Blaine didn't get into the dirty details right away with the counsellor.  He wanted to feel her out first, make sure she was actually worth the money he was paying her, and more than that, he wanted to ensure she was trustworthy.  No matter what anyone said about everything being said in confidence, he didn't know how far that extended.  So, in the beginning, Blaine kept it simple.  He talked about his family, and how his parents had ultimately wiped their hands clean of him the instant he left to New York.  He talked about his unreciprocated crush on Sebastian, and alluded to finding out that Sebastian had only been using him.  Blaine talked about the brother he had never really been close with, and how he hadn't spoken to him in years either.

Blaine didn't find himself short of topics without having to discuss Kurt.

At first, the woman didn't say much.  She wrote her notes and let Blaine drone on and on.  Eventually though, she began to ask questions.  The questions were typically inquiries into how different things he described had made him feel, and how he presently felt about them.  She wanted to know if he desired reuniting with his parents, his brother, and even Sebastian.  In all cases, despite how they had each hurt him in their own ways, he said yes.

Blaine had also begun to form a regular routine out of his visits to the counsellor.  He would have his lunch, walk all the way down to Kurt's apartment, look up at it for a few minutes, and then walk all the way back to his counsellor's home, tired and worn out, and ready to vent.  The apartment building drew him in, and he obeyed their call, though could never find the courage to cross the threshold into the lobby.  For starters he was pretty sure he'd get booted out before he even made it to the door, and he also didn't understand why he wanted to go back in there.

Which was what made him feel the most crazy.

It was about six sessions in when Blaine finally got to the reason behind his sudden need to attend counselling sessions, right when the woman was asking him if he felt like Sebastian was a fluke in terms of people he associated with, or if Sebastian was just one in a long line of users.

“I was kidnapped.”

That took her aback, and she readjusted the glasses on her nose as she looked up from her pad of paper.  “By Sebastian?”

“No… well… yes… indirectly.”

Her attention drawn, she sat herself up higher in her chair and leaned forward.  “How so?”

So Blaine told her.  A humanitarian trip to Cuba, suddenly being called back to the states, the drugging, the auction, and then… Kurt.

“Why are you telling me this and not a police officer?”

Blaine sighed softly.  He was hoping she could answer that question for him instead of posing it right back at him.

“Is it a way to punish Sebastian?  By keeping him trapped in service?”

The thought hadn't even occurred to Blaine, and so he quickly shook his head no.

“Are you afraid the authorities might be in league with the perpetrators of this crime?”

That thought had come to him, but now, being faced with the consideration from someone else, it didn't seem like it fit.  In fact, whether or not the mafia might have the police in their pocket didn't seem to affect Blaine's state of mind at all.  As such, all he could offer was a shrug which made the eyebrows of his therapist lift up.

“Do you think the police are the bad guys?”

Blaine quickly shook his head.  Even if the mafia owned the police, he didn't think that would make them bad people.  Like anyone else, they were individuals with families and problems of their own, and if faced with the threats Blaine knew the mafia could inflict upon them, it was only reasonable for the officers to want to protect their families and go along with any deals offered to them.

“How do you feel about the man who… owned you?”  She made finger quotations at the end, and Blaine inwardly rolled his eyes.  It wasn't a figurative owning.  He had been owned.

“I'm not sure.”

“Well, are the feelings mostly positive or mostly negative?”

Blaine pressed his lips together and looked away, towards one of the bookcases.  His eyes strained but he couldn't focus on any of the titles.  He knew what the right answer was, but how he felt was an entirely different matter.

“Blaine, are you familiar with Survival Identification Syndrome?  It's also called Stockholm Syndrome.”

Blaine nodded towards the books.  He knew it well enough to have it beating in the back of his head the entire time he had been at Kurt's.  

“It's actually quite well researched in terms of history… doctors think it has helped explained the behaviours of concentration camp survivors, members of religious cults, battered wives, incest survivors, abused children, -”

“- I know all about it.”  Blaine cut in sharply.  “I studied a play where it was featured heavily and did some background research on it to get an understanding back in my first year at NYADA.”

“So do you think you fit the criteria then?”

Again Blaine shrugged up his shoulders.  “He showed me kindness… I was there for months… I mean… there's not a lot of specifics I've read up on the syndrome, and it was always in my head while I was trapped… but…”

“Blaine.  This is serious.  Stockholm Syndrome can coexist with a number of other things like insomnia, nightmares, irritability, heightened alertness -”

“-I know.  I read up on it.  I don't have any of that.”

“How long has it been since you were trapped?”

“Three months… right before the semester started.”  Blaine said, thinking back.  It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it was a lifetime he craved and it made him feel insane that he would want to crave it.

“Hmm…”  She scribbled some notes down on her pad and then looked back towards him.  “This is why you originally came to see me isn't it?”

Blaine nodded, hugging a throw pillow against his chest.  “Yeah…”

“I'm only a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, so I can't make diagnoses.  However, given the time span and the fact that you were consistently cognizant of the situation, in addition to not having any of the following complications, I don't think you have Stockholm Syndrome.”

“So… I'm just crazy…”  Blaine said quietly, almost a whisper.

“Why do you think you're crazy Blaine?”

“Because… I miss him.  I shouldn't, but I do.  It doesn't make any sense.”

“Do you think you love him?”

Blaine gulped and looked away.  Love?  No.  That couldn't be right.  It certainly made even less sense than missing Kurt.

“Blaine…”  the woman uttered after a stretch of silence.   “Professionally, I think you need to go to the authorities and continue to seek counselling, maybe even with someone who's more familiar with hostage situations.”

“Time's up.”  Blaine quickly asserted as he glanced up at the clock, standing up quickly despite the disapproving glance of the woman looking up at him over the top of her glasses.  “See you next week.”

He scampered out of the office as quickly as he could, walking right out of the building and punching the first tree he came across and then yelping as he brought his hand back to his chest and cradled it with the other.  He KNEW that was what he should do.  He didn't need her to tell him that.  

But it wasn't what he wanted to do.

Hands were tucked into the pockets of his warm winter jacket, and Blaine set off to walk to NYADA, bracing himself against the winds blowing up and around him in little cyclones, trapped between the buildings for a moment before spinning up and out before returning once more.  How he envied them and their ability to do as they pleased without judgement.  No one cared if they were there or not, and unless they got smacked with a wind whipped paper, no one said a thing about their little tornadoes.

He walked until his feet were heavy, and when he had to drag them along the pavement, that's when Blaine realized he had walked too far.  In front of him was the same building he had looked at before his appointment.  Somehow, lost in the recesses of his mind and self doubt and loathing, Blaine had gone on autopilot and ended up at Kurt's apartment once more.

Maybe it was because his mind was trying to tell him something.  Maybe it was that he needed to get over this place… or own it.  Whatever the reasoning was, Blaine took in a sharp breath and held it as he pushed his way into the lobby, walking straight forward and expecting to held back by a guard.

But there were no guards.

So he got into the elevator, punching the button and holding onto the bar at the side to keep himself leashed in place lest he lose his nerve and try to run out.  Certainly someone would see him on the camera in the top corner of the elevator and send the elevator back down or blockade him at the apartment floor.

But no one did.

Staring at the outside of the door that he had so long stared at the other side of, Blaine began to doubt himself, and his mission - whatever it was.  He still hadn't decided why he was doing this and what he intended to come out of it.  He just knew he had to do it.  No one had stopped him, and maybe that was a sign, so he tried the doorknob and found it was open, stepping inside the apartment like he was going back in time.

Except he had never seen it so disorderly.

Worn clothing was left in different piles around the floor.  The kitchen, which he could see from the entrance, was stacked high with dishes and half eaten boxes of take-out, some of which smelled rotten.  A tumbleweed of dust and hair floated around his feet, set off by the slight breeze the closing door gave off.  

It didn't get better as he moved through the apartment either. Empty bottles of beer and liquor were left everywhere, as were cigarette butts - despite there not being ashtrays to hold them.  Papers were scattered over the floor, and when Blaine saw the aquarium, he had to frown.  Kurt hadn't been able to convince the college to allow it in his dorm, and now it was cracked, water down to an inch high, and the fish were floating, already showing their small skeletons.  

“You… make… me… feel….”

The voice was familiar, insomuch as it was clearly Kurt, but he was singing - something Blaine had never heard him do before.  Turning around, Blaine saw him laying back on the couch, a bottle in one hand and a cigarette he was flicking on the floor, where ashes gathered in a pile on the carpet below.  His beard had grown in, chestnut brown like his hair, and he sang up to the ceiling, his eyes suggesting that he was drunk or high or something.  He hadn't noticed Blaine yet, and so Blaine held back, listening to the lyrics which stirred a small memory inside of him.

“... like I'm livin' a teenaged dreeeeeaaammmm!”  

He broke up the song by taking a swig from his bottle, and Blaine's mind blurred back to Dalton Academy blazers, and a Warbler performance in the common room with everyone singing along and dancing.  He was at his finest then.  Sebastian hadn't invaded his life yet, and he was rebuilding the confidence he had lost after the Sadie Hawkins dance at his previous school.  He was on top at Dalton then.  That was the time in his life that cemented his desire to be on stage.

Blaine was broken out of his memory by a hiccup, and then some humming before Kurt started in on another verse.

“I finally found you!  My missing puzzle piece!”

His words were slurred, and another hiccup and another sip from the bottle stopped him from continuing.  It was then, as Blaine looked at the face of the broken man laying down, that he saw a flash from his memory.  A rounder face, smooth skin, hair that lay flat instead of coiffed up…

“Nooooo regrets… jus' love….”

He couldn't help the gasp that escaped from his mouth as he set that boy's face on top of Kurt's, and it was that gasp that alerted the drunken man to his presence, looking over with water rimmed eyes, that only seemed to be partially aware as to the world he was in.

“... somethin' somethin'.... young forever….”

“You were there!”  Blaine yelled, coming up the few steps to Kurt, who didn't react much to Blaine's presence except to squint as if he were trying to focus.  “You were there!  At Dalton!”

Kurt didn't answer, at least not with anything vocalized.  Instead he just stared up at Blaine as if he were trying to decide if Blaine was real or just a dream.  Close up, Blaine could see the uncharacteristic stains on Kurt's shirt, which was a plain, almost white T-shirt of all things - something he didn't even know Kurt owned until it clicked with him that the shirt was one of the ones he owned when he had been with Kurt.

“Why didn't you tell me?!  Have you been stalking me this whole time?!”

Tears involuntarily blossomed in Kurt's eyes, trailing off to each side of his face and leaving streaks over the streaks that already existed in dried form.  He appeared to have decided Blaine was real as he murmured “You weren't supposed to see me… no one did…”

Blaine had though.  He had seen Kurt, and in him the same sadness and fear that Blaine had before he had come to Dalton.  Now too, he saw that same sadness and fear, and saw how the years with it had cemented it into place within Kurt.  This wasn't a man, but a boy that had never gotten a chance to grow up - always surviving instead.  Surviving death after death, and the pain of being different.  If Blaine had Stockholm Syndrome, it was because he felt for Kurt.  Felt the way his heart ached, and ached with him.  

“Did you get me because of that?”

“.... ‘cause of *hiccup* what?”

“Because of Dalton?”

Kurt nodded sadly, eyes lowering down to his chest like a sad little kid who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  

The questions were answered.  Why Kurt had bought him when he clearly hadn't known what he wanted to do with Blaine.  Why he had been taken care of so well.  Why he had been cherished.  Kurt had been a part of glee club, and he had spied on the Warblers… spied on Blaine.  Blaine wasn't sure of the exact timing, but he was pretty sure Kurt's died not long after that performance.  His life had gone to hell in one big rush, and, before Blaine had time to think about it, he was kneeling down, pressing his lips to Kurt's alcohol stained ones, and then lifting his head as he gasped for air from the smoky, pungent taste.

“Let me take care of you.”