HOLD ON TO LOVE
It has taken Leo a whole year to get used to married life, and almost another one to accept the fact that he and Blaine were now parents of three children and therefore their life was going to change completely, whether they wanted it or not. It has been tough because he was so jealous of their privacy – and with one year old twins you don't get to have any of it – and he was not ready to give it up.

Eventually, he has come around and started coping with all the responsibilities of a family, including the ones he hates the most, like taking care of hysterically crying toddlers and a teen who more often than not has some problem to discuss, despite being generally more pleasant than his younger siblings.

But there is a time when all Leo's newborn sense of responsibility vanishes and he just wants to pack and leave for Alaska, leaving all those dependent younger people behind and going back to be one himself. And this time is when Blaine is working out of town and he can't be there to avoid Leo's mental break down and the consequential triple murder.

Like today, for example.

This morning Logan has woken him up at five o'clock and refused to go back to sleep. Leo has brought him in his bed, hoping to lull him back to sleep but he was wrong. Being in his dads' bed has only boosted his excitement and he has remained awaken with the result that now he's dozing off on his high chair instead of having breakfast as he should.

“C'mon Logan, don't sleep on me now,” Leo says, stroking his face and giving him a kiss on his little rounded nose. “I know I've told you to for two hours and that's confusing, but dad really needs you to be awake because we have to go to the day-care. Don't you want to go to meet all your friends?”
Logan doesn't answer. His head dangles to the side as he holds his bottle in one hand.

“Dad, have you seen my black hat? The one Tana gave to me?” Timmy asks, entering the kitchen and stealing a cookie from the cookie jar on the table. He also has mercy on his little brother and straight his bottle for him, so he at least can drink something when he wakes up every now and then, and remembers he has to suck on it.

“No, I haven't,” Leo answers, as he gives another bottle of milk to Harper, who keeps taking off her bibs because of reasons he can't understand right now. “Harp, really, we don't have time for this. You've got your pretty dress on and we don't want to stain it, do we?”

Harper shakes her head, still holding the bib in her hand like a crumpled paper.

“So, what are we gonna wear?” Leo asks. There are no words to describe how much he hates to have to turn every sentence into a question to make them listen and understand, but it works. He can't deny that. So he needs to keep going. Harper shows him the bib. “Right, baby girl. We need to wear the bib.”

Leo puts the bib on Harper while she starts drinking from her bottle, looking at her older brother wondering about the kitchen. “Last time I saw it, it was on the couch,” Timmy says, looking under every pillow of every chair, “but it's not there anymore.”

“Why are you looking for it in the kitchen?” Leo sits next to Logan's high chair and tries to give him the bottle one more time as the kid rubs his eye furiously.

“'Cause I looked everywhere else, already,” Timmy answers, sighing. “Are you sure you didn't see it? It's a little black soft hat with Nike logo on the front.”

Leo shakes his head and then whines because Harper is shaking her bottle, dripping milk everywhere. “Harper, don't. You drink your milk or you don't. You don't get to do anything else with it,” he says sternly, glaring at her. The very first time he has done that, the twins has started crying and he has panicked. But Blaine has insisted that he has to be tough when it's needed. “Don't you want it anymore?”

Harper says yes and resumes drinking. “Then why were you shaking it like that?” Leo sighs. Sometimes the twins' actions make no sense to him.

“Maybe you washed it?” Timmy tries again.
“I didn't do any laundry, Timmy,” Leo says. “Maybe your father did before he left for New York. I don't know, right now.”

“I had it on Tuesday. I wore it to go to school,” Timmy says. “Did he do laundry after that?”

“I don't know,” Leo says again and then turns to Logan who's having a tantrum because he is hungry but he is also sleepy and he doesn't know what to do to make both needs go away. “Come on, buddy. Have some more milk. You can sleep in the car.”

“Can you try to remember? It's important,” Timmy says, right when his little sister decides to start crying too because nobody is listening to her.

“Timmy, I said I don't know! Ok?” Leo snaps. “Jeez, can't you see the mess I'm in? I don't have the time to look for it with you. Just wear another one!”

Timothy glares at him. “Fine. I'll go without,” he says, eventually. Then puts his backpack on, heading for the door. “You know, you don't need to freak out just because daddy is not around!”

Leo hears the door slam as he takes Logan from his high chair and cuddles him to make him stop crying. “Good morning, Leo,” he says sarcastically as he gives her pacifier to Harper. “It's gonna be a great day.”

*

By the time Leo is ready to take the twins and go out, they are already half an hour late. Thankfully, Timmy could get the bus and the day care has not a strict schedule, so he can take the kids there with some lateness. Otherwise, he would be screwed because when Blaine is not there to take care of one of the twins, he is always late.

The weather outside is pretty good. It has snowed in the past three days and the garden is all white and looks fluffy, but it's not cold and there's no wind, so he thinks it's safe to walk to the day care, pushing the double stroller. Also, after all the work he had to do to dress them, he doesn't want to have to undress them to put them in the car and then start all over again once he gets to the day care which is just two blocks away.

Harper is wearing her pink Versace coat her grandfather Kurt has bought to her. It's a miniaturized version of the same model for woman, long to her ankles and with round cream buttons. She looks so cute in it. Her wild curly hair that she took after one of her biological fathers can't be tamed with a hat – hats always fall off her head – so she wears pink earmuffs. They feel strange so she keeps moving her head right and left because she doesn't really understand why she can't hear properly. Her brother wears a similar coat, but black and with a hoodie. And since he is always cold and hates wind and breeze as if they did something to him, Leo has dressed him with a wool hat tied up under his chin, his tiny little ears well tucked in. Logan's head looks twice bigger but at least he doesn't complain.

In the suburbs, there's never snow on the streets. It decorates garden and swings and it makes all kind of embroideries on the roof of the pretty houses, but snowploughs always drive by to clean the streets before people can even realize it snowed. And that's wonderful because you can enjoy snow without its downsides. Leo would like to say he is not one of those spoiled rich people you always see in the movies, but as it turns out he actually is. He likes comforts more than money, and it was Blaine more than his parents the one who has spoiled him through the years by giving him only the best things and making his life pretty comfortable, especially in the little details. He has never been in a less than four stars hotel, he has always traveled in first class – unless it was him paying – and he has always been able to afford all the little luxuries he wanted, which doesn't mean they have a golden pool inside the house or a theater room, but Blaine let him have whatever new device he sets his eyes on. In fact, he keeps spoiling him like he doesn't spoil even his children.

This thought always manages to make Leo happy, especially when he's pushing down the road a double stroller that weighs a ton and basically forces him to work out, having to smile to every single woman in her forty who lives in the neighborhood and casually pops up in her garden when he passes by her house. Leo swears they can smells his babies or hear from a very long distance the soft creaking the stroll makes every now and then, because he can't reach the end of the street without greeting at least ten of them.
They don't want to see him, obviously. They are hunting for Blaine. He is the only available man of their age in the street and the fact that he is openly gay, married and with three children doesn't affect this women at all. They still consider him available because, all being desperate housewives, they think they can change him back to normal. When they first moved in, some of them even showed up at the door wearing only their underwear under their coats. They would open the coat as soon as Blaine opened the door, hoping he would jump on them or something. Blaine is always very charming with them and they always wet their panties when he is around and smiles at them, which is why they are so very disappointed this morning.
Apparently, Leo's smile has not the same effect on them. And even the twins – to whom every woman in the neighborhood feels compelled to coo ridiculously when Blaine's pushing the stroller – stop being interesting the moment he is not there.

He pushes the stroll as fast as he can to avoid speaking to anyone and when he reaches the end of the street, he sighs in relief. The babies are giggling because apparently he was going fast enough to make them happy. Logan ha had some problems with wind but since his sister smiles, he smiles too.

The day care is inside a colorful building with the name written in big red letters on the facade. Blaine has chosen it because it is funny to look at and he always says that if his kids have to stay away from him for six hours a day, they should be in a cute place. He personally spoke to all the teachers and made a tour of the whole school before deciding it was good enough, and at that time Michelle was still pregnant and they didn't know they were two babies yet.

Blaine is always very thoughtful and precise when it's about his kids. Even though he is picky and demanding and he's there for every teachers-parents meeting wanting to know everything about programs and educational methods employed for every class, he is also the most charming creature who ever walked the face of Earth, so obviously all the female teachers love him anyway and they add to the the long list of women Leo started hating because they hit on his obviously gay husband. One of them pops out of a class as soon as Leo parks the stroller inside the building and starts to free a bouncing Logan from his seat.

“Look who's here!” The woman greets them with an high-pitched voice that makes both twins turn at the same time. “We were waiting for you two.”

Leo gives the woman a polite little smile. “We're a little late,” he says apologetically. “We didn't sleep too much last night, so this morning we're a little grumpy. Actually, I think Logan will want to sleep.”

She grabs the little boy's hand as he rubs at his eyes. “What happened? Did you have a bad dream?”
Logan shakes his head. But he shakes his head to everything, so it's not really an answer.

Leo undresses Harper too and sticks the babies' coats and hats in the now empty stroller. “I guess he misses his father,” he explains. “He doesn't really like not having him around too much.”

“Oh, and where is mister Anderson?” She asks, predictably. “Everything is fine, I hope.”

Leo almost wants to laugh at her sorry face. “He's in New York,” he explains. “Working.”

The teacher's face lights up. “Oh, a new play? I saw him a couple of years ago on Broadway, at the Winter Garden Theater. My brother bought me the tickets for my birthday! I can't wait to see him performing again. He was just brilliant!”

That's what she always says every time she sees him. “Right now he's being one of the judges at a show choir invitational. But he's been auditioning for the past two months, and he is going to star in a new project starting in March, so...”

“That's amazing. And is he going to be in New York, then?”

God, he hopes not. “We don't know yet,” he smiles, nodding as he wishes she would take his twins and leave him alone, already. He sighs and then bends down to hug his kids. “Don't you wanna kiss me before I go? I'll pick you up at five, after your nap. Okay?”

They both nod and kiss him. Leo waits for them to be inside their class because he knows Logan will turn around when they reach the door because he needs to know he is still there to feel that it's safe to enter. Leo waves at him and smiles.
At least now he can go back home and get to work.

*

At the end of the day, Leo always feels tired, no matter how much time he has spent sitting.

People who thinks you don't really work when you stay home without being an housewife, don't really know what they are talking about. With Blaine gone and the kids to take care of, Leo has dropped behind with the book he is writing. His editor Mark has left him messages after messages wherever it was possible and Leo has purposely avoided every and each one of them, until the amount of pages he had to write was way too huge for the amount of time he had got left.

Today he has managed to write and do everything he had to and he feels pretty happy with himself. He has worked seven hours straight, picked up the kids from the day care, gave them their snack and played with them. Now, when he hits the send button, sending Mark the new material, he knows the day has finally ended. From now to the moment he will go to sleep, he can do whatever he wants and not feel guilty about it.

He feels like he needs some kind of reward and since the twins are playing quietly in their playpen for once, he thinks he can let himself have one. He takes his phone and dials Blaine's number, tapping on the changing table in the twins' room while he waits for Blaine to pick up the phone.

“I was wondering why you hadn't called me yet,” Blaine chuckles. “I was going to worry in a minute or so.”

“Why in a minute?” Leo sits on the floor. The twins comes to the playpen's fence and grabs the bars like a couple of monkeys, so he starts to push their noses to entertain them.

“Because it's 7.59 in the evening. You have usually already called by eight o'clock because the kids needs to have their dinner but you don't want to feed them unless I boost you up a little bit. So, if you don't call by eight o'clock, I start worrying whether you're dead or you ran away with your eighteen years old lover, leaving them to starve.”

“I didn't know I had an eighteen years old lover. What does he looks like?”

“He is tall, blond with beautiful aquamarine eyes and a perfect body. There is an athletic scholarship waiting for him at the end of his senior year,” Blaine answers right away, as if he had been going over this story in his head for the past three hours, which is kind of what he did actually.

Leo chuckles. “You know Adam is not eighteen anymore, right?” He says. “That scholarship did really get him through college, but that's it. Now he is working and married with a beautiful woman called Annie.”

“The mere fact that you instantly thought about Adam after hearing just the words tall, blond and aquamarine eyes should make both of us thinking. I could have been talking about anyone in the world.”

“But you weren't,” Leo says, smiling. Harper gives him one of her little toy animal. He takes it, thanks her and playfully bites at her chubby hand. She starts bouncing enthusiastically and takes back her hand to hide it behind her back, giggling.

“Was that Harper?” Blaine asks.

“Yes, she does that every time I kiss her hand or bite at it,” Leo says. “She's such a princess.”

Blaine makes a little delightful sound. “I miss them so much! What are they doing right now?”

“Logan is playing with his building blocks and Harper's speaking with her plastic animals. She's having a speech or something, but she's very into it. Like, maybe it's election day in her mind's kingdom and she is about to be elected queen of animals land for want of herself.”

Blaine chuckles with affection. “Oh God, how much I miss you too.”
“Because apparently I've just found the plot of my new children book by looking at our daughter just being a one year old baby girl?” He asks.

“Yes, that and the fact that I can picture your face while you are looking at her and you are beautiful,” Blaine answers.

Leo smiles at himself, happy beyond measure. “Listen to yourself being all emotional after five years of marriage and more than twenty of being together. You should have got bored of me already.”

“I can't do that. The more I grow old, the more I cling to my things and you are one of them, so I'll go on being very emotional and sappy for a little longer, if you don't mind,” Blaine says, playfully serious.

“I don't. Please, go ahead.”

“I might have called just for that, actually.”

Leo looks over to the twins who got bored of listening to him speaking nonsense to the phone and are now playing together, stealing things from each other and being mad for that. “I don't think we have time to cuddle right now. The babies haven't eaten yet and soon they will be asking for food from me. As much as I'd like to be nasty with you over the phone, I have some pap to make.”

“I don't know how you and pap in the same sentence can be so sexy,” Blaine comments. “Maybe because I could lick it off from you? I don't know, anyway unfortunately I called for something else.”

“You did? What's up?”

“I don't know if you saw the news on TV but I guess you didn't. There's a freaking snowstorm here in New York. They're shutting down the airports one by one. JFK closed one hour ago and my flight got canceled. I'm calling you from the taxi, I'm heading to Long Island to see if I can catch I flight there but I don't really think I will be able to. Everybody is doing the same thing right now.”

“So you won't be home tonight?”

“I'm sorry kid. There's not much I can do,” Blaine says. “I'd take the train but railroads are in even worse conditions.”

Leo stays silent for the longest moment. He knows it's not Blaine's fault if it's snowing in New York and he can't really blame him for that, but he has been alone for a week now and he knew Blaine was coming home today, so now he's bummed out. “Kid?” Blaine calls.

“Yes, I am here.”

“Listen, it's probably just this one night,” Blaine says, trying to reassure him and most of all to distract him from the fact he won't be there. “There's nothing to worry about. The storm will be over soon. I expect to be able to take the first flight tomorrow morning. I could even be home by breakfast time.”

Leo sighs. “Alright. Where are you staying tonight?”

“I'll sleep at the airport, if it stays open or I'll take a room somewhere nearby,” he answers. “You're in charge of the house and the herd for one more night.”

“You know I'd rather not.”

Blaine chuckles. “I know, but you'll be fine and I'll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

Leo smiles and kisses him through the phone. “I love you too.”

As he closes the phone call, Timmy enters the room, munching to some chips. The kid is always eating something. “I just saw the news,” he says, while his little brother's eyes light up seeing crunchy food. “New York's under a storm or something. Wait. Did you speak with dad and he's not coming back tonight?”
Leo raises an eyebrow. “How did you know? I thought you were downstairs.”

“I was. But you've got your oh-no-Blaine-is-not-home-I'm-gonna-run-out-of-breath-if-I-don't-draw-air-from-his-lips-in-the-next-couple-of-minutes tragic face, so it's easy to make out what happened.”

Leo blushes and throws a pillow at him. “Shut up and show a little respect. We're your fathers!” He says, while the twins laugh excited because suddenly everybody is in their room.

“And you are sappier than two seventeen years old kids!” Timmy answers. He is pretending to be still mad because of this morning's almost argument but he's not. Unlike Leo, Timmy can't hold grudges, especially for stupid things. “So, when is he coming back?”

Leo shrugs. “He doesn't know. He hopes to take a flight tomorrow morning.”

“I see,” Timmy nods. He falls silent for a moment and then coughs. “I know I've already asked this to you a bunch of time but didn't you find by any chance–“ His hat hits him in the face.

“It was in your room, on your desk behind a pile of books,” Leo explains, standing up and cleaning his hands on his pants. “My sister would have killed you if it had gone lost, right?”

It's Timmy's turn to blush. “She can be pretty mean about things like that, yes.”

Leo picks Logan from the playpen. “C'mon, get your sister out of there. I'll make them dinner and we can order pizza for us.”

Timmy shamelessly cheers and picks up Harper who instantly hugs him and starts telling him her day in her strange incomprehensible language.

*

Blaine tries to drag his suitcase inside the house as quietly as he can. Lights are off and he's having problems locating pieces of furniture around the living room. He's pretty sure he knocked out a vase somewhere in the hall. What he's not sure about is why they had it in the first place.

The snowstorm has subsided around two o'clock in the morning and the cutest Irish flight attendant behind the desk of the domestic flights has managed to find a first-class seat for him on the New York – Cleveland flight leaving ten minutes later. Only when he has reached Cleveland at 3:30 he has realized Leo had driven him to the airport and therefore there was no car waiting for him in the Cleveland Airport's parking lot. Luckily, the car rental was still open and he has managed to get a BMW to get back to Lima. He has probably risked a car accident or two because he can't keep his eyes open, but at least he is at home now.

After a ten minute struggle with his suitcase stuck between the couch and the stupid coffee table, he decides to leave it there and go upstairs. Every damn step of the stairs has a squeaky toy left on it and every time he steps on one of them, it seems like he's playing the drums or something. Luckily, in this house everybody but him is a sound sleeper. He doesn't want to know how messy the house is right now, given that he left it in Leo's hands.

He opens the door of their room with a sigh of relief. The past three hours of the trip have compensated the absolute slacking of this whole week. Being a judge has been fun but not demanding at all. He has been there a week and only worked during evening shows, while he was free to do whatever he wanted during the day, which he has used to rehearse and buy presents for his family. Deciding the winners on the final night has been hard because there were a lot of good choirs, but in the end they have chosen one from Iowa that had really nailed it every single night. The other judges were nice too, except for an awfully prejudiced woman who basically was against everything and everyone from black singers to gay performers to skirts too short.

Blaine has ended up calling her a frigid uptight hag, and that was it. Luckily a decision had been already taken at that point.

He starts to undress and looks blindly for a chair to put his jacket on. He can barely see the bed and Leo's sleeping form in it. He sleeps on one side, his hand under his head as he faces the bathroom's door, snoring softly. He can't really make out Leo's outline, but he doesn't need to. He knows his body by heart and he can fill in what shadow hides with his memory. It's when he gets closer that he notices Leo is not alone in their bed.

Two little bundles, lovingly hugging each other, are sleeping right next to him. Logan holds his teddy bear and Harper is holding her father by his t-shirt. Leo has an arm on both of them and lies still as he only does when the twins are in there with him. Apparently, since he is supposed to be in New York right now, there is no place for him in this bed. So typical of Leo sleeping with boys and girls while he's not around! He chuckles and then bends to leave a kiss on his husband's forehead before heading to the guest room which luckily is big and accessorized well enough to be highly comfortable almost as much as his own.

*

What happens the morning after is that the door bursts open and Leo comes running in. He jumps on the bed, screaming in happiness. Blaine wakes up at the sound of him asking questions one after the other without even waiting for an answer. To give himself a little time to wake up properly, he hugs Leo and rolls, trapping him between his body and the mattress. Then he shuts him up with a kiss.

Leo instantly loses himself in it and relaxes in his arms, forgetting all the things he wanted to know one minute before.

They never talk much when Blaine comes back after being away for more than one day. Whatever thing they'd like to know from each other is put aside to kiss, touch and look one another in the eyes to make sure what they remembered was real and accurate. They fool around for a while, the need for real cuddles even stronger than the one for sex. Blaine's hand slips under Leo's t-shirt once or twice, teasing his navel and promising there will be more later but never really touching under the belt. Leo moans into his kisses, happy with just them right now because doing without them for a week has been particularly hard.

By the time they are ready to talk and Leo's brain is clear and content enough to repeat every single question he has just asked entering, the rest of their family comes by and the peace is over.
“Is it safe to come in?” Timmy asks, knocking. “I bear minors with me.”

Blaine chuckles. “We are snuggling but fully dressed. You can come in.”

Timmy opens the door and tentatively looks inside. His parents are hugging on the bed and Leo has his face buried in his dad's neck as per usual, but luckily they can be looked at. Logan comes running into the room, screaming and making a mess as he tries to climb the bed. Timmy helps him out and then leaves Harper on the bed too, sitting down himself.

The twins crawls over their parents and basically assault them both, trying to get their attention. Blaine takes one in his arms and lets the other walk all over him. He is never happy as he is when everybody he loves is in the same room. Harper starts calling him “Daddy, daddy, daddy” until he stops showering Logan with kisses and looks at her. “What is it, princess?” and then she hugs him and kisses him first, so he lets out a blissful noise. That's when he rolls over and hugs them both, making them laugh crazily.

“If you weren't so tall already, I would snuggle you like this too,” Blaine says, looking at his older son with affection. He really would, actually. He reaches out and pulls him to himself, leaving a kiss on his head. “Come here. How did things go while I was away?”

Timmy shrugs. “Fine. I mean, dad was lost without you but...”

“Shut up,” Leo smiles against his husband's neck and covers Timmy's mouth with one hand, playfully.

“Did he listen to all those old sad songs?”

“Of course he did,” Timmy nods.

“Shut up!” Leo yells again, hiding his face even more.

“And he watched The time traveler’s wife,” Timmy says as Leo whines in shame. “Twice.”

“Leo, that's really bad. But I know you can't live without me so that doesn't even come as a surprise,” he kisses his forehead chuckling. “So, now that I'm here, how can I make up for my absence?”

“I can't answer. Your kids are here,” Leo says.

“Too much information,” Timmy snorts. And Blaine chuckles.

“Okay, something else? Something we can actually do all together without being arrested or something?” He asks again. But he is already standing, toddlers clinging to him like little koalas. He looks at the garden through the window. It's all white, completely untouched.

“I think I remember we had a snowballs fight on before you left,” Timmy says, joining him.

Blaine smiles. “You're right.”

Blaine manages to get the twins ready in ten minutes and after five more he is already out, throwing snowballs at his older son as he teaches the twins how to make a snowman. Logan keeps slipping and falling head on in the snow but he doesn't cry because, every time it happens, his father starts laughing as it were something funny before Logan can't even realize what happened, so he ends up finding it funny too.

Leo watches the four of them through the window as he slowly gets ready too.
He used to get so annoyed when someone didn't let them have their privacy, but now he sees Blaine playing in the snow with their children and can't help but smile.
A snowball hits the window and he sighs. “I'm coming,” he says.

“You will in due time,” Blaine smirks.

It's just good to know that as much as everything else has changed, the important things are still the same.