[fic] Unconditional
Part One | Part Two
18
Come November, Cooper is pretty settled in a life of the rich and the famous commercial star. He’s sort of in love with Chicago, with the lights and the fame, and he’s made a lot of friends fast. And, well, a new city means new girls, something of which Cooper has always been a fan.
Steady relationships aren’t really his thing.
What is interesting, though, is that, come November, someone steady begins appearing on Blaine’s Facebook a lot.
Cooper isn’t sure who Kurt Hummel is, but apparently his baby brother is sort of insanely in love with him. He’s in every picture Blaine posts; he’s in every status update, every comment, every link.
It’s not that Blaine has never had friends before; it’s just that, the friends Blaine has had have always been more of what Cooper would call casual acquaintances. He’s never really had a best friend before, the type of person you tell everything and know they won’t judge you. And now that he has one, it seems he’s gotten sort of clingy.
And Kurt, whoever the hell he is, soaks that shit up like butter.
“So when’s the wedding?” He claps Blaine on the shoulders, making him jump. It’s Christmas vacation time and the first time Cooper’s been back in Ohio for a while. He has to make the most of his torture-brother time, especially since Blaine’s gone and done something stupid, like get a job for the holidays.
(Cooper’s also smart enough to know that the holiday job is mostly just an excuse to spend as little time at home as possible).
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do know,” Cooper teases, sitting down next to Blaine on the couch. It’s just the two of them at the moment--the parents are gone to some holiday party, whatever, Cooper wasn’t paying attention. All that matters is that the Xbox gets to be on the big screen and there’s no one around to tell them not to. “That boy you’re always talking about on Facebook? I think his name starts with a K or something?”
“Oh.” Blaine says, arms tucked around himself, passing the controller to Cooper. “You mean Kurt.”
“That’s the name.” Cooper grins, nudging his brother with his shoulder. “Is he your boyfriend or something? I hope you’re fucking, if nothing else.”
“What? No--no, Cooper, he’s my friend.”
“Your gay friend.”
Blaine glares at him. “Two gay guys can be friends, Cooper.”
“I know that--I just want to know why you aren’t fucking. Get on that.”
Blaine frowns at him. “We’re just friends, Cooper. We carpool together--he lives in Lima, too, so we ride together from Dalton for the weekend.”
Cooper raises his eyebrow suspiciously. “Ohhh--so that’s why you keep coming home for the weekends. Maria said you were spending more time around the house recently. She thought you were mad at someone at Dalton or something, but no, you’re just a really, really clingy boyfriend.”
“Just friends!”
“Whatever. God, you probably spend your time painting each other’s nails or some girly shit like that.”
Blaine glares. “We get coffee and go shopping, usually.”
Cooper winks at him. “And when he’s doing something else, you sit at home and play Zelda, waiting for him to call you.”
“...Shut up.”
“H- ha, I’m right.” Cooper grins as his character dies, and passes the controller back to Blaine. “I still don’t understand why you aren’t fucking, though. I mean, I always thought that was the advantage to being gay. You’re both dudes, you should be fucking all the time.”
Blaine exhaled. “Do you try to make every single thing you say be as offensive as possible, or is it just something that occurs naturally?”
Cooper merely shrugs. “Whatever. Is it his dick? Does he have an ugly dick, and that’s why you don’t want to date him?”
Blaine throws a pillow at Cooper’s head.
19
He feels vindicated come March, though, when Blaine finally updates his Facebook information.
Blaine Anderson is in a relationship with Kurt Hummel.
23 people like this.
He should start planning a trip back to Ohio soon. He may need to meet this kid.
(That doesn’t, of course, stop him from sending Blaine a text. Congrats, bro. You fucking yet?
Blaine’s response is, as always, Go to hell.)
20
Blaine doesn’t tell his parents that he has a boyfriend in the same way he never told his parents he was gay but that doesn’t mean that they don’t know. It’s hard not to know, the way every other word out of Blaine’s mouth is about Kurt, or the way his eyes light up when he talks about Kurt, or the fact that he’s really never home anymore.
So it comes as a surprise, then, when he sits them one evening in early May, and tells them that he’s going to prom. With his boyfriend.
“Absolutely not.” Mark says immediately, in such a frank, end-of-discussion tone that Blaine’s face immediately falls.
That, of course, gets two sets of identical gold-colored eyes trained on him in an instant.
“Dad--”
“Mark.”
“Absolutely not,” He repeats to both of them before turning his attention fully to Blaine. “Are you stupid? Do you not remember what they did to you last time?” He snaps his fingers, imitating how very, very close they were to losing Blaine entirely. “Are you trying to get hospitalized again?”
What he wants to ask is: Are you really this suicidal? I thought you were happy now, finally.
Blaine doesn’t look him in the eye, instead stares at his shoes like they’re the most interesting shoes in all of creation. “It will be different, this time.”
“How, Blaine? How will it be different?” Because all Mark can think of is how Blaine looked when they brought him in, with all the blood leaking out of him and the doctors telling them that there was a chance he wouldn’t ever wake up.
Blaine looks up slowly, his hands folded in his lap like a little girl’s. “We’re older. We can drive ourselves, and we won’t--we won’t be waiting around by ourselves in a dark parking lot. Kurt’s brother and his friends will be there; they won’t let anything happen to us. I’m--” I’m not a scared little boy anymore. “I--It’ll be different.”
“This is insane.”
“Blaine,” Maria says, quietly, taking one of his hands into her own and squeezing it gently. “My baby. Are you sure this is what you want?”
Blaine swallows a lump in his throat, and smiles. “I’m sure, Mama. I want to go to prom with Kurt.”
She smiles, and kisses his forehead gently. “Then you have our permission, darling.”
Mark nearly kicks the coffee table over. “He absolutely does not have our permission!”
Maria rolls her eyes. “Mark...”
“I will lock him in his bedroom--don’t think I won’t.”
Maria pats the seat beside her on the couch, and Mark doesn’t want to sit down, he’s angry and scared--but he does what she wants regardless. She places her other hand on top of his and squeezes. “Darling, he’s not a little boy anymore.”
“What are you talking about? Of course he is. He’s sixteen--”
“I’m seventeen, Dad.”
“--seventeen then, I don’t care. You’re still my son and I--” He pauses and looks over at Blaine, breathes in deep. “I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
Blaine smiles sadly. “I won’t, Dad. Kurt will be there.”
“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t reassure me. I’ve never even met this Kurt kid, how am I supposed to trust him to look after you?”
Maria’s eyes brighten. “There’s an idea. Blaine, why don’t you and Kurt stop by here before prom, so your father can meet Kurt and I can take some pictures of you both?”
Blaine nods slowly, still a little unnerved. “That’s--okay, Mama, I can do that.”
21
“So you’ve met this boy, then?”
“His name is Kurt, darling.” Maria smiles, fiddling with her camera while waiting for Blaine and his boyfriend to get back from dinner. “And yes, once or twice. He’s very sweet.”
“Sweet, huh? And gay, I guess.” He swallows nervously. “Will I like him?”
“I think you will not like him at all, at first.” Maria tells him plainly, taking a few sample shots of various things in the kitchen to check the settings on her camera. “Then I think he will surprise you.”
“Wonderful.” He looks out the kitchen window and breathes. “Maria, they’re here.”
She pats his hand gently, like she might a child’s. “Don’t be nervous--they’re just teenagers. I promise they won’t bite, much.”
The front door opens, and in stumbles Blaine and his boyfriend, laughing. “Mom, Dad, we’re home!”
“We’re in the kitchen, darling.”
He hears more giggling, and then a whispered Don’t be nervous! before they step into the entranceway and--
Oh.
That’s a skirt.
That’s a boy wearing a skirt, and holding his son’s hand.
“Kurt Hummel,” says the boy in a skirt, holding out his hand for Mark to shake. “I’m Blaine’s boyfriend.”
It takes everything in Mark to just shake this boy’s hand, and not punch him in the face, throw Blaine over his shoulder and lock him in his room.
Mark (grimaces) smiles. “Mark Anderson.”
The boy in a skirt smiles in return. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Oh, you boys look so handsome!” Maria exclaims, taking over the conversation and pulling Kurt into a hug. “Let me take some pictures!”
And does she ever take pictures. There are pictures taken with the boys on the staircase, by the front door, by the fireplaces, of the boys together, of Blaine by himself.
He’s grateful for the distraction, though.
“That boy is wearing a skirt,” he whispers to his wife, his voice high and uneasy. “Maria, our baby is going to get knifed in the parking lot of a public school because he went to prom with a transvestite.”
“Mark,” she whispers back, scandalized. ”You can’t say things like that.”
“I just don’t understand. If he wanted to date someone wearing a skirt, why can’t he just date a girl? That’s far less likely to get him killed, especially at a public school in Ohio.”
“I don’t think Kurt is a transvestite,” Maria muses as the boys flit around in the background. ”I’ve seen him wear boy clothes. I think he’s just very…fashionable. And besides, I think that’s a kilt. That’s menswear, right?”
“Oh, so he’s just trying to get him and Blaine killed instead, is that it?”
“Mark,” her eyes flash, “be nice.”
“I am being nice,” he whines in protest. ”I haven’t kicked that boy out of my house and barricaded Blaine in his room yet. That’s me being very nice.”
Around that time, Blaine turns his attention back to his parents. “We probably need to leave now, Mama, so we won’t be late.”
“Okay,” Maria says, kissing his cheek. “You have your phone?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And your keys?’
“Yes, Mama.”
“And you’ll call us if anything-and I mean anything-goes wrong?”
“Yes, Mama.”
She kisses him again for good measure. “I love you. Be safe. Have fun!”
“Be home by midnight.”
It is the first time that he can ever recall giving Blaine a curfew. That, perhaps, explains the shocked look on his face.
“Or he’ll turn into a pumpkin?” the boy in the skirt winks. “Don’t worry--I’ll have him back before midnight.”
Mark smiles, and thinks that, in different circumstances, he might actually like this kid.
22
Mark Anderson doesn’t sleep that night.
Neither does Blaine, for that matter, but for entirely different reasons.
23
“I’m glad Blaine’s dating that boy.” Maria tells him, late that night because neither of them are sleeping. Blaine’s home now, safe and sound in bed, but the nerves from before are still keeping them awake, hours later.
“I’m not.” Mark grumbles, and thinks of all the awful ways this night could have ended.
Maria laughs, and kisses him on the cheek. “You just don’t like him because he wore a kilt to prom.”
“I think he’s dangerous,” Mark admits. “And I think he’s naïve, and that’s going to get him killed one day. And, knowing our luck, Blaine will go down with him.”
“I think he’s brave,” Maria argues, her long black curls lying against her pillow. “And I think he makes Blaine brave, in return. I never thought Blaine would have wanted to go to a dance again, especially after what happened after the last one.”
Mark doesn’t say anything, but then again, he doesn’t have to. Maria knows how he feels about this.
(Because if it had been up to Mark alone, Blaine wouldn’t have gone. Blaine’s very lucky he has his mother around to argue for his cause.)
“That, and sometimes I regret sending Blaine to private schools his entire life.”
That catches Mark’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are some advantages to public school, you know?” She smiles, and pokes her husband gently in the nose. “Prom, for one thing, which I’m glad he got to go to regardless. Wearing what you want every day--I wouldn’t even know what Blaine looks like if he did. He has so few clothes outside of his uniform that he doesn’t really have his own style, or his own identity. Having girlfriends,” Mark makes a face at that, and Maria laughs. “Oh, not like that--I don’t wish he was straight. I just think he could use a couple of female friends. When he was at Lima Catholic, he was still at that age when girls were icky, you know? And now that he’s older, he’s at Dalton, where there are no girls at all.”
“He never grew out of thinking girls are icky; that’s why we’re in this mess,” Mark grumbles, and Maria laughs and pinches him playfully. “Ow! I’m serious. So what do you want to do? Stop sending him to Dalton?”
“No. I want Dalton for as long as Blaine wants Dalton.” She kisses her husband gently. “But if he ever stops wanting Dalton, well-McKinley is not a bad school.”
“McKinley is a terrible school,” Mark argues. “They focus entirely too much on sports, and he won’t get accepted into as many colleges if he graduates from McKinley, and I want Blaine to--”
Maria kisses him again, effectively shutting him up mid-sentence. “There is more to life, my love, than where you went to school, or the quality of your education. And I think Blaine knows that.”
Mark rolls on his side and looks at her. “You think Blaine would do that? You think he’d want to leave Dalton for that boy?”
His wife nods. “I think he loves him. And I think Blaine will do anything to be with the one he loves.”
“You really think it’s that serious? His first high school boyfriend, and he’s just going to-what, rearrange his whole life around him?”
Maria looks at him, softly. “I saw him, earlier today with Kurt. You were…rather focused on the skirt, I think. And he was smiling, Mark. He was so happy--genuinely happy. And I haven’t seen him smile like that since before the dance.”
“So he loves him.”
She smiles. “I think you should start liking Kurt Hummel, darling. I think he’s going to be around for a very, very long time.”
24
Summer comes and goes, and before too long, it’s back-to-school time. Not that it really matters to Cooper-he’s out of school by now, and good riddance. Thank God he never has to deal with that headache ever again.
He’s a little surprised, however, when Blaine calls him on what should be his second day at Dalton, at one o’clock in the afternoon.
He answers the phone with a smile. “Skipping school already? I knew there was a deviant in you somewhere.”
Blaine laughs in his ear. “Hello to you too, Big Brother. And no, I’m not skipping school. I’m-I’m actually on the way to school, believe it or not.”
“Oh? Has Dalton started offering night classes or something?”
He can see Blaine smiling in his mind. “Actually, I’m not at Dalton anymore. As soon as I turn these papers in, I’ll be a McKinley student.”
Cooper whistles. “Dad know?”
“I guess. I don’t know. Mom knows, though; she signed the papers.”
“Well, good for you. Loverboy know you’re that clingy?”
“I’m not clingy.”
Cooper laughs. “Baby bro, I hate to tell you this, but you’re transferring schools in order to be with your high school boyfriend. I think that’s the definition of clingy.” He rubs his forehead with a chuckle. “God, you are like a combination of my absolute worse high school girlfriends. Good job, Blaine.”
“I’m doing it for me, too, you know.” Blaine huffs, a little less amused than Cooper thinks he ought to be.
“Of course you are. What, you need a chance to ‘find yourself’ or something?”
“A little bit,” Blaine confesses, humor in his voice. “I mean, I realized in class today that I have absolutely no idea who I am when I’m not wearing this uniform.” He groans. “Oh God, that sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I can’t tell Kurt that. Help me think of a better line.”
Cooper rolls his eyes, but smiles into his phone. He loves his little brother. “Just tell him that you love him and can’t stand to be apart from him--he’ll love it, just like he loves the rest of your clingy, emotionally-codependent butt.”
“A) not clingy. B) Yes, yes he will, thank you.”
Cooper laughs before sobering up. “Personally, I’m glad to hear you’re leaving Dalton. I mean, it’s a good school, don’t get me wrong, and I’ll always be grateful they kept you safe, but I always thought it made you something of a robot. Dalton-bot 3000 or something.”
“I was thinking the Human Jukebox, but Dalton-bot 3000 does have a nice ring to it.”
Cooper grins into the phone. “So, tell me, have you done it yet?”
“Cooper!”
“What? You’ve been dating for months now. Tell me you’ve at least gotten to third base.”
He can practically hear Blaine blushing. “I-we’re waiting for the right time.”
“What? That’s stupid. Why would you do that?” Cooper teases cruelly. “Oh God, is it the dick thing? Does he have a weird-shaped cock that he doesn’t want you to see? What if it’s funny looking? Blaine, does your boyfriend have a funny-looking penis?”
“Oh my God I’m not talking to you anymore. Goodbye, Cooper!”
Cooper is laughing too hard to say goodbye back.
25
Epilogue
Late one night in November, Cooper gets a text message from Blaine.
For the record, his penis is not weird-shaped, broken, or funny-looking. It’s beautiful. <3
Cooper buys airplane tickets the next morning. April is a good time to fly, right? He should have some time off by then.
Apparently, this relationship is serious, and he needs to meet this boy already.
END