Chapter Two False Start
Movement taken by an offensive player after he has taken a set position.
"Come on! Coach, seriously? How long is this still going to take?"
"Quit whining, Haydn and take your place." Quietly and without any heat, Blaine scolded his quarterback and captain of the football team as he strained to listen to the principal's words.
The entire cheer squad and athletic team were waiting in the corridor outside the gymnasium for Principal Williams to give them their cue to burst through the double doors and launch the football season at the first assembly of the academic year. Blaine felt like he was currently single-handedly trying to rein in several thoroughbred racehorses, each chomping at the bit, eager at the start to get out there and perform as they were born to do.
Over the heads of the teenagers around him, he looked across at the cheer squad's coach who was rolling her eyes at whatever gossip her captain was whispering in her ear. Mid-roll, she caught Blaine's eye and winked, bringing her right hand up to her ear and imitating the yapping of a noisy puppy. Blaine smiled.
He and the McKinley head cheer coach, a tall, dark, sultry Latino who was around the same age as him got on famously for which he was more than grateful. Many a high school football coach had ended his contract earlier than expected over endless bloodless but, nevertheless, deadly skirmishes with the head cheer coach. Blaine knew this because he religiously read the online athletic blogs and sympathised with his counterparts around the country who had fallen victim to the very ambitious, cut-throat cheer coaches who would as easily slash your throat with a smile as hoist you up and toss you from the top of their pyramid.
At first, Santana had circled Blaine for a few weeks like a shark will do around a lifeboat full of helpless sailors – waiting for an opportunity – any opportunity. Blaine, in awe of her squad's national championship record and because he had graduated from Dalton Academy complete with the finest set of manners lots of money could buy, was nothing but a perfect gentleman around her. Soon, and unsurprisingly because of her "psychic Mexican third eye," Santana was able to detect the unspoken yet deep-seated need of his to prove his worth. So, as he began to develop and train a team worthy of her award-winning cheers, she began to thaw in his favour eventually persuading him to join her for a meal at Breadstix after a third consecutive win in his first year at McKinley.
"So tell me, hobbit," she asked as she snapped a stale breadstick between her long fingers. "What's a nice boy like you doing in a Loserville-Lima?"
Blaine laughed and rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "And what makes you think I'm a nice boy, Ms Lopez?" he asked.
"Please," she guffawed, "dressed like that..." and she gestured with her breadstick to his bowtie peeking out from underneath the V-neck sweater he was wearing. "Anyone can see you are just the sweetest little cupcake out there."
"I think I'll take that as a compliment, then," Blaine smiled politely and raised his glass in her direction before taking a sip.
"And you should, my dear hobbit – you should," Santana replied sardonically. "But seriously, you can tell Auntie 'Tana." Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "What in the name of all that is actually unholy are you doing here?"
"Santana? Is that you? and … Blaine?"
Blaine was given a reprieve from answering Santana's particular version of the Spanish Inquisition as his assistant coach, Sam Evans, walked towards their table.
"It is you!" he exclaimed happily and slid comfortably into the vacant booth seat beside Blaine opposite Santana. "You didn't mention you were coming here after the game tonight, Boss," he grinned cheerfully at Blaine.
Blaine shook his head. "No, I didn't realize it either. I was headed home after I said goodnight to you, Sam but then Santana …" He would have continued but she interrupted him.
"I accosted him in the parking lot and got the hobbit to agree to have a late dinner with me which you are now interrupting, Sam Evans, so why don't you take your trouty mouth to some other table and bug them, would ya?"
Blaine was aghast at her rudeness. "Santana!" he reprimanded.
"Nah, Boss, forget it. This gorgeous gal and I go way back and nothing she says could possibly offend me at all. Besides, Auntie Snix, I know this isn't a date because you don't date boys, or has that changed again?"
Blaine's open mouth closed quickly when the ringing of his phone interrupted the two at swordplay across the table. Pulling it towards him from where it lay between Sam and Santana, he gestured to Sam to allow him to slide out of the booth.
"It's my friend Nick. I'll just take this outside," he explained and left the two alone at the table.
"Please Sam, for this to have been a date, Blaine and I would both have to have been somebody else. It's as plain as daylight that the hobbit wouldn't be interested in me. He's as gay as a …"
"Please don't say two-dollar bill," Sam pleaded. "It's so clichéd."
Santana cocked her head to the side and regarded Sam. Then she smiled wickedly, "Fourth of July?"
"No!" the blonde shook his head. "That's worse Santana."
"Yeah, you're right but what I really wanted to know was what he's doing here, in Lima of all places."
"Santana, do you even know who Blaine Anderson is?" asked Sam curiously. "Or was?" he amended quietly.
"Well, duh, Surfer Boy Wonder Model, that's kinda why I asked him to dinner so I could find out from the horse's mouth itself."
" 'Tana, I don't think that's something you should go around asking Blaine. Rather, wait for him to volunteer the information," Sam suggested wisely.
"What? Wait, what does that even mean? I can't ask him stuff?" Santana was perplexed and even more intrigued.
"I'm just saying I think you should let your friendship develop a little first before you interrogate him for the personal details of his life. Not everyone is willing to spill their darkest, deepest secret to the first person who is kind enough to buy them dinner."
Blaine had his ear to the metal door trying to make out Principal William's words. He knew that the beginning of the cheer squad's music would be their cue first and his team would follow after but he was curious to know what was taking the principal so long. There were only three new teachers he needed to introduce so what could be the holdup?
Shushing the teens closest to him yet again, he leaned still closer to the door and heard the muffled sounds of the words: "Broadway", "Glee Club" and "musical" before the student body applauded the newcomer. The microphone screeched once more.
"For the love of heaven does nobody in this school know how to use a microphone properly?" complained Wolf – the transfer student from Germany with the unfortunate birth name of Wolfgang which only Blaine and school administrators knew as he refused to answer to anything other than Wolf.
"Shut up!" commanded Haydn. "This is us! Listen up!"
As the music exploded from the speakers and the student body began to beat their feet in time on the bleachers, Santana and Blaine threw open the double doors and the twenty-five strong cheer squad ran into the auditorium to take up their places on the polished floor. The lights in the auditorium came back on as the music changed to the squad's new routine music. Although Blaine had caught the tail-end of several of their pre-season training sessions during the last two weeks of the summer break, this would be the first time he would watch their entire sequence from start to finish.
It's good! Blaine thought. No doubt Santana will bitch and moan about some petty things and several girls will be in tears after the assembly, but it's good; really good.
The football team hung back with Blaine until a given moment in the cheer squad's sequence when they formed a guard of honour and Blaine sent the athletes to run through it as pre-arranged. Blaine didn't think it was possible but the noise in the auditorium grew still louder until it became a deafening, thunderous roar of approval. The student body was wild with excitement and the cheers for his team were long and raucous.
After a while, up on the small podium, Haydn held up his hand and in a few moments, the auditorium quietened down. Into the silence, the captain of the McKinley Titans bellowed, "COACH ANDERSON!" and the students' voluble stamping and cheering resumed as Blaine made his own way through the cheerio guard of honour, stopping briefly at the end of the tunnel to hug Santana and shake the hand of the principal before stepping up to the microphone.
Kurt couldn't breathe; quite literally, he could not inhale the much-needed breath. The moment was too much. Too many memories, too many ghosts from the past, too many emotions were crashing in on him, wave after relentless wave. The noise of the music from the speakers and the noise the students were making on the bleachers – it was all too much and he found he was gasping for air.
Oh great! I'm having a panic attack, on my first day, in front of the entire school. How mortifying!
Kurt found the impending humiliation was a great incentive to try to get his breathing under control.
Slowly! Count to ten, slowly.
He forced his brain to work with him just as Cameron had taught him back in New York.
One… two … three ... Yes, that's it. Keep going, Kurt. Ignore those frenetic cheers. … four… five …
"I'm just going to move this microphone back ever so slightly so you can all hear me without the feedback deafening your eardrums," Blaine announced to the student body as he picked up the stand and moved behind the speakers, effectively eliminating the feedback loop. The student body sighed collectively at the immediate relief from the infernal screech.
Kurt was finding it unnecessary to continue to count to calm his erratic breathing because the warm, rich and melodious voice of McKinley's head football coach spoke calmly into the microphone, unknowingly, successfully managing to soothe Kurt's rising internal panic.
"Thank you for your warm response this morning. It means a lot to the boys and me and, I dare say, to Coach Santana and her team too."
Kurt looked up in startled amazement and followed Blaine's hand gesture across the gymnasium towards the back doors to where, none other than his old classmate, Santana Lopez, stood acknowledging Blaine's comment with a brief nod of her head and an undefined expression on her face.
"No shit!" exclaimed Kurt under his breath which had now returned to his chest in generous amounts but which, in turn, earned him a fast and fierce glare from his neighbour.
"Sorry, Mrs Dusenberry," he apologised in a whisper, "but how long has Santana been the cheer squad coach here?"
The woman beside him pursed her lips as she tried to remember. "The years all seem to fade into one after a while. She'd been here a couple of years before this new coach arrived and this will be his fourth year."
The head coach's voice captured Kurt's attention once more so he stored Santana's information away for later.
"Three years ago, when I accepted the position of head coach, I explained that we would have a five-year goal. Each year since, we've been steadily gaining ground – quicker than even I had hoped. That first year - we were regional champs, the second year - we made it to the State semi-finals and last year, we were only narrowly beaten at the State Championship finals. We are ahead of our projected target by a whole year and so it is with all confidence that I can stand here before you today and declare, without a shadow of a doubt, that this year … this year is ours McKinley! This year we will go all the way to the finals of the State Championships and we will not rest until we return with the trophy and the title."
The auditorium erupted again with rapturous applause and even the teachers stood up with the student body in recognition of the zealous fervour and optimistic spirit from the diminutive coach on the raised platform.
"Who is this man?" asked Kurt of Mrs Dusenberry, not minding that he had to shout at her in order to be heard.
"Blaine Anderson!" she shouted back with a silly grin on her face. "He used to play for the New England Patriots before he came here. Best thing ever to happen to William McKinley High School!
By holding up his hand in a simple appeal for silence, Blaine signalled for the room to be quiet and Kurt was astounded at his total command of the room.
Shit, but the man's got stage presence, he marvelled.
And that's not all he's got.
Now that the oxygen was flowing again, Kurt's mind seemed to be on a fast track to disaster.
He's gorgeous! Look at those cute curls and the shit-eating grin on his face as he promises these mere mortals the absolute world.
Would you stop? Kurt remonstrated with his inner monologue. He's the Head Football Coach - they don't get much straighter than that. I'm done crushing on football players remember? Especially straight ones. Just gets my heart broken.
Kurt's face clouded over as memories of Finn flooded his mind.
Finn: wheeling Artie onto the stage, apologising for being a jerk and declaring that being a part of Glee club was where he wanted to be.
On stage, Blaine's delighted eyes swept over the student body and faculty as he began his final declaration.
"If ever they tell my story …"
Finn: arriving at their first Sectional's competition with sheet music and a plan.
"…let them say I walked with giants."
Finn: declaring their newly-decorated shared bedroom to be "freaking insane."
"Men rise and fall like the winter wheat…"
Finn: dressed in an obscenely red dress made from an old shower curtain, standing up for him against Karofsky during Gaga Week.
"…but these names will never die."
Finn: dancing with and singing to him in front of everyone at their parents' wedding reception.
"Let them say I lived in the time of Hector…"
Finn's coffin being lowered into his grave on a rainy afternoon.
"Let them say I lived in the time of Achilles!"
As the gymnasium occupants exploded from their seats once more, Kurt could no longer contain his pent up emotions and he allowed the audible dry sob to escape. Around him the faculty members were clapping and turning around to watch the students' antics as they cheered and hollered their support.
Trying desperately to gain some control, Kurt brought his right hand up to his mouth to contain the next sob that threatened to break free and his left hand clutched at the physical pain in his stomach.
Somehow, in the midst of all the jubilation in the gymnasium, Blaine caught that particular movement and his alert, hazel eyes landed on the unfamiliar slight figure in the first row among the more well-known faculty faces. The noise in the room muted for a moment as Blaine's gaze zeroed in on the tall, handsome man with elfin-like facial features. Blaine swallowed visibly as he tried to rein in the rush of feelings he experienced as he watched the mysterious man deal with his own, very obvious, onslaught of emotions.
Wow, thought Blaine, that newcomer sure must love high school football! And he smiled cheerfully at the young man who happened to glance furtively around the room at that moment, his eyes landing carelessly on Blaine's Cheshire-cat grin.
However, Blaine's grin fell abruptly from his face as the stranger stared long and hard at him and then, with a definite glare, turned forcibly on his heel and walked out of the gymnasium, head held high but shoulders stiff and unyielding.
Up on the platform, surrounded by a euphoric team, in front of an ecstatic crowd, Blaine was left wondering, What in the hell was that?