It took a while but here it is!
Small warning for offensive language ahead.
As always, please let me know what you think.
There are times when Blaine hoped life was a sit-com, all fun gags and ethereal laughter at the right moments. What he really wanted though, was the organized timing of sit-cons, no character had ever spoken over the other's voice, and mainly, no matter what happened, the previous scene always ended seconds before the other began. Life wasn't like that.
Growing up, he had realized that people would never just stop what they were doing and listen to him, he had to make them. So he was loud, and he was colorful; he developed a huge personality that made up for his small size. It was a lesson that his brother taught him, Cooper, who would take up most of whatever room he happened to grace with his presence simply by smiling, who never meant to, yet still managed to be the light in their parents lives regardless of how loud or bright his little brother became; Blaine could be like that too, right? It was why he had chosen to go into the performing field, if he placed himself on a stage in front of hundreds of eyes, they would have no choice but to pay attention. He'd thought so. Too bad that when he finally had the opportunity, a junior year play to celebrate his college's brand new semester, he had found himself disappointed, almost as empty as he had been before performing.
Assisting his co-lead through her stage-fright-induced panic attack though, that had been unexpectedly rewarding. And still not enough, regardless of how grateful Tina had been at the time, after she had recovered of course. Blaine felt momentarily fulfilled, he found himself desperate to extend that period of satisfaction.
Over his life, Blaine had come to several realizations, the main one was that he was a deeply flawed individual; he would be the first to admit it, while Kurt would probably be the first to deny it. Blaine could confess that he had been terribly self-centered during his formative years and become even more so when he hit his teens, particularly after Cooper had left the family home and their parents, at last, had no other son but him to devote their attention. Blaine had worked under the assumption that his voice was to be heard over the others and by extension, so should his opinions.
It had taken him over twenty years of his life to finally move the spotlight from himself to others, and it was only then that he had decided to switch mayors. The most important decision of his life, really, one that almost broken his heart. Performing had been everything to him, until he realized it wasn't what he needed, that is.
It was an extensive journey, a terribly satisfying one too, at age 26 he had, for the first time, found himself proud of who he was and what he did. Blaine finally managed to help people for the sake of helping rather than for the thrill he got at being thanked, it was grand.
Later on Kurt would go on a long rant explaining in extreme detail that humans are selfish and the desire to be held in good regards is as natural as breathing, so Blaine shouldn't feel anymore guilty for that as he did for blinking and needing to eat. Despite his friend's opinion, Blaine insisted on attributing it to personal growth.
Finally pottering around the kitchen, his kitchen for a change, he felt like he had spent weeks at Kurt's apartment in fact it had been less than three days, he contemplated sit-cons again, and wished that a simple laughter was enough to fix a problem.
Never had he hated Sebastian as he did at that moment. Sebastian and his damn cases, his stupid rules and his personal enemies. Meanwhile Kurt was pacing his living room furiously, but considerably calmer than he had been earlier, and Blaine's eyes were still half blinded from the journalists flashes.
There was a reason why Blaine, usually so sensible and levelheaded was so upset, and it was due to the events that had taken place earlier that night.
He and Kurt had stopped in front of and old and mildly run down looking apartment building,
Kurt's apartment building, a typically silent street, not connected to any main avenues, or leading to any main points of the city, one of those miraculous streets that somehow managed to remain traffic free even during rush hour. At almost midnight, the street should have been empty except for a stray cat or two. It wasn't.
The calm night and surprisingly clear sky were a decidedly anticlimactic setting for the ambush that took place. A small swarm of journalists and photographers seemed to materialized around them with a speed that was frankly terrifying given the hour and the fact that they had just been around a corpse. The taxi driver had been equally startled at the sudden downpour of people and, following the natural fight or flight response, he gunned the car and was gone within seconds.
The next moment was a blur of lights and questions.
"Mr. Hummel!"
"Can you tell us about your work with the FBI?"
"Is there another victim?"
"Are you involved in the crime?"
Seriously? Was he involved in the crime? Were this people for real? Even if he had been involved in some way he wouldn't just confess to a bunch of journalists. More accurately, Kurt wouldn't have been able to say anything, the sudden throng of people pressed him from every angle and continued to shout questions right at his face.
Even though it was a cold mid-January night he had begun to feel hot and mildly suffocated, probably due to the abrupt invasion of his personal space, but he hadn't actually panicked until a sudden shove had almost made him lose his footing and managed to separate him from Blaine. The short man appeared to vanish in the shadows that danced around the flashing lights of the cameras, or maybe they were just imprinted in his eyes.
The night wind did little to carry the noise away from Kurt, however, the intensity of the questions and the constantly increasing volume did manage to blur the sound together into an indistinguishable mass. It was in no way less upsetting.
"Blaine!" Intellectually, Kurt knew that he was fine, he could just push past those people and into his apartment. He could imagine Blaine on the other side of the human wall trying to move close to him. Kurt could do all those things, except he really couldn't. He couldn't think. "Blaine! Move! ... Don't…." He couldn't breath.
Back when he was in high school and he was the weird gay kid that spoke to low or not at all some of the guys from the basketball team had decided to use him as the junior initiation. Not really his fondest memory but one that he hadn't thought of in a while.
It was a yearly ritual for the new team members, whether they were going to be players or bench warmers, in which they chose a student for some sort of prank. When it was Kurt's turn they had decided to be particularly cruel, he was, after all, the gay kid and if that wasn't bad enough he was also the loner, the easily ignored and, more importantly, the one other students wouldn't miss if he suddenly skipped a class or two.
Thursday night was the only day Kurt got out of school late since he had his weekly meeting with the Young Writers Club. Writing proved to be quite useful when it came to organizing the mess in his head, not that he had ever been particularly interested in pursuing the activity as anything more than a hobby, however, the school dictated that he had to join at least one club as extracurricular. And that was that. Thursday night was also the night the basketball team, which proved to be a very unfortunate coincidence. One that still caused him to wake up in a cold sweat at least once a month, maybe more.
Kurt Hummel didn't realize he had tripped over someone's foot, he did feel the many hands grabbing him, probably as a reflex, not that it mattered to him. There was pressure in his chest and voices in his head.
Mr Hummel!
Fucking faggot!
A question please!
Back to the closet to you!
Mr. Hummel!
"Blaine..."
"Get away from him!"
"I spoke to Sebastian." Blaine's voice hadn't been so soft since Kurt had called him about Burt's funeral. Screaming would have been preferable.
Blaine not trying to force feed him hot soup would also be good. Kurt dropped carelessly on the white puffy couch and dropped his head on his hands. His voice was so muffled whatever was said got swallowed by the ambient noise of Blaine's apartment, a mixture of traffic, the still beeping microwave and the neighbor's TV.
"He is going to run interference with the press and find he names of the people that jumped us." He set the steaming bowl on the coffee table and knelt facing Kurt. Blaine ran his hands over Kurt knees where the mix of melted snow and dirt had caked a brown round layer, he tried to remove the worst of it with his sleeves. His friend had never been overly conscious about his clothing, he usually opted for dark clothes, shades of gray and brown or black, anything that would allow him to blend with the background, however, he was attentive to his state of cleanliness. "It's going to be fine ."
"Hummel said it was the same killer"
The seventh floor of the bureau's building had risen bright and early, the clerks were running around delivering files and documents and the agents tipped away at their computers under the watchful eye of the Criminal Profiler Team.
"Hello boss! Nice to see you too this fine morning, had a niche night? Mine was great."
"Don't fuck with me today Puckerman." So, it was one of those days then. Sebastian had been playing nice for almost a month, he was bound to grow bored of it and snap at them. There was actually a pool going about the office. One that Sam had just won. Great.
"All right then, no fucking about, look at me, officially not fucking." Anticipating the impending screaming, Noah showed common sense and moved on. "Yes, that's what said, though he didn't come in to write the report, and he's not answering the phone. But you know that." It was likely related to the sudden change of mood. "We haven't found any evidence to support that theory, but we are still running a background check on both victims. Hopefully we'll find a link."
"Do that." Twenty or so agents jumped in unison when the door to their commanding officer slammed violently enough to rattle the single picture hanging by the wall. Puck steadied it, just in case. The group photo was old and some of the agents were no longer to take another one should it need to be replaced.