Kurt angrily slammed his fist into the row of lockers nearest to him. Detention had gotten out just a few minutes ago and he had quickly left the room so that he could get a hold of himself. What the hell was wrong with him? He had worked so hard to build up his tough exterior and protect himself from his tormentors. He had promised himself that he would stay away from Blaine or to be indifferent about him. If Kurt cared too much then it would come back to bite him. Why was it that as soon as he looked at Blaine he reverted back to his love-sick-silly-romantic self? He had practically caressed Blaine’s face in the bathroom trying to calm him. Why the fuck did he care so much?

Kurt angrily kicked the lockers to try and get some of his frustration out. He was so busy pacing back and forth around the hallway mumbling to himself, berating himself for his actions and telling himself to get it together, that he didn’t notice someone else approach him in the hallway.

“Umm, Kurt?”

Blaine had followed Kurt out after detention. He was going to take Mercedes’ advice and try to get to know him. He figured he could ask Kurt if he wanted to get coffee. It’s a casual enough activity that he could pass it off as just a friendly get together, even if he hoped that more would develop from it. Truth be told, he truly did want to get to know Kurt, never before had he been so entranced by someone before. Not to mention, the strange way Kurt’s personality seemed to change quite quickly. Blaine had noticed how Kurt acted differently around him, when nobody was around, and he was curious as to why.

He had followed Kurt out of the detention room after everyone had left, only to find him kicking the lockers, pacing anxiously and mumbling to himself. He began to worry if something was wrong.

“Umm, Kurt?”

Kurt immediately stopped pacing and turned to face him with a dear-caught-in-the-headlights look. His facade changed just as quickly, too. He was holding himself differently and holding his head up in a way that made him seem like he was completely confidant in everything that he was doing. It threw Blaine off a little bit how quickly Kurt changed, but he decided to ignore that for the time being.

“Is—Is everything okay?” he timidly asked.

“Yes, fine. What do you want?” Kurt replied quickly with a bit of ice to his voice. It too, surprised Blaine.

“Oh, well, I just…” Kurt was still standing in his confident pose, and Blaine was still intimidated by him. “I just wanted to thank you. You know, I was really nervous about this,” he said motioning to his ear, “and you just helped me go through with it.”

By the time he stopped talking he was looking down at the ground, he sounded pathetic. Since he was busy staring at his shoes, he missed the way Kurt’s haughty expression melted into one of soft sympathy. But, before Blaine could look up and see it, Kurt caught himself and resumed his overconfident expression.

“It was no big deal. Don’t mention it,” Kurt replied, and with that, he brushed past Blaine toward the exit of the school. Blaine remained in the hallway looking at the ground, feeling so small, and he didn’t even know why. He snapped out of his mood long enough to run in the direction Kurt headed to try and do what he had originally intended to do. He exited the school just in time to see Kurt speed out of the school parking lot on a shiny black motorcycle.

Blaine could not find another opportunity to ask Kurt to coffee for the rest of the week after that. Sometimes Mercedes and Artie were in the middle of talking to him whenever he would see Kurt, but he did not want to interrupt Mercedes and Artie to go over to him and ask. Sometimes Kurt was with Quinn or Puck, talking, and Blaine did not want to be rude to them either by interrupting. Mostly though, Blaine found it quite impossible to find Kurt during the day. If he didn’t have detention with the other male every afternoon, then he was sure that he would never see him otherwise.

The first week of school Blaine used to catch glimpses of him during the day, going to one class or another, but Blaine never saw him during the day anymore. Kurt was acting differently too. During the few times that Blaine did see Kurt and he caught his eye, if Blaine waved or tried to greet him, Kurt all but brushed him off or ignored him. Had Blaine done something, or was the Kurt he had previously met an act? Was Blaine not able to see Kurt during the day because Kurt was avoiding him?

Blaine was confused about anything that had to do with Kurt, and that increased his desire to get to know him more and ask him about it.

He got his chance the following week, the first Monday after the incident in the hallway.

It was toward the end of the detention period that afternoon when everyone was stilling on the tables in a somewhat circle, and Puck was strumming his guitar to a song while everyone sang together. They had been having these kinds of jam sessions all afternoon, just singing random songs and relaxing.

Today I don't feel like doing anything

I just wanna lay in my bed

Don't feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone

'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything

Nothing at all, nothing at all

They were all singing the song together while Mike was strutting around the room adding motions and acting out some of the phrases from the song; even the Skanks had joined in on the singing early on in the afternoon.

Everyone was laughing and having a lot of fun together.

As the song ended, detention time was almost up, so everyone began to gather their things to go home. All except Kurt and Blaine.

Blaine had caught Kurt’s eye just before the song had ended, and they hadn’t broken eye contact since then. Blaine offered up a tentative smile, and he felt his heart leap in his chest when, after a few moments, Kurt returned the smile.

The moment only lasted for a few seconds before Mercedes approached Blaine to say goodbye for the day. The next time Blaine looked over to Kurt, he was gone, having left for the day.

Blaine was alone in the room now, still sitting in his same place on top of the table. It had been the first time Kurt had acknowledged him in a while, and he felt himself smile at the memory. It still puzzled Blaine why Kurt had been more distant lately, but he figured he was just busy… hopefully.

Blaine looked over to where Kurt had been sitting and noticed something lying on the table. Blaine hopped off the table and went over to the small object.

Kurt’s lighter.

It must have fallen out of Kurt’s pocket when he left. Blaine turned it over in his hands. It was a small pink one that matched Kurt’s hair. Blaine knew that Kurt would be gone by now, so he would just have to hang onto it until tomorrow and return it to him then.

Suddenly the door opened and in walked Kurt Hummel himself.  He froze when he saw Blaine standing there, equally frozen in his spot.  

“I, umm—“

“You forgot—“

They both spoke at the same time, and both stopped at the same time.

Blaine made a motion with his hand to indicate for Kurt to go first.

“Oh, I just, umm..” he pointed to the lighter in Blaine’s hand.

“Oh! Right,” Blaine walked toward Kurt, “Here you go,” he handed the small object back to him. They both ignored the way their breaths hitched when their hands brushed.

“Thanks,” they caught each other’s eyes again. “Well, I’ll see ya around,” Kurt said with a smile as he took a few steps backwards before he left the room.

“Yeah… see ya,” Blaine said after the door had closed.

Kurt was walking down the hallway toward the exit of the school, hands slightly shaking. The short encounter that Kurt had with Blaine was enough to turn him back into the blushing romantic that he had been trying so hard to avoid. He had been doing really well this past week, he had been able to avoid Blaine during the day and he managed to avoid contact with him during detention times.

But the single one-on-one encounter with Blaine had put him back in his current state: tingling hands where they had brushed against Blaine’s and a doubting mind that was questioning anything that told him to stay away.

He just needed to get home. If he gave himself a night to compose himself he would be able to regain his ability to keep up his cool façade and to stay away from Blaine.

“Kurt, wait!”

Speak of the devil. Kurt turned around to see Blaine running down the hall toward him. He quickly composed himself as Blaine approached him.

He stopped a few feet away and was breathing a little heavy.

“What?” he asked, prompting Blaine to get on with it.

“I just, uh…” Blaine trailed off again when he looked at Kurt; he never failed to be amazed by him. Kurt averted his eyes towards the floor; he didn’t feel like he deserved Blaine to be looking at him like that.

“Kurt, will you go out for coffee with me?”

Kurt’s head snapped up to look at Blaine like he was crazy. “I—I mean, it wouldn’t be like a date or anything,” Kurt felt his heart sink a little, “but I just want to get to know you some more. You seem like an interesting person, and I like being around you and I figured that we could just get some coffee and talk and get to know each other a little bit more and I just…” Blaine realized he was rambling at this point. “I just… thought I’d ask.”

Now Blaine averted his eyes, he felt silly for even asking. Why would someone like Kurt want to hang out with someone like Blaine?

“You want to get coffee with me?” He heard a soft voice say. He looked up to see Kurt looking at him defensively, almost like he thought Blaine was tricking him or something.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really would.” He said, straightening up a little.

“And you just… want to talk?” Kurt looked even more apprehensive, like Blaine was suggesting the most absurd thing he had ever heard.

“Yes.” Blaine said with the most confidence he could. He wanted to assure Kurt that he was serious.

Kurt continued looking apprehensively at him for a few moments before he finally gave him an answer.

“Okay,” he said with a small nod.

Blaine drove them to a coffee shop, that afternoon, about fifteen minutes away from the school.

To say that Kurt was nervous would be an understatement.  Sure, he had agreed to it, but he was still unsure about why Blaine had any interest in getting coffee with him in the first place. He figured he would just have to find out for himself.

They had just gotten their drinks and had sat down at a table.

“So, Kurt,” Blaine began.

“What’s your angle?” Kurt interrupted him. He figured he should get straight to the point before he got in too deep.

“What—Kurt, what do you mean?” Blaine was confused, “I told you, I just—“

“’Just wanted to get to know me’, yeah yeah yeah. Cut the crap. What is going on? What do you want?” Kurt wanted to know the truth, and even if he had to be rude, he was going to get it.

“Kurt, I—“ Blaine looked down at his drink, fiddling with the lid. “I’m serious. I don’t know what it is about you, but I just want to know more about you. I think you are interesting and I want to be able to talk with you and be your friend.”  Blaine looked up from his drink to see the scowl gone from Kurt’s face, replaced by a bemused look.

After a few moments of silence between them, Kurt simply asked, “why?”

Blaine simply replied, “why not?”

The conversation seemed to flow easily enough after that. Blaine asked Kurt about his day and that was as deep as the conversation went for the day. They shared stories and gossip just like they were long lost friends. They talked and laughed all afternoon, keeping the conversation light, and Kurt had never felt more comfortable in his life.

At one point there was a small lull in the conversation, and Blaine asked, “Kurt, why is it so hard for you to believe that I would just want to hang out with you?”

Kurt didn’t freeze up or get defensive like Blaine had anticipated him to. But he just kept a passive look on his face and stared at his hands, as if he was contemplating his answer.

“I have a hard time trusting people,” he glanced up at Blaine, “and usually for good reason.” He returned to fiddling with his coffee cup.

“I don’t take the time to get to know people because they usually end up not being worth the time anyway. The last time I got to comfortable around people it didn’t end well and it…” he got a lost look in his eyes as his voice trailed off. He snapped out of his trance and glanced back up at Blaine and tried to shrug it off. “it just didn’t end well.”

Kurt was trying to laugh it off as if it were nothing, but Blaine could see his eyes were becoming a little more wet and he could see that whatever had happened was still affecting Kurt.

“What happened?” He asked, concerned.  Kurt chuckled as he looked back over at Blaine.

“That maybe a little too deep for our first coffee outing,” he said as he tried to discreetly wipe away a tear from the corner of his eye.  

Blaine didn’t want to push Kurt too far and loose whatever small amount of trust he had built up with him, so he simply nodded and changed the subject.

The next two afternoons were spent much the same way. After detention Blaine would drive Kurt to the coffee shop and they would sit and talk for hours.  They talked about everything.

Blaine talked about his transfer and how it had been his parent’s idea. He talked about how his father expected him to grow up to be some rich CEO or something when all he really wanted to do was perform. He talked about how his parents never talked about his sexuality because they figured if they ignored it, it would go away. Blaine talked about his old friends and his older brother who skipped town when Blaine was little to go to California. He also talked about his past with bullying, and how he had gone to Dalton in the first place to avoid all of it.

Kurt talked about his father, how they were all they had in the world. He talked about how his mother had passed away when he was younger, and how he still misses her. He talked about how his father had become a congressman just before Kurt’s junior year, and Kurt never bothered him with his bullying problems because he had enough on his plate. Kurt talked about how he loved his father and his father loved him, but he was rarely around anymore with him traveling all the time to Washington. Kurt talked about how he had joined the Skanks and how he and Quinn looked out for each other. He talked about his dreams to escape to New York after graduation and maybe go into fashion.

They would talk for hours each day and after he and Kurt had parted ways, Blaine felt elated with the time he had spent with Kurt.

It was late Wednesday afternoon, they would  be leaving the coffee shop at any time now, when Blaine decided to ask Kurt something that had been nagging at the back of his mind for a while.

“Why do you act differently around me when we are alone than when we are with other people?”

Kurt looked at Blaine, who was looking at him with earnest eyes, and sighed. He had expected this to come up at some point, he knew Blaine wasn’t stupid, he just didn’t know how to explain it.

“Blaine, you know what the bullying is like at McKinley, and that my past with it isn’t good,” Kurt still hadn’t given Blaine the details about what exactly went on during his junior year, but Blaine was aware that it wasn’t pretty. “When I joined the Skanks to escape it all, I had to start acting differently. I had to pretend to be… not myself, in order for it to all stop. The way I act when I am around other people, that is how I have to act to get the bullies to leave me alone. It’s how I have to act to survive.” 

He was too busy staring at the table he was scratching his nail on to look up and see the sympathetic look on Blaine’s face. That was the last thing he needed. Pity.

“But it’s different with you,” he felt his cheeks getting warm. “When I am around you I start acting like myself again, and I just…” he looked up to see the surprised look on Blaine’s face, and he quickly looked back down. “it’s just different with you…” he trailed off. He wasn’t about to tell Blaine how much he just wanted to be with him, how he would do anything to protect him, and how he never wanted to leave Blaine at the end of the day.

“Why me?” Blaine asked softly.

Kurt just shook his head, “I don’t know.”