Suggesting Kurt stay the night at a whorehouse after having Schuester's hands all over him wasn't Blaine's finest idea. It took Blaine too long to figure out Kurt looked liked Death for a reason, and even longer to piece together why. By that point, Kurt ditched his spiky layers and was dozing against Blaine's shoulder in the midst of theirReal Housewivesmarathon. Blaine didn't want to shake the peaceful calm from Kurt's expression so he just tried his best to be a good thing to lean on. He could fret about what must've happened at the theatre without moving.

Long after evening passed into late night, Kurt woke with a flailing start at the sound of his phone that had Blaine dodging out of the way. He spiraled into even more panic at Mercedes wondering why he never came home.Why didn't Blaine ever think of practical things like calling the people who cared most about Kurt?Somewhere across the city people were worried about him and had Kurt apologizing profusely, his voice still thick with sleep. It was too late to want to take anything but a cab that Kurt would refuse to let Blaine pay for and Kurt lived so far away and the words (as always) were out before he thought. "Stay the night with me."

"Keep your sexual healing to yourself," Kurt replied vehemently as he tossed his phone down, and Blaine realized how he took the offer and why there was suddenly too much space between them. Kurt shrugged into his studded jacket. "I'm never going to take you up on it so you can just stop offering!"

Blaine slipped off the bed to follow Kurt's hurried scramble across the room gathering the rest of his things. "Just sleep. I have a giant bed for . . ."Other reasons, actually, but the sheets are clean."We can stay up talking. Like a slumber party. I have a well-maintained chocolate stash and you would not believe how many places will deliver whatever you want whenever you want when you live in a good neighborhood. Do you want to talk? About what happened?"

"Nothinghappenedto me, I make my own choices." Kurt held his head high. "Right now, I'm choosing to go home." He ran a hand through his hair, sending it all even more askew. He sighed in frustration.

"It's late, and dark, and will you just . . ." He liked having Kurt by his side. He didn't have much to offer but companionship. If Kurt left, it wouldn't be to let someone else take care of him. It would be to a lonely apartment where everyone else was asleep and he'd have to comfort himself. "You're upset. You've been upset and you didn't tell me and you know I don't always notice these things on my own. Can't you just be honest with me about that?"

Kurt wound his scarf as tight as a noose around his neck. "It's late."

"We're friends. I'm not trying to do anything but help. If I can. By now I guess you think my Being Sexy lessons were pretty useless." Blaine gave a self-deprecating half smile that didn't convince either of them of the casualness intended. He retrieved Kurt's forgotten spiky bowtie from the floor. "I wanted to help, but I just – I don't know what I was thinking. I give terrible advice."

"You tried." Kurt slowed his search for his possessions. He accepted the spiky scrap of fabric from Blaine.

Blaine seized the slight bit of acquiescence. "What happened?"

He tugged to loosen the tightly-wound scarf, vulnerability painted across his features. "Nothing. I'm upset about nothing. I don't know what he wants with me and I don'twantto know so I don't ask. He made my skin crawl before he even touched me."

"You don't have to. . ."

"More advice?" Kurt fitted the bowtie at his throat.

"I'm sorry." How few people could Kurt count on right now? And Blaine let him down. Of course sexy lessons weren't what he needed. Sexiness he had in spades, it was comfort that he lacked.

"I haven't done anything for you," Kurt shrugged. "You at least tried."

It wasn't a dismissal, but Blaine's heart still pounded. Now that they had proof that Blaine's advice was useless, he didn't have anything that obligated Kurt to keep him in the show. Blaine usually functioned under contracts that kept him from being left with nothing, like the deposit for the night he never slept with Kurt. Kurt could take it all back, a promise was just words, and then Blaine would have to go back to life as usual without the hope of something more, something bigger coming.

A gleam flashed in Kurt's eyes. He dropped his bag to the ground with a clatter. "We can fix that! Right now. Let's go."

Blaine startled at Kurt's sudden change from icy and panicky to commanding. "Fix what?"

"I have a perfectly lovely little theatre that should be used for something good. I'm supposed to give you a chance to perform and I haven't done anything for you yet. We can practice at the theatre."

"Now?"

"We'll sleep better after. I've worked too long for this theatre to not think it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."

Kurt's determination to go home morphed into determination to get Blaine on a stage and the next thing he knew Kurt had thembothout the door as Kurt placed a second call to Mercedes telling her not to worry or wait up any longer.

Blaine didn't point out that Kurt intended to use him to replace the memory of Schuester through this method too, but with songs instead of sex and reclaiming a building instead of his body. Occasionally Blaine's filter worked and kept him from making things worse. Blaine could be supportive of Kurt whatever way he chose to deal. After all his bumbling, he'd do anything to help.

Traveling late at night and bundled against the cold didn't seem so bad with companionship. The company distracted from how Blaine didn't do this and Dalton had a car service for a reason and he can't be the only otherwise functioning adult scared of the dark. The dark, and the pavement, and the things that could bring him to it. He wished he could have left that feeling behind him, in Ohio, along with everything else. His fear from earlier, fear for Kurt, transformed into fear for both of them that he could ignore as long as Kurt kept talking to him. (Years passed, what wasinconsistentlywrong with him that sometimes still allowed him to feel like this when winter hit?)

If Kurt noticed Blaine's tenseness he didn't say anything about it. He chattered instead about the beauty of the theatre and how perfectly real it was as he led Blaine to the subway. The distance between them stayed wider than usual.

Blaine resisted leaning in just in case he wasn't supposed to, or reaching out to fix the strands of hair knocked every which way. Blaine liked having a friend. He liked not ruining good things. Kurt's friendship was the best thing he had. Which is why he had to ask. "Do I make you uncomfortable?"

"Your shoulders aren't terribly soft." Kurt's cheeks tinged with pink as he smiled. None of his earlier panic shone through.

"After that." For once, Blaine thought to keep his voice low. The woman in scrubs and the man asleep didn't seem inclined to cause trouble but his unease hadn't worn off.

"I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions. It must have been the sleep's effect on my mind. I know that's not what you meant."

"Kurt, if you wanted to have sex with me it would have happened." Blaine understood his capacity to make everything worse – he understood very keenly and Kurt probably wasn't in the mindset for this – but he wanted to be sincere.

"Oh. Well." Kurt's already dodgy ability to maintain eye contact disappeared completely. "I'll apologize for being rude, then."

Blaine fought so hard not to touch Kurt to bring him back. "But I'm not going to come on to you if you don't want me to. You've made it clear you don't want to be propositioned."

It wasn't surprising that Kurt was more skittish and guarded around the topic than usual and questioned Blaine's motives when they were questionable: the second half of what Santana owed him, due upon services being rendered, was still out there for him to earn. Kurt wanting Blaine to earn it would always, always be a condition, though.

"Thank you."

Blaine hesitated for just a moment before daring to tease. "When we have sex, you're going to ask first. Nicely."

"Whenwe . . ." Kurt's eyebrows rose. "You think it's an inevitability."

"Possibly with flowers. Or a serenade. Flashing neon lights. I'm thinking a big, obvious production declaring your intentions. Unambiguously. Graphically, even. I'll hold out so long you're going to have tobegfor it. And until then it's just not going to happen."

The promise to keep even the suggestion of more between them on Kurt's terms seemed to please him. "Okay. Deal."

It stung a little that Kurt didn't want him, in a way he tried not to take personally given how little his bruised ego mattered. Blaine was an expert, wasn't he? He knew what he was doing. But Kurt wanted a lot more than just a singular experience untied to a relationship, and Blaine admired that: that he valued himself too highly to settle. For anyone but Will Schuester, at least.

The childish part of him that still took comfort in hero stories daydreamed of rescuing Kurt from Will Schuester (from Kurt himself for creating and then clinging to the delusion that he chose this for himself) despite how he wasn't the brave, self-possessed, rescuing type. Blaine knew by now who was good for his line of work and who wasn't. Someone like Kurt who tied sexexclusivelyto love had no business trading it. Blaine functioned by giving up that foolish notion all together but he didn't wish the same on Kurt. Kurt deserved love. He deserved someone to make love with. How he didn't have boys lined up around the block willing to meet whatever specifications just for the chance escaped Blaine. He'd do anything Kurt asked.

"It's only fair I give you practice, too," Kurt said as he ushered Blaine toward the theatre's glass door with a paper sign declaring LOSER LIKE ME REHEARSALS. "You're going to love it."

Blaine breathed a sigh of relief once they were safe inside the tiny lobby of the theatre. Hisinconsistentlyparanoid little heart stuttered back to a normal pace with walls around them.

Kurt ran his fingers along the tops of the seats as they passed down the aisle toward the ghost light, Blaine trailing a step or two behind.

The theatre's not even nice,Blaine thought as he refrained from touching the seats that could stand to be cleaner or at least less ancient. Better, arguably, than where Kurt had been when they met but not the stuff that dreams were made of. Blaine squashed that line of thinking. Were his expensive clothes worth it? What about his caffeine addiction? His books and his CDs and his songbird? Who was anyone to try and determine what was worth what to someone else? Everything had a price.

Blaine graciously accepted Kurt's hand up to the stage.Oh.There was that feeling he expected to hit when he entered the theatre. Blaine stepped into the center of the stage. All those empty seats positioned to watch them, the ghost light backlighting them.

"You used to do this, right?"

"It's been years." Before New York. Before he ran away. How could he feel nostalgia for a time in his life that made him miserable? Back then music was the bright spot in his life. He took solace in performing and to get away from being himself. He still appreciated it but it wasn't the only thing keeping him functioning now.

"Imagine whomever you want sitting out there if you need an audience to perform for." Kurt closed his eyes for a moment as he dreamed up something of his own. "It goes well with the fake orchestra. And lights. And costumes." He peeked a second later and smiled at Blaine.

"Who do you imagine?"

"Margaret Thatcher," Kurt replied promptly.

Blaine laughed. It was a personal question, he supposed. Blaine would stick with a nonspecific, lower pressure adoring crowd for his fantasies. Imagining people he knew would only complicate his emotions more than necessary.

"Don't tell Rachel I'm letting you sing her song." Kurt handed over sheet music. Blaine turned it over in his hands.Get It Right.

"I can pluck out the melody if you'd like," Kurt offered. "I won't be amazing but it'll give you an idea of what it sounds like."

"I can play." Dalton had the piano because of him. Caged birds sang, after all.

"In that case . . ." Kurt shrugged off his jacket again, braced his hands on the lid of the piano and pushed himself up. "I'll vamp." Kurt gave a happy little kick of self-satisfaction as he settled in.

Not sexy my ass.Kurt didn't learnthatfrom Blaine. Blaine couldn't teach it, couldn't even name what strings Kurt was pulling to capture all his attention and hold it by reclining on the piano. His shyness about his body didn't extend to performance. Kurt knew how to embody space.

As grand as Dalton was, it wasn't a stage. On a stage, you couldn't pretend your performance was just for fun among friends, nothing more serious than your own entertainment, that you weren't that invested in it. You had to believe in your own talent enough to stand there on your own and command everyone else's attention. Kurt had yet to hear him sing. He needed to impress Kurt and earn a place in the show now that he had nothing else to offer.

Blaine tested out a few chords. There was something about music under his hands and being able to accompany himself that gave him a sense of satisfaction. Musical self-sufficiency. He ran through the instrumentals before slowly adding the words.

"Good," Kurt encouraged. "You're very good. Looks like you're sticking around. Not that there was any doubt about that!"

Blaine turned the sheet music back to the beginning to try for something less rehearsal and more performance. He knew about making mistakes. About striving for perfection and falling short. Of all the things Blaine needed to get right, this thing with Kurt needed to stick. He needed something to excite him and work toward and feel accomplishment from. He rarely permitted himself to want things so intensely.

He forgot how much he wanted to make art. He stole a glance up at Kurt. And help people.

Kurt harmonized from his perch on top of the piano and relaxed into a less posed position. He looked at peace up there. Singing with Kurt felt like returning home, if home was a place he'd miss. The end of the song had Blaine wishing he knew how to play more from memory so he could offer to accompany Kurt on whatever he wanted.

"Come home with me. Stay with me." The words were out again before Blaine thought them through. He wanted to keep Kurt's company. Kurt gave him something so much better than Blaine had to offer. Companionship he could offer.

Kurt shook his head. "It's too easy to forget about the rest of the world at Dalton. I live in this world and I need to keep functioning in it."

Then let me come with you. Blaine bit back the request. It was one thing to invite himself into the cast of a musical. It was quite another to invite him into someone else's home. After seeing Kurt to the subway, he called Dalton's car service and waited.

***

Blaine hurried out to the car and the new driver waiting at the curb with him. Hunter greeted him with a quick appraising look followed by, "Fix your goddamned hair. I'm not taking you all the way uptown to have you turned away at the door."

Blaine scowled at Hunter's order. He felt fine with his appearance before he left. He thought he could get away with letting a little curl show and he had little time to coax it into doing anything else. He searched through his bottle of travel gel and fussed with the little-too-much curl showing in his hair to see if it was fixable. Getting turned away on sight only happened a few times and Blaine would like to never experience that again if he could help it.

He should have known better than to lose track of time while playing on his piano in the grand hall. Since that first rehearsal with Kurt he set about practicing with determination, telling himself he needed to get his voice and his fingers back into shape. He learned all of Kurt's songs by heart. After that came songs he thought Kurt would like and he was halfway through "Not While I'm Around" fromSweeney Todd– it would sound breathtaking with Kurt's voice – when he realized how late he was.

"Is the sulking for me pointing out you're not perfect or is it for going to a five star hotel, getting laid, and making money?" Hunter asked.

Blaine took a breath and tried to push being scolded like a petulant child by someone he barely knew out of mind. He didn't have time to obsess over Hunter's words and what he did wrong to deserve them. He could recognize his irrationality and still not be able to help it. He had no right to feel unhappy with the relatively few hours he worked each week even if they inconveniently overlapped with other things he'd rather do, like the pre-rehearsal rehearsal Kurt had the cast assembled for so they'd be in shape before Schuester saw them.

Kurt would be the best client on the increasingly-unlikely chance he ever decided he wanted to be: He projected high-maintenance, but their time spent together went so comfortably, like they'd known each other forever. Blaine rarely got to have the kind of sex that was just fun, where he could relax and enjoy and give pleasure to someone who would feel grateful rather than entitled. Kurt would take to sex fantastically if he just gave it a try. If he had a partner who would introduce him right. Blaine couldn't see someone as obsessed with performance and success as Kurt developing into anything but a fascinating lover. Kurt didn't strike him as the type who would snip at Blaine for ruining his fantasies if Blaine didn't fit to them just right; or tell him he wasn't as cute as he thought he was. At least not meanly.

Blaine tugged harder at his hair. He couldn't solve either of their problems with fantasies. Everyone had days where they just didn't want to go to work. Who wouldn't want to hang out with their best friend instead? And, if their best friend were the same combination of hot and adorable as Kurt, sleep with them too? Despite how unlikely that scenario was. He'd feel better if he could make himself look better.

"You don't have to put on a show for me. Though I must say, your Hurt Feelings Surcharge you've got Thad doing for you is brilliant. Pout a little about your oversensitive emotions and suddenly you're getting paid more. Clever. I respect that. I won't get in the way of you using their tendency to coddle you to your advantage."

His stupid overabundance of feelings was exactly why he hated having Hunter as his driver. Clients were emotionally draining enough. At least he got something from them. He checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Even with the gel his hair threatened to break free. He body just had to rebel by producing the least desirable hair type. He hoped his client wouldn't mind that he was failing at hiding it. Starting the night off as a disappointment made everything harder.

Hunter threw an irritated sideways glance at Blaine when Blaine didn't respond. He probably wasn't used to being ignored. "You know your looks aren't going to matter less if you become an actor."

Blaine fumbled with the bottle after almost dropping it in shock. He never mentioned the show to the Warblers. Hunter looked infinitely more pleased at that reaction.

"How did you . . .?"

"Some of us are perceptive."

Blaine was spending more time at the piano than he had since he first bought it; he expected the Warblers to notice given how the sound carried. Jeff or Nick or Trent wouldn't make anything of it, though, other than saying they enjoyed having music again. He honestly didn't know how the council would react. He wasn't technically breaking any rules. No one thought to have rules against the adult equivalent of running away to join the circus.

His plan was to not make a big deal out of his new hobby, just let them slowly notice on their own. But Hunter could blow everything out of proportion and turn the story into something entirely out of Blaine's hands. Blaine's (unkind) preliminary assessment of the new driver told him Hunter wasn't the kind of man he wanted to de indebted to; he took the subway rather than the car with Kurt for a reason. "What are you after?"

"A kindred spirit." Hunter gave him the most unnerving grin.

"You don't want piano accompaniment from me." Blaine may have his over-trusting moments but he can figure that much out for himself.

"Oh, no, I'd much rather be the man behind the curtain making a God out of a country hick. You should set your sights higher than some middling stage production. At Dalton you're a star. You shouldn't settle for anything else."

"I'll keep that in mind?" He barely merited inclusion in the cast, but flattery was nice, he supposed, particularly when it came from unlikely sources.

"We should talk career trajectory. Something has to come after whatever inconsequential thing you're doing with Kurt."

"I don't have long term plans."For anything.Anyone who spent more than a few minutes with Blaine knew that he didn't think things through.

"That's your first mistake. You never get anywhere if you don't plan to get somewhere first. Now, tell me all about this show."

Blaine tried really hard to trust people that he worked with had the best of intentions. His resentment toward Hunter – uncalled for given all he said was the truth – stayed alive only because of Blaine's oversensitive feelings. He forced them aside and let Hunter ask all about the show until he dropped Blaine off.