Wrapping You In Love V
Blaine's dad comes home before his mom does. It's not that unusual, especially for a Friday - Blaine has a sneaking suspicion that his dad actually hates his job, which is why Cooper had been free to run off to L.A. Which is not to say that they don't worry about him; Cooper is the kind of person you worry about until the day you die, and even once you're in the grave, question, 'Who is that boy offending now?' But he has his family's complete support, and that's why Blaine doesn't worry about what he's going to do when he's ready to move out. Whatever he does, he'll be smarter at it than Cooper, which everyone knows. So there's no need to worry about him - but it's unusual enough that it catches both Blaine and his dad off centre and they stare at each other once his dad walks into the house.
Bill Anderson still has his coat on and his briefcase in his hand. He shifts from side to side while Blaine watches him from the other end of the hallway, the kitchen over his left shoulder. Finally, Bill clears his throat and asks, "How was school?"
Blaine shrugs a shoulder. "Fine," he answers, watching his Dad's face. When no other emotion is forthcoming, Blaine expands with, "The assembly was pretty boring, but no one tried anything stupid."
He knows that is the kind of thing his parents worry about. The bullying from years ago, and the bullying he suffers from now, and the cruelty he will face every day of his life. It's why he hides how much it all bothers him, how every taunt and push and whisper and dirty look falls on him like acid and burns his skin. He sometimes peels off his clothes and looks for signs of the abuse - but it's all silent, all hidden, not even skin deep, however much it poisons his blood.
But he hates the look that creeps into their eyes, theirs and Nana's and Pop's, Coop's and Kurt's and Mr. and Mrs. Hummel's. So he hides it with loud music, big grins, and bright eyes. It's easier to wade through all the muck if he has a purpose.
His dad relaxes slightly, like this is something he wasn't aware that he needed, but actually was. He nods once, twice, then says, "And your grades?"
Blaine beams because this is something he can be proud of, something he doesn't have to hide. "All A's!" he announces.
(It was something he had worried about; he's never been very good at French, doesn't really like it. But Kurt has been tutoring him for the last two months, withholding kisses and snuggles until his homework was done, and it all seemed to have paid off. He had breathed a huge sigh of relief when he saw his marks, and Sam had glanced over his shoulder to sneak a peek and had cried, "Honours! You ass!" and shoved him fairly good-naturedly.
Sometimes Blaine forgets that people actually struggle with school. It's always come so easily to him... It's not that he's inconsiderate, he's just oblivious, people tell him. It's something he's trying to work on.)
His dad grins - it's the Anderson grin, the one Charlie Anderson had, the one Bill and his brothers share, the one both Blaine and Cooper have been blessed with. "That's great, son," he praises, staring at Blaine with something like pride in his eyes, and Blaine straightens his shoulders, knowing that he's blossoming under the look. Blaine just thrives on people's happiness and being the cause of it, that's all. Bill starts to take off his coat, and when it hangs off his hand, he pauses, swallows, and almost looks like he's holding his breath when he asks, "How's Kurt doing?"
Blaine's chest begins to ache: it's a combination of loving someone for trying so hard and still being disappointed when they don't quite make the mark. He drums his fingers on the wall he's gripping and says, "Better, I think. He, uh. He wants me to stay the night tonight."
Bill's eyes cut over to his - blue and sharp. "Again?" he asks, his voice slightly incredulous. Not that Blaine can blame him. He'd probably be suspicious of two teenage boys in love spending the night together. And, well... Look at what happened this morning.
Remembering that, though, is a bad idea because Blaine can feel his blood surge southward and he shifts, trying to relieve the sudden pressure on his fly. No, he won't think about that. Not now.
"It's not what you think!" Blaine blurts.
Oh, damn. When will he ever learn to think before speaking?
His dad raises his eyebrows high, high on his brow, and stares at Blaine. Blaine closes his eyes and basically wishes he could sink into the ground because that would be safer and better for everybody than letting him walk around and talk aloud. There is a long pause that consists of Blaine slowly hunching his shoulders higher and higher and squeezing his fists in order to keep from running, and is only broken by his Dad's sudden chuckle. Blaine's eyes crack open to see his dad mere feet from him with an amused, paternal smile on his lips.
"Well, I hope not," he says before clapping a hand down on Blaine's shoulder. He chuckles again, probably at the relief Blaine knows is washing over his face, then says, "Can we move this further into the house?"
Blaine steps aside with a quiet, "Sure," and watches his father pass him. He follows him into the living room with the best, comfiest couch in the entire house and, when his dad keeps going into his study, stops in the middle of the room. His dad throws a, "I'll just be a minute," over his shoulder, which prompts Blaine to take a seat on the couch of love. He jogs his leg up and down, begins tapping out the rhythm of The Beatles' Hold Me Tight which has been stuck in his head since Kurt texted him about baking to the Across the Universe soundtrack. Blaine is more than a little envious; he wishes he could be with Kurt baking and singing and laughing and trying so damn hard to make Kurt's life better.
But no. He's stuck on the couch of his house, waiting for his father to return so he can try to convince him to let Blaine go back to Kurt where he belongs. He's eighteen years old. One would think he could do what he liked.
His dad comes back, rolling his shoulders and rubbing at the back of his neck. He walks over and takes over the small armchair across from the comfy couch and crosses one leg over the other, automatically taking control over the situation. Blaine has learned most of his leadership skills from his father, but for some reason, he always feels thirteen years old and just newly out of the closet every time he talks to him. So Blaine shifts in his seat, drums out the chorus of Hold Me Tight on his knee, and wishes he was with Kurt.
It's an often-wished desire.
After a moment, Bill clears his throat and says, "So. He wants you to stay the night."
Blaine blinks once, twice, shakes his head a little to wake him up from his imaginations and answers, "Yes, sir. He, um. He's having a wake." At his father's rapidly raised eyebrows, he adds, "For his NYADA dreams."
The eyebrows lower and his dad looks at him with this slightly incredulous expression on his face for the span of five heartbeats before he sighs, smiles slightly and, with a small head shake murmurs, "You artist types."
Blaine smiles a little sheepishly. Blaine's dad is not an artist type, Mama and Pop are the artists, and they have trained Cooper and Blaine well. There was many a day in his childhood of Cooper, Analynn Anderson and Blaine dancing around the kitchen, acting, singing, and dancing like fools while Bill Anderson watched from the doorway.
Sometimes Blaine feels like everyone in his family is their own little island, and they are a not actually a family but a collection of individuals who care about each other because their DNA forces them to, despite the far and many differences between them. Bill is a large island surrounded by the rocky beaches and mountains - hard to reach and conquer, but with a paradise inside that makes it worth it. Analynn is small but rich, full of fruit and life and too many animals for it to be real. Cooper is one of those wandering islands, the one with no base but travels to and fro, wherever the current may take his all-fun-all-the-time party. Blaine is tiny, with a volcano bubbling beneath the surface, afraid to let to blow and destroy the wonderful life he's managed to grow. They should not fit. They barely do. But the ocean connects them, and so they try.
"So he wants you there for his wake," his dad summarizes.
Blaine nods, gives him what he hopes is a trustful smile and says, "His whole family's going to be there. So, um..." he ducks his head, knows that a flush is creeping up the back of his neck - Blaine hates it when he blushes, he's not an attractive embarrassed person like Kurt or Rachel, he just gets darker - and mutters, "There won't be any funny business."
Not that what he and Kurt do is funny business, but he doesn't exactly want to go into detail with his father. Maybe Kurt and Mr. Hummel feel comfortable discussing that sort of thing - is it wrong that Blaine really hopes they don't because that's just a little too weird - but Blaine and his dad do not. And so.
Bill chuckles once and says, "Do you kids still use that saying these days?"
Blaine glances up at him through his eyelashes and shrugs, because who is Blaine to know what is cool and what's not? He's a gay teen in Ohio with a slight addiction to bowties who solos in a Glee Club that gets slushied on a weekly basis; his best friends are his countertenor boyfriend who insists fashion has no gender, a loudmouthed girl with two dads who until recently wore animal sweaters and whose idol is Barbra Streisand, and an Asian dancer with a slightly-controlling father and a once-gothic girlfriend, who can't decide if the Die Hard or Footloose movies are better. And his dad is asking him what's cool?
Jeez.
"Sometimes," Blaine deflects with a small shrug.
Bill sighs softly, looks over at his son for a long minute before he scratches his cheek, as if he's deciding something. "All right."
Blaine's head shoots up, because he was really expecting a bigger fight over this, possibly going around his dad through his mom, maybe actual begging and bargaining. But, no. His dad is smiling at him like he expected this stunned silence from his son and nodding his head. "You can leave after supper, if you help me fix something." Bill slowly pushes himself to his feet, stretches his arms out behind him and rolls his neck again. "Ana'll have my scalp if we have takeout again." He gives Blaine another quirk of a smile then says, "Did you need to call Kurt?"
"Uh..." Blaine blinks at him, trying to figure out if this is real, if maybe he's still sleeping and everything from today is one huge, long dream. Kurt is healing so well (or hiding it deep, Blaine can't be sure from this distance), and his grades were great, and now this? He feels like he's been handed this gift he doesn't deserve; surely he's going to drop and break it, right?
"Right. I'll, um, I'll do that and come help you!" he decides, jumping to his feet. The knowledge that this is somehow real is beginning to cement in his bones - he can feel it thrumming through his blood and singing in his nerves and oh, Kurt will be so pleased! Blaine can feel the grin finally start taking over his face as he runs for his bedroom where he put his phone about an hour ago to charge. He can go. He can go!
He slides into his room, already wriggling into a dance that seems to follow the rhythm of It Won't Be Long, because apparently he's in a Beatles mood. He grabs his phone as he sits on his bed, and sees he has three missed texts.
One is from Mike, mentioning a game night the bros are planing for next week - is Blaine up for it? Another is from Rachel, reminding him to have his suit press for the wedding Sunday - and how can they be planning a wedding when Kurt is bruised and aching? The last one is from Artie, asking when they should start their Disney marathon, and is Blaine's house available for hosting?
(Apparently, both Joe and Rory have missed out on the wonder that is Disney movies, and as a bonding exercise for the New Directions of tomorrow (Sugar's title, Tina's idea), they are going to educate these boys in the three weeks they have before Rory goes home. Blaine just wants a medley of Disney songs for Sectionals like he wants Kurt. Well, almost. You get the idea.)
Blaine texts Mike back with a definite maybe - it all depends on Kurt and how good he's feeling - and shoots off another text to Rachel, informing her that he is completely prepared, don't worry about him. He decides to wait to answer Artie's until he has more information; he'll have to ask his mom and try to time it for when Kurt is busy with Mercedes someday, so...
Then he texts Kurt with a happy: He said yes!!!! :D
He drops his phone back in his pocket and is halfway down the stairs when his phone buzzes in his pocket with Kurt's answer.
<3. Come whenever and dress appropriately.
Right. Because heaven forbid they not be fashionable in their grief. Blaine shakes his head fondly, because these are the kind of quirks he loves about Kurt, and walks into the kitchen, where his dad has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and is frowning into the fridge.
Blaine has many memories of his dad cooking. Cooper says that Dad never cooked until Mama got the new job, and the day she did so was a glum and melancholy day in the Anderson household (he insists Blaine cried. Blaine, however, has no memory of this). The new job came when Blaine was six years old, Cooper fifteen, and Dad worked at least ten hours six days a week. And then, apparently, things began changing and shifting from the life that Cooper had grown up in and into the life that Blaine knows.
Cooper would take the bus to school so he could meet his friends early, ten bucks from Dad in his pocket for lunch, and Blaine would sit at the kitchen table and finish eating his toast as he watched Cooper run out the door with his book bag hanging off one shoulder, and Dad pouted at Mama until she kissed him goodbye for the day. Then, once the men were off for their big day, Mama would throw all the dishes in the sink, bundle Blaine up in his favorite coat and drive him to his elementary school. She'd give him a kiss on the cheek and a promise to call the school if she wasn't going to be able to pick him up after school. Then she'd straighten his bow-tie for him, tell him what a handsome boy he was, and sent him off.
At least half the time, Blaine was told by his teacher after lunchtime that Mama had called and said to get a ride home with Coop? Was that correct? And Blaine had nodded and said that that was his big brother that went to Thurston and that he'd done this before, don't worry, Mrs. Fagen.
Blaine thinks she still worried.
And after school Blaine would set his book bag over his shoulders, stand up straight and tall, and walk for ten minutes over the Thurston High and waited at the front door for another ten minutes until the bell went off and the teenagers piled out of the school like ants from an ant farm. Blaine would sit, let the older boys scoff at him and the pretty girls coo and pat his head as they told him over and over how adorable he was, and by the time Cooper finally came out, usually followed by three or four others with an arm slung around some girl wearing too much face paint, Blaine would be struggling to set his hair straight and tidy his bow-tie. He would watch Cooper see him and slump over in disappointment before turning to his friends and explaining that he couldn't hang out today, he had to babysit the 'squirt'. Then he'd high-five them all and walk over to Blaine and without looking at him, tell him to "Catch up, kid."
Blaine was a pretty fast runner by that point though, something that stuck for his entire life. And he would jog at Cooper's side and they'd take the city bus instead of the school bus, because the school bus didn't go past their road, and older women would compliment Cooper on his sweetheart of a baby brother, and Blaine would stare out the window until the ride was almost over and Cooper felt safe to be himself, and would poke Blaine's side and tickle him until Blaine cracked and began giggling until he was out of breath. Then, Cooper would start singing some song Blaine had never heard of at the top of his lungs, still tickling Blaine and telling him to "Sing along, squirt! What, can't you sing? Well, if you can't sing, I guess I'll have to drink all the chocolate milk myself!" and Blaine would squeal, "No! Not my chocolate milk!" before dissolving into laughter once more and Cooper would laugh and laugh and laugh until they reached their stop. Then Cooper would stop, sling his bag over one shoulder, and picked up the gasping, still giggling Blaine and threw him over his other shoulder and stepped off the bus calling out, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen; we'll be here all week!" and Blaine would slap at Cooper to let him down; he wasn't a baby!
Then they'd be home.
Cooper was supposed to help him with his homework, but he never did. Instead, he either set himself down in front of the TV or called up his friends and chatted with them for hours. Blaine would sit at the kitchen table and work on his spelling homework and math, and sometimes read a book that some kids found really hard, but Blaine didn't. When he was finished, he would either plunk away at Mama's piano or colour in his coloring books if Coop was busy, and if not, he'd join Cooper watching TV. Cooper watched shows with a lot of explosions and curvy women and lots and lots of kissing that Blaine suspects helped cement his sexuality. For the first few minutes, Blaine would question everything, quizzing Cooper on why that man was shooting that other guy, and why that woman was crying, and were those two people married, is that why they were naked? When Cooper finally lost patience (which was usually with that last question), he'd tell Blaine to sit down and shut up or go away!
Blaine, however, was never very good at sitting down and shutting up. Even now, he still had trouble with it.
Dad would come around six o'clock, and if Blaine and Cooper were sitting on the couch, he'd loosen his tie, sigh to himself, then say, "All right, Coop. Let's get started on supper."
Cooper would always whine, "But I haven't finished my homework!"
And Dad would look over at Blaine who would nod and say, "Mine's all done, Daddy."
And Cooper would slump over and grumble, "Suck up," poking Blaine hard in the side until he yelped.
And then Dad would force Cooper to get up and the two of them would march off to the kitchen and Blaine would run ahead and get Nana's old cookbook and he'd sit at the kitchen table and chose a recipe and read off the instructions, helping Cooper write songs about the ingredients and reminding Dad not to cut himself with that knife, and then something would almost always burn - usually whatever Cooper was cooking - and sometimes the fire alarm even went off.
But if Cooper was on the phone, and Blaine was playing by himself (which was more likely), Dad would come find him and say, "Mama's working late again?" and Blaine would say, "Yup. Dad, can I have chocolate milk?" And Dad would pour it out for him, and he'd glance in the fridge while he did so, and once Blaine had his chocolate milk (which is something only Dad and Cooper let him have, never Mama), Dad would sit at the table across from him and say, "Want pizza again?"
Blaine would chant for pineapples, which always caught Cooper's attention and he'd come running into the kitchen with a call of "Extra cheese!" But that made Blaine's stomach sick, so he'd hold his stomach and moan until Dad asked, "What about mushrooms?" and Cooper and Blaine would look at each other and go, "ICK!" because mushrooms were brown and ugly.
Then Dad would roll his eyes and say, "I guess you boys want peppers, don't you?"
And Cooper would sing out, "Peppers made of fire!"
And Blaine would chime in, "Peppers cold and hot!"
Then Cooper would grab Blaine's hands and they'd swing around in the kitchen chanting, "Peppers, peppers, peppers, give me lots, lots, lots!"
They'd been awfully proud of that song.
Blaine watches his dad pull out an armful of vegetables and smiles at the memory of those old days, back before Cooper became a junior and popular and obsessed with Hollywood, back when Mom was still Mama (although she is still Mama, it had just been acceptable to call her that then), and Blaine was still a child and not a stranger. Way back before age thirteen and his coming out, and Grandmother's wrath that had struck the whole family and made Dad so tired and careful, Mama annoyed and overprotective, and Cooper running for the hills of LA, never looking back.
Back when they were all still gloriously happy.
"So, um," his dad is saying, kicking the fridge door shut behind him. "What do you think about some vegetable stew?" Bill drops the vegetables on the table, stares down at them, and scratches his head. "Uh..."
Blaine sighs, shakes his head with a fond smile and says, "C'mon, Dad. I can't be the only one who uses that cookbook." He turns away and starts for the bookshelf in the next room.
"They still use those things?" his dad calls back, voice curious. "I thought everything was on the web now."
Blaine kneels to get the book out of the second-to-bottom shelf, laughing quietly at his dad and the fact that he managed to raise such an old fashioned son. He stands up, hands brushing the dust off the book carefully, and keeps a tight hold on it as he walks back to the kitchen. This is his Nana's book from her newly-married days, and the fact that Mama has given it to him to protect and use was a great honor.
Blaine lays it down on the table and opens it up, skimming to the section he knows has all the stews. His dad peers over his shoulder and says, "Did, uh... How soon did you need to get to Kurt's?"
Blaine glances over his shoulder, sees his dad's look, the careful hope and fragile worry that he has said the wrong thing. Something twists hard in Blaine's gut, and he remembers when the wake will start - not for another four hours at least - and he sends his dad a warm smile.
"Not until sunset," he answers, hands still cradling the cookbook. "Kurt's all about the proper atmosphere." And maybe he gets a little starry-eyed thinking about Kurt, but he should be forgiven for that.
His dad's eyes brighten and he grins. "Oh. Well, uh, I can see his reasoning..." he drifts off, his smile fading, an awkward air around him.
Blaine shakes his head, pats his dad on the shoulder, and says, "C'mon, Dad. Let's save your scalp from Mom's wrath."
And the smile he gets in return makes up for a few hours away from Kurt. Because it's the same smile he would get as a child whenever he found something decent and easy to cook in this same cookbook.
[Chapter Six]