A/N: Warning: A bit of non-con in this chapter. Thanks for reading.
I don't own Glee or United States of Tara.
Thump thump thump thump thump…
Blaine let the bass echoing in his ears overwhelm his other senses as he sank deeper onto the barstool, if such a thing were even possible. If he sank any deeper, he may become part of the tacky décor that populated Scandals, the only gay bar for miles.
It had been easy enough to get in. Cooper, Blaine's older brother, had made him a fake ID for his eighteenth birthday. It was supposed to be a gag gift, but Blaine knew that Cooper had done it with the tiny hope that maybe, just maybe, his prude of a little brother might put it to good use. But surely Cooper hadn't been envisioning this scenario.
Blaine was already four beers in and it was only eight o'clock on a Friday night. He'd ducked out of school right as the final bell rang and had traveled up to Lima solo. Sure, he probably could have gotten someone to go with him, Nick and Jeff maybe, Josh definitely, but Blaine wanted to be alone tonight. Well, that wasn't quite true. Blaine just wanted to be anonymous. He was going to embrace the persona of the guy on his fake ID. The guy that had his face, but nothing else. Maybe Kurt shouldn't be the only one allowed to escape for a while.
"I'll trade you two wheat for a lumber," Finn said desperately. "Come on that's a deal."
"I don't have any lumber," Kurt answered, trying to keep the boredom out of his voice. Finn was home from the army for good, having received an honorable discharge for a less than honorable goof-up in boot camp. Frankly, the clumsy teenager was lucky to be alive. Now, with Rachel gone to New York and Kurt ordered to come home every weekend until the Daniel situation was sorted out, both boys were feeling a bit stir crazy.
"Alright, fine, I'll give you two wheat and an ore for one measly lumber."
"Finn, I'm serious, I don't have a lumber, just end your turn."
Kurt could tell his impatience had gotten the best of him by the looks on Finn's and Artie's faces.
"Maybe bringing over Settlers of Catan was a bad idea," Artie mumbled nervously. He'd been surprised and somewhat flattered when his two former classmates had invited him over, but the whole night, Kurt just seemed to be on edge.
Artie and Kurt had never been particularly close. Kurt was an enigma to him, as he was to the rest of the Glee club. He'd had some problems in the past few years with illness, causing him to miss a lot of school and eventually after a failed homeschooling attempt, he had to repeat his senior year. But Artie found himself inexplicably drawn to Kurt. He sympathized with him, with his experiences being bullied, with his disbelief in God. He never felt comfortable talking to Kurt about any of it, but he had the feeling that if he wanted to, Kurt would be open to it.
"No," Kurt sighed. "I'm sorry, I just have a lot on my mind."
"Boy troubles?" Finn asked with mock concern. He'd done it in a teasing, big-brother kind of way, but when Kurt's eyes flashed with unshed tears, he immediately regretted saying it.
"What did he do, Kurt?" Finn asked immediately, his protectiveness of Kurt arising out of nowhere. "Do I need to go have a talk with him?"
"No, it's nothing," Kurt answered dismissively, waving a hand. "Well, it's not nothing, but it's…it's my fault."
Kurt shot Finn a look that he hope conveyed the message that they would discuss it more later, and after a few awkward moments of silence, Finn seemed to catch on. Meanwhile, Artie sat in the middle, casting confused glances between the two of them.
"I can, uh, I can give you a brick if you want," Kurt mumbled, looking at his cards and eager to switch topics. "For your two wheats."
Finn didn't really need the brick, but he accepted the trade, his mind swimming with concern. He had a feeling things weren't completely normal back home, but no one had talked to him about it yet since he got home the morning prior and he wasn't one to pry. Looking at Kurt now, as if really seeing him for the first time since his homecoming, he could tell something was wrong, and it wasn't just problems with Blaine. It was something bigger.
"What's your name?"
The man's mouth was so close to Blaine's ear as he asked the question that Blaine could feel his hot, sticky breath clinging to the crevices, which were already well-coated with sweat. He'd been on the dance floor for a solid hour, stopping only for the occasional chug when the song changed. Now he found himself leaning heavily back against this man who was grinding him from behind. He couldn't have been older than thirty, but it was obvious that he had much more experience than Blaine. In the fog of his drunkenness, Blaine struggled to remember the name on his ID.
"Charlie," he shouted back over the music. He could feel the man smile against his ear.
"Well, come on, Charlie," the man shouted back, grabbing onto Blaine's wrist and pulling him toward the back of the bar. "I want to show you something."
"Show me something," Blaine slurred to himself as he struggled to keep up with the man, who had not only neglected to return the favor of telling Blaine his name, but who had obviously had much less to drink than him. The air was blurry around him, and he wasn't sure if it was from the smoke or from his inebriation or both. But really, he didn't care. He was having fun. And the mystery man was cute and a good dancer and now he was going to show Blaine something and Blaine was only a little bit uneasy about it.
Apparently the "something" was the dank, dirty, low-lit bathroom at the very back of the club. There was a cleaner, better stocked one near the front, but it was obvious that this one was used for something else by the club-goers.
Blaine winced as he caught a sight of himself in the scummy bathroom mirror being dragged along. His hair was a mess and his button up shirt was already half undone and covered in sweat. Suddenly, Blaine wasn't so excited to be back there with the man.
"What's your name?" he asked in a way that he hoped sounded nonchalant as the man pushed him up against the wall. The man just chuckled as his hands groped Blaine's chest and back. Blaine was about to ask again when suddenly his head was thrust back sharply by a hand that held a fistful of his hair and the man's mouth was on Blaine's.
Blaine whimpered slightly in surprise and panic before trying to push the man away. It was no use. Blaine was beyond drunk and with his head cocked back at an awkward angle, he was no match for the man's strength.
When the man reached down to touch Blaine through his pants, he was able to turn his head swiftly to the side, breaking the man's mouth off of his.
"Stop!" he shouted, feeling much more sober than he had five seconds previously. It was amazing how quickly one could be brought to their senses through sheer fright.
The man didn't stop though. In response to Blaine's order, he picked Blaine's head off the wall and slammed it back hard, causing Blaine's vision to turn white momentarily before stars rained down.
"Please," Blaine whispered, wincing from the blow, as the man's hand began to move to unbuckle Blaine's belt.
"Shut up, Charlie," he grunted. "I'm trying to show you a nice time."
"No, I don't…I don't want that," Blaine mumbled, afraid that if he spoke too loudly again, the man might bash his head against the wall again or worse. Then again what could be worse than what happening to him right then?
"I said, NO!"
"Hey! What the hell is going on in here?"
Blaine took advantage of the man's shock of being interrupted to escape. Pushing past his savior, the morose-looking bouncer who'd checked his ID earlier in the evening, he ran straight through the dance floor and out of the entrance at the opposite wall, praying that the man wasn't following him.
"Please, please," he muttered to himself, trying desperately to calm his shaking hands enough to get his car key to fit into the lock. Finally, he accomplished the task and threw himself into the driver's seat, only taking the time to look around behind him once the doors were locked.
The front door to Scandals remained closed and it didn't appear that the man, the bouncer, or anyone else had followed him out. Letting out a sigh of relief, he laid his forehead on the steering wheel, and began crying softly. His head hurt, he felt like he was going to throw up and he knew that he'd just narrowly escaped the worst thing he could possibly envision happening to him. As much as he wanted to leave, he knew it would be a bad idea to drive.
Fumbling with his phone, he scrolled through the contacts, pausing briefly over Kurt's name, before moving on to Jeff's. Jeff picked up on the first ring and agreed to come get Blaine. Blaine was thankful Jeff didn't ask for details and after hanging up, he crawled into the back seat and lied down. After a moment, he migrated to the floor board, ignoring the uncomfortable hump in the middle in favor of the extra security he felt knowing that the man would have to peer in with a flashlight to see him down there if he came looking.
Despite trying to stay up for Jeff, Blaine fell asleep after a few minutes, his head still pounding in time with the music emanating from the building a few dozen yards away.
The boys were just setting up the Monopoly board, having given up on Catan when Kurt's phone began to buzz on the table.
Call me ASAP.
The message was from Jeff and Kurt excused himself from the table immediately. It wasn't like Jeff to write such a short, non-informative text. Something was definitely wrong.
"Hey, what is it?" Kurt asked when Jeff answered the phone. He could hear Jeff tell someone that he'd be right back and then he heard the click of a door before Jeff returned his attention to Kurt.
"Before I say anything, no one is dead or seriously hurt, okay?" Jeff whispered into the phone.
"You're scaring me, what's wrong? Is it Blaine?" Kurt could feel his heart beating in his throat as he swallowed nervously.
"Blaine's fine. Well, that's not true. Kurt, Blaine, he um…tonight, he…"
"Jeff, spit it out or let me talk to him!" Kurt ordered impatiently, his voice too loud for standing outside on his father's porch at ten in the evening.
"Okay, calm down," Jeff hissed, as if worried that his voice could be heard by whoever else might be around him. "Blaine went to Scandals tonight."
"The gay bar?" Kurt asked, confused. It didn't sound like something Blaine would do.
"Yeah, the gay bar," he confirmed. "He had too much to drink, and this guy…I guess this guy started to get handsy and he forced Blaine into the bathroom and—"
"Oh my God," Kurt whispered, tears already forming in his eyes. "He wasn't—"
"No, no," Jeff cut him off, knowing where Kurt's mind had gone. "He got away, but not before the guy knocked him around a bit. He called me to pick him up and he's back at the dorm with me now, probably fell asleep as soon as I stepped out. He was asleep in his car when I came to get him."
A million questions rushed through Kurt's mind in that moment. Why had Blaine gone to Scandals? Why had he gone alone? How did he even get in? Why had he called Jeff to come get him when Kurt was so much closer? Kurt wasn't able to formulate any of these questions aloud. It was hard enough to concentrate on not bursting into tears.
"Kurt," Jeff's soft voice came back on the line. "I know you think you're punishing yourself with all this, but you're really hurting Blaine. We're all trying to understand and be sympathetic toward you and give you your space, but come on, man. You have to at least talk to Blaine. He deserves that much."
Kurt nodded in agreement, not comprehending that his trembling movements weren't translating over the phone lines.
"Are you still there?"
"Yeah," Kurt answered. "You're right. I'm sorry. Tell…tell him I'm so sorry and I'll call him tomorrow when he wakes up. He's safe now, right?"
"Yeah, he's safe," Jeff said. "He's not leaving my sight for the rest of the weekend."
He said it because he knew it was what Kurt needed to hear, but he also said it because it was true. For the rest of the weekend, aside from bathroom breaks, Jeff was going to be glued to Blaine's side. He didn't tell Kurt, but Blaine had scared Jeff with his actions and the way he was acting the last few days. He was acting like a guy with nothing to lose and Jeff had seen that before in someone from his past. Someone he could never get back, and he wasn't going to let Blaine go down that same path. Not if he had anything to do with it.
After exchanging goodbyes, Kurt put his phone back in his pocket and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, sinking slowly to the porch floor. With his feet planted on the steps below, he curled his head down to his knees and allowed the tears to flow. It was a combination of fear, panic, relief and frustration that came pouring out from him as he realized how much more complicated life suddenly was. As if it wasn't enough already.
He was going to have to fix things with Blaine. One way or another. Jeff was right, his boyfriend deserved at least that much.