Kurt's never taken this long to answer his phone before.

Blaine sighs inwardly, making a face at the dial tone; he can feel Wes' breath heavy on his shoulder and knows that behind him, fourteen Warblers are waiting, sprawled around the piano, with bated breath. This is –- pathetic, but something he absolutely has to do, because Kurt's absence makes him speechless as much as Kurt himself, even when there's so much he needs to say.

Will say, when Kurt's home and the moment isn't punctuated by static and Nick and Jeff having a thumb war in the background, and when it's right.Blaine ignores the fact that it's always been�right,�that even if his boyfriend all too-routinely makes breathing harder by causing Blaine's heart to lodge somewhere in his throat, he makes everything else so, so much�easier.�

Except missing him. But, given the way that Kurt fills every space with his sheer presence, it shouldn't be such a shock that Blaine's heart feels weighed down with emptiness now that he's gone.

Kurt picks up on the eighth ring, mumbling something about�Lady and the Tramp�under his breath. Blaine can hear Tina and Mercedes whistling in the background and it's not the sort of start Blaine would have chosen, but it's so quintessentially Kurt that he gives the Warblers a thumbs up and watches them huddle in closer around him, a too-warm press of scratchy blazers at his back.

"Blaine," Kurt says quickly. "Sorry, I –- I'm trying to dress Puck in something that's appropriate for a romantic serenade, and –-" A sharp draw of breath echoes down the phone line, and Blaine can hear him humming something before making a low comment that he can't quite hear.

David's nudge is a sign that this is it,�make your overwrought but unequivocally swoon-enducing speech�and�dude, you are so lucky your parents pay your phone bills,�but even Kurt's breath sounds like New York, and Blaine feels entirely too-small town Ohio as a result, even if his dreams have recently become so much bigger.

"Put your phone on loudspeaker," is all he says, instead. "Just trust me."

"I always trust you, Blaine, attempts to bake brownies with Sam's siblings notwithstanding," Kurt replies, with a teasing laugh that goes straight to Blaine's bones. It's –- everything really; the way Kurt's laugh sounds like a symphony and how easily it comes; how, between spending hours trying to coax it out of him with�American Idol�commentary over lunch at Breadstix and now, Blaine's come to know it with all its assorted meanings, in all its assorted contexts. How Kurt laughs because of him, yes, but also at him –- at inside jokes and memories that are hazy beyond the knowledge that they exist, but that also burn bright in their minds like candles; Blaine finds himself drawn to their light like a firefly because they're a reminder that Kurt is hisboyfriend.�He's glad that the Warblers are standing behind him like a shield, protecting him from the parts of himself that are�so fucking in love�he just wants to shout it out loud.

Because as much as New York is where Kurt belongs, where they belong, there are some memories of Ohio that Blaine would like him to keep. And hearing his first�I love you�in a place that once told him he couldn't have just that is somewhere at the top of Blaine's list.

"But everyone's in here trying to write our final song, and so far we're stuck on whether or not 'give up the bark and bite' says exactly what we want it to," Kurt says, and Blaine can almosthear�him rolling his eyes. "Finn's apparently chosen this moment to forget how to tie a tie, as though every male didn't know the knots by rote memory at the age of three, like me. And Mr. Schue's expressly forbidden us to go out on the balcony because it's apparently one of the bigger dangers in New York, or something."

"Or something," Blaine agrees, smiling widely. "But surely you've broken the rules on this trip at least twice already. I happen to know you were using your phone on the plane long before you were allowed to, even if it was only to vent about how many times Finn had to get up and pee." Cradling his phone closer to his ear, he instinctively whacks Trent hard across the shoulder before he can follow up on his question about whether or not Kurt was propositioning Blaine for phone sex and could you still join the mile high club if only one half of a duo was actually�onthe plane?

"We�did�sneak out long enough to sing an inspired mash-up of songs about New York in Central Park, and as much as I'd like to say that all the dancing made you right about the fur being too much for May, I looked�fabulous." Kurt pauses. "There may or may not have been�Sound of Music-esque frolicking, although�apparently�writing two original songs in thirty-six hours is easier than singing�Edelweiss."

Blaine resists the urge to hum the opening lines; he's watched�The Sound of Music�three times with Kurt now, and they both know all the songs. "Just –- do it, okay."

"Okay." Somewhere in the background, he hears the gentle creak of a door swinging on its hinge, and if he closes his eyes he can�imagine�that he's there in New York with Kurt, standing on the balcony of an apartment, arms wrapped tight around each other as the stars come out and they recount their days, telling stories about lives that could be anything as long as they're far, far removed from Ohio and high school. Blaine thinks it's probably a sign that they've been thinking too hard about this and not at all because even�he�knows that you can't see the stars unless you drive a good hour or more from the centre of New York. But they've got all of the next year to figure these things out, and all he cares about right now is that New York holds Kurt, and his dreams.

Two things that are increasingly beginning to blur together; Kurt is New York with all its all of his promise and glory, and New York can only glow bigger and brighter as it nurtures the promise and glory of someone like Kurt.

"My loudspeaker's on," Kurt says, after a moment or two of silence, and it's a mark of the Warblers' professionalism that Blaine doesn't even have to motion for them to�shush.�"Seriously, Blaine, if you weren't so infuriatingly cryptic and I didn't need your texts to distract me from the task of trying to keep Quinn and Rachel from fighting, I'd tell you to hang up right now, because I'm in New York."

"Ouch," Trent says behind him in a low whisper, and he can almost sense Kurt on the other end of the line, straining to hear.

"Was – was that?"

Blaine lays his phone down on a table near the piano and braces himself, even if he's not exactly what for.�Somewhere Only We Know�was enough to help him come any residual fear and embarrassment that could come from serenading a boy.�"Let me preface this by saying that it's a good thing we lost at Regionals and that graduating has softened Wes a little, because I didn't have to beg half as hard as I normally would have for this."

Kurt groans, and the Warblers don't even bother to stifle their laughter this time. "You�didn't, Blaine. Seriously? You're going to serenade me over the phone without at least letting me be there to stop you dancing on the furniture?"

"This isn't an act, Kurt," Blaine replies, nodding to the Warblers before he can make himself nervous by thinking about how in love he is, about how nothing with Kurt is an act and what that really means. "But I think it's better for it."

"What -?"

He plays the opening notes in response, hoping against hope that Kurt can actually make some of this out on his end of the line.

"Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City,"�he starts, and he can hear Kurt over the gentle cadence of the music, choking on something that could be a sob or a snort. Blaine sincerely hopes it's the former. "I'm a thousand miles away, but tonight you look so pretty, yes you do."�The Warblers join in as Blaine reaches the chorus, fingers flying at the piano keys as though, somehow, they can absorb some of the itch he has to just to�touch�Kurt, to feel the spasm of Kurt's heartbeat under his splayed fingers, to get a sense of the visceral reactions his boyfriend has to music, to each and every song.

Because music speaks to a part of Kurt that Blaine's only just learning the language of.

"Oh, it's what you do to me," he finishes, and the Warblers fall silent before hitting the final note with a different kind of enthusiasm to their usual performances. Blaine owes them for this; Wes and David only have four months left with their girlfriends before they head to UCLA in the fall and everyone's got finals this week, but he can't help but think they'd do it anyway –- if not for him, then certainly for Kurt.

"You do realise that song was pretty much written as a class in Introduction to Stalking 101 and has very little to actually do with New York, don't you?" Kurt says, as soon as Blaine's finished, but he can hear all the things his boyfriend's not saying, that he hasn't needed to say in all the time they've been together because just the press of his palm against Blaine's has been enough.

Will always be enough, except that Blaine wants to give him something�more,�not because he can't hold in his love for Kurt any longer but simply because he knows it's time to hold it out.

The Warblers laugh and Blaine's quickly switches off his loudspeaker and puts the phone back to his ear, sighing, "I attempt to dazzle my boyfriend with a song and that's�all�I get."

Kurt's sigh is palpable, if a little tinny. "New York dazzles me, Blaine. I like you just fine without you needing to. If anything, when we move here, you'll need to�stop�dazzling me so I can actually share it all with you." He pauses, and Blaine can hear New York in his voice again, the impulse and the cautious consideration, the hunger and the feeling of being satiated. It's terrifying, how much his boyfriend has changed in just a few days, but also a comfort; this is Blaine's future, all of it. Ever since he lifted his eyes and saw Kurt on the staircase, that day, he's never been gladder to look ahead. "Is it wrong that I think I'm going to fall more in love with this city the second time around, when I get to show you everything I've seen?"

"Not at all," Blaine says, smiling deep and bright against his phone, as though Kurt can somehow hear it. He catches a few of the Warblers hovering awkwardly behind him and turns to them with a quick thumbs up, indicating that they can leave. He'll find a way to make it up to them later. "I think you can fall in love with something a million times, just because it's something new every day."

He thinks he might hear Kurt's breath hitch in his throat, ever so slightly, but the reception makes it hard to tell. Blaine hates this, hates knowing and not-knowing all the same time, hates feeling hollowed-out because simply because he remembers with all too much clarity what it was like to have Kurt's mouth full against his, before. And he knows this is not the moment, so he leans back against the piano, shrugging his shoulders out his blazer, and lets Kurt regale him with tales of the best pizza he's ever eaten and�is it too much to try and sneak into the Gershwin theatre?�The answer: not for Rachel Berry.

Because New York might be everything he wants, but Ohio's given him everything he needs in Kurt, and he's not sure when or how, but he knows it will give him a chance to say�I love you.And Blaine thinks his face might just shine brighter than Times Square when he does.