Thank you so much again to anyone that has reviewed, favourited, or put this story on story alert. It means so much to me. In reply to the review, I can definitely say that the Claringtons will be making an appearance in the story in the future. I also love some Blaine angst. Well here is the next chapter, hope you all enjoy! It is certainly longer than any of the previous ones.

Chapter 6

True to his word, Peter woke Blaine up bright and early Saturday morning and got him outside raking the leaves. The backyard was a decent size, and it meant that Blaine would be working for several hours at the task. It was a terrible prospect for someone who was exhausted from having been up so late the night before. Blaine was just happy that he wasn't suffering a hangover, because that would have been a million times worse.

Cooper showed up about a half hour after Blaine began working. He came bearing coffee and croissants, knowing that the Burkes had a rough night. He couldn't believe it when he got a text from Peter the night before. How could Blaine have been stupid enough to think that he could get away with throwing a party? Did he seriously forget that their uncle was an FBI agent who was nothing if not thorough? Cooper could have easily predicted that Peter would send someone to check on Blaine!

"Good morning," Cooper said, quite chipper for only eight in the morning on a Saturday. "How are things in the Burke household this morning?"

"Even better now that you have brought coffee," Elizabeth answered, immediately taking one of the Starbucks cups from Cooper. She was definitely feeling the effects of not getting enough sleep. She didn't know if Peter realized that Blaine's punishment wasn't just punishing the teenager, but them as well.

"I figured you guys could use a pick me up," Cooper laughed at his aunt and uncle's tired faces. They looked like they could fall off their chairs at any given moment.

"That's an understatement," Peter grumbled, picking up the other Starbucks cup and taking a sip of the scalding hot, yet soothing, liquid.

"So the little squirt threw a party last night?" Cooper asked, looking around the house for evidence. "As his older brother I have to say I'm a little disappointed. It couldn't have been that great of a party if the house is still this spotless."

"Oh no, the house was a wreck," Peter replied, cradling the coffee cup in his hands like a lifeline. "We just made Blaine and Kurt clean it into the early hours of the morning."

"Kurt?" Cooper asked, raising an eyebrow. He pulled up a seat next to his aunt and uncle, grabbing his own cup of coffee.

"A family friend's son who was also at the party," Elizabeth explained. "They met through school and are in Glee Club together. Kurt lied to his father Burt about what he was doing last night, so Burt thought it was fair to have Kurt help clean the house as well."

Cooper nodded, wondering if there was more to the Kurt story than just being a family friend's son. Blaine was a little evasive in the car the other day regarding a boy that he had met at school. He couldn't help but wonder if it was this Kurt boy.

"So, croissants?" Cooper asked, lifting up the bag of croissants that he had gotten from his favorite bakery that morning.

They all settled around the kitchen island, eating croissants, drinking their coffee, and chatting about anything and everything. Occasionally, they would glance outside to check on Blaine. A couple times, they got a good laugh in because they would find Blaine dancing and singing along to his Ipod. Finally after a couple hours' time, Blaine finished with the backyard and made his way back inside. He was tired and hungry. He walked in to the surprise of his older brother sitting in the kitchen.

"I brought food," Cooper said pointing to the bag on the counter. "I also brought coffee, but you might want to toss that in the microwave."

Blaine quickly jumped on that, not wanting Peter to remember that he thought Blaine was too young for coffee—a ridiculous notion in Blaine's opinion.

"What are you doing here Coop?" Blaine finally asked after taking a long drink of his coffee and taking a bite out of the pastry.

"I heard my little brother was being quite the troublemaker again," Cooper said, raising an eyebrow at Blaine. "I had to come see things for myself."

Blaine rolled his eyes and sat down at the kitchen island next to his Aunt Elizabeth.

"So what other big adventures do you have for Blaine today?" Cooper asked, enjoying this far too much in Blaine's opinion.

"Well we actually have some more business to attend to," Peter replied, checking his cell phone. "I have Jones and Diana coming over and we have some more questions for you to answer, Blaine."

"Great," Blaine replied sarcastically.

True to his word, a couple hours later Diana and Jones arrived ready to question Blaine. They all sat down around the kitchen table with a tape recorder, a notebook, and a pen. Blaine was seriously over this whole interrogation thing. Wasn't it enough to do this twice a week? Now they were doing it on a Saturday too?

"Okay, where did we leave off?" Peter asked himself, looking through their old notes from their interviews on Tuesday and Thursday. "Ah yes, so Hunter Clarington."

It took everything that he had for Blaine not to groan aloud. He was fine with talking about Mr. Clarington. That really didn't bother him. The man had him and Hunter trained to do things that he really shouldn't have. Hunter on the other hand was one of his good friends. He was there for Blaine when no one else at school was. Sure, Hunter was into some illegal things…but technically so was Blaine.

"What about Hunter?" Blaine asked, running his hand through his hair. "I'm not going to nark on my best friend, Uncle Peter."

"You are when it's a part of your deal," Peter replied.

"You can't seriously expect me to tell you incriminating evidence on the only person who actually made the last couple of years bearable," Blaine argued.

"I don't want to put Hunter in jail, I just want to put Walter in jail," Peter reasoned. "The more you tell me about the whole situation, the better able I am to ensure that happens."

Blaine sighed and nodded, knowing that Peter wouldn't lie to him. If that's what he claimed, then that would be what would happen.

"You said that Hunter had different specialties than you, what are those certain specialties?" Peter asked, looking at Blaine expectantly.

Blaine pondered how to word it for a moment.

"Well let's just say that he would be the type to make his deals under the high school football bleachers," Blaine carefully worded.

"So you're saying that he deals drugs?" Diana asked.

"That's the rumor," Blaine replied, hoping that would be a good enough answer.

"You know more than it being a rumor, don't you?" Jones asked, annoyed with Blaine trying to dodge the questions.

"Of course I know it being more than a rumor," Blaine replied with a sigh. "I lived with him. Yes, Hunter is Mr. Clarington's drug dealer."

"And you had no part in that side of it?" Peter asked.

"No, Uncle Peter," Blaine replied. "As I told you, I worked with art. Mr. Clarington was over the moon when he found out that I was good at art. It opened new possibilities for him, meaning that he could branch out from what he had me do before."

"And what did he have you doing before?" Jones asked.

"He just had me picking pockets," Blaine answered.

"Just?" Peter asked, practically choking on the word.

"Okay, he had me picking pockets," Blaine said, rolling his eyes.

"How long was it before he figured out that you were particularly good at art?" Diana asked.

"Only a couple weeks," Blaine replied. "He saw me doodling in one of my notebooks when I was supposed to be doing homework and realized how good I was at it. He was mad that I was procrastinating, but impressed with my skills. Look, I know that what he did was wrong. I know that he should have never asked either one of us to do what we were doing, but he was still a good parent. He had us do our homework every night, set a curfew for us and such. He was pretty strict other than when he had me pulling cons."

"Blaine, it really doesn't matter how good of a parent he was," Peter reasoned. "He stopped being a good parent the moment that he asked you two to commit crimes for him."

"I know, I know," Blaine replied with a sigh. "What else do you want to know?"

"How many forgeries did he have you make?" Diana asked, pulling it from the list of questions they had written in the notebook.

"I honestly couldn't even tell you," Blaine replied. "It was a good number."

The next half hour was spent with Blaine trying to remember all of the paintings that he forged or stole. Blaine wanted to seriously be anywhere else in the world than at that kitchen table. Peter was relentless.

Blaine actually found himself relieved to go to school on Monday. The rest of the interrogation was grueling, as well as the rest of the weekend. His uncle hardly left him alone for two seconds. He was taking the whole grounding thing to the extreme. Not only did he not leave the house for the rest of the weekend, he was stuck doing chores or his homework.

There were some whispers when he got to school Monday morning, but even that was better than his grounding. People seemed to be slightly impressed that Blaine threw a big enough party to get busted like it had. It seemed to give him a little bit of boost of popularity, which was odd. Everyone seemed to know his name, which he guessed was a good thing.

The best part of the day was French class where he got to sit next to Kurt. The assignment that class had them chatting away with each other the whole class. Both Blaine and Kurt were clearly light years ahead of the rest of the class in the French language, even with French being Blaine's toughest subject—Blaine was still practically fluent. The teacher never even bothered them to make sure that they were talking about what was asked in the assignment, leaving Kurt and Blaine to discuss everything from fashion to their predictions for that evening's episode of The Bachelor.

Nothing was going to get him down this day…until he showed up to his Health/Gym class. For the past week, they had been working on the Health portion. That meant that they didn't change into the mandatory gym uniform. Blaine was all prepared for another Health class, but got a surprise when the gym teacher handed him blue shorts and a blue tshirt with the schools logo on both pieces.

"What's this?" Blaine asked. "I thought this was Health class."

"We switch on and off every week. This week is the gym portion," Mr. Tracy explained, pointing to the boy's locker room. "Go change, today we are playing kickball."

Blaine reluctantly headed to where Mr. Tracy pointed. It took Blaine a moment to realize what all of this meant. There was no way in the world that he would be able to hide his tracking anklet in shorts. As soon as he changed, it would be there for the entire school to see…well at least the entirety of his gym class. He knew it wouldn't take long to travel from his gym class to the entire school.

He had to think of something, and he had to think of something fast. The only thing that he could think of was to fake sick. It had to be something that would get him to the nurse's office and allow him to lay down for an hour. It couldn't be something serious enough that they had to call Peter or El. Knowing Peter, he would figure out what Blaine was doing in a heartbeat. It also wouldn't surprise him if Peter had it mandatory that any time Blaine went to the nurse Peter got contacted by the school…so there went that option. Damn overzealous FBI agent.

Then it hit him…there was no way in the world to get out of this gym class permanently. Even if he faked sick and got out of it today, there was no way that he could continue to do so for the rest of the term. He was just going to have to suck it up. He waited until almost everyone had gotten changed and then quickly changed himself. He glared down at where the anklet sat, painfully contrasting with his white sock. He was grateful that the sock was able to fit under the tracker, though. It was the only thing keeping him from a very chafed leg.

Blaine took a deep breath, trying to gather every ounce of courage that he possessed. It wasn't easy, but he steeled himself and walked out. The stares happened almost immediately, and the whispers came not long after. Everyone pretty much figured out what the device on his leg was, they just didn't know what he was wearing it for. The rest of gym class he heard snippets of people's whispers. Some people were so far off that it was absurd—did they really think that if he murdered someone they would allow him out free on an anklet? Honestly people!

Other people he heard talk about the party on Friday night. They knew that a woman from the FBI had busted it, so they were theorizing that it had something to do with that. They were at least a lot closer than the murder theorists were.

Blaine was somewhat surprised that no one outright asked him why he was wearing it. It seemed that either they were too afraid to ask him or thought he wouldn't answer. Blaine also speculated that they just liked to make up their own stories. They were probably a lot more entertaining and juicy than the real one.

When Mr. Tracy blew his whistle signaling that gym class was over Blaine sighed in relief.

"Mr. Anderson," Mr. Tracy said as everyone filed toward the locker room. "May I talk with you for a moment?"

Blaine nodded and walked over to his gym teacher.

"What's with the blinking jewelry?" Mr. Tracy asked, nodding in the direction of Blaine's left leg.

"Er—its' um…it's a tracking anklet," Blaine replied awkwardly. He didn't really want to give too many details.

"Is there anything that I need to know?" Mr. Tracy asked. "Like is there any activities that you aren't allowed to do, like swimming?"

Blaine was thrown back a little by the question; it wasn't what he was expecting. "No, it's waterproof."

"Okay, then go ahead and get changed," Mr. Tracy said, pointing to the locker room and walking back toward his office.

Blaine sighed in relief and walked to the locker rooms. As soon as he walked in, he was caught by surprise when he was slammed into one of the lockers.

"We don't want criminals at this school," the jock said, walking off and laughing with his friends who were all already dressed.

Blaine ignored it as best as he could, composed himself and then quickly got dressed. He was a couple minutes late getting out of the locker room and practically sprinted to his locker so that he would be able to make it to Glee on time. He was hoping there wasn't enough time for the news to spread before Glee Club, but that hope was dashed the moment he saw Kurt's face as he walked up to Blaine's locker.

"So I guess the news is out," Kurt said with a sigh, truly looking sympathetic. "How did anyone find out?"

"Gym uniform," Blaine answered with a groan.

Kurt nodded his understanding, grabbed ahold of Blaine's hand, and gave it a squeeze. Blaine felt a million times better with Kurt's hand holding his. He rode this little high all the way to Glee Club, Kurt never letting go of his hand. They ended up being the last ones there, and started their way up the stairs to the top row to sit with Mercedes. Blaine felt everyone's eyes on him. He knew they were looking to see if they could spot the tracker on his leg.

"Is it true you robbed a bank?" Puck asked, clearly not ashamed to confront Blaine about it.

"Wait, I heard that he burned down someone's barn," Quinn added, looking confused.

"Alexis told me that he stole a car," Mercedes piped in, looking confident in her information.

"Well I heard from my sources that…" Rachel began, but was quickly interrupted.

"Do you even really have a tracker on your leg?" Artie asked. "I mean with the crazy rumors in this school, I don't even know anymore."

Kurt put his hand on Blaine's shoulder in a gesture of comfort.

"Guys, what's going on here?" Mr. Schuester asked in confusion from his spot in the front of the room. He clearly wasn't privy to the news yet.

"Rumor is that hobbit here is a criminal and has the GPS anklet to prove it," Santana said jovially from her spot in the second row.

"I'm sure that's not…" Mr. Schuester began but was cut off by Blaine.

"It's true," Blaine admitted with a sigh. He leaned down and pulled up his left pant leg, revealing the tracker underneath.

There were a couple gasps and a few jaws dropped when he revealed it. Kurt just reached out and grabbed Blaine's hand in a show of support. Blaine didn't know if he could ever get used to holding Kurt's hand. It made his heart skip a beat again.

"Dude, you are more badass than I am!" Puck said in awe. "So you did rob a bank?"

"No, I didn't rob a bank," Blaine said, rolling his eyes.

"Then what did you do?" Santana asked with a raised eyebrow, as if she didn't believe it.

"I stole a painting from the Met and allegedly stole and forged some other paintings," Blaine mumbled, staring at the floor in front of him.

"Oh I take back that badass comment then," Puck replied. "What kind of crime is that? I thought you did something way more badass like robbing a bank."

"Trust me, there is nothing badass about wearing an anklet anyway," Blaine replied, rolling his eyes once more. Didn't he understand that you lost your street cred the moment you got caught? The best criminals were the ones who didn't get caught. "You try living with my uncle's rules for a couple days and I guarantee you would be changing your tune."

"You live with your uncle?" Rachel asked in confusion.

"Yes, he is actually the FBI agent that caught me," Blaine said and then sighed. "It's a really long story and I would rather not get into it. The important thing here is that yes, I wear a tracking anklet. Can't we all just forget about it and move on?"

"Kurt knew about this, didn't he?" Finn asked, shocking everyone in the room because he was typically someone that was not observant. "I heard that he was at your party the other night and got in big trouble. Kurt, why are you still hanging out with him if he is such a bad influence?"

"Okay, first of all you are way out of line here," Kurt said, his bitch face out and in full force. "Blaine had nothing to do with my being at the party the other night. He didn't even know that I was going to be there until I showed up. That was all my choosing. Now don't play like a saint and pretend like you haven't done anything behind your mom's or my dad's back before. If they were both gone for a night you wouldn't think twice about throwing a party and you know it."

"That's not…" Finn began, but Mr. Schuester stepped in.

"Okay, I think this is enough of this particular conversation," Mr. Schuester said. "Let's get started on the Glee assignment for this week. I am going to randomly pair you into twos to work on a duet assignment. You will all perform this Wednesday or Friday. On Friday the winner will be chosen and that pair will be performing their duet at Sectionals."

Blaine almost laughed out loud at Rachel's reaction to his statement. She put her game face on and her claws out. It was almost terrifying, but Blaine didn't really want the solo that badly. He was just mourning that he surely wouldn't get paired with Kurt. He really wanted to hear how his voice would sound with Kurt.

"Blaine Anderson, you are paired with Quinn Fabray," Mr. Schuester said, pulling Blaine out of his thoughts. "You two are going to perform on Wednesday."

He went on to read the rest of the names, and Blaine mourned the fact that Kurt was paired up with Tina. He was sure the two of them would pull off something good, but it wouldn't be the magic that he knew he could sing with Kurt.

"Hey, so when do you want to meet?" Quinn asked coming over to Blaine. "I mean we don't have much time left in this Glee meeting and we perform on Wednesday. You are more than welcome to come over to my house to practice."

Blaine was about to accept her offer, but then he realized something important—he was grounded. Like super, virtually house arrest, grounded. He would have to call Elizabeth and see if it was okay if Quinn came over after school today. He was going to be in the city after school tomorrow, so today was really the only available time.

"I'm actually grounded for that party that I sort of threw on Friday night without any permission," Blaine admitted with a sigh. "Is there any way that you could come over to my place right after school today? I just have to go call my aunt and make sure that it's okay with her."

Quinn nodded and gestured for him to go call.

"Blaine, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked when she picked up the phone.

"So I have this assignment for Glee where we have to sing a duet with another person. I'm paired with this girl Quinn and we have to perform it on Wednesday. Is it okay if she comes over after school today so that we can rehearse?"

"Of course, sweetie," Elizabeth replied. "I will pick the both of you up right after your Glee Club is over."

"Can't we walk to the house?" Blaine pleaded. It was super embarrassing to have to have his aunt pick him up.

"I think you know the answer to that one, Blaine," Elizabeth replied. "You know I think Peter can forget he is an FBI agent sometimes, but that doesn't mean that I don't agree with his punishments and that I'm not going to enforce them."

Blaine sighed and mumbled, "Just thought I would ask."

They said their goodbyes and then Blaine headed back over to Quinn.

"My aunt is okay with it," Blaine said. "She is going to pick us up right after Glee."

"I thought you usually walked home," Quinn said, confused.

"Yeah, I am no longer being trusted to even do that," Blaine explained rolling his eyes.

"You weren't kidding when you said that your uncle was strict, were you?" Quinn asked sympathetically.

"Unfortunately not," Blaine replied with a groan.

The rest of the Glee club meeting they spent discussing what song they wanted to sing. They eventually agreed on singing "Just a Kiss" by Lady Antebellum. Blaine admired the romantic aspects of the song and Quinn was always down to sing some country music. Glee club ended soon after they decided their song choice. The two headed out front, and sure enough Elizabeth was sitting there in her car waiting for them.

"Hi you must be Quinn," Elizabeth said when they got into the car. "I'm Blaine's Aunt Elizabeth."

"It's nice to meet you," Quinn replied.

"So you guys are working on a song together?" Elizabeth asked, pulling out of the parking lot.

"Yes, we are going to do a song by Lady Antebellum," Blaine replied.

"Well I am excited to hear the two of you practice," Elizabeth said. "I have never actually heard Blaine sing."

"His audition of Teenage Dream was one of the best that we've had in a while," Quinn said with a smile.

"You auditioned with a Katy Perry song?" Elizabeth asked, surprised by the song choice. "You didn't say that you did that."

"Yeah…it just never really came up," Blaine said with a shrug. Peter was too worried about him joining an extracurricular; he didn't really care how he did it.

Elizabeth pulled into the driveway and turned the car off.

"Well you two can get to work in the sitting room," Elizabeth said as they walked inside. "I will bring a snack to you guys in a little bit. I will also make sure that when Peter gets home he doesn't disturb the two of you."

Blaine and Quinn nodded their thanks and then walked to the sitting room in the front of the house. As soon as they were there Quinn started laughing.

"What?" Blaine asked confused.

"Your aunt thinks the two of us are dating or something," Quinn said with a laugh.

"What…" Blaine stuttered out.

"Don't worry," Quinn replied. "I see the way that you look at Kurt. I know that I don't stand a chance in the world against that look."

"There is no look," Blaine denied.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that," Quinn replied and rolled her eyes.

"I mean yeah, sure I'm gay," Blaine admitted. "But Kurt and I, we're just friends."

"For now," Quinn replied, sounding so sure of her statement that Blaine couldn't help but believe her for a couple moments. "You looked like Christmas came early when he held your hand earlier."

"Let's get to work," Blaine said, changing the subject and not caring just how obvious it was that he was doing so.

The two worked for a while on their song until they finally thought they nailed it. By that time Peter had even made it home. Quinn met Peter briefly on her way out of the house.

"So is she the girl that you were walking home the other day?" Peter asked after she left.

"I have homework to do," Blaine said, ignoring his uncle's question.

He turned on his heel and headed up to his room to do his homework. He was called down about an hour later for dinner, and found that Cooper had come to join them. The dinner consisted of Cooper, Peter, and Elizabeth telling funny stories about their coworkers. Blaine was just happy that they weren't talking about him and Quinn…but of course he thought that too soon.

"So I think your brother has a little crush," Peter said as everyone was finishing up dinner.

"Oh really, on who?" Cooper asked intrigued, wondering if he was going to find out about this boy that had Blaine blushing and avoiding the subject.

"Well the other day he set off his tracker walking someone home and I think I just met her tonight," Peter said. "Her name is Quinn. She is certainly very pretty."

"Quinn?" Cooper asked, trying to catch Blaine's eye.

Blaine was avoiding all eye contact with his older brother, though. He really didn't want to get into it right now.

"Of course Blaine is being silent about it," Peter said. "He won't let El and I have our fun."

Cooper laughed and played along with it, much to Blaine's relief. That relief wasn't very long lasting though, because as soon as the table was cleared Cooper asked to go on a quick walk with Blaine. Peter approved it, claiming he was sure Blaine was sick of the house already and that he should be allowed a little reprieve.

"So you haven't told them?" Cooper asked once the two of them started walking.

"Told them what?" Blaine feigned confusion.

"The fact that you're gay," Cooper replied, not willing to skirt around the subject.

"It hasn't come up," Blaine shrugged as if it was no big deal.

"You know you can tell them, right?" Cooper asked.

"Yeah, because that worked out real well with mom," Blaine replied sarcastically.

"They aren't mom," Cooper reasoned. "I'm sure they are going to take it much better than she did."

"You can't know that," Blaine replied, fear evident in his voice. "Please don't tell them Cooper. I just want to test out the waters a little bit more. If things go wrong and they decide they don't want me anymore than I'm going to jail. The stakes are pretty high."

"They aren't going to decide they don't want you," Cooper reasoned. "And Peter wouldn't just let you go to jail, not after everything that he is doing to keep you out of it."

"Yeah, and mom was going to still accept and love her youngest son," Blaine mocked. "That went real well didn't it?"

"Okay, okay. I won't tell them. I still think you should," Cooper said. "I'm going to let you do that at your own pace though."

"Thank you," Blaine replied, truly thankful from the bottom of his heart. He just didn't know that he could handle rejection again. Not that soon. Not with that big of stakes.

"So is there a guy?" Cooper asked.

"Maybe," Blaine replied, but the smile on his face gave him away.