"You know I won't think any less of you if you don't want to do this."

Blaine stared out the car window at the house glaring oppressively at him from the end of the rain-washed driveway. The blank windows watched him coldly, just daring him to approach the house. Nothing about it looked warm or inviting the way the Hummels' one did. There was no slightly crooked fence, no warm light spilling from the windows, no fallen leaves scattered around the shadow of a tree; nothing that made it looked lived-in and homely, somewhere you would look forward to returning to at the end of a long day's work. This house was as stiff as a pair of newly bought boots: far too shiny, slightly uncomfortable, and can only be suffered for a short period of time until the blisters start to form and you have to kick them off.

He jingled the keys of Finn's car (he had kindly let them borrow it for the day) in his hand. "I know," he said, his gaze sweeping over the immaculate garden with its rolled grass, trimmed hedges, and not a fallen leaf in sight despite it being autumn.

Kurt's hand reached across the centre console to squeeze his knee. "I'll support you in whatever you decide."

Blaine let his gaze trail over the house he had grown up in once more, over the place he had never thought of as a home - it was always too sterile for it to be that. He unbuckled his seatbelt. "I want to do this," he said determinedly. "I want to show them that I'm proud and happy with my life and that I don't need them."

He opened the car door and swung out, hearing the thud of the passenger door shutting as Kurt came over to join him. He glanced sideways at his boyfriend who wrinkled his nose at the house in a way that was so adorable Blaine felt some of his nerves ebbing away.

"It looks like something out of a magazine," Kurt observed with distaste. "It doesn't look real, like it should be on Desperate Housewives or something."

Blaine nodded slowly. "It has never felt like a home to me; not a proper one anyway."

He felt Kurt's gaze flick over to him, but he just started walking up to the front door, the white-painted surface of which always looked freshly done, like the door had just been fitted yesterday. The doorbell his finger pressed was a highly polished brass that also looked brand new, though Blaine knew it was the same one. Funny how his parents managed to keep everything about their house looking pristine and picture-perfect, yet they had broken their son and wrecked his life. A picture-perfect family couldn't include a gay son apparently.

Kurt took his hand as footsteps sounded on the other side of the door; high heels on wooden floors - of course his father wouldn't be the one to welcome them inside.

His mother's blank face greeted them when the door opened. She was as stiff and well put-together as her house, but with a barely hidden menace, like a deceptively handsome lion fish - get too close and the poison will enter your veins and spread through your body.

"Blaine," she greeted as if he was someone she had only met once or twice before.

"Mother," Blaine said in the same formal tone.

Her gaze flicked to Kurt and Blaine tensed slightly. "Mr. Hummel," she said with a barely perceptible incline of her head, her expression not changing. Blaine relaxed a little.

"Thank you for having us over, Mrs. Anderson," Kurt said in a voice that was far more pleasant than she deserved. "And I would rather you called me Kurt, Mr. Hummel still sounds too much like my father."

Mrs. Anderson looked Kurt over in one slow sweep of her gaze. "Very well - Kurt." Her voice held the first hints of poison. She held the door open wider and stepped aside. "Come on in."

Blaine barely repressed a shudder as he stepped into the house which, despite the heating, felt as cold as it looked from the outside. He wiped his feet carefully on the doormat before stepping gingerly onto the highly polished wooden floors. His mother took their coats and scarves with the practised movements of someone trained how to be a prefect host and hung them up before leading the way through to the living room. When the flooring under his feet turned to carpet and his gaze landed on his father sitting in an armchair reading the newspaper, Blaine couldn't help but stiffen again. His father lowered his paper with a rustle of pages to watch them enter the room with ice-blue eyes as cold and blank as the depths of an ocean. Those eyes narrowed slightly when Blaine took Kurt's hand again, linking their fingers together.

"Hello, Blaine," he said coolly, setting his folded newspaper aside. "And this must be your friend Kurt that your mother was telling me about." His hard gaze barely skimmed Kurt.

Blaine raised his chin determinedly. "Kurt is my boyfriend, not just a friend."

The temperature in the room dropped another few degrees and the harsh lines of his father's face tightened, but he didn't say anything.

Kurt just smiled as if this was all normal. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Anderson."

There was a second of tense silence that seemed to last for hours, like a string pulled tighter and tighter, the tension increasing until it finally snapped. Mr. Anderson nodded stiffly at Kurt, and then turned to his wife. "Why don't you get some drinks?"

She left the room after noting what they all wanted and Blaine took a seat on the couch, pulling Kurt down beside him. His pulse was thrumming rapidly, but his boyfriend looked cool and calm and once again Blaine admired his strength. He sat up a little straighter and squeezed Kurt's hand, drawing on some of Kurt's strength.

"So, Kurt, you're a talk show host, aren't you?" Mr. Anderson asked, and though he managed to keep his voice neutral, his eyes betrayed his true feelings: superiority, disapproval, and a touch of mockery.

Still Kurt acted like he didn't notice any of the hostility. "I am, I've had my own show for a couple of years now. It wasn't my original career choice, but I enjoy it and I wouldn't want to do anything else now."

Mr. Anderson sniffed slightly. "And what was your original career plan?" he asked just as his wife re-entered the room carrying a tray of drinks which she set on the coffee table.

"When I was in high school I wanted to work towards being on Broadway, but I got a degree in Fashion Design from Parsons and just as I was about to start looking for a job in that area, I got the offer to have my own talk show."

Both of Blaine's parents' expressions had shifted as Kurt had spoken and Blaine knew what they were thinking: Broadway and fashion - stereotypical gay.

"Kurt's show is great," Blaine said with a smile at Kurt. "I was a guest on it in June; that's how we met." He smirked slightly as his parents stiffened at this. ‘That's right,' he thought, ‘the days where I never breathe a word about my sexuality are gone. Fuck your homophobic ways.'

"And how is your career going, Blaine?" his father asked, his tone sarcastic as he said ‘career' - he had never approved of Blaine pursuing music, it wasn't a ‘real' job.

Blaine smiled. "Fantastic, my new album did great on the charts and my shows are continuing to sell out."

He felt braver with each passing minute. There was nothing for him to be worried about, he didn't care about what his parents thought about himself or Kurt, so all he had to do was speak to them like they weren't his disgusted, disappointed parents. They were nothing to his life, so why should he care?

They continued to make small-talk for a while, his parents asking questions about his and Kurt's careers and lives in New York, mostly managing to prevent any references to his and Kurt's relationship from being mentioned. His mother's hand would tighten around her glass and his father would clench his jaw whenever either he or Kurt said something about their relationship and both of them determinedly avoided looking at Kurt and Blaine's linked hands.

When Blaine asked about Cooper, however, their entire demeanour changed and they spoke of him with smiles on their faces and a light in their eyes. Gone was their stiffness and disapproval as they talked about how well Cooper's career was going and how he was dating a lovely young girl whose parents had respectable, ‘proper' jobs. Again, this was something that would have deeply bothered Blaine once, but no longer affected him with Kurt by his side, his thumb smoothing over one of his knuckles.

They moved through to the dining room after a while. The long wooden table with its mirrored surface was neatly set for four people with heavy, polished silver cutlery and gleaming crockery. The chairs around the table were as uncomfortable as Blaine remembered. His father sat at the head of the table like always, his mother to his left. Blaine sat opposite his mother in the seat normally occupied by Cooper when he was present while Kurt was on Blaine's right, in the chair furthest from Blaine's father.

The food his mother served up was nowhere near as good as Carole's or Kurt's. It had none of that warm, comforting, home-cooked meal taste about it. Despite the more formal atmosphere of the dining room, his father's grudging politeness vanished as they ate and he started shooting Kurt and Blaine disapproving looks.

"What does your father do, Kurt?" he asked as he cut up his potatoes. "I'm not familiar with the name Hummel."

"He owns a garage in Lima: ‘Hummel Tires and Lube'."

Mrs. Anderson blinked. "Never heard of it."

Kurt acted like she hadn't spoken. "He's also a congressman."

Mr. Anderson looked surprised. "Really? I think I would have heard of him if he was."

Kurt ignored the implication behind his words. "Yes, he has been since my senior year of high school," he said proudly.

Mr. Anderson raised his eyebrows at his wife. "Amazing who people vote for these days, isn't it?" he said with distaste. "A mechanic," he scoffed.

Blaine scowled at his parents, feeling anger boil up inside him. How dare they talk about someone like Burt like he was a second-class citizen?

Kurt just smiled at them. "Isn't it?" he said coolly.

Mr. Anderson narrowed his eyes at them so that they were reduced to knife-like slices of blue. "Are you two living together?" he asked sharply. "Because if you are, I hope you're not telling anyone from around here. I don't want people we know knowing that our son is living with another man."

"Not yet," Blaine said and his father relaxed a little. "But we spend most nights with each other, so we'll be making it official soon."

His mother coughed a little over her food and his father tensed so suddenly it was like someone had just announced they were going to try and throw a spear through the small space between his elbow and the table.

With his jaw working, Mr. Anderson shot suddenly at Kurt, "Is your father letting you two share a room while you're staying with him?"

Kurt nodded and Mr. Anderson's face twisted. "So he's encouraging your- you two- your disgustingness? Your abnormality?"

Next to him, Mrs. Anderson was sitting poker-straight, her face set into lines of bitter disappointment as she looked across the table at her son.

"This is the kind of people we have in politics these days? People who approve and encourage your disgusting, unnatural ways?" Mr. Anderson spat, the tendons in his neck standing out like chords. He tossed his cutlery down on his plate with a loud clatter.

Blaine tightened the grip on his fork in an effort to stop his hands from shaking. Blood rushed through his veins, creating a pounding behind his ears so that the room seemed to be filled with a strange thrumming. Next to him, Kurt was rigid in his chair, his jaw set and his eyes hard.

Mr. Anderson shook his head at his son, his mouth twisted up into an ugly grimace as he glared at Blaine. "And to think that these last few years your mother and I have held onto a small bit of hope that you would come to your senses and be more like Cooper, but no, that was all a waste." He scowled darkly at Kurt for a moment, before directing his gaze back on Blaine. "Now that you've got involved with someone like him" - he spat the word, like it was too foul to stay in his mouth and shot another glare at Kurt; Blaine gripped his fork harder, his knuckles so white they looked like they were about to burst through his skin - "and are being allowed to get up to unspeakable things in a supposed congressman's house, there's no chance of you being normal." He shook his head. "It's nothing but disappointment with you, Blaine; it always has been since you were a child. Always too small and weak to stand up for yourself, joining that ridiculous singing group instead of a sports team, sitting in your room playing piano instead of outside kicking a football like your brother, going to college for music instead of doing a proper degree like law, wanting boys instead of girls. How did we end up with a son like you?"

Blaine's whole body was shaking and tears burned in the back of his throat. He swallowed thickly, trying to hold them back, not wanting to give his parents another reason to scorn at his weakness. This was the worst he had ever gotten from his parents. They had regularly expressed their disappointment and revulsion in him, but most of the time they had ignored him as if hoping that he would disappear if they pretended he wasn't there. Never had they looked at him with such distaste and displeasure, never had they actually admitted that they wished he wasn't their son. The plate of barely touched food in front of him blurred.

"How can you say such a thing?" Kurt's voice was almost unrecognisable it was filled with so much hatred and disgust. "How can you wish that your son was a completely different person, that you had never had him?"

Blaine swallowed again and gripped the edge of his chair to try and steady himself. When he felt a little bit more under control, he looked up.

Kurt was glaring at his parents, his face cold and his eyes burning with loathing. The tendons in his hands stood out like ropes as he clenched his fists. His father was staring at Kurt with his face set in harsh lines, but his eyes were wide as though he couldn't believe that Kurt was actually talking back to him and defending Blaine - he probably didn't believe it, probably passed Kurt off as too weak to stand up to someone like him. His mother was still frozen in her chair, her expression a mixture of shock and disapproval.

Kurt sat a little taller in his chair. "Blaine is a far more wonderful and respectable person than you two could ever dream of being. He's talented and made a successful career for himself all without any support or encouragement from his family." Beneath Kurt's harsh tones there was a hint of pride and Blaine managed to blink back more tears. "He's going to continue to succeed and achieve so much more than what you've ever done. Weak? Blaine has never been weak. He's the strong one for making it through all the bullying and abuse he received at school and at home, for following his dreams to make music when you were determined to crush them, to get to where he is today all off his own back." Kurt's voice was stronger now and filling the whole room. Blaine's parents continued to stare at him wordlessly.

Kurt got to his feet. "You don't deserve someone like Blaine in your lives," he finished and reached for Blaine's hand. "Come on, we're finished here."

Blaine stumbled to his feet and Kurt tugged him from the room, the route to the front door passing by him in a blur of colour. Kurt was just grabbing their coats when Blaine's father appeared, having finally unfrozen himself after Kurt's speech.

"That's right, Blaine," he sneered as he walked towards them, "huddle in the shadows of somebody else while they speak up for you like you've always done. Always too weak to stand up for yourself, instead you just snivel behind others." He paused a few feet away from the door and his gaze flickered over Kurt again. "I didn't think you were so worthless as to have this fairy defend you, though - he's less of a man than you are, and that's saying something."

Throwing aside the scarf Kurt had just handed him, Blaine stormed up to his father until their toes were almost touching; they would have been face-to-face had Blaine not been so short. He glowered up at his father who hadn't backed away. "Kurt is more of a man than you'll ever be and what we have is a lot stronger than what you and mom have. I don't care what you think about it and I don't care what you think about me. You have zero control or influence over me and my life. I'm finished with you both."

His father glared at him, his face screwed up in anger and his hands clenched into hard fists, and for a second Blaine thought he would hit him. He narrowed his eyes. "If that's the way you want it, then fine, but don't expect us to ever accept you when you come crawling back after you lose everything when everyone gets sick of hearing your shitty music and when fairy-boy here gets bored of fucking a weakling and ditches you. You want to leave our lives for good? Then you stay out of them for good." He leant closer to Blaine until his spit hit his face as he snarled through his bared teeth. "Clear?"

Blaine held his ground and tilted his chin up. "Don't worry, you'll never have to waste another second wishing I had never been born; I'm out of here for good. I should have done this years ago - I don't need you, I've never needed you and I never will."

He held his dad's glare for another moment, before spinning around and snatching up his scarf. He took Kurt's hand and yanked the door open. He didn't look back as he stepped outside and slammed the door behind him, nor when he marched down to Finn's car passed the rigidly-clipped hedges, nor when he and Kurt got in the car and drove away, turning off the street and out onto the road that would take them back to Lima.

His grip on the steering wheel eased up the longer he drove and his tensed muscles gradually relaxed. The tears and pain when he had listened to his father basically confess that he wished Blaine had never been born whilst his mother watched with hard eyes was gone. That small part of him that had still cared what his parents felt and thought about him, that still yearned for his parent's approval, was gone. After months of saying it to himself and others, it was finally completely true; he no longer cared about his parents. He was finished with them.

When they hit the main road, Kurt spoke. "What are you thinking about?" he asked softly. Not asking if he was ok - he knew he wouldn't be after what had just happened - just wanting to know what he was thinking about.

"Just that I'm glad it's over, that I no longer have to suffer through visits to my family where I just get told what a disappointment I am and that Cooper is what a son and a man should be, not what I am." He shook his head. "Why did they even want me to come over if they find me such a disappointment?"

Kurt placed his hand over Blaine's where it rested on the steering wheel. "I don't know, Blaine," he said apologetically. "They're awful people, your mother probably noticed how much more confident you were in the Lima Bean and wanted to tear you down again. Or maybe they still hoped they could change you," he finished bitterly.

Blaine drove in silence for a minute, thinking about this, and then he pushed the thoughts away. In the end, it didn't matter why they had done it, nothing about his parents mattered anymore.

"Thank you for saying everything you did," Blaine told Kurt. "What my father said really hit me hard, they'd never said anything like that to me before and a part of me was still stupidly hoping they might finally accept me. I don't think I would have had the strength to do what I did if you hadn't been there, so thank you."

Kurt squeezed his hand. "You shouldn't feel stupid for wanting your parents to love you for who you are, they should do that, it's not your fault that they don't. And you don't need to thank me, supporting and protecting you is something I'll always do because I love you. You don't need to thank me for saying something I couldn't stop myself from saying."

They were stopped at a red light now and Blaine was able to look over at his boyfriend. Kurt's face was soft and his eyes were gentle and full of love as he looked at Blaine. "I love you," Blaine told him, the words coming directly from his heart.

Kurt smiled at him, giving his hand one last squeeze before removing his own as the light turned green. "I love you, too. Never forget that, Blaine."

Rain whispered against the leaves of the trees outside, pattered softly on the roof, and rolled down the window like tears, drops racing each other towards the bottom where the glass met wood. The gentle sounds of the falling rain and the sight of it out the window made the room feel even warmer and further relaxed Kurt to the point where he felt warm and sleepy, his body boneless against the bed and his eyelids heavy. This feeling was only partly induced by the rain, and mostly caused by Blaine's hands on his back, rubbing and massaging the muscles, his hands gliding over his bare skin and releasing the tension from his taunt muscles.

Kurt had been the one to offer Blaine a back massage when they arrived back to an empty house and a note on the kitchen table explaining Burt and Carole were out shopping and Finn was visiting his girlfriend, but Blaine had insisted that he gave Kurt one first since he thought he deserved it. So now Kurt was lying on his stomach on his bed, shirtless, and with Blaine straddling his hips, his hands smoothing over his back and gently kneading the muscles.

"Feel good?" Blaine asked after a long period of silence.

Kurt hummed his approval, too sleepy to actually speak. He hadn't slept much the night before, too worried about the visit to Blaine's parent's house, and had lain awake for hours listening to the sound of Blaine's breathing, which hadn't been slow or deep enough for sleep either.

Blaine's weight shifted slightly and he felt a pair of lips brush over his shoulder blade, then his spine, the side of his ribcage, the small of his back...

He sighed softly as the lips were replaced by hands, which smoothed over his shoulder blades before trailing lightly over his lower back, making his skin tingle. He lifted his head up off his arms as Blaine's hands ran up over the side of his ribcage. "Your turn now, I think," he said, yawning as he slowly sat up once Blaine had rolled off him.

"Shirt off," he told Blaine as he began to reach for his own shirt.

Blaine grinned at him as he pulled his shirt over his head. "You know, you're awfully pushy."

Deciding to just leave his shirt off Kurt crawled across the bed until he was behind Blaine. "Watch it, Anderson or you won't be getting any massage."

Blaine started to pout but Kurt nudged him in the back until he laid down on his stomach. "Very pushy," Blaine sighed as Kurt sat gently on his hips.

Kurt trailed a finger down the length of Blaine's spine, watching the muscles twitch with little shivers of pleasure and admiring the contrast between his pale finger against the golden tan of Blaine's back. Blaine moaned softly when Kurt began massaging his muscles, starting gentle and steadily increasing the force he applied.

The rain continued to fall softly outside as Blaine slowly sank deeper into the mattress beneath him. His head was resting on his folded arms and was turned to the side so Kurt could see his face. His eyes were closed, his lashes looking impossibly long; his lips were parted ever so slightly; dark curls fell over his forehead and his face was soft. He looked young.

Kurt massaged his back in silence for a while, enjoying the feeling of Blaine's muscles and the soft, warm skin over them beneath his hands. When Blaine let out a small, content sigh, Kurt broke the silence.

"You know you're not completely without family, don't you?" he said softly. "You have Burt and Carole - they both really care about you. And Finn, as well," he added as an afterthought. "I know he likes you."

Blaine's eyes opened and he shifted slightly beneath Kurt to look at him. "Do your family really care about me? They haven't known me for long."

Kurt smoothed a hand up Blaine's back. "That doesn't matter; they really like you and they know how much we care about and love each other, so, of course they care about you."

Blaine gazed at him with soft eyes for a moment. "Come lie with me."

Kurt stopped rubbing his back and looked down at him.

"Just lie down," Blaine said.

Shifting a little so he wouldn't be directly on top of Blaine, Kurt lay down on his side beside him, his leg thrown over Blaine's. Blaine rolled onto his side so they were facing each other, pressing closer to Kurt and laying a hand on his arm. Kurt slid his other arm over Blaine's waist and reached up, winding his fingers into the curls on Blaine's neck and holding his boyfriend against him. He nuzzled against Blaine's nose as they held each other's gazes.

"My dad meant it when he said you are always welcome here," he whispered. "You're part of this family now."

Blaine smiled, a small spark of hope in his eyes: hope at finally being accepted and loved by a family, or hope for the future and the possibility of maybe joining the family in another way, or maybe it was both, Kurt wasn't sure.

He smiled as Blaine brushed his lips over his in a kiss as sweet and gentle as the rain falling outside.