Chapter Twenty One

"Mr Anderson, come back here this instant!"

The shout echoed, following, chasing, bouncing off the lead that invaded the walls and poisoned Blaine's head. He didn't stop.

He kept running, kept running until he reached his room. Chest heaving, head spinning, he looked wildly for some way to lock the door. Of course, there wasn't one. Even if Blaine hadn't pulled that stunt back home and barricaded his family from his bedroom, the only students able to lock their doors from the inside were the sense buddies.

Talking of...

The side door opened, revealing a confused Wesley, "Blaine? I thought you were meant to be with Miss Rosen for another half hour?"

Wes should know; he had escorted Blaine to his first class that morning. After his 72 hour settling period, today had been the start of Blaine's full integration into Dalton life.

It might only be nine thirty in the morning, but Blaine was already writing the day off as a veritable disaster. He couldn't even get through a meet and greet session without screwing up.

There was a banging on Blaine's door, and Wes' frown deepened as Blaine scrambled backwards.

"Mr Anderson, open this door! I won't ask you twice."

Giving Blaine one last look, Wes walked forwards and opened the door himself, "Hi Miss Rosen. Is everything okay?"

The woman in the doorway folded her arms, and Blaine found himself mirroring her posture, defensively taking a further step back towards his bed.

"Ah. Wesley, isn't it? Do you think you could give me and Blaine a moment?"

Blaine's shoulders slumped, stomach squirming. But then-

"I'm sorry, Miss Rosen, but that would be against Dalton policy. As I'm sure you're well aware, student rooms are designated as private to faculty staff unless the student in question poses a serious threat to themselves or others. In addition, any student must be accompanied by their sense buddy at all times when a member of the faculty wishes to address a student in their private space. If you have a problem with Blaine following his session with you, I advise you to go through the proper channels and set up a meeting with Blaine through Mr Edwards."

The teacher gaped at the boy in front of her, eyes flicking every so often over Wes' shoulder to where Blaine stood. "Mr Montgomery-"

"Miss Rosen. Your jurisdiction in the Dalton faculty does not cover sense buddies. I have already explained to you the proper protocol. If that is not how things were done at Grangeford, I apologise, but this is Dalton."

The woman's face was running through an impressive array of colours, ranging from milky white to seared red. Blaine could only stand there, amazed, as a boy he had only met three days ago was standing up to a teacher on his behalf.

Finally, she huffed, her brow knitted together above her too-small eyes as she regarded Blaine coolly. "Very well. I will be taking this up with Mr Edwards." Her eyes narrowed as they flicked back to Wesley. "And Dr Hargreaves."

"I look forward to it." Wesley chirped, before slamming the door in the teacher's face.

Blaine stared, wide eyed, "W-what did you just do?"

Wesley shrugged, "I followed Dalton protocol. Miss Rosen is new – a recent transfer from another, smaller sense refuge in Florida designed for older patients. She only transferred here a month ago from what I've heard, and she's clearly not used to dealing with teenagers yet."

"But she said she'd tell Dr Hargreaves!" Blaine blurted out. He had only met the woman a handful of times since he arrived, but she made him nervous every time. He felt like he was some bacteria in a Petri dish, waiting to be analysed.

"About my behaviour." Wesley agreed calmly.

Blaine shook his head, hands gesturing wildly. He couldn't quite vocalise how much he didn't want Wesley to get into trouble. Because if he did, they might make him go away, and right now he was the only person who Blaine felt might actually be on his side. Right now Blaine was floating, drifting, all his anchors cut loose; his family, his cat, his friends, his boyfr- Kurt. Wes was the only person left. "But you can't just. She'll tell them! She'll-"

Blaine felt his chest tightening, his palms growing clammy as he clawed at the front of his shirt, panic welling up from where it had been sitting, lurking since he had arrived at Dalton.

"Hey." Blaine blinked and suddenly Wesley was a lot closer, his head tilted slightly to one side as he looked at Blaine. Warmth. Calm. Reassurance. "Do you want to be alone, or would you like to talk about what happened this morning after I left?"

Blaine swallowed harshly, his mouth too dry. Now that he was back in his room with only Wes for company, he felt slightly better. Silently, biting his lip, he found himself nodding. Since he had arrived Blaine had maintained his silence, with everyone except Wes. The older boy seemed to exude trust and safety, the same way Sam usually glowed with happiness, and Kurt shone with strength. He found himself sitting. Wesley took his cue, and pulled a chair so that he could sit opposite; close, but not touching, never touching. It was one of the first things Blaine had noticed about Wes, his ability to respect Blaine's personal space without the need for request or comment. It was just instinct for him.

"I couldn't do what she wanted me to do." Blaine mumbled. Failure. Idiot. Freak.

Wes frowned, picking up on some of Blaine's unconscious projections, "It's your first day of class, Blaine. No one expects you to fall into things like you've been here for years. Besides, Dalton is here for you, not the other way around. There is no wrong or right, there's only what you feel able to do."

Blaine snorted, "Yeah? Because from where I'm sitting it looks like I'm the biggest freak in this place! And now everyone knows it!"

"What do you mean?" The soft timbre of reassurance continued, but inside were jarring bars of repetition, misplaced notes of disquiet.

"First she wanted me to introduce myself to the group, but I couldn't. My head wouldn't stop hurting and there were so many different people I couldn't sort them out in my head. So when I didn't do anything she said all I needed to do was shake the other boy's hand. I tried, I did. I really did but-"

"Wait, stop." Wes held up a hand, the jarring notes of his discordant emotions rising in a crescendo that Blaine found oddly comforting. The other boy was so precise in his conduction of his emotions that often Blaine felt like he was the sole audience member of some masterpiece orchestral production. He never projected, but equally, he was anything but the blank, too-silent monotony of most sense doctors Blaine knew. "You're saying that Miss Rosen had you in a group session? With other students?"

Blaine blinked, "Yes?"

Wes pinched the bridge of his nose, "Of course she did."

"I thought..." Blaine trailed off. He wasn't sure what he had thought. This whole process was so strange and overwhelming that often he felt like he was being pushed and pulled in multiple directions.

"It's not your fault." Wes was quick to pull back from his brief forte of anger, replacing it with a lulling pianissimo of calm. "It's hers. Group sessions should only be introduced into schedules after three weeks, and then for two weeks after that the student's sense buddy should be present. As far as I was concerned you were just going for a chat with her."

"Oh." Blaine felt small and stupid; so, so out of control. He wanted to cry. Was this how his life was going to be? Was this it?

"I'll bring this all up with Mr Edwards. I promise. And I'll request a class transfer to one of the other teachers. There's no way you should go back to her after this morning; instinctually, your senses will just rebel and confuse you."

"How do you know?" So often, Wes talked like Blaine's childhood sense doctor, Dr Monroe. Sometimes Blaine forgot the other boy had only just graduated high school.

Wes shrugged, "I saw it happen once." For a moment, he really looked his age, shy and slightly guilty. "I don't... sometimes I don't follow what the sense teachers tell us. Sometimes I just think it's wrong and so I do something else. Or try to. I told my friend to request a transfer for his student. He thought I was overreacting. The student had a grade six episode a week later, and was removed to an intensive care unit out of Dalton."

"Sometimes you just know..." Blaine murmured quietly, looking at his sense buddy in a whole new light.

"We're not carbon copies, or statistics in a book. I learnt a long time ago to trust my instincts when it comes to other people. I want you to know that, Blaine. I'm here to help you, not to get some qualification. You're not a means to an end, or a stepping stone towards my future. Okay?"

"Thank you." Blaine tried to compress as much sincerity and gratefulness into those two words as physically possible.

00000

Blaine sat up in bed, listening intently as he squinted into the inky blackness, eyes trying to adjust.

Maybe he had imagined it...

"Ow! Jeff that was my foot!"

Or not.

"Well it's not my fault you have such abnormally large feet!"

"Will you two shut up and keep an eye out? If Hargreaves catches us we're as good as dead."

"I still don't get why this is a four man operation."

"Maybe he just wanted to take all of us down with him when we're caught."

"Sucks to be you then."

"Yeah? Well good luck finding another sense buddy who can tolerate you on a day to day basis."

"Feeling the love, Nick. Seriously. You need to work on your bedside manner."

"Guys! Shut it!"

Blaine scrambled out of bed, padding to his door and creaking it open, jumping backwards only just in time to avoid being squashed by a tumble of two boys who had previously been pressed against his door.

"Umm... hi?"

The dark haired boy untangled himself from the blond. In the emergency night-lighting spilling in from the hall, Blaine recognised them as a student and buddy pair the same age as him. The blond, Jeff, was in most of his classes, although nowhere near as high up the scale as Blaine was.

"You two are seriously the worst lookouts in the history of Dalton." Wes stood in the doorway carrying a battered cardboard box, accompanied by the owner of the third voice, a tall black boy named David. He was also a sense buddy, but to a much younger student. He was also best friends with Wes, which probably explained why he was there as well.

Although, why the four boys were sneaking around outside Blaine's room at all at two in the morning was another question entirely.

"Shift. Both of you." Wes kicked Nick lightly, shutting the door behind him, plunging them all into darkness until David flicked on a flashlight.

Blaine stared incredulously at his sense buddy, "Wes, what on earth is going on?"

It was at that moment that the contents of Wes' arms made itself known, shaking so hard the boy was forced to put it down before he dropped it.

A disgruntled hiss, followed by a series of plaintive meows, and Blaine was on his knees in an instant, ripping open the lid of the box. He stared in disbelief. "Molly?"

It was definitely his cat. Her fur had lost some of its shine, but the attitude was definitely still there. He scooped her up into his arms, trying to ignore how thin she was – no more than you since you got here – "I know you've been missing her since you arrived. And the way you talk about her..."

"We all helped Wes look into it. About the influence of animals on the highly Sensitive. Dalton might say she's not allowed but..." David trailed off, grinning, "Wes isn't allergic, so no harm in hiding her here, right?"

Blaine was speechless, flooded with the warmth of holding Molly, a strangely familiar comfort spreading into his bones that wasn't quite all from the cat.

Wes knelt next to Blaine. "You've been here nearly three weeks now, and it's clear that you're not going to fit into any of the teachers' neat little boxes. But protocol is protocol, and while this school is a great place, it's not perfect. Nothing is."

"Sometimes it can seriously suck being here." Jeff put in. He was standing the furthest back of the boys, careful to put as much space between him and Blaine as possible, for both their peace of minds. "So we figured, why not try and make it suck a little less?"

Blaine just nodded, biting his lip as he buried his face in Molly's fur, trying not to let them see how watery his eyes had become over their gesture.

Taking the unspoken gratefulness, the other boys saw their cue to leave. Before they left, Nick offered, "Sit with us at lunch sometime, yeah? Or if it's too much, we can come to you. Wes must get pretty dull in heavy doses."

Blaine just nodded, and then he was alone with his cat. Wes had gotten up, and begun to feel his way back to his adjoining door in the semi-darkness, obviously intent on giving Blaine some privacy.

Blaine had other ideas. He clicked on his desk lamp. Molly wandered off to inspect the room, keeping one eye on her human, tail flicking contentedly. "How did you get her? My parents are going to know she's gone, and they'll call the school to check here. You'll get into trouble."

Wes sighed. "No. I won't."

Blaine frowned, "Coop..?"

Wes seemed to deliberate for a moment, before moving back towards Blaine, hands in his pockets. "No. Well, yes, I started with him, but no. Molly hasn't been living at your house for nearly two weeks now. It's why Edwards and Rosen searched our rooms the other week. That wasn't a random search. According to your brother, your parents have been trying to work out how to tell you she's missing for a while now, but the doctors are worried how badly that would destabilise you, so they've told them to hold off. At least until it's decided if you're staying here past your month trial."

Blaine frowned, "Coop would have told me if something had happened to Molly. He promised."

"He knew nothing had happened to her." Wes said softly, his emotions carefully placed, like the resonating vibrations of a cello string.

"Well then what...?"

"She's been living with Kurt."

Every muscle in Blaine's body froze. Oddly, the first thing that somehow made it out of Blaine's mouth was, "But I've never even told you about Kurt!"

"No, you haven't." Wes agreed. "But if you'd like to, I'd be happy to listen."

"You've met him."

It wasn't a question, but Wesley answered it anyway, "Yes, I have."

Blaine swallowed, angrily swiping at the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, "How... how is he?"

"Honestly?" Blaine nodded. "Well, we only talked for a little, but frankly I'd say he's doing about as well as you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blaine choked.

A diminuendo of exasperation to comfort, "It means I think you shouldn't be giving up on yourself. Or him."

"W-wh-" Blaine cleared his throat, frustrated by how weak his voice sounded. "What if he already has?"

Wes smiled fondly at his friend, "Now that I don't believe for one moment."

TBC