Warning: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.
Disclaimer: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.
Author Notes: Sorry for the delay in posting, real life had temporarily took my internet from me.
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The most brilliant aspect of suicide was that it was so easy to blame the victim. In fact, in a crime where only the victim wasn't around to make their opinions known it was always easier to ascribe blame to one single body. Victim blaming wasn't anything new. He shouldn't have pissed off the wrong people, she shouldn't have been walking alone at night, if only they hadn't wandered down that dark alley. Suicide just removed all other parties from the equation. Publicly you thought that someone should have noticed, but privately you knew that it was their own fault.
If they were so depressed why didn't they get help? A little chemical injection to raise their serotonin levels, maybe a psychologist to talk thing over. Heck, just an icecream and a good old whine to their best friends should have been a more attractive option than death.
It was, if he did say so himself, a most excellent plan. And if all parties weren't on board with the plan… Well, who had to know?
Puck had thought his options over and suicide had come out on top.
It was something he hadn't tried before, a deviation from his normal routine. It was a way to get rid of Blaine without anyone thinking the Lima killer had made a relapse. And, oh. There were just so many ways to do it. At first he'd imagined slit wrists in a bathtub, but in reality that could get far too messy. Any sign of a struggle and there would be cause to think that there was foul play involved.
So that ruled out any of the more physical death methods. Hanging, shooting, any form of self mutilation. Nobody killed themselves by drowning.
That only made it difficult, not impossible.
"Does the pussy have a laptop?" Puck asked Kurt, alone together during one of their so-called study sessions.
"I don't see why that's relevant, but yes." Kurt answered, more pissy than usual and for not good reason.
Puck studied his boyfriend closely, trying to place the behaviour, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He narrowed his eyes, watching Kurt stiffly refuse to rise to the bait and look at him. "Don't tell me you're still feeling bad about this."
"Noah," Kurt sighed.
"Oh come on. It's not like you didn't know this was coming."
"Can we just get it over with, please?"
"Fine. But I'm gonna need a window and a syringe."
That made Kurt look at him. "A syringe?"
Puck smirked. "You don't want to ruin the surprise, do you?"
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Paranoia made him tip over the corn puffs. Blaine saw something from the corner of his eye and his body jerked in response, hand knocking his bowl of corn puffs and tipping the whole thing onto the floor. He realised even as his body was moving that it was ridiculous. There was no way Puck would be up this early in the morning, let alone stalking him from the scraggly old tree outside the kitchen window.
"Honey, are you alright?" His mother asked, concerned, from across the table.
'Fine," Blaine replied, pyjama pants soaked with milk and soggy bits of cereal. "I'm just not awake yet… I'm going to go get changed," he added, before his mother could voice any more concerns.
So, he reasoned as he trotted up the stairs and down the hall to his room. Puck was the killer, Kurt had as good as said so. That didn't necessarily mean that he'd be out to get him. After all, Blaine had done nothing to warrant assassination. He hadn't told anyone, or let on to Puck that he knew.
Ah, his brain helpfully reminded him, but Kurt told Puck everything. He would have mentioned accidentally spilling Puck's secret and who knows what Puck would want to do about that.
The thought stopped him dead in his tracks, standing in milk-soaked PJs in front of his dresser. What if Puck decided that Kurt was a liability? What if he thought that now that Kurt had spilled his secret once it would be easier to do again? What if he thought that telling Blaine was just a preliminary before he went to the police?
For just a moment a warm fuzzy feeling filled him at the idea of Kurt going to the cops. With Puck arrested then he and Kurt could be together. It didn't occur to him that maybe Kurt might have other ideas.
Finally Blaine realised that he was still wearing his pyjamas. He quickly stripped down and pulled an outfit from his dresser. Designer jeans, a grey t-shirt with a pair of sunglasses printed on the front, and a striped hoodie from a very trendy store. He matched the whole thing with coloured converse, finding it a little strange that he was still concerned with keeping up appearances even under these circumstances. Mind you, if not now (with a murderer already aware that Blaine knew his secret) then when?
Blaine mother kept shooting him concerned glances on the way in to school. She had insisted that she drive him in rather than taking the bus that morning. He suspected his earlier unexplained clumsiness was to blame.
"I'm fine," he tried again. "Honest."
"Sweetie, I haven't seen you this jumpy since the summer. I just want to make sure you're ok."
"I am ok," Blaine insisted. "I'm better than ok. Mr. Schuester was talking about giving me a solo in our next performance."
That seemed to satisfy his mother enough that she didn't mention it again. It was the truth that he'd told her, at least about the solo. But somehow it still felt like a lie. No, he most certainly was not ok and he didn't know why he hadn't just said so.
Blaine purposefully lingered in the courtyard outside the school, aiming to miss the morning court session at Kurt's locker. He wasn't in the mood to face a boy he knew was a killer, not just yet. Nor was he ready to see Kurt again, a little afraid that the other boy would have changed his mind and decided that it was too much trouble to keep associating with a boy who could get him killed by his own boyfriend.
If he had decided to attend the morning court he would have known before lunchtime that Puck wasn't actually in school that day.
"Sick," Kurt explained over his orange chicken salad, "with some appallingly virulent strain of the flu. I'm sure he'll be fine. Noah has always been known for his ability to bounce back from the edge of illness."
"I hope you don't get sick too," Rachel commented from the other side of the table, looking concerned, "our rehearsals this week are particularly important, given the rapid approach of sectionals."
"Don't worry, Rachel. I have no plans to contract Noah's cold. We're incommunicado until he stops dripping mucus."
That comment struck Blaine as particularly hopeful, enough so that he stopped poking at his lunch long enough to look up at his friend. "So Puck doesn't mind that you wont talk to him while he's sick?" Blaine asked, a meaningful look thrown in to add the question a weight that only Kurt would understand.
"He knows what I'm like with illness," Kurt replied, looking right back at Blaine with the same kind of stare. "It isn't anything new."
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This was new.
Puck had to admit that he had honestly never attempted anything like this before. Breaking and entering, sure. He'd done that before, if only into his own house or to Finn's place a couple of times. Empty buildings didn't count, since there was generally nobody around to notice anything anyway. But this… sneaking onto the Anderson's property in the middle of the day… this was something new.
The Anderson's house was your general two-storey deal, smack in the middle of the property and framed with a white picket fence. The driveway was covered, but the fence on that side was still small, providing little to no cover. Puck simply had to stroll up the driveway like he belonged there and hope nobody caught him tiptoeing through the azaleas down the side of the house as he looked for a likely point of entry.
He thought that he'd struck gold out the back in the form of a large, scraggly tree. If Puck stood underneath the tree and looked up he could see a direct line into a window on the second storey. It would be tricky, but not impossible. As long as he didn't break any branches or fall nobody should really notice him going up. And if the window up there wasn't locked or barred…
"Test run," Puck muttered to himself and started up the tree.
It wasn't quick, avoiding the small branches and testing to make sure each new limb would actually hold his weight, but eventually he drew level with the second storey window. No bars. No visible lock. He leaned slowly out and tested the window to see how easily it would open.
Not very. Careful levering only opened the window a few inches before it stuck, with probably some sort of stopper screwed in to prevent it from being opened all the way. Puck swore softly to himself and mentally crossed off that window.
He dropped back down to the ground outside the kitchen window and immediately realised that he'd been overthinking things. He should have checked for a spare key before he went and tried any of the more complicated methods.
Relying solely on suburban complacency and hoping the Andersons didn't have any nosy neighbours, Puck checked under the front welcome mat, above the door frame, and under a few lawn ornaments until he found a key. He tested it on the front door and had to resist a fist-pump when it actually opened up.
He put the key back where he'd found it before he stepped inside, fixing the location in his mind.
Only after he'd explored the entire house, found Blaine's bedroom, and figured out the perfect hiding place did he realise he'd have another issue to contend with. And thinking about the getaway made him think about the getting in. Thus far there had been no signs that anyone had seen him. No security system had gone off, no sirens had come screeching down the road, no neighbours had come knocking on the door to ask him what he was doing… But those were all things that could have happened.
He was lucky this time. Damn lucky. Next time he couldn't rely on luck.
Puck sighed softly and shook his head. He got down on his hands and knees and slid under Blaine's bed, testing the room and how easy it was to move. He tried the closet next, and the odd, awkward space under the computer desk.
This was new, and he had to get everything exactly right.
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The next day Puck wasn't in school either. Blaine kept a watchful eye out all day just in case he did show up, but nothing happened.
"Maybe he's not sick," Blaine suggested before choir practice, "maybe's he's actually skipped town."
"Blaine, don't be silly," Kurt replied, inspecting his nails. "Puck wouldn't leave town without telling me."
"How do you know?" Blaine asked reasonably, "you said you haven't spoken to him since he got sick, right?"
"Right," Kurt agreed reluctantly.
"Then how do you know he's still where he says he is?"
"If I didn't know better I'd say you were starting to sound a little paranoid, Mr Anderson."
"But you can't know for sure unless you go to his house, right?" Blaine pressed.
Kurt arched an eyebrow at him. "Are you suggesting we go to Noah's house after glee? We can, you know. If you think it would achieve anything more significant than confirming his whereabouts."
Exasperated, already tired of looking over his shoulder, Blaine asked (perhaps louder than he intended); "Why are you even with him?"
A sudden silence from the rest of the room made him blush as he realised how loudly he'd spoken. Blaine refused to look away from Kurt's face, watching the other boy's plush pink lips press together into a firm, angry line and two spots of red form high on his cheeks.
"That," Kurt said coldly, "is absolutely none of your business. And if you don't already understand why then you never will."
Blaine looked away first, aware that he'd overstepped his bounds. Throughout the rest of the practice he found he couldn't concentrate, accidentally messing up his choreography and sliding a little on some of his notes.
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On the third day neither Puck nor Blaine showed up at school.
