Chapter One

September 2012

“Please come to New York, Kurt!" Rachel clambered up on her frilly pink canopy bed and settled next to him with a bounce.  “If not for yourself, then consider it for my sake.”  She shoved an enormous bowl of popcorn into his hands, while relieving him of the remote and muting the Housewives.  

Silencing his protests with a raised eyebrow, she assumed her patented ‘time for a serious discussion about my problems' expression. Kurt sighed and resigned himself to listening, even though he was in no mood for anything more than reality tv and binge eating.

“I'm miserable, Kurt,” Rachel explained. "I can't even date the one cute guy who's shown an interest in me since I moved to New York. Not until I know whether there's a chance with Finn and me.  And the other students… well, let's just say they don't appreciate my unique brilliance the way you've grown to over the years.  And don't get me started on the dining hall food,” she shuddered.  “The ‘vegetarian' menu options seem to consist of something that looks suspiciously like Kraft macaroni and cheese.  Every day.”

“Is that what's turning you orange?” Kurt sniped, setting the pink plastic bowl on the bed between them and grabbing at the remote as she held it just out of reach.  Giving up, he slumped back against the upholstered headboard.  

“So in other words, I should go to New York to cook for you and pay half your rent, because you can't get along with anybody else and college food sucks?” Kurt flapped a hand at a ruffled pillow sham that was drooping into his line of vision, and stared at the silently flickering television in the dark.  

Rachel lobbed a piece of popcorn at him, frowning when he didn't dodge it or throw anything back. “No,” she murmured.  “I want you there, because I need my best gay by my side as we conquer the Great White Way.  I'm so lonely, Kurt.  Nobody likes me at school, not even the teachers. Especially the teachers."

Kurt shrugged and shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “You are a bit of an acquired taste."  It was hard for Kurt to work up much sympathy.  He'd left everything he had on the stage at his NYADA audition, but it hadn't been enough.  Rachel had tanked her first audition, but was nonetheless enrolled in his dream school and living in his dream city.  And now she was ruining their Housewives marathon, otherwise known as the highlight of his pathetic week.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Rachel said, shoving his shoulder.  “So what do you say?  Come to New York?  I found us a great loft in Brooklyn.  We'll be just like Rachel Green and Monica Geller on Friends in our eclectic, artsy-yet-spacious New York apartment!”    

Kurt rolled his eyes, lunged for the remote and turned the TV back up.  “God knows which of them youre supposed to be” he muttered.  “And I really don't want to ask which one that makes me.”

Rachel batted her lashes and pouted out her lower lip.  Kurt listlessly picked the popcorn out of his hair before he finally answered, “I can't move to New York, Rachel.  Drop it.”

“I will -- if you can give me one good reason why not, Kurt Hummel.”  

“I'll give you more than one.”  He clicked the television off. “Because of our brilliant ‘all-or-nothing' strategy, I didn't apply anyplace but NYADA. So now my only option is community college. I can't move to New York just to be your house husband and cheerleader and chief bottle-washer.  I have to grow up and be realistic."

They sat in silence for a few moments as Rachel munched on her popcorn, a meditative look on her face.  “Well, as long as you're happy, then …?” she ventured, eyeing him.

“Who said I'm happy? This is the college-level version of the same Purgatory I just  lived through at McKinley.  I'm literally sitting next to the same troglodytes at community college, and then waiting on them at the Lima Bean."

“Oh, Kurt, that's –“

At the sound of a door opening and shutting outside the room, Rachel sat up, squirrel-like, with a piece of popcorn halfway to her face.  Her eyes flickered toward the door  to the bathroom, which led from her room, Brady Bunch-style, to the bathroom she shared with her younger brother.  A second door to 14-year-old Blaine's room opened from the bathroom on the other side.  

“Did you hear that? Blaine?”  The light was on under the door, but no one answered.

With an impatient sigh, Rachel swung her feet over the edge of the bed into her bunny slippers, and padded over to her bathroom door.  She rapped loudly over the sound of running water. “Hey, Blaine.  I didn't hear you come in.  How was your Freshman Mixer?”  

The water stopped running abruptly and the bathroom light went out under Rachels door.  Kurt heard the other door, leading out to Blaine's room, as it opened and shut.  

“Blaine!” Rachel protested, rattling the doorknob.  “Hey! You didn't unlock the door to my side!  C'mon back, will you --”

“Rachel, please. He's obviously avoiding you.  Give the kid a break,” Kurt muttered.  

Ignoring Kurt, Rachel continued banging until Blaine jerked open the door a crack and hissed through it. “Can you keep it down, please? I don't want our dads to hear you and come  in here!”

“Whats wrong? Did you and Jason have a fight?  Did he … did he try to take advantage?” she said in an ominious tone as Kurt rolled his eyes from the bed.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Blaine snapped.  “We're just friends, and he's not like that.  Nothing's wrong, just let it go.”  

Undeterred, Rachel shouldered her way into the bathroom and flicked the light back on. She slapped her hand over her mouth in horror and gasped.  

Alarmed, Kurt jumped up from the bed and hurried to the entrance to the bathroom.  He winced when he saw Blaine leaning against Rachel, his arms around her shoulders while she hugged him fiercely.   

Blaine's formerly crisp white shirt was now ripped and bloodstained.  His curly hair was wilder than ever, and one eye was blackened and swollen shut.  There was a gash across his forehead.  Worst of all was the look of utter defeat and humiliation.  Kurt couldn't see a trace of the bright-eyed, immaculately dressed boy who had stood, grinning, for inspection earlier that evening, full of excitement for his first high school dance.  

Kurt let out a sigh, not of surprise, but rather of sadness, and resignation, and aching sympathy.  He didn't even need to ask what happened. They couldn't bear to see anyone that different, and that happy, and not try to break him.  

“I'm calling our dads,” Rachel murmured, stroking his back gently.  “It's going to be okay - - they'll take care of everything, honey.”  She started to turn away, but Blaine held on tighter.  

“No, Rach,” Blaine cried in a hoarse, shaking voice that didn't sound like Blaine at all.  “I don't want them to know –“

“Know what?  What happened?” Rachel asked.  “Tell us what happened, and then we can decide if we have to tell our dads, okay?"

She took him by the arm and guided him to sit down on the edge of the tub. Working quickly, she ran a washcloth under the faucet at one of the double sinks and wrung it out.  Kurt leaned in the doorway, his arms wrapped around his own chest tightly to keep his fists from clenching.  He watched Rachel tilt Blaine's chin up and begin to tenderly clean his bruised and tearstained face. Kurt felt tears prick at his eyes at Rachel's motherly gesture.  This was the reason why he loved Rachel so much.  The caring, sweet side that so many people chose to ignore -- especially those threatened by her immense talent and ambition, something not tolerated in young women.     

“The dance sucked.  Everybody was staring at us, making gross comments  ...everybody.  Even people who were my friends in eighth grade,  at  least until last month, before. ...” Blaine choked,   “Before I came out. Jason wanted to call his dad to get us early, but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.”

Rachel's lips were pressed together in a grim line as she listened, while pulling bandages and ointments out of the medicine cabinet from among her numerous beauty products.  

And Kurt was shaky with rising anger and frustration.  “Where the hell was Mr. Schue,” he asked tightly.  “Or Figgins, or - -”

“Mr. Schue is in Washington.  Committee on the Arts. Principal Figgins and Coach Sylvester were always busy or looking the other way.  I didn't want to go tattling to teachers.  But after a while,  Jason couldn't take it anymore.  We left early and went outside to wait for his dad to come pick us up.”

Blaine raised a blistered hand, knuckles split across the back, and rubbed his palms into his eyes, as if to stem the tears that were rising up.  He breathed deeply, and went on with his story, the sound of  the repressed tears in his trembling voice.  “Three seniors came out from the dance.  Football players.  They beat the crap out of us,” Blaine burst out angrily.  “Some other kids were there and saw it.  They didn't stop it or … or get a teacher, or anything!"

“What happened next?  Oh God. Is Jason - -“

“Banged up, but okay.  When his dad came,  he said we should've stayed inside to wait for him, like he told us.  I was so mad,” he said through gritted teeth.  “I got out of the car at the next light and walked home.”

“But what did the police say?” Rachel asked, searching his face.  She stroked his hair softly.

Blaine shrugged helplessly, his voice dropping in defeat now.  “We didn't call them.  Jason's dad said if we ratted those guys out, it would only make things worse for us at school.  Real men would fight their own battles.”  He raised his swollen, teary eyes and looked over at Kurt. “I did fight.  I started boxing classes when things started to get bad at school.  But there were three of them and they were huge.  We were no match for them.”  He looked up at Kurt, and pleaded,  “It wasn't my fault - was it?”

“Of course not,” Kurt said.  “None of this is your fault.  None of it,” he stressed, putting a hand on Blaine's shoulder and looking into his eyes intently.   “Don't ever think otherwise.”  

Blaine looked back down, his expression sick.  “But it doesn't change what happened,” he whispered.  “Or what'll keep happening.”

“No, it won't,” Rachel contradicted.  “We're telling our dads.  They'll call the police and this will be dealt with properly.”  She hurled the washcloth in the hamper, spinning the lid with the force of her throw.

Blaine reached out and grasped his sister's wrist, shaking his head frantically.  He pleaded, “I already said no! I don't want to tell them. Please, Rachel."

Rachel stared incredulously at him.  “But you can't let them get away with this, Blaine!”

“They will get away with it, no matter what anybody does. They're football players.  One of their fathers is a cop. It'll get swept under the carpet, like everything else they've done to me and all the other so-called freaks. If I tell, then everything will only get ten times worse.  And our dads will make a federal case out of this if you tell them.  You know that.  Please don't tell them, please," Blaine begged.

Seeing Rachel's doubtful look, Blaine sighed.  “Look.  Weve gone to the teachers, the administration.  Nothing works.  They. Don't. Care.”  Blaine gave a mirthless, slightly wild laugh.  “II just have to accept that this is my life now. I'm gay and  life is going to suck.  Message received.”

“That's not true! Look at our dads.  It got better for them, right?” Rachel tried to reason with him.  Blaine sent her a contemptuous glance.

“Don't give me ‘It Gets Better. Our dads mean well, but they don't really get it.  They didn't come out until they were grown up. It's different when you're fourteen, in a small town in Ohio." He looked at his battered image in the long mirror, his face crumpling. "I don't think I can make it to the ‘it gets better' part.  It's so far away, it might as well be a million years  from now.”

Genuinely frightened, Kurt stepped forward, reaching for Blaine's arm.  “Please, don't think that,” he started, but trailed off at Blaine's fierce look.

“You know that, Kurt.  The last four years were hell for you with Karofsky and rest of them.  And that's what I have to look forward to for the next four years.  I have no real friends left, no reason to go to school or to even stay alive, not if everybody hates me."

“That's not true --”

“It is true.  It's not even better for you now, and you're grown up.  I saw the way those jocks and cheerleaders talked to you at the Lima Bean the other day.  There's no hope.”

Kurt hesitated.  He couldn't tell comforting lies, even as distraught as Blaine was. It was pointless, because Blaine was right and they all knew it.  When you're different in high school, you can hang in there and try all you want - - you might even make some inroads with your bullies, like he had with Puck and Finn. But for others, the hate was too entrenched. Blaine was going to have to put up with a certain amount of abuse from bullies, and could only expect benign apathy from the teachers.  That was McKinley.  That was life.

Rachel sighed and patted Blaine's arm helplessly.  “I won't tell our dads tonight if you don't want me to, but we have to talk to them about how all this is making you feel, first thing tomorrow.  And we're sleeping in your room tonight to keep an eye on you.  That's the deal, or I go to our dads this minute.  This is too big, it's scaring me.”  

“It scares me too,.”  Blaine  looked off into space, blinking, and shrugged slightly, biting his lip.  “Okay,” he whispered brokenly.  “I'll tell our dads tomorrow.”

“I know how bad things seem tonight, Blaine, but the important thing is, you have people who love you and will listen.  Rachel, or your dads.  Or me, anytime.  I mean it,” Kurt emphasized.  “Please promise me you will if it ever feels like too much.”  

Blaine nodded, and Rachel helped him back up, patting his back reassuringly and leading him into his room, Kurt followed, and rummaged through Blaine's dresser for a pair of pajama pants and a tee-shirt. While Blaine struggled into them, Kurt hurried down to the kitchen for an ice pack and a glass of water.  He stopped at the empty bathroom and shook two Tylenol out of the bottle. As he went to put the bottle back, he hesitated.  He removed the few medications Rachel and Blaine kept there, and hid them in Rachels room.   Better safe than sorry.

When he returned to Blaine's room, Rachel was on one side of the king-sized bed the Berrys had inexplicably purchased for their rather small-sized son.  Kurt went to Blaine's other side, handing him the water and Tylenol.  After Blaine obediently swallowed the tablets, Kurt took back the empty glass and gingerly applied the ice pack to the worst of the swelling.

“Keep that on for ten minutes, then ten minutes off, ten minutes on,” he advised.  

With trembling hands, Blaine held the ice pack against his face, and mumbled some thanks.  “Sorry about that little outburst, Kurt.  It was a rough night.  I didn't mean what I said.”  

Kurt hoped that was true; but Blaines despair had been real and intense, even if fleeting.  He worried that Blaine might impulsively act on those feelings someday, and self-harm or worse.  But for now, he just smiled kindly and nodded.  Worn out, Blaine closed his eyes and snuggled up to Kurts side.

He smoothed Blaine's tumbled, wild hair. It would take a steel spine to survive the minefield of high school as an out gay kid, with two gay dads, no less.  He hoped Blaine had it in him.  Kurt thought he did, and they always say adversity makes you even stronger.  But frankly, he'd always thought the mysterious “they” were full of crap.

“Sing me something?” Blaine whispered against Kurt's arm, keeping his eyes shut.  

Kurt looked at Rachel over Blaine's curly head, watching her gaze fondly down at her baby brother. “Not too old for a lullaby, then?” she teased.  “Well, it's been a while.  Which one of my signature renditions this time?”

“Not you. I'm trying to go to sleep, and all that belting you do won't help.  Kurt. Blackbird.”  

Shooting a smug look at an amused Rachel, Kurt hugged Blaine's thin shoulders and softly sang to Blaine.  He watched Blaine's face relaxing as the rhythmic song progressed, and the tension and sadness melted away.  Halfway through the second chorus, Kurt was struck with a sudden idea and stopped short in his song.

“I just had a great idea that I think would solve all of this, if you'd be willing.”

Blaine blinked drowsily and nodded for Kurt to go ahead.

“I think you should go to Dalton Academy.  Hear me out.  I met some of the guys there junior year, when I went to spy on their show choir. There's a no-bullying policy there.  Everybody gets treated the same no matter what. Plus, they have an outstanding show choir, their academics are strong, and they have a great acceptance rate from all the Ivy League schools.  It'd be perfect for you -- nobody could bully you there for being gay.”

Blaine frowned.  “Why didn't you go there, then?”

“Actually, I considered it after visiting that day, when Dave Karofsky wouldn't let up on me.”  Kurt reached up and pulled on one of Blaine's curls, twirling it between his fingers absently, thinking back to that dark time.  “Mainly, I didn't want my dad to know I was having trouble. He'd just had his heart attack. I didn't want him to be stressed because of my problems.  And I couldn't ask him to pay private school tuition just then.  So I just laid low, tried to avoid trouble the best I could.”  He shrugged.  “But I wonder now.  At Dalton, I wouldn't have had all that abuse and stress.  I probably would have done better in school … been up for more extracurriculars … I dunno, maybe I could have gotten into NYADA even.”

Kurt drifted into silence for a moment, and leaned his cheek against the top of Blaine's head.  He squeezed his eyes shut.  After the death of his mother, junior year at McKinley had been the loneliest, scariest time of his life.  His father had almost died, and then was suspended in a state between death and life for weeks.  Kurt had been alone in his house at 16, fending for himself, and sick with worry and fear, not knowing if his father would ever wake up and tell him that no matter what, at least one person would always love him as he was.  That had been hard enough.  But Dave Karofsky had  chosen that time, of all times, to devote his entire existence to tormenting him.  Kurt couldn't be sure why, but he suspected that Dave sensed his vulnerability and targeted him all the more because of it.  He shook his head to clear the gloomy memories.  McKinley was in the past for him, but Blaine's problems were just beginning, unless he escaped now.  “I really think that you'd be better off at Dalton than McKinley, Blaine.  Think about it.”

Rachel pressed her hand over Kurt's, smiling sadly and nodding. “Kurt's right, Blaine.  It would be a fresh start for you.  Our dads can afford it.”

Blaine frowned a little.  Kurt pressed him, “Do you want me to help you talk to them?”

“I …I don't know if I should.  I feel like that's letting the bullies win and giving up - and letting you and my dads down. Letting myself down, if I run away like a coward.  You never did.  You stuck it out.”

Kurt turned Blaine's chin up and looked at him seriously.  “Listen, Blaine, bottom line? You don't have to prove anything to anybody, not me, not the LGBT community, not the jerks bullying you.  You are 100 % entitled to be happy and safe.  If that means going someplace else right now, that's nothing to be ashamed of.”

Blaine gazed up thoughtfully with huge, anime-like eyes.  “You really think so, Kurt?”

That wide eyed expression reminded Kurt of Blaine as a lost little kindergartener, clutching his big brother Cooper's hand as they walked, dazed, into the Berrys' home after their parents' funeral. The Berrys had adopted both boys, and Kurt had a soft spot for Blaine ever since .  That had only intensified when Blaine confided in him about being  gay,  before he'd told anyone else, even his own family.    Kurt had to admit that it was a nice feeling, the way Blaine looked up to him and respected him.   

He nodded with an air of authority.  “You've been through so much, Blaine.  Losing your parents, getting used to a whole new family when you were little, and now this.  Give yourself a break and go to Dalton.  Join the Warblers.  Feast your eyes on all those cute prep school boys,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows with a coy, teasing smile. “It's like a Ralph Lauren ad over there.”  

Blaine's expressive face showed total trust and admiration. “If you think I should, Kurt, then that's what I'll do.”

“Great!  And … I'll tell you what?  You should have a little something to look forward to right away and to make up for … well, for your first dance not going so well.  Rent is playing at the Lima Community Theater tomorrow.  I was going to take Rachel, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I took you instead, right?”

Rachel yawned and nodded. “Sure. I can hang out with Tina tomorrow, I guess.  You guys have fun,” she murmured sleepily.  

Blaine was clearly thrilled, and breathlessly stammered his thanks, but Kurt brushed it aside.  “I'd enjoy seeing it with someone who hasn't seen it before.  It'll be like watching it through different eyes.  But go to sleep now, Blaine.  It's getting late.”

Blaine grinned until his cut lip made him wince, then allowed a soft smile to creep back across his lips only seconds later.  He dropped his head back to Kurt's shoulder as Kurt resumed his song.

Kurt felt his own mood begin to lift.  He could be a big brother figure to Blaine, a mentor.  Someone who could be there and truly understand what he he was going through as an out gay teenager in Lima.  Rachel … well, she loved Blaine dearly, but she couldn't understand, not really.  And she was going back to New York on Sunday anyway.  Cooper would be even less help; the gorgeous, good hearted, but flaky young man was too flighty, too self-aborbed, and too far away in California where he was working steadily in bit parts on TV.

While Kurt waited for Blaine's breathing to even out, he allowed his idle mind to drift to the thought of Cooper, the  memory  far less humiliating now than it used to be. For better or worse, additional humiliations had piled up and put that one-sided crush into perspective over the years.  Kurt reflected that it was too bad, really, that if one of the Anderson-Berrys was going to be gay, it couldn't have been Cooper.  As it was, Cooper had the distinction of being Grand Marshal in the parade of slightly dim, painfully hot, and irredeemably straight boys that constituted his ‘type' and included his own step-brother and their friend Sam Evans, and far too many others.  

He'd met a nice guy in the music store once, and had dated him because he was that rarest of combinations in Ohio: male, gay and interested.  But there hadn't  really been any spark with Chandler, who was in New York now, and they had parted as just good friends.  Before that, hed tried out what passed for the gay bar scene in Lima, but he wanted romance, not anonymous sex, and nobody at Scandals had been in the market for romance whatsoever. The reality was that being gay in a homophobic high school in a small town made Kurt's dating pool extremely limited, and as a result Kurt spent a lot of lonely days watching all his friends find “love” while he was told over and over that he mustn't touch, mustn't show his feelings, mustn't be impatient.  That he'd just have to wait for what everybody else took for granted.

He wanted better for Blaine.  Hopefully Blaine would have better luck than he had finding romance, among the smorgasbord of cute freshman boys at Dalton, a few of whom Kurt had heard were gay.  Everybody deserved a chance at love.  Especially sweet, kind-hearted Blaine.

Kurt noticed that Blaine had fallen asleep against his shoulder, appearing comforted and content.  He marveled at how a little hope and sympathy could make such a difference.  He knew it would have made a world of difference to him when he was Blaine's age.  Or now.  

Rachel noticed too, and turned her sleepy eyes gratefully toward Kurt.   “I appreciate you taking him to that play tomorrow, Kurt.  I hate to go back to school when he's having such a hard time.   It … would take a lot off my mind if you'd keep an eye on him."  She paused.  "But I know it's a lot to ask.”

Kurt  gazed back at her in the dim light cast from the street lights outside Blaine's window.  “You don't even need to ask. I'll look out for him.”

Rachel smiled her thanks and yawned, before rolling  over and drifting off to sleep. Kurt still felt restless long after the two siblings were peacefully asleep.

He was sure that once Blaine got out of McKinley and into Dalton, things would be okay.  But once Blaine was squared away at Dalton, Kurt needed to get his own house in order.  He'd put up with too much in this homophobic cow-town for far too long, and it was time to start taking real steps to break out of his own rut.  Like he'd told Blaine, it got better - - but only if he made it  happen.  He was through waiting.

He slid off Blaine's bed carefully, easing Blaine onto his side and pulling the blanket over both him and Rachel.  Tiptoeing back to Rachel's room,  Kurt quietly slid his laptop out of his messenger bag.  He opened it and started a Power Point to go with an internship application, scrolling through his “Looks” subfolder for the pictures of outfits that he'd meticulously catalogued for the last four years.  Maybe, just maybe, he'd take his own advice, and find his own special safe place to be.  Maybe, just maybe, he'd find his own ray of hope.