Pavarotti had been acting a bit off all day. It had just so happened that, when Kurt opened the cage door, he flew out like a shot and started barrelling drunkenly around the room.

Kurt had quickly shut his door and windows, but it had been an hour before he'd thought to call Blaine. Chasing Pavarotti blindly around the room had turned out, unsurprisingly, to not be the most effective strategy, and he couldn't think of a better one, to capture the bird.

Suddenly, Kurt's door swung open to reveal Finn, looking confused. Kurt squealed unbecomingly and rolled across the bed, leaping out the room and pulling the door closed behind him. "What are you doing?" Kurt hissed.

"What are you doing?" Finn retorted. "You've been making weird noises up here for ages." He shrugged. "Also, Blaine's here."

"Downstairs?"

"Yeah – well, in the doorway. I said I'd fetch you."

Kurt nodded breathlessly and checked his hair with one hand. "Alright. Thank you, Finn. Blaine's just here to help with an emergency, so please don't open my door, okay?"

Finn shrugged. "Okay, fine."

The two of them had been getting along cordially since the Karofsky incident. Kurt hoped he wouldn't have to dwell on it again. He hopped down the stairs and pulled the front door open.

Blaine smiled as soon as he saw Kurt. "Hey," he said, his eyes twinkling.

"Hi," Kurt beamed. "Thanks for coming."

"No problem," Blaine shrugged. "I was Pavarotti's keeper once; it's a tough job. He's a temperamental bird."

Kurt raised his eyebrows in agreement and motioned for Blaine to come inside, shutting the door behind him. He led the way up the stairs, Blaine keeping close behind.

"Okay, we've got to get inside quick so he doesn't have a chance to fly out," Kurt said. Blaine nodded.

They moved as one: Kurt wrenched the door open and Blaine dived through, before pulling Kurt through by the arm. In one swift movement, the door slammed shut behind them.

"Well, that went well," Blaine offered enthusiastically.

Kurt laughed – maybe at the ridiculousness of the whole operation, maybe because he was still very much flushed from chasing Pavarotti around, maybe just because Blaine was here, laughing with him now. Kurt leant back heavily against the door and surveyed the room. "Can you see him?" he asked Blaine, frowning.

Blaine shook his head. "No," he replied, stepping carefully across the room. He pulled back the curtains, opened the wardrobe doors, lifted the lid of Kurt's desk. He paused and withdrew his hand – with a sideways glace at Kurt – when he reached for the bedside cabinet. Kurt noticed, but didn't say anything. He was also searching the room – and feeling a growing sense of panic in the pit of his stomach, which increased with the time in which neither of them found Pavarotti.

"Kurt!" Blaine cried triumphantly from under his bed. Kurt burst out of his bathroom to see Blaine's legs haphazardly as he tried to extricate himself from under Kurt's bed without, it appeared, the use of his arms. Kurt saw why when Blaine emerged. He was cupping both his hands around a tiny, shaking, yellow blob. "Something's really spooked him," Blaine said pityingly, stroking the bird gently with a finger.

"That's odd," Kurt frowned, coming over to look at him. "He seemed fine this morning."

Blaine shrugged. "It's probably nothing. I wouldn't worry." He smiled warmly. "After all, there isn't really anything we can do about it." He began to coax the still trembling Pavarotti into Kurt's outstretched hands.

"Poor little guy," Kurt said sadly. "I wish I knew what was wrong with him."

Blaine sighed and draped an arm lazily around Kurt's shoulders. "If birds could talk," he speculated, "the questions we would answer." He laughed lightly. "You don't have anything incriminating under your bed, do you?" he joked, grinning cheekily at Kurt's horrified expression.

Kurt shook his head meekly and tried not to think about the pinpricks of goosebumps he was getting down his back at the contact, even through a fair few layers of clothing, of Blaine's arm on him. "If there is anything, it's not mine," he shrugged.

Blaine suddenly gave him a look. Kurt struggled to indentify this look. It was almost a kind of look that seemed disbelieving, but then there was a bit of Blaine's normal 'look' look in there – Kurt remembered that look being flashed at him a thousand times. Over coffee, the first time they'd met; during their performance of 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' at the Christmas fête; a week ago, in the McKinley car park. Anyhow, it was quite a nice look to get from Blaine: it was the kind of look that punched him in the stomach and swept his feet out from under him, but somehow never involved pain or falling.

"What?" Kurt asked, once he figured he'd held Blaine's gaze for long enough.

Blaine's eyes quickly hit the floor and he shrugged and shook his head. Kurt felt himself redden – why, he didn't know – and focused on bringing Pavarotti back to some kind of normalcy.

After a moment, Blaine joined him, brushing his fingers lightly over Pavarotti's feathers (and, incidentally, Kurt's hands). Pavarotti seemed to be recovering, sitting up and fluffing his feathers. Kurt looked at Blaine for a moment – his dark eyebrows furrowed his mouth slightly open – and swallowed, trying to calm his, all of a sudden racing, heart.

Blaine glanced up and immediately Kurt looked back down at Pavarotti, rocking his hands gently.

Clearing his throat, Blaine stepped back. "Well, I think he'll be fine," he declared brightly.

Kurt nodded, walking slowly round to the perch on his bedside table and coaxing Pavarotti onto it. "Poor Pav." He shook his head. "What do you think could've spooked him like that, though?"

Blaine shrugged. "It could have been anything. Maybe there was a cat on your windowsill." He raised his eyebrows. "I mean, he never did that with me, so..."

"Oh, no – is it me?" Kurt asked, worried. "Is it my room?"

"No, no, I doubt it," Blaine answered quickly. He smiled tentatively, catching Kurt's eye. "It's probably nothing worth worrying about. But, if he does it again, feel free to call me." He laughed gently. "Stop worrying about it!"

Kurt did his best to stop frowning, and tried a smile.

"There we go," Blaine grinned. He pulled out his phone and looked at the time on it. "Oh, wow – it's been ages. Time flies, eh?" He winked at Kurt. "I'd better get going; will you and Pav be okay?"

Kurt blushed what felt like a very dark shade of red. "Yeah, we'll be fine," he said, smiling.

He showed Blaine out and headed kitchenward. After all the excitement, he was parched.

The clock in the kitchen told him it was half past five. Wow, he thought. Time really did fly.