New chapter up. I'm glad people seem to be responding to it. I was so nervous when I put the first chapter up. This chapter takes place simultaneously with the last one. This is another talky chapter. I wanted to get the actual coming out for the first time scenes done quickly. So hopfully you will like this one. And the usual disclaimer, I don't own any of these characters.

Sam sat in his car in the parking lot of the Lima Bean. He'd been sitting there for over fifteen minutes trying to decide if he wanted to actually go in and look for the other boy or not. He knew that once he told someone, there was no going back. Actually speaking the words to someone else made it real. He'd been fighting this battle inside his head for so long, he didn't know anything else. He'd tried to change...tried to be what he was supposed to be...but it wasn't working. Maybe he just had to actually deal with the reality of his life and move on from there.

Sighing to himself, he stepped out of the car and walked into the coffee shop. He was one of the few from New Directions who'd never been here yet. It was turning into the hangout for the group, but since he still didn't feel like one of the group, he'd never bothered to come. He entered the shop, the bell tinkling as he opened the door and walked through.

When he got in, he scanned the place quickly and saw the person he'd come to talk to sitting at a table by himself. The other boy's attention was on a textbook open on the table. He looked quite frustrated at what he was reading in the book. Sam walked over to stand in line ready to place his order.

Blaine was sitting at a table, desperately agonizing over the French textbook in front of him. He wondered to himself how Kurt made this language look so easy. The French just rolled off of that boy's tongue like he was born there. He smiled to himself as that thought segued into thinking about Kurt's tongue and the wonderful things he could do with it.

He slammed the book shut to take a break. This language was impossible. He stretched back in his seat, raising his arms over his head to get the circulation back. As he glanced over at the counter, he was surprised to see a familiar face sidling up to the counter to place an order.

From the counter, Sam glanced over at him and saw that Blaine had closed the book and was now looking at him. Sam gave a little wave which Blaine returned.

Once Sam had his coffee in his hand, he walked over to the table where Blaine was sitting.

"So what brings you here?" Blaine asked, looking up at the blond boy.

"Getting coffee." Sam answered, a sly grin on his face. "I'm not interrupting your studying am I?"

"Nah," Blaine answered, pushing the book away, "Have a seat."

Sam sat in a chair across from the other boy. He pulled the book to him to see what subject it was.

"Trying to wrap my head around French." Blaine said, venom in his voice, "I don't know how Kurt makes this language look so effortless. It's like a nightmare for me."

"I've never been good at foreign languages." Sam said, pulling the lid off of his coffee and blowing on it, "I just don't have a knack for them."

"Plus I miss studying with Kurt." Blaine said forlornly, "It's not the same trying to learn without him here."

"Why aren't you studying together? Nothing's wrong is it?"

"Nah. Since I finally got the balls to admit how I feel and now that we're together, he says it's distracting when I play footsie with him under the table. And it's just possible that when I get up to get a book and get back to the table, I may have a habit of nibbling on his ear. Is that a crime? Is it my fault that he can't concentrate on his studies when I'm kissing his neck? If wanting to throw my boyfriend on the table and have my way with him in the middle of the library is a crime, then lock me up and throw away the key."

Sam just shook his head laughing at this little speech. "You're a goofball." he said, throwing his straw wrapper at Blaine. He used the straw to stir the coffee.

"I'm just glad I got my crap together in time." Blaine said, his eyes getting serious, "I'm glad I didn't waste any more time waffling around before I told him how I feel. I blew enough time that we could have been sharing."

"Well whatever you're doing it's working. I've never seen him as happy as he was at Regionals. You may have lost the competition, but that boy was on cloud nine backstage. He was bouncing off the walls telling all of us about his amazing new boyfriend. We were all basically just...'it's about time.'"

"Well, I wish someone would have clued me in earlier to what I was missing."

"It was only a matter of time." Sam said, "You two were bound to end up together. You fit too well to not be together."

"I agree." Blaine said, lost in thought of his amazing boyfriend.

Sam just looked at him for a moment, then his own expression clouded over. "You two are so brave." he said, "I'm sure it can't be easy...making your relationship work in this town, hell in this world."

Blaine just looked at the other boy. Something had changed the mood at the table drastically, and Blaine couldn't quite put his finger on what happened. "Is everything okay?" he asked, looking right at Sam.

"Yeah." Sam said, looking down as he spun his coffee cup, "I guess. Not really. I don't know." Then he just got quiet.

Blaine sat for a minute, looking at him and giving him time to organize his thoughts and continue.

Sam looked up at Blaine, his face blank, then he quietly said, "When did you first know you were gay?"

Whoa, Blaine thought, that came from out of nowhere. Then, the pieces slowly started to come together for him and he had an idea of what was going on.

"Umm, well I've always known. I mean I knew I was different as far back as I can remember. I remember being six years old and looking at boys differently than girls. As time went on it just kind of became normal to feel that way. Then puberty hit and everything changed. All of my friends were going out with girls or hitting on girls, and I just didn't want that. I knew I just wanted other boys. Then, things really got difficult. I felt like there was something wrong with me, and I didn't know how to fix it. I tried. I went out with a couple of girls, but I just didn't feel what I was supposed to. Finally, when I was around fourteen I just decided, screw it, I'm tired of spending all my time trying to fix myself. I was just going to learn to be happy with who I was. That was when I came out and all hell broke loose. My parents freaked out. My friends freaked out. Some of them just quit hanging out with me, most of them learned to deal with it."

Sam listened to this in silence, looking down at his coffee the whole time. He just kept spinning the cup in little circles.

Blaine looked at him, waiting for him to say something. Then he said, "Is there something that you're worried about. Something about you?"

"I don't know." Sam said, then he paused for a long moment. Then he said, "I think..." then he stopped. He looked up at the other boy and saw someone who understood. Blaine had been where he was now and he knew what Sam was going through. He sighed and opened his mouth and barely above a whisper he said, "I think I'm gay."

"You think you are?" Blaine asked, "You're not sure?"

"Lately I'm not sure about anything. There've been so many changes in my life in the last year. We moved here. I started going to McKinley. I joined the football team, then I joined glee club. I dated Quinn. I dated Santana. I fell in love with Mike Chang. We won Sectionals. Then we won Regionals."

"Whoa," Blaine said, "Let's back up a few steps."

Sam just looked at him, trying to hide a grin. "Umm...won Sectionals?"

"Back."

"Dated Quinn?"

"Forward."

"Dated Santana?"

"Keep going."

"Yeah, I thought you might miss that part in the middle of the rest of the statement."

"Not a chance," Blaine said, a grin on his face, "I zeroed right in on that one. Mike Chang, huh?"

"Something wrong with Mike?" Sam asked, playfully defensive.

"Not at all." Blaine said, sitting back, a smile on his face. "As a matter of fact, I'm very impressed. I was afraid it would end up being Finn or Puck. Mike, however, is a quiet hottie. Good taste."

"Yeah, I wasn't really interested in being part of the Finn entourage. He's nice enough and all, but he's already got enough people chasing after him feeding his ego."

Blaine laughed out loud at that.

"So yeah, I'm one of you. I've said it now. Said it out loud for the first time."

"That's the first step." Blaine said, his expression serious, "That's the biggest step. There will be more, but you know you have a support system here, right?"

Sam looked at him, a little confused. "What do you mean?"

"There's people here who will support you in whatever you want to do with your life. Kurt and I will be there for you whenever you need anything, and I'm sure the rest of New Directions will be there as well. I mean that group was the best thing that ever happened to Kurt."

Sam gave Blaine a sly look and said, "He'd probably say the second best thing."

Blaine looked a little confused. Sam nodded his head toward Blaine who realized immediately what he meant. "Oh well, I don't know...we've been really good for each other."

"Dude I promise you, you are the absolute best thing that has happened in that boy's life. He needs someone who cares about him as much as you do."

Blaine just looked down as his face reddened, "I promise you that he's been as important to me as I could ever be to him. Besides, didn't he have a crush on you?"

"I missed my shot." Sam said, winking, "You and he are a much better fit. I watched "Candles" dude. I was there. There was no one else in that room but the two of you."

"Was it that obvious?" Blaine asked, a little embarrassed.

"Dude, that was the single most romantic thing I've ever seen in my life."

"It's bad form in a competition." Blaine sighed.

"Screw it. There will be more performances for both of you."

They just sat there for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.

Then Sam broke the silence, "Shouldn't you be giving me the third degree with questions about my coming out? I was expecting to have to go through a whole ordeal."

Blaine just calmly took a sip of his coffee thoughtfully. "That would be one way to go," he said, "But you've done the hard part. You said the words to someone. I feel very flattered you said them to me first by the way. Now is just a matter of you moving forward. I could sit here and give you a lecture on being gay. We could go through Gay 101, but this isn't really the time for that. This is a big step. You can just think about where you go from here."

"Right now I'm just thinking this will isolate me even more." Sam said, some tinge of bitterness in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"I've just never really fit in here. I came and started school here. So, the first thing I did was join the football team. That didn't make me feel as much a part of something as I expected. So, then I joined glee club. That was a little better, but then I let myself immediately get sucked into the drama. I started dating Quinn, and I was Quinn's boyfriend in the glee club. Then, we broke up, and I started dating Santana. I've never felt like an actual part of the club. I've just been someone's boyfriend. Or someone's replacement. I joined because Puck was in juvie. Then Kurt left, and now I'm the guy in Kurt's place. That's kind of how Mike and I gravitated to each other. We're on the football team and in glee, but he's kind of on the sidelines of both too. We started hanging out and just having a good time together. I've never really felt included in the out of school stuff the New Directions did, but Mike and I kind of created our own good time. He even listens to me go on about my dorky stuff like comic books and Avatar. He's even let me teach him some Na'vi."

Blaine looked a little confused at that last part.

"The language of the alien race in Avatar."

"Wow, you actually know that well enough to teach it to someone?"

"No comment. I probably should have left that part out."

"I think it's sweet."

"Well, it doesn't really matter anyway. I think I've really fucked things up now."

Blaine was a little surprised by Sam using language like that. That wasn't really his style.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I kissed him."

"Mike?"

Sam sighed, "Yeah. You wanna hear the whole story?"

"At this point I'd kill you if you didn't tell me."

So, Sam related the story of the auditorium incident to Blaine ending with the kiss. "And then he jumped up and ran out."

"Oh wow."

"Oh wow is right. I'm just afraid one of my best friendships is screwed beyond repair now. He probably hates me."

"Well, he didn't hit you. That's something."

"Yeah, thanks a lot."

"Sorry, just trying to look for something. Listen, I'm sure it's not as bad as you think. You probably just shocked him. He's a good guy."

"The weird thing is there was a point where it felt like he was kissing me back. I'm not sure if it really happened or if I was imagining it. The whole thing happened so quickly."

"Well you've got balls of steel to do that. It took me months to work up the nerve to kiss Kurt."

"Yeah well you knew Kurt was gay. You also knew he was interested in you. I just up and kissed one of my best friends who is totally straight."

"Hmm, yeah. That was probably an error in judgment. But you need to talk to him about it as soon as you can."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"Nope. Well probably so, but not about this. You need to clear up any misunderstandings as soon as possible. You don't want him sitting around painting all kinds of worst case scenarios in his head. You need to be honest with him about why you did it. He at least deserves the truth."

Sam sat for a moment rolling this around in his head. He finally sighed and said, "Are you ever not right?"

"Often, but I've been where you are now and the worst thing you can do is let this go unspoken. At the very least, ya'll have Nationals coming up and you don't want to create more drama in glee."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Sam pushed his chair back and stood up, "Well I'm gonna let you get back to your studying. I need to do some thinking about all this."

"Are you sure you want to go now?" Blaine asked, "Are you okay?"

"Much better than I was when I walked in here. Thank you so much. This has really helped."

"Just remember...if you ever need to talk about anything I'm here. And I think I can speak for Kurt when I say he will be there too. We're always around to talk to. Anytime about anything."

Sam reached out to Blaine's hand which was resting on the table and clasped it for a moment. "Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better. I've got a feeling I'm gonna need that before this is all over."

"You will. But that's cool. This is all part of the process. Just remember you're gonna be feeling a lot of stuff and some of it will be scary. It's all part of the journey. But you're not alone, okay?"

Blaine stood up and moved over to Sam and put his arms around Sam. He leaned to the blond boy's ear and softly said, "You're sane, you're normal, and you're healthy. Remember to keep yourself that way, okay? Promise me."

Sam pulled back, smiled and said, "I promise." He leaned back in to hug Blaine again. "You're the best. Kurt lucked out."

"We both did." Blaine said, pulling back and sitting back down. "We all have. We're gonna all be there for each other. All of us will need a support system at some time or another. We all have to be that for everyone else in our little group."

Sam smiled and said, "Gladly. Well, good luck studying and thanks again. You're the best." He turned and walked out of the shop.

Blaine watched him go and sighed. "How many McKinley kids am I gonna have to guide out of the closet?" he mumbled to himself. Then he chuckled and went back to his book.

Sam climbed in his car and reached for the key. He stopped and thought for a moment. He pulled his phone out and scrolled though his address book til he got to Mike's name. He stopped there and thought for a moment. Just as he was about to hit the call button, the phone rang. Across the screen flashed, "Call from Mike Chang." Sam gulped as he saw this. He sucked in his breath and answered the phone. ""Hello?"

"Sam?" Mike said, "Thank God, I thought you'd be too pissed to answer."

Pissed, Sam thought, how can this amazing boy on the other side of the phone think Sam could ever be pissed at him. Mike had way more reason to be pissed than him. "No." Sam said, "Not at all."

"Good." Mike said, relieved, "Listen, I wanted to find out if you'd be interested in going to dinner tonight? I think there's some stuff we need to talk about. Both of us need to do some talking."

"Yeah of course." Sam said. He wasn't sure how to take this. He wasn't sure if he should be jumping for joy or depressed and sad. "Can I ask you one thing? Are you pissed at me?"

"Of course not." Mike said, "Trust me, we will talk about everything tonight. Oh, and before we even get started, just know I'm paying. I asked you out, this night is my treat."

"Fine, I'm driving. I will pick you up."

"Okay, what time?"

"I'll be there at 7."

"Works for me. I'll be there with bells on."

They hung up. Sam, sat there for a moment and started cheering and screaming in the car.

Dinner tonight. Their first date. Or at least a "Mike doesn't hate Sam for kissing him" celebration. Either one would do for Sam.

Sam silently hoped that Blaine was right and the first hurdle was over.

Maybe it would get better after this.

Thanks again to everyone who's reading. I hope you all enjoy. Reviews are welcome. :-D