"Okay, was it just me or was the other night with Quinn the most awkward thing, like ever?" Sam asked, holding open Mercedes' front door for her.
"Nah, it's not just you," she replied.
"Did she say anything?" Sam asked.
"She um…" Mercedes sat down and fiddled with her shoe laces.
"She what?"
"She said she never should have broken up with you," Mercedes admitted.
"Hmm," Sam offered.
"She seemed really sad."
"Yeah… she did." Sam agreed, sitting down next to Mercedes and untying his own shoes. "I think things are a little tough with her family right now. I know she was fighting with her mom."
"Oh," Mercedes sighed. She had never thought that she would be the jealous type, and she would never admit it to Sam, but she absolutely hated that Sam and Quinn were still sort of friends.
Sam's head shot up. "Hey, what did I say?"
"What?"
"You sound… sort of pissed. What did I do?"
"It's nothing."
"Was I supposed to go into a long spiel about how I'd never go back to Quinn?" Sam asked, with just a touch of a smile. "Cause I don't have one rehearsed or anything, but I could probably just start the list of reasons I wouldn't."
Mercedes chuckled. "It's okay. I'm fine. I don't need to hear it."
"Cause I have one, but since you guys are friends-"
"It's okay. I'm just being ridiculous. I'm just nervous how auditions went. I didn't get held back."
Sam grabbed her hand from her shoe and pulled it up between them.
"I like you when you're being ridiculous," he said. "And I didn't say anything against Quinn because I know you're friends and because even though I shouldn't have dated her, I think she's still a good person… mostly."
Mercedes smiled at him, her smile splitting even wider when he brought their twined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles briefly.
"You don't have to lay it on this strong," she told him.
"I know. I just like to. You deserve it."
Mercedes felt the heat in her face burn even harder and tugged her hand out of Sam's.
"I wish I could have auditioned with everyone. It would be fun to do this show with you." Sam rubbed his hand over his neck and sighed.
"I get it. You have to work. There's nothing you can do. Besides. I might not even get in."
"Of course you'll get in. You're amazing."
"Oh no, I know I'm amazing. I'm just a little too different. Too loud. Too black. For West Side Story in Lima anyway." Sam smiled at her like he didn't know what to say and grabbed her hand again. "I kind of want to just take my mind off it."
Sam bit his lip and peered out into the living room. "Are your parents home?"
Mercedes smiled, turned their hands so that she could press her mouth to Sam's knuckles and said, "No. They aren't. They'll be gone for a while."
Sam tapped their twined hands to his mouth. "You wanna go upstairs?" he asked.
"Yeah."
Mercedes led Sam upstairs by the hand. She loved having a boyfriend. When she had been looking at Kurt with starry eyes while he strutted around his those silly boots and knee length sweaters, all of her fantasies had been about holding hands and getting roses and being romanced. And Sam had done all of that. And it had been just as great as it was in the fantasies.
She closed her bedroom door behind them and Sam pulled her arm a little bit, twirling her before backing her up against her bed and tumbling down next to her.
"How did you get this cheesy and ridiculous?"
"Let's see…" Sam said scrunching his face up like he was thinking really hard about it. "Mason went through a heartbroken phase for two months where he watched a bunch of Rom Coms and bitched about how there were no romantic men. I'd never had a girlfriend until I moved here, so I had time to think about all the romantic…" he kissed her forehead, "Cheesy," he kissed one cheek, "Ridiculous," he kissed the other, "Things that I could do with her." He pulled back. "You like it though right?"
"Yeah," Mercedes whispered. "I really do."
"I like that you like it," he whispered back, kissing her and gently rolling on top of her.
But this part, the part she hadn't really fantasized about yet, was pretty great too. She liked being kissed and held and made out with. She loved gripping Sam's solid arms while he kissed her. She liked the way he flicked his bangs out of the way when he pulled back for air.
And she liked that slight, almost nagging feeling that things could go further if she let them. Not quite as much as she liked knowing that she could trust Sam not to pressure her to go further. But, having the knowledge there, that he wanted her, that he thought she was sexy and beautiful…it was kind of awesome.
"Mhmm, Mercedes?" Sam started.
"Yeah?"
"You with me?"
"Yeah… just… sorry, just thinking."
"Everything okay?"
"Do you think Quinn figured out what's going on?"
"No. Quinn… gets scary over stuff like this. You know her better than I do, you were there longer. Did she do the scary thing?"
"No. She didn't. You're right. I just… Quinn's my friend. You're her ex. That's something I should have thought about."
"I get a say though right?"
"Of course you do."
"Okay… I want you."
Mercedes grinned and sat up to kiss him. "Sorry… this secret thing's harder than I thought it would be."
"We could tell people, you know."
"Not yet. It's going too well."
"Yeah. It is."
He smiled, flicked his bangs out of his eyes and came back down to kiss her.
"You can tell Kurt if you want to. I mean… he's your best friend. And we all know he can keep a secret."
Something seized up in Mercedes stomach. Something like hurt and jealousy. "Maybe. But for right now, while I've got you to myself, I just want to focus on you."
"Awesome."
Finn left Rachel's house around nine. He had been planning to stick around, hopefully make out, but she had just been obsessively refreshing her email, waiting to find out that Jesse had decided she was the only person in the world who could possibly play Maria. So Finn had gone home and had a moment of panic when he walked in to find Burt and his Mom watching a movie, cuddling on the couch in a weird old person way, and realized that no secret signal shoes were set out and that Blaine's car was gone. If Kurt and Blaine had gotten caught it was going to kill his chances to get time alone with Rachel.
"Hey, Finn," his mom called. "How were auditions? Kurt said you ran into some complications."
"Umm… yeah. I sort of did. Is Kurt here?"
"He's upstairs. Actually he said he wanted to talk to you when you got home."
"Kurt wants to talk to me?"
"Yeah."
"About what?" Finn wondered out loud.
"He didn't say," his mom shrugged.
She turned back to the movie. Finn frowned. It didn't sound like Kurt and Blaine had gotten caught, but now Finn was attempting to put together a list of things Kurt could possibly want to talk to him about. Usually when he was officially summoned to Kurt's room it was to get yelled at about "the barbaric state of the bathroom that I am not cleaning again Finn Hudson, go get the tile cleaner right now!"
And Finn had totally cleaned it… at some point before they left for New York. He sighed and trudged upstairs, bracing himself for the full force of Kurt's wrath and missing being an only child. Kurt was so weird about the stupid bathroom.
Lady Gaga could be heard drifting out from under the door of Kurt's room. Finn only knocked once before Kurt threw the door open.
"Oh. Finn. I didn't think you'd be back this early. Come in. I need your help."
"Dude… what the hell happened in here?" Finn asked, staring around Kurt's room with his mouth hanging open. It looked like half of Kurt's closet had gone to war against the other half.
"Where do you get your clothes?" Kurt asked.
Finn sighed. He liked plaid. "Oh… let me guess. Farmer Mart. Wal Market. Famers' Walmarket. Big and Tall Famer Mart. Big… Farmer and Tall."
Kurt gave him a look. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Isn't that where you going with this? Usually you make farmer jokes about my clothes."
Kurt looked like he was about to deny it for a minute, but stopped, closed his mouth, and opened it again. "You're right. I'm sorry. In all seriousness- where do you get your clothes?"
"Why do you care?"
Kurt bit his lip, and turned around. He picked up a pile of shirts that was bigger than a pile of all of the clothes Finn owned would be, even if he included his football uniform and his swim trunks, and set it on top of an even bigger pile of clothes, then sat down on the spot where the shirts had been, which was now the only surface in his entire room not covered in clothes.
"Blaine invited me over to dinner at his house to meet his parents on Tuesday and I'm freaking out a little."
That was not what Finn had been expecting. "Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's big stuff. The whole… meeting parents stuff," Finn said. He looked for a place that he could sit down, but was too afraid of touching Kurt's clothes to find one himself. "Aren't… Blaine's parents kind of formal? That's a lot more your area than mine. The last time I met someone's parents you picked out my clothes."
Kurt quirked his head to the side. "You haven't met Rachel's dads?"
"Yeah, I've met them… just not like… you know. Formal dinner met them. Do you think I should formal dinner meet them?"
"Umm… yes? You date Rachel all the time… so yes?"
"I should have been able to figure that out by myself, huh?"
"Yes. Finn. You should have. Not to be a pain, but can we go back to my problem, please?"
"Sorry. Sure. Clothes. What's the problem?"
"The problem is Blaine's parents are…" Kurt paused. Then kept pausing.
"They're what, man?"
"They aren't… they want Blaine to be straight, and they don't want to meet me, and you heard Jesse, I'm not capable of toning it down and I don't want to make this harder on Blaine that it already will be," Kurt said all in a rush, straightening the pile of shirts next to him.
"Wow. Okay. Well… first off- Fuck Jesse St. James."
"No thank you," Kurt said under his breath.
Finn willed himself to believe that he hadn't heard that, focusing instead on how much Kurt must like Blaine if he was willing to wear something Finn Approved over to Blaine's house. "And second off… Blaine likes your crazy clothes."
"Yes, Finn, but I've already met Blaine. This is his parents. And I think this will go better if I don't come off as quite so…" Kurt rolled his eyes. "Gay."
"Isn't meeting your boyfriend's parents already pretty gay?"
"Where do you get your clothes, Finn?"
"My mom buys my clothes."
Kurt's mouth dropped open. "Your mom actually buys your clothes?"
"Yeah."
"What, all of them?"
"Yeah?"
"And you have no idea where they're from. At all."
"Umm… I think the bag of shirts she just got me is from Target."
Kurt looked at him like he'd just grown an extra head. "Target?"
"Why don't you just wear this?" Finn asked, pointing at something that bright blue with buttons on it.
"That's a fall jacket," Kurt groaned, throwing himself back onto his bed into a pile of scarves. "And technically it's a woman's cut."
"All of your shirts are like… formal. Why don't you just pick a nice shirt and wear jeans?"
"A nice shirt and jeans," Kurt repeated from his pile of scarves.
"I'm sorry, if that's like a fashion sin or whatever, but wouldn't that be better than Target?"
"A nice shirt and jeans," Kurt said again, covering his face with his hands.
"Are you supposed to wear a suit or something? You could wear a nice suit."
"A nice shirt and jeans." He sounded like he was in pain.
"Look, I'm sorry, but you asked for my help!" Finn huffed.
Kurt sat back up suddenly and launched himself off the bed. "No, you're right. You are completely right. I should just wear a nice shirt and jeans. I have nice shirts. I have jeans."
"Yeah, man. There you go!" Finn said encouragingly. He was proud of himself. He had helped. He turned to leave.
"Wait, where are you going?" Kurt called after him.
"I thought that was it."
"That's not it, we've still got short sleeve, long sleeve, color. Epaulettes or not. Pockets or not. Light wash, dark wash. I'm going to need a belt," Kurt said, picking up a totally different stack of clothes and returning it to the closet. He grabbed another pile of clothes and stopped. "Unless… unless you had something else you had to do tonight."
Finn would rather do almost anything instead of help Kurt pick out clothes, especially when Kurt had clearly gone crazy, but he nodded.
"No. I've got time. Just… let me go get a can of pop. I'll be right back."
"Did the email come yet?" Dave whispered when Santana dug her phone out again.
"Give me a second. The 3G in your house sucks. I didn't know you were so into this."
They were watching a movie on Dave's computer. Santana leaned forward to pause it.
"I'm not."
"You so are. This is the third time you've asked me to check in the last 45 minutes. You're like a little kid."
"Can you please keep your voice down?" Dave sighed.
His parents and his brother were all home, and in accordance with the rules, Dave had to keep his door open when Santana was in his bedroom.
So that they wouldn't get up to anything inappropriate.
Dave had thought to himself several times over the last few weeks that his father's open door policy would actually be less annoying if he and Santana actually were dating. As things were, the open door just made him feel like he was expected to be seen touching her in some capacity, an impulse which, when acted on, usually caused her to hit him. It also meant that they couldn't talk about anything. But it was still better than Santana's house, where they had to sit in the living room while her mother made comments about him in Spanish and Santana replied with "Si, yo se, Mama."
The only really relaxing place to be with Santana was in his car, usually up at Lover's Lane. Dave found this uncomfortably ironic.
"How exactly are you planning on hiding the fact that you are spending every night at rehearsal?" Santana asked.
"I'm going to tell them that I'm at rehearsal, I just have to figure out how I'm going to put it."
"Mom, Dad, I like musicals," Santana laughed quietly. Dave shoved his shoulder into her.
"Shut up. It's gonna be like: Mom, Dad, I did some research, something something college, something something scholarships, something something… diversifying my academic portfolio."
"If I'd known you were a closet nerd, I never would have bearded with you." Santana laughed.
"Shhh…" Dave said immediately, even though he knew objectively that she had practically whispered it in his ear.
"Calm down, Dave." Santana smacked his shoulder in a way that could almost be classified as affectionate. "Aha- email at last!" Santana crowed, but her face fell instantly. "Oh."
"What's wrong? Is it from Jesse?"
"No its…" Santana started then stopped talking and swiped a hand by her eye.
"Are you okay?"
"It's from Brittany."
Dave bit his lip and cast his eyes toward the door, hating himself for it. He threw an arm around Santana. She stiffened for a moment, before setting her head on his shoulder.
"Are you going to open it?"
"I don't know, give me a second."
He waited.
"I mean… it's Brit. So it's probably just about an adventure her cat may or may not have had."
"Yeah."
"Or maybe… maybe she met someone. Some cute Icelander," Santana's voice went soft in a way it hardly ever did and Dave hugged her a little closer.
"You know what? Doesn't matter. Over her. Done. I'm not going to spend the whole summer wondering what she's doing. You want to check the cast list? I got an email from Jesse too."
"Are you su-"
"Whatever," Santana growled, opening Jesse's email.
The list of leads wasn't long.
"Hey, you got Anita, that's what you wanted right?"
"Yeah. That'll be fun," Santana said. Dave heard her sniffle, but didn't say anything. "And you're Riff. Big bad ass gang leader."
"In a musical about ballet dancing gangs," Karofsky snorted.
"And Berry's Maria, big surprise considering Jesse still wants to get into those ridiculous kid-section at Khols pants."
"Wait… that douche bag actually wants Rachel?"
"Try not to think about it too hard, it'll only upset you," Santana sighed. "And he got Blaine to gay-babysit her. He's Tony so no one else'll kiss her. Little does he know that Blaine once made out with her at a party and then they went on a date- that Eric kid is Bernardo-"
Dave finally caught up to Santana's commentary. "Wait- what?"
"Eric is-"
"No- Blaine is Kurt's boyfriend right?"
"Yeah. He and Rachel are going to be two hobbits in love."
"Kurt's boyfriend went out with Rachel?"
"I don't get it either and thinking about people kissing Rachel for too long makes me queasy, so let's just move on," Santana scrolled down a little further on her phone, "And Kurt got Action."
"From… Blaine or Rachel?" Dave asked, totally overwhelmed and about to kick Santana out if this was the conversation they were going to have.
"That's the name of the character that Kurt is going to play," Santana said, giving him a suspicious side eye that made him actually want to kick her out.
"Who is that?"
"I don't know. But he must have a solo if his character has a name." Santana opened her mouth as though she was going to add something, but flicked her eyes toward the door and shut it.
"Finn didn't get in?"
"Jesse hates him. They were competing for Berry's obnoxious affections at one point and Designer Scarf Boy eventually turned on her, and Finn swooped in, fast forward a year Jesse swoops back, and even though Finn was back with Quinn, Finn and Jesse got kicked out of prom for a fight I might have broken up, if I wasn't so curious to see which of them was going to cry like a girl when he lost."
"So basically you're saying this play is going to be just like Glee Club?" Dave clarified.
"Yes." Santana set her head back on Dave's shoulder, and refreshed her inbox on her phone. Brittany's email was still sitting there, marked as unread.
"Do you want me to… I don't know, pretend to go get you something. Give you some privacy?"
"Don't need it," Santana said decisively, tossing her phone onto her purse on the other side of the room. She leaned forward, hit play on Dave's computer and leaned back against him.
When Mark came up to check on him, he gave Dave a totally less than subtle thumbs up.
"Blaine can you pass the peas?" His mother asked. Blaine reached out for the dish in front of him and handed it to her.
"And straighten up," she added.
He blinked. "What?"
"Straighten up, it's rude to slouch over the dinner table. You look like you're hauling books for finals."
"Right," Blaine said, leaning back in his chair. "Sorry."
He'd been running over the plan in his head again. The logistics were going to work. Both of his parents were going to be home for dinner on Tuesday. He knew this because he'd heard his father saying something about his last two meetings of the day being cancelled on Tuesday and he knew his mother's cooking class had just ended. She had even mentioned a recipe that she wanted to try for dinner on Tuesday. It was French. Blaine hadn't caught what it was, and after his mother's Greek cooking class, and her Turkish cooking class, he had known better than to ask. He just hoped it had that fancy white cheese in it and ate what was in front of him.
Kurt spoke French. His mother would adore that… maybe.
Blaine was seriously starting to think about backing out, but thought he might as well test the waters.
"So… I got into the play."
"That's lovely, dear. What play?" his mother asked.
"West Side Story. The Lima Community Theater's putting it on. I got the male lead, Tony."
"Oh, I've seen West Side Story. In New York. Tony… he's the Romeo character right?"
"Yes. He's got some really great songs. It should be fun."
"Who's playing Maria?" his mother asked.
Here it was. Time for some water testing.
"Rachel Berry? One of Kurt's friends."
"Oh. Right. Kurt," His mother said. She took a sip from her wine glass, but Blaine was sure that he imagined it being deeper than the last sip.
"Kurt got in too. He's one of the Jets. He's Action, the guy that sings "Cool." He's really excited."
Blaine had no way of substantiating this. While he could use the blanket assumption that Kurt was always excited about solos, all of their communication about the casting email had been via text. Kurt had forgotten to call last night and when he'd texted this morning Blaine hadn't called back because he knew Kurt helped his father out at the garage on Fridays. And Kurt's text had included an emoticon, which could only mean three things 1: Someone had stolen Kurt's phone, 2: The world was coming to an end, or 3: Kurt was freaked about Blaine's stupid "Meet My Parents" idea.
Blaine couldn't blame him.
He should probably mention that Kurt worked at his father's garage. Blaine's dad would appreciate that.
"Haven't really talked to him about it yet though. The casting email came out kind of late last night and he's at work today."
"Oh," His father replied, busying himself with his steak.
Blaine's mother flicked her eyes up at his father and then at Blaine. "Where does Kurt work?"
"His father owns a tire shop. Kurt and his step-brother Finn, Finn is Rachel's boyfriend, they help out on the weekends and sometimes on Tuesdays. Kurt practically grew up there and Finn just started so Kurt's still teaching Finn to change oil and tires and stuff, but Kurt can do some of the mechanics stuff. I mean, not a lot of it. Kurt says cars are all computers now, so there's really only so much you can do without being an actual mechanic, but he does most of the work on his own car." Blaine nodded along with his own voice, caught himself, stopped, and made sure he was still sitting up straight. He took a nervous sip of his milk.
"Well, that's nice. Did you hear that, Chester? Kurt works on cars."
Okay. That was progress. His mother was having a conversation about Kurt.
"That's a pretty good job, I understand," his dad replied.
"I think he enjoys it," Blaine said.
"Does Kurt's mother work?" Blaine's mom asked.
"Umm… Kurt's mother actually passed away when he was eight."
His mother made her 'polite expression of sympathy' sound, sort of a tsk and an "ohh" put together.
"His dad, Burt… is his name. You've talked to him. He only remarried this year. Kurt's step mother, Carol, she's a receptionist for the Dentist's office down on Baker. She's thinking about going back to school and getting her degree to become a hygienist. Now that Finn's almost out of the house. Carol is Finn's mom." Blaine was pretty sure his shirt collar was trying to strangle him.
"What does Rachel Berry's father do?" Blaine's father asked.
Blaine opened his mouth to answer that Rachel had two gay fathers, but he had already gotten the themes of "Kurt" and "Tuesday" worked into the conversation, and didn't want to use the phrase "two fathers" and then try to bring things back around to Kurt. Not when his father had already caught him watching one of the "New Yorkers for Equality" videos this morning.
"I don't know what her parents do," Blaine said, taking another sip of his milk. "I guess I never asked."
He had actually. On their date he had found out that Hiram was a lawyer and the Leroy used to teach dance at Ohio State, but when they'd moved to Lima he had decided to take a break from the academic life and look for something else. He couldn't remember what Rachel had said he'd found. Blaine had been too focused on trying to figure out whether or not he wanted to kiss her again.
"Oh," his father replied.
"Actually… Kurt has this Tuesday off," Blaine said, wrenching the conversation back around, "From the shop. So he doesn't have to work. On Tuesday."
"It's nice that he helps his father," Blaine's mom said politely.
"I was… I was going to ask him if he wanted to come over for dinner. Here. So you could meet him."
His mother looked up from her plate. His father took a sip from his wine glass. It was definitely deeper than the last sip.
"I mean… he's never even seen where I live," Blaine said. He popped a piece of steak in his mouth to keep himself from saying anything else.
"Well… I've got Tuesday night free," his mother said. "And I had a recipe I'd like to try out on someone. You two would eat dirt if I put garlic on it. Does Kurt like French food?"
"Yes. Kurt speaks excellent French."
"Lovely. Chester, you had Tuesday free right?"
"I'll double check my calendar," his father said and then surprised Blaine by adding, "But I should be free on Tuesday."
"Would… six o'clock work?"
"Yes. That would be fine," Blaine said, finishing off the last of his milk with a gulp.
"Perfect," his mother said, returning to her peas. "Blaine, you're slouching again."
Burt had been Kurt's father for too long to not worry when Kurt starting acting different, or spending more time in his room than usual. At the old house Kurt had spent most of his time skulking in the basement, but it had been a big room and he had been unhappy a lot of the time. But since he'd joined glee club two years ago, Kurt had been okay for the most part. Up until last fall anyway. But then everything had finally come together with Blaine and Kurt was, for the most part happy.
So it struck Burt as strange that Blaine hadn't been around all weekend and Kurt had been quietly working in his room since the last time Burt had seen Blaine.
Kurt hadn't mentioned anything, but sometimes he didn't.
So, Sunday morning, when Kurt had finished his single pancake and gone back up to his room, Burt sat down next to Finn as he shoveled down his third pancake and took the syrup out of Finn's hand.
"Hey-" Finn said reaching for the syrup. Burt pulled it back, not out of Finn's reach, but far enough for Finn to rethink grabbing it.
"What's up with Kurt? He's been weird since Thursday. He and Blaine have a fight?"
"Oh. No they didn't fight. Blaine asked Kurt to go to his house and meet his parents on Tuesday, and they're both freaking out a little. Kurt's trying on everything he owns."
"By Tuesday?" Burt laughed.
Finn rolled his eyes and nodded furiously. "I know. He made me go through all of his blue shirts with him on Thursday. I don't think there are really 50 shades of blue. There's no way cerulean's a real thing."
"So… where's Blaine? Why isn't he going through all the shades of blue?"
Finn bit his lip and let his gaze drift over to the syrup in Burt's hand.
"It has something to do with tennis. He called after Kurt decided red and orange were off the table. I was too bored to listen.
Burt handed the syrup back to Finn, basking in the pure and simple joy of being able to exchange food for information, and moved to get up.
"Burt?" Finn asked.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think it's weird that I haven't sat down and had dinner with Rachel's dads?"
"You've never had dinner with Rachel's dads?"
"It's not cause they're gay," Finn said quickly. "It's because the last time I met someone's parents it was Quinn and then they gave her half an hour to pack and kicked her out. Also I can't pronounce Rachel's white dad's name and they're both sort of intense like Rachel and the idea of having dinner with three Rachels sort of makes me want to crawl under my bed and never come out."
Burt sat back down, unsurely. His and Finn's relationship up to this point had pretty much focused around talking about sports.
"Does Rachel think it's weird that you haven't met her dads?"
"I don't know."
"Have her dad's ever said anything to you about having you over for dinner?"
"I don't think so?"
Burt nodded. Maybe Carol had a point about getting to know the parents of the people the kids were dating. Fourth of July was coming up in a couple of weeks, maybe they should have a barbeque or something.
Burt attempted to imagine a barbeque that included Blaine's parents, he and Carol, Rachel's fathers and Kurt, Blaine, Finn and Rachel all in the same yard. "Or something" it was.
"Tell you what- you can't exactly invite yourself over to her house for dinner, and we've never had Rachel come over to meet us either. How about Tuesday you invite Rachel over for dinner. It'll just be you two and me and Carol."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Why not? We have Blaine over all the time."
Finn's face split into a grin. "She'll love that. I'll go call her." Finn stood up, smiled again, "Thanks, Burt."
Burt nodded and waved Finn off, feeling a little guilty that he had only just realized that maybe Kurt wasn't the only son in the house who needed a father sometimes.
When Blaine came to pick Kurt up on Tuesday he was so tired that he had some concerns that he might die. Which would have been tragic considering he had just survived the longest weekend of his life.
His father had drug him to the club on Saturday for an entire afternoon of tennis with Mr. Peterson and Mr. Shore. Then the afternoon of tennis had then turned into dinner with Mr. Peterson and his son Carter, who was going to Stanford, and with Mr. Shore and his daughter Abigail, who went to Crawford County Day, but was already trying to decide between Yale and Harvard.
But at least the dinner hadn't been a total bust. Carter and Abigail had turned out to be pretty cool. All three of their father's had disappeared to the smoking room for a cigar. Abigail had grabbed a waiter and innocently explained that they expected to come back to full scotch glasses in what, halfway through the scotch her father was never going to see, she had described as her "very best Country Club Princess Voice. This is why I want to go to school so far away."
"That was exactly my reasoning for choosing a school on the other side of the damn country. It turned out to be a brilliant move," Carter had sighed, finishing his own father's supposed scotch. "But you have no idea how many prissy Harvard boys my father made me play racquetball with before he finally gave up."
"If I go to a school my father wants me to go to, I'll get more spending money," Abigail had shrugged.
"My father just doesn't want me to go to New York," Blaine had joined in. He'd drunk his scotch too fast and been a little blurry at the time. "He thinks I'm going to follow my boyfriend out there and have a big gay wedding and live under a Broadway stage with the rats."
Carter and Abigail had snorted.
"Yale's got great gay scholarships," Abigail had told him, patting his arm. "They're trying to save some face after that whole thing in the twenties where they ran all the gays out with pitchforks got all that bad press."
"Gay Pitchfork Scholarship. I'll mention that to my father," Blaine had replied in a tone that had made them all laugh in a nasty, bratty way that Blaine had tried to blame on the scotch.
And then Monday had been another pre-dawn round of racquetball, this time with someone whose son was back from Oxford for the summer.
"Maybe," Blaine yawned to himself as he went up Kurt's walk, "I can just fall asleep at the table, snore through dinner, and Kurt can be witty and charming and just wake me up when this is over."
Blaine punched the door bell, surprised when the door not only swung open before the buzzer had even finished sounding, but it was Kurt standing there. He'd figured that Kurt would still be upstairs, agonizing over whether or not he needed a pin or one more layer of hair spray.
Then Blaine saw what Kurt was wearing and woke up immediately.
"Kurt?" He asked, as Kurt pulled him in before he let all the heat in. "What are you… what are you wearing?"
"Is this not dressy enough? I have a long sleeve just like it. And I have khakis somewhere too."
"It's…" Blaine attempted.
"It's plaid is what it is," a voice called from the living room. Blaine finally tore his eyes away from Kurt's clothes and set his gaze on Rachel, who was standing in the living room with her arms crossed, wearing something that was sort of like a pink, short-skirt, short-sleeve version of her horrible dress from the "Party We Do Not Talk About Blaine", as it had come to be known.
"Actually it's checkered," Kurt replied in a long-suffering tone, not even turning around to face her.
"It's awful," Rachel told him, point blank.
"Hey," Finn piped up from the couch. "I picked that shirt out."
"Rachel, you look like a strawberry smoothie escaped from a key party and tried to drown you." Kurt spat back.
Blaine rounded on Kurt. "You let Finn pick your clothes out?"
"What's wrong with checkered?" Finn demanded from the couch, then clearly realized that he had not jumped to Rachel's defense. "Hey, I love strawberry smoothies."
"This is not exactly the boost in confidence that I was hoping for before going to meet your parents, Blaine," Kurt said in a low voice that actually did sound a little hurt.
Oh. That's what this was. Blaine sighed and grabbed Kurt's hand. "You look nice… you just… you don't look like you."
"I don't have to scream for attention all the time," Kurt sighed. "I can tone it down every once in a while."
Blaine bit his lip and looked his boyfriend over. Kurt was wearing a short sleeve, light blue, checkered, button up shirt. It was neat, but not as fitted as most of Kurt's other shirts. He'd paired it with jeans that could not be described as anything other than jeans, and loafers, which while nice, were still just plain.
"Did you even do anything with your hair?" Blaine asked.
"There's a little de-frizzer in it. It's humid out," Kurt told him defensively.
Burt walked in from the kitchen and clapped his hands together. "Okay, Rachel, we are still working on dinner. Is salad vegan enough?" Burt asked in a tone that was doing wonders to avoid being snippy. Then he caught sight of Kurt. "Whoa…what the hell are you wearing?"
"Hey- I picked out that shirt!" Finn repeated. "It took hours! I had to learn a hundred different shades of blue!"
"What shade of blue is this?" Blaine asked.
Finn scrunched up his face, evaluating Kurt. "Periwinkle."
Blaine looked at Kurt, who seemed disheartened. "It's azure. Actually."
Finn threw himself back on the couch. "Dammit."
Carol came out into the living room. "Okay, Rachel, is vinaigrette vegan?" She also caught sight of Kurt. "Oh… Kurt…. You… is that Finn's shirt?"
Blaine gripped Kurt's hand and started tugging him upstairs. "Come on."
"You let Finn pick out your clothes?" he asked again as Kurt dropped down onto his bed.
"Not 'pick out'," Kurt sighed. "More like 'have final approval on'. I thought it would be easier this way."
"Easier if you looked like Finn."
"I look like you, too," Kurt said quietly.
"I would never wear those jeans," Blaine told him, giving him a grin that seemed to drop into the black hole of Kurt's mood.
"I know what I usually look like. It's easier that way. When people see my clothes then they're already prepared for the way I sound, and the way I act, and if they don't want to deal with me, then I don't have to deal with them. I didn't think that was the best approach to use with your parents."
Blaine leaned down, kissed Kurt's temple and unbuttoning the top couple buttons of Kurt's horrible checkered shirt.
"Bullshit, Kurt," Blaine said softly, letting Kurt finish taking his shirt off while Blaine walked into his closet. "You dress the way you do because you like it. You do it for yourself and because you know that you look beautiful and sexy." He flipped through a few similarly blue, and thankfully more interesting, shirts.
"I think you're afraid that my parents won't like you the way you are, I think you've honed in on what you think they won't like about you, and I think you're doing your best to camouflage it." He picked out one he'd never seen Kurt in, and pulled it out. "Which is bullshit because I know you. You don't care what people think about you. I love that you don't care what people think," he gave Kurt a crooked smile. "I look up to you for that."
"Yes, Blaine," Kurt sighed, pulling the checkered shirt off, revealing his little white undershirt for a moment before replacing it with the shirt Blaine had picked out. "It doesn't matter what random assholes and Neanderthals and the Future Ditch Diggers of America think, but it actually matters what your family thinks. And I…" Kurt sighed, finished buttoning the shirt, and dropped in front of his vanity. "I know that your family isn't like mine. My dad used to have tea parties with me. He took me to Riverdance three years in a row. He put a basket on my bike. He bought me a hope chest that I found at a vintage store when I was eight. My dad told me about you and your dad and rebuilding the car."
Blaine's face burned as he wondered just how much of that conversation Mr. Hummel had replayed to Kurt. Judging by the total lack of pink on Kurt's face, Blaine guessed that Mr. Hummel hadn't told Kurt the real reason for Blaine's visit that day.
"I don't… I don't know how to deal with your family. I don't how to go and be likable with people that have to pretend to like me… or don't have to pretend to like me and I just… I don't know. It seemed like a good idea to just… not throw me in their faces."
"I didn't mean to freak you out," Blaine said, running his hands into Kurt's weirdly flat hair. Kurt smacked his hand away and Blaine smiled at him in the mirror. "They aren't going to say anything to you. They're going to be polite."
"You said you were hoping that this would make your parents… more comfortable with us being together. I figured a fake money hair shawl or a corset or a backless silk vest wasn't really going to help the cause. I don't want to have to be polite and awkward."
"Do you really own a corset?" Blaine asked.
"Of course I do." Kurt replied, pumping some sort of hair product that smelled sort of like lavender into his hand and running it through his hair.
"If I grabbed you some darker wash jeans you could wear your clock bowtie."
"There's too much detail on the shirt for that, Blaine," Kurt sighed, beginning to comb his hair up a little bit and over in sort of a softer version of the way Blaine usually gelled his hair.
"What do you usually wear with this shirt?"
"A scarf, plaid pants, my boots and a blue belt."
"What color blue?" Blaine asked.
Kurt glared daggers at him in the mirror. "Cornflower."
"Okay. Well. It's too hot for those boots. So black loafers… you have to change those jeans… what else?"
"What do you mean what else?"
"You would never wear loafers, a shirt and jeans to school, Kurt."
"Do we have time for this?" Kurt asked.
"Yes. We do," Blaine told him firmly. He didn't add that he'd built some time for one of them to freak out into his plan for the night. He'd just figured it would be him.
"Fine," Kurt sighed. He finished with his hair and set his hands down in front of him, evaluating his slightly wan reflection in the mirror before getting up and going to his closet. He dug out a rubber made container labeled "DARK PATTERENED SCARVES COOL COLORS" and tossed it to Blaine, then picked out a pair of black patent leather shoes and a patent leather belt. He pulled a pair of grey skinny jeans out of a cubby hole and brought that over to the bed as well.
Blaine watched him work. He laid the jeans out next to Blaine on his bed, laid the belt over the top of them, then dug through the container of scarves, pulling five out and draping them over the jeans and belt before grabbing one with an abstract angular pattern, with a little bit of grey and black and dark blue in it. He left it on top of the other clothes and looked up at Blaine.
"Can you stand outside please?"
Right. Pants off. Blaine out.
"Kay," Blaine agreed. He grabbed Kurt by the arms again and pulled him down for another kiss before leaving his room.
He stood outside Kurt's door awkwardly. His phone buzzed and he grabbed it.
From Thad: Good luck with the guess who's coming to dinner deal tonight.
Blaine smiled. But then Thad had to ruin it.
From Thad: If I'm not in the wedding party I will follow you and Kurt around on your honeymoon throwing rotten fruit at you.
It buzzed again.
From David: Me too. I'll even be maid of honor. Unless the dress is chartreuse. Then you are on your own.
Blaine huffed. He was going to have to get better friends one of these days. His phone buzzed again as he shoved it into his pocket, and he pulled it out again, fully expecting a snide comment from Wes about the menu at his imaginary wedding, and considering whether or not pointing out that he, Blaine, actually could not legally get married in most of the country would shut them up when he saw who it was from. And what it said.
From Puck New Directions: There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars
Oh shit. Blaine thought as Kurt's door swung open and he stepped out.
"How's this?" Kurt asked, spreading his arms out.
Blaine shoved his phone in his pocket and grinned at him. "You're breathtaking."
Kurt rolled his eyes, but smiled. "Can we please just go now?"
"Right. First let's go show your family that you have not fallen victim to checker pattern, then let's go deal with my family, and then we will come back here and burn those jeans."
"You just don't like them because they aren't skin tight," Kurt sighed.
"This is a contributing factor," Blaine admitted.