Chapter Nine

Blaine stood there staring with his eyes glassy as though he'd been fighting tears. How could it have been this sweet boy? Something didn't add up.

"Blaine…" came Kurt's weak voice and the young detective nearly melted. He didn't care that Kurt had used his first name. That was what he had been wishing for since he'd rescued him earlier. Though he would never admit that to anyone. Except for perhaps Kurt.

But then suddenly, the pale boy was turning to Blaine with darkness in his face. "She needs to die," he said. "She knows too much."

The young detective felt like he was caught between a rock and hard place. He already had so many feelings for this boy - though he couldn't say why - and yet, the right thing to do was cuff him and haul him off to jail. But he couldn't do that, he just couldn't.

Blaine needed to think fast. How was he going to keep up appearances while also helping Kurt? That's when he got an idea and prayed his acting skills weren't too rusty.

Moving in Lauren's direction, he placed a comforting hand on the girl's back. "Are you alright? You aren't hurt, are you?"

Lauren glanced from Kurt to Blaine and back to Kurt again, Kurt who was looking completely outraged. She was confused by the fact that Kurt still seemed like he was fighting something. He'd been acting so strange the entire time and while she would never admit as much aloud, it scared her.

"I'm fine," she said, because like hell would Lauren ever let anyone see her afraid of anything, including a cop. She attempted to shrug his hand off.

"Come on," Blaine replied, raising his other hand towards her arm in an attempt to guide her away. What Lauren didn't notice however, was that the young detective was concealing his taser in his other hand. "Let's get you out of here." Just as he was about to take her arm, Blaine pressed the button and the shock of electricity jolted into the girl.

Lauren stumbled before losing her balance and falling to the floor. Blaine quickly returned the taser to his belt and looked at Kurt.

"Help me move her," he said, bending down to pick up one of the girl's arms.

Kurt was all too eager to rush over and help. He grabbed a hold of Lauren's other arm. "We can drag her down to the basement. No one will ever think to look for her there," he said, and Blaine was not oblivious to the difference in his voice. He wondered for a spell what was going on exactly, but shook it off. He wanted to help Kurt.

"Are you sure?" he asked as the two of them heaved and started to drag the unconscious wrestler to the stairwell with some difficulty.

"Positive," Kurt replied. "No one goes down there. It's been abandoned since 1967."

Blaine was so thrown off by the exact detail, he almost let go of the girl. "How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.

"A boy was killed down there that year. The staff likes to keep it hush hush, but the evidence is all over the 67-68 yearbook."

To anyone who knew Kurt, this wouldn't have been a surprise. The boy was very knowledgeable about the old yearbooks. He'd proven as much during picture week in his sophomore year. But Blaine didn't know a whole lot about Kurt yet.

Blaine was quiet for a moment. The words had triggered a fuzzy memory of something his mother had told him once years ago. What was it she had said? Something about being present the day some kid was killed at her school when she was a teenager? He couldn't remember the details, but what Kurt was saying sounded eerily similar to the general facts he was remembering.

"Then why take her to the basement?" he asked after several moments of silent huffing while they pulled Lauren's unconscious form down the stairs.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I already told you. Because no one will find her down there. No one ever goes down there," he repeated.

"I did!" a completely different, yet familiar voice suddenly said and both of them stopped halfway down as Kurt's face contorted.

"No one gives a fuck about you!"

"That's not true!"

"Sure it is! If they cared, those bullies would have had their asses busted a long time ago!"

"Coach Sylvester tried to help!"

"And look where that got you!" No reply came this time and he put in an afterthought. "Thought so. Now shut up and let me finish the job."

Blaine was staring at the pale boy, who seemed to be talking to himself in two completely different voices, while his face couldn't decide on an expression. What in the world was going on with this boy?

"Keep moving," Kurt said next, gripping tighter to the girl's arm and starting down the stairs again. Blaine didn't have any other choice but to follow him.

They remained quiet as they dragged Lauren down into the basement. It was slow going and by the time they made it, she was starting to come to.

"Quick, look for something to tie her up with!" Kurt said. He picked up the arm Blaine dropped and dragged her over to the wall, watching the older man to make sure he was out of sight. As Lauren's eyes fluttered a bit and she looked at him hazily for a split second, Kurt smirked.

"Duty calls," he said before ripping the sleeve of the ranger costume and bringing up his arm to his mouth. He bit down into his forearm as hard as he could and Lauren barely had time to react before she drifted back out.

Kurt pulled his arm away to note he'd broken the skin and even drawn a bit of blood. He snickered and reached down to pull a knife from its hiding place in his left boot.

Blaine was just coming out of a classroom he'd broken into with an old electrical cord when he heard the girl let out a scream. He raced back to the two of them to see a knife sticking out of her thigh.

"What happened?!" the young detective demanded.

"She bit me!" Kurt responded, showing him his arm. "I needed to stop her before she tried anything more serious!" The look on his face was so genuinely Kurt that Blaine felt without a doubt he was telling the truth.

Blaine's expression became firm and he hastened to use the cord to tie up the girl, wanting to restrict her from attacking Kurt again.

"You know," Kurt said, in a tone of voice Blaine thought sounded a bit seductive. "Blood kind of makes me really hot!" Blaine whipped his head around to see Kurt reaching out a hand and swiping it through the wound on Lauren's leg. He didn't miss that his extension was jerky, almost as if he was trying to hold his arm back at the same time as it reached for the blood. That was kind of...strange.

Raising his eyes to Kurt's face made the boy's next action make almost no sense. He raised the blood covered hand to his mouth, but at the same time, his eyes were wide with terror, as though he was completely frightened and appalled by the actions his own hand was performing.

Blaine couldn't tear his eyes away and he reached out to grab the hand covered in blood before Kurt could place it in his mouth.

"What are you doing?" he asked, surprised to find his own voice was trembling a little.

"Trying to seduce you," Kurt replied flatly, that look of horror still in his eyes, or did it just increase? "Is it working?"

The young detective opened and closed his mouth like a fish, searching for the words. On the one hand, Kurt was a student, a teenager, still in school and Blaine was a twenty-seven year old cop. On the other hand, today was Kurt's birthday, which meant he was now eighteen, so if they wanted to do anything, they wouldn't be breaking any laws.

Before Blaine could really come to a decision however, he suddenly found Kurt's other hand grabbing a fistful of his shirt. The boy yanked him closer, and Blaine felt the fingers of the hand he'd caught graze his cheek, smearing the blood across it. The boy was making it incredibly hard for him to stick to his morals.

Eighteen, eighteen. You can do whatever you want with him. He's eighteen. The young detective couldn't figure out where the thought had come from. But it was accompanied by the very strong urge to listen to it.

Blaine didn't get much chance to make up his own mind because the next thing he knew, Kurt's lips were on his and oh that's what seeing fireworks felt like. The young detective didn't have the strength to stop it even if he wanted to.

…

Kurt had only kissed one guy in his entire life. And that one kiss hadn't even been wanted. It had been forced on him. But it had answered all his questions at the time, and he'd never said a damn word. Maybe he should have.

Kissing Blaine however, made him feel incredibly floaty and he almost immediately forgave the actions that led to it. His whole body ached something awful. He felt like he'd been to hell and back since sometime that afternoon. But his memory was still hazy. He still couldn't recall more than a few small snippets of what had happened between fifth period and when he suddenly found himself at home.

His eyes shut and he found himself leaning into the kiss, kissing back on his own because Blaine...Blaine was exactly the kind of guy he wanted to be kissing.

At some point, as he felt the older man's tongue beg entrance to his mouth, Kurt suddenly felt lighter, like a looming heaviness had been lifted from him.

And then he heard a familiar snicker. But this time, it hadn't come from his own mouth. Kurt's eyes popped open suddenly to find the smirky expression on the young detective's face.

With all the force his aching muscles could muster, Kurt suddenly shoved Blaine away from him, and the detective fell on his backside.

"I don't want to kiss you!" he shouted. "I want to kiss Blaine!"

The detective slowly stood up, one hand moving to pull the gun from his belt and Kurt swallowed. What the hell was he going to do?

"You know, this all would have been so much easier if you had just shut up and let me handle things," that voice sneered, raising Blaine's gun and casually scratching at his temple with the barrel.

Kurt had never felt more scared in his life. What was going on? He started to slowly back away from the detective. Was this all a joke? Was Blaine really a corrupt cop that was playing him the whole time?

That was when he spotted the door to the boy's bathroom out of the corner of his eyes, and suddenly, the details came slamming back into him like a freight train and his knees buckled.

When he looked up again, Blaine was pointing the gun at him.

"I've got all I need out of you," he said. Kurt's eyes widened in terror before he remembered something.

"It wouldn't matter if you killed me or not, you can't leave this school!" he shouted.

Blaine chuckled. "Minor technicality. I had no intentions of leaving, but it will be so much sweeter to watch you die at the hands of a guy you quickly developed feelings for." He chuckled again, advancing a few steps closer, the gun pointing directly at Kurt. "Any last words?"

Kurt could feel his entire body shaking. When had this all gone so wrong? Why was he here at the end of his rope, about to be murdered by the very thing that had caused all this in the first place?

"I've got some," he heard next. It was clearly Blaine's voice that spoke that time and in the blink of an eye, Kurt found himself staring at the most awkward thing he'd ever seen. "Not on your life!" Blaine shouted as he started apparently fighting with himself. His hands were each tugging the gun in opposite directions.

"Let go!"

"No! I won't let you kill him!"

"You don't even know me!"

"I know my body does not belong to you!"

In the scuffle between Blaine, Kurt, and whatever this thing was, they had completely forgotten about Lauren. The girl had fully recovered consciousness and used their distraction with each other to pull the knife from her leg and cut the cord off of her. The wound hurt something awful, but she ignored it.

Relieved at her chance to get away, she started for the stairs as fast as her injury would let her.

"NO!"

BANG!

Then they were all still. In the fight for dominance over the weapon, one of them had pulled the trigger. The bullet had caught the escaping girl in the back.

Lauren froze for a moment, her eyes wide and round as saucers behind her glasses. And then she fell, landing with a thud on the basement floor.

Blaine stood there breathing heavily, clearly in shock over what had just happened.

It was Kurt who spoke first. "Freddie, let him go, please," he said in a quiet voice. "You let revenge go to your head. You used me for your own agenda. You killed people who knew nothing about you or what you went through. I know that's not something you ever wanted."

"No one helped me," Freddie's voice came from Blaine. "I wanted them to pay for continuing to let kids like us be hurt that way." For the first time, Freddie's voice was speaking in that calm, sad tone he'd had when Kurt had first encountered him earlier that afternoon.

"Freddie?" It was Blaine this time and Kurt watched his expression become confused. It seemed to click more information into place and a lightbulb went off in his head. "Are you Freddie Studebaker?" he asked.

Kurt looked surprised. "You know who he is?"

"Yes," Freddie said in answer to Blaine's question. He was no longer fighting for dominance over Blaine's body. Kurt had reached something within him.

Blaine pressed his free hand to his chest. "I'm Blaine Anderson," he said. "I'm Pamela Hopkins' son."

A gasp came from Blaine's mouth and it was at that moment that Kurt saw his body sort of jerk back a bit and the entity parted from it. The spirit materialized in front of the bathroom door.

"She tried to help you, you know," Blaine said, looking at the ghost boy.

"I know," Freddie said. "I saw her pleading with the principal. Unfortunately, even though she had been fast, by the time she was let in, I was already dead." He was quiet for a moment. "And she was my friend."

Blaine shut his eyes for a moment. "My mom has always felt guilty for that day. She's the reason the school stopped using the basement. But she was never satisfied that she'd done enough."

Before Freddie could say anything else, the sound of footsteps on the stairs echoed in the basement.

"I have to go!" Freddie said hastily and in a matter of seconds, he'd vanished. It was just in time too because a bunch of cops came into view at the bottom of the stairs and stopped short of Lauren's body, lying on the floor.

"Jesus h. Christ!" Carmichael muttered as he glanced at the girl. "Another victim?"

"No," Blaine said, before Kurt could speak. "That's the killer."

"What?" Carmichael was shaking his head. "This girl killed eight people?"

"Eight?" Kurt squeaked.

Blaine frowned. "I only knew of seven deaths, counting the jock I found just before I heard Kurt struggling with the girl down here."

"It's nine deaths, actually," said one of the patrolmen who just got off his radio. "They just found another one in the choir room. Some girl."

Blaine frowned. "Who else?"

"The cheerleading coach, in her office." That came from one of the other detectives on the scene.

"Are you sure this girl was the killer?" Carmichael asked again.

Blaine nodded. "The jock on the floor above had no weapons marks on him, which means he was killed in a direct hand to hand assault. She's the only one who could have matched him. And I saw her attacking Kurt with my own eyes."

For once, Carmichael couldn't think of an argument to discredit the rookie. He hated the kid. That much was clear. But like hell was he going to let him get the glory over his precedence. He glanced back at one of the cops behind him.

"Set up a press conference immediately so I can tell them I got the killer," he said.

Blaine narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me?" he questioned. "You got the killer?!"

Carmichael smirked at Blaine. "Do you really think people are going to believe a puny little rookie like you solved a massive serial murder case?" He clucked his tongue and God Blaine hated when he did that.

"Leave him alone you big bully!" a voice shouted. The cops all glanced around but then, something was jerking back Carmichael's balding head and the overweight detective slipped and fell backwards on the stairs. Kurt and Blaine both watch as a disembodied head materialized in front of the detective's face. "You best treat Blaine with more respect or I'll be watching, you bully!" The head blew a raspberry and vanished. It took all Blaine and Kurt's resolve not to laugh as Carmichael scrambled to his feet and dashed away up the stairs, a stain rapidly forming in the seat of his pants as the smell of urine filled the air.

…

Blaine walked beside Kurt, a couple of inches of space between them, as they exited the building, into the parking lot where Kurt had parked, what seemed like years ago now. The detective had snagged a blanket from one of the paramedic units that had been called in, and wrapped it around the teen's shoulders. Neither of them had said a word since Kurt had given his statement to one of the uniformed cops, and Blaine had been interviewed about discharging his weapon.

They stopped beside the Navigator, and Kurt pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, trying not to look up at the older man's face, not sure he wanted to know what he would see there.

"Thank you," Kurt said, somewhat awkwardly. "For everything. I could have gone to jail."

Blaine reached out and tipped his chin up. "I wouldn't let that happen, Kurt." Kurt swallowed as the detective took a step closer. "From the moment I saw you at the precinct, there was something about you that just drew me. I felt a connection to you, Kurt, and after all of this, it's only grown stronger."

Kurt's heart kicked in his chest, and he stepped closer, until they were almost touching. "I felt it, too," he admitted, and closed the distance between them, lips gliding against lips.

The kiss was softer than the previous one had been, more tentative, but no less mind numbing. The world seemed to fade away until only the two of them remained.

"Dude! That's my little brother!" Finn's voice brought their little moment crashing down around them, and Blaine stumbled back. They were surrounded by the New Directions.

Kurt was frowning. "I'm older than you, Finn Hudson! How many times do I have to remind you of that?"

"Still, isn't macking on a teenager illegal?" Puck demanded, glaring at the cop like he wanted to beat him up for daring to touch their precious Porcelain.

Blaine just stared him down. "Only if they are under eighteen."

"Exactly!" Finn growled.

"Which I'm not!" Kurt shouted.

The rest of New Directions looked confused. "Not what?" Finn demanded.

"He's not under eighteen," Blaine said, taking a step back towards him.

"Since when?" Puck asked, still looking murderous.

"Since midnight," Kurt replied, crossing his arms and glaring at his friends. "Today is my birthday. I'm eighteen now!"

"I'm sorry, what?" Mercedes asked, her eyes going wide. "Are you telling us you were born on Halloween?" Kurt just nodded, looking sheepish and Mercedes frowned, but her next words told him it wasn't for the reason he'd thought. "Is that why you've been so out of it all night?"

Kurt was surprised by her words, but if he could use this as an excuse so that his friends would never know what really happened, he was going to take it.

"Yeah," he said, sighing. "There's a reason why I never mentioned exactly when my birthday was. It used to be awesome when I was younger. But when I got to middle school, my old one, kids started teasing me about it. A boy I had called my friend told everyone a black cat crossed the path when I was born and that was why I was a freak."

His friends all glanced at each other, a few of the girls looking completely sick at the thought.

"Okay, despite all the bullying you've suffered Kurt, nothing is lower than people making a birthday into a joke," Quinn said.

Sam spoke for everyone when he looked at Kurt and said, "And we will never let it be again, because that's what true friends are." The rest of them all nodded and it brought Kurt one of the first real genuine smiles he'd had all day.

They all smiled and piled into him in a big group hug. As they pulled apart, Tina glanced around, her smile faltering. "Hey, where's Rachel?"

Kurt and Blaine exchanged a look, and simultaneously shrugged and said, "I have no idea."