Eighth Grade

Santana grabbed Blaine's arm in the middle of the hallway and dragged him bodily across to the doorway to the gym. "What -?" he protested, straightening his shirt.

Her eyes were fierce and accusing, and she pointed at him with one finger, red-painted nail glistening. "It was your idea, trying out for a solo. So now you need to do it with me, because there's no way in hell I'm singing Pie Jesu without you."

"I can't sing a solo," he whispered, feeling the blood drain from his face. "Not in front of... everybody."

"Oh, give me a break, Backstreet," she snapped. "You sing all the time with that stupid boy choir. You had a solo with them. What's the big deal?"

"That's different," he sniffed. "That's singing for people who won't laugh at me. But I- I c-can't sing Pie Jesu at school! Everyone will tease me for singing like a girl."

"Probably," she agreed. "So what? You do sound like a girl. And you're fucking awesome."

"But it's your solo, 'Tana. It wouldn't be right, to share it."

"No, it's a stupid duet. And if you don't do it with me, they're going to make that awful Rachel Berry sing it with me, just because she's such a diva. She can't hit those high notes at all. You have to save me, Blaine."

Blaine shivered a little. He didn't like Rachel much either, because she was really bossy, and not in the teasing way Santana was. Rachel was just plain old bossy in a sometimes mean way, and Blaine knew from Boy Choir that it wasn't right to get parts just because you thought you were the best. He also knew that he could sing better than Rachel.

"Okay," he sighed. "But you're going to need to be my protection in case any of these dumb kids decided to kick my ass."

Santana hooked her arm through his and started steering him towards the choir room. "We need to tell Ms. Danforth now before she says anything to Rachel. Otherwise, I think maybe we'd both end up dead."

Ms. Danforth was a little startled by Blaine's stammering admission to wanting to audition for the first soprano part. "That's a... high part, Blaine," she said, giving him a calculating look.

"He can totally sing it," Santana assured her. "Come on, we'll do it for you right now."

Blaine shot her a murderous glance, but straightened his shoulders and took a deep, relaxing breath, as he'd been taught, to prepare himself as Ms. Danforth played the opening bars. The shock on her face as he sang the first line was almost worth all the trouble. Blaine just closed his eyes to Santana's smug expression and Ms. Danforth's disbelief and let the notes pour out of his mouth, liquid and serene.

Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem

Santana came in with the response, and they joined in harmonious thirds, Blaine on the first soprano part and Santana singing the mezzo.

Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem

Her own young voice was still girlish enough to hit the high F without any trouble, but Blaine guessed she'd be an alto by the time her voice was done changing. He wondered, with a sinking heart, what would happen to his own voice. Sometimes puberty was the kiss of death for boy sopranos. He'd just have to wait and see.

"Well, Blaine," said Ms. Danforth, smiling broadly, "Santana wasn't kidding. You nailed it. You two going to sing it on our fall program?"

"Yes," he said, feeling a little shy because he'd never really put himself out there in choir at school before. It was just something he did for fun, but he liked the way Ms. Danforth's praise made him feel, like he'd done something special. Like he was special.

As they gathered up their music and headed back out to class, though, Blaine saw Rachel Berry duck away from the doorway of the choir room, her eyes clouded with grudging admiration. "You were really good," she said.

He ran a hand over his unruly curls. "Uh, thanks."

"He's better than good, Berry," Santana shot back. "He's terrific."

"Yeah, well, this is kind of my last shot," he said hastily, trying to pacify them both. He really didn't want to start a fight. "Pretty soon my voice will change and that'll be the end for me. It's anyone's guess whether or not I'll be able to sing at all after that."

"That kind of sucks," Rachel said, giving him a sympathetic look. "I hope you get to be a singer again. Like I said... you're good."

Blaine had to wait until after school to call Dave, but he told him about the solo right away. "I can't believe she talked me into it," he moaned, hiding his face in his hand. "I'm going to choke, or throw up, or faint or something."

"Forget that, Anderson," Dave said, and Blaine could hear his grin. "You're going to sing the hell out of it."

He took a deep breath and listened to Dave's voice. "Yes," he told himself. "It's going to be fine."

"More than fine," Dave said. "I know Santana. If she thinks you're good, you're good."

Blaine wrinkled his brow in surprise. "You've never heard me sing before."

"Just for Francie and Sarah. But you sounded fine to me."

"This needs to be better than fine, Dave. This needs to be perfect."

"It will be," Dave said knowingly.

"How can you be sure?" Blaine needed to know, needed reassurance.

"Because it's you," Dave's voice sounded crackly. "You're perfect, Blaine. You'll be fine."

Blaine sighed. "I'm not perfect," he said, but Dave was interrupting him.

"Don't give me that shit, dude. You're fucking awesome, and you're going to nail it."

"Language," Blaine muttered as an afterthought, but the line was already dead, Dave moved on in haste to whatever else was going on. And all Blaine could hear in the echo of the empty connection was you're perfect you're perfect you're perfect.

000

The rest of the choir had to wear their ugly black and white outfits, but Blaine was in his best tuxedo, and Santana looked easily sixteen in her long black gown. "Britt's got seats right in the front," she said, smiling with excitement. "She said she would. And there's Kurt." She waved a hand from the wings, trying to catch his eye, but there was no way the audience could see them from where they were.

"Oh, Kurt," Blaine nodded, adjusting his bow tie. "I remember him, kind of. From third grade. He was the one who lost his mother." The one like me, he didn't say.

Santana's smile dropped. "Is your dad here, or your mom?"

"My mom," he said. They never did anything together anymore, since the divorce had become final. It was better, for everybody, he told himself. For one thing, he didn't have to feel that stifling anger in their every unspoken word. Now his dad had moved away, up to Columbus, and his mother was in the house alone. Things were quieter, but otherwise they weren't really all that different. "My dad comes to all the boy choir stuff, and she comes to the school choir performances."

He knew Santana understood, somehow, probably better than just about anybody else. After all, her dad had left Marisol, way back when, for some younger woman. Blaine hadn't yet heard about a younger woman in his dad's life, but from the hurt, haunted look on his mother's face when she got off the phone with him, he was pretty sure there was one.

They were opening the program, which meant the first notes anyone would hear would come out of Blaine's mouth. This was somehow more terrifying than just about anything else about this whole experience, and Blaine nearly hyperventilated before Santana got him calmed down.

"They're just a bunch of middle school kids," she said, petting his shoulder with certain calm. "They wouldn't know awesome if it walked up and bit them on the behind. But you've got something, Blaine. I know it, and I wouldn't tell you that if it wasn't true."

She stared at him pointedly until he capitulated, nodding, and she kissed his cheek. "Just don't forget it."

"You're not going to make me grab your boobs again, are you?" he muttered, wiping his sweaty palms on his tuxedo pants.

The auditorium was only half-full, but Blaine saw Britt smiling at them from the front row as they applauded their entrance, and he gave her a little smile back. Kurt looked pleasantly expectant.

The accompanist began the opening bars, and Blaine lost himself in the song. He couldn't close his eyes, not here on stage, but he used the trick he'd learned from his Boy Choir director of looking at a spot at the back of the auditorium, at nothing in particular, but looking at it as though it were the most important person in the world. Blaine wasn't exactly sure who that person might be, but he knew - without a doubt - that it was a boy. And someday, he'd sing to him like this. He hoped. Assuming his voice changed into something reasonably pleasant.

Blaine squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and sang his heart to the someday boy in the back of the auditorium. He hoped that, wherever he was, he could hear him, because he was pretty sure this would be the last time he was ever going to sound like this on stage.

000

There were plenty of boys at the back of the auditorium, but they weren't really listening. They didn't really understand what magic was being made on that stage. Only one of them heard Blaine's voice and knew him for who he was.

He tightened his hand around the green paper enclosing the bouquet of roses and carnations - safely yellow, even though that was not Blaine's color - and had to lean back against the brick wall of the dark auditorium to keep from staggering. He blinked back fucking ridiculous tears and looked away from the boy in the tuxedo. The roses were quickly losing their petals as he made a nervous tattoo against his thigh.

When Blaine hit the high note a second time - he had no idea what note it was, but it was really, really fucking high - that was it. He threw himself out the door and into the safety of the hallway, back outside to the cool fall night, and gasped for air.

He had no idea why he was here, but he sure wasn't sticking around to hear the end of that song. Digging a hand in his pocket, he found his phone and snapped it open.

"Dad?" said Dave, tossing the bouquet into the garbage can. "Can you come pick me up? I'm done here."

000

Blaine laced up his sneakers and set the timer on the dumb digital watch his dad had gotten him when he'd decided on soccer instead of cross country or football for his freshman fall sport. The coach had told the whole JV squad that they had to run for half an hour every day, even on practice days, to build up their endurance. And Blaine knew that his endurance sucked, so he always did an extra fifteen minutes. Maybe someday he'd even be able to play a whole game without puking.

He liked to do his running really early, before the sun was all the way up, because it was just too hot otherwise. And if he timed it right, he'd hit the park just as the sprinklers were coming on, and he could just lay in the grass and breath and enjoy the way the water droplets looked like glass on his eyelashes.

The neighborhood was always quiet, just Blaine's footfalls on the pavement, and sometimes Mrs. Tierney from down the street with her twins in the baby jogger, but this morning it was just Blaine. Until he hit the edge of the park and saw another figure there, gray t-shirt and red shorts, pounding out his own morning run.

Dave.

Blaine hadn't talked to him in months, not since spring, when they'd had another one of their same stupid fights about Blaine being gay and Dave being unsure and scared. Blaine tried and tried to convince Dave that it was okay, that all of it was okay, that he didn't have to know everything yet, but Dave had just gone silent and angry, and they hadn't even texted after that. Blaine figured he'd never see Dave again, especially after his dad had sent in the deposit for his first semester at Catholic.

But now he would get to say goodbye. He kicked up his pace, and took a shortcut over the grass of the field instead of staying on the path.

"Dave!" He called out, his breath coming in short gasps. God, he hated running.

Dave slowed to a stop, glanced back, and glowered at Blaine. Blaine worried that maybe he'd take off, and 45 minutes a day or not, Blaine was never going to be able to catch him. But he waited, bent over with his hands on his knees until Blaine reached him.

"Anderson." Dave just stared at him, his too-new sneakers and the stupid Catholic Athletics t-shirt he wore because he didn't even have decent running clothes. "Fuck you."

"What?" Blaine shook his head, confused.

"You're going to fucking Catholic? I thought- I thought you were coming to McKinley." Blaine could see Dave's face tightening up, closing off. He knew that he had brief minutes to reach Dave before he shut down and was gone completely.

"My dad. It's my dad. He-" How to explain what it was like now that his dad was living in Columbus, now that everything was about giving Blaine the best like it was some kind of reward for coming out the other side of the fighting and the lawyers and the stupid family court judge who only pretended to care what Blaine wanted? "My parents got divorced, and my dad wants me to go to Catholic."

"So you're just going?" Dave was almost whining, a sound Blaine hadn't heard from him in years.

"Yes, Dave. I'm just going. What would you do, huh? It's not like I have a choice."

"But this year. We were- you were-" Dave ran a hand over his face and turned his back to Blaine for a heartbeat, like he was trying to escape. "We were finally going to get to be at the same school. It was all supposed to be okay now."

Blaine was having trouble understanding, but that may have been because he still couldn't draw a full breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth, he could hear his coach saying, but Blaine tried that all the time and it never helped, he still could never catch his breath.

"What was supposed to be okay?" Blaine needed to know, needed to hear what Dave hadn't been telling him for fucking years.

"We were going to get to be friends now," Dave said plaintively. "I mean, like real friends instead of whatever this is."

"What is this, Dave? Because I thought we were friends."

Dave wandered over to the grass and dropped down, stretching out so he was propped on his elbows, and Blaine decided to join him.

"We're something," Dave whispered. "I just don't know what, and that makes it hard, y'know?"

Blaine nodded, because he did know. He always wanted to call Dave his friend, to talk about the things they did together and talked about, but none of his friends even knew that he knew Dave. "Do you really think we'd have been friends though, if I went to McKinley? I mean, you're like a jock-in-training, and I would have done theater or choir or something like that."

"It shouldn't matter," Dave said, tugging a tuft of grass out of the dirt and shredding it between his fingers, letting it fall over his bare knees.

"But everything matters now," Blaine said. "We're going to high school, and it's supposed to be big and different. Like a new start or something."

"I don't want a new start," Dave said, almost a whisper. Blaine could hear something there, in his voice, something like wanting.

Blaine reached out into the space between them and rested his arm lightly against Dave's. He felt Dave stiffen, but he didn't pull away. "What do you want, Dave?"

Dave looked away, and Blaine followed his gaze over to a bush where the silky remnants of a spider web were glistening with dew.

"You know the babies float away on little strands of silk?" Dave turned a sad smile on Blaine.

"Yeah," Blaine whispered. "They go off and make their own homes, alone, and they're okay."

"How can they be? I mean- it feels so bad, being alone." Dave pressed his shoulder against Blaine's, and Blaine pressed back.

"You're not alone, Dave," Blaine told him. "You have me."

"No," Dave all but roared, rising to his feet and stalking away. "You're leaving me, Blaine. Now we're never going to be together like I thought, and it's all just wrong."

Blaine scampered to standing, and jogged over to where Dave was. He fought the urge to put an arm around the other boy, because he knew that was the fastest way to send him running, but what he really wanted to do was take Dave in his arms and pull him back against his chest. "I'm not leaving you. I'm just going to school across town."

"We're going in different directions." Dave shook his head. "You're going places, and I'm just going to be another Lima Loser who's too scared- too- crap."

"Too what, Dave?" Blaine let his voice go soft, caring.

"Too fucking chicken."

"To do what?" Blaine's heart was pounding in his chest, and he was a little afraid that he'd pushed Dave too far, but still Dave stayed.

"To tell the fucking truth," Dave ground out. "To tell you the truth, because you're the only person I trust."

"What's the truth?" Blaine knew the answer, and Dave knew he knew, but none of that mattered. Blaine remembered what it had felt like, telling Paula and Santana. Like he was going to pass out, or die. Like the world was going to end.

"You know," Dave hissed. "You've always known, and I hate that I can't hide it from you."

"You don't have to," Blaine soothed. "You know, I'll always keep your secrets."

"Fine." Dave wheeled around and glared at him. "I'm a fucking queer, okay? And I fucking hate that I can't change it. And this year? This was supposed to be you and me against the world, because I never feel right about myself without you, and now you're fucking leaving me. I hate you, Blaine. I fucking hate you, okay?"

Blaine stepped back like he'd been shocked. He'd never seen Dave so angry, so in his face, and he was a little scared even though he knew Dave would never hurt him.

"I'm not-" He tried to find the words to settle Dave, but there was nothing there, nothing left to put between them.

"Yeah, dude. You are. So just. God, just go already, okay? Just fucking leave me alone, because I can't look at you anymore. It hurts too much." Dave was shrinking right in front of Blaine, losing his bluster and melting into a scared little boy.

"Are- are you sure?" Blaine swallowed around a lump in his throat. He didn't want to leave, because it felt like giving up. On what, he didn't know, but it made him sad anyway.

"Please." Dave's words were choked, and Blaine knew that Dave hated crying in front of him.

"Bye, then," he whispered, turning towards where the breeze was picking up the last of the old silver web.

Towards home.

Alone.