AN: This was a random plot bunny that hit me. I can totally see Dalton having ties with other private schools and taking advantage of these to further the education of the students.

Kurt's at Dalton and Sebastian is in Paris at this point in canon, presumably at another private school...

All 'French' dialogue, whether written or spoken, will be contained within *French* in place of the usual "English".

Season 2 AU diverging from canon post-2x09 'Special Education'.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Lettres De La Note Entre Un Suricate Et Un Pingouin

Chapter 1

Kurt smiled to himself as he walked out of his first French class. Dalton was already offering far greater educational opportunities than McKinley ever had, he might actually feel challenged here.

Dalton had a friendly relationship with several other private schools worldwide, and the French professor had arranged with his counterpart at a Parisian school to assign penpals to each student in the class. As Kurt had arrived mid-way through the semester he had been assigned the son of an American politician living in Paris; and where in the usual penpal way of things Kurt would be emailing in French and his penpal in English, both of them would be emailing in French, as both were, for all intents and purposes, fluent.

He tucked the slip of paper with his new penpal's email address into his messenger bag as he headed back to his dorm room. Mid-semester transfers were required to live-in until the end of the semester, at which point they could choose to stay in the dorms or commute. Kurt was already missing his family, and was almost definite that he would be commuting from the start of the spring semester.

He deposited his messenger bag on the dorm room bed and headed downstairs to the refectory, eager to experience the culinary delights Blaine kept raving about.

...

Kurt sank onto the desk chair with a quiet huff, the food on offer here was too good to be true, and he'd eaten far too much trying to taste as many of the dishes as possible. He snagged his bag off the bed, and pulled out the notebook he was using to keep track of his homework assignments, groaning at the sight of a two thousand word English literary analysis, before seizing the slip of paper with the email address on it, all the French professor had asked was that he make first contact with his new penpal.

He opened his laptop, pulling up his browser and taking the opportunity to log into his Facebook, keeping abreast of all the latest New Directions developments. (Newsflash: Finchel was on the rocks AGAIN)

His email inbox was empty, and he quickly clicked on the compose message button, entering the email address he'd been given in the recipient line; he typed 'Dalton Academy penpal' into the subject line, then sat and stared at the cursor in the main text box for long moments before steeling himself and typing:

*Good evening,

My name is Kurt Hummel, and I am a new student at Dalton Academy. My French professor gave me your email address as part of the penpals programme as he believes my fluency in French matches your own.

I've never had a penpal before, so am unsure what to write first, but I am very glad to have the opportunity to converse with someone new.

I hope to hear back from you soon, and hopefully you'll be able to help me get a handle on this penpal thing.

Regards,

Kurt Hummel*

He hit send with a sigh, he truly hadn't known what to write, and hoped he didn't come off as too stand-offish by his new correspondent. Still, there was nothing he could do about it now except wait for a response. He took another look at the EngLit analysis, before deciding it could wait until tomorrow.

He was completely exhausted by all the new experiences the day had brought, and also probably by the full stomach, so he shut his laptop down, then headed for the bathroom for his nightly routine,

That done, he slid beneath soft sheets on the comfortable bed, (that still didn't feel right because it wasn't his bed) and slipped into a restless sleep.

...

Kurt woke late, and cursed as he looked at the time on his mobile. He hurried through an abbreviated version of his morning routine before dressing quickly; blessing the uniform for the first time as it meant he didn't have to put an outfit together. He all but ran out the door; there were only twenty minutes before his first class and he still had to grab something to eat.

...

He returned to his room even tireder than the night before, though thankfully having had more restraint at the dinner table. Blaine had insisted he attend Warblers practice as an observer while the show choir debated whether it would be appropriate for him to join so close to a major competition, and the rehearsal had run over due to Blaine's habit of constantly jumping on the furniture, which ruined the choreography.

He opened his laptop with a groan, no matter how tired he was he needed to make a start on his assignments or he'd get behind, and he wasn't going to waste his dad's money by getting kicked out for poor academic performance.

Kurt blinked when he noticed the small blinking icon that signified a new email, almost too tired to remember the penpal exchange thing. He quickly clicked the icon, eager to see what the other had to say, hoping he hadn't soured their interaction from the onset with his bland message the night before. His eyes widened when he realised the email had been received the previous night, less than an hour after he'd sent his own. Based on the time difference his penpal must have been up extremely late.

He clicked to open the message, and read:

*Good evening Kurt,

My name is Sebastian Smythe.*

AN: Okay, so this is the plot bunny, in total. I'm gonna leave it here for now, as I have no idea where it's gonna go from here.

This is looking like it might be my first multi-chapter work, and as such I'm gonna have to seriously flesh out the plot and things before I continue.

Hope everyone enjoys this.