The next few weeks are significantly busier for Blaine. He and Kurt cast the models they want to use for the shoot- four girls, each with very different looks, contrast being key. They spend a few days shooting on location, and then they are back at the offices. Blaine spends most of his time narrowing down his picture options until he has what he is confident will be the main five images for the campaign. Once that is done, he has to airbrush everything, until finally the pictures are perfect- and then he is able to begin to play around transforming a photograph into an advert.

"Kurt," he says, "Come here for a moment?" Kurt walks over and stands behind Blaine, looking over his shoulder. "This is the first one. How do you feel about it?" It was a photo of Bridget, a blonde model with alabaster skin. They had emphasised the hue of her skin, though she wore dark eye makeup and striking red lipstick. Her outfit was dark, and she stood against a white background- simulated snow. Blaine had been working to turn it into a proper advert, with the label and website, but he would hand that over to Julia's team soon enough. They would format it for whatever they had decided would be done with the campaign.

"It's perfect," Kurt says simply, "so long as Julia gives it the all clear. Can I see what you have done with the others?" Blaine opens the various other parts of the project- the three other models, each on very different backgrounds, all playing around with the same contrasts, and the group shot.

They go back to their work, and spend very little time talking- and it stays that way for most of the time they're in the office together. The silence is comfortable, but Blaine misses how it was when they had first started working together and he got to hear anything and everything about Kurt. He delighted in sneaking looks at him while he drew at his board or began sewing something. His whole persona when he was concentrating seemed different to Blaine, and he knew that he was one of the few people that Kurt ever let his guard down around long enough for him to catch that glimpse.

Kurt looks over to him sometimes and smiles, his eyes glinting ever so slightly. Blaine never fails to smile back, because seeing Kurt happy makes him genuinely happy too.

It certainly helps that Kurt is nice to look at. Blaine catches himself thinking about how his clearly toned muscles would look without the restrictions of his clothing a few times more than is comfortable. But everything about him was entrancing, from his stunning blue eyes, to his beautifully pale skin, to the way he speaks, moves and talks. Blaine knows that he wants to know everything that makes him tick, wants to learn and catalogue every last detail, know him better then he knows himself.

And- oh.

Kurt doesn't look quite the same anymore.

A month was too short a time to know someone to fall in love, right?

Blaine stumbles out of bed early on a Sunday afternoon and finds that Kurt is in their living room, talking to Santana. They both greet him and he heads straight for the kitchen to get coffee, as per usual. "Can he hear us?" Kurt asks, glancing over his shoulder to the kitchen. Blaine can see and hear him clearly from his spot, but Santana shrugs. He knows that she knows the layout of the apartment well enough that she would be aware of how much he could hear- everything.

"He won't be fully human for another half an hour yet. How are things with you two, anyway?" she asks.

"Comfortable. It's really nice, actually, because we're just friends so there isn't any pressure. It's been a long time since I've had a real friend like that. Besides, if we weren't friends sharing an office would be horrible." Blaine winces internally. Kurt just used the word friends three times. Could it really be that while he was piecing everything together and effectively leaving Kurt in that box of friendship- labelled soulmates, but nothing like that in practice- that he had waited too long? That Kurt had moved past his romanticising of their being soulmates, and decided that Blaine would never be more than a friend?

"That's cute," Santana says, "things are mostly physical between me and Brittany, but we have great chemistry and we act on it." Kurt nods.

"I think a midpoint would be nice," he says with a slight sigh, "more physical. Do you want more of the talking and stuff?"

"I don't know, maybe. It's not like we never talk." Blaine makes a deliberately large amount of noise in the kitchen finding a coffee mug and pouring himself his drink to signal his finishing up to them before he takes it into the living room and sits next to Kurt. Their conversation promptly changes, and they talk about work instead- Blaine and Kurt fill Santana in on the details of their project, which was coming to an end, and she tells them about the dance studio, how her classes were going. It's a safe topic, but that was what they needed.

Julia and the administrative team meet with Blaine to discuss the adverts. The marketing team isn't particularly large, and they don't much have the artistic eye, which was why they had needed to employ Blaine in the first place. They had taken the images and formatted them for the various ways they would be used around the internet. They had already settled with some magazines for print ads, but as a web store their best clients came from the web and they knew where their focus needed to be. Julia seems pleased with his work, and tells him that she will discuss with Quinn about a permanent position. He thanks her and leaves the meeting room.

"Do you think you would take a permanent job if they offered it to you?" Kurt asks, back in the office.

"Probably," Blaine says, "and it's when, not if. Both of the executives like me. I think I'm here to stay."

"You'll probably get your own office then, you know? I'll kind of miss this." Kurt admits. Blaine smiles, knowing what he means. He missed sharing the space with Kurt when he went to a meeting or to run errands that didn't concern Blaine- being somewhere totally different would be weird.

"I don't think they can make me move out, if you really don't want me to. We can just have a holiday office."

"Spend every other weekend in your office?"

"I don't plan on being here during weekends, Kurt, but something like that." Kurt laughs.

"How very domestic."

"Will you make me pancakes every time you stay?" Blaine teases.

"Blaine, we're already sharing an office, I think we're past the point of being good guests."

"But when you stay at my actual home, yes?"

"Yes. Then I will make you pancakes." Kurt says. He pauses for a moment before adding, "Could I make you pancakes tomorrow?"

"Of course. Why do you ask?" Blaine has no problems with Kurt staying over, even on such short notice. They had spent the last couple of Fridays hanging out with each other anyway, and it was no big deal for him to just stay the night. Besides, he loves spending time with Kurt.

"Because my step-brother is in town this week and I don't want to be around while he gets physical with my roommate." Kurt explains, giving a hopeful half smile to Blaine.

"We can finish watching Top Model tonight. Santana will be at Brittany's; I'm at least three hundred percent sure."

"Okay. You make dinner, I make breakfast?"

"Deal." They shake on it and turn back to their work, each smiling at the thought. They would have the apartment to themselves, and that meant no interruptions. Blaine thinks that maybe he just found the time to tell Kurt that he was ready to be more than just friends were- if Kurt felt the same way.

After work they go their separate ways, so Kurt can collect some things for the night. Blaine gets straight to working on dinner, spaghetti and homemade pasta sauce. He has jars of it in his cupboard, one of the many things his mom fills her time doing. By the time Kurt arrives he has just served their meal on the coffee table in the living room, with two wine glasses and an unopened bottle waiting for them. They sit on the floor, Top Model playing on the TV and them only paying a fraction of their attention to it.

"So your step-brother and your roommate?" Blaine asks, feeling like there's a story to go along with it.

"Yeah. They've been on again, off again for years now. They have a couple of months where it's as if they're married and then they won't talk to each other and then, oh hey, someone cheated on someone, and then they go back to square one. If Finn moved to New York it would be a lot easier to deal with, since they both come crying to me about it, but no, Rachel's dream is Broadway, and Finn's is to rot in Ohio." Kurt says. He shrugs and shovels another mouthful of spaghetti into his mouth.

"How long have they been together?"

"They met in sophomore year of high school, so nearly ten years ago, and they started dating a month or two after that. They were in different social circles which eventually collided, though Finn still felt as though he had a lot of reputation to uphold. They nearly got married once, but that's a story in itself. Since then they've realised that they're crappy at long distance and now focus on frequent hook ups instead. Thus why I'm here and not at home. I love them both, but not enough to overhear them fucking." Blaine laughs.

"And that's why I'm quietly pleased that Santana took her pre-Brittany hook ups elsewhere."

"How long have you two known each other?" Kurt asks.

"Since I moved into her last apartment about two years ago, after I finished college. We moved here a few months ago because it's that much nicer than our last place. We're both making a bit more money now than we were then, so we can afford it."

"When did you two get so close? It doesn't seem like you have that much in common."

"You mean how do we live with one another when I'm an innocent puppy and she's a bitchy sex goddess?" Blaine quips. Kurt shrugs, smiling at the comparison.

"Sure."

"We embrace the differences. It made splitting chores a lot easier when we both preferred different jobs. We bring different opinions to most things and that means we make a really good team. We tease each other, but I love her. She's one of my best friends."

"How many best friends would you say you had?" Kurt asks.

"Three. Santana, Sebastian, and you." Kurt blushes.

"I'm one of your best friends?"

"Easily. We aren't soulmates for nothing, right?" Blaine reminds him. And boy, does he want to be soulmates with Kurt, to have that stereotyped soulmate romance. He knows that he is so ready to have something more with his new best friend.

"Right," Kurt agrees, shrugging it off, "What about you and Sebastian? How does that relationship work?"

"He offers me sex and I turn it down, and that's the general basis to our friendship. I'm nice to him when not a lot of other people are and it's really valuable for him, and he just needs a real friend sometimes."

"And then there's me."

"Yes. There's you."

"And how do you think our relationship is?"

"We're soulmates, forced together by job opportunities, and we're friends."

"Right," Kurt agrees, "I like things the way they are. I'm not sure I could handle much more than this at the moment."

Kurt hugs Blaine before they go their separate ways to bed that night, Kurt staying in Santana's room as she had offered earlier. Things between them are awkward, to say the least, having almost admitted to having a mutual crush but both being too fearful to act on anything, to even articulate anything they felt aloud. At least, they each could see the other fitting easily in their future. Blaine tosses and turns in his bed, fighting with himself about whether or not he had handled the situation well. Their roles had reversed sometime since their first meeting, with Blaine trying not to pressure Kurt into anything he wasn't ready for, when originally it had been Kurt who had said they could just be friends. He didn't want to mess this up, and when Kurt was so set on just being friends and affirming it almost every opportunity he had... well, he didn't think a declaration of love was in line.