Of course, all of Blaine's intentions about tall guy fly out of the window as soon as he sets foot into the duty room, because there he is, his new boss, and Blaine nearly crashes into the ajar door when he sees tall guys' entire face because he isn't wearing his mask yet, but has it dangling from one ear instead.
Blaine just had his corona antigen test done a few minutes before his shift and still has to wait a couple more minutes to get his result so he wouldn't dream about coming in here without a mask, but his boss' shift starts at 6, if he remembers correctly, so his result must be done and accepted at this point. And thanks to his boss' evidently negative result, Blaine's granted with his bare face now.
Blaine stares. It didn't even occur to him yesterday what tall guy might look like without a mask on, it's become so natural to only see people's eyes and nothing else nowadays.
Blaine has never seen such a small, pointed nose and he immediately refers to it as a fairy's nose. His lips are thin and peach coloured and a guy should not look like some sort of Chinese porcelain doll, yet so masculine at the same time. Blaine also has a hard time figuring out how old this guy is. His skin looks flawless and unblemished, there are no wrinkles, not even a pore to be seen so he can't be that old. On the other hand, there's something, maybe about his eyes, that tells Blaine that this man has been through a lot and that he's seen and experienced more than others might have, so who really knows.
"Morning new kid," tall guy says in his high voice from where he's, again, standing in front of the big medicine cabinet and carefully fills drops into a small blue cup with his stupid arms raised, a look of extreme concentration on his face, and his hands, the cup, and a small brown bottle very close to his eyes.
Just like yesterday, Blaine feels struck by lightning by his words and he jumps a little. Stupid arms!
"Hi! Morning, Mr. Hummel, I mean Kurt!" Blaine babbles way too quickly and cringes at himself.
Tall guy doesn't stop with the drops, but raises an eyebrow at him and curls his lips into an amused grin.
"Still terrified, I see," he says in a happy, sassy sort of tone and Blaine chuckles nervously.
"Yeah, I guess."
He decides to stop the nervous fidgeting he feels coming before it can even start, and sits down slowly in one of the chairs by the desk. "So uhm, am I supposed to work with Mercedes again today?"
"Yeah, that's the plan. But I want to send you to B halfway through basic care and work with Rachel and swap you with Tina instead, so you'll get to know everyone on this site as well," tall guy says and smiles at him.
"Of course, whatever you say," Blaine says and mentally high fives himself when his voice sounds smooth and calm, this time. Only then he notices that they're not alone. There's a short girl with a dark brown ponytail sitting in a chair slightly behind a small, messy table next to the door he hadn't really paid much attention to, yet.
"I would be Rachel. Hi Blaine Anderson," the girl in question says and smirks at him like she knows something he doesn't. It unsettles him, but he's nothing if not good-mannered, so he turns to face her on his chair and offers her a small wave and smile.
"Hey, sorry, I guess I didn't see you there. You're kind of, uh, hidden." Brilliant choice of words, Blaine, honestly.
"Yeah, so I've noticed," she continues to smirk and Blaine hears tall guy chuckle softly from his spot by the cabinet. But Blaine is too much of a coward to turn back and face him or shoot him the icy-bitch glare he wants to give him. Instead, he swallows and tries to ignore both her and tall guy's reaction.
"So. Do you like it here?" This Rachel girl asks and Blaine is glad that she's shifting the focus of this awkward situation.
"Well, this is only my second day but everyone's been really nice and helpful so far. I hope that I can be an actual help to you soon, and not just hop along and not really do anything."
The soft click of doors shutting behind him tells Blaine that tall guy is probably done with the meds and like two seconds later, Blaine can feel his presence closer to him.
"We don't care if it takes you a week before you can be 'useful' for us. Like I said yesterday, you're capable of this. Give it time," his boss says and feels relief bubble inside his chest when he doesn't freak out the minute tall guy walks over to him and hands him a sheet with a smile on his face and a nod in response to what he just said, then walks the few steps over to Rachel and does the same.
"What's this? Is it very important? Is this about the new Covid regulations? Do I need to inform my dads about this?" Rachel asks without pausing to breathe and roams her eyes over the paper in her small hands.
Blaine doesn't focus on his sheet, but squints a glance at tall guy's face and bites off a chuckle he feels coming when his boss rolls his eyes at the girl. She can't be older than Blaine himself, he figures.
"Rachel, why don't you just read it. It basically says everything you need to know in the headline and I haven't had my coffee yet. I'm way too tired to talk about this crap right now. Schuester put it in my compartment and I'm handing it to you like I'm supposed to. Don't expect much more of me at this hour of the day." Now Blaine does chuckle and immediately regrets it when Rachel bites back:
"Oh, but you had no problem kindly addressing Blaine here just a minute ago."
She crosses her arms stubbornly and wrinkles her sheet in the process, and Blaine blushes. Then he blushes even more, when tall guy crosses his own stupid arms (wow!) and quirks an eyebrow at her.
"'Blaine here' has known me for only a few hours, while you, Rachel, have known me since you finished school 3 years ago. I can't go bitchin' at him already, can I?" he says and Blaine doesn't dare to breathe too loudly. "And besides, he's been perfectly polite and quiet so far."
"Yeah, because he was checking you out, that's why he was quiet," Rachel huffs and snaps the pink mask on her face she had wrapped around her wrist until now.
All Blaine can do is stare. Was he really that obvious? And even if he was, why would she be so mean and point it out in front of their boss? He lowers his head and feels so insanely humiliated that he feels like choking. Not only because she was stating the obvious, but because Blaine himself has to agree on her words. Yeah, he was checking him out. 23 years old, straight as an arrow, Blaine, father of a little girl who was conceived during one of his many, many one-night stands. What the hell was happening here?
"Rach? That's enough. I'm always in for a good joke, but this is taking it too far. I think sometimes you tend to forget that while I do consider you family for obvious reasons, I'm still your boss," tall guy says and Blaine is thankful, but he still can't look at either of them or defend himself.
Rachel mumbles an apology and starts reading her sheet. Blaine tries to do the same, but can barely focus on anything besides his confusing thoughts. He skips his eyes over the sheet and it's pretty clear that it's a declaration of consent for a SARS-Cov-2 vaccine that's due in about three months in their company. Apparently, a team of doctors and nurses offers nursing and care-homes like this one, a vaccine. They come to the company and all you have to do is fill out this form and they do the rest for you.
Blaine signs his name without a second thought.
"Are you sure you wanna do that?" Rachel asks and leans over to look at his scribbling. Blaine raises a questioning eyebrow at her. "I mean, look how fast they developed this vaccine, who knows if it's safe. What if the side effects are really bad?"
"Well," Blaine starts and tries to school his voice. Rachel doesn't know anything about his background, after all. "My gastroenterologist pretty much predicted that I wouldn't survive a Covid infection because of my suppressed immune system and histology of diseases. Plus, I'd like to take my daughter to the zoo for the first time at some point, so yeah, I'm terrified of this vaccine, but I'm even more terrified of Covid."
Fuck, didn't he want to hold back? Whatever, it was out now and he had to admit that the look on her face was pretty priceless.
"I…I am very sorry about my rude comment from before, then. I didn't know you had a kid." She says the last part in a hushed whisper that's probably meant to stop tall guy from hearing it, but you'd have to be stupid not to have heard it, anyway.
Tall guy snorts softly and Blaine flinches again. "It's fine, you didn't know." And he means it. He also has to work with her today and doesn't want things to be weird between them from the beginning.
Thankfully, whatever it was that Rachel wanted to say next, dies in her throat because the elevator doors open and they hear someone step out. Turns out it's Mercedes and a pretty Asian girl, Tina, probably, and Blaine is relieved and glad to see them.
"Morning boss, hi Rachel," Mercedes chirps happily and entirely too awake for 6:25 in the morning.
"Oh, you must be Blaine! Hello, I'm Tina. Mercedes told me nothing but good things about you. She says you're very diligent and conscientious. Not to mention good-looking!"
God, what was it with these people?!
Mercedes slaps her on the arm playfully and mumbles something about her husband and their kids, but Tina just laughs sweetly and sticks her hand out for Blaine. He studies it for a moment, and Tina says, with a chuckle, "Don't worry, I just disinfected my hands."
So, they shake hands and Blaine formally introduces himself with a slightly forced smile under his mask.
After tall guy sends Mercedes and him to A and Tina and Rachel to B with a promise to help them with the 'Beddies', whatever that's supposed to mean, they get their care trolley, a pack of gloves, and the throw-off and get to work.
Work this morning with Mercedes is a lot more relaxed than it was yesterday. Sure, he stands around mostly and just watches her, but he can help her with making beds, making sure everyone has enough fresh towels and water bottles. He's especially proud when he can convince a very teary-eyed lady to let them help her get out of bed and ready for the day. Apparently, she's so demented that she tends to forget where she is, feels anxious, and is very unsettled about everything. Mercedes tells him that she had a good day yesterday and managed to convince Mrs. Lawrence herself, but it usually takes a lot of time and two other colleagues to persuade her. Blaine is internally very pleased with his job because he didn't even really do anything.
After that, he's pumped and wants to try to help a still relatively fit older man into his anti-embolism stockings. It's not easy, but also not as difficult as he thought it would be.
"Look at you, boy! You're a natural!" Mercedes cheers and Blaine blushes.
"Nah, just a lot of personal experience. I have to wear them whenever I'm in the hospital and after nearly 10 years, you know all the little tricks," Blaine says and shrugs.
He's also a bit more relaxed about the fact that he's been here from the start of the shift, this time. That way he gets to come along, get an idea about their daily routine, and at least gets to meet everyone for a moment. Sure, their names and faces are still hard to remember, but Blaine is determined to work on that. He also learns that on floor A they have a married couple, as well as and a mother and her daughter.
The daughter isn't even that old yet, 58 he thinks, is what Mercedes had said earlier when they were getting her ready. But the thing is, that she has Down's Syndrome, and when her mother came here, she was so lost and started needing help with her everyday life as well, that she was allowed to come to stay here too. To prevent from getting the two of them mixed up, they call both of them by their first names, which is fine by them. Angie is the younger of the two and Erika is her mum.
Everyone is so nice to him. Sure, elder people, in general, are usually nice and sweet, but they welcome him with patience and open arms and tell him that it's great to have a 'willing, young man' to help out the girls in the team, now. But that can't be accurate, right? He and tall guy surely aren't the only guys here. But at least that would mean Blaine was right about his slightly mean thought from days before, the one that probably only girls work as nurses. He hadn't checked out the duty roster yet to look out for any other male colleagues. But whatever, he'd worry about that later.
About halfway through, Tina is sent over in exchange for Blaine like they agreed on earlier. At the time, he was totally fine with that, but then this Rachel girl made a fool of Blaine in front of tall guy, and now he isn't so happy about their agreement anymore.
But, Blaine tells himself, this isn't about him. He's simply here to do his job, learn, get to know everyone, and focus on his tasks at hand.
Just when he's walking around the corner to floor B, Blaine and tall guy cross their paths and Blaine has a weird Deja Vu at the sight of tall guy carrying his tray with the pills and a mask on his face, just like yesterday morning.
"Jeez, you should wear a bell or something, you're as quiet as a cat!" Blaine giggles tensely at his boss's joke, who continues walking by, but he's walking backward now and looks straight at Blaine, which of course does something funny to his insides, especially when a cloud of his aftershave makes its way through Blaine's mask. How is it that this man has such an effect on him? He isn't even really doing anything
earth-shattering.
"Berry is in room 3.05 with Mrs. Gallinat. Green light," tall guy calls at him and then turns around and Blaine releases a breath he didn't know he was holding.
He turns around himself after snapping out of his stupid haze that came with pointy staring at tall guy's backside, then stretches his neck this way and that and makes his way to the room he's supposed to meet Rachel in.
Blaine is about to open the door with his magnet key, but then the door opens and Rachel sticks her head out, which has Blaine jumping slightly and the key snapping back against his chest with a surprisingly firm thud. "Ouch."
"Sorry! Hey, so listen," Rachel starts and pulls him into the room, like, she actually pulls him inside. Then she closes the door behind them and Blaine can't do much more than give her a bewildered expression that she totally ignores.
"What I said earlier, that was very out of line and I wanted to apologize. I didn't know you were married and had a kid. But when you walked in this morning and saw Kurt, you just seemed so, -oh here I go again...anyway. I don't really have a filter, you know?"
To his own surprise, Blaine barks out a laugh at that. He didn't think it was humanly possible for anyone to talk so fast with wild hand gestures and bobbing head.
"It's fine, really. I mean yes, it was a bit out of line and inappropriate, given the fact that I do have a kid. But I'm not married."
Rachel looks confused. "But I saw a ring on your finger this morning."
Blaine smiles sadly under his mask and immediately feels the itch on his temporarily empty finger. "Yeah, but that's a token for Johanna, my daughter. I got it when she was born."
"Oh, that's so adorable," Rachel squeals and claps her gloved hands together. Good God, and what a squeal that was! At least Blaine really does feel better now, she apologized and he thinks she meant it. She's also very pretty, Blaine notices now. Her eyes are dark brown and they crinkle when she smiles. She also looks kind of cute in that ugly uniform, maybe because she's so small that it looks like it's swallowing her whole.
And who knows, maybe she can be a good distraction from tall guy, he thinks, as he watches her take care of Mrs. Gallinat, one of their palliative cases. She doesn't say anything else, and Blaine is impressed how such a petite, fragile-looking girl like Rachel can heft Mrs. Gallinat's well-fed body from side to side with ease and elegance.
He offers her to help, but she says it's fine, and Blaine doesn't want to intrude. Maybe watching is better for now, anyway.
When they're done and Rachel filled her PEG tube bag with water and clicks it on with a knowledge Blaine is sure he'll ever acquire, he helps her dispose the towels and pads she used. Then they head to the next two rooms, rooms that only need a bit of cleaning, making beds, and stocking of laundry because the inhabitants are so-called self-walkers.
"That's what we call them. We have Beddies, the ones who are truly bedridden like Mrs. Gallinat, Mr. Burman, Mrs. Gebert and so on, and then we have the self-walkers who don't need any help at all, and then also those who only need some assistance, like Mrs. Kossak on A. Kurt helped me with Andrew- that's Mr. Weston by the way, but he forgot his last name so we never call him that. Oh, and he suffers from Multiple sclerosis. He also took care of Mr. Boller, Mr. Presly, Mr. Burman, Mr. Barton and came to help me with Ms. Staude. They all either need very special care or are bedridden."
Okay, so first of all, Rachel is an incredibly fast speaker and she got everything mixed up and fell over her own words, which made it hard for Blaine to follow her, but also…what?!
"He did all of these people by himself? But he started later than all of us and handed out the meds and it's only 8:30!" Blaine is positively taken by surprise. How was that even possible?
Rachel giggles and shrugs her slim shoulders. "That's Kurt for you. He's very driven, restless yet calm at the same time. Not to mention that he's strong like a horse. I know he doesn't look like it but wait 'til you see him in action. He says it's because of his broad back and shoulders."
Yeah, no. Blaine didn't need to see him in action to believe her. He'd seen his stupid arms and that was already enough!
When breakfast is served to the ones who don't eat in the dining room, Rachel shows him how to serve Mr. Burman his mashed food and even tries it himself, with success. Then they clean up their supplies, stock towels and washcloths, and take the trash and laundry from A and B down to the disposal rooms.
They help Mercedes and Tina in the dining room with preparations for lunch, help Angie when she asks for a toilet run (she is so heavy that they have to use one of those intimidating looking lifts for her) and when all of that is done and every one is supplied and satisfied for the moment, the girls tell him to meet up in the break room.
Blaine tries not to be too disappointed when tall guy doesn't join them but types away on the computer instead, and then Blaine wants to punch himself for such a thought. No, no he's glad that he doesn't join them. He tries to convince himself of that, but then he catches himself sneaking a glance outside the door in hopes to see tall guy rush by, and that's when he knows that he's gloriously screwed.
When he comes home after his shift, all the good feelings from this morning with Joe and his mum are gone. It's like they never existed in the first place. Johanna wasn't put to her nap and is moody as hell now and doesn't even want to greet him. His mother snaps at him because they ran out of diapers and of course Blaine is the only one to blame for that, it's not like Cooper works at the store and could have brought some, after all. She also figured out that he let Johanna in his bed last night because her bottle and plushie were still there when she went looking for them earlier and she was not happy about that and lets Blaine know this much.
No one asks about his day again, which pains him because he has so many stories to share, wants to tell them what he has learned so far and how his boss praised him at the end of his second successful shift. No one hugs him welcome; no one even bothers to say a nice word or even look at him in a neutral way.
Blaine's entire good mood is gone to waste. He carefully takes Johanna out of her high-chair, quickly puts on her coat and a hat, grabs his wallet and her bottle and dummy, straps her into her stroller, and makes his way to the market square to get a new prescription for the pharmacy like he remembered to do from this morning.
He's so sick of this. He hates that part of his life, being ill and being the target of his own family, being accused of doing nothing right and overseeing his successes and hard work and his effort to be good, to be better, and since it's pretty much taken over his every task and step, he sometimes hates his life.
Sometimes, he just wants to run.
Thankfully, Johanna doesn't nag around during their walk. Blaine even takes her out of the stroller and sits her on his shoulders, manoeuvring her stroller with one hand, because he knows how much she loves that.
After a quick stop at the doctor's office and the pharmacy, Blaine buys her dark chocolate-covered rice waffles and takes her to the duck pond. See? Of course she's allowed treats, just not at inconvenient times, like right before bedtime. Urgh, Cooper!
Johanna loves watching the ducks and being outside to explore, and seeing her happy and relaxed heals a small part of Blaine's broken heart. He watches her with love and adoration while she points to the ducks with her tiny finger and tells him something in her gibberish. She wears her little hat with apples on it and her green coat that he bought her from Racoon. He saved all his money up to buy her this very jacket because the brand supported the Rainforest with each purchase, it was eco-friendly and multifunctional for every weather. It wasn't cheap by all means, but it was a great brand and it was never a question that his hard-earned tips from the hotel would go into that purchase.
"Joey? Hey…Joe?" He says gently and hovers next to her where she has a firm grip on the metal handles of the separation fence from the pond. Johanna turns her head towards him and looks at him questioningly, but with wonder in her brown eyes.
"Come here for a sec, give daddy a hug," he continues and laughs happily when Johanna tackles him to the ground and wraps her small arms around his neck in a way that under different circumstances would be uncomfortable, but is absolutely perfect in that moment.
"Oh my baby girl. I love you so much," he says in a low voice and feels a lump in his throat. He kisses her head and her nose and her cheeks and squeezes her tighter with his arms. She giggles and tries to lean back to rub her sticky chocolate palms over his cheeks, where he forgot to shave this morning. Blaine laughs again and his eyes well up. She's so precious.
"That feels funny, huh? Daddy needs to get up a bit earlier to shave tomorrow, I think." He's way too lost in her sweetness to care for the chocolate on his jacket and face.
His daughter grins, which show all her perfect white teeth. "Dada ticki," she says and runs off again.
Blaine shakes his head amused and gets up off the ground himself, brushes the dirt off his pants and walks over to the stroller, rummages inside his bag for baby wipes, while of course never taking his eyes away from her to make sure she's safe.
When she's in bed and he's showered and wolfed down some left-over pasta, he carefully opens the door to their room and quietly pats inside while trying his hardest not to wake her and give his mum another reason to bitch at him, and slides under his own covers.
The thought of his mum pains him. She's such a wonderful, compassionate, caring mother and grandmother. Their relationship was always unimpeachable and envied by most of his friends. And yes, he'd fucked up so much when Johanna came into their lives, but why couldn't she find it in her heart to forgive him? Didn't she miss him? Didn't she care anymore? Had she given up on him?
Blaine wonders if things would ever go back to the way they used to be, even with Johanna in their lives now. Not that she was at fault for any of that, of course not, but Blaine himself changed too much after she was born.
But right now, Blaine just needs her, needs his mum. He's so proud of his new job, yet so nervous and lost at the thought of doing something so big and important for humanity. And then there's Kurt, yes, Kurt, not tall guy. At some point, he should stop referring to him as that, even if it was true.
He needed his mum's wise words and advice. He didn't understand what was going on with him, why he so suddenly, and strongly felt what he was feeling. He wasn't even sure what it was, attraction yes, but what else? Was he actually crushing on the dude? How was that possible, when all his life he chased after girls, had other women in his bed every week? Why now? Why him? And what? What was all of that about?
Then again, he never loved any of the girls he'd been with. He was attracted to them, that he was very sure of, was fond of some of them, even, but love was never in the picture. He usually broke it off when one of them confessed their feelings for him. Not that he was a cold-hearted bastard, but he just couldn't reciprocate those strong feelings. He wasn't gay, that he was sure of. Bi? He didn't know. He just didn't know and he needed his mum to help him figure it out, hug him and tell him that no matter what, it was going to be fine because right now, he felt like his entire world was turned upside down.
Blaine, like every godforsaken night for the last one and a half years, brushed off his stupid stray tears with anger and frustration and buried his face into the pillow, and willed sleep to come.
He just wanted his mum back.