On Tuesday Kurt lip-sang the spice girls ‘Wannabe’ to a mortified Blaine who’d admitted to not knowing the song. He knew not to make that mistake again.

On Wednesday Burt walked in on Kurt calling Blaine a “Dirty Dirty Cheater” during a heated game of virtual Connect Four.

Thursday Blaine’s parents went out to dinner and he stayed home and gave Kurt a tour of his house.

By Friday Blaine had decided that being grounded wasn’t at all a bad deal and was almost sad that it would be over soon. Skyping with Kurt was way better than any text or phone call could be. He was beginning to wonder what Kurt thought of the whole situation- the label didn’t really matter, but it was eating away at Blaine. He knew he wasn’t ready to have another boyfriend, or was he? Did time really matter if he was sure that he was over Sebastian? Did Kurt even want to be his boyfriend?

He decided to bring up the topic, just to test the waters on their Friday Skype date. He had suggested they play 20 questions to get to know each other a little better. But the way Kurt was playing Blaine felt awkward making the questions more serious.

“Well?” Kurt said.

“Wait your question was seriously ‘Do you own a teddy bear’?”

“Yep, you look like a teddy bear type-guy.”

“I do?”

“Am I wrong?”

Blaine leaned over on his bed and came back with a small brown stuffed dog with floppy ears. “This is Rupert.”

“A puppy-guy. I should have known!”

“Okay my turn...” Blaine considered asking another arbitrary questions but he felt comfortable with Kurt and went for it. “Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

“I... No?” Kurt hesitated.

“No?”

“Yes.”

“Yes you haven’t?”

“Yes... I... kind of.”

“You are confusing me!”

“It’s complicated,” Kurt said.

“I like complicated. Story time?”

“No much of a story to tell really,” Kurt sighed and then continued. “Okay well last year- so Sophomore year- there was this guy who I met at a party. I don’t really go to parties much but Rachel invited me to one of her Dads’ New Years Extravaganzas and I met this guy, right?”

“Mmhm. Wait, Dads... plural?”

“Oh yeah, Rachel has 2 gay Dad’s, I’m surprised you didn’t know. That’s like the first thing she tells people.” Blaine laughed and Kurt continued. “So anyway we went on a few dates. He was older, like 23, I think. He would always get me into these gay bars. I felt really cool. I mean he never really said I was his boyfriend, but I thought I was, you know?”

Blaine nodded, ironically. He knew that feeling pretty well.

“So one night we went to this gay bar, Scandals, in West Lima. Do you know it?”

“Yeah,” Memories of Sebastian trying to get them in with fake ID’s flashed in his mind. He had been so nervous, it must have shown on his face too because the ID’s were rejected immediately. Sebastian was pissed and Blaine took him out for ice cream to make up for it.

“So we went there and were having a great time. Until I went to the bathroom and when I came back he was gone. Like seriously he had just left. I asked around and people said that they saw him leave with another guy. I was so embarrassed, seriously you don’t know humiliation until you have to call your friends parents to pick you up from a gay bar.”

“Who’d you call?”

“Rachel’s Dads. They were really cool about it, I really didn’t want my Dad to find out. I knew he’d be so disappointed. I ended up telling him later. But anyways... yeah I don’t know if that counts. But that ended up being way more of a story than I thought.”

“I’m sorry that happened. That’s so shitty, I can’t believe he just abandoned you. Did you ever talk to him again?”

“No, Rachel deleted him from my contacts because I kept threatening to call him. Her Dad’s said they’d never invite him to another party. Blah blah, it was a big mess.”

“Wow,” Blaine said. He pictured Kurt in a gay bar, dancing and drinking- and then the image of Drunk Kurt was in his mind and he couldn’t get it out. He and Sebastian had gotten drunk a few times but after Sebastian got sick once and threw up on the carpet they never did it again. Blaine assumed that his Dad had punished him pretty badly.

“ANYWAY! My turn. Was Sebastian your first?”

“First...”

“Boyfriend! Oh gosh... no.. yeah... no...” Kurt trailed off awkwardly.

“Haha, yes. First and only boyfriend. He’s very ambitious, he had to fight off a lot of competitors for my love, you know?”

“Is that right? I’m sure you were dripping with suitors.”

“Is there any evidence to convince you otherwise?” Blaine made what was supposed to be a seductive face but it just sent Kurt into a fit of laughter and eventually a fit of coughing. “Don’t choke!”

“Sorry. That was just... that face. You’re cute.”

“Hence the suitors.”

“Shhh, I am complimenting you!”

“Don’t shush me!

“Will you just ask a questions already!”

“Okay okay,” Blaine had one more question burning in his mind about Kurt. “Um, okay you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. But, can you tell me about your mom?”

“I’d love to,” Kurt said simply, his expression unchanged.

“Really?”

“It’s be a long enough time that the pain doesn’t really hit me immediately anymore. I don’t really get to talk about her often, unless I sing about her in Glee club, but no one ever actually asks me to ‘talk about her’. I’d like that. To just talk about her. How she was.”

“Well I’d love to hear about her,” Blaine laid back against the headboard of his bed and propped his laptop on his knees so he could still see Kurt.

“I guess I should start with a little spoiler alert, she’s dead.”

“Okay,” Blaine said, not quite knowing how Kurt wanted him to reply.

“She was,” Kurt sighed, Blaine could tell he was searching his mind for memories of his mother. “Well beautiful, of course. But that’s where I get my looks.”

Blaine let out a small laugh that said ‘go on’, and Kurt continued.

“...And, okay, we have like the exact same singing voice. I remember that she used to call me her ‘songbird’ because I would just repeat everything that she sang to me, like a little bird call, you know? And I think that’s how I learned to sing.”

“You have a beautiful singing voice, I can only imagine hers,” Blaine remembered Kurt singing with Rachel. He was incredible, like nothing Blaine had ever heard.

“My dad says that we were inseparable. I think she always knew I was different, and I think she taught my Dad to accept it long before he even knew it. She would make him sit with us and have tea parties, and after she died... he would still do that. Have tea parties with me.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight. I remember one day she was there, singing to me while folding laundry. And the next day I was being taken out of school, rushed to a hospital, and old to say goodbye to my Mother. It didn’t really make sense. It still doesn’t. There was just no reason for her to die, really. She was... perfect, you know?”

Blaine nodded in agreement. He’d never known someone who died, but he couldn’t imagine losing a parent at such a young age.

“And then it just makes me even more mad when people who are just terrible still exist. Like this bully at my school. I’m just like... why are you so angry? Why are you wasting your life being an asshole when my Mom could still be alive, filling the world with joy. That’s seriously what goes through my mind. I know it’s weird.”

“No I totally get that. I don’t really know why people waste their time being mean to others.”

“Yeah. My Mom, her name was Elizabeth, by the way, she was just nice to everyone. I try to emulate that about her, but it’s hard. Some people just have a really kind heart. That sounded very poetic,” Kurt laughed. Blaine admired the way he could talk so openly about his Mom with him.

“Well I don’t think I could top that,”

“Sorry, this time I was the one who rambled on!”

“No, don’t apologize I love it. But guess what?”

“What?”

“My mom said that I could get my phone back tomorrow if I take up some more chores. So I might be able to go out this weekend. Would you like to join me?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“I believe a proper date is in store, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“It’s a date then,” Blaine said pretending to tip a hat to Kurt.

“Where will we be going?” Kurt asked.

“It’s my turn to surprise you!”