After leaving the train station, Kurt went back to the apartment to find Rachel and Ginger standing in front of their door. Kurt smiled brightly, and sighed – a sigh and a smile that crumbled when Ginger held out her arms to him. Rachel took Kurt's keyring from him – Blaine had gotten them matching silver fobs engraved with their monogram – and unlocked the door. Picking up the paper bags laden with groceries, she pushed the tightly hugging Kurt and Ginger through the door, and slammed it shut with her foot, before the rest of the apartment building could hear the sobs tearing from Kurt's throat.
*********
After Kurt had gotten himself back under control – still not able to escape a few sniffs and a nagging hitch in his breath – Rachel doled out the cheesecake, while Ginger made them a fresh pot of coffee.
“Coffee's the ticket, ducks. Perk us right up, and we'll be good as new. Well, almost, I guess.” Ginger took in Kurt's swollen, red eyes looking up at her dolefully.
“Coffee, cheesecake,” Rachel prescribed as she handed Kurt a slice of dessert on plate. “And some cold compresses.”
She stood and briskly walked to the kitchen.
“Kurt, do you have any cucumber?” she called.
“Bottom shelf of the icebox,” Kurt's voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. “If we have any left, I suppose.”
Both girls returned from the kitchen – Ginger with a steaming pot of coffee, Rachel with a cold wet washcloth.
“We'll do the cucumber facial later. For now, let's dig in to this cheesecake and drink that coffee before it gets cold!” Rachel grinned.
Kurt smiled back. It wasn't a big smile, it wasn't for very long, but it was a real one.
“Honey, you know he's okay, right? He's in training, it'll be rough, but it'll be over quick and he'll be back.”
“He'll be back, in three months, for two weeks. And then he'll be sent overseas, into death and destruction and filth and misery and foxholes and bombs and I can't – I can't – ”
“Whoa whoa whoa, there, cowboy,” Ginger gently tugged on Kurt's hand, pulling it away from his mouth. “Breathe. We'll worry about that bridge when we get to it. For now, Blaine is safe. He's safe, do you hear me? There's no need to fall apart.”
Kurt looked down at the pillow in his lap, tracing the pattern with a gentle fingertip, lips trembling. “If he's still not here tomorrow, it'll be the longest we've ever been apart since the day we met.”

*****

It had been one of those brilliantly sunny, deathly cold early mornings in the city, with the wind howling down the avenues. Kurt was headed home, head bent down as he walked into the wind. His nose was running, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the wind threatening to rip his scarf from his neck.
He remembered seeing a pair of dog eyes, then two, the two dogs grinning up at him before darting away, a sharp tug on his ankles, then something heavy landed on him as the sky swirled above him.
“Oh blast. Oh, hey, are you okay?” An anxious pair of eyes peered into his – eyes the colour of honey – above a similarly anxious mouth.
“Oof.” Kurt was breathless, and not just from the fall. The owner of those warm eyes – Kurt had to stop himself from trying to catalogue exactly what colour they were – was lying on top of him, in the middle of the park path. Between the tight feeling around his legs, and the excited yipping of the dogs, he surmised they'd both been tangled in the dogs' leashes, and fell over.
Kurt nodded, swallowing hard at the feeling of the stranger's body crushed to his. The stranger planted his hands on either side of Kurt's head and levered his torso up.
A better view of his face, for Kurt, but jeepers if it wasn't grinding his hips down into Kurt's. Kurt swallowed again. The stranger kicked his legs, muttering slightly under his breath as he untangled them from the dogs.
“Gosh, I am so sorry. Are you alright?” Those brown eyes were warm and melting and Kurt was pretty sure he was going to swoon as he took Kurt's hand to pull him up.
“I'm...Yeah, I'm fine.” Kurt finally managed, blushing.
“Oh no, look at your pants. Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.” Kurt looked down in surprise – he honestly hadn't noticed the muddy slush seeping into his trousers. The stranger still had Kurt's hand.
“Listen, let me get rid of these dogs – I'm just walking them for a friend – and then let me buy you a cup of coffee at this little place around the corner – you can't go walking around in pants like that.”
“I'd....Okay,” Kurt could feel a dopey smile on his face. He cleared his throat, “I'd...I'd like that.”
“Umm, I'm Blaine,” the stranger smiled. Kurt's knees felt wobbly.
“Kurt.”
Blaine whistled and the dogs came to heel. He gathered up their leashes, and taking Kurt's elbow in his palm, steered them toward the brand-new, shiny and sleek apartment building just across the street.
“It's good of you to walk those dogs, Mr. Anderson,” The doorman smiled as he opened the large plate glass doors for them. “Mr. Johnson could never manage it now.”
“Just being neighborly, Thomas,” Blaine smiled in return.
They waited for the elevator – the dogs miraculously sitting patiently at their feet. Kurt watched the large brass needle trace it's arc down until it reached the ground floor.
Blaine ushered Kurt in the elevator, stepped in beside him, clicked his tongue at the dogs, who once again came to sit patiently at their feet. He pressed 31, and they rode upwards in silence, both of them pretending not to glance at the other and blushing when they got caught.
At 31A, Blaine rang the doorbell. A moment passed before an old man opened the door.
“Oh, Blaine, my boy. Thank you so much for doing this.”
“No problem, Mr. Johnson, no problem at all. Same time tomorrow?” Blaine smiled warmly.
“That would be wonderful, Blaine, if it's not too much trouble for you.” Mr. Johnson looked feeble, tired, but happy.
“Of course, Mr Johnson.” Blaine smiled then turned and directed Kurt down the hall. Mr. Johnson shut the door behind them.
At 31B, Blaine unlocked the door, and ushered Kurt inside ahead of him.
“I....ummm. I think I might have a change of clothes you could borrow, if you.....if you want.” Blaine looked suddenly nervous, darting his eyes around his apartment, looking at anything but Kurt.
Kurt seemed to have something stuck in throat. “Oh, no, I don't want to be any trouble. I –“
“Ohhh, no, no. It's no trouble at all. It's just....your pants are kind of....”
Blaine nodded his chin at Kurt's legs. Kurt suddenly felt that the front of his pants were, in fact, soaked. And clinging to him in a most decidedly indecent manner.
Blaine flushed, nodded awkwardly, then darted down the hall. Kurt wasn't sure if he should follow him, or stay here or....no, definitely don't follow him, Kurt, he's probably going to his bedroom and you do NOT need to be in his bedroom wearing soaking wet pants. No, Kurt.
Blaine returned, his colour back to normal, shaking out a pair of navy gabardine trousers. “I think these will fit. The, ummm, the bath is just here,” he motioned toward a door just down the hall.
Kurt took the trousers from Blaine. Their fingertips brushed, and an electric shock – an actual spark – flew between them.
They both gasped, laughed, and smiled at each other.
“Thank you. I'll be right out. And then, I believe you promised coffee?” Kurt smiled.
Blaine's answering smile lit up the entire room – maybe even the entire world, Kurt thought as his heart soared.
“Yes, Kurt. I do believe I did.”

*******

They almost left for the coffee shop exactly 18 times that day. Instead, they'd sat on Blaine's couch, primly at first but growing ever closer to each other as they laughed and talked and giggled and swapped stories and told jokes and neither one of them could – or would – deny the bubble of happiness filling in their chests.
By the time of their 19th attempt, Blaine had made three pots of coffee, four sandwiches and several gin and tonics – they were sitting directly in the middle of the couch, facing each other, knees touching. As Kurt got to a particularly exciting part in the story he was telling – a sale at Berghdorf's gone wild – he reached out and grabbed Blaine's forearm.
Blaine couldn't stop staring at Kurt's hand on his arm. His mouth felt dry as he reached his own hand slowly up to cover Kurt's.
This was a moment. A moment that they both knew could go very very wrong, very very quickly.
Kurt's voice drifted into silence, as Blaine's fingertip slowly traced the delicate veins and tendons in Kurt's hand. He slowly lifted his eyes to meet Kurt's. Kurt's face was flushed and expectant, his lips parted slightly. Neither one of them seemed to be able to breathe steadily.
“Kurt?” Blaine's voice was soft and quiet and unexpectedly vulnerable.
Kurt took a deep breath, and surged forward, fitting his mouth to Blaine's as if he'd always been a part of him.
When their lips finally parted, bashful and rosy and joyful, their eyes were shining. The subtle tension – not all together unpleasant, but tension nonetheless – had been released.
“I was so afraid that you weren't – weren't –“ Blaine shook his head, trying to clear it, still toying with Kurt's hand. “That you weren't – like me.”
Kurt's smile broke into a wide grin. “But I am. I am like you and I do like you.”
Blaine sighed happily, running his fingers through the hair above Kurt's ear, dragging them back around under his jaw, to kiss him again.
When they broke apart again, no longer bashful, flushed and panting and still joyful but also desperately needing – Blaine sat back to try to catch his breath.
“We should ---- we should go get dinner.”
Kurt was dizzy with the happiness, the heat racing through his veins. His heart was pounding, his head was spinning. He was sure it was only the look in Blaine's eyes that was keeping him from floating away.
Blaine chuckled under his breath – somehow tore himself away from Kurt sitting there on his couch – gorgeous handsome right here so close beautiful – stood and walked to look out the window at the dark night sky. “I think it's snowing,” he said, wrinkling his nose with a tilt of his head.
“Oh goody,” Kurt giggled.
“Goody?” Blaine teased back. He jumped over the back of the couch, landing against the seat with a bounce. A bounce that so helpfully propelled Kurt into his arms.
“Could we eat here?” Kurt folded his arms across Blaine's chest, resting his chin on them.
“Uhhhhh. Yes? I think so?” Blaine smiled down at Kurt, trying to remember what might be in his kitchen. “I think I have some roast beef from last night, we could make some potatoes –“
Kurt dropped his voice to a low purr, his eyelashes dropping demurely against his cheeks. “That's not quite what I was talking about.”
Blaine let out a loud huff of laughter, the slight cold rush of “oh my gosh, did he really say that out loud” quickly replaced by the overpowering heat of “oh fuck, he really did mean that.”
“Let me loosen your tie, Mr. Hummel, if I may,” Blaine's diction was precise and formal, but the searing look in his eyes made Kurt's breathing stutter.
“Oh, please do, Mr. Anderson.”

*******
Kurt cleared his throat – Ginger had never heard the story of how he and Blaine had met – and continued.
“And then, after he said it was snowing, we.....then we had some cold roast beef with reheated scalloped potatoes – Blaine's actually quite a cook – and we listened to the radio” while I fucked him over the back of his couch “and then the storm was so wild, he insisted I stay the night” and then we fucked in the kitchen, on the dining room table, the bathroom floor because the logistics of the bathtub were too daunting – at the time, --- but by the time we made it to the bedroom, the storm had been over for 3 days, and we were making love.