Kurt saw a lot less of Blaine over the next few weeks. They talked regularly, but Blaine actually canceled Saturday brunch twice in a row and Kurt had to cancel the week after and since both of them were busy with course work and Blaine had a boyfriend now, they just didn't find a lot of time to hang out together anymore. Actually, Kurt had seen more of Ted over the course of those past few weeks than he had of Blaine. He and Ted were friends now – just friends. And, Kurt found, he did like Ted a lot. As a friend. It had been flattering to be asked out, to be kissed in public and to have someone look at him like he was special, but this much he had learned at least, you couldn't just make these things work. They happened or they didn't, but there was no point in forcing them and no point in pretending. Apparently, that wasn't his style. Figuring that out did finally make him feel a little more grown up, because at least now he knew what he expected from a relationship, or, more specifically, what he didn't want.

He didn't want casual, maybe-it-will-work-out-let's-just-try. He wanted all the magic, all the beauty of it and he wanted it to feel right, as na�ve as that might be. He wanted to know. The problem was, you didn't know unless you tried. So he went out on more dates. Not a lot – but there were guys, occasionally. It never really went anywhere, he never even asked any of them out again and turned them down when they asked him out again. But, at the very least, he was trying. He was putting himself out there, he was flirting and he had nights of 'dinner and a movie,' and if all of it turned out to be not what he wanted in the end, at least he couldn't blame himself that he hadn't tried. And, after all, that was what college was for, wasn't it?

It was late one Thursday night when Blaine called him, just when he was about to fall asleep on an essay he had been working on for the past two hours.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Blaine wanted to know.

Kurt rubbed his eyes, needing a while to sort out which day it was, his brain all foggy from studying and being tired. “I don't know. Nothing? Wait, tomorrow is Friday, right? Nope. Nothing.”

“Good,” Blaine said. “Movie night?”

Kurt yawned, rolling his shoulders that had cramped up from sitting at his desk for too long. “Sounds good. No plans with Luke on a Friday night?”

“His parents are coming to visit this weekend and he has to do stuff with them tomorrow. So, I'm all yours, if you don't have other plans.”

Kurt smiled. “That does sound good. And I don't have plans. Also, wait, am I your fall-back plan now?”

Blaine laughed. “Kurt, I'm much too afraid of you to ever treat you like a fall-back plan.”

“Very wise of you.”

“I just really want to see you. I miss you. We haven't done anything together in ages.”

Kurt sighed. “I know. I miss you, too.” And, dammit, he did. Of course he had to find himself a best friend in New York who went to a different school. And not only that, he had to find himself a best friend who made friends with everyone he talked to for more than two minutes and lived in a dorm, where you usually ended up talking to everyone sooner or later. All the people in Kurt's building were elderly people or shop assistants. He knew a few of them by name, but he would never hang out with them. Not that he didn't have friends – his social life was quite busy. But Blaine definitely had a slight advantage over him there. “So, your place? My place?”

“Your place?” Blaine suggested. “I mean, if your roommates have other plans, you can come over. But the room down the hall is throwing some kind of a party and from what I heard, they plan on getting very drunk. I'm not sure we'd actually hear the TV over all of that.”

“I'll lock Jesse and Rachel in their rooms,” Kurt offered. “We'll have the living room to ourselves.”

“Won't we still hear them yell at us?” Blaine asked.

Kurt rolled his eyes. “That's why we tie them up and gag them, Blaine. Trust me, I have it all worked out.”

“Of course you have,” Blaine agreed. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“Looking forward to it.”

Kurt ended the call and with a sigh turned back to his essay. It had to be done by tomorrow, so he'd better get back to work. He quickly read over the last few paragraphs he'd written to get back into it, when the first chords of “Razzle Dazzle” started sounding from the living room, Jesse belting out the lyrics like his life depended on it.

“Shut. Up. Jesse,” Kurt bellowed, slapping his hands over his ears. Working in this apartment really wasn't the easiest of tasks sometimes.

**

His last class on Friday ended around noon and he only needed to make a quick trip to the library after that before he could go home. He had no idea whether or not Blaine was available for brunch on Saturday and he had already made plans with Ted and a few other people to see a play on Sunday, so he decided to get some of his assignments out of the way before Blaine came over. He would be here at eight, so that left him about six hours of uninterrupted studying, provided Jesse and Rachel weren't home.

Blaine was at his door twenty minutes early and with a year's supply of pizza and a lot of food with a lot of sugar in it and Kurt felt like they were hugging for a good five minutes before he felt able to let go. They hadn't seen each other in two weeks and their phone calls had been shorter than either of them had liked and it just felt so good to be spending time together again.

“You always bring food when you come over,” Kurt noticed. “I would feed you, you know. I would never let you starve.”

“It's the polite thing to do, isn't it?” Blaine asked. “Whenever my parents had guests over, they usually brought a bottle of wine or something. I can't buy wine, so I'm bringing you food in exchange for your hospitality.”

“You are weird,” Kurt told him, nothing but affection in his voice.

“And you love it,” Blaine said confidently, giving him his widest smile.

“So, movie and pizza?” Kurt asked. “We actually have the apartment to ourselves. Which means we can watch musicals and sing along without Jesse storming out of his room to prove that he can do it better.”

“Or we could just talk,” Blaine suggested. “I haven't seen you in forever and your text messages are more than cryptic most of the time. I would really like to hear what you've been up to lately.”

“My text messages are not cryptic,” Kurt disagreed. “They are deep and witty.”

“You suck at texting.”

“At least I don't text you random comments about other people's dogs,” Kurt reminded him.

“That was one time,” Blaine said. “And it's called being communicative.”

“No.” Kurt laughed. “I think it's just called being Blaine.”

They settled on the couch, each on one end, and Blaine grabbed a slice of pizza while Kurt just watched him. “I really missed this. Hanging out with you,” he confessed, and the very fact that it felt a little uncomfortable to admit this so openly was a reminder of how little they had seen each other lately.

“I miss it, too,” Blaine said. “I guess I've been a pretty bad friend lately, haven't I? I've canceled all those Saturdays...”

“You canceled twice,” Kurt interrupted. “And it's no big deal. You have Luke and you have all the people in your dorm and your classes... and I've been busy, too. Just...”

“We should definitely try to do Saturday brunch more often again,” Blaine said, smiling at Kurt so openly it made him warm all the way down to his toes. “It's our thing.”

“Yes, but if you have plans with Luke...”

Blaine dismissed the argument with a wave of his hand. “I can hang out with him any time. He'll just have to understand. You were there first.”

“So, everything going okay with you guys?” Kurt asked.

Blaine nodded. “I think so, yes. How about you? Met anyone yet?”

Kurt sighed. “Not really. Dating is a little more exhausting than I had expected. But I'm not giving up. I haven't even been here a year.”

Blaine smiled at him. “It will happen, I'm sure of it. Just give it time.”

“Let's talk about something else, okay?” Kurt suggested. He didn't really want to waste his precious time with Blaine talking about dates gone wrong.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Blaine asked.

Kurt shrugged. It didn't really matter to him all that much what they talked about, as long as they could just spend time together. “How are your classes?”

“Really, Kurt?” Blaine laughed. “That's what you come up with?”

“School is a big part of your life right now,” Kurt replied, grinning. “I just want to know what you've been up to.”

Blaine sighed. “This is the weekend and I will already have to spend most of tomorrow studying, so please, just let me forget it all for one night.”

“All right, all right, just forget I ever asked,” Kurt said. “So, no talking about school tonight, and no talking about dating either. The ground rules are all set up.”

“Where are Rachel and Jesse, anyway?” Blaine wanted to know.

“Rachel has a rehearsal and Jesse... honestly, I have no idea. Didn't ask. I was too glad when he finally left, I didn't really feel like detaining him with unnecessary questions.” Kurt shrugged.

“That was probably a really smart idea,” Blaine agreed.

“Oh, hey, did I tell you Jesse actually wants to cast me in the musical he wrote?”

Blaine shook his head. “No. Are you going to do it? I mean, I know it's Jesse and all that, but...”

“I'm not sure,” Kurt confessed. “Apparently he wrote the part with me in mind, which is uncharacteristically nice of him, but... yeah, well. It is Jesse. It just would be nice to be performing somewhere outside of school, you know?”

Blaine thought about it for a moment. “How big are the chances of this actually happening, then? Is he really going to put it on? This musical?”

Kurt nodded. “It's going to be small, but it looks like he's actually going to go through with it. I mean, there's still so much than could go wrong – nothing's really out of the planning stages yet. But you know Jesse, he's nothing if not determined. He's the star, of course. Playing the lead and singing half of the songs. I would have, like, one and a half songs and be on stage for about ten minutes altogether, but on the other hand it's on a real stage with real people in the audience and they will actually have to buy tickets to see it – it does sound awfully tempting. And it would be amazing for me if it did work out. My first real part in a real musical.” He had thought about this a lot and as much as he mistrusted Jesse in general, this seemed like too much of an opportunity to just let it go. Even if it would mean spending more time with Mr. St. James, most annoying of roommates. Still, the fact that he'd thought of Kurt writing that musical... it made it almost impossible to really be too annoyed with him.

“I think you should do it,” Blaine said. “Unless you really don't want to. But even if the part is small and the whole project is all Jesse, it will be something to put on your resume.”

“I guess so,” Kurt answered, leaning back against the armrest. “I just don't want to get my hopes up too much in case it falls through in the end.”

“I still think you should do it,” Blaine encouraged him. “Maybe it will not work out, but at least then you can't say you haven't tried. Plus, you're right, if Jesse actually gets this off the ground, it would be such a great thing for you.”

“That's what I've been telling myself all week,” Kurt admitted. “I don't really see any reason not to, I just...” he grinned at Blaine, blushing slightly. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about it first. It's kind of embarrassing that I need your help making decisions like this, but living with Jesse all the time... I'm always a little afraid I'll go insane one day and start making all the wrong choices. I needed a sane outsider's perspective on this.”

Blaine grinned back at him. “You're welcome, in that case. And I'll be there every night, if you need me, to keep you and Jesse from killing each other.”

Kurt laughed. “That's very sweet of you, thanks. But I'll be perfectly happy if you just come to one of the performances.”

“I wouldn't miss it,” Blaine assured him. “I'm actually really excited about this now. You'll be famous in no time and I'll have a best friend who can introduce me to all of my childhood idols.”

Kurt kicked his leg playfully with a sock-clad foot. “Shut up. And who says I'll still be friends with you once I'm famous?”

Blaine pouted. “You'll just forget about me, then?”

“Of course I will,” Kurt informed him, deciding to live a little tonight and have a slice of pizza as well. Since he had to pay for his food himself he had found out that living healthy could be quite expensive a lot of the time and he was seriously hungry after studying all day. “I'll have so many exciting people to hang out with.”

“Yes, but will they bring you pizza and keep you from committing murder?” Blaine asked. “Think about that.”

Kurt pretended to think about it for a minute before looking back at Blaine. “Fine,” he agreed finally. “Even though I know you're really just after free tickets to all the shows. But I guess I'm kind of stuck with you.”

“You totally are,” Blaine said, nodding enthusiastically. “Should have thought about that before you sat next to me on that plane from Ohio.”

Kurt held up a hand while swallowing a bite of pizza. “Hang on,” he finally said. “That was all Rachel's doing. I didn't even want to sit next to you.”

“New York wouldn't be the same for me if you hadn't, though,” Blaine admitted, giving him that smile that always made his skin tingle pleasantly.

“You really are weird sometimes,” he laughed, kicking Blaine's leg again.

They just kept talking after that, only popping in a movie when they started getting a little tired after a long week and an evening of catching up.

Ten minutes into the movie Blaine simply put his head on Kurt's shoulder like he had done so many times before and Kurt rested his own head against his without really thinking about it. Blaine sighed contentedly and shifted on the couch so they were pressed closer together.

“This is nice,” he said.

Kurt grabbed the blanket from the armrest and draped it over the both of them while they continued watching TV. The question of whether or not this was a normal thing to do with 'just a friend' was fleeting and gone in a second as he reminded himself that he'd sat in a similar position with Rachel so many times by now and with Blaine, too, for that matter, before they had gone for weeks without seeing each other. And it felt nice, with his body being all warm and heavy with tiredness.

“I could fall asleep like this,” Blaine admitted, the words already coming out a little slurred.

“Me too,” Kurt yawned, closing his eyes for just a second. He'd had so much class work, so many late night study groups, he was feeling a bit exhausted now. But having Blaine here was worth all of it, he thought. He had really wanted to see him tonight. What was the use of having a best friend when you couldn't see each other?

“Should go home,” Blaine mumbled into his shoulder. “'s late.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agreed, not even opening his eyes again. “Call me when you get home.”

“'kay,” was the last thing he heard Blaine say before both of them fell asleep.

**

The first thing Kurt noticed when he woke up was that he couldn't really move. He seemed to be in a rather tight space and something was around his waist, something warm and a little heavy. Also, that warmth against his chest, that was... Blinking his eyes open, he was met with the sight of dark curls pressed against his neck and oh, that warm and heavy thing around his waist was actually an arm. He was pinned against the back of the couch, Blaine pressed tight against his front and obviously still very much asleep. And also, kind of cuddling with him.

Well, that was... new. They had never actually fallen asleep together like this. Kurt imagined they must have shifted to this position sometime during the night, which immediately made him think all other kinds of questions, all really not the most important in this unusual situation he found himself in, but he couldn't help but wonder.

Since the last thing he remembered was sitting – sitting – in front of the TV and Blaine saying he had to go home... had Blaine changed his mind about the going home and arranged them in this position? Was it just a position people who fell asleep upright inevitably found themselves in sooner or later? Or was it a skill you acquired over time and Blaine had just had a lot of practice with his boyfriend and had subconsciously moved them to lie down on the couch after he'd fallen asleep?

Not that it was really important, he was just... wondering.

Until Blaine moved and actually snuggled even closer to him, murmuring something unintelligible but content-sounding in his sleep and Kurt was suddenly wide awake.

He should wake Blaine up, he thought. Leaning against each other and sharing a stupid blanket while watching TV was one thing. Waking up on a small couch practically tangled up in each other was... something else. Even for their strangely close friendship, this seemed like a bit much. At least, Kurt was pretty sure he would never wake up with Rachel or Mercedes in a position like this.

“Blaine,” he said, tapping his shoulder lightly and feeling a bit foolish. If he could have, he would just have got up and let Blaine sleep while making breakfast, and then he could have pretended that Blaine had spent the night alone on the couch while Kurt had been in the other room in his own bed that was really only a few feet away and that they hadn't woken up curled together on an impossibly small couch. But Blaine was practically clinging to him and there was no way he could get up without waking him first. He couldn't even move anything other than his arms.

“Blaine,” he tried again, tapping his shoulder again, and when that didn't work, tried shaking him lightly. “Blaine, wake up!”

“Mmm, morning,” Blaine mumbled and rubbed his face lightly against Kurt's chest.

“Blaine, wake up,” Kurt repeated. “Come on, this is getting kind of uncomfortable.” It wasn't, not really. Just... a little strange. Whatever it was, however, Kurt thought they really needed to get up now before it got even stranger.

“Where are we?” Blaine wanted to know, loosening his arm around Kurt's waist slightly and lifting his head, an adorably drowsy expression on his face and his hair sticking up in all directions.

“We kind of fell asleep on the couch,” Kurt told him. “And I can't get up if you don't move.”

“Then don't get up,” Blaine answered, lying back down. “You're all warm and I'm sleepy.”

“I really need to go to the bathroom,” Kurt lied, eager to get away before Blaine woke up fully and this could become seriously awkward.

“All right,” Blaine finally agreed, removing his arm and stretching lightly before moving himself into a sitting position. “We fell asleep on the couch,” he repeated Kurt's words, looking around. “Weren't we watching a movie?”

“That was last night,” Kurt told him, smiling against his will. “Good morning.”

“Oh.” Blaine rubbed a hand across his face and through his hair, messing it up even more. “Sorry?”

“For what?” Kurt asked, sitting up too and moving to the other end of the couch, thinking that it was probably appropriate to put a little space between them after apparently cuddling all night long.

“For falling asleep on you,” Blaine explained.

“Don't worry about it,” Kurt replied, getting up to go to the bathroom, because that's what he’d said he had to do just seconds before.

Blaine had moved to the kitchen and was making coffee by the time Kurt got back from the bathroom where he'd quickly brushed his teeth and fixed his hair.

“Um...” he started, clearing his throat, not sure how to proceed. “There's a spare toothbrush in the cabinet under the sink, if you want to...”

“Thanks. Yeah,” Blaine said, giving him a quick smile before slipping past him out of the kitchen.

Kurt leaned back against the counter as soon as Blaine was gone and rubbed his face with both hands. This was... awkward, but probably not as much as it could have been, he supposed. To his surprise, he found that he was feeling strangely calm about all of it. His shoulders were a bit tense from sleeping on the couch and he usually wouldn't be up this early on a Saturday morning, but otherwise he felt surprisingly well-rested. There was something about having a warm body curled around you all night that he definitely liked, even if that warm body was just that of a really close friend. He had never woken up with anyone before and he didn't really know what the protocol was for these kinds of situations. Considering that it was morning, however and Blaine was already making coffee...

“Pancakes or waffles?” he asked as Blaine returned, opening the kitchen cabinet.

“Pancakes,” Blaine decided, reaching around him and leaning up to get two cups from the shelf.

They moved around each other in the kitchen making breakfast in silence and there was something so uncomplicated and comfortable about all of it, Kurt couldn't really bring himself to bring up the fact that they had just woken up in a position that seemed a little inappropriate for just friends. Blaine didn't seem to want to talk about it either, apparently, so that was fine, then, wasn't it?

“I guess we'll just cancel brunch one more time today, after all,” he finally broke the silence as Blaine filled their coffee cups, taking the stack of pancakes he had just made over to the small kitchen table.

“I guess so,” Blaine agreed, smiling at him. “On the other hand, it's not really canceled, it's just earlier than usual.”

“And in my kitchen,” Kurt pointed out, “both of us wearing the same clothes we had on last night. This is definitely new.” And, there, now he had brought it up anyway.

Blaine, however, didn't seem very interested in talking about it. “Look on the bright side,” he told Kurt. “After we’ve had our coffee, we get to finish that movie we started last night before we fell asleep. Couldn't do that in a coffee shop.”

“It's not like you haven't seen 'Star!' a hundred times already,” Kurt reminded him. “So that means you haven't really missed anything.”

“I don't like it when I don't see the end of a movie,” Blaine admitted. “If you keep falling asleep half-way through, you'll eventually end up having seen the all the scenes of the first half twice as often as the second half. Doesn't seem fair, does it? I bet they worked on the last part just as hard and it deserves to be remembered just as much.”

Kurt actually had to laugh at that. “While you do have a point, only you could come up with something like that,” he said fondly. “But seriously, please don't tell me you always fall asleep during the first half of that movie. The second half is just as good, if not better. And the closing number, 'Jenny,' I mean, really Blaine...”

“Of course I don't always fall asleep,” Blaine said, taking a pancake. “It's just... that movie is really long. And I really like to sleep.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Kurt sighed, rolling his eyes at the amount of sugar Blaine put in his coffee.

“What?” Blaine asked, catching the half-disgusted look on Kurt's face. “It's early. It helps wake me up.”

“Whatever you say.” Kurt took a sip of his own coffee – no sugar – and leaned back in his chair. “Do you think we should only watch the second halves of movies from now on whenever we have a movie night, so that you can fall asleep during the first hour when you're alone without feeling bad about it?”

Blaine seemed to think about it for a moment. “I knew there was a reason I'm friends with you,” he said.