Chapter 10

The Andersons' arrival early on Thursday morning caused a bustle downstairs, waking the boys. They jumped up in Blaine's bed with horror in their faces.

'I forgot they were coming home so early!,' Blaine whispered, terrified.

'Great! What are we gonna do now?' Kurt sent him a murderous glare.

Blaine's thoughts were galloping, trying to find a way of hiding Kurt before his parents would notice the guest they had no idea about.

'The bathroom!,' he breathed at Kurt, who leaped in the direction of the door.

'And then what?! It's not like I only dream of spending the entire Thanksgiving in your freaking bathroom!' Kurt's eyes were frantic.

They already could hear Blaine's parents' footsteps on the stairs.

'I don't know!,' Blaine mouthed.

'It's a streak of luck I did all the cooking yesterday,' Kurt snapped back, just before Blaine shut the bathroom door right in front of his face.

It was true, though, that Kurt had spent the entire Wednesday preparing food for the holiday dinner – whether it would end up an Anderson family party, or just the two of them trying to enjoy themselves despite their dramas. Blaine couldn't believe how much Kurt had managed to do, even though he himself had been the one responsible for employing him as chef for the occasion, and getting all the groceries delivered to the house. Kurt was glad to help, and considered it one of the ways of repaying Blaine for letting him live in his house despite the problems he was causing.

A few seconds after the bathroom door closed, Mrs Anderson let herself into her son's room. Seeing the empty bed, she looked around to find Blaine still with his hand on the bathroom door handle.

'Hi, Mom,' he said innocently.

She scanned him with her eyes.

'I thought you'd be still asleep,' she said, looking back to the bed; something about it seemed odd. She could swear it looked too messy to have contained only one relatively small teenage boy that night. Not sleeping for thirty six hours and gallons of coffee could apparently do that to a person. 'Anyway, I wanted to tell you that we're home tonight. Well, until eight. So we can have a Thanksgiving dinner. Only, I don't think we could get a turkey now, so…' Her voice trailed off.

A strange muffled sound came from the bathroom. She couldn't identify what that could be. She shook her head. Caffeine hallucinations again.

'I got that covered, Mom,' said Blaine. Suddenly his body seemed to have become tense. 'I cooked us a turkey yesterday,' he added, lying exactly like Kurt had told him to. Blaine hoped just for the ruse not to get unveiled.

Mrs Anderson's eyes opened widely in surprise. 'You cooked us Thanksgiving dinner? If you're joking right now, that's really not funny, and I'm exhausted.' She turned around, shaking her head in disbelief. 'I'm going to sleep. You do that, too, sweetie.'

She closed the door behind her on the way out. Blaine listened to her footsteps in the hallway, until the master bedroom door shut close with a clank. Only then did he risk letting Kurt out very, very quietly.

'Do you want to get kicked out of here?,' Blaine asked in a hushed voice.

Kurt was standing right behind the door, obviously having eavesdropped unabashedly on the entire conversation, with a wide grin on his face.

'It worked, Blaine! Aren't you the tiniest bit happy?,' Kurt said, keeping his voice as low as he could with the excitement.

Blaine rolled his eyes and fell back onto his bed.

'I guess I am. Sorry I don't want my best friend to get kicked out onto the streets on Thanksgiving.'

Realizing what exactly he'd just said, Blaine looked up at Kurt, who was stuck in between beaming enthusiasm and an equally gleeful surprise.

'You consider me your best friend?,' he asked.

Blaine sat up, fighting a smile.

'Well, taking into account the small detail that you're my only friend, I guess I could also call you my best friend.'

'Jerk!,' Kurt said just a tiny bit too loud for Blaine to feel safe, and launched himself at Blaine, knocking him back into a lying position. But when he tried to grab a pillow to strike his friend with, Blaine struggled himself free and flipped Kurt onto his back, keeping one hand on his wrist, and the other on his mouth.

'Shh-' Kurt began to laugh under Blaine's palm. 'Shut up.'

By then, Kurt's whole frame was shaking, his giggling threatening to break out and alarm the Andersons. Blaine had to do something, anything to stop the sudden attack of cheeriness, before either of his parents noticed there was some stranger in his room.

So he did one thing he knew would render Kurt speechless.

He removed his hand from Kurt's lips just to replace it with his own mouth.

As he had predicted, it worked like a dream. Kurt stopped laughing, his eyes bulging, and Blaine let go of his wrist and fell back to the bed next to him.

'That's a good way to get someone to shut up,' Kurt said after a few silent minutes. 'But not exactly when that someone is your best friend. More like some other type of friend that starts with B.'

'Yeah, whatever. We're not boyfriends, I just had to make sure your mouth was too preoccupied with something else to produce sounds.' Blaine shrugged, getting to his feet.

'So you sacrificed yourself like a real best friend would.' Kurt smiled at him.

'Precisely.'

Kurt jumped up startled when his phone buzzed suddenly.

Are you sure you're alright?

When they had snuck downstairs to set the table for the Andersons' Thanksgiving dinner, taking advantage of Blaine's parents being soundly asleep, Blaine started to feel guilty he was leaving his friend to spend the evening alone.

Kurt only rolled his eyes, before typing, I told you, I'm fine. And I can't crash your Thanksgiving.

It wasn't going to be a happy holiday for him, but he couldn't imagine it being that anyway. His last truly cheerful holiday memory was the Christmas before his mother's death. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas since then was filled with awkward silence that neither him nor his father was able to break. This time at least he wouldn't have to sit through the hour of utter discomfort.

But instead he worried about Blaine.

'How did you learn to cook like that?,' Mrs Anderson asked her son between mouthfuls of turkey.

Blaine was ready for questions of this sort and shrugged.

'There are recipes, Mom,' he lied smoothly. In case the Andersons asked more detailed questions, Kurt had instructed him exactly what to say.

But Blaine's parents for the most part stayed quiet. And so did Blaine, because no topic for a conversation occurred to him. Only when the pumpkin pie was served, the silence was finally broken by Mrs Anderson.

'You once said you were in that singing group at Dalton, right? What's their name, I can't remember…'

Blaine pursed his lips for a second to steady himself.

'The Warblers, Mom,' he said through clenched teeth. 'And it's an a capella show choir.'

'Same difference,' interjected Blaine's father. 'They sing, right?'

Forks clanking on the plates were the only sounds for a moment.

'So, are you taking part in competitions?,' Mrs Anderson asked, with no real tone of curiosity in her voice.

'We went to sectionals two weeks ago. I told you about it.'

Blaine put down his fork, his hand trembling too hard to be able to hold it. His mother stopped chewing for a few seconds, searching her memory for any hint that he indeed had told them about the competition. Eventually she decided he must have, but she couldn't recall the situation.

'Right,' she said, embarrassment rising in her like a wave. 'So, did you win?'

'I told you that, too. We came in second. We would have won if we didn't go against the national champions.' Blaine was struggling to keep his voice level. It didn't even matter, the whole show choir talk; it was nothing but petty chit-chat. Yet it still made him angry that his own mother didn't know about things that were important for him.

'Don't they have any sports teams in that school? Cooper used to be on the basketball team in high school.' His father's voice came to his ears through a haze of his escalating rage.

Blaine's breath hitched; there was no way to have a nice family dinner on Thanksgiving, if they danced around the topic in this way. Not really talking about it, not mentioning the word, but having it implied in the worst ways possible, pointing it out to him that he was flawed.

'Could you stop that?,' he said, his voice quiet and trembling as he tried not to raise it.

His father's eyebrows shot up, creasing his forehead.

'What?'

Mrs Anderson hastily turned her eyes away, as her son looked at her for support. Blaine snorted. Everything was exactly the same. No matter how he tried, everything stayed the precise fucked up way it had always been.

He took a deep breath before speaking again.

'Are you really going to ignore this? This giant, rainbow-coloured, gay elephant in the room?' Both his parents were staring intently at the table, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. As if they were fighting not to hear what he was saying. 'Do I really have to do this again?,' he muttered under his breath with a sigh.

'Mom, Dad,' he went on, and they stole quick furtive glances at him, trying for him not to notice, seriously distressed by the situation. 'I don't know it you remember that, but I'm gay. And no matter how many times you imply I'm not manly enough, Dad, that is not going to change. It might calm your mind a bit to know that I took up boxing. Not in spite of beingqueer, but because of it. To be able to defend myself, if I were ever attacked again.' He turned to his mother. 'Mom. I would really appreciate it if you stopped pretending you're deaf whenever I mention the G-word. I know you're not thrilled with the idea of me liking boys instead of girls, but, as I said, you can't change that.'

He got up, his chair scratching loudly on the floor.

'Oh, and just so you know, you can spare me the Talk, I know everything I need to know.' Blaine stopped at the door for one more second. 'And thank you for this lovely little family gathering,' he added icily, before running upstairs and slamming the door to his room behind him.