A/N: First fic for Glee! Woo! This is a character study, I guess. It's not likely true to the character RIB created, but I can't really label it AU. Enjoy! Constructive criticism definitely accepted!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the character from Glee. They are the creative property of RIB and Fox. I make no money from this story.

Blaine lies like he breathes. He smiles and sings and plans romantic surprises for Kurt and no one suspects that it is all a lie. Perhaps it is the recognition of a kindred spirit that prevents him from pushing Sebastian away. But no matter how familiar he finds the flickers of vulnerability in those brown eyes, Blaine knows it is all one sided. Because he is better than Sebastian. For all his false swagger and infuriating scheming, Sebastian is surprisingly easy to see though. He builds his armor in the form of shallow relationships and the ability to offend people before they can betray him. But Blaine's armor is better because no one knows that it's even there. He hides behind his smile and no one thinks to look any closer because if he's laughing and joking, there can't possibly be anything wrong.

Blaine is three the last time his mother takes him grocery shopping. In two weeks his father will be offered a prestigious position in a law firm and his mother will never need to lift a finger for herself again. But that seems like an impossible fantasy in the present as his mother pushes him in an uncomfortable metal cart down the long aisles of a too-cold super store.

"Milk, eggs, tomatoes, peas, apples, broccoli, cabbage, yogurt, gummies, Pop Tarts…What else?" his mother mutters, tapping her fingers against the cart handle.

She had forgotten the list she had made on the kitchen table, and had gone mostly from memory. Click, click, click. Blaine watches his mother's nails against the cart for a moment. It is a habit, he notes, when his mother isn't happy.

"Butter, fish, frozen pizza, paper towels," Blaine chirps.

The clicking stops as his mother stares at him. He can see the understanding crashes down on her. Blaine doesn't spend his days inside reading instead of playing with his brother's friend's younger siblings because he is shy. He spends them reading because he is curious and he is smart.

Sometimes it is startling and incomprehensible how much feelings impact the lives of his peers. For Blaine, the world is incredible simple, and incredibly easy to navigate. He understands feelings, but his logic will always guide him more surely than emotions ever will. Sure, he gets angry when Anthony Howard accidently hits him in the head with a tennis ball during recess, but the anger pales in comparison to the irrefutable fact that there would be more detriments to yelling at Anthony than there were benefits.

So, while his peers sink in the quagmire of their emotions, Blaine sails through his middle school years with an unexpected poise and grace that he carries with him to high school. Blaine is polite as the English gentlemen in his books. Blaine is the boy parents and teachers love, the one who has a smile for everyone and who never has a bad word to say about anyone. It is a wonderful masquerade. He supposes he could have chosen to be a guy like Sebastian; he certainly is a charmer, and could have been a manipulator. But Blaine's father is right when he says one evening after a successful day in court, "Anything can be a weapon, Blaine, if you know how to use it."

Even a smile.

Blaine's father thinks his obsession with books is a phase. As much as it confuses him, he sees no harm in it. So Blaine is never without something new to read. In each book he finds new kinds of people, new kinds of characters, and Blaine is fascinated. He spends weeks pretending to be characters from his books. Captain Hook, Elrond, Christopher Newman, even Mustapha Mond. These days his parents are rarely home, but between the teachers at his school and the pitying neighbors, Blaine is never short people to practice on. They think he's cute, playing make believe and imaginary friends to make up for his lack of real ones. But there is so much more to this game, and the plot is the least important part.

Everything Blaine has ever needed to know, he has learned from his books. Later, he will learn how to be a good boyfriend from the pages of old obscure novels, but he starts using his vast collection in middle school when he puts the final touches on the Blaine Anderson he wants the world to see. Sometimes, when he makes the long drive to Lima, Blaine dwells on those times, and thinks that it would have been so easy to become Sebastian. But then he will smile and remind himself that he is smart and knows that those kinds of guys are the villains of his childhood stories. And the villains never win.

Blaine has miscalculated. Badly. Sitting in a hospital room on the night of his school dance, he must come to terms with that. Being smart and polite and friendly has not made up for the fact that he is gay. It has not saved him from the harassment, the beatings, or the abandonment. Blaine is very much alone in his hospital room. Even his parents aren't here. That night, Blaine comes to several conclusions. First, the current Blaine Anderson isn't working. Second, becoming an angry, introverted teenager like he wants to be, probably won't work for more than week before it becomes grating on his parents, his neighbor and his schoolmates. Third, he clearly cannot rely on other people to look out for him anymore.

He is glad, as he sits quietly in his empty hospital room, that none of the people that should be here, filling the quiet with their bubbling words, know the real Blaine Anderson. The rejection feels less personal that way.

In the end, Blaine decides not to go back to the drawing board. He uses the mold he has already created and adds to it. He takes up boxing and feels satisfied and less stupid knowing that he isn't naïvely relying on his peers or his parents anymore. The new Blaine Anderson, Blaine decides, is perfect.

Dalton Academy is almost entirely too perfect. Blaine has always been a polite, well-behaved, smart boy. He fits right in with the other boys. He isn't popular at Dalton, the way he was in public school before he came out, but Blaine isn't concerned. He has an audition for the Warbler's in two weeks, after which he is sure to stand out as a member of the school's most prestigious organization.

Blaine isn't arrogant enough to believe that just because he has a good singing voice, that he will be any kind of important member. His eyes aren't on the lead soloist's position; there are plenty of boys with stronger voices already on the Warbler's roster. Instead, Blaine decides he wants to be the arranger for the choir. He's been interested in arranging since he found a book about it in his father's library when he was six. He has been practicing in his free time for years. So he spends the first week up to his audition arranging his audition song and the second week singing it whenever he can to make sure it doesn't sound completely awful.

He isn't surprised when he gets a spot on the Warblers and the arranging job. He is surprised, a year later, when he gets the lead soloist position.

Sometimes when Kurt looks back at him with his incredible blue eyes and tells Blaine that he loves him, Blaine wishes he could tell Kurt the truth. Because Blaine is smart and he knows that Kurt isn't really in love with him, because the Blaine Kurt knows doesn't really exist. Suddenly the masquerade isn't so wonderful because it is only fair that if the insults and his parents' continued absence aren't taken personally because Blaine Anderson isn't real, then neither is Kurt's love.

Blaine loves Kurt. He really does. He loves Kurt in the same helpless, inescapable way he loves his parents. And Blaine lies to Kurt the same way he lies to his parents. Because Blaine lies like he breathes. Because as large a part of him that is a teenage boy in love, that wants Kurt to love him like the people in his mother's old romance novels love each other, a larger part of him is smarter than that. A larger part of him will always be a fourteen-year-old boy waking up alone in a hospital room the night of his school dance.