The World is No Longer Mysterious: Part 3/5
Part 3
26th February 2011
That morning, Blaine wakes up hard, hips pressed up against a pillow. Groaning at the steady drumbeat reverberating through his head, he tries to roll over only for the pillow to make a disgruntled noise and shove him away.
Blaine pushes himself backwards and tumbles off the bed, dragging the sheets with him. Gripping the bed frame for support, he lifts himself up and peers over the edge of the mattress. In the middle of his bed lies a very rumpled and very asleep Kurt Hummel.
Frowning, Blaine reaches out and tugs at Kurt’s outstretched hand. Kurt wrinkles his nose and pulls it back, rubbing his eyes and then turning onto his front.
Boner effectively killed by the shock of waking up next to another guy, Blaine hauls himself to his feet and puts his hand over his eyes as a beam of sunlight makes his head feel like it’s splitting in half. Fumbling over his desk, he finds the oversized sunglasses hooked into the line of fabric pockets nailed to the wall and slips them on over his eyes.
Glancing at himself in the mirror, he grimaces. His hair is a mess, sticking up into a sort of Mohawk and crusted there with gel. His pants are creased and stained at the knee and his undershirt is rucked up at the back. He looks like he fell asleep in a non-leaf-shedding hedge.
Throwing one look back at Kurt, he makes his quiet way out of the room and downstairs.
Cooper is thumping cheerfully around the kitchen, singing along to the radio far too loudly and obnoxiously for the state of Blaine’s head. He makes himself known by dragging out a seat and filling up a glass from the tap, draining it in one.
“Why hello, my most hungover brother,” Cooper sits down next to him with a shit eating grin on his face, “How did you sleep?”
Blaine has to take a few minutes before he can force down the nausea in his stomach and reply. “Like a rock,” he croaks, “Until I woke up with Kurt in my bed.”
“Oh, is that his name? He was passed out drunk on the stairs when I got back, so I figured since the guest room isn’t made up the best room to put him in was yours. You didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I believe you were quite happy about it.”
“Fuck you,” Blaine groans, hiding his face in his hands, “I probably creeped him out, like, majorly.”
“Well, everybody has to experience the fear of waking up with someone you didn’t fall asleep with,” Cooper claps him on the back and completely misses the moan of pain that results, “I recommend getting it done young and then you have the experience when it comes to college.”
“You suck.”
“Nope, that’s you, little bro.”
“I hate you,” Blaine drags himself upright and shuffles towards the door, “I’m going to go and wake him up.”
“Have fun!”
“Hate. You.”
But when Blaine enters his room the bed is empty, and he peers around the side to see if Kurt has rolled off. He hasn’t. Blaine closes his eyes, counts to ten, and opens them again.
Nope, Kurt’s still gone. Blaine’s phone beeps loudly and the noise sends a lightning strike of pain through his head.
Sitting down at his desk, Blaine’s hand crumples a note that (probably) wasn’t there the night before. He picks it up and squints through his glasses, scrunching up his nose.
had to dash, sorry
see you later
kurt x
(p.s. call finn you should probably know what happened last night)
Blaine groans and rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses, struggling to recall the events of the night before. Just when he feels like he might have grasped it, his phone beeps loudly again from the nightstand and it slips away. His phone beeps again and Blaine groans, wondering if hosting your first party makes you more popular than usual. Standing, Blaine hits the off button on his phone and glares at it, before falling into bed. Last night can wait, sleep most definitely comes first.
**
“Blaine!”
Blaine grunts loudly as a response and throws his pillow at the door, but Cooper pushes it open and holds out the phone. “Mike for you.”
“Tell him ‘m sl’pin.”
“He says that he has a hangover too, so he knows your feels.”
Blaine holds his hand out for the phone.
“Hey, man,” Mike whispers, “How you doing?”
“Badly,” Blaine grumbles, “Literally never drinking again.”
“I completely agree,” Mike says seriously, “But I have an entire pot of tea and the Firefly box set. You wanna come over?”
“Please. Cooper has decided that today is a good day to clean the entire house.”
“Ooh, that sucks. So, see you in, like, an hour?”
“See you then,” Blaine mumbles, and then lets his head fall into the pillow.
“You want me to drive you?”
“Please, Cooper, your enthusiasm is painful.”
“Sorry.”
“Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”
“Give me a buzz when you’re ready, then.”
Blaine can tell that Cooper is still standing awkwardly in his doorway, so he pushes himself off his bed and limps past with a soft “I will never forgive you for providing me with alcohol.”
“Love you too, bro.”
Blaine turns the water up as high as he can bear and has the best shower of his life, successfully cleaning all of the gel from his hair and replacing the faint smell of alcohol with that of his body wash. Deciding that today is a day for slobbing and slobbing only, he finds his most comfortable pair of sweats and his old Dalton hoodie, crams a beanie over his curls and has Cooper chauffeur him over to Mike’s.
“Wow,” Mike says when he opens the door, “You look like a hobo.”
“I am comfortable and that is all that matters,” Blaine says, “You promised tea?”
“Follow me, brave soldier,” Mike pats him on the shoulder and guides him up the stairs into his room, proudly labelled The Bat Cave.
Tina is curled up on the beanbag, wearing Mike’s hoodie and with a large mug of tea cupped in her hands. Blaine feels a pang of jealousy as Mike settles down next to her and wraps his arm around her shoulders, leaving him to take the other beanbag and wrap the comforter around his shoulders instead. Momentarily he thinks of having a body next to him, tall and lean and smelling like leather and spice. And then he dismisses the idea as stupid and settles back to watch the show.
Halfway through the second episode, Mike leans forwards and pauses it, clearing his throat. Blaine looks at him over the top of his tea. “What’s wrong?”
“So, I kind of got a really worrying text from Deaton?”
“Football team Deaton? That one?”
“Yeah,” Mike bites his lip, “Um, do you remember what happened at the party last night?”
Blaine shakes his head, stares down into the depths of his tea and remembers Kurt’s note from the morning. That he should probably know what happened. Oh god, what did happen? What did he do? Was it something stupid? Blaine feels a knot of worry tighten in his stomach.
“Basically, you said some stuff, and Puck texted someone, and now it’s - now it’s kind of all around everywhere?”
Blaine frowns. “What’d I say?” He thinks of that time that Cooper scared him so bad he wet himself at seven, or that time he threw up in the lap of his least favourite teacher in middle school, or -
“Um, not word for word but - you want to kiss Kurt and you’re flamingly homosexual. And then you did kiss him. And I think there might have been some tongue, too. Also you tried to climb into his lap -”
“Mike!” Tina hisses, and Mike shuts his mouth.
Blaine suddenly feels like he’s fallen off the top of the Empire State Building. Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. This isn’t happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.
He fumbles with his tea and some of it splashes onto his leg; he yelps in pain and tries to wipe it off with his sleeve. Mike jumps to his feet with the exclamation of “Cloth!” and sprints from the room, and Tina leans across and says “It’s okay, you know?”
“It’s really not,” Blaine says tightly, “I should probably go.”
“Blaine, I don’t care if you’re gay or straight or whatever. You’re my friend.”
“You barely even know me?”
“You’re Mike’s friend, and we’ve hung out enough times for you to qualify as my friend. You know the Glee Club won’t mind.”
“It’s not Glee I’m worried about,” Blaine says, thinking back to the freshman kid who’d been slammed into the locker left of Blaine’s with a snarl of homo just for wearing a purple scarf.
“Cloth!” Mike yells, bursting back into the room, and all three of them wince at the volume. “Sorry,” he whispers, and hands the cloth to Blaine who mops at his jeans hopelessly.
“You’ll be okay, you know?” Tina says hopefully, “I know Sam is totally fine with it.”
“Well, then it’ll be you two, Sam and I against the entire homophobic population of McKinley,” Blaine snaps, “That really sounds like it’ll work, doesn’t it?”
Tina looks taken aback and Mike scowls at him. “Dude, no.”
“Sorry,” Blaine puts the cloth on the floor, “Sorry, I just... sorry. I’m just. I’m not ready.”
Tina pats his hand hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”
“I haven’t even told my parents. How am I -“ he swallows and then closes his eyes, steeling his jaw. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tina and Mike say simultaneously, and Blaine nods. “I’ll deal with it. It’s fine.”
They look at each other and Blaine has to force down the lump in his throat at how easily they communicate without words.
“Are... you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he smiles as brightly as he can and sits back in his beanbag, “Do you want to press play, or...?”
Mike blinks. “Uh, sure.” He settles back into the seat, looping his arm around Tina’s shoulder again and starts the episode.
Blaine waits a minute or so and then finds his phone, turned off after the cascade of texts that had only aggravated his headache earlier that morning. Even more stream in, from numbers he doesn’t know. Determinedly ignoring them, he trawls through until he finds the thread with Kurt’s name on it.
From: Kurt
Sorry for skipping out this morning, I was late for work. How’s the head?
From: Kurt
Are you dead? You’re usually awake by some godawful hour of the morning, feeding horses or spreading rainbows and happiness or something.
From: Kurt
Rainbows probably wasn’t the best choice of words there. Apologies. How’s your foot?
From: Kurt
DON’T CHECK FACEBOOK.
From: Kurt
Sorry for the all caps. Your wall is a bit of a mess.
From: Kurt
Blaine? Are you okay?
Blaine thinks for a moment and then types out a short message.
To: Kurt
I’m fine. Don’t worry.
From: Kurt
I wasn’t. Just wondering. How’s your foot?
To: Kurt
It aches a bit. If I gave you my email and password, could you delete them for me?
From: Kurt
Not really. I’m working right now. When I get home, I could.
To: Kurt
Nvm. See you later.
From: Kurt
Okay?
Blaine scrolls down even further, finds the latest text message from Cooper.
To: Coop
I’m out.
From: Coop
Outside?
To: Coop
No. Out. As in not closeted. As in the entire school knows.
From: Coop
Oh. Do you want me to come and get you?
To: Coop
Yes please.
From: Coop
Be there in ten.
“Blaine?” Mike asks, “You okay?”
Blaine says “My brother’s coming to pick me up in a couple minutes.”
“You don’t have to -“
“No, I know,” he nods, “I know. I just. I need to go.”
“Okay,” Tina says, patting Mike’s arm, “Text if you need me, okay?”
“Sure,” he says, and then he leaves because he really can’t stand being in that room anymore.
Cooper pulls up to the house five minutes later, springs out of the car and throws his arms around Blaine’s shoulders in the sort of hug Blaine hasn’t got since he was nine. Blaine grips his brother’s shirt and takes the biggest, deepest breath he can manage and holds it until the urge to cry goes away.
“I’m sorry,” Cooper mumbles into Blaine’s hair, and Blaine shrugs.
“It was going to happen.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Blaine pulls away. “Can we just go home? Please?”
Cooper looks at him with this face like he’s trying to see through into Blaine’s soul. “Okay,” he says, “Fine. We’ll go.”
Blaine nods and climbs into the passenger side, plucking his phone from his pocket to open the Facebook app.
Kurt wasn’t kidding when he said that his wall was a mess. It’s mostly the football team, as far as he can tell, spamming his wall with caps locked messages of rage and badly-photoshopped pictures of him in compromising positions.
“Squirt? You okay?”
“Not really, no,” Blaine says softly, “Not in the slightest.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Facebook,” Blaine locks his phone and then, after a moment of deliberation, turns it off.
Cooper is quiet for a little while longer. “D’you want to talk about it?”
“No,” Blaine’s voice cracks and he swallows hard, “No. I really, really don’t.” He feels like if he speaks in sentences longer than five words he might start crying and never stop.
He goes up to his room as soon as they get back, shuts the door and curls up in bed with the covers pulled up to his shoulders. He feels like maybe there should be a weight lifted off his chest, but there isn’t. He just feels worse than he ever has before.
Cooper sits on the edge of the bed and takes Blaine’s hand quietly. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Maybe,” Blaine says, but even the thought of talking to his parents about being gay makes him feel sick.
“Okay. I’ll let you be.”
“’Kay,” Blaine whispers. Cooper shuts the door behind him, and Blaine buries his face in his pillow and finally lets the tears fall.
**
28th February, 2011
Blaine fumbles with his Bio folder, tries to keep it all together without dropping everything. It’s not even first period and he’s already a mess. He’d had to sneak past Cooper that morning, who was determined to keep him home for the day. Blaine would really prefer to face them, though. Get it over and done with.
Wherever he goes there are people staring at him, whispering behind his back. He’s heard at least three coughed mutters of fag or homo as he walked to his locker that morning, and he’s just waiting for someone to confront him.
And then there’s the sudden pressure of hands at his back, and Blaine turns and starts to smile, expected to see Mike or Sam, but instead it’s Azimio, and then he’s being shoved so he hits the lockers hard. Blaine’s head cracks against the metal and he stumbles, falls flat on his face as his hands skid out over the sticky lino. His face hits the ground first, and pain bursts in his nose, his glasses dislodging and skittering across the floor. His Bio folder digs into his stomach and he abstractly notes the sound of all his notes flying out of it as laughter bursts out around the hallway.
“Good morning, fag!” Azimio yells as he continues down the hallway, and Blaine feels cold shoot through him at the word. He pushes himself upright, ignores the sting of tears in his eyes and the heat flushing through his cheeks, cups his hand over his nose where blood is dripping from it steadily. He pats the other hand across the floor, searching for his glasses, but when someone’s hand comes down on his fingers he stops.
“Blaine? Blaine, oh my gosh, are you okay?” Tina’s voice cuts through the dispersing babble of the crowd and Blaine blinks as a darkish shape kneels in front of him, followed by one mostly covered in blue.
“Mike? Tina?” he asks, voice thick with unshed tears and the pain in his nose, “That you?”
“Here’s your glasses,” Mike says, pushing them onto his face, and then the world suddenly comes back into focus and Blaine sees Tina and Mike kneeling in front of him, looking concerned.
“Ouch,” he says, smiling weakly and fumbling for his handkerchief in his pocked, “Not fun.”
“Are you alright? Do you think it’s broken?”
Blaine touches the bridge of his noise and winces. “No, I’m okay. Just a nose bleed.”
“You sure?” Tina asks, and then Kurt says “Jesus, what the hell happened to you, Anderson?”
Blaine lifts his head to smile at Kurt. “Nothing, I’m fine,” he says from behind the handkerchief, his voice distorted by the fabric.
“Like hell you are,” Kurt grabs his arm to steady him as he stands, “Did someone punch you?”
“Azimio locker-slammed him,” Mike says disgustedly, bending down to pick up Blaine’s scattered notes.
“Assholes,” Kurt mutters, and Blaine shakes his head. “Guys, guys, I’m fine. Just leave it, I’m fine.”
“And I’m a hippopotamus,” Kurt says scathingly, “You’re coming to the nurse, Anderson.”
Tina pushes his Bio file back into his arms. “Take care of him?”
“Duh,” Kurt rolls his eyes and puts an arm around Blaine’s shoulders, “C’mon, space cadet, let’s get you fixed up.”
“Kurt,” Blaine says softly as they walk, “I’m really sorry about Friday.”
“Hm?” Kurt arches an eyebrow, “What for?”
“For, you know. Kissing you. And stuff.” The one kiss I’m ever going to get with straight Kurt Hummel and I can’t even remember it.
“Jeez, Anderson, I couldn’t care less. It really doesn’t matter.”
“But -“
“Blaine. If you keep trying to apologise I swear to god, I will hurt you. I’m not going to freak out that you’re gay, okay? A kiss is a kiss, doesn’t matter who it’s between.”
A lump grows in Blaine’s throat at that, and he takes a moment to compose himself, pushing down the turmoil of emotions in his chest. “Okay,” he says, and Kurt squeezes his arm.
Kurt stretches the truth to the nurse, manages to persuade her that Blaine was confused and dizzy on the walk to the infirmary as Blaine sits there silently with his head tipped forwards, pinching his nose. She clucks over him, dabs at the blood drying on his polo and eventually calls Cooper to pick him up. When she leaves to find a pack of tissues Blaine clears his throat and says “Thanks.”
“For what? Being a decent person?” Kurt picks at the cuff of his jacket, “You’re an idiot.”
For giving me a chance to get out of this hellhole of a school for one more day.
“Gee, thanks,” Blaine takes the tissues the nurse hands him with a smile and dips on in the cup, attempting to clean the dried blood from his face. Kurt clucks at him and whips it out of his hand, balancing himself on Blaine’s thigh so he can lean over and wipe at his face.
“Like a child,” he mutters, and Blaine tries to make eye contact without crossing his eyes.
“Are you ever going to say something positive about me?” he asks, half-joking.
“Hm, let me think about that,” Kurt twists his lips in fake consideration, “Probably not.”
“You’re horrible.”
“I am, that’s true,” Kurt throws the tissue into the garbage bin and his sleeve slips down, exposing a large scrape down the side of his wrist.
“Whoa,” Blaine says, “Are you okay? Your wrist...”
Kurt glances at it. “Oh, yeah, that. It’s just -“ he waves a hand, “Unfortunate run-in with a grumpy ghost. Nothing important.”
“It looks painful.”
“Like I said, it was a very grumpy ghost.”
“Aren’t all of them,” Blaine says playfully, “You know, being dead and all.”
Kurt sort of squints at him and Blaine’s cheeks go red. “Sorry, that was tasteless.”
Surprisingly, Kurt laughs. “You’re a strange one, Anderson,” he says, “Nice, but strange.”
Blaine’s lips twitch up into a smile. “I... thanks?”
Kurt shrugs, fiddles with the charm on his necklace. Blaine’s smile grows as he realises something.
“You just said something nice to me.”
“What?” Kurt jumps, “I... what?”
“You called me nice!” Blaine says triumphantly, “Who knew all I had to do was make a tasteless joke and you’d be nice to me again?”
“Shut up,” Kurt mutters, but he’s smiling and Blaine counts that as a win.
“Hello, my little Houdini,” Cooper booms, sweeping the curtains back and making Blaine flinch, “How’s it hanging?”
“Don’t call me that,” Blaine says as Kurt mouths Houdini to himself and chuckles, “I’m fine, Cooper.”
“Are you sure? Your nose looks broken.”
“It’s not broken.”
“It looks broken,” he turns on his heel, “Drunk guy that I put in Blaine’s bed! How are you?”
“Fine,” Kurt says dryly, “If you’ll excuse me, I have Geometry.” He picks up his bag and turns to face Blaine. “Be careful, Anderson. Don’t trip.”
“Yeah,” Blaine says, his mouth going strangely dry, “I won’t.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt waves at Cooper and skips around the nurse, slipping through the door before it closes.
“Huh,” Cooper says, “So, that’s the guy you want to have babies with?”
“Oh my god,” Blaine buries his face in his hands, “Stop talking about my stupid hopeless crush, I hate you.”
Cooper pulls him up by the arm and winks at the nurse as he tugs Blaine out of the infirmary. “No you don’t. C’mon, it’s intervention time.”
“Inter - what?” Blaine hunches his shoulders as they pass the group of jocks that skip first and hang out by the front. One of them notices him and smirks, making an obscene gesture with his hands. It’s Ollie, the boy who sat with Blaine in History and would occasionally engage him in conversation about the latest football game if the fancy took him.
“ - decided it was time to do something about the amount of ice cream you ate,” Cooper is saying, and Blaine tears his eyes away from them and resigns himself to going home and eating the rest of the pot of honeycomb ice cream he knows Cooper hid.
“So sit here and let me drive,” Cooper finishes, and Blaine folds himself into the car and folds his arms, slumping down into the seat. Cooper smiles and turns on the radio, humming along as he pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street.
“This isn’t the way home,” Blaine sits up, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see!” Cooper grins, and Blaine shakes his head wearily.
“Coop, I just want to go home. Please?
“Nope!” Cooper says, beaming, “It’s a surprise!”
Blaine sighs. “Okay, fine. Just, make it quick? Toddlers and Tiaras is calling me.”
“Unhealthy.”
“Shut up,” Blaine retorts, “I love it.”
“You love watching small children being forced to perform in uncomfortable sparkly outfits?”
“Shut up,” Blaine pulls up the hood of his jacket and Cooper laughs. “Oh, I meant to tell you. Chelsea-the-hot-riding-teacher called and said that Archie needs re-shoeing in the next week, so you need to rustle up some money to pay for that damn horse.”
“Archie,” Blaine says sternly, “is absolutely perfect, and I will not have you trash-talking him. Or Chelsea.”
“He’s an animal, Blaine,” Cooper mutters, “And the thing about Chelsea was a compliment,” but he keeps his mouth shut anyway.
They eventually pull up outside a small coffee place called The Lima Bean and Cooper shoves him. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Go, go inside.”
“Coop, I don’t...”
“Go or I chuck the ice cream.”
“Screw you,” Blaine climbs out of the car and slams it as pointedly as he can, dragging his feet across the parking lot and pushing open the door. There’s barely a queue, so he stands behind the person ordering and stares up at the menu.
“Can I help you, sir?” the barista asks, and Blaine nods. “Uh, can I have a hot chocolate? With, uh, whipped cream and marshmallows. And cinnamon. Thank you.”
“Small, medium or large?”
“He always has medium,” a familiar voice says, and Blaine spins to see Trent standing behind him, dressed in street clothes with a large smile on his face.
“Trent?” Blaine gasps, and his friend grins. “Morning, Blaine.”
“Oh my god,” Blaine flings his arms around Trent and squeezes him, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t -“
“Cooper arranged it,” Trent turns him and nods towards the barista, patiently waiting to be paid, “And could I add a small white chocolate latte and a couple biscotti to that? Thanks,” he elbows Blaine out of the way and hands over a ten-dollar note, waving him away when he tries to hand the change back.
“What are you doing here?” Blaine asks as they walk down the counter to wait for their drinks, “I didn’t know Dalton was closed today.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s the pipes again,” Trent shrugs, “Most of the Science block is out so they cancelled lessons.”
“Ah, I remember the days of health and safety,” Blaine says wistfully, and Trent arches an eyebrow.
“Come now, McKinley can’t be that bad?”
“The cheerleading coach tried to shoot someone out of a cannon, Trent,” Blaine smiles at the (very cute) barista who hands them their drinks and plate of biscotti, “And everyone uses the bathrooms at the Chinese place down the road because apparently there are snakes in the ones at school.”
“Oh,” Trent pulls a face as they sit down at a table at the back, “That sucks.”
“Plus, during my second week there I discovered that the jocks’ idea of fun is to throw slushies - you know what slushies are, right? Yeah, they fill up a cup, find their target for the week and throw them at you. Right in the face,” he shudders, “It’s like being slapped by a bag of frozen peas.”
“Oh, god,” Trent grimaces, “That sounds barbaric.”
“You’re telling me. The purple -“ Blaine puffs out a breath, “Impossible to get out. They ruined my favourite polo with that.”
“Wow,” Trent fiddles with his biscotti and purses his lips. Blaine sighs. “So, why did you want to meet up?”
“What? I - that’s preposterous! I don’t need a reason to want to see a good friend, you -“
“Trent,” Blaine laughs, “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met. Come on, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Trent sighs, “News of your recent coming out has reached Dalton via one Cooper Anderson. He said you ate an entire litre of ice cream yesterday, so we called an intervention.”
Blaine tilts his head. “A coffee intervention?”
Trent shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. Their biscotti is -“ he closes his eyes, “Perfection.”
“I’m sure the Italians would beg to differ,” Blaine grins, and Trent waves a hand. “So, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t sleep much last night, probably the ice cream, but -“
“No, Blaine. I mean, are you okay?”
Blaine cups his hands around the hot chocolate and thinks. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not really,” he shrugs half-heartedly, “I just don’t. I was going to try and sort out - who I could and couldn’t talk to at school today, but that didn’t work out.”
“Oh?” Trent eyes him over the top of his coffee, “What happened? Actually - take it from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
“Okay,” Blaine says, and starts talking.
It only takes him about twenty-five minutes to explain everything, scooping the whipped cream off the top off his drink with the biscotti as he talks. Trent makes occasional noises of shock or disappointment, but mostly he just lets Blaine grumble and mutter and whine.
Once he’s done he takes a sip of his hot chocolate and waits quietly for Trent to gather his thoughts.
“Well,” Trent says eventually, “You could always say that Puck was making it up and you actually said you were flamingly heterosexual.”
“I think the point of that is slightly nullified by the fact that I made out with Kurt about two seconds later,” Blaine says, “But I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Hold up, you didn’t say made out,” Trent says, “You said kissed. You said you kissed him!”
“I did!” Blaine smiles awkwardly, “But, you know, apparently there was tongue. And stuff.”
“Blaine Anderson, you dog!” Trent gasps, “What happened to the dapper young man I once knew?”
“He got a crush?” Blaine says, feeling his cheeks heat up, and Trent narrows his eyes.
“I’m not sure if this Kurt you’re talking about is a good match for you.”
“Why?” Blaine’s grin fades, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Well, you know, he wears leather and probably smokes -“
“He doesn’t smoke,” Blaine says, and Trent eyes him.
“Just because you’ve never seen him smoke, doesn’t mean he doesn’t. Hey, I could introduce you to this guy that goes to Dalton, he’s really cute.”
“It’s hopeless, anyway,” Blaine sighs, “He’s straight. And he’d be way out of my league if he even were gay -“
“Save it for the bedroom, homos,” some girl spits as she walks past, and Blaine’s hands tighten so hard on his cup that the cardboard buckles and hot chocolate splashes out onto his hand.
“Ow, shoot, that burns,” he shakes his hand quickly and grabs a napkin from Trent’s outstretched hand, biting his lip.
“Sorry about that,” Trent says breezily, “She’s the sister of one of those assholes at Dalton. Every time I come here she makes some nasty comment.”
Blaine swallows hard and says “How do you deal with it?”
“Deal with what?”
“People like that?” Blaine worries at his lower lip, “I just, I don’t know how to deal with it. I could do this if I didn’t care, but I do. Every time someone says something like that -“ it makes me want to cry he wants to say, but he stops himself and takes a large gulp of hot chocolate.
“Listen, Blaine,” Trent says, “They’re idiots. Okay? All of them. They’re just,” he waves a hand, wrinkling his nose, “Stupid. Okay? It used to get to me too, in middle school, but then I decided that in ten years I would be at the top of the ladder in photography and they? They will be working in McDonald’s. So next time someone calls you anything, just imagine them standing behind a counter covered in chicken grease asking people if they’d like fries with that, while you’re a famous show-jumper with three Olympic gold medals under your belt or whatever.”
Blaine’s mouth falls open and Trent frowns.
“What?”
“That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard you say about anyone,” Blaine says, shocked, “It’s like a whole new Trent.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Trent sits back in his seat, “You’re so mean to me.”
“Sorry,” Blaine says, and Trent gestures at him.
“So what are you going to be top of? Dentistry? Business? Are you going to take your obsession with the four-legged and unpredictable to the next level?”
“Theatre, duh,” Blaine says, relieved to move the conversation away from his inability to deal with homophobes. Trent nods.
“Of course, Broadway?”
“Where else?” Blaine grins, “I want to be the next J. Pierrepont Finch.”
“Oh really,” Trent smirks, “You may just have to fight Thad for it.”
“Thad can eat my dust,” Blaine winks and Trent laughs. “There he is. Good old Dalton Blaine.”
“Good old me,” Blaine echoes, but he feels like Dalton Blaine might be gone for a while. Dalton Blaine certainly didn’t wake up in the middle of the night with his underwear sticking to him and the fading memory of a hand cupping his cheek and lips against his.
No, Dalton Blaine hasn’t been around since someone turned to him and asked if he had something to say.
**
Blaine catches a lift home from Trent, waves goodbye from the porch and unlocks the door to the sound of shouting. Familiar shouting.
He swallows down the greeting about to leave his mouth and listens carefully, barely making out the words ‘stove’ and ‘unsalvageable.’ He kicks his shoes away and tiptoes past the kitchen, hoping to get up to his room without catching his mother’s attention.
“Blaine?”
Blaine freezes for a moment, and then turns to find his father standing in the doorway to the living room. He smiles, opens his arms. “Going to skip past your old Dad without giving him a hug, huh?”
Smiling, Blaine skids back across the floor and gives his Dad a strong, quick hug, as is the Anderson way. Dad claps him on the shoulder. “How are you doing, Blaine?”
“I’m...” gay, and getting hell for it, “Fine, Dad. How are you? How was Poland?”
“Poland was the last one. France was very long, but with some really quite fantastic history that I could not persuade your mother to give a second look at. How’s your new school? I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here often enough to talk to you about it.”
“It’s fine, Dad,” Blaine says, smiling, “But I’ve got homework, you know. Stuff to do.”
“Of course,” his father claps him on the shoulder, “Study, study!”
“Yeah,” Blaine says, walking backwards towards the stairs, “See you at supper?”
“Sure,” Dad says, already distracted by something on his phone.
Blaine escapes up the stairs before his mother can finish yelling at Cooper for whatever he’s done to the stove and start pinching his cheeks.
There’s a couple of messages on his phone when he gets upstairs, flopping onto bed with an overdramatic sigh.
From: Mercedes Jones
Heard what happened - u can count on me if u need to :)
He smiles at that - he and Mercedes have been sort-of-friends since they sung a duet for the Valentines Day assignment.
From: Tina
Got your ur bio notes, will give 2moz.
From: Kurt
You got blood on my jacket
From: Kurt
Not like it’s the first time but
From: Kurt
BLOOD ON MY JACKET. Forget what i said before, i’m angry.
Blaine laughs out loud, and then claps a hand over his mouth like his parents might descend from the ceiling and interrogate him about who he’s texting.
To: Mercedes Jones
Thank you. Really. I appreciate it.
To: Tina
You’re awesome.
To: Kurt
Salt and cold water! My mother swears by it.
He rolls onto his back and picks up A Storm of Swords to pass the time, tapping his fingers idly across the pages before he gives up and pulls out his laptop, opening up Facebook.
Slowly and determinedly, he goes through his page deleting comments and blocking users and imagining every single shirtless-and-tensing profile picture covered in a McDonald’s uniform. It doesn’t quite dull the ache in his chest at every comment of fudge-packer or faggot or fairy but it does bring a small, tentative smile to his face every time he thinks about asking David Karofsky for a cheeseburger with fries.
From: Kurt
I’m not an idiot, you know. Remember the whole hunting the things that go bump in the night for half my life? I can clean blood like a pro.
To: Kurt
No, actually, you’ll have to tell me about that.
From: Kurt
I suppose I will.
**
“Hey, Finn,” Blaine says cheerfully as he walks by Finn’s locker. As usual, the jock is buried under tonnes of paper, searching frantically for his sheet music for Regionals. He mumbles a hello back, and then Karofsky grabs Blaine by the front of his shirt and slams him up into the lockers.
“Hey!” Blaine yelps, feeling the vents digging into his back, “What -“
“You trying to turn him, queer?” Karofsky snarls, “You tryna make him one of you?”
Blaine manages to pushes him away, his feet hitting the floor again. “I just said hey,” he says defensively, and Karofsky shoves him so hard his head clangs against the metal.
“You keep away from him,” he says, his face so close to Blaine’s that he can smell the reek of his breath, “We don’t need any more fairies like you on the team. You hear me?”
He leaves Blaine shaking and unsteady against the lockers and lumbers through the crowd, shoving at unsuspecting freshmen. Blaine collects himself, takes a deep breath and straightens his back, tipping up his chin. Finn, having excavated himself from the mound of paperwork, waves. “Hey, Blaine. You okay?”
“Fine,” Blaine says, “I’m absolutely fine.”
The rest of the day continues in much the same way. Blaine is locker slammed, glared at, and called every offensive name under the sun. The only highlight comes when he and Sam perform some carbon-copy pop song in front of an uninterested crowd for McKinley Sexual Awareness week, and that’s barely an enjoyable thing by itself. By the time Glee comes around and Mr Schue is emphatically talking about Regionals and their competition - The Warblers, eek - Blaine is so tired he barely listens.
“Hey.”
Blinking his eyes open, he turns his head to see Kurt offering a can of something.
“What’s that?” he asks, blinking, and Kurt winks. “Red Bull. You look like you need it.”
Gratefully, he takes the drink and grimaces slightly at the taste, flashing a smile at Kurt. Kurt grins and salutes.
Suddenly, Glee seems much easier to work through.
Blaine spends an extra fifteen minutes organising his sheet music for the next few days so he can avoid meeting any of the jocks who hang around after football practice hoping to dumpster unsuspecting Glee members. Once he’s sure they’re gone, he slings his bag over his shoulder and hurries down the hallway, keeping his head down.
He reaches the parking lot without a problem and is only a few feet from the road when his feet go flying out from underneath him.
Blaine hits the ground with a thump and lies stunned for a moment before the first kick slams into his chest. He curls into a ball automatically, shielding his head as the jocks - and they must be jocks, who else would do this? - grunt and snarl and swear at him, yelling things like “Just because Evans is one of us!” and “Don’t need to see your stupid fairy club performing like that!”
Suddenly cold is dumped over his head and Blaine gasps as slushy washes over him, drenching his head and chest in purple ice. Blinking behind his glasses, he catches his breath and sits up, trying to rub his eyes clear. Blurrily, he catches sight of a bunch of lettermans jackets running away.
For one pathetic moment, he wishes that his mom were there to help him up and soothe his pain and yell at the boys who’d hurt him. But she’s not, so he picks himself up painfully and wipes the worst of the slushy off with his hands, and slowly makes his way back home.
**
Blaine sits down at the counter and thumps his arms loudly onto the marble.
His parents look up simultaneously, his father from his laptop and his mother from her tablet. “Sweetheart,” she says, her eyes widening, “What happened to you?”
A bunch of jocks cornered me as I left Glee, got a couple of kicks in and then emptied three cups of purple slushy over my head. Just because I sang a duet with Sam in assembly today.
“I got beat up,” he says thickly, the words coming out wrong because of his split lip, “And slushied.”
“This is unacceptable behaviour, this school is supposed to have a no tolerance bullying policy,” his dad says sharply, “Who did it?”
“I didn’t see,” Blaine says truthfully. The initial shove had nearly knocked his glasses right off his face.
“Still, I’ll go and talk to the principal tomorrow. Marie, you should -“
“Caden, I have a meeting.”
His father drops his voice. “Marie, this is our son. He was attacked for no reason and -“
“They had plenty of reason,” Blaine says.
Caden looks at him. “What?”
“They had plenty of reason,” he repeats, “In their opinion, I’m sure.”
“Blaine, what are you talking about?” Marie asks, and without really stopping to think Blaine says “I’m gay.”
The room goes completely and utterly silent. Blaine sits up, tilts up his chin even though he can feel the sticky corn syrup drying on his back and chest. His mother is frozen in her seat, clutching the tablet like it’s a lifeline. Her eyes sharpen and her mouth presses into a thin line. And then, abruptly, she stands up and walks out.
“Mom?” Blaine says, and she just shakes her head. Hopefully, he turns back towards his father.
“I think you should go and shower, Blaine,” he says, “I’ll talk to your mother.”
Blaine nods, blinking quickly and sliding off the stool. Caden peels off into the living room and Blaine takes the stairs two at a time despite the throbbing pain in his ribs, thinks about calling Cooper and asking him to take him back to Westerville.
He showers quickly, just long enough to get the corn syrup off and then he dries off, finds a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and takes a few minutes to tame his hair. Then he grabs his phone and clips Mouse’s lead on and slams the door behind him.
He gets halfway down the road before he realises he doesn’t know where he’s going. It’s getting dark but he just keeps walking, Mouse trotting quietly alongside, occasionally pausing to examine a nice-smelling lamppost or road sign.
After half an hour he spots a familiar figure walking ahead of him, boots dragging across the floor a little. Breaking into a jog, Blaine calls “Hey, Kurt? Hey!”
Kurt spins, looking shocked, and then his face splits into this smile that lights up the entire street. “Hey, Anderson. What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Why, where am I?” Blaine asks, coming to halt, and Kurt looks around before bending down to greet Mouse. “Well, this is the fine establishment of Lima Heights. Are you out clubbing?”
“No,” Blaine says, shrugging, “Just walking.”
Kurt frowns, peers up at him. “Hey - what happened to your face?”
“Oh, that,” Blaine waves it off nonchalantly, “Just a couple guys after Glee, it doesn’t matter.” He nearly pats Kurt’s shoulder but pulls his hand in just in time, shoving it in his pocket instead.
“Sure,” Kurt says, tugging his beanie down on his head, “And I’m a purple hippo.”
“Are you?” Blaine asks playfully, but Kurt just stands and steers him back down the street. “Seriously, Blaine. What happened?”
“It was just some jocks,” Blaine stiffens as Kurt slings an arm over his shoulders, the movement easy like he didn’t even think about it, “They didn’t like... my duet. Today. With Sam.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Kurt says, and Blaine swallows. “I came out. To my parents.”
“Oh.”
“My mom walked out,” Blaine laughs humourlessly, “It’s funny, I thought my dad would always be the one to reject me, or whatever. Motherly love and everything.”
Kurt squeezes his arm. “That sucks.”
“I know, I,” he swallows hard, “I just hate the way she reacted. She didn’t even say anything, she just looked at me like I was. Disgusting.”
“I’m really sorry -“
“Forget it,” Blaine shakes his head, blinking rapidly to try and alleviate the threatening tears, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” Kurt stops next to a truck that Blaine recognises and unlocks it. “You coming?” he says, and Blaine thinks he detects a shard of hope in Kurt’s voice.
“I’ve got,” Blaine gestures at Mouse, but Kurt shakes his head. “I don’t mind. Just stick him in the back.”
“Um, okay,” Blaine pulls the back door open and Mouse jumps up obediently, sitting on the floor and poking his nose between the front seats.
Blaine climbs in beside Kurt, says “Where’re we going?”
“Home, obviously,” Kurt says, digging in his bag and throwing a small tub at Blaine, “Because I have decided to dye my hair.”
Blaine examines the tub in the meagre light available. “Blue?”
“Red doesn’t resonate with my style, and green is just -“ Kurt pulls a face, “Egh.”
“Huh,” Blaine tilts the tub and then glances at Kurt, “Any reason why?”
“To piss off my father,” Kurt shrugs, “For fun, because I needed a change, because brown hair is boring... so many reasons.”
“I don’t think your hair is boring,” Blaine says, and then clears his throat and looks away hastily.
“Well, it’s not like I can go back,” Kurt sighs, “I’ve already bleached the tips.”
“You’re not dying all of your hair?”
“God no,” he laughs, “I’m not crazy. What if I hated it? I really don’t want a repeat of the hair bleach incident of 2007.”
Blaine settles back into his seat. “What happened?”
“Oh no, I’m not telling you a thing.”
“C’mon!” he whines, “I won’t judge you! I’ll tell you about the time I straightened my hair?”
“Tempting as that is, no.”
“What if I told you about the time I tried to cut my own hair?”
Kurt sighs. “Okay, okay. Basically, I was fourteen and angsty, and I thought it would be really fun to bleach my hair to piss off my dad, because he was being all lordy over me and trying to make me come home, so I bleached my hair to be ‘rebellious,’” he takes his hand off the wheel to make quote marks around the word, “But it ended up looking tacky and cheap, and I didn’t have the time or money to dye it back. So I had to wait until we finished the job before I could shear it all off, and I looked hideous, everyone teased me. Never again.”
Blaine tries to imagine Kurt with bleached-blond hair and bursts out laughing, covering his mouth at Kurt’s dead-eyed glare. “I’m sorry, I just, the mental image is hilarious.”
“I’m glad you’re laughing,” he mutters, “What about you?”
Blaine shakes his head. “Oh no, mine could never match up to yours. That’s just - perfect.”
Kurt smacks him on the thigh. “You promised.”
“Fine, fine,” Blaine’s thigh is stinging in a sort of pleasant way and he crosses his legs to dull the feeling, “I was seven, and I was getting teased at school for having really long curly hair, but Mom wouldn’t cut it because she was really possessive about my hair. So I stole the kitchen scissors - don’t laugh! - I stole the kitchen scissors when she was talking to her friends and started just chopping off massive chunks of hair, like entire handfuls. When she came back in she screamed so loud that one of the neighbours came over to see what was going on.”
“Oh my god,” Kurt chuckles, “Please say you have pictures?”
“Yeah, well, I did it on a Saturday evening and our hairdressers were closed, so I had to stay like that until Monday morning when she kept me off school to have a private hairdresser come and correct the damage. Cooper took an entire disposable camera’s worth of pictures, I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to get them out and show you.”
Kurt smiles at him, his teeth flashing in the street lamps, and Blaine turns the pot of dye over in his hands and stares out of the windscreen.
The conversation fades into a comfortable silence, and soon they’re turning onto Kurt’s street and parking outside his empty house.
“Dad and Carole are out with friends,” Kurt explains, “And Finn’s off jerking off in the bushes or whatever he does for a hobby.”
Blaine shudders at the image and Kurt laughs, jumping down from his seat and waiting by the hood of the car for Blaine to get Mouse and follow him.
“Is it okay if he comes down the stairs?” Blaine checks, and Kurt waves a hand. “I’ve got an old beanbag he can sleep on, don’t sweat it.”
Blaine’s never been into Kurt’s room before. He’s been over to the Hummel-Hudson’s for video game marathons and movie nights but the basement door has always been firmly shut, and Finn’s room was at the other end of the house. The basement is surprisingly clean and neat, with a few old books lined up on the bookshelves. Kurt places his jacket on the back of his desk chair and nods to the beanbag in the corner as he unbuttons his shirt and tosses it into the laundry basket.
Mouse flops down in the middle of the floor quite comfortably and Blaine stands awkwardly, not entirely sure where to sit. From the bathroom, Kurt calls “Make yourself at home!” and then emerges with a towel over his shoulders, pointing at the bed. “I swear, you are the politest person I’ve ever met.”
“Blame my parents,” Blaine says, instead choosing to wander over to Kurt’s bookshelf and run his thumb down the dusty spines so he can read their titles clearly. Nudging his glasses up his nose, he pulls one out and turns it over to examine the back.
“Peter Pan, huh?” he asks, and then Kurt snatches the book from his hands and slams it back into the shelves. Blaine flinches, bringing his hands up to his chest in shock, and Kurt runs a hand through his hair.
“Your hair,” Blaine says, and Kurt blinks. “What? Does it look bad?”
“No, it’s just. It’s weird,” he says, eyeing the blond streaks at the tips of Kurt’s hair, “I’m sure it’ll look great blue, though.”
“Really?” Kurt looks hopeful, “You do?”
“Sure!” Blaine goes to pull another book out of the case and then pauses, glancing at Kurt for verification and Kurt nods, moving forwards to join Blaine.
“Peter Pan scared me,” Blaine offers, “Especially the Disney movie, ugh. Gave me nightmares. My brother used to stand outside the door with his alarm clock so I could hear the ticking and then snap his teeth.”
“Your brother sounds like an asshole,” Kurt says dryly, “No offence.”
“None taken, he kind of is,” Blaine pulls another book down; The Northern Lights.
“Philip Pullman fan?” he asks, and Kurt shrugs. “I liked to think of myself as Lyra. Barely seeing her father, never met her mother and managing to go on all of these amazing adventures.”
“Mm,” Blaine puts it back, “Harry Potter was my escape, to be honest.”
“I know,” Kurt says, “There’s pictures of you dressed up as him on your pin board.”
Blaine grins. “I was a kick-ass Harry.”
“Sure you were,” Kurt pets his hair and then turns away, “I’m going to go get started on my hair.”
“Go ahead,” Blaine says, rising up onto his toes to pull at a book with faded golden lettering. Something else slips off the top, sending a cascade of dust bunnies down over his head and shoulders, and he grabs it before it smacks him on the head.
Bringing it down to eye level, he frowns at the edition of Vogue he’s holding. It’s recent, and a smile spreads across his face as he recognises the person on the cover.
“Marion Cottilard!” he yells, and Kurt shouts “What?”
“Vogue! Marion Cottilard was my favourite cover,” Blaine moves to lean against the bathroom doorframe, looking in and - wow, okay, Kurt is shirtless and bent over the bath, blue hair dye spattered over his shoulders and smeared across his fingers. Blaine’s mouth has gone dry and he swallows futilely a few times, his eyes fixed on the smooth expanse of Kurt’s back, pale with the exception of a tattoo.
“I still can’t hear you,” Kurt’s saying, and Blaine squeaks “Never mind, it wasn’t important - you have a tattoo?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt says distantly, “I’ve had it for years.”
“Finn said you didn’t.”
“Finn’s an unobservant idiot, Anderson, don’t trust what he says.”
Trying not to seem creepy, Blaine inches forwards to peer at Kurt’s shoulder blade. The tattoo is black, a delicate bird straining up towards his shoulder with a ribbon tied to one leg, winding down his shoulder blade to the base, where a simple black anchor chains it down. Looking closer, Blaine pinpoints the spot where the ribbon turns to chain.
“It’s nice,” he says eventually, “A nice design.”
“Don’t you go stealing it,” Kurt says jokingly, and the image of them having matching tattoos sends a pleasant shiver down Blaine’s spine.
“Of course not,” he says, licking his lips and then realising how creepy that must look, “Um, your hair looks good.”
“You think?” Kurt straightens up, the comb jammed in his hair at a jaunty angle, and Blaine has to quickly avert his eyes from Kurt’s chest. God, I am such a creeper. I’m probably freaking him out.
“It looks great!” he says, his voice about two octaves too high, “Um, I’m just going to -“
“Sure,” Kurt says, “Go ahead and read any books you want, I don’t really visit them that often.”
Blaine smiles and bobs his head, drops Vogue on Kurt’s bed and walks back to the bookshelf quickly. He feels warm and his cheeks are red, the image of Kurt’s back forever emblazoned into his mind. Attempting to distract himself, he picks up the copy of Peter Pan, flicking through the pages without really reading them. When his fingers brush over lumpy, torn paper instead of the smooth page he was expecting he snaps out of his lust-induced haze and glances at the book, and then nearly drops it in surprise. The page is crusted in rust-red paint, and part of it is ripped away. Frowning, Blaine lifts it closer and catches the distinct tangy smell of blood.
He puts it back hurriedly, swallowing hard, and wipes his hands on his jeans. He really hopes that’s not human blood.
“You okay?” Kurt’s voice from behind him makes him jump and he staggers back, hand over his heart.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry,” Kurt holds up his hands, “Just wondering, you seemed kind of shaken up.”
“Just -“ Blaine shakes his head, “Silly home stuff.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt touches his wrist, “That sucks.”
Blaine shrugs and then changes the subject quickly, “I found that Vogue in your bookshelf, is it yours?”
Kurt turns to face his bed and freezes up. “No! No, it must be Carole’s. Uh, I’ve never seen that before.”
“Oh, shame,” Blaine picks it up and replaces it on the shelf, “That’s my favourite cover. Do you want me to take it upstairs or -”
“No! No, I’ll do it later, don’t worry,” Kurt says in a sort of strained voice.
Blaine cringes inwardly. Way to go, Anderson. Real great way of making someone not awkward around you.
“So,” Kurt says, tugging at his shower cap, “Wanna watch a movie or something?”
“Sure,” Blaine says, and promises himself to be a lot less creepy.
26th February 2011
That morning, Blaine wakes up hard, hips pressed up against a pillow. Groaning at the steady drumbeat reverberating through his head, he tries to roll over only for the pillow to make a disgruntled noise and shove him away.
Blaine pushes himself backwards and tumbles off the bed, dragging the sheets with him. Gripping the bed frame for support, he lifts himself up and peers over the edge of the mattress. In the middle of his bed lies a very rumpled and very asleep Kurt Hummel.
Frowning, Blaine reaches out and tugs at Kurt’s outstretched hand. Kurt wrinkles his nose and pulls it back, rubbing his eyes and then turning onto his front.
Boner effectively killed by the shock of waking up next to another guy, Blaine hauls himself to his feet and puts his hand over his eyes as a beam of sunlight makes his head feel like it’s splitting in half. Fumbling over his desk, he finds the oversized sunglasses hooked into the line of fabric pockets nailed to the wall and slips them on over his eyes.
Glancing at himself in the mirror, he grimaces. His hair is a mess, sticking up into a sort of Mohawk and crusted there with gel. His pants are creased and stained at the knee and his undershirt is rucked up at the back. He looks like he fell asleep in a non-leaf-shedding hedge.
Throwing one look back at Kurt, he makes his quiet way out of the room and downstairs.
Cooper is thumping cheerfully around the kitchen, singing along to the radio far too loudly and obnoxiously for the state of Blaine’s head. He makes himself known by dragging out a seat and filling up a glass from the tap, draining it in one.
“Why hello, my most hungover brother,” Cooper sits down next to him with a shit eating grin on his face, “How did you sleep?”
Blaine has to take a few minutes before he can force down the nausea in his stomach and reply. “Like a rock,” he croaks, “Until I woke up with Kurt in my bed.”
“Oh, is that his name? He was passed out drunk on the stairs when I got back, so I figured since the guest room isn’t made up the best room to put him in was yours. You didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I believe you were quite happy about it.”
“Fuck you,” Blaine groans, hiding his face in his hands, “I probably creeped him out, like, majorly.”
“Well, everybody has to experience the fear of waking up with someone you didn’t fall asleep with,” Cooper claps him on the back and completely misses the moan of pain that results, “I recommend getting it done young and then you have the experience when it comes to college.”
“You suck.”
“Nope, that’s you, little bro.”
“I hate you,” Blaine drags himself upright and shuffles towards the door, “I’m going to go and wake him up.”
“Have fun!”
“Hate. You.”
But when Blaine enters his room the bed is empty, and he peers around the side to see if Kurt has rolled off. He hasn’t. Blaine closes his eyes, counts to ten, and opens them again.
Nope, Kurt’s still gone. Blaine’s phone beeps loudly and the noise sends a lightning strike of pain through his head.
Sitting down at his desk, Blaine’s hand crumples a note that (probably) wasn’t there the night before. He picks it up and squints through his glasses, scrunching up his nose.
had to dash, sorry
see you later
kurt x
(p.s. call finn you should probably know what happened last night)
Blaine groans and rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses, struggling to recall the events of the night before. Just when he feels like he might have grasped it, his phone beeps loudly again from the nightstand and it slips away. His phone beeps again and Blaine groans, wondering if hosting your first party makes you more popular than usual. Standing, Blaine hits the off button on his phone and glares at it, before falling into bed. Last night can wait, sleep most definitely comes first.
**
“Blaine!”
Blaine grunts loudly as a response and throws his pillow at the door, but Cooper pushes it open and holds out the phone. “Mike for you.”
“Tell him ‘m sl’pin.”
“He says that he has a hangover too, so he knows your feels.”
Blaine holds his hand out for the phone.
“Hey, man,” Mike whispers, “How you doing?”
“Badly,” Blaine grumbles, “Literally never drinking again.”
“I completely agree,” Mike says seriously, “But I have an entire pot of tea and the Firefly box set. You wanna come over?”
“Please. Cooper has decided that today is a good day to clean the entire house.”
“Ooh, that sucks. So, see you in, like, an hour?”
“See you then,” Blaine mumbles, and then lets his head fall into the pillow.
“You want me to drive you?”
“Please, Cooper, your enthusiasm is painful.”
“Sorry.”
“Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”
“Give me a buzz when you’re ready, then.”
Blaine can tell that Cooper is still standing awkwardly in his doorway, so he pushes himself off his bed and limps past with a soft “I will never forgive you for providing me with alcohol.”
“Love you too, bro.”
Blaine turns the water up as high as he can bear and has the best shower of his life, successfully cleaning all of the gel from his hair and replacing the faint smell of alcohol with that of his body wash. Deciding that today is a day for slobbing and slobbing only, he finds his most comfortable pair of sweats and his old Dalton hoodie, crams a beanie over his curls and has Cooper chauffeur him over to Mike’s.
“Wow,” Mike says when he opens the door, “You look like a hobo.”
“I am comfortable and that is all that matters,” Blaine says, “You promised tea?”
“Follow me, brave soldier,” Mike pats him on the shoulder and guides him up the stairs into his room, proudly labelled The Bat Cave.
Tina is curled up on the beanbag, wearing Mike’s hoodie and with a large mug of tea cupped in her hands. Blaine feels a pang of jealousy as Mike settles down next to her and wraps his arm around her shoulders, leaving him to take the other beanbag and wrap the comforter around his shoulders instead. Momentarily he thinks of having a body next to him, tall and lean and smelling like leather and spice. And then he dismisses the idea as stupid and settles back to watch the show.
Halfway through the second episode, Mike leans forwards and pauses it, clearing his throat. Blaine looks at him over the top of his tea. “What’s wrong?”
“So, I kind of got a really worrying text from Deaton?”
“Football team Deaton? That one?”
“Yeah,” Mike bites his lip, “Um, do you remember what happened at the party last night?”
Blaine shakes his head, stares down into the depths of his tea and remembers Kurt’s note from the morning. That he should probably know what happened. Oh god, what did happen? What did he do? Was it something stupid? Blaine feels a knot of worry tighten in his stomach.
“Basically, you said some stuff, and Puck texted someone, and now it’s - now it’s kind of all around everywhere?”
Blaine frowns. “What’d I say?” He thinks of that time that Cooper scared him so bad he wet himself at seven, or that time he threw up in the lap of his least favourite teacher in middle school, or -
“Um, not word for word but - you want to kiss Kurt and you’re flamingly homosexual. And then you did kiss him. And I think there might have been some tongue, too. Also you tried to climb into his lap -”
“Mike!” Tina hisses, and Mike shuts his mouth.
Blaine suddenly feels like he’s fallen off the top of the Empire State Building. Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. This isn’t happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.
He fumbles with his tea and some of it splashes onto his leg; he yelps in pain and tries to wipe it off with his sleeve. Mike jumps to his feet with the exclamation of “Cloth!” and sprints from the room, and Tina leans across and says “It’s okay, you know?”
“It’s really not,” Blaine says tightly, “I should probably go.”
“Blaine, I don’t care if you’re gay or straight or whatever. You’re my friend.”
“You barely even know me?”
“You’re Mike’s friend, and we’ve hung out enough times for you to qualify as my friend. You know the Glee Club won’t mind.”
“It’s not Glee I’m worried about,” Blaine says, thinking back to the freshman kid who’d been slammed into the locker left of Blaine’s with a snarl of homo just for wearing a purple scarf.
“Cloth!” Mike yells, bursting back into the room, and all three of them wince at the volume. “Sorry,” he whispers, and hands the cloth to Blaine who mops at his jeans hopelessly.
“You’ll be okay, you know?” Tina says hopefully, “I know Sam is totally fine with it.”
“Well, then it’ll be you two, Sam and I against the entire homophobic population of McKinley,” Blaine snaps, “That really sounds like it’ll work, doesn’t it?”
Tina looks taken aback and Mike scowls at him. “Dude, no.”
“Sorry,” Blaine puts the cloth on the floor, “Sorry, I just... sorry. I’m just. I’m not ready.”
Tina pats his hand hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”
“I haven’t even told my parents. How am I -“ he swallows and then closes his eyes, steeling his jaw. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tina and Mike say simultaneously, and Blaine nods. “I’ll deal with it. It’s fine.”
They look at each other and Blaine has to force down the lump in his throat at how easily they communicate without words.
“Are... you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he smiles as brightly as he can and sits back in his beanbag, “Do you want to press play, or...?”
Mike blinks. “Uh, sure.” He settles back into the seat, looping his arm around Tina’s shoulder again and starts the episode.
Blaine waits a minute or so and then finds his phone, turned off after the cascade of texts that had only aggravated his headache earlier that morning. Even more stream in, from numbers he doesn’t know. Determinedly ignoring them, he trawls through until he finds the thread with Kurt’s name on it.
From: Kurt
Sorry for skipping out this morning, I was late for work. How’s the head?
From: Kurt
Are you dead? You’re usually awake by some godawful hour of the morning, feeding horses or spreading rainbows and happiness or something.
From: Kurt
Rainbows probably wasn’t the best choice of words there. Apologies. How’s your foot?
From: Kurt
DON’T CHECK FACEBOOK.
From: Kurt
Sorry for the all caps. Your wall is a bit of a mess.
From: Kurt
Blaine? Are you okay?
Blaine thinks for a moment and then types out a short message.
To: Kurt
I’m fine. Don’t worry.
From: Kurt
I wasn’t. Just wondering. How’s your foot?
To: Kurt
It aches a bit. If I gave you my email and password, could you delete them for me?
From: Kurt
Not really. I’m working right now. When I get home, I could.
To: Kurt
Nvm. See you later.
From: Kurt
Okay?
Blaine scrolls down even further, finds the latest text message from Cooper.
To: Coop
I’m out.
From: Coop
Outside?
To: Coop
No. Out. As in not closeted. As in the entire school knows.
From: Coop
Oh. Do you want me to come and get you?
To: Coop
Yes please.
From: Coop
Be there in ten.
“Blaine?” Mike asks, “You okay?”
Blaine says “My brother’s coming to pick me up in a couple minutes.”
“You don’t have to -“
“No, I know,” he nods, “I know. I just. I need to go.”
“Okay,” Tina says, patting Mike’s arm, “Text if you need me, okay?”
“Sure,” he says, and then he leaves because he really can’t stand being in that room anymore.
Cooper pulls up to the house five minutes later, springs out of the car and throws his arms around Blaine’s shoulders in the sort of hug Blaine hasn’t got since he was nine. Blaine grips his brother’s shirt and takes the biggest, deepest breath he can manage and holds it until the urge to cry goes away.
“I’m sorry,” Cooper mumbles into Blaine’s hair, and Blaine shrugs.
“It was going to happen.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Blaine pulls away. “Can we just go home? Please?”
Cooper looks at him with this face like he’s trying to see through into Blaine’s soul. “Okay,” he says, “Fine. We’ll go.”
Blaine nods and climbs into the passenger side, plucking his phone from his pocket to open the Facebook app.
Kurt wasn’t kidding when he said that his wall was a mess. It’s mostly the football team, as far as he can tell, spamming his wall with caps locked messages of rage and badly-photoshopped pictures of him in compromising positions.
“Squirt? You okay?”
“Not really, no,” Blaine says softly, “Not in the slightest.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Facebook,” Blaine locks his phone and then, after a moment of deliberation, turns it off.
Cooper is quiet for a little while longer. “D’you want to talk about it?”
“No,” Blaine’s voice cracks and he swallows hard, “No. I really, really don’t.” He feels like if he speaks in sentences longer than five words he might start crying and never stop.
He goes up to his room as soon as they get back, shuts the door and curls up in bed with the covers pulled up to his shoulders. He feels like maybe there should be a weight lifted off his chest, but there isn’t. He just feels worse than he ever has before.
Cooper sits on the edge of the bed and takes Blaine’s hand quietly. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Maybe,” Blaine says, but even the thought of talking to his parents about being gay makes him feel sick.
“Okay. I’ll let you be.”
“’Kay,” Blaine whispers. Cooper shuts the door behind him, and Blaine buries his face in his pillow and finally lets the tears fall.
**
28th February, 2011
Blaine fumbles with his Bio folder, tries to keep it all together without dropping everything. It’s not even first period and he’s already a mess. He’d had to sneak past Cooper that morning, who was determined to keep him home for the day. Blaine would really prefer to face them, though. Get it over and done with.
Wherever he goes there are people staring at him, whispering behind his back. He’s heard at least three coughed mutters of fag or homo as he walked to his locker that morning, and he’s just waiting for someone to confront him.
And then there’s the sudden pressure of hands at his back, and Blaine turns and starts to smile, expected to see Mike or Sam, but instead it’s Azimio, and then he’s being shoved so he hits the lockers hard. Blaine’s head cracks against the metal and he stumbles, falls flat on his face as his hands skid out over the sticky lino. His face hits the ground first, and pain bursts in his nose, his glasses dislodging and skittering across the floor. His Bio folder digs into his stomach and he abstractly notes the sound of all his notes flying out of it as laughter bursts out around the hallway.
“Good morning, fag!” Azimio yells as he continues down the hallway, and Blaine feels cold shoot through him at the word. He pushes himself upright, ignores the sting of tears in his eyes and the heat flushing through his cheeks, cups his hand over his nose where blood is dripping from it steadily. He pats the other hand across the floor, searching for his glasses, but when someone’s hand comes down on his fingers he stops.
“Blaine? Blaine, oh my gosh, are you okay?” Tina’s voice cuts through the dispersing babble of the crowd and Blaine blinks as a darkish shape kneels in front of him, followed by one mostly covered in blue.
“Mike? Tina?” he asks, voice thick with unshed tears and the pain in his nose, “That you?”
“Here’s your glasses,” Mike says, pushing them onto his face, and then the world suddenly comes back into focus and Blaine sees Tina and Mike kneeling in front of him, looking concerned.
“Ouch,” he says, smiling weakly and fumbling for his handkerchief in his pocked, “Not fun.”
“Are you alright? Do you think it’s broken?”
Blaine touches the bridge of his noise and winces. “No, I’m okay. Just a nose bleed.”
“You sure?” Tina asks, and then Kurt says “Jesus, what the hell happened to you, Anderson?”
Blaine lifts his head to smile at Kurt. “Nothing, I’m fine,” he says from behind the handkerchief, his voice distorted by the fabric.
“Like hell you are,” Kurt grabs his arm to steady him as he stands, “Did someone punch you?”
“Azimio locker-slammed him,” Mike says disgustedly, bending down to pick up Blaine’s scattered notes.
“Assholes,” Kurt mutters, and Blaine shakes his head. “Guys, guys, I’m fine. Just leave it, I’m fine.”
“And I’m a hippopotamus,” Kurt says scathingly, “You’re coming to the nurse, Anderson.”
Tina pushes his Bio file back into his arms. “Take care of him?”
“Duh,” Kurt rolls his eyes and puts an arm around Blaine’s shoulders, “C’mon, space cadet, let’s get you fixed up.”
“Kurt,” Blaine says softly as they walk, “I’m really sorry about Friday.”
“Hm?” Kurt arches an eyebrow, “What for?”
“For, you know. Kissing you. And stuff.” The one kiss I’m ever going to get with straight Kurt Hummel and I can’t even remember it.
“Jeez, Anderson, I couldn’t care less. It really doesn’t matter.”
“But -“
“Blaine. If you keep trying to apologise I swear to god, I will hurt you. I’m not going to freak out that you’re gay, okay? A kiss is a kiss, doesn’t matter who it’s between.”
A lump grows in Blaine’s throat at that, and he takes a moment to compose himself, pushing down the turmoil of emotions in his chest. “Okay,” he says, and Kurt squeezes his arm.
Kurt stretches the truth to the nurse, manages to persuade her that Blaine was confused and dizzy on the walk to the infirmary as Blaine sits there silently with his head tipped forwards, pinching his nose. She clucks over him, dabs at the blood drying on his polo and eventually calls Cooper to pick him up. When she leaves to find a pack of tissues Blaine clears his throat and says “Thanks.”
“For what? Being a decent person?” Kurt picks at the cuff of his jacket, “You’re an idiot.”
For giving me a chance to get out of this hellhole of a school for one more day.
“Gee, thanks,” Blaine takes the tissues the nurse hands him with a smile and dips on in the cup, attempting to clean the dried blood from his face. Kurt clucks at him and whips it out of his hand, balancing himself on Blaine’s thigh so he can lean over and wipe at his face.
“Like a child,” he mutters, and Blaine tries to make eye contact without crossing his eyes.
“Are you ever going to say something positive about me?” he asks, half-joking.
“Hm, let me think about that,” Kurt twists his lips in fake consideration, “Probably not.”
“You’re horrible.”
“I am, that’s true,” Kurt throws the tissue into the garbage bin and his sleeve slips down, exposing a large scrape down the side of his wrist.
“Whoa,” Blaine says, “Are you okay? Your wrist...”
Kurt glances at it. “Oh, yeah, that. It’s just -“ he waves a hand, “Unfortunate run-in with a grumpy ghost. Nothing important.”
“It looks painful.”
“Like I said, it was a very grumpy ghost.”
“Aren’t all of them,” Blaine says playfully, “You know, being dead and all.”
Kurt sort of squints at him and Blaine’s cheeks go red. “Sorry, that was tasteless.”
Surprisingly, Kurt laughs. “You’re a strange one, Anderson,” he says, “Nice, but strange.”
Blaine’s lips twitch up into a smile. “I... thanks?”
Kurt shrugs, fiddles with the charm on his necklace. Blaine’s smile grows as he realises something.
“You just said something nice to me.”
“What?” Kurt jumps, “I... what?”
“You called me nice!” Blaine says triumphantly, “Who knew all I had to do was make a tasteless joke and you’d be nice to me again?”
“Shut up,” Kurt mutters, but he’s smiling and Blaine counts that as a win.
“Hello, my little Houdini,” Cooper booms, sweeping the curtains back and making Blaine flinch, “How’s it hanging?”
“Don’t call me that,” Blaine says as Kurt mouths Houdini to himself and chuckles, “I’m fine, Cooper.”
“Are you sure? Your nose looks broken.”
“It’s not broken.”
“It looks broken,” he turns on his heel, “Drunk guy that I put in Blaine’s bed! How are you?”
“Fine,” Kurt says dryly, “If you’ll excuse me, I have Geometry.” He picks up his bag and turns to face Blaine. “Be careful, Anderson. Don’t trip.”
“Yeah,” Blaine says, his mouth going strangely dry, “I won’t.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt waves at Cooper and skips around the nurse, slipping through the door before it closes.
“Huh,” Cooper says, “So, that’s the guy you want to have babies with?”
“Oh my god,” Blaine buries his face in his hands, “Stop talking about my stupid hopeless crush, I hate you.”
Cooper pulls him up by the arm and winks at the nurse as he tugs Blaine out of the infirmary. “No you don’t. C’mon, it’s intervention time.”
“Inter - what?” Blaine hunches his shoulders as they pass the group of jocks that skip first and hang out by the front. One of them notices him and smirks, making an obscene gesture with his hands. It’s Ollie, the boy who sat with Blaine in History and would occasionally engage him in conversation about the latest football game if the fancy took him.
“ - decided it was time to do something about the amount of ice cream you ate,” Cooper is saying, and Blaine tears his eyes away from them and resigns himself to going home and eating the rest of the pot of honeycomb ice cream he knows Cooper hid.
“So sit here and let me drive,” Cooper finishes, and Blaine folds himself into the car and folds his arms, slumping down into the seat. Cooper smiles and turns on the radio, humming along as he pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street.
“This isn’t the way home,” Blaine sits up, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see!” Cooper grins, and Blaine shakes his head wearily.
“Coop, I just want to go home. Please?
“Nope!” Cooper says, beaming, “It’s a surprise!”
Blaine sighs. “Okay, fine. Just, make it quick? Toddlers and Tiaras is calling me.”
“Unhealthy.”
“Shut up,” Blaine retorts, “I love it.”
“You love watching small children being forced to perform in uncomfortable sparkly outfits?”
“Shut up,” Blaine pulls up the hood of his jacket and Cooper laughs. “Oh, I meant to tell you. Chelsea-the-hot-riding-teacher called and said that Archie needs re-shoeing in the next week, so you need to rustle up some money to pay for that damn horse.”
“Archie,” Blaine says sternly, “is absolutely perfect, and I will not have you trash-talking him. Or Chelsea.”
“He’s an animal, Blaine,” Cooper mutters, “And the thing about Chelsea was a compliment,” but he keeps his mouth shut anyway.
They eventually pull up outside a small coffee place called The Lima Bean and Cooper shoves him. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Go, go inside.”
“Coop, I don’t...”
“Go or I chuck the ice cream.”
“Screw you,” Blaine climbs out of the car and slams it as pointedly as he can, dragging his feet across the parking lot and pushing open the door. There’s barely a queue, so he stands behind the person ordering and stares up at the menu.
“Can I help you, sir?” the barista asks, and Blaine nods. “Uh, can I have a hot chocolate? With, uh, whipped cream and marshmallows. And cinnamon. Thank you.”
“Small, medium or large?”
“He always has medium,” a familiar voice says, and Blaine spins to see Trent standing behind him, dressed in street clothes with a large smile on his face.
“Trent?” Blaine gasps, and his friend grins. “Morning, Blaine.”
“Oh my god,” Blaine flings his arms around Trent and squeezes him, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t -“
“Cooper arranged it,” Trent turns him and nods towards the barista, patiently waiting to be paid, “And could I add a small white chocolate latte and a couple biscotti to that? Thanks,” he elbows Blaine out of the way and hands over a ten-dollar note, waving him away when he tries to hand the change back.
“What are you doing here?” Blaine asks as they walk down the counter to wait for their drinks, “I didn’t know Dalton was closed today.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s the pipes again,” Trent shrugs, “Most of the Science block is out so they cancelled lessons.”
“Ah, I remember the days of health and safety,” Blaine says wistfully, and Trent arches an eyebrow.
“Come now, McKinley can’t be that bad?”
“The cheerleading coach tried to shoot someone out of a cannon, Trent,” Blaine smiles at the (very cute) barista who hands them their drinks and plate of biscotti, “And everyone uses the bathrooms at the Chinese place down the road because apparently there are snakes in the ones at school.”
“Oh,” Trent pulls a face as they sit down at a table at the back, “That sucks.”
“Plus, during my second week there I discovered that the jocks’ idea of fun is to throw slushies - you know what slushies are, right? Yeah, they fill up a cup, find their target for the week and throw them at you. Right in the face,” he shudders, “It’s like being slapped by a bag of frozen peas.”
“Oh, god,” Trent grimaces, “That sounds barbaric.”
“You’re telling me. The purple -“ Blaine puffs out a breath, “Impossible to get out. They ruined my favourite polo with that.”
“Wow,” Trent fiddles with his biscotti and purses his lips. Blaine sighs. “So, why did you want to meet up?”
“What? I - that’s preposterous! I don’t need a reason to want to see a good friend, you -“
“Trent,” Blaine laughs, “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met. Come on, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Trent sighs, “News of your recent coming out has reached Dalton via one Cooper Anderson. He said you ate an entire litre of ice cream yesterday, so we called an intervention.”
Blaine tilts his head. “A coffee intervention?”
Trent shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. Their biscotti is -“ he closes his eyes, “Perfection.”
“I’m sure the Italians would beg to differ,” Blaine grins, and Trent waves a hand. “So, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t sleep much last night, probably the ice cream, but -“
“No, Blaine. I mean, are you okay?”
Blaine cups his hands around the hot chocolate and thinks. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not really,” he shrugs half-heartedly, “I just don’t. I was going to try and sort out - who I could and couldn’t talk to at school today, but that didn’t work out.”
“Oh?” Trent eyes him over the top of his coffee, “What happened? Actually - take it from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
“Okay,” Blaine says, and starts talking.
It only takes him about twenty-five minutes to explain everything, scooping the whipped cream off the top off his drink with the biscotti as he talks. Trent makes occasional noises of shock or disappointment, but mostly he just lets Blaine grumble and mutter and whine.
Once he’s done he takes a sip of his hot chocolate and waits quietly for Trent to gather his thoughts.
“Well,” Trent says eventually, “You could always say that Puck was making it up and you actually said you were flamingly heterosexual.”
“I think the point of that is slightly nullified by the fact that I made out with Kurt about two seconds later,” Blaine says, “But I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Hold up, you didn’t say made out,” Trent says, “You said kissed. You said you kissed him!”
“I did!” Blaine smiles awkwardly, “But, you know, apparently there was tongue. And stuff.”
“Blaine Anderson, you dog!” Trent gasps, “What happened to the dapper young man I once knew?”
“He got a crush?” Blaine says, feeling his cheeks heat up, and Trent narrows his eyes.
“I’m not sure if this Kurt you’re talking about is a good match for you.”
“Why?” Blaine’s grin fades, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Well, you know, he wears leather and probably smokes -“
“He doesn’t smoke,” Blaine says, and Trent eyes him.
“Just because you’ve never seen him smoke, doesn’t mean he doesn’t. Hey, I could introduce you to this guy that goes to Dalton, he’s really cute.”
“It’s hopeless, anyway,” Blaine sighs, “He’s straight. And he’d be way out of my league if he even were gay -“
“Save it for the bedroom, homos,” some girl spits as she walks past, and Blaine’s hands tighten so hard on his cup that the cardboard buckles and hot chocolate splashes out onto his hand.
“Ow, shoot, that burns,” he shakes his hand quickly and grabs a napkin from Trent’s outstretched hand, biting his lip.
“Sorry about that,” Trent says breezily, “She’s the sister of one of those assholes at Dalton. Every time I come here she makes some nasty comment.”
Blaine swallows hard and says “How do you deal with it?”
“Deal with what?”
“People like that?” Blaine worries at his lower lip, “I just, I don’t know how to deal with it. I could do this if I didn’t care, but I do. Every time someone says something like that -“ it makes me want to cry he wants to say, but he stops himself and takes a large gulp of hot chocolate.
“Listen, Blaine,” Trent says, “They’re idiots. Okay? All of them. They’re just,” he waves a hand, wrinkling his nose, “Stupid. Okay? It used to get to me too, in middle school, but then I decided that in ten years I would be at the top of the ladder in photography and they? They will be working in McDonald’s. So next time someone calls you anything, just imagine them standing behind a counter covered in chicken grease asking people if they’d like fries with that, while you’re a famous show-jumper with three Olympic gold medals under your belt or whatever.”
Blaine’s mouth falls open and Trent frowns.
“What?”
“That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard you say about anyone,” Blaine says, shocked, “It’s like a whole new Trent.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Trent sits back in his seat, “You’re so mean to me.”
“Sorry,” Blaine says, and Trent gestures at him.
“So what are you going to be top of? Dentistry? Business? Are you going to take your obsession with the four-legged and unpredictable to the next level?”
“Theatre, duh,” Blaine says, relieved to move the conversation away from his inability to deal with homophobes. Trent nods.
“Of course, Broadway?”
“Where else?” Blaine grins, “I want to be the next J. Pierrepont Finch.”
“Oh really,” Trent smirks, “You may just have to fight Thad for it.”
“Thad can eat my dust,” Blaine winks and Trent laughs. “There he is. Good old Dalton Blaine.”
“Good old me,” Blaine echoes, but he feels like Dalton Blaine might be gone for a while. Dalton Blaine certainly didn’t wake up in the middle of the night with his underwear sticking to him and the fading memory of a hand cupping his cheek and lips against his.
No, Dalton Blaine hasn’t been around since someone turned to him and asked if he had something to say.
**
Blaine catches a lift home from Trent, waves goodbye from the porch and unlocks the door to the sound of shouting. Familiar shouting.
He swallows down the greeting about to leave his mouth and listens carefully, barely making out the words ‘stove’ and ‘unsalvageable.’ He kicks his shoes away and tiptoes past the kitchen, hoping to get up to his room without catching his mother’s attention.
“Blaine?”
Blaine freezes for a moment, and then turns to find his father standing in the doorway to the living room. He smiles, opens his arms. “Going to skip past your old Dad without giving him a hug, huh?”
Smiling, Blaine skids back across the floor and gives his Dad a strong, quick hug, as is the Anderson way. Dad claps him on the shoulder. “How are you doing, Blaine?”
“I’m...” gay, and getting hell for it, “Fine, Dad. How are you? How was Poland?”
“Poland was the last one. France was very long, but with some really quite fantastic history that I could not persuade your mother to give a second look at. How’s your new school? I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here often enough to talk to you about it.”
“It’s fine, Dad,” Blaine says, smiling, “But I’ve got homework, you know. Stuff to do.”
“Of course,” his father claps him on the shoulder, “Study, study!”
“Yeah,” Blaine says, walking backwards towards the stairs, “See you at supper?”
“Sure,” Dad says, already distracted by something on his phone.
Blaine escapes up the stairs before his mother can finish yelling at Cooper for whatever he’s done to the stove and start pinching his cheeks.
There’s a couple of messages on his phone when he gets upstairs, flopping onto bed with an overdramatic sigh.
From: Mercedes Jones
Heard what happened - u can count on me if u need to :)
He smiles at that - he and Mercedes have been sort-of-friends since they sung a duet for the Valentines Day assignment.
From: Tina
Got your ur bio notes, will give 2moz.
From: Kurt
You got blood on my jacket
From: Kurt
Not like it’s the first time but
From: Kurt
BLOOD ON MY JACKET. Forget what i said before, i’m angry.
Blaine laughs out loud, and then claps a hand over his mouth like his parents might descend from the ceiling and interrogate him about who he’s texting.
To: Mercedes Jones
Thank you. Really. I appreciate it.
To: Tina
You’re awesome.
To: Kurt
Salt and cold water! My mother swears by it.
He rolls onto his back and picks up A Storm of Swords to pass the time, tapping his fingers idly across the pages before he gives up and pulls out his laptop, opening up Facebook.
Slowly and determinedly, he goes through his page deleting comments and blocking users and imagining every single shirtless-and-tensing profile picture covered in a McDonald’s uniform. It doesn’t quite dull the ache in his chest at every comment of fudge-packer or faggot or fairy but it does bring a small, tentative smile to his face every time he thinks about asking David Karofsky for a cheeseburger with fries.
From: Kurt
I’m not an idiot, you know. Remember the whole hunting the things that go bump in the night for half my life? I can clean blood like a pro.
To: Kurt
No, actually, you’ll have to tell me about that.
From: Kurt
I suppose I will.
**
“Hey, Finn,” Blaine says cheerfully as he walks by Finn’s locker. As usual, the jock is buried under tonnes of paper, searching frantically for his sheet music for Regionals. He mumbles a hello back, and then Karofsky grabs Blaine by the front of his shirt and slams him up into the lockers.
“Hey!” Blaine yelps, feeling the vents digging into his back, “What -“
“You trying to turn him, queer?” Karofsky snarls, “You tryna make him one of you?”
Blaine manages to pushes him away, his feet hitting the floor again. “I just said hey,” he says defensively, and Karofsky shoves him so hard his head clangs against the metal.
“You keep away from him,” he says, his face so close to Blaine’s that he can smell the reek of his breath, “We don’t need any more fairies like you on the team. You hear me?”
He leaves Blaine shaking and unsteady against the lockers and lumbers through the crowd, shoving at unsuspecting freshmen. Blaine collects himself, takes a deep breath and straightens his back, tipping up his chin. Finn, having excavated himself from the mound of paperwork, waves. “Hey, Blaine. You okay?”
“Fine,” Blaine says, “I’m absolutely fine.”
The rest of the day continues in much the same way. Blaine is locker slammed, glared at, and called every offensive name under the sun. The only highlight comes when he and Sam perform some carbon-copy pop song in front of an uninterested crowd for McKinley Sexual Awareness week, and that’s barely an enjoyable thing by itself. By the time Glee comes around and Mr Schue is emphatically talking about Regionals and their competition - The Warblers, eek - Blaine is so tired he barely listens.
“Hey.”
Blinking his eyes open, he turns his head to see Kurt offering a can of something.
“What’s that?” he asks, blinking, and Kurt winks. “Red Bull. You look like you need it.”
Gratefully, he takes the drink and grimaces slightly at the taste, flashing a smile at Kurt. Kurt grins and salutes.
Suddenly, Glee seems much easier to work through.
Blaine spends an extra fifteen minutes organising his sheet music for the next few days so he can avoid meeting any of the jocks who hang around after football practice hoping to dumpster unsuspecting Glee members. Once he’s sure they’re gone, he slings his bag over his shoulder and hurries down the hallway, keeping his head down.
He reaches the parking lot without a problem and is only a few feet from the road when his feet go flying out from underneath him.
Blaine hits the ground with a thump and lies stunned for a moment before the first kick slams into his chest. He curls into a ball automatically, shielding his head as the jocks - and they must be jocks, who else would do this? - grunt and snarl and swear at him, yelling things like “Just because Evans is one of us!” and “Don’t need to see your stupid fairy club performing like that!”
Suddenly cold is dumped over his head and Blaine gasps as slushy washes over him, drenching his head and chest in purple ice. Blinking behind his glasses, he catches his breath and sits up, trying to rub his eyes clear. Blurrily, he catches sight of a bunch of lettermans jackets running away.
For one pathetic moment, he wishes that his mom were there to help him up and soothe his pain and yell at the boys who’d hurt him. But she’s not, so he picks himself up painfully and wipes the worst of the slushy off with his hands, and slowly makes his way back home.
**
Blaine sits down at the counter and thumps his arms loudly onto the marble.
His parents look up simultaneously, his father from his laptop and his mother from her tablet. “Sweetheart,” she says, her eyes widening, “What happened to you?”
A bunch of jocks cornered me as I left Glee, got a couple of kicks in and then emptied three cups of purple slushy over my head. Just because I sang a duet with Sam in assembly today.
“I got beat up,” he says thickly, the words coming out wrong because of his split lip, “And slushied.”
“This is unacceptable behaviour, this school is supposed to have a no tolerance bullying policy,” his dad says sharply, “Who did it?”
“I didn’t see,” Blaine says truthfully. The initial shove had nearly knocked his glasses right off his face.
“Still, I’ll go and talk to the principal tomorrow. Marie, you should -“
“Caden, I have a meeting.”
His father drops his voice. “Marie, this is our son. He was attacked for no reason and -“
“They had plenty of reason,” Blaine says.
Caden looks at him. “What?”
“They had plenty of reason,” he repeats, “In their opinion, I’m sure.”
“Blaine, what are you talking about?” Marie asks, and without really stopping to think Blaine says “I’m gay.”
The room goes completely and utterly silent. Blaine sits up, tilts up his chin even though he can feel the sticky corn syrup drying on his back and chest. His mother is frozen in her seat, clutching the tablet like it’s a lifeline. Her eyes sharpen and her mouth presses into a thin line. And then, abruptly, she stands up and walks out.
“Mom?” Blaine says, and she just shakes her head. Hopefully, he turns back towards his father.
“I think you should go and shower, Blaine,” he says, “I’ll talk to your mother.”
Blaine nods, blinking quickly and sliding off the stool. Caden peels off into the living room and Blaine takes the stairs two at a time despite the throbbing pain in his ribs, thinks about calling Cooper and asking him to take him back to Westerville.
He showers quickly, just long enough to get the corn syrup off and then he dries off, finds a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and takes a few minutes to tame his hair. Then he grabs his phone and clips Mouse’s lead on and slams the door behind him.
He gets halfway down the road before he realises he doesn’t know where he’s going. It’s getting dark but he just keeps walking, Mouse trotting quietly alongside, occasionally pausing to examine a nice-smelling lamppost or road sign.
After half an hour he spots a familiar figure walking ahead of him, boots dragging across the floor a little. Breaking into a jog, Blaine calls “Hey, Kurt? Hey!”
Kurt spins, looking shocked, and then his face splits into this smile that lights up the entire street. “Hey, Anderson. What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Why, where am I?” Blaine asks, coming to halt, and Kurt looks around before bending down to greet Mouse. “Well, this is the fine establishment of Lima Heights. Are you out clubbing?”
“No,” Blaine says, shrugging, “Just walking.”
Kurt frowns, peers up at him. “Hey - what happened to your face?”
“Oh, that,” Blaine waves it off nonchalantly, “Just a couple guys after Glee, it doesn’t matter.” He nearly pats Kurt’s shoulder but pulls his hand in just in time, shoving it in his pocket instead.
“Sure,” Kurt says, tugging his beanie down on his head, “And I’m a purple hippo.”
“Are you?” Blaine asks playfully, but Kurt just stands and steers him back down the street. “Seriously, Blaine. What happened?”
“It was just some jocks,” Blaine stiffens as Kurt slings an arm over his shoulders, the movement easy like he didn’t even think about it, “They didn’t like... my duet. Today. With Sam.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Kurt says, and Blaine swallows. “I came out. To my parents.”
“Oh.”
“My mom walked out,” Blaine laughs humourlessly, “It’s funny, I thought my dad would always be the one to reject me, or whatever. Motherly love and everything.”
Kurt squeezes his arm. “That sucks.”
“I know, I,” he swallows hard, “I just hate the way she reacted. She didn’t even say anything, she just looked at me like I was. Disgusting.”
“I’m really sorry -“
“Forget it,” Blaine shakes his head, blinking rapidly to try and alleviate the threatening tears, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” Kurt stops next to a truck that Blaine recognises and unlocks it. “You coming?” he says, and Blaine thinks he detects a shard of hope in Kurt’s voice.
“I’ve got,” Blaine gestures at Mouse, but Kurt shakes his head. “I don’t mind. Just stick him in the back.”
“Um, okay,” Blaine pulls the back door open and Mouse jumps up obediently, sitting on the floor and poking his nose between the front seats.
Blaine climbs in beside Kurt, says “Where’re we going?”
“Home, obviously,” Kurt says, digging in his bag and throwing a small tub at Blaine, “Because I have decided to dye my hair.”
Blaine examines the tub in the meagre light available. “Blue?”
“Red doesn’t resonate with my style, and green is just -“ Kurt pulls a face, “Egh.”
“Huh,” Blaine tilts the tub and then glances at Kurt, “Any reason why?”
“To piss off my father,” Kurt shrugs, “For fun, because I needed a change, because brown hair is boring... so many reasons.”
“I don’t think your hair is boring,” Blaine says, and then clears his throat and looks away hastily.
“Well, it’s not like I can go back,” Kurt sighs, “I’ve already bleached the tips.”
“You’re not dying all of your hair?”
“God no,” he laughs, “I’m not crazy. What if I hated it? I really don’t want a repeat of the hair bleach incident of 2007.”
Blaine settles back into his seat. “What happened?”
“Oh no, I’m not telling you a thing.”
“C’mon!” he whines, “I won’t judge you! I’ll tell you about the time I straightened my hair?”
“Tempting as that is, no.”
“What if I told you about the time I tried to cut my own hair?”
Kurt sighs. “Okay, okay. Basically, I was fourteen and angsty, and I thought it would be really fun to bleach my hair to piss off my dad, because he was being all lordy over me and trying to make me come home, so I bleached my hair to be ‘rebellious,’” he takes his hand off the wheel to make quote marks around the word, “But it ended up looking tacky and cheap, and I didn’t have the time or money to dye it back. So I had to wait until we finished the job before I could shear it all off, and I looked hideous, everyone teased me. Never again.”
Blaine tries to imagine Kurt with bleached-blond hair and bursts out laughing, covering his mouth at Kurt’s dead-eyed glare. “I’m sorry, I just, the mental image is hilarious.”
“I’m glad you’re laughing,” he mutters, “What about you?”
Blaine shakes his head. “Oh no, mine could never match up to yours. That’s just - perfect.”
Kurt smacks him on the thigh. “You promised.”
“Fine, fine,” Blaine’s thigh is stinging in a sort of pleasant way and he crosses his legs to dull the feeling, “I was seven, and I was getting teased at school for having really long curly hair, but Mom wouldn’t cut it because she was really possessive about my hair. So I stole the kitchen scissors - don’t laugh! - I stole the kitchen scissors when she was talking to her friends and started just chopping off massive chunks of hair, like entire handfuls. When she came back in she screamed so loud that one of the neighbours came over to see what was going on.”
“Oh my god,” Kurt chuckles, “Please say you have pictures?”
“Yeah, well, I did it on a Saturday evening and our hairdressers were closed, so I had to stay like that until Monday morning when she kept me off school to have a private hairdresser come and correct the damage. Cooper took an entire disposable camera’s worth of pictures, I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to get them out and show you.”
Kurt smiles at him, his teeth flashing in the street lamps, and Blaine turns the pot of dye over in his hands and stares out of the windscreen.
The conversation fades into a comfortable silence, and soon they’re turning onto Kurt’s street and parking outside his empty house.
“Dad and Carole are out with friends,” Kurt explains, “And Finn’s off jerking off in the bushes or whatever he does for a hobby.”
Blaine shudders at the image and Kurt laughs, jumping down from his seat and waiting by the hood of the car for Blaine to get Mouse and follow him.
“Is it okay if he comes down the stairs?” Blaine checks, and Kurt waves a hand. “I’ve got an old beanbag he can sleep on, don’t sweat it.”
Blaine’s never been into Kurt’s room before. He’s been over to the Hummel-Hudson’s for video game marathons and movie nights but the basement door has always been firmly shut, and Finn’s room was at the other end of the house. The basement is surprisingly clean and neat, with a few old books lined up on the bookshelves. Kurt places his jacket on the back of his desk chair and nods to the beanbag in the corner as he unbuttons his shirt and tosses it into the laundry basket.
Mouse flops down in the middle of the floor quite comfortably and Blaine stands awkwardly, not entirely sure where to sit. From the bathroom, Kurt calls “Make yourself at home!” and then emerges with a towel over his shoulders, pointing at the bed. “I swear, you are the politest person I’ve ever met.”
“Blame my parents,” Blaine says, instead choosing to wander over to Kurt’s bookshelf and run his thumb down the dusty spines so he can read their titles clearly. Nudging his glasses up his nose, he pulls one out and turns it over to examine the back.
“Peter Pan, huh?” he asks, and then Kurt snatches the book from his hands and slams it back into the shelves. Blaine flinches, bringing his hands up to his chest in shock, and Kurt runs a hand through his hair.
“Your hair,” Blaine says, and Kurt blinks. “What? Does it look bad?”
“No, it’s just. It’s weird,” he says, eyeing the blond streaks at the tips of Kurt’s hair, “I’m sure it’ll look great blue, though.”
“Really?” Kurt looks hopeful, “You do?”
“Sure!” Blaine goes to pull another book out of the case and then pauses, glancing at Kurt for verification and Kurt nods, moving forwards to join Blaine.
“Peter Pan scared me,” Blaine offers, “Especially the Disney movie, ugh. Gave me nightmares. My brother used to stand outside the door with his alarm clock so I could hear the ticking and then snap his teeth.”
“Your brother sounds like an asshole,” Kurt says dryly, “No offence.”
“None taken, he kind of is,” Blaine pulls another book down; The Northern Lights.
“Philip Pullman fan?” he asks, and Kurt shrugs. “I liked to think of myself as Lyra. Barely seeing her father, never met her mother and managing to go on all of these amazing adventures.”
“Mm,” Blaine puts it back, “Harry Potter was my escape, to be honest.”
“I know,” Kurt says, “There’s pictures of you dressed up as him on your pin board.”
Blaine grins. “I was a kick-ass Harry.”
“Sure you were,” Kurt pets his hair and then turns away, “I’m going to go get started on my hair.”
“Go ahead,” Blaine says, rising up onto his toes to pull at a book with faded golden lettering. Something else slips off the top, sending a cascade of dust bunnies down over his head and shoulders, and he grabs it before it smacks him on the head.
Bringing it down to eye level, he frowns at the edition of Vogue he’s holding. It’s recent, and a smile spreads across his face as he recognises the person on the cover.
“Marion Cottilard!” he yells, and Kurt shouts “What?”
“Vogue! Marion Cottilard was my favourite cover,” Blaine moves to lean against the bathroom doorframe, looking in and - wow, okay, Kurt is shirtless and bent over the bath, blue hair dye spattered over his shoulders and smeared across his fingers. Blaine’s mouth has gone dry and he swallows futilely a few times, his eyes fixed on the smooth expanse of Kurt’s back, pale with the exception of a tattoo.
“I still can’t hear you,” Kurt’s saying, and Blaine squeaks “Never mind, it wasn’t important - you have a tattoo?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt says distantly, “I’ve had it for years.”
“Finn said you didn’t.”
“Finn’s an unobservant idiot, Anderson, don’t trust what he says.”
Trying not to seem creepy, Blaine inches forwards to peer at Kurt’s shoulder blade. The tattoo is black, a delicate bird straining up towards his shoulder with a ribbon tied to one leg, winding down his shoulder blade to the base, where a simple black anchor chains it down. Looking closer, Blaine pinpoints the spot where the ribbon turns to chain.
“It’s nice,” he says eventually, “A nice design.”
“Don’t you go stealing it,” Kurt says jokingly, and the image of them having matching tattoos sends a pleasant shiver down Blaine’s spine.
“Of course not,” he says, licking his lips and then realising how creepy that must look, “Um, your hair looks good.”
“You think?” Kurt straightens up, the comb jammed in his hair at a jaunty angle, and Blaine has to quickly avert his eyes from Kurt’s chest. God, I am such a creeper. I’m probably freaking him out.
“It looks great!” he says, his voice about two octaves too high, “Um, I’m just going to -“
“Sure,” Kurt says, “Go ahead and read any books you want, I don’t really visit them that often.”
Blaine smiles and bobs his head, drops Vogue on Kurt’s bed and walks back to the bookshelf quickly. He feels warm and his cheeks are red, the image of Kurt’s back forever emblazoned into his mind. Attempting to distract himself, he picks up the copy of Peter Pan, flicking through the pages without really reading them. When his fingers brush over lumpy, torn paper instead of the smooth page he was expecting he snaps out of his lust-induced haze and glances at the book, and then nearly drops it in surprise. The page is crusted in rust-red paint, and part of it is ripped away. Frowning, Blaine lifts it closer and catches the distinct tangy smell of blood.
He puts it back hurriedly, swallowing hard, and wipes his hands on his jeans. He really hopes that’s not human blood.
“You okay?” Kurt’s voice from behind him makes him jump and he staggers back, hand over his heart.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry,” Kurt holds up his hands, “Just wondering, you seemed kind of shaken up.”
“Just -“ Blaine shakes his head, “Silly home stuff.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt touches his wrist, “That sucks.”
Blaine shrugs and then changes the subject quickly, “I found that Vogue in your bookshelf, is it yours?”
Kurt turns to face his bed and freezes up. “No! No, it must be Carole’s. Uh, I’ve never seen that before.”
“Oh, shame,” Blaine picks it up and replaces it on the shelf, “That’s my favourite cover. Do you want me to take it upstairs or -”
“No! No, I’ll do it later, don’t worry,” Kurt says in a sort of strained voice.
Blaine cringes inwardly. Way to go, Anderson. Real great way of making someone not awkward around you.
“So,” Kurt says, tugging at his shower cap, “Wanna watch a movie or something?”
“Sure,” Blaine says, and promises himself to be a lot less creepy.