Welcome to my first foray into multi-chapter AU. Herein you will find angst, romance, beautiful family moments, confusion and pride. And all of it from the perspective of a 24 year old Blaine Anderson, about to meet Kurt Hummel under some very non-canon circumstances. Please feel free to let me know what you think, I have been planning this a few chapters ahead, so updates shouldn't take TOO long.

Warning for off screen canon character death. Rating subject to change.

As always - thanks to the usual suspects - NeverTooOldToBeNerdy, VirtualMage, Mardie186, Anxioussquirrel and if I forgot you I am sorry

I own nothing, except for a computer, a free word processing program and a bunch of downloaded pics of CC and DC. Kurt, Blaine, David and anyone else that you recogonize here belongs to someone else - tho I have tried to get them to make me a deal. Hey I thought a couple of packs of RedVines was a good trade.

In the grand scheme of things the apartment wasn't anything special. It was a simple one bedroom painted in muted off-whites. You walked in the front door and looked into the kitchen. Off to the right was the small living/dining combination. A hallway straight towards the back led to the single bath and bedroom. It was nothing special, except that it was. This simple place, on the outskirts of Lima, Ohio; rented on a simple teacher's salary, was now home.

It was quiet now, David and Wes had left after helping unpack the U-haul. Boxes still lay in disorganized piles throughout the apartment. So far only the important things other than furniture had been unpacked, the things that would help make this place a home. In the kitchen the coffee maker sat, alarm already programmed for the morning, next to an old cracked Warbler's coffee mug. On the end table near the couch a framed picture of the final year's "A Round of Monkeys" What is it with Acapella choirs and odd names? Toiletries were put away in the medicine cabinet and the flannel sheets fitted to the bed. It was a start. It was a chance for Blaine Anderson to do something that he had wanted to for years now, stand on his own two feet.

Blaine Anderson hadn't grown up as a child of privilege, not exactly. Yes he had gone to private school, and received a car on his 16th birthday. But the private school had been for safety reasons and the car was one that he and his father had rebuilt together as a summer project. So those weren't exactly privileges. Blaine Anderson had, however, been raised as a child of expectations. That was the main reason that sitting here, in the middle of a mainly empty living room felt so good.

Blaine's father was the first of his family born outside of the quiet villages of Ireland. His parents had immigrated after their marriage and he had been born 5 years later. Ian Anderson certainly had not been raised in privilege. Blaine's grandfather was a mailman and his grandmother ran a small local grocery. They worked hard for their family, raised Ian and his sisters in a strict religious household, and taught their children that hard work led to reward.

Ian took this to heart, working his way through college at Ohio State and then into the law program at Case Western University. He did his concentration in contract and business law and found a position in Moritz and Stanley immediately after college. He met Blaine's mother there, the daughter of one of the partners, who became smitten with the curly haired Irishman quickly. They married, Ian's position solidified with the firm, and they moved into a large comfortable home near Cleveland.

The question of privilege versus expectation came in for Ian and Anita's son Blaine. Ian had worked so hard to become the success that he was and as all parents do he wanted better for his children than what he had growing up. So, early on in Blaine's life, PLANS were made. Plans that included 4.0 grade averages, football and soccer camps and teams, applications and acceptance to THE CORRECT law schools, and then joining what was now Moritz, Stanley, and Anderson. Plans that were made before Blaine Anderson even set foot in kindergarten, much less understood what college was. Plans that Blaine grew to dislike quickly.

Blaine never outwardly rebelled against his parent's expectations growing up. His grades were always excellent, he enjoyed reading and he joined the school soccer team. He also discovered a love of music, taught himself guitar, and joined the choir in middle school. Freshman year brought the realization that he was gay, something that his parent's didn't fully support, but that was more due to "expectations" being shattered than any real homophobia. Unfortunately the other kids at his school could have cared less about expectations, they just cared that the "fag" had supposedly been checking them out in the locker room. Blaine ended up transferring to Dalton halfway through his first semester, arm still in a cast and a row of stitches above his right eye.

Dalton turned out to be a good thing for him. Dalton's academic program was renowned in the state and his dad felt that it would be a wonderful addition to his college applications. He ended up joining the Warblers, Dalton's acapella show choir, ending up as one of the lead soloists. At Dalton the Warblers were the popular kids and surrounded by other children of expectation Blaine found friends with similar interests.

Dalton's zero tolerance harassment policy meant no more taunts of "fag" Fairy" or "Queer" as he walked down the halls. Among the Warblers though, zero tolerance stretched into total acceptance. He found friends, including David and Wes, who didn't care that he was gay. Sometimes he wished they "didn't care" a little less as they were forever trying to set him up with every gay and bi student at Dalton. He dated a bit, never anything serious because that wouldn't fit his father's "expectations", but mainly just enjoyed not having to hide who he was.

It was this acceptance that he found at Dalton that led Blaine to the decision that would ultimately place him in this room. Along with his application to ivy league schools his father required, Blaine slipped one lone application for enrollment and financial aid. If he was going to step out of the expectations and into what he wanted to do with his life, he was going to have to do it on his own, because his father certainly wouldn't agree. He didn't agree when Blaine told him that he had received a full scholarship to the College of Wooster, just south-east of Cleveland, and that he was going to study music education and therapy.

Blaine put himself through college much the way that his father had, scholarships, on and off campus jobs, and student loans. Wooster was a place that he could shine. A mid sized liberal arts school, they had both performance and theory tracks in the music department. They were the summer home to the "Ohio Light Opera" and had a decent sized GBLT population. The PFLAG chapter on campus had started out in the late 80s as a small Gay/Straight alliance, founded by a flaming Puerto Rican and his faithful hag. Blaine became president of the group his 3rd year and spent a lot of time in the wider community working with the local schools to assist their students who were GBLT or questioning.

Five years, three serious boyfriends, another acapella group and two degrees later Blaine found himself sitting in the living room of the first real home he could call his own and smiled. In a week he was to start his new job as the music teacher at the Lima Elementary School and as the Music Therapist for the district. This was something that he had accomplished himself, not as part of the "expectations", not because his father wanted it, but because this is what made him happy. Teacher's meetings started Monday and figuring that the unpacking wasn't going to do itself, he got up, stretched and set to work making his new home his.