SEVEN MINUTES. { ~ sam

7 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
roll 11, needy hungry kiss

The whole lot of them went deadly silent when the bottle spun around to the blond who happened to be the only one not wearing any sort of Dalton colors whatsoever.  Blaine had asked Sam to make another trip to Westerville for the weekend.  Their conversation the last time he visited, though he was still sleepless most nights laying in bed trying to feel and remember first hand all the things Sam told him about them, gave Blaine more hope that he still was who he was before the incident.  They’d been separated by what happened that night in the worst way possible.  Short of one of them not making it.  They both did but the cost was one of them having a virtual press of the restart button on everything they were to one another.  While one got the chance to remember it all.

Still.  Blaine couldn’t get Sam out of his head from that night on.  He’d been drawn to look at every photo on his phone that Sam sent him on repeat.  Before class, after class.  Sometimes during class much to his disappointment when one of those peeks cost him his phone for the rest of the day at the beginning of the week.  Warblers practices were even becoming a distraction from the daily phone calls he made as soon as he knew classes were out at McKinley.  

Sam was a gateway.  Back to himself.  Back to everything he’d been missing.  But he was more than that, too.  Sam was a good guy.  No.  A great guy.  One that Blaine knew his life would’ve been much darker without.  Even if he was left in the dark of who he was to him for the rest of his life?  It’d been a life much more cloudy and not so happy without Sam Evans in it.  No matter where he got his new beginning, the footing wouldn’t have been as steady without Sam there to have his back.  It was only logical that the very next weekend, Blaine wouldn’t take no for an answer when he extended the invite.  Thankfully, Sam made sure he didn’t have to by jumping at the chance to join them.

By late Saturday night, the party had lead them to this moment.  Blaine’s fingers shook as he reached back and shut the closet door.  Still not a peep.  Not a whisper from the peanut gallery of Warblers and girls from Crawford Country Day that’d cackled for each pairing up until now.  What did they all know?  What did they see?  Surely their silence had to mean more than the simple fact that Blaine always seemed to change the subject when it came to who his first kiss was.  Not only because of him possibly not remembering it but because he was pretty sure it never happened.  Or did it?  Another one of those late night thoughts.

Here they were now.  Alone.  Just the two of them.  Blaine could hear himself swallow, hear the sound of his throat working against the pounding of his heart thudding in his eardrums. “Sammy,” he found his hand in the dark and in one single motion had their fingers tangled together.  All the want and ache that’d been building up since he was told the truth had him bursting at the seams.  His heels were off the ground and he didn’t hesitate, not even a flinch, before he captured Sam’s lips with his own. If only to pour out a little bit of the emotions that were threatening to swallow him up if he didn’t let go of them.  He had to take a chance.  Had to know what it was like.  If it ended in a second, it ended.  But at least he could rest having tried to give it his all and he did.

continued from here.

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Blaine couldn’t understand why he felt so nervous.  Sitting on the edge of his bed staring at his phone until it went black, he wondered what he and Sam were that the other boy couldn’t explain it over texts.  The fact that he felt he had to drive here, in the middle of the night, to tell him the details?  Didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that the details meant something more than a simple conversation over phone screens tapped out by their fingertips.  Sam wanted to put his face, his voice and his presence behind the words.  

What did he forget..?  How much..?

Frustrated at himself–Blaine’s feet began rapidly bobbing up and down, heels never touching the ground.  Like the beating of rabbit’s feet without the hop. Knees bouncing as he tossed his phone on the bed and pressed the heels of his palms against them, his arms rattled as his fingers curled backwards stopping when their tips touched the tops of his palms.  Shutting his eyes and burrowing his brows, he tried to think.  Come up with anything.  Anything at all.  Come on..please?  All he ended up with for his efforts was the beginning of a tension headache and sore ankles.  How long did it take to drive from Sam’s house to Dalton?  When would he be here?  Should he change?  In the end, he was still sitting right where he was when he heard the knock on the door.

Sam hugged him so tight he couldn’t breathe.  Blaine rushed to catch up and managed to hug him back, albeit from an awkward angle, and he watched as Sam changed a shade healthier because he breathed for the first time since he walked through the door.  Then, it was Blaine’s turn to lose his breath.  With every word he listened to, Blaine’s gaze softened. A sad smile pouted his bottom lip into his upper but he kept quiet and listened searching through the words like they were a light inside the fog wishing that he could put together more than imagined pictures he painted in his mind’s eye as Sam narrated a past that was just gone.  His heart was beating so fast, faster.  

The gut instinct to crawl from the pillows he rested on and scootch down the bed until he was sitting back on his heels in front of Sam won over and by the time Sam finished, Blaine was taking his hand and pulling it into his lap trying to comfort him the only way he knew how.  He might not remember what Sam said.  He maybe even laughed at the park story.  But Blaine knew it had to hurt Sam that he didn’t connect any of it together. Only to the person telling the tales.  Smiling again, he shook his head finding it silly that he would have thought they were anything but..  “Friends then?  We were friends.  Sounds like we really kept everyone on their toes.  I do like Blam, though.  Who came up with that?”  

A crooked grin and he covered the top of Sam’s hand with his free one capturing it completely as he tucked his chin towards his collar and studied Sam’s expression to see if this was all too much.  “I’m trying.  For you.  For everyone.  For me.  I’m trying so hard. Thank you for this?  Tell me everything.  I don’t care how long it takes.  Even the bad stuff, if there was bad stuff. Like.  If we had fights.  Though you seem hard to want to fight with.  Please don’t hold anything in, okay?  Everyone tries to soften things, you know?  Make it so I’m not overwhelmed or whatever.”  He shrugged helplessly.  “But the bad part is?  What they’re holding in, when I see them do it?  That’s the worst..  Ironic, isn’t it?”

meme continuation. @samsreckoning

Blaine had no idea who the blond boy was that yelled his name and nearly brought the performance to a halt before the stunned lead regained his composure and centered himself. Every time Sam met his eyes while he sang, it was with a familiarity that Blaine didn’t quite get.  More than once, it made the Warbler blush.  Olive skin dusted pink from self consciousness once Sam broke eye contact.  And he always broke it first.  Blaine’s color easily chalked up to how many times he’d managed to walk across the back of a couch only to end up standing on top of the piano.  Seriously, his parents would kill him if they knew how bouncy he was. 

Did the boy have any idea he even noticed him?  Or did he dismiss it as Blaine simply acknowledging the other’s presence?  But Blaine did notice.  He might not have approached screamed his name like Sam did, but he noticed.  That was Sam’s point wasn’t it?  To get his attention?  Blaine had never seen him before but Sam must have seen or heard of him to know his name.  It was as flattering as it was confusing and Blaine couldn’t help but want to know more.  Yes, he had people who loved his performances.  Never one so in love that they made an outburst in the middle of one though.  That was new.

A strange feeling came over him in the hours afterwards.  It was the same feeling he got when he was at therapy.  Or when Cooper showed him dozens of pictures of the two of them.  Always looking half cut off or parts of them out of frame.  Like what happens when someone rushes back before the timer goes off.  But they looked happy.  Cooper looked happier, though.  Probably because he was only visiting.  Blaine had trouble explaining to him that he wished he wouldn’t go.  Because, in Blaine’s world, he’d made that argument only a handful of years ago. As promised, he came back four times now.  The routine was nice.  His brother lead him through every step the doctors said and Blaine swore he felt something come to mind but always lost it at the last second before he could grab onto it.  

Exactly how he felt when he saw Sam without Sam realizing he’d made it to where he said they could meet.  Sam was four people ahead of him in line at the cafe.  He was on the phone and Blaine couldn’t hear what he was saying but it was how he was saying it that made Blaine’s head tilt.  Sam looked soft, patient.  Encouraging whoever was on the other end of the phone with soft tones and a gentle smile.  Blaine knew that look but knew it was impossible.  Because Sam was the new kid.  The new new kid.  So he found out in the rushed introduction after the signing came to a stop and poor Sam looked like he wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere as he approached him.  It was his first day and he was picking up the torch Blaine left behind when he transferred earlier in the year.  

Gotta love the way his brain works.  Memories were thoughts sometimes.  Thoughts were memories (maybe).  Or was he making stuff up as he went along to fill in the blanks because the blanks were unnerving?

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‘Well… Maybe we can’t fix it.  But maybe we could try again?’

Hands shook underneath the table as he wrung them together harder and harder the longer he listened.  His parents kept him under lock and key after the incident.  He hadn’t met anyone who knew him before.  No one came to visit.  No one bothered to try to see him.  Or so he was lead to believe.  An option he hasn’t considered until now.  Did his parents hide Sam?  If so?  Why?  The question was on the tip of his tongue and he leaned in to ask it.  But everything stopped when a weather worn strip of photographs came sliding carefully across the table.  “We look so happy.  How is that stupid?  It’s not stupid.”  Pain laced around the words of encouragement.  How could he hurt for memories that were lost?  Well.  One look at Sam and you had the answer.  Sam looked lost.  Broken because of him.  Because of what was lost and what was inside that picture was part of it.  There was happiness there.  Pure happiness and the two of them were brimming over with it.

Blaine brought one hand up while the other grabbed at the inside of his knee.  Pink crescent shapes created by his fingernails lined the top and side.   But, he reached out and touched the very edge of the photographs.  His silent, reassuring smile and careful meeting of Sam’s gaze was a promise he’d never do anything to harm them.  Pulling it across the table before placing his hand back underneath where it snatched the other up in a blink–Blaine studied their faces closely.  “It looks like the best time of my life and then some.  We look..,” like two people who cared so deeply for each other that Blaine understood why Sam looked so hurt even more.  “You don’t have to walk away.  We can try.  I want to know you.  I need to know you.  Is that okay?  A promise to try?  I just..,” his nose scrunched and he tried to say it as gently as possible, “I don’t want to upset you if..if you really see how much I don’t..”  Swinging his hand up, he wriggled his fingers by the side of his head and let them fall again.  “You know?”

Laughter.  Light and as happy as he was inside the Warblers Common Room.   “Wolverine?  You sure?  I mean.  Who gives up Wolverine?”

sam.

( mssg » blaine | sent ) omg dude my fingers are gonna have freaking abs by the time i wake up tmrw lmao jesus man i love it. ok ok lemme reply

( mssg » blaine | sent )

i literally have never been so stoked to be signed up and i’ve signed up for some PrEtTy cool things in my life time blaine. but this is still my fave. lol you make it sound like an escape room hahah 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

DUDE. if it makes you feel any better you were always right with me lol. like you were 1000% the Brain and i was Pinky altho poor inaccurate representation of us because pinky doesnt even have abs and ur head isnt nearly that big (except when u win three games of singstar or cod in a row then it gets BIGGER) lolol. You can be right with me and that’ll weigh out whatever awkward “wrongness” comes ur way. i’m so freaking glad it wasnt weird 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

i get what you mean. i’m not ur therapist but IM telling you not to think about it like that ok? like, picture yourself as a big apartment building ok? like the coolest apartment building in the WHOLE wide freaking world that has a movie theatre in it and lazer tag in the basement and secret tunnels to get around, with trees that grow money, and the BEST chinese food pizza place in it thats got like two michelin mans because its so good. also the rock lives there and hes always throwing dope parties and inviting us over for cheat day (ok but that isnt apart of what im trying to say i’m just saying we would be buddies with him. and not only that but like stan lee and tom hardy and they also filmed starwars on the roof ok?  and think of all the people that live there as ur likes, and memories, and all the good and bad things that ever happened

( mssg » blaine | sent )

but one day… a whole floor got bed bugs so u quarantined the floor like the super vac-u-lock kinda doors like in Alien and fall out and that floor had to get torched by khaleesi’s dragons personally. and unfortunately because no one warned anyone that lived there they got insinerated and we’re gonna look over the huge lawsuit that u would inherit under any other circumstance but THEY WERE REALLY BAD BEDBUGS and again you’re the COOLEST apartment building in the entire universe. even the queen has her own room with her own reptilian exit in the basement that opens into all the tunnels to middle earth and stuff. so those people, some of them were good people and… it really really sucks theyre gone but.. there were also some really bad people too. like some stuff that really sucked when you were going through it, some of the worst things you wouldn’t ever wana remembeer? well theres some balance there. 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

because in the end, once the floor was torched its now empty and you can LITERALLY design it the way you want. u want a hair gel factory in there? honestly i’d judge you a little bit but you can put one in, and you can put in a pizza place and a to scale replica of hogwarts so it’s like apartmentception and stuff but… the point is, you have a blank slate now and thats pretty cool. 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

You’re still y o u blaine. just cause you lost some people along the way doesn’t make you any less you. all you can do is be the best version of yourself and thats who you’re happy with when u look in the mirror. and whoever that guy is? well he makes me pretty damn happy too. 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

summers coming, maybe we could do a mini roadtrip. check all those things off the list. we’ll do a bunch of concerts, and go to the beach, and idk go chill with your horse for a bit. u cant ride him but maybe you can just give him lots of love? maybe he can have his own instagram, idk blaine its a brand new world and animals are so hot rn on insta im js

( mssg » blaine | sent )

anytime. i’ll tell you if you want, but i think you should just try to smash the blaine anderson mold you put yourself in. think of it as digivolving, or just evolving if you wanna stick with pokemon. you just got your evolution stone, blaine. you’re still gonna be old you,but you now have room for the new you too. and as of right now? theres no difference. they’re one in the same. hows that for a mindfuck? sry i know i should be gentle on your brain, its been through enough but those old mindtwisters, they’ll getcha there. 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

dude, ive literally been smiling since you texted me and its starting to hurt, same w my fingers but like i like it. i missed this sfm. DUDE DUDE DUDE

( mssg » blaine | sent )

omg i was about to say do you remember when and i swear 2 god its out of habit pls dont be offended if i say that in person IRL dont mean to omg 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

BUT OKAY i’m just saying once upon a time we were talking about statistics (lol u srsly did NOT like mr. ratger at all) after class one day and we ended up getting sucked into a wormhole wondering how many times we _____. like how many times have u hugged ur mom? and how many texts have you sent? how many times have u peed in your entire life? how many have we hung out? and we were wondering what your stats would be like if everything you ever did was recorded since  u were born and we both got so mad we couldnt have started counting and that we lost years of data. altho to be honest that was like the week long matrix/conspiracy theory trek into the darkside of youtube so like OBVIOUSLY we were in too deep but it makes me laugh kinda because u wiped your hard drive and now have the perfect opportunity. but i dont suggest keeping track of how many times i make u laugh cause even ur not smart enough to count that high. 😛 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

i’m gonna try, i promise. and i’m not goin anywhere. thank u for being so cool about this. like you’ve always been the coolest guy but dude, that stuck. 

( mssg » blaine | sent )

oh…

( mssg » blaine | sent )

did your parents like… tell you anything? like at all? i was from bushwick, y’know, before dalton… hey, can i see you? i know its late but if i drive up to dalton rn, can we talk? if not, thats totally cool and we can talk tmrw night and stuff i just… kinda wanna answer this one in person if its ok with you? and if not, im sure u have a bunch more so u can throw those at me too i just… yeah. 

( mssg » sam | sent ) Now you’re just trying to make me feel better. 😛
( mssg » sam | sent ) So what you’re saying is I should look at my brain like it has an empty floor and create something inside that space?  It’d be hard to compete with everything else in this crazy apartment building but I’m sure I could give it a shot?
( mssg » sam | sent )

Maybe if I do that, then it’ll just fill back up again with what was already there lurking.  Like cockroaches surviving a fire.  The parts of it that don’t want to die out completely but are just waiting for someone to flip on the switch?  I don’t know.  Everyone has a different theory.  Every specialist thinks they’re “on the verge” and it’s almost as annoying as it is terrifying that I’m supposed to trust these people with my past.
( mssg » sam | sent )

You said I forgot a lot of things.  Good and bad.  What did you mean by that?  How much bad was there?  My parents and Cooper don’t want to talk about it.  They say it’s better to just let it go and not think about it or dwell on it.  That I’m starting over for a reason and I shouldn’t look too far back.  But, that’s my story.  You know?  

( mssg » sam | sent ) How am I supposed to not want to go back and reread it?  I haven’t yet cause I promised them I wouldn’t.  It’s a promise I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep.

( mssg » sam | sent ) I want to know about nights spent like you say.  Weird movie binge watches that end up with us looking up conspiracy theories on the internet for hours.  How we were so close and it all happened within the span of the years I lost.  It’s not fair that you were inside that timeframe and I don’t remember anything about us.  We should have met before.  Then, maybe, you’d have stuck.  
( mssg » sam | sent ) They told me a few things..  Bushwick?  Really?  Yes.  Yes!  Definitely.  If it’s that important, don’t tell me here.  Come see me.  I stay at the dorm in my own room.  You can stay as long as you want.  I don’t have any appointments until after Spring Break.  I thought being here with the Warblers who stayed behind would make better company..
( mssg » sam | sent ) I’m on the top floor. Corner room at the end of the hall.  You can use my pin number to get in.  It’s 9531.  Swipe your ID card and you’re set.

( mssg » sam | sent ) Drive safe.  I’m really looking forward to seeing you.