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The first time Kurt sees Blaine Devon Anderson, he’s entering the elevator with Sam and Kurt is momentarily speechless.
And then the two men start talking in a language Kurt doesn’t know–it’s slightly guttural, like German, but not exactly because it flows too easily too.
Maybe Polish, or Romanian?
Anyway, Kurt nods at them on his way out and tries not to blush when both Sam and Blaine wave at him.
He had heard rumors of European columnists and editors joining the ranks of Vogue.com directly in New York–Blaine must be one of them.
Sure enough, he starts finding Blaine’s name on different make-ups, particularly in advertising placements, and there is no doubt that there is something refreshing, different, in the way the man seems to handle it.
Day after day, they meet in the elevator, and just like a collector going after rare works of art, Kurt collects every little piece of information he can find about Blaine.
Because there is more than his body, his face and his voice.
Don’t get Kurt started on either of those, though, because he could write epic poems about each one of them.
Back to what Kurt now knows about Blaine: he likes his coffee piping hot, and his usual coffee order is regular drip–except for Fridays, where he mixes things up by ordering a soy latte; he manages to make bow ties less dorky and more sexy; he must tailor his pants to show off his ankles; he has a leather messenger bag that Kurt wants for himself with a fierce envy; he blushes adorably; he doesn’t hog Sam, even though Sam seems to be the only one speaking his language, allowing Kurt some gushing time over their common friend.
Even if they don’t speak, they smile at each other, and Blaine once brought a cheesecake muffin from his coffee house, and if that doesn’t at least spell friendship, well, Kurt will be damned.
Talking with Sam has always been easy, even if he’s all shades of dorky under his model mask.
Especially since he’s all shades of dorky, actually: the humor helped a lot in taking some of the pressure to talk with such a specimen.
“Isn’t Blaine great,” Sam starts while they are in the elevator all together, and Blaine barely looks up from his phone. Kurt feels sorry for him–how alienated he must feel, to be in a country where he doesn’t understand half of what is said around him–but he takes his opportunity.
“He looks awesome,” he says, smiling at Blaine who looks from under his–unfairly long and thick, is that mascara–eyelashes before returning to his phone. “No, seriously Sam, he’s seriously cute, all foreign and exotic.”
Sam chokes on the grapes he was munching, and swallows, helped by Blaine who pats his back and looks at him in concern–serious full on eye-contact.
“Bljatlh ‘e’ ylmev*,” Kurt hears Blaine saying, and boy isn’t that sexy.
Sam nods, adjusting his shirt.
“So you think he’s cute?”
“I have eyes, Sam, even you can see that.”
“Indeed I do,” Sam replies, patting Blaine’s shoulder. “You should ask him on a date!”
Blaine opens wide eyes, looking between them. God, he looks like a puppy.
A sexy puppy.
Disturbing thoughts, stopping right now.
“And what? Spend an evening looking into each other’s eyes until we miraculously speak the same language?”
Blaine seems to be blushing–or maybe it’s just the lighting in the elevator.
“The language of luuuuve,” Sam retorts, and Kurt punches his arm.
“Don’t speak nonsense,” he mumbles as the elevator reaches his floor. “How do you say ‘have a good day’?” he asks, and Sam seems to find it hilarious.
“Qapla’**!”
“Well, Qapla, Blaine,” Kurt says on his way out, and the memory of Blaine’s beaming smile carries him through the day.
—
For the next three weeks, the same routine is repeated: Kurt joins Sam and Blaine in the elevator, sometimes Kurt gets Blaine a coffee, sometimes Blaine gets Kurt a pastry of sorts, and Kurt gets to gush about Blaine’s many attributes.
He refrains from talking about all the finer points of Blaine’s pants and ass, but he does talk about how the striped shirts are killing him.
Until one morning, he has to make sure that the Gucci advertising will not be facing the article about the latest cosplay trends–nobody wants their readers, or worst, their clients, to think that Gucci is releasing cosplay costumes.
So he takes the elevator up to the 21st floor and to the layout designers’ office.
The doors are all opened and Kurt spots Sam’s voice.
“Where the fuck did I put my ruler?”
But then, a voice answers him, without any trace of an accent.
“Up your butt!”
Blaine.
Blaine just made that stupid joke.
Maybe it’s what Sam has been teaching him, English via jokes?
“Blaine that’s not even funny.”
“I’m hilarious and you know it Sammy.”
Okay, what the hell?
“Sam?” he calls, making his presence known.
“Kurt?!”
Both men stand up, looking like rabbits caught in the headlights of Kurt’s very fast and very furious car.
“What is this?” he says, gesturing between them before turning to Blaine.
He tries to maintain his glare on deadly, but Blaine looks genuinely embarrassed.
Good.
“So you speak English?”
“Yes?”
“… You’re not even from Europe, are you?”
Blaine scoffs. “I wish I was that exotic,” he replies, and Kurt wants to dig a hole in the ground.
As long as he has Wi-fi, he can work from that hole in the ground.
“No,” Blaine continues, “I’m from Ohio.”
“And that language you pretended to speak?”
Both Blaine and Sam flush red at that. “Klingon,” Sam mumbles, and Kurt blinks, trying to make sense of it.
“Klingon?” he repeats, dazedly. “As in, Star Trek Klingon?”
They both nod.
“Well, I’m glad I amused the two of you with my silly crush for this long,” Kurt says icily, turning on his heels before remembering why he came in the first place. “And keep that ad from that article,” he says, slamming the sheets of paper on Sam’s desk.
“Kurt, wait!”
Kurt walks fast, he knows he does, but Blaine catches up with him, the quick little fucker.
The quick little adorable fucker, God damn him.
“Wait, just–wait,” he says, slightly breathless as Kurt steps into the elevator, following him inside and pressing the emergency stop button.
“Hey!” Kurt exclaims but Blaine holds his hand up.
“Just hear me out, okay?”
“That would be a nice change,” Kurt says, as acerbically as he can.
“Look, I didn’t want to make fun of you,” Blaine starts, slowly, hand still up. “Quite the contrary actually, I didn’t know how to come and talk to you, just to get to know you, and maybe ask you out at some point. So I–I asked around, and I listened when you spoke to Sam.”
“Including when I started listing all your qualities,” Kurt cuts in. “That should have been a clue to let me know that I misunderstood something about you.”
“It should, and really, I should have told you the truth the moment you talked about my shirts.”
“You really should.”
“But I just … It’s the kind of meet-cute that only happens in movies, you know?”
“Meet cute?”
“Co-workers meeting in an elevator, communicating non verbally for months until one is brave enough to ask the other out, and they–”
“Live happily ever after?”
“Yeah,” Blaine says with a crooked smile, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hopeless romantic, I know.”
Kurt looks at him, and wonders what he would have done, had the roles been reversed.
Wouldn’t he have used the chance to get to know more about Blaine and his attraction for him, if he could?
Of course he would.
“Not so hopeless,” he replies softly, lifting his hand to meet Blaine’s, still in the air. “Unlock us up, and let’s talk properly.”
“About …?”
“About a possible non Klingon date,” Kurt replies, and inexplicably, Blaine blushes furiously at that. “What?”
“I just thought that in the Vulcan culture … never mind,” he stutters, looking at their joined hands. “It’s really silly.”
Memories of Star Trek episodes come to mind, and Kurt remembers parts of it as he looks down too.
“It all starts with the touch of the fingertips,” he whispers, and Blaine looks up.
“Exactly,” he replies in the same tone. “Though I wouldn’t mind very human kisses at some poihmph–”
Kurt will never know what else Blaine expects down the line “at some point”, because he can’t resist kissing the taste of dorkiness on his lips.
“qamuSHa’***,” Blaine says breathlessly when Kurt lets him go, one hand on Kurt’s waist and the other clutching Kurt’s arm.
“Gesundheit,” Kurt replies, giggling as Blaine surges forward for another, more seering kiss.