Chapter 10

December 2, 2012

The following day Kurt didn't let himself sleep in. He had way too much to do since he and his dad were busy the previous day and had to move their traditional cleaning day to Sunday. It was the tradition started by Kurt's mother Elizabeth. On Saturdays the whole family had to participate in cleaning the house. Normally it included dusting the shelves, washing the floor, and vacuuming but on some certain days there was much more to do like washing the windows. Thankfully, after a short discussion the Hummel men decided not to do any major cleaning since they were still unpacked and it wouldn't make sense to clean up everything now. They would wait until they were finished settling in and then the real fun would begin.

Since Kurt knew that the typical cleaning would still take ages, he had set his alarm for eight in the morning and got up without snoozing it. Before he could start getting ready, he needed to do one thing – make sure that the other Hummel was ready to participate. That's how the teenager found himself standing by the door of his dad's room still in his pyjamas, knocking non-stop.

"Dad... dad..." he kept muttering. "Da-ad... Daddy..."

He kept doing this until he heard someone shuffling around the room and the door opened to reveal sleepy-eyed Burt.

"Wakey-wakey," Kurt said with a big bright smile. "So, I planned the cleaning schedule for us. We will start with–"

Without a word or change in his facial expression Burt slammed the door and Kurt stepped back in surprise. He frowned but didn't let this discourage him. "I expect you downstairs in twenty minutes. Don't make me come up here again."

With that the boy went back to his bedroom to get ready for work. His plan was perfect – they would start working early, finish up by lunch, have light lunch, and then he would prepare the picnic and go to the park to see Blaine. Now he just needed his dad to be cooperative to make sure everything was done in time. He had no way of contacting Blaine in case he was late and it would be a shame if the boy thought that Kurt was making fun of him and lied about the picnic. Kurt needed Blaine's trust so there was no way in hell he would be late for their meeting.

"Hey, Kurt, I just checked the cupboard where we keep the cleaning supplies," Burt said when they were getting ready to start the cleaning after the breakfast, "and there are no dusters in there. Do you know if we have those at all?"

Fucking perfect...

"Weren't you supposed to buy some when you bought all the other stuff?" Kurt asked.

"I must have forgotten," Burt said slowly, trying to remember and it only annoyed Kurt since every minute was important.

"Are you sure? Maybe you put them somewhere else?" the boy insisted, hardly keeping himself from whining.

Burt looked at him as if he was crazy. "Yeah, of course, I bought cleaning stuff and put everything in one place except for the dusters..."

"Haha, very funny," Kurt grimaced. "Um, okay, how about you start vacuuming and I will quickly drive to the mall. It should be open on Sunday, right?"

"I have no idea, you are the shopper in this family," Burt shrugged.

"I'm sure I'll find some open store," Kurt said and ran upstairs.

All he needed to do was grab his wallet and he was ready. Normally he would have changed into some nicer clothes but he didn't have time for that. Hopefully, there wouldn't be many people out on an early Sunday morning. After all, normal people should be in bed till like two in the afternoon.

When Kurt went downstairs, Burt was already vacuuming the carpet in the living room. The boy waved at his dad to indicate he was leaving, put on a coat and warm boots, and went to his new car. He liked it a lot and while it would take some time getting used to it, he was already comfortable driving it.

The drive to the shopping mall appeared to be useless since it wasn't opened yet and the teen had to find some other place. In his mind he played the list of shops he had been to or had seen passing by and decided just to go to all of those that might sell cleaning supplies among other things. Unfortunately for him, his second try was a store that had no such thing like dusters but the third one appeared to be just what he needed. Kurt almost squealed in delight when he noticed what he needed and quickly made his way to the front of the store to pay. On his way, however, something caught his eye.

There was a section of discounted merchandise, most of them not suitable for winter. Among all things there was a folded checkered blanket. It was red and blue and even though the typical picnic blanket was supposed to be red and white it was still very similar. Originally he planned to just put the food containers on the bench but seeing the blanket Kurt couldn't help but imagine Blaine's smile when he saw a properly looking picnic. He hadn't really seen the slave smile, at least not a big toothy smile, but from what he had already seen, Kurt knew that this small gesture would surprise him in a good way.

After such a warm image in his head the teenager couldn't not buy the blanket and since it was discounted, it didn't cost much. Happy with his purchase but still worried about the possibility of being late, Kurt went to pay and was met with a short queue of two people in front of him.

Normal people should be sleeping...

The first customer was taking ages much to Kurt's dismay. Trying not to look annoyed, he started looking around the shop and when there was nothing to pretend to be looking at anymore, he looked through the window. The day wasn't as nice as Saturday but since it was still very early, he hoped that the sun would come out at the lunch time.

He was about to look away when he saw someone walking down the street on the other side of the road. Once again Kurt was lucky to just randomly spot the boy that occupied his thoughts.

I'm as lucky as Harry Potter in the last book. He also happened to go to the right places at the right time with the right people waiting there for him...

At the first sight Kurt's heart leaped but after taking a better look, as good as it was, seeing that Blaine was quite far from him, the boy noticed that the slave was wearing the same clothes as before. Which meant, he wasn't wearing the jacket that Kurt gave him in the park before they parted. What also caught his attention was the way the boy was walking; there was an obvious limp in his gait.

Blaine was almost out of his vision and Kurt contemplated running out of the store and talking to him when the cashier brought him out of his thoughts.

"Next, please," the girl said and Kurt put the dusters and the blanket on the counter.

He kept moving on the spot, trying to urge the girl to work faster but it didn't help. She was obviously sleepy and since nobody was there to supervise her, she took her time scanning the things. It went fine until she tried to scan the blanket.

"I'm sorry, the barcode is not working," she said after the first time. She tried again, and again. After the fourth time she manually put in the code but it gave an old price. "I'm sorry, I will just go check the new price."

She left the counter and Kurt felt the urge to hit his head on the wall. It was already a couple of minutes and he was sure when this was over, Blaine would be far from there. On the bright side, he would be able to ask him questions later that day.

The girl came back after resolving the problem and put in the new code, which finally worked. "Sorry about that. We just discounted this item yesterday and you are the first buyer. Anyway, your total is six ninety nine."

Kurt gave her seven dollars, picked up the things and quickly walked out of the store. Blaine, as he had predicted, was nowhere to be seen. With a heavy sigh Kurt went back to the car and drove home. Throughout the drive he couldn't help but he disappointed by what he had seen. His jacket was new, nice, comfortable and very warm. Then why wasn't Blaine wearing it? It couldn't have been worse than freezing in the cold weather.

Entering the house the boy noticed that it was silent so he assumed that his dad had finished vacuuming. He was proved to be wrong when a few moments later the sound of the vacuum cleaner came from upstairs. The boy took off his coat and boots, placed the purchases on the stairs and went to find his dad. He found him in the main bedroom.

"Hey, dad!" Kurt yelled through the noise and Burt looked around to see him.

The man turned off the cleaner. "Hey, did you buy those things?"

Kurt nodded. "Yeah. It took a while to find them but in the end I did," he said with a forced smile, his mind going back to what he had seen while in the shop. Maybe his dad could explain Blaine's behaviour...

"Ask what you want to ask," Burt said, hardly surprising Kurt since his dad always sensed his moods.

"Okay, so remember how I gave Blaine my jacket yesterday?" the teenager asked and waited for Burt to nod. "I saw him and he wasn't wearing it. I couldn't go talk to him and I can't get it out of my mind... Any smart ideas why he wasn't wearing it?"

Burt sat down on the bed. "Maybe it's too warm for this weather?"

Kurt shook his head.

"Maybe it didn't go with his outfit?"

"Dad," the boy rolled his eyes. He wasn't in the mood for jokes.

Burt put his hands up in surrender. "Fine, sorry. Was it an expensive jacket?"

Kurt smiled guiltily. "Maybe?"

"If that's the case, maybe he sold it and now he is looking for a cheaper but equally warm jacket. That way he would have a warm jacket and some money left for food or other clothes. Does that sound plausible?"

The boy exhaled a breath of relief. He hadn't even thought of such possibility and it made a lot of sense. He wasn't sure how the slave could know the worth of that piece of clothing but it would have been a smart move to make.

"Yes, yeah, it sounds like something a smart person would do," Kurt nodded. "I'll ask him later anyway."

"When are you two meeting up?"

"In a few hours so we should get back to work. We need to finish by then, I don't want to make him wait," Kurt urged his dad.

"You know, you can leave even if we are not finished, right?" Burt asked with a laugh. "It's not like I'm going to keep you locked up like a Cinderella."

"How can I know that, stepmother?" Kurt joked and left before Burt could respond.

The rest of the cleaning went well. They had everything they needed and together they worked efficiently so everything was finished by the lunch time. Kurt had a salad while Burt made himself a sandwich. The man was still eating when Kurt started to pack a picnic basket.

"There is a box of pop tarts in the cupboard," Burt said as he watched his son looking for proper food.

"I'm not sure about it..." Kurt muttered and turned around to face his dad. "If a person hasn't had much to eat for a very long time, can he eat everything or is there something that wouldn't be good for him? I won't bring any food that's hard to digest like mushrooms or nuts–"

"Stop. Worrying. So. Much," Burt said emphasising each word for a dramatic effect. "I'm sure he knows his body and it will be fine."

"It's not enough to 'know your body,' dad... I just don't want him to get sick..."

"You are bringing the thermos with the chicken soup right? Start with it. It's warm, easy to digest. It will be good for him," Burt shrugged and went to wash his used plate. "And in the end give him all leftovers so he can eat them when he feels like it. Just make sure you tell him that it will all be his after your picnic, otherwise he may try to eat as much as possible while he can and that may make him sick."

Kurt's eyebrows went up. "Wow, you are smart!"

"Very funny, brat," Burt faked a frown. "Now, finish up and go to the park. I can see you can't wait to go."

"I'm that obvious, huh?"

"You have no idea."

It didn't take long for Kurt to finish getting ready and soon he was driving to the park with a basket full of food and the blanket on the front seat. He couldn't hold in the excitement and sang his heart out to the radio. By the time he finally arrived, the countertenor managed to go through two full songs and a half of the third one.

The boy made his way to the secluded pond and found the area empty, just the two swans swimming on the other side. It was quite a mood killer not to find Blaine already there but on the other hand, he could now welcome the slave with a made up picnic.

Humming the unfinished song Kurt lay the blanket on one of the benches and put the food containers on it. He took a photo with his phone and sat down, ready to wait for the boy.

Time passed and the boy kept looking at his phone to check the time and the path to see if Blaine was coming. He knew they hadn't really set a proper time, just said they would meet 'at the same time' and the slave boy didn't have a watch or any other means of knowing the time but he still couldn't help but feel anxious.

After an hour passed Kurt went to the pond and started feeding the swans, moving around a little to keep himself warm. After another half an hour he began snacking on the food he had. Another hour later he packed the food back into the basket.

Kurt stayed for more than two hours in the park. Blaine never showed up.