A little over a week after Valentines’ Day, the temperatures in Lima plummeted. While this brought complaint from many students and indifference to others(“Finn!” Rachel had yelled in a hallway one morning, “It’s thirty degrees outside; why aren’t you wearing a jacket?!” Finn had shrugged. “I dunno, it’s not that cold.”), Kurt rather enjoyed it. He got to show off his lovely layered winter wardrobe, making a short comeback before spring really came. It’s also a little-known fact that cold weather is the best time to have a boyfriend. While they didn’t do a whole lot of PDA at school, after hours were the perfect time to snuggle up to a warm body, or go on hot-drink dates, or watch movies under a blanket as it rained outside. Kurt had very few complaints about the weather.

On Friday, all day at school, people had been predicting snow. It felt as if it was all anyone spoke about. Funny how the most interesting thing they can all find to converse about is the weather, Kurt thought. It was certainly cold enough for snow, and as Kurt and Blaine walked out to the parking lot after school, gray clouds began descending overhead.

“I’ll pick you up in a couple hours, okay?” Blaine said. Kurt, who’d been staring at the clouds, looked down at him and smiled.

“Okay!”

Blaine kissed Kurt on the cheek, then turned to walk to his own car. Kurt climbed in to the Navigator and turned the engine on right away, willing the car to warm up. He was driving home to get homework done, and perhaps a warm shower, before Blaine picked him up for a Friday-night date. The fact that he still got butterflies over little things like that was exactly why he loved his relationship with Blaine so much.

As Kurt drove home, it began to drizzle on his windshield, and then the drops became slushier, less liquid and more solid. Maybe the kids at school were right-it looked like they were in for some snow.

Kurt had the house to himself as he showered and redressed, blowdried his hair, styled it, and brushed his teeth. He sang showtunes softly as he walked around his room, and then sat down to do some homework to get it out of the way. He was halfway through a French worksheet when the doorbell rang. Kurt excitedly set down his binder, picked up his bag and jogged downstairs. Opening the door, he was greeted with a beautiful sight.

Blaine stood there, framed in the doorway. He was wearing a peacoat and a striped scarf. Snowflakes stood out starkly in his dark hair. Behind him, the whole world was blanketed in a thin layer of white. Kurt hadn’t even noticed while he was in his room that it had continued to snow. Big flakes drifted from the sky behind Blaine.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Blaine greeted him.

Kurt smiled. “Why, hello.”

“Ready for our date?”

“Of course I am.”

They walked out to Blaine’s car, feet crunching in the snow. It wasn’t very deep yet, but the flakes showed no sign of stopping.

Blaine drove cautiously to his house, which was rather far away(not quite to Westerville but certainly outside of Lima), and it took them even longer than usual with the snow that did not cease. They chatted about Glee, and about their classes, gossiped about their friends. Finally they reached Blaine’s house.

“Who’s home?” Kurt asked as they pulled out. He hadn’t thought about it beforehand.

“Nobody, right now.” Blaine said. “Mom’s at some meeting; I can’t remember if it was Rotary or PTA or what. She said she’ll be back by six-thirty.”

Kurt chuckled slightly. Blaine’s mom was the get-involved-in-the-community type.

“And dad’s at work, which goes without saying.”

The boys ran to the door, arriving on the porch dusted with white snowflakes. Blaine began to fumble with his keys in his cold hands, but then stopped. He looked up at Kurt, who was waiting expectantly for the door to be unlocked. Blaine grinned.

“Come here,” he said, putting his keys in his coat pocket.

“What?” Kurt asked.

Blaine stepped forward and reached for Kurt’s shoulder. He took the strap of Kurt’s bag and threaded Kurt’s arm through it, setting it down on a wicker chair on the porch. Then he took Kurt’s hand and led him down the porch stairs, back into the yard.

“What’re you doing?” Kurt asked, his eyes squinting against the falling flakes.

“I’m kissing you in the snow, silly!” Blaine exclaimed, pulling Kurt close and doing exactly what he promised.

Kurt smiled into the kiss. Where there lips touched was possibly the only warm place on his body, and still the kiss was chillier than most. He could feel cold pinpricks on his exposed hands and face. He cracked his eyes open. All he could see was Blaine’s face, and beyond that only a snow-covered landscape, unidentifiable in its white covering. He could have been anywhere. He felt like a prince in an enchanted fairytale.

When they pulled apart, Kurt said, “Thank you.”

Blaine smiled. “No, thank you.”

As much as Kurt loved the magical feeling the snow gave him, he was awfully cold. “Let’s go inside.”

“Okay,” Blaine said.

Kurt turned and headed towards the door, expecting Blaine to follow him. Once he’d reached the porch steps, though, he realized Blaine wasn’t behind him. “What-“ he began, turning around.

Splat! A snowball hit him square in the chest. Kurt’s jaw dropped as he stared at his snow-splattered coat, and then looked up to see Blaine giggling, bits of snow still clinging to his hands.

“Oh no you didn’t,” Kurt said fiercely, bending over to scoop up a snowball of his own. Blaine tried to dodge, but was still hit pretty hard on the shoulder.

“You really wanna do this, Blaine?” Kurt asked.

Blaine laughed sharply. “You think you can beat me, Hummel?”

Kurt was already gathering snow as he replied. “You’re gonna regret this.” He hurled a snowball at Blaine, but the short boy ducked, avoiding it completely. Kurt swore softly, quickly making another one. He wasn’t keeping an eye on Blaine, though, who ran up and dumped a handfull of snow on the back of his neck. Coldness seeped through Kurt’s scarf, followed by water droplets as the snow melted. Kurt stood, holding a huge snowball with both hands, his face livid. “Get ready, Anderson.”

Blaine, who had retreated and now stood ten feet away, smiled slyly. “You’re so sexy when you want revenge.”

Then he began to run, because an enraged Kurt Hummel was heading for him.

After a heated snowball battle(they called a draw with a kiss-they had both fought valiantly and were covered in snow), they ended up in the backyard.

“Let’s make snow angels!” Blaine exclaimed, plopping down in the snow and trying to pull Kurt with him. Kurt resisted.

“Come on,” Blaine said, lying down and spreading his arms back and forth.

“Blaine, I am not laying on the ground.”

“It’s fun!”

Kurt raised his eyebrow.

“Fine,” Blaine said. Sighing, he got up and took a second to admire the snow angel he’d made. “What now?”

Kurt glanced around the yard. It was rather large, nicely taken care of, a path winding through it with a swinging bench in one corner, an oak tree that was currently covered in snow shading it.

Kurt walked over to the swing, examined the base of the tree next to it, and found a branch that had broken off, possibly because of the snow’s weight. He picked it up, shook off the snow, and walked back towards Blaine.

“What’re you doing?” Blaine asked.

In reply, Kurt found a spot of blank, untouched snow near Blaine’s snow angel. He leaned over and began drawing in the snow with the stick. He drew a big, sloppy heart, and within it he wrote KURT + BLAINE. He smiled as he remembered doodling just that in a notebook so long ago. He glanced back at Blaine.

The short boy was grinning widely, staring at the snow-drawing. Kurt took a moment just to admire him while he was looking away. Then he asked, “You like it?”

Blaine snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Kurt. “I love it.”

He stepped forward and took Kurt in his arms. They stood for a moment, feeling the warmth of eachother’s bodies in such a cold world, before Kurt asked, “Can we go inside now?”

Blaine nodded. “Yeah. Oh, wait! I have to get something from my car.”

They walked around to the front of the house. Kurt waited on the porch while Blaine went to his car and got a grocery store bag out of the backseat. He unlocked the front door and they walked in, wiping their feet and hanging up their wet clothing in the foyer. Blaine led the way into the kitchen.

“What’s in the bag?” Kurt asked as Blaine set it down on the counter.

Blaine reached in and, with a flourish, pulled out a round tin. “Cocoa!” he exclaimed. “It’s snowing outside so we have to drink hot cocoa.”

Kurt laughed. “You’re adorable,” he told Blaine. Blaine’s cheeks flushed, already red from being outside.

Blaine made the cocoa on the stovetop, then poured it into two mugs(all of the mugs at Blaine’s house matched-pastel colors, same shape and size, a matched set. At Kurt’s house, the mugs were all different, collected from different diners and stores, with the obligatory #1 Dad mug). They took it out to the den, where they sat on the couch and turned on the electrical fireplace(Blaine’s house actually did have a fireplace in the living room, but it was rarely used; neither of his parents were really the type to carry firewood back and forth, save up newspapers for kindling, and spend a good half-hour building a fire). Blaine grabbed a fleece blanket that they could put over their still-cool bodies.

It was about six-forty-five when they sat down with their drinks(they even had mini marshmallows in them-Blaine had gone all out), and Kurt asked where Mrs. Anderson was.

“I dunno,” Blaine said, looking at his phone. “She’s usually never late…”

Blaine called his mom. Kurt waited as he talked to her, blowing on his cocoa.

“Okay, well, call me when you know more. Bye.” Blaine hung up and turned to Kurt. “The roads are really bad,” he said. “My mom can’t drive back here from town. She said she’ll have to wait until the snow lets up, and that might not be until tomorrow.”

Kurt raised his eyebrow. “What about your dad?”

Blaine bit his lip. “Good point.”

Blaine called his dad, too, standing up and pacing behind the couch. Kurt turned the TV on mute while they talked, watching whatever soap opera was on the channel it had been left on. The acting seemed even worse than usual without sound.

Blaine plopped down next to Kurt again. “Dad’s spending the night in Westerville. It must be really bad.” He picked up the remote and flipped to the weather channel, turning the sound on. They watched for a few minutes, listening as the reporter spoke of unusually high snow levels and unsafe driving conditions.

Kurt’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that his home number was calling.

“Hello?”

“Kurt, sweetie!” It was Carole. “You’re not driving, are you?”

“No.”

“Are you still at Blaine’s?”

“Yeah.”

Carole paused. Kurt heard his dad’s voice in the background. “Kurt, your father and I think you should probably just stay there for now. Your car doesn’t have chains, and it’s a long drive back home, and it’s coming down pretty hard…you might have to stay the night.”

Kurt glanced at Blaine, who was patiently waiting for him to get off the phone. Kurt smiled and tried not to sound too excited when he replied to Carole. “Um, okay. If that’s what you guys want.”

“It is,” Carole said. She paused again. “Your dad says that we just want you to be safe.”

Kurt had to hold back his laugh, as he was nearly positive that his dad’s sentiment had more than one meaning. “Of course,” Kurt replied, blushing. “I’ll call you guys before I come home, okay?”

“Great. Bye, Kurt!”

“Bye, Carole.”

He put his phone back in his pocket and turned to Blaine. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“We’re having a sleepover.”

After they finished their cocoa they ended up on the floor(possibly because they’d been making out and accidentally fell off the couch, or maybe just because they felt like it), wrapped up in the blanket in front of the fire.

“Cooper played the meanest trick on me once,” Blaine said. Kurt nodded, ready to hear the story. While he’d never met Blaine’s brother, he knew that Cooper was notorious for pranks.

Blaine continued. “It was a snow day, and I was eight. I played outside all day. Cooper came out some, too, but not nearly as much as me. He kept going in and out, actually, but I ignored him in favor of whatever I was doing.

“That night I came inside, had dinner, and then got ready for bed. I went into my room, turned off the light, and then slipped into my bed-

“And yelped. It was freezing. I jumped out, turned on the light, and pulled back the covers. Snow, everywhere. It must have been and inch deep over the whole bed when he put it in, but it had started to melt, so it was less than that. I started crying, and my parents came up, and boy did he get in trouble…but he didn’t even care. He’d gotten me, and that was what mattered to him.”

Kurt giggled. “He sounds evil.”

Blaine shrugged. “More like an evil genius. I mean, I love him. I just might have loved him more if he hadn’t pulled so many pranks.”

A comfortable silence fell over them.

“I’ve always like the snow,” Kurt said suddenly. Blaine looked at him, but didn’t say anything-somehow he sensed that Kurt was going to go on.

“When I was really little I’d play in it a lot. And-well, whenever it snowed, I’d go out and make a little snowman family. A snowman Dad, a snowman Mom, and a snowman me. I’d go and get one of my dad’s caps to put on his snowman, and some of my mom’s beads to put on her. And my snowman was always right in between them.”

Kurt sighed. “I haven’t made a snowman in ages.”

Blaine pulled him closer, putting their foreheads together. “You could make snowman families now,” he said softly. “Except there’s not enough snow in all of Ohio to make a snowman tall enough to accurately depict Finn.”

Kurt laughed suddenly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Later that night Kurt stood in Blaine’s room while he locked up the house. He looked out his window into the backyard. Surprisingly, he could still see the outline of the heart he’d drawn in the fading light. He thought the falling snow would have covered it up, but it persevered. Kurt smiled slightly. He knew that the next day it would probably be erased by snowfall or wind, but that didn’t matter. It would stay, tattooed invisibly on that lawn, forever. An ever-lasting momento of a snowy day with the boy he loved.

“Hey,” Blaine said, appearing in the doorway. Kurt turned to him. “What do you-“

He was silenced, then, by Kurt’s lips. Neither of them spoke coherent sentences for quite a while after that.