A/N: Just a reminder – I won't be posting this weekend, so chapter 8 will be up on Monday. Also, I feel obliged to warn you that Jenni, my beta, was yelling at the characters a LOT while reading this chapter. Idk, they may be a little... annoying? *hides*

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CHAPTER 7: The fallout

The promised morning quickie turned into a bit of a sex-marathon. It was nearing ten o'clock when they broke apart to lay side by side on the bed, sweaty and panting heavily.

"Best. Sex. Ever." Kurt was evidently starting to get his breath back after riding him for the last twenty minutes. Blaine still had trouble catching his. Damn, he was getting old. His answer was more of a croak.

"Doesn't mean much, coming from you."

"Still."

They stayed like this for a while longer and Blaine was starting to doze when Kurt prodded him with a sharp finger. "Aren't you going to be in trouble for missing work?"

He arched an eyebrow. "I'm not missing work."

Kurt frowned. "But it's Wednesday. Don't tell me FBI agents get free Wednesdays?"

Oh. Right. Kurt didn't know. "I'm not FBI anymore."

"Oh."

That was it. No follow-up questions. No request for explanation. If Kurt asked, if he actually wanted to know, Blaine would tell him how –

But would he?

What right did he have to burden this kid with his own crap? Kurt had enough on his plate without Blaine's loser stories of cracking under the pressure of his first serious case and leaving the Bureau like a dog with his tail between his legs. He didn't need to know about Blaine's mess of a life, with his inability to move on and his shitty coping techniques. They each carried their own piece of that old hell with them – no use playing show-and-tell and comparing war wounds.

This night together was a bad idea, but he'd accepted it. It even turned out to be fun. Okay, it was fucking unbelievable, who was he kidding? But it was a one-time thing, a strictly sexual thing, nothing else. Not some sort of therapy, not a weepy reunion or a happily ever after story of forgiveness. Life didn't work that way. In a moment, they would go their own ways and never meet again. Nothing would change, for Blaine at least.

Kurt went to take a shower, surprisingly bouncy for someone who got fucked twice in the last twelve hours after having virtually no sex before. For a moment, Blaine heard him hum over the sound of running water, but then he went quiet. When he came back, there was a towel around his waist and something hard in his eyes. They didn't talk much.

There were neither handshakes nor hugs as they said their goodbyes, not even awkwardness filling the space where there could be some.

Kurt said, "Thank you."

Blaine answered, "You're welcome. I owed you, after all."

Kurt nodded. "Yes. You owed me."

The door closed between them.

Blaine resurfaced after three days this time – not a record by any means, but still more than his usual down times. When he came to, he was sprawled on the couch, still fully dressed from the run to the liquor store after Kurt had left. His head was pounding, he was sweaty and disgusting, reeking of whiskey and garlic sauce – well, at least he'd had the brains to eat something this time; pizza, judging by the leftovers on the table. Leaning heavily on the back of the couch, Blaine stood up and stumbled towards the bathroom.

Hangovers were no stranger to him – he'd done this so many times before that it'd become second nature. Clothes straight into the washer. Warm shower, not hot, with a blast of icy cold at the end. Mint body wash. Teeth brushing. The bare minimum.

A call to the usual pizza place for a greasy breakfast. Coffee, extra strong. Painkillers. He'd survive. Feeling like crap wasn't anything new, after all.

Feeling used was.

Having sex with Kurt had felt incredible, while it lasted. For a moment, with Kurt's eager mouth on him, Blaine even had a feeling like it was washing away the old sin. Like having consensual sex with Kurt was somehow the way to fix it – fix him.

But it was bullshit, all of it. Fucking illusion. He was just a tool, a live handle to his cock that was supposed to magically heal Kurt's fear of men. Because Blaine owed him.

And who owed Blaine, huh?

Feeling more bitter than usual, he ate and switched on his computer. There were new job offers in his inbox, sent by his agent. He scrolled through them quickly, discarding most of them on the spot - he wouldn't be able to write anything remotely cheerful or romantic for weeks.

Then he found something that piqued his interest.

A leader of a heavy-metal band wanted to publish a book that would strengthen his image as dark, sadistic and macabre. It was supposed to be a small collection of short horror stories with elements of gore.

That would fit Blaine's current mood pretty well. He opened the response window.

Getting to where he was now, professionally, had been a process.

After that night five years ago, he'd known he wouldn't be able to go back to the Bureau. He'd spent the whole next day curled on the floor in his bathroom, completely out of control. He'd been shaking, he'd been puking his guts out; there were tears and screaming in a blind rage, and punching the wall by the tub until his knuckles bled. Finally, when he exhausted himself completely, he took a shower, hot enough to burn but nowhere near enough to wash off the filth of what he'd done, and he went to bed. He fell asleep immediately and had no dreams. Those would start later.

The next morning he sent his letter of resignation to the FBI. He used up all his time off to avoid getting back to work for the resignation period, and he never set foot in that building again.

The Bureau wanted to keep him, god knows why. They tried to convince him – an FBI-appointed psychologist visited him half a dozen times to "help him through the trauma", but Blaine never let her in. Same with his colleagues. Bobby called a few times, but Blaine couldn't even listen to his voice. Everyone kept telling him that he'd done a good thing, he'd saved those kids, especially the beaten one, Philip, who wouldn't have survived otherwise. Blaine's own father joined the chorus, but his attempts at marginalizing "the incident" had exactly the opposite effect. Besides, nothing could convince Blaine to go back there. He was done with the FBI – disappointed in it, distrustful of his superiors, sick with working in law enforcement. He wasn't strong enough for it.

Luckily, he was never asked to testify in the case he'd helped to make – whether it was because his recordings were enough or the FBI decided he wouldn't be a believable witness in his current state, it was a blessing.

It took him a long while to find another job – or even start looking. His savings were enough to support him during those months spent simply vegetating in his apartment. Between the nightmares, the insomnia and the drinking, he was nowhere near sane enough to work. He was unraveling, slowly but surely going down, until a miraculous moment of whiskey-induced inspiration booked him a plane ticket to Paris.

Twelve days far, far away changed him from a wreck into a relatively sane man. For the first time in months, he didn't obsess about what had happened or what he'd done. It was a relief he really needed.

Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that he'd never really sobered while there, experiencing the city in a string of dizzy pictures, laughter and lots of sex with beautiful, eager men whose names Blaine hadn't even tried to remember.

It wasn't a cure, but for a band-aid, it worked pretty great.

After he'd come back, Melanie, his friend from law school and the only person who stuck by him at that point, brought him a job offer. She'd been writing for some magazines, answering law-related questions from the readers, but with a new steady job, she had no more time for that. So she asked him to take over. That was the beginning.

Very soon, Blaine discovered that writing came easily to him; it was something as natural as breathing, and a way to keep obsessive thoughts and memories at bay. Plus, he could work whenever he wanted – or was able to. No one cared if he couldn't come to work after a particularly bad night or needed a nap in the afternoon to get a few hours of sleep before another. Even when he drank himself into oblivion or went on a gay-bar crawl, no one asked questions – as long as the deadlines were met. And they always were. Work was his escape, his salvation, usually the only one. He could get up or sober up, no matter the hour, and sit down to work, getting lost in it for long hours at a time.

Soon, he became a freelancer. He started writing longer articles, too, and not just law-related anymore. He was quite versatile. At some point, someone asked if he would write a long autobiographical text in someone else's name. He agreed. He didn't care about getting published as himself. He only wrote to fill his time and chase away his demons. Well, and pay the rent.

Ghostwriting was the next logical step – a flash of drunken genius that he managed to remember the next morning only because he'd written it on his hand with a sharpie. He found the first few jobs himself, and then, when he was sure this was what he wanted, he found an agent. That was three and a half years ago. Nowadays, he wrote books and articles, dozens of pages every week. But if you looked up Blaine Anderson, you wouldn't find a connection to any of them. They were under a lot of different names – names belonging to strangers, some of them pretty well known. His words were praised and critiqued, loved and hated – he didn't care. He just caught them and trapped them on pages, and then let them go their own way.

He wasn't rich, but he could live comfortably, and he didn't need much anyway. It wasn't like he had a family or kids or a lovely little house in the suburbs in his future. Not anymore.

As the weeks passed since the night spent with Kurt, Blaine settled back into his old routine. He'd been right: it hadn't changed anything. He was just as bitter and disenchanted as ever. There was no enlightenment, no sudden self-forgiveness or realization that he should move on. His life was what it was, and he was fine with it. He wrote, he read, he watched mindless TV. Sometimes there were bad nights, or days when he drank himself into a stupor; sometimes he tried to wipe the memories by adding even more layers of eager, anonymous touches on top. But he could live with these. He was used to it. He was fine.

***

It took Kurt almost all the way back home to understand his sudden mood dampening back in Blaine's shower. It had been weird: one second he'd been great; really, truly excellently fucked, still blissed out from his last orgasm, with so many endorphins in his blood it was probably glittery pink, and then, poof – he was irritated and sullen again.

Because it wasn't real.

That was the reason. It had been an amazing, unforgettable night with a gorgeous man who turned out to be a skillful, generous lover and a charming person. Whoa, that was a shitload of superlatives, but honestly. That man. He would be so close to Kurt's idea of the perfect guy it was creepy.

If he was real.

But he wasn't – the Blaine that Kurt had seen last night and this morning didn't exist. It was just an act, a part he probably played for all his sex partners. All of his numerous sex partners. The reality was much less dreamy and a lot uglier. No, Kurt didn't think that Blaine was a bad man – not at all. He just couldn't imagine how cold and hard he had to be deep down to have taken such a mission, with everything it entailed. How little emotion he had to hide under this kind, thoughtful façade.

Yes, he knew he shouldn't care at all – no matter who Blaine was, he'd saved them all, and the way he'd done it... it could have been so much worse. And last night, he gave Kurt exactly what he'd asked for – amazing sex with no strings attached. Who cared if he was a cold-blooded bastard underneath?

But Kurt couldn't help it – the jarring difference between the illusion of a man he'd shared a bed with and the reality that hit him in the shower was simply too much.

Well, at least now he knew why he felt so frustrated – and could let it go. There was nothing Kurt could do about Blaine – nothing he needed to do. He'd gotten what he'd asked for; more than that, in fact. He'd never dreamed their night would be that good. But it was a one-time thing, in the past already – and now he just needed to check if his plan worked, like he'd been sure it would. Secretly, he had a good feeling about it. He felt loose and confident in a way he hadn't known before, like he had full control of his body and no one could take it away from him. Seeing an attractive man look at you as if you were the most beautiful thing ever; watching him fall apart under your lips and fingers, your words... it was definitely a boost.

Immersed in a lemon and sage-scented bubble bath later that afternoon, Kurt started to think about his next steps. He didn't want to dive right into dating or go to a gay bar and look for an eager stranger to check if his barriers still existed. Not that he excluded either of these possibilities at some more distant point. But now... he needed safety. Someone familiar who wouldn't care about being a guinea pig of sorts.

Wait... how about Paul?

Paul was a friend from college, one of the few Kurt still met with sometimes. He was bisexual and absolutely smitten with Kurt in a completely non-romantic way. It was just sexual, or maybe not even that – Paul just couldn't stop staring at Kurt's lips and his hands every time they met for coffee or drinks. He was open about it, too; about the way he felt that kissing Kurt, touching him would be absolutely delicious. They were close enough that Kurt had told him about his problems with that, although he'd glossed over the reason. Still, every now and then Paul renewed his offer – if at any time Kurt was interested in some hot little something, no strings attached, he'd be there.

It looked like that time had come.

Kurt would lie if he said he didn't consider his friend attractive and even though he had no intention to do anything much yet, he had a feeling Paul wouldn't mind a little make-out session just for fun. Grinning wickedly, Kurt jumped out of the tub. He only had another event to work at tomorrow afternoon. Drinks tonight at his place sounded like an excellent idea.

Paul was all for it, and by midnight Kurt knew several things already. First and most important, he knew that he no longer reacted to touch in any way other than desirable. He was still a little wary, but was able to let go enough to enjoy himself. Other than that, he found that he didn't particularly like biting, that different hands could feel very different as they touched and wandered, and that coming in his pants was something he would avoid from now on. All in all, it was a very educational day.

During the following weeks and months Kurt learned plenty more – about men and dating and sex, but most of all, about himself.

He let himself try and experiment, now that he finally could. He visited clubs and gay bars sometimes; he dated. He kissed and made out; there was a lot of groping and quite a lot of grinding, on and off the dance floor; there were even a few hurried handjobs.

There was never anything more. He couldn't get himself to go further than that.

Not because of his old barriers, though. This was something different entirely: self-respect. After everything he'd been through, sexually – or maybe because of all that, he still saw sex and intimacy as something precious, not to be given away or sold cheap. He wanted it with someone he could trust, someone he felt something for – not necessarily in a forever kind of way. Just, not a stranger, or a one-night stand. And ironically, now that he was ready to have a boyfriend at last, there was no one around fit to fill that gap. It was frustrating as hell.

Not having sex had been bad enough before he knew just how amazing it could be. But now, after Blaine had showed him the ocean of pleasure just waiting to be had... he craved that so much. He wasn't going to throw away his reservations, though, and let the next half-passable guy fuck him on a first date.

But... after four months and a lot of deliberation, he decided there was something else he could do.