It was the summer of 1940 and Blaine Anderson was wandering around the carnival with his friend Finn Hudson the way they did every summer. Finn – as was his MO – was flirting with all the girls (even if he was sort of seeing their friend Rachel Berry) and Blaine was trying not to die of boredom. He'd lived in the same small town his whole life and the novelty of knowing everyone had worn off some time around his fifth birthday.

He just wanted something more.

Blaine and Finn wandered over the bumper cars, where Rachel had said she'd be. The best friends watched for a few minutes as Rachel continued to slam into one particular car, driven by a boy Blaine had never seen before.

"Who's that boy with Rachel?" he asked Finn.

"Kurt Hummel," Finn replied as Rachel rammed into Kurt again, making him laugh. "He's down here for the summer with his parents, who happen to be richer than God." Finn lowered his voice and crouched so that his mouth was right by Blaine's ear. "And he uh… you know… the same as you."

Blaine colored all the way to his hairline. Finn and Rachel were the only souls on the planet that knew that Blaine felt about boys the way he should feel about girls. He knew it was immoral and wrong and he was probably going to hell, but he just couldn't help himself. And to know that this boy – Kurt – was the same as him definitely made Blaine Anderson's summer ten times more interesting.

The bumper cars stopped and everyone disembarked, making room for the next wave of passengers. Blaine watched Kurt link arms with Rachel and literally could not take his eyes off of him because even from a distance Blaine could see that he was absolutely gorgeous.

Before he knew what he was doing, Blaine was in front of Kurt and Rachel. "Hi," his mouth said before his brain had fully grasped the concept that he had just entered very dangerous territory. Granted, there was no one else within ear shot, but it still scared Blaine that people might find out about him.

"Uh, hi." Kurt said pointedly, his tone suggesting that he wanted nothing more than for Blaine to disappear. "Was there something you wanted? Because I'm supposed to be meeting… someone." His voice cracked on the last word and it almost sounded as if he didn't want to meet whoever it was he was meeting.

"Nothing much just wanted to say hi."

"Well, as I already said… hi. Now, if you don't have anything further to add to this very riveting conversation, I am afraid that I must be going." He started to walk forward, presumably with the idea of pushing past Blaine, but Blaine started walking backwards, not breaking eye contact. He wasn't exactly sure why, but all he knew was that he wanted to keep looking at Kurt. Rachel gave him a what the hell are you doing look, but Blaine ignored her because, honestly, he didn't know what he was doing. "As… endearing as this whole 'lost puppy' act is, I'm going to have to ask you to please get out of my face," Kurt said, succeeding in pushing past Blaine.

Blaine turned and watched Kurt walk up to a pretty blonde girl in what looked like very expensive clothes. They hugged, the girl a bit more into it than Kurt and got in line for the Ferris wheel.

"Wow, be a bit more obvious, please," Rachel laughed in his ear, wrapping an arm around his waist. Blaine smiled at her before Finn came and stole her away to join Kurt and the blonde girl in line.

…

"Who was that guy?" Kurt demanded of Finn and Rachel when they appeared behind him and the girl his parents had set him up with – Brittany, he thought her name was, though it could have been something as equally mundane. She seemed nice enough, if a bit dim, but Kurt just wasn't interested.

"Blaine Anderson," Rachel explained. "Works with Finn down at the lumberyard. He usually keeps to himself, though, so it was sort of weird to see him so… animated, I guess." She lowered her voice so that not even Brittany could hear them. "He must really like you."

"You mean… he…" Kurt was dumbfounded. Never in his life had he met someone who was struggling with the same thing that he was. For the longest time he thought that he might have been the only one, that something had gone wrong in his brain at birth and now was forced to live a life plagued with an attraction to men that he couldn't explain.

Rachel just smiled knowingly at him as the line moved forward.

…..

Blaine watched the Ferris wheel go around, keeping his eye on Kurt and his blonde companion, who kept trying to get closer to him, to no avail.

He couldn't explain it, but Blaine needed to be close to Kurt, in any capacity possible. As he watched the Ferris wheel make another rotation, an idea popped into his head. It was crazy, but Rachel had told him to be more obvious, so he decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it.

A smile spread over his face as he broke into a run.

…

Kurt was sitting on the Ferris wheel, pretending to listen to whatever Brittany was babbling on about because he was a gentleman and that's what gentlemen did. As he was contemplating jumping off the Ferris wheel because that would be less painful, a third body suddenly appeared in their seat. Startled, Kurt turned to see that guy from earlier – Blaine or whatever – squashed in between him and Brittany. "What the hell?"

"Hi," the guy, who close up Kurt could see had really pretty eyes, said brightly.

"Do you know any other words?" Kurt asked haughtily, trying to keep those eyes from scrambling his thoughts.

"Oh, right, I said that already. Anyway, I remembered that I forgot to introduce myself before, so… hi, I'm Blaine Anderson." He awkwardly stuck his hand out, which Kurt did not take.

"Kurt, who's this?" Brittany asked, staring wide-eyed at Blaine.

"No one important," Kurt replied, realizing for the first time that the ride had stopped moving and the guy who ran it was yelling at Blaine something about no more than two people to a seat.

"All right, all right," Blaine conceded, silencing the carnival worker. Kurt wondered how he was going to get down since they were pretty close to the top, but Blaine answered his question by reaching out and grabbing onto the pole in front of them.

"What are you doing?" Kurt screeched as Blaine hung there, feet kicking and arm muscles straining as he tried to keep himself from falling to what would surely be his death.

"Trying to get you to talk to me."

"What?"

"Just one conversation. Please just give me that."

"Blaine!" Rachel yelled from below them. "Get down from there – you're gonna kill yourself!"

"Not until he agrees to talk to me!" Blaine called back as one of his hands slipped off the bar.

"Oh, c'mon, Kurt," Finn pleaded. "Just talk to him – it won't kill you."

"Okay, fine!" Kurt shouted as Blaine's remaining hand started to pull away.

"Fine, what?" Blaine pressed, which Kurt thought was stupid considering the position he was in.

"Fine, I'll talk to you or… whatever."

"Good." Blaine smirked cheekily and pulled himself back up so both hands were gripping the bar. "Now how about you scoot over and let me sit with you so we can get back on the ground?"

"Sure," Kurt agreed. "But first…" He, in a stroke of sheer brilliance, reached out and undid Blaine's belt before popping the button and dragging down the zipper. With a cocky smirk to rival Blaine's, he pulled the insufferable boy's pants down to his ankles.

"Oh, a jokester," Blaine commented, seemingly unaware that everyone that could see them was laughing at him. "I like that."

Kurt was thankful it was so dark, otherwise both Brittany and Blaine would have been able to see the bright red that colored his pale cheeks.