"What took you so long" Wes prods him lightly in the ribs, keeping his wide eyes trained on the backs of the cheerleaders heads. "You missed out on David managing to fall over a clump of grass."

"It wasn't a clump of grass, it was a rock, or something."

"Whatever!" Wes finally peels his eyes away from the girls to look over at David incredulously, "You're just too pompous to admit that you're clumsy."

"I'm not pompous!" David puts a hand to his heart in feigned shock, "Blaine, tell him I'm not-"

"I can't believe you fell over a clump of grass," Blaine laughs, shaking his head and relaxing slightly into his seat. These two seemed to be good at settling Blaine's nerves, even if they could be annoying as all hell sometimes. "And you're definitely not pompous, except for the whole pinky thing when you're drinking tea, that is, just a tad-"

"Ha! See!" Wes points at his friend in triumph, David giving Blaine a very good 'how-could-you' face before he returns to arguing about which cheerleader is better, Wes, it seems, has taken a particular shining to a dark haired girl whose face Blaine can't see. He sighs, smiles slightly to himself and watches as the players walk out onto the field.

The McKinley football team, as it turns out, are actually pretty good at football. Blaine figures this out about fifteen minutes in because this side of the bleachers seems to be doing a lot more cheering than the other. He claps along politely for the most part, listens to Wes and David's running commentary of the cheerleaders and picks at a loose thread on his jumper.

"... don't even know why so many of them are blonde, it's weird. Woah! Hello, Blaine's boy is in the house!"

Blaine's eyes snap up, first to stare at a chirpy Wes and David, and then to follow their gazes down to the group of cheerleaders on the sideline. They're facing the crowd now, clapping neatly in sync and smiling broadly, several of them belting out chants that Blaine can't quite make out. He scans the line carefully until his eyes come to an abrupt stop, honing in on the very centre of the line.

His heart seems to stop beating for just a second.

Oh, wow.

The boy claps along with girls before raising his arms above his head, a slightly crooked smile on his pointed face and his chestnut hair pushed away from his face neatly. His eyes shine even from a distance, and Blaine is pretty sure he's never seen anybody quite like him before.

He watches as the boy moves gracefully through an obviously well practised routine, still smiling crookedly up at the audience as girls around him continue to chant loudly. He's gorgeous.

Blaine is going to die. He blinks quickly at this realisation, snapping his eyes back to his shoes and exhaling heavily. He's sitting at a high school football game in Ohio for Christ's sake, he can't just go gaping at other guys around here, in fact, he's lucky he's even made it the whole twenty minutes into the game that he has without just getting up and leaving.

He can't do this. They'll kill him.

"... and then we can paint rainbows all over his walls and walk around his house with maracas."

"Or maybe we could, I dunno, get a horse from... somewhere."

Blaine looks over at Wes and David slowly, keeping his face expressionless as he listens to the two of them plot happily with one another. He doesn't understand them. At all.

People often question Blaine's 'obtuse' choice of friendship, asking how he can possibly manage to tolerate the pair of them at the best of times. Blaine's answer more often than not entails something along the lines of 'They're always there for me,' and 'sometimes a little crazy in your life is just what you need.'

Maybe that's why Blaine is here, sitting with his hands still stuffed into his pockets looking absolutely petrified by everything around him, with Wes and David bickering like an old married couple next to him. Because being a bit crazy can be good sometimes, right?

He finally works up the courage to look away from his shoes, glancing around at the surrounding people quickly before turning back in the vague direction of the football game. Nobody seems to even notice he's there. And why would they? They don't even know his name, or anything about him for that matter.

He doesn't need to be scared. He doesn't. He shouldn't.

"You look like you accidentally ate peanuts again," Wes waves a hand in front of his face, "without the swelling of course. You alright?"

Blaine turns to look at his friends, because he isn't really sure what the answer to that question is. "I think so," he says at last, turning back to the game and smiling just the tiniest bit. Wes seems to find his answer satisfactory, because within a few moments he's back to discussing something to do with horses and paint colours with David. Blaine makes a note to keep his eyes on all the horses around Westerville for a while.

He manages to actually watch the game for a whole to minutes this time around, before his chin is resting in his palms and his eyes have managed to sneak their way back over to the boy cheerleader, who is now standing off to the side of the chanting girls, hands on his hips and head tilted slightly to the side. With him, stands the same dark haired girl Wes had been admiring earlier, and a blonde girl with a ridiculously pretty face.

He stares at the trio's profiles for quite a while, watches the tap of the boy's fingers on his hip and the flex of his arm muscles when he shifts from on leg to the other. It's only when he actually manages to tear his eyes away from the boy for long enough to really take in the appearance of his companions, that it hits him full in the face, like being dropped into iced water.

The blonde girl's eyes flick up to the crowd, scanning the sea of people for just long enough that Blaine can catch the shining bronze of her irises.

Quinn.

He stops breathing in that moment, his eyes widening and his hands finally leaving his pockets to grip hard at the rough edge of the wooden bench, turning his knuckles white as his eyes flick to the other girl, who says something Blaine can't hear from up here, she laughs, turns to Quinn and smiles broadly.

Blaine's fingers subconsciously reach for the ragged string around his wrist.

"Hey, guys?" Blaine keeps his eyes trained on the group of cheerleaders as he speaks, "Where exactly is McKinley again?"

He can feel the pair of them staring at him, "It's in Lima, why?"

Blaine nods slowly, fingers toying with his piece of string. His throat suddenly tight and stupidly dry.

"You sure you're alright, Blaine?" Wes nudges him gently.

This is all really weird. "Yeah," he clears his throat, "I'm fine."

And then suddenly, he's smiling like an idiot. He wants to get up and jump over the fence and just crush the pair of them into the tightest hug he can manage, pick them up and spin them around and squeal like he's five again. But he won't, not yet anyway. He watches as both the girls link their arms through the chestnut haired boys arm and drag him off back towards the group of cheerleaders still dancing.

By the time the game has ended, Blaine is pretty sure that McKinley has won by an obscene margin, the crowd around him laughing loudly and cheering as they walk down the bleachers and back in the direction of the parking lot. Wes and David stand, and look down at him expectantly.

"You getting up? Or was that head cheerleader a lot prettier than we first thought."

"Oh my god! Wes! Don't- just..." Blaine flushes to the tips of his ears. "You guys go ahead, I have some people I need to talk to."

"Oh, I see how it is then." Wes puffs out his chest and puts his hands on his hips, nose in the air, "Are we not interesting enough-"

"A little too interesting, actually. Calm down, would you?" Blaine laughs lightly at Wes, "It's not like I'm declaring the end of our friendship just because I'm not going to walk you to your car, princess."

Wes suddenly smiles so brightly it's frightening, "Princesses! Why didn't I think of that! David, come on!"

"Oh, here we go." David rolls his eyes and winks at Blaine as Wes bounds down the bleachers and out of sight, "see you at school."

And then they're gone, and Blaine is pretty much alone on the bleachers, with the exception of the couple quite engrossed in each other's faces behind him. He puts his chin back into his hands for a moment, watching the huddle of cheerleaders at the centre of the field as they laugh and fuss over their ponytails.

The gorgeous boy is still standing with Santana and Quinn, at the centre of the cheerleaders, speaking loudly and waving hi hands about for several minutes until finally they all start to disperse. Blaine stands quickly, jumping down the three rows of benches in front of him and jumping the low fence easily.

He starts walking briskly in the direction of the group, now spread over a much larger area than before, scanning across the countless faces until he hears it.

"Oh my god, Blaine?"

His head whips around to the right, where Santana stands stock still and wide eyed, behind her, Quinn and the boys footsteps falter as they turn to look at Santana.

And then Blaine is on the ground.

Santana squeals so loudly in his ears they start to ring, her arms wrapped around him on the ground and her legs kicking excitedly next to his. She brings her hands up to his face, cupping his cheeks and sitting back just far enough to look at him properly, "You came back!" she squeals before pressing her lips to his forehead, his nose, his cheeks and finally his mouth.

Her lips taste lip cherry lip gloss and Gatorade. "Yeah," he says lamely.

"Oh my god," She sits up properly then, straddling his hips and turning to look behind her, "Quinn! It's Blaine!"

"What?"

"Blaine! Like, Blaine Blaine!"

Blaine scrabbles up onto his elbows just in time to be flattened back into the ground as Quinn practically throws herself on top of him, her eyes sparkling in the spotlights as she smiles at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squealing just as loudly as Santana. His ears are definitely ringing now.

"Where have you been hiding?" Quinn asks him when she finally lets go of him, sitting back on her knees in the grass, Santana is still perched happily on his hips, weird.

"In Hell," Blaine answers quietly, smiling up at his friend before he starts to laugh, tears stinging just behind his eyes. Oh, god, he's missed them so much.

"It can't have been that bad," Santana plays with the string on his hoodie, "You look like something pulled out of a fifties movie, it's cute."

Blaine blinks up at her, "It was pretty bad, actually." He smiles at her and tries again to sit up properly. "I was just starting to think I'd never find you guys, and I must admit, the last place I would've looked was a freaking cheer leading squad!"

"A lot has changed," Quinn chirps beside him.

"You can say that again," he replies.

It's at that moment that an unfamiliar voice cuts through the trio's reunion, "I'm going to admit as terrible as your so called dating habits are Santana, you do have far better taste than most of the girls in this school."

All three of them turn to look up at the cheerleader Blaine had been admiring earlier, with his arms crossed over his chest and a playful smirk on his face.

"You've got to be joking, right?" Santana glances back at Blaine and laughs, "His clothes actually fit and he's got like, the most amazing personality in the entire world, obviously gay."

Blaine practically chokes on his own tongue, coughing and spluttering as he looks up at an amused Santana, who thumps him twice on the back before looking up at the cheerleader. Blaine is going to die. How the hell did she even -

"You're right about the clothes, can't speak so much for the personality though," the boy takes several steps forward until Blaine has to look right up at him, right into eyes the colour of spring.

"Blaine, this is Kurt, our resident pain in the ass head cheerleader." Santana wraps an arm around one of of Kurt's calves and giggles. "Kurt, this is Blaine, the one Quinn never shuts up about."

"Oh wow, hi! Nice to finally put a name to a face." Kurt smiles widely at him and Blaine feels like his whole body has turned to lead. "So girls," he turns to face the two other cheerleaders sprawled across the ground with Blaine, "I'm pretty sure you said that if I managed to pull off that Cupie perfectly you'd be taking me to Breadstix, and since my neck is still in tact..."

"I totally forgot about that," Santana lets go of Kurt's leg and looks up at him with a furrowed brow, "can Blaine come?"

"You sound like a five year old," Kurt shakes his head and laughs, "A very sexually driven five year old."

"Please Kurt! You'll love him, seriously, he's like a big ball of adorable."

Blaine snorts, "You've only seen me like, two seconds and you're already convinced that I'm still a big- what?"

"Come on, Kurt! Look at him!"

Blaine really doesn't know what he's gotten himself into now, between the girl still sitting on his hips, Quinn's amazing smile pressing into him with frightening intensity and this guy standing there, raking his eyes over him with an expression that Blaine doesn't really understand.

"Okay, yes. He can come! You're paying anyway, and who knows, maybe Blaine here can inject a little normal into our conversation." Kurt smiles in a way that Blaine thinks is supposed to be friendly, and the leaden feeling his muscles seems to multiply by ten.

"Yay!" Santana finally jumps up off of him, leaps over his legs and presses a kiss to Kurt's cheek before skipping off towards what Blaine presumes is the change rooms.

"She's such a handful," Quinn sighs, "see what you left me with, Blaine? A little girl obsessed with string bracelets and after school dance classes. Worst part is, she can be so clumsy when she's excited."

"You can say that again," Kurt laughs lightly, keeping his eyes on Blaine as he helps Quinn to her feet. "So, Blaine Anderson." he smirks down at him, "Up for a fun filled evening of pasta and gossiping about Santana's sex life?"

Blaine laughs nervously, "Yeah, I guess."

"Good," Kurt offers him a pale hand and smiles that same crooked smile he'd been wearing earlier, "Because I'm probably going to need a little normal when I spend all day with these crazies." He jabs a thumb in the direction of Quinn's back as she strolls in the direction of the change rooms, twirling occasionally on her toes. Blaine takes Kurt's hand after few seconds of silence, his skin is warm and smooth, and it makes Blaine's skin tingle.

Maybe football isn't so bad, after all.