Kurt had literally no idea why he was here. He understood that Finn had wanted to come – and even if he hadn't wanted to come, Rachel would've forced him to be here – but why was it necessary for their entire family to come along? He hadn't been to King's Island for years, and if he'd wanted to go back some time, he would've done so when it wasn't freezing, like it was doing now.

He wasn't sure what to expect from this so-called King's Island Christmas Spectacular. All he knew that it was probably full of self-centred, big-headed singers who all hated each other because they all thought they were the best of all. After all, Rachel was one of the performers, so that was virtually the only logical conclusion to draw.

It was a full house, nevertheless – most likely all proud family members of the aforementioned arrogant performers no one could stand. Kurt, seated in between his dad and Finn – on whose other side Rachel's dads were sitting – felt out of place here, and very much so. Perhaps his dad felt the same, though.

The first couple of performances were nothing all too special, in Kurt's opinion – one or two singers singing a classic Christmas song. After a while, Kurt asked Finn, "Did Rachel tell you which song she was going to sing?"

Finn nodded. "Yeah, she said she got a duet with some guy… I think it was Baby, it's cold outside."

Of course. One of Kurt's personal favourites. Now he would be unable to ever listen to that song again without being reminded of Rachel and her animal sweaters. Which reminded him – hopefully she'd chosen to wear something better today. Or maybe the performers got their costumes here.

But still – "Isn't that song about date-rape?" he asked Finn, who frowned.

"It is? But – " Finn thought for a moment, processing the information. "So she's singing that – with some random – he'd better not – "

"Rachel knows better than that," Kurt reassured him, though not completely sure of this himself. After all, the blow-up after Santana revealed that she and Finn had had sex a year prior was still fresh in everyone's minds, especially Rachel's. Finn looked a little more at ease, but not very much so.

Finally, it was Rachel's turn, and Kurt was relieved to see that she wasn't wearing one of the animal sweaters. He had no doubt, however, that one of those atrocities were lying in her dressing room for afterwards.

When the boy she'd been paired with joined her on stage, Kurt felt Finn stiffen beside her. "That's the guy?" his stepbrother muttered worriedly. Kurt couldn't deny that the boy on stage was very good looking, from what he could see at this distance. But –

"Finn," Kurt said patiently, "I think that guy is actually shorter than me. And you know how much Rachel likes height." Sure, the boy was taller than Rachel, but that wasn't much of an accomplishment.

His height notwithstanding, the boy on stage had a terrific voice – much better, in Kurt's opinion, than the other guys he'd heard here so far. He couldn't help but wonder, however, where he'd seen him before – because he looked very familiar for some reason.

Rachel and her duet partner acted the part well, and Kurt knew that Finn was relieved when part of the song – namely, the part that would've involved the two performers having to kiss – was obviously cut out. Kurt was glad for the boy that Rachel had a boyfriend – if she hadn't, she might've looked past the height issue and thrown herself right at him. That would've made for an odd dynamic between the two.

There were only a few more performances after that, for which Kurt was grateful – he loved Christmas and all, but to hear every Christmas song in existence performed here… that was just too much. Especially since some of them were very bad, or badly performed.

After a so-called grand finale, the show was over. Rachel had somehow managed to convince everyone that they had to go out for dinner afterwards to celebrate, and to Kurt's horror, she had gotten what she wanted. When she eventually emerged – wearing one of those animal sweaters again – she was dragging her duet partner with her, and the two seemed to be arguing.

When Rachel, however, rushed over to her fathers to greet them, the boy was silent and stared at the scene in shock. Kurt didn't know what exactly that meant, but he was slightly suspicious. After Rachel had greeted Finn as well (while Finn had been glaring at the boy over her shoulder), she addressed them all, grabbing the boy's arm.

"Everybody, this is Blaine, my duet partner! Blaine, meet my dads and Finn, my boyfriend, and his family! Blaine's family couldn't make it today so I invited him to have dinner with us! That's okay, right?"

While the adults discussed this, Kurt and Finn exchanged glances, neither of them all too thrilled about this new arrangement. In the meantime, the boy now identified as Blaine asked Rachel quietly, "You have two dads?"

Kurt felt the urge to grit his teeth, but before he could do anything, Rachel replied, "Yes, I do. Why would that be a problem? I'm sure they could give you some useful tips here and there. Oh!" She waved the two other boys over, who slowly approached them. "Kurt – Blaine's gay as well, so you'll keep him company, right?" Edging closer to him, she whispered conspiringly, "As long as you don't talk about set lists, of course. He's the lead Warbler, remember?"

Now Kurt remembered. He wondered why he hadn't realised it before, as Sectionals was only a couple of weeks ago. "Rachel," he started, keeping his voice low as well, "what is this? Why are you dragging someone you hardly know along to dinner only to – "

"His parents aren't here and none of his friends could make it," she repeated. "Plus, don't tell me you don't think he is at least a little but attractive?"

Kurt scoffed. "You aren't selfless enough to come up with that, Rachel."

Huffing indignantly, Rachel crossed her arms. "Fine," she admitted, "I thought that if I brought Blaine, the two of you would have our parents' attention, since your dad's so protective and my dads really don't mind giving out advice on homosexual relationships and then Finn and I could do some cutesy couple-y stuff without being looked at all the time."

"I don't even know the guy, okay," Kurt hissed at her, noticing that Finn and Blaine were just standing there awkwardly, watching them with confused expressions, just waiting for the parents to come back. "And I don't know your dads that well either! Getting relationship advice from them when I'm not even in a relationship and my dad's right there – that's just wrong on so many levels."

"But he's nice," Rachel countered. "Really, Kurt, you should just talk to him. I'll ask my dads to keep the relationship advice to a minimum. Maybe they can talk to your parents about life for a gay teenager – "

Kurt groaned. Rachel, however, now turned back to Finn and Blaine with a large smile on her face. She swiftly grabbed Finn's hand and dragged him over towards where their parents were standing.

"Are you alright?" Kurt whipped around to stare at Blaine for a moment. Then, he gestured somewhat helplessly in Rachel's direction.

"She – Rachel's – "

Blaine nodded carefully. "She's a handful, isn't she?"

Kurt pulled a face. "You have no idea."

Blaine chuckled. "So you're her… boyfriend's brother?"

"Stepbrother," Kurt corrected him.

"And you're in New Directions as well?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow at him. "She told you about that?" He had thought that she would've kept silent about that, for some reason. Then again, if Rachel could brag about something…

"When she heard I attend Dalton, she let me know immediately that her Glee club would wipe the floor with mine at Regionals." Blaine shrugged. "So I told her that I wasn't so sure about that and that we plan on not making it easy for you guys."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Kurt told him in a slightly challenging tone, causing Blaine to grin.

"Come on," he said. "I think they're waiting for us."

o-o-o-o-o

All in all, Kurt supposed he should be grateful to Rachel for providing him with someone to converse with during dinner – someone who had mostly the same interests as him, who was also gay, and somehow managed to be both attractive and adorable at the same time.

Not that he would ever actually thank Rachel.

"Why weren't your parents at the show?" he asked Blaine at some point, while the others were engaged in small talk too. Kurt hoped that Rachel's dads weren't actually trying to educate his parents in how to raise a gay teenager.

Blaine shrugged, looking down at his plate. "They're on a business trip. I've no idea where they are at the moment, but I doubt that they would've come if they'd been home."

Kurt frowned. "Why not?"

"My parents aren't very big fans of the idea of me singing and dancing around," Blaine replied softly. "They're also not too keen on the idea… since they don't see it as a fact… that I'm gay. And they think that the singing and dancing made me gay – or at least think I'm gay."

"I'm sorry," Kurt replied, smiling sadly.

"So I guess it's for the better that they weren't here," Blaine concluded. "If they'd found out that the girl I had a duet with has two gay dads… I don't know what they'd have done." After a slightly awkward silence, Blaine asked, "How did your parents react?"

Kurt glanced at his dad, who was trying (and failing) to not look a little uneasy – Kurt didn't even want to ponder what the conversation could be about. "My dad said he'd known since I was three," he answered Blaine's question with a small laugh. "So I guess my mother must've known about it too by then. As for Carole… well, I don't think I've ever officially come out to her, but she never seemed to have an issue with it."

Blaine looked wistful. "I'm glad – " he started, but there was obviously a lump in his throat. "I'm glad there are parents who are like that," he finished.

Before Kurt could react, one of Rachel's dads turned towards the two of them, "Kurt, Rachel tells us that the bullying has stopped considerably since she interfered and had the guys look out for you more."

Kurt stared at the man for a moment before glancing at Rachel. Said girl was smiling proudly in her seat, and Kurt had to fight back the urge to roll his eyes. Of course she would take the credit and make it sound bigger than it seemed.

True, he wasn't bullied as badly as before, but that was not to say it didn't happen anymore. The jocks had just gotten more creative (Kurt never thought he'd see the day) and cornered him when none of the other Glee kids were around. He was still too proud to tell them about that, and while Rachel definitely needed to be put into place, Kurt wasn't about to come clean.

So he just forced a smile and replied, "It's gotten better, yes. At least I feel safer at school now." He purposefully didn't look at Rachel anymore.

Mr Berry nodded solemnly. "Good. If anything gets out of hand, you know you can always contact us, alright? We'll figure out a way to sue the school if something happens."

Kurt's father started a discussion about that with both Rachel's fathers, and Kurt turned back to his food… and Blaine – who was looking at him like he wasn't buying his story at all.

"What?" Kurt asked defensively, trying to play it cool. "Do I have food in places where it shouldn't be?"

Blaine chuckled mildly before turning dead serious again. "You're being bullied?" he asked.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Come on, Blaine. I know you attend a private school and all, but you can't think that all kids our age are completely alright with the thought of someone being gay, right? Of course I get bullied." He scoffed in an attempt to convince Blaine that it was really nothing, but again, Blaine didn't seem to believe him.

"I know that," he protested. "I went to a public school before Dalton and it was awful. And yes, Dalton is safe. It has a zero-tolerance policy against bullying. You may want to check it out some time."

"Don't even think about stealing Kurt away from us!" Rachel said loudly, her eyes blazing.

Again, Kurt scoffed. "Do you really think you have a say in what I do or do not do, Rachel?" he asked, peeved. "And is the competition really more important to you than my safety?" Before she could protest, he pressed on, "Why were you even listening in to our conversation anyway? Didn't you want some cosy couple-y time with Finn?"

"You certainly know how to shut people up," Blaine observed, sounding slightly in awe.

Kurt shrugged. "It doesn't help against the bullies, if that's what you're implying. But with Rachel, it comes natural. I mean, have you seen her sweater today?"

Blaine placed his hand in front of his mouth to avoid laughing out loud. "Unfortunately," he responded after a moment, when he was no longer in danger of bursting into giggles. "Does she always wear stuff like that?"

Kurt nodded gravely. "It's horrific. I've threatened multiple time to burn her entire closet down or just use a pair of scissors to destroy them, but she won't let me."

"It's a crime against fashion," Blaine observed, and Kurt stared at him for a moment.

"How much do you know about fashion?" he asked contemplatively.

Blaine shrugged. "I like to think I have some knowledge about the subject – clearly not as much as you do, but I doubt that's abnormal. I read fashion magazines, but I can't really be bothered to follow all the trends, mainly because I'm in uniform most of the time anyway."

Kurt shuddered at the thought of having to wear a uniform at least five days a week. He quickly shook off the thought and proceeded to engage Blaine in a conversation about Vogue, something the other boy seemed quite enthusiastic about as well, much to Kurt's delight.

This evening was shaping up to be not quite as disastrous as he'd expected beforehand. Far from it, actually.

o-o-o-o-o

By the time dinner ended, Kurt and Blaine had managed to keep a steady conversation going about all kinds of things, albeit it with various interruptions, courtesy of Rachel, her fathers, or Kurt's dad. Rachel kept trying to make sure they wouldn't grow too close, seeing as Blaine was still the competition – naturally, that mission failed, and Kurt told her firmly that this was her own fault. After all, she was the one to invite Blaine to dinner with them, and to give Kurt the job of entertaining Blaine all night. Perhaps she couldn't have known that by the end of the night, the boys would have exchanged phone numbers and planned on hanging out again soon, but really – what else had she expected?

Rachel's fathers had given them all kinds of advice about what to do as gay boys in a state like Ohio, tried to get them to come to various meetings, and generally observed them, apparently – which Kurt found slightly unsettling. Both he and Blaine had been quick to Mr and Mr Berry that they had no intentions of staying in Ohio after high school, which caused a whole new flood of questions and advice.

Kurt's father had made the strangest interruptions, as far as Kurt was concerned. He'd randomly ask one of the boys to hand him the salt or the pepper, for instance, even though Kurt told him time and again that he shouldn't eat so much salt, and that there was also salt and pepper within a foot from him.

He'd have to ask about his father's odd behaviour later.

After everyone had said their goodbyes (Finn and Rachel taking the longest to do so), they all got in their respective cars, ready to head back home.

"You know…," Finn suddenly started. "Kurt, that guy you were talking to… he looked familiar to me. Don't you think so, Kurt? I'm sure I've seen him before, but I forgot where and when and why… Kurt?"