Title: Baby Steps
Author: Atolia
Rating: K+
Warnings: Mentions of upcoming episodes up to 4.11. Please keep in mind that this is a fic from Blaine's point of view. There will be some anger on his part directed at Kurt. I am not trying to justify his actions, these are just his thoughts.
Word Count: 3,009
Summary: Admitting you have a problem is the first step. Here are the other.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters. Nor do I make any profit from this story.
Ironically, it takes hitting rock bottom for anyone to see Blaine falling. And now that he's here, he has two choices: he can sit and wallow, or he can pick himself up and start the climb back up. He chooses the second, but, to be fair, starts out with the first. He spends the few days after Kurt visits like a zombie, wandering the halls without really knowing what's going on. He goes to glee, goes to class and goes to meetings, and he cannot honestly recall a single moment of it since Kurt left.
It's the poster that stops him. It's large and square, with the words "College Fair" in large letters at the top. It's right in front of the double doors to the parking lot, and Blaine's probably walked by it a hundred times before. He doesn't know why it suddenly stands out to him, but it fills him with a sense of panic. College. He's forgotten about college. He's a senior now. He's supposed to be collecting information, and asking for letters of recommendation, and oh god, he needs audition tapes if he wants to apply to a music program. Does he want to apply to a music program? Does he still want New York?
He probably looks like an idiot, standing there gaping at the sign, but he doesn't care. This is college that he's forgotten about. That he's been too preoccupied for. What else has he missed? Does he still have the grades to make it into whatever school he wants? What is he doing with his life? When did it start passing him by without him noticing it? The panic that rises in his throat threatens to strangle him. For the first time since freshman year, he feels overwhelmed, drowned in the possibilities of life ahead of him.
So he turns away from the doors and hurries down the hallway. When he gets to Ms. Pillsbury's office, he doesn't knock like he normally would, and just throws the door open. She starts, and looks up at him with wide eyes. Blaine knows he probably looks just as wild as his pounding heart makes him feel. He drops his bag to the floor of her office and looks her in the eyes.
"I need help."
And they both know he doesn't mean college.
XXX
Ms. Pillsbury is in no way capable of handling his sort of issues, so she puts Blaine in contact with a professional. It's hard going the first time, hard to admit that things are so bad that Blaine isn't able to fix them himself. But every time he thinks of the future, of Kurt or anything else, the panic is enough to leave him gasping for air. And Blaine is sick of drowning. Her name is Caroline Johnson, and talking to her eases the tangle of problems and feelings Blaine is just starting to discover himself.
He's been seeing her for a month when she hands him a slip of paper.
"What's this?" he asks.
"A list," she says, tucking her blond hair behind her ear. "I've been keeping a tab of everything that you've talked about in the month you've been seeing me. That's the list from most frequent to least."
Kurt Hummel is the first on the list. College is the last. Blaine winces.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
"Make a new list. Of what you want your priorities to be."
Making the new list turns out to be harder than Blaine thinks. So he starts with the old list.
Kurt Hummel
Glee Club
Warblers
Family
Sports/Hobbies
College
He focuses on the first one on the list. Kurt Hummel sears into his vision in Caroline's neat handwriting. He's known for a long time that Kurt has been on the top of his list. But was he on the top of Kurt's? Was he below work and Rachel? Was he above or below family? Blaine doesn't know, will probably never know. Carefully, he scratches out Kurt's name. Kurt isn't speaking to him anymore, and he cannot force Kurt to change his mind.
That doesn't stop it from hurting, or the instinctual glance towards his phone, lying quietly on the desk as it has been since the trip to New York. Taking a deep breath, he turns back to the list. He needs something new at the top of the list.
XXX
Blaine presents the new list to Caroline the next week.
"That was fast," she comments, raising an eyebrow as she reads through it.
"What do I do with it?" he asks, ignoring the comment.
"You change this list," she holds up the old one, "to this list."
He blinks at her. "How do I do that?"
She shrugs. "You do whatever it takes. You're the only one who knows what that is."
This isn't how it's supposed to go. Caroline is supposed to have the answers. Know how to make it better. Blaine has tried by himself before. That's why he's here every week. Because he can't do it alone.
"Thank you," he says through his teeth, taking the list back.
"You're the only that can change your life, Blaine," Caroline says.
There are times, sitting in Caroline's leather furniture, in her white plaster office, that Blaine feels like he's in some kind of teen drama movie. This is definitely one of those times.
XXX
The new list looks like this:
Friends/Family
College/Education
Glee Club
Sport/Hobbies
Romantic Interests
Blaine has no idea where to start. So he starts from the top. He stops avoiding Artie's invitations to game night, and enthusiastically takes up Sam's idea for a canned food drive. He's student body president too, and he'd promised himself that he'd do something, make a change, with that power. It's progress, he supposes, reintegrating himself into social interaction, but it doesn't feel like much. He'd thought it would be a little bit more cathartic, making changes to his life, but it feels kind of like it always has. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it's actually a good thing to feel normal.
XXX
The real step comes unintentionally. Going back to Dalton is surreal. And singing with the boys one last time gives them all the closure none of them had realized that they needed. In the end, David, Thad, Nick, Jeff and Sebastian help him steal back McKinley's Nationals trophy. They dress in all black and Jeff uses his sister's hairpin to pick a lock. Nick sacrifices himself to the dorm parents when David wakes them up shouting when he stubs his toe in the dark. The rest of them load the trophy into Sebastian's car and drive the hour out to Blaine's house on the border of Westerville and Lima. They collapse on his floor, laughing at the absurdity of the six of them dressed like punks stealing from their own school. They don't even make it up the stairs before they fall asleep.
The next day is a school day, so Blaine shows them out so the four of them can go back to Dalton, while he heads to Lima. He has to pull over for twenty minutes when the radio plays "Teenage Dream".
XXX
It's a couple steps back, but Blaine refuses to fall all the way down again. So he makes it to school and returns the trophy. He accepts the congratulations and snaps a photo of the trophy in its case at school and sends the picture to his friends at Dalton. He gets five responses back, and smiles despite himself.
XXX
He makes his way down the list. The next one is family, but he isn't quite ready to face that one yet. So he moves down to college/education. He goes to the college fair, and picks up stacks and stacks of brochures. He sits quietly his room for hours, looking through the pages of the glossy brochures and Googleing majors online. He's still up when his father gets home, and pads up the stairs.
"What are you still doing up?" he asks Blaine, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
Wordlessly, Blaine holds up a random brochure
"Oh. Well, that's very responsible of you. Got anywhere?"
"I want to do music production," Blaine says quietly.
Talking to his father about music has always been difficult. He had accepted that music was a part of Blaine's life, but had never separated it from the hundreds of other things Blaine was involved in.
"Oh," his dad repeats. Then sighs. "Listen, Blaine, I know you like your music, but is that really something you want to put your time into? What will you do when you're out of school?"
"There are a couple schools I'm looking into that combine it with a few more classes to make it an engineering major."
"That's…better."
His father nods.
"Listen, tomorrow's a school day. I'm going to sleep."
"Good night, Blaine."
" 'Night," Blaine repeats quietly.
XXX
He never should have left Dalton. The realization comes to Blaine on a random Tuesday as he's shutting his locker. He could lie to his father about wanting to face his fears, but he couldn't lie to himself. He had left Dalton for Kurt. Had allowed himself to give up friends, a quality education. "I'm not sure our budding love could handle that," Kurt had said. Well, it hadn't survived the alternative either. Maybe he should feel angry at Kurt for pressuring him like that. For forcing him to make that choice. But mostly he was angry at himself. Dalton hadn't been Kurt's home, and Blaine was starting to realize that McKinley wasn't his. He hadn't faced anything at this school. Not as a student.
Obviously that had to change.
XXX
He brings the idea of the Sadie Hawkins Dance to Sam first. He isn't hard to get on board, and when they bring the dance to Principle Figgins, the man is so relived that Blaine is actually doing something with his presidency, that he agrees almost instantly. Caroline says nothing for the first few moments after Blaine explains the situation.
"Is that really a good idea?" she asks finally.
Blaine doesn't know. Maybe getting through the dance will be cathartic. Maybe it will just be traumatic. Maybe something else horrible will happen and Blaine will be forced to accept the fact that Sadie Hawkins dances are cursed for him. Whatever happens, though, it's too late to back out now.
XXX
"No," his father says.
They're sitting together at the dinner table the next night.
"I'm student body president," Blaine explains calmly. "I can't not go."
Blaine's father clenches his fork harder.
"How can you do this to me?"
And Blaine isn't sure exactly what happens in the next few seconds, but suddenly he's on his feet, slamming his utensils back on the table.
"To you?" he demands. "To you? What about me, huh? You think I feel good about this? That I want to do this again?"
It had been his idea. That didn't mean he wanted it. Just wanted this year to not be a waste. To live up to the promise of facing his fears instead of running from them.
"I don't want you to get hurt again."
Blaine freezes. This is the first time his father has ever outright acknowledged the attack.
"I can't not go," Blaine repeats.
He doesn't know how to reassure his father, when he doesn't even know how to make his own hands stop shaking.
"I know," his father says, instead.
XXX
The dance itself is rather unremarkable. Blaine doesn't bring a date. He does dance. With Brittany first, because she grabs him before he can sit down, and Sam laughs as she drags him away. He dances with Tina too. And Sugar sort of jumps on him while he's making his way off the dance floor. But after a while, he makes his way off the floor and grabs himself a glass of punch. It's early enough that no one has tried to "liven up" the dance with spiked punch, so he sits off to the side, nursing his plastic cup.
He's there for about a half an hour before another boy joins him. His name is Collin and he's in superhero club with Blaine. He's two grades below Blaine, but taller, with soft brown curls. They talk for a little while longer, and then Collin abruptly stands.
"D'you…y'know. Wanna dance, or something?"
Blaine blinks. He hadn't known Collin was gay. But this moment is the exact reason Blaine wanted this dance. To prove things could be different this time. So he takes Collin's hand and drags him over to where the rest of his friends are dancing. Tina smiles at them, and they dance. A couple of people look at them, and a few more frown. But Blaine focuses on Tina's smile and Collin's hand in his.
XXX
He and Collin dance a couple more dances throughout the night. Collin occasionally goes back to his own friends, and Blaine gets passed around the glee club. Afterwards, Blaine offers to drive Collin home. This isn't Westerville East, but Blaine can't help but put as much distance between them and that place as he can. So he drives Collin home.
"I'm…not out yet," Collin says, as he gets out. "So, thanks. For helping."
Blaine nods. "I should thank you. You helped me too."
And he had. Dancing with Collin had been just as freeing as Blaine had thought it would be. He doesn't have to explain anything to Collin. And come Monday, they will just be friends again. And that is more freeing than Blaine expects. He watches Collin go inside, and then heads home himself.
XXX
When he gets home, it's close to midnight. His father is sitting in the living room watching TV, looking about ready to pass out.
"How was the dance?" he asks.
"It was nice," Blaine says quietly.
His father has never seemed so small, not since the divorce. Maybe Blaine's father can't find words for Blaine's sexuality in the same way Blaine can't find words to thank him for staying. So Blaine slides in to the seat beside him. William Anderson will never come close to being a Burt Hummel, but he's all Blaine has.
"What movie are we watching?" Blaine asks.
XXX
It gets better slowly. He goes to see Caroline every week, and when she hands him a list of tallies, he's happy to see that it looks a little more like his own. Kurt Hummel is still on the list, but this time he's fifth, beneath family, college, friends and glee club.
He gets coffee with Sebastian every Tuesday, lunch with David every Sunday, game night with the New Directions guys on Thursdays and Nick and Jeff seem to pop up randomly during the week, usually with unusual questions and Nerf guns. He gets caught up in college applications, and makes time to watch football with his father.
Kurt crosses his mind less and less, and Blaine takes down all the pictures of Kurt in his room and puts them in a box with the rest of the mementos of their relationship. Until he calls.
It's been a couple of months since Kurt avoided coming home for Christmas and the call comes on a Wednesday night. At first, Blaine just stares at the picture. He wants to answer so bad. But he also knows that he will go sliding back to the pit he has just started climbing out of if he answers. He isn't ready to talk to Kurt yet. And it's okay for him to be selfish now. They aren't in a relationship anymore.
He doesn't answer the phone and Kurt doesn't call back.
XXX
In April, Cooper shows up to take Blaine on a road trip to see the five schools he got into. He stops in New York to see NYU, and they wind up goofing off and running around the city. It was inevitable, really, that he would run into Kurt. To be fair, they don't quite "run in" to each other. They see each other in Central Park. They don't make their way over to each other like they do in the movies. They don't even speak to each other. But when Blaine nods and smiles in Kurt's direction, the other boy lifts a hand to wave.
XXX
In the end, Blaine doesn't go to New York. He doesn't go to L.A either. He goes to Boston, to Berklee to study Music Production and Engineering. Well, actually, he goes for Orientation. He gets back to Lima with a sense of pride, a sense of purpose and a number from Marcus, another boy in his Orientation group.
XXX
Blaine and Kurt finally talk at the end of the summer, at Sugar's going away party for the graduating seniors. The night is winding down and Blaine is grabbing his jacket to go when he feels a hand on his arm.
"I hear you're going to Berklee! Congratulations," Kurt says.
And for the first time, Blaine can look at Kurt without feeling lost, or sad, or angry or guilty.
"Thanks," he replies, smiling. "I'm really excited."
It isn't much, but it's something. A step in the right direction. He knows that he and Kurt aren't getting back together now. Not when they'll be almost four hours apart. They aren't good at long distance. They both know that now.
XXX
Blaine packs for college, almost vibrating with anticipation. There are so many possibilities for the future. But this time, it isn't scary. This time it isn't overwhelming. Maybe he and Kurt will never get back together. Maybe they will. Who knows what could happen in ten years? In twenty? But Blaine is sick of living for the future. He and his dad are going to fly to Boston tomorrow, and maybe Blaine will give Marcus a call.
Maybe it's time to start living in the present. For here. For now. For himself. And Blaine is ready.
A/N: So thanks for reading. The format is something new. Meant to be read like each was a step. Let me know how it worked and if you liked it!