Hey guys! Sorry this installment came out so late, but it's DEATHLY HALLOWS week! I went to the midnight premiere and left half a chapter, and without me Beca was all "teehee there's no one to make sure I work". But I came back from my busy week today and forced her to sit down and we eventually completed this chapter. Thanks for bearing with us!

The song used in this chapter is From Heads Unworthy by Rise Against.

We love you all, and your reviews!

And for those who asked, our Tumblrs are as follow:

Kiers: Kiersthehalf-applejuiceprince

Beca: Klates

Love,

Beca & Kiers

Kurt tugged his hand out of Blaine's grasp just as they reached the basement, and Blaine winked at him over his shoulder just before knocking the door open. At first Kurt was confused to descend into utter darkness, but then the lights came on in a sudden blinding flash that covered his vision in spots momentarily and his ears were blasted with an opening guitar rift. Fuzzily, he watched as Blaine leapt off the last three steps and turn around to face him, mouth opening as the first words of the song were released.

"We are the children you reject and disregard.

These aching cries come from the bottom of our hearts."

His voice was low and gravelly, but Kurt could tell he had a wide singing range. Blaine's hands went up to grasp his chest over his blazer, right where his heart should be.

"You can't disown us now, we are your own flesh and blood

And we don't disappear just because your eyes are shut, now tell me."

As Kurt finished walking down the stairs Blaine spun on the spot, nodding at him. The other boys voices began to add beat, the guitar leading. They performed in a perfect capella, harmonizing so brilliantly with Blaine that it was as if they were instruments themselves.

"Love, loss like a bullets path

Tear through the cavity of my chest

Lights out because the fuse has blown."

Blaine was utilizing the entirety of the storage basement, spinning and dancing, looking right at Kurt as he sang, his light hazel eyes dark with meaning. Kurt knew the song, and it wasn't really his style. But he understood right now what it meant, how it represented this group and Dalton. How each one of them was tossed in here to forget about, how each of them had not been deemed worthy enough, and how now they were rightfully claiming their crowns. For the next verse, he climbed up onto a desk and threw his arms into the air.

"As their castles crumble slowly

We watch them fall

The crown slips from heads unworthy

As we gain control."

Miming pulling a crown down from his head, Blaine squatted on the desk, reaching hands out to the fellow Warblers, and they all reached back simultaneously. The harmonies continued flawlessly.

"This is the family that we crossed or never had

This is a war that was lost the day that it began."

Now Blaine leapt from the desk, running across the basement from Nick and then to Jeff, stopping and turning when he reached each end until he was at the middle once more, looking pained as he was left alone. His eyes beseeched Kurt.

"Because it's the race we run, but it keeps us at the start

And it's the song I sung from the bottom of heart, that's how we

Read you like a polygraph!"

Blaine stepped forward to Kurt as he pointed at him momentarily, slowly, each word another pace until they were chest to chest. He shoved him once and Kurt stumbled, falling onto the bottom step as the shorter boy got right up into his face.

"Not one single bone in your back

Own up to how you let us down!"

And then he took a step back, left Kurt sitting there breathing heavily and just sitting in amazement at the purity of all their voices. Blaine slowly removed his blazer, glancing to the left as he did so, almost as if into the distance.

"As their castles crumble slowly

We watch them fall

The crown slips from heads unworthy

As we gain control..."

Blaine spread his arms out wide, singing right at Kurt as he got up, starting to get annoyed at himself for being so obviously in awe of their performance. Kurt began to walk toward Blaine as he climbed up onto another desk on the far right, leaning lower to stay eye to eye with Kurt.

"Except for you and me, love

Everyone is the same, we know, we know, we know, we know

But if to live we have to be numb

I'd rather know the pain, I'd rather know, I'd rather know!"

It was then that Kurt finally smiled; almost seductively as he jerked his hips in one gyrating movement and leaned so that he and Blaine's noses were almost touching. He stole the words out of the other boy's mouth as his countertenor took over, and they exchanged lyrics like a conversation.

"This happens almost never but it happened once to me

And this will never be the same,

the ends we seem together

I'm not after fame and fortune

I'm after you...

When I've served my time I swear I

will come back for you..."

Their voices intertwined almost perfectly, and the Warblers let their own fall to the background seamlessly. Kurt and Blaine were still eye to eye, each smiling darkly, proving to each other something ... something not even they yet fully understood. Combining their tones once more, they completed the final chorus in unison.

"As their castles crumble slowly

We watch them fall

The crown slips from heads unworthy

Right on to ours, but I'm after you, but I'm after you

But I'm after you, but I'm after you."

A moment of silence followed the last trailing word, and as that syllable vanished off into the distance where they could no longer hear it, a Warbler coughed. Turning, Kurt saw it was Jeff and he cocked an eyebrow. "Yes?"

He looked nervous as he stepped forward, wiping his blonde bangs out of his eyes repeatedly as he spoke, eyes darting first right than left. "Why are you two up in each others grills like that? I mean, neither of you invited each other to a barbecue." There was a long awkward pause where Kurt's jaw dropped, and then the entire room of boys was cracking up. They seemed to find his ludicrous statement hysterical. Blaine jumped down off the desk, reaching out to fix Kurt's tie and straighten the lapel of his blazer.

"Good job new kid, you've got a voice." He patted his cheek and Kurt pulled back glaring. "Welcome to the Warblers!"

"That was a bit risky," Nick, leaning around a shelf as Wes also approached.

"Yeah, you didn't even know he could sing, and you basically told him everything about us." There was a light pause as the two boys gave their friend a meaningful look.

Nick picked up a book and flipped through the pages without even glancing at the words. "Blaine, at least next time you think a guy's cute give us a little warning. That 'show' could have become a disaster."

"I'm really fucking hungry," Jeff tossed in from where he sat beside Blaine, dark honey eyes pleading.

"I can't believe you made us help you with that, why couldn't we have asked normally," David added, completely ignoring Jeff's little interjection, even as he raised his hand up.

"Seriously though guys, I'm starving."

"Shut up, Jeff," Nick tossed to him, rolling his eyes at Wes, who shook his head knowingly in return.

"Hey, I just wanna know when we're going to eat," Jeff replied with a shrug. "I mean, that already happened. Can't we focus on the current future, such as LUNCH?"

"Blaine, look," Wes said, brushing his hair out of his eyes and leaning onto the table. "It's great you have a little crush or whatever on the new kid. It's this rival kink, I get it. But can you at least choreograph your life in a way that doesn't force us to perform on a moments notice?"

Blaine sighed heavily and put down his book. The frantic whispered discussion was starting to attract attention; perhaps the library was not the most suitable of locations for a Warbler argument. He, Jeff, Nick, David and Wes were huddled around a table towards the back of the room, hidden partly from view by rows of books and an ancient computer, but still visible enough to be in the eye line of the librarian at the front desk. She frowned at them briefly over her glasses. Blaine had been trying to ignore the conversation but he finally looked up and addressed the cluster of faces before him.

"Okay, fine. He's intoxicating," Blaine told his friends openly, shrugging at the admission. "But I have no idea what to do about it. He's slippery. I've only known him a day and a half and every time I think I understand him he goes and does something I don't expect. Like that singing along... thing." Throwing his hands into the air, Blaine let out a sigh before turning to the boy beside him, saying sharply, "And Jeff, if you're so damn hungry just go to lunch already. We'll meet you there."

Smiling gratefully, Jeff quickly grabbed his bag and all but ran from the room, the librarian tutting disapprovingly at him in his wake. Blaine looked at his friends. They didn't exactly look at ease.

"Guys, show some spontaneity. I don't just show any random boy into our secret base; besides, try and tell me you didn't have fun this morning," Blaine said. "We were totally badass." He felt that every conversation with the Warblers these days was just him trying to convince them of something . . . That he started a fire. That they should help him serenade a stranger. That he's not an idiot. That Kurt is worth being an idiot for, if just for the chance to get into his head for a while. No matter what Blaine did, no matter how far he went Kurt always managed to look superior. "I'm not stupid."

"Are you sure, Blaine?" Wes argued. "I think that lately things have been getting to you, that leading things is just stressful. It's messing with your head."

The challenge hung in the air, thick enough to suffocate them.

"Are you implying that someone else should take over," Blaine demanded coldly, standing up. "Are you volunteering, Wes?" The other boy started to look nervous. "This isn't about me. Or you. It's about all of us. And Kurt. We need him on our side; he can sing, he's got a strong head on his shoulders, and now we need his alliance before he takes over the school and suddenly decides we should be outted and expelled!" There was silence as people looked to Wes for his response, but at that moment, Jeff reappeared from around the bookshelves looking decidedly out of breath and at a loss for words.

"Kurt!" He spluttered, cryptically. The group stared at him as if he'd lost his mind except for Wes, who merely looked relieved at the distraction.

"He's coming here. He's like, thirty seconds away from barging in!" Jeff eventually managed to spit out. "He asked me where Blaine was and I took a shortcut back here!" Immediately the boys began shoving away their sheet music and books and attempted to arrange their expressions to something more casual. With not a second to spare, Kurt rounded the corner with a congenial smile.

"Afternoon, boys," he drawled, flicking a wrist in a polite wave, quickly assessing their too-natural faces and uncomfortable positions around the table. The boys gulped, and then he knew. "You look like you've been having fun."

"Hello, Kurt." they mumbled over each other, sounding much like a humbled class addressing a teacher after they've been caught being disrespectful. Kurt regarded them with narrow eyes and a tight lipped smile.

". . . Yes. Right. Well I do hope you don't mind?" he said with one eyebrow raised, and without waiting for an answer he pulled up a chair. Unearthing some school work, he began to jot down a few things before looking up and finding the others still nervously adopting the same awkward stances, none of them daring to look at each other let alone Kurt. The silence was palpable and Kurt cleared his throat loudly, staring at all of them as they averted his gaze. The answer to their odd behavior was easily reached, and he'd already come to it.

"You were talking about me." It wasn't a question and the boys knew it. Wes shifted guiltily in his seat, glancing at David and Nick as Kurt smiled smugly. "That's okay boys, it's hard not to."

"Erm, your voice," David said awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. "It's pretty good." Kurt put his chin in his hand and tilted his head, winking.

"I know." With a loud snap, Blaine finally closed the history book in front of him and shoved it into Jeff's arms.

"Kurt, can we talk?" Kurt looked momentarily taken aback, but quickly composed himself.

"Of course," he responded lightly, putting his pen down on top of his notebook and standing up, brushing off his blazer. "Where to?" With a slight jerk of his head, Blaine directed Kurt toward the exit, and Kurt complied. Kurt knew what was coming, he was used to it. His personality was a little more than sharp, and was probably too poignant. He had to give props to Blaine for his excellent swipe of his pawn, but once again Kurt had topped him easily, because that was what Kurt was born to do. Obviously Blaine had figured this out, and obviously Blaine had decided that maybe him joining the Warblers wasn't the best thing, as he had a tendency to. . . be better than everyone else at everything.

As they entered the hall, Blaine turned toward Kurt and looked him right in the eye. His heart was pounding and he couldn't explain it. He hadn't been lying when he'd told his fellow Warblers that he found Kurt intoxicating. He was almost like a drug, one that made you feel so mighty and strong while you were on it, and then after nothing lived up to your expectations. He'd found that within the few short meetings they'd had, life was bleak after Kurt.

"Well, it seems to me the Warblers have been working hard for a very long time, and they deserve some time to shine," Blaine said quietly, not moving his eyes from where they were sunken deep into Kurt's gaze. "And I've got a plan. I was thinking you could help me with it."