young & menace

Blaine pressed his lips together as he listened, nodding his head when Mason told him that he understood what he was feeling and where he was coming from. He was embarrassed, and mostly just ashamed of himself at first, but it was certainly a relief to have it validated by someone whose opinion he trusted. Times like these were what made him feel thankful to have met Mason. They were so similar to each other that Blaine didn’t even have to expend many words trying to explain why; Mason gets him, like he always did.

Blaine raised a curious eyebrow but did as he was told, tipping the rest of his drink into his mouth and swallowing them down before setting it aside, finally starting to feel the warm buzz of alcohol inside. He never was a strong drinker when it came to drinking, but he definitely needed some tonight. It didn’t exactly help him feel better, but it did just enough to relax him. 

“Wha–” He stared at Mason with his mouth hanging open when Mason started to remove his overcoat, not really understanding the correlation. It wasn’t until Mason had bowed and asked for his hand that Blaine had finally gotten it, causing a slight blush to creep up his face as a shy smile formed. “Of course, I’d love to.” He said softly, accepting Mason’s hand. He had never slow danced with Mason before and he couldn’t think of a better venue than this one, where everything had been set up for them. All they had to do was take it, especially if this was their first – and maybe only – chance at it.

Mason beamed in response, catching Blaine’s hand in his. He wrapped his arm around Blaine’s waist, mindful of the placement on Blaine’s back; the last thing he needed was Blaine getting mad at him for overstepping, or this Sebastian person misreading the situation.

He moved them in an easy, slow waltz, easily ignoring the surprised hoots coming from his coworkers; they may as well have been a million miles away. “You really do look great,” Mason told him, voice quiet and light. “I know you don’t feel like you fit, but you sure look the part.” Mason chuckled quietly, a little wave of contentment easing from his heart. This - felt good, and comfortable, and easy, and nice in a way that not much did; he was so glad Blaine was on board.

And Mason had never believed in keeping kindness inside, so it was with genuine affection that he continued, “I’m really glad you’re here, Blaine.” Mason’s smile grew a little as he turned them in an easy circle. “I mean--like, here, on the boat, but also...here, with me. I miss you.” It was supposed to come out in the past tense - that he had missed him, recently, but maybe he’d had a little too much champagne for it to come out as anything but the truth. “I mean, I know, like, we talk,” Mason amended, quickly and quietly, “I just--I guess I’m greedy,” Mason said, giving Blaine an apologetic little smile. “Can you blame me?”

quinninthecity‌:

While dancing was one of Quinn’s passions and something she always loved to do, hence her extensive background in dance, the ballroom classes she had to take during her days as a debutante were her least favorite. It wasn’t about getting lost in the music or being creative, it was all about being prim and proper and being the perfect southern belle so she could appeal to the elite while establishing herself as a true Fabray. Those lessons, as much as she hated them, stuck with her and her body responded to Mason’s lead a little too perfectly. It seemed as though he’d had some training as well. 

It didn’t surprise her, it seemed as though there was nothing Mason couldn’t do. 

As the music took over, it was easier for her to focus on his words and she couldn’t help but laugh at his version of a good party. “Believe it or not, I’ve been to a few of those pierced DJ parties,” she offered with a small smirk. “There were times when Quinn Fabray wasn’t so prim and proper, but those days are behind me now.” In just the few moments she spent with Mason on the dance floor, she could feel herself relax a bit. He was like a breath of fresh air, though she would never admit that to him. It was like a nice little escape. An escape from her world even though they were surrounded to the point of making her feel suffocated. 

“I don’t think it’s good or bad,” she answered lamely, well aware that it wasn’t answering his question. “It was everything I was expecting it to be. Not good or bad. It just is.” She shrugged, not really giving him much to go on. Just enough. “I’m more so impressed that you actually asked me for a dance. I was prepared to call your bluff.” 

Mason raised his eyes in genuine surprise - the image of the girl in front of him at the sort of party he was imagining was...a not totally unpleasant sort of cognitive dissonance.

“Too bad they’re in the past,” Mason hummed, lifting his arm to twirl her neatly beneath it. He caught her deftly, without so much as missing a beat, and continued, “I think I’d be interested in that side of you.” Mason smiled a little; she could say it was behind her, but it had been part of her nonetheless, and Mason knew better than most that no matter how much you tried, there were certain personality traits that couldn’t completely be shaved away or filed down. If she’d been a rebel, once upon a time, she still was, somewhere, and Mason felt a little special that she was even telling him that.

“I don’t bluff, though,” Mason said, returning to the present subject - he decided not to give her grief about the vague, politically-correct version of her answer, because that meant it was definitely not something she was enjoying, and he was big enough not to rub it in. “We McCarthys tend to take those sorts of things as a personal challenge,” Mason explained, a wry smile on his face. He couldn’t help but scan the crowd - he wasn’t sure if his parents were in the hall tonight, and if they were, he wasn’t sure they’d notice him, given how rarely they saw beyond the end of their own noses, but he couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than his parents swarming him in front of Quinn.

“I’m sorry, though. Something just hitting your expectations...” Mason wrinkled his nose. “It’s almost easier when it falls way below or goes way above, isn’t it? Otherwise it’s just like - well, ‘this went exactly how I thought it would, so I could’ve just stayed home and been fine imagining it from my couch in my PJs’.” Mason chuckled and shook his head. “Maybe I’ll come up with something to exceed your expectations,” Mason mused. “Have you ever seen the inside of a professional kitchen?”

Blaine was simply glad to see Mason again. They hadn’t been spending enough time with each other like what they had done before, and Blaine knew it was mostly his fault. He had been spending most of his free time with Sebastian lately, and while he was determined to not let his friendships fall by the wayside, it was just so easy for him to get caught up in that whirlwind. And sure, one could argue that even the healthiest of people would get swept away by a new romantic relationship, but Blaine knew better than most people that even the most understanding person in the world had a breaking point. 

He didn’t want Mason to feel that way nor reach that point, ever.

“You must be the youngest amongst them,” Blaine commented as he briefly glanced at the direction of Mason’s coworkers, feeling proud of his best friend. In all his life, he hadn’t met someone with the amount of natural talent that Mason had. Blessed with a keen eye and an extraordinary talent for cooking and creating, Mason was simply meant for greater things; a greater place. And although this was merely a ten-day cruise, it was still a start. 

“Really? I wonder what kind of relationship they share with each other.” Blaine knew nothing about Hunter Clarington other than the fact that Sebastian didn’t like him, so it was definitely a surprise to hear that Madison had been connecting with him on such a personal level. When Mason offered Blaine his champagne glass, Blaine accepted it without so much of a hesitation and took a long sip of it. Mason was right, he did need it. “I don’t think I’m in a place to be unhappy about anything, honestly. That’d be extremely ungrateful of me.” He laughed a little as he leaned against the railings, swirling the contents of his glass absently. There, in front of him and behind those doors, was a world that people wanted so desperately to join, only he wasn’t able to enjoy it. He didn’t deserve to be in there, standing beside Sebastian and pretending to be one of them. 

“Honestly, I think I just want to feel like I belong in there. Like I’m one of them, Mase, but… I’m not, and I hate that. I hate being reminded that I’m not. Does that make sense?” 

Mason shot Blaine a knowing glance, nodding as Blaine continued to speak. “It does,” Mason assured him. “Trust me, I get it. I get feeling like...like all of this is a gift that you don’t...I don’t know, deserve or haven’t earned or whatever.” Mason sighed and leaned back on the railing, pressing his lips together in a thin line. He was the youngest of the chefs on board, by half a decade or more, and he’d taken his teasing for it as he did in nearly every kitchen he entered. He’d never been good at doing or feeling what he ‘should’ feel, so Blaine’s reminder that they should both be grateful to be there just enforced the feeling that he wasn’t, which just made him feel guiltier.

He shook his head slightly - that wasn’t Blaine’s fault, especially not if Blaine was feeling the same way.

“You and I can just hang out here,” Mason decided, looking back at Blaine with a little smile. “We know we belong here, at least, when it’s just us. We can have a good time, just you and me.” Mason’s smile grew a little and he straightened up. “In fact. Finish that,” he said, gesturing to the drink. They could hear the music faintly from inside, but faintly was good enough for Mason, who carefully slid out of his unbuttoned chef overcoat and folded it on the ground, revealing the plain white t-shirt underneath. He wasn’t wearing the right clothes at all now, he looked like they’d plucked him up from Manhattan after the longest shift in the world, but Mason didn’t care.

Blaine looked so upset. So, it was with exaggerated movements that Mason bowed deeply to him, then extended his hand. “May I have this dance?”

It was the same thing every night of the cruise and while Quinn was a fan of consistency, even she was a little bored from having to eat dinner with her parents, yet again, and watch as drunk people navigated to the dance floor. She ignored the fact that both of her parents were completely inebriated as she steadily sipped on her own glass of wine, her facial expression stoic. There was really nothing she could do than sit there and keep up her appearance, the perfect daughter who found the error in her ways and reunited with her parents after her father’s tragic heart attack.

She was lost in thought, ready to call it a night when she heard a familiar voice and she was reminded about just how small the world was. She was also reminded of the conversation they shared about him not belonging in her world, but she could have been fooled with the way he approached her in front of the world’s most elite, with his hand held out to her as he asked for a dance. She could feel the stares from the people around her and a few body guards watching closely. The expectation was for her to decline, but she meant what she said about not being that shallow and if he had the balls to come over to her and ask for a dance, the least she could do was meet him halfway. Mason was rewarded with a smile as she took his hand. 

“I would love to dance with you.” 

She led him out onto the dance floor, placing her hand on his shoulder while the other remained in his hand. “Hello, Mason. You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

Mason didn’t bother to quash the wide grin on his face as they made their way to the dance floor, though he did subdue it into something less manic when they were actually facing each other. He wrapped his arm around her waist and set it in exactly the right space on her back; in spite of Mason doing his utmost to bury and forget the lessons his parents had forced he and Madison into, some things came handy, some things stuck, and dancing was one of them, and all the rules that went along with it were burned into his brain. His legs were long and limber and, no matter what he said to anyone who asked, he took to music like a fish to water, and if he wasn’t singing it, moving to it was a close second, in terms of what made him secretly happy.

And having a beautiful girl in his arms didn’t exactly bum him out.

He nodded simply as the music picked up, gently guiding them to the floor. “It’s not a bad party,” Mason hummed, quirking an eyebrow playfully, “but I’ve been to better.” Mason paused. “Though, granted, those involved less live instrumental music and more DJs with facial piercings, so...” Mason chuckled and shook his head slightly at himself, sure to keep them moving in the right order and to the music in the expected ways - at least for now. The best part about knowing all the steps was the ability to do it differently, after all; to break the rules, first you had to know them, and Mason knew them just well enough to break them. But not yet; he didn’t want to embarrass Quinn right after she agreed to  dance with him.

“What about you? You looked like your soul had ascended into another plane of existence out of pure boredom,” Mason kept his voice low, quiet enough for her to hear and, he hoped, not loud enough for anyone else to overhear, although he could only imagine that there were a few people wishing to know what they were talking about. With a knowing smile, he asked, “Is it as good as you hoped it would be, or bad as you worried it would be?”

High-society social events such as this one, Blaine decided, were things he would never get used to. While he had accompanied Sebastian to a charity event once, this was on a much grander scale, and most of the time Blaine just felt like there was a single spotlight shone down on him wherever he went inside the hall, accentuating the strikingly obvious fact that if it wasn’t for Sebastian, he wouldn’t have been able to attend the event in the first place. He felt out of place. He didn’t belong there, and he honestly didn’t know if he would ever feel comfortable enough in a world like that. 

Sebastian’s world. 

A world filled with old money and pretentious smiles. Social elites who were born with an unapologetic, almost defiant sense of entitlement. Perhaps that was another reason why Blaine wasn’t a fan of these social gatherings. He already felt like that enough of the time; he really didn’t need another occasion such as this one to keep that fake plastic smile fixed on his face while keeping himself in check all the time. Being polite was the only way to behave in this situation. He needed to conduct himself in a way that wouldn’t embarrass Sebastian, but that was always easier said than done. 

With his easygoing smile and his charming manners, Blaine could easily strike up a conversation, but he could never hold it for long. He had nothing in common amongst Sebastian’s friends after all. 

He needed a break.

Blaine opened the door and stepped outside to the deck, smiling a little as a wave of fresh sea breeze fluttered over him. He breathed in deeply, almost greedily, feeling instantly calmer at that moment. The deck was empty except for a man perched against the rails, and Blaine’s eyes widened momentarily as the outline of that man’s face was illuminated by the moonlight in a sad, lonely sort of way. 

Blaine could recognize that face anywhere.

“Mase.” He smiled as he made his way towards Mason, feeling completely surreal at the fact that they were both here, serving different purposes. “I think I saw Madison inside. Have you spoken to her yet?” He asked, coming to stand beside him. Something about Mason looked… sad, and it reminded Blaine of that time when they first started talking – not that their conversations were depressing. In fact, they were deep, genuine, and surprisingly intimate for two strangers who had never met each other in person before, and Blaine missed that. He had missed sharing that connection with Mason. 

“The food was really delicious, by the way. Everyone couldn’t stop talking about it.” 

Mason shifted in response to someone saying his name, the smile across his face an involuntary reaction to it being Blaine - Blaine who he’d spent months getting to know without ever having laying eyes on him, Blaine who he still couldn’t believe was here. Blaine.

He didn’t stop leaning on the railing, but he moved to be leaning on his side and one arm, so that he could be facing Blaine fully. “Thanks,” Mason said, having the decency to duck his head in a show of modesty. “It was a group effort.” Mason pointed with his champagne flute to the gaggle of workers on the other end of the boat with a chuckle. “I’ll let them know the rave reviews are in,” Mason promised before he took another sip.

“And--yeah, I’ve talked to Mads. I didn’t even know she was coming,” Mason admitted with a one-shouldered shrug. “Apparently she bought the guy in charge coffee? If everybody knew it was that easy...” Mason chuckled and shook his head, pausing for a moment to look Blaine up and down before he offered the half-full flute to Blaine.

“Here,” he said, “you look great, B, but...you look like you need this more than me,” Mason said, a gentle teasing lilt to his voice. “What’s up?” He would have expected that Blaine would love this sort of thing - everyone dressed to the nines, being their most beautiful selves. Then again, maybe Blaine wasn’t grinning from ear to ear for the same reasons Mason wasn’t; maybe like Mason he thought the whole thing just felt fake, or maybe Blaine was worried that his suit wasn’t bespoke-enough...Mason’s mind drifted back to the conversation they’d had about Sebastian, Blaine’s Sebastian, about how he hadn’t felt like he fit at the charity event Sebastian had taken him to, and he resisted the urge to ask where Blaine’s boyfriend was. Because this was the first time in the longest that Mason had gotten to see Blaine, let alone have a real conversation with him, and he wasn’t going to be the one to bring up the thing that had been taking up all of Blaine’s time lately.