Seven
"Umbrella"

It didn't take too long for the new soreness in Finn's fingers to call a halt to their guitar lessons. Blaine assured him that soon calluses would form, and he'd be able to play for hours without stopping. Finn experimentally pressed the reddened pads of his fingers and winced.

After they put the guitar away, Burt and Carole listened to the radio for a little while. The station had begun playing music again, though weather reports and news about damages interrupted frequently. The worst of the storm had definitely passed, and crews had been out trying to restore power and clear roadways all day. For now, though, the state police kept the travel restriction in place.

The novelty of living through the wettest weather Ohio had seen in centuries had worn off, and boredom had started to settle in. No amount of sing-alongs and board games – and they did plenty of both on Sunday – could relieve the technological itch. Blaine suffered right alongside with Finn and Kurt who desperately wanted to check Facebook or tweet or just open an Internet browser and feel connected to the rest of the world. But their phone batteries were dying, and anyway, no one had reception.

"I can't stay inside anymore!" Kurt cried. "Aren't you all going crazy?"

Blaine nodded, but he didn't want to say so out loud and insinuate he didn't like spending time with Kurt's family. Anyway, he didn't see what they could do about it. According to the radio, three feet of water covered half of Lima, and the rain still came down with enough force to make being outside miserable within five minutes.

"The year you three were born, there was an ice storm that lasted for three weeks. We went over to the shop, turned on all the kerosene heaters, and invited all the neighbors over to stay warm."

"I brought Finn into work with me when I thought it was going to get bad," Carole added. "We didn't go home that entire time. The nurses in Pediatrics let Finn play with the sick kids all day, and I'd come pick him up when my shift was over."

Kurt stood up from the couch and paced around the living room for a few moments before throwing up his hands in frustration. Blaine had never seen this side of his boyfriend before. Kurt loved spending nights in, cuddling on the couch, and watching Disney movies. Blaine was the more excitable, hyper one.

"I'm going for a walk."

"Kurt, in this?" Burt asked, gesturing to the rivulets of rainwater streaming down the window.

"I have rain boots and an umbrella."

And so he did. Kurt went upstairs to change clothes and came back down wearing sunshine yellow rain boots and a matching rain coat. He had a giant black-and-white checkered umbrella in one hand and a pair of fire engine red rain boots in the other.

"Blaine?"

Blaine stared open-mouthed at the proffered boots for a moment. Then he shrugged and climbed off the coach. He already wore some of Kurt's flamboyant clothes. Why not add a pair of eye-catching rain boots too? He didn't relish going out in public dressed like this, because they couldn't provide bigger targets if they'd dressed head to toe in rainbow patterns. But who was going to be outside in this weather, he reasoned? Other than a pair of stir-crazy twinks, of course.

"Don't be gone too long," Burt ordered. "And if the water gets deep, turn around."

"Dad, we're taking a walk through some puddles, not driving into standing water."

Blaine ushered his boyfriend out the door before his snappy comments got him into trouble or banned from leaving the house.

As it turned out, Kurt had a rose-tinted view of the situation. They trudged through ankle-deep water constantly, even on the sidewalk, and the splash from their footsteps flicked muddy residue onto their pants. Kurt hadn't realized that yet or they'd be going back for sure. High winds had knocked down trees and lightning had spilt one down the middle. Branches and leaves littered the dry patches of the street and sidewalk like shrapnel. The stop sign at the end of the block had been twisted into an alarming pretzel-like shape.

"I think we got very, very lucky," Blaine murmured as they passed the sign.

Kurt looked decidedly less self-absorbed now as he took in the damage to neighbor's houses and cars. The playground at the bottom of Miller's Hill had been entirely submerged, save for the very top of the jungle gym. His fingers twitched on the umbrella handle, and it dipped forward dropping a brief waterfall onto the sidewalk at their feet.

"Are you okay?"

"This is my home, and it's … it's ruined."

Blaine swallowed thickly and glanced around to make sure no one else had ventured out after all. Then he took Kurt's free hand in his and kissed it tenderly. He heard Kurt's breath hitch, and he turned his eyes up to see his boyfriend stared down at him with pain and wonder and affection in his blue-green eyes.

"All of this will be cleaned up and repaired one day soon. The important thing is that everyone is safe. You still have your family, Kurt, and you have me."

"Y-You kissed my hand." Blaine did it again just to see the toothy grin Kurt so rarely graced anyone with. "I feel like I'm in a John Hughes movie, and you're the guy I've wanted forever finally coming to sweep me off my feet."

"If John Hughes directed our lives, I'd have shown up in one of your classes and serenaded you. There would be a conveniently placed piano and awe-struck crowd to appreciate my grand romantic gesture."

Kurt groaned. "Please don't ever do that. I know the kinds of songs you pick when the Council doesn't censor you."

"Hey! "Candles" is a great song."

"Which only proves I'm a positive influence on you."

"Who knows? Maybe the next song I pick out all on my own will be honestly and truly appropriate to the situation."

Kurt leaned into Blaine and grinned deliriously happily at the sidewalk. After a pause, Kurt began leading him towards the flooded playground, which seemed so at adds to his mood a moment ago, Blaine didn't know how to object.

"We should walk to Rachel's house and make sure they're okay," Kurt explained. "She's the only one of my friends within walking distance."

The idea of seeing a friend and making sure she was okay appealed to Blaine, but he also kind of dreaded it. The last time he'd been to her house, he had been dropping her off after their date. He'd met her dads when he picked her up, and they were bound to be stuck at home like everyone else. God, what they must think of him.

"You've gotten very quiet all of a sudden," Kurt remarked.

Blaine didn't register the question until several awkward seconds had passed, thus proving Kurt's point. He sighed deeply.

"I haven't seen Rachel's dads since … you know, our date."

He said the last bit quietly. It had been the first big confrontation in their relationship, and they'd both said things they'd regretted and apologized for later, but remembering their first big fight when they'd been so happy just moments ago depressed Blaine.

"But you and Rachel talked about it, right? You're friends now. And if you're not, you really need to stop taking her calls so late at night."

Blaine chuckled at the memory. A very disgruntled, sleep-deprived Nick had informed all the Warblers how they'd better kick New Direction's collective ass at Regionals after Rachel Berry had called at two in the morning to sing a song to Blaine.

"It was only that once, and she'd written a song about me. It was sweet, and it was a good song too."

"No, it wasn't. It might as well have been called "My Headband, Part II.""

"But it wasn't. It was called "Blaine" so there."

"Oh, yes. How could I forget? The sheer number of words that rhyme with your name is obscene."

They laughed together as they remembered all the atrocious rhymes and how they'd just gone on and on. Every line had rhymed with Blaine until he'd been sick of his own name by the end. He did find the meaning in the song very sweet, though. It had been Rachel's way of saying that even though she was sad, she was proud of him for being who he truly was, but in an astonishingly self-aggrandizing way.

Their plan to check on Rachel proved impossible, however. The water rose too steadily for them to continue when they were still four blocks away. Very reluctantly, they turned back and were faced with the unpleasant task of walking into the rain.

"This was not my best idea ever," Kurt admitted.

They leaned in close to each other and ducked their heads beneath the umbrella to battle the wind as one unit. Blaine liked the feeling of Kurt so close to him, and not for the first time, wished they lived anywhere but Ohio. He wished he could do something as simple and innocent as hold his boyfriend's hand in public without being afraid all the time.

"You're doing it again, Blaine," Kurt grumbled. "What are you thinking about?"

"Aren't you afraid that – how do I ask this? – that being the way you are, where we live, will end badly?"

Kurt turned his head and fixed Blaine with an unreadable look. He thought his boyfriend was about to snap at him, but he didn't.

"Are you … Do you not like the way I dress?"

"What! No! God, no. I love the way you dress, and the way you act. You're stunning and you're … you're you. You're fabulous!"

Blaine heard the sassiness in his own voice, the one that sounded so stereotypically gay, the one he only let come out when he was around Kurt, and he saw his boyfriend smile at its sudden appearance. He spoke the truth, in his true voice. He'd recognized Kurt for what he was on the stairs at Dalton the first day they'd met, and it had taken his breath away to see this boy flaunt it. So Blaine had told him to be courageous, because he obviously already was.

"I'm asking you, Kurt, how it is that you're not afraid after everything you've been through. Do you realize …. Kurt, that day you asked me to come help you with Karofsky, you sounded so timid and frightened on the phone. And then you pushed him when we were in the stairwell. How do you do that? How do you just turn off your fear?"

He could have asked Kurt this anytime since November, but he hadn't because it revealed too much of what he tried to hide from the world. But Kurt had seen all of that last night, and there was no way to take it back. Blaine didn't want to either. It comforted him, knowing that someone in the world knew all of him, and he felt safe with his secret identity in Kurt's hands.

"I didn't do it for me," Kurt answered. "He shoved you, and I just thought, 'Oh God, he's already been bullied like this once before. I can't let it happen to him again.' I'm protective by nature. I take care of my friends and family, no matter what. It's just what I do. Don't tell me you're not the same."

Blaine shook his head. He wouldn't deny it. Kurt's tears had stirred a protective instinct deep within him.

"But not all fear starts like that, with a shove. Last night …" His voice caught, and he paused to tame the welling emotion. "I believe that your dad likes me. As an idea, I know it's true. But I don't know how to accept it as part of my life. How do I do that?"

"I don't think it's something you just do. You can't will trust into existence. If you keep an open-mind, I promise you my dad will show you that he approves of us … and of you."

"That might be too much for me to do right now."

He hated to say it, but Kurt needed to know how deeply Blaine had been hurt by his own father's silent disapproval, by his passive-aggressive attempts to turn him straight. And how could Blaine risk causing even a fraction of that kind of pain in Kurt's life? Because it didn't go away. When the other person refused to talk about it, when their single request was the one that could not be met, when that person was a parent, it didn't go away. Every second of every day, the ache throbbed beneath the surface and threatened to explode with agonizing pain at the smallest, most unexpected trigger so that nothing was safe or stable and the entire world became one continuous nightmare.

"Of course it is," Kurt answered. "Right now, it's too much. But it won't always be."

"Do you really believe that? After … after last night, do you really think I'm not too damaged?"

"No." He said it with so much conviction Blaine believed it. "Because you haven't stopped hoping. I see it in your eyes when you let down your walls and say something from your heart. If you had stopped hoping, you wouldn't make those puppy eyes at me all the time."

Blaine's lips twitched into a sad smile. They had reached the front porch of the Hummel-Hudson house again. Kurt paused on the doorstep, still holding the umbrella over their heads to protect them from the rain.

"You have a beautiful soul, Blaine Warbler."

Blaine didn't know where that came from or why Kurt said it now, but he believed Kurt meant it, and he believed it in his own heart and that was a fine place to begin again.