How Kurt ended up with this job, he had no idea. He had gone from dreaming of Broadway in Lima, Ohio, to teaching fifth grade Science in the same dead end town. There were, admittedly, perks to his job such as the thrill of helping a struggling student pass an exam, etcetera. There were, however, also disadvantages to his job. For example, the occasional disruptive child or, you know...that incredibly annoying music teacher whose class happened to be right next door to yours. How were students supposed to concentrate in class when all they could hear was incredibly loud instruments and out-of-tune singing bouncing off of the walls? Not only that, but he also seemed to always have students showing up to his class late because 'Mr Anderson let us out late again, sorry sir.'

One of the things that annoyed Kurt most, was that his students seemed to think that he and Mr Anderson were together, or at least wanted to be together. He had been in several situations where a student would come into his classroom at break or lunch and explain how they'd heard that both he and Mr Anderson both 'loved boys instead of girls' and would then question whether he and Mr Anderson loved each other.

And why did he always seem to have so much happy energy in him? Surely teaching ten and eleven year olds how to properly play instruments when they barely had the mind capacity to concentrate on one thing at a time couldn't be that fun. He was always bouncing into the staff room for coffee during break — and god, why did he even need coffee? he was so energetic! — while excitedly greeting all of the teachers, who didn't seem phased in the least by his random outbursts of energy. 

Simply put, if questioned by anyone other than a confused ten year old, Kurt would probably say that he hated Blaine Anderson.

~*~

"Okay guys! Well done today, you all worked really hard. You can go to break now." Blaine said, smiling at his students as they happily left his classroom shouting goodbyes to him.

Blaine loved his job. He loved his students and he loved teaching them music, seeing as that was his one true passion. He loved spending his breaks animatedly talking to his colleagues. He didn't even get annoyed, not really, when the Science teacher next door to him complained to him for letting the kids out late at least once a week.

There was something odd about Mr Hummel though...He didn't seem as passionate about his job as some of the teachers Blaine had met, and he never really saw him interacting with other staff. Blaine had seen Kurt talking to some of his students before, and he always seemed to have a good connection with them. He was a good teacher from what Blaine had seen, but he didn't understand why he never seemed very passionate in places other than his own classroom.

He also never really understood why his students seemed convinced that they were dating or...something, even after they'd witnessed Kurt complaining about the noise level in Blaine's class.

He was sort of intrigued by Kurt.

~*~

Crap, crap, crap. He was late for the third time that week alone.

Kurt quickly darted inside the school building and ran face first into...oh god, Blaine Anderson.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Blaine exclaimed. Wait, what? He looked down and saw that his shirt was completely covered in coffee. "Do you need help drying off or something to change into? I'm really sorry!"

"No, I'm...I'm fine," Kurt winced, pulling at the material of his shirt as it began to cling to his chest. "I need to get to class."

"Why? School doesn't start for like half hour..."

"Are you kidding me?" Kurt groaned. "I thought I was late so I completely skipped breakfast and near enough broke the speed limit getting here."

Blaine completely ignored whatever Kurt was saying as he began to feel increasingly guilty for completely soiling his shirt — it was white, too.

"Kurt, you need to change into something dry."

"I'm fine, I- I have something in my car." Kurt dismissed, turning around to leave the school building as he tried to keep his shirt from touching his skin.

~*~

Blaine was in his classroom finalising his lesson plans for the day when he heard a soft knock on the door and the sound of it being pushed open. He turned around to see Kurt standing awkwardly in the doorway, still pinching the material of his shirt so that he didn't have to deal with it sticking to him.

"I forgot to bring my bag with me and I need something dry to put on. Could I borrow something please?" He asked as if it was inflicting physical pain on himself to ask Blaine for help.

"Sure," Blaine said as he pulled his bag out from underneath his desk and rummaged through until he found a baby blue shirt and crossed the classroom to hand it to Kurt. "It might be a little bit small for you but it shouldn't be too bad."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And I'm sorry, again, about the whole coffee thing..."

"It's okay. I kind of ran into you anyway." Kurt reasoned.

Blaine just smiled at him as he walked away from the classroom in the direction of the bathroom.

~*~

Seeing Kurt walk around school wearing one of his shirt did funny things to Blaine's insides. Anytime he passed his fellow colleague in the staff room or just generally walked by him in the hallway, his stomach would do this strange fluttery thing that made Blaine feel like a teenager again. Of course, he ignored it and just told himself that it was only happening because Kurt — admittedly — looked really good in that shirt. His shirt.

Blaine almost spilled coffee down himself when he walked past Kurt's classroom to see him talking to one of his students with an adorable smile on his face. He looked really cute and — oh god. Blaine felt as if he was officially losing it. Since when did he crush on the people he worked with? Since when did he crush on anyone, period? And since when did he even use the word crush?

He stood there for a good few moments before realising that he was staring, and kind of creeping, on Kurt. Blaine took a deep breath as he attempted to clear his head of all things Kurt-related  and continued his journey to the staff room.

Unfortunately for Blaine, Kurt showed up to the staff room about two minutes later and sort of smirked at Blaine as if he knew exactly what the music teacher was thinking.

Apparently the universe was not on Blaine's side as his stomach began to flutter, again, at the sight of Kurt and his breath did this little hitchy thing and — yeah, Blaine was totally crushing on the Science teacher.

"Blaine?" Miss Edmund — one of the schools English teachers — called, snapping her fingers in front of Blaine's face as he clearly wasn't listening to anything she said.

"What- sorry, I tuned out. What were you saying?"

Miss Edmund smirked as she realise what — or who — Blaine was looking at. "I see someone has a crush."

"What? Crush? How old are you, five?" Blaine said, forcing laughter but only pulling more attention, namely Kurt's attention, to himself as he did it just a little bit too loud.

"Honey, be quiet," Miss Edmund laughed. "And you know what I mean.  You've been ogling a certain brown haired, blue eyed boy for the past five minutes — not very subtly, might I add."

"I do not have a crush." Blaine said, crossing his arms over his chest as Miss Edmund raised her eyebrow at him. "I...Okay, fine. I think I do. It's weird though because we never speak, we practically avoid each other and well...he pretty much hates me."

"Oh sweetie, I doubt he hates you."

"Well, if he didn't already he probably does now...I spilt my coffee down his shirt this morning." Miss Edmund nearly burst out laughing at Blaine confession, but quickly stopped herself.

"I'm not saying you're lying but his shirt seems perfectly dry and clean to me."

"That's because it's not his shirt, it's mine." Blaine replied, blushing like a schoolgirl...wow, he had it bad.

"Ah...I wondered why it looked slightly small for him... no offence."

"None taken," Blaine laughed. "Okay, I should get back to my classroom before I make an even bigger fool of myself than I already have. I'll see you later."

~*~

Kurt was confused. Confused as hell.

At random moments throughout the day he would catch Blaine staring at him, like, really staring. What was even stranger, however, was that he couldn't seem to get Blaine out of his head.

He had a free period and was sitting at his desk, carelessy sketching some designs out when he realised that he couldn't hear the frustrating sound of several different instruments being pounded against at the same time. It was just...silent.

Kurt slowly got up from his desk and left his classroom, walking to the class next to his and peering through the window with his face scrunched up in confusion, not caring how weird he looked. 

Inside the classroom he saw all of the students sitting down in a circle and each of them staring intently at something in their hands. He caught Blaine's eye in the process of spying on his class, and the curly haired music teacher looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.

He internally cursed himself for standing outside the classroom for too long when he saw Blaine announce something to the class before making his way to the door and stepping outside.

"You...your class is silent..." Kurt said incredulously, still deliriously confused.

"Yeah I'm um, I'm teaching them how to read sheet music." Blaine replied, biting his lip awkwardly.

"Oh."

"Yeah well...I always annoy you with the noise level, I thought I should try and give you one quiet lesson." Blaine said, attempting a laugh as Kurt seemingly snapped back to reality.

"Well that would be awesome except I have a free period." 

"Oh...well, they needed to learn it anyway so..." Blaine said as if he was covering up a mistake.

"Okay well...I'm just gonna go- yeah, I'm gonna go back to my classroom now." Kurt said, walking backwards and metally praying that he didn't do something incredibly stupid and embarrassing like trip over the heels of his shoes.

Once he was back inside the safety and privacy of his classroom, Kurt leant against the door and reminded himself how to breathe. 

What the hell was going on? How was he reduced to a barely coherent mess in front of Blaine...he didn't even like the guy...did he? Kurt felt like he was going crazy, but he pushed all thoughts of Blaine to the back of his head until the end of the day when he went straight home and buried his head in his pillow before screaming. Literally screaming.

~*~

The next morning, Blaine felt like the previous school day was just a hazy dream. 

He didn't think about Kurt at all until the Science teacher stopped by his classroom to return his shirt, freshly washed, and it wasn't as overwhelming as the previous day when he saw him.

All of that was ripped to shreds however, when Blaine was on his way to pick up resources for his class and he heard an angelic voice echoing from the school music hall. He opened the door carefully, and looked inside to see Kurt sitting at the piano that was hidden in there belting his heart out. The singing came to an abrupt end when Kurt heard the door open and he turned his head to see Blaine standing there, and he suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Go away." Kurt said quietly. Blaine dismissed his instructions however, and said the only thing that was on his mind in that particular moment.

"Kurt, your voice is amazing..."

"I said go away!" Kurt all but screamed as tears spilled out of his eyes.

No matter how much Blaine wanted to ask what was wrong — and hug the crying teacher, as much as he'd hate to admit it — he decided that it would probably be best to leave it and slowly backed away from the music hall, closing the door behind him.

~*~

Blaine didn't see the Science teacher again until break when he found him curled up on one of the sofas in the staff room, reading a book.  He didn't seem as if he was really reading it though, he was more or less just staring at the pages.

"Kurt?" Blaine said cautiously as the chestnut haired teacher looked up at him. "I'm really sorry about earlier."

Kurt closed his book and left it on the arm of the sofa before standing up and grabbing Blaine's hand, pulling him out of the staff room and towards his classroom. Blaine was confused the entire time, and for some of the time that they were actually in the classroom as Kurt just stood silently, breathing slowly as he stared at the floor.

"I'm sorry I snapped, well...screamed, at you." The Science teacher said quietly, still not looking at the music teacher.

"Kurt, you shouldn't have to apologise...I shouldn't have just —" 

"Let me finish, please?" Kurt pleaded, looking up at Blaine with watery eyes. The music teacher nodded as Kurt took a shuddering breath. "When I was in high school...music was my escape. I was tormented pretty much everyday because, well look at me," He laughed dryly, not entirely sure why he was opening up to Blaine so much, but continuing to speak nonetheless. "But singing would always make me feel better. It was a way for me to express how I was feeling when I didn't really know how to put it into words. 

I wanted to do Broadway. I planned to move to New York with my best friend, we both applied to the New York Academy Of Dramatic Arts, but I never got in. I reapplied every year for three years straight before I realised that I wasn't going to get in and it was a waste of my time. I had no back-up plan, so I spent those three years in freaking Lima Community College. I knew that I needed to come up with a plan...a career or something to get me through my life and I figured that teaching would be an okay route to go down. So, I applied to a completely different college regardless of the fact that I'd be above the average age that people there were. Science was one of my strongest subjects in high school so I decided to major in that and graduated two years ago and...well, here I am.

I snapped at you earlier because...that was the first time that I'd sung in years, and it was a Broadway song. I was pretty much putting every emotion I'd ever felt into that song and I felt vunerable because I hadn't even sung in the shower since my dream was basically crushed, let alone completely belted something out. It felt like a personal moment and the idea of someone seeing me like that...so open and vunerable scared me, because I've learned to close myself off from everyone and everything."

"Kurt..I'm really sorry." Blaine said sincerely, feeling guilty, but not just because he'd walked in on Kurt.

"It's kind of funny," Kurt said, blinking his tears away. "I was scared about you seeing me singing because I felt like I was opening myself up too much and here I am basically telling you my life story."

"You know I'd never tell anyone, right?"

"No...I don't know that, not really. I mean I don't really know you. I guess I'm just very trusting."

"Kurt, I-" Blaine was cut off of whatever he was planning to say when the bell sounded, letting them know that their classrooms were going to begin filling up any second.

~*~

Blaine was falling, and he was falling hard.

After hearing Kurt sing and open up to him, Blaine couldn't stop thinking about the Science teacher. Everytime he shut his eyes or his mind wandered, his thoughts were interrupted by a certain set of piercing blue eyes.

He felt kind of bad, honestly. Kurt had completely opened up to him and trusted him with something very personal and he was subconsciously using it to make his feelings for the chestnut haired teacher stronger than they already were.

Strangely enough, ever since that day, Kurt and Blaine had begun speaking to each other more often. Sure, it was only the occasional 'hi', but considering they never spoke before, it was a lot. They would also smiled at each other when they walked past each other in the staff room or the hallway and Blaine would turn to putty every time. Absolute putty.

The fact that he knew hardly anything about this guy and he felt so strongly about him spoke volumes, and Blaine couldn't really describe what it was about Kurt that made him feel that way, all he knew was that he was completely smitten.

~*~

Blaine wasn't sure if the fact that both he and Kurt were chaperoning the school dance was a blessing or a curse.

It was a blessing because, assuming he wasn't reduced to a gibbering wreck, there was the possibility that he could dance with Kurt, but that in itself was possibly a curse as he would probably fall flat on his face.

The night of the dance, Blaine was nervous as hell. He'd already succeeded in putting his trousers on backwards and tripping over his sofa — that really didn't help with the whole confidence thing.

He arrived early and was awkwardly sitting at one of the tables in the room by himself until Kurt showed up and joined him.

"Hey." Kurt smiled as he sat opposite Blaine and, wow...he looked amazing. 

Blaine suddenly forgot that he had the ability to speak and sat there gaping at Kurt for a few moments as Kurt stared at him with a confused expression.

"Good," Blaine said and Kurt raised his eyebrow. "You. You look good. Nice, I mean. You...you...look nice." Blaine stuttered, blushing every shade of red that ever exsisted.

"I'm pretty sure that isn't how you string a sentence together," Kurt teased. "But I'm assuming you said I look nice, or good so thank you. So do you."

"Thanks." Blaine squeaked, and luckily the hall started filling up as student after student filed in so Kurt was momentarily distracted, allowing Blaine to take a moment to compose himself.

~*~

As the night grew later, Blaine mentally worked up the confidence to ask Kurt to dance with him.

Seeing that Kurt was occupied, Blaine patiently waited for the teacher that he was talking with to leave before he nervously walked over to the Science teacher.

"Hey!" Kurt exclaimed when he saw Blaine.

"Um...do you...doyouwannadancewithme?" Blaine rushed out quietly.

"I'm gonna need you to slow down and speak up..."

Blaine took a deep breath before repeating himself and making sure he actually sounded human this time. "I was wondering if you wanted to...dance...with me?"

"Sure," Kurt smiled and took Blaine's hand before walking further into the hall with him.

Of course, the music switched to a slow song just as they got there. Nonetheless, Kurt wrapped Blaine's arms around his waist before wrapping his own arms around Blaine's neck and leaning his forehead against the music teachers shoulder.

"This is so awkward...we're slow dancing at a middle school dance and most of the kids aren't even dancing anymore."

"Don't worry," Blaine replied, his voice thick. "They're not paying any attention to us."

"You okay?" Kurt asked, pulling back to look at Blaine when he noticed the change in the music teachers voice.

"Yeah...yeah, just..." Blaine said, cupping the back of Kurt's head and gently pushing it back onto his shoulder as he was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions from looking into Kurt's eyes.

"Blaine, your heart is beating really fast," Kurt observed, but didn't move his head this time. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Blaine replied.

"Don't lie to me." 

"Nothing's wrong it's just...it's beating fast because of you."

That confession. That one confession was the thing that made Kurt lift his head back up to look at Blaine again, despite the strong hand that was still cupping the back of his head.

"Because of me?" Kurt asked and Blaine nodded in reply, moving his hands back to Kurt's waist, before taking a deep breath, not knowing where his sudden confidence had come from but not really caring either.

"I really like you," Blaine admitted. "I know we don't really know a lot about each other and I can't really explain it. Whenever I'm around you my stomach does this really weird fluttery thing, my heart speeds up and my palms get really sweaty...I feel like a thirteen year old girl. You make me crazy."

"You know...thirteen year old girl probably isn't the best selection of words to use when you're confessiong your feelings to a gay man." Kurt replied teasingly.

"I'll keep that in mind." Blaine laughed as Kurt wrapped his arms tighter around Blaine's neck and rested his chin on the music teachers shoulder. They weren't really dancing anymore, just swaying slightly as they held each other.

"I really like you too." Kurt whispered into Blaine's ear as if it were the biggest secret he'd ever kept.

"You...you do?" Blaine asked increduluously and felt Kurt nodding his head.

"I used to hate you. Or well, I thought I did but I guess deep down I didn't really. To me you were just that annoying music teacher whose class was next door to mine and always let his kids out late and made a bunch of noise which frustrated me. I don't know what changed but...I get that fluttery feeling too. It drives me crazy. You drive me crazy."

"I wanna know you." Blaine said, leaning his forehead against Kurt's, completely forgetting that the students and teachers were even there. "I wanna learn everything there is to know about you. I wanna know what makes you happy, sad...the things that drive you up the wall so that I can avoid doing them as much as possible. I wanna know what your favourite food is, what colour you despise most in the rainbow, I just...I wanna get to know the real Kurt Hummel."

"That can be arranged." Kurt smiled, rubbing his nose against Blaine's.

~*~

TWO YEARS LATER.

"Blaine! I told you the dresser goes there!" Kurt exclaimed frustratedly.

"Why don't you just come and do it yourself then Mister Interior Designer?"

"Because," Kurt began, taking both of Blaine's hands into his own and pulling his boyfriend closer before wrapping his arms around Blaine's neck. "You look hot when you lift heavy stuff," Kurt explained, eliciting laughter from Blaine. "You know for a fact that nobody can pull of a vest like you."

"As if you'd ever let me forget." Blaine replied, rolling his eyes.

"I can't believe this is really happening," Kurt smiled. "This place is really ours and we're really moving in together."

"Well believe it, because it's real." Blaine said, placing a gentle kiss to Kurt's lips before wrapping his arms tightly around his waist and hoisting his boyfriend over his shoulder.

"Blaine!" Kurt screamed, flailing about in Blaine's arms. "Put me down!"

"I thought I looked hot carrying heavy stuff?"

"Did you just imply that I'm fat?" Kurt asked before Blaine ran through their new apartment and threw Kurt onto the sofa. "Ow."

"Never." Blaine grinned, crawling on top of Kurt and kissing the tip of his nose.

"You're lucky I like you."

"You love me." Blaine countered, rolling his eyes.

"Duh." Kurt replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world before pulling Blaine down into a kiss by his neck.

FIN.