kurt said goodbye and then Blaine was gone, before he had even mentioned Mercedes. She looked at him questioningly as Erica joined them.

"Did you meet Blaine?" Erica asked Mercedes. She shook his head.

"Kurt didnt introduce me."

"Goddamn, Kurt," Erica punched his shoulder without enough force to do any damage, "it would have taken you two seconds to stop flirting with him." She turned back to Mercedes as Kurt rubbed his arm absentmindedly. "Do you understand whats happening around here?"

"I think I understood, but its not really my thing," Mercedes concluded, "Im not much of an actress."

"Thats alright," Erica said, "youre welcome to keep watching if you want."

"Thanks, but I think Ill pass." Kurt was internally very grateful for Mercedes decision and tried not to let it show. It wasnt that he didnt love Mercedes; he just wanted to keep his LARP and Glee lives separate. He got along with the two groups in different ways for very different reasons, and though he didnt doubt that the others would like his LARP friends too, he wanted to keep them as his friends.

Kurt dropped Mercedes off on his way home. He was stopped on his way into the house by his phone chiming in his pocket. He smiled when he saw the sender of the message.

Blaine A. Sorry for running off today. I dont think I could be totally charming for meeting your friend right now. I do want to meet your glee club friends though :)

Kurt H. Its okay, she was just dying to meet you after all the texts earlier today.

Blaine A. So Im famous among your friends? B)

Kurt H. I talk about you just a little bit.

After sending the message Kurt wasnt sure how it was going to be taken by Blaine. He could think it was cute or funny or creepy, and Kurt just hoped that at worst he would take it as flirty.

Blaine A. B)

That wasnt quite the reaction that Kurt expected.

Kurt H. Having fun there?

Blaine A. B)

Kurt H. :)

Blaine A. My smiley is infinitely cooler than yours.

Kurt H. Makes up for all the other ways Im cooler than you.

Blaine A. You are much cooler than me, thats true.

Kurt H. Thanks.

Blaine A. B)

Kurt H. Really?

Blaine A. Dont pretend you dont love it B)

Kurt sighed. There was something ridiculously endearing about their exchange, and it gave him feelings that he couldnt really describe. Every word that Blaine said had Kurt falling a tiny bit further, and even the smiley faces didnt help. He was pretty sure that Blaine was aware of his crush on him, and all Kurt could do was hope that the feeling was at least partially mutual. If only Blaine were a little easier to read.