“His sneakers have wheels,” Dr. Yang deadpans. “Veto.”

“So do Arizona’s,” Kurt points out. He looks back to where Blaine Anderson is strumming on a ukulele in the pediatrics playroom. He knows they have no business lingering. The only reason they’re on the unit is for a cardiothoracic consult on one of Dr. Robbin’s patients.

The only reason they’ve stopped at the nurses station is so that Dr. Yang can go through some of the nurses’ bags to forage for snacks. They have no time to grab lunch between cases today.

“Arizona is scary. She’s got that crazy girl type of scary going on. I respect that,” she says between bites of an apple.

Kurt respects his resident. Cristina Yang is a brilliant and gifted surgeon. She has studied under both Dr. Preston Burke and Dr. Teddy Altman. He has learned a lot from her, and, as a third year resident, he is still learning.

So he will respect Dr. Yang by mooning over Dr. Anderson in his own time.

-

Kurt has always thought that there are always too many people in these rooms for consults. He understands that this is a teaching hospital, and he himself benefits from the experience, but there’s something about the look in a parent’s eye when they see six doctors walk in that he finds unsettling.

Dr. Arizona Robbins, a perky blonde peds attending whose bite is far worse than her bark, is accompanied by Drs. Blaine Anderson and Alex Karev. Kurt has learned the hard way not to be fooled by the wheeled-shoes and sweet disposition.

Kurt is standing alongside Drs. Teddy Altman and Cristina Yang. It’s a tense atmosphere, seeing as the case has brought two of the most competitive specialities into one room.

“Kelsey Long, Age 13. She suffers from cardiomegaly that is no longer able to be controlled by medications. She is currently on the waiting list for a transplant,” Kurt rattles off effortlessly.

Kelsey’s parents look to Kurt, and then to Dr. Altman, as if her senior position means she holds the answers. Often, it does, but it some cases, they’re all scrambling for answers.

That’s why he could never work in peds. The parents. He doesn’t mind being brought in on a case from time to time, but he doesn’t know if he could deal with the sad eyes all of the time. There are too many sad eyes in peds. And in this room, there are three pairs. It’s overwhelming.

“Mr. and Mrs. Long, while I hoped we wouldn’t be at this point just yet, unfortunately that isn’t the case,” Dr. Altman says. “We feel the best route is keeping Kelsey in the pediatric intensive care unit until we can find her a match. This way, we can try to manage her symptoms the best we can until then.”

“Kelsey can hear you,” the girl cuts in, her blonde eyebrows quirked upward.

Kurt tries not to notice as Dr. Anderson leans towards her and stage whispers - “Shh, don’t let them know!”

Dr. Robbins and Dr. Altman engage in a tennis match-like debate of treatment plans, shooting down one another’s options with increasingly louder tones.

Dr. Anderson cuts in. “A ventricular assist device isn’t typical in this case, but there would be a better chance of getting Kelsey out of the hospital while she’s waiting on a transplant.”

“They’re hardly approved for long-term use in pediatric patients, Dr. Anderson.” Arizona dismisses him. “There are other options. Safer options.”

“She has a piano recital,” Dr. Anderson continues. “It’s next week. She’s been looking forward to it.”

Kurt and Dr. Yang exchange a glance. Kurt mouths is he for real? and Dr. Yang nods.

“There will be other piano recitals, Blaine,” Mrs. Long says as she walks up to Blaine and takes his hand.

Kurt bites his lip to keep from sneering. It seems his pediatric surgery counterpart gets way too close to his patients. He wonders if he should speak with Dr. Robbins. It could cause issues regarding the patient’s care.

This is precisely why Blaine Anderson resides in the part of Kurt’s brain where the things that are only meant to be appreciated visually reside. Don’t engage the cute peds resident, just leer at him when he’s not looking.

“I know,” Dr. Anderson says sadly. Kurt tries to pretend that he doesn’t even have a first name. They are all faceless sets of scrubs. Their only function is to do scut work and keep their superiors happy. This doesn’t mean coddling patients and making best friends with the other people in the surgical residency program.

There’s a reason Kurt is Cristina Yang’s favorite.

“The ventricular assist might not be a bad idea,” Dr. Karev cuts in. “She’s a good candidate for it, kid or not.”

Kurt is beginning to remember why he has such little patience for peds residents. A bunch of bleeding hearts, the whole group of them.

-

“Kurt, hey, wait up!” Blaine calls after him. “Kurt? Your name is Kurt, right?”

Kurt ignores him and continues down the hall. He’s just about done for the day, but there is always charting to be done. Anything to avoid a heart to heart with the bright-eyed peds resident.

“Dr. Hummel?”

Kurt turns around.

“Really?” Blaine smirks. “Should have known.”

“Can I help you with something, Dr. Anderson?” Kurt does everything in his power to make sure his tone sounds anything but helpful.

“I just wanted to talk,” Blaine smiles. He picks up the pace to catch up to Kurt, and he can hear the tell-tale clicks of Blaine’s wheels.

Kurt wants him to fall over.

“So cardio, yeah?” Blaine asks. "I can respect that. I was leaning towards cardio for a bit."

"No you weren’t,” Kurt scoffs. “You're just saying that in hopes that having something in common will make our brief time spent working alongside one another more bearable."

"No, really. I did. I was one of Dr. Yang's interns the year after your class went through. I tried to bring her up on sexual harassment charges when she started calling me number two. I thought it was a cheap shot at my sexuality."

Kurt smiles, but just barely. "Dr. Yang calls all of her interns by numbers."

Blaine scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeeeah. Found that out after I tried to bring her up on sexual harassment charges. Now I'm afraid to talk to her."

"You're better in peds anyway," he says dismissively.

"Thank you!" Blaine hunches his shoulders in a slight bow.

"That wasn't a compliment," Kurt says before giving Blaine a tight-lipped smile and rounding the next corner.

-

Unfortunately, that isn’t the last he sees of Dr. Anderson. He runs into him in elevators, in stairwells, and even during his typically peaceful lunch hour. Seattle Grace Mercy West has never felt smaller.

He has taken to calling him by his first name just to save a few seconds of time.

Today, Blaine has found Kurt in the surgical intensive care unit, where he is in the midst of checking in on Dr. Yang’s post-ops.

The attendings have chosen today to meet and decide on whether or not to fit Kelsey Long with a ventricular assist device. The outcome of this decision will determine whether or not she has to stay in the hospital until she finds a match.

Kurt has never been more grateful that a third year resident’s opinion is hardly valued in this situation.

“Everyone needs an outlet, Kurt. I think that’s why most of us end up burning out of the program, because we don’t have outlets. Whether it’s music, cooking, or...” Blaine moves in a little closer. “Sex.”

“Sex,” Kurt echoes, hardly amused.

“Hey, don’t knock it. It’s totally an outlet.” Kurt notices that Blaine is getting ahead of him. Despite shorter legs and shorter strides, he makes up for lost ground with those damn wheeled-shoes. “I wasn’t the top of my class at Stanford. In fact, some might say that I barely made the cut to get into the surgical residency program.”

“And why would they say that?”

“Because I barely made the cut to get into the program.”

Kurt is surprised by his honesty. In a program where their peers are constantly throwing out their class ranks in hopes of sounding better than one another, Blaine steps right up and admits to being less than perfect.

He secretly admires it.

He gives Blaine a quick once over. It’s definitely not a horrible sight to behold. His ass still manages to look amazing in frumpy scrub pants, so he’s dying to know what lies underneath. And wasn’t Blaine just rambling about outlets?

Kurt thinks he might know of one.

He sets his charts down on the closest nurses station, ignoring Eli’s squawk of protest.

“Follow me,” he tells Blaine, his tone still trying to remain disinterested at best.

They don’t stop walking until they’re in front of an on-call room on one of the vacated step-down units. The patient census is down and the floor has been temporarily combined with another. They wouldn’t have to worry about finding a single soul on this end of the hospital.

Kurt tugs Blaine into the on-call room by the ends of his stethoscope, walking backward until he feels his knees hit the bed.

“What are you doing?” Blaine asks, a nervous edge to his voice.

“Finding an outlet,” Kurt smiles as he leans in.

Blaine pushes him away.

“Kurt, you’re cute, but I don’t like to mix my work and play.”

“Jackson Avery,” Kurt all but whines.

“...was hung up on Lexie, who was hung up on Mark, who is dating a woman that Lexie pretty much assaulted with a softball. It was a mess that I didn’t want to be involved in,” Blaine explains. “Hence the new rule.”

Kurt lets go of the ends of Blaine’s stethoscope, blushing furiously. There is a reason Kurt hasn’t made a move up until now. Blaine is a ridiculous human being.

“I’m going to go... leave. And pretend this didn’t happen,” he mutters. “Because it didn’t happen.”

Kurt leaves Blaine standing in the on-call room, and only wishes he had managed to put him in a more compromising position to be walked in on it as revenge.

-

Kurt stops by Emerald City Bar on his way home from work on his more trying days. He doesn’t always even drink. He likes seeing his co-workers out of their element. The reminder that they are still real people underneath their scrubs and lab coats is somehow comforting.

It reminds him that he is a real person too, especially on the days where he feels like nothing more than a cog in a piece of machinery.

He grabs a glass of water from the bar, because he knows rounds will be considerably more difficult with a hangover. He takes a seat in an empty corner booth, and restrains the urge to press the cool glass of water to his flushed face.

Kurt has never felt more humiliated.

He hears someone strumming on a guitar nearby, and he turns to find Blaine sitting on a stool on the makeshift stage in the corner of the bar.

“Where do you go with your broken heart in tow
What do you do with the left over you
And how do you know, when to let go
Where does the good go, where does the good go.”

Kurt almost chokes on his water when he realizes that Blaine is staring back. He’s singing right to him. It makes Kurt feels like he’s on the spot and he isn’t even the one on stage.

It feels like adding insult to injury after the events of this afternoon.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive
Look me in the heart and tell me you won't go.”

He averts his gaze to something more neutral. A spot on the ceiling, an empty bar stool. The opposite side of the bar where April Kepner and Jackson Avery and playing darts. Anywhere but Blaine.

Music used to make Kurt feel free. These days, it makes him feel anything but.