Chapter Four

Blaine sat in his class and while he might have been physically there, his mind was entirely somewhere else. It was a Monday morning and Blaine had almost been late for class anyway. He was exhausted. Joey had been ill all weekend with a stomach bug and had spent his time either throwing up what little Kurt could convince him to eat or he wanted to snuggle up with one of his dads. He had spent the past three nights sleeping in the same bed as Kurt and Blaine and the both of them had had to be on high alert for Joey doing any sort of stirring in case it upset his stomach and they had to quickly grab something for him to be sick in. It started to get even worse when on Saturday night, Kurt started showing signs of illness and had spent most of his time over the toilet in the bathroom, obviously having caught something off of Joey. Blaine had been lucky to avoid getting ill himself though he had no idea how. Still, having to take care of both of his boys meant that Blaine had gotten very little sleep and not being a morning person anyway, he could barely keep up in class.

His eyes kept fluttering shut and a few minutes had passed by when he opened them again, meaning that he must have dozed off. Whenever he opened his eyes again he could see Whitney staring at him, mockingly, letting him know that she knew that he was getting little bouts of sleep.

“And now for your first assignment of the year.” Blaines lecturer announced, making Blaine sit up and pay attention. No matter how tired he was he had to take his assignments seriously, he had a family to think about. “This assignment will be done in pairs which I will assign to you. I want you to work with people that have a different style to you to see what composition you can come up with together.”

Blaine was happy about this assignment, he knew he wouldnt have much trouble doing it. He loved writing music and was very open to different genres and writing styles, so he figured that he would be able to have a lot of fun with the assignment.

“Whitney, youll be working with Blaine. Ill be intrigued to see what you can come up with.” The teacher said, handing out the assignment sheets that detailed exactly everything that they were meant to be doing.

Whitney smiled over at Blaine. “This is going to be fun. We should work out a schedule. Do have a place we can meet up?”

Blaine thought about his apartment right now and knew it was probably best to be elsewhere, what with all the distractions at home and he didnt want to make things difficult for Kurt and Joey. “My place wouldnt really be that good. Do you have somewhere?”

Whitney grinned. “Yeah we can do it at my place. We can start getting ideas together tomorrow, I have something going on tonight.”

“Great.” Blaine agreed.

XXXX

“How's Joey feeling today?” Blaine asked when he got home.

Kurt was sat on the sofa, a blanket covering him and his laptop balanced on his knees. He looked up and smiled at Blaine and motioned to Joey who had snuggled against him and was sleeping peacefully. Joey's face still looked a little peaky, as did Kurt's but at least neither of them were being sick anymore.

“He should be good for tomorrow, he's managed to keep all of his food down and his temperature has been getting cooler throughout the day.”

“And you?” Blaine asked, putting away his school bag and shrugging out of his jacket.

“I'll live, I'm more worried about this assignment that I have to get in.”

“Well you can work on that and I'll get dinner ready tonight, I'll even entertain Joey for you when he wakes up. I have to be out tomorrow. I have my first assignment and I have to compose a duet with a partner, I said it would be better doing it at their place so we wouldn't get in your way, especially if Joey was still feeling bad.”

“So I'll get this finished and then I can be open tomorrow for looking after Joey.”

Both of them grinned. Juggling everything was proving to be something that they could easily compromise, if they could continue like this for the rest of the year then everything would go according to plan and smoothly.

XXXX

Blaine got off of the subway and looked around the street. It wasn't really the nicest part of New York and it made Blaine glad that his family were helping to pay for the apartment they had so that they could live in a good area for Joey. He couldn't imagine trying to raise Joey here.

The GPS on his phone told him that Whitney's place was a few blocks over and grabbing his bag a little closer to him, he started making his way. He used to spend a lot of his time in the wrong sorts of neighbourhoods but that was before Kurt. Being a father, things had definitely changed. He knew that if anyone did try to rob him he'd be able to beat them in a fist fight but at the risk that he could get hurt. Before that wouldn't have mattered, especially with how destructive his personality had been. Now he'd have to think about what would happen to Joey and Kurt if anything happened to him and he didn't really want to think about that. One thing was for sure, Blaine didn't want to spend too much time here.

Blaine found the apartment block that Whitney lived on and had to walk up five flights of stairs to reach her actual apartment. He was glad that he had been able to keep in shape, what with how dodgy the elevators looked. When Whitney answered the door she was only wearing and towel and her hair was wet.

“Hey Blaine.” She grinned at him, beckoning him inside. “Sorry, I'm running a bit behind. I'll just go and get changed and then we can start, help yourself to a beer.”

Whitney disappeared into what must have been her bedroom and left Blaine standing by the front door. The room was a living room and kitchen in one so Blaine walked over to the fridge and grabbed a beer. He hadn't had one in ages, he usually drunk any wine that Kurt brought home over beer, unless he was going out and honestly, that didn't happen much anymore either.

Whitney came out ten minutes later with her hair still wet and down. She'd thrown on a flimsy top and a small pair of shorts. She grabbed and beer for herself, took a swig and joined Blaine to the sofa, crossing her legs underneath her and leaning into the cushions behind her.

“I'm so glad that we're working together on this one Blaine. It's going to be a lot of fun getting to know you and your style.” She rested a hand on Blaine's thigh briefly, before using the same hand to run her fingers through her hair.

Blaine was oblivious to her flirting and replied enthusiastically. “I'm sure we'll be able to come up with something awesome.”

XXXX

Kurt watched Joey who was sat at the coffee table in their living room, painting and watching some cartoon on the television. He was glad to see that his little boy was feeling better after the few rough days that the both of them had had.

Kurt's mobile rang and he looked away from Joey, answering the phone with a brief look to see that it was Isabelle calling.

“Hello?”

“Mister Hummel, I have never been more proud of you.” Isabelle said.

“What have I done?” Kurt asked, trying to think back to his latest submissions.

“In the little while that you have been working for Vogue you have managed to gain one-hundred thousand subscribers to your blog. That is a major achievement. Congratulations, Kurt. You deserve it.”

Kurt's eyes widened at the number. That many people were reading the words that he had written? They were thinking about his opinions on fashion? Kurt could hardly believe it.

“Thank you.” Kurt said sincerely, wearing the biggest grin on his face.

“Considering that you have that many subscribers, my team and I were wondering how you would feel about taking on a bit more responsibility? Rather than us giving you topics to write about, you'd be able to choose your own. It'd give you a lot more flexibility in terms of writing.”

“That sounds amazing, thank you so much. I can't wait to get started.” Kurt said excitedly.

“I will warn you though Kurt, while it may not seem like there would be a big difference in workload there actually quite a big increase in the work that you will have to do. You need to be sure that you can handle it.” Isabelle said, knowing Kurt's situation and wanting him to be prepared for what this would mean.

“I'll do my best to handle it. I can't pass this up.” Kurt reassured her.

They said their goodbyes and Kurt couldn't control the excited little shout that burst out from his mouth.

“You okay Daddy?” Joey asked, looking over from his painting.

“I'm fine sweetie. Daddy just got some great news from work.”

“Does that mean we can have cake to celebrate?” Joey asked eagerly.

Kurt chuckled. “You've just been ill mister. I think we should give it a few days before you can start having that kind of thing again.”

Joey made a noise of protest and pouted at Kurt.

“Sorry sweetie. Besides we should probably wait till Papa knows.”

Wrinkling his nose, Joey turned back to his art work, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sway his daddy and resigning himself to see if when his papa got home, he might suggest doing something to celebrate.

XXXX

When Blaine got home later that day he was ecstatic for Kurt. He agreed with Joey that they needed to do something to celebrate but mindful of Joey only just getting over some sickness he decided they would all go out for dinner instead.

He told Kurt all about his day with Whitney, explaining about how much they had managed to get done in that one session. He warned Kurt that the project was going to take a lot of work. While they had got a lot done today, there was still a lot to do. He was a little concerned, as Kurt was, about where Joey would fit in. He was obviously their main priority and they would have to work everything around him, it was more a question of keeping up with everything else on top of their parental role.

Neither of them wanted to discuss it in front of Joey so they waited until they had gotten home that night and Joey had been all tucked up in bed.

They took a shower together, something that they didn't do all that often but it was something that they loved. They didn't even need to be doing anything sexual, just holding one another in the shower and washing one another.

Blaine loved taking a shower with Kurt because it gave him the time to admire and appreciate the beauty that was Kurt. Despite whatever flaws Kurt saw in himself, Blaine was sure that there could be nothing that could be done to improve him. Kurt's smooth and pale skin, the more solid abs that he had gained since Joey had been born, even Kurt's ass, which still had some fat on it from his pregnancy, all turned Blaine on. He couldn't believe that Kurt wanted to change things about himself but he supposed that Kurt saw beauty in him that Blaine probably couldn't see in himself.

Blaine gently ran his fingers through Kurt's hair, rinsing out the conditioner from it. It was a rare opportunity for Blaine to touch Kurt's hair and he loved it.

“We're going to be okay, aren't we? We'll be able to handle all of this?” Blaine asked, looking for reassurance.

“We just need to keep in mind our responsibilities. No matter what, Joey will come first. As long as we keep referring back to that we should be okay.” Kurt reassured Blaine as best as he could.

“And us?”

“We come after Joey but we already know that nothing can break us. We're never saying goodbye to each other. Not ever.” Kurt said, wrapping his arms around Blaine, pressing their naked bodies together.

Blaine let his arms trail up and down Kurt's back, his head on Kurt's shoulder, the water spraying over them. His hands started to trail lower until they found Kurt's ass. His hands started massaging and he started nibbling on Kurt's collarbone. He smirked against Kurt's neck when he felt Kurt's dick twitch in interest.

“I love how responsive you are.” Blaine murmured, his voice low.

“We should go to the bed.” Kurt whispered.

“Only if you promise that I can bottom tonight. I wanna feel you.”

Kurt's eyes filled with lust and he pulled Blaine in for an almost bruising kiss before he turned off the shower and pulled Blaine into the bedroom with him.