Prologue

It started with a phone call. Except that was a lie.

It started in the summer between junior and senior year, the summer when Kurt and Blaine spent the majority of their time watching clips on YouTube when they weren't learning the lines and shapes of the other's bodies.

Today they were making the journey back to Blaine's house from Kurt's, where they had stopped briefly after having spent a few blissful days of (relative) solitude in their (mostly) private room on the New Directions Summer Bonding Trip (enforced by Rachel), which had otherwise been a vary sheer façade for an unchaperoned vacation. In fact, Kurt was fairly sure that any bonding that taken place had really been between the couples of the club and probably not at all in the spirit of the event. He couldn't help but smile with great satisfaction at just how well he and Blaine had "bonded".

They were taking Blaine's beaten up BMW because, even a little old, it was just a better car than Kurt's. Things were so gloriously comfortable between the boys. Blaine laughed at Kurt's rant about Rachel's lasted fashion disaster – the discovery of the pashmina scarf – and Kurt laughed at Blaine's terrible attempt to imitate Sarah Brightman in Repo! The Genetic Opera. But if Blaine had to tell Kurt to stop fussing over his bangs one more time (because really, compared to his own curls, the boy had the most amazing hair) and if Kurt had to listen to that Megan Washington album one more time (which was wonderful at first, but the novelty had worn off), they were going to experience firsthand just what Teenage Fury was. It was a perfect road-trip.

And maybe it had been that album that had played on Blaine's subconscious that evening, with his parents asked them both (again) if they had thought any more(than last week) on colleges, when he blurted out: "Georgetown!"

That was how it really began, with the plan following from Blaine's lips nearly fully formed, he wanted to study psychology and help kids in a way that he and Kurt hadn't really ever had and that Georgetown would be perfect, because he could talk to Adrienne (his sister) and Robert (her husband) and maybe move into their spare room and it wasn't as distant as all that and wouldn't it be wonderful?

But Kurt sat in silence at the dinner table, as the Andersons encouraged their son.

("I'll call them right away." "You'll need to apply soon, but your grades are excellent." "Psychology is a good field." "Better than theatre, we're so glad you've come to your senses.")

They hadn't discussed this, he and Blaine. College had always been this far-off thing that was going to happen later because what was happening between them, this love was happening now. And they were going to choose their college together, somewhere they could each do what they loved – and psychology! Where had that even come from!

The first time Kurt had been allowed to stay the night at Blaine's was marred with their first fight, but Kurt had no car, so diva-ing out of the room and driving home at 11pm, though really wanted, was not an option. He took the bed (because the gentleman in his host prevailed through the gritted teeth and the clenched fists), Blaine took the floor (miserably), and in the morning they both felt so stupid that apologies were barely muttered before they found themselves in an impossibly tight embrace.

Blaine whispered in Kurt's ear with all the romantic intensity he could muster, "We'll sort this out."

And that was how, a more than a year later, Kurt found himself in a shared apartment in Ballston, living with three perfectly insane housemates from the Art Institute of Washington and readying himself for a career, or a degree at least, in Interior Design. Sometimes he takes the elevator to the top floor, then the fire stairs to the roof, and at sunrise, if it's a clear morning, he can just make out Georgetown University behind the other buildings. A fine mist rises from the Potomac.

So our scene is set.

The phone rings.