Chapter Text
Dedicated to LG. and MK.
Blaine sighed. When he made his New Year’s Resolutions on January first, he really had no idea what was about to come.
It wasn't that he totally adored his job at the Inn. They hired pretty much everyone and they definitely did not earn the title of a 3-star beach resort. But after Joe was shoved into his helpless arms, he had to do something when she was old enough to leave the house for a few hours every few days, while she stayed with her grandparents or Cooper, of course.
Then he worked a few more hours when he realised how much he craved social contacts and just something other than songs about red tractors, and he was sure he could phrase every word to each and every episode of Sesame Street and Peppa Pig. He also noticed the shift in the air around his family when he left the apartment; they seemed as relieved as himself that he was gone for a while. And again; it wasn't that he didn't love all of that. Being a father, planned or not, was in no way bad. He loved his daughter and thrived in parenthood, but on some days, his heart just wasn't in it. So, working a lousy part-time job in that smelly hotel kitchen, and he finally allowed himself to breathe again in a way that wasn't parenthood-related.
He was happy and he managed to find a good balance between being a dad and his job. He chipped in on rent and felt pride swell up in his heart when he was able to buy Johanna her first expensive Frugi jumper instead of the cheap, non-eco-friendly stuff they sold at H&M. He might have been thrown into parenthood, yes, but he still knew what was best for his daughter in that regard.
So yeah, life didn't look so bad for a while during the 11 months he worked at the Inn, he loved that he had the beach right outside his small kitchen window -living a few streets over by the ocean has its benefits- and he even made a few friends. But then Corona came and his hotel had to minimalize their employees as most businesses had, and it was just his luck that they decided that he wasn't important enough to keep him, apparently forgetting the fact that he worked his ass off to keep everyone happy at that godforsaken place. Of course, he didn't know it yet, but he'd be lucky that they fired him, even if it caused him heartache at first because he'd really come to like his job and his colleagues. Well. Some of them at least.
His family wasn't happy about him losing his job, his fault or not. And sure, the missing money was bad but not as bad as 'having him in the house at all times' now. That sentence alone had him call companies and private ads he'd found online or in the papers every Sunday. He loved Joe, and he loved his family, and his family loved him...at least he hoped they still did, but things at home were unbearable most of the time.
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, when he was out on a walk with Joe because he just had to leave their apartment, he walked past that huge building that they started to stamp out of the ground around 10 months ago, and he swore to this day that a lightbulb went off over his head at that moment. He enjoyed their rainy walk and sang his lungs out when he thought no one was listening while Johanna played in a muddy puddle on the abandoned football field near the dog park.
As soon as he was home that evening and Joe had had her bath and been put to bed after some struggles and crying on her side (and almost his, because urgh. She could be so stubborn sometimes!), he powered on his phone and googled St. Paloma Connecticut/New Haven- looking for employees with a stuttering heartbeat, and that's how he found himself only two days later in front of a big tent outside the new retirement home they'd been building.
And he sighed, because signing his name and personal information and having his body temperature taken by some stranger inside a makeshift tent wasn't super fun, but necessary, of course. Another reason to sigh was that he did not want to work as whatever they were about to offer him once inside. He'd be totally okay to just work in their kitchen as he had at the Inn, but the man on the phone told him in a funny accent that they already had their staff for that area but a lot of other open slots. They needed a lot of new employees, which made sense. Apparently, they had just moved into this new huge building because the old one was falling at the seams.
The man on the phone had been nice though and invited him in for a quick interview. He mentally prepared himself to be trained as a nurse or something like that. That’s what they were specialized in, after all. And if he was totally honest with himself, he really didn't want to do that. Yeah, he had his degree in nursing, but that just made him want to do it even less. Not because he hated people or had a fear of contact, because let's be honest, cleaning your kid’s dirty diapers for one and a half years toughens you up. And of course, being chronically ill helps a great big deal- it makes you see things, okay.
And it wasn't even that Blaine thought that it was considered a girl's job, (and immediately cringed for even thinking something so stereotypical).
He just didn't think he was fit for it. Too much responsibility. He fucked up being a dad, son and brother enough, he didn't need to fuck up something else in his life, especially not if it came to sweet, old people. But no one else was hiring and he had to do something. So, he sighed, once again, disinfected his hands thoroughly, put his mask on his face, and went inside to meet the manager, Mr. Figgins.
-
Mr. Figgins was as nice as he'd been on the phone, his skin had a caramel tone to it and he wore a nice-looking suit, but it didn't make him look like a businessman, somehow. He just looked nice. Like he belonged here.
After greetings were exchanged and they sat down inside his office, Mr. Figgins asked him the usual stuff you get asked at a job interview and Blaine did his best to hide how nervous he really was. Normally, an interview like that was nothing to him. He was confident when it came to these things, but something about this very situation was unsettling. Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t want to be here in the first place.
"So, Mr. Anderson,” Mr. Figgins started after a moment of silence on his part while he was going over Blaine's curriculum. "This says you have your degree in nursing but after that, you didn’t work in that area. How’s that? I mean, sure, this says you have another degree in German correspondence, but you didn’t work in that area, either.”
Blaine shifted nervously in his seat. He knew he had to tell his Maybe-Hopefully-Soon-To-Be Boss about his kid, he just didn’t think it’d be this soon.
"Well, after I finished correspondence school, I became a father pretty much the second I got my degree…so. Yeah." Okay, so that was that. Figgins was watching him with a calm and friendly face and made a weird gesture with his eyebrows that probably meant for Blaine to go on.
"When Joe, -that’s short for Johanna, was about 6 months old, I decided to get a part-time job to help pay the rent and…I had to get out of the apartment a bit. Parenting can be tough at times.” Blaine closed his eyes and laughed inwardly. If only that was his only problem. Then he realised how rude he possibly appeared and opened his eyes nervously because he figured he was about to get the talk about how being a young parent with no money etc. was a bad thing. He was surprised and very relieved when Mr. Figgins smiled warmly and leaned back in his chair.
"Oh how very true. My sister has two children, and I am fond of them, but I am glad I can give them back to my sister once they start to become loud. Sweet girls, but sometimes you just want them to be quiet for a while.”
If Blaine wasn't relieved before, he definitely was now. It felt so good to be understood. He chuckled nervously and scratched his neck. "Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Mr. Figgins nodded and softly tapped his pointer finger on the papers in front of him. "So, I assume you wanted to be an interpreter, or journalist, judging by your German degree?”
Blaine sighed and grimaced. "No, actually. Working a 9 to 5 job at some desk for some boring company was never what I wanted, but that was the only option I was allowed by the employment agency. I uh, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was 14 and they thought that apparently, it was something I could spread, so everything people related was out of the picture. Thus, the correspondence degree. But trust me, Crohn's disease isn’t-"
"I know it is not.” Mr. Figgins stopped him mid-sentence and nodded knowingly. "We have someone in the family with Ulcerative colitis, so I am pretty informed. And you know, working here educates you about a lot of diseases and IBD’s are certainly some of them. So don’t worry, you being ill doesn’t matter when it comes to this job.”
Blaine couldn’t believe his ears and his jaw dropped in disbelief. No one has ever understood him like that when it came to his illness. All they see is something disgusting. This ‘not bad at all’ thing that only existed in your own head. He hadn’t even mentioned it when they hired him at the Inn, he was too much of a coward for that because he really needed the job and was afraid they’d neglect him if they knew. Hiding was hard at times because of course he had flare-ups at work and he had to call in sick more than he’d like to admit. But Mr. Figgins knew now and he didn’t mind.
Blaine gulped and prepared himself for a question of his own. "So, what exactly would 'this job' be?" Because that was the question that he wanted to have a definite answer to.
-
Three weeks after his successful and slightly strange job interview (Mr. Figgins was way too nice to be real and the way he spoke was hilarious), Blaine once again found himself singing his name and private information on the sign-in sheet, but this time it wasn’t outside in the visitor’s tent, but inside the man's locker room. This time, he didn’t go inside as a visitor. This time he went inside as a nursing assistant for the company.
Yes, it wasn’t what he wanted and he was way too nervous for this, but Mr. Figgins praised the benefits of the company, especially when it came to single parents, and assured him that it was okay if he changed his mind about the job after his 6 months’ probation. Not to mention that Blaine himself was desperate and the money they offered was a lot more than what he earned in the kitchen. Yes, working shifts would be something new to get used to, as were the 2 hours extra each day as well as weekend work, but he’d get used to that.
He put on his baggy uniform that did absolutely nothing for his physique and clipped his magnet key on the top of his shirt that Figgins gave him at the end of the interview. Not that he had the faintest clue how to use it, but he'd figure it out somehow. Really, who thought blue and bright red was a good combination for a uniform that was already ugly, to begin with?! He felt slightly better though when someone entered the locker room and wore the same ugly uniform, but the difference was that the man, a nice Asian in his early 30s maybe, though while looking worn out and tired after a long nightshift, wore it with confidence and pride.
Maybe that’s what a job like this did to you, and that was the first time Blaine felt spurred on by the job he was going to work in, and his goal was to be proud of this ugly uniform as this guy appeared to be.
After he had changed and closed his locker, he walks down the hallway to the residential office where Mr. Figgins told him to pick up his name tag and information about his ward.
He takes a deep breath and grimaces when his mask feels damp after his puffy exhale. Before he can knock on the slightly opened see-through door though, a sort of scary-looking woman with a deep, raunchy voice interrupts him with a smile on her face that was clear even through the mask she wore.
“Hey kid, you must be Mr. Anderson, right?”
“Blaine Anderson, that’s me yeah. Uhm, Mr. Figgins-"
The woman stops him once again and waves him inside. “Yup, he told me to let you know that you’re set to work on WLP. That’s short for Ward Lighthouse Point, Ward 3 to be exact. All of our wards, there’s 4 by the way, are named after special places in New Haven. 0 is Yale, 1 is Peabody Museum, 2 is Beinecke, and 3 is Lighthouse Point. You’ll find the wards listed inside the elevators if you get confused.”
Blaine tries to store all that new information away for later, nods, and finally allows himself a small but nervous smile of his own when the woman steps closer and hands him a credit card sized object.
“Don’t you sweat it, boy. That’s your name tag, it has magnets on the back so you can take it off when you put that shirt in the washing machine.”
Blaine takes a closer look at the name tag and can’t help but feel something like pride or excitement in his heart when he reads the ‘Blaine Anderson, Nursing Assistant’ on it. Sure, he didn’t want to work as a nurse, an out-of-shape nurse, which was even worse, but still. That was his title now and he clipped the tag on with shaking fingers.
"You look terrified kid. But don't be, you're in good hands. You're lucky with WLP, Hummel and his team is loved by everyone, no kidding." Blaine wants to sigh, because he kind of hoped that his supervisor would be some hot-looking chick and not some dude, but he just nods and is about to shake the woman's hand to thank her when he remembers that you couldn't do that anymore.
He's sure that he looks like a fool with his hand halfway in the air, but thankfully the woman laughs kindly and shortly pats him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get close to a whole bunch of people up there soon enough. I’m Shannon Beiste, by the way, but please just call me Shannon. We all address each other by our first names. Well, except the bosses, of course, but your ward manager will explain the details to you. Now go, Kurt awaits you. And if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to come find me.”
Blaine takes another deep breath and smiles under his mask. “Okay, I guess, thanks for your help, Shannon.”
He waves nervously goodbye as he steps inside the elevator and presses 3 on the button. Oh God, he was so stupid. What was he doing working in a nursing home?! He finished nursing school 8 years ago, he barely remembered anything he learned nearly a decade ago. And meeting new people always had him a little on the edge. It did help that Ms. Beiste – Shannon- he remembered, praised “Hummel’s team” so much. Now he just had to go find that Hummel guy and introduce himself and remind himself not to be disappointed that he wasn’t a woman. After all, just days ago he considered this a 'girl's job'. So, the influence of another man besides Blaine was good, right?