“Hi, Mmmm-mis-mister Hummel,” Blaine greets Kurt’s dad. Burt gets up and offers Blaine a warm handshake.

“I made roasted chicken, because Kurt tells me it’s your favorite,” Carole explains. “I would have made my grandmother’s f-r-i-e-d chicken, but we have to be careful around B-u-r-t. The man only eats the skin.”

“I am s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g right here,” Burt mutters, but his eyes are laughing.

“I-I-I-I-I-I love all kinds of, of, of chicken, Carole. Dah-dah-doesn’t mmmmatter to mm-me,” Blaine reassures with a smile.

~~~~~

Dinner is uneventful, with chattering and talking over each other and the usual squabbling between Finn and Kurt that Blaine is starting to understand a bit better. He still feels awfully quiet around Kurt’s family, but it’s not because he’s uncomfortable. It has more to do with just being in awe of their dynamic.

After dinner, Blaine and Kurt pick out several movies to watch and Finn joins them, but only after he ascertains that they don’t mind.

“I don’t want to be a third wheel,” Finn says.

“How, how, how could you bbb-be a third wheel in your own house?” Blaine asks. “I-I-I’m more the third wwww-wheel than you.”

“If you say so,” is Finn’s only reply as he shoots a smirk at Kurt, who is standing behind Blaine rolling his eyes and making throat cutting gestures at Finn.

First they watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation for the billionth time, because somehow it never fails to be hilarious. The three boys talk their way through, saying lines and repeating favorite parts.

“Shitter was full,” Blaine mimics.

“How does that line never fail to make me laugh?” Kurt asks in mild wonder.

Then they put in Legally Blonde and within 10 minutes Finn is fast asleep in the recliner and Kurt and Blaine are entwined on the couch.

“So, do you want to talk about your dad stuff?” Kurt asks quietly, turning to face Blaine.

Kurt watches Blaine in the glow of the television. He sighs and tenses his face as he searches for words. “I dunno,” he whispers, his hand grabbing for Kurt’s. Anytime he has to talk about things that make him uncomfortable, he finds that the simple act of holding Kurt’s hand makes it easier.

Kurt moves down the couch a bit and pats his thigh, which is the only invitation Blaine needs to rest his head on Kurt’s lap and lay out on the rest of the couch. Kurt loves when they sit like this because Blaine has this tendency to take Kurt’s arm and hug it to his chest. And this moment is no different. It also gives Kurt the perfect angle to run his fingers through Blaine’s hair.

Blaine sighs again, though this one is more contented. As Kurt begins playing with his curls, Blaine closes his eyes. He stays like that for a few minutes, his breath evening out and Kurt wonders if he fell asleep.

Blaine opens his eyes then and just starts... talking. Kurt has honestly never heard Blaine talk this much before. He tells Kurt about how he felt as a kid when his dad wasn’t patient with him, how he feels now that his dad wants to make it up to him. How it’s hard to believe that this is really happening, because he never even hoped that it might. Blaine talks about having trouble believing his father and his intentions being pure of heart, but he doesn’t know why he would try to trick Blaine.

“Or I-I-I-I guess trick isn’t the rrr-right word, bb-buh-but I really dah-do feel mm-mah-manipulated and then that mm-makes me feel ss-sort of guilty.”

He tells Kurt that he wants to talk to his mom about a lot of this stuff but he doesn’t really want to dredge it all up. He says he did tell his dad before he left that he wants to go ice fishing and he thinks Kurt was right, that he needs to think of it as a trial run and if it doesn’t work out, Blaine can re-evaluate. He doesn’t have to be best friends with his father, but he shouldn’t ignore this attempt to smooth things over. Blaine tells Kurt that he feels sort of disgusted with himself because there’s a little piece of him that’s really happy that his dad wants to spend time with him.

“That mm-makes me feel dah-dumb. Why do I-I-I-I even care? I guess be-be-be-be-be-cause he’s my dd-dah-dad. Still, kinda pathetic.”

Kurt can tell, from how Blaine moves from topic to topic, that this conversation doesn’t actually require Kurt to say anything. Mostly Blaine needs a friendly ear, so Kurt “mm-hmms” and “yups” and gently runs his fingers through Blaine’s hair while he listens.

Blaine soon moves on to how weird it is that none of these issues are about him being gay. Blaine explains that he’s not sure if that’s because he has bigger problems with his dad, or if maybe his dad is more accepting of it than Blaine ever thought possible. He talks about how he feels like coming out of the closet wasn’t even the event that started everything rolling in the right direction with his father, that surprisingly it was the day at the coffee place and the ensuing fight they had in the car.

“Kurt, he www-was such a dah-dick to mmm-me that day. Buh-but if that’s ww-what may-made him want to go to therapy then that’s www-what sss-started all this … other stuff. The family bbb-bon-bon-bonding and the ice fishing and the not be-be-be-ing an asshole all the time. At least sss-something good came out of that fight.”

He moves on to how he feels like things are so good right now, even knowing that Kurt’s leaving isn’t upsetting him the way he expected it to. How he feels hopeful and happy and that everything in his life is better than ok, and he doesn’t want to let his father ruin that. He worries that allowing his dad this opening migh leave him upset, but that if he doesn’t at least try, he might wind up regretting it in the long run.

Blaine summarizes, “Buh-but I think I-I-I-I have to try Kurt, ya know? If he’s gonna try, then I-I-I www-will, too.” Blaine looks up at Kurt and squeezes his eyes shut.

Then he says in rush of breath, “That was a lot of words.” He sits up and turns sideways to bury in face in Kurt’s chest. Kurt can see the blush creep up Blaine’s neck and onto his ears, even in this dim light. He brings his arms around Blaine lightly.

“You’re allowed to talk, Blaine,” Kurt says softly. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it.”

Blaine makes his half and half gesture with his hand and gives Kurt a kiss on the cheek. Then he moves over the other end of the couch and pats his own lap. “I-I-I think it’s your turn.”

Kurt gives him a questioning look before putting his head on Blaine’s lap and smiling up at him. Kurt grabs Blaine’s forearm and hugs it across his chest.

“So,” Blaine starts. “I-I-I’m going to mmm-meet a lot of your friends tomorrow nah-night. Maybe it’s time for you to, to, to tell mm-mm-me mmmm-more about high ssss-ssss-school.”

Kurt absentmindedly runs his fingers up and down Blaine’s forearm as he spills the whole story to Blaine this time. Starting with how when he originally told him the story via instant message, he watered it down a bit, mostly for brevity. He apologizes and says that this time he’ll give him the full truth. Kurt explains to Blaine what bullying at his high school looked like, egging and dumpster tosses, slushies to the face and general pushing around.

He tells Blaine that the day that Puck found him crying in the locker room was the day, the only day of his life, that he ever even vaguely contemplated ending it. It was the usual bullying, the pushes, the shoves, nothing more, but it was all too much to handle, he was overwhelmed and he felt so very alone. When Puck found him he was sobbing and he actually couldn’t stop himself from telling Puck that he was just so tired of everything and didn’t feel like dealing anymore.

“We were doing mash-ups in glee club that week and everyone, everything, was making me feel... bad. I was shooting my mouth off and I said that maybe I should kill myself. And then Puck asked me if I had a plan and I said no. And he said ‘Well don’t you fucking dare make one, Hummel. Don’t you fucking dare.’”

Blaine's fingers freeze on Kurt's temple, where a moment ago they had been lightly caressing.

Kurt continues talking, zoning out in his story, remembering details he hasn’t thought about in years. He tells Blaine that things gradually improved after that day. That it was a little annoying at first, to always feel like Puck was fighting his battles, but then it started working. The bullies stopped bothering him as much. They stopped throwing him into dumpsters, they stopped egging his car. The slushies never really stopped, but they didn't stop for anyone else, either.

“I can thank Puck for making the rest of junior year bearable. I worry that sometimes I sound ungrateful when I talk about him, but I’m not. I was pretty pissed off that he verbally harassed you immediately upon meeting you, but his heart is in the right place 99% of the time and I respect that.”

Kurt’s story moves on then, to his senior year of high school and meeting Sebastian. How he was attracted to him and really did have fun with him at times. “Although our big ‘illegal’ dealings were making fake ID’s on his Macbook for the guys at his fancy prep school. He always acted like we were in the mafia or something."

Kurt talks about Karofsky being one of his biggest tormentors and how when he told Sebastian about him, Sebastian ran with this idea that Kurt needed to seek his revenge. “Sometimes I’m still not sure how it all went down, but essentially Sebastian told Karofsky that we knew his secret. And that's what made Karofsky come out of the closet. It was shocking and horrible."

Kurt notices then that Blaine hasn’t said anything, hasn’t reacted in any way, in a long time. He feels that Blaine's whole body is tense beneath him and when he finally looks at Blaine's face he's shocked to find it filled with a what looks like a tearful, but quiet mess of emotions.

“Blaine?” Kurt sits up to look at him.

Blaine’s face cracks, his chin quivering and he shakes his head, tears leak out of his eyes.

“You www-weren’t rrrr-really going to, Kurt?” Blaine puts his hands on Kurt’s shoulders and looks into his eyes. “You wwww-weren’t going to rr-rr-rr-rr-really hurt yourself?”

“Oh, Blaine. No, I wasn’t. It was a moment. A bad moment, a terrible moment. But I never really was going to do anything. And I haven’t ever felt like that again. But I wasn’t close, I wasn’t close to even really trying.”

Blaine sighs in relief and closes his eyes as pulls his hands away from Kurt’s shoulders. He puts his clenched fists in his lap and Kurt uses his thumbs to wipe away Blaine’s tears.

Blaine can only shake his head as his breath hitches.

“It’s ok. I didn’t do anything. I’m fine now,” Kurt hums in Blaine’s ear. He takes Blaine’s hands in both of his and kisses Blaine’s knuckles.

“Well, here ww-ww-we are again in one of, of, of those dah-dumb mo-mo-moments wwww-where the wrong person is comforting the other,” Blaine mumbles.

“It’s just cause we love each other so darn much, poophead,” Kurt murmurs with a small grin.

“That mmm-must bb-bb-bb-be it,” Blaine agrees as he wraps Kurt tight in his arms.

The movie ends soon after that and when Kurt wakes Finn up to say it’s over, Finn looks up at him confusedly. “I had the weirdest dream that Blaine was going ice fishing with Dave Karofsky.”

Kurt’s glad he had the opportunity to stop Carole from making up the guest room earlier, the boys are in desperate need of bedtime cuddles. Blaine isn’t crying now, but he can’t get the image of young, sad Kurt out of his mind. He clings to Kurt in an attempt to soothe himself with the knowledge that he’s here and they found each other and all is right with the world.

Blaine falls asleep pretty much wrapped around Kurt, arms and legs embracing Kurt tightly. Unfortunately, sleep is not coming so easily for Kurt. He does the classic “hug and roll,” substituting a pillow into Blaine’s arms when he stirs briefly, making little grabbing gestures with his hands. Blaine smack his lips and then nuzzles his face into it. Kurt looks on with an expression that he’s sure Blaine would call fond exasperation, before making his way downstairs.

He finds his father in the kitchen, heating the saucepan on the stove, as though he could sense Kurt’s anxieties.

“Hey, bud, what are you doing up?” Burt asks quietly.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Kurt sighs.

“Woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Felt like I could use some warm milk, ” Burt gestures towards the pan. “You want some?”

“Of course,” Kurt replies. “And same with me, minus the part where I was asleep in the first place.”

“What’s on your mind?” Burt asks.

“Paris. Leaving. Blaine. Crap.” Kurt admits with a frown

“Well, we put a lot of money out for this semester,” Burt starts. “I don’t want to get down on you about it now, but at this point it’s only 80% refundable, but I mean, I guess...”

“No, no. I’m going. This is a trip I’ve wanted pretty much my entire life. It’s just terrible timing,” Kurt interrupts.

Burt nods.

“Everything with Blaine is really … getting good,” Kurt says.

“I can tell, he’s more talkative now than he was at Thanksgiving,” Burt agrees.

“I know! I’m so proud of him. Which sounds weird to me everytime I say it, but he works so hard. He goes to speech twice a week and he’s always practicing and trying. I don’t know. I think I would have let it get me down a long time ago. But he’s so cheerful. Like 90% of the time he’s probably the happiest person I’ve ever met.” Burt watches Kurt talk about this guy and is happy to notice that even in the middle of the night, when he’s obviously exhausted, talking about Blaine makes Kurt animated.

“You found something good, Kurt. You lucked out,” Burt tells him as he brings their mugs over to the table.

“He makes me happy. He makes me … better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s be honest here, Dad. When people say the name Kurt Hummel, the first word that comes to mind isn’t patient.”

“Well, that’s true,” Burt chuckles.

“And he makes me want to be patient. Like, even when it’s taking him a million years to say something, it’s worth the wait. He’s been worth the wait.”

“Well, that’s love for ya,” Burt says.

“It is. It’s good. We’re good for each other. I worry sometimes that I would have never given him the time of day if I hadn’t met him the way I did.”

“You really want to play that game with yourself Kurt? Don’t make yourself feel bad over something that you could never predict. That’s just ass backward logic.”

“I know, Dad.” Kurt’s not entirely consoled. He’s had the thought too many times not to take this opportunity to voice it. He’s well aware of the fact that his father is a judgment free zone. “I like to hope that I’m more open-minded than that, but I really might have passed him by the second he couldn’t get his name out.”

Burt shakes his head. “Don’t do it, Kurt. Appreciate what you got, don’t get stuck on the what if’s.”

They continue to talk for a bit longer and then both head back to bed. Kurt finds that Blaine has somehow stolen all of the pillows and blankets in his absence. He regrets not letting Carole put sheets on the guest room bed as he attempts to pry at least one pillow out of Blaine’s sleepy, iron grip.

~~~~~

Blaine wakes up early, and finds it odd that Kurt is sleeping on a really uncomfortable looking throw pillow and huddled under a small corner of the top sheet. Blaine slickly rolls Kurt onto a more comfortable pillow and tucks the comforter around him. He uses the bathroom and when he comes out he finds Kurt’s dad in the hallway.

“Hey, I’m going into the shop for a little bit this morning, but maybe you want pancakes before I go?” Burt beams.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll go www-wake up Kurt,” Blaine offers.

“Nah, let him sleep, we’ll save some for him. He was up late.”

“What about … uh, everyone else?”

“Carole worked the overnight and it’s never worth even trying to wake Finn up before noon.”

Blaine follows Kurt’s dad down the stairs and into the kitchen, trying to figure out what he’s going to talk to him about for the length of preparing and then eating breakfast.

As Burt starts cracking eggs, he asks Blaine questions, though he’s much less intense about them today than he was at Thanksgiving and this time they’re more tailored to Blaine. He asks if he’s been playing open mic night and how his final exams went and if he’s planning on working at after school care again this semester. Burt even asks about speech therapy, after seeing how comfortable Blaine was with it when Carole asked. Burt hopes maybe it’ll have the same effect on Blaine this time.

And Blaine is proud of himself for saying more than yes, or no, or fine, which was what he was pretty much limited to at Thanksgiving. He tells Burt stories about the kids at after care, the crazy kids, the funny kids and then he tells him about his finals being easier than he expected. When speech comes up, Blaine feels a little shy.

“It’s ok,” Blaine finally says. “I-I-I think I’m in a plateau rr-rr-right nah-now. It was getting bet-bet-better and now I-I-I-I’m levelling off.” He shrugs.

“I think you sound good. Kurt said you’re working really hard on it.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, never shuts up about how proud he is of you.”

Blaine grins sheepishly.

When Burt puts a plate of delicious and nearly perfectly round looking pancakes on the counter in front of Blaine, he’s feeling comfortable, relaxed. He looks at Burt, pouring syrup on his own plate and says “Thanks... B-b-buh-buh-urt.”

Burt gives his shoulder a bump with his own and replies “Anytime, kid,” as a smile draws across Burt’s lips.

“Have you ever b-b-b-been ice fishing?” Blaine asks.

~~~~

Kurt wakes up late, the sun streaming into his room. He goes downstairs and finds Blaine on the couch in the family room. He’s intently watching House Hunters International on low volume, with one of the throw blankets wrapped around his head and shoulders, his sleep mussed curls peeking out from underneath.

“Hi,” Kurt giggles. “Having fun?”

“These dd-dah-douchebags can’t mm-make up their mmmmm-minds. Always take the house with the moat,” Blaine mock yells at the tv.

“It’s sound advice. Have you seen any other members of my family today?

“Um, I saw your duh-dad, he mm-may-made me pancakes. There are ssss-some in the oven for you and there’s still coffee, buh-buh-but he left for the shop a little while ago.”

“You should have woke me up,” Kurt whines as he sits next to Blaine on the couch and accepts Blaine’s wordless offer to join him under the blanket.

“Nah. We were bb-bon-bon-bonding.”

“You bonded with my dad over pancakes?”

“Yeah, and ice fishing.”

“I feel like I woke up in bizarro world,” Kurt yawns. “What do you feel like doing today?”

Blaine shrugs. “I-I-I-I don’t rrr-rrr-reh-really care. I-I-I think I’m going to need to take a nap at sss-some point if I’m going to sss-sta-stay up late tonight though. Are we ssss-leeping at Rachel’s?”

“Yeah, I figure this way we can both drink.”

“Is Finn coming ww-ww-with us?”

“Probably. I have no idea how that’s going to go. It’s the first time he’s seeing Rachel and Puck as a couple.”

Blaine gives him a wide-eyed look of “oh, that should be interesting.”

“I feel like I need to warn you about my friends. They like to sing. A lot,” Kurt begins.

“I’m nah-not offended bb-by song.”

“They’ll probably try to make you sing.”

“I’d rather ssss-sing than mm-mm-may-make small talk.”

“True. And are you really cool with doing this tonight? Going to this party?

“Of course. I-I-I mean, I’m a little nah-nervous, buh-but not too bah-bah-bad. You’ll be there, that’s all that mmm-mat-ters.”

Kurt retrieves his pancakes after that and the boys spend the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon hanging out in the family room, watching crappy tv and making each other laugh.

~~~~~

When the boys arrive at Rachel’s later that night, she immediately whisks Kurt away.

“I need you to help me choose which wine glasses to put out,” she exclaims as soon as they walk through the door.

She turns to Blaine and Finn before dragging Kurt into the kitchen and greets them. “Blaine. Finn. Hello. Welcome to my home. There are drinks downstairs. Puck and a bunch of other people are already down there, be sure to use a coaster.”

Blaine just nods and looks at Finn, who seems a little shocked that he didn’t get a warmer greeting from Rachel. They head down the stairs and find Puck messing around with an iPod and about 15 other people milling about. They pour themselves drinks by a small bar, both deciding liquor before beer to get the night started.

After a couple sips, Finn mutters something about Puck’s horrible taste in music and then wanders away. Blaine is left to fend for himself. Which shouldn’t actually be an issue. He could go over by Puck too, Puck’s definitely his friend these days, but instead he finds himself leaning against the wall, just taking in the scene.

It’s an interesting crowd. Kurt had given him brief little bios on each of his friends who would be here tonight, though he definitely can’t tell Quinn from Brittany at the moment, there are a couple people he doesn’t think Kurt ever even mentioned. He wonders what they know about him, if anything. It seems like they all remained fairly tight after high school, communicating regularly and seeing each other every chance they get.

He stays there, surveying the crowd for several minutes, when he’s approached from the side by one of the other guests.

“Hi,” she says with a warm smile. “I’m Tina.”

Shit. Well, he can smile and offer a handshake, so he starts there.

“Hi, um, I’m, um,” deep breath. Another deep breath. Let go of her hand because this block might be a doozy, he tells himself. Three more deep breaths. It’s times like these he questions the worth of speech therapy. No matter how hard he works and how many different techniques he prepares and tries out with Chad, nothing ever seems to make saying his name easier. He cancels the block and tries again.

“I’m Bah-laine.” Score one for you, he tells himself. “Dddd-did Kurt sss-sss-send you over?” he asks shyly.

“No, no, well, he might have sent me down to check on you. But I actually wanted to talk to you anyway, his prompting made me come over sooner. I … feel like I have something to confess. But I’m not sure why. I guess in part because Puck talks about you all the time. He told us about your stutter. And how he thinks you’re a good guy for Kurt.”

Blaine couldn’t be more intrigued by wherever this thought process of Tina’s might be going. He also has a hundred questions. When did Puck say he was a good guy? Did Puck warn them about his stutter, or was it mentioned in passing? How often do Puck and Tina talk? Who is this “us,” all of Kurt’s friends? Or just a select few?

“Well, he said it more Puck-like than I just did, but that was the basic idea.”

Blaine barks a laugh at this. “I-I-I know exactly www-what you mah-mean.”

It’s Tina’s turn to take a deep breath and Blaine can tell she’s nervous about what she’s about to say. “When I was a kid, and up until about 5 years ago, I stuttered. At first, I pretended to stutter actually. I was so shy and I never wanted to talk in class, so I started pretending. My teachers would never made me give speeches in class when I stuttered, so then I started doing it all the time. And then it just... stuck. When I finally admitted to it being faked, it was actually really hard to stop.”

She looks at Blaine then and he has a completely unreadable expression on his face. His fists are clenched and he’s not making eye contact.

“You’re lucky,” he starts, looking at her finally. And Blaine means to say she’s lucky for a million reasons, not least of which is that she doesn’t actually stutter. But he’s still working on those thoughts, those words, they’ll come out eventually. He can also tell that she has something else to say.

“I am,” she agrees. And then waits to see if he’s going to say more. When he looks away she decides to continue. “I know it might seem kind of … offensive to you, but I was hoping that if maybe I had a chance to defend myself, it would be better. Some people might not bring it up tactfully to you and then I’d just look like a psychopath or something.”

Blaine watches Tina as her eyes dip to the ground and realizes how sincere she is about this, how well meaning this whole conversation is. He can also perceive that she’s really anxious and something else, something deeper than that, gentler than anxious. She flicks her eyes to him in a gesture that Blaine is all too familiar with, a gesture of surrender, that says “please accept me.” He can do that.

“I-I-I wwww-was going to say, to say, to say, you’re lucky that your teachers were ss-so nnn-nn-nice about it. Mine www-weren’t always.”

Tina nods. “I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t hate me or something. We’re going to start seeing more of each other soon.”

Blaine looks at her curiously.

“I’m transferring to Pratt for the spring semester. I’ve been going to school in Chicago with my boyfriend Mike, but he signed a two year contract with a world wide touring company. I decided I didn’t want to be in Chicago without him, so I’m actually going to sublet from Kurt while he’s away and then figure out other living arrangements after that.”

“Oh, I-I-I di-didn’t know about you ss-sub-subletting..”

“Yeah, we kind of just worked it all out about,” here she checks her watch, “ten minutes ago.”

“Well, then I-I-I guess I ww-wah-wasn’t purposefully left out of the loop.”

“Probably not,” she concurs with a smile.

They stand there, smiling at each other for a minute, when she says, “So, I hear you sing.”

“I dah-do, from time to time,” Blaine answers non-committally.

“Do you and Kurt ever sing together?”

“Not rr-really. I-I-I-I’ve nah-never really heard him sss-sss-ing actually. Just ss-sort of hum along with songs. I’ve nah-never heard him beh-beh-belt one out, buh-but I hear he’s good.” Blaine feels surprisingly comfortable around Tina already.

“You’re in for a treat tonight,” she tells him with a grin.

~~~~~

The party moves on from there, Kurt reappears with a cheese plate and very pink drink.

“She decided to put grenadine in this pina colada and I’m like ‘Rachel, not every freaking drink needs to be pink.’ But she claims they taste better that way.”

Blaine takes a sip and makes a face. “Taste like something you’d bb-buy at Bath & Body Works.” Blaine’s two drinks deep and his speech is nearly flawless. He’s feeling happy and relaxed and downright chatty (for him).

Kurt makes a point of introducing him to every single person in the room, which kind of makes Blaine’s heart swell. They’re all varying degrees of nice to ridiculously nice. (He would use better synonyms but alcohol tends to dampen his inner thesaurus.)

Now that the group has pretty much assembled for the evening Rachel kicks off the celebration with a rousing rendition of Firework by Katy Perry and then she drags Kurt and Quinn up for Time After Time, complete with the Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion-esque dancing.

Kurt grabs for the microphone, obviously already well on his way to being drunk.

“Hello everyone!” he chirps. “Say hi to Blaine.”

Blaine wants to crawl in a hole, but all of Kurt’s friends go along with it and say hi to him, even though they were all just introduced to him within the past half hour. He blushes and waves.

“He sings for me all the time, so this one’s for him.”

Kurt starts singing Dancing Lessons by Sinead O’Connor and Blaine is touched.

I wanna go walking with you
If you'd agree
I wanna do some talking with you
Where no one can see
I wanna go dancing darling

When Kurt’s done he tosses the microphone to the next person and walks over to Blaine.

“Well, that wah-was exquisite,” Blaine remarks.

“I’m preening,” Kurt says, as he literally preens. “Are you going to sing?”

“I’ll let other people go first,” Blaine replies.

“Ok. You cool here for a couple minutes? I’m going to go in search of more food and such.”

“Sure, I’ll be, be, be right here.” Blaine takes a seat on the bench that runs along one wall of Rachel’s basement. Rachel comes over, soon after Kurt walks away.

“Having fun?” she asks as she pats Blane’s leg warmly.

“Yeah,” he nods and smiles. “I’m gonna mm-miss you guys while Kurt’s away.” He winces at how needy that might make him sound, but it was out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

Rachel looks at him, a little shocked. “We’re not gonna hang out while he’s gone?” she pouts.

“Oh. Um. I mean, I mean. If you want to. I-I-I didn’t, uh, want to assume. Anything, or whatever,” he mumbles self-consciously.

“Well, for starters, I think Puck would cry if he didn’t see you for 5 months.” They both turn to look at Puck, who’s currently trying to convince Artie to do a keg stand.

“Is that a good idea?” Blaine questions Rachel.

“I don’t know, Artie’s a grown up,” she points out. “He’s not afraid of Puck.”

He and Rachel sit in amiable silence for a few minutes, watching as Puck’s persuasion skills kick into high gear and Artie does a keg stand.

“Good lord,” Blaine remarks, “he took that like a champ.”

Rachel looks at Blaine appraisingly. “You really didn’t think we would hang out while Kurt was away? I mean, even though we’re all friends now? Like us and Matt and Kerry and everyone?” Rachel knows how shy and insecure Blaine is, but she’s surprised how sad it makes her that he would think they weren’t close enough to hang out without Kurt around.

“Oh. I-I-I don’t know.” He dips his head and then glances at her. “I guess I … didn’t want to … get my hopes up.”

Rachel’s pink drinks are starting to affect her at this point, so she snuggles under Blaine’s arm. He’s a little confused for a second, but he gives her shoulder a squeeze, because it seems natural.

“Get your hopes up Blaine,” she says. “You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape my … friendship.” She smiles a wide, toothy smile up at him. Blaine giggles and takes a sip from the Rachel’s drink, since the straw was pretty much accosting him as Rachel gestured animatedly with it in front of his face.

“So are you gonna sing?” Rachel asks. “I’m particularly fond of your voice with acoustic guitar accompaniment. I believe there’s a guitar in the corner over there, for these instances. Perhaps you could be cajoled?” Blaine’s always impressed how, even drunk, Rachel has a certain whimsy in the way she speaks.

Kurt comes back at that point, with a plate piled high with food. He offers some to Blaine, who gladly accepts chips and dip, and Rachel who shakes her head as she sucks on her straw.

“Rachel w-w-was trying to cajole me to sing,” he tells Kurt.

“I told you this would happened,” Kurt says.

“Luckily, I-I-I have something prepared,” Blaine responds. Puck walks past holding several full shot glasses, Blaine grabs one and sucks it down.

“Fuck!” He makes a pained face, “What the hell was that?”

“Vodka,” Puck replies. “With some tabasco.”

“I feel very warm now,” Blaine says, as heat rises in his cheeks. Rachel offers him the end of her drink and he accepts it gladly. That shot is easily going to tip him from sort of drunk to pretty drunk. Which is the perfect kind of drunk for him to be when playing the guitar by himself in a room full of strangers.

There’s a lull in the karaoke, so Blaine wanders casually over to the guitar and takes a seat on the edge of the stage, not really facing anyone. He studiously tunes the guitar and then starts strumming.

First he plays the Tuna Salad song, but he doesn’t sing, he’s just using it to settle his nerves. He looks up and Kurt is smiling at him. Blaine makes a nodding gesture for Kurt to come over by him.

Blaine stands up as he continues to strum and he moves into a poppy, sort of punk sounding version of Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. As Kurt makes his way towards him, Blaine doesn’t break eye contact. He starts singing:

Looking in your eyes, I see a paradise.
This world that I found is too good to be true.
Standing here beside you,
I want so much to give you this love in my heart that I’m feeling for you
Let them say we're crazy.

By the time he hits the first chorus, Kurt’s joined him on stage and Puck’s singing and twirling Rachel around. Their energy is contagious and soon everyone is up singing along and dancing around the room. Blaine feels like the drunk Pied Piper.

When the last chord dies down, Kurt leans in to kiss Blaine and a whoop comes up from the crowd. It seems like Blaine started a bit of a trend. Sam comes up to him to take the guitar and immediately starts in on a song Blaine doesn’t know, but is apparently a crowd pleaser with this group. Everyone starts laughing and clapping along.

Blaine finds himself carried away with the crowd. Dancing with Kurt, being silly, drinking way more than he means to. Talking and laughing and feeling genuinely pleased with the turn that his life has taken in the past year.

Kurt pulls him into a corner a few minutes before midnight.

“So, Poophead, what did you think of 2014?” Kurt asks.

“I-I-I think if I went back to last New Year’s Eve and told myself what would happen this year, I would punch my-myself in the face for making up lies,” Blaine notes.

“That’s an interesting reaction,” Kurt snorts.

Blaine bobs his head in agreement. “How bb-bout you? What did you think?”

Kurt shakes his head in wonder. “Best year of my life.”

The ball drops.

The boys kiss.

And neither one of them has a care in the world.