Chapter One: At the Gym

If you had asked me a year ago if I had a gym membership at the Fitness Planet on main street, I probably would have scoffed and accused you of being a fag who just wanted to get all up on me. But now, it was only a small shock when my alarm rang at about 5:30 AM on a Saturday morning, I got out of bed, slipped on my Nike's and started jogging towards the only public facility open at that hour.

After I had gotten expelled, I had been given a lot of time to just think things over. And after rerunning everything Kurt had said to me over the past few months, I was beginning to realize something. If I was ever going to be as confident as he was, I needed to make some serious changes, for the better of course. No way was that tiny little nymph turning me into a man-diva like himself. But he had definitely taught me some lessons, like how I needed to stop being such an ass (to myself and to him) if I was ever going to come to terms with who I was, and how I needed to make good first impressions -no scratch that- honest first impressions if I wanted to get in with the right crowd. But the one I catered to whenever I went to the gym was the lesson of self respect. If I was ever getting a man like Kurt to use as arm candy, I needed to loose the chub and get a smokin' hot bod like every gay man's dream guy should have -Kurt heavily included. And even though I was nearly positive that jocks like me were in fact Hummel's type (see: Finn Hudson), those insults still discouraged me greatly. Because even if Hummel was practically the cutest guy to ever walk to halls of McKinley, he was definitely a bitch sometimes. And to think I was the one accused of being a bully.

After about a three mile jog into town, I turned onto main street and headed towards the only place which was heavily lit at six A.M. on a Saturday: the Lima, Ohio branch of the Fitness Planet gym chain. When I finally arrived, I pushed open the heavy glass doors and was met with a welcoming blast of cool air. I took a minute in the alcove to recharge, with a couple of deep breaths for good measure, before heading inside the main building. At the front desk was Charlotte, this 25-year-old girl who always kept her hair in these repulsive curls and ingested nothing but Red Bull and Espresso while she was on shift. She winked at me, then took my pass card and swiped it to ensure that I was the exact same guy who had been coming in at her shift at exactly six in the morning every Tuesday and Saturday for the past two and a half months. Then she gave me this awful toothy smile with her giant bucked teeth as she handed back the pass, making sure to mindlessly giggle and blush after I had accidentally touched her hand. Now, the reason that a year ago I would have pegged a place like this as a fag-fest wasn't just because I was a self-hating homophobe back then. No, there were reasons, and I really wasn't just stereotyping. Literally every guy who I had ever seen come in to that place (besides the douche-bags just trying to pick up chicks, which there were surprisingly very few of) had set off my gay-dar at one point or another (most of them were total bears). And of course ditzy little Charlotte was so desperate for love and male attention that she had either forced herself to become unaware of the pride parade which was Fitness Planet, or possibly had gone a little blind.

Anyways, after brushing that lunatic off of my shoulders (and praying for a few moments that she wouldn't decide to clean the men's locker room while I was in there showering), I headed over to the treadmill. My legs had already been moving all morning anyways, and this would be a good way to warm up my body a little more for some weight lifting later on.

I plugged in my ipod and set it on shuffle, then took a swig from my water bottle and let the music and the exercise overtake my thinking. The first song to play was Kid Cudi's Soundtrack 2 My Life, which had made me cry once or twice. Not because the rapper's story was so riveting, but because I realized that I too had invisible emotions, that I felt like no one could ever understand. So I let the song take me to a darker place in my mind, in my past, and just I forgot about the present. Looking back, I realized how many times I actually could have come out, and how many times I could have fucked it all up too. The latter outweighed the former in a very serious way, and so I switched it to something else. Just some dance song, or whatever. As long as it helped me not think, it was okay for the time being.

After about twenty minutes of mindlessly running forwards without reaching anywhere, I had consumed the contents of the plastic bottle that I was now crushing in my firm fist. I switched off the machine, and took a little breather before heading over to the recycling bin on the wall near the back-exit. Just then, a shorter dude walked in from the entrance, making me flinch a little. He had grey eyes and neat, black hair -obviously a teenager, though. He also happened to be wearing a suit-coat and a tie, which was a little confusing considering the fact we were at a fucking gym. He grinned at me as I looked up at him from the far more interesting wastebasket, but I decided to be polite and just ignore the fact that he had walked into a gym at 6 in the morning -from the wrong entrance- dressed like he and his dad had just gone on a father and son business meeting.

"Hey man, nice to see another fellow here at this hour, am I right?" He said, reaching out his right hand, expecting me to shake it, "The name's Blaine Anderson. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah," I replied, taking his hand in my firmest grip while trying to not toss him across the room, "Nice to meet you too. I'm-." I stopped for just a moment, taking the time to look the guy over again. His face was so familiar, and I knew I had seen that red and navy "D" uniform before. But where? I racked my brain until I had reached the right memory. It was the day after. That's right, the kiss had become a whole new historic landmark for me, and on the day after, Kurt and some fancy prep-school boy had hunted me down after lunch and confronted me on the subject. I guess his name was Blaine, and he happened to go to the same gym as me. But how had I never seen him before?

I quickly snapped back into reality and decided to conceal my identity, just in case he suddenly remembered who I was and tried to call for security or a SWAT team or a GSA or something. "I'm... Dave. I come here a lot to work out because..." Think, Dave, think, "I'm training to become a coach for one of the local high school's sports programs. I just love helping kids get into sports and getting them scholarships." There you go. Just keep that in mind before you say something stupid.

"That's cool. Hey, mind if we chat a little more?" I wanted to grunt or moan in anguish at such a stupid request. Why the hell would a high school kid wanna talk to a college-age guy, especially one as intimidating and gigantic as me? But instead of coming off as some rude bastard, I just nodded while he went to go get on his gym stuff, saying he'd meet me back at the treadmills.

When he came out of the locker room, he was wearing a full-on track suit. Not that it was ever scolding hot at the gym, but I personally found my choice of some gym shorts and a wife beater much more appropriate, and a hell of a lot less Sue Sylvester-y. Plus, my outfit was totally flattering to my muscles, so I decided to assume he was a little more overweight than he seemed and tried to ignore how weird he looked in that baggy thing. Wow, I must be transforming into Kurt now, I chuckled to myself. I then noticed the silence that had fallen, and besides the revolting chatter going in and coming back out of Charlotte's cellphone on the other end of the building, it was a ghost town in there.

"So, what's a kid like you doing out here so early, huh?" I asked nonchalantly, trying to keep conversation light, and to keep my thoughts off the guy's connections with Kurt.

"Nothin' special," He answered, "I've been coming later in the day on weekdays lately so I can train. You see, I'm kinda failing gym, and if I don't pass, my parents won't let me be in Dalton Academy's glee club, the Warblers, anymore."

"That's cool. I used to go to Dalton Academy, too," I answered without using my brain. You idiot! What the hell? Now you're gonna have to know all this crap about his school and stuff!

"Really?" He turned to me while continuing to jog at a sloth's pace, "What year did you graduate?"

It took me a second to do the math in my head. "Class of '04. So, how good's the glee club this year anyways?" I figured that now that I seemed pretty legit, I might be able to get some info about Kurt, assuming he had transfered to Dalton, of course. But I had every right to assume that a guy like Hummel would go chasing after his boy toy like that.

"Well, we won our sectionals, but we tied so it wasn't really a win. It's probably 'cuz of this new kid we have named Kurt. You're working at McKinley, right? Do you know him?"

I immediately flinched. Hummel? Responsible for them loosing? That's preposterous! How the hell could Kurt make them loose? He sounds like an angel or something! Was what I wanted to spit out at the scum bag I had managed to become treadmill buddies with. But instead I just shrugged and let him keep talking about how awful Kurt was.

"This kid, he looks like an eleven-year-old milk maid!" Blaine laughed, clutching his stomach to keep himself contained, "He sounds like he's been sucking on helium all day! And he tries way too hard, always making dramatic gestures and tearing up whenever we sing a ballad. It's hilarious!" I suddenly felt the urge to toss Blaine across the room rising up in me again, but I resisted, faking a smile and nodding for him to continue. "I mean, he's a nice kid and all. But really, he's just a bit too unique for our much less theatrical song selections, you know what I mean?"

Instead of answering him (with a punch in the chin) I turned my wrist and checked my watch. It was only around 7:15, barely half-way through my workout.

"Aw, man look at the time," I sighed, "I better get going. Nice talking to ya though, kid. Hope you ace gym, though!" Just as I was putting back on my sweatshirt and stuffing my ipod into my duffle, he placed a hand lightly on my shoulder.

"Before you go, I have a quick question for you." I nodded to him, not even bothering to turn around and look him in the eye. How in the world did Kurt come to trust such a bastard? As I was deafened by the furious rant I was mapping out in my head, all I heard were a few blurbs of speech "ice rink" then "warbler's choreography" and then "anywhere local?".

I just replied, "Lima Ice Arena," before making my way towards the door just in time to keep myself from hearing him telling me how thankful he was or whatever.

I couldn't believe it. Kurt must really think this guy is nice, but he's such a douche bag! I thought as I tossed and turned in my bed back home. And since every time I tried to go back to sleep, I saw his face (and since every time I saw his face I wanted to slap him), I decided that I would head on down to the Ice Arena that afternoon, just to get some hockey practice in, and hopefully get that bastard Blaine's image off my mind.

Hey, thanks for reading my first chapter! I hope you enjoyed it. I have the rest of the story completely planned out in my brain (after looking up prompts on the internet, of course), but before I continue adding meat to the bones of my first really good kurtofsky-ish story, I want to know what you all think. Should I continue? Please review, favorite, and story alert this fic to show some love!

Sincerely,

Sea-Pig Out of Water

p.s. For the record, I don't hate Blaine. I just needed him to be a total douche for this story to work. I hope he's actually nice and that he and Kurt stay friends. Also, I didn't confuse Planet Fitness with Fitness Planet. I wanted to make up a gym name but ended up just switching around the name of a real gym. And on a further note, can you guess how old Dave is pretending to be? Here are some notes: assume he had a birthday in 2011, and that he graduated at the age of 18. If you're the first reviewer to get the right answer, I will totally mention you/your account on in my next chapter, and I'll also bake you a chibi-Kurt shaped cookie!

Yay for cookies! ^-^