Finn tugged nervously on his collar and adjusted his jacket for the fifth time in ten minutes, shifting anxiously in the passenger seat of Kurt's SUV.
"Stop fidgeting." His step-brother said calmly from the driver's seat. "There is nothing to be scared of, Finn."
Their eyes met and both of the boys silently added "Karofsky's still at McKinley" to the end of Kurt's statement. He looked composed but Finn could tell from the distant look in his blue eyes that he was just as nervous as he was.
He attempted to lighten the mood.
"At least this thing looks good on you." He gestured to the uniform that they were both wearing. "I look like someone put a suit on a monkey and told it to walk upright. I do not belong in uniform."
"You look fine." Kurt scolded, his pale cheeks flushed slightly from the praise he wasn't used to receiving. "The fit of the jacket is excellent on you, and the colour brings out your eyes."
The brothers were heading to Dalton. They had moved their clothes and things into the dorms earlier that day with their parents. They then headed back home for a tearful goodbye lunch, after which they had put on their uniforms, hopped in the car and had taken off for Dalton in order to make it back to school for the formal welcome back dinner that evening. Classes began tomorrow morning.
Their journey had been tense and mostly silent, save for the quiet strains of music playing from Kurt's iPod. A mix of classic crooners and show tunes had been playing the entire way there. Finn had barely even noticed.
They were getting close and Finn's constant fidgeting was getting to Kurt. He was anxious enough as it was. But he couldn't bring himself to snap at his brother, not when he'd been so kind to him.
He was leaving McKinley to attend Dalton with him, to make sure that there was at least one friendly face. To make sure nothing like Karofsky happened again. Because even though there was a no-tolerance bullying policy at Dalton, Finn wanted to make sure that Kurt was safe.
Still, Kurt could feel the nerves twisting knots in his stomach, and although he was trying to force himself to keep calm, (god knows the last thing he needed was a stress pimple) he still felt like tossing his cookies into the glove box.
He knew no one here but Finn. What if they were all awful? What if, behind closed doors, they were worse than Karofsky? Psychological bullying was far worse than physical and harder to police.
He turned the car into the gates and as they drove up the long driveway, past the twinkling lights of the garden, Kurt wondered what his room mate would be like. It was two to a room and when he had moved his things in earlier his room mate had not yet arrived.
Kurt, naturally, had snuck around a little and tried to figure out as much as he could about him from the things he had left in the room over the winter break. But he couldn't exactly pin this boy down.
He had a football and a fencing uniform folded neatly in the closet. There were a few photographs pinned to the notice board above the desk on his side of the room, but just the usual; the girlfriend, the team photograph – although Kurt could not figure out whether it was the fencing or the football team, as they were all in Dalton blazers -, and one old picture of a couple which looked like it was from the seventies.
It showed a man with a ghastly shirt sitting on a couch, and a woman with the most hideous hair Kurt had ever seen leaning into him, both of their mouths wide open in eternal laughter.
It seemed like a strange photograph for a teenage boy to keep on his notice board, but Kurt was not in a position to judge. His notice board had photographs of his former show choir team all wearing wigs - including the boys, his best friend Mercedes in full Dr. Frankenfurter costume and a picture of his step-brother in a red shower curtain on it.
There wasn't much else to go on. Everything else had been taken away for the Christmas break. Or at least Kurt hoped it had. Otherwise his room mate might be some kind of robot.
His name was on the door, right above Kurt's. Blaine Anderson.
The room was cosy though, and Kurt decided that if he had to be bullied, he would rather be bullied here in the lavishly decorated halls of Dalton Academy than in the sweaty locker rooms at McKinley.
That thought comforted him as he parked his car in the student parking lot and slid out of his seat, grabbing his satchel and locking the car. Then the two boys silently made their way through the entrance hall and up the stairs to their rooms.
"We have half an hour before dinner." Kurt said, his pale, slender fingers playing nervously with the strap of his satchel. "We can freshen up, meet our room mates and I'll come get you before we go down, okay?"
Kurt could act tough, but it was more for his benefit than for Finn's. He'd hate to admit it, but he really needed him right now.
"Okay." Finn took a deep breath. "Good luck."
"You too." Kurt answered, his features settling in their usual determined look. He turned and knocked on the door.
There was no answer, so Kurt slowly opened the door and peeked in tentatively.
"-only got half an hour. Are you even dressed yet?"
A boy stood with his back to Kurt, one hand on his hip and the other pressing a cell phone to his ear. He was taller than Kurt; lean figure, with dark blond hair which – Kurt could swear – was highlighted in honey blond.
"Oh my god Wes, calm down. This is no time to panic." He said, turning to face Kurt. "Yes, I know David's an idiot."
His handsome face brightened at the sight of Kurt and he smiled, his Hollywood grin almost blinding him.
"Besides, you were the one who got in the car with him in the first place; you know that he has no sense of direction."
Kurt looked around awkwardly, still clutching on to the strap of his satchel, wondering if he should sit down or not.
"Sorry about this," The blond guy said to Kurt. "We're having a minor crisis."
"It's fine." Kurt smiled and sat down on his bed gingerly.
"Yeah, we finished, like, ten minutes ago. Just do some scales in the car or something, I don't know." He was dressed in the Dalton regulation grey trousers and a white oxford shirt, but his top button was undone and his tie lay on the bed.
Kurt's ears perked up at the mention of scales. Maybe he and this new room mate would get along after all.
"Yeah, just, like, breathe Wes, jeez. He's gone to-" He broke off as someone opened the door.
"I found it!" The boy announced with a smile, handing the boy on the phone a road map. "It was in your glove box. Underneath two cans of hairspray, a comb and about six different bottles of hair gel." He rolled his dark eyes playfully at the other boy.
"Don't give me that, Blaine Anderson, I've seen your bathroom. I nearly drowned in product." He scowled. "Yeah, he's back now. He got the map. We will have you out of there in no time, my friend."
Oh. Kurt thought. So this was Blaine Anderson.
He eyed him carefully. Shorter than Kurt, dark curls, deep brown eyes; he was handsome. No, he was gorgeous, but Kurt quickly shook that thought from his head.
He was the picture of perfection. He was clean shaven; his hair was gelled into neat curls; his uniform was pristine. His top button was even done up and there was a prefect badge glinting on his blazer. Kurt had a sudden urge to ruffle his carefully styled hair. It might make him a little less intimidating.
The blond kid opened the map up on Blaine's desk, and Blaine turned to Kurt, sticking out his hand in preparation for a handshake.
"Hi, I'm Blaine. The idiot on the phone is Theo. You must be Kurt." He smiled.
He was once again blinded by a 100-watt smile. Kurt was beginning to think that perfect teeth were some kind of Dalton entry requirement.
"Um, yeah." Kurt slid his clammy hand into Blaine's warm, dry one and shook it. "It's nice to meet you."
"Blaine, I can't work it." Theo said curtly. "This is why I have a GPS. That and the fact that it talks to me in Darth Vader's voice."
Blaine chuckled and went over to help his friend as Theo turned to Kurt.
"Here," he said, handing him the phone. "Talk to our friend Wes. He's one of our missing tenors. They got a bit… lost. Just stop him from going into cardiac arrest, okay?" He winked. "No pressure or anything."
Kurt nervously brought the phone to his ear and was met by the sounds of an argument.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this, David. Every year we go back to school together, every year your parents call a car and we take the damn car, David, like we should have done this year. But no. Someone had to be an idiot because his stupid ex girlfriend said he wasn't spontaneous enough. There's a reason we're not spontaneous, David, it stops us from ending up in the middle of freaking nowhere when we have a performance in half an hour!"
Kurt's eyebrows raised and he held the phone back from his ear.
Theo stifled a good natured giggle as he watched him from the corner of his eye. Blaine looked at Theo and shook his head.
"We're going to be so late. God, we're going to be so late that we're going to miss it. And we'll let them all down. All that hard work for nothing. And then do you know what will happen, David, do you? We'll be kicked out, that's what. We'll be kicked out of Warblers. We're chairs for Christ's sake. We're supposed to be setting an example."
"Um, hello?" Kurt tried to interrupt, but Wes kept rambling on.
"I can't be kicked out, David. I have to do something other than class work and I suck at football. I suck, I suck, I suck! And you-"
"Excuse me!" Kurt yelled down the phone.
There was a stunned silence on both ends. Theo and Blaine looked at each other, Kurt blushed fiercely.
"Thank you." He breathed. "If you have a performance in half an hour I think that screaming at your friend is the last thing you need to be doing."
"Sorry." Wes said meekly.
"That's better." Kurt cleared his throat. "Now, vocal warm ups."