Spoilers: 3x01 The Purple Piano Project

A/N: All the foreshadowing that I've been hinting at is starting to come to light, so if the potentiality of slash isn't something that you are interested in reading, then this story isn't for you.


Chapter 12

Blaine isn't too sure what draws him to William McKinley High School. Rival show choir or not, any normal, sane person would have been utterly terrified of the mere size of the perilous educational facility and ran out the other way as fast as they could. But Blaine Anderson is a curious son of a bitch and his conscience gnaws and scratches at his brain to put together the pieces of every puzzle that crosses his path.

The "New Directions". Had they even been real? Or were they just the delusion of a lonely but talented girl who dreamed of being part of something special. He needed to know. At least that's what he told himself. And from what Blaine had been able to decipher, Kurt Hummel had answers.

Kurt Hummel. He himself was whole other mystery. The single syllable of his given name seemed entirely too blunt, too simple for his elegant, enigmatic presence. Said presence, that gave Blaine an inexplicable shiver at how it was almost ghostly familiar, like the faded remnants of a distant dream.

Blaine had contemplated all this whilst sitting in his car in the McKinley parking lot. Somehow he had managed to get himself out of the school and back to his vehicle in his daze like state. The sharp, stinging final words of the ethereal stranger, lingering in his mind before he had turned on the heels of his heavy leather boots and strut away from him down the empty echoing hallways.

But the mere memory of Kurt Hummel was accompanied by the brutal assault that followed soon after their meeting on the staircase. Blaine cringed every time he replayed the scene in his head, the echo of the slurs and slam of Kurt's lithe delicate body against the lockers, and Blaine had just stood there. Like a coward, too shocked to move.

And even so, why hadn't Kurt even lifted a finger to defend himself? His icy cold quick wit would probably have been enough to keep his tormentors on their feet, and if not that, the strength in his arm had been able to push Blaine completely out of sight with barely any effort.

Blaine was completely and utterly puzzled. William McKinley High School was a tangled web of secrets and intrigue, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.


On his first day back at McKinley, Blaine is anxious and slightly terrified as he pulls into the parking lot. He waits until the usual crowd of students shuffle into the building before setting out into the cold concrete structure that held the answers he was searching for.

The hallways are vaguely familiar, but no less intimidating and confusing the second time around. Blaine wanders the same places again, and everything is noticeably still identical to the day before.

The staircase is really far from extraordinary, Blaine thinks to himself as he leans against the cold metal railing. Compared to the great spiraled one at Dalton that he has descended so many times for the past 2 years of his life, made of white tiles, a smooth ebony banister and walls lined with mirrors and expensive artwork, all beneath the great glass dome.

Hoards of students round their way down the steps, girls in red cheerleading outfits, boys in hockey jerseys, a girl wearing a jumper covered in little green peppers, a group of crucifix wearing sophomores proudly flaunting their WWJD bracelets and a rather terrifying woman in a tracksuit who just stares eerily at his hair for a moment, with a tyrannical look in her eye, but sighs and walks away. Even the football-playing tormentors bound their way past the staircase, not giving Blaine so much as a first glance.

And yet, not a single one of them is Kurt Hummel.


Blaine can barely concentrate. His morning classes go by in a sluggish blur, and he thanks his lucky stars that Quinn is on a class trip; he still needs to figure out a way to explain not answering her texts and calls. All he can think about is the perplexing mysteries of McKinley High; the New Directions and Kurt Hummel. He had been up unreasonably late trying to find Rachel Berry's MySpace page again, but with no avail.

By lunch hour, Blaine is in his car driving down the interstate toward Lima, Ohio.

This time around, Blaine only walks around the outer grounds, seeing as he's conscious enough to know that his Dalton uniform would most likely give him away. The grounds of McKinley are much larger then he perceived as he finds himself walking toward a large football stadium.

The terrifying woman in the red track suit is screeching insults through a megaphone to the girls in red polyester dresses that Blaine had noticed littering the campus from his last two visits. Although, he doesn't quite understand why she's screeching at them, from the little Blaine actually knows about cheerleading, their forms were rather excellent. He envisions that Quinn could have been a cheerleader, in some clichéd alternate universe where she was captain of the squad and dating the dopey quarterback.

Blaine wanders absentmindedly around the outsides of the stadium. The cool autumn breeze biting at his face, he tugs his blazer closer around his body, wishing that he had remembered to bring his jacket. That's when he sees them. Or smells them rather.

Blaine isn't sure if he should be terrified by the four rather intimidating girls or intrigued by them because Kurt Hummel is standing amongst them, cigarette limply held between his fingers, blowing puffs of smoke out of his pink lips.

Blaine recognizes his elfin face immediately, although he still dressed completely in black; the worn leather jacket, but his trousers are baggy and hang loosely on his hips, a silver chain hanging off the belt loops, unlike the practically painted on skinny jeans he had been wear the day before. Dark chestnut hair spiked in a messy disarray.

One of the girls, who his larger in size and is wearing thick glasses says something crude to a girl she calls Mac and Kurt throws his head back; exposing the creamy expanse of his long elegant neck and sounds an emotionless chuckle. He spits his cigarette bud out of his mouth and onto the concrete, stomping on it with his boot-covered foot.

"Light me up Ronnie?" he asks taking out a box from his pocket removing the long white cigarette, Blaine notices his voice is rough and distinctly empty sounding, despite its light timbre.

Ronnie, or at least who Blaine thinks is Ronnie he could be wrong, lights Kurt's cigarette for him with a neon pink lighter and Kurt takes a long drag, closing his eyes as he inhales the smoke.

Blaine would approach Kurt Hummel. He really would. But those girls with him are just as terrifying as the cheerleading coach in tracksuits; as he eavesdrops on them talk about shop lifting and winning all male wrestling championships. As Blaine listens from his hiding place a little horrified, Kurt doesn't seem to react to anything they're saying. He's silent, only nodding occasionally to the girl in glasses when she directs comments at him.

"I'm off ladies," Kurt stuffs his hands in the pockets of his baggy pants as the girls grunt a chorus of goodbyes and Blaine hides himself more into the shadows, watching Kurt Hummel disappear behind a corner again, his one hundred questions still unanswered.


Blaine honestly can't believe he didn't think of a map sooner.

He's not overly proud of having to lie to the genuinely kind, although scattered brained guidance counselor, Mrs. Howell, pretending to be a new student, but the sooner he gets this mystery solved and out of his brain the sooner he'll be able to scrape together a set list, and hopefully restore himself back into Quinn's good graces.

Also, on a side note; if Blaine is being completely honest, the texts he's getting from Annalise are really starting to frighten him. He would like his eyebrows to remain intact thank you very much.

The library at McKinley, he finds to be a no man's land, not even a librarian, unlike at Dalton, where there is always a handful of students scattered. But this isn't Dalton, Blaine reminds himself as he skims the shelves as he searches for what he's looking for; a yearbook.

Every high school library is supposed to have all of their yearbooks. Dalton does; all 125 of them; every year since the school opened in 1885. When he finds them; Thunderclaps they're called, Blaine pulls one off the shelf that reads 2009-2010 on the spine, settles himself at one of the tables and begins to flip through the pages. Past sports teams, familiar faces and about 10 pages of the cheerleading squad, who are appropriately, - and Blaine's opinion rather hilariously - dubbed the "Cheerios".

It's not until he's at the third last page does he find exactly what he's been looking for. There, on page 87, beneath an advertisement for a fried chicken restaurant, and layered with permanent marker made graffiti is the yearbook photo for the McKinley High School Glee Club: The New Directions.

Blaine can make out a few of their faces, there's Rachel of course, her overtly radiant smile is unmistakable. There's a brooding boy with a Mohawk and one who is freakish tall with a dopey grin. A sunny blonde cheerleader, even a boy in a wheelchair and an obviously pregnant girl who could eerily pass as Annalise's cousin. And in the right hand corner, almost completely covered in defacement; Hitler moustache and all, a hand on his slender hip, is Kurt Hummel. Blaine does a double take at first, because that can't possibly be Kurt Hummel, bright, flamboyant outfit that looks like something he's seen inside of Vogue, hair perfectly coiffed. No it can't possibly be him. The darkly dressed, cigarette smoking ominous Heathcliff of McKinley High School. Blaine honestly wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out the Kurt rode a motorcycle. Yet low and behold, after squinting at the photo until his vision blurred. There, in checker printed pants, cooper coloured vest, standing next to a blonde boy with large guppy lips, was Kurt.

After placing the Thunderclap back on the shelf, Blaine is back in the hallway, scouting around, for what he assumed had been the choir room from the photo. The Glee Club, or the "Gleek Club" as the defacers had dubbed them, had been very much real and not a delusion of Rachel Berry.

"Oh, and by the way, it helps when the Glee Club you're spying on actually exists,"

Why had Kurt lied to him, Blaine ponders to himself, replaying Kurt's cold words in his head, and more importantly; why didn't they exist anymore?


Blaine stops in his tracks suddenly. "Darn it," he curses at himself.

He seems to have taken the wrong turn, again. This particular hallway isn't at all familiar. It isn't lined with posters and has an eerie atmosphere that reminds Blaine of the horror movies that Jeff enjoys for some mundane reason. Blaine ventures slowly done the hallway, footsteps echoing loudly in the silence as he treks cautiously down a darkened branched off corridor. The few doors are locked, and the ones that aren't, the rooms are completely empty, bare of everything but a floor, walls and ceiling. Blaine feels likes he's almost in some sort of academic limbo. Just when things couldn't get any stranger, Blaine finds a door to his left, well, not actually a door; the archway was covered by a long plastic drape. Gingerly, Blaine touches it, there was something behind it. Carefully not to tear it, Blaine removes the plastic sheet and steps through the doorway.

A soft gasp slipped from Blaine's lips.

It was the choir room. Or what was left of it at least. From the dark stains on the walls, and the charred remains of what must have been wooden shelves, chunks of wall and ceiling scattered on the riser steps. Particles of dust could be seen in the small stream of light coming through the unpainted patch of one of the windows.

"What happened here?" Blaine whispered to himself.

"Pfft, are you seriously that dim?"

Blaine whipped his head around at the light timbre that dripped in sarcasm. His hazel eyes widened at the sight of the none other than the mysterious Kurt Hummel. His lithe body leant up against the door frame. He's wearing his signature worn leather jacket, a piece of his dark tousled hair was hanging out of place on his pale forehead, a lit cigarette hanging lazily from his lips.

"It's kind of obvious isn't it?" Kurt says dryly taking in a deep drag, his cerulean eyes lidded heavily, breathing the wispy smoke out through his nose.

There is a moment of silence. Blaine simply stares at Kurt's eyes; even in the dim lighting, Blaine notices the prominent distinctive hints of green pigment in his cool stormy eyes.

Kurt cocks up an eyebrow. "Are you going to say something, or are you just going to stare at me?"

"I, I just…" Blaine flushes, realizing that he's been caught in his simple observations.

Kurt scoffs darkly, his smirk not reaching his eyes.

"Smoking is really bad for you, you know," Blaine counters, regaining his sense.

Kurt's slowly standing upright and pacing toward Blaine, heavy combat boots clunking in the echoing silence. He takes another long slow drag and blows a puff of smoke in Blaine's direction. In this moment Blaine realizes quite how much taller Kurt is in comparison as he almost looms a head above him.

Kurt snorts, surveying the top of Blaine's head. "Yea, as is copious amounts of hair gel, but that doesn't seem to be stopping you,"

Blaine feels his face grow hot with embarrassment as Kurt sneers at him superiorly. He self-consciously touches his slicked back hair, and wonders what the people of Lima have against it.

Kurt is already starting to walk away, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"Wait!" Blaine calls out. "You're not going to say anything. You're not going to tell me what happened,"

"Tell you what?" he snaps, turning around to face Blaine once again.

"I know, Kurt," Blaine pauses as Kurt's name falls from his lips, the tone of his voice almost unrecognizable, savoring every sound. "The New Directions. They were real. I-I saw the yearbook picture,"

"Why do you even give a fuck?"

"I.." Blaine pauses. Why does he care? "I, I just- twelve people can't just disappear into thin air," He settles upon.

Kurt simply scoffs at him, Blaine finally perceives exactly how close together they're standing, the scent of Kurt's cologne and his cigarette fog his senses.

"Sure they can, you should no better," Kurt whispers harshly, running his long pale finger over the soft gold of Blaine's crucifix that is peeking out of his shirt, his stormy eyes narrowed heatedly, lip curled into a snarl.. "Look, I don't know why you're so fascinated, but it's really none of you fucking God damn business. This isn't some cheesy Hardy Boys mystery. Do yourself a favour; give it up and go home Blaine,"

Rooted to his spot, mouth gaping open, Blaine's mind races as Kurt struts violently out of the choir room, his heavy steps echoing in the silence. Blaine places his hand on his chest, stroking the gold cross that he had forgotten he was wearing, it was still warm from Kurt's touch.

He remembers my name.