I feel like we never get any nice Papa Anderson stories. Unbeta'd: any faults are my own.
Dinner was usually a private affair in the Anderson household. 'Private' as in each member of the household fending for themselves for their evening meal. If the three respective schedules happened in intersect on a particular day, exceptions would of course be made, but usually this was not the case.
For the last few weeks, however, the usual had been put on indefinite hold in favor of family dinners most nights of the week. Blaine had no qualms about this; in fact, it was quite a nice switch up. A switch up that would have been nice several months ago when he was at the peak of his loneliness, but it was better late than never.
Tuesday night finds Blaine at the table with only his father, his mother off for the evening with a few of her friends. The two men had prepared dinner together, an easy conversation flowing between them as they worked around each other. When they sat down together, it continued on without a hitch.
It had not always been that easy for father and son. In many ways, Cooper had been much simpler to understand and live with. Cooper made sure each and every one of his thoughts and opinions, no matter how strange or off-base they were, were known by everyone. He wore his heart on his sleeve and dominated conversations. Robert Anderson never had to pull anything out from his eldest, simply because information was offered long before it was asked for.
With Blaine, who had always played his hand closer to the vest, it was difficult. More time needed to be spent coaxing stories out of Blaine when asked how his day was. Blaine was much more tactical with what he chose to divulge to his family. Of course, when all of Blaine's cards were laid out on the table one night at the age of thirteen, all of this made sense. Robert couldn't exactly say he and his wife were blindsided by the news, but they certainly weren't expecting that.
Since then, Robert had to be just as cautious and tactical in his words and actions as Blaine was with his own. Because Blaine never shouted his likes and wants like his brother, more guess work was needed. Of course, there were hits and there were misses.
A lull finally came over them as they finished up their meal. Blaine shifted in his seat and cleared his throat.
"Do you have a minute, Dad?" Blaine asked after a moment.
Robert sat back in his chair. "Of course," he said genuinely. He watched Blaine straighten his back and square his shoulders, his jaw clenching ever so minutely, as if bracing himself.
"I want to ask Kurt to marry me."
Robert kept a relatively straight face; if one of his eyebrows twitched upwards, it was an entirely involuntary movement. "I see."
Blaine swallowed, unsure of himself, or perhaps his father's reaction, momentarily.
"Are you asking my opinion on the matter, or are you just informing me?" Robert asked, business like, but not unfriendly.
"Well, I'm not exactly looking for your permission or anything, but I wanted you to know."
Robert hummed. He eased back a little further in his chair. Blaine sat still, hands folded in front of him, his grip a little too tight.
"May I ask you a question, Blaine?" His son nodded in response, a worryline beginning to form on his forehead. "What does marriage mean to you?"
Immediately, Blaine's jaw locked, his eyes narrowed. "If this is going to be some indictment about gay marriage, Dad, then-"
"Blaine," interrupted Robert. His tone was the same that it had been: calm, level. "When have I ever been anything but supportive of you?" Blaine lowered his gaze down to the table
"I'm sorry," he said, quietly, and meaning it. It was true. Robert Anderson knew that he was not the most vocally supportive father, but he made sure more and more in recent years that his youngest son knew exactly where he stood with Blaine. There had been too much silence and too many missed opportunities to let their relationship just fall to the wayside.
Robert sighed. "I know. I know you have to deal with those kinds of things every day." Blaine may never complain about it openly, his son may have found a good group of solid and accepting friends, but there was no way Robert would ever, could ever, miss the way his son's shoulders slumped and a bit of the earnest light dim in his eyes when yet another news report would air about the inequality and injustices in the world. "I'm asking you as your father: what does marriage mean to you?"
Blaine brought his head back up, chin held high, his usual confidence coursing through him once again. "Marriage is about the love between two people," he states very matter-of-factly.
Robert nodded. "That's true." Blaine smiled. "But then what's so special about it? How is the love between, say, boyfriends, any different than the love between them when they're husbands?"
Blaine paused for a moment, deciding how to respond. "Because they're proving to themselves and to everyone else that they're ready to be committed to each other for the rest of their lives."
"The rest of your life is a pretty long time," Robert said. He could tell that he was just beginning to frustrate his son: the carefully lines edges of Blaine's resolve were starting to fray.
"I know that. And I'm willing to spend that with Kurt." Blaine's shoulders were set, he met his father's eyes with an absolute confidence. Robert watched his son for a moment.
"Do you think your mother and I have a good marriage?" he asked, leaning forward, his forearms resting on the table.
Blaine considered his question. "I'd say so," he said. "Yes."
"How do you think we're able to do that? What's so specially about us that we're still together for nearly thirty years?" There's silence for a moment. Robert could practically see the gears turning in his son's mind.
"I don't know if I've ever thought about that."
"Can I tell you something Blaine?" He nodded vigorously, inching forward ever so slightly, as if he's ready for his father to reveal the meaning of life.
"Being married is easy. It's one of the easiest things in the world." Robert stated. "But keeping your relationship strong, especially for decades at a time, that's one of the hardest.
"Because it's so easy to just get comfortable with each other after a while. You have your honeymoon phase, where absolutely nothing can go wrong between you. You know you love them and they love you, and you say it every chance that you can." Robert smiled, thinking about his own, all those years ago.
"But life doesn't let you stay that way. You get busy, because adulthood means responsibility. So, you start maybe staying a little later a work, spending more and more time away from your partner; maybe you have a couple of kids and they take up all of your time. So you forget to say 'I love you,' because they know it, you know it, right?
"Before you know it, you're just two people living in the same house, paying the same mortgage, and eating at the same dinner table, unhappy because you don't even know who that other person is anymore. And that is not the way a good marriage should be." When Robert finally stopped, he gave himself a moment to take in his son. Blaine's shoulders had slumped slightly, his gaze fixed back somewhere on his dinner plate. He chewed the inside of his cheek in a way that reminded Robert so much of his wife when she's upset.
"I'm not trying to discourage you, Blaine, or tell you that marriage isn't worth it. I just need you to know what you're getting into."
Robert sat back in his seat, his hands in his lap. The ball was in Blaine's court now. He hated having to be the one to burst Blaine's happy little bubble, but he needed to treat his son like an adult. The last thing that Robert wanted to see is his baby boy hurt somewhere down the line, trapped in an unhappy marriage.
"So what's the secret to a good marriage?" came a quiet question from Blaine, his voice tight. Robert's gaze snapped up to Blaine. He thought for a moment, just a moment, about how to respond.
"I asked your grandpa the same thing," Robert chuckled. "I was older than you are and screwed up a lot more than you." Finally, he's able to pull the tiniest quirk of a smile from Blaine.
"He told me that I should never stop dating my wife. When you're dating someone, you're still looking to impress them. To prove to them why they should want to be with you. That, and that when we fought, no matter how much we felt like we hated each other in that moment, that's when you tell them you love them."
"That's it?" Blaine said, not quite sold.
"It's the little things that help you remember why you wanted to marry them in the first place."
Silence fell over them once again. The gears were definitely working over time in Blaine's head. Robert sighed. He didn't want to leave the table, but he's not exactly sure Blaine's going to offer up anything else. He knew that it's a tough pill for his son to swallow.
"I'm still going to ask him," Blaine finally said.
Robert smiled. "Whatever you decide on, Blaine, I support it."
Blaine met his father's eye, his smile a bit sad. "I don't think he'll say yes."
That threw Robert off completely, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Why do you want to ask him then?" Robert knew how much a rejection like that would hurt.
"Because I want Kurt to know that I want to. That I'm ready," Blaine said, his voice gaining confidence with every word. "That I'm ready to go the distance with him, to make the effort everyday. That I love him more than I would ever be able to say with just words."
"And what if Kurt does say yes?"
Again, Blaine stopped. "I don't even think I'd considered that being a possibility."
Robert Anderson grinned.
"Looks like you might want to start thinking about buying a ring."