I'm still getting used to this document manager thing. Much different than Wattpad.
Anyway, since this is a very Alternate Universe, the characters will be in different roles and it's a bit tricky getting the right Glee character into The Christmas Carol character! I changed who was going to be the Jacob Marley character a couple times before settling on the current one.
Now the chapter is back in the present time.
Blaine resumed his work at the desk, reading the faded black ink from the old inkjet printers of the 90s. He remembered his dad working at the office and having an entire table just for the printer and the fax machine. It was hard to read through the sometimes stained from water and coffee and generally dusty papers but it was a job that had to be done.
Absently, he scrubbed as his forehead, his fingertips grazing slightly at the curls he gelled back earlier this morning.
A tapping sound interrupted his thoughts. Glancing up from his seat, he could hear it again. "Who's there?" He called dropping his pen on the papers spread about.
Rising from his chair, he went to check on the door Kurt left through. It was locked. Blaine rose to look through the tiny peephole and saw there was no one there. He stepped back and rubbed his forehead.
He walked back to the office in the back, mindful of the different pieces of shop equipment that were scattered in a kind of formation. Pathways were long worn into the painted cement of the shop floor.
Glancing up for a moment, he froze in his tracks. He could swear he saw a face in the lower shop windows. A blink and then it was gone.
He shook his head and almost smiled. If he didn't know better, the face had a generous mouth and a styled hair cut with swooped bangs.
Much like Sam.
Sam. He hadn't thought of him in years. Sam was his friend from his old school and they had been close friends, not quite best friends as Cooper had been in that place, but Sam did stick up for Blaine when the much taller boys picked on him in grade school.
Sam was more like Kurt, he realized still staring at the pane of glass where he thought he saw Sam's face. It was still light outside but night was approaching fast.
Sam didn't come from a lot of money and had made a point of not telling Blaine that. After Cooper left, Sam tried to comfort Blaine but he had brushed him off. He wouldn't understand and as a kid, his brother meant the world to him.
Then things changed and Blaine began to focus on what was really important in life: money and status.
Returning to the office, it was too hard to focus on reading and Blaine decided to go home and try again tomorrow.
His father was supposed to be there unless the roads held him up due to the weather. Snow storms always blew up around this week and the meteorologists had predicted a heavy snowfall this week.
Blaine called his driver and in a few minutes, the car came around to the front of the shop. He set the alarm code and locked the building.
It was a quiet drive back to the house.
They arrived an extremely long forty-five minutes later because of the caution the driver had. Black ice was a real danger in such low temperatures and Blaine much rather spend his nights in his room at the house than in the hospital recovering from injuries from reckless driving.
That would mean hospital bills therefore money wasted on something that could be prevented.
Once at the front door, he fumbled for his key, berating himself for not getting it out while in the well lit car. The driver had gone around to park the car in one of the family's many garages and head to his own house, wherever that was. Blaine didn't care and as long as he had a ride somewhere, no questions were asked.
"Dammit." He dropped the keys on the front porch and fumbled around trying to find them. Blaine managed to find them, nearly bumping his head on the door frame in his haste. It was freezing outside and he much rather die inside where it was slightly warmer.
His dad probably switched off the heat though. Why have it on when no one is home? He remembered him saying.
Looking up and shoving the correct key into the lock, the fancy ornate door knocker had shifted. "Sam?"
"Hello Blaine." It said, the generous mouth moving.
It was supposed to be the Westerly wind but there was no angry eyebrows but bangs combed forward.
"I…" Blaine stuttered then torn his eyes away. He's talking to a door knocker. Twisting the key, he tripped inside and locked the door behind him.
It was cool but not as cold as the tire shop. He removed his outer layer and went to the kitchen to make himself a hot drink. Normally there would be a meal laid out but since his parents weren't sure when they were going to be home, there was no prepared meal.
Tea was made and drunk plain and he made himself a sandwich with some leftovers he found in the fridge. He brought it up to his room where he allowed the tea to cool a little while he changed into his pajamas and bathrobe he had hanging on a hook on the wall. Navy blue with white piping and a comfy old robe that was a rather bland brown, gray and blue plaid. Nice warm pajamas.
He drank his tea and ate his ham and cheese sandwich. Out of the corner of his eye he could see white swirling around the windowsill. Snow fall already, he thought checking the time and seeing it was nearly eight o'clock. Sandwich was finished and his tea had the bits of leaves on the bottom, he went to look out at the falling snow.
At one time he would've thought it was a magical thing but now… he knew better.
Then, he squinted into the darkness and raised a hand to block out his reflection in the glass. There were people floating around? He leaned forward until his head bumped against the glass and leaving a smudge from the hair gel. "It can't be any colder out there compared to in here." He told himself before unlatching the window lock and sliding it open.
It truly looked like people floating around in the swirling snow. Then he recognized one of them. "Sam?" The same face on the door knocker and in the window pane at the car shop drifted closer.
The same worn out clothes: hoodie with a surf shop logo on the back and a pair of jeans that fit well enough but were better off on a hobo or in the garbage bin. The face he remembered from one of the photos he found on Facebook when he had a moment of nostalgia and wondered what happened to his friend. The figure drifted close to Blaine who was nearly half hanging out of his window in shock.
"What do you want?" Blaine stupidly asked staring at the familiar features that were there but weren't there. His face had a white bandana wrapped around his head at a slight angle and the dark circles underneath Sam's eyes were very pronounced.
"Dude, you should ask me who I was." The Sam thing said raising his light colored eyebrows so they disappeared under his long bangs.
"Who were you?" Blaine repeated having no idea what that would accomplish. "Are you…?"
"In life, I was your partner." Not Sam said sounding pleased with itself. "Well, we played a lot of cops and robbers with some of the other kids during recess. It was our thing."
"Uh…" Blaine scooted back into his room and wondered what to do. "Would you like to- Can you sit down?"
"I can, it's cool." Sam drifted in not paying mind to the parade of transparent figures outside still swirling around in the falling snow.
He dropped down onto one of the two easy chairs Blaine had in his room he liked to have for reading casually.
"You don't believe I'm real." Sam said after a long pause once Blaine had sat down on the opposite chair.
Blaine shrugged. "Not really."
"You aren't spiritual so…" Not Sam leaned forward and rested his forearms on his upper legs. "What proof do you have that I'm not real?"
"I don't know." Blaine glanced all around the room and then finally dared a glance on his old…friend. "For all I know you could be the result of the sandwich I ate. Those leftovers could be rotten and now I'm hallucinating."
Sam sighed and didn't pout, no he did not. He snapped pale fingers and produced an image of a young Blaine with a huge smile and Sam with a matching grin of his own holding pretend pistols in between them.
"What in the-?" Blaine jumped in his seat and wished he had something more durable than the pajamas and bathrobe on. "Why are you bothering me?"
"Just making a point, do you believe in me? That I do exist?"
Blaine nodded and babbled, "I do, I do! But why do you come to me? Why do these other spirits come here as well?"
"Part of the whole process, I guess." The ghost scratched his head around the bandana. "It was probably in some book but I didn't bother reading it. Probably should have…"
"So all that… all spirits walk the earth? For how long? I need to know something before I go in case this happens to me!" Blaine cried wondering if he could touch Sam and not pass a hand through the apparition.
"I can't offer you help, man. I shouldn't even be here." Sam the ghost shrugged and stood up. "I wasn't told that much but I can tell you one, no two things." He held up one finger than changed it to two.
"Thanks?" Blaine tried to put on a smile but it felt too forced.
"You'll be haunted by three spirits."
"What?"
"Yeah, and they'll come at different times so don't think you can get it done all at once." Sam said with a head tilt. He looked terribly tall standing. "And you're to learn a lesson."
"What lesson?" Blaine asked looking defeated that he couldn't get three ghosts to visit in one go. "Sam?"
The spirit didn't say anything, just walked with slow determined steps to the window Blaine didn't close and dove out with a wailing inhuman scream.
"Sam!" Blaine called rushing to the window and seeing the shifting and swirling mass of spirits in the air. All with their mouths open in a silent call in the night.
He couldn't see Sam anywhere and shoved the window down and latched it, checking it three times. With the window closed and the double paned glass between him and the outside, the spirits were no more but snowflakes and icy wind.
Shivering, Blaine climbed under the covers, not bothering to brush his teeth or take off his robe and fell asleep.
