“B-but … I w-want you to come h-home, Papa!” Tracy weeps, arms wrapped around her cat’s neck, hugging the animal a little too tightly. But Brian doesn’t seem to mind. Blaine has never met such a patient creature in his life. Still, he gives Tracy’s left arm a tug as a signal to ease up.

“I know, Bun-Bun, I know. I want to come home, too. I have to wrap up a few things here, but I’ll be home to tuck you in tomorrow night.”

Blaine can hear Kurt’s voice tremble as much as their daughter’s. He looks at his phone, smiling sympathetically at his husband on the opposite end of the line, his heart breaking with every one of Tracy’s sniffles. Kurt’s a strong man. He can get emotional from time to time, but it takes a lot to make him teary-eyed.

A sad Tracy is definitely at the top of that list.

The sounds of talking and traffic become louder on Kurt’s end of the call as he leaves his hotel to reach his destination – the Vogue office in Manhattan.

“Alright, guys. I’ve gotta go.”

“Bye, Kurt. We love you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Blaine leans toward the phone as if he’s leaning in to his husband’s ear, about to give him a kiss.

This is the first business trip that Kurt’s been on since they welcomed Tracy into their lives. The second they found out that the IVF took and Mercedes was pregnant with their first child, they made the decision to move from the heart of the city to Upstate. Both Kurt and Blaine made the decision to work from home so that their daughter could enjoy the peace and quiet of a suburban lifestyle, one that they felt might be safer for her under the circumstances. It’s not that Kurt hasn’t had the opportunity to go to the city and visit Isabelle, but, according to Kurt, it was never the right time. At six months, Tracy was too new, and Kurt was afraid that a day spent away from her would mean missing out on essential baby/father bonding opportunities. At two years, Tracy caught a horrendous case of pneumonia and Kurt outright refused to leave her side for any reason. At three, she broke her arm in a freak tricycle riding accident. Year four was plagued with bizarre nightmares featuring Egyptian mummies, which led to them adopting Brian (since cats are considered Guardians of the Underworld, and the only logical solution for keeping mummies at bay).

But recently, there had been a lull in the Tracy AnderHummel drama, so the second Isabelle invited Kurt to come down to Vogue to help consult over the spread for Fashion Week, Blaine encouraged Kurt to go. Kurt needed this. He needed to feel like part of the New York fashion scene again, and not just via Skype. But in all of the excitement of getting Kurt ready to go – along with the three nights of epic goodbye sex that preceded his trip - Blaine underestimated how much he’d miss him.

Luckily, Tracy is doing a stellar job of projecting his misery for both of them.

“B-b-bye, P-papa! I love you!”

“I love you, too, Tracy. I love you, Blaine. I miss you both so much! Taxi!”

The call cuts off, and Tracy bursts into tears.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Blaine says, watching with an aching heart as Tracy buries her head into her tortoiseshell’s neck. Blaine could watch Tracy do that a hundred times – and he thinks he has in the past few days – and it would hurt just as badly as the first. “It’s only one more day. It won’t be that bad.”

“I---I know.” Tracy sniffs. “B-but I miss P-papa so much!”

“What do you miss most about him?” Blaine asks, rescuing poor Brian from being strangled by pulling his daughter into his lap.

“I m-miss his h-hugs … and his k-kissies.”

“But Bun-Bun! I’m hugging and kissying you right now!” Blaine exclaims, snuggling Tracy tight. It earns him a giggle, but not a smile that lasts.

“It’s not the same! I miss the way Papa smells. And how soft his skin is. You don’t smell like Papa. And your skin isn’t as soft. You have all that …” Tracy pauses, makes vague hand motions around her face “… stubbly stuff on your cheeks”

“True, true,” Blaine agrees, making a remorseful face. In times like these, when he comes to a crossroads that neither he nor Kurt can navigate, he’d offer to call Tracy’s mother. But with her away on tour, he’s on his own with this one.

Suddenly, he gets an idea.

And he grins.

“I think I can do something about that.”

***

“Okay, guys! I’m home early!” Kurt calls, throwing open the front door and kicking his luggage over the threshold. “Guys?” He scans the empty living room, confused as to where they could be seeing as Blaine’s car is still parked outside. Any place Blaine would have taken Tracy to cheer her up is a car ride away. “I said screw it!” Kurt continues, bringing in the rest of his bags and shutting the door behind him before going on the search for his husband and daughter. “Isabelle said she could help with the wrapping up, and I got on the first train I could catch. So here I … am?”

Kurt turns the corner from the living room into the master bedroom and finds his husband, his daughter, and his daughter’s cat, all lying on his bed - Blaine and Tracy holding Wii controllers, heavy in the throes of Mario Kart, with Brian on Tracy’s left.

And they’re wearing face masks.

Specifically, Kurt’s face masks.

Expensive face masks.

“Uh, what’s going on here?” Kurt asks, bending to kiss Tracy on the top of her head, between the twin buns that earned her the nickname Bun-Bun.

“Mario Kart,” Blaine and Tracy answer in unison.

“I can see that,” Kurt says.

“I’m winning,” Tracy announces.

“Good for you. I think the question I’d like an answer to is what’s going on with your faces?”

“We’re masking,” Blaine says, biting his lower lip and veering to the left to avoid the green turtle shell Tracy’s Princess Peach just launched. “I’m wearing blue agave, and Tracy here is wearing chocolate and strawberry.”

“It smells yum, but it doesn’t taste very good,” Tracy says, nearly climbing out from underneath the covers as her car speeds towards the finish line.

“No it doesn’t,” Blaine agrees, his tone and grimace leading Kurt to believe that the two of them gave the concoction a pretty substantial lick before coming to that conclusion.

“No, well, I didn’t spend $50 on it because I thought it would taste good. But why, may I ask, did you guys decide to slather $150 worth of my best face masks on just to play video games?”

“The masks weren’t a pre-requisite for the video games,” Blaine explains. “We’re just playing to occupy the thirty minutes we need to wait for these things to dry.”

“Wonderful.” Kurt shakes his head. “But could you please answer the question.” He’s not really concerned about the wasted masks or the money. He’s been trying to instill the concept of boundaries in Tracy, who has recently taken to rummaging through their things and other kids’ cubbies at school without permission. If Blaine uses Kurt’s things without asking, it may give Tracy the impression that she can do the same.

“Well, after you got off the phone with Bun-Bun here, she couldn’t stop crying. I asked her what she missed most about you, and she said the way you smell. So I tried to remember the last smelly thing you wore before you left, but you took your cologne and your products with you. So we settled on this.”

“Ah.” Kurt sighs. He completely gets it. Whenever his mom went away for longer than a day, he would spray her perfume on his pillowcases and sheets so he could pretend she was tucking him in at night. After she passed, he doused his room in the stuff. The day his father finally got around to changing Kurt’s sheets and doing his laundry wiped the scent almost clean away, and Kurt cried himself hoarse.

He didn’t talk to his dad for a month after.

“Okay, okay, well, you guys I understand …” Kurt sits on the edge of the bed beside Brian, who’s solemnly watching Tracy play “… but why is Brian wearing a mask?”

The cat looks up at the sound of his name, face covered in a thick, green goop. It’s fairly intact, so at least he’s been polite enough not to groom it off, but Kurt can’t decide if the expression on his face is one of contentment or resignation.

Blaine side-eyes his husband and gives him a wink. “Because he missed you, too.”