Safe and sound at home. Nobody here, have some time for myself…- B

Blaine`s phone rang immediately after he had sent the text.

“Hi.”

“Hi. How was your journey?”

“Shorter than I`d like…”

“How much time do you have until your parents come home?”

“I don`t know. Four or five hours…”

“Okay. So calm down. Everything`s gonna be okay.”

“I`m not keeping you from work, am I?”

“No, don`t worry, it`s my lunch break…”

“Great. So how long can I have you for myself?”

“Another twenty minutes.”

“Amazing. I`m in my music room now. Nothing has changed here…”

“Put your phone on speaker and play something…”

Blaine took a deep breath and ran his fingers over the keys of the piano. Small smile appeared on his face, memories from his teenage years flashbacking in front of his eyes…

“What do you want me to play?”

“Anything.”

Soft melody echoed the room. Blaine remembered the first solo he had got as a Warbler. Improptu performance of Katy Perry`s Teenage dream. He still loved the song.

You think I'm pretty
Without any makeup on
You think I'm funny
When I tell the punchline wrong
I know you get me
So I let my walls come down, down

Before you met me
I was alright but things
Were kinda heavy
You brought me to life
Now every February
You'll be my Valentine, Valentine

Let's go all the way tonight
No regrets, just love
We can dance, until we die
You and I, will be young forever

You make me feel
Like I'm livin' a
Teenage dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's run away and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

“Blaine?” the shout of his name stopped his playing.

“Kurt, my dad came home. I gotta go. Call you in the evening, okay?”

“Okay. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” He hung up the phone the moment his father entered the room.

“Hey. I knew you will be here.” His dad said and put him to embrace. Blaine hesitantly returned the hug.

“Hi, dad. You`re home early…” Daniel Anderson just patted his younger son on the shoulder and sat to the armchair near the piano.

“Your mother was out of her mind when you sent her a text you are on your way. She didn`t want you to come to an empty house. I promised her to be here but I`m late I guess.” He smiled and kept his gaze fixed on Blaine. Blaine returned to the piano and sat on the bench. He really didn`t know what to do. He hadn`t been left alone with his father for years…

“You shouldn`t have worried. I came earlier because I got the day off and I wanted to avoid the traffic.”

“Actually, I`m glad. I mean, when was the last time we had a chance to spend some time together? You come home only for Christmas and this place is always full of people about holiday time. So how have you been?” Blaine stared at his father. The first thought in his head was: Who are you and what have you done to my dad?  

“Good. Working on the big project over the last two month but it`s over now and since we worked after hours, boss took a pity and gave us some days off. That`s why I was able to be here sooner.” Daniel observed his son sitting by the piano.

“You still look like that teenage boy who used to hide from the world here. We missed your music…This house is quiet since you`ve been gone. Sometimes your mum and I come here and I play something for her. She always laughs and says I`m not you but it`s decent.” A strange feeling found his way to Blaine stomach. Suddenly he felt sick. He had to get out of there.

“I`m sorry, dad. I don`t feel good. I think I`ll just go rest to my room. I`m probably tired from the drive.” He didn`t wait for the respond from his dad and left. Daniel followed him with intention to find out whether his son needed something. As he was getting closer to Blaine`s room, he could hear Blaine speaking to someone.

“Kurt? I know your lunch break is almost over but could you please be with me on the phone for a while?” Daniel was about to step to the room, when Blaine`s words stopped him.

“My dad tried to talk to me. It was weird…” Daniel silently closed the door, leaving his son have a private conversation with someone named Kurt.

Blaine stayed in his room until his mother came from work. Daniel knocked on his door once to asked him if he was okay and although Blaine appreciated the gesture, he wasn`t ready to talk to his father yet so he pretended to be asleep. He went downstairs when he heard his mum preparing dinner in the kitchen. His dad was helping her, something Blaine had been used to see often during his childhood.

“Honey, hi.” Alison Anderson stopped what she was doing and opened her arms for her son. Blaine hugged her tight, breathing that beautiful scent of his mother he loved so much.

“Hi, mum.”

“We missed you.” She said and ruffled his hair.

“I missed you, too.” Blaine told her and he meant it. No matter how twisted his relationship with his family was, he`d missed them all.

“So, how have you been?” Blaine asked them, hoping Cooper would get home before they would have a chance to address their attention to him. His parents were speaking about their work and plans for house reconstruction while they were cooking and Blaine sat there, listening to them, happy he didn`t have to answer any question about himself. As Daniel and Alison started lacking the ideas for conversation and trying to get Blaine involved in it, Cooper ran through the front door. He`d always had the best timing. There had been situations Blaine would have hated it, but right now, he was glad his older brother didn`t disappoint.

“Little brother. Good to see you. When mum told me you were coming, I didn`t believe her!” Blaine found himself swamped by his over-excited sibling.

“Hi, Coop.”

“So, what are we having for a dinner? I`m starving…The flight was horrible. You have to see a car I rented in Columbus. It`s amazing. The drive here was a blast. I`m thinking about buying one of those in LA…” Leave it to Cooper to draw all the attention for himself. Not that Blaine was complaining.

Dinner his parents had made was great. He was focused on eating, listening to what others were saying, not joining them in their light banter. It`d always worked this way and he had every intention to carry the tradition on tonight.

“So Blaine, tell us something about you…You`ve been awfully quiet.” Blaine was about to take another bite of meal, his movements suddenly froze. Not such luck today…

“I don`t know. I don`t have anything new…”

“Oh, come on, Honey. How is your job? You guys won that award last year. You must have a lot of work thanks to that…any interesting commercials we could look forward to?” Alison sent him an encouraging smile.

“Yeah…I`m done with commercial since I`ve got the role on TV show so if someone wanted me to do it again, I would go only for commercials created by my little brother. Your jingles are so catchy…Maybe you could use more simple words in your slogans, you know so people can relate to them, not everybody had the college degree…” Leave it to Cooper to change compliment to criticism.   

“What about your own music? Do you still compose?” Blaine raised his head from his plate and looked disbelievingly at his father.

“No…”

“Why not? You were so talented…It`s a shame you waste it. Your jingles are excellent but that doesn`t mean you can`t write songs…Maybe we should have sent you to Juilliard…I was so surprised when you told us you didn`t want to go there anymore. Your mum and I decided not to force you, but maybe we should have talked about it with you.” Blaine had enough. He didn`t understand what was going on and why every member of his family was acting like they were interested in his life, when, in fact, they hadn`t been for a years now.

“Are you kidding me?” He asked, clearly annoyed.

“No. I mean it. We are proud of what you`ve accomplished so far but we still think you didn`t give your music carrier a shot.”

“Excuse me?”

“Blaine, darling, are you okay?”

“No mum, I`m not.” He turned to his father. “You can`t lecture me about giving up on something when I did it because of you!”

“What?”

“I don`t know what`s going on here, dad. You don`t give a shit about me…”

“Blaine, watch your mouth!” His mother warned him but he wasn`t a teenage boy anymore. Everything Kurt had ever told him came to him at that moment and he let all his frustration get of his system.

“You haven`t given a shit about me since I came out to you! You stopped paying for my music lessons, you stopped talking to me like you used to, you never showed up when I performed with Warblers…God, you even set me on dates with girls! So stop acting like supportive father because you are not one. Not in my case. Your perfect son is sitting right next to me so why don`t you talk to him and leave me alone so I can eat my dinner in peace?” 
“Blaine, I`m sorry if I`d ever made an unsupportive impression…” Blaine scoffed at his father’s words.

“Dad, please. I heard you. I heard how you told uncle James I wasn`t good enough.”

“Never said you`re not good enough!”

“You did! You told him I might be more talented than Cooper but I didn`t have a fierce. You said you doubted I could make it big in a showbusiness because apparently I was too weak. I was a good person and it was not what I was supposed to be…I didn`t apply for Juilliard, because I believed you were right.”

“Daniel? Did you…” His mother`s question was cut in the middle by his father.

“I was just worried about you. I was worried you would be hurt if things didn`t turn out to be good for you. But I didn`t mean that you shouldn`t have applied for it.”

“What`s the point of going there if I`m not good enough? I get used to this crap. I get used to the feeling my family is never going to be proud of me. I adapted to the big commercial world I hate so much so I can have a decent job and didn`t have to use your money for living. I tried so hard to convince myself it doesn`t bother me but I can`t anymore. You have no right to tell me I`m wasting my talent because it`s partially your fault as well. I know you don`t like me being a gay. I know I`m a big disappointment for you…”

“When did I say something like that?”

“You didn`t have to, dad! That`s the saddest part of it all! You didn`t have to tell me and I knew either way. Do you know how many boyfriends have I had so far? Have you ever asked me if there was someone special in my life? Have you ever made an effort to meet them?”

“Four…I think you have the fifth right now.”

“What?”

“You had four relationships that lasted for more than six months. Two of them when you were at Dalton, two of them at college. By the way you talked to Kurt today, although I caught only two sentences, I supposed he is the fifth one. Every time someone special showed up in your life we knew it. You acted different. More happy. We also knew about every break up. Just by the way you were. We never said anything because we didn`t want to pressure you to something you might not be comfortable with. We thought if you had wanted us to meet them, you would have brought them home. When your Dalton boyfriends came to pick you up on a date, you walked down the street and waited for them there. They never parked their car in front of our house. What should have we done? Followed you to the end of our road and introduced ourselves? Of course we would have liked to meet them, Blaine. I would love to meet Kurt because if there is someone, who my son can rely on when he needs it, I wanna thank them.” Blaine was speechless.

“I gotta get out of here.” He stood up and rushed to the main entrance.

“Squirt, I think…” He heard Cooper said but he didn`t give him a chance to finish.

“Don`t call me that!” He shouted back from the door and with loud thud he slammed them.        

“What the hot guy like you is doing alone at the lame karaoke night in some coffee shop at 7:30 on Friday evening?” Kurt fixed his gaze at the man who had just spoken to him.

“I don`t want to be rude, but it`s none of your business.” He told him, waiting for him to leave. He didn`t like him. The smug on his face told Kurt that the man wasn`t used to rejection.

“I know it`s not, but I can show you much better place for Friday night…”

“Thanks, I`m good.” Kurt used forced smile.

“Oh, come on…you seriously can’t be rather spending your time here watching annoying brunette arguing with her friends about song they`re gonna sing than experience the best night of your life. You are here, alone, I`m here, alone…Let`s go somewhere together.”

“I`m here with annoying brunette. So go and find another lonely soul somewhere else.” Kurt was sure he wouldn`t be seen at any gay bar for a long time after this encounter. If you can`t get rid of the pain in the ass in coffee shop, how are you supposed to do that on the place where most of people are from the very same reason?

The ringing of the phone saved him. He didn`t check the caller ID, he just waved with the phone to Rachel and went outside.

“Hello?”

“He wants to meet you.”

“Blaine?”

“He wants to meet you.” Kurt found the nearest bench and sat down. Blaine`s voice was everything he needed to realize this would take some time.

“Who wants to meet me?”

“My dad.” Kurt waited for a while, but Blaine didn`t say anything more.

“Blaine, sweetheart, I know you`re upset but you have to tell me more than that. What happened? You are supposed to have a family dinner right now. Did you run away? Are you in your car? You are not escaping, are you?”

“No. I`m not in my car, because I left my keys in my room. When I was leaving I thought I had them with me…I yelled at my father. For the first time in my life. Every word he said pissed me off. He had the guts to tell me I`m wasting my talent, Kurt. He started talking about Juilliard and how he was surprised when I said I didn`t want to apply for it. I lost it. I reminded him he didn`t give a shit about me before so there is no need to do it now…”

“Blaine…”

“I don`t know what to do. I don`t want to go back…”

“Okay. You don`t have to go home right now. I`m going to stay with you on the phone for how long you want me to. When you are ready to tell me more, I`m here, listening to you.”

“Thanks…how is your evening? Hope it`s better than mine.”

“Rachel made me attend karaoke night in the coffee shop before we go to a club. I was left alone by the table when she and her friends from work went to pick up the songs. Some guy approached me and if you hadn`t called me, I might have punched him.”

“Did he hit on you? I mean, I don`t blame him. Would definitely do the same thing.”

“It was the worst try of hitting on somebody I`ve ever witnessed. If you did the same thing, I wouldn`t speak to you so think twice before you put a move on me, Anderson.” A laugh reached Kurt`s ears and he had to smile. Blaine had the greatest laugh in the whole world. Kurt described the guy from coffee shop to him, making him laugh even harder. They were on the phone for more than ten minutes when Blaine finally found the courage to inform Kurt about what had happened.

“…And he said he would love to meet you. He assumes you are my boyfriend by the way I was talking to you earlier today. He overheard something as he was passing my room.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I stormed out.”

“Blaine, you have to go back in there. It seems like all your problems with parents were caused by absence of communication.”

“I know…I`m scared. And I feel bad. I shouldn`t have yelled at him.”

“No, it`s a good thing you did. You couldn`t keep it inside forever. It opened the topic. You just have to give them a chance to explain themselves.”

“I wish you were here.”

“It`s something you need to do by yourself, Blaine. Just go home and talk to them.”