A/N: Just a quickie little fic I thought of. Hope you like it. Blaine's a little more vulnerable in this one than we usually see him.

xXxXxXx

Blaine strode down the halls of McKinley High School, anxious to find his boyfriend's locker and get a good morning kiss. He had been very anxious about his transfer to McKinley. After all, the boy who had made Kurt's life so miserable last school year was still in attendance. Kurt had sworn that Karofsky's attitude had improved some, but he was still wary. However, when Blaine's parents had broken the news that they could no longer afford Dalton and he would have to attend public school again, there was no choice, in his mind, other than McKinley.

A large African American boy in a football jersey and letterman's jacket with a to-go cup in his hand approached Blaine. He had a smirk on his face that Blaine immediately recognized as an "I'm about to be an asshole to you and enjoy doing it" expression.

"Welcome to McKinley, hobbit!" he shouted, and he tossed the contents of the cup at Blaine. The contents of the jumbo cup rained down on him, and he found himself covered with bright red, cherry flavored ice chunks.

Several other jocks came up behind the boy, who Blaine learned was called Azimio, and congratulated him on the direct hit. Dripping, Blaine spun on his heels and stomped the opposite direction without a word.

He had had to take a roundabout route to Kurt's locker to avoid having to penetrate the wall of football players in his way, but eventually, he arrived to where, thankfully, his boyfriend was gathering his books for his first class.

Mercedes and Tina were there as well. Kurt was speaking to them, complete with exaggerated hand gestures, about Rachel's current crime against fashion. "I TOLD her the animal sweaters had to stop, but today's vermin du jour was a MOUSE. Dear god, a MOUSE sweater. And not even a cute mouse, a realistic mouse. I mean, what the HELL?"

Mercedes subtly pointed behind Kurt, and he turned quickly to see Blaine standing behind him, covered in slushie.

"Oh honey!"

"It seems I have been officially 'welcomed' to McKinley," Blaine explained sheepishly.

"I guess so! Come on girls, help me get him cleaned up, please?"

Mercedes and Tina nodded silently while Blaine protested. "Kurt, I'm going to have to go home – I can't stay here all day in slushie stained clothing."

"No no, it'll be okay. All of us Glee Club folks have slushie survival kits in our lockers. Extra clothes, shoes, hair products, towels… don't worry, we can take care of you."

Blaine smiled softly. "Awesome. Thank you so much." He reached up to rub a particularly aggressive drip of sugary syrup out of his eyes.

Kurt immediately reached up and grabbed Blaine's hand just short of his face. "No, don't rub your eyes. It'll just make it worse."

Blaine withdrew his hand, but seconds later he had already forgotten the warning and rubbed his eyes. "Oh shit, shit, shit! That stings!"

"I'm sorry, baby. I tried to warn you…"

"I know, I know. Dammit, this sucks."

Mercedes said, "We know, Blaine. We've all been through this multiple times. It never stops sucking. But the bright side is that we can get you cleaned up lightning fast 'cause we've had a lot of practice by now."

Kurt gathered up an armful of supplies, and he and the girls shuffled Blaine into the girls bathroom. Tina pulled up a chair to the farthest sink from the door, and Kurt pushed him down into it.

"Take off your shirt, Blaine, and I'll get it soaking in the sink," Mercedes ordered. He peeled it off and handed it to Mercedes. "If we pre-treat it now while you're getting yourself cleaned up, it has a better chance of coming clean in the wash. This is cherry, though – you might be out of luck. Red is a bitch to remove."

While Blaine was distracted by Mercedes, Kurt was being distracted by Blaine's bare chest. Tina caught Kurt staring and gave him a knowing look. He shook his head to snap himself out of his Blaine-induced stupor and grabbed a bottle of shampoo.

"Here, sweetie. Lean back and I will wash your hair for you." He pressed his fingertips to Blaine's chest and gently guided him backwards in the chair. Kurt adjusted the water temperature so he wouldn't burn Blaine's scalp and began to expertly wet down Blaine's hair.

"Well, one good thing will come from all of this," Kurt remarked.

"What's that?" Blaine asked, wondering what could possibly be good about nearly getting blinded by a slushie.

"I'm finally getting you out from underneath that thick layer of hair gel." Blaine began to object, but Kurt stopped him. "No, honey. I know you say that your hair is wild and untamable without the gel, but who said it needed to be tamed? Maybe at Dalton it needed to be slicked back so it looked as prim and proper as the rest of you. But this is McKinley. You can be yourself here."

"I feel so naked without it."

Kurt wished he hadn't said the word naked. His eyes were immediately drawn back to Blaine's chest. Must not get aroused, must not get aroused, he chanted to himself.

He bent down to speak in Blaine's ear. "I know you don't like it like this," Kurt whispered, "but think of how much easier it will be to run my fingers through your hair…"

Blaine couldn't suppress a shiver at Kurt's words, and he nodded slowly. "Okay. I won't reapply the gel."

Kurt beamed and finished washing Blaine's hair. He shut the water off and wrapped a towel around Blaine's hair. "Okay, hon, go ahead and dry your hair as best you can with this towel." Blaine did as directed, and when he was done, his head was a massive poof of curls. He looked in the mirror and groaned loudly. Kurt groaned too, but he did so silently. Blaine's hair, though wild as Blaine had warned, was FANTASTIC. He couldn't wait to get Blaine to his house after school so he could just … touch it.

"Ugh, give me a brush. Let me see what I can do with this bird's nest on my head." Blaine took Kurt's brush from him and busied himself with the taming of his hair. Mercedes pulled Kurt into the far corner of the restroom to chat privately. Tina wanted to hear what was being said, but she stayed standing next to Blaine to avoid drawing attention to Kurt and Mercedes. Mercedes waved her hand in an "I'll call you later" gesture and Tina nodded.

"Oooh, white boy, your man is FINE," Mercedes declared.

"Oh God, I know, right? I'm dying here," Kurt whined.

"Have you guys done anything yet?" she pried.

"We haven't really done much more than kiss. But now that I've gotten a good look at some of the merchandise, I want to check out more."

"You NEED to get up on that, Kurtsie. I've seen him checking you out before. I know the attraction is definitely mutual."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"That's because you've been far too busy looking at him with hearts in your eyes. You guys have kissed, you're in love, it's okay if you want to progress."

"We… we haven't actually said I love you yet," Kurt confided softly, with a touch of sadness in his voice.

"But you do," Mercedes replied. It wasn't a question.

Kurt nodded. "Yeah, I really do."

"You need to tell him." Kurt looked up at her with worry in his eyes, but she shook her head. "Stop worrying. He DOES love you in return."

"Well, I think that's about as good as it's going to get," Blaine sighed, obviously not happy with the results of his frantic hair styling session.

"Wow," Kurt breathed.

"I know, I know, it looks like shit. This is why I load it with the hair gel – "

"No, Blaine, that was a GOOD wow! I really like it au naturel."

"Well, that makes one of us, anyway. It must be getting late – shouldn't we be in class by now?" Blaine wondered.

Kurt took a peek at his cell phone. "Oops, somehow we must've missed hearing the bell ring. We should be in homeroom by now. But don't worry. Mr. Schuester doesn't have a homeroom class this year – if we go see him, he will write passes for all of us. He knows how long it takes to clean up after a slushying."

Blaine nodded. "Still, it's kind of embarrassing to be late to my very first class at McKinley."

Shrugging, Kurt said, "You get used to it, unfortunately."

Kurt dug out a plain white v-neck t-shirt for Blaine to wear while he quickly scrubbed the sticky goo off his arms. "It doesn't look like your pants got hit too badly. I have some jeans here, but in addition to me being taller than you, my legs are also longer in proportion to my torso than yours are to yours, so they might be really long. You're welcome to borrow them, but you will have to cuff them quite a bit if you do."

"I think I'll just deal with the stains, but thanks, Kurt. I really appreciate all the help. You too, girls."

"It's really no problem, Blaine. The Glee Club is a family, and even though you're not officially one of us quite yet, you're with Kurt, so you're one of us by association. And we take care of our own," said Tina.

Blaine hugged each of the girls and gave Kurt a quick peck on the lips. They went to see Mr. Schuester, and as Kurt promised, he wrote out passes for all of them. Kurt and Blaine didn't have any classes together- being a transfer student, he had to take the leftovers that semester – but they agreed to meet after school at Kurt's locker to make plans for the afternoon. Blaine quickly looked around and didn't see anyone, so he threw his arms around Kurt and gave him a big bear hug before Kurt pointed him off in the direction of his homeroom.

Unbeknownst to Kurt and Blaine, there was ONE person who had seen them embracing…

xXxXxXx

Blaine made it through the day totally unimpressed by his classes. Dalton was miles ahead of McKinley in terms of subject matter, and he found himself learning nothing new all day. He made a note to petition for an exception to transfer into some honors classes or he would go out of his mind from boredom.

Blaine made the mistake of traveling through the hallways with his head down, digging for something in his messenger bag. In his inattentiveness, he ran head first into a refrigerator shaped boy in a football jersey. When Blaine looked up at him, he REALLY had to look up at him. Blaine was kind of short for a guy, and this boy was HUGE. "Oh shit," he muttered to himself.

"I see we have another fairy boy at McKinley. Just when I thought we had rid the school of homos, the one came back, and he brought a little friend," the giant sneered at him.

Blaine was terrified. He wasn't fond of running from tough situations, but he wanted nothing more than to run away as fast as he could.

"You know what we do to faggots here? And to their little faggot friends?"

From around the corner came six more boys, all dressed in football jerseys. All of them had jumbo slushie cups in their hands. One of them held two and handed one to the boy who was harassing Blaine.

Suddenly, Blaine was pelted with a wall of colored ice. It was so cold it hurt his skin, and not one inch of his front was untouched by the drinks.

"It's bad enough that you're here, but don't let us see you spreading your faggy germs all over our school. Keep it to yourself, homo, we'd like to be able to keep our lunches down."

The boys, laughing and cheering, walked down the hall to the main entrance, high fiving amongst themselves and congratulating each other on a "job well done."

Blaine stood frozen, both figuratively and literally, in the hallway for several moments before he trudged towards Kurt's locker. Kurt, hearing Blaine walk up, said, "Oh Blaine, there you are! I was just about to go looking… for… you…" he trailed off as he turned around and saw Blaine standing silently behind him. Blaine was an absolute mess. Ice had gone down his shirt, his pants, his underwear, and he was a tie dye of different colors. He had purple in his face, blue on his shirt, and more red on his pants.

"Oh sweetie," Kurt whispered. Blaine's face was heartbreaking; his lip was trembling, and artificially colored corn syrup wasn't the only thing streaming down Blaine's face. Not caring in the least about his own clothing, Kurt opened his arms for Blaine and drew him close, sticky clothes and all. Blaine flinched at first, remembering what the jocks had said about not wanting to see their displays of affection in the hallway, but Kurt, knowing what the boys had probably said to him, refused to let him go, refused to let them win.

Stepping back just a bit, Kurt carefully wiped away some of the streaks on Blaine's face to prevent them from getting into Blaine's eyes, and he kissed away some of the tears.

He opened his locker and grabbed the towel that Blaine had used earlier to dry his hair with and began to pat Blaine dry with it.

"Normally I'd hand you some more clothes and have you change again, but the only shirt I have left is my Likes Boys shirt, and I'd understand 100% if you felt uncomfortable wearing that one right now." Blaine nodded sadly. "So, come on. Wipe your face and we'll just go over to my house. You can shower there and borrow some more of my clothes."

Kurt grabbed Blaine's hand and pulled him to the parking lot. Blaine took one look at Kurt's perfectly maintained Navigator and sighed. He didn't want to get in and soil Kurt's "baby."

Kurt noticed Blaine's distress and was quick to reassure him. "That's what seat covers are for, sweetie. Don't you worry about it, okay?" Blaine nodded silently again.

They both got into the Navigator and Kurt took Blaine's hand once he got the car on the road. Judging by the fact that Blaine had said not one word since arriving at Kurt's locker, Kurt knew it would be a silent ride home unless he broke the ice, so he began to sing. He sang songs that he knew Blaine knew the harmony for, but Blaine wasn't biting. This Warbler just didn't want to sing today. Sighing in defeat, Kurt ended his final song and didn't start another one.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the Hummel/Hudson home and Kurt led Blaine inside to the bathroom he shared with Finn.

"It's a bit messy since Finn uses this bathroom too, but it'll do. There are towels under the sink. You can use whatever soap and shampoo you find in the shower – the blue bottles are mine and the white bottles are Finn's. You'll want to let it warm up a bit before you step in as the pipes in this house are kind of old and it can take awhile."

Kurt rummaged through his dresser to find Blaine something to wear. He found an old pair of sleep pants that he had worn before his growth spurt and got too tall for, and he found another plain (but coordinating) t-shirt to go with it. He didn't offer any underwear because even if they were dating, it was still weird to wear someone else's skivvies.

"If there's anything else you need, please feel free to rummage around for it or to yell down the stairs for me. I will be in the living room, okay?" Again, nothing but a nod came from Blaine. If Kurt hadn't known firsthand how disheartening a slushying was, he'd be worried, but he knew Blaine's silence was a coping mechanism. He was pretty sure Blaine felt like if he opened his mouth, he might start to cry, and he didn't want that if he could help it.

Blaine went into the bathroom, and Kurt heard the water turn on. He went downstairs and flopped down on the couch to wait for Blaine to finish his shower and join him.

Kurt had found a Top Chef rerun on TV to watch while he waited, but as soon as Blaine appeared on the stairs, Kurt turned off the television and tossed the remote on the coffee table. He patted the cushion next to him, and Blaine plopped down on it. Kurt and Blaine stared at each other for a few moments, and then the floodgates broke loose. Blaine buried his face in the crook of Kurt's neck and began to cry. Kurt wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and whispered comforting words to him while rubbing his back. After a few minutes, the tears began to subside some. Wanting to get more comfortable, Kurt laid back against one of the arm rests of the couch and put one leg along the back. He tugged Blaine into position; Blaine laid between Kurt's legs with his head resting on Kurt's chest.

"A brilliant musician I know wrote a song and sang it for me once when I was having a really hard time, and I really think you should hear it. The song made me feel a lot better, and it's one of the most amazing songs I've ever heard to this day. I love the song almost as much as I love the songwriter, and I hope he knows that," Kurt emphasized as he gently stroked Blaine's cheek.

I've been alone
Surrounded by darkness
I've seen how heartless
The world can be

I've seen you crying
You felt like it's hopeless
I'll always do my best
To make you see

Baby, you're not alone
Cause you're here with me
And nothing's ever gonna bring us down
Cause nothing can keep me from lovin' you
And you know it's true
It don't matter what'll come to be
Our love is all we need to make it through

Blaine listened to Kurt beautifully sing his own words to him. When he finished the song, the boys were silent for a few minutes. Kurt was almost certain that Blaine had fallen asleep on him when Blaine said, almost inaudibly, "I love you, Kurt."

Kurt's breath hitched. There they were, the three little words he had been waiting to hear for so long now. He couldn't keep the smile out of his voice when he replied, "I love you too, Blaine."

Blaine's eyelids drooped shut and his breath became slow and steady. Kurt began to run his fingers through Blaine's curly mop of hair. He was right in his earlier thinking; Blaine's hair was silky soft and it felt so good underneath Kurt's fingertips.

Some time later, Burt walked into the living room. He stopped dead in his tracks, surprised to see Kurt with a boy draped on top of him. Kurt quickly raised his finger to his lips, shushing his father before he could begin speaking and accidentally wake Blaine.

"Blaine had a horrible day at school today," Kurt informed his father.

"Oh boy. What happened? Was it Karofsky?"

"Blaine got slushied. TWICE. It was just Azimio in the morning, but it happened again after school, and he was covered with just about every color that slushies come in, so it was probably a whole bunch of guys. I don't know if Karofsky was one of them. He hasn't spoken since the incident this afternoon, so I don't really know what all went down."

That was a little bit of a lie – of course Blaine had spoken, but Kurt wanted what was said to remain private and between them for awhile so he could savor the words properly.

"Damn. Is he okay?"

"Well, he kind of brushed off the first incident. He had been expecting it as sort of a 'Welcome to McKinley,' but he took the second one pretty hard. I don't know for sure what was said, but I had my suspicions as soon as I saw him and the look on his face. The only extra shirt I had for him to change into was my Likes Boys shirt, which he didn't want, and he kind of flinched when I hugged him in the hall, so I think I get the general idea."

Blaine groaned and shifted in his sleep. Kurt, wanting Blaine to rest for awhile, began lightly rubbing his back and lulling him back into a deep sleep.

"I hate so much that you boys have to deal with so much hate, Kurt. Is there something I can do for you? Do you want me to try to talk some sense into that principal of yours again?" Burt offered.

Kurt sighed. "No, Dad, I think we've discovered that the administration at McKinley is completely useless. We're just going to have to endure it until graduation. Until then, I'm just going to have to teach Blaine to avoid the jocks as much as possible and to keep a large pile of towels and clothing in his locker."

Burt looked down at Blaine and at his son's hands on him. Kurt lovingly cupped Blaine's cheek, and Blaine leaned into his hand in his sleep.

Burt's heart was warmed by the genuine affection Kurt showed for Blaine. "You take such good care of him, Kurt."

"I love him, Dad. How could I not?"

Burt smiled and tousled Kurt's hair as he walked out of the room.

"Nothing's EVER gonna take us down, baby," Kurt whispered to the beautiful boy in his arms, and he kissed the top of his head. He grinned as he noticed that Blaine's hair smelled like him; it made Kurt feel as if he had "marked" Blaine as his somehow. Kurt laid back and closed his eyes, hoping to join his boyfriend in slumber and forget that this crummy day had ever happened. Well, forget almost all of it, anyway. He would never forget the first time that Blaine said "I love you," and the thought of those words put a smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep.