Kurt stood, resignedly watching Blaine make his way down the hallway away from him, towards his class.

Blaine had cello lessons first period to Kurt’s art, classes which were, so conveniently, (Kurt marveled at the snark growing every day in his inner monologue) at the opposite sides of campus. However one of the other Warblers, Jeff, had art as well and had offered to take Kurt. Blaine had assured him that it was no trouble to take Kurt over, but Kurt had in turn insisted that he would be fine. He knew he should be too, really, that it was ridiculous to have Blaine out of his way just for him, to rely on him like that.

Yet for some reason, inexplicable to Kurt any small amount of confidence he had summed up that morning fled the moment Blaine had turned around to walk down the hallway.

Breakfast had run perfectly smoothly, Kurt thought he might even be able to say he enjoyed it. But suddenly without Blaine’s inexplicably magically reassuring presence everything was overwhelming again. ‘Breathe, one step at a time,’ he reiterated to himself, hoping the mantra would eventually seep into him like a blanket of calm.

“Kurt?”

Oh yeah Jeff!

“Sorry, sorry, what was that?” Kurt asked, flushing and dropping his already down cast gaze so far he was practically tucking his chin into chest, as he turned towards Jeff.

“Art room’s this way bud,” Jeff laughed gesturing down the other hallway and starting that way. It was a light, effortless laugh, amazingly untroubled. Not mocking or bitter Kurt was relieved and gladdened to note. Almost even kind somehow. Kurt decided he liked it.

He could do this.

“SOOooooooooo,” Jeff said, dragging it out and letting his voice slide from low to high in a comedic way as he did a kind of sideways step and bumped Kurt’s shoulder with his own, “You really into art, or just filling in an elective slot?”

‘Elective,’ Kurt made a mental note, another one to look up in the dictionary that night.

“Not really sure,” he replied, sensing no reason he couldn’t stick to honesty here. “I’ve never really been exposed to it. I thought it would be best to try something new. My councilor thought it’d be a good for me.”

Kurt thought he noticed Jeff give him a side glance out of the side of his eye, but he couldn’t be sure as it was gone without a trace in an instant.

“Cool, cool,” Jeff said nodding then turning their path into a doorway on their right. “This is it, we’re doing pottery right now, which is good, you know if you like getting your hands dirty,” Jeff added sniggering and waggling his eyebrows, very much to Kurt’s bewilderment.

“Watch it Mr. Sterling.” A cool voice came from behind them, causing Kurt to jump and turn around quickly.

Behind them, seemingly out of now where, was a tall woman with large round glasses that magnified her hazel eyes and made her look like an owl. Her silver hair was pulled back into a messy bun, strands falling out everywhere and revealing its true length where it hung around her waist.

She had a stern gaze fixed at Jeff, but the left corner or her mouth was turned up in a small smirk.

“Of course, forgive me for forgetting myself Lady Owl,” Jeff said bowing.

Kurt looked at Jeff quizzically, then attempted to follow his lead.

The women stopped him with by holding a hand out with a rueful laugh, “Oh please boy, I hope you aren’t taking to following this one’s example,” she said, gesturing to Jeff, “One can only imagine what kind of trouble that would get you in.”

“Oh one hardly has to imagine,” Jeff returned with mirth, “There’s a neat little file with an orderly list right in the principal’s office.”

“Alright, smart ass, that’s enough, get to work,” she said prodding him with a long paint brush that had been hiding in the folds of her loose shirt around her belt. She then turned her intense gaze on Kurt while he tried valiantly to not let his own be drawn to engage with it.

But she just continued to stare at him without saying anything. It seemed rather rude to hide behind some piece of furniture to avoid the way they seemed to drill into him; so instead he steeled himself and raised his eyes slowly.

The perfect spheres of her eyes crinkled ever so slightly when he finally met them. He let a breath in relief. She turned the brush over and held it out to him.

“Don’t have any extra pottery wheels up right now I’m afraid. Thought I might have you paint for now, how does that sound?”

Kurt took the paintbrush from her hand unsurely and twirled it between his fingers, “I don’t know how,” he confessed.

“Well,” she said grinning as she placed a hand on his shoulder to guide Kurt over to one corner of the room. She moved in a slow, flowing way such that Kurt managed to prepare himself, and not flinch at the contact.

“This is the easel; you just stick a brush in some of the paint here,” she tapped a tray beside a wooden stand, “and slap it on the canvas.”

Kurt’s gaze traveled between the white expanse of the canvas and the multitude of colored paints. He’d often observed people paint elaborate designs on his skin before shows, how different could it be?

“Ok, what should I paint?”

The Owl, as Jeff had referred to him gave him a strange look.

“I can’t tell you that, it has to be your own. Just go for it. Call me if you need anything. I don’t like titles thought so Liz, not Miss Bens, okay? Or Lady Owl if you really want” she smiled ruefully. The thought of addressing a teacher, someone with authority, made Kurt’s stomach twist but he nodded. Names like Owl were familiar to him anyway.

She went to walk away but turned back a second later, “A bit of advice though, on the painting: don’t think about it, not specifically. Just let your mind wander, and your hands will follow,” and with that she was gone, interweaving between the other students with the ethereal quality of a slight breeze.

Sighing Kurt turned back to the task at hand. Don’t think about it, just think, yeah that’s not confusing, he remarked in his mind but put the brush in a paint jar at random at drew a stroke across the canvas.

Red. That was his first mistake, red was a dangerous color.

He tried to think about the words he looked up last night, repeating their definitions over in his head to cement them. But they were weak competition for his attention, so he switched to Blaine.

At breakfast that morning he had mentioned going for coffee after school, before he had Warblers practice, a venture that Kurt was doing his best, and doing fairly well, at being excited and not nervous for.

When Kurt had admitted that he’d never had coffee before Blaine’s eyebrows had shot up comically high on forehead in bewilderment. Kurt get couldn’t over how expressive his face was. It was strange to him for someone to be so open with their emotions.

Kurt had agreed, of course, and Blaine’s face had broken into that easy grin, his warm eyes catching Kurt’s for a moment. That was even stranger, Kurt had never thought of eyes as warm before, hadn’t even entertained the thought that they could be.

He had had the mind to tell Blaine so but at that moment David, who had been sitting on the other side of Blaine, had reached a hand up and rumpled his hair vigorously. Blaine had looked aghast as he quickly tried to set it right, giving David a shoulder and sending a somewhat embarrassed glance Kurt’s way for reasons he couldn’t imagine.

An unfamiliar but pleasant sensation had tugged at the corners of Kurt’s mouth as he tucked his face back into his chest, prepared to keep to himself for the rest of the meal now that Blaine was otherwise occupied. A moment late however Wes was engaging him in a stunted (on his part) conversation about the instruments he could play.

Kurt continued to replay the morning in his mind. They were entertaining thoughts, certainly, but the fact of the matter was his hand had dipped the brush into the orange, and was now making curved strokes against his own accord. And thinking didn’t keeping his eyes from gazing over them. They began to move and grow before his eyes, invading his mind and pulling him away…

Chaos. Complete and utter chaos had exploded around him. The faces that raced past him were so distorted by smoke and hysteria that he couldn’t even recognize any of them.

He ran against the tide, calling, screaming, even as the smoke ate at his throat. He didn’t understand how this happened, how it could get so out of hand. He felt betrayed by the flames.

Distantly he was aware of someone calling his name, but it wasn’t the right voice, so he continued to surge forward desperately, searching.

Somewhere the music he’d been practicing a new routine for echoed impossibly loud through the din, filling up his mind.

“What are you humming?”

Kurt jumped, Jeff had suddenly appeared at his side, pulling him so abruptly out of this thoughts it made his head spin.

He shook his head to try to refocus himself, “Sorry, what?”

“What was that song you were humming? I don’t think I’ve heard it before, or at least I can’t place it.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Kurt panicked internally. He wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I….didn’t realize I was humming?” It came out as an awkward question.

Jeff’s eyebrows pinched together for a second in the way that let Kurt know he had something strange, even if he didn’t say so.

“It’s fine. Just sounded like a cool tune, maybe a little bit creepy but in a good way, like it would make some sick harmonies.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose, so.”

“Interesting.” The boys started slightly as the Owl had appeared out of nowhere, standing over Kurt’s should, opposite Jeff, and gazing at his painting. “Intense, the eyes in particular.”

Kurt turned to his gaze to his work, having forgotten it almost completely in the wanderings of his mind. The canvas was covered vibrant flames. There was a red misshapen form in the middle and above it were two coal black eyes. The second Kurt looked at them they seared into him in a more real way then actual flames ever could. His head snapped down and he jerked back very slightly as his breath came faster.

Jeff on the other hand was leaning in and running his hand over the paint where it had dried with a bit of impressed wonder on his face. “Woah Kurt, are you sure you’ve never done this before? These flames are practically coming off the page!”

With great concentration Kurt let out a shaky, “No, this is the first time,” while all his muscles remained rigid.

Jeff turned his head and frowned when he noticed Kurt’s tense posture.

“You okay Kurt?”

Kurt nodded stiffly but did not move the otherwise.

Jeff cast him a concerned a glance at the Owl, who was just gazing at Kurt’s work, looking as unperturbed as ever.

Shrugging Jeff said, “Well, I’m caked in clay so I’m just gonna clean up then we can go, ‘kay Kurt?”

Kurt nodded and Jeff walked away to the sinks.

“We should put this on the drying rack,” the Owl said pointing at that painting.

“You were right.” Kurt said.

“Hmm?”

Kurt looked up slightly, at the flames around the edges of the painting, actively avoiding the eyes before continuing, “About the thinking thing, just letting your hands follow, it really works.”

“I find most things can be solved by not thinking about them directly,” she noted in a casual tone.

Kurt raised one hand to the painting and stoked the flames. He moved to the center and drew his finger along the outline of the red and a sense of a longing filled him. But as he neared the top, where he knew the eyes sat, he dropped his hand and looked away again.

“You don’t need to dry it. You can just throw it out. I don’t want it.”

Half of him, the part still unable to believe that he could produce anything of value, expected her to just accept that.

The other half expected her to give sickly sweet praise to change his mind about it as Miss Rowe and her colleagues had made a habit of whenever he expressed negativity.

Her actual response was distinctively different.

“No? I quite like it, might I keep it?”

A small spread on Kurt’s face. It was strange, it was easy for him to brush of direct compliment; something being “good” didn’t make it good enough. But he could put no edits or restrictions on someone liking something, having no right to edit their opinion. He thought perhaps it was the best, most sincere feeling praise he’d ever received.

Kurt met her gaze with a sigh of relief when her eyes didn’t sear into him. Nodding slightly he murmured a soft “Thank you,” and nodding.

She smiled back gently at him, a smile that didn’t break across her face and gush joy like Blaine’s, Kurt noticed, but managed to give him a similar calming comforting feeling.

“No, thank you,” she said pulling the painting of the easel and sweeping away towards the dry racks on the far side of the room.

Conveniently, Jeff had just finished cleaning up and arrived back at his side.

“Ready to go?”

“Yes,” Kurt replied, attempting to mimic the small gentle smile at the Owl’s back before turning and following Jeff out the door.

I think I like art.