Blaine was momentarily startled by Kurt's abrupt question, and wondered how on earth the other man would come to that conclusion. Then he looked down at his sandwich. Grilled portabella mushrooms with roasted red pepper coulis, on toasted ciabatta with a side of spicy black bean soup. Right. “No, I'm not. I'm pretty omnivorous though, and just because it doesn't have meat, doesn't mean it's not delicious.”

Kurt smiled slightly, looking up at him through criminally long eyelashes. “I get it. I mean, if you're going to eat turkey and Swiss on white, why not stay at home? Unless you're me, of course. My roomie is a vegan, so I have to sneak my meat and dairy when I'm out.”

“Ouch.” Blaine took another bite of his sandwich, buying himself a few moments to think of something to say. Something not related to food. He swallowed. Might as well start with the glaringly obvious. “How did you meet Sebastian?”

“My aforementioned roommate's boyfriend is a good friend of his. He introduced us backstage at the Gershwin when 'Bastian came to see him in one of his shows.”

“Oh? Do you act? I thought you said you were a fashion intern...”

“The stipend I get for my internship at BCBG is barely enough to cover my monthly shoe purchases,” he laughed. “My actual job is as an assistant-assistant costume master. The hours are hell and the actors are snobs, but I'm part of the Broadway machine, and it's incredible.”

“I bet,” Blaine grinned at him. “Which friend? Sebastian knows a lot of people in the theater, but maybe I know him.”

“Jesse St. James.” Kurt paused to take a sip of his water.

Blaine made a face. “Man, I hate that guy.”

Kurt looked startled, then hid a grin. “He does take a certain amount of getting used to,” he offered diplomatically.

Blaine waved his hand dismissively. St. James and his epic douchebaggery were not something he wanted to dwell on at the moment. “Jesse and I have a long history of mutual antipathy. It has nothing to do with anyone else.” He paused for a moment, considering. “So you live with that Rachel girl? I've met her a time or two. She seems nice.”

“She has her moments,” Kurt laughed. “I've known her literally forever, so I'm used to her particular brand of crazy.”

“Literally forever? Wow. I had no idea I was in the presence of an immortal. Does decapitation work on your kind, or did I just take a sharp left turn into way-too-geeky for you?” Blaine leaned forward eagerly.

Kurt bit his lip, amused. “If that was a Highlander reference, you should just be grateful I used to watch a lot of I Love the 80's, or I'd have no idea what you were talking about.”

“Why does no one appreciate classic sci-fi and fantasy any more?” He threw up his hands in mock despair, then gave a dramatic sigh. Blaine was rewarded with a giggle at his theatrics.

There was a brief lull in the conversation as they both turned their attention back to their food.

“I really am sorry for earlier,” Kurt broke in seriously. “I feel just awful for putting you through all of these awkward moments. I swear it's not on purpose. I'm usually much more socially adept.”

It took Blaine a moment to figure out what Kurt was talking about. The coffee shop thing. Right. Had that only been an hour ago? It seemed like a lot longer. He gave a rueful chuckle. “Honestly? As far as horrifyingly uncomfortable situations go? You have barely broken into my top ten. Definitely not into my top five,” he smiled, then looked away.

“That's very kind of you to say, but I'm not sure I believe you.” Kurt couldn't quite disguise the hopeful expression on his features which contradicted his words.

“Okay. Here's a top five moment; which, by the way, you must take to your grave. When I was fifteen, my older brother moved out to go to college. Since he had the bigger bedroom, my family decided that I would get his old room, and mine would get turned into a crafting-slash-sewing thing for my mom. She was so excited that she decided to be unexpectedly helpful, and began packing up my things while I was at school.” The tips of Blaine's ears were slowly turning pink, his eyes trained on the table.

“Uh oh.” Kurt was already cringing, bracing himself for what was about to happen.

“When I got home that night,” Blaine continued, “she sat me down and informed me that we needed to talk. My mom apparently found my, um... battery operated personal appliance, and my stash of muscle magazines.” He grimaced, glancing up to see Kurt's wide-eyed expression. “There may have been a twenty minute lecture about how I was ruining my body for my future spouse, and that I should be glad she threw everything out before my father got home.”

“Oh my sweet baby mother of gaga. Please tell me that wasn't how you came out to her,” Kurt was clutching his chest, the picture of abject horror.

Blaine couldn't help but laugh at the other man's creative expletives, then slowly lost his humor. “No, it wasn't. That is a much longer story that currently ranks number one. Are you sure you want to hear it?” He cocked a brow. Blaine wasn't completely sure why he was willing to share all of these personal details with a near stranger, but there was just something about Kurt that made him believe he could be trusted.

“You don't have to,” Kurt offered sympathetically, looking away briefly before locking eyes with him. “But I'll tell you mine in exchange.”

“Your number one horror, or your coming out story?” Blaine stalled.

“Both. Either. Your choice.”

“Sounds fair.” Blaine stirred his iced tea with the straw, then took a sip. “I was pretty sheltered, growing up. My family's solidly middle class, but my parents are both teachers. When my dad got a job teaching at a private school in Westerville, Cooper – that's my brother – and I got free tuition. Tree of Life is a non-denominational Christian academy. It's co-ed, and goes from kindergarten through high school. I started there in sixth grade. I was twelve. I barely understood that 'gay' was an option. I mean, I'd seen Will & Grace, so I knew that gay people existed, I just didn't understand what it meant. I wasn't attracted to girls, so I figured I was just a late bloomer or something. Anyway, my best friend was this kid named Shaun. We liked all of the same things, we were in show choir, soccer, and orchestra. We had every class together and hung out all the time outside of school.”

Kurt made a soft sound of encouragement, propping his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand.

“One weekend, I was sleeping over at his house. We were watching movies, and he kept flirting with me. That's hindsight talking, by the way. At the time, I didn't realize what all the looks and touches meant. I just knew I was getting flustered.” Blaine looked down at his plate, mildly surprised to see that in the course of his monologue he had methodically disassembled the remaining half of his sandwich and grouped all of the ingredients by size.

“What happened?” Kurt prompted softly, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards.

“He kissed me,” Blaine admitted, an answering smile creeping across his face. “It was like I'd been standing in the dark all my life and someone flipped on the lights. Oh! That's what gay means!” He laughed, and popped a mushroom in his mouth.

“That's … kind of adorable.” The younger man's grin widened as he met Blaine's gaze.

“It was,” he agreed, before sobering suddenly and looking away. “I'm not going to call it ironic, but it was definitely strange that the next week our Bible class mentioned homosexuality for the first time. The teacher didn't spend the whole lesson spewing hatred or anything. It was nothing too major. Just the same throw-away lines that are always being quoted. 'Thou shalt not lie with a man, blah blah, abomination, whatever. I'm sure you've heard it.”

“I have,” Kurt agreed neutrally, his features impassive.

“Essentially, it drove home to me and Shaun that whatever we had done, it needed to be kept secret. Extremely secret. No one could ever know. There was a side of guilt, too, that we'd done something so wrong. But then again, I wondered. Why was it wrong? I wasn't hurting anyone.” Blaine broke off suddenly, seizing his tea and taking a long drink. Ice cubes rattled in the glass by the time he was finished, and he managed to regain his composure. A deep breath, and he was ready to finish.

“I'm rambling. Over the next year or so, Shaun kissed me a few more times. I kissed him back. We never talked about it. By eighth grade, it was just another thing that we did when we were together. You remember puberty, right? I'm not going to go into detail, but one sleepover may have progressed to extremely minor fooling around. That's pretty much where everything went to hell.” Blaine's smile twisted into something bitter.

“How so?” Kurt looked concerned, leaning forward in his seat. His hand started forward, then pulled back again.

“Shaun had a crisis of faith. He freaked out about what we did together, and decided it was all my fault. Never mind that he was always the initiator.” The statement was accompanied by a frustrated eye roll.

“Did he tell your parents?”

“Worse. He told our school principal.” Blaine's jaw clenched. All these years later, and that kid still pissed him off.

“I don't understand,” Kurt shook his head.

“At Tree of Life, we all signed a student code of conduct. In that code, it describes homosexuality as an abomination against God. Code violations of a sexual nature rate an automatic expulsion,” he replied flatly.

Kurt's mouth fell open. “What?” he managed to get out, shocked.

“Oh yes. Two high school girls got expelled for getting pregnant that same year. No exceptions. So I got thrown out of school, outed to everyone, my parents were told, and in my permanent file, it stated that my expulsion was based on 'sexual deviance' and 'perverse misconduct'.” Blaine took a deep breath. It was all water under the bridge at this point, and getting mad wasn't going to change the past.

“Did... did Shaun get expelled, too?” He looked almost afraid to hear the answer.

“No. His version of the events basically painted me as the guy who came on to him. He graduated from Tree, and last I heard, he's an associate minister at some big church in Columbus. At least, that's what Facebook told me when it recommended we should be friends.” Blaine started to take another sip of his drink before he realized his glass was empty. He stared at the slowly melting ice, and shook his head. “Another thing that's against Tree's honor code is violence, but it didn't stop a bunch of high schoolers from catching me in the parking lot on my last day, and kicking the crap out of me. The principal's son led the charge, so if you guessed that they weren't disciplined for it, you're right.”

“How did your parents take everything?” Kurt reached forward again, this time letting his hand rest on the back of Blaine's wrist.

“They didn't really understand it, but they weren't awful about my being gay. We sort of just agreed to never discuss it. My dad quit, wound up going back to school for his doctorate, so that part turned out okay. And we moved to the other side of Columbus, so I graduated from Thomas Worthington. It was public school, but it had really great theater, arts, and music program. I made some good friends there.” Blaine shrugged, and made an attempt to redirect the conversation. “So there's my teapot tragedy. What's your story?”

Kurt sat back, blinking. “Okay... wow. Suddenly I feel like I've been doing a lot of crying over paper cuts.”

Blaine looked at him in consternation, then shook himself. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have- it's not a competition. I probably shouldn't have blurted all of that out. I'm a chronic over-sharing type person. Very open about everything. You're probably thrown for a loop after all of that. I really didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Let's make a deal. We stop apologizing for every little thing, agreed? I asked you to tell me. I'm not... trivializing either of our experiences.” Kurt had to pause, searching for the right word before he finished his statement.

“Sounds like something we can try for, but I'll warn you. I'm fairly apologetic, and I think you are as well.” Blaine managed to summon up a lopsided grin. Kurt laughed.

“So. My coming out story is a little silly. Afterwards, my dad told me that he knew I was gay since I was three years old, but when I was a sophomore, the idea of coming out was terrifying. My dad is a mechanic, and he raised me by himself after my mother died,” Kurt began.

“I'm so sorry,” Blaine interrupted earnestly.

“What did we just agree to?” Kurt shook his head.

“I'm sorry? Crap!” Both of them laughed, while Blaine smacked his hand against his forehead. “Okay. Continue. I will try to stop cutting in.”

“Anyway! My dad is pretty butch. I am clearly not. One afternoon, he caught me dancing around in a bedazzled leotard with some of my girlfriends to Beyonce's Single Ladies. Brittany tried to save me by telling him it was something for football practice, which led to me joining the team as a kicker- trust me, you don't want to know. At the end of all the brouhaha, I told my dad that being in glee club and being a football player and being dedicated to an intensive moisturizing routine are all part and parcel to who I am. And so is being gay.”

“How did he react?” Blaine couldn't help but interject, remembering his own father's antipathy.

For the first time all night, Kurt smiled wide enough that his teeth showed. “He told me that he loved me just the same. It took him a little time to get used to my being open about it, but not too much later on, he told me that my job was to be myself, and his job was to love me.”

Blaine looked impressed. “Your dad sounds pretty awesome.”

“He is.”