In which In which Chris informs his family about his college choice, Macdonalds lends a helping hand to Chris and Leona shows how Ellis isn't the only genius in the family
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Eddie was nursing a headache by the time Chris finally came home. His parents kept trying to get him to accept the money, but he knew quite well the money came with specific conditions, conditions that would take his son away from him.
He can’t afford to move to Texas again at this point, but he might actually lose Christopher again if he doesn’t figure out a way to keep him here.
“Mijo, you’re back.” He couldn’t help the relief in his voice. Other than the initial text where he told him he was staying with the Wilsons for a few days to clear his head, Christopher had ignored and rejected all of his attempts to contact him.
“Sweetheart, we were so worried!! And you didn't pick up our calls!” Helena tried to fuss over the young man, but Chris only stepped away from her. “We were just talking about your college options and—”
Staring at his father and his grandparents, Chris took a deep breath and interrupted. “I turned down the Caltech offer yesterday and submitted my acceptance letter to Cal State, LA. It’s the only university that still accepts financial aid applications for this semester, and with the college fund I currently have, I just need to find around 50,000 to pay the rest.”
“You don’t have to do this, nieto.” Ramon tried to coax Christopher, well aware of his stubborn demeanour, “Your grandmother and I can help pay for whichever university you decide to go to. It was our fault for not realizing what Adriana had done.”
Chris shrugged. “I don’t mind if you do, but I think it’s time I learn about financial responsibilities for myself.”
“Thanks,” Ian says in response to V, but he’s looking at Mickey when he says it, that stupid lopsided grin tugging at his mouth.
Mickey’s cheeks are warm and fucking—whatever. He doesn’t care if he blushes. He wants Ian to keep looking at him like that.
“You ready to go?” Ian asks, nodding to the door.
“You gonna tell me where we’re going?” Mickey asks, idly wondering if he should bring his backpack or just leave it in the back room until his next shift.
“Maybe,” Ian teases, turning slightly towards the door with a smirk on his face. Mickey decides fuck the backpack, he doesn’t need anything in it tonight, and he follows Ian without so much as a second glance back.
Lucas sighed, like he was already tired of hearing it. He probably was. It had been a long morning, and Jens wasn’t even dressed yet. Well, not ‘properly’. Lucas was currently helping him with that.
It was going swell.
“You really can’t do this yourself?” Lucas grunted, fumbling with another clasp on Jens’s jacket. At least he had two done, now.
“Yes, because clearly it’s so easy.” When Lucas didn’t respond beyond gritting his teeth, Jens decided now probably wasn’t the time for jokes. “Maybe we should just leave it open.”
Lucas’s glare could have lit his whole village on fire.
“Or I can stop talking and let you get on with it.”
Things normalize faster than Blaine thought possible. It's not even been a whole week when his parents fail to rise with him in the morning, and only a few days after that when nobody is home when he returns from school. He sees that as the taciturn agreement that the ban on after school activities is over, and no one says anything when he only returns home for dinner the day after. He'd be hurt if he wasn't so relieved, or—maybe he's hurt even so. Just a little, though. He knows they love him and they mean well, and they've never been the type to hover.
It also makes him think about the meaning of family. His parents are family, yes, but so is Kurt. Kurt would have understood what he needed for comfort, and would not have presumed or projected his own expectations on him. Kurt has done everything he can to be there for him, even from afar.
So his parents can think what they want, but Kurt is his family. He doesn't need to do anything to make him so.
But he wants to. So, so much.
He buys a pretty little rainbow pin and gives it to Burt, to wear it in Washington, hopeful when Burt once again expresses his support for gay marriage.
“I want to ask Kurt to marry me,” he blurts out.
Burt looks at him like he's grown a second head.
“You kidding or you nuts?” he asks bluntly.
Blaine shrugs. “I know you'll say we're to young. But...my feelings for Kurt aren't going to change. I know I want to be with him for ever. He's my soulmate.”
“Look...” Burt says, “you know I'm happy that you love Kurt, and you know you're like family to me...”
“So you're saying you'd be okay with us getting married?”
“Of course not. You're just kids. There is absolutely no reason for you to get married.” He laughs, as if the idea is absurd, and Blaine starts to get a little....pissed.
“I don't think you understand,” he says, “what it's like to be denied the right to marry.”
“Come on, let's go sit down,” Burt says. Reluctantly, Blaine sits on a chair. He's aware he's pouting and it doesn't improve his mood.
“Just because you might soon be able to, hopefully,” Burt says, “doesn't mean you have to, or even that you should. You are very young, you know, even if you don't like to hear it. I'm not saying it won't work. The point is, though, there are so many steps still before you, milestones, if you will. Graduate. Go to New York, move in with Kurt. See how that's like. There are so many things you can experience together. Marriage is one of them, of course, but it doesn't have to come right now.”
Blaine can't quite shake the feeling that Burt may have a point. He is looking forward to experiencing everything with Kurt, he doesn't have to experience everything at once. However, he isn't quite ready to concede.
“What if something goes wrong?” he asks sullenly.
“Like what?”
“Like he finds someone else.”
“You did, not so long ago,” Burt says, making Blaine wince. It still hurts to remember what he did to Kurt.
“And Kurt forgave you, and you're back together now, and probably stronger for the experience. Back then, did you think that would be possible?”
Blaine shakes his head. Burt doesn't know, doesn't need to know, to what lengths he went to get Kurt to forgive him. But sometimes it still seems like a miracle.
“There. You will always face obstacles, even, you know, when you're married. Your problems don't magically disappear with a marriage certificate. But you will work it out, like you did before. It's gonna be okay.”
He stands up and turns to go, but Blaine calls him back.
“How do you know that, though?”
“When two people love each other, like you two do...everything works out.”
He leaves Blaine with a lot to think about. He doesn't necessarily agree with everything Burt said. Everything doesn't work out just because two people love each other. He has loved Kurt....before, and he has still cheated on him, hurt him so badly he felt he had to break up. And if it means everything will work out in the end—well, he has no desire to wait until the end, nor to go through anything like this again.
Still. That won't change when they're married, he knows that. He isn't naive enough to think that all their problems will magically disappear because they're married.
Except maybe that's exactly what he has been thinking.
Because they do still have problems, even though they're happy and love each other. He lies awake at night wondering how it will be when they are in New York together, living together. It's not just happy images of serving Kurt breakfast in bed and falling asleep cuddled up next to him at night. What keeps him awake are mainly the questions that won't go away: Kurt has a life in New York, a life without him. He has had a whole year that seems much longer than that to find his place and make friends. How will Blaine fit into that? Is there even room for him?
He knows he should talk to Kurt about this. Let himself be reassured, if nothing else...although, Blaine had worried about Kurt being in New York in the first place, and had let himself be reassured. And then things had come exactly as he had feared, and Kurt hadn't seemed to see, or to care, and Blaine had reacted in the worst possible way...
It won't be like that again. They need to talk, really talk, about this.
It's just, when he sees Kurt's face on the computer screen, it's so easy to let himself be distracted by other things.
But Kurt will be here soon. Burt has a really important doctor's appointment that Blaine knows about because Burt has kept his promise about keeping him up to date, and Blaine has tried to keep his promise about looking after him. Kurt will be here for that. And maybe then, they'll have time. To talk, and...other things.
…..............................
Kurt feels like he might go crazy. Nothing seems to be able to calm him down, and he falls into habits he has never ever practiced before. Choosing his clothes for luck instead of style, counting everything. He almost stepped into a puddle while trying to avoid passing under a ladder, and every scrap of paper is in imminent danger of being ripped to shreds.
He would be worried, if his mind weren't so full worrying about other things.
Once he's in Lima, it gets a little bit better. His dad looks good; it's unimaginable there should be a deadly disease inside him.
He should, however, have not gone to visit McKinley before the doctor's appointment, or even, he thinks, seen Blaine.
Glee club is too....normal, makes it too clear to him that the world will go on even if his own should be shattered tomorrow. And Blaine...Blaine understands what he's going through and tries to distract him, and takes his hand and holds it when he gets fidgety, and offers all the support he could wish for.
He is also very obviously distracted by other things, things they might have talked about in detail on Skype the day before yesterday. Things Kurt had shortsightedly promised to do to Blaine, even though he should have known he'd be much too worried to get even somewhere near the mood he'd need to be in to fulfill his promise. Blaine doesn't seems to understand he's definitely not in the mood now, if the way he tells him he looks “dirty cute” is any indication. To be fair, the light-blue jeans he has worn for good luck are super tight and make his ass look fantastic, but still....Not the time, Blaine. Not the time.
Well, Blaine will have to content himself with a goodnight kiss for now, and tomorrow things might look very differently.
He spends the night mostly tossing and turning in his old bed in his old room, and rises before his alarm, groggy and low-key terrified. He rushes through his skin care routine and immediately regrets it when afterwards, he paces his room with nothing to do because the rest of the house is still asleep.
At breakfast, all of them are tense and silent and occupied with their own thoughts. Kurt keeps sneaking looks at his dad at his usual place across the table and can't help but wonder if soon, there will be a day when his dad isn't sitting there anymore. If he will be too weak to sit at the table with them, too nauseous to feel like eating. If one day, he won't be there at all.
He pushes his plate away at the thought.
Then they're at the doctor's office, finally, waiting while his dad gets examined and then again waiting for the verdict. He freaks out a little at his dad wearing dark blue, because dark blue is close to black, and black is....A part of his brain screams at him, Do you hear yourself? Since when are you so superstitious? do you honestly believe the color of his shirt will have any influence on his health?
But he can't help it. And when Burt stops being cool and allows a glimpse of how scared he is himself, Kurt has to fight to keep down the panic. He sees his dad and Carole squeeze each others' hands so hard they will certainly hurt tomorrow. Then he does long for Blaine to be here after all, so he can have a hand to squeeze as well.
Instead, he takes his dad's hand and squeezes just once, softly, meant as an apology and an assurance that no more freakouts will happen.
When finally the doctor comes and tells them that the cancer is in remission, that in fact, Burt is practically cured, it seems unreal at first. He has stressed and obsessed so much that good news seem inappropriate, somehow. When he finally realizes what it means, what he feels is less joy and more a bone-deep relief. His father won't be taken from him, he won't leave him. They'll still have time.
It calls for a serenade, and the joy sets in when he sings “You are the Sunshine of my Life” for him in Glee club with everyone watching.
Afterwards, Burt and Carole go on a date to celebrate, and Kurt gets to be finally alone with Blaine—and in the mood, no less.
He's in a...peculiar mood, to be honest. He is happy, more than happy, but there is so much pent-up energy in him that he feels he might explode. It's from the stress of the last few weeks, he knows, but now he needs something to help him let go of that. It's a good thing Blaine is right there, holding his hand and every now and then stroking his thumb over Kurt's knuckles. Looking at him from the side with a little smile of which Kurt knows exactly what it means.
“Your parents aren't at home, are they?” he asks when they are in the driveway of Blaine's house. It's the first time he thinks of it, and the thought that they are, that he might be forced to sit at a table and make polite conversation unless they manage to sneak directly into Blaine's room, is just absurd. It's not possible, not when he's feeling like this.
“No, they're out,” Blaine says a little breathlessly, and his smile grows a little bigger when Kurt puts a hand on his thigh, close to the cage. He imagines Blaine's cock twitching, and feels his own do the same.
