Chapter 3 - Gathering

The sound of knocking filled the room. Three short taps. It must be a Dalton thing.

I looked up from my sock drawer, which I'd been meticulously ordering. Artem didn't budge, still engrossed in the fashion magazine I'd given him. (Apparently in Russia the idea of pleats hadn't quite reached them yet. I knew he definitely wasn't gay, but the plethora of new things the magazine offered had made his grasp it with a fascinated expression when I'd produced it from my bag. Already I felt we were firm friends.) I sighed and got to my feet. It was probably for me anyway – another Wilde resident offering their welcome. So far I'd met a JJ, a Timothy, a Brad and a Tareem – most of them in the year below. (I was set to meet everyone else at the house gathering tonight.) Calling out a 'coming!' so the person on the other side wouldn't begin to get impatient I waltzed across the room and opened the door. Immediately my face broke into a surprised smile.

"Blaine!"

I gazed in admiration at the figure in front of me, leaning casually against the doorframe, one side of his open blazer dropping outwards to reveal the crisp white shirt underneath, ironed to perfection.

"Wassup." Blaine grinned, the motion showing off his pearly white teeth. I wasn't sure whether or not to hug him, so just stood there smiling like an idiot until he pulled me into one himself.

"You made it!" He exclaimed into my shoulder. I smiled, trying not to get distracted by the gorgeous smell he was emitting – if I wasn't mistaken it was new cologne.

"Yes, I did."

"How does it feel to be a Dalton student?" Blaine asked once we'd separated. He'd kept one hand on my shoulder and I fought to keep my cheeks pale feeling the touch of it.

"Um, it's strange. But everyone is really nice – I think Dad and Carole wanted to stay here." For a second I cringed, remembering the long manly conversation Dad had engaged in with Nathaniel whilst we'd unpacked, and how Carole had told me to 'go for it' with a wink when he'd left. I'd had to practically push them out of the house.

"Awesome. Well – on behalf of Wordsworth House I can officially say welcome." Blaine bent forward, twirling his hand like he as addressing a king. Of course. I'd totally forgotten he wasn't a Wilde. In fact, with so many other things on my mind, I'd almost forgotten about Blaine altogether – something I never thought I would do.

"I tried like mad to get you with us, but the houses have to be equal and… Well, there are some things even a Head Boy can't do." I smiled in response to his grin, but my eyes moved to look at the badge pinned to his lapel. Blaine was Head Boy for Wordsworth and therefore a senior – another thing that meant we probably wouldn't get to see a lot of each other during school hours.

"It's ok. I like it here."

"Well I can assure you – Wordsworth is much better." I laughed, giving him a playful shove and he grinned again.

"Hey, are you busy at the moment? I can give you a tour of the grounds if you want." My head turned back to the room, eyes glancing at the unfinished sock drawer.

"Um, yeah sure. I mean yeah, I'm not busy." My cheeks flushed pink as I fumbled my words and Blaine laughed for the umpteenth time, the sound still making me tingle.

"Awesome. Let's go!" He went to shut the door but I suddenly stopped him, remembering Artem.

"Wait one second, you have to meet my roomy." I dragged Blaine into the room with me and looked at Artem.

"Artem?" Slowly he glanced up from the magazine, obviously reluctant to stop reading about animal print. "This is my friend Blaine. Blaine this is my roommate Artem."

"Heello Blaine." Artem said happily, waving as he had done to Nathaniel. I shot Blaine a look and he waved back, looking like he was trying to suppress laughter.

"We're just going for a walk round the grounds, do you want to come?" I realised as soon as I'd asked it that the question was pointless – there was no way Artem was leaving unless he could bring the magazine with him. Nevertheless, he was still very polite in his decline.

"Ok, see you later then."

"Bye Kurt."

When I shut the door behind us Blaine immediately burst into high pitched giggles, making me slap him hard on the shoulder.

"Blaine!"

"I'm sorry!" He replied, still laughing, "he's just funny!"

"There is nothing funny about being Russian."

"I know, I know. But you can't deny that accent. And what's with the Vogue magazine? Is he gay?"

"No. He just finds American fashion interesting, that's all." There was a pause, before Blaine burst into laughter again and I had to drag him away before anybody else came out to see what the commotion was.

Once we were outside, the cold wind I'd seen through the window before whipped at my hair and I regretted not grabbing a thicker jacket. Blaine saw my shiver and immediately offered me his, but I declined – not wanting to have to cope with his smell around me constantly. At least with the wind the sweet deliciousness sometimes drifted in the other direction and I could breathe safely without risking a heart attack.

"Sooo…" Blaine began, gesturing to our surroundings, "this is Dalton." I looked back at the four white buildings, all very impressive against the autumn backdrop.

"I gather Nathaniel filled you in on all the rules for your house." For a second my head jerked back to Blaine in confusion, wondering how he could know the head of Wilde, before remembering his Head Boy status. Obviously the two were well acquainted.

"Industrious guy that one – loves his rules and regulations." I shot him a glance and he raised his hands in protest. "What? He has half the gay contingent of Wordsworth pining after him, but he's so busy organising shower rotas he doesn't even notice!" My cheeks flushed as I remembered what Carole had said to me earlier and briefly concern flashed across Blaine's expression, before disappearing like a trick of the wind.

"Well anyway, he'll have filled you in on all of that, but did he tell you anything about the other houses?" I shook my head and he rubbed his hands together, excited that he now got to tell me a story.

"Well…" We walked over to a bench that overlooked the houses and sat down simultaneously. I noticed Blaine put his arm round me to keep me warm and had to stop myself from sighing. "Dalton is split up into four houses – Wilde, Wordsworth, Darwin and Dahl – all named after famous English writers. Originally there were only two – Darwin and Wordsworth, but when the school expanded they had to create the other two to be able to house everyone. As you can probably guess, the W houses and the D houses compete against each other in whole school tournaments such as fencing and football – and the winner of these gets to represent Dalton against other schools. Each individual house however still competes themselves to win the House Cup, which is a bit like in Harry Potter." I grinned at the reference to Blaine's favourite set of films, but he ignored me, engrossed in his story. "Because it's the oldest house, Darwin students are generally a bit prim and proper, whereas Dahl students are normally the most mischievous. Wordsworth and Wilde get the honour of being decidedly normal, although we do tend to end up with the most eventual Warblers out of all the houses. I guess you were put in Wilde to even up the numbers, but also so Nathaniel had somebody else to show around." He grinned as I tutted again, squeezing my shoulder with his hand so I suddenly coughed. As Blaine's eyes flashed to mine I panicked, but luckily managed to disguise the outburst as clearing my throat.

"Sounds, um, very interesting." I mumbled, wanting to divert attention back to our conversation as quickly as possible. Blaine took the bait.

"Oh yeah, Dalton definitely has a couple of surprises up its sleeve. You've got all that to come my friend, all that…"

For the next hour or so we sat together just talking, discussing events that went on in Dalton and the things that had happened to disrupt them in the past. After a while the wind didn't seem so cold against my skin, although I kept my position snuggled up against Blaine's warm torso the whole time. I hadn't had a conversation like this with anyone for a long time – it was nice. However, it couldn't last, a glance at Blaine's watch showed me I had less than half an hour to get ready for the Wilde house gathering so I quickly made my goodbyes (to his obvious disappointment, the sight of this making me go all fuzzy inside) and scooted back to room nineteen.

When I opened the door I was immediately met with chaos. Artem was jumping around the room, waving his fencing sabre in a very worrying manner. He'd obviously jumped on my bed too, and as a result the piles of socks I'd neatly lined up were now scattered across the floor.

"ARTEM!" I shrieked. Immediately he froze, his head flashing my way as he finally realised my presence. "What-?" I couldn't finish my sentence.

"I wanted to get practice in. Sorreey." Glancing at his worried expression the horror across my face gradually faded to be replaced with sympathy.

"That's ok. But we do have a special building for that here." Well – I assumed we did. Artem sheepishly sheathed his sabre as I bent down to begin picking up my socks and I found myself smiling. Trust me to get the crazy-but-somehow-incredibly-adorable roommate.

"Are you ready for the house gathering?" I asked when everything had been restored to order. Artem looked at me blankly. "You know, when we all go downstairs to socialise?" Still nothing. "We…" I pointed to the both of us, "go downstairs…" my fingers pretended to descend imaginary stairs, "to say hi to everyone…" For a second there was silence, then Artem's face lit up.

"Yes!" He exclaimed happily, "yes I am ready!" Sheesh. This was going to be a long term.

When we descended the stairs we could hear the bubbling noise of a party already in full swing. Apparently Artem didn't understand the concept of being fashionably late, but I did, so we didn't rush. Standing in front of the double doors again I was re-filled with the hundreds of butterflies, but pushed them aside. You were fine Kurt, totally fine. The people had been nice before – everyone was going to like you.

I pushed open the doors with as much gusto as I could manage and waltzed into the room like it was New York fashion week.

Immediately everything stopped.

There were about fifty boarders in Wilde, so the room was pretty packed. Somebody had brought down their speakers so Vampire Weekend were pumping out and there were bowls of crisps and other snack foods dotted around the various coffee tables. To be honest, it seemed weird to have such a young party in such an old room. With everyone turning to see who had entered it felt like the scene had been paused, but with the sound still playing and suddenly with all the eyes on me my confidence wavered. Perhaps they weren't used to extroverts.

"Hey Kurt!" Suddenly everyone's gaze switched, like a Mexican wave. My eyes joined them and were filled with immense relief when they met Nathaniel's. He was standing by the speakers, so I guessed he had chosen the music. If what Blaine said was true then he had probably set up everything else too.

"You guys know Kurt right?" I watched the Head Boy glance around the room to the people that had met me previously during our tour. All of them nodded, smiles now beginning to spring up.

"Well, this is our newest Wilde recruit! Let's all show him our appreciation and welcome him into the family." Suddenly from out of nowhere everyone seemed to have glasses, filled with what looked like orange juice. Hands raised simultaneously in the air and a cry of

"Cheers!" Rang out. In a weird way, it was quite moving. Once everybody had taken a sip, chatter began bubbling up again and the party returned to normal. Glancing across at Artem I saw him staring around in wonder – I guessed he had had a similar greeting but still found it hard to adjust to Dalton customs.

"Come on, let's go socialise." I said, slipping my arm through his and emphasising the new word I had just taught him half an hour earlier. He grinned happily.

"Soceealise."

The first group of people we headed to seemed to be talking about history, which was a good start as I was taking the subject.

"Hi." I said, my voice somehow more confident now that I knew I had Artem to guide too.

"Oh, hi." The three boys were all very diverse in their looks – one was tall and slender with a skin tone that suggested he was Hawaiian, one had ginger hair and freckles dotted neatly about his face and the other was an all-American well built blonde.

"I'm Steven," the Hawaiian and seemingly the leader of the group said, holding out his hand which I duly shook. "This is Connor and this is Wade." Once again, I shook hands with the other two and they smiled welcomingly.

"How are you finding Dalton so far?" Connor asked. His accent was definitely Irish.

"Yeah, it's great. Everyone is very friendly." I blushed as I realised I was repeating the same thing I'd said to Blaine earlier in the day. "It's been a lot easier than I thought it'd be to be honest."

"That's one of the best things about Dalton I think – everyone's so accepting." Wade smiled and I returned it, admiring his strong jaw line, before a movement on my arm made me remember my other job.

"Oh! Sorry, this is Artem." Annoyed with myself for forgetting I signalled to my roommate, who still looked pretty uncomfortable.

"Hey Artem." Three voices chorused. The Russian looked surprised to be the centre of attention.

"Heello." He replied, making me smile.

"He's my roommate." I explained, answering their questioning looks towards our linked arms. "Nathaniel said he was having a bit of trouble adjusting." With the mention of Nathaniel knowing glances were exchanged between the boys.

"He never stops you know, getting everyone involved." Steven joked to Wade, who smiled in agreement. "Wilde has to be one big happy family." It seemed Blaine was not alone in his opinion.

"I think he's really nice." I commented, wanting to defend the guy who had made my transition so easy.

"Oh yeah, we're not saying he's not grand," Connor replied, "he's probably the best Head Boy we've had for a while. It's just funny seeing how he runs everything like clockwork, that's all."

"I've been tempted so many times to go and mess up one of his rotas, or take a long shower or something – just to see him freak out." Wade added with a smile and everyone laughed, including Artem. Somehow his laugh always seemed to stand out and seem odd – mainly because we all knew he was probably just laughing to keep up with everyone else.

"Hey, I heard you guys talking about the Celts earlier – are you all doing history?" My change of subject was greeted with open arms and immediately historical terms started being thrown around everywhere, most definitely excluding Artem again. I felt bad but suddenly he noticed somebody from across the room and broke free of my hold to investigate. As I watched him traverse the space, feeling for all the world like a proud parent, my eyes met with somebody elses - a boy standing across the other side of the room staring at me. For a second surprise crossed my face. The other boy stayed staring, his eyes strange and searching and I went to say something, before suddenly Wade asked me a question - forcing my head to turn around and return to the conversation, leaving the stares of the other boy behind.