Rachel was in a state.

“Really, Blaine? You leave to get coffee and stay gone four hours?” she bustled down the stairs to the subway, glancing over her shoulder at him the best she could.

“I got caught up in something.”

“And don’t even get me started on that. Meeting some random guy and skipping off into the city? What part of the rules weren’t you understanding when Cooper gave them?”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t some guy, Rachel.” Yeah he wasn’t. He was Kurt freaking Hummel. “If I hadn’t felt safe, I wouldn’t have gone with him.”

Their train pulled into the station as Rachel whipped about to face Blaine. She was poised to strike a blow to his argument, but as she opened her mouth Blaine shoved in a piece of the cookie he was eating.

“It was fine. He was nice; I’m safe, he was the perfect gentleman, I’m not dead in an alleyway somewhere. And it was a one-time thing.” He reassured while she choked down the cookie. “Now come on before we miss the train.”

Blaine didn’t want it to be a one-time thing; of that he was positive. His phone was burning a hole in his pocket, Kurt’s number sitting unsaved in his recent contacts. Kurt had been so much nicer than Blaine had imagined. If there was one thing Kurt was to the public, it was private—personal interactions with his fans were few and far between. It gave him an air of mystery, but at the same time, people had begun assuming Kurt Hummel was a bit of a diva, which Blaine had hoped wasn’t true.

He had been part of the Hummel fan base way before Kurt had been picked up by the record label; he had subscribed to the YouTube channel and watched a sixteen-year-old putter around on a piano and sing his enchanting little heart out. For two years, Blaine had been wishing the best to this complete stranger, and he had hoped Kurt was nice to the fans he got the chance to meet. Blaine never figured he’d be one of the fans to meet Kurt. It still felt like a dream. Blaine had been perfectly content to believe it was until he’d met Rachel at the Gershwin; she was livid he’d left for coffee and stayed out for hours longer than he should have. He would have written up the morning as a dream made up by his mind as he huddled on the miserable Broadway sidewalks at six in the morning.

Blaine sighed as Rachel choked down the last of the cookie and followed him onto the subway, gearing up to prattle more on how irresponsible Blaine had been. He didn’t see the problem—he accidentally bumped into someone, decided he could trust them, and went for coffee. Simple. Yet true to form Rachel was working herself into a fine froth, pointing wildly with her hands. A businessman watched her worriedly; she was the perfect height to rear back and stab him in the eye with one misjudged wrist flip.

“And what if something had happened before we met up again? It’s a big city, Blaine! We wouldn’t have been able to call or know if the other one was okay; and then what would we have to tell Cooper?”

“Okay, calm down.” Blaine grabbed her wrists, crossing them in front of their chests. “I’m going to say it again: I felt safe, you were surrounded by people; it was 9 am in the theatre district when we met up again, so all the dangerous people had already turned in for the night. Calm. Down.” He put a finger to her lips when she opened her mouth to speak; he only colored a little when he remembered Kurt doing something similar to him a couple of hours before. “Stop worrying about it. I’m allowed to make friends. Besides, you’re freaking people out.”

She huffed when he dropped her wrists and uncovered her mouth. “Well excuse me for trying to be a good friend.”

“I’ll forgive you for being a drama queen.” He laughed, nudging her shoulder good-naturedly.

“And I’ll forgive you for being horrendously irresponsible and leaving me to the elements of New York. Although it did give me some new characterizations to look into…”

And so Rachel retreated into her head, leaving Blaine to the clatter of the subway. It was nice, being left to his thoughts as they barreled down the darkened tunnel. At each of the stops, Blaine watched the steady stream of city dwellers move in and out of the subway car. Business people in somber suits typed away on smartphones, weaving between sleepy artists sipping their morning coffees around stay-at-home parents carting their children to dance or sports. They were all off in their own worlds, not realizing that Blaine had met his idol not even an hour ago.

Kurt’s phone went off as he hopped on a random bus line. He ignored the texts from his production team and chose to open the newest couple.

Pez [10:48am]: Mnstr hz sht nuff brics 2 buld hous. Iz humml bein a bad boi?

Pez [10:49am]: I kno ppl who r *hppy* 2 fix bad boiz. U lyk spnkngs?

Good grief.

Hummel [10:49am]: No, Tana. Just…taking a day off. Unscheduled, like.

Pez [10:50am]: looka u, all ndpndnt. Geddit humml! Bt Mnstrs gnna wnt 2 kll u wen u cum bak.

Hummel [10:51am]: And I’m gonna kill *you* if you don’t start using vowels.

Hummel [10:52am]: Also, what’s Terri really going to do? She’d be out of a job if she tries anything over-the-top…

Pez [10:53am]: Id lyk 2 c u try.

Pez [10:53am]: I can, smartass, but it’s a pain in mine, so I don’t. Your last text is true, but dont expect any of us to come to your rescue when she lands the smack down. May be your friends but we arent stupid.

Hummel [10:54am]: I’m a big boy, Santana. I can handle myself.

Pez [10:55am]: if u say so… g2g, brk ovr. C u 2mrrw?

Hummel [10:55am]: Most definitely.

Kurt put his phone back in his pocket before looking around the bus and making sure his wig was on straight. There was still a lot of city to see; having a disguise slip-up would definitely put a cramp in his day off.

New York, Kurt decided as he watched the traffic from his seat, was really the city with a million cultures. He had wandered amazed through the neighborhoods, watching people run about their lives. Delivery men, couriers, students, and white-collar employees filled the sidewalks, texting and chatting and laughing and completely ignoring Kurt.

The anonymity was delicious; he hadn’t realized how much he missed being able to walk into a restaurant and order whatever he wanted without Terri clucking about his diet or a paparazzo setting off flashes in his eyes. So he did just that for most of the morning, pop into delicatessens to sample the goods. Kurt wouldn’t normally eat so much bad-for-you food, especially after he got news about his father’s arrhythmia, but it was a special occasion—Kurt managed to make a friend.

Well, kind of. He ran over a fan; bought him a new pair of pants and a coffee before giving him his number, but he had seemed interested enough. He wasn’t a screaming teenybopper, thank goodness. He—Blaine, Kurt had to keep reminding himself, he has a name—had to have been about Kurt’s age, which was slightly outside the group Terri was aiming Kurt for, but Kurt wasn’t complaining. Blaine opened up once he got over the shock, listening and laughing along with Kurt as they roamed the Off- and Off-off-Broadway streets in the early morning hunting for coffee. It had been nice; Kurt could almost pretend they were two friends out wasting time on a summer morning, nothing better to do than people watch and cause a little trouble before curfew.

And then Blaine shut down again in the coffee shop, as if sitting down put an end to any ideas he had in his head as to what was happening. Kurt remembered his blush, how it would get so much worse whenever they made eye contact…

Cooper was waiting outside the restaurant for them when they walked up, hands around his camera and focused on a flower gasping for life between a crack in the pavement.

“Shuffle a bit to the left, hobbits. You’re blocking my light.”

“We’re not that short, Coop.” Blaine grumbled, but pulled Rachel to the side. Who knew what prompted Cooper to go after that particular flower, but the fact that he didn’t pull himself away from the lens long enough to greet them meant he was invested in getting whatever shot he could. It was easier to let him snap a few frames and move on.

Cooper made a noncommittal noise as he reached out to gently prod a leaf into a better angle. “Maybe not; you’re tall enough to make shadows, after all.”

Blaine scoffed as the camera shutter clicked a couple of times. Cooper stood up, swinging around to take a quick shot of Blaine and Rachel leaning against the restaurant. Rachel squawked and tried to cover her face while Blaine laughed at her.

“You’ve got to get her over her left shoulder or she won’t let you take a picture, Coop.” He walked over to lower the camera. He was sure his outfit was a mess; new shorts aside, riding the subways couldn’t be the cleanest way to travel. And he hadn’t had a chance to re-set his gel since they left the hostel that morning. Rachel nodded, turned her back to Blaine and Cooper before taking up her usual pose, making ridiculous faces every time the camera whirred.

“I really hope you’re going for constipated there.” Cooper held up his camera again, tilting it to look for a better angle.

“I’m not constipated! This just happens to be my ‘come-hither’ expression, adapted from Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy Dumblondsky from Grease! It’s a classic!”

“Well from here it looks like you’re about to pass a kidney stone.” Cooper powered the camera off and stowed it away as Rachel let out an indignant huff. “We can work on your posing later. I’m pretty sure our reservation is soon.”

They walked into the dimly lit waiting area, Blaine and Rachel standing to the side while Cooper arranged their seats with the maître d’.  It was a nicer place than the other restaurants Cooper had arranged for them to meet; Fidalgoes had been little more than a hole-in-the-wall, 24-hour diner crammed between a shady pharmacy and what Blaine could almost guarantee was an adult bookstore.

“Looks like they may have actual stuff you can eat here, Rachel.” Blaine said, glancing over the dividers at people enjoying their meal. There was some kind of salad on a plate, and what could have been a Portobello burger, Blaine wasn’t too sure.

“Thank goodness. Maybe I should go looking for a vegan menu? If they have it, I’d like to know what they serve; restaurants can be so repetitive with their selections. You know, one time my dads and I went to an Indian restaurant in Cleveland and I could have sworn their vegetarian options were the same as the Chinese one we’d eaten at the last time we were there.”

Blaine made a consoling noise. “A travesty. Maybe you should go see what they offer.” Rachel was notorious for taking forever discussing everything on the menu before making her final choice. Hopefully if she saw a menu before they were actually seated, lunch would only take an hour and a half instead of three. As Rachel went off in search of a vegan menu, Cooper came over to Blaine.

“Avoiding Rachel, I see.”

“She’s your friend. I like my minors quieter than that one tends to run.”

“Classy, Coop. Real classy. But you did agree to keep tabs on her this summer.”

“I only agreed to watching her because I figured you needed a ‘Get Out of Lima Free’ card. You were kind of a package deal.”

“A package deal that hasn’t been very much of a package here lately.” Rachel said from over Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine swore, startled, before rolling his eyes.

“This is the first time Rachel; and it probably won’t be the last.”

“So you are going to see him again! I knew it—Blaine, you’re going to wind up thinking you’re in love and he’s going to take you to Turkey or somewhere without any of us knowing  and you’ll be missing for years; how are you going to play my romantic counterparts then?”

He snorted, glancing nervously at Cooper out of the corner of his eye. The conclusions he had to be jumping to were going to be hell to unravel, Blaine just knew it.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant we’re both going to find things we want to do the other one really isn’t interested in, and so we’ll go out and do them alone.”

“And you’ll let me know whenever something like that happens.” Cooper cut in, looking seriously at Blaine. “Do I need to give the stranger danger talk again? You’ve been here five days; I didn’t think I’d have to repeat it until the twelfth at the earliest, Blaine. And then I figured Rachel would need it.”

“Why would I—”

“Oh hey look, a hostess is trying to get our attention. Let’s go sit down before anybody gets the third degree.”

This lunch was going to suck.

Contacts. That’s what Kurt forgot when he was getting ready. The coloured contacts Giulia had bought for him when he snuck out of the city to film Quarter Past; he had forgotten to put them in before he left the apartment. They were annoying, and muddied his eyes to a regular grey, but not wearing them was probably what let Blaine figure out who he was. Well, his lack of contacts and the fact that Kurt practically climbed Blaine when he tried to say his name out loud were what did it. Maybe if Kurt had remembered how to act like a normal person he wouldn’t have been discovered at all.

But then, he didn’t feeling bad about being found out. Blaine had been sweet, and he wanted to talk with Kurt again. So maybe it was a good thing he had forgotten the contacts.

Another thing he had forgotten: what exactly there was to do in the city apart from eat. Kurt figured he was in Midtown; what was here again?

To: Coffee Mate [12:45]: I think I’ve run out of things to do. Suggestions?

Rachel’s arguing with Blaine about his jaunt through the city added to her usual indecision on what she wanted to order made lunch take even longer than it usually did. She was adamant that Cooper give his speech again, but after hearing both sides of the story at least three times at Rachel’s behest and multiple death glares from Blaine, Cooper decided that they were both fine without the review.

“I really feel like you’re over-reacting, Rachel. Blaine decided he had everything under control; you were in an area where you were plenty safe—”

“But he was in a strange part of the city with a complete stranger!”

“Oh for the love of—” Blaine had had enough of her knocking his morning. “You were too! You were standing around in the middle of the theatre district at eight in the morning with a group of awesome and complete strangers!”

“But that’s different. We had a mutual appreciation for Musical Theatre.” She said, taking a sip of her water. She really didn’t get it, did she?

“No, it’s the same. Me and this guy had a mutual appreciation for me not having coffee-stained pants and a desire for conversation. Does that make it any better for you? The only way it’s slightly different is that I had one guy to talk to while you were singing with a group of five girls. I told you it wasn’t a big deal. Back. Off.”

Rachel looked to Cooper, eyes wide with a deranged ‘See what I have to put up with?’ gleam in them. Cooper threw his hands up, warding off an attack.

“Hey, he’s got a point. You were both alone with strangers.” He said. “My only complaint is that neither of you bothered to text sooner. So we’re gonna count this as a dry-run; nobody’s parents are going to be told, and we’re going to forget it ever happened.” He shot a pointed glance at Rachel. “I’m serious. No grudge-holding. We just had a failure to communicate; happens all the time. But I’ve come up with a solution:

“Next time you separate, you text me and the person you’re apart from on the regular: the rough area where you’re headed, when you plan to get back, and if plans change. Especially if plans change. Got it?” Blaine and Rachel nodded, Rachel with a defeated look, Blaine with relief. Hopefully Cooper’s rule would kill any more of Rachel’s tirades on the dangers of strange New Yorkers for a couple of hours.

“Good. Now that that’s out of the way, what exactly do you have planned for today?”

“Well, we’ve got tickets to the evening showing of Wicked tonight; that’s the big thing for the day.” Blaine said before Rachel could start in on Idina and whatever Wicked tangent she’s been cooking up in her head between the self-righteous lectures on personal safety. “I’m not sure about after that, though.”

“I’m thinking we can sit for Chicago tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to call it a night right after the show. We could stop for dinner or something after, of course…but after we leave here, I’d really like to go back to the hostel and start getting ready.” Rachel said. Blaine cringed internally. Another early morning waiting on discounted theatre tickets.

Blaine’s phone went off in his pocket, the text tone blaring one of Kurt’s latest hits while he scrambled to pull it out.  He had to school his face into some kind of calm as he opened the message.

Kurt had actually texted him.

Unknown Number [12:45pm]: I think I’ve run out of things to do. Suggestions?

How was he supposed to answer that? Blaine didn’t have much clue on New York activities, apart from what he and Rachel had already gotten up to; that stuff was so touristy that Kurt couldn’t possibly be interested, right?

Coffee Mate [12:46pm]: well, that was fast. how have you lived in New York for years and never figured out a day’s worth of things to do?

Unknown Number [12:47pm]: Oh, come on. You’re brand new here. There has to be something you haven’t tried yet. You can live vicariously through me.

Unknown Number [12:47pm]: Or…you know. I can get to know the place and show it to you later.

Blaine choked on his French fry and dodged Rachel’s concerned glances and back pats. Cooper merely sipped his coffee and muttered “Arms up.”

“Who is texting you right now?” Rachel said,

“Tina,” Blaine lied. “She wants to know where I go for hair gel.”

Coffee Mate [12:50pm]: how much later is ‘later’?

Coffee Mate [12:50pm]: that was a stupid question forget i said anything.

Unknown Number [12:51pm]: it wasn’t stupid. actually it was a really good one. what’re you doing tonight?

Oh, okay. So it was happening. Blaine was in the middle of setting up a dinner date with a teen icon.

Perfectly normal activity for a Wednesday afternoon. So normal. So he should really calm down and work on breathing again so Rachel didn’t make another grab for his phone.

Coffee Mate [12:52pm]: we’re going to the show, and then back to our hostel. didn’t make any promises about staying in for the night tho.

Unknown Number [12:53pm]: excellent. well then. i can meet you somewhere? how about the caffebeane?

Coffee Mate [12:54]: where we hit it off? Literally…

Coffee Mate [12:54pm]: that would work.

Coffee Mate [12:55pm]: but only if you’re okay with it.

Unknown Number [12:55pm]: LOL. Wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.

Unknown Number [12:55pm]: text me when you’re done with the show and i can meet you there?

Unknown Number [12:55pm]: and don’t forget ;)

How in the world would Blaine forget? This had to be one of the greatest days of his life. It was probably the greatest. He met Kurt Hummel, got to talk with him, and was going to meet him after watching Idina Menzel reprise one of her greatest roles. The only way the day could get any better was if it suddenly got cool enough for him to wear one of his favorite bow ties for the show that night. Blaine hadn’t held out much hope for that when they first left the hostel that morning.

But after a day like this one, anything was possible.