A/N: Hello! I've been working on this fic on and off for three months. I am so excited that it is finally done and that I get to share it with you! My thanks to GleefulDarrenCrissFan for her help with a key plot point, and to roxymusicandlayers for giving it a final read-through when I couldn't make sense of the words anymore. You ladies rock! This fic is three chapters, and it is completely written, so quick updates are guaranteed. Hope you enjoy!

Much to Kurt's chagrin, when he reached his locker to change his books before lunch, they were there. They'd been there every day this week. Every. Single. Day.

Apparently, the jock and cheerleader who had the lockers next to his had started dating. How did Kurt know this? He knew because at every opportunity, the two of them were slammed up against the lockers (and each other), kissing and groping one another in a way that was borderline obscene. The first day, Kurt had politely asked them to move over. By Wednesday, he had taken to moving next to them, dialing his locker combination, and then using the door to shove them out of the way. Amazingly, nothing seemed to be enough to break their liplock.

So here it was, Friday, and the tonsil-hockey Olympiad was in full swing. Kurt stopped for a moment, bracing himself before "going in," as he called it. But instead of taking the few final steps, he paused. A strange feeling washed over him. Before he could think too much about it and give that feeling a name, a familiar voice spoke in his ear.

"You know it's rude to watch other people make out, sexy." Kurt's eyes rolled back into his head before closing completely. Of course. His day wasn't bad enough without this guy coming in to give color commentary.

Tightening his hold on his books, Kurt walked forward to his locker. He didn't have to turn around to know that his unwanted companion had followed him. He turned the dial and pried open the door, giving it perhaps a stronger shove than he had done the past couple of days, but the muscled goon pawing his girlfriend could take it.

On his other side, a figure leaned in against the next locker. Kurt didn't acknowledge him. This did not deter the figure from speaking, however.

"See, I never would have pegged you for a voyeur, but it's always the quiet ones, I guess."

Kurt finally turned his head to glare at the boy. Blaine Anderson. Resident bad boy of McKinley High. He rode a motorcycle to school, and was rarely seen in anything other than his signature leather jacket, some type of band t-shirt, and ridiculously tight jeans. He was openly gay, but somehow immune to the harassment that Kurt received, and the stories of his exploits were legendary. What was even more maddening was that, in spite of all this, he was an A student, so none of the teachers gave him a hard time. It was ridiculous.

Imagine Kurt's frustration, then, when he had been paired up with Blaine as his lab partner in chemistry. Oh, and did he mention that they had been assigned as partners for a semester-long English lit project, too? Yeah. So, the two of them were together for some part of the every school day, along with spending time together after school to work on the project.

In other words, Blaine was impossible to avoid…and he'd taken a very, very obvious liking to Kurt.

"What do you want, Blaine?" Kurt sighed, not masking his irritation in the slightest.

"Ooh," Blaine drawled, sidling closer to Kurt and trailing a finger up and down the edge of the locker. "I'm afraid we don't have enough time for what I want."

Kurt rolled his eyes again and returned his attention to the books in his locker.

"Aw, don't be like that, baby," Blaine cooed. "I saw you over here looking all moon-eyed at the makeout morons over there and thought you could use some company."

"I was not," Kurt replied, slamming his locker shut emphatically, "looking 'moon-eyed' at them. They're disgusting."

"Well, that's because they're doing it wrong," Blaine chirped back, slinging a casual arm around Kurt's shoulder and walking him towards the cafeteria. In the two months that they'd been paired up, Kurt had come to accept a certain amount of physical contact from Blaine. He'd noticed him doing it with his other friends, and so long as his hands didn't stray where they didn't belong (which they had not, miraculously, done so far), he let it slide.

"Oh, and you know better, I suppose," Kurt retorted.

Blaine glanced slyly at Kurt. He leaned in and whispered lowly, "You have no idea."

Kurt pulled away and made a point of rubbing at his ear as if to brush off Blaine's warm breath. "As far as you're concerned, it's going to stay that way."

Blaine let out a hearty laugh and returned his arm to Kurt's shoulder. "Now, now," he admonished patronizingly. "You really shouldn't dismiss me so quickly. You're a smart young man pursuing a quality education in this esteemed institution of higher learning," he said sarcastically, waving his free arm around the hallway. "Why deny yourself the opportunity to learn the fine art of kissing properly from a master?"

They reached the cafeteria, and Blaine fell into line behind Kurt as they picked out their lunches. "Now you're some kind of professor of the 'art of kissing'?" Kurt asked incredulously as he picked the least offensive salad he could find.

"Yes, I've made an art, nay, a science, out of kissing, gorgeous. I could teach you a few things."

Kurt eyed Blaine's tray, which consisted of a variety of things Kurt would never dream of eating. "You're headed for a heart attack, nay, food poisoning, with your lunch today," he volleyed back, walking towards his usual table.

Fridays were difficult. Usually, he sat with the other Glee kids, but his and their Friday schedules were such that their lunch periods didn't intersect. For the first couple of weeks of the semester, he ate alone at the small table against the wall. Then one day, Blaine had unceremoniously plopped himself in the empty chair across from him, shoving a French fry in his mouth and striking up a conversation as if his sitting there was nothing out of the ordinary. Kurt had tried to object, but Blaine ignored him and chatted about random nonsense. Eventually, as seemed to be their pattern, Blaine's persistence wore Kurt down and he didn't argue anymore.

Kurt would never admit it, but deep down, he was grateful for the company.

So here they were, at what had become their usual Friday lunch table. Blaine had thankfully dropped the subject of kissing and had moved on to some other topic that Kurt really didn't care about. His mind kept wandering to the annoying couple sucking face by his locker, and the odd emotion that had passed through him at the sight before Blaine had arrived. It didn't help that said annoying couple was sitting at a table right within Kurt's eyeline.

His musings were rudely interrupted by something waving in front of his face. Blinking rapidly at the change of focus, he soon saw that the offending object was a tater tot being flailed about by Blaine.

"Earth to gorgeous," Blaine was singing.

Kurt sighed as he returned his attention to his lunch, picking away at some sketchy-looking lettuce.

Blaine eyed him suspiciously, then glanced over his shoulder to see what had had Kurt so distracted. He immediately spotted the annoying locker lovers and turned back to Kurt with a smirk. "Damn, baby, you really are taken with the heteros, aren't you? Thinking of asking to make it a threesome?"

Kurt rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "Don't be vulgar," he muttered.

"Sorry," Blaine replied contritely. "Tot?"

Kurt regarded the tater tot being held out in his direction. "No, thanks," he countered with an arched brow. "I don't know where that hand has been."

Blaine laughed aloud, clearly pleased with Kurt's comeback. "That's true," he chuckled, popping the bite-sized snack into his own mouth. He then nudged the tray of tater tots closer to the center of the table in a silent offer. "But really, what's with you and the gropey twins over there?" Seeing Kurt about to object, he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "No offense, no vulgarity."

Kurt returned his glance to what was left of his salad, using the fork to rearrange the same few vegetables into different patterns over and over. He realized that Blaine was waiting for an answer – quietly. Blaine was never quiet. Kurt could handle the non-stop innuendo and banter, and could keep up with Blaine smart line for smart line. But the silence…

"I dunno," he mumbled. He raised his head to find Blaine watching him intently, his head tipped to one side and his face free of the sardonic smirk that was normally in place. "I guess I just wondered, you know," he trailed off with a sigh.

"What it feels like?" Blaine supplied, his voice softer than Kurt had ever heard it.

Kurt's head dropped as he felt the color flood his face. Oh, lord, had he just confessed to Blaine Freaking Anderson that he'd never been kissed? He closed his eyes and shook his head. What an idiot he was.

"Hey, it's okay," Blaine soothed.

"No, it isn't," Kurt snapped angrily. He kept his volume barely above a whisper, not wanting anyone at a nearby table to overhear. "It really isn't. But what would you know about that? You've kissed how many guys, Blaine? Huh? You have no idea what it's like. As if I am not enough of a freak in this godforsaken school, I have no idea what it's like to be kissed. I'm sixteen. I should know this already. People kiss when they're twelve, for heaven's sake. Everyone my age already knows what they're doing. And I have to watch people like that," he jerked his head in the direction of the annoying couple, who were now going at it at the lunch table, "be all over each other every fricking day. It's so simple for them. It's so simple for you. One of these days, I may actually find a guy I want to kiss, and I'm not going to know what I'm doing, and I'm going to make a fool out of myself. It's going to be horrible, and I…"

"Okay, okay, gorgeous," Blaine interjected, reaching across the small table to take a hold of Kurt's arm. "Calm down. Just…take a breath."

Kurt found he was breathing hard, having worked himself up more than he realized during his rant. His arm twitched, and Blaine got the hint, removing his hand but maintaining eye contact. "Here, have a tot. Tots make everything better," he added with a smirk, shoving the tray closer to Kurt.

Without too much thought, Kurt reached over and picked up one of the tater tots, popping it into his mouth and taking the moment to collect himself.

Blaine crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. "You aren't a freak, Kurt," he said sincerely. "However," he leaned in a little more and started to grin like the Cheshire Cat, "if you want, I could help you learn what you want to know."

Thankfully, Kurt had already swallowed his mouthful of food; otherwise, he might have choked at Blaine's implication. "Really, Blaine? I say all of that stuff to you and you decide to hit on me? I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Blaine protested, sitting upright again. "I was not hitting on you."

Kurt's glare was clear enough that no words were needed.

"Seriously," Blaine continued, defending himself. "You said it yourself – I've kissed a lot of guys, and you haven't kissed any." Kurt's eyes darted around the room, fearful that someone had overheard, but no one seemed interest in their conversation. "Sorry," Blaine said, dropping his volume. "Anyway, all I am offering is to teach you, academically, the…skillset…that you are currently missing."

"Academically," Kurt repeated incredulously.

"Academically," Blaine reiterated. "I wouldn't even touch you. It would be an educational, fact-based study of…" Kurt's widened eyes reminded him to check his language, "…of the topic in question. A 'how to' guide, if you will." He sat back, quite pleased with himself.

Kurt stared blankly back at him. Blaine had to be kidding, right? Except he didn't appear to be kidding. "You're insane," he blurted.

As if it were planned, the bell rang to signal the end of the lunch period. Blaine stood and gathered his things. Kurt was still shell-shocked, so he hadn't yet risen when Blaine walked over and leaned close to his ear. "Think about it, sexy," he whispered, then walked away.

Kurt watched as Blaine sauntered across the cafeteria with the other students heading for class. With a shake of his head, he stood and grabbed his own books. "Insane," he repeated under his breath.

xoxoxo

The rest of Friday passed uneventfully, mostly because he didn't see Blaine again. After his last class and Glee Club, he couldn't get out of the school fast enough and put the day behind him to have a couple of days to himself, free of the makeout twins and Blaine's probing gazes.

Kurt had noticed that it seemed that whenever he had an upset stomach, everything on TV to revolve around food. Apparently, that phenomenon didn't only occur with stomachaches. He settled in to watch TV Friday night and get his mind off of things. Unfortunately, no matter what channel he turned to, someone was kissing someone else. "The Notebook" – kissing in the rain. "Spiderman" – kissing upside-down in the rain. "The Little Mermaid" – a crab singing about kissing. Even the commercials seemed to be full of couples in liplock.

Finally, he clicked off the television, fell backwards on his bed and flung his arm over his eyes. He had to get his mind on something else, or this weekend was going to be torture. Rousing himself, he headed in to take a shower. Maybe washing his hair would rinse away some of the obsessive thoughts he had about finally getting kissed.

It was worth a shot.

He started the water running to get it nice and warm. As he undressed, he glanced at his back in the mirror out of habit. There wasn't much he could do about the bruises he got from getting slammed into lockers or pushed into walls, but for some reason, he felt the need to keep tabs on them. He gave his back a cursory check, then took a step to get into the shower and froze. Slowly, he turned his head back again.

The remnants of a small, solitary bruise, mostly yellow and almost completely faded, marked his left shoulder blade. Other than that, there was nothing. Kurt remembered when that mark had appeared. Azimio had pushed him into his gym locker after class one afternoon. That had been a few weeks ago.

Kurt was shaken by the realization that no one had touched him in weeks. Weeks. Usually, the only time he healed like this was over summer vacation. Yet here he was, in the middle of the semester, and his body was nearly free from the bruises and marks that normally accompanied his school year. Come to think of it, he'd barely even seen Azimio, Karofsky, or the other Neanderthals who regularly made Kurt their Frisbee. He knew they were still in school – they shared some classes, after all – but outside of that, they hadn't been near him. No slushies, no insults, no locker slams.

How had he missed the change? And why the reprieve? The gathering steam from the shower was now fogging the mirror, reminding him of what he was supposed to be doing. A good shower, a proper moisturizing routine, and turning in for the night was clearly the best idea in the world.

xoxoxo

Desperate for a distraction, Kurt dressed early the next morning, intending to head to the mall for some retail therapy. His dad was putting in some time at the garage this weekend, Carole had an early shift at the hospital, and Finn had spent the night over at Puck's, so Kurt had the house to himself. As he pressed the button to start the coffeemaker and was choosing a bagel, he heard a knock at the door.

"Hi, study buddy!" Blaine announced cheerily as he strolled past a surprised Kurt into the Hudmel family home.

A/N: Next time - homework time gets interesting!