The days he spent with the boy from the staircase (his name was Kurt) were, well, Blaine wasn't sure quite how to define it. All he knew was that he felt happy. But it was the kind of free happiness that he hadn't felt since he was a child. The kind that he'd felt when he ran through the rain in his yellow gumboots and felt it falling on his face like a gift from the stars. Kurt was younger than Blaine by a few months, but Blaine had been hiding in his bedroom most of his life and so he felt that the other boy was wiser than he was. Most of the time they spoke about things that were gloriously irrelevant, but whenever Kurt spoke about himself Blaine always remembered to listen extra carefully. He wanted to make a map in his mind. Kurt was energetic and confident and beautiful and he made Blaine feel like a dork. He would stumble on his words and say the wrong thing and sometimes his sentences just came out in the wrong order. But he didn't have to curse at himself in his head or ram his fist into his thigh or pinch himself like he normally did when he said the wrong thing because Kurt would laugh it off. He would just laugh and the smile and look at Blaine with his starlit eyes and Blaine would just crawl inside them instead. He felt safe from everyone there, including himself.

When Kurt had told him about moving schools, Blaine had never been so angry with himself. He was so fucking happy about it. He danced around his room and he sang and he smiled. Kurt was leaving everything he knew, being forced out of familiarity by hate and fear and violence and Blaine was thrilled about it. Blaine thought about the blade he kept in his glasses case, but whisked the image away from himself. This wasn't about him, this was about Kurt. And Blaine was going to work on himself, make himself better. Blaine was going to become completely perfect and then he could have this boy for his own. Pavarotti flew around his cage frantically and sang at Blaine with an expectant look on his face. Blaine was going to write a song and the song was going
to be perfect.

It seemed almost natural that the two of them would become friends once Kurt arrived at Dalton, although some people found it strange considering Blaine hadn't become proper friends with anyone else before. His classmates at Dalton had the utmost respect for him (the Warblers were sure to win now), no one could really figure him out. Wes and David felt sorry for him, the people at their old school hadn't been too happy about their relationship either. Blaine was the only person they'd told about that, actually, there was something about him that made them feel safe and want to open up. They knew he wouldn't pass it on. So Blaine generally just tagged along with them, but he couldn't really talk to them the same way he could talk to Kurt and they didn't make him feel the same way. When Blaine had handed Pavarotti over to the newest Warbler, he felt like he was giving a part of himself away. The scariest thing was that he didn't care. It felt right, actually, like perfect timing. Pavarotti seemed happy enough about it too, flying in excited circles and chirping in a carefree way.

Blaine had used up a whole box of Disney band aids in the week he had been writing the song for Kurt, but he had got it almost down to perfection. Somewhere he had found the courage to go straight up to the boy and talk to him straight out, clutching his guitar in his sore hands.

"I wrote a song for you." He said, like it was no big deal. "It's called Yellow."

Blaine didn't know what he'd expected from this, but what he received had been… a shock. The boy who he'd been obsessing over, dreaming about, fantasising about had just leaned down onto him like it was the easiest thing in the world and kissed him. Blaine could feel himself being fixed as the younger boy wound his curls around his fingers and ran his tongue over Blaine's lower lip. It was impossible to say anything afterwards, he felt as if he had lost all powers of speech, but he was smiling. Kurt smiled too and held his hand gently. He stroked the cuts on Blaine's hand slowly and carefully and looked him in the eyes with a knowing look. Blaine wondered if he could have been any less subtle, but he giggled and rolled his eyes at himself- a decent step up from punishment. Pavarotti flapped his wings and chirped contentedly before closing his eyes and curling up in the middle of the cage and drifting to sleep.