A/N Many thanks to Gasperlie92 and Zhen for your lovely reviews! Continued warnings as previously said!
Yours Is the Skin of the Mysterious
"Recommended at the price, insatiable in appetite, wanna try?"
~ Killer Queen, Queen
Chapter One
Kurt is distracted in the morning by a pounding head and a fuzzy tongue. He sips an energy drink, cringing and apologising to his skin with every swallow, and refuses the slice of toast that Brody offers to make him with a grimace at the thought of digesting solid food, knowing it probably wouldn't look very pretty in reverse a few hours later.
He keeps his thoughts on a single track of work work work until the run up to midday, waiting patiently outside Isabelle's office, when he allows five spare minutes to berate himself for allowing his friends to convince him going out on a Monday night would be a good idea. Never again, he tells himself.
Just like he did last week.
It's not until he's on his way home again, walking the last block that he thinks about the events of the previous night. It's not until he's rounding that final corner that he recalls three figures rushing, lust crazed around a New York street corner, out of sight.
The three men. The two men and the boy.
He rejects the thought before it can fully form in his (still aching) head. He returns his attention to what he's going to make for dinner tonight, knowing Rachel will be late, as she is every Tuesday, leaving him to dine alone.
Alone with his thoughts.
.
.
When they leave the club on Saturday night it takes Kurt a moment to realise what he's looking for.
He blushes when the thought occurs to him, because why oh why would Kurt E. Hummel be looking for someone like that? One of…those people.
He's glad nobody's noticed his red cheeks.
He clears his throat awkwardly, runs a hand over the back of his neck as it prickles uncomfortably and looks around.
He's completely alone.
"Guys?" he asks tentatively into the night, receiving only odd stares from the strangers stood around him. So, not completely alone.
But Kurt Hummel's never been one to count strangers as company.
He looks up and down the street, wondering whether they've rushed, or perhaps just haven't even left yet. He eyes the club entrance, where the bouncers are glaring at him suspiciously. The taller one on the left had been reluctant to let him in a few hours ago in the first place, and Kurt hums gawkily and turns away.
"Rachel?" he tries, knowing full well his best friend is far out of earshot, whether she's in the club or on her way home.
It's colder tonight than it was on Monday. He shivers and rubs his arms, covered only by a black silky shirt, and stamps his booted feet, scowling as they pinch his toes.
He considers waiting, even texts Rachel a couple of dubiously coherent messages demanding to know where she is, but the cold is settling under his skin, tinting his fingertips an elegant shade of purple.
After a third stranger approaches, subtly asking him if he's got anything to sell, Kurt turns on his heel and stalks down the street. He wants nothing more than a duvet, a clean pair of pyjamas and a mug of boiling hot water infused with lemon juice.
He's too busy muttering profanities that will hopefully send Rachel a quick visit to Hades to notice his surroundings. It's not until his solitude is interrupted with a soft 'Hey' that he freezes, muscles tensing. His head jerks around and right there, leaning against the wall of a brick building is a man.
No, a boy.
That same boy of short stature, his black jeans wrapped tightly around slim hips and a dark washout wife beater stretched across the youthfully soft muscles of broad shoulders. His rumpled black hair curls around the heart shape of his face, and Kurt takes in sharp cheekbones and a well defined jaw.
And those eyes, deep hazel wells of innocence that stare at Kurt as his teeth, so straight they're almost crooked, bite down softly on his plump lower lip.
"H-Hey," Kurt squeaks, and immediately reprimands himself inside his own head for replying. Because now there's some unwritten obligation between them, he's sure of it.
"You look cold," the boy observes with a nod to Kurt's trembling frame, and it would be a perfectly innocuous comment if not for the way his eyes linger briefly on Kurt's crotch before peeking back up at his face through a thick frame of dark eyelashes.
"Hmph," is all Kurt can manage.
The boy dares to take a step closer. He's not holding a cigarette this time, and he unfolds his arms to let them hang loosely by his side. Kurt tries his best not to acknowledge the flex of young muscles.
"Some company would keep you warm," the boy continues softly, and Kurt thinks this stranger's voice might be warm and lovely, if it wasn't so gravelled with forceful seduction.
"I…I'm ok, th-thanks," Kurt stammers, backing away as the boy advances with carefully balanced footsteps. Kurt's trembling reaches a peak when his back hits a bus shelter.
He wonders briefly how this underdressed boy isn't positively shivering, with his bare arms and ratty converse.
"You don't sound so sure," the boy teases with a sly smile.
Kurt shakes his head until he's backed as far as he can go and the stranger steps well within his personal space, until they're sharing hot breaths in the cold night air.
"Please, I-"
"I'll blow you for twenty."
Kurt chokes on their shared breath, coughs and flinches when a pair of hands rest high on his hips.
"Is your cock as pretty as your face?" the boy muses aloud, raking his wide eyes down Kurt's body.
For a moment time stands still. They stand still.
But then this stranger, this boy is rubbing Kurt's hips with his thumbs, sliding his hands across to Kurt's zipper and bending his knees in a slow, sensuous descent to a crouch.
As the stranger's kneecaps touch the floor and the button of Kurt's pants pops open, Kurt comes to his senses, falls free of the boy's captivating trance.
"No!" Kurt cries, wrenching himself aside and scrabbling at his pants. The boy yelps gracelessly as he topples over, and for some reason he cowers at the sight of Kurt stood at full height above him.
Kurt opens his mouth to yell a firm Back Off, but it silenced when he sees the boy raise a hand over his face, as if expecting to be punished. Kurt's shout catches in his throat and he lets out a wordless sigh.
"Hey," he hums, reaching down towards the boy.
But upon seeing no further threat of attack, the boy's fear has seemingly vanished. His cocky grin returns and he raises his hands to meet Kurt's, pulling him down to the ground.
"Got a place we can go for some privacy, sweetcheeks?" he asks huskily, and Kurt wrenches himself back, though he doesn't pick himself up off the ground yet. The slight damp of the pavement soaks into his jeans and he wonders if, once the last of the alcohol has left his system, he'll be utterly furious at himself, or just plain old angry.
"No. Stop." Kurt tries to keep his voice authoritative, but it's laced with concern.
At the solid rejection the boy recoils, and his wide lustful eyes flash with doe soft hurt.
"No," Kurt cries again when the boy makes to scramble away, two pink spots appearing flushed in his tan cheeks with embarrassment. He reaches to grab the boy's hand and hold him there.
The boy stares at their locked fingers curiously.
"What's your name?" Kurt asks shakily, and it's as if Kurt's asked him to solve world hunger, the way this nameless stranger, this dime a dozen prostitute, stares at him, bemused. "What's your name?" Kurt repeats.
The boy licks his lower lip, still as plump as before but trembling gently now.
"Blaine," he whispers, voice free of sultry charm.
Kurt realises he was right, his voice is warm and lovely. Blaine's voice is warm and lovely.
"Blaine," Kurt nods. "I'm Kurt."
Blaine doesn't seem to know what to do with this information, so he turns his eyes away, looks at the wall beside them instead, at the floor and at the bus shelter. Anywhere but Kurt.
The damp and the cold are spreading through Kurt, and he releases Blaine's hand as if a shock of electricity has forced them apart. He rushes to his feet and sways, still tipsy.
Blaine stays on the floor, resigned and shivering. He looks up at Kurt from his knees, but there's nothing seductive about it this time. Blaine is nothing but a small, powerless boy. He looks to be about the same age as Kurt, but his eyes, his eyes are wide and deep as a child's, fearfully vulnerable.
"Here," Kurt announces abruptly, extracting a ten dollar bill from his pocket and pressing it into Blaine's palm, which has stayed open where Kurt left it. The boy's fingers curl around it slowly, as if testing his own strength.
"But I-"
"Please, just take it," Kurt begs. His throat aches with an urge to cry at Blaine's confusion, and suddenly it's imperative that Kurt leaves now. "I have to go. Just…go eat something. Please."
With a mother and father, and a stepmother too, like he has grown up with, it's no wonder Kurt's developed the instinctive Parent Gene.
And before Blaine can ask another question too painful to be heard, Kurt turns away and runs with all the force his burning leg muscles can manage, tears spilling down his cheeks even as they seem to freeze in contact with the chilly night air.
He bows his head, can't bear the thought of seeing Blaine still sitting there watching him from the cold, lonely ground. When he reaches the end of the street he turns back.
The pavement is shining with old rainwater, and the night is growing ever darker. Blaine has disappeared from sight.