No Man's Land

With Kurt in his bedroom making a phone call, Sam was still doing God only knew what on Blaine's laptop, Blaine stood up and moved to one of the windows in the living room and looked out of it. New York looked nice, edging slowly into winter. Really it wasn't even fully into fall, but New York always seemed to get colder just because it could.

His mind was a whirlwind, going at eight hundred miles an hour as he tried to sort through everything. He knew this could happen, Kurt had prepared him extensively for the possibility that people from his past would try to come after him. Of course he also said that it would be him that they'd be after, not Blaine. Although the man that had been in his living room hadn't seem able to hurt a fly...

"How you holding up Anderson?" Blaine glanced over his shoulder at Sam, a little unnerved that the man was staring at him while still typing, and shrugged.

"So far so good I guess. What are you doing?" Sam shrugged back and looked down at the laptop, frowning and typing just that much faster.

"Just trying to find anything that can tell us who this guy was. Have you ever hacked into a bunch of street cams at once? Like, traffic cameras and ATMs and store cameras? It's kind of redundant after a while." Blaine laughed under his breath and turned back to the window. There were cameras all over New York, surely one had caught him? And really, how was Sam able to do this on his laptop?

As if hearing his thought, Sam replied.

"Don't worry, I'll delete everything that I've put on here. It's just a few spy bots and hacker stuff, nothing dangerous. Although terribly illegal." Blaine laughed again, only slightly twinged with hysteria, before moving back to the couch. A few moments of silence (or as much silence as possible with Sam typing that fast) lapsed before Blaine's bedroom door opened and Kurt stepped out, snapping his phone shut as he did so.

"Well, do we want the good news or the bad news first?" Sam raised an eyebrow, Blaine simply sat in silence, and Kurt seemed to take this as allowing him to pick.

"Good news is that it's not the company. The bad news is that the company experienced a cyber attack, stealing only one employee's information. Three guesses who that is and the first two don't count." He slumped into the chair across from the couch and Blaine wanted to go over to him to comfort him but he had questions first.

"What did they get?" was crossed with "Why are you still on record?" as Sam also asked his own question, something that happened a lot with them. Blaine gestured to Sam, who repeated his question to Kurt.

"Because Stanley is under the completely false hope that I will give in and go back to the company so he kept it on file. And as to your question... everything. All of my jobs, all of my personal information. I don't know what they want or what their ultimate goal is, but I have a feeling it's not going to stop with them trying to bribe you to go to a made up university."

Blaine shifted and looked over to where Sam was shaking his head at the laptop.

"I figure they didn't come after me because I was the... the target that got away. They had to come to me because they thought I'd tell you about it. They had to figure you'd figure it out, so... what's the angle?" Sam looked up, obviously impressed at the thought process that Blaine had just spewed, before both of them turned to glance at Kurt.

For his part, Kurt looked a little discouraged.

"Stanley said that there was a full write-up in my file about the last assignment. Me coming after you, running away with you, the Drum and Drake things, the final altercation at the company." Sam frowned, the scars pulling tight around his mouth.

"Let me guess, there was probably something in there about you two riding off into the sunlight? And I'm sure I'm listed in there somewhere." He started growling under his breath, so Blaine chanced it and put a hand on his arm. Blaine was further surprised when Sam didn't shrug it off, simply shot Blaine what he assumed was a grateful look, and went back to typing.

"And beyond that, I don't know what to think. They probably did know I'd figure out that this was some elaborate set up so that means they want me to know. That means they are playing with me. They want me to figure it out."

Blaine stood up after a few moments of silence, going to the kitchen table and getting his water and taking a sip of it before bringing it over to Kurt. He smiled gratefully, holding it between both of his hands before bringing it up to his lips.

"So why, if they want you to figure it out, are they playing with you? Why not just come out with it?" Sam made a sound in the back of his throat that Blaine ignored. He knew it was stupid, he was thinking like a person and not a hitman, if indeed it was another hitman doing this.

"What if... could it be Drake?" Kurt shrugged, putting the glass on the television stand next to him.

"Stanley says he is still employed with the company so I don't think so. I just don't know what is going on. And I hate not being able to see what's coming next." As he spoke, Kurt's cell phone started to ring and he sighed, pulling it from his jacket pocket and then biting his lip. He answered the phone, shooting a look to both Blaine and Sam.

"Hey dad. Yes, I'm here, sorry. My phone was off because of the plane ride and I only just... yea. Blaine, my dad says hello. He says hello to you. Okay I will. Well I... oh? Uhm, can you give me that number? Uh huh. Alright. Thanks. And uh dad, if he calls or stops by again, give him my cell number? Thanks. Okay, I'll talk to you soon dad. I love you too. Bye."

When his shut his phone, Blaine could tell something was wrong. He quickly got up and tore through the packet next to Sam, before grabbing the business card and flipping it over.

"Fuck, fuck, well fuck. Sam, try to trace this number before I call it?" Sam grabbed the card, nodding and looking a little worried, before typing it into something on the laptop he had commandeered.

"What's going on Kurt?" Kurt turned towards Blaine and then sat down next to him, their legs touching from knees to hips.

"Someone from design school went to the house, asking for me. Someone named Charles Houston. Gave a number and off the top of my head, decided to look at it against this number and they matched. These fuckers are playing with me. First you, now my dad? Yea, this is personal." Blaine wrapped his hand around Kurt's, trying to reassure him as much as he could with the touch, but he knew it was hopeless. This was already more than Blaine knew how to react to, but he was going to stick with Kurt through it as long as he could.

"Okay, so the number is bouncing off way too many satelites. These guys, whoever they are, are smart. I can't trace it. But I did type in the name Charles Houston and uh, you might want to look at this Kurt."

Blaine and Kurt both leaned forward to look at the page and Blaine swore under his breath. It was another obituary, suspicious circumstances but a cold case. Kurt tensed and then let his head fall to his knees.

"Seventh assignment. This keeps getting better and fucking better, doesn't it?" Blaine wrapped his arms completely around Kurt, rubbing his back as he did so. As he kneeded his back, he felt just a little of the tension fall away before Kurt sat back up, nodding his head and wrapping one of his arms around Blaine's waist, as comforting gesture more than anything.

"Tell us about it." Kurt glanced over at Blaine, almost as surprised as Blaine was that he had said it. As much as Blaine had tiptoed around the topic of Kurt's old life, he knew that right now was not the time to pretend that everything was normal. Now was the time to just accept the fact that yes, those things happened and yes, Kurt did those things.

"Charles Houston was one of those that I didn't... I didn't know who he was or what he did. I just went in and did my job. We are always careful about DNA and things, and if we ever do get caught, the company has a way of making things go away, but... I did my job." Sam nodded, typing in a few things and then laughing under his breath.

"Arms dealer. Suspected, at least." Blaine glanced at the article but couldn't read it from his angle and then looked at Kurt, watching his face. Kurt had told Blaine one night while they had been curled around each other in Kurt's bed back in Lima that out of every ten jobs, he may have known why he was doing what he did for one of them. And he had done many, many jobs. He had confessed that it made him sick to think about it now but back then... back then, he didn't think about it.

Blaine hadn't had the words to tell Kurt that he didn't hold it against him, that he didn't judge him for it. He didn't have those words because he wasn't sure how he felt, but he knew that nothing Kurt did in his past could change the way he felt about him now.

Instead of offering comfort, and he really wanted to be able to, Blaine posed a question.

"So this seems deliberately personal, right? Me and now your dad, using names from your old assignments. Is there anything connecting these two? Anything you can think of that would explain it?"

Kurt stood up, pulling out of Blaine's arms as he did. He was pacing, obviously thinking about it, and Blaine wanted nothing more than to take him in his arms and tell him it would be okay. But at this point, he wasn't so sure he could do that truthfully.

"They were on opposite sides of the country. As far as I know, no, there is nothing linking them." Sam was the next to speak, still typing in things on Blaine's computer. He had to wonder if he was going to have to get his power cord soon with how much battery life it all was sucking out of it.

"So it's personal and random, is that what you're saying? Isn't that just fucking great. We don't even have a starting point. We don't have a middle point. We don't have anything but a bunch of goddamn useless images because this fucker knew where every goddamn camera was." Blaine and Kurt blinked at Sam because although the words were venomous, his voice was relatively calm. Kurt seemed to snap out of it quicker than Blaine, who was still trying to figure out how that had even been possible, and was pulling out his cell phone.

"I'll call the number. They've left it for a reason, might as well use it." Blaine stood up, as if to position himself closer to the phone to hear, but it was pointless because Kurt dialed the number and then put it on speaker.

It rang three times before someone answered.

"Kurt, I presume?" Kurt glanced at Blaine, silently asking if the voice was familiar, and Blaine shook his head. It seemed much too low to be the voice of the man he'd met the day before, from what he remembered anyways.

"Yes. May I ask who I'm speaking to?" The voice chuckled and despite it being over the phone, Blaine felt his fingers tighten. It was not a happy laugh, not at all. It was definitely a laugh of someone who had all the time in the world.

"Oh, but Mr. Hummel, we're already so very well acquainted." This time the voice changed, a little higher pitched than before. He was either pitching his voice or using some sort of technology to do it for him, although it didn't seem distorted enough.

Although, Blaine figured that that was just movie stuff. He really had no idea how anything worked in reality like that.

"If we're already acquainted, why don't you just tell me your name?" The man laughed, the voice back to being low again.

"But isn't this so much more fun? Tell me, are you there with your boy now? Blaine, wasn't it? Is he enjoying your stay or does the poor boy feel like he's bitten off more than he can chew?"

Tightening his fists again, Blaine bit down on his tongue so that he would not tell the mysterious voice on the phone exactly what he felt. He could see Kurt's hand shaking, just a little, but it didn't seem to faze him.

"So obviously you have a problem with me. Okay, we can figure that out. But I want you to leave my family out of this."

The laugh that followed that seemed to echo in Blaine's tiny apartment and he sat down. Whoever this guy was, he was angry. It was almost tangible through the way he next spoke.

"Oh, no, no, no, Mr. Hummel, I don't think I shall. After all, that's not how the game is played. And this is a game after all, it's a fun game, I think you'll like it, if you just gave it some time. And there is plenty of time because I am not even close to being done with you yet." This time it was obvious that Kurt's hands were shaking, although with fear or anger, Blaine couldn't even fathom.

"Why don't we just skip the game and end this right now?" His voice was calm, somehow, but a higher pitched laugh came through the phone right after it.

"Oh no, I think not. Not yet." The voice was soft, a definite change from what it was before.

The dialtone interrupted whatever Kurt was going to say, He snapped the phone shut, not even offering a glance to Blaine nor Sam, before turning and hurling the object at the wall. Blaine winced at the cracking sound it made, moving quickly to Kurt's side and reaching out, letting his hand hover over his arm but not fully touch him.

"No, this doesn't get to happen! I'm through with it, it is over, this doesn't get to happen. Not now, not ever. Who the fuck does he think he is?" Once Blaine was sure that Kurt would let him touch him without snapping, Blaine wrapped his hand around Kurt's arm and tugged him towards him, so that Kurt's arm was pressed to Blaine's chest. It wasn't much contact, but Blaine didn't want to try to pull him into a full hug and risk setting him off or something.

"Kurt, what if he gave something away in that? Something tiny that almost seemed unimportant but definitely important?" Kurt turned to look at Sam, eyebrow raised as he did so.

"Once more and in English, if possible?"

Blaine could feel just the tiniest bit of tension leak out of Kurt as his shoulders relaxed, whether from Blaine's closeness or just being off of the phone with the crazy man that was stalking Kurt. Either way, Blaine was glad for it.

"When he told you to leave his family out of this, he got really angry. That has to be a clue." Kurt shook his head, pulling just enough out of Blaine's grasp to turn around to fully face Sam.

"But he's toying with me, it could be anything. Maybe it has to do with family, but maybe he's just a demented fuck that likes to play games."

"He's a puppetmaster." This time both Kurt and Sam turned to look at Blaine, waiting for an explanation.

"Think about it. Someone stops here yesterday, and then this morning in Ohio? It's possible it's the same person, but what are the chances? If he's playing a game, he's going to want to keep an eye on all of the pieces, right? So there is definitely more than one person involved in this. They are his puppets and he is the puppetmaster."

It probably didn't help that his fingers were moving in a distinctly puppeteering fashion while explaining it, chalking it up to one too many strange school plays as a child. However Kurt raised his hands, wrapping them behind Blaine's neck, and pulled him forward so that their lips met.

It was barely for a second but Blaine felt the familiar thud from his chest cavity. He hadn't kissed Kurt since he left Ohio, so yes, he'd definitely missed this.

"You are a genius. You too Sam, but I figured you didn't want me to kiss you." Sam held his hands up and shook his head, trying not to smile as he did so.

"Did you figure something out?" Sam had pushed the laptop off of his lap and onto the coffee table as he spoke, standing up and moving into the kitchen to pour himself something to drink.

"Not exactly, but think about it. He said he's not done yet and he's not going to leave my family out of it? Which means he's going to try to contact more people. Taking into account that he means more than just my immediate family, which means only Carole and Finn are left, he might branch off to my friends. The only other people I talk to are from Glee in high school."

Kurt moved to the table, grabbing the laptop and waking it up, typing in a few things.

"So what's the plan?" Blaine watched as Kurt bit his lip before speaking, aiming his words to Sam behind him.

"I know that you don't want to be in Ohio, and I respect that. As far as this guy knows, you're not here. Hopefully. But either way, I have to go to Ohio." Sam nodded, lowering his glass back to the table as he did so.

"Okay. Fine, I'll come." Blaine watched Kurt shake his head.

"We'll have to see people from Glee. Mercedes especially." Sam swallowed thickly before forcing a smile.

"Understood. Hey, time to man up right?" Kurt laughed and went back to typing on Blaine's laptop. Blaine, who felt a little ignored in this, moved to sit down next to him.

"Booking a flight out? What time do we leave? I'll have to call out of work." Kurt, once again, bit his lip before speaking.

"I uh... this isn't like last time Blaine. This isn't us trying to protect you and you tagging along for civilian backing. This is some whack job going after me by playing with the people I care about. And I'm not going to let it happen to you. So no, you're staying here."

Although he wanted to say that he didn't believe this was happening, Blaine had actually kind of expected it. Just like Kurt to try to keep him out of the firing range.

"No. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Guess what Kurt, we're in a relationship now. What happens to you, happens to me, and if you don't let me go, I'll just fly down there by myself. I know where you live, if you'll remember."

Kurt's jaw tightened and Blaine only had a second to think that he might have crossed a line somewhere in there before he spoke.

"And if you think that I don't have ways of making you stay here, you're completely mistaken. Please, just this once, do this for me? Stay here. Don't throw a fit, don't try to talk your way into joining us, and please, don't follow us."

He couldn't place the tone, since he had definitely never heard Kurt use it before, but if he had to guess, he'd say begging. Kurt was begging him to stay out of it, to stay in New York while Kurt and Sam went trotting back into the mouth of danger. Once again. And this time he wouldn't even be there to know if something bad happened.

"I just... fine. I'll stay here. Unprotected and unaware of what is going on, that's me." It was childish, sure, but Blaine was definitely not above playing dirty right now. He wasn't going to throw a fit or try to go with them, because he could feel just how much Kurt wanted him out of the danger zone, but that doesn't mean he was happy about it.

"You think I'd leave you unprotected? Oh ye of little faith. Stanley has already offered me the use of some of his employees, the ones that were and are pro-Kurt that is, as protection detail. He already sent one up here."

Blaine laughed, bending down to tuck his head onto Kurt's shoulder.

"You'll call me? To let me know that you've landed and to give me updates? I don't... I don't want to be left in the dark on this Kurt. You..." You mean too much to me, is what he wanted to say. But he kept it to himself, instead waiting patiently for an answer.

"I promise. At least once a day, preferably many times a day. I'll call and text. If my phone's broken from it's fall against your wall, I'll use Sam's. Don't worry Blaine. Everything is going to be okay."

While Blaine wasn't sure if he believed that or not, wasn't sure he trusted Kurt's tone, he leaned forward to wrap his hand around Kurt's neck, his other hand finding one of Kurt's and twining their fingers together, and pulled him forward so that their mouths aligned perfectly.

There was no time for sweet, chaste kisses. It was another of those 'if this is the last time I'll kiss him, I want to make it count' times. Their tongues slid against each other, Kurt's free hand tangling in his curls and pulling so that Blaine would tilt his head back for a better position. They were both trying to get as close as they could while still wearing clothes... and with Sam looking on.

"Definitely won't miss you two doing that when I'm in the room."

A/N: It's been a few days, sorry about that. Glad to finally get this one up. Sam and Kurt are heading back to Ohio and Blaine is staying in New York. I mean, only good things can come of that, right? This story is definitely going to be a little more... fast paced?... than Shoot to Kill, but I hope it keeps everyone's interest.

I love talking to people, about my writing or writing in general, Glee and Klaine and all that other fun stuff, or just life, so do feel free to pop in in a review or message. I'm also on Tumblr, which is the easiest way to contact me these days.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!