"P-please sir, I need another week." he stammered, trying to steady the sweaty, shaking hand clutching his phone. "Derek never gives me rent money and business has been rough with the rainy weather and-"

"One week Anderson!" the man spat, his voice booming down the speaker, "And that’s it. If I don’t have it by next Sunday, your ass is out! I don’t give a toss who pays it, I want my money."

"Y-yes sir, t-thank you I won’t let you-" He heard the familiar cold bleeping as the line went dead. "Great," he murmured, attempting to balance the phone between his shoulder and cheek as one hand went to the pockets of his jeans to find some more quarters, the other to wipe the fast falling raindrops from his eyes.

He needed to call his Mom or his... someone. He just needed a loan of a couple of hundred dollars, just enough to get him through this week so he wasn't homeless... again. He raked a hand through his dark curls tugging on them in frustration.

Suddenly he froze, a familiar sneering, mocking voice reverberating in his ears. Not tonight, please. "Oh, look who it is! Blainey Anderson!"

"Ugh, just fuck off will you Peterson, I’m not interested in your bullshit tonight," Blaine snapped, letting the phone drop from his hand. It bounced on the metal chord, swinging side to side as Blaine rounded on the speaker. "My god, you stink. I can’t tell whether you spent the night in a brewery or brothel."

Derek Peterson was Blaine Anderson's disgusting, leech of a roommate. He was the complete opposite of Blaine, who was short and muscly with smiling hazel eyes, warm smile and dark curly tresses. Derek was stick thin with gangly limbs, squinty dull blue eyes which sunk into his face and short dirty blonde hair that plastered to his greasy forehead. He was sporting his usual cocky, thin lipped smirk. "Take your pick; you'll be right either way."

Blaine gagged, a feeling of disgust settling in the pit of his stomach. "When are you going to learn to not spend your money on bitches and booze? I had to call the landlord, he cut our power because we didnt pay our rent but luckily he's giving us till the end of the week. Do you know why I can’t pay my rent? Because you owe me $200 dollars I used to cover your rent last month!"

"I'm working on it." the man grumbled, picking at mark on his dirty jean jacket.

"You better do more than work on it Derek! I have to stand out in the rain to try and get some cash together because you can’t pay up! You need another job, one better than passing round that junk you snort! Stop spending 24 hours a day in brothels and get a fucking job!"

"You should loosen up a bit Anderson," Derek spat, turning and climbing the steps up to the apartment building, "I’d say come with me next time, a good fuck would do you some good but... oh yeah, I forgot," he turned looking down at Blaine, greasy lips curling into an ugly smirk, "you're a dirty little faggot."

"Fuck you!" Blaine snarled but as he lunged towards Derek but his foot caught the edge of the wet step and he slipped, landing on the floor, his face cracking against the stone pavement.

"Huh, so it is true what they say," Derek sneered as he leant over the boy crumpled on the floor, face covered in blood, "fags like you always seem to end up where they belong, at our feet. When you learn to be normal you can stand with the rest of us."

Blaine groaned, trying to push himself up with his hand but flopped back to the floor, clutching his bleeding nose in pain. "You disgusting bastard!" he yelled as a large globule of spit landed beside him, just missing his face. "Rot in hell!"

Derek turned on his heel, heading for the apartment, "The only reason I keep you around Anderson, is because I can’t afford the rent by myself."

By the time Blaine had managed to stop the bleeding from his nose and made it upstairs to his room Derek had disappeared, probably out for another late night session. He had to use his lighter to be able to see his way around as the power was still cut off but he managed to find some candles to take to his room.

Much like the rest of the apartment it was very bare, plain cr�me walls which were extremely damp, black and green spattering’s of mold growing in the corners near the ceiling. His most prized possession, his guitar, stood against the wall and a mattress lay on the floor near the window, dressed with a pillow and a thin white sheet.

He dropped to the wooden floor, taking his guitar and resting it on his knees, plucking at a few strings with frozen fingers. He began to hum lyrics quietly under his breath and scribbling them down on a notepad he kept with his guitar.
Music was Blaine's life, it always had been and he knew it always would be. He found his talent when his mother sent him for singing and piano lessons when he was a young boy. He learnt to play guitar himself, one of the boys in the Glee club at his high school taught him the basic chords and he went from there. He graduated from his senior year at Dalton Academy last year but after being rejected from the college he applied for, he left for New York with the dream of becoming a singer and had been busking for food and money pretty much ever since. He also did odd jobs to try and get him money but it wasn’t much. So at 20 years old, Blaine was poor and hungry with no proper job, living with an alcoholic junkie who to top it all off was also a homophobic bully and he hated him more than he hated anyone in his entire existence. Not really where he planned to be right now.

After scratching out a verse or two Blaine lifted his bloodstained shirt over his head throwing it to the side of him and flopped down on the mattress, wrapping the sheet around him. He pulled the thin material tight to him trying to convey some warmth and with silent tears streaming down his face, he promised himself as he did every night that he would get used to the loneliness and the cold.