So sorry it took me so long to update, I have been incredibly busy, and every time I sat down to continue, I was too tired to make sense of anything. Plus, my computer's been acting weird. But things are going back to normal, and I might just make my new deadline. (The previous one was Valentine's day, but now it's just the end of the month).
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or Practical Magic. They belong to Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, FOX, Alice Hoffman, Griffin Dunne and Warner Bros Pictures.
Practical Magic
-by HappyValentina
Chapter five: The roses
As soon as she came down for breakfast the next morning, Quinn was greeted with the most unnerving noise she had ever heard. It was only Kyle tooting a song on a kazoo, but because she had the worst hangover ever, Quinn felt like someone was rattling her head on a kettledrum.
"Kurt, I beg you, make him stop. I'll pay whatever it takes," she whispered to her brother ear as he handed her a cup of coffee. Kurt also looked like he was in pain, and he approached his son.
"Hey kid, can I see that?" he asked. Kyle innocently handed him the kazoo, and Kurt chucked it into the corner. "Thanks."
"Hey!" Kyle protested, not really mad. Kurt planted a kiss on the top of his head.
"Finish your breakfast, your bus is coming," he said. "Where did you get that ugly thing around your neck?"
"The aunts gave it to us," Kyle said, chewing on a mouthful of cereal.
"They said it would protect us," Elizabeth added; she had been staring out the window into the garden since she finished her breakfast.
"Lizzie, could you please go get that mint from the garden before your bus gets here? Thank you," Kurt said, and went back to looking through the pantries.
Quinn sat across from Kyle at the kitchen table, and pulled out a cigarette, which Kurt automatically snatched from her lips and tossed into the trash bin. He was too busy searching for something, to notice her moody stare.
"Argh! Where is the Tylenol?" he groaned. He saw that Elizabeth had not moved from the window. "Honey, please do as I say."
"Not while he's out there."
Kurt stopped rummaging through a drawer and looked at his daughter.
"Not while who is out where?" he asked.
"The man under the roses."
"What?" Quinn asked, as she and Kurt went to stand beside her and look out the window too. They looked in every direction, but they couldn't see anyone.
"I-I don't see him. Sweetie, are you looking at him now?" Kurt asked.
"He's right there," Elizabeth answered.
"Where?" Quinn asked, a little flustered.
"By the roses," Elizabeth said, pointing at the white trellis in the garden. It was nearly fully covered by a large bush full of big red rose blooms. "They grew overnight."
Quinn's eyes widened. "Oh shit..." she whispered.
Kurt felt a cold shiver; whatever was going on, it scared him even more that his daughter saw something he couldn't.
"Okay, sweetie, we'll take care of it. Go get ready," he said, trying to sound calm, and lead Elizabeth away from the window. "You better call Britt and Santana now," he hissed to Quinn.
"But they left," Elizabeth said.
Kurt and Quinn froze and started talking at the same time.
"What?"
"What?"
"What do you mean they left?"
"Where did they go?"
"When did they leave?"
"They said to give you a message," Kyle piped up, wiping milk from his chin, eyes flashing as he remembered; "'clean up your own mess'."
Quinn ran barefoot out to the garden, and contemplated the rose bush that had grown to full-size and bloomed in the middle of the night. How could she not have noticed it?
Muttering angrily and fearfully, she suddenly tore into it, ripping branches and leaves and flowers with her bare hands, ignoring the pain as the thorns dug into her skin.
"Will you stop it, Puck? Stop it! Stop this right now!" she shouted, agitated. She felt a pair of arms around her waist, trying to pull her away.
"Quinnie, stop! You'll hurt yourself!"
"He's making them grow, Kurt! He's trying to get to us by making them grow!"
"Stop, Quinn! Calm down!"
"Leave us alone!"
"Stop!" Kurt finally managed to pull her away. She stopped struggling and tried to calm down, but suddenly gasped.
"His boots..."
Kurt turned to see what she was pointing at. Sure enough, sticking out ever so slightly from the ground, where the tips of a pair of boots.
"Oh my god..." Quinn said, clutching at Kurt's arms. "Is he rising or..."
The boots suddenly sank back down and disappeared into the grass. Quinn moaned in fear.
"... Or is the-is the ground sinking...?"
"Go inside," Kurt said firmly, but Quinn started shaking and whimpering quietly.
"What is he going to do to us... He's trying to get to us-"
"Go back inside, Quinn. Go take care of the kids. I'll... I'll take care of this."
She nodded, still staring in horror at the spot beneath the roses. Kurt pushed her gently toward the house, and she finally turned and ran inside.
He fetched the shears from the shed and started hacking violently at the bushes. He didn't even care that his favorite jeans were getting grass stains on the knees, or that he was covered in leaves and thorns and crushed rose petals. After about five minutes of work, he was grunting and breathing so heavily that he didn't hear anyone approaching from the stone path.
"Kind of early for roses, isnt' it?"
Kurt stopped and looked over his shoulder. A young man with dark hair and dark shades stood behind him, staring at him curiously.
"Can I help you with something?" Kurt asked, panting a little. He sat back on his heels and shielded his eyes from the sun for a better look at the man.
"I sure hope so. My name's Blaine Anderson. I'm a special investigator for the State Prosecutor's office in Tucson."
The young man fished out a badge from the inside pocket of his jacket and showed it to Kurt. Kurt stared at the star-shaped badge for a second, feeling his heart race as he stared at his own reflection on the polished metal.
Tucson, where Kurt had gone to Quinn's aid.
"You're, eh... you sure are a long way from home, officer," he said, standing up slowly.
"Yes, sir," Blaine Anderson replied, taking off his shades. "I was kind of hoping to talk to your sister, Quinn. If she's around. She might have some information on a case I'm working on."
Kurt was a little distracted by his eyes, and he felt his heart start beating out a strange cadence, and his legs go a little weak, and a bit of a flutter in his stomach. It might just have to do with the fact that there was an investigator asking for his sister.
He cleared his throat. "All right, I'll get her," he said simply, trying to keep the quiver out of his voice, and started toward the house, heart still racing. He turned back to look at officer Anderson, who was now kneeling by the pile of chopped roses, inspecting them.
"Uh, how did you know that I was her brother?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
Blaine looked up at him and seemed at a loss for a second, but then he smiled. "Oh, lucky guess, I- I guess," he said, picking one of the blooms and sniffing it.
"Mhmm," Kurt mumbled, forcing himself to look away. There was a very attractive law enforcement officer asking for Quinn and standing around charmingly smelling roses. Kurt was not in the right state for this.
"Uh, why don't you come inside?" he added awkwardly. Blaine dropped the rose and stood up, following Kurt into the kitchen.
"Quinn!" Kurt hissed, running upstairs to fetch Quinn. He found her on the floor of her room, sitting in a lotus position, doing breathing excercises and wearing headphones. "Quinn!"
He yanked the headphones off her head. Quinn gave a shriek of surprise and looked up at her brother.
"There's a cop downstairs and he's looking for Puck and he wants to talk to you and I think I'm having a heart attack," Kurt said in one breathless run-on sentence. He started pacing in front of her with a hand on his chest, like his heart was about to burst from it.
"Okay, just calm down. Calm down..." Quinn said, a lot more collected than she had been fifteen minutes before, while Kurt was now the onelosing it. "The question here is: how much can he know?"
"God, well, he seems to know an awful lot, considering he came all the way from Arizona," Kurt said, still breathing fast. "And I know this is going to sound really strange, but I... I- I don't think I can lie to him."
"Oh my god, of course you can lie to him!" Quinn said, standing up and grabbing him by the shoulders. "Breathe, breathe... okay, here's the story," she said, taking a deep breath herself. "I left him, because he hit me, and we haven't seen him since. It's as simple as that."
Kurt nodded along and tensely repeated her words quietly as she spoke.
"And you just let me handle the rest," she added. "All right?"
"Okay, good," he replied, not too confidently, and he turned to go back downstairs, muttering the story to himself. "You left him because he hit you and we haven't seen him- What?"
"Is he cute?" Quinn repeated, quietly.
Kurt deadpanned for a second. "Uh, yeah... he's... he's nice... in a very... penal code sort of way, yeah."
"Is he straight?" Quinn asked, smirking.
Again, Kurt didn't understand the fluttering in his stomach, and he interpreted it as nerves, and tried to ignore it. "Uh, I think so."
Quinn stared at him dubiously, but Kurt left before she could ask anything else, still muttering as he started down the stairs, but getting the story all muddled up as he did.
Officer Blaine Anderson was walking around the greenhouse, looking at things. Kurt peered around the doorway and watched him as he picked up a jar and stared intently at the contents.
"Just herbs," Kurt said.
Blaine whipped around in surprise, wide-eyed like a child caught doing something bad.
"You know, from the garden," Kurt added. "So what brings you to Lima?" he asked, as Blaine smiled and walked back into the kitchen.
"This," Blaine answered, and pulled an envelope from the inside of his jacket.
It was Kurt's letter to Quinn.
Kurt's lips parted in surprise. He reached out to take it, but Blaine didn't hand it to him, and instead held it with both hands, casually implying that he was not giving it away. Kurt stared at it, uneasily. The seal was broken; it was clear that officer Blaine had opened it.
"You read my letter?" he asked, annoyed.
"Yes, sir, I did."
"It's a very personal letter."
Blaine's eyes looked anywhere but at Kurt now. Like he either didn't care or he felt bad for it now.
"Yes, sir, it was," he said coolly, tucking the letter back into his jacket.
"I-" Kurt was about to say something else, but stopped.
"What?" Blaine asked.
"I'm sorry," Kurt started again, staring intently at Blaine, who was staring back. "You seem very f-"
"Hello, there."
Quinn interrupted, coming down the stairs. She looked very pretty in a green dress and fresh make up, her short blonde hair tousled playfully. She smiled at Blaine.
"Morning, miss-" Blaine stopped when Kurt banged his head rather loudly on an open pantry door. Kurt rubbed his head embarrassingly and moved away. Blaine stared at him curiously before looking back at Quinn. "-Good morning, miss Owens."
"Good morning," Quinn replied in a sultry voice, "Mister..."
"Mr. Anderson."
"Anderson."
"Listen, I'm not going to beat around the bush here," Blaine said. "I need to find your boyfriend, Noah Puckerman."
Quinn shrugged. "I don't know where he is." She smiled as she leaned against the kitchen table, in front of Blaine, looking him up and down coyly. "I wouldn't exactly call him my boyfriend. He's... more like a big mistake," she added with a smile.
Kurt watched from the far end of the kitchen, pulling things distractedly from the cupboard.
Blaine looked slightly uncomfortable. He didn't look at Quinn directly, but noticed the bruise on the side of Quinn's face and pulled out a tiny notepad and pen from the back pocket of his pants. "Is that his handiwork there?"
"Mmm-hmm. If a man hits me, he only does it once."
Blaine was jotting something down on his notepad while staring at Quinn with one eyebrow raised.
"Can I... take a peek at your..." she started.
Kurt blatantly turned to look at them. Quinn had grabbed the hand that was writing down notes, and Blaine obliged.
"Wow..." Quinn said, running a finger over his open palm. "Now, I can tell that you've never touched a woman in anger in all your life," she said. Behind her, Kurt rolled his eyes and felt compelled to leave.
"May I have my hand back, please?" Blaine said, rather bluntly, unamused by Quinn's flirtiness.
"Oh, sure," Quinn said, a little stunned, letting go.
"So what you're saying is, you have no idea where he is?"
"I told you. He hit me, and... and I haven't seen him since."
"And when was that?"
"Three days ago." Quinn turned casually to Kurt. "Right, Kurt? Yeah, three days."
Blaine looked at Kurt, who had somehow thought himself invisible.
"Three days," Blaine repeated. He walked over to Kurt. "Excuse me, um, Kurt?"
"Mmm?" Kurt turned, not very nonchalantly, when he heard his name.
"Whose car is that in the driveway? The one with the Arizona plates?"
Kurt drew a blank.
"Oh that's my car," Quinn smiled brightly. Kurt nodded vigorously.
"Oh that's your car," Blaine repeated, somewhat sarcastically. "Plate number 229MOB? I see. That's Noah Puckerman's car." He stared pointedly at Quinn, who looked caught.
"Come on now..." He looked from one sibling to the other.
Kurt looked like he was about to burst at the seams.
"We- we stole it, and it's a crime," he started. "I know this, but- but- but he basically kidnapped her. And it-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Blaine interjected, and stared at Quinn in alarm. "He kidnapped you?"
Quinn didn't have time to reply, because Kurt continued his ramble, gesturing a little wildly now.
"No, no, he- he didn't really kidnap her. He- he sort of... like... just like a, a little nap. No, there was a car... and he just- just sort of w- just, and- she-"
Both Blaine and Quinn were staring at him with their mouths open. Kurt was stammering and making absolutely no sense, and he was gesticulating like someone being attacked by bees. It didn't help that Blaine seemed to be inching closer and closer to him.
"What happened was that- she- You should know, she has the worst taste in men," Kurt added with a nervous chuckle.
"Okay," Blaine seemed to be fighting back a smile, and he glanced briefly at Quinn, who was pursing her lips and looking anything but entertained.
"Well, you do," Kurt said, laughing uneasily. "So- so anyway, I- I picked her up, and I drove her right back here, and we would be so happy to give him back his car, because it is a crime... and..." he tried to ignore the fact that Blaine had pulled out a handkerchief and was dabbing it at Kurt's neck carefully, just below his collarbone, where he was bleeding from a small wound, probably caused by a thorn or branch from the rose bushes. "And- and as you say, you- you just don't know where he is... to..."
"Sorry, you've just got a little..." Blaine muttered, still dabbing gently.
"Oh... to- to give him back that car," Kurt finished, very flustered.
"So basically, nobody knows where he is?"
Kurt ran a hand through his hair distractedly. "Sorry, what?" he asked, out of breath.
"So you don't have any idea where he is?" Blaine asked again.
"Mmm..." Kurt mumbled unintelligibly, shaking his head, unable to make eye contact.
"Do you mind if I just take a look around?"
Kurt made another mumbling noise, wishing Blaine would step back a little. He shook his head again, which Blaine took to mean 'okay'.
"Okay," he whispered very quietly, and walked past Kurt, tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket. Kurt just stood there, leaning heavily against the counter, breathing a sigh of relief when Blaine left the room. Quinn caught his eye, frowning at him.
"What is wrong with you?" she mouthed angrily.
Kurt winces. "I don't know!" he mouthed back vehemently.
Quinn shook her head in disappointment. "And is your gay-dar broken or something?" she added silently. Kurt looked utterly nonplussed.
"Is it...?" he wondered, mentally slapping himself.
"This young lady's name was Andrea Cohen," Blaine was saying. The three of them were now sitting at the table, and Blaine was showing them some pictures from the case he was working on.
"Two years ago she was found strangled, lying on the side of the highway," he said, and Quinn's eyes widened slightly. "Her body had been marked with a kind of brand, burned right into the face." He pulled out another picture, and Quinn's lips parted. The girl's face bore a mark like a skull. She glanced at Kurt.
"Any help you can give me in locating this ex-boyfriend of yours would sure be appreciated."
Kurt and Quinn looked at each other, avoiding Blaine's eyes deliberately, and neither said anything.
Blaine was crouching beside Puck's car, scraping something from the edge of the driver's seat with a piece of paper and carefully catching the substance into a small clear plastic bag. He sealed it and stood up.
"Okay, she's all yours," he said to the driver of the tow truck, talking over the noise of a running engine. He closed the car door, and the tow truck took the car away.
Blaine cast one last look at the Owens house, before getting in his car and heading into town.
"Go arrest him!" Sue Sylvester shouted.
Blaine stared at her funny. He was trying to obtain some more information by asking random people in town, and the old cheerleading coach from the local school seemed to be eager to spill the beans.
"Their nephew owns a shop where they cook up a special placenta," she was explaining crankily. "And that's why the aunts don't age. I tell you, they just don't age. They just stay young forever," she grumbled quietly, "... pisses me off."
Blaine looked up from the crazy lady in the tracksuit, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Kurt Owens -or at least he thought it might be-, beyond the farmer's market, looking his way.
"He's selling placentas?"
"A placenta bar," Sue corrected. "I just don't get it. I put placenta on everything I eat or drink, and I don't look like that. It's not normal."
Blaine wrote everything down quickly and got away as fast as possible.
"On Halloween, they all jump off the roof and fly!" a little boy by the name of Andy Flannagan said excitedly, nearly dropping his ice pop.
"When they get mad at you, they hex you!" Jeremy Hudson-Berry added moodily. He was covered in fading red spots, clearly getting over a case of chickenpox.
Blaine had found a group of parents and their children outside the ice cream parlor. They all seemed to have something to say. He should've known to steer clear of the small-town gossip folk, but it was a small town after all, which meant that there was really no one else he could ask for information.
Rachel Berry ruffled Jeremy's hair and smiled at Blaine. "I don't know about the jewish cowboy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned up in a ditch somewhere."
"Rachel, that is not true!" Sugar Motta piped up. "She's not saying they murdered him, just maybe... they shook his hand, and then... he died. It's very mysterious."
Blaine looked very confused at them.
"If any man dared take on an Owens, he'd live briefly in the euphoria of her love, until meeting an untimely death," Artie Abrams explained very textually.
"The curse?" Blaine asked, not sounding very convinced. Artie gave him a toothy smile and nodded.
"Witch? Yeah. Evil? No," Tina Cohen-Chang was explaining, very seriously. "I mean, you do get your psychos now and then, -you know, animal slaughter, ritual human disembowelment-, but that's really not him. You see, it's a pagan label, but Kurt-"
They both turned toward the door when it swung open. Kurt stepped in with a cup of coffee from the Lima Bean, and walked behind the counter nonchalantly.
Tina turned back to Blaine. "-he's definitively not into that stuff."
Blaine was following Kurt with his gaze. "He's not, huh?"
Kurt looked up and met Blaine's eyes for a moment, but he snapped out of it thanks to Finn Hudson walking into the shop with a brown paper bag.
"Kurt, I have a bone to pick with you."
"Hmm? Do you?" Kurt said, setting down his coffee. "What can I do for you, Finn?"
"I could've gone to a qualified doctor to attend to this health condition of mine," Finn started explaining. "And I think my wife would've been happy with that, considering she doesn't even know I shop here because I don't think she'd like that," he added, quieter.
Next to Finn, Blaine was staring curiously at Kurt.
"Now, the more I use, the less it works," Finn continued. "The product doesn't work!"
"Well, that's because it doesn't go on your head," Kurt replied. He suddenly realized that Blaine was staring at Kurt's coffee, which was stirring itself. Kurt casually put his hand over it, stopping the moving straw.
"If I don't put it on my head, where the hell else would it go?"
Kurt took a deep breath. "Try to remember," he said softly.
Finn frowned at him, as Kurt's eyes flickered down and then back up, and down and up again, and he smirked at Finn. It finally dawned on Finn, and he blushed furiously.
"My mistake," he said, hurrying out of the store, clearly embarrassed.
Blaine laughed lightly. Tina tried to keep a straight face and bagged his purchase.
"There you go," she said. He thanked her and headed for the door.
"Strange town," he pretended to mutter under his breath. "Never spent this much on shampoo before, in my life," he finished louder, obviously so Kurt could hear.
Kurt followed him out of the store, catching up to him on the sidewalk.
"Am I under some kind of surveillance?" he asked. Blaine stopped and turned.
"Should you be?" Blaine asked.
"Well, if there's something you wanna know, ask me."
Blaine laughed mirthlessly. "I already did. And all I can tell you is, there appears to be something missing from your stories," he said, looking rather smug. Kurt narrowed his eyes.
"Now listen," Blaine continued, "I want to talk to you some more, but I've got to finish up some work. So how about I come by your house tomorrow morning?"
"Fine," Kurt replied quickly. He was just very annoyed by how Blaine did that so easily, when Kurt felt like his insides had been replaced by butterflies and feathers.
"Okay. Ten a.m.?"
"Fine."
"Okay... that's a date," Blaine said. Kurt tried not to look stunned, and Blaine turned around again and left. Kurt didn't know how to feel or think, as he felt his insides flutter again, and he returned to the shop, trying to push all of this out of his mind.
That night, Quinn couldn't sleep. She was tossing and turning in bed, and woke up practically every hour. She wasn't having bad dreams or anything. But something disturbed her. Something kept her restless.
She went downstairs to the kitchen and opened the double doors to the deck, and to the windy night. A gust of wind swept into the room and knocked over a few things. Something smashed on the floor. Wrapping her wooly coat around her body tightly, she stared out into the night, around the garden.
The roses had grown again, all over the trellis.
"Puck, is that you?" she asked very quietly, her eyes darting everywhere.
"Puck?" she said again. "Go away," she whispered. "Go away."
She closed the door again and headed back to bed, certain that it wouldn't make a difference, and that she would not be getting a blink of sleep.
"Okay, To banish unwanted persons..." Elizabeth said, reading carefully from the spell book. "It says you need blessing seeds."
"Alright, good, uh... blessing seeds..." Quinn said, looking around the shelves, "what about nigellus?"
"It's the same thing," Elizabeth replied, while grinding another ingredient in the mortar.
"Oh, okay, wow," Quinn smiled, "You're good at this."
Quinn had recruited the two kids into the pantry, to help her make a potion. Blaine Anderson would be coming around any moment, and she needed to make sure he wouldn't bother them anymore. Quinn knew that Kurt would never allow it, so she had to do it in secret.
"Why can't we tell daddy that we're gonna send the policeman away?" Kyle asked, leaning on the table.
"Because your daddy likes to pretend that he doesn't do magic, and we have to banish this man for your daddy's own good," Quinn replied carefully, as she used another mortar on the nigellus. "Right... what else do we need?" she murmured, pouring the crushed seeds with the other ingredients. She waved Kyle away. "Kyle, I told you to listen out the door for Mr. Anderson." Kyle grudgingly went back to watchman duty.
"Oh yeah, milk thistle!" Quinn exclaimed. "I can't find anything here..."
As Quinn turned to the shelves again, Elizabeth pulled out a small journal from her pocket.
"Was this daddy's?" she asked, opening it to the page in the center and showing it to Quinn.
"Huh? Oh, wow! Yeah! Where did you get that?"
Quinn took the journal from Elizabeth and looked at the open page. There were two yellow petals pressed between the two pages. She smiled at Kurt's loopy handwriting, and read the page under her breath.
"He can flip pancakes in the air... he will have eyes like a golden sunset... He will hear my call a mile away..." Quinn chuckled, remembering that night vividly.
"Was this about papa?"
Quinn hesitated and smiled at Elizabeth. "Uh... yeah. Yeah."
"But papa had green eyes."
Sighing, Quinn looked at both her niece and nephew. "You know what? You're right. The truth is, this wasn't about your papa. It's just that, when your daddy was a little boy, he was trying to invent a guy who didn't exist. To protect himself," she explained, and went back to grinding more ingredients. "It's crazy, but... but then he met your papa, and he was very happy. And he loved your papa very much. Oh, they loved each other so much..."
Elizabeth smiled and sighed. "I can't wait to fall in love."
Quinn stopped and bit her lip. She leaned on the table, and gazed at the young girl. "Lizzie, do you, um... do you ever put your arms out and look up at the sky and you spin and spin around in circles, really fast?"
"She does it all the time," Kyle said from the door.
"She does? Well, that's what love is like. It makes your heart race, it turns the world upside down," Quinn laughed quietly. "But if you're not careful... if you don't keep your eyes on something still... you can lose your balance. You can't see what's happening to the people around you." She took a shuddering breath. "You can't see that you're about to fall."
Elizabeth looked concernedly at her and reached out to stroke her hair. "Don't be sad, aunt Quinn. I won't let you fall down." Quinn sniffed and smiled back, wiping a tear away.
The doorbell rang.
"He's here! He's here!" Kyle shouted excitedly, bouncing up and down, until both his sister and aunt shushed him. Quinn spun him around by the shoulders and gave him a gentle push toward the door. "Go!"
Obediently, Kyle rushed out of the pantry and to the foyer, and opened the door. Blaine was there, leaning on the doorframe.
"You came for breakfast," Kyle greeted him cheerfully. "We've having pancakes!"
Blaine chuckled. "No, actually I just came here to talk to your dad."
"Great! He's having pancakes too. Come in! Come in!"
Kyle grabbed the man by the hand and practically dragged him into the house, and closed the door. Blaine had a tight-lipped smile on his face as the child looked up at him with wide eyes.
"Do you have a gun?" Kyle asked.
Blaine nodded.
"Can I see it?"
Just then, Kurt was coming down the stairs. Blaine looked up at him, then down and Kyle, and gave him an apologetic shake of the head. Kyle shrugged and glanced at his father.
"He's here for breakfast!" he said as he dashed back toward the kitchen.
Kurt looked expectantly at Blaine.
"I have a question or two," Blaine said.
"He's gonna stay! He's gonna stay!" Kyle announced enthusiastically as he entered the pantry again.
"Ooh, oh, good! Shh, good work, honey!" Quinn said quietly. "Now go back out there and keep them away form here."
Blaine was walking around the greenhouse again, curiously looking at stuff. He examined a jar with some herbs. Kurt was right behind him.
"Belladonna," he said, since Blaine seemed to be looking for a label on the jar. "It's a sedative. People put it in their tea, to relax or calm their nerves."
Blaine set down the jar. "Some people also use it as poison."
"Which people?"
Blaine gave a mirthless laugh and raised his eyebrows. "Witch people."
"Aha!"
"Witches."
"Witches," Kurt repeated, grinning as he walked up to Blaine. "I guess you found me out, huh?"
"Yes, I did."
"You should come round here on Halloween. You'd really see something then."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, we all jump off the roof and fly," Kurt said in a playful tone, and then his face darkened. "We kill our husbands too."
Blaine's eyes suddenly lost their joy.
"Or is that outside your jurisdiction?" Kurt asked, going back to the playfulness. Blaine narrowed his eyes at him.
"Do you have any idea how strange this all sounds to me?" he asked. "I've got people telling me that you cook placenta bars, that you're into devil worshipping-"
"No, no, there's no devil in the craft."
Blaine seemed to inch closer. "So what kind of... craft do you do?"
"Well," Kurt took a deep breath. "I make organic bath oils, soaps, shampoos, lotions, that sort of thing. And the aunts... they like to meddle in people's love lives." He paused and seemed to remember something fondly. "Magic isn't just spells and potions."
He started to reach into Blaine's jacket and pulled out his badge, and Blaine allowed him to, watching him curiously. "Your badge," Kurt continued, flipping the cover open, "It's just a star. Just another symbol. Your talisman. It can't stop criminals in their tracks, can it? It has power because you believe it does." He ran a finger over the cool metal and handed it back to Blaine. "Wish you could believe in me."
He walked past Blaine toward the kitchen, while Blaine pocketed the badge again, somewhat stunned.
"Mr. Owens..."
Kurt stopped and looked back at him.
"Are you hiding Noah Puckerman?"
"Not in this house," Kurt replied.
Blaine walked up to him again. "Did you or your sister kill Noah Puckerman?"
"Oh yeah! A couple of times," Kurt said very seriously.
Blaine frowned in confusion and just stood there for a moment, while Kurt crossed the kitchen, to where Kyle was trying to make breakfast.
"Kyle, could you make more of a mess?" he asked. Kyle was half-covered in flour.
"Dad, I'm cooking."
"Yeah, I can see that," Kurt said, grabbing a cloth and wiping his son's face.
"Hey there," Blaine said, coming up next to them. He looked at Kyle with a conspirative expression. "Have you ever seen a warbler?"
Kyle shook his head. Blaine pushed up his sleeves. "Well, you're about to. Step aside, young fellow."
Kurt rolled his eyes and smiled, and walked around the kitchen fetching the plates, glasses and cups. He started humming a song, and Kyle suddenly noticed that, as Blaine worked on shaping the pancakes like birds, he had started whistling the same song. He glanced between them curiously.
Suddenly Blaine stepped back a little, holding the frying pan with both hands, and he gave it a little shake, and flipped the pancake really high. It almost touched the ceiling, but came back down, and Blaine caught it expertly with the pan.
Eyes like golfballs, Kyle's mouth fell a little open. "Wow..."
"One stack of flapjacks, and it's goodbye Mister Anderson!" Quinn said to herself in self-satisfaction, as she capped the bottle and shook it vigorously, mixing her finished banishing potion well.
Kyle ran into the pantry, up to his sister.
"He knows how to flip pancackes," he whispered excitedly, before running back out. Without a hitch, Elizabeth ran out after him.
Kurt had already set up the table in the garden, and the kids were sitting down when Blaine came out with a plate full of bird-shaped pancakes.
"I assume you kids don't want any pancakes," he said.
"No! We want them! We want them!" they shouted.
"Careful, they might use them as frisbees," Kurt murmured, setting down a pot of coffee, and going back into the house.
"Can you ride a pony backwards?" Kyle asked, as off-handedly as he could manage.
"Backwards, forwards, sideways, you name it," Blaine answered as he put some pancakes on each plate. Elizabeth smiled.
"Do you like to sing and dance?"
Blaine chuckled, like he was amused by the random questionnaire. "Well, I don't want to brag, but I was the leading soloist of my Glee club, back in high school."
"Okay! First troll!" Kurt announced, coming back out with napkins. He tucked one on Kyle's shirt. Kyle grabbed Blaine's badge; it was sticking out of his jacket, perched on the back of a chair.
"Look!" he whispered to Elizabeth.
"A star!" Elizabeth whispered back, eyes twinkling.
"No, honey, put that back, this is not yours," Kurt said, grabbing the badge and putting it on Blaine's chair. He tucked another napkin on Elizabeth's shirt.
"And if you're anything like my kids," he added, and sheepishly started to tuck a napkin down the front of Blaine's shirt, while avoiding to meet his eyes. His kids, meanwhile, watched him with interest and a little awe; they had never seen their dad do that for someone other than their papa.
"Hi, Blaine," Quinn greeted cheerfully as she came out. She was wearing sunglasses and carrying a little jug. "I can call you Blaine, can't I?"
"Why not?" Blaine answered, as they all sat down.
"You have to try some of my syrup," Quinn offered, as Kurt poured the coffee, and the kids helped themselves to milk and orange juice.
Blaine took the jug from Quinn, and just when he was about to pour some of the syrup onto his pancakes, the kids looked up.
"NO!"
"No, no!"
"No, no-no-no! No!"
The three adults froze and stared wide-eyed as Elizabeth carefully pried the jug from Blaine's hand, and the two of them took off with it toward the side of the house, shrieking and laughing.
Stunned, Blaine looked at Kurt, but he looked just as confused. Meanwhile, an annoyed Quinn excused herself and ran after the kids.
By the time Kurt and Blaine followed at a distance, the kids had reached the little creek that ran next to the house.
"Okay, ready? One, two, three!"
Elizabeth threw the syrup jug as far out as she could, and they shrieked again in victory as it sunk under the water. They ran back, ignoring Quinn's stony face as she followed them with her eyes.
"Well, I guess they didn't want to eat that," Kurt said, still very confused.
"I guess not," Blaine replied, laughing uncertainly.
There was a loud croaking nearby, and they turned simultaneously, to find a large ugly toad perched on a rock. As they approached it, the toad started making a weird belching sound. Quinn saw it too, and drew close as well, uneasily.
Suddenly, the toad stopped belching, and spat out a large silver ring, with a skull on it. The toad leapt away and out of sight.
In shock, the three of them stood around the rock, staring at the ring. Quinn reached out toward it, but Blaine was faster. He picked it up with his handkerchief.
Quinn said, looking at Kurt dubiously. Kurt looked at a loss.
"Oh wow! I've been looking for this! How did that toad get it-" she started.
"This is your ring?" Blaine asked -no, demanded-, holding it up.
"Yes, could I have it back, please?"
"What do you two think you're playing at, here?"
Kurt looked a little sick. Quinn continued to smile pleasantly.
"What do you mean?" she asked innocently. Blaine looked hard at both of them and shook his head.
"You better get yourselves a really good lawyer. And don't even think about leaving town," he said, and started walking away. "And what was in that syrup?" he shouted over his shoulder.
Quinn glanced nervously at Kurt, but her brother's eyes were fixed on the rock.
"We just stick to our story, you know? No body, no crime. It's a-" Quinn fell silent when she accidentally knocked over a bowl of fruit. The floor of the kitchen was littered with green apples and pieces of broken ceramic. "Oh no... I'm sorry..." she moaned, dropping to her knees to clean up.
Kurt stopped cleaning furiously, dumping a whole plate of uneaten bird-shaped pancakes into the trash bin, and grabbed a cleaning rag to clear the mess.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," Quinn groaned, picking up the mess painstakingly slow. "I'm just so tired. I haven't been sleeping well and-"
"I, me, my... it's always about you, isn't it, Quinn? Always about you," Kurt murmured. Quinn shot him a disbelieving look, and dropped what she had picked up. The ceramic clattered loudly.
"I don't want to fight," she stated stonily, standing up. Kurt slammed an open hand on the floor.
"Don't you walk away from me!"
But Quinn ignored him, motioning toward the staircase, while he went back to cleaning up.
"I'm so sick of having to pick up after you..." he murmured again. Quinn stopped on her tracks and turned, angrily.
"You're right, Kurt. Because I'm just a mess, aren't I? Just one. Big. Mess." She came back and hovered over him, breathing hard. "But at least I have lived my life, and that terrifies you. And you hate me because of it."
"Quinn, I don't hate you," Kurt spat, as if it were the most absurd thing he had ever heard. He tossed the broken ceramic and fruit into the trash and went to fetch the broom. Quinn shook her head, fuming.
"Look at you! You spend all your energy in trying to fit in, be normal! But you're never going to be normal! When are you going to accept the fact that you're different, we both are! And so are your kids."
"You leave my kids out of this," Kurt pointed a warning finger at her.
"All my life I have wished to have even an ounce of the talent that you have," Quinn continued, frustrated, tired. "You're... you're wasting yourself, Kurt!"
Kurt dropped the broom, and he looked within a second from snapping, but he somehow maintained his voice and his manner controlled. But not his feelings.
"You know what? I want you out. I want you gone," he said without thinking.
Quinn was hurt, but she was also proud.
"Fine," she replied coldly. Kurt nodded.
"Good."
Without hesitation, he grabbed his coat from the perch beside the door and pulled it on. Quinn watched him apprehensively.
"What are you doing? Where are you going?" she demanded.
"I'm going to do the right thing," he said, adjusting his collar.
"No! Kurt, no! You can't go to him and tell him the truth!" Quinn shouted.
"That's funny, because from the moment he first set foot in this house, that's all I've been wanting to do."
"What are you going to do? Get down on your knees and beg for mercy?"
Quinn tried to stop him from going out the door, but Kurt pushed her off easily. He turned and looked at her impassively.
"You want me to be true to myself? Well, watch this!"
And he walked out, resolute, slamming the door behind him. One of the glass panels smashed.
As soon as he stepped out the door, Quinn felt the strangest twinge of pain in her gut, and a cold wrapping around her chest. She was able to ignore it for a moment, but it started hurting more and more so quickly, until she was bending over in pain.
"Guuh... Kurt..." she gasped, clutching at her chest. But he was gone.
If I may say this, I loved being able to include Sue Sylvester in this somehow.
And if someone can teach me how to make warbler-shaped pancakes, I will be forever grateful. Ever since I came up with that, I've been trying. No success yet.
Ooh, my favorite part is coming up next... :)
Thanks for reading. Please review.
-Valentina