THUD! The noise of the alarm clock hitting the ground roused the senior from his slumber more than the actual noise the thing gave off. With a short grunt he forced his eyes open and put his hand down feeling around for the plastic object which had once again ended up under his bed.

Slowly he put his feet on the floor and gazed round the room which was gently lit with morning sun. It was still early in the school year so not too cold but through a gap in his curtains he could see a few leaves were already changing colour.

He clutched his head trying to make sense of things, why was everything so fuzzy? Then he saw the empty bottle of champagne lying on the floor and fell back on to the bed with a groan. Looking again, this time more closely at the clock he realised that however much his head was pounding it was nothing compared to missing his first calculus test of the year without a sick line, verified by at least three doctors.

Dragging himself over to the shower he turned it on full blast and as he stepped into the steam, his mind wandered back to the previous night.

It was Wes' 18th birthday and Blaine and David had decided to give their best friend a party. It couldn't be a big affair, it was a Tuesday school night after all but they needed to celebrate properly. David had acquired a bottle of champagne, he maintained his parents had given it to him as a present for the new term but no one was convinced by this story and Kurt, Blaine's boyfriend, had agreed to organise a cake.

The party was held in Blaine's room as it was the biggest one and Kurt had gone to town decorating. He finished classes before everyone else so had the most time plus it was the sort of thing he loved. Blaine had found it difficult to get in the door when he came back from class but after rearranging the balloons so they weren't all together the place looked great.

The boys went to dinner together and then once they came back to halls and changed they all congregated in Blaine's room. Aside from the four Windsor boys the rest of the halls popped in and out all evening passing on birthday wishes. While the cake and soft drinks had been freely passed out only the seniors and Kurt knew about the champagne and were seen with pretty full glasses all night. The party was a huge success and Nathaniel, the Windsor prefect had even allowed them to stay up 30 minutes past curfew.

Blaine looked cautiously around the room as he began to pull on his uniform. There were shreds of burst balloons all over, it looked like a confetti cannon had gone off. Streamers hung from every available surface and there were cups scattered everywhere. The teenager rubbed his eyes gently wishing the magic pixies would appear and clean it all up for him but as he opened them again everything was still there. If his head hurt before then the riot of colour and the thought of all the tidying made it positively burst.

He decided that the best course of action was to start by finding pain killers, that way at least he may be able to string a sentence together by the time he was actually in a lesson. Blaine had just popped two pills into his hand when there was a knock at the door and Kurt pratically bounced in.

"That was such a great night, didn't you have the best time?" he smiled and then his face fell as he looked at Blaine, pills in hand and half closed eye lids, "Oh, not feeling great today then?"

"Why are you so cheerful?" Blaine asked accusingly, "and why are you not dying of a hang over too?"

Kurt laughed coming over and gently kissing Blaine's forehead, "I know what alcohol does to me and as I hate feeling out of control I prefer to avoid it."

"You drank too, I saw you."

"Yes, I had about half a glass and then switched to apple juice, the stuff everyone else was drinking. Do you want me to tell administration you are sick today and you can just go back to bed?"

Blaine grabbed Kurt and buried his face in his shoulder, "that would be great but when they send the nurse up to check on me I think they may put two and two together. Frankly it's too early in the year to be sent to the principal for throwing a sicky, especially when I have a test this morning."

"Poor baby," said Kurt gently kissing Blaine's lips. "Well why don't you finish getting dressed and I'll start some tidying up. We can spare 10 minutes before we need to go to breakfast."

All Blaine could do was stand and watch as Kurt spun round the room, the bin under one arm and the other industriously gathering streamers and cups off various surfaces. He reminded Blaine of the Disney character Snow White whistling her tune as she cleaned.

Eventually Kurt pulled Blaine out of his trance and satisfied that the room looked better (and the empty champagne bottle suitably hidden) he dragged the dark haired boy down to breakfast. Blaine looked horrified at the thought of food but a bit of toast and some orange juice seemed to restore his humour a bit. At least he appeared to have coped with the alcohol better than Wes and David who were both sitting with their heads on the table looking very green.

"Well as much fun as this is," exclaimed Kurt, "I really need to get to English lit so assuming you all survive the morning I'll see you at lunch." Giving Blaine a swift kiss on the lips, a whispered good luck in your tests to all three he skipped off leaving them groaning at the table.

…..

By the time lunch rolled round everyone was feeling decidedly better and they were enjoying reminiscing about the previous night's antics when David suddenly looked round, "Erm, I don't want to alarm anyone but where's Kurt?"

"This is the day he has a late French class," replied Blaine, "he'll be along shortly.

As if on cue they heard Kurt's laugh and Blaine turned round to catch his attention but noticed that he was enjoying a very animated conversation with one of the other seniors.

"Who is that?" Blaine asked Wes and David, "I haven't seen him before."

"Oh that's Andy, he's been around for a while," replied Wes, "he's been away with his family for the last few weeks, I think in France. I'm pretty sure he is in advanced French with Kurt."

Blaine looked round, waiting for Kurt to notice them but then he saw him take his lunch over to another table where a tall, skinny boy jumped up and hugged Kurt enthusiastically. Laughing animatedly Kurt and Andy sat down clearly enjoying the conversation with the third boy.

"So who is that?" Blaine said, almost moaning.

"That's Simon Treilier, you know him, he's in the Warblers," replied Wes, following Blaine's gaze. "I guess Kurt isn't joining us for lunch after all." Blaine's face fell as he watched his boyfriend enjoying himself with the other two boys.

"C'mon," said David, "We need to get to chemistry anyway, you can catch up with Kurt later." As Blaine moved to clear his tray he could clearly hear the conversation between Kurt and the other two boys, he could hear but not understand as it was all being carried out in rapid French.

Blaine tried to catch Kurt's eye to wave goodbye but the junior was too engrossed in his conversation to notice and Blaine felt a bolt of jealousy as he saw Kurt throw his head back in laughter, clearly enjoying some enormously funny joke.

As the afternoon went on Blaine sent Kurt several text messages to let him know he missed him at lunch and would see him at Warbler's practice. All Dalton students were experts at sending hidden texts during classes but Blaine was disappointed that Kurt didn't respond to any of them. It wasn't a huge concern, some teachers had really been clamping down, making the boys hand in their phones at the start of lessons etc but Blaine still felt a small chill in his stomach, the feeling that his boyfriend was ignoring him.

"For goodness sake cheer up," exclaimed Wes who had been forced to deal with an increasingly depressed Blaine as the afternoon wore on, "you had breakfast with him, you saw him at lunch even if you didn't speak and you'll see him in 20 minutes at rehearsal. You are the one that keeps reminding me that you and Kurt are not joined at the hip."

"I know," smirked Blaine, "otherwise it would have made the swimming lesson, last period really difficult."

Wes reached out to smack his head laughing.

"It's just he hasn't replied to my messages and this is the longest I haven't heard from him since we got together."

Wes put his fingers to his mouth and started gagging. "Seriously you two are just far too sugar coated to be real," he laughed before dragging Blaine to his feet. "C'mon then, we'll go to rehearsal room now and maybe Kurt will be early too!"