Blaine had had a very long shift. He'd arrived at 9am to find his boss Quinn was severally perturbed… as usual. Puck had called her an hour after he was due to start work to inform her he wouldn't be going in due to quote: "Being mauled by a cougar." Consequently she had had to go in earlier than she was due to and the shop had opened late, causing her regulars to bitch like babies until she dolled out free stale biscotti's.

Quinn had been something of a hot mess in high school, having only just graduated last year. It was lucky that her mother, having just finalised her divorce, had brought the coffee shop and decided to appoint her daughter as manager because when her plans to attend Yale for Drama had fallen through, she'd had something of a meltdown. It had been all over the Muckraker and even the Lima Times, after all it's not everyday a girl shaves all her hair off and crashes her car right into a lake. Consequently she was not a particularly desirable candidate at any of the other scant jobs in town.

Blaine's only bright spot in the day was when one of his favourite customers Jeremiah had come in for his usual Saturday morning chai latte. He was a junior manager at the Gap in the mall and always bantered with Blaine when he stopped by. Blaine envied his ability to style his curly locks – a skill he'd never managed to acquire and Jeremiah had even offered Blaine his discount whenever he wanted it.

It was nice to see at least one kind face because the rest of Lima's residents were bitterer than the grinds at the bottom of the coffee tray. One person had even spat their coffee over Blaine ranting that it wasn't de-caff as they'd ordered, calling Blaine a stupid little boy before storming out. So when five o clock rolled around he was well and truly ready to quit for the day.

But as he remembered when Blonde and ditsy Brittany bobbed through the door, the day was far from over. Brittany cut to the head of the queue to the groans and comments of The Lima Bean's waiting patrons. "Blondie you can't cut it!" someone stated loudly and Brittany looked at them smiling with that glossed over expression she always seemed to have plastered to her face. "Don't worry I'm a dancer I do it all the time. Blaine it's five o clock. Kurt told me to meet you at five o clock and it's five o clock. Are we going to study now?"

Blaine was in the process of frothing some milk and called over the sound of the steamer, "I've just got to serve a few more people Brittany, then we can go when Quinn get's b-" Blaine was cut off by a temperamental middle-aged woman in a fuchsia jumpsuit shouting "Where's the danish I ordered? You need to stop talking to your girlfriend and do you job!"

"I'm not his girlfriend." Brittany said turning to the woman, "Blaine has a unicorn horn in his pants, those only work for boys," Blaine was utterly mortified and was about to actually yell at Brittany to go sit down until he was done, when he inadvertently pulled the jug away from the steamer without turning it off. The motion caused a geyser of boiling hot frothy milk to explode over his hands, his clothes, the counter and the floor.

Brittany kept smiling at the woman, "Yeah that's what it does when he has a boyfriend. It wouldn't do that for me. Believe me I tried."

...

After Quinn had finally materialized, Blaine had moped the floor and counter and served the pissed off woman in the jumpsuit her free danish and latte - well free to her anyway, Quinn had informed Blaine that this would be coming out of his wages. Blaine was eventually free to go with Brittany and they hopped in his car after putting her bike across the backseat.

In the car Brittany looked over at Blaine and screwed up her nose. "You smell like my uncle. He's an adult baby. Sometimes he lets me read him a story before I put him to bed," Blaine really couldn't decide how to take Brittany. She was always coming out with this kind of stuff in Glee club but there, there were plenty of other people to look after her so he'd rarely had it interact with her directly. In fact the first conversation they'd ever really had, had been at the Glee party Kurt had dragged him to. The party in which Blaine had spent half the night avoiding her very blatant advances.

How does Kurt deal with her in both Glee club and Cheerio's?

"Brittany that's…" Blaine began but then thought better of it. He just decided to get to the matter at hand, "Ok so do you have your books?" She had been busy playing with the electric window opener and didn't pause when she replied, "Yeah of course." Blaine was pleased, this meant they'd be able to go to his place to study, and he'd be able to get out of these clothes at last. While he'd been able to dry himself off a bit with some tea towels, as Brittany had just pointed out, he reeked of stale milk.

"No that's not gonna work, they're at my house." Blaine swore mentally. "You just said you had them," He was already loosing his patience and they hadn't even opened a book yet. "Yeah, I have them, I just brought them yesterday from the school, Kurt told me I'd need to buy them. I didn't know," this might explain why she was failing Blaine thought well part of why she was failing anyway.

"So I guess we'll be studying at your place then," Blaine said a little disappointed, he'd really wanted to change. "It's ok, I know what you're thinking," doubt it thought Blaine, "We'll have something you can wear."

Maybe there was hope for Brittany yet. "Ok Brittany where's your house?" Blaine asked: "My street" Brittany replied.

If Blaine were doing this for anyone but Kurt he'd have ditched her right then and there on the freeway.

...

This was Blaine's first time in a girl's bedroom. Well one that he wasn't related to. They'd been working since 6:30pm, and it was now almost approaching 11. They'd have started sooner but it had taken Blaine ages to agree to change into the clothes Brittany had provided. The only things that would fit him were her super baggy on her hot pink sweat pants (super tight on Blaine) and a baggy (yes baggy on Blaine) t-shirt Brittany had brought for her cat Lord Tubbington.

She'd had it made for him at a t-shirt store but had failed to say that it was a Large for a cat. He'd tried to see if her father had anything he could borrow but she'd told him his clothes were all in his room and they couldn't disturb him because he'd be sleeping it off in there. Whatever Brittany thought it was, Blaine didn't want to know.

They had made slow progress in their time together, focussing mainly on algebra, which he'd eventually had to start from scratch. Every time without fail Blaine had asked her what A and X equalled Brittany would answer 2 and 9. After about 30 minutes of this he'd realised the pattern and asked her flat out if she was aware of this and she'd replied, "Yes, A is always 2. As is B and C." When Blaine had told her no, she'd gotten up to retrieve the cordless phone in her room and held it out to Blaine. "See A is 2!"

With a lot of hard but gentle tuition, not to mention about two thirds of a jumbo bag ot peanut butter M and M's (Kurt's suggestion) she'd managed to pull herself up to what Blaine thought could resemble a D- . They might have done even better but Kurt had failed to mention about the blue M and M's. When Blaine had given her a blue M for correctly identifying that A was 14 (not 2 at last!) he'd slid over a blue M and she'd freaked out and said they'd promised never to give her the blue pills again. Brittany had hidden under the bed for 15 minutes.

Blaine looked at his pocket watch, it was 10:54pm. "Brittany we should be wrapping up soon. You've done really, really well today. A few more sessions and I'm sure you'll pull the grade up," he said smiling at her, pushing his ever-falling glasses back us his nose. "Thanks Blaine. I know everyone thinks I'm stupid. I know you do too. But I really appreciate you not saying it. And I really appreciate you helping me." Blaine's heart instantly went out to her, she was a really nice girl, he didn't truly think she was stupid, just… Brittany.

"I don't think you're stupid Brittany! Don't let anyone tell you that you are. People are only stupid when they don't have a heart. Yours is one of the biggest I know." She grinned at him and stood up, "Oh! I have something for you. Hold on," she said walking out of the room and leaving Blaine to pack up his things.

She was taking a while so Blaine went to look at the wall of photos and posters that were arranged sporadically. There was a large poster of Britney Spears in the centre that made him chuckle. Brittany S. Pierce he thought, they'd had an entire week of Britney songs in Glee club when Kurt had shameless campaigned and harassed Mr Schue to let them (Blaine was still marked as part of the group protest on Facebook). Brittany had done a 180 and suddenly gone from her biggest enemy to her 2nd biggest fan, (Kurt refused to loose his 1st place title) after some hallucinogenic Britney Spears dental work.

Blaine thought back to his own hazy experience in the dentist's chair when Hiram had taken him and Rachel in. Blaine had had the most vivid Britney spears fantasy that involved Kurt dancing around in a skintight red leather cat suit. Blaine who had been dressed as astronaut had given Kurt a necklace, only to be ditched on Mars. The dentist had heard a lot of patients say a lot of weird things but never: "Evvvvfffen ffffantasssy Brrrritneeey Kuuurt-t-t w-won looooovvvvvveee meeeeee… Ffffffuuuuuuufff myy liiiffffffffe."

He looked over the many photos; Brittany had a lot of friends. She was smiling in group shots at breadstix, pulling faces in photo booths with boys and girls, jumping at concerts dressed as a pirate, draped across Artie's lap at last years prom and there was a rather interesting one of her and Santana where Britney was smiling right at the camera but Santana was smiling right at her, with an expression Blaine knew all too well. I wonder…

But his eyes came to rest on a couple of pictures from what he gathered was a Cheerio's sleepover in Brittany's bedroom. They were all in sleepwear doing nails and eating what appeared to be cheese-less, sauce-less pizza, delicious he thought derisively, but one photo stuck out. Mercedes was cowering on the floor in mock horror as a broadly smiling Kurt towered over her with a fluffy pillow. His always perfectly quaffed hair was tousled, his cheeks were flushed and the tight McKinley T-shirt had risen up to expose one of Kurt's hipbones. Kurt looked alive, beautiful, and downright sexy. Blaine felt flushed.

Brittany flung the door open catching Blaine staring at the picture. "What are you doing?" She was holding an orange plastic box looking at him not angrily but quizzically, well that might just be her expression he though,t she always looked like she was somewhat questioning everything.

"Sorry Britt, I was just looking at yo-your photos… you guys look like you had fun at the um sleepover," Blaine fought for the words. "Yeah we always have fun everywhere," she said matter of factly, coming to stand next to him and looking at the pictures as well. "Oh this was the one you were nearly at." Blaine gaped at her, "Pardon?"

"We were doing the Ouiji board thing and it was Kurt's turn and he started spelling B-L-A-I but then Santana kinda jerked and the last letter was M. She said the board was trying to blame him for something, maybe for messing up the pyramid at practise, and we started the pillow fight. I totally thought it was gonna spell Blaine but…Oooo here! Take the cookie!" she handed the box to Blaine who's jaw had dropped.

He shook himself out of his reverie and took the box. "Weren't they supposed to be cookies in the plural?" Blaine asked, genuinely curious, he couldn't imagine Kurt just baking a single cookie. "Yeah sorry but Sue said our food was only allowed to be the mung soup and I was really hungry, so I figured if it was your food it wouldn't count."

Blaine could have been angry, after all it had been a long time since Kurt had made him some of the delicious cookies he and his mum used to bake, but he knew how cruel Sue could be and he wasn't about to make little Oliver Brittany feel any worse. "It's ok, don't worry Britt, I'll see you Monday."

"Cool keep the clothes by the way," she smiled and looked down her face confused then suddenly smiling widely with teeth. "Hey! Your Unicorn horn is looking up a little! Maybe I can be your girlfriend after all, wanna make out?" Blaine flushed purple.

...

Avoiding Brittany's advances for the second time in his life Blaine managed to get home at around 11:15pm. Closing the door to his beaten up car he strode up to the house noting the missing parental car. They must be working at Scandals again Blaine thought. He'd kept missing them the last couple of days but he'd see them tomorrow for the weekly Anderberry Sunday Lunch. This had been a tradition since they'd amalgamated the family surnames after Blaine had been adopted into the Family.

Rachel had been adopted first but once they had Blaine, Hiram Berry and Leroy Anderson had felt their family was complete and legally changed everyone's surnames. They'd had a big family lunch the following Sunday to celebrate and the tradition had stuck ever since. They'd even made Rachel miss a special matinee performance of Funny Girl at the McKinley civic centre one week to keep the tradition; she'd sulked obnoxiouslyfor a week following it.

Blaine was too tired to even search for food; he kicked his shoes off in the hallway and trudged up the stairs ready to crash out... well he'd read for a bit first of course naturally. He could see a faint light was coming from his bedroom, like a small lampshade or something was on. Rachel he thought, this is probably to do with the revenge that was due to come his way.

"I don't know what you have planned Rachel but I've had a lon.." Blaine stopped in surprise, it wasn't Rachel looming with a cream pie or whatever it was she had planned, as Blaine had expected. Kurt was lying flat on his stomach, across the bed, Blaine's late night reading flashlight hovering over his copy of The Amber Spyglass.

"Kurt – what?" Blaine was surprised to see Kurt, well not surprised he'd gotten in, he'd been sneaking into his room since they were seven. Those years of gymnastics lessons had given him the grace of a cat and Spiderman combined. Kurt looked up and closed the book, "What indeed, I have no idea what's going on; who the hell is Lyra? And why has this crazy bitch roofied her?" Blaine laughed and took the book from Kurt's hands, "This is the 3rd book in the trilogy, you can borrow the 1st one as long as you promise not to drop it in the bath like you did to Catching Fire."

Blaine placed the book carefully on his nightstand, flicking on the lamp to give the room more light than the flashlight had managed. "Oh come on! You should have warned me not to read it in the bath, that ending! I don't usually connect to well to books but The Hunger Games mirrors my life so." Kurt said with mock drama, rolling on his back, his arm strewn across his forehead, eyes shut tightly.

"I fail to see how your life mirrors that of a starving society, on the verge of rebellion, from the tyrannical rule of a dictator, who makes young adults and children fight to the death for the sake of entertainment." Blaine said this in a mouthful arms crossed over his chest.

"Blaine, I'm a Cheerio. I want you to really think about what you just said," Kurt said an eyebrow raised. "...Oh yeah, fair point." Blaine let his arms fall to his sides and Kurt started to crack up. Blaine wondered why until he remembered the T-shirt.

Printed on the front of the white T-shirt in bold black lettering was written BIG AND PROUD. Brittant had had it made for Lord Tubbington, when the Glee Club has performed Born This Way. Blaine's own shirt had said NERD. Looking him up and down Kurt said, "And in those skinny sweats, which leave very little to the imagination, I can totally see why!" He was gone, rolling on the bed with laughter, Blaine flushing the colour of his pants.

"I assume you didn't just stop by to steal my books and mock me Kurt," he said trying to regain some composure in the bedroom. Kurt finally managed to compose himself and sat up somewhat sheepishly hugging his knees to his chest. The gesture was endearing and Blaine stopped being angry. Kurt looked to the orange bow now sitting on the desk. "You maybe assumed right… but did you like them? How many have you had?"

Blaine opened the box and proceeded to take a large bite of the cooki,. "Mmmmmmm, wellf this onef will bef my first" he said his mouth full. "There was a whole box! What happened to them?" Kurt exclaimed then realised, "Oh jeeze, Brittany… I'll give you the cookies directly next time. That little cheater, wait till I.." Blaine cut into Kurt's rant, "Don't be too hard on her," he swallowed the bite and carried on, "Sue work's you guys way too hard and you're gonna make yourselves sick," Blaine said worriedly, then continuing, "and mmmmmm yes they're more delicious than I could possibly remember!"

Kurt grinned "Thank you, and I know, it's just if you're gonna cheat, well, at least cheat with celery or something. Besides I'd already given the ok for her to have M and M's that's enough sugar and E numbers right there. How was the tutoring anyway?" Kurt enquired.

"We slowly made a lot of progress. Maybe in a couple of weeks she might have a passing chance," Blaine said seeing Kurt's relief. Blaine carried on, "However she did try to make out with me again," he said giving his approximation of a sassy Kurt glare, hands on his hips. Kurt laughed looking guiltily up from the back of his knees with the puppy dog eyes and Blaine adorded, he took a mental picture. "I'm sorry, I promise next time it'll be my Christmas sugar cookies with frosting art."

Blaine sighed dramatically, dropping his arms and the theatrically angry expression. He finally sat in the chair at his desk, his tired legs giving out at last. "Very well, you shall live another day to battle in the arena… So getting back to the topic at hand, what brings you to my quarters at this late hour?"

Kurt played with the hem of his clothes; work out wear Blaine noted, he must have been at the gym, if it was Cheerio's he'd be in the uniform. "I was thinking, we could move our post Glee study session to tomorrow night, so we could take a little road trip on Tuesday," Kurt said surprisingly guiltily.

Blaine wondered where he could possibly want to go, Kurt had something of a vivid imagination and once in a while would come up with the strangest little activities for the two of them. They'd once even driven to what Kurt had told him was a haunted house but had turned out to be Sandy Dyerson's secret tryst location.

"Sure Kurt, what did you have in mind?" Blaine swivelled the chair around and started absentmindedly rearranging the cogs and watch faces on his desk into particular little piles.

"Sebastian invited me to see him play Lacrosse on Tuesday at Dalton in Westerville. We've been texting each other all day. I'd ask Mercedes or Santana to drive me but they're both going to the movies that night for a double date. I'd take the bus but I wouldn't get there in time. Besides, I'm kind of nervous. I don't wanna go by myself…" Kurt broke off at the end quietly, like he was embarrassed for his somewhat childish need to want somebody.

Blaine's eyes were scratchy; his throat felt thick as if the cookie had sealed like glue in his airway. "Oh yeah um…" Blaine began, he was glad he wasn't looking at Kurt now, fearful his body would betray him and tears would leak from the corners of his eyes. He stacked a pile of identical cogs in perfect synchronicity and pulled himself together.

"Sure Kurt, it's ok. You know I'd never leave you."