Notes: The Final Chapter has arrived! I want to thank all the readers from the bottom of my heart, and I hope the last installment doesn't disappoint. I know it's been an emotional ride and you're all amazing for taking this journey with me. Much love!
Is it Ok if I call you mine?
Just for a time.
And I will be just fine, if I know that you know that I'm wanting, needing your love.
If I ask of you, is it alright?
If I ask you to hold me tight, through a cold, dark night.
'Cause there may be a cloudy day in sight.
And I need to let you know that I might be needing your love.
"I think this is my favorite film."
Blaine throws Sam a sideways glance from his half-lying position on the couch. "Fame is your favorite film?"
They are 17 years old, watching a movie in the living room of Blaine's parent's house.
Sam leans against the other boy on the couch, leaving a trail of kisses down his neck. "Is that weird?"
"I just thought…" The soft mouth on top of his skin feels good enough to make him forget the words. "Your favorite film would be X-Men related, or something…."
Every day feels like a perfect day.
Because every day everything still feels so new and exciting.
"You should be someone who makes musicals, Blaine…"
The enthusiastic statement catches him a little off guard, prompting him to laugh nervously. "It's not just something that you make, Sam…" A kiss shuts him up.
"That's what I think, anyway."
"Uh huh… And what do you want to be..?"
"A rock star, obviously."
Blaine laughs again, but it's not nervous this time. "You'll always be my rock star, if you want."
"I think that's exactly what I want."
Blaine doesn't really doubt it, because even though he usually doesn't admit it to his face, a singing Sam is one of the best things he knows in the entire universe.
He bought him a present at a yard sale earlier that day, and it isn't much but it's waiting underneath his bed and he hopes it'll make Sam happy.
"When are your parents back?" Sam lifts a suggestive eyebrow in his direction while he's not too busy letting his hands sneak in under Blaine's shirt, fingers trailing the prickled skin hiding underneath it.
"Later…"
"Perfect. Then we have all the time in the world…"
And what I'm trying to say isn't really new.
It's just the things that happen to me when I'm reminded of you.
Like when I hear your name.
Or see a place that you've been, or see a picture of your grin.
Or pass a house that you've been in, at one time or another.
It sets off something in me that I can't explain.
And I can't wait to see you again.
Oh, babe I love your love.
"Blaine?"
He is a little fuzzy on how it happened.
But at some point or another in the night, he managed to find his way back to the front porch of his house.
"What happened to your shoes?" The wrinkles on Sebastian's forehead were twisted into some kind of sad concern as he stood up from his sitting position on the first step.
"I…" Blaine turned his head towards the long road, a tired finger just pointing down the never ending pavement down which one could walk and then just not return. "Wh... How long have you been here for?"
The taller man ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking down at his shoes for a second only to let his eyes dart back to Blaine's lacking ones. "I felt weird about this morning, just wanted to clear the air. But then you didn't answer your phone and you seemed so out of it that, I guess I got worried. Are you alright?"
A shrug. Blaine could feel the desperation in his eyes because in Sebastian's it was met with an equal amount of concern.
"Do you need help?"
He was about to protest, but instead of shaking his head like he expected himself to, he heard his own mouth voice the word "Maybe."
Shrugging the blazer off his shoulders, Sebastian put it around Blaine's cold, soaked ones. "Let's go inside."
Once Blaine was seated on the couch and the door to the outside world securely locked, Sebastian disappeared upstairs only to return seconds later with a fresh t-shirt and a towel.
Blaine pulled the soaked, cold fabric off his body and proceeded to wipe himself somewhat dry before putting on the offered t-shirt, to finally feel the warmth of a blanket wrapped over his slumped shoulders.
"Should I make you some coffee or something? Are you hungry?"
"Just some water would be great. Thanks."
It almost felt like slowly waking up from a psychosis, Blaine managing to take in more and more of his surroundings by every second that passes once he'd sat down and had two careful sips of water. When Sebastian sits down, there is a respectful distance between them on the couch.
"Tell me if you want me to leave, Ok? I'm sure your brother would be right over.-"
"-It's fine… I'm fine."
"Ok."
Once Blaine was almost sure that his head had safely returned to his shoulders he took a deep breath, setting a no longer trembling hand down on the long leg of the person sitting next to him. "I'd like it if you stayed."
"I'll stay." Sebastian looked down tentatively at the hand on his lap before continuing. "Want to sleep?"
"Yeah…" Nodding to himself as he carefully rose to his feet, Blaine grabbed onto the much warmer hand of the person standing beside him. "I think we should just sleep. For a while."
On the wall of the living room, upon the white paint a guitar was missing.
Upstairs, when Blaine opened the bathroom cabinet to take out his toothbrush he noticed that apparently his bottles of pills were missing, too.
But he never asked Sebastian where they'd gone.
Sort of like how Sebastian never asked what Blaine had been doing outside in a rainstorm without shoes, in the middle of a cold, dark night.
It is the first in a row of many nights, in which they simply share sleep together before their lips actually touch, again.
It turns out that Sebastian does break his heart.
It also turns out that he puts it together again, too.
It's not easy for two people, one having spent their whole life so far with one person and the other never having spent any part of their life with someone before. And maybe it's because the odds are stacked against them that at some point down the line, they simply decide to try harder.
They never have any children, but it's not necessarily something that they want to have together, anyway. Or rather, Sebastian doesn't necessarily want any.
Blaine wouldn't really have minded.
Something that they do do is travel. All over the world, but especially France because it was the country Blaine had always wanted to see, and Sebastian has family in Paris.
It's the most romantic city Blaine has ever seen.
Sebastian's mother is crazy and amazing, and reminds him a little bit of Martha but a more elegant, French version of her. When Martha passes away, Blaine takes comfort in the fact that he feels her spirit every time he's with Mrs. Smythe.
"I think I love you more than I love my son."
Sebastian tries to signal with his eyes that he's not down with what she'd just said. "I'm right here, mother."
Blaine just laughs, taking a croissant from the plate she's just offered him.
They buy a new house, partly because Blaine reasons that his was the perfect home for the other life he could have had but not necessarily this one, and because Sebastian feels that he'd never be able to compete with living up to anything that Sam was if he'd always have to walk in his footsteps.
Sebastian is an excellent lawyer, running his own firm just a couple of years after they've bought their house together.
And Blaine becomes an acclaimed director.
Sometimes he thinks back on the worst year of his life.
Sebastian never holds Blaine's potential underlying insanity against him, because he never sees a sign of it again and thereby will forever be the only ever witness to it. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't keep an extra eye open, when nights are cold and dark and the rain unforgiving.
Blaine doesn't quite know what to think of how Sam used to visit him, for the first couple of years.
But eventually, he writes it off as some sort of long-spanned, highly functioning psychosis that he miraculously was able to pull himself out of without any further assistance. Maybe alcohol could have played a part in it, too.
Years go by. Many years.
But he never, ever tells a soul about it. Because he'd never know how to explain it.
Another thing he's never able to explain, is what ever happened to Sam's old guitar.
"Will you make it to dinner tonight?"
"I'll try… but we're still holding auditions until seven."
"I'll pick something up on my way home from work."
"Great, yeah. Thanks. Listen, I need to get back now.-"
"-Don't let me keep you away."
"See you later."
"Love you, killer."
"I love you too."
It had been a long day already, by the time Blaine hung up the phone.
It's not his first show, more like fifth or sixth, but for some reason this production of Fame is managing to cause him far too many sleepless nights and dinnerless evenings.
"Next."
Blaine sits in the middle of the narrow table in front of the dark stage, casting director to his left and assistant to his right.
A girl walks in from behind the shadows of the stage, a numbered sheet of paper pinned to her purple t-shirt.
"So, 56…" Blaine flips through a stack of papers lying on the desk in front of him after setting his cellphone to vibrate. "Tell us about yourself."
She looks a little nervous, black hair pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head. "I'm a dancer. But I sing, too, so I thought 'Fame… why not?'"
"And today you will be auditioning for the role of Coco, correct?"
"Yes. Correct."
At some point while she was talking, her slender arms have been brought up to her hair and released a head of long, black curls that she shakes loose with a slight headshake.
It catches Blaine a little bit off guard. "Um, Ok.. What will you be singing for us today?"
"I Sing the Body Electric."
The record starts playing in the background, the sound of a beautiful symphony filling every corner of the room.
"Sorry… What was your name, before we begin?" The people sitting in front of the narrow desk get their pens and notebooks ready.
"My name is Julia."
And then, one of the most beautiful voices he'd ever heard, possibly comparable to only one began to sing.
"I sing the body electric."
"I celebrate the me yet to come."
"I toast to my own reunion, when I become one with the sun."
"And I'll look back on Venus, I'll look back on Mars."
"And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars."
"And in time, and in time we will all be stars."
A lump was stuck somewhere in his throat.
Behind his eye, a tear was tempted to fall.
"I sing the body electric."
"I glory in the glow of rebirth."
"Creating my own tomorrow when I shall embody the earth."
"And I'll serenade Venus, I'll serenade Mars."
"And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars."
"And in time, and in time we will all be stars."
By the time the music had been over for a good couple of seconds, the people in the room were almost waiting for Blaine to say something.
"I… That was really good." He tried to make the wiping of an eye with the back of the sleeve on his shirt as discrete as possible, pretending to be jotting down some important notes on the paper in front of him. "Where were you from, again?"
"Brazil, originally. But, I'm adopted and grew up in Boston."
"Ok." He cleared his throat, hoping that no one was noticing the almost meltdown he was in. "We'll be in touch. Thank you."
She had approached the desk to fill out her contact sheet that Blaine's assistant had prompted her to do.
"Julia?"
"Yeah?"
The words were stuck in his throat, most likely due to that insistent, almost choking lump.
"Did you want to ask me something, Mr. Anderson?"
"I…" He scratched his head in an attempt to possibly win more time.
Because there were a million things he'd want to ask, but somehow the words refused to form on his lips. So instead, he settled on something that wasn't even a question.
Not at all.
"Your parents must be really, really proud of you."
She smiled at him, a polite "Thank you" falling from her lips before she slipped away.
As crazy as it sounds, Blaine takes comfort in the fact that from this point on he'll get to live the rest of his life believing that things go bump in the night, and somewhere beyond the sea his lover stands.
On golden sands.
And watches the ships that go sailing.
THE END