David flicked his wrists, straightening out the cuffs of his shirt while eyeing himself over in Kurt's vanity. He could hear Kurt enter the room and come up behind him even before his reflection showed at the edge of the mirror. Kurt's hair was still dripping from the shower, but the water fell harmlessly onto the shoulders of his burgundy bathrobe. Before David could fully register the motion in the mirror, Kurt's hand came up and whacked him firmly on the back of his head. David ducked his neck down, arching his shoulders instinctively out of shock, as opposed to pain. "I have little red bite marks on my butt from you."

David smiled, feeling rather pleased with himself. "And a tasty ass it was."

"Jackass," Kurt mumbled under his breath, roughly shoving David away from his vanity by hip-checking him. David, fully dressed and ready to head out for the evening, surrendered the vanity to Kurt and allowed himself to fall backwards onto the bed, carefully avoiding falling on Alex. Alex had been cuddling with one of his blankies in the center of the bed, but dropped the blanket and started sluggishly crawling towards his father in jerky motions. David didn't close the distance between himself and his son, instead encouraged Alex to stretch his little muscles out in ways they weren't accustomed to. Alex had been in his human form for a full week now, but still refused to crawl more than a foot or so at a time; Dave mused how awkward it must be to go from being fully mobile to crawling.

When Alex had gotten close to his daddy, he lifted one hand to David's face and grabbed at his cheek. Alex felt the compulsive need to grab at everything now that he had fully functioning fingers. Throwing things was still exciting, but the ability to grab something and shove it in his mouth was even more so. His little fingers still digging into the side of David's face, Alex scuttled those last few inches to his father and allowed himself to simply collapse on David. A moment later, Alex was licking where his hand had been grabbing.

Smiling to himself (and to his son), David rolled enough to scoop up Alex in his hands and hover him in the air over his head. Alex babbled away excitedly, letting out little "coos" of thrill every so often. David had little to no experience with babies, but he was more than positive Alex was "chatty" by most toddler standards. It wasn't uncommon for either Kurt or David to wake up in the middle of the night to hear Alex "talking" to himself (or possibly Moo Cow) through the intercom. More than once, they'd been woken up to shrill screeches from Alex and had run to his room, only to find him giggling maniacally at his own "prank."

"Get him dressed while the two of you are playing?"

David rolled Alex over in his hands so that he was facing the ceiling, than lowered him until he was only an inch or so above the mattress. He released him, allowing him to fall on his back the last few inches, prompting Alex to let out an excitable, impressed "AHhh-waaa!" followed by a string of snort-like laughs. "We aren't playing; this is super-serious stuff."

David grabbed Alex's outfit for the evening off the pillows and started playing dress up – one of Alex least favorite games. As one arm went in a sleeve, the other arms came out. While David pulled Alex's pants on, Alex busied himself trying to worm his way out of his shirt. Partway through the night, Alex would likely be half naked with a backwards shirt on, but at least David could claim he gave it an honest effort. By David's fifth attempt at getting a sock on the increasingly agile and dexterous Alex's foot Kurt's hair was dry and he was dressed. Kurt just looked at his boyfriend and son, rolled his eyes, and slipped the last articles of clothing onto Alex before David could catch his breath. "You have to admit, it's like trying to get an octopus into feet-in pajamas."

"I'm not surprised, you can barely dress yourself."

In a little kid's whine, David retorted, "You're mean."

Lowering a hand to pull David up from his seated position on the bed, Kurt responded, "Yes, and we're late. Come on."

xoxoxo

"Hello, Neck-Biter."

David directed his comment (in a friendlier tone than Kurt had expected) to Blaine, but Sebastian was the one to respond. "Greetings, Ass-Sniffer." Blaine had the decency to ignore David's comment, but smacked Sebastian lightly on the arm. "We've all ready gotten a table; we were just waiting on you two."

"Three." David was holding Alex in his arms so that Alex's body was pressed against David's chest, Alex's head resting on David's shoulder as Alex sucked on the collar of David's blouse.

Sebastian reached out a hand and stroked Alex's back, a small smile playing on his lips and his eyes shining. He looked doofy by Dave's estimation. "Yeah, but this lil' guy isn't the reason you're late." Leaning in, Sebastian placed his hands on Alex's sides and looked at David for confirmation. David gave him a quick nod and allowed Sebastian to take over carrying duty. Bouncing Alex up and down in his hands, Sebastian switched over from speaking normally to baby-talking Alex, "Is nah your fault your momma-daddy spends his life fixing his hair."

Kurt rolled his eyes, shaking his head as his hand slipped into David's and Blaine led them to their table, where four menus awaited them. It wasn't Breadstix. Blaine and Kurt had wanted somewhere a bit nicer – but not so nice Alex's presence would be frowned upon. There were tablecloths and candles in crackle-glass jars. Breadstix didn't trust their clientele with candles; there would be no more Breadstix if they did. The pasta sauces came from scratch and not a can and the staff was trained to identify the ideal wine to accompany each entrée. It was far enough outside of Lima that they didn't have to worry about the average person identifying David or Alex and werewolves.

Now that Alex was no longer draped across David's front, Kurt could get a good look at David's shirt. "Ugh, you let Alex drool on you." Kurt use one of the soft, cotton napkins to wipe at the spittle trail on David's shirt.

"Why are you automatically blaming Alex?" Sebastian rubbed his nose against Alex's, cooing at him as he made faces. Alex squealed and grabbed at Sebastian's hair.

"Well it was either him or David, and I highly doubt David did it."

Looking down at his shirt, David ran his finger over the dark moisture spot, trying to rub the moisture away. "I dunno…I did fall asleep on the way over here. It might have been me." Kurt raised a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me eyebrow at David. "What? It happens."

The four teenagers began looking over their menus, with Sebastian only paying his a cursory glance, instead favoring making faces at Alex over the top of his menu. "Look, Dave." Kurt pushed his menu in front of David's. "They have a fruit parfait in the dessert section."

"I dunno. The little pieces of blueberries…he might choke."

"They've gotta have a blender or something in the kitchen."

David leaned over to see Kurt's menu more clearly in the candlelight. When he found what he was looking for, he pointed it out to Kurt. "They have tuna in one of the entrees. I was eating a tuna sandwich in the café at school the other day and was thinking the texture of tuna is kinda perfect for Alex. Mushy, but it'll get him re-used to the idea of chewing his food."

"I dunno…I'd be worried with a normal baby because of the mercury, but with a werewolf pup I'm doubly worried. Wolfies don't react well to even the smallest amounts of mercury, and Alex doesn't have any kind of immune system in place yet."

David furrowed his brow. "I eat tuna at school all the time and never had an issue."

"Sweety…I highly doubt what you eat in the cafeteria at McKinley qualifies as food let alone tuna. That and if it were tuna, it's probably albacore. Albacore has lower levels of mercury than bluefin."

Blaine watched the exchange with a look of mild fascination. "Is every meal this involved?"

Kurt and David looked at each other for some understanding before looking back at Blaine. "What do you mean?"

"It's just…you're obsessing over the tiniest things. Things a normal person wouldn't ever think of."

"Well…when Alex was first born, he went from a strictly liquid based diet to being fully capable of chowing down on most solids practically overnight. I never really needed to give it much thought. I just made sure what he was eating was developmentally nutritious. Now, there's a serious choking concern. It's hard to find foods we don't have to worry about him choking on."

"Yeah, but the mercury?"

David fielded this question, "Mercury poisoning is a concern for most parents. Plus, while it isn't as poisonous to werewolves as silver is, it can still cause some nasty instant issues similar to a hardcore allergic reactions."

Blaine, smiling, shook his head. "Whatever."

Sebastian had appeared to be ignoring the conversation to play with Alex, but finally input his own two cents. "Your mommy and daddy are cwazy. Can you say 'cwazy'?"

The waitress came back with their drink orders just in time to prevent a snide retort from Kurt. The four gave her their orders, and then changed topics. "So, Sebastian…I take it you want kids?"

Sebastian shrugged off-handedly. "Just one or two."

"Really? I thought you'd collect them like Angelina Jolie."

Shaking his head, Sebastian continued on, "Naw. I'll have one or two to spoil rotten. Anymore than that…I probably wouldn't be able to dote on each one as much as I'd like."

"What about the two of you?" Blaine redirected the conversation, bringing it back to David and Kurt. "Anymore pups in your future?"

David looked to Kurt, not sure how to respond. Kurt blushed and took a sip from his water to delay answering. Realizing he was on his own there, David cleared his throat. "Uh, well…Alex was kinda unexpected. I…suppose we'll just have to see how we feel once we're…you know…adults."

Putting his glass down, Kurt turned the question back around on Blaine. "What about you? Any bat-babies in your future?"

"Bat babies. Cute. I imagine if it ever came up, yeah, sure. Not something I've ever given a whole lot of thought to. I'm not entirely sure I'd want to bring another unhuman into the world – not the way it is now, anyway. But…'que sera, sera'."

Eventually the conversation moved on to other topics, including glee club, school, and inevitably, Kurt and David's plans for after their graduation. "I'm not going law, like my father, that's for sure." Sebastian had to think of his potential futures for a minute before continuing on. "I've always been good with business. Maybe I'll get an MBA. I like the idea of getting to boss people around. I guess I could see myself in management of some kind. What about you, batboy?"

Kurt's comment about Blaine with bat-babies had stuck, and the boys had all shirked Blaine's proper name in favor of batboy. "Well, I have an undeniable aptitude for communications – goes with the genetics. I could probably be happy in a PR type of position."

"You should talk to Whittaker. Slayers don't care much for your kind, but he says hostage negotiations is always on the lookout. Even if you don't wind up with the FBI, there are plenty of other organizations and bureaus looking for people to deal with terrorists and the like." He still wasn't sure how he felt about Blaine, but Kurt liked him – they were best friends for all intents and purposes. Perhaps it would be a good thing if David could talk Blaine into signing up with the FBI. Kurt wouldn't have to be so alone while they were in Virginia. Granted, Blaine wouldn't join them for a year if he did decide to come along, but David worried about how Kurt would handle being in Virginia next year. His family was hours away, he only had Alex and him, and David would be devoting most of his time to FBI training, Slayer training, and college courses. At best, the next year would be rather lonely for Kurt.

"Are you looking forward to Slayer training?" The waitress returned with their meals, placing the tray on a folding rack while she identified each boy's meal.

"Definitely. Whittaker and I have been doing some preliminary training – jogging, shooting, pushups, situps, the regular military crap, but I'm really looking forward to the environment – the discipline."

The waitress smiled at David admiringly. "You're going into the Slayers?"

"Yeah, I leave for training in a few months." David turned back to the rest of the table; Kurt had probably told Blaine and Sebastian by now, but he felt the need to ensure they knew. "I leave right after graduation."

"I'll be following along not long after. Whittaker wants David to get settled in and adjusted before Alex and I start distracting him."

The waitress placed David's food before him, regaining his attention. "It's absolutely wonderful what you're doing for our country. We need more people like you willing to stand up to those creatures."

It was obvious the waitress hadn't overheard the vast majority of their evening's discussions. Everyone at the table felt compelled to look towards Blaine – his eyes had flashed a startling red color. "Unhumans aren't all that bad." His eyes flashed again as he maintained perfect eye contact with the waitress. "Unhumans are just people. They aren't all that bad."

"No…I suppose they aren't." The waitress's voice came out soft and unconvinced, as though she were just parroting back a message for someone else. Her eyes looked glazed over and she had trouble focusing on anything in particular. She finished distributing their dinners and went on her way.

"Did you just charm her?" Kurt knew vampires could do that, but had never actually seen it happen. Blaine nodded as he drank from his soda. "So…what, she's not a speciesist anymore?"

Blaine frowned and shook his head. "No, it doesn't work like that. Right now she'll believe exactly what I told her to – that we're not all that bad. It'll start to wane pretty quickly though: within a few hours." Blaine was pensive for a moment as his lips crooked up into a lopsided smile. "Every so often though, for the rest of her life, she'll have a fleeting thought come to her – unexpected, unbidden – that maybe, just perhaps, unhumans really aren't so bad. Whether or not she believes this thought is up to her, but like subliminal messages, at least the thought is there."