Author's Note: HEY GUYS! Back with another update! Yay!

So...There might be a *TRIGGER WARNING* in this chapter. Only for anyone who's ever blacked out and woken up the next day not knowing what the hell happened. I don't know how these trigger warnings work, so I'm just gonna put this up as a warning. If it needs to be more elaborate, let me know and I'll fix it. Kay?

Anyways, Happy Reading!

Again, no beta. All mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing, nothing. No profit made etc. See Chapter 1 for more elaborate disclaimer.

~C.

(Chapter 7)

Kurt groaned as he began to rejoin the world of the living. His eyes started to flutter, but he winced when the light hurt his eyes.

Too bright, too bright.

Whimpering a bit, he decided to try and feel his surroundings in order to figure out where the hell he was. He was on his back, on something softer than the floor but not as comfortable as a bed. A couch maybe, but who's couch? Raising his hand to shield his eyes from the light, Kurt slit his eyes open minutely.

This…is not Rachel's apartment.

Uh oh, Kurt's heart started beating a little faster and his quiet breaths began to pick up into frightened pants. What the hell had he done last night? There was no coffee table in front of him, but just a plasma screen mounted on the wall over an elaborate gaming system. Kurt's eyes were wide now as he panicked in the unknown apartment, completely ignoring the agonizing pain in his head. When he heard movement behind him, his head snapped to the side. However, that was a bad idea. A shot of pain split through his skull and caused Kurt to yelp out in surprised pain.

"Huh? Kurt? You up, dude?"

Kurt's thoughts were momentarily stunted, "P-Puck?" He called out uncertainly.

Before Kurt could think that maybe it was just wishful thinking that the voice was Puck, a Mohawk sporting head popped over the backing of the couch. He could see the genuine worry in his friend's eyes before he covered it up with a half-hearted smirk. "Well look who's alive. Damn Hummel, I don't remember you being this much of a lightweight."

The hung over boy huffed, "I'll have you kno…" Kurt's stomach made a queasy noise, his face tinting a shade of green. Puck rolled his eyes, pointing to the trashcan by Kurt's head he had conveniently placed there for him sometime throughout the night. The pale boy reached over and dry-heaved into the empty can, not enough contents in his stomach to do anything more than just that.

"Uhuh…I'm so impressed." Puck dropped the bottle of aspirin he had grabbed from the kitchen into Kurt's lap and made his way back over to the makeshift kitchen. Chuckling to himself he hollered over his shoulder, "Hey, you know what's great for a hang over?" He paused for a moment, waiting for Kurt to stop making sick noises. "A greasy bacon and liverwurst sandwich on burnt toast with a cup of sour milk."

Kurt let out a disgusted moan as his dry-heaves became louder. "PUCKERMAN, YOU ASSHOLE!" Puck just laughed louder, thoroughly enjoying Kurt's miserable morning.

Jake came padding in from the hallway, rubbing his eyes sleepily, in pajama bottoms and a Titan, wife-beater. He yawned, "What's with all the noise?" When Puck just snickered and Kurt proceeded to groan more, Jake sniffed the air experimentally, "It smells like bacon and sick in here."

Puck chuckled, "The bacon is breakfast, the sick is all thanks to princess over there."

"Hey!"

"Oh shut it, you'll just give yourself a bigger headache."

Kurt ignored Puck for the moment, concentrating on sitting up gingerly when he was sure he wasn't going to choke anymore. He unscrewed the cap of the aspirin bottle and took two tablets. He brought his knees up to his chest and placed his head on his knees. Kurt crinkled his nose in disgust when his clothes smelled weird. He couldn't place exactly what the scent was, but the hung over boy just knew he didn't like it.

I feel like death.

The pale young man listened to Puck and Jake as they fought over portions of bacon and egg while he tried to take deep breaths to settle his stomach. When it finally did begin to settle, he became aware of the consistent throbbing in the back of his skull. His lifted his hand to gingerly prod at the spot that probably had an angry bump on it. To his bewilderment, he felt something dry and crisp matted into his hair. Kurt lifted his head up when he brought his hand back to his face and his eyes bugged out of his head.

What the…

"Puck, what the fuck happened last night?" Kurt stood up on shaky legs as he stumbled his way over to the island separating the living room from the kitchen. Jake looked up around a mouthful of egg and Puck raised an eyebrow at him over his own plate of breakfast. Kurt couldn't remember anything. He has never consumed so much alcohol that he ended up blacking out. The fact that there was some dry blood matted in his hair from an injury he couldn't remember happening alarmed him all the more.

Puck narrowed his eyes at him, putting down his makeshift bacon and egg sandwich. "What is the last thing you remember?"

Kurt sat in a chair across from the Puckerman brothers and ran a hand through his messy hair, remembering to avoid the broken skin on the back of his head. "Um…" He looked up for a moment as he pondered the not so clear events from the previous night. When his gaze shifted over to the younger Puckerman, he snapped his fingers in recognition. "You…I remember you. I remember watching the performance of that Devon character on stage. Then…then you told me that…his name was Blaine? Right?"

Puck slowly turned to glare Jake, the younger brother looking down at his plate with way too much fascination. The older Puckerman slapped his younger brother upside the head. "Ack! The hell was that for?"

Noah let out a frustrated breath, "Little brother, we've talked about this. If a performer doesn't want everyone to know their name, we have to respect that fact. Because if we don't, then they'll go somewhere else and you know 'Open Mic Night' is only a success when we have people willing to get up on stage! That's when we get all those groupies to come in just to hear 'em sing. Got it?" Puck said as he had his younger brother in a one armed headlock.

"All right! All right! I get it." Jake shoved his older brother off of him. "Jeez man, it was an accident. I'll be more careful next time." He said around a scowl as he stabbed some egg with his fork and shoved it into his mouth quickly.

Puck scrutinized his brother for a moment longer before turning his gaze back to a frustrated looking Kurt. He had his eyes downcast as he tried to recall the events that occurred after the conversation about Blaine's real name. The tanned man sighed, "Dude, do you at least remember how much you drank? Did someone buy you shots or…what?"

Kurt's eyes looked back up, silent anger was radiating from him. "Just the drinks you gave me. I remember the shot, Blaine singing, the peach thing you gave me, Jake, then…nothing. Next thing I knew, I woke up on your couch and there was dried blood in my hair." He wasn't angry with either one of them, he was upset for allowing himself to get so out of hand last night when he always prided himself on being the more composed one. "How'd I get here anyways?"

Jake took a sip of orange juice, "Some chick was freaking out about a passed out dude in the middle of the women's bathroom. I was about to come in there and kick some ass, but then I saw it was you."

Puck nodded, though there was confusion and an uneasy look on his face. "Yup, told Jakey to watch over things while I situated you up here in the loft. Rachel would've killed me if I allowed her 'best gay' to choke on his own vomit. I put a towel down first so you wouldn't bleed or throw up all over my couch. Which reminds me…" He got up from his place at the island and rummaged through a drawer in the kitchen.

Kurt had taken to looking around the loft, impressed. This entire floor above 'The Pinn Up' was what they called home.

Wow.

When Puck seemed to have finally found what he was looking for, he walked back over to the table and slid Kurt's iPhone over to him. "Here, found this under one of the sinks in there. Must have fallen out during your drunken adventure." Puck teased playfully.

Kurt stuck his tongue out at him childishly, but then he frowned when he found his phone was dead. "Dammit, my phone's dead. What if my dad's trying to call me or he needs something? Shit. I gotta go." The now frantic boy pulled on his vest from last night over his body and hopped around the room as he tried to shove his feet inside his sneakers.

Puck was wearing an amused expression on his face while Jake just wondered why his older brother hung out with such a weird guy like Kurt. "Take a taxi!" Puck hollered.

Puckasaurus my ass; your brother's turned you into such a mama bear.

Kurt was two seconds away from bursting out of the loft when he paused, and turned back to look at Puck. "A word of advice, Puckerman. Lay off all that liquor in your Puckerman Specialty and definitely rethink the ingredient of Margarita salt. The salty aftertaste totally ruined the drink." Looking over at the small table next to the door, Kurt picked up some sunglasses and popped them over his eyes. "Just for getting me so drunk, I'm borrowing these sunglasses." Kurt sniffed primly at the brothers before opening the door and exiting the loft.

Jake wilted, "Those were mine."

After a moment of them sitting in silence, Jake turned to look at his brother. "How much liquor DID you put in his drink?"

Puck turned to look at Jake with a leveled gaze, "I don't. The Puckerman Specialty is a shot of tequila with a non-alcoholic drink. I just tell everyone there's alcohol in it so they let loose without the alcohol lowering their inhibitions. I may like sex, but not with women who don't know what the fuck is going on." He shrugged, like the fact that he was a decent guy sometimes was no big deal.

Suddenly, he shoved out of his seat, agitated, and dumped his dishes in the sink. Puck turned around to lean against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. The gears were grinding in his head, that much Jake was certain.

"Bro, what?" Jake questioned.

Noah scratched his head, "Just that thing Kurt said about the Margarita salt."

Jake rolled his eyes. "So ONE person doesn't like something about your specialty drink. Big deal."

The older boy shook his head, "Lil' bro, you don't get it. There is no salt in that drink. It's crushed ice with peach and strawberry flavors in it. Then I put a wedge of peach on the rim and that's it. It shouldn't have been salty."

Jake furrowed his eyebrows, as thoroughly confused now as his brother was. "What are you trying to say here man?"

Puck ran a hand over his face and sighed heavily, "I don't know, Jake. I just…the only thing I can think of is…" He shook his head of his train of thought. "You know what, maybe I added salt without knowing it. Slip ups happen. Hurry up and finish your breakfast, we got a club to spruce up before we open it up to our loyal customers tonight." He had too big of a smile on his face for it to be genuine. Jake knew his brother better than that. Something was still bothering Puck; he just wasn't going to drag his younger brother into it if he didn't need to.

On that same morning, Blaine was dragging himself up the stairs to his apartment. All he wanted to do was face plant into bed and sleep. He hadn't gotten any sleep that night thanks to an emergency meeting called by David. Wes was only too happy to oblige.

Seriously, do you guys even have an off switch?

As Wes congratulated David on getting the audition, Blaine just sat in his corner. Mentally relieved that they were so consumed by their possible upcoming gig that they didn't comment on Blaine's 'strange' attire. As they waited for the rest of the band to get there, Blaine let his mind wander to 'The Pinn Up.' He hadn't performed there in a couple of weeks, but he was glad he decided to do it. Even if he hadn't of met his elusive neighbor yet, just those few minutes of bearing his soul out on that stage had made his night. No masks, no makeup, and no shoddy attempt at being someone he wasn't. It had just been him.

Blaine found himself smiling slightly as he fished his keys out from his pants and reached his apartment's door. His head tilted to the side when he noticed a folded up note taped to his door. He looked around the empty hallway for anyone who might have left it. Blaine frowned when he found no one.

Prolly just the landlord reminding me that rent's due in a few days or something.

He took it off his door before unlocking his apartment to go inside. The tanned boy placed his guitar on its stand as he kicked the door closed with his foot. He made his way into his bedroom; however, instead of face planting into a pillow, he wandered over to his window. In hopes of catching a glimpse of the boy whom he had locked eyes with the night before. A smile quirked on the corners of his lips as he looked at the paper in his hands, when Blaine opened the folded paper his triangular eyebrows furrowed at its message.

BACK OFF

That's what the cut out letters from some magazine had spelled out on the paper. Was this some joke? Blaine's received some strange messages from a couple of fans before, but he has never received anything as strange as this. As far as he knew, he hasn't been doing anything that different in his every-day routine.

Back off?

Back off of what?

Blaine's head snapped up when he heard a blaring horn from the street below. He caught sight of Kurt slamming a taxicab's door before he sprinted into his apartment building. Looking down at the note, then back up at the apartment building across from his own, something clicked in Blaine's head.

The note couldn't have been talking about Kurt.

Could it?

A/N: Actually inching into the plot, hooray! Oooh any thoughts, either with what Puck might be thinking or on the note? Please review, I'd really appreciate it!