People actually seem to like it. People seem to actually like Blaine. He’s shocked as he finds out that simply by being roommates with Matt he’s making friends. Although more shocking is that it seems like Blaine is making friends even when Matt’s not around.

He and Matt jam together in their room a lot. They bond pretty quickly over their love of music. They both have a quirky affinity for singing about what they’re doing at the time. So they make up songs about the other kids in their dorm or the English paper they should be writing. They have a whole song worked out about this tuna salad sandwich that lives in their mini-fridge and how even though it’s old and kind of smelly, it’s in a fairly loving relationship with the pack of batteries that also lives in the fridge. It’s a ballad, written in B flat minor, or what Matt calls “Blaine’s favorite chord.”

“Every time you write a song, it sounds like a fucking funeral dirge, man,” Matt says to him one day.

“I like sssad songs. And of, of, of course the tuna sssalad is sssad. It s-s-smells like ass and it doesn’t have any f-friends,” Blaine says, falling into their usual banter. But he still avoids b-words when he can help it.

“But it is in a loving relationship with the batteries,” Matt responds.

“It is, but ssss-sometimes love just ain’t enough,” Blaine exclaims while strumming the chords to the Patty Smyth song. This then turns into a song about the bottle of vodka that Matt has in the freezer, because that’s how these things happen with Matt and Blaine.

Blaine’s never had a friend like Matt. He almost doesn’t understand it at first. Making up inside jokes and laughing and talking and not worrying about his stutter. Blaine actually told Matt about his fear of saying his first name and Matt doesn’t act like it’s weird in the least.

After his confession, whenever Matt’s around for introductions, he’ll give Blaine a glance and if Blaine shakes his head, Matt will introduce him. Sometimes he’ll make a name up and Blaine has to jump in and correct him, but by that point he’s laughing so much that no one notices if he stutters or not.

He’s shocked by how much Matt seems to like him. Matt always makes sure Blaine is included, he always asks him to go along to dinner, and he makes a point of hanging out with Blaine even outside of their room.

During the first couple of months, Blaine worries that Matt thinks he’s a charity case. It’s not until late October that Blaine realizes that Matt is a much better person than he ever could have guessed. It was late, or early depending on how you looked at it. Though somehow during college everyone becomes mildly nocturnal it seems.

"Blaine?" came the sound of Matt's voice from across the room.

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask you something and I don't want you to get mad or anything."

"Ok," Blaine was suddenly too nervous to say much more.

"Are you gay?"

Blaine's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. He's taken aback, but he knows the answer and has for a while. He just spent so much of his life dealing with other shit that who he was attracted to was never really an issue. In high school sometimes he was attracted to girls and sometimes he was attracted to guys, lately it’s been mostly guys. But because his voice always leaves him high and dry when he needs it the most, he doesn't have any misconceptions about being in a relationship, at least not right now. As soon as he realizes he likes someone, his jaws clamp together.

"You don't have to tell me," Matt is saying as Blaine tunes back into the conversation and out of the deep recesses of his mind.

"No, no," Blaine shakes his head in the dark, knowing Matt can't see it. "It's nnnnnot that I don't w-w-want to tell you. I-I just never tttttold anyone." And then quietly, almost reverently, Blaine says "Yes."

A whoop comes from the other side of the room.

"Thank God! That means that even though Jillian is all up on your junk all the time I still have a chance with her."

Blaine sits up and looks over at Matt who is actually fist pumping in his bed.

"Ssseriously? You're not freaked out?" Blaine asks.

"Seriously, man. It's not a big deal. I have a gay uncle. A guncle, if you will."

The conversation meanders from there. There's something about the darkness and a kind ear that makes Blaine want to talk. So he does, with Matt interjecting and laughing and being Matt. Somewhere along the line they both finally fall asleep as the sun is rising, but it's one of the best conversations Blaine has ever had with anyone in his whole life.

~~~~~

When Matt first approaches him with the idea of playing open mic nights, Blaine flat out refuses. He can’t imagine performing in front of people.

“Listen B, (he’s not sure when Matt started calling him B, but he likes it. It reminds him of Cooper.) I know you’re like shy and nervous or whatever, but you wouldn’t even have to talk. You could just play the guitar. It would be so much more fun this way, we sound so damn good. Just think about it?”

And Blaine does think about it. Because Matt is his friend and his roommate and they do get a ton of compliments when the play together. But he’s so nervous about the whole idea. There’s so many ways that things could fall apart for Blaine when he’s in front of a crowd. So many ways that Blaine could fall apart in front of a crowd.

Blaine relents to Matt’s idea of open mic nights after just a few days. He’s scared as hell of being in front of any type of crowd, but he’ll have his guitar and Matt there. Matt says he’s played a couple coffee houses before and Blaine won’t have to say a word, if he doesn’t want to. Matt does apparently want him to harmonize and sing back up, which Blaine doesn’t really mind. Because he loves music and he loves singing and he loves his roommate. Matt does so much for Blaine, that Blaine knows he can’t actually say no to this request.

The first night they play at a little coffee house a few blocks from their dorm, Blaine is a bundle of nerves. November is settling in on the city, with the days just barely warm and the nights downright cold. It’s a relief to get inside after their short walk and Blaine thinks that he’d love a nice warm coffee. He observes the scene though, while he and Matt store their gear.

Blaine doesn’t order coffee anywhere they ask for a name. It’s too much pressure for just a drink. It’s one of the few things that he lets himself off the hook for when it comes to his stutter these days. There are plenty of places to get coffee that don’t require you to give a name and those are the places that Blaine frequents. Sadly, this is not one of those stutter-friendly coffee joints.

As he’s thinking all this, a boy walks through the door, a boy too pretty to be called handsome, too tall to be called elfin, even though there’s something ethereal about him. He looks around the tables and his glance falls on Blaine. Blaine leans down over his guitar, pretending to tune it, rather than look this beautiful boy in the eye.

~~~~~

A moment of Kurt

Kurt had been running around like an asshole all day and he hates being an asshole. It was completely his fault. He left his apartment just before noon and forgot his wallet, when he got back to his apartment he realized that he locked himself out. He banged on the door waiting for Rachel to get out of bed (at the crack of noon) to let him in and then he remembered that she was working. This meant he had to run down to the coffee place and get her key and so on and so forth, his day just continued to suck from there.

After several classes and a really annoying meeting with his advisor, Kurt was back at the same coffee place he’d retrieved Rachel’s keys from 9 hours earlier. He just wanted to get a latte and slump in a chair and zone out for a while.

He looked around as he walked through the door, hoping that no one he knew was there, because really he just needed this time for himself. As he glanced towards the back of the shop, he saw the assistant manager setting up open mic night. “This is good,” Kurt thought to himself, “I can get behind listening to the acoustic styling’s of random strangers, as long as they don’t suck.”

He caught sight then of a boy about his age with short curly, dark brown hair. He couldn’t tell what color eyes he had because the second the boy caught sight of Kurt he averted his gaze to his guitar. Again Kurt just hoped that he didn’t suck.

The manager announced that the music would begin in a few minutes. Another boy took the stage, introduced himself as Matt and then turned to the curly haired boy. Kurt saw now that the boy had hazel eyes, quiet eyes that didn’t seem to want to focus on much of anything at the moment. He shook his head quickly at Matt. Matt grinned at him and then said to the crowd, “and this is my buddy, B-flat.” The other boy couldn’t contain a laugh after Matt said that. Kurt liked them already.

They started playing right after that, mostly top 40 stuff, some classic rock. They were almost exactly what Kurt needed after the day he had. They were soothing and not too loud and just seemed really into the music. Near the end of their set they played a silly, yet somehow plaintive, song about tuna salad. Kurt hated to admit it, but he just knew it was going to be stuck in his head for the next three days.

Kurt bumps into the curly haired boy coming out of the men’s room after the set ends. Kurt smiles at him and tells him that he really liked their music, particularly the tuna ballad. The other boy just blushes and nods and flees the tiny corridor. Cute ass, Kurt thinks as he watches him retreat.

~~~~~

Blaine’s hands tremble through the first two songs, making him feel like he’s not to going to be able to do this. But once he finds his groove and starts singing and stops thinking about the people looking at him, he’s happy. Like really, really, adrenaline rush happy.

At the very end of their set, when Matt starts playing the opening of the tuna salad song, Blaine isn’t sure whether to punch him or laugh. He decides to just go with it and is surprised when he hears chuckles from the 20 or so people in the audience. As the song winds down, Matt thanks the people watching for their time and they start to put away their gear.

Matt offers to buy Blaine a coffee, by this point realizing why Blaine hadn’t gotten one in the first place. Blaine really could use a drink, so Matt goes to put in their order and Blaine runs to the bathroom to splash some water on his flushed face. He takes a quick glance around the shop and notices that the gorgeous boy from earlier is slumped in a chair, reading a magazine. Blaine thinks if he were a different kind of guy, he’d go over to him and say … something. Something witty, but that’s not in the cards for him tonight.

Blaine is coming out of the bathroom when suddenly this tall, beautiful figure is right in front of him. Saying … words to him? He liked the songs? The tuna ballad? This makes no sense. Blaine knows he should thank him and say words too, but what words? There are no words for this moment! So instead he blushes and nods and runs away, terrified. But he can’t help but smile to himself (He should have smiled at the gorgeous boy. Next time, he promises himself, thinking of Cooper’s letter. He’ll smile next time.) and feel the warmth spread through him of being attracted to a guy.

He finds Matt and ushers him out of the shop into a blustery November chill, where he tells him about his terrifying encounter and his shiny, brand new crush.