After a shower, I’d slipped back into the henley and plaid pants from that morning, so even though my hair was still drying, I felt rather more like myself than when I ran into Schue as I came out of the lake. I’d even stopped shivering somewhere around the middle of my hot shower.

After dinner, I peeled off of the group of counselors that had lured me over to their table to eat dinner with them. Something about the promise of serenading the camp with a random song at the end of the meal. It was awesome, since we ended up deciding to do the number ‘bad American Idol audition’ style. We ended up with the whole dining hall of staff and JCs cracking up and threatening to throw food at us.

I headed off towards the camp office, the opposite direction from the general tide of people leaving the dining hall. After a few friendly slaps on the shoulder in congratulations of a purposely not-so-great performance, I had to stop partway there for a deep breath. Or a dozen. It had only been a day. Just over twenty-four hours since my arrival wasn’t enough time to stop the gut reaction of nine months of touches to the shoulder meaning shoves to the locker or the hard tile floor.

I closed my eyes, listening to the chirping of the birds and the rustle of the breeze through the trees as I centered myself. I wasn’t facing Schue until I knew I had control of myself. Once that was re-established, I moved on, making my way around the side of the building.

 “Kurt! You made good time.” Schue called over to me from the porch. He and the new kid were sitting in a pair of Adirondack chairs there, facing out towards the sport fields. At least he didn’t look pissed at me. I’ll admit that most of the times I’ve been summoned to the office have been because of some stupid prank I’d been convinced to help pull.

“That’s me. Nothing if not punctual.” I responded lightly moving to lean against the porch railing, facing Schue and the CIT. I gave the teen a curious look, but he seemingly had nothing to add to Schue’s enthusiastic greeting. If anything, he’d shrunk back farther into the big chair, casted arm propped on one green arm rest, looking anywhere but at me. Not a good sign for someone who was going to be living with a whole group of guys, if he couldn’t even look at one. Was he just really shy?

“Blaine, will you be okay here if I take Kurt inside to talk?” Schue asked the kid, Blaine. I watched Blaine for his reaction, keeping an easy, relaxed smile on my face.

Blaine blinked out of whatever world he’d been spacing out into as he looked over towards Schue with a nod, then at me with a look that seemed both way too wary for camp and finally a bit curious. “Sure. I’ll just, uh, enjoy the fresh air.”

I shot Blaine a quick smile I hoped was reassuring for the nervous tone to his voice before I looked towards Schue attempting to relax the kid a bit. “You probably don’t want to witness whatever this is. I swear, Schue, whatever happened, I didn’t do it! Only been here twenty-four hours. Blame Sam.” Unfortunately, this seemed to backfire with Blaine judging from the way he closed down even more, pulling his legs in defensively. Damn.

Schue winced at that look from Blaine, shaking his head toward me with a smile reappearing as he led the way inside. “You’re not in trouble. Unless there’s something I don’t know about?”

I followed him with a smirk through the main office area and into his personal office at the back. It was really as far from the porch as we could get, so I raised my eyebrows over towards Schue as he closed the door, another sound barrier. “Is this something about that new kid, Blaine, then? Because it sure seems like you don’t want him to hear us talking.”

“Too smart as usual. Yes. I wanted to ask a big favor of you actually.” Schue noted, moving to sit on the corner of his desk, gesturing me towards the raggedy chair across from it.

I sank down into the chair as I considered that. “No such thing as too smart. But a favor that involves him? Does it have to do with the jumpiness and that rather haunted look he’s got?” See, I could take that too smart thing one step farther.

“Yes and yes. I’m not going to go into any details because I don’t know all of them, and it’s his personal story anyway. Let’s just say Blaine’s had a hard time of it lately. He could use some friendly faces. That’s why I told his father I’d take him this summer.” Schue paused for just a second to pick up something to fiddle with, a stress ball. “His dad was my counselor way back when I was a camper here. I owe him. Plus, his brother Cooper was rather memorable in his years here.”

But if his dad and brother went here, why didn’t Blaine? I didn’t ask that though, instead deciding to go with, “So you want me to be his friend?”

“You know how we assign all the new campers a camp big brother? Someone to send letters to before camp and have a familiar person to sit with at meals and things while they settle in? I was hoping you’d be Blaine’s camp big brother.” Schue stayed perched on the edge of his desk, throwing the stress ball up into the air over and over.

“Why me? I’d be happy to take the role, but you could have chosen anyone from the camp. One of the counselors even. Finn maybe. He’d take a new guy under his wing. Why choose me?”

“You’re close in age.” Schue pointed out. “But not a CIT with him. And, well, I know you don’t really talk about it here much, but I know that things haven’t always been the easiest for you back home. But yet, here you are. Everyone knows you and most even like you. You’re confident enough to get up and ruin a song in the dining hall and popular enough for a group of guys to ask you to help them do it. You’ve carved out a place here for yourself, and you’re one of the best of your JC group. Plus, you’re both from Ohio.”

A blush had definitely covered my face at all of that. I’m not really all that comfortable with praise. “He’s from Ohio, too?” I asked, moving towards the safest part of that whole little speech Schue gave. “So I’m officially his camp big brother. I’ll take the job. What do you want me to do next? Has he moved in?” How could I say no when it sounded like Blaine needed this place to be a safe haven as much as I did?

“He is. From the Columbus area.” Schue tossed the stress ball over into a basket next to him, standing up. “Getting him settled in sounds like a good place to start. I had his stuff dropped off at the cabin, since he can’t very well carry his own trunk with that arm. The rest of the CITs don’t get here until tomorrow. I thought it’d do him good to see the place early. Maybe grab a couple guys and have a sleep over in their room? Mike, and maybe Sam? Tomorrow he can shadow you, at least in the morning. We’ll figure it out from there.”

Apparently the conversation was over at that point, because Schue was opening the door and heading out. I scrambled to my feet to follow the director back through the office to the porch.

Blaine was right where we’d left him, and he shot us a curious look when we came out. A good sign that he wasn’t totally space out again, I suppose.

“So, Blaine. Remember how I told you about the big brother thing we do? Kurt has agreed to be yours. I have a feeling two of you will get along well. Besides, he’s even from Ohio. How much better could you relate?” Schue sounded so enthusiastic that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes behind his back. I did however manage to keep on the friendly, non-threatening smile rather than the smirky, bitch look Schue occasionally inspired me to.

“Apparently all us Ohio folk have to stick together.” I said with a quite fake hick-like drawl to my voice before I moved towards the porch step. “Come on. I’ll show you your new home away from home. I promise I don’t bite.”

Blaine stood, pushing himself up out of the Adirondack chair with his good arm. The bright red cast was held close to his body, protectively, as he looked me over and just nodded. “Alright. I suppose I have to, uh, branch out sooner or later.” He moved to follow me, keeping more than a casual distance between the two of us.

Shit. I couldn’t make the kid more terrified in all of this. And somehow, he just had that kid feeling to him right now, despite only being a year younger. I really had to get over that or I’d feel like a pedophile every time I thought about how cute he is.

“Did Schue tell you about leadership cabin? The CITs, i.e. you, are living on the bottom floor this year. I’m a JC, junior counselor, so I’m just upstairs.” I made sure not to crowd his space as I led him across the quad. “You’ll get first choice of beds at least, being here early.”

“Do you have any recommendations on a good one? Bed, I mean?” Blaine asked, shooting quick glances over at me. “That was, um, some performance earlier.” He just sounded so tentative. Hopefully that would pass before it drove me up the freaking wall. For tonight, it was just sort of endearing. Like he needed to be wrapped up in a sleeping bag and protected.

“I always recommend a single, if there are any. Bottom bunk if not. Climbing onto a top bunk is annoying if you have to get up and pee in the middle of the night. Probably wouldn’t be the easiest with that cast, either.” I pointed out, not pushing yet to ask how his arm had ended up broken. I figured that it had something to do with Schue’s reference to having a tough time. “And thanks. That’s one of the great things about being here. Quirky and silly are seen as positive traits. I really can sing, but it was more fun that way.”

I pushed open the door to the leadership cabin, ushering Blaine inside. “And here’s your quick tour. JC’s are up the stairwell. The first door to the left is Wes’s room. He’s our Group Leader, in charge of keeping us all in line. Takes it pretty seriously, but he’s a good guy. Next door past that is the bathroom. They’re shared by the JCs and CITs, but there are stalls and everything. Our showers are actually the best in camp. Sometimes the counselors will sneak in on their breaks to use them.”

I walked over to open a wooden door, much like ours upstairs. “And here, kind sir, is your new abode.” I grinned over, waving him in like a butler in a fairy tale. “Let’s get you settled in and introduced around.”