Kurt put down his phone and looked up at Rachel.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

Rachel shook her head. "He's too easy on you."

Kurt sighed. "I apologized, okay? He's fine. We're going out tomorrow. It's over. Are we done with the lecture?"

"About this, yes. If Blaine's going to let you off that easy, I guess there's nothing I can do about it. But now that that's taken care of, I was just wondering if someone did the vacuuming today?"

"The… Rachel, I was sick!"

"And when have you ever let me not feeling well be an excuse for not keeping up with chores around here?"

"If you were throwing up, I would! You know you get a paper cut and act like you can't wash dishes all of a sudden. Come on."

"Uh huh. Well it seems to me you've told me more than once that chores were chores, whether I felt like doing them or not."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I think if you want to go to toe to toe over chores the record will show that I get them done on time a whole lot more often than you do."

"Not today," Rachel countered, with a smug smile.

"You don't think it's a bit unreasonable to act like I was shirking responsibilities? You saw how I was last night. I've only been brave enough to touch solid food in the past 90 minutes or so!"

"I think you hold Blaine and me to some pretty high standards."

"Maybe, but it's not like I started doing that all on my own! You've both asked me to."

"Sure, but if we're going to get disciplined for not measuring up, I don't think it's fair for you to make be making excuses—"

"Making excuses?!" Kurt blurted, incredulous.

"—For not even meeting the bar yourself." Rachel continued, "I was sleeping on my stomach the last time I blew off vacuuming, so you can be sure I notice if you didn't."

Kurt bit his lip. He didn't like it, but he didn't have a good argument against this. He hadn't even given chores a thought and was pretty sure he'd have given Rachel a pass in similar circumstances, but he didn't have any good way to prove it. "Yes, ma'am," he muttered, relenting with a sigh. "I'll take care of it." He got up and headed for the closet to pull out the vacuum cleaner.

The next day, Blaine met Kurt at a diner near the subway station by the loft.

"Feeling better?" Blaine asked, kissing Kurt on the cheek.

"Like 75%?" Kurt mused. "Not quite up to full energy, but a whole lot more than I was before. And I can eat again."

"Well, progress is good."

"Oh, get this. Rachel made me do the vacuuming last night, can you believe that?"
"Wait, what?"
"She's on a power trip now. I admitted she was right about things with you yesterday, and now her head's so big about it, it's ridiculous. Then this morning she made a big deal of checking the chore chart before I left and asking when I was planning on taking out the garbage like I'm some little kid."
Blaine chuckled. "Well, making you vacuum when you're not feeling well is a little harsh, but it sounds like she's just giving you a taste of your own medicine."

"Well, it's annoying," Kurt crabbed.

"Not for nothing, but I was there the last time she didn't vacuum."

Kurt's forehead wrinkled. "You were?"
"You don't even remember? Maybe a week or two before I moved out? You called a house meeting that night? You weren't exactly super sympathetic to her excuses— I've been in New York long enough to have seen her in trouble quite a few times now but that was definitely aong the worst yet."

"That was totally different!" Kurt argued, remembering now. "It was at least the third time she'd blown off chores that month."

"I'm not saying it was wrong, I'm just saying you were pretty… uh, thorough."

Kurt shook his head. "She admitted she deserved it, afterwards!"

"I'd guess she'd have said whatever you wanted to hear after that," Blaine muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean, you don't think she meant it?"
"No, of course she meant it, I'm just saying she wasn't going to forget about it anytime soon." Blaine said, lowering his voice, "You and I both know she's never quite so… remorseful as she is after the hairbrush comes out. I know you think she's dramatic sometimes about her punishments, but you have to know the brush hurts quite a bit."

Kurt shrugged. "That's what it's for. It gets her attention when nothing else will. Even if she complains about it, we all know she wants to be disciplined when she's really out of line, or she never would have asked for this arrangement in the first place."

"Sure, and I'm sure she learned her lesson there. I'm not telling you you did anything she hasn't agreed to. But, after all that, you can't really blame her for nudging you the first chance she catches you not on top of vacuuming yourself, or anything else you'd hold her to account for. It's just human."

"So I don't get to have an off day?"

"You can, you just don't get to get away with not getting called on it," Blaine teased.

Kurt smiled. "I guess that's fair. Like say, if I hadn't been sick and just blown off class yesterday, I'd say you'd be in your rights to give me a talking to seeing as if the roles were reversed you'd be taken to a woodshed."

Blaine smiled uneasily. "Ex-exactly."

"Speaking of which, assuming I'm back to feeling more myself tomorrow, I was thinking maybe we can get the exercises off the app out of the way before Monday night dinner and not have them hanging over our heads after."

"…Sure. If you're feeling up to it, though—I don't want you to push yourself. After all this was sort of my thing."

"No, I want to. It's good for me too. Honestly, I'd get them done in the morning if I could, but it's always the last thing I think of on my way out the door."

"Me too."

"Too bad Amy doesn't live near either of us to stop by in the mornings. She has a way of pushing a person to perform better. They must teach that in aerobics instructor school."

"Oh yeah," Blaine agreed. "Y-yesterday my body was totally ready to give out after the fortieth or fiftieth set of sit-ups but she just stared me down and I kept going."

"Good boy." Kurt praised. "I hope no one in the class thought I was a slacker for not showing up yesterday. Gossip travels fast at NYADA—I don't want that to be my reputation."

Blaine chewed his lip. "Of- of course not. I told you, I explained to Amy. And everybody asked how you were—"

"They did?"
"Y-yeah. I mean, not like it stood out or anything, just—people are used to

seeing us kind of joined at the hip."

Kurt nodded. "I have to say I do feel a little guilty for not going."

"Y-you were sick. You were in no shape to-"

"I know, but that class isn't exactly fun or easy for you, and it's easier to do when we're together at least… it's a way to support you. Being on your own must have made it harder." Kurt was thoughtful. "Maybe I should have just given you the morning off."

Blaine fidgeted. "W-well that's… sweet of you to say, but you were right that I… feel better after I go. Even if Amy is kind of a taskmaster sometimes."

Kurt smiled. "Well that's good. At least I did something sort of right yesterday then. You've hardly even complained about being sore this time- last week it seemed like it took more out of you. Doing the mini workouts during the week must be helping. Your endurance is getting better."

"Oh well… I don't know, maybe." Blaine hedged. "I took a pretty long hot shower at the NYADA gym after. Seemed to ease my muscles, a bit. That probably accounts for it as much as anything."

Kurt nodded. "So you think Rachel's going to milk this for awhile?"

"Heh, could be," Blaine chuckled, privately relieved for the shift in topic. But it's good for you. Maybe it'll make you more understanding next time she and I find ourselves in trouble." He looked down at his menu.

"Hmm, maybe," Kurt conceded playfully. "Just my luck that the week I'm eating humble pie you two've decided to be angels for once."