At first they only did it when Santana would come over, which was often since living together for so long had left them with a certain dependency they took a while to wean off of.

Then, when Kurt’s job at Vogue took off and turned into a full-blown career, they really started doing it. Just for them.

In the early hours of the morning, just before taking an airport shuttle, Kurt would find a little note on the coffee machine.

“You’re like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life.”

Kurt would grin against the rim of his travel cup before quickly taking the paper and slipping it in between the pages of his sketch-pad.

It wouldn’t happen again until it was Blaine’s turn to have to leave for a few days to see Cooper in LA.

It’s with a smile that he finds a neon green mitten-shaped note rolled up in his sleep mask. He barely manages to keep his giggle in as he reads it:

“Hey you’re pretty and I’m cute, together we’d be pretty cute.”

And so on and so forth.

After a year or so they found more excuses to leave notes, like during the eight month period when Blaine had to leave the house two hours before Kurt. Nearly every day he would find little messages hidden within his papers or belongings. Sometimes it was words or lines of poetry and sometimes it was just drawn hearts.

Even when they would fight, whether it was little snarky comments on off days or the rare times they had full blown arguments that turned into yelling matches, they would never leave it like that and sometimes the notes were the temporary stitches they needed.

The time they fought over being invited to Thanksgiving with Blaine’s family and Blaine left to sleep over at Mike’s for the night; Kurt sent him a text message:

“I lost my teddy bear, can I sleep with you?”

Blaine came home and rang the doorbell which broke Kurt’s heart when he opened the door and pulled Blaine into his arms with tears in his eyes. He didn’t need a post-it then to remind Blaine that it was their home, “ours” he whispered against Blaine’s neck.

The next time they had a huge blowout was a cover for how much they missed each other when neither dared say anything about it out of fear that they would hurt or insult the other and what they were doing.

Upset and frustrated they took it out by yelling over the smallest things, letting everything get to them until they came to a boiling point. Their fight ended with clothes thrown all over the living room and scratches down their backs.

Naked and spent on the floor by the couch, Blaine reached up for the paper and a pen they kept by the phone and wrote out a note:

“Nickel for your thoughts?”

Kurt, still out of breath, an arm under his head, laughed softly “Isn’t it supposed to be penny?”

Blaine turned the paper over and wrote something else down before handing it to Kurt who settled on his stomach, on his elbows, so he could read it out loud;

“I think your thoughts are worth more.”

He stayed silent after that, only speaking again when Blaine leaned in and kissed his shoulder where he mumbled a desperate “Talk to me.”

So they talked. Right there, in their living room where the sun was rising and their phones laid near their pants about to ring their alarms because it was the middle of the week and they had work.

Later, they used those phones to call in sick.

Hours after that they finally moved to the bedroom.

A few years after that Kurt was asked to help set up a fashion auction in Rome, Blaine was supposed to join him there after a week but couldn’t make it so they resorted to skyping whenever timezones allowed and texting silly things throughout the day. More often than usual.

Kurt: 4:54pm “If kisses were snowflakes I would send you Finland.”

Blaine: 10:54am “I tried to send you something sexy last night but the mailman told me to get out of the mailbox.”

Kurt: 4:55pm “Did you sit in a pile of sugar? Because you have a pretty sweet ass.”

Blaine: 10:57am “Are you balding because you sure do shine!”

Kurt: 4:57pm “Blaine Devon Anderson, too far!”

Blaine: 10:58am “You’re too far. Come home.”

Kurt got a flight home the next day, vowing to find a replacement for the auction as soon as he got back. Give or take three hours.

It was their thing. Even if years later they stopped doing it as often, only leaving notes on anniversaries or birthdays (or visits from Santana) it was still theirs.

Over the years they kept quite a few of the notes, long after the glue on the backs had faded or the coffee stains had become permanent, keeping them between the pages of notebooks or photo-albums.

But the one that meant the most to them, the one they had had framed and put up in their bedroom, the one that was written on the napkins that were used at their wedding, the one that Blaine had written out the morning of the ceremony and slipped in Kurt’s suit instead of a pocket square with the strict instruction to wait until they were at the altar to read it.

That was the most important one. The one Kurt read to himself before reading it out to their friends and families with a silly grin and tears in his eyes. The one that was followed up with “I do”s:

“You stole my heart so let me steal your last name.”

~-~