"Isn't Mode D'Etoiles a fancy company? Shouldn't they be picking you up for your big night in a fancy car or something?" Rachel says, pacing their apartment slowly. "Hurry up, Kurt, we have places to be."

"I'm actually probably going to be photographed tonight, thank you, and I'd like my hair to look nice." Kurt calls from the bathroom.

"What's happening with your boyfriend?"

"He's meeting us there, because there are too many of us to all go together." Kurt steps out of the bathroom, and Rachel gives him a once over. He's dressed classily, in a well cut black suit. "If tonight all goes well, I might be securing myself a promotion in a few months time."

"That sounds great, Kurt. Now can we get going? You can't be too late for your own party." Rachel says, glancing at her plus one on the couch.

"Yeah, yeah, let me just put my coat on."

"You look great, Kurt," Adam assures, as Kurt continues to fix his outfit, never quite happy. Kurt thanks him and smiles, partially for himself but mostly for Sebastian. The first interaction he had had with Adam had been two days earlier, because Rachel wanted them to be at least acquainted, when Kurt had immediately enquired about his soulmate situation. Adam seemed happy enough to discuss it with Kurt, and simply said that it had stopped a while back and had only recently started within the last couple of days, which he couldn't understand. Kurt gave him a similar rundown to what he had Sebastian, summarising Sam's theories and cutting straight to the point where he was confident he knew who it was. Adam had appeared to be glowing on the news for the rest of the coffee date, and seemed just as airy now.

Finally, the three of them leave the apartment, all three excited for what they knew was coming next.

"Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, why did you fail to warn me that Finn was coming?" Rachel demands, punctuating it with a small foot stamp.

"I said my family was coming! You were there when my dad and Carole came over yesterday!" Kurt defends himself, shooting an apology look to Adam.

"Yes, and you never mentioned that family coming!"

"Calm down, Ray. You see Finn all the time."

"You'll be fine, okay? He's just a boy," Adam counsels, "I won't pretend to be your boyfriend, but I'll help out where I can." Rachel gushes her thanks to him and the pair agrees to go mingle with some people, leaving Kurt to work the room alone. He scans it, checking for any sign of people he ought to talk to, but no one seems to have arrived yet. He makes a beeline for Quinn, who is talking to someone Kurt has never seen before.

"And here is our man of the hour, Mister Kurt Hummel. Kurt, this is Helena Truscott." Quinn continues to introduce her, and Kurt fails to remember a word she is saying, choosing instead to smile and nod to the best of his ability. He feels as though the introductions are going to end up blurring, anyway. He is just waiting for the people he had invited to turn up.

Kurt finds Finn, and is soon enveloped in a bear hug. When Kurt asks why he hadn't come over sooner, Finn logically reasons that he was avoiding Rachel and that after that Kurt looked too official for hugging like that. He seems much happier having greeted Kurt properly, and makes him promise to introduce him to a model. Kurt knows that he'll be staying at Blaine's while Finn has obnoxiously loud sex with Rachel, as always seemed to happen while he was in the city. There were certain times where you needed to draw the line of your closeness to your step-brother and best friend.

Santana and Brittany turn up first of his other guests, and Kurt rushes over to greet them. "You both look stunning," he compliments, "weren't you coming with Blaine?"

"Yeah, but Bas was having a freak out and Blaine was busy trying to calm him down, so we decided we would go on ahead while they had their little man to man." Santana explains. Brittany immediately drags her over to the display that had been set up of Kurt's designs, carefully critiquing each in a seemingly random fashion. Santana seems to keep her under control, so Kurt doesn't try to explain his ideas or defend something Brittany says that she doesn't like- though she finds it very hard to not like what Kurt has created. She has a certain enthusiasm for them being Kurt's designs that he hopes will be contagious.

Kurt lights up as Blaine walks into the room, an incredibly jittery Sebastian trailing behind him. They walk straight over to Kurt and greet him. Blaine kisses him quickly and Sebastian very quickly excuses himself to find the bar. "He's that nervous, huh?" Kurt asks Blaine.

"Yeah, though I told him being a drunken idiot wouldn't help his case. You met the guy, right?"

"Yes! He's as nice as Rachel talked him up to being, seriously. And he really seems excited to meet Bas."

"That's great. And he's cute?"

"I can think of cuter," Kurt says, smiling at Blaine. Blaine immediately blushes and breaks eye contact, smiling bashfully down at the floor. Kurt tilts his chin up to look at him directly and kisses him, feeling as Blaine relaxes into it and brings his hands around Kurt's waist. Blaine pulls away from him but leaves his arms in place.

"Congratulations again, Kurt. This is a huge achievement and I'm so, so proud of you."

"It was finished before we even met, B." Kurt says lightly.

"I know. But I'm still proud of you. I'm proud of me for being with you."

"Blaine? You aren't upset about last night, are you? I do want you to meet my family, but they tend to be a little possessive and I just wanted to have dinner with them to let them ask me about work and stuff before bringing you into the picture. I did it for your sake, really, so they wouldn't pester you too much. They know you exist though, so they expect to see you tonight, if you're okay with that?"

"It's fine, really, I understand. I want to meet your family, but I'm happy to do it on your terms. It's not as if I haven't seen you lately. We share an office, Kurt." Blaine says, and remembers to drop his arms from around Kurt, taking the appropriate half step away from him.

"I know. You're so great, B, I don't know how I would have coped if you didn't understand. They're going to love you." Kurt kisses Blaine again softly, and he smiles.

"I should let you mingle or something, right? I'm going to try to keep Sebastian from flipping out."

"I think it's a little late for that."

"Fine, I'll stop him from drinking his weight in alcohol and not fuck up his first meeting. Better?"

"Yes. I'll see you in a bit, Blaine." Blaine kisses him on the cheek and gives his hand a little squeeze before he walks off. Kurt takes a deep breath and turns his attention to the newest arrivals, none of whom he seems to recognise. Quinn comes over to him and leads him to one of the people he hadn't seen before and introduces him again. When the other man excuses himself, Kurt turns to Quinn and asks, "Who are all these people?"

"Business contacts, mostly, their plus ones, and the personal invites. These business people are all very important to the market, Kurt. You don't need to worry too much, but give them a friendly face to work with. It will help in the long term. How are things with Blaine?" Kurt isn't surprised by the personal nature of the question, since Quinn has been trying to keep tabs on them lately. She asks out of polite interest, he knows, rather than her old schemes. She's moved on from all that, even if just in the last few days.

"Good. Tonight we're mostly trying to keep everyone else intact, and if we squeeze in a couple of moments to ourselves it's a bonus."

"I did notice you two before. Is Sebastian okay? I don't really feel like I'm in a position to ask..." Quinn, who was usually so confident and strong, glances over to the bar to break eye contact with Kurt. Kurt looks over at the bar too, where Blaine is counselling Sebastian, again.

"He will be, once he calms down enough that we can introduce him to Adam."

"Oh, who's Adam?"

"He's a guy my friend Rachel went to college with. He is so sweet, honestly. And his recently restarted soulmate countdown syncs perfectly with Sebastian's."

"His soulmate countdown started again? So you figured out what happened, and it wasn't Blaine?" Quinn really does seem to care, and Kurt is pleasantly surprised.

"Exactly. And now he has this huge chance to get everything right. He can serenade Adam with all those well planned lyrics."

"I'm happy for him. For all of you. You'll have to introduce me to all your friends later, okay?" Kurt promises he will, thinking that in a lot of ways she and Santana could get along better than expected. Quinn scurries off, and Kurt smiles broadly as his parents enter the room. Burt and Carole head directly towards him, and he hugs them both.

"I forget how different you look without a baseball cap on." Kurt says to his father.

"Be pleased I talked him out of it," Carole replies with a wink, "It was a lot of work."

"Hey, it's your big night, kiddo. You're about the only person in this world who would lose the hats for." Burt says. "Are you going to introduce us to all of your friends?" Kurt starts with Santana and Brittany, who are talking to Rachel and Adam. Rachel greets Burt and Carole pleasantly, being the only one of his friends they have met previously. He then briefly introduces the other three, mentioning that Santana is Blaine's roommate.

"When do we get to meet this Blaine kid, anyway?" Burt asks, "He's all you've talked about for the last couple of months. And you wouldn't let him come to dinner last night, which is silly. He is here, right, bud?" Santana raises an eyebrow at Kurt, intrigued by the piece of information Burt had just shared. She wasn't surprised that Kurt talked about Blaine, and she was certain Blaine knew that Kurt talked about him, but she got the feeling by the way Kurt turned pink that when Burt said all you've talked about he meant it.

Kurt takes a second to adjust himself to the thought of Blaine meeting his parents. They had only been dating for a month or so, and no matter how much longer it felt, for his dad back in Ohio it hadn't been very long at all. "Of course. He's babysitting our friend Sebastian at the moment, just hoping that he won't drink too much and make an ass of himself."

"Why would he do that? Why are you worried?" Burt asks, evidently upset for feeling out of the loop.

"Because Sebastian is going to meet his soulmate tonight and if he screws it up we'll have another couple of weird weeks with a deluded Bas and I'm quite happy with things with my boyfriend for the moment. It's a long story."

"I just want to meet the kid, Kurt. You clearly like him a whole lot, so as long as he's good to you I'm sure that I'll like him too. You're soulmates, right?" Kurt nods. "Exactly. All the more reason for me to meet him. No matter whether it's been a week or a month, you're clearly in it for the long haul."

"Thanks, dad," Kurt says, "but you haven't even met him yet. You have time for your opinion to change yet."

"Should I be lowering my standards?"

"He's great, trust me." Burt and Carole excuse themselves, figuring it is best not to hang around Kurt's friends for long. They didn't want to embarrass him too much.

"Your parents haven't met the boyfriend?" Santana asks. Kurt nods. "And tonight is the night?" Kurt nods again. "Ah, I see how it is."

"I'm not worried, I just feel like maybe it's still a little early. We've only been dating for a month now." Kurt admits. Santana rolls her eyes.

"And you've been soulmates for two, not to mention completely in love with each other that whole time. You have been inseparable, Kurt. You spend all day with each other at work, and then you spend all weekend together, too. Sometimes it's as if you aren't even Kurt and Blaine anymore, but one entity, Kurtandblaine, which is particularly weird since I live with Blaine and yet hardly ever see him at home without you. You have nothing to be worried about. It might be one month, but it's a lot more hours than most people who have been together for a month." Kurt takes a deep breath.

"Okay. You're right. I should probably talk to Blaine about Christmas plans at some point..." he thinks aloud. If they were both going back to Ohio, would Kurt be meeting Blaine's parents? He didn't even know if he was going to Ohio himself; let alone what Blaine planned on doing. Santana pats him on the shoulder before shoving him in the direction of Blaine. She grabs Adam's arm and lifts his sleeve, displaying the countdown.

"Fetch our darlings Blaine and Sebastian, will you, Kurtsie dearest? It's time." She asks. Kurt rolls his eyes but heads over to the others anyway.

"Bas?" Kurt greets, looking at Blaine questioningly, "If you put off meeting him any longer you're both going to burst into flames." Sebastian chuckles lifelessly. "You can do this, Bas. You don't have to be an asshole to meet the guy."

"I'm not really a people person," Sebastian replies, "I'll just live on your couch into my old age. Who needs a soulmate, anyway?" he downs the rest of his drink.

"It's only his second, I swear." Blaine defends, when Kurt looks judgingly in his direction. Sebastian gets up, straightens his suit, and turns to face Kurt.

"Let's do this." The trio walk over to the rest of their friends, all of whom are invested in the relationship-to-be enough that they feel the need to be present for the first meeting. Sebastian figures out quickly who Adam is, because it's hardly difficult in a group of people he knows so well. Adam beams at him, and extends a hand.

"I'm Adam," he introduces, "I would guess you're Sebastian?" Sebastian puts his hand into Adam's to shake it, no matter how formal it seems, and Adam pulls him in with it and kisses Sebastian on the mouth softly. "It's about bloody time you showed up around here," Adam whispers, and releases his new found soulmate. Sebastian turns red in time to see his friends' reactions. Santana and Kurt are smirking, while Blaine and Brittany are grinning genuinely. Rachel seems to be in some state of shock, as though she wasn't fully expecting for Adam to really be as gay as he told her he was.

"Do you want to um, move away from everyone so we can talk?" Sebastian asks, at a loss for words. He was never this unsure about anything. When Adam affirms and takes his hand, he smiles, and realises that he has never just held hands with another guy before. And he likes it.

"What am I meant to do with the rest of the night if I don't need to babysit Bas anymore?" Blaine asks jokingly.

"You need to meet my parents," Kurt says seriously, "and we need to talk about Christmas. I never actually asked if I could stay at your place tonight either, but Rachel and Finn will be hooking up at my place-"

"We will not." Rachel interjects.

"So I just kind of figured I could stay with you? Oh god, I didn't mean to cash in on all the boyfriend perks in one go. I'll make you waffles in the morning, I promise, and I- umph," Blaine kisses Kurt with some force, and succeeds in stopping his babbling.

"Thank you for shutting up, Kurt. Firstly, you know you can stay whenever you want, no questions asked. I kind of miss it when you aren't around. Secondly, can I meet your parents now?" Blaine says. Kurt nods and squeezes his hand as he locates his parents.

"Dad, Carole," Kurt says, "This is my boyfriend, Blaine. Blaine, this is my dad, Burt, and my step-mom, Carole."

"It's nice to meet you both," Blaine says, extending his hand to Burt. Burt ignores the gesture and opens his arms to hug Blaine, who reciprocates. Carole then does the same, and Kurt mouths a thank you at his dad.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Blaine. I hardly hear about anything else." Burt says. Kurt blushes.

"It really is nice, isn't it?" Carole adds, "I feel like we know so much about you. And Kurt hardly ever talks about us, right?" Blaine laughs nervously.

"He only ever shares the good things, I promise." Blaine says.

"Hopefully this one will let us spend some proper time with you before we head back to Ohio. He wouldn't let you come to dinner last night, after all. Don't think that was us." Burt says, glaring at Kurt.

"I can't imagine it was you, sir." Blaine says as Kurt rolls his eyes. Burt chuckles.

"I'm glad. Now you two probably have other things to be doing."

"Come on, B, we have friends who need to interrogate us." Kurt says, pulling Blaine back towards Santana and the others, who were watching the whole exchange. He was pleased with how things had gone with his parents, and yet he knew that there was so much more to come. "So I was thinking... what are you doing for Christmas?"

"My parents have insisted on paying on a flight back to Ohio for a week or so. If you're going to be around too, then I wouldn't mind hanging out with you, or your family. They seem better than mine." Blaine says with a shrug, "All plans are casual plans, at the moment."

"Okay. I'd love to meet your parents too, unless you think they think it would be too soon."

"Well, that's one way to come out to them."

"Oh." Kurt says, realising just how much he may have committed to.