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After the performance is over and Rachel has been steered out of the auditorium by Mercedes, Blaine finds himself alone at the piano, pressing keys at random and letting himself fall into the slightly discordant melody of the notes. The rest of the boys are congregated in a group by the side of the stage, but Blaine doesn’t want to interrupt them. He’s only met the new kids in passing, after all. He wouldn’t want to impose.
It doesn’t take Sam too long before he gets bored and wanders over to Blaine, stretching himself over the body of the piano to peer down at the keys. ‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ Blaine replies.
‘So, like... is there a reason you’re avoiding us?’ Sam asks without preamble. ‘Because, dude, you strike a pretty sad picture over here all on your own, I’m just saying.’
Blaine shrugs, presses his fingers into a D minor chord. ‘I figure your new kids might be more comfortable if I stay over here for a little bit.’
He can’t keep his eyes from straying a little as he says it. Kurt is standing a little removed from the pack as he always does, spinning his top hat absentmindedly in his hands. Sam follows his gaze, and then looks back at Blaine. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘The new kids.’
Blaine rolls his eyes. ‘And Kurt.’
Sam stands up straighter and tap-tap-taps a beat onto the veneer of the piano. ‘Uh-huh. You don’t think he’s had enough time to get used to you being around again?’
Sam doesn’t know about the kiss in the elevator. Sam doesn’t know that for the past week Blaine has been walking around in a daze, unable to focus, elated and devastated all at once. He doesn’t know that Blaine feels as though his entire world has been knocked off its axes, and now he’s too dizzy to walk in a straight line, stumbling and clumsy and without a clue what he’s doing.
He thought he knew how to be around Kurt, how to interact with him in a way that wouldn’t hurt either of them. He thought they were getting pretty good at the whole ‘being friends’ thing. And then... then they kissed, and it turned out that Blaine’s compass has been lying to him this entire time, and what he thought was north was actually east, and now his arrow has finally realigned and just like always, it points at Kurt.
Really, that’s why he doesn’t want to be around the others right now.
Sam apparently takes his silence as confirmation, because he shrugs and says, ‘I’m just saying, even if you want to respect his boundaries or whatever, it doesn’t mean you have to avoid the rest of us. Which don’t even try to deny it, Blaine Anderson, you’ve totally been doing.’
Blaine wants to protest. He wants to say ‘You guys have been avoiding me,’ but he knows that isn’t entirely true. He’s barely talked to any of these people ever since he and Kurt broke up, and that was his own choice. It feels wrong; they were Kurt’s friends first. He doesn’t blame them for having their loyalties.
Blaine presses absently at one of the keys. He doesn’t want to meet Sam’s eyes. ‘I guess I don’t want to intrude on you guys,’ he hedges.
Sam plunks into the seat beside Blaine. ‘You think we’re on his side,’ he guesses, which is surprisingly accurate and really, Blaine should stop being startled at Sam’s displays of intuition by now.
And yet –
‘Aren’t you?’
Sam rolls his eyes and thumps his fist into Blaine’s arm. ‘No. Dude. You’re my best friend, I’m always going to be on your side.’ He says it so simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Blaine thinks ...oh.
‘I guess I just thought... you know, family loyalty and all.’
Sam tilts his head. ‘You’re part of the family too, man.’
Again, so simply, and again, Blaine thinks, ‘oh.’
--
At home, Dave is making dinner – probably inedible, Blaine will have to grab a sandwich later – and calls out a cheerful greeting when Blaine walks in the door. Blaine watches him from the doorway, and wonders when everything he felt for him turned stale.
You know exactly when, he tells himself.
He goes to his bedroom, unties his bowtie, and tries to convince himself that he still feels the same way about Dave that he always did.
--
Brittany is the one who calls Blaine next, to drag him back from Westerville to do another Burt Bacharach song. This time they’re singing back up for Santana, who is apparently stuck in some kind of headlock with her abuela. Blaine doesn’t know the details – he’s not as up to speed on the gossip anymore. He misses it a surprising amount.
Afterwards, Brittany and Santana stay behind and the rest of them troop out through the wings. Mercedes and Artie are discussing plans to take everyone to Breadstix, which Blaine takes as his cue to leave. But just as he’s saying goodbye, Mercedes stops him outright and says, ‘What, you’re not coming?’
Which makes Blaine stop, because he sort of thought it was a given that the invitation was only extended to people in the New Directions. Which he isn’t anymore; he’s back at Dalton and wearing his Warbler badge with pride. He wouldn’t have thought he was welcome.
Mercedes is still staring at him, and the others are behind her with identical expressions of bafflement on their faces, like it hadn’t even occurred to them that he wouldn’t be coming along. Maybe it hadn’t. ‘You think you can get away from us that easy?’ Mercedes says with a raised eyebrow. ‘You’re coming. No questions.’
‘I...okay,’ Blaine says. ‘I’d love to come.’
Blaine feels slightly out of place at dinner, like a cockatiel in a flock of cockatoos – he hasn’t really interacted with these people as a group in months, not since Kurt and everything that happened there. He’s been locked away in his tower at Dalton and he’d thrown away the key himself, expected never to see it again. But they smashed the windows and dragged him out again and it’s like a slap to the face; he feels shocked but so alive, thrumming and energetic and happy. The dynamic of this group is so heart achingly familiar that he feels himself slipping into place as though he’d never left, riding the cacophonic nature of these people in a way he hasn’t in months. It feels rather like coming home.
--
In their apartment, Dave is lounging on the couch and watching a game of football. ‘Hey!’ he greets Blaine. ‘Patriots vs. Cowboys. You interested?’
The dishes from last night’s dinner are still sitting unwashed in the sink, and Dave has already collected three empty beer cans on the coffee table. One of them has tipped over, and the dregs are dangerously close to leaking onto the wood.
Once upon a time, Blaine had found Dave’s slobbish behaviour endearing; a stark contrast to neat, meticulous Kurt.
Now – he’s not so sure.
--
For the third time in a week, Blaine is back at McKinley and singing a Burt Bacharach song. It was Rachel who gave him the call this time – of course it was Rachel, this is exactly the sort of thing that she’d organise.
According to Kurt, Santana’s abuela wasn’t able to overcome her age old prejudices and accept her granddaughter, which pulls like a cello string at Blaine’s heart. If he tried to hug Santana then she’d probably punch him, but he knows what it’s like to have family members that struggle to accept you.
So now they’re singing to Santana and Brittany, naturally, and like any well rehearsed minions, Rachel has them sit in a circle and come up with lines about what it is to be family. Blaine sits cross legged with Kurt at one side and Kitty on the other, and resists the urge to rest his head on Kurt’s shoulder. He feels safer, more content with these people than he has in a long time.
He doesn’t feel out of place, he realises with a jolt. Not even a little bit. He feels like he belongs right where he is, sitting amongst these people, discussing found family and unconditional love without a hint of irony. It’s been so long since he’s felt that way that he thinks he might cry for a moment out of sheer relief. Nobody is looking at him like he doesn’t belong. Like he should be back at Dalton, teaching stiff boys with no real connection to one another. He feels like a part of this found family.
Kurt says, quietly enough that only Blaine hears it, ‘Family are the people who embrace you with open arms, no matter what.’
He nudges Blaine with his shoulder gently. Blaine nudges him back.
--
Blaine’s jacket is laid out on the bed, the wine bottle is waiting by the door, he’s already half an hour late, and Dave has only just thought to text Blaine that he’s working late and won’t be able to make it to the dinner after all. The text sends irritation spiking through Blaine’s brain, but underneath that, he can’t help the undercurrent of relief he feels. If he’s being honest with himself, he didn’t want Dave to come to the dinner anyway. He doesn’t find himself wanting to spend much time with Dave at all these days, if he’s being really honest with himself.
He knows who he wants to be with tonight. He knows who he wants to talk to and spend time with. And it’s not Dave.
When Blaine first came back to Lima, his presence was so disconnected from everyone he knew that he welcomed Dave into his life gratefully. He felt like he needed him. As a distraction, as something new, as a way to not feel so lonely.
He doesn’t need Dave anymore.
He shrugs on his jacket, picks up the wine bottle, and walks out the door.