By Friday, Blaine had all but given the idea up.

            It had been three days since Rachel and Kurt had paid his shop a visit, an abnormally long period of time for Blaine to be hung up on any one person. This was considering Blaine seldom got “hung up” on anyone. But he’d gotten the tick out of his system last night, and after haven woken up alone in his bed with Sebastian thankfully gone, he felt… not calmer, really. Muted, less on edge. Which was good, as he had a full sleeve to do this morning. The client was visiting from California, and needed it done by the end of the day. So Blaine arrived at his shop before the sun was even barely risen, cars behind him a thrum that stuttered with traffic. October had peaked early that day, and his lips tingled with a glorious chill. The streets smelled like ozone, like sweet, like people and coffee and smoke.

            When he tried the keys in door, he was surprised to find it already open. Frowning, Blaine pushed at the door and admitted himself. The parlor lights were off, but the strobes that remained on constantly provided just enough glow to see by.

            He heard footsteps, and Quinn’s voice saying, “Hey—“ and immediately trailing off when she rounded the corner and spotted Blaine standing there, already tugging his jacket off and shoving his keys in its pocket. “You’re ridiculously early, what are you doing here?”

            “Back at you,” Blaine said, moving past her towards his station. He threw his jacket on the desk, sending several things toppling over, before tugging the top drawer open and plucking out a few packaged needles. “I have a Wes coming in here at eight, he’s getting a full sleeve. He’ll be here in an hour.”

            “I thought he wasn’t due in til nine, and even that’s pushing it with you.”

            “It was a personal favor.”

            “You know him?”

            Blaine didn’t reply except to pull his work bench closer, sliding it open to reveal bottle upon bottle of ink. A full arm piece, it had been on his mind for a month ever since the appointment had been made. An entire arm, his fingers practically trembled at the thought.

            “You told me the appointment was at nine,” Quinn insisted.

            “Well I fucking changed it,” Blaine finally snapped. “I own this place, I can change them if I want to.”

            “You need to tell me so I can adjust the ledger.”

            “What the fuck for? He’s my only appointment today, it’s no big deal, so mind your own—“

            It was then that the reason behind Quinn’s upset walked through the door. He stopped on the doorstep upon spotting Blaine, before drawing himself up that extra inch (the long, long lines and angles of him) and marching over to Quinn, portfolio tucked under his arm.

            Blaine stopped to stare a moment. Kurt looked like he’d walked out straight from some sort of hipster blog. Knee-high boots, skinny black jeans, gray pea coat, heavily draped cotton scarf with subtle paisley pattern. Hair, of course, immaculate, cheeks and nose pinched pink from the cold.

            It was more annoying to Blaine than anything that despite having worked it thoroughly from his system the night before, every inch of his skin suddenly felt starved of touch. His fingers craved to feel and wreck, and every clean part of him wanted to be dirty with sweat and hot from too much skin.

            But the ignorant object of his attentions was determinedly ignoring him, conversing with Quinn in pointedly hushed tones, back to Blaine. Which was a shame. The coat fit to his waistline snugly, but the cut really cropped out the money shot.

            Suddenly remembering that this was his damn chance, and that he had a right to know why people were showing up before hours, he made his way back to the front desk where Kurt was closing the portfolio and pushing it towards Quinn.

            “If you could,” Kurt said, still refusing to look at Blaine.

            “If she could what?” Blaine asked, stopping just short of too close. “Morning, Kurt.”

            Kurt didn’t bother to return the pleasantry. “Something for Santana,” he said stiffly.

            “Oh?”

            “And none of your business.”

            “This is my business, so of course it is.”

            “It’s Rachel monstrosity of a mistake,” Kurt said waspishly, and the jab hit Blaine at a surprisingly personal level. “And clearly I’ve made one myself in agreeing to come here in her stead. If you’ll excuse me…”

            As Kurt began to walk away, Blaine thought several things over quickly in his head. Blood roared through his veins, a good part petitioning towards a very inconvenient part of his anatomy that would help him to his job at all today. But how much more satisfying it would seem, knowing that the whole day would end in one hell of a fuck? An ending to a very long session, in which his muscles would be so strung up tight. Because instead of his energy draining the longer he worked, it built like a bonfire and he needed something to waste it on before having any chance of relaxing. Or in this case, someone.

            “Hey, Kurt, hold up.”

            Kurt did, with an exaggerated sigh and cocky tilt to his head, looking down at Blaine in a way he certainly didn’t appreciate. Blaine wanted him looking up, looking way up, wanted those narrow eyes wide and begging and for that mouth to follow. And there was just so much unmarked skin that Blaine could paint tattoos on with his tongue, the chance to imagine biting ink into his veins, tattooing him and marking him until he fell apart between the sheets and finally broke for one damn second. Blaine wanted to break that façade for him, it would be the perfect way to end a day like this.

            “You’re a student, right?” Blaine asked, sidling up and pushing his hands into his pockets. Arching his shoulders, standing straight, feet spread slightly apart, and he knew what the flicker in Kurt’s eyes meant, it was the most obvious thing in the world to Blaine. He knew what lust was when he saw it. This would be the easy part.

            “…how did you know that?” Kurt asked slowly, one eyebrow slowly rising.

            Blaine answered, “You seem it. Stressful, being a student in a city like this while all the fun goes on around you. I think you need to loosen up a bit…”

            Blaine knew very well the difference between juvenile romance and a relationship between adults, or in this case, the lack of one. The idea of a commitment-free affair became more feasible as one grew older, when schedules were too busy, people too set in their ways to ever possibly change for another human being, hearts too hesitant to ever leave your chest and gallop after someone else’s.

            That’s what Blaine saw when he looked at Kurt. He didn’t see romantic dinners, or meeting parents, late-night movies, lovers’ spats over who forgot to take out the trash, sharing circles of friends, sharing a home. He saw the convenience of a mutual sexual attraction, the benefits without the insecurities and inconveniences of a relationship. It was a well-used formula—to go out for drinks, to have maybe half of one before moving on to a bed—preferably Kurt’s, to give Blaine the freedom of leaving whenever he wanted.

            And from then on, a text would be all it took. A text, a date, a time, and they’d do it all over again without ever having the expectations of anything more, nor the pretense that anything was going anywhere beyond a decent orgasm.

            A drink, a bed, and again until they got bored. It was simple.

            “So maybe we could grab a coffee some time.”

            Fuck. What.

            For a moment, Blaine couldn’t believe that the words had come from his mouth. But Kurt was staring at him, flabbergasted. Quinn had looked up to stare from over her magazine, having watched him work the same routine for so long in so many variations that it seemed to have derailed her entire perception of him. Blaine snapped his mouth shut, as if to somehow take the words back. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee didn’t come before sex, it didn’t even come in the evening, it came in mornings and afternoons leaving agape an entire empty evening that wouldn’t get Blaine anywhere he wanted to be. It would get him sitting across from Kurt in some teenage-esque coffee shop, drinking some fruity latte and eating too-sweet biscotti. It would leave room for conversation that went beyond small talk, hell it would lead to talking, it would lead to noticing and above all noticing what shade those eyes took under a different lighting.

            But before Blaine could somehow correct himself, Kurt was speaking. It was the first time he’d ever spoken Blaine’s name, and that brought it into sharper focus. “Blaine, I wouldn’t share a cup of coffee with you unless it was to pour it onto your crotch. And although I love a good homage to classic rom coms as much as the next gay, I think I’ll save us both the pain and time.”

            He was out the door before Blaine could think of a good excuse to stop him.

--

            Four hours later still found Blaine in a scorched mood. Wes was used to this type of attitude, and ignored it mostly. He was the quiet type, and took Blaine’s foul temper in his stride and obediently sat as still as a tree.

            Santana ambushed him in the back office when Web and Blaine took a brief break. With his tattoo wrapped in seran wrap, Wes had departed down the block for a coffee and a club sandwich. Having declined an offer for lunch, Blaine threw himself down onto the couch, digging through his pocket for a pack and a lighter. This was where Santana found him, aggressively smoking his second cigarette.

            “What the hell overdosed and died in your loose-ended asshole?” Santana snapped, blazing through the door with Quinn treading smoothly behind her.

            Blaine didn’t spare her a glance. “I’m not paying you for this shit.”

            “My talent pays for itself.”

            “Fucking god, go back to your corner then.”

            Quinn interrupted their tirade as she dug in the minifridge for her lunch. “Our little Blainey Days asked someone out today.”

            Unable to find any existing curse apt enough to coincide with the retort in his head, Blaine shot her a glare his ironic manners usually kept him from giving women.

            “Oh?” Santana purred, instantly all coy smiles. “Really? Anyone I know?”

            “That Kurt kid from Monday,” Quinn replied before Blaine could stop her. “He was the one with Rachel.” She smirked, popping the lid from a tupperware container of salad as Santana strode across the room, swung a chair around, and sat on it backwards. “He invited him out for coffee.”

            “Coffee? Oh wow!” Santana fluttered her eyelash, wiggled her shoulders, and delicately interlaced her fingers beneath her shoulders as she leaned further over the chair. “How darling. Is it a date then? You know it’s only a date if you hold hands.”

            “Blaine won’t be holding anything, hands or otherwise,” Quinn interjected. “Because someone got rejected.”

            Santana’s face suddenly looked exactly like a child’s would on Christmas morning, and Blaine felt the sudden urge to make himself very scarce indeed. He crammed his unfinished cigarette into the ashtray with far more force than was strictly necessary, and flipped open the lid of his MacBook with equal roughness.

            “Oh Blaine,” Santana breathed, lethal glee in her eye. “Oh you poor baby.”

            “Fuck off,” Blaine grouched, pulling up his e-mail account with several stabs at the keyboard. “I’m not paying you to patronize me.”

            Santana bulldozed through that. “That’s gotta be so rough for you. What was it that turned him off? Was it the invitation to meet your parents? Was the promise ring too much, too soon?”

            Ignoring all this, Blaine said, “I wouldn’t say he was necessarily turned off.”

            “Me neither,” Quinn agreed. “He’d have to be on for that to happen.”

            Santana’s laugh cracked like a whip, making Quinn smirk. “So did he have anything to say to your little love declaration? Does he already have a butt buddy on the side? Is he saving himself for Mr. Right? Or, plot twist, Misses Right?”

            “It’s not fucking like that and you know it,” Blaine finally snapped, stabbing away at the keyboard and not caring at all that his anger was probably fairly transparent in the reply he was writing to a client inquiring about details and pricing for a back piece. That tattoo would be a bitch on the spine, though, so she might as well get used to it.

            “Blaine,” Quinn said slowly, “you asked him out for coffee. On a date, you poof.”

            “Well yeah, does he seem like a fucking frat boy to you two? Pay attention for a goddamn moment, it’s not hard, he wasn’t gonna go for drinks.” And as Blaine said that, it started to make sense. What he’d said earlier was, in retrospect, quite clever. Kurt struck Blaine as the type who’d much rather sit over a cup of coffee than over-priced and over-water cocktails and tap beer. He’d still said no, but regardless…

            “He still said no,” Quinn voiced his thoughts, slinking down to sit next to Santana.

            “So he’s playing a bit hard to get at, probably thinks it’s cute. I probably came off too… interested, maybe. Once we get all our intentions hammered out, it’ll be easy. Maybe even easier.”

            “And by intentions, you mean you just want a quick fuck,” Santana clarified, a rare note of approval in her voice.

            “No shit,” Blaine muttered, finishing off his e-mail and hitting Send before flipping the lid shut. Wes would be back any minute, and he had gorgeous work to do. He was too busy to be worrying so much over nothing.

            “Not all men are obsessed with sex,” drawled Quinn, while Santana shook her head in dismay at her.

“Trust me, he’s a guy,” Blaine argued, standing and heading for the door. “He was born with that second, stupid brain. All I have to do is make sure he does a bit more of his thinking with it.”

--

            That morning Blaine surveyed himself almost critically in the mirror, tugging at the ripped neckline of his shirt. He had torn quite a few shirt collars in order to bear the tattoo beneath, a black bowtie that was inked so impeccably it seemed like it would feel like real silk if touched. It was tugged taught underneath a similarly designed collar that wrapped around the circumference of his neck. From beneath the collar, whose cloth wrinkled and bulged in spots, were thick metallic stalks and vines, with leaves as sharp and unforgiving as steel. And choked between the shrapnel, pierced deeply by the metal thorns of the artificial mechanic vines, were rich white gardenia that somehow still grew. That breathed with a life of their own, despite how impossible and broken their existence seemed.

            He rubbed a thin amount of gel in-between his hands before running them backwards through his hair, dragging the curls momentarily straight before they immediately bounced back. He’d chosen matching obsidian pieces for the piercings on his face and ears, and smeared a thin smudge of black liner alone the outer corners of his eyes. The small X on the corner of his face was only half visible beneath a lock of stray hair.

            Blaine touched a finger to it gently, scraping its edges with his nails as if expecting it to peel away like paint. Then he flicked the bathroom light off, checked his pockets for wallet and phone, and grabbed his keys on the way out the door.

            When Blaine arrived at Warbler’s, it was to a twice-familiar scene. Rachel was there again, and from this angle Blaine could see the tattoo Santana appeared to be just finishing. It was lush in color, the music bars done in green and gray, and the thorn-like birds both attached and in flight seemingly jumping off her skin. Santana was touching up the edges of a rose petal when Blaine walked up behind them.

            Kurt was there, of course. Again holding Rachel’s hand and, again, ignoring Blaine’s very existence. He seemed almost bored, although wincing slightly as Rachel strangled his hand.

            “Just in time, Anderson,” Santana said, drawing back and giving Rachel’s tattoo a last wipe down. “Go check it out, sweetie.”

            Rachel, who’d just glanced over her shoulder to see Blaine, took the time to throw Kurt an extremely pointed smirk. It was met with a look of absolute disdain, but Blaine’s interest was certainly piqued.

            Rachel rose gingerly to her feet to make her way to the mirror, leaving Kurt to sit alone there. While Santana went to stand beside Rachel, Blaine carefully watched Kurt’s face. He wore an interesting, if subdued expression. It was difficult to read the gentle nuances in such a carefully stoic face. His pretty mouth was set in an uninterested line, eyes half-lidded as if about to fall asleep out of boredom. But his stiff posture bellied all that. Shoulders still ramrod straight, legs delicately crossed over the other, hands primly crossed over his knees. Blaine wished he wouldn’t. He didn’t have a type, necessarily, but he loved to wreck the pretty and beautiful. Symmetry was his enemy, chaos his crutch. Kurt couldn’t know, obviously, what his just sitting there did to Blaine but damn it all if Blaine didn’t blame him anyway.

            “Gorgeous,” Blaine said, causing Kurt to narrow his eyes at him. Smirking, he looked into Rachel’s eyes in the mirror. “Perfect placement.”

            “Thank you,” Rachel gushed while Santana preened.

            “Know what it could use?” Blaine walked up to her, tilted his head, and placed a forefinger just above the flower. “Maybe some old music scores, running down vertically behind the rose.”

            Santana bit at the inside of her cheek, eyes narrowed, before nodding slightly. “What color?”

            “Orange or brown, to mimic something older?”

            “Gold.”

            “Gold would work.”

            Rachel’s face looked excited, but what drew Blaine’s attention was the impatient exhalation behind him. Blaine peered over at the perpetrator, and felt smug to know that Kurt’s gaze was fixed solely on him.

            “That’s a cute face.” It came out as more of a sneer than Blaine intended it to, but there was no way of taking it back. “But rather than get jealous, I’d be happy to ink you, too.”

            Kurt’s eyes flashed. “If you come anywhere near me with that thing,” he gestured to Santana’s tattoo gun, which she promptly rose and took aim at him with from her place beside Rachel, “and I’ll use it tattoo right up your—“

            “So do you want the detailing or not?” Santana said, affectively cutting the two off. “Free of charge.”

            “Ooh, yes!”

            “No.”

            Rachel shot him a look. “It’s not your body, Kurt.”

            “You don’t even know for sure what he’s going to put on you, Rachel, you seem to think this stuff is like Sharpe but it is not going to come off.” Before Rachel could say anything else, Kurt rounded on Blaine, but not with what Blaine was expecting. “You want to spread your egotistical, nonsensical nonsense on other’s people skin, fine, shame on anyone who lets you. But you’re not doing anything to Rachel’s tattoo unless you show her what it is first.”

            Blaine’s eyebrow show up, and he began to chew at the inside of his snakebites again, a habit he could have sworn he’d kicked. “Can’t really do that.”

            “Do one of those pictures, on paper. Show her and then if she says yes…”

            “No can do, baby,” Blaine cut him off, feeling like everything about this day wasn’t anywhere near his expectations. “I don’t use stencils.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Open your ears and I wouldn’t have to. I don’t use fucking stencils.”

            “I heard you, you insufferable cad, but how hard can it be to draw it on a piece of paper.”

            “That’s not how I work you arrogant shit…” And Blaine just wanted to shut him up…

            “Wow.” Kurt let out an exaggerated huff of air, flinging back into his seat and crossing his arms over his chest, head cocked. “Aren’t you such a precious, special little,” oh Blaine couldn’t tell if he wanted to fuck him or fuck him and then kill him, “genius then, how foolish of me to assume you’d ever sink so low as to do anything normal.”

            “We do have a private room for this sort of thing,” Santana pointed out.

            Ignoring the testosterone-fueled dispute going on behind her, Rachel contemplated breezily, “I do think I’ll leave it how it is, but thank you, Mr. Anderson. I believe that an original work of art needs ample time to be appreciated before any rudimentary artistic differences should be made to it.”

            “The worst part of this is,” Santana said, eyes drawn back to Rachel, “that you’re not even sarcastic. This is legitimately how you are.”

            “You know, I was serious about that tattoo,” Blaine said in quiet tones, stepping closer to where Kurt sat still on the stool. He stopped, and then took a pointed step forward, deliberately placing himself too close for a seemingly casual conversation. Kurt very clearly noticed, a twinge of pink blushing high on his cheeks. “I’ll cut you a good price.”

            Kurt breathed deeply, in and out, and said through gritted teeth, “It’s amazing how you can keep a business, if this is how you treat customers.” He stood up from the chair slowly and gracefully. The boots he wore today put him a good several inches above Blaine, but the height difference didn’t have the menacing affect Kurt probably hoped it would.

            “Oh, so you would like to be a customer.”

            Kurt said nothing, seemingly at a loss for words at the accusation. The accomplishment of wrong-footing Kurt was delicious.

            “How about hanging around with me a little longer, I’ll even sketch shit out for you, since you’re so fixed on the idea. Check out some of my work. I haven’t met anyone yet who I haven’t been able to convince otherwise.”

            “Wow,” Kurt sneered, having finally found his voice. “You possess the exceptionally rare capability of coercing someone into doing something they never wanted in the first place. Your mother must be so proud.”

            “My mother’s a homophobic bitch who wouldn’t be proud of me if I cured cancer,” Blaine replied in such an off-handed way that Kurt’s jaw fell agape. Blaine grinned at him, tilting his head to the side, because that was Kurt struck dumb twice in as many minutes and this was just getting easier and easier. “So since you’ve gone ahead and insulted me, possibly scarring me for life, I think the least you could do to make it up to me is let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

            Kurt snorted his disdain, but his words held less venom than Blaine knew he longed to fill them with. “You’re still stuck on that. Coffee? Are we high schoolers now?”

            “Wouldn’t know. Never made much of a student, baby.” This was only partially true. He did, but only up until his eighteenth birthday in the eleventh grade.

            “Stop calling me that, I have a name you ignoramus, you’re not my boyfriend and you don’t get to pick out cutesy little nicknames.”

            “Oh, excuse me, am I stepping in someone’s territory?”

            “Are you attempting,” Kurt said slowly, “to ask, in your eloquent and oh so subtle way, if I’m single?”

            “How retarded of me, of course you are, who the fuck is going to put up with such a shit ton of so much bitching—“

            “Kurt! Stop flirting and come take a picture for my blog!”

            Of course Rachel had brought an actual camera.

            Blaine thought he heard Kurt muttered, “As if,” as he made his way to Rachel, and he smirked at his back. But before Kurt had the chance to entirely pass him, Blaine darted a hand out. It was anything essentially lecherous, just a pass of his palm skimming along his hip. But nevertheless, it had the desired effect. Kurt’s eye flew back to him, blown wide with… not surprise. Something different. But the blush was back, and he looked to be teetering on the edge of saying something before he turned back to Rachel.

            Blaine’s hand flexed. He could feel the warmth of him through Kurt’s jeans.

Leaving the two to bicker over lighting with Santana making unhelpful suggestions on the sidelines, Blaine made his way into the backroom. He’d brought his iPad with him today, and on it was a portfolio of work he wasn’t quite accustomed to showing customers. It was slightly… prettier, perhaps. More colorful, more avante guard, less metropolitan. Blaine had initially brought up the tattoo as just a liner, but as with the offer for coffee, once the words were out of his mouth they began to take route. This seemed to be how Blaine’s mind worked; like his tattooing. He had to see the idea before him before he ever knew what it was about.

            And now, he was thinking of that skin in a very different viewpoint. Not that Blaine could ever say he separated his work from play; he’d tattooed quite a few partners in the past, even let one or two tattoo him. But all that tightly-constrained emotion, that rigid posture, the poise and the ice of him, he needed something to wear on his sleeve. Kurt needed ink, something to mark his carefully constructed armor with to show that somewhere beneath the scowl and the utter bitchiness of him, there was a heart. Deep down. Quite possibly very deep down.

            Fuck the coffee. Fuck drinks. Blaine could tattoo him on this chair, he could fuck him on this chair with fresh ink, Blaine’s ink, shining on his skin.

            And now he had a boner. Fantastic.

            Blaine had to stop himself in the backroom for several long minutes, simultaneously thinking and trying very hard not to think at all. Kurt, inked. Something small and hard to see? Something that you could only see half of before it dipped beneath his clothes? A song with lyrics wrenched in ennui, or an instrumental with no lyrics to speak of but the ones Blaine would permanently etch into his skin?

            And Blaine would know it was there, and the possessiveness wasn’t anything new. Every artist felt some amount of pride over their work, but this worked quite a bit deeper under Blaine’s skin because it would be on Kurt. Maybe some place only Blaine would know about. A shoulder piece for him to stare at as he bent his body to just how he liked it. An arm tattoo he could lick and bite at while trying to keep him from thrashing. Something on his thigh to clutch when those long, long legs straddled Blaine’s waist and Kurt rode him until the edges of the earth shattered.

            The pants Blaine was wearing were really quite inconvenient for this problem.

           So he got his iPad, flicked it to life, and busied himself looking for the folder. It made much more sense now, his own motivations. Why he was so determined to get this one. Blaine wanted to give him a tattoo, and Kurt wasn’t the first he’d had ambitions like that for. And like those before him, it wouldn’t take much. Some careful flattery, roguish charm, maybe some gentle but passive aggressive taunting.

            From an objective standpoint, Blaine realized, it very much mirrored how he got people into bed.

            When he finally left the backroom, iPad tucked under his arm, Rachel and Kurt were once again at the front. Or more like, Kurt was rudely waiting at the door for Rachel to finish payment. His jacket was already on, and his eyes trained to his phone. He was jabbing at it rather angrily. Blaine could relate.

            Blaine suddenly realized, he had yet to see Kurt smile. An odd thing, after meeting someone three times to have never seen them once crack a grin. Kurt’s mouth seemed permanently set in an admittedly very attractive frown.

            “How is it students can keep on skipping classes during the weekdays?” Blaine asked as he finally drew level with Kurt at the door.

            Kurt replied with a curt, “None of your business.”

            Gritting his teeth, and forcing a smile on his lips, Blaine asked, “So since you’re already playing hooky, would you honor me with your company a while longer?” His proper tones were teasing, but Blaine made a point to slowly look Kurt from head to toe, pausing at all the best places, so Kurt would know. So hopefully, with a few cleared intentions, he could calm down…

            “Believe it or not, I have better things to do with my time than hang out amidst bad decisions and punk rock arts and crafts projects.”

          Oh this was like pulling teeth. “Christ, would it hurt you to lighten up and crack a smile every now and then?” he finally asked, exhaling roughly, hand coming up to scuff his hair as his own smile dropped from his face.

            “I don’t look good when I smile,” Kurt replied in a monotone, still not looking up from his phone. “Leave me alone.”

            “Oh right, right,” Blaine said in tones dripping with false sincerity because he had just about had enough, but didn’t know why he couldn’t stop himself. This should not be this hard when it was supposed to be so easy. “You only look good standing there like a stuck up tease, excuse me—“

            But Blaine didn’t get to finish the insult, because Kurt snapped.

            Blaine stumbled a step backward as Kurt’s phone narrowly missed his nose. Two fingers jabbed in Blaine’s direction, every line of his body seemingly to shake; Blaine felt no small amount of satisfaction that he’d finally managed to make a crack in that mask of his, even if it was a bad one.

            “Listen to me, you self-absorbed, irrefutably meaningless waste of space. Whatever is going through that clusterfuck you call a thought process, don’t you dare think for one single second that you’ll find a fuck with me because I have never been less interested in my entire life and Anderson, I grew up in Ohio. So go peddle your STD’s to someone who ever gave less than a rat’s turd about themselves, because I have some amount of self-respect and every moment I spend in your company is a moment I will never get back.”

            And for the second time, Kurt stormed out right in front of his eyes, pace showing no signs of waiting for his companion. Blaine craned his head back a bit to catch a glimpse of a very angry silhouette before it turned a corner and was out of sight. Two seconds later, Rachel went barreling after him, cutting Blaine a look. He expected her to look angry, but the expression on her face was far from it, if not totally unreadable. She seemed to be considering him for a split second before she too was gone from his shop.

            “Hmm,” Quinn breathed, coming to stand behind him. “That went well.’

            “Whatever,” Blaine said. “He’s got his head shoved so far up his ass I wouldn’t have gotten anything in there anyway.”

            Quinn knew better than to be shocked, but she looked unimpressed all the same. “Wow,” she drawled. “And you wonder why he didn’t want to date you. I’m stunned.”

            “For the last time, I wasn’t asking him out on any goddamn date—“

--

            Just over a week later, in sweats and nothing else, Blaine gave up channel surfing and lurched off the couch to pick a movie instead. It was the first time he’d moved since nine that morning, when he traversed from bed to couch to achieve some small accomplishment before digging through the couch cushions for the remote.

            It had been… a long week.

            It felt like he’d left a project unfinished, and for all his recklessness and spontaneity Blaine didn’t half-ass anything. What made it that much worse was knowing there really wasn’t much started anyway, but still, the open-endedness of it bothered him.

            He shouldn’t have blurted out that shit about tattooing Kurt, Blaine thought, flicking through his DVD collection. Not for Kurt’s sake, but his own. His waking moments, when the gun hovered in his hand before it touched skin, he saw a back before him that was covered in white, like untouched snow. A full, endless expanse, a blank sheet, and it was Blaine’s job to ink between the lines. To sew into his skin the things Kurt never wanted bared to the world.

            Blaine wanted. He had a million ideas at once time, one or two another, no fixated idea. But he knew once he has the man before him, in his chair and his parlor, he’d just know.

            Blaine hadn’t realized he’d been flipping a DVD case in his hand until it tumbled from his absent-minded grab. Startled, he reached down and plucked it from the ground, giving it an appraising look before flipping the case open. Why not?

            He was halfway through the third scene when there was a loud knock on the door. Quickly pausing the film, he waited. Most of his acquaintances would have been shouting threw the paper thin door now, but there was silence now from the other side. Until the pounding started again, louder this time.

            Sighing, and entirely disregarding his semi-dressed state, Blaine pulled himself reluctantly from the sofa he hadn’t been planning on leaving for the rest of the day.

            “Fucking hold on,” Blaine grumbled as a third round of violent knocking started. “Jesus Christ…”

            Blaine pulled the door open, angry words just beginning to form, when his lips went numb. A split second later, his cheek went numb too, as Kurt slowly lowered his trembling hand, having smacked Blaine clear across the face.