Chapter One | The Four F's
Songs | "Music is My Hot Hot Sex" by Cansei de Ser Sexy; "Let Go" by Frou Frou; "Enter Sandman" by Metallica
Kurt Hummel was lost.
Even though he had no idea where he was going, he strode confidently down the long hallways of Dalton Academy, glancing down at the map in his hands but unable to get his bearings. The elaborate corridors, drafty as the cool November air slipped beneath the glass windows, were decorated with intricately woven tapestries and fine antiques, but there was no sign pointing Kurt in the general direction of the headmaster's office so he could pick up his class schedule and sign the last of his paperwork. Kurt shuddered in the late autumn cold and tugged his jacket, an elegant two-button coat in pale gray with black lapels, more snugly around his shoulders. Although Dalton was a safe haven for him, with the academy walls looming over him and the reality of his transfer settling in, Kurt remembered that he was starting from square one. Back at McKinley, Kurt had the comfort of his friends, who might not always have understood him but loved him nonetheless. Here he was the new kid. He would get lost in the labyrinth corridors, he would have to make up the work he missed at the beginning of term, and he would have to make new friends.
At least he had Blaine, the boy with the charming smile and easy conversation, the kind eyes and the smooth voice. Even in the few short weeks they had known each other, Blaine understood him and what he was going through better than anyone else. Blaine had promised to help Kurt adjust to Dalton; after all, he had come to the school under similar circumstances. Having one friend (potentially more than a friend, but that remained to be seen) put Kurt a little more at ease.
After what he assumed was yet another wrong turn, Kurt wondered if any students were around whom he could ask for help. When he took a few steps down the hall, the sound of a quiet, even bass pulsed through the silence, soon joined by the hum of perfectly harmonized voices—undoubtedly the sound of the Warblers. Kurt slowed his step to listen, before silently bouncing over to the open door to one of the rooms in time to catch the end of the verse.
From all the boys the one I take home is music
From all the ladies the one I kiss is music
Two boys, an energetic, lanky blond and a shorter boy with jet black hair and pale blue eyes, stood on top of one of the leather couches, surrounded by a dozen boys in blue blazers. The dueting pair sang alternating lines to one another as though in competition, with the shorter boy singing in an impressive falsetto.
Music is my boyfriend
Music is my girlfriend
Music is my dead end
Music is my imaginary friend
Music is my hot hot bath
The steady bass section dropped out and shouted, "Music is my hot hot sex!" The soloists strongly finished the song, voices strong even without the aid of the backing vocals.
Music is my back rub
My music is where I'd like you to touch!
"Let's call it a day, gentlemen!" called Wes, whom Kurt recognized from when he first visited Dalton, over the Warblers. The boys quickly dissolved into chatter as their rehearsal ended, and Wes waved a handful of papers over his head and handed them out to the boys. "Sectionals are in two weeks, so start preparing these harmonies!"
The blazered boys gathered their books and bags, presumably heading off to their classes for the morning. Kurt quickly stepped back from the doorway, hoping to catch Blaine before. As the Warblers exited the room in twos and threes, a few of them giving Kurt suspicious looks as his outfit was very against dress code, Kurt caught snippets of their conversations.
"She asked if Doctor Who was the British version of Grey's Anatomy!" a skinny boy with short, dark hair and dark eyes exclaimed in utter aggravation to his broad-shouldered blond comrade. "Why would you think I'd like a girl like that? How little must you think of me!"
"Sorry, Thad. I didn't realize that gorgeous red-headed cheerleaders weren't your type," he replied, rolling his eyes in exasperation as they disappeared around the corner.
The next pair that walked passed him, a tan boy with a black faux hawk and the other rugged and squared-jawed, were pouring over the sheet music that Wes had handed to them. "Coldplay again?" groaned the one with the faux hawk. "Coldplay isn't music, it's what happens when you accidentally play elevator music and U2 in two separate windows on your laptop."
Glancing over his sheet music with a shrug, the other boy said, "I kinda like Coldplay."
Smirking, the first boy asked, "Hey, you know how I know you're gay?"
"Because I like guys?"
"…never mind."
Finally, Blaine emerged from the rehearsal room, pocketing his cell phone and grinning widely when he saw Kurt leaning against the wall. "Hey, I was just checking to see if you texted me!" he said with the genuine excitement that had so effortlessly charmed Kurt. "I see you're blending in already. McQueen?"
"Dior," Kurt said proudly. "I have about half an hour left before I have to succumb to the Dalton blazer."
"Ah, you'll look great in it," Blaine said, gently squeezing his shoulder. "So have you finished moving in yet?"
"Just about," Kurt said, unable to ward off Blaine's contagious smile. "Actually, I was hoping you could point me in the direction of the headmaster's office. I have to finish filling out some paperwork, and I'm pretty sure I'm closer to finding Narnia than I am to there."
"I'll walk you," Blaine said, taking Kurt's bag and slinging it over shoulder. "Come on, there's a shortcut down this hallway..."
As the soloist disappeared around the corner, two of his friend who had been listening from just behind the door watched the pair with mild fascination. The brunet leaned back against the wall and asked to his lanky blond friend, "How is it that in the six minute walk from History to the senior commons, you and I got detention, and Blaine got a new love interest?"
Across campus from the academic quad was Harfleur Court, a beautiful sandstone brick dormitory with wrought iron windows and ivy crawling up the walls. Blaine opened the heavy main door for Kurt, who smirked to himself at Blaine's chivalry, and walked him up to the third floor. Most of the boys were already in class for the morning, but the few that they passed on the staircase said hello to Blaine and smiled at Kurt, a much warmer greeting than he expected from complete strangers. At McKinley, it was hardly uncommon for classmates whom Kurt had know since kindergarten to greet him with a slushie facial in the morning.
"What do you think of Dalton so far?" Blaine asked, barely containing his excitement as Kurt led him to the suite at the end of the hallway. "Your experience at the admissions office isn't a lot to draw on, but do you like Harfleur?"
"It's gorgeous," Kurt said with genuine appreciation, "like living on the set of one of those Masterpiece Theater costume dramas. I'm half-expecting to find Colin Firth walking around in a wet shirt."
Kurt reached to put his key in the lock on the door, only to have it opened from the inside. A tall, muscular, and half-naked boy, dripping wet from the shower, stood before them, a towel slung around his hips and another draped around his neck. Kurt's face heated up, and he determinedly kept his gaze on the boy's face as Blaine muttered with a smirk, "Well he's not Colin Firth, but..."
"Who's Colin Firth?" the boy asked, stepping aside to let Kurt and Blaine inside the room and nodding a little shyly at Kurt. His large physique coupled with the confusion on his face vaguely reminded Kurt of Finn.
"It's a compliment, Tripp," said the dark-haired boy with shocking blue eyes, one of the soloist's from the Warblers' performance earlier place. He bounced off the old leather sofa, the only substantial piece of furniture in the suite's whitewashed common room (three bedrooms and a bathroom were located off this main room) and smiled kindly at Kurt. "I'm Gideon, and you must be Tripp's new roommate, Kurt Hummel. We've heard a lot about you."
"Nothing bad, I hope," Kurt said, eyes flickering to Blaine.
A hint of color rising in his cheeks, Blaine muttered, "I've mentioned you."
Gideon swept in with a save and explained, "With the Warblers preparing for Sectionals, we've been watching our competition's old performances—"
"Ah—ah! This room is a no Sectionals-zone!" Tripp yelled, clasping his hands over his ears. "Wes gave me a recording of the percussion tracks of all the proposed numbers and told me to play them in my sleep so they would be part of my 'internal rhythm,' and pretty sure they're giving me an arrhythmia."
"Anyway," Blaine pressed on, gripping Kurt's shoulder to steer them towards Kurt's bedroom, "I thought I'd help Kurt unpack a bit before class, so we'll just—"
"Not so fast, Anderson!" said a new voice from behind Tripp, causing Kurt's new roommate to jump and hit his head against the top of the doorframe. A brunet with strong shoulders and a lanky blond entered the room, the latter clapping Tripp apologetically on his shoulder.
"What are you guys doing over here?" Blaine asked the pair.
"We've come to welcome our new neighbor!" the blond exclaimed in reply to Blaine before vigorously shaking Kurt's hand. "Welcome to Dalton Academy, Kurt. I'm Jeff, and this is Nick."
"We're not heathens, Blaine. We brought him a fruit basket and everything," Nick said as Jeff shoved a huge, colorful basket into Kurt's arms. "Has our illustrious Warbler Councilor Thad taught you nothing of gentlemanly manners? Nice to meet you, Kurt."
As Nick vigorously shook his hand, Kurt shyly said, "Hi."
"These are my roommates. We live across the courtyard in Dagonet Hall," Blaine said.
Nick gasped, apparently offended by the accusation. "I'm sorry, your roommates?"
"Blaine, I am your best friend!" Jeff said.
"I thought I was your best friend," Nick said dejectedly to Jeff.
Tripp leaned his head back and sighed heavily at the exchanged. "Not to be a bad host, a la the Thaddeus Davies Rules of Cordialness and whatnot, but I'm not wearing clothes, and since Kurt's new, he's not obligated to babysit you two like the rest of us are," he said with a small smile.
"They don't need a babysitter," Blaine said. "They need a zookeeper."
In the ten seconds that they had not spoken, Jeff and Nick had leapt across the room to the pile of Kurt's things. Nick, who was rummaging through one of Kurt's half-unpacked boxes said, "You have curtains?" He carefully pulled Kurt's pale blue curtains out of a box and grinned. "I'm always telling Jeff and Blaine that we need to hang some curtains in our windows." He handed the curtains to Jeff, who nudged open the door to Kurt's room and leapt onto the window seat to hang them up. Nick followed him, as did Blaine and Gideon, leaving Kurt alone with his new suite mate in their common room.
Other than the wooden window seat, the only piece of furniture in the common room was a gorgeous old leather sofa. Hanging on the wall above the couch was an old map of the world, and across from the sofa was a nice flatscreen TV and several video game consuls along with a haphazardly stacked set of DVDs.
"Not much of a decorator?" Kurt asked Tripp.
"Nah, it's all your domain if you want," he replied good-naturedly, drying his hair with a towel. "I should probably get dressed for class. Think you can handle them for ten minutes?" He nodded to Kurt's bedroom, where Jeff and Nick had seized the curtain rods and began swinging them like swords. While Gideon refereed their duel, Blaine ignored as best as he could and began carefully unpacking Kurt's things into his new bedroom. Kurt could handle this... at least he was going to do what he could to handle this new life.
The next couple of days jumbled together in a haze of maps and faces and books, with every waking moment of Kurt's time occupied by either homework or learning the ins and outs of Dalton. Blaine escorted Kurt to nearly all of his classes, feeding him helpful information about his new classes ("The fastest route to the East Wing for Biology is by heading out through the back gardens; even though it's longer, it's much less crowded"), which teachers to avoid ("Make sure you make eye contact with Mr. Lyons when you talk or else he'll keep questioning you until you convince him of your answer"), and how to sweet talk the librarians into helping him with research ("If you're on their good side, they'll even bake you cookies").
By Wednesday, Kurt convinced Blaine that he had mastered the fastest routes to class, but somehow on his way to French, he became spectacularly lost. He was wandering somewhere in the West Wing of the main academic building when a voice echoed down the hall, "Hey, Hummel!"
He turned around, and Kurt was relieved to see Blaine's friends Wes and David, accompanied by a third boy he recognized from their performances, walking toward him. Strangely, as the three boys walked down the hall to catch up to him, the other students moved out of their way, parting like the Red Sea to make a path for them.
"How are you settling in?" David asked, the trio falling into step with Kurt.
Before Kurt answered, Wes cut in and said, "Blaine approached us and said you might be interested in joining the Warblers."
"He did?" Kurt asked. "I hadn't thought too much about it." He wasn't exactly lying. Though Kurt was already missing the New Directions, he wasn't sure how he felt about joining the rival choir.
"Well listen," Wes said, placing a hand on Kurt's shoulder to stop him. Kurt obeyed, slightly intimidated as the other two boys flanked their leader, but also amused because he was almost certain that he had heard the next sentence uttered in Mean Girls. "We don't do this often, especially with Sectionals right around the corner, but we would like you audition for us tomorrow afternoon."
"This is an honor," said the boy Kurt didn't recognize, but who clearly held some kind of great authority, and Wes and David nodded somberly in agreement. "If you would like such a rare and prestigious opportunity—"
"I would! Absolutely," Kurt assured them.
David smiled. "Tomorrow at four in the auditorium. Best of luck, Kurt."
Without another word or a pause for Kurt to say thank you, the Warbler Council headed off to class. Kurt smiled smugly before the bell rang, signaling that he was yet again late for class and lost in the labyrinth of Dalton.
"Blaine owes us for bending the rules this," Thad said as they headed up to the fourth floor for class. "His first born child ought to be named 'Thaddeus David Wesley.'"
"Maybe he'll be great," Wes said.
David sighed. "Maybe Blaine could just ask him out."
Crowded together in the library, Blaine and his friends worked on their assignments for their afternoon classes, hurriedly scribbling away on paper. Nick peered over Gideon's shoulder to sneak a look at his Calculus homework, while Jeff thoughtfully sucked on his pen while he edited an English essay. Absorbed in their work, they were hardly listening until Blaine told them his plan.
"I pulled a few favors with the Warbler Council," Blaine explained, "and I'll have to give them one of my kidneys, but I figure I can function with one. The point is, Kurt has an audition for the Warblers!"
None of his friends seemed marginally as happy, not even with Blaine's naturally enthusiasm and confidence behind his words. Jeff scrunched his nose and said, "Wait... I thought you liked Kurt."
Blaine raised his eyebrows at the worried faces staring back at him. "Of course I like Kurt, that's why I thought auditioning would be...what's the matter?"
"Blaine," Gideon said slowly, "the Warbler Council is not really known for being delicate. Part of their inauguration is having their sensitivity replaced with perfect pitch."
"Trent cried after his audition," Tripp added. "Lucas couldn't sing without shaking for three weeks, and he's Wes' stepbrother."
"Oh, I get it!" Nick exclaimed suddenly, and the seniors at the next table shushed him. "You want to make sure Kurt doesn't fall under the Four F's."
"What are those?"
"Oh, you naive, heterosexual thing, you," Jeff said, sympathetically patting Tripp's arm. "The Four F's of dating at Dalton are—"
Blaine sighed and recited, "No floor mates, first-timers, family members of friends, or fellow Warblers. You're forgetting that I'm not trying to date Kurt," he added adamantly as he got to his feet collected his books off the table. Even though in the short time he had known him, Blaine liked Kurt and loved spending time with him, he knew better than to go after the new kid while he was still adjusting. Right now, Kurt needed a friend, and Blaine was more that happy to be that for him. Kurt had no reason to worry about this audition, and he was too calm and level-headed to get worked up over show choir.
"Blaine! I need you!"
Kurt tugged Blaine into his bedroom, slamming the door shut after him and pushing him to sit down on his bed. The Warbler smirked, and coyly said, "Wow, Kurt. This is… sudden."
"I don't know what to sing for my audition tomorrow," Kurt explained, ignoring Blaine's attempted smolder and shoving a pile of sheet music at him. His room was haphazardly unpacked and littered with sheet music, the kind of disorganization that Blaine would never have expected from him. "I know Broadway isn't the Warblers' style, but it would be the best to showcase my voice. Does the Council like Judy Garland? Would I be better going with Streisand? Or should I just go right for top radio hits?"
Blaine looked at him, his amused expression replaced with a helpful smile. "Let me see your iPod."
Kurt took a breath and obligingly handed it to him. "Why?"
"I'm going to choose for you." Blaine shuffled through Kurt's iPod, tilting it away from Kurt's anxious gaze. "Do you trust me?"
"I-I trust you. Of course I trust you."
Blaine reached over and set the device in Kurt's speakers. "When the song plays, just let the music flow through you. Don't worry about impressing the Council, Kurt. The important thing is to show them who you are."
Kurt looked at Blaine skeptically, but as the gentle hum of the deep strings began to play, Kurt closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath as the low cello resonated through his empty room, and he parted his lips as the lyrics softly escaped his mouth.
Drink up, baby doll
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
Cause it's all going off without you
Kurt opened his eyes to see Blaine watching him intently. Before now, Kurt had only ever sung in front of Blaine the couple of times they had been in the car together, belting lyrics over the blare of the radio. The smile had faded from Blaine's lips, but the way his eyes glittered made Kurt blush and encouraged him to raise his voice.
Excuse me, you're too busy
You're writing your tragedy
These mishaps, you bubble wrap
When you've no idea what you're like
The following afternoon, he stood in the vast Dalton auditorium, the entire place empty save for the three young men seated in the front row of the mezzanine as he performed the song for the Warbler Council. He loved the way his voice sounded, filling the silence of the space. Even in an unfamiliar place like Dalton Academy, Kurt felt at home on a stage, performing for an audience.
So let go, let go
Jump in
Oh well, whatcha waiting for?
It's alright
Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So let go, let go
Just get in…
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's alright
Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Not a beat after Kurt finished, the Council dismissed him.
The Warbler Council convened in David's room for their weekly meeting. With Sectionals quickly approaching, their meetings had become increasingly frequent, nearly every other night, debating over soloists and arrangements until the early hours of the morning. On this evening, David sat at his desk, typing up the minutes while he simultaneously edited his English essay, Wes slumped on the futon, and Thad stretched out across the bed reading over his Physics notes, attempting to catch up on the studying he'd been shirking off to prepare for the competition.
"Last order of business," Wes groaned, gulping down a second cup of coffee, "is discussing an addition to the Warblers. Kurt Hummel."
"Is that decaf?" David asked, frowning with motherly disapproval. "It's after one in the morning, Wes."
"I need to stay awake," Wes replied shortly, waving him off. "Kurt Hummel. Thad, would you give us the cons?"
"Sectionals is in ten days, and adding a new voice to the arrangement will no doubt affect our sound," Thad said, not even looking up from his work. "Kurt comes from a traditional show choir, he's unfamiliar with performing acapella. And of course, there's always a chance he could sabotage the Warblers for the sake of his former glee club. One wrong note and our song could crumble, ensuring a win for New Directions."
"Do people really do that?" David asked. "Infiltrate rival glee clubs? It's choir, not the Cold War."
"Are you not taking this seriously?" Wes asked.
"The caffeine is making you paranoid."
"Case and point," Thad said loudly before an argument sidetracked them, "it's very close to Sectionals to be adding someone to the arrangement. David, your turn."
"He has a great voice," David said, counting off on his fingers. "Gideon is our only other true countertenor right now, so Kurt would even out the arrangement and give us more possibilities. He has show choir experience and won at Sectionals last year. That's not to mention that he's pretty, and nothing's wrong with adding eye candy for the judges."
"They do love men in uniform," Thad agreed.
Wes hit his gavel against the wall, causing Thad and David to jump in surprise and wish the token had never been bequeathed to him. "Let's vote."
Tripp slipped out of Harfleur Court before Kurt returned from another late night in the library. He did not envy the pile of assignments Kurt had to complete to compensate for the classes he had missed prior to his transfer, though he did offer to help Kurt out where he could, mostly in Statistics and Biology, but he was little use for his other classes. Tripp drove through the dark out to West Lima, parking his Jeep Wrangler in the nearly empty parking lot of an old, seemingly abandoned warehouse. The Warbler hurried toward the building and knocked on the flimsy aluminum door once, then three times in rapid succession.
Through a narrow slit at eye-level, a voice requested, "Password?"
"I'm not fighting tonight, Chase. I'm here on Warbler Council orders."
Even without the password, Tripp was granted admittance, expertly navigating the scaffolding to reach the center of the building. The Dalton Academy Fight Club typically met on weekends or during particularly stressful times of the semester. With the Warblers' Sectionals not far off, tonight was the final night of fighting until after the competition, so as not to send the prestigious show choir members on stage with any visible bruises.
About fifty boys jeered loudly in the center of the vast room, several already bruised and bloodied but no less deterred from cheering for the two boys circling each other in the center ring. For a moment, Tripp watched as the two boys in the center of the ring collided, and a sympathetic explosion of "Ooooh!" echoed as one of them was knocked to the floor, and a bell signaled the end of the round.
"Blaine!" Tripp shouted over the raucous crowd, waving his arms although he towered over most of the boys. Blaine, the unofficial leader of the group, stood on top of a few crates and grinned across the circle at him, anticipating the news just a moment before Tripp announced it. "We've got a new Warbler to initiate!"
Kurt passed out on his bed after another overwhelming evening locked in the library, pouring over French Literature and European History until the words on the pages of his books turned into nonsensical squiggles, and he decided to call it a night. He barely had the energy to change into pajamas before he sank into the mattress. Dalton may have had a zero-tolerance bullying policy, but his brain was certainly taking a beating.
After what felt like only seconds after he had closed his eyes, Kurt heard a blood-curdling screech and bolted upright in bed, adjusting his bleary eyes to the complete darkness and panting anxiously. He opened his mouth to scream, but someone from behind him clasped a hand over his mouth. Surrounding him were a dozen people in dark black cloaks with the hoods pulled up over their heads, a few bustling about his room, but most of them leering over him.
"Shh! We're not gonna hurt you, Kurt!" one hissed at him.
"Get his legs!"
"The blindfold! Put it on him!"
"What are you doing?" Kurt managed to shout as the person behind him wrapped his blindfold snugly over his eyes and knotted it. Four boys hoisted Kurt into the air, the rest of them dancing around him, and as efficiently as possible, moved through his bedroom doorway, out of his suite, and dangerously down the stairs. Although he couldn't see, Kurt soon felt the cold air whipping against his body. Most of the group's chatter had died away in the night and was replaced with the humming of a nightmarish melody. A gruff voice began to sing into his ear, his growling sending shivers down Kurt's spine.
Hush little baby, don't say a word
And never mind that noise you heard
It's just the beasts under your bed,
In your closet, in your head
Another person began to screech the lyrics as the others continued to hum the eerie song.
Exit light!
Enter night!
Grain of sand…
The group stopped abruptly, and Kurt was set carefully down onto the ground, the stones like blocks of ice beneath his bare feet. Around him, there was muffled shuffling and whispers, but he could not make out any definite sound other than the lyrics that were being screamed at him.
Exit light!
Enter night!
Take my hand
We're off to never never land!
His blindfold was ripped off, revealing three figures in billowing black robes set against a dark, empty sky.
"Welcome to the Warblers, Kurt Hummel."
Next time…
"...tonight you join the Dalton Academy Warblers forever in the bonds of brotherhood. The Warblers have been in existence since eighteen sixty-one, as old as Dalton Academy itself, unified by love for and dedication to music. As part of your initiation, you will be given a task. However, someone forgot to... well, pick it up..."
"Way to go, Thad."
"Nick, I have no qualms about going Gollum on you."
"Fight! Fight!"
"The point is," Blaine insisted, quieting the rest of the Warblers before looking back to Kurt, "you are one of us."
Author's Note | So the trajectory of this story changed quite a bit when the Warblers returned to Glee, hence the reason I have not updated this in several months. However, I will be continuing this fic from now on, still keeping in line with the season two canon. Reviews are appreciated!