Takes place an unspecified number of years in the future, when Kurt and Blaine have been married for years and Rachel acted as their surrogate for their now six year old daughter Elizabeth.
This is dedicated to my darling fandom wife Jakia. You might remember this from when we first met, and talked about how hilarious this scenario would be. And thus, I FINISHED IT FOR YOOOUUUU
Jakia is lovely and sweet and a brilliant writer and it is my honor to be her fandom wife 3 LOVE YOU BABY
"I can't wait for Disneyland! We have to go see Goofy and all the princesses and OH don't forget about the tea cups!"
Kurt laughed at the sight of Blaine bouncing up and down, positively vibrating with excitement. "How could I, what with the way you've been rhapsodizing about them all month?" He teased, "I think you're more excited than Elizabeth actually."
Blaine poked his husband in the side playfully, "Oh come on, like you haven't been fantasizing about meeting Cinderella and checking out that dress of hers."
"I just want to know what material they make it out of. Professional interest." Blaine cocked an eyebrow at him, "It's just... so floofy Blaine." Kurt's voice took on a definite whine, "I need to know."
Blaine kissed the side of his husband's mouth to keep from squealing at the adorable blush there. Kurt tended to react to Blaine's squees with an elbow to the gut. Those things should have a warning sticker. "So we all set?" Blaine patted his pocket to double-check that his wallet, cellphone and keys were all there. He checked them all off on the whiteboard by the door. Kurt might roll his eyes but Blaine wasn't the one who ended up having to pick the lock every week like clockwork. Actually, thinking about, Blaine thought that he should have been worried about how good Kurt was at breaking and entering. Eh.
He gave his husband a sly once over out of the corner of his mind. He was pretty sure he still had the mask from his old Zorro costume lying around somewhere… maybe after their day out, when Elizabeth was tuckered out and sleeping…
Kurt rifled through his messenger bag, completely unaware of Blaine's increasingly detailed plans. "Absolutely. All that's left is for Elizabeth to pick what doll she wants to bring with her and we're good."
"Why does she even bother pretending that she's going to pick anything other than Michael Bearbert Chang?" Blaine grinned, momentarily distracted by the pure adorableness that was his daughter. "That thing's practically surgically attached to her hand."
Kurt huffed, "She didn't even look at Flyza Minelli."
Blaine patted his arm consolingly. "She just has a little crush, that's all." He smiled dreamily, "And I mean, can you blame her? He's somehow managed to only get more flexible."
Kurt swatted Blaine's hand half-heartedly, "That doesn't mean you should be encouraging her Blaine."
Blaine rocked with the blow, tilting back just so he could fall back into Kurt's arms. "You're just mad because I totally won her birthday this year."
"You did not."
Blaine just grinned back at him.
"Oh shut up."
"I didn't say anything." Blaine sang, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He looked so much like their daughter at that moment that Kurt had to struggle not to grin like an idiot.
"She's obsessed with bows and Mike and hates socks. Are you sure you didn't give birth to her? I mean, I know I was there and all, but maybe you and Rachel pulled off a particularly daring magic trick."
"If I could, I would have. Plus," Blaine's voice went low and gravelly, and it still sent a spark down Kurt's spine even after 15 years, a wedding, and child, "we tried very, very hard." Kurt flashed back to all those nights Blaine had crowded him against a wall after a night of babysitting, mouthing wet kisses against his neck and whispering, I think I grew a womb just looking at you. Let's test it out.
"Well," Kurt breathed, "maybe tonight we can-"
"I'm ready! I picked Michael Bearbert Chang!"
"–We can put our five year old to bed and pass out like the old marrieds we are."
Blaine sighed dramatically, but his eyes sparkled as he watched Kurt button up Elizabeth's jacket. "I don't know," he whispered quickly, one eye on Elizabeth's increasing proximity, "I have a few plans for tonight," He winked, "Think you can keep up old man?"
Kurt sputtered, feeling his cheeks heat up as he watched Blaine spin on his heels and crouch down till he was eye-level with their daughter. He brushed an errant curl from her eyes, and they smiled at each other. Kurt hastily turned away from the sight before the tears in eyes gave him away. They had been married for long enough that when Blaine ran out of the shower looking for a clean towel Kurt could just throw one at him without that batting an eye and the words I love you were rote rather than revolutionary. But then sometimes, Kurt fell in love all over again.
"You excited, Queen Elizabeth?" Blaine sang, hopping up and down on the spot, "I am!"
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Really, I couldn't tell, you're keeping it so well under wraps," he muttered under his breath, shoving his husband out the door.
"Dad! Your butt is blinking!"
"What? Oh! My phone," Blaine fished out the phone, mouthing a quick sorry! to Kurt as he turned to take it, "Oh hey Coop. Of course I didn't forget your birthday! I've got your present and- what? No Coop, I can't. I'm taking Kurt and Elizabeth to Disneyland that's why. No Coop. No Cooper Shay Anderson! Wait, you're where?"
There was a BANG and a puff of smoke and a couple of high girly screams, only one of which came from the six year old.
"Cooper Anderson HAS! ARRIVED!" Cooper stepped out of the supply closet just outside their apartment door.
"How long have you been in there?" Blaine gaped.
"Uncle Cooper!" Elizabeth hid behind Kurt's legs, peeking out shyly at her boisterous uncle.
"No seriously, how did you even get in there? It's locked."
"Hello Cooper," Kurt sighed, petting Elizabeth's hair reassuringly, "What brings you around?"
"Coop? Kurt? …Elizabeth? Is anyone else going to ask him about the whole 'hiding in the closet' thing? Not even to make a joke about how I was the one in closet? Really? Guys?"
"Why, because it's my birthday of course!" Cooper beamed, spreading his arms out wide and taking a little bow.
"Happy birthday Cooper."
"Happy Birthday Uncle Cooper."
"Did I step into an alternate dimension? Can you hear me? Is that why no one is questioning this? Am I back in McKinley? Am I dreaming? ...Am I dead? Kurt, am I dead?"
"That doesn't really explain why you're here though Cooper," Kurt smiled his hurry-up-and-explain-before-I-slice-out-your-tongue-and-make-sandwich-meat-out-of-it smile. Cooper's grin faltered. He'd gotten very familiar with that look over the years.
"Well. You see, I'm turning 30 this year."
"You're 38, what are you even saying? Wait, have you been celebrating your 30th birthday for the past 8 years?"
"And as a thirtieth birthday is quite the occasion, I decided that me and my little brother should spend this special day together!"
"You're not turning thirty! And your birthday is tomorrow, we can hang out tomorrow Coop."
"Well, we did have plans Cooper," Kurt said, his tone warning.
Blaine took out his pocket mirror and made sure he was still visible. He was pretty sure dead people couldn't be seen in mirrors.
"You guys always have plans! Blaine hasn't spent a whole day away from you guys in six years!" Cooper shook his head, "At this rate, the only role he'll be able to play is that of whipped house husband and father. And while that's a meaty role and one that I've played myself in the national commercial for Deep Fried Salad Pockets, method acting should only be taken so far." Cooper took a step back, clutching his chest as if his own words had sent him stabbed him right in the heart.
"He's not method acting," Kurt said indignantly. Then his brain caught up with Cooper's words, "Wait, that's not true. He's definitely spent at least a day away from us."
Cooper shook his head.
Blaine suddenly hoped he was dead. Ghost dads were cool right? He could be a Swayze style husband. He could even go haunt that mean art teacher who never put Elizabeth's pictures on the wall. It could totally work.
Kurt turned to stare at him, a disturbed look on his face.
So much for that then.
"Have you really not spent an entire day away?" Kurt was looking at him with a weirdly concerned look his face.
"Uhm. Maybe?"
Kurt gaped at him for a second, and then nodded firmly, "Well. Right then." He turned back to Cooper, "He's all yours."
"Yay!"
"WHAT?" Blaine hurled himself in front of his husband and daughter as they made for the elevator, "But-but, Kurt! The teacups!" he flailed helplessly, "and Mickey! I was going to get Mickey's autograph Kurt!"
"Elizabeth will get an autograph for you Blaine honey, I promise." Judging by the way Elizabeth's snickering into Michael Bearbert Chang she'd probably get Donald's autograph just to spite him.
He latched onto Kurt's arms with an iron grip, "No. Kurt. Please. Don't leave me. It's- it's Disneyland Kurt" his voice got higher with every word, "I can't miss that! The teacups Kurt! The teacups!"
"We'll be sure to take lots of tea cup rides in your honor." Kurt pried off Blaine's fingers one by one. "Come on sweetie."
Cooper had to tackle Blaine to keep him from throwing himself to the floor and grabbing Kurt's ankle like a three-year-old.
(He just really really wanted to go to Disneyland okay?)
Blaine watched his horrible, abandoning husband and his sweet baby girl disappear out the door with an audible wail.
"Jesus Blaine, stop being such a baby." Cooper was sitting on him now, and it was bringing back all sorts of childhood flashbacks. Mostly ones where Blaine had to pretend to be King Cooper's throne because "all the biggest kings live on the backs of the people. You know you said that? Shakespeare. Look it up."
"She is my baby. My baby's first trip to Disneyland. And I'm missing it!"
"Oh my god, are you actually crying?"
"Shut up! My–my baby" Blaine reached out a forlorn hand as if trying to call her back using sheer willpower.
"Well, shut up and saddle up. It's my birthday, so you have to listen to what I say. And I say we're going to a strip club for my birthday!"
"It's not even your birthday yet Coo- wait. Strip club? Strip club? YOU TOOK ME AWAY FROM MY BABY TO DRAG ME TO A STRIP CLUB?!" Blaine managed to flip them and pin Cooper to the floor, forearm pressed right under Cooper's Adam's apple.
"Oooh, you seem to have a lot practice with that move. Are you and Kurt still getting your 'private time'? It's important that couples with children make the effort to keep the intimacy alive, I'm proud of you two." Even pinned to the ground and gasping for air, Cooper still managed to seem like he was the one in control with a wink and smile. Blaine was torn between punching that confident smile off his face and begging him to teach him how he did it. But then, that's how he felt around Cooper most of the time.
Cooper got Blaine off of him by promising to drive him to Disneyland to catch Kurt and Elizabeth. Then as soon as they were in the car he turned on the child safety locks and headed towards his favorite strip club in the area. The Red Umbrella, because Cooper Anderson was classy.
"Child safety locks Coop? Really?" Blaine said, after impotently jiggling the door handle at the first red light. Cooper was pretty sure Blaine had planned to dive from the car like he was in an action movie or something. His baby brother was so dramatic sometimes.
Although, Cooper mused, practicing diving from a moving vehicle wasn't such a bad idea. He could advertise himself as his own stuntman, like Jackie Chan. Although then he might damage 'the goods,' as the true aficionados of Hollywood called their face. Better not risk it.
He tuned back in to hear the end of Blaine's rant. "–not a child anymore Coop!"
"You'll always be that cute lil' kid in bowties to me, Squirt." He shot back easily.
"Don't call me that," Blaine muttered. Cooper noticed out of the corner of his eye the way Blaine slumped against his seat, fingering the pink sparkly bowtie self-consciously. He could feel bile rising up in his throat. You fucked it all up again.
"Hey little brother." He didn't know why Blaine always looked so happily surprised when Cooper called him that, when he's just stating a fact of their birth. Dad used to call Blaine son all the time. Cooper wondered how long it had been since Dad last called Blaine that. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Blaine hadn't heard it in a long long time, even accounting for the fact that he moved six hundred miles away. Whatever the reason though, Cooper was not above abusing it. "I know you're not a little kid anymore. You've got a beautiful thing going with Kurt, have for years, and you're raising the hell out of your little girl. I bet you get #1 Dad mugs all the time."
"T-shirts," Blaine corrected, the word muffled behind the bowtie he was trying to hide his smile with. Cooper would be willing to bet his headshots that that bowtie was a gift too. He could see it perfectly, Elizabeth presenting Blaine with the bowtie, covered in glue and glitter and proclaiming proudly that she bedazzled it herself. Blaine probably cried.
"I've known you were an adult for a long time now." He didn't think that Blaine had been a kid since he was thirteen, and looked their father in the eye as he said yes, I'm gay without flinching. It had been a masterful performance. Johnny Depp himself would have been proud. His back had been straight, his voice even, and Cooper's pretty sure he was the only one who saw the way Blaine's hands trembled behind his back.
"Yeah?" Blaine's eyes were suspiciously wet-looking. He'd always been ready to grasp whatever clumsy crumbs of affections Cooper can give him with both hands. It should make him feel guilty, and it did a bit, but mostly it just made him grateful that it takes so little to make Blaine forgive so much. He was pretty sure none of the Andersons would have been at the wedding if Blaine were any other way.
"Yeah." Cooper knew they were having a moment. He soaked it in. It would be a good memory to draw from for his next dramatic audition. It gave him an uncomfortable itchy feeling at the base of his spine though, so he opened his mouth to try and wash it out. Sometimes he felt so much like an Anderson that the blood under his skin boiled. Andersons didn't do moments. "After all, the walls at home are really thin."
"Oh my god Coop."
"Oh wait, they're actually really thick. You're just quite the screamer Blainers. You should look into porn if this teaching thing doesn't work out." Cooper was dead serious too. Blaine definitely had the vocal range. Maybe he could do voice work in some of those animated pornos Japan was so famous for if he was squeamish about showing off 'the goods.' The goods being his penis of course. Hollywood and Hollywoody were very different places with their very own slangs. Blaine was lucky to have Cooper there to help him out with them. They could be very confusing to young ingenues first starting out.
Blaine kept repeating "oh my god" under his breath. Cooper glanced over at him. He looked like he was trying to strangle himself with his own bowtie so Cooper took pity on him. "Don't worry about it Blainey. I'm sure the 'rents didn't hear. Or," he added, when Blaine just went a paler shade of green, "if they did they totally deleted it from their memory by now." He did the robot as well as he can with a seat belt on. "Cannot. Process. Sounds. Of. Love. Must. Delete. Reboot. Reboot."
Blaine grabbed the wheel. "Ten and two Cooper. Ten. And. Two." He said between gritted teeth.
"Doesn't matter anyway." Cooper said airily, wrestling back the wheel just in time to make the turn, "We're here!"
xXx
"This is the worst birthday ever," Cooper sulked, downing his third scotch.
"And this is Elizabeth when she was eleven months and tried spaghetti for the first time!" The strippers all cooed. Blaine swiped to the next picture, "Ohhh, and here's Kurt rocking her to sleep."
"You two are so lucky," Rip Longdrill sighed, wiping a tear away with what was left of his pants. "My partner and I have been trying to adopt for years."
The other strippers clucked sympathetically, as Blaine launched into his usual tirade about how unfair it was how so many adoption agencies made gay couples jump through so many more hoops when there were kids out there suffering when they could have been with a loving family.
Cooper waved over a girl in a bikini and ordered another scotch. Shaken, not stirred. She gave him a strange look, but he ignored it in favor of sulking some more. This was supposed to be his birthday, but every stripper that got within three feet of their table got immediately sucked into the black hole that was the adorableness of his niece.
"Here she is at Halloween! She wanted to be a princess firefighter dinosaur catcher so Kurt spent weeks designing the perfect costume."
"It was so worth it," Jazmine squealed, clapping her hands together and making her double-D's bounce. "She is just the cutest thing!"
"We wanted to make sure she knew we supported her no matter what," Blaine was practically glowing. No matter where he was, if he could talk about his daughter then he was in his element. "And that she could grow up to be anything she wanted."
Cooper's perfectly coiffed hair was nearly blown backwards with the force of the collective breathless sigh.
"You're such a good father," Candi sniffed, "It's so beautiful."
"Do you have anymore?" Sporty asked hopefully. He leaned back so none of the baby oil coating his pecs would drip onto the screen. Blaine smiled gratefully at him. "Please?"
"Of course," Blaine smiled beatifically, "I haven't even gotten to her birthday pictures yet!"
Cooper could almost drown out the sound of the collective squealing by banging his head against the table, but not quite. "Worst birthday ever," he repeated, facedown on the table.
He snuck a look at Blaine, cool wood against his forehead. Blaine was smiling so hard that Cooper's cheeks hurt in sympathy. Blaine glanced over at him and laughed, the sound audible over the bass thump of the music. His teeth glinted white and beautiful in the light, and Cooper was suddenly reminded of Blaine back when he was five years old and thought his big brother hung the moon and the stars so that he would never have to be afraid of the dark.
"Best birthday ever," he murmured against the wood, and couldn't help but smile back.