Fic- "Stairway to Heaven"
Title: Stairway to Heaven
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Spoilers: Thru Prom Queen
Warnings (if any): Violence, language, angst in large amounts
Word Count: 7111
Summary: A little picture of Blaine's Sadie Hawkins Dance and how it made him the person he is today.
Authors Note: I don't even know with this. I sat down to write a short little piece of angst to help me deal with my life, and it turned into this huge thing that will have at least one more part of equal or greater length. I am also kind of desperate to know what other people think about this, because I am not so sure myself, except I think I like it and...whatever. Read it and let me know. Also, I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but for my whole high school career, they always played Stairway to Heaven as the last number. Seriously. Is this some kind of conspiracy to make me write angsty fic? I must know. And also must stop talking and let you read this.
Stairway to Heaven
“Hey Short stack! Decide to leave your fairy wings at home tonight? If it wasn’t for your face, you’d almost pass for straight. They should make you fags wear signs.”
Blaine Anderson felt every muscle in his back stiffen and he pointedly looked down at the punch bowl and how his fingers looked almost white where they gripped the edge of the refreshment table. For one night, Blaine had hoped everyone would just shut up and let him have some little piece of joy to hang on to before he had to slog back to class and his vandalized text books and spray painted locker. He should have known before the stupid dance had started that even that was too much to ask. ‘Say something!’ the angry voice in his head cried. It sounded suspiciously like his sister and his father- as if they had melded into this super creature with the super power to make him feel like utter crap. Blaine opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He couldn’t even get the courage to turn around. He’d been officially out for two months and every sneer and slur still made him freeze up. Like one of those stupid deer looking into those two headlights hurtling towards them and couldn’t even move an inch to save themselves.
“Please,” came another voice, haughty and full of malice. Blaine relaxed a little. “Like you don’t like ass as much as we do. Considering how often you have your head up yours.” And then Blaine felt a hand on his shoulder. Not a rough one like when someone sent him careening into the wall but something light and infinitely comforting. Blaine turned and shot Jason a grateful smile. Jason gave a dramatic roll of his eyes and linked elbows with Blaine. “Now, this fag and I are going to dance. Hurry away before the gay gets you.”
Blaine didn’t turn to see Tony leave, but he did hear some mutterings about “fucking homo ass douches” get progressively fainter. When it disappeared completely, all of the tension left Blaine’s back and he slumped a little against the table, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Britney Spears was singing enthusiastically about boys and the bass was so loud the gym floor was shaking a little. That was calming too, but not as much as Jason’s hand in the crook of his elbow.
Jason tugged him away from the refreshment table and towards the dance floor, people parting for them like they were some kind of royalty. Or lepers. Blaine figured it was probably the latter, but he didn’t reflect on it for too long because Jason started to whisper in his ear. “You really need to grow a backbone, Tweety.”
“Eat me, Jason,” Blaine retorted, trying to sound put out because he hated that stupid nickname, but he couldn’t keep the smile completely out of his voice.
“You keep asking me and I will,” Jason sing-songed back, his lips so close to Blaine’s ear, Blaine swore he could feel them. He shivered, flushing and shaking his head a little to clear it from the sudden little rush of lust that Jason so casually inspired. The fact was that Jason was kind of like this gay demigod. He was a year older and had been out of the closet as long as Blaine could remember. He was shameless and proud and wore the chip on his shoulder like it was the Heisman Trophy (even though Blaine sincerely doubted Jason knew what that was). Every piece of shit that got flung his way got served back with a cutting look or a biting comment. No matter how much everyone at school ragged on him, Jason walked around like he owned the place. He was so fully himself all the time that Blaine was in awe just being around him, basking in the light from the glow. Nothing could touch Jason Chambers and nothing was ever going to.
When Blaine came out, he thought it would be easy to adopt the same attitude. To follow in such illustrious footsteps. But then he’d got ‘fag’ scratched into the metal of his locker. And that had hurt. Not like the way he’d been teased for being short, or having wildly curly hair or liking to spend all his time singing and dancing with the girls in the choir room. It was somehow so much more personal than that. It was violent and ugly and made him kind of feel like he’d been stabbed.
He tried to tell his dad, but he said something about “reaping what you sow” and his sister has shrugged it off with some platitudes about how “those jerks are obviously so far below you and not worth any of your time worrying about, you brilliant gay star you” and his mom had just had another glass of wine and pat his head. So when it didn’t get any better, and in fact got worse with vandalizing his textbooks and shoving him into walls, Blaine didn’t bother telling his family and went to his teachers and the principal. And there he got a lot of the same. Brush offs and “buck up” and not a single person seeming to give much of a crap about how he was starting to feel scared walking down the halls of his own god damn school.
His friendship with Jason came out of the blue a few weeks before the dance, after the first death threat on a slip of paper had been slipped between the slats of his locker. He hadn’t meant to break down into messy sobs in the middle of campus, but he’d done it anyway, completely and utterly helpless to stop it. Blaine didn’t make it to History that day, he just tucked himself in the small space between two banks of lockers and put his face in his hands.
“Come on, Tweety Bird, it can’t be that bad,” Jason had said and Blaine had looked up to see Jason kneeling down in front of him and giving him a compassionate smile.
“So even the other gay kids are going to make fun of me?” Blaine had pathetically choked out, a bitterness to his tone that he hadn’t expected.
“That was totally a term of endearment,” Jason countered quickly, putting his hands out in a supplicating manner. “Because you’re always flitting all over the place and singing like a maniac. And before all this coming out shit you were all bright and happy. Like a little canary.”
“I’m still kind of offended,” Blaine said, wiping what had to be an horrific amount of snot on his sleeve.
Jason had laughed. “That’s okay. I’m an offensive guy.”
And somehow after that they were friends. Jason went on and on about gay solidarity and gay rights and being a revolutionary and about how awesome his college boyfriend was and how amazing sex was, really Blaine should try it and how he was going to blow this town and be the biggest thing since Britany. Jason was this burning kind of star and it kind of hurt to look at him sometimes. Blaine was hopelessly in love.
So when the Sadie Hawkins came around and Jason started complaining about heteronormativity and how it was ruining the world Blaine had rolled his eyes at Jason’s protest plans and just said, “Or we could go together. And have fun or something. Leave the world saving for another day.”
Jason had looked stunned for a long moment and then he laughed. “Okay. Though I should tell you I don’t put out on the first date. I’m not that kind of girl.”
For a short while, Blaine didn’t even care about the shoves and slurs and vandalizing. Because he had a date for the dance. Even if said date had a boyfriend and thought Blaine was comparable to a cartoon canary. He’d put on his best dark navy suit and a red bow tie and had even tried to tame his wild hair with most of one of his sister’s bottles of hair gel. And he and Jason had gone out to eat a quick salad before the dance and seeing Jason in his dark suit and pale pink shirt open at the collar to show a bit of the enticing line of his collarbone almost made Blaine forget that this wasn’t some grand romance. It might have all been pretend, but Blaine couldn’t bring himself to really care. For just one night. After dinner, Jason had put on a rainbow stripped tie because sometimes Jason couldn’t help himself and he had laughed loudly at Blaine’s “Even I want to kind of beat you up now” because they were young and happy and nothing could touch them.
And sure, there had been stares and jeers and a few attempts to upend cups of punch somewhere on their persons, but it was still startlingly okay. Because every time Blaine started to feel bad, Jason would whisk him onto the dance floor and whisper about how everything was different when you weren’t in Bumfuck, Ohio and how all of those cowards were just intimidated by how fabulous they were.
At the end of the night, they slow danced to Stairway to Heaven and Blaine put his head on Jason’s shoulder and wanted to stay there forever. He didn’t even hear the snickering around them or notice how everyone gave them such a wide berth like they were diseased. Because this was what he had been looking forward to- a perfect kind of moment. And for just a little bit, he felt invincible.
But then they’d turned on the harsh fluorescent lights and said something that approximated “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” and the gathered students had reluctantly made their way out into the cool night.
Jason’s car was currently in the shop (waiting for another set of headlights to come in, since the newest pair had been busted out the night before) and he and Blaine had hunkered down on the wide concrete steps in front of the school to wait for Jason’s dad to come pick them up. Blaine leaned a little into Jason’s side, ostensibly for warmth, but really because he just wanted to be closer. “Thanks for putting aside your rebel morals to go to a dance with me,” Blaine said softly, glad that Jason was too wrapped up in texting his boyfriend to look at him.
Jason chuckled and bumped Blaine with his shoulder. “I actually had a good time when I wasn’t rescuing you.”
“I don’t need rescuing,” Blaine muttered, flushing lightly and looking at his feet.
“Beg to differ, baby bird,” Jason replied cheerily, ruffling his hair.
At the same time, Blaine heard another voice, something cold and hard from somewhere in the blackness at the bottom of the steps. “Don’t be so sure of that, Nancy.”
Jason was on his feet instantly, smoothing his suit jacket in a show of nonchalance, even if Blaine could see the tension in Jason’s shoulders. “Must we continue this lover’s tiff, Tony?” Jason sighed. “I know how jealous you are of me, but honestly. Run along home and fuck your girlfriend or whatever it is you breeders do.”
“Shut your fag mouth, Chambers.”
That was a different voice, a not-Tony voice and all of a sudden the little bit of fear twisting in Blaine’s stomach seemed to take over his whole body. He had an urge to run. Run back to the gym where there were still some lights burning and the janitorial staff should already be starting to clean up. He stood on shaky legs and Jason’s hand came up to grip Blaine’s shoulder, almost too tightly.
“So you don’t want me to suck your cock then?” Jason mused and Blaine wouldn’t have been able to tell Jason’s grin was fake if he didn’t know Jason so well. As much as Blaine admired Jason for giving as good as he got, he couldn’t help but feel that maybe this wasn’t the time to poke the angry jock. Not when they seemed to be alone in the dim light spilling over from the parking lot.
There was still nothing to see at the bottom of the stairs, but something flew up from the blackness and clipped Jason’s shoulder before falling to the ground and clattering noisily down the steps. Jason made a surprised kind of sound. “Did you throw a rock at me?” he asked, his tone more amused and shocked than anything else. The amusement faded away quickly “Did that make you feel like a big man?” Jason continued, voice hardening and twisting with a bitter kind of rage that Blaine had never heard before. “Throwing stones at a defenseless fag like me?”
“Shut up, Jason, please, just shut up,” Blaine heard and was surprised to realize it was his own voice. It was too high and shaky to sound like his, but he could feel his lips moving and knew it had to be him.
“I’m not going to let some homophobic assholes push me around, Blaine,” Jason bit out, glancing over at Blaine with something like disdain that hurt Blaine even more than the veiled threats he’d been getting since he’d come out. “I’m better than that. And you should be too.”
“I don’t think either of you are good for much of anything.” And that was a third voice and Blaine was clinging to Jason’s arm before he made a conscious decision to do so. “Well, except push up daisies. You homos like flowers right? Be lots of pretty ones at your funeral.”
Blaine couldn’t help the way his whole body shuddered or how his knees were threatening to give out from under him. He was used to reading the threats but he’d never really heard it out loud. And out here it was dark and cold and there was no one around to help. He closed his eyes, some desperate, childish part of him hoping that might make it all go away. Make this stupid night a dream, because as much as he had enjoyed twirling around the floor in Jason’s arms this wasn’t a price he was willing to pay.
When Blaine opened his eyes, nothing had gone away. In fact, it had gotten worse because they weren’t just voices in the dark anymore. They were three big jocks with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and climbing the steps slowly like they knew just how menacing they looked. One of them, Blaine noted, had a baseball bat clutched loosely in one hand, the bat banging hollowly against the steps as they moved closer. He clutched Jason’s arm tighter, probably hard enough to bruise and he felt like his whole nervous system was trembling.
“My life is not going to be some fucking Lifetime movie,” Jason muttered with something like hysteria in his voice.
“Jason” was all Blaine could stutter out. His whole body was screaming for him to do something. To get away, run as fast as he could. Or even to crouch into one of those defensive stances he’d learned in the few months he’d taken Karate lessons with his sister. Just something. Something instead of standing there like a block of ice. But like always, Blaine was that deer in the headlights, body tense for action but unable to move a fucking inch while certain death came for him.
“What?” Blaine heard Jason say, still with that hysterical edge to his voice, but also so much hate that it made Blaine’s heart clench painfully in his chest. “Think you can beat it out of me? Would that really make you feel better? Go ahead and try, you sick fu-”
Jason didn’t get to finish because Tony was there and he slammed a fist into Jason’s cheek. Blaine could feel the force of it course through Jason’s body and he made a sound almost like a whimper. Jason didn’t say a word for once, just spit blood out of his mouth and launched himself at Tony like some kind of superhero. The force of it sent them both flying down the steps, rolling to the pavement of the parking lot and out beyond where Blaine could see.
‘Move!’ Blaine’s mind shouted, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even get his tongue working enough to cry out when the other two guys, ones he had seen before but who’s names he couldn’t remember grabbed his shoulders and pushed him into the chain link fence behind him. The fence made an angry clattering sound and somehow that woke up the part of Blaine that was frozen. He was suddenly flailing against the hands that held him, screaming words that he couldn’t even understand. He managed to get one foot into the gut of the one on the left, but the one on the right had rewarded him with a sharp jab to his abdomen with the tip of the bat. All of the air went out of Blaine’s lungs and he folded nearly in half.
“Stupid little fag!” the one on the left wheezed, and before Blaine had enough time to recover from the jab to his stomach, there was a hand viciously slamming across his face. He felt his lower lip snag on his teeth and rip the skin. In some way, the blood in his mouth made him more frightened than the actual pain of the cut or how the chain link fence scraped against his cheek or how he still couldn’t catch his breath. “Bitch kicked me. You see that?”
“Go help Tony, and leave this little fairy to me if you’re going to be a bitch about it,” the other one said. Blaine had half a mind to start flailing again, but the one with the bat seemed to sense that because suddenly the bat was jammed up against his throat, cutting off the air that Blaine couldn’t get anyway and making any movement impossible.
“You know Tony wanted to deal with that queen all by himself.” Then the guy smiled and Blaine felt as if all of the blood was draining out of his body. There was such a cruelty there, something that Blaine hadn’t realized existed, no matter how much he got shoved around and got slurs spray painted all over his stuff. The depth of that hate from someone he didn’t even know made all of the fight go out of him in a shaky breath. Because what could he do to stop that? How could he possibly combat that kind of hate? Blaine had never felt so young and small in his entire life. Not even his father had made him feel so…worthless. “And this one cries so pretty, don’t you sweetheart?”
Blaine hadn’t even realized he was crying until the guy called attention to it and he was suddenly ashamed. He wanted to wipe at his eyes, but he was being held so tightly against the fence he couldn’t move. Or was too terrified to move. What was worse, that affectionate term made him feel so intensely dirty that he didn’t know if he’d ever feel clean again.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice harsh and quiet and hurting because speaking made his throat press painfully against the bat. The two jocks just laughed, low and cruel. Their eyes were dark and cold felt like they were burning him and Blaine closed his eyes as if not seeing would make it better. So he missed seeing the fist coming at him, but he felt it against his jaw, snapping his head back and making the fence rattle again. He opened his eyes in enough time to see the bat swinging at his chest, but he closed them tightly so he missed seeing it make contact, even if he felt his body give way underneath it.
Blaine was hearing noises and he was sure he was making some of them. Harsh breathing and sobbing and screaming. Some of it felt far away, and some of it felt so close and everything hurt so acutely that Blaine didn’t even realize he was falling until he felt the concrete of the steps below bite into his hip and his nose crack against the edge of the step before he start to roll down. He wanted to cover his face, but his body wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything he wanted it to do. He just kept rolling until he wasn’t rolling anymore.
He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Or the were already open and it was just so black it wasn’t making a difference. For the first time since the whole thing had started, he had a sudden horrifying thought- that this might be it. That he could die here, broken and bleeding in the parking lot of his stupid high school. It was such a stark contrast to how safe and loved he’d felt earlier, twirling across the dance floor, head pressed to Jason’s shoulder. But that had been a lie anyway, had always been a lie and now reality was enforcing itself harshly. He could almost hear his father’s voice saying what he’d said when Blaine had to ask for more money (again) to buy new textbooks. “What did you really expect?”
Blood was trickling down his face from some cut or scrape somewhere. Blaine’s whole body felt like one huge wound, all blood and tender muscle and he was positive at least one of his ribs was cracked. He should reach into his pocket and get his phone. He should drag himself away, put more distance between himself and his attackers, who he was pretty sure were coming after him. But everything hurt and he couldn’t move and for a moment he was so sure he was going to die that he couldn’t breathe.
“Where did he go?”
“Blainey-poo?”
They were laughing. They were coming after him and laughing like it was some kind of game. Well, if he couldn’t move the least he could do was stay quiet. He shut his mouth and tried to breathe through his nose, but when he’d knocked it against the steps it had started bleeding. And now his nostrils felt clogged with blood and there was no air anywhere. With a strangled kind of sob, Blaine gave up on being quiet and opened his mouth.
Blaine sucked in a noisy breath and before he could exhale, there was a foot slamming into his stomach and something hard and heavy (the bat?) slamming down against his arm. There was a horrifying cracking sound and a pain so great Blaine thought he was going to pass out. He heard a loud, grating scream and knew it had to be him, for all that it didn’t feel like he could make a sound that pained and terrified.
“Holy fuck, Chris! What the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t mean to-”
Blaine felt like he was floating a little now. The pain was ebbing away and this delightful numbness coming in. He could hear their voices, all of a sudden sounding young and frightened. Human. Like little kids who had just ripped the wings off a butterfly and only just then realized they had signed it’s death warrant. Blaine hated that the could sound like that. After everything.
“That is his fucking bone, man! I didn’t fucking sign up for this.”
“Don’t fucking panic, dude.”
And then he felt something slam against his skull and he didn’t hear anything else.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
At the hospital, the doctor very clinically told Blaine about the concussion and the four stitches that had put the skin back together over his skull and his broken ribs and the compound fracture of his left arm. He showed Blaine x-rays and charts, and said something about being out of it for two days and his parents being on their way back from Europe and how he was going to make a full recovery. He said that some police officers wanted to talk to him when he was ready. He told him that Jason had a couple of broken ribs of his own, and a ruptured spleen and a broken collarbone, a sprained ankle and had to have eight stitches to put his forehead back together but that he was awake and wanted to see him as soon as Blaine was ready. Blaine shook his head no, not trusting his voice. He was too ashamed at himself for forgetting about Jason entirely as soon as the first punch had been thrown.
Blaine wished he was lucky enough to have his brains scrambled enough to forget, or for the whole thing to get hazy. But the entire encounter played itself over and over in his head. The words and the punches, the swing of the bat and the way the steps had cut into him over and over again. It was vivid and too real. Now he couldn’t hide behind the pain of it all, he just saw it happening as if he wasn’t even there- the hate in their eyes and the way his body was thrown around like it wasn’t anything more than an object. And even if he was lying on this bed in the blinding light of the hospital, he couldn’t help but still feel this intense terror welling up in his chest. Like they were still there, waiting around corners to finish him off. He had been scared enough before, but now that he had the physical knowledge of what it was like to have the shit kicked out of him, Blaine was absolutely terrified.
Time moved strangely in the hospital. Blaine couldn’t keep a good track of when he was asleep or when he was awake. Either way he’d have these weird, too real flashback/dreams where he was dancing to Stairway to Heaven one second and getting his head bashed in on the stairway the next and he was on enough pain medication to make even being awake kind of hazy, like everything had been wrapped up in a layer of gauze. He closed his eyes and would open them some indeterminate time later.
Once Blaine woke up to his mother looming over him, her eyes wet with tears and her hand shaking as it lay on the cast on his arm. “Oh Blaine,” she said, voice wavering and soft. It reminded Blaine of how she used to be before--before whatever happened to her to make her drink all the time. Back when she was still a mother and not some sad woman how lived in his house.
“Mom,” he said and his voice scratched as it came out. It felt like he throat was coated in sandpaper. Had he really screamed that much?
“Don’t try to talk, darling,” his mother said, one hand coming up to stroke at his hair, avoiding the part near the middle of his head that had been shaved away so they could stitch him back together. “Your throat,” she continued inexplicably and then dissolved into messy tears. Blaine’s hands flew to his neck, or tried to at the very least. His cast thumped against his chest and reminded him that his ribs were broken. He winced and settled his arm back against his side. With his other hand he probed gently at his neck, and felt how swollen and hot the skin there was. The bat. It had bruised him. He didn’t need to see it to know. The knowledge made him slump further into the pillows.
“I knew some shit like this was going to happen.” His father. Blaine turned and saw his face in an angry profile, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Derrick,” his mother admonished lightly, giving Blaine a quick ‘he doesn’t mean it like that’ look.
“I mean it, Vanessa. I told you. Over and over again. That we should have never let him… The kid is fourteen years old, what the hell does he know? But no, this idiotic soft society makes him think this is more than just some adolescent phase and he can just come out and everything will be rainbows and fucking pride parades--”
“Derrick, this isn’t the time or place,” his mother said, voice rising a little.
His father was pacing now, throwing his arms around like he did when he was on the phone with a particularly stubborn client. “You’re right. The time and place was when he started this madness but you said ‘let him figure it out on his own’ and look where that got us. And now we’re probably going to have to get him a therapist and send him to a different school and who knows how much all that is going to cost…”
Blaine was glad when sleep took him again so he didn’t have to hear his father talk about it like it was all his fault.
The next time he opened his eyes, his parents were gone and two police officers were huddled at the foot of his bed, sipping coffee out of Styrofoam cups. They gave him ice chips and made him answer a lot of questions, so many that he felt more like a suspect than anything else. The woman had at least tried to look sympathetic, but the man had a look in his eyes that was all too much like the way that guy had looked at him (that guy ,the one with the bat, the one that had called him ‘sweetheart’). He was just glad when he closed his eyes and they were gone when he opened them again.
He first felt fully conscious when at least another day had passed because there was no light coming through the blinds of the windows which had to mean it was night again. A hand on his shoulder had woken him and he looked up at his mother’s tight smile. “Blaine, sweetheart,” she said, and he couldn’t stop himself from flinching back so hard that he nearly sent himself tumbling off the side of the bed. His mother’s face crumpled and she looked like she was going to start crying again. And Blaine hated himself and hated that those assholes had taken that name from him and made it something tainted. It was all Blaine could do to keep from bursting into tears. “Your friend wants to say hi, darling,” his mother continued, her voice even more shaky than before.
“Mom, I don’t-” Blaine protested, but she was gone and then Jason was there. He was wearing sweatpants and a scrubs top and leaning heavily on crutches. Blaine knew intellectually that this was Jason. He was the right height and weight and his hair fell across his face in the same way. Those were Jason’s eyes looking at him. But his face. His face looked like it had gotten intimate with a cheese grater. One of his eyes had swollen almost shut and the stitches on his forehead made him look like the Frankenstein monster. And if the look in Jason’s eye was any indication, Blaine didn’t look much better himself.
The tears he had been holding back came bursting from him like the flood gates had been released and every time his hand went to brush tears away, little sparks of pain followed and made him even more sure that his whole face was some kind of open wound.
“Aw, Tweety, I don’t look that bad. You should see the other guy.” That just made Blaine cry harder. And of all the things Jason could do, he laughed. Laughed like he hadn’t almost died, like some stupid kids hadn’t just tried to kill him for just being who he was. That may not be Jason’s face, but that was for sure Jason’s smile and it made something dark twist in Blaine’s chest. Because Jason could wind up in the hospital, beaten and bruised and find a way to smile. And all Blaine wanted to do was disappear. Blaine felt a sudden surge of hate for him and that surprised him enough for him to stop crying.
“It’s not funny, Jason,” he nearly shouted, though his voice was so abused it didn’t seem much louder than a whisper. Blaine slammed his cast against the railing of his bed for good measure. It hurt, but it made a nice clanging sound that made up for his voice being shot at the moment.
Jason sobered immediately and carefully arranged himself in the chair by Blaine’s bed. “I know. This is the least funny thing that has ever happened to me. Even if I was kind of a badass.” Jason sighed and played with the blanket that was laying over Blaine’s lap, worrying the fabric between his fingers. “I never thought that they would actually…” Jason trailed off and for a second looked so old and weary that Blaine’s chest ached.
“I did break Tony’s nose though,” Jason said after a long moment. His lips were twitching into a smile. “Ground that little shit’s face into mush. Of course then he hit me with a brick and returned the favor, but whatever.” Jason brushed his hand over the tips of Blaine’s fingers where they stuck out from his cast. “Sorry I couldn’t get away fast enough to come to your rescue.” Jason looked suspiciously on the edge of tears for a second, but then his smile reinstated itself. “But hey. Still in one piece. That’s enough for me to call this a victory. Especially when we get all of those sick fucks behind bars.”
Blaine looked at Jason with wide, unbelieving eyes. The whole time they were being attacked, it was all Blaine could do to keep from pissing his pants in terror, much less fight back. All he could do was lie there and take it because his body was some weird kind of traitor and his brain had been so full of panic that he couldn’t think. And Jason had done what he’d always done. Fought back. Even if it was hopeless and futile, he’d fought for himself and that was why he could sit here and smile behind all of those cuts and bruises. Because he’d earned it. Blaine had never felt like more of a failure his entire life.
“What are we going to do?” Blaine asked suddenly, looking at Jason with a kind of desperation that he wished he was coherent enough to hide, but probably wasn’t.
“We, my dear,” Jason said softly, grabbing Blaine’s free hand and squeezing it lightly, “are going to nail those bastards to the wall. We are going to become local legends and look like badasses while we heal and we are going to go back to school on Monday and fucking own it.”
Blaine tugged his hand from Jason’s grasp. “You’re going back there?” Just the thought made Blaine feel like his insides had turned to ice and his heart stutter in his chest. There was no way. It didn’t matter that Tony and Paul and Chris were locked up tight in juvenile hall. Because that place, that school, had still let it happen. By never listening when Blaine came to them with complaints. For letting countless others get away with lesser infractions because it was just easier that way. For glorifying those same people who had come after him with a bat. Blaine didn’t have to go back there to know that he would never be able to go up those wide steps without feeling like he was dying, or be able to walk across campus when it started to get dark without having some kind of emotional breakdown. The place had been labeled eternally unsafe in his mind. Tainted.
Jason seemed to track his line of thought and his smile faded. He heaved one of those sighs, like once again the world had failed him spectacularly. “What else are we supposed to do, Blaine? Run away with our tails between our legs?” Jason shook his head vehemently. “I’m not doing that. It’s as good as letting them win.” For the first time since Blaine had known him, there was something like real fear in Jason’s eyes. He grabbed Blaine’s hand again, a little more roughly. “It may scare the shit out of me to go back there, but I’m not going to back down and let them make me some kind of helpless victim.”
Something inside of Blaine broke, and it may not have been physical, but it hurt as much as the bat had when it had broken his arm. “But you are!” he cried, again feeling tears on his cheeks. “Have you seen yourself, Jason? We’re both fucking victims and if you can’t see that then there’s something wrong with you.. We could have died.” Saying it out loud somehow made it more real and Blaine could feel his heart start to beat frantically in his chest. It was almost like that god damn bat was pressed up against his throat again because he felt like he couldn’t breathe all over again.
Jason squeezed his hand. “But we didn’t,” he said fiercely. “And leaving now would be like letting them get away with it. I always promised myself that no matter what they did to me, I’d never let them take my dignity an my pride. That they would never stop me from being who I am. I’m not going to let this ruin me, Blaine.” Jason looked like he was on the edge of tears. As Blaine watched, one tear slipped over the swollen skin around Jason’s eye’s and down his scabbed up cheek. “So I’m going to walk back in there on Monday with my head high and show them that I’m better than that. That I’m not going to let a handful of pricks dictate my life.” Jason raised Blaine’s hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. “And I really need you to do it with me.”
Blaine shuddered and again tried to tug his hand away, but Jason wouldn’t let go. He tried to imagine it. Tried to see himself walking down the halls with his arm in a sling at his side and his face a mess with that ugly bruise on his throat. He tried to see himself walking beside Jason with a cocksure grin on his face. Tried to picture himself shrugging off the stares and the insults and not caring how much hate there was in the world and how much of it lived at their stupid little high school in the middle of nowhere, Ohio.
But he couldn’t. Because for all of Jason’s pretty words, Blaine was a victim. He was this scared little kid that had been beaten and bruised and broken. They had managed to take the last shreds of his dignity and pride and shatter them as surely as that bat had shattered his arm. Even if he could muster up the bravery to show up at school again, how long before he had to walk down those steps? Or watch the sun fade from the sky and realize how scared he was of being on campus at night? How long before he had a panic attack in front of everyone and then they would all know how weak he was?
“I can’t,” Blaine said pitifully, giving Jason’s hand a slight squeeze in return. “I’m sorry, Jason. But I can’t.”
Blaine didn’t know what reaction he was expecting from Jason, but he wasn’t expecting Jason to crumble. Strong Jason, with his backbone of steel, hunching over his knees and putting his face gingerly in his hands. When he spoke again, his voice cracked. “Don’t make me do it alone, Blaine. Please don’t make me do it alone.”
Every part of Blaine ached to reach out and grab Jason, tell him that of course he’d be there, of course he’d stand with him, tall and proud. But the thought almost made him violently ill and it made his head pound and his skin crawl. “I’m not as strong as you,” he admitted brokenly, hating himself all the more for saying it out loud. It made him feel like a little kid again, adrift in this big scary world. And he guessed he still was.
“You won’t even try?”
Blaine took a few shaky breaths and closed his eyes, not wanting to see Jason’s face when he shook his head and breathed, “I can’t.” He opened his eyes, but couldn’t look at Jason when he said, “You could come with me. Dad found this boarding school with a zero tolerance bullying policy and we could start over.”
Jason made a sound of disgust and sniffed loudly. “I don’t want to start over. I want my life. Not the life someone else is forcing me into.”
“But we could-”
“I always knew you were soft, but I didn’t think you were such a coward,” Jason cut him off, something very close to fury in his voice. Fury and hurt and disappointment.
Blaine choked back a sound that was very near to a sob. “Sorry I don’t live up to your expectations.” Story of his life. One god damn failure after another.
“Me too,” Jason said stiffly. He slowly got to his feet and made his way to the door, pausing in the doorway to turn and give Blaine a final look. He managed a half-smile and said softly, “See you around, Baby Bird.”
A week later Blaine started school at Dalton Academy, and Jason went back to school and they never saw each other again. Three months later, after all the bruises had faded and the stitches had come out and Blaine had started to put together the pieces of himself that he’d thought he’d lost forever, he heard from Jason one last time. It was a letter, and a short one.
My Blainey Bird,
You have it in you, even if you can’t see it.
Courage.
-Jason
And maybe someday Blaine would be in a place where he wouldn’t be scared of the wide, cluttered halls of public schools or banks of lockers or dimly lit parking lots. Where he won’t see a public school and feel every muscle in his body tense. Where he can be the person Jason wanted him to be that day. But then all he could do was strum Stairway to Heaven on his guitar and try to ignore the tears rolling down his cheeks and wish that maybe if he willed it hard enough, maybe he could have it. Courage.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Spoilers: Thru Prom Queen
Warnings (if any): Violence, language, angst in large amounts
Word Count: 7111
Summary: A little picture of Blaine's Sadie Hawkins Dance and how it made him the person he is today.
Authors Note: I don't even know with this. I sat down to write a short little piece of angst to help me deal with my life, and it turned into this huge thing that will have at least one more part of equal or greater length. I am also kind of desperate to know what other people think about this, because I am not so sure myself, except I think I like it and...whatever. Read it and let me know. Also, I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but for my whole high school career, they always played Stairway to Heaven as the last number. Seriously. Is this some kind of conspiracy to make me write angsty fic? I must know. And also must stop talking and let you read this.
Stairway to Heaven
“Hey Short stack! Decide to leave your fairy wings at home tonight? If it wasn’t for your face, you’d almost pass for straight. They should make you fags wear signs.”
Blaine Anderson felt every muscle in his back stiffen and he pointedly looked down at the punch bowl and how his fingers looked almost white where they gripped the edge of the refreshment table. For one night, Blaine had hoped everyone would just shut up and let him have some little piece of joy to hang on to before he had to slog back to class and his vandalized text books and spray painted locker. He should have known before the stupid dance had started that even that was too much to ask. ‘Say something!’ the angry voice in his head cried. It sounded suspiciously like his sister and his father- as if they had melded into this super creature with the super power to make him feel like utter crap. Blaine opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He couldn’t even get the courage to turn around. He’d been officially out for two months and every sneer and slur still made him freeze up. Like one of those stupid deer looking into those two headlights hurtling towards them and couldn’t even move an inch to save themselves.
“Please,” came another voice, haughty and full of malice. Blaine relaxed a little. “Like you don’t like ass as much as we do. Considering how often you have your head up yours.” And then Blaine felt a hand on his shoulder. Not a rough one like when someone sent him careening into the wall but something light and infinitely comforting. Blaine turned and shot Jason a grateful smile. Jason gave a dramatic roll of his eyes and linked elbows with Blaine. “Now, this fag and I are going to dance. Hurry away before the gay gets you.”
Blaine didn’t turn to see Tony leave, but he did hear some mutterings about “fucking homo ass douches” get progressively fainter. When it disappeared completely, all of the tension left Blaine’s back and he slumped a little against the table, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Britney Spears was singing enthusiastically about boys and the bass was so loud the gym floor was shaking a little. That was calming too, but not as much as Jason’s hand in the crook of his elbow.
Jason tugged him away from the refreshment table and towards the dance floor, people parting for them like they were some kind of royalty. Or lepers. Blaine figured it was probably the latter, but he didn’t reflect on it for too long because Jason started to whisper in his ear. “You really need to grow a backbone, Tweety.”
“Eat me, Jason,” Blaine retorted, trying to sound put out because he hated that stupid nickname, but he couldn’t keep the smile completely out of his voice.
“You keep asking me and I will,” Jason sing-songed back, his lips so close to Blaine’s ear, Blaine swore he could feel them. He shivered, flushing and shaking his head a little to clear it from the sudden little rush of lust that Jason so casually inspired. The fact was that Jason was kind of like this gay demigod. He was a year older and had been out of the closet as long as Blaine could remember. He was shameless and proud and wore the chip on his shoulder like it was the Heisman Trophy (even though Blaine sincerely doubted Jason knew what that was). Every piece of shit that got flung his way got served back with a cutting look or a biting comment. No matter how much everyone at school ragged on him, Jason walked around like he owned the place. He was so fully himself all the time that Blaine was in awe just being around him, basking in the light from the glow. Nothing could touch Jason Chambers and nothing was ever going to.
When Blaine came out, he thought it would be easy to adopt the same attitude. To follow in such illustrious footsteps. But then he’d got ‘fag’ scratched into the metal of his locker. And that had hurt. Not like the way he’d been teased for being short, or having wildly curly hair or liking to spend all his time singing and dancing with the girls in the choir room. It was somehow so much more personal than that. It was violent and ugly and made him kind of feel like he’d been stabbed.
He tried to tell his dad, but he said something about “reaping what you sow” and his sister has shrugged it off with some platitudes about how “those jerks are obviously so far below you and not worth any of your time worrying about, you brilliant gay star you” and his mom had just had another glass of wine and pat his head. So when it didn’t get any better, and in fact got worse with vandalizing his textbooks and shoving him into walls, Blaine didn’t bother telling his family and went to his teachers and the principal. And there he got a lot of the same. Brush offs and “buck up” and not a single person seeming to give much of a crap about how he was starting to feel scared walking down the halls of his own god damn school.
His friendship with Jason came out of the blue a few weeks before the dance, after the first death threat on a slip of paper had been slipped between the slats of his locker. He hadn’t meant to break down into messy sobs in the middle of campus, but he’d done it anyway, completely and utterly helpless to stop it. Blaine didn’t make it to History that day, he just tucked himself in the small space between two banks of lockers and put his face in his hands.
“Come on, Tweety Bird, it can’t be that bad,” Jason had said and Blaine had looked up to see Jason kneeling down in front of him and giving him a compassionate smile.
“So even the other gay kids are going to make fun of me?” Blaine had pathetically choked out, a bitterness to his tone that he hadn’t expected.
“That was totally a term of endearment,” Jason countered quickly, putting his hands out in a supplicating manner. “Because you’re always flitting all over the place and singing like a maniac. And before all this coming out shit you were all bright and happy. Like a little canary.”
“I’m still kind of offended,” Blaine said, wiping what had to be an horrific amount of snot on his sleeve.
Jason had laughed. “That’s okay. I’m an offensive guy.”
And somehow after that they were friends. Jason went on and on about gay solidarity and gay rights and being a revolutionary and about how awesome his college boyfriend was and how amazing sex was, really Blaine should try it and how he was going to blow this town and be the biggest thing since Britany. Jason was this burning kind of star and it kind of hurt to look at him sometimes. Blaine was hopelessly in love.
So when the Sadie Hawkins came around and Jason started complaining about heteronormativity and how it was ruining the world Blaine had rolled his eyes at Jason’s protest plans and just said, “Or we could go together. And have fun or something. Leave the world saving for another day.”
Jason had looked stunned for a long moment and then he laughed. “Okay. Though I should tell you I don’t put out on the first date. I’m not that kind of girl.”
For a short while, Blaine didn’t even care about the shoves and slurs and vandalizing. Because he had a date for the dance. Even if said date had a boyfriend and thought Blaine was comparable to a cartoon canary. He’d put on his best dark navy suit and a red bow tie and had even tried to tame his wild hair with most of one of his sister’s bottles of hair gel. And he and Jason had gone out to eat a quick salad before the dance and seeing Jason in his dark suit and pale pink shirt open at the collar to show a bit of the enticing line of his collarbone almost made Blaine forget that this wasn’t some grand romance. It might have all been pretend, but Blaine couldn’t bring himself to really care. For just one night. After dinner, Jason had put on a rainbow stripped tie because sometimes Jason couldn’t help himself and he had laughed loudly at Blaine’s “Even I want to kind of beat you up now” because they were young and happy and nothing could touch them.
And sure, there had been stares and jeers and a few attempts to upend cups of punch somewhere on their persons, but it was still startlingly okay. Because every time Blaine started to feel bad, Jason would whisk him onto the dance floor and whisper about how everything was different when you weren’t in Bumfuck, Ohio and how all of those cowards were just intimidated by how fabulous they were.
At the end of the night, they slow danced to Stairway to Heaven and Blaine put his head on Jason’s shoulder and wanted to stay there forever. He didn’t even hear the snickering around them or notice how everyone gave them such a wide berth like they were diseased. Because this was what he had been looking forward to- a perfect kind of moment. And for just a little bit, he felt invincible.
But then they’d turned on the harsh fluorescent lights and said something that approximated “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” and the gathered students had reluctantly made their way out into the cool night.
Jason’s car was currently in the shop (waiting for another set of headlights to come in, since the newest pair had been busted out the night before) and he and Blaine had hunkered down on the wide concrete steps in front of the school to wait for Jason’s dad to come pick them up. Blaine leaned a little into Jason’s side, ostensibly for warmth, but really because he just wanted to be closer. “Thanks for putting aside your rebel morals to go to a dance with me,” Blaine said softly, glad that Jason was too wrapped up in texting his boyfriend to look at him.
Jason chuckled and bumped Blaine with his shoulder. “I actually had a good time when I wasn’t rescuing you.”
“I don’t need rescuing,” Blaine muttered, flushing lightly and looking at his feet.
“Beg to differ, baby bird,” Jason replied cheerily, ruffling his hair.
At the same time, Blaine heard another voice, something cold and hard from somewhere in the blackness at the bottom of the steps. “Don’t be so sure of that, Nancy.”
Jason was on his feet instantly, smoothing his suit jacket in a show of nonchalance, even if Blaine could see the tension in Jason’s shoulders. “Must we continue this lover’s tiff, Tony?” Jason sighed. “I know how jealous you are of me, but honestly. Run along home and fuck your girlfriend or whatever it is you breeders do.”
“Shut your fag mouth, Chambers.”
That was a different voice, a not-Tony voice and all of a sudden the little bit of fear twisting in Blaine’s stomach seemed to take over his whole body. He had an urge to run. Run back to the gym where there were still some lights burning and the janitorial staff should already be starting to clean up. He stood on shaky legs and Jason’s hand came up to grip Blaine’s shoulder, almost too tightly.
“So you don’t want me to suck your cock then?” Jason mused and Blaine wouldn’t have been able to tell Jason’s grin was fake if he didn’t know Jason so well. As much as Blaine admired Jason for giving as good as he got, he couldn’t help but feel that maybe this wasn’t the time to poke the angry jock. Not when they seemed to be alone in the dim light spilling over from the parking lot.
There was still nothing to see at the bottom of the stairs, but something flew up from the blackness and clipped Jason’s shoulder before falling to the ground and clattering noisily down the steps. Jason made a surprised kind of sound. “Did you throw a rock at me?” he asked, his tone more amused and shocked than anything else. The amusement faded away quickly “Did that make you feel like a big man?” Jason continued, voice hardening and twisting with a bitter kind of rage that Blaine had never heard before. “Throwing stones at a defenseless fag like me?”
“Shut up, Jason, please, just shut up,” Blaine heard and was surprised to realize it was his own voice. It was too high and shaky to sound like his, but he could feel his lips moving and knew it had to be him.
“I’m not going to let some homophobic assholes push me around, Blaine,” Jason bit out, glancing over at Blaine with something like disdain that hurt Blaine even more than the veiled threats he’d been getting since he’d come out. “I’m better than that. And you should be too.”
“I don’t think either of you are good for much of anything.” And that was a third voice and Blaine was clinging to Jason’s arm before he made a conscious decision to do so. “Well, except push up daisies. You homos like flowers right? Be lots of pretty ones at your funeral.”
Blaine couldn’t help the way his whole body shuddered or how his knees were threatening to give out from under him. He was used to reading the threats but he’d never really heard it out loud. And out here it was dark and cold and there was no one around to help. He closed his eyes, some desperate, childish part of him hoping that might make it all go away. Make this stupid night a dream, because as much as he had enjoyed twirling around the floor in Jason’s arms this wasn’t a price he was willing to pay.
When Blaine opened his eyes, nothing had gone away. In fact, it had gotten worse because they weren’t just voices in the dark anymore. They were three big jocks with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and climbing the steps slowly like they knew just how menacing they looked. One of them, Blaine noted, had a baseball bat clutched loosely in one hand, the bat banging hollowly against the steps as they moved closer. He clutched Jason’s arm tighter, probably hard enough to bruise and he felt like his whole nervous system was trembling.
“My life is not going to be some fucking Lifetime movie,” Jason muttered with something like hysteria in his voice.
“Jason” was all Blaine could stutter out. His whole body was screaming for him to do something. To get away, run as fast as he could. Or even to crouch into one of those defensive stances he’d learned in the few months he’d taken Karate lessons with his sister. Just something. Something instead of standing there like a block of ice. But like always, Blaine was that deer in the headlights, body tense for action but unable to move a fucking inch while certain death came for him.
“What?” Blaine heard Jason say, still with that hysterical edge to his voice, but also so much hate that it made Blaine’s heart clench painfully in his chest. “Think you can beat it out of me? Would that really make you feel better? Go ahead and try, you sick fu-”
Jason didn’t get to finish because Tony was there and he slammed a fist into Jason’s cheek. Blaine could feel the force of it course through Jason’s body and he made a sound almost like a whimper. Jason didn’t say a word for once, just spit blood out of his mouth and launched himself at Tony like some kind of superhero. The force of it sent them both flying down the steps, rolling to the pavement of the parking lot and out beyond where Blaine could see.
‘Move!’ Blaine’s mind shouted, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even get his tongue working enough to cry out when the other two guys, ones he had seen before but who’s names he couldn’t remember grabbed his shoulders and pushed him into the chain link fence behind him. The fence made an angry clattering sound and somehow that woke up the part of Blaine that was frozen. He was suddenly flailing against the hands that held him, screaming words that he couldn’t even understand. He managed to get one foot into the gut of the one on the left, but the one on the right had rewarded him with a sharp jab to his abdomen with the tip of the bat. All of the air went out of Blaine’s lungs and he folded nearly in half.
“Stupid little fag!” the one on the left wheezed, and before Blaine had enough time to recover from the jab to his stomach, there was a hand viciously slamming across his face. He felt his lower lip snag on his teeth and rip the skin. In some way, the blood in his mouth made him more frightened than the actual pain of the cut or how the chain link fence scraped against his cheek or how he still couldn’t catch his breath. “Bitch kicked me. You see that?”
“Go help Tony, and leave this little fairy to me if you’re going to be a bitch about it,” the other one said. Blaine had half a mind to start flailing again, but the one with the bat seemed to sense that because suddenly the bat was jammed up against his throat, cutting off the air that Blaine couldn’t get anyway and making any movement impossible.
“You know Tony wanted to deal with that queen all by himself.” Then the guy smiled and Blaine felt as if all of the blood was draining out of his body. There was such a cruelty there, something that Blaine hadn’t realized existed, no matter how much he got shoved around and got slurs spray painted all over his stuff. The depth of that hate from someone he didn’t even know made all of the fight go out of him in a shaky breath. Because what could he do to stop that? How could he possibly combat that kind of hate? Blaine had never felt so young and small in his entire life. Not even his father had made him feel so…worthless. “And this one cries so pretty, don’t you sweetheart?”
Blaine hadn’t even realized he was crying until the guy called attention to it and he was suddenly ashamed. He wanted to wipe at his eyes, but he was being held so tightly against the fence he couldn’t move. Or was too terrified to move. What was worse, that affectionate term made him feel so intensely dirty that he didn’t know if he’d ever feel clean again.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice harsh and quiet and hurting because speaking made his throat press painfully against the bat. The two jocks just laughed, low and cruel. Their eyes were dark and cold felt like they were burning him and Blaine closed his eyes as if not seeing would make it better. So he missed seeing the fist coming at him, but he felt it against his jaw, snapping his head back and making the fence rattle again. He opened his eyes in enough time to see the bat swinging at his chest, but he closed them tightly so he missed seeing it make contact, even if he felt his body give way underneath it.
Blaine was hearing noises and he was sure he was making some of them. Harsh breathing and sobbing and screaming. Some of it felt far away, and some of it felt so close and everything hurt so acutely that Blaine didn’t even realize he was falling until he felt the concrete of the steps below bite into his hip and his nose crack against the edge of the step before he start to roll down. He wanted to cover his face, but his body wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything he wanted it to do. He just kept rolling until he wasn’t rolling anymore.
He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Or the were already open and it was just so black it wasn’t making a difference. For the first time since the whole thing had started, he had a sudden horrifying thought- that this might be it. That he could die here, broken and bleeding in the parking lot of his stupid high school. It was such a stark contrast to how safe and loved he’d felt earlier, twirling across the dance floor, head pressed to Jason’s shoulder. But that had been a lie anyway, had always been a lie and now reality was enforcing itself harshly. He could almost hear his father’s voice saying what he’d said when Blaine had to ask for more money (again) to buy new textbooks. “What did you really expect?”
Blood was trickling down his face from some cut or scrape somewhere. Blaine’s whole body felt like one huge wound, all blood and tender muscle and he was positive at least one of his ribs was cracked. He should reach into his pocket and get his phone. He should drag himself away, put more distance between himself and his attackers, who he was pretty sure were coming after him. But everything hurt and he couldn’t move and for a moment he was so sure he was going to die that he couldn’t breathe.
“Where did he go?”
“Blainey-poo?”
They were laughing. They were coming after him and laughing like it was some kind of game. Well, if he couldn’t move the least he could do was stay quiet. He shut his mouth and tried to breathe through his nose, but when he’d knocked it against the steps it had started bleeding. And now his nostrils felt clogged with blood and there was no air anywhere. With a strangled kind of sob, Blaine gave up on being quiet and opened his mouth.
Blaine sucked in a noisy breath and before he could exhale, there was a foot slamming into his stomach and something hard and heavy (the bat?) slamming down against his arm. There was a horrifying cracking sound and a pain so great Blaine thought he was going to pass out. He heard a loud, grating scream and knew it had to be him, for all that it didn’t feel like he could make a sound that pained and terrified.
“Holy fuck, Chris! What the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t mean to-”
Blaine felt like he was floating a little now. The pain was ebbing away and this delightful numbness coming in. He could hear their voices, all of a sudden sounding young and frightened. Human. Like little kids who had just ripped the wings off a butterfly and only just then realized they had signed it’s death warrant. Blaine hated that the could sound like that. After everything.
“That is his fucking bone, man! I didn’t fucking sign up for this.”
“Don’t fucking panic, dude.”
And then he felt something slam against his skull and he didn’t hear anything else.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
At the hospital, the doctor very clinically told Blaine about the concussion and the four stitches that had put the skin back together over his skull and his broken ribs and the compound fracture of his left arm. He showed Blaine x-rays and charts, and said something about being out of it for two days and his parents being on their way back from Europe and how he was going to make a full recovery. He said that some police officers wanted to talk to him when he was ready. He told him that Jason had a couple of broken ribs of his own, and a ruptured spleen and a broken collarbone, a sprained ankle and had to have eight stitches to put his forehead back together but that he was awake and wanted to see him as soon as Blaine was ready. Blaine shook his head no, not trusting his voice. He was too ashamed at himself for forgetting about Jason entirely as soon as the first punch had been thrown.
Blaine wished he was lucky enough to have his brains scrambled enough to forget, or for the whole thing to get hazy. But the entire encounter played itself over and over in his head. The words and the punches, the swing of the bat and the way the steps had cut into him over and over again. It was vivid and too real. Now he couldn’t hide behind the pain of it all, he just saw it happening as if he wasn’t even there- the hate in their eyes and the way his body was thrown around like it wasn’t anything more than an object. And even if he was lying on this bed in the blinding light of the hospital, he couldn’t help but still feel this intense terror welling up in his chest. Like they were still there, waiting around corners to finish him off. He had been scared enough before, but now that he had the physical knowledge of what it was like to have the shit kicked out of him, Blaine was absolutely terrified.
Time moved strangely in the hospital. Blaine couldn’t keep a good track of when he was asleep or when he was awake. Either way he’d have these weird, too real flashback/dreams where he was dancing to Stairway to Heaven one second and getting his head bashed in on the stairway the next and he was on enough pain medication to make even being awake kind of hazy, like everything had been wrapped up in a layer of gauze. He closed his eyes and would open them some indeterminate time later.
Once Blaine woke up to his mother looming over him, her eyes wet with tears and her hand shaking as it lay on the cast on his arm. “Oh Blaine,” she said, voice wavering and soft. It reminded Blaine of how she used to be before--before whatever happened to her to make her drink all the time. Back when she was still a mother and not some sad woman how lived in his house.
“Mom,” he said and his voice scratched as it came out. It felt like he throat was coated in sandpaper. Had he really screamed that much?
“Don’t try to talk, darling,” his mother said, one hand coming up to stroke at his hair, avoiding the part near the middle of his head that had been shaved away so they could stitch him back together. “Your throat,” she continued inexplicably and then dissolved into messy tears. Blaine’s hands flew to his neck, or tried to at the very least. His cast thumped against his chest and reminded him that his ribs were broken. He winced and settled his arm back against his side. With his other hand he probed gently at his neck, and felt how swollen and hot the skin there was. The bat. It had bruised him. He didn’t need to see it to know. The knowledge made him slump further into the pillows.
“I knew some shit like this was going to happen.” His father. Blaine turned and saw his face in an angry profile, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Derrick,” his mother admonished lightly, giving Blaine a quick ‘he doesn’t mean it like that’ look.
“I mean it, Vanessa. I told you. Over and over again. That we should have never let him… The kid is fourteen years old, what the hell does he know? But no, this idiotic soft society makes him think this is more than just some adolescent phase and he can just come out and everything will be rainbows and fucking pride parades--”
“Derrick, this isn’t the time or place,” his mother said, voice rising a little.
His father was pacing now, throwing his arms around like he did when he was on the phone with a particularly stubborn client. “You’re right. The time and place was when he started this madness but you said ‘let him figure it out on his own’ and look where that got us. And now we’re probably going to have to get him a therapist and send him to a different school and who knows how much all that is going to cost…”
Blaine was glad when sleep took him again so he didn’t have to hear his father talk about it like it was all his fault.
The next time he opened his eyes, his parents were gone and two police officers were huddled at the foot of his bed, sipping coffee out of Styrofoam cups. They gave him ice chips and made him answer a lot of questions, so many that he felt more like a suspect than anything else. The woman had at least tried to look sympathetic, but the man had a look in his eyes that was all too much like the way that guy had looked at him (that guy ,the one with the bat, the one that had called him ‘sweetheart’). He was just glad when he closed his eyes and they were gone when he opened them again.
He first felt fully conscious when at least another day had passed because there was no light coming through the blinds of the windows which had to mean it was night again. A hand on his shoulder had woken him and he looked up at his mother’s tight smile. “Blaine, sweetheart,” she said, and he couldn’t stop himself from flinching back so hard that he nearly sent himself tumbling off the side of the bed. His mother’s face crumpled and she looked like she was going to start crying again. And Blaine hated himself and hated that those assholes had taken that name from him and made it something tainted. It was all Blaine could do to keep from bursting into tears. “Your friend wants to say hi, darling,” his mother continued, her voice even more shaky than before.
“Mom, I don’t-” Blaine protested, but she was gone and then Jason was there. He was wearing sweatpants and a scrubs top and leaning heavily on crutches. Blaine knew intellectually that this was Jason. He was the right height and weight and his hair fell across his face in the same way. Those were Jason’s eyes looking at him. But his face. His face looked like it had gotten intimate with a cheese grater. One of his eyes had swollen almost shut and the stitches on his forehead made him look like the Frankenstein monster. And if the look in Jason’s eye was any indication, Blaine didn’t look much better himself.
The tears he had been holding back came bursting from him like the flood gates had been released and every time his hand went to brush tears away, little sparks of pain followed and made him even more sure that his whole face was some kind of open wound.
“Aw, Tweety, I don’t look that bad. You should see the other guy.” That just made Blaine cry harder. And of all the things Jason could do, he laughed. Laughed like he hadn’t almost died, like some stupid kids hadn’t just tried to kill him for just being who he was. That may not be Jason’s face, but that was for sure Jason’s smile and it made something dark twist in Blaine’s chest. Because Jason could wind up in the hospital, beaten and bruised and find a way to smile. And all Blaine wanted to do was disappear. Blaine felt a sudden surge of hate for him and that surprised him enough for him to stop crying.
“It’s not funny, Jason,” he nearly shouted, though his voice was so abused it didn’t seem much louder than a whisper. Blaine slammed his cast against the railing of his bed for good measure. It hurt, but it made a nice clanging sound that made up for his voice being shot at the moment.
Jason sobered immediately and carefully arranged himself in the chair by Blaine’s bed. “I know. This is the least funny thing that has ever happened to me. Even if I was kind of a badass.” Jason sighed and played with the blanket that was laying over Blaine’s lap, worrying the fabric between his fingers. “I never thought that they would actually…” Jason trailed off and for a second looked so old and weary that Blaine’s chest ached.
“I did break Tony’s nose though,” Jason said after a long moment. His lips were twitching into a smile. “Ground that little shit’s face into mush. Of course then he hit me with a brick and returned the favor, but whatever.” Jason brushed his hand over the tips of Blaine’s fingers where they stuck out from his cast. “Sorry I couldn’t get away fast enough to come to your rescue.” Jason looked suspiciously on the edge of tears for a second, but then his smile reinstated itself. “But hey. Still in one piece. That’s enough for me to call this a victory. Especially when we get all of those sick fucks behind bars.”
Blaine looked at Jason with wide, unbelieving eyes. The whole time they were being attacked, it was all Blaine could do to keep from pissing his pants in terror, much less fight back. All he could do was lie there and take it because his body was some weird kind of traitor and his brain had been so full of panic that he couldn’t think. And Jason had done what he’d always done. Fought back. Even if it was hopeless and futile, he’d fought for himself and that was why he could sit here and smile behind all of those cuts and bruises. Because he’d earned it. Blaine had never felt like more of a failure his entire life.
“What are we going to do?” Blaine asked suddenly, looking at Jason with a kind of desperation that he wished he was coherent enough to hide, but probably wasn’t.
“We, my dear,” Jason said softly, grabbing Blaine’s free hand and squeezing it lightly, “are going to nail those bastards to the wall. We are going to become local legends and look like badasses while we heal and we are going to go back to school on Monday and fucking own it.”
Blaine tugged his hand from Jason’s grasp. “You’re going back there?” Just the thought made Blaine feel like his insides had turned to ice and his heart stutter in his chest. There was no way. It didn’t matter that Tony and Paul and Chris were locked up tight in juvenile hall. Because that place, that school, had still let it happen. By never listening when Blaine came to them with complaints. For letting countless others get away with lesser infractions because it was just easier that way. For glorifying those same people who had come after him with a bat. Blaine didn’t have to go back there to know that he would never be able to go up those wide steps without feeling like he was dying, or be able to walk across campus when it started to get dark without having some kind of emotional breakdown. The place had been labeled eternally unsafe in his mind. Tainted.
Jason seemed to track his line of thought and his smile faded. He heaved one of those sighs, like once again the world had failed him spectacularly. “What else are we supposed to do, Blaine? Run away with our tails between our legs?” Jason shook his head vehemently. “I’m not doing that. It’s as good as letting them win.” For the first time since Blaine had known him, there was something like real fear in Jason’s eyes. He grabbed Blaine’s hand again, a little more roughly. “It may scare the shit out of me to go back there, but I’m not going to back down and let them make me some kind of helpless victim.”
Something inside of Blaine broke, and it may not have been physical, but it hurt as much as the bat had when it had broken his arm. “But you are!” he cried, again feeling tears on his cheeks. “Have you seen yourself, Jason? We’re both fucking victims and if you can’t see that then there’s something wrong with you.. We could have died.” Saying it out loud somehow made it more real and Blaine could feel his heart start to beat frantically in his chest. It was almost like that god damn bat was pressed up against his throat again because he felt like he couldn’t breathe all over again.
Jason squeezed his hand. “But we didn’t,” he said fiercely. “And leaving now would be like letting them get away with it. I always promised myself that no matter what they did to me, I’d never let them take my dignity an my pride. That they would never stop me from being who I am. I’m not going to let this ruin me, Blaine.” Jason looked like he was on the edge of tears. As Blaine watched, one tear slipped over the swollen skin around Jason’s eye’s and down his scabbed up cheek. “So I’m going to walk back in there on Monday with my head high and show them that I’m better than that. That I’m not going to let a handful of pricks dictate my life.” Jason raised Blaine’s hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. “And I really need you to do it with me.”
Blaine shuddered and again tried to tug his hand away, but Jason wouldn’t let go. He tried to imagine it. Tried to see himself walking down the halls with his arm in a sling at his side and his face a mess with that ugly bruise on his throat. He tried to see himself walking beside Jason with a cocksure grin on his face. Tried to picture himself shrugging off the stares and the insults and not caring how much hate there was in the world and how much of it lived at their stupid little high school in the middle of nowhere, Ohio.
But he couldn’t. Because for all of Jason’s pretty words, Blaine was a victim. He was this scared little kid that had been beaten and bruised and broken. They had managed to take the last shreds of his dignity and pride and shatter them as surely as that bat had shattered his arm. Even if he could muster up the bravery to show up at school again, how long before he had to walk down those steps? Or watch the sun fade from the sky and realize how scared he was of being on campus at night? How long before he had a panic attack in front of everyone and then they would all know how weak he was?
“I can’t,” Blaine said pitifully, giving Jason’s hand a slight squeeze in return. “I’m sorry, Jason. But I can’t.”
Blaine didn’t know what reaction he was expecting from Jason, but he wasn’t expecting Jason to crumble. Strong Jason, with his backbone of steel, hunching over his knees and putting his face gingerly in his hands. When he spoke again, his voice cracked. “Don’t make me do it alone, Blaine. Please don’t make me do it alone.”
Every part of Blaine ached to reach out and grab Jason, tell him that of course he’d be there, of course he’d stand with him, tall and proud. But the thought almost made him violently ill and it made his head pound and his skin crawl. “I’m not as strong as you,” he admitted brokenly, hating himself all the more for saying it out loud. It made him feel like a little kid again, adrift in this big scary world. And he guessed he still was.
“You won’t even try?”
Blaine took a few shaky breaths and closed his eyes, not wanting to see Jason’s face when he shook his head and breathed, “I can’t.” He opened his eyes, but couldn’t look at Jason when he said, “You could come with me. Dad found this boarding school with a zero tolerance bullying policy and we could start over.”
Jason made a sound of disgust and sniffed loudly. “I don’t want to start over. I want my life. Not the life someone else is forcing me into.”
“But we could-”
“I always knew you were soft, but I didn’t think you were such a coward,” Jason cut him off, something very close to fury in his voice. Fury and hurt and disappointment.
Blaine choked back a sound that was very near to a sob. “Sorry I don’t live up to your expectations.” Story of his life. One god damn failure after another.
“Me too,” Jason said stiffly. He slowly got to his feet and made his way to the door, pausing in the doorway to turn and give Blaine a final look. He managed a half-smile and said softly, “See you around, Baby Bird.”
A week later Blaine started school at Dalton Academy, and Jason went back to school and they never saw each other again. Three months later, after all the bruises had faded and the stitches had come out and Blaine had started to put together the pieces of himself that he’d thought he’d lost forever, he heard from Jason one last time. It was a letter, and a short one.
My Blainey Bird,
You have it in you, even if you can’t see it.
Courage.
-Jason
And maybe someday Blaine would be in a place where he wouldn’t be scared of the wide, cluttered halls of public schools or banks of lockers or dimly lit parking lots. Where he won’t see a public school and feel every muscle in his body tense. Where he can be the person Jason wanted him to be that day. But then all he could do was strum Stairway to Heaven on his guitar and try to ignore the tears rolling down his cheeks and wish that maybe if he willed it hard enough, maybe he could have it. Courage.