AN: Based on this prompt at glee_fluff: "Since Artie's on the football team now, he must overhear the jocks talking in the locker room- they'd probably forget about him being there, or just not think about him listening. Which means that Artie gets to hear the stuff they plot to do to the losers in the school, particularly Kurt. They plan some pretty awful things, and so Artie does him best to stop it when he can, or comfort Kurt when he can't. Feel free to do it as a five-and-one, just want Artie being a BAMF and all protective of Kurt."

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.

Artie heaved a sigh as he lifted his shoulder pads over his head and set them on the floor of the locker room. Some of the guys had been goofing off during practice, which resulted in Coach Beiste keeping them after for a good half an hour extra. All he wanted to do was take a nice, long, cool shower and go home.

As he was pulling his clean clothes out of his locker, he couldn't help but listen in on some of the jocks clustered at the lockers behind him. They had been discussing the possibility of sneaking a video camera into the Cheerios locker room, so Artie had tuned them out at first. However, after years of hard experience, he started listening when they mentioned slushies. Even though he was on the team now, it didn't stop them from occasionally tossing one at him.

"I'm totally gonna nail that Ben Israel kid," he heard one of the bigger ones boast to his friend. "He wrote in his blog that I'm on steroids. Kid's got it coming." His friends laughed and added a couple of insults at Jacob. Artie just rolled his eyes and shook his head. He couldn't stand Jacob either, but that didn't mean he was going to slushy the kid.

"Speaking of dweebs, it's been a while since Hummel's gotten a good dumpster tossing," one of them said. "Puckerman's stopped now that he's in Homo Explosion, so I think we need to make sure Hummel doesn't forget where he belongs at this school."

At this, Artie stiffened. He chanced a glance over his shoulder at the jocks behind him. They had apparently forgotten that he was sitting right there, and that he was friends with Kurt. Instead of calling them out on it, he quickly got cleaned up and changed and left the locker room in pursuit of Kurt.

He eventually found Kurt standing by his locker, talking with Mercedes. He made his way over to them, glancing around to make sure that none of the jocks were already on the prowl for Kurt. Mercedes waved at him as he approached.

"Have fun at football?" she asked.

"Yeah, time of my life," he answered sardonically. "Hey," he said turning to Kurt. "Just a warning; the jocks are planning a dumpster tossing." Kurt sighed in exasperation.

"Damn it," he muttered. "I was hoping those were done since Puck stopped. I guess not."

"How did you know?" Mercedes inquired.

"They were talking about it in the locker room," Artie replied. "Apparently I'm either invisible or not friends with Kurt."

"Well thanks for the warning," said Kurt. "But what am I supposed to do know? The only way to get to my truck is past the dumpsters and they're probably waiting there to ambush me right now."

"I have an idea actually," Artie said, motioning for the other two to follow him.

They ended up going out the side way where the only wheelchair accessible ramp was; the way that Artie used every day. There was a path behind the kitchen that led back to the parking lot where Kurt could get to his car without having to pass by the dumpsters. He offered to give both Artie and Mercedes a ride home so that they wouldn't have to go to the front of the school to wait for their parents and risk getting tossed in the dumpster in his place.

The next week, Artie was bent over attempting to untie his shoelace when he heard the same jocks start up a conversation right behind him again.

"Yeah, Azimio said that he's got a whole roll of duct tape. Stole it from the AV club or something. He and Karofsky are gonna tape Hummel to the flagpole. And they're gonna tape it and put it on YouTube." The jocks guffawed loudly and a couple exchanged high fives. Artie glared at the floor, not daring to let the jocks know he was listening in again. He was really sick of Karofsky and Azimio doing whatever they wanted and never getting in trouble for it.

This time, Artie happened to find Kurt as he was coming out of the bathroom, heading for the front doors. Since it had been a week and he hadn't showed up in front of the dumpsters, the jocks had given up on tossing him in.

"Kurt, wait up," Artie called out as he attempted to catch up with the other boy.

"Why hello Arthur, to what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked as Artie made his way over to Kurt. Artie rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored the use of his full name.

"Karofsky and Azimio are planning to duct tape you to the flagpole," Artie said without preamble. Kurt raised an eyebrow at this and said,

"Well at least they're getting creative now."

"Not really," Artie replied. "Puck did that to me freshman year. They're just copying all of his ideas."

Kurt opened his mouth to reply, but paused when they heard two very familiar and unpleasant voices floating down the hallway. Artie glanced around before zeroing in on an empty classroom.

"Quick, in here," he said, pulling on Kurt's sleeve trying to herd him towards the door. The boys darted into the classroom, peeking out the door as they watched the bullies head past, the aforementioned duct tape in Azimio's hand. Once they were well past, the boys felt it was safe to venture out of the classroom and back into the hallway.

"Well, thank you very much for the warning," Kurt said, glancing gratefully at Artie. "That could have been very unpleasant."

"Trust me, it is," Artie replied as they headed towards the now-deemed safe exit.

Artie was starting to think that he was honestly and truly invisible. It wasn't a secret at all that he was in Glee club and he was obviously close friends with Kurt. However, the members of the football team had either all been hit in the head during games too many times or just didn't care. For some reason, they kept talking about what they were planning to do to Kurt right in front of him. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that they purposely said this stuff in front of him so that he would attempt to put a stop to it.

Two of them – he honestly didn't remember anyone's name, they were all pretty much the same – headed out together in pursuit of Kurt. They had been previously discussing shoving a freshman into a garbage can when one of them suggested giving Kurt a swirly. A couple of minutes of debate occurred before two volunteered to go out and look for him.

Artie glanced around the locker room in desperation. There was no way he would be able to catch up to and pass them to try and find Kurt and warn him in time. Sam was in the showers, Puck was being yelled at by Beiste in her office for something, and Finn was currently stuck with his shirt twisted around his arms and no immediate way of escaping it. Artie reached into his locker and fumbled with his pants, attempting to extract his phone from the pocket.

He quickly punched out a text to Kurt, hoping that he had his phone nearby. While waiting for a response, he changed into his regular clothes and ran a comb through his hair. A few minutes later, a buzzing noise from his phone alerted him of an incoming text. Thankfully it was from Kurt and it read,

Thanks for the warning. The idiots got Jewfro instead of me. Debating whether or not to toss him a towel while "accidentally" knocking his stupid recorder in the toilet.

Artie had to chuckle at the response and felt relieved that Kurt had escaped the unpleasant experience of having one's head stuffed down a toilet. He placed his phone back in his locker and headed over to help Finn get untangled from his shirt before he hurt himself or someone else.

Puck had obviously left a legacy in the year and couple of months that he had tortured every unpopular kid at McKinley because the jocks just kept copying everything he had done. They apparently thought that they were very clever, coming up with all these creative ways to make the lives miserable of their targets. However, Artie had experienced enough torture at the hands of the Mohawked jock to know that they were just rehashing everything he had ever done. If anything at all, he did have to admire their determination. Unbeknownst to them, he had foiled all their plans so far to torture Kurt, and he was getting quite good at it.

This time though, he wasn't quite sure how to stop it. The first time maybe, but it was something they could come back to and do later.

Somehow – and he suspected that some blackmailing of a computer nerd was involved – they had hacked into the school files and found out what Kurt's locker number and combination was. They were planning on pouring maple syrup and other messy substances all over Kurt's belongings inside his locker.

He knew he could warn Kurt, but he couldn't keep his locker vacant for the rest of the year. And if he went to the principal, the jocks would figure out that Artie had squealed on them to Kurt and that wouldn't be good for him or for Kurt.

Artie sat in the locker room after almost everyone else had left, pondering over what to do. He was about to leave when something caught his eye. One of the jocks had left his backpack in the locker room, sitting on the floor. A glimmer of an idea started working its way into Artie's brain, and without giving it a second thought, he picked the bag up and headed out the door.

The next day during lunch, he told Kurt what he had overheard. The other boy just sighed and sat back in his seat.

"This is just getting really annoying, you know? What did I ever do to them?"

"You weren't a meat headed jock, that's what," Mercedes chimed in from across the table.

"I have an idea though," Artie began.

"Do I want to know?" Kurt asked, rubbing his temples.

"Oh trust me, this is gonna be great," Artie replied, smiling mischievously.

Later that day, Artie, Kurt, and Mercedes found themselves hiding in the same classroom that the boys had previously used to avoid Karofsky and Azimio. All of Kurt's belongings were piled on one of the desks, and the three were carefully poking their heads out the door to watch the action that was about to unfold before them.

The jocks approached the lockers, one looking around clearly watching out for teachers. A different one carefully twirled away at the lock and succeeded in opening the locker. With a look of vindictive pleasure on his face, he upended the syrup bottle in his hand over the contents in the locker. The three in the classroom had to stifle giggles at the scene. The third jock that had been gazing in the opposite direction glanced into the locker to see what his friend was doing. An expression of utter horror crossed his face as he realized what was inside the locker.

"Stop it right now!" He shouted at his friend, jerking his hand holding the bottle out of the locker.

"What are you doing?" his friend shouted back.

"That's my stuff in the locker!" he wailed, looking at his ruined books and backpack.

"What the hell are you talking about?" his friend demanded, looking confused.

"You got the wrong locker obviously," he yelled. "And now my stuff is covered in this crap. Ah man this blows."

The three ducked back into the classroom, attempting to not laugh out loud.

"Okay, that was worth it, just seeing the look on his face," Mercedes said between giggles.

"I agree," Kurt snorted. "Even though I'm going to be stuck cleaning that crap out of my locker now."

"At least it's not over your stuff," Mercedes reasoned.

"True, true," Kurt mused. "I'm just glad they didn't think to cover it in feathers or something. That would have been very difficult to get out."

"That would require them coming up with something on their own, and not copying Puck," Artie spoke up. "They seem to be mirroring his ideas."

"Yes, because we need more Pucks in the world," Kurt said shaking his head. "That's a scary thought."

By this point, Artie was just a little more than fed up with the jocks at the school. They spent more time trying to think up things to do to innocent kids than they did remembering simple plays for the football games. Beiste made them stay after again because they kept forgetting where they were supposed to go on the field. Afterwards, instead of actually trying to memorize the plays, they started talking about ways to bug Kurt again. He seemed to be their main target, mostly because he acted like it didn't bother him. They were trying their hardest to just get a reaction out of him which would probably never come.

He ended up dressing at top speed and hauling butt out of the locker room, ignoring Finn calling after him, asking what the big hurry was. The stunt they were planning this time would actually hurt pretty bad if they pulled it off. He spotted Kurt in the hall ahead of him, with the jocks getting in their positions to pull the prank.

Pushing as fast as he could without plowing anyone over, Artie managed to catch up pretty close to Kurt. He saw one of the jocks heading straight for Kurt while his friend closed in behind him. The one from behind was going to crouch down and the one in front was going to give Kurt a good shove. He would end up falling backwards and trip over the guy behind him. Needless to say, the resulting fall would be quite painful.

Using a technique that took him quite some time to master, Artie managed to get ahead of the guy behind Kurt and quickly turned so he was directly in front of Kurt. The other boy stopped in surprise, almost falling over Artie in the process.

"Hey Kurt, I was wondering if you could help me with an English assignment. I've been having some issues with it and you're pretty good with the Shakespeare stuff, right?"

"Um, sure I guess I could help you," Kurt replied, looking confused but allowing himself to be led over to Artie's locker slightly down the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Artie could see the jocks grimacing in disappointment, but they didn't attempt to do anything else. Kurt was babbling on about something about poetic language, completely oblivious to what had almost just happened.

Apparently the jocks weren't quite as dumb as Artie had perceived them to be, because after he saved Kurt from the nasty fall that could have happened, the jocks stopped talking about what they were going to do. At first, Artie naïvely believed that they had finally given up on trying to pick on Kurt. However, a week later they were talking about slushying him when they saw him in the halls next. Artie sent another text to Kurt, letting him know what the jocks were planning, and told him to avoid the science hallway.

To his shock, when he made his way down the English hallway a little while later, he found Kurt standing stock still in the middle of the hall, covered in bright red juice, the jocks heading in the opposite direction, laughing and jeering at the boy. Artie rolled up to him and grabbed his arm, leading him toward the bathroom.

Once there, Kurt started in on his standard slushy removing routine. Artie fished his slushy towel out of his backpack and handed it to Kurt who accepted it gratefully.

"Can you –" Kurt gestured at the top of his head, which was covered with half melted ice and corn syrup.

"Yeah sure, no problem," Artie replied. "Lean over so I can reach." Kurt obliged and Artie started gently washing the sugary drink out of his hair. After a few minutes, he managed to get the worst of it out and Kurt commenced to attempting to dry his hair.

"Sorry about the bad tip," Artie started out, watching Kurt towel-dry his hair. "They must have caught on that I was listening in on their conversations."

"That's quite all right," Kurt replied, looking at Artie. "The fact being that you were able to help me so many other times speaks for itself. Besides, I'm used to this and slushy facials aren't anywhere near as bad as the other things they were planning to do."

"Yeah, well I still feel partially responsible for this," Artie mumbled.

"Don't," Kurt replied sharply. Artie looked up in surprise. "Seriously Artie, I would much prefer a slushy to the face than any of that other stuff any day. You've made my life a lot easier just by letting me know. I haven't really said this, but I'm really grateful for what you've done. I know it's a risk for you, jeopardizing your spot on the football team and all, so…thanks."

Artie looked at him in surprise before smiling and replying,

"You're welcome."

I know, I know, I should be working on 'Learning to Breathe,' - and I am - but Artie/Kurt friendship fic prompts are so addictive. Some of these are pretty short, but let me know what you think. Feedback is much appreciated.