Disclaimer: I own nothing. These characters are property of Ryan Murphy and Fox and I'm just using them so bad.
2023
"Sam…"
The glare he received from the blonde caused him to shrink down in the passenger seat a little further, if he'd known promising 'not to ask' would involve a trip frighteningly close to Lima Heights, well…then he wouldn't have promised really. Was that ice-cream truck sitting outside a crack den? He peered at it in the wing mirror, fully expecting to see a SWAT team burst through the doors. Or maybe it was a heist and people were at this moment hauling their loot up through the sewer grate and into the underside of the truck. What they'd be stealing here he decided not to go into. Maybe he and Sam do read too many comics.
"We're here!"
Blaine had been so busy worrying about potentially homicidal ice-cream men that he didn't notice the car pull up outside what was formerly the Chilli Shaker restaurant, now a Denny's. It looked alarmingly similar considering the change in cuisine from exceptionally subpar Mexican to breakfast for all.
"Wait Sam, this is – we're not…eating here right?" He hated how meek he sounded, really if this was what Sam wanted to do he must have a good reason, and hey it's obviously under new management now. Hopefully.
"Dude! You promised. Now lets roll." Sam hopped out of the driver's side and started rummaging in the backseat for something. Armed with a backpack and his 'determined face' he glared at Blaine from between the headrests until he relented, undid his seatbelt and got out of the car. Sam came around the car, grabbed his hand and strode purposefully toward the front door, never breaking his stride until he got inside. Blaine was pretty sure he heard him heave a sigh of relief when they got into the restaurant. Which apparently was pretty full tonight, that was probably a good sign. But why are all those people just standing around watching other people eat? He really wanted to know what was going on here…wait, "mom?"
A bright flash directly in his face startled them both and Sam let go of his hand to hug his own mother, mindful of the enormous camera around her neck. Stevie and Stacey were next in line for hugs, Sam's father clapped Blaine's shoulder from behind and stepped forward to hug his son.
Blaine's own father was standing beside Cooper, looking surprisingly happy. Blaine ambled slowly over to them, greeting each in turn. "Squirt! We thought you two had pulled over for a quickie, oh hey unless you did, in which case little brother I think you're getting short changed, you know, they have pills for that these days and maybe with a little counselling…"
"Cooper." Blaine's father intervened before Cooper could get even more ridiculous. He smiled at Blaine and he had to admit, he felt extremely reassured that whatever Sam had going on here, his father seemed to not only be involved, but was there of apparently his own free will. Unlike Blaine. "Stay here", he was ordered by Sam, who promptly disappeared through the crowd.
He received a hug from his own family, even though he'd seen them earlier at lunch. Then he looked around to the other patrons of the restaurant. Mr & Mrs Scheuster were in the corner waving at him, well Mr Scheuster was, Mrs Scheuster seemed to be trying not to touch anything. Coach Bieste waved her knife at him from the stack of pancakes she was tucking into, Puck sitting across from her trying to steal her bacon. As if.
In fact everyone was here. Everyone. Rachel and Kurt waved from their spot by the counter, malts half finished in front of them. He felt like he'd stepped into an episode of Happy Days. Mercedes and Quinn appeared from the bathrooms and sat beside Kurt and Rachel while Santana, Mike, Brittany and Tina lounged near some plastic plants. Beside them sat, well actually he had no idea who those people were and honestly they looked a little put out. Especially considering Marley, Kitty, Jake, Artie and Ryder were sitting on the ledge that ran right beside their table talking loudly and waving when they caught his attention. Unique and Sugar were talking on their phones over by the window and holy crap that was Sebastian, with Trent and Wes and an array of Warblers. He was just about to ask what on earth was happening when Sam reappeared.
He was still looking around the restaurant, Sam's mother clicking away at photos and oh no, Cooper had a video camera and was giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up while apparently zooming in on Blaine's shoes. "Sam, I don't…oh my god"
He had turned to look at Sam, and there he was standing in the middle of the restaurant floor wearing his boxers and a wife beater with no shoes and he had a large beanbag in his hand. "What are you?..."
Sam began to speak, "sssshhh ok just listen please?"
Blaine nodded absently, even after ten years together it was hard to stay focused when Sam was in such tight, tight and short, very short clothes. Are they clothes, I guess they're technically underwear, oh crap.
"…so here we are." Sam had his arms spread wide like he'd just finished explaining something important. Blaine just nodded and plastered a half-hearted smile on his face. Kurt snorted somewhere in the background damn him and Blaine fidgeted a little and rubbed his neck self-consciously.
"Right so, here's the thing. We've been together a while – I mean you've been my best friend for like ten years and then when I got my head out of my ass and we started dating, everything just felt right you know?"
Blaine nodded, he did know, it was like all the pieces had fallen into place the moment Sam had smiled shyly at him and asked him out to dinner.
"Except here's the other thing", Sam paused and looked contemplative for a quick moment, "there are a few things, so just bear with me ok?"
Another flash from Sam's mother's camera startled him into nodding frantically.
"We have a great time together, you get me and I get you and we have fun and even when we don't it's still ok 'cos we're together and that's the best thing in my life. But, and this is THE THING I swear, our first times…dude they suck. I mean they really suck, really really, really suck.
"Remember the first time we really met, like before Sectionals when I came back and you were there and you said mean things and I tried to hit you and you shoved me and we got in that big argument?"
Everyone already knew their meeting hadn't been an easy one but Blaine's face still burned with mortification at Sam mentioning it so casually.
"And then the first time we kissed and I startled you so bad that you bit me?"
Everyone laughed.
"And then our first date when I didn't have much money but I knew you loved Mexican so we came here and you found that cockroach in your fajita and we got food poisoning and then we left but my truck wouldn't start so we basically spent the night throwing up in the dumpster in the parking lot until Burt picked us up.
Blaine grimaced while everyone tittered quietly in the background – God that had been one of the worst nights of his life. He felt a little ill now in fact. He looked up at Sam who was nodding sagely, like he knew exactly what Blaine was thinking – which he probably did. Sam was smart like that.
"And then our first time," here Sam's voice dropped to an a whisper, "like time time and…"
"Don't!" Blaine pleaded.
Sam fleeted a glance around the room, his mother was chuckling behind the camera lens while everyone else had leaned closer to hear just exactly what had happened the first time Blam had sex.
"Right, uh no one needs to know that." Sam's parents snorted a little and Blaine and Sam cast them a look that could have soured milk. "No one ELSE needs to know that."
"Right and then we went to college. And your parents got us that awesome place near the river but we insisted we wanted to buy all the furniture second hand 'cos we thought we were cool and that's what people in Brooklyn do right? But then our first night there we couldn't get the bath to turn off and we couldn't find the water main and so the whole place flooded and we had to spend all our furniture money on that shifty plumber who didn't speak English, who totally fleeced us by the way, and then we spent the next three months sitting, sleeping and eating on the floor. And we had to stop your parents from visiting that time 'cos we had no chairs."
Blaine's dad was openly laughing now, while his mother just smiled serenely at him like she had known the whole time what had happened. Again, she probably did.
"Ok and then we went on our first vacation and the website made it look all totally amazing and stuff and like paradise," Sam was gesticulating wildly now, "but when we got to the airport they messed up our booking so we had to take separate flights and you had to sit beside that guy who kept peeing in the bottle? And then they lost my bag and when they sent it from the airport the next day it was all ripped and stuff and someone had tried on all my clothes 'cos they smelled like dude-sweat and the bottle of cologne that had smashed all over them. And then we got to our guest house but it turned out to be some migrant family's spare room and that our pool view was actually the view of the fancy hotel next door's pool and they had taken the picture through the bars on the window.
That vacation. God that vacation.
"So dude, here's my point. We have all these awful first times but we're still going. I don't know if it was the universe telling us not to be together or what but I'm so glad we didn't listen. You're the best thing in my life – my whole day is better just 'cos I wake up next to you. And I would give anything to have you look at me the way you're looking at me right now. We suck at first times but our second times? And our thirds and fourths? They're amazing! We keep going and we laugh off all the stupid stuff that happens to us and I know that we always will because if there's one thing I know about my life it's this – we're great together.
Blaine was smiling now and he could hear his mother sniffling softly into his father's handkerchief.
"Alright so, here we are," again Sam spread his arms wide, "we're in this awful restaurant, surrounded by everyone we know and those people having dinner." At this Sam turned to the bewildered couple near the new New Directions and threw a wave and a 'hi' at them. The just looked at each other like they desperately wanted to leave but were too polite to walk out now.
"And I surprised you 'cos I know you hate that. And I know how private you are, that even though you love your grand romantic gestures and have some really weird ideas about what romantic is, you hate that I'm doing this in public. And I'm not wearing any pants. So here, I'm gonna just go ahead and sit on this beanbag 'cos this is totally not a big deal."
He pulled a purple 'thing' out from behind the bean bag and held it up towards Blaine.
"This is a neon purple Pheasant-shaped faux feather box lined with 100 per cent synthetic leopard fur."
He opened it.
"And this, this is four-and-a-half-carat gold...plated tin with a clear glass stone that I coloured with a Sharpie so it would be the exact colour of that hat I have that you hate.
"I was thinking that we could like, get married or…whatever" Sam shrugged as he lounged on the beanbag trying to look nonchalant but just managing to look slightly sick instead.
'Is he really doing this?' thought Blaine. Has he actually sat down and thought about all the worst things Blaine could not-in-a-million-years want to happen at his engagement and purposely brought them all together. Has he actually decided there would have to be a second engagement because he's been so worried about their first times being so bad and now they're what - doing this in so the wrong way first so that they can do it perfectly a second time? Blaine realised he must have been planning this for months, getting everyone together, making his poor mother take pictures, somehow talking the restaurant into letting them stand here clearly NOT buying food. How long has he wanted to marry Blaine that he's been thinking of proposing, thinking how to make it perfect then realising it will probably go to hell 'cos he's right, that's just them and then trying to figure out how to get around their first time curse. It hits him as he's staring at Sam, and he can't help the fond smile that takes over his face. Sam wants it to be perfect. He wants it to be so perfect that he's getting the crap one done now out of the way. And Blaine knows, he KNOWS the second one will be perfect because this one is everything opposite. 'God', he thinks, 'he's ridiculous! This is ridiculous and so Sam and I've never loved him more.' There's only one way he can respond now, only one thing to say because this? Is incredible. Sam is incredible.
"Yes"
At this Sam rolled his eyes exasperated, "dude you're not supposed to say…wait what?"
"I said yes."
Sam lunged off the bag, or he would have if he hadn't fallen sideways off it. Coach Bieste tried to help him up but she was crying too hard. In the end Stevie came to his rescue and he launched himself at Blaine.
"But this is like the worst proposal ever! I made sure! Everything you hate – this place, all of our friends and family here watching – there are people eating French toast with fake cream," he lifted his eyes to heaven and whispered, "I'm not wearing pants."
Blaine laughed, his own eyes filling with tears. "I know. This? This is awful. If I could imagine the most perfectly awful way for you to ask me to marry you, this would be it," he looked around the room again and then back to Sam's beautiful eyes, "it's perfect Sam. So yes." He held his hand out so that Sam could place the ring on his finger.
"But I had such a good second one planned. This was supposed to break the cycle…"
Blaine smiled and wiggled his fingers. Sam sighed and smiled and took the ring from its box and slipped it on Blaine's hand, pulling him close and resting their foreheads together. "It's two sizes too big for you."
Blaine rested his hand over Sam's heart, looked into his eyes and said, "it's horrible." They both leaned in for their engagement kiss until the bright flash from his Sam's mother's camera startled them apart again.
"Sorry I didn't mean that one! I swear!" She was crying like a baby. They turned back to each other and leaned in again, catching each other in a sweet kiss that had the whole restaurant erupt in applause and cheers. Sam pulled back an inch to whisper, "Blam."
Epilogue
Sam stood nervously trying not to fidget, he felt like everyone's eyes were on him. Well of course they were he was the only one standing. Where the hell was Blaine? He could feel the man's eyes behind him, drilling into the back of his head. "Ah excuse me everyone, excuse me." A hush fell over the whole room.
"Ah the manager just wanted me to point out that uh, the cockroach thing, uh it was a while ago…" he turned to the manager who stood behind him looking stern, "…and the place is under new management and uh they have an excellent health and safety record. Um, thanks."