Word Count: 2, 641
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Glee related, their actors (-sob-) or any canon plots RIB may unearth to send the fandom to their sock drawers to cry for days.
Summary: On the day they met, Blaine and Jeff swore they'd never be separated. At the end of the fourth grade, when those dreaded yellow slips came around with their next year's homeroom teacher, the pair didn't find an identical jumbling of letters on the dotted line. Saddened by this prospect, they reminded themselves that they would still have recess to look forward to. On a day when Jeff stays home sick, Blaine finds his world ripping apart at the seams. Without his protector there, a gang of schoolyard bullies come to give Blaine what they think is a long overdue 'talking to'.
Springtime was the season for frivolous nonsense, and whimsical joy. The trees, leaves glittering with freshly fallen rain, showed off their kaleidoscopic buds to the passers-by whom, relatively uncaring, flocked to the corrals, waiting to be loaded onto the school buses. It was neither too hot, nor too cold— the perfect temperature for snuggling. At least it would have been if Blaine Anderson, the runt of his fifth grade class, had someone to hold him close.
Blaine sat solemnly on the steps of his fifth grade portable classroom, watching as the blur of students rushed by him, into the awaiting arms of their loving parents. But it was alright, he told himself, his father would be here soon. He shivered lightly, mulling over his impending solitude, the mop of curls on his head twitching with every slight movement he made. His hazel eyes, half-lidded in embarrassment of having been forgotten, were cast towards the ground, the toes of his shoes pointed inwards.
His bladder, fuelled by anxiety and one too many juice boxes, was ready to burst. After taking a trip to the under sanitized washroom in the school, he returned to the barren playground void of most life. Jeff Sterling, his best friend since the first grade, had stayed home sick that day. Despite being in different classes for the first time in four years, Blaine always had his friend's beaming face to look forward to at recess— except for today. Blaine had entered his classroom with a note on his desk from the aging secretary that worked in the office, from Jeff's mother, letting him know that his bouncing ball of sunshine wouldn't be there that day. He had barely eaten, or interacted with the other children that day due to grief and withdrawal.
On his way back to his stoop where he had the misfortune of leaving his backpack, Blaine spotted a few older kids rifling through his belongings. The largest of the bunch, wide with a prominent brow, sneered as he plucked the agenda from the front pocket. Mockingly he shoved it into his friend's face, commenting on the many pictures of Jeff and Blaine that littered the pages. "Oh look, here's another one of the midget and his faggy boyfriend."
Blaine hadn't a clue of what the f-word they used meant, but he knew it was something bad, based on their tone. Students of all grades stared at Blaine and Jeff during breaks because, while others wanted to swing around on the monkey bars, all they wanted to do was hold each other in silence and stare at one another like they were the only two left in existence. Neither boy saw anything wrong with it and, as oblivious as they were to the constant chatter surrounding them, they were content in their own world.
Hesitantly, Blaine approached the older lads, their shadows skittering ominously across the pavement. "U-uhm… may I please have my knapsack?" he squeaked shyly, fidgeting with the hem of his sweater-vest. They pretended they didn't hear him. "Excuse me," he called a little louder, his pre-pubescent voice cracking under the strain of having to speak to strangers. Finally they turned to face him, one leering before tossing the bag roughly to his chest. Blaine fell over on impact, his khakis fraying as he slid across the asphalt. He whimpered as he tried to stand, feeling the bruising on his rear beginning to set in early— he'd always been fragile. "C-can I have… th-that back too?" he asked, gesturing shakily to the spiral bound notebook in his tormentor's hands.
"Where's your precious boyfriend?" they demanded, paying no mind to his question.
This confused Blaine thoroughly. Was Jeff his boyfriend? Well, he was a boy, and most certainly a friend… But why were they being so mean about it? "He's home sick," he replied innocently, blinking back tears of loneliness. His protector had been taken down by the flu.
"Hmm, is that so…?"
Photographs in hand, the leader of the pack strolled purposefully towards Blaine, crossing the space between them in easy strides. He crouched down, snarling menacingly in his face. His breath, rank with the smell of stale goldfish crackers and peanut butter, was hot on skin. The fifth grader recoiled, nose scrunching in distaste. He'd offer the older boy a stick of gum but, in his current situation, he was much too intimidated to do anything but regulate his breathing.
The bully held multiple pictures, fanned out in his hand, of Blaine and Jeff at the cottage during the summertime. What happened next felt like a knife plunging through the curly-haired boy's heart. Already mucked up from the looming boy's oily fingers, his precious memories were shredded before his very eyes. Pieces of picture paper fluttered away in the breeze, taking with them Blaine's last ounce of self-control. Hot tears stung at the corners of his eyes, slicking down his rosy cheeks to dampen his woollen top. "Wh-why did you do that?"
Hauling him up by his collar, eyes narrowed in hatred, the squat boy threw the much lighter Blaine into the aluminum panelling of the portable, the ridges digging into his back painfully. "Shut up, fag," he grunted, giving him a sound smack upside the head. In hysterics, Blaine's small body crumpled under the stress. Still, the monstrous boy kept him pinned.
"I don't even know what th-that means!" he pleaded. "Please, just let me go!"
"It means you're a freak, fairy boy. It means you shouldn't exist."
"I-I'm not a freak…! I-I'm just Blaine…!"
A ferocious slamming of the tormentor's fist into his victim's face was all it took to send the blood gushing from his now crooked nose. In anticipating, Blaine had bitten down hard on his lip, tearing at the skin. His whole mouth filled with the coppery fluid and, choking it up, he spat it onto the ground. Another rough shove had him scraping his hands along the rocks, the white powder stinging the wounds like acid. He tried to crawl away, anything to get safe, but a member of the goons, who had stayed in the background while they watched in morbid amusement, came up and aimed a swift kick to his ribs.
Blaine curled in on himself, sobbing. He moaned Jeff's name, defeated, in between his heaving breaths. That's the only person he wanted right now, the only one that could stop the pain. He had to get to Jeff, and fast.
Adrenaline pumped hard through his veins and, with what little force he had left in his small body, he scrambled to his feet, snatching up his backpack, and sprinted towards the school gates. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, muscles on fire by the time he reached the bend that would take him to Jeff's house. He didn't dare look back to see if he was being pursued. He couldn't risk it.
Flinging himself onto the Sterling family's front porch, he nearly tripped over his own two feet. Jabbing at the doorbell frantically, he was near the point of exhaustion. He was doubled over, tears continuing to fall freely. At long last, a kind, wide-hipped woman, Jeff's mother, opened the door for him. Her brilliant smile faltered the moment she took in his broken form. She was horrified, opening her arms for the lad.
Ignoring her warmth, he bolted right past her and to the stairs, climbing them two at a time, to Jeff's room. Blaine leapt onto the bed, grabbing at and pressing himself as close as humanely possible to the sick boy, and broke down again. Surprised by the sudden invasion of the prison he called his room, Jeff's arms wasted no time in snaking himself around his best friend's waist. "B-Blainers…?"
"I can't go back there," he choked out, a mixture of blood and saliva pooling on the cloth of Jeff's pyjama top. "They hate me. I d-don't know… wh-what I did… b-but those guys from… th-the second f-floor… they… they… Jeff, they hate me!"
Jeff's eyebrows knitted together in a mixture of fury and concern. He peeled Blaine off him, momentarily, to search his eyes desperately. With one hand on his cheek, Jeff groped blindly for his tissue box and, plucking the last of his Kleenex from its casing, he held it under Blaine's nose, pushing his matted curls off his forehead. He felt like his heart was breaking, seeing his best friend in such distress. He ran the pad of his thumb sadly across the bruise forming on Blaine's cheekbone. "Who did this to you…?" he asked hoarsely, his expression mirroring the brunette's. "Why would they do this…To you?"
Blaine shook his head viciously, the jarring motion causing the bleeding to start anew. "Th-they… they called me a f-" He pulled Jeff from the bed, wrapping his arm around his waist and, even as the taller boy swayed dizzily, the blonde followed him obediently to the computer.
Poking at the keyboard with one finger, Blaine typed the three lettered word into the search engine. The first result that came up told him all he needed to see before unplugging the computer from its power source. "Blainers, I didn't get to read it! What did it say?" He poked the boy in the in his diaphragm, grazing against his ribcage in the process. Blaine immediately whimpered in pain, collapsing in a heap on the floor and Jeff's feet with his face in his hands.
"Oh— Blainers, no… please don't cry again."
Jeff fell to his knees, cradling the weeping fifth grader to his chest protectively, reaching up a steadied hand to stroke his curls. This seemed to calm him and, as he nuzzled into Jeff with a mewl, his breathing finally reset to a normal rhythm. "They know… Jeffie… they know about me." The golden haired youth pursed his lips at Blaine's ragged statement.
"What do they know…?"
"That I'm not like them…"
"That's silly, Blainers… Of course you're not. You're nice!"
"That's not what I meant…"
The longer Blaine held out on telling him his alarming secret, the one that had, for some reason or another, warranted a beating in the minds of the schoolyard bullies, the worse Jeff began to feel about himself. "Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I do… it's just…" Blaine sniffled, hooking his pinky with his best friend's, a sign that something important was about to be shared between the two. "You have to swear you won't be grossed out… or get mad at me… okay?" Jeff could only nod quickly, tightening his grip on Blaine's little finger.
"I think girls are gross," he said slowly, nibbling anxiously at his already swollen lip.
"I already know that, silly. You tell me that every time I see someone cute."
"B-but that's just it, Jeffie… I don't like them like you. I don't want to marry them like you do."
Blaine pulled his eyes away from his best friends face, finding his cheeks dusted with a generous scarlet. The pain he felt now was different, like his heart was being squeezed tightly, like he was falling out of the tree house in his backyard and he didn't know how he would land, if he ever did. "I think I like boys," he whispered to his lap, fiddling with the Power Rangers lanyard that hung from his belt loop.
Without hesitation, Jeff retorted with: "Well that's a dumb reason to want to hurt someone. What's it to them if you like boys? It leaves more girls for them, doesn't it?" He didn't know when he had started crying, but Jeff found himself reaching, once again, for Blaine's face. "Look at me… please?" Staring adoringly into his eyes, dark circles prominent from his illness, Jeff smiled down at the curly-haired lad.
His hazel eyes were glassy with unshed tears, his fall cushioned by his best friend's acceptance. "Y-you don't hate me…? You don't think I'm a f-freak?"
"I could never hate you, think you were a freak, or ever call you what those mean boys did. It's not nice, and it's not fair. Just because you think girls are gross doesn't change who you are, Blainers. You're my best friend in the whole wide world. I wouldn't care if you wanted to marry a lizard, it wouldn't make me love you any less. Okay? S-so… please… smile for me?"
Their foreheads pressed together, the boys held onto each other and stared into one another's eyes. Finally, having worked up the courage to respond, Blaine gave Jeff the brilliant smile he asked for, hugging him close. "Thank you," he whispered, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.
"Blainers?" Jeff pulled away.
"Y-yes…?" he asked in a daze.
"You'll find your prince charming soon, so don't you worry, okay? Even if I have to be the third wheel on your dates, I'll help you sort through all the frogs." Drawn by the instinct to comfort Blaine, Jeff placed a soft kiss on his cheek, before pulling him to his feet.
His long fingers found themselves tangled in Blaine's hair, their favourite place to be. Massaging his scalp lightly, threading his digits through the silky curls, Jeff tugged the shorter boy towards him. He leaned down slightly, enough to make up for the dramatic height difference. "Don't get scared, okay…? I just want to try something…"
Blaine's breath hitched in his throat as Jeff's eyes slid closed, his lips brushing lightly against Blaine's in the sweetest of kisses. Going up on his toes, allowing for his lids to droop blissfully, Blaine wrapped his arms around Jeff's neck, the blonde's finding their way easily around Blaine's waist. Jeff hoisted him up easily, Blaine legs wrapping themselves at his hips to support himself.
Neither was certain who pulled away first, but both were left breathless, not quite having mastered the art of kissing. "Well this sucks," muttered Jeff against Blaine's neck, frowning. "I was hoping I liked boys too, so that we could get married and I could protect you from all the buttheads. …I'm sorry."
"It's okay Jeffie," he chimed he response, smoothing down the blonde's fringe, smiling gently.
"We can still be best friends though, right?"
Gasping in mock terror, Blaine snuggled in closer. "Of course, silly"
"W-well good! Because I don't want to lose you, Blainers."
"You never will."
A knock at Jeff's bedroom door shattered the safe, magical world they had created that only had room for the two of them. "Blaine, sweetie…? Your mother's here to pick you up… She's been so worried."
The two boys coughed in unison as Jeff set his friend back down on his feet with one last squeeze before releasing him. He sighed sadly as Blaine departed a limp in his walk. His frown was quickly exchanged for a smile as a mop of curls popped back into view, the body attached to it hidden by the wall. "Jeffie, if I tell my mom I'm sick… can I come over and play tomorrow?"
Jeff's warm, coffee coloured eyes found his mother's, who smiled back at him graciously. "Of course."
Blaine ran back to Mrs. Sterling, giving her the biggest bear hug his little arms could muster. An impatient clearing of his throat sent Blaine flying back to Jeff. "I'll see you tomorrow at seven, okay?"
"Okay, Blainers! I'll see you tomorrow! I love you!"
"I love you too," he called back, trudging down the steps with a grin. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Jeff, his best friend, his protector, his hero… He'd keep him safe. He'd be the shining light, even when the rest of the world would turn his back to him. Blaine raised his hand to his heart, gripping at the cloth, and whispered a prayer that they could stay like this forever.