Kurt stared around Blaine's apartment with wide eyes. "This is yours?" he asked with awe.
Blaine chuckled, and pressed a kiss against his temple. He set Kurt's suitcase beside the door; there wasn't anything in there that couldn't survive a bit longer without be hung up, he rationalised. "This building has been in my mom's family for a long, long time," he explained. "It was the original location for the company, but when my grandfather inherited it, he converted it into living quarters for the family. Momma leases out a few of the lower floors, but these top few are used exclusively by us. Momma and dad have the highest one, followed by Cooper and then mine. We'll be ringing in the New Year on the rooftop."
"Being rich has its benefits," Kurt said with an appreciative whistle.
"It does," Blaine agreed, carefully removing Kurt's coat from him.
"I mean your house in Westerville is great, but this, this is amazing."
"That was the original house that great great whatever granddad's built after he struck it. Its a sort of tradition to not mess with it outside of repairs, a kind of remembrance of where the Andersons came from."
"Anderson is your mom's maiden name?" Kurt asked, dropping down onto the cream coloured couch. "I feel like I should start learning these things. And how could you not move into here?"
"Mom never took on dad's name," he confirmed. "She let dad give his name to Cooper, but passed on Anderson to me. As for me not moving in here, Nick and I always had a weird desire to live out one of those college movies, so we dormed for this year. I'm not sure what Nick is going to do next year, but once you're here with me, this will be our home."
"I love the surety in your voice," Kurt murmured, resting his head on his shoulder.
"You're still thinking about what Rachel said," Blaine guessed, reaching out to lace their fingers together on Kurt's lap.
"I think Mercedes told her I was coming here cuz she sent me a link to Taylor Swift's song "Fifteen" this morning and said to focus on the bridge and where Taylor is now."
"That girl," Blaine groused. "We will be fine, Kurt. Rachel is Rachel. You are you and I am me. She is willing to sacrifice love for her career. Could you ever see yourself doing that?"
"Never," he answered, emotion lacing his tone as he watched him. "You are the most important person to me."
"Same here."
They sat in silence a long moment. "What are you going to do with Nick?" Kurt asked. "I mean you guys still aren't back to normal."
"I am giving him a taste of his own medicine. Let him see what he's done to Jeff."
"I never meant for that to happen you know," Kurt murmured, "disrupting you and Nick's friendship."
"Our friendship will be fine, Poppet," Blaine said, reassuring him, "we've been through worse together. Nick is a good person. You've seen that yourself, but he just does stupid things sometimes and this thing with Jeff is one of them. He's done painfully little to rectify the situation so far, and you've yourself said that Jeff's not been completely fine since that weekend. I'm hoping that my lock-off plus the awkwardness of Christmas together will push them in the right direction."
"Jeff hasn't really been responsive about that. I hope they're both okay though. This situation is so sad."
"They'll fix it sweetheart. We just have to have faith in them."
"Yeah, hopefully you're right. Anyway, enough of that for now, what are we going to do on our first night together?"
Blaine looked at him for a long moment, before shaking his head amusedly at how quickly he changed the topic. "Well first thing we should do is get that ring off that chain and back where it belongs."
Kurt nodded, and kept still as Blaine suited words to action, and soon enough his right hand sported their promise ring.
"Perfect," Blaine murmured, kissing his hand. "As to our plans for the night, if you go into the guest bedroom you will find a suit waiting for you."
"A suit?" he repeated, interested.
"A very gorgeous patterned navy blue suit," Blaine described, "one that seems perfect for where we are going to go."
"And where is that?"
"Mmm, well there's show on tonight. On a very famous street that you mentioned wanting to visit. This show is pretty old but it has received rave reviews."
"You have tickets for Wicked?" Kurt squeaked, sitting up straighter.
"We have tickets for Wicked," he confirmed.
Kurt launched at him, and Blaine laughed as his face was peppered with kisses. "You are too good for me," Kurt said eventually, pulling back.
"Nah, I'm just good enough," he answered with a wink.
Kurt was almost giddy with his happiness as the pair stumbled back into Blaine's apartment. Beside him, Blaine sported his own grin, partly due to the great night they had had, but mostly from the infectious joy radiating from his boyfriend. Briefly Blaine's mind flashed back to the morose Kurt he had first met, grateful for the changes time had wrought in him.
"My version of Defying Gravity has now been slain and laid to rest in the dust," Kurt stated, flopping down onto the couch.
"I still think yours is the best," Blaine answered, joining him there after slinging both of their jackets over the back of a chair. "We should make this a tradition. At the end of every semester we'll go to a production to celebrate."
Kurt scooted around until he could rest his head onto Blaine's lap, looking up into his face. "As long as we venture onto Off-Broadway too."
"And Off-Off Broadway. We'll support all the arts."
"Like good cultured men. Dinner was great as well. Only you would take me from Broadway to some random street corner for food."
"Was that not the best hotdog you have ever eaten?"
"He was parked next to a drain, Blaine."
"That gave it extra flavour," he quipped.
"Eww Blaine," Kurt chastised, wrinkling his nose at him.
"We'll go exploring for food tomorrow after I show you around campus. We'll get the choicest of the street fare and come back here and pig out."
"I will not have a pudgy belly for New Years Anderson."
Blaine smirked, before eliciting a laugh from Kurt as he started poking at his stomach through his shirt. "Seems perfectly flat to me. Oh, and is that an ab I feel?"
Kurt wriggled away from the poking finger. "No abs yet," he answered when finally Blaine ceased. "When do your parents get here?"
"Day after tomorrow. Mom's threatened Cooper so he's sacrificing some grand party to be here as well"
"Cooper probably has a next party he could attend here."
"And we're invited to it," Blaine confirmed, smirking.
"Eh, I am not going to face your mom's wrath. You go party and I will cream your folks at Monopoly again."
"Dad downloaded an app. You won't be able to steamroll them this time around."
"I are tycoon!"
"No more Cow and Chicken marathons for you."
"You're lame."
"And you are my adorable poppet," Blaine told him sincerely, drawing a flush to Kurt's face at the tone of his voice.
Blaine helped him rise up before stealing a sweet kiss from him, cupping his cheek gently. "I love you," he whispered, pulling back.
"I love you too," Kurt returned, pecking him once more before snuggling into his arms. "I hope you know I'm not sleeping in that guest room, gorgeous though it be."
He felt Blaine's form shake with laughter. "I'm just giving you the option sweetheart. Don't think I didn't see the edge of that sleeping bag poking out from under your bed when I was there."
"I don't know why dad even bought that thing," Kurt huffed, pulling back, "but I wanted to leave the option for you."
"Same here."
"Oh."
"Yes oh, silly," Blaine stated, flicking his earlobe before gently easing him from him. "What do you say we get comfy and watch some Netflix? Unless you're tired?"
"Just one episode," Kurt decided, stretching. "You better have popcorn in this fancy place...the buttered kind at that."
"Of course spoilt one."
"I prefer pampered," he preened. "I want orange juice too. Hop to it Anderson, or else you're be sleeping on this admittedly comfy couch."
Blaine shook his head at his boyfriend's antics, but humouring him, obeyed.
"I wonder how mad Kurt would be if I just showed up in New York," Jeff muttered to himself, pacing his bedroom floor anxiously. He was completely over this holiday season already and there were three more days before Nick and his family left. He was actually considering doing it. He could sneak out here, buy a plane ticket once he got to the airport and be safely in New York in a few hours. His grandparents would get over it. He could lie and tell them that hearing Nick gush about NYU had excited him too much to wait and he left to see it in person. He'd done stranger things before.
Except, he was pretty certain that Kurt would kick his ass for interrupting what probably was going to be his last days with Blaine until the summer, and as much as he was cursing anything associated with love, he couldn't do that to his friend. "I could just book myself in a hotel somewhere," he mused, his eyes dropping to his bed. He had managed to smuggle a bottle of liquid courage up here, but really, he didn't want to do it. All of the old folks had gone to the country club for the afternoon, and he had disappeared long before Nick had decided what he was going to do with his afternoon. Maybe he had gone with them. He really hoped he had gone with them.
He was startled out of his musings at a knock on his door. "I'm fine, Mrs. Smith," he called out, "not doing anything illegal, I swear."
The door swung open, and Jeff turned, trying to plaster a cheerful look on his face, only for it to falter when he saw Nick standing there.
"Another thing's changed then," he stated bitterly, "you never knock."
"Well I wasn't certain whether my best friend privileges were still active."
"Are we?"
"Are we what?" Nick asked, closing the door.
"Best friends. Are we anything?"
Nick sighed, leaning back against the door. "I'm not sure what we are," he admitted, "but I would love if we could at least not be awkward."
Jeff scoffed, mostly to hide the tumultuous feelings rolling through him. Nick had been in his room countless times over the years, but, especially in the past year or two, Jeff had envisioned their time here spent very… differently. This was wholly unacceptable to him. Things would have been so much better if he had not tried to force fantasy into reality.
"Are you just going to stare at me?"
"I cannot be sober for this shit," Jeff declared, walking away.
"You really have taken drinking back up huh?"
Jeff sneered at him as he rose from his crouch, bottle of scotch in hand. "Why do you care?"
"Are you cutting too?" Nick asked bluntly. "You've been wearing sweaters since I've been here."
"It's winter," Jeff snapped, dropping heavily down onto the bed and started fiddling with the cap of the bottle. "And why do you care?"
"I rather not see you back under psychiatric watch Sterling."
"Well I don't care about what you rather see. If you have a problem with this," he said, gesturing at the now open bottle, "go away. You did that perfectly before."
Nick didn't say anything as Jeff took a generous swing, forcing himself not to sputter at the taste of it. He was tempted to take a second swing, but knowing that his grandparents would kill him if he couldn't come to dinner, he closed it, shuddering as the heat of the scotch pooled into his stomach.
"You're still here?" he noted, after returning the bottle to its hiding place. "Isn't there someone you could be talking to?"
"I think I'd rather be speaking with you right now."
"Why? You did a hell of a good job ignoring me before."
"I-" Nick hesitated, and glancing at him, Jeff saw that he was rubbing at the back of his neck, always a sign of his sheepishness. "I-I handled that badly Jeff. I'll willingly admit to that."
"That's a fucking understatement if I've ever heard one," Jeff snapped. "I don't want to talk to you."
"We need to talk though," he rebutted, finally moving from the door, and closer to him. "You've been ignoring me ever since you kissed Kurt. I've been worried."
"And I was worried when you just walked away from me and got on a plane."
"I panicked."
"And left the state!"
"What do you want me to do, Jeff?" Nick demanded, his own tone rising. "Out of the blue you just said that you loved me and was looking at me so expectantly. What did you expect to happen?"
"For you to say the same."
"I'm not gay Jeff," Nick told him, "and you know it, you know it. Did you think I'd throw my sexuality out the door for you? That I'd suddenly want you?"
Jeff didn't answer; he couldn't. Nick's words. They were just too cruel. Nick deflated, his emotions receding at the expression on Jeff's face. He mentally swore as he recalled his last words. "Jeff."
"Get. Out." Jeff ground out.
"Jeff-"
"Get out!" Jeff screeched, his eyes wild. He reached for the nearest thing to him - a book - and flung it in Nick's direction. Nick dodged it, barely, but he heeded Jeff's directive, backing out of the room in the face of his fury. He had screwed up royally, and Jeff would, unfortunately, be the one paying for it, if the sounds he was hearing was anything to go by.
"I-I don't understand," Kurt whispered, looking up at Blaine, his expression pained. "How could this happen Blaine? He was fine when I talked to him yesterday."
Blaine didn't answer immediately. Instead he tucked the blanket a bit more firmly around Kurt before sitting next to him after ensuring that their cups of herbal tea were reachable.
Their day of exploration had been wonderful, but their merriment had ended abruptly when Blaine's phone had rung off a few minutes after they had returned to the apartment. It had been Nick, a very despondent Nick telling Blaine that Jeff had been admitted to a private hospital and would he please tell Kurt to call him because Jeff wanted to speak with him. Kurt had immediately run off to the bedroom where he had forgotten his phone that morning, to indeed see that there was a missed call from Jeff followed by a rather cryptic text telling him not to worry, and that he was fine, something that was obviously not true if Jeff was under observation. He knew that term well. It was a fancy way of saying they were ensuring that Jeff wouldn't and couldn't hurt himself.
"I think I told you last night that Jeff had it rough in middle school?"
"You did. But what does that have to do with-"
"Easy poppet," Blaine bid, interrupting the rush of words. "I will veto your decision to not take an anxiety pill if you work yourself up, okay?"
Kurt nodded, even though he didn't like it, forcing himself to take a deep breath and dampen the worry for the blonde.
Blaine eyed him for a long moment, and satisfied, spoke. "You know that Jeff lives with his grandparents. What you don't know is that they're not just his legal guardians. They adopted him when he was five."
"Adopted him? What happened to his parents?" Kurt asked, even as he realised that he had never heard him mention them, nor truthfully seen any signs of them in the pictures littered about Jeff's bedroom.
"It's...complicated and when Jeff himself found out the truth...he didn't take it too well. You see, as weird as it sounds, Jeff didn't realise until he was ten that his grandparents were...well, his grandparents. They never told him, and save his hair, Jeff has all the Sterling features, so there was never really any doubt to his belonging to the family. In the middle school there's always this project about family heritage and when Jeff started digging around for it, he found his birth certificate and his grandfather's name wasn't there. His son's was.
"Jeff's dad from what I've heard was the anti-Dalton student. If it wasn't for the fact that the Sterling family has been one of the main financers of the school ever since it was created, Dalton would have kicked him out long before he entered the high school. He ended up getting a girl in Westerville High pregnant in his freshman year."
"Wow," Kurt breathed.
"The girl's parents came to Dalton when she told them, and the school contacted Jeff's grandparents. They were furious that he had put them into that position and thought that the girl's family would try to extort money from them because of it. And in a way they did. They turned down the suggestion of marriage, something Jeff's grandfather apparently wasn't too keen about anyway. They would take money though, so that's what he did. He paid them into giving Jeff up once he was born."
"He paid her to give up custody?"
"He paid her to sign over all her rights," Blaine corrected. "He gave her family a lump sum of money and paid for her way through college. The only stipulation was for none of them to ever try to contact Jeff. Jeff's grandparents were nearing forty when he was born."
"And Nick is his parent's youngest," Kurt deduced, "that's what he meant."
"Not sure what you're saying sweetheart."
"Forget it. Tell me more. What does all of this have to do with today?"
"I'm getting there," Blaine promised. "Jeff's grandparents took care of him while his dad finished Dalton but his granddad was considerably harder on him after that. He loved Jeff, but he was living proof of how reckless his son could really be. But nothing ever really worked, and as he got older, Jeff's dad ended up involved in drugs and alcohol. He actually ended up dying of an overdose a few weeks short of graduation and his grandparents formally adopted Jeff as their son. I guess it was their way of having a do over. They failed with the father, they could try with the son. Jeff never found out all of this until that project, and honestly I don't know if they had ever planned on telling him.
"He confronted them, they told him the truth and it seemed that everything was okay with that. Except...Jeff couldn't let it go. It was gradual, I'll admit. He stopped calling them mom and dad, and he grew more and more...cheerful, but cheerful in a way that didn't make sense given what he was going through. And then one day Nick told us that Jeff had somehow found his birth mother and wanted to meet her. He promised Nick not to tell his parents and he essentially ran away."
"That didn't go well," Kurt guessed.
"She didn't want anything to do with him. Even if she had cared for him when she was a teenager, him showing up spooked her, and not in a good way. She was in graduate school at the time and well...from what we found out, it seemed the only thing she cared about was proving to Jeff's grandfather that the situation wasn't her fault and that she didn't void their agreement by initiating contact."
"She didn't care to see him. She was worried about her tuition money getting cut off."
"Exactly," Blaine answered, sadness radiating in his tone. "Jeff's grandparents went out and brought him back to Westerville. He started cutting himself and drinking a few days later."
"Blaine."
"I know poppet," he said consolingly, cuddling him close. "It's not an easy story. They were determined not to make the same mistake twice and Jeff spent a lot of time seeing shrinks and being in and out of the hospital. I think they actually pulled him out of school for a bit, but we had already moved on from the middle school so I can't be certain. By the time I transferred back into the Dalton system Jeff seemed better. That cheerful science loving Jeff was back."
"Nick rejecting him triggered his old behaviours."
"Yes. And from what Nick told me, he inadvertently said something that set Jeff off. Jeff locked everyone out his room and went on a rampage to say the least. By the time they could get to him, he had hurt himself pretty badly and they decided to hospitalise him for now."
"He sounded so weird on the phone."
"That'd be the drugs," Blaine guessed, "he may not even remember talking to you in the morning."
"Speaking from experience?" Kurt said ruefully, recalling their early days.
"Just a bit," he agreed.
"I knew something was different about him," Kurt said, his voice wavering, "I saw it that night. He just didn't look like himself. I didn't realise he was hurting so bad."
"You couldn't have known it," Blaine comforted, "and maybe I should have warned you, but really, until now, I didn't think it was my story to tell. It's why I wasn't upset when you told me the two of you kissed. Jeff's done crazier things to ease his pain. That was a mild action at most."
"I didn't stop him because I thought it would help."
"And did it?" Blaine inquired, even though he already knew the answer.
"It did. He broke down once we parted."
"Exactly. Jeff needs help. I think he managed to fool everyone into believing he was okay. And maybe he truly was until Nick started acting like a dick. Whatever the case, he's going to get the help he needs this time around."
"I want to be there for him," Kurt declared. "I know what it's like Blaine. I want to help him."
"And you will," he agreed, kissing his temple. "I think that's one of the reasons Jeff was drawn to you in the first place. He was always curious about you, and he became very protective once I graduated. You'll be good for him, in the same way he's been good for you. I want to tell you don't worry, that Jeff will be fine, but right now, I can't say that with full certainty."
"I'm scared Blaine," Kurt admitted.
"You're not alone there, Poppet. I think we're all a little but afraid for him."