Not having to set an alarm didn't stop Kurt from waking up early, just like he figured it would happen. He didn't roll over to go back to sleep, though. He didn't think he could have done that if he'd tried, because he was always so awake right off the bat after years of an alarm meaningget your ass out of bed or you'll be late.It was nice to be able to take his time, and he cherished that. Cups of coffee on the fire escape weren't just for the weekend. He still had a morning routine; it was just that it had changed. Showers weren't rushed, they were long and luxurious. Breakfast was more than just a hurried piece of fruit grabbed on his way out the door. There was time to take toenjoyit all.

The train rides to Brooklyn were easy to enjoy as well. They always had been, though before they had been filled with impatient thoughts. He'd wanted to get there faster, wanted the train to speed up so he could have more time, but once he had all the time in the world in front of him he just sat back and let himself get lost in the steady rocking motion of the car, the metal creaking heard through his headphones despite the music playing in them. The rides there were almost soothing, though the rides back were less. While he loved his apartment and his bed, having a place that was his own where he could just be, he knew the ridestoBrooklyn were filled with more anticipation and enjoyment than the ones from.

Working with the other artists was something he'd looked forward to from the moment Blaine had mentioned it, though he wasn't sure how it would go. Being friends with them was one thing, but actually taking part intheirwork was something else entirely – though he supposed they might have been feeling the same about him.

Santana had demanded he write out a brief biography for her, but that had been it. He supposed not everything was nearly as inclusive as the others, like Brittany or Blaine where he partially knew what to expect. Brittany had wandered her way into his room the first weekday after their party, sitting on the edge of his table and watching him draw for a few minutes. It had been slightly distracting, despite how quiet she'd been, but anyone looking over his shoulder always was. He'd tried to stop to see what she wanted, but she'd told him to keep going and just watched, her blonde hair hanging down in his peripheral vision just enough to be a reminder that she was there.

After he'd set down his pencil, finishing out what he'd been doing in the first place to a point where she hopefully wouldn't tell him to just ignore her again, she'd taken his hand and pulled him up to his feet. It had been wordless at first, just her hands shifting his arms and hands to where she wanted them. Kurt thought he might not have appreciated the lack of information about what was going on except that it was Brittany, and the look on her face had been enough to keep him from asking any questions. It was more concentrated and focused, he would have almost ventured to sayserious, than he'd ever seen her before. In the end she'd gotten one of his hands firmly placed on her back and the other in hers before she looked up at him, a soft smile spreading across her features.

"I'm going to teach you how to waltz."

That was how they ended up where they were later that week, Kurt's pants cuffed up mid-calf to hopefully keep anything from getting on them – though he'd worn an old pair that he didn't particularly mind if they got messy. There was a large piece of canvas spread across the floor, and they'd done a few run throughs to make sure he remembered what he was doing. Brittany had insisted that there should be something other than just the basic step, and while Kurt had gotten the hang of it fairly quickly he wasn't exactly keen on the thought of messing up. There was always performance anxiety when it came to something he'd never done before, and waltzing was definitely something new.

"Ready?" Brittany asked, carefully setting the pans of paint off to the side. The floor was littered with dried footprints, almost to the point where it looked like it was a pattern painted there on purpose. She'd claimed pink as her color for all the paintings she was doing with other people for the gallery, and Kurt had struggled to decide on a color before she'd picked one for him. There's this blue, you should use it. It almost matches your eyes – as close as anything could ever come, I think.

"As I'll ever be," he replied, stepping into the paint gingerly and only wrinkling his nose a little as it squished up between his toes. Brittany looked positively blissful as she stepped into her pan and then out again, holding her hand out for him to join her. It felt like it was going against so much Kurt had known, not worrying about the fact that he was getting paint on everything – and it was even intentional.

They started at one corner and worked their way across to the other end, their footprints starting bold and dark and fading as they went. As soon as they ran out of canvas, cold concrete hitting their feet, they started again. Brittany had been a good teacher, but she was also just a calming presence to have there when Kurt was doing something that wasn't in his comfort zone. Her hand squeezed against his occasionally, and the smile never left her face the entire time. She looked like she was concentrating intently on what they were doing but getting lost in it all at the same time. It was like that flowed through her and into Kurt's hands were they were touching, up into his body and pulled him into her world.

It took a few passes across the canvas before Brittany's hand tensed around his as he started back for the paint, keeping him from going any further. Kurt glanced back over his shoulder at her, and she was just looking at him with a content look on her face as she used her free hand to gesture at the canvas.

"It's perfect," she announced softly, letting go of his hand to move over and nudge the paint away from it.

Kurt let his eyes drift over it, taking it all in. The moments in the beginning where he'd been hesitant, those were mostly or at least partially covered by steps of more confidence from the latter moments. He liked the overlap that he could see, beyond what he knew of Brittany's prior work when she was by herself. Of course there were distinctive footprints and patterns when she did that, but this was different. The different colors lent more layers than just on the surface. There was the combination, of where his feet had trod over where hers had been, the overlap of pink and blue mixed together in his footsteps for the rest of the time after that on those passes across. He hadn't realized it happening when it had been, but seeing it there after he didn't know why he hadn't anticipated it.

"Thank you." He looked down to where she was crouching at the corner, fixing the edge of the canvas, and she looked up at him with slightly wide eyes. It was like she hadn't expected any kind of gratitude, but getting to share something that was such a piece of her was definitely something worth thanks.

"Thankyou, Kurt."

To be fair, the person Kurt had most looked forward to working with was Blaine. He hadn't been kidding when he said that to Blaine about his photography, letting him take his picture, and he knew that one by one people were being pulled off to some room Blaine had set up as a studio up on the second floor. Kurt hadn't realized that there probably wasn't an area used for that normally, considering that Blaine usually did all his work out in the city and not stuck inside. All the other photography he'd ever seen in the magazine had all been outside as well. It had come together quickly, as far as Kurt could tell, because he it was going on and was just waiting for it to be his turn.

It came on a night the week after. They saw each other in passing, had conversations, but ever since the discussion of the gallery the night everyone had been there, the focus had been so heavily on creating. Kurt got lost in drawing for hours, working on trying to capture what he wanted for everyone and fussing over every detail because ithadto be perfect. It wasn't just his work on the line, though that was enough to make him worry, but it was also that he was working on representing someone else with it andthatwas close to being a terrifying thought. So it was a welcome interruption when Blaine knocked on the doorjamb, raising an eyebrow at him and offering a gentle smile.

"Feel like being a model?" he asked, and Kurt glanced down at himself like somehow assessing what he was wearing or looked like would change his answer.

"I'm kind of a mess," he replied, taking in the charcoal smudging his fingers and the sides of his hands. If he'd known he probably would have worn something nicer – he had an entire closet of clothes that would have looked fantastic in front of a camera – but from how Blaine shook his head he figured it didn't matter.

"You look perfect," Blaine said, his tone soft and near tender in a way that made a shiver run up Kurt's spine – a good shiver, one that he didn't mind even for a second. He gave a nod and rose from his chair, leaving everything there on the table as he followed Blaine back through the hall and to the stairs, climbing them to the second floor and weaving their way through some storage space before getting to where Blaine had set up his space.

"Can you take your shirt off?" Blaine asked, and Kurt stopped mid-step to look over at him with a raised eyebrow. "I just don't want to get it messy," Blaine hurried to continue, noting the hesitation and backtracking. "Sorry, maybe I should have opened with what we were doing instead of trying to get your clothes off."

"I—"

"It's just headshots, like from the shoulders up, not anything... untoward," Blaine continued, his cheeks flushed slightly. "But there's this pigment, like a splash of color – it's all organic and harmless and kind of just like colorful cornstarch, it doesn't stain your skin or your clothes or anything like that."

"No, it's fine," Kurt said, shaking his head. He was sure there was already something on his shirt, despite how he tried to keep it from getting messed up, but that was why he had a very specific laundry regime. Drawing in a breath, trying not to think about the blush on Blaine's neck or how he could feel the heat of his own skin, he tugged his shirt and undershirt up over his head in one fluid movement and set them on a chair off to the side.

The building was always slightly on the side of chilled, but the amount of lights in that small space were keeping it warm and from being uncomfortable to have that much skin exposed. Blaine had looked away, checking the settings on his camera in the brief few seconds it took Kurt to get off his shirt, but once Kurt was standing there still, unsure of what his next move was supposed to be, he glanced back over.

"It's going to be a mix of black and white and color, just to get some variety," Blaine explained as he moved, gesturing for Kurt to follow and having him stand in front of a stark white backdrop. There was an 'X' on the floor so he knew where to stay, and he stood there watching as Blaine moved back to his camera to adjust the height of the tripod. "So there are colors to choose from – pretty much any color of the rainbow, take your pick."

"Green," Kurt answered after a moment. Blaine smiled, running his fingertips over an assortment of Tupperware containers sitting off to the side before picking one up and popping the lid as he walked over to where Kurt was standing.

"Close your eyes," he said softly, his voice almost a murmur, and Kurt's eyes fluttered closed automatically. The pounding of his heart was loud in his ears to the point that he was sure Blaine must have been able to hear it with how close he was standing, but if he could he didn't say anything. Kurt stood still as he felt the pigment hit his skin, like a puff of air that lingered, and he didn't open his eyes again until Blaine said he was done.

"You'll have to tell me what to do," Kurt told him as Blaine took steps backward away from him, eyes traveling over his skin as if examining to make sure it was what he wanted it to look like as he got closer to his camera. "I've never... done this before."

Blaine smiled; a warm smile where his eyes sparkled that little extra and it looked like he was biting the inside of his lip to keep from it becoming a full-fledged grin. "You just stand there and look stunning like you are right now, I'll take care of the rest."

Kurt felt his cheeks flush, his gaze flickering to the floor for a moment to recover before he looked back to Blaine. It was too late for a chance to reply, because he could hear the shutter of the camera clicking. The first click had come right after Blaine had spoken, which made Kurt certain that he'd done that on purpose – said something he knew would get a nonverbal response first so he could capture it, and they had just kept going after.

As much as Kurt had been looking forward to it, he'd imagined it would be at least slightly awkward – and that had been before Blaine had asked him to take off his shirt. He'd never been in a position where it was just him and someone taking pictures of him other than his senior pictures, but that had been yearsbefore and he'd been posed over and over, not anything like what Blaine was doing. It wasn't an uncomfortable kind of awkward, but awkward nonetheless, not because of the situation but more because he wasn't sure what to do, where to look.

His gaze shifted, looking at the camera for the most part but also away. That was the only part that felt awkward, the staring into the lens. Blaine never told him to look anywhere specific, so he figured he wasn't messing anything up by looking away on occasion. Besides, if Blaine was going for variety there was only so much he could get from straight on shots looking into the camera. For the most part he was given no instruction at all, at least in the beginning, even when there were pauses for the cameras or film to be changed out. Just like with Brittany, it was easy to get pulled into what was going on and not think about what he was doing, relaxing and giving himself into the moment.

"Can I see your hands?"

It was the first time Blaine had said anything since they started, and his voice cut through the otherwise silence of the room despite the fact that he'd spoken quietly. Kurt blinked, coming back to reality and glancing down at where his hands were hanging by his sides. He held them out in front of him, palms up, gaze flicking up to where he could see Blaine looking at them over his camera. There was still charcoal on them from before, smudges and shades of black and grey marring his skin, and he moved to wipe them on his jeans – they were black and headed straight for the wash when he got to his apartment – but stopped when Blaine made a noise of protest.

"No, that's – they're perfect like that," Blaine said, shaking his head and keeping his eyes on him from over the camera. "If you want to bring them up so they'll be in frame, I don't want topose them just anything that feels natural..." Not even thinking, Kurt moved one up to rub the back of his neck, and Blaine drew in a breath. "Right, like that. I love that."

They drifted back into silence again, save for the camera. Kurt felt less stiff with the permission to move, though he hadn't been forbidden to move before, he supposed, it just hadn't felt like something he should do. He thought back to when he'd been downstairs working, the music he'd been listening to earlier, remembering the melodies and letting them play through his head as his hands drifted over his skin and occasionally up into his hair.

The click of the shutter gave an erratic backbeat to the music in his mind. More so than before, it was like Kurt couldfeelBlaine on the other side of the camera. It seemed silly, because he'd been there the whole time, but suddenly it was like he could feel him there, his gaze steady through the lens. It wasn't in a way that made him feel uneasy, like he was being watched, but a reminder of his presence and what they were doing. The shutter sounding off was unpredictable but steady, or at least steady enough for Kurt to notice immediately when it stopped.

"I probably look like a mess," Kurt murmured, letting his hands drop and looking down at them, the green pigment smeared into the charcoal. His heart was pounding again as Blaine moved out from behind the camera, slowly crossing the small distance between them, and he tried to blame it on adrenaline but he knew it was really because of the way Blaine was looking at him.

"No," Blaine replied softly, shaking his head as he stopped just in front of him. "You look incredible."

Kurt's eyes stayed fixed on Blaine's, and what only took a second seemed to happen in slow motion. His breath had caught at what Blaine had said, and he watched as Blaine's gaze moved down along his shoulders, up his neck, flickering over all the spots of green and smudges of black that Kurt was guessing were there. He could count Blaine's eyelashes, or at least try to, or the flecks of gold in his eyes that were catching the light in the room as they moved up Kurt's face, lingering on his lips before meeting his eyes, then back down again as he leaned up.

Blaine's lips were soft and warm against his and Kurt's hand moved up to cup his jaw automatically, his eyes fluttering closed as he inhaled deeply, thumb stroking up against Blaine's cheek. It was there again, that swooping feeling, but it was tenfold and making him feel like he was dizzy. Blaine's hand resting on his shoulder, sliding up his neck and settling there just below his jaw, his thumb brushing up against it, was the only thing that kept him grounded in the moment.

It had been a while since Kurt had been kissed, and when it was Blaine he was kissing he didn't want it to stop. His head dipped to chase Blaine's when he started to pull away, catching the soft surprised sound he made and swallowing it down as their mouths slotted together easily. Blaine pressed in against him, arm sliding around his waist and pulling him in tight against his chest, and Kurt parted his lips to ghost the tip of his tongue against Blaine's lower lip, earning a gasp from Blaine before his tongue was flicking out to meet Kurt's and it was like they careened over an edge together.

Tongues slid together as the kiss deepened, exploratory and verging on desperate, but it was desperation ofwant.Kurt wanted to know what Blaine tasted like, wanted to lick behind his teeth and learn the topography of his mouth to where he could feel it on his own. He wanted to memorize the breathy sounds that Blaine made when he was kissed hard and long, and the ones that he didn't know he himself was capable of making until Blaine sucked on his lip in that one particular way and pulled them out of him.

When they finally broke apart, just to the point of their foreheads resting together and breath falling heavily between them. Kurt didn't open his eyes until he felt like he wasn't panting anymore, his fingers still threaded into the back of Blaine's hair. His hand had slid back from Blaine's jaw to rest there at some point, he couldn't even remember when, all he could remember was the press of lips against his own and the way Blaine's teeth had dragged along his lip and made his knees weak beneath him.

"Incredible," Blaine repeated in a murmur, and Kurt's eyes opened slowly. There was pigment and charcoal smudging Blaine's skin, and Kurt wasn't sure if he'd ever seen anything better. It was from his fingers, fitted against his jaw and cheek, trailing back below his ear and along his neck, and he wanted to trace his fingertips all over Blaine's skin to see the way it would linger and stay behind.

"I got you messy," Kurt whispered and Blaine's gaze met his, eyes earnest and a smile spreading up into them.

"Ireallydon't mind."

"Well then." Kurt brought his hand up and drew the tip of his index finger down Blaine's nose, leaving a trail of mostly green with a tint of grey. Blaine just laughed, his arm still tight around Kurt's waist as his head tilted back, scrunching his nose.

"You can do better than that," he said teasingly, thumb brushing over the apple of Kurt's cheek.

"With the necessary tools..." Kurt began trailing off as Blaine stepped back, an eyebrow quirked as he gestured back toward his camera.

"Forget where we are?"

He was right, because anything Kurt might have wanted or imagined was there in that building. Kurt took a step away from him, his gaze sweeping over the area and lingering on the Tupperware containers Blaine had been looking at earlier, the ones with all the different colors of pigment in them. He glanced back to Blaine before walking over and popping open the lids to look inside at the assortment of colors at his disposal. Kurt pressed his fingers down into the green, drawing them out and tracing down his forearm with it. He hadn't been able to see where it was on his skin from Blaine's doing, but the color was bold and emerald, standing out brilliantly against his skin but without seeming bright or harsh. It was a deep, rich color and he hoped they all looked like that, though Blaine's skin was such a different shade than his but he didn't think that would make that big of a difference.

"You going to take off your shirt?" he asked as innocently as he could manage, and Blaine laughed again. "Fair's fair..."

"Fair's fair," Blaine repeated, tugging his shirt up over his head and tossing it to the side of the room before wandering over and fiddling with his camera. Kurt let his gaze rake over him, becausefair's fairand how long had he been standing there shirtless with Blaine behind the camera doing nothing but look at him? He drew his lower lip between his teeth, biting it lightly as he thought about tracing along the muscles in Blaine's back, the dip of his hips, resting his hands against his arms and feeling the muscles move as he unhooked the camera from the tripod and replaced it with another one.

"What are you doing?"

"I was setting this up to take pictures continuously at intervals," Blaine explained in an almost absent way, his eyes never leaving the camera in front of him as he attached it to the tripod and adjusted all the dials to the settings he needed. "Document your turning me into a technicolor person. Come here?" Kurt moved over beside him, glancing down as Blaine nodded to the camera. "I'll go out and you adjust that so it's the right height, and then just press the button to make it start."

Kurt nodded, and Blaine offered him a soft smile before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth and ducking out from behind the camera to get to the middle of the room. His hand moved up, fingertips brushing over where Blaine's lips had just been, without him realizing it was happening. Leaning down, he adjusted the camera and reached over to get the different containers of colors before he pressed the button, hearing the shutter click and drawing Blaine's attention away from where he'd been looking at the floor.

Not wanting to block the shot of him, and having gotten a better idea of where to stand after looking through the viewfinder, Kurt stayed off to the side and dipped his fingers down into the purple pigment first. It was such a perfect royal purple, very much akin to the bow tie that Blaine had been wearing that day he'd been waiting outside Kurt's office, and he flicked it in at him. The pigment hit Blaine's neck and cheek, and his head tilted to the side as if it had been a punch, the camera going off just as the cloud of purple rose up off him. It looked perfect against his skin, the color dusting and dotting along it, and Kurt bit his lip as Blaine looked over at him, the corners of his mouth turned up in a mischievous grin.

"Bring it on," he mouthed, and Kurt shifted the containers over closer, in front of him but still out of view of the camera, stooping down to stay out of frame as he slipped his fingers into the green and tossed it against him.

Color by color, Blaine got covered. His hair got flecked with more purple, red dusted his arms, blue and yellow mixed low on his torso and onto his jeans. Kurt apologized for that but Blaine rolled his eyes, gesturing to the rest of himself as if to point out how much it really didn't make a difference, all things considered. There was coloreverywhere, not just on Blaine but the floor, the backdrop, the dust of it having drifted over onto Kurt enough that he knew his skin and remaining clothes were various tints of everything he'd been throwing Blaine's way. Blaine looked incredible, though – gorgeous and strong and like there was nothing he'd rather do in the world. His eyes were a pop of dark against the colors on his skin, and Kurt could only hope the camera caught even half of how beautiful that was in person.

He'd gotten stuck staring up at those eyes, which were focused on the camera for a moment, his hand stilled in the container of green pigment. That was all it took, once Blaine's gaze shifted down to him, and a second later he found himself being pulled up to his feet, the chalky taste of whatever the pigment was – organic, harmless, but not exactly great tasting – against his lips. His arms slid around Blaine's shoulders, keeping him close and feeling the press of their chests and torsos together as Blaine's arms snaked around his waist, the kisses staying closed mouthed thanks to the color but hard and lingering, and his green colored hand slid up into the back of Blaine's hair, fingers twisting into it. He felt swept off his feet but safe from falling thanks to Blaine's arms around him, the hands splayed against his back and running up his spine.

It wasn't until they broke apart that he heard the camera still clicking away or that he realized that his front was just as colorful as he'd made Blaine, the pigment rubbed off onto his skin and his jeans. The pictures, he didn't mind that at all and kind of couldn't wait to see what they looked like. When he'd been looking forward to working with Blaine, there was no way he had anticipated it would have ended up likethatbut especially not with pictures like that either. He didn't mind the color spread across him either, it was just going to make the subway ride interesting.

"I'm going to be that crazy person on the train," he murmured as he took a step back to look down at himself, and Blaine's hands slid down his arms to take his hands. He glanced up and straight into Blaine's eyes, one of his hands being released as Blaine pulled his away, running it up his chest and neck, cupping his jaw and offering a small shrug, and the camera kept clicking in the background. "What?"

"Don't be the crazy person on the train," Blaine replied, leaning up and pressing a soft, lasting kiss against his lips before he pulled back enough to whisper, "Stay with me."