Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
Oh, be careful little eyes, what you see.
There's a Father up above, looking down in tender love,
So be careful little eyes, what you see.

-Author/Lyricist unknown

Kurt sees Blaine kneeling at his locker the next morning once again. His necklace hangs there, a few centimeters from his chest and Kurt feels the symbol imprinted on his retinas. He can’t stop staring. It’s such a tiny thing, the cross, but there could be various implications as to its home around Blaine’s neck.

Kurt wonders, absurdly, whether it would burn him if he touched it.

“It was a gift from my grandmother.”

Oh hell, that’s when Kurt realizes that he’s been staring so long that Blaine had actually stood and walked over to stand right in front of him. Kurt has to tear his eyes away from the little pendant that sits, looking far too heavy, against Blaine’s white t-shirt. As if willed by some higher power, Kurt’s hand reaches out of its own accord to brush ever so lightly along the edge of the cross.

When he doesn’t feel any pain at all, he drops his hand, curiosity satisfied.

“It’s nice,” Kurt chokes out.

“Thanks,” Blaine says with this really slight smile and a pink tinge to his cheeks. He lifts his hand and catches the sleek edges between his thumb and forefinger. “She got it for me when I was fifteen.”

“Ah.”

“I guess that’s when they figured I could be trusted with something expensive.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s just one of those things I never take off, you know?”

“Right,” Kurt says flatly because please, please, he’d do anything to stop thinking about the one object that had plagued his thoughts the entire night.

Blaine’s smile grows and takes up half of his face for reasons Kurt cannot pinpoint.

“So I’m excited about Glee club,” Blaine says.

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s Glee club! And I love singing. Like, a lot.”

“I’m guessing you sing at…” Kurt can’t even get the word to come out of his mouth.

“At church, yeah. I was in the choir at my old church and when we moved here I auditioned right away. I just love it.”

“Church or singing?” Kurt asks.

“Both, I guess,” Blaine says with a shrug.

Ah, but of course.

“What – what church do you go to?” Kurt asks, very nearly cringing as he asks the question.

He can’t help it, really. Religion just isn’t something that sits well with him. He doesn’t understand church, which kind of seems like a cult to him. He doesn’t think that wearing something around your neck, something that symbolizes an ancient torture device, makes one a better person. Kurt has tried, really he has; he’s had multiple conversations with Mercedes on the subject but, whereas he is stuck in his lack of religion, she wasn’t willing to give into the idea that maybe God isn’t real at all.

“First Baptist of Lima,” Blaine tells him. “It’s a great church.”

“I’m sure.”

“Where do you go?”

Panic rises, thick and sick in Kurt’s throat. “I’m sorry?”

“What church do you go to?”

What to say, what to say. Why is he freaking out? Why does it matter? He’s known Blaine for a single day, it’s not like he has any obligation or any reason to prove himself to this boy.

But the light in Blaine’s eyes is glowing and he’s waiting for an answer.

“I don’t,” Kurt says slowly. “I don’t go to church.”

At first, Blaine’s eyebrows seem to hit his hairline in surprise but then he starts laughing lightly to himself.

“Oh wow, I’m sorry. I forget – I’m just so used to my old town. Pretty much everyone went to the same church and if they didn’t it was because they were Catholic or Methodist or something. I forget that there are people that don’t really like church.”

Oh thank freaking God, Kurt sighs internally. He’s comforted by the fact that Blaine might not actually crucify him and maybe they can still be friends. Well, that’s not to say that they couldn’t be friends before. But again, they’ve only known each other for one day and Kurt doesn’t know that much about Blaine, doesn’t know enough to analyze his character.

“Most of the time, though, I think it’s because people just haven’t found the right one,” Blaine goes on to say.

“Or…maybe church just isn’t for them,” Kurt says in return.

“Maybe,” Blaine shrugs.

The bell rings and they part.

“Is it – is it okay if I sit here?” Blaine asks timidly at lunch, just as Kurt pops the lid off his salad container.

“Of course it is!” Rachel says happily, snatching up her books in the chair next to her and dropping them on the floor. “Sit here.”

“Thanks,” Blaine says with a blush, taking a seat.

“You don’t have to ask every day, you know,” Rachel says. “You’re part of the Glee club now. You’re one of us.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say,” Blaine says softly.

Rachel continues nattering on about something or another. Kurt tunes her out as per usual but instead of making small talk with Mercedes, he looks up at Blaine over his fork of salad greens. Blaine has fantastic posture and his elbows never touch the table. He listens intently while Rachel talks and Kurt thinks that maybe he isn’t feigning interest. Yesterday he figured that Blaine was simply being polite because he didn’t have anyone else to sit with but now he thinks that Blaine might just be that nice of a person. Maybe he is actually interested in whatever Rachel has to say.

And when Blaine actually responds to Rachel’s tirade with a few intelligent comments, Kurt wonders if he’s actually interested in Rachel.

Well, at least he knows that Rachel’s dating Finn and is completely obsessed with him.

So maybe he doesn’t really have any competition to worry about.

Ugh, stop it, Kurt chides himself. If Blaine’s showing interest in Rachel, there’s no reason he should show interest in Kurt. He’s probably one hundred percent straight and Kurt is one hundred percent out of luck.

Kurt bites the inside of his lip as Blaine and Rachel continue their conversation.

He hates feeling like this. He hates feeling powerless and hopeless and just once, just once he wishes someone new would come along and see him. He wishes someone would be like him; a boy who likes other boys and fashion magazines and Broadway musicals and maybe wants a teenage romance that lasts longer than a few months.

He wants someone who wants him.

The longer he stares at Blaine across the lunch room table, Kurt becomes positive that Blaine isn’t that boy. His pretty eyes are smiling at Rachel and his face is happy and his hair is perfect and Kurt wants to reach inside of this boy and tear his faith out of his heart. Because all he sees is this innocent exterior and that god forsaken cross around his neck. Kurt can’t see past it. He can’t see past Blaine’s religion and it’s terrible, it’s awful because he knows it isn’t right. He knows that it isn’t fair because a person is more than their religion in exactly the way that Kurt is more than his lack of religion. He knows that Blaine is more than his belief in God and Jesus or whatever but he is incapable of seeing what’s beyond that.

Because that cross might be one thing that keeps Blaine from being his friend.

What will Blaine do when he finds out that Kurt is gay? What will he do when he discovers that Kurt is a gay atheist? Will it matter? Will it be a non-issue? Will it kill any chance Kurt might have ever had?

Does he even have a chance at all?

The Glee club is dispersing throughout the parking lot after rehearsal later that day when Blaine drops a massive bomb.

“Do you want to come to church with me this Sunday?”

Kurt pauses, mid step.

“What?”

Mercedes looks at the pair of them over the top of her car and Finn’s staring at them, Rachel attached to the front of his body in a hug.

“I’m, um, singing my first solo in my church choir at the beginning of the service this Sunday and I was just wondering if you wanted to come. We don’t get solos very often but I guess they want me to feel welcome or whatever,” Blaine explains. “You don’t – you don’t have to come, I was just-”

“What time?” Kurt finds himself asking and what the hell, why did he even-

“Oh! Um, our service starts at ten. We could get coffee or breakfast or something before, though. I could pick you up.”

Okay, so this little church invite is suddenly sounding more and more like a date and damnit if Kurt isn’t going to seize this opportunity.

“Sounds good.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mercedes and Finn sharing a confused, stunned look. Kurt ignores them in favor of Blaine’s bright smile.

“Finn tells me you’re going to church on Sunday,” Burt Hummel says later that evening.

Kurt pauses on his way down to his room. He turns and faces the back of his father’s recliner. A whistle blows on the TV in the middle of a football game.

“I don’t know why he felt the need to tell you that,” Kurt says.

“I guess we’re just…confused.”

“About what?” Kurt asks, sitting on the edge of the sofa.

His father mutes the television.

“Kurt. The last time you went to Sunday School, you got told to leave.”

“I was seven. And they didn’t like that I was asking too many questions.”

“So why do you suddenly want to give it another shot? Last time I checked you didn’t believe in God. I mean you’re allowed to change your mind or whatever. But…I don’t get it.”

“I’m not going to Sunday School, dad.”

“No. You’re going to a church service. An actual service. Where they don’t sugar coat things. Where most people don’t really agree with the type of person you are.”

“They’re not all like that,” Kurt grumbles, more for his own peace of mind than for his father’s.

“You’re right,” Burt nods slowly. “But you might as well be walking into a lion’s den.”

“I’m going because my friend Blaine asked me to go,” Kurt sighs. “He’s singing his first solo there and he just – he just invited me.”

“…And who is Blaine?” his dad asks warily.

“He’s just a new friend at school.”

“What kind of friend?”

Kurt stands, impatient and annoyed with the direction the conversation is going. “He’s just a friend, dad. The kind that might be nice to hang around with and talk to.”

“Does this kid even know that you don’t believe in God?”

“Why does that matter?”

“I just don’t get why he would invite you to something like this if he knew you were an Athiest, Kurt.”

“No, he doesn’t know. And before you ask, he doesn’t know that I’m gay, either. Or at least…I haven’t told him. I don’t know if he’s figured it out on his own.”

Burt shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “I don’t know if I like this.”

“Most parents would be delighted that their kid suddenly wants to go to church.”

“Yeah well, it kind of takes a different tone when I know that you hate church and I know that you’re gay and you’re going to willingly subject yourself to a bunch of people who probably don’t agree with your lifestyle.”

“Whatever,” Kurt says with a roll of his eyes. “Blaine asked me to go. I agreed. So I’m going.”

“Kurt-”

“Christians aren’t all bad people, dad. They don’t all hate gays!”

“I know that,” Burt says loudly. “I know they aren’t all like that, Kurt. You gotta remember that I’ve lived longer than you and I know more people than you do.”

“Oh, here we go,” Kurt mumbles.

“Stop it,” Burt says. “I’m just saying that I know the world isn’t black and white. I see more shades of gray than you do. But there are religious fanatics out there that do not like people like us: people who are…forward thinking or open minded or-”

“Or gay?”

“…Yeah. Or gay. And some of them are bound to be in that church you’re going to walk into.”

“I’m going to be fine, dad.”

Burt rakes his gaze over Kurt’s face and Kurt does his very best to suppress his queen bitch face so that this conversation will end.

“Okay,” Burt eventually says.

Kurt nods decisively and storms out of the living room.