I am afraid it may be a while before my next update. I am taking a little holiday and probably won't find time for writing.

Chapter 4

Blaine sat down heavily on his desk chair. He held his head in his hands and pulled sharply at his curls hoping the pain would wake him. He kept repeating to himself that he was asleep, that he had to be dreaming but this was like no dream he had ever had before. His feet were cold fro being placed bare upon the floor boards. Pavarotti was hopping around his cage manically, his eyes felt grainy like he hadn't slept enough. All were things that seemed too realistic to be from a dream.

"Let me go!"

A surprisingly loud but shrill voice yelled at him.

Blaine put his hands over his ear and closed his eyes.

"I'm not listening to you; there are not tiny people. I am dreaming."

"I am not tiny, I'm quite tall for my age and you can speak, you're very small for a bean." The voice shouted back angrily.

Blaine dropped his hands from his ear and opened his mouth to protest.

"Hey, I'm not that short.. wait I'm not arguing with you this is a dream."

"Yes it is, so why don't you just let me go? Then you can go back to dreaming about some busty blonde cheerleader."

"I don't like busty blonde cheerleaders." Blaine said confused, why was it his dream thought he would like anything busty?

"You are a teenage bean aren't you?"

Blaine took a deep breath. He could no longer listen to the little voice without knowing more about the creature it came from. He had thought he had seen a little man, like a doll. But beyond that his shock had stopped his eyes from seeing any other details. He took a deep breath and willed his trembling hands to stop. He leaned forwards to peer over the ledge of the little blue box. Sure enough there was a little man. He was about three inches tall, perhaps slightly over. His skin was white and his eyes were little pin pricks of bright blue. Blaine had the feeling that if he were a real person then he would be lean and lightly muscular though why that mattered at all to him he did not know. He looked young a teenager, but that was by Human standards and how can you tell how a tiny man ages? As Blaine looked down trying to figure the little man out he was starring up at him seemingly trying to do the same.

The little man was dressed and there were such details that made Blaine question whether he could truly believe this a dream, If so then he had severely underestimated his own imagination. On top of the shining light brown hair there was a hat, much the shape of old pictures of Robin Hood. Complete with tiny white feather as if from Pavarotti's belly. Blaine realized that the hat was made out of folded paper, and looked for some reason rather like a five dollar bill. And the red jacket with thin black thread running up and down the front and held together with a single black button, it was the exact same color and material as his tie. He looked down at the t-shirt he was wearing and the patch missing from it that exposed his bellybutton and then to the soft grey trousers that the little man was wearing.

"Have you been stealing from me?"

"No!" The man replied in a high pitched and outraged voice.

"You've been cutting up my clothes."

"I've been borrowing them."

"You were planning on giving them back were you? After you've made tiny clothes out of them?"

"My clothes are not tiny they are perfectly fitting, not that you would know much about that. Your wardrobe leaves a lot to be desired."

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with my clothes. "

Blaine realized how stupid it was that he was shouting at his own dream, but it was a very odd dream and due to the clothing he had to wonder if he were not actually going insane. How could he imagine that the strange disappearance of his things was due to a tiny little tailor stealing them? Then again, perhaps this was because of the Liberian. It would make sense that with her talking so strangely about little people that he would start to dream of them.

"Are you going to let me go?"

Blaine thought about the question, he was exhausted from the shock of all this and his eyelids felt heavy. There was nothing he would like more than to get into his bed and go back to..wait he was already sleeping so he wanted to wake up. He wanted to wake up and find no sign that this dream had ever occurred so that he get on with his day safe in the knowledge that a dream is just a dream.

"No."

"Why not, this is a dream?"

"So you admit that you are not real?"

"I think therefore I am."

"Are you quoting John Locke?"

"I thought it was Daniel Hart."

"Yes, it is isn't it. Oh god what's wrong with me?"

"Nothing as far as I can see, look, I'm not real. I am just a dream and when you wake up tomorrow morning everything will be back to normal."

"Thank you." Blaine said not knowing why he was thanking the dream.

"So.." The man said taking a step away from the corner and looking up at him. "Let me out of this box. You can put something in here that I can climb up on."

"No."

The little man took another step forwards and started shouting, waving his arms around in anger.

"Why are you so stubborn? Let me out Bean! This is all a dream! It means nothing to you!"

"This is all a dream, so it won't matter if I leave you in there. Then tomorrow if I wake up confused I can see the box still filled with pencils and not strange and rude little men and I will no longer be confused. So I'm just going to put this book.." Blaine reached down and found the thick French dictionary. "On top of this box so that tomorrow when I wake up everything will be back to normal."

"You're making no sense!"

"Nor is this dream." Blaine said moving to place the dictionary on top of the box.

" I demand you let me out right this minute."

Blaine carefully placed the book down on top of the box.

"Goodnight tiny annoying dream man."

He heard some muffled shouting as he climbed back into bed but he reached out and turned off the light and grabbed a pillow to put over his head.

When his alarm woke him up Blaine gave a heavy yawn. His head felt fuzzy. Last night had been so strange… yet he could admit to being more than a little stressed. He was in a new school, away from his home for the first time and he had a heavier work load to get used to. He may enjoy his life in Dalton but he was still rather unsettled In it. He sat up and stretched. He froze when he saw that there were pencils on his floor. That had not been a dream but he still believed it was a half dream, he had dreamed the little man. His eyes drifted over to the blue box, sure enough the French dictionary was on top of the plastic box. He gave a nervous chuckle, he was being ridiculous, and he could have easily done that in his sleep, right? Stressed people sleep walk from time to time.

He padded quietly over to the box, taking a deep breath as he took the book into his hands.

"There you are, didn't think of putting air holes in that book did you? I think if you snored any longer I'd be dead."

Blaine stared down at the little figure in the box. He was still there. Even in the moring light he was still there. He could no longer fool himself this was a dream. He felt his legs tremble slightly before they gave way. His chest constricted so that he could no longer breath. He took big gasps of air but he could not seem to get enough air into his lungs. The room around him seemed to spin and little black spots appeared before his eyes.

"Short sharp breaths." A voice told him softly. "You're going to be fine."

He was desperate enough to listen to the voice and after a few minutes found himself capable of breathing normally though his head and chest hurt.

"I'm going insane, I'm going insane."

"You can go insane if you want, just let me out of here first. Or at least move me away from the bird. It's angry at me."

"Oh I'm sorry." Blaine said standing up and moving the box without really thinking about what he was doing. Though when he had placed the box back down on his chair he snapped back down to earth.

"Oh god, I'm talking to my own hallucinations. That's got to be double crazy right? Because it's hallucinating and talking to yourself." Blaine found himself hyperventilating again.

"Hey, keep breathing I don't want you passing out."

"Is this because of what they did to me and Gregory?"
"

Who's Gregory."
"My friend, they beat us up, the jocks, they kicked us they broke his ribs, put him in hospital for a week."

"That's horrible, even for a bean, why did they do that?"

Blaine looked down at the little man who seemed outraged at this knowledge.

"I don't know, they just don't like what I am."

"I got beat up by some outdoorers once. It's because I'm.. different. I'm a vert." He said it with a tinge of sadness.

"What's a vert? Is that what you are, a vert? Wait what am I saying you're a figment of my imagination."

"A vert is a man who does not wish to marry one of the girls. I want to marry one of the other men but that's not likely to happen."

A dozen thoughts ran through Blaine's head at that statement, probably the most important one being that this little man seemed to be telling him that there were more like him, another was that he seemed to sound quiet sad and distant when he talked and not angry like he had been a few minutes ago. These were not the things that he eventually questioned though.

"You're gay?" He said rather too loudly.

"What's gay?"

"A guy that's attracted to other guys."

The little man tilted his head slightly and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"You have vert's beans?"

Blaine knelt down in front of his chair. He was feeling so very confused about everything, it just made him tired and nauseous.

"What's a bean?" He asked with a resigned sigh.

"You're a bean. A Few man bean."

"Oh, you mean a being."

"I know what I mean Bean, just because I'm smaller than you doesn't mean that I'm not cleverer."

"I didn't mean you weren't, I'm sorry. So you're gay?"

"If that's what you call it, actually I think I like that there is a word for it. I had to come up with the word vert myself, there aren't any others of my kind like me, at least none at Dalton."

"Oh my god, oh my god. What's going on, is this some kind of weird Freudian thing? I mean I'm hallucinating tiny gay men, I mean, is this a penis thing, I mean, isn't that what the shrink would say? That I am sexually frustrated or that I think my dick is too small."

"Do you?"

"Well, I thought most teenage boys do, that's why I'm imaging a three inch man whose you know, much smaller than my dick."

Two bright blue eyes widened slightly.

"Not that that isn't very interesting, I really want to know about your freakishly large dick." The man said sarcastically placing a hand on his hip.

"It's not freakish, the internet says it's normal." Blaine objected quickly.

" But where are we on the letting me go thing?"

Blaine kept staring at the little man. He found him quiet cute in a weird way. He also was quiet sure that he really was insane, he was sure of this because he was starting to believe that the man really did exist.

"What are you?"

The man rolled his eyes at him.

"As if I'm going to tell the first good looking bean that comes along all my secrets. You'll have to buy me dinner first." He gave a light chuckle as if amused by his own words.

"You're flirting with me? This is definitely a sex thing. I don't masturbate enough. It's been a while, it's just being in a new place makes it a bit difficult you know, I feel like there are little eyes everywhere watching me." Blaine muttered to himself just letting the words pour out of his muddled mind.

"I've not been watching you! I'm not a pervert! Not like you talking about sexual frustration and masturbation and you're freakishly large dick the first time you met somebody."

"That's because you are a figment of my imagination. A figment!"

"I am not a fig mint!"

"SHUT UP!"

Blaine slammed the book back over the top of the box, grabbed his towel and his uniform and headed for the shower blocks. He seriously needed time to cool off.

How was that? I was aiming for funny but think it just ended up a little weird.

Next chapter: Blaine asks the Liberian about the burrowers, and Rachel turns up to give him a piece of her mind.