After Kurt signed the papers and did a wire transfer to the account given to him, he returned to the table he had come from, putting back on his face of indifference and forced amusement at the chuckles and jokes that came from his associates.

“Those are some sweet lips there, Hummel.”
“Bet it was that nice curvy ass.”
“Even I would tap that.”
“What're you going to do with him, Kurt?”
“What'ya mean what is he going to do with him? What do you THINK he'll do with him?”
“Put a bag over that guy's head and he looked like a woman with no tits and a dick.”
“So he looked like a man then.”
“Fuck you.”

They lingered on the topic of Kurt's purchase for far too long, despite Kurt not engaging them in any of it. Behind the curtain Kurt knew vaguely about what was happening. Blaine would be washed down, and then the in-house doctor would implant a microchip in him - like a pet, which was what people called their human purchases. It was with those chips they tracked and controlled their Pets, ensuring that they didn't run away, or alert the authorities to their business.  

Blaine wouldn't come home with Kurt either. To ensure security and maintain discretion, Blaine would be dropped off later, and Kurt was glad for the small reprieve. He still didn't know what he had done, and his mind was racing with conflicts. His whole existence was built around making profit, but buying a pet, especially one that clearly tied him to a past that he had kept securely under wraps, was an emotional gamble as well as a financial one. There was more risk than potential reward. Besides, prostitutes were cheaper and probably more willing than Blaine was when it came to what the guys at Kurt's table were suggesting. Kurt had never seen the point in keeping a human pet before, and his logical mind was insisting that he go and demand a refund because this was all clearly a very poor decision on his part.

He didn't though. Kurt just continued to sip back puffs of cigar smoke and give periodic nods to the company he was keeping. The longer he put off going home, the longer he had to consider what he had done and how to address it. He could, of course, just have Blaine function as help around the apartment, but he already had maid service - and very good service at that, which he had gone to great lengths to find. When one dealt in the underworld as much as he did, he put a good deal of effort into completing background checks on anyone who entered his home when he wasn't there. Not only did he find his maid to be someone who kept secrets, but he also had discovered a few of her own secrets to hold over her if the need necessitated it.

Kurt wasn't above blackmail.

Eventually though, his company left for their own homes (or that of their mistresses), and Kurt begrudgingly got up and nodded towards the man at the exit when he asked if they could send over the “package” in about an hour. His chauffeur was waiting outside in the classic black cadillac, patient as ever, ready to take Kurt wherever he needed day or night. Kurt had long ago stopped wondering what else this man did except for drive Kurt where he wanted to go, and assumed he probably napped in the vehicle when Kurt was occupied. The man had no family, at least not in the country, and had been the driver of a colleague of Kurt's before Kurt had hired him on as his exclusive chauffeur. Whatever the man did to pass the time was of no interest to Kurt though, and neither was talking to him during long drives. Kurt still didn't trust the man to keep any secrets, and so Kurt didn't willingly share anything with him.

Once Kurt began to bring in a decent amount of money, he had left the home of his aunt and uncle and bought his own apartment suite in a development constructed and managed by the syndicate. He technically had two floors, though it was designed as a loft, and his floor would have been the penthouse had he not also purchased the penthouse and redesigned it as an office. Only he had free access to those top floors, and anyone who he invited up was escorted by the elevator man who also doubled as one of Kurt's personal security guards.

By the time he arrived home, Kurt was in full panic mode. Certainly not on the outside, as he never let his feelings show, but definitely on the inside. He had no guest room, no place for Blaine to stay, and he still hadn't figured out why he had purchased Blaine. His apartment was his place of sanctuary, and aside from briefing his bodyguards on risky meetings, no one else had been in there aside from him. Not his aunt or uncle, not his “friends”, and definitely not any prostitutes he had hired to take the edge off when he was stressed. His brain flipped through every possible item he might have that Blaine could use against him - both as a weapon, or as blackmail, and grabbed his hair to tug at it in frustration. Why the hell had he done this?  

Kurt didn't have time to go through his home though as the intercom rang and the “shipping company” announced themselves as having a package for him. He called the guard in the elevator to let him know to bring them up and paced back and forth in the kitchen. How was he supposed to manage this? What was he to say to Blaine? Would Blaine even remember him? What would that do to his image?

No answers came to mind though, and his front door buzzed. With a sigh, he brushed a hand through his hair and informed his body it would need to be calm.  

He expected Blaine to meet him when he opened the door, but instead he was greeted by a man he recognized from the meat market, dressed now in a dark tan outfit meant to mimic a courier uniform. A clipboard with a form was handed over to him and Kurt scanned it over, signing at the bottom where it asked for it to document that the “package” had been received.  

Then the box was wheeled in on a dolly. Kurt watched it as it was moved into the center of his entrance and then set down while the man handed Kurt a key for use on a discrete lock on the side of the box.  

“How many exits do you have?”

Kurt gave his head a small shake, jolting himself out of his stunned stare at the box and looked back at the man. “That front door and windows in most every room.”

“Okay. I need to go around and set the perimeter for his chip.”

The man must have taken Kurt's silence as permission, and began to roam around the apartment, entering data into a tablet he held with little bleeps and boops. Despite his intrusion into Kurt's personal space though, Kurt was completely focused on the box. He looked down at the key in his hand and then back at the box. That key was all that separated him from Blaine, and yet he couldn't seem to force himself to take the steps forward to unlock the damned thing.

Considering he had no problem walking to the stage to buy Blaine, Kurt couldn't understand why his body was reluctant to move now.

“Okay man. All set. Here's his file…” The man handed Kurt a heavy beige envelope and nodded towards the box. “... and he's all yours. Any questions?”

“No. I'm fine.”

The man knew his place and left without expecting a thank you that wasn't going to come, leaving Kurt alone with the key and the box.

A box that held a man that was once the boy Kurt had dreamt about.

“Damn it, Hummel. Get your shit together. You damn near own this city. This changes nothing,” he told himself, forcing his body to move, to insert the key into the lock and turn it.

Kurt didn't know what he expected, but when he opened the little door and saw Blaine laying down, crumbled into a small fetal ball and staring out at nothing and not even registering Kurt or the light that flooded the box, Kurt felt let down.  

“Can you move?”

No response.

“Can you hear me?”

No response.

“Do you know who I am?”

Still… no response.

Kurt sighed, growled in frustration, and reached into the box to yank the man out by the shoulders. Blaine flopped like a rag doll against Kurt, and tucking his arms under Blaine's knees and back, Kurt frowned at just how easy it was to pick Blaine up and carry him to the couch where he laid him down. Throughout the whole move, Blaine didn't protest, didn't move at all, and just continued to stare through vacant eyes at the ceiling.  

Whatever drugs they had used, they were potent.

They did, however, give Kurt a chance to go through his home. He collected all his knives, all his guns, and anything else he thought could be used against him, and put them into his safes, which he also had scattered throughout the apartment. He found some old clothing in his workout room which he dressed Blaine in, who again did not react, and put a blanket over top of the man, even though he wasn't sleeping.

“God damn it… what am I supposed to do with you?” Kurt grumbled, standing over Blaine and looking down at him.  

As expected, he got no response.

The file, which Kurt had set down on top of the now empty box while collecting Blaine, called to Kurt and so he went to open it, sitting at his kitchen table and pouring over the contents. A birth certificate, a social insurance number, a clean bill of medical health, school transcripts, and every document that could ever be connected to Blaine. Kurt learned that Blaine was a year younger than he was, and that after graduating from high school, he had come to New York to attend NYADA as a musical theater major. There was a break in Blaine's family history, a separation from his family that seemed to occur following his high school graduation, and Kurt puzzled over if it had to do with Blaine's choice of college program given how his family seemed to come from old money. Blaine was also related to one Cooper Anderson, who was a B-grade actor in Hollywood, and Kurt nibbled along his lower lip as he wondered how someone who had such lofty family connections could just go missing like Blaine must have in order to end up in the meat market. By the time they ended up there, they were usually off the radar for a while.

What added more intrigue, given Kurt's history with Blaine, was that Blaine was an American citizen. Lots of the individuals who ended up being sold on the meat market were from out of country, having been rerouted in their attempts to escape whatever country they had come from. Kurt had financed enough purchases from the market to know that having a citizen up for purchase was both incredibly rare, and incredibly risky. They were the exotic species in the human market.

Which could only spell more trouble for Kurt.

A small whimper and a cry made Kurt lift his head from where the papers were now spread over the table, being sorted into piles that made sense to Kurt. He stood up and returned to the living room, where Blaine was finally showing some semblance of consciousness, hugging the throw pillow to his chest and looking towards Kurt as he entered with huge blackened eyes.

“Sebastian? Where are we?”

“I'm not Sebastian,” Kurt asserted plainly and sighed inwardly at the sight before him. He hated dealing with emotional people, and drugged up emotional people were even worse.

“Sebastian… please…”

“Do you want some water?”

“I don't want to go… Sebastian… Sebastian please…”

Blaine tightened his grip on the pillow and Kurt shook his head, making a mental note to check for someone named Sebastian in the file. Blaine was clearly hallucinating, and ultimately still not with it enough to have a conversation with, so, realizing there was little he could do, Kurt returned to the table and tuned out the sobs and cries for a person Kurt wasn't. Looking over the documentation, the name Sebastian was quickly visible.

He was the one that had surrendered Blaine to the meat market.