(Author's note: welcome to the last chapter of our Blaine Anderson backstory. Warning for more violence, and drug use, and Dave angst. I feel like I need to say that Blaine is thinking some terrible things about himself here, and none of them are true. You get a little glimpse of our summer story at the end, and I can't wait to share it with you - but not until the next Donutverse story is written and we finish with Season 1. All in good time, lovely readers. Enjoy. -amy and knittycat)

Tenth Grade

"Hey, New Kid." Jeff smiled in at him expectantly from the hallway. "You coming?"

Blaine looked up from his pile of homework. It had been over three months since he'd come to Dalton, and some days it felt like he would never be caught up. "Uh. Where?"

"Oh, you didn't hear? Some of us are heading out to a dance club in Dayton tonight. It's right up your alley. You like to dance, right?"

Blaine hadn't ever thought he did, even before the Sadie Hawkins dance. Now he was pretty sure he'd never set foot on a dance floor again. "Not for me, man. But thanks for the invitation. I've got - " He gestured at the pile of notebooks and papers. Jeff shook his head.

"No, no. It's Saturday. You need to learn to relax. You're never going to make it here with that all-work-no-play attitude. Trust me, you should come tonight. Nick's scored some good stuff."

Blaine wrinkled his nose at Jeff. "Well, I guess I could drive. My station wagon would fit at least four."

"Perfect. Come on, let's go check with Nick about who's going." He held open the door while Blaine scrambled into his shoes, but put up a hand when he attempted to follow him into the hall. "Wait a second - you can't wear that."

"What's wrong with this?" Blaine glanced down at himself, perplexed. "Are you trying to tell me I have no fashion sense?"

"Yes." Jeff pulled open a drawer, then another, and came up with a green t-shirt that was a little small on Blaine. "This. Goes with your eyes. And those jeans are fine."

"But that's too tight!" Blaine struggled into the shirt anyway.

"Are you kidding?" Jeff's hands on his biceps were a little too familiar, and Blaine pulled away, grinning uncomfortably. "You're hot. Just, come on. It's a long drive."

Blaine's offer to be the designated driver was laughed down by Trent. "I've got asthma, so I can't partake anyway," he said. "And my minivan seats eight. You can ride shotgun and keep me company on the ride home, while these guys are buzzing their asses off."

"Oh, no," Jeff laughed, looping an arm around Nick's waist. "He's going to be joining us, you can bet on that."

"I wouldn't count on it," Blaine warned him. It wasn't as though he'd never had a drink, or even been pretty damn tipsy a few times. It was more that now was not the time to set himself up as the unpredictable, impulsive kid. Here, at Dalton, had a chance to be the kind of boy his father had always wanted him to be, and not Blaine the Spaz.

Nick grinned at him, patting his pocket. "It's the good stuff. My best source. None of that shit cut with talcum powder."

Blaine stared at him. "Um... you're not talking about drinking, are you?"

His grin broadened. "Alcohol's so high school, Blaine. And it just brings you down. You need a high that'll get you higher. Trust me - this is the stuff that's going to help you make it here."

He got more than one compliment on his tight green shirt, which made Jeff nudge his shoulder. "See?" he whispered. "Hot. Trust me."

So that might be one of the reasons why, in the back of the minivan on the way to Masque, when Nick pulled out a mirror and a bag of white powder, his answer was, "All right," instead of the hell, no he'd been so sure he would use when someone offered him drugs.

It made his nose go kind of numb, and he choked a little on the way it felt in his throat, but as soon as he blinked a couple times, he was filled with this amazing sense of possibility. Like he could do or say anything, and it would be okay. Better than okay. He turned wide eyes on Jeff.

"I know, right?" Jeff whispered, his pupils huge and luminous. "You ready to dance?"

Blaine hopped out of the minivan with a radiant grin. "Absolutely."

Santana sighed, checking her phone. When Blaine called her this late, she knew it must be something complicated. Sometimes he talked a mile a minute, and sometimes he barely said two words, but it was always something.

"Hey, cielito. What's up?"

"We just got back from the club. Remember, the one I told you we were going to in Dayton?"

She glanced at the clock. "It's only one-thirty. Why'd you come home so early?"

"Something happened - I don't know. God, 'Tana, I don't know how to say this." She heard him take a deep breath. "I met somebody. A boy."

"Way to go, Anderson!" She grinned. Blaine definitely needed a boyfriend. "What's his name?"

"Um, I don't know." He gave a strangled giggle. "I never asked him. We just had a drink. And danced. And... made out in the back room?"

"Blaine Anderson, you did not!" Santana knelt straight up on the bed. She was laughing - until she realized he wasn't. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." She heard him sigh.

She extended her feet over the edge of the bed, slowly. "Well, was it any good?"

"It was... unbelievable. I've never felt like... like that." He sounded a little awed. "If kissing is always like that, I'm never going to want to do anything else."

"Well, good kissing is like that." Santana thought about the difference between kissing Brittany and kissing Puck. They were both good, both hot - but definitely different. "So do you at least know where he goes to school? Maybe we can track him down."

"I don't really know anything about him. He's a little taller than me, dark complexion - maybe Jewish? Really well built... oh, and he has this mohawk."

Santana's thoughts ground to a halt. Oh, shit.

"His eyes are kind of green and kind of brown, really intense - and he's funny, 'Tana, and oh my god is he hot."

"Yeah," she said, resting her head in her hand. "Um. Blaine, do you really think hooking up with a random guy in the bar is a good idea? I mean, you don't know anything about him."

"I don't know. I mean, no, it's not, but - I can't stop thinking about it. I mean, have you ever had a kiss like that, where it makes you feel things, all the way down into your bones?"

"Y-eeessss," Santana said tentatively.

She heard him groan. "God, why didn't I get his name? I feel like such a dork."

She took a deep breath. "Okay, Blaine. This is what you're going to do. You're just going to put him out of your mind, do you hear me? Because any day now, you're going to meet some wonderful guy, and he's going to be exactly what you need. Somebody who can - who can give you everything." Somebody not as messed up, or with as many other boyfriends, as Noah Puckerman.

"I'll try." He sounded doubtful. "But, 'Tana, I've kissed a bunch of boys. Not, like, hordes, but a fair sampling, and - it's never been like this. I don't want to have to wait around for Mr. Right." His voice cracked. "I think... I think I found him."

"Blaine. You can't be serious. Hormones make people say all kinds of crazy things." This was going to be bad. Worse than bad.

"It's not hormones," he growled into the phone, suddenly angry. "I'm not a girl, for fuck's sake. Why can't you just be happy that I met someone who I like? Someone who might make me happy?"

"Blainers, of course you should have someone who makes you happy. But believe me, I've had my share of random club hookups, and none of them were the kinds of boys who were in things for the long term." Santana hadn't prayed since before her First Communion, but she repeated a silent Hail Mary in hopes that she'd be able to distract Blaine into forgetting about Puck. "You deserve happiness. But I also know you don't want one-night stands. You want romance and all that shit."

"You don't know anything about what I want. 'Tana, this boy - he had something, something I've wanted all my life, and I didn't even know I was looking for it." She hadn't heard him so broken, not in a long time. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Keep it together, Blaine. It's going to be okay. Auntie 'Tana's going to take care of everything."

Francie didn't really need a sitter anymore, but luckily for the two of them, her mother still thought she did. So Blaine got an excuse to spend time with her and make a little money at the same time. Not that his father wouldn't have given him money if he'd asked for it - but that was the point. He didn't want to ask for it.

Francie' taste in movies was definitely not the same as Blaine's, but at least they could agree on what kind of comedies they liked. Hopscotch was right up their alley: clever without being too highbrow and funny without being crass, plus Walter Matthau. They sat on the living room sofa laughing and flicking popcorn at each other, and it helped keep Blaine's mind off the boy from the club. But then the movie was over. Blaine still had to fill the better part of the afternoon, but he couldn't focus on much of anything. He felt kind of spacey, and his head hurt, and he couldn't stop thinking. He wasn't sure if the cocaine had made everything so good, or if the boy had made his high better, and his brain kept circling around and around until Francie's voice snapped him back to the Preston's living room.

"I'm president of the ecology club this year," Francie said, picking the popcorn off the upholstery and making a neat pile in her hand. "But it's hard to find new members. I tried posters but they just got scribbled all over." She made a face. "Middle school is just as juvenile as elementary school."

"High school isn't really much better," Blaine said, rubbing at the headache behind his eyes. "But I'm sorry about your posters. That really sucks."

"Yeah. There's this girl in my grade, she's so- not annoying, but I just don't get her. It's like- she just doesn't care what anyone thinks about her." She fiddled with her thumbnail, looked like she was trying hard not to bite at it. "She makes everything look easy."

"Some people are like that," he said, thinking of the other guys in the Warblers. They never looked like they struggled with anything, and Blaine felt like he was just a big ball of messiness out there for everyone to stare at. Suddenly he needed to be out of the house, outside, or he felt like he was going to come out of his skin. "Can we take a walk to the park?"

"Sure," she said, startled, but she grabbed her jacket and followed him outside.

The trees were on the edge of losing the last of their leaves, and he and Francie scuffed through the crunchy ones that littered the sidewalk. "I used to love jumping in leaf piles," she said, shaking her head.

"Used to? Not now?" Blaine wished that Francie hadn't grown up so fast. That he hadn't grown up so fast.

"My mom says that I'm not a little kid anymore, and I have to act appropriately."

Blaine had to bite back a laugh because Francie had mastered her mother's precise delivery, but added her own deadpan that told Blaine exactly what she thought about that directive. He pulled her close and ruffled her hair lightly, and she ducked away, giggling up the sidewalk.

God, sometimes he just felt so lonely.

The park was pretty empty, since it really wasn't good outside weather for the preschool crowd. There were a trio of elementary school aged boys chasing each other on the climbing structure, and a gang of high school boys playing what looked like full-contact basketball, but Francie veered away from all of the activity to the swings.

"Will you push me, Blaine?" She climbed on and kicked her feet in the dirt.

"Aren't you too old for that?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he'd said exactly the wrong thing. He sounded like Francie's mother. Like his father. Crap. "Wait," he said quickly, scrambling to fix things. "Sorry. Of course I'll push you. Gets you better momentum for the jump, huh?"

"Yeah," she said softly, pumping her legs lightly as he started to push her slowly, his hands at the small of her back. It had been a long time since she'd asked him to push her on the swings, and even though she sometimes felt like his sister, something about the action felt vaguely inappropriate, and as soon as Francie was swinging high enough that he couldn't reach her, he stepped back and leaned against the metal pole to watch the basketball players.

He was kind of zoning out to the motion of Francie and the swing when a harsh voice jolted him back to attention.

"If it isn't another queer," the hulking African American boy said, pulling his lip back in a sneer. "My friend here says he knows you."

Blaine shifted his eyes to the right, and caught Dave's glance. He looked panicked, like he was caught between a brick wall and a swiftly advancing car with nowhere to go.

"N-no," Blaine muttered, shaking his head. "N-not r-really." He knew Dave trusted him not to betray their shattered friendship.

"Enough to know you're a fag," Dave spit out before nudging his friend. "Too bad it's a weekend. He looks the right size for a locker, just like Fairy Hummel."

Blaine's heart was pounding in his chest, loud and fast. He somehow knew that Dave wouldn't do anything even close to physical violence, but he had no such faith in Dave's friend.

"Frances!" He spoke firmly, and heard her holler yeah on her way past him into the air again. "Down now, we're going home." He glared at Dave. "What did I ever do to you? You're both just scared little boys if you think some words are going to bother me." He didn't believe his own words, but he'd learned how to pretend pretty well, and it wasn't like he hadn't heard the same or worse in the halls at Catholic after the beating.

"If words don't bother you, maybe some action will," Dave's friend said, rubbing his fist in his hand.

"Z," Dave said finally, grabbing the kid by the neck of his t-shirt. "C'mon, man, he's not worth it. He doesn't even fucking go to our school, so why the hell do we care?"

"We don't," the boy growled. "There's just nothing else to do, and this damn town is turning queer everywhere. It just pisses me off."

"M-me, too," Dave stammered, and Blaine took the moment of their distraction to give in to Francie's tugging on his jacket.

"You okay?" He asked, turning to look at her worried face.

"Yeah. Let's just-"

"Go home," he finished, and she nodded. Blaine turned and waggled his fingers at Dave and Z. "Bye, boys!"

Dave's face turned pink, and Blaine didn't want to think about how he was feeling in that moment. Terrified, probably, but Blaine was plenty scared himself.

Three months at Dalton had spoiled him. He'd almost forgotten how cruel the real world could be. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Blaine was still antsy when he left the Preston house just shy of 4 pm, the crisp folded twenties from Mrs. Preston nestled into his wallet. He was staying with his mom for the night, and she wasn't expecting him for dinner, so he had options. Dinner and a movie with Santana, dinner and a movie by himself. Coffee. But only one thing felt right about a Lima Saturday, so he turned towards the library, hoping that Paula was working.

She was, and she greeted Blaine with a smile and wave. "How's Dalton treating you?" she asked, coming out from behind the desk and opening her arms for a hug.

"Fine," Blaine nodded. "It's harder than the schools here. But the people are nicer, and I got into the Warblers, the a cappella choir there. I even have a solo for the Christmas concert, which is a big deal since I'm only a sophomore."

"That's great, Blaine. You really deserve to be happy, especially after everything." Paula took his hand and led him back to the teen section, and he gasped at the sight of Dave, curled up in one of the beanbag chairs, looking scared and small and hurt. "He's been here an hour already. He won't say a word to me. Maybe you can? I think he needs a friend."

"We're not friends," Blaine admitted. "I mean, we used to be. But not in a long time."

"I don't think that matters right now." Paula sounded so sure, but Blaine couldn't say anything to tell her otherwise, not without betraying every ounce of trust he and Dave had once shared.

"Fine." Blaine steeled himself, swallowed his hurt and anger and moved softly into Dave's space.

"Hey," he said gently.

"I- I'm- fuck." Dave's eyes were dark and hollow, his face drawn. "God, Blaine. I'm sorry."

"I know. I know you are, but I can't accept your apology." Blaine wanted to, knew that it would mean that he was somehow the bigger man or something, but he just couldn't. "I know you're hurting, Dave, but you can't go around treating people that way. You hurt me, today."

"I know," Dave said, voice pitching up into a slight whine. "Z- he just- he gets stuck on these ideas, you know? And I have to go along. I have to, so they don't find out."

"Would that really be so bad?" Blaine already knew what Dave's answer would be, but he asked anyway.

"I know what happens to gay kids at McKinley, because I do most of it. It's not pretty. It's not your rich boy school." Dave scowled at him.

Blaine picked nervously at a rough spot on his thumbnail. "Do you know why I went to Dalton in the first place?"

"Because it's where rich boys go." Dave's voice was full of scorn.

"No. Because it's where gay boys go who get the shit kicked out of them at school dances. Dalton has a strict anti-bullying policy, something that none of the schools in Lima even think is important. I got a concussion and a broken hand, and I was lucky. The boy I was with had broken ribs and a punctured lung, and it could have been so much worse because one of the bastards who beat us was wearing steel-toed boots." Blaine ran his hand through his hair, and shivered at the thought of what could have happened if the guy with the boots had had better aim.

Dave had gone white. "I didn't-"

"No, you didn't know, because it sucked and I hate talking about it. But that shouldn't matter. You're the worst kind of bully, Dave, and if you're going to treat people like that... I can't be a part of your life." Blaine stood, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

"Don't- wait!" Dave's hand was warm and heavy around Blaine's wrist, and Blaine tugged hard, trying to free himself.

"Let go," Blaine growled, snatching his arm back and rubbing at it to erase the sting of Dave's touch. "I have nothing left to say to you. I'm done."

"Fuck you, Blaine. Fuck. You." Dave's words were shards of ice, low and cold, and Blaine shivered at the flatness he could see in Dave's eyes.

He didn't think he was a bad person. He knew Dave needed a friend, but he also knew that he couldn't look past what had happened in the park. He needed to protect himself, even if it meant giving up a part of his past.

Paula's eyes followed him as he strode past the circulation desk, and he shook his head silently at her, willing her don't follow me, please don't follow me.

He barely made it outside before he was bending over, retching into the bushes and crying silently.

Fuck. He was a bad person. He was a terrible friend, and a coward, and underneath it all was the lingering rush of the club, the strange boy's hand at his throat and the flood of desire it had unleashed, for things he didn't even understand.

He was a bad person, and he wanted something that was dark and sick and wrong.

His stomach turned over again, and by the time he was able to make it to his car the slate-gray sky had opened up with freezing rain. The cuffs of his shirt were soaking, and he shivered as he rolled them up, just to get them off his skin. He sat, dazed and sick, watching the windshield wipers beat a damning rhythm against the rain: Fuck you, fuck you, over and over again.

Blaine fumbled in his pocket for his wallet, digging it out and opening to the inside pocket, the one where he might keep important cards, or emergency identification. Or a tiny envelope of white powder, that Jeff had pressed on him less than 18 hours before. Because the next couple days are going to suck, he'd said. This'll make it easier. He doubted Jeff had envisioned this kind of situation when he'd said that.

He tipped the corner of the folded paper to his nose and sniffed, hard, feeling the tingle and burn hit him faster this time, mingling with the bile in his throat. It was almost comforting, the pain, because he knew he fucking deserved it.

Blaine was laying on his bed in the dark, Nirvana's Serve the Servants playing on repeat when his window creaked open.

"This better be important, Blainers. I had plans with Britt." Santana shook the rain off her coat, and shed her hat and shoes before climbing up next to him and pulling his blanket over them both.

"I suck," he said, rolling up onto his side and snaking an arm around Santana's waist.

"No, baby. You don't suck. You're a good person. You know you're my best friend, right?" She craned her neck to look at him, and he blinked, hoping she didn't notice the way his eyes were dilated.

"What about Britt?" Blaine didn't believe her, because he knew that Brittany was her best friend.

Santana was silent for a few minutes, and then she grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly. "I love her," she whispered.

"Yeah, like I said, your best friend."

"No, dumbass. Listen. I. Love. Her." She punctuated each word with a gentle finger in the middle of his chest.

"Oh." Damn, he was having a hard time following. "You're-"

"Blainers. I think- no. I know. I'm gay, and I'm in love with Brittany." She snuggled closer to him, and he kissed the tip of her nose.

"I know," he said softly. "Thank you for trusting me."

"You're the only one I can trust," she said into his shirt.

"Yeah," he whispered into the air over her head. "I know that too."

She startled him with a light smack to his shoulder. "Someone is a little full of himself tonight."

"Nobody has ever accused me of being humble. Plenty of other things, yes, but humble isn't one of them."

Santana raised herself up on her elbows, leaning over Blaine. Her lips twisted wryly. "Cielito, you've got a lot to learn about yourself. Trust me, I've known you for ten years, and I know what you need."

Blaine blinked up at her, his mouth dry. "What do I need? I mean, I can't figure it out, so you might as well tell me."

Her eyes bore down into him. "Blaine, you're really good at pretending you've got it all together. But you're just a scared little boy who needs somebody to take care of him."

Blaine was besieged by images: the boy in the club, the way he'd moved with confidence and whispered I know what you need before Blaine had frozen; Dave, scared at the park and broken at the library, and all the cold words that had rent them apart; himself, at 14 dressed for a dance, at 12 telling a secret, at 6 hearing taunts on the school playground. All of it hurt. He hurt.

"Shhh," Santana murmured, tucking her arms around him as he began to shake. "You'll be okay. It'll all come out all right, you'll see."

"How?" he asked through tears. "Everything I want is wrong."

She stroked his hair, even as she reached behind her for a tissue from the box on his nightstand. "There's nothing wrong about desire, m'ijo. You want what you want. You need what you need. I think," she paused for a moment to gather herself before continuing, "the only thing that's wrong is when you close yourself off because other people think your needs are bad."

"You're the only one who really sees me, 'Tana," he whispered. "With everybody else, I can fake it, I can pretend, but with you - it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to you that I don't know anything."

"You don't have to know anything, baby. It's okay. Just let me take care of things now, okay?" Blaine knew Santana was trying to help, trying to make things better, but the idea of anyone wanting to take care of things, of him, set him crying again.

He didn't deserve to be taken care of, but Santana's arms were tight around him and her words were balm on his raw nerves, so he just cried, and took and took and took from her until his breath was ragged and his eyes were dry.

"It's okay," she whispered over and over, her hand rubbing circles on his back. "You're okay. I've got you. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Blaine just sighed. Santana was a good friend, his best friend, and Blaine knew he could always trust her. But she wasn't the right person. She wasn't who he needed, and that thought stuck with him as he relaxed under her touch, drifting closer and closer to sleep. Safe and loved, yes, but also so very very alone.

Summer

Blaine was early, of course. There were only a handful of cars in the theater parking lot, so he wandered down to the coffee shop he'd passed on his way through town. When his iced coffee was doctored up just how he liked it, he walked back to the theater and joined the line snaking slowly through the lobby and into the auditorium.

He was the youngest one there by far, and he wondered not for the first time if he was out of his mind to even be trying for a part. But then he heard a voice drifting above the din of the crowd, absolutely angelic. A boy, he could see, when he craned his neck around, with looks to match his voice. Singing Mimi's part, of all things.

He shivered involuntarily, and couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he somehow knew that boy, had seen him somewhere before even if they'd never actually met.

He waited and waited, jangling with nerves that he wanted to blame on the audition but which he knew were absolutely entirely to do with the boy. Finally, though, he was alone, away from the crowd of adults who'd been prodding at him all morning, and Blaine made his move.

There was a girl up on stage doing a very undignified pole dance, and Blaine bit back a snort of laughter as he slid into the seat next to the boy. "Did she think that actually being Mimi would help? Because she's been misinformed."

The boy laughed and turned the most beautiful blue eyes Blaine had ever seen on him.

"Hi," the boy said, cocking his head and looking right to the back of Blaine's brain. "Do I know you?"

"I don't- um. Maybe. Maybe you do." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Blaine. Blaine Anderson."

The boy smiled, taking his hand in a strong shake. "I'm Kurt. Kurt Hummel."

"Oh!" Blaine had to remember how to breathe. "Santana's friend."

"You're- wait." Kurt blinked rapidly, and Blaine could almost see the pieces falling into place. Blaine remembered a disrupted birthday party, and a middle school concert, and the thread that had followed Blaine for so long, the idea that he wasn't the only one. He didn't know what Kurt was remembering, but it didn't matter in the end.

Sitting in the dark, next to Kurt, was like everything Blaine had never known was missing. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel alone.