Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Blaine walked down the hall with his friend Tina by his side, the red polyester of his cheerleading uniform clinging tightly to his thighs and shoulders. The crowd parted like the red sea before them, making Blaine smirk in satisfaction. If he, as the head cheerio, couldn’t have that kind of effect on the student body, who could?

Tina was going off about an AP class of hers and as much as he wanted to, Blaine could barely pay attention to a word she said, his brain filled with worry. There were mere weeks left until their senior prom and his boyfriend hadn’t talked to him about it at all. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t be going together, after two years and a half of dating it was a given. Blaine knew he could invite him instead but it was their thing, after the first time when he had been invited by a stuttering mess of a boy, blushing and stumbling over his own words with a single flower and Blaine had delightedly said yes.

They had two dances under their belts, being invited in their sophomore year for being on the football team and cheerleading squad respectively, and their junior prom, both times Blaine had been asked to go, not the other way around and he was dammed if he was going to break the tradition in the most important school dance of their high school career.

Most of all, he seriously doubted the boy who had been planning his senior prom suit for about a year now would suddenly forget he had a boyfriend to take with him.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when loud chatter filled the air and he found himself out in the courtyard. He looked around in confusion until he spotted Tina jumping up and down beside him.

“I thought we were going to your locker,” Blaine stared at her dumbly.

“Exactly,” she smiled at him and then took off to the wide steps.

It was when he was about to turn around and go back inside, thinking about how crazy his friends sometimes were, that the school band started to play somewhere from the top of the stairs and a lone figure came skipping down towards him.

“I was alone, I took a ride
I didn't know what I would find there.”

Kurt Hummel started singing, dressed to kill with a pair of shades perched up on his nose. He didn’t have on his letterman jacket for once.

“Ooh, then I suddenly see you
Ooh, did I tell you I need you…”

Kurt took his hands and pulled him to the center of a circle made of trumpets, a smile on his face so big his teeth were showing.

“Ooh, you were meant to be near me
Ooh, and I want you to hear me
Say we'll be together every day.”

Kurt tugged him close and whispered next to his ear. “Sing with me,” his eyes glinted. Blaine evoked his inner performer in a matter of milliseconds. They both sang in unison.

“Got to get you into my life.”

They got through the song together, performing for each other, for everyone. They jumped over the tables and ran between the band members, all the while never taking their eyes off the other.

Blaine was having so much fun. He grinned at Kurt as his boyfriend stepped off a table to make him walk backwards until they were right in the middle of the courtyard, everyone staring at them. They climbed over yet another table, practically screaming one last Got to get you into my life before Blaine threw himself at his boyfriend, kissing him for all he was worth.

They split far too early for Blaine’s liking but he couldn’t protest because a surprised gasp was falling from his lips just as Kurt knelt right in front of him.

“Blaine Anderson,” he started loud enough for everyone to listen to him. Blaine was struggling to keep from chuckling, Kurt was trying to be earnest but failed epically as he had excitement practically bursting out of him. “Would you do me the honor of coming to our senior prom with me?”

“Yes, god, Kurt, yes.” He almost tripped them over when he hugged his boyfriend again but Kurt held him tight. “You had me worried for a moment there.”

Kurt grinned against his neck. “I thought you might appreciate the surprise, and the audience.”

Blaine looked around at all the smiling faces around them, cheering and catcalling at them to get some (though that was definitely Puck). Never had he imagined he could get serenaded by his handsome boyfriend in such a public place and get a positive response from the crowd. It was magical.

“You always zig when I think you’re about to zag,” Blaine repeated the words he had told Kurt a few months after they started dating. Kurt had always been the best kind of unpredictable and Blaine loved that about him.

“That’s me, always keeping you on your toes,” he smiled at him, taking his hand and leading them inside. He thanked the band waved at their classmates, getting tons of thumbs up and winks in return. Blaine blushed but he was rather pleased at the support. “And I’ll keep on doing it, for as long as you’ll have me.”

Chapter Text

“You’re such an idiot,” were the first words out of his mouth when he finally got to Kurt’s room.

Kurt flashed him a guilty smile from his place in the middle of his double bed, bundled up under the covers. He was half-lying down with a couple of pillows supporting his back and he had an icepack covering his left wrist. Blaine glared at him.

“Hello to you too,” Kurt said, trying to lighten up his mood. It didn’t work.

“What did you think you were doing? I was so scared, Kurt!”

Blaine felt tears welling up in his eyes as he rushed to his boyfriend’s side.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt pulled him closer, Blaine helped him settle a little lower so he could cuddle up on his side, Kurt’s arm around his shoulders.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, his words muffled against the fabric of Kurt’s cotton pajamas.

“Yes,” he answered softly, “didn’t even have to go to the hospital or anything.”

Blaine closed his eyes and held him closer. It had been terrifying to watch Kurt running to the end zone with the ball on his arm and jumping over one of the opponents only to be tackled midair by a linebacker who had caught up to him. The thud Kurt’s body made when he fell to the ground had been heard on the whole field and when he didn’t immediately get up Blaine had abandoned his place with the other cheerios mid song and sprinted towards him.

Kurt could barely keep his eyes open, he had been disoriented and in pain and coach Beiste had him carried to the sidelines so the doctor could take a look at him. They wouldn’t let Blaine near him, only managing to hear that he had a mild concussion and they were going to take him to the infirmary so his injured wrist could be checked more thoroughly, as most of his weight had fallen on it.

Brittany had steered him away then, holding one of his hands in both of hers. He had been shaking badly and clutched his phone so hard his knuckles had turned white. He’d been surprised when the device vibrated in his palm with an incoming text after fifteen minutes of silence.

This is Kurt’s dad, I’m taking him home. It had read.

He’s fine. He wants you there.

Blaine’s shoulders had sagged in relief as he hurried to tell the others he was leaving. The game had continued but he couldn’t tell how the Titans were holding up without their newly discovered star receiver, he only had had one thought in his mind: Kurt.

“My dad told me they actually marked touchdown,” Kurt mumbled against the side of Blaine’s head. Blaine leaned back to shoot daggers at him.

“Is that really what you’re concerned about?” Blaine’s voice had a slightly hysteric lilt to it, he had to remind himself Kurt was fine.

“Yes? No, I– I just wanted to impress you,” he confessed with a small voice, his eyes downcast.

Blaine cupped his jaw and forced him to look at him in the eyes. “You don’t have to get hit by a 300-pound gorilla to impress me. You don’t have to impress me at all, we are already boyfriends, silly, as of three weeks now.”

Kurt kissed his forehead, “I know, I guess it just got to me, what the hockey players were saying.”

Blaine looked up at him in confusion, failing to see what the hockey team could had done to get his boyfriend tackled by a locomotor. Kurt sighed.

“Before the game, they were in the locker room, finishing up their practice and they started telling me that I was a joke and that you as, you know, Sue’s favorite and possible head-cheerio next year could do so much better than the newbie–than me.”

Blaine pulled away. Kurt was clenching his jaw and avoiding Blaine’s eyes, clearly upset. He couldn’t let him feel that way a moment longer.

The gasp that left Kurt’s lips when Blaine climbed to straddle his lap was rather cute, but he decided to focus on something else at the moment. Blaine framed his boyfriend’s face and kissed him deeply while Kurt clung to Blaine’s waist with his good hand.

“Baby,” he said after pulling back, Kurt’s eyes boring into his. “I don’t care about them, they’re nobodies.” He closed what little gap were between them and nuzzled their noses together. “I’m with you, not because you’re in the football team but because you’re funny and smart and adorably awkward sometimes and I really care about you.”

“I know! I know that, logically, but–”

“I know,” Blaine smiled. “We all have our moments of insecurity.”

“Thank you,” Kurt whispered, and proceeded to kiss him sweetly. Blaine settled on his side once more, taking the ice pack from the edge of the bed where it had been discarded and placing it against Kurt’s wrist.

“It was kinda badass when you jumped over the cornerback like that.”

Kurt snorted and held him a little tighter. “It felt badass for about a millisecond before getting knocked down.”

“Yeah,” Blaine scrunched up his nose and kissed him on his cheek. “Please don’t do that again.”

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

“I have an early Christmas gift for you,” Kurt mumbled against his lips. They were on the bleachers sitting side by side. The sun was starting to set. The school was almost empty, everyone gone for the holidays. The pair had wanted a little bit of privacy before going to their respective homes, which were never empty. Crowded houses didn’t mix well with a couple of teenagers newly in love.

“Do you?” Blaine replied absentmindedly without stopping their frantic kissing. School had been a bitch, with exams and cheerio practice, football practice, the actual games, and the impeding break, they hadn’t had a moment to themselves in 10 whole days. Blaine had counted them.

“Yes,” Kurt put a hand on the side of his neck and forced him back, enough to look at him properly in the eyes. His expression was so soft an adoring Blaine couldn’t help but beam up at him. He pecked him sweetly one last time, loving the pleased smile that adorned his boyfriend’s face.

Kurt let go of him to look into his letterman jacket’s pocket, taking out a slender black box, complete with a silver ribbon at the top.

“It’s not your only gift, you know,” Kurt told him. “I have something else for Christmas day, but it seemed appropriate to give this to you now.”

He accepted the box into his hands, throwing Kurt a look once more before removing the lid slowly. He found a glistening golden chain with a little charm on the end, a single musical note, a quaver, small and simple but still beautiful. Blaine chuckled as he took the gift in his palm, the metal heating up quickly.

“I know you love music,” Kurt said softly, staring right at him. “And glee, you’re not there because Sue forced you to join, it’s because you come alive with every single song we do, you enjoy every note and lyric and that’s okay.”

Kurt helped him fasten the necklace around his throat. “I don’t care what the whole school thinks about that glee club, they can’t touch us. We have each other.”

Blaine hugged him tightly, buring his face into the curve of his boyfriend’s neck. “Thank you,” he said thickly. Kurt didn’t know much about the crap he had had to deal with at his old school, liking music and joining the school musicals didn’t make you the most popular person there. He had actually been terrified when Sue made Quinn and him join Mr. Schuester’s new glee club. As a cheerleader he was finally known and respected and he hadn’t wanted to jeopardize that. He hadn’t counted on someone as amazing and supportive as Kurt in his life to come out of one of Sue’s often crazy plans.

He was so lucky. 

“It’s going to be dark soon,” Kurt said as he rubbed a hand up and down Blaine’s back.

“I don’t want to go yet,” Blaine shook his head, settling down on Kurt's embrace.

“We can stay,” Kurt pulled them closer, resting their heads together.

Chapter Text

“You know, it actually defeats the purpose if you want to do this,” Santana drawled from her spot on one of the benches as the rest of the team bustled around them, getting ready for the game to start.

“Just don’t tell Kurt that,” Blaine shrugged it off, failing to keep the smile off his face. He twirled around and checked the fit of the jersey he had on. He couldn’t do a lot to it, really, it was a little too big on him, but the tightness of his uniform’s pants made up for it. The only two addition were one drawn “s” after Kurt’s last name and a patch neatly placed below it in the back. Now Kurt’s spare red jersey read “Hummel’s boyfriend” which Blaine was too happy to wear.

Blaine had dared his boyfriend to eat half a dozen of Rachel’s vegan cookies and Kurt had promptly agreed after coming up with Blaine’s punishment if he went through with it. It had been the funniest thing to witness, Kurt almost puking all over his kitchen after the first two baked atrocities entered his mouth. It wasn’t a bad recipe, but Rachel couldn’t be trusted with an oven and the cookies turned out sour with a pungent smell that made you want to run as soon as you were near them. And Kurt ate all six of them, and then proceeded to jug down half a bottle of milk to wash the taste off his mouth.

He had been doubling up with laughter for a good ten minutes and now he got to wear something that clearly stated him as Kurt Hummel’s significant other in front of the whole school.

Santana made a retching sound when Kurt appeared on the field and blew him a kiss, Blaine pretending to catch it.

He wasn’t complaining at all.

Chapter Text

“Ugh, Blaine, I hate pineapple,” Kurt groaned, adorably scrunching up his nose.

“You are creepily good at this game,” Blaine commented, reaching far on his right to grab one of the cups lying around them and taking a sip before reclaiming his place in Kurt’s lap. “Here,” he murmured before kissing Kurt, open mouthed.

“You took a sip of your coffee,” Kurt said with confidence, the scarf tied around his head hiding the smug look on his face.

Blaine didn’t bother to answer and proceeded to take another item from the floor. He kissed Kurt again.

“You popped in a breath mint? Really?” Kurt asked in amusement.

“This was getting disgusting very fast,” Blaine replied and captured Kurt’s lips on his own again, letting their tongues rub together.

“Still the breath mint,” Kurt gasped in between kisses. Blaine tightened his hold on his boyfriend’s hair and went for it again. “Nothing new yet,” Kurt said when they parted for air for a second.

“This guessing game is over, Kurt.”

“Thank god,” Kurt breathed in relief before pushing Blaine to his back and covering his body with his own. The food around them all but forgotten.

Chapter Text

When Blaine thought about what high school would be like he often thought about it like an extension of middle school. He thought about the bullying and the taunting and how no one really wanted to be his friend after he came out in seventh grade. He thought about eating lunch alone and talking only to his English teacher about the books he liked to read and the TV series she recommended to him so he could pass the time. He thought about 2 broken ribs and a sprained wrist after Sadie Hawkins and the long and painful healing that came with it.

The Friday before his freshman year was bound to start was spent shivering with fear and anxiety, the thought of public school keeping him on bed, unable to even hear the music that was coming from his turntable.

It wasn’t going to be the same school, he begged his mom to let him transfer, Dalton Academy’s brochures crumpled up on his good hand and tears streaming down his face as Pam Anderson told him his dad was leaving and she couldn’t afford the tuition on her own.

He didn’t know what hurt the most, the absence of a father that was never there or the inevitability of going back to his tormentors, the boys who hurt him because they hated who he was. He could barely sleep at night thinking of the places he would have to hide in, the routes he would have to take to avoid dangerous crowds, the lunch periods he would have to stay with a teacher to avoid the jarring words and the hard shoves. He cried often about it all and wondered if all that pain was worth it for a very distant future where he could be happy.

William McKinley High was the option his mom gave him a couple of weeks later. A new city, new school, new house, away from the pain and bad memories, a fresh start for his mom and him in Lima, Ohio of all places. It wasn’t ideal but it was something, and at that moment Blaine would’ve chosen being homeschooled for the rest of his high school years than go back to Westerville High.

__

As it turned out, McKinley wasn’t the safe haven that he had stupidly wished for. It was loud and smelly, and the students seemed like carbon copies of the classmates he had at his old school. All of them wanting to fit in one clique or another, their gossip and their looking away when a boy got cornered by a group of jocks who asked for his lunch money, as clichéd and dumb as ever.

It was until 3 days into the school year that he actually took notice of the long line of students that seemed to zigzag around McKinley’s halls, some of them with a cheerleading uniform, most of them without it. He thought about his physiotherapy sessions, about how flexible he was and about the summer he spent with Cooper when his older brother wanted to audition for the Cirque Du Soleil that was touring in Columbus and how they spent weeks doing cartwheels and pirouettes.  He’d need some practice but he was sure that he could get in and, judging by the Cheerios passing by, how the students seemed to part around them and their pristine uniforms, not a slushie thrown in their faces as he found was McKinley’s trademark bullying technique, he needed to get into that team.

Sue Sylvester was an odd woman, and he was sure she couldn’t physically avoid saying something mean in every other sentence, but she liked him. She knew he was gay from the moment he entered the stuffy gym where the try outs were being held and she liked him and she wanted him on team, bottom of the pyramid for now but he could work his way up, work out, do yoga to be even more flexible than he already was, work on his form when doing gymnastics and be better, the head of the team, practically untouchable.

And so, Blaine Anderson became a cheerio, Sue’s protégée. Not a single slushie was flown at his face on his freshman year of high school.

_____

When Blaine thought about what his high school career had been, he could not contain the smile that took over his face. He thought about how well he did in his classes and how all his teachers liked him for doing the work and putting his heart into it.

He thought about Cheerios and how he had four National Championships under his belt, two as head cheerleader of the squad.

He thought about glee and their sole win at Nationals on his senior year and how that felt better than all the cheerleading trophies combined, the friends he made in that club and all the things he went through and how they supported each other no matter what.

He thought about his boyfriend and how lucky he was to be with someone as kind and talented and driven as Kurt, how he knew they were soulmates and would spend the rest of their lives together, as silly as it sounded to be so sure of the love you had with your high school sweetheart.

But as he saw Kurt get coronated by his side, Prom Kings of the class of 2012 and how happy and proud he was and how he extended his hand, sure that Blaine would take it, how they both soaked in the applause and the genuine support they had of not only their friends but the rest of the school, he knew that at 14 he couldn’t have possibly imagined a better 4 years in McKinley High as the cheerleader that fell in love with the football player and found happiness and acceptance in the process.