Special Note: I wish I could call this a fan fiction of CP Coulter's "Dalton" as well as Glee! But for now I suppose it is OK that there is no way to code it that way, so I will call it a fan fic nod to Glee because I do have only Glee characters in this little story anyway.

The scenes in the story below are from my pondering on what could happen (in a story form rather than screenplay form) after the Glee episode "Silly Love Songs," because I COULDN'T figure out why they gave Blaine the specific lines they did in that coffee shop. Sure, it makes sense to show that he is after all in high school and prone to that typical problem of having a close friendship he's afraid of messing up, but his initial reaction to Kurt's question, looking like it was totally NEWS to him, didn't make sense to me. The way Darren Criss has been playing his role, -or at least my overactive imagination has interpreted how he's been playing it so far- is allowing the possibility of love at first sight or at least the actor is throwing in lots of signs that would later make it totally believable in retrospect if the writers do end up at some point in the future deciding that it was love at first sight. The way he looked at Kurt on the staircase when they first laid eyes on each other, he looked kind of struck. He looked like he couldn't take his eyes off him, and then instead of telling him the obvious "just follow the crowd!" he took his hand and kept holding it all the way to the senior commons for gosh sake. And he clearly sang the song to him, which both Darren Criss and Ryan Murphy have remarked was the intention of that song performance as well. Most scenes they are in have something that hints that these two are into each other and haven't admitted it yet. So... Kids in high school do hide their feelings even when confronted, and sometimes even when the guy you like says something that makes it clear he would reciprocate, you sometimes can't even really SEE that through your veil of fear. But Blaine acting genuinely surprised? Those lines, "Oh wow. I really am clueless" and "let me be perfectly clear..." hmmmm. Does not compute. So I was completely compelled to figure it out, and work out that possible discrepancy, by imagining some future conclusions. And this is the result.

(As we all must mention... I do not own or write for or have any association with Glee!)

BTW= Please review! It's a writing exercise! (Is last scene too long? Too wordy? Too jarring a change in tone? etc. Ideas, suggestions of any sort about anything are welcome. Thanks!)

Kurt and Blaine's First Kiss:

The volume of the laughter in the almost-empty hall was at once inappropriate since everyone else was still stuck in all those classrooms, and infectious, which kind of made it OK with the class-trapped students who only felt envy for the lucky ones who escaped early to greet their unexpected visitors.

Moments earlier, Rachel had sworn she'd seen something bright purple with... red stripes? whisk past her Geography classroom window... and then her keen hearing picked up the briefest humming of a familiar tune, with what she instantly recognized as a very familiar voice! She was up and grabbing Mercedes by the textbook on her way out the door in the next instant.

The girls practically skipped with joy down the hall to catch up with the two boys in Dalton school uniforms, the taller one sporting a bright purple scarf which was jauntily improving his uniform.

"Kurt! Blaine!"

"Mercedes! Hey!" replied Kurt, adding "Hey, Rachel! And why are you girls out of class pray tell?"

"Silly, did you think you could hum a line from 'Defying Gravity' and NOT have me pick it up from whatever corner of the school I was in?" Rachel giggled and threw her arms around him for a month-long-awaited hug.

Mercedes followed suit and didn't let go for a while, saying "Sweetie, we haven't even seen you live and in person for over a month! We can't let this happen." She let him go and said to Blaine, "You've got to let him out of your sight for at least a little bit now and then so we can have our ladies nights and pajama parties, you know..." to which Blaine raised his eyebrows at her while his lips seemed to change their minds about how big of a smile or a mock-disapproving grimace they should settle on.

Kurt turned to Blaine and said to Mercedes while staring into his crush's eyes, "Oh, he lets me out of his sight all the time. Whenever I'm safely tucked in a classroom while class is in session, or in my father's car, or with a group of trusted friends who will report to him if anything interesting happens..." Blaine grabbed him by the scarf and spun him around with the action of unwrapping it from his shoulders, ending with Kurt falling in to him, upon which Blaine jostled him playfully, saying "Hey, you're still the new kid, you need protecting!"

Mercedes and Rachel glanced at each other with that knowing look only friends of future-couples-in-denial are used to wearing while they are patiently waiting for the clueless to figure themselves out.

Kurt pried the ends of his scarf out of Blaine's playful hands, scowling at the boy and slapping him in the face with a flash of purple fabric on the way back to its perfect placement on his Dalton jacket. After all, when not at Dalton, no need for drab uniform appearances. And, in front of his dear friends, no need to play down the flirting with his crush, whether or not his feelings are returned in the same way.

After they said their goodbyes ("for NOW, Kurt!") and the boys headed off to see Mr. Schuster about... what was it about again?... the girls headed toward their lockers and giggled without having to mention to each other what they were giggling about. Mercedes thought of something and asked "Does it seem strange to you that they are always so flirty like that, but Kurt always vehemently maintains that they are seriously just friends? I mean I don't flirt like that with anyone I want to keep as just a friend. Do you?"

"Umm... I'm not the best person to ask about the ins and outs of the art of romance... But no, they definitely do not look like people who are keeping each other in the friend zone. I wonder what's up with Kurt thinking they are. Maybe they just flirt as an affectionate thing but really don't mean it...? I mean, we know Kurt means it or wishes he could mean it out loud if you know what I mean... but I wonder what Blaine is thinking?"

"Well, it looks to me like he's thinking all kinds of advanced thoughts about our little Kurt the way he looks at him and acts around him, if you asked me!"

"Didn't Kurt tell us after Valentine's Day that Blaine in no uncertain terms defined their friendship as a friendship though?" Rachel asked as they pulled books out of lockers for their next classes.

Mercedes caught one of the five books that fell out of her locker overstuffed with emergency couture and replied, "Yeah... He pretends to be totally happy with that for now, but I know he's really had a thing for that boy since the moment he first laid eyes on him when he stopped him in the hall to ask directions, or was it a stairway to ask what the commotion was... I forget... I just know that he started talking about him then and hasn't stopped once since. The only thing is, I don't know if Blaine is feeling the same thing and he's hiding it for now..."

Rachel interrupted, "Not hiding it very well, though! My gosh, the way that boy looks at Kurt. It's like the way Finn used to look at me before we got together..."

It was time for Mercedes to interrupt, "Rachel. Not that I don't want you to have your nice memories, but you have to stop dwelling on them just for a little while at least, in order to actually move on! Come on, BE that single diva!"

With Rachel's little Michael Jackson dance move accompanying her "hee hee" straight out of "The Way You Make Me Feel," Mercedes burst into "Hey pretty baby with your high heels on, You give me fever like I've never ever known, You're just a product of loveliness, I like the groove of your walk, your talk, your dress!" To which Rachel simply said "Thank you." Divas, indeed.

"Nah," Mercedes allowed, "I see what you mean. It is a bit like when you and Finn were in denial for a while, or at least he was. Except the way Blaine and Kurt seem together, it's like way bigger. They say they're just friends but then they always stand just a little too close... and they laugh just a little too loud..."

With a grin, Rachel picked up on the Bonnie Raitt reference and supplied the next lines with Mercedes piping in until they were practically dancing down the hall singing away "They say we stare just a little to LONG... Maybe they're seeing, Something we don't darling! Let's give 'em something to talk about... A little mystery to figure out..."

The sound of the two of them cheered Tina and Artie right up as they emerged from a classroom together miserably clutching their graded physics tests. As the girls rounded the corner, the two physics class escapees happily belted out in chorus "Let's give 'em something to talk about... How about LOVE ah!... oh oh oaoaoah!"

Unable to stop laughing, Tina choked out "What brought that on?"

Rachel got out amidst chuckles, "We just ran into Kurt and Blaine... they stopped by to ask Mr. Schu about something..."

"Wait. What?" Artie asked. "Mr. Schu? What did they come to ask him about?"

Rachel and Mercedes looked at each other... "Oh... Ah..?"

Mercedes looked like she was trying to remember something she forgot, and then just looked up at Rachel for answers.

"Yeah, I guess we forgot to ask." Rachel chimed in. "They were just acting so disgustingly cute with each other that we..."

"I know!" Tina interrupted as well. "Every time I see them they're practically holding hands or just sitting a little too close..."

"THAT'S how we got into the song!" Mercedes burst out with another "We STARE just a little too loooooong..." which cracked them all up again.

Looking like an experienced plotter working on yet another scheme, Rachel addressed the group, "So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to push them into realizing something or what?"

Artie piped up instantly in reaction to Rachel's plotting with "Ahhh... I don't know if you want to get all involved where it's not your business... doesn't that always get you into trouble?"

Mercedes kind of agreed, with "Yeah, I don't know if Kurt really... responds to pressure from friends... he kind of tends to do the opposite of what he thinks people are trying to get him to do..."

"But everyone needs a little, I don't know..." Tina thought about it, "nudge sometimes...?"

"Remember when Kurt tried to fix me up with one of the only other black kids in school?" Mercedes offered. "I was kind of offended at first, I don't know... maybe they'd both feel like we were assuming they must be in love with each other just because they both happen to be gay. I mean I think they actually are in love with each other, but maybe we should just let them work it out on their own for a while?"

Rachel defended her position, "Hey, if it's love, it's love. And if they need a push to realize that, then why can't I just, I mean why can't WE just give them some hints and tease them just a little so that they'll be forced to confront the concept at least? You know... I mean we could just like... drop hints and tease them when we see them lean in close to whisper one of their little private jokes, just to call them out on it, but not make a big deal of it, and maybe then they'd have to realize what they're doing at least, and maybe they'd have to talk about it amongst themselves later?"

Artie felt the need to interject, "Rachel, Rachel, Rachel... always the plotting manipulator of others... let's be a good girl and leave the poor sweet love-sick boys alone for now, K?"

Mr. Schuster stood up from behind his desk to greet his favorite representatives of Dalton Academy. "It's been too long, Kurt. You should stop by more often."

With a quick glance at Blaine, Kurt greeted Mr. Schuster, and said, "Well... we're not sure if we should even be here on this particular mission, Mr. Schu..."

"What's up?" Mr. Schuster appraised both boys.

"It... kind of feels like we're trying to steal from the competition, but really, Mr. Schu, it's just that..." Kurt looked to Blaine, searching for the next words.

Blaine helped out with a well-spoken, "The Warblers are a student-run organization, we don't have a faculty advisor, and we find ourselves," at a glance from Kurt, he added "Kurt and I, at least, feel like the Warblers, though they represent a long-standing tradition and example of excellence at Dalton, are sort of..."

Now Kurt stepped in to assist, with "in short, we feel the Warblers are stuck in a rut, so to speak."

Nodding at that, Blaine continued, "Year after year the seniors keep the time-tested traditions and methods going... which certainly works for us. Our strength is our ability to arrange very complicated 8 part harmonies and so forth, which we have the dedication to practice until they're flawless... but"

"Mr. Schu," Kurt took it up from here, "It seems that they.. oh, yeah...I mean WE (blushing and then smiling happily) sound like one well-tuned instrument. But we kind of want to shake things up a little bit... not to win competitions, we really don't want it to be only about that."

Blaine added "We do concerts at school, and we get asked to sing for school functions and so forth... we even started performing off-campus a bit recently, and we'd like to kind of have a bit more diversity in our style, you know? And we... well, honestly, I figured that Kurt's advisor at his old school would have some suggestions because you seem to constantly come up with new and exciting ways to shake things up with the New Directions and get the best out of everybody in the club, while still performing as one cohesive group."

Once the boys were done getting their point out, which Mr. Schuster did not find tiresome, but was quite amused and also heart-warmed to see the way they bounced off each other with such ease of camaraderie, he thought for a moment, considering his response, and began, "Well... I don't know how effective any help I can offer will be, without being able to go out to Dalton to watch something you're working on... and I can't do that because it would be seen as... well Kurt you know your old Glee club here does take competition pretty well to heart and would probably never forgive me if I helped an opposing team. But I can give you some basic advice I guess, and hope it's helpful."

Both boys nodded enthusiastically.

"When you guys go back to Dalton, look around at your friends in the Warblers, and really see them. See them each as an individual with some spectacular talent that is uniquely his. And then once you have all the individual star-quality talents figured out, think of each one as a part of the machinery that will come together into one working singing-and-dancing electrifying machine. That sounds goofy, but guys listen; it's what I think about every day with the Glee club."

"Well thank you Mr. Schu.," Kurt said with sincerity. "This has been most helpful, indeed, as I knew it would be, coming to see you."

Blaine stood and extended his hand to the teacher. "We definitely appreciate any advice from you, sir. Thanks."

After shaking hands and nodding appreciatively right back at this impressive student, Mr. Schuster started to move to accept Kurt's subsequently extended hand, but as soon as they made eye contact with each other, both teacher and former student just laughed and gave each other a big hug.

Before the boys passed through the door he turned back around from his desk again and with his brow wrinkled with thought, reached out to them with "Oh, and hey guys: the most important thing about any kind of team... It's always best to not hold anything back. If you want to have it all, you have to open up. You have to know what you mean to each other and know what it is that actually makes you a good team. It takes a lot of honesty, to open up to yourselves and to each other. It's a little hard to do at first, but once you do... it's pretty amazing." He gave a quick smile to the boys and ended with, "And you don't want to miss out on an opportunity like that when you have it."

In the car on the way back to Dalton, Kurt and Blaine played around with a few beginnings of ideas for new songs to try, to shake things up a little bit and get their friends in the Warblers to open up with new ideas as well.

As they approached nearer to their home campus of Dalton, all of a sudden, as though inspired by a breakthrough, Blaine broke into "You're a falling star, You're the getaway car, You're the line in the sand when I go too far, You're the swimming pool, On an August day, And you're the perfect thing to say," and suddenly he was Michael Buble driving along singing away. Only... better. To Kurt, (and probably to lots of people who have the privilege of hearing him) whenever Blaine sings a song he makes it somehow... better.

As the car sped along the practically-deserted highway, the momentum of the song and Blaine's rendition of it moved the energy in the car to a fever pitch as far as Kurt was concerned. "And you play it coy but it's kinda cute. Ah, when you smile at me you know exactly what you do." Did Blaine look right at me on that last line? Kurt thought. Damn, it's difficult for a guy to keep his feelings all friendly when faced with this one's presence. But then Kurt got a little peeved in fact when Blaine definitely looked at him again, even leaning toward him a bit for emphasis on "Baby don't pretend that you don't know it's true, 'Cause you can see it when I look at you." Am I supposed to take this as friendly flirting? Just a friend? What the heck? How can a guy withstand this from someone he's so into?

Blaine got more and more into the song, "And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times, It's you, It's you, You make me sing." Kurt was turning from peeved to bothered to hopeful and back to annoyed when Blaine again sang right to him glancing over to his eyes a few times on "You're every line, You're every word, You're everything." Stupid song, stupid Blaine acting like he's singing it to me, stupid me wishing he was.

"You're a carousel, you're a wishing well, And you light me up when you ring my bell. You're a mystery, you're from outer space,"

He then actually took both their lives into his hands by driving along but gazing into Kurt's eyes only, during the entirety of "You're every minute of my every day."

Kurt was practically burning up with a cross between hope and anger by the time Blaine got through bouncing along singing happily and cluelessly, "And I can't believe, that I'm your man, And I get to kiss you baby just because I can. Whatever comes our way, ah we'll see it through, And you know that's what our love can do."

"And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times, It's you, It's you, You make me sing. You're every line, You're every word, You're everything."

By the end of the song, Kurt was about to boil over with this crazy combination of emotions, when Blaine turned the car off in the Dalton parking lot and leaned in close to Kurt and sang the last lines to him with a dazzling grin: "You're every song, and I sing along. 'Cause you're my everything. Yeah, yeah..." Kurt took one beat to compose himself and his next speech. He exhaled in a way that sounded like "humph!" and lit in with "Blaine! Honestly. We. Have. To. Talk." He opened his door, stormed out and stood waiting for Blaine to join him. Blaine came around the car to lean against it next to Kurt, giving him a curious yet patient look that told him to go on.

Kurt was a bit more calm at this point, and looking into Blaine's eyes always had a strangely centering and balancing effect on him.

"Blaine, a couple months ago, you were fed up with Valentine's Day and I know you were just coming off of a humiliating... Oh I'm sorry..." as an apology for the flub, he reached over to rub Blaine's arm in a friendly and supportive gesture. "...It was a fabulously bold and awesome thing you did and I don't want you to stop doing that kind of thing ever... but what I'm saying is, you were feeling down on yourself and on romance in general at the moment because you'd just been rejected, and stupid me decides to take that moment to confront you with defining what our status is, of all things. I'm actually so sorry about that. The timing was just silly. I didn't give you a chance to even move your thoughts off of that stupid guy for a day before slamming you with something else confusing."

"But... Blaine, it's been a couple months of you and me getting closer and closer, and I don't know if it's still just my imagination or if I've been really picking up on definite more-than-just-friend vibes from you... like all the time."

Blaine started to shake his head like he was about to apologize for something, but Kurt stopped him. "Wait, just listen."

"You said you know how to act it out in song... and the thing about that is... I always notice you acting out things when you're singing with me on stage that look an awful lot like someone declaring that they want the other person to understand that they are saying those particular words to the person they're looking at, and that they mean those particular words."

"So... it could just be me making it all up in my head, AGAIN... It could just be you acting on stage, honestly probably like you always have since before you even met me, and I just happen to be there on the stage with you this time and totally in love with you and imagining things with wishful thinking... but I am still wondering if maybe when you're singing you find that you can.. Kind of... Say what you're really thinking? Maybe. Or maybe not. I don't know." At his slight pause, Blaine looked up briefly at him and then back down at the ground he had been seemingly obsessed with those past few minutes. Something in his body language and the fact that he let the pause lie without doing or saying anything made Kurt feel he should continue.

"Like... at sectionals... On stage, you were way in front of me, and you had to look all the way over your shoulder to glance at me when you sang the line 'I want the world to see you be with me.' It made me feel as if you were checking to see if I was listening to you sing that particular line. And at our little Lonely Hearts Club Dinner at Breadsticks, everyone commented about the way you came up to me and sang the totally sappy sweet drawn-out, 'I love you' right to me. I mean, whatever. Whatever. You're singing, you're acting, you're acting with everyone on stage, including me, so that's just part of the acting..." Kurt paused and thought, just for a brief moment. "Ugh... I know... even if you are singing that right to me... I know you love me as a friend. I know that. I know that's probably what you mean..." Blaine stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, and an abrupt "Kurt."

Kurt continued on with, "No no, I shouldn't have even started talki..." But Blaine persisted in stopping him, "Kurt" grabbing both his shoulders this time. Still, the flustered and suddenly regretful Kurt tried shrugging the whole thing off with, "No it's OK... You don't have to say anything, I'll just pretend I didn'..." Blaine then felt the need to actually shake him to stop him talking, pulling him toward him and putting his forhead right against Kurt's. In that position Kurt couldn't say anything or even act fidgety at all, it was too much of a controling position on Blaine's part. He could only look down at both their shoes almost trembling with the intimacy of this closeness but keeping himself just steady and waiting for the bad-news ax to fall from Blaine's mouth. Blaine just kind of gave a percussive exhale and said his final "Kurt, Shut up."

Remaining in that position, where neither boy could raise their eyes to the other, but just feel each other's presence and just speak and listen, Blaine started to explain... "Kurt, you know I care about you. Now I don't know if it's because I am too bad at this or too young or too stupid, to be able to show you just how much I care about you. That does show when I'm performing, because I kind of lose myself and my hangups and my... I don't know... my worries... when I'm singing and acting out my songs in performance. It... But... It has nothing to do really with what's going on in my mind about you and me at the time..."

Kurt interrupted with, "I know I know... I was just being sill..."

"KURT!" Blaine's hand clutched the back of his dear friend's head. "Let me finish." His fingers curled around Kurt's hair just a brief moment before he moved his hand back onto the shoulder, seeming to serve to steady Blaine himself more than the owner of the shoulder he was holding. He inhaled and seemed to hold his breath, while Kurt felt his mind was becoming suspended in time as though it was going to shut down for being so stuck between the choices it dare not make in the moment, of crying or hyperventilating or holding his breath or kissing the living daylights out of this boy in front of him or going off to crawl into a corner and wimper for the rest of his life, or reach up and strangle this guy until he spits out whatever he's going to say, or all of the above, all at once. Blaine finally exhaled blowing his breath out in a soft "hooooo." "Kurt, I'm not saying that I'm thinking the opposite of that, and that those things you noticed on stage are untrue and made up in your head... I'm just saying it's not telling my actual whole story about how I care about you."

He stepped back, folding his arms close against his chest, but at least now allowing the boys to look at each other as he spoke.

"Kurt the thing is... My mind wants everything to stay exactly how it is between us. My mind wants to hold on so tight to what we have. What we have is so... It's so perfect. My mind wants to have it remain like it is... having you near me all the time, being able to have you run to me when I need your help. Being able to protect you, and see your... awesome smile when I cheer you up, and being able to just laugh and cry with you... and make you happy. I don't want anything to get in the way of that, to change that. To make things have... drama, or whatever it is that always changes to make people no longer just... JUST be able to be together and support each other fully and enjoy each other's company completely and easily, the way we do now."

"Do you know what I mean? My mind wants to keep you here and keep the feelings we have exactly how they are." Blaine's words sounded sure but his body was practically trembling with something else he was trying to get to, and Kurt could see the confusion in his countenance.

"But the problem is..." Blaine seemed so lost and faltering at this point, Kurt didn't care what he was working up to saying, he just had to help him in some way, so he cupped his hands around the poor guy's beautiful head and turned his face toward his and gave him a look that said you can say anything to me, and Blaine, taking all the encouragement he needed from that gesture, began again stating his friend's name once more as he will do hundreds of times if he is allowed to, "Kurt," as he reached up and gripped tightly onto one of Kurt's hands, "that's not what my heart wants and my heart keeps winning the battle over my mind more and more..." He shook his head a bit as though to shake out the cobwebs, and Kurt released him but allowed his hand to continue to be held in front of them, for a moment longer while Blaine took a deep breath.

"My heart thinks my mind is an idiot."

Kurt's smile started out as a supportive nod, but grew to one that transparently gave him away for being overwhelmed with joy and relief to hear this conclusion.

Blaine, who had been staring at Kurt's shoes again when he said this, hands in pockets, looked up surreptitiously to see if Kurt was getting what he was implying, and saw that smile. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, shaking his head, and looked back up into Kurt's eyes almost asking him to finish the thought for him or to do something to help him, to help him out of his misery in the moment.

Kurt then looked almost like he was snapping out of something, stood tall and said "WELL. I agree with your heart. Your mind IS an idiot."

Blaine, instantly happy at the change of tone, laughed and moved to shove Kurt jokingly. Totally not expecting that, Kurt lost his balance, falling backward a bit so Blaine reached out to catch him from going backwards just as Kurt over-corrected forward, causing the boys to collide into each other with Blaine's arms around Kurt.

Almost at the same instant as each other, but with Kurt having just the tiniest of a split second lead on Blaine's movement, they gravitated toward each other's lips because from what they saw in each others eyes, they both simply decided to let go and simply stop holding back from an inevitable kiss.

Kurt, who meant for it to be a quick kiss to show without words his support for whatever Blaine decides (between his heart or mind or some compromise in between) was pulled in deeper by Blaine, who from the instant of the first brush of Kurt's lips experienced the exploding of his heart, overtaking his mind along with his body, his soul, his spirit, his whole existence and the rest of the world with it.

When they parted, breathlessly looking into each others eyes - Kurt with a gaze that said both what was that? and oh my gosh finally! and Blaine's ruined heart turning absolutely giddy at that look - they each tried to speak, tried to find something to say to each other, but both failed to find a single word. So they both just blinked, laughed and wordlessly agreed to say anything else they wanted to say with the touching of their lips and the movements of their hands.

That of course turned to the clutching at backs of necks as Blaine once again deepened the kiss and the running of fingers through hair as Kurt effortlessly pulled Blaine back to youthful innocent expression of affection, pulling him back up slowly from the depths where he could tell that Blaine was drowning in passion, back up to playfully and joyfully kissing his new, ridiculously happy boyfriend.