“I still can’t believe this has to be on the list.”

“It’s weird, Kurt! And I do want to get over it, I do, but... it's just weird.”

Kurt just tilted his head and stared at Blaine, who was draped across his bed with his face shoved in a pillow. Finn and Puck and a few of the other guys from the football team had taken over the Hummel-Hudson residence in day long Call of Duty ‘fiesta of pain’, as Puck referred to it, so they were holed up at the Andersons. Blaine’s parents were both at work so they had the house all to themselves. It was nice to have the privacy, and perfect for the sort of practice they were going to do. “Don’t be such a luddite,” he sighed. “Besides, I would think you’d be eager to see my face during the, and I quote, ‘365 days before you can join me in New York and start our fabulous life together’.”

“I am,” Blaine insisted as he rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “I love looking at your face. All the time. In person.”

“What about pictures?” Kurt asked. “I happen to know that I’m 65% of the reason that your storage is close to full on your phone.”

“Pictures are different,” Blaine sighed. “They aren’t… moving. And talking to you.”

Kurt flopped down next to Blaine. “You realize this is a ridiculous fear to have, right? It’s right up there with… fear of the Snuggle bear.”

Blaine’s eyes went wide. “You said you’d never mention that, that bear is creepy, what the hell is he doing just rubbing up on people’s laundry like that?” he snapped. “He wasn’t invited into the laundry basket. He just shows up at your home.”

“Maybe someone shouldn’t have made fun of a very real discomfort with late night television vampires,” Kurt mused.

“Touche,” Blaine sighed.

Kurt leaned over and pressed a kiss to Blaine’s cheek. “I love it when you talk fencing,” he chuckled softly. “Surrounded by your trophies.” He let his hand slide over Blaine’s thigh. “Bet you really know how to work a sword…”

“Blaine! Sweetie, are you home?”

Blaine swallowed hard as a door closed downstairs and keys jingled as they hit the counter. Kurt didn’t seem to be moving his hand, and he really needed to move his hand if Blaine was going to converse with his mother. “I’m upstairs, Mom!” he called through his open door. No one was supposed to be home for hours, so they hadn’t bothered with thoughts like doors. It was just as well -- his parents would be livid if they found him and Kurt behind a closed bedroom door. He’d complained to Cooper when he started dating Kurt. It was so not fair, the double standard, they only did it because he was gay, they’d never do that to Cooper…

And Cooper cracked up. It wasn’t a gay rule -- they’d never even let Cooper take a girl into his bedroom. Cooper was allowed to sit in the family room, where they could see that feet were on the floor and hands were out of laps. The closest to privacy he got was sitting out on the back deck when the weather was nice, and even then, Dad tended to flick the flood lights on and off at random times just to remind them that he was watching. Their parents had eased up considerably in the ten years between Cooper and Blaine, Cooper insisted. Probably not entirely unrelated to the fact that there was no way Blaine could get Kurt pregnant.

Still… open doors. No hanky panky.

“The power went down at work, and they said it wasn’t going to be back up for another few hours, so they sent everyone home,” his mother called out, her voice getting closer and her footsteps echoing off the staircase. “Not that I’m complaining. No power means no A/C, and there are many things I can give up, but air conditioning is not one of them.”

Kurt took his hand off of Blaine’s thigh and moved a couple inches over on the bed as Blaine’s mother poked her head around the corner. “Hi Mrs. Anderson,” he said brightly.

“Oh, hello Kurt,” she replied warmly. “I didn’t see your car out front.”

“Blaine picked me,” he explained. “My car’s in the shop today. Tire rotation.”

She nodded. “Is your father enjoying being back in the shop?” she asked.

“He really is,” Kurt chuckled. “Not that DC isn’t great, but he always enjoys getting his hands dirty. Literally.”

“It was so nice when he won,” she said. “Congress is such a den of…” she trailed off, pursing her lips and tilting her head as she searched for the right word. Just like Blaine does.

“Idiots?” Kurt suggested lightly.

She smiled. “I was going to be kinder. But yes. It’s nice knowing that there’s someone with a bit of common sense there.”

“You should tell him that,” Kurt said. “Blaine said your car was doing a little squeaking when you pressed the brake. If you bring it in tomorrow, I can make sure it gets put on the top of the list.”

“Oh, that sounds perfect, thank you Kurt,” she said. “Well, I won’t keep you boys from whatever you were doing.”

“Thanks Mom,” Blaine said as his mother disappeared back into the hall.

Once she was gone, Kurt turned and grinned smugly. “Your mother likes me.”

“Of course she likes you,” Blaine chuckled. “Who couldn’t like you? Even if you’re a terrible person and bring up perfectly legitimate fears regarding an animatronic stuffed laundry bear.”

“You’ll live,” Kurt insisted. He pat Blaine’s knee as he sat up and hopped off the bed. “Okay, come on, let’s get this over with and check it off the list. We’re going to make it so that you’re 100% behind the idea of video chatting me when I finally get out of his midwest hell hole. Because if you don’t, we can’t watch tv together, and you won’t be able to appreciate my effortlessly clear skin.”

“Number five would combat the idea that it’s effortless.”

“Details,” Kurt waved him off. “You’re supposed to pretend that I’m effortlessly beautiful.”

“You’re effortlessly beautiful,” Blaine repeated with a grin.

“Good boy,” Kurt said, reaching over to pat Blaine on the shoulder. “Okay, so, let’s do this. We’re going to practice.” He hopped off the bed to retrieve the laptop in his bag and motioned toward’s Blaine’s on his desk. “Open it up, and open up Skype and we’re going to do a little back and forth so that you can get used to seeing people on the screen.”

“It’s just weird,” Blaine sighed. “And I know I need to get over it, and I will, but it’s just weird. I could just text you.”

“Texting doesn’t take advantage of my face,” Kurt reminded him. It took a few minutes for everything to boot up, but they finally got Blaine situated at his desk, and Kurt propped back on the bed. “Okay, so, I’m going to call and you’ll get a little ring like this…”

A moment later, Kurt’s face popped up on Blaine’s screen and the distinctive Skype ring sounded from his speakers. A click of ‘accept’ and there was Kurt’s face, slightly hesitating as it moved with Kurt’s movement. “There you are,” Blaine said.

“Here I am!” Kurt announced. “See, it’s great. We can see each other, we can watch tv together, we can… other things… together,” he added with a wicked little grin.

Blaine turned back and looked pointedly at Kurt in the flesh. “Other things you say?” he chuckled.

“No!” Kurt snapped. “Look at the screen! We’re practicing on the screen.”

“But it’s weird hearing you both behind me and in front of me,” Blaine said. “And seeing you both behind me and in front of me. It’s not as strange if you’re just here in my room with me.”

Kurt closed his laptop and slid off the bed. “Okay, then I’m going to go somewhere else in the house and we’re going to do it from two different rooms. You sit here, you wait, and I’ll call you.”

Kurt was not going to go an entire year without seeing Blaine’s face, so if he had to sit down in every room in the Anderson house and call Blaine and make him practice his Skype conversation skills, he’d do it. And it wasn’t like Blaine didn’t like technology -- his first ‘courage’ text was still saved on Kurt’s phone after all this time. He couldn’t figure out why video chat was the only thing Blaine seemed weird about.

He chose the kitchen first, setting the laptop down and searching for a plug. “Are you looking for something, dear?” Mrs. Anderson said warmly, standing in the doorway to the study. “Just unplug the coffee maker. Did Blaine throw you out of his room for some reason?”

“Oh, no,” Kurt said as he found the plug. “No, we’re practicing using Skype so that we can see each other when I eventually move since he’ll still be here.”

“Do you have plans yet?” she asked. “Blaine told me about that theater school.”

“Not yet,” Kurt sighed. “But… I’m working on it.”

“You’ll figure something out,” she said, smiling. “And best of luck to you getting Blaine to use Skype. He won’t even use it to talk to his grandmother, who is just thrilled that one of the nurses at her facility set up a big screen for families to call in. And he certainly won’t use it with Cooper. Not since the incident,” she chuckled.

Well, that sounded like a promising answer. “The incident?” Kurt asked. “There was an incident? He’s not just weird and planning on eventually unplugging and moving out to the middle of the Nevada desert with the rest of the people concerned about EMPs and other things that Sam has insisted are both important and pervasive.”

Mrs. Anderson laughed. “Oh, no. Cooper liked to mess with Blaine when he was little, because Blaine was so impressionable. And he believed anything you told him. He was such a sweet little boy. Well, Cooper being fourteen and a bit of a jerk, decided to see if he could convince Blaine that he was talking to him from the future. So he got his father’s camcorder and recorded a video of him pausing at certain points after asking Blaine questions, so Blaine would think that he was actually answering Blaine’s questions from the TV. And he decided he was going to convince Blaine that aliens were attacking. Well, it worked, and Blaine was so scared that this was going to happen that he slept in my bed for a week. And Cooper was grounded for month.”

“I would pay good money to see this tape,” Kurt said. And he’s sure that YouTube would love to see the freecreditratingtoday.com/savings guy doing his best War of the Worlds slash Doctor Who impression.

“I’ll see if I can find it,” Mrs. Anderson chuckled. “Cooper was always a handful. He got better, though. But ever since then, people talking at you through a screen has been uncomfortable for Blaine.”

“I’m sure he’ll work through it,” Kurt said. “I’ll get it to where he’ll talk to his grandma online.”

“That would be a help, dear,” she said. “Well, don’t keep him waiting. I’m going to get back to my movie.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Anderson,” Kurt said, waiting until she was back in the study before pulling up Skype and calling Blaine. He ruffled his hair and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt quickly before he could answer.

“Hey,” Blaine said as his face popped up on screen. “Took you a while.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have much time!” Kurt said in his best breathless voice. “The flux capacitor is about to overload, and we only have enough power to send this message once. It’s up to you, Blaine Anderson, to save us from the invading lizard people. Or else they’ll eat us all.” He turned to look off to the side, taking a deep breath and giving his best ‘ahhhhhhh’ of terror without yelling. “They’ll eat us all!’

Blaine’s eyes went wide… and then narrowed. “She told you!” he accused. “Mom!” he called out. “I know she’s there. It was not funny -- I really thought that Cooper was doing some weird future thing, and I was just a little kid and you shouldn’t do that to a little kid. I didn’t mean to get crayon on his leather jacket.”

“Whoa, sorry, calm down!” Kurt laughed. “I touched a nerve. Relax.”

“Relax?” Blaine asked. “You want me to relax? And that’s not the only thing Coop did to me when I was little. He treated me like… like one of those dogs that you borrow from the Human Society and take it for a walk and your entire goal is to get girls to talk to you.”

“But I bet you were the cutest little dog.”

“I was,” Blaine sighed. “Okay, and maybe he’d always buy me ice cream afterwards. And he only left me in the park that one time, and it was only for, like, thirty minutes.”

Kurt propped his chin up on his hand. “You survived.”

Blaine nodded. “I guess… if you really think about it… it is kind of a funny story.”

“You know what else is?”

“Hmm?”

“That you and I are having a very normal conversation, and you haven’t been weird once about the fact that I’m in the screen instead of sitting next to you.”

Blaine cocked his head, pursing his lips as he considered. “Huh. I guess you’re right. Number four completed.”

“Number four completed,” Kurt chuckled.

“I don’t want to tell Cooper that he had any part in either the problem or the solution.”

“My lips are sealed.”