Thanks to my amazing beta, Tuuzmorado.
Bobby and his friends instantly started to back away. It looked like even they weren't stupid enough to mess with an angry Sue Sylvester.
Sue lengthened her stride, catching up to Bobby in seconds and grabbing him by the collar, yanking him forward so that he stumbled toward her. Sam had kind of expecting her to look really angry, but she wasn't – or, at least, no more than her usual angry expression. Instead, she seemed pretty calm, like she did this every day. And, well, it was Sue, so she probably did. But still, it was a little unnerving, even more than it had been when she'd gone on a rampage down the halls.
"Lips," she said, turning to Sam. "Were these guys bothering you?" Her voice was conversational, but Sam could hear something else in it. It gave him the feeling that hell was about to break loose.
Sam swallowed, and glanced around at all the people still staring at him. As embarrassing as it was to say out loud, it wasn't like he could exactly deny it. Not when he was still dripping slush, and it was so incredible obvious what had just happened.
"Yeah," he admitted. His voice came out smaller than he'd intended, which he hated – it made him sound like he was afraid, and he didn't want to be. And he especially didn't want Bobby to realize that he was. So he said it again, louder. "Yeah." This time, his voice came out a lot stronger, and Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief. He didn't know why he suddenly cared so much about how he sounded, but he did.
"Is this true?" she asked Bobby, sounding shocked, but the anger in her voice had risen even closer to the surface. Sam didn't know why she was hiding it instead of just letting it show. Probably to make it all the more frightening when she did break out the evil, or something like that.
"Of course not, Coach," Bobby said, tilting his head and looking completely innocent. He was a better actor than Sam would have thought.
"You see," Sue said, "trouble is, I don't buy it."
She finally dropped the act, twisting her fist even tighter around the cloth of his collar and yanking him forward until she was right up in his face. "Here's the thing. We all know that Figgins will never get his act together, so the way I see it, I'm going to have to do his job for him. And as much as I may not like it, part of that is protecting the poor little weaklings of McKinley High, including my pal Lips here." Sam flinched a little at the word "weakling", then mentally scolded himself for being stupid. It wasn't even Bobby insulting him – it was Sue, and she said worse things all the time, so he really didn't have an excuse to get upset. "Which means that if you're going to insist on hurting them, then you've just made yourself a powerful enemy."
Bobby didn't look intimidated. "You work here," he said. "You're not allowed to manhandle the students like this."
Sue chuckled. "You think I care about the rules?" she asked. "Oh, that's just precious."
Bobby narrowed his eyes. "Let go of me," he ordered.
Sue considered him for a moment, then shrugged. "If you say so," she said, and shoved him away from her hard enough that he stumbled back into one of his friends and nearly knocked them both over.
She took a step forward. Bobby glared at her but didn't back away. "So here's the thing," Sue said slowly, almost like she was thinking over her words as she said them. "I'm trying to decide which would be more fun. Getting my revenge now, while my anger is still piping hot, or waiting until I have had the time to think of the perfect evil scheme to take you down. I'm starting to think that I want to wait until later, give you the chance to stew in your anticipation and know that your end is coming. So you had better get out of my sight, before the look on your idiotic face makes me change my mind."
Bobby scowled and crossed his arms, looking like he wasn't about to budge, even though a couple of the other soccer players were pulling on his arms and looking nervous. Then his friend – the other person who had slushied Sam – leaned forward and whispered something in Bobby's ear. Sam didn't know what it was, only that it made Bobby send a death glare at his friend, but then the entire team turned and jogged off.
Sam took a deep breath, looking down at his clothes to see what the damage was. Yup. No way that he'd be able to save any of these clothes. Which brought up a whole other problem. Sam didn't exactly have the biggest wardrobe to begin with. If he kept getting slushied this often, it wouldn't be all that long before he ran out.
Not to mention that he shouldn't be getting slushied at all, because all of this was supposed to be over.
"Thanks," he said to break the silence, since Sue seemed like she was just going to stand there glaring at everyone.
Sue suddenly snapped her head around to face him. "I didn't do it for you," she said. "Like I said, Figgins is a terrible principal, and I have plans for dealing with him. But in order for my plans to be successful, I need to look as good as possible. Helping out the freaks allows me to maintain the image that I actually care about the students, and that I won't completely destroy them all when I become principal."
"Oh," Sam said. "Wait, you're becoming principal?"
"I have plans," Sue said again. "And if you ever repeat that to anyone, I will first deny it, and then I will superglue bacon to your legs and dump you into a pen of rabid dogs. Understood?"
"Uh, yeah," Sam said. He didn't have a clue what Sue meant when she talked about being principal, but he decided not to ask. He had other things to worry about. And anyway, she scared him too much to think any more about it. She probably wasn't serious about her threat, but then again, it was hard to tell with Sue.
"Glad we've reached an agreement," she said, then glanced down at his clothes. "Becky, take Lips to my office and give him one of my spare sweatsuits to wear today. Just make sure that you don't return it to me covered in chapstick and blonde hair dye, or we are both going to regret it."
"You don't need to loan me clothes. I've already got something to change in to," Sam said, patting his bag to show what he meant, then groaning when his hand came back sticky. Until now, his bag had managed to survive all of the slushy attacks, but this time he wasn't so lucky. He hoped that the stain wasn't too noticeable, and that he could keep using this one instead of having to get a new one.
"This is not up for debate," Sue said. "This will make a good story when I start telling the school board about the pathetic children I've rescued. The boy who got slushied so badly that I had to loan him my own clothes just so that he could get through the day."
"You're going to tell people about this?" Sam's voice came out too loud, making him wince. He was aware that there were still a few people standing around watching, though most of them had scattered by now. And Sam didn't want to make it any easier for them to eavesdrop, or make them think he was panicking. He wasn't. Really.
"Relax," Sue snapped. "I'm not going to use your name, so it's not a big deal."
Maybe. But for Sam, it still felt like it was. He took a deep breath, telling himself not to make a big deal about it. Nobody could talk Sue out of something when she made up her mind about something, so it was pointless to even try.
But Sam still didn't want her to say anything.
Sue didn't give him time to argue, though. "Take him to my office and don't let him try to get away," Sue said to Becky. "I've got to go see Beiste about moving up our plans." Then she turned and strode away.
Sam looked around the hallway. The last few people seemed to realize that there was nothing more to watch, so they turned and hurried off, heads down like they didn't want to look directly as Sam. He kind of hoped it was because they were embarrassed about the fact that they'd just stood around without doing anything, but maybe it was just because they pitied him, or because they didn't want to get to close to someone who was such a big target.
No. Sam didn't want to think about that. Imagining that they were judging him – or worse, pitying him – were just going to drive him crazy. He had to think about something else.
But that was also a problem, because the only other thing that came to mind was the fact that he'd been wrong. Bobby wasn't done with the bullying. Sam leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He really didn't know what to do about any of this, or how he was supposed to do about it. Maybe he could make it past Regionals without getting into trouble, but if Bobby pushed him any farther, Sam knew that he was going to snap and get into another fight. At least that would be better than having to stand around and take it without defending himself. He just had to make it past Regionals-
Regionals, where Bobby would be watching.
And where Sam and Blaine would be singing their duet.
And Bobby wasn't done with the bullying. If he was doing all this because Sam and Blaine were hanging around in school and acting a little like a couple, what would singing together make him do? Even though it wasn't supposed to be a romantic duet, Sam knew that it came across that way when he and Blaine sang it together. Or, at least, it had seemed that way on Tuesday, because that was how he and Blaine acted when they were comfortable and at their best.
And when Sam wasn't comfortable, it turned out terrible. Like yesterday, when everyone had known that he was distracted. Sam couldn't perform that way at Regionals. They'd worked too hard to fail because Sam wasn't at the top of his game.
And he couldn't hold back and try to keep the duet from seeming romantic. It would kill the performance if he and Blaine didn't have some kind of chemistry onstage, and Sam wasn't a good enough actor to know how to make friendship chemistry instead of romantic chemistry.
But he also couldn't sing a romantic duet in front of Bobby.
"Hurry up," Becky snapped, and Sam quickly opened his eyes. He'd almost forgotten that she was there. She put one hand on her hip and glared up at him, then grabbed his wrist with her other hand and yanked on it, hard. "We're going to Coach's office, remember?"
"Right," Sam said, not really paying much attention. But when she gave another sharp tug on his arm, he nodded and followed her down the hall.
"Have you found anything at all?" Blaine asked, dropping a bundle of papers back into the drawer he had been searching and resisting the urge to run his fingers through his hair, no matter how frustrated he was. He knew from experience that that would end badly, with gel all over his hand and completely messed-up hair.
"This trophy looks better than last year's did," Brittany said, taking the Nationals trophy out of its display case and turning it over in her hands.
"Be careful with that," Blaine warned. If anything happened to the trophy, then they would all go down. It didn't matter if Sue knew who had done it or not – she'd probably punish the entire school just to be sure. Brittany nodded and set the trophy onto the middle of Sue's desk – Blaine made a mental note to put it back where it belonged – then picked up Sue's smoothie container and held it up to her nose. "I don't think this smells right," she said, holding it out to Blaine.
Blaine waved it away. "We don't have time for that," he said, then added, "And anyway, I'm not sure what her protein shakes are even supposed to smell like."
"Not like this." Brittany wrinkled her nose and set it back down on the the desk. "It smells like the time that Lord Tubbington got locked outside in the rain. Or the time that he tried hoarding fondue behind my desk and it took me a month to find it."
Blaine did his best not to think about that, because he was sure that he didn't want to know what Sue was drinking. "Let's just focus on finding evidence," he said.
So far, Ryder hadn't seen any sign of Sue, but that could change any moment. And it probably would, considering that they'd been in her office for five minutes now, so Sue was bound to be on her way back soon. Blaine and Brittany had been searching as hard as they could, but still had absolutely nothing to show for it. "Sue keeps her things too well-hidden," he complained. "I've found file after file of cheerleading paperwork, but nothing personal. I don't know where she keeps that stuff." He sighed and slammed the drawer closed. "Do you think she has a computer somewhere that we should be looking at?" There wasn't one on her desk, but maybe she had a laptop tucked away somewhere.
"Is that what we're looking for?" Brittany asked. "Something personal?"
"Yeah," Blaine said, resisting the urge to ask Brittany what she'd thought that they were looking for. The answer probably wouldn't be relevant, and he didn't want to waste any more time. Not when they hadn't managed to find a single thing they could use against Sue. "Something that might give us an idea about what she did, like a note to herself, or maybe some information about what kind of blackmail she used on the judges-"
"What about her journals?" Brittany asked. "Would that work?"
"It would, if we could find it," Blaine snapped, then made himself take a deep breath. "Sorry. I'm just kind of upset over the fact that we've found nothing. I didn't think it would be this hard."
Brittany shrugged away his apology. "So this would be good?" she asked, pulling open the drawer that he'd just searched and pulling all the papers out, piling them next to the trophy.
"I don't think-" Blaine began, but stopped when Brittany smiled and pulled a false bottom out of the drawer, revealing a thin notebook hiding underneath it. Blaine stared. "How did you-?"
"I saw Sue hide her notebook there once," Brittany said.
"She hid her journal when you were in the room with her?" Blaine asked. He couldn't imagine that. Sue was way too paranoid.
"Well, I was standing outside her office waiting to come in. I don't think she realized that I could see her through the window in her door," Brittany said, and shrugged. "Plus, I've been one of Sue's favorite cheerleaders for five years now. I don't think she worries about me so much. Just like she doesn't worry about Becky, because she doesn't think that either of us will ever go against her."
Blaine decided not to ask why she had never mentioned that she knew the location of Sue's secret journal. Really, it would have saved them a whole lot of time. But he doubted that her answer would make sense – to him, at least – so he decided not to bother. Instead, he just grabbed the journal and set the false bottom of the drawer back into place, then put the papers back into the drawer, doing his best to arrange them exactly the way that they'd looked before. Then he thought of something. "So, why are you going against Sue, if she's so convinced that you're loyal to her?"
Brittany gave him a look like he was acting crazy. "I don't want to lose my cheerleading spot," she said, "but now that Kurt's gone, you're my only unicorn. Well, Sam's my unicorn, too. But he's not nearly as much of a unicorn as you are."
"And?" Blaine asked.
"And magic is good, so magical people have to stick together and protect each other," she said with a smile.
Blaine grinned back. "You definitely were a lot of help," he said, holding up the journal and waving it at her. "Now come on, let's get out of here before Sue-"
"Blaine! Code red!"
It was Ryder's voice, coming from Blaine's phone. Blaine had been holding it slightly away from his face, but now he pressed it back against his face. "Code red? What does that mean?" They had decided to come up with a code, but they'd never actually figured out what that code was going to be.
"I don't know, I panicked and-" Ryder cut himself off, then called in a louder voice, "Sam! Becky! What happened?"
Blaine froze when he heard Sam's name, especially since Ryder sounded honestly concerned, not just like he was trying to distract them. Then he shook off that thought. He'd worry about Sam in a moment, but right then, he and Brittany needed to focus on getting out of Sue's office before Becky caught them.
"We have to go," he hissed at Brittany, and when she didn't immediately move, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the door.
"Don't go in there! I mean, stay here and tell me what happened. Who did this?" Ryder's voice came out of the phone again, which was just making Blaine even more nervous, even though he tried to ignore it – and tried to ignore the way that he could hear Sam's voice in the background, talking too fast and too softly for Blaine to hear him through the phone, but Blaine still caught a nervous undertone to his voice. Which Blaine didn't have the time to focus on right that moment, he reminded himself again, and hurried to push open the door and glance out to make sure that nobody was around.
"I told you, Coach told me to bring Sam here, and I'm going to do that!" Becky's voice came from right down the hall, not from Blaine's phone, and a moment later she walked around the corner. Blaine jerked his head back into Sue's office the moment he caught a glimpse of her Cheerio uniform.
Brittany stared at him with wide eyes, looking like she didn't know what to do. Blaine stared right back. There was no way that they could get out without Becky seeing them, even if Sam and Ryder tried to stall or distract her. So if they couldn't get away, the only option was-
"The cabinet," he hissed at her, barely daring to make any noise at all, then nudged her toward the metal cabinet behind Sue's desk. Brittany, luckily, caught on immediately, and the two of them ran for it.
The cabinet was completely filled with Sue's extra sweatsuits. Brittany pushed them back and managed to climb in, but Blaine could tell that there was no way he'd be able to fit in there with her. He shut the door on her and glanced frantically around, trying to figure out where the next best place would be. Maybe he could move the filing cabinets away from the wall and hide there-
No, that would take too long and make too much noise. Blaine didn't have time left to think, so he just squished himself into the closest hiding place that he could fine – underneath Sue's desk.
It wasn't a good spot at all. Nobody would be able to see him from the front of the office, but the moment that someone stepped behind the desk, they'd see him immediately. Blaine curled his knees to his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible, and prayed that Becky would stay near the front of the room.
That was when he suddenly remembered that they'd left the Nationals trophy on Sue's desk, right in plain sight. But by now, there definitely wasn't any time to move it. Blaine just hoped that Becky wouldn't notice, or – at the very least – that she'd assume that Sue had been the one to leave it there. He could hope, anyway.
"I really don't think you need to drag me here," Sam was saying as they got closer.
"Yeah. Class has already started. We shouldn't be any later," Ryder said, and Blaine could hear his voice twice: once from behind him, and then a copy of his voice coming from his cell phone. Blaine quickly ended his call, just in case Becky would be able to hear the voice coming from his phone. Besides, with Ryder in the same room, he wouldn't need to keep the call going.
The door squeaked slightly as it opened, and then Blaine could hear footsteps entering the room. "And there's really no reason to be in here, you really don't have to give Sam any- Huh."
Ryder's voice cut off, sounding confused. Probably he'd been expecting Blaine and Brittany to be standing out in the open when they came in, and was surprised that the office was apparently empty.
"Coach told me to get it for him, and I'm going to," Becky said, a stubborn edge to her voice. Even though Blaine had no idea what she was talking about, it was obvious that she wasn't leaving.
"I told you a bunch of times, I have a change of clothes in my bag," Sam said. "Can't I just go to the bathroom and get cleaned up?"
Blaine stiffened, his hands clenching around the journal that he still held. There was only one thing that those words could mean, and it made Blaine want to come out of hiding so that he could go hunt down Bobby and his friends right that second. Maybe it had been someone else who had slushied Sam, but Blaine doubted it. It had to be Bobby, and he wasn't going to keep getting away with this. Blaine made himself keep completely still, but inside, he was burning.
He was just so sick of Bobby trying to make Sam feel bad and then not even getting a slap on the wrist for it. And Blaine was sick of watching it happening and not doing anything except comforting Sam afterward.
That was going to end.
But first he had to get out of Sue's office. Blaine took a deep breath, then let it out silently, trying to focus on finding a way to sneak past Becky. Exposing Sue's cheating suddenly didn't seem as important as it had before, now that he'd heard that Bobby had brought back the bullying, but it still mattered. It especially mattered to the team who would've won Nationals if Sue hadn't cheated. Plus, there was still Regionals to think about it, and Blaine was sure that Sue would get them banned from it if she found out that they'd been in her office.
"Coach told me to get it for you," Becky repeated. "They're over there. Go get them."
"I really don't need to," Sam insisted, sounding almost angry now. "I'm going to go get changed into my own clothes, not something of Sue's. I don't care how good this is going to make her look, I'm-" The whole time that Sam had been talking, Blaine had heard footsteps coming closer. Now Sam was standing behind the desk, where there was no way that he wouldn't be able to see him. Sam's voice dropped away, and a shocked expression crossed his face when he caught sight of Blaine curled under the desk.
Blaine was pretty sure that his face looked the same. He'd already been able to tell that Sam had been slushied, but still, seeing it was different. It made Blaine's anger come roaring back, until he was sure that he'd have to skip class and go to the gym, to start pounding on the punching bag until he could be sure that he wasn't going to go looking for Bobby to start pounding him instead. Blaine was a pretty pacifistic person, but at that moment, he was having a really hard time remembering that.
He'd seen Sam get slushied before, and he'd always been upset about it, but he honestly couldn't remember even getting this mad about it. Not even last week, the first time that Sam had been slushied because the bullies knew that he and Blaine were together. Blaine had been upset and mad then, but nothing like this.
Since then, Sam had confessed more about how scared he was to face the bullies, and how much he hated that they made him feel like that, and how helpless he felt.
Since then, Sam had admitted that he'd been slushied and not told Blaine about it, because he felt like he had to handle it on his own, and that just made Blaine twice as determined to protect him.
Since then, Blaine had seen the way that Sam was determined to think that the bullying was over, because it didn't look like he could handle thinking about anything else.
This anger was a whole other beast of an emotion than what he'd felt last time.
"If I agree to just wear the stupid sweatsuits, can the three of us leave Sue's office so that I can get back to class?" Sam suddenly asked, looking past the desk, toward where Becky must be standing. Blaine didn't know what the argument about the sweatsuits meant, but he realized what Sam was doing – giving in so that Becky would leave before he found Blaine.
"Yeah," Becky said, and Sam nodded. Blaine wasn't sure if he should be grateful to Sam or if he should try to argue that Sam shouldn't give in to something he didn't want – whatever it was – and especially not after he'd just been slushied again. But there wasn't any way that Blaine could argue with him, short of popping out from under the desk and bringing Sue's wrath down on all of them. And then Sam started to turn away from the desk.
And toward the cabinet.
Blaine suddenly remembered what they'd been talking about. Sweatsuits!
He shook his head frantically, thinking that there was no way that Sam would see it in time, and that he was about to open the cabinet and reveal Brittany's hiding place to everyone. But Sam must have seen it out of the corner of his eye, because he turned back to Blaine, a confused look on his face. Hopefully Becky wouldn't notice that and come check under the desk to see what Sam was staring at.
Blaine mouthed the word Brittany as obviously as he could, then pointed toward the cabinet. Sam's eyes widened with understanding.
"I don't want to wear one of Sue's sweatsuits," Sam said, turning back toward where Becky was standing. "I'm going to go to the bathroom and change into my extra pair of clothes, and if you don't like it, why don't you go down to Beiste's office to tell Sue about it?"
"Nobody is leaving until Sam agrees to put one on, just like Sue told me," Becky said.
"Come on, couldn't she just lie about the story?" Sam asked. "She lies about everything else, anyway."
"She wants this one to be real in case the school board decides to ask the students about it," Becky insisted. "Go get one of the sweatsuits."
"Hey, if he doesn't want to, then he shouldn't have to," Ryder argued. From the sound of his voice, it was obvious that he didn't have a clue what was going on, but that he was still trying to back up Sam nonetheless.
"Coach says that he has to, so he has to," Becky said, and walked around the desk. Blaine held his breath as she came into view, certain that she'd notice him any second, but she was still staring toward the front of the room – toward Ryder, probably – and Sam hurried to stand between her and and the desk, trying to block Blaine from her sight. "Why are you even here, anyway?" she demanded.
"I was finishing a phone call before I went to class. It was important!" Ryder said. "And now of course I have to stay here to make sure that Sam's okay!"
Becky just huffed a sigh but didn't argue. Instead, she started toward the cabinet to get Sam one of the sweatsuits herself.
Blaine could actually feel his heartbeat pick up, and he tensed again, waiting for the door to open any second now. And then Becky would find him and Brittany, and they would have failed at taking down Sue, and worse, all five of them would be in so much trouble. There was no way that Sue wouldn't figure out that Sam was a part of this, and that made Blaine the most upset, because Sam did not deserve to get into more trouble on top of everything. Especially when it was Blaine's fault for not getting out of Sue's office in time.
Becky's hand closed around the cabinet's handle and started to turn.
Sam spun around and swept his arm out. Blaine couldn't see exactly what he was doing, but a second later, there was a crash.
As if Sam had just shoved the Nationals trophy off of Sue's desk.
"What did you do?" Becky demanded, spinning around. Sam was standing in the wrong place, meaning that Blaine was in plain view under the desk for a split second before Sam stepped in front of him again. But luckily, Becky seemed too mad to notice.
"It was an accident," Sam said, even though it so obviously hadn't been, and he had to know that there was no way that he could get away with that excuse.
"It doesn't look dented or anything," Ryder said quickly. "It's totally fine."
"Give me that!" Becky shouted, striding around the desk. The moment she wasn't looking, Sam yanked open the door of the cabinet. Brittany gave a little squeak of surprise, but Sam reached past her and grabbed the first sweatsuit that he touched, then slammed the door shut again.
"I'm telling Coach that you did that!" Becky snapped.
"Okay," Sam said with a little shrug, though his forehead furrowed at the thought, like he was trying to imagine what Sue would do to him when she found out. "Do I still have to wear the sweatsuit?" he asked, holding it up.
"Yes!"
"Okay," Sam said, though he made a face. "Fine, I give in, I'll wear it. Can we just leave now?"
There was a pause, and Blaine found himself holding his breath again, as useless a gesture as that was. Then he heard Becky turn and storm out. Sam gave Blaine one last look before hurrying out after her, and Blaine could hear Ryder following.
Blaine stayed under the desk for another minute, just to make sure that they were really gone, then crept out. Brittany must have heard him starting to move, because a second later she also climbed out from her hiding space. "They slushied Sam again," she said.
Blaine scowled. "I noticed."
"But it was nice of him to protect us," Brittany added.
"Yeah." Blaine turned and picked up the Nationals trophy, which Becky had set back on Sue's desk, and took a quick look at it. Ryder had been right – it didn't look damaged at all. Maybe that would at least keep Sue from going completely crazy.
Blaine glanced back at the trophy case, wondering if he should put it back in there or not. On one hand, if Sue came back and found it right where she had left it, then it might make her doubt Becky's story. On the other hand, moving it to the trophy case when Becky had left it on the desk would just make it clear that someone had been in Sue's office.
But Blaine didn't really want to worry about that right then, not when he needed to get to Sam, so he just stuck the trophy back onto the desk and decided that that was good enough. "Let's go," he said.
There wasn't anyone left in the hallway, so it was pretty easy to sneak out. As soon as they were in the hallway, Blaine handed Brittany the journal. "Can you put this in my locker? It's small enough that you should be able to slip it through the vents. Then you should probably get to class."
"Sure," Brittany said, taking it from him. "You're going to go comfort Sam, right?" When Blaine nodded, she gave him a quick hug and whispered, "Take care of him, okay?" Then she turned and ran off.
"You know my locker number, right?" Blaine called after her. "I'm number 226!" Brittany gave him a thumbs up over her shoulder, not slowing down. Blaine just hoped that she'd actually heard him, and that she'd get the number right, but he wasn't going to worry about that, either.
It was time to go find Sam.
Blaine expected him to have gone to the girls' room that they always used for cleanups, so he started towards it, but he stopped when he turned the corner and saw Kitty leaning against the wall, right outside the boys' bathroom.
"He's in there," Kitty said, pointing over her shoulder toward the bathroom door. "I didn't see what happened, but I talked to someone who did. Want to hear it?"
"It was Bobby again, wasn't it?" Blaine asked.
Kitty's eyes narrowed. "Again?" she asked sharply. "How many times has this happened before?"
"Way too many," Blaine said, his voice coming out much harsher than he meant, but he really couldn't help it. Bobby had taken this way beyond too far, and Blaine was sick of it.
Kitty just nodded at that. "I think I'll let Sam tell you the details," she said, "but there was one thing that I doubt he's going to mention, so I figured that I'd better let you know."
"What?" Blaine asked, already clenching his teeth and mentally preparing himself. Anything that Sam wouldn't have told him had to be bad.
"Apparently they think you've gone all predatory on Sam," Kitty said. "They don't like that he's suddenly with you after always seeming straight, and in the world of moronic soccer boys who probably can't even tie their shoes without someone to help them, that apparently means attacking Sam to make some kind of point."
Blaine's nails dug into his palms, but he couldn't unclench his fists. He'd known it was something like this, but to hear that this was the exact reason-
Sam was getting bullied so much because he was with Blaine. Realistically, Blaine knew that that wasn't his fault, and that Sam wanted to date him. He shouldn't feel guilty because other people were being homophobic bastards.
But it still felt like Sam was getting bullied because of Blaine.
"What are you doing tonight?" Kitty suddenly asked, and it took Blaine a second to pull himself out of his thoughts enough to process the question, and another couple seconds to remember the answer.
"Sam and I are going to the Lima Bean after glee to meet Tina's new boyfriend and a couple of friends of mine," Blaine said. "Why?"
"Don't let Sam come with you," Kitty said. "After the day he's had, it shouldn't be too hard to convince him that he's better off staying at home and getting some rest or something stupid like that."
"I could probably do that," Blaine said. "Again, why?"
Kitty smiled, and something about it made Blaine feel like he was seeing the side of her who had dated Jake just because Marley had wanted him, and who had encouraged Marley's eating disorder until she had fainted onstage. "I'm calling an emergency glee club meeting at the Lima Bean, beginning immediately after rehearsal gets out," she said. "We're going to figure out a way to stop this."
"Here it is!" Ryder exclaimed, holding up the bottles of shampoo and conditioner that he'd been digging through Sam's bag to find. He'd been acting way too enthusiastic about helping Sam get cleaned up from his slushy, probably because he didn't know anything else to do.
Sam made himself smile, since he really was happy that Ryder cared enough to get him cleaned up, even if Sam really didn't want him around at that exact moment. But it wasn't Ryder's fault that Sam would rather be alone, so he wasn't going to take it out on him. "Thanks," he said instead. "Can you try to find my bar of soap? It's in there somewhere." He'd learned over the years that the school's soap was terrible at washing the dye off of skin.
"Sure thing," Ryder said, and went back to digging around.
Sam grabbed a paper towel and started wiping off his face, trying to get the last bit of slush off of his skin. The slushy had gotten under his shirt, and since he didn't want to try to wash his chest and back in a McKinley sink (and he definitely didn't want to use the showers in the locker room), he was going to be sticky all day until he could go home and use his own bathroom to finish the cleanup. But at least he could get his face washed off.
The bathroom door opened, and Sam spun around immediately, then relaxed when he realized that it was Blaine.
Blaine, looking angrier than Sam had ever seen him.
"I'll leave you two alone," Ryder said quickly. He stood and set the bar of soap onto the edge of the sink, then clasped Sam on the shoulder. "Good luck," he said, grimacing when he seemed to realize how weird that sounded but not looking like he could think of anything better. He nodded to Blaine, then hurried out the door.
"Hey, dude," Sam said, trying to be casual even though he knew that it was probably stupid. "I think that the mission went well. Blonde Chameleon totally saved the day back there! I did pretty good at keeping Becky from noticing you, huh?"
"You were amazing," Blaine said, with way too much emotion in his voice. "You always are."
Sam managed another smile. This one didn't feel as fake as the one he'd given Ryder. "Did you find anything useful?"
"We got her journal. It's the most recent one – at least, I'm pretty sure it is – so it should have something in it," Blaine said. He glanced down, his eyes trailing over the stains on Sam's clothes. "Bobby," he said, like he already knew that it was true. Sam wondered vaguely if someone had told him for sure that that had been the person to slushy him, or if Blaine had just made the obvious guess.
Sam took a deep breath and made himself nod. "And his friend. The one from last Friday."
Blaine moved forward in an instant, wrapping his arms around Sam and pulling him into a hug.
"Dude, your clothes-" Sam started to protest. He hadn't had time to get changed out of his slushy-stained outfit, and the dye was going to rub off onto Blaine's outfit if he hugged Sam like that.
"I don't care," Blaine said. "I have an extra outfit in my bag, too, you know."
Sam nodded. At least Blaine wasn't wearing his Cheerio's uniform anymore – he didn't have to, now that the competition was over, though most of the girls wore them anyway – so they wouldn't have to worry about making Sue mad. Any more than she would be when she found out about them breaking into her office, at least.
And honestly, it didn't really matter what Blaine had on, or about the stains. Sam really just wanted to hold his best friend right then, and he didn't think that anything could have made him hold back.
"It's okay," Blaine said. "We're going to figure something out."
Sam didn't know what the something could be, but he didn't say anything about that. Instead, he closed his eyes and rested his chin on Blaine's shoulder, then asked, "What would you say if I didn't sing with you at Regionals? If I asked Mr. Schue to give my part to someone else?"
Because Sam had been thinking. He couldn't go onstage and sing with Blaine if the soccer team was going to be at Regionals. He'd be too scared of what Bobby would do at school on Monday. And even if he did manage to make himself go onstage, he'd wouldn't be able to perform right if he spent the whole time worrying about Bobby.
Sam needed the glee club to win. His friends had worked so hard for this, and Sam couldn't let Bobby ruin this. Which meant that Sam couldn't let himself ruin it by messing up the song. And he would, if he sang with Blaine.
Sam really, really hated to admit that out loud. And more than that, he hated to let Blaine down. They'd wanted this duet so badly, and now it wasn't fair that Blaine wouldn't be able to sing with him just because Sam couldn't handle the bullying.
But this would be better for the team. Sam was sure of that.
Blaine took a deep breath, then pulled Sam even closer, tightening his hold until it almost hurt, but Sam definitely wasn't going to complain. It felt too nice to be held like that. For a moment, he liked feeling like Blaine was protecting him, even if Sam should be strong enough to do this on his own.
"Whatever you need to do," Blaine promised. "I'm here for you, whatever you need to do. Even if it means that we don't get to sing together."
Sam closed his eyes and did his best to keep from crying.