“Well, Blaine, Santana, these lovely people are going to take you now, and when we get you back you’ll be looking...” Fiona Reading coughed awkwardly, allowing herself to be led away by one of the members of staff.

Nicholas smiled encouragingly at the young duo as several brightly clad women, the beauticians, tittered over, grinning at Blaine. He heard the word ‘eyebrows’ and swallowed nervously.

“Hi, you must be Blaine!” One of them exclaimed, taking his arm gently, “We’re here to make you look ... um, nice.”

Blaine’s mouth ran dry, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Santana being led in the opposite direction.
He was taken to a rigid looking steel chair with thin black leather cushioning, and couldn’t stop the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something told him this was going to be painful.

The first wax strip was ripped from Blaine’s brow line and he bit back a sharp yelp. One of the beauticians examined the wax strip, wrinkling her nose at the coarse black hairs. Blaine’s eyes watered; why did people do this? Eyebrows were just... eyebrows, something not requiring maintenance, or so he’d always thought. He hoped he’d still have some left at the end; it felt like they were taking each hair out individually.

Finally, the pain subsided and Blaine glanced over in the mirror. They were no different, if not more angular than before.

With a sigh, Blaine turned his attention back to where one of the assistants was mixing a foamy looking substance. She turned to him, fluttering her bright blue eyelashes.
“Now we’re going to shave your face.”

Blaine nodded, leaning back in the chair and jutting his jaw out as the cream was gently spread on his chin and lower cheeks.

He closed his eyes, feeling the gentle scrape of the razor blade along his face, praying that whoever this person was knew how to get that awkward spot just under his chin that he always seemed to miss. Blaine’s eyes flicked open, a slight sting piercing just under his ear.

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!” The lady gushed, pressing a cotton pad against the nick in Blaine’s skin as gently as she could.

“It’s okay,” Blaine murmured as he closed his eyes once more, grateful that this all only had to happen once.
A cool cloth was wiped over his face, and he hissed as something with an overly obnoxious smell was rubbed around his jaw, not helped by the rather unpleasant sting that came with it.

“Alright, and now we’ve just got to cut and style your hair. Kurt will probably end up changing it, but we get told to make you look a certain way.”

Blaine just nodded again, not really caring what was happening to him anymore.

He sat staring at the floor as his hair was snipped and styled, his long-ish curls refined slightly closer to his scalp.

A mirror was placed in front of him, and Blaine sighed sadly at how short his hair now was. Although he still had a few curls framing his face, creeping across his forehead, he felt so bald in comparison to how his hair had been before.

The mirror was taken away, and then they put the hair product in.

If Blaine thought he’d looked and felt essentially bald before, it was nothing to what the three women were using to plaster his hair to his scalp.

It made his hair shine, and smelled funny, and he didn’t really like it. However there wasn’t much else he could do, other than hope that this Kurt person would be able to make it look better.

“Alright, well you’re all done Blaine; Kurt will be in here soon to do his thing.”

Blaine slumped in his chair: he was absolutely exhausted and ready for sleep. He just wanted to forget about taking part in the tribute parade. He had just started to doze when there was a soft rap on the wall, and he blinked sleepily.

“Blaine Anderson?”

“Mm, tha’s me,” Blaine mumbled tiredly, unable to pay much attention to whoever the soft voice belonged to due to his exhaustion. He cracked an eye open, immediately rubbing at his eyes in disbelief as he stared at the gorgeous man standing in front of him. Blaine’s eyes widened and he felt his cheeks flush.

Whoever the man in front of him was, he definitely surpassed all preconceived notions of perfection Blaine had. Blaine wondered if this was how it felt to be resuscitated: his heart was racing a million miles a minute and he felt like someone had doused him with a cold bucket of water. Blaine realised with horror that his cheeks felt almost painfully warm, and he ducked his head to try and hide the obnoxious shade of bright red that had overtaken his face.

His blatant, albeit brief ogling was ended when the attractive man hissed sharply, causing Blaine to snap his gaze, which had been travelling... other places, back up to his face.

“Good God, Blaine, what have they done to your hair?!”
Blaine shrugged absently, eyes focused now on the other man’s immaculate hair.

“I’m Kurt Hummel, by the way, and I’m going to be your stylist.”

Blaine shook the elegant hand that was extended towards him, wary of how sweaty his palms must have felt to Kurt.
“So, what on earth did they assault your curls with?”
Blaine glanced up to see Kurt was now standing very close to him. Almost too close for comfort, if Kurt Hummel wasn’t such an incredibly attractive person.

Blaine cleared his throat nervously, “I uh, don’t really know, they just chucked some stuff on it. It smells weird.”

Kurt heaved a sigh, “Gosh and look at your eyebrows too. I’m so sorry, I swear those women don’t actually know what they’re doing and I can already see that on my first day.”
Blaine smiled softly, the blush in his cheeks not fading as Kurt’s gaze raked over him.

“We’re going to get all of this gel out of your hair, then I’m going to try and make you look a bit more... a bit more how I imagine you would like to.” Kurt said with an air of decisiveness.

Kurt led Blaine over to a small stall, sitting him down in a chair vaguely similar to the one in which Blaine had sat to have his face shaved and eyebrows waxed.

“If you sit down here and lean your head back we’ll get that god-awful stuff out of your hair.”

Blaine nodded, the faint remainder of a blush still dusting his cheeks. He couldn’t deny the fact that Kurt was extremely attractive, and the way that Kurt’s piercing blue eyes crinkled with a smile whenever they met with Blaine’s own drove him wild.

Blaine scolded himself; Kurt was a stranger. Someone paid by the Capitol to make him look good. Any hints of a crush Blaine thought he may have had were crushed as soon as he remembered the fact that no matter what happened, he was here to die.

“-aine? Is everything okay?” Kurt’s face bore a troubled expression, his hand resting gingerly on Blaine’s forehead.

“Sorry?”

“You sort of zoned out for a bit there when I was setting everything up... are you okay if we get this horrendous hair product out now?”

Blaine chuckled, nodding and leaning his neck in the small dip of the basin.

Kurt fiddled around for a few moments, and Blaine allowed his eyes to droop closed. There was something about Kurt’s company that made him feel different from all the other people he’d so often had to associate with back in District 12.

Blaine gasped a little at the initial feel of warm water against his neck, relaxing as Kurt’s hands began to loosen his hair from the prison of gel it had been immersed in. He hummed in contentment as Kurt’s fingers massaged his scalp softly; sighing as they brushed gently through his natural curls.

“Your hair is beautiful.” Kurt murmured.

Blaine didn’t know what to say to that, so just pretended he hadn’t heard it; he could have easily been asleep if he looked anywhere near as peaceful as he was feeling.

“So do you have a girlfriend back home?” Kurt enquired, his voice breaking the comfortable silence that had drifted between the two.

Blaine laughed in response; a sharp bark which caused Kurt to jump in surprise.

“Sorry, no I... I’m gay,” Blaine chuckled, smiling slightly at the small ‘oh’ of surprise Kurt had made.
Kurt cleared his throat awkwardly, cursing himself for reacting the way he had.

“Oh, okay...me too.”

“I guess we’ll have to share stories sometime then,” Blaine said with a grin, inwardly cursing himself for flirting; something that was very unlike him to do.

Kurt smiled softly, “I guess we will. How’s your hair feeling?”

“Less plastered to my scalp, but still too short.”
Kurt chuckled; running a hand through Blaine’s soaked hair, twisting the curls softly.

“Well I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make it grow any faster, sorry, but we’ll work with what we’ve got.”

Blaine smiled up at Kurt, getting lost easily in the young man’s fascinating eyes. He couldn’t quite pick the colour they most resembled, but it didn’t matter; they were simply beautiful.

“Alrighty, so I guess we should probably dress you now,” Kurt began, leading Blaine to a separate room.

“I’m pretty excited about this year’s costumes, I had the idea a few years back when I was still fairly new to the Capitol and we were made to watch the Tribute Parade. I just think that mining costumes are tacky and overdone, and ever since all those years ago, flaming costumes have become relatively popular too. I think the aspect Tina, my associate, and I collaborated on is going to make quite the impression.”

Blaine grinned at how Kurt’s passion was making him speak faster and faster.

“I’m sure they’ll be great, I can’t wait to see them.” Blaine affirmed with a nod.

Kurt opened a thick door, leading Blaine over to a chair.
“Now we’ve just got to wait for the costumes to be delivered. Tina just had to add some final touches.”

Blaine nodded, glancing out one of the many windows that lined the outer wall of the building.

“Kurt, can I ask you a question?”

Blaine’s eyes widened. Had he really just said that? Now he’d have no choice but to ask one of the many questions that had been rattling around in his brain.

Kurt smiled, raising an eyebrow, “Go ahead.”

“Well I ... ever since I got to the Capitol, I’ve noticed that heaps of people dress really extravagantly, and with colours that should probably not be legal, but your style is... different.”

“I like to think my style is more refined,” Kurt admitted with a chuckle, “I uh... there’s a long story that I might tell you later, but I’ve pretty much always dressed like this. I’m different to most people I know, and fashion is just one of those ways. It’s one of my ways of expressing who I am.”

Blaine smiled; he admired how proud Kurt seemed to be of who he was.

He wasn’t terribly sure what it was, but Blaine couldn’t stop the giddy feeling that seemed to be overtaking his body. Kurt would smile at him and he’d get chills. Kurt’s hand would brush against his as he pointed something out, and Blaine’s skin would break out in goose-bumps.

He’d barely known Kurt two hours and he already had a ridiculous little crush. Blaine knew it was pointless, but he realised with shock, that for the first time in a long time, he actually felt happy.