Pavarotti flew silently out the window, little wings fluttering. Blaine turned from counting to a hundred just in time to see Pavarotti's little yellow tail feathers flit out the crack between the two wooden doors to the outside world. Pavarotti wasn't allowed to go beyond the windowsill; Blaine couldn't follow and it wouldn't be fair. And the only thing Blaine had out there were a few pots of flowers. Hmmm, Blaine would have to trip him up somehow...
"Ha!" Blaine threw the window open. A few bright rays of sunlight filtered through, warming his face. Blaine loved sunlight, he couldn't be sure why. Blaine pretended to be stumped, smoothing his hands through the crown of his head and grabbing a loose length of one of his curls, "Hmm, well, I guess Pavarotti's not hiding out here..."
A whistle-y bird laugh came from the farthest pot on the left, Blaine tossed his curl at it, roping the length of hair around the little bird and hoisted him up by one leg, "Gotcha!" Blaine laughed and let Pavarotti down on the ledge, "That's twenty-two for me... How about twenty-three out of forty-five?"
Pavarotti cocked his head at Blaine in a definite frown.
"Okay," Blaine sat down on the window ledge, "What do you want to do?"
Pavarotti instantly flew from his perch, soaring out into the air, daring Blaine to join him. Blaine laughed, "Yeah, I don't think so. I like it in here and so do you." Pavarotti didn't look convinced, "Oh, come on, Pavarotti, it's not so bad in there."
And it honestly wasn't. Sebastian was careful to make sure that Blaine never had a reason to leave his tower; anything he could get to entertain Blaine was brought from the outside world. True, Blaine was running out of room to paint on his walls, and reading the same three books a thousand times was getting a little old. But there was always his chores to do, his hair to brush, ballet, puzzles, darts, baking...
That afternoon, Blaine moved a clock from his wall; it wasn't like he needed to keep time for anything. Behind it was a beautiful, blank stretch of wall. Canvas, for Blaine's painting. The boy ran to his cupboard, pulling out his brushes and his set of paints. He frowned; he was running a little low. He would have to see if he could ask Sebastian for a little more. But he had just enough for today.
He started with the night sky, a solid stretch of blackish-blue that he knew well from looking out his window. The grass was trickier; he'd seen it down below, stretching like a carpet around the base of his tower, but it just looked like a bunch of green. He imagined that it felt wonderful, though; cool and soft and alive. He drew himself sitting on it, his black curls stretching behind him like a stream. He'd seen the stream from his window as well, a streak of blue below him. Most importantly, he drew the floating lights. Blaine took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to remember almost a year back.
They rose up into the sky in a bunch, each one a slightly different yellow-orange glow. Blaine drew them in as best he could, but somehow it was never quite the same. There wasn't the wild joy he remembered from watching those lights rise up into the sky. There was, however, the longing, the desperate, wild ache of his desire to be out there, watching it for real.
Tomorrow would be his eighteenth birthday and the lights would rise in the sky again.
Maybe, just maybe, Sebastian would let him go.