Acrylic

Blaine Anderson, whatever else he thought, or had thought, or will think, about Kurt Hummel, would always call him a pretty boy. Because that's exactly what he is.

He'd never really seen him for what he really was before. Always concentrating on the bigger picture, the final image, and not the work and intricacy needed to build it up.

This art course, however, was changing that.

It had been his parents' idea, and he'd dragged himself along to the first class grudgingly, but after a few more lessons, they really seemed to be making a difference. He'd moved from stickmen and four-petalled flowers and uneven hearts to now, set his first real assignment; sitting in his bedroom, a blank easel in front of him and a half-dressed Kurt, partially obscured from view.

"Okay, lie on your back and place one arm above your head, on the pillow – no, no, your other arm, I want to see your face. Lean your head back onto it, tilt it slightly towards me, - wait, down a little more. You okay?" His model nods. "Okay, now shut your eyes, that's it. I'm starting now."

The first stroke of the pencil is too high up. The second is too close to the left edge of the canvas. The third has a weird bump in the middle and Blaine has no idea how he's managed to do that until he notices the slight tremor in his wrist.

For one of the first times in his life, Blaine Anderson's nerves are beginning to show. Always cool, always as slick and shiny and polished as copper. The only other time he can remember his facade breaking apart like this was coming out, and hadn't that gone well?

And his model, his muse; he seems so peaceful and calm. Despite the fact that he nearly always seems to radiate waves of electric energy, now the petite little Kurt Hummel looks just like Blaine's little doll. He looks cold, save for faint little patches of heat in his cheeks, and a faint half-flush dying along his throat. He's relaxed, so why can't his artist seem to feel the same?

Blaine watches him for a few moments, counting the rise and fall of his chest, the inhale and the exhale, timing his own breaths to match. Kurt's eyelashes flutter momentarily, then close again.

As Blaine picks up the pencil again and begins to make smooth, flowing curves on the paper, it's now that he really starts to see Kurt. His jaw line is soft and almost feminine, his nose has a very slight upturn to it and he's thinner than Blaine thought he was; the top of his chest displays the outline of the top of his ribcage, his shoulders are round and his hips curl out from his waist in an effortless line. From this distance, he can't make out the blemishes that he's sure there must be on Kurt's body. He doesn't look quite human. He's more fairytale.

Once Blaine's plan is finished, he grabs a palette and large box of paints. Oils, watercolours, gouache, even inks. But it's the acrylics he wants.

A slow smile curls on the corners of Kurt's mouth. "How're you doing?"

"I've got the outline done now. Just got to paint," Blaine replies, muffled. His paintbrush is being held between his teeth while he prepares mixtures of paint and water and he can't talk properly. Kurt suppresses a laugh.

"Can I see yet?"

"No, not yet. Let me get it finished first."

So Blaine continues, wanting to finish but not wanting to end this little scene.

Kurt's fragile and the light catches on his bones, although it's difficult for Blaine to reproduce this on paper. It's almost pointless. Paint could never hope to reproduce them really, but Blaine's desperate to try. He wants the painting to somehow reflect the sheer beauty of his muse and if he came anywhere close to it, he'd be happy.

His painting depicts a young person, who could be male or could be female, lying in a halcyon paradise, twisted amongst sheets of comfort and tranquilly, resting a head upon serenity. There's cobalt and viridian and cerulean surrounding a figure of quinacridone and naphtol and some fancy colour they decided to name Transparent Pyrrole Orange with shades of ultramarine and lots and lots of titanium white.

He puts his paintbrush down finally on his palette, then picks it up again.

"Done now?" Kurt notices and opens his eyes, blinking to adjust to the light.

"No, not yet. I want to paint you."

"But you've already painted me, Blaine. Surely you haven't got to start again!" he laughs, high and innocent.

"No, no, Kurt. I want... to paint...you."

And Kurt understands.

"Do you mind?"

Blaine rises from his chair, walks across the room to Kurt, still lying down but looking rather less relaxed, and kisses him briefly.

"I – I understand if you don't want to." He turns his eyes away from Kurt's, embarrassed, blushing. It was s stupid idea, a brief fantasy, but still...

"No. Let's try it."

Blaine stands there for a moment, silenced by Kurt's words. Then, working quickly, he replenishes his palette with the most vibrant of his colours, dips his brush quickly into the water, discoloured from constant cleaning, and returns to the bedside, placing his tools onto the table next door to him. Kurt eyes them, struck by fascination.

"Turn over." It's not a question, but the words seem to come out as such. "Now, relax. Keep your head down. Wait – put your arms above your head as well. Don't keep them down by your sides.

Now Kurt's thin, papery skin is stretched before him, an open and vulnerable canvas for him to play out what was once only a daydream. He's exposed and weak and Blaine's strong, yet he doesn't want to break apart the beautiful little vertebrae that stand out on the dancer's arch of his spine, doesn't want to shatter his little china doll, shoulder blades so close to the edge of his skin that they look just like they want to almost break free, become wings so that the angel can fly.

Just to buy more time, Blaine climbs onto the bed and kneels over Kurt's legs, hidden by what must be his latest pair of designer jeans. He'd better be careful not to ruin them. He bends over and softly presses his lips against each little roll of his spine, just wishing he could see Kurt's face, put an expression to the little gasps for air that escape from his lungs.

Recovering his palette, he dips his paintbrush into cobalt and turquoise, mixes them briefly and then applies the vibrant colour to the centre of Kurt's back. It's the same colour as his eyes. Kurt doesn't make any sound in response, but arches downwards, towards the mattress, then rises again. Blaine laughs softly.

"You okay?"

"Mmhm," came the gentle reply, somewhat muffled by the pillow.

So Blaine continues, decorating his canvas in light, short, feathered strokes. He's never been this close to Kurt before, and here, now, he can study every freckle and blemish, each thread in the web of veins, all of the colours and tones and textures of Kurt's body. And he has never known anything to be more beautiful.

Soon, he's moved away from the blues and greens, into yellows and oranges, flashes of crimson, swirls of light magenta and dark magenta, hints of purple, grey, working his way towards two central points, while inaudible, stifled moans rise from below him. Sometimes he'll stop, check his model is alright, then proceed again.

The first strokes are beginning to dry now, a landscape of lines, an arrangement of bumps, feeling hard and dry and slightly heavy on Kurt's back, just starting to crack, little flaws noticeable. But there's something touching about it, something sweet and romantic about this gesture or intimacy between the two boys whose worlds of colours and limbs and skinny designer jeans only consist of each other at this moment.

Blaine finishes and dips his paintbrush into the water, cleaning it as much as he can from the wrapping of colour that he places around it.

"Would you like me to do more?"

He hopes that the response will be a positive one, and it is. This feeling of power and control over Kurt's body is addictive and he wants to explore it as much as he can. He wants Kurt to become his little masterpiece. No one could make Kurt more beautiful than he was, but Blaine wants to try.

"Roll back over again."

The paint should all have dried now, and if it hasn't, he doesn't care.

When he turns over, Kurt keeps his eyes shut for a moment, flutters them again, then opens then to stare right back into Blaine's hazel. Now they're kissing, their hands in each other's hair and tasting sweet desire and need on each other's lips.

"Shall I?"

"Yes." Kurt lingers on the last letter for just a moment longer than usual.

"Close your eyes again."

Blaine knows exactly what he's going to do now. Only two colours: titanium white and carbon black.

He coats the brush first in the white, discoloured by the light and the remnants of the water, and starts to paint long, rippling streaks down Kurt's torso. He's not going anywhere specifically with each line, but instead just waits for them to intermingle with each other, first a road, then a maze, then fragments of string and finally a smooth sheet of ice, a glacier extending from his neck to as far down as he dared to go before reaching the waistline of his jeans. Kurt moans faintly under the stroke of Blaine's brush, rent beneath the surgeon's tools, an odd mixture, Blaine notes, of pleasure and want playing around his features.

Now Blaine moves up to Kurt's face, recoats, then begins to mark the skin; white flecks around his cheeks, his forehead and nose and chin, avoiding his eyes and mouth, just in case. Kurt bites down on his lip to stop himself moving so much, now more than ever not wanting to spoil Blaine's work.

Blaine replaces the white on the brush with the bible-black of coal and carbon, and returns to the faintly flawed paint on Kurt's chest, painting lines now with structure and purpose. A line up from the hip, from the shoulder, branches and stems extending from those. Now a line from the temple and down the neck and it's done.

"Do you want to see?"

Blaine takes Kurt's hand and moves him to stand in front of the mirror.

At first, he's shocked, a little taken aback. He can't quite work out what Blaine's done to him. He's been turned harshly white, and there are darker cracks extending from different parts of him. He begins to ask, but Blaine's second-guessed him.

"Turn around."

Apprehensive, Kurt does so. He turns his head round to catch a glimpse of himself, and gasps.

Blaine's turned him into an angel. A broken angel. A fallen angel. A mirage of wings in a multitude of colours are painted there and it's strange and psychedelic and maybe even slightly creepy but oh God it's stunning and breathtaking and just so beautiful.

"Want to see the other?" Blaine cannot disguise the smile in his voice.

He turns the easel around before Kurt can answer.

It's not perfect. It's nowhere near perfect. The colours are a little wrong and the proportions of everything are slightly out, but still...

"Does my nose really look like that?"

And both boys laugh, before pulling each other into an embrace that smells of salt and chemicals and it's both unpleasant and the more pleasurable thing in the world.