Fic (Complete): The Muse (NC-17, Glee AU, Kurt/Blaine) 2/7
Previous
***
Blaine stopped at the second floor on his way downstairs for a quick shower, paint and sweat and exultation sluicing away from him, leaving him clean and calm. He found Kurt asleep in the living room, snuggled under a light quilt on the low, padded seat that ran around the bay window.
There was a battle going on with the light outside, between sunset orange and icy, creeping fog. The resulting cool-pink glow made Kurt look even younger than he was-so vulnerable, his lips softly open, lashes fanned across his cheeks, just a boy, really. Blaine knelt down silently next to him, but hesitated-only then Kurt’s eyes fluttered open and he stretched, luxuriously, making a soft, contented noise that Blaine tried not to listen to.
“Blaine. Are you… is it done? I’m sorry, I fell asleep-”
“It’s fine, Kurt. Yes, it’s done. I thought I might… are you hungry? I could make us some dinner, if you-”
“I’d love that,” Kurt murmured, sleepy-sweet and smiling, and Blaine’s heart thumped hard in his chest. “But… can I see the painting, first?
Upstairs, Blaine stayed near the staircase after flipping on the lights, leaning against the lintel post with his arms folded over his chest, silent, letting Kurt move forward without him. The urge to talk-narrate, explain, clarify-was nearly overwhelming, but it seemed all too likely that any explanation would become apology, and really-the work had to speak for itself, to every viewer, even when that viewer was also the subject, and sixteen, and worldly but maybe not quite worldly enough to really understand-
“What is it called?” Kurt was still staring at the painting, one ankle crossed over the other, his hands on his hips.
Blaine swallowed. “Desire For A Boy.”
In profile, he saw Kurt’s lips twitch. “Sappho.”
Blaine said nothing for a moment, wondering if Kurt would ever stop surprising him. “Yes.”
Kurt turned towards him then, silhouetted by the twilit world outside the windows. He’d taken his glasses off. He walked closer, so graceful in the way he moved-inhabiting his body so effortlessly, the body that Blaine knew so much better now, after painting that place where Kurt’s shirt clung to his incurved waist, the strong, muscular swell of hip and thigh-“Blaine.”
Kurt was right there. Right there, within arm’s reach, looking at him levelly. Unafraid. Not the least bit afraid of him, after looking at the painting, after looking and seeing and knowing-everything. Blaine squeezed his own biceps hard enough to make his bones ache. “Kurt, I…”
Kurt took a deep breath, then nodded, looking away and biting his bottom lip a little. “You would hate yourself.”
“…yes.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Blaine looked up at that, at the tightness in Kurt’s voice. Kurt’s eyes were bright, welling full, and the sight of it was like a stab to the chest. “I wish… I wish I could make that better for you, take the stupid guilt and shame away from you.” Kurt took a deep breath. “They’re useless feelings-not always, maybe, but… with this, they are. Useless. I wish… I wish I could help you see-you’re… you’re such a good man, Blaine-”
“I’m not,” Blaine said, his voice hoarse and dry. “I’m really, really not.”
Kurt wiped his eyes with one hand, shaking his head again and smiling, sadly. “I guess… that’s just one thing we’re going to have to disagree on.” He reached out and touched Blaine’s shoulder-just briefly, and it was completely absurd to have Kurt comforting him in this situation-but that’s how it was. Kurt’s hand was warm, even through his shirt, there, and then gone.
Kurt sniffed, and wiped his eyes again, then drew himself up straight, his shoulders back. “Okay, Blaine-your painting is amazing and gorgeous and sexy and weird, and I love it. Now what’s for dinner?”
***
Dinner was seared farmed Tilapia with beurre piquant, sautéed red pepper and yellow squash, and wilted chard with sliced green apple, sourdough bread and butter on the side. Two pans, fifteen minutes, and Blaine almost didn’t get the plates to the table because oh my God he was utterly starving.
“Really, Mr. Anderson-you should be proud of the urbane, cultured existence you’ve managed to carve out for yourself, given that you were obviously raised by wolves.”
“Painting makes me hungry,” Blaine said semi-apologetically, his mouth full of bread. It was hard to chew and grin and talk all at the same time, but the joy of having Kurt make fun of him was eminently worth the effort. “Sorry.”
“You’re forgiven, but only because this is really, really good.” Kurt speared a chunk of squash, chewed it, swallowed, and sighed. “It’s been a while, since I had… anything like this.”
Which brought up the question-a whole host of questions, actually; most of which he probably shouldn’t ask. “Do you cook, at home-I mean, where you are now?”
“I can cook, yes, but I’m… I’m staying with a couple other guys, you know, the whole roommate situation, and they’re… it’s not really that homey. I don’t cook, there.”
Blaine finished the last of his chard, mopping up the juice with another piece of bread. “It doesn’t sound like you like it much.”
Kurt shrugged, that sardonic shine surfacing again. “It’s not that bad-at least they don’t ask a lot of questions. They’re kind of… into their own thing. But it’s better than… well, better than other places I’ve been. Much. And it’s what I can afford.”
“Mmm. Speaking of which-” Blaine wiped his hands on his napkin and dug his wallet out of his pocket, and put the stack of bills he’d collected from the smiling bank teller that morning (really, it felt like forever ago) down on the table, just to the left of Kurt’s fork. “Sorry to bring up business during dinner, but I didn’t want to forget.”
Kurt stared at the money for a moment, then looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Blaine. I admit, I’m not exactly familiar with the going rate for artists’ models who sit in a chair with all their clothes on for half an hour, but I feel fairly confident that it’s not…” he eyed the stack of bills again. “That much.”
“Kurt-”
“No, Blaine-”
“Kurt-”
“No.” Kurt’s cheeks were fiery red, and he looked… angry, actually angry. “I mean, if you want to be my sugar daddy, shouldn’t we at least be fucking?”
It was probably supposed to be shocking, supposed to hurt-but all of a sudden Blaine was laughing, laughing hard. Kurt stared at him for a moment with his eyes wide before he cracked, lifting his napkin off his lap and holding it over his face, snorting adorably.
Blaine wiped his eyes with his own napkin, and waited until Kurt trailed off to quiet giggles before he spoke again. “Listen, Kurt-let me tell you something, about money. There’s a certain amount of it that makes a huge difference in life-when you’re dealing with, you know, survival, issues of survival: it matters, it’s a big deal. A huge deal.” He shook his head. “But once you go over that amount-it doesn’t matter anywhere near as much. And people who think it does, well, they have issues.”
Kurt was silent, leaning back in his chair.
Blaine took the last slice of bread, and picked off bits of it as he went on, popping them in his mouth. “Now, I have this… terrifying shark of a lawyer-really, the guy is scary-who made sure that Disney gave me a decent deal. He also did my last publishing contract. Long story short, I am long past the point where I need to be concerned about the finances of survival-about my own, anyway.”
Kurt’s eyebrow arched gracefully, but he said nothing.
“So take the money, Kurt. It’s payment for your services today-and anything over and above that is… well, consider it a contribution to the Kurt-whatever-your-last-name-is survival fund. Okay?”
Kurt blinked. “Okay.”
Blaine sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’re a weird guy, Blaine.”
Blaine grinned. “Yeah.”
“But I like you.”
“I like you too, Kurt.”
A long pause, during which Kurt seemed to be studying him, assessing him. Then: “Hummel.”
Blaine blinked. “What?”
“My last name. It’s Hummel.”
Blaine took a breath. “Oh. Okay. I… thank you. I won’t abuse the knowledge.”
“Of course you won’t,” Kurt said, with a lift of his eyebrow. “After all, you’re a deeply honorable weirdo.”
“Oh, shut up,” Blaine said when Kurt started giggling again.
***
Kurt refused a lift home. “I need to walk, and I need to think, and I need… I need to try to put this day in perspective. Do you know what I mean?”
Blaine did. He needed a little perspective of his own. But once Kurt was gone all he seemed to be able to do was wander through the house, all too keenly aware that he was the only person in it. It seemed smaller. Darker. Like stumbling on ruins, empty and cold, and imagining the life and light that used to be there.
That was pretty much the thought that drove him to the whisky bottle. He wound up in the loft, sitting in the dusty velvet chair across from the painting with a glass in his hand and the bottle at his feet, wondering what the hell he was doing. Besides having some more damn whisky.
Tightrope walking: exhilaration and a strange kind of freedom, a heedless, headlong, lunatic balancing act in utter defiance of gravity. It was wonderful. Dangerous. Wonderful.
But he wasn’t the only one on the rope.
More whisky, yes, definitely. A lot more.
Because it was one thing to risk himself-that was fine, that was… more than fine. But it was another thing altogether to risk Kurt, to draw Kurt out over the abyss with just a promise (to himself, since he was the one who required it) to hold on, when all it would take was one misstep, one moment of misjudgment, one tiny fraction of a slip-to fall. It would be so easy. So easy to tumble Kurt into his lap, so easy to kiss the virgin sweetness out of his mouth, so easy to take him and break him open, to lose himself in the pure intoxication of innocence like a sweet, strong, smoky hit of some exotic drug-
That damn painting. Kurt, staring and sensual and unafraid of him, unafraid of anything. Blaine groaned and abandoned his glass on the arm of the chair while he attacked the fly of his jeans with both hands, his thighs cramping up and his balls heavy, desperate, aching. He jerked off with savage, reckless speed, bitter, guilty strokes that brought as much pain as pleasure, only a few wretched moments before he came, dry-sobbing, pushing into his own fist and staring at Kurt’s beautiful, beautiful face and-sorry. So sorry, Kurt. So very, very sorry.
***
“I brought you coffee,” Kurt said by way of greeting, sweeping through the open door on a waft of wonderful smells-cool morning air, coffee, and Kurt. A pyrrole-red fitted shirt and white skinny jeans, a tight black cardigan with a subtle plaid pattern, the ubiquitous high boots. He looked dazzling. Edible. Sixteen.
“I have a coffee maker, you know.”
Kurt gave him a look as he set both cups down on the kitchen table and divested himself of his leather satchel. “I’m aware of that-you made me some yesterday.”
“There’s a ‘j’accuse’ somewhere in there, I know it.”
“You make trucker coffee, Blaine.” He sighed. “You’re an artist, in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and you make coffee that is startlingly akin to the swill available at freeway truck stops across this great nation.”
Blaine smiled despite himself. “I didn’t realize that coffee snobbery was compulsory for artists.”
Kurt sniffed. “Well, now you know.”
Blaine took the cup Kurt offered him, sipped, and grinned. “Mmm… bourgeois.”
Kurt’s laugh made him flush warm, right down to his toes.
***
Kurt touched the piano keys softly, a quiet, interrogative run of notes. “Is everything okay? You seem… tired.”
Blaine glanced up briefly. “It’s… I’m fine.” Back to the battery pack in his camera. “Uh. I’m a little hung over, that’s all.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Wild night out?”
Blaine snorted softly. “Wild night in.”
“I see.” Blaine was absorbed in trying to get his eyes to focus on his light meter, and didn’t even realize Kurt was there until-Kurt was there, taking it out of his hand. “Is it… was it because of me?”
Blaine blinked. “Not everything is about you, Kurt.”
Those eyes, steady at him. “That’s not an answer.”
When he didn’t say anything, Kurt stared at him for a few more seconds, then frowned, looking away, his fine eyebrows drawn low. “All right. Look, Blaine, I’m just going to go-”
“What? I-no, Kurt, don’t go. I’m fine, okay?” The thought of Kurt leaving made his stomach lurch uneasily, the air crowding against his skin like a sudden drop in barometric pressure. “I just need to… I’ll slow down today, just take some easy shots, and we can-”
“Blaine.” Kurt’s voice was sharp, but steady. There were two red spots high up on his cheeks. “I get it, okay? I do. You’re conflicted. You feel guilty. I know.” He bit his lip, then went on. “I can’t stop you from feeling any of those things-and I’m not an idiot, so I’m not even going to try. But I can’t… I’m not okay with knowing I’m the reason you drank too much last night. I’m not ever going to be okay with that.” He looked at Blaine then, angry and defiant. “I won’t be a weapon you use to hurt yourself with, Blaine. I refuse.”
Blaine stared at him-the stubborn tilt of his chin, the staunch, amazing, ageless person regarding him from behind those remarkable eyes-and then it hit him, like a rainstorm out of nowhere that drenched him to the skin in seconds.
It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t infatuation. It wasn’t even some doomed variety of artistic obsession. He was in love. Absolutely. Awfully. Irrevocably. In love. With a sixteen-year-old runaway boy he barely knew, who might vanish into the ether tomorrow.
It was hard to breathe. It was dark-but no, that was just because he had his eyes closed. Because he needed a moment. Just a moment.
“Blaine? Oh my God, Blaine, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you-”
“Kurt, don’t-” he shook his head, squeezing his temples. “Don’t be sorry. Just… give me a second, okay?” He opened his eyes, pierced by the light, pierced by Kurt, and the desire to reach out (softly, he would do it so softly and gently, with such reverence) was like a fire in him, setting everything it touched to burn. He turned away instead, and sat down on the bay window seat with his head in his hands.
“Blaine, what’s wrong with-”
“I don’t really want to work today,” Blaine said, his voice faint and weak to his own ears. “I’m not feeling quite up to it.” That was true enough, as far as it went. “I just… maybe you could just… play and sing for me? For a little while?”
Kurt’s hand on his back-Kurt comforting him again, ridiculous and ridiculously effective, that simple, warm touch. “I… of course I will, Blaine. Of course.”
***
It was one of those experiences-like the first time he’d finished a full-size painting, the first time he’d seen San Francisco shining at him from across the water, the first time he’d ever touched another man-that inhabited its own moment, rich and dense and deeply present; something he was sure he would never forget. Blaine curled up on his side in the window seat with a throw pillow under his head, and looked, and listened.
The day was overcast outside, the light grey and cool. Kurt played quietly-just the piano at first, but then he seemed to forget he had an audience (Blaine saw him slip away, giving himself up to it a little bit at a time, and it was so good, seeing that). Once he started singing he didn’t stop-one song melted into the next, and there were endless, lulling harmonies that Blaine could almost see floating in front of him, graceful in the soft light. Crystal notes, and that soaring, lovely voice, impossibly high and pure.
Blaine laid still and listened, nestling himself around the warm glow deep in his chest.
The first time he’d ever fallen in love.
***
When the front door closed with a soft thump-Kurt, gone for the day; coming back tomorrow, but, gone again-Blaine felt a quick, light stirring of panic low in his stomach. A sense of unease, distrust of himself, because after last night and after today, God knows what he was going to get up to, trying to come to terms with… all of it.
He kept a close eye on himself as he straightened things up in the loft, in the living room. As he returned some of the phone messages he’d been ignoring. Ditto e-mail. As he did some laundry. Made himself dinner, and ate it. Did the dishes. Took a shower. And then it was barely past ten p.m. and he was in bed-sleepy and warm and comfortable, and wow this was really some kind of extreme acting out on his part, this reckless, desperate attempt to acclimate himself to the shock and drama of it all by being mundane and domestic and responsible-
“Kurt, you are a bad influence on me,” he said out loud in the darkness-and good, that was good, at least he was talking to himself when nobody was there; that was suitably crazy-lovesick-wacko to be going on with.
Blaine closed his eyes with a satisfied sigh.
***
The phone. Was ringing. Blaine starfished for a moment, his brain angry and resentful and his body still deeply asleep, but the buzzing kept going on, because some asshole was calling him at-he peered blurrily over at his bedside clock-2:43 in the motherfucking morning.
The haze of muddled anger persisted until he actually got his phone in his hand and looked at the screen-Kurt. He blinked and really opened his eyes for the first time as he pushed the button.
“Kurt-are you okay?”
“Blaine.” Kurt sounded… winded, his voice tight. “I’m really, really sorry to call you at this hour, but I… I need a favor. I’m… I had to leave, where I’ve been staying, and normally I’d just go to a hotel but because of my little documentation problem, the only places I can go without showing ID or having a credit card are all in the parts of town I try not to go to by myself at this hour-”
“Where are you?” Blaine groped to turn on the light and almost sent his lamp toppling to the floor. “Of course you can-you can stay here, anything, I can-I’ll come get you.” He found sweatpants and tugged them on, found a shirt and put it on inside-out and discovered it was pretty impossible to button that way, so fuck it-“I’m… are you hurt? Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine, Blaine,” Kurt said, but he didn’t sound fine at all. He sounded exhausted. Blaine took the stairs in the near-total darkness, navigating by familiarity, and headed for the front door. “And you don’t need to come get me-”
“I’m coming to get you,” Blaine said implacably. “Just tell me where you are. I’m on my way… right now,” he finished lamely, opening the door to see Kurt standing there with his phone in his hand.
Kurt turned his phone off. “Hi. Sorry. I kind of took it for granted that you were probably going to let me in.”
Blaine found the light switch by feel. Kurt was pale-even for him, with dark shadows under his eyes. His lips were bloodless, set in a firm line. There was a large duffel bag at his feet.
Blaine leaned forward, and picked up the bag. It was heavy. He held the door open. “Come in.”
***
Not pushing. He was not going to push. He turned on the lights, settled Kurt in at the kitchen table, and kept his attention firmly on the mechanics of making tea (it was the only thing he could think of to offer, other than whisky, which, no). He didn’t say anything at all until he had two mugs of lemon-ginger on the table, until he was seated across from Kurt, who was staring at the wall as if it was somehow fascinating.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Kurt took a breath. “Not really,” he said, then dropped his head with a wry half-smile, “but I’m going to. I figure an explanation is the very least I can offer, after waking you up at this hour.”
“You don’t owe me,” Blaine said, and Kurt’s eyes darted toward him. “I don’t… you don’t have to tell me anything, and if you’re just telling me because you feel like you owe me-I’d rather you didn’t.”
Kurt looked at him for a long moment. Blaine was just never going to get used to that frank, assessing, adult look from such a young face. “Blaine. You’re a problem-solver.”
“I’m… what?”
“You like to solve people’s problems. You’re generous-and solving problems is another way you… another kind of generosity. You’re… open. Kind. You like to help.”
Blaine felt his cheeks get hot. “Okay. And that’s bad because…?”
“It’s not bad,” Kurt said gently. “I’m not telling you it’s bad. What I’m trying to tell you is… that makes it hard for me. To tell you things.”
“Because you don’t want me to solve your problems.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t ‘teenage rebellion’ or ‘just an independent streak’, Blaine. I am sitting across from you right now because… because some time ago I made the decision to solve my own problems-that I had to. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Blaine felt something creep into the room-darkness, only not visible. It felt like a weight, unbearable and oppressive and inescapable. “Kurt.” He stopped to clear his throat, because that wasn’t much more than a croak. “What happened to you?”
Kurt closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, the sense of gloom vanished. “Someday, I’ll tell you. But not today.”
Blaine drank some tea. It was hot, soothing. “Okay. So… for right now you’re going to tell me what happened tonight, and I’m going to try not to solve any of your problems, right?”
“That’s the deal. Think you can handle it?”
“I can handle it.”
“Okay.” Kurt sipped his tea, and kept both hands around his mug when he put it down, staring into it. “I’ve been staying with these two guys, straight guys-they advertised for a roommate, and the place was run-down and in a not-so-great neighborhood, so I could afford it. The two of them… they went to college together, and now they live together, and drink together and smoke pot together and play video games and bitch about their crappy jobs together.”
Kurt shrugged. “Not an ideal situation. But they didn’t ask questions-didn’t even seem to know I existed. But tonight, one of them went out with some girl he’s hot for, and the other one must have felt left out of things, because he got drunk-like, really drunk, drunker than I’ve ever seen him-and then he showed up in my room. He called me a cock-tease, told me to stop being such a prim, tight-assed little bitch, and tried to make me give him a blowjob.” Kurt looked at him levelly, calmly. “I pushed him down. Then I took my stuff, and I left. I’m not going back.”
Blaine could see a pattern like veins, pulsing-only it was just his eyes. He’d never seen that before. It was… interesting, in an abstract way, to the part of his brain that wasn’t boiling with rage. “Kurt.” He bit down on what wanted to come out next. And the thing after that. And the thing after that, too. “I want to solve your problems, Kurt.”
Kurt’s mouth twisted, just a little. “Fight it.”
“And I want to kill that guy.”
“You can’t.”
“Or at least maim him a little.”
“You can’t.” Kurt took a deep breath. “You don’t know where I was living, or who I was living with-I didn’t even mention a name. I did that on purpose, because you’re a problem-solver-and this problem is solved. I’m out. There’s nothing else to do-I can’t report him to the police, because he didn’t actually hurt me, and because… I can’t go to the police.”
Blaine closed his eyes. Impotent rage, and sadness that felt… almost infinite. “Will you tell me when-” he had to stop to swallow.
“When, what?”
“When… there’s something I can do to help. Will you-when there’s anything, will you tell me? Please?”
When he opened his eyes, Kurt was smiling at him tiredly. “Hey, Blaine, remember that time I woke you up in the middle of the night and asked you for a place to stay?”
Oh, right. Blaine blew out a long, slow breath and dropped his head, rubbing both hands through his hair. “Okay.”
“Blaine.”
He lifted his head. Kurt was looking at him with such fondness, such gentle and genuine affection, that Blaine’s chest ached. “Just… give me a little time, okay?”
“Time…?”
“To get… to get used to it. To let you help. I just need some time. Can you give me that?”
Blaine swallowed, hard. “I would give you anything.”
Kurt shook his head, smiling softly. “Okay. But really, all I want right now is a horizontal surface to pass out on.”
Blaine got up from the table, and picked up Kurt’s duffel bag from where he’d stashed it. “You got it. Come on.”
***
The spare bedroom he never used was full of frilly, antique things-everything that didn’t quite fit in the rest of the house had wound up there, somehow. Kurt surveyed it with a sleepy smile. “Your Grandma must go nuts when she comes to visit you.”
“Sorry-I know it’s kind of… fluffy-”
“I’m just tweaking your nose for the pure joy of it, Blaine-and because you make the cutest faces when you’re agonizing over your hospitality. It’s lovely. Very Golden-Age-of-Hollywood-boudoir; I would brush my hair a thousand strokes before bed if I weren’t utterly ready to collapse.” He blinked at Blaine. “Thank you, for letting me stay.”
“Any time, Kurt.” Kurt was close, heavy-eyed and sleepy and vulnerable, and Blaine had to curl his hands into fists so they wouldn’t reach out. “I… guess I’ll say good-night.”
“Good-night, Blaine.”
In his own bed, in the cool darkness, sleep was impossible for a long time. In the end, it was only the knowledge that Kurt was in the house-safe and asleep and just down the hall-that let him drop his eyes shut.
***
He knew Kurt was gone before he even opened his eyes-he didn’t know how he knew; he just did. He found a note downstairs on the refrigerator; written in neat, rounded script:
Blaine-don’t panic, I’ll be back for my stuff this evening. I have some things I need to take care of, after yesterday. Thanks again for letting me stay, it was VERY HELPFUL. Love, Kurt.
There was a smiley face and a flower doodle. Blaine stared at the note for a long time, not even trying to suppress his dopey, enchanted grin.
He folded the note carefully, and slipped it into his wallet; feeling like a complete idiot, and regretting it not at all.
***
It was wonderful, what a judicious combination of money and motivation could do.
Blaine kept the antique wood bedframe, but he got a new mattress, box spring, pillows and bedding. Lighter curtains and shades for the windows, a new dresser, and a wardrobe (the closet was fine for a guest room, but completely inadequate for a Kurt room). A desk, a computer. A sound dock. Throw rugs. Lamps. Candles. A glass bowl of fresh flowers.
Watching the room come together, piece by piece as delivery men brought things and took other things away, was a slightly eerie experience-everything so modern and spare and light in his old, crowded, rattletrap of a house, dark woods and cool blue and grey fabrics, simple textures-it was like seeing a piece of his house peeled away, a schism in the space of things, odd and out of place.
But he thought, with Kurt in the middle of it, it would look perfect.
***
Kurt said yes to Blaine’s proposal of salad and shrimp risotto when he returned, so Blaine started washing lettuce and let Kurt head upstairs by himself. He made it about five minutes before a mix of uncertainty, worry, and hope overcame all his efforts to focus on food rather than any possible sounds from overhead.
Kurt was standing in the middle of the guest room, looking around slowly. His face was unreadable.
Blaine cleared his throat. “If you don’t like it, we can get other stuff. I kind of had to guess at what you might like.”
Kurt didn’t say anything. He reached out with one hand and touched the flowers, gently.
“I thought… at least here you’d be safe, that you’d have your own space, your own-”
“Blaine.”
Kurt walked towards him slowly, and his eyes were so blue, in the room-perfect, yes, it was perfect with Kurt in it-only Kurt looked sad and solemn, and Blaine’s stomach folded in on itself. “Blaine. It’s not going to matter, you know.”
“It… what? What won’t matter?”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re not lovers. If the wrong people found out that you were living with a sixteen-year-old-a boy, your career would be over. This… this is amazing, Blaine, it’s incredible and wonderful and I can’t tell you how much it… but it’s not-it wouldn’t be safety for me. It would just put both of us in danger. Force both of us into hiding.” His voice was soft, regretful. “I don’t think… I can’t do that to you.”
Kurt’s face was all he could see, and all he wanted to do was take it in his hands, run his thumbs and his lips over those soft eyebrows, smooth cheeks, the umbrae curve under his bottom lip. He didn’t. “I don’t… hey. It’s up to me, if I want to take that chance, okay? And I’m not hiding. I’m not afraid.” He took a breath. “I’m not afraid. Stay with me. Let this be your home. Please?”
“Blaine, don’t…” Kurt took his hand, squeezing it gently, his bright eyes directed at the floor. “Don’t let me hurt you. Don’t ever let me hurt you.”
Blaine squeezed back, memorizing silk-soft skin under the pad of his thumb. “Is that a yes?”
Kurt blinked, breathing out through his barely-open mouth. “It’s… yes.”
One tug-that’s all it would take. One gentle pull to guide Kurt into his arms, take time wrapping him up, savor the warmth and fit and fierceness and boyishness of him, then take him by the gentle curve of his neck, fit his palm just there, and… Blaine took a step back, and let go of Kurt’s hand. “Okay. Good. Want to help me make dinner?”
***
Kurt was quiet at first, until Blaine caught him smiling ruefully down at the shrimp he was peeling.
“What is it?”
Kurt flashed a quick glance at him, then shook his head, his mouth quirked. “I told you-last night, when you said you wanted to help-I told you I needed some time.”
Blaine grinned, leaning back against the counter with his arms folded across his chest. “Yeah, but, that was last night. So… how about now? Is now good?
Kurt dropped the shrimp and burst out laughing-shocked-sounding laughter, rolling through him while he leaned on the cutting board. “You are completely ridiculous.”
Blaine shrugged. “I prefer to think of myself as ‘enchantingly whimsical’, or maybe ‘refreshingly free of orthodox paradigms’-”
“Oh my god.”
Dinner was perfect-Kurt had a better touch (and more patience) with risotto than he did. Blaine focused on the food until the roaring in his stomach died down (he’d skipped both breakfast and lunch), so it took him a while to realize that Kurt was eyeing him speculatively.
“What? Do I have rice in my hair or something?”
Kurt put his fork down, and laced his fingers together over his plate. “Did you really pick out all that stuff up there?”
Blaine straightened his shoulders. “You don’t need to sound so skeptical, you know-I am an artist, I do have a… a heightened sense of color and texture and, you know, space…”
Kurt gave him a look. It was… a pretty impressive look, from a kid.
Blaine cleared his throat. “Okay, so I went to Saks and I threw myself on the mercy of an ennui-laden sales clerk, and I begged him to help me put together the most expensive and tasteful things they had.”
Kurt’s eyebrow arched. “That’s pretty much what I thought.”
***
Kurt went upstairs after they finished doing the dishes. Blaine made himself some coffee (Kurt had declined with his adorable mouth pouted into a moue of distaste), then drank it leaning against the counter with the kitchen lights off. There was enough light coming from upstairs, from the open door of Kurt’s room-Kurt’s room. There was light and music, and Blaine drank his coffee slowly, listening to Kurt singing along with… something, some pop Goddess he didn’t recognize (oh, but he undoubtedly would before the week was out), feeling the house shift around him-different, now; a home for two.
Blaine crept upstairs quietly, heading for the third floor-the itch in his brain and his hands was demanding it of him, despite his physical exhaustion. From the stairs he could see Kurt, moving, turning; there were various items of clothing scattered everywhere, and the duffel bag lay puddled and empty at the foot of the bed. Kurt had three hangers in one hand and a pair of pants in the other, and he was humming, and he looked entirely gorgeous and radiantly happy.
Blaine breathed deep when he got to the loft, savoring the smells of linseed oil and resin, juniper and linen-the smells of creation-then put his coffee down on the desk, and got to work.
***
It was past five in the morning when he finally scratched his name and the year into the paint with the back of the brush, and he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, now that the adrenaline high was finally starting to wear off. He tossed his brush aside and flipped off all the lights except for one studio lamp he left trained on the canvas, then sank down into the armchair and let himself look.
The visual memory of Kurt playing the piano for him had blurred a little, but his emotional recall of that particular moment was absolutely crystal-clear, so he’d painted from that. The result was… diaphanous, a gauzy, soft-focus effect that he’d never achieved before, his brushstrokes longer, softer, more lingering. It was so… light, much lighter than his usual work, open-edged but intimate, the room warm and the piano glowing and the beautiful boy, singing. Textures and gloss, the aching, elegant curve of Kurt’s wrists, the curl of his fingers perfect, perfect-
The lightness was a fairytale, he realized, scratching his stubbled chin with a half-amused, half-rueful grin. The painting was exactly the sort of thing he would have come up with if he’d been seventeen instead of thirty-four, if Kurt had been his high-school sweetheart-if Blaine been able to walk up to him in the hallway, take his hand, and kiss his pretty lips with impunity. A cupid-and-roses fantasy, embarrassingly juvenile, and now he was vaguely tempted to grab a bucket of white primer and obliterate the whole thing before anyone else could ever see it-only he was so tired, so very tired…
Also, he kind of secretly loved it.
***
He woke up to Kurt, and coffee, and a crick in his neck that made him wince. “Ow-I can’t believe I slept here.”
Kurt shook his head. “I can’t believe you came up here and worked after setting up that room all day.” He handed Blaine a steaming mug. “Here, this should help. That coffeehouse over on Dolores sells Counterculture Farmhouse Organic by the pound.” He turned and walked towards the canvas, now glowing and brilliant in the late-morning light streaming through the windows. “What’s it called?”
“The Muse.” Blaine drank some coffee, and decided he didn’t need to mourn the fact that Folgers had been banished from the house.
Kurt looked at the painting for a long time. Blaine looked at Kurt. Pegged jeans, a soft-looking charcoal grey shirt, and a black brocade fitted vest that laced up the back, hugging the incurve of his spine and calling attention to the soft swell of his rounded ass-fuck. He made sure he was looking elsewhere when Kurt turned around, blushing a little, smiling wickedly. “Blaine Anderson-you big romantic softie, you.”
“Oh shut up.”
“I think you should call it I Like You Do You Like Me Check Yes Or No-”
“I’m gonna call it Kurt Hummel Is A Fucking Jerk if you don’t shut up.”
Kurt laughed and had the temerity to pinch his cheek, darting away and cackling when Blaine slapped at him.
***
Kurt blasted pop music and show tunes at all hours. He got Blaine addicted to organic coffee. He ridiculed Blaine’s taste in clothes and grooming products, dragged him to the Castro Theatre with relentless regularity and utterly no regard to what might be playing, and was nearly impossible to dislodge from any vintage store that caught him in its orbit and sucked him in (which was every one they happened to walk by).
It was maddening and exasperating and completely awesome, and Blaine wouldn’t have given up a second of it for anything. He had sketchbooks all over the house, filled with bits of Kurt-the curve of his cheek, the spare, sweet line of his scapulae under his thinnest shirt, the tender nape of his neck, his dimples and his eyebrows and the tilt of his nose and his temples and his knees and his fingers-Blaine had a favorite, the index finger on Kurt’s left hand, and in the sketches it took on a personality all its own, bitchy and deeply sardonic. Which was why it was his favorite, of course.
The Diva Domesticans Trio followed-watercolors from sketches done both fast and slow, immediate and bright and open like Kurt was open-but there was no grand rolling back of the mystery he carried, no climactic reveal-just hints. Teases. Music and lyrics worn like costumes, illuminated, adopted, and animated by performance. I featured Kurt (in a red porkpie hat, tight red jeans and a snug short-sleeved black shirt-an ensemble that had made Blaine’s attempt to cook the parts of dinner he was responsible for into a hamfisted travesty), whirling on the kitchen floor to Born This Way, snarling and raw and sexual and fearless, wielding a wooden spoon like a mic.
II caught Kurt (jeans and a fluffy white high-necked sweater that made Blaine ache at the virginal sweetness of it), curled up on the padded seat of the bay window with his legs tucked under him, just the profile and the lashes and the modest tuck of his head as he sewed a button on one of his shirts, singing along with Adele with the rain outside coming down like the world was melting. He’d spent hours on the sketch (the sweater sleeves pushed up to Kurt’s elbows, and each hair on his forearms, the backlit peach fuzz of his cheek, the deep warmth of the thick sweater-all of it had to be just so), and the finished work was the most hushed, intimate, reverent thing he’d ever done.
III was Beyoncé and blues and adorable brattiness, and an echo of the first night, when he’d glimpsed Kurt moving in. Kurt (in a navy fitted cardigan, cobalt-blue shirt and carefully distressed steel-blue jeans) arranging the new flowers that Blaine brought him for the glass bowl in his room, belting out Single Ladies, saucy and pouty and irresistibly cute. Blaine was lucky to get the quick sketch he did, because Kurt chucked a handful of cut stems at him when Blaine called him Sasha-not-quite-as-Fierce, and the resulting scowl would have ruined things.
“I still can’t get it, though,” Blaine said, standing in the middle of the loft with Kurt, surveying the three pieces side-by-side, and feeling a little dizzy from paint fumes and loveliness.
“Can’t get what?”
“How you sound-your voice. I keep trying, but I just… can’t. I don’t know how to translate that to paint-in a way I could keep.”
“Hm. Doesn’t that snazzy digital camera of yours take video?”
Oh, he was a fucking idiot.
He started filming Kurt that day. The day after that, he went shopping for an actual camcorder with better sound quality.
“Why are you filming this, Blaine?”
“…because it’s artistically relevant?”
“Me chopping mushrooms is artistically relevant?”
“Yes. It’s a-a political statement. On the politics of, of…”
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah!”
Kurt sniffed. “I smell Hugo Boss Prize. Oh wait, no-that’s your fucking omelet. Now put the camera away, Blaine.”
He invited Kurt to Cambria for the weekend. “I really want to show you the house I have there-it’s this crazy place, it was built by this turn-of-the-century architect after he retired, and I think he must have resented all the people who asked him to build normal, boring old houses, because-”
Kurt squinted at him. “You have another house?”
Blaine licked his lips. “Two, actually. There’s one on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle.” Kurt’s eyebrow went up. “Look, I don’t… I never wanted eighteen cars or a host of bronzed pool-boys or designer q-tips or… any of that. But I like houses. Old houses. And odd things. To put in the houses.” Kurt’s other eyebrow went up. “Look, come to Cambria with me. They have vintage stores, antiques; um, stuff-”
“Oh, stuff. Well, you know me, Blaine-I can’t resist the lure of stuff…”
In Cambria, someone’s wolfhound that had gotten off-leash discovered their shaded picnic spot under a spreading oak, and within five minutes Kurt had the massive dog paws-up on his back, the giant, toothy head pressed with desperate affection against Kurt’s outstretched legs, shuddering and whining with joy when Kurt scratched his chest. Blaine shuddered in sympathy and grabbed his sketchbook, and when they got back he spent three days painting Taming at Moonstone. The dog wasn’t really a dog anymore, and the backdrop was deep, dense, misty forest rather than the innocent open oaks of Moonstone Beach, but Kurt was still in the vibrant red shirt, white skinny jeans and tall boots, still remote and amused and sexily self-assured, gorgeously teasing as the dark wolf-monster-thing died of love under the touch of his fine, white fingers.
Kurt laughed hysterically when he saw it, then looked again and fell quiet, finally nodding approval. “The world needs more dark, gay, kinky fairy tales,” He said. “Now, come make dinner with me, okay?”
That was life, and life was good-the richest, happiest time Blaine could remember. But.
Kurt screamed, sometimes, in his sleep. Not often, but when it happened and Blaine staggered across the hall and into Kurt’s room to wake him, he could feel it-like a residue in the air, sticky and oppressive and awful, madness and darkness and no escape. He shook Kurt until he woke, brought him tea and left him with the lights on when Kurt curled in on himself, facing away, refusing all offers of help, all inquiries, all attempts to talk. Leaving Blaine with nothing but fear and frustration and the constant, nagging urge to fix it, whatever it was.
But.
It wasn’t always what he thought. He woke up and heard Kurt and went for him, opening the door to find Kurt asleep with all the blankets kicked off, bathed in moonlight and dressed only in an undershirt and boxer-briefs, clearly hard and gently thrashing and moaning his name. Blaine almost went to his knees, and then he could see himself doing just that, crawling forward and leveraging himself up and into that innocent bed, into Kurt’s white arms, invading that softly open mouth and slipping his hands inch by inch up those succulent, bare thighs, just an incubus invoked through the power of adolescent desire-
“Blaine,” Kurt wasn’t awake, not really-but his eyes fluttered a little as he drew one hand up his own torso, pushing the undershirt up and baring the most delectable waist, tender belly and the luscious dip of his navel, God, oh God-“You kissed me, and then the world exploded.” Soft and high and dreamy, sex-drenched and utterly boyish and Blaine was going to fucking die of a heart attack right in the doorway of Kurt’s bedroom
“Go back to sleep, Kurt, okay?” his own voice was whisper-low, hoarse and ragged, but Kurt didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay.” A soft sigh. “You feel so good, Blaine.”
He almost didn’t make it back to his room.
***
Next
***
Blaine stopped at the second floor on his way downstairs for a quick shower, paint and sweat and exultation sluicing away from him, leaving him clean and calm. He found Kurt asleep in the living room, snuggled under a light quilt on the low, padded seat that ran around the bay window.
There was a battle going on with the light outside, between sunset orange and icy, creeping fog. The resulting cool-pink glow made Kurt look even younger than he was-so vulnerable, his lips softly open, lashes fanned across his cheeks, just a boy, really. Blaine knelt down silently next to him, but hesitated-only then Kurt’s eyes fluttered open and he stretched, luxuriously, making a soft, contented noise that Blaine tried not to listen to.
“Blaine. Are you… is it done? I’m sorry, I fell asleep-”
“It’s fine, Kurt. Yes, it’s done. I thought I might… are you hungry? I could make us some dinner, if you-”
“I’d love that,” Kurt murmured, sleepy-sweet and smiling, and Blaine’s heart thumped hard in his chest. “But… can I see the painting, first?
Upstairs, Blaine stayed near the staircase after flipping on the lights, leaning against the lintel post with his arms folded over his chest, silent, letting Kurt move forward without him. The urge to talk-narrate, explain, clarify-was nearly overwhelming, but it seemed all too likely that any explanation would become apology, and really-the work had to speak for itself, to every viewer, even when that viewer was also the subject, and sixteen, and worldly but maybe not quite worldly enough to really understand-
“What is it called?” Kurt was still staring at the painting, one ankle crossed over the other, his hands on his hips.
Blaine swallowed. “Desire For A Boy.”
In profile, he saw Kurt’s lips twitch. “Sappho.”
Blaine said nothing for a moment, wondering if Kurt would ever stop surprising him. “Yes.”
Kurt turned towards him then, silhouetted by the twilit world outside the windows. He’d taken his glasses off. He walked closer, so graceful in the way he moved-inhabiting his body so effortlessly, the body that Blaine knew so much better now, after painting that place where Kurt’s shirt clung to his incurved waist, the strong, muscular swell of hip and thigh-“Blaine.”
Kurt was right there. Right there, within arm’s reach, looking at him levelly. Unafraid. Not the least bit afraid of him, after looking at the painting, after looking and seeing and knowing-everything. Blaine squeezed his own biceps hard enough to make his bones ache. “Kurt, I…”
Kurt took a deep breath, then nodded, looking away and biting his bottom lip a little. “You would hate yourself.”
“…yes.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Blaine looked up at that, at the tightness in Kurt’s voice. Kurt’s eyes were bright, welling full, and the sight of it was like a stab to the chest. “I wish… I wish I could make that better for you, take the stupid guilt and shame away from you.” Kurt took a deep breath. “They’re useless feelings-not always, maybe, but… with this, they are. Useless. I wish… I wish I could help you see-you’re… you’re such a good man, Blaine-”
“I’m not,” Blaine said, his voice hoarse and dry. “I’m really, really not.”
Kurt wiped his eyes with one hand, shaking his head again and smiling, sadly. “I guess… that’s just one thing we’re going to have to disagree on.” He reached out and touched Blaine’s shoulder-just briefly, and it was completely absurd to have Kurt comforting him in this situation-but that’s how it was. Kurt’s hand was warm, even through his shirt, there, and then gone.
Kurt sniffed, and wiped his eyes again, then drew himself up straight, his shoulders back. “Okay, Blaine-your painting is amazing and gorgeous and sexy and weird, and I love it. Now what’s for dinner?”
***
Dinner was seared farmed Tilapia with beurre piquant, sautéed red pepper and yellow squash, and wilted chard with sliced green apple, sourdough bread and butter on the side. Two pans, fifteen minutes, and Blaine almost didn’t get the plates to the table because oh my God he was utterly starving.
“Really, Mr. Anderson-you should be proud of the urbane, cultured existence you’ve managed to carve out for yourself, given that you were obviously raised by wolves.”
“Painting makes me hungry,” Blaine said semi-apologetically, his mouth full of bread. It was hard to chew and grin and talk all at the same time, but the joy of having Kurt make fun of him was eminently worth the effort. “Sorry.”
“You’re forgiven, but only because this is really, really good.” Kurt speared a chunk of squash, chewed it, swallowed, and sighed. “It’s been a while, since I had… anything like this.”
Which brought up the question-a whole host of questions, actually; most of which he probably shouldn’t ask. “Do you cook, at home-I mean, where you are now?”
“I can cook, yes, but I’m… I’m staying with a couple other guys, you know, the whole roommate situation, and they’re… it’s not really that homey. I don’t cook, there.”
Blaine finished the last of his chard, mopping up the juice with another piece of bread. “It doesn’t sound like you like it much.”
Kurt shrugged, that sardonic shine surfacing again. “It’s not that bad-at least they don’t ask a lot of questions. They’re kind of… into their own thing. But it’s better than… well, better than other places I’ve been. Much. And it’s what I can afford.”
“Mmm. Speaking of which-” Blaine wiped his hands on his napkin and dug his wallet out of his pocket, and put the stack of bills he’d collected from the smiling bank teller that morning (really, it felt like forever ago) down on the table, just to the left of Kurt’s fork. “Sorry to bring up business during dinner, but I didn’t want to forget.”
Kurt stared at the money for a moment, then looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Blaine. I admit, I’m not exactly familiar with the going rate for artists’ models who sit in a chair with all their clothes on for half an hour, but I feel fairly confident that it’s not…” he eyed the stack of bills again. “That much.”
“Kurt-”
“No, Blaine-”
“Kurt-”
“No.” Kurt’s cheeks were fiery red, and he looked… angry, actually angry. “I mean, if you want to be my sugar daddy, shouldn’t we at least be fucking?”
It was probably supposed to be shocking, supposed to hurt-but all of a sudden Blaine was laughing, laughing hard. Kurt stared at him for a moment with his eyes wide before he cracked, lifting his napkin off his lap and holding it over his face, snorting adorably.
Blaine wiped his eyes with his own napkin, and waited until Kurt trailed off to quiet giggles before he spoke again. “Listen, Kurt-let me tell you something, about money. There’s a certain amount of it that makes a huge difference in life-when you’re dealing with, you know, survival, issues of survival: it matters, it’s a big deal. A huge deal.” He shook his head. “But once you go over that amount-it doesn’t matter anywhere near as much. And people who think it does, well, they have issues.”
Kurt was silent, leaning back in his chair.
Blaine took the last slice of bread, and picked off bits of it as he went on, popping them in his mouth. “Now, I have this… terrifying shark of a lawyer-really, the guy is scary-who made sure that Disney gave me a decent deal. He also did my last publishing contract. Long story short, I am long past the point where I need to be concerned about the finances of survival-about my own, anyway.”
Kurt’s eyebrow arched gracefully, but he said nothing.
“So take the money, Kurt. It’s payment for your services today-and anything over and above that is… well, consider it a contribution to the Kurt-whatever-your-last-name-is survival fund. Okay?”
Kurt blinked. “Okay.”
Blaine sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’re a weird guy, Blaine.”
Blaine grinned. “Yeah.”
“But I like you.”
“I like you too, Kurt.”
A long pause, during which Kurt seemed to be studying him, assessing him. Then: “Hummel.”
Blaine blinked. “What?”
“My last name. It’s Hummel.”
Blaine took a breath. “Oh. Okay. I… thank you. I won’t abuse the knowledge.”
“Of course you won’t,” Kurt said, with a lift of his eyebrow. “After all, you’re a deeply honorable weirdo.”
“Oh, shut up,” Blaine said when Kurt started giggling again.
***
Kurt refused a lift home. “I need to walk, and I need to think, and I need… I need to try to put this day in perspective. Do you know what I mean?”
Blaine did. He needed a little perspective of his own. But once Kurt was gone all he seemed to be able to do was wander through the house, all too keenly aware that he was the only person in it. It seemed smaller. Darker. Like stumbling on ruins, empty and cold, and imagining the life and light that used to be there.
That was pretty much the thought that drove him to the whisky bottle. He wound up in the loft, sitting in the dusty velvet chair across from the painting with a glass in his hand and the bottle at his feet, wondering what the hell he was doing. Besides having some more damn whisky.
Tightrope walking: exhilaration and a strange kind of freedom, a heedless, headlong, lunatic balancing act in utter defiance of gravity. It was wonderful. Dangerous. Wonderful.
But he wasn’t the only one on the rope.
More whisky, yes, definitely. A lot more.
Because it was one thing to risk himself-that was fine, that was… more than fine. But it was another thing altogether to risk Kurt, to draw Kurt out over the abyss with just a promise (to himself, since he was the one who required it) to hold on, when all it would take was one misstep, one moment of misjudgment, one tiny fraction of a slip-to fall. It would be so easy. So easy to tumble Kurt into his lap, so easy to kiss the virgin sweetness out of his mouth, so easy to take him and break him open, to lose himself in the pure intoxication of innocence like a sweet, strong, smoky hit of some exotic drug-
That damn painting. Kurt, staring and sensual and unafraid of him, unafraid of anything. Blaine groaned and abandoned his glass on the arm of the chair while he attacked the fly of his jeans with both hands, his thighs cramping up and his balls heavy, desperate, aching. He jerked off with savage, reckless speed, bitter, guilty strokes that brought as much pain as pleasure, only a few wretched moments before he came, dry-sobbing, pushing into his own fist and staring at Kurt’s beautiful, beautiful face and-sorry. So sorry, Kurt. So very, very sorry.
***
“I brought you coffee,” Kurt said by way of greeting, sweeping through the open door on a waft of wonderful smells-cool morning air, coffee, and Kurt. A pyrrole-red fitted shirt and white skinny jeans, a tight black cardigan with a subtle plaid pattern, the ubiquitous high boots. He looked dazzling. Edible. Sixteen.
“I have a coffee maker, you know.”
Kurt gave him a look as he set both cups down on the kitchen table and divested himself of his leather satchel. “I’m aware of that-you made me some yesterday.”
“There’s a ‘j’accuse’ somewhere in there, I know it.”
“You make trucker coffee, Blaine.” He sighed. “You’re an artist, in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and you make coffee that is startlingly akin to the swill available at freeway truck stops across this great nation.”
Blaine smiled despite himself. “I didn’t realize that coffee snobbery was compulsory for artists.”
Kurt sniffed. “Well, now you know.”
Blaine took the cup Kurt offered him, sipped, and grinned. “Mmm… bourgeois.”
Kurt’s laugh made him flush warm, right down to his toes.
***
Kurt touched the piano keys softly, a quiet, interrogative run of notes. “Is everything okay? You seem… tired.”
Blaine glanced up briefly. “It’s… I’m fine.” Back to the battery pack in his camera. “Uh. I’m a little hung over, that’s all.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Wild night out?”
Blaine snorted softly. “Wild night in.”
“I see.” Blaine was absorbed in trying to get his eyes to focus on his light meter, and didn’t even realize Kurt was there until-Kurt was there, taking it out of his hand. “Is it… was it because of me?”
Blaine blinked. “Not everything is about you, Kurt.”
Those eyes, steady at him. “That’s not an answer.”
When he didn’t say anything, Kurt stared at him for a few more seconds, then frowned, looking away, his fine eyebrows drawn low. “All right. Look, Blaine, I’m just going to go-”
“What? I-no, Kurt, don’t go. I’m fine, okay?” The thought of Kurt leaving made his stomach lurch uneasily, the air crowding against his skin like a sudden drop in barometric pressure. “I just need to… I’ll slow down today, just take some easy shots, and we can-”
“Blaine.” Kurt’s voice was sharp, but steady. There were two red spots high up on his cheeks. “I get it, okay? I do. You’re conflicted. You feel guilty. I know.” He bit his lip, then went on. “I can’t stop you from feeling any of those things-and I’m not an idiot, so I’m not even going to try. But I can’t… I’m not okay with knowing I’m the reason you drank too much last night. I’m not ever going to be okay with that.” He looked at Blaine then, angry and defiant. “I won’t be a weapon you use to hurt yourself with, Blaine. I refuse.”
Blaine stared at him-the stubborn tilt of his chin, the staunch, amazing, ageless person regarding him from behind those remarkable eyes-and then it hit him, like a rainstorm out of nowhere that drenched him to the skin in seconds.
It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t infatuation. It wasn’t even some doomed variety of artistic obsession. He was in love. Absolutely. Awfully. Irrevocably. In love. With a sixteen-year-old runaway boy he barely knew, who might vanish into the ether tomorrow.
It was hard to breathe. It was dark-but no, that was just because he had his eyes closed. Because he needed a moment. Just a moment.
“Blaine? Oh my God, Blaine, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled at you-”
“Kurt, don’t-” he shook his head, squeezing his temples. “Don’t be sorry. Just… give me a second, okay?” He opened his eyes, pierced by the light, pierced by Kurt, and the desire to reach out (softly, he would do it so softly and gently, with such reverence) was like a fire in him, setting everything it touched to burn. He turned away instead, and sat down on the bay window seat with his head in his hands.
“Blaine, what’s wrong with-”
“I don’t really want to work today,” Blaine said, his voice faint and weak to his own ears. “I’m not feeling quite up to it.” That was true enough, as far as it went. “I just… maybe you could just… play and sing for me? For a little while?”
Kurt’s hand on his back-Kurt comforting him again, ridiculous and ridiculously effective, that simple, warm touch. “I… of course I will, Blaine. Of course.”
***
It was one of those experiences-like the first time he’d finished a full-size painting, the first time he’d seen San Francisco shining at him from across the water, the first time he’d ever touched another man-that inhabited its own moment, rich and dense and deeply present; something he was sure he would never forget. Blaine curled up on his side in the window seat with a throw pillow under his head, and looked, and listened.
The day was overcast outside, the light grey and cool. Kurt played quietly-just the piano at first, but then he seemed to forget he had an audience (Blaine saw him slip away, giving himself up to it a little bit at a time, and it was so good, seeing that). Once he started singing he didn’t stop-one song melted into the next, and there were endless, lulling harmonies that Blaine could almost see floating in front of him, graceful in the soft light. Crystal notes, and that soaring, lovely voice, impossibly high and pure.
Blaine laid still and listened, nestling himself around the warm glow deep in his chest.
The first time he’d ever fallen in love.
***
When the front door closed with a soft thump-Kurt, gone for the day; coming back tomorrow, but, gone again-Blaine felt a quick, light stirring of panic low in his stomach. A sense of unease, distrust of himself, because after last night and after today, God knows what he was going to get up to, trying to come to terms with… all of it.
He kept a close eye on himself as he straightened things up in the loft, in the living room. As he returned some of the phone messages he’d been ignoring. Ditto e-mail. As he did some laundry. Made himself dinner, and ate it. Did the dishes. Took a shower. And then it was barely past ten p.m. and he was in bed-sleepy and warm and comfortable, and wow this was really some kind of extreme acting out on his part, this reckless, desperate attempt to acclimate himself to the shock and drama of it all by being mundane and domestic and responsible-
“Kurt, you are a bad influence on me,” he said out loud in the darkness-and good, that was good, at least he was talking to himself when nobody was there; that was suitably crazy-lovesick-wacko to be going on with.
Blaine closed his eyes with a satisfied sigh.
***
The phone. Was ringing. Blaine starfished for a moment, his brain angry and resentful and his body still deeply asleep, but the buzzing kept going on, because some asshole was calling him at-he peered blurrily over at his bedside clock-2:43 in the motherfucking morning.
The haze of muddled anger persisted until he actually got his phone in his hand and looked at the screen-Kurt. He blinked and really opened his eyes for the first time as he pushed the button.
“Kurt-are you okay?”
“Blaine.” Kurt sounded… winded, his voice tight. “I’m really, really sorry to call you at this hour, but I… I need a favor. I’m… I had to leave, where I’ve been staying, and normally I’d just go to a hotel but because of my little documentation problem, the only places I can go without showing ID or having a credit card are all in the parts of town I try not to go to by myself at this hour-”
“Where are you?” Blaine groped to turn on the light and almost sent his lamp toppling to the floor. “Of course you can-you can stay here, anything, I can-I’ll come get you.” He found sweatpants and tugged them on, found a shirt and put it on inside-out and discovered it was pretty impossible to button that way, so fuck it-“I’m… are you hurt? Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine, Blaine,” Kurt said, but he didn’t sound fine at all. He sounded exhausted. Blaine took the stairs in the near-total darkness, navigating by familiarity, and headed for the front door. “And you don’t need to come get me-”
“I’m coming to get you,” Blaine said implacably. “Just tell me where you are. I’m on my way… right now,” he finished lamely, opening the door to see Kurt standing there with his phone in his hand.
Kurt turned his phone off. “Hi. Sorry. I kind of took it for granted that you were probably going to let me in.”
Blaine found the light switch by feel. Kurt was pale-even for him, with dark shadows under his eyes. His lips were bloodless, set in a firm line. There was a large duffel bag at his feet.
Blaine leaned forward, and picked up the bag. It was heavy. He held the door open. “Come in.”
***
Not pushing. He was not going to push. He turned on the lights, settled Kurt in at the kitchen table, and kept his attention firmly on the mechanics of making tea (it was the only thing he could think of to offer, other than whisky, which, no). He didn’t say anything at all until he had two mugs of lemon-ginger on the table, until he was seated across from Kurt, who was staring at the wall as if it was somehow fascinating.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Kurt took a breath. “Not really,” he said, then dropped his head with a wry half-smile, “but I’m going to. I figure an explanation is the very least I can offer, after waking you up at this hour.”
“You don’t owe me,” Blaine said, and Kurt’s eyes darted toward him. “I don’t… you don’t have to tell me anything, and if you’re just telling me because you feel like you owe me-I’d rather you didn’t.”
Kurt looked at him for a long moment. Blaine was just never going to get used to that frank, assessing, adult look from such a young face. “Blaine. You’re a problem-solver.”
“I’m… what?”
“You like to solve people’s problems. You’re generous-and solving problems is another way you… another kind of generosity. You’re… open. Kind. You like to help.”
Blaine felt his cheeks get hot. “Okay. And that’s bad because…?”
“It’s not bad,” Kurt said gently. “I’m not telling you it’s bad. What I’m trying to tell you is… that makes it hard for me. To tell you things.”
“Because you don’t want me to solve your problems.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t ‘teenage rebellion’ or ‘just an independent streak’, Blaine. I am sitting across from you right now because… because some time ago I made the decision to solve my own problems-that I had to. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Blaine felt something creep into the room-darkness, only not visible. It felt like a weight, unbearable and oppressive and inescapable. “Kurt.” He stopped to clear his throat, because that wasn’t much more than a croak. “What happened to you?”
Kurt closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, the sense of gloom vanished. “Someday, I’ll tell you. But not today.”
Blaine drank some tea. It was hot, soothing. “Okay. So… for right now you’re going to tell me what happened tonight, and I’m going to try not to solve any of your problems, right?”
“That’s the deal. Think you can handle it?”
“I can handle it.”
“Okay.” Kurt sipped his tea, and kept both hands around his mug when he put it down, staring into it. “I’ve been staying with these two guys, straight guys-they advertised for a roommate, and the place was run-down and in a not-so-great neighborhood, so I could afford it. The two of them… they went to college together, and now they live together, and drink together and smoke pot together and play video games and bitch about their crappy jobs together.”
Kurt shrugged. “Not an ideal situation. But they didn’t ask questions-didn’t even seem to know I existed. But tonight, one of them went out with some girl he’s hot for, and the other one must have felt left out of things, because he got drunk-like, really drunk, drunker than I’ve ever seen him-and then he showed up in my room. He called me a cock-tease, told me to stop being such a prim, tight-assed little bitch, and tried to make me give him a blowjob.” Kurt looked at him levelly, calmly. “I pushed him down. Then I took my stuff, and I left. I’m not going back.”
Blaine could see a pattern like veins, pulsing-only it was just his eyes. He’d never seen that before. It was… interesting, in an abstract way, to the part of his brain that wasn’t boiling with rage. “Kurt.” He bit down on what wanted to come out next. And the thing after that. And the thing after that, too. “I want to solve your problems, Kurt.”
Kurt’s mouth twisted, just a little. “Fight it.”
“And I want to kill that guy.”
“You can’t.”
“Or at least maim him a little.”
“You can’t.” Kurt took a deep breath. “You don’t know where I was living, or who I was living with-I didn’t even mention a name. I did that on purpose, because you’re a problem-solver-and this problem is solved. I’m out. There’s nothing else to do-I can’t report him to the police, because he didn’t actually hurt me, and because… I can’t go to the police.”
Blaine closed his eyes. Impotent rage, and sadness that felt… almost infinite. “Will you tell me when-” he had to stop to swallow.
“When, what?”
“When… there’s something I can do to help. Will you-when there’s anything, will you tell me? Please?”
When he opened his eyes, Kurt was smiling at him tiredly. “Hey, Blaine, remember that time I woke you up in the middle of the night and asked you for a place to stay?”
Oh, right. Blaine blew out a long, slow breath and dropped his head, rubbing both hands through his hair. “Okay.”
“Blaine.”
He lifted his head. Kurt was looking at him with such fondness, such gentle and genuine affection, that Blaine’s chest ached. “Just… give me a little time, okay?”
“Time…?”
“To get… to get used to it. To let you help. I just need some time. Can you give me that?”
Blaine swallowed, hard. “I would give you anything.”
Kurt shook his head, smiling softly. “Okay. But really, all I want right now is a horizontal surface to pass out on.”
Blaine got up from the table, and picked up Kurt’s duffel bag from where he’d stashed it. “You got it. Come on.”
***
The spare bedroom he never used was full of frilly, antique things-everything that didn’t quite fit in the rest of the house had wound up there, somehow. Kurt surveyed it with a sleepy smile. “Your Grandma must go nuts when she comes to visit you.”
“Sorry-I know it’s kind of… fluffy-”
“I’m just tweaking your nose for the pure joy of it, Blaine-and because you make the cutest faces when you’re agonizing over your hospitality. It’s lovely. Very Golden-Age-of-Hollywood-boudoir; I would brush my hair a thousand strokes before bed if I weren’t utterly ready to collapse.” He blinked at Blaine. “Thank you, for letting me stay.”
“Any time, Kurt.” Kurt was close, heavy-eyed and sleepy and vulnerable, and Blaine had to curl his hands into fists so they wouldn’t reach out. “I… guess I’ll say good-night.”
“Good-night, Blaine.”
In his own bed, in the cool darkness, sleep was impossible for a long time. In the end, it was only the knowledge that Kurt was in the house-safe and asleep and just down the hall-that let him drop his eyes shut.
***
He knew Kurt was gone before he even opened his eyes-he didn’t know how he knew; he just did. He found a note downstairs on the refrigerator; written in neat, rounded script:
Blaine-don’t panic, I’ll be back for my stuff this evening. I have some things I need to take care of, after yesterday. Thanks again for letting me stay, it was VERY HELPFUL. Love, Kurt.
There was a smiley face and a flower doodle. Blaine stared at the note for a long time, not even trying to suppress his dopey, enchanted grin.
He folded the note carefully, and slipped it into his wallet; feeling like a complete idiot, and regretting it not at all.
***
It was wonderful, what a judicious combination of money and motivation could do.
Blaine kept the antique wood bedframe, but he got a new mattress, box spring, pillows and bedding. Lighter curtains and shades for the windows, a new dresser, and a wardrobe (the closet was fine for a guest room, but completely inadequate for a Kurt room). A desk, a computer. A sound dock. Throw rugs. Lamps. Candles. A glass bowl of fresh flowers.
Watching the room come together, piece by piece as delivery men brought things and took other things away, was a slightly eerie experience-everything so modern and spare and light in his old, crowded, rattletrap of a house, dark woods and cool blue and grey fabrics, simple textures-it was like seeing a piece of his house peeled away, a schism in the space of things, odd and out of place.
But he thought, with Kurt in the middle of it, it would look perfect.
***
Kurt said yes to Blaine’s proposal of salad and shrimp risotto when he returned, so Blaine started washing lettuce and let Kurt head upstairs by himself. He made it about five minutes before a mix of uncertainty, worry, and hope overcame all his efforts to focus on food rather than any possible sounds from overhead.
Kurt was standing in the middle of the guest room, looking around slowly. His face was unreadable.
Blaine cleared his throat. “If you don’t like it, we can get other stuff. I kind of had to guess at what you might like.”
Kurt didn’t say anything. He reached out with one hand and touched the flowers, gently.
“I thought… at least here you’d be safe, that you’d have your own space, your own-”
“Blaine.”
Kurt walked towards him slowly, and his eyes were so blue, in the room-perfect, yes, it was perfect with Kurt in it-only Kurt looked sad and solemn, and Blaine’s stomach folded in on itself. “Blaine. It’s not going to matter, you know.”
“It… what? What won’t matter?”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re not lovers. If the wrong people found out that you were living with a sixteen-year-old-a boy, your career would be over. This… this is amazing, Blaine, it’s incredible and wonderful and I can’t tell you how much it… but it’s not-it wouldn’t be safety for me. It would just put both of us in danger. Force both of us into hiding.” His voice was soft, regretful. “I don’t think… I can’t do that to you.”
Kurt’s face was all he could see, and all he wanted to do was take it in his hands, run his thumbs and his lips over those soft eyebrows, smooth cheeks, the umbrae curve under his bottom lip. He didn’t. “I don’t… hey. It’s up to me, if I want to take that chance, okay? And I’m not hiding. I’m not afraid.” He took a breath. “I’m not afraid. Stay with me. Let this be your home. Please?”
“Blaine, don’t…” Kurt took his hand, squeezing it gently, his bright eyes directed at the floor. “Don’t let me hurt you. Don’t ever let me hurt you.”
Blaine squeezed back, memorizing silk-soft skin under the pad of his thumb. “Is that a yes?”
Kurt blinked, breathing out through his barely-open mouth. “It’s… yes.”
One tug-that’s all it would take. One gentle pull to guide Kurt into his arms, take time wrapping him up, savor the warmth and fit and fierceness and boyishness of him, then take him by the gentle curve of his neck, fit his palm just there, and… Blaine took a step back, and let go of Kurt’s hand. “Okay. Good. Want to help me make dinner?”
***
Kurt was quiet at first, until Blaine caught him smiling ruefully down at the shrimp he was peeling.
“What is it?”
Kurt flashed a quick glance at him, then shook his head, his mouth quirked. “I told you-last night, when you said you wanted to help-I told you I needed some time.”
Blaine grinned, leaning back against the counter with his arms folded across his chest. “Yeah, but, that was last night. So… how about now? Is now good?
Kurt dropped the shrimp and burst out laughing-shocked-sounding laughter, rolling through him while he leaned on the cutting board. “You are completely ridiculous.”
Blaine shrugged. “I prefer to think of myself as ‘enchantingly whimsical’, or maybe ‘refreshingly free of orthodox paradigms’-”
“Oh my god.”
Dinner was perfect-Kurt had a better touch (and more patience) with risotto than he did. Blaine focused on the food until the roaring in his stomach died down (he’d skipped both breakfast and lunch), so it took him a while to realize that Kurt was eyeing him speculatively.
“What? Do I have rice in my hair or something?”
Kurt put his fork down, and laced his fingers together over his plate. “Did you really pick out all that stuff up there?”
Blaine straightened his shoulders. “You don’t need to sound so skeptical, you know-I am an artist, I do have a… a heightened sense of color and texture and, you know, space…”
Kurt gave him a look. It was… a pretty impressive look, from a kid.
Blaine cleared his throat. “Okay, so I went to Saks and I threw myself on the mercy of an ennui-laden sales clerk, and I begged him to help me put together the most expensive and tasteful things they had.”
Kurt’s eyebrow arched. “That’s pretty much what I thought.”
***
Kurt went upstairs after they finished doing the dishes. Blaine made himself some coffee (Kurt had declined with his adorable mouth pouted into a moue of distaste), then drank it leaning against the counter with the kitchen lights off. There was enough light coming from upstairs, from the open door of Kurt’s room-Kurt’s room. There was light and music, and Blaine drank his coffee slowly, listening to Kurt singing along with… something, some pop Goddess he didn’t recognize (oh, but he undoubtedly would before the week was out), feeling the house shift around him-different, now; a home for two.
Blaine crept upstairs quietly, heading for the third floor-the itch in his brain and his hands was demanding it of him, despite his physical exhaustion. From the stairs he could see Kurt, moving, turning; there were various items of clothing scattered everywhere, and the duffel bag lay puddled and empty at the foot of the bed. Kurt had three hangers in one hand and a pair of pants in the other, and he was humming, and he looked entirely gorgeous and radiantly happy.
Blaine breathed deep when he got to the loft, savoring the smells of linseed oil and resin, juniper and linen-the smells of creation-then put his coffee down on the desk, and got to work.
***
It was past five in the morning when he finally scratched his name and the year into the paint with the back of the brush, and he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, now that the adrenaline high was finally starting to wear off. He tossed his brush aside and flipped off all the lights except for one studio lamp he left trained on the canvas, then sank down into the armchair and let himself look.
The visual memory of Kurt playing the piano for him had blurred a little, but his emotional recall of that particular moment was absolutely crystal-clear, so he’d painted from that. The result was… diaphanous, a gauzy, soft-focus effect that he’d never achieved before, his brushstrokes longer, softer, more lingering. It was so… light, much lighter than his usual work, open-edged but intimate, the room warm and the piano glowing and the beautiful boy, singing. Textures and gloss, the aching, elegant curve of Kurt’s wrists, the curl of his fingers perfect, perfect-
The lightness was a fairytale, he realized, scratching his stubbled chin with a half-amused, half-rueful grin. The painting was exactly the sort of thing he would have come up with if he’d been seventeen instead of thirty-four, if Kurt had been his high-school sweetheart-if Blaine been able to walk up to him in the hallway, take his hand, and kiss his pretty lips with impunity. A cupid-and-roses fantasy, embarrassingly juvenile, and now he was vaguely tempted to grab a bucket of white primer and obliterate the whole thing before anyone else could ever see it-only he was so tired, so very tired…
Also, he kind of secretly loved it.
***
He woke up to Kurt, and coffee, and a crick in his neck that made him wince. “Ow-I can’t believe I slept here.”
Kurt shook his head. “I can’t believe you came up here and worked after setting up that room all day.” He handed Blaine a steaming mug. “Here, this should help. That coffeehouse over on Dolores sells Counterculture Farmhouse Organic by the pound.” He turned and walked towards the canvas, now glowing and brilliant in the late-morning light streaming through the windows. “What’s it called?”
“The Muse.” Blaine drank some coffee, and decided he didn’t need to mourn the fact that Folgers had been banished from the house.
Kurt looked at the painting for a long time. Blaine looked at Kurt. Pegged jeans, a soft-looking charcoal grey shirt, and a black brocade fitted vest that laced up the back, hugging the incurve of his spine and calling attention to the soft swell of his rounded ass-fuck. He made sure he was looking elsewhere when Kurt turned around, blushing a little, smiling wickedly. “Blaine Anderson-you big romantic softie, you.”
“Oh shut up.”
“I think you should call it I Like You Do You Like Me Check Yes Or No-”
“I’m gonna call it Kurt Hummel Is A Fucking Jerk if you don’t shut up.”
Kurt laughed and had the temerity to pinch his cheek, darting away and cackling when Blaine slapped at him.
***
Kurt blasted pop music and show tunes at all hours. He got Blaine addicted to organic coffee. He ridiculed Blaine’s taste in clothes and grooming products, dragged him to the Castro Theatre with relentless regularity and utterly no regard to what might be playing, and was nearly impossible to dislodge from any vintage store that caught him in its orbit and sucked him in (which was every one they happened to walk by).
It was maddening and exasperating and completely awesome, and Blaine wouldn’t have given up a second of it for anything. He had sketchbooks all over the house, filled with bits of Kurt-the curve of his cheek, the spare, sweet line of his scapulae under his thinnest shirt, the tender nape of his neck, his dimples and his eyebrows and the tilt of his nose and his temples and his knees and his fingers-Blaine had a favorite, the index finger on Kurt’s left hand, and in the sketches it took on a personality all its own, bitchy and deeply sardonic. Which was why it was his favorite, of course.
The Diva Domesticans Trio followed-watercolors from sketches done both fast and slow, immediate and bright and open like Kurt was open-but there was no grand rolling back of the mystery he carried, no climactic reveal-just hints. Teases. Music and lyrics worn like costumes, illuminated, adopted, and animated by performance. I featured Kurt (in a red porkpie hat, tight red jeans and a snug short-sleeved black shirt-an ensemble that had made Blaine’s attempt to cook the parts of dinner he was responsible for into a hamfisted travesty), whirling on the kitchen floor to Born This Way, snarling and raw and sexual and fearless, wielding a wooden spoon like a mic.
II caught Kurt (jeans and a fluffy white high-necked sweater that made Blaine ache at the virginal sweetness of it), curled up on the padded seat of the bay window with his legs tucked under him, just the profile and the lashes and the modest tuck of his head as he sewed a button on one of his shirts, singing along with Adele with the rain outside coming down like the world was melting. He’d spent hours on the sketch (the sweater sleeves pushed up to Kurt’s elbows, and each hair on his forearms, the backlit peach fuzz of his cheek, the deep warmth of the thick sweater-all of it had to be just so), and the finished work was the most hushed, intimate, reverent thing he’d ever done.
III was Beyoncé and blues and adorable brattiness, and an echo of the first night, when he’d glimpsed Kurt moving in. Kurt (in a navy fitted cardigan, cobalt-blue shirt and carefully distressed steel-blue jeans) arranging the new flowers that Blaine brought him for the glass bowl in his room, belting out Single Ladies, saucy and pouty and irresistibly cute. Blaine was lucky to get the quick sketch he did, because Kurt chucked a handful of cut stems at him when Blaine called him Sasha-not-quite-as-Fierce, and the resulting scowl would have ruined things.
“I still can’t get it, though,” Blaine said, standing in the middle of the loft with Kurt, surveying the three pieces side-by-side, and feeling a little dizzy from paint fumes and loveliness.
“Can’t get what?”
“How you sound-your voice. I keep trying, but I just… can’t. I don’t know how to translate that to paint-in a way I could keep.”
“Hm. Doesn’t that snazzy digital camera of yours take video?”
Oh, he was a fucking idiot.
He started filming Kurt that day. The day after that, he went shopping for an actual camcorder with better sound quality.
“Why are you filming this, Blaine?”
“…because it’s artistically relevant?”
“Me chopping mushrooms is artistically relevant?”
“Yes. It’s a-a political statement. On the politics of, of…”
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah!”
Kurt sniffed. “I smell Hugo Boss Prize. Oh wait, no-that’s your fucking omelet. Now put the camera away, Blaine.”
He invited Kurt to Cambria for the weekend. “I really want to show you the house I have there-it’s this crazy place, it was built by this turn-of-the-century architect after he retired, and I think he must have resented all the people who asked him to build normal, boring old houses, because-”
Kurt squinted at him. “You have another house?”
Blaine licked his lips. “Two, actually. There’s one on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle.” Kurt’s eyebrow went up. “Look, I don’t… I never wanted eighteen cars or a host of bronzed pool-boys or designer q-tips or… any of that. But I like houses. Old houses. And odd things. To put in the houses.” Kurt’s other eyebrow went up. “Look, come to Cambria with me. They have vintage stores, antiques; um, stuff-”
“Oh, stuff. Well, you know me, Blaine-I can’t resist the lure of stuff…”
In Cambria, someone’s wolfhound that had gotten off-leash discovered their shaded picnic spot under a spreading oak, and within five minutes Kurt had the massive dog paws-up on his back, the giant, toothy head pressed with desperate affection against Kurt’s outstretched legs, shuddering and whining with joy when Kurt scratched his chest. Blaine shuddered in sympathy and grabbed his sketchbook, and when they got back he spent three days painting Taming at Moonstone. The dog wasn’t really a dog anymore, and the backdrop was deep, dense, misty forest rather than the innocent open oaks of Moonstone Beach, but Kurt was still in the vibrant red shirt, white skinny jeans and tall boots, still remote and amused and sexily self-assured, gorgeously teasing as the dark wolf-monster-thing died of love under the touch of his fine, white fingers.
Kurt laughed hysterically when he saw it, then looked again and fell quiet, finally nodding approval. “The world needs more dark, gay, kinky fairy tales,” He said. “Now, come make dinner with me, okay?”
That was life, and life was good-the richest, happiest time Blaine could remember. But.
Kurt screamed, sometimes, in his sleep. Not often, but when it happened and Blaine staggered across the hall and into Kurt’s room to wake him, he could feel it-like a residue in the air, sticky and oppressive and awful, madness and darkness and no escape. He shook Kurt until he woke, brought him tea and left him with the lights on when Kurt curled in on himself, facing away, refusing all offers of help, all inquiries, all attempts to talk. Leaving Blaine with nothing but fear and frustration and the constant, nagging urge to fix it, whatever it was.
But.
It wasn’t always what he thought. He woke up and heard Kurt and went for him, opening the door to find Kurt asleep with all the blankets kicked off, bathed in moonlight and dressed only in an undershirt and boxer-briefs, clearly hard and gently thrashing and moaning his name. Blaine almost went to his knees, and then he could see himself doing just that, crawling forward and leveraging himself up and into that innocent bed, into Kurt’s white arms, invading that softly open mouth and slipping his hands inch by inch up those succulent, bare thighs, just an incubus invoked through the power of adolescent desire-
“Blaine,” Kurt wasn’t awake, not really-but his eyes fluttered a little as he drew one hand up his own torso, pushing the undershirt up and baring the most delectable waist, tender belly and the luscious dip of his navel, God, oh God-“You kissed me, and then the world exploded.” Soft and high and dreamy, sex-drenched and utterly boyish and Blaine was going to fucking die of a heart attack right in the doorway of Kurt’s bedroom
“Go back to sleep, Kurt, okay?” his own voice was whisper-low, hoarse and ragged, but Kurt didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay.” A soft sigh. “You feel so good, Blaine.”
He almost didn’t make it back to his room.
***
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