“Kurt,” Blaine moans, eyes growing wide, sensation filling through his veins. “I – I”

“Shh,” Kurt mutters, sweating a little from the effort of his movements. “It’s okay, baby, just enjoy.” 

“I knew you were coming first in Cooking for a reason, but oh my god.”

Kurt giggles, sweeping a stray strand of hair behind his ear as he continues to mix a fresh batch of batter. “I just had a couple of recipes that I hadn’t tried yet; I should really be thanking you for letting me try them out.”

“Oh, really,” Blaine says, half-muffled around a freshly baked muffin, glancing up at Kurt. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

It’s only been a week since they started dating – not even that, really, since dating started Monday afternoon, and it’s Friday now – and Blaine is happy to say that Kurt is one of the biggest people in his life right now. Not that he wasn’t before, but Blaine is actually certified to think about him that much more now – he can wake up in the morning and drink his coffee and get to school and meet up with Kurt at his locker and Kurt can straighten his collar and Blaine can think about kissing him and if he does then all he has to worry about is Kurt complaining about his coffee-breath.

And it’s perfect.

*

“Father, I don’t know what you expect me to-“

“-I don’t expect you to do anything anymore, Sebastian.”

His father’s voice was harsh, cold, final.

“I’ve given you countless chances, and I simply cannot tolerate you disappointing this family any further.”

Sebastian gulps, hands twitching and clenching behind his back. Don’t react; it’ll make him worse.

“I want you out of the house by Friday.”

Sebastian snaps his neck up, gasping, trying to process what his father has just said. “Father, you can’t really-“

“-if you’re not gone by five o’clock, you’ll have the security on your back.”

“I’m your son!” he cries, nails digging into his palms. “I’ve made a few mistakes, sure, but you’re supposed to-“

“-I’m not obligated to do anything for you, Sebastian. You have until the end of the week. My word is final.”

The door slams shut behind his father, enclosing the room in shadow.

Sebastian stops for a moment, leaning back against the wall outside his house. His old house.

Until the end of the week.

Five days.

It was Friday, and he had nowhere to go.

*

A gunshot echoes through the aisle, and Blaine groans.

“Do I have to?” he mutters to Santana.

She simply glares at him, subtly nods her head towards the front of the supermarket – a handful of men with beanies pulled over their faces are waving guns around like flyers, and one has a cashier in a chokehold.

He doesn’t move.

“Blazer,” she warns, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing lightly. “Someone could die.”

A moment passes.

“It’s your civil duty.”

“I have to say,” he says, turning towards the men, sliding on his mask from inside his shirt, “I did not see the guilt trip coming.”

“A-bup-bup!” she interrupts, stepping in front of him before he can draw attention to himself.

“What?”

“I can see you.”

Blaine blinks. “Oh. Sorry.”

He and Brittany had been practising this for weeks; after many failed attempts at turning him invisible manually, (especially that one time Brittany took him on PornHub and that guy and three hands and oh my god don’t even go there) Blaine had finally figured it out; it wasn’t quite as intense as summoning fire, but it was still relatively hard.

You don’t have hands. You don’t have a face. You don’t have- and he can feel his body ticking away like when he first went into Brittany’s brain, pins-and-needles splintering through his hands and yeah it feels beyond weird when your body is numb but he’s fucking turning invisible.

He manages to manoeuvre his way behind the man holding the cashier (the kid can’t be over thirteen, why are they always so young?) put on his most intimidating voice and tries to keep it from wavering.

“Let him go.”

The guy jumps, pulls the cashier closer – the sign on his badge reads Hi! My name’s Darren! – and re-cocks his gun against his forehead.

“’Ey, who said that?”

Blaine sighs internally.

Why doesn’t that ever work?

Deep breath. “That,” he says clearly, and he can feel Santana’s eyes on him, laughing, ready to step in and help at any moment, “was Blazer.”

Silence for a moment, and then-

“Blazer?” One of the guys laughs, coughs heavily, returns to a growly-chuckle. “What the hell kinda name is that?”

“You can put the money back, and put down the kid, and everything’ll go back to normal.”

One of the other guys laughs again, and Blaine squints a little in anger.

What are they finding so funny? You’re gonna kick their asses in a second.

“Last chance.”

“Last chance – man, what the hell are ya doin’?” The one holding Darren scoffs, tightening his grip around the boy; Blaine can see his forehead starting to sweat, and he knows he has to move now.

Reaching out, he tries to touch the gun as subtly as he can and then- fire from veins through fingertips and through the silver and melting melting melting-

The guy screams, loosening his grip on Darren and keep moving someone could die this is real grabbing the boy’s shoulder and then he’s invisible and clapping a hand around his mouth because Blaine knows he’s probably going to be stupid enough to make some kind of sound unless Blaine stops him and feet flying across cheap linoleum (so much fucking cheap linoleum in this town) until he reaches the first aisle and lets go of the kid and-

“Who are-“ Darren starts, but Blaine’s back at the front of the store and there’s no need for him to be invisible now, his mask is on and the hostage is safe and the guy sees him coming, but seeing isn’t really enough to stop Blaine yanking the gun from his hands, burning it into thin air and heat and the guy stumbles back against one of the checkouts and-

Blaine sucks in a breath as the bullet hits him solidly, the impact alone almost blowing him over. He’s probably still for a little too long, because the group starts talking to him again.

“Blazer – kid, you tryin’ to be a superhero or something?” The tone is meant to be taunting, but it just sounds unnaturally stupid. A little intimidated, even. “There’s hardly a real hero in this world, anyway.”

Blaine lets out the breath, grits his teeth. “All I’m trying to do is stop you from putting this supermarket out of business and hurting innocent people.”

Neither of them notice the cell-phone camera, somewhat subtly held up from the middle of the crouching crowd.

Blaine clutches at his side – the bullet didn’t go through, but he can tell it’s probably going to bruise a little – and glares up at the man, still holding the gun like it’s going to do him some kind of good.

“Just go.”

The man noticeably gulps.

“No.”

Why are you all so fucking defiant?

The world’s clear and then it’s a little blurred as Blaine rushes forward, lets the guy shoot at him, lets all of them shoot as he grabs each gun and melts them into oblivion and beats the strugglers down, grabbing the one that manages to sneak up on him with a bat by the wrist and flipping him forwards over one of the checkouts and the horrifying snap that Blaine shudders at probably means he broke something but he can’t really bring himself to care.

“You’re gonna leave the money on the counter,” he huffs, a little out-of-breath, clutching the guy’s shoulders as tight as he can, “and you and your little buddies are gonna wait in the corner with your hands up and your eyes down until the police arrive. Got it?” he spits a little at the end.

“What – what are you gonna do…if we don’t?” The guy sneers, panting for breath.

Blaine tugs him to sit with one hand, holds him steady and waits for him to try and attack him before he punches him in one smooth, solid movement and it’s all in slow-motion but it happens so fast and he hears the guy’s jaw crack back and he slumps to the side, falls on the ground and Brittany’s in his head you just knocked him out it’s fine, he’s just unconscious, but Blaine can’t stop staring at the unmoving body less than a metre away from him.

“That goes to the rest of you, too,” he projects, voice, hands shaking a little.

The wail of sirens stabs through the air, and Blaine doesn’t have a body.

Meet us at the bakery, okay?

Three minutes later, he, Santana and Brittany are kneeling behind Piercing Treats!, Santana carefully pressing at his chest to locate bruises that might need tending to.

“There’s none.”

Thank god.

“Don’t go doing any extreme sports, though, okay?”

He mock-salutes her; she fake-slaps him on the cheek.

Two miles from the bakery, a finger clicks an upload button, and Rachel Berry reminds herself that she can make an exception from uploading videos from her singing repertoire just for the minute-long, low-quality ass kicking that shadow-clad, yet vulnerable man had just showed her.

“W-who was that?” She’s crouching in one of the first aisles, but she has to peer around until she sees a small boy with black curly hair and – oh, it’s the cashier.

“That,” she says clearly, “was Blazer.”