Fic: The Time Machine (19/?)
Title: he Time Machine
Genre: Romance, Humor, Fantasy
Pairing: Klaine, Brittana, Rory/?
Rating: PG - PG 13
Spoilers: none.
Disclaimer: : I own nothing...and do not claim to.
Summary: In a moment of what could be called absolutely brilliance or stupidity, Rory Hummel-Anderson decided that the only way to get his Papa back was to go back in time and stall him, or stop him from getting into the car at all. The only problem is, his Aunt's time machine is still just a prototype and he can't even specify a time. But Rory uses it anyway and suddenly he's back in 2011 and he has to pretend to be an exchange student while he waits for Aunt Brittany to build the time machine again and get back home. In the meanwhile he gets to know his parents as teenagers and even help their relationship along when they hit a bump in the road.
Chapter Nineteen
Margaret
Blaine could easily understand why all his friends and the kids that weren’t even his friends, were all over Cooper. What he couldn’t understand is why Cooper kept coming back to his school. He was probably enjoying the attention and everyone was talking about him. It was an improvement to hear excited whispers and dreamy sighs than everyone gossiping about Quinn or Karofsky.
From what Kurt told him, Karofsky was doing well. He hadn’t felt right going back to school yet, but he seemed to have at least decided that he wanted to live. Blaine was glad, but he hadn’t thought about it much.
Blaine watched his brother sign autographs and pose for pictures. Even Rory took a picture with him, but Blaine saw a gleam in his son’s eyes that let him accept it - Rory was having fun, he was grinning and Blaine wanted to see him like this always. Cooper was still driving him crazy though and Blaine just wished someone else could see what he saw.
His brother was an idiot. He knew nothing about acting - there was a reason he was stuck doing a series of commercials and he wasn’t on T.V. or movies. No one seemed to understand though not even Rachel who should have recognized that all his advice was wrong. It was no matter. He was just going to have to let Cooper enjoy the attention, possibly go out to eat with him again, and then he would be off back to Hollywood and everything that his life consisted of there.
Actually, he would be leaving pretty soon. He had an audition for the next Transformers movie. Blaine wanted to believe that his brother would get a role, but he knew better.
Boxing had always been a good stress reliever for Blaine, and with everything going on in his life he knew that he’d need it. He could work out the stress of knowing Kurt was still keeping something from him and of Cooper’s visit. At least his parents hadn’t forced him to go out to dinner with them and Cooper the night before.
He boxed until his arms felt like they wanted to fall off and then he decided he might as well take a shower. For the hour that he’d been in the locker room taking everything out on the punching bag, Blaine had ignored everything else and it felt nice to tear himself away from everything going on around him.
Blaine let the warm water roll down his shoulders and then down on his chest and back. His sore muscles began to feel better under the spray. If only other things could just get better with a shower. He leaned against the tiled stall wall. Before Rory his future had been just like everyone else’s an unknown prospect. Blaine had known that he wanted to go to New York with Kurt and he’d know that he wanted to marry Kurt eventually but those things had always been dreams, nothing set in stone.
Now that Rory was with them and could be the proof that all of his dreams became reality, Blaine couldn’t picture another future - he didn’t want another one - and it was hard to admit to himself that the future was once more this thing that he knew nothing about. He could hope that it would remain like Rory had described it, but there was no assurance that it would.
After getting dressed, Blaine finally checked his phone. There were a couple of missed calls from Cooper as well as a text. Kurt, though, had texted him a total of ten times. They were all some version of asking him where he was, or telling him that Kurt wanted him to come over.
He called him.
Kurt answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said, “where are you?”
“Still at school. I was boxing for a bit, I guess I didn’t mention it to anyone. What’s going on?”
“We’re at Brittany’s,” Kurt said, “she’s kind of running around the room right now trying to find something. No idea what, but Rory says the machine is looking more and more like he remembers it. I don’t think it’s going to be much longer.”
Blaine sank onto the bench between the lockers. What would happen when Rory left?
When Blaine was little he’d always looked forward to the future. He’d wanted to grow up and be like his brother who was allowed to stay up late and watch all those movies that sounded terribly exciting to him. The future had been something to look forward to. Later, after Cooper moved out and after Blaine realized that growing up wasn’t all that he’d thought it would be, he looked forward to the future because it had to be better than the present. It had to be better than being teased or bullied for something he couldn’t even control. And after meeting Kurt, he had been happy to live in the now until they got together and he could dream of a future with them. After Rory arrived his future looked much more brighter they had been given proof that it would be better, but now the doubt was setting in because they didn’t know what could have been changed.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Blaine asked.
“Yeah. I think so,” Kurt said, “anyway, I’m here if you want to come join us. Or are you doing something with Cooper?”
Blaine didn’t know what he was doing, but he was sure that he didn’t want to go watch Brittany try and finish the time machine. He wanted to spend time with Cooper even less.
“I don’t know,” Blaine said, “I’m going to head home for a bit and see if he wants to do something before he leaves, he got a call earlier so he might be leaving tomorrow - I’ll let you know.”
“Alright.”
Cooper’s car wasn’t in the parking lot, so Blaine knew he’d either gone home or somewhere else. He got into his own car - glad that he had taken it that morning - and drove home, hoping that Cooper wouldn’t be there. He was.
“…and you just know it has to be for Transformers. Right?” Cooper’s voice carried from the kitchen.
Blaine rolled his eyes.
“Blaine is that you?”
“Yes, mom.”
Blaine had never been able to really understand the relationship that his parents had with Cooper mostly because Cooper should have been a disappointment with all the dropping out of school and wish to become an actor. But somehow they had always been very supportive of him and ready to send any amount of money he might need to make rent because “with so many auditions I don’t have time to work and I can’t make rent this month - I had to take out this producer I met out to dinner and…” Cooper’s big break had been these commercials and at least for the past year or so he’d been relatively good with his finances but it wasn’t going to last and he just wasn’t going to get the big role he desired. Blaine hated how their parents just coddled Cooper and let him keep believing he was actually good.
When he walked into the kitchen it was to find Cooper on the floor with Mojo who was wagging his tail and climbing all over him. Wonderful, even his dog liked Cooper.
“Well I hope you’re not running off with that boyfriend of yours tonight,” his mom said. She had an apron on and was actually stirring a pot, “we wanted to have a dinner as a family before Cooper has to leave. He has an audition to make.”
Blaine shrugged. “Yeah. I’ll be around.”
“Good.”
Mojo barked and licked at Cooper’s face and then ran to Blaine to be pet, but after saying hello he was back on Cooper. Blaine just sighed.
- - -
They were done working on the time machine for the day, mostly because Brittany needed to take her cat to see a therapist. Kurt didn’t even bother to ask about those things anymore. So, Kurt gathered all his things together while she went to look for the cat. Santana lingered near the door with Rory, shaking her head.
“We’ll keep working on it soon,” Santana said and gave Kurt a pointed stare.
It was Santana’s opinion that they actually talk to Rory about Blaine’s death, but Kurt didn’t want to bother Rory with it. He knew exactly what it felt like to lose a parent and Kurt hated talking about that time in his life, so he knew that Rory wouldn’t feel up to talking about it and he really didn’t want to force it. What he’d told his dad would be enough.
“Yes,” Kurt said, “anyway, I should go.”
He reached for the door.
“Can I-”
“Yeah?” Kurt asked, turning to look at Rory.
Santana looked between them and then she sighed. “I think I’ll go help Britt.”
Rory stared after her.
“Rory?”
“Oh,” he said, “I was just - I want to spend some time with you. We haven’t in a while. I just…I miss you.”
Kurt closed his eyes. He’d been terrible. Blaine had told him that he’d hurt Rory and he’d even recognized that he’d done so, but he just hadn’t been able to face him yet. Even while working on the time machine Kurt had kept himself from him but that was mostly because of Santana and the way she was looking at them even if she did know the truth now.
“Come here,” Kurt said and opened his arms.
Rory hugged him tight and Kurt felt all the tension he’d been carrying around just fall to the side.
“Of course you can spend time with me,” Kurt told him as they pulled apart, “in fact, why don’t you come to senior ditch day tomorrow. And we can do something tonight. Come on.”
They left the house and got into Kurt’s car when Kurt got a text.
Family dinner with Coop, but do you want to come over after, I think I’ll need a pick me up.
He sent a text back quickly:
With Rory, might eat dinner with him, but text me when yours is over and I’ll come over. ;)
“So what do you want to do?”
They wound up going to Breadstix and Kurt made sure to keep the conversation light. Mostly they talked about how crazy things had gotten since Cooper came to visit.
“He’s more mellowed out in the future,” Rory assured him, “still really childish though. I hadn’t seen him in a while in the future. You were mad at him because…I don’t remember why exactly.”
Afterwards, they just went out for a walk and Kurt enjoyed the simplicity of just walking through Lima with his son even if no one else around them knew what they were. To everyone else they were just two boys.
When Blaine texted that dinner was over and that he better come over because he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself from killing Cooper, Kurt drove Rory home.
“You’re definitely coming tomorrow?”
“Yeah, totally,” Rory said, “it sounds like fun.”
Kurt got to Blaine’s house ten minutes later. Blaine was outside waiting for him and he flew into Kurt’s arms.
“I just don’t get it,” he mumbled without preamble, “they just hold us at such a double standard. If I mention going to school to study musical theater or music it’s like they can’t wait to shoot me down and tell me I’ll fail but they’re perfectly fine with Cooper not finishing school at all and just deluding himself that he is a good actor.”
Kurt rubbed at his back.
“I don’t know what to do anymore…I shouldn’t even care.”
They went up to Blaine’s room after that and Kurt put music on because it was sure to calm Blaine down a little bit. It was while he was trying to find a good song to start off with that he spotted a very ripped up sweater.
“Blaine, what happened to that sweater?”
Blaine who had dropped onto his stomach on the bed tilted his head to look. “Oh. Mojo did.”
Kurt hadn’t had to really interact with the dog much yet with all the time that they spent at his house instead of Blaine’s and he’d been happy when Blaine whined that Mojo was as obsessed with Cooper as anyone else.
“I hope you’ve kept him from other articles of clothing.”
Blaine nodded. “That is the one and only he’s destroyed. It’s his now and I got him some toys so…”
The door to the bedroom was pushed open and as if he had heard them talking about him, Mojo walked in and he made a beeline to Kurt.
“Oh,” Kurt said, “hello.” He bent down to pet the dog’s head, but Mojo had other ideas, throwing his paws up on Kurt’s knee and rubbing his head against Kurt’s arm, his nose moving from side to side as he sniffed him.
Kurt pet him a little longer, but then she stood up again. He pressed play on the ihome and walked to sit next to Blaine who had closed his eyes and had turned to his back. Kurt laid himself next to Blaine and turned a little so he could watch his boyfriend. He was just leaning in to kiss him, when Mojo jumped on the bed landing atop Kurt. Mojo excitedly wagged his tail and climbed up Kurt. Kurt tried to push him off but the dog only landed on Blaine who laughed.
“Aww, he likes you. He’s totally taking after me.”
Kurt had to get up from the bed before the dog tried to lick him or get even more fur on his clothes. He was definitely going to need to stop for a lint roller on the way home.
But Mojo just jumped off the bed and came after him, lifting his front legs to Kurt’s leg and Kurt could already imagine the paw prints that he might get on his clothes. Why didn’t dogs wear shoes?
Blaine was on the bed laughing as Kurt moved back and shook his finger at Mojo.
“It’s not that I don’t like you. You just have to get an appreciation for designer clothes, dog, the kind of appreciation that means you stay away from them. Off. Off.”
Blaine was giggling. Mojo thought it was all a game and kept following Kurt until Kurt was back on the bed. He took a leap and was up with him.
“Just pet him for a bit,” Blaine said, “I think he knows I like you and is expressing how much he likes you too.
Mojo climbed onto his lap. Kurt could admit that he was cute, but he could already see his fur on his pants. He might have to dry clean them.
his was how Cooper found them. Only Kurt saw him standing outside Blaine’s room looking in through the crack Mojo had left when he entered the room.
“Okay, pup, that’s enough. Off the bed.”
He picked the dog up and dropped him back down on the floor. Mojo seemed to have noticed Cooper, because he went to the door to sniff.
“Come here,” Blaine said
Kurt smiled a little and moved closer to where Blaine was still lying. Cooper was still watching. Kurt caught his eye. Blaine’s older brother smiled tightly and walked away. Maybe there could still be a way to salvage that relationship.
He and Blaine just hung out for a while longer until Kurt told him it was time he head home.
“My dad may be in Washington right now, but I still have a curfew to make and senior ditch day tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Blaine shook his head. “I’ll just bring everyone down. Have fun with Rory though.”
Mojo had come back, but he was distracted with the sweater that was progressively getting more and more ripped up.
Kurt sighed. “Alright.”
He got up from the bed and was in the process of putting on his shoes again when his eyes widened. Mojo had gotten his scarf. He was lying directly on top of it.
“Blaine your dog…”
“Oh, Kurt, I’m so sorry.”
Blaine got up and he was the one to get the scarf away from his dog. It wasn’t in the same state of his sweater.
“I think he was just lying on it,” he said.
Kurt extended out his hand and Blaine dropped the scarf. It didn’t look any different, except that it smelled faintly of dog and there was a lot of fur on it. Kurt draped it over his arm.
“You’re paying for the dry cleaning,” he informed Blaine and then leaned in to kiss him, “and you’re keeping him away from me next time.”
Blaine just nodded.
When he was just getting to the door, Cooper appeared.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” Kurt said and he dropped his hand from the door. “So, we haven’t really gotten to talk,” Kurt said, “with all your fans around.”
Cooper nodded. “Did you want…”
“No,” Kurt said, “I’m not going to ask for an autograph or a picture or any of that because as cool as it is to know someone that’s been on T.V., it’s not as cool when you find out that that person is horrible to their brother. I think he was really excited when you told him you were visiting, but you’ve made him feel horrible about himself and you’ve made this entire visit about yourself. Now, I can’t say I know anything about your relationship with him - he doesn’t really talk about you - but I think you could both benefit from talking about it.”
- - -
Rory had fun running around after his dad at six flags. They had gone to a few amusement parks in the future and his dads had always sort of embarrassed him in their exuberance, but he had more fun with a Kurt that was his age.
After they were all done with the rides they walked around the booths with all the silly rigged games. Rachel had dragged Finn to one and he was seated holding the water squirting gun pointed at a round target. A couple of other seats were taken. He and Kurt stopped to watch and were surprised when Finn was actually successful. It was then that they noticed that this wasn't the first stuffed animal Finn had won. Rachel was already holding about ten.
"I wish Blaine had come," Kurt said, "but he's feeling weird about Cooper."
"He is always feeling weird about uncle Coop," Rory said and it was true.
Even though Blaine and Cooper got along in the future, they still fought a lot over everything. Rory remembered a particularly bad one where his papa had actually kicked Cooper out and hadn't even let him get all his things together from the guest room. He and his dad had had to sneak them out to him later and it had been almost a month before the brothers apologized. They would always have a slightly rocky relationship but mostly because despite maturing some, Uncle Coop would always be a bit self centered.
They left the amusement park late and ready to just collapse. Between Kurt and Tina they had all gotten there a little crammed and now they had to also deal with Rachel's stuffed animals.
It was while they were getting situated in the car that Rory spotter her. Margaret Thatcher dog. His stuffed animal - the one he still had in his room at home. But no, this couldn't be the same one. Somehow it had drifted to the front of the car. He picked it up gingerly.
"Ooo, hide that," Kurt said, "I'm stealing it for Blaine. Rachel can't see I took it."
"Her," Rory said and just grinned.
"What was that?"
Rory shook his head. "Nothing."
For the rest of the ride home he just stared at Margaret with her big beady eyes and sewn on smile. Oh the adventures they would have together.
The next day they were back at school and his papa did look a little down.
"Hey," he said, "did you have fun yesterday?"
Rory nodded. "Yeah, I did. How are you?"
Blaine just shrugged. "I thought this time it might be different with him...I guess not."
Rory watched him walk away and sighed.
“He’s not a happy camper,” Sugar said and quirked an eyebrow and as they were walking to class they promptly ran into Cooper Anderson.
Uncle Coop was looking around frantically and then he spotted them. “You two!” he yelled and pointed at them.
“Seriously,” Rory muttered, not actually believing that Cooper did go around yelling and pointing at people, and then, “yes?”
“Have you seen my brother?”
“He’s in class,” Sugar said.
Cooper nodded, “Right. Right. I guess I’ll go wait for the bell to ring.”
After class they saw Cooper talking to Kurt and approached.
“He’s pretty mad at you, but he’ll probably be happy you’re still around. In fact, why don’t you go wait for him in the auditorium and I’ll send him your way.”
Cooper nodded and smiled at them before he was off, stopping to take a picture with a girl every once in a while or sign an autograph. Rory was surprised that there were still a few kids in the school that hadn’t gotten the signed headshots he tended to hand out.
“Now,” Kurt said, “to find Blaine and all of this will be over.” He reached into his bag and brought out Margaret Thatcher dog.
A part of Rory wanted to just snatch it out of his hand and cuddle it like he did at home when he was feeling down. In the future Margaret Thatcher dog was worn and had a new sewn on eye, it had rips had had been sewn back together and a couple of stains that had just never come off, but she was cherished. And this was where it had all begun.
“You’re really fixated on this toy,” Kurt said, tilting his head.
“She’s mine,” Rory said before he could stop himself, “in the future she’s mine, had her since I was born.”
“Oh,” Kurt said, “then, I guess I’ll tell Blaine to take care of, of her.”
Rory nodded.
“Does she have a name?” Kurt shook the stuffed dog in front of him
“Margaret,” Rory said and frowned.
“Like the Iron Lady? Margaret Thatcher?” Kurt looked at the dog and smiled a little, “you do look like a Margaret Thatcher. A Margaret Thatcher dog.” He giggled, “Oh, look, there’s Blaine.”
Rory stood there stunned for a moment and then he just smiled unable to believe that his dad hadn’t already had the name in mind because it was from him that he’d taken it in the future - they had never let him name her anything else. The next time Rory saw his papa, he was with Cooper and they were smiling and talking excitedly as they walked down the hall. Rory grinned, now that was how his papa and uncle behaved around each other after they resolved their fights.
Genre: Romance, Humor, Fantasy
Pairing: Klaine, Brittana, Rory/?
Rating: PG - PG 13
Spoilers: none.
Disclaimer: : I own nothing...and do not claim to.
Summary: In a moment of what could be called absolutely brilliance or stupidity, Rory Hummel-Anderson decided that the only way to get his Papa back was to go back in time and stall him, or stop him from getting into the car at all. The only problem is, his Aunt's time machine is still just a prototype and he can't even specify a time. But Rory uses it anyway and suddenly he's back in 2011 and he has to pretend to be an exchange student while he waits for Aunt Brittany to build the time machine again and get back home. In the meanwhile he gets to know his parents as teenagers and even help their relationship along when they hit a bump in the road.
Chapter Nineteen
Margaret
Blaine could easily understand why all his friends and the kids that weren’t even his friends, were all over Cooper. What he couldn’t understand is why Cooper kept coming back to his school. He was probably enjoying the attention and everyone was talking about him. It was an improvement to hear excited whispers and dreamy sighs than everyone gossiping about Quinn or Karofsky.
From what Kurt told him, Karofsky was doing well. He hadn’t felt right going back to school yet, but he seemed to have at least decided that he wanted to live. Blaine was glad, but he hadn’t thought about it much.
Blaine watched his brother sign autographs and pose for pictures. Even Rory took a picture with him, but Blaine saw a gleam in his son’s eyes that let him accept it - Rory was having fun, he was grinning and Blaine wanted to see him like this always. Cooper was still driving him crazy though and Blaine just wished someone else could see what he saw.
His brother was an idiot. He knew nothing about acting - there was a reason he was stuck doing a series of commercials and he wasn’t on T.V. or movies. No one seemed to understand though not even Rachel who should have recognized that all his advice was wrong. It was no matter. He was just going to have to let Cooper enjoy the attention, possibly go out to eat with him again, and then he would be off back to Hollywood and everything that his life consisted of there.
Actually, he would be leaving pretty soon. He had an audition for the next Transformers movie. Blaine wanted to believe that his brother would get a role, but he knew better.
Boxing had always been a good stress reliever for Blaine, and with everything going on in his life he knew that he’d need it. He could work out the stress of knowing Kurt was still keeping something from him and of Cooper’s visit. At least his parents hadn’t forced him to go out to dinner with them and Cooper the night before.
He boxed until his arms felt like they wanted to fall off and then he decided he might as well take a shower. For the hour that he’d been in the locker room taking everything out on the punching bag, Blaine had ignored everything else and it felt nice to tear himself away from everything going on around him.
Blaine let the warm water roll down his shoulders and then down on his chest and back. His sore muscles began to feel better under the spray. If only other things could just get better with a shower. He leaned against the tiled stall wall. Before Rory his future had been just like everyone else’s an unknown prospect. Blaine had known that he wanted to go to New York with Kurt and he’d know that he wanted to marry Kurt eventually but those things had always been dreams, nothing set in stone.
Now that Rory was with them and could be the proof that all of his dreams became reality, Blaine couldn’t picture another future - he didn’t want another one - and it was hard to admit to himself that the future was once more this thing that he knew nothing about. He could hope that it would remain like Rory had described it, but there was no assurance that it would.
After getting dressed, Blaine finally checked his phone. There were a couple of missed calls from Cooper as well as a text. Kurt, though, had texted him a total of ten times. They were all some version of asking him where he was, or telling him that Kurt wanted him to come over.
He called him.
Kurt answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said, “where are you?”
“Still at school. I was boxing for a bit, I guess I didn’t mention it to anyone. What’s going on?”
“We’re at Brittany’s,” Kurt said, “she’s kind of running around the room right now trying to find something. No idea what, but Rory says the machine is looking more and more like he remembers it. I don’t think it’s going to be much longer.”
Blaine sank onto the bench between the lockers. What would happen when Rory left?
When Blaine was little he’d always looked forward to the future. He’d wanted to grow up and be like his brother who was allowed to stay up late and watch all those movies that sounded terribly exciting to him. The future had been something to look forward to. Later, after Cooper moved out and after Blaine realized that growing up wasn’t all that he’d thought it would be, he looked forward to the future because it had to be better than the present. It had to be better than being teased or bullied for something he couldn’t even control. And after meeting Kurt, he had been happy to live in the now until they got together and he could dream of a future with them. After Rory arrived his future looked much more brighter they had been given proof that it would be better, but now the doubt was setting in because they didn’t know what could have been changed.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Blaine asked.
“Yeah. I think so,” Kurt said, “anyway, I’m here if you want to come join us. Or are you doing something with Cooper?”
Blaine didn’t know what he was doing, but he was sure that he didn’t want to go watch Brittany try and finish the time machine. He wanted to spend time with Cooper even less.
“I don’t know,” Blaine said, “I’m going to head home for a bit and see if he wants to do something before he leaves, he got a call earlier so he might be leaving tomorrow - I’ll let you know.”
“Alright.”
Cooper’s car wasn’t in the parking lot, so Blaine knew he’d either gone home or somewhere else. He got into his own car - glad that he had taken it that morning - and drove home, hoping that Cooper wouldn’t be there. He was.
“…and you just know it has to be for Transformers. Right?” Cooper’s voice carried from the kitchen.
Blaine rolled his eyes.
“Blaine is that you?”
“Yes, mom.”
Blaine had never been able to really understand the relationship that his parents had with Cooper mostly because Cooper should have been a disappointment with all the dropping out of school and wish to become an actor. But somehow they had always been very supportive of him and ready to send any amount of money he might need to make rent because “with so many auditions I don’t have time to work and I can’t make rent this month - I had to take out this producer I met out to dinner and…” Cooper’s big break had been these commercials and at least for the past year or so he’d been relatively good with his finances but it wasn’t going to last and he just wasn’t going to get the big role he desired. Blaine hated how their parents just coddled Cooper and let him keep believing he was actually good.
When he walked into the kitchen it was to find Cooper on the floor with Mojo who was wagging his tail and climbing all over him. Wonderful, even his dog liked Cooper.
“Well I hope you’re not running off with that boyfriend of yours tonight,” his mom said. She had an apron on and was actually stirring a pot, “we wanted to have a dinner as a family before Cooper has to leave. He has an audition to make.”
Blaine shrugged. “Yeah. I’ll be around.”
“Good.”
Mojo barked and licked at Cooper’s face and then ran to Blaine to be pet, but after saying hello he was back on Cooper. Blaine just sighed.
- - -
They were done working on the time machine for the day, mostly because Brittany needed to take her cat to see a therapist. Kurt didn’t even bother to ask about those things anymore. So, Kurt gathered all his things together while she went to look for the cat. Santana lingered near the door with Rory, shaking her head.
“We’ll keep working on it soon,” Santana said and gave Kurt a pointed stare.
It was Santana’s opinion that they actually talk to Rory about Blaine’s death, but Kurt didn’t want to bother Rory with it. He knew exactly what it felt like to lose a parent and Kurt hated talking about that time in his life, so he knew that Rory wouldn’t feel up to talking about it and he really didn’t want to force it. What he’d told his dad would be enough.
“Yes,” Kurt said, “anyway, I should go.”
He reached for the door.
“Can I-”
“Yeah?” Kurt asked, turning to look at Rory.
Santana looked between them and then she sighed. “I think I’ll go help Britt.”
Rory stared after her.
“Rory?”
“Oh,” he said, “I was just - I want to spend some time with you. We haven’t in a while. I just…I miss you.”
Kurt closed his eyes. He’d been terrible. Blaine had told him that he’d hurt Rory and he’d even recognized that he’d done so, but he just hadn’t been able to face him yet. Even while working on the time machine Kurt had kept himself from him but that was mostly because of Santana and the way she was looking at them even if she did know the truth now.
“Come here,” Kurt said and opened his arms.
Rory hugged him tight and Kurt felt all the tension he’d been carrying around just fall to the side.
“Of course you can spend time with me,” Kurt told him as they pulled apart, “in fact, why don’t you come to senior ditch day tomorrow. And we can do something tonight. Come on.”
They left the house and got into Kurt’s car when Kurt got a text.
Family dinner with Coop, but do you want to come over after, I think I’ll need a pick me up.
He sent a text back quickly:
With Rory, might eat dinner with him, but text me when yours is over and I’ll come over. ;)
“So what do you want to do?”
They wound up going to Breadstix and Kurt made sure to keep the conversation light. Mostly they talked about how crazy things had gotten since Cooper came to visit.
“He’s more mellowed out in the future,” Rory assured him, “still really childish though. I hadn’t seen him in a while in the future. You were mad at him because…I don’t remember why exactly.”
Afterwards, they just went out for a walk and Kurt enjoyed the simplicity of just walking through Lima with his son even if no one else around them knew what they were. To everyone else they were just two boys.
When Blaine texted that dinner was over and that he better come over because he wasn’t going to be able to keep himself from killing Cooper, Kurt drove Rory home.
“You’re definitely coming tomorrow?”
“Yeah, totally,” Rory said, “it sounds like fun.”
Kurt got to Blaine’s house ten minutes later. Blaine was outside waiting for him and he flew into Kurt’s arms.
“I just don’t get it,” he mumbled without preamble, “they just hold us at such a double standard. If I mention going to school to study musical theater or music it’s like they can’t wait to shoot me down and tell me I’ll fail but they’re perfectly fine with Cooper not finishing school at all and just deluding himself that he is a good actor.”
Kurt rubbed at his back.
“I don’t know what to do anymore…I shouldn’t even care.”
They went up to Blaine’s room after that and Kurt put music on because it was sure to calm Blaine down a little bit. It was while he was trying to find a good song to start off with that he spotted a very ripped up sweater.
“Blaine, what happened to that sweater?”
Blaine who had dropped onto his stomach on the bed tilted his head to look. “Oh. Mojo did.”
Kurt hadn’t had to really interact with the dog much yet with all the time that they spent at his house instead of Blaine’s and he’d been happy when Blaine whined that Mojo was as obsessed with Cooper as anyone else.
“I hope you’ve kept him from other articles of clothing.”
Blaine nodded. “That is the one and only he’s destroyed. It’s his now and I got him some toys so…”
The door to the bedroom was pushed open and as if he had heard them talking about him, Mojo walked in and he made a beeline to Kurt.
“Oh,” Kurt said, “hello.” He bent down to pet the dog’s head, but Mojo had other ideas, throwing his paws up on Kurt’s knee and rubbing his head against Kurt’s arm, his nose moving from side to side as he sniffed him.
Kurt pet him a little longer, but then she stood up again. He pressed play on the ihome and walked to sit next to Blaine who had closed his eyes and had turned to his back. Kurt laid himself next to Blaine and turned a little so he could watch his boyfriend. He was just leaning in to kiss him, when Mojo jumped on the bed landing atop Kurt. Mojo excitedly wagged his tail and climbed up Kurt. Kurt tried to push him off but the dog only landed on Blaine who laughed.
“Aww, he likes you. He’s totally taking after me.”
Kurt had to get up from the bed before the dog tried to lick him or get even more fur on his clothes. He was definitely going to need to stop for a lint roller on the way home.
But Mojo just jumped off the bed and came after him, lifting his front legs to Kurt’s leg and Kurt could already imagine the paw prints that he might get on his clothes. Why didn’t dogs wear shoes?
Blaine was on the bed laughing as Kurt moved back and shook his finger at Mojo.
“It’s not that I don’t like you. You just have to get an appreciation for designer clothes, dog, the kind of appreciation that means you stay away from them. Off. Off.”
Blaine was giggling. Mojo thought it was all a game and kept following Kurt until Kurt was back on the bed. He took a leap and was up with him.
“Just pet him for a bit,” Blaine said, “I think he knows I like you and is expressing how much he likes you too.
Mojo climbed onto his lap. Kurt could admit that he was cute, but he could already see his fur on his pants. He might have to dry clean them.
his was how Cooper found them. Only Kurt saw him standing outside Blaine’s room looking in through the crack Mojo had left when he entered the room.
“Okay, pup, that’s enough. Off the bed.”
He picked the dog up and dropped him back down on the floor. Mojo seemed to have noticed Cooper, because he went to the door to sniff.
“Come here,” Blaine said
Kurt smiled a little and moved closer to where Blaine was still lying. Cooper was still watching. Kurt caught his eye. Blaine’s older brother smiled tightly and walked away. Maybe there could still be a way to salvage that relationship.
He and Blaine just hung out for a while longer until Kurt told him it was time he head home.
“My dad may be in Washington right now, but I still have a curfew to make and senior ditch day tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Blaine shook his head. “I’ll just bring everyone down. Have fun with Rory though.”
Mojo had come back, but he was distracted with the sweater that was progressively getting more and more ripped up.
Kurt sighed. “Alright.”
He got up from the bed and was in the process of putting on his shoes again when his eyes widened. Mojo had gotten his scarf. He was lying directly on top of it.
“Blaine your dog…”
“Oh, Kurt, I’m so sorry.”
Blaine got up and he was the one to get the scarf away from his dog. It wasn’t in the same state of his sweater.
“I think he was just lying on it,” he said.
Kurt extended out his hand and Blaine dropped the scarf. It didn’t look any different, except that it smelled faintly of dog and there was a lot of fur on it. Kurt draped it over his arm.
“You’re paying for the dry cleaning,” he informed Blaine and then leaned in to kiss him, “and you’re keeping him away from me next time.”
Blaine just nodded.
When he was just getting to the door, Cooper appeared.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” Kurt said and he dropped his hand from the door. “So, we haven’t really gotten to talk,” Kurt said, “with all your fans around.”
Cooper nodded. “Did you want…”
“No,” Kurt said, “I’m not going to ask for an autograph or a picture or any of that because as cool as it is to know someone that’s been on T.V., it’s not as cool when you find out that that person is horrible to their brother. I think he was really excited when you told him you were visiting, but you’ve made him feel horrible about himself and you’ve made this entire visit about yourself. Now, I can’t say I know anything about your relationship with him - he doesn’t really talk about you - but I think you could both benefit from talking about it.”
- - -
Rory had fun running around after his dad at six flags. They had gone to a few amusement parks in the future and his dads had always sort of embarrassed him in their exuberance, but he had more fun with a Kurt that was his age.
After they were all done with the rides they walked around the booths with all the silly rigged games. Rachel had dragged Finn to one and he was seated holding the water squirting gun pointed at a round target. A couple of other seats were taken. He and Kurt stopped to watch and were surprised when Finn was actually successful. It was then that they noticed that this wasn't the first stuffed animal Finn had won. Rachel was already holding about ten.
"I wish Blaine had come," Kurt said, "but he's feeling weird about Cooper."
"He is always feeling weird about uncle Coop," Rory said and it was true.
Even though Blaine and Cooper got along in the future, they still fought a lot over everything. Rory remembered a particularly bad one where his papa had actually kicked Cooper out and hadn't even let him get all his things together from the guest room. He and his dad had had to sneak them out to him later and it had been almost a month before the brothers apologized. They would always have a slightly rocky relationship but mostly because despite maturing some, Uncle Coop would always be a bit self centered.
They left the amusement park late and ready to just collapse. Between Kurt and Tina they had all gotten there a little crammed and now they had to also deal with Rachel's stuffed animals.
It was while they were getting situated in the car that Rory spotter her. Margaret Thatcher dog. His stuffed animal - the one he still had in his room at home. But no, this couldn't be the same one. Somehow it had drifted to the front of the car. He picked it up gingerly.
"Ooo, hide that," Kurt said, "I'm stealing it for Blaine. Rachel can't see I took it."
"Her," Rory said and just grinned.
"What was that?"
Rory shook his head. "Nothing."
For the rest of the ride home he just stared at Margaret with her big beady eyes and sewn on smile. Oh the adventures they would have together.
The next day they were back at school and his papa did look a little down.
"Hey," he said, "did you have fun yesterday?"
Rory nodded. "Yeah, I did. How are you?"
Blaine just shrugged. "I thought this time it might be different with him...I guess not."
Rory watched him walk away and sighed.
“He’s not a happy camper,” Sugar said and quirked an eyebrow and as they were walking to class they promptly ran into Cooper Anderson.
Uncle Coop was looking around frantically and then he spotted them. “You two!” he yelled and pointed at them.
“Seriously,” Rory muttered, not actually believing that Cooper did go around yelling and pointing at people, and then, “yes?”
“Have you seen my brother?”
“He’s in class,” Sugar said.
Cooper nodded, “Right. Right. I guess I’ll go wait for the bell to ring.”
After class they saw Cooper talking to Kurt and approached.
“He’s pretty mad at you, but he’ll probably be happy you’re still around. In fact, why don’t you go wait for him in the auditorium and I’ll send him your way.”
Cooper nodded and smiled at them before he was off, stopping to take a picture with a girl every once in a while or sign an autograph. Rory was surprised that there were still a few kids in the school that hadn’t gotten the signed headshots he tended to hand out.
“Now,” Kurt said, “to find Blaine and all of this will be over.” He reached into his bag and brought out Margaret Thatcher dog.
A part of Rory wanted to just snatch it out of his hand and cuddle it like he did at home when he was feeling down. In the future Margaret Thatcher dog was worn and had a new sewn on eye, it had rips had had been sewn back together and a couple of stains that had just never come off, but she was cherished. And this was where it had all begun.
“You’re really fixated on this toy,” Kurt said, tilting his head.
“She’s mine,” Rory said before he could stop himself, “in the future she’s mine, had her since I was born.”
“Oh,” Kurt said, “then, I guess I’ll tell Blaine to take care of, of her.”
Rory nodded.
“Does she have a name?” Kurt shook the stuffed dog in front of him
“Margaret,” Rory said and frowned.
“Like the Iron Lady? Margaret Thatcher?” Kurt looked at the dog and smiled a little, “you do look like a Margaret Thatcher. A Margaret Thatcher dog.” He giggled, “Oh, look, there’s Blaine.”
Rory stood there stunned for a moment and then he just smiled unable to believe that his dad hadn’t already had the name in mind because it was from him that he’d taken it in the future - they had never let him name her anything else. The next time Rory saw his papa, he was with Cooper and they were smiling and talking excitedly as they walked down the hall. Rory grinned, now that was how his papa and uncle behaved around each other after they resolved their fights.