Kurt shushed the little girl in his arms and rocked her gently back and forth, brushing his left hand through her soft, honey-blonde curls.

"I know, baby, I know."

"I think my fever went up."

He paused and had to wonder, not for the first time, at how well-spoken she was for a three-year-old.

"Am I gonna die, Daddy?"

She was also a bit of a hypochondriac.

"Oh, baby, no," he rocked her a little more urgently, and smiled into her hair. "Of course not. You just have a little bug. You'll be feeling fine tomorrow, no doubt."

She raised blue eyes inherited from her mother to meet his gaze.

"Are you sure?"

Dear god, I hope so, he thought, but only smiled and brushed a kiss to her damp, fevered brow.

"Absolutely positive. It's almost lunchtime, baby. Did you want to try some crackers?"

Her eyes lit up, and he gave an inner cry of victory that she felt up to eating when she put a hand gently to his face and asked, "Can I have some Sprite, too?"

Kurt couldn't help but laugh at the way she tilted her head to the side, calculating yet innocent at the same time, and he rolled his eyes. Despite treating the girl like a princess, Kurt refused to spoil her. Creating a well-mannered beauty was one thing. Making a rotten little monster, on the other hand, was a can of worms that he did not want to open. Sunny wore only handmade creations of the simplest, most durable fabrics--Kurt wouldn't have had it any other way, really--and she had a proper bedtime that was stuck to like a marine stuck to patrol duty. She wasn't allowed to watch anything that wasn't educational on the telly, and even then, it had to pass some seriously high standards before Kurt would let his baby girl anywhere near it. Despite his own love for the show as a kid, Sesame Street was out--what kind of educational show had a character that said 'Me want!' all the time?

In addition to all that, she was kept on a very strict diet. One that included fruits and vegetables and a daily children's vitamin. One that did not include things like the high fructose corn syrup found in sodas. Brittany being Brittany though, wasn't always the most reliable concerning food smarts. And no matter how many times he told her to get what was on the list and nothing else when she went shopping, somehow there always seemed to be some sweet, sugary confection and a bottle of soda added to the receipt. When she'd let Sunny have a taste of her Sprite a few weeks ago, Kurt had threatened to go to Coach Sue with her non-cheer-conforming eating habits, and since then she had been pretty good about it. Their little girl, though, had been gaga for the drink ever since, and after hearing her mother tell stories about getting the 'sweet water,' as she called it, whenever she was sick as a child, it just figured that Sunny would ask for it when she was sick herself.

The little girl was still staring up at him, hope and light shining in those big bright eyes, and he sighed and pressed a kiss the hand on his face.

"I'll ask Mommy to pick some up after cheer practice, if you can wait that long?"

She grinned widely, her dimple showing for the first time in almost a day, and hugged him tightly.

"You're my favorite, Daddy."

"If I didn't know that comma was there, I'd wonder about your motivations in telling me that, baby."

"Hmm?"

"Never mind," he said, and shifted her completely to his right arm while he grabbed his phone from his pocket with his left and dialled Brittany's cell.

~ + ~ + ~ + ~

"Um, Jake, what is this?"

When Blaine had decided to dish out a little extra for his own room when he got to college, he figured it would save him a lot of stress that living with another person in his space might entail. And okay, so what he actually ended up was his own room within a four-bedroom suite, which also included a kitchen and living area, plus two bathrooms (though only one with a shower, unfortunately). He completely lucked out in the roommate department; Nick and Jeff were always having sleepovers with their 'femme du jour,' so he rarely saw them except for the nights before exams when they would scowl at him for being perfectly calm and shuffle off to their rooms with coffee and other energy supplements and drinks in hand. And they were clean, and didn't mind that he took up half the fridge with all the food he ate, or the cupboards with all the dishware his mother insisted on sending him.

His third roommate, however, was a bit of a nuisance. And, okay, so he genuinely liked the guy, nuisance or not, but he was loud, and obnoxious, and messy, and had the other half of the refrigerator filled will take-out boxes that appeared to be the start of a brand new colony of sentient life. It wouldn't have been so bad, he could have cleaned them up, nice and easy, except Blaine had made the mistake of suggesting Jake name them, and the other boy agreed, completely missing the exasperated, sarcastic tinge to his voice.

And now Jake stood at his door, tall and awkward, his dark hair sticking up in every direction, a ratty old t-shirt hanging loosely on his frame, as he held out a pile of what appeared to be blank CDs to Blaine.

"I don't need to burn anything, Jake--"

"No, no, no. This is Project Increase Blaine's Music Rep."

"Excuse me?" he cocked his head to the side and stared while the boy explained.

"See, every CD you've got there is a mix of what's been popular on the radio in, say, the last ten years."

"I...see."

"Yeah, so you can know more than your Disney and Broadway stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with those," he rushed to add as Blaine cocked a brow, clearly unaware of how hard Blaine was trying not to laugh. "But something so you can join in on a modern music discussion."

"How...thoughtful of you."

"Yeah, well..."

"And they're not labeled because?"

Jake's eyes lit up, as if that were the question he were waiting for, and Blaine stifled a groan.

"That's part of the the thing. See, if I labeled them, you'd be so focused on the names and titles that you couldn't really take in the music and just enjoy it for what it is."

"And what is it?"

"Rock and roll, Blainers. Rock and roll."

He couldn't help the wince at the nickname, but he had long since given up on getting the boy to stop using it. He cracked a smile then, as he asked, "So, if I'm trying to take in this 'rock and roll,' as you say, and without titles and such, just how am I supposed to join in on that 'modern music discussion' you mentioned?"

His smile grew to full-blown grin as he watched Jake take in his words, and his own smile turned to a look of dismay.

"Well, shut my mouth."

"If only," Blaine quipped and laughed when Jake scowled. "But thanks, man. This was really thoughtful."

"Really?" he queried, suspicion mixing with the hope in his eyes.

"Really. I'll put it on while I finish up my psych paper."

"Yeah," Jake grinned, nodding emphatically. "That's cool. Oh, by the way, did you wanna maybe go out later tonight?"

Blaine inhaled sharply as the image of Kurt super-imposed itself on his roommate, and he surreptitiously pinched himself to wake from the daydream of the beautiful boy he had only met the night before asking him out. Which was ridiculous. Jake looked nothing like Kurt, sounded nothing like him, either. The only thing the two had in common was their unavailability, that is, their straight-as-a-two-by-four aspect.

"Ah, Blaine?"

He shook his head, and smiled up at his roommate, pushing the thoughts aside. It would be good to get outside, distract himself from thoughts that would only leave him bitter in the end.

"Sorry, yeah, I'd love to go out," he replied with a grin, and then winked. "If you're paying."