A/N- Late note- DISCLAIM, including the previous chapters, over which I also have no claim.
Also, I'm glad that people are enjoying! And that David is working out for you all. I feel he needs a bit of love. And be kind to Wes. He really isn't such a bad guy. Onwards!
They were doing once a day rehearsals for the next two weeks, until the concert next Friday, and it was stressing Blaine out. Before and following group rehearsal immediately after classes, he had spent all his non-class time reading for English lit, and he was almost done. Just fifteen more pages, and he had an hour before he had group study for physics at nine. His cell jittered across the tray table he had set up next to his reading chair and Blaine grabbed it, fully ready for a quick distraction.
"Finished history early. BICO rehearsal?" Blaine looked doubtfully at his book and frowned, drawing his eyebrows together.
"Wish! English lit book. Boo." The phone lit up again.
"Serious? Didn't finish? You said you only had 75 pgs left?" Blaine felt his cheeks warm slightly, and it got worse when he realized he was embarrassed by a text. Especially because of who it was from.
"Sorry. Gotta work." He slid his phone shut and turned it off completely, tucking it away under the chair cushions. He grabbed the book again, not paying attention to the fact that he was gripping it quite tightly, and focused in on the expanse of black font.
Blaine wandered into the commons where he was meeting his classmates to study. He heard bright, familiar laughter and looked over at the couches grouped around the fireplace. He could only see the back of his head, but he knew it was Kurt. Blaine sat down at the table, not wanting to disturb the group where he was apparently enjoying himself. It was good, that Kurt was making friends.
"Are you ready to get physics-al?" Blaine was brought to attention by Reese, fresh from basketball practice with his terrible puns and dropping his text loudly on the table. Several of the heads across the room jumped in surprise and glanced over. Blaine caught eyes with Kurt, who cocked his head slightly. Blaine was about to offer out some kind of excuse, or apology, or way to avoid the fact that he had cut their text conversation awkwardly short, but the arrival of two other boys meant the best he could offer was a quick shrug, before he turned back to his own group.
"No, it's not based on mass." Blaine leaned over the communal workbook they had placed in the middle of the table. "See..." He crossed out two of the figures and redrew the force diagram. "And the friction level for that kind of surface is wrong."
"I am never going to get this." Reese let his forehead fall to the table and mumbled from its surface. "I request a ten minute break before I knock myself unconscious with my own fist."
"Not possible, but I agree. Back here in ten?" Blaine smiled, pushing back his chair as the others stood up, mentioning bathrooms and energy drinks. Blaine just tilted his chair back so the top of his head touched the wall, and shut his eyes for a moment. When footsteps clicked up beside him he didn't have to open his eyes.
"Hey."
"Hi." Blaine peaked out of one eye and saw Kurt perch on the edge of the table, watching him. "Taking a break?"
"Ten minutes. We're pretty much going in circles with this problem. We could use a fresh start."
"I was going to go make some green tea in the kitchen. Would you like some?"
Blaine nodded, letting the chair tip forwards until all four legs were on the floor again.
"That'd be great. Thanks."
By the time that Kurt returned, a couple of the boys from the couches had already glanced over at the doorway. As he passed Blaine a warm mug, catching his hand slightly with equally warm fingers, one of them called over.
"I guess you should go back to your group." Blaine tilted his head towards the couches and Kurt glanced over.
"Yeah, they're decent company. It's good to know that some people at Dalton have a sense of humour. At least outside of Warblers' initiations."
Blaine gave his wry smile a returning grin.
"Yeah, well..."
"Kurt! Come on! It's your deal."
"Poker. My dad taught me when I was eight." Kurt explained. He paused for a moment, looking undecided. He pulled a white waxed paper bag from his pocket and handed it to Blaine.
"Almond biscotti. It's from this bakery in Marion, which is like, twenty minutes extra from here to Lima, but totally worth it. It's my last piece until I go home, but I thought you could use some studying fuel, or a really tasty bribe, in case I said something earlier I shouldn't have?"
Kurt's voice dropped for the last part, trying not to look at him, or notice that the tips of Blaine's ears were slightly more pink than usual.
"No, no of course not. I just...Thanks Kurt." He waved the biscotti slightly. With his entirely unconvincing reassurance, Kurt turned and wandered back towards the fire, glancing back at Blaine with a slightly quizzical face. He only gave a faint smile Blaine's way when he headed off to his dorm for bed an hour later and Blaine felt like a bit of a jerk.
"Okay, so we've got the basics down for "Come Thou Fount," baritones, you guys are going to need a supplementary rehearsal before the next meeting to tune up the harmony." Alex, one of the triumvirate, looked over the sheet music in front of him and scrawled a few notes in a corner. "And we've done "Carol of the Bells," so we'll just run through that one at the next practice, which brings us to..." He murmured something else, tapped his notes on the piano and moved in front of the other boys. Wes joined him, taking over the sheaf of music pages.
"Okay. We've covered all the collective songs, and we'll save the ones with the Eves for joint practice on Thursday, so everyone in the quartet pieces should break off into their groups for a run-through. Everyone else head off for the night and don't forget...Oregano oil and lemon honeys every day starting tomorrow."
There was a collective groan over Wes's sworn by anti-cold methods. The choir room would start smelling like an apothecary in the next week from the combined exhalations of the boys. Groupings started to break off, and David clapped Kurt on the back as he went off with a couple of other juniors to find a rehearsal space. Blaine slipped over from where he had been standing on the far edge of the arrangement for the piece, and stepped up slowly to Kurt.
"So, dyou want to go find somewhere to-" Blaine was interrupted by Wes, who had broken away from a couple of others, looking concerned.
"Kurt, hey, can I borrow you for a minute?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure, I'll be right back." Blaine just nodded and stepped back, waiting as Wes pulled Kurt aside. Kurt clasped his hands behind his back. Wes still made him slightly nervous.
"Did I do something wrong? I know I'm still catching up on some of the songs but-"
Wes held up his hands.
"No, yu're doing fine Kurt. I just found out that Joel has to leave early to go with his family to France for Christmas, so I wanted to know if you were available for the "First Noel" piece."
"That's one of the quartet pieces." Wes gave a small laugh.
"Yeah, it is. Can you do it?"
"Yes. Of course. I won't let you down, or the Warblers. I promise." Kurt smiled widely, his hands clenching tighter, where Wes couldn't see them.
"Good. We're going to go start up in the music hall. Grab your stuff."
Kurt turned to grab his bag and saw Blaine, leaning against the piano, waiting.
"Blaine." Kurt frowned for a moment. "I totally-"
Blaine pushed himself up off the edge of the instrument and slipped his hands into his pockets.
"It's no problem. Go practice with Wes and we'll catch up after or something." He gave a half smile, couldn't help it when Kurt seemed to have a little happy jump on his toes.
"You'll be in your room? I'll come find you." Blaine nodded.
"Go kill it kid." Kurt slung his bag over his shoulder and slipped out of the room. Since he had his duet, Blaine wasn't doing one of the quartets. He headed up to his dorm giving smiles and waves as he left the choir room, but letting his posture slump slightly as he wandered down the hallway. He turned his phone back on- hell awaited any Warbler who forgot to turn off their ring during rehearsal- and it immediately buzzed and lit up with a message.
"It's 7:40 your time. Out of test early. I'll be on Skype if Warblers lets out."
Blaine brightened slightly at the prospect of Neil. It was almost enough to stop him from being unreasonably irritated at the next text. Almost.
"Only time the other 2 could come. Sry I stole your boyfriend. Promise to return in mint condition. ;)"
Blaine hated when Wes used emoticons. And that he always seemed to know when Blaine was at all interested in someone. If he wasn't such a good friend, and almost always well intentioned, Wes would be a huge jerk right now.