A/N: I meant to post this yesterday (or Thursday), but my days of the week got rather messed up for some reason. I apologize. Have Kurt/Blaine cuteness.
"Taxi!" Blaine yelled as the two reached the sidewalk, the first word either of them had said since they left Kurt's office. The tension between the two of them was palpable, especially since Blaine was extremely right when he had said Kurt was now dependent on the tycoon for his career.
"Do you know nothing about this town?" Kurt asked as no less than five taxis passed them. Letting out an ear-splitting whistle, a taxi pulled up almost immediately, a young kid (probably college-age) in the driver's seat.
"401 East 34th Street," Blaine instructed the driver. Kurt got in the backseat, clearly expecting Blaine to sit in the front, so the tycoon relished the annoyed expression on Kurt's face when he climbed into the back next to him.
Walking to the 24-7 NYC Mobile Notary from Kurt's office at Vanity Fair would only be about seven minutes. In a taxi, just before rush hour began, it would be far longer, especially considering 42nd, the easiest way to get to the east side of the island from Times Square, had some of the worst traffic in New York. Now that was saying something.
Blaine wondered how many stories the taxi driver had heard that was far weirder than theirs. "I still don't see why you're insisting on going to the notary now. "Do you really think getting unmarried is the best idea while I'm playing your fiancé?" Blaine asked, just trying to irk the short-tempered an.
"Yes. I'll get the deal done, you'll look pretty, we'll 'break it off,' I'll go into an extreme depression and gain five pounds in ice cream, and we'll all move on." Blaine cracked up laughing at that, but Kurt seemed completely serious. Well, he certainly didn't do anything half-way.
"It's probably not a good idea. I mean, we might have to keep this little play up for months, if Lim's hard to crack." Blaine was enjoying Kurt's facial expressions. This one was a mix of pain, horror, and irritation, and Blaine was proud to be the cause of all of them.
"I seriously doubt 3.1 Phillip Lim is stable enough to reject a deal like this. Even if Lim takes forever to accept, we could always go after Zhou. He's probably not as big an influence to how the business is run, considering it's named after Lim, but peer pressure can be useful." Blaine snorted at Kurt's term. 'Peer pressure'. Like they were back in high school.
"Still don't see the point." Kurt didn't reply, and the two remained awkwardly stuck in traffic. "So, how long have you known Sam?" Blaine asked, trying to make light conversation, but probably just pissing Kurt off further by asking about the true reason he wanted this annulment.
"Ten years." Kurt gave a clipped answer. "He was my high school sweetheart."
"Really?" Blaine asked surprised, and Kurt nodded. "Wow, I can't imagine staying with any of my high school sweethearts." Blaine shivered at the thought, mostly for dramatic effect. "I was too idiotic to actually choose someone for the right reasons, even if there really was no such thing as popularity where I went to school."
"I was very shy, very private, so I was obviously very scarce with boyfriends. I chose well, and I chose right." Kurt smiled at the thought, and it was very cute how in love he was with his fiancé. "How was there no such thing as popularity?" Ah, so Kurt was able to make small talk.
"Private school, with boarding. Everyone knew everyone and had formed opinions of them. There was no popular groups, people were mostly just joined by their extracurricular activities. Some extracurriculars were better supported than others, of course, but it didn't exactly make you popular." Kurt nodded as Blaine thought back to his three and a half years with the Warblers. "For example, our Glee club was the highest on the totem pole."
"Your Glee club was popular?" Kurt asked, obviously shocked, and Blaine nodded. "Wow. Mine was the absolute bottom of the totem pole, lower, sometimes, than the A/V club."
"Wow. I can't imagine how horrible you guys must have done in competition to be held in less regard than the most mocked club in history," Blaine teased, shaking his head in mock-shame.
"We were actually pretty fantastic," Kurt said, more reminiscently than defensively. "We won Nationals my senior year, and our lead girl is a Broadway star today. One of our lead guys is a Hollywood director. A dancer of ours started the League of X-traordinary Dancers, I'm sure you've heard of them, and his wife is a part of it as well."
"I hope at least of few of you stayed around Lima to be the bosses of the idiots that hurled insults at you," Blaine said, not particularly not caring, but not vindictively either.
"That I can promise you." The two lapsed back into silence, and it was only a few more minutes before they arrived at the notary. Blaine got out of the taxi first and held the door open for Kurt, who didn't even seem to notice, focused on the building.
"They need to clean their awning," he commented, and Blaine resisted the urge to laugh because, well, they really did. The blue awning was dirty and faded, the '1' almost completely gone from the address. The word 'RIVERGATE' was on one side, faintly, suggesting that either they had gotten the banner second-hand from whatever had been there before, or there was more to the building than the notary, which was very likely, and most of the paint on both of the front thick, white pillars holding the awning up had chipped off.
The couple headed inside, Blaine once again holding the door for Kurt and being ignored. The lobby was painted a dull white, the floors a simple black-and-white checked, and the woman at the desk looked very bored. There was one wing to the left with a sign proclaiming 'Rooms 101-124' and the other held 'Rooms 125-150'. Blaine wondered why the could possibly need so many offices.
"Hello, we're here to see a notary. A Martin Morris, in particular," Blaine addressed the woman, who gave the couple a once-over.
"What a shame. Martin Morris is in room.. 124. Don't break anything, or you're payin' for it." Wondering why the woman had given them that particular warning, Kurt thanked her, and Blaine was already by the door.
"At least it was a short walk." Kurt ignored him... again.
"Hello, Mr. Morris," Kurt greeted the small, balding man sitting behind the cheap wooden desk politely.
"Hello, Mr..." Martin left their names blank, a clear invitation for Kurt to fill them in. The voice from the tiny man was high and nasally and was already getting on Blaine's nerves more than it had when he'd been in the office the previous day.
"I'm Kurt Hummel, and this is my temporary husband, Blaine Anderson." Blaine chuckled at the term, and so did Martin.
"All right, let's get down to business. Do you have the forms?" Kurt handed them over eagerly before sitting down on one of the chairs in front of Martin's desk. Blaine snickered at Kurt's expression when the fashion critic realized these chairs were designed to make customers want short visits, and there were now about eight springs digging into the lithe man's butt. Kurt, however, was not tactless enough to immediately stand back up from the chair, as Blaine had when he'd first sat in that very chair. "Excellent, excellent. You two were married when, exactly?"
"Three days ago," Blaine replied absentmindedly, counting backwards in his head.
"And was the marriage consummated?" the notary asked.
"I don't see how that's any of your business!" Kurt exclaimed, cheeks flushing darkly. All the notary did was confirm that the signatures were legal, a process that would be at most ten minutes, it wasn't his job to actually annul anything. Plus, neither of them were Christian or in any way religious (Blaine assumed).
"No, it wasn't," Blaine answered, amusement coloring his tone, and Kurt threw him the most intimidating betrayed look possible. Blaine couldn't believe that he had actually believed the story about their night together. At least he knew now that Kurt really was a screamer.
"Excellent. Write your number on your chart," he nudged the mentioned paper towards Kurt with his elbow, "and I'll call you when I'm done."
"How long, exactly, is this going to take? I thought it was a very simple process." Never tell someone who worked for the city how to do their job. It was very obviously a lesson Kurt had yet to learn.
"However long I think it will take, sweetie. Now, write down your phone number and get out if you want them back at all." Kurt followed the instructions with a huff, before storming out the door. Having expected this, and not having planned to speak with the fashion critic after this encounter for a while, Blaine made no motion to follow him.
"You're not going to write your number down?" Martin asked with a laugh, dragging the sheet back from where it threatened to float off his desk. Blaine laughed as well, ignoring how shrill and irritating the notary's laugh was. "How long should I hold these for?"
"Two weeks would be great if you can manage it," Blaine replied, watching Kurt stomp out of the building and able to hear his piercing taxi whistle from inside.
"Well, he's certainly a feisty one. Was that his whistle?" Blaine nodded. "Impressive. Certainly a useful skill in this town." Blaine nodded again. "I sure like him. Did you see his face when he sat down in my chair?" Blaine nodded for a third time, this one accompanied by a snort. "I was going to warn him, but it was too tempting." Blaine chuckled.
"He has some of the most entertaining facial expressions." They rather fascinated him, if he was being completely honest.
"That he does. Speaking of expressions, what was that one he threw you when you informed me, honestly I presume, that the marriage wasn't consummated." Blaine chuckled at the memory. He would never forget that expression.
"There was an incident with a little too much whiskey, and I lied to him. Told him it had been. Made him absolutely miserable, considering he has a fiancé. Certainly hope he didn't tell the guy." Both men laughed at that.
"I don't know what you're doing with this guy, but good luck to ya," Martin said with a wave.
"Not necessary, but thanks Martin. I might even be seeing you in two weeks," Blaine replied with a grin, before slipping out of the office to the sound of Martin Morris' laughter.
"I can't believe him! The nerve of that man, to toy with my life like this!" Kurt complained, happily wrapped in Sam's arms as they watched a movie of his choice (Gypsy, of course).
"Kurt, baby, calm down. You'll get the papers back from the notary soon, and this whole thing will be over with," Sam replied calmly, stroking a hand down Kurt's back in a way that made his fiancé almost purr with happiness, generally trying to relax him.
"Except for the deal we have to make with Phillip Lim. Deals can take months, and pushing a deadline would only make Lim more likely to say no," Kurt cried dramatically, burying his head in his fiancé's arm and taking comfort in the familiar cologne.
"You don't actually have to be married to him to pretend you're engaged, do you?" Sam hadn't exactly been happy to hear that his fiancé's husband was now masquerading as his fiancé's fiancé (and to be quite honest, thinking about it gave him a little bit of a headache), but he had been accepting enough once he realized how worried Kurt was that this would ruin their relationship. He was determined not to let this bastard come between him and Kurt, no matter how hard he tried to do exactly that.
"Of course not, but if Phillip suspects anything and looks into our backgrounds, he can't exactly find out that we're married. It would ruin the whole... well, let's call it what it is: scam." Kurt sounded utterly defeated, and Sam hated hearing his fiancé so upset.
"All we have to do is hold off on the wedding until the deal is made. That doesn't mean you have to be married to him. There's no way to track whether or not someone is engaged," Sam pointed out, and Kurt was unused to him being the logical one.
"You're right, of course." Kurt rewarded him with a quick kiss. The two sat in comfortable silence for a moment before Sam felt his fiancé tense up a little in his arms.
"What is it?" he asked. Kurt sighed, probably annoyed that Sam knew him so well.
"I was wondering if you would do me a favor," Kurt sounded hesitant, and a little timid, the exact same way he'd sounded suggesting Under Pressure for their high school duet, the very duet that had pushed them together, and Sam out of his bisexual closet (if that was still the term used).
"Anything. Any time. You know that. I would do anything for you, Kurt." Kurt smiled, but it looked a little fake, and Sam couldn't imagine why.
"I was wondering if you would come to the party with me, the one during which Blaine and I have to proposition Phillip Lim. I just... really don't want to be alone with him." Sam kissed the side of his head gently. He could completely understand why the fashion critic didn't want to be alone with someone who seemed determined to destroy his life.
"Of course. Why would that be a problem?" Kurt gave a him a little bit of a guilty look.
"Because you wouldn't be Sam, my fiancé. You would be Sam, my best friend, or even my brother." Sam shook his head.
"Brother is too creepy for me. Besides, if Phillip Lim did really decide to look into you, that could easily discredit you. Best friend would work though." Kurt gave Sam a smile that lit up the room, a hint of teeth peeking through, the very smile that had made Sam first realize he was in love with this wonderful man.
"I love you so much," Kurt whispered, kissing him softly, all compassion and romance with no heat. Sam would try to bring it up a notch normally, but Kurt seemed so upset, and nothing ever came between Kurt and Gypsy.
"Have I told you that you are the most irritating person in the world?" Blaine almost jumped at the familiar voice, but managed to retain his composure, turning smoothly on his one heel to greet his husband turned 'fiancé'. The man standing next to Kurt was not someone he recognized.
"Are you still mad about the notary?" Kurt's colder-than-dry-ice glare was enough of an answer to his question.
"Hi," the man standing slightly behind Kurt said awkwardly. "I'm Sam."
"Ah. I see." Blaine made no motion to shake the hand Sam offered. So this was Kurt's fiancé. He was... okay-looking, the tycoon supposed. Dirty blonde hair combed back for the occasion, the only really notable feature of his face was his mouth, which was gigantic. His eyes were a murky green, and relatively uninterested. He seemed tall and not particularly built. To sum up Blaine's impression: Kurt's fiancé was rather... boring.
"You could at least attempt to be polite, you know," Kurt said frostily. "Considering." He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.
"As could you," Blaine said curtly to his husband. "I apologize if I offended you," Blaine said, directed solely towards Sam, and he sounded honest enough, he was sure. However, he was also sure Sam had taken an immediate disliking to him, if he had even been neutral when he entered the room. Blaine wasn't perhaps the monster the mechanic had been expecting, but he was picking up some negative vibes. That was fine by Blaine, he didn't exactly like Sam either.
"No problem." Sam made no other motion to shake hands and neither did Blaine. The three men stood in awkward silence, all observing the room. As friends of an employee (even if one was an employee himself, he wouldn't normally be invited to this important a party), they were some of the first to arrive, and the rest of the present guests had fallen into groups and were chatting quietly, just as Kurt, Blaine, and Sam had been.
"Do you have an idea when Phillip Lim will arrive?" Blaine asked, sounding bored and not looking at the couple.
"Probably soon, or towards the middle of the party, when everyone is just chatting. He'll want to draw no attention, and we want to make him as happy as possible," Kurt replied in the same smooth, detached tone. Sam looked between them quickly and went to wrap an arm around Kurt's waist before he remembered.
"I need to use the bathroom," Kurt informed them before walking away. Sam and Blaine made what most people would call 'significant eye contact', before Sam followed his fiancé. Blaine debated whether or not to give them a private moment... before following them.
"I hate this," he could hear Kurt say through the door. He was getting a few odd looks from the groups at the party, considering he was clearly listening to someone's conversation, but he didn't really care.
"Me too," Sam said quietly. Blaine heard some movement and the familiar sound of a kiss. "We just have to survive until the notary gets your papers."
"I can't believe this happened," Kurt sounded absolutely miserable. So, maybe he was starting to feel a little bit of sympathy for the fashion critic. He hadn't done anything maliciously, he was just doing his job, he wasn't trying to hurt Sebastian. Everything that had happened since, however, had been Blaine's intention. "If I hadn't gotten so drunk that night..."
"Sh, sh. It's not your fault, baby. Whatever happened after you turned in the paper has nothing to do with you being drunk that night. It could have happened to anyone." Sam seemed to be more logical about this whole business than anyone else.
"It wouldn't have happened to us if I hadn't entered for a store-away license. I could have just talked to you about it." Kurt sounded near tears, and Blaine was really starting to feel bad.
"Really? How do you know that? Who's to say that if we'd filed it together, we wouldn't be involved in this? It could have ended up even worse, with both of us married to different people, people that aren't as nice as Blaine." Apparently, Sam had more of a kind heart than Blaine had given him credit for.
"Yeah, Blaine's been so nice." Kurt's voice was bitter and cold, and Sam just chuckled.
"Try to see this from his perspective. His world fell apart too," Sam reasoned. Blaine was starting to like his husband's fiancé more than he liked his husband.
"I did my job and he decided to ruin my life because of it. Smythe's designs were shit, anyone with eyes would have known that. The little bitch Blaine decided to marry deserved everything that was coming to him. Just because he loved his crap designs more than he loved Blaine, I get my life ruined by a psychotic tycoon with an attitude problem." Blaine's eyes narrowed, and he slid in the door, leaning against the wall before the entwined couple could notice him.
"I would be very careful what you say about Seb if I were you," Blaine replied curtly, making his presence known. Sam tried to push Kurt away (probably out of an urge to be polite), but Kurt clutched at his fiancé. Knowing the fashion critic, he probably would have glared at Blaine had he not been hiding tears. Blaine noticed him try to subtly wipe them away before he answered.
"I have no reason to treat you civilly," Kurt said coldly. "What have I ever done to you? I get it, you're mad about Sebastian leaving you for some Japanese company. I didn't push him out of the country. He was a wimp, he would never had made it in the fashion industry, and he was probably cheating on you anyway."
"Don't you dare talk about my fiancé," Blaine said darkly. It wasn't until he was already steamed that he realized this was his first anger flare-up in over ten years, and he had no way to control it.
"Ex-fiancé," Kurt said smugly. "Didn't you tell me he was already banging someone else to make it up the ladder at his company?" Blaine felt the familiar flashes of anger, but he was beyond controlling himself.
"You want to talk about cheating and favors, you little slut?" Blaine hissed, anger clouding his brain as he saw red.
He was restrained in a flash, faced with a solid wall of muscle holding him back, biceps squeezed tightly by strong hands. Sam's eyes bored into his, not out of control, but absolutely furious, the kind of fury you would never expect out of someone so mellow. "Don't you dare talk to my fiancé like that." Sam's words weren't angry or out of control like Kurt and Blaine's had been, but they were very threatening in a calculating way. "I swear to God, if you ever call Kurt something like that again, I will put you in the hospital for good. Do we understand each other?"
"He deserves nothing less. Did he tell you he let me fuck him like the little whore he is?" In hindsight, these were words spoken in the heat of the moment, anger overtaking him. This hadn't actually happened, of course, but, God, did Kurt get under his skin.
"Don't you fucking talk about him like that!" Sam yelled, pushing Blaine against the wall, obviously ready to follow up on his threat. That, better than anything had before, cleared Blaine's head, and he was suddenly very aware how much stronger Sam was.
"Sam. Sam, stop. Sam!" Kurt called out to the mechanic, walking forward to pull his fiancé off his husband. "Beating him up doesn't do anything. If it did, I would have done it myself a long time ago. Calm down. He just says those things to get under my skin." Kurt cupped one side of Sam's face with his hand, stroking his thumb against the mechanic's cheekbone.
Flickers of anger remained, but Blaine pushed them back watching Kurt calm his fiancé. He never would have guessed Sam had any kind of temper, but apparently Kurt brought out people's protective streaks. "I'm sorry," Blaine gritted out between his teeth. "That was out of line... and untrue." Sam nodded, obviously not having believed it for a minute.
"Just stay away from my fiancé," he ordered. Kurt and Sam shared a look before both went to leave. Once the door had swung shut, Blaine chuckled to himself. Neither of them had actually had to use the bathroom, and for some reason Blaine found this hilarious. He then groaned when he realized his adolescent anger issues had very nearly put him in the hospital, many years later. Maybe Kurt was right. He really did have an attitude problem.
True to Kurt's prediction, Phillip Lim arrived in the middle of the party to little fanfare. Up until Lim arrived, Sam, Kurt, and Blaine (very particularly in that order) wandered between groups, Kurt chatting everyone up, Blaine being super polite but detached, and Sam giving one word answers. Sam's expression got less and less happy every time he was introduced as Kurt's best friend.
Kurt, it seemed, knew everyone, and by the time they had made a round and Kurt was chatting happily with Mr. Montgomery, Blaine's jaw hurt from smiling at people. It was a familiar sensation that the tycoon usually equated with boring, stuck-up meetings full of people too big for their britches.
This party, however, was quite lovely. A winter holiday party, designed in blues and whites, with hints of various religions spread throughout: a Christmas tree, a Menorah. Most decorations were religion-neutral. There was an open bar (which Kurt had forbid Blaine from utilizing an hour ago), and a band playing music at a pleasant volume.
The band in particular interested Blaine. He had never heard of them, but that was fine because none of their music was original. The Fundamentals covered music, but they covered everything, from the Beatles to Bruno Mars to John Mayer. The singer was absolutely fantastic, with an unusually versatile voice, and Blaine was quite enjoying watching their performance while Kurt talked sipping his (virgin) Strawberry Daiquiri. Yes, he'd ordered a cocktail. Kurt had insisted, he had no idea why. However, crossing Kurt after their little incident in the bathroom didn't seem like a good idea to Blaine.
"Hello, Mr. Lim, I'm Kurt Hummel, and this is my fiancé, Blaine Anderson. I work for Vanity Fair magazine and Blaine here..." Kurt trailed off, not entirely sure what his husband did. He knew he was a tycoon, and an unusually rich one at that, but he didn't know what that implied. Blaine hadn't even noticed the fashion designer had arrived.
"I own and run Société de la Vie," Blaine supplied, smiling and shaking Phillip Lim's hand, ignoring the ache in his jaw (and his feet. These shoes were killing him).
"Wow. I'm impressed. Vanity Fair has really sent in their top guns. I've certainly heard of you, Mr. Hummel- may I call you Kurt?" Kurt nodded eagerly and Blaine almost rolled his eyes. Almost. "I admire your column, Kurt, and I've definitely worked with a few associates of Société de la Vie."
"It's lovely to meet you, Mr. Lim. Please, call me Blaine." Blaine was so used to playing the polite business man, it was like slipping into a second skin.
"As long as you call me, Phillip, both of you. If you follow my line, you probably know that I don't like to be too formal... which is why parties like this make my skin crawl." Lim looked around the classily-decorated room in obvious distaste.
"Tell me about it," Blaine muttered, getting a look from Kurt and a startled laugh from Phillip.
"A business man like you doesn't like these parties? You would think you would grow accustomed to them." Phillip looked honestly curious, and much more relaxed now that they were having a non-formal conversation.
"Yet, I never have. I go to plenty, I throw plenty, and yet I still loathe them." Blaine didn't, of course, mind the parties, but it was always good to be affable around a client. The easier they talk to you, the more likely it is they want to do business with you. It's simple psychology.
"At least I don't have to deal with another strung-tight business man," Phillip said with obvious happiness. Always agree with the client. It was a rule used in all strings of society, from Walmart greeters to business men like him.
"Now, Mr. Lim, we would really like the work with you at Vanity Fair. We believe your Spring 2012 line would be well show-cased in our articles." Blaine almost shook his head and rolled his eyes. What an amateur.
"Oh, Kurt, hush," Blaine says, acting teasing and hoping Kurt would pick up that it was a serious order. After all, Blaine was the one who knew what he was doing. "That's just like him, trying to get straight to the business aspect. He has a tendency to take life a little too seriously. Don't give me that look, you do! That's what you have me for." Blaine wrapped an arm automatically around Kurt's waist to fit with the ruse, and Kurt stiffened into a board, not realizing the wrap his arm around Blaine's shoulders. At least, he didn't remember until Blaine violently pinched his side and brought him back into the world.
"Of course," Kurt relented with a smile, relaxing marginally and wrapping his arm around Blaine's shoulders. The pose felt far too natural.
"I have to agree with him though," Blaine said, hoping he wasn't pushing the business man too far. "We could definitely do wonders for your business, but only if we got to know your ideas a little better. How about..." Blaine paused, pretending to think but really putting together his game plan with the consequences. If Blaine messed up this deal, it would be the end of any contact between him and Kurt, whether he meant to or not, and the end of Kurt's career. That still sounded tempted. "How about we blow this stuffy joint, and you join us and a few friends, wherever they may have gotten to, for a little party at my penthouse?" Blaine offered.
He had made up his decision. He loved Sebastian more than he loved anything else in the world, even if those feelings were no longer reciprocated, and he would go through with the plans he had already made for the night. A lack of Kurt Hummel in his life would certainly be a change. He was ninety-nine percent sure it would be a good one.
The other one percent of his brain was screaming at him that he was an idiot.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed. To clarify with Blaine's little freak-out at Kurt + Sam: he's been shown to lose control of his temper very quickly and says and does things he regrets (see most of Season 3, Blame it on the Alcohol, and Night of Neglect). This happens to him in this story, because it's in mai head-canons.
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