The next day Blaine is sitting at the piano, going over some of the compositions with the other members of the orchestra when he sees Kurt walk in. He excuses himself and walks over, seeing Kurt glance over but carrying on walking so he calls out. “Kurt? A word?”

Kurt flinches slightly and carries on walking up onto the stage and over to the other actors replying curtly. “Not now Blaine.”

Blaine’s mouth drops slightly and he goes back to the pit, sitting back down and playing with the keys idly, his mind no longer on the songs.

Kurt and the others go over their lines, playing around with the scenes and comparing thoughts and ideas. Rachel makes a good Christian, or Dulcie, to his Kass but some of the more masculine scenes that would make no sense with the switched roles are unworkable in the new show and either need to be changed or written out. Santana giggles as she exerts as Toulouse, flapping her arms wildly as the almost constantly drunk dwarf bohemian leader.

Kurt shimmies around the stage, swinging his hips and plays with the prop swing that had been set up before rehearsal. Blaine watches, fascinated and remembers all the times Kurt and he danced and that Valentine’s Day when they danced and sang together as Kurt makes the face he did that night.

“Oh Kuuurt!” Christophe sings and the company turns around, Kurt bouncing on his toes excitedly as the director rounds the corner with a suit bag in his arms.

Kurt bounces excitedly and squeals. Ever since he’d been shown the sketches of Kass’ clothing by wardrobe he’d been waiting impatiently to see the various suits, leotard and tight ensembles and casual, if lavish, attire for the ‘spending time with Dulcie’ scenes as the characters carried on a torrid affair. “Is that it? Is that it?”

Christophe nods and hands Kurt the bags to him and waves his hand towards the dressing room. “It is indeed my little blackbird, go and try the suit on so we can see how it works with the swing. Go on.”

Kurt rushes back towards the dressing rooms and Blaine thinks he catches a glimpse of triumph in the older man’s eyes for a second before he turns to Rachel and starts talking about the entrance scene.

Kurt comes out a few minutes later in a dazzling suit that catches the light, almost blinding as the millions of tiny crystals gleam under the theatre lights.

“Beautiful!” Christophe shouts and Kurt preens, twisting to look at and show off the gorgeous suit.

He hops onto the swing and Blaine’s mouth drops open. He looks like the embodiment of a fallen angel.

“Music!” Christophe shouts as the swing goes up a little for Kurt’s number and Blaine snaps out of his trance and sits down, looking at the sheet music for the now named ‘Diamonds are a boy’s best friend’. They start up and Kurt starts singing, his countertenor voice filling the theatre and sending chills up Blaine’s spine.

At the end of the song Christophe praises Kurt and Rachel and lets Kurt go back to change out of the suit. When he comes back Blaine grabs his arm and Kurt raises his eyebrow. “Why did he call you blackbird? Did you tell him about us?”

Kurt takes his arm back and shakes his head, replying quietly. “Kass’ name means black bird. I didn’t tell him about us, Santana did. She told Christophe about me singing Blackbird at Dalton and you realizing you loved me then when I asked him last night about you getting the job I told him who you are.”

Blaine nods and runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. Sorry about freaking out, it’s not something I thought would happen. I think as we’re working together we should get along. Would you like to grab a coffee or something on a day off or something?”

Kurt thinks about saying no and keeping his promise to Christophe about maintaining a strictly working relationship between them but the hope in Blaine’s eyes remind him of two teens standing in a hallway years ago in Ohio and a red box with a gum wrapper ring which lies dusty and hidden in his memories box along with a broken sceptre and a book of pictures. He glances up and sees Rachel watching them with the same look of excitement she had last night and he can’t say no. “Sure. Sounds good. I think we’ve got Thursday off; we’ll sort something out, okay? I have to get back.” He smiles and climbs back onstage to where Christophe is talking about the Elephant Love Medley.

Blaine grins and sits back down, ready for the next time he’s needed and thinks about Thursday, 2 days away.

Hours later Kurt is swinging on the bedazzled swing as Christophe, the writers and  stage manager are talking about how to deal with some of the scene changes and elaborate settings and suddenly feels dizzy and short of breath. He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths until it passes. He smiles down at Christophe who looks up at him as he gestures to him and the swing, never noticing the worried brown eyes watching him from behind her script scrawled with pink doodles and highlighted in fuchsia.

“I think we should make the Duke male.” Christophe says as he and the writers brainstorm. Kurt looks up and he looks worriedly at Rachel.

“I thought you were changing that? So we’re having a female Christian and keeping a male Duke?” Kurt asks, his brows knitted in confusion.

Christophe nods and gestures vaguely across the theatre. “I think it would make it more interesting and we can’t change the Duke’s parts without just doing away with him, so we’ll make Kass bisexual. It’ll be scandalous.” He grins at the writers and they chat quietly about how to do it and Kurt snorts, his view of bisexuality is that it doesn’t exist and remembers his argument so long ago with Blaine after he kissed Rachel.

He leans over the stage, bored and watches Blaine practicing with the other musicians. A mischievous smile crosses his face and he whispers. “A above middle C.” He sits back up and hears quiet chuckles from the pit and can’t stop the grin that splits his face.