The bell toll of Quinn's laugh echoes through from the spare bedroom as Kurt finishes polishing his boots and drags the zips carefully up, all the way to his knees, trying not to get it stuck in the thick fabric of his jeans. He stands up straight, checks his hair one more time and flips again through his picks for the evening:Moulin Rouge,Les MiserablesandWhen Harry Met Sally. Crossing the living room, he knocks lightly on Quinn's door and calls, "I'm going out for the night, I'll be back before midnight so can you please be done with the ecstatic screaming by then!"

"We'll try!" Quinn's gentleman friend calls back, laughter in his voice, and Kurt rolls his eyes at Quinn's giggle, poaching the bottle of champagne and two glasses she's laid out. From the sounds of it and the look of the firmly closed bedroom door, they won't be putting it into use anyway, and there's no sense in it going to waste.

He walks to the centre, turning up his collar against the harsh breeze, boots crunching over the snow laying thick on the ground, mind spinning with memories of winter wonderland, dancing and singing with Blaine as a hundred different snowflakes fell around them, kissing and breathless whispers of wonder, of new and hope and potential. He knows it was his idea to have the meetings, but sometimes he thinks if it wouldn't have been better to just take Blaine and have it done, because every moment only intensifies the idea of keeping him close, the thought of becoming more than just client and giver, the knowing that he won't be able to let go even when the time calls for it.

Blaine's barefoot when he gets there, hair loose in wild curls around his lit-up face, and he looks so young, his sweats slightly too long for him and dragging behind his heels with every step, his shirt a little too tight and clinging to his arms and the soft cushion of his belly, emblazoned with a symbol of a bird flying against a white moon. He laughs when he sees Kurt's eyes on it, trying to figure out where he's seen it before, and explains, "Nightbird, this superhero I invented when I was about three. I used to dress up as him every Halloween, and I was horrified when no one knew I was Nightbird, the Nocturnal Avenger. I even found my neighbour's missing guinea pig eating cat food in my garage once."

Kurt laughs, already picturing a small boy with Blaine's wild curls too much for his tiny face, his shining eyes and deep dimples, wrapped in a blanket and trying to fly by jumping off a chair, young and innocent and nothing lost yet to the cynicisms of the world. That could be their baby, a boy with Blaine's hair and round cheeks and dimples and his own eyes and paler skin, running to Kurt's arms after a day at the office while Blaine awaits them, barefoot and wearing too-long sweats, presenting his cheek for a kiss that turns into a thousand. "Okay," he says, shaking himself out of his trance, forcing himself to stop picturing a future he can't have, "we have a choice of three films, it was all I could find in a rush to get out because my friend who I reluctantly cohabitate with is having gentlemen callers visit to deflower her." Blaine laughs and his eyes light up even more when Kurt presents the three films.

"PutMoulin Rougeon, I haven't watched it for a few years," he says, and Kurt pretends to be utterly horrified by the very idea as he slots the DVD into the player and hesitates for a few seconds before Blaine's welcoming smile hooks him in and he unzips his boots and slides them off to climb into the bed with him, cuddling closer and only briefly burying his face in Blaine's curls to inhale the sweet raspberry scent of his shampoo.

Blaine curls in closer as the film starts, sighing in contentment and laying his head on Kurt's chest, right over where his heart is racing in his chest at this proximity, and Kurt's voice is soft and gentle when he says, "We agreed last week that we'd talk about bad experiences this week. Do you want to go first, or will I?"

"I will," Blaine says, his voice a little more solemn, and he nudges even closer, matching his thigh to Kurt's hip, curling his fingers into the loose fabric of his shirt and sliding his bare feet against Kurt's socked ones. "It happened just after I turned sixteen, maybe a week before I came here to sign on as a carrier. My whole school knew about my anatomy, I'd already been transferred once because I was beaten up at a school dance for daring to come with another boy. I was in the locker room after the lifeguard, who was a lovely lady, had given me a key so I could swim after school, just to calm down a little and think about whether I was really going to take the chance and sign my body over to bear other people's children. I was getting changed and I hadn't put my shirt on yet when someone else came in. This guy from the football time, really huge, broad shoulders and big arms, and he didn't say anything but I could feel him right behind him, he was breathing on the back of my neck and when I turned around to ask him to move away he kissed me, and he was pressing me right up against the lockers and his tongue was all gross and wet and bobbly and he was trying to touch me, but I managed to knee him in the balls and get away and I had to run out to my car with no shirt on and it was so cold and I couldn't get it out of my head for weeks and sometimes it still..." He trails off, shaking against Kurt, breathing slow and shuddering, and Kurt wraps his arms around him, holding him close, kissing the top of his head.

"Mine doesn't even compare to that," Kurt says quietly, hugging Blaine close and secretly thrilling a little inside when Blaine puts his arms around his waist and squeezes, pressing his face into the crook of Kurt's neck, and neither of them is really listening to Satine singingSparkling Diamondsonscreen. "Okay, but when I was nineteen and I first got into Parsons, I met this amazing guy. His name was Brandon, and I thought he was my soulmate. We were engaged four months after we got together and I was so in love with him, I thought he was the be all and end all and there would never be another guy for me. But I came home one day and he was in bed with someone else, all this kissing and touching, and he was telling him all the things he told me, about how beautiful he was and how much he wanted and it hurt so much worse than if I'd just found him plain fucking someone else. I threw the ring back at him, and I got a different apartment, washed my hands of him, dropped out of Parsons and became a recluse for five months before I got the internship at . That's the worse thing that's ever happened to me."

Blaine sighs sadly, and kisses Kurt's chest, right over his heart, and Kurt's breath stutters in his throat. He looks up, their eyes meet and Blaine slides up the bed in a single fluid movement to kiss him, hands cupping Kurt's face and pulling until Kurt's almost on top of him, and he has to pull away momentarily to ask, "Is this okay?" and wait for Blaine's nod before he lets it go further, hand creeping down Blaine's side and slipping just beneath the hem of his shirt, finding warm skin he wants to hold and sustain and devour.

It gets far too hot far too fast, heat passionate and lustful pressing in around them, Kurt trailing one hand down the outside of Blaine's thigh to hitch his leg up around his waist, hand sliding higher and higher beneath Blaine's shirt, rucking up the material to just below his nipples, peaked against the fabric, and Blaine's hands sliding lower and lower on Kurt's back, then slipping fully down to curve perfectly over his ass, drawing them together like the sea and the sand curving around each other in perfect harmony against the horizon.

"Oh my God, we need to cool down," Kurt murmurs, jerking away and rolling off Blaine, crossing his legs to hide the obvious bulge pressing painfully against his jeans, staring resolutely straight ahead at the television, watching Satine try to coerce Christian into sex, which isn't the best scene to cool down during. Blaine sits up slowly, brushing his hair out of his face, smile a little dazed as he gazes at Kurt, open and warm and full of something deeper, something frightening and thrilling and wanted.

When they're both sure they've calmed down a little, Blaine leans against Kurt's side asYour Songfills the room, pretty and delicate and full of falling as Kurt is for the younger man with his head pillowed on his shoulder, hair awry and eyes still dark with arousal, and he turns his head to brush his lips against the shell of Blaine's ear as he sings, "How wonderful life is now you're in the world."