As always, love to my beta, Tuuzmorado.
Blaine groaned as someone knocked on the door. He sat up, blinking at the clock, which revealed that it was a little after midnight. Not exactly that late, especially not for a high-school freshman, but Blaine had gotten used to going to bed early. His room mate – Wes – was obsessed with his grades, and insisted that lights out was at nine o'clock, under penalty of being beaten with The Gavel (yes, when Wes spoke about it, he used capital letters).
Truthfully, Blaine hadn't minded. After all, Wes had signed up for a single room, but he'd agreed to let Blaine room with him when Blaine transferred to Dalton in the middle of the year, even though he was a complete stranger and probably looked like he'd been in a gang war or something, given all the bruises on his face and the sling he wore for a week. Not only that, but Wes had agreed to show him around Dalton and had even gotten him a Warbler audition before even hearing him sing. Most importantly, he never asked how Blaine had gotten hurt so badly, meaning Blaine didn't have to try to come up with some cover story – or worse, tell the truth. It had just become a non-issue, though every once in a while Wes would make a pointed comment, basically telling him that he could come to Wes for anything he needed. Blaine appreciated that more than he would ever dare to admit.
So yeah, going to bed a few hours early was no problem at all. It was what Blaine was used to, anyway; back when he went to Westerville High, people hadn't exactly been clamoring to get Blaine to hang out with them in the evenings. Most nights, it had been him and his school books. But it did mean that he occasionally got woken up by other students who couldn't grasp the concept that they actually went to bed at a decent time on school nights.
He shuffled toward the door, trying to forget the dream he'd been having about one of his best friends. Not Wes, thankfully – wouldn't it have been awkward if Blaine had fallen for him? Although, the person he did have a crush on wasn't much better. Meaning he was completely straight, and had no idea that Blaine was gay. If he ever found out that he was in Blaine's dreams every night – and not in family-friendly context, either – their friendship would be completely ruined.
It figured that the guy of his dreams would be the one at the door.
Sam Evans.
Blaine cleared his throat, desperately hoping that his blush wouldn't show in the darkness. "What are you doing here?"
"Jeff decided to have Nick over," Sam said, disgust evident on his face. "I mean, I like Nick well enough. And it's Jeff's room as much as mine, so he can do that if he wants. It's just, warn me! And leave a sock on the door!"
Blaine winced in sympathy, but pointed out, "A sock would be a little bit suspicious when the RAs made their rounds, don't you think? And you're not exactly easy to get a hold of." Sam was probably the only teenager Blaine had met who didn't have a cell phone. He'd never asked why, but based on the comments Sam sometimes made, Blaine could tell that his family wasn't doing so well. It had been cell phones and other accessories, or private school tuition for their three kids. It was obvious which one they'd chosen, though Blaine knew they were worried about how long they'd last before the kids had to be moved to public school. Blaine tried not to imagine Sam leaving – he couldn't bear the thought of not seeing his best friend every day.
Sam made a dismissive noise. "Still, that was the last thing I needed to see. No way am I going back there tonight. And possibly ever, unless they agree to wash the whole place down." He slipped through the doorway, his chest barely brushing against Blaine's arm as he did, and flopped down on Blaine's bed.
Blaine almost choked, and tried to turn his mind everywhere except the implications of that. Implications which Sam clearly didn't intend, and would be horrified if he realized that Blaine was thinking them. "What are you doing?" he hissed, keeping his voice down so that he wouldn't wake Wes. That had only happened once before, and the consequences had been terrifying to behold.
"Sleeping here," Sam whispered back, frowning like that should have been the most obvious thing in the world. "You don't mind sharing, do you?"
"Not my bed!" There was no way Blaine was going to be able to sleep if that happened – not only would the hormones and fantasies keep him up, there was no way he'd let himself sleep when he had no idea what he might say (or worse, moan) in his sleep.
"Aw, come on," Sam whined. "The floor's so uncomfortable, though!"
"Fine," Blaine said. "You can take the bed, and I'll sleep on the floor." He pulled his comforter off the bed and tossed it in a corner, where Wes wouldn't step on him if he got up in the middle of the night. Hopefully this wouldn't end as badly as sharing a bed would've, though Blaine still had his concerns, mostly about how light a sleeper Sam was. Still, he couldn't exactly turn his friend out. "I get the good pillow, though."
He reached to grab the good pillow from his bed, but Sam's hand curled around his wrist, holding him back. Blaine tried to ignore the spark of heat he felt when Sam touched him. "Not happening," he said. "I mean, of course you get whatever pillow you want, but I'm not making you sleep on the floor in your own room. Seriously, I don't mind the floor at all. I'm the one who's crashing your place, after all."
"It wasn't like you wanted to," Blaine protested. "Besides, you're the guest, that means you get to have the good bed. Basic etiquette. My parents taught me right." Which was about the only thing they had to do with his upbringing, but he tried not to dwell on that.
"Nope," Sam said. "Not happening. You sure you don't want to share the bed?"
Oh, yes. Blaine most definitely wanted to, to the point where he was almost shaking. Which was exactly why they shouldn't.
"I don't bite, you know," Sam said, which led to some unfortunate mental images. It was like Sam was trying to kill him. "Why don't you want to sleep with me?"
If Blaine didn't know better, he'd think that Sam was doing this on purpose. "There's not enough room."
"You and Trent managed well enough when we all fell asleep in his room last week."
Yeah, well, Blaine didn't have to devote a large amount of energy to not jumping Trent, so that was a completely different situation. Not that he could say that. "Just let me sleep on the floor, okay? I'll survive one night."
Sam leaned forward, studying Blaine's face. "I've made you uncomfortable," he said, standing and heading toward the door. "I'm sorry. I should go crash in Nick's empty bed or something, not bother you when you were sleeping. Just forget I was here."
Much to his own surprise, Blaine's hand darted out and grabbed Sam's elbow. "No."
Sam turned to frown at him. "What?"
Blaine cleared his throat, not sure what had possessed him to do that. He should just forget that any of this happened, like Sam had offered. Instead, he shook his head. "You don't have to go, I mean."
"Well, if we can't work out the bed situation, then how's that going to work?" Sam asked. Blaine was going to come up with an answer – not that he knew what the answer was going to be, even as he opened his mouth – but Sam suddenly held up one hand, giving Blaine a mischievous look that Blaine had never seen on him before. "I think I've got it."
"What?"
Sam grinned and eyed Blaine almost appraising. "Do you really need to sleep tonight, or should we do something else instead?"
It was official. Sam Evans was going to give him a heart attack.
"Don't walk so loudly," Blaine hissed at Sam, checking over his shoulder. Amazingly, it seemed like nobody had noticed them, even though every one of Sam's footsteps practically echoed down the hallway.
Sam snorted. "Blaine, I sneak around the school all the time. It's no big deal. And trust me, after eleven they stop doing hallway checks. Even RAs and teachers need to sleep, you know."
"Still," Blaine protested. "We'll get detention if we're caught." It was a testament to how much he was in love with Sam that he was risking this. Blaine Anderson did not get in trouble. He just didn't.
Then again, at his last school, he didn't sing or participate in any clubs that could draw attention to him, either. He'd changed a lot since he'd come to Dalton. It was funny how actually going a few months without being physically attacked could boost your confidence.
"You won't get caught," Sam promised for the fifth time in four minutes. He ran forward and stopped at the top of the staircase, spinning around to face Blaine and throwing his arms wide. "The whole school is our playground, just for you and me!" he exclaimed. "For the next five and a half hours," he amended after a moment's pause.
"You really sneak around at night a lot?" Blaine asked, joining him. "What do you do?"
"I got used to working nights," Sam said with a shrug. "I don't any more, because Dalton's too hard of a school for me to work and still get good grades, but I got used to only sleeping four or five hours a night. It's sometimes hard to go back to lights out at eleven o'clock."
"Don't you work out twice a day?" Blaine asked.
Sam shrugged. "What's your point?"
Blaine stared at him, wondering how his crush could be so crazy. Or so stupid. "You can't get so little sleep if you're going to be working hard!" he exclaimed, forgetting for a moment about keeping his voice down. "That's definitely not healthy. And don't get me started about how little you eat on top of all of this."
Normally, Sam got defensive whenever anyone mentioned his workout habits, or especially the constant diets he was on. Blaine expected some angry retort, maybe even for Sam to stalk off and call this whole goofing-off-all-night thing off. To his surprise, Sam just laughed. "I got you to stop being so quiet," he exclaimed. "Score one for me, bro!"
Blaine couldn't help but smile at his friend's enthusiasm. "Okay, I give in. We're not going to get caught. Let's just not push our luck, okay?" Sam nodded eagerly, and Blaine asked, "What should we do first?"
"Like I said, whatever our hearts desire!" As if to prove it, Sam jumped onto the banister and slid down, giggling like an idiot the entire way.
Blaine wondered if it was cheesy to say "All my heart desires is you." It probably would be, he decided. Not to mention inappropriate, and the worst possible way to come out to his friend. He made sure to banish all those thoughts from his mind before jumping on the banister and following Sam down.
"Want to duck in here?" Sam asked, grabbing Blaine's arm and pulling him toward the student kitchen. Blaine nodded eagerly, following close enough behind Sam that they could keep their arms touching without it seeming weird. Okay, maybe that was stupid. But he couldn't help it.
"You like to cook?" Blaine asked, looking around the kitchen. To be honest, he was a little relieved that this was the first stop on their midnight adventure. Students came down here all the time after curfew to grab snacks. The staff all knew about it, and if it was technically against the rules, they knew that nobody would get in trouble for it. Not like what would happen if they were caught goofing off in a classroom or something.
"Kinda," Sam said. "I know how, since someone has to feed Stacey and Stevie when mom and dad worked late." He frowned, the way he always did when he talked about some responsibility he used to have around the house, before he came to a boarding school.
"You know they wouldn't have sent you if they didn't think they could handle not having you around the house," Blaine said quietly. "It's been five months, and they still sound fine, so clearly someone must be around to feed them."
Sam smiled at him. "Yeah, I just worry about them for no reason. We're close, you know. Mom and Dad work a ton, so I was the one taking care of them most days."
"I think that's incredible of you," Blaine said, leaning against the counter and hoping that his heart eyes weren't incredibly obvious. But he meant it. He couldn't believe that Sam would do so much for his little siblings, especially since he was only nine when Stevie was born. That was a bit of an age difference, but not enough that Sam would've been old enough to completely raise his little siblings. But he did anyway. Blaine couldn't help but wonder what his life would've been like if Cooper had been a little more like Sam.
Sam just shrugged, like Blaine knew he would. "I did what I had to do," he said, as if that made it any less impressive. "So, you know how to bake anything? Because we can't sneak into a kitchen in the middle of the night without baking some ridiculously unhealthy dessert and making a mess while we do it."
"Is that a rule?" Blaine asked.
"Yup," Sam said. "Stacey invented it." He started rummaging through the cupboards, pulling out ingredients and stacking them on the counter. "Normally we have a cookbook, though. Guess we'll just have to wing it."
"Just tell me what to do and I'll do it." Blaine had never been much of a baker, but he did have a vague idea what types of ingredients they needed. He reached up to grab the bag of flour from the top shelf, but it was just out of reach. Even when he jumped. Sam smirked as he got it down, prompting Blaine to scowl at him.
Both of them could remember the basic ingredients that were supposed to go in cookies, but neither of them could recall what order they were supposed to be added in, or how much of each ingredient to include.
"You don't need that much sugar," Blaine argued as Sam tried to add a third cup. "They're going to be too sweet."
"No such thing as too sweet," Sam argued. "That's what Stevie says, at least, and you know five-year-olds are never wrong."
"For such a health nut, you sure have a sweet tooth," Blaine grumbled, pulling the bag from Sam's hands and sticking it in the cupboard, slamming the door closed so that Sam wouldn't be tempted.
"I never said I eat any of the cookies," Sam argued. "I'm just quoting my brother's logic."
Blaine rolled his eyes as he tried to figure out how many eggs to include. There were four left in the carton, so he figured he might as well just put them all in. "Oh, no. It was your idea to make these cookies. You're having at least as many as I do." Sam started to argue, but Blaine cut him off. "I mean it."
Sam scowled and dumped a random amount of vanilla into the batch. "If these cookies destroy my abs, I'm never going to forgive you."
"You're abs will be fine," Blaine said. "You have the hottest body I've ever seen. One batch of cookies won't change that."
He froze the minute the words left his mouth. Did he just admit that out loud? The world seemed to go into slow motion as he turned to face Sam, who was watching him with an odd expression on his face. Oh, god, he knew. He knew that Blaine was completely in love with him, and any moment he'd wrinkle his nose and turn away, and Blaine would've lost his best friend over a stupid slip-up, and how could he be so stupid? Sam wasn't homophobic – the fact that he had no problem rooming with Jeff proved that – but this was completely different. At least Jeff had a boyfriend, and obviously had no interest in Sam whatsoever. But having Blaine crushing on him, staring at him everywhere he went? (Please let Sam not have noticed the staring!) It was over.
"Thanks, dude," Sam finally said. "You're not so bad yourself." Then he turned and started mixing the dough.
Well, that was... Blaine wasn't entirely sure what that was, to be honest. A relief, definitely, because it meant that they could still be friends without any awkwardness getting between them. But a disappointment, too.
Part of him wanted to come out, to be himself at a school that wouldn't beat him up for it. But whenever he tried, the words wouldn't come. He always ended up choking on his tongue and muttering a "Never mind" as he tried to hide his embarrassment. It would be a relief to have Sam figure it out on his own, no matter how badly it went. But of course it wouldn't be that easy.
Blaine joined Sam at the mixer, and almost immediately Sam started a debate over whether they should add chocolate chips or not (Blaine was in favor, Sam opposed). It was all too easy to keep the talk lighthearted, barely scratching the surface, not admitting his feelings or acknowledging what he had said.
Sam won the argument, and instantly threw his arms in the air and cheered. The bottom of his T shirt rose as he did so, revealing the top of his boxers and a thin sliver of skin. It was all Blaine could do not to stare.
Eventually Sam finished his celebrating and reached to grab the dough so they could spoon it onto baking pans. Their elbows rubbed together as they worked, but Sam didn't move away, and neither did Blaine, no matter how it was killing him.
Sam was so close, but still so far away.
"Is it just me, or are these things really, really not good?" Sam asked, frowning down at the half-eaten cookie in his hand like it would tell him the answer.
Blaine took an experimental bite, then grimaced. "Could have been worse," was all he managed. It was better than admitting that they'd managed to make complete crap.
"Could be a lot better," Sam countered, throwing his cookie back on the pan. "I told you we shouldn't have kept them in the oven for so long. The bottoms are completely crispy."
Blaine took another bite, and couldn't help thinking that the cookies would be just as bad even if they hadn't burned. "We're using a recipe next time," he said. And then he couldn't help wondering if there would be a next time, if this could somehow become a repeated thing between them. Their thing, maybe.
"What should we do with these?" Sam asked. "Leave them out on a plate to trick everyone?"
"Now you're just being cruel." Blaine snorted, thinking of the way their classmates would swarm the kitchen when they saw that there were cookies, only to be disappointed by the taste. "I say you give them to Jeff and Nick."
Sam's eyes widened like Blaine had just said the smartest thing in the world. "Why didn't you come up with that earlier? I would've filled them with hot sauce if I'd thought of it!"
Blaine laughed, scraping the cookies off the pan as best as he could and dumping them into a plastic bag that Sam handed him. "That might be taking it too far."
"You weren't there, man," Sam said, shaking his head. "I will never forget the things I've seen."
They left the kitchen, bag tucked under Sam's arm, and headed for the classrooms. Blaine wasn't sure if there was a destination in mind, or if they were just wandering. Either way, it didn't seem to matter. "Thanks for this," Blaine said, out of nowhere. "I'm having fun tonight."
Sam grinned, but said, "I should be the one thanking you. Just because I don't want to go back to my room doesn't mean that you have to come with me."
"I'm glad I did," Blaine said, "even if we did ruin my first ever batch of cookies."
Sam stopped walking. Blaine turned slowly, confused, to find his friend staring at him in horror. "You've never made cookies before?" Sam demanded. "Like, ever? You're fourteen. How is that even possible?"
Blaine shrugged, uncomfortable with the way Sam seemed to be making a big deal over this. "My parents weren't really the domestic type. I did learn how to cook dinner, so that I didn't get stuck with take-out every night, but I never really got the point of learning to bake. Why bother when I could just buy some cookies instead?"
If anything, that just made Sam's horrified look grow stronger. "You're not kidding me? You've never done this before tonight?"
Blaine shook his head solemnly, since that seemed to be what Sam wanted, though he still didn't see what the big deal was. "Stacey and Stevie lucked out, y'know. Cooper never did those kinds of things with me."
Sam groaned, covering his eyes with his hands, the bag of cookies falling to the floor. "It was your first time making cookies and we ruined them! We've got to fix this as soon as possible." Then he dropped his hands, giving Blaine another confused look. "Wait, Cooper?"
"My older brother." Blaine shifted slightly. He'd never spoken to his friends about his family. It was one of those things that seemed too personal to bring up, especially since he was trying to distance himself from them as much as possible. His parents were good, for the most part, but he'd never see or speak to Cooper again if he could help it.
Sam stooped to pick up the cookies, and they finally started walking again. "I didn't know that you have a brother," he said. "What's he like?"
What was Cooper like? That was an easy question to answer. "Narcissistic, selfish, annoying," he listed off, tilting his head slightly as he tried to think of any more synonyms he could use. Because saying it once clearly wasn't enough; Cooper was bad enough that he deserved every negative word in the whole damn dictionary. "A cocky, self-absorbed idiot. There's a reason I don't talk about him."
"Why not?" Sam asked, as if the reasons Blaine had listed weren't enough. He took Blaine's hand and pulled him into the nearest classroom, flipping on the light as he passed and sitting Blaine in the teacher's chair before jumping on top of the desk himself. "Tell me about it," he said as he positioned himself crisscross-applesauce style.
"Tell you about what?" Blaine asked.
"Clearly there's something eating at you, and you're going to tell me what it is," Sam said simply. "I mean, I obviously won't make you if you really don't want to. But I wanna hear it, and you'll feel better if you tell it, so we both win."
Blaine stared up at him, slightly suspicious, even though he tried to get rid of those feelings. "Why would you want to hear it?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "You're my friend, and you're upset, so I want to know why. It's not complicated. You feel the same way about me, right?"
"Yeah." But Blaine had never thought about it working the other way around, that their friendship meant that Sam cared about what went on with him. Maybe it should have been obvious, especially with how nice Sam was. But it felt like a revelation. And, though he'd never talked about this with anyone, he couldn't help but speak. "He's ten years older than me, and he moved to California when I was eight, to go to college there. And I haven't seen him since." Sam kept looking like he was waiting for Blaine to say it, so he sighed and said, "That's the problem."
"Okay, I get that that must stink to have him so far away, but California is a pretty long way," Sam said. "I'm sure he wants to see you and just can't."
"Six years," Blaine said. "That's a long time to not bother visiting. I'll get a call on my birthday and Christmas, but nothing else. And the whole conversation is him talking about how amazing his life is, and the roles he's getting in TV commercials, and how if I try really hard, maybe there's a chance I could be as good as he is. Then he'll remind me of all the mistakes I make when I'm performing – or, the mistakes that I used to make when I was eight, since he hasn't seen me since then – and ask if I'm working on those. Seriously, Sam, that's all we talk about. Obviously he doesn't actually want anything to do with me, he just feels like he's obligated to be my brother."
He could see that Sam was starting to understand why Blaine was so upset, but because he was the constant optimist, he said, "He could be trying to help you improve. In a really bad way, maybe, but it's the thought that counts. And it could be that he doesn't realize you want him around more. There's no reason why you couldn't call him. Or see if you can fly out to see him over break."
"He doesn't want to see me," Blaine spat. "You know what I got from him after the dance? A three-minute phone call. 'Oh, sorry you're in the hospital, Blaine. Can't talk, got to go to an audition, but feel better!'" He scowled, but the expression slipped away as he realized that, for the second time that night, he'd accidentally told Sam something he didn't mean to share. At least this one wasn't as horrifying as his other mistake could have been, but still.
Blaine jumped to his feet. "Let's go explore somewhere else," he mumbled, brushing past Sam, hoping that the subject could just be dropped.
"I already knew about the hospital," Sam called after him. Blaine froze in the doorway, then slowly glanced over his shoulder. Sam hadn't moved from his perch on the desk, though he had slid closer to the edge. Closer to Blaine. "All the guys do. Not what happened, of course, since you won't tell anyone. But we all saw the bruises and the sling. You got hurt badly, and it makes sense that there was a hospital involved."
Blaine sagged against the door frame. This wasn't exactly new information – he knew that everyone would've drawn their own conclusions when they saw his beaten form, but that didn't mean that he wanted to think about it. Or have someone point it out to him.
Sam slid off the desk and moved toward Blaine, hesitating when he was only a foot away, then gently squeezing Blaine's shoulder. "I don't know what you meant by the dance. Was that where you got hurt?"
Blaine barely managed a nod. His breath rattled in his chest as he tried to hold his panic in.
"Whatever it was, it must have been bad." Sam's voice was soft and soothing, the same voice he'd used when Stacey cut herself and his parents had had Sam talk on the phone with her as they drove to the hospital. And, like Stacey, Blaine couldn't help but relax as Sam's voice washed over him. "Like I said, we saw the bruises, but we also saw the way you acted your first week, like you couldn't relax and flinched at random stuff. I think you need to talk about it."
"I'm good," Blaine lied.
"It'll help," Sam protested.
"No, I'm good." Blaine straightened. Ever since he'd come here, he'd been determined that he'd remain calm, not let the past affect him. Clearly he hadn't been doing as good a job as he'd thought, if Sam and the others had noticed something off about his behavior when he first came. Even so, he was horrified that he'd almost slipped up worse than ever. "Let's just get going."
Sam studied his face for a long moment. Any other time, having Sam looking at him so intently would've been the stuff fantasies were made of, but this was just uncomfortable. Finally, Sam nodded. "I still say you should talk to Cooper," he said, keeping his voice light as he walked back to the desk. The cookies had fallen to the floor and somehow ended up under the desk, so he dropped to his knees to retrieve them. "You can't go wrong with a heart-to-heart. Maybe he's not as bad as you think. And even if he is, at least you'll have tried."
"I'll think about it," Blaine mumbled, knowing that he had no intention of calling Cooper any time soon. It was Cooper's fault that they'd fallen apart, and Blaine wasn't going to chase after him, trying to fix it when Cooper clearly wasn't interested in knowing him. Blaine wasn't going to be that pathetic.
"You should. It'll be- Blaine, come check this out!" Sam stuck his head out from under the desk and frantically waved him over.
"What?" Blaine dropped to his knees and crawling closer to Sam, trying not to think about the two of them in cramped quarters where they couldn't easily be seen. Yup, he was definitely recovered if his mind was back to its regular track.
"Look up."
Blaine did, and saw nothing but a couple random wads of gum. He wondered vaguely if a student had managed to do it without the teacher noticing, or if the teacher himself had done it while sitting at the desk. "What am I looking at?"
"That." Sam reached up and traced a couple words carved into the underside of the desk. Blaine tilted his head to get a better view. It looked like a badly-drawn heart with two people's initials inside.
"So what?" Blaine asked. He'd seen plenty of graffiti carved into desks at his old school. Admittedly, there didn't seem to be as much of that at Dalton, and it was pretty sneaky to carve it into the underside of the teacher's desk, but still. It was just a pointless carving by someone who was probably broken up with the girl he'd carved it about by now.
"So what?" Sam echoed, giving Blaine yet another incredulous look. Blaine really was getting tired of those. "This is clearly a secret message! We need to decode it to discover the secret whereabouts of the... whatever! The thing we're searching for is a secret, that's why we don't know what it is. The point is, we need to find it or the whole world will be in jeopardy."
Blaine laughed, finally catching onto what Sam was doing. It seemed a little weird, but it was better than talking about the Sadie Hawkins Dance. He'd do pretty much anything to avoid that. And besides, they were running around the school after dark with nobody around; why shouldn't they be idiots? "This is serious," he said, trying to force his face to match up to his words. "Of course, the two of us could never manage this on our own. We need someone like Captain America to take on this case. Or Batman. Or Nighthawk!"
Okay, so maybe Blaine had always wanted to be a superhero. Sue him. This felt incredibly dorky – not at all like the controlled, dapper image of himself he always tried to present. But he got the feeling that Sam wouldn't judge, even if he revealed that he was a closeted superhero nerd.
It almost made him think that he should be honest about other things he was hiding. Blaine banished that thought before it could proceed any further.
Sam's eyes lit up. "Exactly! But the normal superheros aren't going to be enough. We need someone special, like... like... the Blonde Chameleon!"
Blaine ran through all the superheros he knew of, and came up blank. It was only then that he noticed the way Sam was beaming, and looking incredibly proud of himself. "Did you just make that up?"
"Yeah," Sam said. "If we're going to have fun with it, we might as well go the whole way. Now you think of one. I'll even let you be the hero, and I'll be the sidekick. But only because I like you."
Blaine's stomach did a flip at that. "In that case, I'm... Nightbird." And he totally wasn't basing his character on Nighthawk. Of course not.
"Hand me a piece of paper and a pencil, Nightbird?" Sam asked. Blaine grabbed it for him, and Sam pressed the paper to the carving and rubbed the lead over the paper. "See? It leaves an imprint so that we can take it with us." Sam held it out.
Blaine glanced at it then gave it back to Sam, who tucked it into his pocket. "That's brilliant thinking, Blonde Chameleon," he said. "Are you sure that you're not the hero and I'm your sidekick?"
"Nope, you're the one who's going to defeat the villain in the end," Sam said cheerfully. "I'm just along to help out. Now let's go!" He jumped to his feet and held out a hand to help Blaine up. As soon as they were both standing, they took off running toward the hallway, arms outstretched to represent capes streaming behind them in the nonexistent wind.
Blaine had thought that he was a pretty in-shape guy – he did do a lot of dancing and bouncing around, after all – but that was before he tried to chase Sam around the entire school.
"Enough," he gasped, doubling over with his hands on his knees. He'd been fine for the first two laps or so, but after that he'd started to collapse. And this was a big school. Sam, of course, barely seemed winded.
"We can't give up, Nightbird!" Sam said, turning around and jogging backwards. "We're so close to finding the villain! Maybe someone should have joined me for the twice-daily workouts you were mocking earlier!" Blaine shot him a dirty look and laughed when Sam jogged straight into a wall.
"I think we can have the final battle here," Blaine managed between pants.
"If you say so." Sam rubbed the back of his head, glaring at the wall like it had personally attacked him, then suddenly gasped and grabbed his head, doubling over and shaking. Blaine rushed forward, completely terrified. At least, he was until Sam exclaimed, "It's got me! The Evil Fox has got me!"
Blaine relaxed and raised his eyebrows. "The Evil Fox?"
"Foxes eat Warblers," Sam said. Blaine was surprised he knew that off the top of his head, but before he could comment, Sam suddenly convulsed. Or, pretended to convulse. He was a surprisingly good actor. "It's taking over my brain, Nightbird! It's going to make me attack you!"
Blaine fought back a laugh at Sam's cry, trying to keep his face serious. After all, Nightbird wouldn't be happy at all about this new development. "Don't worry, Blonde Chameleon. I'll find a way to rescue you."
"It's not going to work! I'm going to..." Sam's voice trailed off, and he assumed an exaggerated slack-jawed expression, his eyes way too wide and his mouth hanging open. He slowly began to shuffle toward Blaine, arms out, like a zombie. "Must. Destroy. Nightbird."
"Try to fight it!" Blaine ducked down as Sam made a grab for him. Sam kept coming at him, and Blaine dodged, trying to think of a way to end this. He wasn't really sure where Sam was heading with this game, but he figured he could pretty much do whatever and they'd both go with it. Of course, first Blaine had to think of a solution that wasn't completely lame.
"I'm going to get you!" Sam announced, very nearly managing to snag Blaine's shirt before Blaine twisted away. Shit, Sam wasn't kidding around. Okay, he was, but he was being really serious about it. Blaine turned and ran off, ignoring the fact that his lungs were actively attacking him by now. Of course, there was no way he could actually get away, so he ducked into the first classroom he saw in the hope of increasing how long he could stay free.
He'd just about made it to the whiteboard when Sam's hands closed around his shoulders. Blaine jerked away too hard, throwing himself off balance. He slammed into the whiteboard, sending markers scattering everywhere. Sam tried to grab his arm to stop him, but that just ended with them both falling to the floor, Sam half on top of Blaine.
"Shit!" Blaine groaned and blinked at Sam, who was sitting up with a slightly dazed expression. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Sam reached down and hooked an arm under Blaine's shoulders, gently helping him up. "I'm more worried about you. You kinda broke my fall, so I'm good, but did I squish you or something? And did you hit your head? Shit, need me to ask you how many fingers I have up?"
"I'm fine," Blaine assured him, rubbing the back of his head. He'd probably have a nasty bump there later, but it wasn't like it was bleeding and his vision was fine, so he figured it was okay. "I don't think I've ever gotten this serious about a game before."
Sam instantly looked embarrassed. "Sorry, I get kind of into these things. I shouldn't have chased you so much."
"No, I liked it." Well, didn't that sound weird? Blaine quickly tried to elaborate. "I mean, playing a game like that. It's fun to just let loose once in a while, act like a kid. I don't get to do that much."
"Yeah, we've all noticed that you're probably the most mature freshman we've ever seen," Sam said. "So you're not mad?"
As if Blaine could ever be mad at Sam. His crush-levels were too high for that to even be an option. "Nope. Besides, what kind of adventure would this be if we didn't get hurt a little?" He smiled at Sam, then sat up, deepening his voice slightly. "Blonde Chameleon, it looks like the fall allowed you to escape the Evil Fox's clutches, but we still need a way to defeat him for good!"
Sam's happy expression instantly reappeared. "What do you suggest, Nightbird?"
"Hmmm..." Great, now he actually had to think of something. He glanced around the room and impulsively grabbed one of the markers that had been knocked to the floor. "Like this!" He got to his knees before Sam could react, grabbing his head to force him still.
"What are you doing?" Sam managed to squirm away, but not before Blaine had drawn a giant Harry Potter scar across his forehead. And then, just because he was already being impulsive, he'd added a lopsided heart like the one they'd found on the underside of the desk.
"It's a spell," Blaine said, waving the marker at Sam. "I'm using my magic wand here to enchant you so that the Evil Fox will be destroyed if he ever tries to possess you again."
Sam raised his eyebrows but went with it, just like Blaine had thought that he would. "Do you think it will work? AAAHH!" Sam let out a high-pitched yell, waving his head back and forth and wiggling his fingers next to his head to signify... something. Quite frankly, Blaine wasn't sure what exactly what was going on. He was just glad that they were far enough from the dorms that nobody would overhear them. By the time Sam's dramatics were over, he was lying on his back with his eyes closed. "The Evil Fox is dead," he announced.
Blaine smirked. "At least until he comes back to life in the sequel."
Sam opened one eye. "Does that mean that we'll do this again?"
"Heck yes!" Blaine grinned and climbed to his feet, picking up the markers he'd knocked down as he did. "We'll probably be seniors and still playing Nightbird and Blonde Chameleon."
"Can we get costumes by then?" Sam asked, eyes lighting up. He really was adorable when he got excited.
"The best ones ever," Blaine promised. He pulled Sam to his feet, noticing something for the first time. "You forgot your cookies in the last classroom."
Sam just shrugged. "Forget them. They'll surprise Mr. Martins when he gets in later and finds them on his desk. Or under his desk. Wherever we left them. Anyway, it's not like they can be traced back to us."
Couldn't fault that logic. As they left the room, Sam said, "Seriously, though, this was the most fun I've had in a while. Stevie and Stacey are awesome, but you've got to be careful when you play with them because they're so little. Plus, kids their age don't really have the best imaginations. At least what you came up with made some sense. Stacey probably would've announced that we had all gotten flushed down a toilet and ended up in the Mermaid Land or something."
Blaine watched him out of the corner of his eye. "What's it like taking care of your siblings so much?" he asked. In all the time they'd known each other, Sam had never said a bad word about anyone in his family, but Blaine could sometimes hear something in his voice that suggested that he wasn't as happy about it as he let on. He'd never known if he should say anything about it or not, but after talking about Cooper, Blaine figured they were at the point where they could ask these things.
Sam seemed to know what Blaine was getting at, because he didn't give his normal stock answer about how much he loved his siblings. Instead, he thought about it for a minute, then admitted, "It was exhausting. And super annoying. They wanted me to play with them all the time, and I would, because it'd be a good distraction from the fact that Mom and Dad could never be around. But they'd go on forever. As in, some of them lasted hours, but I didn't want to be a bad big brother and force them to stop. And it was every day. I wanted to spend time with friends, you know? But I couldn't tell my parents that, because then they'd feel guilty for forever even though they didn't get to pick their work hours."
Blaine wasn't sure what to say, so he reached up and squeezed Sam's shoulder. Sam gave him a tight smile in return.
"I just needed to tell that to someone," he said. "You know the feeling when something is tearing you up inside, and the only way to fix it is to let it out?"
They'd reached the Warbler rehearsal room by now. Blaine hurried into it ahead of Sam, trying to ignore the implications of Sam's last statement. Blaine understood that feeling far too well.
"This is where we first met, remember?" Sam asked. Blaine nodded. Sam wasn't a Warbler, but he'd stopped by to hang out with Jeff on the day of Blaine's audition. Blaine hadn't noticed him while he was singing, but he'd definitely saw him when Sam gave him a standing ovation, followed almost immediately by Wes. Blaine knew he hadn't been good enough to earn it; he'd been so scared of performing that they'd only been able to hear half of what he sang, and his voice had cracked twice during the times that they could hear him. In the end, the council had allowed him in because he had "potential". And, Blaine guessed, because Wes was on the council, and had forced the other two members into it. Not that Wes would ever confirm that.
This was also the place where Blaine had realized just how far he'd fallen for Sam. They'd been sitting here after a rehearsal, and Sam had laughed at one of Blaine's jokes. That was all. There hadn't been a big, emotional scene. Just a quiet moment, one of the millions that they'd shared, but for some reason it made Blaine think, oh, I love you.
He hadn't said it out loud then, obviously. But he was tempted to say it now.
"I'm gay."
This wasn't how he'd planned on coming out. Actually, Blaine had never planned on coming out, ever. But Sam was right about just needing to say some things before they destroyed you.
"Okay," Sam said.
No questions, no judgment, not even some dramatic declaration that he'd like Blaine no matter what. Just simple acceptance, like it didn't even matter. That, more than anything else, was what made Blaine keep talking.
"I was bullied at my old school," he confessed, ducking his head like it was some shameful secret. It shouldn't be; Blaine was well aware that this wasn't his fault, and that there was nothing he could have done to avoid it short of completely hiding the things that made him who he was. But it still felt like he had something to be embarrassed about, like it was somehow a judge of his worth.
Sam sat down on the couch, the same seat he'd been in that first day, and patted the seat next to him for Blaine to join him. Blaine did, moving slowly, as if part of him expected Sam to jump up and run away at any moment.
"Tell me about it," Sam said.
And, for some reason, Blaine did.
He hadn't been able to an hour ago, when they were talking about Cooper. And he definitely hadn't been able to all those weeks ago, the first time Sam had tentatively asked if there was anything he could do to help. But now, the stories came flooding out. Locker shoves, slurs, the posts on facebook telling him to kill himself. The times he almost considered it. A million moments. The dozens of times he had sneaked off to the bathroom to cry, and the one time that the football team had caught him sobbing hysterically and thought it was the best joke in the world.
Sam made some comments, mostly sympathetic ones mixed with a few threats about what he'd do to those guys if he ever met them. But mostly he was silent, his eyes never leaving Blaine's face so that he knew Sam was listening intently, but not interrupting. That was good. Blaine wasn't looking for advice or sympathy or worse, pity. He just needed to get it out.
Finally, Blaine told him about the dance.
It had been stupid. A great big "Fuck you" to everyone who tormented him. He'd known the whole time that it wouldn't end well, that this would make the bullying escalate. And part of him had wanted that. His parents weren't around, his teachers didn't care, his brother was too selfish to notice. Blaine wanted it to get worse, to turn into something that they'd be forced to see, to be left with bruises that they couldn't ignore.
So in the middle of a random song, Blaine had made out with his date. On the dance floor. With everyone watching them. And gotten kicked out of the dance for inappropriate behavior, which was why they were the only ones in the parking lot while they waited for his date's dad to pick them up.
Blaine had gotten his wish. He just hadn't thought that it would hurt this much.
"I understand why you did it," Sam said quietly. "You shouldn't have had to, and I'm not saying it was a good thing. But it makes sense, in a way. And I am so, so sorry."
That was when Blaine started crying, and it was a long time before he stopped. Sam didn't say a word, just hugged him and offered his shoulder as a tissue.
Finally, Blaine sat back, rubbing the last of the tears from his eyes. "That was probably more than you counted on when you said you wanted me to talk."
"Maybe," Sam said. "But thank you." When Blaine gave him a weird look, he continued, "I know how much it means that you told me all this. So seriously, thank you that I'm the one you trust with this. And more than that, thank you for talking about it with someone, 'cause I know you needed to, and it's been worrying me."
That was almost enough to make Blaine start crying again, but he held off. One embarrassing water works display was enough for one night. "What time is it?" he asked instead.
Sam checked his watch. "Almost five. We should probably go to bed, see if we can grab an hour of sleep before breakfast."
Sleep sounded heavenly. After everything that had happened that night, Blaine was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. An hour of sleep wouldn't be nearly enough, but it would have to do.
"I'll walk you to your door," Sam offered. "I want to avoid my room for as long as possible."
"Of course," Blaine agreed. "You sure you don't want to crash in my room for the hour?"
Sam shook his head. "Jeff and Nick will be done by now – if they're not, then they have ridiculous stamina and probably aren't even human. I'll just sleep in my own bed, and then it'll get super awkward when they wake up naked and realize that I'm in the room with them."
They walked back to his room in silence. "Thanks for an awesome night," Sam said as Blaine started to enter his room. He waved once, then turned away.
It would be too easy to let him keep going. But Blaine had admitted some of his worst secrets tonight, and Sam hadn't left him or looked disgusted. Blaine felt brave. More than that, he was done with being ashamed.
"Sam," he called. His hand clenched around the doorknob, but he wasn't going to back down.
Sam turned and walked back to Blaine. "Yeah?"
"I like you."
There it was. The last secret he'd been hiding. It was amazing how freeing it felt, like nothing was holding him down. No matter how Sam responded, Blaine would still have this feeling. It would be worth it.
"I know," Sam said. "I've known all year. The way you kept staring at my lips wasn't exactly subtle."
Blaine flushed, his shoulders instinctively hunching, already trying to protect himself from whatever would come next. But Sam didn't say anything more. After a moment, Blaine asked, "Wait, you knew all along? And you still wanted to be my friend?"
Blaine didn't even see Sam move, but the next thing he knew, Sam had pulled him into a bone-crushing embrace. "You're my best friend," he whispered, then stepped back and gave a little wave. "See you at breakfast." Then he walked off, like there was nothing more to say. And, really, there wasn't.
Sam knew, and he wasn't upset. He knew, he'd always known, and yet he hadn't had a single problem with sharing a bed or staying out all night together.
Blaine went to bed feeling lighter than he ever remembered feeling before.
There is going to be a sequel to this story, called "One Chance". It will be posted under the Blaine and Copper tags, though. If you want to read it, make sure to follow me (not this story), because otherwise you might not see it.