TIME IS ON MY SIDE

He doesn’t remember ever seeing Blaine before he was six years old. He’s sure it’s just because back then he was too young to remember, because it’s just impossible than Blaine never came to visit his dad before the wedding, and he’s pretty sure he once saw a picture in a family album where a younger Blaine was smiling awkwardly at the camera, holding in his arms one of the tiniest version of himself Leo had ever seen, but other than that he doesn’t really remember how it could feel being held by those arms, or being close to that man.

Blaine doesn’t really hold him, while they dance during the party after his parents’ wedding. He just holds Leo’s hands into his own – so much bigger than the kid’s – but still, Leo can’t help feeling slightly uncomfortable. He’s instantly ready to justify that feeling with the fact that this man nearly managed to ruin forever his parents’ life – and, consequentially, his own – therefore of course he feels awkward standing so close to him – not to mention dancing with him – but deep inside he already know there’s something more. He doesn’t know how to call it, but he knows it’s there.

Instinctively, he also already know that’s it’s not going to go away soon.

*
It’s almost disappeared, on the contrary, the next time he sees him. He’s just turned nine, and during the last year his dad finally got bored to work only half the time he could, and started searching for a way to dig his way back to the shiny stages of Broadway.

It’s been pretty easy for him, after all, considering he kept starring into big productions every now and then, even if he only did it for a couple of months before going back to the housewife lifestyle that he started to find so very thrilling since after the wedding.

His name is still pretty big, despite the very little efforts he did to try and stay on top of the showbusiness, so the very moment voices about his great comeback start to spread, everybody already want him, and he instantly gets all the invites to all the most exclusive dinners organized by the most important prominent figures of the upperclass New York society.

Which means frequent traveling to New York for both him and Dave, since God forbid Kurt ever showed himself around without his oh-so-gorgeous and devoted lifelong partner.

Leo would have nothing against the whole thing, if it didn’t end up involving him too, most of the time. His dads hate to live him back in Lima when they’re in New York, mostly because they like to roam the city with him during the day, which is something Leo loves to do too, and if it was only for this he would have nothing against going to New York every time his parents want to, or even just move there once and for all, but after all the good quality time they spend together during the day, there’s always night, which is when all those dinners take place.

Which means that Leo can’t go, because he’s too young to conversate with other guests but too old already to be showed around like a trophy as his dad used to do when he was just a toddler.

He can’t stay at the hotel alone, though, which is why dad always leaves him with Blaine. Which is, ultimately, the main reason why Leo hates these trips to New York so much.

He’s watching tv, now, but he’s not really paying attention to what John Travolta is singing in the very, very old movie Blaine put in the blu-ray player before he disappeared in his bedroom, because there’s a continuous murmuring coming out from said bedroom, and it keeps distracting him.

Blaine’s rehearsing in front of the ridiculously huge mirror covering half of his closet. He’s got to star in a new, apparently revolutionary play Leo doesn’t and doesn’t want to know nothing about, due to start in a couple of weeks, which is why, when Kurt showed up with the kid, Blaine almost shut the door on their faces. He ended up surrendering to the power of his father’s fluttering eyelashes, but he’s very nervous, and he didn’t waster any time before parking Leo in front of the tv, running to his bedroom to resume rehearsals from where he has left them when he heard the bell ring.

Leo is bored. He almost always is, it’s like a perpetual condition of existence for him, but it’s particularly hard to bear the boredom when he’s forced to stay in a place he doesn’t like, watching a movie so ancient he believes it was shoot way before Blaine himself was born – and Blaine is like a dinosaur, so it’s saying something – with a man he loathes murmuring like a madman in the other room. He hates his parents, the world and the whole universe.

He just wants to go home.

But he can’t, so he has to find a way to distract himself before boredom consumes and kills him.

He stands up from the couch, leaving the movie to play in the background, and walks to Blaine’s bedroom door. It’s half-opened, and he can take a peek of what’s happening inside, if he gets close enough to it. Which he does, obviously, because he’s just a kid, he’s curious, bored, and Blaine’s hiding from him.

That’s when Leo feels it coming back. That feeling he thought he had lost during the years they spent apart, that uneasiness, that numb sensation of confusion and unreasonable embarrassment that makes his cheeks flushed and his mouth dry, that awkward sense of helplessness in which he finds himself in need to look away, but ultimately he can’t, because deep inside him there’s something – a voice, a screaming need – that urges him to keep staring.

Blaine doesn’t even notice him, of course, lost in himself and who he’s pretending to be. He keeps looking at himself in the mirror, walking up and down in front of it, moving his hands in mid-air, and his voice never fades away.

Not while Leo’s listening, nor when he runs away and curls up on the couch, his heart beating unbelievably fast for apparently no reason whatsoever. He knows that Blaine’s voice, now, is nothing but a whisper behind an half-closed door, but he keeps hearing it echoing in his ears like a howling hurricane.

He lies down and wraps himself in a tight hug, closing his eyes shut and trying to carve the unpleasantness of this feeling into his memory, so he never forgets it, and always remembers to stay away from that man. For his own sake.

*
He can’t, however, because since his father and Blaine managed to tie back up the strings of their old relationship – once love, now turned into something safer and sweeter, a simple and natural friendship that makes them enjoy each other’s company more than ever – they can barely do without one another, for Leo’s and his father’s unhappiness. No Christmas can be celebrated without him, and of course the same goes for every birthday and every single important moment that may or may not call for a celebration.

Sometimes Kurt just wants him around, for reasons that Leo doesn’t even want to start to try and comprehend. Why would anybody want a person like this by their side? Blaine is smug, full of himself and vain, he’s got the worst sense of humour ever, always making suggestive jokes while everybody around him feel uncomfortable, and he has no respect for other people’s personal space.

Yet, unable to make his father understand how Blaine’s mere existence bothers him, three years later Leo is still forced to endure his presence wherever he’s around, as he has to do now that it’s Christmas time and of course his father couldn’t even think to have his Christmas party without his bff.

He stares at Blaine and he’s totally aware of the fact that he’s not trying in any way to hide how much he hates him. Everybody noticed already – it would be impossible not to, since he’s been looking at him like he was trying to kill him with his eyes since the moment he walked in – and everybody feels uncomfortable about it because, Leo can guess, they’re all wondering how is it even possible to be so aggressive against such a charming man like Blaine, but they’re all fools who just need a smile to fall under his spell, while Leo knows him just too well to fall for something similar.

And then Blaine turns to look at him and smiles like he doesn’t even have to pretend to do it wholeheartedly, and his smile is so warm that Leo feels ashamed, and for the first time he has to look down, his insides tied up in painful knots, his heart racing in his chest, the familiar thumping echoing through Leo’s whole body like the beat of a war drum.

He swears to himself next time he’ll be prepared. He is never going to avert his eyes again.

*
So when he’s fifteen and Blaine kisses him, he’s ready, for a change. He’s fully prepared to face the warmth pooling in his loins, and the irrational mix of anger and attraction that drags him towards this man since, apparently, the first time he met him.

Leo parts from him and Blaine’s lips curl into a dangerous smile. They’re wet, and Leo wants to kiss him right away again, but he doesn’t.

“So that’s what you wanted, after all,” Blaine says smugly, staring right into his eyes.

Leo doesn’t speak, but he nods. And when he does, he keeps his gaze locked with Blaine’s, and he doesn’t feel ashamed at all. Maybe he will in a moment or two, but not now. Now he just wants to kiss him again and again until he feels satisfied. And so he does.