"Do you have any tattoos or piercings?"

Kurt asked the question before taking a sip of his coffee. This was their third coffee 'date' (he liked to think of them as dates but didn't refer to them as such, afraid Blaine may not be found of that). He knew that, no matter how stereotypical the question was, he was still curious.

"No piercings, but five tattoos, " He replied with a smile, something that Kurt was growing fond of seeing. "For right now, anyways," he added, sipping some of his coffee.

"Oh...can I see any of them?" Kurt asked, which Blaine chuckled and grinned at.

"Who said they were appropriate places?" His eyebrows rose slightly and Kurt blushed, which made Blaine laugh again. His laugh was also something Kurt really liked to hear.

"I'm kidding, they're all in places people can see. I just have to either take off my shirt or adjust my pants for you to see them."

"Oh," Kurt murmured softly. He figured that it wasn't a good idea for Blaine to just take his shirt off in the middle of The Lima bean (not that he would be the one to object, because yeah, he had thought about wanting to see Blaine shirtless), so he asked, "Well, can I just see one of them?" He figured if he had to adjust his pants, that meant there was one on his leg.

"Come here," Blaine said, patting the seat next to him. "You could probably see it better without me having to twist all over the place if you come over here."

Kurt was happy to oblige, sliding his coffee across the table before he sat down in the seat next to Blaine. He watched Blaine roll up the right pants leg of his dark jeans, revealing a tattoo on the back of his calf that Kurt really wasn't expecting.

He had expected something dark, crude, unpleasant. Instead, he saw flowers- flowers of different colors and sorts; red and pink roses, white lilies, yellow daffodils. They were woven together beautifully by the tangling of their green stems. They were brighter on the outside and seemed to fade as they moved in towards the center of the ovular shape they formed, though it was not a perfect oval. Some flowers stuck out just a little farther, a few stems grew out of the side.

In the middle of the flowers, 'Maria Anderson' was written, the first name over the last. It was cursive and done in black ink with additions of white at some edges that made the name stand out just a little bit more.

"It's for my mom. It was the first tattoo I ever got," he murmured, a small bit of fondness coming into his voice. "She loved flowers, all different kinds. She was always working with her flowers, inside and outside, making sure they were growing nicely. And sometimes I'd help her but mostly I just liked to dig in the dirt." He laughed quietly and smiled a little. "Which, that came in handy I guess when she was ready to plant new flowers."

"After she died...I tried taking care of her flowers. Most of them stayed alive, but...one day I came home from school and all of them were run over or ripped out of the ground. The ones inside were in the backyard, some still in their then-broken flower pots. I went inside and asked my father what happened...all he said was sometimes you had to move on and he was helping me get over my Mom dying. And then a few months later I was put in my first foster home."

He shrugged a little, as if the story he had just told Kurt was no big deal. But Kurt could see, behind those hard eyes that tried to shut out the world, that he was hurting.

"My mom died when I was little, too," he said. "It was really hard and me and my dad...but we were there for each other to try and help each other...not really get over it, but just...deal with it, I guess." He sighed softly and smiled. "She loved to cook and play with me. We'd make cookies together, have tea parties, and she'd let me dress up in her clothes. She always smelled so nice, too. We have a dresser that still has some of her smell...sometimes I'll just open up the doors and breathe in and...pretend she's there with me."

"I didn't think anything would be the same after she died. Of course they were different, but...I didn't think my dad would want to do all the things my mom would do with me. I was having a tea party one day, just me and my stuffed animals. I looked up when my dad came outside. He looked a little hesitant at first, but he asked if he could join me. I told him yes and showed up how to hold his tea cup, how he needed to eat his cookie, reminded him to not put his elbows on the table. We started getting a lot closer after that. I taught him how to attend tea parties, he taught me how to fix cars. We both got to learn things we didn't really think we'd be interested in but...doing those things made each other happy, so we did them. Fixing cars is a pretty good skill, after all...and he wasn't one to turn down cookies and cake."

He looked over at Blaine, who was watching him as he spoke. Kurt smiled a little, placing his hand gently on Blaine's leg. "I wish you had had a dad that would have helped you get through her death, better."

Blaine didn't seem to know what to do about Kurt's hand. He looked like he may be thinking about pushing it off but he soon moved his hand to rest it over Kurt's, offering him a small smile. "I wish so, too. I'm glad you have a good dad, though."

"I'm glad, too," he murmured. He didn't give himself time to think about it as he leaned over to kiss Blaine's cheek.

Blaine looked a little surprised and Kurt thought he saw a mixing of anger in his eyes. But when he turned to look at him fully, Blaine was smiling, a real genuine smile. He turned Kurt's hand over to hold it gently and said, "Thank you. It's nice to have...someone who understands."

"It is," Kurt said with his own smile, squeezing Blaine's hand lightly.

Perhaps it wasn't the happiest way for them to connect, but they had found an event they shared that made them feel just a little bonded to one another. And, as unhappy as the topic matter was, he had never seen Blaine smile that way before, like someone finally understood a part of him. And it made Kurt's heart beat to the tune of hope.