"I'm sorry, I must have misheard you." Kurt says. "For a second there I thought you said you liked Papyrus."

"Yeah," Blaine says, nodding. "That's a font, right?"

"Not in civilized society." says Kurt.

It's their third private session. Kurt is living off of ramen and graham crackers to afford these alone times with Blaine, but it's worth it. The extra hours are really pushing his drawing skills forward, and his professors are impressed by his improvement. Everything would be perfect if not for the fact that Blaine does't understand that not all fonts are created equal.

Blaine takes another sip from his water bottle and adjusts his robe. During breaks they like to talk, and todays topic is the various aspects of Kurt's major.

"What's a civilized font, then?" Blaine asks, drumming his fingers against the platform on which he sits.

"Helvetica, of course." Kurt says. He eyes his drawing critically, ignoring the look of amusement on Blaine's face. "As well as Bodoni and Futura."

"I think I might have heard of the first one," says Blaine, laughing.

Kurt picks up a broken piece of charcoal and adds a touch of shadow to the paper. "I'm also fond of the uppercase Q in Avant Garde."

"What about Times New Roman?" Blaine asks.

"Boring. Overused." Kurt says. "I appreciate simplicity, but it's the default, you know?"

Blaine smiles. "You are certainly not the default."

Kurt glances at him and discreetly licks his lips. "I think we're ready for another pose, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah, totally. We got another hour, right?" Blaine says as he hops onto his feet and slips the robe off of his shoulders.

Nodding, Kurt rummages through his bag and pulls out a pillow and long piece of red cloth. "I'd like you to lie down, if that's ok."

He stands and walks up to the platform as Blaine gets down on his knees. Blaine lies down and Kurt tucks the pillow under his head before draping the cloth across his midsection and between his legs.

"This feels a little Titanic," says Blaine, lifting his arms up to frame his face.

Kurt huffs and goes back to his easel. "If you ask me to draw you like a French girl, you're fired."

"Understood." Blaine says. "So, what's with the cloth?"

Taping a new paper onto his board, Kurt shrugs. "I'd like to be able to show my father a drawing that doesn't have a penis in it."

"Does your father have a problem with you drawing penises?"

"Actually, my father is very understanding when it comes to my relationship with penises." Kurt picks up a fresh charcoal pencil and starts to sketch out the structural shapes that make up Blaine's body. "I'm just sure that he doesn't want to see them in every piece I bring home."

He pauses, looking up at Blaine's face to discern his reaction. By admitting that he had a relationship with penises at all, Kurt wonders if that means he more or less just came out to Blaine. Kurt's perfectly aware of his lack of passing privileges, but it still isn't something they've ever talked about in their short time together.

Blaine just smiles and closes his eyes, going off to where ever he needs to be while in a pose. Relaxing, Kurt goes back to drawing. He's more familiar with Blaine's contours now; the convex and concave of his waist and hips, the muscles in his legs and arms. While every inch of him is beautiful and fascinating, Kurt can't help but feel that he spends too much time drawing his face.

Faces are his favorite thing to draw. A person's entire life is written in their face, and Kurt loves to be able to capture it with a pencil or pen. While he doesn't know the actual details of Blaine's backstory, there are things Kurt thinks he can read when he draws him. There's the slight furrow of concentration in his brow as he struggle to hold a pose, the soft smile on his lips when he lets go and gets lost in the stillness, and the way his adam's apple bobs when he swallows, as if he's eager to say something but doesn't know what.

Kurt doesn't want to get too fixated on Blaine face. Sure, the rest of his body is lovely, but he tends to mentally regard it as just a bowl of fruit. The face is the person, the attractive, smart, funny, person who is totally naked and just lyingthere.

His pencil breaks, and he pulls out a little metal sharpener to fix it. Hummel, you are a bad person and a terrible artist, ogling your model like that. Bowl of fruit, Hummel. Bowl of fruit.

When the session ends, Blaine dresses in the back room while Kurt gathers his things together in his portfolio. It's giant, bulky black thing that's held together with tastefully placed duct tape. He stands up and hoists the strap over his shoulder, only to stumble back into his chair. Letting out a groan of pain, Kurt rubs his aching back. Sitting and drawing for hours at a time is murder on his spine, and the extra sessions with Blaine do not help.

"Are you ok?" Blaine asks has he comes back into the studio.

"Oh, I'm fine." Kurt says, standing up and lifting the portfolio again. "It's just that this thing apparently gained fifty pounds in two hours."

Blaine frowns and reaches out for the portfolio. "Do you need help?"

"No, no, I…" He stumbles again and manages to catch him and hold him steady. Blaine's hands on his shoulders feel wide and… present. Kurt stiffens and takes a step back. "Thanks. I'm fine."

"Maybe I could, um, walk you to your dorm?" Blaine says. "I'll carry your portfolio."

"You don't have to do tha—"

"I want to."

Kurt blinks at him for a moment, tension building up in his chest. The usually naked cute boy wants to walk him home and carry his portfolio filled with naked drawings and maybe he'll see his room and get naked in there and Kurt can make more close-up, detail drawings of said nakedness and…

"Ok." Kurt says.

They exit the studio and step into the crisp night air. As they head across the parking lot to the sidewalk leading to his dorm, their shoulders bump together, sending shivers up Kurt's spine. He's not sure if this means Blaine is special or if it's just been way too long since he's been able to casually brush up against a guy at all. Boys in high school avoided touching him like he was diseased, and boys in college…

Well, he's still figuring out boys in college.

When they reach his building, Kurt clears his throat. "Hey, um, I have another assignment to draw some portraits and I was wondering if you could sit for that."

"Yeah," says Blaine. "That sounds cool."

While Kurt is grateful that he lives on the ground floor so they don't have to haul his portfolio up the stairs, he's disappointed that their time together is ending so soon. It would be so easy to ask if he wants to get coffee or something, but Kurt isn't sure if he could take the rejection and still be able to see him professionally. They arrive at the door to Kurt's room, and he swallows, hoping that another private session won't completely shatter his metaphorical piggy bank for the rest of the month.

"It would only take about an hour," says Kurt, fishing through his bag for his keys. "And you wouldn't be nude, of course. I'm only drawing your face. So, how much—"

"Oh, no, you don't have to pay me." Blaine says. He sets the portfolio down and rests it against the wall next to the door.

Kurt blinks. "But…"

"It's just a portrait. I'll do it as a friend." Blaine smiles and lightly touches Kurt's arm. "Besides, I like hanging out with you."

Finally pulling out his keys, Kurt unlocks his door. "In that case, I'll, um, call you to see when we can do this."

He looks up to see Blaine leaning against the wall and beaming at him. Kurt smiles back, hoping his face isn't as red as it feels. They say their goodbyes and Kurt pulls the portfolio into his room, letting it slump onto the tile floor. He spends the night doodling in his sketchbook, nerves to jittery to sleep.

Kurt never thought he would have an issue with naked boys being too naked and comfortable and casual and naked around him. While it's really only the one boy, the other students in his life drawing class are starting to pick up on it. There are raised eyebrows during critique at all of the drawings of Blaine that Kurt presents, inquires as to how they can get private sessions as well, and does he give you a discount because you're friends?

"No, of course not." Kurt says, leaving out the fact that he recently agreed to be drawn for free. "We worked out a price beforehand. He has flyer up outside, you can just call him."

The other student setting up his easel looks up. "Oh hey, he's here."

Sure enough, Blaine steps onto the platform, laying his blanket down and slipping off his robe. Kurt immediately turns away to focus on what charcoal stick to use when Blaine bends over to place his folded robe in the corner. It's becoming harder and harder to think of his body as nothing but fruit, especially has he swings his perfect ass in front of Kurt's face.

Blaine turns around and catches Kurt's eye, giving him a little wave and smile. His heart leaping up into his throat, Kurt waves back. The professor claps her hands, and Blaine begins his first pose for the gestures. Normally, now would be the time Kurt takes himself out of the awkwardness of the situation and just draw, but his mind is still stuck on how lovely Blaine's legs are.

A minute goes by and the pose changes. Kurt jumps in his seat and starts sketching, chastising himself for missing the first gesture. This can't continue. He either has to get close enough to Blaine that he doesn't care about his state of dress, or stop talking to him altogether so that he can distance himself again. As Blaine twists his body for another pose, Kurt realizes that probably will never achieve the latter.

"You'd think you wouldn't have to draw so much for graphic design." Blaine says as his climbs onto Kurt's tiny dorm room bed. "Isn't that all done with computers and stuff?"

Kurt situates himself at the opposite end of the bed, crossing his legs and turning his sketchbook to a fresh page. "A basic knowledge of drawing is useful to all of the majors. Besides, it's fun."

Blaine blinks and tilts his head. He glances around the dorm; Kurt's side beautifully decorated, his roommate's side looking like no one even lives there. Kurt has seen him maybe twice since they moved in, and he's pretty sure this is the greatest roommate relationship of all time. Leaning back against the wall, Kurt brings his knees up to his chest and rests his sketchbook on top of them like a table.

"Thank you for doing this for me." Kurt says. "It really helps."

"It's no problem," says Blaine. He smiles again. "Like I said, I like hanging out with you."

Kurt bites his lip and starts to map out the guidelines of his face. Eyes in the middle. nose halfway between the eyes and the chin, and so on. Blaine relaxes against the opposite wall, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide and attentive. Despite the amount of time he spends on it in class and during their private sessions, Kurt has never drawn Blaine's face so close up before. He really studies it now, the curve of his cheekbones, the angle of his jaw.

He's beautiful, and Kurt can't believe he actually gets to draw him on a regular basis. It makes him want to get better. Of course, he always wants to get better, but this is different. Kurt wants to capture that face completely, hold it in his hands, his pencil, his paper. Photographs might be able to preserve a single moment in time, but to Kurt, a drawing takes in a person's entire essence.

Blaine's face is so open and illuminated, but the light of it brightens and dims depending on the situation. Right now, it's a soft, flickering glow, like a candle. It's mesmerizing, just like the rest of his body, but in its own particular way. Blaine closes his eyes for a moment, his eyelashes casting the faintest of shadows on his cheeks.

"Could you, um, keep your eyes open, please?" Kurt asks.

Blaine looks back up at him and nods. "Sorry, I feel like I'm staring at you."

"That's ok," says Kurt. "I don't mind."

He wants Blaine to look at him, he realizes. He wants Blaine to look at him with the same awe and wonder that Kurt looks at Blaine. Taking a deep breath to calm his pounding heart, Kurt goes back to drawing.

"This is different," Blaine says softly, as if not to disturb the rest his expression.

Kurt glances up at him from his paper. "How so?"

"I don't feel invisible."

Frowning, Kurt stops drawing for a moment. "I'm sorry?"

Blaine shrugs. "It's like, when I'm in a class or something, I'm invisible. Yeah, I'm naked and everyone's looking at me, but I'm not there."

"And now?" Kurt asks.

"Now it's…" Blaine licks his lips. "It's as if everything is just, just right here."

He stares at him for a moment before putting his sketchbook down on the desk next to him. Resting his hands in his lap, he leans forward ever so slightly.

"Is that ok?" he asks.

Shifting in his seat, Blaine inches forward as well. "It, it's more than ok. It's great."

"I don't want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable," says Kurt. His hands are shaking, but he grips the sheets to steady them.

"I don't think you will," Blaine says. "But I'll let you know if that changes."

"Good," says Kurt, smiling. "Because you're really great to draw."

"I am?"

Kurt nods. "You have a very… honest face."

Looking down, Blaine plays with the hem of his shirt. "Are you saying that you can tell what I'm thinking just by looking at me?"

"No," Kurt shakes his head. "It's more as if you never look like you're hiding something, or trying to be something you're not."

Blaine looks up at him again and bites his lip. "I guess can't hide anything, can I?"

"Well, I can't read your mind," says Kurt. "If you want people to know what you're thinking, you have to tell them."

"Can I show them instead?" Blaine asks. "Actions speak louder than words."

"That's always an option." Kurt says.

Smiling, Blaine leans forward even further, climbing across the bed and reaching out to cup Kurt's jaw. He softly presses their mouths together, and Kurt's eyes flutter closed. Kurt clutches at Blaine's shirt and kisses him back, firm and solid. His mouth falling open, Blaine slides their tongues together and runs his fingers through Kurt's hair. The kiss breaks, and Kurt rests his forehead on Blaine's shoulder.

"Do you want to go back to drawing?" Blaine whispers.

Kurt shakes his head. "No, it's ok. I practically have you memorized."

He kisses Blaine again, this time wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him close. Blaine laughs into the kiss, sinking into Kurt like he belongs there. The sketchbook remains on the desk, the partially finished drawing ready to be completed at another time.

THE END.