AN: My first Glee multichapter! This is exciting. I've had this prompt stuck in my head ever since I read it, and seriously, it wouldn't let me go. So I thought it would just be easier to just write it than ignore it any longer. This basically starts off from the beginning of Season 2, although I will edit some things here and there. I don't think I have it in me to write 22 chapters.

Disclaimer: Ho, the real fun I would have if any of this belong to me :D

1. Audition

It's the first day of a new year. McKinley halls are usually loud and busy, but today seems to be louder and busier than most.

Blaine tugs a little on his bowtie and steps quickly towards his locker, new books grasped tightly to his chest. Quick glimpses around show the usual people at their usual places; Rachel is standing next to Finn like a twelve year old beside her show pony (controllist isn't a word), Santana and Brittany are leaning casual as anything against each other, Quinn is there too looking so much more demure with soft hair framing her face and casual clothes replacing the sharp red. Blaine waves a little at Tina when she rounds the corner, grins a little when he sees Mike coming up behind her. She had gushed to him about their Asian-Camp fueled romance, and he had to admit seeing them together in person was a lot cuter than receiving nonsensical texts at all hours through the holidays.

He steers clear of the jocks.

Reaching his locker, Blaine unloads the pile in his arms and starts sorting through the things he'll need for the day. He passes his locker on his way to most of his classes, which meant he didn't have to carry half a day's worth of things in a bag. Of course, at McKinley half a day's worth of things barely constituted in more than a single spiral bound notebook, but Blaine still felt pretty lucky for drawing his spot.

He slotted his thin pencil case into his back pocket and tucked two books under his arm, closing his locker just to turn around and find Jacob's microphone in his face.

"When will you Glee Clubbers accept the fact that people hate you?"

Blaine sighed and tried to push past him. "Jacob, please go somewhere else."

Jacob continued, pressing close enough that Blaine could smell him. " - and think you're nothing but a glorified karaoke club - "

Blaine lowered his head, all but elbowing his way past the gossip monger. "Go away, go away," he muttered.

" - designed to make the inventors of autotune millions of dollars?" Jacob dogged his heels, shouting after him even as Blaine disappeared into the boys' toilets in a very last ditch attempt to avoid him.

A low roll of anger simmered in him. Blaine closed his eyes and counted to three. Of all the things to bug him on his very first day, Jacob should really not be one of them. His was a case of the bark being worse than the bite. Blaine just couldn't understand how someone who clearly suffered the same as the rest of them did would join the opposite ranks, expanding the bullying from merely just the physical to the cyber as well.

McKinley's toilets were as clean as you could expect from a public school, which is to say not very. Temper under control, Blaine reached for the door handle again, only to find Jacob still standing there expectantly with microphone outstretched.

Blaine frowned. "Jacob, it doesn't take much courage for people to tear people down behind the safety of anonymity and a computer screen. You know what does take some courage? Standing up and singing about something. So here's a message for everyone that reads your blog. If you're really that angry about what the Glee Club is doing, come and show us what you think. Tell us to our faces, or maybe to get us to treat you more seriously, sing it - "

The slap of ice and water made him choke on his words. Having been in the middle of a sentence, Blaine inhaled some of the slushie and began coughing badly. The jeering laughter came loud and harsh.

"Welcome back, hobbit!"

Blaine scooped the ice from his face, and squinted at Azimio and Karosfsky's backs. He turned to Jacob, still blinking dye out of his eyes, who had reached out to scoop a particularly solid clump of ice on his shoulder into his mouth.

"That's disgusting," Blaine commented.

"Mm hm," Jacob replied.

Blaine spent the rest of the day walking around cold. Rooting through his backpack, he had found a spare shirt and pants and even a spare belt, but his jacket had been ruined quite badly and he hadn't packed a spare undershirt. When he turned up to glee club, his muscles were sore from clamping down from the breeze all day, and his fingertips felt numb.

"Hey Bee, are you feeling alright?" Mercedes asked from the corner.

"Just a bit cold, I'll probably take a hot shower when I get home," he replied, voice tight from trying to control the chattering. "How was your summer?"

Mercedes grinned suddenly, sufficiently distracted. "I am all kinds of good. We got a new couch on the weekend, and it is amazing. Then my dad took us all out to dinner..." Blaine tuned out a very little bit, watching Santana and Brittany walk into the room and take two seats at the back. Quinn followed shortly after, but didn't follow the two cheerleaders, taking a very corner seat instead. He frowned a little. "...and then I find out that Mike and Tina are dating now!"

"Oh, so they went official with that?" Blaine risked a glance to Artie's seat in the corner. The boy seemed to be in a very determined conversation with Finn, who was looking a little nervously around.

"Yeah, it was - wait. How did you know that before me?" Mercedes narrowed her eyes.

Blaine grinned easily. "Asian parents. My mom knows theirs, they talk. Tina is a very nice girl apparently, even though she doesn't know quite what to make of the eyeliner and ruffle combination."

Before Mercedes could continue, Mr. Shuester walked in. He held up a sheet of paper. With hardly a greeting, he launched straight into it.

"These are comments from Jacob Ben-Israel's most recent Glee Club blog. 'Glee is a giant ball of suck'."

Blaine saw Santana snicker to Brittany. He rolled his eyes.

"We get it, Mr. Shue," Artie called out. "Everyone still hates us. So what?"

"None of us really care," Mercedes agreed, "We're a family. They can bring it all they want. None of it is going to break us."

Blaine sees Mr. Schuester take a breath, and bit his lip. "Okay, I'm really happy that you guys have all bonded. The problem is that all of this negative stuff is keeping other students from auditioning."

"Good," Tina responds immediately. "Why do we need new members?"

"Well," Blaine said slowly, "since Matt transferred, we only have eleven members."

"That's right," Mr. Schuester nods, "and if we want to go to Nationals, if we want to beat Vocal Adrenaline, we have to go from a small rebel force to a giant wall of sound!"

Rachel was the first to jump to agree, leaping to attention. "Yeah, Mr. Schuester's right, you guys. You didn't see Vocal Adrenaline at Regionals. They were epic. We're going to need more voices in order to beat them."

Finn was the second to go. "Yeah. I'm with Rachel on this one." Rachel beamed up at him.

Mr. Schuester continued talking. "Now, here's the plan. Nationals are in New York this year, and we are going. If they're not going to come to us, let's go to them. Let's give them the song of the year, New Directions style!"

Blaine grinned when his gaze landed on him, standing up as well and tugging Mercedes with him. He feels her roll her eyes before she grudgingly gets to her feet.

"Come on, I know exactly what we should wear for this."

"Don't worry white boy, I am all over this. We could drop by the mall tonight and get these chains I saw by that little corner shop you like to get your silly sunglasses from."

"They're not silly!" Blaine protests. "I know for a fact that you like my blue ones."

Tina runs to catch up to them, looping an arm through Blaine's. "What song are we doing?"

Blaine grins at her. "It's obvious, isn't it?"

The next day, they set up in the courtyard. Blaine looks up at the steps, sees Quinn, Brittany and Santana waiting for their cue, Puck and Mercedes peeking at them from the top of the winding staircase, and sees Rachel waiting for him to make eye contact with her. A nervous, excited grin stretches his face and he nods at her.

"Bum bum bum!"

Mike grins at him, and he starts bopping his head to the music as Rachel and Tina adds their voices. The terrified edge of opening themselves up to the wider school population faded to the back of his mind, and the music surrounded him. He leapt up from the table he had been sitting on, and lands with a momentum that swings forwards into Artie.

"I used to cop in Harlem, all of my Dominicanos, right up there on Broadway, pull me back to that McDonald's..."

They weave between the tables (he avoids the table bearing letterman jackets - today was about encouraging people to join, not giving them reasons not to), tables heaped with everything from food to books to piles of instruments to portable gaming consoles. There's also one table piled with bodies all encased within the stark red and white of the Cheerio uniform. There are enough of them grouped there they don't all fit on the seats, and instead of standing some have climbed to lounge on the table. Most of them are girls, but there are a few boys littered around as well. Blaine passes by them, recognising most by face (Coach Sylvester could talk all she wanted - she was like every other teacher and had her favorites) but almost stopped walking when he sees a head of coiffed hair.

Now, Blaine tried not to stereotype, but only so many straight boys even thought about hair care, less were goodat it, and even rarer were any of them found at McKinley. The boy's back was to him, and the cheerleading uniform stretched tight across his shoulders as he bent to see where Brittany, Santana and Quinn were dancing on the steps. Blaine's walk slowed even further as he craned his head to glimpse the boy's face -

He snapped out of it when Mike poked him from behind. Breaking from the harmony to mutter a quick "Sorry!", he jumped to wheel Artie to where the others had congregated.

They finished the performance with a flourish. Blaine whipped off his sunglasses (yellow - he had more sense than to wear pink sunglasses to McKinley) and looked around, expecting... well. Something. People streamed past them, some without looking up even as they bumped shoulders with the glee clubbers.

He let out a puff of breath.

"Well, that's that," Mercedes grumbled.

Blaine smiled empathetically. "You were amazing."

"Of course I was," she huffed immediately. Then she grinned, tapping his cheek. "But so were you."

When they looked up, the courtyard had almost cleared entirely. Rachel had packed away the stereo and stormed off, a torrent of indignation pouring from her mouth as Finn trailed after. Puck had disappeared completely, and Tina and Mike seemed to be busy making out against one of the cleared tables. Blaine looked down at Artie.

"Want me to walk you to your next class?"

Artie looked like he had swallowed something that had now lodged itself in his throat. "Yeah, that'd be great dude. Thanks."

He waved Mercedes goodbye, and took Artie inside. The boy pulled his cap over his eyes, and Blaine felt a pang for him.

"I'm sorry," he offered, feeling a little pathetic.

"S'okay," Artie muttered. "I'm alright."

It was only after he had changed out of the shirt and the chains and the baggy jeans that did nothing for his height, and he was reapplying the gel to his hair that Blaine remembered the cheerleader. He paused, staring at his reflection with slik palms, before shrugging to himself.

The boy had been a cheerleader. Despite the apparent fashion sense, any hope Blaine had of him being someone he might be friends with were largely dashed by Sue Sylvester's blood red stamp of approval. If they hadn't been in glee club, Quinn, Santana, not even Brittany would have ever spoken to him (Brittany trying to come on to him did not count, everyone knew that), and the same probably went vice versa.

Blaine sighed as he headed towards his own locker. This is just high school. Keep your head down for a few years, remember to hand in homework and you'll be outta here and on to somewhere better in no time.

A corner away from his math class, two jocks with slushies in hand spring him from behind. One slams his drink into Blaine's face as the other one empties his cup down his shirt. They sprint away, laughing, leaving Blaine utterly wet and stained, the cold pressing down his spine hitting him harder than ever.

He spat out a mouthful of the sickly sweet stuff. In no time.

"You're really not looking too good," Mercedes frowns at him over Skype.

Blaine cups his tea with both hands, and offers her a smile. "I'm fine, really. I'm not even sneezing. Don't worry. I'd tell you if I was contagious."

Mercedes' face softens. "I'm not worried about you getting me sick, Bee. I'm just worried about you."

Blaine's smile warms, shifting from placating to thankful. "I know, really. Can we talk about something else? What was Rachel going on about today?"

A pixellated Mercedes rolls her eyes. "Oh, that girl. I have no idea, half the time. But if she really has found a good singer, she really needs to get over herself and bring her to glee club. The rest of us are busting our asses trying to get people to join up and here she is trying to scare them away!"

"More than anything, we need to beat Vocal Adrenaline," Blaine agrees, "You'd think that she'd at the very least see eye to eye about that as well. If there's someone at the school that can help us do that, we should be begging for them to join us."

"Sometimes that girl has a few screws loose. Wait, who are we talking about? This is Rachel. She is missingscrews."

There is a beat of silence, and Blaine sees, even through the awful quality of his computer screen, Mercedes giving him side eyes.

"What?" he says defensively.

"Nothing. Just wondering what you were doing at cheerleader tryouts."

Blaine snorts. "You were there too," he reminds her, "What were you doing there?"

Mercedes rolled her shoulders. "Blainey boy, I asked first."

Blaine shrugged into his tea, reddening only very slightly. He hoped Mercedes couldn't tell.

To be honest, he wanted to see if he could drop in on the cheerleaders' practice, see if he couldn't find that boy he had seen in the courtyard. Blaine had been a little freaked out by him own sudden obsession, he never knew he had it in him to be such a little stalker. Finn... well, there had been Finn, but Blaine honestly thought that he had, well, grown as a person since then.

Having Coach Sylvester spy him and then quite literally drag him into trying out - "I'm being charitable by giving you a second chance after quitting on me, chia pet, thank me!" - had just made things so much worse. In fact, he was so mortified at the whole situation that he had botched his impromptu sign up completely - "I am so grateful that you decided to leave when you did, you've saved me the hassle of having to throw you out myself. After pouring salt on your head to see if that would control the thing on your head better than you are now." - and wasn't quite ready to admit to even Mercedes his true intentions.

Blaine swirled his drink around. "Just to see if I last year was real. It had been interesting, you can't deny."

Mercedes made a non-committal noise. "Quinn got the spot, did you hear that fight he had with Santana? I was in the cafeteria and I still heard it." The crackling of chips being eaten travelled through Blaine's speakers. "You know, a lot happened these past few days," she mused through her mouthful.

Blaine nodded. "Finn's still in a rut about being kicked off the team. Apparently he hasn't been eating at the table. Do you know what that means? No seconds."

The next day saw absolutely no one showing up to audition for glee. Blaine tapped a shoe against Mercedes' chair, feeling oddly resigned. It wasn't as though he had been expecting anyone to show up, so what gives?

People begin leaving. Santana and Brittany march out immediately, and the others trudge out after them. Blaine looks back to Finn, looking a little lost where he stood by the piano.

Blaine paused on his way out. "Finn?" he asked gently.

"Just wait," he says stubbornly, "My buddy Sam's gonna try out. He totally idolizes me."

"Face it, Finn. You're no longer the quarterback. You're not the Pied Piper anymore." Quinn sighs. "No one's gonna follow you around thinking everything you do is cool."

Mercedes looks pointedly at Rachel. "What about that Sunshine girl? I thought you said she could sing."

The brunette blinks quickly, a smile snapping automatically onto her face. "Oh I guess she didn't want to hang out with us losers," she says, taking Mercedes' arm.

Mercedes scowls suspiciously at her before shaking her off and walking out. Blaine shrugs at Finn as he walks out after her. This was glee club, this was their family. Didn't the saying go, you can't choose your family? In the case where you could, who at McKinley High would choose to be part of theirs?

He walks with Mercedes to the car park. At a little past five, the asphalt is mostly bare and he can see the tail end of Tina's car pulling onto the road.

"We're going to have to come up with something before Sectionals," Mercedes says beside him.

"We always do," he says easily. Inside, Blaine does wonder where they'll get their twelfth person from. He then tries not to think about the fact that Vocal Adrenaline probably easily has twice their numbers.

"We'll just turn up the microphones," he mutters to himself.

Mercedes doesn't hear him. "Look at that. But actually look at that. Who is he? I have not seen him around before, and I know Santana would've said something about that ass."

Blaine turns to follow Mercedes' gaze and sees Brittany and Santana draped over the bonnet of a black Navigator. The car's owner (it's definitely not Santana's car, and he doubts any system in the world would give Brittany a license) is dressed in a matching Cheerios uniform, standing in front of them with arms crossed and exuding disapproval. Blaine starts appreciating that ass himself, before he realizes what he's doing and the blush hits him full on.

"I don't recognise many of the Cheerios," Blaine tries to say flippantly, "The red and white kind of just blur together and when you throw in peroxide hair, I just can't."

"But he's a brunette," Mercedes insists, trying to tug him closer.

"Mercedes," Blaine says slowly, amused, "Are you trying to get Santana to introduce you to some eye candy? Once she finds out that you're interested she'll just trash you until you stop."

"I'm not scared of her," Mercedes bristles, but she starts walking to her own car.

"There we go," Blaine coaxes.

As they walk away, a loud laugh Blaine identifies as Santana's reaches them. Blaine fights the urge to turn around; he doesn't remember the last time he heard Santana laughing like that. Mercedes grumbles something under her breath and quickens her step.

His car is parked beside hers. They says their goodbyes and Blaine pulls away from the school, trying very hard to keep his eyes on the road.

He could act flippant all he wanted, but that boy's hair had been coiffed. Running his hand through his own curls, Blaine caught his own fretful expression in the rearview mirror, and bit his lip.

Oh dear.