As Blaine approached the room he knew Wes and David shared, he heard a shout through the open door. ‘Yes!’ David was yelling. ‘It works!’ Blaine paused in doorway to their room as some lively music started playing and Wes grabbed David’s hand and started jiving with each other. Wes saw Blaine over David’s shoulder and shouted his hello. Blaine spotted a crudely made radio, a miniature radar dish positioned precariously on top, sitting on Wes’s desk before David turned around to see who Wes was talking to and, when he saw it was Blaine, rushed over to him, making to grab his hand and drag him into the dance party.

Blaine’s hand shot up and out of David’s reach. ‘I think I’ll pass,’ he laughed. ‘I need a shower after rowing for so long.’

David’s eyebrows quirked up. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said turning around to go back to Wes, who was bouncing on the spot in time to the music. ‘Say hi to Kurt for me.’

Blaine felt his insides twist into a tight knot. ‘What? David, he’s right down the hall! Say hi to him yourself,’ he said, his words coming out too fast as both David and Wes gave him bemused looks in response to his defensiveness. Blaine forced himself glare back at them with the same expression they were giving him and then hurried out of their room.

As he got closer to his and Kurt’s room, the hallway got steadily quieter. More doors were closed down this end of the floor, including theirs. He paused before opening it, listening quietly with his ear almost pressed to the door, wondering if Kurt was even inside.

His question was answered after a second when he heard a soft, high singing voice coming from the other side of the door. The breathy edge he often heard in Kurt’s speaking voice was gone; here, he sounded stronger, more confident. Kurt was running scales, his voice jumping from note to note, up and down, then starting a bit higher, up and down again. He was quick and perfectly pitched - he was obviously well practiced in these.

Blaine continued to listen, one hand on the doorknob and whole body pressed against the door. Normally in a situation like this, Blaine would be concentrating to make sure his breathing wasn’t loud enough to be heard, but right now there was no need - Blaine had gotten the breath knocked out of him as soon as he’d heard Kurt’s voice floating easily on and above notes he was sure a lot of girls wouldn’t be able to reach.

Kurt started from the bottom of a scale again, this one higher than the last. He took this one slower than the others, hovering on each note until it was perfectly clear before moving onto the next. His resonance increased on each step up, and when he hit the top note he held it for longer than the others, until it was almost vibrato. He repeated it a few times on a few different sounds, before Blaine heard him laugh happily.

Blaine waited for moment, but Kurt seemed to be finished. He twisted the doorknob and slowly opened the door to see Kurt sitting cross-legged on his bed, back ramrod straight, grinning wildly at himself in the mirror hanging on the side of his wardrobe.

‘Morning,’ Blaine greeted as he walked over to his own bed, pulling the slightly damp jersey he was wearing off over his head and flopping down on the quilt.

‘Hi!’ Kurt greeted. ‘How was training?’

Blaine plucked at the thin t-shirt he was wearing, pinching the hem between two fingers and fanning his stomach with it. ‘Pretty good. Hard. I’m out of shape,’ he laughed.

Subconsciously, Kurt’s eyes flickered down his body, taking in the thin strip of toned stomach he could see now that Blaine was fiddling with his t-shirt, before looking back at himself in the mirror. Blaine shot up, grabbing the jersey he had dropped on the end of his bed and bundling it front of his stomach as he sat up straighter, propped up by his pillows. It was fine, he tried to convince himself. Kurt hadn’t meant anything by it. Blaine had mentioned that he was unfit - of course Kurt was going to look at his body to see if he telling the truth or just being modest. Of course he was. That was completely normal.

‘What’ve you been up to?’ Blaine asked, trying to change the subject - even if Kurt looking at him like... well, like that, was completely normal, talking about Blaine’s body could lead to talking about Kurt’s body, and Blaine didn’t even want to acknowledge that what that might lead to was something that even existed, and certainly not something he’d be completely and totally okay with doing and - no.

‘Uh, not much. I was practicing singing a bit - scales and stuff.’ The wide grin that Kurt had been wearing when Blaine first walked in returned.

‘Yeah? Was it a good practice?’ Blaine asked. ‘You look happy.’

Kurt tried to wipe the smile off his face but couldn’t, his mouth still quirking up at the sides. ‘Yeah, well...’ he said bashfully. ‘I hit a high F. I’ve - I’ve never been able to get that high before.’

Blaine gaped at him. He didn’t know much about singing - only what Mr Keating had been talking about in Music class for the last two weeks - but he played piano. He knew that was high. ‘Wow! I didn’t - wow!’

Kurt grinned at him, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling and beautiful, and Blaine never wanted to see any other expression on Kurt’s face ever again - moreover, and more selfishly, he never wanted anyone else to make Kurt this happy ever again, he wanted to be the one making Kurt this happy for - oh.

And as every thought about Kurt he had pushed away in the last week crashed into him, Blaine hurried to get his legs under him as he struggled off his bed. ‘I have to go have a shower,’ he almost yelled. Kurt looked confused for a second, then hurt - and for a split second Blaine wondered what he was doing, why he was running away if it was going to make Kurt look like that, why he was running away instead of holding Kurt close and no. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be here. He hurried from the room, not even bothering to grab what he needed for a shower in his haste.

He half-ran down the hallway and burst into the thankfully empty bathroom, leaning heavily against the wall opposite the mirror, his hands searching for something to grab onto, something he could ground himself with, on the smooth white tiles as he took in his reflection.

Blaine wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t oblivious. He wasn’t a little kid with no experience of the world. He knew that there was a name for what he was feeling, and he knew that there was also a name for what those feelings made him. He’d read about the protests and the court cases, and he knew about the rules.

And the Dalton boy in him, the boy his father had raised him to be, kicked in. Blaine had never knowingly broken a rule in his entire life. And sure, he knew people - a lot of people, enough to get in the newspaper - broke those rules, and he also knew that they weren’t, official rules, they were only created unspokenly by society, so maybe they were stupid and pointless and shouldn’t exist, but the fact remained that they did exist, and if they existed then they should be followed. Blaine wouldn’t dream of breaking any other rules, so what made this one such an exception?

But Blaine knew the answer to that question - Kurt. Blaine had never felt the way he did about Kurt before, about anyone. He’d become best friends with Wes and David within a month or so of freshman year, and Nick and Jeff not much later. That was three years, or close to it - but he’d never felt as close to any of them as he did to Kurt. He certainly hadn’t felt the undeniable urge to hold any of them for as long as needed to make every single problem they’d ever had go away.

Blaine wished that he had a choice about all of this - but deep down, he knew. He knew that he would never be able to convince himself that he didn’t feel the things he did for Kurt.

~

What Blaine did have choice about, however, was hiding it.

Over the next month, he joked around with Kurt, helped him with his homework whenever he needed it, and told Thad to shut up and leave him alone a few times. He learnt that Kurt’s mother had died in a car accident when he was nine and that he had a step-mother and brother back in Lima, and that what Kurt most missed about not living in dorms was having a kitchen he could bake in, and that he hated having to wear a uniform instead of getting to pick his own clothes.

Mostly, Blaine learnt the rhythm of how Kurt was, of Kurt’s very existence - the noises he made as he woke up, how he made his bed, the exact way he liked to position his folder and notebook and pencil case on his desk in each classroom, how he always ate each part of his salad separately at dinner. Gun to his head, Blaine could probably tell you what order each of the bottles in Kurt’s bedside drawer were used in every night and what the supposed benefits of each of them were. He learnt to distinguish Kurt’s footsteps coming down the hall from anyone else’s, and noticed the almost imperceptible decrease in the time it took Kurt to tie his tie each morning.

Blaine noticed all of these things, and he noticed the fact that he noticed all of these things. He recognised what was happening to him, the way his stomach clenched and his heart beat faster every time Kurt smiled at him, or even better, because of him. But he didn’t act on it - not even mentally. He knew the word, he knew what he was, but he didn’t label himself, because there was a difference, wasn’t there? That word meant guys who liked other guys. He was a guy, sure, and so was Kurt. And Blaine... Blaine liked him. As hard as it still was for him to admit that, it was true. But... he’d never liked any other guy before (and to be perfectly honest, he couldn’t imagine himself liking anyone else other than Kurt ever again). Thinking to himself that he liked Kurt and thinking to himself that was that... no, gay - Blaine made himself think the word as he sat in Trigonometry one morning - they were different. Impossibly, infinitely different.

But it didn’t really matter, Blaine thought. Because he was never, ever going to be able to act on it. He couldn’t.

And in that same Trigonometry lesson, he sat and he stared at the chalkboard at the front of the classroom, purposely not letting his mind wander - because he knew where it would go. It would go straight into trying to be Kurt’s, trying to imagine what he felt, daring to dream that maybe he felt the same way. And that hurt too much to bear, because it either ended in him concluding that no, he didn’t - no, of course not, why would he? - or yes, yes, he did feel the same way, but it didn’t make a damn difference because Kurt couldn’t act on it either.

It was only when Dr Hager’s overpowering form moved in front of him in that Trigonometry lesson and stopped, that he snapped out of it and came back into the real world. Dr Hager was holding a sheet of paper out towards him and Blaine took it, muttering an absent, ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m disappointed, Mr Anderson,’ Dr Hager said in his shaky old voice.

Blaine blinked up at him, wondering frantically if Dr Hager could tell, somehow, what he was thinking, and after assuring himself that that was ridiculous, not knowing what on Earth he could be talking about. ‘I’m sorry?’ Blaine asked, but Dr Hager seemed to take that as an apology and moved on.

And then Kurt was there, right there, leaning over his arm to look at the piece of paper still in his hands, and Blaine was acutely aware of the fact that Kurt’s hand was less than an inch from his own and how easy it would be to reach out and take it. He wanted to do that, damn the consequences, so badly that he forced himself to look down at the paper and read each line of writing as many times as he needed to for it to make sense to him.

He didn’t need to read it all for the meaning of it to sink in, though - a second after glancing down, he saw the big red ‘D’ in the top right-hand corner.

This test - which one was this? Last week’s, he supposed, the one he’d gotten halfway through (admittedly with more difficulty than he should have - it was hard to study when Kurt was in the same room as him making small frustrated noises at the back of his throat) before getting distracted by the way Kurt was biting his bottom lip with concentration. And then spending the rest of the hour trying not to hate himself too much for the thoughts running through his head.

This test - the one Kurt had made the frustrated noises over. Because he, and everyone in their class, was studying for it like their lives depended on getting a passing mark. Because it... it was going on their transcripts. The transcripts Dalton would be sending out to colleges with their applications.

It took a second for that to hit Blaine. Dartmouth was going to see this D. They were going to see this D and the B he got in History earlier that week that hadn’t even registered with him and his transcript wasn’t going to be perfect uniform A’s anymore. It wasn’t anything special, and Christ, his father was going to kill him.

It was that thought that stuck with him - having to explain this to his dad, and not being able to explain this, because he couldn’t tell anyone about why this was really happening. And while he that was running through his head, he was grateful for Kurt’s presence because he was only vaguely aware of where his feet were taking him after Trigonometry until he felt Kurt grab his elbow and guide him into the school hall, and he remembered what was happening. Nick and Jeff were performing something for the class.

Blaine settled into the chair next to Kurt, waiting for the heavy blue curtain to raise, wondering what to expect from the piano and cello duo. Mr Keating appeared at the side of the stage, waving hello to his class, before tugging on the rope that would raise the curtain. After a moment, Nick and Jeff were revealed - Nick sitting at a piano, like Blaine had expected, and Jeff sitting behind a drum kit, grinning and looking more alive than Blaine had seen him a long time.

Around him, the class broke into applause. ‘Feel free to get up and dance!’ Jeff called over their clapping, before counting he and Nick in by hitting the drumsticks together. They started playing, and it was... not what Blaine had been expecting. At all. But then again, he’d been expecting Jeff to be playing a completely different instrument. It was upbeat and syncopated and jazzy and fun. After a moment, Wes and David got up and ran into the space in front of the stage that was free of chairs, beginning to dance like Blaine had walked in on them doing frequently in the weeks since they’d gotten their radio working.

A few people in the class laughed at their overenthusiastic and frankly terrible dancing before getting up and joining them. Kurt stood up and turned around, bouncing in time to the music, his hips almost shimmying from side to side while he waited for Blaine to get up too. When Blaine seemed hesitant, Kurt pouted. ‘Come on!’ he called over the music. Blaine sighed and stood up, making Kurt almost squeal in excitement before running off to join the group, Blaine following him.

A grinning Kurt bounced a circle around Blaine who was trying to concentrate on losing himself in the rhythm instead of on Kurt’s hips. Kurt danced closer to him, smiling all the while, the music coursing through his veins the same way adrenaline was coursing through Blaine’s, and he grabbed Blaine’s hand. He lifted up it and spun the shorter boy around underneath it, and this was okay, Blaine told himself, because if he closed his eyes he could focus on the dizziness. Focusing on that left no room for him to think about how soft and warm Kurt’s hand was in his.

And it was okay. It was nice. More than nice. He could hold onto the hand of the boy he liked and no one would think he was wrong or weird or disgusting, because by now everyone had paired off to dance. The only difference was that it didn’t mean anything to anyone else. Of course, it couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t - after a few seconds Blaine had been turned around fully and he opened his eyes again, standing still and trying to regain his balance while Kurt continued to move with the music beside him.

And it was because he was still standing next to Kurt that when David and Wes decided to try out a new dance move that it happened like it did. David picked Wes up and swung him over his shoulder and Wes landed lopsidedly and stumbled, sending the few boys who were next to them tripping over each other and their own feet, falling backwards. Knocking over the people next to them. Knocking Blaine into Kurt.

Kurt, out of instinct reached out to grab Blaine, wrapping his arms around his middle and tugging him in to stop him hitting the floor. Except that that meant Blaine was pushed right up against Kurt, almost every inch of him. Blaine could hear Nick and Jeff laughing on stage at the pandemonium as they continued to play, and it was hot and stuffy and Blaine was too close to him. He could smell Kurt, feel his breath on his neck as he laughed and his thin fingers digging into his waist through his blazer, and Blaine’s heart was beating so hard in his throat he couldn’t breathe and it was just too much.

Blaine struggled, tried to force himself out of Kurt’s hold on him. Kurt let go, and Blaine thought he probably elbowed Kurt in the ribs in his haste to get away, get to the door and get out of the hall, leaving his class behind as he hurried down the corridor away from them.