Not Mine
The first time Blaine steps onto the Columbia campus he expects to feel disappointed. He expects to feel like he's let himself down once again by caving to his father's wishes regarding his future. He doesn't. For the first time in his life he feels as though the compromise he's reached with his father has actually worked out in his favour.
His mother had talked his father down from his insistence that Blaine go to Harvard (his alma mater) by the time he started high school, to agree to let him choose his own school, provided that school was in the Ivy League...or Stanford. He accepted Columbia with minimal griping and Blaine had pushed from a fine arts minor to his business major, to dual enrolment at Juilliard.
The arrangement is complicated to say the least and even Wes told him he was crazy but it was the only way he could think to make everyone happy. He wasn't prepared to give up his dreams of being a performer and being offered a chance to study at Juilliard was once in a lifetime, but so is Columbia. His friends had told him to just go for Juilliard, he was on a scholarship after all, his father couldn't pull the funding or force him to another school, but it wasn't just the fear of disappointing his parents that made him sign up for his fall classes at Columbia. They had a point. A business degree was imminently more practical to have and it certainly wouldn't hurt his chances later in life.
There was also the fact that he wanted to maintain a good relationship with his parents. The Andersons had never been what anyone would describe as a close-knit family. He had often looked at families like the Duvals and Sterlings and wished for the kind of parents who would demand he come home at least every other weekend and tell them everything that had happened while he'd been away, but he had never doubted that his parents loved him and he had worked hard to make them proud. His parents didn't fully approve of his dreams, but they did support him and had always worked to provide everything he would need to succeed.
When his acceptance and scholarship offer from Juilliard had arrived he had sat down with his parents and explained that he wanted to pursue two degrees. His father had studied his determined expression before telling him that he expected nothing short of excellence. His father had arranged meetings with the admissions offices and counsellors and his mother had arranged a small but stylish two bedroom apartment, midway between the campuses in a building with a doorman because once is too many times for a mother to see her son bruised and bleeding on a hospital bed.
One month into his gruelling schedule Blaine looks up from his sheet music to realize that, for the first time ever, he is alone. He hasn't spoken to his parents apart from sharing his password to allow them access to his grades. The Warblers in his graduating class are busy adjusting to their respective schools and so he has exchanged a few text messages containing mostly pleasantries with them, and the younger and older Warblers had quickly picked up on his state of mild panic and seem to be alternating between trying to comfort him and attempting to talk him out of continuing.
He hasn't actually spoken to anyone outside of a class at either school since his arrival. He is friendly with most of his classmates, but he isn't friends with any of them. His esoteric schedule, the result of attempting to plan two full time enrolments around each other, means he is lucky if he has two classes with the same person.
He flicks through his contacts on the first Saturday night he has found himself with no pressing engagements, having finished every composition, essay, packet and problem he has been handed in his first few weeks, and realises that the only new numbers since he's come to New York (barring the handful of girls he had realised too late had very little interest in discussing Sondheim) were his piano and voice tutors, the professors who had written their numbers on the board during lectures, and his elderly neighbour, a sweet old woman who feeds him home cooked meals in exchange for songs.
He taps out messages to all of the Warblers, apologizing for being distant and receiving instant replies from most, some worried but all understanding. Wes informs him that plans have been made for Thanksgiving in Ohio and his presence is required. Setting his phone back on the table he resolves to get back on top of his schedule enough to maintain at least some semblance of a social life. Mrs Rosenblatt laughs and says she was glad to hear it when he shares his plan with her over Carbonara an hour later.
His plan to get his life worked out to allow some free time is postponed slightly because that Monday is one of his rare but unavoidable double bookings. He sprints from his Music Theory class, almost knocking over a group of three girls on his way to his bike and by the time he slides into the back row the professor is just picking up from the five minute break in the middle of class.
He's focusing on trying to slow his breathing down while not making enough noise to bother his classmates and pulling the correct notebook out of his bag and scanning the board trying to recall exactly what his book had said about Gaussian elimination when a slip of paper slides into view on his desk.
I can send you notes from the first half if you'd like?
Looking to his left he finds a boy glancing back at him, without ceasing his typing of notes, with a small smile. His efforts to stop panting are momentarily forgotten, as is the ability to breathe. He had intended to turn to his neighbour and try to convey his gratitude but found himself struck entirely dumb. The boy next to him was not a boy in his class, he was The Boy that Blaine had spent the first month of the class studiously not sitting too close to for fear that distraction would cause his grade in the class to drop.
He had noticed the tall Asian boy the first time he had walked nervously into a linear algebra class he'd been informed was meant for Physics and Chemistry students with the odd Mathematician, but which was the only math credit he could fit into his already bursting schedule. The Boy was tall and lean with kind eyes and a calm smile and was never entirely still. He seemed restless, but not nervous.
The Boy looked back at him with a slightly more amused grin and Blaine nodded rapidly, blushing a bright pink as he turned back to his own notes and attempted to focus on linear equations rather than the fact that he had slid into the seat next to the most attractive man he'd met, late for class, panting, sweaty, and with his hair definitely not up to standard, only to proceed to stare openly at him when offered help.
He managed to keep taking notes, but he knew he'd be revising the chapter again that evening because his mind was miles away; or rather it was only a few inches to his left. The slip of paper appeared on top of his notes again while the professor was methodically wiping the boards clean.
I will need your email-address if you want the notes.
He blushed again but scribbled the address down before smiling back at him, hoping The Boy would think his discombobulated state was just the product of him being late and rather flustered, rather than identify it as what it was, which was abject mortification at being faced with his crush under those circumstances.
He hadn't even actually spoken to The Boy, between his reluctance to sit near him and his constant rushing to get to his next class on time there had been no chance even if he had been able to find his tongue.
When the professor finally stops droning Blaine hastily shoves his things back in his bag and turns to The Boy and suddenly loses his mental filter.
"You are a lifesaver. Seriously thank you. I am naming my firstborn after you. I am late." After kissing the stunned boy on the temple he practically flew out of the lecture hall and onto his bike to meet with his piano tutor, managing to refrain from smacking himself in the face only because he needed his hands to steer on the crowded streets.
In one interaction with The Boy, otherwise known as the most perfect being on earth, he had panted, stared, blushed and babbled, and had offered to name his firstborn for him, but neglected to ask his name. His piano tutor laughed at him when he slid to the floor, melting into a miserable puddle of goo next to the beautiful imperial grand, tapping out an ominous tune with his left hand on the low keys.
"Good, an artist needs emotional devastation every once in a while, do try to crawl up on the bench and play me the third movement though, I'm excited to hear what you've done with it."
When Blaine gets home that night there is an email waiting for him with a neat pdf file of notes complete with diagrams and equations that has Blaine convinced that apart from being clever, kind, and unfairly attractive, his crush is clearly some form of magician because Blaine is pretty sure he can't even find a lambda, much less get actual, perfectly aligned matrixes.
He laughs slightly at himself when he finds himself going a little starry eyed at the little bright pink boxes labelled Mike's notes containing added little facts and equations, but not nearly as much as Mrs Rosenblatt laughs when it takes him twice as long as usual to finish off his dinner because he's too busy gushing over Mike. It becomes abundantly clear that he knows very little about the object of his affections when he realises he's just told his neighbour that Mike must have been an early adopter of Gmail considering he'd managed to nab his own, fairly common name as an address because not only does that mean absolutely nothing to the elderly woman, it wasn't actually something he cared about himself until he knew it about Mike.
Mrs Rosenblatt happily listens to him anyway, surreptitiously adding food to his plate when his thoughts get away from him.
(A/N:)
If you are wondering about the title, that is the effect of having dated a chemist for too long, I sometimes spell things in elements. The chemical symbols spell out Algebra, which is the maths class mentioned. Yes I am a nerd.