I actually planned on posting something else for this 'verse today, but it just wasn't cooperating. Then I remembered writing this a few weeks ago and for some reason setting it aside to post later. It's later.

I don't own Glee.

Blaine found the quilt on clearance shortly after the beginning of the school year. It was a dusky purple that made him smile and perversely made him want to flaunt it to his stepmother who was always going on about gay stereotypes and how ridiculous they were and how she could never understand why Blaine had to act so gay, all without ever catching on to how many ridiculous stereotypes she herself embodied on a daily basis. But Blaine resisted the temptation. The quilt lived in the trunk of his car, along with a pillow he had taken from his bed after the first night he took refuge in his backseat with only a sweater to rest his head on. It was comforting to know they were in there in case he needed them.

The quilt was amazing. It was stunningly soft, but the fabric's light sheen made it rough enough to the touch to give his fingers something interesting to feel while he tried desperately to fall asleep. The quilt also kept him warm once the nights turned cooler. He could easily build himself a nice soft nest out of it and his pillow, and although the result wasn't as comfortable as either of his beds, it made sleeping in his car much more bearable.

It wasn't like Blaine slept in his car often. Most nights when he was home from Dalton he could retreat to his room and put in his earbuds, isolating himself from his dad and stepmom and pretending fairly convincingly that they didn't even exist. But sometimes there was undeniable evidence that she had been in his room again and no music he had yet discovered could distract him away from that.

As far as Blaine was concerned, his stepmother really was an evil bitch. She'd broken up his parents' marriage, redecorated his house in a manner that made him want to gag anytime he wasn't in his own room and made him doubt everything about himself that he'd ever liked. And that was before he came out. Or hit puberty, for that matter.

The more she attempted to impinge on his life, the more he wanted out. He spent the first year after his dad married her fantasizing about Hogwarts being real and trying to decide what the American version of a magical boarding school would be like and where it would be hidden.

His real mother did the best she could to make a place for him as she figured out what to do with her suddenly single life, but Blaine could see in her eyes the same desire to run that he saw in his own when he happened to glance in a mirror at night. It came as no surprise to him when she took a job out of state halfway through his first year of middle school. When she married a man she met somewhere Blaine wasn't, his biggest disappointment was that he couldn't join them on their honeymoon. He'd gladly take his mother's stranger husband over her.

The fights with his father started after he came out. Blaine remembered going to Pride marches a couple of summers when his parents were still together, so he hadn't thought it would be that big a deal, but she looked shocked and threatened him with straight camp. His dad had looked conflicted, but did little more than talk her down from the idea. Even his parents' divorce hadn't left Blaine feeling so betrayed.

Blaine did everything he could to act like the perfect child after that, swallowing down his hurt and anger and only voicing his vicious comebacks in the safety of his head. He figured they wouldn't come off quite so vicious if he actually said them out loud anyway.

It was all an effort to throw his dad and stepmom off his varied escape plans. He fantasized about them waking up one morning to find Blaine's room completely stripped of his things and delighted in imagining the looks of horror and disappointment on their faces when they realized he was never coming back

He thought through similar situations concerning his bullies at school, but no matter how hard he tried, his mind refused to help him out. There was simply no revenge plan that could make up for what they did to him. His bullies were cruel and his teachers could care less. No matter how much Blaine tried not to let it affect him, he began to snap, and when the day finally came that he could no longer handle the stress of his life, or the overwhelming loneliness he felt, he yelled at his father for the first time since he was a toddler.

It was amazing. For a full minute and a half he knew what it felt like to be in control of something for once, and reveled in the irony that ignoring any and all types of discipline allowed him to feel that way.

But then his dad yelled back.

From that point on the two of them existed in a constant state of wary truce that was likely to be broken by the smallest of infractions by either of them. Or, in Blaine's case, by her.

She was always there, hovering, nit-picking, interfering in ways that always made situations worse. She hadn't even wanted him to go to Dalton when the opportunity arrived. Blaine distinctly remembered her saying that going to an all-boys school would only encourage his illness.

The fight after that precious line had lasted for hours and only ended when Blaine stormed out to sleep in his old tree house. His cast from Sadie Hawkins had made climbing up there difficult, and the wooden floor was rough and unforgiving with nothing to cushion him, but he felt a semi-masochistic joy in the pneumonia he contracted that night. His dad had allowed him to transfer and Blaine's stepmom didn't speak to him for three months. It was completely win-win.

Blaine didn't feel the need to sleep outside the house again for almost six months after that. The dorms were perfectly comfortable and the increased work load gave him the perfect excuse to stay away from home for weekends at a time.

Unfortunately, summer inevitably came and Blaine felt even more trapped at home than he had before. He managed to get a summer job at the local theme park, but every night he returned home to sniping from his dad about his grades and sniping from his stepmom about everything else. A week after his seventeenth birthday, he slept in his car for the first time. In the last week of his summer vacation, Blaine didn't even bother to go home at all other than to shower.

The backseat of his car was somewhat cramped and uncomfortable, and a seatbelt buckle inevitably poked him in the back at some point during the night, but Blaine found if he curled up in a certain way, it really wasn't that bad. Once he found the quilt, his car was actually sort of comfortable. His own personal, transportable nest.

He just wished Kurt hadn't found his bedding.

"Blaine, why do you have a quilt set in the trunk of your car?"

"It's not a quilt set, it's just-"

"I'm fairly certain that's a sham in there."

Blaine tried not to wince at himself. He'd loved the quilt so much he went back and bought the matching accessories a week later.

"It's just leftover from winter break. It's fine."

"Blaine, you clean your car out once a week. You're even more anal about it than I am. There's no way this is left in here from two months ago."

Blaine closed his eyes. He really didn't want Kurt to know about this. He'd only just gotten back into his good graces after his bisexuality crisis. He couldn't stand the thought of Kurt looking down on him for this too. Hadn't he already embarrassed himself enough with Jeremiah?

"I-"

"Blaine? Is something going on?"

"It's no big deal, Kurt. Just forget it."

"No. Blaine, why do you have bedding in the trunk of your car? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Kurt looked so earnest, so concerned, that Blaine couldn't lie to him.

"I- sometimes, when I'm not staying here in the dorms… my dad and I fight a lot. It's nothing serious, but sometimes I just get so sick of the criticisms that I need to get out. So…"

"So you sleep in your car?"

Blaine shrugged, but Kurt looked so horrified that Blaine was willing to do anything to make it better.

"Kurt, it's not a big deal. It doesn't even happen that much."

"But it happens often enough that you have bedding stored in your car just in case."

Blaine sighed and shrugged his shoulders again. He really wanted this conversation to be over with.

Kurt bit his lip before clearly deciding something and squaring his shoulders.

"If you ever need a place to stay, I want you to call me. No more sleeping in your car. You can crash at my house."

"Kurt-"

"I'm serious, Blaine."

Kurt's eyes were blazing with mulish confidence. Blaine sighed again.

"Kurt, I don't think your dad would be too thrilled with me staying at your house again."

"He was just surprised. And you can't really blame him. I'd probably have reacted worse if it was my son."

Blaine smiled at that. He found it difficult to imagine Kurt with kids, but at the same time he thought the boy would probably make an amazing father. Unlike some people who always sided with their wives.

"Blaine, I talked to him about it. It's fine. And I'm not asking."

"All right," Blaine grinned. "I'll call you. Happy?"

"Yes."

Kurt was looking at him in that way he wished he could read. Blaine bumped their shoulders together and closed his trunk.

"So, coffee?"

"I'd love some."

I imagine this happening sometime before the events of Sexy but definitely after BIOTA.

Let me know what you think!