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One.
If you asked him to pinpoint when he fell in love with singing, he's not sure he could.
He does have a glimpse of himself as a young child, hairbrush in hand, and maybe it was then. Mostly, though, it's just always been like this. Like singing is breathing, and to breathe is to twirl and to tilt your voice and to perform.
Something happens when he sings with the Warblers for the first time, though.
It's different, like he can actually feel the way he loves singing. It's heavy in his hands and around him in Dalton uniforms, and they're swaying and clicking fingers and he's just humming in the background for now, but it's even easier to breathe than before.
He wonders if life will be falling in love with singing again and again, and again. It will.
Two.
A boy has stopped him on the staircase.
It takes him a second to catch up because his mind is on a million different things - the test he needs to study for, the guitar string he should replace this weekend, how Wes is probably growing impatient waiting for him - and then he catches up all at once, too quickly, and there's so much to take in.
The boy is beautiful, and it's normal for Blaine to notice that. But there's something else. It's a feeling and he's not sure where to place it, so it sits inside of his chest and floats there. Blaine doesn't know how long it's going to wait; it'll wait until he understands.
"My name's Blaine."
"Kurt."
And suddenly those four letters, arranged that way, make the feeling even heavier. He wants to ask the boy - Kurt - if it's possible for someone's name to settle inside of yourself, right where your heart is, but he thinks that'll probably scare him off. He grabs his hand instead, and pulls, and runs, and sings. It's just like breathing.
It'll wait until he understands.
Three.
He has no idea why it's Kurt in mourning black singing The Beatles that makes the feeling start to shift, but it does, and he has to sit and wade through it all and see.
It hasn't left him since that first day. Sometimes it moves; falls out of his fingertips as he's typing a message to him, or into his arms when Kurt accidentally bumps his side as they walk down the Dalton hallways together. It's fluttered into his stomach, once or twice, but it always comes back to his chest, like that's where it's meant to be. It lives there.
The shift is that it's warm now - the feeling, and he feels a little silly that it took this tender pain of Kurt's grief to give it some heat. It should have been a smile or a stolen glance, not tears.
He understands a little bit. He understands enough to kiss him, and hold his hand.
Four.
It's when Kurt is in New York for Nationals.
They've already talked about moving there one day. The conversation had happened when their backs were on grass and they were staring at the clouds, because that's the easiest and best place to dream. Kurt had told him they should go to college there, with Rachel, and Blaine had agreed. He wants that dream, too. And when there's nothing but the sky in your eyeline, it feels like it could actually come true.
He's in class when his phone buzzes but he has to wait until the bell rings before he can check it. It's a picture from Kurt; he's standing on the corner of 42nd and Broadway, his left arm thrown out wide in a ta-da and a smile on his face. Blaine stops walking even though students are hurrying around him to get to their next lesson, but the swirl doesn't even phase him. He can't stop staring at his boyfriend existing exactly where he belongs.
He looks up and notices that he has, without meaning to, paused a few steps away from the bottom of the staircase where they met. He wants there to be a photo of Kurt on the corner of 42nd and Broadway with Blaine standing right next to him, an arm curled around his waist. The feeling in his chest starts to spread until it's everywhere, and - oh. One day that photo will exist.
He understands entirely.
Five.
He doesn't mean to slope his head in his hand and revel and admire. It just comes so naturally at this point, like listening to Kurt tell stories and to hear the joy in his voice when he's happy is exactly why Blaine was placed onto this specific map.
And so he tells him.
Gets it out of him and his chest and onto the Lima Bean table between them. He hopes that it'll sink through Kurt's skin and into the gentlest part of him; hopes that it'll beat those three words back. It will be okay if Kurt's heart and he doesn't, though, because it matters just as much regardless of his response. It matters that he's in love with Kurt Hummel.
And then Kurt tells him, too. He says it back.
Six.
He tries really hard to fall in love with New York City.
It's not like he doesn't already love it - he's loved it since the first time his mom flew him here and took him to see Fiddler on the Roof. He was eight and ate sidewalk hot dogs and saw couples in fur coats. Of course he loves New York.
It was just that New York wasn't under his fingernails yet. It hadn't scratched his skin, or gotten caught in a curl of his hair, or settled in his chest the way that Kurt had. Kurt, who he adored and who adored him, enough to give him the time and space to get there.
He takes himself on the Staten Island Ferry. The sun is setting and the Statue of Liberty flirts with the city skyline in pinks that are pretty, but he's not in love. He wanders around Central Park on a Sunday morning, so early that it's really only runners and lingering, and it makes his head green and clear, but he's not in love. He walks across the top of Rockefeller Center, trying to take in the buildings from this height and the Empire State in all it's glory, and it's glorious, but he's still not in love.
He finds a little coffee shop near the apartment he shares with Mercedes and Sam. It's tiny - there's really only room for a handful of people to be in it at any one time. The coffee is always good, their cinnamon brioche has cured a bad day on more than one occasion, and the barista, Zeenia, always remembers him.
They hang a pride flag in their window. It's March, so it's not like they're perpetuating the idea that they care just for Pride Month. He knows it's not just for him, but it feels like it's just for him. It's New York saying: this little bit of me is yours, and it knows you, and it cares.
He takes Kurt there. Now that it's his, he can share it. Kurt likes the décor of the place and they split a brioche and he introduces him to Zeenia. Blaine feels proud of this café, which he knows is a little weird, but Kurt smiles at him because he understands.
He's fallen in love with New York.
Seven.
The thing about Blaine's heart is, it belongs to Kurt.
Has belonged to him since the very second he turned around. So this isn't falling in love again, because he never climbed out of it. It's a kiss, and the first proper, allowed one since... god, he can't even remember their last kiss back in New York. That specific part of them is just fog and slicing pain and I'll never forgive you for this, falling like grit from his teeth. But Kurt's right - everything is fine now. Or, it isn't, but they have later to figure it out. To unpack themselves, and repack into the same suitcase.
Right now it's about being allowed to love Kurt. To not be pretending, or forcing things, or running too quickly with other people - placeholders, understudies.
He doesn't have to be with misery anymore. He gets to be with Kurt.
It's a kiss, and it's love again, and it's future.
Eight.
There's a ring on his finger.
He lets his thumb rub over it, again and again, during the speeches. It is metal and it means him. They arrived in white suits, and now they're sitting, side-by-side, in black ones. And it's all so simple.
He leans into Kurt's space and murmurs, "Husband."
It's just a word but he can taste it. And Kurt turns to look at him, a softness in his eyes and the turn of his lips that is only reserved for Blaine, and says it back to him.
"Husband."
Nine.
He's standing on stage in Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center. The lights are impossibly bright but he's used to it, and he's used to the sweat that it pulls. Every seat is filled and they're clapping and standing while they do and Kurt is beaming.
Blaine bows, keeping time with Kurt's bend, and he knows he should look out at the balconies and smile to thank them all for coming, but he can't move his eyes away from his husband. There are feelings in his chest but he knows how to identify them now: pride, and love, and devotion. It's a little overwhelming being in love with Kurt and with performing on Broadway, and having those things twist so incredibly tightly together and all at once.
The curtain comes down and it's just the two of them. Kurt takes a deep breath in, out, and the gasp belongs to him. Then he turns, kisses Blaine's cheek, and everything settles.
They are a staircase and a lunch table and a loft and a stage. Everywhere is them. Everywhere will always be them.
Ten.
Every single day, Blaine gets to wake up next to Kurt and continue to fall in love with him. Today, he gets to do that and then also fall in love with a tiny human.
He's in a meeting when Jesse calls. Kurt is already on the way to the hospital and he rushes, everything becoming chaos because he's rushing, but he makes it there on time. He holds Kurt's hand and Kurt holds Rachel's.
And then they're parents.
No one really knows what to do or who should hold her first, so Blaine nudges Kurt forward and watches while he bundles her in his arms. He breathes in, quickly, so sharp that Blaine worries that something is wrong, but then Kurt looks up with tears in his eyes and their gaze locks. It means so much and there is so much weight to it.
He moves forward and reaches out to touch her head, and it's a dive. Kurt is there, next to him, falling too.
Later, when everything is calm, Blaine kisses Kurt's hand - on his knuckle, just above his wedding band. They're watching her sleep, and the idea of doing anything but looking at her feels impossible. He knows they will have to go back to work eventually, and perform, but for now they will be dads and stare in wonder.
Blaine takes in her tiny body and the way that she's breathing. It seems so natural; she's barely a day old and she already knows how to do it with ease. It's as if she's figured out what it took Blaine awhile to learn:
That to breathe is to sing and to love and to fall. And he gets to do them all.