Warnings: I made Blaine cry. I'm an awful person. :( Also a bit of Mr Anderson at the beginning so he's being a bit of a homophobic bastard again.
Chapter summary (because I was originally going to post this separately and I actually like this summary!): After being dragged away from the masquerade ball, Blaine is determined to find Kurt. The problem is: he doesn't know which town he's from or even his last name. AKA Blaine showing some over-dramatic stalker tendencies because Disney taught him true love exists.
Notes: Yay for Cooper! (Whose personality is leaning just a wee bit more towards fanon!Cooper than canon!Cooper [i.e. he's not critical and judgey and making Blaine feel ten inches tall], but hell, Blaine needs someone in his corner right now. So this chapter is dotted with wonderful Anderbro moments. To make up for/in delicious addition to [take your pick] the unexpected Blangst that forced its way into this chapter.) Oh, and I don't own the real website mentioned. I don't even remember how I stumbled across it; I can only assume I was procrastinating because that's all I ever do.
No one speaks the entire ride home. Mr Anderson looks furious, his face red but his lips tightened into a white line. Mrs Anderson looks disappointed, and Blaine thinks that's worse. Blaine himself is battling to keep his face blank, which is hard to do because according to Cooper (and now Kurt), his face is so expressive. But blank is better than the petulant pout he'd been sporting as he'd been dragged out of the hotel (he had been aiming for outraged scowl but his reflection in the car window showed he'd missed the mark drastically).
When they finally reach their too-big house, Mr Anderson shuts himself in his study. He'll wait until breakfast to start shouting at Blaine.
Mrs Anderson says, "Goodnight, Blaine," primly, looking somewhere above his head, and then disappears into her bedroom.
Blaine goes to his own room. He carefully undresses and then puts on his pyjamas, balances his mask against the lamp on his bedside table, climbs into bed, and then stares at his phone. The screen glows blue in the dark room, the bright colours of the generic wallpaper burning his retinas so that his eyes well up in defence.
He won't cry because of Kurt. He won't cry because he doesn't have Kurt's number, or a photo he can use to personalise his wallpaper, or even his last name.
He won't cry because he'll find Kurt, even if he has to search every town and city in this backwards state.
Still, he lets himself stare at his too-bright screen for too long, and he doesn't fight the reactionary water in his eyes.
"I spent two hours last night smoothing things over with associates because of your silly stunt."
As is routine, he's being ambushed over breakfast. His father only sits down to breakfast with him if Blaine has done something wrong, if he's been too gay; the knowledge leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
"What silly stunt?" he asks, unable to stop the anger from creeping into his voice. Mr Anderson inhales sharply.
"Don't talk to your father that way," his mother says, her tone still vaguely disappointed, and the bitter taste spreads to his throat. He pokes at his eggs and keeps his eyes lowered but his back ramrod straight.
"Dancing with that – boy." Mr Anderson spits the word out like it's poisonous. Blaine knows he's censoring himself from worse words; the bitterness turns to acid in Blaine's stomach and he feels sick, so he puts down his fork and meets his father's eyes. "You should know better than—"
"To dance with a person I'm attracted to?" Blaine challenges, his insides churning with anger and frustration and neglect and it's so unfair. "To remind everyone that I don't give a damn about their daughters or—"
"Blaine, watch your language," Mrs Anderson says disapprovingly, "and don't interrupt your father."
Blaine thinks of Burt, of how supportive he is of his own son, and his eyes and sinuses burn with the threat of tears.
"My father?" he echoes hollowly. "My father should support me and love me unconditionally." Mr Anderson tries to interrupt but Blaine just continues, speaking over him. "I'm not going to apologise! I've never felt about anyone the way I do about Kurt; I've never felt so close to anyone I've only known for a few hours. Don't you get it? Kurt, a boy, made me feel happier than I ever have done under this roof, and all you care about is your damn company!"
His father shouts at him then. He shouts back. Later, he won't remember what either of them said, but he'll remember how good it felt to fight back.
Blaine is grounded until the end of the month.
He's not really complaining. He doesn't have any game consoles, and he rarely watches television, and he's allowed to keep his laptop because he needs it for school work. So being grounded just gives him an excuse to only leave his room for meals.
His phone rings on his bedside table; it's the 'Cantina Band' music from Star Wars, Cooper's ring tone. Blaine answers and, before his brother says anything, starts ranting about how their parents are just so unfair and why can't they just be happy for him for once?
Eventually, Cooper gets the whole story out of him, albeit slightly out of order: the argument of this morning, meeting Kurt, talking with Kurt, how beautiful Kurt is inside and out, his connection with Kurt, watching the sunset with Kurt, kissing Kurt, dancing with Kurt, being dragged away from Kurt in the middle of a song.
Cooper is appropriately angry on Blaine's behalf.
"So what are you gonna do to find this pale-skinned, brown-haired, impossible-eyed beauty?" he asks once they've calmed down, and Blaine flushes.
"I don't know," he sighs. "I mean, he lives close enough to Columbus that they didn't need to book a hotel but..." He sighs again. "I just don't know what to do, Coop." His voice is piteous, but he can't help it, just as he can't help his brother's childhood nickname from slipping out. He hasn't called Cooper 'Coop' since the Sadie Hawkins dance.
"Hmm."
For a long while, they are silent. Blaine lies sprawled on his bed and stares unseeingly at the ceiling, remembering instead how Kurt looked last night in the final rays of the sun, trying to preserve at least a mental image of the most beautiful boy he will ever see.
Cooper is the first one to speak: "Have you got your computer on?"
"No."
"Well, get it on."
"Why?"
Cooper lets out an exasperated sigh. "Just do it, okay, squirt?"
"Stop calling me that," Blaine replies automatically as he pulls his laptop onto the bed and boots it up. "Alright, now what?"
"Internet – free map tools dot com – you're looking for the 'How Far Can I Travel' page."
Blaine loads up the site (as much as he can really hate his parents' money, at least it bought him a fast, top-of-the-range laptop), and then he grins.
"Cooper, you really are the best brother ever."
By the time Cooper and Blaine hang up, they have an extensive list of possible towns and cities Kurt could live in (basically any with high school show choirs, which is a discouragingly large number) and have ordered it cross-referencing their distance from Columbus and their size. They start making a plan to work around Blaine's grounding, but then they remember that their parents are hardly ever home anyway so it hardly matters. Cooper's only condition is that Blaine doesn't let his grades slip ("—but only 'cause that's the responsible thing to say, because honestly, little brother? You should do everything you can to be happy.").
Blaine prints off a map of Ohio, finds some double-sided tape and sticks it on his wall above his desk, and colour codes the towns and cities: pink highlighter for most likely, blue highlighter for least, and green for all the others. He also puts a black dot over Westerville.
With a satisfied smile, Blaine steps back and thinks that maybe he'll see Kurt again after all.
He checks the public schools of Westerville first. There are five which have glee clubs, so it works out quite nicely that he can take a detour on his way home from Dalton and look at one a day.
Unsurprisingly (because when is Blaine's luck ever that good?), there are no bossy girls called Rachel or stunning countertenors named Kurt.
It's then that things get a bit more difficult.
Cooper pretends to be their father so Blaine can skip school on the following Tuesday and drive to Dublin. It's not a particularly musical town, it turns out, and neither of the glee club's are Kurt's.
Since it's still only ten in the morning and Blaine has been excused for the entire day, he decides he may as well go and check in Newark.
It is, of course, a complete bust. And to make matters worse, he ends up not getting home until past five and his mom his home for some unknown reason. She looks at him a little sadly – in a way that makes his stomach twist with a whole slew of emotions ranging from guilt to anger – and sends him up to his room with the deal that she won't tell his dad he broke his grounding rules if he promises to behave for the remainder of his punishment.
Upstairs, Blaine screams into his pillow. He's a gentleman, he keeps his promises and holds up his end of bargains – how is he supposed to last three more weeks?
Why is the world so unfair that he wasn't allowed to ask for a beautiful boy's number?
Blaine lasts for nine days before Cooper convinces him to keep looking for Kurt. After all, if their parents aren't going to be supportive of him, well, screw them!
Blaine agrees enthusiastically and they agree that Cooper will get Blaine out of school again tomorrow. They make a plan of action (twelve possible schools spread over two towns won't be easy), and then their conversation turns to an audition Cooper has in a couple of weeks as a guest star on a dark comedy Blaine's never really cared for.
When they've hung up, Blaine deflates. His eyes sting so he goes down to the basement and hits the punch bag until he can barely feel his arms.
His parents should be supportive of him. They should be helping to figure out a way to find Kurt. They shouldn't have grounded him for dancing innocently with another boy. They shouldn't have caused this whole situation in the first place.
When he sets off early the next morning, there's a grim satisfaction of screw them settled in his stomach.
Neither Marion and Mansfield work out. There had been a girl called Rachel in one of the Marion schools – Blaine's heart had jumped and his hands started shaking, but this Rachel was demure and barely looked at him. It's a far cry from a girl who hogged solos and broke into Broadway theatres and Blaine goes home feeling especially dejected.
That night, he eats alone, and afterwards receives a text message from his father's secretary saying both his parents will be staying overnight at a hotel because they've attended a function in Illinois. He doesn't know how he feels about having the house to himself: on the one hand, he absolutely hates being within a fifty foot radius of his parents lately; on the other hand, he doesn't think he can handle being alone with his thoughts and treacherously romantic music.
After listening to an Adele CD once through lying spread eagled on his bed, he decides he's had enough of moping and calls Cooper.
It goes straight to voicemail.
Of course. He forgets sometimes that his brother has a life – it's a Friday night and he's got enough toes in the Hollywood door to be able to attend some of the right parties; he can't be constantly watching the phone waiting for the latest update in Blaine's ridiculous venture at finding a boy.
God, and how ridiculous is this? What if he's looking back at that night with the rosiest of the rose-tinted glasses, imagining some deeper connection with a boy he barely knows and who barely knows him and has probably forgotten all about him by now anyway? Pathetic, he thinks, chastises himself. Life isn't a Disney movie, Blaine!
A sob escapes his throat before he realises his cheeks are wet.
He really is pathetic. Creating a delusion that he and Kurt have a connection, thinking Kurt would want to see him again after leaving him most likely humiliated on the dance floor. He's fallen too fast and too hard again, but this is so much worse than Jeremiah because he and Kurt had shared experiences and they'd almost kissed.
Blaine sleeps fitfully that night. He tosses and turns, and more tears leak out his closed eyelids, but he doesn't wake up until the morning.
Cooper calls him on Sunday, launching straight into the party he'd gone to on Friday (called it, Blaine thinks absent-mindedly), and then the smaller after party for the lesser-known guests where he'd got wasted and then spent the entire of Saturday recovering from the type of hangover he hadn't known since college.
"So how'd your Friday go?" Cooper asks eagerly. "Did you find Kurt yet?"
"No," Blaine says past the lump in his throat. He hesitates for a moment. "I've been... thinking..."
"Oh God," Cooper groans. "No, Blaine, you listen to me, and you'd better be paying attention because there'll be a quiz on this later – you've been to, what, five towns? Six? Yeah, the chances of you finding him are tiny but we've known that from the start. There are millions of people in Ohio."
"You're not really helping me here," Blaine says dryly.
"Shut up and let me talk." Cooper's voice softens as he continues, "But I have faith that you'll find this kid. Even accounting for your lovestruck-bias, I reckon Kurt was into you as much as you were into him that night – no, don't talk," he adds quickly as Blaine opens his mouth, because even though he can't see him and they don't have the best relationship he knows his brother, "and he's probably trying to figure out how to meet you again too. And do you know why I have faith in you?"
"Because you're my brother and you have to?"
"Try again." He pauses for exactly one minute and when Blaine doesn't say anything else, Cooper sighs and says, "I have faith because you don't just lie down and roll over. You work damn hard and you don't give up."
"Life isn't a Disney movie, Cooper," Blaine says quietly.
Cooper snorts. "That's just 'cause Cinderella ran away in a pumpkin carriage instead of being dragged off by a bastard."
"I am not Cinderella," Blaine huffs, somehow all of a sudden feeling lighter than he has in weeks.
"Sure you are." Blaine can hear the grin in Cooper's voice. "You left a handsome prince on the dance floor. And you barely pass five foot anyway—"
"I'm five eight!" he protests.
"You still left a handsome prince on the dance floor."
Blaine smiles and sits back against his headboard. "Yeah."
The following Wednesday, Blaine is enthusiastic as he drives to Springfield. And even though none of the schools are the right ones, his spirits aren't dampened in the slightest.
His friends start pestering him the next day about where he keeps disappearing to. He tells them his (temporary-until-he-finds-Kurt) cover story of volunteering visiting patients at a hospital in Columbus and hopes they'll leave it at that.
Most of them do. Nick doesn't. Instead, Nick remembers that Blaine gushed nonstop about Kurt for almost two weeks, and he figures out the whole story. He tries to involve himself and Blaine almost lets him – but then he recognises the mischievous glint in his best friend's eye and assures him he's got it covered.
Nick still doesn't drop it, of course; but at least this is just a bit more motivation to not give up.
Findlay is a complete failure. It's also an almost two-hour drive which involves passing through Marion again, and the memory is still too fresh in Blaine's mind to handle driving through it a second time. He drives down I-75 instead on the way back home. It'll make his journey about half an hour longer but he doesn't really mind the extra time – until, that is, he realises how tired he is from all the restless nights of worries that creep up on him in the darkness.
He pulls off the interstate at the first sign which points to another town and then pulls into the first coffee shop parking lot he comes across.
He starts feeling more awake the moment he steps through the door; the smell of coffee is heavy on the air and Blaine breathes it in like it's the only thing keeping him alive.
Although, he muses, since he needs the coffee to not fall asleep at the wheel, technically it is keeping him alive. He chuckles to himself and orders a medium drip when he reaches the counter. There's a sharp inhale to his right as he speaks and he wouldn't normally have even registered it, but he's fairly sure he'd know that pitch anywhere.
He looks around, stunned, and there is Kurt, even more beautiful without the mask, and he's gaping a little and staring wide-eyed at Blaine.
"H-hi," Blaine manages to say, and it seems to snap Kurt out of his daze. He watches with fascination, now that he can see Kurt's entire face as it transforms from dumbfounded shock to cool and composed. He gives Blaine a small, genuinely happy smile, and Blaine can't help but grin widely back.
"Hi."
The End.
End notes: I could totally be a private detective, no? (No, is the answer. No I couldn't.)
Also! I couldn't fit this in the story because this was the perfect place to end but it's a bit important to know: this entire time? Kurt was looking for Blaine as well. Originally I was going to have Kurt find Blaine and I suppose technically he did but I do like how it ended up as them basically finding each other at the same time. :)
And, you know, since you obviously all care: my headcanon is that Nick and Blaine are best friends within the Warblers (that we see anyway. I spend far too much time for it to be healthy thinking about fictional characters who probably have about ten minutes screentime total (not including musical numbers) tops). (I actually generally just have a lot of Dalton feels.)
On another note: HOLY CRAP, GUYS. DANCE WITH SOMEBODY? Admit it, you cried. I mean, I didn't – I just shut down all my emotions and only let my righteous anger get through. (Seriously, Schue. Go away.) My favourite thing about the episode though? Both Blaine and Kurt were to blame – and their problems were solved by talking it out, not just singing an apology.
And that is why Klaine are my OTP.
ETA: There will be a companion piece to this fic written from Kurt's POV. I probably won't be able to get it done before my exams are over (end of June) so it'll be at least a month, but there will be one. If you want to know when it's up, either track this fic and I'll post an author's note, or subscribe to my account. Thank you so much everyone for all your feedback, and thank you for reading! :)