“Holy Crap! I knew Kurt had money, but to have that installed must have cost a bomb.” Santana commented. “And this means that Kurt has contacts – not just any mug would make something that elaborate. It has to be done by a professional.”

Blaine had just finished telling his fellow agents the journey he took in Kurt’s office; the bookcase, the hidden room and the mysterious sign. As expected, it was of great importance as evidence against Kurt.

“Exactly! Meaning our job is 100x harder.” Cooper sighed at the confused faces staring back at him. “What I’m trying to say is-”

“-Kurt knows what he’s doing.” Blaine finished, with wide eyes.. “Do you think this is the first time he’s had to hide something? Going on the basis that he’s hiding the jewellery now.”

“It’s hard to tell. But we need to focus on proving that he’s done this first. Starting with, decoding the sign. Now it looks like Chinese… any speakers?”

“I can speak Japanese!” Rajesh offered.

“Great Rajesh, exactly what we’re looking for.” Cooper deadpanned. “Okay, I’ll work on getting this translated. Blaine, just… keep working and see if anything happens out of the usual. Meeting adjourned.”

When Blaine arrived at work, Kurt was stood waiting with a murderous look on his face.

Blaine started internally panicking - What if he knows?! There must have a camera! A hidden camera somewhere that I didn’t see! – and clicked the pen he kept at all times in his blazer pocket.

“Blainey!” Cooper called.

Blaine excused himself from the conversation he was currently participating in with Angela and Rajesh, two other agents, and made his way over to Cooper. He didn’t even comment on the nickname, having heard it so many times.

“What’s up Coop?”

“I have something for you,” Cooper pulled out a long, rectangle-shaped box and handed it to his brother.

Blaine stared inside the box dumbly. “A pen? Uhm, thanks Coop… I’m sure it’ll be useful to, you know, write stuff.”

“No dummy, it’s an audio recording device. You press the tip once to start recording,” Cooper pressed the tip once, “and twice to stop recording.” He pressed it twice. “Then you hold the tip down to listen to the recording back.”

 He did so and Blaine heard Cooper’s voice saying, “and twice to stop recording.”

“Keep it with you and record anything you think might be of use for the case.”

“Did you have a nice time last night?” Kurt asked sharply, foot tapping slightly in annoyance.

Play dumb. “What do you mean, sir?”

“What I mean, Zachary, is that you didn’t leave the building for 40 minutes after I set the alarm.”

Blaine raised his eyebrow and was trying to think of a polite response instead of, “so?” then some words sprang to mind. Alarm… 30 minutes… Be out… Set properly. Blaine’s mouth fell open.

Balls.

“I…” Blaine closed his eyes, cursing himself internally. “I am so, so sorry, Sir!! I stayed overtime to…” his eyes dart to his desk where four large boxes of designer shoes were stood, “start categorizing and logging all of the shoes you gave me!”

Yesterday afternoon, Kurt has dumped – well, not Kurt specifically, he wouldn’t carry heavy boxes – four boxes, all containing 250 pairs of shoes each. Blaine was ordered to categorize them in groups of colour, designers, height of heel and type of shoe. By Friday morning. That is 1,000 shoes in 2 days and on top of that, all of Blaine’s usual workload. Pretty much impossible.

Kurt raised an eyebrow and Blaine prayed to the high heavens that he wouldn’t look in the log book and find out that Blaine hadn’t started yet.

“You can’t fire him for doing work Kurt!” Rachel piped up from behind.

Kurt stared so intensely that Blaine felt the urge to run and hide. He then sighs heavily and stalks back into his office.

“Thanks Rachel.” Blaine sits shakily, glad to still have his job – and life – and Rachel chuckles at him.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe. He likes you.”

Blaine’s stomach squelched and he reminded himself that Rachel meant it in a completely platonic-good-worker way. Not in a romantic way, that’s absurd.

Even so, Blaine needs to find a way to rebuild his professionalism, to gain respect and trust from Kurt, in order to eventually be invited back to his workshop.

Cooper hadn’t yet discussed the workshop with Blaine, but he thought his older brother would appreciate him getting permission to go in, saving time in the future.  

Speaking of Coop, Blaine subtly checks the message under the desk – déjà vu from his school days – and his heart drops.

From Coop:

We have a problem.