Chapter 15c:

"No way! You were a Cheerleader Kurt?!"

Kurt grunted a little in disgust as a shower of white wine sputtered out of Blaine's mouth but couldn't help smiling at the incredulous look on the other man's face.

"And why, may I ask, Mr Blaine, prep.  school boy, Anderson, is that so hard to believe?"

"You just don't really strike me as the cheerleading type...ouch...hey...leave me be Bully!" Blaine countered, defending himself with hands up in surrender as Kurt moved to thump him rather hard on the arm.

"It was a fleeting thing. I only did one show really and it was more singing than anything." Kurt grumbled indignantly, taking another sip of his wine before hurling a cushion at Blaine's body still creased up with laughter, head buried in the sofa seat. "And it's really not that funny!"

"Oh I beg to differ....I wouldn't mind having seen you in that uniform though" He smirked, winking lasciviously at Kurt who took another opportunity to punch the other man on his leg.

"Well you must have had embarrassing stories from your school too surely? You were at one of the poshest schools in Ohio; you telling me that shit didn't go down there?"

"Shit definitely did go down homie" he mimicked "But fo sure yo aint ready for those stories"

"You are an utter dork Blaine Anderson."

"Ah but a dork who has treated you to the best floor picnic you've ever had huh? Huh?" he wiggled his eyebrows at him again whilst gesturing to the assortment of Chinese food that was dotted around the living room rug.

They'd picked up food on the way home from the park, ordering far too much for just the two of them but both secretly enjoying the easy banter and warm feeling that came with arguing over which numbers to get and how much of each dish. On their return, Blaine had insisted they eat "like proper Chinese people" and had hauled all of the cushions spread around the apartment into the living area and instructed Kurt to sit. Thus they were now sprawled across the rug, chopsticks in hand and mocking each other mercilessly.

And Kurt was happier than he had ever been in his whole life.

And Blaine was right there with him on that one.

"Ok. So why don't we start with an easy one. When you were a kid what was your ridiculous, unrealistic, embarrassingly deluded childish dream for your future?" He was studying Kurt now, watching as he picked at the corner of the cushion he was cuddling in his lap.

"I guess I always wanted to be someone like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly; you know some classic Hollywood, debonair star, singing in old musicals in romantic locations. I always thought their lives looked so untouched by any of the harsh realities of real life. I remember watching ‘Funny Face' and the scene in the bookstore and just being enthralled by the idea of it."

His eyes had gone a little glazed and he suddenly pulled himself back to the present and looked at Blaine. "It was a fantasy world. The movies and the dream."

"Don't you think though that even if the dream is unrealistic, it's worth dreaming it anyway; not for disappointment when you don't get there, because that's pretty much a given, but because it was having the dream in the first place that helped mould you and shape you?"

"I suppose you're right." Kurt looked up a little shocked at how perceptive Blaine had been. "I guess without the initial love of musical theatre I would never have started to sing or to have begged my father for piano lessons aged six"

"And without that, you would never have become the teacher that you are now." Blaine continued, smiling at him across the sea of cushions. "Unfulfilled dreams don't have to mean your life's a failure. It's the believing in something that matters. Take me. I love music. I guess if I'm really honest my dream is to be some big shot singer/song-writer adored by millions and winning Grammys and accolades at every turn...."

Kurt laughed as Blaine trailed off into a mock fantasy world, eyes to the heavens before exaggeratedly shaking himself and focussing back on Kurt's face with a grin. 

"Yeah so despite all of that failure and the fact that the closest I've been to adulation is singing at the local open mic night at NYU student bar, I just don't care. It's the love of it that makes me happy; I could sit at home playing entirely to myself for the rest of my life and I'd still be ok with that."

"But doesn't that make you jaded, depressed that you're unlikely to make a difference with it?"

Blaine thought for a moment before meeting Kurt's eyes again. "No because without dreaming that in the first place I'd never have let music take me even to the place it has already. I'd never have joined Glee at school, never have started playing guitar in my bedroom, never have studied it at uni, and without all of that, I would never have been happy."

Kurt's eyes flicked down again and he reached for his wine, taking a long gulp.

"And are you happy Blaine? Do you think you would describe yourself as happy?"

"Not all the time, no. I think the first way to being miserable is to try to make yourself happy all the time. I guess I would say I am happy with everything I've done and everything I've been and that gives me enough reason to keep going."

The last words hung in the air between them, hovering suspended in amongst all the other unspoken words that were already drifting around; that had been floating above their heads the whole day.  A shout outside the window made both men jump slightly and in an instant all the jovial banter and atmosphere was shattered.

Blaine let his eyes wonder to the window again before forcing himself to look directly at Kurt. "I read your journal." He whispered, voice low and steady.

Kurt made little indication that he'd heard other than the slight nod of his head and his lowered eyes. Moving onto his knees, he dragged his eyes up to meet Blaine's and downed the last of his glass, settling it back on the rug. The other man watched enthralled as Kurt crawled slowly across the distance between them, until he was straddling Blaine's stretched out legs, faces inches from each other.

Blaine could feel his gentle breath on his lips as Kurt hovered above him. None of their skin was touching and yet it felt like he was on fire, current surging through him and boiling under the surface. Their eyes were locked into each other; Blaine squirmed with the intensity of it as the air pulsed around them.

"Sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep, I don't want to wake up on my own anymore"

Kurt's voice seeped into the apartment, the tiniest whisper of sound that floated into the sliver of air between their lips and was drawn in with Blaine's breath. It moved like kisses across his skin, nerves exploding with the sensations that trickled through him like water.

"Don't try to wake me in the morning, cause I will be gone."

Tears spilled from his eyes without him even feeling them. Blaine sat utterly transfixed, utterly broken by each soft, ribbon of language that wrapped around his heart and cocooned it and tried to bind each fragment of it together still.  

"Don't feel bad for me, I want you to know"

Kurt's lips ghosted over his face, using only his words to caress the other man's skin. Wanting to use this last night to breath what was left of himself into Blaine. Wanted him to understand just how much this night had altered him. The fear had gone from Kurt now and he felt like he was disintegrating, evaporating into the air, into the spaces that floated between them and into Blaine himself.

Time ticked on the mantle, ignored and irrelevant. It could taunt them later with the sun when it peers through the window and gently shakes them awake reminding them of the changing days. It can show them its power later. It will have its time.

Kurt, moved back to Blaine's lips, pausing to breathe the final words fully into the other man's lungs, needing him to feel each syllable.

"Deep in the cell of my heart I will be so glad to go."