AN: Hi lovelies! This is (obviously) a re-upload of my fanfiction, Dirty Silver Spoon. (My pen name was g00btana, is now lilacfumes.) It got such good rapport the last time, which I must thank you for, I decided to put it back up again and see if I can muster the inspiration to continue with chapter five! It's the same story as before, but the later chapters will obviously include some mention of the infamous Cooper. I would definitely appreciate some overall R&R, thank you!
dirty silver spoon
chapter one | the big switch-a-roo begins
"So, just to clarify," a girl with thick, dark hair curling wildly around her shoulders said, leaning against the wrought iron of a four poster bed, "You're about to justify moving from a top-notch boarding school to a public high school for your senior year... how, exactly?"
Blaine Anderson pulled his navy and red piped school tie from his neck in a drawn-out, lazy movement while his little sister regarded him with a look of sheer confusion.
"That's the part I haven't figured out yet," he said, popping open the first button of his crisp white shirt, "But I will, trust me."
"Oh, I trust you plenty," Lelaina Anderson said, slapping both hands of the bottom bar of Blaine's bed, "If ever there was a great BS'er, it's you, Blainey-babe. Honestly. Just... I hate to be the voice of crotchety reason here, but you don't think you're taking this a little too far?"
Blaine's dark eyes rolled back into his head and he sighed heavily. Lelaina instantly regretted opening her mouth – a little known fact about Blaine was, if you said the wrong thing, it could instantly turn him sour. This was the first actual conversation they'd had in weeks, since the whole act of going back to school had taken up most of their time. She hated to put her elder brother in a sulk, but she couldn't help but be realistic.
"You mean how seriously do I take this relationship?" Blaine asked, tone serious.
"Well, yeah," Lelaina nodded, "You know as well as I that who you're with when you're seventeen years old most likely isn't going to be who you're with forever."
She could see Blaine pursing his lips. In a swift panic, she interrupted with, "No, no, no! Look, I'm on your side here, I really just think you're going to need more reason than that to sway Mom and Dad."
There was a slight pause, in which the silence was positively pregnant. It made Lelaina's skin crawl.
Finally, Blaine shrugged. "There's nothing for me at Dalton anymore."
Now it was Lelaina's turn to roll her eyes.
"Yep, okay, fine," she said. Letting go of the bed and turning to leave the room, she called, "Don't forget, I need you to drive me to that... thingy at eight, alright?"
"Sounds ambiguous; what's in it for me?"
Lelaina grinned wolfishly. "Brownie points from Daddy."
If you were to ask her, Lelaina Anderson would, by no means admit that it was a pressure living with a brother like Blaine. She'd call him all manner of names – a twerp, a nerd, a total dork. A goody-goody. All of which were true. But she'd never admit how hard it was to live up to the standard that he set.
He was a straight A student. He had perfect attendance. He was the figurehead of the Warblers, which meant he was popular. He was pretty much an all-around nice kid, considering what he'd been through.
Lelaina, however, was so average, she was in danger of sinking to a sub-average level. She was a sophomore at Crawford, Dalton's sister school. Her grades were acceptable, although they sometimes fluctuated. She'd been caught bunking off school a couple of times, and was also a master of the 'faux-sickness' routine. Something most significant about her scholastic reputation was she had no friends. Not a one.
The other girls knew her because of her brother's notoriety. He was dreamy, but played for the other team. Somehow, this made them bitter toward Lelaina, as if it were her fault that he was gay. She was subject to a little teasing, a little belittling, but generally let it fly over her head. When she was forced to go into school, she just... got on with it.
However, sometimes the comparisons couldn't be ignored. Especially from her mother.
This Friday night in question, which in future Lelaina supposed she would dub 'The Big Switch-a-roo' or something just as corny, she was set for an engagement in a bar downtown. To make it a little easier on her family, Lelaina did a wondrous job of pretending she had friends. The lies and the fake names, they just rolled off her tongue. But what she was really doing when she was supposed to be 'grabbing a snack with her girlfriends' was examining the wildlife that was nightlife in Lima, Ohio.
Naturally, she was disappointed – it wasn't the kind of town that really came alive at night. Just drunk teenagers and dive bars. Such dive bars, however, gave way to her stumbling into an open mic session one stormy night. Next thing she knew, Lelaina had been getting calls to do semi-regular bar gigs with a semi-talented backing band.
Her parents wouldn't approve if they knew, and Blaine was sure to tell if he did, so it was her own little secret.
She was like Hannah Montana, but less potentially cracky.
As she returned from Blaine's room, she threw off her Crawford uniform and pulled on a white tank top and a pair of high waisted purple shorts, Lelaina caught her reflection in the mirror. Stepping over to the illuminated reflection, she brushed some hair out of her face. Considering she was the lesser of the two goodies in the family, she figured that she was doing alright for herself.
I mean, she was relatively happy. She couldn't ask for more.
Unlike Blaine... whose puppy-love, she was sure, was going to get him into some kind of trouble. She could ask herself, how could he possibly ask their parents to transfer him for his senior year to a school that turned out more dropouts than graduates when he was in one of the top rated schools in Ohio?
Knowing Blaine, he'd get his way. If he didn't, they'd never live it down.
Exhaling heavily, she grabbed a bottle of foundation from her dressing table and dabbed a little on her t-zone. A dash of eyeliner later, and she was good to go.
"Blaine!" she called, stomping down the hallway to his room, "Come on, shake your damn tailfeather! This lady has places to be!"
Hammering on his door several times, Lelaina only stopped when it swung open partly due to the force.
"Look, Kurt, I... I don't know, she doesn't think it's that important? And maybe it is kind of a ridiculous step, I mean, we can make time for each other, right?" Blaine was whispering into the phone – voice shaking.
Lelaina froze, her hand in midair. She silently stepped out of the view of the doorway. She didn't like the way his voice sounded – not at all.
"No! No," Blaine hissed in exclamation, "Don't do this to me, Kurt, please... I've got enough on my mind as it is. No, I do think it's worth the effort! I just don't think my parents would appreciate... No! That's not what I meant... Please. Kurt? Kurt!"
Lelaina's top teeth clamped down on her bottom lip. She guessed that from Blaine's exasperated moan that Kurt had hung up on him, and that the conversation that preceded such a dramatic action was not one of the most pleasant they'd ever had.
"Blaine?" she said quietly, poking her head around the door frame, "Everything ok-"
"Jesus, Laina, just give me a second!" he yelled from inside the bedroom, causing her to jump.
Lelaina did the thoughtful thing and didn't bother him any further. Setting off down the cream carpeted stairs, she considered the situation at hand. From what she could piece from the snippets she heard, Kurt was getting almost clingy about Blaine transferring. So, this wasn't a one-sided thing. This was a plot.
Lelaina had only met Kurt once, and it was a very brief 'hi how are you' ordeal. It seemed that, even though Blaine was so serious as to transfer to another school for this kid, he still wasn't confident in his admittedly open-minded sister meeting him. That set a tone of sketchiness as far as Lelaina was concerned. She only hoped he wasn't as bad as her judgement was allowing him to be.
As she hit the bottom step, she heard the unmistakably gruff tone of her father emitting the famous words, "Take a jacket."
"Before you go anywhere, take a jacket," they said in unison, as Lelaina had heard the very same words a thousand times before. Plucking her mock letterman jacket in vibrant yellow and black from the coat rack in the hallway, she considered how Blaine's asking to transfer would go down.
By the look of their father's dark furrowed brow, it wouldn't happen so splendidly tonight. She would warn him, if she didn't think that Blaine would absolutely murder her over it.
Instead, Lelaina walked over to the computer chair where her father sat, squinting at some squiggly charts on Microsoft Excel.
"What if," she said, "hypothetically, I were in Siberia, where the weather would be so unbelievably hot that if I were to take a jacket I would a, die from wearing it or b, die from having that great weight on my arm, dragging my fine self down in such hellish heat? Would you still tell me to take a jacket, Pa?"
"Always," her dad said simply. He was a man of little words.
Lelaina nodded. "Understandable," she said, "At least you're consistent. Where's Mom?"
"Out."
"How mysterious."
"Shopping. Or something."
"Ah," she said, hearing footsteps pounding down the stairs. Blaine jumped off the last few steps. "Alright, well, I'm going out. I'll be back at a reasonably sane time."
"Are you going too?" the question was obviously directed toward Blaine.
"You has a name," Blaine responded somewhat snappily.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Lelaina stepped in between them, "No need for any of that. C'mon."
Blaine, dressed in scruffy old jeans and a CBGB shirt, slammed the door rather violently behind them. Lelaina head the mail slot's little metal door rattle from the sheer force.
"Blaine!" she scolded, "Just... don't. I know you're angry, but don't."
Yanking open the driver's door of his Clio, he replied, "And how would you know that? Eavesdropping outside my door again?"
"You know I can't say without saying yes," Lelaina said, sliding in the passenger door, "but yes. Pretty much. I mean... what's going on?"
"Just... a rough patch."
Little lights on the dashboard shone as he stuck the key into ignition. Only then did she realise he had tears in his eyes.
It's a hard thing, to see your older brother on the verge of crying. Especially in Lelaina's case. She felt that if she tried to sympathise with him, he'd shoot her down and claim she 'didn't know what it was like' because she was 'normal'. No matter how she'd try and tell him the truth, that he was just as normal, if not more, as she was, he'd just become more and more upset. And what added to it was the fact she was his little sister – it was demeaning to him, in a very tribal sense.
"He'll get over it," was all Lelaina could manage, in a short whisper.
"And if he doesn't?" Blaine challenged her sharply.
Lelaina's mouth simply flapped open and closed, at a loss of how to respond.
"It'll just be another thing I've screwed up."
From there on in, the car ride to the downtown area was a painfully silent ordeal.
Blaine and Lelaina generally got on quite well – by no means could they be classified as best-friend-siblings, but they could stand each other for the most part. But it was times like this, when there was a problem hanging in the air and neither of them knew how to get sensitive enough to talk it out... that's what made Lelaina's stomach turn, and probably Blaine's too.
Pulling up outside the Landing Strip on Delphos Avenue, Lelaina exhaled heavily, undoing her seatbelt. Popping open her door, she paused. She intended to say something reassuring and meaningful before disappearing for the night.
"Look, just... the toast is always brighter in the morning, okay?"
And that is what she came out with.
Lelaina stood in the doorway of the Strip and watched Blaine speed off. She just hoped he wouldn't do anything stupid.
Taking a deep breath, she shook herself right down to her fingertips. Whatever was going on, she had a policy that she daren't let it bug her onstage. It broke her focus. She was separated there, completely rootless.
Prep and soundcheck was always a huge blur – something that was probably helped by the average number of gin and tonics she was bought before each show, but everything became crisp and clear once she mounted that stage.
The instantly recognisable riff of Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode rang through the crowded bar and Lelaina pulled the greasy microphone stand toward her like a teasing lover.
"Deep down Louisiana, close to New Orleans, way back up in the woods among the evergreens," the husky purr curled from Lelaina's lips, "There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood, where lived a country boy named Johnny B Goode."
This was her stomping ground, and not a living soul knew.