Chapter 3: Battlegrounds

Lately this world seems kind of strange
Has my perception changed? Am I losing the war?Enemies that only you could see- or is this sympathy?
Tell me how hard would you fight, if everything was slipping away,
Before you just laid down and died?
Night falls, still darkness never comes
Silence forever gone, you just keep dropping bombs
On my inner peace, you could not be more pleased.
Where is your sympathy?

-Battlegrounds by Goodnight Argent

The entire rest of the day, Blaine felt off. He kept looking over his shoulder, expecting Kurt to appear with his insulting comments and his mesmerizing eyes. But Kurt had driven away this morning, blown off school entirely, which Blaine couldn't help but admit was pretty cool. Not even Puck would just ditch class like that- show up to get stoned and then drive away. Blaine couldn't tell if he was glad that the little punk had left him alone for the day or, strangely, disappointed. He decided if he was disappointed, it was only because he didn't get to kick the little fucker's ass. Honestly, the whole encounter had been so goddamn unsettling. He had nearly failed a pop quiz because of it. It was only the third week of school and this stupid kid was throwing him off his game. Blaine was pissed off. And restless. He still couldn't stop glancing over his shoulders.

Quinn could sense something was wrong as she leaned in to kiss him when she sat down next to him at lunch. He didn't mean to, but he subconsciously pulled away from her, ever so slightly.

She exploded.

"What the fuck Blaine?"

"I'm sorry Babe, I think I just have onion breath," he lied quickly. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him. He could tell she didn't believe him entirely but she didn't press it, simply huffily shoved a tin of Altoids at him. Hewasfairly obsessive about his hygiene.

"Thanks," he said briefly before popping one of the mints in his mouth.

"Honestly, Blaine, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were cheating on me," Quinn said as she pulled a single apple and a bottle of water out of her bag. She turned to look at him then, every word that left her mouth punctuated and cold. "But I know better than to think I have to worry about something like that. Don't I?"

Blaine shivered a little internally before nodding. Quinn was just as aware as he was of how unhappy their parents would be if they split up. Of course their moms would never just come right out and say it, but it had been made fairly obvious that the two were expected to be dating, and well, what concrete reason did they have to say no? Better to appease the parents together.

Blaine nodded in response to Quinn's question before forcing out, "Of course, Babe."

Quinn nodded in response, like a master to its dog.Good boy.Blaine felt like slapping her.

"Alright well, since it seems like you're just going to be a little weirdo at lunch, I think I'll just skip out." She nodded her head to the other football players and cheerleaders that were sitting at their table and then flounced off, leaving her food behind untouched. Blaine didn't ask where she was going, mainly because he didn't really care, and also because he was almost certain it was to go get high in some back stairwell or to puke up whatever undigested food she had sitting around in her stomach, if any. He was glad she was gone though, because as she had left, Santana had walked in, a similarly sparse lunch in hand, and Blaine had some questions for her.

"Santana," he hissed as she approached their table. She walked over to the empty seat next to him with a wary look on her face.

"What do you want, Puppy Dog Eyes?"

"I need to ask you about this morning."

"Look, Blaine, if this is some sort of pathetic attempt to stage an intervention for me or something, I'll have you know right here and now that what I do in my personal life isnoneof your business. Actually, nothing that I do ever is any of your business, unless you're sticking your tongue down my throat and your dick in my vagina. In which case, we can talk. Or not talk."

Blaine just shook off Santana's come on, because she did it to all the guys. "Look, this isn't about hooking up with you, shockingly enough," he said. "And you can smoke all your brain cells dead for all I care. This is about that punk ass kid that was out under the bleachers this morning."

Santana furrowed her brow. "You mean Hummel? You heard what Puck said. He's Flabby Gut over there's new stepbrother," she said, nodding toward where Finn Hudson sat at the other end of the table, shoveling a cheeseburger and fries into his mouth at the same time, one food item in either hand. "Hummel's a nice enough kid. Gay as a three dollar bill of course. But badass, so he pulls it off I guess. Fun to party with. Why do you want to know?"

"Because he's a jerkoff and I'm gonna kick his punk ass the next time he swaggers it on in here."

Santana didn't even try to hide her laughter. "You trying to kick Hummel's ass. That is something that I might even stay after school in this disgusting hell trench to watch. Listen Blaine, you try and kick Hummel's ass, and that kid will kill you. I'm serious here. He willkill you. He might not look that strong, but I've seen him get mad before and trust me, no one at this school's got enough balls to take him on."

"So you hung out with him all summer then?"

"Not all summer. Just at a few parties. Like I said, he's a fun guy. Until he's not anymore." She gave Blaine a warning look and he knew that if Santana felt threatened by someone, the person was probably pretty legitimate.

"I don't get it." He frowned. "He looks harmless."

Santana chuckled again. "Why don't you say that to his face?" She asked and Blaine turned around to see none other than Kurt himself standing behind him. God he looked tall. And...powerful. Blaine couldn't come up with another word to describe Kurt's appearance that didn't sound- well,gay.Even powerful was a stretch.

"Yeah. What were you saying Curly-Q?"

That did it. Blaine was out of his seat in a heartbeat, knocking over the opened container of apple juice on his lunch tray, causing the amber liquid to spill across the table and the floor. He didn't notice. He was too busy connecting his fist with Kurt Hummel's well-defined jawline.

Kurt stumbled back at the punch, the surprise that flitted momentarily through his piercing eyes giving Blaine a false sense of satisfaction until Kurt reeled back and got him back, right in the eye.

Blaine was down. His head was exploding with pain radiating from his eye, which he wassurewas bleeding, if not blinded. But he wasn't letting the little twerp get away with this shit. He staggered up off the floor, ignoring the look of surprised delight that had spread across Santana's features and the cacophonous yelling of the jocks as they got to their feet and rallied. Since he couldn't see and already had the disadvantage of being shorter than the other boy, Blaine hunched his shoulders up to protect his neck and ran at Kurt full force, barreling into him right in his gut and knocking him windless. Kurt was on the floor, breathing heavily, as Blaine toppled onto him, panting also but proud that he taken this supposedly "unbeatable" guy down. He squinted at Kurt through one eye and saw something reflected in the blue eyes that stirred his stomach. Kurt was looking at him, really looking at him, and God, it was such a gratifying feeling. His eyes really were beautiful, even awash in pain and anger right now as they were. They were captivating, actually. Blaine couldn't look away. He couldn't even breathe. He saw something appear in Kurt's eyes, an openness that he hadn't seen before, an almost frightened vulnerability, just a trace of it and he-

Ugh. Blaine was shoved off of Kurt's chest with a violent knee thrust to his groin, leaving the upper half of his body momentarily suspended above Kurt until he collapsed backwards, writing in pain on the cafeteria floor.

Finn had made his away over by now, having disentangled himself from his leech-like girlfriend and was now kneeling over Kurt protectively.

"What the hell Anderson? Why the fuck are you beating my brother up?"

"Step-brother," Kurt snapped, sitting up and rubbing his arm furiously across his mouth, the corner of which was bleeding slightly. "And he wasn't beating me up.Iwas beating him up. Obviously."

And it was obvious, to anyone onlooking, who had been the winner of this fight. Blaine lay, his back still to the ground, his legs curled up to his chest defensively, both eyes still clamped shut in pain, a hand over the left one, which looked to be bleeding slightly as well.

Kurt pushed himself up and hobbled over to Blaine's bent form, not willing to let anybody see that his gut was aching unbelievably from Blaine's full on body blast.

"And that, Curly-Q, is why you don't fuck with faggots like me." Kurt saw a fleck of spit from his mouth land below Blaine's right eye. The boy flinched but didn't move to wipe it off.

Kurt let out a satisfied sigh and turned to leave when his arm gripped by five hot, iron fingers.

The mousy substitute teacher on lunch duty, frightened out of her wits, had radioed the football coach when the fight began and now, moments later as it ended, Coach Beiste had arrived.

"Where you think you're going Kid?"

"Away," Kurt said firmly, but the cockiness had deflated from his voice somewhat.

"The hell you are. Anderson!" She barked.

Puck and a few others who had begun to surround Blaine helped him slowly and he limped over to the coach. Surprisingly, rather than anger etched over his face, he just looked worried.

"Please Coach," he groaned, limping as she yanked the boys, one by each fist, from the cafeteria.

"No more out of you Anderson. You got yourself into this mess. I don't wanna hear no excuses."

"But I can't...afford...another detention," Blaine grunted between labored breaths.

"Shoulda thought of that before. Unfortunately it's out of my hands now. You'll be lucky if a detention is all you get."

"But Coach...the game Friday..."

"Yeah Anderson." Coach Beiste looked at the pathetic boy before her with pure disappointment in her eyes. "My thoughts exactly. Now go on."

They were roughly pushed into Principal Figgins' office.

x-x-x-x-x-x

"Mr. Anderson, Mr. Hummel, take a seat," Figgins ordered in his slightly bored-sounding Indian accent. Each boy complied, but not without some fuss. Kurt sat down huffily, the strap of his book bag wound tightly in one hand. Blaine on the other hand, was slumped dejectedly in the wooden chair next to him, an ice pack that Beiste had brought from the nurse's office held to his eye halfheartedly.

"Now I hear that there has been a bit of a scuffle going on."

"Scuffle!" Beiste interjected from the corner of the office where she stood, hulking over the boys. "When I found these two, they were both bloody and on the ground in the middle of the cafeteria. I think what we have between these two is a little bit more than a scuffle."

"Well since you seem to have been in on the action, what, Coach Beiste, do you suggest we do about this?" Figgins asked with a trace of annoyance in his voice.

Beiste shrugged. "It's clear these two have a problem with each other. My suggestion would be that they spend some quality extracurricular time together and learn to solve their differences."

Blaine shifted in his seat to argue at the same time as Kurt protested, "I object!" his voice somewhat higher than normal.

"You object?" Figgins asked, his brown eyes sparking slightly.

"Yes. I have...activities to tend to outside of school enough as it is. I don't have time to waste with ignorant bigoted jocks. Nor should I have to. This boy is a bully," he declared, indicating Blaine with a tilt of his head. Blaine noticed that Kurt's hair, perfectly gelled into an elegant swoop this morning was now coming slightly un-coiffed, a few strands slipping into his eyes. How did he manage to even makethatlook so good? It just made Blaine angrier.

"Coach! I have to be at practice, youknowthat!"

"Yeah I'm fully aware of where you have to be Anderson. And once again I wish you'd thought of that before you started wrestling with this punk in the middle of the cafeteria." Kurt wrinkled his nose as he was once again referred to as a "punk". "But this isn't going to interfere with practice. Trust me," Beiste continued. "I'm giving you another chance to fix your mistakes and man up. You don't wanna screw up your whole senior year and your future before it's hardly begun. So you learn to get along with Kurt, and you'll remain captain of the team. But another incident like this, and I'm going to have to seriously reconsider my choice for football captain this year."

Blaine slumped into his seat further, the distress of the situation evident in his pained features.

"Excellent idea, Coach," Figgins said. "Now," he made a pyramid with his fingers and rested his chin on it lightly. "What shall the extracurricular activity be?"

"I still can't believe you expect me to spend time outside of school with a BIGOT!" Kurt yelled, jumping to his feet. Figgins and even Beiste looked up at him, startled. He looked awfully tall and imposing, there in Figgins' small office, his muscled shoulders poking out of his leather vest heaving as he choked out furious breaths, the corner of his smooth lips still split and crusted with blood.

"Mr. Hummel, please sit down," Figgins said, but there was little authority in his voice.

Kurt complied but the anger was still visible in the set of his shoulders and his smoldering eyes. "You know- both of youknow- about the shit that I've had to deal with at my other high schools. I came here to get away from all that. You've spoken to my father; you promised me McKinley would be different. And now you're making me hang out alone with an asshole who hates me because I'm gay!"

Blaine looked at Kurt, unable to keep the shock out of his eyes at what he had just heard. What had Kurt dealt with in the past? Where had he come from and what had happened to him? And, Blaine had to admit, Kurt's ending sentence stung a little bit. He didn't hate Kurt, and if he did have a problem with him, it wasn't because he was gay. Something about the kid just got under Blaine's skin.

"On the contrary Mr. Hummel, Mr. Anderson is not a bigot," Figgins spoke up and Blaine was grateful someone was coming to his defense.

"It's true," Beiste stepped in. "I've known this kid for almost two years now Kurt. He's one of the nicest guys we got on the team. I always ask him to keep an eye on the freshmen and the underdogs, make sure they don't get hassled too much, teach 'em to take care of themselves. I trust Blaine. I've rarely seen him lash out at anyone and I'veneverseen him get into a fight like today."

"Which is why," Blaine interrupted, "I shouldn't be penalized for this. It's obviously the new kid's fault. He provoked me. You know I never behave like this."

"All the more reason for you to work it out with Kurt here. You two could help each other. You probably have more in common than you know," Beiste encouraged, ever the optimist. Kurt sneered at the suggestion.

"I sincerely hope not."

"Now that will be enough Mr. Hummel." Figgins jumped in. "Starting today I want the two of you to think of some sort of community service project you can complete together. It should be something that takes the entire first term. I want to see an outline for it on my desk on Monday and you will have weekly meetings to get it done. And no splitting up the work between the two of you either. This has to be done together, and it has to be done in order to benefit others."

"But we don't even DO the same things. Kurt is a lowlife. He doesn'tcareabout anything," Blaine complained, pushing down the strange thrill that went through his stomach at the thought of spending more time with Kurt.

"I'm sure Mr. Anderson that once you spend some more time with him, you will find out that is not true," Principal Figgins declared with a satisfied smiling, feeling as though he had just very wisely and considerately maneuvered a tricky situation and settled on a perfect solution, despite the fact that it had really mostly been Beiste's doing.

Both boys made noises of protest but Figgins help up a hand. "That will be all for today, thank you. I expect you to hand in that outline on Monday,together.And if you boys fail to do this, I'm sure I don't need to detail what the consequences will be. Coach Beiste, please show them out."

The coach had one hand on each boy's back as she guided them firmly from the office. Once outside, Kurt wriggled his shoulders, effectively shoving her off.

"I have to get to class," he muttered, beginning to stalk off down the hallway, looking every inch the rebel he was.

"Wait," Blaine called, feeling foolish and embarrassed but knowing he had no other choice. "We're gonna have to meet up about this. I need your number."

"Oh is that so? The football captain wants a faggot's number? Better not let word get around, people might start to talk." Kurt said the words with a smile on his face, but there was real bitterness laced through his voice.

"Come on Kurt. Give it up."

Kurt laughed callously. "I'm notthateasy Curly-Q. You want my number so bad, you figure out how to get it." And he was walking away again.

Blaine felt his stomach shifting around inside him. This kid was messing with him, messing with himbad, and he hadn't even known him for a whole day. How was he going to survive the rest of the year?