4:59 a.m.

Kurt wakes exactly one minute before his alarm is supposed to go off, relieved since his alarm tends to be louder than hell no matter what volume he sets it at. He doesn't want to wake Blaine at this awful hour - not on his one full day off in weeks. Maybe Kurt has to be a slave to fascist work schedules and constantly changing deadlines, but he doesn't need to inflict that misery on his husband.

Kurt carefully unwinds tangled limbs, detaches from Blaine's arms, and slips out of bed, leaning in slowly to kiss Blaine on the cheek. Today is going to be a good day, Kurt has decided. A productive day. He's going to start with fifteen minutes of yoga to get the blood flowing, take an invigorating shower, have a tall glass of chilled cucumber water (that he made the night before so it would be the perfect temperature to drink this morning), and power through his designer's block. As plans coalesce in his head, he feels creativity percolating, swirling tendrils of fashion artistry coursing through his brain. He tiptoes out to his makeshift studio (behind the curtain of what was once Rachel Berry's old “room”) to get his ideas sketched and stitched before he loses them.

Three minutes after five o'clock, and he's already starting on a roll. He'd be surprised if he isn't done before lunch.

‘Come on, Kurt Hummel,' he thinks, dropping on to his stool, rolling over to his cutting table, and opening his sketch book. ‘Let's see what you've got!'

8:00 a.m.

“Good morning, beautiful,” a chipper Blaine sings to his husband as he skips past Kurt's work space on his way to the kitchen for his morning coffee. “Thank you for letting me sleep in this morning.”

“You're welcome,” Kurt chuckles, rubbing his bleary eyes. Only Blaine would consider eight o'clock sleeping in.

“How are things going?”

“Great, great.” Kurt straightens his slouch and brightens his smile to give the impression that he's been hard at work when he's really been staring at the same page in his sketch book for three hours straight - sans yoga or shower, cucumber water forgotten in its pitcher in the fridge - trying to make the image on the page translate to the dress form in front of him. The truth is, the design that came to him the second he woke up seemed like a great idea in his head. On paper, however…a total train wreck. “Fantastic,” he lies, but he'd talked up how stressed he's been about this project to Blaine so many times, Kurt doesn't want him to worry. “I might get finished early today.”

“That's wonderful! Maybe, when you're done, we can go out and do something. You know, we haven't seen a movie together in weeks,” Blaine says, excited that, on this one day that Kurt said he was going to be swamped, he might be able to pencil Blaine in.

“Sure,” Kurt says, his face tense from smiling. “Sounds like a plan.”

“If you need any help…”

“I won't,” Kurt cuts in, hoping it'll be true if he says it out loud, “but thank you.”

Kurt watches Blaine twirl on his heel and saunter away, whistling, of all things. Kurt waits till he's out of earshot, looks back as his empty dress form, and groans.

“I'm screwed.”

8:09 a.m.

Relaxing on the sofa, a mug of Italian Roast sitting on the coffee table in front of him, Blaine catches up on his reading list, starting with Sphinx by Anne Garreta. It's not a long book, but he'd put off reading it till today when he'd have the whole day to devour it the way it was meant to be devoured. But he gets to page 56 and becomes stuck, reading the same opening sentence six times. It's strange, but he feels like someone's watching him - absurd seeing as his husband's hard at work and there's no one else in the loft. Blaine has always sworn he's felt a presence lingering in the enormous space. A benevolent presence, but one tired of the strife of slogging through its dreary existence, carrying its burdens from life with it into the beyond.

Blaine changes positions, goes back a page, starts to hum an upbeat tune, but he still can't shake the feeling. He decides he'll take a peek up, and if he sees something spooky and ethereal, no matter how innocuous, he'll throw his husband over his shoulder and start running.

He counts to three, then looks up from his book.

A drawn face and bloodshot eyes stare mournfully at him.

“Jesus!” Blaine gasps, scurrying back on the sofa, but stops when he sees it's not an apparition, just his distressed husband standing in the doorway.

“Kurt?” Blaine closes his book quickly, not even bothering to bookmark his page at the sight of frazzled Kurt – distraught, exhausted, violet bags peeking out beneath heavy lower eyelids. “Are you okay?”

Kurt slowly shakes his head.

“Do you need some tea?” Blaine asks.

Kurt nods wearily. Blaine smiles.

“I'm on it.”

10:17 a.m.

A clatter of keys and an optimistic, “Hey!” announces the arrival of Kurt's husband, back from his emergency shopping excursion. “So, I got that Monkey Picked Oolong Tea you wanted from Teavana, though if you ask me it sounds like you should make sure you're up-to-date on your shots before you drink that one.” Blaine balances several bags as he tries to pull his key from the sticky lock. “And the Triloka Feng Shui Incense you said would…what are you doing?” Blaine stops in the doorway when he spots his husband hanging from the ceiling in an upside-down lotus position. Blaine looks further up and examines the red straps attached to hooks embedded in the wood. They don't own a ladder and all of their chairs are Kurt's strappy flea market things. How did he even get them up there?

“I'm letting the blood in my body flow to my head in order to fuel creativity,” Kurt replies.

“Is it working?” Blaine asks, concerned that Kurt's face seems to be turning an unnatural shade.

“No,” Kurt admits. “Plus, my left leg fell asleep half-an-hour ago.” He breaks from his graceful pose to wiggle his left leg, which starts him spinning like a ceiling fan. “And…grrr…I think I'm stuck.”

“Hold on,” Blaine says, rushing to the kitchen to put everything down. “I'll come give you a hand.”

“That's…that's okay,” Blaine hears Kurt grunt as he arranges the bags so their contents stand on the right ends. “I think…if I just…move my arm here…”

“You know, Kurt,” Blaine calls out, “I think you should just wait until I…”

“Aaaaahhhhh!”

Thud!

Something hard hits the floor and Blaine cringes, rushing back out to the living room area.

“Kurt! Kurt, are you o---“

Blaine finds Kurt lying on his back, his cramping left leg stuck up, crookedly bent at the knee. From the looks of things, Kurt had prepared for such an eventuality by piling couch cushions and pillows on the floor, something Blaine missed with the paper bag of tea blocking his vision. The fall doesn't look as bad as it sounded from the kitchen, but it probably hurts like sin.

“Well,” Kurt says, face beet red from hanging upside down, hair sticking out on end, looking up at his husband, “I got down.”

“Is anything broken?” Blaine asks, sincere in his concern but a single sniffle away from laughing himself to tears.

Kurt shifts uncomfortably on the pillows and hisses.

“I don't think so,” Kurt says, “but I think we'll be having sex doggy style for the next few weeks.”

Blaine's eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, well…can we get started on that now?”

Kurt throws Blaine a look that makes him take a step back.

“Why don't I go make you some tea?” Blaine suggests, heading for the kitchen.

“Good idea,” Kurt says, plopping down on the pillows to stare at the ceiling and await Blaine's return.

12:07 p.m.

“Lunch, Kurt. Time to take five.” Blaine strolls through the curtain to Kurt's work space, carrying Kurt's spinach salad with chicken - what Kurt calls his working lunch since he can eat it one-handed. “I brought you your…hey, I thought you were working!” Blaine stops short when he sees his husband has relocated from his cutting table to the small futon by the far wall, DVR remote in hand, eyes glued to the mini flat-screen Rachel left behind.

“I am,” Kurt says, readjusting the cashmere blanket around his shoulders and lowering the volume on the TV. “I'm doing research. Looking for new, fresh trends in fashion.”

Blaine walks over to the futon. Stopping at Kurt's side, he stays to see what exactly his husband is watching to find “new trends”. He can picture Kurt garnering inspiration from Jack Falahee's character in How to Get Away with Murder – that mixture of Ivy League classic and laid-back business-ready chic that Kurt pulls off so well. Or borrowing from something Colin O'Donoghue would wear as Hook in Once Upon a Time – a tailored leather long-coat with pared down brass accents and a brocade vest underneath.

Kurt has a thing for vests.

Blaine focuses on the screen, his brows knitting together.

“Kurt, you're watching re-runs of America's Funniest Home Videos.”

Kurt grabs his salad from Blaine's hands and curls further into his blanket.

“You don't get to judge my process.”

1:23 p.m.

Blaine is already more than halfway through his book and he can't put it down, but his eyes dart up at the sound of footsteps heading toward the loft door. Over the edge of his book, he raises an eyebrow at his husband, dressed in a black tank, and skin-tight bike shorts beneath a pair of looser black jogging shorts, earbuds dangling from his neck as he affixes his iPod into his arm band.

“Where are you going?” Blaine asks. “I thought you still had a ton of work to do.”

“I do,” Kurt says, bending his right knee and grabbing his foot behind his back, stretching his muscles, “but I thought, you know, fresh air, get the heart pumping.” He switches to his left foot. “I kind of flaked on yoga this morning, and that's always the thing that jump-starts my creative flow.” He drops his left foot and twists at the waist. “So, I'm going to go for a run, just a few miles, and when I come back, I'll be zipping those designs out. You'll see.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, smirking behind his book where his husband can't see, “but you do know it's, like, thirty degrees outside. You may want to take a jacket.”

“I know, I know,” Kurt says, waving Blaine's comment away, “but after I hit my stride, I'll get warmed up. And besides, the cold will keep me awake.”

“Alright,” Blaine says, returning to his book. “Make sure you take your phone, and call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Kurt says with a definite eye-roll in his voice. “Love you.”

“Love you, more.” Blaine listens to Kurt leave, down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door. He looks at his watch, eyes following the movement of the second hand as it sweeps from number to number.

The hand doesn't even make it all away around the face before Blaine hears footsteps racing up the stairs, keys clanging together, turning in the lock, and the loft door slide open.

“Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold…” Kurt chants as he slams the door shut and races to the bathroom, the shower water switching on a second later.

3:56 p.m.

“You know…” Kurt pauses, dropping to his elbows and lifting his ass higher in the air so Blaine can hit him deeper, “maybe…maybe I should have listened…oh God!...to you earlier.” Kurt arches his back and moans. “I think…this might be…the best idea…you've had yet.”

“Do you really think this is working?” Blaine asks, sweaty hands grabbing Kurt's hips for leverage. “Technically speaking, this is forcing blood away from your brain, not toward it. Isn't that the opposite of what you want?”

With a growl, Kurt slams himself back hard on his husband's cock. “Less talk, Dr. Anderson. More fucking.”

5:08 p.m.

Thunk…thunk…thunk…thunk…

Blaine hears the rhythmic beat of something knocking against wood and wonders if Kurt has decided to try tribal drumming, maybe call up the spirits of ancient ancestors to help give him strength.

Not that they'd be Kurt's ancestors, per se, but he probably wouldn't turn anything away at this point.

Anything except for Blaine, which is slightly irritating, but Blaine can kind of understand. Kurt wants to do this on his own – or on his own with divine intervention.

It's admirable. Frustrating, but admirable.

Blaine peeks in to Kurt's work space and sees Kurt bent over, knocking his forehead against the only uncluttered square inch of his cutting table.

“Uh…Kurt?” Blaine asks, hesitant to interrupt this episode. Who knows? Maybe minor blunt force trauma might actually help. “Do you need…”

“No,” Kurt says quickly, still rapping his forehead against the table. “I'm good.”

“Okay,” Blaine says. He leaves, but only for a minute, coming back with a glass of water and six aspirin (he'd started with four, but then the banging got louder). Blaine puts them on a steady corner of Kurt's table, and with one last look at his poor husband, returns to the sofa.

8:13 p.m.

Kurt trades the persistent thunking of his forehead against the table for the hum of his sewing machine and the snick-snick of a pair of Gingher scissors about an hour later, and Blaine silently cheers. That's the sound of his man getting back into the groove. Kurt's pretty consistent with regard to his work, but sometimes, when he hits a slump, it goes like this – a full day of nothing and then, zoom! He takes off running.

Still, Blaine stops by Kurt's work space to make sure his husband's okay. A silhouette against a white curtain as Blaine approaches, Kurt is a whirlwind, buzzing from one end of the space to the other, laying out fabrics, cutting patterns, pinning seams together. Blaine loiters quietly to watch his husband work. It's quite the turn on to see Kurt owning this talent he has for creating something out of nothing. The fabric, the needle, the thread, were there from the start, but what it's about to become – that's all Kurt.

“Hey, Kurt. I'm throwing together some Fettucine Alfredo. Do you want some?” Blaine knows the answer, but he offers anyway. It would be nice if Kurt could take a break and share dinner with him, but Blaine's not about to interrupt.

“I can't,” Kurt says, skillfully re-threading his machine. “I can't stop now. I think I've finally found my flow.”

“Well, good,” Blaine says, encouragement shoving aside his disappointment. “That's good. Go with that. And maybe we can still catch a late show.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kurt says, lifting his fabric off the bed of the sewing machine and snipping the thread attached to the bobbin. “You look up times and listings. I'll just…” Kurt drops off mid-sentence. Blaine chuckles.

Another day married to Kurt Hummel, Designer Extraordinaire.

Blaine wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world.

11:56 p.m.

Blaine's head nods. He'd finished his book, and somewhere in the middle of a Grey's Anatomy marathon, he started knocking out. Kurt's sewing machine went silent sometime after Blaine finished his dinner, and Blaine hoped that was a good sign, that a satisfied Kurt would emerge from behind his curtain any minute to go out with him.

That was over an hour ago.

Gently snoring, his eyes shut but semi-conscious, he feels his hand lifted, his body being tugged upward. He opens his eyes a slit and sees a worn-out Kurt pulling him off the sofa.

“Come on,” Kurt says, “my eyes are crossing. We're going to bed.”

“But…but what about your project?” Blaine asks, rising to his feet.

Kurt says nothing, gesturing with an unenthused hand in the direction of his work space. The curtain drawn back exposes the dress form standing in the corner, draped in a mashup of tailored pieces and unfitted ones, coming together in an eclectic combination of Kurt's signature couture style, and something else, something original - formless, flowing, and kinetic.

Blaine blinks his eyes, not fully awake, trying to comprehend Kurt's stylistic vision. He takes a few steps closer, squinting to see it more clearly.

“It's…it's fantastic!” he says.

“Really?” Kurt replies with more than a subtle hint of sarcasm.

“Yes!” Blaine fawns. “It's bold! It's epic! It's so different from what you normally do! What do you call it?”

“I call it unfinished,” Kurt says, grabbing his husband's hand and pulling him toward their bedroom.

“That's…that's amazing!” Blaine gushes, glancing back at it as they walk. “So, you mean it's interactive? Oh, I get it! It changes from person to person depending on how they wear it or what they add!”

“I mean it's unfinished,” Kurt deadpans, “as in I'm not done with it yet.”

Blaine misses a step and stumbles, over his words and his feet. “Oh,” he says. “I'm sorry. I thought…”

“Meh,” Kurt says. “I have till tomorrow evening. I'm not getting anywhere with it now. I think I'm just torturing myself at this point.”

Blaine sighs, shoulders drooping, body succumbing to his own tired and the fatigue coming off Kurt in waves. “I know you wanted to do this alone, but I wish you would have let me help.”

“Are you kidding?” Kurt turns to face his husband, Blaine's gaze cast down, looking adorably forlorn. “You've been helping me all day – going out to buy me tea and bringing me lunch, cheering me on and keeping me company. I couldn't have even gotten this far without you! I feel guilty that I took up your entire day off.”

“Well,” Blaine says, raising his eyes a smidge, “I couldn't think of a better way to spend it.”

Blaine moves forward for a kiss, but Kurt yawns, his sluggish hand barely making it in time to cover his mouth. As it passes, Kurt catches the slightly dejected expression on his husband's face.

“Sorry about that,” Kurt laughs. “When you've gotta yawn…”

“It's…it's not that,” Blaine says.

Kurt tilts his head. “Then what is it?”

Blaine shrugs. “I'm happy knowing that I helped, but I wish I could have helped more. I mean, you wanted it done today. It's all you talked about. And we didn't get the chance to go out, which is also kind of depressing.”

Kurt thinks back over the day – a whole day he could have spent ravishing his husband wasted toiling away on that monstrosity, and it's only partially done. Blaine's right. That is depressing. As it is, they only got the chance to have sex once…but what a once that was.

Suddenly, Kurt's not as tired as he was a second ago. He might be getting his second wind…possibly even a third. He gives Blaine's hand a tug, tossing him a playful wink and a sultry (or trying to be) smile to go along with it.

“Well maybe,” Kurt says, dragging Blaine deliberately toward the bed, “maybe you can help me with a little more inspiration.”