Songbird

Summary: Blaine's a young songwriter who's stuck in a rut. Kurt's an independent cyborg with music software installed. Blaine knows that Kurt could totally be his meal ticket if he'd just freaking cooperate for once. Kurt just wants Blaine to understand that he's not just a machine, even if that means sitting back and letting him flounder. AU, Klaine.

Disclaimer: LOL what. No.

AN: So, this is the last chapter, you guys. Thank you so much for sticking with me and encouraging me, and I really, really hope that you've enjoyed this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it. YOU GUYS ARE SO WONDERFUL THAT I COULD CRY FROM SHEER LOVE. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

Chapter Twelve: Sunburst

On day zero, Blaine Anderson was born as the first son to the co-founder of the Anderson & Johnson law firm. He was red and squashy and wriggly and wailed at the top of his lungs. His mother immediately declared that he was definitely cut out to be a lawyer, the way he shrieked and fussed relentlessly. Once the screaming died down, he was bright-eyed and grabby-handed, fingers tangling in her hair and yanking.

On his first birthday, Blaine Anderson was still bright-eyed and grabby-handed but had developed an affinity for banging pots and pans together in a cacophony that had his parents going slowly insane. Once he had learned to walk there was no slowing him anymore, especially once he realized that he didn't need a ledge or a tabletop to get around. It didn't help that he ended up concussing himself halfway through the year by smacking his head on the coffee table.

On Blaine's fifth birthday, he hadn't seriously hurt himself in several years but that didn't stop his mother from worrying helplessly or his father from shaking his head in slight despair. Blaine insisted on joining the kiddie league football team and was one of the tallest children on it. He swore that he was going to continue to be the tallest until he towered over everyone. That year, Blaine's mother got a robot for the house to do some of the chores, but decided that she didn't like it all that much, especially after it had fallen out of the closet unexpectedly and broken a couple of Blaine's fingers.

On Blaine Anderson's thirteenth birthday, he realized that his football dream was one destined to go down the pipes. Blaine also realized that he didn't think about girls and boys the same way that his peers did and understood, without knowing why that it was considered wrong. He decided to ignore it, to hide it, and never tell anyone. He threw himself into soccer now because he wasn't big enough to play football anymore and pretended to appraise the cheerleader's chests. It never really worked, but he made it through without any uproar.

On his sixteenth birthday, Natalie cornered him in the hallway during his party and told him that she knew he liked boys and that it was okay. Blaine tried to brush it off, tried to lie, but she'd always been one who followed her instincts. Eventually he'd admit that yes, she was right, and she'd hugged him around the neck as if she'd never let go. With a morose expression, she told Blaine that she loved him dearly but that if he had any sense at all, he'd never tell their father. Blaine began to throw himself even harder into his practices with the Warblers, and began to form an idea in his head about one day writing music himself.

For his eighteenth birthday, Blaine celebrated by going out with his family for a dinner that was also being held in honor of his early acceptance to university. Blaine was given a lottery ticket from his father and, hours later in his bedroom, a gay porno magazine from Natalie that immediately got put underneath the mattress for safekeeping. Anderson senior got significantly more intoxicated than he usually allowed himself, and went on a long tangent on the dangers of the homosexual agenda during dinner. Blaine sat silently and tried not to squirm.

By his twentieth birthday, Blaine had decided that law school wasn't in his future either and dropped all of his relevant classes in exchange for musical theory and vocal technique. He wouldn't speak to his father until after his twenty-first. Wes would ask him conversationally if he thought that the boy in Physics was cute, and Blaine would drop his spoon and sputter as his friend carried on as if he hadn't just dropped a metaphorical nuke. He'd write his first song and it would be such an absolute failure that not even easy-going David could sit through it without burying his face in his hands and groaning.

For Blaine's twenty-second birthday, he'd spend most of the evening dancing on a table with Kurt, wearing the other boy's top hat for longer than he did. His world would be tossed upside-down and he'd have what he figured was probably the douchiest reaction he'd ever have in his life and run away from the person who was beginning to mean the most to him. He'd think that it should be much more difficult to accept someone's differences than it ended up being, and Blaine wouldn't have traded what happened for anything in the world. Blaine had never been inclined to stop and listen, preferring to barrel on as if nothing could catch him, but the moment that he told himself to stop thinking and feel instead was pivotal.

On his twenty-third birthday… well. That was a surprise.

One day zero, Kurt Hummel was born broken to the head of the bioengineering department at the most advanced and renowned technology company in the world. He looked red and crinkly just like other babies but he didn't wriggle around and he didn't make a sound. He didn't move at all, resting in his mother's arms as still as if he was dead, though his eyes were open and as aware as a baby could be. His father gathered his most trusted and competent team together and they began to construct a way for their boss's broken child to live.

Kurt wasn't walking on his first birthday, unable to quite control his limbs yet and he wouldn't until just before he turned three. The daily injections to keep him growing at a normal rate made him ache, and he wailed and sobbed through the physical therapy. He was given a large slice of cake to play with at his party, but unlike most babies, he didn't smash his hands into it and smear it all over his face. Instead, tiny Kurt Hummel ate it as delicately as he could, scooping off the icing rose first with an unholy glee.

By his fifth birthday, Kurt was indistinguishable from the average child. He ran around like a mad thing but would settle down to read books with his mother by turn. He enjoyed dress-up quite a bit, and begged Elizabeth Hummel to paint his nails aquamarine. She obliged him and he painted hers in return the best he could, and when Burt came home, the first thing his son did was ask him if they were pretty. He smiled and said that yes, of course they were, before pulling a cake box out from behind his back.

On Kurt's ninth birthday, he'd been without his mother for six months and spent his entire birthday in tears, curled up on the couch with his father. They'd tried to have a party, but the last thing Kurt wanted to do was celebrate.

By the time his thirteenth birthday had rolled around, Kurt had been doing his nightly virus scan for six years without supervision, after a particularly disastrous event in which he forgot about it and woke up unable move the fingers in his left hand. The injections that he had to have had slowed in frequency but increased in amount for his growth spurt and the constant aching in his body made him crankier than he normally was. He'd inadvertently come out to his father a few months before, but the impact of that little human difference was all too clear to him now, leaving him friendless in school, never mind giving him even the slightest chance to look and admire.

By sixteen, Kurt Hummel had made the decision that if he couldn't be accepted for whom he was, then he was going to make the entire school burn. Metaphorically, of course. He became the kicker on the football team for a season and a Cheerio for the rest of high school, cementing his bonds with the girls in glee who would become his closest friends and the people on the squad. It wouldn't seem like a lot at first, but he almost cried when he found himself in the girl's restroom to clean off a slushie, and someone who wasn't Mercedes helped him wipe it off and rinse out his hair. His birthday that year was a special one, taking place in Rachel Berry's basement of all places. He'd have gone through what would forever be known as the Finn Fiasco, but even that wouldn't be enough to make him regret it when he saw the way Carole made his father smile, and he figured that a little hurt was more than enough to endure for Burt Hummel's happiness.

For his seventeenth birthday, Kurt's cake was neither bought from a store or baked himself. Instead, he'd come home with Finn to find a beaming Carole in the living room, who immediately enfolded him into a hug and half-bounced into the kitchen to show him her creation: a towering monster of a cake covered with chocolate and roses and filled with strawberries. Kurt tried not to but was eventually rendered helpless by the urge to cry, burying his face into his hands and sobbing until he looked up into Finn's terrified oh-my-god-he's-crying-what-do-I-do face made him begin to laugh. That birthday was wonderful and full of light, and Kurt Hummel didn't think that he could ever be so happy again, even if he tried.

If Kurt's seventeenth year marker was the best, his eighteenth was the worst. Oh, the party itself was wonderful and fun but Kurt still spent most of it in tears, bitter about the social ostracization from everyone but his closest friends and the rejection letters and the residual terror that seeped into him at every loud noise and slamming door, reminding him of helplessness, fear, and absolute fury. He met Blaine that year and moved into a place by himself. He'd already known well how to feel lonely with people around; that year he learned to feel loved while he was alone.

For his nineteenth birthday…

"Oh my god."

Those were the only words that Kurt could find to say from his spot on the floor. His apartment was full of people: former classmates and former teachers (he was so relieved that Emma would still speak to him after he did that to her poor shoes, but did Coach Sylvester really have to make vomit threats to scare her to the other side of the room?) and…

And they were all staring in shock and amusement at his boyfriend, who'd clambered onto the top of Kurt's coffee table and was gazing down at him with that look. The one that said I am about two seconds away from doing something horrifying.

"You find out that I'm crushing on the boy next door," he sang out, looking Kurt in the eyes, and Kurt buried his face in his hands, already shaking in laughter. Puck hooted and pounded him enthusiastically on the back, shooting Blaine-on-the-table a hearty thumbs up.

Thank you, Noah Puckerman.

"Do you let it slide and sympathize?" Kurt sang back playfully once he pulled himself back together a little, "No, you make me do everything you can to make me shout it out—"

"Because you're a dick!" Puck interjected, draping an arm around Quinn, who looked as if she was debating on pretending that she'd never met him before.

Blaine outstretched a hand to Kurt with a waggle of his eyebrows and the birthday boy scrambled to his feet, rolling his eyes as he gracefully stepped up onto the table amidst the hollers of his friends and his boyfriend's friends who'd become his friends too.

"Thank you, my good sir," he said lightly before picking up the chorus, tilting his body closely enough to wrap an arm around Blaine's waist, entangling his fingers in his belt loops, "All my friends are dicks! All my friends are dicks! But they're dicks who love you when you need them," He pumped his free arm in the arm and leaned forward to fist bump Puck and Sam in turn.

"Dicks who shove you off the ledge, dicks who hug you but smack you first…" Blaine bumped Kurt's hip with his, catching an exasperated grin and soaking it in, "All my friends are dicks…"

"But I wouldn't have it any other way~" With a flourish, Kurt took a jaunty bow and stepped back down to the floor, reclaiming his spot just before reaching out to tug on Blaine's ankle. "Get down here, you show-off."

"Since when am I the show-off? What, so you get to dance on a table but I can't?"

"I seem to recall that we did quite a bit of that together, thank you very much," Almost immediately, the chestnut-haired boy was drowned out with catcalls and he scowled, "Not like that,"

"Oh, it was definitely like that, he had his hands on your hips and everything," David quipped, "Seriously though, Blaine? Get down, you're gonna break his table."

"I am not, Kurt takes this table very seriously and I've had practice—whoa!" Blaine cut off when Kurt stood again and grabbed him about the shoulders, manhandling him off the table and into his lap, covering his mouth with a hand.

"Be. Quiet. No one needs to know about your practice."

"Make me," Blaine whispered back, just teasingly enough to bring color to his boyfriend's (boyfriend's!) cheeks.

He wasn't expecting the oh, screw it shrug from Kurt just before he leaned in closer, pressing his lips firmly to Blaine's right in front of all of their friends and –oh god- former teachers. Thank god they weren't even remotely in school anymore, even if they had never actually been Blaine's teachers to start with. He'd known that none of them were going to be horrified (they were there because Kurt had liked them, after all) but he hadn't expected the tiniest of proud smirks to pass over the face of the cheerleading coach and a slightly embarrassed slow clap from Schuester.

Both of them look over to see Finn, bright red, staring intently at the ceiling.

"Finn Hudson, do you have a problem?" Rachel asked from his left, placing emphasis on the word 'problem', "If you do, you can always go and talk to my dads—"

"Dude, no, he's my brother!"

"I love you, Rachel Berry," Kurt muttered under his breath, watching his brother be relentlessly distracted from his embarrassment, "For once in my life, I appreciate your insatiable attention-seeking."

"What about my insatiable attention-seeking?" Blaine asked, idly running his fingers up Kurt's sides.

"That I'm okay with because as we all know," the other boy replied, "I also happen to be an insatiable attention-seeker as well. And if you tickle me, I swear to everything it will be the last thing you ever do." Blaine looked slightly downcast for maybe half a second before he shrugged and relaxed into Kurt's hold, loose and easy.

He never would have dreamed that he'd be here, okay with doing this sort of thing in front of people, and to have those people not care at all. He didn't even think that he'd ever have someone to do this sort of thing with, assuming that he'd probably go through life hiding and keeping his distance, going out on the occasional date with a family friend's daughter, just enough to keep his father from knowing. But to be here now, with people who knew and didn't care… To not only not care, but to encourage it entirely with random thumbs ups and sleazy grins and oh-my-goodness-you-guys-are-the-cutest-evers. It was almost surreal.

But as Kurt said often enough as if it explained everything, that was glee for you.

Blaine had two birthday parties for his twenty-fourth. The first was with his family the night before the actual day, one that would remain in memory as the Most Uncomfortable Hullabaloo Ever.

He hadn't actually seen his father face-to-face since he'd cut the law program in college and he knew that the feelings had never really been smoothed over. From the get-go, neither of them really knew how to treat each other, relying on Natalie and Alexa Anderson to keep the silences from getting too long.

For a while, it went just fine.

They ate, they made conversation, Alexa told her only son that she heard Human on the radio the other day and thought it was wonderful, though she confessed to being slightly confused as to where it had come from. Natalie, who Blaine could swear up and down knew everything that pertained to Blaine ever, merely smirked and shook her head, eyes glowing.

Everything was fine.

Until Blaine took a breath, exhaled, and squeezed Natalie's hand under the table. The words came low and unsteady but sure and unashamed.

Dad, I'm gay. I've known for a long time and kept it a secret, but now you know.

Hands had slammed down on the table and Brad Anderson had reddened, staring at his son as if he'd never seen him before in his life. Blaine, pale and wide-eyed, didn't move an inch, clinging to his little sister's hand with the force of the desperate.

Honey, please calm down Alexa had said but her words didn't make much of a difference.

What the hell is this, Blaine? You're gay? Since when?

Since ever. I've known since I was thirteen, Blaine had said stiffly, jaw clenched and defensive. I have a boyfriend. It'll be two years in December.

Everything had gone to hell immediately after that. No one had spoken at all and when the meal was over, Blaine grabbed his bag and half-ran for the door after a quick hug to Natalie. He had skidded out of the restaurant and driven as quickly as he could back to the apartment but didn't bother unlocking his own door, instead rapping sharply on Kurt's.

It opened immediately, just like his always did.

Blaine stepped forward with his arms outstretched, catching and caught.

AN2: THERE YOU GO. IT'S OVER. DONE. THERE ISN'T ANY MORE.

Please let me know if you liked this! Review with praise, review with rotten tomatoes, I am okay with either. I'm so grateful for everyone who's stuck by me, I really, really am. LOVE LOVE LOVE.