The heating system was broken at McKinley. Not only was every stair-well reduced to an icy death trap, but students were sporting thick winter jackets, gloves, and for the fashionably inept: ear muffs.

"If I see one more girl wearing uggs with shorts I'll light myself on fire." Kurt mumbled as his frozen fingers stumbled with his locker combination.

"And I'll use you as a heat source." Tina said, leaning against the locker next to his

"Anything to help the cause." Kurt agreed, as he struggled with his lock. After a good thirty seconds with no success he figured the only other option was cursing loudly and kicking the locker until he intimidated it into opening.

"Language, Mister Hummel." said a certain Blaine Anderson with a teasing grin as he walked past headed to god knows where. Didn't he have some class to teach as opposed to walking through the halls like an invalid? But Kurt found it in his heart to forgive him considering the coat he was sporting was particularly flattering to his form.

Of course, he didn't even need to turn around to know that Tina's stupid face was probably splitting in half due to her mocking grin. The incessant teasing, which had died down somewhat, still resurfaced every now and then and it was still just as unbearable.

"Language, Mister Hummel." Tina mimicked in a deep voice; naturally causing Kurt to stop paying attention to his locker long enough to glare at her.

"You are out of control." Kurt said, shaking his head. "I'll have you know that he has a girl friend."

He had no clue why he felt the need to lie. Lying would imply that he was covering up something. And that there was definitely a something that needed to be covered up.

Which there wasn't. Not even slightly. And there never ever could be.

"Really?" Tina asked; one eyebrow raised in slight skepticism.

"I saw them at the mall during break." Kurt said and watched as Tina's features quickly moved from reluctant to accepting. And wow it was really easy to lie, wasn't it? Just say things and people will simply take your word for it.

"Bummer. I already came up with your couple name." Tina said with a mock-pout.

"And what would that be?"

"Anderhummel." She informed him.

He snorted. "Don't quit your day job."

"Okay, but on a scale of one to ten, how cute is he?" Kurt asked Blaine as he perused the picture frames on the teacher's desk in an attempt to find a photograph that might have the mysterious 'Seb' in it.

Blaine gave him a slight warning glare but didn't respond, turning back around to continue looking in the cabinet in the back of the room and take inventory. He was aware that many students had a habit of "accidentally" taking supplies from his classroom, and liked to check every now and again.

Honestly, he supposed this whole scenario was his fault to begin with, considering he was the one to bring up the whole topic of Valentine's Day to the student, which resulted in a ten minute story about scary movies and cheesecake that only made a small amount of sense which led to how his Valentine's Day went which led to the questioning on Sebastian's attractiveness.

If this were World War One then Blaine was the soldier who shot the Archduke.

"Ten? Nine? Stop me when I'm close." Kurt said, persisting on the topic.

Blaine didn't even dignify him with an answer, instead silently counting the supplies with his numb fingers and hoping the frost bite wouldn't progress to the point of needing amputation.

"Four? Three?" Kurt continued to count down in subtle horror. "…you're joking. Two?"

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you." Blaine said sternly as he moved from counting the flasks to the petri dishes.

"Is it filed under 'things we can't talk about because it's highly inappropriate subject matter'?" Kurt asked, seemingly serious but his voice carrying mocking undertones that Blaine had learned to pick up on after their third session.

"No, it's filed under 'None of your business and if you don't finish those practices problems it's for homework.'" He kindly corrected.

"All you had to do was say he was ugly." Kurt said; voice riddled with a smugness that actually got under Blaine's skin.

He turned around from the cabinet, prepared to counter with something incredibly clever –he was sure of it—when he heard the door open and someone else entered the room.

Blaine felt as if he were almost caught in the act; which was odd because there was no act to be caught in. Nevertheless, he turned his attention back to the cabinets and only half listened as the blonde girl talked to Kurt for a few moments.

"Can we discuss this later, Quinn?" Kurt said, and that's when it all clicked.

Quinn. Quinn Fabray. Although teachers weren't supposed to gossip; he heard many stories in the teacher's lounge about Quinn Fabray. And her fall from grace.

And she was friends with Kurt. Huh. You learn something new every day.

"Yeah. Okay." Quinn said after a while, although there was so much more waiting just behind her lips; fighting to be said, but something else was holding her back. "Sorry for the interruption." She added, flashing a brilliant smile at Blaine that made any form of irritation fade.

"No problem. Have a nice day." Blaine said to her as she headed out of the door, actually feeling the energy in the room shift. "Ten, by the way." He said to Kurt.

"What?" The student asked in mild confusion.

"My boyfriend. He's a ten." Blaine clarified which earned him a laugh that should have been outlawed.

The future seemed so brilliant from far away. But the closer it got the scarier it became. Slowly but surely, it would rear its ugly head; prove that all that glittered was not gold.

It was one thing to be a freshman in high school dreaming of notoriety and fame and fortune. It was another thing to be a quarter through junior year and to still be wishing for those things without having done anything to achieve it.

And that was Kurt Hummel's dilemma.

He personally subscribed to the belief that everything would "work itself out" and "what's meant to be will happen". And a small, immature side of him sort of figured that the universe owed him. He'd put up with so much for too long and there had to be some sort of payoff, right?

That's what got him through the hard days. He'd never forget that one time in chemistry class; Blaine had said something that actually resonated with him. For once.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

And that was honestly the most glorious thought to him. The fact that every not-so-wonderful thing that happened to him would result in something that was worth it.

Being with Blaine helped to subdue all of the speculation, though. The constantly rushing future didn't come to a complete halt, but it slowed down.

But maybe that had nothing to do with the teacher. Maybe it was the fact that Chemistry was just one of those ridiculously boring, tedious things that made time slow down to prolong the torture.

Either way, it wasn't completely horrible. And Blaine wasn't completely horrible. And for a few hours in his day things were just there. Not "mildly tolerable" or "completely horrific" but they just were.

Which is why it caught Kurt completely by surprise when Blaine posed the question, "What do plan on doing after high school?"

Kurt's writing hand stopped its motion. "I was thinking of being a chemist."

Blaine's mouth turned upward in the tiniest of smiles. "Have you always been a smart ass or is that a learned trait?"

"It's crafted over time." Kurt informed him. He handed him the worksheet he had been bull shitting for the past fifteen minutes.

"Noted." Blaine took the worksheet out of the student's hand. "No, but seriously, no life goals? Aspirations?"

"I feel like I'm filling out a questionnaire for eHarmony." Kurt joked.

"You're deflecting."

"I'm devoting my whole life to doing good work for the theater." Kurt said in a self-mockery.

"Not if you don't pass this class." Blaine mumbled as he looked over Kurt's work, before gesturing to a specific spot on the worksheet. "What is that?"

"It's a diagram." Kurt said as if it were obvious. "See? That's solution A. Over there is its solvent. And that's the solute."

"I'm almost positive I'm staring at a picture of a cat."

Kurt sighed exasperatedly, in a way that made Blaine aware he knew exactly what he was doing. "Must you take everything so literally? It's a metaphor."

And really, Blaine wanted to get upset, he wanted to put his foot down and lay down the law but how could he do that when Kurt looked so confident in a way that should have been infuriating—which it was—but instead came off as ridiculously adorable?

"Can you be clearer next time? This won't cut it on standardized tests." Blaine settled on saying, letting Kurt off easy when a small part of him knew that if it had been any other student he wouldn't have put up with the lack of regard to the subject.

As Kurt took the paper and fixed his error, he talked to Blaine. "So…what's your life goal?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I'm not exactly in high school."

"I wasn't aware dreaming had an age limit." Kurt said, and it annoyed Blaine to no end that the student said things like that without even dwelling on it; always had something disgustingly brilliant coming from that mouth and nine times out of ten it was just an accident.

"Well, I've always liked chemistry." Blaine admitted.

"Lies."

He laughed. "No, seriously. Teaching here wasn't my exactly my ideal, of course. I was going to be a professor at NYU."

"Fancy." Kurt noted. "So, why are you here?"

"I was already teaching a few preliminary courses to freshman, and my chem proffessor at the time was retiring. And, not to brag, but I had the highest average in his class. So of course he put in a good word for me and the job was practically mine…" Blaine's whole disposition seemed to change when talking about it; his eyes lit up in a way that Kurt had never really seen before. "But um, something came up." And then the light was gone.

"You shouldn't let people get in the way of your goals." Kurt mumbled half-listening and half-drawing on the worksheet. And it left Blaine wondering how the hell Kurt knew he was talking about a person.

"You wouldn't really understand." Blaine said dismissively.

This was one of the rare moments that reminded him that he and Kurt were at completely different stages of life. His student was at the point where he still had time to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and then change his mind at least five times and still turn out okay. Hindsight taught Blaine that at the tender age of seventeen nothing was set in stone, things were still changing and the brain wasn't even done fully forming. There was plenty of room for error. And Blaine saw how stressed out Kurt got sometimes, wanted to tell him the truth of it all, but he knew there was no way the student would even believe him.

Meanwhile, Blaine was at the point where all of his old friends were becoming dads and he had to consider opening up a savings account for his retirement funds.

And that thought depressed the living hell out of him so he stopped thinking about it.

"You're right, I wouldn't." Kurt piped up as he added fins to his detailed drawing of a dolphin. "If anyone got in the way of me being on Broadway I'd tell them not to let the door hit them on the way out."

And Blaine simply rolled his eyes fondly, wishing he could borrow Kurt's brain so things could be as simple as the teenager made them out to be.

When Blaine got home he was surprised to see that Sebastian's car was already in the drive way. He figured that was odd; his boyfriend had done nothing to notify him that he was leaving early from work. He tried to shake off his worries; figuring there must have been a good reason.

He cautiously opened the door and saw Sebastian's form sitting in front of a television; some black and white film playing on mute. He was so still that Blaine almost thought he might have fallen asleep. There was only one wine glass out; but Blaine knew that it must have been refilled multiple times.

And honestly, what disgusted him the most was the way his pulse quickened as if he were afraid.

Maybe he was.

But he didn't really want to think like that because how silly would it be if he feared Seb of all people? Yet he still cautiously stepped past him in an attempt to keep quiet; not out of fear—of course not— but out of courtesy.

"Where were you?"

Blaine's blood ran cold at the sudden question. Or accusation.

"I said, where were you?" Sebastian repeated.

"I heard you the first time." Blaine snapped. "I was tutoring." He continued walking toward the steps to avoid further conversation.

"Don't lie to me." Sebastian said quietly, before standing up and for some reason Blaine's fight or flight instincts stopped working altogether; some element in Sebastian's voice serving to silence his.

But Blaine was an adult and had a right to go where he pleased without having to explain himself. And he knew that. But something about the way Sebastian was looking at him reducing him to nothing but a scared kid who got caught sneaking out by dad.

"Now, I'm going to ask you one more time." Sebastian stepped forward. Blaine stepped back; the railing of the stairway poking painfully into his side. "Where were you?"

"At the school." Blaine said, voice cracking in a way that he would have found pitiful if he had time to notice.

"Am I not enough for you anymore?" Sebastian asked desperately. "Is that why you're cheating on me?"

Blaine knew he was completely impossible to deal with when he got like this. But this all stemmed from an insecurity; from a sadness. It wasn't like he meant anything of what he said.

"I'm not. I was-"

"At the school." Sebastian patronized. He stepped closer. Blaine tried to step back but there was nowhere else to go. "Do you know how much I sacrifice for you? For us? And this is how you repay me?!"

Blaine flinched at the sudden yelling; Sebastian's breath absolutely reeked of alcohol. He tried not to panic; to calm his heart which would not stop pounding in his chest.

"You're right. I should be more grateful." He said, voice shaking a bit.

Sebastian glared at him for a moment, surprised at the change of tact. "Hm…I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive you." And then he kissed him, breath reeking of alcohol.

Blaine kissed back at first, gradually backing away until he was at the stairs. Then he booked it to his room and locked the door behind him, the procedure becoming routine.

And after he was done having his minor panic attack he took a few folders out of his bag and started to grade some papers he hadn't gotten to.

One particularly expressional paper had a quote at the end of it; which said:

Please do not understand me too quickly.-Andre Gide

Blaine smiled at the quote that had nothing to do with the topic, and wasn't shocked in the slightest when he looked on the back to find Kurt's name neatly printed on the bottom. And it was in that moment that he wondered if it were possible to fall in love with a person's beautiful mind.