With Karofsky out of school, Kurt's bruising actually got a chance to heal. In fact, the school seemed a lot more pleasant, and not just because Karofsky was gone.

Some kind of bug was going around the school so many of Kurt's classes had a lot of open desks, and there were a wealth of substitute teachers in the building. Most of Kurt's regular teachers were old stooges there on tenure, and with a notable lack of passion left for teaching, so having substitutes meant things were fresher and more interesting. Add to that that the majority of students out sick were the popular kids (probably from all their making out and spreading germs) so there was a lot less tension in the student body.

Ultimately though, there was no substitute teacher who was as interesting as Ms. Holiday. In English she had actually written and sang a song about punctuation. If Kurt liked girls, he was sure he would be in love with Ms. Holiday.

So when Mr. Schuester caught the bug and went out sick, Kurt quickly asked Ms. Holiday to come and sub for Glee club lest Rachel take the club over and alienate all the members to the point of quitting.

Blaine was also still suspended until the school board decided what to do about him, which meant Kurt went over daily to help him with his homework and bring him his assignments. He didn't have to go every single day, but the more time he spent with Blaine, the more time he wanted to spend with Blaine. It began to feel like every school day was just a lead up to hanging out with his new friend. Thankfully his dad had been spending an increasing amount of time with Carol lately, so no one questioned his absence at home. The only one who seemed to notice his new schedule was Mercedes as he had, accidentally, forgotten about their planned activities together twice now when he had gone to see Blaine.

Since the near kiss, Kurt had also began to pick up on little things that suggested to his hopeful mind that Blaine may not be as straight as he thought. For example, the stack of vogue magazines in his bathroom.

"I use them for collage assignments... " Blaine had tried to argue when Kurt had brought the stack out of the bathroom with a questioningly raised eyebrow.

"Then why aren't they cut up?"

"Haven't... had enough collages to do lately..."

And then there was the moment that, during one of Kurt's snoopings through the bookcases, he found one of Blaine's primary school yearbooks.

"Blaine... your hair is slicked back and you're wearing a bow tie..." Kurt noted, his eyes locked to the picture of a smaller, more dapper Blaine.

"So?"

"So... a bowtie!" Kurt looked up excitedly at Blaine who shrugged in response.

"So I used to have a whole collection of bowties... so what?"

"Really Blaine, a whole collection of bowties?"

"I liked them then."

As if that wasn't enough, everytime they were together, Blaine seemed to find any excuse to get close to Kurt. They would sit on his bed and Blaine would slowly, but surely, gravitate towards Kurt's side. When they took a break to watch a runway reality TV show, Blaine rested his head on Kurt's shoulder. Then there was the moment that Blaine climbed over Kurt in the bed to get one of the cookies Kurt had brought over, his crotch right by Kurt's face as Blaine stretched over him to reach. Kurt was sure he nearly fainted from not breathing during that moment. He could see the edges of Blaine's boxers hugging his hips, and smell his earthy, male scent. When Blaine had finally settled back down with the cookie in his mouth, Kurt had to excuse himself to the bathroom until he managed to think enough unsexy thoughts to reduce the swelling in his pants.

Kurt found himself talking about his frustrations with being gay when he was with Blaine as well, who hung on Kurt's every word and gave him supportive pats on the back when Kurt started to get emotional. Kurt was sure that if Blaine wasn't gay or bisexual, he was at least questioning his sexuality because Blaine had no problem keeping up with Kurt when he was talking about Don't Ask - Don't Tell or Prop 8. In fact, Blaine seem well versed on the topics, giving his own insights, though usually littered with random swears, and opinions.

Then the day that Kurt fell on his ass after slipping on the buttered floor that Puck had done up for Ms. Holiday, Blaine was insistent on giving Kurt a massage to help ease the aches caused by the fall.

"Come on... you know you want my hands on you." Blaine said with a wink.

And so Kurt agreed to the massage, if only because he would be able to lie stomach down which would hide the fact that those words alone had gotten him hard. He really needed to stop wearing skinny jeans around Blaine.

As Kurt groaned in appreciation of the hands rubbing through his shirt on his back, getting at the knots in his shoulder blades, he talked about how Ms. Holiday was a superior Glee club teacher and actually interested in what the students wanted to sing. He even admitted to singing up alongside Rachel in tease because she was so clearly against having Ms. Holiday substitute in Glee clubs since she wanted to take it over.

He felt a pause in the massage after he had finished his story, and then a telltale clicking noise. Blaine made a little snicker and Kurt lifted his head off the bed, looking back at Blaine accusingly, "Did you just take a picture of me?"

"Text me." Blaine said, tossing Kurt's phone over to him.

Kurt looked at Blaine suspiciously, but then texted Blaine - WTH?

When Blaine's phone buzzed to receive the text, he flashed the screen to Kurt and made a wicked chuckle. There, on the screen, was a picture of Kurt's skinny jean covered ass and his name had been changed to 'Sweetcheeks'.

"Ohmygod Blaine!" Kurt gasped and reached over to try and snatch the phone from Blaine who withdrew his hand and laughed, bouncing himself backwards on the bed.

Kurt scurried after Blaine, trying to wrestle the phone out of his hand, and they quickly became a tangle of limbs as Blaine managed to keep the phone just out of Kurt's grasp.

"Blaine Anderson!" Kurt gasped, stretching his hands out to try and get the phone out of Blaine's hands which were held high above his head. "You give me that right now! You had no right to take that!"

Blaine laughed in response and twisted himself back to keep the phone away from Kurt, who continued to try and climb him without regard for how the scene might look to anyone else. He could not have a photo of that circulating.

Under Kurt's weight though, Blaine fell back on the bed and Kurt fell right along with him, landing chest to chest with all of Kurt's weight on Blaine. He kept reaching for the phone, and after a moment, was able to grab it as Blaine's grip on it had gone lax in the fall. With a victory yelp, Kurt grinned down triumphantly at Blaine, though suddenly very aware of their position and Blaine's contorted face.

"Kurt... air..." Blaine wheezed out, and Kurt scampered backwards off Blaine as he realized his whole weight had been on Blaine and was limiting his airflow.

Blaine coughed as soon as he was freed while Kurt sat, pulling his knees up to his chest. The closeness, the shared breathing space, all of it, had Kurt very aroused and he was very carefully trying to hide his erection from Blaine.

"Remind me to never say you eat too little ever again... you weigh a fucking ton..." Blaine cough-laughed, sitting up and grinning over at Kurt.

"I can't believe you took a picture of my ass..." Kurt murmured, shaking his head and playing with Blaine's captured phone, trying to figure out how to get his butt picture off of it with no success.

Blaine laughed and crawled towards Kurt, setting his head down on the tops of Kurt's knees and looking up at Kurt with a face that could only be described as a puppy eyes. "Forgive me?"

Kurt groaned and shook his head, patting Blaine on the head just like the puppy he was pretending to be, "You'd better not show that to anyone."

Blaine grinned and sat back on his legs, crossing his fingers over his heart. "Scouts honor."

Kurt chuckled, "Somehow I get the feeling you've never been a boy scout."

"What the hell is going on with you and Blaine Anderson?" Mercedes demanded as she came up beside him in the cafeteria line the next day.

Kurt stilled and look wide eyed at Mercedes. How had she found out? How much did she know? He hadn't told anyone about his crush.

She slapped a paper down on his tray. "Mr. Rueters asked me if I'd pass this onto you since he knows we're friends, and apparently you're bringing Blaine his schoolwork."

Kurt let out a shivered sigh of relief. Mercedes only knew about the homework arrangement.

"Is that why you blew me off the other day? What is going on between you and Blaine?" Mercedes snapped accusingly.

"He's a friend Mercedes... he helped me out when my dad was in the hospital and we've been doing a lot of French work together." Kurt said, trying to keep his voice as cool as possible. He didn't want to make it seem like the big deal Mercedes was making it out to be.

She wagged a finger in his face, "This is bad news Kurt. He put Karofsky in the hospital and is responsible for a lot of broken bones around here."

Kurt rolled his eyes. If only she knew the truth, but it wasn't his place to tell her. "He's not that bad Mercedes..."

"Uh huh. You're blowing me off for the resident spaz. Real nice Kurt."

Kurt felt a twinge of guilt. He had been hiding his friendship with Blaine from the rest of his friends. Not only because he was sure Blaine didn't want it publicized, but also because he knew he would get this kind of reprimand from his friends... and his dad - if his dad ever found out.

"Mercedes..." Kurt started but Mercedes' attention was elsewhere.

"What the hell are they doing?!" Kurt looked to where Mercedes was looking, seeing the Cheerios taking the tater tots out of the cafeteria. It was announced that tots were banned.

"Oh hell to the no..." Mercedes slammed her tray down and stormed off, leaving Kurt behind, now worried about if she'd say anything to anyone else.

XXXX

"How come I never see your dad at home?" Kurt asked, looking up from the assignment they were working on. Blaine was laying on his stomach as he wrote while Kurt was sitting leaned back against the headboard, trying not to stare at Blaine's wonderful backside.

"Because he only comes around now and then to make sure things are in order. They're technically separated..." Blaine answered, not looking up from the paper he was writing on.

"Sorry." Kurt apologized quickly, not wanting to bring up any hurt feelings. The fact of the matter was that Blaine was very sweet with his mother, not at all like he was at school, or even around Kurt. He was clearly a mama's boy - directing the housecleaners and the chef to do things how he know his mother would like them done, and using his please's and thank you's as if they were second nature when he spoke with her.

"Don't be. He's an asshole." Blaine stated curtly, leaving Kurt reflecting back on the day when he saw them arguing in the school parking lot with the rest of the Glee club.

"Why were you with him... at the auto shop?" Kurt pressed, setting his homework down at his side.

Blaine sighed and sat himself up, looking over at Kurt from across the bed. "Mom thinks it's important for me to spend time with him.. so I do for her sake. Though on that particular day I called him to come get me when the van overheated because Mom can't drive anymore and my grandmom never did learn."

Kurt nodded, reaching a hand over with the intent to pat the back of Blaine's hand supportively. Blaine's hand retracted though before Kurt could get to it.

"It's fine."

Kurt lifted an eyebrow. "It's obviously not Blaine... you get so defensive over it..."

Blaine shrugged up his shoulders and looked away. "Dad pretty much fucked off when mom got her degenerative eye disease and I got into my troubles at the other school. He drinks too much, screws around too much, and expects too much from everyone else."

"Does he hurt you Blaine?" Kurt already knew the answer to the question. He had seen how Mr. Anderson had tried to grab Blaine in that school parking lot, and how Blaine had desperately evaded his grasp.

Blaine looked back to Kurt with narrowed, warning eyes, "I'm not talking about this. If you want to push my buttons then you can just screw off."

Kurt frowned, but grabbed the assignment that he had set at his side and his pencil and returned to working on his history homework. He wasn't going to push his luck when he knew he had already gotten Blaine to open up more than anyone else had.

Mercedes had managed not to spill to anyone else about Kurt and Blaine's friendship, but she was acting just crazy lately and her impulsiveness had Kurt worried she'd randomly tell someone. At lunch she had started a protest over the removal of tots, and despite his work to set her up on a date with Anthony, a seriously hunky football player, she was dismissive.

"I want to meet him."

Kurt blinked and looked over at Mercedes, feeling as though he had missed a vital part of the conversation. "What?"

"I want to meet Blaine. See what's so good about him that you keep ditching me to hang out with him after school." She huffed.

Kurt frowned and wondered if that was even a possibility. Would Blaine seriously agree to meet his overprotective black bestie?

"I'll text him and see if he can maybe meet up for dinner..." Kurt offered, hoping that would get her off his case at least for a moment.

"Better be someplace with tots." She asserted, shutting her locker and going to her class.

For some reason, maybe insanity was the current bug getting passed around, Blaine agreed to dinner, though Kurt set it up so he and Blaine were alone for the first bit so he could prep Blaine for what he might experience at the wrath of Mercedes.

"I've been cooped up at the house and my grandmom is driving me fucking insane..." He explained to Kurt as he held open the door to Breadstix.

As they sat together on one half of the table that Blaine had reserved, Kurt went over the list of things to know about Mercedes.

"She can be a little intimidating, but she's a total softie at heart. She has an irrational hatred of giraffes, she's a total diva, she loves English, she hates math, she - "

"Kurt. I can handle a single chick." Blaine interrupted, holding a hand up in a gesture to silence Kurt.

"Oh... and don't call her a chick, bitch, or any other female diminutive slang." Kurt added on. He was all nerves. For some reason he desperately wanted Mercedes to like Blaine and for Blaine to get along with Mercedes.

"Yes mother." Blaine said with a roll of his eyes.

Kurt ignored the slight and scanned over Blaine. He had managed to pick out jeans that weren't all tattered and torn, and a shirt that was black - so even if it was stained you wouldn't be able to see them clearly. Over it all he had completed his bad boy ensemble with a loose black leather jacket. Kurt could smell the leather, and while he appreciated what animal rights activists believed in, he had a weakness for the smell of leather, and it smelled so good mixed with Blaine's usual spicy musk.

"Like what you see sweetcheeks?" Blaine whispered as he caught Kurt's eyes roaming over him.

Kurt flushed and turned his face away, "I wish you wouldn't call me that..."

"And why not?"

"Because... I..." How could Kurt tell Blaine that it made him feel like there was something more between them than there actually was? Thankfully Mercedes walked in right at that moment and Kurt took advantage of her arrival to drop the matter. "Mercedes! Here!"

Blaine was nothing if not shocking. He put on his polite persona that Kurt had seen him use with his mother and he could tell he was winning Mercedes over, though she was not-so-subtly drilling him and probing for information on why he acted out.

And when she did that, Blaine not-so-subtly redirected the conversation back to her interests and complimented her at every turn. Kurt watched him in awe, amazed at how smooth Blaine could be when he put in the effort. If he acted like this at school he would have no problem being one of the most popular kids in school.

Blaine even picked up the tab, citing again how happy he was to be out of the house and that the company was so good.

Kurt was sure that Mercedes would be talking Blaine up tomorrow at school.

"Well that went just wonderfully!" Kurt gushed as Mercedes left. "You were a picture of a gentleman!"

Blaine snorted a small laugh, "Yep. Chicks love me. I'm sex on a stick."

Kurt flushed, thinking about all the ways that statement could be twisted into something more wicked.

Blaine caught the redness in Kurt's cheeks and made a small laugh, "You were so worried..."

This time Kurt was the one to shrug. He had been worried. Kurt imagined that was what it was like to introduce a new boyfriend to the family... if only Blaine was a boyfriend.

"Why the hell would you stuff tots into a vintage LeCar Mercedes?! I don't care if it was Coach Sylvester's car! That is a classic car that should not be messed with!" Kurt was fuming at Mercedes when he caught up with her the next day, having heard that she actually went through with shoving tots up the exhaust pipe of Principal Sylvester's (In Figgins' absence) car after what he thought was her jokingly asking Ms. Holiday if she could.

Mercedes rolled her eyes and shrugged, "Whatever. She had it coming."

Kurt leveled with Mercedes then as she pulled out a big tub of tots. She was using food as a replacement for love, and him as a replacement for a boyfriend.

Besides, he thought, how am I ever going to get a boyfriend of my own when I'm a stand in for her non-existent one?

She took it well enough, also noting that she enjoyed the night before and went off to find that football player Kurt had tried to set her up with previously.

SUCCESS - Kurt texted to Blaine.

ME TOO - Blaine replied, letting Kurt know that the school board was letting him come back to school next week.

Kurt smiled to himself and lifted up the schedule in his locker where he secretly kept a small copy of Blaine's school photo he had convinced him to give him as part of the whole being friends deal. He actually enjoyed the afternoon meetings they had been having for the past couple weeks, though would be happy to see Blaine in French class again where Azimio had taken to calling him Le Homo.

"Did you hear?" Finn asked as they sat in Glee club where Mr. Schuester had returned. Kurt was apparently the only one in the club not thrilled by his return.

"I have been able to hear since I was an infant Finn. What, specifically, are you asking that I heard?"

Finn's brows rose as he took in Kurt's sarcasm and then elaborated, "Blaine Anderson and David Karofsky are both going to be back next week."

"Hmm..." Was all Kurt could reply with. He didn't want to give away that he already knew about Blaine, and didn't want to show that the thought of Karofsky returning scared the hell out of him.