Chapter 3
It's three days into your living situation that the first close call occurs. At Dalton, you're blessed with a private bathroom, which cuts the number of people that you have to avoid while naked from an entire dorm's worth of boys to just Blaine. Still, you feel like with just one person to watch out for, you should have lasted more than three days. You comfort yourself with the fact that it was a "close call" and not a "fuck fuck fuck fuck somebody fucking knows." So there's that, at least.
In hindsight, it wasn't nearly as close as it felt, but then, hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? There's a joke in there somewhere about how you wear contact lenses, but that's neither here nor there. This is how you nearly had a heart attack on your third day of term:
You're in the small bathroom that you and Blaine share and you're halfway through your evening shower when you realize that you've forgotten your clothing. You've been changing in the bathroom in order to avoid any unexplainable sights, but today, you left your clothes on your bed.
You freeze, hands still halfway through shampooing your hair (you still can't get used to how easy it is to wash short hair - Lucy took at least an hour to shampoo, rinse, dry, where Quinn takes just a few minutes) and assess your options. Option the first: hope Blaine isn't in the room when you leave the shower. Option the second: wrap your towel around your midriff covering what meager breasts you have and hope that Blaine doesn't ask why you wear your towel like a girl. Option the third: ask Blaine to bring you your clothing and chalk it up to some kind of social anxiety.
You hear Blaine humming from the other room, so option the first is out. He begins to sing and you cringe. Option the first is very out.
You and Blaine have been cordial but not friendly. You say hello when you pass by each other in the halls and you're comfortable asking him to keep his music down when you're trying to do homework just like he's fine with telling you to pick up your used towels off the floor. There's still some residual awkwardness floating around from your first conversation though, and occasionally you'll catch him looking at you with a strange combination of pain and longing in his eyes, as if he wants you to be somebody else. You know that look. In fact, you're very familiar with it. You rather hate it.
Unfortunately, you soon realize that not only do you not have your change of clothing, but you've left your towel on your bed as well. You swear, loudly, and hear Blaine abruptly stop crooning Sinatra from the other room. Note to self: at some point in the future, if not because the two of you are the best of friends or some shit like that, for your own sanity alone, show the boy some music from the twenty-first century.
He's quiet now, though, and your hair is as clean as it's going to get, so you decide to just bite the bullet and go through with option the third. Let no one ever say that Quinn Fabray is a coward after this.
"Yo, Blaine?" you call out, "I think I left my towel and clothes on my bed. D'you mind tossing them in here for me?"
There's a shuffling sound from the other room before the bathroom door opens and Blaine's hand appears, holding the blessed cover that you need. The arm crooks, and he drops the bundle as close to the shower as he can and retreats. The door closes with a solid "click."
You grab the towel and quickly dry yourself off before pulling on a pair of thin black jeans and a plain grey t-shirt. You look at yourself critically in the mirror for a few seconds - your nipples are small enough that they shouldn't be a give away, at least, not while your shirt is on. Even the more oblivious (and after English 20, there is no doubt in your mind that the 'more oblivious' at Dalton are very much so) would notice that your areolae are decidedly not normal for a teenaged boy. Still, fully clothed, with a baggy shirt obfuscating your tiny hips, nobody who wasn't looking for something else would see anything but a (somewhat androgynous, but still) boy, slouching uncomfortably.
You leave the bathroom to be greeted by your (enormously angry) roommate.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he hisses as he slams a palm into the frame of the bathroom door. "I know why you're changing in the bathroom, why you refuse to be around me with so much as your shirt off."
There's a rushing in your ears, as if it isn't Blaine talking to you, but a lion roaring and you can feel the blood, feel it, escaping your face, fleeing to the ground.
"Yeah?" you ask, and god knows how you kept your voice that still.
He opens his mouth and you cringe, ready to hear the words that will mean the end of a school year nearly before it began, the words that are nothing more than a simple, painful reminder, that you are not who you think you are.
But they don't come.
What he says instead with teeth gritted and eyes full of hate (for himself? For you?) is "I said that I'm gay, not that I'm a sexual predator. You can change in front of me, I promise that I can control myself." He spits the last two words out like they're acid and then his face crumples like a stepped-on soda can.
Your mouth drops in surprise and your first two attempts to close it are met with failure. You're vaguely aware that you resemble some kind of exotic, human shaped fish, but you can't bring yourself to care all that much. "Uh," you manage, "Shit, Blaine, it's not that at all."
His face tenses and it's angry steel again when he asks, "So what is it then? Because all I know is I tell you I'm gay and then you avoid me like I'm some kind of- some kind of fucking monster under the bed!"
There's a part of you that wants to tell him, wants to spit at him exactly how mistaken he is. It's a tiny part, though, dwarfed by the entire rest of your brain that's screaming memories of just how close-minded people can be, screaming for you to lie, to protect yourself. What you manage is: "I- I used to get teased a lot before I came here." (True.) "I'm not really comfortable with my body." (Also true.) "I- I didn't mean to offend you, I didn't even think about that. Your being gay means nothing to me." (Also true, although since you still lack Blaine's preferred set of equipment his being gay is a non-issue anyway.) "I'm just not comfortable being naked around anyone."
His face softens and the incredulous wonder on his face makes you feel slightly guilty for lying. But really, only slightly. More than the guilt is the relief that he's (apparently) believed that negative body image and low self esteem is the entirety of the problem. "Really?" he asks, before realizing that he's grinning over the fact that his roommate admitted to having crippling body image due to a childhood of abuse. He hastily rearranges his face to something a little more somber before trying again. "Sorry, I- I mean, really? You're okay with me being gay?"
You nearly laugh - all things considered, Blaine's sexuality is low on your ladder of things to care about - but catch yourself and nod instead. "Trust me. It makes no difference to me who you go for."
He smiles sheepishly. "I should have just asked instead of assuming," he mumbles.
You roll your eyes. "Don't worry about it, man. People've assumed worse of me."
He raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
You nod. "Yeah. But we're not talking about it right now."
He shrugs. "Whatever you say." In a familiar gesture, he holds out his right hand. You look at it for a second before taking it in yours. His skin is as rough as you remember and his grip just as firm. "Friends?" he asks.
You can't help but smile at that. You haven't had a proper friend in a very long time. "Friends," you agree.
That night, as you lie under crimson blankets, you come to two realizations. The first is that, at some point, Blaine will become aware on his own that you weren't entirely honest today. The second is that you'll probably voluntarily tell him before that happens.
That night is your best sleep in months.
