Given the option, Blaine would rather spend his evenings at Kurt’s home, seated on the floor with his homework spread out across the low living room table. Kurt sits curled on the sofa behind him, occasionally scratching his fingers softly against the back his neck when he turns the page of whatever book he’s reading for his English class that week.

It’s never quiet at the Hummel-Hudson household though.

There’s the rustling of the newspaper that Burt reads when he gets home from the shop, and the thunder of Finn’s footsteps as he runs up and down the staircase. And the clang of pots and pans as Carole starts to put something together for dinner until Kurt shakes his head fondly and pushes himself off the sofa and heads toward the kitchen.

Blaine’s fairly certain Carole makes a big show of getting dinner started just to get Kurt to come take over for her. She only protests briefly before allowing Kurt to shoo her away, her eyes twinkling conspiratorially at Blaine as she takes part of the paper from Burt and settles down in one of the empty chairs. That’s when Blaine gets up and joins Kurt in the kitchen that is much smaller than his own. It’s lends well to brushing up against each other when reaching for things.

Blaine will take it – every creak of the floorboards, every cleared throat - take it all over the silence and near-emptiness of his own house.

His mother flits in and out of the house constantly, on the way to or back from some outing with her girlfriends, or a charity event that has her dressed up in diamonds and lace. And if his father isn’t at work, or at an event in coattails and cufflinks with Mrs. Anderson, he’s sequestered away in his study. Blaine can spend hours after school or on the weekends without knowing if his father is in the house or not.

He hates to stand outside the study, looking for the spill of light from underneath the dark, heavy door, ear pressed to the wood, listening for the rustle of paperwork, or the soft strains of classical music from the old record player that signals his father’s presence. He doesn’t knock though, he never does.

There are many closed doors in the Anderson household, and many rooms he doesn’t enter.

But Kurt’s house is a home, and sometimes Blaine closes his eyes and lets his homework fall away from him and just listens. Listens to the sounds of a family working together as a unit. It’s not always perfect – Blaine once found himself caught in the middle of an argument between Burt and Finn over something that happened at the shop. It took an hour of Kurt stroking his back in long sweeps and nuzzling at his nape before his hands stopped shaking and the memory of Burt yelling, deep and powerful, left his ears.

It’s not perfect – families never are – but sometimes it’s near enough.

There is an upside to stopping at the Anderson household after school, however.

They get to close the bedroom door at Blaine’s house. They can close the door, seal themselves in Blaine dark and cozy bedroom, because Blaine’s parents don’t care. Or rather, they pretend nothing untoward could possibly happen behind that door. They’re happy to believe, they work hard to believe, that their darling boy is merely doing his homework with a good friend. Blaine and Kurt are more than happy to indulge that fantasy.

When Blaine comes home from school, and it’s taken Mrs. Anderson some time to get reacquainted with the notion of her son coming home in the afternoon, and not just a weekend every few months, it’s often with that tall, slim boy. They squeeze through the entryway together, shoulders jostling, slipping their shoes off and carefully lining them up on the rack by the front door, before heading up the stairs, calling a few vague words about homework and class assignments behind them.

Mr. And Mrs. Anderson’s studied obliviousness is how they get to lie together like this, naked save for the tangle of sheets across Kurt’s thighs, with Blaine’s parents somewhere in the house, and no concerns whatsoever at being interrupted. Or caught.

And when Blaine and Kurt come back down the stairs, hours later, and Kurt’s shirt isn’t as pristine as it was when they went up the stairs, and Blaine’s hair looks a little worse for wear, well, they’re teenage boys after all. They can’t be expected to look so put together all the time.

This night Mrs. Anderson is home and she greets them as they slip into the kitchen. It’s where they always seem to end up after they tire of their schoolwork. Blaine is small for his age, shorter than average and narrow in the waist (he does so take after his mother), but has the appetite of a football player, and Kurt is ever willing to help out when and where he can. They are both growing boys after all.

Mrs. Anderson calls him “Kurt dear” when she asks if he’ll be staying for dinner that night. And it eases the tight clench in Blaine’s gut - the one he gets when he sees his parents after having finally pulled himself from Kurt’s flushed, sated body and tempting lips and forced himself into some clothes. He imagines no amount of homework or impeccable manners will cover for him walking naked into the kitchen, the marks of Kurt’s mouth bright on his skin.

She must know that they’re not always doing homework in Blaine’s room, behind that tightly closed door. They’re careful to always bring their bags and books up the stairs with them, to help keep up appearances. But his room is tucked away at the end of the long hallway and the doors are thick.

Even Mrs. Anderson must notice that Blaine changes his sheets rather more often than he used to, and that the housekeeper hardly has to empty his trash anymore. She certainly doesn’t know that he does it himself now, to hide the empty bottles of lube and used condoms. Blaine shudders to his very core to think of her ever finding them.

But Mrs. Anderson calls his boyfriend “Kurt dear,” as if there’s no way Kurt’s spent the last two hours thoroughly defiling her only son beneath her very roof. Blaine can never tell if she’s naive, ignoring the signs, or is in deep denial of the entire situation.

Kurt accepts the invitation to dinner and helps set the dining room table that’s much too large for four people. He grins and huffs little laughs when Blaine gets creative with the cutlery, tapping at Blaine’s wrists when he tries to balance a knife and fork on the lip of a water glass. As much as he loves to help out in the kitchen, and lord knows Carole needs it, he stays out of Mrs. Anderson’s way, because in another life, before she met Blaine’s father, she had been enrolled in a culinary school and Kurt has seen what she’s capable of with a knife.

And when Mr. Anderson emerges from his study, uncannily just as dinner is ready and being placed on the table, Kurt is careful to keep his hands to himself, though he does allow himself to press a socked foot against Blaine’s bare ankle under the table.

Blaine’s father calls him Mr. Hummel, when he calls him anything at all. Mr. Anderson is a stern man, with humorless grey eyes and a permanent set to his jaw, and Kurt is forever grateful that Blaine takes so strongly after his mother - even if that means he inherited her height as well. Kurt can live with being the taller of the two of them if it means he gets to stare into warm, hazel eyes every day instead of flat, grey ones.

Mr. Anderson speaks mostly of work, when he speaks at all. It’s usually Kurt and Mrs. Anderson who keep the conversation flowing - about school, about Glee club, about Mrs. Anderson’s charity work. Blaine is eternally grateful for Kurt, because without him he’d be back to awkward, silent dinners with his parents, when they had dinner together at all. Before he’d transferred to Dalton he’d eaten most of his meals alone, perched on a bar stool at the counter, thumbing through a magazine as he pushed his food around his plate.

It’s so, so very different at the Hummel-Hudson household, and sometimes the contrast makes Blaine’s head spin.

Kurt’s home is warm, too warm for Blaine who has to take off his sweaters and cardigans when he comes inside. The furniture doesn’t all match and sometimes there’s dust on the mantle and a faint odor of motor oil and football gear tends to linger in the corners.

And Burt knows. He always knows. Blaine is certain Burt can tell, from two rooms and a staircase away, when his eyes linger on the sweet curve of Kurt’s ass. He feels like Burt can look at his hands, holding that night’s textbook, and know they’ve been all over his son, that they’ve left bruises on the soft skin of his hips, even though he’ll never, ever (fingers crossed) see the marks – red now, but soon to be purpling.

And when they’re seated around the slightly cramped dinner table, and Blaine is telling some story about Glee club or his time at Dalton (and Carole is always so interested in his recounts of fencing matches), he’s so very sure that Burt is staring his mouth, knowing that those lips have kissed his son senseless. Kissed his son in his house, under his very roof.

He is careful to keep his hands and lips to himself around Burt, and he still blushes when Burt catches him even holding Kurt’s hand. Not that Burt has ever said anything, not since their Talk.

He’d taken Blaine aside one evening, shooing Kurt away and laid down the house rules and his expectations.

Door open. Respect my son. Hurt him and you’re dead.

It was everything Blaine had expected to hear. And despite the fear and adrenaline that had coursed through him as Burt had spoken in his low, frank voice, making sweat spring out across his forehead and down his back, he had appreciated it. He appreciated the love and care and concern that Burt clearly had for Kurt. It would have given him a warm, fuzzy feeling in his gut if he hadn’t been so close to vomiting on Burt’s shoes.

Burt doesn’t say anything when he forgets and takes Kurt’s hand, or touches the small of his back, and sometimes Blaine thinks he catches a soft, approving look from Kurt’s dad, but he isn’t going to push it.

After dinner at the Anderson’s, Kurt and Blaine clean up as Mr. Anderson retires back to his study and Mrs. Anderson takes a phone call elsewhere in the house.

And then they’re alone in the kitchen, flirting shamelessly amidst the dirty dishes and soiled napkins.

Kurt likes to hand-scrub the pots and pans and is elbows deep in hot, sudsy water. Blaine takes a moment to admire the sight of Kurt leaning over the wide sink, shirt pulled snug across his broad shoulders, humming softly to himself as he attacks a particularly stubborn stain.

Blaine wants to kiss the look of concentration that’s scrunching up Kurt’s nose so adorably. He tries not to think about Kurt in five years, ten, standing in their own kitchen, scrubbing their own pots as Blaine fills the dishwasher with the plates and glasses and utensils that they bought together, in the house they bought together.

He’s thinking about it anyway and he must have a huge, dopey grin on his face because suddenly Kurt flicks soap at him. The warm bubbles splash across his face and catch in his hair. Blaine laughs and leans into Kurt, rubbing his damp cheek against the rounded muscle of Kurt’s shoulder.

Blaine is glad they’re in his kitchen, where he doesn’t have to worry about Finn stumbling in on them looking for something more to eat, or Carole lurking in the doorway, smiling happily at the two of them the way she does whenever she catches them getting close like this.

He presses in snug to Kurt’s back and splays his hands low across Kurt’s belly, dipping his pinkies under the edge of Kurt’s low-slung jeans. Kurt sighs contentedly, leaning back into the embrace and letting his head fall to Blaine’s shoulder. Whatever he’d been holding in his hands drops suddenly and clangs dully against the bottom of the sink.

Blaine wants to slide his hands lower, wants to set his teeth into the tight cord of muscle of Kurt’s neck, wants to pull him back upstairs and not let him leave his bed for days.

But Kurt has to go, has to get back home before curfew, before Burt puts on his “protective father” hat and grounds him. They have plans for the weekend that don’t involve Kurt being confined to his home.

Blaine holds Kurt’s hand as they head for the front door and lets Kurt lean on him as he tugs on his boots. He helps Kurt loops the scarf around his neck because he’s still holding his hand and Blaine’s not letting go until he has to.

Blaine kisses him goodnight on the porch, under the bright illumination of the lights and in full view of anyone looking out of the windows. But no one is. And no one will. Blaine kisses him slow and sweet with his hands cradling Kurt’s face in that way that warms him to the bones and curls his toes.

He watches the car pull away until Kurt gets to the end of the long drive and curves out of sight. Blaine turns the lights out in the house as he makes his way back to his bedroom. He does have some homework to do, now that Kurt is gone and has taken his distracting hands and lips with him.

He grabs his books and crawls into his bed, where the smell of Kurt is still thick and heady in his sheets. He’ll have to change them again, but not tonight. Tonight he’ll work on his essays and send Kurt text messages between paragraphs and remember that even though Kurt is gone for the night, he’ll see him tomorrow.

And tomorrow his mother will be gone for the night and his father won’t care if he’s at the Hummel-Hudson household until too late, and Burt gently shakes him awake from where he’s fallen asleep on the floor, leaning against sofa with Kurt’s fingers tangled in his hair.