Black & Gold
Chapter Eleven
Cooper felt his awareness coming back to him slowly like a lifting fog. His brain kicked in before his body, and he listened for any clues about his surroundings. He was laying on a hard surface, not tied down or restrained with anything, but he could hear people milling about nearby, talking in hushed voices.
"As soon as he's awake, we can explain what's going on just long enough for him to freak out before we give it to him. We can even tell him that we're expecting Hummel any day now."
"Your evil side never fails to surprise and impress me, Wong."
Cooper tensed, but forced himself not to move even an eyelid. He couldn't let on that he was awake, at least until he was ready to make his move.
There were at least three people in the room, which sounded like a vast, empty space. Cooper had no idea where the room was, or how to get out, but he could hear the sounds of vehicles rushing by outside and knew he had to be close to an exit.
"He should be waking up soon, will you go get the doctor?" a man's voice (presumably Wong's) asked. Cooper assumed that Wong and the other man in the room were the two men who had abducted him.
Footsteps leading away from where Cooper was laid out slapped against the ground, and he knew that this was his only chance for escape. In one single motion, he flung himself off the surface, thankfully expecting it to have been raised off the ground. The two men jumped to attention and ran at him, preparing to wrestle him back into submission, but Cooper was ready.
For the first time in his life, he thanked his father for something, more grateful than he had ever been for the boxing lessons he'd been forced to take as a child and continued to willingly participate in even as an adult.
The two men he faced were clearly not trained in any type of fighting, and Cooper easily took them down with a few jabs. He scoped out the room and saw a heavy door illuminated by a red EXIT sign straight ahead, and made a beeline for it.
A frantic looking woman in a white coat rushed into the room, and screamed "Stop!" Cooper did not stop. He hit the door with a crash! but it did not open, remaining steadfastly and apparently locked.
He almost laughed at himself for what he was about to do as he backed up a few steps and took a running start at the door, just yards away from the two men he had knocked out who had now gotten to their feet and were coming after him. Cooper put all his weight behind his shoulder and rammed the door, which, miraculously, flew open.
"FUCK!" he cried, grabbing at his shoulder, which he had dislocated in the assault on the door. But as he sprinted through the empty parking lot surrounding the warehouse in which he had previously been captive and ran toward the road to find someone to hitch a ride back to town with, he smirked, because he, Cooper Daniels (née Anderson), had just shouldered down a door with enough brute force to escape some bad guys. He filed the feelings away for use in his future movie career. He just couldn't make this stuff up.
After coming to the realization that Morgan, his most trusted security advisor, was the one who had betrayed him instead of Wes, Blaine was frozen in place.
"Blaine?" Wes asked shakily as Morgan continued to grab him, following Blaine's initial orders.
"Blaine?" This time it was Burt calling his name as he stepped out of the car to monitor the scene. "Blaine!"
The concern in Burt's voice snapped Blaine out of his paralysis as he slipped into his commanding voice and presence.
"Leave Wes. Morgan, take the car key but give the rest of the key ring to Burt so he can get into Kurt's office. Wes, go wait inside and I'll come speak to you in a moment. Morgan, go back to the Council building and start figuring out how to find Kurt."
Everyone nodded in agreement and Morgan and Wes took off, leaving Burt and Blaine standing behind The Golden Rose.
"What just happened?" Burt asked, noting Blaine's shaking hands.
"It wasn't Wes, Burt, it was Morgan. He's been the one all along."
"So you just let him go?!"
"I didn't want him to know I was on to him. Plus, you have the keys now, so he can't get into our personal spaces anymore."
"What do we do now?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Wes peeked out from behind the back door, looking left and right to make sure Morgan had gone.
Blaine opened his mouth, but Wes silenced him. "You don't have to say it."
"Yes I do!"
"Please don't. I understand the immense stress you've been under."
"Wes, I'm—"
"Don't say it!"
"Okay. I won't."
"Good."
"I'm so sorry!" Blaine blurted out, causing Wes to roll his eyes and Burt to chuckle, despite the gravity of the situation.
"I know you are. You're forgiven. Now let's figure out how to find your boy."
"I feel like we've been in this situation before…" Blaine mused wryly, remembering how much of a help Wes was to him after graduation when Kurt had disappeared from his life.
"And we will have as good of an outcome this time, I promise," Wes said sincerely enough that it made Blaine pull him into a hug.
"All right, boys, enough with the sap. Let's turn those feelings into action," Burt grumbled, though Blaine could swear he saw him wiping at his eyes.
"Just one problem, though, Burt. We have no clue where to start."
"We could trail Morgan after he leaves work today?" Wes suggested.
"We could. There's got to be a better way…"
Blaine's phone rang, blasting "Pony" by Ginuwine, pulling a laugh out of the Chancellor. His brother had made it a habit to steal Blaine's phone whenever they were at Friday night dinners and change his ringtone for himself, Wes, and Sam to ridiculously sexual songs, then for the boys to call Blaine constantly throughout the week just to hear the ringtone play.
"I need to answer, or he'll keep calling until I do," Blaine apologized to Burt and Wes before picking up the phone.
"Coop, now is really not a good time."
"You're telling me! I'm sitting in the back of some random guy's rusty old pickup truck talking on his flip phone. With an antenna!"
"What?" Blaine was caught off guard by Cooper's words and the breathless, urgent sound of his voice. "Why?"
"I was abducted and taken to an empty fucking warehouse where a bunch of people were trying to keep me captive and give me...something. Some sort of medication or something. Blaine, I escaped by punching these dudes out and then I broke down the fucking door with my shoulder! My shoulder, little brother! I ran as fast as I could and jumped in with the first person who would pick up a hitchhiker and here I am. This is exactly the kind of material I needed for my biopic, lead role played by none other than me. What a fucking trip!"
"Um...what are you on, Cooper?" Blaine asked carefully, sure that his brother was high.
"Adrenaline, squirt! Adrenaline."
"Okay, so why did you call me from the back of a pickup truck to tell me this?" Blaine asked.
"Oh! Right. So when I was in this warehouse, pretending to be knocked out still — see? I was made for acting! — I heard them talking about how Kurt would be there soon and that they were going to do something to him. It sounded bad, Blaine."
"What the fuck, Cooper, why didn't you lead with that?!" Blaine was heading to the driver's side of Wes' car already, motioning for the others to follow him. "Kurt went missing some time in the last 12 hours. Do you know how to get to this warehouse place? Can you show us?"
"As long as random pickup dude doesn't murder me, then yes. We're just coming into the north side of town."
"Have him drop you off, preferably in a well-lit area with lots of witnesses around. We'll come pick you up."
"Okay, but Blaine? After I show you how to get there and I'm finished being the hero of the day, I'm going to need to politely excuse myself to go to the hospital. My arm hurts like fucking hell."
"Did I tell you how I busted down a door with only my own strength?"
"Yes, Cooper," Burt, Wes, and Blaine chorused with an air of annoyance.
"Only about fifteen times," Blaine grumbled, unable to give much care to anything except rescuing Kurt.
"Fine. See if I let you play yourself in my upcoming motion picture about my life." Cooper crossed his arms grumpily and fell into silence.
Twenty or so miles down the road, Cooper spoke up excitedly. "Ooh! There's the warehouse!"
"Jesus, Coop!" The tires squealed as Blaine pulled a sharp turn to head to the warehouse that Cooper had pointed out as they were passing by.
Burt and Blaine emerged from the car and Wes took over behind the wheel, intending to take Cooper to the hospital.
"Be safe," he said to the two who were going in the warehouse. "We'll see you soon."
"Bye. Thank you, Cooper," Blaine hugged his brother tightly, despite the irritation he'd caused him all day.
"Good luck, baby bro."
"We did not think this through thoroughly enough," Blaine whispered to Burt out of the corner of his mouth as they were immediately detained and handcuffed upon entering the building.
"Mr. Hummel, Mr. Anderson. We've been hoping you would join us sooner or later."
"Johnson, what are you doing here?" Blaine asked the ex-Councilman who he had personally let go before appointing a new, fair Council.
"Making things right," he said simply.
"Is Kurt here?"
"Cutting right to the chase, aren't we?" Johnson asked with a taunting look in his eyes.
"Is he?" Blaine's voice was icy, and anyone with a normal sense of self-preservation would have been terrified of it.
"See for yourself," he opened a door to a small room with a large pane of glass that showed a huge, empty storage space. Blaine charged toward the glass, realizing what was on the other side.
Kurt was there, strapped down to a chair, looking ragged and worn down, but fortunately not injured as far as Blaine could tell.
"KURT! KURT!" He yelled through the glass, banging his body up against it, since his hands were tied behind his back.
Kurt and the four other people in the warehouse room looked toward the glass. Kurt's eyes found Blaine and for just a moment, just one second, everything else melted away around them.
Blaine looked into Kurt's distressed face, and felt nearly bowled over by the force of the emotion rolling off of him. Even separated by glass, Blaine could feel Kurt's relief, fright, and comfort at seeing Blaine there. Blaine tried to project back promises of safety and love, though he wasn't sure if Kurt even wanted his love anymore.
Kurt wiggled his fingers just as much as the restraints would allow, and the light glinted off of something on his hand.
The ring.
Blaine's breath caught as he realized Kurt was wearing the engagement ring on his left ring finger. Nothing made sense, and everything was in danger, but seeing the ring there calmed Blaine's erratically beating heart.
Kurt's eyes shifted to where his dad stood nervously next to Blaine, and gave a small smile, as if to say, "I'm all right, dad."
"I see we have visitors," the woman in the white coat said. "Why don't we explain to everyone what's going on here. Chase?"
For the first time, Blaine realized that one of the people in the warehouse was none other than Chase, and his hair stood on end, body vibrating with rage. Kurt silenced him with a sideways glare, message clear as day. Don't do anything to make them hurt you.
"We are the Black Roses. We've been working tirelessly all year to find a way to take down Chancellor Anderson and stop the Resistance in its tracks," Chase explained. "When it wasn't as easy as we anticipated to remove the Chancellor from office, we began developing a serum that would help us accomplish our goal. Doctor Stanley?"
The woman in the lab coat stepped forward again. Blaine wanted to wipe the smiles right off their faces.
"We needed a way to put an end to the outrageous brainwashing the Resistance has begun, so we created this little injection." She held up a gleaming syringe full of clear liquid. "This leaves long term memories in tact, but erases memories from short term. People who have been given this injection remember who they are, but not necessarily anything about their lives from the past few years. We then re-condition them to believe that Chancellor Anderson needs to go, and that Class equality and liberation is wrong. It's been quite a fascinating process. And now, we're going to administer the injection to your beloved Hummel," she spoke directly to Blaine. "If it works as intended, which it will, he will not recall any of the work he's done with the Resistance, or any of the beliefs he's been brainwashed into adopting over the past few years. And the best part of all, he won't remember even meeting you, Mr. Anderson, let alone that he once loved you."
A tear rolled down Kurt's pained face, but he sat passively, because there was nothing he could do. Blaine looked around, but he, too, was trapped and helpless.
There was nothing worse Blaine could have imagined. Having Kurt out there in the world with no idea what they had shared, no clue the love they had for each other, was infinitely worse than Kurt consciously deciding to stay away from Blaine.
"Our original plan was to administer this injection to you, as well, Chancellor, but I think it's going to be much more fun to watch you suffer, knowing that he can't remember anything about you."
Silent sobs ripped through Blaine's body, but he remained unable to move. He could scream and shout at Kurt how much he loved him and hope that he would hear it back, but neither seemed able to make his voice cooperate. Instead, they stared at each other, passing back and forth unspeakable emotions. Kurt wiggled his fingers again, catching the light on his ring, and Blaine closed his eyes, leaning his head against the window pane in defeat. He felt Burt's presence next to him, trying to soothe him, but for the first time ever, Blaine hated Burt, because at the end of the day, Kurt would remember his father.
"My assistant will be administering the serum. It shouldn't hurt too bad. And don't be afraid, nobody has died from it in a while."
A smaller man in a white coat and green rubber gloves stepped up to Kurt's chair as the doctor ordered everyone else away.
Kurt finally tore his eyes off Blaine to look at the man while the doctor continued to ramble on about her successes with the serum.
Blaine watched helplessly as the assistant swabbed Kurt's arm where the needle would go in, knowing how terrified Kurt must be, and dying inside that he was powerless to stop it.
The man's sleeve fell back as he held up the syringe in front of Kurt's face, to show him and presumably scare him further, and Blaine saw the slightest change in Kurt's posture. Had he not known Kurt like he did, had he not spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours watching and admiring him, he would not have noticed the shift, but to Blaine, it was clear as daylight as Kurt's shoulders rolled back and seemed to relax incrementally.
That was it. Kurt had given up. Not that there had been any hope to begin with.
Everyone in the room fell silent. "Now, Parker," the doctor ordered.
An evil smile came over the assistant's face as he inserted the needle into Kurt's arm and pushed down to put the poison in his body.
Everyone waited with bated breath while Parker stepped away and the doctor came forward.
"What is your name?"
Kurt blinked a few times before opening his mouth. "Kurt Hummel."
"What do you think of the current Chancellor?"
Kurt frowned, two little creases forming between his eyebrows. "I don't remember who it is," he eventually said with frustration.
"Does the name Blaine Anderson mean anything to you?"
Kurt closed his eyes, straining as if reaching for a memory that he couldn't quite find. Blaine's heart stopped beating while he waited for the response. Finally, Kurt spoke his answer. "I don't know anyone named Blaine Anderson."