Disclaimer: Glee doth not belong to me.
a/n: here. have some anderbros.
"Go 'way, Coop. I'm tryin' to read." Blaine orders, tucking his feet under him on the big armchair and sticking his nose back into his book.
"No, come play outside with me." Fourteen-year-old Cooper commands, resting his baseball bat on his shoulder as he tosses the small baseball up and catches it again.
"No, 'm readin'." Blaine argues, switching positions in the chair and throwing his legs across one of the arms, poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and turning the page.
"B, you've read that book like five times!" Cooper whines.
"I do not care. This is my favorite book. Leave me alone." Blaine moves again, throwing his little cargo-short clad legs over the back of the armchair.
"You're sitting wrong." The older Anderson child sighs, tapping his foot as Blaine turns the page again. "Mom said I have to take you to play baseball with me and you're making me late. Bobby's gonna get to pitch again!" Cooper says forcefully, but Blaine just ignores him.
Blaine moves again, draping across the chair with his feet up and the book propped on his little chest.
"Gosh, you're so stupid!" Cooper explodes, storming out of the sitting room, careful not to knock over one of his mother's vases or dad's piles of books.
"Cooper James Anderson!" His mother exclaims, coming out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a sky-blue towel. "Go apologize to your brother." She orders, pointing a carefully polished finger to the sitting room.
"No," Cooper says defiantly, thundering out into the hall and stomping to the door. "I'll be back before dinner." He walks out the front door into the blistering sunshine, shielding his eyes before taking off running down the street.
He comes to the abandoned lot where all the other boys in the neighborhood play ball and stops.
"Hey, Cooper!" Derek Thompson calls, waving Cooper over to where his friends are dividing teams. "Where's Blaine?" The fifteen-year-old asks, wiping a bit of sweat off his forehead.
"He's reading that stupid Narnia book again." Cooper pants as he throws a baseball out to Noah Puckerman in outfield.
"Darn. I brought Davie along with me and Cecilia brought Wes along to play. They were all excited about playing with the little man." Cooper sighs, looking over where Derek and Cecilia's younger brothers are playing in the grass. There's another boy, pale with shiny brown hair sitting with them too, twirling blades of grass around his fingers.
"Who's that other kid?" Cooper asks, following Derek into batting line as a few other boys and girls fill in the outfield.
"The little one? That's Finn Hudson's new little brother. Their mom and dad got married so Kurt and his dad moved in with Finn down the street. He's Blaine's age." The line moves forward as Maria Lopez hits a double. Derek steps forward and picks the bat off the shoe they're using as home plate. He does a few practice swings before nodding to Bobby Karofsky, who winds up and throws the ball straight down the middle. Derek hits it cleanly out towards left field and takes off running.
Cooper is up next, and he hits it off the ground over near where Taylor Sterling and Eric Duval are talking. The ball rolls past them as Taylor twirls some of her long blonde hair around her finger and Eric blushes.
"Yo, stop making googly-eyes at each other and get your heads in the game!" Bobby yells as Cooper rounds second base. Derek slides into first as Taylor finally grabs the ball and whips it in to the catcher.
Cooper rounds back to home after the next girl hits and sidles up next to Rebecca Chang. The shy girl looks at him, her short black hair sticking to her neck.
"So, which one's Finn Hudson again?" He asks and she jabs a thumb out to shortstop. A tall lanky boy, no more than twelve, with a buzz cut stands there awkwardly, swinging one of his arms behind his back.
"I see. I'll make sure to bring Blaine next time if you bring Mike." He winks, flirting a bit with Rebecca because she's definitely the prettiest girl in his grade, other than Maria, of course, but she's really mean to everyone.
"I'll do that." She replies breezily, turning around quickly. Cooper sighs.
Cooper plays the rest of the game silently, feeling bad that he didn't bring Blaine along. Every time he looks over to where Wes, David, and that Kurt kid are playing, he feels bad thinking that Blainers could have been having fun with his friends too.
No, Cooper thinks, Stop feeling bad. It's not your fault he'd rather read.
Then, instead of moping around about his stupid little brother, Cooper ignores the pang in his chest and claps his hands together. He's fully ready to beat Bobby's team into the ground.
Cooper ambles home around five-thirty, wiping at the sweat on his face with his wrinkled tee shirt. He walks straight upstairs to take a shower, only pausing to yell to his mother that he was home. After his cold shower, he dresses in light basketball shorts and another shirt and goes downstairs to find his mother standing in the door of the sitting room.
"He's out like a light." She says to no one in particular, but Cooper hears her and looks in the room too to see his little brother snoring on the armchair with his book upside down on his little chest. "Will you wake him up, dear, while I set the table?" Cooper nods, looking into his mom's suddenly soft eyes before she walks away.
He approaches the armchair carefully, tip-toeing so he doesn't wake his baby brother up. The teenager first takes the worn book off his brother's stomach, setting it carefully down on his dad's coffee table. Then he shakes Blaine's shoulder, the seven-year-old groaning and turning over.
"Time for dinner, B." He says softly, rumpling Blaine's thick, black curls.
"Coop?" Blaine asks sleepily, his head lifting as he looks around.
"It's me." Cooper assures, getting down on his knees to be eye level with the sleepy kid.
"How was baseball?" Blaine asks, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.
"It was good. Wes and Davie were there. They want you to come along next time." Cooper tells Blaine as the child sits up in the chair.
"'Kay. Carry me?" Blaine asks, sticking his arms out to Cooper, and the teenager smiles and obliges.
Next time, Blaine will come with. He'll sit on the sidelines and play superheros with Wes and David and maybe even Finn's little brother. Cooper decides, boosting Blaine onto his hip and laughing as the little boy puts his arms around Cooper's next a bit too tightly.
Blaine does tag along next time, and he does spend the entire game playing with his friends. But even though Finn Hudson stands, awkward as ever, at shortstop, Kurt is nowhere to be seen. It makes Cooper a little sad, to think that he might have deprived Blaine of one more friend on that summer day when he'd rather have read.
Probably not, he thinks, and then catches the pot-fly that Jared Pierce hit out to him.
a/n: hola. this is the first anderbros i've written, and i am quite proud of it. you see, this is in a universe where blaine and cooper grew up in lima, and always had block parties and played outside in the afternoon. so everyone's older siblings hang out while the babies play games on the sidelines. squeeeee!
also, carole and burt got married earlier and finn is a lot older than kurt in this. just go with it.
i think this is my favorite drabble yet! gaaaah!
-max.