Title: How Things Work - The Dinner Scene
Rating: PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt/Sam, Sam's parents.
Disclaimer: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment and not intended to offend.
Author Notes: This is for Spider, who is far more awesome than she likes to admit, for her story How Things Work. This is a sideline snippet set in the same world, wherein you get to meet Sam's parents and get a hint of why he's a little messed up.
Summary: Sam's parents are never home, except for when they are. And dinner at the White's is not like dinner at anyone else's house.

.

The thing about Sam's parents was that they were never home. Even on the few days Kurt had seen the ridiculously expensive classic car that apparently belonged to Sam's father lurking in the driveway the house had been, for all intents and purposes, completely empty. The portraits on the mantle looked insincere. A plastic-surgery beautiful blonde woman smiling next to a grim fifty-something man with long grey hair and dark eyes, Sam posed in the middle looking bored. The older Sam got in the portraits the less they looked like a family unit.

They weren't much different in real life.

Kurt sat opposite his boyfriend at the dinner table, Sam's father seated at the head of the table and his mother at the foot. For once he didn't look particularly out of place in his runway chic style (unless he was mistaken, Sam's mother was in Versace). If anything Sam looked like the odd one out in his jeans and casual button-up shirt.

The silverware was even real silver. Kurt could tell from the weight.

"I hear you sing, Kurt," Sam's mother, Candi, stated over the top of her wineglass. She sipped the expensive white and smiled at him. From the looks of things she'd had botox injections either today or the day before and her facial muscles had yet to relax enough to accomodate a proper smile. "Eddie used to sing. He had a band, way back when I first met him."

Surprised, and doing a good job of not showing it, Kurt glanced at the unimpressed, grey-haired man at the head of the table. When he didn't say anything Kurt turned back to the blonde woman and smiled. "Oh, no, I don't sing with anything as cool as a band. I'm in the school's glee club, the show choir."

"They're actually pretty good," Sam stated. "Kurt's a tenor."

"Counter-tenor," Kurt corrected, with a slight wrinkle of his nose, "though my range extends well beyond that."

"A singer," Sam's father noted, his voice a casual smokey drawl. "Don't tell me you're finally giving in to your aspirations to become a singer, Sam."

"No, dad," Sam replied, an odd note in his voice that Kurt recognised as a kind of rebellion, "I'm still going to grow up and go into the family business."

"Don't be stupid."

"I know better," Sam said clearly, "than to be stupid at the dinner table."

"Be careful," Eddie stated, pointing his steak knife at his son, "or you'll wind up in the basement with your brother."

"I don't have a brother," Sam told Kurt, who really had no idea what to say. "That's just my dad's sense of humour."

"Nonsense. We killed him at birth, to ensure our financial security."

"Eddie," Candi's voice interrupted, her tone the same sort of sugary venom used by embarrassed housewives at dinner parties over the globe. "Please. If you can't behave then you can leave the table. He's a sweetheart, really," Candi added smoothly, her face clearly trying for a reassuring smile. "Now Kurt, honey. Why don't you tell us how Sam's been treating you. I want to make sure I've raised a proper gentleman..."

.

.

"Your parents are strange," Kurt told Sam as the other boy walked him to his car. "I couldn't tell if they liked me or if they hated the very thought of me corrupting their darling baby boy."

"Yeah, well... They're from New York. And LA. And DC." Sam shrugged. "They're usually not around enough to embarrass me like that. And they don't care," Sam added when they stopped by Kurt's car. He pulled the smaller boy to him and kissed him. "They like you."

"How could you tell?" Kurt asked, a wry expression on his face.

"Dad joked, and mom only had one glass of wine. They like you."

Kurt looked back at the White's house and felt guilty that he was much more comfortable outside of it than inside, especially with Sam's parents under its roof. He didn't mention how uncomfortable he'd felt during dinner, or how he was unconvinced that Sam's parents had actually liked him. He just smiled at his boyfriend and turned his face up for a kiss goodnight.