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Blaine would not have considered himself an expert on wet tshirt contests. It was the kind of thing that, within his head, was confined to wild spring breaks that got aired on MTV, the ones where the girls always pulled their bikini tops off while screaming at the top of their lungs; or the inner fantasies of straight teenage boys. Blaine tended to spend his spring breaks in New York, visiting old school friends and discovering new coffee shops on tucked away streets, and as far as his fantasies went, he tended to have a fairly strict no girls allowed rule on that one.
It hadn’t been his idea, either, but he didn’t have the heart to turn down Sam’s suggestion. Particularly not when the other two guys seemed as in favor of the idea as him. Particularly not when Blaine hadn’t been able to come up with any better propositions for raising the money they desperately needed to be able to keep the quartet from floundering.
It turned out barbershop quartets were quite a niche activity to fall into at Berkeley, and perhaps the clue was in the name. With only four members, there was hardly a steady influx of new faces passing through, and as such they tended to be overlooked for the largely more successful and vast glee club.
The glee club had held a car wash. The glee club also had girls, so their car wash had raised them several thousand dollars through what could only be described as a soft core version of something that would be found in a strip club.
Blaine had done his time singing pop ballads in perky bow ties, he wanted to get back to his roots, to harness the efforts of his and other voices and prove what the power of four could really do. Things weren’t quite going to plan.
By all respects, Sam belonged more in the glee club than in his little quartet, but apparently he’d body rolled in his audition and they’d kicked him out without so much as a thank you. And his voice was strong, there was no doubt about that.
Adam had more of a classic edge to him, one of the reasons why Blaine trusted him to song selections. Even if that did mean they sung a lot of The Beatles. Jake was the freshman of the group, the rest of them already juniors, who had come in to replace Hunter, who’d mysteriously dropped out of school halfway through their sophomore year. He’d always intimidated Blaine a little, anyway.
Blaine wasn’t sure how four averagely attractive guys were going to make the two thousand, seven hundred and four dollars they needed to have by the end of the calendar month, just by allowing students to pelt them with water balloons and spray guns, but as he gazed down at the numbers in the ledger, he knew that they really did not have a choice.
“Do or die, gentlemen,” Sam said seriously, uniting their hands in the middle of a small circle.
“I choose the latter,” Blaine muttered under his breath.
*
Blaine slid his sunglasses down over his eyes as he surveyed the area they had set up on the quad. Sam and Jake were busily setting up tubs of water balloons, having recruited some sophomore girl who had a bit of a thing for Sam to hand them out and deal with the money.
“Stop worrying so much,” Adam said brightly, clapping a hand on his shoulder and squeezing a little too hard.
“Two thousand, seven hundred and four, Adam,” Blaine mumbled through gritted teeth, grinding the heel of his shoe into the ground. “That’s.. That’s, like, six hundred and seventy something apiece. I don’t think anyone would pay five dollars to see me wet.”
Adam laughed softly, twisting on his heel to step backwards towards the makeshift stage. “Don’t undervalue yourself,” he called out in response. “I’ve seen what’s under there. Not bad, Anderson.” He winked, before turning and jogging up the steps, the sun beaming down over his fair skin.
Blaine sighed under his breath, tugging off the shades and sticking them in his pocket, rubbing at his eyes a little. At least they had Sam, and Jake. All they needed were a few girls with more money than sense and those two would bring it a couple of hundred if nothing else.
“Hey, Blaine!”
Blaine lifted his head at the sound of Sam’s voice, grunting as a cold water bomb hit his chest and exploded over the material. The white fabric already began to soak through, highlighting the curves of his torso beneath. He pointed at the tub Tina was holding, marked with a dollar sign on the front, and in turn Sam deposited a ten dollar bill in with a cheeky grin.
*
By mid-afternoon, Blaine had been soaked to the skin and dried off in the sun at least half a dozen times. The stall proved fairly popular, even if in some cases he was pretty sure the customers were more interested in just throwing things at them than the usual purposes of this kind of contest.
Blaine could deal with that, even though the water bombs felt like they were bruising his skin and he could feel a small pool of icy cold water soaking at his boxer briefs, sending a frequent shiver down his spine.
As he’d expected, the girls loved Sam and Jake, dumbly thrusting notes at Tina as they sprayed the boys from the guns. The sun worked in their favor too, for every time they dried off again, there was someone ready to make sure they didn’t stay that way for long.
Blaine hovered near one edge, feeling more self-conscious where the other three boys had started to enjoy themselves. His shirt was half-dry against his skin and he wondered vaguely if he could slip away for long enough to get some hot coffee in his system, to counter-act the cold of the water.
He started as he felt a jet-stream of water zip down his torso, his head snapping up as that jet landed right on his right nipple. It was a jolt to his system, making him stumble back a step. Blaine peered through the crowd to see where it was coming from, matching up the stream to a pair of long hands.
The jet-stream stopped, the gun probably needing refilling, and Blaine met the eyes of Sebastian Smythe, a fellow junior, who was in his advanced stage fighting class. Sebastian waved at him brightly, before handing another note over to Tina, receiving a stack of water bombs in return.
So, maybe Blaine had been wrong. Maybe there was one person on campus who would pay quite a lot to see him wet. The same someone who had been persistently hitting on him since they’d first met at a party in some frat house in freshman year.
*
“Blaine? Right?”
Blaine looked up from the beer he wasn’t really drinking, into a pair of bright green eyes. He’d had too much already, could feel it in how everything was a little hazy around the edges, how his legs had wobbled when he’d made to stand up earlier.
Blaine nodded, letting out a huff when the stranger sat himself down beside him uninvited.
“Sebastian. Smythe. Theatre major, we have some mutual friends.”
“Everyone s’a mutual friend,” Blaine mumbled, taking a sip of his beer after all. Mistake number one.
Sebastian’s laugh had been soft and tantalising, creeping up the back of his neck. It had been a long time since Blaine had thought of anyone like that - thought of a boy like that. His high school relationship had ended in flames and tears, and it still left an imprint on his heart, even now that he was far from Ohio and all its memories.
His hand had been on Blaine’s thigh for a few minutes before the shorter boy registered it, his gaze turning onto Sebastian. He glanced at his lips, had made to lean in, when Sebastian stood up.
“Come on,” Sebastian murmured, reaching for his hand. “I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”
Mistake number two.
Blaine fumbled with the key to his room, cursing under his breath as the metal scratched fruitlessly against the lock, until finally sliding it into place, a satisfying click following. He tripped over the doorframe, hissing slightly given that he already had a bruise on his big toe from how often he did that sober.
His roommate was still out, probably at the party he’d just left from, and that was really a blessing since Sebastian was pressing in against his back, his hands pushing up at the bottom of his shirt.
They made it to the bed, lips ghosting close but never quite touching. Blaine’s knees had hit the back of the bed, Sebastian pressing him down against the mattress. Mistake number three. By the time Sebastian’s lips had mapped out the juncture of his neck, Blaine had passed out and was snoring quietly.
*
Blaine had expected Sebastian to avoid him steadfastly after the incident, but on the contrary, he seemed that much more intrigued by him, his flirting unsubtle, his gaze lingering. Blaine pulled what could only be considered the most asshole move he could. He pretended like he didn’t remember a thing from the night before and when Sebastian asked him the next day how he was, Blaine had responded by asking who he was.
He got the feeling Sebastian never quite believed him though, something in the way his eyes pierced right into him. It was like he was just waiting for Blaine to let him back to his room again, to pick up from where things had come to an abrupt end. Blaine didn’t give him the opportunity. He avoided the parties Sebastian went to, moderated his alcohol consumption with copious amounts of water, and made sure any conversation with the other boy happened only sober.
And here he was, pelting him with water like his life depended on it. When Sebastian went to hand over another note, Blaine sighed under his breath. He leaned down at the front of the stage, tapping Tina on the shoulder lightly.
“Can’t you cut him off or something?” he asked hopefully, his eyes ticking over the notes in the tub, nibbling on his lip nervously at all the one dollar notes.
Tina raised an eyebrow. “You do not want me to cut him off,” she said firmly.
Blaine opened his mouth to question her statement, but it was answered for him as he watched Sebastian’s hand shove a one hundred dollar bill into the tub.
“I’d give a five hundred if you agree to take the shirt off,” Sebastian grinned.
Maybe it wasn’t just the girls with more money than sense that he should have been hoping for.
*
Blaine didn’t take his shirt off - he didn’t care how much Sebastian was stuffing into that tub - but he did consent in letting Sam rip a tear down the front as far as navel, before helping the other boys to do the same. The girls began to pelt Sam and Jake more furiously, and Sebastian kept up his ridiculously high tipping and moved closer to Blaine with each round.
By the time the water bombs were finished up and the sun was starting to set, the tub was overflowing with notes. Blaine wasn’t sure his optimism stretched to believing that they’d raised the amount they needed, but it was something, at least.
The boys left him to get dried off, Sam with Tina and Jake with some girl from the crowd, and Adam with just a cheery wave. Blaine dried off the end of the stage with an abandoned and already sodden towel, before sitting down, tipping the contents of the tub out over the slats.
“Want a hand? I nearly majored in Accounting, so…” Sebastian smile was wide, but not snarky, as he stepped forward. He waited to be invited to sit this time, before hopping up beside Blaine onto the stage.
They counted out the notes into piles, each mumbling figures under their breath, before looking over at each other, and the green piles over the wood, each pile comprising of five hundred dollars.
Blaine’s eyes ticked over the piles. One, two, three… Six. “Six piles,” Blaine murmured in disbelief.
“And then a few,” Sebastian added, pointing to several straggling fives.
“That’s,” Blaine mumbled, running a hand through his damp curls.
“Over three thousand dollars,” Sebastian finished for him, with a grin.
Blaine narrowed his eyes, cocking his head as he looked at him. “And how much of that was you, huh?” he teased, laughing almost breathlessly.
Sebastian shrugged. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”
Silence fell between the two boys as they looked over the notes, before Blaine carefully started piling them back up again.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Blaine said quietly, folding the last fives into the tub and clipping the lid onto the top.
“You say that like I didn’t get my money’s worth,” Sebastian chuckled lazily, leaning back onto his palms and kicking his long legs against the side of the stage.
Blaine grimaced. “You make it sound like prostitution.”
Sebastian didn’t reply straight away, merely cleared his throat. “Will you go out with me?” he asked abruptly.
Blaine paused, folding his arms over his chest. Was that what all the dollar flinging had been about? Just to get him back into bed, like Sebastian had been trying so hard to do for over two years now?
“You’re allowed to say no. If you don’t want to. But I’d like to think you want to. Maybe just a little bit?” Sebastian seemed almost pleading, his knuckles white as he clung to the edge of the stage.
Blaine smiled a little. “How long have you been waiting to ask me out, Sebastian?”
Sebastian’s cheeks coloured a little and he ducked his gaze. “Approximately seven hundred and eighty two days.”
Blaine scrunched up his nose, trying to do a brief mental calculation in his head. “Since..the first day of Theatre 101?”
The taller boy’s lips quirked up in a smile. “Something like that,” he murmured. “Approximately seven hundred and sixty three since I realized how much I wanted to kiss you,” he added, his voice lowering as his face came in a little closer.
Blaine swallowed, his gaze flickering down to Sebastian’s lips. “The party.”
Sebastian grinned, his teeth glinting in the low light. “So you do remember.”
Blaine groaned, tipping his head to one side and squeezing his eyes shut. “Maybe a little,” he murmured, his breath hitching as he felt Sebastian’s lips on the side of his neck. Muscle memory sent shivers down his spine, his hand coming up to cup his cheek.
“Five seconds until the first time we kiss,” Blaine whispered, his eyelashes brushing Sebastian’s cheekbones as he joined their lips in a sweet kiss.