Klaine Week 2012: Day 1—Klaine as Kids

His feet hit the ground with a satisfying crunch. He stood up from the bottom of the bright yellow slide and looked around. The playground was unusually full for a Monday afternoon. Three boys a few years younger than he was occupied the fire-truck-red swings, and a pair of girls his age perched on the edge of the large wooden sandbox. A few toddlers wobbled around the jungle gym, their mothers and babysitters pacing the outside nervously, just waiting for someone to fall. Far from the little kids, into the trees that lined the back edge of the park, a large gathering of preteen boys laughed and tossed a baseball to each other on the overgrown diamond there. Blaine watched as they joked and playfully shoved each other around. That looks like fun. Not wanting to stick around with such little kids anymore, Blaine scurried past the moms and babysitters to go hang out with the big kids.

As he passed a line of trees, he heard a little sniffling. He paused, unsure if he heard it or if he was just-no, there it was again. He peered around a tree and spotted a pretty boy who looked to be his age curled up on the ground, back against the bark. His face was buried in his knees, and his shoulders shook.

Blaine knelt down beside him. "Hey, are you okay?"

The boy jumped and looked up at Blaine. His blue eyes—wow, those are really pretty eyes—streamed as they took in the boy before them. "I'm fine."

The boy's voice was high, higher than most boys', including Blaine's. Blaine thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world. "But you're crying. Why are you sad?"

Just then, the crowd of older boys behind Blaine gave a loud shout of harsh laughter. The crying boy jumped again, staring wide-eyed over Blaine's shoulder at them. Blaine looked over at them and then back to the smaller boy. "Did they do something?" The boy shook his head furiously, but the terror in his eyes gave him away. "What's your name?"

The pretty blue eyes appraised him carefully, clearly judging him for trustworthiness. They apparently liked what they saw, because the musical voice whispered, "Kurt."

Blaine smiled gently. "That's a nice name. I'm Blaine. Did those boys bother you?"

Kurt didn't bother lying this time. "Yes. They were making fun of me for playing with Rachel and Mercedes in the sandbox. They told me that that was girly and that I was a girl and if I didn't stop they were going to teach me how to be a boy." His eyes started watering again. "I want my mommy."

"Where is she?"

Kurt looked back down at his knees. "She's sick. My daddy's with her at home. He sent me here to play so he could take care of Mommy."

Blaine's heart felt funny, and he wanted to help this beautiful new friend he had made. "I can't get your mommy or daddy for you, 'cause I don't know where you live, but I can give you the next best thing." He stood up, stuck his head out from behind the tree, and yelled, "COOPER!"

Kurt stared up at him in alarm. "Are you crazy? Those boys are gonna hear you!"

"It's okay," Blaine said, grinning down at Kurt. "Cooper's my brother. He's the bestest brother in the whole world."

Just then, an older boy with hair dark like Blaine's ran up, a Marvel comic book tucked under his arm. "What's wrong, Blainers? Are you hu-who's this?"

Kurt curled further into himself as Blaine placed a hand on his shoulder. "This is Kurt. Those boys from your school were being mean to him."

Cooper followed Blaine's pointing finger and scowled. "Yeah, I know them. They think they're the coolest people in the world, but they're just a bunch of losers." Cooper knelt down beside Kurt, much as his brother had minutes before. "Hey, buddy, how about we get you home?" When Kurt nodded gratefully, Cooper smiled and asked, "You wanna piggyback ride there?"

Blaine grinned wide. "Oh man, Cooper gives the absolute bestest piggyback rides ever! Normally I'm the only one who gets them, but you can have one today."

Kurt offered a shy smile before he nodded again. Cooper stood, gently pulling the small boy to his feet. He then scooped Kurt into his arms and slung him onto his back, eliciting a tiny giggle from the boy. When Kurt was situated, Cooper made to grab Blaine's hand, but the curly-headed boy pulled back.

"Coop?" he asked hopefully. "Can I have a koalaback ride?"

Cooper feigned thinking long and hard about that request. "I don't know, bud. Two seven-year-olds on me at once? I may just topple over and crush one of you to death!" Both boys laughed. "But, I suppose we can give it a shot."

Blaine excitedly hopped into Cooper's arms, his hands immediately grabbing at the back of his neck and his legs locking with Kurt's on the sides to hold both in place. The two kids smiled at each other over Cooper's shoulder as the preteen began to walk out of the park. They babbled about cartoons and breakfast cereals as they walked down the street.

After a few minutes, Kurt squealed in Cooper's ear. "Mommy!" He scrambled to unhook his legs from Blaine's and jumped to the ground. He sprinted to the front porch of one of the houses, throwing his arms around the neck of a sallow, thin-haired woman sitting in a rocking chair. "Mommy! Mommy! I missed you!"

"I missed you too, KK," the woman replied with a smile, squeezing Kurt around the middle. She looked up and spotted the brothers, who hovered awkwardly at the edge of the driveway. "Who are your friends, peanut?"

"Oh yeah!" Kurt left his mother's lap and dashed back to the brothers, grabbing Cooper's hand and leading him to his mother. "Mommy, these are my new friends I made in the park. That's Blaine." He pointed to the curly-haired boy, who unwrapped one arm from his brother's neck to wave enthusiastically. "He's seven, like me!"

"Nice to meet you, Blaine," Kurt's mother said. "I'm Kurt's mom, Miss Elizabeth."

"I'm Cooper," the preteen introduced himself. "I'm this one's big brother." He shifted Blaine in his arms to tickle the younger boy momentarily.

"Cooper saved me from the mean boys," Kurt said solemnly, staring up at Cooper in awe.

"Did he now?" Elizabeth offered her hand to Cooper, who shook it. "Thank you very much. Kurt's always had...problems with other boys. I'm glad you and your brother have helped him break out a little."

"It was no problem," Cooper replied with a shrug and a blush. "Those jerks go to my school, and Kurt seems like too cool a dude to be sad." Kurt beamed. "Well, I think it's high time I got this little tyke back home. It's about naptime."

"Don' wanna nap," Blaine mumbled into the crook of Cooper's neck, his large hazel eyes drooping with fatigue. "N'tired."

"Mhm, sure you're not, bud."

Kurt reached up and tugged on Blaine's scuffed red sneaker. "You gonna come back to the park, Blaine?"

Blaine looked down, grinned, and nodded. "I gotta see my new best friend!"

With a shy frown, Kurt asked, "Who's that?"

"You, silly!"

The grin on Kurt's face nearly brought Elizabeth to tears.

"We'll see you later, Kurt," Cooper laughed, ruffling the boy's hair as he started walking up the driveway. Kurt's yelp of protest made him laugh harder. "Good to meet you, Miss Elizabeth!"

"Likewise." Elizabeth stood slowly. "Come on, KK. How about a snack? I'm thinking...ants on a log?"

"Okay!" Kurt beamed. "Give me a minute." He climbed up on a little bench and waved at the retreating brothers. Blaine, his head still resting on Cooper's shoulder, waved earnestly in return. The two boys continued to wave at each other until Cooper turned a corner and disappeared from view.

Well hello there! As you may or may not know, the week of Monday, March 12 to Sunday, March 18 2012 is Klaine Week, or the anniversary week of Kurt and Blaine finally getting together. In honor of this, Klaine Week has been instituted. Each day has a theme or topic about which one can write fics, create fanart, do fancy things with Photoshop, etc. Since I don't own Photoshop and since I can't draw stick figures properly, you can see I've chosen to go the FanFic route. The themes are as follows:

Monday, March 12: Klaine as Kids

Tuesday, March 13: Klaine AU

Wednesday, March 14: Missing Moments

Thursday, March 15: Klaine's Anniversary

Friday, March 16: Graduation and College

Saturday, March 17: Proposal and Wedding

Sunday, March 18: Domestic/Daddy!Klaine

Now, I'm going to warn your right now, in this seven-part series, at least three of the updates will be author's notes. Why, you ask? Because I've already written fics of some of these themes, and I honestly do not have time right now to write something original. Each day I will either have a new drabble/ficlet for you, or I will give you the name of a fic I've already posted, and you can go read that one instead. If you follow me on Tumblr (klainebowsandquirrelmort), I'll post links every day to my ficlets on here, whether or not I actually post them in this series. Sorry if that was confusing, because I honestly have no clue what the hell I just wrote.

Happy Klaine Week, fellow Klainers!