Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession.
A/N: This chapter happens a little bit out of order, so I hope it still makes sense. :)
KURT
There was a loud, shrill ringing noise near his head. He waited for it to stop, but it just seemed to keep getting louder and more insistent the longer it rang. After what felt like eternity, it finally stopped. For about twenty seconds, he heard nothing but blissful silence, and then suddenly the ringing began all over again. He swore that it was louder now than it had been before.
Mumbling curses under his breath, he struggled to sit up, only to be hit by a wave of nausea and the feeling that his head was splitting open. He tried to open his eyes, but when he squinted just a little bit, the bright light was simply too much for his aching head, and he shut them again. Burying his head in the pillows he'd woke up laying on, he focused on nothing but blocking out input from as many of his senses as possible. Absolutely every part of him felt like it was either on fire, had been run over by a truck, or was splitting open. Groaning loudly, he willed himself to stop hearing the ringing and to fall back to sleep. It took a while, but finally, mercifully, the ringing stopped and he fell back into a dreamless sleep.
…
He'd had the best of intentions, all things considered. No one could blame Kurt for making bad decisions after everything that had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours. Not that he wasn't responsible for his actions, but given what he'd been through, he couldn't exactly have been expected to react well. He'd dealt with the death of his father – which was really the least of his problems, relatively speaking – along with his father's deathbed confession that, as Kurt had maintained for nearly twenty-five years, his own father had indeed killed Kurt's childhood best friend, Taylor Shaw. That would have been far more than enough, of course, except that this confession brought along with it a shocking revelation – that one of the people he had trusted most simply couldn't be who he'd thought she was.
No, Jane wasn't Taylor after all. Never mind that the FBI had been the ones to tell her that she was Taylor in the first place, that he, Kurt Weller, had been the very first one to insist that she was Taylor, refusing to accept any evidence to the contrary… he had conveniently forgotten that part of the timeline. Eventually, Jane had claimed to be Taylor – even though her only claim was tied to short flashes of memories that she supposedly had… but they were real memories, his memories. Memories that someone who hadn't been there couldn't have had… unless someone else had fed her the information. And that changed everything, of course. If she'd lied about that, then what else had she lied about? Had it ALL been a lie? What was her agenda? The questions were dizzying in their implications, and more he brooded about the whole thing, the more questions he had.
Kurt Weller had never been someone who trusted people easily. No, that was something of an understatement. He didn't trust anyone, not if he could help it. He could count the number of people he trusted on one hand. His sister, Sarah (and his nephew, Sawyer – at least, as much as you could trust a kid, of course), and then his coworkers: Reade, Zapata and Mayfair. It had taken years for him to be able to really trust the three of them, but they had proven their loyalty again and again, literally saving each other's lives more than once.
And yet, the great skeptical Kurt Weller had trusted Jane almost from the beginning. No, that wasn't quite right. He had wanted to trust her from the beginning. There was something about her… She had earned his trust, even if she had done it more far easily than the other members of his team. The connection they both felt to the other had definitely given her an advantage. What was between the two of them – what had been between them – it was like nothing he had ever experienced. Somehow, it had been there from the beginning, from the first time they'd seen each other in the interrogation room and she'd reached out to him, desperate for answers.
And now he knew the truth… that it had all be a lie. It wasn't bad enough that his father had killed Taylor, but somehow, this mystery woman was somehow involved in a kind of strange conspiracy that had her claiming to be Taylor. It was simply more than he could deal with at once.
He'd promised Zapata that he'd be along shortly and meet them at headquarters, that he wouldn't hang around at the scene where techs were now swarming Jane's former safe house. He'd followed through with half of that, and had left the scene soon after Zapata and Reade had left with Jane. However, he had not headed back to the office, instead driving around aimlessly for a while before he realized that really, he wasn't in any shape to be driving. His attention was certainly not focused on the road or anything around him, so he had pulled over and parked in front of the next bar he'd seen, figuring that after the day he'd had, it was understandable that he needed a drink or two. Hell, maybe more than two.
Kurt had always had a pretty high tolerance for alcohol, but in his state of mind that night, he wasn't exactly trying to pace himself. Nor was he keeping track of how many drinks he'd had, or even how much money he'd spent. He'd handed the bartender his credit card and hadn't given it another thought after that. It wasn't smart, but then again, he didn't feel any need to be making smart decisions. He had been a serious guy all his life: focused, hard-working, responsible… the kind of guy that people respected, looked up to, and trusted. The kind of guy that made smart decisions. And where had it gotten him? Here, to this bar, everything in his life that he'd ever believed having been ripped to shreds and set on fire.
He didn't know what time he'd arrived at the bar, how many hours he'd been there, or how many drinks he'd had. Not only that, he hadn't seen any of the dubious looks from the bartender as he asked for another drink, and another, and another. To his credit, the young bartender had tried to engage Kurt in conversation as a means to slow down his alcohol consumption, but the last thing that Kurt had wanted to do was to talk about what was wrong. Talking wasn't going to change anything, wasn't going to make it any better. He had been betrayed, not once but twice, and not by strangers, but by people who he should have been able to trust. Talking wouldn't help anything this time. Despite his extensive resources and problem solving skills, Kurt just couldn't see a way to fix this situation.
So he ignored the bartender's attempts at small talk, downing his alcohol as quickly as possible, waiting for the things he was feeling to just… stop. What he really, really wanted, what he desperately needed, was to stop feeling. Preferably to stop feeling completely. He knew that it wasn't a healthy solution, and yet, for once he didn't care about doing the right thing, the responsible thing, the logical thing. For once he just didn't care about the consequences of his actions, not even a little bit.
When it was time for the last patrons to leave so the he could close up, the bartender had looked at Kurt suspiciously, wondering if there would be trouble. Kurt hadn't given him a hard time so far, nothing worse than grunting at the bartender's numerous attempts at conversation, but he had that look about him… like a guy who didn't have much, if anything, left to lose. Kurt still had plenty to lose, of course, like his job, for one thing, but not surprisingly, he didn't see it that way. As far as he could see, it was all so far past fucked up, there might not be any going back.
So, unsurprisingly, Kurt had had no interest in leaving the bar. He'd tried to get in the bartender's face, and then also the face of the security guy who'd been watching him all evening… tried being the operative word. Really, he was too drunk to stand up straight, much less to be coordinated enough to get near anyone's face. But he had settled for waving his finger in the air wildly in their general direction as he shouted obscenities about the indignity to which he was being subjected at that moment… all this as the very large security guy had escorted him out to the sidewalk in front of the building, slamming the door behind him.
Kurt knew that he was more intoxicated than he'd been in many years. Now that he was standing up, he was having trouble remaining upright, as the world seemed to be tipping wildly without warning every few seconds. He put out a hand and caught himself on the brick wall of the building, managing to stop himself from stumbling face first into the cement.
Zapata would love that, he thought dizzily, the boss falling on his face drunk. Fuck that. I'm not gonna fall down. I can walk in a goddamn straight line. He stood up straight, taking his hand off of the wall in order to demonstrate to himself exactly how easily he could walk in a straight line, and of course, promptly fell down face first onto the cement. His reflexes were so slow, he didn't even have time to try to catch himself, which made it all the more painful when his body hit the pavement – especially his face.
Laying there on the ground, pounding the cement with his fists and screaming obscenities – he hadn't really stopped yelling them since he'd been ejected from the bar – he was suddenly hit by a wave of nausea. Ugh! I can't fucking throw up here! he protested to himself. My face is an inch from the ground.
His stomach, however, seemed not to get the message, because that's exactly what he did about five seconds later, heaving out putrid smelling vomit that, since he was already on the ground, really didn't have anywhere to go besides right beside his head, where is exactly where it landed. When he was finally still, it was all he could smell, and he was dismayed to realize that the side of his face was sitting in a puddle of it.
Also, as if that wasn't bad enough, he noticed for the first time that the pavement beside his face was also stained with blood. It was only then that he felt the pain in his face, realizing that he'd probably broken his nose when he'd fallen on the ground. Groaning and cursing some more, he pushed himself away from the smell of his own blood and vomit, rolling over on his side so that the reeking puddle he'd created was behind him. This is a new fucking low for you, Weller, he told himself.
He began to laugh then, because here he was, on the sidewalk, drunk as shit and literally covered in his own vomit with a possibly broken nose, everything in his life about as fucked up as it could be… what else was there to do but laugh? He knew that he needed to get up off of the fucking sidewalk, but he couldn't seem to manage it. I'll just rest here for a second, he thought, the words slurring together even in his head.
An hour later he woke up to the blaring sound of a horn. When he opened his eyes just a crack, he felt nearly as drunk as he had an hour before. Still, he was pretty sure that he wasn't hallucinating, and that there really was a car – a taxi? – pulled up along the curb, the driver holding down his horn. When Kurt raised his head to look in the direction of the noise, it finally stopped. A few seconds later, he heard a door slam and he could just barely make out, through his squinted eyes, the shape of the driver walking towards him. He really hoped that this guy wasn't looking for trouble. He was not in the mood for it.
"Hey man, are you alright?" the guy asked him. He was standing in front of him now, his eyes wide in surprise. "You look pretty fucked up."
Groaning, Kurt used all his energy to push himself to a sitting position, feeling himself sway but managing not to fall back down. "I'm… fine," he replied unconvincingly, trying to get the words out while fighting another round of nausea. He rubbed his eyes, thousands of bright pinpricks of light appearing in his field of vision as he did so, then stopped and opened his eyes again, only to find everything shifting just as badly as it had been before.
"Um, no offense, but you look like shit. And I'm just guessing here, but do you need a ride?"
Kurt considered the offer for a few seconds, which was longer than he should have had to think about it, considering his current state of mind. There was no way in hell he was driving in his condition, and unless he wanted to spend what was left of the night on the sidewalk, then yes, he needed a ride. His eyes had fallen closed again to keep out the light that was already hurting his head, and he just nodded in the direction of where he thought the cab driver was standing. When he forced his eyes open again, he saw that he'd been wrong, but the guy had gotten the message anyway.
"OK, but you're gonna have to get up on your own. There's no way I'm gonna be able to lift you up." Weller studied the driver, who was approximately a foot shorter than him and maybe a little more than about half of his weight, then nodded.
"Also, if you could not throw up in my cab, that would be awesome," the driver added.
Kurt gave the man a wavering thumbs up and then, putting his hands down on the ground on either side of him, attempted to push himself up. However, this was easier said than done in his current state. It took five minutes and numerous additional attempts before Kurt made it back onto his feet. The driver eyed him nervously, taking slow steps toward him and waiting to see if Kurt was, indeed, really alright. Kurt suddenly held a hand up in the air toward the other man, quickly turning in the other direction – luckily catching himself with one hand against the brick wall and narrowly avoiding another express trip to the pavement – and throwing up yet again, this time on the ground, and on his own feet.
"Fuck!" Weller said under his breath, realizing that he now had vomit on his face and his shoes. "Goddammit!" Holding onto the wall, he took a few steps away from the new puddle, then turning to his side and leaning his body against the wall. The driver, to his credit, had gone to his trunk and now returned with a small towel. It wasn't what he would describe as clean, but it was better than nothing, and when the man held it out to him, Weller took it.
"I thought you might need this. Better not to smell like puke if you don't have to," he said, still watching Kurt carefully, not really wanting to be thrown up on.
"Thanks, man," Kurt mumbled, taking the towel but keeping himself balanced against the wall. He could only imagine how comical it looked as he tried to bend over far enough to wipe the puke off his shoes without landing on his face – again – but he didn't really care at that moment. He wiped his face off as best he could, then held the towel back out to the other man. The driver just shook his head, undoubtedly disgusted enough that he didn't want his own towel back, so Kurt threw it into a trash can which was, mercifully, only a few feet further along the wall. When he made his way back, the driver handed him a few tissues, that he'd found in the front of the cab.
"For your nose," he told him, "It's still bleeding." Kurt didn't feel any pain at the moment, but he knew that he would later. Pressing the tissues carefully to his face, he noticed the cab driver watching him. "You sure you're okay, man? You wanna throw up one more time? Cause I really don't need it in my cab."
Kurt grimaced. "I'm in no shape to make promises, but I think I'm done." The driver nodded, then walked back to the back door and opened it for him, then backed up. Concentrating hard, Weller pushed himself off the wall and staggered forward, using every available ounce of concentration he could muster to keep himself upright long enough to get to the side of the cab.
I could use another drink, he thought as he finally leaned against the car, pausing for a second and preparing to lower himself far enough to push himself inside. The voice in his head warned him that this wasn't a good decision, but that was not something he was in the mood for. Fuck good decisions, he thought, suddenly angry again. He leaned out of the car to grab the door handle and close the door behind him, narrowly avoiding another fall back onto the pavement. His head swam from the quick movement as he sat back up in the cab, and the driver looked back at him doubtfully in the rear view mirror.
"Man, you sure you're not gonna throw up?" he asked.
Kurt was getting sick of this guy. If he threw up in the goddamn cab, then he threw up in the goddamn cab. This guy needed to shut the fuck up.
However, Kurt reminded himself that the cab would take him somewhere that was preferable to face first on the sidewalk, and that if he gave this guy trouble, he'd have to go through the trouble of finding, and then getting himself into, another cab… so it would be easier just not to piss this guy off.
"I'm good, man," he said through gritted teeth.
"Alright," the driver said warily, "so where we going?"
Kurt gave him the first address that came to mind, then leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, willing himself not to pass out, throw up, or do anything else that he would come to regret, at least for as long as it would take for them to reach his destination. He couldn't remember the past few hours very well, but he got the feeling that he may already have done enough things that he would regret for one day.
It seemed like five minutes later when the cab's motion stopped and Kurt heard the car being shifted into Park. He forced his eyes open and the first thing he saw was the cab driver staring at him. "The fare's $15.50," he said in a voice that sounded unnecessarily loud to Kurt's ears. Nodding, Kurt reached for his wallet. To his dismay, it wasn't in any of his pockets. Had he left it at the bar? He vaguely remembered giving the bartender his credit card – which, come to think of it, he didn't think he'd remembered to retrieve – but where the hell was his wallet?
"Fuck," he said under his breath as he checked his pockets again. "One second," he said to the driver, taking his phone out of his jacket pocket and navigating clumsily through the menu until he found the person he was looking for. Please pick up, he thought, unable to think of another solution to his current problem.
She didn't answer, and the call went to voicemail, so he called again. Finally, on the fourth ring of the second call, she picked up.
"What do you want, Kurt?" she asked, irritation in her voice. "It's 4:15 in the morning."
"You have any cash?" he asked her. "Like, $20." He could hear her sigh in annoyance at the other end of the line, and he swore he could even hear her sitting up in bed.
"Are you okay? You sound drunk. And where are you that you need $20?" She was awake now. What the hell had Kurt gotten himself into? she wondered.This wasn't like him.
"I'm…" he paused. He knew that she would know if he lied. It wasn't worth it. He didn't have the energy anyway. "Yes, I'm fucking drunk," he replied in irritation. "And no, I'm not fucking okay… and I'm outside your building in a cab and I lost my goddamn wallet so if you could come outside with $20, that would be great."
He heard her sigh again, though he couldn't decide what kind of sigh it was, and after only a short pause, she said, "Okay Kurt, I'll be right down." And then the line went dead.
He looked back up at the cab driver apologetically then, and saw that the guy was looking back at him sympathetically. "Rough day, huh?" he asked.
"Man, you have no idea," Kurt replied. He started to shake his head, but stopped when he realize that doing so would make him dizzy. Closing his eyes against another wave of nausea, he put his head down against the seat in front of him and took a deep breath.
It seemed like only seconds later when he heard the sound of the front window being rolled down, and two voices, the driver's and hers, greeting each other as if it wasn't crazy for the cab driver to be delivering a drunken Kurt Weller to her building at 4:15 in the morning. He pushed his eyes open and was startled when the door beside him was opened quickly. He turned to the driver, nodding, and then wincing from the effort. "Thanks, man."
"No problem," the driver replied. "Take care. Hope you have a better day tomorrow."
Weller scoffed. "Yeah, I sure as hell hope so, too," he told him. With that, he turned and somehow pushed himself out of the cab, stepping out of the way so that he could slam the door behind him. He focused all of his concentration on standing on the curb without falling down, despite the fact that he was still dizzy, as the cab sped away behind him.
Crossing her arms in front of her, she looked at him critically. "You wanna tell me what's going on?" she asked, "Because you look like hell."
He sighed heavily, closing his eyes to combat the dizziness. "Hello to you, too, Allie."
There was a voice in the back of his head that told him that he didn't really want to be at Allie's, that that wasn't where he should be, but he had ignored it. Where the fuck else was he going to go? He couldn't deal with Sarah right now, if she was even home, and Reade, Zapata and Mayfair, the only other people he trusted, were working on Jane's case. Not only that, but they were his coworkers, and it was just… different. He and Allie, well, it wasn't as though they hadn't shown up and each other's places in the middle of the night before. Generally it was before midnight, but still… it had been Allie's place or an empty hotel room, and while that had its perks, he knew he wasn't in the best state of mind to be taking care of himself.
Of course, he was going to have to answer some questions tomorrow. Like, for one, What the hell happened to your face? But he knew that he could dodge the ones he didn't want to answer. Hadn't they done enough of that when they'd been together? Which is why it didn't work, dumbass, he reminded himself.
She looked at him critically, but helped him upstairs without a word, cleaned off his face the best she could and informed him that he needed to have his nose looked at the next day – to which he'd just nodded – then she'd walked him straight into her guest room, where he'd collapsed on the bed. If she'd come back in at all, he hadn't heard her. He was just glad to finally pass out.
…
When he woke up the second time, it was to a ringing sound once again – although this time the noise didn't seem quite as harsh. Lifting his head carefully, remembering what had happened the last time he'd woken up, he opened his eyes very slowly, and was glad to note the improvement over his previous attempt. His head still felt mildly like it was splitting open, but at least the light in the room wasn't blinding. Looking at the clock, he was startled to see that it was noon.
Fuck! I slept til noon? He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept anywhere near that late. Noting his throbbing head, he began to do an inventory of how the rest of him felt. He was pretty much sore everywhere, and he was still very nauseous, but it wasn't as bad as it had been when he'd woken up earlier. Next to the clock, he saw a tall glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol, which he managed to get open (after only a few minutes of cursing at the childproof top). Sitting up to swallow the pills and the entire glass of water had taken all of his energy, and he laid back down on the pillow. Suddenly, he heard that same shrill noise again, the one that had now woken him up twice so far today, and which he now recognized as his phone.
He sat up just enough to reach it off of the nightstand, then laid back down. Zapata was calling him, and she had probably been calling him for hours. Taking a deep breath before facing the music, he pressed the green button on his screen and held the phone carefully to his ear, ready to retract it if she started screaming at him.
"Zapata, hey. Sorry I didn't come in last night," he said, apologizing before she had a chance to start in on him. "I, uh…" I got really, really drunk, fell on my face and broke my nose, puked on myself and ended up at Allie's? He wasn't sure he was ready to admit all of that.
"Weller, you need to come in." Zapata's voice was different. Cold and flat. Something was wrong, and somehow he had a strong feeling that it didn't have to do with Jane.
"What's wrong?" he asked, confused.
"Nope, not over the phone," she said. "Get your ass in here, now." And just like that, she was gone.
Kurt laid against the pillow, stunned. Zapata didn't talk like that – not to him – unless she was joking around, and she had not been joking around. He pushed himself up quickly, only to realize that he'd sat up much too quickly. Waiting a few minutes before moving again, he took things at a slower pace as he got up out of bed and walked out into Allie's kitchen. There was a note written in her familiar handwriting, which said simply, You owe me. He wouldn't be hearing the end of this for a long time, he knew. Beside the note, there was a paper McDonald's bag which contained, as he saw when he looked inside, two cheeseburgers, still in their familiar packaging. His favorite cure for hangovers.
He felt a wave of gratitude to Allie wash over him, and he almost smiled at the kindness of her gesture. She'd gone out and gotten him exactly what he liked to eat when he was hungover, despite the fact that he'd shown up and demanded that she pay for his cab at 4am. They weren't good together, and he knew it, but she knew him, and he knew her. They were a bad match, but she was a good person. There was something to be said for that.
He remembered that his wallet was still missing. After some research, he managed to figure out the name of the bar he'd been at the night before, called them and was told that yes, he had left his wallet and his credit card. Grabbing the bag Allie had left him, he headed outside to hail a cab back to the bar so that he could get his belongings, and his car, and then be on his way to the office to find out what was so damn urgent.
As the cab made its way across town, a feeling of dread grew in the pit of his stomach. The more he thought about it, the more sure he became that his day was about to get a lot worse.
A/N: For the record, while I'm sure Allie's character is a perfectly nice person in her own right, if you know me on Twitter then you know that the show managed to make me hate her for the way she made things worse between Jane and Kurt. That being said, as I was writing this chapter, she seemed like the most obvious person for Kurt to go to – since A) there are only a few people in his life to start with and B) he's in the mood to make bad decisions. Notice that I made them keep their hands to themselves, and even let her do something nice for him. :) I know Kurt running to Allie is not very helpful to the whole Jeller thing, but it's all kinds of messed up right now anyway, so… Just trust me, we'll get there.