Happy Wednesday! Hope you're all having a wonderful day/week!
And happy Never Been Kissed airing anniversary! It's been twelve years since the greatest love story of all times began on a staircase. Can you believe it?
(No, I'm not exaggerating when I call it the greatest love story of all times).
Thank you for all the lovely reviews. We're quickly approaching the end of this story! I'm very happy that you all seem to have enjoyed the ride so far :)
Sending love and gratitude to Christine and Sofi who were a huge help while writing this fic.
Hope you enjoy!
The next morning, there were two things that he immediately noticed: the first one was the annoying, insistent ringing of his cellphone on the nightstand, and the second one was the warmth of Blaine's naked body pressed against him, the small puffs of his breath against his neck as he slept deeply. Kurt felt him stir with a low whine, and simply move closer, as if not ready yet to let go of the peace of slumber.
"Ssh," Kurt muttered in his messy curls, as he reached for his damn phone to silence it. "Keep sleeping, darling. I just need to take this."
Blaine was probably still drained from the previous day: it had been a rollercoaster of emotions, and certainly the kind Kurt didn't even want to think about. The way he had put himself in danger to find out more about what had happened to his brother made Kurt's blood run cold. He was tempted to never let him out of his sight again, but the truth was that it just wasn't possible: he needed to trust Blaine as much as Blaine trusted him.
Because he did. He trusted him. Blaine had chosen to protect him, too.
Blaine didn't reply, simply pressed his face against the column of Kurt's neck and kept sleeping.
Kurt was surprised to see it was his brother calling. Finn wasn't much of a morning person, and it was still pretty early. Worried that it might be an emergency, he accepted the call at once.
"Finn?" He said. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong!" Finn exclaimed, too loudly. "Nothing will ever be wrong again, Kurt!"
Kurt blinked up at the ceiling, confused. "Are you drunk?"
"I'm not drunk!" Finn said, still practically screaming. "But have you ever been so happy that you feel like you might be?"
Kurt glanced down at the way Blaine was clinging to him in his sleep. "Yeah, I might have felt that way."
"I asked Rachel to marry me last night," Finn said, and now he sounded near tears. "And she said yes. I know you've had your issues with her, and I know it's hard for you to accept that we're in love, but I've waited for this moment my whole life, Kurt. We just want to be together and be happy, and I understand that you…"
"Congratulations," Kurt interrupted him.
"I… you mean that?" Finn babbled.
"Yes. I'm trying to make my peace with the past. Sometimes it's harder, but…" Kurt sighed. "I know better than anyone that you can't choose who to fall in love with. And if it's Rachel you want… then I guess there's nothing else to say."
Finn let out a wet little laugh, like he was crying. "That's… thank you, Kurt. I appreciate that."
"Of course."
"Well, uh… Hiram and Leroy are insisting on throwing us an engagement party," Finn continued, still a bit stunned by Kurt's reaction. "It would mean a lot to me, to us, if you came."
Kurt let his eyes fall close for a second. Blaine's voice echoed in his head the words he had spoken last night: You know, Kurt, you really are making progress. He had said so with so much pride…
Every single day, he wanted to be less like the monster he felt he had turned into, and more like the man he knew he was, that he had been, underneath it all.
"Send me the details when you have them. Blaine and I will be there," he said.
It took a little while to calm Finn enough to end the phone call. It was great that his brother was this happy, even if there was still an underlying bitterness inside of him at having to deal with the Berry family again. He wondered if the sad memories he associated with them would ever vanish, or if he would have to face them every time he met his sister-in-law and her parents. Every family event, every holiday…
Blaine lifted his head from his shoulder very slowly. He looked sleepy and impossibly adorable, his hair a bird nest, a bit of stubble already showing on his jaw. He looked ready to be debauched, and Kurt lost his track of thought for a moment as he watched him.
"Where are we going?" Blaine asked, confused.
Kurt smiled briefly, running his hand down Blaine's naked back. "We're going to a party."
Blaine looked at him like it was the last thing he had expected Kurt to say.
Unlike the unique, almost exotic appearance the Berry residence had had the night of the benefit, tonight it looked elegant, toned down, like they didn't want to eclipse the two actual main characters of the night with excessive decorations and flair.
The music playing in the background was low enough to not disrupt the conversations, but loud enough to invite people to the dancefloor. Rachel let Finn twirl her one last time as a song came to an end, laughing joyfully as her beautiful pale pink dress flew around her, making her look like a princess. Finn could barely take his eyes off her. They looked so happy.
They held each other tightly for a moment as the band launched into the next song, and then Finn took her hand and guided her through the crowd to where Blaine and Carole were standing, glass of champagne in their hands.
"Everything is so lovely, Rachel," Blaine commented politely. "I can't believe your parents put together this whole evening with such short notice."
Rachel laughed, her cheeks flushed from all the dancing. "Oh, well, yes, they've been looking forward to this for a long time. They probably had the whole thing planned in their head, and were just waiting to set everything in motion when Finn proposed."
"It took me longer than planned," Finn said sheepishly, wrapping his arm around her waist. "But we're finally here."
"We are," she smiled up at him.
"I'm so happy everything worked out," Carole commented. "And now it's time for the most exciting part: planning the wedding!"
Rachel nodded. "Yes, I'm looking forward to it. But I also really just want to enjoy finally calling Finn my fiancé."
"We didn't think this was going to be possible, so now we just want to savor every day," Finn added. "It felt like we had too many obstacles, like our happiness was only going to bring misery into the lives of the people we loved. Now that it looks like it won't be the case, we just want to enjoy it."
"This probably wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Blaine," Rachel said, and Blaine turned to face her, eyebrows rising in surprise.
"Me? What did I do?"
"You're having such a wonderful effect on Kurt," Carole said. "He's a changed man these days."
Blaine couldn't hide his satisfied grin. "Do you really think so?"
"Are you kidding?" Finn laughed. "He's actually mingling tonight. I'm seeing it with my own two eyes and I still don't believe it. In the past, not only would he have not attended this sort of thing, but he actually would have probably kicked me out of the family for even thinking about proposing to Rachel. I mean, he actually did threaten to do that…"
"Yeah, but look at him now," Rachel whispered, and they all followed the direction of her gaze.
Kurt was standing across the room from them, hands in the pockets of his very expensive and fitting dark suit, listening to whatever one of Finn's colleagues from the university was saying. Blaine wouldn't call it mingling, exactly: it looked rather like he was a leopard trying to appear innocent while standing amid a herd of antelopes. Blaine didn't think he would ever be part of the crowd: he stood out too much.
But at least he was standing with a group, appearing to participate. It was such a contrast from the night they had met, where he had stood against the wall, drinking his champagne and not engaging with anyone, except Cooper.
Blaine still wasn't entirely sure how deep the change was, though. Sure, there were signs that he was making real effort to be more sensitive when it came to dealing with the members of his family, and he was actually standing in the house of Leroy and Hiram Berry willingly. But there was still something that concerned Blaine.
He hadn't yet told him he loved him.
Blaine was stubbornly optimistic, though. Sooner or later, he would hear those words come from his husband's lips. He had to be falling in love with him.
"I don't know what kind of spell you've cast on Kurt, but we all like the result," Finn said.
Blaine took a sip of champagne. "No one could change Kurt, not unless he wanted to. There's no spell on him. He's just trying to be better at communicating with others, that's all."
"He seems… happier, doesn't he?" Carole said, choosing the word carefully, like she wasn't sure it could be associated with Kurt. "It's all because of you, Blaine. Nothing else has occurred that could account for the transformation."
"Let's not get carried away," Blaine said with an eye roll. "It's not some huge, life-altering transformation. There's just been a few minor changes, that's all."
"Oh no, I think they're major changes," Rachel said.
"This is like a Beauty and the Beast kind of story," Finn chuckled.
But Blaine frowned up at his brother-in-law. "I resent that. Kurt's not some beast. He was never a beast."
Finn let out a little sigh. "That's what you think. Don't get me wrong, I love him to death, but Kurt can be a real pain in the ass when it comes to getting what he wants. And he always knows what he wants."
Rachel rubbed her hand up and down Finn's arm. "Yeah, sometimes not only for himself, but for everyone else…"
"He means well," Blaine said firmly.
"We're not saying he doesn't, dear," Carole said, placating. "But you just… didn't know B.B."
Blaine frowned, uncomprehending. "B.B?"
"Before Blaine," Finn clarified, cheekily. "You kind of shook his entire world. We still don't really know how you did it…"
Kurt seemed to choose that exact moment to leave the little group he had been standing with. His eyes roamed around the room, searching with precision, until they fell on Blaine. He started towards him, in that very Kurt way of his, not looking right or left, but keeping his gaze on what he wanted. He moved forward and the crowd parted around him easily, without making him lose a single step.
He stopped next to Blaine, arm possessively enveloping his waist and pulling him a little closer. Both Finn and Carole seemed a little surprised at Kurt's little public display of affection.
"Lovely evening, Finn, Rachel," he said softly. "Congratulations again."
"Thank you, Kurt," Rachel replied a bit shyly, like she still wasn't sure if things were completely okay between them.
Kurt looked at Blaine. "Are you ready to go?"
Now Blaine was the surprised one. "We're leaving already?"
"Yes."
Blaine was going to protest, but there was something in Kurt's face that prevented him. He turned back to Rachel and Finn with a smile. "Congratulations again. We're both so happy for you."
"Thank you," Rachel said, and took a step forward, enveloping Blaine in a hug. She added, whispering into his ear: "For everything."
Finn wrapped his arms around his brother, so tightly it looked almost painful. "Thanks, Kurt. I mean it. You have no idea how important this is to me."
Kurt simply patted his back, kissed Carole's cheek and took Blaine's hand to guide him out.
Santana was already outside, waiting for them leaning against the limo.
"Why are we in a hurry?" Blaine asked as he got into the backseat. "I thought we were going to stay a bit longer."
"Sorry, we're on a schedule," he told him as he got in beside him.
"Schedule?" Blaine tried to read Kurt's expression in the semi-darkness of the backseat as Santana went around the limo to get behind the wheel. "What schedule?"
"I have a business appointment this evening," Kurt said vaguely. "We'll take you home and then Santana will drive me to that meeting. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."
"You never said anything about an evening appointment. You never have appointments this late in the day. What are you up to, Kurt?"
"It's not something that concerns you, Blaine."
Blaine narrowed his eyes at him. "That means it most certainly does concern me. Where are you going, Kurt?"
Kurt remained stubbornly silent.
"Kurt, I swear I will follow you if you don't tell me where you're going," Blaine said, because he could be just as stubborn and just as much a pain in the ass as his husband was.
Kurt looked startled by the threat. "No, Blaine, you will not."
"Wait a second," Blaine said. "Does this have anything to do with what's been going on lately?"
Kurt sighed, which was as much a sign of defeat as he would ever get from him. "In a way. It involves Noah Puckerman."
"Are you investigating him? Are you trying to figure out what he's been up to in this espionage he's been doing?" Blaine asked eagerly.
"Yes," Kurt said. Then he must have realized Blaine wasn't to give in so easily, because he added: "I sent him on a quick business trip this morning. He's out of town. Santana and I are going to go take a look around his place. It shouldn't take long."
"What are you hoping to find?"
"I don't know yet. Hopefully further proof to incriminate him, to finally face him about all this insider information he's been clearly selling."
"Isn't what Cooper left you on that flashdrive enough?" Blaine wanted to know.
"It is, but all that information is weeks, even months old. We need more if we want to stop him."
"I'll come with you."
"No, Blaine."
Blaine groaned. "Why are you so thick-headed?"
"Why are you so thick-headed?" Kurt echoed. "Blaine, you know I can't do my job well if I have to be worrying about you. I need you home, safe, so I can focus."
Blaine parted his lips to protest, but the truth was that, sometimes, even though he didn't want to admit it, Kurt had the ability to leave him absolutely speechless.
Forty-five minutes later, Kurt stood on the fire-escape outside Puckerman's apartment while Santana did something to his window. It opened without a sound.
Kurt glanced down at the darkened alley below them while Santana slipped into the apartment with the stealth of a ninja. He held his breath, waiting for a dog to bark or an alarm to go off, but it all remained quiet. Well, as quiet as a New York neighborhood could be at night, anyway.
Santana waved him in. "All clear."
Once they were both inside, they made sure to close the curtains tightly behind them. They had grabbed flashlights when they stopped at home to leave Blaine and change the limo for a more discrete car. They lit them up now, after checking all windows were closed and no one would see anything suspicious from a nearby building.
The last thing Kurt needed was someone calling the police.
"I didn't think Mr. Hummel-Anderson would agree to stay home so easily," Santana commented.
"I think he understood it was better this way," Kurt replied. The short argument in the back of the limo had been enough to prove to Kurt that he was no longer in absolute control of his life: Blaine suddenly had a say on so much of what he did and what he planned.
Not too long ago, not being able to make every single decision about his own life and his own actions would have meant to Kurt that he was weak. Now… he wasn't sure it was so bad, relinquishing control, every now and then, if it meant Blaine was happy with him.
Still, he didn't want to make it a habit.
"I'll take the bedroom," Santana said.
"Make sure the curtains are closed before you use the flashlight," Kurt reminded her.
Santana made a rumbling sound in the darkness, something too similar to a low laugh. "You sound like an old pro at this kind of thing, Mr. Hummel-Anderson."
"I've been taking lessons from my husband," Kurt muttered, as he went into the kitchen to see what he could find there.
He could hardly call himself an amateur when it came to breaking and entering, though. He grimly remembered that night a few years ago when he and Cooper had broken into the warehouse and surprised Jacob Taylor in the middle of one of his deals. Tonight felt a lot like that night, Kurt realized. There was a sensation of heightened awareness, a surge of adrenalin. A sense of wrongness.
"Be careful, Santana," he said softly.
He didn't want another experience like that one with Cooper.
Remembering what Blaine had found when inspecting Wally Thorpe's cabin, Kurt went to the fridge, but Puckerman kept no calendars there. He opened the fridge. There was a bit of food, but mostly some beer. It was the fridge of a single man who wasn't used to entertaining many people at his place.
He took another look around. He couldn't see any pictures, any personal belongings anywhere. It all seemed tidy. Impossibly tidy. There wasn't a single thing out of place, not a wrinkle on a couch cushion.
Soon he went down the hallway, following Santana, and found her closing the closet door in the bedroom. She glanced at him.
"Nothing."
"Too much of nothing," Kurt said. The bed was neatly made. "I've been in Puckerman's office back at Anderson Unlimited. He's the kind of guy who seems incapable of putting anything away. His desk is a mess of old files and half-drunk coffee cups. This is… too clean."
"Maybe he has someone come over and clean the apartment a couple of times a week?" Santana suggested, with a shrug. "I don't think he's the kind of guy to scrub the floors and the toilet himself."
"I don't know. I feel like something here doesn't make sense," Kurt said, and went over to the nightstand. He pulled open the drawers. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing seemed like it didn't belong. Nothing looked suspicious.
They finished searching the rest of the apartment, and the less they found, the more anxious Kurt got, like they had walked into some sort of trap, or maybe even the wrong apartment. They got out of there as quickly as they could, and went down the fire-escape to the car.
They were already heading home when they spoke again.
"You're not so sure that Puckerman isn't involved in Cooper Anderson's disappearance, are you?" Santana murmured as they stopped at a red light.
Kurt stared out at the bright city through the window. "Maybe."
"I could see why he would get involved with Anderson's competitors. Money is usually enough of a reason for anyone. But why would he want to hurt Anderson? He seemed to care about Blaine, too. He was genuinely worried about him when you two got married."
"I don't know," Kurt admitted. "I decided to check his apartment hoping that would clear things up. I just wanted to rule it out, because I was sure we wouldn't find anything."
"And we didn't find anything," Santana pointed out.
"Maybe he had to get rid of Cooper because he realized Cooper was onto him," Kurt said. "Maybe he realized that Cooper was gathering information about him and his meetings."
"That could be enough of a reason to want to get him out of the picture, yes," Santana agreed. She navigated the streets of New York expertly, like it required no effort on her part. "But this is nothing but speculation. We have no proof."
Kurt watched the tall buildings pass by for a moment before he said: "Cooper just wasn't the kind of man who collected enemies."
Santana drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, looking thoughtful. "There's something else. Someone's clearly trying to make your husband suspicious of you. Why would they reopen the question of Cooper Anderson's death when everyone assumes it was an accident?"
"I don't know," Kurt said again, and he hated that there was so much he couldn't explain. He hated not having the facts. "It wasn't even considered a murder during the investigation. No one realized Thorpe left two days later. All signs pointed to a simple, tragic accident."
"Cooper Anderson is dead and someone may be trying to set you up as the fall guy. If they made it work, you could be in prison for a very long time," Santana said. "It looks to me like you're a target here, Mr. Hummel-Anderson."
Kurt was silent for a moment, considering this. He felt like there were too many conflicting theories. "But why the convoluted approach? Why not go after me and get it over with? Why would they go through the trouble of murdering Cooper Anderson first?"
Santana shrugged, like she was out of answers.
"That all seems like too much of a mess, really," Kurt sighed. "They would be risking the possibility that I wouldn't even get convicted. There's just not enough evidence. They haven't found Cooper's body, or the sabotaged plane. I might have to hire some expert lawyers if things got nasty, but it isn't a real possibility, I think, doing time for Cooper's murder."
"It would damage your image, and your family's," Santana suggested. "You're pretty well-known, at least in the Manhattan business world. Maybe they'd hope you would lose everything."
It was a possibility, yes. Having to go through the humiliation of causing his family and loved ones shame and misery, like it had happened years ago after Jordan had walked away, was definitely an intolerable thought.
"There's usually three basic motives for murder," Santana said after a pause. "Greed, passion, and revenge."
"There's no financial motive. That would leave passion and revenge."
"I'd say revenge is the most likely one. But who do you know who would want to get revenge on both you and Cooper Anderson?" Santana asked, as she turned into their street. "You didn't have much in common. The two of you didn't even move in the same circles. Your only connection to him was a business one."
"Until recently," Kurt reminded her. "I'm married to his brother now. I've taken control of his company."
"But the two of you don't know the same people or have the same enemies," Santana insisted. "In fact, as you pointed out, Anderson didn't have any enemies at all as far as we know."
"That's not entirely true," Kurt said slowly. "Cooper and I had one enemy in common."
"Who?"
"Jacob Taylor." It was strange how often lately his thoughts were returning to that night in the warehouse. "The problem is that Taylor is dead."
Santana arched an eyebrow as she waited for the automatic garage door to open. "Are you absolutely certain of that?"
"Yes," Kurt said, and the images of the blood-splattered concrete flashed behind his eyelids. "I'm very certain."
Santana sighed. "Well. We're back to square one."
She drove the car into the garage.
Kurt's blue eyes were fixed on Blaine as he paced back and forth across the study.
"It seems to me," he said, "that you're overlooking something here."
"What's that?" Kurt sipped his tea. There were two reasons why he couldn't look away from his husband: one, he seemed ready to burn a path into his expensive wooden floor and it was sort of surprising, how much energy Blaine still had this late in the day; two, he was absolutely stunning. He had changed after they had dropped him off after Finn and Rachel's party, pristine suit gone and replaced by a navy hoodie and an old pair of jeans that looked comfortable. Kurt wanted to run his hands over his thighs and check exactly how soft the material was.
"You say Taylor is dead so he can't be behind all this," Blaine turned around to go in the opposite direction. "But what if someone else is out to… to avenge him?"
Kurt arched an eyebrow over his tea cup and slowly put it down. "Even if we lived in an action movie starring Bruce Willis, I don't think that's very likely. It's been years. Why would they be getting revenge now?"
Blaine rolled his eyes. "We have passed action movie status long ago, Kurt. We're bordering on science fiction. That's how bizarre our life is at the moment."
"Taylor didn't have any family," Kurt said. "There were no relatives in his file. Only his mother, who died a year before the whole deal at the warehouse went down. She was a single mother, and she had no other children."
"You and your precious files," Blaine shook his head as he came towards the desk. He poured himself a cup of tea. "Everyone has a family, Kurt, in one way or the other. And we both know how far people are willing to go to protect their family."
Santana, who was sitting on the armchair Blaine usually occupied when he wasn't as restless as he was now, nodded gravely. "He's got a point."
"I don't know," Kurt said, leaning back on his chair. "It's been so long, it seems improbable."
"Maybe whoever is doing this needed this long to figure out exactly what happened and who to blame," Blaine murmured, and then his eyes widened. "Oh shit, I just thought of something."
Santana sat forward. "What is it, Mr. Hummel-Anderson?"
"What if Wally Thorpe is related to Taylor in some way? He could be a brother, a cousin, a best friend." Blaine began pacing again, clearly too excited to stand still. "He sabotaged Cooper's plane, got his revenge, and disappeared to clean his tracks. But then needed a way to get to you too, so he tried to frame you for his murder…"
Santana was apparently in the mood to be indulgent with his husband, because her eyes widened and she nodded. "Well, that doesn't sound crazy at all, not with everything that's happened lately…"
Kurt exhaled slowly as he considered this. It was right: in the craziness that it was their life lately, this didn't sound as insane as it should have. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to see if there's any indication that Thorpe and Taylor might have been related. We should check every possibility."
Santana seemed almost eager as she stood up. "I'll get right on it."
"Thank you, Santana," Blaine murmured gently as she left the room.
Kurt waited until he heard the front door of the apartment closing behind Santana, knowing they were alone now. He stood up and went around his desk to where Blaine was standing, looking deflated and exhausted. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Everything we learn makes it less and less likely that Cooper's plane went down by accident."
Blaine shivered slightly when Kurt put his arms around him and brought him closer. He snuggled against his chest and used his sleeve to wipe his eyes. "I know. But I still believe he's alive, Kurt. I'd know if he were dead," he said, and then added: "Just as I'd know for certain if something ever happened to you."
Kurt couldn't think of anything to say to that. He simply tightened his grip around Blaine and pressed his lips to the top of his head, wanting to wrap him up in safety and warm so no one ever hurt him again, so no one ever made him sound as scared as he did right now.
So Kurt held him, and Blaine held his own hopes, both refusing to let go.
For a long while they stood together in silence and gazed out into the contrast of the cold dark night and the ceaseless New York City lights.
Raise your hand if you want to hold our boys!
Thank you for reading. I'll see you again next week!
Love,
L.-