For a few moments as Blaine awoke, he could almost forget. Tucked under
his afghan against the early-morning chill that blanketed San Francisco, he could imagine that the warmth was not his own; unfortunately there wasnt anything he could do to make the bed feel less empty. There was no sleeping form beside him, no sandy curls on the pillow, no thigh pressed against his own...nothing but himself and the slight roughness of acrylic fibers against cotton sheets.
He still didnt understand what had happened. One day he and Austin had been perfectly happy, cooking together after work, picking out clothes for each other, bringing home flowers just because, and the next Austin packed up, tossed out some platitudes about how it wasnt Blaine and he wasnt ready for something serious and needed to take time for himself and he hoped they could be friends. Then with a key on the counter and a disinterested "goodbye" over his shoulder, he had been gone while Blaine stood in the middle of the living room, confused and numb. even now, two weeks later, Blaine couldnt see where he had gone wrong. Things had been going so well...
He wished it were an unfamiliar pattern, but by now it was all too standard. This was how things always ended - with a sudden departure and vague, dumb reasons they could have just talked about if his boyfriend ever bothered to tell him something was wrong.
The apartment - their apartment - felt too empty. Too quiet.

He glanced at the clock and reluctantly dragged himself out of bed, shivering as his feet hit cool hardwood. His pajama bottoms dragged slightly as he padded into the kitchen to start breakfast - they had never dragged when Austin wore them. Blaine sighed deeply - it was his own fault for picking a man he could share clothes with; even his own held painful memories now. He would go shopping this weekend and these pajamas along with too many of his formerly-favourite shirts would be relegated to the box int he back of his closet where he kept the relics of relationships past: two ties Eric had left behind, a copy of Pet Sounds he had accidentally forgotten to return to Ron (though his love of the album had required that he buy a second copy because he wasnt about to go without listening to anything so amazing for the rest of his life - no man was worth that), the book Peter had given him, and a small pin with the image of a warbler he hadnt been able to leave in Ohio when he moved the first time.
He scowled at the cake pan on the counter, still half-full of crumbly dessert after he had spent much of last night curled up on the couch with nothing but the pan, a fork, and Karen Carpenter to ward off the vacant silence of the apartment. He should have put it away properly last night - it wouldnt be as good now, half-stale. Still, he pulled plastic wrap from the drawer and carefully covered it; if he cut off the edges it should still be edible.
Blaine fixed himself coffee and toast then carried them to his favourite spot in the apartment. The bay window in the living room had sold him on the place practically from the moment he walked in. From his chair he could watch the Castro come alive each weekday - or stagger home to bed on weekend mornings. Dozens of men in wide-lapeled polyester suits meandered along Noe Street, up the hill toward Market and the trolley cars that would carry them to work. They were the only ones up and about for now, shopkeepers would follow later after he had finished his breakfast and was on his way. He had lucked into not having a class first period this year, and he didnt look forward to going back to that in September. he might have been used to beating the rising executives to work, but that didnt mean he enjoyed it - especially when the alternative was taking a few extra minutes in the morning to stop, breathe, and watch the world.
He would never have been able to imagine a place like this growing up - no one could have. Even a decade ago, knowing Polk Gulch was out there, he couldnt have pictured anywhere this open. Leather daddies walked around in chaps in broad daylight for crying out loud, and no one minded. all up and down the sidewalk at any hour of the day or night he could hear men whose voices his father would have considered a sure sign of sickness - giggling and calling out together, unashamed as they swapped tales of hot men at bath houses and amateur drag nights.

It felt like he knew all of them. He couldnt say 2/3/ of their names because hed never known them, but they were all familiar. All family - they understood each other, the hardships they had faced growing up across the country before making pilgrimage to San Francisco, driven by the need for somewhere to put down roots and grow in a safe, nourishing environment.


Some of the men here had fared even worse than he had: marriages that had ended in contentious divorces, their names getting dragged through the mud all over their hometowns, children they were forbidden from ever contacting again...Hed been so close to that same path. But for Peter- he liked to think he had paid the help forward, brought a few of the men hed dated back from the brink of making terrible mistakes because they were afraid, but really it had all been thanks to their own strength and bravery.
He wondered how many other men were out there, stuck in Ohio - or Kansas or Wyoming or Florida - and feeling miserable, wishing they could do anything to make these feelings go away. How many had families who derided this beautiful, welcoming city as "the land of fruits and nuts" and scared the men away from even dreaming that there might be a place for them. How long so many of them had waited before packing their entire lives into a single suitcase or an overstuffed backpack and board one of the dozen Greyhound buses that arrived every day, striking out on their own in search of anything that would feel better than the lies they had been living up until that point.
It didnt make him miss Austin any less, but the injection of a little perspective did help buoy his spirits enough to down the last of his coffee and push himself up from the chair to get ready for work. There would be another man for him - and even if that man wasnt here in the city yet, he would be soon.
* * * * *
If there was anything Blaine had learned from his nine years as a teacher, it was that one could never underestimate the power of dumb bureaucratic rules to ruin things. He could handle notes about what was or wasnt age-appropriate music for his students, though he liked to point out that they were teenagers and probably listened to "Afternoon Delight" on their own time anyway and certainly were doing more than any disco song was allowed to sing about, and his face didnt even fall anymore when the assistant principal - a man with a high-and-tight haircut and no sense of fun as though he were perpetually stuck in a bootcamp where singing was strictly forbidden - tried to question whether music was really "necessary" for students to succeed; he thought it was sad that the man had so little appreciation for the power of a songs emotion and how much that could mean especially to teenagers who didnt really know how to express themselves yet, but it didnt faze him anymore.

But even now, he could not fathom why on earth he needed to be present at the school - and in his classroom - during finals. Students didnt even come to his classroom during the last three days of school, thanks to an adjusted schedule to give time preference to non-elective classes, and aside from conducting the choir during graduation his obligations for the year were completely done. His grades were calculated - not hard since only Music Theory had any kind of written exam - and paperwork complete, and yet there he was forced to sit.

Alone. In silence. For seven hours.

He couldnt imagine anything he would want to do less right now. At least if he were allowed to sit in his empty apartment, he could sing awhile...but he was pretty sure the students wouldnt like it very much if they were disturbed in the middle of their chemistry finals by a rousing rendition of "My Eyes Adored You."

He just couldnt wrap his head around where he had gone wrong. Was it that they moved too fast? It had been his idea to move in together, sure, but things had been going so well and they spent practically every night together anyway. Had he done something? Or not done something? And why couldnt Austin have at least told him before just leaving like that? They could have talked about it, and he would have done...whatever it took.

His effort didnt usually do him much good, but he always tried. He had tried with Jim, the terrified boy hed met at a party on-campus and coaxed gently into self-acceptance, only for Jim to discover he was so inspired by the help Blaine had offered that he wanted to do the same for others. He had tried with Ron, but the divide between a first-year graduate student and a first-year teacher was just too much, as it turned out, and things had fizzled out quickly over his inability to go out to parties every night (even if he had wanted to, which he hadnt). Attempts to move Ron out of so many alcohol-filled circles had been fruitless and, apparently, "patronizing as hell." He had tried even harder a few years later, and on the surface things with Eric had seemed like they had all the potential in the world - he was a second-year teacher, so they werent in such different places in their lives as he had been with Ron, but Eric had been so inspired by the Stonewall Riots that he had decided to move to New York and "be the change."

He had been tempted at first, so inspired by stories of men fighting back, but any way he looked at it, if he was going to be the change he wanted to see in the world, that meant staying put and fighting for San Franciscos own Stonewall - there had been a few things that came close already, and he so wanted to be there to be part of it when the gay liberation powder keg exploded over his city. In reality it hadnt been quite so incendiary but was still more magical than he could ever have expected, so he couldnt regret not going with the young man. Not now, anyway.

Still, it was hard not to feel like his best was never good enough for the men he met.

A knock on the doorframe shook him from his revery, and he blinked to try to clear away his thoughts as he turned to see Randy standing at the threshold. "Are you as bored as I am?" The art teachers tall frame filled the doorway as his bass voice rumbled through the room. Blaine wasnt sure he had ever met someone whose speech could be simultaneously so sibilant and deep in his chest before, and he had to admit that watching people who meet the man for the first time could be fun - watching them try to figure out what to make of him, deciding whether he was gay because of the pronunciation and mannerisms or not because of his size and voice...as though gay men couldnt come in every conceivable size. Though the man did make him feel shorter than usual, he had to admit...but at least he made everyone feel short. It was almost better that way.

"More," Blaine replied. "You at least have portfolios to grade."

Randy shrugged. "I saw all the pieces once already."

"Then why do it?" he asked, narrowing his eyes a little. Hed always thought the reason for a portfolio was to see growth and development over the year and grade based on the progression, so that students who started out far behind but worked hard and improved wouldnt be penalized even if their work wasnt as good as the born artists. That was how he tried to grade his students, anyway, but it was easier to see with visual arts.

"So I have a final grade to enter," Randy replied. "Mostly Im just packing up all the halfway-decent supplies to take home for the summer. Last year all the oil pastels went missing - who needs 28 sets that are already beaten to hell?"

"Someone who plans on being prolific over the summer?" Blaine suggested, and Randy chuckled.

"Good - your sense of humours intact. I thought Id find you in here moping over the infant," he stated, a raise of his eyebrow making clear that he was fully aware what Blaine had been doing when he arrived.

Blaine shifted. "He wasnt an infant," he protested. "He was almost 28."

"Twenty-seven is hardly the age for a boyfriend of a 36-year-old. Everyone likes a good piece of chicken now and then, but-"

"Thats not what it was," Blaine stated firmly. There were men who liked their boys young, usually guys he couldnt imagine ever wanting anything to do with - old, unattractive, interested only in themselves, using handsome blond 18-year-olds who didnt know any better as a status symbol. He couldnt imagine ever doing something like that, certainly not to someone vulnerable. Young men like that should be helped, taught, guided, protected...and Austin hadnt been that young. Twenty-eight in the Castro was halfway to Old.

"Okay." Randy held up his hands in surrender. "I get it. The pretty young thing was your soulmate...who left you with no warning or reason." When Blaine didnt seem amused, the mans expression softened a little. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Thanks, but I dont think-"

"By which you mean you plan to wallow all night with a Carole King album and a Betty Crocker chocolate cake you eat right out of the pan," Randy surmised.

Blaine couldnt lie, but he couldnt bring himself to admit that the description bore a striking resemblance to his previous evening. And that there was still half a cake left... "There...was no Carole King album," he replied, his protest sounding weak even to his own ears.

"Carpenters then?"

"...A Song for You," he confirmed, and Randy smirked in victory.

"Not tonight. Youre coming with me - youve gotta get out of your apartment for a night. Meet a hunky man for some fun."

Blaine blushed and tried to look past Randy to be sure no one was in the hall to overhear. He didnt hide who he was, at least 2/3 or so of the teachers definitely knew he was gay, but it wasnt the sort of thing a person could announce around children, even teenaged-ones.

...A few students knew. Ones he thought needed to know, ones who were struggling or scared or trying to figure out where they belonged. It helped them, he could tell, and of all the parts of his job he enjoyed, creating an environment where students could be safe like that was the one he enjoyed the most and wouldnt trade for anything in the world.

He wondered sometimes how different things could have been if hed had someone like that growing up, if there had been a teacher at Dalton who was different, someone he could have talked to, an adult who could have shown him it was possible to live a full life somewhere other than prison or an institution despite loving another man. He would never have been the one to find the teacher first, he knew Kurt would have sussed it out long before he could have, but he also knew Kurt would have insisted on taking him. Maybe he could have avoided the bulk of his mistakes that way. At the very least, he could have spent fewer years feeling miserable, and if he could save the kids he taught even a day of that agony, he would tell them anything that would help them. Things were different now than they had been in 1959, for which he was grateful every single day, and he couldnt wait until the next generation didnt even know to be afraid. Maybe the day wasnt here quite yet, but by the time these current students were out of college and teaching, passing their knowledge and confidence on to students, they could be just like every other teenager instead of a closed-off shell of fear and self-loathing. By the 80s, they could put that painful mess behind them all and focus on better, more important, more normal things.

But that didnt mean he wanted to deal with the rammifications of Assistant Principal Meltzer wandering by and lecturing them on not polluting young minds with sexual exploits. Blaine wondered if the man had any idea how many sexual exploits the students were already having. Free love - like gay liberation - was here to stay.

"I dont need you to help me find someone."

"I know. But if I dont drag you out, you wont go. Twin Peaks at 9?"

The bar wouldnt be too busy yet and might still be in that awkward mostly-dead time where a handful of men tried awkwardly to check each other out from perches across the room but no one was drunk enough yet - or bored enough yet - to contemplate anything more than looking; the pre-rush crowd was kind of slim pickings. But considering they still had to be at work in the morning, Blaine nodded. "Sure. Okay. Sounds fun actually." He wasnt sure it sounded fun exactly, but he would try to convince himself of it until it worked. Hed done it before with a reasonable amount of success.

Besides - it wasnt like someone cared if he was home at a particular time.

* * * * *

The Castro didnt really begin to come alive until after the sun went down. That was when it transformed from a nice little neighbourhood, the sort of place where people new to town paid relatively little for turn-of-the-century homes that had been abandoned by their former working-class Irish owners as they fled for the suburbs, to the sort of place people actively fled from. During the day - at least if one avoided the belly-dancing boys on the corner of 18th, which most did - it was easy to envision what the place might have looked like back when it was still just Eureka Valley; but at night, as the Castro Theatre marquis gleamed with red lights and men streamed from bar to bar in search of the best time, it was somewhere entirely different.

Blaine wove his way through the sea of men with jeans just as tight as his own. He was never sure hed look quite as good as they did in them - he didnt dislike his body generally, but when everyone was a head taller than him and so much broader...he had gotten his shoulders and biceps into a shape he liked, appearing bulkier than they were because he had managed to keep his waist trim, but something about the men just exuded rough masculine sexuality in a way he was never able to master. They were cowboys, the type of man who could tame the west and hogtie livestock and do all sorts of things he would just feel silly trying. Most of them probably didnt even know musicals or old movies - that aspect of culture had seemingly stayed underground when everything else rose into public life, as though despite being the stereotype of homosexuality that everyone knew it was too embarrassing to embrace openly.

It was almost funny sometimes if he thought about it: he had spent most of his early years trying to seem more manly to avoid being seen as a homosexual, and here he was in his mid-thirties feeling like he wasnt nearly macho enough for gay standards. He didnt seem working-class enough to pull off the right attitude - and he wasnt. Still he had to wonder what his father would have said about men like the ones who surrounded him now; it was hard to argue that the men who looked like they were right out of an outdoors magazine suffered from an overly-close relationship with their mothers. They certainly didnt fit any of the old theories of gender-inversion, that was for sure, but could it be overcompensation when it was adhering to the popular gay style? He guessed the man would probably say they were all trying to distance themselves from their clear sickness, creating almost a mass delusion of normalcy as part of a coping mechanism.

His father could say what he wanted. It wasnt an illness anymore - it wasnt even illegal in California thanks to the law changing last year. The police didnt always like to acknowledge that, but it was leaps and bounds better than it had been before.

He paused at the front of the Twin Peaks, a bar sitting proudly at the top of the hill where Market crossed Castro Street and 17th. From the main thoroughfare where the trolley stopped, anyone could see the bars patrons through plate glass windows that curved around both sides of the establishment. Back in Polk Gulch it had all been heavy wooden doors and boarded-up windows to hide everyone inside, conceal whatever might be going on inside. He looked back down the hill in the direction from which hed come and smiled as he saw the sidewalks filling with men beginning their evenings - grabbing a quick bite to eat with friends before making their way to bars and finishing the evening doing all manner of raunchy things at the baths.

It wasnt his idea of an ideal night, groping through dark, sticky rooms until his hands met anonymous flesh, but they seemed to enjoy it. He preferred to know the name of the man he was having sex with, but he seemed to be an aberration that way.

This was a mistake - he should just go home and eat the rest of the cake. He was just going to spend the entire night missing Austin and hoping to see him out so they could talk and maybe even reconcile... he glanced inside to see if Randy was there yet, because he hated to think of his friend sitting alone in the bar for a couple hours because he had weaseled out of the engagement; his eyes met the mans broad figure settled in among the men who looked equally fantastic in their western shirts. Now he had a dilemma: could he in good conscience leave even though he knew Randy was already there and therefore couldnt claim to have missed him somehow? Or did he at least have to go in and pretend to make an excuse to leave? The latter never worked out the way he planned, which meant he could either leave now or be stuck for at least a few hours-

His hesitation cost him; Randy glanced up and caught sight of him, a grin of recognition flashing across the mans face. He couldnt very well leave now. Forcing down a sigh and pasting on the best smile he could muster, he pulled open the door and sidled onto the bar stool beside Randys. "Sorry, am I late?" he asked, though he knew he wasnt, as he flagged down the bartender and held up one finger to request a beer. He had discovered, through a lengthier process of trial and error than he wanted to admit to, the precise amount of beer he could handle over what period of time - one if he was out for a couple hours, two if he was out four or more. Any more and he would start to degenerate into a man he had gladly left behind a decade ago...but any less and a night out looking for a man at a bar was even more awkward than it had to be.

The Budweiser was nice and cold, but he had to admit he missed Coors. Nowhere sold it anymore, since the boycott, and even though he agreed with what people were saying - and he liked the idea of the community standing up and saying they would use what little force they had to effect change - he missed having the option. But he wasnt about to support anyone who made their employees take a polygraph to prove they werent gay before they were hired. That was just ridiculous...and cruel. And so backwards - they werent in 1950 anymore, they were in the last quarter of the century now.

"See? Isnt this better than sitting around in the dark with the Carpenters?" Randy prodded. Blaine wasnt sure he could say that, at least not yet, but he didnt want to be petulant or rude.

"Yes - thanks," he replied with the best smile he could.

"No one ever went wrong using a man to get over his troubles. Now lets pick one out for you."

"I dont know-" Blaine started to protest weakly, but Randy swiveled on his stool to face the room, back against the bartop.

"Lets see. You like blonds, right?"

"It doesnt matter."

"Really?" Randy eyed him sideways. "The last two have been."

"The four before that werent," Blaine pointed out. If anything most of them had been in the light-chesnut family, but that wasnt at all what he looked for in a boyfriend. Some men, sure, they had types and stuck to them pretty closely, but for him it was much more about an attitude, a style, an intangible-

He froze as he caught sight of familiar blond curls across the bar. He had spent hours fighting to remind himself that the fantasy of finding Austin here was unlikely to be fulfilled, and yet there he was - as handsome as ever, rakish grin lighting up everything Blaine could see, striped tshirt accentuating every line of his trim figure as well as his pale blue eyes...he looked even better than Blaine remembered. He could feel his chest aching even at just the sight of him; he had missed him so much, so intensely, every moment of every day for two weeks now, and now with the man hed loved for three months right in front of him-

"Whats-" Randy started to ask, then caught sight of where Blaines eyes were fixed. "No. You cant."

"Of course I can," Blaine replied. He drew in a deep breath to steel his nerves; when that didnt work, he downed the rest of his beer and hoped that might help.

"Its a really bad idea, man, hes moved on - and so should you. Cmon, well find you one of the six dozen other guys here tonight-"

"You dont understand. He just left before we could even talk about things," Blaine pointed out. "If we talk, we can work things out. All of its just a misunderstanding, and I owe it to myself - and to him, to what we had together - to do everything I can to fight to win him back. Now," he set his empty bottle on the counter and hopped off the stool. He felt a little more unsteady than hed expected, but he could do this. He had to do this. "Ill be back. Ideally with a man wholl probably need a beer, so you may want to order it now." Empowered by a strong sense of determination, he strode through the chairs until he had reached the blond whose eyes still made him melt. "Austin."

Austin looked up from his conversation with one of the guys Blaine saw around all the time but had never actually met, eyes widening in surprise. "Blaine. What are you-"

"We need to talk."

"No we dont," Austin replied uncomfortably, his eyes darting to one side nervously.

"Of course we do," Blaine countered, feeling bolder by the moment. He was on the side of right. A person didnt just walk out of a relationship without a reason, and whatever those reasons were they could talk about them and fix them - together. He just needed to know what had made Austin unhappy enough to move out in the first place, and then hed change whatever it was so they could start again. "Obviously something went wrong, but we can fix it, Austin, I know we can - I love you, and youre so-"

"Hey gorgeous," came a familiar voice, and Blaine blinked as Paul approached from the bar, two drinks in hand. He hadnt seen the man in quite awhile, but time had been kind to him - he certainly didnt look three years older, not with his immaculate physique and light brown hair that held the perfect shaggy shape all day without any fuss. He wasnt sure he could describe Paul as an ex-boyfriend, exactly, but they had certainly spent time together and known each other intimately once upon a time.

Blaine blushed and grinned at the compliment, coming from someone so physically perfect. "Hi Paul - you look...wow. You look amazing, how have you-"

Pauls head turned to him too quickly, a look of confusion turning to surprise as he looked down at Blaine. "Oh hi..." he said. He seemed perplexed for a moment as though he was trying to remember Blaines name but failing. "Hows it going?" He handed a beer to Austin, then his free hand snaked around the mans back and down a little, cupping- Blaine wasnt sure whether to feel sick or furious. He struggled to come up with a response - any response at all - but came up empty.

It was Austin who spoke first: "We dont have anything to talk about, Blaine."

So they were- He tried so hard not to let his face fall, but he could feel it starting to anyway. He didnt understand- he and Austin had only been apart a couple weeks, didnt the man feel even half as much loss as he did? And with another ex...it made the entire thing feel so much more like a betrayal. He tried to force a faint smile to prove he was okay, that there just wasnt anything to talk about, like seeing ones ex-boyfriend groping another ex-boyfriends ass in a crowded bar was completely normal.

Here it was, he tried to remind himself. He was sure it wasnt the first time hed witnessed such a thing, just not normally about his own boyfriends. There were plenty of men in this room who had gone through what he was going through.

That didnt help. It just made him angrier.

He managed to utter, "Right. Thanks, um- take care, you two, and...have fun," before turning and slinking back across the bar, past Randy on his perch and out the door onto the street. The night air was refreshing after the crowds in the bar, and he filled his lungs with the cool freshness three times before he started back down the hill toward home. He was sure Randy was chasing after him, trying to find out what happened - maybe hed seen, but Blaine was sure he still had questions, wanted to know the blow-by-blow...he heard his name ghost over the crowd of indifferent men but didnt turn around. He didnt want to talk about it - right now or ever. He wanted to just-

He didnt know. But talking about it was definitely not going to help. For one thing, he doubted hed be able to say anything without picturing his ex-boyfriend fucking his-...other ex-boyfriend. He sped up as he turned the corner, trying to outrun the nausea that seemed to claw just at the edges of his stomach.

* * * * *

Blaine wasnt sure where the night went. One minute he was perched in his chair, afghan wrapped tightly around himself, a fresh cup of coffee beside him, and the next the sun was starting to peek over the townhouses across the street. The faint pinks and purples cast dusty shadows over the candy-coloured victorians, bathing white trimwork in its early-morning glow. Noe was silent beneath him, the last of the dancing boys and leather-clad men having long since decamped to somewhere with a bed, and Blaine sighed quietly to himself. Why did somewhere with so much potential to be beautiful have to be so rotten and dark so much of the time?

He wanted someone to love him half as hard as he loved them. Or, if not, he wished he could stop feeling so deeply. Hadnt that always been the problem? he chuckled wryly to himself. He jumped in too fast, fell too hard, felt too much, and then things didnt work and he couldnt figure out how to move on.

What if the problem was bigger than that? What if the problem was him? He didnt know anyone who had found a boyfriend to stick with over time, but he knew they had to exist - there were urban myths anyway - and he wanted to believe that kind of love was possible. He needed to believe it could happen. But what if it couldnt happen to him? He didnt know why, what could possibly be causing it, he liked to think he was at least an average boyfriend if not above-average - he loved to treat the people he loved and make them dinner and show how he felt, which hed always thought was how anyone would want to be treated, but somehow...

He didnt think that was it. Maybe it was self-centered to place the blame on something other than himself, but in a neighbourhood where everyone could have sex with everyone else at any hour of the day or night, it made it harder to keep someone close.

Maybe he just expected too much. Paul had told him that once - he expected too much from people, from places, from books, from songs, like the right one could fix all the problems of the world. He liked to believe they could. A single song had made everything in his life come together, a single place had made him feel safe enough, two men had brought him from a terrified boy into the man he was today. Tiny things could make a world of difference. Paul thought that was naive, though, that it put too much pressure on people and things so that he would always end up disappointed when they couldnt measure up.

Was that was this feeling was? Because instead of wonder at the beautiful colours of his beloved neighbourhood, all he felt was frustrated and boxed-in. The Castro was a place to find a lot of great things - acceptance, sex - but not to find love.

He had no idea where a man went for that. The only men hed known who had left San Francisco in search of something had been seeking political ideals, not romance, and he wasnt sure he could name more than three other places where gay men would even be available to date if he wanted. From what he could tell, New York was no different than here, just with colder winters and hotter summers.

He jumped as the phone rang, and for a moment he froze as he worried something awful had happened. No one ever called in the mornings. He reached over and picked up the receiver, taking a deep breath before asking, "Hello?"

"Hello, Blaine?"

He recognized the voice on the other end of the line but couldnt place it. "Yes...who is it?" he asked as he picked up the cradle and carried it over to his chair.

"Ted - Im sorry, I didnt wake you, did I? Last I knew you were teaching so I thought you might be out pretty early."

Even through his sleep-deprived fog and helplessness, Blaine managed a faint smile. "Hey, Ted. How are you? Its been awhile." He hadnt seen the fellow Mendicant in...at least five years, probably more like seven. Still, he wasnt surprised the man had been able to find him; the Mendicants - just like the Warblers before them - maintained an excellent book of records to help create a network of former acapella brethren. The Warblers list spanned literally centuries and the entire country, though Blaine had only bothered to keep tabs on the members who had been active the same time he had. The Mendicants, on the other hand, were so much newer and smaller that the list took up only a single page and was mostly confined to up and down the California coast. A few had moved east for work, and Fitz was meant to be somewhere down south these days, but it was an oddly comforting list of phone numbers to keep.

"Things are good. Hey, Id love to catch up, but I know its early and youve probably gotta get to work, but I have a question to ask you. Actually more like a favour for a friend of mine down here."

"Where is here?" Blaine asked. The last he knew Ted had moved to San Diego to do something with planes, but he had no idea if that was still the case.

"LA," Ted chuckled. "Anyway, a friend of mine is looking to get out of town until school starts back up in August, and he wanted me to see if I knew anyone who knew anyone who had a place in San Francisco they could rent him for three months."

"Really?" Blaine asked, because that seemed like a very strange and oddly specific favour. "Why?"

"Hes...I dont know. Hes fed up with West Hollywood." For almost a decade now, Blaine had seriously wondered how Ted wasnt gay because the man always seemed to have more homosexual friends than heterosexual ones. Plus he liked female musicians even more than Blaine did. Still, as best he could tell, Ted didnt have any latent feelings he was trying to shove down; for one thing, if he did Blaine was pretty sure Ted would just say so. Unless things had changed since the last time they had spoken, which was always possible, Blaine guessed.

"What do you mean?"

"He says its all the same people all the time, all in these incestuous circles of friends, obsessively trying to look better than the next guy fighting like a bunch of teenaged girls who want to date the same boy," Ted replied dismissively.

"Then heres the last place he should come," Blaine replied sullenly.

"Why?"

"Its just as bad here. I see the same three dozen people every day, the bars are always the same men, and every time you break up with someone you apparently have to worry about him sleeping with another ex-boyfriend. I bet theres not a man in this city that I dont know at least three people who know him. And they all dress the same, too, and look practically identical - pillars of muscle and boots and tight tshirts that just emphasize how much time they spend at the gym. Im convinced thats all any of them do - they dont work, just go to the gym, to dinner, to bars, to the baths." He knew he had to sound petty and overly dramatic, but once the words started flowing out he couldnt stop them. He wanted to love it here, he really did. He wanted to be able to just love that there could be a place like The Castro at all, because he remembered how big of a deal it had been to find somewhere like this, but today...

Maybe he was just outgrowing the neighbourhood. Maybe he wanted things that a place like this could never give him because any man he could fall in love with would always have too many other options to be able to settle down contentedly.

But if he didnt fit in here, he wasnt sure where else there might be for him. The world was getting better, more tolerant, but not by enough just yet to strike out for the middle of nowhere.

There was a long pause, then Ted began slowly, "Youre gonna think this sounds crazy, but what are you doing this summer?"

Blaine blinked, eyebrows lowering, not sure where exactly this was going. "Not much. There are some beaches in the area. Why?"

"Why dont the two of you just swap for the summer? It sounds like you need a break from things up there, he needs a break from things down here...if nothing else itll be a whole new city of men you havent been with yet. Might give you some perspective, maybe youll figure out somewhere you like better, and at the end of summer you can go back home and decide what you want to do."

It was the sort of crazy idea he would have ordinarily laughed off and graciously declined - though while helping Teds friend find somewhere to stay. But the thought of seeing Austin and Paul around all summer - or, worse, Austin or Paul with any of his other exes all summer, because he was under no illusions that the two men were soulmates or would last very long at all - made him queasy. And what exactly was he going to do for the next three months besides heading to the same bars every night where he already knew everyone anyway? Sit and wait for the Greyhound to bring a new young man for him from some remote area of the country? That made him sound pathetic.

"Let me think about it," he replied. The idea was too foolish to just jump into.

...He was pretty sure he was going to say yes. He just needed to think through all the reasons he shouldnt before choosing to ignore them.