The whistle of the coffee maker pulled Kurt out of his reverie and he winced, stumbling into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of liquid caffeine that would give him the strength to face the day. God, he had been so stupid to get drunk in the middle of the week – the loud office was going to be hell today, each slamming door sounding like a gun going off, and there were plenty of slamming doors at Vogue. People mistook being a fashion designer as instantly qualifying them for Diva status. After his coffee, he blearily ran though all his skin routines and checked his reflection in the mirror. No matter what he felt like, it wouldn't do anybody any good to go to work looking like a zombie, and it was even more important for him to look his best at Vogue. After two years of working his ass off, he'd finally managed to land a proper part-time job there, leaving his afternoons free to attend his classes at Parsons.
It had been a year since he'd dropped out of NYADA, finally realizing that he wasn't drawn to the stage as much as he'd been to the world of fashion. He'd got himself into Parsons and life was finally going the way he wanted – at least in the professional sense. He stared at his own reflection in the mirror for a while, sighing internally as he traced the hickey peeking slightly out from under his collar. He had told that guy he'd picked up at the bar last night that there should be no marks left, but that went unheard while they were ripping off each other's clothes. Kurt shrugged a little – at least he had been good in bed and had left in the morning without a fuss.
He left the house before Rachel could wake up and start pottering around. He loved his roommate to death, but there was only so much of her you could take before nine in the morning. It took him around half an hour to get to his office - the subway was crowded and he barely got out without having body parts mangled off.
It was random chaos when he entered the and the sight of Isabel actually yelling out instructions to her assistant in a harried fashion as she waved her arms around and gesticulated wildly was what put him on edge. His fairy godmother, as he still called her, was always gentle and calm and he rushed forward to help her with whatever was going wrong that was getting her all worked up.
"Isabel! Hey, what's going on? Need some help with something?" he asked, keeping his voice light and easy, trying to soothe her.
Isabel slumped into her chair with a sigh, shuffling papers around till she found a blue folder and passed it to Kurt. "It's Melissa Mackers. She's this upcoming model and a fright to work with – she sent in her schedule details at the last moment and we don't even have a minute to waste if we're going to get this done today. She's one of our newest models, and I've heard that she's kind of… hard to get along with if things go wrong. So we're trying our best not to let that happen. Except… Michael is ill today. The flu. He can't be here, so Kurt," she turned pleading eyes to him, "Could you please, please take care of this shoot today? Please? I've got to send some stuff to headquarters and I'm already in some hot water."
Kurt wanted to tell Isabel that he couldn't do it because he had early classes in the afternoon but seeing her slumped figure and tired face made him change his mind, though he had barely any idea about how to proceed. "No, it's fine. I'll take care of it, Isabel. You just get on with what you have to do, okay?"
He knew he'd chosen the right thing when she jumped out of her chair and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "Thank you!" she said, beaming. "I'm going to put in a good word for your bonus component this quarter!"
Kurt smiled, glad that he'd pleased his boss, but also wishing that she would be able to sway his bonus a little. Money was a problem right now and he could do with some extra income.
Ignoring the last tendrils of a light headache, he walked into the production room, smiling at the cameramen and the production guys who were touching up the décor and setting up the lights and fans. He hoped that he wouldn't have much to do – Isabel's shoots were planned with great detail and he knew that he'd have to just give aesthetic views on things more than any input on production technique.
Melissa Mackers was a stunning woman, shorter than most models he'd seen, but her raven hair, deep blue eyes and delicate features made up for it. Besides, it was their job to help with the shots to make her look taller than she really was, and he had faith that Peter, their photographer, would be able to make it work. That man was a genius with his camera.
Half an hour later, Kurt was almost pulling out strands of his hair with his fingers, trying hard to keep his cool and not sass the woman standing in the middle of the forest glade set. She was critical of everything, questioning everything and though she was nice enough, she talked way too much. Kurt himself was a perfectionist in many ways, so he understood that she wanted the shoot and the pictures to be perfect. The only problem was that her ideas were fucking batshit crazy. The make up artist had to keep touching her up because she was constantly moving around, crinkling the clothes and changing her angle, making it harder for the people around her to accommodate to these changes.
Sighing, Kurt went into the break room to pour himself another cup of coffee and figure out in peace what the next shot was going to look like without being disturbed or questioned like he was kidnapping a fucking puppy and secretly sacrificing it in satanic rituals. He let out a happy moan as he took a sip of the hot, slightly bitter liquid, then followed it up with a swear as he banged into somebody, spilling the hot coffee on his perfectly shined shoes.
When he looked up to say something, a few choice words, maybe, his eyes were met with a pair of brown eyes with flecks of melting gold, slightly triangular eyebrows that would look weird normally but were adorable framing this pair of eyes and sinfully long lashes blinking up in surprise. He knew those eyes anywhere, would dream of them constantly, had watched them close in pleasure as he kissed the soft lips that he knew were situated somewhere in the vicinity. Only one name came to mind, the name that had built him up and broken him down, the name that he still called out sometimes in the throes of passion, the name he screamed out as he shivered out of nightmares, the name that signified the love of his life that he'd found amid struggle and lost amid success.
"Blaine?"