It's hardly the life Kurt envisioned for himself to be leading at twenty-six, but he's safe and cozy in his careworn cocoon. Most days, it never even crosses his mind that he'd wanted more because contentment is enough.

It used to be he didn't think at all on his situation – his quirks – so deep into his cage he no longer saw its bars. Of course, that was before “3 West” moved in across the hall and sparked curiosity bright and hot, drawing him out like a siren's call.

A truth he's not yet willing to admit is that he's been migrating his workstations closer to where the songbird's melody drifts most clearly into the hush of Kurt's hideaway. He tiptoes around so as not to interrupt the incoming stream of music; it keeps him company while he works on any of the numerous jobs he forces upon himself in avoidance of his problems.

Today, he flits by his drafting table and considers pulling out the manuscript burning a hole at the bottom of its drawer. He's been delaying for weeks, sketching some ideas based on the few details Puck orated, but mostly ignoring the text altogether. Puck checked in only once before he dropped the subject, sensing the prickles raised upon Kurt's skin like fragile armor. Futile weaponry, but a clear warning.

It's sweet, sure. But Puck's kindness will get them nowhere and Kurt knows this. He wants to get working. Be finished already. Not panic over a task he's completed in kind no less than a hundred times over since his teens. Then again, when he was eighteen and using the stories Puck invented for his daughter's bedtime stories as inspiration for art class, there was a lot less pressure to perform.

Beth is a central figure in all of Kurt's creative success. With the trauma cast on him by small children when he was one, and the overwhelming lack of social interactions by the time he hit freshman year, loving Beth came as a surprise. Even knowing her was unexpected.

She was tiny, pink, and otherwise generally indistinguishable from any other baby when he first saw her. She belonged to a pair of teenaged parents who had no clue what to do with her and grandparents unwilling to do the work for them. He saw the bags under Quinn's eyes and the sluggish gait Puck had permanently adopted. Though he questioned his own sanity at approaching them, forever the Queen Bee and the Football King in stance if not status, he offered to help. What started as a glare softened into something almost vulnerable when Quinn quietly accepted whatever generosity he had to spare. 

And so it was that Kurt babysat in the afternoons when Quinn and Puck were either working or needing some time off. It was in her company, as she grew, that Kurt found himself channeling all of his artistic energies in order to keep Beth entertained. By the time she was two and he was eighteen, Beth had a rather large collection of Kurt Hummel originals, ranging from teddy bears and perfectly tailored clothing, much of which she grew out of too quickly, to the bedspread and pillows adorning her mattress and the paintings on her walls. Next came the silly, handcrafted books Kurt and Puck began pulling together when Quinn insisted Beth would tolerate nothing less before bed than the wild tales of Jackie Daniels, the sword-wielding zombie princess destroying the world one human at a time.

Eventually, the untouched inaugural manuscript for a new series is calls out for his attention.

He takes the stack of neatly bound pages from their tiny resting place, curls up in the armchair he'd moved to be closer to the music flowing in from 3 West, and begins to fulfill his promise to at least try.

Three hours later, Kurt has read the story twice and gone back to the mindless busywork of completing web orders for his online shop. The music that had been coming from his neighbor's place has faded into silence, and the loudness of his thoughts has risen in its absence.

He's not yet sure if he's touched or offended by what he's just read. Puck has formal training in literature, has earned a degree that implies a certain level of competency with the English language, and he's garnered some healthy attention for his creativity. Yet, he's presented Kurt with a bastardized retelling of Kurt's own life by way of Kieron, a fairy whose story starts when he's captured by inquisitive children and kept as a pet, poked and prodded at until his wings have lost their use – a story no more tame in the particulars than any of Puck's other work, but utterly lacking in subtlety.

Though Kieron doesn't hide away from his troubles, so what does that say?

There's a loud knock at the door, heavy in the way Puck pounds his fist, but in a spirited succession he's not likely to use. Kurt picks up his phone. No messages, no calls, no nothing. Kurt crosses the floor as quietly as he can until he's pressing his nose up against the wooden barrier guarding his fortress. Looking out, excitement bubbles up briefly before anxiety forces it down.

The knocking resumes, startling Kurt from his inner battle of should I or shouldn't I? He shouldn't, he figures. But he does.

“Hi. Whoa. Um, wow. Hi, neighbor.” Kurt goes tense at the words bursting forth from 3 West's mouth and the burning trail his eyes leave as he quickly rakes them over Kurt's body “This was left for you downstairs. It's big. I thought maybe it's important. And even if it's not, you probably want it anyway since it's yours,” he rambles. He looks away when he smiles, and then his (unfairly attractive) eyes bounce back to Kurt. In his hands is a cardboard box about the size of the absolutely unimportant table lamp he ordered days earlier.

Their hands brush when transferring the box from one to the other and Kurt's chest seizes at the contact. Not the heart-stopping clutch of attraction, but the familiar panic he's not yet mastered the art of controlling.

“Thank you,” he manages.  Each breath comes in shorter than the last, though he does his best to mask it.

“Anytime.” A pause. “Kurt.” A smile.

Kurt's surprise must show as his neighbor glances at the package's mailing slip and his lips quirk up into a reassuring smile. Kurt's mouth drops into a small “o” as he nods a bit, eyes slipping closed as he pleads with his body to calm.

“Who's this?” 3 West yelps excitedly, dropping quickly into a crouch at the sight of Lady, the furball of a cat named by and belonging to Beth, but taking up temporary residence in Kurt's apartment until the Puckermans return from vacation.

Lady curls her tail around Kurt's leg as she brushes past him on her way to the stranger crowding the doorway. The box resting awkwardly in Kurt's arms gets set on the first clear surface he sees, taking a step back into his apartment.

As the door swings open a bit wider with the push from his shoulder, Kurt gives his neighbor a clear shot into his apartment.

Furniture is sparse to keep clutter at bay, so there's a lot of floor space. But all Kurt's really done is turned it into something like a playroom for his creativity.

“Holy shit,” the man gawks, eyes dancing from one corner of the loft to the other. The landlord – a friend of his father's – gave Kurt free reign to decorate as he saw fit; there's not much left untouched by this point. The walls are opportunities to experiment. All of it is, really. Kurt's personal favorite piece seems to be his neighbor's as well.

When Kurt first moved in, the grit and grime look of partially exposed brick suited his mood, suited his temper, and suited his outlook on life. He painted over flaking and cracked plaster in angry, harsh angles with the blackest paints his father could find. He shoved his fists into buckets and flung the liquid, not caring where it landed. He lived for months in the darkness he created before its comfort grew cold. With eyes open on the horror of paint-splattered floors and furniture, of the ugly mess he'd made his home, he threw himself into renovations.

Keeping busy keeps him sane. Well, as sane as he can manage.

Kurt scraped away the loose plaster beneath his patchy paint job, filled in the gaps, and sanded the roughness until his hand ran smooth across the surface. After a long process of starts and stops, he'd given himself a new canvas.

In fractured pieces, he resumed making art. And in fractured pieces, he started to heal, started pasting his pieces back together. Started but never finished. Always, it feels like the glue is still drying.

The previous resident of 3 West made little more noise than Kurt but certainly not as much as the current tenant. She was kind mostly, the elderly woman named Violet, the first real friend Kurt had made on his own in years. She asked about his art and somehow tricked him into blathering for hours about brushstrokes one day and beading the next.

He misses Violet, wishes he could turn a switch in his head and not lose breath at irrational fears. She's not very far away, living with her son now, but he can't go visit. It's exhausting even to think about it.

But he can't not think about it.

Between two of his large east-facing windows, on the large expanse of plaster caught between exposed brick, is a watercolor-imitation mural of the woman.

The stranger's eyes are glued to the portrait. Something in the look of wonderment nearly puts Kurt at ease for a fleeting moment. He shuffles his feet, counting the seconds until the experience is over. Lady is content, at least, and Kurt figures he can survive until 3 West is ready to go if even this cat can tolerate strangers better than him.

“That's so cool, man,” 3 West comments, standing up after what can't have been more than a few seconds, but Kurt's heart is pounding away quietly so he's sure to look crazy, and it feels like hours. “Did you paint it?”

Words are formed in his mind, complete sentences even – all of which tend to trip up on his thick tongue, so he simply nods.

“Are you working on something now?”

Yes, Kurt thinks. About a million different things, he almost says. His mind buzzes with all the projects he's taken on in order to distract himself. He thinks this stranger might smile brighter if Kurt tells him he restores teddy bears on occasion. Or that he designs custom superhero costumes for children. Or that in art school he tried his hand at pottery but it never worked out because he hadn't found his Patrick Swayze. He thinks it might be nice to flirt a little. It might be nice to test the waters. To dive in or just splash around. But it's too late to joke, he tells himself, biting his lip in a signature move. And now he doesn't know what to say.

Kurt's right shoulder lifts feebly, though he was aiming for a full shrug. His body is too rigid, too locked up in the tantrum his nerves are throwing. Tears spring to his eyes because it shouldn't be so hard just to get the words out.  He blinks them back before 3 West looks up again, but the man must catch something in Kurt's expression nonetheless. His neighbor's amiable smile shifts into a polite one and Kurt knows he's made it awkward. He tries to smile back, but what little false confidence he's mustered is fading.

“Thank you,” he blurts, half-hiding behind his door and more than ready to close it. “For, uh, for the delivery. Um, yeah. Just thanks.”

“No problem.”

3 West is petting Lady her farewell, then he's backing away and turning toward his own apartment. Kurt is cherry red and on the verge of a full-blown panic attack before his door is even closed, just thinking about how cringe-worthy he is as company. Then Lady's new friend cuts through Kurt's trembling and his building anxiety.

“I'm Blaine, by the way. If you ever want to forget your manners and barge in over here, that's totally cool. Welcome even.” Blaine winks, then sobers. “And I would totally deserve it. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I'm fine,” Kurt lies. “You didn't…” the words trail off with a twitchy shake of the head. Blaine smiles knowingly and Kurt shuts the door with a grimace.

At least his short list of lifestyle perks has gotten a little longer because the upside of never leaving is he'll never have to embarrass himself in front of Blaine again.