one hundred seventy-one days before
L'Académie Dalton was nestled just outside of the city. It lay near isolated amongst a mess of trees and too much green, but Kurt was so excited to be there that he didn't care all that much about the location. It was raining when he landed, and it rained the entire ride to his new home, and it was still raining when they arrived. He must have had awestruck written all over his face, because the driver muttered something in French that Kurt didn't quite catch before nodding him toward the admissions office. While he walked, Kurt was convinced that he was, in fact, in some sort of elaborated prophetic dream. Nothing was this easy. Nothing was this perfect.
But it wasn't an elaborated prophetic dream, this was reality. The walls were rounded from the outsides, quick and level, and the roof tops were harsh lines, swooping and curving and pointing, and the windows and doors were arched, outlined with careful masonry. It reminded Kurt of the Chateaus they'd passed on the way in, and before he dared move the heavy wood of the front door, he paused to just take it in, inhaling slowly and exhaling against the humidity of the storm, concerning himself with the fact that he could, absolutely, get used to this.
When he finally stepped into the lobby he was met with smooth, slick floors of marble and high, vaulted ceilings, and his shoes tapped heel-to-toe, echoing through the open room when he approached the counter. A short, stout woman with salt and peppered hair sat at a desk, her head cocked to trap a phone between her ear and shoulder while she typed, and Kurt wondered, because these were the things that Kurt Hummel thought about, how many words she typed per minute. He was sure he'd never seen anyone's fingers move so quickly, but the thought was so ridiculous, even in his own mind, that he set it free moments after it'd entered. He paused at the counter, resting his hands idly against the dark grain of the wood, and he couldn't help with the tips of his fingers brushed slow against the polished top, because it seemed as though he was smitten with everything that France had offered him to this point.
After a few, too long moments of waiting, Kurt cleared his throat to get the attention of the woman behind the desk. Her head shot up and she spoke rapid-fire French before slamming the phone down on its cradle to stand up and greet him. Her mouth, wrinkled and crooked, twisted into a smile while she spoke, words thick with a native accent
"Kurt Hummel, I assume?" She extended a hand, dainty and manicured, and Kurt took it in his own while he gave an almost shy nod.
"Madame Charbonneau," she introduced herself, and Kurt very near asked her to repeat herself, hoping to pick up her name again, but before he could, she was speaking again, offering a quick "so very nice to meet you, we've been expecting your arrival. How was your trip?"
Kurt almost actually had to think about it. He'd been in such awe by the time of his arrival that he honestly didn't even recall most of his trip, nor the flight. He didn't debate for too long, and settled on a "great," to appease her, and they set to signing off on the papers that Burt had faxed over the couple of days prior to his arrival. It was all a little tricky, shipping Kurt overseas alone to start the new school, new life, he thought. She assigned him to a room, promising that his roommate was very sweet, and that he would be more than happy to show Kurt around the grounds and make sure that he had everything that he needed. Kurt had the distinct thought then, he was sure it was high-running emotions, that he hoped his roommate was cute to top it all.
And his roommate was cute. Kind of short, a little stocky with big eyes and the most adorable smile that made his nose scrunch and his eyes get squinty, and Kurt repeated the name silently, letting it roll over his tongue while he moved it, forming the letters one-by-one until "Blaine Anderson," weren't words anymore. Madame Charbonneau hadn't been wrong, Blaine Anderson was very sweet, and so eager to help that Kurt was assuring him that he was okay more than they were saying anything else. The one criticism that Kurt did have, however, was that Blaine Anderson seemed to have absolutely no ideas about coordination. He was all lines and squares and dots and argyle, and for a half a second, Kurt thought that maybe he'd not been keeping up on French fashion as much as he'd thought he had been. The thought was as good as gone when Blaine spoke with a purely American accent.
The room wasn't awful. It was a little dark and kind of drab, but Kurt could work with that. The coffee table wasn't a coffee table, it was more a stack of old text books side-by-side that formed a square mass between the television that had a proper stand and the couch, which Kurt was more than a little perturbed to see was actually a 4-in-1 air mattress. There were no curtains on the windows, and there were various undergarments strewn about here and there, but every bow-tie was in its place, laid flat across the dresser that actually was a dresser. The bunk beds were shoved in a corner, and Blaine seemed to have already claimed the top bunk, which was fine because the bottom was bigger anyway. The floors were dark, hard wood, and they didn't help to lighten the place up, despite the stark-white walls. The bathroom sat in the corner, small and tiled and everything Kurt had imagined a New York City apartment's bathroom to be. There was a radiator under the bathroom window, and Kurt wasn't sure he wanted to assume it was their only source of heat come winter, but he didn't have time to think much because Blaine was behind him, stating a quick "Bottom two drawers are yours, and half of the closet."
Kurt was sure he should have been tired, it was near two PM, which meant it was near seven AM back home and Kurt had hardly slept through the night, mostly concerned with his connecting flights and layovers, and besides all of that, Kurt had never been able to sleep when he was excited. This, he thought, was probably why he didn't care so much for sleeping now. His bags had been delivered and he was busy unpacking and making sure everything was in its spot while Blaine sat on the couch-that-wasn't-a-couch with his feet propped on the coffee-table-that-wasn't-a-coffee-table, Xbox controller in hand while he shouted at the zombies on the screen. Kurt sighed, sitting on the bottom bunk, before speaking over the nearly muted video game "Where-" he paused, not entirely sure why he felt a sudden pang of nervousness in the pit of his stomach "Where can I find something to eat?" He questioned finally while his stomach growled its protest at the hours since Kurt's last meal. Blaine dropped the controller so quickly that Kurt didn't even notice, standing to spin around with a wide grin. Kurt's eyes were a little wide, and probably a little scared, because Blaine seemed to know that he needed to speak rather than standing with the "You are food," look at he wore, and he finally said "The food is the best thing about Dalton."
It was all Kurt needed to know to follow Blaine, out the door and under the awnings that gave shelter from the rain, despite the umbrella that Kurt held, gripped tight in one hand. There were plenty of boys about, mostly in their dorms, some playing video games, some reading, mostly things that Kurt couldn't make out, but a few that he could. But he paused, tapping his knuckle against a dry-erase board that read "Sebastian gets a single," and presumably the same in French just below the scribble handwriting.
"Gets a single?" Kurt asked, cocking his head at Blaine who shrugged as though it were something he should already know.
"He has no roommate," he explained and kept walking.
Kurt didn't say anything more, instead followed Blaine, still clutching his umbrella, no matter that they were under cover. He took in a deep, slow breath, careful to let the humid, heavy air linger in his lungs as long as he could hold it, and he would have held it longer except that he seemed to have no control over anything at all when his eyes met his. Sea green and dark with mischief, water dancing off his lashes, and it was only then that Kurt noticed that he was drenched, head-to-toe. He didn't speak, he hardly even acknowledged Kurt's existence, but when Kurt leaned down to speak the quiet question, he could articulate a name from Blaine's answer.
"Who's that?" Kurt questioned, keeping his eyes trained on the boy, long and lanky and laughing loudly while he narrowly avoided being tackled into the mud, though it wouldn't be the first time, judging by his clothes. His shirt, white at one time, was stained from the mud, wet and clinging to each line of his body, and his pants did the same, riding deliciously low on his hips and leaving Kurt to only imagine just how low those freckles went. It seemed like an eternity before Blaine spoke again, drawing him back to reality. "That would be Mister. Has-a-single." Blaine answered, and Kurt nodded, rolling the name Sebastian silently over his tongue.
The dining hall was even more elaborate than the admissions building, and Kurt realized then why the school was so incredibly expensive. His fingers traced along the solid Oak table, slick and polished to perfection, like the staff paid extra attention to them, and the benches were the same, shining under the light of the fixtures, and even they were elaborate. Blaine led them toward the line, small but obvious, and paused at the back before turning to Kurt and attempting to make small talk. It was the usual questions, "where are you from?" "why Dalton?", and what he assumed was common for the location, "do you speak French?" which, of course, was spoken in broken French. Kurt did his best to answer and not sound too distracted, but mostly he was concerning himself with Sebastian, and the way he'd looked at Kurt and for the split second that their eyes met, the world stood still on its axis. The problem, Kurt reasoned, was that he doubted seriously that Sebastian was gay, and if he was, there was absolutely no way that he was single.
They were halfway through lunch when Kurt was introduced to Artie, a nice boy with a sweater-vest and glasses, and the only thing Artie seemed to like more than girls was hip hop. He was fun, and Kurt was sure they'd get along famously. Kurt had also learned that the dining hall was shared with the neighboring girls' academy, and he'd been briefly introduced to Brittany and Santana, an unlikely couple, but were apparently Xavier Academy for Girls' resident lesbians. As it turned out, they were not allowed to share a room, but they made do, and the Eagle (whom Kurt was ninety-eight percent positive had a name that wasn't the Eagle) mostly turned a blind eye, because she had better things to concern herself with, like students smoking and drinking. He was almost through with lunch when they entered, and heads turned.
"Who are they?" Kurt questioned, eyes focusing too hard on the group of boys, six or seven of them, who wore blazers and slacks and ties, and were generally very well put together. One seemed to lead the bunch, a short boy with dark hair and wide eyes, despite his fair complexion. "Those would be the Warblers. They're the actual French kids. You know, born and raised, and apparently that, somehow, makes them better?" Blaine spoke the last part as a question and focused his eyes on his food. Kurt was intrigued, though, and couldn't seem to turn away, even when Blaine spoke again. "We call them Weekday Warriors. They're here through the week, even in summer mostly, but they go home on the weekends. If it's not within driving distance, their families pay to make it within driving distance." He shrugged with one shoulder "They're pricks, mostly," he finished. They moved with elegance and determination that reeked of money and Kurt wondered if those really were the stipulations to break into the group.
Their lunch was short-lived after that, and Blaine had agreed to just let Kurt spend the remainder of the day resting up, and they'd have the grand tour of the grounds tomorrow, but that didn't last long. It was almost 11 PM when there was a knock on the door. Kurt was lying on the bottom bunk, book in hand, and Blaine was cutting and pasting pictures from magazines onto a shoebox with "J&B" scrawled on the side in thick, industrial permanent marker. Kurt was the first to look up, almost expecting Blaine to answer the door, but apparently Blaine's idea of answering the door was to shout "it's open!" from the couch-that-wasn't-a-couch. Kurt hadn't planned on paying much attention to their visitor, but when Sebastian closed the door behind him, Kurt was all ears. His words were simple, and Kurt was surprised to hear and American accent when he nodded to Blaine "We're going to the lake. Bring the roomie." It was, apparently, all Blaine needed to know, because his project was pushed aside and he was grabbing something from under the dresser that had Kurt's brows knitting until Blaine looked back at him and demanded a quick "Well?"