A/N: If you haven't seen IAU and haven't heard any of the spoilers, you'd better go away. Because even though this fic technically takes place during the summer before season 1, there are spoilers from the latest ep :P Anyway, I took my (and, very likely, other people's too) headcanon about Blaine being a junior and combined it with a vague plot bunny I got some time ago. It involves Blaine and Jesse as cousins (I seem to be steadily writing more and more stories around that particular idea, right? At some point, I'll probably write a kind of deleted scene from PQ in which they realise they're at the same prom and yay, cousins! You know, to make sense of the fact that they didn't interact in that ep if they're really related (which they probably aren't, but that hasn't officially been confirmed).). I tried to keep it as canon as possible. For some reason, Jesse's parents liked giving their kids alliterating names. I don't know, that sort of seemed like them :) Also, as to Blaine's age on the show - even before Tuesday's episode, I thought maybe he'd be a bit younger than Kurt, seeing as Kurt's birthday's really at the start of the schoolyear. Just a few months tops, though, so at least they'd be the same age when they met :P But really, that's probably just me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee :(
Anyway, hopefully you'll enjoy this little story, and please don't forget to leave a review! :D
Blaine hated his cousin. Alright, maybe he didn't hate him, but he severely disliked him at this moment. Jesse was two years older than Blaine, but had the maturity of a five-year-old – when he was around Blaine, that was. Blaine didn't know why he was his older cousin's favourite target, but he didn't like it one bit. All Jesse did these days was annoy him – constantly demanding his attention, getting in his personal space all the time, and talking down on and making fun of him time and again – as if Blaine didn't get that enough from Cooper already. The last one was mostly because Blaine's parents had forced him to get a haircut, so he'd make a good impression when he started at Dalton. Jesse relished in the fact that his hair was finally longer (and curlier) than Blaine's.
Right now, however, Jesse was annoying him about something entirely different. "Why don't you just tell me why you're transferring?" was the question he'd asked before Blaine had run off. He was currently lying on one of the couches, praying that it would take his cousin a while before he found him.
It wasn't as if Jesse was going to hate him if he told him why he was transferring, but Blaine definitely feared that his cousin would see it as a new reason to make fun of him. He'd tell him when Jesse and his family were about to head home, or something.
"Hey, Blaine," Jenna – Jesse's younger sister – greeted him. "Why are you on the couch? Shouldn't you – "
Before Blaine could somehow get her to shut up, Jesse had already come in and spotted him. With a yelp, Blaine got up and sped out of the room, into the kitchen. Hopping onto the bar, he hoped to stay out of Jesse's grasp until he could figure out a new hiding place.
"Did you kill someone, or something?" Jesse asked, stalking after him with a smirk on his face. "From what I overheard, you missed months of school. Am I not allowed to be curious as to why that is so?"
"You can be curious," Blaine replied, before hopping onto one of the chairs instead. Moving from one to the next, he continued, "But I don't have to tell you anything."
He fled from the kitchen, back into the living room. After jumping over the couch and landing on the (thankfully wooden) coffee table, he looked back to where Jesse was standing. His cousin was watching him with an unimpressed half-smile on his face.
"If you don't tell me, I'll just ask your parents," Jesse told him, "or mine. Whichever works better." As Blaine skipped out of the room and into another one, Jesse called after him, "I'm not my parents' favourite child for nothing!"
When Blaine passed Jeffrey, Jesse's brother, on his way upstairs, he felt bad for his two younger cousins. They were forever doomed to live in Jesse's shadow even more than Blaine himself did. Then again, Blaine had his own older brother in whose shadow he could live.
"You can't hide forever!" Jesse shouted, and Blaine's eyes went wide. That hit home. He was instantly reminded of the taunts and the bullying at his old school.
Panicking a little, he fled into the first room he came across – his parents' bedroom. Damn it.
Without thinking, he crawled underneath the bed. Though he tried to keep his breathing down, he'd started hyperventilating a bit by now, and he felt entirely freaked out. Muttering to himself, he managed to calm down a little, just in time for Jesse to barge in.
"I have to admit, Blaine," he said as he sat down on the bed, "with your tendency to jump on every bit of furniture your parents own, I didn't expect you to hide under the bed. It's slightly disappointing, I'd hoped for a bigger challenge. This is so first grade."
Blaine, who had gone back to freaking out, couldn't find it in him to respond. Instead, he was still lying underneath the bed, flat on his stomach, hoping, praying, that Jesse would leave him alone. Of course, that was too much to ask from his cousin.
"Blaine?" Jesse asked after a couple of minutes. "Are you still alive down there?" He chanced a glance underneath the bed where Blaine was still hiding.
The younger boy whimpered slightly, something he'd normally never do around Jesse, both because he knew, deep down, that Jesse wouldn't intentionally hurt him, and because he knew that he'd never live it down. It was just his basic instinct now, it seemed.
"Blaine?" This time, Jesse sounded concerned. "What's wrong? Why are you acting so scared?" When Blaine didn't answer immediately, Jesse added, "Can you just come out? It'd be far easier talking to you like that."
Come out? Blaine's eyes widened. Had Jesse guessed? Why else would he use that wording? Still, Blaine's neck was starting to hurt, and if he'd stay down here any longer, he might become claustrophobic. Hesitantly, he moved out from under the bed. It showed that Jesse was really confused by his behaviour when he didn't even pounce on Blaine. Instead, he quickly walked in and out of the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, and gave the glass of water he'd gotten there to Blaine. While Jesse watched apprehensively, Blaine drank, and thankfully, he felt a little better already.
"Will you now tell me why you were so scared down there?" Jesse asked, sitting down on the floor, next to Blaine. "Or why you're suddenly going to Dalton, as a Freshman? You're supposed to be a Sophomore, right?"
"I should be," Blaine muttered. "But I'm not."
Clearly, Jesse wasn't ready to let go of the issue so easily. "Why not?" he pressed. "Come on, Blaine, I promise I won't laugh at you."
Blaine was a little sceptical – since when did Jesse not mock everyone he came across? "Promise?" he therefore asked, just to be sure.
Jesse rolled his eyes dramatically. "Yes, Blaine, I promise."
"I'm going to go to Dalton because I was bullied," Blaine started, then taking a deep breath before continuing, "for being gay. And I'm a Freshman again because Dalton's more of a challenge, education-wise, than my old school – and also because, as you already overheard, apparently, I missed half the year last year because I got beat up… for being gay." Catching the shocked look on Jesse's face, Blaine sighed. "And yes, I did just come out to you. I'm gay."
"Oh," Jesse muttered. "Well, I guess… on one hand, I suppose I could've seen that coming – you being gay, I mean, not you getting bullied. But still… on the other hand, it's surprising. Care to tell me the entire story? Well – not everything, of course, but the important bits."
Blaine shrugged as if he didn't care, but he did. It didn't matter that it had all started almost a year ago, it was still very painful to remember. But in a weird, twisted way, he trusted Jesse, so he started the story anyway. "As you know, last year, I was a Freshman in high school. Everything was alright, until I came out, a couple of weeks into the school year. I thought the other kids wouldn't make such a big deal out of it, but they did. They bullied me every single day, both physically and mentally. And nobody noticed. Well, one person did – my only friend – but he was gay as well, so there wasn't much he could do. About two months later, there was a dance, and the two of us went there together, even though we were just friends. We figured we'd be fine, but we weren't." Blaine stopped talking for a moment, catching his breath and wanting his heart to stop beating so quickly. "After the dance, we were standing outside the school, waiting for my friend's father to come pick us up. A bunch of older guys approached us, first just verbally taunting us, but after a minute, they started using violence. I don't really know what happened after, seeing as I woke up in the hospital a few days later. It took me ages to get better, and then my parents wanted me to go and talk to someone about what happened… all in all, by the time I was good to go back to school, it was almost April. My parents didn't want to send me back to that school, so they decided to enrol me at Dalton, but I did have to wait for the new school year to start." He sighed. "I think that's about it."
Jesse was silent for a moment, which was rather unusual for him. "God, Blaine," he eventually said. "That's horrible." Glancing sideways, he added, "I guess you wouldn't react too well if I tried to hug you now, right?"
Blaine shook his head apologetically. He still had some trouble with people making sudden movements or shouting loudly. He hoped, though, that he would get used to all the boys running around at Dalton quickly enough, or they might start to question him as well.
"What happened to the other guy?" Jesse asked. "What did your friend's parents do?"
"From what I've heard, they sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in Minnesota or some other place far away," Blaine replied, for once glad that he didn't have any relatives outside of Ohio. After all, his parents were having him board at Dalton, so they probably would've made him live with family members he barely knew if that were possible.
After a few more moments of silence, Jesse got up. "Just tell me if you need anything, alright?" he asked. "You are my favourite cousin after all."
Blaine rolled his eyes. "I'm your only cousin around when Cooper's gone, Jesse. And we all know what happens when he's back in town for a while."
Jesse waved away his argument. "Doesn't matter, the point still stands. So if there's anything I can help you with, just call me or something." Blaine nodded. "Just do me one favour, alright?"
"What is it?" Blaine asked, not fully trusting Jesse whenever he asked something like that.
"When you're settled at Dalton, join the Warblers," Jesse told him, grinning like mad. "I've always had a lot of fun trashing them at Sectionals, and it would be a nice time to see you again."
Sometimes, at times like this, Blaine was reminded of why Jesse was his favourite cousin, too.
A/N: So, what do you think? :) Let me know, please review! :D
(I apparently like the idea of Blaine and Jesse, as cousins, having a similar bond as the one I like to think Kurt and Finn have :P Sorry, just a random observation)