Songbird

Summary: Blaine's a young songwriter who's stuck in a rut. Kurt's an independent cyborg with music software installed. Blaine knows that Kurt could totally be his meal ticket if he'd just freaking cooperate for once. Kurt just wants Blaine to understand that he's not just a machine, even if that means sitting back and letting him flounder. AU, Klaine.

AN: Yeah, so I haven't written a chapter fic in a long, long time.

Disclaimer: Lol no. Not a chance.

Chapter One: Nestling

Kurt Hummel had never in his entire life been average. He personally thought that he'd been a fairly normal little boy, but being able to lift the stove over his head tended to not be something that little boys were generally able to do, especially not at the tender age of three. Normal little boys probably wouldn't have thanked the microwave for nuking his baked potato either, nor made sure to pat the television whenever he turned it off.

He'd never had any issues with his sight, nor broken a bone, even when his father had accidentally dropped a bumper on his ribs while working on a car in the shop.

But most normal little boys didn't usually check their e-mail in their heads, nor were they usually able to download software, and most little boys didn't include an antivirus scan in their pre-bed routine. Come to think of it, most little boys didn't even need an antivirus, though it would probably do marvels for the common cold. The day he'd begun to look at boys and see them as attractive, he'd asked his father if he had some malware that had gotten past his firewalls.

Burt Hummel had merely smiled and knelt down, pulling his child into his arms and holding him tight, because Kurt Hummel might have had a skeletal infrastructure made of a titanium and tungsten alloy instead of bone and he might have had a little more circuitry in his head than most people and sometimes he had to eat more than most people to keep his energy levels high, but Kurt Hummel was human and absolutely perfect.

Kurt Hummel almost hadn't existed and Burt would take what made him different a thousand times over than face the alternative: a world where Kurt, born too fragile and too broken and too human to survive with the body he'd been given, would have been thrown away.

He'd grown up knowing he was human, Burt and Elizabeth had made sure of that.

Blaine Anderson had always known that he was pretty average. He'd been a normal kid, running around the yard and playing tag with the neighborhood kids and taking piano lessons. He'd gone to school and gotten pretty good grades and never really wanted for friends, because he was friendly and smart and liked to share his cookies.

When he was young, there was a time where he had to wear glasses that thankfully he'd grown out of, and for two years in high school, he'd had to wear braces. He'd survived with his social life intact, but his class picture from those two years would never see the light of day.

Blaine had been thirteen when he realized that while his friends were talking about who the prettiest girls were and who'd grown boobs over the summer, he himself didn't really care about girls, at least not like that. They were good to have as friends but he never wanted to kiss them, and when he thought of getting married, he always thought of being with a boy first. He didn't go on a single date throughout high school, and never had someone to go with for prom, at least not the way he wanted. Blaine never told his parents, but he knew that his sisters had all known and if life treated him well, that would be how it stayed.

Blaine Anderson was impassioned about music, but couldn't help feeling that the reason he couldn't write a single song he liked was because to write about life, he'd have to live, and no one wanted to hear the songs of a loveless failure of a songwriter who was going through the tragic ennui of his early twenties.

Blaine Anderson was far more human than he wanted to be, and would have given about anything for an excuse to not be.

"Kurt, are you sure about this? You really don't have to feel like I want you out of the house or anything, and I—"

Kurt and Burt Hummel stood in the empty doorway of Kurt's brand new apartment. It was on the third floor and had two bedrooms, one of which was going to be turned into a library, and more space than one eighteen year old really needed to feel secure. Currently, it was filled with boxes and furniture that would be moved at least three times before the day was up, and bags upon bags of groceries rested on the counters, waiting to be put away. Kurt held a stack of signed lease papers in his hand, his keys in the other.

"Dad, I know," Kurt reached forward for a hug, and felt the comforting weight of his father's arms settle around his shoulders, "It's not because of that. I just feel like, you know, I'm old enough that I ought to live on my own. We're not far away either, so I can still make Friday dinners with you and Carole and Finn. I've made enough money from working that I can pay the rent at the places I've looked and a solid job is more than most people my age can ask for. There's something to be said for stability." Kurt smiled, trying to look reassuring, but Burt Hummel didn't buy it for one second. The hand holding the lease agreement was white-knuckled, and Kurt had eaten four scrambled eggs that morning for breakfast instead of the usual two and toast.

"I wish-"

"Dad, please," Reassuring turned to a plea, "It's not anyone's fault that the colleges I applied to didn't…well. Didn't like me. We're both too honest to lie to the acceptance boards, and no one trusts someone like me to take a test without having an advantage up here," the boy tapped the side of his head and smiled.

"God, Kurt. You're barely eighteen. You should be in college, living it up with people your age and reveling in not having me around," Burt returned his son's smile but it was sadder, and he couldn't control the twisting feeling in his stomach when Kurt reached out for him again, as if he were the comforter, as if he'd been the one to see Burt cry so many times over this in the past few months instead of the reverse.

"I know. But it's how it is, right? I wanted to go to college, but it just didn't work out like that. Maybe one day. But right now, I'll be okay like this." Kurt straightened his back and inhaled loudly, as if expelling all the poisons and taking in everything afresh, "We can't all take a normal path."

"You've always been normal, Kurt."

"No I haven't, but I love you more than anything for insisting on it."

One more hug and then Burt Hummel was walking towards his car, down the stairs, head bent so that his only, precious child wouldn't see him crying. Kurt watched him go, watched his car pull out of the parking lot. He knew that Burt would do what he always did when he was upset; he'd hole up in his lab and work with his machines for hours and probably fix a few cars because he could and Carole would probably have to lure him out with sugar cookies and a well-placed guilt trip. Kurt would do what he always did when he was upset: blast music as loud as he dared and organize his closet by style and season and color.

He sighed and surveyed his new domain, before rolling up his sleeves and starting to put away his groceries, introducing himself to the appliances and trying to figure out where he was going to put his couch, hips already swaying to the beat of a song playing in his head.

Blaine hadn't expected to get a neighbor at all, much less at the very beginning of summer like this. People liked to move in and out during the fall and spring and Blaine had gotten used to seeing the empty name slot on the mailbox by the apartment next to his, but that empty slot was now replaced with Hummel, Kurt and while Blaine had never prided himself on being more or less curious about people than anyone else, he wondered what Kurt would be like.

Probably an older guy, with his luck. Probably an older guy who liked to go to bed by nine and didn't like rowdy twenty-one year olds like Blaine who liked to play loud music and make up dances up and down the hallway. He wouldn't like boys like Blaine who danced around his kitchen while he attempted to make cup noodles, air guitaring with his broom.

Blaine leaned out of his room, peering closer to the door next to his as if that would somehow give him x-ray vision.

He jumped when the door suddenly opened and what looked like a giant, grumbling pile of boxes stumbled out. The person carrying them (for boxes surely didn't carry themselves, not even with all the advanced robotics of the age) muttered insults under his breath that didn't seem to be directed at anyone in particular and without thinking about it, Blaine found himself walking up to the box pile, taking a few off the top.

"Hey, let me give you a hand there," he offered, shouldering the boxes. His gesture had revealed not an old man, but a young guy with slightly tousled chestnut hair and a thin frame.

"Oh, thanks," the guy who must have been Kurt Hummel said, voice higher than Blaine would have expected, "They're not heavy, but being light doesn't make them any easier to see around,"

"For trash pickup?" Blaine asked, and the guy nodded, "Just set them down in front of your door. They come pick it up at night so you won't have to drag it down to the dumpster." He set his boxes down and straightened them up so that they stacked and Kurt copied him, setting down his pile as well. "I'm Blaine Anderson, I'm in the room next to this one. You're Ku—"

"I'm Kurt Hummel, yes," Kurt interrupted, dusting himself off though there didn't seem to be any mess on his clothes. "I just moved in today. Nice to meet you." He extended a hand for Blaine to shake, and felt calluses on the man's fingers. "Guitar player?" Blaine blinked in shock.

"Yeah, how'd you—"

"Your fingertips. Probably not your chording hand, so from playing pick-less? Acoustic?"

"Y-yeah…" Blaine stammered, thrown for a loop by this newcomer who didn't seem to need to ask questions to get his answers. "I write music, too."

"Oh, really?" Kurt asked, leaning forward in curiosity, eyes lighting up, "That's fantastic. I'd love to hear something you've written sometime. Right now, though, I've got to get the rest of my stuff unpacked. I'll probably see you around though, since we're going to be neighbors." For the first time since they'd begun to speak, Kurt smiled and Blaine noticed that it seemed to soften his whole being, rounding him out and making him look entirely less aloof than he'd started.

"Yeah, I'll see you later," Blaine replied, turning and making his way back into his room with a wave.

As he surveyed his living room, he thought back to the boy in the room next door and wondered just how soon he could make that later he'd proposed.

AN2: And there's chapter one! If you liked it, please leave a review! If you hated it, leave a review and tell me what you hated.