Kurt's Navigator pulled into the school's parking lot a full minute before Blaine's MINI Cooper Clubman. By the time he arrived, Kurt was already leaning against his car with a smug little smile. Blaine parked in the space beside him and Kurt came round to the drivers side door, holding it open for his duet partner.

"Told you so," Kurt laughed.

"I can't believe you beat me!" Blaine couldn't help but smile at the musical quality of Kurt's laughter.

"Well that's what you get for challenging me to a race on your second day of school, new kid. I know all the short-cuts."

Kurt was too busy teasing Blaine to notice the looming figures over his shoulder. The next thing he knew there was a rough hand on each of their shoulders shoving them harshly into the side of Blaine's car.

Blaine's mind immediately went back to Westwood High, to that dark whirlpool of emotion he'd worked so hard to break free from. All the fear and panic came rushing back  almost overwhelming him until he was pulled back to reality by a small whimper from Kurt. He heard a gruff, menacing voice off to the side.

"Welcome back, Lady! Looks like you've got yourself a little gay boyfriend."

The three jocks in letterman jackets stalked off, laughing cruelly.

Blaine looked at Kurt and recognised himself in the pale boy. The quiet, disgruntled acceptance of what Blaine assumed was a near daily occurrence was all too familiar to him. But he wasn't that scared, weak person anymore. He hadn't let it beat him and he wouldn't let it beat Kurt.

"Kurt, are you..."

"Fine. Blaine, I'm fine. really."

Blaine gave him a skeptical  look and grabbed his hand tightly.

"Come with me."

Blaine led Kurt through the sparsely populated hallways, never once letting go of his hand. When they reached the choir room, Blaine pushed the door open, finding it empty. He pulled Kurt in behind him closed the door. Blaine turned to face Kurt, who was avoiding eye contact.

"Kurt. Does this kind of thing happen often?" he asked.

The ashen faced boy, who was looking intently at his shoes, took a shaky breath before speaking softly.

"I've always been different from the other boys, I mean while they were outside playing  football or whatever I was inside hosting tea parties and marrying off my power rangers. They always thought I was strange and would call me names they didn't really understand. In middle school the names got worse, I only had one real friend and eventually he decided he couldn't deal with the hassle of associating with me."

"Doesn't sound like a very good friend to me." Blaine was fuming. He wanted to find all of those idiots who'd ever hurt Kurt. He wanted to rant and rage about it but stopped himself when Kurt finally raised his eyes to meet Blaine's gaze and smiled weakly at his comment.

"Yeah, I guess he wasn't. During Freshman year I managed to not be noticed much, despite my wardrobe." Blaine smiled faintly at Kurt's attempt at humor.

"I still got the occasional homophobic slur or dumpster toss. But then when I joined glee club I was suddenly back on their radar. At first I got the same amount of harassment as the others but last year this one jock, Karofsky, made it his mission to make sure I couldn't go a day without being slammed into the lockers or have my books knocked out of my hands or getting a slushy facial. I was always covered in bruises that were thankfully hidden most of the time by my clothes. They've only just cleared up over the summer." He began to tear up.

"Kurt, that's awf... Wait, what the hell is a slushy facial?"

"Oh yeah, I forget that most school's aren't stupid enough to have a self-serve slushy machine in the cafeteria. A slushy facial is when someone throws a slushy in your face." 

"Really?"

"Yeah, I like to say it's similar to being bitch-slapped by an iceberg."

Blaine snorted, easing the tension sightly, "Nice analogy." Kurt chuckled, but Blaine could see that his eyes were swimming with tears.

"If being in glee club is getting you so much grief, why do you stick with it?" Blaine asked curiously.

"Because I'm not going to let them take away one of the only good things that I have in this Hell-hole they call a high school. I love glee, we're all close, and those guys are like my family. They're the best friends I've ever had."

"Don't they do anything to stop it? I mean the quarterback is your fucking stepbrother, surely he could do something!" Blaine was starting to get pissed off.

Kurt sighed, "They do try to help but, you know, they've all got their own problems to deal with. Anyway they don't really know the full extent it's gotten to. I don't want them to know, they wouldn't understand."

"Well I do. Kurt, before I went to Dalton I was in public school in Westervile. Things got bad, really bad. So bad that my parents felt they had to send me to Dalton Academy because they have a zero tolerance no bullying policy." 

"That sounds great," Kurt muttered.

"It was, but it also kind of left this lump in my throat. I ran Kurt, I let them chase me away. It was probably for the best, but I'm still glad that I get this second chance to stand up for myself. I hope you'll stand with me."

Blaine flashed him a hopeful smile. Kurt rolled his eyes and nodded smiling slightly.

"It's nice to know that someone gets it, you know?"

"Yeah."

A shrill bell rang out .

"Oh, crap, we're gonna be late for first period!" 

They both bolted out of the choir room and to their respective classes.

Unlike the previous day Blaine was looking forward to his lunch hour because he could now spend it with Kurt and the rest of the glee club. When the bell for lunch rang, he headed straight to Kurt's locker to wait for him there. Kurt came around the corner, a neutral expression on his face as Rachel spoke animatedly beside him. As he caught sight of Blaine, the look of relief on his face was clearly visible. Luckily Rachel seemed not to notice, as she too had spotted Blaine.

"Hello Blaine, we weren't properly introduced yesterday. My name is Rachel Berry, I'm the co-captain and star of the New Directions. I welcome your back up vocals!"

She paused to take a breath for the first time. Blaine was about to respond when she cut across him.

"I just had a brilliant idea! You could be my new partner! I mean I love Finn and he's talented but you're a much better performer and lets be honest we would be much more aestheticly  pleasing to the judges because we're closer in height. Oh my God! You have to come over for dinner sometime! My dads would love to meet you."

she looked up at Blaine hopefully. Blaine's eyes flickered to Kurt's face who was, much to Blaine's annoyance, trying his best not to laugh at how uncomfortable Blaine was.

"Um... Sure?"

Rachel let out a delighted squeel and flung her arms around his neck. 

"Yay! I'll organize for Saturday night. Bye guys, gotta go find Finn!"

With that she went running off down the hall leaving behind a very confused Blaine.

"Is she always like that?"

Kurt smiled as he put a few books into his locker.

"Pretty much. Actually she's a little better when she's at home, and don't worry her dads are surprisingly normal despite having raised Rachel. Well, Leroy is, at least."

Blaine laughed as Kurt closed his locker door. As they turned around, Blaine suddenly felt something wet and cold hitting his face accompanied by a burning sensation in his eyes.

"Welcome to McKinley, fag!"

It was one of the bullies that Kurt had been talking about. He felt Kurt's gentle hands on his shoulders guiding him into a nearby bathroom.