Okay, so, this is pretty much irrelevant to everything I'm working on at the moment, but the idea was just FIGHTING to get out.

So I wrote it. Based off Muchacha11 (of Tumblr)'s drawing under the same name. Enjoy!

It was only a few days into sophomore year when it appeared. Kurt had just been slushied in the face, knocked to the ground by those gorillas on the football team, completely ruining his new Alexander McQueen sweater. After wiping the tear-and-red-dye-number-seven mixture from his face, he pulled the sopping sleeve down from his hand and saw it: the string.

He pulled at it experimentally: nothing. He tugged and tugged, but the string wouldn't come loose. He tried to cut it, rip it, tried everything to get it off, but nothing worked. He asked his Dad's advice, but when he offered up the offending wrist to his father, his eyes roved all over the pale porcelain skin, seeing nothing.

At first, it was only a line around Kurt's wrist, like a bracelet, but soon it started to grow, dangling off of his arm, eventually reaching the ground, snaking off to who knew where. He tried more than once to follow it, the red string, but the way it twisted and serpentined all over the place was impossible to keep up with. No one else seemed to notice it, so all he could do was learn to live with it. It wasn't a difficult thing to do; it never tangled or got stuck around chairs or doors. It followed him everywhere, never snagged, and never went away.

Every so often, he would feel a tug on the string, as if someone had suddenly caught sight of it and pulled with all their might, other times it was nothing more than a faint pull, like maybe someone was twirling it between their fingers like he so often found himself doing.

He resigned himself to the fact that he would always have this string, whatever it was, he would just have to deal. No one saw it now, and hopefully they never would.

It was unseasonably cold, that night in April. Blaine tugged his suit jacket tighter around himself, smiling shyly at the boy next to him, his date. The boy smiled back, inching closer, his hand reaching out.

Blaine looked around nervously. They weren't the only ones waiting out on the curb for their parents, but the few other couples still around were down the sidewalk a considerable way, fully engaged in talking and laughing with each other, paying no mind to the two boys on the corner. Blaine took it.

"I really had fun tonight," the boy said with a smile. "Thanks for asking me."

Blaine smiled back. "Me too," he said. Then, in his head, he added, But it's not like I had anyone else to take.

That wasn't completely fair, though; Blaine genuinely liked this boy. He was cute, with soft honey-blonde hair and the brightest green eyes Blaine had ever seen. He didn't really like the same things as Blaine, but he was sweet, and kind, and most importantly, he was gay.

Just like Blaine.

Blaine was just thinking about what he would do if maybe the boy kissed him right now (he decided he probably wouldn't mind that much; even if they weren't in love or anything, Blaine figured it was probably best to get a bit of practice in before he got a real boyfriend), there was a noise in the bushes behind them. The boys turned inwardly, their clasped hands in plain sight, as three boys Blaine recognized from the football team moved into the lamplight.

Blaine threw a glance to the other kids down the path as he let their hands break apart.

"Hi, boys," the boy said calmly. But inside, Blaine knew he was just as scared as Blaine was.

"Hiya, homos," the middle guy said. Blaine thought his name was Anthony, and maybe the others were Joseph and Alex. "Enjoy the dance?"

"Yes we did," the boy said cooly. "Thank you for asking. How did you three like it?"

"It was great, but I need a shower now," Joseph said, eyes narrowed. Blaine made a face, because what kind of answer was that? "What with you two filthy fags stinking the place up."

Oh.

Anthony took a step forward, cracking his knuckles. "We figure it was pretty rude of you gays to bring each other to this dance," he said. Blaine tried to pretend 'gays' instead of 'guys' was a slip of the tongue.

"Yeah," Joseph added. "Who do you think you are?"

"Look," the boy said. "Just leave us alone. We don't want to start anyth-"

"It's a little late for that," Alex said.

"And now you have to pay," Anthony growled, pulling his fist back.

Blaine flinched.

When he opened his eyes, body aching and only able to see through a slit in both eyes, the football players were gone. Blaine propped himself up on one hand, his tongue flicking out to taste blood, heavy on his lips. He groaned as he touched the back of his head; that was bleeding too.

"I'm sorry," someone was saying. It was the boy. "I'm so, so sorry, Blaine."

"No...don't be..." Blaine said thickly, trying to piece together what had happened.

"I'm so sorry," the boy whispered, backing away.

He was gone.

"Oh," Blaine said to himself. He glanced down at his hands.

A red string was around his wrist.

Thirty seconds into junior year, Kurt Hummel was already being harassed. Almost immediately after stepping through the doors of that tuna-and-eraser scented hell hole, he was ambushed by Jacob Ben Israel, microphone poised and an extensive list of moderately offensive anonymous questions/comments ready to be fired off the moment Kurt made eye contact. Which he was trying very, very hard to avoid, but the way Jacob was jumping and ducking around made it difficult.

Once he managed to lose Jacob in the hustle and bustle of the first-day crowd, Azimio and Karofsky came quite literally out of nowhere and shoved him into a locker. His face burning bright red against the cold, unforgiving metal of the locker, he felt his heart sink with dread at the thought of another year like this.

As he peeled himself off the lockers, he heard a familiar grating voice behind him. Jacob Ben Israel was back, and his determination had increased one hundred-fold.

He chased Kurt through a maze of hallways, finally cornering him in front of the boys bathroom.

Fed up, Kurt whirled around, spouting off a monologue about anonymous internet cowards, when suddenly-

Slushied.

Humiliated, Kurt ducked into the bathroom behind him, frantically swiping the slush away from his eyes.

"Ow, ow, ow," he hissed, splashing water from the sink on his face. But his eyes weren't the only things burning...he looked down at his hand, where the now familiar string stood out stark against his alabaster skin. As he stared, it twitched, ever so slightly at first, but then he felt a distinct tug, harder than ever before.

He felt it again, and it almost pulled him off of his feet-he allowed himself to be pulled to the door, back into the hallway, where the tugging stopped.

"Weird," he said, and headed back into the bathroom.

Dalton Academy was a perfect place, Blaine Anderson was almost certain of it. It had everything: classes that were actually educating, a kick-ass glee club, private dorms, complimentary tea and coffee trays...and boys.

While none of the boys he had met so far had actually proclaimed their homosexuality (bummer), they were at least nice to look at.

And most of all, they were nice. And welcoming. And they didn't care that he was gay! Not one bit!

And they genuinely liked him. Not just because he could sing. Because he was himself. He could tell, because they laughed and joked and talked with him, and invited him places, like the movies or coffee or lunch, and they weren't afraid of him hitting on them. Which he wouldn't do (he knew his boundaries, after all), but still. It was nice to not be surrounded by hate and fear and prejudice for once.

It also gave him a place to start over; a safe place where he could forget the boy (who, by the way, had never returned), a place where he could forget that night and all of those horrible people he had left behind.

As Blaine sat in the library one night, he found his thoughts sliding away from the history of the assembly line in front of him to...boys. It was hard not to think about boys when he was surrounded by them.

He would like a boyfriend, he thought. He thought maybe what had happened after the dance so many months ago would have made him scared, but in a place like Dalton, where no one actually cared that he was different, he thought it would be nice. He played with the red string on his arm while he thought.

And that was another thing, this mysterious red string. It had appeared after...that night, and it's tail had grown longer and longer, eventually stretching out of sight. No one had asked him about it, so either they couldn't see it, or they found it completely normal for someone to have a trailing red string around their wrist all the time.

He sighed, turning back to his studying, when suddenly...the string gave an almighty tug, jerking him out of his seat and onto the floor. He pulled himself upright, only to see several other students looking at him from other tables or over the tops of books.

"Sorry," he said, blushing. "I um...fell asleep..." he said, quickly gathering his things and running out.

Things were getting hard to handle. Kurt felt like it just kept coming, never pausing, never letting up. It was one thing after another, and he was nearing the breaking point.

And the worst part was, no one even cared.

Well, his father did, of course, but he was sick and didn't need to be bothered with silly high school problems.

And there was Mercedes, too, and the rest of Glee club, but...with Sectionals coming up, they had a lot to worry about already.

So Kurt dealt with it on his own.

He tried to, anyway, but when Karofsky kissed him the locker room...it was too much.

Kurt was horrified; he'd had his first kiss (his first real one, anyway) stolen from him. By...Karofsky. One of the lumbering idiots who'd made it his mission to make his life a living hell for something he couldn't control.

So when Puck (jokingly) told him to go spy on the Warblers, giving him a chance to get away, just for a little while...he jumped at the chance.

He had to admit it, Blaine was getting kind of bored at Dalton.

He loved the Warblers, of course, they were his friends. But none of them were best friends. They liked some of the same things, but they all had their own little groups in the club. They weren't clique-y by any means, but it was hard for Blaine to try to fit in as easily as the others did.

The end-of-class bell rang, putting an end to Blaine's reverie. He heaved a sigh, standing up and leaving the classroom.

"Hey, Blaine!" someone called. It was Wes, a fellow Warbler. "We're having an impromptu show in the common, okay? Teenage Dream."

Blaine grinned. "Of course! See you there!" He instantly felt better; as tacky as it was, Blaine loved that song.

Dalton Academy was...impressive.

And perfect, Kurt thought. Everything he wanted, everything he needed. It was like he'd come home or something; and the string seemed to think so too. Ever since he'd pulled onto the campus, it had been pulling against his hand like an impatient puppy on a leash. It lead him upstairs, past classrooms where dozens of boys were working diligently, heads bent and hands flying across papers or laptop keyboards.

Suddenly, a bell rang, and students began spilling into the corridor, heading back downstairs.

Kurt allowed himself to be swept away by the herd.

Unwittingly, the two boys headed down the same staircase. Kurt, moving slowly, marveling at the breathtaking architecture and the buzz of excited energy, and Blaine, moving quickly so as to get to the commons before everyone else.

But the movement was slightly overwhelming. Kurt reached out a hand, tapping the first boy he could reach.

"Excuse me, um, hi, can I ask you something? I'm new here," Kurt said.

As Blaine jogged down the marble steps, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Someone with a pleasantly musical voice was speaking...he turned around, happy to help.

Simultaneously, both boys felt a tug on their wrists. They looked down, the twin strings tugging forwards. The strings, which had been stretching out for so long, had shrunk; clearly they were reaching the end. The string pulled taught; wherever the other end was tethered was extremely close by.

Kurt looked up. He felt his jaw drop. He was gorgeous.

Blaine brought his eyes up to meet the gaze of the boy who had spoken. He felt his heart stop. He was perfect.

As their eyes met, the strings fell away.

Oh, there you are.

Okay, so that was it! Please leave a comment (here or on Tumblr) telling me what you thought (even if you hated it).

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Oh, and while you're there, pay Jackie a visit :]

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