Mosaic Broken Hearts

by with-etoiles

Blaine liked the agency because it was an escape from himself. Except, being a secret agent couldn't forever entail saving people and ignoring yourself. Eventually someone came into your life that made you realize that you existed, fully and completely, and in the best way possible. For Blaine, that person was Agent Hummel.

Mosaic Broken Hearts

A/N: This was alternatively titled the Secret Agent Klaine AU on my computer for the longest time. So, I'm not sure how accurate this necessarily is, as I took inspiration from what Kurt and Blaine do as secret agents in this fic from White Collar (the undercover mission Blaine and Rachel go on in the beginning) and The Avengers (particularly Black Widow). The scene where they go on the mission in the beginning is sort of long and you may wonder when Kurt comes back in, but I promise you he will and that the rest will focus on Kurt and Blaine, and that that scene is important to what happens in the rest of the fic. Anyways, I hope you give it a chance! Thanks to anyone who reads this!

Blaine liked the agency because it was an escape from himself.

It was an easy and glitzy way to let go of his past, to take the future head on. Here he was working for the greater good, instead of letting his emotions manipulate him and damage him as he had done before. He was taking the attention away from himself but putting it on himself at the same time, and he loved the way that worked out.

Except, being a secret agent couldn't forever entail saving people and ignoring yourself.

Eventually someone came into your life that made you realize that you existed, fully and completely, and in the best way possible.

For Blaine, that person was Agent Hummel.

---

Blaine walked up to Rachel, who was currently getting prepped by a team to go undercover at a large gala where their target was thought to be attending. Makeup artists surrounded her like locusts, gaudy brushes in their hands, colors on their fingers, and smearing them across Rachel's face. She pouted in the mirror, which prompted one of the makeup artists, a woman in a sad gray dress with a sad face, to scold her.

"Sorry," Rachel said after they had finished applying the dark red lipstick, "but I hate sitting here to be fancified. I just can't sit still. I feel like I need to be doing something."

"Oh, shut your impudent mouth Rachel Berry," Blaine teased, pinching her cheek, which was tinted with blush.

The woman in the sad gray dress only stared blankly at Blaine, and then continued to play with Rachel's face.

"Shut yourself up Anderson, you're all dressed up too!"

"Mmm, yes, my suit and bowtie, as if I don't already dress like this half the time anyways."

"They should…" Rachel faltered, trying to find a suitable comeback. "They should… they should make you take off your beloved bowtie! Hah!" She reached up hastily, fighting off a couple of offended make up artists, and pulled at it gently, loosening it. Blaine laughed, kissing her lightly on her other cheek.

"Now come on Rach," he said as he readjusted his bowtie, looking into the mirror and smiling at the happy face that met him. "We've got a criminal to bust, and then a lovely 8 o' clock dinner to catch afterwards."

"Ha, see you later suckers!" Rachel said as she wriggled from underneath their grasp, blowing them a kiss and running off, arm and arm with Blaine. But halfway across the room, Rachel's blue painted eyes closed briefly, and she ran back to give them all a quick hug, and give her apologies. Then she caught back up with Blaine, running a hand through his loose curls and slipping her hand into his.

"What are our new names again?" she asked.

"Mr. and Mrs. Patterson," Blaine replied, "got married when we were just young teenagers in love, straight out of high school. I attended the University of Mississippi, but you had bigger dreams, and applied to NYU. You got in, but the distance eventually took a toll on our relationship, and you sent me a letter a warm April evening requesting a divorce. And I didn't refuse because I was too heartbroken to say anything more. After a year at the university, however, I decided it wasn't for me, and I applied to NYU too. I met you again in New York City as you were going to see Phantom of the Opera. I stopped you right before you entered the building, and got down on my knee, and held an imaginary ring in the air, asking you not to marry me, but to give me one more chance. You said yes, and a year and a half later, we went to see Phantom of the Opera together again, and I had requested that at the end of the show, I be allowed to get up and stage and make a special announcement. And so I borrowed the Phantom's mask from the actor and dragged you up on stage with me, and I proposed. And you said yes and yanked off my mask and kissed me, and we've been married ever since."

"Charming," Rachel drawled, flicking a look over to the side of the crowded room they were in. Suddenly she tightened her grip on Blaine's arm. "Blaine," she whispered into his ear, taking extra care to get as close as possible to him. "It's Kurt over there. I wonder how jealous I could make him."

Blaine's eyes shifted across the room, and he saw Agent Hummel standing next to Agent Chang. Agent Chang left not a second after Blaine turned to look at Kurt, and Kurt studiously trained his eyes on the wall beside him. He was decked out in his all black agent's suit, the shirt curling nicely around his torso and showing off his defined arms. Blaine felt his cheeks darken, crimson not unlike the color on Rachel's cheeks. Tiny buds of guilt flowered across his mind. Don't look too long. Don't look too long. Don't look.

"Rachel," he whispered back, controlled. "I don't think that's such a good idea. I mean, he's been pretty bummed lately about not being able to go undercover with us, anyways, and I don't want to make him feel worse."

"I was trying to do you a favor, idiot." She laughed. "Oh, I love you. You and Kurt better get together soon, though, because this pretending each other doesn't exist only to have to visibly restrain yourselves from jumping at one another once you're forced to talk is not going to last for long. The tension will burst or you will both give up before it does."

Blaine frowned.

"And for the record," Rachel said, fiddling with Blaine's bowtie, "The latter is not an option you can choose."

"Rachel," he whined. "I feel bad."

"Okay, okay, but Hummel looked anyways," Rachel said conspiratorially. "You're welcome."

"Rachel," he said again. "I do not like him."

"Whatever you say," she answered, but she smiled when Blaine quickly looked back at Kurt, and was shocked to see him looking back for the briefest second. Then his blue eyes became like ice again, and Blaine snapped his mind back into the mission.

Find the killer at the gala. Take him down. Have dinner.

Piece of cake.

---

They arrived at the gala, and they were surprised to see that it was taking place on the topmost floor of an old abandoned building.

Blaine and Rachel walked hand in hand to the door, which looked like it would fall down at any second, and Rachel pressed the shiny doorbell that had obviously been installed there before the party. It was the only functioning thing within miles of this place.

"I feel out of place dressed like this," Rachel said as they waited for someone to answer the door. "Like I'm about to walk into a haunted house dressed in my Sunday best for the ghost's courtesy."

"Me too, and I feel like this location doesn't bode well for our mission. He could be on any one of the floors of this building, or in the mass of the party!" Blaine sighed, and squeezed Rachel's hand. "Are you ready for this?"

Rachel removed her hand and softly touched the gun on the strap around her thigh. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"I hear footsteps, so I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be too."

A bald man opened the door, with a smear of lipstick across the right side of his lips. "Hello, guests. Names please?"

"Richard and Naomi Patterson," Blaine responded, shooting a loving look at Rachel.

Rachel responded by bringing up their intertwined hands, and saying, "Aren't I the luckiest?"

"Most definitely," the man responded.

"Looks like you got lucky yourself," Rachel said slyly, and Blaine nudged her for going out of character.

"Ah yes, well, you'll have to excuse me," he said, stuttering but clearly proud. "There are many floors in this building that are unoccupied, if you know what I mean."

Blaine and Rachel both laughed uncomfortably, and the man led them in to an also newly renovated elevator.

"You may be wondering why we chose to have a gala here and not at a more suitable location," the man started saying, filling up the silence as they went up twenty floors. The walls were painted a pastel blue, Blaine noticed, and scolded himself when he caught himself mentally shifting their colors to match another shade of more shocking blue he had become very familiar with…

"It is because," the man said, interrupting Blaine's thoughts, "well… I can't offer you much of an explanation. Our show runner is quite the oddball." He said, laughing.

Blaine nodded politely, and turned to create inane couple chatter with Rachel until they had reached the twentieth floor.

When the elevator doors opened, they were inundated with the suddenness of the voices around them. This gala was not a polite evening affair, Blaine thought dejectedly. Things were going to be a lot harder than expected.

He assessed his surroundings. The walls here seemed to be wallpapered over with the same pastel blue that was in the elevator. Paintings hung in various positions across the walls, as if they were droplets emerging from the walls at odd angles. The edges of the frames were just sharp enough, that, jabbed into someone's gut, they could do some serious damage. Across the floating colors of women in sleek dresses and stiletto heels and men in dark suits, serious ties, and quirky bowties alike, to the right of the room, was a massive bar, with a large amount of glass bottles behind a black marble counter. In the middle of the room stood a man that towered above everyone else, with dark eyes, and a lean body in a white suit. Blaine's eyes automatically locked on him, but he only shot a quick glance at Rachel to indicate the man's presence, and then continued to sweep the room. In the far left corner of the room a short man laid slumped against the wall, an empty glass in his hand and a girl in a red dress crouching over him, trying to slap him awake. A man with a habit of leaning more on his right foot than his left foot when he walked stole up to her, glancing down at her ass in the tight red dress and then looking at his friends suggestively. Juvenilely, he crouched down and pinched it, and then stood up and started walking to the bar as if nothing had happened. The woman stood up, and looked at the man now walking away casually, with a fire raging in her eyes. She walked after him, and Blaine shifted his gaze to an Irish woman in a sea blue dress whispering into her date's ear. Her date laughed; she must have been telling a joke.

"Any suspects?" he asked Rachel quietly.

"There is a medium height, blond haired, crooked tooth man in the middle of the pack that looks pretty shifty to me. He keeps fidgeting with something in his left back pocket, and then he brings his finger to his eyelid and presses it gently before attempting to normalize his behavior. Of course, then he just plunges that hand right back into his pocket five minutes later. Should I go check it out, boo?"

"Boo, Rachel? Really?"

"Honey, cutie, sweetie," Rachel continued, smiling up at him.

"Oh, just get your butt over there, Rachel Berry."

"Love you Blainers!" she said, running off at an agile pace for the high black stilettos she was wearing and the tight dark blue dress she wore that hugged her curves.

"Blainers," Blaine muttered. "Hmph."

Suddenly the man that was slouched against the wall opened his eyes just the slightest amount, peering at the woman in red, and then, slowly, inched his fingers towards his pocket until they were inside it and curling around some unidentified object. It was something heavy, and suddenly he was drawing out a gun and training it directly at the woman.

"Everybody down!" Blaine yelled, smoothly pulling the gun out of his own pocket and training it directly on the man. People all around him jumped down into a crouch in a blinding flash of color, except for Rachel, who, in a flash of navy blue, ran to his side, keeping her gun on the man also.

Now that Blaine got a better look at the man, Blaine saw that he had a slightly Italian descent, although he also looked Spanish, and it was hard to decide which influence edged out on his face more. His hair, even in his old age, was shockingly dark, although calculated streaks of gray ran through it. He had thick eyebrows, and a long-ish nose, and a more rounded chin than most. His skin was tan, and his hands shook on the gun uncontrollably.

"Stand back," he said, trying to project intimidation into his voice, "I have a gun!"

"You have a gun you're afraid to use," Blaine pointed out steadily. "And we fortunately don't have that problem."

The man slumped even further into the wall. "Fine then, arrest me, if that's your ultimate end goal here. But let me just tell you, it's not mine."

The woman in the red dress, who was kneeling on the ground, slowly stood up. Rachel ran to her side. "Honey, I don't think you want to do this," she whispered into her ear, calmingly. "It's not safe."

A strangled Italian accent came out as she spoke. "It's not the only thing he wants to do here," she said. "Not the only thing."

"Whatever he's offering you is not worth it," Rachel continued steadily. "Please don't neglect your instincts. You're safe here with us."

"But he has something of mine, and he's willing to give it back to me," the woman continued. "He just said so."

Rachel only shook her head resolutely. "Please, I'm begging you. Stay here with us. Stay safe."

"I…" the woman began, but she slowly kneeled back down to the floor, and Rachel began to make her way back to Blaine. "I… can't." She suddenly stood up and withdrew a gun from underneath her dress, and pointed it towards the man.

"You promised me!" she yelled, advancing towards him quickly. People quickly scooted out of her way on the floor, clearing a path for her. Blaine understood, but he still wanted to smack them upside the head.

"Isn't that your motto, that you always keep your promises? Didn't you tell me that once? Well, I'm holding you to it."

She crouched down to his level, and he surprisingly stared directly at her without fear. Almost like a challenge.

She pressed the gun to his temple. "If you won't give me back what's rightfully mine, then I'll take it back myself. And you're the only thing standing in my way."

He still gave no reaction. She flexed her finger on the trigger.

"Sure you're not reconsidering?" she asked, dragging a finger down his right cheek. "Was deluding me into thinking you loved me and wanted to fuck me for me alone enough reason to make this happen?"

The man still did not answer, his lips only curving into a gentle smile.

"My dear, I hated every minute of it."

The woman yelled, and her finger was about to pull the trigger, when a shot rang into the air. Blaine shot the edge of a painting above the woman, and she fell unconscious to the floor, the gun clattering out of her gasp. The half Italian-half Spanish man, who had seemed so confident before, collapsed violently against the wall, taking shallow gasps and throwing the gun as far away from himself as possible.

Rachel rushed to the woman, scanning the room's occupants for someone with a long thin necklace. Once she found one, she kindly asked to lend it, and she obliged. She drew the woman's arms behind her back and deftly binded her hands together, and then propped her up against her own small frame and turned to Blaine.

"Want me to deal with the man too or do you want to take this one?"

"Interrogate the woman," Blaine said, "I'll deal with him."

Blaine slowly approached the man, picking up the man's discarded gun on the way and tucking it in his pocket.

"You're going to have a lot of explaining to do," he said to the man, taking up his arm and letting him lean against him as he led him, shaking again, into the pastel blue elevator. As he walked away with the man, he heard Rachel behind me giving instructions to the rest of the attendants of the gala.

The elevator doors closed, and the man laughed once, a sputtering thing.

"My name's Bernardo," he said, holding out his hand and straightening up. "Do you work for the government?"

"I don't think you're classified to receive that information," Blaine answered coolly. "I don't think you're allowed to ask that question either. But, you are allowed to answer my questions, one of them being this: What were your motivations?"

Blaine pressed the button for the fifth floor, and the man noticed. "We're going to an abandoned floor for my interrogation? I must admit, I was expecting more, Agent Anderson."

"Wha-" Blaine was caught temporarily off guard. "How did you-"

"I know more than you think. Now look, this is why I did it. There is someone who's controlling me; someone who wants to play with science. He wants to test out the cloning of humans, and for that he needs DNA. He's done it successfully before, but he's found that his clones don't have the personalities of the people he's used. Just the physical aspects. This particular woman he chose to get DNA from was overly cautious, so I couldn't get DNA the normal way. I had to resort to other tactics…"

Blaine coughed uncomfortably.

"Either way, I had to learn all about her, about her personality and everything, so he could make this clone work. But she found out, and I was sent here to kill her before she spread the word. And I suspect you were sent here to find me and kill me too."

"We don't work like that," Blaine answered, regaining his composure, "we don't kill in cold blood."

"Yet you call your crusading under the secrecy of the government a virtuous feat? I think not, dear Blaine. I don't think any of you are as virtuous as you think."

"Why that particular woman?" Blaine asked. "Why not anyone a lot less high profile?"

"Because that woman holds a powerful position in government, and since my boss couldn't force her to do what he wanted, he had to force someone else just like her to do it."

"What a sick ethics experiment," Blaine commented, staring the man down. "Don't you think?"

"Why yes, I personally think so."

"So why are you involved in it?" he asked, nonchalantly. "Doesn't make sense to me."

"Doesn't make sense to myself," the man answered.

The elevator doors suddenly opened, and they found themselves looking out onto a dark floor, where it looked like darkness claimed home. The only light that filled it was concentrated in a corner, flurries of dust dancing in it. There was not much else on the floor, except for a large couch that was obviously once grand but now looked sad and old, and a broken lamp near the corner of the room. Underneath their feet was a carpet of letters, and as they walked onto the floor, they crunched beneath them. Blaine bent to pick up one of the letters, the edges of the vintage paper crumbling in his hands. He only saw the beginnings of a letter starting "Dear Genevieve," before a loud thump resounded on the floor, and there was a tangle of sounds of struggling and then silence.

"Blaine, I could use a little help here," a high voice called out.

Not just any high voice. One he had been obsessed with for the past few months at the agency.

It was Kurt.

"Kurt, what are you doing here?" he called out into the darkness.

"Catching your criminal before he gets away on your watch," he spit out bitterly. "Now get over here before he just strolls out on you!"

Blaine switched on a small flashlight he had kept hidden in the folds of his suit, and he shone it around the room until he found Kurt holding the man by his throat. He was struggling, sweat shining on his brow, and Blaine resisted the urge to hug him (a stupid urge) and ran up to Kurt.

"I don't understand why you're here," Blaine began as he took the man with his arms behind his back and forced him into the corner of the room, shining a light directly between his eyes. "You weren't assigned to this mission!"

"Yes because obviously you were handling it so well yourself," Kurt answered, leaning against the wall and staring casually at Blaine.

"How did you get here?"

"I…" Kurt looked at the floor. "I sort of followed you here? But it wasn't like you didn't need it," he spat out at the end, to harshen his soft comment.

Blaine decided to let that one go. "Thanks, Kurt," he said softly.

"No problem."

"I guess I already got most of the information I need from this guy already," Blaine said disappointedly. "We should get back to Rachel and bring him back to the agency."

"Sounds good to me," Kurt answered, struggling to keep his voice nonchalant. "As if I wanted to spend more time on this abandoned floor with you anyways."

"Yeah," Blaine answered distractedly.

They both escorted the man into the elevator, avoiding eye contact the entire time.

---

The days after that were tense. They were paired together in a few training exercises, mostly stealth exercises in which they weren't required to talk to each other. Kurt kept his lips drawn tight the entire time, the whiteness of them making Blaine absently clutch and release his fingers. He wanted to loosen them so badly; he wanted to paint them pink with color. But then Kurt's slender profile would turn away, his calculating eye seeking out an artificial enemy in the distance, and Blaine would be forced to turn his head as well, and the electric moment in his head would be gone. Kurt didn't think anything of him; he never thought anything of him. Blaine wasn't anything more than a warm body crouching next to him behind an artificial building. And that was all.

Except sometimes Blaine would notice Kurt's hands twitching longingly in the same manner as his, and sometimes he'd have hope. Sometimes.

---

In the agency, nights off were few and far between, especially for someone as high ranked as Blaine was. Yet, when he did find himself with a day off, he still found himself with agency companionship, mostly in the form of Rachel Berry.

"You know, Rachel," Blaine said as he was pouring her and himself a glass of wine. "You're so distinctly ungraceful when you're not on the job that I wouldn't think you were the same person if I didn't know you so well."

Rachel had been stretched out across the couch, her grey sweater riding up to reveal a small bit of her stomach as she laid there. She pushed herself up by her elbows and sprung off the couch.

"What, are you afraid of a little skin, Anderson?" she asked mockingly, her legs almost bare in a semi-short pair of burgundy shorts. "Am I laying out too un-lady like for you?"

"Oh, Rachel," he responded, walking to her with the two glasses of wine in his hands. "Naïve Rachel. That does nothing for me." He winked, stopping by her and handing her a glass of wine.

"Oh well, at least I'm getting a drink out of this," she said, laughing, and collapsed back onto the couch.

"We probably shouldn't be drinking wine while we're sitting on a leather couch," Blaine commented. "Getting the stains out of this couch is not something I want to do." He picked up the TV remote and flipped through channels. "Anything in particular you want to watch? Bad cop shows? Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes?"

"Mmm, as much as RDJ appeals to me," Rachel began, "I actually want to talk."

"Okay," Blaine sat down besides Rachel. "I'm all ears."

"I want to know how you feel about Kurt, Blaine."

"I already told you," he answered, somewhat irritated. "There isn't much to say."

"Come on, Blaine, please. I'm one of your best friends, please tell me."

He sighed. "It's not so much that I don't want to say it, it's just that I don't want to realize them for myself." He took a sip of wine. "Do you understand what I mean?"

"Crystal clear," she answered, setting her glass down on the table next to them, untouched. Gently, she touched Blaine's shoulder. "But I want you to realize it."

Blaine looked at her for a long while, watching the sincerity in her eyes. He exhaled. "It's so hard."

"How about I try then?" she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

"What do you mean?"

Rachel repositioned herself to look at the tv, and began. "I think that you guys are secretly in love with each other," she began dramatically, turning to look to Blaine with a mischievous look in her eye.

Blaine only side eyed her, and she laughed, loud and garish.

"I think that you guys are definitely harboring feelings for each other," she began again. "And I think you'd do anything to kiss him, that you want to really badly. I know the feeling myself; I felt that way about Finn all the way all those years ago…"

"Finn?" Blaine asked curiously.

"An old high school lover that went off to the military," she answered, waving her hand. "But I used to think about how it would be like to have my hands all over him. I think you have that type of desperation somewhere in you right now, and that you're really good at hiding it."

"Go on, oh prophetic angel sent from above," Blaine said, nudging her in the shoulder. She shot him a look of mock disapproval but continued.

"But I think you're also scared," she continued. "I don't know how many boys you've dated before you came here, but I don't imagine you were a player back then."

"That is a sore misjudgment," Blaine joked, nudging her in the shoulder. "I resent my apparent lack of sex appeal."

"My point is," she barged on, laughing. "I think you really like him. But also that you're really afraid."

Blaine didn't answer, only set his glass down.

"How do I get rid of it?"

It was quiet for a moment.

"The thing is," Rachel responded, "I don't think you do. Ever get rid of fear, that is. But you can conquer it."

"Isn't that what we do, though, for a living? Face the fears other people don't dare to face?"

"All physical fears," she replied. "All easy to get rid of with the right training. You aren't trained to stop being afraid of love, Blaine. It's not possible; it's something you have to get rid of yourself."

"And how did you do it?" he asked, watching the way sadness seemed to settle in her eyes like a cloak. "How'd you stop being afraid of love?"

"Never said I stopped." she answered. "I've just stopped being afraid of falling."

Rachel searched his eyes, and Blaine didn't know what she found there, only that it was something to cause her to lean back a little into the couch with a small smile on her face.

Blaine leaned back too, staring at the ceiling. Kurt's name seemed to loop itself around his throat tighter and tighter every second. It was suffocating him; it was releasing him. It was feeling, and he was thrilled by it.

"Now how about we get some RDJ on this television screen," Rachel said. "Because we have a day off, and I am wasting potential ogling time."

Blaine laughed. "He's 40, but he's still so hot," he said wistfully.

"You're telling me!"

They both laughed in unison, and after a short moment, Blaine got up to try to find his Sherlock Holmes DVD, swiping his glass of wine from the table and taking a long drink.

Soon Blaine and Rachel found themselves sitting side by side on his worn leather couch, objectifying every handsome man in that movie from the tinges of drunkenness, and the cursive edges of Kurt's name around his throat began loosening at the seams.

---

He woke up the next day with the loose ends of Kurt hanging from his mind. Quickly blinking them away, he began to get dressed, pulling on his training suit and looking at himself in the mirror.

Is this what Kurt saw? A handsome face? A winning smile?

Could Kurt see anything underneath it?

He stashed those thoughts away, and headed off to work.

When he got there, Rachel came striding by him, whispering "The director is coming to see you" in a sing-song voice before he saw him coming over for himself.

The director was a big bulky man, who was missing his left arm but carried himself with so much presence that you hardly even noticed. You only stayed transfixed on his cold green eyes as he talked to you, and you hoped to all heavenly beings you didn't disappoint him.

He beckoned for Blaine to come over with the brief flex of two fingers; Blaine almost tripped in his haste.

"Combat training, here, tonight at 7," he said shortly.

"Yes sir," Blaine answered, and then he was gone.

Rachel came striding by again, winking at Blaine conspicuously.

"What do you know that I don't?" he asked her silently with his eyes, but Rachel only continued walking past. She was barely hiding a smile too.

---

Blaine walked into the agency at 7 o' clock sharp, and all the lights were out.

He walked around tentatively for a little bit, taking his emergency flashlight out of his training suit and shining it around, finding only stillness and crisp floors.

Then the door behind him opened, and a light skinned, icy eyed boy walked in.

Kurt.

And they were alone.

Alone.

Again.

"Looks like the newbie was late," Blaine teased him, but his voice weakly died out as Kurt turned his cold stare onto him.

"Are you training me?" he asked shortly. "Did the director even tell you?"

"Unfortunately, no, he didn't tell me," Blaine answered carefully. "But I assume that was what I was sent here to do. Here, let me find a light." He started sweeping his light across the room to try to find the light switch.

"No need," Kurt said, somewhere in the middle of the darkness. A small halo of light flickered on, and the few feet around them were bathed in a vintage haze. Kurt stood by a single light bulb resting on top of a metal stand.

"So yeah, training," Blaine said, approaching Kurt. "Hand to hand combat."

"No need to teach me, Blaine," Kurt said, circling the light bulb slowly. "I think I've got all the basics down."

"Do you really?" Blaine asked, trailing behind Kurt. The warmth settled on his skin, but on Kurt's it seemed to burrow into it.

"Oh yes, yes," Kurt replied, his lips curving upwards. Blaine didn't know if he realized what he was doing, but it was sexy.

"We'll see about that." Blaine moved quickly, dropping down and rolling outside the ring of light. He crept closer to Kurt, but Kurt seemed to know what he was doing. He leaped out into the darkness too, the brief outline of him that Blaine could see standing vigilantly, waiting.

After a moment's deliberation, Blaine sprung and up and went to bring a kick to Kurt's stomach. Kurt quickly dived out of the way, leaving Blaine in the filmy light and Kurt sneaking through the unknown. Blaine dove back into the darkness as well, but didn't stay still as Kurt did. He crouched low to the ground, his hands and knees making little noise noise as he crawled closer to the sound of Kurt's faint footsteps, echoing somewhere across the room. He neared his target, and he launched up and tackled Kurt to the ground. They both landed back in the warmth, Kurt looking frazzled, but a firm determination pitting in his eyes. Blaine stayed a little too long leaning over him, looking at that grit resting so easily on him. It was a few moments before he remembered where he was.

"Hand to hand combat, Kurt," he whispered to him, "not running away."

He offered him a hand and helped him up, but once he was up, he didn't let go of his wrists.

"Do you know how to escape from a wrist grab?" Blaine asked him, kindly yet firmly.

Kurt brought his free hand up to slap him in the face, and Blaine released his grip to redirect Kurt's attack towards the ground.

"Well, that works," Blaine said, circling Kurt. "But it's not exactly foolproof."

He walked in front of Kurt, looking him in the eyes. Calculatedly, he threw a punch. He never meant to connect it, only to keep Kurt on his guard.

Kurt's eyes widened, but he quickly opened his hand and thrust it forward to push his fist off its line of attack.

"Good," Blaine said, "But get into fighting stance."

Kurt stepped his right foot behind him and brought his left arm with a fist in front of his face, and brought his right arm up, slightly lower.

"Block my punches and try to throw some of your own."

Blaine threw a right hook again, and this time Kurt brought his left arm up to block it, and then went to jab his right arm at Blaine. But Blaine was already anticipating his counter attack, and he jumped back into the darkness. Kurt was left waiting in fighting stance, bouncing slightly on his heels.

"Hey!" he called out to Blaine. "That isn't fair!"

"Oh, but it is," Blaine said to himself. Smiling, he crept up behind Kurt, whose back was still turned towards the dark.

"Boo!" he yelled, causing Kurt to yell briefly and whip around to see him.

"Don't ever do that again!" Kurt yelled exasperatedly, slapping him repeatedly across his shoulder. "I can't fight my enemy when I can't see him!"

"Hmm," Blaine said, looking at Kurt closely. "You can't fight your enemy when you can't see him."

"What?" Kurt asked. His tone was curious. "Where are you going with this?"

"The person who always wins in a battle has to realize that his foremost enemy is always himself."

"That just seems counterintuitive," Kurt replied.

"It seems like that at first," Blaine responded, pacing the length of the halo. "But you always have control over what you do. Whether it's physical or anything else, even when you don't have control, you have control."

"Blaine…" Kurt trailed off.

"You have control, Kurt," Blaine said, taking a hold of Kurt's shoulders. At first Kurt tensed up, expecting another attack, but he very quickly relaxed into the touch once it was proven to be gentle. "You have control, I have control."

The warmth of the light beat down on both of them.

Blaine removed his hands from Kurt's shoulders, rubbing them absentmindedly. "I like you, Kurt."

Kurt started edging outside of the circle. "Blaine…"

"No, listen. At least let me say it, okay?"

Kurt stopped on the border.

"I like you a lot, and am I wrong to think that you like me too?"

Kurt stood stock still. "I…I…"

Blaine looked on hopefully.

"I… yes. I do."

Blaine advanced quickly, and soon he was within kissing distance of Kurt. He stared unabashedly at his lips, deliberately moving his eyes up slowly to meet Kurt's.

Kurt seemed to visibly be trying to steady himself under Blaine's gaze.

"But this can't happen right now, Blaine," he said warningly. "This can't happen right now."

"Why not?" Blaine asked. "Why?"

"Because it just can't, I'm not ready," Kurt said, looking like he was trying to shrink into himself.

Blaine wanted badly, for just a moment, to release his inhibitions, to prove Kurt wrong. To grab him in his arms and kiss him. But the animal desire was gone within a second, and Kurt's cautious stance in front of him was brought back to his mind again. Reluctantly, he kept his desires wounded tight within himself. Looking up brightly at Kurt, he asked, "Can I kiss your hand then?"

Kurt laughed but nodded assent, and Blaine took up his hand and lightly impressed his lips upon them.

"I still very much like you, Kurt Hummel."

Kurt smiled warmly at him, and Blaine saw it as an affirmation. That it was okay to continue doing this. That Kurt wasn't going to be afraid of him. He moved back, closer to the lone light bulb, and he beckoned for Kurt to come closer.

"Arms up, back to fighting stance," he told him reluctantly. Kurt looked reluctant to do it too, fidgeting with his hands at his side. He took half a moment to study Blaine, and Blaine made sure to really look back, focusing his entire being on standing tall and sincere in front of his eyes. Kurt kept his stare on him for a few moments, and then looked away. He raised his arms, he set back his feet. They were back to familiar, emotionally clean territory.

But this time, Kurt was the first to throw a punch.

---

By 11 o clock, Blaine had gotten home and was ready to go to bed. He had just slipped into his pajamas, and he was about to go to brush his teeth when the doorbell rang.

Rubbing his fists in his eyes, he went to open his apartment door.

He was met by none other than Rachel.

"I'm sleeping here tonight," she said quickly, loudly, unfolding the blanket she was carrying tucked underneath her arm. "Don't worry, I've already gone through all the hygiene procedures, and as you can see, I'm already changed into my pjs."

"Wha-" Blaine began, but Rachel wasted no time in cutting him off.

"-I've come here to inquire about your 'training' with Kurt." Her eyes looked wild with the amount of excitement they held. "How'd it go, huh?" She poked him in the arm, practically bouncing on her feet. "How'd it go?"

"It went fine, Rachel, where are you planning to-"

"The couch, Blaine. Don't worry, I've already thought this out."

"So you came to sleep over here just because you wanted to hear about what happened at this training with Kurt when I didn't even know Kurt was supposed to be coming?"

Rachel looked as if she were trying to bite back a smile, but Blaine knew her well enough to know that it was just for theatrical effect.

"Did you have some type of influence in this, Rachel?" he asked, already half knowing the answer.

"I may or may not have connections in the agency," Rachel replied. Blaine wasn't even surprised; he just nodded.

Blaine was silent for a few moments, hoping Rachel would deem it a lost cause and go home. But Rachel only looked at him eagerly, putting down her things and making herself at home on the couch.

"Fine," Blaine surrendered, "You want to know the whole story?"

She nodded, just as eager as she looked.

"Fine then," Blaine sighed, flopping down on the couch. "Join me for story time, then."

Rachel squeed and cozied up next to him.

"You know, you're also extraordinarily immature for being a secret agent, you know that?"

"It's a gift," Rachel responded. "Now tell me about you and Hummel!"

"Alright, alright," Blaine acquiesced. "I got there at 7, and all the lights were out…"

---

When Blaine woke up next day, he got up to look in the mirror and found a post it note stuck to his forehead.

"Woke up early to change into actual clothes and head off to the agency early. (You would think I would've remembered that I would've needed clothes for the next day when I demanded I sleep over, but apparently not.) So don't worry about me! See you later!

Xoxo Rachel"

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he laughed and stuck the post it note on his dresser, and changed into clothes to head off to work.

---

Once he got there, he was met with much the same situation as yesterday. Rachel came bouncing by him, perky to an ungodly degree, and warned him that the director would see him again.

Blaine just rolled his eyes.

But indeed, the director did call for him again, and he gave much the same vague instructions as yesterday: to come there again at 7 o' clock sharp. Blaine thought his mind was playing tricks on himself, but this time, when the director said it, he swore he could see the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Shaking off that ludicrous thought, he instead let his mind turn to Kurt, and how he was going to be seeing him tonight. And how Kurt couldn't escape it.

It was a horrible thought, he recognized, but at the same time it undeniably thrilled him. He was being given some sort of chance with Kurt, and no matter how much of it was due to the absurd meddling of his best friend, it was still a golden chance.

---

When he arrived at the agency this time, Kurt was already waiting, stationed beside the vintage light bulb and smiling when he arrived.

"You know, we could probably just turn the regular lights on," Blaine said when he entered, walking up to Kurt.

"No," Kurt answered, bringing a piercing gaze up to Blaine. "Wouldn't be as fun."

Blaine had to press back a smile.

"Has our dear director told you what we're supposed to be training for here today, or are we are on our own again?"

"I'm afraid we're on our own," Blaine answered, slightly confused at Kurt's tone. It could easily be misconstrued as flirty, and that was a dangerous path for him to let his mind go down.

"So do you have a plan?" Kurt asked, keeping his eyes on Blaine as he made his way over.

"Not really," Blaine admitted. "Anything you prefer to do?"

Kurt laughed. "Wrong question, Blaine.". He seemed to keep his entire being focused on him as he walked over, and as a result Blaine only walked slower and slower, heat building up in his limbs. He eventually reached a standstill a foot away from Kurt, and he stopped.

"I don't bite," Kurt promised, still regarding Blaine in a way that made him weak in the knees.

Cautiously, Blaine closed the distance between them. And when they were within touching distance, when he could see all the fine details of Kurt, Kurt latched onto him. Kurt latched on to him and pulled him into the darkness. Blaine was surprised, but he didn't pull away. He merely let the darkness allow him an opportunity to focus on the warmth that was Kurt's hand in his, a warmth completely separate from the light bulb in the center of the room.

They seemed to reach an edge of the room, and then Kurt stopped. He reached out to see if his hand would meet the wall, and it seemed it did. Kurt pulled them down to the ground, against the corner of the wall, and then they just sat there.

"Should I be asking what got into you…" Blaine trailed off, treading carefully so as to not do anything that would prompt Kurt to remove his hand from his.

"Maybe," Kurt allowed, "but I was going to tell you in a moment anyways."

Satisfied, Blaine sat silently. Kurt seemed to deliberate for a few moments, and then he began.

"I thought about what you said," he started. Blaine could feel his eyes on him now too, even though they were in pitch black darkness. "And I really do like you, Blaine. But I'm still not ready."

"So why the act?" Blaine asked.

"The act? It's not an act! I really do like you."

"So what's the 'but'?" Blaine countered immediately. "What is it?"

He felt Kurt's eyes move away from him; he felt them focus on the floor. "The 'but' is… the 'but' is that I don't think I'll ever be ready for it."

"I hate saying that," he added immediately, "but I think it's true."

"You'll never be ready for me?" Blaine asked exasperatedly. "Me? Ready for me?"

"Why do you act so surprised?" Kurt squeezed his hand. "Yes, you. And look, I'm still holding your hand, so the news isn't entirely bad."

"But… I'm nothing to be ready for, don't you understand?"

"Blaine Anderson," Kurt said, pulling him so that he was now sitting front of Kurt, their hands still intertwined. "Please don't say that."

Blaine felt oddly warm when he spoke. "But it's true. I'm good here because it's easy to hide my emotions here. It's almost required, you know. And I've been forward, and that's my fault, but only after you came to my aid in my last mission. I would've never done anything had you not started it. Don't you see? I'm a coward playing that I'm a hero, but it patches the wounds well enough that it's easy to ignore that's true."

"And that's all it is, Blaine, playing. This isn't real; it's too ludicrous to be real. We'd have to be insane to put ourselves in the danger that we do."

"So why do we do it?" Blaine asked him.

"Maybe we are certifiably insane," Kurt joked. "Maybe they test for it before we're allowed to sign up."

Blaine smiled, then adopted a serious tone. "Or maybe they check for other things."

"Like?" Kurt prompted.

"Like a fear for everything else. Like love, and intimacy. Maybe they check that we've been damaged, because it's easy to use that rage to fuel what we do."

"That's extraordinarily pessimistic," Kurt commented, but didn't say anything else.

"I'm just fed up sometimes that this is my life."

"But it's glamorous," Kurt said, jokingly. "Right?"

"Right," he said, and gave Kurt's hand a squeeze. "So is this it? Is this you telling me to back off, because you can't be with me?"

Kurt was silent for a few moments. Blaine marveled at the silence. There was somehow a way that they could both be in silence like this, and still know each other's thoughts. They didn't have to be loud to be heard here. They were by themselves, and they were completely silent, yet they were hearing each other in ways that they never did when they were talking.

Blaine heard movement, and suddenly the trance was broken. Kurt's lips were on his neck, pin pricks of poignant ache, and all Blaine could do was sit there, stunned.

The silent communication was gone, but something else was quaking within him. A purely physically communication, one he wanted to respond to with the less sophisticated parts of his body.

Kurt's lips were going up, sucking hard but not hard enough to give him a hickey. And then they were at his jaw, and they were pressing there, and Blaine could barely think, because why was this happening? This isn't explaining Kurt's change of heart! And still his lips were everywhere except where Blaine wanted them to be, on his, and the sensation was so wanted yet strangely throbbing that he was overwhelmed.

They were by his ear, whispering. Kurt was saying that he really liked Blaine, that he didn't want them to close off their possibility.

Only for now, they said in between the lines. Because I'm not ready.

But you said you're never going to be ready, Blaine thought, but then Kurt's lips were right by his, and then they were barely touching them, and Blaine wanted to turn his head so badly so that they would meet and crash together and so that it could feel so right, so that he could quell this strange ache in his stomach.

But Kurt pulled away before he could do so.

"Just give me time, okay?" he said, breathing shallowly.

Blaine nodded.

Kurt took a deep breath.

"I guess we should train, huh?"

"Right…" Blaine answered, propping himself up and offering a hand to Kurt. "I, uh, I'll think of something we can do."

"Well, I think my hand to hand combat skills are still sorely subpar," Kurt said, again almost flirty.

"Okay," Blaine said, pulling Kurt back towards the light bulb. "We can work on that."

---

Another day, another chance for time alone with Kurt. That was what Blaine thought of the days now.

The director continued to come up to him, saying the same thing every time, arranging the same type of meeting, same type of training. Even though Blaine still wasn't sure how Rachel had this type of influence to get this to happen, time and time again, he didn't take it for granted.

Or maybe the director knew what he and Kurt were doing with their time alone in the dark, and he had his own feelings towards them together.

Blaine laughed at himself, and pushed the thought out of his head.

---

"We do all this kissing, Kurt," Blaine said one day, as Kurt was leaning his head against his shoulder. They were again in their corner of darkness, communicating in the safest way they knew how. By not. "But we've never really kissed each other."

"What do you mean?" he asked, languidly, at ease.

"You've kissed me on my neck, on my jaw, on my arms, on my shoulder… but never on my mouth."

Kurt didn't answer.

"Why is that?" Blaine pressed further, feeling Kurt tense up on his shoulder.

"I…"

"Please, Kurt, tell me, because I don't know what this is."

He hesitated for a few moments, and then spoke slowly. "It feels too final."

"Too… final?"

"It's easy to let myself slip into this when it's something like this. If we truly kiss, that's a sort of commitment I don't know if I'd be able to get myself out of."

"You'd want to get out of it?" Blaine asked, hurt.

"No," Kurt answered immediately. "And that's why I won't do it."

Blaine didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything at all, and Kurt didn't try to add anything either. They sat there silently, wrapped up in their thoughts, their communal thought process seeming to be broken.

And then Blaine suggested that they get back to the light, because who knows if the agency actually watched the footage of them "training", and not even attempting to do so could get them in trouble. So they did, and they forgot about all emotional entanglements, because it was all strategy and will power from that point on, all frigidity and steel.

Blaine kind of liked that about their arrangement, that they could snap back into the mode of detached whenever it got too much. But for as much as he liked it, he hated it ten times more. And for as much as he knew that he hated it himself, he wasn't sure what Kurt's feelings were about it. All he had to go off of were the frequencies of Kurt's body that he picked up in the dark, when his lips were bored or thrilled or when he squeezed his hand just a little too tight or when their physical contact wasn't enough for him anymore, when his body hummed with a want for something less superficial. For something a body couldn't achieve.

---

Kurt came up to Blaine the day after, with an uncharacteristically scared look on his face.

"Blaine," he said, taking his arm and pulling him aside. "There is talk around here that Bernardo has acquired a taste for vengeance… and that it's for us."

"He can't come after us, Kurt," Blaine answered assuredly. "We make enemies in this business; it's a part of it. But we're not going to get hurt, I promise you."

Kurt's grip relaxed on his arm. "You promise me?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation.

Kurt released Blaine's arm, and Blaine thought he would go as quickly as he came, but he stood there for a brief moment and chewed his lip. Then, in a sweeping motion, he brought Blaine into a short but tight hug.

"Thanks," Kurt whispered into his ear.

Blaine didn't know what to say, so he only hugged back tighter, his fingers scrambling for any purchase on Kurt's being. But Kurt quickly pulled away, and Blaine's fingers slipped in defeat.

But if the way Kurt held him was defeat, he was willing to accept it every day as his sentence.

---

Later that day Kurt came up to him again, again grasping him by his arm and pulling him aside.

"Let's go somewhere," Kurt said quickly, the space between them minimal and insignificant. "After we get out today, can we go somewhere?"

"Sure," Blaine said. He scolded himself for being so eager. "Sure."

"I figured," Kurt said, smiling slightly to himself, "that after all I've done to lead you on during our training sessions, we should go out on a real date sometime."

"Anything you have in mind, Agent Hummel? What's your idea of the perfect date night?"

Kurt didn't deliberate for a second. "As much as I'd love to go out, I sort of just want something intimate."

Blaine's breath caught. "My house then?" he asked. "My house?"

Kurt's smile curved up wider. "Sounds great."

He briefly touched Blaine on the shoulder. "I'll be looking forward to it," he added sincerely. "And I promise you I really mean that."

Blaine didn't respond, only smiled in response, and Kurt smiled back.

Blaine couldn't help but notice the way Kurt's face looked when he was expressing affection though. It was something he had never seen in the training sessions; it was radiant.

---

The doorbell rang, and Blaine froze.

Oh god.

He's here.

Quickly pulling out the lemon spice cookies he had baked and setting them on the kitchen table, he ran to answer the door.

And there Kurt stood, a bouquet of red and yellow roses in his hand.

"I felt really bad," Kurt said as way of explanation, waving the flowers. "I haven't been being much of myself lately."

"Nonsense," Blaine returned, taking the flowers and burying his nose into them. "These are beautiful."

Kurt blushed, and looked up through his eyelashes at Blaine.

"I…" he seemed to try to say something, but snapped his mouth shut. He instead pulled Blaine into another tight hug. "Thank you so much," he whispered into Blaine's ear. "I really owe you an explanation. But first, I smell cookies, so I'm going to go ahead and let go of you now and follow the scent."

Blaine laughed, and Kurt made his way over to the freshly baked cookies. Picking one up and taking a bite out of it, he walked back over to Blaine.

"You are trying to ruin my figure, Blaine Anderson, but I'll let it pass this time because these are delicious."

They laughed, but Blaine could hear the nervousness in Kurt's.

"What's wrong, Kurt?"

Kurt shook his head. "I just… I really do want to have a date with you, and I came here for that very intention, and now I'm being stupid and talking about cookies and figures and distracting from what I came over here to tell you."

Blaine's muscles tensed. "That sounds like bad news…" he trailed off.

"I promise it's not," Kurt assured him. Blaine was momentarily relieved, but then he saw that Kurt's lips hadn't stretched into a smile. "Okay, I'll just say it." He closed his eyes, and Blaine could see his fingers tightening on the edge of the table. It was a tense count to three in his head, and then he burst out with it. "You're imperfect and I'm sorry if you take this the wrong way but that's so perfect that I'm having trouble believing it's real."

He held his breath for a few more moments, then released it and opened his eyes to see how Blaine reacted. Blaine tried not to give away much of a reaction, because the initial choice of words bothered him, but he came closer and stood just inches from Kurt.

"Imperfect?" he said gently, right into Kurt's breathing space. Kurt looked like he wanted to inhale Blaine's words, but there was a barrier webbing across his mind that prevented him from doing so.

"Yes," Kurt answered. "You're not perfect. And I appreciate that so much, because all anyone ever tried to give me was perfection."

"But I want to be perfect for you, Kurt," Blaine said sadly, studying Kurt's features. They were angled and long in the most beautiful way, and certainly not conventionally "perfect". Yet he couldn't imagine them any other way, and he had the strongest urge to reach out and touch them, and feel their imperfections for himself. As he looked, he thought he began to understand what Kurt was saying.

Kurt smiled. "I know," he said. "And I can see how badly you try to be perfect for everyone. And for me too, since I'm a part of everyone." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes warmly benevolent, and an understanding started to appear on his face. "But you weren't afraid to let your guard down around me, Blaine. You weren't always trying to be that paragon of a person around me. You weren't trying to be anything."

Blaine brought his hand up to Kurt's cheek.

Kurt brought a hand up to Blaine's, and leaned into his touch. "You gave me the gift of being yourself, you know, and I get the impression that you don't give that to many other people."

Blaine didn't say anything, only stared at him with the stupidest, sweetest sentiments in his head, sweet and salty and suddenly red, red with desire.

"So I think you deserve to know me too," Kurt finished, "and I think you deserve that I'm not afraid of you anymore."

"It's okay," Blaine whispered, "This is terrifying in the best way possible."

"Love?" Kurt answered, looping his arms around Blaine's neck. "Yes, it's the most frightening thing I've ever had to encounter, and my crazy brain keeps clamoring for it, over and over again. It's the best thing it's cursed me with yet."

"An alluring curse, huh?" Blaine asked, leaning closer to Kurt. "Does that make me your beautiful disaster?"

"Mmmhm," Kurt agreed. "We're all disasters here, and that's the best part about it. That our disasters meld together so well."

They looked at each other, each wanting to move forward, neither closing the space between them.

"This feels dangerous," Blaine said after a while. "Don't you feel it too?"

"The thrill?" Kurt asked, with a wicked smile on his face. "Yes," he admitted, his countenance shifting to guilty in a moment's time. "And it scares me most of all."

"Guns and bullets and strategy, and we can't handle this." Blaine laughed. "This is pathetic."

"Oh come, we don't know that yet!" Kurt responded. "We'll just have to see."

And with that he laughed with colored abandon, a freedom in his chest that he hadn't felt for the longest time, and he pulled Blaine forward to kiss him, smashing their mouths together freely. Blaine gasped into the kiss, all the sensations of this feeling which he had been waiting for too long to feel, the curve and the texture and the bowing touch of his lips on his, of him, suddenly rushing at him, his hands coming up to Kurt's hair and latching in it, and holding on tight. He pulled him tighter, shoving them further together, until the space between them was nothing but a philosophical thing of the past, and he waited, counting to ten, twenty, thirty in his head, waiting for Kurt to pull away, but he never did. He had to laugh to break the string of kisses, startling Kurt out of the moment.

"God you're a great kisser," Kurt said, as soon as they had pulled apart.

Blaine giggled, breathless, in response.

The moment was broken as the doorbell rang. Blaine grabbed Kurt's hand, and he dragged him behind him as he went to go answer it.

He wasn't the least surprised to open it to find Rachel standing there, the smart look on her face slacking into amazement as she took in the situation.

It only took her a moment to capitalize on the moment. "I knew it!" she said, pointing her finger at them both alternatively. "I knew it I knew it!"

"Oh great," Blaine whispered to Kurt. "She is going to continue like this forever if we don't stop her."

"You have a lot to tell me, Anderson. And you too, Hummel!" she continued, looking at them accusatorily.

"We will tell all, Rachel, if you just calm down," Kurt said amusedly, grabbing her by the arm and sitting her down by the couch.

Rachel threw down the extra change of clothes and the blanket she brought, letting herself be pulled by Kurt.

"Well come on, Blaine, we have a story to tell!" Kurt said, winking at him over Rachel's head. "I don't want to tell this story alone!"

Shaking his head, Blaine joined them on the couch.

"Wait, I'll get the cookies!" Kurt said suddenly, jumping up and running to the kitchen area.

While he was gone, Rachel squeezed Blaine's arm. "This is all because of me," she whispered self-assuredly, "and I could not be happier with my results."

"Oh my god, you can add stuck up to the list of things that you are when you're not on the job too."

Rachel only beamed at him, and Blaine beamed back.

"This is still all attributed to me."

Blaine groaned. "You are ridiculous."

---

Kurt left a few hours later, after all had been recounted, and pleasantries (and more-than-pleasantries) had been exchanged. Laughing, he grabbed Blaine and pulled him into a hug, whispering sweet nothings into his ear.

Blaine stole a kiss on his cheek, and then showed him out, looking after him as he walked away.

Kurt started to walk away, but after a few moments he stopped. He looked over his shoulder and bit his lip. "See you tomorrow Blaine."

Blaine nodded in response, trying to repress his smile.

---

Blaine thought he shouldn't have been so surprised when Kurt didn't come in the next day.

After all, this was how his life went, time after time.

Why did he let himself believe it could be different?

---

Rachel came up to Blaine as soon as he walked into work that day.

"Why isn't Hummel on your arm?" she asked jokingly. "You are wasting a very good opportunity here to show everyone of your new inter-personal developments!"

"Rachel," Blaine said quietly, "he didn't come in with me."

Rachel was taken aback for a moment. "He hasn't come in here yet by himself though. I assumed he'd come with you."

"He didn't," Blaine answered. "He didn't."

Rachel was concerned, but she looked as if she were trying to tamp it down.

"Okay… we'll just… we'll just wait. This'll all be okay."

"Sure," Blaine answered. "It'll all be just great."

---

Kidnapped, Blaine was told later. Kurt had been kidnapped.

"By who?" Blaine had asked the director, when he was told. "And why?"

The director sighed.

"Bernardo. And really, did you not see this coming? He saw a weakness, and he took advantage of it."

Blaine shook his head violently.

"God, I should've never let this happen."

"It's not your fault," the director consoled him. "You aren't going to be blamed for having emotions."

"It's just not advised, is it?" he asked bitterly.

"Not necessarily, just not in your advantage."

Blaine nodded, biting on his lower lip harshly. His eyes flashed dark for a moment, and then his normal composition returned.

"I need to punch something," he said suddenly.

The director only gestured towards a hallway.

"You know where the punching bags are," he said. "Help yourself."

He walked off, trying hard not to stalk.

He suddenly whirled around. "Are we not going to try to get him?" he yelled over his shoulder, stopping. "Is that even in consideration?"

His question was met with silence.

---

It was while he was punching that the fears crowded in.

Images of torture, of violence and blood and vile discomfort, of Kurt's face and tears streaked down his neck, of Bernardo's dirty hands grasping it and Kurt's struggle for breath. He didn't know what Bernardo's mission was, what his purpose was, so he couldn't determine his actions. He had no motive to base it off of. Other than Kurt telling them their plan, what was Bernardo trying to do?

Blaine didn't know, he didn't care, he only saw Kurt's pained face flash before his eyes every time his fists hit rubber. It hurt, the pain vibrated through him, and the hurt felt wonderful. He wanted Kurt back badly, not just cravings for the flesh, but for him. Blaine had always known that his crush on Kurt wasn't a passing thing, but he had never known that it could affect him this much.

He didn't know, he didn't care, he didn't want to make sense of this feeling ripping through him.

He needed Kurt back, he needed to guarantee his safety.

He was playing right into Bernardo's hands.

He didn't care.

---

It turned out that this was unnecessary, as Kurt turned up again at work tomorrow without any sign of harm, or even discomfort.

"Kurt," Blaine sighed, coming up to him. "Kurt, I was so worried about you."

Kurt only walked on.

"Kurt?" he said again, following him, watching the way his gait was so rigid, so defined. "What happened?"

"Truth," Kurt responded, turning around. His eyes looked frozen; he looked straight through Blaine. "He showed me the truth."

"What the hell? What truth?"

"About all of this," Kurt recited. "I'm glad you guys didn't try to come to get me back, because it would've been useless. I see this all now as it is."

"And how is that?" Blaine responded, exasperated. "What is all of this?"

"Lies and deception. And I can't be a part of it anymore."

"You can't just leave like that," Blaine said, attempting to hold onto his arm. "You can't."

Kurt flinched from his touch. "It's alright, Blaine," he said, strangely gentle for a moment. "It'll all be okay."

"No it won't, Kurt. They've obviously messed with your mind, and I know I'm only scratching the surface of whatever they've done to you. What's really happening, Kurt? What?"

"I can't tell you," Kurt answered immediately. "I can't be a part of this, and I want to leave so badly, but I have to stay."

"To gather our secrets," Blaine said, nodding morbidly. "He wants you to send him information you can only get by working here."

"I have no affiliation with whomever you speak of," Kurt answered. He winked, but the stiffness still streaked across his eyes.

"But you're staying?" Blaine asked weakly.

"Unfortunately."

"Good. There's hope for you yet."

"Don't give me any of that bullshit," Kurt retorted, and began to walk away. A few moments later, he turned around. "There's never been any hope for me in the first place."

Pacing quickly across the room, he left.

It was only after Kurt walked away that Blaine realized the other option: that Bernardo had taken him to take DNA. Which meant he could be trying to clone Kurt.

The consequences of that couldn't be good.

---

Blaine returned home that day, and he couldn't think. This was different from a fear that turned out to be unfounded. This was real. There was something seriously wrong here.

And Blaine couldn't let Kurt be taken advantage of.

Quickly dialing up Rachel, he asked her for the address of where Kurt lived.

Again, Blaine wasn't surprised that Rachel somehow knew Kurt's address; he was just surprised by how serious she was when she answered the phone call. Even with her sentimental piece of advice ("Bring him a rose, Blaine. Like the ones he brought you. A single yellow rose."), she sounded… hollow.

"Thanks, Rachel," he responded, and then was off to find Kurt's apartment.

---

Kurt owned an apartment on the first floor of the building he stayed at, where someone had dropped a trail of yellow and red roses up the short path to the lobby. Blaine laughed; Rachel was nothing but thorough.

The lobby was relatively crowded when he walked in, but Blaine could feel the eyes of the lady behind the front desk on him, so he reluctantly went up to her.

"Do you know where I can find a Kurt Hummel?" he asked, holding up the single rose. "I have a gift."

"Ah, a young suitor," the lady responded, dryly. "How charming."

Blaine tightened his smile, trying not to snap at the lady. "Well?"

The lady sighed. "I would tell you, but I have a feeling you already know which room he's in. You seem the type."

Blaine sighed. "Thank you, I'll be on my way." He turned on his heel and started heading to the room.

Behind him, the lady called out, "Be careful! Your lover seems to be in a bad mood today."

Blaine only quickened his pace.

---

He fiddled with the rose in his hand idly.

Should he knock on the door? Or should he just leave this? He was almost sure Kurt wouldn't even let him in, let alone let him talk to him. Not when he was under whatever state Bernardo had put him in. He was just as likely to strangle his throat as let him in for a romantic evening, set to the backdrop of a city brush stroke of stars.

But then he remembered the fear that made his knuckles bleed on the punching bags, and the feeling of being taken advantage of.

He knew what being taken advantage of was like.

He wouldn't let it happen to Kurt.

Tentatively, Blaine knocked the door, and then took a step back, lowering his head to concentrate on the rose burning yellow in his hand.

Kurt opened the door, eyes seeming shrunken.

"I brought this to you," Blaine said, trying to project his voice, but still concentrating on the rose in his hand. "Remember?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes," Kurt replied, clipped. "But you know I can't take it."

"But it's just like you," Blaine said. "It's thorned and jagged, but beautiful."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

Blaine swore quietly underneath his breath. "Listen to me, okay?" he said, taking a hold of Kurt's shoulders. Kurt seemed to freeze under his touch. "Just listen to me!"

Kurt brought his hand up to remove Blaine's grip. He seemed ready to remove it, but on a quick decision decided to lace his fingers with Blaine's instead. Blaine began to smile.

"Kurt? Are you there?"

Kurt looked like he wanted to move forward, but he planted his feet where they were. "I know what you're going to say, alright?" he answered harshly. "So don't say it."

Blaine paused, confused, but felt a tiny squeeze on his hand, and he understood.

Kurt allowed himself a moment of clarity; he allowed Blaine to see that all this was only an act. There was a slight nod of Blaine's head, so he made himself put his mask up again, and he threw Blaine's hands off of him.

"Can't do it!" he repeated again. "I can't listen to you, Blaine!"

His posture was rigid, but Blaine saw the soft bowing of his spine, the gravitational inclination towards a mutual touch. He saw the craving residing in his fingertips, just as it resided in his. The stony form of his body meant nothing; he saw through its act. He knew what Kurt was trying to do.

Protect both of them.

Kurt's posture screamed that they were being watched.

"Fine!" Blaine yelled back, exasperated. "Just take your damn rose and I'll leave!"

Kurt yanked the rose out of his hand, pricking himself on a thorn.

"And I thought I had built up enough walls around me to stop myself from getting hurt," he whispered, turning to the side. But there was a ghost of a smile on his lips, and for a moment he stole a glance at Blaine.

Blaine returned it, trying hard not to let emotion into his gaze. He could hear what Kurt wasn't saying for fear of being overheard, what was in between the lines: "But you broke down those walls, and I don't even care that I'm vulnerable."

Kurt slammed the door shut, but Blaine wasn't worried.

Bernardo could make Kurt talk to Blaine whichever way he wanted, but he couldn't take away the one form of communication they had already built up between them.

Kurt and Blaine didn't always need words to talk with each other, because they knew each other well enough to talk with the one thing that their enemies couldn't take away: their hearts.

---

Blaine sat on his worn leather couch, in his apartment. He cradled a phone to his ear.

The dial tone beeped, and Blaine took a drink of wine before he started recorded his message.

"Rachel," Blaine started, trying to control the desperation in his voice. "Listen, I think something bad's going to happen at the agency tomorrow, so don't come in when you're supposed to, okay? Come in late. I have a feeling Bernardo's going to try to take his revenge, and it's going to be there since he hasn't done it already. Just come in late, okay? He should have done whatever he was planning to do to detain the rest of the agency by that time, and you should be able to get through. I can't explain it all right now. Thanks, you're the best."

He ended the call.

---

Kurt came into work the next day as expected, and that was when Blaine knew that something really was going to go wrong.

Blaine figured that had someone really been watching them yesterday, they would've either came after Blaine the moment they had him unprotected by the agency, or planned something worse.

Watching Kurt walk in that day, posture still as depravedly straight as yesterday, he knew that it was "something worse". And he knew that it really was going to happen here.

Kurt came up to him, eyes searching.

"We're wanted for another training exercise," he imparted shortly, then walked away.

Blaine followed, trying hard not to focus on Kurt's ass as he walked in front of him. After all, something really bad was about to happen, and he was concentrating on his boyfriend's ass.

They walked down a fairly long hallway, and then took a right turn into another one. Kurt stopped at the third door on their left, and then gestured for Blaine to go in first.

Blaine gulped. This was the room where they trained their shot. Where there were many, many guns.

And also targets, although he was sure that those wouldn't be needed, considering they were the targets.

Sucking in his breath, he pushed the door open, and walked in.

He was greeted by the familiar silver steel walls of all training rooms, and a long table that almost stretched the length of the entire room. On the table laid an entire array of guns that matched the color of the wall, covering it completely from one end to another. They were heaped on top of each other lazily, as if they wouldn't be needed, as if they were only there for show. The targets that were normally in the room were gone.

"Kurt?" Blaine called out behind him. "What's the exercise?"

Kurt's detached nature faulted for a moment. "I really don't know."

He walked up to Blaine, standing as close to him as he dared. They both looked around. They both saw and heard nothing.

Then there was a sudden bang that pierced the silence, and Kurt and Blaine both turned around.

There, standing in the entrance of the door that had been slammed against the wall, was an exact clone of Kurt Hummel, but with eyes wild and fleeting, and hands grasping at thin air at his sides.

"I knew it," Blaine muttered under his breath, and instinctively ran to place himself in front of Kurt.

The clone of Kurt looked once at Blaine, eyes alight with twisted passion, and laughed once. It hung in the air.

"I'm not the Kurt you know," he snarled, "but you won't be able to resist me either way."

He laughed again, and then ran the length of the room, towards Blaine. Blaine steeled himself, preparing for the impact.

But the clone did not carry any weapon in his hands, and Blaine realized too late what would be his weapon.

A detached heart.

When the clone reached Blaine, he threw himself at him, knocking him to the ground. He crowded up right in front of Blaine's face, and his perfectly pink lips hovered right above Blaine's. Blaine started to search him, trying to find differences from Kurt, trying to remind himself that this wasn't real.

He started panicking, but then he looked into the clone's eyes. They were swimming with jealousy, because Blaine wasn't his. And then Blaine had the thing he needed to stay tethered to reality.

"Love me," it said simply, looking Blaine straight in the eye. "No one's here, no one's going to see us. And you've been waiting so long for a confirmation that he won't give you. But I will. So love me."

"No," Blaine answered firmly. "You're not Kurt. I know Kurt. And I know you're not him."

"Ah, but do you really?" the clone said, his eyes no longer wild but soft, and looking too much like the Kurt's that he knew by the second. He kept recalling the jealousy there before, trying to make these familiar eyes morph into those. "I don't think you do."

He kissed him, rough and passionate. Blaine caught himself relaxing into the kiss for the briefest of moments, and he shoved the clone off of him.

"You're not Kurt!" he repeated. "You're not him! You're not the real person!"

Kurt had backed up far behind both of them in order to avoid the impact of their fall. He was now standing rigidly at the back of the room, silently clenching and unclenching his hands. He watched the way the clone was all over Blaine, hands grasping him too tightly where he should've been holding him, eyes burning into him and body crouched over him the way he was meant to be. But he only took cool breaths and focused on clenching and unclenching his hands. Trying to run up and help was exactly what it wanted. Blaine had trusted him this entire time. He had to trust Blaine.

Blaine pushed the clone off him again, propping himself up off the floor and staring at it firmly. Flinching, but otherwise determined, he brought up his hand and slapped it hard in the face.

The clone brought a hand up to the sting, and Blaine took that moment to run back to Kurt.

Kurt immediately relaxed his aching muscles, and wrapped his arms around Blaine.

"You're right," he whispered into his ear, "You do know me, and you know that that's not me."

Kurt's touch kept Blaine grounded in reality, especially as the clone looked at him again with his far too similar eyes. Kurt, behind him, withdrew his arms, and ran to the table to pick up a gun. Blaine didn't know if the guns on the table were even loaded, but before he could voice that concern, Kurt had come back and wrapped his arm around Blaine' side again, pointing the gun at the clone's head with his free hand.

"What's your play?" Kurt asked it, his voice shaking despite his attempts to steady it. "You're not doing anything, and I doubt Bernardo sent you to only make me mad with jealousy. What were you supposed to do? Make me so jealous that I went and shot myself? That wasn't going to work."

"No," the clone answered. "You're right, that wasn't what I was sent here for."

"Then what?" Kurt asked again, tightening his grip on Blaine. "What?"

"You know why I'm here," the clone answered, walking up to Kurt. "I'm here to talk to you."

"To me?" Kurt asked, exasperated. "If Bernardo wanted to do something to me, he would've done it the day he took me. So if you want to talk, tell me this. Why didn't he do anything? Why'd he just let me come back?"

It looked ready to answer, but another familiar voice cut it off before it could.

"Because," Bernardo said as he leisurely strolled through the door, "I wanted to be here to see you killed myself. And to see you killed by… well, literally yourself."

Blaine groaned. "Are you serious? You're just... walking in?" He sighed. "Why is no one noticing we're missing? Why is no one watching this room? Why in the world is nobody noticing?"

"Dear Blaine," Bernardo admonished. "Did you really think I wouldn't think this through? I'm disappointed."

"So you've either got it so no one notices we're gone" Kurt asked, "Or you've got everyone locked up somewhere?"

Bernardo nodded. The Kurt clone beside him twitched.

"This clone will do whatever I tell it to," Bernardo said casually, waving a hand at it. "If I can't make it have your personality, Kurt, I can make it do whatever I want. I created my own person that will listen to me. It just looks like someone else."

Kurt tightened his grip around Blaine's side. "You're sick."

"Perhaps," Bernardo allowed. "Perhaps. But now you know about my dirty little secret, so you have to go."

The clone started to walk towards them, but Kurt only shook his head, staring at Bernardo.

"You see," Kurt said, smiling at him, "I think you're missing something. The clone doesn't have all of my personality, but it's got to have some."

Blaine looked at Kurt as he talked, and he saw the fiery vengeance in his eyes. And it was hot.

He had to scold himself again for thinking inappropriate things while they were in mortal danger.

"And I know," Kurt continued, "I know myself. Despite what the clone was trying to convince Blaine, I do know myself. And I saw the look in his eyes when he saw Blaine with me. He was jealous, Bernardo, and that's what told me that the clone still has some aspects of my personality. It was jealous that Blaine wasn't his."

Bernardo only shook his head. "Silly child," he said. "That observation will get you nowhere."

"Oh really?" Kurt questioned, staring right at Bernardo, challenging him. "Because I don't think so."

He stared at Bernardo a little while longer, and then he kissed Blaine fully on the mouth. It was only their second time they had done that, but this time it was more passionate than even their first. Blaine could taste the fear stagnant on Kurt's lips, the fear that they were going to die, that whatever he was planning wasn't going to work, that he was making the wrong decision. That his detachment was forever gone again, that he could never back out of this if he wanted to. Blaine tasted the fear and the agony and the confusion, but also the bitter joy. The joy that he had accepted this. That someone felt this way for him. He felt Kurt's trembling arms winded around him, the gun he carried from earlier clutched tightly in his top hand. He heard the sound of the footsteps of the clone running wildly at him, aiming to tear him away from Kurt's unnaturally tight grasp, but Blaine didn't tense. He knew Kurt had a plan, so he didn't tense.

For a moment Blaine stole a glance at Kurt. He had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, so utterly, completely shut. Blaine closed his eyes again, falling back into their kiss.

Suddenly, Kurt broke away.

He aimed quickly.

He shot.

But Blaine somehow had a feeling that he hadn't shot directly at the clone.

Kurt let out his breath, and then laughed, exasperatedly. He gave Blaine a quick peck on the lips, and then ran towards the clone, who had fallen to the ground in order to avoid his shot. Just as Blaine had thought, Kurt had shot at the wall behind him, but had aimed close enough to the clone that it had had to take evasive action.

Blaine ran behind him, and they both took the clone's arms behind its back, detaining it.

Bernardo looked at them curiously for a minute, then shrugged and pulled out his own gun.

"No matter," he said nonchalantly. "I guess I'll just have to kill you both myself."

Blaine saw fear strike Kurt again, but Blaine quietly reassured him. "We'll be alright," he said, looking at him meaningfully. "I have no idea what's going to happen next," he emphasized, and Kurt seemed to have gotten it, "but we'll be alright. We can detain him."

Kurt nodded. He let go of the clone and ran towards Bernardo, engaging him by shooting by him but not at him, and Blaine prayed for Rachel to have done what he asked.

Blaine had to dodge a few shots, but overall, he worked at keeping himself cool and relaxed. Rachel was going to show up; Rachel had to show up.

Kurt kept throwing glances back at Blaine for the first few minutes, but Blaine saw him eventually steel himself and focus on the task at hand; he saw him push all doubt out of his mind.

Blaine counted up numbers in his head.

Kurt had by now wrestled the gun out of Bernardo's grasp, and now he was only throwing haphazard punches at Kurt, which Kurt was able to dodge effectively, and land ones of his own.

Blaine couldn't help but smile, since that was because of his teaching.

Bernardo tried to throw a punch at Kurt's eye.

Kurt deflected it.

Rachel still wasn't here.

He tried to kick Kurt's legs out from under him.

It didn't work.

He had successfully brought Kurt to the ground.

Kurt could handle it.

He was beginning to get anxious, but when he looked over to Kurt, he saw his raw concentration on what was in front of him. Kurt trusted him completely, Blaine realized. He was putting blind trust in him.

Just when Blaine was afraid that trust was going to be unmerited, the lock of the door began to rattle, and then the door opened. Rachel came running through the door, her gun held extended out in front of her.

"Sorry it took me so long, Blainers," she said, winking at him. "Didn't want to keep you and your boyfriend in the threat of grave danger, but there are just too many doors in this place!"

Blaine laughed. Kurt laughed. They all laughed, tiredly.

"Now let's finish this," Rachel said, running up besides Kurt and, together, capturing the struggling Bernardo and pushing him against the wall.

Rachel and Kurt taking Bernardo, and Blaine taking the clone, they brought them back into the main entrance of the agency. They handcuffed them, and then Rachel said she would bring Kurt to help her find where Bernardo had locked everyone up. Blaine stayed behind to watch Bernardo and the clone.

"Your friend is clever," he remarked, uncharacteristically sincere. "You're lucky to have him."

Blaine only watched him sternly, but internally he smiled and agreed.

---

"I'm so lucky to have you," Blaine said, whispering against Kurt's lips.

They were in Kurt's apartment, stretched out on the pristine white couch in the middle of the room. The first thing that Blaine noticed was that Kurt's apartment was definitely the eclectic artist's type apartment. The sterile nature Kurt adopted towards his work was not at all shown in this small space, with only a modest kitchen in the corner, a small room to the side, and a large couch in the middle of the room. On the walls hung pictures, endless galleries of pictures. Pictures of his dad, of his mom, of his high school friends, of the colleges he had dreamed of attending, of the celebrities he adored, of the films and books he loved. It was as if Blaine had entered a vortex of color, of dripping memories. He wanted so badly to be a part of them.

Kurt pulled away, looking at him intently. "One thousand times agreed," he said, smiling gently.

"Bernardo said that to me, you know," he continued. "He told me that."

"Well if the villain of our story agrees that we're meant to be, we're obviously meant to be, right?"

"But really," Blaine said, pulling Kurt closer. "I am."

"Blaine… Have you ever thought about how temporary this could be?"

"Of course," Blaine answered. "Remember the unspoken rule of spy-dom that we talked about? We're not allowed to have relationships. It weakens us."

"And I wanted so badly to be strong," Kurt agreed. "I tried so hard to resist emotional attachment."

"I'm just irresistible," Blaine teased. And then more seriously, he added, "and we were obviously meant to come together."

Kurt looked at him anxiously for a moment. "I don't want us to just become a memory someday. I don't want it to end."

Blaine paused for a moment. "I do. Want to become a memory, that is."

Kurt looked at him questioningly.

"I want you to proudly put us up on your wall," he said. "I want us to be right there, squeezed between the photograph of the corner of Broadway and 12th and of you and the pretty blond teenager singing into overblown plastic microphones. Right up there, and I want your eyes to fall on it every day. I want you to be reminded of me. I want you to always be remembering me in your head. I want to be your best memory. But just because I'm a memory, doesn't mean that I'm gone, Kurt. I'm going to be here as long as you want me."

"That might be an awfully long time," Kurt said, "you sure you can handle me for that long?"

Blaine didn't even answer, just kissed him.

"Tell me again why we were avoiding each other before again?" Kurt asked. "Because personally, I could kiss you forever."

"A thousand times agreed," Blaine replied.

And then they kissed again, becoming lost in photographs.