Blaine feels good about today. It’s actually bright this morning. Seeing the sun improves his mood. It’s quiet on the bus for once, most students catching up on lost sleep or whispering quietly to their friends. Blaine feels prepared and awake for the coming day; even his history teacher’s boring lectures couldn’t bring him down from this natural high, Blaine thinks.

The short freshman steps off the bus and catches Mr. Schue saying good morning to fellow glee clubbers, making Blaine feel even better. Sometimes Schue could be a little too friendly with his students, bordering on inappropriate, but no one could ever fault him for being rude to them.

        When Blaine looks away from the glee club teacher, he spots a familiar head of chestnut brown hair. His smile gets impossibly wider and he begins in the direction of his friend, but when he recognizes the people around Kurt, he falters.

         Puck and a few other football players are all standing with Kurt next to a dumpster. The blue-eyed sophomore looks agitated. Blaine doesn’t have to be any closer to know what the football team plans on doing.

         Before he can even come up with some sort of plan to help Kurt, Blaine begins marching over to the bullies. He knows he can’t intimidate them or fight them off for his friend, but he has to do something. But Blaine doesn’t reach them fast enough, doesn’t have enough time, because when he reaches the dumpster, Puck and another football player have already hoisted Kurt into the trash. 

          Without thinking, Blaine shouts, “What is wrong with you?” The bullies just laugh at him as they walk by, one (Azimio, he realizes) roughly shoving Blaine to the ground and spitting out the words, “Hey, fag.”

          Once they’re gone, Blaine stands up quickly and brushes off his clothes before dashing to the dumpster. Kurt is already standing up and pulling himself out, so Blaine decides to place a steadying hand on the taller boy’s arm.

          “Are you okay?” Blaine questions, the worry heavy in his voice. Kurt shrugs his shoulder, shirking off Blaine’s hand.

          “I’m fine, Blaine,” He mutters.

    Blaine doesn't buy it, taking in Kurt's dejected demeanor. "Are you sure? They-,"

          “I said I’m fine!” Kurt snaps and stomps off in the direction of the front doors, leaving Blaine standing alone in the parking lot, confused and, although Blaine doesn’t want to admit it, hurt.

 ~

          Blaine is still bothered by his interaction with Kurt that morning but forgets it quickly when Mr. Schuester passes out sheet music for the song “Le Freak” by Chic. Blaine doesn’t even need the sheet music, he knows the song by heart. He loves disco, the upbeat instrumentals and fun lyrics. He remembers many days from the past summer, listening to his old records in his room and whipping out his best disco moves. Schue begins teaching them the choreography he wrote and Blaine throws himself into the dance, exaggerating every move and beaming the whole time.

          But when Rachel almost kicks Mercedes’ face in, rehearsal goes south quickly.

          “Woah, woah, hell to the nah!” Mercedes exclaims. “First of all, you try to bust my face again and I will cut you!” Rachel looks positively terrified of the raging girl, trying to shrink away from her. Mercedes abruptly turns to their teacher. “And also, this song is terrible.” Blaine wants to pipe up and defend the song, but Schuester beats him to it.

          “No, no, it’s not the song. You guys just need to get into it! Did you see Blaine? He was having fun with it!” A few of his fellow club members turn to look at him. Rachel is even giving him her hardest glare for stealing her spotlight. Blaine wishes he was anywhere else now. He did have fun dancing to the song, but he didn’t need Schue pointing it out to everyone else.

          “No, it’s the song,” Kurt argues. “It’s really gay.” Blaine’s heart sinks even lower at the comment. He knows Kurt doesn’t mean anything by it, but it still hurts to hear him using the word in a negative way. Blaine just wants to disappear completely now.

          “We need modern music, Mr. Schue,” Artie points out, Tina nodding by his side.

          “I’m sorry guys, we don’t have time to discuss this,” Schuester tells them. “We’re doing the song this Friday at the pep assembly.”

          Everyone is taken aback by this and Tina, scandalized, asks, “In front of the whole school?”

          “Exactly!” Schue declares, mistaking Tina’s horror for excitement.

          “They’re gonna throw fruit at us! And I just got a facial!” Kurt shouts in exasperation. Blaine bites back an inappropriate laugh, keeping in mind he’s still not happy with Kurt and that Kurt is genuinely worried about the assembly, as is he.

          “I will press charges if that happens!” Rachel asserts and Blaine holds in another chuckle. These people he’s surrounded himself with are just so eccentric.

          Schue gives them all a stern look and opens his mouth to speak. “Guys, I can’t express to you how important this assembly is. We need recruits. There are seven of you. We need twelve to qualify for regionals. We have no choice or the club is over. I know you guys don’t like this song. But we took nationals back in ’93 with ‘Freak Out’. It’s a crowd pleaser. Trust me. From the top!”

          Finn mutters something about being dead, and Blaine can’t help but agree. He may love disco, but he’s well aware that most people don’t, especially the student body of McKinley.

          Through the next few run-throughs of the song, Blaine’s excitement is replaced by anxiety. Blaine knows that if they perform this song on Friday, it won’t matter if anyone decides to join. The whole glee club will be dead.

~ 

          After practice comes to a close, Blaine is gathering his bag when he feels a light tap on his shoulder. He turns to find Kurt smiling softly at him.

          “Hi,” The brown-haired boy says quietly. Blaine knows he’s annoyed with Kurt for being so short with him that morning and calling the song they sang in glee “gay” but, seeing Kurt’s face, Blaine smiles back. He can’t stay mad at Kurt. He doesn’t know how. Just seeing those beautiful lips curl into a smile makes Blaine feel warm and light.

          “Hey,” He returns. Kurt doesn’t say anything in reply and Blaine sees that Kurt is clearly thinking about something serious. “What is it?” Blaine asks, hoping Kurt is all right.

          After a beat, Kurt says with a hint of regret in his voice, “I just wanted to apologize. For snapping at you and saying… that about the song.”

          Blaine feels immediately better about the whole day. He couldn’t fix what had happened and neither could Kurt but the older boy owns up to it and that’s enough for Blaine. “It’s okay, Kurt. I appreciate the apology.” Kurt smiles brightly at this and Blaine can see him relax. Yep, I can’t ever stay mad at him.

    After a pause in the conversation, Kurt looks at Blaine with a smirk. "So, disco, huh?"

~ 

          The following Tuesday, everyone is gathered in the choir room waiting for Mr. Schuester to arrive so their lunch practice can begin. Blaine is standing with Mercedes and Kurt who are arguing about Mercedes’ colorful zebra print sweater. Kurt is completely against it, calling her a “Technicolor zebra” and Mercedes bites back that Kurt is just a hater.

          Blaine respects Mercedes choice to wear whatever she wants, but can’t help but agree with Kurt that the sweater should be disposed of immediately. He’ll have to go home and flip through a few Vogue magazines to get the image of the hideous sweater out of his mind.

          Schue enters and passes out more sheet music, explaining that they can’t do it for the assembly but the club should be able to sing music they enjoy once in a while. Blaine looks at the title and sees it’s “Gold Digger” by Kanye West. He’s not as excited about it as he was about disco, but when Mercedes starts belting out the solo, Blaine is awed by her amazing voice and lets himself enjoy the rap music. His dancing is almost as awkward as Kurt’s and he definitely doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the atmosphere in the room is so easy and fun that Blaine can’t not get wrapped up in the music.

          When the song ends, everyone dissolves into laughter. Blaine and a few others praise Mercedes’ amazing vocals and plead with Mr. Schue to change the song for the assembly. He refuses and the glee club is still doomed.

 ~

          Blaine and the rest of the New Directions are standing on the makeshift stage that’s set up on the gymnasium floor. His heart is hammering out of his chest as they wait for Figgins and Schue to introduced them. Blaine can’t help but flashback to their secret meeting two days ago.

          “I have another idea for the assembly,” Rachel begins as she stands in front of the group.

          “Can I once again stress my most strenuous objections to this attempted suicide?” Artie speaks up.

          “They’re not gonna kill us cause we’re gonna give them what they want.” Rachel informs the group, earning a mixture of confused and intrigued looks.

          “Blood?” Kurt asks sarcastically and Blaine can’t help but giggle a little bit at the question.

          “Better. Sex.”

          The decision to create a whole new, sexier number for the assembly was unanimous but now as Blaine stands in formation with his friends, he feels nerves clawing at his chest. He doesn’t know the first thing about being sexy. He’s never been anyone’s boyfriend. How is supposed to pull this off? Dread invades his mind as he waits, getting worse and worse as time drags on. His mind freezes, though, when Figgins begins speaking.

          “Silence, children. Silence,” He says to the dead quiet room. “First, an announcement. The toilets are broken again. We are fixing the problem but let me warn you there will be zero tolerance for anyone soiling school grounds. We’re not going to have a repeat of last time.” Blaine cringes at the thought, unsure of what “last time” was but positive he doesn’t want to know. Figgins continues, “We have a treat for you guys today. Mr. Schuester.”

          Schue approaches the microphone and introduces the glee club. Immediately the curtains open and the glee club is launching into their raunchy performance of Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s “Push It”. Blaine’s fear of being too innocent melts away as he dances with his the rest of New Directions, thrusting his hips provocatively and making other obscene gestures. Occasionally he looks over to Kurt and watches as the taller boy shakes and sways his hips to the music. Blaine’s face heats up as he watches Kurt, unable to stop the inappropriate thoughts of holding Kurt close to him by those amazing hips and kissing him deeply.

          Blaine is, surprisingly, enjoying himself on stage when he sees it out of the corner of his eye.

          Kurt brings his hand down in a firm smack on Finn’s rear.

          Kurt just slapped Finn’s ass.

          Kurt just slapped Finn’s ass!

    Blaine momentarily forgets everything he's doing, everything he knows, as he feels his heart grow heavy in his chest. Why did Kurt do that? He's straight! Blaine sudenly remembers where he is and returns to his dancing, but with much less vigor than before. HE can't stop thinking about Kurt hitting Finn on the butt. Maybe he just got really into the performance, Blaine tries to justify the action to himself but in the back of his mind he knows Kurt did that consciously.

          The performance comes to a close and the whole student body is on their feet, clapping and cheering. Blaine knows he should be ecstatic that the school actually liked their number, but he can’t stop the image of Kurt smacking Finn’s butt from replaying in his mind.

~ 

          Blaine trudges up to his room and throws the shopping bags onto his floor and flops gracelessly onto his bed. The long day of shopping with Mercedes and Tina was what he needed after the stressful week at school but left him completely exhausted. Nevertheless, he had a fun time with the girls. Dealing with the fallout of the “Push It” fiasco left the whole club stressed and a little ashamed. When Mercedes had decided they should go shopping, Blaine immediately had agreed.

          As Blaine is contemplating sleeping until Monday morning, his phone buzzes from the pocket of his jeans. He sluggishly pulls the phone out and reads the text.

          Lima Bean?

    Blaine doesn't reply imemdiately, like he usually does when he gets a text from Kurt. He does want to go to the coffee shop with the boy, but he can't even think about Kurt without remembering the slap. Blaine knew he couldn't stay mad at Kurt, but being upset by the things he does? Blaine thinks that may never end.

          He ends up agreeing to go, but only because he figures moping won’t do him any good. Maybe Kurt will joke about having no idea what he was doing when he slapped Finn. Maybe he’ll tell Blaine what a horrible mistake he made. This outing to the Lima Bean will be good for me, Blaine decides and goes downstairs to pester his mother for a ride.

~ 

          When Blaine enters the Lima Bean, Kurt immediately spots him from his place in line and waves him over.

          “Hey, Blaine!” Kurt says cheerfully.

          “Hi,” Blaine replies with barely half of Kurt’s enthusiasm.

          “How was shopping?” Kurt inquires, shuffling forward as the line moves.

          “Oh it was good,” Blaine answers halfheartedly. “I got a new pair of shoes and some new bow ties.”

          Kurt sniggers a bit and Blaine cocks his head at Kurt, a confused look on his face. “Do you really need more bow ties? You have hundreds.”

          “I do not!” Blaine cries defensively, but a small smile is dawning on his lips. “And even if I did, there is no such thing as too many bow ties.” Kurt makes a scoffing sound, but doesn’t say anything. “So why didn’t you come shopping with us?”

          “My dad needed help in the shop today,” Kurt informs the shorter boy. “Believe me, if I could have, I would have gone shopping with you guys. There’s this new Marc Jacobs coat that I must have.”

          Blaine laughs lightly and watches Kurt as he orders. He still feels saddened by the slap, but not by Kurt.

  That’s the thing about Kurt. No matter what he does or how Blaine feels, he never fails to raise Blaine’s spirits.

          They grab their coffees and sit at their usual table, chatting about the things Blaine bought and what Kurt did for his dad that day. Blaine loves how easy it is to talk to Kurt. Even with his former friend from Westerville, conversation wasn’t this effortless or fun. Blaine relaxes, forgets about the slap incident and lets himself enjoy Kurt’s company.

          Eventually, as the sun begins to set outside, Kurt and Blaine decide they should probably head home. As they’re standing to leave, Kurt turns to Blaine.

          “Oh, Blaine! I forgot, did you hear?” Kurt questions.

          “Hear what?” Blaine returns, curious.

          “Quinn Fabray, the head cheerio, and her cronies joined glee club.”