Chapter 4 - Scott

My alarm rang sharply at 8am – jolting me awake so I shot upright and temporarily forgot where I was. To my surprise Artem was already up and fully dressed, leafing yet again through the pages of Vogue (I swear that magazine wasn't going to last a week if he continued to abuse it with such constant use)

"Heello Kurt." He said with a smile, before looking back down again. I rubbed my face with my hand vigorously to try and wake myself up and patted down what felt like horrific bed hair.

The strong jet of the shower was a welcome feeling, especially when the temperature was turned up to almost scalding. I only had five minutes of washing time left (Nathaniel had kindly provided timers for each shower cubicle) but I was determined to stay where I was right up until the last second. Today was a big day – my first lessons at Dalton. I knew I would probably be a little behind everybody else, although my advanced work in Trig and Spanish would help to ease the load, but hopefully everyone would continue to be as nice as they had been and I would fit in perfectly. Fit in. That was a phrase I'd never thought about before.

Artem and I walked up to the main building together, but he had Biology to go to, so we parted ways once we'd walked through the huge entrance doors. For some reason I felt like my safety blanket had been taken away and my footsteps quickened as I paced down the corridor towards the Trig classroom.

The room was immaculate, just like the neatly organised timetable I was clutching in my hand, just like the students that I passed to walk inside. There were identical tables placed in rows with identical seats tucked into them, but surprisingly there didn't seem to be any kind of seating plan – we could sit where we wanted.

This in itself posed an awkward question – where did I sit? Glancing around the room I couldn't see anybody I recognised from Wilde, although there weren't that many students in the room yet. I wasn't sure of the etiquette rules of a boy's school for sitting at the front or back either. (At McKinley the Rachel's sat at the front and the Santana's sat at the back, pretty self-explanatory.) My brain ran through the possibilities frantically, before I was suddenly halted in my thoughts by the feeling of something crashing into my back. The brand new books I'd been clutching to my chest made a spectacular arc across the room and I felt my body slowly losing balance to thud down on the floor at about the same time.

"Oh crap! Sorry!" The next sound I heard was cursing of a boy behind me, probably the one that had hit me. For a split second I thought about not getting up, but was once again prevented from progressing any further as hands roughly grabbed my shoulders to haul me to my feet.

"I am such a douche bag, sorry mate." Turning round I finally came face to face with my attacker. He was mid height, just a couple of inches taller than me, with a fairly athletic build and plenty of scratches and scars on the parts of his body that were visible. His hair was strawberry blonde, curt short rather like he'd been on leave for a couple of months from the army. He also had quite large ears that stuck out from his face, but rather than make him look stupid, only seemed to somehow make him more endearing. Endearing up until the point when he opened his mouth.

"Thought I was going to be bloody late again, and Conners has been breathing down my neck for months- oh." Suddenly the boy stopped, finally registering that I was somebody he hadn't seen before. I wondered if he apologised a lot, and if it was with the same eloquence every time.

"You're new." The statement made me laugh, shocked but at the same time fascinated by his straightforward attitude. "Are you like new new or just new to Trig, because I move classes all the time so I never get to meet everyone."

"I'm new new. Kurt." Somehow through our brief exchange my nerves had disaparated and I held out my hand, smiling.

'Scott." We shook hands, my arm feeling like it was being yanked out of its socket (I wondered it anybody had ever been sent to hospital through a hand shaking injury – the amount everybody did it here I was surprised they didn't all have humungous biceps) and Scott grinned, before glancing behind me and smacking his palm to his forehead violently.

"Oh crap. Your books." Scooting past me he bent down to scoop up the remains of my textbooks and stationary, splayed across the classroom floor like modern art. As he lifted up a book with some of the pages bent back he smacked his head again.

"God, these are bloody new as well! I'll pay for them, you can have mine-" He delved into the bag slung across his shoulder, pulling out an identical textbook that was considerably more battered and bruised than mine, before quickly returning it again, "-I'll buy you new ones…"

"It's ok, seriously," I replied, hurrying over before he could say or do anything else, "but please stop hitting yourself." Scott flashed his head up, confusion crossing his expression for a brief second, before he grinned again.

"Sorry. It's what I do."

"Yeah, I know," I really did. I'd only known this guy for less than five minutes and already it felt like we'd been classmates for years.

"I bet you think I'm a right idiot." Scott remarked as he got back up to his feet, plonking my things in my outstretched hands. I chuckled.

"No, not at all. You're the first person to pay any attention to me in this classroom – even if it was through ramming me in the back." I watched the smile return back to his face and he strolled over to the still empty back row.

"You wanna sit?" I nodded, only just able to disguise the flush of pleasure that ran through me, and put my books down on the immaculate table next to Scott's. I guess I was Santana then.

Gradually people began to file into the classroom as Scott and I chatted about various things, like why he was always late and how a couple of the Dahl boys had taken to playing pranks on him at football practice. When Mr Conners finally entered the vicinity however, everybody sat up, the room suddenly silent.

"Morning boys." He said plainly. He was a rather proper looking man, with a thinning hairline, fifties style clothing and thick rimmed glasses. He reminded me of one of the Trig teachers at McKinley, but a slightly classier version.

"How are you all today?" I guessed it was a rhetorical question, as none of the boys answered. I watched him place a briefcase on the front desk, straighten his tie and pat back his hair, before his eyes suddenly began searching the students. He wound through everyone until finally he reached me, and recognition flew into his expression.

"Ah, here is our new student." Everyone turned to look at me, all of the Wilde's flashing me friendly grins and I gave a little wave, sending a few titters around the classroom.

"Welcome Kurt." Mr Conners smiled at me, before his expression darkened slightly after glancing to the person next to me.

"And I see Mr Macleod has finally decided to turn up on time." I turned to see Scott grinning, completely unperturbed by the glare being sent his way.

"Only for you sir." He saluted and I had to stop myself from snorting, not wanting to make a bad first impression. Well – worse than the one I was already making by sitting next to him.

"Everybody turn to page forty-seven of your Core books please." There was a rustle of pages as everyone leafed through their texts and I brought mine out, smiling at the new crease in the first few pages.

When the clock struck eleven everyone was up like a flash, slipping their things neatly into their bags and exiting the classroom chatting excitedly. Scott and I packed up more slowly, me glancing up at Mr Conners to see if he'd finished grading some of the tests he'd been given ten minutes earlier. When he put down his pen I went over.

"Good work today Hummel." He said, somehow still managing to look down through his glasses even though he was sitting. "You're a bit behind on some topics, but nothing a few of these won't solve." His hand moved to pick up a pile of worksheets, which he offered to me with a smile and I took them as thankfully as I could. Oh well, at least he hadn't written me off completely.

"I would think carefully about the people you socialise with in this class however." My eyes followed his glance to Scott, who was kicking the open classroom door with the tips of his shoes as he waited, humming something under his breath. As if to emphasise the warning, he accidentally caught his foot and shouted out another curse, making me bite my lip for the umpteenth time.

"Of course sir, I will." I took the sheets from Mr Conners and walked back over to my unruly new friend.

"More work eh?" Scott asked when I reached him. I shrugged my shoulders and he shot an angry glare at Mr Conners, who thankfully was too engrossed in his computer to notice. "Conners is such a douchebag."

"What do you have next?" I asked to change the subject, glancing down at my printed timetable again. The word 'Spanish' stood in the box next to 'Trig', with a classroom number and some initials I guessed were the teacher's name. "I have Spanish." Immediately Scott jumped in the air, almost causing me to drop my books yet again.

"Me too! Oh sweet!" He held his hand up for a high five and I obliged with caution, wincing as our palms collided with ridiculous force once more.

"Let's go dude."

I sailed through Spanish with very few problems, apart from Scott making me laugh constantly. His Spanish was almost perfect, but he liked to mispronounce words to make the teacher, a tiny mousy little lady called Miss Breamhold, become worked up and begin to fumble her own speech – something that delighted me and the rest of the class.

When we returned to the busy corridor again after two hours I glanced at my watch, noting the time with excitement. Blaine and I had arranged to meet for lunch and the hour was only several minutes away. I turned to wait for Scott, who had been receiving a stern but not really very powerful lecture from Miss Breamhold and he came into view, still sporting his trademark grin from ear to ear.

"So," He began before I could even get a word in edgeways, "wanna get lunch?" The question surprised me – I knew we were friends in class, but hadn't really expected the partnership would stretch over to free time.

"Really?" Scott looked at me like he didn't understand.

"Yeah. I dunno about you, but I need to eat to keep this perfect body of mine functioning." He laughed, patting his stomach and I joined in nervously, before shaking myself to get back to the reality of the situation.

"Um, I'd love to – but I already said I'd meet with a friend." I said as apologetically as I could. He tried to disguise it, but I saw the slight drop in Scott's expression. It was a drop that had graced my face so many times after so many rejections, from people I thought were my friends.

"Hey, no sweat. I'll see you later then." He abruptly turned to leave, his nonchalance wavering every so slightly, but suddenly my hand shot out, grabbing his shoulder so he stopped and spun back round again.

"You can come too!" I exclaimed, probably a little too eagerly, "if you want…" Immediately Scott's face lit up again, his hand swooping down to clap me on the shoulder so I almost fell over.

"You are one awesome dude Kurt. Thanks." For that split second, I felt like one too.