#blainefuckderson

The second time he saw the green-eyed patient, Blaine had been reviewing a map of the ground floor while he walked down the hallway, not watching his feet. He heard a quiet, “Whoa,” and nearly fell over when he caught a faint whiff of the boy’s cologne. He stood face to face with the green-eyed boy, clearly seeing that his eyes weren’t just green – they were layered with shades of copper and cerulean, and Blaine could swear time stood still for a moment. He mumbled what he hoped was, “Excuse me,” before stepping past him and praying the boy’s eyes weren’t on his back.

The third time he saw his favorite green-eyed boy, it was the first time he wasn’t so caught off guard that he couldn’t think properly. Most days, Blaine ate his lunch in the small garden located in the middle of the hospital. A small fountain provided a lovely soundtrack, while the plants surrounding it and climbing up the windows made the area smell like honeysuckles and fresh grass. There were two stone benches located across from each other, and a small canopy standing over the fountain. Every patient room window on every floor looked down upon it, but it couldn’t feel more secluded. There was a long window in the main hallway of the hospital that gave a perfect view of it, but no one really noticed it except for Blaine.

Normally, he’d sit on the left stone bench and enjoy a cheese sandwich, a bag of potato chips, a yogurt, and a diet iced tea, but today, he stopped in the middle of the hall, staring out the window at his usually empty garden. The green-eyed boy was laying on the edge of the stone wall that surrounded the plants, his eyes on the sky, and his hands resting on his flat stomach. Blaine – knowing that the glare of the sun prevented anyone in the garden from seeing inside clearly – stopped and stared, his head cocking to the side. Judging by his name brand clothes and perfectly styled hair, the boy was well-off. He looked tired and thoughtful, but stressed. There was a permanent wrinkle between his eyebrows, and one side of his lips looked as though it was constantly threatening to turn down into a scowl. He was tall, with long legs and a thin waist. He had freckles sprinkled across his nose that Blaine could only see if he squinted very hard. He was handsome, almost classically so. He could be a model, or maybe a prince in a Disney film. He had long fingers and very hold-able hands. He was beautiful, very beautiful.

Blaine stood still, his fingers fumbling with the brown lunch bag in his hands and he tried to come up with something to say to him.

Mind if I sit here?

Isn’t this garden lovely?

What brings you to Kennedy hospital?

Would you like to share my lunch?

By the time Blaine decided on something normal enough to say – “Hi,” – the green-eyed boy was gathering his things – a shoulder bag and a hoodie with a ‘D’ emblem on it (Blaine recognized it as the Dalton Academy logo) – and headed for the exit, which led right into the hallway Blaine was lingering in. He cleared his throat and quickly hurried toward the garden door, building enough courage up to give the green-eyed boy a bright smile. He actually met Blaine’s eyes and held them there for a moment as he smiled back, but it didn’t fit his face, as if he really didn’t mean it. He continued past Blaine to the main entrance and Blaine ate his lunch alone in the garden, scolding himself for not trying harder.

Since then, Blaine had lost track of the amount of times he saw this green-eyed boy in the hospital, each time wishing he’d spoken up, said something funny or clever or witty or nice, but all he could ever manage was a smile. Most days he smiled back, but there were some where his eyes didn’t lift from the ground.

Once the smile he gave Blaine really met his eyes. Blaine saw a spark of hope there and it made his heart flip oddly. But the next time he saw him, the boy’s eyes were ringed with red and he looked as if he was a in a rush to leave. Blaine worried about him, wondered if there was anything he could do, but he knew he was just being silly – he didn’t even know the green-eyed boy.

Blaine had been volunteering at the hospital three days a week for the past two months. He already had enough community service hours to count for his senior year, but he liked going there. He liked helping people; it didn’t matter if he was getting rewarded for it or not. He especially liked delivering flowers and balloons. The moment he walked into a patient’s room and read the card out, their faces lit up like a firework, usually asking, “For me!?” or thanking him endlessly, when he was only the delivery person. The change in their attitude was amazing and he wished he could share that feeling with everyone he met.

Today had been slow, which meant time went by slower, which meant Blaine was bored. He sat against the wall opposite of the Information Desk in the small booth, glancing at the clock every-so-often. Since he was only a teenager, the older volunteers rarely let him up at the desk to answer the phone. He was usually the one bouncing about the hospital, doing favors for each of the floors – he didn’t mind it, he just loved answering the phone and giving people directions. He was always as polite as possible, making sure the person was smiling back at him at the end of each conversation.

His eyebrows rose when the last older volunteer wished him a good night, and his superior smiled and waved a hand at the front table for Blaine to join her. He nearly fell over his own feet getting into the chair before straightening the collar of his hospital polo and clearing his throat.

An hour of transferring callers and directing hospital goers went by before they got another delivery request. Blaine’s superior asked him to head to the cancer center and take some samples down to the blood lab for processing. He jumped up with a small grin, grabbed a cooler (for transport of bio-hazardous materials) and a latex glove before heading for the elevators.

The hospital was rather small. It only had five floors, which made it easier to navigate, but it was sometimes a bit crowded and fast paced downstairs at the Information Desk. Most of the walls were a dull green color and all the floors except the main lobby (which were hardwood and carpeted) were tan, pink, and blue linoleum. It was old, but it was a comforting place. Heaven forbid, but if Blaine were to get sick, he wouldn’t mind staying in a place like this…but most of the patients didn’t feel the same.

While he walked through the halls of the upper levels, he usually tried to keep his eyes on the nurses’ station ahead of him. He hated peering into the rooms and making the patients feel even more uncomfortable than they probably already were. Today his mind was buzzing with thoughts of his glee club and an early math exam tomorrow morning, and his eyes begin to wander. When he caught the eyes of an elderly man in one of the rooms, Blaine’s cheeks sparked with red, and an apologetic smile formed on his lips. He always felt like he was intruding when he glanced inside the rooms.

He reached the nurses desk, transferred the samples from their cooler to his, and headed back in the direction he came. Again, his eyes began to wander to each room, no one really looking up as he walked by, until he got to room 305.

The green eyes that flicked up to meet his  hit him like a ton of bricks, knocking the wind out of him as he quickly scuttled by, not even able to smile. He stopped past the room in the hall, his feet sticking to the floor.

He hadn’t put it together.

There had been a reason that the green-eyed boy had kept showing up in the hospital. Of course, he was a patient. Blaine had thought about asking him out for coffee, approaching him in the court yard and striking up a conversation, buying him an extra soda when he went to lunch – he never imagined that he was here for something like this. He’d been developing a crush on someone he hadn’t even known. He’d been paying attention to all the wrong things. This boy was sick and hurting and Blaine was thinking about dates and hand-holding.

With his head down, he hurried down to the lab and finished his delivery before heading back down to the Information Desk and letting his superior know he was heading home for the day. He felt sick with himself and so very bad for the beautiful green-eyed boy. He couldn’t have been much older than himself.

Blaine didn’t come back to the hospital until the next week, only wracking in four hours the previous week. The other volunteers greeted him as usual, telling him that they missed his eagerness and that they already had three jobs lined up for him. He gave them a little smile and did as they asked, trying not to dwell too much on the third floor. A part of him hoped he wouldn’t get sent up there for anything today, but he knew that was silly and a little stupid.

When the time finally did come and Blaine was given an errand that took him to the third floor, he swallowed hard, grabbed a cooler and a glove, and headed for the blood lab.

When the elevator brought him up to the third floor and made that awful dinging noise, his heart fluttered. He knew he wouldn’t be able to resist glancing in room 305 on his way to the nurses’ station. He knew he was being a fool and he didn’t even know the green-eyed boy who didn’t deserve even a fraction of what life had handed him. And he positively knew that he wasn’t going to be able to resist trying to help him any way he could. He’d seen his smile, his real smile, and he was determined to see it again.

He glanced into the room, not seeing any change in the green-eyed patient’s room. No sign of visitors, or gifts. He thought he saw a laptop and an mp3 player on his bedside table, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d look again on his way back.

This unit was usually for long term care of patients, and it was odd to see a room so untouched, and not lived in. It had been a week since he saw the boy in his room, and nothing had changed. He didn’t catch a glimpse of the boy in his bed, but he’d see him when he went back in the opposite direction.

This was way past invading patient privacy, but he couldn’t help himself.

He dropped off the platelets at the nurses’ station, and chewed on the inside of his cheek as he headed back for the elevators.

1, 2, 3, 4, he counted his steps back toward the room, taking each one slowly and deliberately. He concentrated hard when he passed the room a second time, still trying to look casual, but failing. The boy was sleeping, though he looked far from peaceful. It was obvious now that he hadn’t had a single visitor. Nothing was changed; the phone wasn’t hooked up, the chairs were still neatly stacked in the corner, and he had no blankets or pillows from home. That was usually the first thing that parents or friends brought a patient, but there was nothing. No sign of anyone coming to see the green-eyed boy.

The rest of the day went by much too slowly, all of Blaine’s thoughts wrapped up in the boy in room 305. While his supervisor was busy on the phone, Blaine looked up the room 305 in the patient directory.

SMYTHE, SEBASTIAN

Blaine read the two words over and over again, his stomach sinking. He quickly looked up the visitor history for the boy, but nothing was found. There hadn’t been a single person in to see him. All those times Blaine had seen him roaming the halls, he was always by himself - never even fiddling with his phone, texting anyone, calling anyone. He was alone.

He wanted to see that smile, he wanted to make him know that he wasn’t alone, and there was someone who cared about him, even if that person was just a crazy, stupid volunteer that had a terrible infatuation with him. He was determined to make his stay here as comfortable as possible – that was his job, wasn’t it? To help the patients?

He tried to convince himself that what he was doing was okay and wouldn’t get him fired as he informed his supervisor that he was going on his lunch break.

He quickly sprinted for the gift shop and pulled out a ten dollar bill, ordering a bouquet of flowers filled with pale oranges and greens and yellows that reminded him of the boy’s eyes. Sebastian’s eyes.

He grabbed a pen and scribbled out a card before tying it onto the side of the arrangement and heading up to the cancer center.

He began to doubt himself on the elevator ride up, his foot tap, tap, tapping loudly again the floor. He was foolish and irresponsible and so, so crazy and this was stupid and was this even legal? The loud ding indicating he’d reached his floor knocked him out of it and he was back on the war path as he strode straight down the hall to room 305.

He took a deep, shaky breath before knocking softly.

“Delivery for Sebastian Smythe?” God, that name sounded so lovely put together, especially rolling off of his tongue. Blaine’s smile crept over his lips as he finally saw that spark of hope back in his green, green eyes.

“Those…are for me?” His eyebrows pulled together as he sat himself up on the bed, his hospital gown clinging to him and the hospital band hanging off his wrist too much – Blaine wondered if it had been tighter last week, and if since then he’d lost weight, but he shook his head and cleared his throat.

“If you’re Sebastian Smythe, then they’re for you.” His smile widened, but the boy still looked confused and hesitant.

“Can I see the card?” His voice was hoarse, but still, it sounded like silk to Blaine. He set the flowers down on his side table and gently untied the ribbon he had only tied minutes earlier, before handing the small card over to Sebastian. Blaine stared openly as the other boy read over the card three or four times. “…Secret admirer?”  His lips pulled up into half a smirk and Blaine nearly melted on the floor. “’To brighten up your room, your secret admirer.’” He snorted, and looked up at Blaine, one eyebrow raised. “Do you know who delivered this?”

“No idea,” Blaine swallowed and shook his head with a little shrug. “And even if I did, they probably would have made me promise not to tell.” He showed his teeth when he smiled this time and Sebastian stared for a moment before chuckling softly.

“Right. Well, thank you… Would you mind setting them over there on the shelf?” Sebastian’s eyes were glued on the flowers. Blaine couldn’t really read his expression, but he thought that maybe Sebastian looked worried, but intrigued. He did as he asked and turned them once to make sure the good side was showing.

He wanted to linger, oh, how he wanted to linger, but he simply smiled, waved, and told Sebastian Smythe to have a good day. When the boy in the hospital bed smiled back, it was a real one. The same one Blaine had seen in the hallway that day that now felt like months ago.

He forced himself out of the room and shoved his hands in his pockets while he walked back toward the elevators. That was all he had wanted. Just that simple smile. A spark of hope.

Yet in the upcoming days, Blaine couldn’t help but wonder how those flowers were doing, and if they were wilting, if the colors were dulling. What if they were beginning to attract bugs? How would Sebastian feel when he asked the nurse to throw them away?

Again, he was being crazy, but he found himself scribbling another note and attaching it to another bouquet – this one full of pure white roses, the vase a forest green. He was much less nervous on his way up, but once he reached room 305, he could feel the anxiety creeping up the back of his spine and throat as he knocked on the door.

“Looks like someone has a crush on you,” Blaine raised an eyebrow, his smile bright as he stepped inside. Sebastian’s smirk was back as he sat up again, his mp3 player in his hand.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he immediately reached for the card and Blaine leaned down to let him take it. “’You have a beautiful smile. You shouldn’t hide it.’” Sebastian’s eyebrows pulled together, but his lips spread out into a wide smile that he was still clearly trying to hide. He glanced up at Blaine before bringing his eyes back down to the note, as if he were trying to decipher something. “You sure you won’t give me any hints?”

“Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you! That’s the point of a secret admirer, isn’t it?” Blaine cocked his head to the side and Sebastian finally looked back up at him.

“I suppose – Put it up beside the other one?” Sebastian stared at the decaying bouquet on the shelf before huffing. “The first ones may be past their prime.” Blaine laughed as he gently placed the other bouquet on the shelf.

“Do you want me to get rid of them?” Blaine didn’t turn to face Sebastian, just stared at the wilted flowers on the shelf. It took Sebastian a moment to answer.

“Since I have the other one now, it might be for the best.” Blaine did as he asked, his smile never leaving his lips. “…Should I tip you?” Blaine snorted, his eyes widening as he turned back to face the other boy.

“We- We’re not allowed to accept tips.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Sebastian raised an eyebrow and Blaine felt all the air escape his lungs, but he continued to force a smile.

“N-No, thank you-” He gave a quiet, awkward laugh, before following up with, “I’d probably get fired, and then who’d deliver your flowers?” He flashed a small grin and Sebastian shook his head.

“Well, thank you, in any case.”