#he bought me a whole fucking wooden easel ……… how do i live up to that huh
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every time i get a present for my bf it always feels like i have to buy him like 10 things or its not enough
#i got stocking stuffers of some of his favorite snacks and like some lotion and chapstick??#and i found a pullover in his favorite color#and like i should probably not spend any more money but it feels like its not Special enough or something OTL#jordan talks#like i also havent bought anyone else anythingggg lmfao#i just do not have a lot of money rn.#i was thinking abt drawing or painting something but man am i out of ideas. school sucked me dry#he bought me a whole fucking wooden easel ……… how do i live up to that huh
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Klaine one-shot “Artistic Differences” (Rated NC17)
Summary: Kurt and Blaine have known each other all their lives. They've loved each other almost as long. But as Blaine uses his love for Kurt as inspiration for his music, Kurt has yet to reciprocate. And since painting is Kurt's entire world, Blaine is worried about what that might mean for the two of them. (2703 words)
Notes: I had been writing this for the @klaineadvent Drabble Challenge 2020 prompt 'opinion'. I finally finished it. Wee! XD
Read on AO3.
Baby, you're not alone...
'Cause you're here with me...
And nothing's ever gonna bring us down...
'Cause nothing can keep me from lovin' you...
And you know it's true...
It don't matter what'll come to be...
Our love is all we need to make it through...
Blaine stops singing when he notices an echo haunting his lyrics, lingering on the high notes for longer than written. He listens with eyes closed, smiling at his keyboard.
His boyfriend Kurt, humming behind the melody.
Blaine has been ironing this song out for the past three hours now but Kurt hasn't complained once about the constant stopping and starting.
He never does.
Blaine peeks over his shoulder as he continues to play with the harmonies and watches Kurt, focused on the canvas in front of him, swaying to the rhythm of the music, happily sandwiched between his two passions - art and music.
It's a mild and sunny Saturday - a whole day devoted to cleaning up commissions and tying loose ends on weekly projects before their one day off together. Blaine and Kurt share a studio space - normally unheard of for an artist and a musician, but they make it work. It helps that they've known one another for so long that being alone together is the same as being alone with themselves. That also means they get the inside scoop on what the other is working on long before the public does.
And what they're not working on, which has begun to bother Blaine.
Blaine adores everything his talented boyfriend comes up with. Even regarding his more controversial works, there isn't a thing Kurt has painted that Blaine finds objectionable. Kurt puts his heart and soul into every painting, no matter who it's for, and no matter the subject. A writer from Artforum once wrote: "Kurt Hummel goes beyond the veil to showcase not just the external, but the core of every subject - their drives and motivations. It pairs nicely with the transparency of his own soul, which shines through the gouache and the gesso to leave the viewer with a tangible piece."
And therein lies the root of Blaine's problem.
A glance at one of Kurt's canvasses and the world knows everything it needs to about what he loves.
But one subject in particular has gone wholly unrepresented.
“How come you've never painted a portrait of me?” Blaine asks.
"Hmm... what's that, love?" Kurt mutters, switching out brushes, then moving from a blob of Titanium White to a smear of Winsor Blue.
"How come you've never painted a portrait of me?" Blaine rises off his piano bench and relocates to the wooden folding chair behind Kurt's easel in the hopes of pulling his attention a bit. "You've been an artist for as long as I've known you, and I've known you your entire life. But not once have you ever painted a portrait of me."
“Why do I need to? I have you right here," Kurt says, pretending to bop the tip of Blaine's nose with his brush. "Besides, these aren’t personal." His gaze bounces between the three canvases set on easels in an arc in front of him. "They’re bought and paid for.”
"But what about your private stuff? You've shown me your sketchbooks and your digital art files. Unless you have some hidden folder marked 'secret boyfriend art' that I've yet to come across, there's not a single piece of me in any of your work."
Kurt doesn't steer his gaze away from the apple he's adding highlights to to acknowledge his pouty boyfriend, but the corner of his mouth hitches. "If you say so, dear."
"I know so," Blaine grumps, crossing his arms over his chest and dropping back in the chair so hard he nearly topples it over.
"That's your opinion."
"You're evading."
"Is it really so important to you?"
"Yes! It would be nice to be immortalized by my artist boyfriend!"
Kurt snickers. "Are you that much of a narcissist?"
"Your art is important to you! More than that - it's your life! You paint everything that you love! You've made dozens of paintings of Finn, your father, your mother, your Navigator... "
"My Navigator is my baby. It deserves love. I don't get to drive it much living in the city," Kurt defends. "Besides, those paintings I posted on Instagram landed me a huge contract with Lincoln, and that paid for our month-long tryst to Bali. You're welcome, by the way."
"I'm not saying I'm not grateful... " Blaine pauses, the smile on his face a souvenir from thirty straight days of overindulgence in sex and alcohol. "I think I more than proved that on that private beach? Under the moonlight?"
"Yeah, you did," Kurt growls, silently hoping that will be the end of this discussion.
"But... " Blaine picks up and Kurt's heart sinks.
No luck.
"... nowhere am I present in your work. Not that I've seen. Not even in the abstract. And that makes me think... "
"Think what?" Kurt mutters, his playful attitude fading the longer this conversation drags on.
Blaine sighs, realizing how much like a spoiled toddler he sounds. But he's in too deep to stop now. "That you don't expect me to be around long."
Kurt's snicker turns into a full-blown chortle. "We've been together forever! You staked a claim on me in kindergarten! Are you suddenly going somewhere?"
"Can't you take this seriously?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's ridiculous!"
Blaine huffs. "Great. So my feelings are ridiculous."
"No, Blaine, your feelings are valid. This argument is ridiculous. Believe it or don't, you don't know everything about me. Or my work. What does it matter what I put on a canvas? I told you that I love you! That I would always love you! I tell you over and over and over! Those are my words! My truth! Listen to my truth!"
"B-but what if you change your mind?" Blaine grimaces when that toddler inside him begins throwing an all-out tantrum.
"Then I change my mind!" Kurt groans, slamming his free hand down on an open tube of Dandelion Green, sending a thick ribbon of paint a good four feet. "I'm allowed to change my mind! And so are you! But I don't see that happening!"
"Then why won't you marry me?"
Kurt pulls a face, probably without thinking about it. "Because I'm not very fond of marriage."
"Why not? Your parents had a great marriage! And your father has a wonderful second marriage!"
"But your parents don't have a very good marriage, do they? Nor your older brother, who's been divorced twice already! " Kurt argues, frustration causing him to forget himself and clean his stained hand on the untucked hem of his shirt instead of a rag. That should be a huge red-flag for Blaine to back down, yet he doesn't. Common sense? Sorry, don't know her. "And the national average isn't that great, either. Doesn't it mean more that I choose to stay with you instead of feeling obligated to?"
Blaine doesn't have an answer for that, even though the answer is obviously yes. Of course, it does. And in high school, that would have been enough to shut Blaine up. But admitting to that feels too much like conceding, and this one time, this is an argument he wants to win. "Did you hear that song I've been working on?" Blaine asks, switching gears so quickly, it puts Kurt on edge.
"Yes," Kurt replies, his voice becoming tight quickly. "It's lovely."
"I wrote it for you."
"Thank you. It sounds wonderful. Another huge hit in the making."
"It's the 15th song I've written in your honor."
"Wow," Kurt says dryly, predicting the direction this is heading. "That many?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's an incredibly kind and loving gesture, one that I didn't know required reciprocation."
"It doesn't require reciprocation. But it would be nice."
Kurt rolls his eyes at Blaine's agenda. Tit for tat. Is that how this is supposed to work? "From what I remember, those songs made you a pretty penny."
"So?"
"So, it's not like you wrote them for me and kept them between us. Most of those songs are chart-toppers."
"But I didn't release them for the money! I wouldn't care if they didn't make me a dime! I put them on the albums because I'm not afraid to let the world know how I feel about you!"
Kurt's brow furrows as he fights through a blooming headache to decode that declaration. Once he gets it, he gasps. "I'm not hiding you away if that's what you're implying! You go with me EVERYWHERE! Every gallery opening, every art show! There have been articles written about our relationship! You're no dirty little secret!"
"I never said I was."
"No?" Kurt chuckles bitterly. "You're sure implying it a great deal!"
"That's not what this is about."
"You're right. It's not. Blaine!" Kurt tosses his brush into a mug of water and starts pacing the floor. "I am a gay artist walking a very fine line."
"I'm a gay artist, too!" Blaine says, offended.
"But you're a musician. And a songwriter. Musicians are supposed to use love as their muse. Writing about your relationship is expected... unless you're Taylor Swift, apparently."
"Yeah. What's up with that?"
Kurt shrugs. "I don't know. The point is that the second I make a piece of art about our relationship in any way, shape, or form, I'm afraid that's all it will be about, no matter what I intend."
"Isn't art supposed to be subject to interpretation?"
"That's just it! If I hint that my art has anything to do with you, that will become the only interpretation. Because too many straight people see the homosexual experience as solely about the right to fuck who we want to fuck and nothing else. I make a portrait about you or dedicated to you, and after that... " Kurt's eyes leave Blaine's face, scanning the room and his canvasses all around for help making his argument. He finds a painting of a forest they hiked through in Bali and stops there "... a tree that I paint will no longer be just a tree. It will become a symbol. In a forest of evergreens, if one needle is slightly browner than the rest because the paint oxidizes weirdly or whatever, then it'll be about you and me on the skids and nothing else. And I don't want that to happen."
Blaine turns in his chair to find the painting Kurt is staring at. On the surface, it's trees, dirt, and sky, but underneath, it's much more than that. That painting of their beloved paradise is perfection - so much so that he can feel the sun on his face, the breeze kissing his cheek, smell the sunscreen on his skin. "I understand what you're saying, but... "
"But?" Kurt grinds out between his teeth. This is the frustrating thing about arguing with Blaine. Even when he says he sees Kurt's point of view, he doesn't seem to really.
And when he's not winning, he gets dismissive.
"... I think you're overthinking things a little."
"And you're not?"
"Another evade," Blaine says, pointing at him in a way reminiscent of his brother's only acting technique.
Kurt grabs the hair at his temple and pulls to keep from flinging the palette in his hand like a frisbee at Blaine's head. "Isn't it more important that you know how I feel about you? You inspire me every day! Your love, your support, your music - they feed my soul! But do I have to plaster it on a wall to make it real?"
"That's kind of an empty question because you don't! There are no paintings of me! Not even in our apartment! And I'm sorry, but I think that's very telling!"
Kurt nods, his lips pulled taut. "You're right, Blaine. Not one. And it is very telling." He drops his palette on his work table and circles the room, grabbing finished canvases and carrying them over. He positions them purposefully, placing some under UV lights he has mounted to runners on the ceiling.
"What... what are you doing?" Blaine asks with worry, wondering if Kurt is about to do something hasty, something that will ruin his paintings, waste all those hours of work, jeopardize the money he has yet to collect for them.
Kurt doesn't answer.
He doesn't even look at him.
He works silently, his shoulders rigid, his footsteps heavy as he collects paintings Blaine forgot about, paintings that had made Blaine bristle because they were of places they had been to together, things they had made a point to see only with each other, but not a one included him. Those Kurt flips upside down.
He swipes a squeeze bottle of clear liquid from his army of supplies. It could be water. It could be paint thinner. Blaine doesn't know, but he's not certain he wants to find out. He's about to leap off his seat to stop him, but Kurt switches off the overhead lights, turns on the UVs, and Blaine stops. He watches in horror as Kurt douses the flipped canvases in fluid, but the paint doesn't run. Whatever is in that bottle, it sticks, but only in certain areas, and before it dries completely, Kurt dusts the paintings with a fine powder, one that brings hidden images to life beneath the lights.
“Oh my God,” Blaine mutters, stepping back to get a better look.
Every painting, in one way or another, is of him. Of them. And not just recently. There are images of them from college, high school... middle school. There are profiles of Blaine in the negative space between flowers of one painting, and in the clouds of another. A fluorescent image of teenaged him playing guitar to a silhouette of Kurt sitting beside him. There are shadows of them dancing, singing, even a daring one of them making love up against a wall.
And the flipped landscapes? Their vacation pictures, as it were? The glowing dust reveals portraits hiding in plain sight, painted upside down and invisible to the naked eye. All of these images, Kurt painted in ways where no one would detect them if they weren't looking for them. If they didn't know they were there.
And they are in every. single. one.
Now that he's seen this, it's safe to assume all of Kurt's works carry similar Easter eggs, even paintings long gone.
"Why... why didn't you tell me about this?" Blaine asks, too stuck on stupid to move, walk from painting to painting and examine them properly.
"Why did I need to? I love you. I've told you. What else did I need to prove?"
Blaine shakes his head slowly, ashamed of himself. What an imbecile he is! Kurt is absolutely right. He loves him! He didn't need to prove it! The hurt Blaine felt - that was on him. It wasn't Kurt's responsibility to fix it. There isn't a day that goes by where Kurt doesn't show his love to Blaine in one way or another. Blaine didn't need this. He really didn't.
And right now, he doesn't feel he deserves it.
On a side note, how wrapped up in his own crap has he been that here, in this space that they share, where proximity has forced Kurt to memorize every song Blaine has been writing for his latest album while he paints, that he never realized just how frickin' talented his boyfriend is!?
"Kurt... " Blaine finally finds the strength to take a step forward, drawn to that ghostly image of them making love. It's a simple shadow of the moment, but it evokes a powerful memory "... these are incredible. How did you... ?" Blaine expects an answer before he can finish. Kurt is rarely shy about discussing his work.
Though Blaine should use this opening to his advantage - apologize since those should have been the first words out of his mouth.
But he gets nothing.
"Kurt?" Blaine looks over his shoulder in search of his boyfriend, ready to make amends.
But Kurt is gone.
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