Blaine looked up as the bell tinkled to announce the arrival of another customer, pulling off his reading glasses and dog-earing the page of his book ready to step back into his salesman role. He sighed as the stressed looking woman strolled directly over to the counter, completely bypassing the impressive selection of books that were also for sale and put in an order for a large cappuccino to take away. She might as well have gone to Starbucks.

As he set to work on her drink, he watched to woman’s body language from the corner of his eye. She was leaning to one side, hand on hip, watching his every move. Blaine decided he didn’t like her. She kept glancing at the small clock above the chalked pastry menu and then consulting her iPhone, clearly not trusting that anyone other than she could possibly have the correct time.

Handing her the drink, Blaine chanced a smile at the woman, looking down awkwardly when she narrowed her eyes at him. Rude. She snatched her drink from the counter and had swept from the shop with another innocent tinkle before Blaine even had a chance to wish her a pleasant day. Clearly she hadn’t read the description on the shop front before coming in. Blaine sighed and found his page again, settling down into his seat before propping his feet up on the battered box that held the books donated to the shop.

“Oh, poppet, there’s always one isn’t there?” said a voice from behind him. He turned to see that Joan, the old lady who had given him the job in the shop and who had unofficially adopted him as her surrogate grandson, had come to check on him. He grinned at her and went to give her a friendly squeeze.

“Ah well, it’s their loss I suppose. Coffee?” Blaine offered, flicking the switches and bringing the machines whirring back to life at the lady’s nod.

“What are you reading, poppet?” Joan asked, peering to look at the book now waiting on Blaine’s worn chair. “Pride and Prejudice, wow! Didn’t have you down as an Austen guy, Blaine.”

“There are many surprising little details about me, Joan,” Blaine replied with what was supposed to be a cheeky smile, but his cheerfulness overrode it. He carried the two steaming mugs over to the vacant window seats, flopping back onto the couch with a contented sigh.

They made small talk for a while before Joan began her weekly ‘check on how Blaine is doing in the big city all alone’ interrogation.

“And your landlord is giving you fair deadlines and everything, yes?” she asked, mmm-ing when Blaine nodded in assent.

“Anyone would think my parents have been putting you up to this,” Blaine teased, knowing full well that the information he had just given would be going straight home to Westerville in a few hours time. Joan smiled sadly at him.

“They worry, poppet. They miss you so much,” she said gently. Blaine’s smile faltered before disappearing altogether.

“I’m not phoning them. I don’t want to speak to them.”

“They’re making an effort, Blaine, you can’t deny it,” Joan countered, still using that gentle tone she used when he appeared on her doorstep three months ago.

“They had eighteen years to make an effort! That’s six thousand, five hundred and seventy-four days of opportunity and they never took it, not once!” Blaine said, his tone louder and more aggressive than he intended. He took a breath and flopped back into the cushions. “Why should I give up any more of my time for them to waste it again?” He asked, his hands over his face. Joan leaned forward to pat his knee, knowing that any more would cause another tantrum. Blaine didn’t need to be nannied anymore.

They sat like that for a while, Blaine fighting his feelings of anger and resentment towards his parents and trying desperately to push away the urge to kick the coffee table. After about five minutes of Joan watching him anxiously and sipping her drink, she began to clear away the things, washing the various surfaces and spouts, before finally sitting next to Blaine and pulling him into a motherly hug, which he melted into as though he were four years old again.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, poppet, but please don’t do something just because you don’t have to. I know you have all of this new freedom now, but don’t let it blind you from seeing what you could go and fetch from home. Maybe this move has had a really good effect on them, maybe it hasn’t, but you will never know unless you want to try again.”

Squinting in confusion at the complicated statement, Blaine nodded and sat up, giving the woman a grateful smile when he saw the spotless café area.

“You’re amazing, Joan,” he said with his well practiced charm, hugging her once more before tugging off his apron and grabbing his coat and bag from the hook in the back room. “Now may I escort you home, Madame?” he joked, his eyes lacking the twinkle they usually contained when he offered. Joan took his arm anyway, playing along as they walked to her townhouse, pretending to swoon when Blaine placed a kiss on the top of her hand and waggling her fingers at him when he waved from the end of her road.

A buzz from Blaine’s pocket announced the arrival of a text. He didn’t even need to guess who it was from – his brother hadn’t texted him in four months and the only other person he was still in contact with was Wes.

6:47 pm from Wes

You busy tonight? I have a relatively small amount of work to do so I figured we could get some pizza and catch up?

He immediately typed a response – yes they could have pizza, yes they could catch up, anything to allow Blaine to stop thinking about Ohio. He was out. His parents were so far away that he could hardly feel their stifling influence anymore, and he was free. He lived his own life and he got by. He didn’t need Harvard or any other ‘suitable’ school, he didn’t need to inherit Anderson Inc. (which was nothing but positive, seeing as Blaine still wasn’t sure what his father actually did at the office), and he most definitely did not need for his parents to keep putting guilt money in his account. He wanted nothing more to do with them.

Blaine Anderson was free in New York and he loved it. He really did. Honestly.

“God, you look so different, Kurt.”

“It’s been two months, I doubt I’ve changed that much Dad,” the boy replied, smiling down the camera at his father.

“No, I mean, you don’t look quite so small. You always used to look like a little boy to me but suddenly you’ve grown up. It’s so weird,” Burt replied, staring intently back. Kurt nodded, blinking a couple of times before planning his next words.

“I feel grown up, like I have a job and bills to pay and spiders to catch. I feel bad for making you do it all when I was younger now,” he smiled, relieved to see his stepmother returning with a mug in both hands, passing one to Burt before settling back down in front of the computer screen.

“So how is college, sweetie?” Carole asked excitedly, “have you made any friends or…” she trailed off and Kurt sensed the awkwardness between his parents.

“No,” he said abruptly, “No new friends. No new enemies though so it could be worse,” he grinned. He frowned when the expressions on the other side of the screen stayed concerned. “Look, I’m happy. I’m away from Ohio, which is all I’ve ever really wanted, amongst other things, and I haven’t had a death threat since I got here which makes a really great change. I’m used to keeping myself company. Friends will come eventually I know it, but trust me, I’m okay.”

Burt and Carole nodded and exchanged a smile before continuing to press Kurt about his work.

“My boss is nice to me, she said I can have a reference for when I choose to go on to bigger and better things which is nice of her seeing as I have only been working there a month. The other staff are cool and treat me like their little project but I’m not complaining; they mean well,” Kurt said, careful to keep his voice positive to spare his parents.

“And any nice guys over there?” Carole asked with a wink, causing Kurt to duck his head with an embarrassed laugh and Burt to shoot an appalled look at his wife.

“No,” Kurt said with a smile, “No, not yet.” There was yet another moment of silence, where Kurt allowed his smile to flicker somewhat, before the conversation flowed again as normal. One hour later and Kurt began to feel tired, and after a third failed attempt at stifling a yawn he was forced to log off.

“I have a day off tomorrow so I’ll ring home when I’ve done my reading, okay?” he said, shutting down the windows surrounding their Skype conversation.

“You call whenever you need to, kiddo, you know that,” Burt replied with one of the most earnest expressions Kurt had ever seen him wear.

“I know. I love you, Dad, Carole.”

“We love you too, sweetie!” Carole called from outside the border of the screen. Burt simply nodded and waved in farewell as his son ended the call with a sigh.

Kurt shut down his computer and stretched himself out on the couch before grabbing a glass of water and heading to his unnecessarily large bed. He lay there in the dark, curled up under the covers with the corner scrunched up in his hand as it always is. He is happy, he really is. He lives in New York, he has a nice job, an apartment that is actually quite nice and he is well on the way to graduating at the top of his class. Life is good for him right now, really good compared to the last four years.

Kurt sighs and nuzzles further into his pillows. He has a day of research to do tomorrow, and God forbid should he be unfocused. 

Business on Sunday is usually steady in the shop. There is a reasonable flow of customers and usually people of Blaine’s own age to talk to on a day off from whatever post high school adventure they’re dipping into. Unfortunately the rain causes the shop to be pretty much empty by three o clock, and Blaine seriously considers shutting up shop and disappearing back into his apartment to finish his book.

He smiles at the girl who buys the book she has been curled up on the window couches with for the past hour, and he says his goodbye by flashing her his most charming smile and advising her to visit the shop again. That simple phrase and the little quirk of the eyebrow (now specifically saved for business, no matter what Blaine was like in high school) always has the patrons trotting obediently back into the shop on average no less than a week later.

A visual sweep around the seating area indicates that the previous decision to shut up shop was a good one; a glance outside confirms it. Blaine moves to flick the switches to cease the whirring of the machines and begins to wipe down the tables when the bell tinkles merrily. Blaine turns, shocked that anyone is still shopping in the downpour, to see a dishevelled looking young man around his own age peeking nervously around the corner and looking directly at Blaine with a wide eyed curiosity.

“Umm, hi,” the man says in barely a whisper. Blaine tucks the cloth he was using into his apron and resumes his place behind the counter.

“Hi, can I get you a drink at all?” he asks, his charm at a level intended to both flatter and reassure the man, who seemed to get more uneasy with every passing second.

“Well the sign outside says that you’re a bookshop,” he begins before trailing off with a blush. Blaine tilts his head slightly, intrigued by the man who seems so fragile, and yet, had he not started speaking in such a cautious tone, Blaine could have sworn he was one of those rare individuals who seem to have been designed to take the big city by storm.

“Oh we are, but we also sell coffee. The idea is that you buy a book or simply get one off the shelf and put it back if you haven’t spilled anything on it, and enjoy the atmosphere. But if that isn’t what you came in for then I wouldn’t worry; I think the concept went out of the door along with the customers.”

The man chuckles softly at that and Blaine smiles in relief.

“Well there is some atmosphere left,” the man says softly, looking panicked as soon as the words leave his mouth. Blaine feels a pang of sympathy – the man reminds him of his teenage self, terrified to say the wrong thing, too nervous to ask when he needed help.

“I’m glad you think so, seeing as I work on commission. Now what sort of book were you looking for?” he asks smoothly, guiding the man over to the corner of the store where Joan’s beloved book collection resided.

“Erm… I was looking for fashion journals, magazines, anything in that… in that field really.”

“Vogue?” Blaine asked. A pair of confused blue-grey eyes met his.

“Excuse me?”

“Is Vogue okay? I have multiple copies of numerous editions so I figured I’d donate them to the shop. Are you a fashion student?” Blaine asked, hauling the box with his spare copies in from its place on top of one of the tallest bookcase.

“NYU. And Vogue is great, thank you,” the man replied carefully, not meeting Blaine’s eyes.

“Or we also have Vs. if you need something a little less well known,” he suggested carefully.

A moment of deliberation, followed by a grateful nod and a smile.

“I assumed there would just be novels in here,” the man said as Blaine rifled through the box and pulled out four copies of the magazine.

“Ah, don’t be so quick to judge, you never know what you might find inside,” Blaine said with a calculated look at the man, who blushed slightly. Yep, he was right. This guy was like a reincarnation of fifteen year old Blaine. “So do you want a drink or do you want to brave the monsoon?”

“Weren’t you shutting up shop?”

“I was. But if you need a place to study then I find this is a really great place to focus. Nondescript but still stimulating, I was staying for a bit anyway if you’d like to join?”

Blaine flicked the switch on the coffee machine again, groaning as it stuttered a little in it’s old age. The man glanced around before nodding slowly, placing an order for a non-fat mocha, if that was okay.

As he handed the man his drink and assured him that whatever table he chose it would cause no hassle, he realised that the lack of names could cause some awkwardness.

“My name’s Blaine, by the way,” he called across the shop. The man peeped up from his magazine with a perplexed look.

“Kurt,” he replied quietly.

The two men smiled at each other and shared a nod before losing themselves in their reading, a calm amongst the storm, so to speak.