Part Nine

"You turned him down?" Seth exclaimed, ignoring Wes and Quincy's looks of pure disbelief towards him. "Why would you turn him down, Blaine? He seemed so sweet, and he was very good-looking, and he's clearly in love with you, and, when he asked you, you seemed so happy. Why would you say no?"

"It's like we keep saying, there's no room in this lifestyle for dating!" Quincy put in, disregarding Blaine's miserable expression as he looked at the trio with dull eyes. "What we do is fuck and make money. I don't think I've even kissed someone outside of an appointment in weeks."

"I can't believe you had sex with him in this building, on one of the couches," Wes said, shaking his head. "He didn't even pay you. You're having sex with someone for fun and orgasms instead of money."

"Seth, I know you think I've somehow betrayed you, but it's perfectly within my rights to say no to one request for a relationship," Blaine said in a bored, disaffected monotone. "I don't think I'm seeing him again and I couldn't have a boyfriend. He'd want me to quit my job and I'm not going to change my entire life just for one person. I mean, he said he could cope with this being my work but I know he couldn't."

"What about David?" Seth asked, pressing on while Wes and Quincy appeared appeased by Blaine's reasoning and turned back to the lists of clients they were both analysing and highlighting carefully. "He's out of here and he's looking at marriage and kids. I heard he already met someone."

"He's older," Blaine said by way of excuse. A rather pathetic one, even by his standards. "He's nearly twenty-five and this just isn't something you want to do for that long." He remembered David's parting words, telling him to find Kurt and hold on to him and leave this place behind for a real life.

"But you've been here for nearly five years, same amount of time," Seth pointed out. "I don't think you should keep hanging around here working and earning all this money. I want to see you get out and say yes to Kurt's asking you to be his boyfriend."

"If you two are going to argue about right and wrong as far as romance goes, please go up to Seth's room so we don't have to listen to it," Wes said dully, continuing to mark up his schedule for the week. "Quincy, have you noticed you have two clients in two different places at the same time this Friday?"

"Dammit, Madame's been in the tequila again," Quincy muttered, noting the mistake on her scrap of paper. "Oh, if you see Roxanne, tell her to stay out of our room because I'm dying my hair once I'm done correcting this bloody schedule."

Seth stood up and dragged Blaine out of the room, leaving their schedules lying on a side table to be corrected by whichever bored resident of the building would want to fix someone else's schedule in an endlessly long Sunday afternoon. Blaine obediently followed the younger boy up the stairs, where the corridors were empty due to everyone being downstairs trying to wile away the long hours until Monday morning and work began again.

"Maybe I should've come here five years into the business halfway through the month," Blaine remarked as Seth ushered him into the single room, almost luxurious just in the space for an individual. "I'd love to have a single room, Trent is so neurotic about everything being perfect and pristine."

"We're not here to talk about my room," Seth said sternly, gesturing to the sofa pushed against the wall. "Take a seat, Blaine." Blaine obeyed the order of the younger boy, falling onto the overstuffed cushions as Seth smoothed the blankets folded at the end of his bed and sat down on the edge, feet up on a container filled with what looked like photographs. "Look, Blaine, you know we're friends," he began gently. "And it's because of our close friendship that I'm saying this to you: you're a fucking idiot."

"That's a little harsh, isn't it?" Blaine asked, tucking his knees up to his chin and resting his head there, looking at the younger boy, flushed with anger, with the gaze of a teacher upon an irate young student.

"No, it's not!" Seth exclaimed furiously. "There's a boy out there who's in love with you, Blaine! Who had the courage to tell you and ask you for commitment when he knows full well what your job is and the implications of it. And you're so stupid to just turn him down, I can't believe it. A month to think about it, to talk to Madame about arrangements and instead you throw your chance at happiness away. Why the hell would you do something like that?"

"Who would love me?" Blaine asked quietly. Seth looked at him sadly, looking more like a kicked puppy than ever before. "I'm a whore. I know I always say 'high-class prostitute', but honestly I'm nothing better than a whore. I am Smythe and Kings, I just have a better standard of living. Ordinary people don't fall in love with people like us." He blinked back tears as, in a dull monotone, he recited, "No one's ever loved me. My parents just wanted to mould me, and my dad actually started beating me up after I came out. My brother abandoned me with them. I've had sex with hundreds of people and not one of them has ever loved me."

"That's not true!" Seth exclaimed, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You have friends here, friends who love you. Me, Quincy, Wes, David, even Trent, no matter how much he complains. Your clients may not love you by the traditional definition, but they respect you and they pay you a small fortune. And then there's Kurt. He's in love with you, and that's all you could ever ask for." He looked almost longing, his tone wistful, as he added, "It's all I want."

"Seth?" Blaine watched his friend let out a long sigh before pinning the same stern expression on his face and turning back to him, clearly with every intention of continuing his argument for Blaine to chase Kurt up again. "This is about more than me and Kurt, isn't it? Who is she? Because you like someone."

"It doesn't matter," Seth muttered. "She wouldn't look twice at me. I'm just pining, like the pathetic little puppy I know you all call me behind my back. There's no reason for her to go for me."

"We mean the puppy thing as a compliment," Blaine said guiltily. "Everyone loves puppies." He considered for a moment. There weren't many girls he'd ever seen Seth speak to, and if she was someone who wouldn't look at him twice when half the girls in the building cooed over him, it didn't leave many. Assuming she was someone he saw often… "Oh Jesus fucking Christ, you like Quincy!" Blaine exclaimed triumphantly. "Wow, seriously? You and Quincy?"

"How did you…I mean, don't be silly!" Seth said hotly, affecting a demeanour of haughty disdain. "It's not her, it's…" He trailed off when Blaine arched an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "Fine, I like Quincy. What do you want me to do?"

"Seth and Quincy sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Blaine chanted cheerfully, winking at Seth when he glared. "Sorry, sorry, I know, immature. The opportunity was too good to be missed."

"Do you find my pain funny?" Seth asked haughtily. "It's not funny! God, she's never even looked twice at me, and she's so shameless about her work. I'm never going to have her, I may as well just give up now."

"Just wait for New Years," Blaine advised bracingly. "Every year, because we have two weeks off work entirely for Christmas, we throw a huge party and everyone gets completely smashed. When midnight strikes, you'll get your kiss. Nick and Jeff got together through that. Woke up in the morning, remembered kissing and realised they liked each other. And they've been together for over a year."

"On New Years, where will you be?" Seth asked. "Will you be partying here, getting really drunk and telling everyone every detail of your sexual encounters? Or will you be with Kurt, kissing him to ring in the year?" He stood up and opened his door. "They say you spend the entire year the way you spend New Year's Eve. Would you rather spend 2013 with us, or with Kurt? Just think about it."

"Thank you," Blaine said seriously as he left. He paused in the doorway, smirking mischievously, and turned to chant, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage!" A pillow sailed over his shoulder as he darted down the corridor, laughing.

Blaine walked through the corridors, his pace slowing with every step until he ground to a stop outside the door to his and Trent's room, slowly opening the door and collapsing onto his bed, pulling the covers up and around his shoulders.

Everything was difficult. Everything had changed so quickly in the space of one appointment, with one man, one day in what should have been a perfectly normal working week. He could've doubted Kurt's feelings, he knew he could. But he had sounded so incredibly genuine, and he had never struck Blaine as the type to lie for personal gain.

Blaine seemed to change around him - he could feel it, right down to his very bones. He wasn't the scarred, shunned second Anderson son, or the expert, well-paid, in-demand prostitute. He was just a man, held in the loving arms of another, falling for the eyes that didn't know any part of him but the façade of an experienced, confident, self-consciously sexy professional. Falling for Kurt, his youth and naïvety and beauty, the grateful murmurs in the depths of the night, a soft smile across a bed that might as well be an ocean for the distance between them, a hand covering his in a gesture of pure loving intimacy, something he'd never had.

He'd spent eight years wondering if anyone could care about him. Losing a little piece of himself in each insult, heart breaking with every time his father took a hand to him, tears cried in the middle of the night for the same awful thing, wondering each day if he would ever awake from this nightmare. A fist to his jaw, knocking him across the room, running out into the rain, running and running with clothes plastered to his skin and shoes filled with dirty water until he reached the building, his light in the darkness. Sacrificing his dignity every day just to pay his way in his new luxurious way of living. Wishing every day for a year to find someone who would love him, save him from this lifestyle.

Wishing for a boyfriend. Someone who was in love with him, and would never be afraid to admit it. Walk down the street holding his hand, dance with him under the streetlight, kiss him beneath a star-peppered sky. A date for weddings, parties, celebrations for the smallest achievement. To wake up in the morning and be glad to see a face on the pillow next to him, holding the same person close to him every night without complaint, cooking next to each other, enquiries about his day when he got home. To have love. To have someone who could be his forever, and have him as their forever.

Someone like Kurt.