A/N: Three chapters left! I will be posting them daily, finishing on Wednesday. There may be a little bonus content on Thursday or Friday, too, I think :)

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CHAPTER 13: Out in the open

The apartment felt... different. At first Kurt thought it was because Blaine was nowhere to be seen or heard – the place seemed empty, dormant. But then, after Melanie dropped her bag on the nearest chair and paid him no attention whatsoever, disappearing behind the wall separating the bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the apartment, Kurt looked around once again, calm enough now to notice the differences.

It wasn't that there was a mess. The living area looked just like he'd left it yesterday – with the addition of a few small details.

The blinds were down and the windows closed, making the room too hot and stuffy, smelling faintly of sweat and alcohol, and cheese. There was a pizza box on the kitchen bar, still mostly full, and an empty Scotch bottle beside it. On the coffee table in the living room a half-full tumbler of amber liquid stood among a mess of yellow lined paper covered tightly with uneven scrawl. Feeling like a creeper, Kurt stepped closer to glance at the notes, and nearly tripped over another bottle lying open on the floor. There was still some whiskey inside, and just a small wet spot on the carpet.

He picked up the bottle and took it to the kitchen. It looked like Blaine had plenty to drink today, and it was barely six. Then again, he remembered the number of drinks Blaine had that first night at the bar, when they'd discussed the possibility of sleeping together just once, and how unaffected he'd been by the alcohol. Maybe this was his normal writing routine; Kurt wouldn't know. At least it explained why Melanie had just let them in.

Right, Melanie. He could hear her voice now, just barely, speaking softly to someone – Blaine, of course, who else – in the other room, and Kurt was moving before he consciously decided to.

They weren't in the bedroom like he expected. Instead, the bathroom door was wide open and Melanie was crouching in the doorway. She turned when she heard Kurt's footsteps, giving him a view inside.

A view at Blaine, who was kneeling on the floor with his head resting on his arms folded over the toilet seat.

He was barefoot, wearing just his boxer-briefs – the same soft grey pair he'd pulled on yesterday, on his way to the kitchen to make coffee before Kurt left – and a faded purple t-shirt with a NYU emblem. His eyes were closed, his hair a tangled mess, and if Kurt thought he'd seen the worst of Blaine that night when he'd come over with his silly dating ideas... well, he'd been wrong.

Melanie went back to trying to rouse Blaine enough to get him to bed, and this was Kurt's cue to leave – he didn't want Blaine to open his eyes and see him there. He returned to the living room and sat on the couch, grinding his teeth.

Blaine probably wouldn't even remember if he saw him, but what if he did? How would he feel? He clearly didn't want Kurt to see him like this – there was a reason he never got drunk when they were together. And everyone had a right to get completely wasted every now and then, without witnesses if they chose so, or with as few as they wanted. It was completely unacceptable, bringing Kurt here, making some kind of show of it. He was in half a mind to leave entirely, but he couldn't, not without a few choice words to Melanie. God, the nerve of her!

He could hear commotion from the bathroom, Blaine's voice mumbling something weakly, and Kurt's eyes stung unexpectedly. Melanie's plan was probably to scare him away, or gross him out maybe, anything to get him to break up with Blaine for whatever stupid reason she believed valid, but he wasn't grossed out, disgusted or anything of the kind. He wasn't sure what it was that he felt, but Blaine seemed so vulnerable all of a sudden, so... helpless, even. Maybe it was just a projection, a mirage caused by how his supposed friend manipulated the situation, but for a moment, Kurt lingered on how Blaine should have someone to really care about him, someone he could trust to be so defenseless with. He shouldn't be alone.

Then again, what did Kurt know about his life? It wasn't like he actually knew Blaine. They weren't close, not really. Not in any way other than physical. Blaine made sure he remembered that.

Melanie got out of the bedroom to grab a bottle of water and some pills from a kitchen cabinet, then disappeared again for a minute or two. When she returned, she set out to make coffee, ignoring Kurt's wordless glare.

"He'll be dead to the world for hours. We can talk in here."

Kurt's barely contained anger spilled at last.

"I don't see what there is to talk about, unless you mean you creepily luring me in here just to show me that Blaine gets drunk sometimes. Well here's newsflash for you: everyone does, and that's no reason to–"

"How often?" She cut in, not even looking at him over the coffee can.

"What?"

"How often does everyone get completely wasted like this? Three days a week? Four? Because that's what he's been doing for the last few months, Kurt."

This gave him a pause, but only for a moment. "And what if he does? He's an adult, it's his life and his choices. And that's bullshit anyway, I would have noticed, I've been here–"

"Twice a week? More or less?" She supplied with a knowing smile, and Kurt stared at her. "No, he didn't show me a schedule or anything. But I'm observant enough."

"You're a stalker, you mean." Kurt corrected dryly. "You call yourself Blaine's best friend, but so far all I've seen you do was invade his privacy and try to censor his sex life. So what if he wants my dick but nothing else? So what if he wants to drink himself unconscious, even every other day if he so chooses? Guess what, it's a free country, and what he does with his body is none of my business. Or yours."

She froze with the coffee pot in her hand, then put it away slowly, her voice incredulous now.

"Fuck, I thought you just didn't know. But you don't even care, do you?"

"Why should I care?"

Oh, he cared alright – he cared more than he should, more than Blaine wanted him to. But he wasn't going to discuss his feelings with her.

"Because you're the reason he's a wreck!" She yelled, then ground her teeth and took a steadying breath before finishing quieter. "You were the reason six years ago–"

Kurt felt his blood boil with fury. "Oh, I'm so sorry I had been kidnapped, forced into sex work and had to be rescued by big brave FBI agents–"

"Shut up, I'm not saying it was your fault back then. But now it is. That case destroyed him, and now you're killing him, Kurt. Every time you two meet, it kills him a little more, and I won't let you do this to him anymore."

Kurt's next scathing remark died on his lips. He shook his head, confused.

"I don't understand."

Melanie leaned over the breakfast bar, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"Of course you don't understand, you self-centered little brat! Have you even tried to consider his side in all this? Do you honestly think you were the only one affected by that night? Well think again." She paused and glared at him, as if waiting for him to argue, but then she shook her head and continued a bit calmer. "Blaine went into that house a whole, sane man. A happy man, enthusiastic about his job, eager to help people, with plans and dreams and his whole life in front of him. And he came out of there a wreck, a shadow of himself. He's never gotten over it, and I'm not sure he ever will. All I know is he'll never have a chance if you keep doing what you're doing."

Something was building in Kurt's mind, something too big and too scary to think about, but the fine trembling growing steadily in his hands and spreading all over his body wasn't just because of his own memories of that night – not this time. There was more, more than he'd even allowed himself to consider, and he was afraid to ask, to even think about it – but he wasn't a kid anymore, and covering his ears and singing loudly to block out what he didn't want to hear was not an option.

"But that was his job, right? He was on the sex squad. It was just another case, another operation–"

She rolled her eyes. "But it wasn't. Kurt, he was twenty-five, same as you are now, if I'm not mistaken. He was a fucking kid, barely a few months on the job, and that was his first big case. He should have never gone in. He was a rookie, naive and wide-eyed, not even trained yet for undercover work. But they were pressed for time and he was their best option, so the squad leader decided to bend the rules, anything just to close the case. They never even told him – they knew how the brothel worked, knew what the job might entail and they didn't fucking tell him!" Melanie's voice broke at the end.

"What?" Kurt couldn't feel his lips. The hoarse whisper slipped out of his mouth on too short a breath. He didn't want to know.

He had to know.

"They didn't tell him that it wasn't like acting, Kurt. That he wouldn't just be playing pretend. That it shouldn't be like that but sometimes, undercover, things happen, sometimes you have to do things to be in character – bad things, things you would never do otherwise. He didn't know."

The world stopped, foundations of the past shifting, memories flooding in, the smallest details he'd always ignored.

The uncertainty, piquing into anxiety for a moment, before Matt – Blaine – took control. The gentleness. The apologies.

Melanie was still speaking, bitterness heavy in her voice.

"If I had known he'd gotten that assignment... I could have at least told him, let him make an informed decision. I raised all hell afterwards, of course. Half of the Bureau heard of the case, his team leader was forced into early retirement – and thank god, the guy was completely desensitized, a callous prick. The bosses weren't happy with him for losing an excellent agent, but the damage was done. Blaine resigned and there was no way to change his mind. And he'd been fantastic, Kurt. Such a good, sympathetic, selfless man. So much potential, they said – not for the undercover work, perhaps, but otherwise he was perfect for the sex squad. He could get everyone to talk – kids, rape victims, witnesses, even the most scared working girls, he just gave off this vibe of safety, calmed them down instantly. You have no idea how rare that is."

No, he had no idea. But he had experienced it.

How could he have been so wrong all this time?

"Tell me everything."

He needed to know – he couldn't even process it all yet, his mind a whirlwind of emotions, but he needed all the facts. Melanie nodded earnestly and poured them coffee – then, with another look at him, left the cups on the counter and brought glasses and the rest of Scotch to the couch instead. Kurt sipped at the amber liquid, the burn as it slid down his throat strangely grounding. Melanie drank hers in one swallow and put the glass away.

"B broke down after that night. Completely. He wouldn't leave the apartment, wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep. He wouldn't even let Ethan in. His boyfriend." She answered Kurt's questioning look, and his heart clenched even tighter, a little hard ball of hurt. "They'd been a couple for over two years, had been planning to move in together. The most ridiculously adorable lovebirds I'd known. And Blaine couldn't even talk to him afterwards. He couldn't look him in the eye, let alone touch him, not after what I've done he told me. " She shook her head, sadness etched into her face.

"I finally forced him to let me in and basically camped here for the first month. I was afraid he'd hurt himself and he refused to talk to anyone else. I can't tell you how many times I woke him up from screaming nightmares, how many times I held him sobbing, heard him call himself names. He was a rapist in his own eyes and nothing could change that, no arguments or the extenuating circumstances. Not the way he saw it. He kept worrying about you, blaming himself, obsessively trying to find a way he could have avoided hurting you. He quit the FBI. Got in trouble with his father about it, too – all the bullshit about how he was too soft, quitting over something like that, because of course someone at the Bureau had told asshat Daddy even though they had no right. Eventually he lost Ethan, too – there was only so long the boy was willing to wait, pushed away completely as he was, and there was no end in sight. It was the final blow, though B kept saying he didn't deserve Ethan, didn't deserve anyone to love him, not when he was a monster."

"He wasn't." Kurt whispered, and Melanie's face was softer now, sorrowful, her words slow and tender.

"No, he wasn't. He was a good man with a gentle heart, a dreamer, not hardened enough for that kind of job. He'd always been an artist, deep down, and a helper – he should have gone into music like he wanted to. He would have done great as a teacher, too, or a psychologist maybe, a social worker. But his father pushed him into law school and then the FBI, and Blaine went, eager to help people, save them – he built the whole vision of his life around that. That night showed him things about himself that he didn't know, things that terrified him – what he was capable of when circumstances were dire enough. And they were dire, Kurt, I don't know if you realize how much. You would have both died if he had blown his cover. Those guys would have killed you without a blink, and all the other kids there, too, if they had to disappear real quick – we know they did it before, at the beginning of their operation. And the fact that Blaine was capable of doing what he did might have been the difference between life and death, but it didn't stop him from hating himself for it."

Kurt's face was wet with tears. His glass was empty and he desperately needed something to anchor him, so he tipped it towards Melanie who poured him the rest of the whiskey from the bottle before picking up her story.

"After Ethan broke up with him, B went into self-destruction mode. Lot's of meaningless sex, with countless guys, as if doing it with enough consenting partners would make him forget about that one night. Booze, non-stop. I'll be forever grateful that he's always been too smart to try drugs, or he'd have been dead by now. It went on like that for months. And then, at some point, it got slightly better. He'd never stopped being miserable or blaming himself, but he learned to live day to day somehow." She paused and looked at Kurt, her eyes harder again. "And then you appeared, and the cycle began again. He doesn't sober up for days after you two meet, Kurt. I haven't seen him this bad in years."

"I–" He didn't even know what to say – he hadn't realized, how could he? But was it enough of an excuse? Had he ever even tried to see Blaine's side? She cut in, not giving him a chance to speak.

"Why are you doing this? Why him? You could have found anyone for this kind of arrangement. You're a hot cookie, I'm sure you have plenty of interested guys around. So why Blaine? Because it's convenient? You're slowly killing a man – a good man – because you need a fuck toy and you know he won't say no? That's cold, Kurt. Or are you trying to punish him?"

"No! I– I just–" Didn't think? Didn't care? Melanie wasn't waiting for his answer.

"He can't forgive himself, even all these years later. And he doesn't believe you could ever forgive him because in his eyes, he's forever the rapist, the man who robbed you of your innocence. And I understand if you can't, sometimes it's impossible to forgive, and while I think he was a fucking hero, I understand that it may be different for you. But for god's sake, Kurt, stop shoving it right into his face. You're making it infinitely worse. Before you came, he was miserable, but not suicidal at least. Now it feels like it's only a matter of time until he takes one drink too many, or steps in front of a car on his way to get more booze."

Kurt drew a shaky breath that sounded more like a sob. "He never told me, not a word, I had no idea... Why did he even agree?"

"Because he thinks he owes you, and he would give you everything you ask for because that guilt can never be erased. And of course he didn't tell you, it could make you feel bad if he did. Well, I don't have such reservations."

"I–" He felt funny, his breathing weird, and there was too little air in the room. He had to move, get out of there, into the cold air outside before he suffocated. A smile was fixed on his face like a shield, his usual reaction to shock, protecting him from the world seeing him vulnerable – but his voice gave him away. "I have to – go, I have to go, I just... don't tell him I was here, please."

She didn't try to stop him, just handed him the bag he'd almost forgotten in his panicked hurry to leave. "Of course I won't. It's between you two. But... don't hurt him anymore, Kurt. He doesn't deserve that. And I don't want to have to hunt you down and kick your ass."