Hey again - I am going to try and stop putting author notes at the start of each chapter but there is just one more thing that I need to address.

I've received a couple of reviews commenting on the fact that I use quite a bit of English slang in this story, and that sometimes it is hard to understand.

I do sympathise with this to a degree, but I'm afraid there is not much I can really do about it. I am English, so obviously I will write like an English person. I try really hard to put as many American phrases in as possible, but sometimes I don't even realise that a word is said only in England or means something different etc.

If you don't understand something then please feel freee to drop me a message and I will be happy to explain it for you.

I hope that cleared everything up - I am proud to be a British Gleek!

(P.S. If you guess the double meaning of this chapter title you win a prize)

Chapter 26 - Cordial

Nobody spoke. You could have heard a pin drop from the other side of the grounds. Artem and Damien pulled their helmets down over their heads and crouched into position.

"FIGHT!" Everyone lurched forward, willing the battle to start. Neither fencer moved.

"Er, what's going on?" Scott whispered. It was like they were frozen – not even their sabres were moving, even though they were probably ridiculously nervous. Then I realised.

"They're psyching each other out…" Artem and Damien continued to stare forward, waiting for the other to make the first move. As everyone else cottoned on to their tactic the tension rose until we were practically begging them to move, praying for some action. Then, all of a sudden, it started.

Sabres were flying everywhere – the first moves happened so fast that I subconsciously gripped onto Blaine's arm that was around me and yanked him forward into my back. Damien had been the first to crack – his stroke was wild and took Artem slightly by surprise. He leaped out of the way and managed to avoid the jab, swiping his own blade so it skimmed just over the top of his opponent's head. Damien tried again and this time Artem lost balance as he dodged, giving an easy target for a blow to the chest.

"First point to Dahl." The Dahl spectators across the other side of the hall erupted into cheers and Damien lifted his sabre in the air in celebration.

"Come on Artem…" I whispered under my breath, "Come on…"

The second point began as ferociously as the first, but now Artem seemed fired up and attacked viciously. I saw Damien begin to falter and finally, after a superb spinning turn, Artem caught him on the shoulder.

"Second point to Wilde." Now it was our turn to cheer – Scott pumped his fist in the air and I jumped up and down excitedly.

"This is it." Blaine whispered into my ear, "In the final they only play three points. Whoever gets this is the winner." I swallowed loudly, looking back at Artem, who was now being given a ferocious final talk by Nathaniel. I'd never seen either of them look so fired up before – it was fascinating.

"Come on Artem!" Scott shouted out, not caring that he was neither a Wilde or probably supposed to be talking at this point. A couple of the other Wilde students joined in and suddenly the whole room was alive with noise, cheers of Artem or Damien ringing out in chorus.

"Quiet down, quiet down." Mr Cox said on the loudspeaker, eventually the noise died down and the two fencers took to the stage again.

"Positions please." They both crouched down again and I slipped my hands together, offering a silent prayer to anyone that might be up there.

"FIGHT!"

Flash, flash, swipe – now I couldn't actually see the blades they were moving so fast. Artem and Damien danced backwards and forwards along the matt, twisting, turning, jumping, ducking. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hand gripping onto Blaine like I never had before and my lips mumbling prayers under my breath. Come on come on come-

"Aaaaah!" Suddenly Artem tripped on something, he tumbled head first towards the ground and Damien seized his opportunity – a strong stab to the shoulder was issued and the buzzer sounded.

"Third point to Dahl – Dahl wins." The hall erupted with cheers, the Dahl supporters leaping out of their places and running onto the stage. Artem seemed completely dazed, still feeling the brunt of his fall, and suddenly he was swamped by fans wanting to greet their champion. Damien ripped off his helmet and threw it into the air, his eyes flashing wildly and his mouth open in a gleeful laugh that revealed shiny pointy teeth.

"Oh Gaga." I said, immediately letting go of Blaine and ducking under the barrier to make my way over to my friend. Stefan was right beside me and we pushed through the crowd to reach him. Artem had barely taken his helmet off, but when he did his face looked confused and forlorn.

"Oh, Artem." Without thinking I crouched down and flung my arms around him, taking him by surprise but not really caring.

"Tough break." Stefan said, rubbing his roommates shoulder comfortingly.

"You tripped, so it wasn't a fault of your technique," Blaine added, having caught up with us, "you fought brilliantly, you should be proud."

"I bet Dubrisque tripped you." Scott said angrily, his fists balling up, "I bet he did it on purpose the lousy little cheat-"

"-Scott." A hand came out to stop him from moving towards the crowd. "Don't get involved. We don't want to be sore losers."

"I bet he did…" He grumbled, but didn't stir any further. Blaine took his hand away and looked down at me and Artem again.

"You came second too. That's nearly maximum points." Glancing back at the Russian I saw his expression had lifted slightly.

"I think Babolya will be very pleased." I said softly, rubbing his shoulder. His eyes flicked towards me and finally he smiled, the warm smile that I was so used to.

"Yes, she will. And Ashley."

"Oh yeah, Ashley will love it. You are going to get so much boom-tang for this." Apparently over his anger when there was a chance to make an inappropriate joke, Scott grinned and everyone shot him a 'seriously' look, me going the extra step by kicking him in the ankle.

"Hey." Suddenly another voice sounded in our direction, we all looked up to see Hunter, the Dahl Head Boy, walking towards us.

"That was a great fight. Commiserations." He held out his hand to Artem and the Russian shook it firmly, his expression showing there was no hard feelings. Glancing over to Damien, who was currently being hoisted in the air by his housemates I saw him laughing again and wondered how I'd never noticed him around Dalton before. He was kind of hard to miss.

"Yo, Hunter, whatcha doing over here? Get back to the party!" Suddenly two more boys joined our group. Both quite tall with angular features but thin lines of muscle along their arms they slapped their Head Boy on the shoulder before turning to look at us.

"Oh, sorry." One of them said, before they both sniggered. The boy on the right, who had blonde hair cut into a type of bob, seemed to see something and stopped.

"Scott Macleod." I turned to my best friend and saw him eyeing the two Dahl students with utter hatred.

"What are you doing on the Wilde side?" The other boy, who had dark skin and a shaven head, spoke in a mocking tone. "Did you need somebody else to support cause your house didn't make it to the final? Looks like you went for the wrong team."

"Shut it Phoenix." Scott's voice was icy, he took a step forward and the Dahl boys laughed, before Hunter darted out a hand between them.

"Phoenix, Oscar. Leave it." He spoke with authority, shooting the two students glares and eventually they backed off, still muttering to themselves. Scott had been pulled back by Blaine and Stefan and seemed to be saying the same things.

"Sorry guys, we will leave you to it now." Hunter said apologetically, shooting one more glance at Artem, who nodded in thanks, before being pulled off back into the melee.

"What jerks." I mumbled once they were a safe distance away. Blaine sighed in agreement and I looked back at Scott, who seemed to have calmed down, but was still pretty upset.

"Anyone want to come to mine for a celebration party?" Suddenly Nathaniel appeared, his timing almost perfect and his offer appealing. "After all, we did just come second in the fencing tournament."

"Sounds great." Blaine answered, pulling Scott properly upright and signalling for everyone else to follow.

"So, you want to tell me what that was all about?" Sitting on the sofa of Nathaniel's equally huge Head Boy room I shot Scott a questioning look. He had been trying to avoid me the whole way to Wilde.

"Nothing…"

"Nothing? Nothing is a word used to describe how much effort you put into the last Spanish assignment we had. That was not nothing." He sighed and for once I knew I was the right one.

"I just have this…thing with those guys."

"A thing? You know Dalton doesn't tolerate bullying."

"Oh no!" Scott quickly backtracked. "It's nothing like that at all. It's just…"

"Go on…" I was beginning to get impatient.

"You're going to think it's silly."

"Try me." He sighed.

"Pranks."

"What?"

"Pranks. We play pranks on each other." I didn't understand. "You remember all the way at the start of term when I told you about the boys that played pranks on me at football practice?" I thought for a second, then nodded. "Well they were those boys. We kind of have prank battles every so often, the Dahl boys against me and a couple of others. I lost the last one after they sent a text message from my phone to Conners saying exactly what I thought about him" Oh! So that was why Conners hated Scott so much! That, and the fact he never turned up to his lessons on time. "and they've not let it go since."

"Oh." I wasn't quite sure how to respond – especially when I'd been expecting to hear about some traumatic past or a group of McKinley-esque bullies. Although I suppose in Scott's life a prank war was a pretty big thing.

"See, I knew you'd think it was stupid." He looked down at the floor in embarrassment but I grabbed his arm so he glanced back up again.

"No, I don't think it's stupid at all. I'm just glad it's only a prank war and nothing more serious."

"Oh." Now it was Scott's turn to give the surprised reply. "You know if anything serious did happen to me then I'd tell you."

"I know." I gave his arm a comforting pat before we both smiled and Blaine returned with drinks.

"Here you go." Handing me my lime cordial I took it gratefully and kissed him lightly on the cheek, something that made him blush in the most adorable way. Scott was given his coke and glugged most of it down in one go, making my eyes widen as I sipped.

"How does Nathaniel have so much drink?" I asked, glancing around the room, which was full of people chatting away.

"He's friendly with the kitchen staff." Blaine replied nonchalantly.

"I suppose that figures." He had been able to rustle up those apology cookie ingredients last term surprisingly quickly.

"Here's to Artem." My boyfriend raised his glass and everyone followed suit, toasting the Russian so he blushed violently before his phone suddenly began to ring.

"That'll be Ashley I bet." Scott commented. "What did I tell you? Boom-tang."

As Artem rushed off to answer the call with a face even redder than before I noticed a Wildeian not enjoying the party as much as we were. Gabriel was standing in the corner of the room, his small figure often obscured by the door as people went in and out. He had no drink so his only occupation was staring intently at Blaine, who seemed completely oblivious of the attention on him.

"Hey! Gabriel! What's up bro?" Scott, also completely oblivious, called out to the junior, making him jump out of his skin. When he looked up his eyes immediately flashed to me, and when he saw I was staring back, his face flushed violently and he switched back to the floor.

"Dude, seriously, this is a party!" I was about to tell Scott to shut it when Gabriel suddenly marched briskly across the room towards us.

"Kurt, can I talk to you alone please." He said defiantly, stopping right in front of me so I had no chance to ignore. Briefly my eyes flashed to Blaine, who shrugged his shoulders seeming to have no problem – I didn't bother to look at Scott who I knew would be flashing warning signs and stood up to follow my ex-date back to his corner.

"Are you and Blaine dating?" It was blunt, but at least he didn't mess around. The protective edge to Gabriel's tone made me nervous but I didn't bother to comment on it.

"Yes. We are. In fact…" I paused to count on my fingers, "…this is our third public appearance together as a couple." I looked back at Wildeian and saw his expression was livid.

"And when were you thinking about telling me this?" I laughed.

"Gabriel – you haven't even been here. I didn't tell Scott, he just figured it out. And anyway what does it matter to you?"

"It matters because…" He trailed off and I sighed, knowing what he'd been about to say.

"I told you I was in love with Blaine – you can hardly be surprised."

"But he said all those things to you, he used you!"

"That was all a big misunderstanding. Blaine apologised and we sorted it all out."

"How can you believe anything he says!" Gabriel raised his voice and a couple of Wildeians turned to look in our direction.

"Listen," I hissed, turning us away so nobody could hear what I was saying, "if you are giving me relationship advice as a friend, which is what we decided we were, then that's fine. If you are giving it to me because you are jealous and have some petty vendetta against Blaine, then I'm advising you now to stop." I stared fiercely into Gabriel's eyes, trying to make it as clear as possible that I was completely serious. For a second he looked like he wanted to fight, before eventually his shoulders slumped and he backed away.

"Ok, sorry."

"Thank you. Now are we done here?" Slowly the mousy haired boy nodded his head and I walked away with a flourish, shaking my head in disbelief.

"What the hell was that all about?" I rolled my eyes at Scott, flopping down onto the sofa and into Blaine's warm embrace.

"Are you ok?" My boyfriend asked, a more caring question than the first.

"Yeah." I replied, nuzzling my forehead into the crook of his neck. "Just Gabriel not knowing when to mind his own business." I closed my eyes, breathing in the musky scent of the Wordsworth Head Boy and no more was said on the matter.