[FIC] Hard Lines: Chapter 7
Rating: PG-13 (Likely to turn NC-17 later, but undetermined)
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: This is the last of the completed chapters, so I'll be posting a little less frequently from here on out, but the story shouldn't have too many more chapters too it!
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6
****
“Get up!” Sam came barging into Blaine’s bedroom around lunchtime, waking him up from the nap he’d just fallen into.
“What?” he groaned, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.
He was exhausted from the combination of starting the special chemotherapy pills (the ones that were supposed to be able cross the body to brain barrier the doctors kept bringing up every time his mother would show up with new research studies), surviving thirteen radiation sessions without sprouting a third arm and having a portacath put in yesterday. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get through two and a half more months of this if he was already made immobile by the treatments.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, rubbing his temples and pleading for the pounding headache to go away.
He’d thought his parents were gone for a few hours. His dad was supposed to be working today and his mother was meeting with the family lawyer to see what could be done about the insurance company refusing to cover the experimental chemo pills. Cooper was back in LA for a few days, packing up his stuff to move back home.
“Coop gave me a key last week and told me to make myself at home whenever I wanted,” Sam said with a wink.
“Because you were having such a problem with doing that before,” Blaine replied with a roll of his eyes, instantly regretting it. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he didn’t have the energy to make it to the bathroom.
“Shut up and get your lazy ass up. I need you dressed. I’m in a hurry,” Sam said, throwing open his closet. He began tossing clothes at him. Blaine missed catching any of them, but he decided to attribute that to Sam’s poor aim rather than his lack of coordination. It was easier that way.
“What is this about?” he asked, crawling out of bed slowly to start changing. Despite feeling like he just came out of a cage fight with every last one of the Avengers, he knew that Sam wouldn’t be dragging him out of bed if it wasn’t important.
He took his time. Dressing was a tedious task for him, trying to work around his broken leg and increasingly poor balance skills. As the weeks went on he was getting more accustomed to working around all of his new shortcomings, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
“Unique got suspended today.”
“What? Why?” he asked. The sinking feeling in his gut told him that he already know the answer.
“She wore a pair of heels to school after Figgins told her she couldn’t wear a dress yesterday, so he suspended her,” Sam said, digging into Blaine’s bow-tie drawer to find a suitable match. Blaine didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wouldn’t be able to wear one because he currently was incapable of tying one anymore. He’d been relying on Kurt and his mother to do that for him, as much as he hated the thought of anybody else helping him get dressed. He wasn’t about to ask Sam. Sam had to have Blaine help him put on every tie he’d had to wear for Glee club this whole year.
“He can’t do that!” he protested, feeling the rage start to build in his chest slowly. As his heart started to pound harder in outrage, the ache in his muscles and clawing at his brain started to dwindle.
“I know,” Sam said, perching himself on the edge of Blaine’s desk as he waited for him to finish getting ready.
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Mr. President, but somebody that convinced the entire school to show up in lycra and spandex can probably figure it out.”
Blaine finished tucking in his shirt, trying not to blush as Sam watched him fumble while buckling his belt.
“How you doin’?” Sam said in a perfect imitation of Joey Tribbiani. “Want me to get that for you?”
“I really, really don’t,” Blaine said as politely as he could manage.
“Afraid you’ll get to turned on?”
“Why am I friends with you?” he grumbled. He sat back down on his bed and started pulling on his socks, pointing over to his shoes so that Sam would bring them to him.
“Because I always let you use my Chapstick and listen to you cry about boys without getting annoyed,” Sam said, handing him his shoes.
“Bring me my computer, too,” he said, ignoring him. “I want to see if what Figgins is doing is even legal.”
“Blaine,” Sam said, annoyed and clapping his hands. “No time. We’ve gotta go.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Relax, Milhouse, it’s lunch. I’ve got another twenty-five minutes before I need to be back for sixth period, now can we go? I don’t want Ms. Green to yell at me again.”
“Again?”
“I was late for class yesterday,” Sam said with a hint of a blush that made Blaine curious. He was missing all of the good gossip now that he wasn’t at school anymore. The girls were texting him some of it, but he knew he wasn’t getting half of what was happening with everyone.
He raised his eyebrows in question until Sam continued. “Brittany asked me out.”
“I thought your epic Hansel and Gretel serenade plan failed?”
“Only in the temporary sense,” Sam said with a smile. Blaine was happy to see that things were working out for somebody, at least. “She came around in the end.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, feeling slightly hurt that Sam wouldn’t have told him immediately. He knew that it was a strain on his friends to try and keep him informed when he couldn’t see them every day like they used to, but it didn’t make him feel any better about the disconnect growing between them.
“I was a little busy trying to figure out what to do now that Glee is over. Things have gotten kind of weird. I’m telling you now.”
He grabbed his crutches and they made their way out of the house, stopping in the kitchen quickly so Sam could grab Blaine’s meds and some Gatorade. Blaine was going to need all the strength he could get if he was going to even attempt to look human while talking to Figgins.
“About that, Tina said she joined the Cheerios? And I haven’t even heard anything from Sugar, she hasn’t returned any of my texts-”
“Yeah, nobody’s really heard from her. There’s a rumor going around that her family got put into witness protection because of her dad’s mob ties but I’m like 95% sure that’s not true and she’s just vacationing somewhere.”
They climbed into the beater car Sam bought at the beginning of the year - the one that was constantly breaking down on the side of the road. Blaine would have loved to drive them, if only so that they could guarantee they actually arrived at school, but he’d been banned from driving.
“I feel like I missed everything,” he said, moving to play with the radio while Sam fiddled with the heat, trying to get it to work. “I still can’t believe that you guys lost Sectionals. I feel so guilty.”
“It wasn’t your fault Marley fainted, dude.”
“It’s still pretty lousy that none of us realized what was going on with her, I mean we all saw her stressing out about her weight during rehearsals for the musical,” he said.
“Blaine, seriously, just stop,” Sam said. “None of us realized you had brain cancer. If you want to start playing the guilt game, we’ll bury you.”
“Sam-”
Blaine’s stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of his friends blaming themselves for his cancer. It wasn’t something any of them could have foreseen. They were just kids. Of course they never thought anything was seriously wrong with their friend. Up until a month ago, Blaine had pretty much considered himself invincible. He couldn’t blame any of them for thinking the same thing.
“No, just stop. Okay?” Sam cut him off, a bit harshly. “Let’s just focus on Unique.”
“Right, yeah,” he said, not forgetting about it, but instead, filing it away to talk about later. They had a more pressing matter to attend to. “If we’re going to talk to Figgins, you’re going to miss Ms. Green’s class.”
“Yes, but if I get detention while rallying for social justice with you, I can better explain it to my parents and Burt than if I got another detention for losing track of time with my girlfriend.”
“You should have told them you were with me. I would have covered for you and your parents adore me,” he said with a smug grin.
“My parents met you once for like ten minutes. I still don’t understand how they like you better than me.”
“It’s my charm, obviously.”
“And your modesty,” Sam said with a playful smack.
“Cooper gave you keys to the house and my mom’s been letting you sleep over long before they ever let Kurt, you don’t get to complain.”
****
“Principal Figgins?” Blaine knocked on his office door, Sam right by his side. They’d both agreed to try and talk to him rationally before they planned anything dramatic.
“Blaine Anderson! It’s good to see you back at school,” Figgins said. “Donna was just talking about how much she missed your Wednesday serenades to the staff. I hope you’re doing better?”
“Oh, thank you. I’m doing alright,” he said with a faint blush while Sam snickered beside him. “Sam and I were actually looking to talk to you for a minute as Senior Class President and Vice-President.”
“Take a seat, although if this is about getting metal silverware in the cafeteria, I’ve already put it into the spring budget.”
“No, it’s not about that. Thank you, though. That was nice of you. It’s actually about Unique,” he said, doing his best not to fidget in his seat even though he felt incredibly nervous. He always hated standing up to authority figures, even when he knew it was the right thing to do.
Figgins looked at the two of them confused, clearly unsure of what they were talking about, which was a completely different problem that he would have to address later. Students deserved the right to be called what they wanted and be recognized by their real names, even if it wasn’t their given name.
“Wade Adams?” Blaine clarified, trying to keep the bite out of his voice. He’d learned long ago that kindness was the best currency. “The student you expelled earlier today.”
“You know boys, disciplinary matters aren’t things that I generally discuss with the student council.”
“With all due respect, sir, if you’re starting to restrict student’s rights to express themselves freely-” something that’s a constitutional right - it concerns me. I made a pledge to the student body that I was going to stand up for their rights,” he said.
Sam was adamantly nodding his head beside him but remained quiet. No matter how kind and giving Sam was or how smart he was when it came to people, nobody really took him seriously because of his low test scores. Blaine hated it, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. They’d figured out long ago that Figgins mostly just humored Sam for Blaine. If they wanted to get anything serious done, it was best that Sam stayed quiet.
God, this school was so messed up. Blaine was angry that he’d been taken out of classes just as he was starting to actually make a change. There was so much good he wanted to do but wouldn’t be able to.
“Mr. Anderson, I hate to inform you of this, but constitutional rights out there in the real world aren’t the same in a classroom setting,” Figgins argued which only caused Blaine to roll his eyes. He wasn’t going to let this slide. The school was being openly prejudiced against Unique because they were transphobic and he wasn’t going to let them brush it off with whatever politics they were using to justify their behavior.
“My job as principal is to make a safe environment for children that best helps everybody learn,” Figgins continued. “Mr. Adams violated the dress code repeatedly and has been a distraction for teachers and other students. When I asked him to change, he refused. I had to suspend him on the grounds of insubordination.”
“You suspended her because of insubordination or because you were offended by her appearance?”
“The school board has rules,” Figgins said, clearly flustered. “I would have thought that you, as Senior Class President could respect that.”
“You thought that as a gay man who fights for Equal Rights that I was going to be comfortable with the school’s blatant prejudice?” he asked, breathing in deeply to keep from shouting. There were tears building in the back of his eyes and he was keeping them at bay. He couldn’t cry in front of Figgins, it wouldn’t help him win this argument if he couldn’t be taken seriously. However, he couldn’t help but get upset at the way this was getting brushed off. When Puck showed up to school last year in a dress and heels, Figgins had laughed. There’d been no threat of suspension or even so much as a verbal warning.
“The dress code is the same for all students.”
“Oh, I apologize then,” he said, no longer able to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “I didn’t realize you were also going to suspend all the girls wearing dresses or heels today. I misunderstood. Would you like me to tell anyone dressing in stereotypically feminine attire that you’d like to see them in your office?”
“The Cheerios skirts don’t even come to mid-thigh, I’m pretty sure that’s a dress code violation, too. I don’t see them getting in trouble,” Sam chipped in.
“Yes, thank you, Sam. I think that if you’re going to suspend Unique then you really need to be suspending most of the girls at school today,” Blaine said defiantly.
“The girls in dresses aren’t breaking any rules!” Figgins said, finally losing his cool.
“With all due respect, sir, I think you’re seriously misunderstanding the situation here. Unique isn’t a boy pretending to be a girl for fun. She’s a girl who happens to be trapped in a man’s body. It’s confusing for and can cause extreme dysphoria. It’s hardly fun for her. The least this school can do is give her a safe place to try and be the person she was meant to be. She isn’t asking you to change the dress code. She’s asking you to stop treating her like a man. If other girls are allowed to wear dresses then she isn’t breaking any rules!”
“That’s not the way the school board or any of the parents see it. There have been complaints. He’s putting himself in a dangerous situation by dressing like that. You know what happened to Kurt Hummel two years ago-”
“Don’t,” Blaine cut him off sharply. He wasn’t going to use the way the school handled Kurt’s constant harassment to somehow justify their abuse of another student.
“Mr. Hummel sued the school because he was bullied so much,” Figgins said, throwing his hands up in the air. “We are simply trying to stop bullying, which is something you’ve been pushing for. At the beginning of the year you were in here demanding the school protect students against the kind of harassment Mr. Adams has been getting from his classmates.”
“Her! Her classmates!” Blaine snapped back, his blood boiling. He didn’t care if he got in trouble for yelling at Figgins. He wasn’t going to be graduating at this rate anyway, but he couldn’t stand by and let something like this go. The school systems have failed both Blaine and Kurt in the past but he would be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to protect Unique and other kids.
“He’s not changing his mind, we should just go,” Sam said, sounding as disgusted as Blaine felt.
He was right, Figgins wasn’t going to change his mind with a simple conversation. It was going to take more than that. It was a rare occurrence that Blaine was ever openly defiant, but the spark had been lit and he wasn’t letting this go.
“Just to be clear - are you telling me that from now on anyone with a penis that shows up in a dress will get suspended?” he asked, standing up and leaning on his crutches, trying his best not to look as weak as he was starting to feel. It had taken all of his power to come to school today and have this conversation. He wasn’t going to be able to stand for long, but he was determined to be strong for a little bit longer. If only for Unique’s sake.
“No heels or lipstick either,” Figgins nodded his head. “It’s simply for everyone’s protection.”
“Okay,” he said with a bitter laugh, refusing to snap back with the long list of ways that Figgins was a hypocrite.
“And especially none of those padded brassieres.”
“And you won’t change your mind?” Blaine asked, giving him one last chance before he started planning ways to burn this building to the ground.
“My hands are tied here,” Figgins said, just like he’d said to countless other kids that had come before.
How convenient when the jocks and cheerleaders needed something, they’d move mountains to make it happen. Sue’s Cheerios had never been suspended regardless of the deplorable behavior they’d been known to show. There was always money in the budget to buy ice cream for the whole school whenever the football team won a game. Figgins had actually lifted the ban on cellphones in the classroom and all it had taken was Blaine showing up with some bullshit comment on how technology was the future. Blaine had simply wanted to be able to text Kurt in class and it had taken less than five minutes to convince his principal to allow him to use his phone during school.
How easy it was for Figgins to bend the rules when it was convenient for him. Yet when the education and wellbeing of one of their students was seriously at risk, he suddenly had no power at school. It was ludicrous.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
Blaine stormed out as angrily as one could with crutches. He’d like to think that Rachel Berry would have been proud of him. Sam followed after him, slamming the door behind them in the process as loudly as they could get away with without seriously getting into trouble.
“What do we do now?” Sam asked. He could practically feel the rage coming off of Sam and he was sure he wasn’t in any better state.
“We prove a point,” he said.
Despite the fact that he felt like he was going to faint from all the energy he’d exerted today, he was intent on getting Unique back in school and wearing whatever she wanted to wear. Screw what Figgins had to say about safety. The school shouldn’t punish the victims just because they were too lazy to deal with the assholes that couldn’t see past their hate.
“How do we do that?”
“Well I, for one, would like to see Figgins try and suspend the entire school,” he said. “If we get the everyone to show up in dresses, they’ll have to do something.”
The bell rang for the next period and students started to fill the hallway. They were forced to move to the side as people pushed them out of the way in their hurry to get to their next class. As bodies moved by in a rush of colors, the sudden noise hit him like a ton of bricks. It was too loud. Was it normally that loud during passing periods?
“Sam,” he called out.
The room was starting to spin now that the adrenaline had left his body and real life started to catch back up with him. With the radiation treatment he’d had that morning and the chemo pills he had to take twice a day, he was starting to crash. He needed to lie down.
“Yeah?”
“Sam,” he said a little bit more harshly this time until he finally turned and looked at Blaine. He wasn’t sure how bad he looked, but it must have been pretty bad because Sam’s arms were instantly reaching for him.
“Okay, yeah, okay.”
Blaine dropped his crutches to the ground, ignoring the glare Jacob Ben Israel sent him when they almost hit him in the face.
“Leave it,” Sam said to him, waving the other boy away. He tugged Blaine closer, and he practically collapsed into his arms.
“You’re okay,” Sam said, holding up all of his weight as he let his head fall onto his shoulder. It was too much work to try and hold it up on his own.
“Is it your head? Your stomach?”
“Everything,” he cried, knowing how pathetic he sounded but he couldn’t help it.
“You’re not going to have a seizure are you?” Sam asked sounding panicked. Blaine wished that he could say that he would be fine and that Sam didn’t have to worry, but he knew he couldn’t make a promise like that right now.
“I mean your mom showed me what to do and I can totally handle it, don’t worry. But I really don’t want to. You don’t need me to call the doctor do you?”
“It’s too bright.” He squeezed his eyes closed tight, knowing that it helped get him in a dark place when he felt like this, but he could barely move, let alone get somewhere where the cheap fluorescent lights weren’t blaring in his eyes and kids weren’t going past in a blur of nausea inducing colors.
Sam hugged him tight to his body and used his sleeve to block out the light as best as he could. It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly an improvement. The strong arms around him helped as well. At least he felt safe. In the crowd of people, he knew that there was somebody there to make sure he was alright. Sam wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him and that thought was keeping a full blown panic attack at bay.
“Are you two dating now?” a voice snickered from behind him. He couldn’t place it but assumed it was one of the sophomore jocks that still felt like they could get away with harassing them despite the fact that most of the juniors and seniors had dropped that game last year after their Nationals win.
“Fuck you,” Sam said.
“Relax, Evans. I was just kidding. Is he alright?”
“You already know the answer to that, stop being a dipshit,” Sam said.
He felt a rush of shame go through him that the entire school knew that he was sick, but he had enough problems at the moment so he filed it away to worry about later.
“What do you need?” Sam asked, a lot closer to his ear then he was used to his friend being.
He was vaguely aware of how intimate the two of them probably looked to everyone passing by. He didn’t understand how Sam could be so comfortable around him in public like this. Kurt certainly never touched him like this when they were at school.
“Blaine, stay with me,” Sam said. “What do you need?”
“I need to sit down for a few minutes,” he said, breathing in through gritted teeth as he tried to push the pain away. Mind over matter, isn’t that what his mom always said?
“Jake!” Sam called out loudly into his ear, apologizing quickly when he felt Blaine flinch.
“What happened?” he heard his friend ask but he didn’t lift his head to look at him.
“Can you just help me get him somewhere?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, sure.” Jake said, pulling Blaine’s arm until it was around his shoulder.
“No, it’s okay,” he said, shaking his head and pulling his arm back. “I’m fine.”
It’s wasn’t the whole truth, but as the movement in the hallways started to slow down and Blaine continued to breathe deeply, he was starting to feel better. While he was still seeing two of things, the world had stopped tilting around so violently.
Besides, he wanted to be strong for his friends. He’d promised himself that he would do his best not to show weakness. Not to let his cancer touch them. A fabulous job he was doing with that.
“Blaine,” Jake started to argue but he cut him off before he could start talking about how horrible Blaine probably looked.
“It’s starting to pass. I just- can you?” he pointed down at his crutches which had been kicked far enough away that he couldn’t reach them. Thankfully they were still in one piece. He really should have taken better care of them.
“We should get you home,” Sam said as Jake handed Blaine his crutches.
“I’m fine. I just need to sit down for a while,” he argued. “Can you guys help me get to the choir room?”
“Uh, Coach Sue’s kind of taken over the choir room,” Jake said.
“I don’t really give a damn about what Sue Sylvester’s done. Take me to the choir room and then get the rest of Glee together. We’ve got work to do,” he said, feeling the rage from earlier start to build up again. It was good. The rage gave him a shot of adrenaline that helped him ignore the symptoms.
“Well, okay,” Jake said looking impressed.
“What?” he sneered.
“Nothing, it’s just that- this is the Blaine Anderson everyone’s been talking about. With everything that’s been going on, I never really got to see you in action,” Jake said.
“What’s the plan?” Sam asked, his eyes were suspiciously wet, but Blaine ignored it.
He knew that he’d just freaked Sam out a few minutes ago and he didn’t know how to apologize for it. He knew that Sam would cut him off before he could even say, ‘I’m sorry,’ but he could only imagine how terrifying it was to have your best friend fall to pieces right in front of your eyes and not have an adult to turn to for help. He’d have to find a way to make it up to him later.
“I told you, we’re going to get the whole school to show up in dresses tomorrow,” he said, ignoring the doubtful looks that crossed both of the boys faces. “I’d love to see Figgins try and suspend the entire school. Parents won’t allow that and even if they do, I’m sure the local news would have a field day with the fact that the school expelled an honors student with cancer.”
“You think that you can get people to show up to school in dresses?” Jake said. “This isn’t Dalton or whatever magical land that you came from. It’s McKinley.”
“Clearly you’ve never seen Blaine’s persuasive, puppy-dog eyes,” Sam said. “He convinced your brother to attend a Taylor Swift concert with him last year when Kurt got sick and everyone else was busy. Noah Puckerman sat through three hours of Taylor Swift without complaining.”
“Listen, this isn’t a gay man showing up to school in drag and trying to convince everyone else to do it, too,” he argued. “A student’s right to wear whatever they want and to express themselves freely is being threatened and people will care about that once I remind them of how this isn’t only about Unique, but that it’s their own liberties at stake as well.”
“Well, somebody’s feeling better,” Sam commented, slowly starting to walk them in the direction of the choir room.
“Not really, but I’m not going home until we’ve fixed this,” he said, putting his foot down and daring either of them to challenge him.
“Fight the power, I like your style,” Jake said.
“Well good, because I’m going to need you to get the sophomore boys on board. They won’t listen to me no matter how persuasive I can be,” he said.
“You know that’s a suicide mission, right?”
“Your brother would have done it,” Sam said, crossing his arms and challenging him.
When Jake barely blinked, Blaine added, “Unique is Marley’s best friend. She’s one of Marley’s only friends here. Do you really think she wants to go through school without her, especially given everything that she’s going through?”
“What do you suppose I do when they say no?” Jake asked, but he could tell he’d already given in. Jake had a soft spot for Marley and they all knew it even if they weren’t technically together at the moment.
“As president, it’s probably best I don’t know about any deals you have to broker to make this happen,” he said solemnly, patting Jake on the shoulder.
As Jake rolled his eyes and made his way slowly down the hallway, presumably off to start rallying some troops, Blaine sent Sam a triumphant smirk.
“I swear to God if you ever turn to the dark side, we’re all screwed,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes.
****
That night, once Blaine had finally made it home and sat through a good half hour of his mom checking him over like going to school for a few hours would have made his tumor grow, he called Kurt.
“Hey,” Kurt answered after a few rings, sounding a bit more somber than usual and missing the usual Cutie on the end of his greeting.
“Hey,” he said, falling back into bed, brushing off his initial concern. He was probably just imagining things. It had been a long day. “What have you been up to?”
“Just working on a column for Isabelle.”
“What’s it about?” he pressed when Kurt didn’t immediately begin gushing about it like he usually would.
“Nothing special,” Kurt responded, sounding distracted. Blaine had been brushed off like this before, but not since Kurt had come back from New York.
“I’m not sure anything related to Vogue can be categorized as ‘nothing special,’” he teased, but there was an obvious tension between them and Blaine didn’t understand where it had come from.
“I’m supposed to find affordable alternatives for all the looks on our best dressed list this week but I’m having trouble finding a suitable match for this Rodarte dress. The cheapest alternative I’ve found is still about a grand.”
“You’ll figure it out, you’re good at that stuff,” he said, encouragingly. He hoped that if he sounded interested enough that Kurt would start to talk more, but it didn’t happen and they fell into silence.
“Are you missing New York?” he asked, wondering if that was where all of this was coming from. If Kurt were in New York he could probably run out to some vintage shop and find all the items he’d need for his column in no time.
“Tina posted a video of you at Glee today,” Kurt said, completely ignoring Blaine’s question.
“Yeah?”
Kurt didn’t respond and Blaine sighed. He had no idea what Kurt was trying to get at or why he was suddenly acting so cold. Just last night he’d followed Blaine home after the surgery to put his portacath in and spent the night. The conversation had flowed effortlessly. They’d cuddled and even messed around a bit before Blaine was too tired to stay awake. There hadn’t been any problems between them. Why would a video Tina posted of him change all of that?
Because now he’s been reminded that you’re just a silly high school kid, he thought bitterly.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
“I thought you said that you were too tired to do anything today,” Kurt replied, a touch of venom in his voice hidden under a lot of layers of fake pleasantries that Blaine could have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it. There was no denying it, Kurt was angry.
“I was,” he said carefully. “But then Sam came over-”
“Mmm,” Kurt hummed unhappily at the mention of Sam’s name and he had to roll his eyes. Was this seriously about Sam again?
“Sam came over,” he said a little more firmly this time. “He needed my help with something and I couldn’t just ignore it. There was injustice happening.”
“Okay,” Kurt said but it didn’t sound like it was okay to Blaine.
“They suspended Unique, Kurt,” he argued. “She wore heels to school today and Figgins suspended her. She wasn’t even wearing a dress like she usually does. They made a rule that men weren’t allowed to wear makeup or anything remotely feminine. We had to do something.”
Couldn’t Kurt see that?
“Okay,” he replied, sounding more passive-aggressive than Blaine had ever heard him.
Obviously not.
“Why are you upset about this? I did a good thing,” Blaine said, feeling tears prickling the back of his eyes. He didn’t deserve this, he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I’m not upset.”
“You sound pretty upset.”
“Well, I’m not,” Kurt snapped at him.
“Okay,” he said slowly, not wanting to argue with him.
“Great,” Kurt said quickly.
“Great,” he said, if only to fill the awkward silence. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”
Maybe if he just ignored the issue, it would go away on its own. Kurt certainly didn’t want to talk about it.
“You know, I’m kind of busy here. I don’t know if I can,” Kurt brushed him off and he tried to stop himself from crying at how much that stung, but a lone tear fell down his cheek. Blaine brushed it away quickly.
“Do you want to know about the number we planned for tomorrow?” he asked, forcing himself to sound cheerful and not like his heart had been pulled from his chest. “I’m going to be wearing a bahag for the first time. Even convinced my mom to make it for me so it’s authentic.”
“My dad’s calling me. I should probably go.”
Kurt promptly hung up the phone, Blaine’s ‘I love you,’ fell on deaf ears and the sense of deja vu hit him like a ton of bricks. Kurt hadn’t even asked him what a bahag was, which was shocking since Blaine knew how he felt about clothes.
Why Kurt was suddenly being so cold to him? Was it seeing Blaine in high school again that reminded Kurt how young and immature he was? Was he missing New York already? Was he honestly jealous of Sam?
Blaine wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t think he’d be able to get through all of his upcoming medical treatments if Kurt wasn’t going to stand by his side. He couldn’t force Kurt to spend time with him, though, so he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
****
The next night, Blaine came back well after dinner, having stayed at late at school to have a pizza party celebrating Unique coming back to school thanks to their successful number. He’d spent the entire morning arguing with his parents to be allowed to go, but eventually they’d all agreed that the prospect of being in Glee Club again was doing more good than harm to Blaine’s health. They told him that they hadn’t seen him this energetic since before he’d started getting sick. While school was out of the question since he still had to go to radiation every day and he needed his rest, a few hours of socializing a couple of days a week wasn’t going to hurt him.
Blaine wasn’t sure what it was, but being surrounded by friends again and performing, it helped him forget about everything that was going on with him. He just felt like a normal person again and he’d missed that.
He was in the process of trying to change out of his costume and wipe all the body paint off of his body when Cooper walked into his bedroom without even knocking.
“Woah, what’s going on?”
“When did you get home?” Blaine asked, ignoring the amused look he was getting from his brother.
“Just now, Dad picked me up from the airport,” he explained, moving closer to examine Blaine closely. “Does Kurt know about this?”
“It’s was a school thing, just drop it,” he said, growing even more agitated at the mention of Kurt, who he hadn’t talked to since their tense conversation the night before.
“Is that a skirt?” he chuckled.
“Coop!” Blaine said loudly so that his brother would finally stop poking at him like he was an exhibit. “Leave it,” he said once Cooper finally looked at him.
“Jesus, testy today are we?” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Mom said you went into school today for a performance. What were you singing?”
“We did a mashup of Elton John’s ‘The Bitch is Back’ and Madonna’s ‘Dress You Up.’”
“How’d it go?” he asked, but Blaine could tell that he was barely containing his amusement and he knew that he’d be getting hell for this for a long time.
“Well, I still have this stupid thing,” he said, pointing down at his bulky cast. “So I couldn’t dance, but the arrangement was really nice and the number did what it was supposed to, so I’d call it a success.”
“Is this part of your bucket list or something?” Cooper asked, pulling at the bahag until Blaine slapped his hand away.
“If you must know,” he groaned, realizing that his brother wasn’t going to leave until he told him the whole story. “There’s a transgirl in my glee club and she got suspended the other day. We were just trying to get the school to change the dress code so she could wear whatever she wanted.”
Cooper laughed, causing Blaine to growl at him.
“Sorry, it’s just- you’ve always been so passionate about equal rights, I shouldn’t really be surprised.”
“Yeah, well, I was just trying to do what’s right,” he grumbled, rubbing at his chest that much harder to try and get the paint off of his body but he was only succeeding in turning his skin black. Kurt would know how to get the paint off without having to use rubbing alcohol, but Blaine wasn’t about to be the one to make the first call.
“Care to explain to me how you dressing like you’re back on the island proves your point?”
“Well, we got most of the guys at school to show up in some form of clothing or makeup that was now deemed ‘inappropriate’ for men but has ties to their culture and we sang a song,” he said.
“Okay, what does culture have to do with it? This genius plan just magically changed their minds?”
“Of course not! Afterwards, the principal asked us what we were doing and we told him that we were wearing cultural garb that represent our heritage. Sam had on a kilt and a bunch of people were wearing different kind of skirts and stuff. He tried to tell us that we had to change. I said no, that I was allowed to wear the traditional attire of my people, even if it did resemble a woman’s skirt. He told me I was being insubordinate. He said since I was clearly white, that I was making a joke out of things. He didn’t believe me when I told him I was Filipino. Well, you can imagine how well that went over,” Blaine said smugly, careful not to boast too much. Cooper always gave him a hard time when he thought Blaine’s ego was too big, as if Cooper Anderson had any room to talk.
“So you basically called him a racist and he was backed into a corner?”
“I merely suggested that sometimes people are too quick to judge and that one’s outside appearance didn’t necessarily mimic what they were on the inside. I reminded him that we all had a right to dress in a way that represents our true nature,” he said.
“And?” Cooper said giving him a knowing look.
“I asked him if he was going to suspend all of us for breaking the dress code and reminded him of the PR nightmare that would follow if he suspended kids for wearing clothes with such cultural connotations. If it was implied that he’d be viewed as a racist, well that’s not my fault.”
“You’re such a little shit,” Cooper said with a fond laugh. “You know what annoys me about you? You did all of that and raised such hell at that school and the administration probably still adores you, am I right?”
Blaine just blushed, because Figgins had invited him to sing at the school’s assembly the following week barely a few minutes after their confrontation as if nothing had happened.
“Weren’t you embarrassed?” Cooper asked. “You were pretty exposed, everyone would have seen your portacath. It didn’t seem like something you wanted to flaunt.”
“I was mortified,” he agreed with a shrug, because that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. “But how I felt isn’t important.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, standing up to grab some pajamas for him out of his wardrobe.
“I mean that I’m going to die soon and it’s my friends that have to be at that shitty school, not me. If I can help make things better for them, then I have to,” he explained, standing up to change out of his costume. He would wash off the body paint in the morning, he was getting tired of rubbing at his skin. If Kurt were here, he’d lecture Blaine about the potential for a rash, but Kurt wasn’t here. He was too busy being upset and pretending to be perfectly fine.
“You really shouldn’t keep saying that you’re going to die,” Cooper said, helping Blaine to his feet and Blaine fell into bed, surprised to see his brother crawl in next to him. They hadn’t shared a bed since Blaine was a toddler.
“But I am dying,” he said, careful to keep his voice neutral and free of any emotion.
“You don’t have to,” Cooper said, turning on his side to stare at him in a way that had Blaine fidgeting uncomfortably.
“You heard what the doctors have said, it’s only a matter of time,” he said.
“Yes, but…”
“Coop,” Blaine cut him off, not wanting to hear anymore. He didn’t want to be talking about this, especially not with somebody that refused to acknowledge the truth about his diagnosis.
“Alright, fine,” he grumbled but not before reaching out to grab onto Blaine’s hand. “I’m proud of you kid.”
Blaine glanced down between their joined hands and his brother’s oddly sincere face and wasn't sure what to make of it. He didn’t know what Cooper was proud of, exactly. Cooper wasn’t usually one to compliment him.
“You stood up for your friend,” he clarified. “You’ve got a good heart. I wish I was half as good of a person as you are.”
Blaine felt himself choke up a bit. It had been years since the two of them had really talked. Sure, they had sung that duet together last year which had helped Blaine to stop feeling so resentful to Cooper all of the time, but they still didn’t make a habit out of talking like this. Even when Blaine had been in the hospital, most of Cooper’s concern had been buried under movie quotes and jokes about getting Blaine his own TV show. This was different. Cooper was different since he’d been diagnosed.
That was what caused Blaine to decide to open up to him and ask him advice for the first time since he was in middle school.
“So you agree, it was a good thing to do?” he asked, cautiously tipping into the conversation. He didn’t feel comfortable outright asking him for help with his boyfriend drama.
“Helping out your friends is always a good thing. Why?”
“Kurt’s been really weird about it,” he said tentatively, lowering his voice so that his parents wouldn’t overhear them. Having his bedroom right next to the kitchen was a new level of torture for him since his mother loved to stress bake.
“Is he transphobic?” Cooper asked, thankfully taking the hint and lowering his voice, too.
“No,” he snapped. “Why would he be? What does that have to do with any of it?”
“Well, traditional wear or not, you were more or less in a skirt,” Cooper explained slowly like he was five. “You’d be surprised at the amount of hate my one friend Josh gets, even from the gay community.”
“Kurt didn’t even know I was going to wear this. He wouldn’t have cared. He wore a kilt to his prom. He was upset before,” he explained, unsure why he was getting so defensive on Kurt’s behalf. “I’m pretty sure this has to do with me hanging out with Sam.”
“Oh, Blainers,” Cooper said, giving him a pitying look that he just wanted to smack. “Kurt isn’t upset about Sam.”
“But you don’t understand, he gets so passive aggressive whenever we hang out together.”
“Kurt’s upset that you cheated on him. He’d be upset about you hanging out with any guy,” Cooper explained.
“But he said that he forgave me,” he argued, getting frustrated. If Kurt was still upset about the cheating, Blaine wasn’t sure what more he could do. He’d said he was sorry enough times by now.
“Okay,” Cooper said, raising his hands in defense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Calm down.”
Blaine didn’t even realized he’d gotten so worked up, but his fingernails were digging into his palms. He unclenched his fists and looked over at Cooper sheepishly.
“Do you really think he’s still upset about that?” he asked.
“From my experience, people don’t just forget about cheating overnight. Even if they’ve claimed to have forgiven you.”
“Are you talking about Angie?” he asked.
“Do we always have to be talking about Angie?” Cooper flopped onto his back and rolled his eyes.
“Only when you bring her up,” he said, poking him in the stomach playfully.
“Okay, Romeo, let’s not act like you’ve got a black belt in subtlety. You look at Kurt like he invented oxygen and bring him up in almost every conversation,” Cooper said and while his tone suggested that he was joking, there was a hint of bite to it that told Blaine he was about to cross a line.
“Fine, I won’t talk about Angie,” Blaine said, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Great,” Cooper grumbled but he could tell that Cooper was still upset about it. Blaine felt bad, he hadn’t realized the wound was still so fresh. It had been several years and the two had long since become friends again.
Was this the future Blaine had to look forward to? Would Kurt always be bitter about what happened no matter how much time past?
“Coop?”
“Hm?”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” he asked.
“Talk to him,” Cooper said, turning back over to face him.
“But if he says he’s fine, then what do I do? He won’t even tell me what’s wrong,” he grumbled.
“I can’t fix this for you, B.”
“Would you have forgiven her?” he asked carefully, knowing he was treading on incredibly thin ice since Cooper had just told him to drop it. “If she had changed her mind and decided she still wanted you. Would you have forgiven her for cheating on you?”
“It wasn’t a question of forgiveness for me,” he explained vaguely, only elaborating when Blaine poked him in the stomach and demanded more.
“I forgave her pretty much as soon as it happened; I always understood why she did it. It was the trust that was a problem for me,” he explained.
Blaine had to suck in a sharp breath to keep himself from falling apart because he just knew Cooper had managed to hit the nail on the head. Kurt had forgiven him, he’d said as much and Blaine believed him. That didn’t mean he trusted him. That was why Kurt was always watching him out of the corner of his eye. He’d thought it was because he assumed Blaine was going to break at any moment, but what if it was something else entirely?
“I trust her now,” Cooper said. “She earned back my trust and respect, but it was different with us. We were only friends, I don’t really know how Kurt’s feeling because I didn’t try and go back into a relationship with her.”
“Would you have? If she’d wanted to?”
“Probably,” Cooper said. “Don’t you dare tell Mom or Dad that, they’ll never let me hear the end of it. But probably. I loved her- but love takes a lot of work, especially the forever kind of love. It’s never easy and you constantly have to fight for it. It’s not like the fairytales you see on TV. If you really want your relationship to work out, I think you’re just going to have to prove to Kurt that he can trust you.”
“How?” he asked, praying that Cooper had an easy fix for this. He just wanted things to go back to normal between them. He didn’t want to always have to worry about every little move he made and if Kurt was going to think it meant he was cheating on him again.
“Time.”
“The one thing I don’t have,’ Blaine sighed dramatically.
He’d meant it to be funny. He’d meant for it to help brush off the seriousness of the issue so that his stomach would stop churning and he wouldn’t feel like he was on fire. He had wanted to hold off a panic attack over the fact that he might die before Kurt ever trusted him again.
What he hadn’t meant to do was set Cooper off. Blaine looked around frantically for something to help as Cooper’s eyes started welling up with tears. He’d never seen Cooper cry. Not once, unless he was supposed to count the number of times his brother had fake cried in order to hone his skills, and Blaine really, really didn’t.
“Coop?” he whispered and that was all it took before he found himself barely able to breathe as his brother squeezed him in a bone crushing hug.
“You can’t die,” Cooper sobbed, his body wrapping around him like an octopus. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I- you can’t ask me that,” he said, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“You can’t leave. Okay? You have to figure something out. You can’t just die!”
“I don’t have a choice,” he said, doing what he could to try and calm him down, but he could barely get his arms around Cooper to rub his back comfortingly. He’d always known that Cooper took up a lot of space, but he’d attributed that to his massive ego. He never really stopped to think about how much bigger than him his brother really was.
There wasn’t anything that he could say to make the situation better, so he just waited out the storm. He let Cooper cry for what seemed like hours on his shoulder. Every single tear felt like it was personally stabbing him in the heart, but he knew that he had to be strong. Somebody in this family was going to have to get them through this and his parents weren’t in any better condition than Cooper.
When his brother eventually pulled back, Blaine tried not to make a big deal about it because he knew that Cooper had to be embarrassed.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” Blaine asked awkwardly.
“Can we watch our old home videos?” he responded, reaching for the tissue box on the night stand to blow his nose.
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “That’d be nice.”
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: This is the last of the completed chapters, so I'll be posting a little less frequently from here on out, but the story shouldn't have too many more chapters too it!
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6
****
“Get up!” Sam came barging into Blaine’s bedroom around lunchtime, waking him up from the nap he’d just fallen into.
“What?” he groaned, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.
He was exhausted from the combination of starting the special chemotherapy pills (the ones that were supposed to be able cross the body to brain barrier the doctors kept bringing up every time his mother would show up with new research studies), surviving thirteen radiation sessions without sprouting a third arm and having a portacath put in yesterday. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get through two and a half more months of this if he was already made immobile by the treatments.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, rubbing his temples and pleading for the pounding headache to go away.
He’d thought his parents were gone for a few hours. His dad was supposed to be working today and his mother was meeting with the family lawyer to see what could be done about the insurance company refusing to cover the experimental chemo pills. Cooper was back in LA for a few days, packing up his stuff to move back home.
“Coop gave me a key last week and told me to make myself at home whenever I wanted,” Sam said with a wink.
“Because you were having such a problem with doing that before,” Blaine replied with a roll of his eyes, instantly regretting it. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he didn’t have the energy to make it to the bathroom.
“Shut up and get your lazy ass up. I need you dressed. I’m in a hurry,” Sam said, throwing open his closet. He began tossing clothes at him. Blaine missed catching any of them, but he decided to attribute that to Sam’s poor aim rather than his lack of coordination. It was easier that way.
“What is this about?” he asked, crawling out of bed slowly to start changing. Despite feeling like he just came out of a cage fight with every last one of the Avengers, he knew that Sam wouldn’t be dragging him out of bed if it wasn’t important.
He took his time. Dressing was a tedious task for him, trying to work around his broken leg and increasingly poor balance skills. As the weeks went on he was getting more accustomed to working around all of his new shortcomings, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.
“Unique got suspended today.”
“What? Why?” he asked. The sinking feeling in his gut told him that he already know the answer.
“She wore a pair of heels to school after Figgins told her she couldn’t wear a dress yesterday, so he suspended her,” Sam said, digging into Blaine’s bow-tie drawer to find a suitable match. Blaine didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wouldn’t be able to wear one because he currently was incapable of tying one anymore. He’d been relying on Kurt and his mother to do that for him, as much as he hated the thought of anybody else helping him get dressed. He wasn’t about to ask Sam. Sam had to have Blaine help him put on every tie he’d had to wear for Glee club this whole year.
“He can’t do that!” he protested, feeling the rage start to build in his chest slowly. As his heart started to pound harder in outrage, the ache in his muscles and clawing at his brain started to dwindle.
“I know,” Sam said, perching himself on the edge of Blaine’s desk as he waited for him to finish getting ready.
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Mr. President, but somebody that convinced the entire school to show up in lycra and spandex can probably figure it out.”
Blaine finished tucking in his shirt, trying not to blush as Sam watched him fumble while buckling his belt.
“How you doin’?” Sam said in a perfect imitation of Joey Tribbiani. “Want me to get that for you?”
“I really, really don’t,” Blaine said as politely as he could manage.
“Afraid you’ll get to turned on?”
“Why am I friends with you?” he grumbled. He sat back down on his bed and started pulling on his socks, pointing over to his shoes so that Sam would bring them to him.
“Because I always let you use my Chapstick and listen to you cry about boys without getting annoyed,” Sam said, handing him his shoes.
“Bring me my computer, too,” he said, ignoring him. “I want to see if what Figgins is doing is even legal.”
“Blaine,” Sam said, annoyed and clapping his hands. “No time. We’ve gotta go.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Relax, Milhouse, it’s lunch. I’ve got another twenty-five minutes before I need to be back for sixth period, now can we go? I don’t want Ms. Green to yell at me again.”
“Again?”
“I was late for class yesterday,” Sam said with a hint of a blush that made Blaine curious. He was missing all of the good gossip now that he wasn’t at school anymore. The girls were texting him some of it, but he knew he wasn’t getting half of what was happening with everyone.
He raised his eyebrows in question until Sam continued. “Brittany asked me out.”
“I thought your epic Hansel and Gretel serenade plan failed?”
“Only in the temporary sense,” Sam said with a smile. Blaine was happy to see that things were working out for somebody, at least. “She came around in the end.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, feeling slightly hurt that Sam wouldn’t have told him immediately. He knew that it was a strain on his friends to try and keep him informed when he couldn’t see them every day like they used to, but it didn’t make him feel any better about the disconnect growing between them.
“I was a little busy trying to figure out what to do now that Glee is over. Things have gotten kind of weird. I’m telling you now.”
He grabbed his crutches and they made their way out of the house, stopping in the kitchen quickly so Sam could grab Blaine’s meds and some Gatorade. Blaine was going to need all the strength he could get if he was going to even attempt to look human while talking to Figgins.
“About that, Tina said she joined the Cheerios? And I haven’t even heard anything from Sugar, she hasn’t returned any of my texts-”
“Yeah, nobody’s really heard from her. There’s a rumor going around that her family got put into witness protection because of her dad’s mob ties but I’m like 95% sure that’s not true and she’s just vacationing somewhere.”
They climbed into the beater car Sam bought at the beginning of the year - the one that was constantly breaking down on the side of the road. Blaine would have loved to drive them, if only so that they could guarantee they actually arrived at school, but he’d been banned from driving.
“I feel like I missed everything,” he said, moving to play with the radio while Sam fiddled with the heat, trying to get it to work. “I still can’t believe that you guys lost Sectionals. I feel so guilty.”
“It wasn’t your fault Marley fainted, dude.”
“It’s still pretty lousy that none of us realized what was going on with her, I mean we all saw her stressing out about her weight during rehearsals for the musical,” he said.
“Blaine, seriously, just stop,” Sam said. “None of us realized you had brain cancer. If you want to start playing the guilt game, we’ll bury you.”
“Sam-”
Blaine’s stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of his friends blaming themselves for his cancer. It wasn’t something any of them could have foreseen. They were just kids. Of course they never thought anything was seriously wrong with their friend. Up until a month ago, Blaine had pretty much considered himself invincible. He couldn’t blame any of them for thinking the same thing.
“No, just stop. Okay?” Sam cut him off, a bit harshly. “Let’s just focus on Unique.”
“Right, yeah,” he said, not forgetting about it, but instead, filing it away to talk about later. They had a more pressing matter to attend to. “If we’re going to talk to Figgins, you’re going to miss Ms. Green’s class.”
“Yes, but if I get detention while rallying for social justice with you, I can better explain it to my parents and Burt than if I got another detention for losing track of time with my girlfriend.”
“You should have told them you were with me. I would have covered for you and your parents adore me,” he said with a smug grin.
“My parents met you once for like ten minutes. I still don’t understand how they like you better than me.”
“It’s my charm, obviously.”
“And your modesty,” Sam said with a playful smack.
“Cooper gave you keys to the house and my mom’s been letting you sleep over long before they ever let Kurt, you don’t get to complain.”
****
“Principal Figgins?” Blaine knocked on his office door, Sam right by his side. They’d both agreed to try and talk to him rationally before they planned anything dramatic.
“Blaine Anderson! It’s good to see you back at school,” Figgins said. “Donna was just talking about how much she missed your Wednesday serenades to the staff. I hope you’re doing better?”
“Oh, thank you. I’m doing alright,” he said with a faint blush while Sam snickered beside him. “Sam and I were actually looking to talk to you for a minute as Senior Class President and Vice-President.”
“Take a seat, although if this is about getting metal silverware in the cafeteria, I’ve already put it into the spring budget.”
“No, it’s not about that. Thank you, though. That was nice of you. It’s actually about Unique,” he said, doing his best not to fidget in his seat even though he felt incredibly nervous. He always hated standing up to authority figures, even when he knew it was the right thing to do.
Figgins looked at the two of them confused, clearly unsure of what they were talking about, which was a completely different problem that he would have to address later. Students deserved the right to be called what they wanted and be recognized by their real names, even if it wasn’t their given name.
“Wade Adams?” Blaine clarified, trying to keep the bite out of his voice. He’d learned long ago that kindness was the best currency. “The student you expelled earlier today.”
“You know boys, disciplinary matters aren’t things that I generally discuss with the student council.”
“With all due respect, sir, if you’re starting to restrict student’s rights to express themselves freely-” something that’s a constitutional right - it concerns me. I made a pledge to the student body that I was going to stand up for their rights,” he said.
Sam was adamantly nodding his head beside him but remained quiet. No matter how kind and giving Sam was or how smart he was when it came to people, nobody really took him seriously because of his low test scores. Blaine hated it, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. They’d figured out long ago that Figgins mostly just humored Sam for Blaine. If they wanted to get anything serious done, it was best that Sam stayed quiet.
God, this school was so messed up. Blaine was angry that he’d been taken out of classes just as he was starting to actually make a change. There was so much good he wanted to do but wouldn’t be able to.
“Mr. Anderson, I hate to inform you of this, but constitutional rights out there in the real world aren’t the same in a classroom setting,” Figgins argued which only caused Blaine to roll his eyes. He wasn’t going to let this slide. The school was being openly prejudiced against Unique because they were transphobic and he wasn’t going to let them brush it off with whatever politics they were using to justify their behavior.
“My job as principal is to make a safe environment for children that best helps everybody learn,” Figgins continued. “Mr. Adams violated the dress code repeatedly and has been a distraction for teachers and other students. When I asked him to change, he refused. I had to suspend him on the grounds of insubordination.”
“You suspended her because of insubordination or because you were offended by her appearance?”
“The school board has rules,” Figgins said, clearly flustered. “I would have thought that you, as Senior Class President could respect that.”
“You thought that as a gay man who fights for Equal Rights that I was going to be comfortable with the school’s blatant prejudice?” he asked, breathing in deeply to keep from shouting. There were tears building in the back of his eyes and he was keeping them at bay. He couldn’t cry in front of Figgins, it wouldn’t help him win this argument if he couldn’t be taken seriously. However, he couldn’t help but get upset at the way this was getting brushed off. When Puck showed up to school last year in a dress and heels, Figgins had laughed. There’d been no threat of suspension or even so much as a verbal warning.
“The dress code is the same for all students.”
“Oh, I apologize then,” he said, no longer able to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “I didn’t realize you were also going to suspend all the girls wearing dresses or heels today. I misunderstood. Would you like me to tell anyone dressing in stereotypically feminine attire that you’d like to see them in your office?”
“The Cheerios skirts don’t even come to mid-thigh, I’m pretty sure that’s a dress code violation, too. I don’t see them getting in trouble,” Sam chipped in.
“Yes, thank you, Sam. I think that if you’re going to suspend Unique then you really need to be suspending most of the girls at school today,” Blaine said defiantly.
“The girls in dresses aren’t breaking any rules!” Figgins said, finally losing his cool.
“With all due respect, sir, I think you’re seriously misunderstanding the situation here. Unique isn’t a boy pretending to be a girl for fun. She’s a girl who happens to be trapped in a man’s body. It’s confusing for and can cause extreme dysphoria. It’s hardly fun for her. The least this school can do is give her a safe place to try and be the person she was meant to be. She isn’t asking you to change the dress code. She’s asking you to stop treating her like a man. If other girls are allowed to wear dresses then she isn’t breaking any rules!”
“That’s not the way the school board or any of the parents see it. There have been complaints. He’s putting himself in a dangerous situation by dressing like that. You know what happened to Kurt Hummel two years ago-”
“Don’t,” Blaine cut him off sharply. He wasn’t going to use the way the school handled Kurt’s constant harassment to somehow justify their abuse of another student.
“Mr. Hummel sued the school because he was bullied so much,” Figgins said, throwing his hands up in the air. “We are simply trying to stop bullying, which is something you’ve been pushing for. At the beginning of the year you were in here demanding the school protect students against the kind of harassment Mr. Adams has been getting from his classmates.”
“Her! Her classmates!” Blaine snapped back, his blood boiling. He didn’t care if he got in trouble for yelling at Figgins. He wasn’t going to be graduating at this rate anyway, but he couldn’t stand by and let something like this go. The school systems have failed both Blaine and Kurt in the past but he would be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to protect Unique and other kids.
“He’s not changing his mind, we should just go,” Sam said, sounding as disgusted as Blaine felt.
He was right, Figgins wasn’t going to change his mind with a simple conversation. It was going to take more than that. It was a rare occurrence that Blaine was ever openly defiant, but the spark had been lit and he wasn’t letting this go.
“Just to be clear - are you telling me that from now on anyone with a penis that shows up in a dress will get suspended?” he asked, standing up and leaning on his crutches, trying his best not to look as weak as he was starting to feel. It had taken all of his power to come to school today and have this conversation. He wasn’t going to be able to stand for long, but he was determined to be strong for a little bit longer. If only for Unique’s sake.
“No heels or lipstick either,” Figgins nodded his head. “It’s simply for everyone’s protection.”
“Okay,” he said with a bitter laugh, refusing to snap back with the long list of ways that Figgins was a hypocrite.
“And especially none of those padded brassieres.”
“And you won’t change your mind?” Blaine asked, giving him one last chance before he started planning ways to burn this building to the ground.
“My hands are tied here,” Figgins said, just like he’d said to countless other kids that had come before.
How convenient when the jocks and cheerleaders needed something, they’d move mountains to make it happen. Sue’s Cheerios had never been suspended regardless of the deplorable behavior they’d been known to show. There was always money in the budget to buy ice cream for the whole school whenever the football team won a game. Figgins had actually lifted the ban on cellphones in the classroom and all it had taken was Blaine showing up with some bullshit comment on how technology was the future. Blaine had simply wanted to be able to text Kurt in class and it had taken less than five minutes to convince his principal to allow him to use his phone during school.
How easy it was for Figgins to bend the rules when it was convenient for him. Yet when the education and wellbeing of one of their students was seriously at risk, he suddenly had no power at school. It was ludicrous.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.
Blaine stormed out as angrily as one could with crutches. He’d like to think that Rachel Berry would have been proud of him. Sam followed after him, slamming the door behind them in the process as loudly as they could get away with without seriously getting into trouble.
“What do we do now?” Sam asked. He could practically feel the rage coming off of Sam and he was sure he wasn’t in any better state.
“We prove a point,” he said.
Despite the fact that he felt like he was going to faint from all the energy he’d exerted today, he was intent on getting Unique back in school and wearing whatever she wanted to wear. Screw what Figgins had to say about safety. The school shouldn’t punish the victims just because they were too lazy to deal with the assholes that couldn’t see past their hate.
“How do we do that?”
“Well I, for one, would like to see Figgins try and suspend the entire school,” he said. “If we get the everyone to show up in dresses, they’ll have to do something.”
The bell rang for the next period and students started to fill the hallway. They were forced to move to the side as people pushed them out of the way in their hurry to get to their next class. As bodies moved by in a rush of colors, the sudden noise hit him like a ton of bricks. It was too loud. Was it normally that loud during passing periods?
“Sam,” he called out.
The room was starting to spin now that the adrenaline had left his body and real life started to catch back up with him. With the radiation treatment he’d had that morning and the chemo pills he had to take twice a day, he was starting to crash. He needed to lie down.
“Yeah?”
“Sam,” he said a little bit more harshly this time until he finally turned and looked at Blaine. He wasn’t sure how bad he looked, but it must have been pretty bad because Sam’s arms were instantly reaching for him.
“Okay, yeah, okay.”
Blaine dropped his crutches to the ground, ignoring the glare Jacob Ben Israel sent him when they almost hit him in the face.
“Leave it,” Sam said to him, waving the other boy away. He tugged Blaine closer, and he practically collapsed into his arms.
“You’re okay,” Sam said, holding up all of his weight as he let his head fall onto his shoulder. It was too much work to try and hold it up on his own.
“Is it your head? Your stomach?”
“Everything,” he cried, knowing how pathetic he sounded but he couldn’t help it.
“You’re not going to have a seizure are you?” Sam asked sounding panicked. Blaine wished that he could say that he would be fine and that Sam didn’t have to worry, but he knew he couldn’t make a promise like that right now.
“I mean your mom showed me what to do and I can totally handle it, don’t worry. But I really don’t want to. You don’t need me to call the doctor do you?”
“It’s too bright.” He squeezed his eyes closed tight, knowing that it helped get him in a dark place when he felt like this, but he could barely move, let alone get somewhere where the cheap fluorescent lights weren’t blaring in his eyes and kids weren’t going past in a blur of nausea inducing colors.
Sam hugged him tight to his body and used his sleeve to block out the light as best as he could. It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly an improvement. The strong arms around him helped as well. At least he felt safe. In the crowd of people, he knew that there was somebody there to make sure he was alright. Sam wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him and that thought was keeping a full blown panic attack at bay.
“Are you two dating now?” a voice snickered from behind him. He couldn’t place it but assumed it was one of the sophomore jocks that still felt like they could get away with harassing them despite the fact that most of the juniors and seniors had dropped that game last year after their Nationals win.
“Fuck you,” Sam said.
“Relax, Evans. I was just kidding. Is he alright?”
“You already know the answer to that, stop being a dipshit,” Sam said.
He felt a rush of shame go through him that the entire school knew that he was sick, but he had enough problems at the moment so he filed it away to worry about later.
“What do you need?” Sam asked, a lot closer to his ear then he was used to his friend being.
He was vaguely aware of how intimate the two of them probably looked to everyone passing by. He didn’t understand how Sam could be so comfortable around him in public like this. Kurt certainly never touched him like this when they were at school.
“Blaine, stay with me,” Sam said. “What do you need?”
“I need to sit down for a few minutes,” he said, breathing in through gritted teeth as he tried to push the pain away. Mind over matter, isn’t that what his mom always said?
“Jake!” Sam called out loudly into his ear, apologizing quickly when he felt Blaine flinch.
“What happened?” he heard his friend ask but he didn’t lift his head to look at him.
“Can you just help me get him somewhere?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, sure.” Jake said, pulling Blaine’s arm until it was around his shoulder.
“No, it’s okay,” he said, shaking his head and pulling his arm back. “I’m fine.”
It’s wasn’t the whole truth, but as the movement in the hallways started to slow down and Blaine continued to breathe deeply, he was starting to feel better. While he was still seeing two of things, the world had stopped tilting around so violently.
Besides, he wanted to be strong for his friends. He’d promised himself that he would do his best not to show weakness. Not to let his cancer touch them. A fabulous job he was doing with that.
“Blaine,” Jake started to argue but he cut him off before he could start talking about how horrible Blaine probably looked.
“It’s starting to pass. I just- can you?” he pointed down at his crutches which had been kicked far enough away that he couldn’t reach them. Thankfully they were still in one piece. He really should have taken better care of them.
“We should get you home,” Sam said as Jake handed Blaine his crutches.
“I’m fine. I just need to sit down for a while,” he argued. “Can you guys help me get to the choir room?”
“Uh, Coach Sue’s kind of taken over the choir room,” Jake said.
“I don’t really give a damn about what Sue Sylvester’s done. Take me to the choir room and then get the rest of Glee together. We’ve got work to do,” he said, feeling the rage from earlier start to build up again. It was good. The rage gave him a shot of adrenaline that helped him ignore the symptoms.
“Well, okay,” Jake said looking impressed.
“What?” he sneered.
“Nothing, it’s just that- this is the Blaine Anderson everyone’s been talking about. With everything that’s been going on, I never really got to see you in action,” Jake said.
“What’s the plan?” Sam asked, his eyes were suspiciously wet, but Blaine ignored it.
He knew that he’d just freaked Sam out a few minutes ago and he didn’t know how to apologize for it. He knew that Sam would cut him off before he could even say, ‘I’m sorry,’ but he could only imagine how terrifying it was to have your best friend fall to pieces right in front of your eyes and not have an adult to turn to for help. He’d have to find a way to make it up to him later.
“I told you, we’re going to get the whole school to show up in dresses tomorrow,” he said, ignoring the doubtful looks that crossed both of the boys faces. “I’d love to see Figgins try and suspend the entire school. Parents won’t allow that and even if they do, I’m sure the local news would have a field day with the fact that the school expelled an honors student with cancer.”
“You think that you can get people to show up to school in dresses?” Jake said. “This isn’t Dalton or whatever magical land that you came from. It’s McKinley.”
“Clearly you’ve never seen Blaine’s persuasive, puppy-dog eyes,” Sam said. “He convinced your brother to attend a Taylor Swift concert with him last year when Kurt got sick and everyone else was busy. Noah Puckerman sat through three hours of Taylor Swift without complaining.”
“Listen, this isn’t a gay man showing up to school in drag and trying to convince everyone else to do it, too,” he argued. “A student’s right to wear whatever they want and to express themselves freely is being threatened and people will care about that once I remind them of how this isn’t only about Unique, but that it’s their own liberties at stake as well.”
“Well, somebody’s feeling better,” Sam commented, slowly starting to walk them in the direction of the choir room.
“Not really, but I’m not going home until we’ve fixed this,” he said, putting his foot down and daring either of them to challenge him.
“Fight the power, I like your style,” Jake said.
“Well good, because I’m going to need you to get the sophomore boys on board. They won’t listen to me no matter how persuasive I can be,” he said.
“You know that’s a suicide mission, right?”
“Your brother would have done it,” Sam said, crossing his arms and challenging him.
When Jake barely blinked, Blaine added, “Unique is Marley’s best friend. She’s one of Marley’s only friends here. Do you really think she wants to go through school without her, especially given everything that she’s going through?”
“What do you suppose I do when they say no?” Jake asked, but he could tell he’d already given in. Jake had a soft spot for Marley and they all knew it even if they weren’t technically together at the moment.
“As president, it’s probably best I don’t know about any deals you have to broker to make this happen,” he said solemnly, patting Jake on the shoulder.
As Jake rolled his eyes and made his way slowly down the hallway, presumably off to start rallying some troops, Blaine sent Sam a triumphant smirk.
“I swear to God if you ever turn to the dark side, we’re all screwed,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes.
****
That night, once Blaine had finally made it home and sat through a good half hour of his mom checking him over like going to school for a few hours would have made his tumor grow, he called Kurt.
“Hey,” Kurt answered after a few rings, sounding a bit more somber than usual and missing the usual Cutie on the end of his greeting.
“Hey,” he said, falling back into bed, brushing off his initial concern. He was probably just imagining things. It had been a long day. “What have you been up to?”
“Just working on a column for Isabelle.”
“What’s it about?” he pressed when Kurt didn’t immediately begin gushing about it like he usually would.
“Nothing special,” Kurt responded, sounding distracted. Blaine had been brushed off like this before, but not since Kurt had come back from New York.
“I’m not sure anything related to Vogue can be categorized as ‘nothing special,’” he teased, but there was an obvious tension between them and Blaine didn’t understand where it had come from.
“I’m supposed to find affordable alternatives for all the looks on our best dressed list this week but I’m having trouble finding a suitable match for this Rodarte dress. The cheapest alternative I’ve found is still about a grand.”
“You’ll figure it out, you’re good at that stuff,” he said, encouragingly. He hoped that if he sounded interested enough that Kurt would start to talk more, but it didn’t happen and they fell into silence.
“Are you missing New York?” he asked, wondering if that was where all of this was coming from. If Kurt were in New York he could probably run out to some vintage shop and find all the items he’d need for his column in no time.
“Tina posted a video of you at Glee today,” Kurt said, completely ignoring Blaine’s question.
“Yeah?”
Kurt didn’t respond and Blaine sighed. He had no idea what Kurt was trying to get at or why he was suddenly acting so cold. Just last night he’d followed Blaine home after the surgery to put his portacath in and spent the night. The conversation had flowed effortlessly. They’d cuddled and even messed around a bit before Blaine was too tired to stay awake. There hadn’t been any problems between them. Why would a video Tina posted of him change all of that?
Because now he’s been reminded that you’re just a silly high school kid, he thought bitterly.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, afraid of the answer.
“I thought you said that you were too tired to do anything today,” Kurt replied, a touch of venom in his voice hidden under a lot of layers of fake pleasantries that Blaine could have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it. There was no denying it, Kurt was angry.
“I was,” he said carefully. “But then Sam came over-”
“Mmm,” Kurt hummed unhappily at the mention of Sam’s name and he had to roll his eyes. Was this seriously about Sam again?
“Sam came over,” he said a little more firmly this time. “He needed my help with something and I couldn’t just ignore it. There was injustice happening.”
“Okay,” Kurt said but it didn’t sound like it was okay to Blaine.
“They suspended Unique, Kurt,” he argued. “She wore heels to school today and Figgins suspended her. She wasn’t even wearing a dress like she usually does. They made a rule that men weren’t allowed to wear makeup or anything remotely feminine. We had to do something.”
Couldn’t Kurt see that?
“Okay,” he replied, sounding more passive-aggressive than Blaine had ever heard him.
Obviously not.
“Why are you upset about this? I did a good thing,” Blaine said, feeling tears prickling the back of his eyes. He didn’t deserve this, he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I’m not upset.”
“You sound pretty upset.”
“Well, I’m not,” Kurt snapped at him.
“Okay,” he said slowly, not wanting to argue with him.
“Great,” Kurt said quickly.
“Great,” he said, if only to fill the awkward silence. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”
Maybe if he just ignored the issue, it would go away on its own. Kurt certainly didn’t want to talk about it.
“You know, I’m kind of busy here. I don’t know if I can,” Kurt brushed him off and he tried to stop himself from crying at how much that stung, but a lone tear fell down his cheek. Blaine brushed it away quickly.
“Do you want to know about the number we planned for tomorrow?” he asked, forcing himself to sound cheerful and not like his heart had been pulled from his chest. “I’m going to be wearing a bahag for the first time. Even convinced my mom to make it for me so it’s authentic.”
“My dad’s calling me. I should probably go.”
Kurt promptly hung up the phone, Blaine’s ‘I love you,’ fell on deaf ears and the sense of deja vu hit him like a ton of bricks. Kurt hadn’t even asked him what a bahag was, which was shocking since Blaine knew how he felt about clothes.
Why Kurt was suddenly being so cold to him? Was it seeing Blaine in high school again that reminded Kurt how young and immature he was? Was he missing New York already? Was he honestly jealous of Sam?
Blaine wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t think he’d be able to get through all of his upcoming medical treatments if Kurt wasn’t going to stand by his side. He couldn’t force Kurt to spend time with him, though, so he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
****
The next night, Blaine came back well after dinner, having stayed at late at school to have a pizza party celebrating Unique coming back to school thanks to their successful number. He’d spent the entire morning arguing with his parents to be allowed to go, but eventually they’d all agreed that the prospect of being in Glee Club again was doing more good than harm to Blaine’s health. They told him that they hadn’t seen him this energetic since before he’d started getting sick. While school was out of the question since he still had to go to radiation every day and he needed his rest, a few hours of socializing a couple of days a week wasn’t going to hurt him.
Blaine wasn’t sure what it was, but being surrounded by friends again and performing, it helped him forget about everything that was going on with him. He just felt like a normal person again and he’d missed that.
He was in the process of trying to change out of his costume and wipe all the body paint off of his body when Cooper walked into his bedroom without even knocking.
“Woah, what’s going on?”
“When did you get home?” Blaine asked, ignoring the amused look he was getting from his brother.
“Just now, Dad picked me up from the airport,” he explained, moving closer to examine Blaine closely. “Does Kurt know about this?”
“It’s was a school thing, just drop it,” he said, growing even more agitated at the mention of Kurt, who he hadn’t talked to since their tense conversation the night before.
“Is that a skirt?” he chuckled.
“Coop!” Blaine said loudly so that his brother would finally stop poking at him like he was an exhibit. “Leave it,” he said once Cooper finally looked at him.
“Jesus, testy today are we?” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Mom said you went into school today for a performance. What were you singing?”
“We did a mashup of Elton John’s ‘The Bitch is Back’ and Madonna’s ‘Dress You Up.’”
“How’d it go?” he asked, but Blaine could tell that he was barely containing his amusement and he knew that he’d be getting hell for this for a long time.
“Well, I still have this stupid thing,” he said, pointing down at his bulky cast. “So I couldn’t dance, but the arrangement was really nice and the number did what it was supposed to, so I’d call it a success.”
“Is this part of your bucket list or something?” Cooper asked, pulling at the bahag until Blaine slapped his hand away.
“If you must know,” he groaned, realizing that his brother wasn’t going to leave until he told him the whole story. “There’s a transgirl in my glee club and she got suspended the other day. We were just trying to get the school to change the dress code so she could wear whatever she wanted.”
Cooper laughed, causing Blaine to growl at him.
“Sorry, it’s just- you’ve always been so passionate about equal rights, I shouldn’t really be surprised.”
“Yeah, well, I was just trying to do what’s right,” he grumbled, rubbing at his chest that much harder to try and get the paint off of his body but he was only succeeding in turning his skin black. Kurt would know how to get the paint off without having to use rubbing alcohol, but Blaine wasn’t about to be the one to make the first call.
“Care to explain to me how you dressing like you’re back on the island proves your point?”
“Well, we got most of the guys at school to show up in some form of clothing or makeup that was now deemed ‘inappropriate’ for men but has ties to their culture and we sang a song,” he said.
“Okay, what does culture have to do with it? This genius plan just magically changed their minds?”
“Of course not! Afterwards, the principal asked us what we were doing and we told him that we were wearing cultural garb that represent our heritage. Sam had on a kilt and a bunch of people were wearing different kind of skirts and stuff. He tried to tell us that we had to change. I said no, that I was allowed to wear the traditional attire of my people, even if it did resemble a woman’s skirt. He told me I was being insubordinate. He said since I was clearly white, that I was making a joke out of things. He didn’t believe me when I told him I was Filipino. Well, you can imagine how well that went over,” Blaine said smugly, careful not to boast too much. Cooper always gave him a hard time when he thought Blaine’s ego was too big, as if Cooper Anderson had any room to talk.
“So you basically called him a racist and he was backed into a corner?”
“I merely suggested that sometimes people are too quick to judge and that one’s outside appearance didn’t necessarily mimic what they were on the inside. I reminded him that we all had a right to dress in a way that represents our true nature,” he said.
“And?” Cooper said giving him a knowing look.
“I asked him if he was going to suspend all of us for breaking the dress code and reminded him of the PR nightmare that would follow if he suspended kids for wearing clothes with such cultural connotations. If it was implied that he’d be viewed as a racist, well that’s not my fault.”
“You’re such a little shit,” Cooper said with a fond laugh. “You know what annoys me about you? You did all of that and raised such hell at that school and the administration probably still adores you, am I right?”
Blaine just blushed, because Figgins had invited him to sing at the school’s assembly the following week barely a few minutes after their confrontation as if nothing had happened.
“Weren’t you embarrassed?” Cooper asked. “You were pretty exposed, everyone would have seen your portacath. It didn’t seem like something you wanted to flaunt.”
“I was mortified,” he agreed with a shrug, because that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. “But how I felt isn’t important.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, standing up to grab some pajamas for him out of his wardrobe.
“I mean that I’m going to die soon and it’s my friends that have to be at that shitty school, not me. If I can help make things better for them, then I have to,” he explained, standing up to change out of his costume. He would wash off the body paint in the morning, he was getting tired of rubbing at his skin. If Kurt were here, he’d lecture Blaine about the potential for a rash, but Kurt wasn’t here. He was too busy being upset and pretending to be perfectly fine.
“You really shouldn’t keep saying that you’re going to die,” Cooper said, helping Blaine to his feet and Blaine fell into bed, surprised to see his brother crawl in next to him. They hadn’t shared a bed since Blaine was a toddler.
“But I am dying,” he said, careful to keep his voice neutral and free of any emotion.
“You don’t have to,” Cooper said, turning on his side to stare at him in a way that had Blaine fidgeting uncomfortably.
“You heard what the doctors have said, it’s only a matter of time,” he said.
“Yes, but…”
“Coop,” Blaine cut him off, not wanting to hear anymore. He didn’t want to be talking about this, especially not with somebody that refused to acknowledge the truth about his diagnosis.
“Alright, fine,” he grumbled but not before reaching out to grab onto Blaine’s hand. “I’m proud of you kid.”
Blaine glanced down between their joined hands and his brother’s oddly sincere face and wasn't sure what to make of it. He didn’t know what Cooper was proud of, exactly. Cooper wasn’t usually one to compliment him.
“You stood up for your friend,” he clarified. “You’ve got a good heart. I wish I was half as good of a person as you are.”
Blaine felt himself choke up a bit. It had been years since the two of them had really talked. Sure, they had sung that duet together last year which had helped Blaine to stop feeling so resentful to Cooper all of the time, but they still didn’t make a habit out of talking like this. Even when Blaine had been in the hospital, most of Cooper’s concern had been buried under movie quotes and jokes about getting Blaine his own TV show. This was different. Cooper was different since he’d been diagnosed.
That was what caused Blaine to decide to open up to him and ask him advice for the first time since he was in middle school.
“So you agree, it was a good thing to do?” he asked, cautiously tipping into the conversation. He didn’t feel comfortable outright asking him for help with his boyfriend drama.
“Helping out your friends is always a good thing. Why?”
“Kurt’s been really weird about it,” he said tentatively, lowering his voice so that his parents wouldn’t overhear them. Having his bedroom right next to the kitchen was a new level of torture for him since his mother loved to stress bake.
“Is he transphobic?” Cooper asked, thankfully taking the hint and lowering his voice, too.
“No,” he snapped. “Why would he be? What does that have to do with any of it?”
“Well, traditional wear or not, you were more or less in a skirt,” Cooper explained slowly like he was five. “You’d be surprised at the amount of hate my one friend Josh gets, even from the gay community.”
“Kurt didn’t even know I was going to wear this. He wouldn’t have cared. He wore a kilt to his prom. He was upset before,” he explained, unsure why he was getting so defensive on Kurt’s behalf. “I’m pretty sure this has to do with me hanging out with Sam.”
“Oh, Blainers,” Cooper said, giving him a pitying look that he just wanted to smack. “Kurt isn’t upset about Sam.”
“But you don’t understand, he gets so passive aggressive whenever we hang out together.”
“Kurt’s upset that you cheated on him. He’d be upset about you hanging out with any guy,” Cooper explained.
“But he said that he forgave me,” he argued, getting frustrated. If Kurt was still upset about the cheating, Blaine wasn’t sure what more he could do. He’d said he was sorry enough times by now.
“Okay,” Cooper said, raising his hands in defense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Calm down.”
Blaine didn’t even realized he’d gotten so worked up, but his fingernails were digging into his palms. He unclenched his fists and looked over at Cooper sheepishly.
“Do you really think he’s still upset about that?” he asked.
“From my experience, people don’t just forget about cheating overnight. Even if they’ve claimed to have forgiven you.”
“Are you talking about Angie?” he asked.
“Do we always have to be talking about Angie?” Cooper flopped onto his back and rolled his eyes.
“Only when you bring her up,” he said, poking him in the stomach playfully.
“Okay, Romeo, let’s not act like you’ve got a black belt in subtlety. You look at Kurt like he invented oxygen and bring him up in almost every conversation,” Cooper said and while his tone suggested that he was joking, there was a hint of bite to it that told Blaine he was about to cross a line.
“Fine, I won’t talk about Angie,” Blaine said, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Great,” Cooper grumbled but he could tell that Cooper was still upset about it. Blaine felt bad, he hadn’t realized the wound was still so fresh. It had been several years and the two had long since become friends again.
Was this the future Blaine had to look forward to? Would Kurt always be bitter about what happened no matter how much time past?
“Coop?”
“Hm?”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” he asked.
“Talk to him,” Cooper said, turning back over to face him.
“But if he says he’s fine, then what do I do? He won’t even tell me what’s wrong,” he grumbled.
“I can’t fix this for you, B.”
“Would you have forgiven her?” he asked carefully, knowing he was treading on incredibly thin ice since Cooper had just told him to drop it. “If she had changed her mind and decided she still wanted you. Would you have forgiven her for cheating on you?”
“It wasn’t a question of forgiveness for me,” he explained vaguely, only elaborating when Blaine poked him in the stomach and demanded more.
“I forgave her pretty much as soon as it happened; I always understood why she did it. It was the trust that was a problem for me,” he explained.
Blaine had to suck in a sharp breath to keep himself from falling apart because he just knew Cooper had managed to hit the nail on the head. Kurt had forgiven him, he’d said as much and Blaine believed him. That didn’t mean he trusted him. That was why Kurt was always watching him out of the corner of his eye. He’d thought it was because he assumed Blaine was going to break at any moment, but what if it was something else entirely?
“I trust her now,” Cooper said. “She earned back my trust and respect, but it was different with us. We were only friends, I don’t really know how Kurt’s feeling because I didn’t try and go back into a relationship with her.”
“Would you have? If she’d wanted to?”
“Probably,” Cooper said. “Don’t you dare tell Mom or Dad that, they’ll never let me hear the end of it. But probably. I loved her- but love takes a lot of work, especially the forever kind of love. It’s never easy and you constantly have to fight for it. It’s not like the fairytales you see on TV. If you really want your relationship to work out, I think you’re just going to have to prove to Kurt that he can trust you.”
“How?” he asked, praying that Cooper had an easy fix for this. He just wanted things to go back to normal between them. He didn’t want to always have to worry about every little move he made and if Kurt was going to think it meant he was cheating on him again.
“Time.”
“The one thing I don’t have,’ Blaine sighed dramatically.
He’d meant it to be funny. He’d meant for it to help brush off the seriousness of the issue so that his stomach would stop churning and he wouldn’t feel like he was on fire. He had wanted to hold off a panic attack over the fact that he might die before Kurt ever trusted him again.
What he hadn’t meant to do was set Cooper off. Blaine looked around frantically for something to help as Cooper’s eyes started welling up with tears. He’d never seen Cooper cry. Not once, unless he was supposed to count the number of times his brother had fake cried in order to hone his skills, and Blaine really, really didn’t.
“Coop?” he whispered and that was all it took before he found himself barely able to breathe as his brother squeezed him in a bone crushing hug.
“You can’t die,” Cooper sobbed, his body wrapping around him like an octopus. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I- you can’t ask me that,” he said, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach.
“You can’t leave. Okay? You have to figure something out. You can’t just die!”
“I don’t have a choice,” he said, doing what he could to try and calm him down, but he could barely get his arms around Cooper to rub his back comfortingly. He’d always known that Cooper took up a lot of space, but he’d attributed that to his massive ego. He never really stopped to think about how much bigger than him his brother really was.
There wasn’t anything that he could say to make the situation better, so he just waited out the storm. He let Cooper cry for what seemed like hours on his shoulder. Every single tear felt like it was personally stabbing him in the heart, but he knew that he had to be strong. Somebody in this family was going to have to get them through this and his parents weren’t in any better condition than Cooper.
When his brother eventually pulled back, Blaine tried not to make a big deal about it because he knew that Cooper had to be embarrassed.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” Blaine asked awkwardly.
“Can we watch our old home videos?” he responded, reaching for the tissue box on the night stand to blow his nose.
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “That’d be nice.”