Blaine laughed quietly to himself as he pushed the blankets off and got out of bed, crossing the room to get his uniform out of his closet and start getting ready - it was a school rule that all of the boys had to presentable and ready for the day by breakfast, which was in an hour. He walked past Kurt’s bed, and paused at the end of it. ‘Aren’t your feet cold?’ he asked, smiling down at the lump under Kurt’s blankets.

Kurt made a ‘humph’ noise and stretched out a little, his toes just brushing the end of the bed frame. Blaine laughed again and reached down to tickle the bottom of Kurt’s feet. Kurt yelped loudly, frantically pushing the blankets off and drawing his legs up sharply, wrapping a tense arm around them before looking up at Blaine, when he visible relaxed. ‘Oh,’ he breathed, laughing a little at himself.

‘Ticklish?’ Blaine asked.

Kurt, who was pulling himself out of bed, paused, and looked up at Blaine again. ‘Oh, no, no, I - I forgot...um.’ He blushed and looked down. ‘I forget where I was for a second.’

‘Oh, I did that my first morning too. Don’t worry, you get used to it,’ Blaine said reassuringly as he turned to face his closet and pulled off his pyjama top. ‘Sorry I frightened you.’

‘Oh, it’s oka - oh!’ Kurt cut himself off. Blaine glanced over his shoulder to see Kurt looking up at him with wide eyes, his mouth hanging half open, looking like he’d had the breath knocked out of him. As soon as he noticed Blaine looking at him, Kurt blushed bright red and looked down, busying his hands with the glass of water on his bedside table.

Blaine turned back to face his closet, then glanced down at his bare chest, feeling the heat rise in his own cheeks. It wasn’t that Blaine was embarrassed of his body at all - after three years at a boarding school with communal bathrooms, you kind of couldn’t be. But the way Kurt had reacted, how his mouth had gaped open and his eyes had glazed over, and the way he was now fumbling around in his bedside table, knocking over the multitude of bottles he had spent half an hour carefully arranging last night - that was what was getting to Blaine, because he had no idea what it meant. No one had ever looked at him like that before. But there was something about it that was making his heart beat faster and his fingers tremble slightly as he buttoned up his white dress shirt.

He heard Kurt shove his top drawer closed and then pad softly across the room to stand at his closet behind Blaine. Blaine automatically reached to pull a pair of the grey uniform pants out to put on next but he paused, not wanting Kurt to feel even more uncomfortable, before reaching for his red and navy striped tie instead. He heard Kurt rummaging around in his closet as Blaine’s still trembling fingers worked at doing his tie neatly, having to think about it more than he had since he was five and was wearing this uniform for the first time. Kurt cleared his throat softly, and Blaine glanced over his shoulder again to see Kurt standing closer than he was expecting, the curve of his cheekbone only a few inches away. ‘Um - I’m - um,’ Kurt stammered, his eyes downcast. He tightened his grip on his pile of clothes he had clutched to his chest, and then looked up at Blaine through his eyelashes before blushing again and then looking back down. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.’

Blaine smiled, ignoring the way Kurt’s eyelashes fluttered against his brow in favour of nodding and saying, ‘Okay!’ in a bright tone that made Kurt’s eyebrows knot together in confusion.

Blaine’s eyes followed Kurt’s retreating figure out of the room, admiring the adorable way that Kurt’s hair stuck up on one side - judging from the immaculately organised way Kurt had unpacked his suitcases the night before, this wasn’t probably wasn’t state he let a lot of people see him in. Blaine could have sworn he saw Kurt shake his head to himself as he left the room.

~

Blaine’s first class after breakfast was Chemistry, and he was pleased to see, when he checked Kurt’s timetable over the toast platter at breakfast under the pretense of helping him figure out where he had to go for his first class, that he had almost all of his classes with him - Chemistry, Trigonometry, History, Latin, and Music.

He walked into his Chemistry classroom with Kurt following quietly behind him and something of a spring in his step. Now that he was properly awake and full of bacon and had forgotten completely about just how pathetic his father was, Blaine could appreciate how happy he was to be back at Dalton. Despite what his father had said about working hard, he knew that this year was kind of a victory lap - people expected a lot out of him, but he didn’t feel like those expectations were unreasonable. He could get good grades. He could keep up with his extra curriculars. And when the time came, he knew he would be able to write a good application essay and that he would get into Dartmouth without a problem. He had proven that. Whether that was what he wanted out of life was another matter, but Blaine put that though to one side and concentrated on what his Chemistry teacher had been saying.

‘You’ll be picking three experiments from the project list...’ Blaine turned to Kurt, who was handing him a stack of papers. He took one off the top of the pile and passed them onto Nick, who was sitting on his other side. Blaine glanced quickly down the list of experiments before he heard Kurt groan under his breath. Blaine’s head snapped up to look at him on instinct. Kurt was looking down at the list disbelievingly, his eyebrows knotted together in confusion or concern, Blaine couldn’t tell. Blaine wanted to say something encouraging, but his voice stuck in his throat, and before he could get words out, his teacher continued. ‘The twenty questions at the end of Chapter One are due tomorrow.’

An hour later, Blaine was leading Kurt across the quad to their Latin classroom. ‘So what’d you think of your first lesson?’ Blaine asked, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet with every step.

Kurt screwed up his nose. ‘Chemistry’s not really my strong suit,’ he said quietly.

‘Ah well, that’s alright...’ Blaine paused before continuing, speaking slowly and carefully, hoping Kurt wouldn’t think he was patronising him. ‘I can help you out, if you want.’

‘Oh! Really? I’d like tha - I mean, yeah, that would be good. Helpful.’ Kurt flashed him a quick smile.

‘Yeah, well, I mean, we do sort of study group... things. Pretty much every night. Between us we’ve got pretty much every subject covered.

‘Oh. The whole group of you guys?’ Kurt asked, trying to keep a tone of disappointment out of his voice.

‘Yeah! And come on, you’re my roommate, Kurt. You’re one of the guys now too,’ Blaine assured him as he gripped Kurt’s shoulders from behind and steered him into their Latin classroom. Kurt tried to suppress his grin as they crossed the threshold.

~

Later that day, after lunch, Blaine was, once again, showing Kurt to their classroom - this time, it was Music. At Dalton, Music wasn’t really a subject many people took seriously. Most people were more concerned about subjects that really mattered, like the Sciences and Maths and Latin. It didn’t help that for the last seven or so years, the subject hadn’t had a steady teacher; instead, the school had brought in anyone who had even a little bit of experience with a musical instrument and was willing to watch various groups of teenage boys for a few hours a day. Needless to say, test scores hadn’t been particularly brilliant.

This year, however, things were supposed to be different. Last night at dinner, Dr Nolan had introduced all of the teachers that were new to the school, like he did every year. One of these teachers was a Mr Keating, who would be teaching Music. Blaine had been immediately intrigued and impressed - Mr Keating had gone to Dalton himself, and was now returning after a few year in London teaching at the Royal College of Music. Blaine was glad he’d been able to convince his father to let him do Music - not that it had been difficult. His father knew nothing of the poor test results and once Blaine had mentioned that it would make him look even more well rounded on his Dartmouth application he had been completely sold on the idea.

Blaine was curious to see what Mr Keating would be like, to say the least. Who in their right mind would give up a job at a top music college to come and teach at a high school where music barely even counted as a subject? And to come back to where you yourself had gone to high school? Blaine thought he must be insane - he was one of the people who hated Dalton the least in his grade, and he planned on graduating and then never coming back here again.

He was happy with the people in his class - all of his friends were here, some looking for easy credits, some forced into it by their parents, others, like Blaine, merely curious about what it would entail. No matter the reason, they were all here, and Blaine was glad that he could sit in the back row next to Kurt with all his friends for an hour a day in at least one class, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what the class would entail.

By the time Mr Keating walked into the classroom, the bell had already rung and everyone was starting to get restless, but as Mr Keating swaggered across the front of the classroom to his desk, everyone quietened down, watching him to see what this knew foreign creature - an ex-Dalton student who had survived and was evidence of the success the school said was guaranteed - would do.

Mr Keating leaned casually against the front of his desk, folded his arms across his chest, and surveyed the boys sitting in his classroom. Several boys glanced away from the intensity of his gaze as he made eye contact with them. Once he had taken in everyone in the class, he started drifting back the way he had come, towards the door. He cleared his throat, then said, ‘Okay, then. First things first...’ before he slipped back out of the classroom, leaving the door open behind him.

The entire class started at once at this unexpected move. There was silence for a moment, then Jeff cleared his throat and said, ‘Um... does he want us to follow him?’

Nobody moved or said anything for a second, then Nick made a noise of agreement. ‘Yeah, yeah, probably.’

‘Yeah!’ Jeff said enthusiastically, bouncing up out of his seat. He started to cross the room to look out the door, but found his path blocked by Thad, who had flung his arm out behind him to stop Jeff in his tracks.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Thad hissed.

Jeff didn’t respond; he simply raised his eyebrows, pointedly side-stepped Thad’s hand, and continued on his path to the door. Once he’d had a look out the door into the empty hallway, he came back into the classroom. ‘Yeah, I think he does want us to follow him. He’s not out ther - oh!’ Jeff jumped as he felt a hand clasp his shoulder from behind him. Mr Keating had reappeared in the classroom’s doorway.

‘He’s right, you know,’ he said, before he turned on his heel and marched back out of the classroom. From halfway down the hallway, the class heard him call, ‘Are you coming?’

It was only then that the rest of the class shifted into motion. Nick bounded out of his chair and half-ran to catch up with Jeff as he followed Mr Keating out of the classroom. Wes and David followed soon after, dragging Thad out of his chair as well. Kurt watched with a bemused expression on his face as the entire class dragged themselves out of their chairs to follow this new teacher to a currently undisclosed location, and Blaine stood by his chair, waiting for him.

Kurt looked up at Blaine from under his eyelashes. ‘Does this happen often?’ he asked.

Blaine laughed, almost giddy. ‘No. Never. Are you coming?’

A few minutes later, the entire class had followed Mr Keating into the wings of the stage in the school hall. Mr Keating waited for moment to make sure everyone was listening, then started talking. ‘So. Boys... why do we make music?’

He paused for moment, scanning the class to see if anyone had an answer. When nobody raised their hand or made a sound, he pursed his lips. ‘No one? Come on! You all take music. Why? Why are you here?’

‘My dad thought that I should put the ten years of violin lessons my mother forced me into to practical use?’ Nick piped up.

Most of the class laughed or snorted, and Mr Keating surveyed Nick coolly from under raised eyebrows. ‘Anyone else?’ he asked. Once again no one said anything. ‘No? Okay... okay. You.’ He raised a hand and pointed through the group at Kurt. ‘Mr...?’

Kurt squeaked, cleared his throat, then tried again. ‘Hummel, sir.’

‘Alright, Mr Hummel. Come here.’

Blaine felt Kurt freeze up beside him, and turned to give him an encouraging smile, but Kurt was too busy glancing around at all the curious faces now staring at him. It was then that Blaine remembered that, to a lot of the people in this class, Kurt was as new as Mr Keating was to him. Kurt squeezed through the class, trying not to knock into anyone, and then followed Mr Keating out onto the stage.

‘The rest of you too! Come on!’ Mr Keating called, and Blaine walked forward quickly to lead the group onto the edge of the stage, still several feet away from where Kurt and Mr Keating were standing in the middle.

‘Now!’ Mr Keating said in a loud voice that echoed around the dusty space, walking in a large circle around Kurt. ‘Imagine... that you are standing here on this stage, much as Mr Hummel is right now, except with one very important difference: You have two hundred people watching you, all waiting for you to do something with whatever musical instrument you have in your hand. What do you do?’

He looked at Kurt as he said this, expecting him to answer, but Kurt didn’t notice - he was too busy catching Blaine’s eye and making a face at him that clearly screamed ‘Help me!’. Blaine smiled reassuringly at him, and raised his own hand. ‘Mr Keating? I think I know.’ Kurt smiled his thanks at him and looked relieved.

‘Yes, Mr...?’ Mr Keating asked.

‘Anderson.’

‘Alright, Mr Anderson - what would you do?’

‘I would entertain them - or at least do my absolute best to. If that many people are looking at me, expecting something of me, then I wouldn’t want to let them down,’ Blaine said simply.

‘Good! Good, excellent.’ Mr Keating bounced on the spot a little as he changed the direction of the circle he was still tracking around Kurt, who was keeping him in the corner of his eye at all times, looking a bit weary of him.

‘Music,’ Mr Keating said, ‘is all about emotion. Specifically, making other people feel emotion, trying to get that message across to an audience. That’s why, in this class, we will be focusing most of our attention on performance.’ He paused for a moment and looked around. ‘Ah, now, I see some of you are thinking maybe we couldn’t be focusing on anything worse, am I right?’ He looked pointedly at a few of the boys still standing on the edge of the stage, and then rushed forward towards Kurt, clasping him on both shoulders. Kurt started violently, wrapping his arms around his stomach instictually for protection. ‘Mr Hummel? Am I right?’ he asked, his mouth very close to Kurt’s ear. Kurt nodded, looking very uncomfortable at the invasion of his personal space. Mr Keating pushed off Kurt’s shoulders and Kurt stumbled forward a few steps.

‘Now, stage fright,’ Mr Keating said, ‘is a very real thing. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that it isn’t. Having a room full of people staring up at you, watching your every move, judging you for every slip up - that’s terrifying.’

Blaine looked away from Mr Keating, his insides fluttering slightly at the mere thought of having to do what Mr Keating was describing, before Kurt caught his gaze and kept it. This small, solid act dragged Blaine back to reality - there was no audience, he didn’t have to perform right now, it was fine - and he breathed out, calming himself down.

‘But... what if it wasn’t you they were judging?’ Mr Keating paused again. ‘Does anyone have any idea what I mean by that?’

It was silent for a moment, before Kurt cleared his throat from behind Mr Keating and he turned around. ‘Mr Hummel? Go ahead.’

Kurt didn’t drop Blaine’s gaze as he spoke, his voice soft but not meek. ‘Create a barrier between you and the audience? So they can’t see the real you?’

Mr Keating nodded, almost thoughtfully, and then scanned the rest of the class. ‘Anyone agree with him?’

Blaine blinked out of his prolonged staring match with Kurt and looked back at Mr Keating before raising his hand. ‘Well, yeah. He’s right. I mean...’ Blaine huffed. ‘If they can’t see the real you - and you know they can’t, if you... made it that way - then they’re not judging you. They’re judging a... a...’ Blaine trailed off, glancing back at Kurt.

‘Persona. An act,’ Kurt supplied.

Mr Keating looked between Kurt and Blaine and smiled widely. ‘Exactly, boys. Exactly. And how do we do that? By tapping into the emotion of the piece. Creating a character that fits with the message the piece is trying to get across.’ He took several long strides back to the middle of the stage, stood in front of Kurt, facing where the audience would be if there was one, and threw his arms wide, before laughing at himself. Kurt watched him intensely, and Blaine watched Kurt intensely, gauging his reactions as Mr Keating continued to speak.

‘Singing, I think, is where it’s easiest to do that.’ Kurt perked up at this. ‘Not only do you have the rhythm and the melody of the piece to go off, you also have the lyrics. The lyrics tell a story - such an obvious one that it really is almost the easiest thing in the world to lose yourself in it.’ Mr Keating turned back to the boys standing at the side of the stage. ‘Of course, you can do that with other instruments, not to worry, boys. Of course you can do that. It’s just... slightly more difficult.’

Then Mr Keating turned back to Kurt. ‘Thank you, Mr Hummel, for taking part in that demonstration. You can rejoin your classmates now.’

Kurt smiled uneasily and scampered across the stage, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he quietly took his place beside Blaine.

Mr Keating was checking his watch. ‘Alright boys. On that note, I would just like you all to do one more thing for me before you leave today. We’ll go around the class - when I point to you, I’d like you tell me what instrument you plan on expressing yourself with for the rest of this year. After you’ve told me, you can leave. We’ll start with you.’ Mr Keating pointed to a boy at the other end of the group to Kurt and Blaine.

Slowly, they went through the whole class, the number of people left on the stage dwindling slowly as people left. Finally, there were only seven people left - Kurt and Blaine, Jeff, Nick, Wes, David, and Thad.

Mr Keating pointed to Thad, who said, ‘Clarinet!’ and then turned on his heel and marched out of the hall, not bothering to wait for any of his friends. Nick said, ‘Piano - but you already knew that,’ and smirked. Jeff was next, and said, ‘Well, I’d like to play drum kit - but cello, if my parents ask.’ Mr Keating laughed, and Nick and Jeff headed out of the hall as well. David said, ‘Violin,’ and Wes said, ‘Trombone.’

And then there was only Blaine, Kurt, and Mr Keating left standing on the stage. Mr Keating pointed at Blaine, and he hesitated before saying, ‘Two, actually. Piano and violin,’ and then immediately regretted not prefacing it with, ‘Well, I’d really like to sing, but…’

Kurt said, ‘Singing.’

And suddenly Blaine couldn’t help but picture it: Kurt standing up on a stage under a spotlight, face flushed and split in half with an ecstatic smile as an enormous crowd cheered wildly for his performance. And a few minutes before, when he was singing; Blaine knew just from the way he spoke that he must have a beautiful voice.

And Blaine was thinking about what Kurt had said about personas, and how he had perked up when Mr Keating said that it was easiest to create those with singing, and he felt something that was almost a panic. He didn’t want to see the persona – but what if that was what he was seeing right now? He wanted to know what was going on in Kurt’s head, what he was thinking, what he was feeling. He wanted to get to know this boy well enough to know when he was pretending – and he wanted that now.

‘Ah, our only singer! Excellent, Mr Hummel,’ Mr Keating said. He looked Blaine up and down then, took in the expression on his face, and said, with a sad smile, ‘Have good afternoons, boys.’