Goodbyes the next morning were harder than Blaine had thought they would be. Of course Kurt was sad to be leaving his dad and going back to living two hours away. A week at home went a long way to remind someone what they were missing while they were away. Burt had made them breakfast – pancakes and bacon – early before they’d had to go. Blaine knew he was going to miss sitting there at the dining table in the Hummel’s house, at the seat that had become his over the past week.

He hadn’t expected to be so sad about leaving Burt, but it had been a week of getting to know the man better and truly appreciate him as a person, as who he was as a father. How he supported Kurt, hell, how he supported Blaine in their brief acquaintance. After they’d packed the car, gotten everything settled in the back and ready to go, Blaine had held his hand out to shake Burt’s. Instead of a handshake, he’d gotten pulled into an unexpectedly long and tight hug, with words being murmured close to his ear.

“I’m glad you came home with Kurt, kiddo. You’re always welcome here, alright?”

Blaine nodded against his shoulder, feeling more choked up by his words than he wanted to admit or show. It was easy to see why Kurt considered his dad the best person in the world, and how Kurt had ended up as great as he was. He mumbled his thanks, getting a couple of pats on the back before they pulled away from each other and Kurt swooped in to give his dad a hug.

The ride back felt much shorter than the ride there had been. Maybe it was because Blaine wasn’t as anxious, but the fact was that he still was. It wasn’t the anxiety and nerves that he’d had about meeting Burt, it was all thinking ahead to the lunch he was going to have with his mother. Hopefully she was over her annoyance with him about not mentioning he was leaving town. Even if she was, he still had to sit there and tell her about Kurt, something that made him nervous beyond words.

Kurt’s presence in the car was all that kept him from fully losing himself in his thoughts, working himself up about it when he didn’t even know how it was going to go. Their hands stayed together on the console, fingers linked together and thumbs occasionally tracing over the backs of each other’s hands. Kurt hummed along with the radio, actually singing if he knew the song well enough, and Blaine kept his head tilted toward him, not wanting to miss a single note.

They went to Blaine’s first once they were back in the city, and Kurt helped him take in his suitcase and all of Roscoe’s things. As much as Blaine wanted him to stay, he knew he needed to take care of a few things before lunchtime rolled around. For the first time in a week, he’d had to say goodbye to Kurt, and that was even harder than it had been before. It was full of soft kisses and hands slipped together, but eventually Kurt left for his dorm and Blaine was left to his own devices.

He unpacked his suitcase, sending most of the clothes into the laundry hamper and putting all his toiletries back in the bathroom. Santana was upstairs, he could hear her moving around, but she hadn’t come down to see him. Part of him thought he heard someone else, too, but that seemed unlikely. She was probably just listening to music, or the television, and that was it. It was just unfortunate that she had quicker reflexes than him when it came to the front door because, when there was a brisk knock that was almost assuredly Blaine’s mother, she made it down the stairs and to the door before he could even react.

“Mrs. Anderson! What a pleasant surprise.” Santana was always so good with his parents, it was a wonder she couldn’t be the same way with Kurt.

“Good afternoon, Santana. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. You?”

“Just wonderful. Is my son here?” Blaine rubbed his face, sighing as he listened to them exchange pleasantries.

“Yes, Mom, I’m here,” he called from his room, checking his pockets for his wallet, phone, and keys, before moving out to the living room, cane in hand. He didn’t exactly want her to get into specifics with Santana as to why she was there, considering it was a rare occurrence. “Lunch?”

“Lunch,” she confirmed, moving in and looping her arm through his. “I thought we’d go to that Italian place uptown, if that’s alright by you.” She didn’t sound annoyed or upset with him, so that was a plus, but Blaine was still wary.

“That’s fine.” He nodded and ducked his head down as she touched his hair, as if trying to fix something that was out of place. There wasn’t anything there to fix, at least not as far as he could tell – and he’d spent a good amount of time that morning making absolutely sure that there wasn’t.

“Santana, lovely to see you again,” Marie said as she made her way across the living room with Blaine.

“Always nice to see you, Mrs. Anderson,” Santana said pleasantly, and it really was kind of annoying how she could turn that on whenever she felt like she had to but she still refused to be even a fraction of that nice to Kurt.

Of course that took him back to thinking about Kurt and sitting down with his mom and talking about Kurt and he bit his lip as they went out to the car and she drove them the few blocks to the restaurant uptown. They were a few of the quietest blocks in a car he had ever experienced. Apparently all discussion and conversation was being saved for once they were actually sitting down for lunch, and that was exactly what happened. As soon as they were at the restaurant, sitting with drinks and food ordered, it started.

“So, you were away?” Marie asked curtly, and Blaine bit at the inside of his lip as he nodded.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say before I left, I wasn’t… thinking, I guess.”

“Blaine, you know that your dad and I don’t ask much,” she said, and he could feel guilt creeping in already. “You live your own life, and we’re glad you’re able to, but we would appreciate the courtesy of a phone call if you’re going to up and leave town. Especially with someone we’ve never met and don’t know. How long were you gone, even?”

“A week.”

“A week? In Lima?” Blaine shifted back in his seat, trying not to wince. “What were you doing? Why were you there? Who… took you there? Blaine, I trust your judgment usually, but this seems completely out of character for you to do without letting someone know.”

“Mom, can I just…” he started, rubbing his face and shaking his head. “Please, just give me a minute.”

“I have all afternoon.”

“Great.” Blaine sighed, dropping his hands down to his lap and clasping them together. It was the trouble of finding the words, finding the right words. “I met someone, during new student weekend. Kurt. Out of everyone I’ve met at college, he’s my… favorite. He’s sweet and nice and doesn’t treat me like I’m some sort of invalid or delicate person just because…” he trailed off, gesturing up toward his face. “He’s amazing, Mom. He makes me feel like me.”

It was a somewhat ridiculous statement to make, but he wasn’t sure if there were any better ways to phrase it. Of course he felt like himself all of the time, but with Kurt it was different. Kurt made him feel everything and so intensely that he felt like he wasn’t going to remember how to breathe sometimes. Like nothing else in the world mattered but the two of them, and just because they were there together the earth was going to keep on spinning.  

“He’s my boyfriend.” The words came out quickly, rushed, as if avoiding the possibility of him backing out of saying the words, and not giving his mom the chance to break the brief silence between them and interrupt. “He’s from Lima, and he was going there for break and invited me to come with him. I know I should have told you I was going, and I should have told you about him before now but I… I didn’t know how.” His nails dug into his palms as he took a breath. “I like him. I really like him.”

“Blaine…”

“So that’s why I went to Lima,” he hurried on, wanting to make sure to get it all out. “I went so I could spend my break with him, so I could meet his dad, so I didn’t have to spend a week here without him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to, next time I’ll make sure to.”

“Blaine.” Marie reached across the table and touched his arm lightly before tugging on his sleeve a little to get him to bring his hands up to the table. She captured one of them in between her own and squeezed it. “My Blaine.”

“Could you please say something other than my name?” he whispered, swallowing hard and trying not to prepare himself for what was to come. He shouldn’t have to, so he didn’t want to. He just wanted to know what her reaction was beyond saying his name in that way that his family tended to do.

“Sweetheart, I’m so happy for you that you found someone like Kurt,” she said gently, still holding his hand. “He sounds lovely, but I wouldn’t expect you to settle for much less.” She paused, and he bit his lip as he waited. “You know that you can tell me things, right? I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t concern me that you were willing to meet his father before even thinking to mention his existence to me or your dad…”

“I wasn’t trying to keep a secret,” Blaine mumbled, though he cleared his throat so his words wouldn’t come out muddled when he spoke again. “I didn’t know how to tell you, and definitely not how to tell Dad. I didn’t know how… what you would think.” He flushed, thinking back to the brief conversation he’d had with Cooper and the way his brother had tried to reassure him. Doubt had managed to win out over semi-wisely spoken words.

“Blaine.” Her voice was a quiet control, one that he was far too familiar with. It meant that she was exasperated, but trying not to be. “Your father and I love you very much.”

“I know—”

“You are important to us, and that’s why we worry sometimes,” she continued, squeezing his hand. “But of course we knew this day was coming at some point.” Blaine stayed silent, trying to let her words sink in and actually stick. There was still lingering doubt, though – there almost always was.

“Dad…”

“Will be happy for you,” she said firmly. “Sweetheart, I know that he wasn’t always… supportive, but people change and people grow. He loves you and wants for you to be happy, we both do.”

“Okay,” he murmured, trying his best to focus on the dad he had known over the past year or so – the one who raised hell all over his school and their city because of what had happened, who picked up and moved their entire family for Blaine’s interest, who spared absolutely no expense to give him the best education, the best opportunity to succeed in life – as opposed to the dad who had seemed forlorn about the fact that he was gay.

“Do you want me to tell him?” Marie asked, and Blaine’s brow furrowed as he pulled himself from his thoughts. “Or do you want to do it?”

“I will,” Blaine said, pulling his hand away from hers and dropping it down into his lap again as their food arrived. “When, um, I know he’s busy with work a lot…”

“He’s usually home by six on weekdays, six-thirty at the latest,” she supplied. Blaine busied himself with cutting into one of his ravioli as he listened. “He went in today, just for a bit, but he should be home later this afternoon. I won’t tell him anything so you can just call whenever, though I would request that you not wait too terribly long.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, sweetie.”

The rest of lunch was far less stressful. Talking about classes and the workload he’d been going through
was better, because even though not all of his classes were terribly interesting to him that didn’t stop them from being easy topics. It hadn’t even registered with him that he hadn’t talked to his parents about school at all since he’d started – he’d been far too caught up in everything that school entailed. And Kurt, mostly Kurt. By the time he got dropped back off at his house, with a kiss on the cheek and hug from his mom, he was feeling much more relaxed about everything.

There was just that small matter of calling his dad later.

Distraction was easy enough, as it tended to be when Santana was home and not in a foul mood. Even if she had been it would have been fine, because that would have given him reason to try and get her to talk more. As it was, they just ended up curled beside each other on the couch, the television fixed on Bravo. It was easy for him to ignore the screeching of the Real Housewives of… somewhere.

“It felt weird not having you here all week,” Santana murmured, just barely audible. Blaine tilted his head toward her, raising an eyebrow.

“Really?”

“I mean, you’re quiet and all so it wasn’t that noticeable, but yeah it was weird,” she backtracked, and that just made him start to grin. “Don’t look at me like that. So I missed you a little – no big deal.”

“You missed me,” he said with a full out grin, and she huffed.

“Not like I had much time to miss you,” she said, her tone descending into a drawl as she kept going, clearly determined to take all meaning away from what had started it all off. “I had company all week and you probably would have been scarred for life if you’d been here, what with all the moaning and, God, the screaming. Would have been nice to know your mom was stopping by today, considering I’d just barely gotten dressed after getting my brains sc—”

“No, stop!” Blaine said, quickly reaching over to clamp his hand over her mouth. He shouldn’t have drawn attention to the almost compliment that had started it all, because of course she was going to try and play it off like it wasn’t supposed to mean anything and he didn’t want to hear about anything that had happened there while he’d been gone. He shouldn’t have put his hand over her mouth either, because she just licked his palm and he pulled it away with a yelp, wiping it off on his pants. “Santana!”

“Shouldn’t have put your hand there,” she said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “As I was saying…”

“Please don’t go on,” he mumbled, fully aware that his face was red. “I get it; there were… ladies all over your lady parts. The presence of my manliness in the house would have been a damper on it all.” Santana tittered from beside him, and he buried his face in his hands. “Can we please move on?”

“For you? Sure. How was lunch with Mama Anderson?”

“It was good. I hadn’t really talked to her or my dad since classes started, so it was kind of… necessary,” he said with a shrug, letting his hands drop. He paused, thinking back to the topic they’d dismissed moments before and realizing he actually did have a question – though he wasn’t sure if it was something he should ask. He figured it was worth it. “So, um… was Brittany…”

“No,” Santana cut him off sharply. He slipped his arm through hers, giving it a gentle squeeze, and she rest her head against his shoulder. When she spoke again it was much softer, no edge left in her voice. “No, she wasn’t.”

They stayed like that for longer than he could keep track of, the episodes of the show blending together. That was the problem with Bravo and its tendency to run marathons all day every day – he could never figure out just how long he’d been sitting there with it playing in the background. The only way he knew Santana hadn’t fallen asleep was because she would occasionally give a quiet snort of laughter at something that was happening, or mutter a critical comment under her breath, but other than that there was nothing but silence between them. He almost fell asleep himself; comfortable nestled in close to her. She wasn’t Kurt, but she was still downright cuddly sometimes – like right then.

Considering he was already relaxed, and it was at least past mid-afternoon, he figured it was probably a good time to call his dad. At least he wasn’t starting out nervous and anxious and stressed out of his mind. He pressed a light kiss against Santana’s hair, earning a soft, startled sound in return, and then pulled away so he could get up and into the privacy of his room. His phone dialed through to his dad’s cell phone number as he crawled up under the covers of his bed, wanting to keep as much of that comfort he’d built up out with Santana as possible. Two rings later and Charles Anderson picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi Dad.”

“Blaine? How are you?”

“M’okay,” he murmured, leaning back against the pillows he’d propped up against the headboard. “How are you? Mom said you had to work today.”

“I did, yes.” Charles sighed, and Blaine could almost picture him shrugging. “It wasn’t too bad; just a little work to keep the ball rolling and make sure Monday wouldn’t be terrible. You had a good lunch with your mother, I presume? Wish I could have joined you, but there was no way that could have been possible this week.”

“It was nice,” Blaine said, fidgeting with the blanket lying over his legs. “Um, Dad?”

“Hm?”

“I have something I need to tell you.” There was a long pause. He could almost picture his dad’s face, the flashback so strong to the last time he’d uttered those words and how that had gone down. No, that time was going to be different, that was the reassurance he had from his mom and from the fact that he knew his dad had changed. This is different, he’s different, he reminded himself, fingers twisting into the blanket all the same.

“Blaine, what’s wrong?” Charles demanded quietly. “Are you struggling with your classes? Did something happen while you were gone this past week in –where was it – Lima? Is there something wrong at the house? Are you alright?” Blaine faltered, the questions coming at him so rapidly but almost gently, and that was the part that threw him off.

“No, I’m not – I’m fine,” he stammered. “Nothing like that.”

“Oh good.” There was another sigh from the other end of the phone. “I would have hoped your mother would have mentioned if there had been, though you could have always not mentioned it to—”

“Dad, I have a boyfriend,” Blaine blurted out, completely interrupting whatever rambling train of thought had been going on from his father. He took in a sharp breath, fingers tightening around his phone and clutching onto it as he waited. And waited. He started counting the seconds of silence.

“Oh.”

Blaine felt his chest tightening, stomach knotting, the anxiety he’d been fighting off so well creeping in and taking hold. Oh? What kind of response was that? Was it a good or bad reaction? Because from that one word, one syllable, one vowel sound he couldn’t tell. “Dad? Um. Are you…?”

“Blaine, you’re going to have to give me a second,” Charles said, and Blaine couldn’t read any more into that than he had into ‘oh.’ Give him a second? How many more did he need? He’d had twenty-three seconds of silence, by Blaine’s count, and he just kept getting more.

“Are you… upset?” Blaine ventured tentatively, his voice sounding small.

“What? No. No no, Blaine, I’m not upset,” he said, and that only barely helped Blaine’s nerves. “I thought something serious had happened.” He rushed ahead quickly. “Not that this isn’t serious, I just thought… something bad.”

“This isn’t bad.”

“No it’s not.” Charles sounded calmer, more collected. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Is this, uh, weird? For you?” Blaine held his breath as soon as the words were out. It was one of those questions he hadn’t wanted to ask but it had just happened whether he meant to or not. And there was more hesitation from the other end of the phone.

“A little.” It wasn’t something easy for his dad to admit, he could tell. At least there was that. “It’s different but it’s not like… I’m not used to that sort of thing. Blaine, you’re eighteen. By the time Cooper was eighteen, he’d had at least five girlfriends that he swore were the one.” He chuckled and Blaine almost smiled, but he was still on edge. “Does this boyfriend have a name?”

He was trying. There was something to cling onto – his dad was trying.

“Kurt,” he said, biting his lip. “Kurt Hummel.” Charles repeated it, almost under his breath like he was trying to commit it to memory. “Dad, he’s… perfect.”

It came crashing out of him like waves, words tumbling out and stringing together to form some semblance of sentences at least half of which probably didn’t make sense. It was everything he hadn’t said, not to Santana, not to Cooper, not to his mom. Every feeling that Kurt made him feel, every way that some little thing he did stuck out to Blaine more than anything else. The song, the hand holding, the way he sat and listened to Blaine play and knew to give him space once he was done. How his heart had felt like it was going to explode the first time they’d kissed, and how it still felt like fireworks and confetti cannons every time. And then he’d blushed ferociously because he’d just told his father about his first kiss. That didn’t stop him from going on, from telling him everything except getting drunk at the house party and how he and Kurt had slept in the same bed twice.

“He knows,” Blaine said quietly at the end, his hand moving up to rub at the back of his neck. “About what happened. I kind of… I was being weird, like I get, and I’d been dancing around it so much I just thought…he should know. So he knows.”

“Blaine…” There it was again. The same way his mom said his name. The same way Cooper had called him Squirt after he’d asked him not to tell their parents about Kurt. They all had the exact same way of doing it.

“I wanted to tell him, he should know,” he repeated, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“Blaine, I know how much you don’t talk about that.” More like how he never talked about it. Other than when it had happened, having to recount it to his family, the police, the school principal, he barely even acknowledged the fact that it had happened. It was easier to pretend like it hadn’t, except for the lingering jumpiness, fidgeting, and the fact that he was constantly wondering when the next blow was coming. “He sounds great, from everything you said. I’m glad you found someone that makes you happy, I really am.”

“Thanks,” Blaine murmured, because he could actually hear the honesty in his voice.

“You’ll have to bring him by so we can meet him sometime,” Charles added. That caught Blaine off guard. It was one thing for his dad to be saying he was glad for him, but something else entirely to invite Kurt over for tea or something.

“Yeah, sometime.”

“Well I’m being told that dinner is ready so I should go, but I’m glad you called, Blaine,” Charles said sincerely and Blaine really wished he was there so he could get a hug from him, or maybe just a pat on the back, anything. He sounded so warm and supportive and Blaine tugged his blankets up around himself further to make up for the fact that he wasn’t there.

He called Kurt almost immediately after he hung up with his dad, stretching his legs out in front of him since the potential tension of talking to his dad was over.

“Hey, so I miss you,” Kurt said as a form of greeting.

“I miss you too,” Blaine said, grinning an absurd amount for a person who was just laying there in his room alone. “So much so that I thought you should come over here to see me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, and if you didn’t have any plans for the night I figured you could just stay.” Blaine flushed as he realized just how forward he was being. “I mean, I just really liked waking up with you there this morning and thought that it would be nice to have happen again. Plus I kind of really miss you after getting to hang around with you for a whole week.”

“Well then I guess I’ll have to pack my pajamas, because that sounds like a plan. I’ll be over shortly.”

Blaine almost did literal kicky feet as he hung up, very much looking forward to another night of him and Kurt and nothing else to think about. Those were easily becoming his favorite nights.