Blaine Anderson was famous. He still enjoyed all the attention he got from his fans, but his fame started to make his life a whole lot more difficult. He got recognized wherever he went and it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy giving autographs and hugging totally unknown, yet still very enthusiastic people, but sometime he wished he had some time alone. So this was how he invented his alter ego. It wasn’t really original, but combined with a hat and some sunglasses it was working.
He was just stepping in to a small caf�, which had just been opened nearby, as he had an interview in an hour and he felt like falling a sleep on the spot. That’s what you get when you constantly postpone sleeping and write new songs instead. Also, when he was not writing, singing or giving interviews, he was with his new boyfriend, Jeremiah.
“A caf� latte to go, please,” ordered his drink from the barista standing in front of him. He was a tall man with a perfect figure and a nice smile.
“Name?” His voice came as a bit of a surprise as it was higher than Blaine expected, but he shook the surprise off and answered quickly.
“Clark Kent,” he answered and this time the person standing next to him looked up, his face showing disbelief.
“Well, aren’t we all fans of superheroes.” The barista replied with a knowing smirk on his face. “Though, if I were you, I’d go with Peter Parker. It wouldn’t be as bold.” and with this, he gave Blaine a grin, and then stepped away to make his drink. While he was waiting, he strengthened his hat, so that he was sure his curls were locked away properly. Then, he went to stood to the other counter so that the other guests could be served as well. A couple of minutes later, the young man from before was standing in front of him with his drink.
“Have a nice day, Mr. Parker.” he said as he placed Blaine’s cup on the counter. Blaine couldn’t help but smile when he noticed the name written on the cup. It said: Peter.

The next time Blaine visited the caf�, he was in a hurry. Later he couldn’t really answer if he’d chosen the place because it was convenient or because he was still fascinated by his new nickname. The place was packed, so he stood in the line for quite a while. He didn’t mind it as much as he should have as he got to watch the stuff work. In a way it was fascinating to watch the three baristas working in such a speed and it was even more captivating to see that they even had time to joke around. There was a short, brown-haired woman, with a huge smile, called Rachel and a tall, slender woman who seemed to make totally irrelevant and/or unrelated comments about her cat. They called her Brit and her cat was called Sir Tubbington. And of course, there was the man, who served him last time. The others called him Leo, so Blaine was pretty surprised to see the name on his nametag was something totally different: Kurt. When he was standing face to face with him he was still so confused that he almost forgot what he wanted to order.
“Take your time.” he felt even more confused as Leo/Kurt smiled at him. Blaine couldn’t wrap his mind around the mystery the other male was.

He didn’t have time to visit the friendly caf� in the last two weeks. So now he was sitting a table by the window and watching the park the window was overlooking at. It was a quiet, autumn afternoon and as it was getting colder, now no one was there. He was lost in his thoughts which were mostly circling around Jeremiah.
“You look like you could use a refill,” Blaine looked up, startled. He was now completely out of his stupor, looking at Leo/Kurt who was standing next to his table, holding a new cup of coffee.
“Are you alright?” he asked Blaine, who just nodded, mumbling something like “yeah, of course”. He even managed to send a smile like facial expression to the other man.
“You know, they say that ‘A problem shared is a problem halved,’” he offered, but then added quickly that Blaine didn’t need to talk to him, if he didn’t want. Strangely, Blaine wanted to talk to him, so he gestured for him to sit down but didn’t start talking.
“Well, you do that nicely, Peter,” Leo/Kurt started talking after sitting in silence for a couple of minutes. It was evident that Blaine was not going to start talking and the barista decided that he could start talking as well. Blaine felt a smile creep on his face as he remembered why he was called that.
“Yes, if we were in school you’d get an A for imitating paying attention,” he smiled mischievously.
“What’s your name?” he ended up asking. He really wanted to know and now it was his turn to smirk because seeing the incomprehensive expression on the other face.
“Kurt, as you can see here. I supposed everyone could read above the age of ten,” he trailed of a bit but his fingers were still pointing at the nametag he was wearing. Blaine just let the teasing go away. He wanted a full on answer.
“I heard them calling you Leo. Then what’s with that?” He raised his eyebrows to emphasize the question. Kurt started laughing hard and he could only answer after his laughs finally resolved into small giggles.
“Sorry, it’s just… It’s a thing between us,” his head moved in the direction of the counter, as if showing Blaine who he was talking about. “It’s kind of silly.”
“Well, not everyone can be as lucky to be called Peter Parker,” Blaine smiled at him, and after a reassuring nod from Blaine, he continued:
“I really like this TV show called The Big Bang Theory and once I mentioned the girls how much I’d love to be Sheldon’s flatmate. So they simply started calling me Leo after Leonard, Sheldon’s real flatmate. I told you, it’s stupid.” Kurt averted his gaze and Blaine felt he was feeling at least a bit uncomfortable.
“Before becoming Peter, I used to be Blaine” he offered, and the grateful smile on Kurt’s face told him it was totally worth giving up his anonymity for. When Blaine left, he felt a bit better.

The next day found Blaine in the caf�. He stepped in after work to unwind a bit. He knew Jeremiah wouldn’t be home so there was no point rushing there. Unfortunately, the problem which was bothering him yesterday hadn’t disappeared miraculously so he was down a bit. Actually he was more down than a bit. Jeremiah kept rescheduling their dates, postponing them to a point when it was impossible to keep track of all those missed dates.
“Hey, Blaine.” Instead of returning Kurt’s smile, he locked his hands to his heart pretending to be really heartbroken.
“What happened with Peter? Was I sacked of being a superhero in disguise?” He pouted fairly well, but he couldn’t keep up the charade much longer when he heard Kurt giggle.
“Well, sorry, I just thought you were in disguise.” Damn, the man was too clever to argue with, so Blaine gave up trying and he ordered his coffee instead.
He was surprised and glad when a bit later Kurt approached him, asking if he was up for a refill. He was, of course, and he was even more up for a little chat with him. Kurt somehow sensed he was troubled, so he kept cracking jokes, one after another. When he was leaving, he thanked Kurt for making him feel better, but the barista just waved it off saying it was part of the service.
Blaine didn’t notice time passing so fast so he was greatly surprised when he realized, that he two months passed since he became a regular at the small caf�. Kurt even managed to sweet talk him into performing sometimes at the caf�. Though they didn’t advertise them, as Blaine liked to give impromptu performances when he felt like it, the news travelled fast and the business at the caf� picked up really quickly. There were always lots of people around but Kurt always managed to talk with him at least for a couple of minutes.
At this point they knew each other fairly well, and Blaine even had the advantage to use Brit or Rachel as a source of information. He got on well with the three musketeers – as he liked to call them. Sometimes they would chat about their years at high school and tell hilarious stories about all the drama which was going on during their high school years. Blaine usually just listened to those stories and laughed with them. Of course, he’d told them that he went to Dalton and he told them stories about the Warblers sometimes, but somehow the topic of relationships was never brought up. Sometimes he felt bad for not mentioning Jeremiah’s name (and Kurt’s to Jeremiah, for that matter) but he reasoned that Kurt was just a dear friend and this topic has no relevance, whatsoever. And this was fine until it happened.

He was at the caf� at Friday night, as usual, but he wasn’t performing. He was enjoying the quiet buzzing of the place which was not packed. Actually, there were only two or three other people: one was reading at the corner and an old couple was talking quietly. Rachel went home – actually Brit and Kurt had sent her off. There were only a few customers anyway and apparently she was having something big on the next day and her friends wanted to make sure she was well-rested. Kurt was chatting with Blaine leaving Brit alone in the counter.
Suddenly, the door opened and because of the cold rushing in, Blaine shivered. Or maybe it had to do with the sudden change of the atmosphere. He was sitting with his back to the door so he only saw the way Kurt’s expression changed. He was carefree and smiling; and in the next second he looked so damn terrified. Before Blaine could turn around to see what was going on behind his back, Kurt was on his feet blocking his way to the door. Blaine stumbled out of the chair as he felt something was up.
“What do you want?” Kurt asked someone Blaine couldn’t see. He did see how the other customers ducked under the tables. Brit was standing tall at the counter, she looked like she was about to cry and curl under a bed but at the same time she was unable to move. She seemed paralyzed, her eyes glued to the situation happening right in front of her.
“I’ve heard a rumour going around that the famous Anderson spends an awful lot of time here. And look, there he is.” Something was really off, Blaine could tell but he didn’t recognize the voice.
“What do you want from me?” he asked and tried to step out behind Kurt’s back but he was unable to do so as Kurt kept moving with him. He was still in cover but he caught a glimpse of something silvery in the man’s hands.
“How nice of you to ask me. Well, I thought you could join me for a ride, I have a nice room waiting for us and I’m pretty sure your manager would be more than happy to pay me a whole lot of money for you” Blaine stopped moving. This was absurd, this couldn’t be happening. But it was and he started to corner them. When they were squashed to the counter the man tried to pull Kurt away but he grabbed the man and span him with him. This way he was a bit more away from Blaine and facing Kurt.
“You little…” he growled and latched on to Kurt. The struggle wasn’t long and then abruptly it stopped. The man backed away looking scared as if he couldn’t understand what was happening.
“I didn’… I didn’t want …” His breathing was ragged then he turned out and run out of the coffee shop. Blaine was still standing pressed to the counter thunderstruck, willing his mind to catch up. What the hell did just happen? Brittany screamed and rushed over Kurt who fell on the floor.
“No, no, no, not again…” he heard her voice clearly though, it was barely a whisper. She struggled to turn Kurt’s body, and by the time Blaine fell on the floor next to her, he saw a huge red stain spoiling Kurt’s shirt. He clutched Kurt’s hand tightly and heard Brit’s sobs as they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Blaine didn’t remember much later. He was in some sort of daze and he had no idea why they let him ride the ambulance with Brit. He hadn’t been much of a help, he was mostly sitting there dumb founded and holding Brit who was shaking because he was crying so much. They sat in the waiting room together, hardly speaking, both of them lost in thought. After an hour or so, Brit remembered that she should have called Rachel a long time ago.
Rachel arrived thirty minutes later looking as if she’d just met a tornado. Brit rushed to her and hugged her fiercely. She updated Rachel in a few words, keeping it to the minimum. So the next thing they knew was that Rachel marched to the information desk, and demanded to get some information threatening to call her two gay dads, who were apparently lawyers. It was either this, or Rachel’s stern attitude that convinced the nurses to tell her that he was okay. He was still unconscious, but not in immediate danger. Blaine felt like he could breathe again. Kurt was going to be fine. He just had to be patient and wait for the doctors to let them see him. Then, it dawned on him: Kurt was a dear friend, but he had a boyfriend. So, he really needed to get home.
“I should … I should get going…” he stuttered as stood up abruptly. The two girls looked at him with the same confused expression.
“Will you…?” he didn’t even know what to ask for. To drop him a line or send a message? He couldn’t leave just like this but he couldn’t stay either.
“Wait a minute!” Of course, it had to Rachel and her loud, shrilling voice that stopped him (not that Blaine was really able to get going anyway). “You’re telling me you want to leave like this? You have something more important or what?” Yes, Rachel was using him as an outlet for all the frustration she was feeling, but still, Blaine couldn’t help but feel bad for it.
“I… I shouldn’t even be here…” he stammered out. Rachel was giving him a disbelieving look and slowly started to corner him. She was terrifying and Blaine suddenly wished he had a body guard with him but without the luck he told her truth stating he had a boyfriend and he let her make the conclusions alone.
“You have a fucking boyfriend?! Really, it explains everything so nicely! So, please tell me, why are you making doe eyed expressions at him all the time? Why do you keep coming back to the caf� and spend hours there? Why do you blush when he smiles at you? He’s in love with you and I bet you feel the same, but you’re two much of a coward to admit it. So you know what, Blaine?” she said his name as if it was poison in her mouth. “Go to your boyfriend and get a good fuck! It is evidently much higher in your list of priorities than Kurt!” and she even pushed Blaine a bit so the man stumbled out of the waiting room. He walked out of the building in total daze and couldn’t hear the conversation between the girls.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Brit whispered in Rachel’s hair after hugging her again.
“I know. I know…” Rachel admitted quietly. “He’s going to be furious when he finds out, right?” she asked Brit, who just nodded as a reply.