Kurt was slipping, and he knew it.

The day Blaine Anderson had shown up in the halls of McKinley High, Kurt felt himself slip.

Kurt had spent all of junior year building up his persona so that all of the taunting would stop. All throughout his sophomore year Kurt had had to deal with bullies. They had done the usual dumpster tosses, locker checks, and slushies, but that was all tolerable. The dumpster tosses and slushies both came at the beginning of the day, so he had developed a habit of wearing clothes to school that he didn’t mind getting ruined, and then he would change right after it was all done with. The locker checks were never anything serious, just enough to make him stumble a little bit, but then he could carry on his way. He managed to survive sophomore year with minimal damage.

But at the start of his junior year, things took a turn for the worse. The dumpster tosses and slushies came at irregular times throughout the day, and the locker checks became more violent, to the point of bruising. What made it even worse, was that all of the bullying had escalated due one person. Dave Karofsky. It was like he had made it his personal goal to make Kurt’s life a living hell.

It had worked.

He was only through the first half of the first semester, but Kurt was living in terror every day of his life. 

One day Kurt was at his locker when he saw a group of jocks walking down the hallway. At the same time he saw the group of girls that called themselves “the Skanks” walking in the opposite direction. The two groups passed each other with no interaction. No locker checks. No taunts or sneers. It had been like they were invisible to the jocks.

That afternoon Kurt had approached Quinn, the leader of the group, and asked to join. As soon as he joined the bullying had dropped dramatically, and soon he was left completely alone. He never looked back.

So when Blaine Anderson waltzed into the detention room with his honey eyes and adorable bow tie, Kurt felt himself slipping back into his old self. The same self that was thrown into lockers and who spent a large majority of his time washing out red dye no.4 out of his eyes.

After Kurt had given Blaine his ‘makeover’, with gentle touches and careful words, Kurt swore he would avoid the boy as much as possible. Blaine Anderson was dangerous if with one look Kurt wanted nothing more than to protect him from the cruel world of McKinley High, no matter what the costs. Sure, Kurt wanted to help him so that he would not have to go through what he did, but he still had his own persona to keep up if he wanted his back to remain bruise-free.

Kurt felt himself slipping again when Blaine had practically given him puppy dog eyes and asked him to sing. Kurt couldn’t understand what it was about this boy that made him get up in front of everybody and pour his soul out for everyone to see. And it was only the second day of school.

And so, even though Blaine had been staring directly at him the whole time he sang, with a look that practically made Kurt weak-in-the-knees, he swore, that he wouldn’t let Blaine Anderson get to him anymore.

The third day that Blaine Anderson had detention would be the day that changed the rest of his high-school life. As soon as Johnson had left the room Puck was there, standing in front of him, obstructing his (once again, very good) view, and asking him a simple question: “So, you want in?”

It was explained to Blaine that they wanted him to join their group and come to this detention so that he could sing with them. But, he had to audition first (“we don’t want you to be in our group if you totally suck, dude.” Puck had explained ever so nicely).

So that’s how Blaine found himself standing in the cleared space of the detention room, with Puck’s guitar in his lap, with seven pairs of eyes on him, waiting for him to sing.

Blaine decided that he would stick to a song he knew and could sing well. He started playing the opening chords, a little faster than normal.

Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?

Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?

He sang it simply for the purpose of it being a fun song. He knew these people were going to be his friends here, and he didn’t want them to see him as some humorless stiff. He also did want to be a part of this world, as cheesy as it sounds. He had never felt more at ease than when he was singing, and if this was the place he could do it, then he wanted to be here. He also wanted to be with Kurt. Not just in terms of possibly being in a relationship with him, but he wanted to just be around him. He wanted to get to know him.

Wish I could be part of your world…

Blaine ended the last note of his song while not so subtlety looking at Kurt, before everyone burst into applause. Even Kurt was clapping for him with a small smile. That, in itself, made Blaine’s heart swell.

“Great job, Blaine!” Mercedes congratulated him, “I think it is safe to say that we would all love for you to be here!”

Blaine smiled and accepted the praise from the others, while still glancing at Kurt every now and then. He had resumed his conversation with Quinn (who had shown up that day).

“Alright, Anderson,” Puck announced regaining his attention. “There are a few things we have to go over if you are going to be here from now on.”

Mercedes guided Blaine over to another chair closer to where Kurt and Quinn were sitting. Upon hearing Puck’s exclamation everyone else in the room gathered around the table Blaine was now sitting at.

“Rule number one,” Puck started, holding his pointer finger up dramatically in front of Blaine’s face.

“Wait, there are rules?” Blaine interrupted.

“Yes. Now shut up.” Puck responded without missing a beat. “Rule number one: we don’t want some teacher coming in here and messing everything up. We like what we get to do because Johnson doesn’t give a shit about us, and we would like to keep it that way. So, don’t go blabbing about this to anyone. Understood?”

Blaine nodded.

“Number two:” Puck continued, “This is a legit group that we have here, not just a come and go thing. So, you have to show up to detention. Every day.”

Blaine’s eyes widened, and he almost protested, but then he figured, it was worth it. It wasn’t really detention anyway.

“Number three: In order for you to be an official member, you have to be initiated.” Everyone around the table seemed to get a wicked grin on their face when Puck mentioned this.

Blaine was momentarily afraid for his life.

“What kind of initiation?” Blaine asked nervously.

“Simple,” Mercedes said as she stepped forward toward Blaine. She knelt down in front of him. “See this?” She pointed to a small black stud that was pierced through her nose. “That’s the sign that you are in this group,” she said as she stood back up. As Blaine looked around he began to notice that everyone there also had a piercing somewhere that had a black stud in it.

“Nobody else in the entire school wears black studs?” Blaine asked a little skeptically. To be honest, he didn’t like the sound of this initiation very much.

“Don’t be sassy, Anderson,” Puck cut in. “Yeah sometimes people wear them, and when they do, they rarely wear just one. Also, there are only seven of us here. We know who is and isn’t in the group. This is just part of initiation, so shut up and pick a place.”

“What?”

“Where is the stud going to go?” Puck asked again. Kurt walked away from the table momentarily.

“Uhh..” Blaine was getting nervous now. He looked to Mercedes for guidance. She had taken a seat relatively close to him.

“The ear lobes don’t really hurt that much,” she said touching the long dangly earring she was wearing at the moment.

“Ye--yeah but,” Blaine stammered. Kurt had reappeared, walking toward the table carrying a small bag. “Which ear would I put it in?” Blaine asked Mercedes.

Kurt walked over and sat on the table right in front of Blaine, practically leaning over him.

“Well, that’s for you to decide,” He said as he opened the bag and pulled out a small box. He popped the lid and there were a few small sewing needles in there.

“Wait! We are doing it right now!?” Blaine panicked.

“Well yeah,” Puck stated, “your initiation is now.”

Kurt put down the small box of needles and picked a sharpie out of his bag. He grabbed Blaine’s hand pulling him from his seat and toward the door. “Let’s go Curly Top.”

Kurt pulled Blaine into the bathroom once again, pulling him toward the mirror and uncapping the sharpie.

“Alright, where do you want it?” Kurt asked. Blaine was still freaking out a little bit.

“Where do I— I don’t even want it! Why do I even have to do this? If I had know that I would have to go through with this I—“

“Hey. Hey,” Blaine’s ranting had been cut off when Kurt had closed the space between them and put his hands soothingly on the side of Blaine’s face. “Just calm down,” Kurt chuckled a little, trying to console Blaine. Blaine’s breath had caught in his throat upon the contact.  “It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just something they like to do. It won’t hurt that much, I promise.”

Kurt was almost petting Blaine lovingly, trying to calm his nerves. Blaine was staring at him with wide eyes, full of what looked like wonder.  Once Kurt realized what he was doing, he quickly withdrew his hands and took a few steps away from Blaine.

“So, um,” He said looking at the ground. Why the hell was Blaine turning him into this blushing mess? “Where do you want it?”

Blaine shrugged his shoulders, also looking at the ground. Kurt sighed when he saw Blaine. He just looked so small and adorable, Kurt couldn’t help but relent. He walked over to Blaine again and squared his shoulders toward the mirror.

“How about here?” Kurt said pointing to Blaine’s left earlobe. “That’s where I got my first one, and that’s where most get their first single.”

Blaine was still hesitant about the whole thing, but he figured he didn’t have much of an option in the matter.

He sighed, “Fine…”

Kurt uncapped the sharpie again and drew a small dot on Blaine’s ear. The close proximity to Kurt had once again stolen the breath out of Blaine’s lungs.  He was so close. His lips were within reach. All he had to do was turn his head and—

But then Kurt stepped away, revealing Blaine’s reflection in the mirror.

“How’s that?” he asked.

Blaine examined the small dot on his ear. “That’ll work, I guess.”

Kurt nodded his head in agreement, and pocketed the sharpie before heading for the door.

“Let’s get it over with then.”

Blaine pretended not to be too disappointed when Kurt didn’t take his hand like he had earlier.

They were once again sitting in the detention room. Blaine was sitting in a chair and Kurt was on the table in front of him, holding an ice pack (from Mercedes’ lunch) to Blaine’s ear. There was a slice of an apple (from Artie’s lunch) sitting on the table next to a sterilized needle (courtesy of Quinn’s lighter).

Everyone was gathered around the table to watch the initiation take place.

Blaine’s ear was completely numb from the ice when Mercedes spoke.

“So Blaine,” she started, “you said you used to be in glee club at your old school? What was it like?”

Blaine turned his eyes to her, and gave her an appreciative smile. “It was great. We were all great friends and we would try to put on performances whenever we could. We tended to do impromptu performances in the lunch hall because then everyone in the room would join in with us. The only real gigs we had, besides competitions, were singing at nursing homes. But none of us cared. We all loved performing so much that we didn’t care where we did it.”

Blaine knew he was rambling by this point, but he had just missed everyone from Dalton so much that once he started talking, he couldn’t stop.

He had just finished talking about the council and the odd but endearing habits of some of the members when he realized that Kurt was leaning back on one of his hands, listening intently to Blaine’s stories, which had been going on for about ten minutes.

Blaine immediately stopped talking when he noticed the small smirk on Kurt’s face. He reached up to his ear and felt the small piercing there.  

“Welcome to the club, Blaine!” Puck shouted, and everyone broke out into cheers and applause.

Blaine, once again, felt himself blushing under the attention and he felt a warmth spread through his chest when he saw Kurt clapping as well and smiling.

He now had detention for the rest of the year.