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Time, curious time
Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs
Were there clues I didn't see?
And isn't it just so pretty to think
All along there was some
Invisible string
Tying you to me?
Blaine swings his little feet, barely containing his excitement. He looks out the window, watching leaves drift from the trees, and all he can think about is how badly he wishes he could fly too.
But of course, that’s not happening. At least, that’s what his parents told him last week when they found him up in the treehouse, arms stretched wide while his Superman cape fluttered behind him. His brother had laughed at him from the bottom of the tree.
Afterward, once his parents got him down and explained everything, Blaine’s dad dragged Cooper inside by the ear.
So now Blaine knows flying isn’t possible. But he also knows swinging feels really close to it. Which is why he’s so impatient for the bell to ring so he can run outside and claim the best swing of them all.
The second it happens, he doesn’t even grab his lunchbox. He bolts straight for the playground. He can hear the teacher trying to wrangle the tiny tornado of little troublemakers with very little success. And Blaine almost feels bad for not listening. Because his mom always tells him he should.
But when he sees the swing so close, all he does is reach out with his tiny hands and take one last leap toward it.
Everything inside him feels light and fizzy all at once. The funny way his whole body tingles everywhere when he finally sits down and kicks off the ground to start swinging. He figures this must be happiness. Blaine’s always happy. But he’s even happier when he’s swinging during recess.
Minutes pass, and Blaine flies.
His head tips back, the wind slamming against his face while his curls whip everywhere. He doesn’t even mind. Not even when the mocking voice of the kid who pulled on them a few weeks ago echoes faintly in the back of his mind.
But when you’re a kid, things like that get drowned out by laughter, games, a new friend. So Blaine doesn’t think much about it, except for how happy he feels right now, laughing and cheering every time the swing swoops down fast only to climb back up and do it all over again.
Then someone screams.
And then more voices follow.
Blaine’s only five, but he knows how to tell sounds apart. Even laughter. Like the one he’d been letting out a second ago, or the teasing laughs his brother gives him whenever he can’t keep up running upstairs. Or the ones coming from the kids pointing and laughing at another boy lying on the ground.
Blaine watches them point and laugh while the boy lays flat on his back in the sandbox.
Blaine frowns, something funny twisting in both his stomach and chest. His skin prickles strangely, though he doesn’t know what the feeling is.
Then one of the boys kicks the kid’s foot, and Blaine realizes it’s the quiet boy. The one who never talks to anyone.
He’s heard the others say he doesn’t know how. That he’s too stupid to figure out talking. Or maybe he just can’t.
Something stirs inside Blaine and throws him off the swing before he can think twice.
Miraculously, he lands on his feet, his hands shooting out to steady himself. His mother would ground him forever if she found out he jumped off a moving swing. But Blaine doesn’t care right now. He doesn’t even care about the dirt coating his palms.
He just marches forward, quick and determined, fists clenched tight, until he’s standing in front of the group crowding around the boy who doesn’t talk.
“Leave him alone!” Blaine shouts with all the power his tiny lungs can manage.
That gets every other kid’s attention. After a moment of surprise, they start giving him the same mocking look his older brother always does.
“Or what?” one of them asks, the boy who kicked the other kid. He steps right in front of Blaine, stopping him dead in his burst of bravery.
Blaine doesn’t back away, but fear starts creeping in when he notices the other boy’s at least a head taller than him.
“He’ll throw a jelly sandwich at us,” another kid snickers from behind, laughing in a way that feels almost mean to Blaine.
Blaine frowns harder. He remembers doing exactly that when one of them yanked his curls a few weeks ago. Blaine got punished. The other kid didn’t. That hadn’t seemed very fair.
But then, while his lip trembles and his scowl deepens, he decides he needs to end this quickly.
Unless he wants them beating him up next.
Blaine glances toward the quiet boy. He’s still on the ground, staring up with huge green eyes. So wide Blaine can see hints of blue in them too. There are spots all over his face, darker than his skin. Blaine doesn’t know what they are. For a second, he wonders if watercolor paint splashed him earlier.
“And you?” the taller kid snaps at the boy on the ground again. “You gonna stop being such a freak and talk normal?” Then he kicks him again.
Blaine’s heart feels like it’s about to burst.
His tiny fists clench tighter, ready to hit the mean boy. He knows he can do it. He saw it in a movie with his brother once.
“I’ll tell my brother to beat you up,” Blaine blurts out suddenly. “He’s fifteen. He’ll break every bone in your body.” More eyes turn toward him. “And—and there won’t be anything left of you!”
The older boy grins, but he looks a little less sure of himself the longer Blaine keeps talking.
“Not my fault he’s some weird kid who can’t talk,” the boy says, ignoring Blaine’s threat completely. “You a freak too?”
What happens next is something Blaine never would've done before.
Because he’s good. He’s a good kid. Everyone tells him that.
But now he thinks maybe he isn’t.
Because he’s shoving another someone.
The older kid’s eyes widen in surprise, and Blaine instantly panics when the boy’s fist lifts, promising a punch that’ll hurt way worse than falling off a swing.
Blaine stops breathing and squeezes his eyes shut.
He just waits, because his mind isn’t fast enough to figure out what to do.
But the punch never comes.
Slowly, Blaine cracks one eye open. Then the other.
And all he sees is the taller boy clutching his face while screaming.
Everything turns chaotic after that. Some kids yell angrily, others take off running. And when Blaine looks at the boy on the ground, he’s still got one hand raised, grains of sand stuck to his palm.
That’s when Blaine understands.
The boy who doesn’t talk just saved him.
Voices drift from somewhere in the distance. An adult.
Blaine thinks they’re safe now, but whoever it is still isn’t close enough to stop one of the older boys from throwing himself at them. So Blaine simply does what he has to do. He lunges at the boy who doesn’t talk and shields him, because the kicks are headed right for him.
Blaine feels the hit against his side and cries out. Then the quiet boy lets out a soft whimper too. Blaine just curls around him tighter.
And then it stops.
A pair of bigger hands pulls Blaine away.
His teacher lifts him up with embarrassing ease until he’s face to face with her. Blaine’s tiny legs swing in the air while he stares at her, trying to figure out the look on her face.
They’re probably in a lot of trouble.
When his feet touch the ground again, the quiet boy, the one who looks like he got splattered with watercolor paint, is standing too.
The teacher’s saying something to them, but both boys’ hearts are pounding so loudly the rushing in their ears drowns everything else out. They don’t hear a word while they stare at each other.
Eventually the teacher gives up, tells them to stay where they are, sitting on the old tree trunk everyone calls the Ancient Tree, then disappears back inside.
Blaine stays there, feet swinging because they do that everywhere he sits. He’s tiny, even for his age. The other boy sits beside him, though he’s a little taller than Blaine.
He’s wearing a green turtleneck sweater, jeans, and brown boots like Cooper’s. Blaine wonders if they’re just as expensive too. He knows Cooper’s were because their dad yelled at him for hours about them. Apparently he stole the credit card to buy them.
Blaine’s wearing pants somehow shorter than his legs, striped shoes, and a shirt with a little blue bowtie. He’s covered in sand.
Mom’s gonna scold me, he thinks miserably, lowering his head with a dramatic sigh.
The boy beside him lifts his head and looks at him then.
For someone who barely talks, he listens really well.
Because the sound that came out of Blaine makes something twist strangely in his stomach. Almost as sad as he felt when they threw him into the sand.
But he can’t ask what’s wrong.
Because he doesn’t know how.
At least not in the language everyone speaks here. The only person who understands him in this place is his mother.
He sighs too, defeated, and that catches Blaine’s attention immediately.
Blaine looks at him carefully now, something strange fluttering inside his stomach again. Something weird and warm and exciting. Almost like how he feels whenever he gets too excited to go play.
The other boy stares back at him with wide, expectant eyes, green and blue all at once, and Blaine can’t decide if they look more like grass or the sky.
And the spots are still there. Thousands of them.
Blaine lets out a tiny laugh, but not the cruel kind from before. No, this one feels softer. Happier. Like joy bubbling out of nowhere.
The boy shrinks a little when the laugh slips out of Blaine’s throat.
Blaine stops immediately.
The boy’s probably used to hearing laughter. Just not the nice kind.
Suddenly Blaine feels sad.
His emotions bounce from one thing to another so easily, the way they always do when you’re little.
Blaine wants to ask questions. So many questions. He wants to apologize for scaring him.
But he also wants to ask why he doesn’t talk, even if that feels a little rude inside his five year old brain.
“I’m Blaine,” he decides to say.
The boy blinks.
Seconds pass. He keeps staring, but still doesn’t say anything. Blaine makes a tiny face.
“My name’s Blaine,” he says again, louder this time but not shouting, because he doesn’t want to scare him.
The boy blinks again.
Blaine thinks hard, using every bit of intelligence he has to figure out a way the boy might understand him. Blaine doesn’t know if he doesn’t understand, or maybe he just can’t hear him.
“I’m Blaine,” he says a little louder, pointing at himself.
The boy’s eyes widen.
And Blaine sees something shining inside them.
He understands.
Blaine bounces on the log. He’s so happy his chest could burst.
The boy startles when Blaine suddenly starts clapping.
Then Blaine stops just as quickly, Cooper’s voice echoing in his head about how loud he always is.
He calms down, lifting his hands like it’s okay, Blaine can calm down.
He closes his eyes and takes a breath. Exhales. Opens them again.
“I’m Blaine,” he repeats, pressing his tiny hands against his chest. “You?”
Then he points at the boy the same way Cooper points at people all the time, except Blaine isn’t yelling.
The boy blinks in recognition and swallows hard. His little sandy hands open and close nervously against his thighs.
Blaine thinks he might be scared. His eyes don’t shine as brightly anymore.
“Friend,” Blaine says then, pointing at himself again.
The boy’s eyes widen all over again, and Blaine bounces in place because he gets it. He understood!
The boy leans back a little again, but then the corners of his lips curl upward ever so slightly, and Blaine can’t stop himself. He squeals excitedly and starts clapping again.
“Friend,” he repeats once the rush of energy settles down a little.
The boy smiles again and parts his lips.
Blaine’s eyes go huge as he waits, heart hammering so hard that swinging suddenly doesn’t feel nearly as exciting anymore.
“F friend,” the boy says.
It sounds strange, different around the edges, but Blaine understands him perfectly.
Blaine shrieks happily.
The boy laughs then.
And Blaine wants to hug him so badly.
But his mother’s voice instantly echoes in his head, explaining why you can’t just hug everybody. You have to ask first.
Only Blaine doesn’t know how to ask.
The boy barely understands anything.
So he holds himself back.
“Friends,” Blaine says with a bright smile, pointing between himself and the other boy.
The boy’s eyes shine, green and blue surrounded by watercolor freckles.
“Friends,” he repeats after several long seconds of effort.
His voice sounds different, but his mom once told him being different is the best thing someone can be.
Blaine knows she’s right.
He’s smaller than everybody else. He likes singing and playing piano even if he’s not very good yet. His new friend might not talk very well, but that’s okay.
Because Blaine’s gonna help him.
Right now, all that matters is the fluttering feeling inside his chest and stomach. It feels like colorful sparks are bouncing everywhere beneath his skin. His palms tingle and he wants to scream from happiness.
His new friend keeps smiling, and Blaine squeals excitedly while pointing toward the swings he’d been on earlier.
His friend follows where Blaine’s pointing.
Blaine watches his eyes widen before they flick back toward him. They’re shining so brightly now they could compete with the stars he and his mom lay in the grass watching every night.
The boy nods, smiling wider than Blaine’s seen him smile in the entire ten minutes they’ve known each other.
Blaine’s heart leaps, and so does he.
He hops down from the log that’s a little too tall for him, turns toward his friend, and stretches out his hand.
The boy raises his brows, gaze flicking from Blaine’s hand to his eyes.
But then he takes it.
And even though all he really has to do is stand up because he’s taller and his feet already touch the ground, Blaine still watches him give a tiny little jump.
Laughter bubbles out of both of them as, after one look and a silent agreement, they take off running toward the swings, ignoring whatever punishment might come later when the teacher decides what to do with them.
Right now they’re just two pure little hearts overflowing with joy because they found their best friend.
They don’t know it yet.
And they won’t for years.
But destiny tied them together today.
From the moment something inside Blaine’s heart made him jump off that moving swing, to the risky choice the other boy made to stop Blaine from getting hurt.
The first time their hands touch, the tingling rush makes them feel happier and lighter than they’ve ever felt before.
Suddenly their hands fit together like two missing pieces finally snapping into place, tangled together and impossible to pull apart.
Their tiny feet pound across the playground, getting closer and closer to the swings until Blaine’s heart nearly bursts from excitement.
Then he stops.
Something tugs at him.
When he turns around, his new friend is standing still in the grass, staring at him with that same bright look that doesn’t seem to fade anymore.
Then he smiles, showing those tiny little teeth that’ll start falling out soon enough.
The watercolor freckles catch Blaine’s attention just as much as the swings do whenever recess starts.
Then Blaine’s new friend lifts his free hand, the one not tangled with Blaine’s, and points at himself.
“Bastièn.”
Blaine immediately throws himself at him.
Hopefully Mom won’t get mad, but he had to do it.
He hugs him so tightly they nearly topple over.
And every bit of fear disappears the second he hears his new best friend laughing against his ear.