Kurt Hummel had his metaphorical cherry popped by Elliott Gilbert when he was seventeen in more ways than one.

When Kurt begged and pleaded with his father to let him get a tattoo, Elliott was the artist to do the job when Burt succumbed to Kurt's pleas.

When Kurt came back again and again, Elliott eventually became the one Kurt scheduled appointments with. Their friendship happened fast, an easy, seamless thing with no snags or snares. They bonded over music and started seeing shows together. Kurt met Elliott's friends, way out in Columbus where the parlor is. They flirted and had fun, and then had a fling. And when it was over, they still flirted and they still had fun. They still do.

Kurt calls Elliott the same morning he wakes up in Blaine bed after a night that's messing with his head. Probably because it was so the opposite of a mess as it happened. They haven't talked since they broke up, not about anything of substance. But last night, they communicated in freely in chuckles and caresses and careful choreography to avoid crippling Kurt's leg. No dark shadows loomed overhead like they've done for months.

So maybe they shouldn't talk. Maybe Kurt should stick to what he knows. To keeping it flirty and fun.

Elliott says he's free anytime Kurt wants him, laughs, sets up an appointment for the next day and tells him to just send a sketch before he comes in, like always.

Kurt's next call is to Puck, letting him know to cancel any plans he had because they'll be driving to Columbus tomorrow. Puck groans about it, but he shows up in the morning with Quinn and Santana in tow for company.

:: ::

Tattooing is an intimate act. Spending hours at a time in each other's personal space, trusting Elliott to honor the permanence of the mark he's leaving. Kurt wasn't too concerned when he and Quinn got matching tattoos of stars trailing from their ankles to feet, or the little infinity symbol on the side of his finger. The imprint of lips on the side of his neck are inconsequential, he just thought they'd look cool – which they do. The impression of buttons sewn into his wrist were Burt and Carole's gift to him when he received his acceptance letter to the Fashion Institute, aka his ticket out of Lima. The fingerprints dotted along his hipbone like a hand squeezing him tight are a naughty little thing that keeps him smiling, but they're all just pictures. Fun mementos to look back on when he's older. When he's a man who wouldn't do the same again, but unapologetic for the boy who did.

Kurt likes tattoos, likes the idea of his body as a canvas. Likes the Cheshire Cat resting precariously atop his foot as much as the words scrawled across his collarbone, found in a book that belonged to his mother. He likes wearing himself proudly for anyone willing to look to see. Little glimpses, important and not-so, but all displaying some truth about Kurt.

It's profound an experience to let Elliott be the scribe to tell Kurt's story. Especially with work like he's getting done today. Work that isn't frivolous for the sake of preserving a whim.

Kurt's very first tattoo – the one he begged and pleaded for – is a singular sunflower pressing outward from his inner arm, drawn like the ones his mother had. It keeps his mother close, keeps him grounded, rooted to himself and those who matter most should he ever forget.

Elliott traces his needle along the outline resting on Kurt's shaved forearm and asks him if he's getting it for his dad. Kurt shrugs a little, offers a vague “kind of” and leaves it at that. Elliott grins though, says Kurt's going to run out of skin if he keeps solving all his problems this way.

They break for lunch, meeting Puck and the girls at a diner nearby where Santana flirts shamelessly with a waitress named Dani, who may not even be gay, but she's giving back even better than she gets. By the time Kurt and Elliott are ready to cut out, Santana is sticking napkins under her shirt and talking some mess about underboob sweat.

It's the imitation of a date with the way they're all paired off. Santana and her waitress. Puck and Quinn, who were in the Matt and Tess of McKinley High – only they gave their baby up for adoption. Kurt and Elliott, who've coupled and copulated copiously in the past. And it's easy. This could be the way he spends the rest of summer, the kind of memories he hold onto when he's all alone to brave the big city. And he will hold onto it. But it's Blaine who's on his mind. Because as much as his father has impressed a lifelong love of cars, current and classic, it was waking up in Blaine's bedroom – surrounded by toy robots and sweater vests sewn for grandpas everywhere and Blaine alone, by cherished models cars that always did make Kurt think of his father – that put the idea in Kurt's head to get ink on his arm. And the sting of needles binding him to Blaine takes easy off the table.

:: ::

Now would be a good time for a piggyback ride, Kurt thinks as he braves another staircase. He thought about texting Blaine on the way back to Lima, maybe detouring a little before going home. But he's tired after a long day of travel and therapy, as Elliott calls it.

It's late, everyone else is asleep, and Kurt is seconds from passing out where he stands - well, where he wobbles. Enemy though they are, he's been trying more to make stairs a friend. That's not going to happen anytime soon, especially now. He's thinking perhaps he was a little rash in his actions because now he's two limbs down with his bandaged arm and its leftover prickle of pain. But he makes it up to his room by some miracle of Satan and he'll just call Puck over in the morning to carry him downstairs if he has to.

Resisting the temptation to peek under the bandage for another look is his least favorite part of the process. He always wants it healed already, wants to stare for awhile. Tonight, at least his exhaustion is catching up to him fast, so he's ready to conk out the second he wipes off his makeup and applies his nighttime creams – his skin isn't flawless by accident.

With the light off, he doesn't notice at first the lump on his bed. He catches it in the mirror, and for a second his mind interprets it as a mess of clothes. But Kurt doesn't mess when it comes to clothes.

It's Blaine. Sleeping in his bed. No explanations, yet again. But fuck explanations, Kurt's riding this gravy train wherever it's headed tonight. So he speeds as quickly through his routine as tired hands allow and crawls into bed, Blaine's body immediately gravitating to him. This part has always been easy. This he can hold onto.

Flirty and fun doesn't usually involve booty calls for cuddling; even if Kurt has to lie to himself to deny it, the unfinished business pulling him to Blaine can't be fixed with a fling. The conversation they need to have can just sit perpetually on the list of tomorrow's problems for the little taste of what he's craving.