Hi! I posted this story a few months ago on my tumblr, and now I'm getting around to posting it here, after cleaning it up a bit. I'm gonna do (mostly) a chapter an episode, which is different than what I did on tumblr, but it just feels cleaner doing it that way here. And I'm posting them all at once, since it's all finished anyway.

This chapter has my take on Pilot as well as Showmance, because my Showmance chapter was ridiculously short.

Enjoy!

"Looks like you need to wash your hair, loser." Strong hands gripped Blaine by the shoulders and directed him towards the boy's bathroom.

"No, please. I'm going to be late to French class." He wriggled and struggled in Noah Puckerman's grasp, the other jocks laughing behind them. Puck pushed him into an open stall and kicked the lid of the toilet up with the toe of his boot.

"I don't think your teacher will want your greasy head in class, anyway," Puck retorted, shoving Blaine's face close enough to the toilet water that he could feel the coolness of it against his cheek.

"Any last words?" Finn Hudson asked, reaching for the handle.

Blaine squeezed his eyes shut, absolutely despising them because for the first two weeks he'd been at the school, he'd worn his hair loose and curly, and all they'd done was toss gum in it, and then he finally started gelling it down in retaliation, and he got this for his efforts.

"Bullying me won't make your parents love you," he muttered, because nothing he said could make this any worse.

They laughed, and he had just enough time to gasp down a gulp of air before his head was dunked underwater.

And then the flush.

"Tu es en retard, Monsier Anderson."

"Je suis desolé, Madame," Blaine mumbled his apology after walking into class about fifteen minutes after the bell.

Telling her students that they were late to class was one of the one of the few French sentences that Blaine's French teacher knew. He suspected that just like 'Señor' Schuester, 'Madame' Jenkins was learning the language right along with her students.

"Don't let it happen again," she said, as if proving his point. He slid into his seat next to Kurt Hummel as she continued, "As I was saying, read through the exercises in the textbook with a partner. Commencez-vous!"

"Qu'est-ce que s'est passé?" Kurt asked, twisting his body in his chair to face Blaine. Kurt was the only kid in class, possibly the school, that took the language seriously. Blaine found it as annoying as he did commendable.

"Swirlie," he said, opening his textbook to the same page everyone else was ignoring. "I was lucky I had emergency gel in my locker."

Kurt grimaced in commiseration. He was also labelled as a loser by the jocks, and therefore had to suffer much of the same humiliation and torture that Blaine did.

"Ils m'ont jetté dans la poubelle ce matin," he said in response.

"What?" Blaine asked. He didn't know how Kurt was so good in French while receiving such a crappy education.

"Dumpster toss this morning," he sighed.

"You alright?"

"I guess. Finn let me remove my new jacket before I got thrown in."

"How generous of him," Blaine said sarcastically.

Kurt shrugged, scribbling something down half-heartedly to avoid answering. "Je pense que m'inscrire la chorale," he said at last.

"You're thinking of what?"

"I like singing," he said defensively. Blaine tried to interrupt and explain, but Kurt ignored him. "Make fun of me all you want, but it'll be good for college transcripts and it's a step closer to getting out of this crap town."

"No, I meant that I don't know-"

"I don't hear French," Madame Jenkins said pointedly.

"Neither do I," Kurt muttered, turning his attention back to his book.

"What I meant was-"

"French!" their teacher insisted from the front of the room.

It didn't take Blaine long to figure out what Kurt had been talking about. After informing a very disinterested teacher that bullying had led him to being late, he saw a sign in the hall with the optimistic title of 'New Directions', which had already been scribbled out and replaced with 'Nude Erections'.

Kurt's name, along with four others that Blaine recognized as being at the bottom of the food chain as well, were the only people signed up for the new glee club, led by… Mr. Schuester.

"Ugh," he muttered. He wished Kurt luck in his head.

Still, for a moment he let himself consider writing his name down too, until Puck shoved him into the wall without even looking.

They all must have some sort of nerd radar or something, he thought to himself as he rubbed his sore nose.

"So, I know you made fun of me for wanting to join-" Kurt began, sidling up to Blaine as he retrieved books from his locker.

"I did no such thing-"

"-but I think you should join, too," he finished with a decisive nod.

"And I think I'm not going to do that. Sorry," Blaine replied.

"Why not? I know you can sing." In a slightly misguided attempt to make her students more interested in French culture, Madame Jenkins had systematically been bringing in French music and trying to make them sing along. Blaine could barely understand the language, but he could sing it just fine.

"You're much better than I am. I'm sure you guys can manage without me," he assured him.

"Well. I'm not going to argue a compliment, but you should still consider joining. New Directions has the distinct possibility of actually being cool."

Blaine snorted. "How do you figure? I mean, singing and dancing is great and all, but the jocks don't even like it when you wear women's sweaters, Kurt."

His face bloomed red. "Fashion has no gender," he snapped.

"I didn't say it did." Blaine held up his hands placatingly.

Kurt crossed his arms, jaw tense. "Anyway, now that Finn Hudson's joined, things might just change around here."

"Finn Hudson? Oh god, now I'm definitely not joining," he scoffed.

His face morphed into one of indignation. "And why not?"

He looked at him in disbelief. "Are you nuts? Kurt, he threw you into a dumpster."

"His friends did."

He stared into the depths of his locker like it held the secrets of the universe and then said, "I know there's a quote about judging a person based on the friends he keeps, and there's another about judging him not on how he treats his friends but his inferiors." He shut his locker and finished, "Either way, Finn fails the test because his friends are assholes and he slushied me this morning. So."

He raised his eyebrows in a 'there you have it' gesture and walked off.

"Don't you have glee practice?" Blaine asked Kurt a few days later. It was the end of the day and the other boy was dressed in a red shirt and black pants and walking in the opposite direction of the choir room.

Kurt heaved a huge sigh. "Schuester is leaving the school to get a higher paying job as an accountant," he rolled his eyes. "And no other teacher will touch this club with a hundred foot pole thanks to Coach Sylvester, so glee's over."

"I'm sorry, Kurt," he said sincerely.

He gave him a haughty look. "You don't care about glee."

"Well, I guess not, but you were enjoying yourself, so it really sucks that it has to end now."

His face softened just a bit and he said, "You know Blaine, sometimes I think you're the only person in this entire school that understands the concept of empathy."

He grinned. "Thanks. Hey, do you wanna get a coffee or something?"

"Actually, Rachel has insisted that we do one last hurrah in the auditorium. If you enjoy 80's classics performed show choir style, you're welcome to watch."

Blaine snuck into the back of the auditorium and watched the small glee club sing their hearts out one last time. They were surprisingly good for only being together a week. Blaine would have preferred Kurt to have lead of course, but that might have been his natural prejudice against Finn more than anything.

When they finished, Schuester applauded and critiqued them, apparently back for good.

Blaine was just about to leave when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Noah Puckerman exiting the theatre. He also heard noise from above and turned to see the swish of Cheerio skirts leaving the alcove up high.

What the hell was going on with this club?

Showmance

"Can I take back every bad thing I've said about disco this week?" Kurt groaned as he sunk into his seat next to Blaine in French.

"If you want, yeah," he said, smiling a bit at Kurt's dramatics as he laid his head against his arms on his desk.

"I take it back," he promised gravely. "The harpy that chooses to call itself Rachel has staged a coup over the assembly performance and now… Oh Blaine, I only pray that you don't judge me once you see what we're doing."

"But I was so excited for disco!" he almost whined.

"I'll say again, you should really consider joining. You'd get along great with Schue."

"Ugh," he rolled his eyes. "I dunno Kurt, all your complaining isn't really filling me with a desire to join."

He sat up straight, pulling out his text book. "Well if you don't want to listen, fine."

"No Kurt I- ugh."

He'd only been at McKinley for a few weeks, but he already knew how defensive Kurt could be. And he couldn't really blame him. It's not like McKinley was a breeding ground for nice people.

New Direction's rendition of 'Push It' was a sound success in Blaine's book. Sure, he had second-hand embarrassment watching them do some of the moves, and a bit of first-hand embarrassment from the boner trying to rise in his pants, but being able to watch Kurt's hips move like that definitely made it worth it.

The whole performance was undoubtedly inappropriate for a school setting, but the audience really liked it, and the glee club didn't get fruit thrown at them, which was what was important.

Later that day, Blaine caught up with Kurt at his locker with Mercedes. "Hey Kurt."

"Oh hi Blaine," he said, turning away from his conversation with his fellow glee club member. "How are you?"

"Good. Hi Mercedes," he said politely before looking back to Kurt. "I just wanted to congratulate you on a great performance at the assembly."

"What?"

"I really enjoyed it," he reiterated. "I mean, I know you didn't have any solo lines but, you know, as a group I thought you guys did a great job."

His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Well, um, it was really…" HOT. About as hot as his face as he frantically tried to think of another descriptor. "Fun to watch."

There. That was a reasonable enough response.

"Fun to watch us make fools of ourselves," Kurt muttered. "Coach Sylvester almost had us banned."

"It's all Rachel's fault," Mercedes said. "The girl is psycho."

"Did anyone else at least seem interested in joining?"

"Just Quinn and some of her cronies so she can keep an eye on Rachel's hideous attempts at seducing Finn," Kurt replied.

"But you should join," Mercedes said to Blaine. "It's pretty fun if you can look past all the crazy."

Kurt's eyes widened at something behind Blaine and Mercedes' backs and Blaine turned around just in time to get a face full of slushie.

Blaine wiped his eyes of ice as the jocks walked away laughing. "I think I'll take a rain check," he gasped, face freezing.

Also, in case you're wondering, the occasional French is just shameless self-indulgence on my part. I'm pretty sure you can figure out the gist of what Kurt's saying from the context, but if you're super lost just ask me :)

Anyway, I hope you like it so far!