Work Text:
With a soft thud, Blaine shuts the last drawer he had left to fill before he could consider himself officially moved in to his new room. He has to remind himself again that the move is for the best, that the breakup with Kurt is for the best, and that being with his best friend in the entire world is for the best, but it falls a little flat. Blaine knows that all of it is true and he’s mostly made his peace with it, but he’s already started to notice how much his life has shifted.
Still, there could be worse things than living with Sam and Mercedes. Sam especially has been great to have around, something about his approach to life in general always makes Blaine feel better, and he’s glad to have such a good friend, albeit a friend who’s about to put a hole in the wall in an attempt to hang Blaine’s autographed Marion Cotillard Inception poster.
“Sam, it’s okay,” Blaine laughs. “We’ll get those hooks with the sticky backs, it’ll be fine.”
Sam swears but he does finally put the hammer down, much to Blaine’s relief. “That works too,” he says. “I think there might be brick or something back there anyway and finding out isn’t worth our security deposit.”
Blaine smiles and hoists himself up onto his new bed. “Come here for a second,” he says. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Oh god, is it about your hair gel? Because I swear I only used a little and I regretted it immediately.” Sam gives Blaine a worried look but sits down at the edge of the bed anyway.
“What? No,” Blaine says. “I just feel like now that we’re roommates we should establish some boundaries, you know? That’s the kind of thing that got Kurt and I in trouble and I don’t want to ruin my friendship with you just by living together.”
Sam’s face softens. “That’s legit,” he says. “I don’t want us to stop being bros because we’re roommates too. What do you have in mind?”
Blaine shifts on the bed and turns to face Sam more directly. “Okay, here’s what I was thinking,” he says. “Every night we should have like, an hour, where we just sit and do our own thing. We can just read and listen to music or whatever so that if we’re bugging each other it’ll be an automatic step back.”
“So like, no talking or anything?” Sam asks, and when Blaine nods he says, “Alright, that’ll probably work. Just so you know though, if you’re pissing me off I’m going to tell you regardless of quiet time.”
The laughter that catches Blaine by surprise feels a lot like relief.
It takes a few weeks, but they fall into a routine. It turns out they make great roommates; they discover that Sam loves to cook and he ends up helping Blaine make breakfast on the weekends, and Blaine gets to actually use the camera he spent too much money on when he helps Sam practice poses for his modeling gigs.
They respect each other’s boundaries though, and every night at five they set a timer for one hour so they can have some space. It goes pretty well, Blaine’s not exactly sure what Sam does during that time but he gets a lot of homework done just by putting in his headphones, cranking his music up to the highest tolerable volume, and focusing on nothing else until the timer goes off.
They’re not always around at the same time though, and Blaine finds that he misses the quiet companionship when Sam isn’t home for what he’s come to think of as “their” hour. He knows it’s completely ridiculous to miss someone at a time when they specifically don’t interact, but he gets less work done on the nights when Sam isn’t there.
It’s not always easy, either. Every once in a while Blaine will see something online or think of something funny and he’ll turn to tell Sam only to remember that it has to wait. He takes to keeping a note open on his laptop so that he remembers once the hour is up, and he’s always rewarded with an enthusiastic response from Sam.
Then, about two months after moving in together, Blaine comes across something that he feels can’t really wait. He’s trying to put together a resume for auditions as part of one of his classes and he can’t figure out which headshot to use. He has to email it in by midnight but he doesn’t want to wait, NYADA’s email servers always manage to go down right as he’s trying to send in an assignment, so Blaine already feels like he’s cutting it close. Cooper would usually be his first choice for advice, but he’s not answering his texts so Blaine pulls his headphones out of his ears. He’s completely prepared to say “fuck it” and break the vow of silence when he hears it.
The noise is soft, but not so soft that Blaine doesn’t pause to try and figure out what it is. He looks at the timer and when he sees that there’s still 20 minutes left before the hour is up, he rethinks his decision to say anything.
Now that his music’s off, Blaine is hyper-aware of all the noises he’d been drowning out since he turned it up to begin with. Sam’s making these stifled grunting sounds and Blaine briefly wonders if something’s wrong before he picks up a steady, slick noise that makes his face heat up and his ears go red.
Blaine can’t exactly see Sam from where he’s sitting, their room is considerably smaller than the space he’d had in the loft, and keeping his full-size dresser had meant positioning it between their beds. He doesn’t have to be able to see to know what’s going on though, he knows what jacking off sounds like and the choked-back groan that comes from Sam only confirms it.
Blaine fumbles with his headphones in a hurried attempt to get them back in his ears as quickly as possible, and he turns his music up as loud as it’ll go regardless of the headache he’ll have later. He resolves never to think or speak of it again.
Except not thinking or speaking of something is a lot easier when it doesn’t keep happening. It doesn’t happen every day, and Blaine doesn’t always listen for it anyway, but every once in a while he’ll guiltily pull his headphones out of his ears and from time to time he’ll hear Sam quietly but very definitely masturbating in his bed.
Blaine is at a loss. He kind of wishes Ms. Pillsbury was around because she’d probably have a pamphlet or something to help him, but at the same time the thought of anyone finding out, including Sam, is so mortifying that he wants to sink into the floor just thinking about it.
Somehow he goes from worrying about it to fixating on it, and finally he reaches a point where he thinks about it so much that it’s probably creepy. That’s what motivates him to actually do something, the last thing he wants is to be that guy. Sam had been beyond gracious about his crush last year, and he doesn’t want to abuse that trust by not saying anything when he probably should.
He waits until Saturday. They always cook breakfast together and Mercedes won’t be around, so Blaine figures that’ll be the best time to address the issue. He sits down across from Sam right as he’s about to bite into his breakfast sandwich and says, “I need to talk to you about something” before he can chicken out.
Sam, to his credit, calmly puts down the sandwich and says, “What’s up?”
“So, I have a confession to make,” Blaine says, but he pauses when Sam rolls his eyes. “What?”
“Dude,” Sam says, “I know you switched out the real bacon with turkey bacon. It’s fine. Not as delicious, but fine.” He takes a huge bite of his food before continuing, mouth half-full. “You need to lighten up, I’m not going to ask you to move out every time you do something dumb. Stop being so flinchy.”
Blaine smiles at the reassurance. He knows he’s always been a little afraid of that possibility, but he hadn’t realized it was so obvious. “It’s just as delicious and you know it, but that’s not what I need to talk to you about,” he says, trying not to chicken out of a conversation he knows needs to be had. “So you know our quiet hour, right?” he asks, and Sam nods, still with a mouthful of food. Blaine presses forward, “What exactly do you… do. During that time, I mean.”
Thankfully Sam swallows before answering. “I dunno,” he says. “Sometimes I read comic books or watch tv on my computer or like, text Puck or something. Why, what do you do? Besides make yourself deaf with your own music, which by the way, you should probably turn that down. I’m kinda worried about your brain.”
Blaine hesitates, not sure of how to proceed. “I know I keep it kind of loud, but here’s the thing, I turned it off a while back, and I… heard things.”
“Things?” Sam asks, and when Blaine gives him a meaningful look his cheeks go pink as he catches on. “Oh. Things. Shit, I’m sorry dude.”
“I mean, it’s fine!” Blaine is quick to reassure, not wanting Sam to think he’s upset. “I just figured I should say something.” He stares valiantly at his own untouched food.
Sam clears his throat a little awkwardly before saying, “I don’t mean to be gross or anything, it’s just that it’s kinda the only time I have except at night, and whenever I wait for you to fall asleep I fall asleep first, and I didn’t think you’d actually hear anything.”
“It’s fine!” Blaine says too loudly, and they both jump. “It’s fine,” he says again dialing it back a notch. “I mean, we all have… needs. It’s totally natural!”
“Totally natural,” Sam agrees a little too quickly, and they both laugh. It breaks the tension somewhat, and Sam asks, “So you really don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” Blaine says, relieved that they seem to have gotten past what could have potentially been a nightmare scenario. At least now he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.
“Thanks for being so cool with it,” Sam says, picking up his breakfast sandwich again, “I’ll try not to be so loud next time.”
Shit.
It takes a few more weeks but they settle back into a routine. Blaine still listens to music while he does homework and Sam occasionally jerks off across the room. It doesn’t really happen frequently, but it happens enough that Blaine is, for the most part, able to get used to it.
About six months after he and Sam moved in together, Blaine gets a text from Tina. All it says is go look at facebook and then text me immediately, so Blaine does as he’s told and minimizes the essay he’d been working on to see what Tina’s talking about.
When he finally pulls up her profile, his mouth drops open and he yanks his headphones out of his ears. “Sam,” he says. “Sam! Oh my god, Sam, oh my god.”
He’s already firing back a text to Tina when he hears a rustle and a groan from Sam’s bed. “Can it wait, dude? Kinda busy over here.”
What Sam is busy with registers somewhere in the back of Blaine’s mind but he’s too busy frantically exchanging messages with Tina to be too embarrassed. “This is important, Sam. Tina's dating someone!”
“Good for her?” Sam sounds skeptical and a little put out, so Blaine clarifies, “She’s dating someone named Samantha Adams.”
“Really?” Sam sounds interested, but not necessarily surprised. “Good for her. Now do you mind?”
Blaine blushes when it hits him that he interrupted Sam’s personal time. “Oh! Right, sorry. Quiet hour, I kind of… forgot.”
“It’s fine, dude,” Sam says, and the room falls silent again as Blaine turns back to his conversation with Tina.
The silence doesn’t last long though, because something comes over Blaine and he puts down his phone and asks the question he’s been trying not to think about since that first conversation over breakfast. “What do you even think about when you’re doing that? I feel like you do it a lot.”
He hears movement from Sam’s bed. “Um, isn’t that kind of personal?” Sam asks.
Blaine feels his face heat up. “You’re right, I’m sorry, that was totally inappropriate. I’m just going to shut up now and leave you alone.”
He’s about to put his headphones back in and try not to die of embarrassment when he hears Sam say, “I mean, it’s whatever. Me and the guys would talk about stuff like this sometimes, it’s just that usually I’m not already halfway through it.”
“I’m sorry,” Blaine says again. “You probably think I’m super weird now.”
“It’s fine,” Sam says. “I guess I just think about sex and stuff?”
A traitorous part of Blaine prompts him to ask, “That’s it?”
“I mean, I really like hands,” Sam says, and Blaine’s breath hitches a little when he realizes Sam is going to continue. “Like, handjobs are awesome because then you get to kiss the person too and that’s the best part.”
“I get that,” Blaine says, trying to ignore his dick starting to take an interest in the conversation. “That’s why it’s so great with two guys, you know? Because then you can do it at the same time.”
There’s a brief pause that makes Blaine think he’s crossed a line before Sam says, “Yeah, I bet that’s cool. Is that what you like?”
Blaine takes a shuddering breath. “Yeah,” he says, “because it’s like a feedback loop. You can feel what the other person is doing to you and you can do it back to them.” He’s definitely hard now, all bets are off. The conversation is torture but he can’t bring himself to stop it.
Another pause, this one longer. “Are you… into this?” Sam asks.
“Yeah.” Blaine opts for the truth, he’s a terrible liar anyway.
This time there’s no pause before Sam answers, “Me too.”
Feeling like he’s been granted special permission, Blaine unbuttons his pants and slips a hand inside. “Do you want me to keep talking?”
He hears Sam shifting on his bed. “Yeah,” Sam says. “This is- this is good.”
“Alright,” Blaine says, and he momentarily loses track of what he’s saying when he hears Sam starting to jerk off again. “The best is like, when I’m underneath a guy and he’s moving his hips so that our dicks are just rubbing against each other and I can roll my hips up against him-” he stops to stifle a moan.
“Oh my god,” Sam says, but he doesn’t sound horrified by Blaine over-sharing. He actually sounds really turned on, so emboldened, Blaine continues.
“That way if we can get our hands between us we can get each other off at the same time,” he says, and he’s surprised by the moan he can hear from across the room. “Sam,” he starts to ask, “are you…?” He doesn’t know how to finish the question, so he lets it hang.
Sam moans again, and Blaine tries to picture what he looks like. He wonders what he’s doing with his hands or if he’s arching off the bed or if his toes are curling in his sheets. He shoves his pants down below his hips so he can start stroking his cock in earnest.
“This is so good,” Sam says, and Blaine knows an invitation to keep talking when he hears one, so he doesn’t stop.
“And then when the other guy comes, Sam-” he chokes on a moan of his own. “It’s amazing, his hand goes all tight around me and I can feel everything-”
He’s cut off by a sharp cry from Sam’s bed, and when he realizes that he just make Sam come, he only gets in a few more strokes in before he’s toppling over the edge with a low whine.
They’re quiet for a few minutes, and Blaine takes the opportunity to clean himself up. He’s trying to figure out what to say when the timer on his phone goes off, signaling the end of their quiet hour. He nearly falls off his bed in a desperate attempt to silence it, and they both laugh a little.
“Hey Sam?” Blaine asks, knowing he has to proceed with caution.
“Yeah?” Sam answers, and he sounds nervous.
“You should come kiss me.”
Sam does.