Blaine quietly closed his bedroom door behind him, trying, and failing, to hold back his tears. Promising himself that no one would know about this moment of weakness, he let the back of his head slump against the door as a few silent tears trickled down his cheeks.

Why does he always do this right when I finally think I'm happy? It's like every time I find a flicker of happiness in my life, he has to make sure to snuff it out.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Blaine cleared the tears from his face with the heel of his hand and walked towards his bathroom to get ready for bed. He had planned to play around with his guitar for a while when he got home, trying to finish up that song he had been working on for the last several weeks, but didn't feel up to it anymore. Unlike Kurt, he didn't have school tomorrow (Dalton didn't start until a week and a half after than McKinley did), but he now all he wanted was to curl up in that blissful unconsciousness that was sleep and escape his home for a few short hours.

As he watched his reflection in the mirror brushing its teeth, Blaine tried to return to his happy memories with Kurt today but the sharp sting in his heart that was always seemed to be brought on by his father's disappointment was crowding out everything else.

He had returned home from his night with Kurt to find his father waiting in the kitchen, looking at Blaine's bank account statement. Blaine felt his stomach drop. His father never waited up for him unless he was in trouble.

"Blaine, I thought we agreed that you were going to save your money from working at Six Flags this summer! Do you think tuition at Dalton is cheap?"

"No, Dad, I–"

"With the economy like this you need to be careful with how you treat your money. You need to learn to be responsible!"

"I barely spent any money this summer!"

"What do you call those $150 concert tickets?"

"Those were the only expensive things I bought all summer. Kurt was so excited that Lady Gaga was coming to Cleveland, I had to–"

"Blaine, you're nearly eighteen. At some point you need to learn to stop acting like such an entitled child and realize that the world doesn't revolve around your every want. You think I want to go to the office every day? No! You think I want to spend my money on house payments instead of vacations? No! You think I want to pay thousands of dollars of tuition for your private school? No! But I do it because it has to be done."

"…I…Dad, I–"

"Your mother and I do a lot for you, Blaine, and you need to learn to give instead of just take."

"I…yes, sir."

"Go to bed. We'll talk about this with your mother tomorrow."

Sometimes Blaine wished his father would just stop paying his tuition. Maybe then he could transfer to McKinley with Kurt. As much as the thought of returning to public school made his blood run cold, he had seen firsthand the unique bond that the New Directions members had with each other and to be perfectly honest, he was more than a little jealous of Kurt. Although he loved the Warblers, something made his heart ache for a chance to experience that unbreakable familial bond the Glee kids at McKinley seemed to have. Blaine had never known the feeling of having a group of people that always loved you and supported you no matter what.

Blaine's family was fine as far as families go. Neither of his parents were home much during the day; his dad worked 40+ hours a week in some office building downtown and his mom worked as a kindergarten teacher at the nearby elementary school. Blaine's older brother Jeremy was quite a bit older than him and in his senior year of college at Brown University. Anyone looking at their family objectively would come to the conclusion that they were a small, happy, hard-working, picturesque upper-middle class American family. The truth was, though, that their family had never been particularly close and although none of them had reacted overly negative to Blaine coming out, afterwards there always seemed to be an underlying tension when any of them had to deal with him.

Blaine had only had Kurt over at his house when he knew neither of his parents would be home. He didn't want Kurt to know about his sad excuse for a family. While the world might view Kurt's family as lesser than Blaine's, Blaine had always felt that a real family would love each other no matter what, and Kurt had two of those – his family and his glee club. He knew that Kurt had always looked up to him and while he had steadily opened himself up to Kurt more and more over the summer, this was something he hadn't been able to share yet. He didn't want Kurt to pity him and treat him differently.

Kurt wouldn't do that though…would he? Blaine spit his toothpaste out and took a closer look at himself in the mirror. If Blaine let him see through the shallow wall that still remained around his heart, would Kurt be as disappointed in him as his father was? Closing his eyes in hopes of warding off the growing pounding in his head, he made his way slowly to his bed, stopping only to pick up his phone on the way.

To: Kurt

Goodnight love 3

Maybe tomorrow during coffee he would find the courage to tell Kurt.

A/N: This is more of what I was imagining when I started this fic. I love Blaine's character, I think there's a lot of depth there that hasn't been explored on the show yet. Hope you guys like where I'm trying to go with this. Reviews are lovely. :)