If Blaine had known a few weeks back that he would have spent hours in his room with a boy he knew both everything and nothing about, he certainly wouldn't have believe them. In fact, he probably would've been angry with them and he would've been upset. And yet here he was. It had only been a few weeks since they had first caught each other's eyes on that staircase, but Blaine felt as though they were practically one person by now. Kurt was the only who knew all this secrets and the other boy had told him a few of his own too. They'd cried together, laughed together, practically spent every single minute of the day together since they had first met but Blaine had still felt like he wanted more. There was a need in him that had been unsatisfied like he was still empty in places. But not anymore, not that morning. That morning the room was warm and the air was thick and salty with a musky smell, just like the kind of dream that you never wanted to wake up from. But he was awake, and everything was still here. How had he possibly gotten this lucky?

Kurt groaned in awakening and instinctively sat up, taking in his surroundings. Blaine caught his face in his hand and brushed a thumb across his cheek.

"Morning," he whispered, not wanting to startle the sleepy boy beside him. Kurt wiped his eyes and lay back down, not replying. Blaine felt awkward and lay back down himself looking across and taking in the beauty that lay before him.

"Blaine…" Kurt sighed. "What…" The boy scrambled to get up, wrapping a dark blue sheet around him, contrasting with his white skin. "I have to go, okay?" And suddenly it was like he was never there. Blaine clung to the pillow that the boy had slept on and let tears fall from his eyes. He took out a blade and drew a clean line down his wrist, watching droplets of blood form. He let out a sigh. He wasn't supposed to do this stuff anymore, but it wasn't as if he didn't deserve it. This was obviously his fault, he must have done something wrong. Maybe just existing was the thing he'd done though, it certainly felt that way. Blaine was too distraught to notice the rattling in Pavarotti's cage.

The two boys didn't talk the whole of the next day, Blaine hadn't seen Kurt anywhere. He knew he was being avoided, and he felt a physical pain because of it. He briefly wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack over something like this because the kind of squeezing in his chest was a pain worse than he'd ever felt before, even with all those years being pushed around. He returned to his room exhausted, even though he had done nothing all day and lay down on the unmade bed which still smelled faintly of the boy he'd spent the night with. His eyes were stinging and his vision was blurred and, after years of being alone, the loneliness suddenly struck Blaine luck a spear in his heart. It was as if everything that had happened in the past had caught up to him and he just couldn't help himself. He cried for what seemed like forever with the covers over his head in the dark. He needed to get this boy back. He'd do anything, whatever it took. There was no way that he could let him go now.

Blaine checked on Pavarotti late that night, and saw that he was walking lop sided, and shivering with his head turned away. His feathers were ruffled and he made a soft cooing sound which sounded too much to Blaine like crying. On lifting the bird gently into his hands, Blaine discovered that he'd broken one of his delicate yellow wings. Blaine wasn't sure what to do, and he couldn't see properly from the tears forming in his eyes. Pavarotti rattled in his cage all night, as if he were trying to fly even with his broken wing. Eventually, as dawn began to show itself through Blaine's window with a ray of yellow sunlight, the rattling stopped and Pavarotti drifted to sleep.