There was a reason behind Kurt’s terrified expression. He was panicking. Walter had ordered him to go hide, but whoever Walter had been trying to protect him from had just found his hiding place. Who was that boy? Why was he here? Was he going to hurt him? And how had he managed to open that door? Kurt had locked it well enough, he was sure of that.

Kurt was about to say something but before he even had the chance, Blaine had run back to the living room.

Blaine's stomach was burning with confusion and disgust as his mind was filled with all the wrong assumptions and scenarios. He tried, he really did, but he couldn’t think of any explanation for what he had found locked in his dad’s room that wasn’t terribly disturbing or bloodcurdling.

Walter had a lot of explaining to do.

“Walter!” Blaine screamed, interrupting his parents’ discussion as he entered the living room hastily.

“Blaine, your dad and I are talking–” Barbara tried to say, before her son once again interjected.

“Oh, believe me, Barbara; you’ll wanna hear this too,” the boy hissed, glaring furiously at his dad.
All the stories that he had seen in the news of old and creepy men that kidnaped young boys and did horrible things to them were coming to mind. The statements of people, saying how the kidnappers seem like good people before it had been found out what they were really doing. How devastated and scared those kids had seemed after they had been released. Blaine knew that this was a very disturbing thought and that he probably should have given Walter the benefit of the doubt before having jumped to conclusions, but the boy handcuffed in Walter's room seemed so scared and his wide blue eyes had showed so much fragility that Blaine couldn’t help but think the worst.

“What’s wrong, Blaine?” Walter asked.

“What’s wrong, Walter? How about this: There’s a boy that I just found, locked in your room! Oh, and did I mention he's handcuffed?” Blaine shouted.

Oh God, Blaine found Kurt, Walter thought, completely paralyzed. He didn’t know what to say or do. And Kurt still was handcuffed…how was he supposed to explain that?!

“WHAT?” Barbara yelled, hearing her son’s words. That had to be some kind of sick joke. Just another one of Blaine’s horrible jokes.

“Blaine, if this is some kind of joke…” Barbara warned.

“It’s not a joke! Go see for yourself!” Blaine exclaimed, crossing his arms, looking fixedly at Walter, who had been taken by despair as his ex-wife flew through the hallway, towards his room.

“OH MY GOD!” Barbara screamed, covering her mouth with her hands as she caught Kurt trying to leave her ex-husband’s bedroom.

Barbara was shocked. That boy was a teenager! He seemed about the same age as Blaine. And he looked so scared. What was going on there? Why he was handcuffed?

“Give me one good reason not to call the cops on you right this second, Walter!” Barbara hissed, turning around to meet Walter with a fuming expression.

Walter tried to say something or make some excuse, but Barbara’s eyes met his and the words stuck in his throat. Her icy, blue eyes were flamed with rage and he almost could hear her mind turning, filled with all kinds of wrong assumptions.

“I-It’s not what looks like…” he tried to explain, not being able to find the right words, amazed by how much Barbara and Blaine looked alike when they were glaring at him with pure rage.

“Walter is letting me stay here! He’s a friend of my dad!” Kurt yelled, bringing the attention of the Anderson's to him. He had become very self-conscious, but he needed to keep explaining things. It was pretty obvious that Walter was a terrible liar, and he couldn’t risk having the police come there.

“And how the hell did you end up locked in his room, handcuffed?” Blaine inquired, crossing his arms above his chest and raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

“I-I handcuffed myself!” Kurt gasped “I locked myself in the bedroom to play with Walter’s detective things and ended up handcuffing myself!” he concluded, cursing himself for not thinking up a better excuse. That sounded just really lame. They would have to be really naive to believe in something like that.

“You handcuffed yourself?! What, are you stupid or something?” Blaine inquired, puzzled.

“Says the boy who actually paid someone to pierce his body in order to hang metallic rings in the holes,” Kurt answered in a bitchy tone, referring to the series of cuff earrings in the other boy’s ear.

Somehow, Kurt already didn’t like Blaine. And it wasn’t because the other boy was the one that had found him and had put in him in this embarrassing situation. What annoyed Kurt was the cockiness that was implied in every single one of Blaine’s gestures and his attitude.

And the leather jacket, let’s not even talk about all that leather, Kurt thought. That was just one of the many reasons why Kurt already didn’t like the boy at all.

“He has a point, Blaine,” Barbara murmured to her son, making him roll his eyes. Who the hell did that kid think he was? No one talked to Blaine Anderson like that, especially someone who was stupid enough to handcuff himself. Kurt just turned himself out of someone that Blaine was trying to defend to someone that he already didn’t like even a bit.

Seeing his son clench his fists in irritation, Walter decided to step between them and avoid what probably would have ended, if he was lucky, in a session of heavy insults.

“Well, now everyone knows Kurt! Kurt, this is Barbara, my ex-wife, and this is my son, Blaine,” Walter said as he took the metal chain off of Kurt’s pale wrists, leaving some red marks that made Walter’s chest tighten with regret. He was ashamed of the way he had treated the android earlier that day, handcuffing him like the boy was some sort of criminal.

“Thank you,” Walter almost inaudibly whispered to Kurt, receiving a small smile in return.

“Well, this is an odd way to be introduced to someone, but it is nice to meet you, Kurt,” Barbara said, offering the boy a handshake.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Barbara,” Kurt murmured, squeezing her hand. She shivered a little at the touch of Kurt’s hand. It was really soft but surprisingly cold.

“S-sorry,” Kurt said, putting his hand in his pocket. He shouldn’t have shaken her hand. His dad had always warned him about that. How sometimes, his body temperature would get really low and touching people could bring them great discomfort.

“So, when I can bring Blaine’s stuff?” Barbara suddenly inquired, catching her husband and her son off guard.

“What?” they both gasped.

“If you have enough room for a friend’s son, then I am sure you can make room for your own son as well,” Barbara declared, crossing her arms in an imposing way.

“B-but Barbara!” Walter tried to argue. He couldn’t have Blaine there. He was hiding an illegal android and he didn’t want to make Blaine part of that.

“Blaine needs you in his life and I’m sure you will find a way to make room in your life for him. You found a way for a complete stranger, didn’t you?” Barbara said, making Blaine look at his father with hurt eyes.
Barbara was right; Walter had found room for that strange boy, hadn’t he? How he could be reluctant about living with his own son? It wasn’t like Blaine wanted to live with Walter, and he wasn’t pleased with the thought of living with that boy with the high pitched voice either. But if his dad ended up rejecting him and saying no to him when he had said yes to that irritating elf, Blaine would feel even more hurt.

Feeling his son glare at him, Walter was at a loss for words. He knew what he was supposed to say. He had to reject Barbara’s proposition, but he couldn’t.

Barbara was staring at him, waiting for an answer, and Walter knew that every second of his own hesitation just hurt his son even more.

In the end, it wasn’t like Walter really had a choice; he couldn’t hurt Blaine more than he already had.

“You can bring his things tonight. I will have a really busy day tomorrow,” Walter sighed, not believing the mess that he was putting himself in. There was no way his day could get worse. He was breaking the law by hiding an illegal form of artificial intelligence under his roof, and now he was bringing his problematic son to live with him.

“So I’ll have to live here now? With the handcuffed genius?” Blaine inquired of his mom. Part of him was kind of happy that Walter hadn’t rejected him again, but the thought of living under the same roof with that bitchy pale boy wasn’t something that he was looking forward to at all.

“My name is Kurt,” the blue eyed boy hissed, clearly annoyed. As if it wasn’t enough, with all the bad things that had happened to him today, now he would be forced to live with that jerk. God, he just wanted his old life back.

“Sorry, my bad. With KURT, the handcuffed genius,” Blaine shouted back, correcting himself and glaring at Kurt mischievously.

“Yes, Blaine. From now on, you will be living here, with Kurt. I will bring your PJs and everything else later,” Barbara said before she wrapped her arms awkwardly around her son’s waist.

It had been a long time since she had hugged him. All their fights and discussions had kept them apart for long enough and to make even that small gesture of affection seemed strangely unfamiliar for them.
Barbara murmured some loving words as she buried her face in her son’s shoulder as they exchanged goodbyes. “I love you” and “I will visit you” Barbara had said. Those words were really familiar to Blaine. Walter had already said them to him the day he had left his son behind.

But unlike that day, Blaine wouldn’t cry this time. He wouldn’t beg to not be left behind. He would just hug his mother back and pretend that he believed her promises.

-------------------------------------------------------

“Well, boys. It seems like we’ll be living together now,” Walter said tentatively, making the two boys in front of him roll their eyes almost simultaneously.

“So let's establish some rules here: no fighting, no yelling, no drinking, no smoking, no breaking things, no skipping school and no bringing girls to spend the night,” Walter began to list, not noticing the way his son had choked back a laugh when he had heard the “no bringing girls to spend the night” part.

Blaine was amazed by the fact that his father knew so little about him. Sure, he had kissed some girls in the past but the thing was…Blaine Anderson liked boys. He certainly didn’t date them nor do anything romantic for or with them, but he was addicted to the feeling of power and control that he felt over them while they hopelessly shivered and moaned his name. There was something about how he knew nothing unexpected would happen, and that everything was under his control. That made the whole experience so good.

Every time Blaine had sex with someone, he overpowered the person, dominated the whole situation, because in this way he could control what was going to happen next. In this way, he would never be left behind; he was always the one that would leave in the morning, not the other way around.

“So no sex, no drugs, no anything that is slightly fun allowed, right?” Blaine mocked, seeing his father blush a little before the man recomposed his authoritarian attitude again.

“Yes Blaine. Pretty much that,” Walter sarcastically assured his son, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alright, so where am I going to sleep?” Blaine asked, slightly afraid of where he would be forced to sleep. Walter’s place was a mess.

“Good question. Where am I supposed to sleep?” Kurt asked.

“Well I am thinking I'll be putting the two of you in the guest room,” Walter considered out loud, making the two boys in front of him gasp.

“The two of us?! You are seriously saying that I’ll be forced to sleep with the genius here?” Blaine shouted, receiving a bitchy glare from Kurt that made it pretty clear that the thought of sharing a room wasn’t pleasing for him either.

“I prefer sleeping with the gross box of Chinese food in the living room,” Kurt assured them, crossing his arms in a superior pose. He knew that he wasn’t in a position to demand anything, but he wouldn’t let Blaine humiliate him without doing anything about it.

“Oh, really? Because I’d rather marry that gross box of old food and have babies with it than sleep with the brainless ice queen here,” Blaine growled.

“Alright, alright, you two, calm down. No one here is
sleeping with that box of Chinese food. I will get rid of that thing…soon. You two are going to share a room and try not to kill each other, okay?” Walter said, feeling a heavy atmosphere forming between the boys.

Both of the boys rolled their eyes and sighed before Walter decided to show the boys the house. The place wasn’t as small as it seemed, it just needed a good cleaning and it would look at least ten times bigger. There was only one bathroom in whole place, which could cause some problems if Kurt maintained his morning routine with skin care rituals and long showers. But besides that, the place wasn’t that bad. There was a living room, a small laundry, a wide kitchen and a reasonable sized living room.

Soon they had familiarized themselves with the apartment and made Walter promise to clean the place. The boys went to the guest room that was near Walter’s room.

After opening the room’s door with difficulty, (apparently it stuck sometimes if you didn’t apply the right amount of strength to push it), Walter showed the boys a room illuminated by one large window. The room wasn’t so messy like the rest of the apartment, but the thing was, there was only a single bed. And Kurt and Blaine were two people.

“You did notice that there’s only one bed and that there are two of us, right?” Blaine inquired, making his dad twist his face into a thoughtful expression.

“Yes, that could be a problem…” Walter muttered to himself as he tried to think of a solution for that particular problem.

“That definitely is a problem,” Kurt agreed. He didn’t want to share a bed with that leather jacket wearing freak. He had never slept next to a boy before, and he didn’t want to wake up for the first time next to another man to see Blaine’s smug face and hear some kind of morning insult. Walter might not have believed him, but Kurt really meant what he said about the Chinese food box.

“Well I have an old futon, that would solve the problem!” Walter exclaimed before receiving a horrified look from Kurt.

“Only provisionally, of course. I will put the other bed
in here, don’t worry,” the federal agent assured them. Kurt sighed heavily.

This has to be a nightmare. The blue eyed android thought, closing his eyes and massaging his temples.

“Well, I will get the futon and some clothes for you,
Kurt. I’ll be right back!” Walter said, before leaving the room. It was his attempt at trying to give the boys some space to work out their issues.

“So, ice queen, how about we establish some rules?” Blaine said smugly as his dad left the room.

“That’s a great idea. I was thinking in—” Kurt tried saying, before Blaine interrupted him again.

“I mean my rules,” the older boy said, stepping close to Kurt in an almost improper way that made himself clear.

“Firstly: I don’t give a shit about you or about what you think of me, so you’re not allowed to form any opinion about my life, my hair and especially not about my piercings,” Blaine said, beginning to annoy Kurt in an almost unbearable way.

“Second rule: When I go out, you can’t make a fuss about it or tell Walter,” Blaine continued, cracking a pretentious half-smile.

“Oh yeah, and what are you going to do if I break your precious rules?!” Kurt asked in a bitchy tone, almost regretting his words when he saw the way Blaine’s eyes began to sparkle with an evil flame as he heard the question.

“You want know what I’m going to do?” Blaine murmured, stepping even closer to the young android, this time in a certainly improper way, standing just a few inches apart from Kurt.

“You’ll be punished,” Blaine finally whispered as his warm breath ghosted the other boy’s unbelievable pink lips.

Kurt jerked with the suddenly close proximity that Blaine had imposed between them, stepping away from the other boy and blushing a deep shade of crimson red.

“I'm glad you understood what I meant,“ Blaine whispered, cracking a small, but unbelievably cocky smile.

“And by the way, the bed is mine,” Blaine said, walking away from Kurt and sitting on the edge of the single bed.

“I don’t care about your rules! I won’t tell your dad if you go out, and you want know why? Because I don’t give a damn about you or what you do with your stupid life!” Kurt shouted, seconds after recovering himself. He wouldn’t let Blaine know how he had affected him with his words. “And you can have the bed. Judging by the crappy neighborhood that your dad lives in, that thing was probably part of a crime scene anyway!” he hissed, turning his back on Blaine and leaving the room.

“What happened?” Walter asked. He was back with the futon.

“Just the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Walter,” Blaine mocked, grabbing the futon out of his dad’s hands and placing it on the floor. “A beautiful friendship…”