Before You Read:

None of this is mine, I do not own Glee or The Heart Rate of a Mouse.

This story contains very heavy topics such as homophobia, internalized homophobia, drug addiction, excessive alcohol use, and infidelity. It also contains a lot of sex, some dubious consent, but for the most part, it is consensual. I will try my best to include content warnings where it's needed.

Another thing I wanted to add is that this story is told through Blaine's perspective. I debated on whether I wanted Kurt or Blaine to be the main character and I decided that it makes more sense for it to be Blaine.

It is important to note that Blaine is canonically gay. I know that it's obvious, but I've seen some people change his sexuality in fanfictions. That is not my intention at all. This story is already written, all I'm doing is changing the characters and adding a few things from the Glee fandom. Anything other than that is purely the original author's work.

Remember this is set in the '70s where being gay was as taboo as it gets. Blaine suffers heavily from a lot of things, one of them being internalized homophobia. Please keep that in mind when reading this. I'm not trying to discredit or invalidate his sexuality.

I think that's pretty much it. I chose not to use Archive warnings but please read at your own discretion. I've read worse fics than this, in terms of content, but one can never be too careful.

Without further ado, here's the prologue.

Prologue

I should never be trusted to drive a vehicle of any kind; not because I am a lousy driver, but because I tighten my grip of the wheel with every passing truck. I look in the newspaper every day for that one headline of a car crash where they simply don't know what happened. Maybe the driver lost control of the car. Suffered a seizure. Was trying to dodge a child running across the street. Something to explain why his car and insides ended up painting the front of a Canadian frozen goods truck on its way from Montreal to Detroit.

I drove from Portland to Los Angeles once. It was a pleasant trip, heading south, the air getting warmer and the people more tanned. It took me four days to drive because I kept getting distracted and took a small detour in Nevada where I got drunk as hell with a guy who had worked as a circus clown all his life. We were exactly alike, me and him. It's easy to distract me because I never know what I should be paying attention to. Is it a new guitar model, the glimpse of something better and more dignified, a pair of blue/green/gray eyes that always amplified the smile on perfectly shaped lips? During my West Coast road-trip, I lost count of the times I saw an oncoming car and considered twisting the wheel to the left. Crash. Bang. Smoke.

I don't know if anyone else has these thoughts when they drive. I've never asked. When I crashed the tour bus back in '74, I found myself wondering if it was on purpose or not. I didn't mean to do it, but maybe I subconsciously wanted to.

For a while we thought Seb would never walk again.

Now I'm driving in a Chevy rental, navigating from O'Hare to an address scribbled on a napkin in messy handwriting that isn't mine. The car is brown, a light brown that resembles baby shit. It was the only one they had left. The wipers make a wheezing sound as they try to battle away the heavy, wet snowfall.

"Are you nervous?"

I didn't bother looking at the kid on the passenger seat. "No."

"Puck said," he begins, launching into yet another lie someone has said about me. People love to talk and talk and talk about me, "that, during Lucy, you were so nervous that you got drunk before every show."

"He flatters me," I note, annoyed that this one isn't a lie at all – the only way I could deal with the pressure of a ten thousand-headed crowd was alcohol. Thanks, Puck, that one will make me look good. No. It will make me look like a victim. Maybe that's a good thing.

"He also said it got better during the second leg. You drank less, you were more focused. You know, after you met him," he points out obnoxiously. I resist the urge to steer the car off the road just to shut him up, and when he takes his dying breath, mouthing an anguished 'Why?', I'll tell him why: because he couldn't hold his damn tongue. The white snow turns an ugly shade of traffic fume black when it hits the ground, making the surface of the road slippery, but I keep us on the road for now. "Now Jeff. He said that you were never nervous during the Pearl tour. I suppose you changed."

"You love the sound of your own voice, huh?"

"Yup," he beams, light brown locks falling in front of his enthusiastic eyes. He has got a young, good-natured face he tries to mature with stubble, but it's still irrevocably made childlike by the bright energy that's always there in his words and actions. He's got slightly hollow cheeks and narrow line-like lips, a forehead just a fraction tall enough to look like a mismatch, and thick, black frames around his eyes. I concentrate on driving, and he falls silent for a while. When he speaks, he sounds troubled. "What if he's forgotten? Or what if he's still mad at you?"

"What if I'm still mad at him?"

"You're not," he says knowingly. I hate it when he's right. The snowfall is slowing down, and I shift my seat uncomfortably and feel the seatbelt scraping the side of my neck. "I'm nervous for you," he concludes, the excitement now back. I don't need his nerves, support or shoulder to cry on. He has no idea how much his enthusiasm wears me out. He looks at the map in his lap. "Take the next left," he commands, and I change lanes. "You know, I wonder what he's like. I've heard so much about him. It's slightly surreal to meet a stranger that you've pictured naked a dozen times. Well, actually I found this one picture in your house where he was in the nude, so-"

I pull up to the curb, coming to a fast stop. He tenses up, eyes wild as he looks around. "What are you doing?"

"I've told you not to touch my fucking stuff," I say again. Again. The nosy little bastard. "Here, your stop," I tell him and point out of his window to a shop door that green, cursive letters: C-A-F-É. "Go get yourself coffee." Like he needs to be more hyper.

His mouth drops open dramatically. "I'm coming with you!"

I grit my teeth and smile. "No, you're not." I glare at him, and he glares back. "Out, Chandler! Out!"

Chandler throws his hands up into the air. "You're seriously not letting me witness the reunion that would make Romeo and Juliet seem like-"

"There was no reunion for those two – they died."

"Oh." Chandler pulls on his bottom lip uncertainly but recovers quickly. "I never finished the movie, truth be told. They spoke English in such a weird way."

I unbuckle myself and get out of the car. Chicago is cold, snowflakes landing on my black coat and melting into it. I round the Chevy and open Chandler's door.

"Okay, okay!" the kid shouts, lifting up his hands. "I'm out! See! Look at how out I am!" He scrunches his nose at the cold, looking more comic than hurt as he shoots me a nasty look.

"I'll come get you later," I promise.

"If you don't, I know where he lives!" He has taken out his black leather notebook and is scribbling in it furiously, completely ignoring the sleet.

I stop at my open door and give him a disbelieving look. "Don't take notes now."

"As the infamous Blaine Anderson nervously re-entered the car, dumping his devoted and loyal companion by the side of the road like yet another groupie he had loved then abandoned like an unwanted kitten –"

I don't heat the rest as the door slams shut and I take off. Chandler's reflection sulks into the café in the rear-view mirror, and I glance at the map on his now empty seat. It doesn't take me long to get where I'm going.

The car on the driveway is black and classy, this year's model, a '79. It's much more tasteful than what I park in front of the house, and for a wild moment, I hope none of the Chicagoans living on Kurt's street notice the has-been rock star arriving in such a tacky excuse of four tires and a wheel. If it is Kurt's house, which I have my doubts about. A young man with a guitar case is coming down the street, and I wait for him to pass. It's a paranoia to fear he'd recognize me, but I never did know what to say to the fans to begin with.

Music is not about the man behind it, and therefore any interest people have in me is unwarranted. All they need to know, all they should want to know, is already there in the music. And no one ever understood that apart from me. They never –

But I don't want to think about it anymore.

I take my bag to the door with me. It's presumptuous, but the final shows being local, I'm assuming Kurt is staying at home. I shouldn't assume anything when it comes to him. I learned that the hard way.

The door opens on the fifth ring.

"Ye –"

The rest of Kurt's sentence fades away as his eyes land on me. Kurt looks a little older, which makes me realize how overdue I am. He has a slightly off look that comes with his line of work, bags under his blue (green, gray?) eyes. I would know how that life throws anyone off balance. But if anything, he looks more like a man, more mature. He keeps doing that to me. I don't mind.

"Heard you're shacking up in Chicago now," I explain and state it like a fact I have as much interest in as the heart rate of a mouse, the melting point of silver. None at all.

"Yeah," he nods tiredly, eyes averting, the cornered prey after an exhausting hunt where he is the deer, and I am the wolf. After a long, long time, neither one of us seems to be running. Kurt doesn't look surprised to see me. I am not a predictable man; he could at least gasp a little. The tiniest bit. Just to amuse me. I'm fucking surprised that I'm here.

"So much for being old friends," I note and don't give him a chance to reply. "Invite me in for a beer."

Kurt shakes his head. "I'm busy."

Chandler was right. He is still mad.

"I'm busy too, but here I am anyway."

I stare him down. My stomach curls up now that I am in his presence, but he doesn't sense it.

Kurt sighs and holds the door open, and I step into the living room, throw my bag onto the couch. Being here, traveling across the country for one guy, the only guy who ever came out to look at the night sky with me and invent new constellations, and I – Fucking hell. I will stand my ground and act my best to convince myself that it means nothing to me. I lick my lips, remember what he tastes like.

"One beer, but then I have to go," Kurt mutters and heads for the kitchen, and I stare after him quietly. He slows down and turns back around, a hesitating look on his face. "Are you coming to the show tonight?"

"I was counting on it."

He looks straight at me, and I am right back there in Ottawa, outside Civic Center where we kissed next to the tour bus that I had yet not smashed. I'm in the cabin up in Bismarck where I had handed him some part of me that he politely declined. I'm in San Francisco picking a fight with him, in New York watching him go through records he doesn't plan on buying as he sneaks glances at me working behind the counter, and then we are on the backroom floor, hoping to god Will doesn't come early for his shift. Kurt says, "I can get you a backstage pass."

"Could you get two? I came with this kid."

"What kid?" His voice is tense.

"My stalker."

He makes a disbelieving 'tut' with his tongue. "You sure know how to pick your friends."

"And lovers, though he's not one of those," I say calculatedly.

Kurt doesn't deny that that's what he was asking. "I can get two."

"Thanks."

He points at my bag. "You staying here tonight?"

"Sure," I shrug. He nods nervously and heads for the kitchen.

I have swerved my car onto his lane, and we have collided yet again.

Crash.

Bang.

Smoke.

Chapter 1: The Apocalypse and Take It from There

I have to be insane or suicidal. Maybe both, because the two certainly are not mutually exclusive.

Ryder sits across from me, a lazy smile on his lips. My mouth remains hanging open as I look back to the paper and then back at him again.

"We can still make a few changes," he informs me reassuringly, and it is clear that he would be happy to squeeze a few more dates somewhere in there. He would be pleased, the money hungry bastard. He is without a doubt the most capitalistic hippie I know.

I pass the paper to Seb, who pushes silky, brown locks from his meerkat face and peers at the list of dates. His blue eyes light up, and knowing him, it's from the prospect of all the girls and all the partying he will get to do. Puck leans over Seb's shoulder, making approving sounds. I knew Seb would be pleased, but Puck? Goddamn backstabber. Nick takes the news like a man, playing the mediator like he always does.

I shake my head, laugh in disbelief, and my bandmates take no notice of me. "Come on!" I cry out to get the attention I deserve, and the words echo back from the walls of Ryder's office. The noises from the outside offices of Capitol momentarily go even muter, and in my mind's eye, I see their interns and A&Rs sneaking to eavesdrop outside Ryder's door.

"Is there a problem?" Ryder asks calmly, his voice like peaceful waves coming from the sea, gently making contact with the shore, his brown eyes staring at me patiently. Light brown hair flops to cover his left eye, and that's right. Hide, you bastard.

"Yes!"

I grab the sheet again and throw it at Ryder. My hands are bound as far as firing the fucker is concerned, but I can complain as loud as I can and let him know that his front man is not happy. "What the fuck is this? I had agreed to a summer tour, but this? Fuck! Five shows in New York? Why do we need to do five shows in goddamn New York?"

"They love you there. They love you everywhere, or have you slept through the past few months? You guys are the shit right now, you're groovy. Also, you really should check your contract – you've already agreed to do this tour. You can't weasel out of this, Blaine."

Ryder has placed a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. My hands are bound.

Nick nudges my shoulder. "Not like you had other plans, right?" he asks, but his voice conveys almost as much enthusiasm as I feel.

"I did have other plans," I claim. Get drunk. Get laid. Get high. Write songs. Record them. Refuse every interview that gets thrown at me. Nick is a good spokesperson; he can handle the press. Call up Dad, remind us both of the constantly forgotten existence of a family and see if I can drive up to Bismarck to spend a few weeks in his cabin, just me and the pine trees.

But no one cares about what I want. They want the fifty-five sold out shows, roughly and clumsily divided into two legs: East and West. The venues are bigger than anything we've headlined before. Puck and Seb begin to talk about the stage performance, Nick is suggesting we do a light show. That is exactly what we need, to copy the bands before us, to do tricks that in no way convey our uniqueness.

Ryder says that the tour dates are still subject to change. Nick insists on a gig in Westerville, and Ryder promises to make some calls to promoters in the area.

I imagine tens of thousands of faces that my eyes will land on in the near future. I feel sick.

"Also, now that we're all here," Ryder says, "I suggest a band meeting."

"Funny thing, that. You're not in the band," I point out.

"We should clear the air before the tour. Start it with a positive feeling. So, any thoughts or concerns, now is the time to share." Ryder folds his arms and leans back in his chair.

Thoughts or concerns? Well, let's see. I don't even want to go on this tour. We haven't done anything except fight since we went to the studio to record our chart wonder. If the album is filled with 'swirls of dark energy', it's because we were fucking pissed off. Most bands start with a group of friends who just want to play their music, but then the business gets in the way. Fame distorts reality. You no longer make music for you, but for the fans. What will they respond to? What do they want? What will keep you on top? And everyone has a different idea of it. We're stuck together, the four of us plus Ryder, and the bonds that keep us together are getting thinner and thinner. Pre-tour thoughts or concerns. Let's start with the apocalypse and take it from there.

"I think I should be a bit closer to Blaine on stage. And up front like he is. Not in the back left," Seb states firmly. "My fans want to see me."

"Naturally," Ryder nods.

"More spotlights on me. And I want a mic."

"You don't sing," I smile.

"But I want to engage with my audience," Seb smiles back.

"Puck?" Ryder now asks.

"Cheese crackers in the dressing rooms. Courtesy beer bottles. Only four-star hotels on hotel nights. There always has to be jam donuts and condoms on the bus. I want one roadie to be responsible for my bass and keyboards, no fucking about with that. Just one guy so I know who to yell at. Um…let me think…You know what, I'll make a list." Puck grins, a hint of self-adoration on his roughly carved face, like God couldn't just be bothered to go the extra mile that day. When Puck is in a bad mood, his eyebrows furrow over his hazel brown eyes, lips looping downwards, and I am always reminded of a chimpanzee.

"Nick?"

"I'm good."

"Come on, now."

"No, really. We've decided on the drum kit, so I don't need anything."

Ryder turns to me. "Blaine? What do you want?"

I look through the window and watch the spring wind push and shove a tree outside, and I wonder if there could be a wind strong enough to whisk it up into the air, break all the roots that have tangled up in the ground for far too long, and if there is such a wind, then it has to tell me its secret.

"I don't want to share any hotel rooms," I mutter.

"Done!" Ryder grins, like it's fixed, sorted out. We're cured. Seb keeps giving me dirty glances, Puck shifts restlessly, Nick tries to keep smiling, and I wish I had never gotten up this morning.

Nick attempts talking me into it over a few beers. We have already sold out two of the five New York shows, so it isn't like I even have a damn say in it.

"It'll be fun, man," Nick says half-heartedly, not meaning it, and my head jerks upwards as I realize that the radio is playing our song. The bald bartender of the smokey bar is humming along to it, but he didn't recognize me when I went over to get our second beers. Good. It's a rock station, and it's nearly midnight, which muse justify them playing our track. They better not play it during the day when picket fence America is picking up their children from school.

"B, are you even listening?"

The bartender is miming the lyrics, mouth opening and closing to accommodate my voice and lyrics. He doesn't know what the song is about, how I felt when writing it, what the message is. But there he is, pouring another beer and abusing my words, stealing them, robbing them, dressing them up in velvet when I aimed for satin.

"Never mind," Nick sighs and stares at the beer left in his glass, which is not much. Nick is overwhelmingly gifted in that department. Nick is used to our airplay, but I feel surreal whenever I hear my own voice on the radio. Nick downs his beer, his brown eyes starting to stand still slightly. He scratches his chin, and I watch the strong muscles of his arm move beneath the skin. He's got a friendly face, the kind that makes you want to tell him all of your secrets. It's taken me years to try and resist the urge.

The radio commenter says, And that was The Warblers with their single Alienation from their brand new and critically acclaimed album Boneless. I don't know about you, but the record is definitely in my collection!

I tune out the rest.

"Look, remember when we supported Floyd back in '71?" Nick starts again, and I nod. Fucking hell, I remember. Nine thousand people and the four of us on stage. No one knew us. No one cared. "Venues big like that, it's like…having sex with a stranger."

"Something I do regularly, then?" I suggest, and Nick waves his hand to tell me to shut up.

"My point is that, yeah, we're headlining this time. But they already like us, otherwise they wouldn't be there. And the venues are so big that there is absolutely no intimacy. So, whatever, you don't have to impress these strangers. We get on stage, we play, we bow. We leave. A one-night stand," he explains. It makes sense in its own way. I can bear my soul for the fans to see. They won't look closely enough to notice it.

"Maybe," I grant him eventually, putting down my empty bottle. "I gotta get going. Quinn said she might drop by."

He shakes his head. "I don't know how you put up with her."

"Why shouldn't I?" I ask and put my jacket on. "She's faithful most of the time. More than you can ask a woman these days."

Nick scoffs, but he's young. His head is still dazed from heartbreak, but when it clears up, he will realize that we're not in the fifties anymore. Sixties happened, you can't take it back. I lost my virginity at Woodstock, you can't take that back either, not that I would want to because Fauna was a beautiful woman. She didn't want anything of me except that one night. That's how women are now – they want to experience something beautiful with you, and they're not that bothered if you disappear afterwards. It's 1974, for Christ's sake – the world has changed, and that change is irreversible. There is a sexual revolution to go with our musical one.

"Is Quinn coming on tour?" Nick asks.

"Nah."

I don't want her fucking all of my friends. Nick asks me to stay for another drink, but I decline. "I know this is the pot calling the kettle back, but you shouldn't drink so much. Seriously. It's been months and months, man. She was just a girl, and she certainly didn't deserve you," I tell him firmly, and he nods wearily. He knows, of course. She was a girl, he thought it was love, and it's over now. He made the right choice by choosing the band, even if we are…the knights of destruction. The ambassadors of loss. Coming together, but mostly just falling apart.

"Dime a dozen," Nick concludes, and I feel us coming together just a little bit.

I find Quinn outside my building, smoking a cigarette that I stop to share with her. She tells me about her bitch of a sister, and a hickey is peaking through the blonde locks of her hair. I don't really care who left it there, right above her left collarbone. I know she'd want me to be jealous, but I've never had it in me. Not for her, not for anyone. It's not like she loves me.

"Fifty-five shows," I tell her. "We kick off in a month."

Her eyes light up, and I know that look. It means she's up to no good, but she will get away with it. She's a pretty girl with a doll-like face and big, innocent eyes. She's gorgeous and astoundingly beautiful naked, and plenty of men know that. A few girls too if there is any truth in her stories, which I doubt there is. Quinn uses her looks to get under people's skin because she is scared shitless no one will like her for herself. She has confidence for the two of us, which is probably why I have stuck around. Or maybe she has stuck around. She keeps me guessing about that.

"Come one, let's go up," I say.

We don't make it to my bed. We are half-dressed in the living room with her panties down to her ankles and my fly open when she finds out I have no intention of taking her on tour with me. She swears and pushes me off, steps out of the pink underwear and heads for the door.

If she never comes back, I could keep the panties as a memory.

"It's a small bus," I explain. "There is no room for you, baby. You can fly up to meet us in Detroit if you want."

"And what the fuck would I want in Detroit?" she barks back. The illusion of her doll face vanishes fast when she hates my guts. Her eyebrows get drawn together, forming a thin line there is no crossing. Her hands are in fists, and she raises them up dramatically and brings them back down, making a sound like, instead of the skinny woman she is, she is a wounded bull staring down the matador.

"I dunno," I shrug.

"Fuck you, Blaine Anderson. Fuck. You."

She points a finger at me to make sure I know I am the Blaine Anderson of her nightmares before leaving with a bang. I mutter a curse and find a whiskey bottle, getting out my black electric and playing White Light/White Heat to calm myself down, and I force myself not to think about the fifty-five shows, fifty-five shows, fifty-goddamn-five shows.

I will hang myself in the dressing room in Philly. That'll show Ryder.

The old lady next door starts banging on the wall to shut me up. Count that as one person who will be delighted to hear of my upcoming absence.

The studio lights are making me sweat. I have makeup on me, but it's not enough to put me behind a defensive wall. The audience is seated and not a mass of cheering, beer chugging rock fans. They are members of charity organizations, housewives, bored husbands with even the top button done, and they stare at me over their glasses and wonder what my parents did wrong. The woman from makeup is trying to convince Seb to gel his long, brown hair, but he refuses while Nick swirls drumsticks and adjusts the bandanna around his head. It's a new touch to his stage look. Puck doesn't really have a distinctive style of his own, he just shaves the sides of his head in what he calls a mohawk. He doesn't give a shit. Seb goes for the same impression by obsessing over every belt and skin-tight costume that shows most of his chest through a V-cut that goes all the way to his belly button.

I know we're behind the times with our mix and match approach, riding the wave that could be the last one for prog. I went to see David's show last summer, when he was promoting Ziggy. When he was Ziggy, and the band were the Spiders. It was an amazing show, I admit that, but it would be too much fuss for us to come up with characters and stories. Not that we're tame. Fuck tame, and forget the boy choir haircuts and matching suits, this is not the fucking sixties. We're just us. I wanted to have that level of immediacy with the music with no bullshit theatrics involved, but the ship of musical sincerity has sailed. A big show alienates the audience, distorts the music. Big venues are to blame. Money is to blame. I don't want to become another Ziggy.

But when you hit the charts, you have three options. You either suck it up, gloat in it, or you fall apart. I'm trying my best not to go for the third option.

"Are you ready to play?" the director's assistant now asks me. I nod, making sure my bandmates are ready too. Nick clears his throat behind the drum kit, Seb tests his microphone one last time. Our first TV performance.

We wait for some more lighting fine-tuning, and I watch the director snapping at the sound engineer. Behind the cameras, Ryder and Quinn are watching on beside the bleachers. Quinn waves at me and blows me a kiss, a wild smile on her face, exactly the same as it was on the night I met her. She's almost as tall as Ryder in her green platform shoes. I'm wearing one of her hat designs to go with my tweed vest, t-shirt and jeans. The hat has got red flowers sticking to the side. I didn't choose it, but I genuinely like it. It's a nice change when I don't have to lie to her.

"I thought she was mad at you," Nick mumbles when I go have a word with him.

"She was," I shrug. Her threats and our fights mean nothing. "When do we have the crew practice?"

"Puck, when's the crew practice?" Nick calls out.

"Tomorrow," the bassist says. Already. I need to pack up for tour.

"You better be there," Nick mumbles and shoots me a look. I scoff loudly and silently curse him. I was only maybe thinking about having my grandmother die a thirty-sixth time.

The TV people are finally ready, and the overenthusiastic host introduces us as they begin recording. We play our song. It's the shortest off the new album, only five minutes and twenty seconds. I forget the cameras and focus on the music, the moment where the drums kick in between the third and fourth part, the second before we change the signature to 11:13. Puck switches between bass and piano halfway through, and I sing. My voice is raw and untrained, just like the music strives to be, though every second has been calculated and obsessed over. I know I have made a decent song if I have driven myself insane and lost sleep over it.

The director keeps motioning for me to look up into the camera. I ignore him and sing to his shoes.

"The Warblers, everyone!" the host says as the audience applauds. Seb and I are directed to the chairs where we sit down for the interview. Seb insisted that he should be interviewed more. Good. The fewer interviews I do, the happier I'll be. But still the host mostly addresses me because they know I am the songwriter, front man, lyricist, vocalist. I am the product which they buy.

I give replies to his awkward questions.

"This is your third album. What is it about the new record that gave The Warblers the recognition the first two didn't receive?"

I scratch my cheek. Cameras roll. Smile, Blaine. Be amiable, Blaine.

"Our first two albums got a very good reaction in certain circles. It's not my fault they never reached your ears," I say and play it off with a smile. The audience laughs. My skin begins to itch. I feel thirsty. The host has horribly yellow teeth.

"You're all very talented players," the host says but frowns. "I only have one question. Why does it have to be so loud?"

Behind the cameras, Quinn covers her mouth with a hand to muffle her laughter. I don't have anything to say.

The crew practice is like a high school reunion except no one feels ashamed when they head straight for the alcohol to suffer less from the awkward catching up. Matt Rutherford and Mason McCarthy listen in and ask questions as we go through the set. On the nights we play Sore Skill, Seb will need his blue Fender tuned half a step down. If Miranda's Dream makes the setlist, then Puck will need his five-string bass. We fill the practice space with all of the gear that needs to be taken on tour as Ryder makes notes on extra strings, bridge pins and drumsticks. Matt has photographic memory, as I recall from our previous tour, and he looks at my effects pedals only once before remembering the correct order. We've toured with both guys before.

"Where are Beiste and Artie?" Seb asks as we set up to play. The real stages will be three, four, maybe even five times bigger than the room we're in. I look around for the two missing roadies, and Mason shakes his head. Mason's a few years younger than us and has taken hair tips from Seb, but instead of Seb's long chestnut locks, Mason's waves are a darker brown. He is taller than me, and skinnier too, managing to pull on the tightest jeans imaginable. He is too effeminate and emotional for my liking, even his facial features resemble that of a girl's, but he is a good roadie, and even I have to admit it, though I'm not too crazy about the guy.

"I'm sure Beiste and Artie will be here shortly," Ryder hurries to say, fearing mutiny. Nick throws a vest over his red t-shirt and sits behind his new drum kit, a boyish glee in his eyes. I relax at the sight of it. I need him on this tour. I will not survive this summer is Nick's not there, and while I acknowledge that, I resent myself for being a co-dependent leech. I didn't used to be like this.

There are a lot of things that I once were that I no longer am.

Matt fusses around with cables with a roll of duct tape between his teeth, carrying it like a dog would carry a bone. He tapes my mic cable to the floor, crawling on all fours. "You want it like this or like this?" he asks, looking up at me. He's got a thick, bushy afro, thin eyebrows that hang over his brown attentive eyes. Matt's the philosopher of the group. He and Nick have sat down and talked about death, love, the war, and whatever else, until morning. I've sometimes sat with them and listened. Matt swears by acid and how it broadens your mind. It broadens his a bit too much at times, but it's good to have at least one self-professed intellectual on the bus.

Working out how to play the new songs live is hard. We end up fighting and bickering twenty minutes in when Seb magically starts singing the chorus to Her Shadow. I sing the chorus, Puck does some backups. Seb doesn't sing in any song. He never has.

"You said you wanted the mic to talk between songs and –"

"Well, why can't I sing too?"

"Because you can't hold a fucking note!"

"Oh, and you can?"

"Yes, actually!"

Seb turns to Ryder. "What do you think?"

"Don't talk to him! Was he there when the four of us sat down and started this band? Huh? Was he? Don't fucking ask Ryder –"

"I think –" Ryder starts.

"Shut up!" I point a daring finger at him.

"Don't threaten the devil's advocate," Puck mutters under his breath but loud enough for me to hear. He isn't being diplomatic, god no. Puck's just not taking my side.

"If I want to sing –"

"It doesn't matter what you want! You don't start raping my music –"

"Oh! Oh! There we have it! His music? Did you hear that, Matt? Mason? Ryder, did you hear?" Seb asks, looking around for support. The boyish glee is gone from Nick's face, a grey, worn out look on his features as he lifelessly stares at his drum kit. My blood boils and I squeeze the neck of my guitar with both hands, wanting to fling the instrument over my shoulder and smash it against Seb's head.

Nick stands up. When he speaks, his voice is emotionless. "I am sure that what Blaine meant was –"

"I know what he meant!" Seb storms.

The door slams open, and Sheldon Beiste walks in. He's a huge guy, roughly the size of a bulky, eighteenth-century oak cabinet. He makes me look like a twig if he stands next to me. I'm short for a guy, and Beiste is taller and probably weighs five times what I do. He's got the strength of a bull and he keeps his hair short so that no one can grab it when he gets into a fight. That's what he says anyway. But beneath the scary physical first impression, he's a good guy. Quirky, definitely, mean, sometimes, but he's not evil in the slightest. He keeps people in their places, and maybe it's this sudden appearance of his that makes me and Seb both shut up.

Ryder exhales, "Beiste! You're here! Excellent! Where's Artie?"

"At home. He woke up this morning, still drunk from last night, fell down the stairs, broke his left leg in two places. I drove him to the hospital, which is why I'm late, and oh, by the way, Artie will not be coming on tour with us." Beiste stops and takes a long look at us all. "Why the long faces?"

That's it. The tour is over.

I carefully put my guitar in her stand as Puck realizes the damage that has been done to him. "Who will be responsible for my instruments, then?!" Puck asks angrily, and defiantly as I was telling the guys not to put their faith in Ryder, I am now grateful that our manager is there to take the fall. I have double standards just like the rest.

The room is filled with angered and frustrated exclamations as I round Beiste and walk out of the room, up the basement stairs, along the corridor and out of the building. Los Angeles is cloudy.

I light a cigarette with shaking hands. That's it. No tour. We can't do it.

A homeless man is leaning against the brick wall, and I throw him two quarters. He tells me to fuck off.

"Don't you know who I am?" I ask, half-serious, half-sardonic.

"No!" he barks angrily, scratching his face with dirty fingers and mumbling to himself incoherently.

"Me neither," I admit and walk away from him. Damn Artie. My fault for getting him into whiskey on our last tour. Only three things can ruin a man: fame, women and twelve-year-old whiskey. Damn Seb. I don't need a guitarist who thinks he's a vocalist. Seb is the most handsome of the four of us by general consensus, thanks to his charisma, toned body, and manly face with a pair of sparkly green eyes. He doesn't need to sing to get more chicks, so why is he doing this? To torture me? That's it, to goddamn torture me.

The cigarette shakes between my fingers as the tension of the practice room makes my entire body tremble. Sweat pours down my neck, and I swallow hard, close my eyes when the world goes out of focus. I want this music. I want this band. But laced within are a million things I could live without.

"Blaine."

I open my eyes. Puck takes the cigarette from me without asking, and he is nearly serene as he looks across the street like he doesn't have a care in the world. "So, listen, Mason said that he has a friend, some guy he knows, who can take Artie's place. Mason swears by him."

"But will he come on such short notice?"

"To tour with America's most rocking band?" Puck asks, clearly enjoying the superlative. "If he doesn't, he's a fucking idiot. He will."

A new guy might not fit in, though I will most likely get voted as the most antisocial again so it's not likely to affect me. Maybe it won't matter much, but I worry. When it comes to this tour, I will worry about every damn thing.

"I was thinking we could just tell the sound engineers to turn down Seb's vocals during songs. Either that or let him embarrass himself once, and then he'll stop. The narcissistic fucker can't sing, you're right about that," Puck says thoughtfully. He thinks Seb is an asshole. Puck, by default, thinks everyone is an asshole, and he thinks it of me too.

"Seb can't mess up the music. He just – I have to protect it. The music."

"Is that what it's about? The music?" He sounds amused.

"If it's not about the music, then what is it about?" I ask angrily. Puck finishes the cigarette and pats my back. He pities me on top of everything else.

"The situation is not ideal for any of us. The new guy will have to learn on the job, and who knows how qualified he is to look after my instruments? But we'll deal," he shrugs. "Come on, we've got to figure out the rest of the songs." Puck pushes a few stray hairs from his forehead and walks back inside.

And I am expected to follow like us Warblers do. Christ.

I head back for the door, and two girls walking down the street recognize me as they walk past. My sudden emergence doesn't give them time to do anything except stare at me, let it kick in, their mouths dropping open, and then they hush, "Blaine" and "The Warblers." I look over my shoulder, and Seb would flash a charming smile, Puck would grin, Nick would wave, but I turn my gaze away and feel their eyes on my hunched back. Their widening irises feel heavy in my heart.

The beggar is still by the door, looking confused that the girls are staring our way. "You must be famous," I remark and walk back into the mess we have made.