Chapter 7

Kurt didn't get any sleep that night. The dull ache in the bottom half of his body made it almost impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in, so after tossing around, he gave up. In addition, his bed smelt of Anderson and sex, so no matter which side he turned to he constantly was reminded of what happened earlier that evening. Ever since Blaine had left him alone in the kitchen, Kurt had been a mess. The guilt twisting deep in his stomach and heaving him down made it impossible to concentrate on anything else, and Kurt was trapped between self-loathing and panic. Sleeping with Anderson was bad enough, but on top of it, despite his best efforts, he found himself wanting it again. Feeling that way was unacceptable and it made him feel even guiltier. He knew that all he had to do was ask – Blaine had made it clear. It was against everything Kurt believed in, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wipe the memories of Blaine's hands, mouth, and his body on top of him, from his head. While he knew that giving in was absolutely wrong, he had a hard time trying to silence the little devil inside of him, telling him to screw it all and not care about anything.

Kurt got up, and after taking a few steps, he winced. It was obvious that walking without a slight limp was going to be impossible that day. After looking in the mirror and taking in now clearly visible bruises on his wrists, the trail of hickeys on his neck and a bruise on his shoulder from Blaine's bite, as well as the dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep, he made a decision. Even after covering them up, he knew that as soon as he appeared at the Bureau, maybe not everyone, but surely Santana, would know exactly what happened. So, he decided to do something he did only under extraordinary circumstances – he called in sick. Being in charge of the entire team, he didn't have to get any consents from the superiors, but he still had one call to make, so he dialed the number.

“Hey, Kurt, what's up?” Mike's voice sounded through the phone.

“I need a favor.” Kurt said, doing his best to sound weak and tired. He actually didn't even have to pretend that much – he was exhausted. “Could you come by on your way to work and take Anderson to the office with you?”

“Yeah, sure.” Mike replied easily, but then the concern appeared in his voice. “But why? What's wrong?”

“Apparently, I caught a stomach bug or something; I've been puking all night.” Kurt lied, hoping his friend wouldn't see right through it. However, it seemed liked he didn't have to worry.

“Oh man, that sucks.” Mike said sympathetically. “Do you need anything?”

“No, I'll be fine soon. Just let me know when you're here and I'll send Anderson down, I don't want you to catch this plague as well.”

“Will do. Get better soon!”

After Mike hung up, Kurt sighed deeply. He felt a little bad for lying to his best friend, but it was necessary. He knew that neither he nor Santana would ever judge him, hell, Santana would probably high-five him, but he wasn't going to risk their careers as well.  Dressed in his old hoodie and a pair of yoga pants, he limped to the kitchen, and after making himself coffee, he sat by the counter. Glancing at the clock, he figured he still had at least twenty minutes of peace and quiet before Anderson got up, so he closed his eyes and focused solely on the smell of coffee, letting it wake him up completely, trying to get ready for another, most likely, difficult day.

Blaine couldn't remember the last time he woke up in such a good mood. Stretching lazily, he lied on the bed, enjoying how relaxed he felt. He probably would have stayed like this longer, but a loud rumbling in his stomach reminded him that the last meal he had was a quick sandwich, before leaving the Bureau the day before. His stomach grumbled again. He was always starving after sex and yesterday he hadn't gotten a chance to grab anything after he had left Hummel in the kitchen. Blaine chuckled as he remembered the disturbed and stressed look on the agent's face. He knew that the few words they exchanged in the kitchen, after he had fucked him senseless, had left him even more conflicted and worried, and Blaine really enjoyed the internal torture Hummel was most likely going through. He ignored the little tug in his chest, just as he did the day before. He never felt bad after being an asshole, but he was probably a bit out of practice.

After a quick visit to the bathroom, he walked into the living room and the sight that greeted him he definitely wasn't expecting. Sitting by the counter was Hummel, but Blaine had never seen him like that. Instead of being ready to go to work, he was wearing a hoodie that had clearly seen better days, his hair was disheveled, Blaine also noticed the dark circles under his eyes and how his skin was even paler than usual. With a small satisfaction, he eyed the line of hickeys on his neck, disappearing under the hoodie and, when the agent raised his cup to drink and one of the sleeves rolled down, Blaine caught a glimpse of the dark, hand-shaped bruise covering his wrist. He looked like a mess. Hot, beautiful, well fucked, but still, an exhausted mess.

“Hummel, you look like shit.” Blaine said in lieu of greeting. “Bad night?” He asked with a wink and walked to the fridge.

Kurt said nothing, didn't even move an inch. While he had been sitting there, he had time to prepare himself for this conversation, so when he spoke, he sounded deadly calm and collected.

“Mike should be here any minute. You'll go with him to the Bureau.”

Blaine looked at him in surprise. “Playing hooky, Hummel? I'll be honest, you didn't strike me as someone who misses even a day at work.”

“I have a stomach bug.” Seeing Blaine raise his eyebrows questioningly, he fixed him with a firm glare. “And I'd like you to go along with this version.” Saying that, he got up and walked over to put the dishes in the sink. Seeing him limping around the kitchen, Blaine smirked knowingly.

“I guess you can't show up at work walking like that unless you want them all to know what's up. Or rather, what was up your ass last night.” He snickered.

Kurt turned around and looked at him tiredly. “Stick to the bug version.” He repeated. “If you don't, I'll make sure you're going back to prison before they fire me. If I'm going down, you're going down with me.”

“Oh, I have no problem with going down. How about tonight?” Blaine smirked and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Kurt shook his head, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by his phone buzzing on the counter.  “Mike's here.” He said, after a quick glance at the screen. He eyed the ratty t-shirt and sweats Blaine was wearing. “Get ready, I'll tell him you'll be down in five minutes.”

Blaine rolled his eyes and went to his room. After quickly throwing a plain t-shirt and his jeans on, he went back to the living room. He grabbed his leather jacket from where it was lying on the couch.

“Thanks for picking it up from the floor for me gorgeous.” He said with a wink as he put his jacket on. With that, he walked out of the room and seconds later, the slam of the door echoed through the apartment.

Kurt stood in a silence, interrupted only by a text from Mike, saying that Anderson was already in his car. It felt weird, being alone in the apartment, after the past few days filled with a constant presence of the forger. He decided to enjoy it while it lasted, so he curled up on the couch with Satine, intending to watch some reality shows to make his brain focus on something else and take a break from all the worrying. Scratching Satine behind her ears, he let himself immerse in Project Runway reruns, determined to relax and clear away all the troubles and confusing thoughts that had taken over in his head.

When Blaine made his way down and exited the building, he immediately noticed Mike Chang waiting in the car parked right in front of the main entrance. The window was open and the agent was bobbing his head and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in the rhythm of the song that was playing on the radio. He smiled widely when he saw him, nodding his head in the direction of the passenger seat, never stopping his little choreography. Blaine watched with amusement as the agent began air drumming and couldn't help but grin. As he learned during the past two days, it was impossible not to like Mike Chang and he was actually the only agent Blaine had no negative feelings towards – out of the few that didn't stare at him with disdain every time they saw him, he was the only one who was openly kind to him. His reasoning behind it remained a mystery to Blaine, but he wasn't going to complain. Without being able to contact Wes, it was nice to talk to someone about something enjoyable and not work or Smythe related. They actually had quite a lot in common; sports, comic books and, as Blaine was starting to notice, love for music. If you ignored the tiny little detail that Mike was a fed and Blaine was a convicted criminal, the forger would actually call him a friend. He got into the car just as the song ended and Mike turned the volume down, so they would be able to hear each other.

“How's Kurt?” The agent asked, as he started the engine and started driving.

Just fine, sore from how hard I fucked him last night, but other than that, he's peachy. “As well as a person can be after puking all night, I guess.” Blaine said, going along with the lie. He had meant what he said the night before, he wasn't going to rat Hummel out, he valued his life outside of prison way too much. And if it meant sticking to the little story Hummel came up with, well, let it be that way. Mike just nodded, focused on his driving in the busy traffic and Blaine was somewhat glad he didn't press for any more details. During his many years of stealing, forging and conning people, one thing he had learned for sure was that the more detailed the lie was, the more likely it was to fuck up at some point.  Especially if there were more people involved in it.

Eventually they got to the Bureau building and when they entered the office and reached Mike's desk, Blaine plopped down on one of the chairs standing nearby, and the agent started going through some papers lying around in the neat, organized piles. The comfortable silence was interrupted by Santana walking up to them.

“Where did you lose our precious elf?” She asked, noticing just the two of them, looking around in search of Kurt.

“He's sick.” Mike replied with a wince. “Stomach bug.”

Hearing that, Santana's eyes snapped to Blaine and she took a large step away from him. “You stay away from me, Frodo.” She said, narrowing her eyes and scowling at him warningly. “You're probably already infected as well, and seeing as it might be actually a weekend during which we won't have to work, I don't intend on spending it puking my guts out.”  

Blaine, unimpressed by her murderous glare, raised an eyebrow. “You work during the weekends?”

“Not exactly.” Mike said, making Santana scoff. “In theory, we don't.”

“But in practice, whenever we're needed, we drag our asses in.” Santana finished, rolling her eyes. “Which has happened too many times in a row during the last two months.”

“Your lives sound truly fantastic.” Blaine sneered, leaning back on the chair.

“The sooner we find your bestie, the quicker we'll get back to our normal schedules. So, get your ass up and make yourself useful.” Santana fixed him with a pointed glare and marched off, her heels clicking loudly on the floor in the office.

Blaine rolled his eyes and ignored the rage that was always building up in him every time he thought about that two-faced prick, focusing on how great it would feel to see his ex-partner behind the bars. Most importantly, he wanted to witness the moment of Smythe's capture, he could easily imagine the shock and surprise in his eyes and his annoying smirk being finally wiped off of his sleazy face.

As it turned out, there wasn't much work for him to do that day. They didn't have any new leads and Blaine couldn't do much without having anything to process, compare or solve. Instead, after finding out that all FBI had were some blurry photos, he spent most of the time drawing a portrait of Sebastian, no matter how much it annoyed him to see his face coming from under his hand. It certainly wasn't his best work, the only thing he had was a blue pen and it was far from a good drawing tool, but Blaine managed – he wasn't being called the best for no reason. By the time of lunch, he had a sketch ready and couldn't help the satisfaction that spread through him when Mike had stared at the drawing in awe after Blaine had presented it to him. Either the agent hadn't seen any of his previous works or it just seemed more impressive when he saw the process happen right in front of him.

With the sketch done and nothing Smythe related to do, Blaine, bored out of his mind, started to flip through the files from different cases, lying on Mike's desk. Completely by accident, he came by the case of a stolen and forged Rembrandt where the FBI suspected one of the forgers Blaine happened to know quite well. The guy was one of the most annoying creatures in the world, constantly trying to compete with Blaine, had always ended up being worse which ensued him throwing a small tantrum every time they bumped into each other. Not having enough evidence to prove him guilty, the FBI was stuck and Blaine was more than happy to help. After asking if he could take a look at the forged copy of the painting, he examined it thoroughly with UV light and a big magnifying glass, finding exactly what he was looking for – the small, barely visible signature that idiot had always left on his copies, too proud and confident to stop himself. He also directed the agents to a few places where it was most likely for them to find the forger. After that, Mike decided they did a good job that day and definitely deserved to go home early. As they headed out, Mike waved and winked at Santana, who was glaring at them from above the report she was writing, clearly jealous of their early departure. When she rubbed her nose with her middle finger, subtly flipping him off, he laughed loudly, shaking his head, which made her stick her tongue out at him in return.

“You act like you're five, who even let you work here?” Blaine asked, observing the exchange with an amused smirk.

“Being serious all the time gets boring after a while.” Mike shrugged with a smile. “Trust me, I tried, it's not worth it.”

“You should tell that to your boss.” Blaine mumbled quietly as they walked into the elevator, thinking about Hummel and wondering if the man ever did something for fun or laughed at anything else than helpless criminals he interrogated.

Mike either didn't hear him or pretended not to, because he said nothing, and they spent the walk to the car and the ride in a comfortable silence, only broken by light comments and remarks about the songs playing on the radio or the lousy skills of some of the drivers on the streets. When they pulled up next to Kurt's building, Mike shut the engine and took out his phone. After a few minutes of silence, Mike frowned and put the phone back in his pocket.

“Kurt's not answering.” He said, trying to sound casual, but Blaine picked up the slightly worried tone in his voice. “If he's vomiting again, it's not very likely he'll open the door when you knock.”

Blaine knew that was definitely not the case since Hummel didn't in fact have a stomach bug, so there had to be another reason for him to not answer his phone, but since he couldn't say anything, he stayed quiet, not disturbing Mike's train of thought. “I have the keys to his apartment, but I left them at home, it'll take so much time to go and get them.” The agent groaned.

“You know,” Blaine started nonchalantly. “I could always pick the lock. It would save us all that driving.”

“Pick the…” Mike started saying, but stopped when he noticed the set of lock-picks Blaine pulled out from… somewhere. “How did you get this?” He asked, staring at him with wide eyes.

“It's been patiently waiting for me, along with the jacket and other stuff, in the prison magazine.” He said, smiling and playing with the tools, touching them almost lovingly.

“And the guards didn't find it?” Mike asked disbelievingly.

“Let's just say that not everything is visible at first sight.” Blaine said, smirking and hiding the lock-picks back in the pocket. “So? Are we going?”

“Oh man, you totally have hidden pockets in your jacket.” Mike said and laughed, shaking his head. “Kurt's going to kill me, but I really don't want to drive home just because of those keys.”

Blaine internally sighed in relief. If they rang the doorbell and Hummel opened the door, Mike, without a doubt, would notice the hickeys on his neck and would definitely put two and two together. This way, there was at least a chance for Hummel to hide before he saw him and pretend to be sick. The men got out of the car and made their way to the main entrance of the building. Nodding to the doorman, they headed for the elevators, and Blaine could see Mike growing more and more excited as they were getting closer to the right floor. When they exited the elevator, Blaine took out the lock-picks and smirked seeing the look on Mike's face, the agent looked like a child that was about to unpack the presents lying underneath the Christmas tree. They reached the door to Kurt's apartment and Blaine started working on the lock, shooting a wink to Mike who was staring at him with pure fascination. Thankfully, Hummel didn't bolt the door, so after barely a minute, the lock clicked softly and Blaine opened the door quietly. He walked into the small hall and was about to call out to Hummel that they had a visitor, but with a quick glance into the living room, he realized that wasn't the best idea. Hummel was lying on the couch and, judging from the fact that he still didn't move, was deeply asleep. It wasn't such a bad thing, now Blaine only had to stop Mike from going further into the apartment. He quickly took a step back and raised his hand to stop the agent, putting his finger over his mouth and gesturing to the sleeping figure in the living room. Looking in the direction of the couch, Mike nodded in understanding and took a few steps back to the front door.

“There's no point in waking him up, so I'll be going.” He whispered and quietly opened the door. “Oh, and Blaine?” He called, already standing in the corridor. “Just a warning, he gets bitchy when he's tired, so better stay out of his way tonight.” Smirking teasingly, he waved and shut the door, leaving without giving Blaine a chance to answer. Tired or not, he's always bitchy, he thought, rolling his eyes, although, as soon as he did, he realized that it wasn't exactly the truth. Actually, if Blaine was being honest with himself, most of the agent's snarky retorts and cutting comments usually came after Blaine attacked first.

Shrugging it off, he walked into the living room and, as he got closer to the couch, he noticed Satine curled up right next to Hummel. When the cat noticed him, she stretched and jumped off the couch, as if she was only keeping an eye on Kurt until Blaine got home. The forger frowned at the cat's mistaken opinion about him, Hummel wasn't really sick and didn't need anyone to take care of him – even if he did, Blaine certainly wasn't the person that would do it. He looked at Hummel, at the still present dark circles under his eyes and the distressed features of his face, and the goosebumps covering the bits of skin peeking from under the hoodie. Before he even thought about it, instead of heading to his bedroom right away, he grabbed the blanket lying on the back of the couch and covered the agent with it. Figuring the longer Hummel slept, the more time he wouldn't have to deal with him, Blaine quietly retreated to his room, deciding to busy himself somehow until the agent was awake and would undoubtedly want to know how the work went. Closing the door, he grabbed the notebook and the pencils lying on the dresser and, after making himself comfortable on the bed, he began to draw.

Kurt woke up to some noise and the soft sounds of the piano. Confused, he sat up, noticing the blanket covering him, which was weird, because he definitely didn't remember grabbing it. He frowned and focused back on the noise. He highly doubted he was being robbed, besides the music pretty much meant it was Anderson. It seemed as if Kurt had slept through him coming back. He was quite surprised the forger didn't wake him up by, for example, dropping a bucket of ice-cold water on his head. Well, maybe he had a good day and decided not to be a huge pain in the ass. At least that was what Kurt hoped.

Suddenly, the music stopped and, moments later, Blaine emerged from his bedroom. “Hey there, sleeping beauty.” He said, walking to the kitchen and starting the coffee machine. Once again, it stunned Kurt how quickly the forger had managed to accustom to living in his apartment and how effortlessly he navigated around his kitchen.

“How's the office?” Kurt asked warily, dreading the answer a little bit, even though, rationally, he knew he shouldn't have anything to worry about. Still, he couldn't help but be afraid that somehow someone had seen right through his lie and their secret had been revealed. Alternatively, maybe Blaine decided he cared more about taking revenge on Kurt for putting him in prison than about going back there and chose to tell everyone the truth.

“Impatient, aren't we?” Blaine chuckled, but seeing the slightly panicked expression on Kurt's face, he rolled his eyes. “It was fine. Everyone believed you're sick, if that's what you're worried about.”

The relief washed through Kurt's body and he let out the breath he was holding. Calmer, he reached to grab his phone from the table and saw two missed calls from Mike. Suddenly, a thought popped into his head when he realized that Mike had probably called to tell him they were back, and ask him to open the door. “Wait, how did you get into the apartment? Mike let you in?” He asked, eyeing Blaine with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

“You could say so.” Blaine chuckled, grabbed the mug with his coffee and headed back to his room. Kurt frowned and it wasn't until the door behind him closed when the realization dawned on him and his eyes widened.

“Blaine Anderson, you did NOT pick the lock to my apartment!”

The only response he got was a loud laughter echoing through the apartment.