Kurt stared at his tumblr dash in annoyance. Of course Blaine was going to be on Ellen while he had work. Of fucking course. If he'd had a little bit more of a heads up (say, a week or so rather than a day and a half) he would have been able to find an excuse to leave work early. But he isn't able to do that now, so he is instead going to have to stealthily watch it on a livestream at work. Fantastic. Hopefully he'll be able to spend his afternoon in the conference room he's been using for his current Vogue . com project so he can do that.
By some miracle, Chase clears out of the conference room at 3:45, meaning that it should be his for the next hour at the very least. Perfect. He pulls his laptop out of his bag and turns it on, setting up his charger and trying to maneuver himself so that someone walking by won't see his screen (curse whoever thought glass walls were a good idea).
By 3:55 he is ready. He has a working livestream, he has his head phones in (no way is he chancing someone overhearing it and coming in), he's got tumblr open, and he's even got facebook open so he can yell his excitement at a friend over there as well. Basically, he's as ready for this as a person can be. He'll probably explode with excitement part way through the episode, but there's nothing he can really do about that.
Somehow, Kurt manages not to throw anything or start visibly flailing in his chair when Blaine finally appears. He loves Ellen, but sitting through her intro is slightly painful when all he wants is to see Blaine. Blaine finally enters, wearing a casual suit and an adorable bow tie, a smile on his face as he waves to the crowd before sitting down in his chair. Kurt can't stand how freaking perfect he is. Obviously - because he's sitting here at work, watching the livestream, knowing full well that he's probably going to have to work late because he hasn't been doing anything for the past hour - he has a slight obsession with Blaine. It's not just that though, he hates missing out on watching interviews live for the sheer fact that it means missing out on a bonding experience with everyone on his dash. Also it's a prime opportunity to just flail with his friend Katie for an hour. He never passes that up when he doesn't have to.
As soon as the Ellen Show is over, Kurt turns his attentions to his dash; writing text posts, refreshing the page while he waits for gifs, and watching every little clip of the interview that he can. In fact, he falls so deeply into tumblr that he doesn't notice the well-dressed man with gelled down hair walk by the conference room, stop, backtrack, and then enter it.
He doesn't notice until the man sits down next to him and starts to talk. "What'd you think of the interview?"
Kurt jumps, tearing out his headphones and pulling up an excel spreadsheet on reflex before swiveling in his chair and seeing – "Blaine?" his mouth hangs open in disbelief. "You- what? I- What? What is happening?"
Blaine laughs at his confusion, causing Kurt to blush. "I was walking by your conference room and saw my face on your laptop so I kind of had to come in here.
"I- oh god. Please don't tell my boss."
"I won't tell your boss if you don't tell mine," Blaine teases (that is teasing right? It can't possibly be flirting).
Somehow, Kurt manages to form a full sentence and blurts out "What's the story about your dog ." Apparently, the interview is still on his mind.
"That is such a long story," Blaine laughs.
"Oh come on," Kurt finds himself saying, "don't give me that."
Blaine gives him an appraising look and then leans towards him slightly. "I'll tell you what, I have to eat before I go to my next interview, so how about you grab dinner with me and if you're lucky, maybe I'll tell you."
"Y-" Kurt starts to say excitedly, going out to dinner? With Blaine? He's definitely dreamed of this on more than one occasion. Reality comes crashing down on him however when he realizes that he's still at work. He sighs, shoulders sagging slightly "I wish I could, but I have work" he gestures at the papers and fabric surrounding him.
"Oh." Blaine lets out softly, his smile faltering. "Right, I forgot that you actually have work to be done during normal daytime hours. Ok. I should probably let you get back to that, I actually have to hunt Isabelle Wright down to ask her a few questions before she leaves."
"You're here to talk to Isabelle?" Kurt asks, trying to tamp down on the disappointment threatening to wash over him. "I can point out her office for you if you want."
"Really? That'd be great," Blaine says, grinning as he stands up. "After you kind sir," he gestures towards the door with a slight bow as Kurt tries not to giggle.
"If you say so," he gets out around a laugh. He leads Blaine out the door and down the hall. As they walk, Blaine half a pace behind Kurt, a few people pause in their work to give them odd looks. Kurt chooses to ignore them, instead trying not to do a little dance because he is talking to Blaine Anderson. He isleading him somewhere. Blaine had asked for his help. And ok, sure, it had all started off embarrassingly and if he didn't have work he was required to get done he would be going out to dinner with him, but whatever. Now was not the time to dwell on that. Kurt reaches Isabelle's office and knocks lightly on the doorframe before poking his head in.
"Oh hey Kurt, did you need help with something?"
"I don't actually, but ah," Kurt tries to bite down on his giddy grin, but judging by Isabelle's raised eyebrow he wasn't successful. "Blaine Anderson is here and he wanted to talk to you."
"Blaine Anderson?" she asks, sounding a bit confused.
"Yeah, uh," Kurt steps back and gestures for Blaine to walk into the room. "Blaine."
"Hi Isabelle, I'm Blaine. I don't believe we've met before," he says, holding out his hand to her.
"No, I don't believe we have." She reaches out and shakes his hand. "It's a pleasure. What can I do for you?" She gives Kurt a little wave to let him know he can go, so Kurt reluctantly leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Wow.
Kurt tries to walk back to the conference room calmly, he's not quite sure that he succeeds, but hey, he tried. The second he gets back, he opens a text post to scream into and then returns to the three conversations that he vanished from. Apparently two of them assumed he just went back to work or had to go back to whatever they were doing, so Katie's the only one questioning his absence.
Katie: HE'S JUST SO PERFECT! I CAN'T HANDLE IT. I KEEP REWATCHING THAT ONE CLIP OF HIM BACKSTAGE AND I JUST SLDKFJSLKDJF
Katie: SLKDJFLDSKFJ
Katie: Kurt?
Katie: …
Katie: Oh shit, did your boss walk in or something? I'll be quiet now
Kurt: KATIE
Kurt: YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED.
Kurt: I HAVE TO PRETEND TO WORK NOW BECAUSE IT'D BE SUPER AWKWARD TO BE CAUGHT FLAILING OVER HIM TWICE IN A ROW, BUT I JUST MET BLAINE. HE JUST LIKE WALKED INTO MY OFFICE AND WE HAD A CONVERSATION AND HE FUCKING ASKED ME TO DINNER KATIE. AND OF COURSE I HAD TO SAY NO. BUT. KATIE. OK I HAVE TO GO NOW. ALSKDJFDSKLF
Kurt attempts to settle back into doing work after that, but he's not all that successful. He just can't stop running the conversation him and Blaine had through his head and it's not really allowing him to focus on sketching and matching fabric swatches.
Eventually, he manages to return to his work, he gets so involved in it that he doesn't even notice Blaine walk past the conference room on his way out.
Thirty minutes later, he hears a knock on his door and calls out a, "come in!" without looking up from his work. He is this close to finishing this part. When he finishes, the first thing he notices is the smell of Chinese food from his favorite take out place down the street. The next thing he notices is that it's Blaine who entered the room and sat down next to him, not Isabelle.
"Is it safe to talk now?" Blaine asks him, a grin on his face.
"Yeah, sorry," Kurt waves awkwardly. "I was just in the zone. What's up? …You brought food?"
"Yeah, I umm," Blaine rubs the back of his neck nervously. "I was talking to Isabelle and asked her if she knew what your favorite takeout was and I just thought… since you can't go out to dinner we could eat here while you work? I could help too? If you want of course. Say the word and I'll leave."
For some reason – maybe because Blaine made an effort to have dinner withhim – Kurt suddenly feels a bit bold. "If I were to say you should leave, would you be taking the food with you or would I still get some?" he teases.
Blaine catches on easily and laughs. "I see how it is," he says in an affronted tone. "You try to do something nice for a fan and they want free food," he sighs in a long-suffering voice. Kurt giggles, and then immediately blushes. There goes his boldness and his coolness in one fell swoop. Blaine however, doesn't seem off put by it. Instead he just says, "I believe you wanted to hear about my dog."
"That's right, you were going to tell me about that. I guess I can let you stay then. Before you start though, what exactly did you end up getting for dinner?" Blaine silently pushed a box of fried rice and kung pao chicken towards Kurt before taking his own meal out of the box. "Alright, you passed the test; you may now proceed with your story."
Kurt dug into his food as Blaine talked, gesturing wildly with his chop sticks at times. Kurt noted that he was surprisingly adept at eating with them. While he had had to resort to using his fork half way through the meal, Blaine had succeeded in eating everything with his chopsticks, seemingly without any difficulties. When Blaine finally finished his story, they got to talking about other things. At some point, Isabelle walks by the conference room, and Kurt's surprised to see that she just winks at him and gives him a thumbs up before heading out for the night.
Eventually, long after the food is gone, Blaine has to leave for his next interview.
He stands up to go, thanking Kurt for eating with him (and seriously why is he thanking Kurt for this?) when Kurt stops him. "Wait - can I umm – not to ruin the thing we had going where you were ignoring that you caught me freaking out about your interview – but can we take a picture together real quick? No one is going to believe me that this actually happened."
"As long as we can take it on my phone."
"…Why?" Kurt asks blankly. How's he supposed to prove this happened (both to himself and to everyone else) if he doesn't actually have the picture?
Blaine just winks at him in response and pulls out his phone. Well that doesn't answer his question at all but pushing the issue further seems a bit much under the circumstances. So instead of protesting, Kurt slides his chair closer to Blaine's, and Blaine takes a picture of them both smiling, and then he takes one of the two of them laughing after he makes a joke.
After that, Blaine disappears down the hall with a wave after hugging Kurt for a moment. Kurt's basically done with his work for the night – he just has to clean up really – so the moment he's sure Blaine has left the floor, he returns to his conversation with Katie. Katie who has apparently spent a good while screaming into his askbox and facebook chat demanding answers judging by the 20 asks and 42 facebook chat notifications. Who knew that telling your friend you'd met Blaine Anderson would result in that? (okay, he totally knew it would, but he can't help but be impressed by her insistence to get answers from him when he clearly wasn't there.)
He laughs quietly before typing a casual "hi" to her.
Katie: DON'T GIVE ME THAT. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME EVERYTHING. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU LEFT ME HANGING FOR OVER TWO HOURS KURT.
Kurt: I'm sorry I was too busy having dinner with Blaine to come back?
Katie: LKSDJF YOU WHAT? ?!
Kurt: Blaine stopped by with my favorite Chinese food, and who would I be to deny him company to eat it?
Katie: You seem to calm for this to have actually happened.
Kurt: I'm still not entirely sure if I believe it happened. I'd send you the picture evidence, but that asshole insisted we take the pictures on his phone and didn't ask for my number to send them so…
Katie: You're serious. I just. TELL ME EVERYTHING. I SWEAR I WON'T SPILL YOUR SECRETS TO THE GREATER INTERNET I JUST NEED TO KNOW KURT.
After ten minutes of chatting with Katie about Blaine's visit, Kurt is pulled away from his computer when his phone beeps twice, announcing two incoming text messages. He looks over, expecting it to be Rachel asking him when he'll be home, but instead finds that the texts are from …Blaine? He opens them hesitantly and is slightly confused by what he reads.
Blaine (7:53): Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask if we could get dinner together again sometime? Maybe without the work?
When he opens the second one however, he realizes that this has to be Blaine. How he got his number is a mystery, but oh my god Blaine was asking him out to dinner again?
Blaine (7:53): Oh! And here are the pictures[two pictures attached]
Blaine (7:55): …..please tell me the silence is because you're working and not because I'm creeping you out or something.
Kurt (7:57): Just curious how you got my number… and how it happens to be saved in my phone. I definitely don't remember us exchanging numbers… (and yes, yes we can get dinner together sometime).
Blaine (7:58): I may have casually typed my number into your phone while you were contemplating fabrics. And then sent myself a text. Nice phone background by the way ;) (YAY! You free Friday night?)
Crap. He had totally forgotten that his phone background was a picture of Blaine from a photo shoot with GQ. Whoops. This was one of the advantages of flirting via text though. Blaine couldn't see his blush. It made the whole thing easier somehow and yet also much more difficult. On the one hand he can think about what he wants to say before he says it, but on the other, he can't see Blaine's reaction in order to play it off as a joke if he takes it badly.
Kurt (7:58): I would never have pegged you as a thief. (I'll have to cancel a few plans, but I think I can manage that ;) )
Blaine (8:00): Only when I'm too nervous to simply ask cute boys that I meet for their number. (I appreciate the enthusiasm =P )
Kurt stares open mouthed at the text for a moment. Apparently Blaine thought he was cute. And Kurt had made him nervous. That was unexpected.
Kurt (8:02): I'm trying to work out if I should be flattered or if I should make sure to leave my valuables at home on Friday. (Just don't blame me if a crazy brunette hunts me down mid-meal because she's having yet another crisis that demands my attention)
Blaine (8:02): Shit. Interview time. I'll text you later with details?
Kurt (8:04): Sounds like a plan. Also I so do not understand why a prerecorded interview is happening at eight at night. It's probably good that I decided to go the fashion route instead of Broadway.
Kurt flails quietly in his seat before shooting one last message to Katie and packing up his things.
Kurt: Your evidence [two pictures attached]. And he asked me to dinner on Friday because he apparently programmed my number into his phone while I wasn't looking. And now I have to go leave the office so I can die in the privacy of my apartment.
The third time they go on what Kurt is pretty sure he can call a date, he finally asks Blaine the thing he has been wondering since they met. "What made you decide you could trust me enough that you gave me your number? All you knew about me was that I was a huge fan and that I worked at Vogue . com. In fact I'm still not sure why you decided to bring me dinner."
Kurt stares across the table at Blaine and watches in amazement as he blushes (it's not all that rare of an occurrence when they go out, but Kurt is still not over the fact that he has that effect on Blaine). "Well, Isabelle spoke so highly of you…" he trails off, and Kurt would be content with that answer (goodness only knows how much Isabelle seems to like talking him up), but Blaine looks as though he's debating whether or not to continue, so Kurt stays silent. "I might have also recognized you from high school – I – I don't know if you remember, but I was part of the Dalton Academy Warblers? We competed against you guys my sophomore year, and you had a solo and I was just… so enthralled by it. I may or may not have developed a slight crush on you after that. So when I realized that you were the same guy I just had to talk to you. And seriously, there was no high pitched screaming or crazy demands when you realized I was in the room, so I didn't have reason to believe I needed to be scared."
"Oh my god. You remember me from then?" Kurt breaths out, smile blooming on his face. "I can't believe you've had a crush on me. Here I was, thinking that I was the only one. Huh. Well, at least you know why I've been a fan of you since before you even graduated high school."
Blaine laughs quietly and then says, "So what I'm getting from this, is that if I'd listened to Nick and just talked to you after the competition, we would have maybe been friends or – more – four years ago?"
"Apparently." Kurt shakes his head a little, grinning down at his plate before looking back up at Blaine, butterflies beating rampantly in his stomach. "I think it worked out okay this way though. Who knows if we both would've ended up here if we'd met back then. As happy as I would have been for you when your career started up your senior year, I think I would've been incredibly jealous. Plus I would've hated you spending all of your time working instead of visiting me in New York."
"This way has definitely worked out well so far," Blaine agrees. "Although you're still going to have to share me with the world."
"Ah, well, it was inevitable anyways," Kurt says with a teasing smile.
The wonder of getting to be with Blaine still hasn't really sunk in. Him and Blaine are well on their way to becoming really good friends – and if he's reading all of the signs right, they're well on their way to a pretty amazing relationship. For now though, he's content to focus on the present. And the best way to do that is to continue forgetting that he's eating dinner with Blaine Anderson, Platinum selling pop star and instead take in the wonderful man sitting across from him, who loves his job, is beginning to really get along with his family, and who, most importantly, seems to really like Kurt.