Chapter 5

The next two months were something short of hell for Blaine both at home and at school.

At school, everyone, with no fail, made sure to remind him of the events of the Halloween party and made certain that everyone at school knew of what had transpired last year in middle school.

Coupled with the way people looked at his attire, he was the laughing stock of the entire school and felt absolutely miserable and helpless.

At home, he was just as desperate for a helping hand.

His parents finally understood that if they will not be, at least for a short amount of time, at the house they would lose all connection with their eldest son, of whom they were ever so proud, and lose control over Blaine.

So around November, they came home from one of their business trips, and immediately began setting everything straight.

They made sure that Cooper was constantly in his room, poring over SAT prep material so that he will be able to get into an Ivy League college – Yale, Stratford, Columbia or Princeton – and carry on the Anderson pride in becoming a successful businessman; and through this, cutting any connection between Cooper and Blaine.

When it came to Blaine, Mr. Anderson made sure that he was never alone in his room unless it was for doing his homework or sleeping; fearing that any spare time alone that was unsupervised by him or Blaine's mother, would definitely encourage their youngest son into continuing with this despicable fad called homosexuality.

Therefore, Blaine spent the entirety of November and December in the exact same routine day after day.

He would go to school, he would come back.

He would eat his lunch and go do his homework.

He would go downstairs, report to his mother that he had done his homework and gave it to her for inspection.

He would then go to his father's office and spend an hour listening to a lecture about his father's business.

At the end of the day, he would spend an hour with his father rebuilding one of his father's old cars.

Such was his life in November and December.

As December drew to a close and Christmas was approaching in giant steps, there were talks all over school regarding the Sadie Hawkins dance – the dance that was custom at Christmas time at the school.

Blaine sat by himself in the cafeteria during lunch, a regular occurrence ever since the Halloween incident. – Blaine had to sigh at this thought. He was gathering himself too many incidents lately and it was not doing his public image, his self image or his self confidence any good at all.

He was sitting there, observing all the other students who were gathered together in their personal cliques and pairs, pointedly avoiding him; or if they did happen to glance at him, they made sure to pointedly give him a disgusted look that left nothing to feed his doubt.

Nothing has changed.

He sat there, moving his fork in circles in the mush that was supposed to be mashed potatoes without actually expressing any interest in it, staring at it and just letting his mind draw blanks.

Suddenly, there was a loud scraping sound beside him that was undoubtedly the sound of someone sitting down at the table beside him and Blaine couldn't help but flinch in fear.

He turns to see Jim sitting in the chair beside him with a pained smile.

"Hey, Blainers."

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

If Jim would be seen talking to him, then he would be knowingly committing social suicide – and as far as Blaine knew, that was not a viable option for Jim – something was off.

He tried to pointedly ignore the boy by his side.

"Blaine?"
Blaine huffed in annoyance and looked around; making sure that everyone else was too busy to notice them before turning to glare at Jim.

"What are you doing?"

Jim's face scrunched adorably as he cocked his head in bewilderment, "What are you talking about?"

Blaine scanned the room again and hissed, "You know that nobody is allowed to talk to me."

Jim rolled his eyes and scoffed, "Please. Are you really going to listen to everything that those idiots blurt out of their mouths? Next thing you know, we'll be forced to wear underwear to school just because they want to show off how tough they are."

Blaine looked at him incredulously, "You really believe that, don't you?"

Jim shrugged.

"Well, welcome to high school, Jim. Yes, I realize it's completely stupid to stoop to their level and accept their social shunning, but if I decide to rebel I might as well be showing up at a bull fight in a red dress."

Blaine, knowing Jim's flaring personality and his need to have the last word I matters, was waiting for Jim's response; but none came.

Turning from his stiff crouching, he looked to where Jim was sitting – nothing.

Jim had left and was now sitting with their class peers in another table, not even looking at Blaine's direction.

Lowering his head, a little scribbling in red on the linoleum table caught his eye:

If I promise to not show up in a red dress, will you go to the dance with me? I'll pick you up at eight.

The next day, Blaine was walking down the hallways of Forth Thomas High when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

No. Way.

He was certain he was dreaming.

He had to.

There was no other reasonable explanation.

Jim Morrison, the very same teenage boy who promised him yesterday to not show up with a red dress to the Sadie Hawkins dance, was strolling down the Kentucky high school corridors dressed in the tightest black pants that Blaine had ever witnessed, a hot pink shirt that really should have been illegal at such a school – the cut was so low that there was a distinctive strip of skin showing whenever he moved, and seeing as he was walking… - and a star-spangled fedora hat perched askew on his head.

To accessorize, he had a brown leather satchel hung loosely from his shoulder. This was the most conventional piece of his appearance, seeing as he wore designer sunglasses and had a strange piece of fabric dangling from the pocket of his pants.

With dawning dread, Blaine realized it was a handkerchief.

It was as if everything was happening in slow motion before Blaine's eyes – Jim strutting down the hallways, everyone turning their heads to gawk at him…

Before he could actually think about moving, or saying, or actually doing anything, there was a loud BANG and Jim disappeared in a flash from his line of sight.

He tried to see where Jim had run off to, but only saw the tail of a row of Letterman jackets retreating down the hallway.

Quickly, Blaine ran in the opposite direction, searching frantically.

Finally, he arrived at the general seniors' hallway, but immediately regretted it – he was lost.

How in the world would he find him here through the sea of towering students?

Just then he heard a shout that made his head turn.

"Yo! Anderson! 'Sup with that English essay?"

He then saw him – leaning casually across the lockers, his arm slung around the shoulders of his girlfriend, Sheila, and glancing at the direction of the shout – and made a beeline towards him.

"Cooper!"

He made it through the throng of giants and at last came face to face with his older brother who had the most terrified expression on his face at the sight of the slight boy.

"Blaine! What are you doing here? You know how dangerous it is for freshmen to be here! What's going on?"

"Coop, they took Jim! Some jocks dragged him off the hallway 'cause he was dressed up really fancy after we argued yesterday."
Cooper's eyes darkened and he looked sideways.

For the first time since breaking out of the crowd, Blaine paid attention to the people surrounding Cooper and he – they didn't look like they were about to beat the living crap out of him just yet, but he quickly deduced that that would change if he didn't leave soon.

He looked at Cooper expectantly and was devastated to see that his expression hadn't changed a fraction.

"Coop?"
"Blaine, I think it's best that you forget about this. Go back to the freshmen area. There is nothing I can do."

It was like someone slapped him hard on the cheek, punched him in the nose and then give him a good kick in the sack.

He couldn't believe what he saw before him. He couldn't recognize who was standing before him.

What happened to his awesome, cool, intelligent brother? Who protected him and the very few friends he had over the years no matter what it cost him socially?

Dejectedly, he turned and made his way back to the freshmen general area of the school, ignoring the jeering that accompanied his wake.

Blaine was walking aimlessly through the school's deserted parking lot during his free period.

He suspected that the jocks might have left Jim somewhere in the lot itself, but there was no sign of anybody, much less a beaten-up, albeit completely fashionable, freshman.

Just as he was about to head inside, he heard a rustle and a slight whimper from the dumpster area.

He quickly turned on his heels and headed towards the big green cart of garbage that was on his left and slowly inched around it, trying to locate the source of sound.

The sight that met his eyes made him gag – Jim, in his entire fabulous ensemble, was drenched in scrapings and waste on top of the huge pile of muck.

"Jim!"

He didn't waste any time in helping the poor boy down from the trash can and assist him in brushing away all the remaining excrement.

After letting him breathe a little, Blaine couldn't help himself and asked, "What happened?"

Jim snorted, "Now you ask? Where were you?"

Blaine's jaw stiffened, "I tried getting Cooper to help me out, but he wouldn't. So I tried to find you on my own."
Jim's head snapped up, his face shocked.

"You…"
Blaine shrugged and held out his hand, "Friends?"

Jim smiled warmly at him, "Friends."

And, together, they headed back to the school, ready to face the remainder the day.

Before Blaine could step into his classroom, however, Jim grabbed his hand and looked at him seriously.

"You haven't answered my note."

Blaine scrunched his eyebrows together, thoroughly confused, before realization hit him and he grinned broadly at Jim.

"Pick me up at eight."

He made it home relatively smoothly today.

During the past month, he had to endure endless taunting, shoving and ear-flicking form the students on the bus, today he only had to suffer through mindless murmuring of slurs that went straight over his head – he was used to their inarticulacy and lack of inventiveness when it came to trying to insult him.

That had been an hour ago.

He was now sitting in his room, getting his homework done before he had to go and endure the hour of fixing cars with his father, or whatever else the man decided to make him do this time, when he heard a series of shouts and several shouts.

He glanced out of his window and saw Cooper standing in the front yard, yelling at Sheila.

Blaine was impressed that the girl had the energy to face his brother, because he remembered that usually the girls Cooper had dated before her used to submit to him and were weakly accepting his ideas.

Wondering what on earth would cause this ruckus, Blaine crept out of his room.

He made sure his father was still locked up in his office and crept silently on the wall-to-wall carpet downstairs and leaned against the front window to listen.

"You really think this is the right way to go?"
"If I didn't, would I do it?"
"You know, I thought you were smart and different than all those hillbillies. Guess I was wrong."

And with that, she stomped back down the pathway, got in her car and drove off.

Author's Note: Ta da! Here it finally is!

I'm really sorry for not having updated as much as I hoped to... I've been hung up by life (college, fangirling, etc.) and a REALLY big writers' block that it's not even funny. I'm really glad that I managed to finally finish this monster of a tale and uploaded this finally...

Really hoped you liked Sheila... Gurl Power!

Next chapter is the Sadie Hawkins dance (oh man) and then we're itching closer and closer to Dalton!Blaine... I really hope I don't melt by then by how completely adorable Blainers is on the show... let's hope I survive tonight! EEEEEP! "I Have Nothing", "How Will I Know", "It's Right But It's Not Okay"... I'm gonna die... I'm gonna die... I'm gonna die, die, die... CRAP!

So yeah... hope to see you next time and I will LOVE to read what you have to say! (Reviews, por favore?)