Chapter Text
“What's up, Daderson?”, Blaine hears coming from the phone, followed by Sam cracking up about his own pun.
“I need your help, Sam. This is not the time for jokes.”, Blaine answers, clearly distressed.
“Is this about Jamie screaming in the background?”, Sam sounds a little more focused and a lot more concerned now, “I'm sorry, don't even answer that. I'm on my way.”
“You need to tell me how to calm Jamie down first. I'm scared he's going to hurt himself”, Blaine begs, “Please, Sam.”
“Okay. I will try to help you.”, Sam answers, his voice now calm, “First of all, it's really important that you calm down. Jamie is probably really scared right now, he doesn't need his father also freaking out on him. Second, every kid is different. I can't give you some magic formula to calm him down, but it might be about the new environment he's in. He hasn't seen a familiar face or room in days, Blaine and that fact probably crashes down on him now. Try doing something he's familiar with.”
“I don't know what he's familiar with, Sam.”, Blaine answers while clearly working himself in a hysterical state, ignoring Sam's advice to calm down.
“Deep breaths, buddy. Everything will be fine.”, Sam goes still for a few seconds, probably trying to figure out their options, “Do you still have your guitar?”
Blaine does what he's told and takes a few deep breaths before answering, “Yes, I still have it. Why?”
“He told me that his Mum played the guitar. So just, play something.”, Sam suggests, “If that's not working, you call me again, okay? Another thing though, do not punish him for this after it's over. He's probably just scared. Hug him and show him you care.”, he explains further.
“I think I can handle it for now. I will call you if it doesn't work though.”, Blaine says, his voice still a little shaky but much calmer than before.
So Blaine hangs up the phone and takes one last look at the still screaming toddler, “I got this.”, he whispers to himself before running to grab his guitar.
He settles himself beside Jamie on the floor, without being close enough to let himself get kicked and starts playing the first few chords.
She works the nights, by the water
She's gone astray, so far away from her father's daughter
She just wants a life for her baby
All on her own, no one will come, she's got to save him
Jamie doesn't seem to care too much about it at first. He still doesn't calm down.
She tells him, "Oh, love
No one's ever gonna hurt you, love
I'm gonna give you all of my love
Nobody matters like you"
Just as Blaine wants to give up, Sam's theory seems to become reality though. Jamie looks up for the first time and his screams turn into really loud sobs. His eyes fixed on the guitar in Blaine's hands.
She tells him, "Your life
Ain't gonna be nothing like my life
You're gonna grow and have a good life
I'm gonna do what I've got to do"
Even Jamie's sobs quite down now and Blaine can't help but let out a relieved breath.
So, rockabye baby, rockabye
I'm gonna rock you
Rockabye baby, don't you cry
Somebody's got you
Rockabye baby, rockabye
I'm gonna rock you
Rockabye baby, don't you cry
Rockabye, no, oh oh, rockabye
As soon as Blaine sees Jamie crawling in his direction, he puts down the guitar and scoops Jamie up to hug the toddler to his chest. Blaine still quietly sings the song he just played while letting Jamie cry into his chest. He also starts rubbing comforting circles into the boy's back.
“I'm here.”, Blaine whispers and can't help but think about what he just sang. How hard it had to be for Jamie's mother without support. He doesn't even know what their financial situation looked like. His mother could have worked herself to death instead of a car accident. This all could have been his fault. Maybe it was his fault. Many people work themselves to exhaustion and crash their car because they fell asleep, right?
Blaine is now full blown crying and sobbing and can't get himself to stop. Jamie isn't crying anymore and crawls of his father's lap to grab his sippy cup. He then proceeds to hand his still clearly upset father the still half-full sippy cup. Blaine looks up now and takes the sippy cup, even though he clearly doesn't understand what Jamie is trying to do. The toddler just settles into his father's lap and hugs him again.
“He's trying to comfort you.”, Blaine hears a familiar voice and looks up to see Sam standing in the doorway, his emergency set of their house keys still in his hand, smiling sadly, “His sippy cup stops him from crying, as do hugs.”, Sam explains, “Scientist aren't sure if toddlers can actually feel empathy or want you to stop crying because they don't like it though... Oh shit, did I ruin your moment with that fact? I'm sorry.”
Blaine can't help but smile at that. Jamie seems to have recognized Sam's voice now as he flings himself out of Blaine's arms and runs into Sam's instead.
Blaine takes a deep breath and feels relief wash over him. Unfortunately, that feeling doesn't last really long though and pure worry takes over. He isn't supposed to feel relief the minute he gets the chance to give away his responsibility. It's his job now to take care of that kid.
“I can't do this.”, Blaine says, this time out loud but his voice unsteady.
Sam looks up from tickling Jamie, “What?”
“I can't do this, Sam. I can't.”, Blaine says, “I will be the worst father. No, scratch that. I already am the worst father.”, pure panic is now written on Blaine's face.
“Everyone has doubts when they become a parent.”, Sam tries to explain but he can already see that Blaine isn't really listening and instead probably working himself into even more anxiety, “Dude? Are you there?”
Blaine looks at Jamie who is settled safely on Sam's hip one last time, before storming off and out the door. He can hear Sam calling after him but he isn't ready to face all of this yet.
“Well, I didn't expect that to happen.”, Sam says, looking at the toddler in his arms, “Kurt is going to be so mad. I can't even imagine. But I guess we don't really have a choice here, do we?”, Sam sighs and calls the man mentioned anyway. He needs to talk to Blaine and he can't do that when Jamie is around or Blaine is just going to freak out even more. Jamie can't be left alone, so he really has no other choice left but to call.