This is my first fanfiction in the Glee fandom and the first one I post in English (I wrote other fics in English before, but they will never get out of my hard drive), so, yeah, I hope I didn't mess up too much, especially since I proof-read it like a millions of times. If something's so wrong you want to kill me out of desperation... please, don't. Just tell me and I will fix it :D
The quotes in bold are from the song Samson by Regina Spektor, which is a lovely song and., uhm, okay, I think I'm done here.
Enjoy?
Your hair was long when we first met
The first time he sees him, Jesse remembers him from somewhere. He's isn't supposed to know anyone in this school, it's also their choir's first year competing in a non-a cappella competition, so they wouldn't recognize him anyway.
But him. Jesse knows him, even if he does spend almost a whole hour of the Warblers' practice just trying to figure out exactly how.
It isn't until the Warblers are dismissed that he really remembers. He waves goodbye to his teammates while opening the violin-shaped case that was lying on the ground the whole time, instead of following them to the dorms. Jesse never forgets a good musician. A good singer he may forget, because he knows a lot of good singers, and he's still better than any of them. But people who play an instrument, people who are good at it… he would never forget them.
He is one of them. Jesse's certain he met him often in the hallways at Carmel High but there the kid didn't stand out. One day, though, he was early for practice in the auditorium and the kid was still there even if band practice was over, still playing his violin. Eyes shut, curls dancing lightly and the slightest of smiles on his lips. He was kind of beautiful.
The kid picks up his violin with the care a mother would reserve for her baby and turns towards the empty seats of the auditorium.
His eyes are open in Jesse's direction, the curls are gelled back and a small, teasing smirk stretches his lips. However, Jesse notices, he's still kind of beautiful.
"You can stop hiding in the shadows, you know. I usually don't bite."
Jesse smirks, because he's been caught and he loves being caught. Especially if he's caught by someone like him.
"How do I know you won't this time?"
He crouches on the edge of the stage and outstretches his hand in Jesse's direction, smiling a more friendly smile, "I'm Blaine Anderson. Now if I bite you, you will be able to report me. I'm not sure spies have that kind of right, but that's your problem."
Oh, he also knows he's a spy then.
Jesse smiles his most charming smile and that Blaine kid does the same. It's almost unsettling the quantity of charisma that's floating around them. Jesse could almost faint.
"You lot are not really that interesting to spy on, you know?"
"I would imagine. Important rehearsals are held behind closed doors. Not even other Dalton students are allowed, not even teachers."
"I didn't know a cappella competitions were that ferocious."
"Oh, trust me, they are worse."
And with that Blaine straightens up and turns his back at him, clearly dismissing him to focus on his violin. Well, that's no way to deal with Jesse St James. Jesse requires undivided attention.
It's when Blaine begins to play, that he realizes that he really should make use of this chance. This boy and his violin are something he still remembers after almost two years he heard them last. He doesn't know what exactly, but there must be something special about them.
Jesse sighs lightly and closes his eyes for a moment, before climbing on stage and walking towards the piano that's half hidden behind the curtains on the other end of the stage, opposite from Blaine.
He knows this song. It's the same one he played last time. The same they played together before he ran out of the auditorium.
Then it hits him: Blaine remembers too.
You are my sweetest downfall
Jesse doesn't mean to fall in love, not that afternoon, not that month, not that year, not that life, not ever. But he does, eventually.
He sneaks back into Dalton almost every day and every afternoon he waits until Warblers' practices are over to jump on the stage alongside Blaine.
Blaine smiles like he knows something, but he doesn't say anything.
"I don't have a lot of time for my violin these days and I board, so I can only play in rooms nobody uses." And Jesse doesn't know how that should concern him of all people, until Blaine looks away, where Jesse knows the violin waits in its case, and adds "This time is for the violin. Everyone around here knows that, that's why they leave me alone. You should too."
He doesn't, he just answers that he's not everyone else and Blaine smiles in a way Jesse's never seen before. Still beautiful, he thinks.
Despite what Blaine said, that something-less-than-an-hour becomes also Jesse's time. Jesse didn't mean for that to happen either, he didn't even mean to stay after Warblers' practice the day after their second first encounter, but it happened all the same.
Blaine looks at him for the briefest of moments and starts playing. Jesse turns his back at him and sits at the piano. If there ever was a reason to appreciate rich private schools is that they have pianos in almost every common room Blaine choose to practice in. That makes sense only when Jesse finally realizes that Blaine chooses these rooms because he knows Jesse will be there and will need a piano.
Sometimes they're not alone, sometimes some kid named Wes stays with them for almost half an hour, until he gets bored. He never says a word, he just watches them.
Blaine told him the Warblers are worried since they found out Jesse has been visiting a lot.
"They shouldn't be. I'm not even spying anymore," Jesse finds himself saying and, with that, he realizes that it's true. He knows when Blaine will have time to play and if it is after an open practice with the Warblers Jesse simply sits there, watching him. He doesn't come for them.
At the beginning he remembered Blaine because of how he played, now he knows he's an amazing singer and performer too, and while Jesse still considers himself the best… well, Blaine brings into his life some kind of light. The kind of light that repeats over and over that he can love someone else. Someone deserves his love.
Jesse finds himself forgetting his own rehearsals and it's just too hilarious to think that his spying was meant to increase Vocal Adrenaline's chance of winning, not do exactly the opposite.
That's when he realizes that, while he never meant to, he's actually fallen in love.
And, with that, everything shifts back to normal. He's shining again, because that's what love is supposed to do.
They finally compete against each other at Regionals. It's glorious and upsetting, because Vocal Adrenaline ends up losing to the Warblers for a vote. Blaine hugs his teammates and pushes the youngest of the group towards the center of the stage to receive their trophy. He doesn't need that moment. He doesn't care.
"I told you a cappella competitions were vicious. We're ready for anything." But Blaine isn't smiling, because somehow he knows Jesse would probably smack him if he did.
Or maybe because he knows that this was important for him.
It's Jesse the one who smiles first that day, because he's realized that he doesn't care either. He tightens his grip on Blaine's hand and smiles. And, just like that, they shine, because that's what love is supposed to do.
They never say the word 'love', they don't even use the word 'boyfriend' or, to be honest, 'friend'. They barely talked for the whole month before Regionals, they just played together, their music filling every empty space there was between them, eyes shut. And now they find themselves with no excuses.
No practices to spy on, no studying the competition, no being gracious to desperate enemies.
So, they start to talk.
Oh, I cut his hair myself one night, a pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
and he told me that I'd done alright and kissed me till the morning light
Jesse begins to let go of a lot of his silly obsessions and of some of his competitive sides. He had many of those and Blaine is willing to forgive him if sometimes they race for the last cookie Blaine is surprisingly good at baking or if they fight over who's paying for their coffees that day. Blaine also forgives him when he sings louder than him.
They smile a lot and a lot of different smiles. Jesse would've never though he was going to end up being one of the fools who catalogued every smile of his significant other (not that he ever calls him that), hoping some of them were just his, but he totally ends up being exactly one of those. The best thing is that Blaine actually has many smiles that Jesse could consider his.
This is mine, he finds himself thinking sometimes.
He never tells Blaine that he is his, but he's pretty sure Blaine caught up when Jesse kissed and held him like there was no tomorrow.
There actually was no tomorrow, because he was going away for college and he had to let Blaine and everything they had (or still didn't really have) behind.
That night, just before he climbs on the bed beside Jesse for the first time, Blaine tells him he's beautiful, without smiling or trying to look away. There is silence and tiny whispered words and for the first time they both realize that, even like that, it's still beautiful. Because the world is silent around them, but they're not. Never. Even when they don't make a sound.
When, later into the night, Jesse asks him to cut his hair, muttering silly lies about forgotten hairdresser's appointments, Blaine just nods and turns on the bedside lamp to look for his scissors.
Curl after curl, Blaine tells him his favorite stories and, eventually, some his own memories. He tells him about the bullying, about the bruises and the insults, about the Warblers, about his own lost curls, about the violin and about courage.
"I don't really know why I'm saying all of this. I just want you to have something to remember about me, something you didn't see, but something I am." Jesse shuts him up before he can say that maybe Jesse doesn't care and that it's okay if he doesn't.
The thing is, Jesse cares, but they aren't ready to hear it said out loud.
They stay like that for three hours, talking, slowly cutting Jesse's hair and making a mess on his bed. In those hours Jesse realizes that for a long time Blaine was simply one of many other nobodies in his eyes. It took him years and a stage to even notice that Blaine could be something special. That he was something special all along.
It takes Blaine only a few words to make Jesse realize that he still is one of many but he's special in Jesse's eyes. It takes another curl falling from his head for Jesse to comprehend what Blaine means. Everyone, even Jesse himself, is one of many, many others.
It takes a kiss to remind him that this is what love is for.
That's what love is supposed to do. It makes you glow, even when everyone thinks you're switched off. It makes you shine brighter, even when you think you are already bright enough. It makes you understand that shining is important only if someone's looking your way and if that someone matters to you.
Blaine was one of the many who were bullied and disregarded for most of his life and there he was, blinding him.
Jesse kisses him till the morning light, desperately hoping the sun would never wake. They don't need it anyway.
The next morning he makes the conscious effort to give Blaine one of his most beautiful smiles, and he reads Blaine's text only when the plane lands: "Did you eat something strange before boarding? You had the weirdest grimace on your face :)"
It doesn't say if he will miss him, but Jesse still remembers every word spoken the night before, even if it's still not the word love.
Now they aren't together in any sense, but Jesse is absolutely sure they will be.
Eventually.
Beneath the stars came falling on our heads
"Someone (David) insist that I can't miss you if we're still under the same sky and the same stars. I think it's kind of depressing, sappy and 'till death do us apart' or something all at once. But still."
"It IS depressing, because, you see, to me, you're the brightest of all the stars. It sucks that I can't see you."
"Oh, yeah, you are the sappy one, how could I forget? I'm sure you'll be able to survive once the sun rises."
"Let's see. The sun or Blaine? Sun. Blaine. Uh, that's a difficult one. I may have to run off with the sun. He would never call me sappy."
"Well, how could I compete with the sun?"
"Come on now. Don't be silly, even freaking Venus wouldn't stand a chance against you."
"That's because Venus is not a star."
"Neither are you, but you shine anyway. Like Venus. More than Venus. And I don't know what we're talking about anymore."
"Stars. Marriage. Sappiness. Other depressive stuff. Astronomy."
"Weren't we talking about how much I love you? Because that would surely be a long monologue if you let me."
Blaine sends him a smiley face and Jesse realizes that it's first time he said 'I love you' to Blaine. He presses the call button and waits until Blaine picks up.
"I meant it. I'm sorry it came out while texting."
"I thought you were a romantic soul. Sappy, you know. That's kind of a letdown." Jesse listens to his laughter and smiles into the phone, ready to answer, but Blaine cuts him off before he can, "Does this mean we are… something, now? I mean. We never really- we never even talked like couples do. We never-"
"Do you want to be something? Like, definitely, undeniably something?"
"I don't care if you're not here and we won't really be together for awhile. I've been in love with you since the second first time we played together."
Jesse shuts his eyes and he knows Blaine is doing the same, because that's how they fell in love. Without touching each other or seeing anything, but listening.
"Okay then. I love you."
"I love you too."
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
They never conquer Broadway, Hollywood or any big theatre around the world. They settle.
They don't care.
Jesse's always the first to wake up in the morning, he grunts something incomprehensible and hides under the sheets, waiting for Blaine to wake up enough to poke at him, tell him he's late and then go back to sleep.
The night before they had a concert with Blaine's orchestra. Jesse doesn't usually play with them, but this was a charity event and Jesse is fairly popular in the area, so they set up something of a duet and other "funny things", like a giggling Beth had called them. Nothing more than flirty songs, really.
Jesse has discovered that music is that much more special with Blaine than it was before Blaine.
They never stopped playing together, but now they sing too, all the time. Just wait another thirty minutes, when Blaine wakes up for good and starts singing along with the radio even if he's still half asleep. Then follow him into the bathroom, where Jesse will still be in the shower, late as usual and singing as well.
And they simply won't stop. Ever.
They don't have rigid schedules, being a theater actor and a violinist, they can enjoy each other's company almost too much. The 'Oh no, that part is mine! You couldn't pull it off!', the 'You need to sing that higher!' and the 'But last time we decided that I sang those lines!' are something they are used to by now. Today makes no exception.
Jesse will win the argument, because Jesse always wins arguments. And then he will cave and let Blaine sing the parts he wants, because Jesse could never resist his pout. Except that Blaine won't want to anymore, because he feels like he's being childish. And Jesse will insist and Blaine-
Oh, yes, they are ridiculous. Ridiculous like the song Jesse is composing for their anniversary whenever Blaine is not at home, ridiculous like the blush and the smile Blaine had on his face when he casually found the sheets of paper with Jesse's words and notes (before carefully putting them back where they were hidden by the piano). Ridiculous like his fake surprise when he will hear of it the second first time and like Jesse's shining smile in response to his bad acting.
And, call them blind and hopeless, but they don't care.
We couldn't bring the columns down, we couldn't destroy a single one
and history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
not even once