“It’s absolutely bizarre,” Blaine whispers to Kurt through his phone as he peers around the corner. “She’s wearing an apron and everything. An apron.”

“So I’m guessing dinner’s actually on?” Kurt asks him.

“I guess so,” Blaine mutters, still thoroughly baffled by the image in front of him.

“I’ll head over soon, then.”

“I’m sorry for like, anything strange or scary that occurs in advance,” Blaine says.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Kurt attempts to assure him. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

Blaine hangs up and takes another quick look around the corner. Currently his mother is busy cooking something. As in, she’s cooking an actual meal and the table is set with their nice silverware instead of plastic forks and it’s just so weird to Blaine. It’s weird because he hasn’t seen his mother actually take the time to cook anything in years. Usually, Blaine just whips up some macaroni and cheese or spaghetti or the ever reliable peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Do you think Kurt likes salad?”

His mother’s voice brings Blaine out of his musings.

Damn it.

Caught.

“Are you going to stand there all night or would you like to help?” she asks pointedly.

Blaine clears his throat and enter the kitchen proper, glancing around at various bowls and pans scattered atop the counters. “Um, yeah, Kurt likes salad. He’s generally a health nut, I guess.”

“Will you tear the lettuce, then?” his mom asks kindly, setting out a bowl for his use.

And then she begins humming.

Like she does this all the time. Which, of course, she doesn’t.

It’s weird.

Staring blankly for a few, long seconds before his legs finally guide him over toward the bowl to help, Blaine can’t help but think that this might not end up as the disaster he had fully been expecting.

Twenty minutes later, Blaine greets Kurt at the front door with a smile. He reaches out an awkward hand and gives Kurt’s fingers a squeeze. He wants to kiss him, but his mom is standing somewhere behind him, just over his shoulder and he just…wouldn’t feel right. Sure, she hasn’t actively spoken out against his sexuality and she seems mostly accepting of him having an actual boyfriend, but for some reason, Blaine doesn’t want to push his luck.

“Kurt, this is my mom, Kathy,” Blaine introduces, doing his very best to keep the nerves out of his voice. “Mom, this is Kurt.”

“Oh, Kurt,” Kathy gushes with a broad smile, like it was pasted onto her face, “I’m so sorry we’re only meeting now. I’ve heard great things about you.”

“Really?” Kurt wonders, quirking an eyebrow in Blaine’s direction. “Do tell.”

“From Bethany, mostly,” Kathy admits. “My son actually keeps very tight-lipped when it comes to your relationship.”

“Mom-”

But Blaine is cut off by Kurt’s smooth, swift reply.

“I’m sure he just doesn’t want to bore an adult with the story of our young, teenage romance,” Kurt says with an indulgent smile. “It’s nothing new to anyone who’s lived it.”

Kathy laughs, bright and full in return. Blaine can’t help but stare in awe at his boyfriend.

The guy could probably sweet talk his way out of a freaking paper bag if he needed to.

“And you’re a charmer,” Blaine’s mom says kindly. “I like him, Blaine. You should bring him around more often.”

Blaine immediately refrains from reminding his mother that Kurt is actually around plenty and that she’s the one who is absent as much as possible. With a glance at Kurt, Blaine catches a trace of a strained smile and he knows that Kurt is thinking something similar.

Bless him.

“If you can go drag Bethany out of her room, I’ll finish setting the table.”

With that, Kathy turns and leaves them alone. Springing into action, Blaine tugs Kurt down the hallways, just outside of Bethany’s bedroom door, away from the eyes and ears of his mother.

Firm hands on Kurt’s shoulders, Blaine leans in with a serious gaze and whispers desperately:

“That is not my mother. I don’t know what’s happening, but that is not my mother.”

Dinner itself only further proves Blaine’s suspicions that his mother must’ve recently been abducted by aliens and replaced with some kind of Stepford mom. The woman sitting across from him in his mother’s clothes is polite, kind, attentive, and personable. She smiles easily and asks his boyfriend about his life and his hobbies.

Even Bethany begins to get this funny look on her face, like she, too, is confused with the dinner proceedings.

Things seem perfectly normal, which is to say, not normal in the slightest, until his mother brings out dessert.

“I don’t understand,” Bethany says bluntly when their mom places a slice of chocolate pie (Kurt’s weakness) on her plate.

“What don’t you understand, sweetheart?” Kathy asks.

“Why are we eating like this?” Bethany asks. “Why didn’t Blaine cook dinner?”

Kathy snorts delicately, amused, tinkling laughter falling from her lips. “Beth, you know Blaine only cooks dinner when mommy’s too busy with work to be home in time.”

“You must be busy every day,” Bethany replies, her eight year old mind causing tact and subtlety to fly out the window.

Blaine sees his mother’s face harden, but only for a split second, just long enough to remind him that this is all a farce and his mother hasn’t truly turned over a new leaf.

“Well,” Kathy says, almost as if she’s reluctant to speak in front of company, “mommy has to work a lot so that we have money to buy food and clothes. Being a grown up is very different from being a little girl.”

“But Blaine’s almost a grown up and he’s here all the time,” Bethany argues.

“Blaine doesn’t work to provide for this family, Bethany.”

“But he’s like a daddy,” Bethany declares. “Like a stay-at-home daddy. Like Lucy’s daddy. She was in my class last year and her mommy worked and her daddy stayed at home all the time.”

“Blaine is not your dad,” their mother states, her tone unwavering and harsh as she sits back down in her chair with a nearly too much force.

“He does all the things that dads do,” Bethany reasons, digging into her slice of pie, completely oblivious to Kurt’s silence and Blaine’s wide eyes. “He makes me food and gives me band aids when I hurt my knees and tells me I can’t do something ‘cause it’s not nice and he tucks me in bed and tells me to take a bath and-”

“I’m your mother, Bethany Marie!” Kathy says loudly, a screeching crack in the otherwise silent room when she drops her fork onto her plate. “I am your parent. Blaine is your brother. He doesn’t-”

“Mom,” Blaine interrupts. “Please.”

With his eyes, he gestures to Kurt, who is respectfully eating his pie in silence with his head down. His mother stares at Blaine in anger, eyes narrow and hard.

She shoves her chair away from the table.

“I apologize, Kurt,” she says as nicely as possible, though any trace of her perfect-mother façade has apparently gone down the drain. “I’m afraid I don’t feel very well and I think I’ll go have a nap.”

“It’s perfectly okay, Mrs. Anderson,” Kurt says, looking up to their hostess. “The food was lovely. I’m so glad I got to meet you. Thank you for dinner.”

“Of course.”

She turns abruptly, the clack of her pointless high-heeled shoes echoing on the linoleum as she leaves the kitchen before disappearing down the hallway. When Blaine hears her bedroom door slam, the sound causes him to jump.

“That went well,” Kurt remarks.

“Did I make mommy mad?” Bethany asks.

“No,” Blaine states. “You were just telling the truth. Mom made herself mad.”

“Hm,” Bethany mumbles with a shrug, reaching her fork over into the pie in the center of the table.

When she can’t quite reach it, Blaine pushes it closer to her rather than further away.

Bethany can have all the pie she wants.

“Is mommy mad that you’re like my daddy?” Bethany asks that evening when Blaine is tucking her into bed.

Their mother had long since left for the nearest bar and Blaine doesn’t expect her to be back until around two in the morning, even if she has to work tomorrow. He sighs in return to his sister’s question and places her teddy bear in her small arms.

“Mom’s mad because she doesn’t like anyone else telling her what to do.”

“But I didn’t tell her what to do,” Bethany replies, yawning tiredly and clutching her teddy bear closer. “I just told the truth.”

“I know, Bethbee,” Blaine says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t like it when mommy’s mad. She goes away for a long time when she’s mad.”

“Well,” Blaine says, “I’m here. And I’ve never left.”

“No,” Bethany sighs, eyes already heavy with sleep. “You’re always here. Like a good daddy.”

Before Blaine can refute her statement and remind that he is, in fact, not her father, Bethany is already asleep. He watches the rise and fall of her thin chest, a reminder that she’s safe and healthy with him around.

He can’t ever leave her, he realizes in that moment. If he leaves, Bethany will have no one. Her spirit, her carefree sass will wither and die; it’ll fade away like a flower in the winter air.

Blaine lives for his sister. He might resent her some days, but this is his life and he lives it for her. Perhaps it’s unfair to him, so young with too much responsibility, but, unlike him, Bethany has done nothing to deserve neglect or abandonment. She embodies purity and all things good. She is love and trust and honesty and heart.

Kurt Hummel may be the one thing in the world that makes Blaine smile without reason, but Bethany is the blood pumping through his veins and he would give up his life for her in a heartbeat.

And he’ll stay as long as she needs him.