Reversebang: All Along
Title: All Along
Artist: dreamingpartone
Author: mismatch_me
Rating (art/fic if different): PG/13
Word Count: ~11,000
Warnings (if any): Mentions of abortion (non-graphic)
Fic Summary: The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
-Rumi
Link to Art: Here and Here
Link to Fic:
Art Thumbnail:
Since Blaine Anderson was little, he had admired his grandparents. This was especially peculiar since he saw them seldomly; they were never actually around when he was awake; however, he felt the connection constantly.
He loved them. They loved him, all parts of him, unconditionally.
No small part of that was because his parents most assuredly did not.
It didn’t start- the negligence or the angry stares- until Blaine’s parents noticed the attachment Blaine’s mother’s parents, the filthy, rotten creatures they were. Things like them weren’t natural and should have never been able to exist in the first place. Their New Age ideals and philosophies didn’t make sense to her and Lauren had left them as soon as she managed to pull herself out of their grasp, influenced thoroughly by Trevor Anderson and his ridiculous politics. He was a college man, someone of high society and even higher stature. He was the most straight laced, by the book, everything-is-this-way-just-because-and-it-shall-always-be man Lauren had ever met. He was everything she had wanted: the complete opposite of her own life. Trevor promised structure in his cropped brown hair, pressed, straight clothing and heavy paychecks. Lauren held on and never went back.
When Cooper came along, Jorge and Annette Tourner stayed away, busy with the duties in their own lives. They didn’t know they had a grandson. It was completely out of their Scope and neither Lauren nor Trevor aimed to fix that. They needed to keep their boy safe from the dangerous thoughts and frightening ideals of Lauren’s parents. All the things the Andersons stood for, from politics to dress, were direct reciprocals of the Tourners.
After Cooper started school, Lauren became pregnant again, but lost the baby two months into her first trimester. Trevor was floored. Doctors had been assuring the couple that the baby would be healthy, even if it was growing faster than normal. Lauren knew what that meant and her child would not turn out to be an abomination just like her parents. She would not live with some... thing inside her that was so absolutely disgusting.
So, without telling her husband, she had dealt with the unborn child. Her parents found her three hours later. They never said a word to her, just stared with sad eyes as she limped away in pain.
Trevor wanted another child. Ever the devoted wife they tried for another child a year later. Blaine came out of it, a little late,-almost nine and a half months-but that only furthered her happiness and reassured Lauren that this child was going to be her’s and Trevor’s perfect little boy. Another gorgeous, normal, Anderson. This child wouldn’t be some creature.
Trevor had been so pleased that he bought a new house, closer to Sacramento with a larger backyard and more room than either of the boys would know what to do with. The relocation also brought them closer to Lauren’s parents who worked in Sacramento more often than not. They found their ways to see the boys. Blaine had been on their Scope, something planned from the beginning, something they could see years before it happened. They found Blaine and showered him with all the love and affection they could. He responded. He loved them so, so very much. Trevor and Lauren began to hate him a little for it. He was still small though, barely seven, when his parents started pulling him in more, not letting him go out to play with anyone lest his grandparents come find him.
Blaine had had them around since... as long as he could remember. He was small, yes, but he knew that these people cared about him, despite what his parents told him. They were a constant, steady source of comfort that chipped at the horrible barricade of lies that his parents had built around his thoughts. They settled deep in his consciousness, warm and supportive.
They had... differences. Two spectacular, astonishing differences that weren’t at all the disfigurations his parents had tried to convince him they were. His grandparents’ wings were nothing if not beautiful, tactile expressions of their inner selves. Coming from a seven-year-old, Jorge was taken aback when he heard Blaine say that. Annette just twisted Blaine’s tiny body in her strong, tanned arms and smiled brightly.
Jorge’s- Grampa- were bright, bright yellow, something that Annette- Gramma- had told Blaine that it meant he would always see the best in everything. She had called him a romantic optimist with a kiss. Blaine nodded, not really understanding a word she had said.
Gramma’s were a chocolate brown with sporadic puffs of deep green. She would stare into Blaine’s eyes sometimes and tell him they reminded her of him; strong, different and beautiful.
He blushed, hugging his grandmother tightly as though holding her there would cement her to the place and she would never leave him.
He felt the difference when his parents stopped letting him go out. They worked from home more and more, and didn’t even let him go to school without first explaining to every administrator that the Tourners were not allowed to ever even look at their son. Schools don’t need lawsuits. They watched out for the winged couple carefully. Blaine didn’t see them much at all, after that.
His parents thought that keeping them out of sight would break Blaine of the connection and he would move on. He would become an Anderson Man. So, they packed up their home and moved to a smaller, more conservative part of the country, breaking every since tie from Lauren‘s mother and father and leaving a barren, tainted hole in the small boy’s heart.
Less than a year later, Blaine began seeing them in his dreams. They wouldn’t do anything but talk to him, sing and tell jokes. It was easy, just as it was before his dad shipped the family off to Ohio.
They told him that they had been coming into his dreams for years, he had just forgotten them the moment he woke. Which made sense, at least to Blaine’s eight-year-old subconscious.
They held him and told him stories of years far, far before Blaine’s time, of stars and other people just like them.
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Gramma and Grampa stayed with him for years. They were the solid forces, the constant while Blaine grew up. Sometimes only one would be in his dreams, normally Grampa was off doing something important. Gramma wouldn’t talk about it, but she promised to tell him when he was older.
By the time Blaine started high school, he knew a lot more about how his grandparents’ lives worked than he did his own parents’. Not that he had any interest in the latter. They only ever spouted intolerant bullshit when he tried to bring up anything that interested him. Wings or no wings, Blaine was still the only person that reminded Lauren of her parents. She barely looked at him after that thought had crossed her mind.
Cooper had already left, as fast as his legs would carry him, to Chicago for art school. He was happy away from their parents. Blaine was glad of that, even if he had to be in the Anderson house every single day and handle the stoic, silent dinners on the weekends. There wasn’t a soul in the house from Blaine’s arrival home until late on the weekdays. He spent a lot of his time alone, with a lot more space- just as his father expected- than he knew what to do with.
So, Blaine slept. Whenever he was awake, he would find things he wanted to say to them, and, by the time he came into the stuffy house after school, he ached to see his grandparents.
Grampa taught him how to play piano on a strange, fluid-like facsimile of a baby-grand while he dozed. Gramma never stopped pushing him to sing, producing sheet music from memory and coaching Blaine as often as he liked.
Before the Dance his freshman year, he opened his mouth one night, resting his curls on Gramma’s lap, to tell them both that he was gay. It shouldn’t have been that surprising that they already knew. In the shapeless, soft landscape of Blaine’s shared dreams, he expected that his grandparents knew everything about him.
“It isn’t exactly the space, love.” Gramma had said. “It was in our Scope the moment you were born.”
Her Scope was a lot like the eye from Hercules the Fate sisters shared, Blaine had come to realize. Only, they both had two eyes.
She knew specific things before they would happen, so did Grampa. He had smiled warmly when Blaine turned to look into his blue eyes. Acceptance, love, understanding.
He cried into one of his Gramma’s wings that night, but woke up the next morning and asked Dennis to the Sadie Hawkins Dance.
------
The Dance did a lot for Blaine’s relationship with his parents, but only negatively. It strengthened the bond with Gramma and Grampa.
After he was released from the hospital, Trevor and Lauren ended their fussing over him. His father barely looked at him twice after deciding that he was going to get nowhere with a gay son in Ohio. Hopefully the atmosphere of the world- oppressive and altogether intolerant of any diversions from societal norms- would snap Blaine’s silly ideas and send him on a better path.
They sent him to Dalton mostly to keep him out of the way and avoid any more hospitals. Cooper graduated college and visited him occasionally, although, when he did, they never really had much to do. Being two completely different people, raised by two different families.
Dalton gave him an outlet for all the creativity he had repressed. Both Gramma and Grampa had assured him that he was bound for great things- “I cannot tell you, darling, but I promise, from now on, things will be looking up. You just have to be smart enough to see them,” Gramma said one night, right before Warbler audition. Grampa had called her a regular Yoda and gave Blaine a high-five for understanding the reference.
He joined the Warblers without incident, singing to his heart’s content and became fast friends with the whole group.
No one called him names when he came out, Jeff had even given him a quick up-down before he was nudged by an affronted looking Nick. Both boys offered their guidance and support and seriously, Blaine, if you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to come find us.
He liked the boys.
He spoke to Wes about his grandparents and Wes told him about his sister- the same race of human as Gramma and Grampa- called Aurora. She lived in California with her father, safe in the more Avian-friendly area. He said he missed her and Blaine hugged him tightly, knowing the pain.
“I just don’t know when I’ll see her again, you know?” Wes had sniffled, not letting the tears fall from his eyelashes.
“I know exactly,” Blaine squeezed his shoulder, “how you feel, Wes.”
It felt amazing to just talk to someone about it all, they both came to find out. All the tension and pent-up anxiety poured out of them when they spoke about their families.
They spent a lot of time together, Wes and Blaine, talking and sharing and just becoming friends. Blaine learned Wes’s favorite color was the turquoise of his sister’s wings and how every night her voice would creep into his dreams. When he woke up, the ache lingered in his chest and he could only explain it away as memory.
Blaine never mentioned how often he talked with his grandparents to Wes, though. Especially not if Aurora couldn’t manifest the same space. It hurt too much thinking that if he couldn’t see his family, Blaine was not going to bring false hope to the brightness of Wes’s eyes when he mentioned his sister.
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“She is a delightful little girl, yes.” Grampa’s face had lit up at the mention of the name, once Blaine decided he was going to mention it to him.
“She’s a friend of mine’s-”
“Little sister, yes. We know all about Westley and we’re slowly teaching Aurora how to speak with him just like we are speaking now. It is not a simple process, you know, to create all this out of your subconscious. If you weren’t part Avian, you wouldn’t have the capacity for it, anyway.” He shrugged his shoulders and started telling Blaine about Aurora’s training. Gramma wasn’t present in his dream that night, and hadn’t been for quite a while. Not since his Warbler audition.
“Would we be able to bring Wes into one of these?” Blaine asked in between Grampa’s explanation of spiritual planes and how, no, not every Avian has a Scope.
“Aurora isn’t trained enough to manifest anything but a voice right now.” Grampa’s eyes crinkled, his face pinched, and he leaned forward, questioning.
“Not Aurora’s dreams. Mine.” He ducked his head and wedged his hands, uncomfortably, between his knees. “I don’t know. He’s part Avian too, obviously... do you think you could add him into mine?”
Grampa shook his head.
"Sweetheart,” Grampa paused, settling Blaine’s hands between his own and looking deep into his eyes, eager for his grandson to understand, “it doesn't work like that. The only way we could contact Westley is if we visited him. Alone. It takes more energy than you can even imagine to manifest this. Without proper training and practice, Aurora could very well break something inside his subconscious. It wouldn't hurt him," he added quickly at Blaine's terrified look. “It would only make it harder on both the fledgling and Westley if we tried that. If you want me to, I could go see him in one of his dreams later this week.”
Blaine nodded. He wished he could let Wes be a part of something as amazing as his dreams were. He wanted his friend to understand that Aurora was going to be there, and that she was in good- great, the best possible- hands. He knew what it felt to be apart from the most important people in his life, and the only thing that would make Wes feel even an iota better, in Blaine’s experience, would be to have his sister talk to him.
“Could you try? To talk to him, I mean? He’s going to be a little more confused than I was. Yanno, seeing someone else’s grandparents in your dreams will do that.” Grampa chuckled lightly.
“Don’t mention anything to him, and we’ll have a long talk when your Gramma and I come see him later this week.” With the almost blinding smile radiating from Grampa's face, Blaine leaned back and listened once again to Aurora’s training plans.
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“What the hell, man?” Wes cornered Blaine Saturday outside the dining hall. Blaine smiled at his friend, happily swaying in the hallway. He was ready to spout out everything, ask every question and see if Wes could manage to grasp all the nuances of the dreamspace.
“They came to see you last night, didn’t they?” Wes nodded, confusion flooding his face. He didn’t understand how Blaine could know. Obviously Grampa and Gramma weren’t kidding when they said they would have a deep discussion. Those lasted hours, even in a dream-space. Especially when the two Avian’s were very, very good at trailing into stories and tangents, prolonging any lesson they would try to teach.
Wes had a long night.
Blaine sighed and pulled his friend down the hall to a window bench. It was raining, he noticed, and the overcast sky created a gloom in the secluded area. It didn’t put him off the subject, though it did make him hesitate slightly. Gramma always told him his heart was too big to hold in everything before his brain had a chance at adding a filter. Filter, B, filter. Breathe in and...
“Those were my grandparents you met last night. They are in charge of Aurora’s training and I asked them to talk to you about everything,” he breathed out. Something like a weight pulled off his chest. He could share this with someone, someone who could actually relate. Wes may not be gay, but he was a support system, a giant one.
Not only did they share the Avian half-blood but, now, Wes understood a lot more about the culture. He could see the purpose and the necessity for changes in society. Sharing his grandparents, in all aspects, let Blaine have another thing he could allow himself to just be with his friend; free. He was free of that piece of the secret, if only just to one person.
His friend looked thoughtful for a second picking at the lining of the bench, but when he met Blaine’s eyes again, the happiness was evident.
“They were sort of awesome,” Wes grinned. Blaine laughed, nodded.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” they sat in the window for a few more minutes. Blaine was more than happy to talk about Gramma, someone Wes found absolutely fascinating. They settled into an agreement, one that Blaine would have to talk to Gramma and Grampa about, but he was confident they would be on board. Wes wanted to know more about Avians, and who better to teach him than the people who practically raised Blaine in his sleep?
Once they ventured back to Blaine’s room, intent on letting Wes borrow books Grampa had recommended on the origins of Avian culture, Blaine noticed a strip of sunlight breaking through a gap in the grey clouds.
Maybe Gramma was right. Even if he hadn’t seen her recently, he would always remember her words. Hopefully, when he saw her next he could tell her. Things were looking up.
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Teenage Dream wasn’t his idea. Operation: Get the Spy Incredibly Intimidated While Also Not Giving Away the Setlist wasn’t his idea either. Telling Thad that David shouldn’t ever be able to name another Operation again, though, was. Seriously, guys. That last one, Operation: Jeff’s Pants Shouldn’t Be Hemmed That High, Fix Them? That couldn’t have been the last straw?
When he had seen the boy in a blurry picture on Trent’s phone, though, the recognition itched painfully at the back of Blaine’s head. It wasn’t the clear white appendages wrapped around his back as a few of the students at Dalton were Avian.The school’s bullying policy tended to attract those families. Being different in Ohio was hard enough without having to worry about thinking that your child could be threatened at school. Most of them attended different classes, though, and Blaine almost never saw any of them inside his classes. In the halls, though, they were commonplace. No, the wings weren’t the reason. Blaine just knew that this boy was... someone important.
The performance-following the not-so-coincidental running into the spy on the staircase- went off a lot better than Blaine could have imagined. Wes was almost disappointed when all Kurt- they had learned the boy’s name- could do was clap and tell the Council how astonishing the group was. David’s smug face wasn’t completely unearned; they had rocked that song.
Wes, David and Blaine sat with Kurt while he told them about his high school. Blaine’s- admittedly built up and falsely confident- façade convinced Kurt enough to set him at ease. After Wes and David wandered off, Blaine settled more into himself. He became a little more relaxed, shed his blazer. Spending time with the boy was easy, comfortable. And Blaine didn’t miss his opportunity to appreciate Kurt. He couldn’t help but notice that this boy is gorgeous. Geez. The blazer he had used to try to blend into the red and blue halls of Dalton fit his shoulders perfectly, accentuating a perfect, pale column of his throat. The skin below his cuffs looked soft and Blaine wanted nothing more than to test the patch, see if it felt as smooth as it seemed.
Conversation flowed easily. It was light and, even when they talked about how brutal McKinley was for Kurt or when he mentioned the bruises blossoming on his back from the repeated locker shoves, the words weren’t nearly as harsh as they could have been. The edges were softened around Kurt for some reason. He was smudged permanently into Blaine’s brain.
Blaine didn’t mention the Dance. Because Kurt was here as an escape and the best thing for him right now is to listen and be strong. You can’t break here when you’ve tried too hard for too long, you have to be a mentor here.
They spoke longer than Kurt really had time for, judging by the way he booked out of the Commons after a glance at his watch. With Blaine’s phone number and repeated, rushed apology, Kurt left.
---------------------------------
“Something else, love?” Her eyebrow was arched, a perfect sculpted curve on her forehead. She looked into his eyes and saw all the little things he was hesitant to say; all the small secrets.
“Today... well. Okay,”Blaine blushed, stammering to begin the sentence. He started the conversation time and time again in his head. He wanted to speak with Gramma about Kurt. He was an Avian in Ohio, which, honestly, was rare. The majority in the state were either home schooled or attended Dalton. Kurt’s appearance from McKinley was shocking, even if Blaine didn’t let that slip. Gramma would somehow know all the information Blaine wanted. She had always been that steady source, knowing everything under the sun. Surely, surely she knew how beautiful Kurt Hummel was.
“There was this boy from a different show choir that came to spy on us today. Wes found out about it, of course,” he chuckled at the nod. Gramma and Grampa knew how Wes was. Their lessons with him had taught them a lot about Blaine’s best friend.
“He rigged a mock performance, to catch the guy,” his voice dropped and he thought back to the Commons. The song was executed flawlessly, even if their two-step was a little outdated. Blaine had to climb on the furniture next time, he knew himself, and that would assure that repeated versions ended up more lively.
“Wes, David and I talked to him and his name is Kurt. He’s sort of...”
“Sort of...?” Gramma’s eye narrowed, teasing, even with her fingers wringing together in her hands.
“Beautiful.” He breathed, not fully thinking through that particular part of the conversation with Gramma. Get more information on Kurt, idiot. Stop just picturing his eyes again.
The warm smile was his only response, accompanied by a small squeezing hug.
“He’s Avian, Gramma. With absolutely otherworldly gorgeous white wings.” Blaine nuzzled Gramma’s own wings, ruffling the feathers a little.
“White.” She looked into the dream-space thoughtfully as if picturing something in the distance.
“You say how you can tell an Avian’s personality by their wings, right? What’s the white?”
“What do you think, Blaine?” Her left wing wrapped tighter around him, comforting and warm.
“He’s so... innocent . And full of so much repressed energy and he has so many feelings. I don’t know how I know that, really. I just do. The first time I saw him, he... he just lit up my line of sight. Dalton’s halls have never looked so amazing.”
“What’d you say his name was again?” Blaine looked up at her, finding her eyes.
“Kurt Hummel.” She nodded, almost like checking the box on a to-do list known only to her.
“Do you know who he is, Gramma?” He said it so quietly, he didn’t know if she’d actually heard.
“Well.” The pause between words was drawn out, filled with the unanswered question.
“Yes. I know Kurt. He... he is a very, very important boy that will grow up to be an even more important man.” Gramma didn’t look at Blaine as she said it, which struck him as odd, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t see the red tinge that puffed up her eyes or the tears that were held just behind. Her smile was genuine though, the tears were happy.
Annette just wished she could tell her grandson about how significantly Kurt and his family were going to influence the remainder of Blaine’s life. She couldn’t wait for him to find it out himself.
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Coffee the weekend after Kurt’s first visit to Dalton was quieter. He didn’t have school mates running around and, since they agreed to meet at the Lima Bean, Kurt was closer. The hour drive was okay if he was going to spy on the competition, Kurt had said. “It’s just coffee is so good here.” The laugh in his words was all the convincing Blaine needed.
They sat in a corner booth, far in the back of the coffee house. It was easier for Kurt in the back, knowing that the general population of Lima, Ohio weren’t as accepting as the boys of Dalton.
“How did telling the New Directions go?” Blaine sipped out of his cup, eyes over the lid and on Kurt. He shrugged.
“They took it all differently. I told them, and I quote, ‘Dalton’s boys are amazing. The voices blend remarkably well, even if their style is a little outdated.’ I may have said something about how dapper you all look with your coordinated dress. Rachel took that as a good thing, I think. Finn’s terrified. She seems to bring out the worst in everyone, though, so,” his eyes widened, looking a the lid of his cip as he muttered,”Good luck with that at Regionals.” Kurt chuckled, the sound escaping his mouth almost as though he didn’t want it to.
“What is it about this ‘Rachel’ that makes her so unpleasant?” His eyebrows shot up at Blaine’s question.
“She’s very, very driven and, sometimes....all the time...that gets in the way of everything else. She’s got a whole lot of heart for the things she loves and even more talent than she can even begin to imagine that, but...” he paused to fiddle with the lid of his coffee.
“She’s one of my best friends, but, really, she can get annoying. The fact that she’s got an amazing voice only pushes her. Generally, she’s not too bad. Unpleasant is a little strong, though. At least, that is, until you get to know her. You don’t get unpleasant into your vocabulary yet, Anderson.” They both laughed, Blaine’s eyes crinkling at the corners and Kurt, surprisingly, showing his teeth as they stared at each other.
Blaine hadn’t known him for long, but, whenever the boy would smile, he was tight-lipped about it, rarely showing his teeth. Blaine was more than happy to see such a gorgeous smile, god, Kurt, how can you be so beautiful?
Someone must have decided that their moment just had to end because the sound of glass shattering and metal rolling against tile sprang out of the kitchen, breaking through the air- and their little staring contest.
White feathers tensed suddenly against Kurt’s back and Blaine automatically became alarmed.
“Kurt...?”
“Sorry, the... the noise startled me.” His eyes were shifty, though, like he was looking for someone to jump out and attack him at any moment. The strain left his face, smoothing the lines out as it relaxed into the expression that hadn’t left Blaine’s head since yesterday, but the tension stayed in Kurt’s wings.
“Everything okay, now?”
“I’m just jumpy today.” A tight smile and it was all Blaine could do not to hug Kurt, right then. To hold the boy he barely knew and try to make every little crease of worry and shred of tension melt from his body. No one should feel helpless against fear and least of all Kurt.
Without realizing what his arm was doing, Blaine placed his hand on top of Kurt’s, flat on the table. He stroked Kurt’s wrist with his thumb in a way he hoped was more comforting than creepy. A fraction of the tightness in his wings subsided. Blaine counted that as a win.
The boys talked a little more, mostly about their similar interests in musicals- Don’t you think we should go see the Chicago showing next month in Columbus?- or how much Kurt hated the way Cosmo has structured the magazine- A hundred and thirteen pages, Blaine. One hundred and thirteen pages before I get to an article. How is that even a little okay?
By the end of the afternoon, Blaine felt like he knew everything he could have ever wanted to know about Kurt. But he still wanted more. The boy’s presence was never enough. Blaine needed to be closer, closer, closer. He needed to hug and grip and caress and where is this coming from, what the hell? The gnawing started as they parted ways at the coffee house door. It was as if Blaine’s body was fighting the separation.
Driving away from the Lima Bean had been hard, physically difficult. Blaine was sweating after the twenty minute drive home, vision blurring a little at the edges; spots in front of his eyes at times.
When he finally parked in his spot in the Dalton lot, he struggled to pull himself out of the car and grab his bag from the passenger seat. The quick walk to his dorm building felt like some sort of torture, like his feet were lead, weighed down and he couldn’t help the prickly feeling in his arms. Sick. God, this is horrible. Food poisoning? But his stomach was perfectly fine. His limbs were ready to give out, but everything, save the overwhelming drowsiness, was functioning properly.
Blaine finally dropped his bag into his, thankfully single, room and dragged himself to his bed. He curled up into his blankets, dressed, only bothering to kick his shoes half heartedly to the floor and fell asleep quickly.
Part Two
Artist: dreamingpartone
Author: mismatch_me
Rating (art/fic if different): PG/13
Word Count: ~11,000
Warnings (if any): Mentions of abortion (non-graphic)
Fic Summary: The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
-Rumi
Link to Art: Here and Here
Link to Fic:
Art Thumbnail:
Since Blaine Anderson was little, he had admired his grandparents. This was especially peculiar since he saw them seldomly; they were never actually around when he was awake; however, he felt the connection constantly.
He loved them. They loved him, all parts of him, unconditionally.
No small part of that was because his parents most assuredly did not.
It didn’t start- the negligence or the angry stares- until Blaine’s parents noticed the attachment Blaine’s mother’s parents, the filthy, rotten creatures they were. Things like them weren’t natural and should have never been able to exist in the first place. Their New Age ideals and philosophies didn’t make sense to her and Lauren had left them as soon as she managed to pull herself out of their grasp, influenced thoroughly by Trevor Anderson and his ridiculous politics. He was a college man, someone of high society and even higher stature. He was the most straight laced, by the book, everything-is-this-way-just-because-and-it-shall-always-be man Lauren had ever met. He was everything she had wanted: the complete opposite of her own life. Trevor promised structure in his cropped brown hair, pressed, straight clothing and heavy paychecks. Lauren held on and never went back.
When Cooper came along, Jorge and Annette Tourner stayed away, busy with the duties in their own lives. They didn’t know they had a grandson. It was completely out of their Scope and neither Lauren nor Trevor aimed to fix that. They needed to keep their boy safe from the dangerous thoughts and frightening ideals of Lauren’s parents. All the things the Andersons stood for, from politics to dress, were direct reciprocals of the Tourners.
After Cooper started school, Lauren became pregnant again, but lost the baby two months into her first trimester. Trevor was floored. Doctors had been assuring the couple that the baby would be healthy, even if it was growing faster than normal. Lauren knew what that meant and her child would not turn out to be an abomination just like her parents. She would not live with some... thing inside her that was so absolutely disgusting.
So, without telling her husband, she had dealt with the unborn child. Her parents found her three hours later. They never said a word to her, just stared with sad eyes as she limped away in pain.
Trevor wanted another child. Ever the devoted wife they tried for another child a year later. Blaine came out of it, a little late,-almost nine and a half months-but that only furthered her happiness and reassured Lauren that this child was going to be her’s and Trevor’s perfect little boy. Another gorgeous, normal, Anderson. This child wouldn’t be some creature.
Trevor had been so pleased that he bought a new house, closer to Sacramento with a larger backyard and more room than either of the boys would know what to do with. The relocation also brought them closer to Lauren’s parents who worked in Sacramento more often than not. They found their ways to see the boys. Blaine had been on their Scope, something planned from the beginning, something they could see years before it happened. They found Blaine and showered him with all the love and affection they could. He responded. He loved them so, so very much. Trevor and Lauren began to hate him a little for it. He was still small though, barely seven, when his parents started pulling him in more, not letting him go out to play with anyone lest his grandparents come find him.
Blaine had had them around since... as long as he could remember. He was small, yes, but he knew that these people cared about him, despite what his parents told him. They were a constant, steady source of comfort that chipped at the horrible barricade of lies that his parents had built around his thoughts. They settled deep in his consciousness, warm and supportive.
They had... differences. Two spectacular, astonishing differences that weren’t at all the disfigurations his parents had tried to convince him they were. His grandparents’ wings were nothing if not beautiful, tactile expressions of their inner selves. Coming from a seven-year-old, Jorge was taken aback when he heard Blaine say that. Annette just twisted Blaine’s tiny body in her strong, tanned arms and smiled brightly.
Jorge’s- Grampa- were bright, bright yellow, something that Annette- Gramma- had told Blaine that it meant he would always see the best in everything. She had called him a romantic optimist with a kiss. Blaine nodded, not really understanding a word she had said.
Gramma’s were a chocolate brown with sporadic puffs of deep green. She would stare into Blaine’s eyes sometimes and tell him they reminded her of him; strong, different and beautiful.
He blushed, hugging his grandmother tightly as though holding her there would cement her to the place and she would never leave him.
He felt the difference when his parents stopped letting him go out. They worked from home more and more, and didn’t even let him go to school without first explaining to every administrator that the Tourners were not allowed to ever even look at their son. Schools don’t need lawsuits. They watched out for the winged couple carefully. Blaine didn’t see them much at all, after that.
His parents thought that keeping them out of sight would break Blaine of the connection and he would move on. He would become an Anderson Man. So, they packed up their home and moved to a smaller, more conservative part of the country, breaking every since tie from Lauren‘s mother and father and leaving a barren, tainted hole in the small boy’s heart.
Less than a year later, Blaine began seeing them in his dreams. They wouldn’t do anything but talk to him, sing and tell jokes. It was easy, just as it was before his dad shipped the family off to Ohio.
They told him that they had been coming into his dreams for years, he had just forgotten them the moment he woke. Which made sense, at least to Blaine’s eight-year-old subconscious.
They held him and told him stories of years far, far before Blaine’s time, of stars and other people just like them.
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Gramma and Grampa stayed with him for years. They were the solid forces, the constant while Blaine grew up. Sometimes only one would be in his dreams, normally Grampa was off doing something important. Gramma wouldn’t talk about it, but she promised to tell him when he was older.
By the time Blaine started high school, he knew a lot more about how his grandparents’ lives worked than he did his own parents’. Not that he had any interest in the latter. They only ever spouted intolerant bullshit when he tried to bring up anything that interested him. Wings or no wings, Blaine was still the only person that reminded Lauren of her parents. She barely looked at him after that thought had crossed her mind.
Cooper had already left, as fast as his legs would carry him, to Chicago for art school. He was happy away from their parents. Blaine was glad of that, even if he had to be in the Anderson house every single day and handle the stoic, silent dinners on the weekends. There wasn’t a soul in the house from Blaine’s arrival home until late on the weekdays. He spent a lot of his time alone, with a lot more space- just as his father expected- than he knew what to do with.
So, Blaine slept. Whenever he was awake, he would find things he wanted to say to them, and, by the time he came into the stuffy house after school, he ached to see his grandparents.
Grampa taught him how to play piano on a strange, fluid-like facsimile of a baby-grand while he dozed. Gramma never stopped pushing him to sing, producing sheet music from memory and coaching Blaine as often as he liked.
Before the Dance his freshman year, he opened his mouth one night, resting his curls on Gramma’s lap, to tell them both that he was gay. It shouldn’t have been that surprising that they already knew. In the shapeless, soft landscape of Blaine’s shared dreams, he expected that his grandparents knew everything about him.
“It isn’t exactly the space, love.” Gramma had said. “It was in our Scope the moment you were born.”
Her Scope was a lot like the eye from Hercules the Fate sisters shared, Blaine had come to realize. Only, they both had two eyes.
She knew specific things before they would happen, so did Grampa. He had smiled warmly when Blaine turned to look into his blue eyes. Acceptance, love, understanding.
He cried into one of his Gramma’s wings that night, but woke up the next morning and asked Dennis to the Sadie Hawkins Dance.
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The Dance did a lot for Blaine’s relationship with his parents, but only negatively. It strengthened the bond with Gramma and Grampa.
After he was released from the hospital, Trevor and Lauren ended their fussing over him. His father barely looked at him twice after deciding that he was going to get nowhere with a gay son in Ohio. Hopefully the atmosphere of the world- oppressive and altogether intolerant of any diversions from societal norms- would snap Blaine’s silly ideas and send him on a better path.
They sent him to Dalton mostly to keep him out of the way and avoid any more hospitals. Cooper graduated college and visited him occasionally, although, when he did, they never really had much to do. Being two completely different people, raised by two different families.
Dalton gave him an outlet for all the creativity he had repressed. Both Gramma and Grampa had assured him that he was bound for great things- “I cannot tell you, darling, but I promise, from now on, things will be looking up. You just have to be smart enough to see them,” Gramma said one night, right before Warbler audition. Grampa had called her a regular Yoda and gave Blaine a high-five for understanding the reference.
He joined the Warblers without incident, singing to his heart’s content and became fast friends with the whole group.
No one called him names when he came out, Jeff had even given him a quick up-down before he was nudged by an affronted looking Nick. Both boys offered their guidance and support and seriously, Blaine, if you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to come find us.
He liked the boys.
He spoke to Wes about his grandparents and Wes told him about his sister- the same race of human as Gramma and Grampa- called Aurora. She lived in California with her father, safe in the more Avian-friendly area. He said he missed her and Blaine hugged him tightly, knowing the pain.
“I just don’t know when I’ll see her again, you know?” Wes had sniffled, not letting the tears fall from his eyelashes.
“I know exactly,” Blaine squeezed his shoulder, “how you feel, Wes.”
It felt amazing to just talk to someone about it all, they both came to find out. All the tension and pent-up anxiety poured out of them when they spoke about their families.
They spent a lot of time together, Wes and Blaine, talking and sharing and just becoming friends. Blaine learned Wes’s favorite color was the turquoise of his sister’s wings and how every night her voice would creep into his dreams. When he woke up, the ache lingered in his chest and he could only explain it away as memory.
Blaine never mentioned how often he talked with his grandparents to Wes, though. Especially not if Aurora couldn’t manifest the same space. It hurt too much thinking that if he couldn’t see his family, Blaine was not going to bring false hope to the brightness of Wes’s eyes when he mentioned his sister.
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“She is a delightful little girl, yes.” Grampa’s face had lit up at the mention of the name, once Blaine decided he was going to mention it to him.
“She’s a friend of mine’s-”
“Little sister, yes. We know all about Westley and we’re slowly teaching Aurora how to speak with him just like we are speaking now. It is not a simple process, you know, to create all this out of your subconscious. If you weren’t part Avian, you wouldn’t have the capacity for it, anyway.” He shrugged his shoulders and started telling Blaine about Aurora’s training. Gramma wasn’t present in his dream that night, and hadn’t been for quite a while. Not since his Warbler audition.
“Would we be able to bring Wes into one of these?” Blaine asked in between Grampa’s explanation of spiritual planes and how, no, not every Avian has a Scope.
“Aurora isn’t trained enough to manifest anything but a voice right now.” Grampa’s eyes crinkled, his face pinched, and he leaned forward, questioning.
“Not Aurora’s dreams. Mine.” He ducked his head and wedged his hands, uncomfortably, between his knees. “I don’t know. He’s part Avian too, obviously... do you think you could add him into mine?”
Grampa shook his head.
"Sweetheart,” Grampa paused, settling Blaine’s hands between his own and looking deep into his eyes, eager for his grandson to understand, “it doesn't work like that. The only way we could contact Westley is if we visited him. Alone. It takes more energy than you can even imagine to manifest this. Without proper training and practice, Aurora could very well break something inside his subconscious. It wouldn't hurt him," he added quickly at Blaine's terrified look. “It would only make it harder on both the fledgling and Westley if we tried that. If you want me to, I could go see him in one of his dreams later this week.”
Blaine nodded. He wished he could let Wes be a part of something as amazing as his dreams were. He wanted his friend to understand that Aurora was going to be there, and that she was in good- great, the best possible- hands. He knew what it felt to be apart from the most important people in his life, and the only thing that would make Wes feel even an iota better, in Blaine’s experience, would be to have his sister talk to him.
“Could you try? To talk to him, I mean? He’s going to be a little more confused than I was. Yanno, seeing someone else’s grandparents in your dreams will do that.” Grampa chuckled lightly.
“Don’t mention anything to him, and we’ll have a long talk when your Gramma and I come see him later this week.” With the almost blinding smile radiating from Grampa's face, Blaine leaned back and listened once again to Aurora’s training plans.
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“What the hell, man?” Wes cornered Blaine Saturday outside the dining hall. Blaine smiled at his friend, happily swaying in the hallway. He was ready to spout out everything, ask every question and see if Wes could manage to grasp all the nuances of the dreamspace.
“They came to see you last night, didn’t they?” Wes nodded, confusion flooding his face. He didn’t understand how Blaine could know. Obviously Grampa and Gramma weren’t kidding when they said they would have a deep discussion. Those lasted hours, even in a dream-space. Especially when the two Avian’s were very, very good at trailing into stories and tangents, prolonging any lesson they would try to teach.
Wes had a long night.
Blaine sighed and pulled his friend down the hall to a window bench. It was raining, he noticed, and the overcast sky created a gloom in the secluded area. It didn’t put him off the subject, though it did make him hesitate slightly. Gramma always told him his heart was too big to hold in everything before his brain had a chance at adding a filter. Filter, B, filter. Breathe in and...
“Those were my grandparents you met last night. They are in charge of Aurora’s training and I asked them to talk to you about everything,” he breathed out. Something like a weight pulled off his chest. He could share this with someone, someone who could actually relate. Wes may not be gay, but he was a support system, a giant one.
Not only did they share the Avian half-blood but, now, Wes understood a lot more about the culture. He could see the purpose and the necessity for changes in society. Sharing his grandparents, in all aspects, let Blaine have another thing he could allow himself to just be with his friend; free. He was free of that piece of the secret, if only just to one person.
His friend looked thoughtful for a second picking at the lining of the bench, but when he met Blaine’s eyes again, the happiness was evident.
“They were sort of awesome,” Wes grinned. Blaine laughed, nodded.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” they sat in the window for a few more minutes. Blaine was more than happy to talk about Gramma, someone Wes found absolutely fascinating. They settled into an agreement, one that Blaine would have to talk to Gramma and Grampa about, but he was confident they would be on board. Wes wanted to know more about Avians, and who better to teach him than the people who practically raised Blaine in his sleep?
Once they ventured back to Blaine’s room, intent on letting Wes borrow books Grampa had recommended on the origins of Avian culture, Blaine noticed a strip of sunlight breaking through a gap in the grey clouds.
Maybe Gramma was right. Even if he hadn’t seen her recently, he would always remember her words. Hopefully, when he saw her next he could tell her. Things were looking up.
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Teenage Dream wasn’t his idea. Operation: Get the Spy Incredibly Intimidated While Also Not Giving Away the Setlist wasn’t his idea either. Telling Thad that David shouldn’t ever be able to name another Operation again, though, was. Seriously, guys. That last one, Operation: Jeff’s Pants Shouldn’t Be Hemmed That High, Fix Them? That couldn’t have been the last straw?
When he had seen the boy in a blurry picture on Trent’s phone, though, the recognition itched painfully at the back of Blaine’s head. It wasn’t the clear white appendages wrapped around his back as a few of the students at Dalton were Avian.The school’s bullying policy tended to attract those families. Being different in Ohio was hard enough without having to worry about thinking that your child could be threatened at school. Most of them attended different classes, though, and Blaine almost never saw any of them inside his classes. In the halls, though, they were commonplace. No, the wings weren’t the reason. Blaine just knew that this boy was... someone important.
The performance-following the not-so-coincidental running into the spy on the staircase- went off a lot better than Blaine could have imagined. Wes was almost disappointed when all Kurt- they had learned the boy’s name- could do was clap and tell the Council how astonishing the group was. David’s smug face wasn’t completely unearned; they had rocked that song.
Wes, David and Blaine sat with Kurt while he told them about his high school. Blaine’s- admittedly built up and falsely confident- façade convinced Kurt enough to set him at ease. After Wes and David wandered off, Blaine settled more into himself. He became a little more relaxed, shed his blazer. Spending time with the boy was easy, comfortable. And Blaine didn’t miss his opportunity to appreciate Kurt. He couldn’t help but notice that this boy is gorgeous. Geez. The blazer he had used to try to blend into the red and blue halls of Dalton fit his shoulders perfectly, accentuating a perfect, pale column of his throat. The skin below his cuffs looked soft and Blaine wanted nothing more than to test the patch, see if it felt as smooth as it seemed.
Conversation flowed easily. It was light and, even when they talked about how brutal McKinley was for Kurt or when he mentioned the bruises blossoming on his back from the repeated locker shoves, the words weren’t nearly as harsh as they could have been. The edges were softened around Kurt for some reason. He was smudged permanently into Blaine’s brain.
Blaine didn’t mention the Dance. Because Kurt was here as an escape and the best thing for him right now is to listen and be strong. You can’t break here when you’ve tried too hard for too long, you have to be a mentor here.
They spoke longer than Kurt really had time for, judging by the way he booked out of the Commons after a glance at his watch. With Blaine’s phone number and repeated, rushed apology, Kurt left.
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“Something else, love?” Her eyebrow was arched, a perfect sculpted curve on her forehead. She looked into his eyes and saw all the little things he was hesitant to say; all the small secrets.
“Today... well. Okay,”Blaine blushed, stammering to begin the sentence. He started the conversation time and time again in his head. He wanted to speak with Gramma about Kurt. He was an Avian in Ohio, which, honestly, was rare. The majority in the state were either home schooled or attended Dalton. Kurt’s appearance from McKinley was shocking, even if Blaine didn’t let that slip. Gramma would somehow know all the information Blaine wanted. She had always been that steady source, knowing everything under the sun. Surely, surely she knew how beautiful Kurt Hummel was.
“There was this boy from a different show choir that came to spy on us today. Wes found out about it, of course,” he chuckled at the nod. Gramma and Grampa knew how Wes was. Their lessons with him had taught them a lot about Blaine’s best friend.
“He rigged a mock performance, to catch the guy,” his voice dropped and he thought back to the Commons. The song was executed flawlessly, even if their two-step was a little outdated. Blaine had to climb on the furniture next time, he knew himself, and that would assure that repeated versions ended up more lively.
“Wes, David and I talked to him and his name is Kurt. He’s sort of...”
“Sort of...?” Gramma’s eye narrowed, teasing, even with her fingers wringing together in her hands.
“Beautiful.” He breathed, not fully thinking through that particular part of the conversation with Gramma. Get more information on Kurt, idiot. Stop just picturing his eyes again.
The warm smile was his only response, accompanied by a small squeezing hug.
“He’s Avian, Gramma. With absolutely otherworldly gorgeous white wings.” Blaine nuzzled Gramma’s own wings, ruffling the feathers a little.
“White.” She looked into the dream-space thoughtfully as if picturing something in the distance.
“You say how you can tell an Avian’s personality by their wings, right? What’s the white?”
“What do you think, Blaine?” Her left wing wrapped tighter around him, comforting and warm.
“He’s so... innocent . And full of so much repressed energy and he has so many feelings. I don’t know how I know that, really. I just do. The first time I saw him, he... he just lit up my line of sight. Dalton’s halls have never looked so amazing.”
“What’d you say his name was again?” Blaine looked up at her, finding her eyes.
“Kurt Hummel.” She nodded, almost like checking the box on a to-do list known only to her.
“Do you know who he is, Gramma?” He said it so quietly, he didn’t know if she’d actually heard.
“Well.” The pause between words was drawn out, filled with the unanswered question.
“Yes. I know Kurt. He... he is a very, very important boy that will grow up to be an even more important man.” Gramma didn’t look at Blaine as she said it, which struck him as odd, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t see the red tinge that puffed up her eyes or the tears that were held just behind. Her smile was genuine though, the tears were happy.
Annette just wished she could tell her grandson about how significantly Kurt and his family were going to influence the remainder of Blaine’s life. She couldn’t wait for him to find it out himself.
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Coffee the weekend after Kurt’s first visit to Dalton was quieter. He didn’t have school mates running around and, since they agreed to meet at the Lima Bean, Kurt was closer. The hour drive was okay if he was going to spy on the competition, Kurt had said. “It’s just coffee is so good here.” The laugh in his words was all the convincing Blaine needed.
They sat in a corner booth, far in the back of the coffee house. It was easier for Kurt in the back, knowing that the general population of Lima, Ohio weren’t as accepting as the boys of Dalton.
“How did telling the New Directions go?” Blaine sipped out of his cup, eyes over the lid and on Kurt. He shrugged.
“They took it all differently. I told them, and I quote, ‘Dalton’s boys are amazing. The voices blend remarkably well, even if their style is a little outdated.’ I may have said something about how dapper you all look with your coordinated dress. Rachel took that as a good thing, I think. Finn’s terrified. She seems to bring out the worst in everyone, though, so,” his eyes widened, looking a the lid of his cip as he muttered,”Good luck with that at Regionals.” Kurt chuckled, the sound escaping his mouth almost as though he didn’t want it to.
“What is it about this ‘Rachel’ that makes her so unpleasant?” His eyebrows shot up at Blaine’s question.
“She’s very, very driven and, sometimes....all the time...that gets in the way of everything else. She’s got a whole lot of heart for the things she loves and even more talent than she can even begin to imagine that, but...” he paused to fiddle with the lid of his coffee.
“She’s one of my best friends, but, really, she can get annoying. The fact that she’s got an amazing voice only pushes her. Generally, she’s not too bad. Unpleasant is a little strong, though. At least, that is, until you get to know her. You don’t get unpleasant into your vocabulary yet, Anderson.” They both laughed, Blaine’s eyes crinkling at the corners and Kurt, surprisingly, showing his teeth as they stared at each other.
Blaine hadn’t known him for long, but, whenever the boy would smile, he was tight-lipped about it, rarely showing his teeth. Blaine was more than happy to see such a gorgeous smile, god, Kurt, how can you be so beautiful?
Someone must have decided that their moment just had to end because the sound of glass shattering and metal rolling against tile sprang out of the kitchen, breaking through the air- and their little staring contest.
White feathers tensed suddenly against Kurt’s back and Blaine automatically became alarmed.
“Kurt...?”
“Sorry, the... the noise startled me.” His eyes were shifty, though, like he was looking for someone to jump out and attack him at any moment. The strain left his face, smoothing the lines out as it relaxed into the expression that hadn’t left Blaine’s head since yesterday, but the tension stayed in Kurt’s wings.
“Everything okay, now?”
“I’m just jumpy today.” A tight smile and it was all Blaine could do not to hug Kurt, right then. To hold the boy he barely knew and try to make every little crease of worry and shred of tension melt from his body. No one should feel helpless against fear and least of all Kurt.
Without realizing what his arm was doing, Blaine placed his hand on top of Kurt’s, flat on the table. He stroked Kurt’s wrist with his thumb in a way he hoped was more comforting than creepy. A fraction of the tightness in his wings subsided. Blaine counted that as a win.
The boys talked a little more, mostly about their similar interests in musicals- Don’t you think we should go see the Chicago showing next month in Columbus?- or how much Kurt hated the way Cosmo has structured the magazine- A hundred and thirteen pages, Blaine. One hundred and thirteen pages before I get to an article. How is that even a little okay?
By the end of the afternoon, Blaine felt like he knew everything he could have ever wanted to know about Kurt. But he still wanted more. The boy’s presence was never enough. Blaine needed to be closer, closer, closer. He needed to hug and grip and caress and where is this coming from, what the hell? The gnawing started as they parted ways at the coffee house door. It was as if Blaine’s body was fighting the separation.
Driving away from the Lima Bean had been hard, physically difficult. Blaine was sweating after the twenty minute drive home, vision blurring a little at the edges; spots in front of his eyes at times.
When he finally parked in his spot in the Dalton lot, he struggled to pull himself out of the car and grab his bag from the passenger seat. The quick walk to his dorm building felt like some sort of torture, like his feet were lead, weighed down and he couldn’t help the prickly feeling in his arms. Sick. God, this is horrible. Food poisoning? But his stomach was perfectly fine. His limbs were ready to give out, but everything, save the overwhelming drowsiness, was functioning properly.
Blaine finally dropped his bag into his, thankfully single, room and dragged himself to his bed. He curled up into his blankets, dressed, only bothering to kick his shoes half heartedly to the floor and fell asleep quickly.
Part Two