A/N: Yaaaay blangst! 

            By the time Blaine sprints to practice, he is already an hour late. He hadn't anticipated how long callbacks would have lasted and lost track of time - which was fairly easy to do if he was spending time with Kurt. The rest of the team was already well into practice by then and were full-on running drills and different moves and plays. When they saw Blaine - their captain, their supposed leader, who seemed to have abandoned them - they all stopped for a second, frozen in whatever they were practicing.  Then Puck shook his head, once, slowly, and the team softly resumed what they had been doing. 

            Blaine felt instantly heartbroken. He never wanted to let his team down - he just wanted to do something else that mattered to him. That look from Puck - it was almost as if they had turned their backs on him and didn't want to speak to him. He knew the team would come around eventually - they always did, and they had to; they needed him to win - but the cold looks still stung.

            Mr. Anderson, who had previously been coaching some freshman at one end of the pool, finally turned around after the slight pause in practice to see his son standing there.  Even from halfway across the room, Blaine can see the fury and disappointment in his father's eyes. Blaine tried to stand up straighter, to appear more - masculine? adult? responsible? - anything to earn his father's approval and to brace himself for the pending explosion.

            Mr. Anderson walked slowly towards Blaine, who suddenly felt very small in this huge, open room full of people with this menacingly tall man glaring at him. Blaine knew one of two things were about to happen - one, his father would explode loudly into a tirade of emotion and anger; or two, he would quietly and firmly give Blaine such a terse, humiliating lecture to the point where he felt like he needed to go cry in a corner afterwards, even though he knew he couldn't, because he would have to go be the leader and go practice. Always aiming to please and be "that guy"; that was Blaine. How could he have let everyone down like this?

            The second his father starts talking Blaine knows which of the two it's going to be, and it's definitely the worse option. 

            "Blaine. Where. Were. You." He says it quietly, but his face is so harsh and enraged that if you hadn't been able to hear at all, you would've thought he was screaming.

            This kind of talking-to isn't showy or done to make a scene and that definitely makes it worse.  This time, he's doing it to make sure Blaine knows that he should feel horrible about missing practice - as if he didn't already.  He isn't proving something to everyone else in the room this way - but he is clearly communicating how angry and let down he is by being so close to Blaine that he can almost feel the anger coming off of his father.

            Blaine looks up at his father and any façade of bravery he had fades away. He feels like a cowering kid again, caught doing something he wasn't supposed to. He is unable to even provide his father with an answer - the truth is too much for him to admit, at least for right now, and he can't even think of an adequate lie.  All he can do is stand there and feel ashamed, even though somewhere, deep down, he knows that going to the audition and missing practice wasn't wrong, it was just - a choice he made. He was allowed to make his own decisions now, wasn't he? I mean, this was just what he was doing in high school. High school. Could it really affect his life that much?

            Even with this, Blaine couldn't shake the feeling of being embarrassed. His father growled, "Do you have any idea what you have done. You are this team's leader, Blaine.  Not just some other kid." Blaine can tell his father is really getting angry now because he is quickly pacing the cold floor, his gestures becoming more manic and pointed and his hand running briskly through his graying brown hair. "You need to be the best every. single. damn. day. Missing practice? Do you know not only how bad that looks for you, but how badly it reflects on my reputation? The coach's son gets to skip whenever he wants. That's not how it works around here, Blaine. And you should know that.  And you should know how disappointed I am in you. You're staying after tonight to keep working out - you at least owe your team that much, and you should know it."

            Blaine can barely look his father in the eye. He knows that his dad does have the best intentions at heart, somewhere deep down there, but he expects so much out of Blaine that sometimes he can hardly stand it. And yet all his life all he's wanted is to live up to his father's expectations. He owes him that much.

            Blaine stays for two hours after the rest of the team is dismissed, swimming endless laps, practicing endless drills. But nothing can shake the feeling that he's disappointed almost everyone that day. 

------

            Rachel Berry arrives at school even earlier than her usual prompt 7:30 arrival on any other school day.  No, today is different.  Today is the day that callbacks have been posted.  (She places a glowing emphasis around the word callbacks in her mind because to her, they are just that - important and magical.)  She loves seeing the callback list early, because this way she knows she can easily scope out her competition during the day and make sure they don't get too ahead of themselves.  They have to know by now that she gets all the solos, right?

            As Rachel makes her way towards the sign where the list will be posted, she spies two people who just happen to be walking in together that morning - Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson. She scoffs. She doesn't like the way that Kurt boy has been hanging all over Blaine - her Blaine! Doesn't he know that she laid her claim on Blaine freshman year and she will not rest until she, the talented, unconventionally pretty unpopular girl fulfills her destiny and becomes a beacon to all other struggling theatre girls by landing the popular, beautiful jock? It's her destiny. They're like, star-crossed lovers, or whatever.  Besides, there is no way Blaine is gay.  She prides herself on her highly-tuned gaydar she's been developing around her dads' friends since the time she first attended one of their parties when she was 5.  She knows.

            Kurt and Blaine had reached the bulletin boards slightly before she did, but a group of Blaine's jock friends appeared and encircled him, leaving Kurt to wander and look at the different announcements being posted there. He reaches one, posted prominently on one side, and Rachel sees his face freeze into an expression of slight shock and almost horror before he reaches to tap Blaine's arm.  Rachel isn't fazed by it, however. She walks up confidently, figuring he must be looking at something much more -

            Oh my god. 

            No.

            This can't be.

            She screams for the next 4 minutes straight. Then she congratulates herself on her fantastic breath support.

-----

            "The fuck do you think you're doing, man?!"

            The second Puck sees the callback list, he and the rest of the team are immediately encircling Blaine, pushing him against the nearby lockers.

            "Are you telling me that you fucking missed practice to go to some fucking singing audition? And now you and that Hummel kid are just going to run around and pretend like it's all okay.  What has he done to you, man? You used to be about the team. You're still our captain, for fuck's sake. And now...this. What's your dad gonna think about this, Blaine?"

            Shit. He did not think about that one. How is he going to get this around his dad - especially now that the whole team knows? It was bad enough that he had missed practice - what he had said to Blaine just because of that had been enough to reduce him to tears. And when he finds out why, there will be definite hell to pay - and Blaine does not want to go through that.

            "You guys - I swear, I still care about the team, I just have to do this. I need to branch out or something, I don't know...but I will promise you all right now that if I don't give 110% every day at practice, you all have permission to kick my ass. I'll deserve it. But please - just don't do anything to me now?" Blaine hardly even knows what he's talking about, he just knows he has to at least convince them not to get rid of him yet - they need him almost as much as he needs them.

            "Fine. But you've got one shot, Anderson - one chance to mess it all up before we kick your sorry ass to the curb."

            Blaine watches them walk away, a mixture of fury and frustration - but mostly this overwhelming sadness that he can never be good enough. Some friends.

            "Personally, I think they can just go fuck themselves." Blaine turns around to see Kurt standing there alone, grinning slyly, and Blaine can't help but smile back at the sight of him.

            "Thanks, Kurt."

            "Listen, I get it, they're your team, so...I understand if you don't want to do this callback with me."

            Blaine seems shocked that he'd even suggest it. He looks around before grabbing a surprised Kurt by both hands and dragging him to a more secluded part of the hallway underneath the stairwell.  "I want more than anything to do callbacks with you," Blaine says sincerely, before he looks down and realizes he still hasn't been able to let go of Kurt's hands - his warm, soft, beautiful hands. But Kurt doesn't seem embarrassed at all, not even as Blaine reluctantly pulls away. He just stares into Blaine's eyes as Blaine continues, "I'll find away to get around them, because, honestly...I can't imagine making it through here without you - er, singing with you. Anymore."

            Kurt can't stop himself from quickly throwing his arms around Blaine's neck in an all-too-short hug, his face entirely alight with gladness. "You are literally the best, do you know that?" Blaine shrugs, rubbing his neck awkwardly with a smirk on his face as Kurt suddenly seems to remember something.  He pulls a pen out of his bag and quickly writes down his number on a scrap of paper before handing it to Blaine. "Here. Text me so we can figure out when to practice with Tina, okay?"

            Kurt practically sashays away, and all Blaine can do is watch the way he walks, hips swaying, alive with energy and life. And by the time Kurt makes it down the hallway, Blaine has his number halfway memorized as he has looked from Kurt, to the paper, and then back again with an awed grin on his face. Could this boy really convince him that it was all okay and worthwhile in a matter of moments?

            Blaine remains there, frozen, long after Kurt has disappeared and the bell rings.  So what if he's late to class anymore? He knows there is someone out there able to instantly make it all better.