Santana knew how to read people.

It was her special skill. Some people could cook really well, and others could write and draw well. But Santana knew how to identify people's weaknesses and fears, just by looking at them. She developed this skill during her freshman year, when, for the first time, she looked into a girl's eyes and felt butterflies in her stomach.

Looking into that girl's chocolate brown's eyes made Santana feel more vulnerable and threatened than ever. What if people found out? What if people hated her, or if they wanted to hurt her? She couldn't allow anyone to have such power over her. So she began to observe people and tried to discover their little secrets in order to see through their facades. It was her way of figuring out how to make her own facade more believable.

And even after she came out and the whole, "Ya no eres mi hija!" episode, followed by her being kicked out of the house, Santana kept observing people, not only to protect her fa�ade, but because it had become a habit.

For example, she was one of the few people that actually understood Sam's apparent goofiness and the boy's naivety. The kid worked as a stripper in the nastiest club of Lima. It was a place where no one cared if the hot stuff with the six pack who was taking his clothes off was actually a boy. A 16 year old boy who still loved cartoons and who, every night, sometimes still with remains of glitter on his skin, would put his little sister in bed while imitating SpongeBob Squarepants.

For Sam, the boy who had spent a whole afternoon tweeting the name of the girl he had a crush on next to little hearts until it trended, the goofiness and his happy facade was all an escape, a way to protect himself from the ugliness, from the creeping feeling that he was just a thing, a piece of meat that was to be sold. It helped him escape from the bad memories, including the times an older woman had offered him an amount of too badly needed money, and his little brother needed a new pair of shoes a little too badly, and Sam actually did sell his body.

Everyone had their little escape. Santana knew that. She could easily list Quinn's, Puck's, Mike's, even Brittany's. But if there was someone whose escapes and facades truly fascinated Santana, that person was Blaine. When Blaine had crossed the school's hallways, wearing a leather jacket, when he had burned his bowties and broken Greg's car's windshield with a baseball bat, he had intrigued her.

He used to be the quiet, dorky boy, sharing an unusual friendship with the popular head cheerleader, Quinn Fabray. He was an A student with a strange liking for 50's fashion. He always smiled and was polite, but his eyes… Blaine's eyes never lied. And no matter how much he smiled or laughed, Santana still saw scars of abandonment, grief and loneliness inside the boy's hazel eyes.

They just didn't sparkle.

The first time Santana actually saw Blaine's eyes sparkling was the day he put on the leather jacket and decided that he was sick of all the crap people were putting him through. It was the day he accepted how fucked up he was, how his 50's wardrobe couldn't hide all the darkness he carried inside of him, that Santana decided she wanted to be his friend.

And for the years that followed, she never saw Blaine's eyes sparkling with anything but rage, resentment, excruciating loneliness or burning revulsion.

And that is why Santana, the girl known for reading people, was caught completely by surprise when Blaine entered her apartment followed by a pale boy. Blaine's eyes were sparkling with something else, not rage or resentment, but something she had never seen in his eyes before.

Santana's lips curled into mischievous smile.

Tonight would be a fun night.

******

"Those are such beautiful flowers," Penny said, admiring the sunflowers in Chloe Jordan's garden. "I've always wanted to plant sunflowers."

Walter shrugged, ringing the doorbell. "I had a cactus once," he said slightly smiling.

Penny giggled. "Of course you did."

Walter raised an eyebrow. "Why're you laughing?"

"You had a cactus." Penny couldn't stop laughing.

"So what?" Walter blushed.

"Nothing… It's just that, you know, there are dog people, cat people, sunflower people, and well, then there's you, a cactus person!" Penny said, biting her lower lip to stop laughing.

Walter rolled his eyes. "Anyone can like sunflowers! They're yellow and pretty, but cactuses?" He glared at Penny. "They have spikes and most people are afraid of them, but you know what? If you take care of your cactus properly, you will be rewarded with the blossom of the most beautiful flowers."

"Now I get why you like cactuses." Penny looked at Walter, and placed a hand above her heart. "You are a little cactus," she teased.

"Oh my God, Penelope." Walter turned even redder. "Get a grip on yourself, we have an interrogation to do."

"Okay, okay." she nodded, ringing the door bell and trying to put a straight face on.

A few seconds later, a short woman opened the door. And she wasn't what the federal agents were expecting at all. She seemed to have come out of some sort of documentary about Woodstock, dressed in a v-neck shirt with a Guatemalan print on it and a wrap skirt with the ruffled design of a striking mudmee tie dye pattern.

"Are you Chloe Jordan?" Walter inquired as the short woman fixed her eyes on him, the long layers of her brown hair falling on both sides of her heart shaped face in messy waves.

"That's what the system calls me," the woman murmured quietly.

"Well, Miss Jordan, I'm Agent White and this is my partner, Agent Anderson. We work with the FDTC and we would like to ask some questions," Penny said but the woman remained silent, staring at Walter.

"Ma'am, are you feeling well?" Walter frowned, beginning to feel uncomfortable under the woman's glare.

"You have a beautiful aura," Chloe murmured, putting a hand out, as if she was touching some invisible barrier around Walter. "It's orange."

Penny looked at Walter with her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, only to receive an even more confused look from her partner.

Walter cleared his throat. "Ma'am, we would like to ask you some questions about your sister Sandra, do you know where we can find her?"

"Are you looking for Sunshine?" Chloe laughed, before stepping back. "Come in, let's have some tea while we talk about Sunshine."

Penny shrugged and followed the small woman to her messy living room. There was a worn out green couch covered with blankets, and multicolored flags with "free love" printed on them hanging in middle of the room. All around it were colorful lamps and incense burners made of wood.

And everything, absolutely everything there seemed to be somehow tie dyed.

"Have a seat," Chloe said, motioning towards the couch as she sat down on the ground.

Penny sat down as well, but Walter remained standing and couldn't help but muffle a sneeze at the couch's intoxicatingly sweet smell. It was like lavender but mixed with something else that probably wasn't even legal.

"So Miss Jordan, we would like some information about where we could find your sister, Sandra…" He trailed off, as the woman kept looking at him weirdly.

At the mention of Sandra's name, the hippie woman squealed, "Sunshine!"

"Sunshine is Sandra's nickname?" Walter asked, eyebrow raised, watching as Chloe began to braid her long hair.

"No, that's her real name, the name mom gave her," she said absently.

Penny frowned. "Your mother named her Sunshine Jordan?"

The woman laughed. "Jordan? No! We didn't have last names until the system got us."

Walter frowned. "And how exactly did the system get you?"

"We lived with mama and our dads-"

"Dads?" Penny asked.

"Yeah, we had many dads, they came and they left like the seasons of the year…" Chloe trailed off in a melodious tone. "We all lived on a farm away from the city and capitalism's vices in a true union with mother nature and its elements, but when we were seven years old, Child Protection Services arrived, claiming the farm wasn't an appropriate place for children and they took us away to live with an uncle who registered us as Chloe and Sandra Jordan… But unlike Sunshine, I never embraced the capitalist lifestyle and still prefer to be called by my original name, Drizzle."

"Okay Drizzle... so your sister isn't fond of your lifestyle?"

Drizzle laughed. "No, she was the one that called the Child Protection Services!"

"Wait…" Walter raised an eyebrow, glancing surreptitiously at Drizzle. "But you said you were seven years old!"

"She made a phone out of mama's old turntable." Drizzle laughed. "Sunshine had always been what you would call a genius, you know, if you consider the standards imposed by the system to measure intelligence."

"Alright," Penny said. They were running out of time. "But where can we find your sister?"

Drizzle snorted, grabbing a cigarette from her pocket. "She already transcended the mundane plane," she murmured, lighting the cigarette between her lips.

"What?"

"She died four years ago," Drizzle said absently, playing with the smoke coming out of her lips. "Car accident," she explained.

"Fuck," Walter murmured under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck. It seemed that everyone involved in the Metempsychosis Project was either dead or missing. "We have evidence that your sister was involved with some illegal forms of technology. Do you know anything about that, Drizzle?" He asked.

The woman flipped her hair back and closed her eyes. "My sister and I were never exactly friends. Our auras didn't quite match." She opened her gray eyes. "Hers was more gray, while mine is purple, sometimes violet."

"So you don't know anything about your sister being involved with the interception or the building of illegal technology?" Penny pressed, looking fixedly at Drizzle's eyes.

Drizzle shrugged, lunching her shoulders. "She used to work at a place called lucidas-"

"Lucunditas," Penny interrupted.

"Yes Lucunditas! That was the name!" Drizzle threw her head back and began to laugh intensely. "But with the anti-humanization laws, she lost her job, and I don't know with what or for who she was working, but after that, Sunshine began to make a lot of money. We even had a disagreement about how capitalism would ruin her life eventually, but Sunshine didn't listen to me and after that we stopped talking to each other," Drizzle said, once again sternly, as she stared at the cigarette between her fingers.

"Do you remember anything else? Anything that can lead us to the people your sister was working for?" Walter inquired.

Drizzle bit her lip. "Once I heard her talking on the phone with some German guy," she said, leaning across the coffee table and watching Walter with a grin.

"Gunther?" Walter offered. It had to be Gunther. How many German people could be involved in this?

After a few moment of thoughtful consideration, Drizzle spoke again. "Yes, Gunther. That was his name."

"Anything else you remember that might be useful?" Walter asked.

"Nothing I can remember, like I said, Sunshine and I were too different," Drizzle dismissed.

"Alright then," Penny said, standing up and holding a hand out towards Drizzle. "Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Jordan, we'll keep in touch in case you remember anything else."

"Go in peace," said Drizzle, taking Penny's hand before turning her attention to Walter once more. "And you, Agent Anderson, take care. Your aura is beautiful, but orange is a color that always attracts danger."

*******

Kurt was hyperventilating. He had never been in a room with so many people. The apartment was a little messy, but it was still kind of nice - hardwood floors, big windows that let in lots of light, and what seemed to be an access to a balcony near the kitchen. And it was clean, no bottles or clothes scattered around.

"Hey guys, this is Kurt." Blaine waved towards the crew seated on an old leather couch.

An Asian guy in dark jeans and a tornt-shirt which had some band on it pushed a tall guy with a Mohawk out of his way and, smiling, said, "Hey, I'm Mike." He held a hand out towards Kurt.

"Hi," Kurt murmured, shaking Mike's hand which were callused, and it kind of tickled.

"Kurt, you came!" Quinn squealed. The pink haired girl came out of the kitchen, accompanied by an unfamiliar blond girl, both holding bottles of green liquor in their hands.

"Hey Quinn." Kurt smiled, feeling a bit relieved at the sight of another familiar face. Quinn unexpectedly threw her arms around his neck, hugging Kurt tightly. "I'm so glad you could make it." She smiled, locks of her pink hair falling messily above her forehead. Her breath smelled like mint. She had been drinking.

"This over here is Brittany," she pointed to the girl at her side, whose hair was coiffed in a messy bun.

"You have pretty eyes," Britt said, pushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

"T-thank you." Kurt blushed "I like how you dyed your tips. It looks good on you," he complimented making the blond girl blush.

"Hey, hey don't get all flirty, she's already taken," A Latina girl with full red lips said, holding out a hand. Kurt gulped when the girl shook his hand more firmly than Mike had.

"I'm Santana," she said. "And you don't need piss your tight pants with fear, Kurt. I was kidding, and I don't intend to cause you harm."

"Well unless you touch her girl," said the Mohawk haired boy, snorting as he approached them. "I'm Puck, and that over there is Sam," He said, pointing to a blond guy sitting in the corner of the room, texting. "Now, if you excuse us, I was telling them about how I broke the school's lunch robot this afternoon, you know, to impress the ladies. And you kind of interrupted me, so if you don't mind..." Puck said and smiled, sitting on the edge of the couch, and pulling Quinn by her arm into his lap.

"So, I was there and-" He began to say, before Kurt interrupted him.

"Are you really bragging about breaking a robot?" Kurt gasped, his stomach dropping.

Puck shrugged. "Yeah," he said, not understanding the shocked expression on Kurt's face.

"That's cruelty," Kurt murmured, taking a step back.

"What are you talking about?" Puck stood up, pushing Quinn away from him. "Don't tell me you're one of those pro-Robot Rights freaks?"

Kurt felt his stomach burn. "Freaks? You are-" he started to say, before Blaine pulled his arm.

"Don't," Blaine murmured, looking into Kurt's eyes. "It's pointless."

Kurt freed his arm from Blaine's grip. "It's not pointless," He sneered looking fixedly at Puck.

"Hey dude, there's no need to be so damn worked out by it, robots are only things," Puck said and rolled his eyes.

Kurt was bewildered. "Says who?"

"Society! The fucking laws!" Puck scowled, tightening his grip on the bottle in his hand.

"You can't actually believe that," Kurt looked around, waiting for someone to differ and to take his side, but everyone, including Blaine, remained motionless.

"I thought, of all people you guys would be different," Kurt said with disappointment. He couldn't believe that even those who were considered underdogs were as closed mind as the rest of society. "Look at you, at your clothes! None of you fit in and you seem proud of it. That's exactly why you're here, probably the reason why you're friends! It's because society labeled you as freaks, weirdos. They exclude you, sometimes even deny you rights and equality! How can any of you use society's laws and norms as a fucking excuse to brutality, or to justify violence?" He sneered, not caring about how Puck was setting his jaw and approaching him with clenched fists at his sides. "You're not fucking better than those who once discriminated you."

Blaine stepped between them, pulling Kurt behind him and glaring at Puck. There was no way he was going let Puck touch Kurt. But ignoring how Blaine had positioned himself between them and how Quinn was gripping his arm, Puck kept glaring at Kurt.

"You know what Kurt?" He barked, tilting his head.

"What?" Kurt boldly retorted. No one pushed the Hummel's, especially someone whose hair seemed like a dead animal's.

"I like you." Puck grinned, catching everyone by surprise. "You may dress like a girl, but you have the balls to confront Puckzilla like that, and that's something I respect."

"Wait, what?" Blaine gasped. Because seriously, he had punched Puck in the face not that long ago, and now Kurt was the one with balls?

"What about the time I fucking punched you in the face, Puckzilla?" Blaine snapped.

"Well you kinda hit like a little girl, Anderson," Puck mocked.

"Oh yeah how about I-" Blaine snarled, but was interrupted by Quinn. She pulled him by his arm towards the kitchen.

"Calm down, B," she murmured, holding him against the kitchen wall.

"Did you hear that?" Blaine gritted his teeth. "He said I punch like a fucking girl."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "And you're being a fucking misogynistic asshole for taking that as an insult. Because when I was a little girl, I could totally kick your ass, Anderson," she retorted, winking.

"One day, I'm going kick your boyfriend's ass." Blaine crossed his arms over his chest.

"First of all, he's not my boyfriend," Quinn clarified. "And second, you already did kick his ass once, so calm down and focus on our plan."

Blaine raised an eyebrow. "Plan?"

Quinn smiled mischievously. "Discover what Kurt's up to," she said, turning around and opening Santana's refrigerator. She grabbed a bottle and a pair of red cups. "Now let's go," she said, walking towards the living room.

"Kurt!" She squealed. "Here, have a drink!" she offered him, filling a red cup.

Kurt looked at the cup Quinn was offering him. He never had drank anything alcoholic before, and honestly he didn't even know if alcohol had any affect on him.

"He doesn't want it," Blaine interjected taking the cup out of Quinn's hands. He knew why she was doing that, but looking at the way Kurt seemed hesitant, Blaine felt uncomfortable. And he wouldn't pressure, or let anyone pressure Kurt to do anything he didn't want to.

Mistaken by Blaine's care for disbelief, Kurt took the cup out of his hands. "Who said I don't want it?" He wasn't afraid of drinking, and he knew he could drink if he wanted to. Yeah, he had never been to a party or had ever socialized with more than one person around his age, but he could fit in here if he wanted to. This was a group of underdogs for god's sake!

"What you are about to drink is alcoholic, Kurt," Blaine explained, as Quinn looked at him, playfully biting a drink straw.

"I-I know," the android said, taking a deep breath before taking a sip. It tasted horrible. Sort of like mint, sugar and acetone. His first impulse was to spit it out, but then he looked at the way Blaine was staring him with eyebrow raised, and swallowed it down.

He could do this. He could be like Britt, laughing into her red cup or into someone else's mouth.

Music began to echo loudly, and Quinn threw her arms up, screaming that that was her song. Blaine laughed, while Kurt stood there motionless with the bad taste of alcohol in his mouth, not knowing what to do.

He was at the edge of a panic attack, when he felt someone digging their fingernails into his upper arm and turned around. "Don't think so much," Santana told him and winked. Kurt nodded, smiling weakly and breathed in through his nose. He turned around again and watched Blaine taking a red cup his hands. The older boy drank its contents at once and immediately seemed more relaxed.

Kurt took a deep breath and then another sip.

He could do this.

**********

"Eugene?" Artie asked, drowsily. "W-what are you doing?" He rubbed his eyes as the gray robot pulled him away from the computers.

"YOU NEED SOME REST," Eugene said, pushing Artie's wheelchair towards the living room.

"I can't, I-I have work to do." Artie yawned.

"I CAN DO IT FOR YOU. YOU NEED TO GET SOME REST," Eugene said sternly.

Artie smiled at that. "Sometimes you remember me so much of C-3PO," he murmured quietly, his chest aching with the memory of his first real friend.

Eugene titled his head to the side. "THE MOVIE CHARACTER?"

A sad smile ghosted the corners of Artie's lips. "No, an old friend of mine."

Eugene stopped dead in his tracks. "DOES THAT MEAN I AM YOUR FRIEND AS WELL?" he asked hesitantly.

Artie chuckled "Of course you are!"

"ARTIE SHOULD LET EUEGENE HELP YOU THEN, AFTER ALL, FRIENDS HELP EACH OTHER," Eugene concluded, and Artie could swear that if the robot could, he would be smiling.

"I guess can't argue with that." Artie shrugged, wheeling towards his room. "Goodnight, 'Gene."

"GOODNIGHT ARTIE." Eugene waved before going back to the lab.

"I HAVE A FRIEND," the robot murmured happily to himself, sitting in front of Artie's computer and titling his head to the side in order to plug a cable to the base of his metallic skull.

***********

"Oh my God, Brittany's taking her clothes off!" Kurt gasped, tightening his grip on the cup in his hands

Blaine muffled a chuckle. "Well, she kinda does that when she gets drunk," He explained, looking at how the blond girl tried to remove her t-shirt with a red plastic cup in her hand

Blaine sat beside Kurt on the old couch, so close that the android could feel his warmth, but not close enough for their shoulders to touch. "By the way, how are you not drunk? I mean even Puck's drunk! I'm drunk and look at you! not drunk at all!" Blaine inquired, unbelievably.

"Not drunk?"Kurt mocked. "You mean sober?"

"Oh shut up," Blaine murmured, bumping his shoulder against Kurt's. "But seriously, how?" he cried, his cheeks flushed and his hair messier than usual.

Kurt chuckled. Well apparently, he couldn't get drunk, and maybe in the future that would be something he would be bitter about, but right now? The android couldn't be having more fun watching Blaine's drunken frustration, the way the older boy just couldn't wrap his head around the fact he couldn't take two steps without falling on the ground while Kurt remained completely sober.

"I guess I have a high tolerance to alcohol," Kurt said a little smugly before Quinn's squeals caught his attention. "Wait-Oh my God, now Sam's taking his clothes off," he shrieked, his voice higher than usual, blushing crimson red as Sam did something with his hips that just couldn't be legal. Seriously, even Santana was screaming.

"You have to admit that it's a better view than Brittany…" Blaine laughed, before his features were suddenly overtaken by a serious expression. "Unless you actually are into girls and I'm jumping to conclusions here…" he murmured, almost as if he was talking to himself, not really looking in Kurt's direction, but at the bottle in his hands.

Blaine looked up, right into Kurt's eyes. "Am I jumping to conclusions?" He asked, his voice low, with a feeling Kurt couldn't quite describe flashing in his hazel eyes, it was almost as if Blaine was afraid of the answer.

Kurt gulped.

The answer bubbled up from deep inside of him and it escaping between his lips in an unexpected rush, leaving him bare and throbbing. "No, you aren't jumping to conclusions," Kurt said, surprising himself with the honesty of his answer.

A year ago he noticed his attention wasn't exactly caught by Kate Hudson or Anne Hathaway during his romantic movie marathons. Instead, his eyes kind of stayed on Matthew McConaughey's abs and arms a little too long, and once, Kurt actually paused the movie to look at them more properly. But of course, it was because of a noble reason. He could of sworn he saw a birth mark somewhere, and he just wanted to be sure it wasn't cancer or anything like that, or at least that was what Kurt told himself over and over again as he stared at Matthew McConaughey's abs for at least 20 minutes. The only reason he stopped was because Burt entered the room, and Kurt almost had a heart attack. He had screamed,"I was only making sure the birth mark wasn't some sign of cancer!" And that lead them to an, "its okay if you want to look at boys' bodies, Kurt" conversation, that ended with Burt assuring Kurt that his only obligation was to be who he was, and that Burt's job was to love him no matter what.

And without feeling guilty about looking at Matthew McConaughey's abs anymore, Kurt began to look to Jake Gyllenhaal's, Chris Evans's, and suddenly he was developing an odd fascination for Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr… So yes, Kurt was gay and yes, he had also never kissed a boy. Above all that, he was this silly romantic who dreamed about a Disney Prince serenading him… But who knows? Maybe someday he'd find someone who wanted to serenade him, and luckily, this person would have McConaughey's job, or at least Robert Downey Jr's charm.

"I-I'm gay," Kurt said, rolling the word inside of his mouth. It felt good to say that out loud to someone who wasn't his father, to someone he knew that wouldn't judge him at all.

Blaine looked at him, flashing him an unexpected warm smile that was kind of adorable, because he slightly crinkled his nose. "Well, you're in the right fucking place Hummel, we're almost like a gay-straight alliance here," he said, holding a bottle out towards Kurt.

Kurt chuckled. Santana crossed the room, holding an empty bottle in her hands. She climbed on the coffee table, hauling herself on her unsteady feet. "What's Santana doing?" The android rose an eyebrow, because really? Was Santana going to take her clothes off too? What was wrong with these people, why couldn't they just keep their clothes on?

Blaine shrugged. "Oh, she's probably gonna sing sad songs… she kinda does that when she gets drunk, when, you know, she's not crying," He murmured dramatically, mimicking Santana's crying face. Kurt chuckled at that, and something warm spread through Blaine's chest at sight of the other boy's dimples.

Blaine looked away, shaking his head slightly and not really understanding what was wrong with him. He cleared his throat. "I bet it's gonna be Amy Winehouse," Blaine guessed, holding a hand up.

"He left no time to regret…" Santana began to sing, and Kurt looked at Blaine, his eyes widened.

Blaine grinned. "Santana loves Amy Winehouse."

Kurt looked at Santana and noticed how she danced gently to the melody of the song, while still holding her voice steady. Even though she was completely wasted, Santana still sounded like a goddess. "Wow, she can really sing," he murmured, impressed.

Enjoying his friend's voice, and involuntarily leaning against Kurt's shoulder, Blaine murmured, "One of the best voices around here," and closed his eyes.

"One of the best?" Kurt looked at Blainewith his eyebrows furrowed. "How many of you can sing?" He asked, genuinely curious.

Blaine ran a hand through his curls. "Well, I guess all of us, except Mike. I've never heard him singing," he considered, trying to remember if he'd ever heard Mike singing or not.

Kurt glared at him unbelievably. "That means you can sing?" he gasped, not even trying to hide his surprise.

"Don't give me that look, Ice Queen! I used to be the male lead of the Glee club!" Blaine retorted, as if he was actually offended by Kurt's disbelief.

Kurt was still looking at Blaine as if the boy had grown a third head, because really? Blaine Anderson? Blaine I'm-a-badass-because-I-wear-a-leather-jacket Anderson in Glee club, as in singing and dancing? Kurt just couldn't picture that. "You're kidding, right?"

Blaine rolled his eyes, leaning closer to Kurt.

"All I really wanna do is love you

A kind much closer than friends use

But I still can't say it after all we've been through"

He sung, fixing his gaze on Kurt's blue eyes.

"And all I really want from you is to feel me

As the feeling inside keeps building…"

Blaine closed his eyes for the slightest second before opening them again, looking at Kurt with much more intensity. His bright hazel eyes were taking the android's breath away as he looked into them.

"And I will find a way to you if it kills me

If it kills me

If it kills me…"

Blaine let out a little chuckle at the way Kurt blushed.

"It might kill me…"

*********

The silence of Tina's apartment was interrupted by the buzzing of her cellphone. She opened her eyes. It was still dark. "Good," she thought, standing liked to work at night. Yawning, she checked her messages and walked towards the living room.

The computer screen was flashing with several codes.

She put music on and stretching a hair band between three fingers, she twisted her brown hair through the loop, tying it up in a ponytail. "Let's do this," she murmured to herself, checking her phone one last time before sitting in front of the computer and beginning to type.

After some minutes of frantic typing, Tina frowned.

There was something wrong.

"Another center of processing connected to… What the fuck?" she cursed, typing faster.

"C'mon…C'mon," she bit her lip as her eyebrows furrowed together.

And then screen went blank. Tina fell back in her chair, unable to breathe. She clenched her fists beside the keyboard. But soon, more codes started filling the screen. She had made it.

Tina let out a sigh of relief and shut the computer down. As she stared at her reflection in the computer's black screen, it sent a pang of guilt through her, but Tina didn't cry, she couldn't cry, so she gritted her teeth and stood up.

She was doing what she had to. And repeated that to herself over and over again together with the 3 different antidepressants she took, was what allowed the girl to fall asleep at night.

*****

"You can really sing," Kurt whispered. His eyes were wide, and his face was red.

Blaine grinned widely. "I can really sing," he laughed, taking another sip out of the bottle in his hands.

Leaving the now empty bottle beside the couch, Blaine ran a hand through his messy curls before looking up at Kurt. "We should get out of here," He said, reaching up and slipping his hand into Kurt's.

Kurt could feel his face heating up at the feeling of Blaine's calloused palm against his. The android swallowed. "Wait, w-what?"

"Let's go the balcony and watch the stars!" Blaine grinned widely as he stood up, still holding Kurt's hand.

"Wait what?" Kurt stood in front of Blaine, his eyebrow raised. "Blaine! What are you doing?"

"Dragging you to the balcony," Blaine teased, pulling Kurt towards the balcony.

"It's freezing outside, Blaine," Kurt whispered, trying not to attract attention to the fact that Blaine was pulling him to an empty part of Santana's apartment.

Blaine frowned. "No- Just come here." He tugged at Kurt's hand, his grip tightening, and eyebrows knitting together. "It's nice, I promise. You'll see."

Kurt looked at the expression on Blaine's face and considered pulling him towards the living room again, back to the couch where there wasn't any risk of the older boy stumbling on his feet and falling flat on his face, which was what would probably end up happening if Blaine kept walking at that pace. But Kurt didn't. He didn't stop Blaine. He let the older boy drag him onto the balcony.

"See? isn't it beautiful?" Blaine grinned, pointing to the starry sky.

Kurt looked up, ignoring that the cold air practically burnt his skin. He couldn't help but feel amazed. It was beautiful.

Blaine sat on the ground. Well, Kurt wasn't sure if the boy had sat down, or if he had fallen on his butt. Blaine pulled Kurt down with him. Kurt smiled, letting himself fall onto the step next to Blaine, and Blaine chuckled, making a delighted little sound before laying his head on Kurt's shoulder. He tangled their hands together and placed them between their touching thighs.

It was kind of funny and sad that the first time a boy had ever held his hand happened like this. This probably didn't mean anything to Blaine, He was drunk. Tomorrow, when the older boy was back in his right mind, he would go back to calling Kurt an "ice queen", and other names like that. But even knowing that, Kurt couldn't bring himself to let go of Blaine's hand, and he couldn't even explain why.

It could be because of the cold, or perhaps alcohol did affect him a bit. Maybe Kurt just couldn't believe that someone would ever hold his hand like that, so he wanted enjoy the moment. Instead of letting go, Kurt held Blaine's hand tighter.

Blaine rolled his head on Kurt's shoulder in order to look up at the sky. "My brother used to love stars."

Kurt smiled.

"My dad always said that my mother loved stars. He told me once that she had a tattoo of a star on her wrist," Kurt said, his blue eyes fixed on the starry sky. "She loved stars, and I think she was trying to be rebellious, or something like that. Because she always had been this shy, well behaved small town girl, and then when she went to college, she decided to get a tattoo… My dad said that the original plan was a full constellation, but she only got a small, blue star." He finished.

"You know why Cooper loved stars?" Blaine inquired, slurring slightly. "Because he said that one day he would become one."

"I guess he kind of did, in the end, right?" Blaine whispered, cuddling closer to Kurt. He reached up as if he wanted to touch the sky.

Kurt felt warmth spreading through him from the places where their bodies were touching. "You sang really well," He said. "Maybe one day, you'll become a star and make your brother proud."

Blaine flashed him a sad smile. "Thanks."

"For what?" Kurt rose and eyebrow.

"Just, thanks," Blaine murmured, before beginning to hum a random tune.

Blaine's hair tickled Kurt's chin, and the android smiled. He closed his eyes, the smell of hair gel in his nose, and the velvety sound of Blaine's voice echoing in the air. This was a once in a lifetime experience. Being able to see this side of Blaine Anderson, how he got all cuddly, and oddly open.

When Blaine stopped humming, Kurt opened his eyes, and, looking down, he saw two pools of hazel staring at him.

His breath was caught in his throat. "B-Blaine?" Kurt murmured, blinking in a way he thought was probably unattractive.

"But y-you're the Ice Queen," Blaine whispered, mostly to himself, utterly confused, as if he didn't recognize Kurt. "H-how?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about-" Kurt tried to say, before feeling Blaine's cold fingertips caressing his cheek.

Blaine looked so beautiful, his messy curls falling in his forehead, cheeks flushed, his golden brown eyes shining so brightly...

Kurt was shaken out of his thoughts and out of the pattern of Blaine's fingertips and the feeling of the boy's hot breath against his lips by a voice from the door. "Hi - Hey, oh... hi," Sam said, shirtless and clearly wasted.

Kurt immediately felt exposed, like he was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

"I totally forgot what I was going to do here..." Sam murmured, his cheeks red with embarrassment. "S-sorry… I'm just gonna go inside again," he added, looking increasingly awkward when both Kurt and Blaine couldn't figure out what to say.

"Oh, I'm going inside too," Blaine blurted out, pushing Kurt away. "I-I think I heard Quinn calling me," he said, before standing up with a certain amount of difficultly.

Kurt looked up and felt

an immediate flush of anger and embarrassment as Blaine seemed to make a point to not look at him. The android's skin tingled. He clenched his fists at his sides, setting his jaw. Blaine was acting as if he was embarrassed? Embarrassed by what? Nothing had happened. Nothing. And if anything had happened, the one with the right to feel embarrassed was Kurt, because of the fact that he had allowed someone like Blaine get close to him. And that wasn't something Kurt Hummel would let happen.

"I'm going inside too. I actually don't even know why I let Blaine drag me out here in the first place. It's too cold," Kurt said, standing up, looking pointedly away from Blaine as he slouched his shoulders, crossed his arms over his chest and walked away.

Kurt couldn't believe that even for a second he had actually thought that Blaine was cute.

Maybe alcohol did affect him after all.

******

Artie was awoken by a loud alarm echoing in the darkness of his apartment. He jerked up and searched for his glasses. "E-eugene?" he drowsily murmured, positioning his wheelchair near his bed. "What's going on?"

The alarm ringing was a very specific kind of alarm, the kind of alarm that rang only if someone was trying to get into his computer, which was pretty much impossible, Artie was sure of it. Eugene must have inadvertently triggered it, after all, he was the most famous hacker in the country. There was no way someone could break into his security system.

Or at least that was what Artie thought until he pushed the doors of his lab open, and found Eugene lying on the ground, like a broken, lifeless, doll. His was arm bent behind his back, and his neck was twisted to the side. He was still plugged into Artie's computer.

Artie's mouth went dry. His heart dropped, and his eyes were filled with tears. This couldn't be happening! His security system was perfect. It couldn't be-

A broken cry echoed between the hacker's lips. "Eugene!"

He rushed to his friend's side.

It was just like C-3PO all over again.

TBC...