A/N: Story's moving along now – so excited! Blaine's finally getting to meet some of Rachel's friends, though whether he'll be happy about it remains to be seen. ;)

Finn lay beside Rachel on top of her twin-sized bed. They were fully clothed and kissing lazily, both happy and sated by the endorphins from their make-out session (during which Finn only had to think about running over that mailman three times to cool off – he was getting better at this). Night had fallen and the empty house was silent other than the sounds of shifting cloth and softly smacking lips. Rachel pulled away from Finn's lips and her eyelids fluttered open. She smiled at him from across the pillow, clutching gently to the cloth of his shirt. Finn offered her a lopsided smile in return.

"Are you hungry, Finn?" she asked him, her voice soft and sweet.

The boy's smile widened. "Would you believe me if I said 'no'?"

She laughed. "No, no I wouldn't." She leaned in for one more kiss when the sudden sound of a door slam and voices caused the girl to jump away and scramble to sit upright and flatten her hair. "They're back. Oh my God, they're back." Rachel lept to her feet. Finn propped himself up on his elbow and watched her, his brows furrowed in confusion.

The girl paced manically, muttering almost incoherently.

"Rachel?"

She stopped abruptly and looked at him, panic clear in her eyes, and made a quick move towards him. "Finn, you have to go, you have to just – go," she said pleadingly.

Finn sat upright, concern clear on his face. "Rachel, what is going on?" he asked her, his tone solid and commanding. This wasn't right. Something wasn't right. Rachel turned and sat on the edge of the bed, her hands coming up to cover her face.

For a second Finn panicked, his eyes widening when he thought Rachel might be crying, but then she took a deep breath and lowered her hands. Finn exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw her eyes were dry. He hated when girls cried. Rachel avoided his eyes, though, looking down at her hands as she tugged on her fingers with her right hand. "I just – you remember that guy I told you about? The one my dads thought might be my brother?"

"Oh. Yeah – Blake... I forgot about him."

"Blaine," she corrected. "His name is Blaine." Her brows drew together and she dropped her hands to her lap. Then, she looked up at Finn. "I just really didn't want him to meet you yet - any of you. You're my boyfriend, Finn, and I just...I hate..."

"Hey, hey, none of that," he said. He cupped her face and stroked her hair gently, then placed a soft kiss on her lips. When Finn pulled back, though, his brows furrowed deeper, his expression shifting to something far more determined and sure. "I still can't believe they're making you live with him, Rachel," he grumbled after a moment. He lifted his eyes to look directly into hers. "Has he hurt you? Threatened you? I swear to God, Rachel, if he lays one finger on you…"

Rachel surged forward, muffling his words with a passionate kiss. She felt her heart swelling in her chest. This boy – this incredibly hot boy, was ready to fight her own brother for her, and Rachel could hardly believe her luck that Finn Hudson – the Finn Hudson – was her very own knight in shining armor. She pulled away, breathless, her lips spreading into a find smile. "My hero," she cooed, and Finn rewarded her with a dopey smile.

The ride back to Lima was almost completely silent. Blaine had already revealed far more than he'd intended to, and Hiram and LeRoy seemed unwilling to press for more details. Without conversation, Blaine was left to his thoughts, which for the majority of the ride, centered squarely around the unexpected scene he'd witnessed right before Hiram pulled himself together enough to swap seats with LeRoy. Now, the latter was driving, and Blaine was left to try and wade through is confusion.

Hiram had cried – full-on sobbed. He'd never seen something like it – never seen anyone over the age of 18 shed a single tear unless they were female. And what's more, this grown man had cried, and because of it, he'd been comforted. Who did that? Men were not supposed to cry. Men – real men – could expect to get the crap beat out of them if they cried like little girls. And yet – his own – sperm donors – were able to let themselves cry and actually comfort each other. And something was swirling around beside the confusion. Something that wasn't disgust or repulsion. It was – if Blaine was hearing it right – jealousy. Because why should they get to have that all and not him? Why should they get to cry and not him? Why did they have the right to be happy – because even a blind man could see they were crazy about each other – and not him!?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he wasn't good enough, and more than the crying itself, and more than the wish that he could live a different life, Blaine was confused by the fact that crying had happened at all. What on Earth had driven his fa- er, the Berrys – to tears? He hadn't expected compassion – hadn't expected anything close to empathy. He hated Darrell, hated himself, hated every man who'd played a part in tearing his life with his mother apart, and he was fucking angry because of it. But all he'd ever gotten was anger right back – abuses right back. All he'd ever gotten was sneers and cruelty when his shell cracked and the slightest vulnerability made itself known. He'd waited for it from Hiram and LeRoy, knew the moment the words passed his lips (I wasn't enough…) that they were going to pounce on him, drive hooks into him in the places that he had grown too weary to cover with armor and tug and pull at his flesh until he was nothing but shreds of himself. He'd waited for it, expected it, knew the moment he lost control – the moment he grew too tired to hide it all – that it was a matter of time.

But instead they'd cried. They didn't tear him down. Instead they got so worked up they'd cried. And that was most confusing of all. It had shocked him, admittedly, and he didn't know what to do with the unexpected reactions.

Blaine was still lost in thought when they pulled into the large garage at the Berrys' home. He hadn't even realized that they were in Lima until they were already parking the car.

"You hungry, Blaine? You didn't really eat much when we stopped," Hiram asked as he clicked the seatbelt release. He smiled a sad, gentle smile at Blaine. Blaine blinked at him from beneath furrowed brows.

He cleared his throat, opening it as if he was poising to speak, but closed it straight away. He shrugged. Hiram's smile faltered for only a moment. "Well, I'll make you something and you can eat as much or as little as you feel like, ok?" Blaine thought about it, and finding nothing wrong with the suggestion, was forced to nod his agreement. He tugged on the door handle, letting himself out of the car, but not before reaching back into the car for his tie and jacket. He'd taken them off shortly after the group had set off towards Lima. Though his dress shirt was still tucked into his pants, unbuttoning the first two buttons and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt (which would wrinkle terribly, he was sure of it) helped him forget for a bit why they'd gone to Columbus at all.

With his jacket and tie draped over his arm, Blaine followed Hiram and LeRoy in silence, barely acknowledging them when LeRoy reached to take his jacket. "Why don't I take these from you. I'll hang it up in the laundry room for now. Once you've changed out of those clothes we'll set the whole suit aside for drycleaning." Blaine followed the movement of his lips and the sound coming out of LeRoy's mouth. He watched the man smile at him before heading off to the laundry room – as if talking so casually about the suit was normal. As if he hadn't been wearing it at his mother's funeral. As if his mother weren't dead. Standing alone in the living room, Blaine carded his hands through his hair and took a deep breath. He needed out of these clothes.

On his way up the stairs and past Rachel's room, he could have sworn he heard more than one voice on the other side of the door, but didn't stop to listen. After all, what did he care if Little Miss Perfect had friends in her room. Maybe he could just stay in his room for the rest of the night, avoid everyone, Rachel & Co. included. But as he worked his fingers down the buttons of his shirt, his stomach gave a loud protesting rumble, effectively putting an end to that thought. Hiram was cooking for him, and even if going to bed hungry was always an option, for whatever reason, he felt being straight-up rude was not. Not if he didn't want to give the men a reason to change their minds about cooking for him sooner rather than later.

Blaine tugged on a pair of sweats and a faded t-shirt from when he'd been on an amateur basketball team. Back then, he wasn't so obviously shorter than all the boys. And even so, the shirt had swallowed him. Now it fit just a little snugly across the chest.

Carefully folded pants and dress shirt draped on his arm, he checked for his phone in his pocket, then headed out of his room.

The Berrys, as usual, were gracious and welcoming when the saw he was there with Rachel. They didn't seem any different than before. And when he first entered the kitchen, trailing slightly behind his girlfriend, his hand linked in hers, he noticed there wasn't even a hint that anyone new was even in the house. Hiram had only just asked him if he wanted to eat anything, and he was about to respond with a 'yeah, sure!' when he heard footsteps and an unfamiliar voice behind him.

"Where do you want me to put these?"

Finn whipped around, his eyebrow raised, to see a dude that was almost as short as Rachel, holding up black pants and a white dress shirt for LeRoy to see.

"Oh, here, I'll take them. Laundry room's just through this door here, though, for future reference."

It took Finn a second to realize this curly-haired dude was looking at him, only averting his gaze to nod his understanding to LeRoy before looking back at him. This is him? This is the drug dealing gang-banger? I could break him in half with one hand, Finn thought. Finn wasn't sure what he was expecting, exactly, but he knew it wasn't this. He was brought out of his head by a hand on his biceps. He looked over at a smiling LeRoy. "Finn, I don't believe you've had a chance to meet our son, Rachel's brother. This is Blaine Anderson," he said, gesturing with the clothes-laden hand. He completely missed the involuntary flinch Blaine gave at the titles of son and brother. "Blaine, this is Finn, Rachel's boyfriend." If it was even possible, LeRoy's smile seemed to widen with pride at that. "I'm sure Rachel's filled you in, Finn?" He patted the tall teen on the arm before turning his hand on his daughter and pinching her cheek affectionately. She smiled and accepted a kiss from her dad on her other cheek before he headed towards the laundry room.

Finn focused a narrowed gaze on Blaine, who he noticed hadn't moved from the spot. "Yeah, she filled me in all right," he said, his tone lighter than the disdain in his eyes. Blaine's own expression twisted slightly, his glare growing cold and wary, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

Behind him, Rachel was starting to give off nervous energy as she watched the exchange. Blaine's jaw clenched like he was holding back a response and Hiram saved him from having to give one in any event. "Why don't you kids grab some plates, huh? Soup's up," he announced, turning a wide grin on the whole set of them.

"Actually, Mr. Berry, I should really get going. My mom's expecting me home," said Finn, only turning his eyes on Hiram at the last moment. "Thanks for the invite though."

LeRoy returned, and Hiram simply renewed his warm smile at Finn. "Of course, Finn. Any time."

Finn said quick goodbyes, then held his hand out for Rachel. "Walk me out?" he asked her quietly, and the girl nodded. Finn then drew himself up to his full height, his eyes locking on Blaine as he walked by, moving closer to the smaller boy than necessary, forcing him to back up against the refrigerator. "See you around, Blaine," he said smoothly, though his voice didn't carry an ounce of warmth. He smirked at himself as he passed, pleased with the boy's reaction when he saw what he could have sworn was a flicker of fear in the other boy's eyes. Good, he thought to himself. Now you'll think twice before messing with Rachel.

A/N: Uh-oh! Scary, protective Finn leaving poor Blaine unsettled. I'm curious to know, though – what do you think about this side of Finn? Want to see more of it? Less of it? And how do you think the other members of New Directions will act towards Blaine – any guesses? Feedback is Love, people! :P