Chapter 6:

1. His name is Kurt Hummel.

2. He is familiar with glee clubs (mentioned Warblers).

3. His mom is dead.

4. He lives (lived?) with his dad, stepmother and stepbrother.

5. He is a virgin.

6. He likes New York (or the idea of it).

7. Blaine is his favourite colour.

Blaine tries to recall every single conversation they had, every word Kurt uttered, but still, he can only find seven points to put on his list and he doesn't think number five counts, not really. Number six can only be helpful if New York is actually where he has fled to and even then the city is far too large. Number three isn't that helpful either, not unless Blaine searches the cemetery for grave stones marked 'Hummel'.

He adds number seven because it makes him smile.

It seems as if numbers one, two and four are the ones which might hold some relevance. Blaine opens his laptop and then his browser and he stops still.

It's October 30th.

There's a bonfire here every Hallowe'en. I watch from the shadows.

There is a bonfire. Its blaze is staggeringly bright and the air smells like smoke and ashes and death and life and Blaine lurks in the shadows and he keeps his eyes peeled as he searches out those familiar, delicate features. The laughter and song and the prickle-burn of the fire are almost distant and silent to him as he moves and looks and searches and seeks, but never finds.

He's been here several times since Kurt disappeared out of his life, leaving an empty space in his bed and in his heart. He's sat by the cave Kurt called his house and crept away when the night came and the howl of the wolves could be heard drawing closer. Kurt is never there and he cannot feel him there any more, has to pinch himself to remind himself he is real, has to close his eyes to recall the touches and the whispers and the words and the feeling.

Blaine goes home smelling strongly of burning, but it doesn't matter, nothing does, not without him. He thinks about how ridiculous it is that he mopes and whines and aches for another person, but he thinks again and he reminds himself that the world is kept spinning because of people and that without each other, what would we have? People have a need for other people and he thinks that no, it's not stupid.

People should never feel guilty for needing other people.

With that thought he falls asleep, still wearing the smoky clothes.

When he wakes in the morning, it's raining and he can't help but wonder if Kurt is out there, wet and miserable and alone and he cries again into his pillow, which smells like cinders. Once he's retained his composure, he pushes himself up and punches 'Kurt Hummel, Ohio' into the search bar of his browser. None of the Kurt Hummels that come up are the right one and he tries to narrow the search, adds 'Lima' and Google corrects him.

Did you mean Burt Hummel Lima Ohio?

Blaine stares too long at the glossy screen and then he scrolls and clicks until he finds an address for 'Hummel's Tyres and Lube'.

Blaine walks inside, past the cars and the sparks and the scent of oil and burning. He sees the legs before the person, because they're protruding out from beneath a car. He waits and then clears his throat and the body jerks. There's a bang and then a swear word and then the person (all the entire length of them) rolls out from under the hood.

"Dude, not cool."

Blaine's heart sinks and falls because this man, this boy, is far too young to be Kurt's father, or uncle, or...

"Sorry," Blaine says.

The boy rubs his head and then runs his fingers through his brown hair.

"You need your car fixed?"

"Oh," Blaine says. "No. Are you... Are you Burt Hummel?"

The boy's eyebrows go up and up. "Me?" he asks and smiles faintly. "No, I'm Finn. Hudson."

Nothing to Kurt, then.

"I need to see Burt Hummel."

The boy eyes him and says, "Do you guys know each other?"

"No."

"If you don't need your car fixed and you don't know Burt, what do you want? Who are you?"

Blaine doesn't know why he says it, doesn't know where the words spring from, but suddenly, he's saying them, "It's about Kurt."

There is a significant change in the air, in the boy, in the world.

"You know Kurt?"

Blaine nods. Only nods, because it is far too soon to confess to a complete stranger that he is desperately in love with Kurt Hummel.

"He's my brother," Finn Hudson says. "I haven't seen him in so long."

Blaine says nothing, just listens as Finn drives.

He doesn't say anything more.

It's an average sized house with a nice garden and a van in the drive with the Hummel's Tyres and Lube logo on its side. Finn takes him inside. He wipes his feet on the welcome mat.

Burt Hummel is nothing like his son, except he has kind eyes and a warm smile and Blaine almost cries at the familiarity in those features. He removes a grubby baseball cap to reveal a shining, bald head and he sits down when Finn says Kurt's name.

"Blaine, he knows Kurt," Finn tells Burt.

Burt Hummel looks up at Blaine, eyes wide and wondering.

"Blaine Anderson," Blaine introduces himself, voice soft.

Burt takes Blaine's outstretched hand and shakes it. It's a firm handshake. Signifies good character.

"You know Kurt?" Burt asks.

Blaine gives him a nod. "I was hoping I might find him here."

"Haven't seen Kurt in...must be almost a year now."

Blaine frowns and his heart slips down.

"Kurt disappears a lot," Finn explains.

"I saw him a little over a month ago," Blaine informs them and they stare at him like he's confessed to double homicide.

Burt Hummel gets to his feet and there is a need and a want and a pleading in his eyes when he speaks.

"You have to tell me everything," he begs. "Please."

So Blaine does. He tells Burt how he found Kurt, how Kurt found him and how he was so easy to fall in love with (he leaves out the parts about the sex). He tells them about the wolves and he tells them about the final day, when Blaine had admitted to loving him and how Kurt had been there one moment and gone the next and he felt his eyes brimming with tears once again.

This time, two sets of eyes filled with tears stare back at him and he doesn't feel so alone any more. He feels like three heads are better than one, that maybe, just maybe, they can find him together.

Blaine finds himself in the choir room of McKinley High the following day after school. He feels a cold creeping up his back as he walks the unfamiliar halls which seem so familiar in ways he can't understand. Finn takes him into this choir room and he steps inside and looks up at the windows near the back expecting to see...something. He isn't sure what and before he can think about it, he's being pulled to sit in a circle along with a group of people he's been told are the New Directions.

Blaine sits next to Finn and a boy with a Mohawk. Next to him is a boy in a sweater vest, who introduces himself as "Artie, yo." Blaine gives him a smile.

A teacher walks in then and sits down on Finn's other side. He's got curly hair and looks as if he's in pain, but Blaine has a feeling that's just his face.

"This is Mr Schue," Finn tells Blaine and they shake hands.

Mr Schue quietens everyone down and Blaine can feel them staring at him. He feels like shrinking away.

"I know you," a girl shouts across the room. She's got straight, brown hair and is wearing a lot of plaid. "You're a Warbler!" she says, looking appalled.

"Um, yeah," Blaine says. "You seem familiar to me, too," he tells her, because it's true. He's not sure why, but he figures it has to do with show choir competitions.

"What are we even doing here?" a girl with a her dark hair in a high pony asks. She's wearing a cheerleader's uniform.

"Well," Finn says, looking around the group. "Blaine knows Kurt, he saw him less than a month ago and he wanted to know more. Kurt didn't tell him a whole lot."

"Probably too busy sucking his co—"

"Santana!" Mr Schue says, giving the girl a wide eyed expression.

She only rolls her eyes and the blonde girl next to her (who is dressed identically) giggles.

"So, I thought we could go around the group and share something about Kurt, so that Blaine can understand some more."

"That's a great idea, Finn," Mr Schue says, smiling.

"That's the gayest idea you've ever had and that's saying something," the girl, Santana says.

"I'll go first," the girl in the plaid outfit shouts out and Blaine notices a lot of eye rolls around the room.

"Sure, Rachel," Mr Schue says.

"Well, Kurt was my best friend," Rachel says and she frowns. "He and I were fierce competitors and that's what made us such good friends. He and I had plans to go to New York after graduation. We were going to get on Broadway. Juilliard, first, but I've learnt recently they don't have a performing arts programme, which is ridiculous and—"

There's something familiar about the girl, something he struggles to grasp and in the end, he surrenders and listens. She's talking and Blaine is trying to pay attention, but her words spiral off into something more, something else, something so irrelevant to the things that he needs and wants and desires to know. He gets the feeling not many people listen to this girl, that perhaps they never will and her cries for attention will end in tears. He hopes, for her sake, that he is wrong.

"And that was the day he stopped being my friend," she told him sadly, dramatically. "He shoved his way out the door and never came back."

"Oh, come on," Santana says with a dramatic roll of her eyes. "He came back, he just wasn't Kurt any more," she says, looking at Blaine. "Kid ran off the deep end. God knows what he saw there. Sharks, or whatever."

"Alright," Mr Schue says, looking around the room. "You guys are worse than my baby. Let's have some order. Who's next?"

The one with the Mohawk leans in close to Blaine and whispers, "His kid's a doll. Mrs Schuester is totally hot, but crazy as they come, if you catch my meaning."

Blaine only nods.

Mr Schue looks at the girl next to Rachel. She's very pretty and her hair is dyed pink and cut unevenly. She's got a nose ring and her clothes have holes in them. She is also distinctly pregnant. "Quinn, how about you?"

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Kurt and I weren't ever super close, but he was okay," she says. "Used to come hang out under the bleachers when those meathead jocks came after him."

"Mr Schue," a voice says and when Blaine looks up, he sees that the blonde girl in the cheerleading outfit has spoken. "Is it my turn? Lord Tubbington says I should always go third, otherwise all my teeth will fall out."

Nobody blinks an eye at the absurdity. Blaine doesn't ask who Lord Tubbington is.

"Sure, Brittany," Mr Schuester says and he gives her a piteous smile.

"Blaine Warbler," she says, grinning at Blaine and he doesn't know why she's calling him that, doesn't understand why he isn't that fazed by it. "Kurt was a dolphin. We made out once and he didn't taste like boy, but he was the nicest boy I knew."

Blaine raises his eyebrows.

"Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?" she asks.

"Um, no," he admits.

Suddenly, he doesn't understand why he's here.

"Thanks, Brittany," Mr Schue says. "Mike, would you like to go next?"

The boy, Mike, is Asian. He's tall and thin and good looking. He's got the physique of a dancer.

"I didn't know Kurt that well. It's weird, because I've known him since we were kids, but..." He shrugs. "He was always nice to me."

There is a girl next to him and she begins to sob loudly. Mike wraps an arm around her shoulders as she whimpers her words from beneath a veil of blue and black hair.

"Kurt was one of my b-best friends," she says. "He stood up for me w-when Karofsky and the oth-others shoved me and I miss him so much."

She sobs harder, louder and nobody acts like it's anything new. Maybe it isn't.

"Thank you, Tina," Mr Schue says clapping his hands once. "Jacob?"

Jacob is small and frumpy and his hair is cloud like around his head, his glasses are thick and dark. "I did a story on him last May. For my paper. Huge success." He adjusts his glasses. "Other than that, all I know is that I filled in for him in glee club after he left."

"That space has yet to be filled by an actual talent," Rachel says, glaring at Jacob.

"I can hear you, you know," another girl says.

"You were supposed to, Lauren," Rachel says a little too sweetly.

"I'm Mercedes," a girl says over Rachel. She's looking right at Blaine and smiling sadly. "Kurt and I, we were best friends, before he and Rachel learnt to like one another. We joined Cheerios together, owned Madonna week and he was there for me during my...less finer moments."

Tots, Blaine thinks and he doesn't know why.

"I miss him," she finishes.

"Me, too," Artie says. He grips tight to the sides of his wheelchair. "Artie Abrams," he tells Blaine again. "See, Rachel, Finn, Mercedes, Tina and me, we were all original glee club members. So was Kurt. We're like...a family and without Kurt...we're just not any more. Not completely. Kurt's problem was that he never knew how important he was to us, because we never showed him that he was."

"Makes me wish we had," Puck says, glumly. Blaine sees him wiping away a tear.

"Ugh, I can't believe I let you get me pregnant again," the girl with the pink hair, Quinn, says.

"Hey, that's my boyfriend!" Lauren protests.

"Oh, no, no, no, Zises," Santana says, shaking her head. "Puckerman is all mine."

Blaine feels as if the earth has shifted. It seems so ludicrous and he isn't even sure why.

"Look, the point is that Kurt was a big part of all of us, even if we didn't know it or just don't want to admit it, he made a difference. We need to find him and tell him, but we need your help," Artie says and he looks right at Blaine.

"I don't know where he is " he says dumbly.

"From what you told us," Finn adds, "he let you closer to him than he has let anyone in a long time. You know something, you just don't know it."

Blaine shakes his head. "I thought he trusted me, but obviously he didn't."

He hears a groan from across the room. It's Santana.

"This isn't about trust, goblin."

"He left me," Blaine says and he can feel himself getting angry, but mostly it just hurts. "He knew I needed him and he still left me."

"Don't you see?" Santana asked. "He didn't leave you, he set you free."

Blaine looks around blankly at all these familiar strangers. "Free from what?"

"Free from him," Finn says, like the realisation has just hit him. "He ran from us, but he set you free."

Blaine shakes his head adamantly. "I didn't need to be set free from him."

Nobody meets his eyes at that. He looks around and tries to find the answers to all the questions which have just filled his mind, but nobody wants to give him one. He stands up.

"What the hell happened to him here? Why is he running? What does he think he's sparing me?"

Still, nothing.

"Please," Blaine begs. "Somebody, anybody. I need to know. Please."

Mr Schuester stands up and claps his hands again. "We've spent enough time here." He looks at Blaine. "I hope something somebody said here today will help you in your search, but we do need to wrap it up." He looks at his watch. "Terri's going to need help with the baby."

Eyes roll all over the room. Mr Schue flees and everyone begins to stand and ready themselves to leave.

"That's it?" Blaine asks. "None of you are willing to tell me?"

Nobody even looks at him. It's as if he's a ghost.

"Fine," Blaine says. "What was that name again? Karofsky?"

At that, people look up.

"I'll just have to find him."

Santana steps forward out of the crowd. "You can't," she tells him dropping her eyes.

"Why not?" Blaine enquires.

"Because Karofsky is dead, okay?"

Blaine's blood runs cold.

"Dead?"

"Dead," Santana confirms. "He killed himself." She comes closer and whispers so that not Blaine can hear her. "Look, if you want to find Hummel, by all means, go ahead, but you need to stay out of...all that, okay? It's personal." She glances behind her. "For way too many people."

She tries to move away, but Blaine reaches out and touches her arm and he feels like he's known her all his life. She looks at him.

"Santana," he says her name for the first time, but it doesn't feel like it, "Haven't you ever loved anyone?"

She doesn't reply and Blaine feels her body arching towards the blonde girl, Brittany and he knows, somehow, he knows.

He whispers then because he understands. "Wouldn't you want to find her? No matter what?"

She sighs and looks irritated, but she pushes him out the door. "Meet me at the Lima Bean in thirty minutes. If you're late, I'm going home."

With that, she disappears down the hall.