a/n: I am constantly floored by all the support my fics receive. Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows! I'd also like to add a quick special thanks to my own patronus who I absolutely love and who agreed to help look over all my fics (somewhere between a beta and a pre-reader, as she describes it). Check out her stuff too, it's beautiful.


Please come to glee with me today? Sam texted Blaine.

Sam, I've already told you...

You can sit with Brad and be silent. I'm doing my duet with Quinn, though, and it'd be cool if my best friend could be there.

I won't even be able to hear it, Sam.

You can sit by the band to feel the vibrations.

Sam...

Please? Kurt was asking about you again. They all want you to sit with us at lunch.

Fine. But you owe me!

I'll buy you a lifetime supply of ice cream.


Blaine followed Sam into the choir room after school with his phone clutched in his hand.

"Blaine, good to see you again," Mr. Schuester greeted.

Blaine smiled and nodded at the director before taking a seat near the band. When Sam and Quinn got up to perform their duet, he closed his eyes and planted his feet firmly on the ground. He could feel the vibrations of the music moving up through his feet. When the vibrations died away, Blaine opened his eyes again and began shaking his hands in silent applause.

Sam and Quinn took their seats again and Blaine high fived his friend. A few moments later, he felt numerous pairs of eyes on him. His phone vibrated at that moment.

Rachel is accusing you of spying on us despite you being a student at McKinley. She wants to know why you won't sit with us at lunch but you'll come here now.

Blaine didn't know what to do. His instincts took over and he tried to explain his terror in the clearest way he knew how: sign language.

Blaine's hands began moving at a rapid-fire pace as he tried to explain himself and that he had to leave. He was out the door and in the hallway by the time he realized what he'd done.

Inside the choir room, the confused New Directions were flocking around Sam.

"What was that, Sam?"

"What's going on with Blaine?"

"Why won't he ever talk to us?"

"Guys, SHUT UP!" Sam finally shouted, losing his patience. "I need to go check on Blaine."

You okay? Sam texted as he walked into the hall. He was surprised to find Blaine directly outside the door.

I guess. Just a little frazzled. Signs just kinda pop out when I get nervous.

They're all freaking out a little in there. I think Brittany thinks you're possessed, but she's always a little gullible.

God, Sam, what should I do?

You could tell them. They're not going to mind. They already think you're pretty cool since I've been talking you up for ages.

Really?

Of course. We're Blam, man!

Blaine cracked a grin and nodded to Sam.

When they walked back in the room, Blaine and Sam stood before everyone else. While Blaine crafted a message to Sam on his phone, Sam began to speak.

"So, Blaine needs to tell you guys something, and we just need you to not freak out or anything. So please just listen to him – er, me – and wait it out."

When Sam finished talking, Blaine stuffed his phone in his pocked so he could talk clearly. Sam checked his phone before Blaine began.

This is what I'm going to say to them, so I guess you can just read along or something? Not that I'll know...

Sam nodded to Blaine and the shorter boy's hands started moving. A few seconds in, Sam began reading from his cell phone screen: "If you can't tell, I'm speaking sign language. I was born Deaf – I've never heard a sound in my life, and I don't speak either since I can't hear what I'm saying. I don't really want a lot of people to know here, so I'd appreciate it if you kept silent. No pun intended."

"You can't hear? How can you play the piano?" Rachel asked.

Sam was about to text Blaine the question when his phone buzzed with Blaine's response. "Beethoven," Sam read aloud, slightly confused.

His phone buzzed again and he read that aloud too. "I can also read lips. I still miss a lot, but it's better than nothing."

The New Directions giggled nervously, but were still curious. Thankfully, Brad was the one to jump in.

"Beethoven was able to keep composing even after he went deaf," Brad said.

The glee club was torn about which was most surprising – that Blaine was Deaf or that Brad had just spoken.

"Any other questions?" Sam read from his phone screen.

"What's it like?" Tina whispered reverentially.

Blaine spent a few minutes typing feverishly on his phone.

"It's normal for me. I've never been able to hear, so I don't know anything different. But it's very … difficult when I'm with hearing people who can't sign because then I feel trapped in my head. It's like there's this big black … thing in the back of my brain that I can sense, but I don't know what it's blocking. Even writing this is tough. Like it's sometimes harder for you to write down what you're feeling and you'd rather ramble and talk – I feel the same way, but there are even fewer people who would know what's going on."

Blaine shrugged when he could tell Sam was done reading.

"So that's why you avoided us? Because you're Deaf?" Kurt asked.

Blaine nodded.

"Why?"

Blaine texted Sam one last time.

"I'd rather not say just yet. It's a bit personal."

Blaine stood awkwardly for a moment longer before deciding that it was time for him to leave. He waved to the New Directions and walked to the front of school to wait for his mother.

He was sitting on a bench outside, reading To Kill A Mockingbird when a group of boys approached him.

Blaine, of course, could not hear their approach or the taunts that they threw at him. But they didn't know that.

"Aw look, if it isn't the new dweeb," Azimio said to his friends.

"Isn't that cute, doing his homework like the little bitch that he is," Karofsky added.

Blaine made no indication that he noticed their presence.

"Hey, new kid, I'm talking to you!" Azimio shouted in frustration. He was used to being feared by the other students, not ignored.

The boy didn't look up, however, until he was surrounded. They both reveled in the joy of watching his expression fall from curiosity to fear.

"Yeah, that's right," Azimio goaded. "You better be scared."

"You know, I think we ought to teach the new kid all about how this school works," Karofsky suggested to his friend conversationally.

Azimio grinned. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."

Blaine, from his seat below the two hulking football players, only managed to catch about half of what they had said. But judging from their expressions, he knew that whatever was coming wasn't good.

Azimio reached forward and roughly grabbed Blaine's shoulder. The smaller boy struggled as he was pulled to his feet, trying to get away. A few small, strangled noises escaped from his mouth, unheard by his own ears.

"Aw, listen to him whimpering like a little bitch," Karofsky laughed.

Blaine's hands were shaking, but he tried to lift them – whether to speak or protect himself, he wasn't sure. Karofsky and Azimio, however, interpreted the raised hands as a sign that Blaine was trying to fight back. Immediately, they grew rougher, pushing him to the ground. Blaine tried to get up, but he was pushed right back down, landing roughly and scraping the palms of his hands.

Not again, he thought in a panic.

Azimio aimed a sharp kick at Blaine's side, eliciting a strangled wail to fall from Blaine's mouth, when he was roughly pulled back.

Blaine blinked up, surprised that his attackers had ceased, and even more surprised when he saw why. Finn, Puck, and Mike were wrestling the two large football players while Sam was running to Blaine's side.

Blaine, he signed, one of the few words that he knew.

Still, the comfort of his own language helped to calm Blaine down.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, in a broken mix of signs and words which Blaine read on his lips.

Blaine shrugged. He lifted his hands to sign, but realized that no one would understand. Finally, he settled on one word that he knew Sam would recognize. Thanks.

Sam extended a hand to help pull a still shaking Blaine up from the ground. Behind them, Puck, Finn, and Mike were shouting at Karofsky and Azimio. Sam guided Blaine a few feet away where Kurt, Mercedes, Rachel, and Tina were waiting and pulled out his phone to text Blaine.

Did they hurt you?

No, Blaine texted back, not bad at least. I've had worse. At least I know that they're not discriminating because I'm Deaf or anything.

When the boys were done taking care of Karofsky and Azimio, they came back over.

"Is he okay?" Finn asked, panting lightly.

Blaine rolled his eyes. He hated that people who couldn't sign always talked as if he wasn't there. Thankfully, Sam seemed to understand Blaine's irritation.

"Ask him," Sam told Finn pointedly. "Just because he can't hear doesn't mean that he can't understand you."

Finn flushed slightly. "Sorry man. Dude, are you okay? They didn't get you too bad or anything, right?"

Blaine shook his head and gave Finn a thumbs up.

"Okay, cool," Finn said.

They stayed with Blaine until his mother drove up. She looked confused when she saw the large group of kids surrounding her son, so she parked the car and got out.

What happened? she signed.

A couple of guys were messing with me, but my … friends stopped them, Blaine told her.

Her face brightened when she saw the sign for "friend" and then her eyes landed on Sam.

"Sam, right?" she said. "It's nice to see you again. Thanks so much for helping Blaine out in his classes."

"Oh, it's no problem, Mrs. Anderson. Blaine's a really cool guy. He's even trying to teach me to sign!"

Blaine kept looking between his mother and his friend, trying to keep up with their conversation. When Mrs. Anderson saw his confusion, she quickly interpreted for him. It was nothing like at Westerville, right, Blaine? she added at the end, referring to the incident.

No, no, of course not, he assured her, shaking his head violently. No one here knows anything except Sam.

"Alright, well thank you for looking out for Blaine, all of you," Mrs. Anderson said, addressing the gathered crowd of New Directions. "He had some trouble at his old school, and it's nice to know that there are people who care about him here."

Face burning in shame that he needed his mother, Blaine crawled into the front seat of the car and waved goodbye to his friends.