Work Text:
It’s the title on Blaine Anderson’s latest think piece blog entry that makes Santana put her coffee down and actually concentrate.
‘Have you ever just wanted to hate someone?’
That’s how it starts, and she’s honestly intrigued. In the three years she has been following his blog, Santana has never known him be anything but upbeat and charming. Even the periods when he’s been candid about the difficulties he’s faced and how it’s been hard to come to terms with his scars, he’s been one of the most effusively positive people that she almost knows. When he wrote about his boyfriend, and then about his husband, when he’d posted pictures of them at their reception, and when he posts pictures now of himself modelling Kurt’s line of clothes, he is sincere and sweet, and she’s - well, she’s frankly surprised that ‘hate’ is even a word that he knows.
‘Have you ever just wanted to hate someone,’ he writes in the post proper. ‘I thought I knew what that was like, after everything with my dad, but I’m realising now that I actually don’t feel anything for him at all. I hated him for a long time, but time and distance (and a lot of love) have dulled the edges. I don’t hate him and at this point, I don’t want to. It takes so much energy, which I’d rather use for - other things.
‘I met a girl today. Maybe one day you’ll know her as well. She wants to be a singer on the radio. That was her dream as a kid. And then her life happened to her. Her mom’s two jobs and lack of insurance happened. Society happened to her. And she shelved her dreams because everyone she knew taught her to be ashamed. That she was ugly.
‘And I’m feeling so much directionless anger today. More than I can take out on a punching bag. More than I have real words for. I want to hate someone, everyone, just to let it out. But there’s no one person I can specifically blame for any of what has happened to people like us, like this girl. Like me. To those of us born with wings that other people saw fit to clip.
I want to hate someone today, and I don’t know who or how not to, and I know it will pass. I’m just - angry.’
Santana feels the weight of her own wings settle against her spine. She remembers high school, the blockers and shots she had taken to at least look normal. She remembers the fear she’d lived with, that someone would find out and out her. She remembers the hatred she’d lived with then, and the relief she’d felt with Britt, who hadn’t cared about her wings or the fact she was gay, and she wonders who this girl is that has found Blaine now.
She does something then that she very rarely does, because Blaine’s openness made her brave enough to stop taking her shots when she moved out of Ohio as well. Blaine’s confidence and positivity made the iridescent blue black of her own wings possible. She goes outside and takes a selfie, her wings visible behind her, and she emails it to herself.
Later, when she reblogs his post, she adds the picture of herself.
‘Blaine,’ she writes. ‘You don’t know me, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you. And I know exactly how it feels to want to hate someone. But I want you to know today, when it feels important that you know it, that you helped me stop doing that to myself just by being you. Thanks for giving me my life back.’
She doesn’t think much more of it, expects in some ways to get lost in the avalanche of responses he inevitable receives.
But Blaine does respond. There’s a message when she gets to work. She reads it with a small smile.
‘Thank you,’ it says. ‘It’s been a strange week that’s only getting stranger. Kurt says, how do you feel about Thai food, Santana?’
Santana covers her mouth with her hand, and thinks that yes, once she knew exactly how it felt to want to hate someone. But she’s older and she’s happier, and Thai food sounds great.