Blaine was awoken by a knock at the door. He opened his eyes, his hands absently rubbing at them, and called, "Uh, – come in..."

Mr. Anderson popped his head in.

"Dinner's almost ready, go help your mother set the table —-"

"Oh yeah, okay..." Blaine shook his head a second to get fully awake. His arms still felt sore from shoveling but the rest of him was feeling more back to normal, thank goodness.

"Have you been asleep all this time?"

Blaine grabbed his sweatshirt and put it on himself as he crossed over to his dad.

"I uh, wasn't feeling so great this morning."

"You weren't?" Mr. Anderson, concerned, put the back of his hand against Blaine's forehead. "There something going around?"

"Nah, just, uh... too much... pizza. At Kurt's I mean."

Mr. Anderson smirked. Teenagers. "Well I hope you thanked Kurt's family for-"

Blaine's dad voice suddenly cut-off as his gaze had moved across the room. Blaine was confused, until he saw what his dad was looking at.

Mr. Anderson let out an irritated breath before he spoke, in that slow and deliberate way he always did when he was scolding his kid for the millionth time about something. "I thought you said you were going to take care of this laundry."

"I... uh- sorry. I- fell asleep."

"Last night I let you stay out because you said you were going to take care of these chores. You said the laundry would be done, 'first thing.'"

Blaine stammered, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort. "Well- I- I did the shoveling, and... then I guess I fell asl-"

"What was our agreement."

"...Sir?"

"When were you supposed to have this very simple task done by?"

"D-dinner sir, but-"

"Right. Well it's dinner now. And it's not done. Your mother is not going to be pleased. I am not pleased." Mr. Anderson took hold of his son's arm, who gasped as he spun him so his weight landed against his hip. "And I cannot for the life of me understand why this-" his left arm reached over Blaine's back, pushing him down and gripping him close while he punctuated his words with sharp swats to his son's backside, "-is SMACK such a SMACK big SMACK issue for SMACK you! SMACK SMACK"

Blaine had winced at the familiar sting, trying not to yelp too loudly, but the whole thing had happened so fast he'd barely registered what was happening before he'd felt the slaps descend.

Blaine stumbled forward a few steps as his father released him. Blaine's hands rushed to his bottom immediately, as he caught his breath. The sweats he was wearing did not provide all that much protection, he discovered. It was only a few swats, but they had been well-placed and his father had been angry. They had hurt plenty. He tried to maintain some level of dignity, though, by trying to keep his voice from cracking now. "I'm... sorry sir."

"Good. I told you yesterday if you're going to act like a little boy you're going to be feeling the consequences a lot more often, young man. I'm not putting up with this nonsense from you. Am I clear?"

"Y-es sir." Blaine said, tense, his eyes staring at the floor and heat rising in his face.

"Now. You are going to gather up enough for a load, and put it in the washer. You are going to go apologize to your mother for not meeting your responsibilities. And then, you will take your dinner plate back to your room because the only places you're going to be the rest of the night are here and the laundry room. Got it?"

Blaine nodded to the floor, muttering a "Yes Dad" and, still not daring to look up at his father's angry face, scurried towards the clothes on the floor first piling colors on top of each other. He pulled several sweaters out of the hamper as well and then, lifted the whole messy pile and rushed to bring them downstairs. He was so hurried he didn't even notice the red cardigan as it fell from the pile on the stairs as he went down.