Hello darlings!
If you're familiar with my other writing, you'll know that I tend to write long-chaptered fics that update once a month until they're abandoned. This is not one of those fics. I have made sure of it. I'm not good at sticking to my projects, but this one will be different. To ensure this, I have made a detailed outline for where this fic will go (and, yes, end) and the updates will be short but frequent and not abandoned. That's a promise! I will try to update every day, because I have nanowrimo in November and this should be finished by then. Eek. Also, rating may change. If you're looking for PWP then this is not it.
Without further ado, please enjoy this new fic of mine. I've had much joy with it so far.
ANNALISE ANDERSON HUMMEL: BLAINE'S APARTMENT, KURT'S APARTMENT: FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Fridays only meant one thing: ship off.
Every kid with divorced parents knew the drill. One week here, one week there: never staying in one place for too long. Fridays were ship off days for Annalise, as she so nicely named it in her head.
Annalise sat on the living room couch in white leather, the one that had been a compromise between her and her dad Blaine. He had wanted brown leather, and she had wanted something that wasn't quite so stereotypically masculine. She was texing her friends in their group chat about meeting up and doing something that didn't involve coffee or schoolbooks. And her phone keeps buzzing.
Buzz, buzz.
Diana: We could go see a movie?
Blaine came home to find her there, waiting for him. He only kicked his shoes off before he joined her on the couch, suit and briefcase and all. He practically collapsed next to her, head leaning back on the back of the couch as he took in their living room view of the Empire State Building. It was a view he had earned from hard work at the law firm.
Buzz, buzz.
Reilly: I guess we could do that…
"Hi, sweetie," he sighed, closing his eyes.
"Bad day?" she asked, typing on her phone.
Me: After homework and coffee that's all we do. Broadway?
"Mmmph." He hummed for a moment then straightened up. "Rough case that won't end. The defense won't stop making farfetched accusations that wastes everyone's time because everyone in that court room, including themselves, know that their client is guilty. I mean, the mens rea is clearly-"
"Daddy, you're doing that thing again," Annalise warned.
Buzz, buzz.
"What thing?"
Clara: I just saw the only show remotely interesting last week.
"You know, when you're unloading on me like I'm your partner instead of your daughter?"
Blaine ran a hand over his face, the gesture only adding to his look of exhaust. Annalise had deliberately chosen the word partner over boyfriend, because she didn't want him to have even more worries on his mind. Yes, she knew about his boyfriend, the boyfriend he was so desperately and miserably failing to keep from her. He may try with all his might, but if you would open a dictionary to the opposite of subtle, it would say 'Blaine Anderson'.
But she wouldn't say "If only you had a boyfriend to talk to…" either, because she didn't want her dad to have a boyfriend. It was not like she was desperately pining for her dads to get back together, because she knew it would never happen, but if Blaine introduced his boyfriend to her it would be serious, and final. As long as he kept being secretive, it wasn't too serious. She wasn't worried.
"Sorry," Blaine apologized, rising to his feet. "You keep telling me that, and I keep forgetting that you're just a spoiled twelve year old who wants nothing but the good sides of life."
Annalise gaped at her dad, but he just grinned.
"I am not spoiled!"
"Oh yeah?" He nodded down to the iPhone in her hands just as it buzzed. "I'm sure you worked long and hard for that phone-"
"It was your present to me for my last year as an under-teen!"
"-and your designer clothes-"
"You know Daddy loves to buy me clothes."
"-and your credit card."
"It's expensive being a true-bred New Yorker." Annalise plastered on a bright smile. "It's only because you and Daddy love me so much."
Chuckling, Blaine smoothed her blonde hair and leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.
"That's very true. Which is why I will shut up about my job and keep treating you like a princess even though your grandparents scold me about it every time they see us."
Annalise got up from the couch, intent on grabbing her bag of necessities from her room.
"You better."
"You know, I really don't get why you and Dad are so against me going alone. After all, I'm almost a teenager, and it's not like I'm never alone in town at night. I can take care of myself."
Annalise got into the elevator and Blaine followed, pressing the fourteen for Kurt's floor.
"Wait, backtrack on that." Blaine held up his hands in front of him. "When have you ever been alone in town at night?"
Annalise idiotically put a hand to her mouth. "Um, never?"
Blaine only shook his head. "I'm not gonna let Kurt take you away from me until we sort this out."
True to his words, as soon as Kurt opened the door to his apartment with a smile, Blaine spoke up.
"Did you know that Annie has been alone in the city in the middle of the night?"
Annalise walked past Kurt in the doorway into the apartment, sighing a little louder than what the situation actually needed. She dropped her heavy bag on the floor and tried to look anywhere but her dads faces. The truth would come out now, wouldn't it?
"God, Dad, way to exaggerate things. It was hardly in the middle of the night."
"What did I miss here?" Kurt asked, closing the door behind him and Blaine.
Blaine strutted across the room with his arms crossed over his chest. Annalise knew that look: he was trying to bea scolding parent. She did her best to humor him.
"Why don't you tell us what you meant?" Blaine asked while Kurt got into a mirrored pose next to him.
"I was just saying…" She sat down on the comfortable couch and pulled her knees to her chest. "I'm not a baby anymore, so you don't need to treat me like one. In fact, you shouldn't."
"In fact, you should come clean about your midnight runaway story."
It was Blaine who said this, of course. He was the exaggerating parent.
"It was a lie, okay?" But she could see on her dads' faces that they didn't buy it, so she settled for the truth. "I wasn't alone, really. Fine, on the way back and forth…"
"Oh no," Kurt deadpanned. He softened his pose, sliding down next to her on the couch.
Blaine kept his utter look of oblivion. "Oh no, what?"
Kurt moved his glance to him. "There is a boy." Then back to Annalise. "Is there a boy?"
She shrugged. "I don't know."
"A boy?" Blaine squeaked. "Aren't you too young for that? You're twelve! You're supposed to want horses, not boys. Boys have cooties!"
Kurt rolled his eyes and put a hand over Annalise's. He smiled lopsidedly.
"What is his name? Is he cute?"
"His name was Luke, but I only went out with him to make Brandon jealous." She shrugged.
"Not Brandon Halley, son of George and Felicity Halley?" He saw the way her face lit up with a giddy smile. "Oh no, honey, you can do way better than him. Just because he's popular doesn't mean he's the best out there. Or the cutest. What about his younger brother who is more appropriately your age?"
"Because his brother is a nerd. All he does is reads."
Blaine had watched them in silence, eyes darting between the two while continuously growing wider. Until he finally burst.
"Am I the only one who realizes Annie is twelve?"
"Oh, please," Kurt scoffed. "When you were twelve you were already horning over Oliver Johnson, don't act like you never told me that."
Blaine's face reddened like a beetroot, jaw slacking.
Kurt and Annalise laughed.
"Who's Oliver Johnson?" Annalise asked in her high, innocent voice that always managed to lure out gossip from an eager mouth.
"He's your dad's first crush," Kurt explained. "Back in Ohio where we're both from, it wasn't common that gay kids were honest with their sexuality, especially not at such a young age. But Oliver was, and Blaine was head over heels for him. I don't blame him. The kid even had a photogenic yearbook photo."
"I need some water," Blaine muttered and disappeared out into the kitchen.
"Happy to have you home, sweetie." Kurt kissed her forehead, and it happened to be in the same spot Blaine had kissed her just an hour earlier. "I'm gonna check on your dad and then I'll start making dinner, okay?"
He disappeared too, and Annalise took the opportunity to fish her phone out.
Me: I know: Fro-yo.
She rose from the couch to see what her dads were up to, and to ask what they were having for dinner. However, when she was just about to round to the kitchen she stopped in her tracks. Peeking out behind a wall, she looked at them and couldn't believe her own eyes. She had to blink several times to be sure she wasn't seeing things.
Kurt had his hand on Blaine's arm, and he was talking softly to him with a smile. Blaine was looking at the floor, but a squeeze of Kurt's hand brought his eyes up.
Oh no. He did not just do that. He did not just look at Kurt through his eyelashes with a smile shyly tugging at his lips. Annalise may not have seen Blaine with a boyfriend, but there had been plenty of pretty store clerks in her days to know what her dad's signature move was.
She leaned back against the wall, out of sight. Her head was spinning, or so it seemed because her thoughts were racing. How was it possible that she had just witnessed her dads flirting? With each other?! Her divorced parents.
Whenever the question came up, the answer was always the same: we just don't love each other anymore. They just fell out of love, but that doesn't mean they love you any less.
But they were wrong. It was all a lie. Nothing she believed her whole life was the same now.
And it made sense.
Kurt had never dated anyone for ages. She only distantly recalled a guy from when she was little. He was married to his work, he always said with a laugh, as if solitude was something to be proud of. And Blaine kept his breezy boyfriend a secret, because that way it could never be serious.
They were still in love.
But how was it possible?
Annalise had no idea, but she would sure as hell find out. She would start with finally getting to know the truth of what went wrong between them, and then she would mature. She would age until she was ready to take her parents' issues into her own hands and solve them.
She had no idea how on earth she would manage to pull it off, but she would. She had to. If Kurt or Blaine wouldn't do anything to make them a family again, she would.
All she needed was a brilliant plan.