“So you're the guy Kurt's been talking about.”

Blaine offered a tentative smile. “He's been talking about me?”

“I am right here, Sugar Motta.” Kurt snapped his fingers at the girl who was grinning maniacally. It was Lauren's day off and Kurt could only count his lucky stars that there weren't two girls ganging up on Blaine. Though Sugar was a handful all by herself—maybe two handfuls.

This wasn't what Kurt had in mind when he invited Blaine over to Timeless, hoping to immerse himself in his own territory and figure out if his pheromones were working or not. He and Blaine exchanged numbers shortly after confirming that Blaine was indeed Curly Q, and they've had several following conversations over phone and in person. They shared a love for fashion even though they had differing opinions and styles, a near-worshipful appreciation of music and Broadway, and a general camaraderie that warmed Kurt to his very soul. Or so he liked to think.

There was still the question of sexuality. And speaking of that:

“So are you gay or what?” Sugar asked bluntly, tossing her pigtails. “Because if you're not, you should take me out.”

“I thought you were still with Rory,” Kurt said suspiciously, although he glanced over at Blaine and attempted to hide how eager he was to hear Blaine's answer.

She sniffed haughtily. “I am no longer on speaking terms with Rory Flanagan, thank you very much.”

As if on cue, her phone buzzed and she snatched it up, scowling.

“Seems like he didn't get the message,” Blaine joked easily, winking at Kurt conspiratorially. Kurt's knees wobbled a bit and he had to clutch a heavily laden rack to compose himself. He never thought that he would be attracted to someone who liked to linger on the gray area of legality, but far be it for Kurt to criticize. To be fair, he and Blaine hadn't really talked about the whole graffiti art thing much after the confrontation. It worked as an ice-breaker and now they could talk about more pleasantly comfortable topics that didn't mess with the law, but Kurt's curiosity lingered. He just wasn't sure how to approach the whole business.

As Sugar muttered darkly under her breath and jabbed at her phone, Blaine laughed, showing fine and even teeth.

So unfair.

“Even if you didn't have a boyfriend, I'm afraid I'll have to take you out on a purely platonic date, Sugar,” Blaine was saying, tone apologetic.

Sugar and Kurt's heads shot up, but it was the female teenager who said, “So you're gay?”

“Yup.” His smile was beatific. Kurt was reminded of solemn Buddha figures, unwavering in even the strongest storms. “One hundred percent gay.”

Kurt was far too dignified to blurt out, “Me too!” Fortunately, Sugar took care of the task as she shook her head disappointedly, Rory forgotten for the time being. “I swear, all the good guys... I guess you and Kurt can bone each other then.”

Kurt was docking that girl's pay, no question.

The hazel-eyed man tilted his head and side-eyed Kurt. “You're gay?”

“Out and proud,” Kurt managed to say without trembling despite all of the joy that welled up inside of him, the fantasizing and longing that he had squashed down so that he didn't have to suffer more heartbreak from the whole “crushing on straight guy” scenario. Did and done already.

Blaine reached out and touched Kurt. On the shoulder. “Well, me too,” he said, and his face was like the sun.

“I'm not saying that Jeffrey Daniels shouldn't pay attention to the LGBT community.” Blaine motioned at nothing in particular. “But petitioning the mayor has done nothing before and collecting signatures clearly isn't the way to go. I know that demonstrations haven't worked before in the past, but there's no harm in—”

“How long have you been Curly Q?”

Blaine hesitated, eyes darting all around the deli. They had met for breakfast Saturday morning because Blaine didn't work on the weekends (“Not to say that I'm perpetually lazy, but I like weekends for myself.”) and Kurt worked flexible hours. They'd already spent an hour chatting over croissants, cold sandwiches, and coffee, but this was the first time Kurt brought up Blaine's alter life. But Kurt had made sure that they were nested in a corner and the few people still in the deli weren't paying any attention to the two men in deep discussion.

So Blaine conceded, dropping his hands from the air to hold his coffee cup. “I've been hitting the streets since high school,” he confessed with the air of a man revealing his deepest secret. “I've officially been Curly Q for three years.”

“Three years?”

“I picked it up during my undergraduate years. Then I realized I didn't want to end up as a businessman, so I graduated college with the highest honors and shocked my parents by disappearing.” There was a bitter undertone to his words and Kurt instinctively put his hand over Blaine's. Forward, but purposeful. The touch seemed to shake Blaine out of whatever head space he'd been in, and he lifted his gaze, shrugging. “No one wants their son to become a—a delinquent or anything, least of all a gay delinquent, but it doesn't matter anymore. I'm living life the way I want to and there's nothing to regret.”

“Your family doesn't know a good thing when they see it,” Kurt responded seriously. Blaine chuckled lightly, but his face brightened a bit.

To keep Blaine's good mood, Kurt launched into the story of how he came out to his father, including a funny bit of how Burt had caught him dancing to “Single Ladies” by himself. Blaine's eyes grew warm at more accounts of Burt Hummel, commenting more than once at how he was glad Kurt had familial support throughout high school.

“Your father's a good man,” Blaine said, and Kurt smiled tightly.

“Yes, he is.”

“What about your mother?”

He nudged at the last croissant on his plate. “She died when I was eight.” Then he waited for Blaine to say, “I'm so sorry,” or something along the lines of that.

Blaine looked down at Kurt's hand which was still draped over his own, then brought up his free hand and covered both in a comforting gesture. Kurt's lips curved upward at the sweet movement and the sudden intimacy between the two of them. However, Blaine flushed as he finally realized what he was doing and withdraw his hands.

“I, um,” he stammered. “That's...”

“Nothing to worry your gelled head over.” Kurt was quick to soothe, ignoring the flicker of hurt inside his chest.

“It's not that.” Blaine fidgeted at the edge of his seat before sliding his hand over to take Kurt's again. Kurt inhaled sharply.

“Blaine?”

“The last guy I went out with wasn't...well, out.” The street artist smiled bashfully down at their clasped hands. “And it turned out that I made most of it up in my head.” He deliberately ran his thumb over Kurt's soft fingers, still smiling at the shudder that coursed through Kurt's body. “I don't want to make that same mistake again.”

Kurt subtly pinched himself. Nope, he was awake and still sitting across from one of the most handsome men he had ever met. There had to be a catch somewhere.

“It's also easier since you already know about my other line of work and there won't be any lying or misunderstandings over that. Not that I wouldn't have made a move or something because you're, you're the most fascinating person I've met in this town and I haven't felt like this in a long time.”

“Blaine Anderson.” Kurt coughed as his voice came out higher than he expected. “Are you declaring your intentions to me?”

“Would you mind if I continued?” Hazel eyes became timid, uncertain.

Oh, damn him and his big, bright eyes. “Not at all.”

“Kurt Hummel,” Blaine began, all confidence restored, “I would be honored if you would go on a date with me. Would you—”

“Oh my god, yes,” Kurt rushed out, and the blush on his cheeks deepened in color when Blaine, eyes alight with happiness, smiled the most brilliant smile yet and lifted their joined hands to brush a chaste kiss over soft skin.

Two years before Kurt met Blaine, he was twenty-two, still finding his place with Timeless. He'd fired one of the employees, Brett, for constantly falling asleep and smelling suspiciously of cigarettes. He wasn't about to expose “vintage” clothing to cigarette smoke.

It was idle curiosity (much like the one that would plague Kurt when it came to a certain street artist) that caused Kurt to search for Rachel Berry on YouTube. He hadn't listened to any of her covers for years and the last he heard, she'd made it to New York and was attending Tisch. Kurt had considered New York back when he still had plans to go to college, but Burt Hummel was a humble mechanic. They hadn't been living hand to mouth, but tuition costs kept going up and New York was hardly the least expensive state to live in. Ohio cramped Kurt's style, but he wasn't going to run his father bankrupt.

He hardly had free time anymore, least of all time to keep up with Broadway, but it still gave him a shock when he found videos of Rachel Berry in a Broadway musical.

She made it.

It was a revival of Annie Get Your Gun, and the video was released by the official channel advertising the production. There were snippets of scenes from the musical and songs, and Kurt watched over and over again as Rachel Berry sang, “I can sing anything higher than you!”

No, you can't.

“Yes, I can.”

No, you can't.

“Yes, I can.”

No, you can't. Can't can't can't can't CAN'T.

He was angry, so very angry. It incensed him the way the blurry video of Rachel Berry singing “Defying Gravity” at one of the show choir competitions had incensed him because he could do that. Rachel Berry was not a better singer than him, maybe not even a better performer, but McKinley taught her that she had more right to demonstrate her talents because at least she was a girl and hitting high notes was a gift, not a curse.

“I would kill that song,” Harmony said when he briefly mentioned his find on YouTube. Harmony Nightingale was one of the friends he'd made attending the few theatre productions he discovered on the other side of the country. She was younger but no less ambitious; in fact, she reminded him of Rachel Berry what with their near-vicious determination to achieve their goals. She'd wanted to go to New York as well (oh, what he would give to see Rachel and Harmony butt heads), but costs and a measly scholarship forced her to UCLA instead. She was spending her last summer getting involved in everything she could stick her hand in, and somewhere along the way, she became a friend.

“I could sing that song better than her,” she insisted when she looked up the video on her smartphone.

“I bet you could,” he replied with only a hint of dryness.

She cocked her head at him. “She was getting tired near the end, but she held the note. I can match that and more.”

“Oh, I can't imagine. Little Snow White going up against the Evil Queen?”

“I'll always be your pretty pretty princess, Romeo,” Harmony deadpanned, but she ruined the effect by snorting. It was an inside joke because Kurt called Harmony's look “Snow White” since she had a tendency to lay on the bright red lipstick rather thick despite her pale skin and dark hair. Harmony had come up with “Romeo” after she provoked him, claiming that he couldn't possibly pass as any main male lead with a female romantic interest.

Kurt proceeded to act out a famous Shakespearean scene and Harmony acknowledged that okay, okay, you're the most charmingly infuriating Romeo I've ever met, now give my beret back!

Was it a kind of masochistic acrimony that led Kurt to find more videos and articles of Rachel Berry's rise to stardom? No, it was more than that. It wasn't just that Rachel Berry was a talented singer but perhaps no more than him. It wasn't just that she was on Broadway like she said she would be when Kurt only dared to dream. It wasn't that he was afraid of seeing himself in her, of seeing someone who could have been a kindred spirit and maybe a best friend.

It was that even though they were so similar, she still wouldn't have understood.

Mercedes had told him enough about Mr. Schuester's narrow vision for the New Directions. He was a good teacher and glee club director for Rachel Berry and, shockingly enough, Finn Hudson when he had joined. But Kurt remembered the times when the teacher would catch the end of a locker slam and merely ask, “Are you okay?” Oh, he knew, he knew that it was hard for someone so straight and privileged to fully grasp that McKinley was unkind not only to glee club and nerds, but also gays. Gay.

Because he was the one and only, the sad little queer in a sea of prejudiced heterosexuals.

Because Rachel Berry was ostracized for her fashion choices, hobbies, and obnoxious personality, but never for her sexuality. Never for her voice and how it fit or didn't fit her gender. Hardly for how she and Finn entered a romantic relationship after the fiasco with Quinn and Noah Puckerman and etc., and only because they were practically from different castes at McKinley.

Not because she was a girl and he was a boy. That was natural.

Because McKinley was far kinder to Rachel than it was to Kurt, and he thought that having her as a friend would hurt all the more if she didn't have the capability to see it from his way. The world never promised to be a rose garden for Kurt Hummel, but maybe that was what it turned out to be in the end.

It hurt.

Text to Kurt 11:22 AM

is your apt the one with the poinsettia?

Text to Kurt 11:23 AM

i think its a poinsettia its sorta wilting

Text to Blaine 11:24 AM

Do I look like someone who would let their poinsettia waste away?

Text to Kurt 11:24 AM

oh i see you!!!

Text to Kurt 11:25 AM

and i guess im gonna find out what kinda person you are ;)

“Dork,” Kurt mumbled when he caught sight of Blaine waving frantically from a distance. He pocketed his phone and made a small, gracious wave that had Blaine laughing as he ambled closer. Kurt noted the striped purple and gold bow tie with a deep plum dress shirt, dark wash jeans, and tan saddle shoes. He was devastatingly gorgeous, even though Kurt eyeballed the typically gelled hair.

Kurt cast a discerning eye over his own outfit. He had worried that perhaps his long-sleeved shirt, dark vest, and distressed jeans were on the flippant side, but apparently Blaine had meant it when he said to dress casual.

“No flowers?” Kurt teased.

Blaine stopped abruptly before him. “I thought it would be kind of cliché,” he pointed out, but he brought a hand from behind his back and presented a single peach rose with a bright red ribbon.

“And I was thinking you were going to get me marigolds.” Despite the quip, Kurt accepted the flower, smelling it delicately.

“Does this mean I get to meet the infamous Marigold?”

“I should have known you only asked me out for my cat.”

“Hey, hey. Hey.” The playful atmosphere disappeared almost instantaneously as Blaine laced their fingers together, his gaze earnest. “In all seriousness, I really like you, Kurt. And I wouldn't do something like that to anyone, least of all you.”

One of these days Kurt was going to stop blushing at every single thing Blaine Anderson said. This was not that day. “I like the way you think, Anderson.”

Blaine's easy manner returned. “Good to know.”

As first dates went, this wasn't the worst one Kurt had been on. They ate at an Italian restaurant that had sub-par pasta but absolutely fantastic Caesar salad, and Blaine was quick to pay for the meal with the logic, “I asked, so I'll pay.” There were a line of shops that surrounded a nearby plaza and they spent an hour at Goldie Oldies exclaiming over CDs and sheet music, singing snippets of songs to each other. Blaine had the voice and presence of a leading man and when Kurt delved for more information, he found out that he had been in various show choirs.

“Only two,” Blaine corrected as he examined a Katy Perry album. “I was part of an a cappella group called the Warblers for my sophomore year at my second high school, Dalton Academy.”

“Second high school?”

“It's a long story, but basically, I've been to three high schools. Dalton was a private all-boys school, uniforms and all.”

Kurt was determinedly not imagining Blaine, younger and fresh-faced, in a blazer and tie with a bag over his shoulder. “An all-male a cappella group in ill-fitted blazers? I'm not sure if that was one of my fantasies or nightmares back in high school.”

“The blazer wasn't that bad, and let me tell you, an all-boys school isn't as glamorous as it seems.”

They moved on from Goldie Oldies to stroll down the sidewalk. It was already late afternoon and Kurt was amazed at how much he'd learned about Blaine. His first two high schools had been in Ohio (so close, yet so far away) before his father's company moved all the way to the West Coast, forcing Blaine to his third high school (“Public this time, and I had a whiplash from having to decide what to wear every day.”) where he finished the remainder of his secondary education.

“I was glad to get out of Ohio,” Blaine nodded, as if he had to affirm what he was saying to himself. “It wasn't a great place for a gay high schooler to be. Dalton helped because of a zero-tolerance bullying policy, but it does something to you when you're sheltered from the real world and you look like everyone else.”

Not for the first time during this date, Kurt wished that he had met Blaine in Ohio. It would have helped so much.

“You're not that helpless high schooler anymore,” he said.

Blaine tilted his head at him. “I've been going on and on about myself. What about you?”

“Oh no no no no no.” Kurt shook his head, stopping in his tracks momentarily. “I don't mind hearing about you, Blaine, I'd rather listen.”

The street artist arched his thick eyebrows and for a moment, Kurt thought that Blaine was going to say, “You seem more like a talker,” so he interjected quickly.

“How did you start?”

“Start what?”

“Vandalizing the world one wall at a time.”

“Ah... I started in high school. Actually, I was a freshman. There were a lot of upperclassmen who went around spraying paint wherever they wanted. Pretty much everyone knew what they were doing, even the teachers, but no one caught them red-handed.” Blaine paused to scrutinize a few mannequins visible from the windows of a small boutique store. Kurt ruminated on getting his hands on one or two for Timeless.

Then Blaine said, “But I caught them once.”

“I'm guessing they didn't throw a party in your honor.”

“You guessed right, except they didn't see me. I was out of sight and I could tell they were drunk. Still, there was just something about the way they completely let loose. A lot of them were bullies, but some of them were really artistic with the coloring and paint, and I had to admire that. Of course, I was terrified. I recognized one of them who really liked to torment me about my hair.”

“Blaine, if you started gelling as a freshman, then that isn't surprising.” Kurt held his breath, unsure of whether or not he'd crossed a line. But Blaine did that eye-crinkle thing and he exhaled slowly, still awed by this gentleman who had appeared out of nowhere.

“Actually, my hair's naturally curly—”

“Hence Curly Q. Don't know why I didn't put two and two together.”

“You weren't completely off-mark. I started gelling my sophomore year at Dalton.”

“Hm. So what about that time you caught them?”

“Well, I knew even then that graffiti is hardly legal. I don't like causing trouble for people and getting caught? Making my parents pay the fines? That's the very definition of causing trouble. So I went small at first, little pictures and tags—a tag is an artist's signature—with markers and regular primer paint from the art store. I stopped experimenting during Dalton, but then I finally tried out spray paints when I moved over here.”

Blaine halted in his life story, and Kurt knew right then and there that if Kurt didn't want to hear any more, then Blaine wouldn't elaborate. Maybe it was like going out with a superhero—no, a supervillain. Maybe the less he knew about Curly Q, the better.

But you couldn't go out with someone and ignore such a vital aspect of his life. And Kurt wanted to make this work.

So:

“I want to see you.”

“What?” Blaine surveyed him bemusedly. “You're seeing me right now.”

Kurt reached out and gripped Blaine's hand determinedly. “I want to see you in your element.”