A/N: Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble prompts ache, balance, cloud, dessert, and evening.

"Jesus Christ, Hummel, are you still working?" Those are the first words out of Santana's mouth when she walks through their apartment door, a Build-A-Bear box dangling from her index finger and a garment bag hanging off her hand. She takes a step, pulling at her key, but stops and groans dramatically when her key sticks in the lock. She stomps her foot, jiggling the key and cursing in muffled Spanish as she tries to wrestle it free. "You haven't…urgh…moved from that spot…grrr…since before I left six hours ago," she comments between curses.

"Uh…yeah," Kurt says, distracted. He pulls a pin out of the fabric that he has spread out on the floor in front of him and repositions it slightly more to the left. He flattens a wrinkle with his fingertips and then sits up to better examine the direction of his bias, ignoring the screaming pain in his overworked knees. "Why would I?"

"Because it's Valentine's Day," Santana answers condescendingly, as if Kurt is the simplest human being on earth. "You're supposed to be out partying, drinking, getting laid..."

"F.Y.I., I don't have a boyfriend," Kurt says, not looking up from his pattern to trade barbs with his roommate.

"F.Y.I., you don't have to have a boyfriend to get laid, especially on Valentine's Day," Santana remarks, closing and locking the door one-handed.

"Isn't Valentine's Day usually celebrated by monogamous couples?" Kurt asks, confused as to what his roommate is getting at. He can never understand why Santana seems to make his love life (or non-existence of) her business. He's had a few boyfriends since he's been at college, they didn't work out, no one died, end of story. Besides, with all the work he has to get finished before the end of the semester, relationships aren't really his thing right now. Anyway, Santana has Brittany to smother. She doesn't need to make him her pet project.

"Yes, Chuckles, it's celebrated by monogamous couples, and mourned by lonely, brokenhearted losers – like yourself," she replies, heading toward her room with her bear box and garment bag in tow.

Kurt's head snaps up when her comment sinks in, and he glares daggers at Santana's back.

"Not having a boyfriend does not make me a loser, Satan," he calls after her.

She stops at her bedroom door, turning just her head to face him.

"No, but not getting laid kind of does." She smirks triumphantly, tossing her hair back over her shoulders, then slips into her bedroom to get ready for the night.

Kurt rolls his eyes, returning his attention to his pinned-down pattern.

"Tell me again why I let you live with me," he mutters, pulling out his Gingham sewing shears and starting to cut.

Santana's bedroom door opens a crack and she peeks her head out.

"Because you love me," she chirps, then pulls her head back in and shuts the door again.

Kurt furrows his brow. Her ability to hear through walls is almost occult. Santana says it's because she's Latina.

Kurt contends it's because the eyes and ears of the Dark Lord lurk everywhere.

Kurt has his entire jacket lining and most of the shell pieces cut when Santana emerges from her room again, wearing startlingly high blood red stiletto heels and a red Calvin Klein mini dress that hugs her figure everywhere.

She doesn't bother to ask Kurt how she looks. She knows she looks fabulous.

She walks out to the living room carrying her purse, her coat, and the bear carrier. Setting her things down on the kitchen table, she opens the box to double check the bear inside – a special fluffy white one covered in pink and red hearts that she made special for her girlfriend. She hears an irritated grunt come from the foot of the sofa and she peeks over, spotting Kurt still on the floor, pinning yet more fabric.

His hands shake, his hair is a mess, and he looks way more pale than normal. She watches him try to manipulate a pin through a joined seam. It slips into the fabric easily, but with his fingers trembling, he pricks himself accidentally in the thumb. He hisses, a pathetic mewl escaping his throat.

If any man needed to get laid, it was Kurt Hummel.

"So, you're really not going to go out?" Santana asks, a thread of concern hidden somewhere underneath her tone of disappointment.

"Santana," Kurt says sternly, putting down his box of pins and blowing a long, frustrated breath through his clenched teeth, "I am going to college on full scholarship…full scholarship…won entirely based on my designs for this fall line that I am desperately trying to finish. That translates to I don't get to have a social life."

Santana pauses, watching a dejected Kurt sink back on his heels, wishing there was something she could do.

"Well, you're missing out," Santana says, not as sharply as her usual comebacks. She kisses the teddy bear lightly on the nose and packs it back into its box, smiling as she imagines Brittany's face when she opens it.

"I sincerely doubt it," Kurt mumbles, bending back down over his pattern.

Santana looks at Kurt, sparing one last thought for his current predicament – wound up tight with no hope of release - and suddenly she smiles.

"Well, I'm out," she says, shrugging on her coat. "Don't wait up."

"Make good choices," Kurt calls out as his way of saying good-bye.

"You know I won't," she says as she quickly leaves the apartment, cell phone in hand.

Kurt hears the lock on the door click and her footsteps fade down the hallway. With her gone, he's totally alone.

Now he is free to throw the fit he's been holding in.

He reaches an arm behind him, groping at the sofa for a throw pillow. His hand touches one and he grabs it, shoving it over his face and biting down on it hard – hard enough that his whole body shakes and his jaw starts to ache. All of this anger is pointless. It's his own damn fault that he's in this position. What made him think that he could pull this off anyway? Most people in the design department are working in teams. He's the only one putting together a complete fashion line alone. There's no way he's going to complete these last fifteen suits on time. He's creeping closer and closer to being over budget. To top it off, he left his adjustable dress form in the costume studio, and he couldn't convince any of the volunteer models to stop by tonight for a fitting.

Bastards.

He can make the suits and fit them to the models later, no problem, but without his dress form, it makes his job that much harder.

He doesn't need harder. He needs easy.

He needs help.

Kurt tosses the abused pillow back up on the sofa.

"I just…I just have to plow on through," he says, trying to give himself a pep talk, feeling vaguely pathetic in the process. "No more pouting. No more distractions. I can do this…I can do this…eyes on the prize…"

Bent over an intimidating amount of black suit fabric, the next two hours crawl by. Kurt has pinned the lining to the shell of the jacket four times, but it still isn't exactly right – not by his standards. He wishes he wasn't such a frickin' perfectionist – that good enough could be exactly that. But he needs these suits to be flawless – inside and out – if for nothing other than his own sanity. He grips his measuring tape tightly in his fist and groans, beyond broken and about ready to throw in the towel.

"A break," he says under his breath. "I need…I need a break." He unwinds his cramping fingers from his crushed tape measure and shoves the mangled thing in his pocket. He rubs his eyes, blinking away the spots of pinstriped Merino wool and cashmere floating in his vision. "A little wine, a little cheesecake…" Kurt says, grimacing as he straightens his aching knees - stiff and locked in place from having them bent underneath him for hours. "Okay, maybe a lot of wine…"

He rubs the muscles of his thighs, mentally trying to convince his knees to play nice and bend, when he hears a staccato knock-knock on his door. Kurt stops and stares, stunned that someone would actually show up at this hour on Valentine's Day.

Maybe it's one of the models, he muses, putting some weight on his left leg in an effort to answer the door, but his knee wobbles, and he slides back to the floor.

Fuck it. Not happening. Probably not them anyway, Kurt thinks, going back to rubbing his leg. He hears the knock again and decides he can ignore it. He's not expecting anybody. All he needs is for some sentimental ex to show up drunk on his doorstep just because they're lonely and it's Valentine's Day.

It's happened once, and he's not eager for it to happen again.

No, if he ignores whoever it is knocking at his door, they'll eventually go away.

Knock-knock.

Kurt looks up at the door, as if insulted that it would allow itself to be knocked upon after he had just made the decision not to answer it.

Knock-knock.

"Hello?" a voice sings through the locked door. "Is anybody home?" Kurt's ears perk up at the sound of that voice – melodious and smooth – crooning at him from out in the hallway. "Hello?"

Kurt's heart skips.

It's a very sexy voice.

It makes Kurt curious to see if it belongs to an equally sexy man - a man who is most likely knocking on the wrong door, but Kurt is on a break, so there's no harm in helping the man out before Kurt gets plastered and tries to match seams.

"Just a…just a minute," he calls, struggling to stand up, fighting once he does to negotiate with feet that fell asleep hours before and refuse to work right. "I'm coming." Kurt grabs at chairs, tables, anything he can reach to help him make his way across the room. He hobbles straight-legged to the door, arriving unscathed, and in his head he cheers. Eager to see the mysterious lost man, he hurries to unlock the lock. He turns the knob, opens the door, and when it swings open, he almost immediately falls to the floor.

"Whoa, hold on there," the sexy voice says, chuckling. A hand reaches out and grabs Kurt by the upper arm. Fingers wrap around his bicep, catching Kurt before he hits the ground. Kurt looks up instinctively at the touch, and locks eyes with the man at the door – probably one of the most handsome men Kurt has ever seen in his life.

Yeah, he definitely has the wrong apartment.

Well, shit.

"Uh…I'm sorry," Kurt says, standing with the man's help and leaning against the door frame to maintain his waning balance, "my legs…I've been on my knees all day…" Kurt cuts himself off short when the man standing before him snickers. That did not come out the way he intended. "I mean…what I meant to say is…can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Kurt Hummel," the man says, his voice sliding to a slightly lower register when he asks, "Are you Kurt Hummel?"

Kurt opens his mouth to speak, but absolutely nothing comes out. The man raises an eyebrow and smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting in a sultry, lopsided grin.

"Uh, yes...yes, Kurt," Kurt stutters. "That's me. I'm Kurt. You're…here to see me?"

"Yes," the man answers. "I'm here to see you. I'm your escort for the evening." At the word escort, Kurt's eyes open wide, and the man introducing himself laughs. "My name is Blaine. Blaine Anderson. I hope I'm not too late."

Throwing all tact and decorum out the window, Kurt looks him over, from his black kidskin leather shoes, up the legs of his Armani suit, to his arms crossed over his chest, displaying his biceps to their full effect as his muscle strain the fabric. But it's his sly smile and his devilish whisky colored eyes that have Kurt captivated. They tempt him, lure him, trying their best to seduce him, and the two men have only just met. Blaine crosses one foot over the other as he continues to stand casually at Kurt's door, as if he has all the time in the world to let Kurt look him up and down.

Kurt knows he didn't call for an escort, but he also can't shake the feeling that he has seen this man before.

But he couldn't have. He'd remember that voice – that sinfully rich voice.

"Do I…do I know you?" Kurt asks anyway, peering back at Blaine with questioning eyes.

"No," Blaine reassures him with a hiccup of a laugh, something in his confident demeanor slipping by a hair. "You don't know me." He reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a black business card, and hands it to Kurt. Kurt plucks it from between Blaine's fingers and holds it up in front of his eyes to read the gold-embossed letters.

"Hearts and Kisses Escort Service?" Kurt reads aloud. "There must be some mistake." Kurt looks back at Blaine's face, searching for answers. "I didn't call any escort service."

"Well, someone called my company and hired me for tonight as an escort for one Kurt Hummel," Blaine says, not moved by Kurt's objections. "You've already admitted to being Kurt Hummel, so that means I'm yours for the evening."

Kurt cocks an eyebrow.

"And what does that entail exactly?" Kurt asks, the question dry, not in the least bit suggestive. "What are you here to do?"

"Anything you want me to," Blaine says, his grin growing wider, incredibly suggestive.

"Be specific," Kurt demands. Blaine smiles more genuinely, looking a bit flustered.

"I could take you out to dinner," Blaine says.

"I…I've already had dinner," Kurt stammers.

"Well, then," Blaine says, inching closer, looking up at Kurt through enviably long lashes, "if you invite me in, I can make you dessert."

Kurt swallows hard at Blaine's turn of phrase, and at his honey-hazel eyes that look at Kurt as if the thing Blaine wants to have for dessert is him.

The ringing of Kurt's cell phone interrupts his thoughts, erasing the quick but enticing image that he suddenly had of Blaine licking whipped cream off of his abs, tongue lapping at his skin, following a trail of melting cream lower and lower...

"Uh…that's mine," Kurt says. He fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and flips the phone over in his hands to check the number on the screen.

Unavailable.

Great.

Kurt stares at the screen and contemplates his next move. Usually Kurt lets unknown calls go straight to voice mail, but he needs a moment to regroup…and to let his body cool.

A drunken wrong number might be just the ticket to killing the uninvited hard-on he's developing.

Kurt answers the call, but before he can say hello, a wave of loud music blasts through the phone, nearly puncturing his eardrum.

"Hello?" Kurt answers suspiciously, holding the phone a safe distance from his ringing ear. Intermingled with the music, which is asinine and incoherent, he hears a familiar voice giggling on the other end of the line, and another voice shushing.

Drunken – yes.

Wrong number - he only wishes.

"Santana!" Kurt growls, inferring the identity of the mystery caller and her possible connection to the man standing at his door.

"So, do you like your present?" she slurs, sounding way too drunk and excessively proud of what she's done.

"Santana, I'm going to..."

"Happy Valentine's Day," she cackles, disconnecting the call and leaving Kurt standing with his cell phone in his hand, gaping like an idiot at the handsome man darkening his door.

"So, do I get to come in?" Blaine asks, his voice barely cutting through the cloud fogging Kurt's brain. Kurt finds presence of mind enough to close his gaping mouth and clear his dry throat. He looks Blaine over one more time, trying to decide what to tell him. He can't employ the services of a male escort, no matter how gorgeous the man is – or how lonely Kurt has been. It's a feeling he's managed to shove aside for the sake of his work, but it's always kind of been there, no matter what he tells himself. Regardless, he kind of sees one-night stands as immoral and maybe a bit slutty (for lack of a better or more acceptable word).

But something about the way Blaine looks at him - the way he focuses on Kurt's mouth, the way he licks his lips, the way he smiles wider and wider with every confused and anxious face Kurt pulls - that makes Kurt want to be immoral, just this once.

Kurt's eyes trail down to the floor and along the way he notices the cut of Blaine's dark suit, the way his slacks hug his muscular legs and his trim waist, the way the tailor docked the hem of the pants above Blaine's shoes.

There's something about a handsome man in an expertly tailored suit that makes Kurt's toes curl.

And that thought suddenly gives Kurt an idea that fills him with an incredible sensation of euphoria.

Blaine might actually turn out to be the best Valentine's Day present that Santana has ever given him.

"What size are you?" Kurt asks, stepping out into the hallway and examining the seams running down Blaine's pants, tugging at the hem of his coat to straighten the line of the fabric over his back. He pulls out the measuring tape from his pants pocket and starts measuring Blaine's arm from his shoulder to his elbow, then to his wrist.

"Uh, I'm a 38 regular," Blaine answers, his voice changing, caught off guard by Kurt's sudden interest in his suit. "Why?"

"I think I might have some use for you after all," Kurt says with a grin, sneaking a hand around Blaine's tie and tugging the confused escort into his apartment.