“Can I help you?” she asked in a rough voice that sounded as if she’d been smoking for the last twenty years. By the smell of it she had.

“Hello,” he said, smiling, “I’m Blaine Anderson.”

“New student,” she said bluntly, opening her desk drawer and rifling through a stack of papers. “Here you go,” she muttered, shoving the stack at him and pointing to the door. Blaine blinked, giving up on trying to be polite, and headed out of the office. He looked through the papers until he found something that looked like a schedule.

“Fag,” he heard from behind him. “Nice outfit,” the jock sneered. He was a good foot taller than Blaine and his two buddies were just as menacing. Blaine gulped and glanced around. The first of the three knocked down his books and poked at his chest. “Leave while you can, fag,” he muttered.

Goddamn. Blaine hadn’t said two words, but there he was, confused and flustered as ever as he experienced his first bullies. He watched them stalk away, laughing at something one of them had said. Blaine sighed and looked down at his papers scattered about the hallway. He knelt down and started picking them up, frowning whilst doing so. He had just gotten here and already people seemed to hate him. Great.

“Here, let me give you a hand,” a voice above him said. He looked up to see a boy with chestnut hair and blue eyes smiling and kneeling down next to him. The boy started gathering some of the papers and handed a small stack to Blaine who smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, standing.

“You’re new,” the boy said with a smirk.

“Is it that obvious?” Blaine said with an uncertain laugh. He really wanted to not stick out, though years of private school had made choosing an outfit for school that morning quite difficult.

He laughed and shook his head. “It’s a small school. I’ve never seen you.” He shrugged and stuck out a hand. “I’m Kurt. Kurt Hummel,” he said with a seemingly sincere smile. Blaine returned it and laughed a bit.

“Perfect. I’m Blaine Anderson,” he said, shaking his hand. “Do, uh… Do you think you could help me find my homeroom?” he asked, biting his lip a bit.

Kurt nodded and took the schedule from the top of the stacks. “Looks like we’ve got a couple classes together,” he said with a smile. “Your homeroom will be down the hall and the last door on your right,” he instructed, pointing down the hall as he did so.

“Kurt!” someone called from down the hall. Blaine looked up to see another jock-like boy jogging down the hallway towards them. He tensed – considering what had happened earlier – but there seemed to be no reason to worry as the huge boy grinned and clapped Kurt on the shoulder. “Where’ve you been? Sam and I were looking for you,” he said to Kurt. The tall boy glanced at Blaine and cocked his head. “Oh, hey.”

“This is Blaine,” Kurt said before Blaine had the chance to. Just then a boy with bleach blond hair stepped up behind them.

“Hey!” he said, grinning at Kurt. He sized up Blaine and gave Kurt a questioning look.

“Again, guys this is Blaine. He’s new. This is Finn,” he said, gesturing to the freakishly tall boy, “and this is Sam,” he finished, pointing to the other. Blaine smiled at them.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking each other their hands and earning smiles in return.

“Cool to meet you,” Finn said.

“Definitely,” Sam added. Kurt looked between the two and then back down at Blaine’s schedule.

“You guys mind helping Blaine out a bit?” he asked, letting each of them glance over the schedule.

“Sure, man,” Sam said with a grin. “We’ve all got some classes with you, so we’ll keep an eye out for ya,” he said with a laugh.

Finn nodded in agreement. “Yeah, totally.”

Blaine smiled. “Thanks guys,” he said. He turned to Kurt. “And thanks for all your help…” he laughed and rubbed his neck. “It’s been a long day and it hasn’t even started yet.”

Kurt nodded understandingly. “Yeah, that tends to happen when high school is involved,” he said with a shrug. Sam pulled out his phone and frowned.

“Quinn and Santana are waiting for us, man,” he said to Finn.

“Damn,” Finn muttered, looking back at Kurt. “We’ll catch you later,” he said with a smile and the two headed off towards their classes.

“Girlfriends,” Kurt said, waving it off and smiling.

Blaine nodded. “What about you?” he asked casually, walking with Kurt towards his first period.

“I dated a guy a while back, but really I haven’t been seeing anyone since him,” he said with a shrug. Kurt was gay?

Blaine just nodded. “That’s cool.”

Kurt nodded and smiled. "I guess. Come on," he said, guiding Blaine to his homeroom. "If you want you can eat lunch with us," he added.

Blaine grinned. "Really?" He really hadn't expected to make friends so quickly, and there was something about Kurt that he just really liked. "That... That would be awesome."

Kurt returned the gesture. "I'll see you later then," he said, turning and going off towards his own class.

Contently, Blaine headed into his class and took a seat near the back of the classroom. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful apart from the few classes he had with Kurt, Sam, or Finn and lunchtime. Blaine had been introduced to their girlfriends as well. He quite liked Quinn though Santana's insistence on calling him 'hobbit' was a bit of a downer.

"It was cool to meet you, dude," Finn said to Blaine at the end of the day.

"Definitely," Sam agreed.

Blaine smiled. "Thanks, it means a lot that you guys actually talked to me," he laughed.

Finn and Kurt shared a look. "We were wondering if you'd wanna come back to my house for a movie," Kurt said, smiling.

"Star Wars," Sam interjected with a grin.

A smile spread across Blaine's face and he nodded. "That would be awesome."

“Great,” Finn said. “Sam and I gotta take Quinn and Santana home, so we’ll meet you guys there,” he said, waving and dragging Sam off towards the parking lot.

Kurt laughed and shook his head. “Need a ride?”

“Yeah, actually,” Blaine said sheepishly. “I’m going to be dropped off at school until I get enough money for a car.” He shrugged and followed Kurt towards his car.

“If you want I could give you a ride in the mornings,” he offered. “Like a carpool.”

“Really? That’d get expensive in gas, though, and I can’t exactly return the favor and pick you up some mornings…”

Kurt waved him off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “It’s Lima, Ohio. There’s no possible way that you could live so far as to create a noticeable dent in my gas usage.”

Blaine bit his lip. “Well… It’d be really great if you could… But you don’t have to.”

Smiling softly, Kurt opened his driver’s side door and slipped in. “I’m offering, Blaine. I’ll pick you up,” he assured him. Blaine got in the other side of the car after mumbling a thanks and smiling. “So what brings you here?” he asked curiously.

Blaine swallowed thickly. “I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I used to go to Dalton.” He looked at Kurt, biting his lip. “I, well, came here to get away from some of the talk…”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Kurt said with a small smile. He started the car and pulled out of the school parking lot.

Blaine wasn’t sure why, but he actually trusted Kurt and almost wanted to tell him. He didn’t want to freak him out, though. “I… I’ll tell you,” he said, looking out the window. “But… later, okay?”

Kurt nodded understandingly. “Like I said, if you don’t want to you don’t have to. It’s all alright.”

Blaine smiled. He was starting to like it here quite a lot. “Thanks, Kurt.” They arrived at Kurt’s house in virtually no time after that. Kurt parked in the drive way and led Blaine through the back door and into the house.

“Mom! Dad!” he called, glancing around the house. A tall woman with long brown hair and a sweet smile met Kurt in the hall and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“How was your day, sweetheart?” she asked. Upon noticing Blaine, she waved and smiled politely at him. “Who’s this?” she asked Kurt.

“This is Blaine. He’s new at McKinley. Sam and Finn are coming over for a movie, but we wanted to invite him.” Kurt smiled at Blaine who returned it.

Kurt’s mother walked over and gave Blaine a hug as well. “It’s great to meet you,” she said. “I’m Elizabeth Hummel.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Hummel,” Blaine said, awkwardly returning the hug. She was such a nice woman…

“You can call me Elizabeth,” she said with another sweet smile. “I’ll order the four of you some pizza,” she said to Kurt and headed into the kitchen.

“Wow…” Blaine said, blinking. “Your mom is amazing,” he laughed.

Kurt smiled. “Yeah, she is. Come on, we’ll be in the basement.” Blaine followed Kurt down a set of stairs and couldn’t help but smile the whole way. How had he managed to get friends so quickly? It actually amazed him. Plus, Kurt, Finn, and Sam seemed really cool and he was definitely looking forward to spending some time with them.

“Hey, let me call my mom,” Blaine said, pulling out his phone and stopping in the hall. Kurt waved his okay and continued down. He dialed the number and hit call, waiting through three rings before his mother picked up.

“Blaine! Are you on your way home?” she asked immediately.

Blaine laughed a bit uncertainly. “Actually I made some friends and they invited me over to watch a movie,” he said.

There was silence for a few seconds. “That’s wonderful! Call us when you’re on your way home,” she said, sounding somewhat surprised. “Have fun!”

“Thanks, Mom.” He hit end and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He was definitely looking forward to spending some time with his new friends.