Here it is, Chapter 3! I'm hoping to get the 4th and 5th out before the week takes me over and ties my typing hands…. waaahhhh. *teardrops on keyboard for being torn away from computer* heehee

(Main Disclaimer copied at top of each chapter to be safe: I do not own Glee and I absolutely do not have anything to do with the Darren Criss songs "Not Alone" and "Categories" as mentioned within this story.)

OH, and if anyone remembers the name of the piano player, let me know! I have to pull up the episode when Rachel sings "My Poker Face" with Idina Menzel because she says his name in that episode. Rachel calls out "Keith!" and he suddenly appears. Although I can't remember what name she actually calls out! Thanks!

-UPDATE: Thanks, Marte... that's it! Brad! Turns out his name in real life is Brad Ellis... he has albums out with the "Brad Ellis Little Big Band" and he composes for Broadway, tv, movies, and arranges for classical orchestras and jazz! Awesome!

Chapter 3: Sunshine and Rain

On Wednesday afternoon, with Blaine comfortably sprawled out reading on the window seat in Kurt's dorm room, Kurt listened on the phone as Rachel gushed about how "wonderful and professional" the glee club sounded once they all learned the arrangement of the song that she and the piano player Brad had worked out for them. "That Brad just always seems to appear in the choir room or the auditorium the minute anyone ever needs him, doesn't he?" Kurt commented.

"I know. It's uncanny. And he's a really good arranger, too. You should hear how we're doing Blaine's song! I mean it's mostly me singing the main parts, but here and there, anyway, everyone comes in and it's like having a gospel choir behind me the way he set the harmonies!"

Kurt didn't mean to let out an audible laugh, but Rachel did in fact think that he was laughing at her when it was only that he had turned to notice Blaine all stretched out asleep in the sunshine on the window seat, his book having fallen onto his chest and his arm hanging down to the floor.

"Oh I wasn't laughing at anything you said, I'm sorry Rachel. It was just… There's… a cat in my room. Apparently. A very cute one."

"What?"

"Oh it's nothing. Go on, Rachel. I'm listening." As he said this, he was carefully picking up Blaine's arm and placing it into a position across him that would result in much less muscle pain upon awaking than if he left it at the mercy of gravity as it was. He wasn't a cat, after all, who could sleep like that with no repercussions.

Rachel did go on, of course. "It's pretty cool actually, because in the harmonies, at certain times you can really hear Artie's voice, and then Finn's becomes more prominent, and then you notice Mercedes more than anyone else, and then at another time it's all Santana floating over everyone else even though as a whole you're hearing it all together like it's just hitting a pretty chord. It's REALLY nice, Kurt, I can't wait for you guys to come hear it! Are you coming down next weekend, can you make it early on Friday maybe and stop by McKinley during our rehearsal?"

"I don't think so, Rachel. But we'll see. Maybe you can make everyone have an 'emergency extra rehearsal' on a Saturday. You can tell them that the Warblers are working on something so mind-blowing that you're afraid there's no way you can possibly beat us!"

"Uuuhh, OK, I think I gotta go now, Kurt!"

"Oh you wimp, you can't even come up with a stunning reply!"

"Sorry Kurt, it's getting REALLY LOUD in here! I have the hair dryer on. I'm going through a tunnel!"

Blaine roused a bit when Kurt laughed out loud, and was shaking his sleepy head propped up on his elbow blinking up at Kurt, by the time the phone was being returned onto its charger.

Smiling over at him, Kurt made his way to the window and knelt down next to Blaine. "Are you sure you're completely happy with the New Directions performing your song?"

"Yeah. I think it's a huge compliment. I love that they're performing it. They'll make it sound really great I'm sure. They tend to always come together and make everything they do their own, and it usually rocks. Right?"

Kurt reached up, about to smooth a couple of Blaine's curls back into the rest of his oh-so-silky-looking hair before he caught himself, -stop thinking about silky hair! OMG I almost ran my fingers through it and friends do not do that, for goodness sake- and picked up the book that was in danger of getting crumpled behind Blaine, instead. "Um… Oh, the New Directions. Yeah. They do. They will. They'll make it sound awesome. But Blaine, they seriously might actually end up doing it for Regionals. Would that really be OK with you? It's a big venue with a really large audience."

As Kurt leaned over toward the desk to put the book down, Blaine looked a bit disappointed to lose the close proximity they had shared for those moments, but by the time Kurt turned back around, his face only showed a sleepy grin to accompany his response, "Sure, sure. That will be totally cool. I'm happy to have them do YAWN… um…"

Kurt couldn't help but laugh out loud again as Blaine turned back into a cat with a huge lazy stretch. He seriously wanted to rub his tummy or something. Cats don't like that though, do they? Puppies, then. Boy do I need to stop thinking about Blaine like this. Cats and puppies now. WHAT is wrong with me? He stood and walked across the room to get back to his pile of books and resume the studying they were supposed to be doing.

Blaine followed him with his gaze as Kurt moved across the room, marveling at the way he always looks more like a dancer than anything else when he walks… and he closed his eyes again with a smile.

"Waiter? There is too much pepper in my poppycosh." There was no waiter in sight, so why Blaine was saying this to Kurt was beyond Rachel.

"Poppycosh," Kurt replied, to which Blaine also replied again, "POPPYCOSH!" Finn looked over at Rachel and then around the restaurant as though some clue might be hidden somewhere that would make sense of this sudden turn in the conversation.

"But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie." Rachel and Finn looked at each other again, to check to see if the other understood what Blaine was going on about.

Kurt laughed and replied, "Pecan Piiiiie," to which Blaine replied with an even more drawn-out "Pecaaaan Piiiiie"

"Pecaaaaan Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiie" Kurt got out again before Finn demanded, "What are you guys talking about?"

"It's from When Harry Met Sally, haven't you ever seen it?" Kurt asked, as Rachel and Finn looked at each other and shrugged again, Finn saying to Rachel, "I thought maybe they just have their own secret language now."

"They kind of do." Rachel whispered. "Do you think anyone else around here knows anything from When Harry Met Sally? I don't."

"You're just lucky we didn't do the diner scene." Kurt said, which made both boys double over in laughter on their side of the booth.

"See?" Rachel said gesturing toward them, making her point.

As Burt and Carole returned to the booth, the boys were just finishing their description of what the diner scene is all about in the movie, so all four of them were laughing and talking and laughing some more and looking so happy, which was Carole's absolute favorite thing in the world. To see her children and their friends simply enjoying life. She also couldn't help but notice that her son always looks happiest when he's next to Rachel, and the fact that at this particular moment she was obviously finding excuses to grab his arm or slap his thigh through the laughter, and most notably the fact that Finn so quickly moved away from her when he saw his mother coming... Carole wasn't sure but it looked like he had been resting a hand on Rachel's knee, probably also with the excuse of holding onto each other from all the laughter.

"So, what are you kids talking about?" Burt asked as he scooted in after Carole, draping an arm over her shoulders.

Kurt shook his head with one last chuckle and said, "Oh, it's nothing Dad…. So what does it look like outside? Is it still cats and dogs?"

"And lighting and thunder, yeah. I think it's not gonna let up any time soon, so we'd better just run for it."

As they all stood under the Breadsticks awning and glared out unbelieving at the ferocity of the downpour, Kurt realized that everyone but he and Blaine were in nice clothing, whereas the two of them were only in the same old indestructible Dalton Academy uniforms and sneakers, so the solution was quite obvious.

"Blaine and I can run to the car and bring it around. There's no sense in all of us getting soaked."

There were mild protests all around of "oh no you don't have to do that" and so forth, but they were pretty much futile, as the two boys gave each other a quick glance and bolted off before anyone could finish whatever they were saying.

Skidding to a stop over the gravel parking lot, Blaine caught Kurt around the waist to stop him before crashing into the side of the car. It was Blaine who ended up crashing into the car, as he spun Kurt out of the way. This caused much laughter on Kurt's part, and brought on a few friendly punches from Blaine in retaliation for laughing at him.

After trying several times to get the key to work in the door through the pouring rain, Blaine piped up with, "Um, Kurt… isn't that your Dad's car over there?"

Kurt turned and looked up into Blaine's face streaked with unrelenting rain bands, and after one, two, three beats, burst into laughter. Blaine grabbed his shoulders in a move to get the two of them running off to the correct car, but in that gravel, it was more of a feet-stuck-in-wet-gravel, so hands-on-shoulders-only-sinks-you-deeper kind of a situation, and that inertia hit both boys in a way that maybe the rain intensified or the whole past day and night culminated in this kind of a sweet moment suddenly, and they moved closer, eyes locked, and at the moment when they couldn't move any closer without kissing, Blaine's look turned inquisitive and Kurt returned the look, and then gave a little nod of acceptance.

When they kissed, the rain sheeted down their faces and even though that meant they drank a little rain water each time they tasted one another's lips, it didn't change their kiss into anything more passionate or intense than they intended. It was simply a sweet and tender kiss between two boys who wanted to express a moment of sudden understanding. Blaine's lips felt so soft that Kurt melted and forgot that it was raining at all.

The rain did eventually remind them that they had to get to the car, however, as it was actually difficult to breathe out there without getting rain into the lungs at the moment.

Once in the car, both of them looked down at the dashboard and wondered what to say next. To Kurt, it didn't seem like it was the definite beginning of anything, or a sudden change of everything. It seemed like just… another thing they shared, and what it will mean in terms of… anything… was still up in the air.

He looked up and caught Blaine's eyes contemplating him as well.

Blaine spoke first. "Kurt, when you had to transfer because of what you were going through at school, I was so happy to be someone you could talk to. I didn't have that. You know I went through almost the same thing last year. If I had had someone like you back then to talk to it would have changed my whole life. I love that I can be that for you. But I don't know if you realize how much you are that for me now too. What I didn't have last year… a friend who not only cared about me and sympathized, but one who truly gets it… well you're that for me now."

Kurt smiled and moved to rest his head on Blaine's shoulder and felt as Blaine breathed into his wet hair.

"You're my first and only friend who has ever truly understood what it's like to… go through the things we go through. And now that I have that, I can't imagine my world without it. Without you. As that kind of friend and support. I can't do anything to risk losing that. What we are to each other."

Kurt looked back up at him and made sure Blaine's eyes were steady with his before he informed him without hesitation, "Oh, Blaine. I am here for you. You know that. I will always be. No matter what."

The hug they shared was a very friendly hug. Friendly. Kurt felt bad to be disappointed at that, as though he was a bad friend to think less of a hug that stood for solidarity and understanding and unmitigated support. But, he got over the guilty feeling and melted right into that hug, thinking, well, fiercely devoted friends… that's what we are anyway, and that's a good thing to remain, isn't it? and as if in reply, Blaine buried his face in Kurt's neck with a soft sigh.

"We'd better go pick everyone up, they'll be shivering under the awning wondering where we are," Kurt managed to force himself to say after a few moments, even though he'd prefer to let this guy rest exactly where he was for as long as he could possibly wish.

A/N - Boy, these guys are getting adorable. It's not even me making them that way! They just... are, and I'm trying to follow along as best I can...

(Never fear dear readers... our boys are not really as clueless as they think they are in moments of insecurity...)

And please let me know if you have absolutely any feedback of any sort. Criticism or random thoughts also welcomed and loved.