Because Blaine had a considerable ‘following’, as his agent liked to call it, he was expected to have a new book come out on a relatively regular basis. Usually he didn’t mind that too much, because he loved writing and he always could find some inspiration somewhere, but for some reason he was stuck now. He had absolutely nothing and that frustrated the people responsible for his ‘success’ beyond belief. He was grateful that they hadn’t pushed him further to come up with something and decided to give him some more time, because the last thing he needed right now was someone else nagging at him constantly. Blaine might not be a violent person, but he was a popular writer for a reason and if necessary, he could throw a serious, eloquent, well-educated bitch fit. When he was younger, he’d had trouble controlling himself and that had cost Blaine several summer jobs during high school. It wasn’t that he was rude to his employers, but he’d always had this sarcastic way of speaking and sadly most of his old bosses couldn’t quite appreciate his sass.

He vividly remembered one time when he made one of his comments while talking to his boss at the time, Michael. Michael was a middle-aged man with a beer belly and a strange love for different types of toilet seats. He wasn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box, but he had a something of a feeling for business and somehow managed to keep a store open.

“Listen, son.” He’d always start, after which he’d bend forward and tell Blaine one of his wisdoms. “It might be harder to get yer apples from all the way up in some damn tree, but it’s better than takin’ the rotten ones from the ground. You know why, son? Because people ain’t comin’ back for rotten apples, that’s why.”
The problem was that his knowledge was really just limited to subjects or metaphors related to running a small supermarket and when Blaine once made a remark about the storage room, Michael thought he’d just been gravely insulted and fired him on the spot. Blaine’s dad had been furious, but Michael never took Blaine back.

Blaine considered his words both a gift and a curse, because it both got him in trouble and kept him out of it and, as an added bonus, he could use it to counter-sass his daughter. Something told him that he should be using his skills right now to tell Ginny that making a costume on his own would be impossible and a pre-made one would just have to do. But he could already see the devastated look on her face and her shoulders slumping and he just couldn’t do it. He cursed himself yet again for spoiling his daughter, because sometimes he truly believed that it would one day ruin his life. But then again, what’s the point of having an adorable child if you can’t spoil them every now and then. So he had to try. He had been looking up patterns and sewing tips online and he thought that with a little help from his good friend the laptop, he’d be able to fake his way through it. All he needed right now, was fabric. And courage.

---

Blaine was driving on his way to a big fabric store he’d found on the Internet. He was humming along to the radio, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he spotted a small store on the left side of the street. It’s was hidden away slightly between an electronics store and something that appeared to be a bar. ‘Hummel Threads & Lace’ it was called and by the looks of it, it was another fabric store. It looked tiny and Blaine figured that if he went there he’d actually get help and he’d come to terms with the fact that he needed a lot of that. And besides, Blaine had always preferred going to small businesses over the big ones, because he felt a undefined need to support the underdog, so he parked his car across the street from the little store and made his way over there. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing. What was he supposed to ask for when someone offered to help? What was he looking for? He knew that the fabric had to be red and that there had to be black for dots, but that was about it. He didn’t know if he needed anything else and by the time he opened the door of the shop, he’d gone into another small freak out.

“Breathe, Anderson.” He muttered to himself as he walked in, accompanied by a soft tinkle of a bell. He heard someone move around in the back of the store.

“One moment!” Blaine looked around, at the walls that seemed to be made out of rolls of fabric and the racks full of colorful ribbons and boxes filled with buttons. Several body forms were placed on the side and had different fabrics casually draped over them and Blaine even saw a vase full of feathers on the counter. In the middle of the store there was a large table with a gigantic ruler and a bunch of scissors on it. He looked up when a man appeared from the back room, carrying a large box. Blaine raised his eyebrows in surprise. The man was positively stunning – tall, with brown hair, an elegant skip in his step and a bright smile. Blaine smiled back as the man put the box down on the counter.

“Can I help you, sir?” Blaine almost shot back a ‘call me Blaine’, but refrained, considering that he just met this man and asking him to call him Blaine would maybe be a little overenthusiastic.

“Um, yeah.” He started, “I’m looking for some fabric.”

“You’ve come to the right place then.” The man said with a small smirk and Blaine gave himself one of his mental slaps in the face.

“Right, yeah.” He laughed awkwardly. “I’m actually looking for something to make a costume out of; for my daughter, not for me. I’m too old for that kind of stuff.”

“Nonsense.” The man said. “No one is ever too old for dressing up, that’s a silly thing to say.” Blaine laughed again, earning him a genuine smile from the shopkeeper. “It’s for Halloween, I presume?” Blaine nodded.

“Yeah, so I’m on a pretty tight schedule. My daughter wants to be a ladybug and I tried to make something before today, but the thing is, I’m not particularly skilled with a sewing machine. Gin can be pretty vocal about what she wants and my creation was definitely not anywhere near good enough.” The man nodded in understanding.

“And her mom is too busy to help out?” He asked casually and Blaine kind of froze.

“Her mother isn’t exactly… in the picture right now.” Blaine replied slowly.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry.” The man looked at him with big eyes, “I didn’t think – I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry!” Blaine raised his hands, making calming motions. “It’s fine.”

“No, I shouldn’t have assumed. I don’t know you and I apologize.” Blaine smiled at the man’s rambling. He was slightly tempted to tell him about Ginny’s mother, but it didn’t seem very appropriate to start spilling his life story to a random shopkeeper he didn’t even know in some fabric store he’d never been to before.

“Seriously, don’t worry about it.” Blaine smiled and the man returned it. “So, let’s talk fabric.”

“Yes!” The shopkeeper clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Lets see, ladybug, you say? Because I think –“ The man hopped passed Blaine and took a small ladder from a corner, set it against the wall of fabrics and climbed up. Blaine followed him with his eyes and found himself resisting the urge to stare at the man’s ass – because damn – but since that was completely inappropriate and not to mention just plain creepy, he forced himself to look at the red roll that the man pulled out.

“Here, this should be nice.” He climbed down the ladder and took the fabric over to the table in the middle of the room. “It’s a lovely ladybug like shade of red, nice and soft, little bit elastic in there and, not too forget, not too expensive. I have it in black, too, so that works out perfectly. But there’s also this.” The shopkeeper turned around and took another roll from the other wall and put it on the table as well. “This one is a bit more pricey, but it does have a nicer finish to it.” Blaine inspected the two rolls, trying to look like he understood anything of what the man had just told him. In the end he just gave up and shrugged.

“I have literally no idea what you just said to me.” The man chuckled.

“You know what? I could make the costume for you.” Blaine’s head snapped up quickly at the man’s words. “I mean, I do offer that, since just selling fabrics can actually get quite boring after a while. I mean, you don’t have to, of course, but – I just thought –“

“God, please.” Blaine hadn’t intended for those words to come out as desperate as they did, but he had to admit that he was pretty much at the end of his wits. He knew damn well that even if this man sold him the perfect fabric, he wouldn’t be able to do anything with it anyway. “I mean, yes, that would be perfect.”

“Very well.” The man walked over to the counter, grabbed a small notebook and a pen and came back to where Blaine was. “I will have to get your daughter’s measurements and I can get going!”

“But I don’t – I don’t have her measurements.” Blaine said awkwardly. How was he supposed to know that he had to bring those? Or was he just way more oblivious about the whole costume making business than he’d thought?

“Oh. Well then I suppose you could either measure her and send the details so me, or you could bring her in sometime.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, sure, that sounds awesome!” Blaine smiled, wondering where the sudden urge to come back to the shop came from. “We’ll stop by tomorrow! Are you open tomorrow? Because to be perfectly honest, I just kind of want to get this out of the way.”

“Tomorrow is fine!” The shopkeeper clapped his hands again. “Do you know what time you’d be here? Because I usually close a bit early on Saturday’s”

“I’ll see how early I can get my daughter out of bed, but if it helps I could call you and let you know?” Blaine was not very subtly asking for his number. Goddammit, Anderson. But the man hardly seemed to notice and ripped a page out of his notebook, scribbled down a number and handed the piece of paper to Blaine. ‘Kurt Hummel’ Blaine read and he shot the other man a smile.

“Well, see you tomorrow then, Kurt Hummel.” He extended his hand and Kurt took it.

“Nice doing business –“ He said playfully.

“Anderson. Blaine Anderson.” Blaine did his best Bond impression and that got him a wonderful laugh from Kurt.

“Nice doing business, mister Anderson.” He finished with a wink and for a moment Blaine thought – or maybe hoped – that he was flirting.

---

Blaine was completely lost in thought on his way back home from that store. For some reason Kurt Hummel fascinated him more than he could explain. It wasn’t necessarily his appearance – although that definitely didn’t hurt – but even more so his character. The way he’d gotten all excited about making a costume for a stranger’s daughter. The way he spoke about the fabrics and the differences between them. His enthusiasm had flicked a switch in Blaine’s mind that made him feel a lot more optimistic about his next book, even though he still had no idea what it would be about. And to be completely honest, the effect that meeting Kurt had on him scared him absolutely shitless.
It definitely wasn’t unusual for Blaine, or any other artist for that matter, to find inspiration in his every day life. His daily events – getting Ginny to school, meeting friends, walking through the city or even talking to the owner of the local grocery store – could often spark something in him that helped him to push through with whatever he’d be working on at the time, but he’d never in his life had this strong of a reaction. He barely knew the guy. Was it even possible to have that big of a change in mindset after talking to someone you’ve never met before? Had he, Blaine Anderson, found his muse at last? He laughed at that idea and out loud, too, earning him a strange look from a biker he passed. Muses were of the ancient past, or of creepy old men, in which context ‘muse’ often meant ‘pretty lady half my age that is probably only after my money’. Muses were not for him, of course not. And besides, if anyone had to be his muse, it’d be Gin. Not some guy with a passion for drapery. Blaine told himself to snap out of it. He was being ridiculous. But try as he might, he couldn’t quite keep Kurt Hummel from lingering in the back of his mind all day.