22. Blaine II
Blaine Anderson arrived home exhausted after Glee Club rehearsal. He loved the pressure of singing and dancing against the clock, even when there was a handicapped boy trying to smash his feet by running over them with his wheels over and over again. He definitely loved the rush of Sectionals, and the way his head got distracted from his other matters. Short and talented-as-hell matters.
He dropped his satchel on the couch, and when he headed to the bathroom, the doorbell rang. Blaine sighed, walked back to the entrance hall and opened the door. "I wasn't expecting you so ear…" He frowned when he saw someone that wasn't Rachel. "I wasn't expecting you at all," Blaine corrected himself.
"Hey," Finn waved his hand from the doorstep. "I was wondering if you had… a couple of minutes for me."
Finn spent the last couple days in his house, on lockdown in his own room. He didn't talk to his parents, to Kurt or even to Quinn. Everything was too complicated and he decided to wait till the storm calmed down. So, after giving it a long thought, the best idea he had was knocking on Blaine Anderson's door. Maybe it would have been better to have at least one more day of reflection.
"Excuse me?" Finn wasn't the first person in the world Blaine wanted to see, especially because he was the boy he had a fight with last week.
The tall one shrugged. "May I come in? I really need to talk to you."
It was not in Blaine's character to shut doors on people's faces, so he let Finn in. They sat on the couch, feeling incredibly awkward, so it was the host who broke the silence. "Don't you think I am not the one you should talk to? I mean, why don't you try any of your friends or your brother or…" He didn't want to lead him into her arms, but who was he trying to fool? Not saying her name was like trying to stop a gunshot to his heart with a sheet of paper. "Or Rachel."
"I needed a bro." Finn started finding it hard to speak. Words were heavy; the air was thick in the room.
Blaine could notice Finn's sorrow, but he opted to play the indifference card. "Why don't you call any of your many friends? I thought you hated me."
"You are the only one who gets what I'm going through. And… I can't feel okay with myself if I'm mad at a bro," Finn almost pouted.
"And you would've seen that photo of me on Santana's twitter."
"Blaine Baggins on his way to Mordor," Finn quoted while chuckling.
Both of them laughed. It felt like all their mutual hatred just vanished. Blaine went to his bedroom and came back with a ring on his hand. He gave it to Finn as he sat back down. "Lost and found."
"I don't want you to think that I just came here for the ring. I wanted to apologize too. That day at school… I wasn't myself."
"Is anyone acting like themselves lately?" Blaine chuckled and put his hand on Finn's shoulder. Deep down he wanted his friend back too. At the end, Finn was the one who helped him when he didn't know what to do about Kurt going to NYADA.
The laughs and the joy lasted until the two of them realized that the cause of their fight was still between them, and she was a problem they really needed to solve. "Are you gonna fight for her too?" Finn asked. The question was in the air waiting for someone to finally say it out loud.
"It was so easy when I only had to fight for boys." Blaine started laughing again. He knew it was something serious but… what could he do anyway? Admit it all? Keep lying the way he'd been lying to himself?
And Finn didn't want to know the answer either. He had hurt Rachel enough to make her run off with another man. And Blaine was… a more than a great candidate for her, also gay. "I love her," Finn replied.
"You better go talk to her, okay?" Every word tore Blaine from the inside out. But he needed Finn out of his house. They just called a truce and if they kept talking about Rachel… things wouldn't end nicely.
When Finn saw Blaine turning his back on him he realized that he should go. "If she asks, tell her that I don't want to distract her and we'll talk after Sectionals, okay?" He smiled politely at his friend as he walked out of the house with the ring in his pocket.
"Hey, wait," Blaine called before Finn closed the door. "What happened with Quinn?"
"She came back to Yale," Finn answered, though he didn't know it for sure. It was more a hope than a guess but… did it really matter? He waved goodbye and walked home. It was a long way home, thinking about all the mistakes he had made.
He started going through the voice messages Rachel had left on his voice mail. Once again. "Hey, Finny, it's me. I know this is the seventh message in three days but… I just wanted to know if you're okay and… well… you know, that stuff. Call me." That one, the last one, was the most normal of all of them, though the one she sent right after the wedding was sort of funny. "Wassup! How's my Hudson man doing? Yeah, yeah… What a party, huh? Yeah… So… fun… and… emotional… and…" Then she recorded herself throwing up, started laughing on the phone and hung up with a loud "You'll aaaaaaaalways have my heart." Blame it on the alcohol.
Finn plugged his earphones into his ears, and he let himself imagine singing to Rachel. Those long nights listening to all the songs he'd serenade her with were the only thing that kept the boy pulling through, waiting for the day everything came true. And that day was already a reality. Next Saturday.
Blaine went to Rachel's around 8 PM, seeing that she didn't call him or come to see him one more day. They really needed to talk after all the things that were said and sung at the wedding.
It was Hiram Berry who opened the door. "Oh, young Blaine Anderson, come on in, please." Mr. Berry was always so warm.
"Thanks. Is Rachel home?" Blaine asked shyly. Every time he and Kurt had been to Rachel's Blaine had felt pretty comfortable around the Berrys, but… when you're talking to the father of the girl you like, even though he and you are openly gays, it's definitely awkward.
"Oh, yes, she's in her bathroom with her ritual. I don't think she won't be okay with you sneaking in." Hiram chuckled. "By the way, how's Kurt? It's been a while since the last time I saw him," he asked while Blaine was walking upstairs.
"He's… he's doing fine," he nodded without even stopping his feet on his way to Rachel's room.
He knocked once, but when he heard her singing, he just came in. He closed the door behind him as he listened to Rachel singing My Man in the shower. He knocked again, this time on the bathroom door.
"Tell Mrs. Smith that if I bother her that much with my singing, she gets me on my nerves every time she shears her cats in the backyard and all the fur flies into home. So she can become deaf or start appreciating art!" Rachel shouted.
Blaine chuckled loudly. "It's me. Your dad's downstairs."
Rachel walked out of the bathroom just in a bathrobe and with a blush on her face. "Sorry. I do love our elders, but it's just this old witch already has a foot in hell and drives me crazy calling all day to make me shut up."
"I… wanted to… I wanted to talk." Blaine felt like a little child. Actually, hitting on a girl was something that he should have done when he was a child so… "If you're not too busy having a Desperate Housewives thing going on."
Rachel sat on her bed, smiling widely. "It's okay. Tell me."
Blaine took a deep breath, sighed and started speaking. "You haven't told me what you thought about my song. The song I sang at the wedding, I mean."
"Would you be very mad if I tell you that I don't remember anything?"
"Oh." And then a part of Blaine's heart flew out of the window and got torn to shreds by Mrs. Smith's cats.
Rachel held his friend's hand. "I'm so sorry. But it's kinda your fault too for letting me drink that much," she joked. "Anyway, tell me, what did you sing?"
"The One That Got Away," he answered while biting his bottom lip.
The one that got away pulled Blaine closer, making him sit on the bed next to her. "And you sang… to me… or to Kurt?"
Blaine looked down while answering, "you."
There was a silence. A really painful silence for Blaine. He knew it. He could smell Rachel turning him down from five miles away. Things had changed too much. That kiss was given under circumstances that were not the same. But at least he had to try.
"But… I thought… we closed that chapter that night at Finn's street." Rachel adjusted her bathrobe because she was starting to show more bosom than she should.
Blaine just shook his head, intoxicated with that lavender smell of Rachel's hair.
"So… when I said that I loved you…" Rachel's voice broke up due to emotion.
The boy squeezed her hand, both shaking. "I… meant it… in a slightly different way."
Rachel pulled her head back, trying to contain the tears inside her eyes. "And despite of that… you…" A tear sneaked down her face. "You helped me sing to Finn?"
Blaine nodded, crying as well. That moment of truth made him feel so relieved. He was free from the burden he'd been carrying since that week in the backstage of the auditorium. It wasn't comparable to his existential/sexual crisis, but it was something not easy to bear given the large number of people involved in that… amorous triangle? No, it was definitely an undetermined-number-sided polygon.
"And either way you helped me with the entire My-Heart-Will-Go-On thing, sabotaging the wedding… everything to make Finn come back to me?"
Rachel broke down at Blaine's nod. Nobody had ever done something like that for her. Nobody ever put their feelings after hers, not even her own mother. Jesse sold her for a regional championship, Puck's first concern was his junk and Finn… he Finned her because he wasn't brave enough to go to New York with her. What Blaine had done was just like the greatest gift anyone ever gave her (besides, quoting Rachel, "my voice, you won't be disappointed, God").
Both of them hugged each other and lay down on the bed crying their eyes out. Their tears melting together. Their pain… wasn't pain anymore. It was true love with bad timing.
They heard how someone was throwing stones at Rachel's window. She stood up and opened it as she dried the tears out of her face.
"I owed you one," Finn shouted from the middle of the street. He was with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam. The first one had a stereo on his lap, and he hit play at Finn's sign.
[Patience – Take that]
Finn:
Just have a little patience.
I'm still hurting from a love I lost.
I'm feeling your frustration.
In ny minute all the pain will stop.
Just hold me close inside your arms tonight.
Don't be too hard on my emotions.
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
'Cause I
need time.
Finn:
My heart is numb, has no feeling.
So while I'm still healing,
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
just try,
Finn:
and have a little patience.
I really wanna start over again.
I know you wanna be my salvation.
The one that I can always depend.
I'll try to be strong.
Believe me I'm trying to move on.
It's complicated but understand me.
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
'Cause I
need time.
Finn:
My heart is numb, has no feeling.
So while I'm still healing,
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
just try,
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam harmonizing:
and have a little patience.
Have a little patience.
'Cause the scars run so deep.
It's been hard but I have to believe.
Have a little patience.
Have a little patience.
Oh.
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
'Cause I...
I just need time.
Finn:
My heart is numb, has no feeling.
So while I'm still healing,
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam:
just try,
Finn with Artie, Rory, Joe and Sam harmonizing:
and have a little patience.
Have a little patience.
My heart is numb, has no feeling.
So while I'm still healing,
just try
and have a little patience.
"I wanted to wait until you've won your Sectionals, but… I don't want to hold myself any longer."
The smile on Finn's face was more than bright. His eyes were filled with hope and happiness once he was free of his "marriage." But Rachel's eyes didn't give the same reading. She just smiled back at Finn politely and closed the window before drawing the curtains. Then she ran to stop Blaine from leaving by grabbing his arm.
The boy turned around, staring at Rachel with his red and sad eyes. He couldn't say a word. It was even hard just to look at her. It was inevitably true love with such a bad timing.
