When I see Blaine, I see him as someone with a past worse than Kurt's past and I see him wearing a mask to hide everyone from it. When I see Sam, I see him as vulnerable and willing to believe anyone. Put the two together and, well, we'll see.
Set a few months after Blaine transferred to Dalton, towards the end of his freshman year.
There it was again. It had gone up like a brick wall in front of the ocean, meant to block its view. However, the reality of it was different. Unlike with a brick wall covering the ocean from passerby's looks, it was still known that the ocean was behind it. It had been seen before and could still be seen if it was looked for hard enough. Behind the wall, the ocean still existed. Blaine had put a wall up that mirrored the brick wall protecting the ocean only too well. His emotions were hidden behind it.
Sam knew that Blaine was hiding something. He had seen the brief look that Blaine had before he put up his wall, put the mask on his face that was meant to keep everyone out. Sam knew that he was not supposed to see the brief look that Blaine had showed him. For a short second, Sam even considered pretending that he had missed it, if only to avoid the tears and the arguing that would come from the questions about why he had put the wall up again.
Again. If only it had been the first time that Sam had seen the wall, or mask, as he preferred to think about it as. Then he would have followed his first instinct to pretend that he missed the look. No, he knew that he couldn't pretend anymore. He had seen the look too many times before. It only came up when he mentioned the past to Blaine, as if there was something to hide. And every time in the past, Sam either pretended to have missed the look or he had put up a weak argument as to why he should be given an explanation, only to be told by Blaine that it was nothing to worry about. In the second scenario, Blaine always was quick to the point, never letting up any details that had no dyer need to be said, and he always left out anything personal.
Truth be told, it was making Sam extremely annoyed.
"Blaine…" Sam warned softly.
Blaine pulled his coffee up to his lips and took a quick drink of it. "Yes, Sam?" he asked, his tone just as normal as always. He placed the coffee down on the table and folded his hands together, looking in to Sam's eyes after his hands were secure together. He let out a small grin to try to reassure the boy opposite him but it did nothing to make him any more uneasy.
The dirty blonde boy fidgeted slightly in his seat, not enough for it to be noticed by Blaine. "Why did you come to Dalton?" he repeated his question, his voice slower than when he had asked it before, when the mask was not being worn.
This time, Blaine didn't miss a beat. His facial expression stayed in its masked form and his answer came right away, not too soon and not too late. His tone continued to be the same tone that he used in his every day conversations, calm and certain. "Dalton has great academics. We could afford the school. Why not come?" he replied, throwing in a small shrug to top it off. For anyone who did not know Blaine very well, the excuse would have been perfect. He had not even stuttered. Even Sam was slightly thrown off of his trail with the brief thoughts that maybe Blaine was not lying.
Blaine's eyes were blank, they told nothing. They never did. With most people, eyes could tell at least basic emotion. Their eyes could tell stories. They held tears and fears and they glistened in the sunlight and they reflected images back when they were looked in to. Blaine's eyes never did any of that. At least, no one ever saw them do any of that. Everyone who looked in to them always saw the same blank look that he was giving Sam at that moment.
They were careful eyes, eyes devoid of emotion and thought.
At that point, the blankness was getting to Sam. It was starting to feel empty and cold. He couldn't look anymore. The blonde boy blinked his eyes and looked down at the cup of hot chocolate in front of him. He never did like coffee.
"You're not telling me something," he said simply.
Blaine blinked his eyes, careful not to let up his guard. "Are you trying to say that Dalton academics aren't the top academics out there?" His mouth quirked in to a small, fake grin as he tried to hide everything from Sam.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Come on. Tell me." He returned the grin and reached across the table to slap Blaine's left shoulder with his hand.
"It's not important." Blaine untwined his fingers from each other and stood up. He lifted his coffee off the table and pushed his chair underneath in one swift motion. He was about already halfway to the door of the coffee shop that the two were sitting in when he heard the screech of a chair as it slid backwards. He made a point not to turn around to see who it was, already knowing that Sam was coming after him.
Blaine's hand was on the door handle when he felt something on his shoulder. He jumped up at the feeling and was about to bolt out of the door when the feeling became firmer. His eyes closed tightly as if he was waiting for anything to happen.
"Woah, Blaine, dude," Sam said. He retracted his hand from where it was on Blaine's shoulder and pushed his body in front of Blaine's to stop him from moving out any further. Sam's face was directly in front of Blaine's at that point. Blaine's face remained the neutral look that it had had throughout the entire coffee stop. "What?" he asked, seemingly unphased at what had just happened. Somewhere between when Sam had spoken and when Sam had put his body in front of Blaine's, his eyes had opened and he had returned his mask. Sam was too slow to even see the change out of it in the first place.
The shorter boy shrugged his shoulders. "Dude," he teased. "I'm heading back to my dorm."
Sam wasn't about to take that as an answer. "You jumped," he told Blaine. He raised an eyebrow slightly. Blaine shrugged his shoulders once more and opened the door behind Sam to leave. He ducked beneath Sam's arm and exited the coffee shop.
"Let's go to the gym," Sam blurted out before Blaine could get very far away from him.
Blaine turned around quickly at the suggestion. "What?" He laughed slightly and rose an eyebrow at his friend.
"Let's go to the gym," Sam repeated himself. He shrugged his shoulders and moved out of the doorway towards Blaine.
Blaine gave a somewhat questioning glance at Sam.
"No way am I missing my daily workouts for you, curly," Sam muttered just loud enough for Blaine to hear as he passed.
In silence, they took the ten minute walk back to Dalton. Sam and Blaine walked next to each other, Blaine staring only straight ahead and Sam watching the other boy carefully as they went. They were nearing the entrance gates when Sam began to run ahead of Blaine. "Meet you in the gym in ten! Be ready to work out!" he called behind him as he bolted up through the gates and through the intricate gardens until he was out of Blaine's sight. He wasn't about to let Blaine give him a 'no' for an answer.
Eleven minutes later, Sam was lifting up what Blaine thought to be a fairly large weight. Both of the boys had managed to change in to their gym clothes and Sam had insisted that Blaine try out the weights.
Blaine's weights, both of a small size compared to any weights, never mind the ones that Sam was using, slowly lifted up in the air and back down to Blaine's side, effortlessly.
Sam looked around the weight room that they were standing in. There was no sight of anyone else in it. Of course no one else would be in it. It was no later than eight on a Saturday morning. Most teenage boys would be asleep at that time. It was why he would always go to the gym early, to avoid the others.
Sam put his weights down on the rack and turned around to close the only door of the room. He leaned against it casually while Blaine watched him from the corner of his eye. Sam grinned as he noticed that he was being watched. "Alright, Blaine. Fess up."
The boy with the curly hair dropped the weights he had been holding and they landed on the mat beneath Blaine's feet with a soft thump. Blaine coughed nervously before bending down and picking up the weights again, his neutral face showing all too well to the other boy. "What are you talking about, Sam?"
"Put the mask down or I'll do it for you," Sam warned Blaine in the kindest voice he could muster while still trying to be intimidating. Blaine's eyes slowly began to shift to his feet. "What's up?" Sam began to make his way over to Blaine but Blaine backed up. Sam stopped in his tracks at the distraught boy in front of him.
"I told you, don't worry about it," Blaine reminded him. He blinked and held out another fake grin.