Blaine, despite his urge to fight, to argue, and to resist playing nice with Kurt, is nothing if not logical.  He can tell Kurt can be a fickle man from the way his hands form fists too easily and from the stain of frown marks beside the corners of his mouth, and Blaine can't risk losing the opportunity to see Sebastian, to try and figure out what's happened to them both, and see how he can fix it.

So Blaine makes the man supper, makes idle conversation, which he sometimes allows to turn into accusations when he forgets himself, and then agrees to once again share a loveless bed with the man keeping him captive.  As it was the night before, Blaine stares up at the ceiling, listening to the grated breaths and wheezes of the other occupant who seems far too alright with having a body beside him, and thinking he'll never fall asleep.

He does though, and awakens this morning to Kurt calling out his name softly, in a sleep affected tone that sounds more gentle than Blaine knows the man to be.  He gets up wordlessly, and watches as Kurt goes to the ensuite bathroom to shower.  Blaine runs his tongue along the inside of his mouth, feeling how the plaque has built up on his teeth in the absence of brushing his teeth and flossing them according the schedule he has so carefully followed prior to this world he's found himself into.  He feels gross, his hair matted in dry sweat and his body covered in the clothes of someone he is disgusted by.  When Kurt exits the bathroom, covered by a robe, he nods towards the place he just came.  

“Shower.  Get yourself clean.  I need to take care of a couple things in my office before we go.”

Blaine again obeys, if only because he's at the point where he can't stand his own smell and allows himself the small joy of a hot shower and overpriced shampoos and soaps at his disposal.  He stays in there until his skin is beyond pruned and his skin is red, until his bones are coals that carry the heat from the water.  Only then does he exit and towel himself off.

Kurt hasn't left him a razor with which to shave, so Blaine accepts that he'll have to go with a two day beard.  He's usually so clean cut and has always made an effort to shave, sometimes twice a day if the need requires, because of a compliment once paid to him by someone he's going to see today.

“You look so much sweeter with your face clean.”

That was all it had taken for Blaine to commit to shaving so rigorously, and now he was going to have to face Sebastian with a beard.  It bothered him more than it should have given the circumstances, and he found that the more he thought about it, the itchier it became.

In the absence of any fresh clothing, Blaine was forced to recloth in the garments he had been wearing for two days.  He bided his time impatiently, eating breakfast as quickly as he could and watching the door like a dog waiting for its master.

Kurt came, as he did, when he pleased and with no urgency at all.  He just looked at Blaine when Blaine got up to approach him, and Blaine worried that he had forgotten or changed his mind.

“We'll acquire you some new clothing on the way back.”

It was relief, not because it meant he would have something new to wear, but because Kurt had remembered.  It took him a minute to follow Kurt out into the hall outside his door, where only an elevator door existed because the memory of the pain of leaving the entryway was still fresh with him.  This time though, nothing happened, and his first instinct was to run - an instinct he mentally shut down.  He was not going to screw this up.

He followed Kurt, and in the elevator they were joined by two other men, dressed in impeccable suits that both nodded towards Kurt.  These men knew Kurt, and that told Blaine not to bother pleading with them.

Kurt led the way through the lobby, Blaine followed, and the two men that had joined them tailed behind Blaine.  It was a wordless, effective threat, and Blaine didn't even bother to think about calling out to anyone - not that there was anyone around on the way through the lobby, out the door, and into the waiting limo.  Kurt was silence on the way, as were his guards, and Blaine was left to try and pinpoint where the apartment was located based on where they were driving from.  It was definitely a rich neighbourhood, one that he wouldn't have been able to afford anytime soon, and as they drove the building became more dilapidated and the scenery was less impressive.  This was an area Blaine knew.  This was Brownsville, and it was definitely an area Sebastian always tried to avoid.

The limo pulled up in front of a brick building that looked abandoned, the windows boarded up and the walls covered in graffiti.  Blaine shook his head.  “This can't be right….”

No one responded to his comment though, and so he was left to follow his escorts out of the limo.  A door was opened before they even got to it, and a short man whose gut protruded from the bottom of his sweat stained T-shirt gestured for them to come in, looking back and forth over the street they were on worriedly.  It was a sham then, a building meant to look unoccupied, and Blaine's stomach made several sets of knots as he followed the other men in because in every gangster movie he had seen - abandoned warehouse type building were where people were killed.

However, the building wasn't short on occupants, and once they had descended down some questionable metal steps, Blaine found himself overlooking a massive sweat shop of some kind, where the people were sitting on the floor in numbers that couldn't be abiding by fire code, and hand stitching things together.  For the most part they were women, and most also looked like they were of various asian descent, so Blaine assumed they were likely illegal immigrants caught up in some kind of scheme for citizenship.  His attention to them was pulled away though the second he heard a familiar voice rise over the crowd to the far end of the basement.

“Faster!  Come on!  I'll have your lazy ass sent back to China or Taiwan or wherever the fuck you came from!”

Blaine's eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open as he stared at the back side of Sebastian, wearing a very un-Sebastian like outfit of khaki's and a non-brand name polo shirt.  His friend was standing over a woman, who cringed in his presence, as he yelled at her.  

This was all so very wrong in so many ways.

“Sebastian!”  Blaine called out before his brain even registered that he had done so, and his friend turned and looked at Blaine in surprise, clearly not expecting him.  On seeing Blaine though, Sebastian's whole demeanor changed, and Blaine could see the long time friend return in the way he confidently strode across the floor and in how the corner of his mouth twitched up in a smirk.

“Well, well Blainey boy.  Didn't expect to see you here-”

“Are you alright?!  Did they hurt you?!”  Blaine spat out, closing the gap between them and looking closely to see if Sebastian was suffering from any after effects of a beating or something else that could explain why he would feel obliged to keep the sweatshop workers on track.

“Whoa.. hey…”  Sebastian pulled away from Blaine's attempt to grab onto him and took a step back.  “I'm fine.  Just… settling some things.”

Blaine had almost forgotten Kurt and his entourage, all of whom stayed behind him and hadn't moved to intercept him or stop him.  Yet Kurt's words weaseled their way into Blaine's head and he couldn't help but reiterate them.  “They said you got into debt.  They said you-”

“Look!”  Sebastian held up a hand, and Blaine snapped his teeth together.  “I figured you'd be treated well enough by some rich sugar daddy - and you seem alright.  Better than having to keep these clowns on track.”

It wasn't anything Blaine expected him to say, and for a moment his mouth seemed incapable of responding as the words processed in his mind.  When he did speak though, he wasn't sure if it was a question or a confirmation.  “You… used me to settle a debt?”

“Look.  If I didn't they were going to kill me.  You understand right Blainey?”

But he didn't.  As much as his mind circled around the idea he really, truly didn't.  He thought he knew Sebastian, thought he knew everything about him.  What Kurt had said was true though…

“Look.  I just have to keep up quotas here for a couple years and then -”

“A couple years?!”  Blaine spat, his emotions whirling around now as much as his mind was.  “A COUPLE YEARS?!  What about me?  What about what I want?”

“Fuck, Blaine, come on... “

“YOU SOLD ME!”

“Your sale stopped me from being axed-”

“I DIDN'T EVEN BELONG TO YOU!”

“But you're my friend-”

“I DON'T BELONG TO YOU!”

Blaine's yelling was drawing the attention of all the workers, and whether they understood what he was saying or not, it didn't matter to him.  He had spent the last few years of his life rejecting suitors, hanging on every word Sebastian had said, even going to Cuba along with Sebastian in the hopes Sebastian would see him as more than just a friend, and in the end it was that dumb loyalty that had gotten him in this mess and Sebastian didn't even look a little bit regretful.

What happened next was something Blaine had never, ever seen himself doing.  In fact, he had once argued in a history class that he was a pacifist and had never seen the purpose of violence, yet in that moment he had no other way to verbalize the emotion and stress and utter rage he felt than to tackle Sebastian to the ground, hands at his neck and screaming.

“I don't belong to you!  I never belonged to you!  I trusted you!  Why!  Why?  WHY?!”

Of course Sebastian couldn't respond, having been completely unprepared to be tackled and choked and now gurgling in response.  Hands went to Blaine's shoulders, and pulled him back.  He let them, his logical self telling him to accept their guidance before he did something he regretted, but never stopped seething and glaring Sebastian's way.

“You didn't even tell me about the debt!  Why the hell do you even have a debt?!  You're made out of money!  What the hell kind of friend do you think you are?!”

Sebastian shrunk back, rubbing a hand over his neck and squeaking out his voice.  “Parents… cut me off…. I… borrowed…”

“From the mob?!  You're a moron!”

“Yeah…”  It seemed like Sebastian wanted to add more onto that, but his voice cracked and croaked as a result of the bruising Blaine had inflicted upon it, so he just stumbled backwards once he stood up and gave himself a few meters of space lest Blaine wanted to do anything else to wound him.

“Let's go now.”  Kurt's voice spoke up from behind Blaine, and with nothing more he could say to Sebastian, expect for things he had always been taught not to say, Blaine silently agreed by turning his back on Sebastian and following Kurt up the stairs.  Kurt, who throughout the whole meeting hadn't said a word.  He had been right, and now Blaine felt like more than a fool than he ever had.

He didn't even try to look for help, or run, or plead.  Blaine just got back into the limo and glared at the carpet on the much too opulent vehicle to force his tears back into his eye sockets.  Anger became regret after several streets, and regret became sadness after several more.

“I thought he was your boyfriend.”  Kurt finally spoke up from across the limo seats where he was sipping something yellow.

“No... “ Blaine managed to utter quietly.

“But you wanted him to be.”

Blaine didn't answer that, since he knew full well that it wasn't a question but Kurt just confirming what he had seen between them.  

“Do you love him?”

That was a question, and one that, a week ago, Blaine would have wholeheartedly answered yes to.  But now…

“Probably…”

“If he had asked you to sell yourself to help his debt would you have?”

Blaine's head shot up at that, looking across to Kurt who bled with indifference the way he blankly looked back at Blaine.  “Of course not.”

“According to the manager, he'll only be there two years if he can keep up productivity.”

“And me?”

“Undetermined.”

Blaine sighed, and for the first time since he had wound up with this man, he didn't even care.  His heart felt like it had been siphoned of blood, now sitting heavy and dead inside of him, and his stomach felt too tied up to make room for food.  The only reason he knew he was alive was because of how hollow his lungs felt even though the air still pumped in and out of them as he breathed automatically.

“I shouldn't have hurt him.”

“Honestly?  That's your biggest concern?”

Blaine nodded.  “He's made some mistakes and -”

“He's an idiot.  You can't really be standing up for him right now.”

“He's all I have left in the world….”

Kurt held his glass out to one of the guards who took it wordlessly, and then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, “No.  He's not.”

Blaine rolled his eyes and looked away from the blue eyes pointed at him and out the window.  Kurt might presume he meant something to Blaine, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Kurt didn't try and console Blaine any further, and Blaine followed him out to a fancy clothing store where they had two individuals bring clothes that Blaine tried on for Kurt who either gave his approval or disapproval.  He felt like a doll, but didn't care.  Nothing mattered anymore, or, at least that's what it felt like.  He had no smiles to give, no hope to dream on, and no one left for him.  

When they left, the guards carried a ridiculous number of bags to the car behind himself and Kurt, and Blaine had to wonder just how much Kurt had spent on him before washing away that thought with the memory of seeing his name attached to a two hundred thousand price tag.  Clothing costs had to be peanuts to this man.  

The drive to the apartment was silent aside from a call Kurt took that was largely ambiguous with “Yes”'s and “No”'s and “We'll see”'s.  The guards left them alone again on the elevator, stepping off on the floor just under Kurt's.  Blaine could have fought the man then.  Taken him down somehow, but he didn't have the energy for it, and couldn't see himself hurting someone else since he had already done that to his only friend in that day.

They carried the bags into the apartment, and, as directed, Blaine took them upstairs and hung up all his new clothing in the walk-in closet that Kurt had, at some point, cleared enough space out of so that Blaine would have room.  It made Blaine wonder if this was what arranged marriages were like - where one individual might move to a new place without anyone they knew to have to coexist with another because of some agreement the parents had made.  

“I ordered Thai.  I hope that's alright.”  Kurt noted upon Blaine's return to the living area, and Blaine, in his numbed state, just nodded.  Kurt could have ordered fried monkey brains for all Blaine cared, his stomach didn't want to eat.

“Was it worth it?”

Blaine snapped out of his haze and looked at Kurt curiously.  “What?”

“Was seeing him worth all the fuss you made?”

Had it?  Blaine thought about how he would have fought and argued and made demands had Kurt not let him see the truth for himself, and then contrasted that to the scene he had made that day.  

“I don't know.”