Thank you for the brilliant reception on that last chapter! And also, thank you to all the people who have read my snapshots. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to each and every one of you :)

This chapter is my shortest so far. Yes, it was originally going to last a whole week, but I had to cut it where I did for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I still haven't watched the last four episodes of season 3 and need to catch up before I write the reunion. Secondly, I had to read two books over the school holidays and I am only a couple of chapters into the first one. Thirdly, I haven't been getting to sleep until after 4 every night for the past month or so. And when I do, I am woken up by a HUGE spider crawling on my leg. Which makes me get out of bed and stand with a shoe in my hand for half an hour. Which wakes me up and means I have to try even harder to get to sleep. So... yeah...

I am not going to make promises for the next chapter to be longer. It could well only be the Monday. As much as I would love to give you a special chapter 10, I have got my GCSE results on Thursday, so will no doubt be busy the whole of the day. Oh, and I'll need to be up early so I can't go to sleep late on Wednesday night. But I'll try. I'd rather give you loads of short chapters than go on hiatus, but I will have a break if I need to.

While on the subject of breaks, Coatsy is still on hiatus and will hopefully be back on Thursday. She has taken a break from uploading but is still writing, and will reply to you if you message her.

Right, I shall stop here before the A/N is longer than the chapter! Please review; I love to hear back from you, whatever you thought.

Story so far...

After Kurt's birthday, Blaine bumps into Sebastian. They argue and Blaine refuses to talk to Kurt about what was wrong. Finally, Kurt, after talking to best friend Gina, decides to go home and force the truth out of his boyfriend. He doesn't get very far, however, as he walks through the door to discover a new friend - Bocelli the yellow canary.

-*T&C*-

After flying at his boyfriend and attacking his face with kisses, Kurt had crouched to be at eye level with Bocelli. "Hello, you." The bird chirped back at him, hopping curiously to the front of his cage as a face appeared next to the original one and the latter kissed the former's cheek.

"You like?"

Kurt nodded. "Me like a lot."

Blaine bumped him playfully. There was something incredibly adorable about his 23-year-old boyfriend talking like a three-year-old. "You know I love you?"

Kurt, puzzled, looked at his boyfriend. "I believe I may have been told. What's brought this on?"

"Well, I haven't exactly been very pleasant these last couple of days."

"No."

Blaine waited for him to continue speaking. He didn't. "Is that it?"

Kurt shook his head. "I was kind of hoping you'd tell me what the problem was."

"Ah."

Another pause. "Well?"

"Erm, could we sit down first? My back is starting to get a bit numb, standing in this position."

Kurt grinned and grabbed Blaine's hand, leading him over to the sofa so that they could sit down together.

"Go on. What happened?"

"Um, it was when I went to get the bowties. I was at the desk, then turned around, and there he was. Just standing, smiling, and being generally unpleasant."

"Who was? Your dad?"

"God no. Sebastian."

"Sebastian?" All the care and warmth had filtered from Kurt's voice. He knew what that boy had done. Telling Blaine's parents about the extent of their relationship had been a low blow. It had taken a couple of months for Blaine to tell Kurt he'd been kicked out and was living with Mr and Mrs Schuester. Of course, that arrangement had quickly ended and Blaine was given Kurt's old room, Burt doting upon him whilst still warning him to not upset his son. It was a strange arrangement, but strangely worked. It had taken Blaine longer to tell Kurt about Sebastian's demands. Doing his schoolwork for him, Kurt could comprehend. He began to feel a bit uncomfortable hearing about Blaine being made to practise duets with Sebastian. However, he could never forgive making Blaine strip his top half and dance around a pole, even if it did turn Kurt on just thinking about it. Kurt was just thankful that Sebastian hasn't made Blaine do anything more physical, but hadn't been impressed when he learnt the younger boy had said 'I don't mind waiting; it'll make winning you fairly all the better'.

"Did he have anything to say for himself?"

"He said he saw Raise Your Glass. And then started ranting about how he was the one for me. About how you - how did he put it - had as much sex appeal as a sunburnt Dracula." He let out a scoffing laugh.

"Well, he hasn't seen me in the bedroom."

Kurt managed to raise a smile to Blaine's lips. He was still intrigued as to how his boyfriend could be so confident. But... The smile faded and was once again replaced with a frown. "I'm sorry."

Kurt leaned over the small gap separating them and kissed Blaine, softly, on the lips. He elicited a small sigh of pleasure and, very gently, Blaine turned his body a little bit and lay back against the cushions slowly, never breaking contact with the twenty-three year-old's lips. It wasn't frenzied or rushed, like how it had been only a couple of days previously, but showed all that was necessary: their love for one another. Kurt brought one hand slowly down Blaine's side, just feeling the warmth of his body. His own hovered a couple of inches above Blaine's as his hand gently rubbed at Blaine's hip. He felt the younger boy gasp and Kurt pulled away from the kiss, looking into his boyfriend's eyes. "What is it?"

"It's just... every once in a while it fires up. Most of the time it is fine, but sometimes-"

He was cut off as a pair of lips met his hipbone, gently caressing the hurt away. The scar was about three inches long and it made Kurt feel sick every time he thought about it. How someone could do that to such a beautiful boy, he had no idea. And he was completely clueless as to how somebody could do it to their own son.

His lips left the mark on Blaine's hip and their eyes met.

"I love you, but please don't ever do that to me again?"

"I won't. I promise."

Their lips met again, hands stroking the other's hair to soothe them and prove the love they felt. The arguments were over, and they had nothing to do for the rest of the day; they could just sit there, kissing lovingly, for the next three hours. Or, so they thought. Apparently, someone else had other ideas...

"Bocelli!"

"Quick! Catch him!"

"Shut that door!"

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait, GO!"

My original plan was to not get Blaine to tell Kurt what was wrong, and just say something along the lines of "it's not you, but I'd rather you didn't know, if that's okay." As you can see... yeah. Appropriate time to say my famous quote? "It is a common misconception that authors write books. They don't. The characters do." I shall get bored of saying that one day...

Thank you again to all my readers. It seriously means the world. I promise to try and give you a longer chapter next time. Lyd - I'll try and see if I can fit in a bit of creepy and possessive next chapter, yeah? :)

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

I never feel like I do enough for charities. Sure, all my old stuff goes to Cancer Research and I am always in the charity shops in my town. But I want to just go up to collection pots and put money in. So, for every review I get for this story, I will donate 10p to a charity. If you have a favourite, please let me know in your review and I'll see what I can do. Let's see how much we can donate, eh?

Once again, thank you! If you haven't got bored of me yet, why not? ;) No, if you've got this far, give me a prompt for a Snapshot. And grab a cookie :)