When Blaine had first met Kurt that day he came to (adorably) spy on the Warblers, the topic of age and grades hadn't come up. When he saw Kurt getting choked up and he dismissed Wes and David however, he felt as though he was looking into a mirror, seeing the ghost of bullied past or something, and he had automatically assumed that Kurt was in the same place he had been last year; a freshman living in a homophobic hell, with nobody to help him see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or even worse, nobody who noticed or cared that he was alone in the dark to being with.

It wasn't until a few friendly meetings later when Kurt made a throwaway comment about how boring level 3 French was, that Blaine had found out Kurt was actually older than him. It didn't change anything in Blaine's mind at the time, their dynamic remained the same, with Blaine being there to help Kurt navigate the sea of idiocy that was public school while Kurt managed to slowly- almost imperceptibly- heal a part of Blaine that he didn't even know was broken.

Blaine couldn't remember the last time he had been able to laugh and talk about Vogue to anyone, much less being able to do so in public without choking on air like he had so often with his broken ribs or cringing at the phantom pain of a kick to the gut.

By simply having Kurt around him, Blaine felt lighter. Like a different person even, like a Blaine that he could vaguely remember being at some point before the bullying started. A Blaine that he hadn't noticed had been hiding away, still trying to lick his wounds and heal, behind a primped and proper prep school fa�ade. It took Blaine an embarrassingly long time to realize that the reason behind his lightness was because he was madly in love with his best friend, but when he finally did (after a heart-breakingly beautiful rendition of Blackbird that would have had any boy with a decent head on his shoulders falling in love with him) Blaine hadn't wasted any time sharing his revelation with Kurt. With his best friend and the boy that Blaine suddenly realized he never wanted to be without.

Their first few days as boyfriends had been a little awkward, both of them reverting to the floundering school boys they ad been at the start of their friendship, never knowing when it was alright to touch each other, or whether they should sit side by side or facing one another in a booth, or whether it was creepy to call the other up just to hear them talk about nothing and listen to their voice, but like they had at the beginning of their friendship, they quickly settled into a relationship that oozed domesticity and comfort. They no longer had to think and double guess and over think whether or not it was alright to sit with their sides pressed snugly against the other's in Warbler practice because anything else was inconceivable, they didn't startle and blush when one of them would quicken their pace after catching sight of the other in the Dalton halls and reach for a dangling hand because the feel of their fingers intertwining felt like home and they didn't think twice about talking about anything and everything cuddled under the covers on a couch in an empty common room because even more than boyfriends they were best friends and they had always talked about everything, the only difference now was that the conversations were interspersed with short kisses and soft touches to cheeks and necks and collarbones.

The only topic that wasn't really broached in those days at Dalton, after the pair had just become a pair, was the topic of the future. Back when they were just friends they had talked about Kurt heading off to New York to become either the “brightest star on Broadway- although don't tell Rachel about me using the word star or our budding mutual understanding might never blossom into the strong alliance we would need to not murder the other once we are auditioning against each other for the role of a lifetime on the Great White Way” or “the next Alexander McQueen. Enough said.”, but since they had become 'Kurt and Blaine' discussing the future was a touchier subject.

Because Kurt had made a throwaway comment months ago that suddenly wasn't a throwaway comment at all. It was a promise; by the end of his junior year the boy that had become Blaine's everything would move on to bigger and better things. Blaine's other half would leave him and what would be left behind? Would there even be enough of him left to pretend like he wasn't dying on the inside? Would he just be a walking, talking open wound, counting the seconds of every day that would bring Kurt back to him?

Blaine had never thought he would ever feel that way about anyone. He certainly didn't feel anywhere close to that kind of love towards his estranged parents, or his much older brother who might as well be a second disapproving father to him, or even his Warbler friends, who although meant the world to him, hadn't taken up nearly as much real estate as Kurt had in his heart.

When Kurt transferred back to McKinley, Blaine cried for a week.

Day after lonely day he would try to put up a brave front for the Warblers, and he felt he succeeded to hide his anguish rather well if their normal camaraderie was anything to go by, but night after unbearably lonely night Blaine fought a losing war against his tears and fell asleep to restless dreams about being stuck frozen in place as everybody rushed around him, unseeing and uncaring, clutching desperately at his heart.

Blaine had eventually adjusted though, especially after Kurt seemed to notice that while he had his friends at New Directions and old surroundings to reacquaint himself with to distract him from the pang of loneliness at Blaine's absence, Blaine was stuck in the same place he had been, in the same routine, with a Kurt-shaped hole in it, and he went out of his way to see the boy he had left behind.

That was when the nightly phone calls had started, and their shared skin-regimens became a time not just to prevent future wrinkles and sun-spots but to share and unwind with one another, sharing the same friendship and relationship they had always had, if only slightly farther apart.

If Blaine still held on a little longer when they saw each other or a little tighter when they said goodbye, Kurt returned the sentiment but had the tact not to address it.

When New Directions left for New York though, Blaine having accompanied Burt and Carole to the airport for their goodbyes, the initial pain of separation came back tenfold, and Blaine hadn't been able to hold back his tears as he pictured them, Blaine, Burt and Carole, standing in the very same airport, by the very same gate, a year from now as Kurt left him- them- for bigger and better things in New York.

Blaine clutched at his heart as the phantom pain of his future heartache took the place of the phantom pain of his past.

Burt had simply put his arm around his shoulders, held him against his chest and let him cry, safe in a paternal embrace he had never known before.

“I know it hurts kid, but you gotta remember that he doesn't really belong here. He's bigger than Lima, Ohio, and so are you.”

Blaine had just managed to stutter something about missing him already and he wasn't even gone yet and Burt didn't have to ask to know that Blaine wasn't talking about Nationals.

Instead of driving him home, the Hummels had driven back to their house and ushered Blaine in, Burt nodding in the direction of Kurt's room and Carole patting him on the back before announcing that dinner was in two hours and that he could just unwind and nap in Kurt's room until then. Blaine shot them a watery smile before toeing off his boots at the entrance and padding along to Kurt's room without another word. Wrapped under the sheets and hugging a pillow that smelled so strongly of his boyfriend, Blaine realized that although he had known it since Kurt entered the Warbler rehearsal in his mourning outfit and opened his mouth, he had yet to tell Kurt that he loved him. He had yet to tell him that wrapped in his scent while his parents cooked and cared for him was the happiest he could be, even as his heart ached to be holding more than something that simply smelled of Kurt. He had yet to tell him that although it would absolutely break him, Blaine wanted nothing more than to see Kurt get out of Ohio and reach his dreams, because Blaine loved him so much he would stand a thousand nights of heartbreak for him because he loved him and how had he not told him yet?

Two hours later Carole's voice rang up the stairs, the gentle call of 'Sweetie, dinner's ready!' warming a part of him he didn't know could be warm without Kurt,

When Kurt comes back, all smiles and stories from New York, Blaine is surprised to find himself nothing but happy for Kurt, and when the words slip out of his mouth mid-stare-fest at Kurt instead of after a beautifully romantic dinner date like he had planned it doesn't even bother him because Kurt nearly choked on his coffee before saying it back.

Their summer was then passed in a rose-colored haze of hot skin turning hotter as it pressed up against a mirrored chest, lips moving slowly and sensually together as though the summer heat made anything more than a lazy passion impossible, and hands roving until just above waistlines as they agreed that while they both wanted, they had all the time in the world and there was no sense in rushing things.

That summer Blaine and Kurt became BlaineandKurt and when Kurt began bringing up Blaine transferring to McKinley as a real possibility rather than a vague daydream shared between two barely separated lips on a hammock, Blaine had a hard time coming up with a legitimate excuse to say no.

His parents wouldn't care. They never cared. In fact, his father might actually prefer for Blaine to 'man up and go to public school' than to continue living in the safe haven that had become Dalton.

The safe haven that was almost too tempting to leave.

In the end, it was the one night spent back in the Dalton dorms clutching at his heart that sealed the deal for him. The Warblers were his friends, but Kurt was his very heart. He could live without one but he could hardly survive without the other. Pushing aside the afterimages of solitary dreams, Blaine rose the next morning, put on his 'civilian outfit' as the Dalton boys liked to call regular clothes, and marched right up to the registrar's office to inform them of his imminent transfer.

A quick phone call to his father's secretary later and he was enrolled in William McKinley High School, ready to start his Junior year. He would have been terrified if he didn't know the most courageous person in that entire school would be by his side, day in, day out.

It didn't take long for him to realize however that being together at McKinley was not the same as being together at Dalton. Neither reached for the other's hand in the hallways, neither quickened his pace too drastically to meet the other for fear of calling attention to themselves, there were no plush leather couches for them to press into for rehearsals and without them no excuse to press their sides together tightly. The sting of their forced frigidity was only assuaged by the warmth of their stolen glances and the heat in their kiss behind closed doors in the newfound haven of Kurt�s house, where even Finn who had for some inexplicable reason turned on Blaine managed to shoot them a friendly smile when he found them canoodling on the couch and Burt and Carole only ever half-heartedly told them to tone down the PDA.

They never bother to even half-heartedly tell them so when they found Kurt asleep on Blaine, tear-tracks drying on his cheeks after the disastrous NYADA mixer, the botched West Side Story audition or the presidential campaign fiasco, Burt simply putting a blanket over the two, petting Kurt's hair and squeezing Blaine's shoulder in a silent thank you for being there for his son now that it wasn't really Burt's place to be.

Blaine responded with a small smile and tightening his grip on Kurt as though to confirm that he would always take good care of his kid.

On those nights, while he tried to drift and join Kurt in sleep, Blaine would spend hours running his fingers through Kurt's thick hair, trying to count all of the ways Kurt had brought happiness into his life, but always coming up short, realizing there was no way to put a number on the ways Kurt had made his life better.

Before he fell asleep though he always thought briefly to the man who would cover the two boys with a thick blanket so that they wouldn't be cold in the middle of the night, the man with the base-ball cap and the oil stained fingers who practically screamed small-minded middle-American stereotype but who never failed to clasp his broad hand on his son's boyfriend's shoulder and wish him a goodnight, and he realized that on top of giving him all the love he had to give, Kurt had also given him his father, the first Blaine ever really had to love and be loved by.

Maybe it was because it was Burt that had given him the news that Blaine took it so well. When the two men came into the observation room he was being held in to pick him up and take him home (his parents away on business as usual), both of them nearly bouncing with excitement, a part of Blaine had expected it but it didn't dampen the surprise and excitement he in turn felt when Burt Hummel (Burt Hummel of all people) started gushing like a school girl about how Kurt was a finalist for NYADA. Blaine was quick to join them in their euphoria, throwing himself into Kurt's awaiting arms with the well-meaning clumsiness of somebody with impaired depth-perception but finding his footing in the embrace that truly felt like home once the sturdy weight of an oil-stained hand landed on his shoulder.


Weeks later Blaine and Kurt were sitting together on the Hummel's couch, having collapsed there on automatic as their minds were both short-circuited by the envelope being grasped tightly in Kurt's trembling hands.

The large envelope in Kurt's hands.

“Kurt, we've been sitting here for a good six minutes now, do you want me to open it for you?”

Blaine put a hand softly on top of Kurt's left, trying to ease the letter from his desperate grasp without damaging it. The soft motion yanked Kurt out of his panic induced daze and he thrust the letter to his boyfriend, covering his eyes with both hands now that they were free.

“Just- do it quickly okay? And if I didn't get in don't say anything, just burn the letter and hold me okay?”

Blaine smiled softly at Kurt, endeared as always by this sid of Kurt, the one that was incredibly vulnerable and shown only to a select few. Blaine could never thank whatever deity found him worthy to be one of those few enough for sending Kurt onto his path.

Leaning forward, Blaine pressed a soft kiss to the uncovered corner of Kurt's mouth before leaning back and carefully opening the envelope. He was meticulous in trying not to rip it, knowing that if Kurt was accepted (and he probably would be after his stunning audition during the NYADA finals) he would probably want to frame it or something. With every small ripping sound, Kurt would let out an even smaller whimper. With every small rip Blaine became a little more torn as well.

Blaine wants Kurt to get in, he wants it more than anything, but he knows that Kurt getting in means Kurt taking his heart away to the opposite end of the country. Blaine slipped his fingers into the neatly torn envelope.

“Dear Mr. Hummel, it is my pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted into NYADA's musical theater program for the gradua--!”

Blaine was cut off by Kurt's arms thrown around his neck and his shrill screams filling the living room. Blaine was clutching onto him tightly and bouncing in his seat along with him, he could feel the wideness of his grin painfully stretching his mouth but he couldn't wipe it off his face if he tried. Kurt pulled back enough to pressed the lips together in a kiss that was probably too much smiles to be called one but neither seemed to care. Blaine couldn't stop laughing with happiness even when Kurt pulled back and held him at arms' length for a second.

“Blaine! I got in! I got- are you alright?”

Kurt's tone had gone from elated to worried and Blaine couldn't figure out why. Blaine was so excited his heart felt as though it was almost in pain with it, he was laughing with it, he was--

He wasn't laughing he was sobbing.

Blaine raised a hand to his chest with the ease of a practiced motion and clutched at his heart, which he realized really was in pain, the same pain he had felt that day at the airport, and every night the week after Kurt left him at Dalton and that first and only night he spent there in his Junior year and oh god, he was breaking down in front of Kurt.

“Wh-what? I-I'm fine! I'm s-sorry, you got in! I'm j-just so happy you know? I rea-really am, god, I feel s-so stupid cr-crying, I'm really happy, honest, okay? You gotta let me tell Burt, though o-okay? You g-gotta let me tell him--”

Suddenly Kurt's arms were around him again and Blaine couldn't stop the sobs tearing their way out of his throat. He found himself clutching at his back with desperate and clumsy fingers that tried to bring Kurt ever closer to him, to bring him so close he could never leave him again. Through his sobs he could vaguely make out Kurt's comforting words being whispered in his ears, like a soothing balm being pressed into his breaking heart. Words of love and devotion, promises of swift returns and constant phone calls. Apologies for not noticing Blaine's pain sooner, and for things he couldn't control. Apologies for his age, and for wanting New York and for leaving Blaine behind and it was only then that Blaine stopped his sobbing long enough to press his wet lips against Kurt's.

“Do-don't baby, please. Never apologize for th-that. I love you s-so much, Kurt, I just want you to be happy ok? I'll be there with y-you the following year, okay? We'll b-be fine, I love you, you-you gotta let me tell your dad though, you have to, he told m-me about you b-being a finalist, so it's my turn o-okay?”

Kurt pulled his face away from where Blaine was holding him, lips pressed together between the words of his sobbing speech, and looked into his red-rimmed hazel eyes. He saw nothing but love under the over-whelming sadness there and he knew that Blaine meant every word he had said.

“Okay, darling, you'll tell my dad, just, rest now okay? Come here, baby, we'll lay down together for a while before he comes home.”

Blaine let himself be pulled down onto Kurt's chest as they laid their bodies sideways on the comfortable couch. It was a comforting position, being held by Kurt's deceptively strong arms as a long-fingered hand ran through his unruly curls while he waited for his sobs to die down. It took less long than Kurt had anticipated for Blaine to quiet down and fall into an exhausted slumber, but for once, Kurt couldn't join him in sleep. The guilt he felt for leaving Blaine behind was stronger than ever having finally seen the turmoil that he had always suspected Blaine hid behind those ever-encouraging eyes. So he simply lay there under the solid weight of his sleeping boyfriend, carding his fingers though the lightly gelled locks and trying to burn every part of this moment into his memory, from the comforting heaviness of Blaine's body on his, to the cooling patch of warm tears on his shirt front to the way Blaine's hand clutched tightly at the shirt covering Kurt's heart, tighter even than he had clutched his own.

Hours must have passed in that same manner before Kurt heard the door opening and closing with little care. Burt and Carole must be home, since Finn was spending the night at Puck's. When Burt calls out to see if anybody's home, Kurt resists the habit of yelling back 'In here!' as he usually does, telling himself that Burt would realize why soon enough. That Blaine hadn't woken up through the door slamming and the yelling was testament to how truly exhausted he must have been, because Kurt didn't know anybody with a lighter sleep than Blaine.

Sure enough, the tell-tale heavy footsteps of his father sounded down the entrance and towards the living room. From his spot on the couch Kurt could see Burt catching sight of the NYADA envelope (the large NYADA envelope) on the coffee table and of the painful slant of Blaine's eyebrows that refused to relax even in his deep sleep.

“He wanted to be the one to tell you the good news,” Kurt whispered at his father.

Burt simply grabbed the large afghan that was folded on the love seat across from the boys and draped it over the two, the furrowed slant of Blaine's brows softening imperceptibly. Burt reached forward and petted Blaine's hair and squeezed Kurt's shoulder.

“He'll tell me tomorrow.”