It was a dark and stormy night when Blaine Anderson first met and became intrigued by one Kurt Hummel. 

October 4th. A Thursday. The rain poured thick and heavy along the streets of Seattle, effectively ending the unnaturally long dry spell that the city had been enduring. The citizens of Seattle looked to the sky with a mixture of dread, amusement, and resignation, zipping up their light jackets as they mentally vowed to take their rain jackets out of the backs of their closets, secretly anticipating scoffing at those who would use umbrellas as they bustled about downtown because they were clearly tourists. 

Northwest of downtown, past Queen Anne Hill and Lake Union, snuggled firmly between Phinney Ridge and Puget Sound was the neighborhood of Ballard where the two happened to coincide at precisely 9:06 pm.

Blaine Anderson had been sitting in Miro Tea Shop, distractedly sipping a cup of straight earl grey tea and trying not to cringe—his editor had insisted that he kick his coffee addiction so now he was on the leaf juice as he spitefully referred to it—while he stared at his blank open document, willing his mind to fill in the space with inky black words. The endless plethora of inspiration that his mind continuously created was rendered moot by the fact that he could never think of a place to start, middle, or end. 

Writer’s Block, they called it. It seemed so trivial and banal to him compared to what he was feeling. Just so…ordinary.

A sopping wet shoulder bag slammed down onto his table, knocking over his glass pot of tea onto his laptop keys, dousing them with liquid as the pot shattered. He spluttered, yanking up his laptop and tipping it to the side to prevent any tea from seeping in. Blaine looked up at the interloper of his table just as the clock over the crepe-maker ticked over to 9:06 pm. 

“What the hell?”

Blaine found himself being ignored by a drenched teenager with a ducked head who was cramming a multitude of lemon poppyseed scones into his wet bag as well as what looked like one of the chocolate chunk cookies. The teenager arranged the food before zipping the bag back up and slinging it over his shoulder.

He was very interesting to look at, Blaine noted. He wore long pastel blue overalls over a billowy white shirt that was glued to his body because of the rain. His short chin-length brown hair was pulled into two little nubby pigtails behind either ear except for a few locks that fell into his face, strung up with glass beads.

“Hey Kurt, here’s your order,” Quinn called from behind the counter, holding out a drink and a hot panini. 

“Kurt” turned and walked over to her, taking the items smoothly before stalking out the door. 

Blaine stared after him in bewilderment before shaking his laptop out lightly, flinging amber droplets of incredibly bitter bergamot tea over his desk and table before setting it down and angrily stalking over to the front counter. “Who the hell was that and what was his problem?” he said angrily.

Quinn watched his vicious abuse of the napkin dispenser with amusement before answering cooly, “Oh, that’s just Kurt. And I think he’s had a pretty bad week.”

“You know him?” Blaine asked, patting himself down with the napkins before sending his laptop and longing and despairing look. 

Quinn smiled enigmatically. “We have a history.”

Blaine arched an eyebrow but she wouldn’t elaborate. “What was he drinking?” he found himself asking. 

“London Fog tea latte.”

Two nights later with a brand new laptop, Blaine Anderson found himself curled up in the sitting room of his lofty north Capitol Hill house as he started typing, the crackling of Mahler on the record player and the howling wind outside the only soundtrack to the mire of his thoughts. 

It was London, 1984. Amidst the thick lush fog of the night that never seemed to let up, there was a killer on the streets.

Blaine stared at the sentence. It was wrong of course, but it was a start. He’d worry about style later. The barest semblence of a plot started to form in his head as he smiled and continued typing. 

***

The next day he saw Kurt Hummel again.

Each Friday he ventured to the Pike Place Market for a new bouquet of flowers to spruce up his apartment. After walking down the length of flower vendors, he doubled back to choose a favorite or two (or three—one for his bathroom would be nice) when he stumbled into another person.

“Excuse me,” he said, clasping the person’s shoulders as he regain his footing. 

A large pair of blue eyes were blinking back at him. 

“Kurt!” He held him at arm’s length, looking at him in shock. 

Kurt stood there, looking surprisingly different when he was dry. His hair was fluffy and high and in a coiffed nearly mohawk-esque fashion, the pigtails gone in favor of a small ponytail. The sweet farm boy look was gone as well, in favor of a black sleeveless turtle neck, skinny jeans, and white lace-up boots. He held a lemon tart in one hand and a large box of french pastries in the other. He took a large bite of the tart.

“Uh, I know Quinn, from Miro Tea, and you stopped by last night?” Blaine tried as a method of explanation. 

“Have you ever had any of the pastries from Le Panier?” Kurt asked, staring at him. 

Blaine opened his mouth. “I—”

“Because they’re really very good,” Kurt said. “Here, try.” He jammed the rest of the lemon tart into Blaine’s mouth, who choked around the citrusy explosion.

“Delicious, isn’t it?” Kurt said in the same monotonous tone, before brushing past Blaine.

Blaine chewed furiously, gulping down the dessert before taking off after Kurt, weaving through the midday throngs of people at the market. Past the flying fish and Rachel the pig and the donut stand, Blaine finally caught back up to Kurt. “Why aren’t you in school?”

Kurt ignored him.

“It’s just past noon and it’s Friday,” Blaine tried again. “Don’t you have high school?”

“I don’t go to school,” Kurt said in a clipped voice. “It’s not really the thing for me.”

“But you’re…” Blaine frowned. “How old are you exactly?”

Kurt turned suddenly and stared him down with his large blue eyes. “I’ve lived a thousand horrific lives by now, each more terrifying than the rest and this one is but a mere respite, the eye of the storm before I let oblivion take me again.”

Blaine stared.

Kurt sighed. “I’m sixteen. Honestly. Adults have no concept of humor nowadays.” He turned to the massive magazine stand and started plucking up volumes. “And this is all I need to learn, right here.” He piled his arms high with various Vogues and Ws and GQs and Elles.

“Isn’t it the law that you have to go to school?” Blaine protested.

Kurt shifted the magazines to one arm and reached up to tap Blaine’s nose. “Ah yes, but therein lies the problem.” He leaned forward, his breath ghosting across Blaine’s ear. “I can’t go to school because I don’t exist.”

Blaine blinked as Kurt leaned back, a sudden achingly sweet ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Thanks for paying for my education, Mr. Earl Grey.” 

And then he turned and left, blending in seamlessly with the crowd.

Leaving Blaine to pay forty-seven dollars for the magazines. 

***

He went to Miro Tea everyday under the pretense of writing, when really he was searching for Kurt. He probed Quinn endlessly but she kept her mouth shut.

”Look, don’t go messing around with Kurt!” Quinn finally snapped one Wednesday. “He’s been through enough bullshit without some lonely writer poking and prodding at him?” 

“Like what though?” Blaine leaned forward. “Come on, Quinn. You have to give me at least something.”

She crossed her arms. “Don’t you have other obligations, Mr. Anderson?”

Blaine’s jaw clenched before he nodded and went back to his seat, typing once more.

***

Blaine created an outline for his story—80s in London. A killer on the loose.

And then he changed it again. Swinging 60s in London. A killer on the loose.

And then…again. 40s in London. Amid the sirens of wartime, a killer on the loose.

After a week of his story flipping decades, he leaned back in his wooden seat and glared at his laptop screen. They were all good ideas but he just couldn’t think of stories for each of them. He needed something new, a different angle from the “it’s the person you least suspect” route he always went. 

“Why don’t you just set it in Victorian times?”

Blaine jumped, his chair nearly tipping all the way back before he latched onto the table ledge and propelled himself forward. 

Kurt was standing behind him, style once again shifted to a cashmere lavender off-the-shoulder sweater and white corduroys and black ballet flats. His hair was floppy and soft looking and all down, hanging in uneven sort-of waves around his face. 

Blaine blinked. “What?”

“Then you could make parallels with Jack the Ripper as well as the killings that have been going on in Seattle,” Kurt said monotonously before turning to go to the front counter.

Blaine pushed out of his chair after him and followed him to the front counter. He noticed what looked like a few black dots on Kurt’s back, revealed by the low dip of the sweater. “What do you mean?” Blaine asked.

“A London Fog and a poppyseed scone, Quinn,” Kurt ordered. He produced a card from his pocket to pay.

“Kurt,” Blaine tried again. “What do you mean?”

“The Victorian era is a great source for fucked up horror stories,” Kurt shrugged, pressing the card to Blaine’s chest. “Thanks for the tea, by the way.”

Blaine glanced at the card, realizing it was his. “You—”

“Oh, and my food, clothes, and magazines for the past week,” Kurt shrugged. He rubbed his cheek aimlessly against his shoulder. “I’ve never been able to afford cashmere before.”

“You stole—”

“Only what you could easily pay for,” he said curtly, sitting in Blaine’s chair and munching on the poppyseed scone as he peered over Blaine’s work.

Blaine stared at him incredulously. “Kurt.”

Kurt just clicked down the scant few pages that Blaine had managed to type up, eyes starting as he crammed more of the scone into his mouth.

“Kurt!”

Kurt looked over at him in surprise. “What?”

A thousand questions popped into Blaine’s mind like “What the hell are you doing?” or “Do you really think I won’t call the police?” or “Why are you wearing girl’s clothes?” 

But the question he ended up asking was, “What did you mean, the killings in Seattle?”

Kurt held his gaze as he crammed the last of the scone in his mouth and swallowed. “In the Central District, the past couple of weeks, two girls have been found gagged, raped, and strung up against a wall in a weird a twisted version of a crucifixion with their bellies slit open and burlap sacks placed over their bashed-in heads.”  

Blaine felt his mouth go dry. “Are…are you serious?”

“Completely,” Kurt said monotonously. “So that should make a good story, right? That’s what authors do: reinvent the truth so they can tell a story. You’ve got an incredibly creepy killer of females on the loose, throw him in with lots of Victorian fog and the cold streets of London, add a few corsets with a dash of scandal and voila, you have a national best seller.” 

Blaine scoffed, but the idea was tickling the back of his mind. “Victorian era?”

“Try the 1880s,” Kurt mused, accepting his tea from Quinn with a half-smile. “They were pretty fucked-up.”

Blaine rolled his eyes but found his fingers typing.

***

They met up everyday at Miro Tea, just after five. Kurt came everyday to take the bus home with Quinn, sometimes accompanied by a hard-looking guy with a mohawk who Blaine quickly learned was Quinn’s boyfriend and the father of her baby bump. 

They didn’t even talk much—Blaine would be typing away on his laptop while Kurt would be sketching in his notebook, but the occasional comment that Kurt would make, or a Victorian lace design that he’d come up with and show Blaine would spark a new frenzy in the story as a cohesive plot began to come together.

“Here’s your main character,” Kurt said one day in mid October, holding up an incredibly detailed sketch of a man in an elaborate waistcoat and breaches.

Blaine stared. “But that’s you. Victorian-ized.”

“And here’s his sidekick,” Kurt continued, flipping to the next page.

Blaine frowned. “Wait, why am I the sidekick?”

“Because I’m the one who comes up with all the good ideas,” Kurt said nonchalantly, going back to sketching.

Blaine arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“I came up with characters, setting, main plot so…yes, it is so.”

Blaine folded his arms and tilted back in his chair. “Okay, so what’s this main character’s name?”

“Bergamot,” Kurt said as he took a sip of his London Fog. “Alexander Bergamot.”

Blaine felt a twinge of annoyance because it actually wasn’t a bad name. “And the sidekick?”

“The earl, his financer,” Kurt nodded. “Elliot Grey.” A smile twisted his lips.

Blaine frowned, taking a sip of his tea before spluttering with laughter. “Seriously, Kurt? Earl Grey?”

Kurt just hid his smile behind his tea latte.

***

In the attic of his house, the characters flourished. 

Blaine was still trying to find a good enough title—that was always the hardest part for him: either a title came immediately or did not make itself known until the end of the tale—but Alexander Bergamot and Earl Elliot Grey were becoming more and more well-developed as the leaves outside the large glass window turned from green to yellow to red to russet. 

Alexander. Age 19. A Sherlock Holmes-esque youth with a bit too big of a heart (wishful thinking on Blaine’s part?) who was hunting down a killer of women through the streets of London. 

Elliot. Age 24. His patron who finances his investigations because he got the Earl’s elder troublesome brother out of the way so that Elliot could achieve the earldom. 

Okay, so maybe Blaine wasn’t quite as subtle as he thought.

But he already had lots of undercover subplots laid out, from the stint at the opium den to the ruse pulled off at Lady Edith’s masquerade. 

The killer on the other hand…

Blaine sighed, pen doodling idly on the page. 

Something to do with burlap sacks. Burlap had to give him edge to the villain…

But what?

***

Blaine read about the third murder on the eighth page of the Seattle Times. Suzy Pepper, age 14, murdered on her way home from after school activities. Beaten, raped, gagged, trussed up, belly slit, bashed-in head, burlap sack. 

Something tickled the back of Blaine’s neck and he didn’t know what it was. He called in a favor—Carl Howell, one of the detectives at the precinct. He’d set him up with one of his colleagues, Holly Holiday at a charity function at Benaroya Hall three years ago. Though their relationship hadn’t lasted, Carl and Blaine’s did and Blaine had carried the favor around for the right moment.

And now he was going to use it because he was almost certain that he knew Suzy Pepper from somewhere.

Also, he needed to talk to Kurt about this most recent development and what it would mean for the villain.

***

He went to Miro Tea, but Kurt wasn’t there.

The whole week, Kurt wasn’t there.

Finally, after nine days, Quinn’s boyfriend Puck tapped Blaine’s shoulder as Quinn was closing up. “Dude, you need to find Kurt,” he muttered.

Blaine sat up straighter, putting away his laptop. “What are you talking about?”

Puck sighed, looking around. “I think he’s in trouble. He was supposed to keep in touch but…knowing him…he’s probably gotten himself in way too deep again.” 

Blaine stared at him. “Puck, what’s wrong with Kurt?”

Puck licked his lips. “Look, you know where Underground Seattle is? In Pioneer Square?”

Blaine nodded.

“Go around back by the alleyway next to it after midnight tonight. And dude? Make sure he’s okay.” 

***

The rain was pouring down heavily in sheets as Blaine parked his car on Occidental Avenue and continued on foot, his collar turned up against the harsh elements.

He wasn’t going to lie—the idea of this late night clandestine rendez vous with fate and potential danger thrilled and intrigued him. Though admittedly, most-of-all he wished to learn how Kurt was somehow spun up in the middle of this tangled spider web of intrigue. 

Pioneer Square. During the day it was a charming little tourist location full of information about Seattle in its early days and pubs and museums and art galleries and jazz joints and only a couple of blocks from the waterfront. 

Except for Bell Town, it was probably the worst place you could be downtown at night. 

Blaine slipped around by the entrance to Underground Seattle and crept along the slick brick walls to the spacious back alleyway of fire escapes, hidden nooks, suspicious doors, and dumpsters. He saw a small group of people about halfway down and pressed himself into a small alcove with a door, shrinking down to hide in the shadows as the voices drew nearer. 

“…if Motta won’t greenlight it.” 

“He’s grown…keeps…damn daughter of his.”

“Just tell…owes…the rest of the night.”

“Yeah, well tell Porcelain that…still has to pay me for…the days…spent who knows where and I had to cover…” 

“Porcelain’s already in trouble with Goolsby and—”

“Just find…and get the money!”

The group passed into one of the other doors farther down the alley and Blaine breathed a sigh of relief. He counted to three before moving from his hiding spot. 

The rain was coming down even harder as Blaine trudged around dumpsters. A hand reached out and tapped his shoulder and he turned to find a pretty redhead smiling at him. 

“Hey honey,” she smiled. “Looking for company? Why don’t you come in? It’s dreadful out.” 

“Can’t do,” he smiled apologetically. “I’m taken. But I’m looking for someone, if you can help?” He offered a fifty.

She took it with a smile. “Who are you looking for?”

“Kurt.”

She laughed. “We don’t have names here.”

“Um…” Blaine frowned. “Brown sort of curly hair? Big blue eyes? Uh—”

“The boy with the unicorn tattoo?” She sighed. 

Blaine blinked. “What?”

“You’re looking for Porcelain,” she rolled her eyes. “As are half the clients. He’s with the boss’ daughter right now. End of the alley on your right. Gaudy neon door, can’t miss it.”

“Many thanks,” Blaine nodded and hurried down the alley past various doors until the one at the end with bright pink neon hearts. He tried the nob, pleased to find it unlocked, and opened the door carefully. There was just a small entryway and stairs that led up to the second floor. The air was tinted pink from the hearts in the window and there was a distinct smell of cinnamon and ginger in the air. Silently, Blaine crept up the stairs. 

He was met with a hall of doors, but one was ajar at the very end, voices floating from within. 

“…come on, it’ll be alright in the end though.”

“I don’t know…you’re not looking that great.”

“Oh come on, I just need some soup and I’ll be a—a—achoo!” 

“Come on, Kurt, I’ll just tell daddy—”

“No! You know it’ll only cause trouble for you, Sugar.”

Blaine pushed open the door and blinked at all the bright pink he was immediately met with before focusing on Kurt who was sitting half-naked on a large canopy bed with a girl who was holding his leg. His hair was all fluffed around his head and his bangs were side-swept over his left eye making him look incredibly feminine—as did the black eyeliner and golden gloss on his lips. He wore nothing but a pair of puffy golden-scarlet capris that tied at his knees and looked incredibly like persimmons. 

“Blaine!” Kurt jumped, grabbing a feathery pink blanket and holding it over himself. “What are you doing here?” 

“Puck sent me,” Blaine said, his eyes jumping around the room. “He said he thought that you might be in trouble.”

Kurt’s shoulders slumped. “I’m fine—”

“He’s not,” the girl—Sugar?—interrupted, yanking his leg. Kurt hissed. “Look.”

Large hand-shaped bruises blossomed up his calf.

Kurt yanked his leg back, rolling his eyes. “I’ve had way worse, Sugar, and you know it. This is barely anything.”

“This was Goolsby saying hello!” Sugar snapped. “But this new guy…they have a new customer in town and he’s…he scares me, Kurt, and Goolsby wants to send you to him tonight and I can’t—”

“It’s not your choice, Sugar,” Kurt said with finality. “It’s mine. And if I run, Goolsby will find me. He always finds me when I’m on the streets and I can’t hide out in pee-patches forever, especially since the rainy season’s started back up.”

“What if you weren’t on the streets?”

Kurt turned to face Blaine. “What?”

“You need a place to stay, right? Out of harm’s way?” Blaine stepped forward, touching Kurt’s arm.

Kurt shook his head. “Blaine, I can’t—”

There was a knock on the downstairs door.

The three froze.

“Porcelain!”

“He’s not supposed to be here for another hour,” Kurt muttered.

“Porcelain, you’ve got a customer!”

“Kurt, go!” Sugar urged, shoving him towards the window. “Go with—” she glanced at Blaine briefly. “—Mr. Trenchcoat here and get as far away from Pioneer Square as possible!”

“Sugar—”

The door unlocked.

“Go!”

She shoved Kurt out onto the fire escape and Blaine followed. The window was slammed shut behind them. Blaine grabbed Kurt’s hand and they hurried down the rickety metal stairs.

“Porcelain!” 

The voice was above them and Blaine shoved Kurt over the last railing, two feet down onto a garbage bin before jumping over himself. They hopped down from there and raced around the corner. 

Kurt latched onto Blaine’s arm and pulled him around another building before racing across an open square full of totem poles. Voices could still be heard far off behind them, but Kurt expertly weaved them through foliage and over a stone wall until they were by a series of metal chairs and tables, the sound of running water surrounding them. 

Blaine breathed heavily in the dim gray-blue light as he leaned back against a moss ledge. Kurt curled up next to him, shivering slightly.

“Here,” Blaine murmured, taking off his trenchcoat and draping it around Kurt’s shoulders. 

Kurt blinked in surprise. “Thank you,” he whispered. “We should wait here for half an hour, just to make sure that the coast is clear.”

“Okay,” Blaine nodded. “Where…exactly is here?”

“The waterfall park,” Kurt said quietly. “Just a small little hidden nook.” 

“Huh,” Blaine said, looking around. He’d never even known such a place existed. 

The next twenty-seven minutes were filled with the sounds of bubbling creeks and water rushing over rocks before Kurt silently stood and asked where Blaine’s car was parked. They took an out of the way route to get to it, but within ten minutes they were speeding through downtown, heading to Capitol Hill. 

Blaine cranked the heat and cleared his throat. “Do you wanna…I don’t know, talk?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Blaine clicked on the radio and the music washed over their silence. 

You sit there in your heartache 

Waiting on some beautiful boy to

To save you from your old ways

You play forgiveness watch him now here he comes

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus

But he talks like a gentleman

Like you imagined when you were young…

***

“Well, here we are.” Blaine cut the ignition in front of his three story tier house. “Chez Anderson.” 

Kurt nodded and left the car without another word. He didn’t speak as they walked into Blaine’s house, didn’t comment on the architecture, didn’t look around in wonder, didn’t utter a single sound. 

“Um, I guess you can stay here,” Blaine said awkwardly, opening the door to the guest room that was closest to his. He walked over to the bedside table and turned on the lamp, filling the pale green room with a soft glow. “You have your own bathroom and I guess we can get you your own clothes tomorrow—”

“Sugar has my things and she’ll give them to Mercedes who’ll give them to Quinn who’ll give them to me,” Kurt said quietly. 

“Right,” Blaine nodded. “I’ll um, get you a towel.” He walked across the hall to his room, grabbing on of the fluffy beige towels from his bathroom and heading back to Kurt’s. “Here—”

He broke off when he entered. Kurt had placed Blaine’s trenchcoat over the chair in the corner and was currently looking out the window. In the soft golden lamplight of the room, Blaine could make out the stark black ink on the skin of Kurt’s back, swirling in various patterns to create a…unicorn.

Kurt turned, arms crossed over his pale chest as he walked forward and accepted the towel with a curt nod. 

Blaine looked at him, so young and sad and damp and cold.

And there was a moment: when Kurt looked up at him and the golden lamp glinted in his blue eyes that were streaked with smeared eyeliner and his skin seemed entirely free of blemishes and his lips glittered like the sunset and Blaine reached his hand out to crush Kurt to his body—

He patted Kurt’s shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

***

Life…continued.

Blaine worked on his novel relentlessly everyday, hardly leaving the house. Kurt would sometimes pop up in the kitchen with a mug of tea, or out on the old rickety swing in the backyard or leaning against the attic window, but he mainly confined himself to his room, sitting in a corner surrounded by stacks of fashion magazines and sketching. He’d already given Blaine twelve different character designs for the killer but none seemed to fit. Blaine could sense Kurt growing increasingly frustrated and did his best to make sure they got out every couple of nights to Miro Tea to visit Quinn and Puck—both of whom were relieved to find Kurt alive and well.

Kurt didn’t talk much. He didn’t eat much. And he certainly didn’t sleep much. And on the nights he did sleep…

Blaine’s eyes snapped open as the blood-curdling scream ripped through the third floor. He stumbled out of bed, rubbing his eyes and headed to the room across from his. As per usual, Kurt was thrashing in his bed, knuckles white as they gripped his pillow and he cried and begged someone not to hurt him.

Blaine crawled over the covers and ran a hand down Kurt’s back. Kurt went limp, just uttering quiet little whimpers and sniffles. Blaine wrapped his arms around him tightly and started softly singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow into his hair. By the end of the song, Kurt was in a deep calm sleep.

***

A few days later, Blaine heard back from Carl.

“Listen, this can’t get out to the public.”

“I understand,” Blaine said calmly. “This is purely for research purposes only.”

Carl sighed on the other line. “Well, there is a clear connection between the three girls. They all went to Garfield High School, and they’re all from the same group home.”

“Really? Have you talked to their supervisor—”

“That’s the thing. Suzy, the third girl, was found by their supervisor, a Miss Emma Pillsbury, 32. Miss Pillsbury went over the edge and she’s currently in the psychiatric ward of Virginia Mason.”

“Oh god,” Blaine muttered.

“Yeah. There’s one more thing. All three girls were last seen with the same person, blocks from the school, but we can’t seem to figure out who he is. There’s no record of him at the group home, but Emma had a picture of him in her wallet. I’ll send it to you now…”

Blaine waited for the little picture text to pop up and he gave it a once-over, his insides freezing up.

“Carl, I’m going to have to call you back.”

***

Kurt was in the kitchen, pouring chocolate rice milk over a large bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. He was dressed down, light gray jeans and this asymmetrical flowing dark blue blouse thing that dipped off one shoulder slightly, his hair back in its little nubby ponytail. He took a large bite of the cereal, humming as he crunched on the flakes. He turned around and jumped.

Blaine was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, half in shadow.

Kurt wiped his mouth where chocolate rice milk had started to leak out. “You scared me,” he said through a full mouth.  

“Is that so?” Blaine’s voice was quiet and with his face completely blacked out it was incredibly eery. 

“Yeah,” Kurt muttered, tucking one of his beaded locks behind his ear. He glanced back down at his cereal, idly stirring it.

Blaine didn’t say anything.

Kurt continued eating, the silence growing heavier and heavier between them until he finished, putting his bowl into the sink. 

Blaine was still staring at him.

Unnerved, Kurt tried to walk past him to go back to his room, but Blaine grabbed his arm. His grip was tight.

“Blaine, let go of me!” Kurt protested, attempting to pry his hand off.

Blaine dragged him back into the kitchen, his voice unusually calm and quiet. “You know, I can’t believe how long you had me fooled, Kurt.”

Panic set in, but Kurt beat it down. “What are you talking about?” 

Blaine gave him a hard look. “Oh, I think you know. The police are on their way.”

The blood drained from Kurt’s face. “No…”

“Yes.”

“No Blaine, please let me explain—”

“I think it’s pretty damn clear, Kurt!”

“Listen,” Kurt said desperately, prying at his arm. “Blaine, you have to let me go, just please let me go!”

“I don’t think so, Kurt,” Blaine snapped, grabbing his other arm. “You made your bed, and now you have to lie in it!” 

“No!” Kurt screamed, thrashing wildly against Blaine. “No! I’m not going back! You can’t make me! I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t!” He managed to get his head under Blaine’s chin and thrust it upwards, causing Blaine’s head to snap back and his grip to loosen.

Kurt wriggled out of Blaine’s arms and tore towards the doorway. Blaine raced around the island and managed to get his back against the door, slamming it shut. Kurt backed away before scrambling onto the counter and pushing the window open. Blaine grabbed his foot with one and, dragging him back as his other hand scrambled at Kurt’s shirt, his nails dragging down the length of Kurt’s back.

Kurt went rigid, halfway off the sink as Blaine reached over him to snap the window shut, breathing heavily. Kurt’s hand shot across the counter, grabbing something, before he turned around, eyes wide, pushing against Blaine.

There was a noise, almost like a sick squishy cutting sound.

Blaine stared down at Kurt, who’s blue eyes were nearly manic before they blinked a couple of times and went wide. Blaine breathed in, feeling the sharp aching feeling in his stomach. He looked down at the knife in Kurt’s hand.

The one that was pressed hilt-deep into Blaine’s stomach. 

Kurt gasped, backing away from him as dark red blood began to flow out of Blaine’s shirt.

Blaine looked back up at Kurt, feeling his vision growing fuzzy around the edges. “Kur—”

And then everything was black.

***

Beeping.

Then white.

Then nurses. 

Then doctors.

Then maybe surgery.

Then more beeping.

Then doctors telling police officers that they’d have to interview him later.

Then the beeping went away.

Then darkness but he was still awake.

Then silence.

***

Then the door creaked open.

The darkness pressed in against Blaine’s eyes, making it nearly impossible to see, but he could make out the dark figure that walked around his bed then leaned over to turn on the lamp.

He blinked against the sudden light but his eyes quickly adjusted. 

It was a girl. A very pretty girl at that, with long dark reddish brown hair in two neat french braids over her shoulders. She wore a checkered blue dress that flared out to her knees with a white blouse underneath it, white knee socks, and black mary jane shoes. 

“Hello Blaine.”

Blaine’s eyes snapped up to her face as the familiar voice washed over him. Her blue eyes were sad.

“Kurt…”

With a sigh, Kurt sat down in the chair next to him, grabbing Blaine’s hand when it reached over for the panic button. “Ah ah,” Kurt admonished, his touch gentle but grip firm. “Don’t worry, no more knives. I just came…to apologize. I didn’t mean to stab you. It was just…instinct.”

“Instinct,” Blaine bit out. “Well your ‘instinct’ caused me to need surgery!”

“I know I’m sorry,” Kurt sighed. “I panicked. But you wouldn’t let me explain and—”

“I think your actions pretty much spoke for themselves.” Blaine gave up on trying to twist his hands out of Kurt’s—he was too weak at the moment—and huffed back against his bed. “So what now? Bashed-in head? Slit belly? Burlap sack? Or do you only do that to little girls?” 

A blink. Then brows furrowing. “What?”

“Marley, Kitty, Suzy—do I really need to go on?”

Kurt stared at him, looking utterly confused. “Wait, you think I killed them?”

“Of course. Why else would I have called the police?”

Kurt’s expression cleared as he looked at Blaine in surprise and—it seemed—relief. “Blaine, I didn’t kill them.”

“You were the last person seen with all three of them and your picture is in Emma Pillsbury’s wallet.” Blaine shot off.

An almost-smile crept onto Kurt’s face. “Emma has a picture of me in her wallet?”

“Yes. I had a detective look into the investigation for more novel research.”

Kurt licked his lips, seeming to be weighing something in his mind. “Blaine, I’m going to let go of your hands now. But—you have to promise to hear me out. I’ll explain everything. And, afterward, if you want to press the panic button, I won’t stop you.”

Blaine stared at him hard. “You’ll answer my questions?”

“I’ll answer your questions,” Kurt nodded. “Okay, I’m letting go now.” He lifted his hands from Blaine’s letting out a breath when Blaine laid still.

“I’m listening,” Blaine said calmly.

Kurt sat back in his chair, crossing his legs neatly and folding his hands in his lap. “What would you like to know?”

“Why are you dressed like a girl?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “The police are looking for a young man named Kurt who stabbed esteemed novelist Blaine Anderson and who may also be connected to the killings around town. Why do you think I’m dressed like a girl?”

“Fair enough,” Blaine nodded. “When I told you that I called the police why did you panic if you were innocent?”

Kurt looked to the side. “I thought you meant…something else. I have a…lengthy history.”

“You’re sixteen.”

“Everyone has a has a story.”

“What’s your story then?” Blaine demanded in a low voice. 

Kurt gave him a wry smile. “There was a boy.”

An arched eyebrow. “Really?”

“There’s always a boy.”

“I thought there was always a girl.”

Kurt smirked. “Well clearly someone’s stuck in the twentieth century.” 

“Cute,” Blaine snarked. “But I’ll need a bit more of a substantial answer than ‘there was a boy’.” 

Kurt sighed, recrossing his legs. ”I…” he began slowly. “My past isn’t important but…I’m not from around here. I came to Seattle seven months ago and…I was living on the streets. There was a lot of messed up stuff from before and I ended up in Pioneer Square for a little over a month before Emma found me. She took me in.” He licked his lips lightly. “She runs a halfway house called McKinley Home, for kids who don’t have anywhere to go. Quinn and Puck lived there too. Quinn had really strict parents who threw her out after they found out she was pregnant with Puck’s baby and Puck’s mom kicked him out for dishonoring his family by not staying with the faith or something…” Kurt sighed, rubbing his temples. “And we were close. All of us. We’d all walk each other to school and from work just to stay safe. But then, Marley died… And Kitty after her…” 

***

Kurt dropped his bag off in his room, avoiding the chatter of the others in the common room down the hall and ran his fingers along the walls as he entered Emma’s office without warning.

“Kurt!” she exclaimed, her doe eyes going wide. “What are you doing here?”

He stood in the doorway. “I heard about Kitty.”

Emma’s expression dropped as she leaned heavily over her desk. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“And…” Kurt licked his lips. “It was the same as Marley?”

“The same,” Emma nodded. “Look, Kurt—”

“I’ll go to Miro more, keep an eye on Quinn and take the bus home with her,” he muttered. “And I’ll pick up Tina and Suzy from school and if—”

“Kurt,” Emma interrupted and Kurt closed his mouth. “Thank you. But I want you to be sure that you stay safe as well.”

Kurt nodded before shutting the door. He rounded the corner, knocking into Ken Tanaka, but he ignored him and kept going.

“Hey.”

He glanced up and Puck was leaning against the hall. Kurt just blinked in acknowledgement. 

“You heard about Kitty?” Puck asked grimly.

Kurt licked his lips. “How’s Jake?”

“Not too good,” Puck sighed. “First Marley now—” He raked his fingers through his mohawk in frustration. “Look, usually I’d ask him to but I have an extra shift tonight so—”

“I’ll get Quinn,” Kurt nodded. 

Puck gave him a half smile. “Thanks dude. I’ll pay you back.”

Kurt rolled his eyes as he went to grab a sweater. “No you won’t.”

***

“And we tried to stay strong, all of us…” Kurt blinked back tears. “But then Suzy and Emma…”

***

Kurt walked into the McKinley Home in the early morning, cramming the last of a cherry danish into his mouth as he walked down the hall, nodding to Mike and Tina in turn. He headed back to Emma’s office and swung the door open. 

The man at the table definitely wasn’t Emma. He had curly hair and a sweater vest and a smooth smile.

Kurt froze. “Who are you?”

“Hello!” The man smiled, walking around the desk and offering his hand. “Kurt, right? We’ve met before. I’m Will, remember?”

A couple of memories stirred up in Kurt’s brain from the past six months of Emma’s new boyfriend Will that had hung around McKinley, but to whom Kurt had never spoken more than two words. “What are you doing here?” Kurt asked, hand tensing on his bag strap. “Where’s Emma?”

Will’s face softened. “Kurt…Emma’s in the hospital.”

Kurt blinked. “What? Why?”

Will sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “Well, you know about the past couple of weeks, correct? With…Marley’s…and Kitty’s…” 

Kurt flinched, but nodded.

Will’s mouth set into a grim line. “Well, last night…Suzy…”

“Suzy Pepper?” Kurt blurted out.

Will nodded.

Kurt’s mind reeled. He was going to walk her home yesterday but he’d forgotten…

“Emma found her and…she lost it, Kurt. She’s in the psychiatric ward.”

Kurt slumped against the doorframe. Will put a hand on his shoulder, but he flinched away.

“I’m here to help, Kurt,” Will reassured. “I want to find whatever psycho is doing this and avenge the girls, and Emma. I’m keeping an eye on everyone here. But…” He walked back to Emma’s desk and sat down. “McKinley Home will have to be closed, partially.”

“What?” Kurt choked out.

“To prevent any further danger,” Will explained. “This is a rough neighborhood—”

“So you’re just going to abandon kids on the streets?” Kurt snapped.

“No,” Will said firmly. “We’re finding homes for everyone. For those who we can’t find homes, they’ll still stay here, but otherwise we’re trying to minimize the risk of letting a killer in through the doors.”

Kurt shifted. “So…”

“So we’ll be putting children into homes unless they really can’t—”

“I really can’t,” Kurt cut across. “Stay with a family. I can’t.”

Will sighed. “Well Kurt, you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Kurt folded his arms. “You just said that those you can’t find families for—”

“I meant kids who were in school,” Will said, giving him a hard stare. “And who have some form of identification.”

Kurt looked to the side.

Will leaned forward. “Come on, Kurt. At least a last name—”

“No.”

Will ran a hand through his hair. “Then I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here anymore.” 

Kurt took in a deep breath. “If Emma were here, I could stay.”

“But she’s not here,” Will said evenly. “And I have to look out for the good of everyone.”

Kurt swallowed dryly. “How…”

“You have a day to pack up your stuff if you won’t cooperate.”

Kurt felt his heart pounding in his ears, but he nodded sharply and turned to leave.

“Kurt?”

His hand paused on the door knob.

“Sorry—I’ve just been a bit scatterbrained when I’ve been trying to organize everyone from Emma’s files but…there’s someone mentioned here—a Dorothy P.? Do you know which room she’s in?”

Kurt blinked at the door. “Dorothy hasn’t lived here for a very long time.”

Will started to say something else, but Kurt was out of the door, closing it tightly behind him. He shoved into his room and pulled his clothing into his duffelbag, cramming as many magazines as he could into his back pack and latching both onto his back before slamming the door shut behind him. 

“Kurt!” 

He turned and Tina ran up to him, throwing her arms around him. “Kurt, tell me you’re not going.”

“I have to, Tina,” he said quietly, nodding to Mike over her shoulder. He pushed her back, hands gripping her shoulders hard. “Listen to me. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

“Oh believe me, she won’t,” Mike said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “We’re all pairing up with buddies. Jake’s keeping an eye on Rory, Puck’s looking after Quinn—”

“Do you all have places to stay?” Kurt asked.

Mike nodded. “Tina and I are staying here with Rory. The Jones family are saints and they’re taking in Quinn and Puck and Jake because they want to help out with the baby.”

“Okay,” Kurt nodded. “So you’re all taken care of.”

“What about you?” Tina protested. “Kurt, you can’t just go out there on your own!”

“I’ll be fine, Tina.” he smiled. “I always am.”

“But—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Come on. You know I’ve been through worse.”

She sighed, pressing a quick kiss to his finger. “Be careful.”

“And hey, we’re saving up,” Mike said. “In a couple of months, we can afford an apartment, and the second that happens, you’re coming to live with us.”

“Thanks,” Kurt nodded. “But I’ll be okay. You two stay safe, and make sure that everyone else does.”

“We will.”

Kurt gave them a half smile before turning to leave.

“Going so soon?”

Kurt turned to raise an eyebrow at Ken Tanaka who was standing by the door, chewing gum. “Yes, I’d rather leave while it’s still light. Apparently there’s a killer on the loose.”

Ken nodded, an odd smile on his face. “Yes, there is.” He held the door open to the downpour. “Stay safe, Kurt.”

He ducked his head and walked out into the rain.

Kurt sniffed, looking away. “I ended back up in Pioneer Square, and you found me.”

Blaine looked down at his hands. “You were walking them home. The three girls—you were walking all of them home from school to make sure they’d stay safe.”

“Yes.”

“Why isn’t there any record of you at McKinley?”

Kurt laughed. “Don’t you remember what I told you back when we first spoke? I don’t exist, Blaine. There’s…I don’t have a record. Well, one you can trace. No identification. Nothing.”

“Okay,” Blaine nodded, processing everything. It all seemed plausible and Kurt didn’t exactly look like a killer, especially in his odd 1930s farm girl outfit he seemed to be sporting. 

Kurt looked up at him suddenly. “Wait, I’m the last person seen with all three of the girls?”

“That’s what the detective said, yes,” Blaine nodded.

“But…” Kurt licked his lips. “I wasn’t the last person seen with Suzy. I mean, I’d walked Kitty and Marley back to our neighborhood before catching the 48 going north and then they died, but Suzy…I’d walked her back the day before, but that was the last time I’d seen her because on the day she died, I got stuck in traffic so I couldn’t walk her home.”

Blaine frowned. “According to the police, she wasn’t at school that day.”

“But she’d told me that morning that she was heading to school and asked me to pick her up later,” Kurt stared. “I stayed out with a friend all that night and when I got back the next morning, she was dead and Emma was in the hospital.” 

The two stared at each other as the same question mulled over in their minds:

What had really happened to Suzy Pepper?

***

Two days, one faking of amnesia to the police, a front page article about Blaine getting shot with a picture of him and Kurt dressed as a girl walking out of Swedish Hospital sporting large shades, one small interview for the Stranger newspaper—“Who shot you?” “Don’t remember.” “Who was the girl?” “Ellie Grey, my cousin.” “How’s the novel coming along?” “Swimmingly.”—and an obscene amount of painkillers later, Kurt and Blaine were in the Virginia Mason hospital elevator, heading up to the seventh floor.  

They’d worked out their differences—Blaine had left a bold of blue-violet silk in front of Kurt’s door with a card stating, “I’m sorry I thought you were a serial killer” and Kurt had replied with a bouquet of red and yellow roses with a card saying, “I’m sorry I stabbed you”—but Kurt was still grumbly because he had to be seen publicly as “Ellie Grey”.

“Seriously, Blaine?”

“What? I panicked and it was the first name that popped into my head!”

“You named me after a character that I named after you after the tea you drink?”

“…yes?”

He fiddled with the curls of his auburn wig in a disgruntled manner before the doors slid open and he and Blaine headed to Room 716. They slid in quietly and Kurt yanked the wig off of his head, stuffing it into his backpack. “I hate that thing.”

“I know,” Blaine sighed. “But come on, liven up.”

Kurt shot a glare over to him before walking further into the room. 

Emma was sitting in a white chair, wearing a white hospital gown, gazing out over the overcast city that was slowly declining into night.

“Emma?” Kurt said gently, walking around to kneel next to her. She kept looking out the window. “Emma? Are you there?” He touched her hand.

She yanked it back, looking at him in surprise. “Dorothy?”

“No, Emma,” Kurt shook his head. “It’s me. Kurt. Dorothy’s gone, remember?”

“Dorothy, what are you doing here?” Emma asked, cupping Kurt’s cheek. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Kurt swallowed, touching her hand gently. “I’m here to ask you what happened to Suzy Pepper.” 

“Suzy Pepper…” Emma’s eyes went in and out of focus. “She’s so sweet and smart. Did you know she has a crush on my boyfriend? It’s so cute…But most of the girls did as well. Will’s so nice. I don’t understand why Ken doesn’t like him though. Ken’s been awfully moody lately, don’t you think?”

“Emma,” Kurt said more clearly. “What happened when Suzy died?” 

“Suzy…” her lip trembled. “Died?”

“Yes,” Kurt nodded. “You found her dead body, remember?”

Emma looked back out the window, her eyes far-off.

“Em—”

“There was blood.” Her voice came out as a whisper as she wrapped her arms around herself. “So much blood and Suzy was… and then there was more blood and the scarecrow—” Her eyes went wide. “The scarecrow. Oh god, the scarecrow.” Her nails started dragging along her arms back and forth back and forth until they were suddenly digging in leaving rivers of blood. “The scarecrow the scarecrow the—”

Kurt grabbed her wrists as she started thrashing back in forth screaming, “Scarecrow! Scarecrow!”, trying to yell over her and calm her back down as Blaine ran out into the hall to get a doctor.

“Emma please!” Kurt begged, losing his grip on her blood-slicked arms. “Please, you have to calm down!”

“Scarecrow!”

Three doctors ran into the room and grabbed her arms, restraining her. One shot something into her neck.

Shaking, Kurt stared at her slumped form in horror until Blaine grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room.

***

Kurt tore off all of his clothes as soon as he had his bedroom door slammed shut behind him. He went into the bathroom and yanked the shower on to scalding and climbed in, furiously scrubbing the blood off his arms. Stepping out of the shower, he felt raw and pink and he ached. He avoided his reflection in the mirror and pulled on his gray cotton pajama pants and short rich blue kimono. He ran a towel through his hair before snapping it back in a ponytail and padding back into his room. He turned off the light and curled up on top of the comforter. Sleep took him.

***

It was midnight when the screams came. Blaine hadn’t even realized that Kurt had gone to bed, and he was still downstairs by the fireplace working. Racing up two flights of stairs, he found Kurt sitting up in bed, having woken himself up and looking around in confusion.

“Kurt?” Blaine said gently, touching his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

A pink tongue snuck out, licking lips before Kurt looked up at him with wet eyes and shook his head.

Wordlessly, Blaine scooped him up and carried him across the hall into his own room, setting him on his large fluffy bed. Kurt rolled over, sitting crisscross applesauce in front of the window, looking out at the cold autumn night. “Blood,” he whispered quietly. “I had a nightmare about blood.”

There was a brief silence. 

“About what Emma was talking about?” Blaine asked gently.

Kurt shook his head. He untied the kimono, shrugging out of the material as it fell onto the comforter around him. Then he leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp.

On his back was the black unicorn, but unlike when he’d seen it when Kurt had first come to his home, he could make out the details much more clearly at such close proximity.

He could also make out what the tattoo was hiding.

The skin of Kurt’s back was covered with scars. Thick, ropey, horizontal lash marks littered the expanse, from the top of Kurt’s spine down to his hips. 

“Kurt,” Blaine muttered, crawling over the bed to press his hand gently against Kurt’s skin. “Kurt, what—” His fingers traced the shiny ridges. “Kurt are these…whip marks?” 

Kurt’s back arched out of his touch as he pulled the kimono back over his shoulders. “Just memories from before,” he murmured, knotting the robe securely. “They don’t matter.”

“Of course they matter,” Blaine held his wrist lightly.

Kurt looked over at him, brows furrowed.

“I really…really care about you, Kurt,” Blaine said quietly. “And I hate the thought of something like that happening to you.”

Kurt blinked before he leaned forward, pressing his lips to Blaine’s. 

Blaine froze as Kurt pushed him back on the bed, straddling him as he kissed and nipped down Blaine’s neck. A thousand reasons for why this was a bad idea raced through Blaine’s mind—one glaring particularly bright—but then Kurt was popping the buttons of his shirt open and sucking on a collarbone and suddenly Blaine just didn’t care. His fingers joined Kurt’s in ridding himself of his shirt, his jeans quickly following. Blaine reached up for the knot of Kurt’s kimono, but Kurt batted his hands away. He leaned over and opened Blaine’s bedside drawer, grabbing lube and a condom before yanking the plug out of the wall to turn off the lamp. 

Darkness filled Blaine’s room as Kurt stretched over him, a hulking shadow that leaned forward and gripped his face as he kissed him again. Blaine broke away to kiss down Kurt’s neck, his hands diving between cloth to stroke at Kurt’s sides.

Kurt’s breath hitched as he let out a soft moan against Blaine’s ear and suddenly there was a sense of urgency and Blaine tightened his grip on Kurt’s waist, thrusting his erection into Kurt’s thigh.

Kurt sat up, pushing Blaine down against the comforter and moving Blaine’s hands above his head and resting them against the headboard. “Don’t let go,” he murmured.

“I won’t,” Blaine said roughly, shivering against the comforter.

Kurt gave him a hard stare. “I mean it. If you let go, I’ll leave.”

Taken aback by his seriousness, Blaine merely nodded and settled back into his pillows. 

Satisfied, Kurt went back to kissing down his chest, grabbing the lube and coating his fingers while his mouth worked on Blaine’s nipples. He reached back into his pajama pants and started grunting and groaning as his teeth caught on Blaine’s skin and Blaine would give anything to let go of the bars and press his fingers back with Kurt’s. Once Kurt was panting against his chest, face tilted so that Blaine’s nipple was digging into his cheekbone, he took his hand out of his pants and yanked Blaine’s boxers down, throwing them across the room. 

Kurt turned, sliding his pajama pants down to just under his ass, most of it covered by his kimono. He rolled a condom down on Blaine’s cock and slicked it up with lube before gripping the base tightly so he could sink down onto it. 

“Kurt…” Blaine gasped, his toes curling and popping. “I—”

“Shhh.” Kurt panted, his legs settling on either side of Blaine’s. “It’s…been a while. Just…just wait a second.”

Blaine tilted his head back and stared at the canopy, nerves sparking down his spine as Kurt gasped and adjusted and twisted on top of him. 

“Okay,” Kurt sighed. He splayed his hands on Blaine’s legs before raising himself up then sinking back down. 

Blaine’s hands gripped the bars of his headboard tighter as he watched Kurt gasp and moan. Then Kurt shifted, one of his hands moving back and pressing into the comforter as his back arched, his kimono slipping down his shoulders. Blaine watched as the unicorn on his back undulated and rippled and looked almost as if it were galloping. 

Kurt started gasping out Blaine’s name and then he was clenching down and Blaine was done. His hips thrust up sharply into Kurt as he came in the condom, bright lights shooting in his eyelids as he was overtaken by the searing heat. 

And then the warmth was gone as Kurt pulled off him, pulling his pajama pants back up as  he pulled the condom off of Blaine and chucked it into the garbage. He pushed his kimono off all the way and climbed onto the other side of the bed, facing away from Blaine.

“Kurt?” Blaine tried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Blaine blinked in confusion. “Did you even…do you want to clean up?”

“I don’t need to,” came the muffled reply.

Blaine stared at the hunched back. “Kurt—”

“Blaine.” Kurt turned around, looking peeved. “Did you just enjoy the intercourse that we partook in?”

“I—yes, but—”

“Then please stop pestering me,’ Kurt snapped, rolling back over. “I’m tired.”

“Okay,” Blaine said quietly. He reached out before changing his mind and leaned over on the bed, kissing the top of Kurt’s shoulder gently. “Sweet dreams, Kurt.”

There was no reply.

Blaine rolled back over and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep, missing the light sniffle of his bed companion.

***

As a rainy fog settled in over the city in the early hours of the morning, Blaine was the first to wake.

He turned on his side to look at Kurt. He looked so peaceful on the bed, his expression smooth and hair fanned out around his face and curling slightly at the ends and his lips parted and soft and he just looked so young.

Blaine leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against Kurt’s, kissing them lightly, then the corner of his mouth, then his chin, then jaw, then crook of his neck.

Kurt sighed in his sleep and curled towards Blaine, a low moan in the back of his throat. 

Blaine smiled against his soft skin as he pulled Kurt closer, trailing his hand down the side of his waist. Kurt had been so adamant last night about giving Blaine pleasure, and now Blaine wanted to return the favor. He stroked the soft skin of Kurt’s belly gently, surprised to feel a belly button piercing that he hadn’t noticed earlier, before trailing his hand farther down, cupping the front of his pajama pants.

Suddenly his hand was grabbed and he was flung onto his back as a wild-eyed Kurt pressed his forearm into Blaine’s throat. 

Blaine’s hands shot up to pry Kurt’s arm off but Kurt had already pushed himself back off of the bed, looking around wide-eyed before storming out, slamming the door sharply behind him.

Blaine breathed heavily, air flooding back into his lungs before he whipped his covers off, grabbing a pair of pajama pants and taking off after Kurt.

He was right where Blaine knew he’d be—in the attic by the window, sitting crosslegged as he looked out over the hill. Blaine sighed and went over to sit next to him, adopting the same style. 

“It’s okay, Kurt.”

Silence. 

Blaine looked out over the rain. “Look, I’ve known a few trans folk—”

“I’m not trans,” Kurt said in a flat voice. 

Blaine blinked in surprise. “Then…”

Kurt turned to him with a smile. It wasn’t happy or sad but a tad…malicious, almost. “Oh, Mr. Earl Grey. I can already see the cogs moving around in your head. Trying to fit and place me into a category. You’re wondering about my age and odd voice and style that seems to fit neither men nor women. The only thing you have to go off of is a name—Kurt. And considering that I’m a homeless runaway high school dropout, you can’t even trust in that. So you wonder—am I a flat-chested girl who’s lied about her gender this whole time or merely a very pretty boy with a high pitched voice who just so happens to not have a cock.”

Blaine titled his head to look at Kurt full on, his hand flexing, the phantom memory of what he thought would be there when he’d cupped between Kurt’s legs only to find…nothing. 

Kurt’s smile widened as he reached a finger up to tap Blaine’s nose. “You’ve already thought of a thousand stories, haven’t you? You writers always jump to fifty conclusions at once.” 

Blaine licked his lips. “Is your real name Kurt?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

Blaine didn’t blink. “Is your legal name Kurt?”

Kurt’s eyelashes fluttered slightly and he glanced back out the window. “No.”

Blaine nodded. “So what were you born as?”

“A boy,” Kurt shrugged. “Externally and internally.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Not quite sure what I am now though…”

A sudden chill came over Blaine as his mind offered up fresh new possibilities. “Kurt…you weren’t the one to do that to yourself, were you?” It wasn’t a question. 

Kurt wrapped his arms tighter around his knees, his back flexing, causing the unicorn to ripple. “I was nine,” he said quietly. Kurt opened his left hand, palm up, smooth and flat, before bringing his right hand down hard, sideways, in a chopping motion. He gave a weak chuckle. “All I remember is that it took me five minutes to realize that the horrible piercing screams were coming from my mouth.” His hand reached behind him and started rubbing unconsciously at one of the lower scars on his back.

Blaine wrapped his arm around Kurt’s back, pulling him close and resting his lips against his hair. Kurt curled his head into the crook of Blaine’s neck and the pair rested there, looking at the rain. 

***

Four days later found the two in a rowboat on Lake Union.

“Well this is kinky.” 

Blaine sighed, letting go of the oars as he adjusted his cravat. “It was your idea!”

“I didn’t know we’d be in a damp rowboat,” Kurt sniffed, crossing his legs daintily under his lacy petticoat. “And it was just to help us get in character.” 

Blaine shot him a look. “I’m pretty sure that Alexander Bergamot never wore…that.”

Kurt was reclining in the other end of the rowboat an innocent smile on his face. He was wearing a curly red wig with a large blue ribbon in his hair, as well as a pale blue corset, fluffy white petticoats, and a thin lacy shawl. 

“Yes he did,” Kurt argued. “In the opium den, when he goes undercover as a harlot and seduces the earl mischievously to play on his emotions so he’ll react in the proper way when the police arrive, but the killer is actually there and he mistakes Alex for a woman and sets his sights on killing her next.” 

Blaine stared. “But none of that’s in the book.”

“It is now,” Kurt grinned, leaning his head back against the edge of the boat. “Speaking of the killer…”

“Which one?”

“Both.” With a sigh, Kurt sat up. “Now, Emma called the killer here 'The Scarecrow'.”

“Which could mean any number of things,” Blaine nodded. “Most likely about the burlap sacks. He places them over his victim’s heads before stringing them up not in a biblical manner, like we priorly thought with crucifixion—”

“—but like a scarecrow in the fields,” Kurt nodded. “So is there any basis? Any killer scarecrows?”

“One I can think of,” Blaine bit his lip. “Fictional. Jonathan Crane from the Batman comics. His alter ego was The Scarecrow. He’d shoot everyone up with fear toxins and…yeah.”  

A smile quirked Kurt’s lips. “You are such a nerd.”

“Shut up,” Blaine rolled his eyes. “Anyways, it doesn’t entirely add up but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“So the thing that all three murders have in common is McKinley Home,” Kurt sighed. “But that doesn’t really help.”

“Did Emma have enemies or anything? Anyone who’d want to harm the girls?” Blaine frowned.

Kurt racked his brains. “Not really. I mean, she got into a bunch of spats with Figgins, one of the guys on board for children’s welfare or something…but I’m pretty sure that Kitty at least could definitely take him and he doesn’t really seem like the psychotic rapist murderer type.”

“Few seldom do,” Blaine argued. 

“Plus I’m pretty sure that he’s at some conference in Portland right now, so he has an alibi,” Kurt sighed.

“Okay. Anyone else?”

“I mean…everyone pretty much loved Emma,” Kurt shrugged. “Like, she was pretty much perfect. Sweet, pretty, helpful, gave great advice, loved kids, selfless, the whole package.”

“That’s a dead end then,” Blaine sighed. “Pun intended. We’ll just have to keep digging.” 

“Alright,” Kurt lolled back against the side. “Now back to the kinky part…”

“Any kinkiness found is your fault.”

“Says the thirty year old who’s with an underage boy in a corset alone on a lake.”

“Twenty-eight,” Blaine grumbled.

“Semantics,” Kurt shrugged. He spread his legs. “Is that why you dragged me out on the lake? To reenact some deranged fantasy? Am I the Alice Liddell to your Lewis Carroll?” 

“Oh shut up,” Blaine rolled his eyes, leaning over for a kiss.

***

After Blaine dropped Kurt off downtown—

“I have errands, Blaine. Not everything I do revolves around your book.”

“You’re going to run errands…in a corset?”

“Yes.”

—he returned home to do more storyboarding. 

They had a killer—tentatively calling him the Scarecrow, though Blaine knew he’d change it.

(Which was a pity, because Scarecrow really was a good name but it’d been used before so he couldn’t. Oh the woes of copyright.)

The killer killed women and Bergamot and Grey investigated. While undercover, the killer became interested in one of Bergamot’s disguises and fixed him as a target, not knowing that he was in fact male.

But who was the killer?

Both in the story and in real life, the question plagued Blaine. He couldn’t pin down who it was in his story because he couldn’t pin down who it was in real life.

The doorbell ran. 

He came down from the attic, surprised to realize that it was already starting to get dark, and opened the door, expecting that Kurt had forgotten his keys again.

It wasn’t Kurt. It was a man with wavy hair and a cozy brown sweater vest, with an odd expression that was a mixture of imperiousness and stupidity.

“Hi,” he said, holding out his hand. “My name is Will Schuester. I run the McKinley Home.” 

“Oh, hello.” Blaine shook his hand, inviting him in. They went into the sitting room and Blaine turned down the CD player that was always blaring music through the downstairs. “Would you like a drink or…?”

“No thank you,” Will waved his hand. “This is a short visit. But…I was talking to some of the kids, and they were telling me that you were the guy that Kurt was staying with.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine frowned. “But how did you find me?” 

“Well your picture was in the paper,” Will explained. “Then Quinn said that she’d dropped off some of Kurt’s clothes, so I just wanted to check in and make sure that he was okay.”

“Yeah,” Blaine nodded. “Yeah, he’s great.”

“That’s good,” Will smiled. “He can be stubborn, but it’s nice that he’s found someone that he can get along with. Plus there are others his age living here…?”

Blaine blinked. “What?”

“Your cousin, correct?” Will raised his eyebrows. “We were all reading the article after you were in that mysterious accident—I’m glad you recovered, by the way—but don’t you have a cousin staying here as well? Or is it just…you and Kurt alone?”

“No, I mean yeah, uh…” Blaine floundered. “She stops in a lot but she’s always busy around the city.”

“Huh,” Will stared at him. “I thought she looked a little familiar.” 

You have no idea. “She volunteers a lot,” Blaine supplied unhelpfully. “And uh, she’s a tutor at Garfield High. That’s…probably where you’ve seen her. I mean, I’ve heard that a lot of your kids go to Garfield.”

“Really? Here.” Will dug around in his pocket, producing a card. “Give her my number, the kids could really use some extra tutoring. Jake and Rory in particular have been struggling a lot.”

“Sure thing,” Blaine promised, lying through his teeth.

“Well, I’d better be off,” Will sighed, standing. “I just wanted to check…” He turned towards the stereo. “Is this Barbra’s version of Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead?” 

“Yes,” Blaine said, eyes raised. “Yes, it is.”

Will sighed happily, a smile on his face. “I just love this musical so much. See, I wish I could teach the kids about music, but all their schedules…” He sighed. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Blaine. Tell Kurt I said hi, and your cousin to give me a call if she wants to get some volunteer hours tutoring.”

“Will do,” Blaine nodded with a smile as he saw him out. Will was halfway down the walk when Blaine remembered something. “Hey Will!”

Will turned.

Blaine bit his lip. “Does anyone at the McKinley Home like Batman comics?” 

Will raised his eyebrows. “Batman comics?”

“Uh yeah, I…I have a bunch of old ones that I was going to donate to Goodwill, but if you know of anyone…”

Will paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, I know that the Puckerman brothers love comics, but they mostly like Marvel…”

“Oh,” Blaine nodded. “Okay.”

“Or Ken.”

Blaine blinked. “Who?”

“Ken Tanaka. He’s one of the staff. I know he likes Batman comics.”

***

Blaine closed the door firmly shut behind him. They had a suspect…no, too much circumstantial evidence. It was probably just a coincidence. He’d have to ask Kurt—

The sky outside was already dark and Kurt still wasn’t home.

Wake up, the wicked witch is dead! 

She’s gone where the goblins go

Below below below yo ho

Blaine settled uncomfortably in his armchair and turned on the TV, channel surfing. 

He ended up on the news which was reporting something that had happened at the waterfront. A body was found on the rocks towards the south end of downtown.

Blaine leaned forward as the reporter confirmed that it was in the same vein of the prior three killings.

The ones from the McKinley Home. 

The camera zoomed in. 

Why everyone’s glad she took such a crowning

Being hit by a house is even worse than drowning! 

The remote dropped from Blaine’s hand as he saw the pale blue corset on the body and the curly red hair spilling from the bloody burlap sack.

***

It was a long and dark night.

The first thing Blaine did was grab his phone before he remembered that Kurt didn’t have a cell phone. But he called Miro and asked Quinn if she’d seen him. She hadn’t, and neither had Puck or Jake. They called more of their friends, but no one seemed to know anything.

The news didn’t report more about the body and Blaine was stuck pacing back and forth on the bottom floor of his house, waiting, hoping, pleading, praying…

Kurt didn’t come back. 

Blaine ended up throwing one of his chairs against the wall and breaking down crying in front of the fireplace.

At two in the morning, he grabbed his keys. 

He drove all through downtown—Bell Town, the Seattle Center, lower Queen Anne, the waterfront, Pike Place, Westlake, around the Paramount, Pioneer Square, the stadiums, the international district, the train station. Then through the central district, crossing over Rainer, Washington Middle School, 23rd and Jackson, MLK, Garfield High, Union, Madison, back over to Capitol Hill, Broadway, Lowell, the botanical gardens, the cemetery. 

He tried not to let his mind stray, but images of Kurt being stalked through an alleyway and then beaten and raped and what the Scarecrow would do to Kurt when he found out that he wasn’t a girl and then his stomach being slit open and his head bashed in and that horrid sack being placed over his head as the lights left his eyes—

Over and over and over and over he kept looping around, searching, shouting, crying, begging.

At 4:06 am, a dejected Blaine Anderson returned home, worn out and feeling like a raw nerve ending as he stumbled through his front door.

“Where have you been?”

His head snapped up and there was Kurt, curled up by the fireplace with a mug of cocoa in his hands. He was wearing his pajama pants and a snuggling dark gray sweater with shoulder zippers, his hair mussed as he looked up at him with wide eyes.

“You look terrible,” Kurt frowned, standing. “Why were you out so late?”

Blaine staggered forward, taking Kurt’s face in his hand. “It’s you…it’s really you.”

“Um…yes.” Kurt laughed nervously. “What’s the matter with you.”

The shock fled from Blaine and was quickly replaced with anger. “Where the hell have you been?” he yelled.

Kurt took a step back, staring at him like he was a lunatic. “What are you talking about?”

“Where the hell have you been the past ten hours?” Blaine demanded, breathing heavily.

Kurt blinked. “Upstairs. Asleep.”

Blaine stared at him. “But…I didn’t see you come in…”

“You were upstairs,” Kurt said, still wary. “I heard you working and I didn’t want to disturb you so I just unloaded my stuff and decided to take a nap. But I guess I was a bit sleepier than I thought because I woke up around three because there was a crash downstairs. I came down and you were pulling out of the driveway and you took off. I’ve been waiting up for you.” 

Blaine sagged against the side of the fireplace, tears spilling over his cheeks.

Kurt walked over to him, placing a cautious hand on his shoulder. “Blaine…what’s wrong.”

“There was…” he cleared his throat. “There was another killing tonight.”

“Another from McKinley?” Kurt’s shoulders dropped.

“No,” Blaine shook his head. “I mean, I don’t know who it was. But…she had red hair. And she was wearing your corset…”

Kurt closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped and his eyebrows drew up. “Virginia.”

“What?”

“Virginia Wolf. Or at least, that’s what she always called herself. I didn’t know her real name. She’s one of the girls down in Pioneer Square…”

A memory suddenly flashed through Blaine’s mind.

The rain was coming down even harder as Blaine trudged around dumpsters. A hand reached out and tapped his shoulder and he turned to find a pretty redhead smiling at him. 

“Hey honey,” she smiled. “Looking for company? Why don’t you come in? It’s dreadful out.” 

“…and it’d been her corset that I’d…”borrowed” once so I returned it to her today before running my errands.” 

Blaine just kept looking at him, breathing heavily.

Kurt sighed. “You…you thought—”

Blaine grabbed his face, kissing him deeply as he held him as close as possible, wrapping one of his arms tightly around his waist. “I thought you were dead,” he whispered raggedly as he tore his lips away to kiss down Kurt’s neck. “I thought that psychopath had gotten to you and I thought that was your body broken on the waterfront rocks and—” His breath hitched and he shut his eyes tightly, trying to block out the horrific images that had been playing on the front of his mind for the past ten hours.

“I’m here.” Kurt pulled Blaine’s face back, littering it with kisses. “I’m here.” Blaine reached up to Kurt’s zippers, pulling both of them down his arms. “I’m here.” Kurt pushed Blaine’s jacket off his shoulders and then his shirt. Blaine yanked Kurt’s sweater off.

They somehow found themselves on the floor in front of the fireplace, Kurt gasping loudly as Blaine raked his lips all across his body. He fumbled with the drawstrings of his pajama pants but Kurt stopped him, a flash of fear shooting across his face. He tried to turn over, but Blaine held his hips down. “No,” he whispered. “I want to see you. All of you. If you want.”

Kurt bit his lip but laid back on his arms, watching Blaine ambivalently. 

Blaine kissed down Kurt’s chest, paying special attention to the details of each scar his tongue came across, pausing briefly at his bellybutton to swirl the little ruby piercing inside before undoing the drawstrings of Kurt’s pants and pulling them down off his hips. 

Kurt tensed beneath him, but Blaine just kissed down the smooth hairless skin, lazily dragging his tongue across the slightly shiny pink scars. He heard Kurt gasp above him and glanced up briefly to see Kurt’s head thrown back, his hand holding onto his neck as his blush spread to his chest. Blaine moved his lips to the crease of Kurt’s thigh, nuzzling and licking and sucking and sucking and sucking and then biting sharply. 

A hand shot down and yanked on Blaine’s curls, but it didn’t shove away, it pushed his face further into Kurt’s thigh. Grinning, Blaine grabbed both of Kurt’s legs and hooked them over his shoulders, licking and dragging his teeth down across Kurt’s skin until he reached his hole, his hands smoothing the globes of his ass out so that he could lick across it, burying his face in. 

Kurt’s feet kicked and scrambled all over Blaine’s back as his other hand came down to Blaine’s hair as well, tightening as Blaine went to town. 

He had no idea how long it lasted. Forty minutes. An hour. Two. Kurt was sweating and moaning and writhing on the floor, his entire body in a rich pink flush as Blaine lazily withdrew his tongue. He’d already come rubbing off against the soft carpet sometime back after a particularly throaty “Oh god, Blaine!” from Kurt and he dragged himself up next to him, pulling Kurt into his arms as Kurt shivered and flexed, his eyelashes tickling the crook of Blaine’s neck. The fire was still crackling as they drifted off to sleep. 

***

“Is it…” Blaine traced his fingers along Kurt’s back, hopping from one scar to the next. “What’s sex like for you?”

It was late morning. They’d woken up in front of embers before grabbing a container of blackberries from the fridge and dragging a comforter out of the closet and resuming their cuddling on the rug in front of the fire.

Kurt shrugged lightly, popping a blackberry in his mouth. “Sex is sex. It depends on who I’m having it with. But it’s not as…urgent for me, I guess. There’s not really an end point. Everything just tends to feel really good and then after a while I get sore and have to stop. Well, that’s with good sex. With bad sex it’s just uncomfortable and boring.”

Blaine idly spiraled his finger along the horn of the unicorn. “And…tonight? How was it?”

Kurt smiled lazily, leaning over to kiss him. “It was the best. Thank you.”

Blaine wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close as their lips moved slowly together. Suddenly he pulled back. “How do you pee?” 

Kurt stared at him in disbelief before dissolving into giggles, pressing his face against the crook of Blaine’s neck. 

“Sorry,” Blaine blushed. “It’s actually been bugging me for a few days.”

Kurt covered his mouth, like he always did when he full-on laughed and rolled onto his back, wiping tears from his eyes. “There was a tube at first that stayed in, but after a couple years it wasn’t really needed anymore.”

“Oh,” Blaine frowned. “That’s…actually a lot simpler than I thought.”

“Remember, eunuchs have been around for thousands of years,” Kurt smirked, clambering on top of Blaine’s chest. “Lots of science has been put into the matter.” 

“Okay, okay,” Blaine muttered, resting his arms around Kurt’s waist. “I was just wondering.”

“I know,” Kurt smiled, tapping his nose against Blaine’s. “Mr. Earl Grey, always so curious with his writers’ mind.”

“Yes, my mind’s the organ that’s curious,” Blaine said dryly as he rolled his hips up into the crook of Kurt’s thigh, before rolling them over into the thick Persian carpet.

***

Late afternoon. The fire was built up again and the rain was hammering on the windows. 

Blaine had a fountain pen and a bottle of ink and was busy writing all over Kurt’s back. 

“What are you writing?” Kurt asked for the fiftieth time. “Come on, you have to tell me something.

Blaine looked at the written word wings he’d added to Kurt’s unicorn. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise.” 

Kurt rolled his eyes, trying to hide his smile. “Seriously?”

“It’s a special charm,” Blaine said wisely. “Scarecrows don’t like blackbirds, so this will keep you safe.”

“Aw, my sweet magician, giving me charms and spells.” Kurt smiled, resting his head on his arms. “Proceed.”

Eventually the inky dried and Blaine rolled Kurt around, writing all down his arms and legs and chest. 

“There’s no place like home,” Blaine smiled as he wrote the words in a spiral around Kurt’s bellybutton. He smiled at the little ruby in Kurt’s bellybutton. “Just say that three times and tap your ruby piercing and you’ll be home.” 

Kurt snorted, giggling lightly as Blaine finished the last “e” with a flourish. “Seriously Blaine?”

Blaine shrugged. “The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie as a kid.”

“You’re a goofy old man.”

“And you’re a silly boy,” Blaine shot back with a smirk before blowing over Kurt’s bellybutton to dry the ink, and sealing it with a kiss. “There’s no place like home.” 

Kurt took Blaine’s face in his hands and pulled it up his body, landing it on his lips. “Home is whenever I’m with you,” he sang softly along with the song playing, a gentle smile on his lips as he pressed them to Blaine’s again. 

***

Nearly midnight. 

Blaine was sitting cross-legged by the fire and Kurt was straddling his lap, gasping as Blaine’s hands gripped his hips tightly and swiveled them this way and that so he could grind against Kurt’s prostate. Kurt gripped his shoulders tightly, uttering Blaine’s name with every pant and gasp and groan and Blaine wrapped an arm around his waist, trying to keep them as physically close as possible.

***

Three in the morning. 

The two lay passed out in the tangled comforters, equally content smiles on their faces.

The Scarecrow stood over the couple, gazing at them impassively.

Then he turned, walking silently through the house. He went upstairs, checking every room in the house. He found something in Kurt’s room and took it. He went back downstairs to the sitting room and took something from there as well, on impulse. 

He stood in front of the couple again, considering. In the end he decided no. He didn’t have the time and it wouldn’t be nearly as fun. But when he had the time, he knew of a very particular way to make both of them scream. But not today. He didn’t want to sully his pallet.  

He already had Tina to look forward to later today.

And so he left the house, as silently as he’d come. 

***

“Seriously?” Kurt nudged the device with his index finger, scoffing at it. 

It was the next afternoon, late lunch. Blaine had eggs and fruit salad. Kurt had iPhone a la mode. 

”You need a cellphone, Kurt,” Blaine rolled his eyes. You’re not going to freak me out like that again, understand? Always let me know that you’re okay.”

“Okay,” Kurt assented, entering all his friends’ numbers into the phone and sending them a mass text letting them know that they had a number under which they could contact him. 

“So there was another death,” Blaine sighed. “But this one broke the norm. Virginia Wolf wasn’t a member of McKinley Home.”

“Not true,” Kurt countered. “She was several months ago before she left to work for Goolsby.”

“Oh.” Blaine blinked. “Okay, so she does fit the mold. And Will dropped by yesterday—”

“Really?”

“Yeah, while you were asleep upstairs. And he mentioned that someone named Ken Ten…”

“Ken Tanaka?”

“Yes! Ken Tanaka apparently likes Batman comics.”

Kurt stared. “So…he could potentially be the Scarecrow.”

“Except there’s no motive,” Blaine sighed.

Kurt fiddled his fingers, looking up at Blaine. “Actually…there might be.”

“What?”

“Look, this is all hypothetical,” Kurt said hurriedly. “But…Ken liked Emma. Like, he really liked Emma. I’m pretty sure that she’s the only reason he volunteers at McKinley. And he was always asking her out but she was always declining, saying that her focus was on the kids. Then, about six months ago, she started dating Will and Ken got like, really pissed off. He disappeared for a couple months then came back really sullen. And…he’d like, snap at anyone for speaking highly of Will and…” he squirmed uncomfortably. 

Blaine frowned. “Well, it’s a s—”

He was cut off by Kurt’s new phone ringing. Kurt glanced at it in surprise: Quinn was calling. He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Kurt?”

“Yes?”

“Kurt! You have to get to Virginia Mason, now!”

“Oh my god,” he stood up from the counter. “Is the baby coming?”

“No! It’s Tina! She was attacked!” 

***

Kurt burst into the hospital room, chestnut curls bouncing around his shoulders as he ran over to Tina’s bed. She was badly bruised and looked like she’d just survived a stampede, but she was mercifully alive. Puck, Jake, Quinn, Joe, Rory, Mercedes, and Mike were all there. 

“Tina,” Kurt sighed in relief, giving her an awkward pat. “How are you? What happened?”

“Dude, I always forget how hot you are as a girl,” Puck stared. Jake nodded.

(Quinn whacked Puck, Kurt whacked Jake.)

“I was walking home from school,” Tina said quietly, her voice weak. “It was the middle of the day and Mike had work, so I thought I’d be fine…”

“I had a break though,” Mike added, his voice hard. “So I texted her that I’d just meet up with her halfway.” He looked off to the side. “I should have come faster, I—”

“Shhh,” Tina rasped. “You did fine.” She took a deep breath. “I was just a few blocks from Union when someone grabbed me and pulled me into a dark alleyway. He was wearing a burlap sack and he grabbed my neck and just started hitting me and hitting me and then bashing my head against the brick wall—” She broke off, squeezing her eyes shut as a tear leaked out. Mike leaned forward with a tissue, his expression pained.

Tina gasped out a breath before continuing. “And I kept screaming but then he covered my mouth and started tearing at my clothes. But then Mike came and he fought him off and the man ran and Mike stayed to make sure that I was alright and he called 911.”

“I got him though,” Mike said grimly, softly stroking Tina’s cheek. “I picked up one of the bricks and bashed him on the side of the head.”

“Badass,” Puck nodded with respect, gently rubbing one of Tina’s feet. “You were too, Tina.”

“We need to up the buddy system,” Quinn sighed, rubbing her stomach. “I mean, if this asshole is just going to try and pick us off during the daytime…”

“My mom says you can all stay with us,” Mercedes added. “We’ll make room. You can come too, Kurt.”

“No,” Kurt shook his head. “I’m fine where I am and I’m safe.” He squeezed Blaine’s hand briefly.

***

Blaine left the group of friends after an hour to make a call.

“This is Howell.”

“It’s Anderson. I’m going to need you to stretch that favor…”

***

“Hey, there’s something I have to go do,” Blaine whispered against Kurt’s temple, giving it a soft peck. “But I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?”

“Okay,” Kurt nodded sending him a smile.

Kurt waited ten minutes after Blaine had left before excusing himself and heading outside, heading to the nearest bus station.

He had to know. He’d just take a quick step into McKinley Home, just to see Ken Tanaka, to see if he had a bruise on the side of his head.

He sat on the back of the #4 bus, legs crossed neatly as he waited for the ten odd stops it would take before he got close enough to walk.

A nagging guilt tugged at the back of his mind and he rolled his eyes, taking out his phone before sending a text to Blaine.

I’m headed to McKinley to see if Ken has a mark on the side of his head. Don’t worry, I’m being safe.

***

Blaine walked into the precinct, Carl waving him through. “We’ve got him,” Carl nodded. “He’s in interrogation now.”

“Thanks,” Blaine sighed in relief. 

“No, thank you,” Carl pushed open his office door. “You’ve cracked more on this case then any officer here.”

“Well…” Blaine shrugged. “I’ve had help.”

“Ah, yes,” Carl smirked. “This mysterious Kurt.”

“Will the charges against him for these murders be dropped if we can prove it’s Ken?”

“Yes,” Carl nodded. “Not too sure about the ones of him stabbing you.”

“I don’t remember being stabbed,” Blaine said in monotone.

Carl laughed. “You know, for a writer you’re a horrible liar. But yes, that one will be dropped too which will make things much easier since we can’t even find a record on the kid.”

Blaine nodded and his phone buzzed. He glanced at the next from Kurt before replying.

Kurt, that’s the opposite of safe. But come back, I’m at the precinct and we’ve got Ken.

Then he reread Kurt’s text.

“Carl,” he said suddenly. “Check to see if he’s got a bruise or a bash mark on the side of his head.”

***

Kurt knocked on the door of McKinley Home, waiting, poised. 

“About time—oh. Hello.”

It was Will, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. 

“Sorry, I thought you were Ken, one of my colleagues. He’s been taking way too long on his break. But you’re Ellie, right?”

Kurt blinked before he remembered the wig. “I—yes.”

“Blaine Anderson’s cousin? The one who wants to help out and tutor?”

“Yes!” Kurt said, having no idea what kind of lies Blaine had spun for Will. But he needed to buy some time until Ken returned and Will seemed to like Ellie more than Kurt so he stuck to her. “That’s right! I know it’s kind of late, but I was hoping to fill out an application before I went home?”

“Oh, of course, sure,” Will nodded, waving him in. “There in my office. Would you like tea or coffee or something?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Kurt smiled, following him down the familiar hallway to Emma’s office. He sat down in the plush armchair and waited for Will to grab the documents. 

“Here you are,” Will smiled as he handed over the two forms. 

Kurt took a clipboard and started filling them out, praying that Ken returned soon because he really didn’t want to make smalltalk with Will. 

Follow follow follow follow follow the yellow brick road! 

Well, it was one way to stall. 

“I love this soundtrack,” Kurt gushed. “Ever since I was little.”

“Ah, me too,” Will grinned. “It’s the best, isn’t it? And the next song is my favorite. So good.”

Kurt nodded, slowly checking one of the boxes.

***

“He doesn’t,” Carl shook his head, getting off the phone.

“Really?” Blaine asked, surprised. “Well fuck. Everything’s confusing.”

“This whole thing has been messed up,” Carl sighed, rubbing his temples. “Seattle’s known for its suicides, not its serial killers. And this guy’s just bizarre.”

“Targeting only young girls from a group home?”

“Not only that,” Carl frowned. “Just the method of killing. It’s sloppy. Spilling the girls’ innards everywhere? That’d be a bitch to clean up and based off the blood splatters, the killer definitely got blood all over himself. And the whole thing just seems senseless, like the guy doesn’t even have a brain.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “But Tanaka still has overwhelming evidence against him. And if we can link him with the Sedan, we’ve struck gold.”

“Sedan?” Blaine frowned. “What Sedan?”

“Oh, right,” Carl dung through his files. “I ran with your tip about Suzy Pepper. Turns out, Kurt wasn’t the last person she was seen with and she did go to school the day she was killed—just not class. She went to after school activities and stepped into a blue Sedan.” He pulled out the picture and showed it to Blaine. “Now, we can’t make out the license plate, but if we can—”

“I know that car,” Blaine breathed.

Carl blinked. “What?”

And suddenly things clicked into place.

“…messy…”

“…sloppy…”

“…like the guy doesn’t even have a brain…” 

***

“So…” Kurt sighed, searching for a topic. “I heard that you came to my cousin’s house two days ago?”

“Yes,” Will nodded. “I went to ask about one of the kids who used to live here, Kurt? I believe you’ve met him?”

“Oh, yes!” Kurt said, pitching his voice slightly higher out of paranoia. “He’s nice. A bit quiet though.”

“Yes,” Will smiled. “And your cousin is a really great guy—he actually loaned me this record and a couple of others.” He gestured over to the record player where a handful of records were laid out on the table. “Oh! That reminds me…” He pulled something out of his drawer, leaning over the desk to hand it to Kurt. “I think I accidentally came home with this. It was probably stuck next to one of the records.”

Kurt took the soft coral scarf from him. It was his. But…he’d bought it two days ago, when he’d been running errands downtown. Then he’d come straight home and gone to bed. Schuester had come over while he slept but…the scarf had stayed on Kurt’s bed. It hadn’t gone anywhere near the records.

And come to think of it…

Kurt glanced over at the records on the table. Cyndi Lauper. The Beatles. The Mamas and the Papas. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. 

And The Wizard of Oz.

I could wile away the hours

Conferring with the flowers

Consulting with the rain…

There was no way Blaine could have loaned those records to Will two days ago because they had been playing all day yesterday while they’d lounged on the sitting room floor.

Kurt turned back to look at Will, who, in the act of giving Kurt his scarf, had leaned forward out of the shadows. A dry swallow. Then Kurt opened his mouth, begging his voice not to waver.

“Why…that looks like a really painful bruise. Where did you get it?”

And my head I’d be scratching

While my thoughts were busy hatching

If I only had a brain. 

***

“Kurt pick up your phone!” Blaine yelled as he texted Kurt for the thirtieth time before trying to call him again as he raced to the central district. “Kurt pick up Kurt pick up Kurt pick up.”

***

“Oh this?” Will laughed. “Come now Ellie. I think you know exactly where I got it from.” He leaned forward on his folded hands. “Or should I call you Dorothy?”

Kurt bolted. He ran to the door, trying to wrench it open but it was locked. He fumbled with the locks before a hand slammed on the door. Kurt felt his phone buzzing and he blindly pressed talk. 

“Kurt it’s Will—”

“Blaine help me, please—!”

Will ripped the phone from his hand and threw it down on the ground hard. 

Kurt shoved against him but cold metal pressed against his throat.

Will smiled at him. “Come on, Dorothy. We should have a nice little chat.”

Breathing shallowly, Kurt allowed Will to steer him back into his chair. Will sat on the edge of the desk, knife pointed directly at him. “I wouldn’t make any sudden movements if I were you. You know how well I can use this.”

Kurt sat petrified in his chair. His best hope was to keep him talking. “Why are you doing this?”

“For you, Dorothy,” Will said, as if it were obvious. “Because you gave me hope again.”

“What are you talking about?”

Will sighed. “Did you know that I was a director?”

Kurt shook his head.

“A good one too. On Broadway. Schuester’s shows. Everyone wanted to see them…But then there was an actress. A singer. Voice like an angel.” Schuester sighed. “She wanted to become a star. I wanted to help her. I fell in love with her. We both liked The Wizard of Oz. I thought it was fate. Until eight months ago, she told me she was getting married.

“I tried to convince her not to, but her mind was made up. She told me that she didn’t love me. After all I’d given to her… I lost everything. I had to cut myself out of the musical theater world. From her world. I moved to Seattle the next week. Started volunteer work. I didn’t want to know what was going on in New York. I didn’t want to know about what roles she was playing. I didn’t even want to know who her intended husband was.” He looked down at Kurt, his eyes full of sadness. “Because if I heard anything about her…about my Rachel Berry again…I’d have to wring her pretty little neck.” 

Kurt shivered, trying to keep his panic internal. 

“And I loved her too much,” Will sighed. “So I had to cut myself off to keep sane. It was so dull and boring and monotonous…and then I met you. You remember, don’t you? You were singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow…”

Kurt didn’t remember, not really. His first month at McKinley Home was hazing because he was half out of his mind and had been “Dorothy Porcelain” the whole time as a coping method. His first true clear memory was taking a pair of shears to his hair and cutting it off. The second, wandering around Capitol Hill alone at night until he’d stumbled into a tattoo parlor and walked out the next morning with a unicorn on his back.

But his time as Dorothy…it was fuzzy at best.

“…and we talked about The Wizard of Oz.” Will chuckled. “You told me how much you adored the scarecrow and how much you’d like a fellow like him. I came here and volunteered every weekend. Emma thought I was so dedicated to the kids when I really couldn’t care less about them. I only wanted to see you…” He looked at Kurt, his expression livid. “But then you left. Without a trace.”

Well…no, he’d just snapped out of the fucked-up mental state he’d been in for years and finally went down the path to self-discovery. Or something like that.

“And then I started dating Emma,” Will sighed. “I needed to know more about McKinley Home. About its occupants. Dorothy P.’s files were locked, but I still managed to pilfer some of Emma’s notes. She’d written that you’d bonded a lot with your female roommates. So I killed Marley.”

It felt like a punch to the stomach and the panic fully set in. “That’s why you killed Marley?”

“It wasn’t hard,” Will shrugged. "Kurt was walking her back to the neighborhood, but as soon as he left I was able to convince her to get in the car with me so I could drive her home. And then Kitty. And then Suzy.”

“Why?” Kurt yelled. “What in god’s name would possess you to do that?”

“I needed your attention,” Will said. “And you told me how much you liked scarecrows, so I made a bunch of them out of your little friends.”

Kurt’s breath started coming out quicker. “What did you do to Emma?”

Will smiled. “She found me…arranging Suzy’s body. So I put on my mask and poured Suzy’s blood over her. I knew it would trigger her OCD.”

Kurt stared at him. “You’re psychotic.”

“And then I heard that you were back working in Pioneer Square so I booked you. But when I came to your room, you were gone…”

Kurt remembered that night, Sugar shoving him and Blaine out of the window.

“And then you were on the front page. On the arm of Blaine Anderson.”

When Kurt had to dress as a girl to avoid the public eye.

Will smiled grimly at him. “I didn’t even know about the guy, but then Quinn told me that Kurt was living with him and I realized that Blaine was probably taking in pretty young things from around the city. I saw you alone downtown and followed you to Pioneer Square. But then I mistook one of the girls you worked with for you—”

Virginia.

“—and then she had to go. And after that I went to Blaine’s house. He lied through his teeth, talking about how you were some school tutor and I encouraged him to give you my number. I can’t believe he actually did.”

He didn’t.

“And then I broke into his house again. Last night. He was tangled up with Kurt on the carpet.” He laughed, glancing at Kurt, as if that was supposed to hurt him in some way. “I found your room, got your scarf, took the records…then, to get your attention, I attacked Tina.”

“But it didn’t work,” Kurt muttered. “Mike got there.”

“It worked perfectly,” Will smiled. “You’re here. And now we can be together.”

Kurt sat frozen in his chair as Will leaned forward to kiss him. He panicked, body seizing up before he forced himself to relax. Then he was kissing him back, clinging to his shoulders desperately. “Yes, Will,” he gasped, trying to stall. “Thank you. You did perfectly, Scarecrow.” He pushed Will back against the desk and Will cupped his ass, pulling him up against him as he stuck his tongue down his throat. Will’s hands were roaming around his legs. Kurt raked his hands down Will’s back, reaching behind him. He grabbed a pencil and shoved the pointy end into the wound on the side of his head. 

Will screamed, shoving Kurt aside, who bolted for the door. Will was right behind him and he swiped with his knife, missing Kurt by an inch. Kurt dodged, racing around his desk, trying to find some sort of weapon to use when Will came at him, shoving the desk until it tipped over on its side, leaving nowhere to run. Kurt backed up against the record player and grabbed one of the vinyl records.

“Dorothy—”

Kurt brought it down hard over Will’s head, feeling it shatter in his hands. He screamed as Will grabbed him, bringing his hands forward and there was a sickening slicing noise.

They stared at each other in shock, Will’s head wound oozing blood from the pencil jab and there was a clatter as the knife dropped. 

Kurt pulled his hands down, dislodging the shard of vinyl from the back of Will’s head. 

Will stumbled backwards, blood dripping around his collar as he stared at Kurt with the same wide-eyed expression. He moved loose-limbed around the room, like he was made of water.

Or straw.

Until finally he collapsed in a heap on the ground. 

Kurt breathed heavily, trying to get enough air in as he looked down at the large bloody shard in his hand. It was hard to make out, but there was one song that was clearly listed along the circular middle.

Blackbird. 

At that moment, the door was crashed open and Blaine walked in, eyes wide as he took in the situation. “Kurt,” he breathed in relief. “Kurt, are you okay?”

Kurt shook his head as his body started trembling. 

“We have to get you out of here,” Blaine mumbled, pulling on Kurt’s arm. “Kurt, come on!”

“Wait,” Kurt said distractedly. He got out his scarf and started wiping off all the surfaces he touched, erasing his fingerprints. “Okay, let’s go.”

***

Thank god for Carl. 

The official story was that Will Schuester was spilling his plans to a victim and Blaine heard at the door. By the time he got into the room, a scuffle had broken out and Will Schuester was left for dead, the female nowhere to be found.

(Kurt just made sure that Blaine knew Schuester’s plan backwards and forwards before giving his official statement to the police)

Ken Tanaka was released, but he didn’t resume his job at McKinley. Carl started volunteering there to help out with repairs and also started visiting Emma to check up on her.

(And okay, he may have formed a slight crush.)

***

Kurt didn’t talk to Blaine for a day.

And then he talked to Blaine for a whole day.

And then they drove out to Alki in West Seattle so they could watch the sunset because it was an oddly clear night.

“I can’t believe we went through all of that,” Blaine muttered as he traced idle patterns into Kurt’s palm. They’d been sitting there for two hours, long after the sun set.

“I thought it’d be different here,” Kurt said, looking out over the water. “I thought that I could just run away and escape from the monsters.”

Blaine leaned over and cupped Kurt’s face, turning it towards him. “I wish I could hide you from all the monsters,” he murmured. “I wish…I wish I could help take away some of the pain of all those scars you carry.”

Kurt gave him a teary smile, wrapping his fingers around Blaine’s wrists. “Don’t you see? You already have.”

Blaine leaned down and kissed him, the harvest moon hanging heavy in the sky.

***

“Two weeks?” Kurt complained, sticking his bottom lip out in a pout. 

“Just for some dumb conference I have to attend,” Blaine laughed, kissing Kurt’s bottom lip. “I’ll be back before you know it and then we can actually sit down and finish this monstrosity together in peace.”

“Peace,” Kurt smiled. “That sounds nice.” He sighed, flopping back on Blaine’s bed. “I know!” he said excitedly. “You could take me with you! I’ve always wanted to see New York!”

Blaine paused before quirking an eyebrow. “And how am I supposed to get you on an airplane when you don’t even have any identification?”

“Urgh,” Kurt’s arms spread out in defeat. “Point taken. Just two weeks?”

“Just two weeks,” Blaine promised. He sealed it with a kiss. 

***

“Howell, the prints came back.”

“Thanks, Bryan,” Carl nodded as he looked over the packets. There were Anderson’s, Schuester’s, the smudged ones that he knew had to be Kurt covering his tracks, and…a fourth one. One that definitely didn’t belong there with the others. 

It was just one tiny little thumbprint that had been lifted—obviously whoever had gone through had been thorough. But that one little thumbprint had registered in the database. 

Carl stared at the report, glancing back up at Bryan. “Are these correct?”

“Yeah,” Bryan nodded. “Double checked them myself. You remember that one, right?”

“Last Christmas,” Carl nodded. “Everyone here heard about it even though it got virtually no media coverage.” 

“But hasn’t she been MIA?” Bryan frowned. “And why would she show up here? At this specific case and how did she get there before us? It doesn’t even make sense.” 

Carl glanced down at the black printed name of Katy Karofsky. He felt like something much bigger was going on and he had a feeling that the mysterious “Kurt” was somehow tied up in everything.

So he started digging.

***

Kurt walked into the rickety little shop, accidentally brushing against the wind chime. He frowned at the tops of his long bangs. He’d have to cut them again, this was just getting ridiculous. 

“Unicorn!”

A small smile quirked his lips as he caught an armful of blonde. “Hi Britt,” he said, muffled against her hair.

She pulled back, whipping a piece of hair behind her ear before tucking her hands into her apron. “So why are you here?”

He ran a hand through the hairs at the back of his neck. “I…I need another tattoo done. Look, I know that you’re not supposed to—”

“I’ll do it,” Brittany said simply.

Kurt blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course,” she smiled. “Anything for my little unicorn.”

Fifteen minutes later found Kurt stretched out on the comfortable leather table, head rested in his arms. 

“So do you have anything in mind?” Brittany asked as she tied her hair up. “Or do you want me to just go at it again?”

“I have something, but feel free to elaborate,” Kurt said into his arms. “Um…a couple of roses? On my left side, sort of underneath the unicorn’s hooves?” 

“Roses?” Brittany asked. Then her face split into a grin. “Wait, have you found another unicorn?” Kurt buried his head in his hands, blushing. “Kurt, you have! Look at you, my happy little unicorn! Is he cute?”

Kurt smiled against his arms, his cheeks flaming. “The cutest.”

“Oh goody!” Brittany clapped her hands. “So, roses? Just black again?”

“Actually…” Kurt bit his lip. “Could you make the blooms red…and yellow?”

“Sure!” Brittany took out a sketch pad and started drawing. “We’ll just do the black outline today and then we’ll have you come in for the colors tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What’s his name?”

“Blaine…his name is Blaine.”

***

Kurt winced as he sat down on the plush chaise in their sitting room, pulling the New York Times off the coffee table—Kurt still wasn’t sure why Blaine even got it at all—for lack of anything better to read. He really did need to buy another Vogue soon. He stretched out and started flipping vaguely through the pages. To be honest, he never really understood newspapers all that much, so he flipped to the entertainment section, reading various movie reviews then traversing over into musical theater, remembering wryly when Blaine had taken him to see Wicked at the Paramount Theater the night before he’d left as a goodbye present. 

He flipped the page and there was an article about the new Elphaba at the Gershwin Theatre. He almost turned the page until her name caught his eye.

Rachel Berry.

He blinked. It was her. The woman Will had obsessed over until… He found himself reading the article. And the further along he read, the more annoyed he got. Rachel Berry sounded pretentious at best and clearly had a high opinion of herself. He quite frankly failed to see what similarity could be drawn between the two of them besides the fact that they both liked Wizard of Oz-related things, and he was ready to throw the whole newspaper into the fire when something in the last paragraph caught his eye. Frowning, he leaned forward and read the end of the article. 

Kurt sat very still for a long period of time. Outside, a raindrop hit the bay window. Then another. And another. And then it was pouring, whole torrents of rain falling from the sky in a downpour. 

Inside, Kurt got up from the chaise and went upstairs. He gathered all of his clothes and personal belongings into a bag and grabbed the rain jacket Blaine had bought him, zipping it up all the way. He went back downstairs and left his key on the dining room table before heading over to the door and locking the handle, closing it firmly shut behind him as he left Blaine Anderson’s house with no intent of ever returning.

The New York Times’ entertainment section lay open still on the coffee table, those last few lines of the Rachel Berry interview still exposed.

…and Ms. Berry is extremely confident about her upcoming debut on the Gershwin stage. But what of her personal life? “My husband and I are very happy,” Berry smiles, idly stirring her iced coffee. “Blaine is in Seattle right now writing a novel but he’s promised to fly out to see opening night.” The couple will celebrate their first wedding anniversary this April.