a/n: and i'm back! here you go, fourth installment for you... and sorry for the long wait! i've finished parts 4 & 5 while in france, though, so next (and final!) chapter should be up in a bit! hope you like it... and please, please review! they make my day - and constructive criticism is welcome, just don't flame please! :)

disclaimer: just playing in ryan murphy's sandbox. don't sue me!

spoilers: pretty much all future-fic/speculation here... there are some miniscule, blink-and-you-miss-it references to 2.06, 2.16 and 2.20. i'm sure you can manage it. :)

Measurement

'I'm not 5'6! You must have read it wrong!'

'I didn't read it wrong. Face it, Blaine... you're a hobbit.'

Second

Sometimes, when you're lying in bed next to him and you just can't sleep, you fill your head with millions of what-ifs. What if Puck had never told Kurt to go spy on the Warblers, what if Pavarotti had never died, what if Karofsky had had the courage to dance with Kurt at Prom, what if you had never seen that one, perfect ring in the jewellery shop? You can't help yourself, because your whole relationship with Kurt just seems to be so lucky – based on chance. It scares you to think that had he walked down that wide, sweeping staircase at Dalton just a few seconds later than he did, you might never have met.

Clean

'Oh, god, Blaine, this place is disgusting. It's filthy! Honestly, I leave you alone for just one day and you manage to make it look like there've been three hurricanes since I was last here!'

Comfort

'What is that monstrosity, Blaine?'

'Hey! I like it! It's really...'

'Ugly? Blaine, it was orange and purple on it. Orange and purple. On the same article of clothing.'

Neglect

It's late Sunday morning, almost 12 o'clock and you haven't gotten out of your pyjamas yet - you're curled up together on the couch, and he's made you both the peppermint tea that you love so much. It's been one hell of a week, and you've barely had time to sleep, let alone spend time together. Rehearsals one minute, projects due the next – and always the notes left on the kitchen table giving another reason why one of you can't be home on time. Kurt nestles his head a bit closer onto your shoulder, and looks at you sleepily.

'I've missed this.'

You just smile, and breath in his scent – that perfect mixture of vanilla shampoo, strawberry lip gloss, and something uniquely Kurt that you can't quite describe.

'So have I, babe.'

Construction

'They were drilling at two in the morning, Blaine! There are some things I just can't put up with!'

'Yeah, but that doesn't mean you had to march out of bed in your PJs and go all bitchy on them – those poor guys looked like they were fearing for their lives!'

'And so they should have been.'

Invisible

'It was awful, Kurt. I came out and the next thing I knew, all the people I thought were my best friends just completely blanked me – it was like I was invisible.'

Property

You stare up at the pretty little house in Brooklyn that you just signed the deeds for, the one that really costs more than you can afford, but you just couldn't resist the look on his face after he saw it – and he has a point, it's beautiful.

Progress

You come home the first day after you start your new job teaching music in a Manhattan elementary school to find Kurt sitting on the floor in the hallway with tear tracks streaking his (perfect porcelain) cheeks. You drop everything and collapse on the floor next to him.

'Baby... baby, what's wrong?'

And that's when he holds it up – a badly pieced together hate message (gO dIe IN hELl fAg). They're only to be expected, of course, now that he's such a high profile designer, but until now, you've managed to intercept them before he gets a chance to open them. It just kills you to see how hurt he is. His voice is choked and so beautifully, sadly, heart-breakingly broken when he speaks again.

'I just... Blaine, I thought people had moved beyond that here, by now! Why can't they just accept us for who we are?'

You don't have an answer to that one, so you just hold him close and let him cry all the pain out.

Remote

'You find it, Anderson, it's all your fault it's missing! I don't care how you do it, but you find that remote and you bring it here within five minutes – I need to watch America's Next Top Model and the freaking TV's not on the right channel!'

'Yes sir, whatever you say sir!'

'Oh, shut up.'

Mixture

'And what exactly do you think you're doing?'

'Um... I'm just, er –'

'You're just making a birthday cake for our daughter using cake mixture from a box, Blaine Anderson. That's all, you know, no big deal. Have you not lived with me long enough to know what I think about – ' (Kurt shudders) ' – cake mixture?'

Transit

You love sitting at your desk, waiting next to your phone, on the days when Kurt's taking public transport, because mixed in among all the crazy funny, clean freak-y, outraged and traumatized texts that appear in your inbox (i'm sitting next to a guy who looks like the lead singer of the weird sisters, blaine. what did i do to deserve this?), there are the ones that come when he gets bored and sends you the sweetest little things ever (just thought you should know that i love you. you know, if you hadn't worked it out by now. xxx) that just make your chest feel all funny and warm and happy.

Registration

Even when things don't require you to sign your full name, you put it anyway, because you still get that same thrill from writing 'Blaine Hummel-Anderson' that you did ten years ago.

Cow

'That complete and utter bitch! Why didn't you let me stay and give her a piece of my mind? God, she deserved it!'

'Kurt... Kurt! Calm down, she just mixed your coffee order up with someone else's, and you're acting like she personally murdered poor Pavarotti!'

Ship

Yeah, you totally weren't the one who made two matching 'I Ship Klaine' t-shirts for your first anniversary and had them delivered to the front door with a bunch of red roses. 'Cause there's just no way you could ever be that romantic, is there?

Box

He's just lugged the very last box of his clothes into your apartment (forty five boxes surely has to be an unhealthy number) and he collapses onto the floor with a loud 'Oomph!'.

But of course, you just can't resist the opportunity, so you grab both his hands in yours and pull him up – before he realises what you're doing, you've got him waltzing around your brand-new inner-city apartment that's just perfect because it's your first one. He's laughing his beautiful, musical laugh that sounds like church bells (he always laughs even harder when you voice that thought), and you can't stop giggling suddenly at how gorgeous he looks right now. Of course, ever the cynical one, he has to go and break the moment by adding 'You know, this whole situation is uncannily like something out of a Taylor Swift video.'

Audience

Your favourite evenings after you move in are the ones where you're dancing around the kitchen singing dopey love songs together, being each other's audience, and his eyes light up and they look so amazing even under the too-bright glare of cheap strip lighting, and it makes your heart expand to think that you're the one who made them look like that.

Competition

You think he doesn't notice you giving your best 'back off, he's mine' glare to that obnoxious, idiotic, stupid, bastard who's eyeing him up from the other side of the bar.

'Green isn't a very nice colour on you, Blaine.' Kurt teases as soon as Retard-Face, as you've decided to dub him, looks suitably scared and retreats from your line of vision.

'What – I – how did you know?' you manage to splutter, embarrassed at being caught being so ridiculously possessive.

'Trust me, I use that look all the time against your teenage fan-club when you do guitar on that street corner, I know what it looks like.'

Grace

He has this grace about him, this amazing elegance that never seems to abandon him even when he's curled up on the couch writing an essay for school, in jogging bottoms and a hoodie. You can't even hope to imitate it; especially not when you're tripping – and practically falling on your face - over thin air at your graduation, of all places.

Middle

'I'm the middle child, Kurt, I'm used to being forgotten – don't worry about it.'

'Your own parents forgot your birthday – not even a bloody card – and you're telling me not to worry about it?'

'Yeah, I am, actually. Kurt... please, you can get indignant about most things, I don't care, but don't interfere in my family life, okay?'

Your sharp tone cuts him off, and his face looks so hurt that you just can't storm out like you were going to a few seconds ago. Instead you rush at him and hug him so tightly he probably can't breathe.

'I'm... I'm sorry I snapped at you, babe. I didn't mean to, it's just... my family's a touchy subject for me, okay?'

He just looks at you with those huge, glorious, mesmerising eyes and asks quietly 'Do you want to talk about it?'