You've got your ball, you've got your chain
Tied to me tight, tie me up again
Who's got their claws in you my friend?
Into your heart I'll beat again
Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock, and sweet you roll
Lost for you, I'm so lost, for you,
"Come out for coffee with me tonight?" He asked bluntly when he finally tracked the other boy down after two fucking days of his friends playing games. The tension in his dorm had been so thick he could taste it, and the previous night, it had spilled over to Warbler practise, with him storming out after yet another snarky comment from Wes about his health.
"What?"
"I said coffee, tonight, Lima Bean."
"I don't think that's such a good idea…"
"Which is why it is the best fucking idea in the world right now. You wanted to talk, and I need something to take my mind off other things. So, let's call it a date, I'll be waiting for you by the car after class." He needed a distraction, and he needed it badly. The senior boys had been his constant shadows since Wednesday morning, and he was fully aware that they had made it their mission to keep him and Kurt at opposite ends of the school.
He and Wes had barely spoken, the other boy being pissed off at his apparent lack of concern over his own health, and him being pissed off at the feeling of being smothered by the older boys. He'd taken to hiding out in various places around the school; slipping back into the dorm just before the ten o'clock curfew, and jumping straight into the shower, and then into bed. His avoidance job was working so far, but he knew it wouldn't last, especially if Wes found out about the stunt he was currently pulling.
Trent was the only one who seemed unfazed by it all, and they had been meeting regularly in the library for their study sessions as normal. After an initial inquiry into how he was doing, and whether he was suffering any ill effects of his training incident (apart from the badly bruised knuckles and muscle strains), he'd backed off and left him to it. Blaine knew that the questions had come from Wes, they'd been a little too specific for Trent, but he'd humoured the older boy because he knew that they were worried about him.
And it was Trent, you just couldn't upset the baby-faced senior without feeling like a grade-A douche.
Oh, you come crash into me, yeah
Baby, and I come into you
And I come into you
"I was going to meet Mercedes." Kurt replied, stammering a little; a flush colouring his cheeks. Kurt was fun, they had common interests, they liked each other, what was wrong with wanting to spend time around the other boy?
"Great, she can come too."
"Blaine… I…"
"After class, by the car." Blaine replied, cutting off whatever Kurt was building up to say. "Wear something nice." He stalked away, towards, the dining room glad of the imminent distraction, if only to give him something else to think about for a while. If he'd been thinking straight, he'd probably have realised that this was a terrible idea, but he needed a night off campus and in truth, he still enjoyed Kurt's presence. He was not a child. He could make his own decisions and would be doing so for the foreseeable future; the rest of his friends be damned.
He passed a furious looking Thad on his way down the corridor, and he gave they older boy a smirk and a wink. He knew that it would come back to bite him on the ass but in that moment, he couldn't give less of a shit. He had a date with Kurt and Mercedes to look forward to. That was a good thing, right?
"Tell me it isn't true Devon Anderson!" Wes thundered as he all but tore their door off its hinges and stormed into their dorm; tossing his bag onto his bed. "Tell me that Thad is going fucking delusional, because I know you wouldn't do this to yourself again!"
"It's none of your business what I do." Blaine replied with a sneer. "I'm not a child."
"None of our business?" Wes asked faintly, his rage making his voice quiet and dangerous. "None of our fucking business? Are you actually fucking with me Anderson? Because the last time I checked, you were on the verge of a breakdown because of that asshole!"
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me
"This is my choice Wes." Blaine replied, packing his things into his messenger bag and throwing on a blue and white striped, boat necked sweater. The thin line of a scar was just showing, as it snaked its way across his right shoulder and he rubbed it unconsciously. He was often wary about showing off his body; his scars especially, but he liked this sweater; and paired with a pair of dark blue chinos and boating shoes; it made him feel good to look in the mirror. "I can make my own decisions and my own mistakes."
"Then don't come crying to us the next time it all goes fucking wrong." Wes growled. "We aren't going to be here to pick you up from the floor every time you do something stupid." Blaine froze at that. It was the one thing that Wes had never called him. It was the one word they never said. The one word that had the capacity to throw out all of his carefully crafted restraint and plunge him into an instant breakdown. Images of his father, shouting the same thing at him, flashed through his mind and he felt like he was going to throw up.
Wes knew what he had done because he'd gone sheet white; his eyes huge and his hand over his mouth. "Blaine… I…"
"Don't." He ground out harshly, working on focusing his breathing. He was not going to have a fucking breakdown before he'd even left the dorm. He was not going to turn up to the one thing he was actually looking forward to with tear tracks on his face and his eyes red and blotchy. He refused to let this overtake him so he swallowed down the lump in the back of his throat and stuck another sticky plaster over his sanity.
"I didn't mean it… Fuck." Wes reached out to him, only for Blaine to slap his hand away sharply.
"I said don't!" He screamed at the older boy, getting in Wes's face as he shoved him against the bathroom door. The older boy put up no fight but he looked terrified and sweet satisfaction bloomed in his stomach at the power he could currently wield over his roommate. "Don't ever presume to think you care for me when you can come out with shit like that. Because I will challenge you to the ring, and you will lose." He breathed angrily. "Leave me the fuck alone." He grabbed his bag; slinging it over his shoulder and stormed out of the door, hair still a mass of gel-free curls and his breathing heavy.
Touch your lips just so I know
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare boned, and crazy for you
If I've gone overboard
Then I'm begging you
To forgive me oh in my haste
When I'm holding you so girl
Close to me
The rage bubbled inside him; white hot and threatening to burst out of his chest. He'd been lucky that he was just about ready to go, and that his bag was already packed with his wallet, phone and keys. He couldn't face going back to their room right now, and so he stormed out towards his car; unlocking it and practically throwing his bag onto the back seat.
"Blaine?" Kurt asked nervously as he approached the seriously pissed off looking boy. He looked his date up and down with appreciation for the tight clothes, but he couldn't stop the slight widening of his eyes as he saw the distinctive white of a large scar, poking out of the neck of Blaine's jumper.
And you come
Crash into me, yeah
Baby, and I come into you
"Ready to go?" Blaine asked, a smile half-flickering over his face as he looked over to Kurt, seemingly not noticing his distress.
"Erm yeah." The other boy replied, placing his bag next to Blaine's on the back seat and getting into the car. Blaine paused for a minute as a figure appeared on the top of Dalton's steps and Kurt gaped when the other boy merely flipped the bird before sliding into the driver's seat. "Was that Wes?" He asked anxiously; the atmosphere Blaine was radiating; setting him on edge.
"Yeah, but he can go fuck himself. I plan on making my own decisions now." Blaine replied; backing out of his parking space and leaving the campus. "You call Mercedes?" He asked after a few minutes of awkward silence.
"Erm, yeah; she said she'd meet us there." Kurt replied nervously. "Look Blaine…"
"Don't Kurt." Was the tight reply. "Can we just enjoy tonight? No apologies, no heavy conversations, just coffee and good company." Kurt nodded and sat back in his seat, his hands twisting together as they headed away from campus.
It took less time than he thought it ought to for them to reach the café, and Blaine pulled his car into the lot and turned to smile at him, his anger mostly dissipated, but his shoulders still a little tenser than Kurt was used to seeing them.
"Sorry I haven't been good conversation so far." He said, a hint of nervousness poking through. "Wes and I had an argument as I came out and I guess it's just taken me some time to calm down from it."
"It's okay." Kurt replied; most of his anxiety slipping away. "I thought I'd done something to make you angry."
"You could never make me angry Kurt." Blaine replied with an easy smile, and his conversation with David from Tuesday, flashed through his memory. 'He was too busy piling your problems onto his own shoulders, because he is too damn selfless to have done anything less.' Kurt forced the memory out of his mind and tried to concentrate. "Let's go get ourselves a table and wait for Mercedes."
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me
They had been sticking to safe topics for the last hour; their collective draw at regionals, plans for the weekend, gossip from McKinley.
"I'm telling you guys that tomorrow's Night of Neglect is going to be great." Mercedes said with a grin. "You two should come."
"I don't think…"
"Oh, come on Kurt, it's a great idea, we should totally go." Blaine cut off his date with a grin. "I know you really miss everyone, and what better way to support them than helping them out with ticket sales?" Kurt seemed to mull it over for a minute or two before nodding decisively.
"It's not like I'm your competition any more anyway." He said with a shrug, sending a stab of unease into Blaine's stomach.
"And there's no way that Kurt's going anywhere near McKinley without me." Blaine added. "Not when Karofsky's still there." He mentally patted himself on the back for a solid piece of deflection as Mercedes started to give them a quick run-down of the night and he let her and Kurt chat as he sat back and sipped on his coffee. He would have to do something about Kurt's place on The Warblers before any more awkward questions could be asked. The problem was that he was going to need to be sneaky if he was going to get Wes, David and Nick to agree to anything.
I'm king of the castle
You're my dirty rascal
Crash into me
Crash into me
I'm king of the castle
You're my dirty rascal
Crash into me
Crash into me
That was okay though. Sneaky he could do.
"He's where!" David yelled; flying up from the couch in the practice room. Wes had called an emergency meeting between all of them, and was afraid that the dorms were too public to have this conversation. God forbid someone walk past the door whilst they were fighting. At least the practice room's doors were just about soundproof when fully closed, and the school had to be more or less silent before anything could be made out through them.
"You just let him fucking go?!" Jeff added, throwing his hat into the ring.
Oh, I watch you there
Through the window
And I stare at you
You wear nothing but you
Wear it so well
Tied up and twisted
The way I'd like to be
For you, for me, come crash
Into me
"I didn't have much of a choice guys." Wes admitted heavily; worry for his roommate feeling heavy on his shoulders. "After what happened on Tuesday night we have barely spoken, and you have all admitted that he's avoiding you."
"Except Trent." Thad said, shooting the boy in question a questioning look.
"Maybe it's because I'm not treating him like a five-year-old." Trent replied pointedly. "After what happened last weekend, D was bound to feel like he was being smothered. And he is right when he says that he isn't a child. As much as we want to protect him, he's going to eventually learn to make his own mistakes, and bounce back from them." He held his hand up to stop the impeding tirade and he shot them all an uncharacteristic glare. "I am not suggesting that we abandon him, quite the opposite in fact, this is a huge moment for him moving forwards. If he's going to have any chance of surviving next year, he's going to need to learn how to deal with social situations that may have caught him off guard. What I am suggesting is that we let him have his small victory now, take a step back and see how things go, and if anything happens, we can be here to help him understand and to pick him back up. He's going to have to learn to navigate the social intricacies of gaining new friends, and at least with Hummel here, we can keep an eye on the situation."
"What about the short-term fallout?" Wes asked quietly.
"You mean what can you do after calling him that word?" Trent asked, completely unimpressed. He had chewed the other boy out mercilessly when he had discovered what had gone down in the dorm before Blaine's departure, and he'd succeeded in turning the air, all colourful shades of blue. He'd been quite impressed with himself afterwards, as Wes had appeared terrified of him.
"I still can't believe you said it." Jeff whispered.
"Neither can I." Wes replied guiltily. "I have no idea how it happened, it just slipped out."
"Well you can't take it back." David butted in. "I'm not sure how you're going to fix this, or even if you can. We all know what Blaine connects that word to, and I'm impressed that he avoided a full-scale meltdown there on the spot." Wes groaned and dropped his head into his hands, rubbing at his temples as a headache started to flare. He looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder and found Trent looking down at him with a sad, understanding half-smile. That was the thing with Trent, he was extremely slow to anger, but when he did it was usually explosive. But it never lasted long and he never held grudges, his sweet and forgiving nature was what had fully earned him the position of 'sunshine of the group'.
"Blaine will forgive you Wes." He said softly. "But you have to be honest and sincere with your apology, and you have to make up for this last week. Things between you have gotten toxic, and if Blaine can't feel like his dorm is his safe space, then I'm afraid that our last two years' worth of work have been a failure. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel and I have no doubt that you guys will be fine."
"So, there's nothing we can do about Hummel then?" Nick asked, his voice resigned.
"Not right now." Trent answered. "But if we are going to be taking a step back then the council have to be fully prepared for D making an indirect approach to get him back on the team." He held up his hand again, cutting off cries of denial and he shot them all another glare. "Hear me out." He said pointedly. "If we're going to repair things with D, we're going to have to allow him some leverage. And it isn't the worst idea to keep Kurt where we can see him. We can keep an eye on him if most of his time spent with D is going to be in this room. We have to be prepared to make concessions, and as far as concessions go, this isn't going to be the worst one that Blaine could come up with."
"He threatened me with the ring." Wes whispered.
"And that is a demand that might still go ahead." Trent said with a nod. "The Foxtrot-Charlie board will be notified, and you have to remember that as reigning champion; Blaine has the right to challenge anyone. That was what you signed up for." Thad couldn't help but grin at that and his response of; 'This is going to be a fucking train wreck' was not appreciated by any of them.
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash, crash into me