There's a photograph on the mantle of the Anderson's fireplace – plenty of them, actually, but one that always makes Kurt smile. A photo he was coerced into taking when he stumbled upon a Stepford family clusterfuck in the Anderson living room one afternoon.

Cooper usually styles himself however he thinks it will get him laid: nice but not precise. His ass looks great in a pair of dark wash jeans, but the likelihood of them ever getting washed are slim to none unless his mother intervenes. Real catch, that one.

Mama Anderson was blessed with genes from the Philippines; from what Kurt can tell of past evidence, the woman hasn't aged a day in decades. Blaine once told him that other parents used to assume she was his sister when she picked him up at school. Popping out two munchkins before nineteen has that effect. It took Kurt a while to decipher why those memories have a hold on Blaine, and when he did, he stopped pushing for Blaine to invite his friends to mingle with hoodlums he calls bros. Lesson of the day: Blaine gets embarrassed easily.

Blaine grew up in Westerville, not Lima, but Kurt gets it – the urge to punch a brick wall at the sound of whispers and muffled laughter – because whether with lobster or Lunchables, Ohio's favorite side dish is talking shit. It messed the kid up, contributes to the gelled-up, poster boy thing he's got happening.

Kurt grew up being the kid people talked about directly; that's still the case, but he brushes it off. Surrounding himself with others equally as unimpressed by small-minded bullshit has afforded him a certain level of pride in his peculiarities. Kurt doesn't get tripped up on the same labels others try roping him into.

If Burt gave him the option, Kurt wouldn't change a thing about his mechanic chic look – even though he often jokes that there's a part of his soul that dies seeing so much flannel exist in one person's closet. Individuality is of high value to Kurt; blending in, for the sake of self-preservation is no way to be alive. For him.

For Blaine, he knows life has led down tracks, quiet and deserted, and beat out factors beyond Blaine's control, told him to take the bleeding pieces and bury them deep.

Blaine is stronger than Kurt often gives him credit for, has fight in him that knocks Kurt for a loop sometimes, but Blaine is sweet and gentle and it costs him something to choose between acting on his own benefit and someone else's. It's not insincerity that drives Blaine to button up and slap a bowtie on his insecurities; if anything, his carefully-planned appearance is a small act of defiance, just this side of over-the-top to make you question what's underneath. Still though, Blaine hates his curls because some schoolyard shit-for-brains called him “broccoli-head” throughout first grade. He masks his disdain with decorum because he's been on the wrong side of confrontation. He wears the scars left from skin slammed down at concrete and gravel and he trades in his dignity for security and calls his homophobic grandparents every week and sends family photos every Christmas because they pay for him to be safe at Dalton. Blaine politely ignores the “even though you're a queer” trailing their regards.

Blaine is prim and proper, and proud of it. But so often, Kurt sees hints of the edges he's sanded to be a square on this joyously round planet. 

If Kurt had to choose an Anderson parent to be embarrassed of, Matty Cakes would take the crown hands down. Sure, hearing your friends say your mom is a MILF is embarrassing on a multitude of levels – not the least of which is realizing you've befriended people who unironically say “MILF” – but Tess rocking the hot body she continually earns with extra-healthy habits isn't all that shameful. Especially in comparison to the epically hot mess that is Matthew Anderson.

In the two years Kurt has known the Andersons, no less than fifty separate instances have been scarred into Kurt's retinas involving Matt's propensity for denying the importance of a sturdy belt and the subsequent flashing of one seriously hairy asscrack that simply does not bode well for Cooper and Blaine's futures. And the man just doesn't give a flying rat's ass about it. Any time Mr. A catches the look of utter disgust on Kurt's face, he begins a strip tease that prompts Kurt to retch. Kurt would really rather he didn't, but Matt's walked in on Kurt in varying stages of undress himself – and usually with one or the other of his sons, so it sort of evens out.

Blaine being the only one of the Andersons to make it a daily point to be presentable, it was a shock to walk in and see Tess, Matt, and Cooper squeezed onto the couch and dressed for an afternoon at the country club, early last December. There was a tripod set up across from the couch and Kurt had a lot of questions. Then Blaine came downstairs, his nervous hands plucking at the hem of his sweater, as surprised to see Kurt as Kurt was surprised to see the rest of the family.

“So… this is a thing that's happening.”

And Blaine looked away, smiling down at the floor.

“What exactly is happening here?” Kurt asked of anyone with an answer to give.

They all looked at Blaine. Cooper rolled his eyes, Tess smirked into the coffee mug Blaine quickly took away from her to place out of frame, and Matt responded casually, “What makes you ask?”

Even without a straight answer, Kurt found himself at the helm of this sinking ship, trying to get everyone else on par with Blaine so they were actually all smiling in the same direction for the two fucking seconds it takes for a camera to do its job. But of course, Cooper loves screwing with Blaine, and Blaine gets so serious, and Matt and Tess are no help when they're both doing bunny ears over the other's head.

The increasingly forlorn look on Blaine's face was already breaking Kurt's heart and he'd only taken one photo. He stepped out from behind the camera, all business and attitude, loving the mutual looks of fright all but Blaine shared. “Alright, Cleavers. Here's how it's gonna go,” he began.

Cooper earned himself a threat to release every photo Kurt could find of his bad side – cue Cooper's gasp of horror – should he ever pursue that acting career he wouldn't shut up about. With Mr. and Mrs. A, he grabbed the culprits responsible for those dreaded bunny ears and bit them each in turn. To their speechlessness, Kurt only raised an eyebrow with the implication he'd do so again if necessary. With Blaine, he blew his boy a kiss on his way back to the camera, with a cheeky thumbs up once he got there.

The second picture Kurt took that day featured the dropped jaws of the elder Andersons, the most unnaturally precise posture he's ever seen from Cooper, and the heated stare from Blaine that was ultimately a sign of the hours to follow. The next few were as normal as normal gets in posed family photos. Blaine picked one he was satisfied to mail to his grandparents, as Kurt later learned, and the Andersons were free to switch back into their jeans and sweats and lose the belts.

Blaine had led Kurt upstairs, pulled them into his bedroom and closed the door behind them. He kissed Kurt then and thanked him softly. Kurt kissed him back and said, “Your family is insane.” And then Blaine was laughing until he couldn't stand, flopping back onto his bed and holding himself ‘round the middle. Kurt only watched by the door, propped his elbow on Blaine's dresser and waited for the giggles to die down.

“God, did you see their faces? You- you bit my parents, Kurt.” He did do that..

“Oops.” Kurt joined Blaine on the bed, pushing him out of the way and snatching a pillow to curl into.

“We are so not the Cleavers, Kurt.”

No shit. Kurt shrugged. “I'm still gonna call you Beaver.”

Kurt swallowed Blaine's very adamant protests with persuasive tactics using fingers and lips until Blaine relented, permitting Kurt to call him anything he wanted if he would just – ‘fuck, Kurt. Oh my god.'

It's the second photo Kurt took that day which sits upon the Anderson's mantle. It stares back at him now, in it a completely different Blaine than he left on the steps of Dalton this afternoon.

Matt is in the kitchen, pulling together a plate of leftovers though Kurt insisted he's not hungry. Tess rests with her head on Kurt's shoulder like he's going to run away if she doesn't hold him here. He won't. This is his family, too. They were his before Blaine ever was. His little Beaver, the last to welcome him into the fold. Still it feels like it should be awkward to be in this house without him, like he and Blaine are coming up on something awful and sides will emerge and those closest to them will have to choose one or the other. That's not what he wants, though. He wants this, wants to waltz into this house as easily as his own and not get caught in the rainstorm of tension overhead. All Kurt wants is to be on Blaine's side and to know Blaine's on his.

“Are you spending the night?” Matt asks, coming in with a plate of food and setting it on the coffee table.

“Blaine's getting a ride in the morning,” Tess adds with a hint of amusement.

Kurt ignores the teasing from the parents of the boy he stranded two hours away. “Had you gotten him a less shitty car, it wouldn't have broken down already. Then he could drive himself.”

“Don't be surly.” Tess nudges him in the side, laughing.

“Don't be mad if I drop crumbs on you,” Kurt says, reaching around her for a piece of breaded chicken and giving it a little shake in her direction. Tess moves out of the way, slapping back at him. Right into his brand new piercing. “Mother fuck!” he screeches, cupping a hand over his, right now, very sensitive nipple.

Matt clues in first, laughing while Tess has gone into full-blown mother hen mode. “Stop,” Kurt grits out, pushing her away and groaning in pain. In one smooth move, Kurt rids himself of his t-shirt, and then finally Tess knows what happened. And then she's biting her lip to keep from laughing too.

“Hilarious,” Kurt comments. “Look, I'll stay the night. Seeing as you'll try to kill me if I leave. Fuck. That really hurts.” Kurt pulls up off the couch, taking his plate with him as he goes in search of some jammies. 

Miss Kitty is sleeping on the bottom step when Kurt rounds the corner to start up the stairs. She hisses at him, but he picks her up anyway, petting her soft fluffiness. “At least you won't laugh at me,” he whispers, but she wriggles herself free then and he flips her off. A cat. He's just flipped off a cat. It's a weird day.

He's already in Blaine's room, checking his piercing-slash-injury in the mirror when he realizes how desperately he does not want to be in this room. Back in the hallway, he thinks of grabbing clothes to wear for the night from Cooper's room, but anything Cooper deems clean is questionable at best. Instead, he deviates to Mr. and Mrs. A's room, shamelessly rifling through their drawers for sweats and a t-shirt because they keep the air conditioning too cool and it's impossible to sleep in his skivvies unless Blaine is there clinging to Kurt like a little koala.

What he goes downstairs with is decidedly unhelpful in combating the cold, but it feels like payback for the slap to his nipple. Tess just snorts though, used to Kurt's – antics, they could be called. He flounces over to the couch, the pink fabric of Mrs. A's baby doll nighty carrying on the air.

“These are a little snug,” he says, snapping at the waistband of confiscated boyshorts.

“They're yours now. Your problem.”

When Cooper comes home, reeking of pot, hair and clothing all askew, Matt and Tess have already gone off to bed. Cooper does a double take in Kurt's direction, but just winks and reignites the running joke that Kurt is working his way through the Anderson family, bedroom by bedroom.

“Yeah well, nothing wrong with having goals.”

Kurt follows Cooper up to his room, invites himself into the bed, and ignores the exposing of flesh he was once all too familiar with as Cooper sheds his rumpled clothes and lays down beside him. It's like it was before Blaine, only innocent now. No risk of meeting in the middle and tumbling around until they're tuckered out.

There's so much that's familiar in this house. Memories born before Blaine would even give Kurt the time of day, but now his ties to the Andersons are interwoven with his ties to Blaine and it's harder to sleep knowing how fragile they are. Knowing if he pushes Blaine, he'll fall down too. Knowing that the threads are so weak they may even break.

So he lays next to Cooper's passed out form and lets today become tomorrow's problem.