Aki - There are a myriad of reasons I want to write a skank!Kurt AU and why I am writing it with the themes I am writing it with. I swear, I could write an entire essay, but I figure I should let it stand for itself. I've been stewing over this for a while now, so I hope you enjoy it. Disclaimer, there is a French class in this chapter that includes French dialogue. Most of it is written via Google translate and is probably extremely inaccurate. Also, I am not providing translations for the French for several reasons, but one is particular, this story is from Blaine's perspective and he doesn't understand French very well, so as he is confused, so are you, the reader.
His mom's hands are laced tight on the steering wheel.
"Are you sure, Blaine?" she asks.
"I was sure five minutes ago, and I'm still sure now." In the mouth of another teenager this would have sounded like snotty backtalk, but Blaine lifts it from these depths with a polite, teasing smile and a neutral tone.
"Well, Dalton doesn't start for another week, so… I want you to know you're allowed to change your mind. It's okay not to be ready."
Blaine unlatches his seatbelt. He knows if he sits here in front of the school any longer, Mom might just be able to convince him to turn back
"I need to do this," he tells her. He reaches for the door handle.
"Blaine –," cuts her voice quickly. Her hand is on his shoulder.
Blaine looks to her, and her eyes are wet. Crap.
She grimace-smiles through her own worry just for him. "Blaine, I love you. You are brave, and strong, and amazing. You're doing to do great."
Blaine ducks his head, really not needing to be crying on his first day back in public school. "Thanks, Mom," he mumbles. Her sentiments are much better than his father's gruff, 'About time, son' that makes Blaine want to both grit his teeth in suppressed rage and huff in exasperation.
He pushes open the car door and climbs out. First day of school, first day at a new school, first day back in public school. Blaine knows he can do this. He tugs at the strap of his mostly empty satchel, and enters the school through the double doors.
He's greeted by shoulders and roughly brushing-by bodies and not a single 'excuse me'. He focuses on his breathing. This was not the orderly hall behavior he had grown used to at Dalton.
The office. He's supposed to go the main office first thing to get his schedule, locker number, and all that paperwork. Switching schools a week before the school year starts means he hadn't received that info ahead of time.
Doing his best to weave through the crowd, he tries to get someone's – anyone's – attention. "Excuse me, can you tell me where the office is? I need to… find the office."
Not a single response.
The bell rings. Has he really been lost that long? The masses get more rough in there hustle to get to their homerooms. But on the upside, the crowd grows smaller.
By the time the crowd has thinned to stragglers, the second bell rings. Now that there is some visibility, Blaine starts checking out the door labels for a hint of his location. That's when Blaine gets hit with the hardest body yet, spinning him half around and knocking his satchel off his shoulder.
"Watch where you're going, bowtie," spits out the voice of his assailant (though Blaine doesn't believe that this person had been particularly targeting him; at least, he hopes that's not the case).
Blaine catches just a glimpse of the assailant as the person moves on in the hall without giving Blaine a second glance. He's clearly male, even though his voice was high and almost feminine despite the callousness to it. He's taller than Blaine, though that's not much of a feat, and wearing heavy combat boots. Blaine's not sure why the boots, of all details, are the one that he notices and remembers.
…
Blaine eventually finds the office, where he is given his schedule and post-it note with his locker number and combination from a secretary who was more interested in playing 'Words With Friends' than making eye contact. He finds his homeroom, or the last three minutes of it, and is (thankfully) forgiven for his tardiness. He even finds his first and second classrooms without a hitch. Turns out McKinley High is actually fairly easy to navigate with room numbers that are ordered sensibly. It has nothing on the sprawling and zig-zag nature of Dalton, which is what happens when you turn a building that had begun as a residence into a school.
Third period is a study hall, but today that time slot is dedicated to a meeting with the guidance counselor about his transfer and assimilation into the school. Miss Pillsbury's office is the epitome of orderly and prime, as is the woman herself. She smiles kindly at Blaine as he enters.
"How's your first day been so far, Blaine?" she asks him.
"It's only been a couple hours, but okay," he says. It's a polite, political answer. He doesn't want to complain about the difficulty he's had with the other students, in that they've so far completely ignored him.
"Your mother made me aware of the incident that occurred at first high school."
Blaine tenses and nods with a tight jaw.
"I want you to know that you come to me at any time with any problems that you may have adjusting, or with classes, or with other students. This school's not… well, it's not perfect. Let's say that. But I want this –," She waves her hands vaguely to indicate her office. "To be a safe place."
It's an improvement from his old, old school's administration at least, if not exactly Dalton. "Thank you," he says.
"Now, let's talk about extracurriculars. They're good on college resumes and there's no better way at making friends… I have a list here." Miss Pillsbury starts to go through a desk drawer.
"I was in an acappella choir at Dalton. Do you have anything like that here?"
Miss Pillsbury just beams at that tidbit of knowledge. "We have a glee club. The New Directions. They're meeting for first time this school year this afternoon in the choir room right after last period. I'll tell Mr. Schuester to expect you?"
"Yeah, that sounds perfect actually," Blaine says, feeling more inspired right now today than he had at any point so far. Glee is something to look forward to, and maybe Miss Pillsbury is right in that it might be the best way to make new friends.
There's a heavy, singular bang on the office door, making both Miss Pillsbury and Blaine jolt in their seats. Miss Pillsbury gets from her chair to answer it.
"Oh, Kurt, you're early… surprisingly."
"Anything to get out of class," replies a droll voice, a figure leaning languidly in the doorway.
Wait. Blaine recognizes that voice… his assailant. Blaine checks the feet. Yup, combat boots, laced halfway up the calf, over a pair of skinny jeans – really skinny jeans.
Looking up, this is the first Blaine has seen his assailant's face, which is pale and sculpture-like. There's a wide streak of hot pink in the front of his hair. Light glints off of two piercings – an eyebrow bar and a ring at the corner of his bottom lip – as this boy's face shifts from a blend of disinterested and irritated to a variant blend of disinterested and irritated. While not a type of style Blaine would usually ascribe to – he prefers tucked in and orderly – on this guy it actually all comes together into something…
Okay, Blaine needs to stop. Needs to stop. When he evaluates a boy's appearance in such detail it means something. Blaine finds this guy attractive, physically, at least. His personality so far is leaving much to be desired.
"Blaine and I are just about done. Unless there's anything else you want to discuss?" Miss Pillsbury looks to Blaine. He shakes his head no. He doesn't.
Before Blaine can even get out of his chair, this Kurt has slunk into the office and plopped both heavily and lazily down in the chair next to his. He's so slouched down that he appears considerably shorter than Blaine sitting, although Blaine knows that's not the case.
As Blaine is ushered out the door, and Miss Pillsbury closes it behind him, he overhears her say to Kurt, "I hope we can start out this year positively."
…
Blaine takes a desk in the front row in his next class and tries to remain only mildly perturbed when the desk beside him remains empty as every single other fills up as the class enters in bunches. He's just the new kid, not the black plague.
"Bienvenue à la classe française deux," the teacher, Mrs. Boggart as Blaine's schedule reads, announces from the front of the room. "Comment allez-vous?"
After a pause, Mrs. Boggart waiting patiently with a dampening grin, a few students stutter out a mechanical and barely remembered response: "Je vais bien, merci, et vous?"
"Bien, bien," she says with a few claps at the abysmal response. "J'espère –"
The classroom door pushes open quickly, and it is none other than Kurt "the assailant" Hummel that barged into Blaine's guidance counselor meeting barging in now.
"Tu es en retard, Monsieur Hummel."
Casually, Kurt pulls a slip of paper with two-fingers out of his absurdly tight jeans (how had Blaine not noticed just quite how are they actually painted on tight his jeans were before?) and flicks it onto her desk. He spies around the room – back row to front – until he finds the only empty desk, the one next to Blaine.
Scoffing, he saunters over, pulls out the chair with a clank, and drops into it. Blaine watches him with a drift of the eye, but not the turn of the head, through every step.
Mrs. Boggart clears her throat to re-gather the class's attention, getting them to respond to her questions. Now, Blaine has to admit that foreign languages tend to be one of his weaker subjects, but the class almost refuses to talk, period, just so they don't have to try and talk in French. It only last for the first ten minutes before Mrs. Boggart's forced grin turns flat. It's rather disheartening to watch.
"Fine," she finally says, her voice bland in English. "We're pairing up to do talking exercises." She pairs up the students with someone sitting near, and Blaine knows what's coming before she reaches him. "Mr. Hummel and…," she peers at him, confused. "Mr. New Kid."
What was this school?
Kurt glances sideways at him, like it's his first time noticing Blaine's existence. Maybe it is. Kurt had made it so fully and so quickly onto Blaine's radar, but who's to say that's mutual. Kurt might literally keep running into Blaine, but that doesn't mean this isn't the first he's stopped to really look where he was going.
A studious looking girl shoots her hand up in the air. "Mrs. Boggart, what's the talking exercise about?"
"Anything. Absolutely anything. As long as it's in French."
Kurt laughs quietly. It's the most engaged gesture Blaine's witnessed from him yet.
"Je m'appelle Blaine," Blaine says tentatively.
Kurt raises a sleek eyebrow. "Tu t'appelles noeud papillion."
"What? I mean, quoi?"
Kurt leans forward, close into Blaine's space as Blaine stiffens in it. He tweaks Blaine's bowtie, a little rough, and repeats, "Noeud papillion."
Bowtie. It means bowtie. Like Kurt – before Blaine knew he was named Kurt – had called him in the hall, after their first and most physical collision.
With no prompting, Kurt starts spouting off sentences in perfectly-accented French well beyond first-day-of-French-two level. Blaine's too blown back in surprise to follow, but if he wasn't, he probably didn't have the French knowledge to follow anyway. He catches a few familiar words and phrases, but not enough to puzzle it together into sense.
Kurt pauses – perhaps waiting for the response Blaine doesn't have. He shakes his head. "Un autre imbecile."
"Okay, I'm not conversational in French yet, but I know what imbecile means," Blaine retorts, incidentally just as Mrs. Boggart is making her rounds.
"All in French, new kid," she says as she passes.
"Je m'appelle Blaine," he calls after her in an act of crass daring he never would performed at Dalton. Kurt almost looks amused.
"Bien!" Mrs. Boggart yells back.
"Peut-être tu n'êtes pas si mal, noeud papillion," Kurt says, though Blaine's misses the exact wording of his sentence, and only hears his nickname.
Blaine wishes he had the words to say, 'you're kind of confusing, Kurt Hummel.'
…
Mrs. Boggart made them switch partners halfway through class to continue there "talking exercises" this time after handing our scripts of questions for them to practice. Blaine's new partner spent most of their time together texting under her desk, only spurting out a few awkward French words when Mrs. Boggart walked past.
This leaves a lot of free time for Blaine's eyes to wander over to Kurt, now twisted around in his chair sideways to face his new partner – a neebish kid turning desperately through his textbook for answers as he stutters out French words accented with ums.
Blaine can't see his face, but he just imagines Kurt staring down the boy, increasing his nervousness.
Blaine shouldn't be imagining Kurt doing anything.
He tries to force his thoughts and his eyes away. He shouldn't be concerning himself so with the Kurt Hummel-type. 'Trouble' as Blaine's Mom would term him. The kid with combat boots, sneer, and coming loudly and blasé late into class, barging in on Blaine's meeting, nary an inch of respect for authority in him.
It's clear what type Kurt Hummel is. Very clear as Kurt Hummel presents himself in a certain way, and Blaine knows all about presentation. He wears neat, parted hair and bowties for his own reasons.
But those jeans were really tight. Blaine owned his fair share of tight jeans. This Kurt character might have literally panted them on. But they looked really nice on his long legs and up to his…
"The hell you looking at?" Kurt says snidely, looking over his shoulder to glare at him. Blaine's caught and now wide-eyed at the accusation. He never planned to go back into the closet with his return to public school. If Dalton taught him anything, it was confidence in himself. But Blaine wants to be out on his own terms, and preferably not the target of some gay panic bullying.
When Blaine manages to look Kurt in the face, the boy exudes shock with his wide round eyes, so unlike his usually glare.
Kurt casts his eyes down his back, as if trying to determine the trajectory of Blaine's gaze just moments before. Blaine's glued to his chair – glued in position.
"Were you – ?" Kurt starts, and Blaine almost doesn't even recognize his voice. Only seeing his mouth move along with words makes sense that they were Kurt's.
God, Blaine has flummoxed the troubled kid by staring at his ass. And is Kurt going a little pink around the edges?
The bell rings. Blaine jolts and Kurt jolts, and the moment is broken. The room is filled with screeching chairs and slamming books, but none screech nor slam louder than Kurt is his flight.
Then this thing starts to fill Blaine up starting from his gut through his chest until it fills his head: dread. With robot motions he collects his schoolbooks and follows the flow into the hallway, drifting like a leaf on stream. He's not going to get to be out on his own terms, but Kurt's. It's inevitable now that he's revealed his hand. As a new kid, that's all he had with his yet unformed identity.
Kurt might be a loner, Kurt might not be well-liked, but he was established. He had a reputation and some of the nerdy students moved out his way in the hall, as the cheerleaders sneered as he walked past. Blaine had no power to stop any rumors, no reputation to counteract them. It's over. Welcome to another high school hell. It's not the being out and proud, it was being found out and proud by checking just some guy out, on the first day, which had the potential for his downfall – for bullying and violence.
Somehow he made it to his next class. It was all a matter of how long it would take to for everything to crash.
…
The shoe didn't drop that day, although Blaine waited for it with resigned anxiety. Yet nothing occurred. He didn't even spot any wayward or curious looks, overhear any directed whispering. One public school was like any other; he knew when people were talking – and not kindly – about him.
By the end of classes, Blaine had to determine Kurt hadn't said anything, or at least not to anyone with the intention of spreading it. Such rumors wouldn't die flat on takeoff. Instead of retreating, he decides to try out this glee club.
It's an exuberant, eclectic bunch. He auditions with Piano Man and is met with enthusiastic applause. He receives offered high fives from several of the boys and is given eyes from several of the girls. A girl who introduces herself as Rachel Berry leans forward in her seat with an over big smile to say, "We should sing together sometime." Blaine replied with a polite thanks, because he is not sure if that is a genuine offer or if he is being hit on. Rachel Berry seems very enthusiastic.
It's not the Warblers, but by the end of practice, Blaine definitely thinks he could make this work for him.
…
Blaine goes through the next day of school, again without a whisper, rumor, or insult-laced shove implying anything gossip-like was going around about him. The only notable thing is Kurt not only being on time to French class but early. In his earliness, he had chosen sitting far away from Blaine's front row desk. Maybe it's a sign to leave sleeping dogs to their lying. But yesterday, three run-ins with Kurt seemed like sign. Really, it all left Blaine confused.
But no rumors were about. Surely there had been enough for them to spread like wildfire like they were wont to do in high school.
He can't help be curious about why not. Why no rumors. It's not even that Kurt has to malicious to spread them. He could just like to talk. So when he's heard before fifth period and sixth, and he sees Kurt sitting in the hallway outside of the guidance office, Blaine takes a detour.
Kurt's playing Angry Birds on his phone.
"What're you doing here?" Kurt when he notices Blaine standing next to him.
"I'm walking between classes. What're you doing here?"
Kurt pulls back the slingshot and releases a bird on his screen. "Whenever I get a detention I get a second punishment where I have to talk Pillsbury about anger management or my feelings or some shit like that."
"Detention on the second day?"
"Detention on the first day. Just talking about it on the second."
"Oh."
Kurt rolls his eyes exaggerated, and focuses back on his phone.
Blaine shifts weight between his feet, a balancing act that belongs to more than just his body. "Um, thank you, by the way, for not saying anything about that moment yesterday."
"Well," Kurt barely glances up at him, but it's more than he had been giving Blaine. "That would've been rather hypocritical of me."
It hits Blaine like a sledge hammer.
"Don't act so f-ing surprised," Kurt says, almost bored, attention all back to his game.