Five Ways that Blaine Could Have Met Kurt because Cooper Got Married, and What Really Happened (2/6)
Title: Five Ways that Blaine Could Have Met Kurt because Cooper Got Married, and What Really Happened
Rating: Ranging from G to R/NC-17 (depending on how carried away I get in later chapters)
Pairings: Klaine, Cooper/OFC
Word Count: 4,761 this chapter / 9,663 total (so far)
Spoilers: Anything through the end of S3 may be mentioned
Warnings: None that I can think of. It's a little cracky?
Summary: It's exactly what the title says. :)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta shandyall! And thank you so much to colfer for being a second set of eyes. If you're so inclined, feel free to come say hi on Tumblr over here.
Part One: It could have been at a bakery.
From the moment he walks into the Aurora Salon, Blaine feels out of place. The woman sitting behind the huge counter with the faux marble finish is dressed to the nines, and her makeup is like a how-to picture in a magazine. The brittle-thin woman leaning against the edge of the desk is even worse; she could be posing for a fashion shoot and she all but ignores when Blaine walks up. The first woman gives him an apologetic look and a tight grin while she “mm-hmms” and gestures to her headset.
Blaine masks his discomfort with a smile, using the moment’s wait to bite down on the explanation that he feels he owes them - he’d barely had time to change out of the sweaty clothes he’d been wearing while he helped Cooper and Emily move boxes of decorations into a back room at the reception hall. It’s just a haircut, he’d reasoned as he threw on an old polo shirt and plain pants.
The receptionist finishes her phone call, greets him brightly, and directs him to a small sitting area while calling “I’ll let him know you’re here!” at his retreating back. The other woman - a stylist, maybe? - just watches, her face never shifting out of neutral. Blaine is only too happy to leave the desk and look around at the flat screen television and the selection of magazines and books full of hairstyles. Blaine considers paging through one, but he was here because apparently he needed an expert opinion. This guy’s a genius, Emily had gushed. You let him tell you exactly what to do. If I didn’t already find my stylist months ago, I’d let him give mine a try.
With a sigh, Blaine drops into a chair and dully watches the television, which is tuned to a home and garden show. Luckily, his wait isn’t long. Blaine watches out of the corner of his eye as a young man approaches the reception desk, leaning over to say a few words to the women there, who both greet him with much more enthusiasm than they did Blaine. Some customer service, Blaine thinks to himself, but he forgets his pique when the stylist calls his name.
He looks over, and his first thought is wow.
His second thought is honestly though, is there a dress code I should have known about?
Rather than articulate either of those sentiments, Blaine climbs to his feet and overcompensates with a cheerful, “That’s me!”
The stylist’s expression remains a bit reserved, but he does smile and hold out a hand. “I’m Kurt. It’s nice to meet you. Please follow me.” His eyes flicker briefly to Blaine’s shirt before he turns away.
It can’t possibly be that bad, can it? Blaine wonders, glancing down at himself. Maybe he’s not wearing a waistcoat and a fitted shirt with the sleeves rolled up and skinny pants and - okay, so he’s looking. He has to watch where he’s going if he wants to follow Kurt, of course, and he can’t help it that Kurt’s backside is the one facing him. And that those boots are doing wonders for his legs.
Wonders, Blaine repeats absently to himself, before he realizes that Kurt is leading him into a busy room ringed with mirrors, which could give anyone the chance to catch him ogling. He yanks his gaze upward, trying to make it perfectly clear that he’s looking at the back of Kurt’s head, but it feels too intense, like he’s trying to drill holes into it. Next, he tries looking away entirely, focusing instead at the black marble fountain at the center of the room, which is dry and covered with calcification. He’s wrinkling his nose at it in confusion when he almost crashes right into Kurt, who had drawn to a halt.
“Oh! Um, we’re here,” Kurt says, gesturing to an open chair.
“Sorry, sorry,” Blaine mutters. He seats himself, and then Kurt drapes a shiny black cloth around his shoulders and snaps it around his neck. “I was just looking at the fountain.”
Kurt makes a small, vaguely disapproving noise. “I don’t know why they installed that thing if they never plan on turning it on,” he comments, and then abruptly changes the subject. “So, what are we doing today?” He backs off a half-step to look critically at Blaine’s hair, and then steps forward again quickly, lightly pressing Blaine’s curls down and letting them spring back with practiced movements.
“Well…” Blaine startles and clears his throat when Kurt weaves one hand into his hair to pull it out to its full length. “My brother is getting married on Saturday - you’ve met his fiancée, Emily. I’m standing up, and she told me that she won’t let me in the door looking like this.”
Kurt hmms a little as he continues to analyze Blaine’s hair, but he keeps his face neutral. Blaine scoots his hips forward to retrieve his wallet, fumbling it out from under the edge of the cape. He retrieves the picture he’d put there earlier and passes it to Kurt.
“Anyway,” he goes on, “I need something a little more… controlled. Maybe closer to this?”
Blaine doesn’t miss the way that Kurt’s lips twitch when he looks at the picture, which is one of his old school portraits from Dalton. He looks at it for longer than seems necessary, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. Finally, he looks up to meet Blaine’s cautious, curious gaze in the mirror. “I can’t do this to you,” he says.
“What? Why not?” Blaine asks anxiously. Is his hair so far gone that it’s actually beyond recovery?
“Because,” Kurt explains, the smile growing on his face as he flips the picture back around to face Blaine, “I did meet Emily. She gave me very specific instructions for each of you, and she won’t be happy with me if I send you into the church looking like this. It’s very Tyrone Power, of course, but I think she would say it’s more helmet than hairstyle.”
Blaine fights a scowl, because he is not going to pout in front of a stranger - especially not one this cute. He can’t quite keep the petulance out of his voice, though, when he asks, “She did say that, didn’t she?”
Kurt doesn’t answer directly. “Let’s just see if we can’t do better, hmm?” His eyes are still on Blaine’s reflection, one side of his mouth is turned up, and there’s something in his eyes that’s both sympathetic and teasing all at the same time.
If he doesn’t give in, Blaine knows that he’s going to catch hell from both Emily and Cooper, so he has no choice but to resign himself to his fate. “All right,” he says. “Hit me with your best shot.”
“You’re going to look fantastic!” Kurt replies eagerly, grinning at Blaine in the mirror.
Blaine smiles back, and their eyes stay locked together. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” Kurt repeats. Then he seems to shake himself, his face settling into a more detached expression as he repeats himself more forcefully. “Okay! Right this way.”
Blaine scrambles to his feet and follows Kurt toward a bank of sinks in an adjacent room. This time, he very determinedly does not watch Kurt walk - after only the briefest of glances - because professional, Blaine, keep it professional. You’re here to get a haircut. Not a boyfriend. Or anything else.
Just a haircut becomes an extremely useful and appropriate mantra when Kurt helps him cushion his neck with a folded towel and begins operating the spray nozzle with one hand and running the other back through Blaine’s hair as he wets it. “So, how’s your week going?” Kurt asks, his voice duller, losing the good-natured lilt it had taken on. It sounds like something he’s repeated a hundred times, like something he asks every customer out of rote.
“Fine,” Blaine responds, doing his best to be just another customer. “Busy, getting ready for the wedding.”
“And you’re the best man?”
Blaine whites out a little as Kurt begins massaging shampoo into his hair and makes a noise that he hopes communicates an affirmative response. He stares straight ahead, doing his best to ignore the way he can see the edge of Kurt’s shoulder flexing in the corner of his vision. There’s a huge, swirling modern light fixture mounted over the sinks, and he lets the bulbs burn spots into his vision. Just a haircut really doesn’t help much when Kurt scratches his blunt fingernails all over his scalp, and Blaine valiantly tries to think of absolutely nothing at all.
“You must be close,” Kurt comments.
“What?” Blaine gasps, every muscle stiffening in surprise.
“You and your brother,” Kurt clarifies, sounding confused. “You must be close if you’re going to be his best man.”
Blaine lets out a slow breath. “Oh, yeah. Um, kind of. I go to school in New York and he lives in L.A. - he’s an actor - so we don’t see each other very often.”
“That’s right,” Kurt says, giving his hair one last vigorous rub before turning the water on again. “Emily told me about his stint on The Walking Dead, but I don’t watch it. Has he been in anything else I would recognize?” He rinses carefully around Blaine’s ears, which involves an amount of touching that has Blaine trying not to squirm in his seat.
“Do you remember the FreeCreditRating.com commercials from a few years ago?” Blaine chokes out, disappointment warring with relief when Kurt finishes washing the shampoo out. He sucks in a deep breath as Kurt steps away to squirt something out of a pump bottle, by the sounds of it. “Free credit rating dot com… slash savings!” he sings, quick and a little strangled, partly to spur Kurt’s memory and partly to try and cover up the sound of Kurt rubbing his hands together. They’re slick with something - conditioner, probably - and it definitely does not remind Blaine of anything else.
“Really?” Kurt says excitedly, digging his hands back into Blaine’s hair. “That’s your brother?”
His obvious interest is enough to dim Blaine’s mood a little, even though Kurt is working his fingers against Blaine’s scalp again, his touch strong and gentle at the same time. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“Huh.” There’s a whoosh as Kurt brings the nozzle to life again, and Blaine almost thinks he imagines the next words out of his mouth. “Your family has good genes.” There’s a little pause, and then he starts chasing the product out of Blaine’s hair with renewed vigor.
Blaine stares at the lights again. Is he supposed to say thank you? But what if Kurt’s only referring to the genes that produced Cooper? They do look strikingly dissimilar. It’s as though Cooper inherited all of their father’s genetics and Blaine took everything from his mother’s side, refusing to share and setting the stage for a sibling rivalry that would last decades. But then why phrase it like that? Why not say something just about Cooper? But maybe it had been just about Cooper.
“I suppose,” he finally says, lamely, and then swiftly changes the subject back. “I was pretty surprised when he asked me to be best man, actually. He used to give me hell when we were younger. You know how it goes.”
“A little,” Kurt says, and his voice is wry, but when he continues, it’s in his normal tone of voice. “I was an only child until my junior year of high school.”
Blaine raises his eyebrows. “Late in life baby?” he guesses.
“No, no.” Kurt carefully runs the water around Blaine’s hairline, gently resting the edge of one hand against his forehead to avoid spraying it into his eyes, and Blaine clenches his jaw. “My father remarried, and my stepmother already had a son. He was in my class in school, believe it or not. It was less like having a baby around and more like gaining a yeti who drank straight from the milk carton and left dirty shoes all over the house.”
Blaine snorts and angles his eyes back far enough to see that Kurt’s smiling too. “We get along really well now, though. I’d definitely stand up in his wedding,” Kurt continues. He gives Blaine’s hair one final rinse and then begins to gently towel it. Blaine stifles a sigh, reveling in the feeling and almost missing Kurt’s stern advice. “Don’t ever rub, not with this much curl. You want to just squeeze the moisture out.”
“Mkay,” Blaine breathes. It’s over too soon, and then Kurt is leading him back to his chair.
When he gets down to the business of cutting hair, Kurt isn’t slow or cautious. His hands fly around Blaine’s head with combs and scissors and clippers, the movements precise and practiced and fearless. Blaine is taken aback at first - he saw Edward Scissorhands during Cooper’s “trying to get cast in a movie that’s destined to be a cult classic” phase (or was it his “how can I be more like Johnny Depp” phase?), and it’s not quite like that, but it’s close. It’s obvious that he’s beyond the point of no return, so Blaine does his best to relax and ignore the size of the clumps of hair that are raining down on his cape. Kurt’s arms and hands prove to be a good distraction.
For a few moments, Kurt hums while he works - Blaine thinks he catches the tune of Chapel of Love - but he stops to ask, “So, you said you’re going to school in New York? What are you studying?”
“Drama,” Blaine answers immediately, meeting his own eyes in the mirror in an effort to drag them away from Kurt’s forearms. “I go to Tisch. It’s -”
“You go to Tisch?” Kurt interrupts, his voice wistful as his hands slow.
“Yeah,” Blaine says. “I just finished my first year. I’m doing Theatre Studies, and I’m thinking about a minor in Applied Theatre.”
Kurt snaps back to work. “I love theatre. I wanted to go to NYADA. Do you know it?”
“I do. It’s a great school.” Blaine forces himself to stop there. It would be rude to ask Kurt if he didn’t get in, no matter how exclusive the school is.
“I know,” Kurt says. “I was there for a year and two months.”
Blaine is staring at him now in the mirror, but Kurt isn’t meeting his eyes, instead choosing to focus intently on the back of Blaine’s head. “You… left?”
“There was a family emergency,” Kurt replies briskly, his face closing off even more.
“Ah.” Blaine fidgets a little, sorry to have touched inadvertently on what is obviously a very sore subject. “So, what’s your favorite show?”
Kurt brightens considerably at the question. “Oh god, there’s so many. How could you even start to decide? Classic, modern… you know, in the end, I think I’ll always have a soft spot for Wicked.”
“An excellent choice,” Blaine says, and then his eyes round a little when he hears Kurt humming again, but he’s not just humming - he’s singing a few bars of Defying Gravity almost under his breath.
When he notices that Blaine is listening, he stops abruptly, pinking slightly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be!” Blaine bursts out. “Your voice is - it’s lovely.”
The color on Kurt’s face heightens a little. “There’s no way you can tell from that.”
“I can tell,” Blaine says confidently. “Sing a little more?”
Kurt glances down the row of mirrors. Just two chairs away, a teenage girl is beaming at herself in the mirror while another stylist in a sleek, immaculate outfit wraps a section of her hair in foil. “No, no. Really. I should try to stop. My dad, brilliant man that he is, told me that there’s no reason to stop singing just because I had to put NYADA on hold for a little while. I guess I took it to heart, because I don’t even realize when I’m doing it anymore.”
When he swings his eyes back to the mirror, Blaine catches and holds them. “That’s really nice.” His imagination is churning again, but he’s picturing something different now - two adjacent rooms, Kurt humming in the kitchen while he makes dinner, or maybe Kurt humming in the living room while Blaine makes dinner. The moment stretches out before Kurt breaks it.
“I know,” he says, and he still sounds a little sad.
It makes Blaine scramble for something to try and cheer him up. “Anyway, it should probably have been Popular instead, right?”
“Why’s that?” Kurt asks as he sets down his tools. He stands behind Blaine, critically pulling out a strand of hair here and there.
Blaine starts singing then, keeping his voice quiet, but not so restrained as Kurt’s had been. “And when someone needs a makeover, I simply have to take over, I know I know exactly what they need.” The song isn’t quite suited to his voice, but it’s not too bad when he slides it down into his range.
Kurt actually lets out a laugh, and Blaine beams in response. “You’re hardly the toughest case I’ve had to face,” he comments, nodding toward the mirror, where Blaine can see how good the cut is, even though his hair is still damp and starting to curl.
“But if I follow your lead, will I be popular?” Blaine teases.
“Of course!” Kurt says, and then continues in a sing-song tone. “I’ll teach you the proper ploys, when you talk to - well -” He falters.
“Boys,” Blaine supplies.
“Oh.”
When Kurt doesn’t say anything more, Blaine says, “Yeah.” He wants to fill the silence, but he wants to confirm it too, make sure that Kurt understands, just in case. They’re looking at each other’s reflections again.
Kurt finally drops his gaze to continue examining Blaine’s hair. He picks up his scissors to make one last deliberate snip. “Well, your date probably wouldn’t appreciate me giving you tips on how to, um, flirt and flounce,” he quotes.
“Actually, I uh - I don’t have a date,” Blaine admits. It hasn’t really been a point of pride for him, but he finds that at this particular moment, it doesn’t bother him quite so much.
“Oh,” Kurt repeats, staring at the side of Blaine’s head. His eyebrows have slid up a little, and Blaine hardly dares to think that he might look hopeful.
“Oh,” he echoes, because no matter what Kurt’s facial expression, he certainly can’t ask Kurt to come with him out of the blue. Can he?
Kurt suddenly startles into motion, rummaging in the drawer beside his station. “Okay, I’m going to dry your hair a little, and then I’ll teach you how to style it for the wedding. Sound good?”
“Sure,” Blaine replies, feigning enthusiasm to cover the drag of disappointment that comes with the change of subject.
Then Kurt is all energy, drying and smoothing and sculpting, flashing jars and bottles of product in front of his eyes. When he’s done, Blaine is amazed at his own reflection - his hair is molded into something that’s an expert cross between old Hollywood glamour and modern style. The severe side part is preserved, but instead of being slicked down to his scalp, the rest of his hair has been artfully pomped up and away from his forehead. “Holy - wow,” Blaine says, tilting his head back and forth. “This looks fantastic.”
“It does,” Kurt replies, sounding vague, and Blaine glances away from his own face in the mirror to find Kurt watching him with a distracted smile. His face clicks into something more businesslike immediately. “Of course it does! Do you think that I’d give you a hairstyle that’s anything less than fabulous?”
“Of course not,” Blaine says quickly. “So… what do you suggest that I do with it on normal days?”
“Oh, it’s going to be so easy,” Kurt replies, reaching around him to grab a bottle off the counter, his arm brushing Blaine’s shoulder and his chest bumping against his back. “Remember this one?”
Blaine nods dumbly.
“Okay. A pump and a half in the palm of your hand, rub them together -” Kurt mimes doing so right in front of Blaine’s face, and he’s so close that Blaine can feel breath ghosting against his cheek “- and work it through your hair when it’s damp. Don’t scrunch; that just invites frizz. Then let it air dry, and voila.” He puts the bottle back on the counter.
“That’s it?” Blaine asks doubtfully.
“That’s it,” Kurt says. His eyes flick up to the clock mounted on the wall between his station and the next, and then he cautiously asks, “Would you like a demonstration? My next appointment won’t be here for half an hour.”
Blaine perks up at once. “Sure!”
“I’ll have to wash this out.” Kurt gestures to the masterpiece he created on Blaine’s head.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Blaine says, bouncing to his feet and following Kurt back to the sinks, completely unopposed to subjecting himself to the horror of Kurt washing his hair again.
***
For the rest of the appointment, they talk easily about the wedding, their favorite stage actors, and their dream roles. They laugh and tease and, Blaine is fairly sure, they flirt. All too soon, Kurt is whisking the cape off of his shoulders and leading him back to the front of the salon, where he deposits Blaine back at the reception desk and turns to him with a reluctant smile. “It was nice to meet you. Vanessa will take care of everything from here. Good luck on Saturday. Remember to practice doing your hair before then,” he instructs.
Blaine barely manages to get out a you too and a thank you before Kurt is gone, unable to say anything else with the receptionist watching and waiting just a few feet away. He frowns as he grabs his wallet, digging out the cash that Cooper and Emily had given him to cover the cost of the haircut they insisted he get.
Although it’s rude, he’s not really listening to Vanessa, until she hands him his change and tells him, “…and if you want to leave a tip, there are envelopes at the end of the counter. Just write Kurt’s name on the front.”
Blaine’s heart beats a little faster in his chest when he looks at the neat stack of envelopes, each embossed with the salon’s logo, and the half-full fishbowl beside them.
He leaves a generous tip, of course, jots Kurt’s name on the front, and licks the envelope shut before he finds himself facing the moment of truth. He could choose to drop the envelope in the bowl just as it is. He could walk out the door and drive away, and that would be the end of it.
He needs to decide soon, before Vanessa thinks that he’s eying up the tip jar.
Before he can worry about it for another second, Blaine picks the pen back up, scrawls his name and phone number across the back of the envelope, and throws it into the bowl. Then he all but runs to the car.
***
Blaine is on pins and needles for the rest of the afternoon. The buzz of his cell phone is like an electric charge, speeding his heart every time it sounds, but, in what he thinks is an admirable show of restraint, he waits at least 45 seconds to check it each time. So far, he hasn’t heard from Kurt, and the texts from Cooper that would usually be ridiculous or bordering on irritating (short notice i know but can you think of anywhere nearby that would fold a couple hundred origami swans by saturday?) are, instead, downright annoying.
When a text message comes in at precisely 8:43 that evening, Blaine’s past being nervous, and he’s moved on to being exasperated with himself for thinking it was a good idea to leave Kurt his number in the first place. He’s so sure that it’s just another absurd question from his brother that he doesn’t even turn from where he’s scribbling what will hopefully become his best man’s speech into a notebook until his thread of inspiration has run out. When he finally does read it, his heart jumps right back into double time. It’s from an unknown number.
You know, it wouldn’t be very ethical of me to use a phone number given to me by a customer.
Blaine fumbles so much over typing his response that he needs to reread the fourteen words three times before he sends them.
I apologize. I wasn’t aware that it would be a breach of salon etiquette.
In the silence that follows, Blaine sets the phone back down on his desk, afraid that he’s going to ruin it with palm sweat if he keeps holding on so tightly. He picks up his pen, hovers it over the notebook paper, writes nothing.
His mind skates anxiously along. He can’t really tell if the first message is flirty or stern, teasing or an honest admonition. He hopes his reply is suitable for either circumstance. Please be flirtatious, he silently orders, or maybe he begs, shooting a glare at the phone where it sits innocently beside his notebook.
It buzzes two minutes later. Blaine feels like he vibrates along with it until he snatches it back up, 45 seconds be damned.
It’s not just etiquette, it’s ethics!
But I suppose I can let it slide just this once. It’s really not fair to punish you just because you were uneducated.
Blaine breathes a little easier, because that seems more promising. He quickly fires back: Maybe you can educate me. The message is gone before he can think of the repercussions. He’s on the verge of banging his head down on the desk when the reply comes in.
Are you asking me to show you what’s ethical and what’s not ethical?
It could be playful. It could be wary. Blaine taps out another message, squinting down at the screen, feeling daring. He’s going with flirtatious. It sounds so lascivious when you put it like that. He hits send before he can decide against it, and he clatters his phone down on the desk immediately afterward. He goes back to his speech - in theory - scratching down a few unconnected thoughts.
The illusion is destroyed when he grabs for the phone again as soon as it starts to buzz. I could always give you a handbook, if you’d prefer.
Before he can even decide how he’s supposed to respond to that, another message comes through. Hi, Blaine.
Blaine breathes a sigh of relief. Okay, this he can do. Hi, Kurt. The next message comes in so fast that it’s there before he’s done entering Kurt’s name in his contact list.
From: Kurt
Hi. How’s the haircut holding up?
To: Kurt
It’s great! Is it normal for it to have gone south a mere 6 hours later?
From: Kurt
Not if it’s one of mine. Did you practice for Saturday?
To: Kurt
Yes. It was actually kind of an unmitigated disaster.
I’ll probably just have to go with the usual.
Blaine grimaces. He may be overstating it a bit, but his attempt at copying the hairstyle had ended up looking a little more There’s Something About Mary than GQ.
The phone buzzes again.
From: Kurt
Maybe you just need another demonstration.
Blaine sits up straight in his chair, and even his heartbeat sounds hopeful where it’s beating low in his ears. He tries not to jump, to play it at least a little cool.
To: Kurt
I wouldn’t be opposed to that.
The seconds are long, but Blaine doesn’t make any effort this time to pretend that he’s not staring at his phone, waiting almost breathlessly for a response. When it comes, it’s actually three messages, arriving in rapid-fire succession.
From: Kurt
Or maybe, if you’re not confident, you should just put things in the hands of your stylist. Who might be available on Saturday.
And I’m of the opinion that dinner and a night out is fair compensation for a good hairstyle.
I’m just thinking out loud here.
The jolt of adrenaline is so strong that it almost sends Blaine out of his chair.
To: Kurt
Are you suggesting that I ask my stylist to my brother’s wedding?
From: Kurt
Absolutely not! A wedding is a horrible first date.
We’ll have to go out for coffee first. Are you free on Thursday?
***
Or it could have happened like that. But it didn’t.
< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >
Rating: Ranging from G to R/NC-17 (depending on how carried away I get in later chapters)
Pairings: Klaine, Cooper/OFC
Word Count: 4,761 this chapter / 9,663 total (so far)
Spoilers: Anything through the end of S3 may be mentioned
Warnings: None that I can think of. It's a little cracky?
Summary: It's exactly what the title says. :)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my wonderful beta shandyall! And thank you so much to colfer for being a second set of eyes. If you're so inclined, feel free to come say hi on Tumblr over here.
Part One: It could have been at a bakery.
From the moment he walks into the Aurora Salon, Blaine feels out of place. The woman sitting behind the huge counter with the faux marble finish is dressed to the nines, and her makeup is like a how-to picture in a magazine. The brittle-thin woman leaning against the edge of the desk is even worse; she could be posing for a fashion shoot and she all but ignores when Blaine walks up. The first woman gives him an apologetic look and a tight grin while she “mm-hmms” and gestures to her headset.
Blaine masks his discomfort with a smile, using the moment’s wait to bite down on the explanation that he feels he owes them - he’d barely had time to change out of the sweaty clothes he’d been wearing while he helped Cooper and Emily move boxes of decorations into a back room at the reception hall. It’s just a haircut, he’d reasoned as he threw on an old polo shirt and plain pants.
The receptionist finishes her phone call, greets him brightly, and directs him to a small sitting area while calling “I’ll let him know you’re here!” at his retreating back. The other woman - a stylist, maybe? - just watches, her face never shifting out of neutral. Blaine is only too happy to leave the desk and look around at the flat screen television and the selection of magazines and books full of hairstyles. Blaine considers paging through one, but he was here because apparently he needed an expert opinion. This guy’s a genius, Emily had gushed. You let him tell you exactly what to do. If I didn’t already find my stylist months ago, I’d let him give mine a try.
With a sigh, Blaine drops into a chair and dully watches the television, which is tuned to a home and garden show. Luckily, his wait isn’t long. Blaine watches out of the corner of his eye as a young man approaches the reception desk, leaning over to say a few words to the women there, who both greet him with much more enthusiasm than they did Blaine. Some customer service, Blaine thinks to himself, but he forgets his pique when the stylist calls his name.
He looks over, and his first thought is wow.
His second thought is honestly though, is there a dress code I should have known about?
Rather than articulate either of those sentiments, Blaine climbs to his feet and overcompensates with a cheerful, “That’s me!”
The stylist’s expression remains a bit reserved, but he does smile and hold out a hand. “I’m Kurt. It’s nice to meet you. Please follow me.” His eyes flicker briefly to Blaine’s shirt before he turns away.
It can’t possibly be that bad, can it? Blaine wonders, glancing down at himself. Maybe he’s not wearing a waistcoat and a fitted shirt with the sleeves rolled up and skinny pants and - okay, so he’s looking. He has to watch where he’s going if he wants to follow Kurt, of course, and he can’t help it that Kurt’s backside is the one facing him. And that those boots are doing wonders for his legs.
Wonders, Blaine repeats absently to himself, before he realizes that Kurt is leading him into a busy room ringed with mirrors, which could give anyone the chance to catch him ogling. He yanks his gaze upward, trying to make it perfectly clear that he’s looking at the back of Kurt’s head, but it feels too intense, like he’s trying to drill holes into it. Next, he tries looking away entirely, focusing instead at the black marble fountain at the center of the room, which is dry and covered with calcification. He’s wrinkling his nose at it in confusion when he almost crashes right into Kurt, who had drawn to a halt.
“Oh! Um, we’re here,” Kurt says, gesturing to an open chair.
“Sorry, sorry,” Blaine mutters. He seats himself, and then Kurt drapes a shiny black cloth around his shoulders and snaps it around his neck. “I was just looking at the fountain.”
Kurt makes a small, vaguely disapproving noise. “I don’t know why they installed that thing if they never plan on turning it on,” he comments, and then abruptly changes the subject. “So, what are we doing today?” He backs off a half-step to look critically at Blaine’s hair, and then steps forward again quickly, lightly pressing Blaine’s curls down and letting them spring back with practiced movements.
“Well…” Blaine startles and clears his throat when Kurt weaves one hand into his hair to pull it out to its full length. “My brother is getting married on Saturday - you’ve met his fiancée, Emily. I’m standing up, and she told me that she won’t let me in the door looking like this.”
Kurt hmms a little as he continues to analyze Blaine’s hair, but he keeps his face neutral. Blaine scoots his hips forward to retrieve his wallet, fumbling it out from under the edge of the cape. He retrieves the picture he’d put there earlier and passes it to Kurt.
“Anyway,” he goes on, “I need something a little more… controlled. Maybe closer to this?”
Blaine doesn’t miss the way that Kurt’s lips twitch when he looks at the picture, which is one of his old school portraits from Dalton. He looks at it for longer than seems necessary, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. Finally, he looks up to meet Blaine’s cautious, curious gaze in the mirror. “I can’t do this to you,” he says.
“What? Why not?” Blaine asks anxiously. Is his hair so far gone that it’s actually beyond recovery?
“Because,” Kurt explains, the smile growing on his face as he flips the picture back around to face Blaine, “I did meet Emily. She gave me very specific instructions for each of you, and she won’t be happy with me if I send you into the church looking like this. It’s very Tyrone Power, of course, but I think she would say it’s more helmet than hairstyle.”
Blaine fights a scowl, because he is not going to pout in front of a stranger - especially not one this cute. He can’t quite keep the petulance out of his voice, though, when he asks, “She did say that, didn’t she?”
Kurt doesn’t answer directly. “Let’s just see if we can’t do better, hmm?” His eyes are still on Blaine’s reflection, one side of his mouth is turned up, and there’s something in his eyes that’s both sympathetic and teasing all at the same time.
If he doesn’t give in, Blaine knows that he’s going to catch hell from both Emily and Cooper, so he has no choice but to resign himself to his fate. “All right,” he says. “Hit me with your best shot.”
“You’re going to look fantastic!” Kurt replies eagerly, grinning at Blaine in the mirror.
Blaine smiles back, and their eyes stay locked together. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” Kurt repeats. Then he seems to shake himself, his face settling into a more detached expression as he repeats himself more forcefully. “Okay! Right this way.”
Blaine scrambles to his feet and follows Kurt toward a bank of sinks in an adjacent room. This time, he very determinedly does not watch Kurt walk - after only the briefest of glances - because professional, Blaine, keep it professional. You’re here to get a haircut. Not a boyfriend. Or anything else.
Just a haircut becomes an extremely useful and appropriate mantra when Kurt helps him cushion his neck with a folded towel and begins operating the spray nozzle with one hand and running the other back through Blaine’s hair as he wets it. “So, how’s your week going?” Kurt asks, his voice duller, losing the good-natured lilt it had taken on. It sounds like something he’s repeated a hundred times, like something he asks every customer out of rote.
“Fine,” Blaine responds, doing his best to be just another customer. “Busy, getting ready for the wedding.”
“And you’re the best man?”
Blaine whites out a little as Kurt begins massaging shampoo into his hair and makes a noise that he hopes communicates an affirmative response. He stares straight ahead, doing his best to ignore the way he can see the edge of Kurt’s shoulder flexing in the corner of his vision. There’s a huge, swirling modern light fixture mounted over the sinks, and he lets the bulbs burn spots into his vision. Just a haircut really doesn’t help much when Kurt scratches his blunt fingernails all over his scalp, and Blaine valiantly tries to think of absolutely nothing at all.
“You must be close,” Kurt comments.
“What?” Blaine gasps, every muscle stiffening in surprise.
“You and your brother,” Kurt clarifies, sounding confused. “You must be close if you’re going to be his best man.”
Blaine lets out a slow breath. “Oh, yeah. Um, kind of. I go to school in New York and he lives in L.A. - he’s an actor - so we don’t see each other very often.”
“That’s right,” Kurt says, giving his hair one last vigorous rub before turning the water on again. “Emily told me about his stint on The Walking Dead, but I don’t watch it. Has he been in anything else I would recognize?” He rinses carefully around Blaine’s ears, which involves an amount of touching that has Blaine trying not to squirm in his seat.
“Do you remember the FreeCreditRating.com commercials from a few years ago?” Blaine chokes out, disappointment warring with relief when Kurt finishes washing the shampoo out. He sucks in a deep breath as Kurt steps away to squirt something out of a pump bottle, by the sounds of it. “Free credit rating dot com… slash savings!” he sings, quick and a little strangled, partly to spur Kurt’s memory and partly to try and cover up the sound of Kurt rubbing his hands together. They’re slick with something - conditioner, probably - and it definitely does not remind Blaine of anything else.
“Really?” Kurt says excitedly, digging his hands back into Blaine’s hair. “That’s your brother?”
His obvious interest is enough to dim Blaine’s mood a little, even though Kurt is working his fingers against Blaine’s scalp again, his touch strong and gentle at the same time. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“Huh.” There’s a whoosh as Kurt brings the nozzle to life again, and Blaine almost thinks he imagines the next words out of his mouth. “Your family has good genes.” There’s a little pause, and then he starts chasing the product out of Blaine’s hair with renewed vigor.
Blaine stares at the lights again. Is he supposed to say thank you? But what if Kurt’s only referring to the genes that produced Cooper? They do look strikingly dissimilar. It’s as though Cooper inherited all of their father’s genetics and Blaine took everything from his mother’s side, refusing to share and setting the stage for a sibling rivalry that would last decades. But then why phrase it like that? Why not say something just about Cooper? But maybe it had been just about Cooper.
“I suppose,” he finally says, lamely, and then swiftly changes the subject back. “I was pretty surprised when he asked me to be best man, actually. He used to give me hell when we were younger. You know how it goes.”
“A little,” Kurt says, and his voice is wry, but when he continues, it’s in his normal tone of voice. “I was an only child until my junior year of high school.”
Blaine raises his eyebrows. “Late in life baby?” he guesses.
“No, no.” Kurt carefully runs the water around Blaine’s hairline, gently resting the edge of one hand against his forehead to avoid spraying it into his eyes, and Blaine clenches his jaw. “My father remarried, and my stepmother already had a son. He was in my class in school, believe it or not. It was less like having a baby around and more like gaining a yeti who drank straight from the milk carton and left dirty shoes all over the house.”
Blaine snorts and angles his eyes back far enough to see that Kurt’s smiling too. “We get along really well now, though. I’d definitely stand up in his wedding,” Kurt continues. He gives Blaine’s hair one final rinse and then begins to gently towel it. Blaine stifles a sigh, reveling in the feeling and almost missing Kurt’s stern advice. “Don’t ever rub, not with this much curl. You want to just squeeze the moisture out.”
“Mkay,” Blaine breathes. It’s over too soon, and then Kurt is leading him back to his chair.
When he gets down to the business of cutting hair, Kurt isn’t slow or cautious. His hands fly around Blaine’s head with combs and scissors and clippers, the movements precise and practiced and fearless. Blaine is taken aback at first - he saw Edward Scissorhands during Cooper’s “trying to get cast in a movie that’s destined to be a cult classic” phase (or was it his “how can I be more like Johnny Depp” phase?), and it’s not quite like that, but it’s close. It’s obvious that he’s beyond the point of no return, so Blaine does his best to relax and ignore the size of the clumps of hair that are raining down on his cape. Kurt’s arms and hands prove to be a good distraction.
For a few moments, Kurt hums while he works - Blaine thinks he catches the tune of Chapel of Love - but he stops to ask, “So, you said you’re going to school in New York? What are you studying?”
“Drama,” Blaine answers immediately, meeting his own eyes in the mirror in an effort to drag them away from Kurt’s forearms. “I go to Tisch. It’s -”
“You go to Tisch?” Kurt interrupts, his voice wistful as his hands slow.
“Yeah,” Blaine says. “I just finished my first year. I’m doing Theatre Studies, and I’m thinking about a minor in Applied Theatre.”
Kurt snaps back to work. “I love theatre. I wanted to go to NYADA. Do you know it?”
“I do. It’s a great school.” Blaine forces himself to stop there. It would be rude to ask Kurt if he didn’t get in, no matter how exclusive the school is.
“I know,” Kurt says. “I was there for a year and two months.”
Blaine is staring at him now in the mirror, but Kurt isn’t meeting his eyes, instead choosing to focus intently on the back of Blaine’s head. “You… left?”
“There was a family emergency,” Kurt replies briskly, his face closing off even more.
“Ah.” Blaine fidgets a little, sorry to have touched inadvertently on what is obviously a very sore subject. “So, what’s your favorite show?”
Kurt brightens considerably at the question. “Oh god, there’s so many. How could you even start to decide? Classic, modern… you know, in the end, I think I’ll always have a soft spot for Wicked.”
“An excellent choice,” Blaine says, and then his eyes round a little when he hears Kurt humming again, but he’s not just humming - he’s singing a few bars of Defying Gravity almost under his breath.
When he notices that Blaine is listening, he stops abruptly, pinking slightly. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be!” Blaine bursts out. “Your voice is - it’s lovely.”
The color on Kurt’s face heightens a little. “There’s no way you can tell from that.”
“I can tell,” Blaine says confidently. “Sing a little more?”
Kurt glances down the row of mirrors. Just two chairs away, a teenage girl is beaming at herself in the mirror while another stylist in a sleek, immaculate outfit wraps a section of her hair in foil. “No, no. Really. I should try to stop. My dad, brilliant man that he is, told me that there’s no reason to stop singing just because I had to put NYADA on hold for a little while. I guess I took it to heart, because I don’t even realize when I’m doing it anymore.”
When he swings his eyes back to the mirror, Blaine catches and holds them. “That’s really nice.” His imagination is churning again, but he’s picturing something different now - two adjacent rooms, Kurt humming in the kitchen while he makes dinner, or maybe Kurt humming in the living room while Blaine makes dinner. The moment stretches out before Kurt breaks it.
“I know,” he says, and he still sounds a little sad.
It makes Blaine scramble for something to try and cheer him up. “Anyway, it should probably have been Popular instead, right?”
“Why’s that?” Kurt asks as he sets down his tools. He stands behind Blaine, critically pulling out a strand of hair here and there.
Blaine starts singing then, keeping his voice quiet, but not so restrained as Kurt’s had been. “And when someone needs a makeover, I simply have to take over, I know I know exactly what they need.” The song isn’t quite suited to his voice, but it’s not too bad when he slides it down into his range.
Kurt actually lets out a laugh, and Blaine beams in response. “You’re hardly the toughest case I’ve had to face,” he comments, nodding toward the mirror, where Blaine can see how good the cut is, even though his hair is still damp and starting to curl.
“But if I follow your lead, will I be popular?” Blaine teases.
“Of course!” Kurt says, and then continues in a sing-song tone. “I’ll teach you the proper ploys, when you talk to - well -” He falters.
“Boys,” Blaine supplies.
“Oh.”
When Kurt doesn’t say anything more, Blaine says, “Yeah.” He wants to fill the silence, but he wants to confirm it too, make sure that Kurt understands, just in case. They’re looking at each other’s reflections again.
Kurt finally drops his gaze to continue examining Blaine’s hair. He picks up his scissors to make one last deliberate snip. “Well, your date probably wouldn’t appreciate me giving you tips on how to, um, flirt and flounce,” he quotes.
“Actually, I uh - I don’t have a date,” Blaine admits. It hasn’t really been a point of pride for him, but he finds that at this particular moment, it doesn’t bother him quite so much.
“Oh,” Kurt repeats, staring at the side of Blaine’s head. His eyebrows have slid up a little, and Blaine hardly dares to think that he might look hopeful.
“Oh,” he echoes, because no matter what Kurt’s facial expression, he certainly can’t ask Kurt to come with him out of the blue. Can he?
Kurt suddenly startles into motion, rummaging in the drawer beside his station. “Okay, I’m going to dry your hair a little, and then I’ll teach you how to style it for the wedding. Sound good?”
“Sure,” Blaine replies, feigning enthusiasm to cover the drag of disappointment that comes with the change of subject.
Then Kurt is all energy, drying and smoothing and sculpting, flashing jars and bottles of product in front of his eyes. When he’s done, Blaine is amazed at his own reflection - his hair is molded into something that’s an expert cross between old Hollywood glamour and modern style. The severe side part is preserved, but instead of being slicked down to his scalp, the rest of his hair has been artfully pomped up and away from his forehead. “Holy - wow,” Blaine says, tilting his head back and forth. “This looks fantastic.”
“It does,” Kurt replies, sounding vague, and Blaine glances away from his own face in the mirror to find Kurt watching him with a distracted smile. His face clicks into something more businesslike immediately. “Of course it does! Do you think that I’d give you a hairstyle that’s anything less than fabulous?”
“Of course not,” Blaine says quickly. “So… what do you suggest that I do with it on normal days?”
“Oh, it’s going to be so easy,” Kurt replies, reaching around him to grab a bottle off the counter, his arm brushing Blaine’s shoulder and his chest bumping against his back. “Remember this one?”
Blaine nods dumbly.
“Okay. A pump and a half in the palm of your hand, rub them together -” Kurt mimes doing so right in front of Blaine’s face, and he’s so close that Blaine can feel breath ghosting against his cheek “- and work it through your hair when it’s damp. Don’t scrunch; that just invites frizz. Then let it air dry, and voila.” He puts the bottle back on the counter.
“That’s it?” Blaine asks doubtfully.
“That’s it,” Kurt says. His eyes flick up to the clock mounted on the wall between his station and the next, and then he cautiously asks, “Would you like a demonstration? My next appointment won’t be here for half an hour.”
Blaine perks up at once. “Sure!”
“I’ll have to wash this out.” Kurt gestures to the masterpiece he created on Blaine’s head.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Blaine says, bouncing to his feet and following Kurt back to the sinks, completely unopposed to subjecting himself to the horror of Kurt washing his hair again.
***
For the rest of the appointment, they talk easily about the wedding, their favorite stage actors, and their dream roles. They laugh and tease and, Blaine is fairly sure, they flirt. All too soon, Kurt is whisking the cape off of his shoulders and leading him back to the front of the salon, where he deposits Blaine back at the reception desk and turns to him with a reluctant smile. “It was nice to meet you. Vanessa will take care of everything from here. Good luck on Saturday. Remember to practice doing your hair before then,” he instructs.
Blaine barely manages to get out a you too and a thank you before Kurt is gone, unable to say anything else with the receptionist watching and waiting just a few feet away. He frowns as he grabs his wallet, digging out the cash that Cooper and Emily had given him to cover the cost of the haircut they insisted he get.
Although it’s rude, he’s not really listening to Vanessa, until she hands him his change and tells him, “…and if you want to leave a tip, there are envelopes at the end of the counter. Just write Kurt’s name on the front.”
Blaine’s heart beats a little faster in his chest when he looks at the neat stack of envelopes, each embossed with the salon’s logo, and the half-full fishbowl beside them.
He leaves a generous tip, of course, jots Kurt’s name on the front, and licks the envelope shut before he finds himself facing the moment of truth. He could choose to drop the envelope in the bowl just as it is. He could walk out the door and drive away, and that would be the end of it.
He needs to decide soon, before Vanessa thinks that he’s eying up the tip jar.
Before he can worry about it for another second, Blaine picks the pen back up, scrawls his name and phone number across the back of the envelope, and throws it into the bowl. Then he all but runs to the car.
***
Blaine is on pins and needles for the rest of the afternoon. The buzz of his cell phone is like an electric charge, speeding his heart every time it sounds, but, in what he thinks is an admirable show of restraint, he waits at least 45 seconds to check it each time. So far, he hasn’t heard from Kurt, and the texts from Cooper that would usually be ridiculous or bordering on irritating (short notice i know but can you think of anywhere nearby that would fold a couple hundred origami swans by saturday?) are, instead, downright annoying.
When a text message comes in at precisely 8:43 that evening, Blaine’s past being nervous, and he’s moved on to being exasperated with himself for thinking it was a good idea to leave Kurt his number in the first place. He’s so sure that it’s just another absurd question from his brother that he doesn’t even turn from where he’s scribbling what will hopefully become his best man’s speech into a notebook until his thread of inspiration has run out. When he finally does read it, his heart jumps right back into double time. It’s from an unknown number.
You know, it wouldn’t be very ethical of me to use a phone number given to me by a customer.
Blaine fumbles so much over typing his response that he needs to reread the fourteen words three times before he sends them.
I apologize. I wasn’t aware that it would be a breach of salon etiquette.
In the silence that follows, Blaine sets the phone back down on his desk, afraid that he’s going to ruin it with palm sweat if he keeps holding on so tightly. He picks up his pen, hovers it over the notebook paper, writes nothing.
His mind skates anxiously along. He can’t really tell if the first message is flirty or stern, teasing or an honest admonition. He hopes his reply is suitable for either circumstance. Please be flirtatious, he silently orders, or maybe he begs, shooting a glare at the phone where it sits innocently beside his notebook.
It buzzes two minutes later. Blaine feels like he vibrates along with it until he snatches it back up, 45 seconds be damned.
It’s not just etiquette, it’s ethics!
But I suppose I can let it slide just this once. It’s really not fair to punish you just because you were uneducated.
Blaine breathes a little easier, because that seems more promising. He quickly fires back: Maybe you can educate me. The message is gone before he can think of the repercussions. He’s on the verge of banging his head down on the desk when the reply comes in.
Are you asking me to show you what’s ethical and what’s not ethical?
It could be playful. It could be wary. Blaine taps out another message, squinting down at the screen, feeling daring. He’s going with flirtatious. It sounds so lascivious when you put it like that. He hits send before he can decide against it, and he clatters his phone down on the desk immediately afterward. He goes back to his speech - in theory - scratching down a few unconnected thoughts.
The illusion is destroyed when he grabs for the phone again as soon as it starts to buzz. I could always give you a handbook, if you’d prefer.
Before he can even decide how he’s supposed to respond to that, another message comes through. Hi, Blaine.
Blaine breathes a sigh of relief. Okay, this he can do. Hi, Kurt. The next message comes in so fast that it’s there before he’s done entering Kurt’s name in his contact list.
From: Kurt
Hi. How’s the haircut holding up?
To: Kurt
It’s great! Is it normal for it to have gone south a mere 6 hours later?
From: Kurt
Not if it’s one of mine. Did you practice for Saturday?
To: Kurt
Yes. It was actually kind of an unmitigated disaster.
I’ll probably just have to go with the usual.
Blaine grimaces. He may be overstating it a bit, but his attempt at copying the hairstyle had ended up looking a little more There’s Something About Mary than GQ.
The phone buzzes again.
From: Kurt
Maybe you just need another demonstration.
Blaine sits up straight in his chair, and even his heartbeat sounds hopeful where it’s beating low in his ears. He tries not to jump, to play it at least a little cool.
To: Kurt
I wouldn’t be opposed to that.
The seconds are long, but Blaine doesn’t make any effort this time to pretend that he’s not staring at his phone, waiting almost breathlessly for a response. When it comes, it’s actually three messages, arriving in rapid-fire succession.
From: Kurt
Or maybe, if you’re not confident, you should just put things in the hands of your stylist. Who might be available on Saturday.
And I’m of the opinion that dinner and a night out is fair compensation for a good hairstyle.
I’m just thinking out loud here.
The jolt of adrenaline is so strong that it almost sends Blaine out of his chair.
To: Kurt
Are you suggesting that I ask my stylist to my brother’s wedding?
From: Kurt
Absolutely not! A wedding is a horrible first date.
We’ll have to go out for coffee first. Are you free on Thursday?
***
Or it could have happened like that. But it didn’t.
< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >