I
"We were talking—about the space between us all and the people—who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion. Never glimpse the truth—then it's far too late—when they pass away." -Within You, Without You
It's stifling sometimes to be the son of Bill Anderson.
It's easy, in a way, because there's no mystery. Blaine's been told from the time he was old enough to walk where his life was destined to go. The same place his father's had. The same place Cooper's had. Blaine was destined to be the next in a long line of Andersons to be work at the family law practice. (The oh-so-aptly named Anderson and Anderson's Law Office.)
If you ask Blaine, that's a whole lot of Andersons.
Sometimes, he wants to forget that he's an Anderson (from the long, prestigious line of Andersons, he's been told.) and just be Blaine.
In short, he just doesn't want it. The power. The privilege. The anything.
But he knows it's exactly what's going to happen.
He's an Anderson, and Andersons are well-respected men who sit at the top of the ladder. They are cool and collected, and they most certainly do not engage in frivolous activities such as singing or dancing. Or at least, that's what Blaine's been told. Over and over and over again.
Even now, as he watches his father lift his glass in a toast to whichever member of the firm had made partner this month, he feels the knot of his tie pressing against his throat, choking and suffocating him as he watches the scene play out like a twisted glimpse into his own future. There is light party chatter and the clinking of glasses, just a typical occasion at the Westerville Country Club, but tonight for some reason, it's worse. And Blaine just has to get out to clear his head.
He yanks at the knot on his tie, desperately trying to alleviate some of the constricting pressure on his throat, and takes a deep breath of fresh air. It's warm in the way an early June evening normally is. The sun is just going down over the horizon, and he thinks that maybe it might be beautiful, were he in any state to enjoy it.
Instead, he just walks, letting his mind wander as he focuses on the steady rhythm of his feet on the sidewalk, carrying him toward wherever they're carrying him. It doesn't matter. As long as it's away.
It turns out that away is a park at the end of the block. It's mostly empty, save for a few people passing through, and Blaine takes it as his first stroke of luck that evening and drops down heavily onto a bench with a sigh, his head lolling back as he squeezes his eyes shut and wills his mind to just stop racing for just one second so that he can catch his breath.
It's not normally this difficult, but lately, with graduation looming and his father breathing down his neck to apply to Princeton, ("They've got the best law school in the country, Blaine, and you're a shoo in since your grandfather and I went there. Cooper got in on a free ride.") little moments of peace are hard to come by.
Usually, the little moments come after his family goes to bed and he's able to lie on the floor with his headphones on and listen to his stereo. He'd actually stopped at the record shop on his way home from school today to pick up the new Beatles record. He had to sneak it into the house in his backpack, but he managed to tuck it under his mattress right before his father came in to tell him to get dressed for the party so he hadn't even gotten a chance to listen to it yet. (If his father had seen it, he would have taken it. Citing, "I don't want this filling your head with nonsense, Blaine." as his reason before taking the record away, just as he had so many others.)
"Hey, man. What's the matter?"
Blaine feels himself jump at the sound of a voice so close, and his eyes fly open to see the concerned face of a tall sandy blond boy who looks not much older than himself. "Excuse me?"
The tall blond laughs and gestures inquiringly toward the empty spot on the bench and Blaine nods. "You look awful down for someone who's dressed so sharp," the stranger points out as he sits down beside Blaine. Even in the dim streetlights that line the path running through the park, Blaine can see the bright green of the boy's eyes and the warm, genuinely concerned, smile on his face. "What are you doing here?"
Blaine rallies and straightens up, unwilling to offer up his life story to a stranger. "I could ask you the same question," he deflects politely. His response is met by another quiet laugh from the stranger.
"My friend and I come here every night to watch the sunset from under that tree, and we noticed you sitting here. You looked really sad, so he said I should come over and ask you what's wrong," the boy says, shrugging.
Now that Blaine knows what he's looking for, he actually does see another boy sitting on the grass, leaning against a tree almost out of eyesight, so he nods. "There's nothing wrong…" He trails off at the politely reprimanding expression on the boy's face and lets out a breath. "My dad is having a party at the country club for a guy who made partner at his law firm and I had to get out of there."
"Ooh, a rich boy," the stranger says with a teasing lilt, and Blaine can't help the small smile that lifts the corner of his lips. "Well, this must be my lucky day."
"I'm not rich. My father is," Blaine points out, still smiling lightly.
"I know how that goes. My old man is some big wig lawyer, too." He waves his hand dismissively before holding it out toward Blaine. "Sebastian Smythe."
Blaine takes his hand and gives it a firm shake. "Blaine Anderson."
A crooked smile touches Sebastian's face and he releases Blaine's hand to gesture over his own shoulder toward where his friend is sitting. "Well, Blaine Anderson, you wanna come sit with us? The sun's almost down, but you look like you could use some company."
Blaine lets his eyes stray to where Sebastian is gesturing, seeing a boy watching them intently, so he nods. "Alright. That'd be cool."
He shoves his hands in his pockets and follows Sebastian in silence, standing awkwardly when Sebastian drops down beside his friend and wraps an arm around his waist in a way that seems to speak to a familiarity that extends beyond friendship. All at once, Blaine feels his face heat up and he's glad to have the cover of relative darkness to hide his blush.
"Kurt, this is Blaine Anderson," Sebastian introduces, stretching out his legs and looking up toward Blaine. "Blaine, this is my very good friend, Kurt Hummel."
Kurt smiles and leans closer into Sebastian's side, his head falling to rest on Sebastian's shoulder as he extends a hand toward Blaine.
"Friend?" Blaine squeaks, the question coming out before Blaine even has a chance to filter it. He kicks himself as he grimaces and reaches the small distance to shake Kurt's hand, sure that he's just managed to piss off the two boys, but Kurt just laughs, the sound high, soft, and alight with amusement.
"Why don't you sit down and join us, Blaine Anderson?" Kurt suggests, pointedly ignoring Blaine's question in a way Blaine is sure is just to let him off the hook, so he mumbles out his thanks as he sits down. "You look very nice."
"He's dressed for a party at the country club," Sebastian says, pulling Kurt closer and pressing a careless kiss to his temple. Kurt seems to glow at the affection, and Blaine can't help but feel a little dizzy at the way Kurt's smile hits him like a wrecking ball.
"Oh, really," Kurt asks, sounding intrigued. "What's that like? My dad was never rich enough to get in there, and Seb ran away before he was ever invited to his first party."
"It's alright," Blaine says with a shrug, his eyes falling to his lap as the memory of light, forced laughter and oppressive formality returns.
"If it's 'alright', then why are you here instead of there?" Kurt asks.
"I just had to get away for a little while. It's—It's a lot sometimes," Blaine offers, unsure why he can't seem to stop himself. "It's just not my scene, really."
Sebastian looks up toward Blaine's face. "What is your scene, Blaine Anderson?"
Blaine opens his mouth to speak, though he's unsure of exactly what he's going to say. He closes it just as quickly. Honestly, he has no idea what his scene is. All he can offer is a quiet, "I don't know, but it's not that."
"Look, the stars are coming out," Kurt says. Blaine's head spins with the sudden change in conversation, but he finds himself looking up. "I love this park, because it's just far enough away from the city that you can see the stars."
When he looks back down, he sees Kurt still staring up at the sky, but he catches Sebastian's eye as they both watch Kurt. Sebastian's eyes are bright with affection for Kurt, and he nods toward Blaine with a smile as he tightens his arm around Kurt's waist and kisses the top of his head.
He can't help but feel envious of their relationship, whatever it is. He's never exactly struggled with his own sexuality, but it has been his best kept secret for almost five years. He knows that if word got back to his father, he'd be disowned and disinherited. (Not that the latter matters much to Blaine.)
"Do you have a boyfriend, Blaine?"
Kurt's voice startles Blaine and he almost chokes on a breath in his haste to answer. "No!"
"I'm sorry, I thought you were—"
"He is, babe," Sebastian interjects in a quiet reprimand. "He just hasn't come out yet."
Blaine suddenly feels like he's choking again. "How did you know?" He looks around quickly to make sure no one's around. Thankfully, the park is well and truly empty except for them. "I can't—"
"Relax, Blaine," Sebastian soothes. "Kurt and I wouldn't tell anyone. We're not like that."
"Nope," Kurt adds, shaking his head.
Blaine swallows thickly. "But, how—how did you know?"
"Well, aside from the fact that I just caught you looking at Kurt like he belongs in a museum…" Sebastian says, smirking. Blaine flushes crimson and casts his eyes to his lap. Sebastian's voice sobers slightly as he finishes. "You just look a lot like I did before I told anyone."
"I do?" He looks up to see Sebastian nodding, and there's a sympathetic glint to Kurt's soft eyes.
"Yeah, you look lost and kinda like you want to scream."
"That's kinda how I feel. Lost and want to scream," Blaine mutters, mainly to himself. He jumps a little when he feels a hand slide into his own and he looks up to see Kurt smiling at him.
"You don't have to feel that way, honey. You've got us now," he says brightly, and even though he's only known the pair for about twenty minutes, he can't help but feel a sense of relief wash over him, because maybe he's not alone.
Blaine smiles at that thought, and it's the first time he's honest to god smiled in so long, but of course, Kurt has already changed the subject to something new, so Blaine just lets himself get swept up in the stream of consciousness.
"Yeah, I ran away when I was sixteen, right after I met Kurt, actually," Sebastian says by way of answering Blaine's question. "My dad caught us together one night fooling around in the back of my car, back when I had one, and blew a gasket."
"Did he hit you?" Blaine asks incredulously. God, if his father ever caught Blaine in the backseat with a guy, he'd be toast.
"Nah," Sebastian dismisses, shrugging. "He just started yelling about Jesus, so Kurt and I got out of there before he could get the holy water."
Kurt was smiling as Sebastian explained, so Blaine figures it couldn't have been all that bad. "Where did you go?"
"My dad took him in," Kurt answers. "But he's been really sick lately, so Seb and I got our own place a few months ago. We didn't want him to worry about supporting us."
"You guys have your own place?" Blaine asks, feeling the wave of envy wash over him again.
"Yeah," Sebastian nods. "It's not much, but we're trying to save up as much cash as we can. We want to move to San Francisco. Kurt wants to see the Haight, but I just want to get the hell out of Ohio."
Blaine feels a bit dumbstruck by that. "Why do you want to go there? I mean, I get wanting to get out of Ohio, but why not New York?"
Kurt's face lights up. "Because San Francisco is where it's all happening. The music, the people. Everything. It's all there. There's nothing here except people with no respect for each other."
"My dad says that's stupid," Blaine says absently.
"It's not stupid, Blaine. It's people loving and caring for each other," Sebastian says, his voice a bit more serious than Blaine's heard it so far.
Blaine just shrugs. "I know. My dad says it's just hippie nonsense."
Kurt laughs softly at that and takes Blaine's hand again. "And how do you feel about it?"
"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I've never really thought about it. I just kinda do what he tells me. It's easier that way."
"You'll never be happy like that." Sebastian is shaking his head. "Believe me, I know."
"I like you, Blaine. Has anyone ever told you before that you're absolutely beautiful?" Kurt asks, his voice a little dreamy in a way that Blaine is beginning to find himself falling for. He just shakes his head. "Well they should, because you are."
"T-Thanks," Blaine says lamely.
Kurt just smiles and stretches out until he's resting between Sebastian's legs, leaning back against his chest. He tilts his head toward the sky and Blaine is suddenly aware that Kurt has actually laced their fingers together. "What do you think is up there?"
"Up where?" Blaine asks, tipping his head back to peer up at the stars, vaguely aware of Sebastian's hand coming to rest on his shoulder.
"Up there," Kurt says, pointing toward the sky.
"Oh, uh, I don't know. Stars and planets and stuff, I guess," Blaine offers.
Kurt hums in acknowledgment and leans further into Sebastian as they lapse into silence just staring up at the sky. There's an easy sort of camaraderie among them and before long, Blaine finds himself stretched out on the grass with his head resting against Sebastian's leg as Kurt's fingers card through his hair.
It's strangely freeing to be sharing such an intimate moment with Kurt and Sebastian. He feels almost like he might, at least for the moment, be part of whatever fluid relationship the boys share, and he can't help but feel a pang of preemptive loss at the idea of going back to the party.
So, he just lets himself enjoy the moment, staring up at the endless sky and feeling almost free for the first time in his life.
"Blaine?" Sebastian prompts softly, his fingers tracing idle patterns across the top of Blaine's arm over his sleeve. Blaine just hums in acknowledgment and Sebastian continues. "What is it you want to do? You said your dad's a lawyer, but you don't strike me as the lawyer type."
"Does it matter?" Blaine asks. His voice sounds bitter even to himself.
Kurt sits up straight and he looks almost affronted. "Of course it matters, Blaine. It's your life. You should be able to live it however you want."
"What do you want to do, Blaine? Not what your father wants you to do or what you think you should do. What do you want to do?" Sebastian asks, his voice intense and concerned in a way that Blaine isn't quite used to. He's not accustomed to people showing much concern for his own wishes.
He's not exactly prepared with his answer, but he finds himself blurting out, "I just want to make art and help people."
And Kurt nearly breaks Sebastian's leg climbing over it to get to Blaine. "That's beautiful, Blaine!" He throws his arms around Blaine's neck and hugs him tightly. "I knew it! I bet you play piano. And your voice is amazing, so I bet you sing like a dream…"
"Babe," Sebastian laughs. "I think you're scaring him."
Kurt throws a narrowed-eyed look toward Sebastian before Sebastian laughs and wraps his arms around Kurt's waist to pull him back into his lap. Kurt lets out an indelicate huff as he lands, but Sebastian soothes with a kiss to his temple before turning to Blaine and nodding. "Then that's what you should do. Don't let your dad tell you how to live your life when he seems so dead set on making you live the life he wants you to live."
"What do I—"
"You're not going to change his mind, Blaine. He's going to be the way he is no matter what, so the best thing you can do is just be confident in your own path and tell him that you're not going to do what he wants you to do," Sebastian says seriously.
Blaine sighs and nods. "I know you're right, but I just—He's my dad, y'know, and I don't want to let him down."
"So you're going to let yourself down?" Kurt says. It's not so much a question as an accusation, and Blaine just sighs again.
"I should be getting back," Blaine says sadly, because, god, he really doesn't want to leave.
Kurt nods and turns to rifle through a messenger bag beside him, pulling out a pencil and a scrap of paper. "If you ever need anything, or just want to talk, call us, okay? I mean it. Even if you just want to come over and hang out for awhile."
Blaine takes the slip of paper and tucks it into his pocket. "Thanks, guys. I really—I really needed this tonight."
"Don't thank us, Blaine. That's what we're here for," Sebastian says with a smile. Blaine returns it, and Sebastian shakes his head lightly. "God, Kurt was right. You really are beautiful, aren't you?"
Blaine flushes and looks down. "I-I'll see you around."
"Goodbye, Blaine," Kurt and Sebastian say together.
Blaine loses himself in thought on his way back, but for the first time in god knows how long, not a single thought is spared for his father or Princeton. He just stares up at the sky and wonders what lies beyond the stars. He feels small, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and he wonders if maybe that's why Kurt spends so much time staring up at the sky. It has a way of making all of his problems seem much smaller.
"Blaine! Where have you been? Your mother was ready to leave an hour ago!" His father's stern voice cuts through the silence of the night, but he can't find it in himself to feel as intimidated as he normally would.
Instead he just shrugs and offers a disingenuous, "Sorry," before climbing in the back of his father's car.
He slips his hand in his pocket and pulls out the scrap of paper. Even though he can't read the numbers in the dark confines of the car, the paper still feels like a promise somehow. He reaches into his back pocket and takes out his wallet, tucking the slip of paper into one of the credit card pockets and returning the wallet to his pocket.
The entire ride home, he watches the sky through his window, smiling softly at the stars that suddenly feel like an escape and letting his mind drift for the first time in god knows how long.
By the time he gets home from the party, he's exhausted, the entire night crashing down on him at once. The stifling atmosphere of the party and the almost surreal meeting with Kurt and Sebastian. When me makes it into his room, It's all he can do to strip down to his boxers and fall into bed. He's out cold before his head hits the pillow.
When Blaine wakes up the next morning, the sun is just barely above the horizon and he lies in bed contemplating the ceiling until the orangish light filtering through his curtains has long since started casting beams of yellow sunlight across the floor, creating prisms of color through the glass to reflect on the carpet. He heaves a sigh and finally climbs out of bed.
As he crosses the hallway to the bathroom, he can tell he's alone. The silence of the house is unbroken by any of the sounds that usually accompany typical morning tasks. No rustling of a newspaper or the quiet click-thump of a coffee cup being set on the table.
Just silence. Oppressive and choking in the same way the monotonous chatter of the party had been.
The sound of the toilet flushing echoes deafeningly through the dead house and Blaine feels his skin crawl. Life shouldn't be this quiet. Life is loud—music and laughter.
But there is no music in the Anderson house and there is most certainly no laughter. Such things are frivolous and people who waste their time on frivolous things will never succeed.
Not for the first time, Blaine finds himself questioning the importance of success, wondering if its worth the price he has to pay. Music is his voice, his release, his soul, and nothing could possibly be worth selling his soul.
He closes his bedroom door behind himself and does a quick job of getting dressed, throwing on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before crossing over to his bed and sliding the hastily stowed album from between the mattress and box spring, flipping it in his hands to see the front of the sleeve and stare at the strangely captivating and macabre image there, losing himself for a moment trying to put names to all the faces in the black and white and sepia crowd before shaking himself from his reverie and putting the record on the turntable. He stretches out on the floor as the music starts.
The sound of excited party chatter drifts from the speakers before a bass kicks in, accentuated by a high guitar flourish, and Blaine is immediately captivated, sure he's never heard anything quite like this before in his life, the rough, strained vocals and the driving bass.
He gets absolutely lost in the intricacies of the music, the psychedelic sound of the third song and the vivid imagery painted by the lyrics. ("The girl with kaleidoscope eyes…") He listens to that song twice, sure he missed something the first time through.
The aggression in the fourth song interests him along with the jarring guitar that carries over to the next song.
But the sixth song stops him dead. By the end, he's crying, moved to tears by the lyrics. The longing and determination to escape, coupled with the self-centered martyr parents… It hit's him like a train.("Fun is the one thing that money can't buy…")
"Blaine!" His father's voice makes him jump to his feet and spin toward the door to see the man's furious face. He stabs a finger in the direction of the record player. "What in the hell is that?!"
Blaine opens his mouth to speak but is immediately silenced by a hard slap to the face.
"What did I tell you about bringing this trash into my house?!" His father wrenches the record off the turntable and Blaine flinches at the sound of vinyl snapping. He's sure it echoes the sound of his own heart, the pain in his cheek matching the pain in his chest. "No son of mine is going to waste his time on—"
"It's not a waste of time!" He's not sure what possessed him to say it but it stops his father cold and Blaine watches rage twist the man's face before he feels a fist collide with his eye.
Blaine says nothing, ignoring the pain blooming high on his cheek and the humiliated tears threatening to fall, and does his best to stride out the door with his dignity.
Tom's diner is only a mile or so down the road, so he heads there, figuring it's just as good of a place as any to hang out and let the heat die down. It's once he actually makes it inside that he spots the payphone by the door.
While the diner is as good of a place as any, he can think of someplace better. He drops a dime on the call and waits for an answer. Finally, after a couple rings, he gets one.
"Hey, Kurt, it's Blaine. I need a place to lay low for a little while. Can I come over?"
A/N: So, I needed to start another WiP like I need a hole in my head, but this verse just wouldn't wait, so apparently, 1960s Sebklaine is a thing that is going to happen whether I like it or not. This is all plotted out and will be four parts. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I like writing it, because I'm pretty sure that writing hippie!Kurt and beat!Sebastian is my new favorite thing ever. :) I would love to know what you guys think!
