Ok. Part two. I still don't own Glee...
Mike found himself staring at Blaine punching the bag in the weight room like it had killed his puppy and tried to figure out how to make him share without jeopardizing his plans by making Blaine avoid him. He finally went for the not too invasive: "Who turned you into Tyler Durden today?"
Blaine spun around to face him. "Look, I know you're just being nice and all, but you really don't have to hang out with me. I mean I don't want to cause any unnecessary tension and the New Directions are your friends." What? What did that even mean? Why would Blaine be causing tension? Finn had gotten in a strop, but that was obviously just insecurity and Mike being friends with him outside of glee wouldn't matter. Even Kurt didn't seem mad, he just looked awkward and occasionally a bit guilty when he saw Blaine in the halls.
"So are you. Relax, they're not going to lynch me for hanging out with you. They like you. I mean yeah, most people are taking Kurt's side of whatever happened with the two of you, because no one knows what it was and we've known him longer and all. I am actually allowed to have friends outside of glee club." It felt weirdly like this was turning into a fight.
Blaine looked stricken, clearly upset that he had offended Mike. "Of course you are! I didn't mean to imply...I just. I don't think Kurt's very happy about it, or Finn." Blaine's reluctance to accept their inevitable epic bromance would be more offensive if he didn't seem so legitimately worried about Mike's other relationships suffering.
Mike slung an arm around his shoulders, casually moving them toward the changing rooms. "Luckily they don't really govern my opinions on people. Besides, the only one that would cause any real kind of problems for me is Tina and she thinks you're adorable." She had actually gushed about the video clips he'd sent her for quite a while. "For the record, even if she did have an issue I wouldn't just drop a friend." He might if she set an ultimatum, but she would never do that, it was one of the many things he loved about her.
"Now shower and get dressed. My mom wanted more of the chocolate things so I'm taking you to work." Blaine quickly made his way into the showers while Mike checked his own locker for the blue socks he lost the previous week. "So are you going to tell me who you were pounding in there?" He called out over the sound of running water.
The water shut off and Blaine came back in, shaking his head and running a hand through wet curls. "Homophobic assholes of my past and present."
"Is someone giving you a hard time?" They weren't going to let that happen again. Not after Karofsky got to Kurt so bad he switched schools. Definitely not to Blaine, who had apparently switched to Dalton for similar reasons.
"No actually, not really. I mean they made it pretty clear they weren't going to be naked in here while I was here, but to be honest I can do without seeing that, and this place smells marginally less rank when they're not in here so that's pretty much fine. It's nothing on what I had back when I first came out. It just gets to me that they refuse to learn. I thought I was ready to face this again when I transferred here but I've just been so spoiled at Dalton where no one cared. It was somewhere to escape to."
"Do you have curly hair?"
"Shit!" His hand flew up to his hair which was rapidly drying.
By the time they reached Pete's, Blaine's hair was fixed in it's usual style, which Mike was amused to find he could do that without a mirror. "I can't believe you've turned me into the kind of guy who sits around in coffee shops listening to acoustic guitar versions of indie pop."
"I could play something else if you like."
"No, I like it."
"So I was thinking, you should really sign up for auditions. You should be Riff. You would be a perfect Riff." Pete handed them their coffee (Mike's complete with a post-it note) and shooed them out of the queue.
"Tina said the same thing."
Blaine clearly decided this meant he won, if the smile was anything to go by. "Obviously we must be right. I'll help you work on it. Your voice would do really well on Cool. You'll blow them away."
"Not everyone has the effect on people you do you know. I couldn't have come in as a mid year transfer to a place like Dalton and become King of the Warblers within a year. My singing is only ever going to be decent."
"I wasn't a mid year transfer. I started as a regular freshman."
"But Kurt said..."
"I didn't transfer to Dalton to run away from my bullies, I transferred there to run away from my dad. I told Kurt about the Sadie Hawkins dance before prom last year, because I wasn't sure how I would react to having those memories dragged up. I don't know if he told you?" Mike shook his head. "I came out in eighth grade, around Halloween, and when the Sadie Hawkins dance came around I went with the only other out kid at my school, we were just friends and we spent the entire night basically sitting around drinking the disgusting mango punch. We danced once, to a Katy Perry song, because she was his idol." Blaine smiled into his untouched coffee.
"After, while we were waiting for his dad to pick us up some of the guys from the lacrosse team found us." Kurt had alluded to the fact that Blaine would understand his problems better than any of them, and Mike had inferred that he meant more than just being gay, but he could feel his fingers twitching, trying to form fists around his over large cup. The idea of anyone trying to injure Blaine seemed somehow foreign because people liked Blaine damn it. That was like a law of nature. Not even the Hockey players did anything to Blaine and everyone got on board with his courtyard singing things, even when he was clearly serenading the only other openly gay kid at school.
"They basically beat the crap out of us, and I missed the rest of the semester. I slipped into a coma for a week and when I woke up they told me, James, my gay friend, had left for a private school in Illinois. My parents didn't let me leave the house over Christmas break and then they transferred me to a school two towns over. My dad told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to be telling anyone at that school about it. I was shoved back in the closet. The thing is I was never aware of being in it before. I never lied and said I liked girls. You'd be surprised how often it doesn't come up. When I transferred though, it was mid year and everyone had questions and I had to lie."
"I started looking around, and I heard of Dalton from my guidance counselor and I started applying for scholarships. My dad had made it pretty clear at that point that if I was going to be gay I was going to do it behind closed doors. His son was going to be normal. I didn't want that, but I thought if I could go to Dalton, and I paid for it, he couldn't hold that over my head. I managed to get an academic scholarship that covered my books and uniforms, and I covered the rest of the tuition and boarding with a combination. Fencing and Polo made up most of it and I made up the difference with smaller ones, the really specific type that some eccentric sets up, like you have to have a Filipino parent and be active in a debate club. Even if I wanted to go back now I couldn't. I turned down the grants and my position on most of those teams has been filled."
"Wow. Wait, how far away do you live?"
"I live here."
"Why did you board at Dalton? Did things get that bad with your father?"
"I live in Lima, my parents live in Cleveland."
"You live on your own?"
"Yeah, upstairs. When I left for Dalton my dad made it pretty clear that I wasn't welcome anymore. They didn't disown me, but I also haven't spoken to them since. Whenever something needs their signatures they just sign and send. Having your son emancipated would be worse than having a gay son."
"There's nothing wrong with having a gay son. I just don't get how someone who can hate people based on that could have raised you. How do you not hate everyone?"
"My dad doesn't hate gay people by default. He's fine with them being his friends and colleagues and he's in favour of gay marriage and adoption. It's just me."
"It's not, and you know that. You're smart Blaine, I know you are. You want to carry some of the blame in that relationship because that's the only way you can fix it. If your dad isn't ok with you being gay, he's not really ok with them being gay either. Ignoring is a long way from accepting. You do know that right?"
"Yes."
"You're a good person."
"Thank you." Blaine took another swig of coffee before looking up at Mike. "So why are you mad at the New Directions?"
The abrupt change in subject startled him. "What?" He kind of assumed Tina had noticed, but he had only been friends with Blaine for a few days. Did they all know how he felt too?
"Oh come on, you just said you thought I was smart. I shared, your turn man. You didn't want to go into that room any more than I did last week. I know it's not Tina because you still get that look in your eyes every time her name is mentioned, yup that one. So what happened?"
"Sugar Motta."
"Right, Kurt told me she auditioned, but she didn't get in. I didn't hear her, but she can't have been that bad can she? I mean wouldn't you put her in extra training, like the booty camp thing?"
"It was pretty bad, but that's not the point. It was just the way everyone talked about her when she left. I kind of expect it from Rachel, she goes insane over everything and then she eventually calms down and goes with it anyway, but it was just everyone. If they hadn't been down so many members two years ago I never would have gotten in. I mean what if she's a really good dancer? She might have great ideas for competitions."
"And they never gave her a chance."
"Yeah."
"Well, she solved it I guess. Miss Corcoran is starting a rival club remember?" And yeah, that kind of made Sugar better than the both of them, because they hadn't even been outright rejected and they were still more down about it than she was. She just went and got what she wanted for herself.
"Yeah, so if you don't want to come back to us, are you joining them?"
"Nope, I'm not really eligible, besides, as of right now, you're my only friend at McKinley, becoming your competition isn't at the top of my to do list."
"Dude, you're awesome, of course you should be singing, I promise not to get mad if you beat me. Wait, what do you mean not eligible?"
"It's an all girls choir."
"Oh, yeah you're not really the honorary girl type like Kurt either. Whatever man, go talk to them, they don't have enough members either. They'd be crazy not to let you in."
"Thanks Mike."
"No problem. The whole everyone feeling welcome thing was what I liked about Glee, except the dancing, but you obviously don't feel welcome there. Clearly you love performing, and yeah your moves are all from the fifties, but they're really good."
"Hey I will have you know I have some pretty awesome disco moves too." Ok definitely his new best friend.
"Seriously? Dude we are so doing disco sometime. Britt will be happy, she keeps looking for an excuse to stick shampooing into a routine."
"Yeah, but I'm not in glee."
"Whatever, if we can use the band guys all the time and Brad, I mean I don't even think he works for the school...point is I can totally use you in routines."
