It’s Saturday, and the guilt is stamped all over his skin. Blaine turns down requests for private dances because the thought of one makes his skin crawl. On the floor, his smile is all teeth but no spirit and the men can see how fake he’s being, but Blaine can’t bring himself to invest anything more because standing upright in the club is already too much of a performance. His eyes are everywhere: looking at the clock, looking at the door, and it’s midnight before he’s even earned the cab-fare home. That hasn’t happened since Blaine first started. Since then, he’s never walked away with anything less than three hundred dollars in his pocket. Tonight, he doubts he’ll net sixty. Coming in was a mistake-- because all of this feels like it’s too soon.

“You seem different.”

“We could test that theory,” Blaine flirts, trying to muscle his heart into it. He’s sitting on Greg’s thigh, fingers stroking a distracted pattern against the man’s tie. “I bet you anything that I’m exactly the same.”

“Forever a cocktease,” Greg says without ire.

The statement has been a joke of theirs for months now, but tonight it hits too close to the mark.

“You got it.” Blaine forces a wink, reaching for and downing one of the three shots Greg has lined up on the table’s edge.

Greg looks like he’s about to say something that he doesn’t want to say. Whatever it is, it seems to be crucial. Blaine swallows nervously behind the glass, alcohol burning down his throat in a way that should be pleasant, but is suddenly not. He licks out, stealing the drop left behind on his bottom lip, eyes unable to break away from Greg’s face. He’s floored when Greg musters the courage to speak. “You have someone to talk to, right?”

And just like that, Blaine knows that he’s watching the fantasy die for Greg. Greg doesn’t see him as a friend, a son, or an equal, but in that fraction of a second, he understands that Blaine isn’t entirely a plaything. Blaine’s life doesn’t pause while Greg’s not at the club; Blaine has something separate and private. It’s survival doesn’t begin or end with this place.

Greg looks uncomfortable, which means that Blaine is doing a really shitty job.

He feels gutted. “Does it matter?” he asks, setting down the empty class bottom up.

“You don’t look happy, that’s all.”

Blaine rolls his eyes, reaching for a second drink. It’s rude and he knows that the gesture is callous, but Greg is not his confidante. Greg doesn’t know Blaine’s real name, because Blaine was smart enough not to give it to him in the first place. They’re not friends. They’re certainly not lovers. Greg has a wife back home who would probably kill to see half of the concern Greg is showing him now. Blaine almost says that too. The accusation burns in the back of his throat, rising like bile, and the only thing keeping it down is the burn of the bourbon.

Greg is binging on lust and secrets. It’s not fair to him, to his wife, or to Blaine. Tonight will be the last night Greg will be able to manage in awhile and it’s a relief, because Blaine can hardly bear to look at him.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tips his head back, wiping the drip that winds down the corner of his mouth before it spills over his chin and down his neck.

Blaine hisses as he flips the glass over too. “Let me dance for you, I’m feeling restless. If I don’t move, or do something, I’m going to die.”

Sometimes Blaine feels like that’s true. It’s true now-- he has too much life to live to stand still, and he’s been running in place all night.

Greg nods, “Yeah, sure.” Sure comes out like ‘if you must’, and Blaine can’t help but feel patronized.

Anger lances sharply and it feels even worse than the shame and paranoia. On some level, Greg has always wanted a little more than the fantasy, but Blaine has always needed something real. He’s going to dance for Greg because there is no other reason for Greg to be here, and Blaine feels like he has to prove it. He needs to exert some kind of control tonight, because no matter what else Greg wants, Blaine isn’t going to give him more. They’re at the impasse where they either build or break, and Blaine can’t start a new foundation with him. The one they have is built on half truths, outright lies, and games. Blaine can’t trust him and it makes him sick to think of trusting Greg in that way. There is no starting over. They are where they are.

It’s then that Blaine sees someone over Greg’s shoulder, a shadow that’s stepped into the light just enough to be unveiled. “Kurt?”

Kurt stops mid-turn, ceasing his nervous scuttle for the door.

When Blaine slides off of Greg’s lap and away from his hands, he does so like a slinking, guilty lover.

Without his friends, Kurt looks nervous and out of place-- eyes drawn to the source of lawless catcalls, fingers tracing up his arm in distracted strokes.

“Kurt.”

Kurt’s top lip puffs out like he’s licking the fronts of his top teeth, mustering reserves of strength despite his radiating uncertainty, “Hey.”

Blaine can’t fathom the gratitude he feels when Kurt doesn’t use his real name. The thought of anyone else hearing it makes his blood run cold.

“What are you doing here?” Blaine cringes at how tactless he sounds. Briefly he looks over his shoulder to Greg, who’s looking at them like they’re a piece of a puzzle sliding into place. “Sorry. I meant... no- no. That’s what I meant, what are you doing here?” He wants to rail because his head keeps insisting that Kurt can’t be here, because Blaine recognizes they’re crossing another boundary that shouldn’t be ignored.

“I hear they have really good wings?” Kurt jokes thinly. He drops his hands back to his sides, worming the tips of his fingers into his tight pockets. When he inches closer, he dips his chin down, trying not to look in Greg’s direction. “I’m not here for a dance...” Kurt says.

Blaine braces himself, even though he doesn’t know what to prepare himself for. When Kurt speaks, each word sounds thoughtfully chosen, rehearsed, and then delivered. Blaine thinks it makes Kurt seem all the more earnest, even though Blaine doesn’t know why Kurt feels the need to be sincere. “...Blaine” Kurt whispers. The name is said so quietly that it’s camouflaged by the music. “All I have is a five dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket and a caffeine addiction that must be fed.”

Blaine shakes his head no, face crumpling apologetically. “I ca-”

Kurt cuts him off with a nod, face chilling but not going cold.

Blaine empathizes because he’s experienced first hand how hard it must have been for Kurt to come find him. It’s not that Blaine wants to shoot him down, either. Warning bells, ones that had the cruel sense of humor to be ringing now, sound like klaxons. Everything about Kurt’s offer promises nothing but a long road to regret.

“The other night happened,” Kurt continues. For a frightening second, Kurt looks like he might reach out to touch Blaine. “We-- you’re the only other person in the city who can understand what I'm feeling. Which, trust me, if you’ve got it figured out, please tell me. I’m sure it’s incredibly complicated.” His smile is wan, like he’s half expecting Blaine to get the joke even though Blaine clearly isn’t seeing humor in anything right now. He clears his throat, “We don't have to talk tonight. I get coffee everyday after five at a place over on Eleventh. I’ll be there, whenever you’re ready.”

Kurt seems to wither under the prolonged silence. It takes only a few seconds for his modest smile to grow brittle. “Well... with that said--” Kurt’s voice cracks, the shift in his pitch causes Blaine’s head to jerk up in full attention, face flooding with remorse. Before Blaine can say anything, Kurt turns on his heel and heads for the door.

Blaine follows after him, before he can talk himself out of that too. “Kurt, wait.”

The cold air is brutal, knocking him back once the club door is opened. Instantly his arms wrap around his middle, natural preservation instincts kicking in. “Hey Kurt... hang on, please.”

The bouncer stands attentively at the door, a little shocked at the sight of Blaine bursting scantily clad into the parking lot. Blaine thinks that he must look ridiculous to a man who spends no time on the actual club floor, who exists solely as a guard once Blaine and the other dancers are redressed and bundled tight.

His jaw is tight, in the beginning stages of staving off chattering. His body is definitely shocked, breath sharply painting the air in front of his lips. “Kurt.”

When Kurt turns, Blaine wants to throw his hands up in relief. They have an audience out here too, and Blaine’s pretty sure that the bouncer can hear everything they say even with the loud thumping of muffled music behind the steel door. Blaine jogs closer to Kurt, tucking his fists into the crooks of his elbows. “I don’t blame you, so if you’re doing this out of guilt- then don’t.”

Kurt looks perplexed, “I’m doing what's right.” His eyes roam over the bundles of gooseflesh rising on Blaine’s exposed arms. “No one makes me do anything that I don’t want to do, either.”

Blaine wants to tell Kurt that nothing is going to happen between them again. He might have been careless protecting himself the other night, but he’s not easy or entirely blind to reality. “I need to be incredibly clear, Kurt.” He hopes that Kurt will understand, but chances are he won’t. “I don’t want you playing with my head. I don’t know what you want... but whatever it is, it’s not going to happen at my expense. I... don’t play with my head.”

“I stopped playing head games in high school, Blaine.” Kurt bites, insulted. “I came because... we both clearly made a mistake. You did what you had to do to make it right, but you ran before you gave me the same chance. How is that fair?” He takes a step back, the set of his mouth growing wider in an upset grimace. His hands flail at his sides before coming down to exasperatedly clap at his thighs. He’s gaining momentum, clearly frustrated and wild around the eyes. “I don’t know what you’re going through, okay? But you don’t know what I’m going through either... or what it was like to see you after.” His powerful tone softens, voice oddly forgiving despite sounding so pointed, “I- I’ve been through a lot. I know pain and humiliation when I see it, and I never wanted to inflict that on another person. Not ever, so... come or don’t, but like I said. I’m there every day.”

Blaine’s teeth chatter, breath hitching in his nostrils. “I’ll think about it.” He needs to go inside-- he probably should have never come out in the first place. “If I don’t--”

“Blaine.” Kurt slides his hands into his pockets, looking graceful and controlled. “No decisions tonight. If anything, you and I suck at snap decisions. Besides, you’re freezing--”

“You caught that, huh?”

“Go back inside. As much as I appreciate the dramatics of someone chasing me out into the street, it’s really not necessary.”

Blaine’s arms tuck closer to his chest and he dares one more step forward. He blames his body’s parasitic need to draw near heat. “It’s a shitty neighborhood. Hurry up and hail a cab.”

“Go.” Kurt gestures loosely at the bouncer, “I have the Incredible Hulk over there. I’ll be fine.”

The club startles Blaine when he comes back inside; the music and heat hit him like a tidal wave. The neon colors are too vibrant, and every shape is too sharp. His manager leans against the wall with one foot propped up against it. Jackson is in his late sixties, wrinkled around his mouth from too many cigarettes, but not around his eyes. Blaine can’t recall a time when he’s seen the man smile, and he’s definitely not smiling now.

Blaine’s anxiety spikes because Jackson knows. It terrifies him that someone so humorless guards his secret. The queasy slick of paranoia spreads: Jackson could have told one of the other dancers, and they’re so spiteful that they might have already told a hundred people. Eyes are on him now because he made a scene tearing after Kurt, but what if it’s because they know?

“Is that going to be a problem?” Jackson asks, kicking his weight off of the wall. The motion is lazy and non-menacing, something Blaine is trying to be grateful for.

Blaine rubs his arms, chasing away some of the cold. “Is what going to be a problem?”

“Him-” Jackson asks, pointing to the door, and beyond that, to Kurt. “Is he going to be a problem?”

The question gives Blaine pause. They have bouncers outside in the parking lot, because some customers don’t understand that what happens inside isn’t real. Bouncers stand outside of the private rooms, because some customers try to make it real. Jackson, for all the things he is and isn’t, does care about the safety of the people who work for him. Blaine ordinarily takes that safety for granted, but this whole situation has been making him obsess over minute warning signs.

“I don’t think so,” Blaine answers. The damage has already been done, and Blaine believes that Kurt is only trying to make it right. “I don’t think he’ll be coming back, either.”

Jackson purses his lips, assessing Blaine’s appearance. One of the other dancers lingers near the conversation, not even attempting to veil his interest. Blaine can’t dredge up enough confidence to throw him an admonishing glare.

“You’re awful tonight.” Jackson’s sigh rattles, the insides of his throat lacquered with tar. “Whatever’s gotten into you has gotta go.”

“Maybe he’s getting too old,” Jingles cuts in.

“I’m twenty-six.” Blaine sounds exasperated. It’s one thing to have someone leeching off of a private conversation, it’s another to have them sliding into it. Jingles might be nineteen and snappy, but realistically Blaine can dance for another year or two before his career begins to disintegrate.

“Like I said, maybe you’re getting too old.” Jingles comes close to cooing. Blaine has never heard anyone make such a preening and self satisfied noise. “So-- everyone’s wondering... who’s the guy?”

“His boyfriend,” Jackson bites out. “This isn’t a board meeting, mind your business.”

Mind your business is the closest thing that Jackson has ever said to Get back to work. None of the dancers have set schedules; they’re free to leave, to not show up, or to spend the evening drinking their way under the bar if they want. It’s always been an unspoken rule that they’re in charge of their own time here.

Jingles tuts before walking away. Blaine can’t hear him entirely over the music, but he makes out Jingles calling dibs on his locker.

Jackson is between Blaine and the door, and for the first time in a long time, Blaine feels like he could quit and never look back. The job is something that he’s always controlled, and right now he’s not sure that control is something he can reclaim. His breathing is shallow, waiting for Jackson to drop a bombshell or a punchline. Maybe lay down some rule that Blaine has never heard because he’s always pretended what happened didn’t actually happen at the club.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell the others.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of a little discretion.” Jackson would have to be. He ran this club like it was two very separate enterprises.

“I can’t do that again,” Blaine jumps in, assuming that if his job is actually on the line, he’d rather be honest and unemployed than to compromise himself for a second time. “I was an idiot, and it never should have happened.”

Jackson reaches to grip Blaine by the elbow, but Blaine wrenches his arm away from the unwelcome touch. “Hey-- don’t do that. I’m not your fucking pimp, okay? We’ve known each other for a long time now, right? That’s long enough for you to understand that I’ve only ever sold what you’ve let me sell.”

Blaine should understand. They’ve known each other for six years-- since Jackson poached Blaine from a seedy strip joint that probably should have been called The Money Shot. Until now, he’s never had a reason to doubt Jackson’s motives. “Sorry,” Blaine says quietly. He doesn’t particularly feel apologetic, but he can’t stand the thought that he’s burnt another relationship to the ground.

“Go home. It’s depressing to look at you.” Jackson insists. “Come back when you’re ready to dance.”

The earbuds dangle from his ears, the long white cord winding around his torso to where the iPod rests in his back pocket. Blaine has a dock for it, hell, his entire music library is on the laptop resting not ten feet away. There’s just something incredibly intimate about the music whispering in his ears. He feels closer to it this way.

In front of him, the armature looks like K’nex, all structure but no immediate form. He’s been building since yesterday: now the metal rods lock into place with firm structured joints, wire spindles around those rods like veins atop muscle and bone. The armature itself rests on a plywood base and reaches as high as he is tall. It’s a spine of reaching beams and bolted vertebrae; when Blaine looks up and cranes his neck, he wants to step inside the framework and see the outside world from within.

There’s an idea building. He’s so taken with it, so overcome by the music in his ears, he doesn’t notice there’s someone else in the apartment until his body jerks in response to a movement in his periphery.

Blaine jolts, body instinctively responding to a figure that shouldn’t be in his apartment. There’s only someone behind him. Blaine scrambles away, ripping one of the headphones out of his ear, one arm coming up to curl protectively against his chest.

His yelp dies in his throat when he realizes who it is.

“I was so worried about you that I could have had kittens!” Beiste hollers, unapologetic for having scared him. In fact, she looks like she wants to strangle him.

“Shannon!” he wrenches his eyes shut, heart darting like a rabbit’s. He flattens a palm over his chest hoping the touch will calm his pulse. “Just...” he heaves in a breath. “Don’t ever do that again! You scared me half to death.”

“You gave me a key,” she says, completely unsympathetic. “Don’t act like I’m tap dancing over your grave.”

Blaine’s heart doesn’t know what to do with itself, shocked forever out of a rhythm he’s never going to get back.

“Were you plannin’ on checking your missed calls anytime soon? I’ve been callin’ for three days-” she affects the word three like it’s been an eon rather than seventy-two hours.

Blaine feels his face pinch in confusion, because the adrenaline is still pumping and he’s not understanding the severity of why she’s worried.

“It’s been three days-” she continues sternly. “-- and you work at a job where there’s nothin’ but creeps who could do anything to you. And you walk back here, by yourself, at God knows what time... It’s not like you’re safe just because your not on the evening news, y’know? As far as I’m concerned, that only means they haven’t found your body.”

“Oh-” Blaine watches Beiste carefully, afraid to interrupt her. He’s seen her near tears, and he’s seen her spitting angry, but he’s never seen her vacillating between both.

“Your phone went dead this morning, and I was sick of worrying.” She hooks her keys back onto her belt loop, and Blaine takes a few cautious steps forward. He puts both hands on her shoulders, squeezing once.

“I’m sorry that I worried you.”

She claps him hard on one shoulder, squeezing and rubbing there like she’s trying to get a solid grip.

Blaine cants his head, smiling encouragingly. “I’m really sorry. Thank you for coming to check on me.”

Beiste backs out and away like he’d never witnessed a moment of weakness, “Where’s all your stuff? It looks like you’re having a fire sale or somethin’.”

“This is all of my stuff,” Blaine rolls his eyes. It’s only partially true; his three room apartment is bare, sparsely decorated- not because he doesn’t own things, but because it’s easier to manage his life if it’s compartmentalized into boxes and stowed away in a storage unit. Everything he needs is here. “In some circles, it’s called ‘minimalism’. It’s kind of a thing.”

“It’s called ‘empty’.”

Blaine thinks of her office at the center, crammed with trophies, certificates, and folders. Art pieces and framed jerseys and photos. She’ll haunt that room, if only because it was once so thoroughly hers.

He’s seen her small house once. It’s the same way.

“Well, not everyone was born with the queer eye, I guess.”

“If I had been, I might be able to figure this thing out.” She’s peering at the sculpture, clearly confused as to what it’s supposed to be.

“It’s just starting,” Blaine reassures her.

“It looks like a buncha sticks to me.” She shrugs, and Blaine can’t help but smile. Blaine knows that art frustrates her, because it’s frustrating her now.

“Yeah well, those ‘buncha sticks’ are singing to me right now,” Blaine crinkles his nose when a surge of affection swells in his chest. “I think it’s a self portrait,” Art has always been like music to Blaine. He learns things about himself through both, because he’s culling a story that his soul has been aching to tell.

Beiste is caught up looking at the disjointed arch of the sculpture’s back, a gnarled jaw of dark copper rigging. Where Blaine sees the next step in his process, Beiste probably sees the wires drooping like innards. Her expression turns sour, “You must be having one hell of a week then.”

Beiste insists that she wasn’t born with the culture gene required to understand art. On most days, she sees random squiggles instead of heraldic masterpieces. At galleries, people display their sculpted metaphors and all Beiste can see is a lump of clay with a lightbulb sticking out of it. Today though, today the message is communicated loud and clear.

It shocks Blaine enough that he whistles, impressed. “Bullseye.” Blaine slides the screwdriver back into place, turning three times and fastening the joint of the armature. “I had a pretty crappy weekend, topped off by an even crappier morning.” He hooks his finger around one of the rods, tugging down to test it’s security. It doesn’t budge.

“Who stomped on your egg shells?”

“No one,” Blaine mutters.

“Is it a guy thing?”

With a groan, Blaine tosses the screwdriver into the pail of tools at his feet. “Why did you immediately go there?” Blaine wipes his hands with a rag from his back pocket, tearing his eyes off of his handwork.

“Because look’atchu- you’re... you-- because it’s always boy trouble.”

“--It is not--”

“You just throw that big heart of yours around like it’s loaded into a t-shirt canon.”

“Yeah, well-” Blaine huffs, wiping each finger clean, eyes widening with the force of his disbelief. “That may or may not be true, but this one doesn’t have much to do with the ole’ ticker, Shannon.” Even saying it out loud makes him feel gross. “So let’s just call it a mistake, and let me sulk for a few days.”

“So you had another one night stand-”

Blaine is normally eternally patient with Beiste. She’s a woman who doesn’t see herself as clearly as she sees everything else. She needs a great deal of handholding at times, a lot of soothing, and a lot of love. Blaine recognizes those traits in her, because they’re traits he recognizes in himself. So he doesn’t snap at her, he holds up one hand, imploring her to stop. “Please don’t... I know you’re trying to help, but now is really not a good time to parade my string of Dating Woes. This is a huge deal...”

Beiste nods solemnly, eyes downcast and apologetic. Blaine wraps his arms around her middle with an exasperated but fond sigh. She pats between his shoulder blades, rubbing there a little more comfortably than she has in years past.

He sinks into her side, cheek pressed to her collarbone. There’s not really a word for the comfort he pulls from the half embrace. It might be weird, but in it, there’s a memory of being young and burrowing his face into his mother’s hugs.

Beiste doesn’t hug much. He closes his eyes and takes what he can from it while it’s offered, and steps back before she can pull away from him first.

“You want to help?” he asks, unplugging the earphones from his iPod and walking the short distance to the window to dock it. After thumbing through his music without anything striking him, he sets the device onto shuffle. It settles on something indie, older, and he can’t remember the name of it without looking at it.

Beiste seems to remember the song more than he does. Songs resonate with her in a way that’s awe-inspiring. He likes listening to music with her, because for her, the experience is usually private. When Beiste bobs her head and mouths along with the lyrics, he feels as close as he’s ever going to get to truly knowing her. He wishes that she would sing, but for whatever reason, she seems afraid to join in for fear of detracting from the song’s harmony.

“As long as I don’t break it.”

“There might be some partial nudity involved, and by might, I mean that I’m going to take off my shirt--” he explains. “I need a cast of my back, and your breaking and entering--”

“You gave me a key!”

“--was really well timed.”

“How long’s that gonna take? I gotta be at the center in a few hours.”

“Twenty minutes, tops.” Blaine promises. “It’s super easy too. There’s literally no way to mess it up.” That is a lie. There are about a dozen ways that Beiste could mess this up, but he’ll never tell her she did it wrong. He can always correct it after she leaves.

“Yeah, sure.”

Blaine gathers everything she needs, cutting the plaster material into inch wide strips of varying lengths. They look like white burlap, powdered and dry. The ends fray beneath the scissors, but with each piece overlapping, it won’t affect the finished product. The outside of the mold isn’t what’s important.

Beiste recounts her last football game, which wasn’t a victory, and she’s still a little pissed off about a stunt that one of the players tried to pull. The sound of her voice is comforting. Even if he’s not hanging on her every word or contributing more than the occasional ‘mm-hmm’ or sympathetic ‘no way’, her company is invaluable. He feels brighter than he has in a few days.

When he hands her a jar, Beiste arches one eyebrow, looking like she really doesn’t want to ask, “Petroleum Jelly?”

Blaine can’t help but laugh, “Come on-- Petroleum Jelly is not lube. If it eats through latex, I don’t want that in my-”

“-Alright enough-” Beiste says sternly.

“--Or in my partner’s--” Blaine adds cheekily.

“Are you done?”

“Yes,” Blaine grins. “It’s just for the plaster. It makes it so you don’t rip out body hair. The stuff is naturally good to skin, but when it dries on hair- just... ouch.”

“So I’ve gotta lather you in pig grease, dip the strips in the water, and slap them on.”

His grin grows broader, “More or less.” He eases out of his shirt and sits down on one of his kitchenette stools, curving his back so she can do this as painlessly as possible. “Just like sunscreen,” Blaine reassures her, “Really cold, squelchy, gross sunscreen-” he winces, squirming a little when it first hits his skin.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.” He bites back a comment about proper lube etiquette and how it is considered a huge kindness to warm it between fingers.

She’s holding the strips uncertainly, “So horizontal or vertical-” She turns the fabric in her hands, showing him both ways.

“Both,” Blaine instructs. “It doesn’t matter, so much as it’s covered. It’s a mold, not the finished thing anyway. Maybe vertical down the spine and then horizontal sweeping out? You can crisscross too. There’s no wrong way.”
Beiste dips the strip in the water, where it instantly loses it’s rigidity, wilting as the dry powder abandons the fabric to sink like silt in the bottom of the pan.

The plaster strips harden into a shell on his back, and something childish inside of him is pleased, because when he wiggles, he feels a little bit like a turtle.

“What about your dating woes?” Blaine asks, turning his cheek.

Beiste’s hands pause momentarily, “Let’s just say we can make me one of these self portraits after we finish yours.”

“Fair enough. I’ll help you clear out some space in your living room this week.”

The plaster dries, nipping where the hardened lines frame unexposed skin. “It feels pretty ready,” Blaine says. He gives into the urge to wriggle, mouth clamping down on a grin because he really does feel like a turtle. “Touch the last strip, is it dry?”

“This stuff’s pretty cool. I’d love to get some for the center.”

“I think the kids would like it,” Blaine agrees. “I’ll show you how to cast hands and faces if you want.”

It takes some maneuvering to wrangle the mold off of him; even with the jelly, he feels a slight tug on the fine pigment-less hair on his shoulders and the nape of his neck.

Blaine smiles when he’s free, running his fingers along the inside of the cast, brushing along the hardened juts of the unsanded plaster. He inspects each bump, ridge, and groove. His gaze is gentle when he levels it on Beiste, loving her, and what she’s been for him since she found him busking in the subway. “Let me see your hands?”

Beiste lifts up her eyebrows, but does so, lifting them up into a ‘so what’ surrender.

“Can I cast them?” he asks in a small voice.

Kurt doesn’t know what he expected, but it’s been four days. For each of those four days, he’s lingered in the coffee shop for half an hour later than usual. For the first two, he makes excuses for Blaine. His eyes find the door whenever it opens, his coffee grows cold as he nervously rolls his pencil between his thumbs. When he leaves, it’s because he can’t justify holding his table any longer.

Today, he makes no excuses. He’s disappointed when he tucks the sketchbook into his satchel because Blaine’s not coming. Blaine doesn’t want to come.

Kurt has always given up on people too soon. He also sees the peacoat before the man.

Blaine wears a cute scarf tucked protectively into the hollow of his throat, burrowing at the point where the coat naturally drops into a sharp ‘v’. He braces the door with his fingers outstretched on the glass, holding the it open for a teenager who doesn’t look up from her cellphone. Which, Kurt thinks, is her loss.

Waiting has done nothing but fuel Kurt’s daydreams, and he could write a novel with how elaborate the one for seeing Blaine again has become. He’s imagined it half a dozen ways: whether Blaine came into the coffee shop, or if by mere chance they bumped into each other on the street. Kurt has gone so far as to assign Blaine dialogue in order to rehearse what he might say should Blaine ever show up.

And then Kurt realizes that Blaine is here.

Kurt’s cheeks are warm, and strangely, so is the tip of his nose. His body is ramping up for a moment that he’s no longer ready for. There is no fantasy that could have prepared him for this, because in his fantasy, his stomach didn’t feel pulled in so many directions.

When Blaine sees him, neither of them can hold each other’s gaze for long, but neither of them bolt.

Kurt is rooted to his chair, just as surely as if his feet had been bolted to the floor. He doesn’t feel brave. Even though he’s in the body of a man now, he feels like he’s back in high school: tensed up, muscles clenched and contracting in shivers.

Blaine doesn’t look like he knows what to do either.

Kurt uncrosses his legs, unfolding one to reach the chair across from him. With his wingtip, he gently pushes the chair out and away from the table, angling it toward Blaine as much as possible.

Blaine’s eyes are on the angled chair, something gentle and understanding creeping into his expression. Kurt bites the smallest nip of the velvety inside of his bottom lip, enough that the pinprick of sensation is reassuring, while Blaine collects his coffee from a barista.

Blaine takes a sip of his coffee, like it’s going to grant him courage, and reaches for a few packets of sugar, a stirrer, and a napkin.

When Blaine comes to the table he says, “Hi.”

At the same time, Kurt says, “I’m glad you came.”

Seeds of doubt start springing into full blooms when Blaine doesn’t sit. He looks like he wants to, but it’s six agonizing seconds before Blaine gingerly places his cup on the very edge of the table.

Kurt could kick himself. His work is sprawled out across the circular table, spilling out over each surface. He’d completely forgotten what he’d been doing before, and despite his cross-coffee shop invitation, there really isn’t any room at the table for Blaine.

Kurt immediately starts gathering his things, muttering a quick apology. His fingers fly over his pencils, depositing them swiftly into their carrying tin. He slides a piece of wax paper over his current sketch before shutting the notebook, and begins tidying more space for Blaine.

Once everything is stacked neatly, he pushes it closer to the wall. “Please, sit- sorry I was just...” He shakes his head at himself. He’s not sure what to do with the surplus of adrenaline, because Kurt’s not running and he isn’t planning on fighting either.

He imagines a little Kurt running around in his skull, frantically pulling open dresser drawers and tearing clothes off of hangers in the closet of his mind. It’s a ridiculous picture... but he’s pretty sure it’s less absurd than the one he’s presenting now.

“You were working,” Blaine says. He carefully unbuttons his coat, easing out of it by grabbing the sleeve at the wrist and winding his arm out. He folds it neatly over the back of his chair, draping his scarf over it too.

The Blaine underneath is Blaine. Kurt’s seeing him for the first time, and he’s drinking it in like the man is about to disappear.

Blaine is unguarded and smaller than his smile, and right now, he’s so much less than his laugh.

They’re both more than flesh and bones. They’re complicated machines, fraught with emotion and vulnerabilities, and there’s something so painfully beautiful in the way that Blaine doesn’t seem to be able to hide his. Across the cafe-- he’d looked guarded. Up close, Kurt can see the way that his eyelids flutter and crease when Blaine blinks. He can see the way the tight set of his mouth is strained and trembling at the corners.

Blaine wears cardigans. Cardigans. They’re painfully simple and unassuming, wrapping around his slim form, knitted black and clinging to a blue-button up that does everything for his olive skin-tone. His belt rests in dark denim hoops, and is nothing more than thick braided black cord.

It’s nothing that Kurt is expecting. It’s nothing elegant.

It’s a strange picture, because Kurt can look at him and see a grad student- but he can’t see a stripper. He’s seen someone wearing Blaine’s skin and writhing in his lap, skimming his hands near the waistband of stage underwear and dipping beneath it in coy challenge. That’s not the guy in front of him.

Kurt smiles, the corners of it sad but understanding.

“It took me-- I wasn’t planning on coming, the same way I wasn’t planning on taking a week to get here,” Blaine says. “It’s weird.”

“I wanted you to be here, but actually seeing you is making me feel like my insides are about to become my outsides.” Kurt agrees, breaking his eyes away from Blaine and following his fingers to where they are blindly reaching for his coffee cup. His breath is shaky against the plastic lid when he brings it up to his parted lips.

Blaine nods, popping the lid of his coffee off and adding his sugar, busying himself with stirring. He draws the stirrer to his lips, then flicks the remaining moisture into his cup. The stirrer ends up neatly tucked into a napkin, coffee seeping into the white paper. It’s an ingrained habit, not a defense mechanism.

Blaine doesn’t seem to know how cute it is, or even that he’s being watched as he does it.

“So... Blaine--” Kurt asks, eager to break the silence. “Was your mother a big John Hughes fan, or...?” He returns his cup to the table, hands wrapping around it like they’re absorbing long faded warmth.

Blaine actually nods, even though the topic of small talk isn't riveting. “Yeah... my dad wouldn’t go for ‘John Bender’ Anderson, so.” He shrugs. “I guess it’s better than Duckie. Oh god, or Ferris.” Blaine looks startled, mostly tired, but his eyes are widening like it’s dawning on him for the very first time that he might have almost been named Bueller.

Blaine fastens on a smile, “What is it you like to do? I saw your sketches, are those just work for you?”

Kurt’s eyebrows knit together involuntarily, drawing up in recognition. Blaine’s smile is wrong. He supposes that once you’ve been moved by something, there’s no accepting a substitute. Kurt wants to say You don’t have to pretend everything is okay. What he actually says is, “Are you in trouble?”

Blaine sits back, mouth dropping. “Really? No small talk... just... wow. Wow.”

“I know that you said you weren’t, but I can’t help but think you are,” Kurt adds hastily. Blaine needed to come up with money quickly, and to Kurt, that really only leads to one horrifying possibility. “It’s not drugs is it?”

“Even if it was, I’m not sure how it would be any of your business.”

“I care,” Kurt says simply. “Whether it’s my business or not, I hurt you. I care and you’re here. I think that counts for something.”

“It’s not drugs,” Blaine spits out, embarrassed.

“Okay.” Kurt concedes. Blaine looks put together now, but Kurt doesn’t know the first thing about Blaine’s private life. He learned quickly, courtesy of the fashion industry, that not all drug addicts are unpolished vagrants. Some are as lost as they are beautiful. "Sorry. Not every vice shows on the outside and I can't stop thinking about why you gave the money back."

“You haven’t deposited the check,” Blaine says.

There’s no question to answer, because no, Kurt hasn’t. The check is sitting in an envelope in Kurt’s apartment. Kurt has toyed with sending it to the P.O. Box Blaine had listed on the check, but he hasn’t decided what to do with it either way.

“Is that why you came? I felt wrong about it. I kept thinking that you had to have a reason why you did what you did. If the money could help, then I don’t want to take it from you.”

“Because I earned it?” Blaine asks bitterly, flushing pink.

Kurt’s doesn’t know what to say, even if his head is already shaking no. “Don’t say that. Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Either Blaine isn’t a man capable of prolonged contempt or he’s tired of beating himself up for what he can’t take back. His ramrod posture yields against the chair's.

“You could consider it a loan?” Kurt asks. As soon as the words are out, he expects to eat them. Under the same circumstances, he couldn’t have accepted a loan from a stranger.

“I can’t do that,” Blaine pushes his coffee away, disgusted. “I came here to talk, not to plead like some charity case. As long as you hang onto that money, you and I are never going to be able to start over.”

The words sting, but Blaine’s voice isn’t cruel. He doesn’t seem to like what he’s saying anymore than Kurt likes hearing it.

“Do what you have to do, Kurt. Cash it and burn the money, or deposit it and buy coats for the homeless-- I don’t care. I don’t want it. You’re not letting me give it to you, but you don’t understand that I can’t keep it.”

Kurt’s jaw is clenched tightly enough that his teeth hurt. “I’m not sure what could possibly be so important to you a week ago that it doesn’t matter today.”

“Yeah, well- I guess my pride matters more today than it did a week ago.”

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut, pausing before he says anything that he’ll really regret. He’s snappy in his worst moments, but he came here to make things better. His good intentions become a mantra in his head. “I don’t know why you won’t let me help you. If you were my friend, I wouldn’t hesitate to loan you the money. You don’t have to be so stubborn.”

For a second, Kurt thinks that Blaine will break the sudden silence by insisting that they aren’t friends. While it’s the truth, it’s sounds painful enough in his head that he can’t bear to hear it out loud. He’s preparing himself for the harsh slap.

Instead, Blaine looks crestfallen. “You said that you knew what it was like to be humiliated.”

Kurt almost asks what that has to do with anything. “High school was hell,” he shrugs noncommittally. “Anyone who tells you differently is the kind of person who made high school hell for someone else.”

Blaine suddenly becomes unreadable, hand running through the back of his hair as he heaves out a sigh.

“It might not sound like much to you,” Kurt tacks on quickly. “A lot of people think that it was bullying, so it’s not a big deal- because hey- I’m okay now. But then? I really didn’t know how I was going to make it, and the worst part was that no one seemed to notice.”

“That sounds like a lot to me,” Blaine offers. His demeanor is still startlingly inward, and Kurt doesn’t know what he’s missing. “Did someone eventually notice?”

“My dad. He-- he made my stepbrother notice and once Finn figured it out, which admittedly took forever, the rest of my friends started coming around. They cared, but none of them really understood what it was like. Santana did later, but it was different for her. Everyone knew how to help her because they’d screwed it up so badly with me.”

Blaine clearly doesn’t know who his friends are, but the message is communicated regardless. “I’m glad that you got to be there for her.”

Kurt thinks 'glad' might be overstating things, but Blaine looks like he understands how hard it was to go through it alone. Even though Kurt hasn’t spoken to Santana in two years, they had protected each other senior year. “Some people never even got that,” Kurt says pointedly, trying to seek out Blaine’s eyes. Blaine’s silence means something. Kurt wants to know what that something is, more than anything.

“Some of us made it out okay on our own,” Blaine says weakly.

The thing is, Kurt can clearly see that Blaine didn’t make it out okay. No one can possibly define what Blaine did as the actions of a healthy well adjusted adult. By the same standard, Kurt knows that he didn’t make it out okay either.

“Santana and I would never have been friends if it hadn’t been for glee. She was popular, I was a social pariah. If we hadn’t been in the club together...” Kurt cuts himself off. What he was about to say wouldn’t have been kind, it might not have been true either. Santana had been cruel and angry and lost. If he hadn’t known her personally, he wonders if he would have cared about her being outed at all. On some level, he knows that he would have felt sorry for her, but he doubts he would have ever had the courage to sing to her when she needed to him to.

“You were in choir?” Blaine’s face washes with a look that Kurt can’t recognize until he does-- it’s envy.

“My dad thinks it saved my life.” Kurt’s not sure that it didn’t, but he doesn’t want to give Will Schuester more credit than the man deserves. Schue noticed once when Kurt needed him to, but there were entire years that the man hadn’t.

Blaine no longer looks closed off, if anything, he looks thoughtful. Even when Kurt had inadvertently insulted him, Blaine remained an attentive listener, prompting Kurt and weighing his responses. Right now, Blaine doesn’t look happy, sad, or angry. He looks only like he understands.

“Okay,” he says, pushing his chair out and standing. “I have something that I want to show you.”