disclaimer: without prejudice. the names of all characters contained here-in are the property of FOX and Ryan Murphy. no infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
author's notes: written for day 5 of Seblaine Week: paranormal/fantasy. based on the movie Thoughtcrimes. lines in italics are Sebastian's thoughts.
Read My Lips;;
They work.
That's what anyone describing his partnership with Blaine Anderson would answer; they work. The NSA recruited him three years ago and he doesn't exactly live up to the agency's standards, but at least he looked the part; Blaine in no way resembled an average agency asset. With his big brown eyes and youthful smile, his love for bowties and Broadway musicals it would be hard for anyone to imagine why Blaine decided on a career in the intelligence community, but after four months and about a dozen closed cases he's learned to see Blaine's worth–barely twenty-four years old he's one of the finest analysts he's ever had the privilege of working with, and that included fifteen-year old Dottie Kazatori, who was a prodigy in the field of data mining.
He finds Blaine at his desk in the central bullpen, typing up some last minute report. As if he reads his mind Blaine looks up from the monitor and finds his eyes, smiling when he does.
Lord, help me.
"You ready, killer?"
Blaine stands up, rounding his desk to reach him. "You don't usually let me tag along on takedowns."
He smiles; Blaine's right, he's an analyst and should belong exclusively behind a desk, yet Schuester insists on bringing Blaine face to face with some of the most dangerous criminals–he addressed it countless of times and received one simple message from upstairs: knowledge about the depth of Blaine's work for the NSA existed on a strict need-to-know basis. It never sat right with him that secrets were being kept from him when Blaine was meant to be his partner, someone he should trust through and through, but he couldn't afford to break many more rules. And Blaine never told.
"Every second counts on this one," he says, anchored in place when Blaine reaches for his tie in the distance between them and pulls at the knot, even though it was already pristine inside the collar of his shirt. Blaine smooths his hands down his chest, the touch wavering from collegial to friendly to something more he's hesitant to define.
Keep it together, Smythe. He's not that cute.
Hazel eyes catch his and Blaine smiles.
Who am I kidding?
"You're in a good mood."
"I had a good time last night," Blaine says, humming a tune he doesn't recognize.
"Anyone special?" anyone I know? the thought catches him unaware.
"Just out with some friends." Blaine shrugs. "It was fun."
"More fun than hanging out with me?"
Blaine laughs, playing with the distance between their bodies. "We work together, Sebastian. We've never hung out like that."
We could. Just ask him out. Fuck what Schuester thinks; tight-ass probably has sex with his clothes on.
He clears his throat, willing down the rather disturbing mental images. "We good to go?"
Blaine nods, soon following behind him on their way to the basement-level parking garage.
For lack of a better word, Blaine had that thing. People instinctively trusted him with their secrets, because every time Blaine walked out of that interrogation room alone he had all the answers they needed; when they were in that room together they played off each other like two seasoned professionals, Blaine picked up on his cues as if they devised an extensive vocabulary, which they never had. But they worked, they got results, so he didn't question Blaine's methods, and their bosses didn't complain when he bent a rule here or there.
He loves working with Blaine, he's quick on his feet and funny, and unlike other people he's worked with he hasn't filed any sexual harassment claims. Blaine's quick to blush and has called him both ridiculous and delusional on more than one occasion, but never dissuaded him from flirting either. If it were up to him he'd rewrite the whole book on no-dating and non-fraternization the agency seemed intent on.
"Penny for your thoughts." He drums his fingers against the wheel and looks at Blaine staring silently out the window, all in an effort to get his mind off this goddamn Scooby Doo theme song stuck in his head.
Blaine seems a million miles away but still manages to pick up on his request. "Can we trust this intel?"
Cocky bastard, he laughs, cut out of one interrogation and gets his panties all in a twist. Ever since Blaine got the hang of things and grew more comfortable in his role at the agency he's been insistent on carrying out the interrogations. But it just so happens that catching Karofsky was an agency-wide operation and a priority for all teams, so when Duval got the chance to gather information from one of his close associates he'd taken it. Which led them here, to Brett Bukowski, a weapons designer the ATF has had on their radar for years, and someone who might get them a step closer to Karofsky.
"I know that your highness wasn't the one to obtain it, but Duval's a good agent."
Blaine shrinks in his seat. "I know, I just–"
"One of your feelings?" he asks, parking the car behind three other unmarked vehicles. I should really ask him about those gut instincts one day. Analyst my ass, there's something Schuester's not telling me. "Relax, Anderson. Bukowski doesn't have the balls to run from us."
Duval, already in full gear, makes his way over with a bulletproof vest and headphones once they get out of the car.
"We all set?"
"Ground teams ready to rock and roll, spotter's on the third floor."
"Move these cars back, will you?" He gestures at the neatly parked row of identical black sedans. "It looks like a tailgate party out here."
If anyone asked him, this had been a clusterfuck of an operation from the start; for an intelligence agency the NSA had little to no information on the whereabouts or identity of the assassin only known as Karofsky; it could be a man, woman, a group of people, in fact they didn't even know if Karofsky was a real name.
Goddamn headphones, he curses mentally as he tucks the headset around his ear, why can't they make these things easier?
He looks up to see another agent helping Blaine with his headset. "He doesn't need one of those."
Blaine's hand falls away from his face. "Why not? I can take care of myself."
Sensing the rising tension, Duval and the other agent leave them alone.
He can never make this easy, he thinks as he takes a few steps towards Blaine, wonder if he was this much of a handful as a kid. "Don't see it as a reflection on your job performance," he says, "You're a great analyst, but takedowns aren't part of your job. Wait in the car. Once we have our guy you can work your magic, okay?"
God, he's cute when he sulks.
Blaine looks up at him as if he caught him nursing the thought, but nods, opening the door to the car again. He hates this as much as Blaine does, but he's responsible for anything Blaine does out in the field and he'd really prefer he didn't get hurt. Wouldn't want to scar that pretty face.
"You know, your brother called me," he says, hoping to alleviate some of the tension.
But the words are no sooner spoken or Blaine's hazel eyes pin him down. "He what?"
Hit a nerve. What's up with that?
"He wanted to talk to me, about you."
Blaine's eyes narrow on his face. "You're not going out with my brother."
Date him? God no. I'd date you though.
"Smythe!" Duval calls.
He traces a few steps backwards, amused by how quickly he can rattle a composed Blaine Anderson at the mention of his older brother Cooper. "That's always a touchy subject for you, killer, maybe I should take him up on the offer."
Blaine shouts something indistinguishable right after he's turned around, but there's chatter over the radio and the team's assembling to breach the front door of the building, so it drowns into backscatter. What little he knew of Blaine's past mostly comprised his brother; it was clear the two of them hadn't spoken for a long time the day they'd run into the older Anderson at the courthouse, and Blaine proved extremely reticent to discuss it. Blaine's mother died when he was young, and his father a few years ago in a car accident, so he thought it strange the two brothers weren't closer. But like most else Blaine's past was a big mystery, one he never discussed either.
He puts it out of his mind for the time being, he has a job to do and he can't afford to be distracted by his partner's personal life. Still, he's often left to wonder where Blaine came from and why he's so close with the supervisor of special division, Doctor Quinn Fabray. Most of what special division did was top secret, well above his pay grade, so it was a curious connection.
Keep your head in the game, Smythe, it's go time.
"Ground unit, on me," he orders, any following orders visual cues from now on; they don't want to alert Bukowski to their presence.
Get inside, hit him hard, get out fast. Two floors up.
The team breaches the front door, fanned out all around him, his gun trained in front of him, left hand cupped around his right to steady it. He's done enough of these to know the drill, but the adrenaline rush surprises him each time, his nerves shaking through him not unlike the rush of a first kiss–his shrink would probably have a thing or two to say about that, but he likes to think it makes him a damn good agent.
"Sebastian, get everyone out of there," Blaine's voice sounds over the radio unannounced, "It's a trap."
His heart rate spikes, the carefully planned breach protocol unraveling in front of his eyes. Who the hell gave Blaine a radio?
"That's impossible, what's your intel?"
"I just know," Blaine says, "You have to trust me."
There's no way Blaine gathered more information than anyone else on site in the few minutes it took to set up outside. He left Blaine in the car to wait, not to analyze the situation, he can't know more than they do.
He makes a split second decision. "Someone get him off the radio."
Why does Blaine insist on doing this, he's not a field agent yet always finds a way to put himself front and center. Not this time. Focus.
He's not halfway to the second staircase when footsteps on the one they already cleared grab everyone's attention; the entire team turns and focuses on the intruder making his way up the stairs, only to breathe a sigh of relief when it turns out to be Blaine.
"What the hell, Blaine? I could've shot you."
Blaine grabs around his arm. "He's going to blow up the loft, we've got less than four minutes."
All right, this stops now.
He faces agent Duval. "Breach the third floor, wait for me there," he commands, the rest of the team breaking free while he decides how to reprimand Blaine for potentially endangering the lives of all his men.
"Sebastian, no, listen to me!" Blaine's hand tightens around his arm. "Listen to me like you've never listened to anyone before. There is a bomb in this building. I know this for a fact."
He pulls his arm free. I don't have time for this shit. Okay. Hear him out. Cover your ass. "How?"
"The same way I know a lot of things I'm not supposed to," Blaine says, despair blotted all through his eyes, and it really shouldn't make him feel like this much of an asshole. "The same way I get my answers from suspects, and the same way I know you've had the Scooby Doo theme song stuck in your head all morning."
What?
"What?"
"Sebastian." Blaine takes a step closer. "I hear thoughts. I'm a telepath."
He laughs. Is this some kind of practical joke? No, he saw Bukowski with his own two eyes a few minutes ago, he was in the kitchen making sandwiches, no clue they were coming.
"Blaine, that's–"
"It's not a practical joke." Blaine plucks the thought straight out of his head. What the hell. "How about this one? Before we left you were thinking about Schuester, and that he's such a tight ass that he probably has sex with his clothes on."
The wording's too specific for Blaine to know it any other way than– this is crazy, there's no such thing as telepathy, why would Schuester partner him with Blaine …
It all dawns on him quite suddenly, every coincidence and happenstance, every time Blaine walked out of an interrogation and knew things no suspects would've divulged without at the least having a plea deal on the table.
All the hush hush. Blaine's missing background. The way he gets answers so easily.
No.
"Bukowski was thinking about a bomb," Blaine says. "Evacuate the building. Now."
He fails to breathe steadily, his heart in a frenzy between disbelief and insanity. It can't be, there's simply no such thing as telepathy, but can he take the chance? Can he run the risk of endangering the lives of all his men on the off chance that Blaine's wrong and he's neatly structured world remains intact?
No.
"Everyone get out," he talks directly into the microphone. "Evacuate the building right now", and then the agent in him takes precedent–the team passes them again on their way out and he grabs Blaine around the arm, the only thought pulsing through him Get everyone out. Everyone to safety.
He and Blaine rush down the stairs and then he does hear it, a clock ticking, a bomb ticking–he wraps an arm around Blaine's shoulder and pushes through the door with him, wrestling him down to the floor when the windows on the top floor blow out, glass raining down on them, his ears ringing from the force of the explosion.
He was right. Blaine was right.
"Are you okay?" Blaine asks as they stagger up from the ground together.
His forehead stings, probably cut in the torrent of glass, but he only finds himself staring at Blaine. A boy he doesn't know at all.
He's been inside my head this whole time.
Blaine takes a tentative step towards him. "Sebastian–"
He's in there right now.
"I couldn't tell you."
"Don't talk to me," he says. "Just stay–" Get away, get away from him. "Get away from me."
.
He tries to put it all out of his mind; he has an incident report to file that won't write itself, even though he has no idea how to explain what happened–clearly Blaine's 'ability' was above his security clearance but he did know now, and he wishes like hell he didn't. He can't help but think they need Blaine to interrogate Bukowski but how can he– Nothing makes sense anymore.
It's all so clear now, how Blaine got his answers so easily, how they worked so well together. Somewhere deep down he'd chalked it all up to Blaine's natural charm, to a chemistry between them that kept pulling him closer to the strange boy who came out of nowhere. But it was all a trick, Blaine read his mind the same way he read others, there wasn't anything special about their relationship. Were they even partners? Was he Blaine's superior? Or was Blaine just special division's way of getting some piece of the action? He thought Fabray capable of a lot of things, but not this kind of underhanded crap.
How did any of this not violate the rights of the detainees? Granted, most of them didn't have a whole lot of rights left, but were any of these confessions considered legal if Blaine plucked them from their brains? How did tight-ass Schuester justify any of this?
As if a mind reader himself, Schuester shows up at his desk, followed closely by Doctor Fabray.
"If this is about the security clearance, my lips are sealed," he says, focused on his computer screen so as to avoid any judgmental gazes. He has half a mind to file a complaint against his superiors, but what would that even look like? He can't go around spewing information about Blaine without getting in trouble himself. "I don't need to talk about it."
"Fine." Schuester turns around. "You're off the case."
"Wait, what?" He shoots up from his chair. "You can't do that."
Security clearance or not he was one of the lead investigators on the Karofsky case and he'd brought in Bukowski this morning; they were getting closer, however slow the work was moving, but they can't pull him now.
Schuester faces him again. "Blaine Anderson is the reason we've gotten this far. If you can't handle him I'll find someone who can."
His breathing deepens as his jaw locks in anger; Schuester's a bureaucrat, a pencil pusher, he has no idea what it's like to be out in the field, put your faith in the man by your side, trust them with your life. He took a gamble on Blaine, ordered from up high to work with him, and up until a few hours ago he thought he'd made the right choice.
It was all a lie.
How can Schuester possibly understand the betrayal burning through his veins right now?
"I've been working with him for months," he says. "I should've been briefed."
If Schuester hears him he chooses to ignore him, because soon he's left alone with Doctor Fabray. She's a beauty, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail to highlight her elegant facial features, eyes like gemstones. He's also seen her in action enough times to know she's sharp as a tack and smarter than most of the idiots in this office combined. But he's never been able to figure out what she's all about.
Which made her relationship to Blaine all the more obscure. Is this what special division did? Find telepaths and rope them into working for the government?
Assholes. What did Blaine ever do to deserve this bunch of crackpots?
"Come with me," Quinn says.
He hesitates, at first, quickly reminded that if he doesn't go along he'll most likely be confined to desk duty for the foreseeable future and the mere thought of that makes him antsy. Following Quinn into her ridiculously spacious office he gets more annoyed by the second–someone should've told him, his thoughts went unchecked for close to four months around Blaine, who knows what Blaine found out about him.
Oh God. Who knows what Blaine heard about himself.
"You may have Schuester's ear, but I don't answer to you." He puts his hands in his pockets, watching Quinn rummage around on her desk for a small disk. "And frankly, I'm not exactly sure what it is you do around here, Doctor."
Quinn remains silent throughout his rant and obnoxiously calm, but she's not the one known for her short temper around here. The disk starts spinning in the docking station, the room soon filling with muddled voices.
"I realize I have little to no privacy doing this job, but this is pushing it."
The voices grow louder and louder until finally it gets unbearable.
"What is that?!" he almost shouts, but manages to rein in his frustration.
Quinn stares at him hard. "That's the kind of privacy Blaine enjoyed for five years in a mental hospital. Hundreds of voices in his head, non-stop, every minute of every day."
This is a joke.
He stares at the speakers dumbfounded, dozens maybe hundreds of people talking all at once, every voice as indistinguishable as the next. Just a few seconds of the sound makes him highly comfortable and his skin crawls with a painful lack of unbounded privacy.
How does anyone live like this?
Quinn turns off the recording.
Thank God.
"Blaine is one of a kind," Quinn says. "And not just because he was able to overcome that. It's because somehow he's been able to obtain the capacity to care about every voice he hears. Including yours."
"Mine?"
"He refuses to work with anyone else." Quinn smiles. "Whatever you did, you made quite an impression."
Only he never did anything, did he? Blaine exposed his secret because he wouldn't trust him to make the right call and now they're in this mess, but it's more than that. Blaine knew he could get in trouble, probably realized he'd be having this conversation with Fabray and still opened up to him about something personal. He hasn't been fair.
So when he finds himself at Blaine's doorstep no hour later he leads with, "I've been a jerk," before Blaine can get a word in.
Blaine's eyes go wide a second or two while he processes the situation. "Come in," he says, and takes a step aside.
The apartment's bought and paid for by the NSA, which makes so much more sense now. Five years in a mental institution. Poor guy.
Shit, did he just hear that?
"I'm not gonna lie," he says, acutely aware of the distance Blaine forces on them. "The thought of you in my brain makes me highly uncomfortable." He turns to see Blaine standing a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, eyes intent on his face. He'd tried to retrace every thought he had about Blaine these past few months, one more kosher than the next.
Blaine casts down his eyes.
Shit. Get it together, Smythe. Use your words.
"But not for the reason you think."
Blaine looks up again, eyes riddled with questions.
"I've been–retracing a lot of my thoughts over the past four months and I realized they might've reflected–"
Damn, started so well, what happened?
"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" he says, keeping it simple, because he doesn't seem capable of much high brain function thinking when he worries about hurting Blaine's feelings. "For any judgment you may have heard."
Blaine stares at him for a few moments, excruciatingly long moments during which his mind races and he wonders which thoughts Blaine hears.
This is weird. I'll never get to think anything in appropriate again.
Blaine takes a step forward. "Do you know why I like working with you?"
He cocks an eyebrow. "My natural charm?"
Blaine laughs, one of the most satisfying sounds he's heard all day. He hasn't screwed up too bad. "That's one reason," Blaine admits. "But you say a lot of what you think. You don't hide like most people do."
His lips part, but he doesn't say it. There's parts of him he regards as private, childhood scars that never fully healed and he carries with him, mistakes he made in high school and bad decisions that marked his path–maybe he needs to accept he shares that privacy with Blaine now. But he trusts Blaine. So that's okay.
He drawls a step closer. "I hide some things."
"I don't listen in on everything," Blaine says, and closes a hand around his tie again, his hazel eyes big with what can only be described as relief.
So cute.
Blaine smiles wide.
Fuck it.
"Since you've been listening in–"
What's breaking one more rule.
And then he leans in and pushes his lips along Blaine's, acting on an impulse deeper than any thought–Blaine grabs around his shoulders and breathes in sharply, kissing him back readily.
Soft lips, just like I thought.
Blaine giggles, effectively breaking the kiss.
"Guess you heard that." He smiles, holding Blaine close. Their superiors might not like it, but Blaine could get enough dirt on them to force their hands–if that doesn't work, there's always the private sector. "I've wanted to do that for a while."
"I know," Blaine whispers.
#
if you can, please let me know what you think!