a/n: so i was going to work on an update for venom but i was having weird tensing issues and then twistdmentality(.tumblrdotcom/post/15330901334) made a photoset and it just needed to be fic'd and i figured okay so voila
Blaine. The name has shown up on her phone far more often than people might expect, granted that they had barely been seen together since their stab at dating. They had decided to take the easier route, her pushing him towards Kurt and him pushing her towards Finn, but the attraction they had both felt was still there underneath everything.
But then he had told Kurt how he felt, and he had started dating the boy, and now Rachel was avoiding Blaine like the plague. She threw herself into wanting Finn again, hoping it would heal the dull ache of Blaine's rejection-a rejection that would have been easier to accept had he not been constantly trying to get ahold of her.
"Heading to Glee?" Finn asked, and she nodded, forcing a grin on her face and linking arms with the boy she was pretending to be in love with once more as they headed towards the choir room, Finn prattling on about prom.
Stop, please she typed out before inevitably deleting the letters on her screen. She had been doing this for an hour, laying on her bed and trying to fall asleep while staring at the words Blaine kept sending to her. Words like please Rach, and just wanna talk, and the most heartbreaking of them all, the miss you with a sad face.
You're with Kurt now, she typed, sighing in frustration as she deleted that too. They had never described 100% what they were to the other, knowing that anything that transpired had to be kept hidden, a secret that neither could divulge. It was him coming to her more often than the other way around, because if Kurt had seen her at Dalton there was no way she could talk her way out of that. Especially now, now that Kurt was practically floating around whenever she saw him, riding some sort of electric high that he got from Blaine's attention.
She wanted to ask him what he had been thinking, how he could have done it without at least warning Rachel beforehand. Why he hadn't simply told her that she was being used to see just how gay he was, until he was prepared to be with Kurt.
When her phone rang in her hand, his name popping up on her screen, she sighed in frustration before answering with a terse 'Hello'.
"You finally answered," Blaine's voice said from the other end of the phone, sounding more relieved than she'd have thought.
"Only to tell you to stop calling and texting," she responded, trying to keep her voice stern, trying not to let it break into the soft tones she used so often with him.
"Rach, please, you have to let me explain-"
"Kurt explained very well," she informed him. "Told us all about your little speech over the dead bird casket, how you two kissed right there in the middle of the study room, how-despite your horrible failed attempts at romance before, you really want to make it work with him."
"I didn't-Rachel, you have to hear out my side of things!" he replied, sounding frustrated.
"Fine," she said calmly, "then explain it to me."
"Fine," he repeated, his voice slightly annoyed and he quieted down for a moment, but as soon as she was about to open her own mouth again, a any day now Anderson threatening to come out, he started talking again. "We never-you and I, I mean-we never exactly discussed whatever it was we're doing. Or, were doing before everything with-"
"Right," she interrupted, because even hearing Kurt's name was painful to her at the moment.
"And Kurt was there, at school, and he liked me, and he was so clear about liking me-"
"And I wasn't?" she asked, raising an eyebrow even though he couldn't see it. "Blaine, I was spending more time making out with you than I was getting ready for Regionals. I'm half-convinced this was all a plan from the Warblers-using the lead girl from New Directions and break her heart so they'll fail-except I was prepared this time. I learned from Jesse St. James not to let the competition into my heart until they've proven themselves."
"It wasn't that at all," Blaine argued, "I liked you Rach-"
"Liked?" she asked, enunciating the final syllable for her own clarification.
"You never told me that you wanted anything more out of it," he mumbled, quiet enough that she barely heard him. "I didn't want to hurt you Rachel."
"Well, you did," she replied just as quietly. "Do you even like him?"
"Not as much as I like you," he admitted quickly, sounding as surprised at the words as she was.
"Then why would you do this?"
"I can fix it," he offered, his voice sounding more determined now. "I-Rach, if you want to be with me and I want to be with you-"
"We'd break Kurt's heart," she argued back. "We can't-I won't be the reason Kurt's left along again. I refuse to be."
"Kurt doesn't even really like me, Rachel, He likes the idea of me, and I the idea of him. That's all we are to-"
"It would break his heart!"
"And what, you can't break his but you can break ours?" Blaine countered, and she wanted to fight his argument, had a list of excuses. "Look, if I know there's even a chance-if I know that you have even the slightest inclination towards me Rachel, I'm not giving up. I'll fight for you."
"Please don't," she whispered, closing her eyes against the onslaught of tears that threatened to fall. "Please just, let's both just move past this-"
"I'm not giving up," he said with finality, and she didn't even have a chance to argue before hung up, a sense of dread washing over her as she started thinking about how wrong this could backfire on them.
"He broke up with you?" Mercedes asked, her tone incredulous as the three of them sat at their usual corner table at the Lima Bean. Rachel couldn't even bring herself to find words to express sorrow, hoping her face was in enough of a grimace to be seen as pain for Kurt's behalf.
"He just said," Kurt whined, his voice nearly breaking, "he just said that we rushed into things."
"Rushed? Boy, you two took forever to get together."
"He said that it wasn't necessarily feelings for each other that brought us together," Kurt continued, Rachel's stomach dropping as she predicted the next words out of Kurt's mouth, "but the fact that we were both just there for each other. Two gay guys who don't really know any other gay guys. We were each other's fight against loneliness."
"I'm so sorry," Rachel said softly, reaching across the table to place a comforting hand on top of his, but he just yanked it back.
"And you," Kurt snarled, Rachel's eyes widening in shock as Kurt turned on her quickly. "He said he wanted to have time to see if he was bisexual, without worrying about being judged."
"That's not my fault!" Rachel lied, hoping it sounded convincing as her phone went off in her purse. She quickly silenced the ringer, Kurt's eyes narrowing as she did so.
"Who was that?" he snapped, and Rachel just shrugged, not wanting to dig a hole that she couldn't get out of. "The only person you ever talk to on the phone is me, unless you're dating Finn again, and since Quinn was at our house over the weekend I'm assuming you haven't stolen him away yet."
"Kurt," Mercedes chided, though she was fighting off a smirk and Rachel bit back the tears that were starting to well at the back of her eyes.
"I'm sorry that Blaine broke up with you," Rachel offered quietly, "and I'm sorry that you're taking it out on me, but I won't sit here and take it." Neither protested as she stood up, heading for the door and her car outside, for freedom, ignoring the sting of rejection that hurt even worse the second she was alone once more.
Blaine's name started showing up on her phone's screen with more and more urgency as the days passed, Rachel hitting 'ignore' every time. She had taken to deleting his texts without reading them, watching off to the side as Santana fought to get Kurt back at McKinley.
Rachel had a feeling that now that Blaine was no longer a viable choice for him, it wouldn't take Kurt much to come back.
Sure enough, within days he was singing in front of the glee club, looking happier than he had in the past few weeks. His eyes passed over Rachel, and she once more felt the stab in the heart it gave her whenever he did this. Yes, Blaine may have broken up with Kurt and Rachel may have been a part of that equation, but Rachel was pushing Blaine away so that Kurt wouldn't hate her.
After sitting through a week of rehearsals with Kurt's cold shoulder though, she was starting to question why.
"You know," a familiar voice called out as she walked down a back stairwell, her entire body spinning around to see the Warbler on the top of the steps. "Not returning phone calls or texts can hurt a guys' feelings."
"Blaine," she let out, looking around as other students bustled past them, making sure Kurt and any of the other glee members weren't included in the mixture.
"If you had answered me any of the times I called," he smirked, jumping down a couple steps, "you'd have known I said I was going to show up today. I gave you more than enough warning."
"I deleted the messages," she mumbled, looking down at the concrete beneath her. Instead of being off put, Blaine just let out chuckle, causing her to look up at him once more.
"I figured," he said, a smile playing on his face. They stood there, staring at each other, Blaine still a step above her and she felt like she was suffocating, not being able to breathe with him so near to her again. She had tried so hard to pretend she didn't want him, didn't want to be his, and seeing him again was making her forget why. "I'm not giving up on us Rachel," he said quietly after a moment, moving down and around her so he was now a couple steps below, taking her hand in his own. "So if you still need time to think about things, then fine. I'm okay with that, because there's something here worth waiting for."
He finished his speech, and Rachel just stood there, staring at him as the words sunk in, a small smile playing at his lips as he watched her think things through. "Right," he said after it becomes apparent she's not going to say anything in response, "well, whenever you're ready for this, just-actually give me a call." He smiled at her again, leaning up to give her a kiss on the cheek and instead of the words she can't figure out a way to conjure, she just turned her mouth to meet his, hoping that it was sufficient enough for him to understand.
"I'm not any better at romance than you are," she said when they pull back a moment later, their faces a little flushed from the sudden kiss.
"Well then, I guess we'll just have to teach each other."