“I think we have everything,” Kurt said, shutting the trunk of his car. “Suitcases, Roscoe things, Roscoe himself, me, you… that seems to be it.”

“I guess we’re good, then,” Blaine said with a nod, getting into the car and buckling in as Kurt started down the street.

It was a short drive, mostly weaving back through side streets, and it only took a few minutes before they were pulling up into the driveway. Blaine hadn’t actually been there since he moved into the house with Santana – it was much easier for his parents to come to him if they wanted to see him than for him to try and find a way to them.

“I’m guessing this is it?” Kurt said, putting the car in park and killing the engine. “You said 1901, right? Disgustingly gorgeous house?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know about that part,” Blaine said, shaking his head. “But if we’re at 1901 Vine Street then yes, we’re in the right place.” He got out of the car, letting Roscoe out of the back and walking up to the front door with Kurt. There wasn’t even a chance for him to get out his key before the door swung open and he was crushed into a hug.

Cooper gave some of the best hugs ever – always full and long and almost bone crushing but full of love. They hadn’t always been close but ever since the incident, Cooper had hugged him like the world was about to end and he just had to let him know how much he loved him. The first one had been painful, as he hadn’t waited until Blaine was fully healed, but after that they had been great. It almost made him think of Brittany, the way she threw herself into things so fully, but Cooper wasn’t like that with everything like she was.

“There’s my favorite little brother,” Cooper said, swaying from side to side with him and not letting go.

“I’m your only little brother,” Blaine reminded him, but the sentiment wasn’t lost.

“I still mean it!” He let go of him, ruffling his hair, and Blaine quickly moved to smooth it back down.

“Coop, this is Kurt.”

“You.” Kurt said, sounding slightly off than usual.

“Me!” Cooper said cheerfully. “Kurt, it’s so good to officially meet you.”

“Cooper,” Blaine started slowly, his brow furrowing. “What did you do?”

“Nothing at all!” Well that definitely couldn’t be true. He was holding Kurt’s hand and could feel Cooper shaking Kurt’s other hand and not letting go, just shaking and shaking and something was weird.

“I met your brother this morning,” Kurt supplied, still sounding apprehensive.

“When?” Blaine thought back, and they’d been together the whole time.

“Well Blaine, you refused to give me any information whatsoever about Kurt so I decided to take matters into my own hands.” Cooper sounded positively gleeful and that was concerning. “I got in yesterday and decided to camp out at your little coffee shop, since I know how much you’re addicted to that place.”

“Cooper.”

“Kurt here’s a good guy, I like him.”

“Thanks?” Kurt said, pulling his hand away. “Sorry for… snapping at you, I guess.”

“You snapped at him?” Blaine asked, tightening his grip on his hand. “Cooper what did you do?”

“Nothing! I just wanted to make sure everything was hunky dory in Blaine-land and you wouldn’t tell me anything so I had to find out for myself.”

“Cooper, why are you just standing there with the door open? It is cold outside, dear.” Marie interrupted them, and took in a short breath as she saw them standing there. “Blaine!”

Blaine was wrapped up in his mom’s arms, which effectively stopped him from questioning his brother any further. “Hi.”

“And you must be Kurt,” she continued, pulling back. “So glad you could join us. Your dad is coming in tomorrow, I believe?”

“Yes, he had to work today and didn’t want to drive in late,” Kurt said, and Blaine could hear the faintest waver in his voice. Was he nervous? Maybe the whole thing with Cooper had thrown him off, because Kurt hadn’t seemed nervous at all at the prospect of meeting his family before then – at least not as far as Blaine could tell. “Thank you for having us, it’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Anderson.”

“The pleasure is all mine, and please call me Marie,” she said, clearing her throat. “Cooper? Why don’t you go get their things from the car? Boys, you can come on inside.”

“I can get my stuff,” Kurt offered, but Blaine knew that was no use.

“Nonsense, Cooper doesn’t mind.”

“No of course not,” Cooper piped up. “After all, you guys drove all that long way. What, five whole minutes? I only had a four hour flight, no big deal.”

“Cooper. You got in yesterday. Go get their things.” That seemed to dismiss the topic well enough for them to go into the house. “Feel free to make yourself at home, Kurt. The guest room is all made up for you, it’s right down this hall.”

Blaine lagged behind as Marie gave Kurt a short but concise tour of the house. He liked it alright, but it wasn’t the house he was used to. It was weird, knowing that he’d never know what it was really like. He could still picture his childhood house so vividly – his room, the tree house in the backyard, his dad’s office, everything.

The house where they were, it wasn’t the house where he’d tripped down the stairs and scraped his knee when he was five. It wasn’t the house where he’d learned to crawl, learned to walk, learned to play the piano. That house, the piano had been back in the family room, where he could sit and play and his mom would be able to listen while she made dinner in the kitchen in the next room over.

He heard the thud of suitcases landing by the door and he trailed back to where he knew his brother was. “Coop?”

“Squirt!” Cooper hugged him again, as if they hadn’t just greeted each other minutes prior.

“What did you do to make Kurt snap at you?” Blaine asked, face buried against his shoulder since he wasn’t letting go.

“Hm? Oh, that! Nothing much. He apparently didn’t appreciate me staring at you.”

“You were staring at me?”

“No I wasn’t! Well maybe I kind of was. I was watching. I wanted to see this Kurt fellow outside of the walls of this house – see what he was really like.”

“And?” Blaine asked patiently, pulling back enough to tilt his head up toward him.

“Well Santana was right, you two are sickeningly adorable,” Cooper said, patting him on the back and releasing him from his arms. “I haven’t seen you smile like that in years. Plus now at least I know that if he does something wrong, you’ll kick him in the shins!”

***

“Sorry about that,” Blaine said once he’d gotten Kurt away. He’d taken him off to his room under the pretense of setting up Roscoe’s bed.

“Why? Your mom’s nice.”

“She is, but she was also grilling you as soon as you got into the house.”

“I don’t care,” Kurt said, slipping his arms around Blaine’s neck and shrugging. “I was kind of anticipating some questions.”

“I don’t know what it’ll be like when my dad gets home,” Blaine said, biting his lip briefly as his arms slid around Kurt’s waist to pull him in close. “It won’t be bad or anything, I can promise that much, just…”

“Blaine, it’s fine. So far as I can tell, your family is very nice. I wouldn’t have expected any less considering how you are. Cooper could probably stand to get smacked around a little, but I think he means well. I can see how he and Santana get along like you say they do.”

“He does mean well.” Blaine grinned. “You should probably avoid smacking him, though. He’d take that as a challenge, and he’s very competitive.”

“Duly noted.”

“He likes you, though,” he added, his head tilting to the side as Kurt pressed a kiss against his temple. “Though I’m not sure how anyone could not.”

“Of course you would think that,” Kurt said with a soft laugh, resting their foreheads together. He paused, his fingertips rubbing lightly against the hair at the nape of Blaine’s neck. “Were you going to talk to your dad tonight?”

“Yes,” Blaine said, letting out a breath. “I mean, I think so. We’ll see. It’s kind of now or never, and I really don’t want to wait until tomorrow in case something goes awry.”

Charles Anderson got home not that much later, as indicated by the garage door opening, interrupting what had been a not very heated debate over what dinner should be. It had been very clearly expressed that it was going to be ordered or delivered, because the kitchen was not about to be messed up when there was a big meal planned for the next day. Blaine and Cooper had narrowed it down to pizza or Chinese, and Kurt was mostly just sitting back and watching, his thumb absently rubbing over the top of Blaine’s hand.

It was involuntary, the way Blaine’s grip tightened on Kurt’s hand as soon as he heard the door open. There wasn’t anything to be scared of, nervous about, but he knew he’d always done a good job of building his dad up in his head to the point that talking to him was borderline terrifying at times. Like when he’d called him to tell him about Kurt in the first place. He just tried to keep reminding himself that his dad had been so obviously trying when he’d done that, so that meant it was going to be okay. He hoped.

“Sorry I’m late, traffic was worse than usual.”

“That’s alright, we were just deciding on dinner,” Marie said, and Kurt’s hold on Blaine’s hand squeezed in tighter before he managed to let go, getting up from beside him. Blaine pushed up to his feet, taking in a deep breath. “Charles, this is–”

“Kurt Hummel,” Charles said, before anyone else was able to introduce him.

“Mr. Anderson, it’s great to finally meet you,” Kurt said, voice not wavering like it had earlier when he’d met Marie. Maybe it was because he was feeling comfortable there around them, or maybe it was because he’d been steeling himself for meeting him, but either way Blaine was impressed.

“Likewise. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Wait, what?” Cooper sounded practically offended.

“Hush,” Marie said, and it sounded like she swatted him with the magazine she’d been reading. “Go order some pizza.” He grumbled as he wandered off to the kitchen to find the right number, and Blaine felt himself pulled into a gentle hug.

“Hi Dad,” he said, arms slipping around him to return the hug before pulling back. There was no time like the present, he figured, and he knew if he gave himself more time to think about it he might just delay it until it was too late. “Can I, um, talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” Charles said, sounding surprised. “Give me a minute to get off my coat.” Blaine nodded and shifted back toward the couch as his dad walked over to the closet.
“Did you want me to go, honey?” Marie asked quietly, but Blaine shook his head as he sat down.

“No, stay.” Kurt sat beside him, taking his hand again, and Blaine was really grateful for him being there. Cooper would have been good to have for support too, if he had any idea of what was going on, but all things considered it was probably a good thing that he was off in another room.

“Alright, now. What is it?” Charles had settled into his normal armchair, just beside Blaine’s end of the couch. He could hear the patience in his voice, and that made him less nervous about the whole conversation.

“I know that when I was applying for colleges, we talked a lot about… what I could do,” Blaine started, all the words he’d thought of before suddenly failing him. He’d planned it out, what to say, arguments to make, but everything was gone. “I know we agreed on me going into English, and I enjoy studying it, and writing, and all of that, but that’s not what I want to do.”

Kurt slipped their hands together and Blaine took a deep breath. “I want to study music. I always have, and that didn’t change just because of this.” He gestured up toward his eyes and his brow furrowed. “I know we didn’t think it was really possible, I didn’t really think it was possible, but it is.”

“Blaine…”

“There’s a teacher at college,” Blaine hurried ahead, not wanting to be stopped before he could get it all out. “She heard me playing one day, and she… looked into it. Well, she talked to Kurt and he told her why I wasn’t doing it and she researched about Braille music and how to read it, teach it and learn it, and she’s been working with me so I can do more. She said I could audition during finals week to be accepted into the department for next semester.

“I know the… it can’t be the impracticality of being a musician that you’d objected to before.” He was practically clutching Kurt’s hand, trying to remember at least part of what he’d planned to say. “It couldn’t be that, because Cooper’s an actor and that’s just as bad in terms of practical professions. So I have to believe that the only reason it was a problem was because it didn’t seem possible, but now it is, and I really want to know if you’re going to be mad when I audition in two weeks.”

“Sweetheart,” Marie began, but Blaine had already known she would be in his corner. Hers wasn’t the reaction he’d been worried about.

“Of course we’re not going to be mad at you,” Charles said, reaching over and resting his hand on his shoulder. “I know we haven’t always… seen eye to eye, but Blaine, it was never about what I wanted, this is your life. My concerns weren’t ever based on your abilities, more like the inabilities of others to be able to teach you in the way you would need. I didn’t want you going into a situation where it wasn’t going to be possible for you to succeed, no matter what you did.”

“It’s not like that…”

“Clearly,” he said smoothly, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “If you’re confident that this will work, and that this is what you want to do, I’m not going to say you can’t.”

“We just worry,” Marie added. “It’s not that we don’t think you’re talented, we know you are.”

“Very talented,” Kurt murmured, and Blaine wasn’t sure if it was meant to be loud enough for anyone but him, but it made him flush slightly all the same.

“I know, it’s just that you’d been rather adamant before,” Blaine said, rubbing his face. Deep down he’d been a little concerned that if he tried to go into a field that his parents didn’t agree with, they wouldn’t continue to fund his education. Not that they were the type of people who would do that, but he knew he tended to think irrational thoughts at the worst time.

“Is this really what you want to do?”

“Yes.” There was a long pause, and Kurt squeezed his hand.

“If it’s what you want, and you’re willing to work at it,” Charles began slowly, “then you should audition.” Blaine was sure there had been a lot of glances exchanged, some form of silent conversation and confirmation between his parents, but those words were all he needed.

“Audition?” Cooper repeated as he came back into the room, flopping down on the couch on the other side of Kurt. “Who’s auditioning for something? I have a ton of pre-audition rituals I could share – totally helps with any jitters you get. I even have a special morning of an audition smoothie that not only is refreshing and delicious, but also instills confidence and bravado.”