Blaine has always been susceptible to nightmares. Not night terrors or anything like that, but bad dreams that come out of nowhere, ever since he was a kid.

The first Kurt sleeps over, Blaine warns him about his nightmares. He’s pretty sure he has a tendency to kick and he knows he talks a bit. Kurt, as usual, is unfazed.

Over the next several years, Blaine and Kurt share a lot of different beds. Through high school and college and beyond. Blaine never remembers nightmares when he sleeps next to Kurt, though he knows he still has them sometimes. When he tells Kurt this one day, Kurt smiles knowingly.

“What?” asks Blaine.

“Well,” Kurt starts, “if you wake me up when you’re having a nightmare, I do this thing. I never mentioned it because I was worried you’d think it was creepy. But I smooth the hair back from your forehead until your face relaxes.”

“Okaaaay,” Blaine says, expectantly.

“And then I take my knuckles and kind of nudge your cheek with them, like this. Until you smile in your sleep and you just... relax.” Kurt looks away vaguely, like he’s worried how Blaine is going to react to this confession.

“You, you do that?” Blaine wonders at the thought of what such a simple touch can do.