Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I don't know why anyone would think that I do.
Summary: When Kurt is feeling down, Blaine takes it upon himself to put together a week-end that he hopes will make him happy again.
Note: This chapter is sort of scattered, sorry. I didn't do one continuous writing session like I usually do, so I kept losing track of my thoughts. Grrr.

"You have the weirdest music on here," Finn noted as he scrolled through Blaine's iPod. While Burt and Carole got snacks together and debated about what games to play, the boys were trying to decide whose music to play in the background. Kurt and Finn had almost immediately vetoed each other, which left Blaine's iPod in the middle.

"My music is weird?"

"Well, no, not the music," Finn corrected, hooking the device into the iHome, "It's just random. It goes from, like, showtunes to heavy metal."

Blaine shrugged, "I'm pretty eclectic. Oh, Kurt," he added to his friend, "How much time did you want to give to your English assignment tonight?"

"Um," the younger boy said distractedly, "An hour? Maybe two?" He'd been a little distant since Blaine got back to the house with Carole and Burt, and no one was really sure why. If any of them actually stopped to think about it, however, Kurt hoped that it would be obvious that seeing his love interest walk through his house, defined muscles glistening with sweat, looking all rough and manly, would affect him in certain ways. He was too busy trying to wipe the visual from his head to actually participate in any intelligent conversation right now.

"We can't decide between trivia and Scategories," Carole announced as she came into the room with a plate of nachos and a pitcher of ice tea. "What do you guys think?"

Finn shrugged, "That depends; how are we splitting up teams?"

"You boys against us."

He glanced at Kurt and Blaine and gave a short nod, "Then my vote is for trivia."

Blaine smirked, "Sure, trivia sounds fun." Kurt nodded numbly in agreement, trying his best to focus his attention.

Burt sat down in his recliner and took one of the trivia cards from the box on the coffee table, reading it and then shaking his head with an evil grin. "Right out of the gate, you guys get one of the hard ones. Good luck!" The three boys readied themselves as he read, "What did Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and General George Patton all have in common?"

Finn let out a loud groan of immediate defeat, and Kurt thought for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. Blaine looked at each of them with a smirk and then told Burt, "They were all dyslexic."

Burt's eyes went wide. "Crap."

"Last one," Carole said, holding up a trivia card. They'd been at it for over an hour and, though the boys had had a solid lead for a while - it was mostly Blaine, with Finn chiming in on sports and Kurt lending his expertise in pop culture - they were tied now. Twenty-one to twenty-one, Burt and Carole had missed their question, and if the boys could answer this one right, they won the whole game.

"What was the name of Don Quixote's horse?"

The three boys were silent for a moment, looking at each other, stumped. Finally, Kurt began snapping his fingers and bouncing in his seat, "Oh, oh! It was, um…god, what was it? Uh…oh, Rocinante!"

Carole tossed the card onto the table with a bitter sigh, "Yes."

Finn and Blaine both exploded in cheers, and Blaine grabbed Kurt, pulling him in for a tight hug. "Oh my god, someone actually paid attention to that book; bless you!" Kurt hugged him back, laughing, while his parents grumbled about their loss in the background. "We should've gone with Scategories," Burt said, while Carole glared at her son, "Stop looking so cheery."

Kurt was practically giggling from the combined glory of their win, and the feeling of Blaine's arms wrapped around him in a hug that was both innocent, and the furthest from. "I'm so glad I had Miss Holiday as an English sub last semester," he gushed, "Or else I would not have gotten that."

"Oh, speaking of English," Blaine said, finally releasing his friend, "We should probably get that project out of the way now, so it doesn't interfere with what your parents have planned for tonight."

"What do they have planned for tonight?" Kurt asked, eyes wide and suspicious as he turned them to Burt and Carole, who both looked away at the same time. "Dad?"

"Kurt," his father said sternly, "Go work on your project."

His son opened his mouth to press the matter, but before he could get a word out, Blaine had grabbed him by the elbow and was leading him toward the basement. "Traitor," Kurt hissed when his friend dumped him on the mini-couch in the corner and nudged his bag toward him with his toe.

"Yeah, yeah, get your book out," Blaine rolled his eyes and sat on the floor, back to the couch.

Kurt sighed and obeyed, pulling out the paperback copy of Salinger's Nine Stories, "My assignment is to create an alternative internal dialogue to 'Just Before the War with the Eskimos,' from Franklin's point of view." He groaned and turned to the appropriate story, "I just can't get inside the mind of any of Salinger's characters; they're too random."

"I understand," Blaine said, reaching up to take the book and skimming the first page, "Well, Franklin is a moderately complex character, for as simple as he seems. He's very gruff, and scatterbrained, but there are also hints of crisis. The way he sticks so close to Ginnie, and how he talks about her sister, alludes to him being lonely; isolated. We also see that he has heart problems, quit college, and seems disconnected from his family.

"He's an enigma," Blaine summed up. "It's your job to expose him."

Kurt rolled his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. "But how am I supposed to do that?" He mumbled helplessly, "It's easy in my head, but getting it on paper is a different story."

Blaine thought for a moment, then turned so he was facing his friend, "So talk it out first." At the skeptical look he received, he waved a hand, "No, hear me out; one of the best ways to get things from your mind to the paper, is to put dialogue in between. Play Franklin like a character. Use his dialogue from his book to act him out, and it'll get you in his head enough to articulate it."

"Play him like a character," Kurt repeated thoughtfully, tapping his pen against his notebook.

Blaine stood suddenly, sliding onto the couch and taking Kurt's hand, examining his finger closely. "How did you cut it?"

"What?" He asked, startled, not realizing that this line was completely in character.

"How did you cut it?"

Kurt stared at him for a moment, then took the book back and glanced at it, quoting, "Goddam if I know. I was lookin' for something in the goddam wastebasket and it was fulla razor blades."

"You Selena's brother?" Blaine asked, not even needing to check the book for accuracy.

"Yeah. Christ, I'm bleedin' to death. Stick around. I may need a goddam transfusion." As this dialogue continued on, Kurt made another addition to his list.

8) He memorized Salinger.

"For almost seventeen years of my life," Kurt grumbled as he followed Blaine and Finn into the backseat of the car, "I get no surprises. Now, he can't stop with them. Dad, where are we going?" He demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

Burt let out a loud sigh from behind the steering wheel, "Blaine, could you…?"

"Of course," Blaine said knowingly, putting one hand over Kurt's mouth and telling him, "Stop questioning your father. How about some trust?"

Kurt's eyes widened a little, and he just stared. Blaine had asked him to trust him a few times, and every time, Kurt had. And every time, Blaine had done right by him. "Well," he said, pushing Blaine hand away gently, "I suppose one more time wouldn't hurt." The dark haired boy fixed him with that patented furrowed brow, and Kurt added so only he could hear, "I always trust you." Now it was Blaine's turn to go wide-eyed, and a slow smile snuck across his face. Very discretely, he dropped his hand down to the seat, giving his friend's hand a little squeeze. Kurt blushed and squeezed back as Burt put the car in gear.

"Crap," Finn hissed on Blaine's other side, glaring at the screen of his iPod, "I forgot to charge it. Blaine, man," he sighed, "Would you mind if I listened to yours on the way there?"

"No, go for it," Blaine wrestled his iTouch out of his coat pocket and handed it to him. Finn thanked him and hooked in his earbuds, going through the choices again. At one point, his finger stilled on the screen and he raised an eyebrow, glancing at Blaine quickly and then back to the screen.

"Whoa," he murmured to himself. In the Playlist section, there was one clearly labeled Kurt.

"Dad," Kurt breathed, face practically pressed against his window, "The White Light Festival? We haven't been to one since I was twelve!" The White Light Festival was a food and music event in Whermer (about half an hour away from Lima) that attracted people from all over the county ever year. They decorated the Whermer Mansion with white rope lights and candles and fake snow, and there was always tons of gourmet food and desserts, not to mention an amazing live band that took requests and did dedications. It had been one of his mother's favorite things in the world, and they went a few times after she died, but it had been a long time.

Burt took his key out of the ignition and popped open his door, "Yeah, Carole saw that it was this week-end and called it fate. Said we had to come."

"Carole, thank you so much!" Kurt squealed, opening his own door so that he could pull her into a tight hug. Then he reached out to grab Blaine by the wrist and started tugging him toward the double French doors, "Come on! We have to get in there before the Whermer High football team gets to the buffet. Unless things have drastically changed in the last four years, they're still pigs." Blaine went along with him, with Finn, Carole, and Burt close behind.

Inside, the first floor of the mansion was pretty full, but left plenty of room to navigate through to the main room, where the band and buffet were. "Yes! We beat them," Kurt cheered, picking up a plastic plate at the end of one table and immediately loading it up with all of the food on the line.

Blaine looked over his shoulder at Burt. "You didn't tell me he would be this excited."

"I guess I repressed it."

Once they all had enough food to fill them up - "they run out fast," Kurt had assured them - they found an empty table near where the band was set up and started eating. "Oh, my god," Finn's eyes rolled back into his head as he took the first bite, "I don't know what I just ate, but it was delicious."

Kurt rolled his eyes, "Those were cheesy mashed potatoes, Finn."

"Oh."

Carole looked up suddenly as a tune began playing, and her eyes brightened, "Our song! Burt, we have to dance." He looked reluctant, and she swatted him with her napkin, "It's our song."

"We danced to it a couple of months ago," Burt grumbled, but allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, "Don't I get a grace period?" Nevertheless, there was a smile on his face as his wife led him to the floor, and held her the way Kurt had taught him during dance lessons. Kurt watched with pride as they moved to the beat of "Sway," smiling and staring into each others' eyes like no one else in the world existed.

"God, I want that someday," Blaine said absentmindedly as he watched the couple. When he realized he'd said the world out loud and Kurt and Finn were both looking at him, he flushed a little and shrugged. "You know, being with that one person that means the entire world to you; the one that you can't stand being away from for more than an hour. Don't you guys want that?"

Finn shrugged, "I'd be happy to find a woman who didn't cheat on me and could cook a mean grilled cheese, but yeah, I guess your thing sounds good too."

"It sounds perfect," Kurt corrected, and Blaine gave him a grateful little nod. Once again, their eyes locked for a long moment, blue on hazel, and neither of them wanted to be the first to look away.

Finn cleared his throat awkwardly, not quite ready to be the witness to such an intimate moment between his stepbrother and another guy. They both looked at him, cheeks a little pink, and he smirked apologetically. "This, uh," he gestured to his plate, "Other cheesy thing is really good."

Kurt leaned forward to inspect the food, and told him, "That's a mini cordon bleu. That's," he rolled his eyes when Finn looked completely lost, "Chicken, with ham and cheese in the middle."

The tall teen's eyes went round with awe, "That's the most brilliant idea I've ever heard."

"Oh, I just thought of how to end my English project!" Kurt announced suddenly, whipping his phone out of his pocket, "I'm going to e-mail it to myself so I don't forget."

Blaine smiled at him, "See, I knew you'd get it."

"With your help."

"Nah, it was-" He stopped abruptly when a girl - around their age, with cherry-red hair and bright blue eyes - approached the table and stopped beside his chair. "Hello," he greeted.

"Hi," the girl said shyly, tucking her hair behind her ear and swinging from side to side, making the skirt of her baby-blue dress twirl around her knees. "Um, I was just wondering if maybe you'd…like to dance?"

Blaine raised an eyebrow, but - never one to be rude - he gave a single nod and stood, telling the other boys he'd be right back, and followed the girl to the floor. Kurt watched with unwarranted jealousy as the girl slid her arms over Blaine's shoulders, body close to his. Then he laughed when Blaine took a step back and took one of her hands in his, putting distance between them for a more formal dancing style. He led her with ease to the simple 1-2-3-4, lips moving as he spoke to her about something, smiling when she giggled flirtatiously.

9) He could dance.

"Kurt," Finn waved his hand in front of his stepbrother's face, "Dude, you're staring."

"Am I?" He shook his head, as if to clear it, and sighed, "Sorry, I was just thinking."

"'Just thinking,' he says," Carole teased as she and Burt returned to the table, all smiles. "Sweetheart, you couldn't fool us with that if you tried; we're your family." Burt looked like he wanted to be upset by what she was insinuating, but the fact was: He couldn't. He wanted to hate Blaine - he was supposed to hate any boy that showed interest in his teenage son, right? - but he just couldn't bring himself to. He was every parent's dream.

When Kurt looked back to the dance floor, Blaine was giving the redhead's hand a gentle squeeze and starting back toward the table, only to be intercepted by a curvy blonde in a bright pink mini-skirt. He looked past her, to the table, with an apologetic look and then gave the girl a nod, once again walking out to the floor. "Well," Kurt joked to hide his dismay, "He certainly is popular."

"It's because he looks like he belongs in GQ," Carole said around a mouthful of cookie, with a sage-like nod. "Ladies love a well-dressed man."

"Excuse me," Kurt feigned offense, "I am a very well-dressed man."

"I meant more like James Bond clothes," she clarified.

"You meant more like men's clothes," he countered, but with a playful smirk. She just shrugged and gave him a one-armed hug, kissing his cheek and offering him a cookie from her plate.

Before the second dance was even over, a tiny thing in a black dress cut in and stole Blaine away from the blonde. After the third, Blaine actually managed to get back to the table and sit down before being approached again, and Kurt could see him visibly blanch.

"Actually," Kurt piped when Blaine opened his mouth to answer the woman who looked a little too older for the strapless sunflower-yellow dress she wore, "My friend has never been here before, so I was just about to take him out to see the snowdrops and aconites."

The woman barely shot him a glance before smiling a huge, predatory smile at Blaine, reaching out to touch his arm, "I'd be glad to show you. Come on," she practically purred, "How about ditching your little puppy-dog friend and I can tell you all you need to know."

"Oh, honey," Kurt said with saccharine-sweetness, his bitch-level going up ever so slightly, "If you know more about snowdrops and aconites than I do, I will personally take you to Macy's and buy you some clothes that actually fit."

Blaine's jaw dropped, as did Burt's. Kurt had an attitude on him, sure, but he was rarely ever so obvious about it. Especially to someone he didn't know. While the woman stood there stupidly, trying to think of a clever retort, Kurt slipped by her and took his friend by the arm, tugging him toward the door on the far end of the main room, which led out to the backyard. "Wow," Blaine laughed shortly, "That was a little harsh."

"She called me puppy-dog," Kurt defended, wrinkling up his nose, "As far as I'm concerned, she deserved it. I really do want to show you this," he added, opening the door, "It's really something."

The backyard was an endless field of green, with huge, stone-marked squares that served as individual gardens. Right now, under more soft white lights, each individual garden was filled with white bell flowers, and bright yellow buttercups. Blaine stood perfectly still, taking it all in. It was beautiful.

"This was my mother's favorite part of coming here," Kurt said softly, smiling as he watched the other boy's reaction, "She used to tell me stories. She said that, in Greek mythology, aconite was believed to be made from the saliva of Cerberus, and that it was poisonous. And she said that snowdrops," he kneeled to touch one of the white bells, "Were the magical herbs in Homer's Odyssey that counteracted Circe's poisons."

Blaine kneeled down next to him, but stayed silent as Kurt continued to admire the flower, "The snowdrops were her favorite. You're not supposed to pick them, you know, because they're sort of rare; that always made her sad. She could never take one home with her."

The older boy was still for a moment, before draping one arm over his friend's shoulders and pulling him in for a hug. "Maybe we should go see her before we leave tomorrow."

Kurt turned to him, seeing the honest caring and concern in his eyes, and he couldn't help but smile. "I'd like that."

"But slow it down," Finn was saying to the band's guitarist when his stepbrother and his guest crossed back to their table. "Make it a slow dance."

"Make what a slow dance?" Kurt inquired, making Finn jump.

"What? Oh, nothing," he lied (horribly) before shuffling back to their table. Blaine and Kurt raised their eyebrows at each other before going off in opposite directions; Kurt back to the table, and Blaine to the buffet line for two hot cups of coffee. Once he got back to the table - juggling sugar packets and creamer with the cups - he took his seat and joined the rest of the group in watching Finn curiously as he shot glances at the band.

Blaine nudged Kurt and handed him his coffee, never taking his eyes off of the tall teen. "Is he always this…odd?" Kurt and Carole both nodded. Eventually, they all lost interest and went back to conversing about the festival, school, what time the boys were leaving the next day. Then, after a good ten minutes, the band started to play a familiar tune, slowed down and softened. Blaine was in the middle of telling a story that involved a teacher's apple and accidental food poisoning, when he felt a sharp kick to his ankle. He wrinkled his forehead at Finn - the culprit - and the boy responded by nodding his head discretely toward the band.

Blaine didn't understand, until he listened for a moment and was able to pick up the general tune. He raised his shoulders in a "so what?" gesture, to which Finn reached into his pocket and pulled out Blaine's iTouch, wiggling it with a dorky grin. The dark-haired boy's eyes went wide, and when Finn started nodding toward his stepbrother, he got nervous.

Nevertheless, he swallowed roughly and leaned toward Kurt, saying quietly, "Do you think it would bother your dad if…we…danced?"

Kurt reacted as if he'd been waiting for this question all night. He didn't even bother answering his friend; instead, he stood and announced to his parents, "Blaine and I are dancing; don't get all weird about it." With that, he grabbed the other boy's hand and eagerly led him to the dance floor, where at least a dozen other couples were already swaying to the beat. Once they were there, however, it was a little less exciting and a little more awkward. How did you slow-dance with another guy in public? It wasn't exactly something they covered in ballroom classes. Who put which hands where? Who led? How far apart were you supposed to stand?

In the end, they ended up in the default structure, with one of Kurt's hands on Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine's hand on Kurt's waist, free hands cupped together. Blaine stepped forward, which meant Kurt stepped back, and there was no longer any debate about who was leading. It only took four steps for them to melt into it, and from there, they were lost.

"She doesn't own a dress

Her hair is always a mess

You catch her stealin', she won't confess

She's beautiful"

Blaine hadn't considered, when he'd allowed Finn to borrow his iPod, that he might find his Kurt playlist, let alone look through the songs on it. "Meet Virginia" was the most recently added one (he'd put it on after their run-in in the commons a few nights before), and Finn - contrary to his oblivious expressions and general behavior - had cleverly taken advantage of this situation. Blaine had to admit, it was pretty sweet of him.

"It's so crazy," Kurt murmured, drawing Blaine's attention. He blushed and clarified, "In Lima, if you and I were dancing together, we'd get jumped. But in Whermer, it's not a big deal at all. I hate that."

"Let's not think about things we hate right now," Blaine suggested, holding his hand a little tighter. He caught Kurt's gaze in his own and held it until he nodded in agreement and they continued to step to the simple count of the song, matching grins on their faces. Somewhere in the background, Burt, Carole and Finn were staring, one of them gushing, one of them smirking, and one of them torn between being happy for them and going to get his shotgun. Somewhere in the background, somewhere around one hundred people were eating, talking, dancing, enjoying the festivities. Somewhere in the background, a baby was crying and a misplaced glass was shattering on the floor. None of these things registered in this moment, however; this moment was all their own.

"She only drinks coffee at midnight," Blaine sang the verse that had inspired him to add the song to his playlist in the first place, "When the moment is not right; the timing is quite unusual." Kurt flushed and ducked his head, but the smile never left his face. "You see, her confidence is tragic, but her intuition, magic. And the shape of her body," he gave his dancing partner's waist a little squeeze for good measure, "Unusual. Meet Virginia. I can't wait to meet Virginia." He stopped singing and snickered, "You're red as a tomato right now; am I embarrassing you?"

Kurt shook his head, "Not in a bad way."

The song ended then, but they held their position for a long beat afterward, just staring. Blaine pressed his lips together and finally told him, "I know what I want to do right now, but your dad kind of looks like he might kill me if I do, so…"

If Kurt was red before, he could only imagine that his face now looked like Yosemite Sam after being thwarted for the thousandth time by Bugs Bunny. Was Blaine really saying what he thought he was saying? "Y-you'd…I mean…you actually want to-"

"Yeah," Blaine interrupted with a laugh, squeezing the boy's hand, "But I'm not going to, for the previously stated reason. So let's go sit back down," he took a step back, "And try not to get shot by Burt."

"Oh, he won't shoot me," Kurt said without thinking about it, "I'm his golden boy. He'll only shoot you."

"Comforting, Kurt, thanks." When they got back to the table, Burt was indeed watching Blaine with a furrowed brow, making the boy shift in his seat and offer, "So…what are your thoughts on the Buckeyes?" While they tripped down the road in that awkwardly posed conversation, Kurt took out his mental pen and paper and added another item to his list.

10) He wants to kiss me.