Kurt is about to close the car door behind him when Blaine calls out, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Blaine's voice sounds almost tentative, an odd sense of hope making his sentence end as if it's a question, and Kurt freezes for a moment before he turns around to look at Blaine. It's been a long time since someone hoped something from Kurt, something that didn't have anything to do with what he could steal or who he could con. Some painful part of Kurt reminds him that Blaine could only be hoping for his skills as well, for the way he can act as an asset to the FBI and that's all – but then he meets Blaine's eyes and forces that stupid painful part to shut its ugly mouth.

Because that's the thing about Special Agent Blaine Anderson: he's earnest, almost painfully so, and Kurt just can't see him using people like that, only seeing what they can do and not who they are.

(Or perhaps that's what Kurt himself is hoping for, the one thing he wishes was true when it comes to all the things he knows about Blaine by now.)

"I'll see you tomorrow," he repeats, flashing a grin. "Bright and early."

Blaine laughs. "Maybe not as early as today, okay?"

"No promises," Kurt says, pushing his hands to his pockets and rocking on his feet.

Blaine's smile softens. "Today was... fun. I think I'm going to enjoy working with you, Kurt."

He doesn't say you did well or good job helping us catch the thief or you really are an asset to us, all of them things he's probably thinking about as well, and Kurt ignores the way his treacherous heart skips a beat at Blaine's choice of words.

"Thanks," he says. "I think I'm going to enjoy working with you as well."

Blaine gives out a laugh. "I hope so, or else this will get really awkward really fast."

"Goodnight, Blaine," Kurt sing-songs in reply and shuts the door with a slam. Through the car window he sees Blaine shake his head with a smile before he starts the car again and steers it away from the curb, joining the slow traffic and following all the regulations like the good man he is.

Kurt keeps the grin on his face for as long as he can see Blaine's car, but the moment it disappears behind a corner he turns his back on the street and sighs, his shoulders slumping down immediately. Playing the old role around Blaine seems more difficult these days when they can see each other face to face – it's as if his exterior is fraying around the edges, slowly breaking apart like an old painting that has suddenly been exposed to all the elements.

It was easy at first, when he found out the FBI had assigned a certain Agent Anderson on his case, to be the con-man he has been for years, to hide behind teasing remarks and a flashing smile. He found out everything he could about this Anderson guy, researched him to know what he was up against, and on the superficial level it was almost boring: graduated with good grades, been with the FBI for years, has a dog, lives alone, blah blah blah blah. Picture perfect FBI agent with average success.

But then Kurt found a picture of Agent Anderson, a photograph where Blaine is talking with a few other agents near a crime scene, his hands crossed over his chest and his hair gelled within an inch of its life. He's wearing a fitting suit, not necessarily expensive but at least well-tailored, and a tie that caught Kurt's attention.

What kind of a regularly dull FBI agent wears an authentic vintage tie around his neck?

Then again, Blaine wasn't exactly your average FBI agent after all. He somehow managed to thwart Kurt's plan to rob a private gallery in New York, and Kurt realized he had underestimated Agent Anderson. After that it was a case of cat and mouse, phone calls and surprisingly interesting conversations late at night when Kurt was sipping wine after a heist and Blaine was trying to solve that same heist at his office. And Blaine wasn't boring, he wasn't dull or too predictable; he was a worthy adversary, someone that brought a little more excitement to every crime Kurt committed, as if he was showing Blaine, "look, this is what I can do – but can you solve it?"

But at some point, probably after the first time Blaine caught him, Kurt realized that it wasn't just the chase or the excitement that kept him interested. It was Blaine himself, for some odd reason. Blaine fascinated him in a way that none of the other police officers or agents who had chased him did. He even missed Blaine in prison; that's why sent those birthday cards and boxes of cookies. He didn't miss the life of a con that much, prison was mostly boring but not that difficult – but he did miss the FBI agent who had stopped his con-man life.

Kurt steps out of the elevator on the top floor of the building and opens the door to his apartment. There are still some things in the loft that he hasn't had time to put in their proper places and they bother him a little, but right now he needs a glass of water. He shrugs off his coat, hangs it carefully and then moves to the small kitchen on the other side of the loft. He drops the newspaper he found in his mail box on the kitchen table, glancing at its front cover as he takes out a glass from the cabinet.

There's a big advertisement on the front page about a new Broadway revival of West Side Story, and one of the names in the ad makes Kurt stop.

Rachel Berry as Maria

He blinks. That was his dream once as well – to star in a musical on Broadway, obviously not as Maria but as something equally iconic – but that was a long time ago. Before things fell apart, before his first crime, before his and Rachel's falling out, before Finn disappeared, before he became one of FBI's most wanted. But in a way being a con-man and charming people with lies and half-truths is a performance as well, like he's putting on a show every day, the world as his audience, and perhaps in that way he has reached his old dream.

Still. Good for Rachel. Good for her.

Kurt pushes the newspaper away and looks out of the window. That's probably why he keeps slipping around Blaine, showing more of himself than he intends to. Blaine reminds him about who he used to be when he was younger and had bigger dreams. It's not like he knew Blaine back then, but somehow the way Blaine understands art and fashion, the way he considers his words and smiles at Perry when he doesn't realize that Kurt's watching... They all remind Kurt of who he was, or who he still is, underneath all the crimes and grins and designer suits, the years of being on the run and striving to be the best con he can be.

He bends down to scratch the skin underneath his tracking anklet. It keeps itching, and he managed to ignore it for most of the day, only surreptitiously rubbing at it with his other foot under the desk every now and then, but he's alone now and can give in to the urge. What was that one saying... Home is where you can scratch where it itches? Kurt looks around the loft, his gaze sliding over the large space and the furniture that was already there when he moved in the other day. He doesn't know if it's a home. He doesn't know where his home is anymore.

He took Blaine's deal because he had nothing else and because he had missed Blaine – but he doesn't know if he can keep it up, if the urge to run and steal won't overpower him, if the white walls of the apartment won't start closing in on him at some point. The cases seem interesting, as does working with Blaine and his team, and Kurt finds himself enjoying this side of the chase as well, but he doesn't know if it will last. Doesn't know if this is something he can do after all.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and he fishes out, still staring at the painting on the wall, the one of the Mediterranean city that reminds him of that time when he was stealing a painting in Greece and calling Blaine once a week, trying to make him guess where he was at the moment. Blaine did guess correctly at one point, but Kurt never admitted anything.

He snaps out of his daze when the phone, the one he got today from the FBI for "work-related purposes" vibrates again in his hand.

From Blaine Anderson:
Forgot to properly ask if I should come pick you up tomorrow
Or will you show up on my doorstep at an ungodly hour once again?

Kurt can feel his lips turn into a smile, and it's not his con-man smile this time, not the performer in him. Suddenly the loft feels open and comfortable, not yet a home but something almost like it; right now the work at the FBI feels enough, and he doesn't want to figure out his feelings towards Blaine quite yet, doesn't want to decide if some of their exchanges constitute as flirting or not. It's a frightening feeling, but it also feels like he can properly breathe for the first time in years. He can be vulnerable inside the walls of this loft, and all he has to do is figure out if he could someday trust Blaine Anderson enough to be vulnerable around him as well.

Take it one day at a time. That's what his dad used to say.

From Kurt Hummel:
We'll see.
You do like surprises, don't you?

It takes a moment, but eventually Blaine answers.

From Blaine Anderson:
I think I'm going to have to start liking them if we want this partnership to work.

Kurt can't remember the last time his heart fluttered like this, and he feels another crack appear in the old painting of his con-man life, letting in more fresh air.

---

It's about a week later, a week of Blaine picking him up every morning on his way to work, when Kurt decides to surprise Blaine again. He puts on one of his favorite suits, wraps a gray scarf around his neck because the weather feels colder today, and walks to the nearest coffee shop to buy a non-fat mocha for himself and a medium drip for Blaine. He breathes in the New York City air, fumes and all, because it's also something he missed in prison. There are several reasons why New York is his favorite city in the whole world, even trumping Paris and Rome and all the other great European cities, and the buzz of the city in the early morning is definitely one of those reasons.

He rings Blaine's doorbell at exactly half past six. He graciously decided to do it an hour later than he did the first time, even though it messes up his own schedule a little. Blaine doesn't look quite as sleepy as he did on the first morning when he opens the door, but his hair is still a mess and he's still wearing his pajamas, his bare feet slapping gently against the floor as he invites Kurt in. Perry wags her tail at Kurt, and he sinks his fingers into her fur, scratching behind her ears. Kurt has always thought of himself as a cat person, but apparently he has a thing for smiling Labradors as well.

Blaine takes a sip of his coffee and grumbles something under his breath that sounds a lot like, "I didn't even give you any paper work this time..."

"I told you that I'm usually awake at this hour," Kurt replies. Perry gets down on the floor, rolling over and presenting her tummy, obviously asking for more scratches.

"That doesn't mean I have to be awake at this hour," Blaine says, running his fingers through his hair. He looks down at Perry, his lips twitching into a fond smile. "But at least my dog seems happy."

Kurt looks up from the dog, taking Blaine in. For several years all he ever saw of Blaine were just glimpses of him in a suit, his hair gelled and his face determined and serious, the perfect image of an FBI agent. The Blaine that's smiling at Perry right now seems like a completely different person in his dark blue pajamas, his hair pointing in every direction and his face the epitome of the expression 'fondly amused'. But there's still something similar, something in the light in Blaine's eyes, and Kurt looks down again before he's caught staring.

Blaine yawns. "Did you eat breakfast already?"

Kurt jiggles his own coffee cup. "My breakfast is right here."

"It's over six hours before we have our lunch break at the office and you're going to survive on coffee alone?" Blaine asks, shaking his head incredulously. "Alright, that's it. Get up, I have some bagels in the kitchen. Perry and I are having breakfast, and you are cordially invited to join us."

At the word breakfast Perry rolls over and jumps up, practically running into the kitchen with her tongue lolling from her mouth. Blaine laughs at the sight, his voice still heavy with sleep, and gestures for Kurt to follow.

"Come on," he says with a smile. "At least she's excited about food, and I do make a mean bagel."

Kurt stares back at him, surprised by the sudden domesticity of the gesture. The con-man in him is whispering in his ear, telling him to flash a grin and make some suggestive joke, to shuffle the deck and con Blaine, use his good manners and kindness as a means to his own end – except Kurt doesn't know what his own end is anymore. Blaine is not a painting he can forge or a gallery he could rob.

And Kurt can't remember the last time he had actual breakfast with someone who wasn't another inmate.

"Alright," he says, faking a long-suffering sigh. "Bagels it is then. But only because I want to see you make a bagel for Perry as well," he adds with a grin.

Blaine crinkles his nose. "She can't eat bagels. They upset her stomach."

Kurt looks at Blaine, blinking his eyes and hoping that Blaine can't hear the way his heart is suddenly hammering inside his chest. He wants to giggle or at least smile like an idiot at this FBI agent who cares about his dog that much, who cares about people and saw something in Kurt when he himself thought he had nothing left, when Blaine could've easily just moved on and forgotten everything about Kurt. Blaine who keeps asking for Kurt's opinion, who welcomes him into his home like he's something else than just a common criminal, something worthwhile, and –

Fuck.

He has a crush on Blaine Anderson.

So much for figuring things out one day at a time.