Blaine doesn't know how long he stands on the 50-yard line watching Kurt walk away. He hears Jonesy's voice over the speaker calling for him, but he can't be bothered to care. He looks to Santana for support and only finds a turned back and a pony tail bobbing in the breeze as she rants to the other trumpet players. Rachel huffs and huddles with her flutes, Puck flips him off. Finn simply stares and shakes his head. In one last effort, he looks up to the tower, catching Artie's eye.

"What just happened here?"

"You done fucked up, son."

"But, everyone cheered."

"Until Kiki didn't." And Artie was clearly finished because he rolled his chair up closer to the edge to get a view of Jonesy and Beaman overhead. "Where to, boss ladies?"

"Let's move to the closer. Reset 55."

Who does Kurt think he is? The prince of the band? Some sort of special snowflake that needs to be coddled and stroked and pressed to make the fun boy he's spent this past week with come out to play? Someone who clearly has the talent for Carnegie Hall, but not the backbone or the ego to let others shine now and then? If anyone had taught Blaine about sharing the spotlight these past few weeks, it was Kurt. Everything is a team effort. Everything.

And here he stands, temporarily the lead of the trumpet section – a section that clearly wants his head on a platter. He sighs and jogs over to take a swallow of water, setting up for chart 55. His heart pangs with the memory from only a day ago when they marched this set together before dawn, feelings bubbling inside of him that he never imagined for himself – not in high school anyway. Not in another conservative town. He is falling and he knows, he knows, he knows Kurt is falling too.

Had he ruined that? Had he ruined the chemistry of the show? He was just trying to—

"MAYNARD! We've called attention. Horn up!"

"S—sorry, ma'am. Jonesy. Sorry, Jonesy." His plea fades as her glare intensifies and Artie begins the set.

And then he's on the bus. He doesn't remember finishing rehearsal. He barely remembers senior hug line. He doesn't even remember going back to the dorm to collect his things. He does remember that Kurt wasn't there, but his food had been nicely packed up for him so all he'd have to do is grab and go. Oh, and his one missing sock was placed atop his food bin.

He plops himself onto a bench and pulls out his iPod hoping to disappear into a playlist. As he contemplates 70's favorites, OSU Marching Band, or symphonic classics, he feels the air change in the bus. Kurt is approaching, looking everywhere but at Blaine, taking a seat across the aisle, a few rows back. Santana follows close behind, almost sycophantic, touching him, making sure she puts them into the right seat, snuggling in next to him like a mother with her child sick with the flu.

Blaine sort of wants to scream. He yanks his ear buds out of his ears and tosses his iPod onto the bench as he slides into the seat in front of Kurt, knees on the cushion, staring down on him.

"Is this how it's going to be? You're just going to pout like a child because you might not be the center of the fucking universe?"

Kurt looks up to him, the blue of his eyes flashing such anger Blaine could flinch. But he refuses. "You have no idea what you're even talking about, Maynard. Take your seat."

They stare each other down, Santana probably adding to the mix, but Blaine can't be bothered to avert his eyes to find out – he's grateful she's keeping quiet. He reaches up and plucks the wreath of grass and flowers from his head, tiny white petals spilling between them as his curls release themselves from the foliage that begins to untwist itself from the circle Kurt had put it in hours before. "You know, Kiki, for someone who preaches about unity and family and winning competitions, you sure as hell don't like it when the spotlight isn't shining directly on you."

His final words echo throughout the bus as everyone has fallen silent. Blaine shoves the immediate panic down and tosses the wreath onto Kurt's lap.

Kurt watches it fall and looks up again, the anger in his eyes flickering for a moment into something else. Hurt? Sadness? The anger is clear again before Blaine can decide what it is. With a quick glance at Santana, he slides out of the seat to take his own back, sinking behind the high-back cushioned chair with his headphones, cranking up Haydn's Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Pomp. Circumstance. Royalty. Perfect for Sir Duke Kurt Fucking Hummel.

~~~**~~~

Blaine [08-13-11 2:45am]: Okay, let me try this method since you're ignoring daytime attempts. Just explain to me how I'm now the devil incarnate.

Santana [08-13-11 2:48am]: Dude. I gave you one job – and you blew it.

Blaine [08-13-11 2:50am]: And we have communication. Thank you.

Santana [08-13-11 2:51am]: We have no such thing.

Blaine [08-13-11 2:52am]: Words between two people is communication. Will you please fill me in. I can't sleep and I feel like shit.

Santana [08-13-11 2:53am]: The fact that you are so fucking clueless only gives me more joy to say...goodnight Blaine.

Santana [08-13-11 2:53am]: Oh, and? I'm glad you feel like shit. You deserve it.

When the thought of moving back home to live with his dad, his dad's new toy and her most-likely illegitimate offspring sounds better than dealing with any of this for one moment longer, he knows something has to change.

But Blaine is, if nothing else, persistent. Stubborn. Persistent. Most definitely persistent.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:12am]: So, I hear 3 am texts are the preferred method of communication for the amazing McKinley Marching Titans.

Rachel [08-13-11 3:15am]: Not the Marching Titans. Only a select few of us, Blaine. You made me smudge my facial mask.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:16am]: I'm sorry?

Rachel [08-13-11 3:17am]: I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. Goodnight, Blaine.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:18am]: Can you tell me exactly what I should be apologizing for?

Rachel [08-13-11 3:19am]: You honestly don't know?

Blaine [08-13-11 3:20am]: No. I mean, it's obviously about the solo, but I wasn't trying to steal anyone's thunder.

Rachel [08-13-11 3:21am]: Said the understudy to the star he just poisoned.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:22am]: Seriously, Rachel? SERIOUSLY!?

Rachel [08-13-11 3:23am]: I said goodnight, Blaine. And if I get a pimple from this, I'm naming it Maynard.

If it all wasn't so ridiculous, Blaine would laugh. If it also wasn't 3am and his body wasn't screaming for sleep, he might kick something. And the strength of want he has for having Kurt in his room to talk to, to snuggle with, to share pizza rolls and to giggle and shush is most definitely unhealthy. And, not helping anything.

Right. Persistent.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:32am]: Pool. Tomorrow. Noon?

Mike [08-13-11 3:35am]: Why?

Blaine [08-13-11 3:36am]: Mike, please? I'm confused. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. Everyone is shutting me out and I just want some fucking answers.

Mike [8-13-11 3:37am]: So, I'm not even your first attempt?

Blaine [08-13-11 3:38am]: You're my most direct attempt, ass. Give me a break.

Mike [08-13-11 3:39am]: What are you feeding me?

Blaine [08-13-11 3:45am]: Looks like we have meat for burgers? Some chicken breasts? I'll see if Mom will whip up a pasta salad.

Mike [08-13-11 3:46am]: Add homemade chocolate chip and I'll be there.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:47am]: You're kidding me, right? I have to bribe you with food?

Mike [08-13-11 3:48am]: You hurt my man Kurt. You've gotta earn it back, dude.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:50am]: Jesus Christ. Fine. Chocolate chip cookies, pasta salad and what do you want? Beef or chicken?

Mike [08-13-11 3:51am]: Chicken. A nice bbq sauce. Your mom's lemonade. YOU make the salad; it's not her fault you're a dick.

Before Blaine shuts his phone off, he sends one more text.

Blaine [08-13-11 3:52am]: I know you're not talking to me, but I wanted to tell you that I miss you tonight. My pillows don't smell right.

~~~**~~~

"I made it all. Are you happy?"

"Ecstatic. I want the recipe for the barbeque sauce."

Blaine gets up, wraps a towel around his waist and pads into the kitchen not saying a word. He brings back a jar of Matt's Hogspit Barbeque Sauce and slams it onto the table. "We have another bottle. It's yours."

Mike reads the bottle and laughs. "Hogspit? How appetizing."

"Finger-lickin' good. Now, stop wasting my time and talk to me."

"I haven't had a dip in the pool yet."

"Mike."

"Why is it so important to you? Kurt has conniptions. He gets over them. You've been the victim of a few of them before."

"That was before."

"Before??"

Blaine sighs, takes off his towel, adjusts the drawstring of his trunks and takes a jogging leap into the deep end of their pool. Pond. In-ground pool that's been built to look like a combination beachfront and backyard pond. It's fucking weird but next to his bedroom, it's the only place he feels at home.

And now he's plunged into the water where he can collect his thoughts before resurfacing. Which he does with a swoosh of his hair, tossing water in circles around his head.

Mike isn't at the picnic table any more.

"Marco."

"Pol—" Blaine spins to Mike's voice and laughs, splashing him quickly and thoroughly before diving underwater again to swim away. If he plays his cards right, Mike will forget what he said. And more importantly, what he didn't say.

Mike doesn't forget.

Blaine pulls himself up and out of the water to canon ball off of the short "pier" leading into the deep end. Before he can even jog to the end of it, he sees Mike treading water right where he was planning to land.

"Before what?"

He's also smirking. It's annoying.

"Before—" Blaine takes a few quick steps and jumps in, curling his body up tight before plunging into the water with an enormous splash. He stays under longer than necessary again, popping through the surface, and like a cherubic water feature he spits a perfect arc of water from his mouth.

"You are a master at avoidance."

"It's called thinking."

Mike isn't having it and Blaine sighs in resignation. "Before I realized he wasn't the jackass I originally thought he was."

Mike still isn't having it, but Blaine leaves it as his answer. He swims back to the edge, walking up the corner of the pond that's been made to look like a small beach and plops himself into an Adirondack chair, legs splayed, hair dripping, curls springing free from the weight of the water soaking them. Sure, there's more to it, but that's not what he wants to talk about.

"Well, you're right about that. He's not a jackass." Mike joins him, grabbing their towels before sitting down. "He's had more opportunities than most of us to be one, but he's never stooped to it. He might do jackass things – like we all do – but he's never, at his core, been a jackass."

"How long have you known him?"

"K-12. I look back at pictures and have to laugh. He was covered in freckles. Round face. Big blue eyes – he belonged in commercials for Smucker's jelly or something."

Blaine clearly sees an impish little boy, shining eyes, getting away with murder while baking cookies to make up for any misdeeds he might have committed. "He does freckle a lot in the sun." He throws his towel over his head to dry his hair. To hide his blush that those words actually came out of his mouth. To avoid the look he knows Mike is giving him.

"Dude. What's this really about?"

Blaine pulls the towel from his head, squeezing excess moisture from his hair as he goes. He finally levels his gaze at Mike, grateful for the friendship that has been forming between them since his first week in the band. Mike's funny. He's smart. He's observant. And he still hasn't posted the pop-and-lock video from home bandcamp. That goes a long way – Blaine still hasn't encountered his first day at McKinley – he doesn't need a viral video to precede him.

"I feel like I'm the bad guy because of a ghost."

"You're probably right."

"How am I supposed to work with that? This Doc dude - he's gone, but Kurt carries the weight of him like a bag of rotten potatoes."

"Well, you sort of keep putting more potatoes in the bag."

"Jesus. Okay, who the hell is Doc?"

"I haven't had any cookies, yet."

"On the picnic table, you asshat. Bring me a couple."

"You are not the hostess with the mostest."

"I made you lunch. I'm providing you a urine-free, squealing-girl-free swimming hole. And, if you'd stop eating long enough, excellent conversation."

Mike snaps him with his damp towel and retrieves the entire container of cookies, placing it on the small table between them. "What do you want to know about Doc?"

"Why is he still haunting the practice field? Did he and Kurt date or something?"

Mike chokes on his cookie and laughs. "Oh god, no. Doc never dated much because no girl in her right mind would want him, but, no. Very straight. He just—I think he was threatened by Kurt?"

"Because Kurt was good?"

"Yes. From 5th grade on, he sort of stood out among the rest of us who were just honking and spitting into our horns. He made music, even when the only song we were playing was Go Tell Aunt Rhodie."

"Was Doc any good?"

"He thought he was. We really didn't know him until our freshman year. He was pretty impressed with himself. And Jonesy was too."

"Then he had to have been good."

"He had range. I was playing trumpet then too, and he'd do the squealing, wailing shit you do. Only, he wasn't as tight as you are. He was all over the place but very athletic, like you. He played with his whole body."

"And 'Doc' was for...Severinsen?"

"Yep. Which, in hindsight, was pretty rude to Mr. Severinsen."

"Yes. So Kurt's the prize in middle school and you all get up to high school and Doc's sitting on Kurt's perch?"

"Well, Kurt was the best of our class – the whole band, not just us trumpets. So, if anything, Kurt was primed to sit on Doc's perch."

"This is beginning to sound like gay porn."

"Okay, dude. I don't even want to know."

Mike's face is a delightful mixture of humor and horror and Blaine can only cackle at him. "Okay, we'll save the gay sex primer for another visit. We'll only go to first base today."

"I'm—glad?" Mike is still a little horrified. "Should I go on, or do you need a moment to think about Doc's perch?"

"I'd just as soon not think about Doc's perch. I'd rather think about Kurt's—um. Problem. With Doc." Blaine shoves what is probably his fifth cookie into his mouth.

"Right." Mike's smile isn't missed, but Blaine sputters out something resembling go on and Mike does. "So, Doc was threatened by Kurt's raw talent. He didn't have Doc's range, but – well, you know how he plays. He wasn't as good then, of course. That shit doesn't happen overnight."

"No, his talent showed up the day he was born."

"So, instead of maybe practicing harder to get better, or buddying up with Kurt to learn from him, or you know, just shutting up and being a decent human being, he picked on him. Every day. Every moment. Any opportunity. We'd play a passage, Jonesy would stop us to go over something and if it wasn't the trumpets, he'd have a comment."

"Like what?"

"Called him every homophobic name in the book. He told him he played like a daisy. Like a girl, a sissy. Looked like one. Dressed like one too. Sounded like one. Would even fucking wiggle his fingers near his crotch – is it even real?"

"Oh. Fuck."

"Yeah. And Kurt would just sit there, glare of course. That would shut smart people up – you've seen the power his glare has—"

"I swear I have burn marks from a few of them."

"Right. But, he'd never fight back. Every once and awhile he'd flip him off or stage whisper for him to shut up, smack his hand away, but he just took it. And then, he went home and practiced more."

"He did tell me he got picked on a lot, but that was middle school."

"He did. He was always the kid with a label of some kind. The One Who Wears Ties And Jackets. The One Whose Mom Died. The One Who Made Soufflé."

"Soufflé?"

"Eighth Grade French Class. Oh, and That Kid Whose Voice Never Changed."

Blaine rolls his eyes at the stupidity. He's not immune to it – his father is an expert orator in homophobic, bigoted language – but it never ceases to surprise him. "So why didn't anyone speak up? Tell Jonesy? Kurt said band was a safe place."

"It is. No one physically pushed him around here. And he'd get worked up if we wanted to talk to Jonesy. I think he was afraid his dad would pull him out. Even with Doc, the music was his sanity."

Blaine nods, then stands and stretches. "I'm hot again – water?"

"Yes, water."

They make their way in – Mike with his own crazy canon ball and Blaine with a screaming run from the slope of the sandy beachside near their chairs. It's a welcome break. A break from the heat. A break from the conversation – which he's not done with, but he's beginning to see the problem. To see why Kurt was so affronted at his simple presence, no less at the way he introduced himself to the band.

The fact that Kurt let him in at all is nothing short of a miracle.

After splashing and thrashing around for a while, they settle back into their chairs with their lemonade, flapping towels over their hair and laughing at the wimpy-sounding ice cream truck as it rolls by the front of Blaine's house, a broken version of The Entertainer tinkling away as it goes.

"I hope the freezer in that thing is in better shape than his sound system."

"You'd need to bring a bowl to the truck. Here's your liquid Choco Taco."

Blaine shivers at the idea and wraps his towel around his bare shoulders. "So, I'm trying to decide if I'm more offended than ever that everyone compared me to this douchebag."

"Well, in our defense, we only knew you from your show last year. And you played better than Doc. But you also showed off like Doc. You're a very athletic player, too and it just—"

"I walked into a powder keg and didn't even know it."

"Kurt survived Doc's abuse by getting better and better and plotting out this season. With Doc gone, he was going to shine. He was going to lead the way we should have been led. Doc was an ass to everyone – I moved to mellon because I just couldn't take him anymore."

"And then I show up and fuck it all up."

"And you brought rotten potatoes."

"I was—this sounds awful, but at Wapak, either I played big and wailing, or we'd fall apart. I was the glue."

"Yeah, we sort of don't need that – and you showed up acting like we did."

"Right. Jesus." Blaine dries his hair again – unnecessarily, but the cave of the towel seems comforting somehow. He pulls it down, leaving it in a puddle in his lap. "I feel like I should apologize to everyone about that."

"Water under the bridge. We've forgiven you. Well, we had..."

"See, I thought after band camp—I mean, Kurt and I were—things were changing. We were friends, I guess. Something was happening. I thought the trust was there and he'd get what I was doing."

"Well, he didn't. We didn't. That applause you heard after your little show was mostly freshman and sophomores – people that don't know the history."

"I wasn't trying to hurt him. I just wanted to make things better."

"You need to tell him that. Because, Maynard—that was—man, I like you and all. You're cool. You're fun and your talent is sick, but what were you thinking? That was just a dick move, pulling that in front of everybody. Let's not even start on how insensitive it was of Jonesy."

"I thought—and she agreed—we just—we knew it'd sound amazing. His solo was so smooth and sultry and fucking beautiful, but the arrangement needed something. Kurt wasn't lacking – the whole of it was and that guitar solo in the original is just—it's killer."

"Well, it backfired. And worse? It sounded amazing. If you two can get over this...thing you have going on – and don't think I don't notice that there's more to it than hurt egos – it's going to bring the house down at every stadium we play."

"There's nothing going on between us."

"Bullshit."

"There's not!" Blaine is firm and sure and he looks over at Mike and he's not so sure and firm because something was happening and that's the aching part of this all that he'd just rather ignore. But Mike is staring square at it. Fucker. "Okay, fine. Another reason I thought this duet would be cool was so he and I could spend some more time together. Practicing. And—practicing."

"Ah-ha!"

"Shut up. He's—nothing's happening. He doesn't even see me." Mike side eyes him and slugs back the rest of his watered-down lemonade as though he knows Blaine has more to say. Which he does. "We slept in the same bunk two nights at band camp."

"Wait, what?"

"We—okay, I have a thing with thunderstorms and that night it stormed so bad? I was losing my shit. And he—he came to my bunk and held me and we practiced the fingerings for stand tunes until we fell asleep."

"It only stormed one night."

"Yeah, so the next night we just were lying there talking and—then it was morning."

"You just slept?"

"Yeah, man. Just slept. And talked. And it was—" Blaine grabbed another cookie and took an angry bite, unsure whose head he was biting off, but he was glad it tasted like chocolate chips. "—Mike, you can't tell anyone. I really, really like him."

"You do know that's mutual, right?"

"What? Psh. No. He's—no. I mean, he's sweet as hell when we're alone and when I'm not being a jackass, but—no. He's out of my league."

"Oh, he is not." Blaine looks at Mike whose expression is more serious now than it has been this entire conversation. "You need to work this out. Not just for the band. But for you because the two of you could do amazing things together. Musically, personally. The sparks that fly between you two aren't just sparks of anger."

"Well. That's—thank you. Very alluring and all, but I'd like to tackle one mess at a time."

"And the first mess is?"

"Getting his trust back. For the band."

"Right. For the band."

"Shut up."