“Look here, Husband!” Blaine called, happily waddling into their bed chamber, labored by another treasure he had made. “Look what I have made for our darling Daisy!”

“Oh my goodness, my love! Be careful! What is it?” Kurt asked, eyes bright as the Sun rise, the way they were every time Kurt looked upon his husband. Lying in bed with their giggling daughter, freshly washed and batting at Kurt’s braids, Kurt stared with wonder at the expertly constructed contraption in Blaine’s embrace … until the Dwarf set it down beside the bed. Then Kurt’s smile began to falter, and he scrunched his brow. “Is that … a cradle, my love?”

“It is, Husband,” Blaine panted, standing with one hand on it and grinning proudly. “I carved it myself from a single piece of Oak. It will last her forever, if she so needs.”

“You made it in one night,” Kurt pointed out in mildly disturbed amazement.

“Aye” - Blaine gave the cradle a gentle push that set it rocking - “that I did. From the time you two went abed to just before Sun up. Then after I woke, I gave it a polish.” Blaine looked at Kurt, Daisy holding strong to his finger, while Kurt looked back at the cradle with too many expressions waging war on his face.

“Do you not like it, Husband?” Blaine asked worried. “Do you not think it suitable for our daughter?”

“I do, Husband!” Kurt said, returning from his conflicted thoughts. “I do! Truly, I do. Tis only …”

“Tis only what?”

“Is she not too young to sleep in a bed all by herself?” Kurt asked. “I mean, she is only a tiny Dwarf. Why, you said so yourself.”

“My love, it is a cradle. Tis designed for babies, even tiny ones. She’ll be perfectly safe.”

“She’ll be alone,” Kurt said grumpily.

“She’ll be right here beside us. How can she be alone?” Blaine chuckled at the strange irrationality of his Elf husband. But not fully Elf, Blaine reminded himself. Kurt was half-Elf, half-Human. Twas sure to be Kurt’s Human side that worried so unnecessarily. “Children do sleep in their own beds.”

“I would not know, Husband,” Kurt replied, “as I have never had a child. Nor any younger siblings to tend.” Kurt didn’t sound cross in his statement, only a little sad. They had only found Daisy a few days earlier, and Kurt seemed to never want to be parted from her. This, Blaine did not mind, as he felt much the same way.

But Blaine was being practical.

Eventually there would come times when they would want the bed to themselves ... maybe even the whole bed chamber. And for that, Daisy would need her own bed at the very least.

“I understand, my love,” Blaine said, joining his husband and daughter. “And it is tempting to sleep with her in our bed always. But I would miss having you all to myself from time to time. I would miss sleeping curled up in your arms, kissing your lips, running my fingers through your hair …”

Kurt’s cheeks pinked hearing his husband talk, and he fully agreed. Kurt wanted those things, too. He would miss them if he were deprived of them. But finding Daisy, seeing the condition she was in out on the Mountainside – alone on the Mountainside, guessing the traumatic ordeal she had been through … at the moment, Kurt could see nothing more important than making sure she knew that she was safe and she was loved, and that neither of those things were in danger of leaving her soon.

“How about this, Husband,” Kurt said, coming up with what he felt was an equitable idea. “A compromise.”

“And what compromise do you have in mind, Husband?”

“We do not shoo her from our bed just yet. We give her some time to adjust to her surroundings, and to us as her parents …” Kurt leaned closer to Blaine, speaking to his ear as if Daisy would understand the suggestion he was about to put forth “… and I will devise alternate ways of being intimate with you that do not require the use of this bed.”

Blaine caught his breath. Indeed, his whole body became still as stone. Even his heart, with its uneven thump, slowed even more until it was nearly silent.

“Uh …” Blaine backed an inch away, gazing into the glimmering eyes and rosy cheeks of his usually less suggestive husband. Meanwhile, the baby Dwarf between them, having grown tired of this conversation, had fallen asleep, with her chubby fist wrapped around Kurt’s slender finger. “I feel that that may be a suitable arrangement … for the short term,” Blaine emphasized.

“Perfect!” Kurt said with a chipper hum and a smile, as if Blaine had just agreed to keep Daisy in their bed with them until she were married and they themselves old men.

“But, just out of curiosity, Husband,” Blaine pressed, “how long were you thinking when you said some time?”

“Oh, not too long,” Kurt promised him. “A year or two at the most.”

Blaine snickered, hiding his face behind his hand to keep from waking a now snoring Daisy. “You do realize that a year is different for Dwarves than it is for Elves, my love? She will have grown out of the cradle in that time, and may actually need a bed.”

Blaine waited for an answer, for an acknowledgement of Kurt’s miscomprehension, or an addendum to their compromise, but Kurt simply looked at Blaine as if he could not see for himself where Blaine’s problem lay. And Blaine had to shake his head, because for as much work as he had put into that cradle, the happiness of his husband was his greatest treasure, and for that, he toiled every day.

Though Blaine could never consider loving Kurt work, and making him happy, less so.

“How about we simply take each day as it comes?” Blaine offered.

“I think that sounds fair and just,” Kurt agreed. “Thank you for seeing reason.”

“You are welcome, Kurt,” Blaine said, leaning over their wee daughter to kiss his husband’s brow. “You know, you are unlike any Elf I have ever known.”

Kurt refrained from pointing out the fact that even though his husband had met many Elves in his life (mostly in the space of a single day), Kurt was the only Elf he had ever known, in favor of returning the sentiment. “And you, Blaine, are unlike any Dwarf that I have ever known.”

Blaine nodded to the truth in that statement. “I shall take that as a compliment, Master Elf.”

Kurt nodded back, the smile on his face wider than The Great River. “So shall I, Master Dwarf.”