AN: Hi! This is my first ever fanfic- please keep that in mind. I stan Samcedes and Blaine, so I fully intend on making those couples endgame in other stories if I ever write them, but I do wonder what could've happened between Sam and Blaine if Sam weren't 100% straight. I'm not mad at the producers for the lack of that exploration, though, because it was really refreshing to see a straight character maintain their friendship wholeheartedly with a gay character of the same sex who had a crush on them. Sam is definitely my favourite character, for many more similar reasons.
I wrote this as if everything happened as it did in glee up till the end of season 4, then I go a little AU (but not much). I.e. this is written as if Blaine made up with Kurt, but didn't get back together with him, and similarly for Samcedes.
Enough of my blabber, enjoy (and please leave a review)!
C1: Bow Tied Blaine
Blaine and Sam has become awfully close senior year. When Blaine has insulted Sam the previous year by throwing the fact that he had to use his body to make money, Sam had never expected a bromance to blossom between the two of them. He'd thought of Blaine as an uptight snob- which was saying a lot, considering Sam always managed to see the best in people. He wouldn't ever have admitted it, but Blaine had really hurt his feelings when he'd made those comments. Albeit stripping wasn't the most honourable of jobs, no-one had ever judged him for it. All the glee-clubbers had understood that Sam would've done anything and everything for his family, and if stripping was what'd made ends meet in Kentucky, then stripping was what Sam had needed to do. When Blaine had said he wasn't 'selling his body' to please the judges, Sam had felt small and ashamed. He hadn't meant to sexualise their performance or objectify their bodies, he was just desperate for a win- he'd partly moved back to Ohio for this after all.
But alas, a bromance had blossomed. Pretty much everyone they'd considered family had left McKinley; and Mercedes had broken his heart... again. She'd told him it was 'for the best' and that 'long-distance relationships don't work' and that she was setting him 'free'. He hadn't felt free. He'd felt chained to heartbreak. He'd barely gotten to explore what he had with Mercedes- never even got to put a label on their relationship- but he knew she was the one. She dismissed those feelings though, insisting that he wouldn't mean that in a year, that he always fell fast and hard- using Quinn's promise ring as a key piece of evidence. He defended himself saying that the way he felt about Quinn was genuine, and if she hadn't cheated on him they'd still be together, which only made her angry- 'if you want to be with Quinn so bad, then why do you want to be with me?' she'd shouted at him, close to tears. It wasn't her finest of moments. He'd tried to explain how he didn't want Quinn, he wanted her. How it was possible for him to have loved Quinn, but not love her like that anymore, how he'd gotten over her and never felt as alive as he did with Mercedes. How it was a different feeling of love that he'd felt with Mercedes, calling her his soulmate. He begged her not to give up, saying he wanted to marry her one day. But nothing worked, she only used his words against him: 'if you got over Quinn, and you loved her at one point, you can get over me too.'
It made him feel small- like he wasn't good enough for her, that his dyslexia and financial status and job history weren't a match for her diva extraordinaire persona and the future she had ahead of her. She'd never said it, but he'd felt it in her determined reluctance to even give the long-distance thing a go. Even after he'd fought to get her back when she'd replaced him with Shane, she never really took his feelings seriously. Perhaps she'd just been keeping her guard up, but even that possibility hurt- did she not trust him with her heart? He knew he'd had his fair share of girlfriends, but he thought he showed her exactly how special he thought she was.
They'd settled on being friends- yet it'd felt more like strangers: whenever she visited McKinley, she'd avoided eye contact, at all costs. He wondered why she even bothered visiting in the first place. Sure, she was still close with Artie and Tina, but were the constant visits really necessary? Did she just want to rub her success in his face? He'd never felt more lonely. Sure, he liked the people in glee-club. But no-one really got him… or so he thought.
He found himself starting to bond more with Blaine- and he'd finally pulled Blaine out of the rut, they'd gotten on so well, bonding over comic books, Star Wars (and Star Wars fan-fiction, a not-so-guilty pleasure between them) and sport. He started spending a lot of time at Blaine's house since the Hudson-Hummel house had become quieter. They'd play video games, have Marvel movie marathons, discuss glee drama... they were total dorks with each-other and Sam loved it. He'd swallowed his previous judgments about Bow-tied Blaine being a snob the second Blaine had made him a peace-offering- a bag of cool-ranch Doritos.
When they'd done their Guilty Pleasures week, it'd been so fun, and Sam had been so flattered that Blaine had developed a crush on him. He got it, to be honest. Blaine was like Sam in needing to place his love with someone. [That's how he'd fallen for Brittany- even though he reckoned that they only initially connected because of their vast loneliness, they understood each other. She wasn't Mercedes- hell, he'd never find another Mercedes- but whether it was about the loss of a soulmate (Santana), or the conspiracy theories that everyone ridiculed him on for believing or creating, she got him.] He didn't see why anything should have to change in their bromance dynamic- it would've been double standards- half the glee girls crushed on Sam yet he remained just as friendly with them. In all honesty, Sam had started catching feelings for Blaine. He'd only fully realised when Blaine had performed Against All Odds in the auditorium. Blaine had gotten so emotional in his performance- probably still thinking about his heartbreak over Kurt, but also professing his infatuation with Sam. The sadness had made Sam clench his jaw and pull at his fingers, he didn't want to be the only one crying at the performance. The way Sam had been affected by the performance was what made him realise. It wan't that he could relate to the sadness (over Mercedes), it was that all he wanted to do was pull Blaine's smaller frame into his arms and never let go. It was that he wanted to kiss Blaine and see if it eased the pain.
He didn't know how to deal with it- not only was he with Brittany, but Blaine was a guy. When Blaine had asked him earlier on in the week if he'd have feelings for him, he brushed it off- "Of course I don't, I'm straight," is what he kept telling himself. So he decided to lock his realisation into a box- because he didn't want things to get messy, and instead he made light of the situation, admitting to Blaine that he was flattered by the crush, but leaving it at a trivial matter.
But then Brittany left for M.I.T. And left him behind too- heartbroken, again. Even though he knew their relationship always had an expiry date, he didn't expect it to come so soon. He thought that they'd breakup when they struggled to maintain a relationship at their respective colleges, and Santana would end up winning her back (not that she was a prize…), not for her to leave so abruptly to get early acceptance into one of the best universities in the world.
Blam's friendship timeline had meant that Blaine had spent a lot more time comforting Sam over Brittany, than what Sam had spent comforting Blaine over Kurt. He couldn't help but start to unconsciously unlock that box of feelings for Blaine. The way Blaine had cooked for him, sent him memes and gifs every day, invited him over near to everyday, helped him with his homework... Sam obliviously began to take advantage, utilising every opportunity to be around him. It wasn't a "hero-complex", but the feeling of safety, that he'd felt whenever he was with Blaine. Maybe it was possible that because they shared such a deep emotional connection, it created chemistry between them, causing their current intimacy of bro hugs and fist bumps insufficient. So when the feelings for him had fully consolidated, the lust didn't take long to follow.
It confused him deeply. Because he'd always seen himself as straight. And he was straight- no other boy had made him stir like that. He had always been able to appreciate a boy's physique, but it'd never turned him. He was never aroused by boys, no matter how toned they were, nothing stimulated him like Mercedes' curves (or the Unholy Trinity's long legs- as he'd realised he'd dated all of them). But Blaine had some kind of power over him. It'd started when he'd gone to see a boxing match that Blaine was competing in- he'd had to go to the restroom to cool down when he'd realised how turned on he was. He'd been lucky he was wearing his baggy joggers that day, and not his tight skinny jeans. The cold shower when he got home didn't help. Neither did the thinking of things that turned him off. He went to sleep dreaming of lying on a cushioned surface, Blaine straddling him, his arms pinned by his head.
It'd gotten to a point where it was becoming too much to handle. Everything Blaine did turned Sam on. As dorky as Blaine's Nightbird costume was, it turned him on. The way his fingers danced across the keyboard so gracefully sent flutters into his core. The way he pounded the keyboard when Blaine did his diva solos sent his member throbbing. All he could think about was getting intimate with Blaine- whether it was hard and rough or soft and sweet, it was all he could think about. He loved Blaine already as a friend. But he'd began to love him romantically, and it scared him. Not because of his confused sexuality, but because he was scared of being hurt again. Everyone he'd been with had left him for dust, and while he wanted Samcedes and Klaine to be endgame, he really wanted to explore Blam. But if things were to get rocky with Blaine, they'd ruin the best friendship Sam had ever had. It didn't help that Blaine's feelings weren't returned- Blaine only crushed on him because of his body and the lack of Kurt. Not because of his intellect or personality. It hurt enough as it was. He found himself distancing himself from Blaine more and more recently, 'cause he needed to get over him, and he could only do that with some space. He'd hoped that the impending doom of Nationals would serve as a good distraction.