“It’s the eyes, I can never get the eyes right! They all look like- like they’re dead inside or something! I’m a failure as an artist, I should just give up and sell my brushes and become an accountant!”  Kurt Hummel threw his pencil down, he leaned forward to rest his head in his hands, his frustrated fingers tugging in his hair.  A small gentle hand rested on Kurt’s shoulder,

“Kurt, don’t talk like that, look at this place, it’s amazing! I’ll bet nobody in all of Manhattan has murals this fantastic on their walls, and hey even if you can’t draw people, nobody’s perfect right?” 

“Rachel, the human figure is the base from which artistic ability is judged, if you can’t draw or paint people, it’s over, good luck ever getting a job. I’ll never have a career. I’m hopeless.”  his apathetic groaning started to branch out, “I’m a failure as an artist, I’m broke. I’m a virgin. I’m going to die alone. We don’t have any furniture. I miss my dad. and I didn’t eat lunch today so that i could afford to buy paint!”

He stood abruptly, Rachel took a few steps back, worried he was going to start throwing things. “I have to get out of here. Come to that coffee place down the street with me, I’ll get a mocha and a cheesecake and we can people watch and maybe it’ll inspire me or something?” 

Kurt didn’t even pause to change out of his painting clothes, he usually never dared to go into public in the black t-shirt and light jeans that over Kurt’s career as a painter had become mottled with bright splashes and smudges of paint, sometimes he wouldn’t even wear them to paint in if he was expecting company, Rachel and his father were really the only people he felt comfortable wearing them in front of.  Rachel definitely noticed, and she followed him, knew to be wary of Hurricane Kurt, she went without a word, eyes wide, head down and metaphysical tail between her legs, if Kurt wants cheesecake then cheesecake he shall have.
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The Coffee shop that Kurt and Rachel had come to frequent in the few months they’d lived in the city was by no means busy when they walked in, it would’ve been comfortably quiet by Lima standards but for New York it was practically deserted. Kurt sighed, it looked like the people watching was out the window.  Only two tables were occupied, in the far corner a middle aged woman with red and silver hair pulled back into a messy bun sipped from her espresso over a paperback novel, at the table in the window, two college aged girls had spread out, a laptop and a twenty ounce coffee for each of them and several papers and textbooks between the two of them. 

Kurt led Rachel to wait in line, and he grumbled, “the place is empty and we still have to wait in line!”  There was only one patron ahead of them, a mess of dark curls atop a body that was somewhat shorter than Kurt’s and somewhat stockier.  He took his time ordering. He debated for what seemed like several hours weather to get coffee or tea, finally deciding on a medium drip, then, apparently having not taken up enough time, he considered every cookie, cake and pie in the case. He made an audible moan, like sex, “that cheesecake looks To. Die. For. YUM! I’ll have that please.” 

The barrista, Chuck, according to his name-tag, pulled the cheesecake out and wrapped it in brown paper, “lucky you” he said, “that’s our last one.” 

Kurt’s eye twitched, Rachel shrank away from him.

And then Kurt was yelling.

“OH FUCK NO!”  it was not usual for Kurt to use profanity. “THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE” it was, however, not unusual for Kurt to exaggerate, especially when he was hungry. ” I JUST WANNA RELAX AND HAVE SOME CHEESECAKE, AND THEN THIS GODDAMN HOBBIT MOTHERFUCKER WALTZES RIGHT IN AND TAKES THE LAST ONE. AND I’M SO HUNGRY. NO. I WANNA GO HOME. RACHEL? Rach, that’s it, I’m moving back to ohio- Oh,”   the usurping stranger had turned to look at Kurt, his mouth was open in a little “o”, and he was making the dangerous choice to lean in toward Kurt, his hand hovering over his shoulder, like he wanted to restrain or perhaps comfort him.  Kurt blinked. two hazel-y brown-y green eyes stared up at him, they were huge with something like terror or concern, they were sparkly and warm and framed with long black eyelashes and thick, sharply angled eyebrows. They calmed Kurt almost instantly, but in the same instant, they made his fingers itch, goddamn he had to draw those eyes.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to- well- whatever, listen why don’t you take the cheesecake, my treat,”  he slid an extra ten dollar bill down onto the counter “and how about drinks for you and your friend yeah?”  he turned back to Chuck, who looked like he’d just been smacked, ” I’ll pay for whatever they’re having, and may I please get one of those snickerdoodles instead? Thanks!”  He adressed Kurt again, “I am sorry, My name’s Blaine, I hope your day gets better!”  Kurt just kind of stared, shaking the boy- er, man’s hand when he offered, he just barely managed to choke out ” Kurt. Thanks.”  they shook hands for too long, Kurt lost himself in this Blaine’s eyes, Blaine was the one to break it, he turned back, grabbed his coffee and his cookie, flashed a smile at Kurt, and then was out the door. 

Kurt took his Grande nonfat mocha and his cheesecake from Chuck a little too forcefully, he all but ran down the block and up the seven flights of stairs to his and Rachel’s loft, he set his coffee and cake down, forgotten, for now, and thrust his pencil to the paper. 
————————————————————————
Dark curls, full lips, and warm, sparkling eyes looked back up at him from the Bristol drawing pad.  Rachel stood over his shoulder, she gasped her approval “Oh Kurt it’s positively lovely! He looks so alive! like he could step off the page and buy us coffee all over again! Brava, Kurt, brava!”  Kurt smiled faintly and stared intently into the figure’s eyes. he’d hired dozens of young men and women to sit for him, spent hours on their portraits, and yet this quick sketch, from memory, of a random guy in a coffee shop surpassed all of those pieces.  He could feel it, he felt people begging to spring forth from his fingertips, he felt his arm itching to make long sweeping lines and contours, he felt every twitch of muscle and he felt his blood rushing through his veins, and he felt a pull, he needed to see this man again. he hoped desperately that they would just run into eachother in the coffee shop, he would ask, no, beg him to model for him. he imagined spending hours just studying those lips, that nose, those eyes. he imagined giant, detailed drawings, he imagined this Blaine posing nude for him, jokes about drawing him like one of his french girls, and then he imagined tracing those impossibly beautiful lines with his fingers, leaving smudges of black charcoal on hot, golden skin. he imagined a press of lips, a scratch of stubble, the rock of their hips together. and yes he could definitely feel his blood rushing, and then he shook his head, ,willing himself to stop thinking like that, because woah. he was completely, stupidly random.  New York is a big city, Kurt knew he’d probably never see the beautiful man again. And what kind of person has sex fantasies and artistic obsessions over random coffee shop guys.

The Kurt Hummel kind apparently.