“Watch where you’re going, Anderson,” Luke Merrill barks as he shoves Blaine sideways into a bank of lockers. Blaine hisses as his shoulder impacts the metal, pain shooting down his arm as he immediately folds into himself, protects his torso from further blows. Blaine’s tiny for his age, easily the smallest in the freshman class, and that (added to the fact that, even though he’s not out, all of his tormentors seem to know) makes him an easy target. It’s getting harder to explain away the bruises when he gets home at night, harder to pretend that everything at school is fine when it’s absolutely not fine.

“I’m sorry.”

Blaine’s so used to apologizing (to his dad, his grandfather, his bullies, his teachers) that it comes on reflex now, seamlessly integrated into his survival complex. Guard his head and torso, shrink as small as he can, and apologize for whatever fabricated transgression he’s committed.

Luke snorts, shoves him one last time with a glare before heading off down the hallway. Blaine slides to the floor, back resting against the lockers and his arm cradled in his free hand. His shoulder hurts, but it’s not at all the worst he’s had-it’ll wear off in a minute and he can go back to his daily routine. It’s exhausting, though, having to constantly watch over his shoulder to see where they are, when they’re coming. Luke is the worst, but he’s usually flanked by several of his water polo teammates.

The late bell rings, and Blaine mutters a curse under his breath, gathers his books from where they’d fallen and rushes to his first period.

- - - - -

It’s later in the day, long after school is out and after jazz band practice, when he’s gathering his books to head home for the day that he realizes he’s left his sneakers in the locker room. He normally wouldn’t bother, but he’s got soccer practice that night for his rec league, and he’ll need them if they end up practicing inside (which seems highly probable given the downpour pounding on the roof of the school).

He’s halfway to the locker room before it hits him-water polo practice will just be ending, and Luke and his friends will be in the lockers changing. It’s a dangerous situation, walking knowingly into a confined area where he’ll be a prime target, but his phone buzzes in his pocket with an impatient text from his mother, and Blaine doesn’t have a choice-he can’t wait for them to be finished, he has to leave now.

He sets his jaw, and a minute later he’s pushing open the door to the locker room, steeling himself for what’s about to come. He falters in the doorway, surprised, when he finds Luke in the locker room alone, pulling a shirt over his head. The door slams shut behind Blaine, and Luke startles, turns around. His lips curl into a sneer when he sees Blaine standing timidly in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.

“What’s wrong, Anderson? You come in here to see if you could get a peek?”

“I just-my shoes are-I don’t-” Blaine stumbles over his words, a habit he’s noticed comes out in full force around Luke when he’s faced with the polo captain alone. Luke is terrifying, nearly twice Blaine’s height and built from the years he’s spent swimming. He has no qualms about shoving Blaine around, his punches stinging as badly as his words often do. At the moment, Luke is stalking towards Blaine, who cowers against the door as Luke crowds into his personal space.

Something about Luke’s presence causes Blaine to shut down, and as Luke makes a grab for his upper arm Blaine does nothing except let him, too frozen to move or even try to fight back.

“You never answered my question, Blainers. You come in here to see who was around? Sneak a peek at our junk? You are a fag, aren’t you?”

“I’m not gay,” Blaine whispers (he is, he’s known for years but he’s not going to admit it, never going to admit it), but the words fall on deaf ears. Luke squeezes Blaine’s arm, starts pulling him toward the door into the pool.

“You look a little dry to me, Blaine,” he says, smirking as Blaine starts to struggle in earnest. Luke can’t mean what Blaine’s thinking, he’s not that cruel. He can’t be.

But Luke has a vice-like grip on his upper arm, and Blaine feels himself being propelled toward the door more quickly than he’d like. He digs his heels in, fighting desperately to pull his arm up, out, away. Luke tightens his grip, grins at Blaine before backhanding him across the face. The slap comes as a surprise-Luke rarely uses direct physical violence, preferring to shove and let inanimate objects cause the ral damage-and Blaine freezes, his free hand cupping his cheek around the reddening handprint.

“You hit me,” he grits out, still stunned as Luke finally manhandles him to the door. “You hit me.”

“What’re you going to do about it?”

Luke finally stops, holding Blaine against the door to the pool. He’s still got Blaine’s arm in his grip, but he’s applying a pressure that Blaine is positive will leave finger-shaped bruises on his upper arm. Blaine can’t respond to the question-the look in Luke’s eyes is enough to make his blood run cold. Blaine doesn’t know what exactly he did to get this far under Luke’s skin, but since the minute he’d started high school Luke has hated him.

Blaine thinks he must blank out, check out, because when he snaps back to himself Luke is gripping both of his arms and they’re in the pool area, Luke clearly intending to send Blaine for a swim.

Everything screams to a halt, and Blaine panics. He bucks against Luke’s grip, trying desperately to free himself while pleading with the older boy.

“Luke, Luke please. Please, Luke, Christ, don’t throw me in, Luke-“

He’s pushed closer to the edge, feels himself already cartwheeling off balance as Luke shoves.

“I can’t swim!”

It’s a second too late. Blaine’s off-balance, falling over the edge into the diving end of the pool. He looks up at Luke, sees what could be a flash of fear or regret or something before he feels himself sinking, dragged down by the weight of his wet blue jeans.

Blaine is in full-panic mode now. He didn’t get a breath before going under, too busy shouting at Luke to manage. His lungs are burning, he’s swallowing mouthfuls of chlorinated water even as he kicks his legs wildly, trying desperately to reach the surface again.

He never had swimming lessons as a kid, because he told his parents the water scared him and that was that. He hasn’t had to swim in gym yet, hasn’t ever had a reason to learn. It’s biting him in the ass now, as he flails under the water and desperately stretches his neck toward the surface.

His face breaks the surface for several seconds, and he attempts to take in a mouthful of air, but the inhale causes him to cough, and he’s hacking up water before he can truly take a breath. More water floods his mouth when he tries to cough, the chlorine stinging his eyes, his throat, his nose. His body tries to breath on instinct, but all that’s left to inhale is water and Blaine fights against himself, trying to pat down that instinct while still kicking his burning legs, searching for something, anything to use as a foothold.

He’s out of luck, running out of time.

His lungs are burning, his limbs are burning as he kicks his legs fruitlessly. He can’t break the surface for more than a few seconds at a time, his kick strokes too weak and his arms flailing too much to keep him propelled out of the water. He thinks briefly there has to be some trick to this, some way to keep yourself afloat before he feels himself dragged back under. His jeans aren’t helping matters, soaked through and weighing him down, dragging him under every time he does manage to break the surface.

He’s going to die like this, alone and in the high school swimming pool because a bully thought it would be funny to make him get wet.

Blaine’s all but resigned himself to his fate, his limbs slowing as his energy saps.

He thinks of his mother, sitting in her car waiting impatiently for him. He spares a brief thought for his father, wonders what this is going to do to them.

He’s just given up, let his eyes slide shut when he feels hands around his biceps, someone pulling him up and out. Blaine falls unconscious as his head breaks the surface, finally too exhausted to keep fighting.

- - - -

“God dammit.” Evan Braxley has never been so angry and so worried at the same time, never been this desperate. He pulls Blaine onto the pool deck, leans over his mouth and nose to see if Blaine’s breathing. He’s not.

Evan starts rescue breathing, silently praying that Blaine will wake up, that this is some kind of sick joke. He dials 9-1-1 on his cell phone even as he keeps breathing, tries to shout at the operator between breaths.

He’s feeling his own breathing start to labor when Blaine’s body spasms, and he’s suddenly vomiting water. Evan curses, rolls Blaine to his side and puts him in the recovery position, making sure his mouth is clear. Evan grabs his phone, finally managing to relay the details to the operator as he supports Blaine’s head, lets Blaine clear all the water he’s swallowed.

Blaine is still coughing weakly when his eyes blink open, but Evan breathes a quiet sigh of relief. He stays with Blaine until the ambulance arrives, gets a call to Blaine’s mother and sends her to the hospital after the ambulance. He doesn’t intend to follow-Blaine won’t remember who saved him when it comes down to it, and Evan doesn’t want to interfere.

He sits back on the tiled pool deck, taking slow deep breaths even as he realizes his hands are shaking. There are cops coming into the pool area now, asking him questions he can’t answer without incriminating a teammate.

He doesn’t tell them Luke ran into him in the hallway, made an off-color comment about the Anderson kid and a prank. Evan still isn’t sure how he pieced everything together, but he knows exactly how close Luke came to facing more serious charges than he’ll already be facing when Blaine remembers.

When he gets home that night, Evan looks Blaine Anderson up on Facebook, scrolls through and hits “Friend Request” before he can think about it again. When Blaine returns to school a few days later, exhausted and ill, Evan vows to make sure he rides Luke hard to tone it down.

Luke gets off with a suspension unless any criminal charges are filed, but Blaine’s father insists on keeping the matter quiet, doesn’t press charges and lets it slide.

Evan becomes an acquaintance to Blaine, who’s only a year his junior, and eventually somewhat of a friend. Blaine never figures out why Evan’s suddenly become protective of him, but since it gets Luke to let up (until the day Blaine comes out-that’s when he’s the target of the whole school), Blaine never questions it.

He never figures out that Evan’s the reason he didn’t die in the pool that day.