Age 8
"Do you wanna play the Lion King?"
Lucy rolled her eyes. "God, Blaine. The Lion King isn't a princess movie."
"Well, it's a prince movie! Kinda. But with lions," he reasoned.
"I don't want to play the Lion King. There are no good girl parts."
"Yeah there are! Nala's cool. She totally kicks Simba's butt. Like, twice! 'Sides, you can be one of the boy characters. Like Scar!"
"Ew! Why would I want to play the creepy, evil lion who dies in the end?"
"Um... because it's fun?"
"How is that fun?"
"Alright, fine. You can be Simba, and I'll be Scar, OK?" Blaine was looking a little peeved. "Even though you always get to be the main characters."
"Well I wanted to play a princess movie," she responded, tossing her brown hair over her shoulder haughtily. "And if I'm going to have to be the boy, I should at least get to be the nice one."
"Then how come I never get to be Cinderella? I always end up as the Fairy Godmother..."
"But you also play the prince."
"He's only there like twice! In the whole movie! The rest of the time I'm the mice and the Godmother."
Lucy shrugged. "Say lavvy."
Blaine frowned in confusion. "What?"
"That's what my mom says when she means 'sucks to be you'."
"... Thanks, Lucy. Are we at least making cupcakes later?"
"Yeah, OK."
"Can I lick the batter of the spoon?"
"Yes, Blaine. You can lick the spoon."
"Yay!"
oooOOOooo
"Anyways, you need people of intelligence on this sort of mission ... quest ... thing!" ~ Pippin, The Lord of the Rings
oooOOOooo
His old school had been hell. Filthy, stinking, chaotic and crowded, it was filled with people who either didn't care if he lived or died, or else wanted to kill him themselves.
Yet he found himself wishing, just for a moment, that he was back there. For, while it was hell, it was a familiar hell. He knew shortcuts to get to classes, what bathrooms he could hide in, which students would trip him in the corridors and which would just ignore him.
Here, everyone was a potential threat, and unknown quantity. A feeling of dread was uncurling in his gut, getting stronger each time he caught sight of the red and white of a Letterman jacket.
And he didn't know how to find Quinn. He kept catching himself looking for brown hair and glasses, as he had every lunch break in middle school, even though he knew Quinn was blonde, now. And a cheerleader, which was surreal – Quinn had the least school spirit of anyone he knew, possibly even himself.
"Watch it, hobbit!" a passing jock snapped, shoving Blaine out of his way. Blaine barely managed to avoid falling to his knees. His balance regained, he took a slow, deep breath to quell the reflexive panic that had briefly arisen.
And then he saw her. A tall, blonde cheerleader. Quinn. She was at her locker, her back to him. He hurried over.
"Quinn?" he said tentatively.
She turned around. It wasn't Quinn. Figured. Blonde cheerleader was apparently a stereotype for a reason.
"Sorry," said Blaine, quickly. The last thing he needed was some cheerleader angry at him. Their boyfriends were generally big, scary and, well, didn't like Blaine. "I thought you were someone else."
She stared at him blankly for a moment. "Are you a hobbit?"
"Um, no..." he answered. People had called him 'hobbit' many times before. But her tone was throwing him off, slightly. She didn't sound like she was mocking him, but like she was genuinely curious. Which was more than a little weird.
"Are you sure? Because Santana says Rachel Berry should never find another hobbit to mate with, but I think you two would make really cute hobbit babies," said the girl serenely. Her vacant stare and incredibly weird words were freaking him out.
"I, uh... thank you," he said.
"Why were you looking for Quinn, Mary?"
"My name's Blaine," he answered, frowning. Calling him a girl's name. Original.
"But in the movie that hobbit was named Mary..."
Blaine figured she was talking about Merry, in Lord of the Rings. But he had a feeling that correcting her on that point would just lead to his name permanently being Merry. The girl seemed more than a little insane, so he'd sacrifice his impulsive need to correct nerdy references for a normal name.
"I'd much rather you call me Blaine," he told her, slowly.
"OK! If you want. Do you want me to find Quinn for you, Blaine?"
Blaine suppressed his sigh of relief, at both the use of his actual name, and the fact that this girl knew Quinn."That would be nice, thank you."
"Like a quest, right?"
"Um, yeah?"
"Well, when I see her in Cheerios later I'll tell her that a hobbit named Blaine was looking for her, OK?"
"... Thanks."
"Great! I have to go now and ask Santana if Africa exists. My geography teacher said to wasn't a real country, but I thought it was..."
"Right... Well, nice talking to you …?"
"Brittany."
"Lovely to meet you, Brittany." And then he made a rapid retreat.
If everyone in this school was like that, he'd probably be perfectly fine, on the bullying front. Just permanently confused.
He eventually found his French classroom, and peeked inside to see that most of the class were already seated. But he smiled when he saw the boy from that morning, Kurt, next to an empty chair. Maybe he'd be able to make a new friend. He wondered if the boy knew Quinn.
oooOOOooo
One of the girls had her laptop with her in school, and Quinn was using the brief absence of Coach Sylvester to browse MySpace and laugh over the delusional aspirations of Berry with her friends.
"She looks like a dwarf," commented Santana. "I'd bet she has to shave every morning to keep the moustache from taking over her face."
The other girls tittered appreciatively, and Quinn smiled at Santana. But then Brittany piped up from her other side.
"Rachel Berry's a dwarf? I thought you said she was a hobbit... I told that other hobbit this morning that he would be able to have babies with her. He'll be so sad." Brittany actually looked very disappointed about this.
"Other hobbit? Dear Lord save us all," said Santana drily.
"Yeah! He was really sweet. I thought his name was Mary, but he says it's not. Actually, he was looking for you, Quinn! I forgot to tell you."
"A hobbit was looking for me?" asked Quinn, her perfect brow creasing slightly in confusion. Normally she ignored Brittany's borderline-insane comments, but something was niggling at the back of her mind.
"Yes! He thought I was you at first, but I wasn't..."
"I'm not sure I want to know why a hobbit was looking for me," said Quinn, tossing her hair haughtily. "I have better things to do." She typed another comment under Rachel's video. Advice to get sterilized, actually. Couldn't take any chances.
"But he was really sweet... he didn't even laugh at me. He said his name's Blaine, but I really wanted to call him Mary, because I think it's a much prettier name, but he seemed upset when I called him that, so—"
"Wait, what did you say his name was?" asked Quinn, whipping her head around to stare at her friend.
"Mary," said Brittany matter of factly, and then quickly added, "but he wants to be called Blaine."
"I have to go," said Quinn, shoving the laptop back at Courtney, who dropped it. But Quinn wasn't even listening to the indignant "Hey!" that accompanied the possible destruction of a rather expensive laptop. She was already rushing out of the gym. And she looked angry.
Author's Note: WOW was this delayed. I'm very sorry. I wish I could blame work (which I had a lot of) but I did have quite a bit of time where I was doing nothing, and could have procrastinated through this, but - alas - I did not.
Now, Quinn's season 3 insanity... I think this could still work. I think she's like that because she feels alone. So I'm gonna tone down the crazy, and feel justified because she has Blaine. Yup.
Because season 3 Quinn quite honestly scares me. She's willing to get a woman arrested for child abuse, simply for daring to adopt a baby that was put up for adoption. Um, what the hell?
I love Brittany. If you couldn't tell.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! The more recent ones were quite a surprise, and really reminded me that I should write more of this, becaus I do still have loads of ideas for it.