It wasn’t like hadn’t been alone with Kurt before; that had happened so many times. Maybe that was why it was so difficult – because as soon as the door clicked shut behind them, all he wanted to do was pull him into his arms and kiss him. The familiarity of the situation – him, Kurt, bedroom, time alone – was almost enough to overwhelm him and make him forget exactly why they were there in the first place.

“None of this is what you think,” Kurt began carefully, perching on the edge of the bed. Blaine just stood in front of him, arms crossed.

“Oh, really?” He stopped talking when Kurt fixed him with a look and he bowed his head slightly. “Sorry, go ahead.”

“Brittany isn’t my girlfriend. Well, she is but she isn’t. Not really. It’s complicated.” Kurt bit his lip, looking down at his hands in his lap. “It’s difficult.”

“Well, that cleared things right up,” Blaine said dryly, and he didn’t even have time to react before Kurt had pushed himself up off the bed and caught his face between his hands, pressing a hard kiss against his lips. It took a few seconds for his brain to catch up to what was going on, but once it did he shoved him away. “What the hell, Kurt?!”

“I really miss kissing you,” Kurt whispered, taking a step back and holding up his hands in surrender. “Brittany doesn’t even come close.”

“You made your choice.” Blaine ran his hand over his mouth, unsure of if he was trying to rub away the sensation or rub it in. “So you can go kiss your it’s-complicated-girlfriend-not-girlfriend and not me.”

“I’m gay, Blaine. One hundred percent, with absolutely no questions, gay.”

“Well, I have a few questions,” Blaine said, staring at him. His mind was whirring, trying to make sense of all the conflicting information.

“McKinley isn’t like Dalton,” Kurt started, unprompted. Blaine had figured that much out for himself, but he didn’t interject because Kurt was sounding more and more irritated – angry, even? – as he went. “Dalton is all old brick buildings, lofted ceilings, prestige, and security. Everyone knows it’s like a safe haven for gay kids. You never had to worry about what people were going to think, going to say, because you had Dalton right there around you. McKinley isn’t like that. You don’t know what it’s like to be the one gay kid in your school, and be at a school where that’s not safe.”

By the time he got to the end, he was practically glaring at Blaine. Which would have been fine if he hadn’t been completely wrong.

“No,” Blaine said quietly, trying to keep himself reined in because it would have been so easy to go flying off the handle again. “You have… no idea, Kurt. I don’t mean about Dalton, because you’re right – it’s a wonderful, safe place, but it’s not like I was born there.” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before looking at him again. “I used to go to a school like McKinley. I got the shit beat out of me there. So yeah, I do know what it’s like to go to a school where it’s not safe for me. That’s why I went to Dalton in the first place.”

Kurt looked more pale than usual, and he was staring at Blaine with wide eyes. “Blaine, I—”

“…didn’t know,” Blaine finished for him. “I know.”

Because how could he have known? It wasn’t exactly a topic that Blaine talked about if he could help it. Not even all the Warblers knew about it, because he’d made the decision that he wasn’t about to let that define him as a person. He’d pushed himself to move past it, to grow. It wasn’t like Kurt had ever talked about school to him, a fact that Blaine had started to realize when Kurt had been talking about McKinley. Out of all the topics they’d covered in their months of acquaintance, other than mentioning it by name, Kurt had never said anything about his school situation. Despite how much they knew about each other on the whole, neither of them had known.

“I wasn’t going to out you,” he added, folding across his chest. He hadn’t exactly been alone at his school before Dalton; his friend Jeremiah had decided to come out by going to the Sadie Hawkins dance with him. They’d both landed in the hospital before the night was over. It wasn’t like he’d outed Jeremiah, but he felt responsible for what had happened. “Brittany…”

“Brittany is protection,” Kurt said, chewing on his lip. “Just like being on the football team, just like wearing boring clothes. It’s harder for people to pick me out if I seem so much like everyone else.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair to her,” Blaine murmured.

“Like I said before, it’s complicated.”

“What about glee club?”

“What about it?”

“Doesn’t seem very butch,” he said pointedly, and Kurt looked over at him. “What? It doesn’t. If that’s what you’re going for, it kind of goes against your plan.”

“Glee club is the only place I feel like I can be me,” Kurt answered plainly. “Plus almost all the guys in it are on the football team, except for you and Artie, so it doesn’t really seem weird to anyone.”

Blaine felt like he couldn’t think straight. There was far too much all at once and while he wanted to understand, it wasn’t entirely easy to do. It didn’t make it any easier when Kurt was standing right there, looking at him with a look on his face that was practically pleading for Blaine to understand. He drew in a deep breath and tried to come up with the words he wanted to say.

“I think… you should go. I need to think.”

“Are you mad at me?” Kurt didn’t move from where he was standing, but he looked like it took a lot of effort to ask.

“No. Yes. Kind of. Not,” he added quickly, “because of how you feel like you need to present yourself to people at school. But because I don’t like being lied to, or being made to feel like I’ve done something wrong when I haven’t – and that’s what it’s felt like over the past few days.”

“I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t expect you to be there.”

“That much was obvious.” Blaine rubbed his face and moved over to the door, hand resting on the doorknob as he glanced back over his shoulder at Kurt. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

Once Kurt was gone, Blaine shut himself up in his room and ignored the homework on his desk that he’d been trying to do before dinner. There was no way he could focus on any of it with how much else was going on in his head. Part of him wished he had Santana’s phone number, because he felt like all of that was what she’d meant by her ‘two sides to every story’ comment, but he couldn’t be sure. Because if she knew, wouldn’t other people? If she didn’t, his talking about it to her would be outing Kurt, and that wasn’t about to happen.

He grabbed his phone, scrolling through his contacts and hitting the button to dial once he got to Wes’s name. Two rings went through before his former roommate picked up the phone, and he almost let out a sigh at the familiar voice on the other end of the line as Wes said hello.

“Wes, hey, how are you?”

“I’m doing fairly well, despite the coursework that seems to be piling up. How are you, Blaine?”

Blaine hesitated, because the truth wouldn’t work. Not the whole truth, anyway. Deep down he was still kind of waiting for an ‘I told you so’ from Wes regarding the whole Kurt situation over the summer, considering how quiet he’d been about all of it the whole time. No way could he tell him about what had happened without Wes analyzing everything and trying to dole out sage advice. He didn’t need advice; he needed not to think for a while.

“I’m fine.”

“How’s the new school?”

“Absolutely nothing like Dalton,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I miss it, and everyone.”

“But especially me, obviously,” Wes said, and Blaine couldn’t help but laugh a little at that.

“Yes, of course, especially you. How is everyone? Tell me what I’m missing out on, let me live vicariously…”

“Well…” He leaned back on his bed as Wes started recounting everything that had happened since Blaine had left – classes, rooming situations, new students, but mostly what was going on with the Warblers. No matter how glad Blaine was for the New Directions (a name he had seriously questioned when he’d heard it, but Santana’s snort of laughter had informed him he wasn’t the only one who heard what it sounded like) he had a feeling they would never come close to the Warblers in his life.

By the time they hung up, Blaine was equal parts calm and nostalgic, and that was enough to get him focused on what he needed to get done before bed, if nothing else. He wasn’t sure how school was going to go from then on, because knowing what Kurt was doing didn’t mean that things were going to get better, but he wasn’t about to let his grades slip. That wasn’t who he was, and besides, he needed something to focus on.

***

Nothing changed. Then again, Blaine hadn’t expected it to.

Kurt didn’t talk to him unless it was necessary, and seemed to avoid him unless he absolutely couldn’t help it. That hurt more than Blaine wanted to admit. He might have been angry with Kurt, but that didn’t change the fact that they had been friends once upon a summer. It would have been easier for him to get over that lingering irritation with him if he wasn’t going on and doing exactly what had made Blaine mad in the first place.

Santana proved to be invaluable, despite the fact that Blaine tried his hardest not to talk to her about Kurt. It would have been too easy to vent, to say everything, to put all the secrets out on the table, and he didn’t know her that well at all despite the fact that she seemed to always be right there by his side. He couldn’t imagine someone being much further from Wes than Santana was, yet somehow she seemed to be stepping up to fill his role in Blaine’s life as his closest friend at school. It was mind-boggling.

He never expected his relationship with Santana to reach absurd levels of confusion, especially not so early on, but within two weeks of being at McKinley, it did.

The weeks had flown by; classes piled on top of each other and glee club rehearsals were keeping him busy enough not to notice the time passing. Days ran together when they were the same over and over – same classes, same frustrations, same dodging around the crowded halls that were so unlike Dalton he still wasn’t used to them. Even glee club wasn’t as enjoyable as he’d thought it would be, but he also hadn’t expected a teacher who didn’t quite know how to run things properly or a powerhouse girl who, yes, was a great singer, but who was so neurotic he felt like everyone was just waiting for the day she would snap. Most days ended with boxing, because he needed an outlet more than anything.

One of the football players from glee club, Mike, had seen him waiting outside the locker room one day early on and told him it was fine to go in while they were getting ready for practice. He hadn’t thought he wasn’t allowed, and he also didn’t want to deal with it, but it would have been awkward to keep standing there waiting after he’d gotten an invitation inside. It was a little awkward to be in there with the whole football team even though he knew a few of them, especially Kurt, so he tried to keep to himself.

Music helped because if he had his headphones in, he could at least pretend like he was by himself. They didn’t come anywhere close enough to drowning out the loud conversations, laughter, or general noise of all the other people around him, but he could ignore it better if he had something else to listen to. He could pretend like he didn’t see Kurt looking at him – something Kurt had no right to do, all things considered.

If Kurt wanted to play straight, that was his choice. That just meant even more that he shouldn’t be watching Blaine when he got changed into workout clothes, or when he was starting in on the punching bag. Blaine knew better than to look at him, but he caught enough out of his peripheral to know what was going on, and it drove him crazy. Kurt wouldn’t talk to him, but he was okay with leering? That didn’t work for him. It just made his punches land harder.

And then there was Brittany, who seemed to be one of the sweetest people in the world. She always greeted Blaine with a smile, more often than not a smile and a hug, and was a constant source of laughter and brightness. It was just that every time Blaine saw her around Kurt, it seemed like she was really trying to sell the whole girlfriend thing or she honestly didn’t realize it was pretend. Because she was all affection – constant touching, kissing, cuddling, looks of adoration. She looked as gone as Blaine had felt. Santana had told him more than once not to worry about Brittany, which made him think she knew more than she let on, but he couldn’t help it.

All of that raced around in his head when he was alone in the locker room, fists pounding into the canvas of the bag and music blaring into his ears. He’d even gotten used to the occasional football player wandering through, gathering forgotten equipment or heading home early from practice. He could ignore almost anything once he was in the zone.

Almost.

Santana was one of those things he couldn’t ignore, and especially not the day she came into the locker room and shoved the punching bag at him roughly before plopping down on the bench right beside where he was standing. She looked more annoyed than usual, and Blaine tugged his headphones out of his ears before looking over at her fully. There was only so much he could tell from that, the way her mouth was drawn in a tight line and her arms were folded across her chest, but something wasn’t right.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered, crossing her ankles and looking up at him.

“Okay…” He grabbed his towel off the bench and wiped off his face, still breathing hard as he raised an eyebrow at her. “So why are you in here?”

“Because I want to be.”

“I thought you had Cheerios practice?”  At least, he was pretty sure that the Cheerios practiced every day after school.

“I got bored, so I left,” she said curtly, but there was no way that was the real answer. “Look, are you done pretending to be tough and punching a bag? Because I want a cappuccino.”

“Sure, I can be done,” he replied, his brow furrowing as he started to unwrap his hands. “I… can I shower? I’ll be really fast, I just want –”

“Whatever,” she answered, getting up to her feet. “I’ll go grab my stuff from my locker while I wait.”

Blaine watched her leave before he grabbed his shower things from the locker, hurriedly getting undressed and into the shower so he could be done before she got back. He just really hated the feeling of sweaty clothes sticking to his skin, and even if he’d changed back into his school clothes right away it still would have felt disgusting. All it took was a few minutes in under the water and he was done, out and dry and starting to get dressed again when he heard a group coming in from the football field, blocked from his vision by the line of lockers. He could see Santana coming back in, though.

“Hey Lopez, you can’t be in here!” one of the football players said as she came through the door, and she rolled her eyes.

“That’s funny, cause it sure seems like I can be.”

“No, you can’t, I don’t care if you’re a dyk—”

“Hey!” Blaine interrupted, stumbling around the edge of the lockers and glaring at the athletes standing there. They looked startled – either they’d forgotten he’d been there before or they thought he’d left – but none of them said anything. No one moved, not them, not Blaine, not Santana, though from what he could see out of the corner of his eye she’d gone slightly pale. There was the clamor of more people coming in from outside and that seemed to break the moment. Santana recovered first.

“For your information, Azimio,” she snarled, crossing the small distance and grabbing onto Blaine’s arm. “I was coming to get my boyfriend so we could go before you cavemen rubbed off on him.”

It was a good thing Blaine was too angry to have much of anything else register on his face, otherwise he was sure he would have blown it as soon as the word ‘boyfriend’ left her mouth. Her grip was so tight that he couldn’t do much but go along with it, but when she started to pull him toward the door he had to stop her. He was barely dressed - his jeans weren’t even fastened all the way, and his shoes were still on the floor by the lockers. “San, my stuff, I need it.”

“So get it,” she muttered, letting go of him and stalking out of the locker room. He ducked back behind the lockers, shoving his feet into his shoes and pulling his polo on over his head as quickly as he could. His bag got slung over his shoulder roughly as he stood, double checking to make sure that he had everything before he moved to go out the door.

He didn’t miss the incredulous look on Kurt’s face, or how he watched him until he was out of sight.

“Santana, what…” Blaine started as soon as the door shut behind him, but he stopped when he didn’t see her. He frowned, heading down the hall and stopping when he got to the doors leading outside, seeing a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, and then following it to find her sitting against the outside of the building, knees pulled up to her chest. He pushed through the door and went over, crouching down beside her. “Hey, don’t let him get to you. He’s clearly just mad that he can’t land a fox like you, or something.”

“No,” Santana whispered, shaking her head. When she looked over at him, tears brimming her eyes, he knew there was something deeper going on. It was easily the most vulnerable – or the least powerful, which is how she usually seemed on a daily basis – she’d ever looked. “No, he’s not.”

“Oh my God,” Blaine said slowly as the wheels turned in his head. The way she always looked at Brittany – he’d known it was different, but he’d just chalked it up to the fact that they were best friends, practically inseparable when Kurt wasn’t around. How she was constantly telling him that he didn’t have to worry about Brittany, that she was fine and knew exactly what she was doing. The glances he sometimes saw passing between them when they thought no one was looking. It was amazing what he’d been able to pick up on and completely ignore in the short time he’d been there. “You are.”

“You’d better choose your next words very carefully,” Santana said, her voice low but a bit of bite returning to it.

“No, not a d— that’s not what I meant,” Blaine said quickly, shaking his head. He took a deep breath as he tried to find the right words. They came out in a whisper, because he knew better than to say it out loud out there where anyone could hear, even though they seemed to be alone. “Just that you… like… the ladies.”

“I want a cappuccino.” She stood up, brushing off her skirt and leveling him with a look.

“Lima Bean?”

“I’ll meet you there.” Santana turned on her heel and walked off toward her car, leaving Blaine still crouched on the ground as he watched her go. He got up, resituating his bag over his shoulder before heading down the steps and getting to his car as she squealed her tires on the way out of the parking lot.

It was another crowded day at the Lima Bean, just like the one when he’d first met Kurt, but for once the hustle and bustle was welcome. It was easier to have conversations without someone being able to hear if there was so much else to try and listen to. There wasn’t anyone that Blaine recognized from school, but then again he doubted many of the McKinley students went there. Why else would Kurt have felt it okay to go there dressed like his normal self?

Santana was already sitting at a table in the corner when he arrived, mug in front of her, and Blaine ordered himself a coffee before joining her.  Her hands were wrapped around the mug, fingers tight against it, and she barely glanced up as he sat down.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Blaine said quietly, resting his forearms against the table and leaning in toward her. “I would never do that, Santana.”

“Of course you won’t, because you are my boyfriend,” Santana said, her eyes finally meeting his. He blinked, his brow furrowing. “I need you to be.”

“I… what?”

“I need you to be my boyfriend,” she repeated, not looking away.

“Me? Would anyone actually believe that? You knew I was gay before you even talked to me.”

“I’m a closeted lesbian and a judgmental bitch, Anderson. My gaydar is spot on. If the rest of the school can’t see that Hummel is gayer than four guys blowing five guys, I think you’re safe.”

“Santana.” Blaine took a long drink of coffee, trying to stall for time. “I don’t know…”

“Blaine, please.” Santana reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I don’t ask for help, ever, but I am because I need it.”

There was no way that wasn’t true, and Blaine knew it. Santana didn’t seem like the type of person who liked asking for favors, or owing someone something, but she was sitting there looking at him with such pleading eyes and asking him to do this for her. He felt conflicted, because hiding who he was wasn’t something he’d ever planned on doing – he was proud of who he was. There was something about McKinley that scared Kurt and Santana both, though, and that’s why he ended up nodding.

“What does that entail, exactly?” he asked, flipping over the hand that was under hers and lifting it up so he could rest his chin on their linked hands as he looked over at her. “Being your boyfriend, I mean.”

“Well…” She took a sip of her cappuccino before setting down her mug and taking his other hand, moving it the same way he had to hers but tilting her cheek against it. “Loving and adoring me, of course.”

“Right,” Blaine said with a snort of laughter. She blinked at him a few times, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “No, but seriously.”

“Fine, pretending to love and adore me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like it’s hard, I’m kind of amazing.” He tilted his head, giving her an appraising look before shrugging. “Oh, come on.”

“What, I’m not allowed to tease my girlfriend?” he asked, and the word felt so strange and awkward rolling off his tongue.

“No, you’re not.” Santana dropped his hands so she could go back to cupping hers around her mug. “Honestly, this might be good for you.”

“Good for me? Let’s not pretend like we’re doing this for me and not you, Santana…”

“I’m just saying,” she said, leaning in closer so she could speak lower and he would still hear her. “You dating me – what reason would Hummel have to not talk to you anymore? You’re not a threat, you have a girlfriend.” He stared at her as she pulled back, a look on her face that was part know-it-all but mostly smug. “You’re welcome.”

“I could kiss you.”

“Let’s not get carried away. I know this whole girlfriend thing is new to you, but…”

“Oh hush,” he said, rolling his eyes. He watched her toy with the handle of her mug, the way she glanced out into the café with a brief forlorn expression before she turned her attention back to her drink, back to her normal default Santana face. “Hey, why did you want to come here before? You skipped out of practice for a cappuccino? I doubt your coach would approve.”

“No, it wasn’t that,” she said, shaking her head. “I just needed out of there. Brittany…” she trailed off, waving her hand around airily. “She really loves Kurt. Not like that, but it still sucks to have to stand there and listen to her go on when everyone else believes…”

“No, I get it.” Blaine rubbed his face and leaned back in his chair. “Just like how it sucks to watch Kurt with her, even though I know it doesn’t mean anything. It might be fake, but that doesn’t make it hurt less.”

“Exactly,” Santana agreed, biting her lip. “What’s your story with him, anyway? Before now, I mean.”

Blaine hesitated. Just because he and Santana were friends – fake boyfriend/girlfriend, whatever that was called – that didn’t mean he was about to give her any sort of ammunition against him or Kurt. Besides, it wasn’t like it was her business exactly how well he knew him. “We met at the beginning of the summer – here, actually. I thought we were friends, but then all this happened.”

“Just friends?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Just friends.”

“Mhm. Well, we’ll see how friendly he gets when he finds out we’re ousting him and Brit as hottest faux couple at school. My girl’s gorgeous, no doubt, but you and I are a lethal combo.”