GLEE: When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Ninja!
Title: When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Ninja!
author: infraredphaeton
summary: Career counselling at Dalton is rather in depth. Kurt is doesn't like expectations. Seb needs to learn how to ask a question. Jim...has a really bad day.
warnings: Lee, so LOTS OF SWEARING. implied emotional abuse. Eric. OCs.
“Lee? Are you there?” Jim wasn’t sitting on his bed, or slouched in his chair, but instead sat against the wall, blazer and tie discarded as he dug out his blackberry.
Please be there, please be there.
“Ah, no, this is Aiden,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, “Lee’s asleep, who is this?”
Jim stifled a whimper, hitting his head back against the wall, “It’s JIm.”
“Oh. He said to wake him up if Jim called. I’ll be right back, mate.”
“Thank you,” Jim choked out, trying to breathe normally.
“Jim?”
“Lee,” Jim half smiled, “how’s your brother?”
“He’s out of surgery. So it’s fucking good. Better, anyway,” Lee said. His voice was thick with sleep, his accent thicker, and Jim felt himself begin to calm down, eyes closing.
“So he’ll be fine? I told you so, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Jim could hear the smile in Lee’s voice, and his toes curled in the thick, dark purple carpet, settling in, “and he fucking will be. I’m...it’s fucking insane here, Jim. He’s too goddamn popular, it’s a parade of goddamn fifteen year olds with flowers and cards and fucking chocolates.”
“Is that who the boy who answered your phone was?”
“Yeah. Aiden’s one of Ruari’s best friends. He was in the same car,” Lee explained, and then, somehow, seemed to notice that Jim wasn’t acting normally.
“What’s wrong, Jim?”
“Nothing,” he replied automatically, dashing tears from his cheeks, “I’m fine, love. I’m always fine, you know that.”
Sometimes, Jim wished that Lee would push back a little. Not often, because he enjoyed having someone who would do whatever he wanted, who he could lead around by the nose and not have to do anything but throw a smile every so often, but still. He knew that Lee would accept his excuse, even if he didn’t believe him, and Jim would have to pretend that he was fine. At least with Lee on the other end of a phone line, he wouldn’t have to try and look like he was fine. Jim rubbed at his nose, and waited for Lee to reply-
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“That’s fucking bullshit, Jim, and you fucking know it. And usually I’d let it fucking slide, but not today. You’re not fucking fine, and I’m not there to make it better, so you’re going to fucking tell me what’s wrong, and I’m going to write down the exact fucking cause, and when I get home, I’m going to destroy it with active fucking prejudice.”
Jim swallowed, hard, “Lee...”
“No,” Lee interrupted, “I’m fucking over this, Jim. I’ve got my own fucking problems, and you’re the most fucking important thing in the world to me, and you goddamn know it. I don’t fucking care if you murdered the entire fucking school, I’m going to fucking help. Just...” he trailed off, sounding tired, “don’t lie to me.”
Jim sobbed quietly into the phone, and Lee’s voice gentled, “Jim, just tell me what the fuck happened, please?”
“Career counselling.”
“Tell me about it,” Lee said, and Jim nodded, running a hand through his hair, and choked back his tears.
“Okay. Okay, I can do that.”
---
Twelve hours earlier
---
“Great news, boys!” Kevin, the hall monitor and prefect for Keiran, clapped, drawing the attention of the common room, “It’s career counselling day!”
There was a collective groan from the masses, and Kurt raised an eyebrow at Blaine.
“Career counselling day means no classes,” Blaine murmured, “which is good, but it also means an hour long appointment with a counsellor about what you want to do when you grow up. It’s stressful, too, because they send a letter home to your parents, and they can be included in the conference if they want to, and you give permission.”
“...Your parents are included in career counselling?” Kurt asked, “Seriously?”
Harry leaned in, “Dalton takes counselling very, very seriously. They deal with applications, scholarships, help set up internships and job experience, run summer programs, and if worst comes to worst, the superintendent will speak directly to the college you want to enter. They keep up correspondence after graduation, and help with post-grad programs as well.”
At Kurt’s stunned expression, the Japanese boy nodded, “You can see why we’re such a competitive school now, can’t you? It’s not just our academics.”
“Wow,” Kurt shook his head slightly, “at McKinley, Ms. Pillsbury just tells you to look at some pamphlets and supplies the forms for application.”
“That sounds useful,” Harry said dryly, crossing his arms as he settled on the couch between Kurt and Pratik, “so, Wes, what are you going to tell them you want to be this time?”
Pratik looked around Harry to smile at Kurt, before looking down at his hands, “They always say they want to be silly things, see...”
“I see nothing silly about wanting to be a dinosaur when I grow up,” Wes said, sounding injured, and David patted his knee.
“I thought my choice to unseat the devil and take control of hell was conservative, actually,” he said.
“No, David, that would be if you chose to take control of Sony.”
“Same thing,” he shrugged, grinning, and Wes hit him round the back of the head.
“So, what do you guys want to do when you finish school?” Kurt asked, looking around.
“I’d like to be a professor,” Harry said thoughtfully, “literature or mythology or something.”
“Harry has a very...unique definition of fun,” Blaine said, smiling, and Harry stuck out his tongue, “I want to...hm. I’d be interested in following music, but if not, physics.”
“Physics?” Kurt raised an eyebrow, and Blaine lifted his hand, kissing Kurt’s palm.
“You’re dating a nerd, Kurt, sorry.”
“As if I didn’t already know that,” Kurt replied tartly, turning his hand over so he could twine their fingers together.
“Buuuurn,” David drawled, “I want to be a samurai.”
“A practical career path if ever I heard one.”
“And Wes wants to be a killjoy.”
“You know me so well, Davey.”
---
“Aaronson, David, please proceed to office number one. Students with surnames from A to E, please wait in the halls. You may study or talk quietly. All other students please return to your dorms or common rooms. Thank you.”
Blaine smiled, kissing Kurt’s cheek, and slid down the wall to sit against the wall, like many of the other students.
“Come on, fellow H,” said David, “we’ll go watch a movie or something. It’ll be loads of fun, and Blaine will feel really, really bad about missing it.”
Kurt smiled, shaking his head, and Wes and David threw their arms around his shoulders, pulling him out of the hall.
Blaine watched him leave, smiling, before his view was interrupted by a pair of legs encased in uniform trousers, and a pair of highly polished school shoes.
“Wow, Anderson, I think you’ve somehow shrunk.”
“Aberdeen, Jeffrey, to office number two!”
“Go away, Jim,” Blaine sighed, looking up at blond, who smiled nastily.
“Never. I’ll still be tormenting you when you’re old and no longer have hair to smother with a metric tonne of hairgel,” Jim said, falling gracefully onto the floor and pulling out a mirrored compact. He examined his face with almost painstaking care, pressing microscopic wrinkles from his collar and adjusting the way his lie lay.
“What is your problem?” Blaine finally snapped, crossing his arms, “What did I do, Jim? What the hell did I do that makes you hate me so much? Because I can’t think of anything except...” Blaine would feel bad about it later, but in the heat of the moment, he wanted to, for once, beat Jim at his own game, “being better than you. Explain it to me, Jim.”
Jim stopped in the middle of checking his hair.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Anders, Hel, to officer number three!”
“Yeah. I do. Just tell me.”
“Fine,” Jim said quietly, “Because someone as ‘lovely’ as you can only ever be loved.
“And that’s why I hate you. Because you know what? I’m just as good as you. My voice is fantastic, my grades are amazing, I’m charming and witty, when I put my mind to it. So why do you have everything? Why do you have the solos and the friends, the boyfriend and the adoring fans, and I have nothing? What makes you better than me? Just…tell me. Tell me, and I’ll change, because I *want* that. I want it. And you have it.”
“Anderson, Blaine, to office number eight!”
Jim sighed, running a hand through his hair, and looked back up, “You have it, and you don’t even care. So that’s why I hate you, Blaine. That’s why. Are you happy now?”
“Bond, James, to office number nine!”
He stood up, scrubbing a hand across his face, and walked to the far side of the hall.
That was what stuck in Blaine’s mind, that he walked. He didn’t saunter or sway or slink, hips moving from side to side seductively. He just walked.
And for a second, Blaine could almost understand. Because Jim Bond didn’t look like everything he hated, smooth and slick, overconfident and sarcastic and scarily at ease in his own skin- he just looked like a teenage boy who kept scrambling for something he desperately, desperately wanted but could never get, an illustration of the torment of Tantalus.
----
“So, Jim, as you know, your father requested that he be present at your conference today,” said the counselor, a tall, beautiful woman in her early thirties by the name of Ms Dubmeyer, “and I just wanted to double check that this is what you want.”
Jim triple checked that his tie was straight, and buttoned his blazer properly, before offering Ms Dubmeyer a tight smile.
“It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain,” he insisted, and she pressed a button on her keyboard. A TV hung on the wall of the office turned on, and Jim saw his father.
They looked incredibly alike, both with pale blond hair, icy blue eyes and high cheekbones, but Jim was more delicate, with his mother’s pointed chin and full lips.
There was nothing delicate about James Bond I.
“So, Jim, Mr. Bond, let’s talk about the future,” Ms Dubmeyer said, opening the file in front of her, “as usual, Jim, you should be congratulated on your grades. Perfect.”
Jim allowed himself a small smile, and his father practically snorted.
“Yes, fine. Let’s move on from that, shall we? It’s hardly important, and I’m on a tight schedule.”
Jim’s smile slipped, and Ms Dubmeyer forged on.
“Well, you said last semester that you want to do business and work at your father’s firm.”
“Yes. He does.”
Jim nodded silently.
“Preferably Yale or Harvard, although perhaps Oxford or Cambridge would be acceptable,” James continued, “assuming he doesn’t fail.”
“I think that’s unlikely,” Ms Dubmeyer said, “Jim’s grades have been-”
“Well, you never know what the future will bring, right, James?”
“Yes, father,” Jim said quietly, staring at the desk in front of him.
It was only an hour.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
He could last an hour.
“Yes, father.”
He looked up, and smiled.
----
“So, David, what do you want to be this year?”
David nodded solemnly, leaning forward, “I’ve been thinking about this. Thinking carefully. It’s an important decision, you see.”
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“I want to be a ninja.”
The counsellor smiled, shaking her head, and hoped that her colleague was having more luck with Wes.
---
“With extracurriculars that span this well, he has a fantastic base to draw from for applications,” Ms Dubmeyer said.
“Yes, but he hasn’t actually showed any initiative. He still isn’t the lead in the choir, and the fencing team is tiny. He’s never showed any initiative.”
Forty five minutes, Jim thought, trying to control his breathing, he could last forty five minutes.
---
“...Please don’t tell me you want to be a super spy, Wes.”
“I don’t want to be a super spy, sir,” Wes said, grinning.
“...Go on, then.”
“I want to be a pirate. David will be a ninja, and together, we will work to mend the crippling feud that has separated these two professions.”
The counsellor sighed heavily, and hoped that his fiance was having less trouble with the other one.
---
“Hey, Ben.”
Seb nodded, smiling.
“Ben, hi.”
Seb winked.
“Hello, Ben.”
He waved a little, grinning.
“Greetings, Benjamin.”
“Salutations, Ben.”
“Heeeey, Ben!”
Seb sighed, falling back on his bed, and hit his head back against the pillows.
“I am an idiot.”
His roommate looked at him, still filing his nails, “Well, maybe not an idiot, but at least highly repetitive.”
“Thanks, Kurt,” Seb rolled his eyes, turning over and screaming into his pillow.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asked, finally putting down the file, “I haven’t heard someone this repetitive since Mercedes decided that she was going to say ‘Hell no’ before every sentence to show her sassy attitude.”
“You’re dating Blaine, right?” Seb said suddenly, rolling over and pulling the cushion off his head.
“Yes, I am,” Kurt said, with a faint smile, and crossed his legs, sitting up properly to see him, “Why?”
“How did you ask him out?”
“Are you having...romantic problems?” Kurt asked, and Seb nodded miserably.
“It’s more a problem in that there is no romance. And I think he likes someone else.”
“The someone else isn’t a girl, is it? Because I went through that last year, and let me tell you, it doesn’t usually end well,” he tilted his head on one side, “I ended up with a brother rather than a boyfriend. It wasn’t what I planned.”
“No. He likes...do you know Harry Takashima?”
Kurt nodded, and Seb sighed heavily, hugging his pillow.
“He likes Harry. I think. I don’t know. I can’t even figure out how to ask him out to go for lunch.”
“Well, have you tried asking if he’d like to go to lunch with you?” Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow, “Look, I’ll pretend to be...”
“Ben,” Seb filled in, and Kurt nodded.
“And you ask me out.”
“This is going to end badly,” Seb muttered, sitting up, and Kurt rolled his eyes.
“What? Do you think you’re going to stab him while trying to ask him out or something?”
“I don’t want to rule out any ways this could go wrong,” Seb said darkly.
“And stabbing is on the list, huh?”
“Everything is on the list.”
---
“Green, Ben, to office five!”
Ben smiled, waving goodbye to Wes and David, who had hung around after their appointments to keep him company as he waited, and headed into the office.
“So, Ben, this is your first career counselling appointment, isn’t it?” asked the counsellor, a man in his late forties.
“Yes, it is,” Ben agreed, taking a seat.
“Well, have you got any idea what field you’re interested in going into?”
Ben thought for a minute.
“I might work in the same field my father’s in,” he said slowly.
“And what’s that?” asked the man, clicking his pen and preparing to write.
“The civil service.”
---
Ms Dubmeyer turned off the television, and Jim relaxed slightly in his seat.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Ms Dubmeyer. I realise my father is not always a pleasant man.”
“...Jim, are you really sure you want to go into business?” Ms Dubmeyer asked, “I remember hearing you talk about being interested in Psychology. I could still look for some course information. You have a year before you graduate. Is business really what you want to do?”
“My father wants me to,” Jim said with a brittle smile, and stood up. He straightened his sleeves and ran a hand across his hair, “do I look presentable?”
“You look fine. Enjoy your day off, Jim.”
“So far, it has been the pinnacle of joy,” Jim said, still smiling, and stalked out of the room.
---
“Ask him now,” suggested Bradley helpfully, and Seb hunched up in his Dalton hoody, shaking his head.
“Now?” Cas asked.
“Now?” Leon added.
“No! I can’t just go up and say,” Seb shook his head, letting the triplet corral him down the hall, gesturing dramatically and looking at the ceiling, “Benjamin Green, will you go out with me?”
“Sure.”
Seb jumped, looking down, to see an immensely cute looking blond, carrying a pile of books and pamphlets in his arms and smiling at him.
“...Hi, Ben.”
“Pick me up at four. We’ll go catch a movie.”
Ben grinned, ducking his head, and pushed past the knot of Hallmans in the corridor.
“Wear something nice!” he called back.
“...That isn’t how that was supposed to go,” Sebastien said weakly, and Cas slapped him on the back.
“Never mind! You actually managed to ask him out. Go you!”
“...But that was a hypothetical asking out. That wasn’t how I wanted to do it!”
“We warned you,” Bradley drawled.
“if you didn’t”
“make a move,”
“we’d make it for you,” Leon finished, smiling.
“...thirty points from Slytherin,” Seb sulked, “for being dicks.”
“Oh no. Not our fictional house points for a fictional house at a fictional school for wizards.”
---
“Mr Hummel? I’ve been told to expect something to do with the performing arts, is that correct?”
Kurt sniffed, settling in his chair and crossing his legs.
“I’m not that narrow. I’m also interested in engineering and fashion. Not together, of course, but separately.”
“Interesting mix,” said the counsellor, blinking, and pulled out another two folders.
“I think so. Clearly.”
---
Harry woke up slowly, blinking away the sleep from his eyes and yawning, to find himself face to face with a deeply asleep Pratik. His dark hair wasn’t in it’s usual artful disarray, but drooped over his face, almost falling into his eyes. His long lashes were dark against his cheeks, and Pratik was half smiling in his sleep, curled against Harry in a way that felt weirdly comfortable. Harry smiled slowly, hazy with sleep, and reached forward to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his roommate’s ear. Pratik murmured something in his sleep, rolling closer, and hid his face in Harry’s shoulder.
“Pratik?” Harry muttered, resting his hand on Pratik’s waist, and the Indian boy yawned cuddling close sleepily, “Pratik, wake up.”
They’d fallen asleep while studying for biology, knowing that both of them- being a K and a T respectively- wouldn’t be called until at least four o’clock, and Pratik was having real trouble understand the concept of cell division. The cold weather, as always, turned Pratik into an unhappily cold student unless he was cuddled up against someone else- usually Harry- and they’d wound up pressed together on Pratik’s bed, surrounded by papers while Harry explained the theory quietly, Pratik’s head nestled against his shoulder.
It had proven too warm and comfortable, Harry thought, with a sheepish smiled, and shook Pratik’s shoulder gently, hand lingering on the curve of his arm under his blazer.
“Pratik? Wake up. We fell asleep.”
Pratik didn’t wake up, but instead rolled closer, leg hooking around Harry’s hips as he snuggled closer, and Harry’s breath caught in his chest.
“P-Pratik?”
“Four minutes...” Pratik murmured sleepily, and his lips brushed Harry’s chest.
“...Okay,” Harry agreed faintly.
---
In an incredibly expensive private ward in a Dublin hospital, Lee Dwyre was sitting in his brother’s hospital room, turning his phone between his hands nervously as he watched him sleep. On the other side of the bed, two of his brothers’ friends, dressed in the familiar black blazers and uniform of Reilly Grammar School, Lee’s old school, waited, equally nervous. Ruari looked a lot like his older brother, with dark, messy hair, paper pale skin and grey blue eyes, and seeing him lying there, asleep, was like looking at a photograph of himself three years ago, all awkward limbs and embarrassing not-quite-freckles.
However, where Lee was the bane of educators everywhere, Ruari was more like the Blaine of his school. He was well liked, polite, had strong morals, and was the perfect student. He was the model of a perfect fourteen year old, and for the last few days, the only thing Lee had been able to ask was ‘why him?’
It was horrible, he knew, but Aiden and Vince, his brother’s best friends, had been untouched by the accident- a few scrapes and cuts, but nothing like Ruari, and Lee couldn’t help but think why the fuck weren’t they in a hospital bed?
Why was Ruari the one who’d had a shunt in his skull? Why was he the one with half his head shaved, ribs crushed, horrible, black and blue and overly familiar bruises, Lee had given a man bruises just like them for trying to slip Jim a roofie only a month ago, and he couldn’t...
Lee stood up, breathing harshly, and looked away from Ruari.
“I’m going out. If you fucking need me, call me. If he needs me, come get me.”
He turned on his heel and stalked out into the cold air, shaking hands tapping a cigarette out and lighting it as soon as he got out into the car park.
“Fuck.”
“Can I bum a smoke?”
Lee turned around, staring at the kid who’d followed him out. He had a fine boned face and shock of bright red hair, and he was rubbing the pads of his fingers together in a way that clearly betrayed his nicotine habit.
“Filthy fucking habit,” Lee said, passing him a cigarette, “how old are you, anyway? Twelve or some shit like that?”
“I’m fifteen,” replied the redhead calmly. His accent was thicker than Lee’s, he thought absently, probably because of all the time he spent in America, rather than here.
And wasn’t that weird, Lee thought, taking another lungful of smoke, that Dublin was here, and when he thought about home, he thought about music and superior laughter and speaking in lyrics and a frankly disturbing love of Doctor Who.
“Is it true you burnt down the gym?” asked the redhead curiously, and Lee shrugged, stubbing out his cigarette on the sole of his steel toed boots.
“Could have been mice.”
“...It burnt down, though.”
“Mice with a fucking smoking habit, then,” Lee smiled nastily, “what the fuck did you want, anyway?”
“Doctor says Ruar’ will be waking up in the next half hour,” Vince said, “I thought you might want to know.”
“No fucking shit, Sherlock, what the fuck would make you think I’d want to know that?” Lee rolled his eyes, heading back towards the hospital, and Vince trotted after him, “You’re about as fucking intelligent as a Republican after he’s spent fifteen hour snorting cocaine off a hooker’s ass.”
“...Seriously?”
Lee whirled round, glaring at the younger teenager, “Do you have a fucking problem with my fucking political beliefs, boy, because fucking trust me, do not goddamn push me, because I am close to the fucking edge, and I will give you a fucking lower gender reassignment surgery with my zippo and a spoon!”
The redhead nodded, eyes wide, and followed Lee back into the hospital.
---
“I’m unsure whether I should continue with my current dream of starring on Broadway, or if I’d prefer to become a dictator of a small country, possible in Africa, although I would not reject one in South America.”
“...Well, Eric, let’s look at performing arts options, shall we?”
“Hmph.”
“And if you could come down off the ceiling fan, that would be great.”
---
Jim ignored the people around him in the corridors as he walked, fumbling into his jacket and finding his blackberry. Usually he’d find Lee in person, or Harry and Pratik, but he couldn’t...
Dealing with his father wasn’t easy.
James Bond I was not a man who was easy to please. Nothing less than the best was acceptable, and as the eldest of his three children, Jim was, by necessity, perfect in his father’s eyes.
When he cared enough to look, anyway.
Jim collided with a freshman, and pushed him away with an apology, not even hearing the “Are you alright, Captain?” that followed him as he headed towards the Hallman dorms.
He just needed to call Lee.
He didn’t know why, but he needed...
He just needed.
author: infraredphaeton
summary: Career counselling at Dalton is rather in depth. Kurt is doesn't like expectations. Seb needs to learn how to ask a question. Jim...has a really bad day.
warnings: Lee, so LOTS OF SWEARING. implied emotional abuse. Eric. OCs.
“Lee? Are you there?” Jim wasn’t sitting on his bed, or slouched in his chair, but instead sat against the wall, blazer and tie discarded as he dug out his blackberry.
Please be there, please be there.
“Ah, no, this is Aiden,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, “Lee’s asleep, who is this?”
Jim stifled a whimper, hitting his head back against the wall, “It’s JIm.”
“Oh. He said to wake him up if Jim called. I’ll be right back, mate.”
“Thank you,” Jim choked out, trying to breathe normally.
“Jim?”
“Lee,” Jim half smiled, “how’s your brother?”
“He’s out of surgery. So it’s fucking good. Better, anyway,” Lee said. His voice was thick with sleep, his accent thicker, and Jim felt himself begin to calm down, eyes closing.
“So he’ll be fine? I told you so, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Jim could hear the smile in Lee’s voice, and his toes curled in the thick, dark purple carpet, settling in, “and he fucking will be. I’m...it’s fucking insane here, Jim. He’s too goddamn popular, it’s a parade of goddamn fifteen year olds with flowers and cards and fucking chocolates.”
“Is that who the boy who answered your phone was?”
“Yeah. Aiden’s one of Ruari’s best friends. He was in the same car,” Lee explained, and then, somehow, seemed to notice that Jim wasn’t acting normally.
“What’s wrong, Jim?”
“Nothing,” he replied automatically, dashing tears from his cheeks, “I’m fine, love. I’m always fine, you know that.”
Sometimes, Jim wished that Lee would push back a little. Not often, because he enjoyed having someone who would do whatever he wanted, who he could lead around by the nose and not have to do anything but throw a smile every so often, but still. He knew that Lee would accept his excuse, even if he didn’t believe him, and Jim would have to pretend that he was fine. At least with Lee on the other end of a phone line, he wouldn’t have to try and look like he was fine. Jim rubbed at his nose, and waited for Lee to reply-
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“That’s fucking bullshit, Jim, and you fucking know it. And usually I’d let it fucking slide, but not today. You’re not fucking fine, and I’m not there to make it better, so you’re going to fucking tell me what’s wrong, and I’m going to write down the exact fucking cause, and when I get home, I’m going to destroy it with active fucking prejudice.”
Jim swallowed, hard, “Lee...”
“No,” Lee interrupted, “I’m fucking over this, Jim. I’ve got my own fucking problems, and you’re the most fucking important thing in the world to me, and you goddamn know it. I don’t fucking care if you murdered the entire fucking school, I’m going to fucking help. Just...” he trailed off, sounding tired, “don’t lie to me.”
Jim sobbed quietly into the phone, and Lee’s voice gentled, “Jim, just tell me what the fuck happened, please?”
“Career counselling.”
“Tell me about it,” Lee said, and Jim nodded, running a hand through his hair, and choked back his tears.
“Okay. Okay, I can do that.”
---
Twelve hours earlier
---
“Great news, boys!” Kevin, the hall monitor and prefect for Keiran, clapped, drawing the attention of the common room, “It’s career counselling day!”
There was a collective groan from the masses, and Kurt raised an eyebrow at Blaine.
“Career counselling day means no classes,” Blaine murmured, “which is good, but it also means an hour long appointment with a counsellor about what you want to do when you grow up. It’s stressful, too, because they send a letter home to your parents, and they can be included in the conference if they want to, and you give permission.”
“...Your parents are included in career counselling?” Kurt asked, “Seriously?”
Harry leaned in, “Dalton takes counselling very, very seriously. They deal with applications, scholarships, help set up internships and job experience, run summer programs, and if worst comes to worst, the superintendent will speak directly to the college you want to enter. They keep up correspondence after graduation, and help with post-grad programs as well.”
At Kurt’s stunned expression, the Japanese boy nodded, “You can see why we’re such a competitive school now, can’t you? It’s not just our academics.”
“Wow,” Kurt shook his head slightly, “at McKinley, Ms. Pillsbury just tells you to look at some pamphlets and supplies the forms for application.”
“That sounds useful,” Harry said dryly, crossing his arms as he settled on the couch between Kurt and Pratik, “so, Wes, what are you going to tell them you want to be this time?”
Pratik looked around Harry to smile at Kurt, before looking down at his hands, “They always say they want to be silly things, see...”
“I see nothing silly about wanting to be a dinosaur when I grow up,” Wes said, sounding injured, and David patted his knee.
“I thought my choice to unseat the devil and take control of hell was conservative, actually,” he said.
“No, David, that would be if you chose to take control of Sony.”
“Same thing,” he shrugged, grinning, and Wes hit him round the back of the head.
“So, what do you guys want to do when you finish school?” Kurt asked, looking around.
“I’d like to be a professor,” Harry said thoughtfully, “literature or mythology or something.”
“Harry has a very...unique definition of fun,” Blaine said, smiling, and Harry stuck out his tongue, “I want to...hm. I’d be interested in following music, but if not, physics.”
“Physics?” Kurt raised an eyebrow, and Blaine lifted his hand, kissing Kurt’s palm.
“You’re dating a nerd, Kurt, sorry.”
“As if I didn’t already know that,” Kurt replied tartly, turning his hand over so he could twine their fingers together.
“Buuuurn,” David drawled, “I want to be a samurai.”
“A practical career path if ever I heard one.”
“And Wes wants to be a killjoy.”
“You know me so well, Davey.”
---
“Aaronson, David, please proceed to office number one. Students with surnames from A to E, please wait in the halls. You may study or talk quietly. All other students please return to your dorms or common rooms. Thank you.”
Blaine smiled, kissing Kurt’s cheek, and slid down the wall to sit against the wall, like many of the other students.
“Come on, fellow H,” said David, “we’ll go watch a movie or something. It’ll be loads of fun, and Blaine will feel really, really bad about missing it.”
Kurt smiled, shaking his head, and Wes and David threw their arms around his shoulders, pulling him out of the hall.
Blaine watched him leave, smiling, before his view was interrupted by a pair of legs encased in uniform trousers, and a pair of highly polished school shoes.
“Wow, Anderson, I think you’ve somehow shrunk.”
“Aberdeen, Jeffrey, to office number two!”
“Go away, Jim,” Blaine sighed, looking up at blond, who smiled nastily.
“Never. I’ll still be tormenting you when you’re old and no longer have hair to smother with a metric tonne of hairgel,” Jim said, falling gracefully onto the floor and pulling out a mirrored compact. He examined his face with almost painstaking care, pressing microscopic wrinkles from his collar and adjusting the way his lie lay.
“What is your problem?” Blaine finally snapped, crossing his arms, “What did I do, Jim? What the hell did I do that makes you hate me so much? Because I can’t think of anything except...” Blaine would feel bad about it later, but in the heat of the moment, he wanted to, for once, beat Jim at his own game, “being better than you. Explain it to me, Jim.”
Jim stopped in the middle of checking his hair.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Anders, Hel, to officer number three!”
“Yeah. I do. Just tell me.”
“Fine,” Jim said quietly, “Because someone as ‘lovely’ as you can only ever be loved.
“And that’s why I hate you. Because you know what? I’m just as good as you. My voice is fantastic, my grades are amazing, I’m charming and witty, when I put my mind to it. So why do you have everything? Why do you have the solos and the friends, the boyfriend and the adoring fans, and I have nothing? What makes you better than me? Just…tell me. Tell me, and I’ll change, because I *want* that. I want it. And you have it.”
“Anderson, Blaine, to office number eight!”
Jim sighed, running a hand through his hair, and looked back up, “You have it, and you don’t even care. So that’s why I hate you, Blaine. That’s why. Are you happy now?”
“Bond, James, to office number nine!”
He stood up, scrubbing a hand across his face, and walked to the far side of the hall.
That was what stuck in Blaine’s mind, that he walked. He didn’t saunter or sway or slink, hips moving from side to side seductively. He just walked.
And for a second, Blaine could almost understand. Because Jim Bond didn’t look like everything he hated, smooth and slick, overconfident and sarcastic and scarily at ease in his own skin- he just looked like a teenage boy who kept scrambling for something he desperately, desperately wanted but could never get, an illustration of the torment of Tantalus.
----
“So, Jim, as you know, your father requested that he be present at your conference today,” said the counselor, a tall, beautiful woman in her early thirties by the name of Ms Dubmeyer, “and I just wanted to double check that this is what you want.”
Jim triple checked that his tie was straight, and buttoned his blazer properly, before offering Ms Dubmeyer a tight smile.
“It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain,” he insisted, and she pressed a button on her keyboard. A TV hung on the wall of the office turned on, and Jim saw his father.
They looked incredibly alike, both with pale blond hair, icy blue eyes and high cheekbones, but Jim was more delicate, with his mother’s pointed chin and full lips.
There was nothing delicate about James Bond I.
“So, Jim, Mr. Bond, let’s talk about the future,” Ms Dubmeyer said, opening the file in front of her, “as usual, Jim, you should be congratulated on your grades. Perfect.”
Jim allowed himself a small smile, and his father practically snorted.
“Yes, fine. Let’s move on from that, shall we? It’s hardly important, and I’m on a tight schedule.”
Jim’s smile slipped, and Ms Dubmeyer forged on.
“Well, you said last semester that you want to do business and work at your father’s firm.”
“Yes. He does.”
Jim nodded silently.
“Preferably Yale or Harvard, although perhaps Oxford or Cambridge would be acceptable,” James continued, “assuming he doesn’t fail.”
“I think that’s unlikely,” Ms Dubmeyer said, “Jim’s grades have been-”
“Well, you never know what the future will bring, right, James?”
“Yes, father,” Jim said quietly, staring at the desk in front of him.
It was only an hour.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
He could last an hour.
“Yes, father.”
He looked up, and smiled.
----
“So, David, what do you want to be this year?”
David nodded solemnly, leaning forward, “I’ve been thinking about this. Thinking carefully. It’s an important decision, you see.”
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“I want to be a ninja.”
The counsellor smiled, shaking her head, and hoped that her colleague was having more luck with Wes.
---
“With extracurriculars that span this well, he has a fantastic base to draw from for applications,” Ms Dubmeyer said.
“Yes, but he hasn’t actually showed any initiative. He still isn’t the lead in the choir, and the fencing team is tiny. He’s never showed any initiative.”
Forty five minutes, Jim thought, trying to control his breathing, he could last forty five minutes.
---
“...Please don’t tell me you want to be a super spy, Wes.”
“I don’t want to be a super spy, sir,” Wes said, grinning.
“...Go on, then.”
“I want to be a pirate. David will be a ninja, and together, we will work to mend the crippling feud that has separated these two professions.”
The counsellor sighed heavily, and hoped that his fiance was having less trouble with the other one.
---
“Hey, Ben.”
Seb nodded, smiling.
“Ben, hi.”
Seb winked.
“Hello, Ben.”
He waved a little, grinning.
“Greetings, Benjamin.”
“Salutations, Ben.”
“Heeeey, Ben!”
Seb sighed, falling back on his bed, and hit his head back against the pillows.
“I am an idiot.”
His roommate looked at him, still filing his nails, “Well, maybe not an idiot, but at least highly repetitive.”
“Thanks, Kurt,” Seb rolled his eyes, turning over and screaming into his pillow.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asked, finally putting down the file, “I haven’t heard someone this repetitive since Mercedes decided that she was going to say ‘Hell no’ before every sentence to show her sassy attitude.”
“You’re dating Blaine, right?” Seb said suddenly, rolling over and pulling the cushion off his head.
“Yes, I am,” Kurt said, with a faint smile, and crossed his legs, sitting up properly to see him, “Why?”
“How did you ask him out?”
“Are you having...romantic problems?” Kurt asked, and Seb nodded miserably.
“It’s more a problem in that there is no romance. And I think he likes someone else.”
“The someone else isn’t a girl, is it? Because I went through that last year, and let me tell you, it doesn’t usually end well,” he tilted his head on one side, “I ended up with a brother rather than a boyfriend. It wasn’t what I planned.”
“No. He likes...do you know Harry Takashima?”
Kurt nodded, and Seb sighed heavily, hugging his pillow.
“He likes Harry. I think. I don’t know. I can’t even figure out how to ask him out to go for lunch.”
“Well, have you tried asking if he’d like to go to lunch with you?” Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow, “Look, I’ll pretend to be...”
“Ben,” Seb filled in, and Kurt nodded.
“And you ask me out.”
“This is going to end badly,” Seb muttered, sitting up, and Kurt rolled his eyes.
“What? Do you think you’re going to stab him while trying to ask him out or something?”
“I don’t want to rule out any ways this could go wrong,” Seb said darkly.
“And stabbing is on the list, huh?”
“Everything is on the list.”
---
“Green, Ben, to office five!”
Ben smiled, waving goodbye to Wes and David, who had hung around after their appointments to keep him company as he waited, and headed into the office.
“So, Ben, this is your first career counselling appointment, isn’t it?” asked the counsellor, a man in his late forties.
“Yes, it is,” Ben agreed, taking a seat.
“Well, have you got any idea what field you’re interested in going into?”
Ben thought for a minute.
“I might work in the same field my father’s in,” he said slowly.
“And what’s that?” asked the man, clicking his pen and preparing to write.
“The civil service.”
---
Ms Dubmeyer turned off the television, and Jim relaxed slightly in his seat.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Ms Dubmeyer. I realise my father is not always a pleasant man.”
“...Jim, are you really sure you want to go into business?” Ms Dubmeyer asked, “I remember hearing you talk about being interested in Psychology. I could still look for some course information. You have a year before you graduate. Is business really what you want to do?”
“My father wants me to,” Jim said with a brittle smile, and stood up. He straightened his sleeves and ran a hand across his hair, “do I look presentable?”
“You look fine. Enjoy your day off, Jim.”
“So far, it has been the pinnacle of joy,” Jim said, still smiling, and stalked out of the room.
---
“Ask him now,” suggested Bradley helpfully, and Seb hunched up in his Dalton hoody, shaking his head.
“Now?” Cas asked.
“Now?” Leon added.
“No! I can’t just go up and say,” Seb shook his head, letting the triplet corral him down the hall, gesturing dramatically and looking at the ceiling, “Benjamin Green, will you go out with me?”
“Sure.”
Seb jumped, looking down, to see an immensely cute looking blond, carrying a pile of books and pamphlets in his arms and smiling at him.
“...Hi, Ben.”
“Pick me up at four. We’ll go catch a movie.”
Ben grinned, ducking his head, and pushed past the knot of Hallmans in the corridor.
“Wear something nice!” he called back.
“...That isn’t how that was supposed to go,” Sebastien said weakly, and Cas slapped him on the back.
“Never mind! You actually managed to ask him out. Go you!”
“...But that was a hypothetical asking out. That wasn’t how I wanted to do it!”
“We warned you,” Bradley drawled.
“if you didn’t”
“make a move,”
“we’d make it for you,” Leon finished, smiling.
“...thirty points from Slytherin,” Seb sulked, “for being dicks.”
“Oh no. Not our fictional house points for a fictional house at a fictional school for wizards.”
---
“Mr Hummel? I’ve been told to expect something to do with the performing arts, is that correct?”
Kurt sniffed, settling in his chair and crossing his legs.
“I’m not that narrow. I’m also interested in engineering and fashion. Not together, of course, but separately.”
“Interesting mix,” said the counsellor, blinking, and pulled out another two folders.
“I think so. Clearly.”
---
Harry woke up slowly, blinking away the sleep from his eyes and yawning, to find himself face to face with a deeply asleep Pratik. His dark hair wasn’t in it’s usual artful disarray, but drooped over his face, almost falling into his eyes. His long lashes were dark against his cheeks, and Pratik was half smiling in his sleep, curled against Harry in a way that felt weirdly comfortable. Harry smiled slowly, hazy with sleep, and reached forward to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his roommate’s ear. Pratik murmured something in his sleep, rolling closer, and hid his face in Harry’s shoulder.
“Pratik?” Harry muttered, resting his hand on Pratik’s waist, and the Indian boy yawned cuddling close sleepily, “Pratik, wake up.”
They’d fallen asleep while studying for biology, knowing that both of them- being a K and a T respectively- wouldn’t be called until at least four o’clock, and Pratik was having real trouble understand the concept of cell division. The cold weather, as always, turned Pratik into an unhappily cold student unless he was cuddled up against someone else- usually Harry- and they’d wound up pressed together on Pratik’s bed, surrounded by papers while Harry explained the theory quietly, Pratik’s head nestled against his shoulder.
It had proven too warm and comfortable, Harry thought, with a sheepish smiled, and shook Pratik’s shoulder gently, hand lingering on the curve of his arm under his blazer.
“Pratik? Wake up. We fell asleep.”
Pratik didn’t wake up, but instead rolled closer, leg hooking around Harry’s hips as he snuggled closer, and Harry’s breath caught in his chest.
“P-Pratik?”
“Four minutes...” Pratik murmured sleepily, and his lips brushed Harry’s chest.
“...Okay,” Harry agreed faintly.
---
In an incredibly expensive private ward in a Dublin hospital, Lee Dwyre was sitting in his brother’s hospital room, turning his phone between his hands nervously as he watched him sleep. On the other side of the bed, two of his brothers’ friends, dressed in the familiar black blazers and uniform of Reilly Grammar School, Lee’s old school, waited, equally nervous. Ruari looked a lot like his older brother, with dark, messy hair, paper pale skin and grey blue eyes, and seeing him lying there, asleep, was like looking at a photograph of himself three years ago, all awkward limbs and embarrassing not-quite-freckles.
However, where Lee was the bane of educators everywhere, Ruari was more like the Blaine of his school. He was well liked, polite, had strong morals, and was the perfect student. He was the model of a perfect fourteen year old, and for the last few days, the only thing Lee had been able to ask was ‘why him?’
It was horrible, he knew, but Aiden and Vince, his brother’s best friends, had been untouched by the accident- a few scrapes and cuts, but nothing like Ruari, and Lee couldn’t help but think why the fuck weren’t they in a hospital bed?
Why was Ruari the one who’d had a shunt in his skull? Why was he the one with half his head shaved, ribs crushed, horrible, black and blue and overly familiar bruises, Lee had given a man bruises just like them for trying to slip Jim a roofie only a month ago, and he couldn’t...
Lee stood up, breathing harshly, and looked away from Ruari.
“I’m going out. If you fucking need me, call me. If he needs me, come get me.”
He turned on his heel and stalked out into the cold air, shaking hands tapping a cigarette out and lighting it as soon as he got out into the car park.
“Fuck.”
“Can I bum a smoke?”
Lee turned around, staring at the kid who’d followed him out. He had a fine boned face and shock of bright red hair, and he was rubbing the pads of his fingers together in a way that clearly betrayed his nicotine habit.
“Filthy fucking habit,” Lee said, passing him a cigarette, “how old are you, anyway? Twelve or some shit like that?”
“I’m fifteen,” replied the redhead calmly. His accent was thicker than Lee’s, he thought absently, probably because of all the time he spent in America, rather than here.
And wasn’t that weird, Lee thought, taking another lungful of smoke, that Dublin was here, and when he thought about home, he thought about music and superior laughter and speaking in lyrics and a frankly disturbing love of Doctor Who.
“Is it true you burnt down the gym?” asked the redhead curiously, and Lee shrugged, stubbing out his cigarette on the sole of his steel toed boots.
“Could have been mice.”
“...It burnt down, though.”
“Mice with a fucking smoking habit, then,” Lee smiled nastily, “what the fuck did you want, anyway?”
“Doctor says Ruar’ will be waking up in the next half hour,” Vince said, “I thought you might want to know.”
“No fucking shit, Sherlock, what the fuck would make you think I’d want to know that?” Lee rolled his eyes, heading back towards the hospital, and Vince trotted after him, “You’re about as fucking intelligent as a Republican after he’s spent fifteen hour snorting cocaine off a hooker’s ass.”
“...Seriously?”
Lee whirled round, glaring at the younger teenager, “Do you have a fucking problem with my fucking political beliefs, boy, because fucking trust me, do not goddamn push me, because I am close to the fucking edge, and I will give you a fucking lower gender reassignment surgery with my zippo and a spoon!”
The redhead nodded, eyes wide, and followed Lee back into the hospital.
---
“I’m unsure whether I should continue with my current dream of starring on Broadway, or if I’d prefer to become a dictator of a small country, possible in Africa, although I would not reject one in South America.”
“...Well, Eric, let’s look at performing arts options, shall we?”
“Hmph.”
“And if you could come down off the ceiling fan, that would be great.”
---
Jim ignored the people around him in the corridors as he walked, fumbling into his jacket and finding his blackberry. Usually he’d find Lee in person, or Harry and Pratik, but he couldn’t...
Dealing with his father wasn’t easy.
James Bond I was not a man who was easy to please. Nothing less than the best was acceptable, and as the eldest of his three children, Jim was, by necessity, perfect in his father’s eyes.
When he cared enough to look, anyway.
Jim collided with a freshman, and pushed him away with an apology, not even hearing the “Are you alright, Captain?” that followed him as he headed towards the Hallman dorms.
He just needed to call Lee.
He didn’t know why, but he needed...
He just needed.