Oh My God, Stop It!

He takes a step to retrieve is, and his chest meets an open hand that pushes, a brick wall fighting back. A teenage, letterman jacket wearing brick wall with too-small eyes and a cruel smirk, who he’s never spoken to in his life and has apparently offended with nothing more than his existence.

Blaine had thought that by now maybe that particular pattern would have stopped hurting quite so much.

He stumbles back and hits a second laughing body, this one more like a tree. Taller and thin and ropey with muscles that uncoil and shove him helplessly back the way he came. He’s dizzy with uncontrollable motion, incapable of anticipating which way he’ll be jostled next, so he just stops. Stops trying to get past them, stops giving them a target to react to. Just freezes, hands in fists at his side and breath coming heavy as he looks up at The Wall and contemplates the size of him.

He knows how to throw a punch now. As much as he enjoys understanding the burning duck and weave and lash of it, it’s not something he ever wanted to have to learn. It was a hobby born of lurking dark memories that he tries to face as infrequently as possible, and happened to find far more gratifying than he’d ever anticipated given his reasons for taking it up.

But he’s never made the conscious decision to use those skills against another human body, and it’s bile in his throat that even after everything he can’t bring himself to act first.

Blaine Anderson has never been able to bring himself to throw the first punch, and that’s why he’s ending his first day at his third school in as many years standing between two giants and waiting to see if they just like fucking with the new kid or if they actually mean it.

Please please please please please don’t mean it.

Behind him The Tree snorts. “Looks like we got ourselves another fairy at McKinley.”

The Wall gives him and up-down look that makes Blaine’s skin crawl. “You sure? Smells like a nerd to me.”

“He’s wearing a bow tie. He’s a fag nerd at least, I’d put money on it.”

“Cross breed. They make ‘em freaky these days,” The Wall curls a lip at him, more disdain in a teenage boy than Blaine wants to contemplate. “So, poindexter. D’you take it up the ass too, or do you just dress like Mardi Gras?”

Blaine’s stomach shrinks, hands clenching and unclenching weakly. “Just let me get my bag and get to my car and I’ll never bother you again.”

Bother them, like dressing how he likes and having to go to the same school as them and not looking at his feet and skulking away is so fucking bothersome.

“Don’t you want to stay and chat?” The Tree asks, stepping into Blaine’s line of sight. “I thought we were having fun.”

“Yeah, we know a nice dumpster round the back of the cafeteria that we want to show you. It was macaroni day today, it’s gonna be real nice and –”

“Hey, assholes!”

Blaine’s head snaps up as the two guys’ heads snap around, landing on a lithe, leather jacket clad boy leaning easily back on a long black and chrome motorbike.

He raises a hand in a wave, and calls in the same surprisingly high, clear voice. “Would you look at that. You respond to your names and everything. Or would you prefer Asshole One and Asshole Two?” he pauses, glancing up mock-thoughtfully. “Oh wait, I don’t give a fuck.”

The Wall turns to face the boy completely. “Mind your own fucking business, Hummel.”

“I just made it my fucking business,” he pushes off the motorbike and takes half a step forward. “So how about you find someone dumb enough to voluntarily want to spend time with you and leave him alone to go home and try to scrub the stench of you off himself,” his eyes drift to Blaine’s and lock, too far away to tell their colour, close enough for it to be clear he's enjoying himself. “I’d use something with bleach in it. It’ll sting, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. I can recommend a good moisturiser if you need it.”

Blaine’s mouth falls open, his stomach swooping strangely. “Um…”

“Maybe burn your clothes too. They might have crabs, you can never be too safe.”

“Don’t fucking push it, Hummel!”

“I’m not the one ganging up on someone who doesn’t even look like he’s had his first growth spurt yet,” the boy, Hummel, says lightly, turning his hand to eye his nails. “But you know, if you want a witness who’s more than happy to name names to Principal Figgins, I have a whole afternoon to stick around and see where this is going,” he flicks his hand. “Really, don’t let me stop you.”

The two guys turn to look at each other, and The Tree grunts and murmurs, “Fuck this, I got better things to do.”

Hummel laughs quietly, back to examining his nails. “I sincerely doubt that’s true.”

They start walking off in the opposite direction, one of them slamming into Blaine with his shoulder and knocking him sideways as he passes, and the other aiming a solid kick at his discarded bag. Blaine doesn’t move, waiting for them to get far enough away for him to feel comfortable with making himself vulnerable by bending down to pick it up.

Their footsteps have almost faded completely when a shout echoes back to him. “Fucking faggot.”

Blaine flinches, stumbling the few feet to his satchel and fumbling its strap in his clumsy fingers, jerking it up and onto his shoulder. When he stands up again Hummel is back to leaning against his motorbike, watching him calmly.

“Don’t worry. They were talking to me,” he calls, a humourless smile twitching on his face. “I’m the fucking faggot. Or at least I am to people with too little imagination to come up with anything more original.”

Blaine lets his breath out and swallows, his throat full of sand. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he shrugs, matter of fact. “You don’t have to stand all the way over there, either. They’re too dumb to realise that a twenty year old Ducati and a pair of Doc Martens don’t actually mean I know the first thing about fighting, but I don’t bite.” His eyebrows furrow. “If they ever figure it out I’m probably going to be praying that my dentist actually is as good as he always tells me he is.”

Blaine wraps both hands around the strap of his bag and walks over stopping a good five feet away, and getting a proper look at the boy for the first time. He’s pale, the faintest hint of freckles spraying across the bridge of his nose and shadowing his sharp jaw. He’s unfairly gorgeous, something about the delicacy of his features and the sweet upturn of his nose playing perfectly with the forceful black and studs of his jacket and the uncomplicated white of his t-shirt. His jeans are – Blaine takes one look at them and tears his eyes away, blood surging like a wave. Tight doesn’t cover it. Long, long legs and thick thighs, and Blaine doesn’t know how comfortable he is with holding a stranger’s eyes right now, shaken as he is, but he can’t keep looking at those legs if he wants to be able to think at all straight, so he focuses on his eyes.

They’re blue. Or maybe grey. A swollen, furious sea.

“You’re new,” Hummel says, unhooking his helmet from his handlebars and fiddling with the strap.

“First day,” he considers offering his hand to shake, but settles on a small wave instead. “I’m Blaine.”

“Well, Blaine. I deeply apologise for whatever it was that brought you to this hell hole,” Blaine knows he doesn’t know, but he can’t help the way his jaw hardens a little in response. “I’m Kurt.”

Blaine shifts from foot to foot and weakly jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Should I learn to get used to that, then?”

Kurt wrinkles his nose. “Maybe just try not to expect anything better. The falls hurt less that way. Sorry.”

Blaine blinks. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” there’s something dark in the set of his face, dispersing just as quickly with a jagged smirk. “Don’t worry. I know which piece of shit cars are theirs. They’ll go to leave tomorrow afternoon and some unlucky mechanic somewhere'll be faced with the mystery of not one, but two missing batteries. What a shocking and strange coincidence.”

The laugh tears up Blaine’s throat, stinging with the force of it. “You can do that?”

“See?” Kurt grins, tugging his helmet on over his neat hair. “No one will ever suspect little old me.”

Blaine smiles back, can’t hold it in, and only just stops himself from blurting if you don’t give me your phone number I’ll die, because rejection’s a bitch and Kurt is the first student who’s gone out of their way to speak to him all day, and he doesn’t need a beautiful, spiky teenage boy in steel cap boots to switch from looking at him like he’s amusing to looking at him like he’s a joke two minutes after meeting him.

Instead he says, “Thank you.”

Kurt swings his leg over the seat of his bike, oh god, his thighs, they make him lightheaded, and settles back. “I’d have probably done it anyway. Fun to see the looks on their faces when anyone dares to fuck with them in return.”

Blaine laughs again, feeling infinitely stronger than he did five minutes ago, and takes a startled step back when Kurt knocks the bike off its stand the jerks it to life with a harsh snarl.

He takes a deep breath, warm exhaust fumes metallic on his tongue, and shouts over the roar. “Where do you sit at lunch time?”

Kurt raises a quizzical eyebrow, eyes narrowed. “Wherever they aren’t.”

Blaine’s hands tighten around his bag, sharp leather cutting into his palms, and apparently this boy makes him brave. “I’ll come find you.”

Kurt’s teeth scrape off his bottom lip, and in the second before he flicks his visor down, he yells. “Right. See you ‘round Blaine.”

The bike purrs and growls and pulls away, picking up speed with a scream, and holy shit his ass.

Blaine stays rooted to the spot for a moment, heart beating insistently in his chest, and exhales. Maybe he doesn’t make him brave. Maybe he just makes him stupid.