Notes: Hi everyone! First of all, thank you all so much for the reviews, you're all awesome. Second, I forgot to mention that the paragraph at the beginning of the story belongs to Dead Poet's Society, It reminds me a lot of Dalton in a way.
The first song Blaine sings is How to disapear comletely by Radiohead. The song at the end is the song he sung for the Warblers, Stand by Rascall Flatts.
You've got a face for a smile, you know.
Jeff never talks much, and he barely smiles, and it's strange, because it really seems to Blaine that he has a face for a smile.
He always sits on a table by himself, on the far corner of the library, and sometimes Nick would come and sit with him, and sometimes they'll be okay, and spend all the afternoon together, and laugh, but other times, Jeff would stand up and walk away and Nick would stay there looking miserable.
He finds Jeff one day, sitting under a tree in the gardens, all by himself, smoking a cigarette that for sure didn't belong to him.
"Have you ever felt like you're trying to please so many people, that what you want starts to not matter at all?" Jeff asks him, tear stained cheeks and voice soft and a little rough from the smoke "It's like...you think so little about what you want, that you end up wanting nothing."
Blaine thinks it's really kind of sad, and he want's to say something meaningful, but he doesn't know how to talk to people, so he just listens and stares at the ground.
"For the first time I've found something I want. I really, really want it, you know? I'm always giving things up, and it doesn't matter, really, I don't care, but this one thing...this one thing I want, but it's wrong, isn't it?" He looks at Blaine with pleading eyes and he seems so lost and so confused that to Blaine is almost like looking in a mirror "Is it wrong? My mother would die, and my father...god. They sent me here to...straighten me up, or whatever, and I want to please them, fuck, I really am trying, I am, but I just want to be happy for once, is it really that bad? Am I being selfish? Do you know what I mean?"
Blaine knows that he has to say something important, something deep that would make Jeff feel better and understand that he has to do whatever makes him happy, that people would love him whatever he chooses to do, that being...like they are is not wrong, that there's nothing wrong with them or with wanting what they want. But not even Blaine believes that yet, so he says the only think that feels real enough.
"Yeah, I know."
And Jeff looks at him and smiles, and he has a smile that could light up a room, and Blaine really wishes he'd smile more often.
..
He looks in the mirror and the boy that looks back at him has dark bags under red, swollen eyes, there are tear stains on his cheeks, his lower lip is bleeding from bitting it too much, too hard, and in all, he looks miserable. He hasn't seen anyone look so miserable since Jeff that day when he showed Blaine that he was not the only one struggling.
He looks at his phone, but no one has called since the last time he got Kurt to call him back. And he knows because he's been checking every two minutes to make sure it's not on silent mode or anything. He's never been this dependent on a phone, but then again, he's never been this dependent on a person, eider, not even when he was at his lowest.
But maybe, he's just never been this low.
He closes his eyes, hands gripping the sick until his knuckles go white, and the memories come flooding back, as he slowly remembers all those things that Dalton taught him, and that he's slowly beginning to forget.
..
His fingers move over the piano keys very slowly, almost not touching, and the melody is soft and sad, and his voice rises, and there's no one else in the world but him.
"I'm not here, this isn't happening, I'm not here, I'm not here. In a little while I'll be gone, the moment's already passed, yeah, it's gone..."
His voice cracks, his hands shake, and he has to take a deep breath to try not to cry. He's so tired of crying, so tired of being scared, so tired of...
"You should sing with the Warblers."
Blaine looks up and Jeff's walking up to him. He looks different from that time months ago when they talked on the grass. His face is still made for a smile, but this time he is smiling.
"I don't...I don't sing."
Jeff laughs and sits beside him.
"I learned a few things this last couple of months." he says "Every time you don't do something you want to do, you die. David taught me that. I... was hurting someone I love, and I was hurting myself, and then one day I realized that there's no point, really, because one day we'll die and I don't want my last thought to be that my life was miserable, and that I pleased everyone but the one person who was worth pleasing, and that person is me."
They remain silent for what feels like forever, and then, Jeff looks at him with that smile, that is the brightest Blaine has ever seen.
"What do you want, Blaine?"
No one, ever, has asked Blaine what he wants.
"I want to..." He begins, unsure "I want to stop feeling worthless, I want to stop thinking about that night and about how helpless I was and how I cried and how they laughed. I want it to stop hurting, and I want to be strong, and I want to stop feeling like there's something wrong with me."
He's crying now, harder than he's ever cried, and Jeff's just sitting there beside him.
"There's nothing wrong with you, Blaine. With any of us. We're perfect. And you can do whatever you want, because no one will judge you here." His smile grows wider and he laughs "I learned that by myself."
So he stood up in that table for the first time, and sung a song about strength, for a change, and everyone stared at him, and he saw their faces, and their eyes filled with surprise and amazement, and something in him changed. So he sung louder, he poured everything he had into that one song, he fed from those stares and those smiles and those cheers, and at the end, he laughed.
And no one judged him, not once.
..
It's kind of pathetic, really, because they're at Sectionals, and they're doing good, and they're having fun, and everyone is cheering. And he's swaying in the background, just like Sebastian and Hunter said he'd be.
He's barely singing, actually, because he doesn't feel good enough. There are so many awesome voices, his voice isn't really that important. Nothing would change even if he stopped singing all together. And at one point, he does.
And he's still swaying in the background, moving his lips but making no sound, and nobody notices.
He's not used to this. He's not used to people not noticing, and he's not used to being just another kid that sings and dances at somebody else's shadow. He sees the audience, and he feels the stage under his feet, and, he hears the cheers, but they're not cheering for him, and he feels smaller and smaller every time, and he ends up trying to hide behind Tina, and then behind Sam, and he just wants to disappear.
It's been a long time since the last time he wanted to disappear.
He catches Jeff staring right at him, and Blaine stares back, and Jeff has never looked so...disappointed, so disillusioned, and he has to look away, because he knows what Jeff's seeing, and he knows what he's thinking, but he's not ready to face the facts just yet.
And the fact is that he's right back where he started.
And everything he learned, and everything Jeff learned, and everything he taught him, and that first time on that table, it's all gone, like it meant nothing.
Jeff looks away, eventually, and Blaine doesn't dare to look at the Warblers anymore, and he keeps swaying in the background, voiceless.
..
The song comes to an end, his voice slowly dies, and the room is silent for what seems like forever. Blaine tries his hardest not to look at the boys that keep staring at him wide-eyed, his hands shake nervously, and his heart is racing with a mixture of adrenaline and fear and barely contained joy.
Jeff is the first one to speak.
"You go Blaine!"
And suddenly everyone is cheering and laughing and when Blaine manages to look up, all he sees are amazed looks and huge smiles and bright eyes.
His eyes find Jeff's, and his smile is the biggest Blaine has ever seen, and it's all for him, for the fist time, all the smiles and the cheers and the amazed looks are for him.
He feels a happiness he's never felt before take over his body and his mind, and his own laugh joins the others, and for the first time in his life he feels powerful, strong, invincible.
..
He wakes up from the memory to and empty choir room, and the sudden realization that he'll never hear those cheers again. He's no longer invincible.
Cause when push comes to shove, you taste what you're made of
You might bend 'til you break 'cause it's all you can take
On your knees you look up, decide you've had enough
You get mad, you get strong, wipe your hands, shake it off
Then you stand