Fic: Longitudinal Design [Glee]
Title: Longitudinal Design
Author: teaboytoaliens
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 6680
Summary: Blaine Anderson transfers to Dalton Academy from a public high school in November of 2008 and adds an entirely new dynamic to the Warblers. A look at his life over fourteen months through the eyes of someone who is never noticed but always notices.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Fox's Glee nor do I make that claim. Original creations of this story, including, but not limited to, characters, settings, and plot, are copyright to me
Author’s Notes: Written for leafyaki at the Blaine exchange. Every Warbler that speaks in this story also had at least one line on the show and thus their character names are taken from canon. Flint is based on epic trolling done by Luke Edgemon via Twitter during the winter hiatus. Other character names are from this.
---
Flint wasn’t the sort of guy that people noticed. He had joined the Warblers in freshman year because he needed an extra-curricular and he liked singing well enough, but he never auditioned for solos or even really spoke in rehearsal. He’d been in private school for his entire life, but he’d never made any lasting friends, preferring to direct the energy that being social required into raising his grades even higher than they already were. He never really put himself out there, and thus he flew under the radar.
People didn’t notice Flint, but Flint noticed people.
He didn’t like to interact with them so much as he liked to watch them interact with each other. He had been an avid people watcher for as long as he could remember and he was extremely skilled in the art of eavesdropping (which, though he was told it was a bad thing, he rationalized to himself was all right as long as he didn’t contribute to the spread of rumours and gossip).
The Warblers were especially interesting to observe. They had all sorts of relationships with each other-from acquaintances to best friends to dating and back to those who merely tolerated each other out of necessity and still managed to argue every now and then-and yet they always managed to come together as a cohesive unit, singing in perfect harmony and genuinely having a good time.
Flint could tell you the exact date, perhaps even to the hour, when the Warblers dynamic became even more remarkable. It was the very same day that a freshman transfer named Blaine Anderson auditioned to join.
While everyone was focussed on watching the new kid sing a fairly touching version of Colbie Caillat’s Realize, Flint was focussed on watching everyone.
Trent was staring at Blaine in a way that screamed ‘I am developing a crush on you’. Flint thought that might be a good relationship, but he filed it away to reassess when he knew more of Blaine’s personality. (And if Blaine was gay. Flint had heard rumours, but he tried not to put too much stock in petty gossip.)
Wes and David kept elbowing each other and nodding approvingly while smiling widely toward Blaine. It took Blaine a bit to notice, but once he did his confidence level practically skyrocketed. Flint was impressed.
The council members were watching Blaine with calculating expressions. Having been a Warbler for two years already, Flint had witnessed enough auditions that he could tell that Blaine was going to be accepted just from the degree of interest reflected in each of their faces.
Sure enough, once Blaine had finished singing and been ushered out into the hallway to wait, the Warblers voted him in unanimously.
Flint looked at the gigantic smile that broke out across Blaine’s face and decided that things were bound to get interesting with this kid around.
---
When Flint got home he immediately searched Blaine Anderson on Facebook and friended him. He didn’t have to wait too long before his request was accepted, and he set to work checking out Blaine’s profile.
Blaine’s Facebook profile may have claimed that he had over one hundred friends, but it only took a few clicks to discover that that was not really the case.
Blaine had been going to a public high school in Westerville before he transferred. Just by the nature of the posts on his wall, Flint could tell he had left because of bullying. He scrolled past those quickly and tried not to dwell-whenever he attempted to figure out why people were so cruel and unaccepting it always gave him a splitting headache.
He clicked through the pictures Blaine was tagged in as well-there were merely a few professional portraits of him and his parents and some class photos that he was no doubt only tagged in because his name was listed in the caption.
Basically, what Flint learned from Blaine’s Facebook profile was that he needed some friends stat.
Luckily, the Warblers seemed to be completely on top of that-a lot of them had already friended Blaine on Facebook, and even as Flint stared at it, a new post from Wes popped up on Blaine’s wall. ‘Welcome to Dalton and to the Warblers! Your voice is going to be a wonderful addition, I’m sure of it. We should hang out sometime outside of rehearsal if you’re up for it. What kind of movies are you into?’
Flint resisted an urge to like the post, even though he most certainly did, and logged off feeling pretty good about the extra-curricular activity he’d managed to get himself involved in.
---
For the entire month of December, whenever Flint saw Blaine in the hallways, he was flanked by either David or Wes, more often both of them. He seemed to be settling into Dalton’s classes pretty well and definitely hadn’t made any enemies. (It would have been pretty hard for him to make enemies in a place where there was zero tolerance for any kind of harassment, of course, but he didn’t have the kind of enemy that was just someone you avoided because you disliked them, either.)
The Warblers had a miniature winter holidays party before school was let out for break, during which, to Flint’s disappointment, Blaine mostly sat by himself in a corner near the food, occasionally engaging in conversation with Warblers that would pass by.
It was good that he was talking to people, at least, but Flint remembered Blaine’s first official Warblers practice-he had practically been bouncing off the walls, his fluffy curls just as lively as the grin on his face.
That Blaine was already a far cry from the one currently nibbling on an Oreo, his hair obviously suffering from an attempt to make it lie flat.
Flint didn’t like it. Blaine was supposed to shake things up-he wasn’t supposed to conform. He was supposed to have found a place to be himself.
---
When school recommenced in January, the council was quick to announce that they would be looking for new soloists for some performance they were going to put on on campus. Anyone was welcome to audition.
Flint had no plans to do any such thing, but the look on Blaine’s face informed him that Blaine was all over that.
He had pretty much no chance, Flint knew, because freshmen never got solos (and the council always fell in love with their primary soloist for the year and never really gave anybody else a chance. It was practically Warbler tradition.)
Still, Blaine managed to pull off an emotional performance of ‘Your Song’ by Elton John that was blatantly directed toward Wes.
All right, it wasn’t actually blatant-Wes hadn’t even seemed to notice-but Flint could tell. He just read body language really well.
It still came as a surprise to no one (except maybe Blaine, but even he probably wasn’t too optimistic) that Blaine didn’t get the solo.
After the announcement had been made and practice had been adjourned, Flint noticed Wes and Blaine hanging back. He wanted to stick around to see what was going to be said, but he knew that would be way too obvious, so he left just as he was supposed to.
It wasn’t his fault if he forgot his sheet music folder and had to go back. It wasn’t his fault that they seemed to be having a serious conversation that he didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.
“-in the future,” Wes was saying. “Your voice is wonderful, I have always told you, and the emotion in that performance was absolutely palpable.”
“That’s because I was directing it toward someone,” Blaine said.
“Oh? Who? Oh, if it’s-”
“You,” Blaine interrupted.
Flint could practically hear Wes’ disbelief in the ensuing silence.
“It’s just, you’ve been so friendly ever since I transferred here. You were the first person to try to be my friend, you know, and you always know what to say and what to not say and you don’t mind watching musicals as long as we alternate with action movies, and-”
“Blaine,” Wes interrupted. “I’m straight.”
And now Flint was picturing the distraught puppy look that was probably on Blaine’s face now, and he was probably making it ten times more depressing than it actually was, but it was just so sad in Flint’s head.
“...oh. Well, that’s okay. I’ll just, uh, back off. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. It’s highly flattering, really, but we’re better off as just friends.”
“I understand. Don’t worry about it.”
There were a couple shuffling noises and Flint heard footsteps coming toward the door.
“Blaine?”
The footsteps stopped. “Yes?” Blaine asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“...no reason. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Wes.”
---
Blaine moped around for most of February. Flint had logged into his Facebook profile on the fourteenth to discover that Wes’ relationship status now declared that he was in a relationship with a girl who went to Crawford Country Day.
And then Blaine had posted the lyrics to a Death Cab for Cutie song as his status, so Flint had a pretty good idea how he felt about that.
Flint had still seen Blaine and Wes hanging out at lunch and walking through the halls together, but they were usually accompanied by David, and when they weren’t, there was a palpable (to Flint) tension between them.
And then sometime around St. Patrick’s Day, Blaine posted some lyrics from ‘Your Song’, which was extremely weird, considering what that song meant to him and that it was a repeat from back in January. (Yes, Flint had checked. He had to have all the information necessary to assess these things.)
Of course, no one other than Flint would ever notice.
But noticing was something Flint did well. So while others just saw Blaine and Wes, two good friends, walking casually through Dalton’s hallways and eating casual lunch together in the cafeteria and studying together in the library casually, Flint saw all the subtle little glances over plates of food and finger brushes in the corridor.
And okay, he could probably convince himself those were just signs of a good friendship judging by all other evidence, but just friends didn’t stick their tongues down each other’s throats in the back corner of the library. (Flint had totally been just doing research, not trying to catch anyone doing anything at all, honestly.)
So while Wes’ Facebook profile still claimed he had a girlfriend and that he was interested in women and Blaine’s still claimed he was one hundred percent single, Flint had (mental) evidence otherwise.
He seemed to remember thinking that Blaine was going to shake things up.
He hadn’t been wrong, apparently.
---
Flint didn’t detect any difference in Wes and Blaine’s behaviours through April and May-they still interacted with Warblers the same way they had previously and didn’t seem to spend any extra time with each other, though they still had regular ‘study’ sessions in the library-until one particular weekend near the end of May.
Flint was only at the mall because it was his mother’s birthday soon, and he hadn’t done anything for her for Mother’s Day, so he figured he had to make that up.
He was perusing the perfume and makeup section of Macy’s when he heard a familiar laugh and looked up from the bottle of Chanel he was holding to see Wes ducking away from Blaine, holding his hands above his head defensively.
“Do not put lipstick on me, Blaine Anderson! I am not a girl!”
“Boys can wear makeup, too, Wes,” Blaine countered teasingly.
“Nor am I a drag queen! I’m a perfectly normal straight boy.”
Blaine’s face dropped and he put the lipstick he’d been holding back in its spot carefully. “Straight, huh?” he asked quietly-quietly enough that Flint probably wouldn’t have been able to hear if he hadn’t inched a bit (a lot) closer after spotting them.
Wes looked conflicted momentarily before his expression turned passive. “Straight as an arrow,” he confirmed.
Blaine looked away from the lipstick he’d been staring at but didn’t look at Wes. “I should be getting home. You ready to go?”
Blaine didn’t wait for an answer before walking away. Flint watched Wes trail after him.
---
Flint was fairly sure that treasure hunts were not all that cool anymore, even from a freshman’s perspective. Then again, this was Blaine they were talking about. He was a rather large dork.
And so were pretty much all the Warblers, as they all seemed pretty intent on being the first to get to the treasure.
Maybe treasure hunts were cool and Flint had just not had an opportunity to notice previously.
He had arrived at Blaine’s birthday party expecting it to be a pizza-and-video-games affair that would quickly morph into beer-and-attempted-karaoke. Instead, Blaine had greeted him with a smile, a sheet of paper that listed clues, and a direction to find a group of three to work in.
Flint hadn’t known who to group himself with, so he’d ended up following Wes and David. They were two of the less enthusiastic participants-Flint could hear Trent and-was that Thad’s voice? stumbling through a hedge somewhere behind a fence.
He thought they might have come already tipsy. That would explain the whole ‘treasure hunts are cool’ phenomenon.
David and Wes were completely sober, however. This positive was rather negated by the fact that they were talking about how much alcohol one could plausibly consume and still be designated driver.
Wes was firmly on the side that none was the correct answer. David insisted that the DD could have a few, as long as they stopped well before they would actually be driving anywhere.
“And that, David, is why I am not allowing you under any circumstances to be my designated driver,” Wes snapped. “If you’re going to make less than knowledgeable decisions, I’d rather not have my life on the line.”
“Your life wouldn’t be on the line. I’d be sober way before I ever got behind the wheel!”
“This is no longer up for discussion, David. Now help me figure where to find, uh,” -Wes squinted at the sheet of paper in his hand- “‘the trees up above and the ground down below. Where the wild things play is where you must go.’”
“Dude, I haven’t got a clue what that’s supposed to be. Let’s just give up and see if Anderson’s got any cake.”
Wes continued squinting at the paper for a minute before sighing and shoving it in his pocket. “Yeah, might as well. Let’s go.”
Wes and David turned around and walked past Flint, giving him a nod as they did so. He followed behind them as they turned down a back alley to head back to Blaine’s house. As they drew nearer to Blaine’s yard, David leaned forward a bit and then declared, “Hey, Wes, your girlfriend is in there.”
Wes stumbled over a stray rock in the alleyway and cleared his throat loudly. “Oh, she is? I thought this was a Warblers party?”
“Nah, I definitely saw John’s girlfriend, too,” David said as he pulled open the already ajar back gate and waved Wes through. Wes made a non-committal noise and was promptly assaulted by a short girl the second he stepped into the backyard.
“Wes!” she squealed. Flint was actually kind of surprised that such high pitched noise could be emitted by a human being. “I haven’t seen you in like forever.”
Wes awkwardly patted her back. “We went to a movie yesterday, babe.”
“I know, but I missed you. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to a party? Blaine had to invite me all by himself! He’s so nice, don’t you think, Wes?” she babbled, all while still holding onto Wes’ neck.
Flint sat down in a lawn chair as Wes made momentary eye contact with Blaine before saying, “Babe, are you drunk?”
“Not yet!” She (finally) let go of Wes’ neck, then abruptly hiccupped. “Wait, maybe I am. I think so.”
“I think so, too,” Blaine muttered, sitting down in a lawn chair next to Flint and poking at the fire he’d started in the fire pit with a stick.
Flint looked curiously from Wes and his girlfriend, who had apparently taken to slow dancing to no music in the corner, to Blaine and back again. He wondered what had prompted Blaine to invite Wes’ girlfriend to his birthday party. It didn’t seem to make sense.
“Happy birthday, dude,” David said to Blaine, sitting down on the other side of the fire. “Not a bad party so far. The treasure hunt thing was a kind of cool idea, but we couldn’t figure out the clues at all.”
Blaine frowned. “You couldn’t? Wes read the clues, right?”
“The one we had, yeah. We couldn’t get it,” David repeated.
“Huh,” Blaine told the flames.
“Yeah. Hey, are we having cake at any point?”
“Yeah, when everyone gets back from wherever they decided the clue was supposed to take them,” Blaine said. “There are hot dogs and chips and stuff in the kitchen, too.”
David perked up. “Hot dogs that we can roast on the fire? I’ll go get those for you if you want.”
“I’ll come with you,” Blaine said, setting his stick to the side and getting up. “That way you don’t have to wander around looking for the kitchen.”
“Cool,” David said, jumping to his feet.
Flint picked up Blaine’s stick and started poking at the fire the same way Blaine had been, just for something to do. He looked over at Wes and his girlfriend once, but they were attached at the mouth, so he went back to resolutely staring at the flames.
“Hey, Wes!” David yelled from the door. “I found the answer to the clue! All those guys wandering around town are way off mark.”
Wes broke away from his girlfriend to look at David quizzically. “Yeah, so?”
David shrugged. “I dunno. Blaine seemed sort of upset and he mumbled something about you and then shut himself in the bathroom.”
Wes sighed. “Scuse me, babe. I’m going to go see what’s up.”
Wes disappeared inside the house. His girlfriend sat down in the lawn chair Blaine had vacated and stared up at the sky. David carefully put hot dogs on the metal wiener stick he’d found next to the picnic table and started painstakingly cooking them. Flint stopped poking at the fire and watched David turn the hot dogs slowly over and over. It was all distinctly summery and completely forgettable.
That is, until Blaine came storming out of the house, headed in a beeline toward Wes’ girlfriend. He stopped in front of her, waited until she looked at him, then very clearly said, “Wes has been cheating on you.”
David pulled his hot dogs back from the fire. Flint’s eyes widened. This was not something he’d ever expect Blaine to do.
“What? With who? Oh, when I get my hands on that little bitch-”
“With me,” Blaine interrupted.
She stared at him, blinking in confusion. “What are you talking about? Wes isn’t gay. I mean, I would know, he-”
Wes chose that moment to come out of the house, looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. He stopped short when he noticed the looks on everyone’s faces. “Uh, what’s going on?”
“Did you really cheat on me with Blaine?”
Wes looked panicked to Flint, but he thought the expression might also translate to shocked. “What? Who told you that?”
“He did!” his girlfriend shrieked. She was standing now, her finger pointed directly at Blaine.
Wes looked sadly at Blaine. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because it’s true,” Blaine said through clenched teeth, fists balled at his side.
Wes shook his head. “No, it’s not. I know you have a crush on me, and that’s all right, I’m flattered, but I’m straight, Blaine, and your deluded fantasies aren’t real life.”
Blaine shook his head. “Don’t do this to me, Wes. I told you things. I trusted you. And this is how you repay me? I thought maybe you’d actually try the treasure hunt, actually think about the clues and figure them out, because you were meant to. The clues were written for you. But you didn’t even give enough of a shit to try. David figured it out before you did, and David doesn’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t know anything about you, either,” Wes said blankly.
“Fuck you, Wes. Fuck you. If you want to deny it, then go right the fuck ahead. But you and me know the truth, Wes. I know. You know. And this is turning out to be a really fucking shit birthday.”
Blaine shoved over the lawn chair Wes’ girlfriend had evacuated, sending it flying into the picnic table with a crash, and stalked into the house, just as Trent and Thad, flanked by Ethan and Luke with a bunch of the other Warblers behind him, came stumbling into the yard.
“Hey! We brought beer!” Trent proclaimed. “And vodka!”
Thad looked around. “Where’s Frodo? I want to give him birthday bumps.”
David shook his head. “I think we should take the party over to mine,” he said. “Blaine’s not feeling well.”
The Warblers looked saddened for a moment before brightening back up and turning to head back out into the alleyway.
“To David’s!” Trent proclaimed, and the party goers all cheered. David hurried to catch up, leaving Wes, his girlfriend, and Flint all sitting awkwardly in the backyard.
“I’ll take you home,” Wes told his girlfriend.
“But-”
“I’ll take you home,” he repeated, pulling her toward the front gate.
Flint watched them go, then got up and gathered David’s forgotten food, including the half-cooked hot dogs. He took it all inside and located the kitchen, leaving it neatly in the fridge. He found a bucket under the sink and used it to take water to put out the fire.
He didn’t think Blaine needed anything more to worry about.
---
The only time Flint saw Blaine after his birthday party was when he came to school for the final exams, his hair ungelled and a blank look on his face.
Flint was off to New Zealand for the summer, but he tried to keep up to date with the actions of the Warblers through social networking sites, just so he wouldn’t be completely lost when they started school again.
He found himself on Blaine’s profile frequently. It was a fair bit different from when he’d first clicked through it-gone were the hateful posts, replaced by friendly exchanges with Warblers, and the number of pictures he was tagged in had increased exponentially.
Not much changed about it throughout July and August, however. Every so often there might be a new status, maybe a wall post from David (and once one from Wes, but that one went unanswered, at least publicly). The only significant thing Blaine posted were some pictures of him and his father with a vintage classic car. Flint spent a lot of time looking at those photos, trying to interpret the expressions and the body language, but he drew a different conclusion each time and eventually exhausted all the options.
Sometimes Flint thought that he should really get his own life and leave well enough alone.
---
When school started up again in September, Blaine and Wes seemed to be on cordial speaking terms, while Blaine and David seemed to be something like best friends. Warblers practices started again, and a happy-go-lucky blonde freshman named Jeff auditioned to join and was the only one out of two who got in, thanks to his killer dance moves and just as good voice.
By the time October rolled around, Jeff had convinced a sophomore named Nick to audition-he also got in. Flint had seen the two hanging out together since the first day of school. Nick had been Jeff’s freshman orientation buddy, and their friendship had stuck and stuck hard.
Blaine seemed to take a special interest in the two. He was always glancing over at them and smiling when Nick would fix Jeff’s blazer or Jeff would try to teach Nick a dance move.
Flint was just waiting for the day Blaine wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and would demand to know why the two weren’t dating yet.
He was also waiting for David to grow some balls and ask Blaine out, because it was becoming increasingly obvious to Flint that he totally wanted to.
---
Flint didn’t actively stalk anybody. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time a lot.
So he was honestly not expecting to be sitting at a table in his parents’ favourite Italian restaurant and suddenly spot Blaine and David being seated at a table conveniently located exactly where Flint could both see and hear them, but a rather large plant half concealed him from their view.
Not that Flint was trying to be sneaky about anything. He blamed it on the hostess, anyway.
Excited by the fact that Blaine and David were going out to dinner together, Flint was sure to pay extra attention to them, even though his parents were carrying on a conversation (supposedly with him, but they didn’t really need his input).
“So, uh, what did you ask me out to dinner for?” Flint heard Blaine say nervously, menu held in front of his face.
“What, I can’t ask out a good looking guy?” David shot back, grinning at Blaine.
Blaine’s cheeks turned bright pink. “I-I thought you were straight, though.”
Flint had actually thought that, too. But it had occurred to him, watching Blaine and David interact next to the interactions of Jeff and Nick, that maybe that wasn’t entirely so. Or they had a very strong bromance, but Flint preferred to be skeptical on that front.
David merely shrugged. “Maybe not one hundred percent.”
Blaine looked about the same as Flint imagined he himself must-one part confused, three parts delighted.
“Well, uh, that’s really cool. I mean, must be kind of weird to be questioning your sexuality and stuff, but uh, obviously this is beneficial to me. Do we need to keep this under wraps since you’re not out or sure you’re gay or-”
David cut Blaine off by grabbing the hand that had been gesturing in the air and holding onto it. “If we had to keep it a secret, I think I wouldn’t have asked you to go out somewhere so public.”
Well, that made sense to Flint. Especially since it would have just failed completely if he had been trying to keep it a secret.
“Besides, I don’t think you need another Wes incident.”
Blaine and Flint winced simultaneously. “Yeah, no. Thanks for that, uh, consideration, David.”
“Not a problem, Blaine.”
They fell into a silence that looked companionable enough, but Flint could tell that Blaine, at least, felt a little bit awkward by the way he kept looking up from his menu like he was going to say something and then changed his mind.
By the time Blaine and David’s waitress had come back and they had ordered, Flint’s waiter had brought his own food and his parents had seemed to finally realize that Flint hadn’t actually said a word to them since they got to the restaurant, so the next time he looked over at their table, Blaine and David had their own food and were both laughing at something.
“I didn’t know you had such a dirty mind,” Blaine gasped out, wiping at his eyes. “I mean, I knew, but seriously. That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” David said teasingly, leaning across the table with a sly smile on his face.
“I look forward to learning all these mysterious things you’ve been hiding for the past year,” Blaine said, leaning toward David.
There was a moment in which Blaine and David sort of stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before abruptly sitting back almost at the same time. It looked to Flint like maybe if he was Blaine or David, the moment wouldn’t have felt like a few seconds, it would have felt like a year or two. But then again, maybe Flint needed to stop reading his mother’s romance novels when he got bored.
“Are you going to watch any football on Thanksgiving weekend?” Blaine asked.
David looked up from his plate brightly. “Of course! Are you?”
“Definitely. It’s kind of a thing my dad and I do.”
“Well, we’ll have to get together sometime after and rehash all the really good moments. Like what we did for the Super Bowl.”
“Oh, yeah, that was a pretty good party,” Blaine said. “It sucked that you weren’t there, though. Did you ever hear-”
“About Wes trying to steal the council’s gavel by sneaking up on them?”
Blaine grinned. “And then he fell off the back of the couch. It was hilarious.”
“Yeah, I think Andrew might have gotten video of that. Priceless.”
They smiled at each other across the table and lapsed into awkward silence. After a minute, David put down his fork. “Are you ready to go?”
Blaine nodded vigorously, almost jumping to his feet. “I’ll pay.”
David frowned. “I asked you out, though.”
Blaine waved his hand. “I’ve got it covered.”
“No, you don’t,” David said, grabbing Blaine’s credit card out of his hand and pulling out his own instead. He stood and lowered his voice. “You might be used to having to try really hard to keep people around, but I honestly want to be here.”
Blaine hesitated a moment and then nodded. “Okay.”
Up until that moment, Flint had been skeptical about David-he’d thought that maybe David was just going to end up stringing Blaine along and deciding he was straight after all. But the look on David’s face as he handed Blaine’s credit card back to him spoke volumes about the way he felt.
Flint approved.
Not that anyone had been looking for his opinion.
---
For some reason, Nick was hosting a party to celebrate the winter solstice.
Of course, the Warblers were merely using the invitations as a chance to get drunk and sing bad karaoke. Like they did at every single party they attended.
Flint considered staying home just because he knew what usually went down and it would just be easier.
He went anyway.
By nine-thirty, the party was in full swing. Thad had run off to hide in the kitchen after being brutally beaten in a game of SingStar against James. Wes was studiously avoiding both Blaine and alcohol, though Flint had seen him having a civil conversation with Blaine earlier. David and Blaine, who had been dating for nearly a month now, were cuddling on the couch, occasionally whispering things in each other’s ears and then giggling. Trent was alternately watching them with disgust and a touch of longing and watching Ethan and Richard attempt to rap. The rest of the Warblers were cheering for the two singers while Flint sat in a chair that was conveniently placed in the corner and observed.
“Whoo hoo!” Jeff, ever the one to cause a disruption, yelled from his place standing on the back of the couch, beer bottle hanging from one hand that was thrust into the air. “This party is sick!”
“Jeff, get down from there,” Nick ordered as he walked in from the kitchen. “You’re going to fall and hurt yourself.”
Jeff grinned down at Nick. “Hey, Nick. Nicky. Nickay-boy. You’re even shorter than usual!”
“Jeff, please get down.” Nick’s tone became more pleading.
“Mmkay. I’ll just step over here and-” Jeff’s foot slipped and he fell, landing soundly in Nick’s arms, though Nick stumbled backwards a bit under his weight. “Whoops.”
“What did I tell you?” Nick grumbled.
“You said I was going to hurt myself,” Jeff said. “But I didn’t because you were there to catch me. Are you always going to be there to catch me?”
Nick paused. “I’ll try my damnedest, anyway, Jeffster.”
“Thanks, Nickelfritz.”
“God, e’en Jeff and Nick have sappy nicknames for each othe’. I’m gettin’ outta here, everythin’ is too sugary sweet for my fabulous heart,” Trent proclaimed, getting up from the floor and nearly tripping over the couch on his way out of the room. Flint decided to follow him to the kitchen and see if he could find himself a drink that wasn’t alcohol.
“Thad,” Trent slurred. “Thad, my boy. What’re you doin’ in the kitchen?” He clapped his hand on Thad’s shoulder and shook his head when Thad opened his mouth to answer. “Ne’er mind, dude, got any beer?” He grabbed the bottle in Thad’s hand away from him and took a swig from it. “Sweet, thanks.”
Alcohol kind of reduced Trent’s vocabulary to that of a stereotypical rom-com teenage jock, Flint observed.
“Have you see’ Blaine and David?” Trent continued on. “They’re out in the li’in room being all romantic an’ shit. It’s gross.”
“At least they have someone to be romantic with,” Thad countered bitterly.
“Exactly!” Trent exclaimed, a fair bit too loudly. “I mea’, David wasn’t even gay last week, and now he gets Blaine all to himself? Wha’ about me, huh? Where’s the love for me? I’m fab-“ Trent hiccupped mid-word “-ulous.”
“I commiserate with you completely, Trent,” Thad said. “There are so many beautiful women in the world and not a one would take a second look at me. They walk past me in their flocks, flaunting their beauty and no doubt hiding a wonderful personality away as well, and it’s like they mock me, Trent. They mock me with their posteriors.”
Flint opened the fridge door and stuck his head in in order to laugh without drawing attention to himself.
“I hear you, bro,” Trent said. “Those boys-I mean, girls, I mean-what?”
Flint decided to take Trent’s confusion and Thad’s longing stare into the distance as his cue to take his drink and go observe from his corner of the living room again.
---
Most of the Warblers had just opted to crash at Nick’s house rather than go home, including Flint. While the rest of them slept, Flint wandered around the house, cleaning as he went, just because he couldn’t decide where a good place to sleep was. By the time he decided his safest bet was the same chair he had been sitting in all evening, Blaine and David had completely occupied the living room by building a gigantic fort out of sheets.
Flint wondered where they’d managed to find enough to fill the entire living room. Then he discovered that they’d actually turned his chair around and secured a sheet on top of it, so he could totally still sleep there.
Just as he was all settled in the chair and almost drifting off to sleep, Blaine decided it was a good time to start talking.
“Hey, David?”
“Hmmm?”
“What is it you like about me?”
David was silent for a moment before sighing. “That’s a hard question, you know.”
“Try,” Blaine said, his voice muffled.
David sighed again, then said, “I like your voice, especially the way it sounds right after you come. I like the way your hair looks, even when you hide its natural fluffiness with all that gel, but especially with my fingers in it. Kind of like this, actually. I like the way you put other people’s needs before yours, especially when it involves getting me off. I like the way you go for what you want, but you do it in such strange ways. I like your face. I especially like your face when it’s near my dick.”
“This is beginning to sound like you only like me for the sex that we haven’t even had yet,” Blaine said.
“Oh, baby, you ain’t heard nothing yet.”
“Save it,” Blaine breathed, and then Flint could hear definite sounds of kissing. He’d wanted to leave since David had said ‘come’, but he’d been afraid if he moved Blaine and David would hear him and it would be awkward.
Of course, now he was even more afraid that would happen.
And then he felt them roll into his chair and heard someone moan and he was out of there like a shot.
He was creepy, he would admit it, but not that creepy. He’d sooner hang out by himself in the kitchen.
Just him and the blue blanket he’d stolen from Nick’s bedroom.
---
Blaine and David kept following Flint around. It was really the only explanation for the way they had just traipsed into the coffee shop Flint preferred the most out of all the ones in the Westerville area, beanie hats tucked neatly over their heads and scarves wrapped snugly around their necks with a suspicious lack of gloves.
Blaine sat down two tables away from Flint and watched David order coffee with a completely smitten look on his face. It was adorable. Flint could barely even handle the cuteness, especially when David came over with their coffee and smiled in a completely awkward and endearing manner when he noticed the look on Blaine’s face.
David sat on the edge of his chair and passed Blaine his coffee. Blaine took it carefully, his fingers brushing in a very deliberate manner against David’s.
“No biscotti?” he said after taking a sip, his bottom lip poking out in a subtle approximation of a toddler’s pout.
“Uh, no,” David said. “Was I supposed to get some?”
Flint wanted to shake David and point out that yes, he was supposed to get some, Blaine loved biscotti, shouldn’t David know that after nearly two months of dating?, but he just took another bite of his muffin and averted his gaze toward the window.
“No, no,” Blaine was quick to say. “It’s all right. Thanks for the coffee.”
“No problem.” Flint looked back in time to see the strangely large and genuine smile David flashed at Blaine and the resulting pink of Blaine’s cheeks.
“You want to head out?” Blaine asked abruptly. David nodded, and Flint mentally commended Blaine on his perceptivity. “We could go to the park. Or back to mine. Or just home.”
Flint was skeptical about that addition, but actually managed to be surprised when David agreed to going to the park. He wondered what they did there. But he wasn’t going to follow them.
He didn’t stop himself from watching as they left the coffee shop, gloveless hands easily warmed by the hot coffee cups in their hands and even more so by the way their fingers interlaced between them.
Winter cold wasn’t so bad when you had someone to lean into while you walked through frigid air, Flint guessed.
Author: teaboytoaliens
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 6680
Summary: Blaine Anderson transfers to Dalton Academy from a public high school in November of 2008 and adds an entirely new dynamic to the Warblers. A look at his life over fourteen months through the eyes of someone who is never noticed but always notices.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Fox's Glee nor do I make that claim. Original creations of this story, including, but not limited to, characters, settings, and plot, are copyright to me
Author’s Notes: Written for leafyaki at the Blaine exchange. Every Warbler that speaks in this story also had at least one line on the show and thus their character names are taken from canon. Flint is based on epic trolling done by Luke Edgemon via Twitter during the winter hiatus. Other character names are from this.
---
Flint wasn’t the sort of guy that people noticed. He had joined the Warblers in freshman year because he needed an extra-curricular and he liked singing well enough, but he never auditioned for solos or even really spoke in rehearsal. He’d been in private school for his entire life, but he’d never made any lasting friends, preferring to direct the energy that being social required into raising his grades even higher than they already were. He never really put himself out there, and thus he flew under the radar.
People didn’t notice Flint, but Flint noticed people.
He didn’t like to interact with them so much as he liked to watch them interact with each other. He had been an avid people watcher for as long as he could remember and he was extremely skilled in the art of eavesdropping (which, though he was told it was a bad thing, he rationalized to himself was all right as long as he didn’t contribute to the spread of rumours and gossip).
The Warblers were especially interesting to observe. They had all sorts of relationships with each other-from acquaintances to best friends to dating and back to those who merely tolerated each other out of necessity and still managed to argue every now and then-and yet they always managed to come together as a cohesive unit, singing in perfect harmony and genuinely having a good time.
Flint could tell you the exact date, perhaps even to the hour, when the Warblers dynamic became even more remarkable. It was the very same day that a freshman transfer named Blaine Anderson auditioned to join.
While everyone was focussed on watching the new kid sing a fairly touching version of Colbie Caillat’s Realize, Flint was focussed on watching everyone.
Trent was staring at Blaine in a way that screamed ‘I am developing a crush on you’. Flint thought that might be a good relationship, but he filed it away to reassess when he knew more of Blaine’s personality. (And if Blaine was gay. Flint had heard rumours, but he tried not to put too much stock in petty gossip.)
Wes and David kept elbowing each other and nodding approvingly while smiling widely toward Blaine. It took Blaine a bit to notice, but once he did his confidence level practically skyrocketed. Flint was impressed.
The council members were watching Blaine with calculating expressions. Having been a Warbler for two years already, Flint had witnessed enough auditions that he could tell that Blaine was going to be accepted just from the degree of interest reflected in each of their faces.
Sure enough, once Blaine had finished singing and been ushered out into the hallway to wait, the Warblers voted him in unanimously.
Flint looked at the gigantic smile that broke out across Blaine’s face and decided that things were bound to get interesting with this kid around.
---
When Flint got home he immediately searched Blaine Anderson on Facebook and friended him. He didn’t have to wait too long before his request was accepted, and he set to work checking out Blaine’s profile.
Blaine’s Facebook profile may have claimed that he had over one hundred friends, but it only took a few clicks to discover that that was not really the case.
Blaine had been going to a public high school in Westerville before he transferred. Just by the nature of the posts on his wall, Flint could tell he had left because of bullying. He scrolled past those quickly and tried not to dwell-whenever he attempted to figure out why people were so cruel and unaccepting it always gave him a splitting headache.
He clicked through the pictures Blaine was tagged in as well-there were merely a few professional portraits of him and his parents and some class photos that he was no doubt only tagged in because his name was listed in the caption.
Basically, what Flint learned from Blaine’s Facebook profile was that he needed some friends stat.
Luckily, the Warblers seemed to be completely on top of that-a lot of them had already friended Blaine on Facebook, and even as Flint stared at it, a new post from Wes popped up on Blaine’s wall. ‘Welcome to Dalton and to the Warblers! Your voice is going to be a wonderful addition, I’m sure of it. We should hang out sometime outside of rehearsal if you’re up for it. What kind of movies are you into?’
Flint resisted an urge to like the post, even though he most certainly did, and logged off feeling pretty good about the extra-curricular activity he’d managed to get himself involved in.
---
For the entire month of December, whenever Flint saw Blaine in the hallways, he was flanked by either David or Wes, more often both of them. He seemed to be settling into Dalton’s classes pretty well and definitely hadn’t made any enemies. (It would have been pretty hard for him to make enemies in a place where there was zero tolerance for any kind of harassment, of course, but he didn’t have the kind of enemy that was just someone you avoided because you disliked them, either.)
The Warblers had a miniature winter holidays party before school was let out for break, during which, to Flint’s disappointment, Blaine mostly sat by himself in a corner near the food, occasionally engaging in conversation with Warblers that would pass by.
It was good that he was talking to people, at least, but Flint remembered Blaine’s first official Warblers practice-he had practically been bouncing off the walls, his fluffy curls just as lively as the grin on his face.
That Blaine was already a far cry from the one currently nibbling on an Oreo, his hair obviously suffering from an attempt to make it lie flat.
Flint didn’t like it. Blaine was supposed to shake things up-he wasn’t supposed to conform. He was supposed to have found a place to be himself.
---
When school recommenced in January, the council was quick to announce that they would be looking for new soloists for some performance they were going to put on on campus. Anyone was welcome to audition.
Flint had no plans to do any such thing, but the look on Blaine’s face informed him that Blaine was all over that.
He had pretty much no chance, Flint knew, because freshmen never got solos (and the council always fell in love with their primary soloist for the year and never really gave anybody else a chance. It was practically Warbler tradition.)
Still, Blaine managed to pull off an emotional performance of ‘Your Song’ by Elton John that was blatantly directed toward Wes.
All right, it wasn’t actually blatant-Wes hadn’t even seemed to notice-but Flint could tell. He just read body language really well.
It still came as a surprise to no one (except maybe Blaine, but even he probably wasn’t too optimistic) that Blaine didn’t get the solo.
After the announcement had been made and practice had been adjourned, Flint noticed Wes and Blaine hanging back. He wanted to stick around to see what was going to be said, but he knew that would be way too obvious, so he left just as he was supposed to.
It wasn’t his fault if he forgot his sheet music folder and had to go back. It wasn’t his fault that they seemed to be having a serious conversation that he didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.
“-in the future,” Wes was saying. “Your voice is wonderful, I have always told you, and the emotion in that performance was absolutely palpable.”
“That’s because I was directing it toward someone,” Blaine said.
“Oh? Who? Oh, if it’s-”
“You,” Blaine interrupted.
Flint could practically hear Wes’ disbelief in the ensuing silence.
“It’s just, you’ve been so friendly ever since I transferred here. You were the first person to try to be my friend, you know, and you always know what to say and what to not say and you don’t mind watching musicals as long as we alternate with action movies, and-”
“Blaine,” Wes interrupted. “I’m straight.”
And now Flint was picturing the distraught puppy look that was probably on Blaine’s face now, and he was probably making it ten times more depressing than it actually was, but it was just so sad in Flint’s head.
“...oh. Well, that’s okay. I’ll just, uh, back off. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. It’s highly flattering, really, but we’re better off as just friends.”
“I understand. Don’t worry about it.”
There were a couple shuffling noises and Flint heard footsteps coming toward the door.
“Blaine?”
The footsteps stopped. “Yes?” Blaine asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“...no reason. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Wes.”
---
Blaine moped around for most of February. Flint had logged into his Facebook profile on the fourteenth to discover that Wes’ relationship status now declared that he was in a relationship with a girl who went to Crawford Country Day.
And then Blaine had posted the lyrics to a Death Cab for Cutie song as his status, so Flint had a pretty good idea how he felt about that.
Flint had still seen Blaine and Wes hanging out at lunch and walking through the halls together, but they were usually accompanied by David, and when they weren’t, there was a palpable (to Flint) tension between them.
And then sometime around St. Patrick’s Day, Blaine posted some lyrics from ‘Your Song’, which was extremely weird, considering what that song meant to him and that it was a repeat from back in January. (Yes, Flint had checked. He had to have all the information necessary to assess these things.)
Of course, no one other than Flint would ever notice.
But noticing was something Flint did well. So while others just saw Blaine and Wes, two good friends, walking casually through Dalton’s hallways and eating casual lunch together in the cafeteria and studying together in the library casually, Flint saw all the subtle little glances over plates of food and finger brushes in the corridor.
And okay, he could probably convince himself those were just signs of a good friendship judging by all other evidence, but just friends didn’t stick their tongues down each other’s throats in the back corner of the library. (Flint had totally been just doing research, not trying to catch anyone doing anything at all, honestly.)
So while Wes’ Facebook profile still claimed he had a girlfriend and that he was interested in women and Blaine’s still claimed he was one hundred percent single, Flint had (mental) evidence otherwise.
He seemed to remember thinking that Blaine was going to shake things up.
He hadn’t been wrong, apparently.
---
Flint didn’t detect any difference in Wes and Blaine’s behaviours through April and May-they still interacted with Warblers the same way they had previously and didn’t seem to spend any extra time with each other, though they still had regular ‘study’ sessions in the library-until one particular weekend near the end of May.
Flint was only at the mall because it was his mother’s birthday soon, and he hadn’t done anything for her for Mother’s Day, so he figured he had to make that up.
He was perusing the perfume and makeup section of Macy’s when he heard a familiar laugh and looked up from the bottle of Chanel he was holding to see Wes ducking away from Blaine, holding his hands above his head defensively.
“Do not put lipstick on me, Blaine Anderson! I am not a girl!”
“Boys can wear makeup, too, Wes,” Blaine countered teasingly.
“Nor am I a drag queen! I’m a perfectly normal straight boy.”
Blaine’s face dropped and he put the lipstick he’d been holding back in its spot carefully. “Straight, huh?” he asked quietly-quietly enough that Flint probably wouldn’t have been able to hear if he hadn’t inched a bit (a lot) closer after spotting them.
Wes looked conflicted momentarily before his expression turned passive. “Straight as an arrow,” he confirmed.
Blaine looked away from the lipstick he’d been staring at but didn’t look at Wes. “I should be getting home. You ready to go?”
Blaine didn’t wait for an answer before walking away. Flint watched Wes trail after him.
---
Flint was fairly sure that treasure hunts were not all that cool anymore, even from a freshman’s perspective. Then again, this was Blaine they were talking about. He was a rather large dork.
And so were pretty much all the Warblers, as they all seemed pretty intent on being the first to get to the treasure.
Maybe treasure hunts were cool and Flint had just not had an opportunity to notice previously.
He had arrived at Blaine’s birthday party expecting it to be a pizza-and-video-games affair that would quickly morph into beer-and-attempted-karaoke. Instead, Blaine had greeted him with a smile, a sheet of paper that listed clues, and a direction to find a group of three to work in.
Flint hadn’t known who to group himself with, so he’d ended up following Wes and David. They were two of the less enthusiastic participants-Flint could hear Trent and-was that Thad’s voice? stumbling through a hedge somewhere behind a fence.
He thought they might have come already tipsy. That would explain the whole ‘treasure hunts are cool’ phenomenon.
David and Wes were completely sober, however. This positive was rather negated by the fact that they were talking about how much alcohol one could plausibly consume and still be designated driver.
Wes was firmly on the side that none was the correct answer. David insisted that the DD could have a few, as long as they stopped well before they would actually be driving anywhere.
“And that, David, is why I am not allowing you under any circumstances to be my designated driver,” Wes snapped. “If you’re going to make less than knowledgeable decisions, I’d rather not have my life on the line.”
“Your life wouldn’t be on the line. I’d be sober way before I ever got behind the wheel!”
“This is no longer up for discussion, David. Now help me figure where to find, uh,” -Wes squinted at the sheet of paper in his hand- “‘the trees up above and the ground down below. Where the wild things play is where you must go.’”
“Dude, I haven’t got a clue what that’s supposed to be. Let’s just give up and see if Anderson’s got any cake.”
Wes continued squinting at the paper for a minute before sighing and shoving it in his pocket. “Yeah, might as well. Let’s go.”
Wes and David turned around and walked past Flint, giving him a nod as they did so. He followed behind them as they turned down a back alley to head back to Blaine’s house. As they drew nearer to Blaine’s yard, David leaned forward a bit and then declared, “Hey, Wes, your girlfriend is in there.”
Wes stumbled over a stray rock in the alleyway and cleared his throat loudly. “Oh, she is? I thought this was a Warblers party?”
“Nah, I definitely saw John’s girlfriend, too,” David said as he pulled open the already ajar back gate and waved Wes through. Wes made a non-committal noise and was promptly assaulted by a short girl the second he stepped into the backyard.
“Wes!” she squealed. Flint was actually kind of surprised that such high pitched noise could be emitted by a human being. “I haven’t seen you in like forever.”
Wes awkwardly patted her back. “We went to a movie yesterday, babe.”
“I know, but I missed you. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to a party? Blaine had to invite me all by himself! He’s so nice, don’t you think, Wes?” she babbled, all while still holding onto Wes’ neck.
Flint sat down in a lawn chair as Wes made momentary eye contact with Blaine before saying, “Babe, are you drunk?”
“Not yet!” She (finally) let go of Wes’ neck, then abruptly hiccupped. “Wait, maybe I am. I think so.”
“I think so, too,” Blaine muttered, sitting down in a lawn chair next to Flint and poking at the fire he’d started in the fire pit with a stick.
Flint looked curiously from Wes and his girlfriend, who had apparently taken to slow dancing to no music in the corner, to Blaine and back again. He wondered what had prompted Blaine to invite Wes’ girlfriend to his birthday party. It didn’t seem to make sense.
“Happy birthday, dude,” David said to Blaine, sitting down on the other side of the fire. “Not a bad party so far. The treasure hunt thing was a kind of cool idea, but we couldn’t figure out the clues at all.”
Blaine frowned. “You couldn’t? Wes read the clues, right?”
“The one we had, yeah. We couldn’t get it,” David repeated.
“Huh,” Blaine told the flames.
“Yeah. Hey, are we having cake at any point?”
“Yeah, when everyone gets back from wherever they decided the clue was supposed to take them,” Blaine said. “There are hot dogs and chips and stuff in the kitchen, too.”
David perked up. “Hot dogs that we can roast on the fire? I’ll go get those for you if you want.”
“I’ll come with you,” Blaine said, setting his stick to the side and getting up. “That way you don’t have to wander around looking for the kitchen.”
“Cool,” David said, jumping to his feet.
Flint picked up Blaine’s stick and started poking at the fire the same way Blaine had been, just for something to do. He looked over at Wes and his girlfriend once, but they were attached at the mouth, so he went back to resolutely staring at the flames.
“Hey, Wes!” David yelled from the door. “I found the answer to the clue! All those guys wandering around town are way off mark.”
Wes broke away from his girlfriend to look at David quizzically. “Yeah, so?”
David shrugged. “I dunno. Blaine seemed sort of upset and he mumbled something about you and then shut himself in the bathroom.”
Wes sighed. “Scuse me, babe. I’m going to go see what’s up.”
Wes disappeared inside the house. His girlfriend sat down in the lawn chair Blaine had vacated and stared up at the sky. David carefully put hot dogs on the metal wiener stick he’d found next to the picnic table and started painstakingly cooking them. Flint stopped poking at the fire and watched David turn the hot dogs slowly over and over. It was all distinctly summery and completely forgettable.
That is, until Blaine came storming out of the house, headed in a beeline toward Wes’ girlfriend. He stopped in front of her, waited until she looked at him, then very clearly said, “Wes has been cheating on you.”
David pulled his hot dogs back from the fire. Flint’s eyes widened. This was not something he’d ever expect Blaine to do.
“What? With who? Oh, when I get my hands on that little bitch-”
“With me,” Blaine interrupted.
She stared at him, blinking in confusion. “What are you talking about? Wes isn’t gay. I mean, I would know, he-”
Wes chose that moment to come out of the house, looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. He stopped short when he noticed the looks on everyone’s faces. “Uh, what’s going on?”
“Did you really cheat on me with Blaine?”
Wes looked panicked to Flint, but he thought the expression might also translate to shocked. “What? Who told you that?”
“He did!” his girlfriend shrieked. She was standing now, her finger pointed directly at Blaine.
Wes looked sadly at Blaine. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because it’s true,” Blaine said through clenched teeth, fists balled at his side.
Wes shook his head. “No, it’s not. I know you have a crush on me, and that’s all right, I’m flattered, but I’m straight, Blaine, and your deluded fantasies aren’t real life.”
Blaine shook his head. “Don’t do this to me, Wes. I told you things. I trusted you. And this is how you repay me? I thought maybe you’d actually try the treasure hunt, actually think about the clues and figure them out, because you were meant to. The clues were written for you. But you didn’t even give enough of a shit to try. David figured it out before you did, and David doesn’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t know anything about you, either,” Wes said blankly.
“Fuck you, Wes. Fuck you. If you want to deny it, then go right the fuck ahead. But you and me know the truth, Wes. I know. You know. And this is turning out to be a really fucking shit birthday.”
Blaine shoved over the lawn chair Wes’ girlfriend had evacuated, sending it flying into the picnic table with a crash, and stalked into the house, just as Trent and Thad, flanked by Ethan and Luke with a bunch of the other Warblers behind him, came stumbling into the yard.
“Hey! We brought beer!” Trent proclaimed. “And vodka!”
Thad looked around. “Where’s Frodo? I want to give him birthday bumps.”
David shook his head. “I think we should take the party over to mine,” he said. “Blaine’s not feeling well.”
The Warblers looked saddened for a moment before brightening back up and turning to head back out into the alleyway.
“To David’s!” Trent proclaimed, and the party goers all cheered. David hurried to catch up, leaving Wes, his girlfriend, and Flint all sitting awkwardly in the backyard.
“I’ll take you home,” Wes told his girlfriend.
“But-”
“I’ll take you home,” he repeated, pulling her toward the front gate.
Flint watched them go, then got up and gathered David’s forgotten food, including the half-cooked hot dogs. He took it all inside and located the kitchen, leaving it neatly in the fridge. He found a bucket under the sink and used it to take water to put out the fire.
He didn’t think Blaine needed anything more to worry about.
---
The only time Flint saw Blaine after his birthday party was when he came to school for the final exams, his hair ungelled and a blank look on his face.
Flint was off to New Zealand for the summer, but he tried to keep up to date with the actions of the Warblers through social networking sites, just so he wouldn’t be completely lost when they started school again.
He found himself on Blaine’s profile frequently. It was a fair bit different from when he’d first clicked through it-gone were the hateful posts, replaced by friendly exchanges with Warblers, and the number of pictures he was tagged in had increased exponentially.
Not much changed about it throughout July and August, however. Every so often there might be a new status, maybe a wall post from David (and once one from Wes, but that one went unanswered, at least publicly). The only significant thing Blaine posted were some pictures of him and his father with a vintage classic car. Flint spent a lot of time looking at those photos, trying to interpret the expressions and the body language, but he drew a different conclusion each time and eventually exhausted all the options.
Sometimes Flint thought that he should really get his own life and leave well enough alone.
---
When school started up again in September, Blaine and Wes seemed to be on cordial speaking terms, while Blaine and David seemed to be something like best friends. Warblers practices started again, and a happy-go-lucky blonde freshman named Jeff auditioned to join and was the only one out of two who got in, thanks to his killer dance moves and just as good voice.
By the time October rolled around, Jeff had convinced a sophomore named Nick to audition-he also got in. Flint had seen the two hanging out together since the first day of school. Nick had been Jeff’s freshman orientation buddy, and their friendship had stuck and stuck hard.
Blaine seemed to take a special interest in the two. He was always glancing over at them and smiling when Nick would fix Jeff’s blazer or Jeff would try to teach Nick a dance move.
Flint was just waiting for the day Blaine wouldn’t be able to take it anymore and would demand to know why the two weren’t dating yet.
He was also waiting for David to grow some balls and ask Blaine out, because it was becoming increasingly obvious to Flint that he totally wanted to.
---
Flint didn’t actively stalk anybody. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time a lot.
So he was honestly not expecting to be sitting at a table in his parents’ favourite Italian restaurant and suddenly spot Blaine and David being seated at a table conveniently located exactly where Flint could both see and hear them, but a rather large plant half concealed him from their view.
Not that Flint was trying to be sneaky about anything. He blamed it on the hostess, anyway.
Excited by the fact that Blaine and David were going out to dinner together, Flint was sure to pay extra attention to them, even though his parents were carrying on a conversation (supposedly with him, but they didn’t really need his input).
“So, uh, what did you ask me out to dinner for?” Flint heard Blaine say nervously, menu held in front of his face.
“What, I can’t ask out a good looking guy?” David shot back, grinning at Blaine.
Blaine’s cheeks turned bright pink. “I-I thought you were straight, though.”
Flint had actually thought that, too. But it had occurred to him, watching Blaine and David interact next to the interactions of Jeff and Nick, that maybe that wasn’t entirely so. Or they had a very strong bromance, but Flint preferred to be skeptical on that front.
David merely shrugged. “Maybe not one hundred percent.”
Blaine looked about the same as Flint imagined he himself must-one part confused, three parts delighted.
“Well, uh, that’s really cool. I mean, must be kind of weird to be questioning your sexuality and stuff, but uh, obviously this is beneficial to me. Do we need to keep this under wraps since you’re not out or sure you’re gay or-”
David cut Blaine off by grabbing the hand that had been gesturing in the air and holding onto it. “If we had to keep it a secret, I think I wouldn’t have asked you to go out somewhere so public.”
Well, that made sense to Flint. Especially since it would have just failed completely if he had been trying to keep it a secret.
“Besides, I don’t think you need another Wes incident.”
Blaine and Flint winced simultaneously. “Yeah, no. Thanks for that, uh, consideration, David.”
“Not a problem, Blaine.”
They fell into a silence that looked companionable enough, but Flint could tell that Blaine, at least, felt a little bit awkward by the way he kept looking up from his menu like he was going to say something and then changed his mind.
By the time Blaine and David’s waitress had come back and they had ordered, Flint’s waiter had brought his own food and his parents had seemed to finally realize that Flint hadn’t actually said a word to them since they got to the restaurant, so the next time he looked over at their table, Blaine and David had their own food and were both laughing at something.
“I didn’t know you had such a dirty mind,” Blaine gasped out, wiping at his eyes. “I mean, I knew, but seriously. That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” David said teasingly, leaning across the table with a sly smile on his face.
“I look forward to learning all these mysterious things you’ve been hiding for the past year,” Blaine said, leaning toward David.
There was a moment in which Blaine and David sort of stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before abruptly sitting back almost at the same time. It looked to Flint like maybe if he was Blaine or David, the moment wouldn’t have felt like a few seconds, it would have felt like a year or two. But then again, maybe Flint needed to stop reading his mother’s romance novels when he got bored.
“Are you going to watch any football on Thanksgiving weekend?” Blaine asked.
David looked up from his plate brightly. “Of course! Are you?”
“Definitely. It’s kind of a thing my dad and I do.”
“Well, we’ll have to get together sometime after and rehash all the really good moments. Like what we did for the Super Bowl.”
“Oh, yeah, that was a pretty good party,” Blaine said. “It sucked that you weren’t there, though. Did you ever hear-”
“About Wes trying to steal the council’s gavel by sneaking up on them?”
Blaine grinned. “And then he fell off the back of the couch. It was hilarious.”
“Yeah, I think Andrew might have gotten video of that. Priceless.”
They smiled at each other across the table and lapsed into awkward silence. After a minute, David put down his fork. “Are you ready to go?”
Blaine nodded vigorously, almost jumping to his feet. “I’ll pay.”
David frowned. “I asked you out, though.”
Blaine waved his hand. “I’ve got it covered.”
“No, you don’t,” David said, grabbing Blaine’s credit card out of his hand and pulling out his own instead. He stood and lowered his voice. “You might be used to having to try really hard to keep people around, but I honestly want to be here.”
Blaine hesitated a moment and then nodded. “Okay.”
Up until that moment, Flint had been skeptical about David-he’d thought that maybe David was just going to end up stringing Blaine along and deciding he was straight after all. But the look on David’s face as he handed Blaine’s credit card back to him spoke volumes about the way he felt.
Flint approved.
Not that anyone had been looking for his opinion.
---
For some reason, Nick was hosting a party to celebrate the winter solstice.
Of course, the Warblers were merely using the invitations as a chance to get drunk and sing bad karaoke. Like they did at every single party they attended.
Flint considered staying home just because he knew what usually went down and it would just be easier.
He went anyway.
By nine-thirty, the party was in full swing. Thad had run off to hide in the kitchen after being brutally beaten in a game of SingStar against James. Wes was studiously avoiding both Blaine and alcohol, though Flint had seen him having a civil conversation with Blaine earlier. David and Blaine, who had been dating for nearly a month now, were cuddling on the couch, occasionally whispering things in each other’s ears and then giggling. Trent was alternately watching them with disgust and a touch of longing and watching Ethan and Richard attempt to rap. The rest of the Warblers were cheering for the two singers while Flint sat in a chair that was conveniently placed in the corner and observed.
“Whoo hoo!” Jeff, ever the one to cause a disruption, yelled from his place standing on the back of the couch, beer bottle hanging from one hand that was thrust into the air. “This party is sick!”
“Jeff, get down from there,” Nick ordered as he walked in from the kitchen. “You’re going to fall and hurt yourself.”
Jeff grinned down at Nick. “Hey, Nick. Nicky. Nickay-boy. You’re even shorter than usual!”
“Jeff, please get down.” Nick’s tone became more pleading.
“Mmkay. I’ll just step over here and-” Jeff’s foot slipped and he fell, landing soundly in Nick’s arms, though Nick stumbled backwards a bit under his weight. “Whoops.”
“What did I tell you?” Nick grumbled.
“You said I was going to hurt myself,” Jeff said. “But I didn’t because you were there to catch me. Are you always going to be there to catch me?”
Nick paused. “I’ll try my damnedest, anyway, Jeffster.”
“Thanks, Nickelfritz.”
“God, e’en Jeff and Nick have sappy nicknames for each othe’. I’m gettin’ outta here, everythin’ is too sugary sweet for my fabulous heart,” Trent proclaimed, getting up from the floor and nearly tripping over the couch on his way out of the room. Flint decided to follow him to the kitchen and see if he could find himself a drink that wasn’t alcohol.
“Thad,” Trent slurred. “Thad, my boy. What’re you doin’ in the kitchen?” He clapped his hand on Thad’s shoulder and shook his head when Thad opened his mouth to answer. “Ne’er mind, dude, got any beer?” He grabbed the bottle in Thad’s hand away from him and took a swig from it. “Sweet, thanks.”
Alcohol kind of reduced Trent’s vocabulary to that of a stereotypical rom-com teenage jock, Flint observed.
“Have you see’ Blaine and David?” Trent continued on. “They’re out in the li’in room being all romantic an’ shit. It’s gross.”
“At least they have someone to be romantic with,” Thad countered bitterly.
“Exactly!” Trent exclaimed, a fair bit too loudly. “I mea’, David wasn’t even gay last week, and now he gets Blaine all to himself? Wha’ about me, huh? Where’s the love for me? I’m fab-“ Trent hiccupped mid-word “-ulous.”
“I commiserate with you completely, Trent,” Thad said. “There are so many beautiful women in the world and not a one would take a second look at me. They walk past me in their flocks, flaunting their beauty and no doubt hiding a wonderful personality away as well, and it’s like they mock me, Trent. They mock me with their posteriors.”
Flint opened the fridge door and stuck his head in in order to laugh without drawing attention to himself.
“I hear you, bro,” Trent said. “Those boys-I mean, girls, I mean-what?”
Flint decided to take Trent’s confusion and Thad’s longing stare into the distance as his cue to take his drink and go observe from his corner of the living room again.
---
Most of the Warblers had just opted to crash at Nick’s house rather than go home, including Flint. While the rest of them slept, Flint wandered around the house, cleaning as he went, just because he couldn’t decide where a good place to sleep was. By the time he decided his safest bet was the same chair he had been sitting in all evening, Blaine and David had completely occupied the living room by building a gigantic fort out of sheets.
Flint wondered where they’d managed to find enough to fill the entire living room. Then he discovered that they’d actually turned his chair around and secured a sheet on top of it, so he could totally still sleep there.
Just as he was all settled in the chair and almost drifting off to sleep, Blaine decided it was a good time to start talking.
“Hey, David?”
“Hmmm?”
“What is it you like about me?”
David was silent for a moment before sighing. “That’s a hard question, you know.”
“Try,” Blaine said, his voice muffled.
David sighed again, then said, “I like your voice, especially the way it sounds right after you come. I like the way your hair looks, even when you hide its natural fluffiness with all that gel, but especially with my fingers in it. Kind of like this, actually. I like the way you put other people’s needs before yours, especially when it involves getting me off. I like the way you go for what you want, but you do it in such strange ways. I like your face. I especially like your face when it’s near my dick.”
“This is beginning to sound like you only like me for the sex that we haven’t even had yet,” Blaine said.
“Oh, baby, you ain’t heard nothing yet.”
“Save it,” Blaine breathed, and then Flint could hear definite sounds of kissing. He’d wanted to leave since David had said ‘come’, but he’d been afraid if he moved Blaine and David would hear him and it would be awkward.
Of course, now he was even more afraid that would happen.
And then he felt them roll into his chair and heard someone moan and he was out of there like a shot.
He was creepy, he would admit it, but not that creepy. He’d sooner hang out by himself in the kitchen.
Just him and the blue blanket he’d stolen from Nick’s bedroom.
---
Blaine and David kept following Flint around. It was really the only explanation for the way they had just traipsed into the coffee shop Flint preferred the most out of all the ones in the Westerville area, beanie hats tucked neatly over their heads and scarves wrapped snugly around their necks with a suspicious lack of gloves.
Blaine sat down two tables away from Flint and watched David order coffee with a completely smitten look on his face. It was adorable. Flint could barely even handle the cuteness, especially when David came over with their coffee and smiled in a completely awkward and endearing manner when he noticed the look on Blaine’s face.
David sat on the edge of his chair and passed Blaine his coffee. Blaine took it carefully, his fingers brushing in a very deliberate manner against David’s.
“No biscotti?” he said after taking a sip, his bottom lip poking out in a subtle approximation of a toddler’s pout.
“Uh, no,” David said. “Was I supposed to get some?”
Flint wanted to shake David and point out that yes, he was supposed to get some, Blaine loved biscotti, shouldn’t David know that after nearly two months of dating?, but he just took another bite of his muffin and averted his gaze toward the window.
“No, no,” Blaine was quick to say. “It’s all right. Thanks for the coffee.”
“No problem.” Flint looked back in time to see the strangely large and genuine smile David flashed at Blaine and the resulting pink of Blaine’s cheeks.
“You want to head out?” Blaine asked abruptly. David nodded, and Flint mentally commended Blaine on his perceptivity. “We could go to the park. Or back to mine. Or just home.”
Flint was skeptical about that addition, but actually managed to be surprised when David agreed to going to the park. He wondered what they did there. But he wasn’t going to follow them.
He didn’t stop himself from watching as they left the coffee shop, gloveless hands easily warmed by the hot coffee cups in their hands and even more so by the way their fingers interlaced between them.
Winter cold wasn’t so bad when you had someone to lean into while you walked through frigid air, Flint guessed.