The sound of ice swirling around in a tall glass of ice tea brought Blaine back to the world of the living, as he stretched out his back on one of the sun chairs in his backyard. He knocked the shades down a notch on his nose, taking a look at his friend fishing out an ice cube to hold it against his left eye. "How's your face?"
"Fantastic."
The irony wasn't lost on him.
"Actually, it's not fantastic. It just happens to be my main asset. Other than my body, of course…"
It was an exceptionally hot Saturday morning. Reclining back, Blaine took a sip from his own glass. "It's not so bad."
"Not so bad my ass… You really need to fix the leash on that so called 'best friend' of yours."
Blaine tried to ignore that last part. "Lots of guys think black eyes are hot."
Fixing his favorite pair of Ray-Bans on his own face with as little interference with his eye as possible, Sebastian reclined as well. "You're right. Maybe I could spin this one in my favor somehow…"
Blaine chuckled, a hint relief starting to settle in.
But like most good things in Blaine's life, it didn't last too long.
"Care to tell me what the hell all that was about, anyway?"
Shrugging, the shorter teen rolled up the sleeves on his t-shirt to his shoulders. "I think he just really doesn't like you."
"He said you'd 'told me' something, and unless it's some banal, completely useless comic-book related type of top-secret trivia that I couldn't care less about, I think I deserve to know why I got my face punched in."
He shrugged again. "You got your face punched in because he doesn't like you, and because you accused him of being a homophobe."
Sebastian was sitting up straight now, focusing on the bottom of his glass in search of more ice cubes. "Perhaps I'm recalling the sequence of events differently, but did you not notice him practically threaten you?"
Blaine huffed in response. "He didn't threaten me." He thought of that darkness in Sam's eyes from the night before. He'd barely recognized him and while he'd probably never admit it to a soul, he'd actually felt almost scared upon seeing it. Upon Sam grabbing onto the front of his collar, pulling him close.
And not for any of the reasons that frequently visited him in his lonely sleep.
"He didn't threaten me."
Sebastian lit the cigarette he'd discreetly slipped between his lips, blatantly ignoring the annoyed look Blaine just shot him. "Repeating it to yourself makes it sound super-true, by the way."
They laid there in silence for a while, only interrupted by Blaine loudly moaning in objection to Sebastian flicking the butt of his cigarette across the neat, perfectly green lawn. Blaine wasn't quite sure if he'd fallen asleep or not when Sebastian finally spoke again, voice softer than before.
"They're always gonna stay straight, Blaine."
Maybe, if he kept his eyes closed underneath the shades and tried not to move, Sebastian would think he was actually sleeping.
"Everybody wants to experiment at some point so don't get your hopes up, is all I'm saying."
He hoped the hitched, shallow breathing didn't give him away.
"That's all."
"Hey, Sam. I have a question for you."
His right hand was still throbbing as he dragged his feet into the kitchen, finding his almost annoyingly chipper mother standing in the way between him and the refrigerator containing a very appealing bottle of orange juice.
He shrugged, pulling the robe tighter around his body. "Shoot."
Mrs. Evans presented a familiar a looking short stack of papers on the kitchen island. "I know I usually know how to read and all, but for some reason this D is looking an awful lot like an F to me so I was hoping you could clarify."
Sam sighed heavily, turning around to take the detour around the kitchen island to finally get to the cool bottle of juice.
"What's going on, Sam?"
He shrugged, taking a swig directly from the bottle.
"Didn't Blaine help you study? I just find it odd, because you haven't failed as much as a pop-quiz in the last two years and-"
"-maybe he doesn't have time to sit around and read the textbooks back to me every afternoon, mom." The bottle landed on the counter a little harder than necessary.
She studied him for a moment, before continuing. "Where is Blaine, anyway? Wasn't he supposed to stay here this weekend when his parents went away?"
"How should I know?" Deep down he knew the irritation in his voice must seem like a blaring warning bell, so he tried to take a deep breath before continuing. "He's with Sebastian, or something…"
"Oh." Mrs. Evans nodded to herself, seemingly lost in thought for a minute. She recognized the name, from somewhere. "Is Blaine together with this guy, or…?"
"I don't know..!" All of a sudden it was as if all that pride or whatever the hell it was didn't matter one, tiny little bit because Sam was sinking down on a bar stool by the kitchen island now, not knowing what to do besides resting his head in his hands, feeling his voice crack when he spoke. "I don't know…"
"Oh, honey…"
He felt his mother somewhere behind his back, embracing him and stroking the occasional strands of hair from his forehead as he buried his face in his arms.
"I know…. I know."
In reality, she didn't really know anything. At least not more than any mother, who'd occasionally shot a curious glance at her sleeping son's arm thrown around his best friend as she'd silently sneak in on Sunday mornings to get the laundry because like a lot of teenage sons, hers was completely useless at finding the laundry room by himself even if she were to hand him a map and a compass.
"I know…."
And even though Sam spent far too many hours of the day wondering what it would be like to hold Blaine, just for a couple of minutes on that particular Saturday morning it felt really good to simply be held for a change.
At some point they'd started tipping rum into their glasses in the backyard, ice cubes clinking against each other into the early evening. Sebastian had started to philosophize on whether or not he'd be able to get laid with his new shiner, and Blaine had smoked almost half a cigarette by the time their lazy buzz turned into restlessness.
"Let's go dancing."
It felt like Blaine had heard Sebastian say those words a thousand times before.
On second thought, he probably had.
He'd been driving around aimlessly for a while, before realizing he'd pulled into the driveway of Blaine's home.
There were no lights on inside as far as he could see, but that didn't keep him from climbing out of the driver's seat to make his way to the front door, in front of which he stood for a minute before bringing his throbbing hand against the thick wood to knock.
When there was nobody there to answer the door, Sam reached into his pocket to dig out his phone.
No missed calls.
He'd tried Blaine's phone twice already even though he had no clue whatsoever of what he'd say, were the other boy to actually answer his calls.
But evidently he didn't need to worry about that, because Blaine hadn't.
And the truth was that Sam had run out of second chances a long time ago.
"Could you take off your shades now…?"
Sebastian defiantly pulled the Ray-Bans off his freshly tanned face, hooking them into the front collar of his t-shirt. The bruise was barely visibly at night. "Fine."
"It's just, that's the fourth guy asking if we sell drugs and I feel like it might be the whole 'sunglasses in the night club'-thing that's giving off that kind of vibe."
Sebastian swirled around the contents of his highball glass. "Here I was thinking it was just a refreshing way to meet new people."
Scandals wasn't exactly packed yet.
"Oh my god, I love this song!"
Sebastian moaned in annoyance upon hearing Peter Gabriel begin to belt out the first verse of 'In Your Eyes' through the speakers. "I hate this song…"
However the annoyance was by no means contagious, because Blaine was bopping his head to the music now, grabbing onto Sebastian's hands and actually succeeding in dragging him along out on the dance floor. "Love, I get so lost, sometimes. Days pass, and this emptiness fills my heart…"
"Please stop singing along."
Blaine blatantly ignored his friend's request, feeling the corners of his mouth involuntarily pull even further up into a wide smile because Sebastian was shaking his head, not able to suppress the smile spreading on his face as he let Blaine lead them on the dance floor.
"When I want to run away, I drive off in my car… But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are…"
A disco ball hung somewhere in the air above them, casting tiny little sparkles of reflection against the shadows of strangers all joined on the limited space that made up the small club. Some people knew each other well, and some were complete strangers by the start of the evening but towards the end, most likely they'd become more aquatinted with each other than most people who see one another almost every day.
"You have got to be kidding me…"
Blaine had to turn around at that, because there weren't a lot of things in the world that could make Sebastian gasp in exasperation.
"Of all the fucking gay joints in town, he had to walk into mine."
Somewhere, by the foggy entrance to the club suddenly Sam stood close enough to the wall without touching it, hands nervously tucked deep into the pockets of his jeans as he tried and failed to find somebody in the sea of men.
Instantly, Blaine knew he'd come looking for him.
"He better have a real good fucking reason to be here, that better be a check in his pocket to cover any eventual plastic surgery I may or may not require in the future as a result of that Neanderthal."
Blaine could hear Sebastian going off on a tangent somewhere in the background, but he couldn't really hear what he was saying because Sam's eyes had locked with his now and while Blaine seemed rooted to the floor Sam was walking towards him, steady steps making his way even tough an uncertainty seemed to plague his eyes.
And then, almost an eternity later Sam was standing there, right in front of him.
"Blaine…"
It was all too clear to Blaine that his friend knew exactly what he wanted to say, but didn't have a clue of how to say it.
"I'm sorry."
The words instantly caused a stinging in his eyes, not realizing until that very moment how badly he'd longed to hear them come out of Sam's mouth.
"Can you forgive me?"
Searching deep down from within himself, he tried to find an answer to the question only to come up with the truth. "I don't know."
Without a noise
Without my pride
I reach out from the inside
Sam nodded, a shaky breath escaping while he looked down on his feet not realizing until that moment just how difficult that would be to hear. He looked up. "Can I kiss you?"
Nodding, almost instantly, Blaine stepped a tiny bit closer and then there they were, just like he'd wished to be an endless amount of times before. "Yes."
Logistically speaking it was easier said than done, with Sam's neck craning down as far as possible without having to actually bend his knees while Blaine did his best to stand on his tippy toes without risking the loss of balance which didn't really work but at the same time it didn't really matter, because before he swayed to the side Sam was holding him, and Blaine was holding onto Sam.
The music kept blasting through the speakers while the surrounding world seemed to move in slow motion and somewhere in the background, Sebastian was practically ripping his hair out in disbelief.
But the only thing running though Sam's head, was the fact that if he were to die the very next day at least he'd gotten to do one of the only things that could make him die a happy, young man.
TBC