Chapter 2

"Who's Finn?"

The shadow shifted and got up from its crouched position on the floor, it so wasn't Finn, unless Finn had chopped his legs off at the knee... Kurt felt his skin prickle as his heart picked up pace.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit

"Stay back! I've got a weapon!" he yelped. He his hand dove to the side of his bed and curled around

A foam sword.

A foam sword? Why was there a foam sword in his room? Why was he concentrating on a foam sword when there was a potential stabber in his room? Why did he keep saying the word foam sword? He raised it above his head and brandished it anyway, in what he hoped was a menacing manner.

"That doesn't look like it can do much damage."

"Why are you in my room? How did you get in my room?"

"Well, technically, it's my room" the figure took a step forward

"STAY BACK!" Kurt shouted frantically, waving the sword wildly.

"KURT!" Finn came crashing through the bedroom door, wild eyed and bed headed with a pillow in hand. "Are you okay? I heard yelling..."

A pillow? What did he intend to do with that? Tickle the intruder
to death? Kurt looked back to the corner but...the guy was gone. He looked around his empty room confused, was there ever anyone else in here with him?

"I'm fine, Finn. I just had a bad dream." He said cautiously. I think.

"Oh... okay. "

"You can go back to sleep now, I'm sorry I woke you."

"Why have you got a foam sword in your hand?"

"I...uh...I don't really know. It's not yours?" Finn shook his head. "Oh."

Finn nodded knowingly, "It's cool. People do crazy stuff all the time in their sleep. This one time, I had a dream I was making out with Coach Sylvester and—"

"OH, GOD. Goodnight, Finn!"

"Do you want some warm milk? I can totally get you some."

"Goodnight."

Finn shrugged and ambled into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him and Kurt threw himself back against his pillow with a groan. What the hell had just happened? Was he going crazy from sexual frustration and just imagining boys in his room now? Kurt covered his face with his hands and groaned again. You couldn't make shit like this up...unless you were Kurt, apparently.

"Ah, so that's Finn? He sure is a tall drink of water."

Kurt's head whipped round to see the boy standing at the edge of his bed, his eyebrows raised appraisingly. He had some really overly expressive eyebrows; Kurt longed to wax that cocky look right off his forehead.

"You!" Kurt's hands flew from his eyes, "where did you come from?" he hissed, pushing himself upright. "Where did you go?"

"Did you miss me?" the boy cocked a grin and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Miss you? Miss you? I don't even know why you're here. You're not supposed to be here, this is my room!"

"Technically it's my room." The boy repeated, dipping his head and wincing in a mock apology.

"Why do you keep on saying that? This is my house, my room..." Kurt pointed at his chest, emphasising his words.

"It used to be mine."

"When?" Kurt asked suspiciously.

"Years ago, before I died."

"What?"

The boy shifted slightly so that the pale light from outside illuminated his face.

"I died."

Now that he had stepped into the light, Kurt could really look at the boy. He looked almost ethereal, silverish around the edges and sad. He was short, shorter than Kurt at any rate, and had dark hair parted at the side and smoothed back. The hint of a wave suggested there could be curls under all that product. Was it product? It was slick with something, that was for sure. Kurt crossed his legs and looked at the boy quizzically.

"...You're a ghost?"

"That's what they tell me."

"Who's they?"

"It's a phrase."

Kurt narrowed his eyes, "You just expect me to believe that?" He scoffed.

"It is! People have been saying it for years!"

"Not that, you fool. I'm talking about you being a ghost. What if I don't believe in ghosts? I don't believe in things like that."

"What choice do you have?" The boy shrugged. "It's not like there's any other way of explaining this."

Kurt just stared at the boy hesitantly, his mouth slightly open. His mind was reeling; did ghosts exist outside of religion? What other explanation was there for the boy sitting on the end of his bed? On the other hand why hadn't he—no, he wasn't going to go there.

"Holograms." He blurted out.

"What?"

"You could be a hologram," he said a little more firmly, raising his chin. "It's not unheard of..." Really? Where?

"What's a hologram?" the boy asked, puzzled.

"You don't know what a hologram is?"

"I died in 1959." The boy explained with a pointed look. Well, that would explain the clothes.

"It's ...it's a thing...a projected image...Oh who cares, you're not a hologram." Kurt snapped. "I've probably gone all John Cusack in Identity and you're just one of my many personalities. Now go away, tuck yourself back into the lobe from whence you came and leave me alone. I've got school in-" Kurt squinted at the red numbers on his alarm, "three hours, ugh."

"Which school?"

"William McKinley... why am I telling you? You're not real!"

"I go there!"

"Aha! See! Not a ghost. Ghosts don't go to school... well, except for in Casper."

"You know what I mean. I went to McKinley, I was on the chess team." He said proudly.

"Fantastic. Hooray for you. Now shoo. Go away. Poof, whatever." Kurt huffed and wrapped his arms around himself. "Why is it always so cold?" he thought aloud.

"Sorry, that's me."

"Oh really? Come on!" Kurt rolled his eyes. "Oooohhhh! My room's cold it must be ghoooosts!" he waved his hands around and scoffed sarcastically. " Yeah, right. Look, if you're going to tell me you're a ghost, you're going to have to prove it."

"That's it?" the boy asked, a smile dancing across his lips.

"Yes."

He shrugged. "Okay, you asked for it." And sat on the bed by Kurt's legs.

"You're not going to..." Kurt wiggled his eyebrows. The boy just smiled and moved closer, arm poised. He certainly didn't look like a ghost... Oh god, Kurt's breath caught in his throat because if he wasn't a ghost, that was even worse. That would mean that Kurt had a strange, teenage boy in his room in the middle of the night— and now that Kurt thought about it, he was a very good looking boy, and his palm was facing the curve of Kurt's lap, hovering above the quilt, and he was smiling at Kurt with those soft looking lips and-

And then his arm was immersed elbow deep into Kurt's stomach.

"Oh." Kurt squeaked in a tiny voice.

And passed out.

..

He was being chased.

He was being chased by some really big, slavering, oozing monsters that had escaped from under his bed and they were all wearing varsity jackets and throwing cheeseburgers at him. He tried to tell them he didn't want cheeseburgers! He'd get fat! He didn't want zits, his skin was delicate! But all they would do was open their mouths and scream.

EEERGH! EEERGH! EEEERGH! EEEERGH!

"Shut up!" He yelled, ducking a Whopper as lettuce and tomato went flying through the air, ketchup spurting in arcs above his head. They didn't stop.

EERGH! EERGH! EERGH!

That wasn't a monster.

RAA RAA RAA-AA-AAAA!

Kurt jolted awake to the sound of his alarm switching from siren to Siren. The alarm that told him to stop dithering over his hair and get the hell out of the house. Shit. He was going to be late.

Shitshitshitshit.

Kurt hated being late. He raced through his ablutions, making a silent, frantic promise to himself that he would spend an extra half hour making up to his face for this pathetic excuse for cleansing and toning. He picked an outfit off the top of his head and prayed that no one would notice he wore it last week. Who was he kidding? This was McKinley, the only thing they would notice was that it wasn't from Target.

By the time Kurt made it to homeroom he was red in the face and possibly sweating. He thanked Trésemé for their freeze-hold hairspray as he slid behind his desk.

"Nice of you to join us, Mr Hummel."

Kurt's already lobster-coloured face flushed several shades darker and he turned to smile at Mercedes. She gave him a flat stare in return and tossed her curls off her shoulder, turning away. Great, another lot of damage control he was going to have to run. He felt a tiny tug on his sleeve.

"Kurt..." He turned back to see Brittany leaning towards him. A panicked expression on her face.

"What's wrong, Britt?"

"I think I've time travelled, and I don't know how to get back to the future!" her bottom lip trembled.

"What do you mean?"

"Well..." she looked at Kurt's outfit uncertainly, "It's last Wednesday."

It was going to be one of those kinds of days.

..

"Hey, 'Cedes, wait."

Mercedes swung to face him, her lips pursed and her eyes glittering.

"I'm sorry?" Kurt held out the Frappe hopefully. It worked like a charm, Mercedes' face instantly softened, her mouth curling into a smile.

"Boy, you best have a real good excuse as to your behaviour yesterday. Gimme." She made grabby hands at the coffee and took a sip, closing her eyes blissfully.

"I just had a really rough day, I shouldn't have been so bitchy." He didn't completely mean it, but that wasn't the point. Kurt knew a Mercedes on his side was better than a brick through his window at any cost. Besides, Kurt had his own faults. Mercedes slipped an arm through his and shook her hair.

"No, I'm sorry. It can't be easy having someone beat up on you every day." She said as they set off to the lunch hall. "And you're allowed to be frustrated, just don't take it out on me. Okay?" she rested her head on his shoulder gently and Kurt bit his tongue.

"Of course, never again." He said tightly.

As they approached they got in line Mercedes waved at Santana and Brittany sitting with a few random cheerleaders and Kurt's heart sank. He wasn't in the mood for dealing with Cheerios today. Then he saw Karofsky walk in with Azimio and Jackson, he caught Kurt's eye and his expression darkened. Kurt swallowed thickly and turned back to his friend.

"Mercedes, I forgot. I've got a load of work to finish off for English tomorrow; I have to go to the Library, do you mind?" He put on his most apologetic face and squeezed her shoulder gently. She pouted a bit and looked back to where Brittany was trying to feed Santana yoghurt,

"You're going to leave me with Dumb and Dumbest?"

"I'm sorry; I'll totally make it up to you tomorrow."

"Nah, its fine," she sighed. "But if you are driving past that coffee place tomorrow... I wouldn't turn you down." She threw him a cheeky grin and poked his hip playfully. "Call me tonight, okay?"

"Sure." He bent to kiss her cheek.

"Don't forget!" She warned as he walked away.

"I won't!" He called back over his shoulder and saw Karofsky, still watching him from where he was sitting with his friends. Kurt hurried out of the lunch hall without another look.

All day his mind had been going back to the boy in his room. Was he really that stressed out that he was imagining hot boys in his room after dark? No, not hot boys. Irritating boys. Annoying, bushy browed boys who wouldn't let you sleep. If he was an apparition of Kurt's mind, Kurt was obviously trying to commit sanity suicide. Did ghosts actually exist? No. Absolutely not, there was no point questioning it. He just had to call the Doctor Weinberg tomorrow and have himself institutionalised.

Kurt came to a stop and realised he'd been walking without thinking.

Oh.

He was at the library.

Obviously Kurt's subconscious wanted him to get rid of this niggling feeling, why fight it? He sighed and pushed open the door. An amphibious looking girl with glasses thicker than milk bottles glared at him from a table and raised a stumpy finger to her lips. The librarian at the desk looked up at him with a small frown.

"Hello Mrs Elstow."

"You're not here to start dancing again, are you?"

"No."

"Good, I can't stand MC Hammer. What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for the old yearbooks?"

"On the right, over at the back." The librarian gestured. Kurt nodded in thanks and went to investigate.

The older yearbooks were towards the top of the stacks and Kurt had to use a ladder to reach them. Secretly, he wished it was on wheels like in Beauty and the Beast... but he didn't think Mrs Elstow would have liked that much. He pulled out the 1959 yearbook and sat back down at a table to read.

Flicking through the yearbooks was insane, the amount of bad haircuts, chunky glasses and snuggle-toothed weirdos gave him face ache from recoiling in horror. Even the cheerleaders were a trainwreck of hideous rolled fringes, cat eyes and unibrows. Whoever thought the 50s was a good idea was obviously born in the 70s when anything looked better than avocado walls and orange turtlenecks.

He had gotten halfway through the yearbook and an hour had gone past. He wasn't going to bother with his classes this afternoon, Spanish with Mr Schue who would just pull him aside and tell him he needed to stop rolling his eyes whenever anyone else spoke out loud. Whatever. He was forgetting something, he knew it, but all he could remember from last night was waving a foam sword around. Where had that come from? It looked like some relic from a renaissance fair, like the one his dad had taken him to when he was seven, and his Mom went as a barmaid, his Dad as a jester and Kurt went as a knight.

A knight! Suddenly Kurt remembered and he flicked to the societies pages.
There, in fuzzy black and white, were those eyebrows; beetling out from the page, mocking him in all their Chess Club glory. The rest of his face was smiling earnestly in a sea of uncomfortable looking teenagers. Kurt noticed a little, yellowing cutting from a newspaper tucked in the fold. Carefully he picked it up and walked back to the Librarian.

"Mrs Elstow, do you know about this?" he spun the book around to face her, placing the cutting carefully next to the picture of the chess club.

"Such a nice handsome boy, terrible what happened to him. Of course I was just a sophmore but we all had a crush on Blaine Anderson..." She looked down at the picture with a small smile on her face. Blaine?

"So you knew him then? You went to school together?" Just how old was Mrs Elstow anyway? Shouldn't she be retired by now?

"Yes, I was friends with his sister Carrie."

"Do you know much about him? About how he died?" Kurt pressed on. He thought he deserved to know if he was going to be sharing a room with this guy. He looked back down at the newspaper cutting in front of him.

WMHS Teen In Cliffside Tragedy

The body of 16 year old McKinley High School student, Blaine Anderson was found yesterday morning by Police.

Anderson's body was recovered in the early hours after his father, Tony, had reported his '57 Chevy Bel Air missing. Anderson's body was found halfway down Winter Hill after a heavy storm, with the car left unlocked at the top. Police are treating the situation as suspicious (cont. p4)

"It was just awful. He was a popular boy you know, always involved in the theatre. I remember once he played Romeo for the winter production and oh... he was a dream." The librarian's eyes shone as she reminisced. Oh dear, she had had it bad.

"When I was a freshman, I would to go to Carrie's house every day after school just so I could catch a glimpse of him," she giggled. "I even sent him a valentine! Oh and he was such a dear about it? I handed it to him in front of everyone and he said thank you, that it was lovely and... and he took my hand and kissed it."
Her hands were clasped to her chest and she smiled at Kurt. "He was a lovely boy. It's such a pity that they...Well, never mind."

"What happened?" Kurt pressed.

"Oh... Oh my dear, it's a sad story."

"Please?"

"Well, they never really found out what happened that night. No one knows why he was up there you see. It was a popular make out spot back then, all the girls and their beaus would 'park' on a nice night. But he was alone, his parents didn't know where he was and as far as I knew he wasn't going steady with anyone. Poor Carrie was inconsolable... she skipped town a while after that." Mrs Elstows face had sagged back into a miserable frown. "Enough, my dear. It's not good to dwell on such awful things." She turned away and Kurt saw her pull a handkerchief from her sleeve and dab her eyes.

Why did old people always carry tissues up their sleeves? That was so disgusting!

"Mrs Elstow?" she looked back at Kurt and he placed his pocket square on the desk.

"Thank you."

"Call me Margaret." She said softly, her smile wobbly through her tears.

Kurt smiled back and left the room.

So Blaine was a ghost.

And he was going to tell Kurt exactly why he was here.

..

The boy wasn't there when Kurt got home. At least, he didn't appear to be. Kurt put his bag away, took his shoes off and sat cross legged on the bed.

"I'm guessing you're there. So you might as well show yourself."

Nothing.

"I believe you. I found this."

Kurt threw the clipping down on the bed and waited.

Still nothing.

He huffed and threw himself back into his pillows. This was ridiculous. How does one contact the undead? Was he going to have to concoct a sceance with Gina Davis' old clothes? How did they summon Michael Keaton again? Oh yeah. Kurt closed his eyes.

"Beetlegeuse"

"Beetlegeuse."

"B-"

"What's beetle juice, is it like bug juice you get at camp? I knew a kid who had too much once, he said his left foot turned green."

Kurt nearly jumped out of his own skin.

"Oh god! You can't just... turn up like that!" He yelped, throwing a pillow at the boy who had reappeared at the foot of his bed. It sailed through him and landed with a soft -phut!- in the corner.

"I'm sorry, didn't you ask me to come?"

"I meant when I had my eyes open! You scared the living daylights out of me."

"Sorry."

Kurt just glared, and the the ghost gestured to the book on the bed. He wasn't smiling.

"So you found me?"

"It wasn't so hard."

"What's that?" He was looking at the small clipping, a faintly nauseous expression on his face.

"Its the story they ran when they found your body."

He looked as if he was going to faint, his eyes glued to the small, faded scrap of paper. Kurt tilted his head and said softly,

"Blaine?"

The boy stiffened, and he rocked backwards slightly like he'd been struck.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked.

"Its... Its just been a really long time since I've heard my name." He swallowed thickly and rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at his feet. "A long time." He echoed in a whisper.

Kurt crawled forward on his bed till he sat in front of Blaine.

"Tell me about it?"

..

A/N: I had some multimedia for this... a picture of Blaine with his Chess Club and the Newspaper cutting but I'm not entirely sure how to make it work on here... sorry folks! Thanks for reading and keep commenting! Next chapter should be along after the weekend :)