A/N: beta and cover art by darrenstribrows on tumblr. Any issues with NYC, computer or fashion related things just let me know. Thank you for reading! Please review! Follow on tumblr at slytherindestiel and twitter slytherinklaine. If you want. (:
Disclaimer: Fox and RIB own all.
Chapter Seven
Blaine made his way home from the park, after his date with Kurt, he was thinking about how Kurt acted around him, how he was so sweet and confidant. Blaine was really surprised it was working out this well; he figured that Kurt wouldn't be able to handle the crime parts of his life, and while Blaine didn't tell Kurt he still did the hacking, he didn't think Kurt would mind too much. Blaine knew though, that if Kurt were to ask outright, he would be honest, Blaine couldn't bare lying to him.
Blaine was halfway home when his phone went off with an email notification. He slipped it out of his pocket to check, logging into his Gmail account, he saw that the email was from Lauren, which surprised him, as he wasn't expecting to her from her so early.
…
Date: 09/14/2019 05:13pm
From: Youjustgotzizesed. gmail .com
To: blained. anderson. gmail .com
Best start surfing soon, waves are bigger than we thought.
Blaine giggled a little bit reading the message, he loved how far Lauren took the whole surfing code words they used, of course if they lived somewhere that people actually surfed it'd be a better cover-up, but it was entertaining. Blaine deleted the email, slid the phone back into his pocket and then he hurried the rest of the way home. He really hoped it wasn't anything major, sometimes Lauren would exaggerate, but other times she was the opposite, so it was really hard to read her. He had asked her about that once, but she just said she liked to keep people on their toes.
…..
Blaine walked into his apartment about ten minutes later, he went to the kitchen to grab something to snack on, since he wasn't sure how long it would actually take, this could be an all-night thing. He grabbed some carrots and ranch, along with the broccoli he had bought the other day. Blaine wasn't really a health-nut, but he did like his vegetables, they just tasted good and the fact that they were healthy was a bonus. He also grabbed a bottle of Mt. Dew and some wheat thins.
Carrying everything up the stairs was a little difficult, but he managed not to spell any of the ranch dressing. Setting everything on his bed, Blaine went to the closet to get out the laptop, and start the computer he would be using to surf with, he needed to get in touch with Lauren first though. Most of the things he used on a daily basis was wireless, but when doing major jobs, Blaine liked to have everything hooked up, since it was less likely for them to get caught that way.
Blaine brought the laptop to his bed, turned it on, then went back to the closet to unlock the door holding the tower for his main computer, getting that powered on he went back to the laptop to turn on Lauren's feed. It just took a few seconds before he got an incoming call from her. Clicking the answer button, Lauren's face popped up, she looked a little drained, which was not normal at all, especially when they were planning on hacking into something. Usually Lauren reveled in it, she loved the fact that she was making money and breaking the law.
"What's wrong?"
Lauren blinked at him a bit, and then turned her head to look off screen.
"Don't get your knickers in a bunch; it's not about this thing, just some actual life stuff."
Blaine frowned at her, not liking to see her upset.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Lauren just shook her head.
"Maybe, but not now, we do actually need to get this shit started."
Blaine nodded at her.
"Okay, but you can always talk to me."
Lauren laughed at him, but not in a mean way.
"You really are too nice sometimes Blaine, I just don't get why were good friends! We're so different."
Blaine laughed at that, thinking about what Kurt said earlier today.
"I guess I'm just charming."
"Oh boy, now you're getting all cheeky! Can't have that, you'll become a big-headed man!" Lauren loved Blaine, he always knew what to say to make her feel better, even if he didn't realize he was doing that. "Enough of that let Zizes tell you what's going down. That email I sent you, nothing different about the site, that's all the same. It's the damn files the guy wants now, found out were they are actually located when I did my prep work. You're not gonna like this at all, sweetums."
"If it's not harder to reach, then what is the problem?" Blaine asked this while moving over to the closet so he could start hooking up the main computer to his laptop, and the TV.
"The problem isn't actually a problem, more of a moral thing, and just for you; because hey, this shit doesn't bug me, and it's not to do with terrorist or anything like that. Turns out the guy is pissed as fuck at his old boss and wants to steal all the files. The files could potentially cost NASA a lot of money, and when I say a lot I mean millions."
As he listened, Blaine had got everything hooked up, and started setting up all the systems he would be using to start the hack. Once Lauren mentioned the millions he gasped in shock, turned around to stare at Lauren on the screen.
"Close your gob, I know it's a lot, but I really don't think the guy plans to do anything with the files, but even NASA just losing them is going to cost them money."
Blaine hated having morals sometimes; it was almost annoying in his line of work. For one he hated letting Lauren down, when she needed the money from the jobs, but he also hated costing other people millions of dollars too. Sure it was just the government, but he wasn't stupid enough to realize that the government losing money like that would hurt the economy too. Another thing is that Blaine really loved doing this too; there was a thrill in it that he didn't get anywhere else.
Sitting back on the bed, Blaine reached for his drink and took a swallow.
"How about we just start looking into it, well more than what you have already done, and see if it could be traced back to us."
"If you're sure?"
Blaine nodded.
"Right, let's get this party started; you got your shit hooked up?"
Blaine went over to the closet and walked in, checking to make sure everything was hooked up properly, then to his TV, which was sat on a desk, everything looked fine, so he connected his laptop to the main computer.
"Everything is good to go." Blaine smiled at her, starting to get excited about the job, it'd been awhile since they had done a major one. "Have you done a port scan yet?"
"I did earlier today, which is how I knew about the cost of the files, looks like we can use nix easily enough."
"Good." Blaine started typing quickly to get everything setup, Lauren had sent him the file she used for the port scan, which showed what firewalls were being used. Blaine did a quick read through, frowning at some parts. "This could take a while."
"Yep, but that's part of the fun, yeah?" Lauren smiled through the screen.
Blaine smiled back. "It is; do you want to try using brute force, looks like there's an open port."
"Aw Blainey, you know how I like to power through."
Blaine laughed at her, glad she was in a better mood. Though using that method would take a long time, because they had to use software that would try every possible password, but breaking into NASA wasn't supposed to be easy.
"Alright, why don't you go ahead with that, and I will try to make a backdoor, whoever gets in first has bragging rights."
"Oh, you want to challenge me, alright I'll play your game, but know I'm gonna beat your ass!"
Turning this into a game, made it easier for Blaine to get into it, made it less real, even though at the end of the day he would be getting paid, he felt better this way. Blaine smiled towards the screen. "We'll see."
Both of them spent a few minutes typing, not really saying much yet, getting through the first set of firewalls was easy, considering Lauren had done it earlier.
"Where's your music?" Lauren asked, usually Blaine had music playing in the background, because it got a little annoying with just hearing the keyboard constantly.
Blaine stopped what he was doing after a few seconds, not wanting to just stop in the middle of typing, that could very well leave them open.
"Sorry, I forgot about it, you distracted me with your sad face." Blaine pouted at her.
"Oh stop that, if anyone gots a sad face you can't stand to see it's gonna be you. In fact if you look in a mirror right now, you will see that very sad face."
Blaine pulled his lip back in and grinned at her; he got up to get his iPod and the speakers so he could put music on. "Do you have a preference for today, or do I get to choose?"
"You are so not choosing, last time you had us listening to that pop crap, not in the mood for it today. Let's do some rock music."
Blaine's music choices were very diverse, he had his favorites of course, but he liked a lot of different kinds. He went to his playlists that was listed as pop-rock, though he wasn't really sure it could be classified as that, but he liked it. The list he picked had Fall Out Boy, Green Day and others like them, music that Lauren approved of to an extent.
"This good?" Blaine asked her, setting the iPod into the speakers and turning the volume up some.
"It'll do, might have to try a different software, this one isn't really cracking the passwords."
Blaine smirked a little, he knew this would happen, trying to figure out the password was always going to take a long time, and most of the time wasn't worth working through it. Lauren just liked doing it that way; she enjoyed figuring out other people's passwords for some reason.
"See? I'm going to win this, using a backdoor is much faster and less work."
Lauren threw something at the screen in response, causing Blaine to laugh at her.
They spent the next few hours typing, snacking and listening to music. There were a few times that Blaine would get locked out; sometimes Lauren would start cussing because the software for the password hack wasn't working fast enough. Eventually Blaine made it through first.
"Yes, I'm in!"
He quickly sent the information to Lauren through a secure link, knowing that they had to be quick in getting the files out, and making sure there was something replacing them. After Lauren was in too, she went ahead and found the files they needed, since she had most of the information they needed. Blaine would go behind her to cover up their tracks, make sure nothing was left over in the codes that were different from the original html.
"Alright, got the files sent to me, let's get out of here."
The normal plan was that Lauren would gather whatever information they were retrieving, send it to her email, and then leave the server with an opening in case they had to go back. Though with this being NASA Blaine wasn't sure if he should go ahead and do that, but if he didn't and the files left something out, they'd have to go back in the long way.
"Do you think it's safe to make a door for later? Because this is NASA and I don't know if I'm comfortable leaving even a small trace of us being there."
Lauren stopped typing and looked at him, obviously trying to make a decision.
"Well, we could but I don't like it either, but not leaving it and having to go back would take more time. What we could do, or I could do is check the files I sent, make sure everything is there before we close the connection."
Blaine didn't really like that option either, the longer they were in the server, the more chance they would get caught.
"How fast can you do it?"
"If you stop talking I can get it done in two minutes."
Blaine laughed a little and started typing again, he would finish everything as normal, like he was just removing traces, but instead of typing in html to leave a door open, and he would just not get out completely, until Lauren gave him the go ahead.
About five minutes had passed before Lauren said they had it.
"Thought you said it'd only take two minutes." Blaine grinned at her teasingly.
"Please, I was starting an encryption on it too. Am I out completely? Everything on my end looks good."
Blaine looked over the code, scrolling up briefly to see if anything looked out of place, not seeing any problems he nodded at Lauren. It took about ten minutes for Blaine to get out of the NASA server, make sure everything was gone that could possibly get linked back to him or Lauren. As a precaution Blaine liked to do another port scan, to see if it would come up with the same information. If it did, than that usually meant nobody had figured out that the server was being hacked yet. Though if it did show something different, it didn't necessarily mean they would get caught, just that he'd have to be very careful with his server. Luckily the port scan came back with the same info, he also checked the main site, just in case they had made an accident and changed some html. It'd never happened before, but Blaine was cautious about everything.
"Alright babycakes, I got the file encrypted, the plan is to go ahead and send him the file, and he can deposit money into our account, then I'll send him the password for the encryption."
"That sounds good, did you re-check that account to make sure it was still secure. I don't like transferring money from that one to my main, the FBI still watches if I get a big influx of cash."
Lauren shook her head smiling, it was crazy how much the FBI still watched Blaine, yet he got away with so much shit. "Honestly Blaine, I wish I had your skills at evading the government, I'd be a damn millionaire by now!"
Blaine laughed a little.
"Yeah well, I think the only reason I can is because I know exactly what they look for now, you'd think they would keep that information away from a prior criminal."
Lauren started cracking up; knowing deep down Blaine really enjoyed breaking the law, even if he acted all innocent on the outside.
"Does your new boy know about your criminal ways?"
Blaine stopped typing for a minute, looking up at Lauren through the screen, he was grinning at her. "Actually yes I told him, and he was, well the word he used was intrigued. I was really surprised, but glad too, I really want to date him."
"Oh wow, that's golden! I'm impressed, first time you go out in ages and you meet a hot boy that gets off on you being a criminal." Lauren was smirking at him.
Blaine blushed bright red, grinning but trying to hide it.
"It's not like that Lauren! He doesn't, like get off on it, we haven't even thought about that!"
"Oh I bet your pretty little ass he has at the very least! In fact I bet it does involve your ass" Lauren was laughing so hard, she snorted a little. Blaine was blushing so hard right then, he had his head down on the desk.
"Don't say that! I'm sure he hasn't, he's a lot more respectable than that."
Lauren stopped laughing for a moment.
"Oh Blaine, not everyone is like you, actually most people probably think of sex first."
Blaine looked up a little indignant, he wasn't some innocent little school boy that didn't know about sex, he wasn't a virgin.
"Hey! I think about sex all the time, I was just saying I don't think Kurt was thinking about me like that. He's more sophisticated than that."
Lauren gave him a skeptical look.
"I don't believe you, but we need to finish this, and then we can talk about whether your boy is a porn addict or not."
Blaine blushed again at the word porn, really that was just too much; no way could Kurt be like that. "Okay, we'll finish, actually you will because I multi-tasked and am completely done." Blaine may have been a little smug, but he had got in first, and now he was finished first too.
"Stop with the face, I'm sending it off now, and yes before you ask again I checked the account before you got on earlier today, everything is good."
Blaine just shrugged at her. "I don't know what face you are talking about, this is just how my face looks." He made a cute pouty face at her.
"Oh my God, stop that right now!" Lauren put one of her hands over her eyes and the other on the screen. "Porn! Porn! Slave bondage! Kinky sex toys!"
Blaine's head slammed down onto his desk suddenly, he couldn't help cracking up, and he could her Lauren doing the same. The whole time she kept shouting sex words, anything that involved sex at all some that probably shouldn't too.
"Okay, you win! No more pouty face. Did you tell the client what time it would be sent? Or do you have a way to contact him, other than email?"
"I told him that it would probably get done this weekend, no I don't have any other way besides email, but it's not like it wouldn't be hard to find his phone number, if I really wanted it."
Blaine nodded along, he glanced at his screen to check the time, it was almost eleven pm now, and it hadn't taken as long as he thought it would. Though Lauren having researched it before and knowing exactly where they were going had helped a lot too.
"Are you going to wait? Or find out the number, I don't really mind either way."
"I think I'll give him until Monday, not like he could crack the encryption himself, I've got un-crack able shit."
Blaine rolled his eyes at her, but still smiling, because that was true to an extent. They had been goofing around one day, and Lauren had sent him an encryption to see if he could crack it, he managed it, but it had taken 16 hours or intense work. The worst part of it was that he was so excited about cracking through, it took him a minute to figure out she had sent him hard-core porn.
Blaine could see Lauren lean into the screen, resting her elbows on the desk, she was grinning at him it scared him a little.
"What?"
"Oh you know, since we're done now, I think it'd be a good time to discuss all the dirty little things that may or may not be going on in your boys head."
"Oh no." Blaine smacked his hand to his forehead, but then he remembered something.
"Wait, no, what about you? You were upset earlier; I'm positive that's more important than talking about non-existent sexual advances."
Lauren's smile dropped, and she leaned back into her chair.
"Right, well I'm sure if you go over the conversations in your head, you'd re think that, but I guess we could talk about me."
Blaine actually did stop to think about their conversations, and sure maybe Kurt was flirty a little, but Blaine didn't think he was considering having sex with him. At least not yet, it was way too soon for that, unless Kurt was like that, it's not like everyone was the same.
"So maybe he is a little flirty, but we aren't talking about me anymore. Tell me what was wrong."
"It's really not that big of a deal, it's just me being lonely, I'm pretty much used to it."
Blaine could see Lauren frowning down at her keyboard, he hated seeing her like this, normally she was really happy and confidant.
"Hey don't do that, you deserve whatever you want, even if you think it sounds stupid."
Lauren looked up at that, squinting at Blaine. "I know it's not stupid, that's not the point, I want to get laid man!"
Blaine had to try really hard not to let out a laugh, because while it was kind of funny, he knew she was serious about it too.
"Right, well, I could help you find someone, maybe we could go out."
Lauren grinned at him, shaking her head a little. "Oh I see, now you got yourself a man, you think your all Casanova or something."
"No! I didn't mean that, I don't think that at all." Blaine had the urge to reach through the screen and hug her, why hadn't people invented virtual hugs yet, or ones you didn't have to pay so much for?
"I was just stating that I could be like a wing-man of a sort."
"Do you even know what a wing-man does?"
Blaine had to think about it, he knew to an extent of course; basically you just helped the person get a date, though he wasn't sure how to go about doing that in practice.
"Isn't it just, like complimenting and like making you seem like an amazing catch?"
"A catch? Am I a fish now?" Blaine went to answer her, but she just waved him off. "I know what you meant, just giving you shit. Yes that's basically it, though I'm sure most people have more skills than you would, no offense. If I was after girls, you'd totally be able to help, no one can resist your puppy eyes, but I don't know how they work on straight guys?"
Blaine smiled a little, thinking about the times they did work, while he was in school and even with Mike on the odd occasion.
"It just depends, some men are susceptible to it, some aren't, and sexuality doesn't really make a difference."
"Look at you Blaine, making all the panties drop, no matter what the sex is. Ha! Do you even have the time for going out though? I know you usually go into work on Sundays."
Blaine normally did go into work on Sundays, after getting groceries and any other shopping he needed to get done. Although he didn't need to go in tomorrow, there wasn't anything on his desk, and he could very well put off shopping until later in the day.
"One, I do not want to drop any panties, hopefully the guys I date aren't wearing any, I mean not that I would judge them for it, if that were to become a thing."
Lauren had started giggling when he said panties, and it just got worse.
"Oh god, you are one kinky little shit aren't you!?"
"I said that wasn't what I liked! I was just saying I was open to trying new things. Why am I even talking to you about this?" Blaine ran his hand down his face; he didn't know how he always got on the topic of sex when he talked to Lauren, maybe they both needed to get laid. "You are killing me right now."
"Sorry, sorry, but you make it so easy for me to tease you!" Lauren was wiping the tears from her eyes, from laughing so much.
Blaine grunted at her, not really believing she was sorry at all.
"See if I be your wing-man now."
"Aw Blaine come on, you know you want to! It'll be fun to hang out in public together, even if we can't find someone for me, you can still cheer me up."
Blaine pointed his finger at her, with a stern look on his face.
"Fine, but you better be good, no more sex talks."
Lauren scoffed at him.
"Blaine once you get drunk, you'll be telling me all your dirty little secrets without prompt. But yeah sure, I promise not to bring up sex."
Blaine squirmed in his chair a little, knowing that might possibly be true, he tended to over-share when he got really drunk. Thankfully, when he was with Kurt on Friday, that was only last night, he hadn't gotten too drunk.
"Good, now it's about 11:30 now, I figure we can meet somewhere at midnight?"
"Yeah I know a place that's not too far from you, and if needed I can crash there?" Blaine nodded to her. "You still owe me details about this new boy."
"Okay, I will give you all the graphic details that don't actually exist." Blaine laughed a little; he would tell her anything she wanted to know about Kurt, he did enjoy talking about him, even though it'd only been about 24 hours. It felt like it'd been way longer though. He wondered if texting Kurt tomorrow would be too soon, because texting was different than calling.
"You know that eventually there will probably be graphic details, and I will expect them. Wait a second, you expect me to get ready in fifteen minutes, and you expect me to believe you'll get ready in that much time?"
Blaine looked at his laptop to check the time again, and yeah maybe that wasn't enough time. "You're right, how about 12:30? We don't want to get there too much later than that; people tend to get more drunk after midnight."
Lauren nodded, agreeing with him.
"Yeah true, okay so I'll go get dressed, but I'm hooking up my secure email to my phone, just in case we get any info from the client."
Blaine shut down his laptop after making sure the connection had dropped from Lauren's feed. He picked up the laptop from the desk and went to the closet to lock it up and shut down the main computer. After getting everything put away that had to do with the computer, including the wires that had been hooked up to the TV, Blaine ran the empty tray from the carrots and broccoli down stairs. He brought back a flannel to wipe the desk clean, and then threw it into the bathroom.
Blaine went to the closet again, this time to pick out clothes for tonight, since he wasn't trying to impress anyone, and more than likely Lauren would take them to a straight bar he just went with something toned down. He pulled out a pair of black pants, a black polo, and black boat shoes. He decided to forgo the bow-tie, not really seeing the need for one, considering he normally wore them to make an impression and he wasn't going for that tonight.
Going into the bathroom to change, he put on deodorant and fixed his hair with a little more gel. It didn't take him too long to change clothes either. Going back into the bedroom, Blaine went over to his speakers to shut off the iPod, and then grab his phone off the desk.
On the way down stairs, Blaine got a text from Lauren, telling him where they were going. It was 10 blocks away, so he went ahead and left, figured he could use the walk to prepare himself for a night out with Lauren. He knew at the very least he would have fun, though his kind of felt like he had had an extremely busy weekend. Going out to a club for the first time in a really long time, meeting an extremely gorgeous man, having lunch with said gorgeous man the next day, it was all crazy. Then he had made a lot of money hacking into NASA of all things, and now he was going out for the second night in a row to help a friend get laid! Blaine didn't know what was going on, but he certainly wasn't going to jinx it, life was going pretty good for him.