Fic: Bait (2/4)
Title: Bait
Artist: dani_elizabethx
Word Count: 7,950 of 27,745
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Kurt Hummel, Cooper Anderson, Noah Puckerman, OFC, OMC, Kurt/Blaine
Warnings: mentions of prostitution, drugs, and institutionalized homophobia
Summary: AU. Blaine Anderson is finally a college graduate... but he accidentally solicits Kurt, an undercover cop, for sex within hours of getting his diploma. Things get messier from there, Cooper gets far too much pleasure out of the situation, and Blaine develops an unfortunate crush.
Note: This is officially the longest thing I have ever written and it has been quite the journey. It was fun, but probably more stressful than anything else I've done thus far. Many, many thanks to my incredible beta anodrethlluvine and my amazing artist dani_elizabethx. You both have kept me sane for the past few months. Also, thanks to Lucie and Alura, who made my shaky legal reasoning feel slightly more stable.
“You suck,” Blaine said bluntly as he walked out of the jail next to his brother. He had changed back into the clothes he had been wearing two nights ago, and they were on their way to Cooper’s car in the parking lot.
“I thought that’s what you do, baby bro,” Cooper replied, smirking. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Blaine sputtered indignantly. “Coop, you know I-“
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I just spent over two thousand dollars bailing your ass out of jail, so do tell me: why do I, as you say, suck?” he asked, pressing the unlock button on his key fob and climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Oh, please,” Blaine said, waving him off as he got into the passenger’s seat. “You’ll be getting that money back when I show up for my hearing, but how did it take you until now to get here? You have no idea what I’ve been through since we talked,” he said, though really, it hadn’t been as bad as he had expected, but there was no way he’d be admitting that to his brother.
“What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t make you think about what you did?”
“Coop!” He could not believe his brother sometimes.
“Well, the bank is closed on Sundays, too, and you really didn’t think I had that kind of money lying around, did you?” Cooper rolled his eyes as they turned out of the parking lot. “But I really just wanted to make you suffer a bit.”
“You’re a sadist,” Blaine told him petulantly, crossing his arms across his chest.
Cooper shrugged in response, and they lapsed into silence for the ten minute drive to the apartment.
Blaine immediately went for the refrigerator once they were inside. “Oh my god, what do you even eat?” he asked, staring in confusion at the numerous beer and condiment bottles scattered around the appliance.
“There’s takeout menus in the drawer on your right,” Cooper said, reaching past him to grab a beer out of the fridge before sitting down on the couch and putting his feet up on the coffee table.
“Lovely,” Blaine muttered, closing the door a little more forcefully than necessary and pulling out a menu for a Chinese place. He looked it over as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m getting some pork chow mein,” he called out to his brother. “You want anything?”
“Get me the same,” he said before lifting the beer to his mouth, tipping it back, and draining a third of it at once. “Oh, and extra fortune cookies!”
Blaine rolled his eyes but didn’t comment as he called to place their order.
Half an hour later, they were both sitting on the couch, takeout boxes in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
“So,” Cooper began around a mouthful of pork, “when will I be seeing my money again?”
Blaine threw his head back against the couch and groaned. “Are we really going to do this now?”
Cooper grinned widely. “Of course we are!”
Blaine stabbed his chopsticks forcefully into his box of food. “You’ll get it back whenever I show up for my court date.”
“And when’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Blaine said tersely, glaring daggers into his noodles. “They’re going to mail me the information I need.”
Cooper leaned back into the corner of the couch. “You thought about a lawyer yet?”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “Of course I have,” he said, even though he had tried to get his mind to avoid that very topic. He couldn’t afford one on his own, he didn’t trust that he would actually be appointed a decent one through the court, and while knew that one of his dad’s colleagues at the university would be more than willing to help him out, he really didn’t want to get his dad involved at all.
“Uh huh,” Cooper intoned skeptically. He pointed at him with his chopsticks. “For some reason I don’t believe you. You know, there is someone rather obvious you could ask.”
“No,” Blaine replied firmly. “I am not asking Dad to talk to someone in the law department. It’s just not happening.”
“I’m not talking about Dad.” Cooper turned to face Blaine head on and smiled brightly.
“Coop,” Blaine said, shaking his head as he turned toward his brother. “You play a lawyer in a local commercial. There’s even a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen that says you’re not actually a lawyer. Do you not see any reason why I wouldn’t want to trust you for legal advice?”
Cooper smiled at him even wider before figuring his hand into the shape of a gun. He pretended to fire it at Blaine and winked, just like he did at the end of that stupid commercial.
“No,” Blaine said again. “No. End of story.” He pushed himself off of the couch and folded in the flaps on his box of food before shoving it in the fridge and tossing out the chopsticks.
“Aw, come on, baby brother,” Cooper said from the couch as he tapped his chopsticks against his carton of food. “At least have a fortune cookie.”
“End of story?” Blaine asked, remaining standing defensively in the kitchen.
“End of story,” Cooper agreed before picking up an unwrapped fortune cookie and tossing it at Blaine’s chest. He scowled as he caught it, really not in the mood to deal with his brother’s antics today.
He popped open the wrapper and tossed it in the trash bin, then broke the cookie in half and ate one of the halves while he pulled out his fortune. It taught him how to say “girlfriend” in Chinese (neu pun yan)--that was obviously going to be very useful to him if he ever went to China. He rolled his eyes, skimmed over his lucky numbers, and flipped it over.
Generosity will repay itself sooner than you imagine.
He groaned even as he crumpled the fortune up and deposited it with the chopsticks in the garbage. Really? He had generously offered to give that stupid police officer a stupid ride home and where had that gotten him? Two nights in jail and a stupid court appearance that he had no idea how he was going to handle. Yeah, his generosity was certainly repaying itself, alright.
He crunched down hard on the other half of the cookie and stalked back over to the couch, sitting down on it in a huff. The spell Elphaba sings at the beginning of No Good Deed in Wicked popped into his head and he threw his head back against the back of the couch in frustration.
“What’s your fortune?” Cooper asked, apparently oblivious to Blaine’s mood.
He grabbed the pillow to his left and flung it in the direction of his brother. “Don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbled.
Cooper finally seemed to get it and didn’t even make some annoying comment about the pillow. Blaine sighed in relief and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift off.
Blaine woke up a few hours later, surprised that he had fallen asleep after having felt so well rested when he had gotten up that morning. He had slouched down on the couch while he slept, so he sat up and stretched his complaining muscles, reminding himself to never sleep like that again.
He looked around for his brother, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was in a better mood now, but it was probably a good thing Cooper wasn’t around. The wrapper from another cookie, as well as its fortune, was lying abandoned on the coffee table. He would definitely have to have a word with him about keeping things clean once he actually moved in, but for now he picked up the fortune out of curiosity.
Happiness isn’t something you remember it is something you experience.
Of course Cooper got the decent fortune. Of course. He dropped it and let it float back down onto the table before grabbing the remote control and turning the television on. Some cheesy Christmas movie with a title he couldn’t remember was playing and he decided to just let it be. He wasn’t even really paying attention, but at least it was something to keep his mind off of other things.
His brother joined him shortly before the end of the movie (he had taken a nap himself) and they worked out the details of Blaine’s move. They were going to go pick up Blaine’s car, and he found out that the motel was actually about ten minutes from Cooper’s apartment--in the opposite direction of the bar--and he was going to crash on Cooper’s couch again before spending the next day actually moving in.
He woke up the next morning feeling a lot better than he had the day before; the couch still wasn’t comfortable but lying down had helped, as had getting so much sleep in the past 48 hours. Cooper was still asleep, and Blaine needed coffee, especially to get ready for packing up and bringing everything across town. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find any caffeine-laced deliciousness in the kitchen cupboards, and he had noticed a coffee shop two doors down from the apartment that he thought he’d give a try.
It was an independent place with a nice vibe that he liked from the moment he heard the bell ring above him as he walked through the door. It was pretty tiny--cozy would probably be more appropriate--with two armchairs by the front window and a long bar stretching the length of the left wall. Small round tables for two people lined the other wall, and they were all taken. The walls were painted yellow on top and brown below, and photographs of far off places (South America and Africa, Blaine guessed) were hung above each table.
He went up to the counter and ordered his standard medium drip and took another look around the small café while the barista prepared it for him. There were a few couples at the tables, along with a middle-aged woman reading a book, but what really caught his eye was a man sitting by himself at the farthest table back. He was breathtakingly gorgeous with chestnut hair that was styled perfectly messy, and he had this small smile on his face as he thumbed through something on his phone.
The barista handed over his drink and Blaine was seriously considering asking the man if he would mind sharing the table with him. He started to walk back that way when the man laughed at something on his phone. Blaine recognized that laugh. It was a bit higher pitched than he expected, but when his mind matched it to the person he had had that same expectation about recently, he almost dropped his coffee.
The man sitting at the table in the back, the gorgeous man he had been about to try to flirt with, was the cop who had tricked him and gotten him arrested over the weekend. It couldn’t really be him, though, could it? Columbus was a big enough city. Besides, this guy looked confident where the cop had been nervous.
The guy looked up at him and furrowed his brow, like he was trying to figure out where he knew Blaine from. He didn’t want to stick around for the revelation-if there even was a revelation coming, but he was pretty sure there would be one-so he turned on his heel and fled the building. It probably wasn’t the bravest or most laudable thing he’d ever done, but he needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Blaine spent the rest of the day packing things in boxes and going through the house to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. It was a lot harder to do there than in a hotel, since in a hotel it was easy for him to spot when something was out of place. His roommates were still staying in the house, though, so he really had to scrutinize what he was seeing and try to remember what was his and what he had told the others he would give to them so he didn’t have to take so much with him.
He actually moved the day after that, bringing more boxes than he realized he needed from the house across town to Cooper’s (no, their) apartment. It took a few trips with his tiny car, but luckily his brother was willing to help carry everything upstairs and into the second bedroom.
He managed to get everything in and have his bed set up by late afternoon, and he decided a shower and nap were more important than unpacking all of the boxes that instant, so that’s exactly what he did.
It turned out that the bar was really close to the apartment, so Blaine decided to walk there and back. It was a bit chilly for it in December, but it wasn’t snowing and there was hardly any wind so being outside for ten minutes wasn’t bad at all.
When he finally made it back home (because the apartment was home now, and wasn’t that weird to think about?), he closed the door quietly behind him and flicked on the lamp on the end table by the door. The first thing he saw was a coat and scarf draped across half of the couch. He shook his head at Cooper’s laziness and started to head back to his new bedroom when he heard a giggle come from the other room. A very feminine giggle.
He groaned at the thinness of the walls (why had he not thought to ask about that before deciding to move in?) and went to the freezer to pull out a bottle of Smirnoff. His bed was right up against the wall that was shared with Cooper’s room, and there was no way he was going to be able to fall asleep to the sounds of his brother getting it on with some girl he probably picked up at a bar.
He thought briefly about telling them to shut up, but he didn’t want to make things awkward with his brother the day after officially moving in. More importantly, he didn’t want to risk seeing vagina.
He sat down at the kitchen bar, poured a shot of vodka, and had just slung it back into his throat when he heard Cooper’s voice carry out into the living space: “So good, baby!”
Those three words alone were enough to tell Blaine that the girl in there almost definitely was someone Cooper met within the past couple hours and his brother had no idea what her name was. He only used pet names when he didn’t remember the girl’s actual name-or if he hadn’t bothered to find out before jumping in the sack with her.
It was going to be a long night.
After the second “baby” and the first “Cooper,” Blaine decided to play a game. Each time Cooper used a fake term of endearment instead of the girl’s name he’d take a drink. He’d do the same for every time the girl actually used Cooper’s name. It was the only way to get through this with a shred of sanity.
He took two additional shots to make up for lost time, then had to immediately pour another one as the woman practically wailed his brother’s name. There was nothing Cooper could possibly do to make this up to him ever. Nothing.
Blaine quickly lost track of how many shots he had taken, especially when his brother let out a string of five or six “baby”s in a row.
The next thing he knew, something was shaking him awake. He groaned at the flare of anger in his back and neck and tried to move away so he could go back to sleep, but instead of rolling over onto his side, he fell two and a half feet to the floor. He swore under his breath and rubbed his eyes, looking up at whatever it was he had been trying to get away from.
It was Cooper.
“All right there, baby brother?” he asked perkily, cup of coffee already in one hand.
Blaine groaned again, pushing himself up off the floor and grudgingly taking his brother’s hand for help up. He noticed that the vodka bottle was missing from the counter, though the shot glass was still there-on its side, dangerously close to falling off the edge opposite from where Blaine had been sitting.
“What time is it?” he asked, hoping that Cooper would let him change the topic.
His brother turned around and looked at the microwave-which had been right in Blaine’s own line of sight when he asked-and then turned back to him. “Quarter after nine,” he said, shrugging. “Fun night?”
Of course he wouldn’t be getting off that easily. “You could say that. You could also say that it was too loud in here for me to fall asleep.”
Cooper broke into a wide grin at that, and Blaine shook his head at him. He really had no shame.
“Just pour me a cup of coffee and maybe I’ll forgive you for the onslaught of terror my ears faced last night.” Blaine needed caffeine if he planned on not killing his brother this morning, and the coffee shop down the street with the gorgeous man whom he had mistakenly tried to pay for sex was out of the question. This was his next best option.
“Did I sound awesome?” Cooper asked. “Because I was pretty awesome. She was pretty awesome, too. Also really hot.”
“Coop.”
“Right,” he said, moving back into the kitchen. “One coffee coming up!”
They fell into more or less of a routine over the next few days. They’d share dinner together most of the time, taking turns cooking and doing the dishes, but other than that their schedules didn’t line up too much. Blaine slept in late since he was usually working until past two in the morning, and Cooper was normally gone to rehearsal by the time he woke up.
Blaine would usually check on the mail sometime in the afternoon. It was a habit left over from college; he loved getting mail and his freshman year was the first time he really ever got anything addressed to him that wasn’t junk mail or a stupid credit card offer that he tore up before throwing it in the garbage.
A couple days later, on Friday afternoon, he went to grab the mail and expected to find more bills addressed to Cooper, like he always did. There was a phone bill in there, along with the circular from one of the local grocery stores, but there was also a letter with his name on it. He looked up in the corner to see whom it was from, and he groaned when he saw the pre-printed return address for some office in the city.
He took the stack of mail upstairs to the apartment and set the envelopes addressed to Cooper on the table just inside the door. He plopped down on the couch and slid a finger underneath the flap, ripping it open. His dad always used to get mad at him for not using a letter opener, but he thought that they were silly when he could just as easily use his finger. It didn’t open as neatly, but he didn’t care about that. Maybe he should start, though, he thought, if he was trying to be more of an adult.
Dropping the empty envelope on the cushion next to him, he unfolded the letter and read. It was a lot of legal words that he had to think about for a second in order for them to make sense, but he got the gist of it pretty quickly. The important part was that his court date had been set (Friday, January 5, at 10:00 in the morning) and that there were certain steps he’d have to go through afterward in order to get his bail money back.
He made a mental note to let his brother know when he’d be getting his money, then stuffed the letter back in its envelope and put it on the corner of his dresser so that he wouldn’t forget about it.
The next few days passed in much the same fashion; sleeping in, hanging out, sharing dinner with Cooper, and going to work in the evening.
Their parents insisted on them coming over in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and staying through the morning the day after Christmas. That worked out great for Blaine, since the bar was closed for the holiday, and Cooper’s company offered a matinee performance on Sunday-Christmas Eve-but they were dark on the actual holiday. Cooper drove them over to their house on the other side of the city, and Blaine took the time to reflect that living with him, so far, wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
Sure, his brother was a slob, and he had overheard way too much sex for his liking, but it could have been worse. Cooper could have continued to harass him in that brotherly way that he so loved, but he wasn’t; he was looking at Blaine as more of an adult now that they were living together.
Which he totally was. An adult, that is. He would keep telling himself that until he completely believed it.
They arrived just in time to have dinner (fish sticks and mac and cheese, the traditional night-before-cooking-for-a-large-holiday meal at the Anderson house), and they walked with their parents to the Christmas Eve service at the church at the end of the block afterward. Neither Blaine nor his brother was very religious at all, and even though it wasn’t a conversation that he ever really had with his parents, he had deduced long ago that they were more spiritual than religious, since the only time they ever stepped foot in a place of worship was for Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals.
They opened presents the next morning (Cooper got lots of clothes, and Blaine was given a gift card so he could pick out his own clothes), and by the time dinner came around, Blaine thought his brother might actually have decided to behave himself in front of their parents.
Their dad said grace (again, something which only happened on rare occasion, usually in conjunction with a religious holiday), and they dug in. Right as Blaine pulled his first piece of turkey off of his fork, Cooper spoke up.
“So,” he began, and Blaine knew that tone of voice. He was preparing them for something ridiculous, and Blaine could just guess what was about to come out of his mouth. He kicked his feet out toward his brother under the table, but the only response he got was a smirk. “Would you care to tell mom and dad where I picked you up last week?”
Blaine gritted his teeth. “Don’t,” he warned, glancing back and forth between his parents. His mom was sipping at her wine, oblivious to the tension in the room, but his dad was looking between them in confusion. Shit.
“Blaine?” his dad asked, but he didn’t respond. There was no way he was telling his parents he had been arrested, let alone arrested for solicitation.
After a few seconds of silence, Cooper spoke up forlornly, shaking his head in obviously fake sadness. “My baby brother was arrested last weekend.”
“Yeah, well, Cooper had sex with someone whose name he never found out.”
“For trying to pick up a prostitute.”
“He doesn’t pick up after himself, either,” he said, trying desperately to win this horrible, terrible, stupid game of one-upmanship.
“Who was actually a cop.”
“Would anyone like some more wine?” their mother interrupted, standing to go refill her own glass and not waiting for a response.
While she was gone in the kitchen-Blaine assumed that she was simply drinking in there instead of dealing with things out here-his father looked down at him from above his glasses. “Is this true, Blaine?”
“Well,” Blaine hedged, scooping up some mashed potatoes to buy himself some time. He glared at Cooper, who just looked smugly back at him as he chewed some turkey. “Sort of?” he said, raising his inflection to turn the statement into a question.
“Sort of?” his father repeated. “How can it be ‘sort of’ true?”
Blaine shrunk back in his seat. This was exactly why he wasn’t planning on telling his parents what had happened, even if his father would probably be able to get one of the law professors to help him out. His father had this way of always making him feel like he was stupid, and he hadn’t felt like this much of a child since he had lived under his parents’ roof.
“I thought I was just giving this guy a ride to his hotel. We weren’t in the safest neighborhood, and it was dark out… I just didn’t feel right leaving him out there alone.”
“Aww! My brother, the good little Samaritan.”
Blaine kicked at him again, this time feeling accomplished when he made contact with one of his legs.
“Enough, Cooper,” their father said, holding a hand up towards him. “Do you have legal representation?”
Blaine nodded, looking down at his plate and pushing some of the food around on it.
“Blaine,” his father chastised. “Do you really?”
“I was going to go with the court-appointed lawyer,” he mumbled. It wasn’t strictly true-he hadn’t made the decision for sure yet-but it was the closest thing to the truth he could come up with.
His father shook his head. “No, you’re not. I’ll call Eric in the morning. He owes me a favor, anyhow.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he protested.
“You’re my son. Of course I do.”
Blaine shrugged, really not in the mood to argue, and his father apparently took that as a sign that the conversation had been handled. He finished the rest of his wine and called into the kitchen. “Joan, dear, I do think I would like some more wine, if you would be so kind.”
“Yes, Michael,” she said as she made her way back from the kitchen. She poured from a new bottle of the same Gewürztraminer they had started the meal with, though she had obviously finished the other one off while she hid out in the kitchen. Blaine shook his head, wondering if every family was as crazy as his.
The rest of the holiday week passed in relative calm. Cooper and Blaine left their parents’ house the morning after Christmas, and Blaine got a call from his father later that day saying that his colleague would meet with Blaine after the New Year. Blaine groaned but agreed; after all, the only reason he had been opposed to the help was because it would mean his parents would find out about the whole mess. Clearly, that wasn’t an issue anymore.
Blaine was still angry with his brother, but he managed to put aside his feelings for what Cooper had dubbed the First Annual Anderson Brothers’ New Year’s Bash. Luckily he hadn’t been scheduled at the bar (Roni had given him shit for it when she found out), and knowing his brother, lots of alcohol would be involved.
He was right. He spent the evening getting pleasantly buzzed, and he didn’t even care when he saw Cooper sneak away with a girl in tow sometime before midnight.
If only Blaine’s own sex life could be that simple.
Blaine ended up being the one to do most of the cleanup after the party-Cooper didn’t even ever clean up after himself, so asking him to clean up after others was out of the question-and between that, the meeting with his dad’s lawyer friend, and work at the bar, Friday came before he knew it.
The hearing was even more nerve-wracking than Blaine had imagined. He spent most of the morning sitting around while the judge heard other cases, and there were some delays that pushed his appearance back by about twenty-five minutes. By the time he was standing before the judge, his lawyer next to him and his father (he was going to kill Cooper) sitting a few rows back in the courtroom, he felt as if he could either throw up or pass out at moment’s notice.
A minute or so in, the judge asked him how he wished to plead. That was the moment that concerned Blaine the most. His lawyer had said that he knew the judge and that the judge appreciates honesty. With Blaine’s situation, honesty meant lying and pleading guilty, because the sentence would almost certainly be more lenient.
Blaine looked up at the judge. He was younger than Blaine had expected, probably in his late thirties or early forties, and that alone was a bit of a comfort. Surely he had to know that the undercover cop was also a guy-or he would soon, at least-but the younger age gave him hope that the judge wasn’t as homophobic as most of Ohio.
“Mr. Anderson?” the judge prompted, an annoyed clip evident in his tone.
“Oh, uh,” Blaine hesitated. The next word was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to say, and actually vocalizing it went against his better judgment with every fiber of his being. He sucked in a deep breath and just let the words tumble from his mouth. “Guilty, your honor.”
The rest of the hearing went by in a blur. Blaine saw people talking, he heard the words that were being spoken, but he couldn’t have repeated them if his life depended on it. The next thing Blaine really registered was the judge calling a recess for lunch until his next case, and his lawyer pulling him out into the hallway, a smile plastered on his face.
“That went better than we could have hoped!”
Blaine blinked at him. It had? “Really?”
His lawyer looked up him and down. “You have no idea what happened in there, do you?”
“Uh…” Blaine looked down at his feet. “No?” he said, trying to turn it into a question.
“That’s okay, kid,” his lawyer replied with a chuckle. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, you avoided jail time, which I’m positive you wouldn’t’ve done had you plead not guilty.”
Blaine nodded. That was exactly as expected. “But?”
“You were given the maximum fine-$500-and ordered to do two hundred hours of community service.”
“That’s not all that bad.” He had gone above and beyond the community service requirement in high school, and he had considered rushing a service fraternity in college but decided he should focus on his education instead. The money was a bit much, but that was a small price to pay to avoid going back to jail.
“No,” his lawyer agreed. “There is a bit more-you remember that the law requires a minimum three month license suspension for any solicitation convictions involving a motor vehicle?”
Blaine nodded again. That was something they had gone over at their meeting earlier in the week. “And?” he prompted.
“The judge seemed reluctant to do it, but he ordered a three month suspension. You did good, kid.”
“Thank you,” Blaine said sincerely. “I really appreciate all you’ve done.”
The other man waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You’re Michael’s son.”
“Still, thank you,” Blaine said. He hated having things handed to him because he was an Anderson. He loved his family, but he wished he could be known as something other than Michael and Joan Anderson’s younger son.
Blaine was glad to be scheduled to work that night. It meant he could avoid Cooper for a little while longer, and Roni was always good for a distraction.
He was lucky that Cooper’s apartment was so close to the bar, because the walk really wasn’t that bad. He ended up getting there right when his shift was supposed to start, though, and Roni tossed a wet rag at his head the moment she saw him.
“Hey!” he yelled out at her, grabbing the alcohol-soaked rag out of the air just before it would have hit his face. “What was that for?”
“You’re late.”
He glanced up at the old clock above the door to the back room. “By forty seconds.”
“I need a smoke.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “When do you not?”
“Just get your pretty little ass back here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Blaine replied, giving a little salute. He whipped the rag at her as she passed, and she flipped him off in return.
He looked around the bar and noticed it was more empty than usual for a Friday night, though it was still early. Amy wasn’t there, since she and the rest of the college community were back home with their parents for another week or so, and only about half of the stools along the bar were occupied. He walked along, saying hello to everyone and asking if anyone needed any refills. There was a mix of familiar and new faces, as was the norm, and Roni came back in quickly because it was so cold out.
“Enjoy your cancer stick?” he asked her teasingly when she returned. He detested smoking, but normally he didn’t make comments like that; it was just the nature of his relationship with Roni that brought out the worst in him.
“Oh, fuck off,” she huffed, rejoining him behind the bar. “What crawled up your ass and died today, huh?”
Blaine shrugged and wondered if his mood really had been that obvious before he replied. “Just a stressful day,” he said, deciding not to bring up the morning’s events if he could help it. He hadn’t mentioned the arrest to anyone he hadn’t had to, and he didn’t plan on changing that.
Roni looked him up and down and then poured a shot of vodka. “Drink,” she said, sliding it over to him. “You look like you need it.”
Blaine downed the shot, glad that she hadn’t pressed the issue.
By midnight, he had taken three more shots (two on his own and one that Roni had pressed into his hand with a scowl and a “get your act together”). He moved down to the end of the bar that Roni had been stationed at most of the night so that he could grab a clean rag to wipe up a spill down at his end. He spun around, flashing a smile at the regulars down at that end, and had to do a double take when he noticed the quiet man who was almost hidden behind the draft dispenser.
No way. No fucking way.
He hurried back on down to his end of the bar and almost ran face first into Roni in the process.
“Seriously, get a grip, Anderson,” she said, lifting a hand up to ruffle his hair. Normally he would have cared, but instead he just nodded and moved past her and used the rag to take care of the spilled beer. His mind was too focused on the fact that that stupid, horrible, ridiculous, gorgeous police officer was sitting less than ten feet from him.
Why Blaine? Was his life not enough of a mess as it was?
He groaned and wrung the rag out over the sink, hanging it over the edge when he was done. He could totally handle this. He had handled it so far, hadn’t he? He’d just stick to his side of the bar and pretend like the seat behind the draft dispenser was empty and that would be that. Simple.
“You okay?” Roni asked. Blaine had no idea when she had made her way over to this half of the bar, but he nodded. “Good. I need another smoke.” She turned without waiting for a response and was out the door before he could put the words together to protest.
He groaned inwardly but put on a smile anyway. After clearing away two empty beer bottles and getting their owners’ new drinks, he took a deep breath and made his way back down to the other end to check on everyone down there. Maybe the guy had left while Blaine had been having his panic attack.
He went all the way down to the other end of the bar first, but no one down there needed anything. He worked his way back, until finally he couldn’t help but notice the outstretched hand waving an empty glass in his direction. Blaine sucked in a deep breath and went over. “Another?” he asked, collecting the glass and dumping it into the sink of water underneath the bar top. He focused on the way it sunk down beneath the surface, doing anything he could to avoid looking at the man’s face.
“Please,” came the reply, and Blaine couldn’t help himself; he looked up. The cop really was as stunning as Blaine had remembered from the coffee shop two weeks ago. His skin was pale but radiant, and he had his hair styled in that of-course-I-look-like-this-when-I-get-out-of-bed way that Blaine was a complete sucker for. He was sporting a perfectly tailored light pink dress shirt, which Blaine had to admit was less in-your-face but just as equally sexy as that mesh tank top he had first seen him in.
“Um,” Blaine said oh-so-eloquently, trying to bring his mind back to the fact that this man was a cop who had gotten him arrested recently, not to mention the fact that he was at work. “What were you drinking?”
“Gin and tonic,” the man said, and either he was a really good actor or he had no recollection of Blaine. Blaine really hoped it was the latter.
“Coming right up!” He mixed the drink quickly and brought it back over. “Here you go!”
The guy smiled over at him. “Thanks,” he said, trailing off in that way that people do when they’re trying to get you to tell them your name without actually having to ask you for it.
“Blaine,” he supplied for him. He wasn’t sure why he did it, other than that he liked getting to know his customers and he liked when they got to know him as well. It was just habit.
“I’m Kurt,” the cop replied, holding out his hand for a handshake. Blaine shook it, making sure his grip was firm and surprised that Kurt did the same. A good handshake was so hard to come by; it was something his father had told him since he was a young child but also something he had come to learn from experience as he had grown older.
“Nice to meet you,” Blaine said, his Anderson upbringing kicking in.
“Believe me,” Kurt replied, “the pleasure’s all mine.”
Roni came bustling in then, rubbing her hands together to warm them up from the cold. She planted one on either side of Blaine’s face and he backed away from her-and away from Kurt in the process-to get away. “What was that?!”
She smirked. “It’s cold outside.”
“No kidding!”
“Thought I could maybe shock some sense into you, too,” she said, lowering her voice.
“Seriously?” Blaine shook his head in disbelief. “I am completely fine.”
Roni tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “If you say so.”
“In fact, I do,” Blaine replied, turning his back on her and returning to his end of the bar-the safe end of the bar, the one without Kurt. He refilled two drinks and closed out someone’s tab, and he was taking a moment to breathe when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
He pulled it out and saw that he had a text from Cooper. He double checked to make sure that none of the customers needed anything before swiping his finger across the screen to read it.
Two hundred hours, huh?
Blaine pressed the button to lock his phone a little harder than necessary and shoved it back into his pocket. Really, it wasn’t that bad of a message, but it meant that his parents and brother had been talking and that was never good. He poured himself another shot-this time a double-and downed it, mentally adding it to the tally of how much he was going to owe for the evening.
The night wound down after that, and Blaine noticed that Kurt ordered another drink at last call and took his time drinking it, so that he was the last customer there while he and Roni worked on cleaning up. Blaine really tried not to watch Kurt; he had no claim to him and he told himself that he really didn’t care what the other man was doing.
Instead, he swallowed in surprise when he looked over and saw Kurt sucking the last bit of his drink through a straw. He had never seen someone practically fellate a straw like that, and that was saying something, considering how many drunken college students he saw on a regular basis. He felt his throat go dry, and he turned around, right into Roni.
“Whoa there,” she said, grabbing his shoulders and stepping back so that her arms were straight. She looked over his shoulder at Kurt and then looked back at Blaine’s face. “I’ve got everything here. Go get ‘im,” she said just loudly enough for him to hear.
“What? I don’t-“
“Go.” She spun him around and gave a little shove before going back to cleaning up.
“So,” Blaine said as he approached Kurt. He grabbed his empty glass, tossed the straw in the trash, and tossed the glass into the sink. “I, uh, don’t really… Um. Are you doing anything now?”
Kurt had started to smile before Blaine had finished talking, but it wasn’t like he was making fun of Blaine. It was more of a flirtatious smile.
What on earth was Blaine getting himself into?
“Nope,” Kurt said brightly. “Was that an invitation?”
Blaine could feel himself blushing. “If you want it to be.”
“Good, because I do.”
Blaine let out a shaky breath. “Just, uh, let me go grab my coat, okay?” He turned and went into the office, trying to talk some sense into himself. He couldn’t believe he was really doing this. Kurt looked beyond handsome, but he was a cop-a cop who thought he was desperate enough for sex to pick up a prostitute.
He shook his head to clear it and checked his phone, seeing only the text from his brother, and he slipped his coat on before heading back toward the main room of the bar. Roni passed him just inside the doorway.
“Be safe,” she said with a wink, sliding her hand down one of the back pockets of his jeans.
“Roni…” he warned, but she removed her hand and slapped his ass, an innocent smile plastered on her face.
“Be safe,” she repeated, then continued on into the office to finish closing up.
Blaine decided to ignore her and headed back out into the bar. “Hey,” he said, nodding at Kurt.
“Hi,” Kurt replied. He stood up and finished wrapping his scarf around his neck. “So, where to? Know of any place close by? I don’t think either of us should probably be driving,” he added with that melodic laugh Blaine had heard at the café by their apartment.
“Um,” Blaine said, trying to think of any place that would be open this late. He couldn’t come up with anything, so he said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, my place is just a few blocks away.” He bit his lip, hoping he wasn’t being too forward.
“I’d like that,” Kurt said shyly. His slight nervousness reminded Blaine of the man he had given a ride to, though it seemed out of character for a police officer, in or out of uniform.
They walked quickly, not wanting to be outside in the below-freezing temperatures for any longer than necessary. They spoke a little bit on the walk, Blaine purposely steering the conversation away from their jobs. He learned that Kurt was a year older than him, and he had the sharpest tongue of anyone Blaine knew when he brought up the latest celebrity divorce.
Before he knew it, they were inside the apartment, Blaine taking Kurt’s coat and scarf to hang them up in the hall closet while Kurt took a look around.
“Pokeahotass?” Kurt asked, gesturing down toward a DVD case that had been left on the coffee table. On the cover was a picture of a naked woman with giant breasts and dark brown hair who was bent forward with a buff man entering her from behind. “Really?”
“Oh my god,” Blaine said, rushing to flip the case face-down. “I’m going to kill my brother.”
“Your brother, huh?” Kurt rolled his eyes in disbelief.
“Yes, my brother. He lives here, too. You really don’t think a self-respecting gay man would have a framed poster of Jessica Rabbit, do you?” he asked, gesturing to the wall behind the couch.
“I guess not.” He stepped toward Blaine and they stared at each other for a moment, neither wanting to be the first to break the tension that was suddenly hanging like a curtain between them. Eventually, Kurt gave in and took the last step to close the distance between them, his soft lips finding Blaine’s own.
Blaine moaned and deepened the kiss. He had been so focused on his semester of student teaching that he hadn’t done this in far too long, and his body reacted predictably.
“Okay?” Kurt asked as he pulled back for air.
Blaine couldn’t do anything but nod before leaning back in. They kissed for a minute more, but Blaine couldn’t take the wait any longer. “Bed?” he asked, tugging up on Kurt’s shirt to untuck it from his pants.
“Bed,” Kurt agreed. Blaine moved his hands up to Kurt’s shoulders and pulled him along, moving backwards into the hallway and then his bedroom. He wondered if Cooper was asleep as they passed his room, but he quickly decided that whatever he heard would be payback for what Blaine had endured a few weeks ago.
Blaine pushed the door closed behind them as he finished working Kurt’s shirt out of his pants.
“You too,” Kurt said, tugging at the bowtie around Blaine’s neck.
Blaine murmured in agreement, undoing the buttons on the front of Kurt’s shirt. He slid the garment off his shoulders and tossed it onto the chair next to his dresser. Blaine’s own shirt and bowtie quickly joined it, and he pulled Kurt back toward him, enjoying the heat of skin against skin.
Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine, and the feel of tight muscles surrounding him was wonderful. He leaned up to find Kurt’s mouth again, letting his hands roam over the firm skin of the other man’s back. Kurt was doing the same to him, and he was the first one to dip his hands lower, resting in the pockets of Blaine’s jeans. Blaine moaned into his mouth, but Kurt pulled back, an amused smirk on his face.
“Prepared, are we?” he asked, slipping his hands out of Blaine’s pockets and dangling a wrapped condom between them.
Once he killed his brother, he was so going to murder Roni, too.
Part 3
Artist: dani_elizabethx
Word Count: 7,950 of 27,745
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Kurt Hummel, Cooper Anderson, Noah Puckerman, OFC, OMC, Kurt/Blaine
Warnings: mentions of prostitution, drugs, and institutionalized homophobia
Summary: AU. Blaine Anderson is finally a college graduate... but he accidentally solicits Kurt, an undercover cop, for sex within hours of getting his diploma. Things get messier from there, Cooper gets far too much pleasure out of the situation, and Blaine develops an unfortunate crush.
Note: This is officially the longest thing I have ever written and it has been quite the journey. It was fun, but probably more stressful than anything else I've done thus far. Many, many thanks to my incredible beta anodrethlluvine and my amazing artist dani_elizabethx. You both have kept me sane for the past few months. Also, thanks to Lucie and Alura, who made my shaky legal reasoning feel slightly more stable.
“You suck,” Blaine said bluntly as he walked out of the jail next to his brother. He had changed back into the clothes he had been wearing two nights ago, and they were on their way to Cooper’s car in the parking lot.
“I thought that’s what you do, baby bro,” Cooper replied, smirking. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Blaine sputtered indignantly. “Coop, you know I-“
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I just spent over two thousand dollars bailing your ass out of jail, so do tell me: why do I, as you say, suck?” he asked, pressing the unlock button on his key fob and climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Oh, please,” Blaine said, waving him off as he got into the passenger’s seat. “You’ll be getting that money back when I show up for my hearing, but how did it take you until now to get here? You have no idea what I’ve been through since we talked,” he said, though really, it hadn’t been as bad as he had expected, but there was no way he’d be admitting that to his brother.
“What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t make you think about what you did?”
“Coop!” He could not believe his brother sometimes.
“Well, the bank is closed on Sundays, too, and you really didn’t think I had that kind of money lying around, did you?” Cooper rolled his eyes as they turned out of the parking lot. “But I really just wanted to make you suffer a bit.”
“You’re a sadist,” Blaine told him petulantly, crossing his arms across his chest.
Cooper shrugged in response, and they lapsed into silence for the ten minute drive to the apartment.
Blaine immediately went for the refrigerator once they were inside. “Oh my god, what do you even eat?” he asked, staring in confusion at the numerous beer and condiment bottles scattered around the appliance.
“There’s takeout menus in the drawer on your right,” Cooper said, reaching past him to grab a beer out of the fridge before sitting down on the couch and putting his feet up on the coffee table.
“Lovely,” Blaine muttered, closing the door a little more forcefully than necessary and pulling out a menu for a Chinese place. He looked it over as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m getting some pork chow mein,” he called out to his brother. “You want anything?”
“Get me the same,” he said before lifting the beer to his mouth, tipping it back, and draining a third of it at once. “Oh, and extra fortune cookies!”
Blaine rolled his eyes but didn’t comment as he called to place their order.
Half an hour later, they were both sitting on the couch, takeout boxes in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
“So,” Cooper began around a mouthful of pork, “when will I be seeing my money again?”
Blaine threw his head back against the couch and groaned. “Are we really going to do this now?”
Cooper grinned widely. “Of course we are!”
Blaine stabbed his chopsticks forcefully into his box of food. “You’ll get it back whenever I show up for my court date.”
“And when’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Blaine said tersely, glaring daggers into his noodles. “They’re going to mail me the information I need.”
Cooper leaned back into the corner of the couch. “You thought about a lawyer yet?”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “Of course I have,” he said, even though he had tried to get his mind to avoid that very topic. He couldn’t afford one on his own, he didn’t trust that he would actually be appointed a decent one through the court, and while knew that one of his dad’s colleagues at the university would be more than willing to help him out, he really didn’t want to get his dad involved at all.
“Uh huh,” Cooper intoned skeptically. He pointed at him with his chopsticks. “For some reason I don’t believe you. You know, there is someone rather obvious you could ask.”
“No,” Blaine replied firmly. “I am not asking Dad to talk to someone in the law department. It’s just not happening.”
“I’m not talking about Dad.” Cooper turned to face Blaine head on and smiled brightly.
“Coop,” Blaine said, shaking his head as he turned toward his brother. “You play a lawyer in a local commercial. There’s even a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen that says you’re not actually a lawyer. Do you not see any reason why I wouldn’t want to trust you for legal advice?”
Cooper smiled at him even wider before figuring his hand into the shape of a gun. He pretended to fire it at Blaine and winked, just like he did at the end of that stupid commercial.
“No,” Blaine said again. “No. End of story.” He pushed himself off of the couch and folded in the flaps on his box of food before shoving it in the fridge and tossing out the chopsticks.
“Aw, come on, baby brother,” Cooper said from the couch as he tapped his chopsticks against his carton of food. “At least have a fortune cookie.”
“End of story?” Blaine asked, remaining standing defensively in the kitchen.
“End of story,” Cooper agreed before picking up an unwrapped fortune cookie and tossing it at Blaine’s chest. He scowled as he caught it, really not in the mood to deal with his brother’s antics today.
He popped open the wrapper and tossed it in the trash bin, then broke the cookie in half and ate one of the halves while he pulled out his fortune. It taught him how to say “girlfriend” in Chinese (neu pun yan)--that was obviously going to be very useful to him if he ever went to China. He rolled his eyes, skimmed over his lucky numbers, and flipped it over.
Generosity will repay itself sooner than you imagine.
He groaned even as he crumpled the fortune up and deposited it with the chopsticks in the garbage. Really? He had generously offered to give that stupid police officer a stupid ride home and where had that gotten him? Two nights in jail and a stupid court appearance that he had no idea how he was going to handle. Yeah, his generosity was certainly repaying itself, alright.
He crunched down hard on the other half of the cookie and stalked back over to the couch, sitting down on it in a huff. The spell Elphaba sings at the beginning of No Good Deed in Wicked popped into his head and he threw his head back against the back of the couch in frustration.
“What’s your fortune?” Cooper asked, apparently oblivious to Blaine’s mood.
He grabbed the pillow to his left and flung it in the direction of his brother. “Don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbled.
Cooper finally seemed to get it and didn’t even make some annoying comment about the pillow. Blaine sighed in relief and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift off.
Blaine woke up a few hours later, surprised that he had fallen asleep after having felt so well rested when he had gotten up that morning. He had slouched down on the couch while he slept, so he sat up and stretched his complaining muscles, reminding himself to never sleep like that again.
He looked around for his brother, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was in a better mood now, but it was probably a good thing Cooper wasn’t around. The wrapper from another cookie, as well as its fortune, was lying abandoned on the coffee table. He would definitely have to have a word with him about keeping things clean once he actually moved in, but for now he picked up the fortune out of curiosity.
Happiness isn’t something you remember it is something you experience.
Of course Cooper got the decent fortune. Of course. He dropped it and let it float back down onto the table before grabbing the remote control and turning the television on. Some cheesy Christmas movie with a title he couldn’t remember was playing and he decided to just let it be. He wasn’t even really paying attention, but at least it was something to keep his mind off of other things.
His brother joined him shortly before the end of the movie (he had taken a nap himself) and they worked out the details of Blaine’s move. They were going to go pick up Blaine’s car, and he found out that the motel was actually about ten minutes from Cooper’s apartment--in the opposite direction of the bar--and he was going to crash on Cooper’s couch again before spending the next day actually moving in.
He woke up the next morning feeling a lot better than he had the day before; the couch still wasn’t comfortable but lying down had helped, as had getting so much sleep in the past 48 hours. Cooper was still asleep, and Blaine needed coffee, especially to get ready for packing up and bringing everything across town. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find any caffeine-laced deliciousness in the kitchen cupboards, and he had noticed a coffee shop two doors down from the apartment that he thought he’d give a try.
It was an independent place with a nice vibe that he liked from the moment he heard the bell ring above him as he walked through the door. It was pretty tiny--cozy would probably be more appropriate--with two armchairs by the front window and a long bar stretching the length of the left wall. Small round tables for two people lined the other wall, and they were all taken. The walls were painted yellow on top and brown below, and photographs of far off places (South America and Africa, Blaine guessed) were hung above each table.
He went up to the counter and ordered his standard medium drip and took another look around the small café while the barista prepared it for him. There were a few couples at the tables, along with a middle-aged woman reading a book, but what really caught his eye was a man sitting by himself at the farthest table back. He was breathtakingly gorgeous with chestnut hair that was styled perfectly messy, and he had this small smile on his face as he thumbed through something on his phone.
The barista handed over his drink and Blaine was seriously considering asking the man if he would mind sharing the table with him. He started to walk back that way when the man laughed at something on his phone. Blaine recognized that laugh. It was a bit higher pitched than he expected, but when his mind matched it to the person he had had that same expectation about recently, he almost dropped his coffee.
The man sitting at the table in the back, the gorgeous man he had been about to try to flirt with, was the cop who had tricked him and gotten him arrested over the weekend. It couldn’t really be him, though, could it? Columbus was a big enough city. Besides, this guy looked confident where the cop had been nervous.
The guy looked up at him and furrowed his brow, like he was trying to figure out where he knew Blaine from. He didn’t want to stick around for the revelation-if there even was a revelation coming, but he was pretty sure there would be one-so he turned on his heel and fled the building. It probably wasn’t the bravest or most laudable thing he’d ever done, but he needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Blaine spent the rest of the day packing things in boxes and going through the house to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. It was a lot harder to do there than in a hotel, since in a hotel it was easy for him to spot when something was out of place. His roommates were still staying in the house, though, so he really had to scrutinize what he was seeing and try to remember what was his and what he had told the others he would give to them so he didn’t have to take so much with him.
He actually moved the day after that, bringing more boxes than he realized he needed from the house across town to Cooper’s (no, their) apartment. It took a few trips with his tiny car, but luckily his brother was willing to help carry everything upstairs and into the second bedroom.
He managed to get everything in and have his bed set up by late afternoon, and he decided a shower and nap were more important than unpacking all of the boxes that instant, so that’s exactly what he did.
It turned out that the bar was really close to the apartment, so Blaine decided to walk there and back. It was a bit chilly for it in December, but it wasn’t snowing and there was hardly any wind so being outside for ten minutes wasn’t bad at all.
When he finally made it back home (because the apartment was home now, and wasn’t that weird to think about?), he closed the door quietly behind him and flicked on the lamp on the end table by the door. The first thing he saw was a coat and scarf draped across half of the couch. He shook his head at Cooper’s laziness and started to head back to his new bedroom when he heard a giggle come from the other room. A very feminine giggle.
He groaned at the thinness of the walls (why had he not thought to ask about that before deciding to move in?) and went to the freezer to pull out a bottle of Smirnoff. His bed was right up against the wall that was shared with Cooper’s room, and there was no way he was going to be able to fall asleep to the sounds of his brother getting it on with some girl he probably picked up at a bar.
He thought briefly about telling them to shut up, but he didn’t want to make things awkward with his brother the day after officially moving in. More importantly, he didn’t want to risk seeing vagina.
He sat down at the kitchen bar, poured a shot of vodka, and had just slung it back into his throat when he heard Cooper’s voice carry out into the living space: “So good, baby!”
Those three words alone were enough to tell Blaine that the girl in there almost definitely was someone Cooper met within the past couple hours and his brother had no idea what her name was. He only used pet names when he didn’t remember the girl’s actual name-or if he hadn’t bothered to find out before jumping in the sack with her.
It was going to be a long night.
After the second “baby” and the first “Cooper,” Blaine decided to play a game. Each time Cooper used a fake term of endearment instead of the girl’s name he’d take a drink. He’d do the same for every time the girl actually used Cooper’s name. It was the only way to get through this with a shred of sanity.
He took two additional shots to make up for lost time, then had to immediately pour another one as the woman practically wailed his brother’s name. There was nothing Cooper could possibly do to make this up to him ever. Nothing.
Blaine quickly lost track of how many shots he had taken, especially when his brother let out a string of five or six “baby”s in a row.
The next thing he knew, something was shaking him awake. He groaned at the flare of anger in his back and neck and tried to move away so he could go back to sleep, but instead of rolling over onto his side, he fell two and a half feet to the floor. He swore under his breath and rubbed his eyes, looking up at whatever it was he had been trying to get away from.
It was Cooper.
“All right there, baby brother?” he asked perkily, cup of coffee already in one hand.
Blaine groaned again, pushing himself up off the floor and grudgingly taking his brother’s hand for help up. He noticed that the vodka bottle was missing from the counter, though the shot glass was still there-on its side, dangerously close to falling off the edge opposite from where Blaine had been sitting.
“What time is it?” he asked, hoping that Cooper would let him change the topic.
His brother turned around and looked at the microwave-which had been right in Blaine’s own line of sight when he asked-and then turned back to him. “Quarter after nine,” he said, shrugging. “Fun night?”
Of course he wouldn’t be getting off that easily. “You could say that. You could also say that it was too loud in here for me to fall asleep.”
Cooper broke into a wide grin at that, and Blaine shook his head at him. He really had no shame.
“Just pour me a cup of coffee and maybe I’ll forgive you for the onslaught of terror my ears faced last night.” Blaine needed caffeine if he planned on not killing his brother this morning, and the coffee shop down the street with the gorgeous man whom he had mistakenly tried to pay for sex was out of the question. This was his next best option.
“Did I sound awesome?” Cooper asked. “Because I was pretty awesome. She was pretty awesome, too. Also really hot.”
“Coop.”
“Right,” he said, moving back into the kitchen. “One coffee coming up!”
They fell into more or less of a routine over the next few days. They’d share dinner together most of the time, taking turns cooking and doing the dishes, but other than that their schedules didn’t line up too much. Blaine slept in late since he was usually working until past two in the morning, and Cooper was normally gone to rehearsal by the time he woke up.
Blaine would usually check on the mail sometime in the afternoon. It was a habit left over from college; he loved getting mail and his freshman year was the first time he really ever got anything addressed to him that wasn’t junk mail or a stupid credit card offer that he tore up before throwing it in the garbage.
A couple days later, on Friday afternoon, he went to grab the mail and expected to find more bills addressed to Cooper, like he always did. There was a phone bill in there, along with the circular from one of the local grocery stores, but there was also a letter with his name on it. He looked up in the corner to see whom it was from, and he groaned when he saw the pre-printed return address for some office in the city.
He took the stack of mail upstairs to the apartment and set the envelopes addressed to Cooper on the table just inside the door. He plopped down on the couch and slid a finger underneath the flap, ripping it open. His dad always used to get mad at him for not using a letter opener, but he thought that they were silly when he could just as easily use his finger. It didn’t open as neatly, but he didn’t care about that. Maybe he should start, though, he thought, if he was trying to be more of an adult.
Dropping the empty envelope on the cushion next to him, he unfolded the letter and read. It was a lot of legal words that he had to think about for a second in order for them to make sense, but he got the gist of it pretty quickly. The important part was that his court date had been set (Friday, January 5, at 10:00 in the morning) and that there were certain steps he’d have to go through afterward in order to get his bail money back.
He made a mental note to let his brother know when he’d be getting his money, then stuffed the letter back in its envelope and put it on the corner of his dresser so that he wouldn’t forget about it.
The next few days passed in much the same fashion; sleeping in, hanging out, sharing dinner with Cooper, and going to work in the evening.
Their parents insisted on them coming over in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and staying through the morning the day after Christmas. That worked out great for Blaine, since the bar was closed for the holiday, and Cooper’s company offered a matinee performance on Sunday-Christmas Eve-but they were dark on the actual holiday. Cooper drove them over to their house on the other side of the city, and Blaine took the time to reflect that living with him, so far, wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
Sure, his brother was a slob, and he had overheard way too much sex for his liking, but it could have been worse. Cooper could have continued to harass him in that brotherly way that he so loved, but he wasn’t; he was looking at Blaine as more of an adult now that they were living together.
Which he totally was. An adult, that is. He would keep telling himself that until he completely believed it.
They arrived just in time to have dinner (fish sticks and mac and cheese, the traditional night-before-cooking-for-a-large-holiday meal at the Anderson house), and they walked with their parents to the Christmas Eve service at the church at the end of the block afterward. Neither Blaine nor his brother was very religious at all, and even though it wasn’t a conversation that he ever really had with his parents, he had deduced long ago that they were more spiritual than religious, since the only time they ever stepped foot in a place of worship was for Christmas, Easter, weddings, and funerals.
They opened presents the next morning (Cooper got lots of clothes, and Blaine was given a gift card so he could pick out his own clothes), and by the time dinner came around, Blaine thought his brother might actually have decided to behave himself in front of their parents.
Their dad said grace (again, something which only happened on rare occasion, usually in conjunction with a religious holiday), and they dug in. Right as Blaine pulled his first piece of turkey off of his fork, Cooper spoke up.
“So,” he began, and Blaine knew that tone of voice. He was preparing them for something ridiculous, and Blaine could just guess what was about to come out of his mouth. He kicked his feet out toward his brother under the table, but the only response he got was a smirk. “Would you care to tell mom and dad where I picked you up last week?”
Blaine gritted his teeth. “Don’t,” he warned, glancing back and forth between his parents. His mom was sipping at her wine, oblivious to the tension in the room, but his dad was looking between them in confusion. Shit.
“Blaine?” his dad asked, but he didn’t respond. There was no way he was telling his parents he had been arrested, let alone arrested for solicitation.
After a few seconds of silence, Cooper spoke up forlornly, shaking his head in obviously fake sadness. “My baby brother was arrested last weekend.”
“Yeah, well, Cooper had sex with someone whose name he never found out.”
“For trying to pick up a prostitute.”
“He doesn’t pick up after himself, either,” he said, trying desperately to win this horrible, terrible, stupid game of one-upmanship.
“Who was actually a cop.”
“Would anyone like some more wine?” their mother interrupted, standing to go refill her own glass and not waiting for a response.
While she was gone in the kitchen-Blaine assumed that she was simply drinking in there instead of dealing with things out here-his father looked down at him from above his glasses. “Is this true, Blaine?”
“Well,” Blaine hedged, scooping up some mashed potatoes to buy himself some time. He glared at Cooper, who just looked smugly back at him as he chewed some turkey. “Sort of?” he said, raising his inflection to turn the statement into a question.
“Sort of?” his father repeated. “How can it be ‘sort of’ true?”
Blaine shrunk back in his seat. This was exactly why he wasn’t planning on telling his parents what had happened, even if his father would probably be able to get one of the law professors to help him out. His father had this way of always making him feel like he was stupid, and he hadn’t felt like this much of a child since he had lived under his parents’ roof.
“I thought I was just giving this guy a ride to his hotel. We weren’t in the safest neighborhood, and it was dark out… I just didn’t feel right leaving him out there alone.”
“Aww! My brother, the good little Samaritan.”
Blaine kicked at him again, this time feeling accomplished when he made contact with one of his legs.
“Enough, Cooper,” their father said, holding a hand up towards him. “Do you have legal representation?”
Blaine nodded, looking down at his plate and pushing some of the food around on it.
“Blaine,” his father chastised. “Do you really?”
“I was going to go with the court-appointed lawyer,” he mumbled. It wasn’t strictly true-he hadn’t made the decision for sure yet-but it was the closest thing to the truth he could come up with.
His father shook his head. “No, you’re not. I’ll call Eric in the morning. He owes me a favor, anyhow.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he protested.
“You’re my son. Of course I do.”
Blaine shrugged, really not in the mood to argue, and his father apparently took that as a sign that the conversation had been handled. He finished the rest of his wine and called into the kitchen. “Joan, dear, I do think I would like some more wine, if you would be so kind.”
“Yes, Michael,” she said as she made her way back from the kitchen. She poured from a new bottle of the same Gewürztraminer they had started the meal with, though she had obviously finished the other one off while she hid out in the kitchen. Blaine shook his head, wondering if every family was as crazy as his.
The rest of the holiday week passed in relative calm. Cooper and Blaine left their parents’ house the morning after Christmas, and Blaine got a call from his father later that day saying that his colleague would meet with Blaine after the New Year. Blaine groaned but agreed; after all, the only reason he had been opposed to the help was because it would mean his parents would find out about the whole mess. Clearly, that wasn’t an issue anymore.
Blaine was still angry with his brother, but he managed to put aside his feelings for what Cooper had dubbed the First Annual Anderson Brothers’ New Year’s Bash. Luckily he hadn’t been scheduled at the bar (Roni had given him shit for it when she found out), and knowing his brother, lots of alcohol would be involved.
He was right. He spent the evening getting pleasantly buzzed, and he didn’t even care when he saw Cooper sneak away with a girl in tow sometime before midnight.
If only Blaine’s own sex life could be that simple.
Blaine ended up being the one to do most of the cleanup after the party-Cooper didn’t even ever clean up after himself, so asking him to clean up after others was out of the question-and between that, the meeting with his dad’s lawyer friend, and work at the bar, Friday came before he knew it.
The hearing was even more nerve-wracking than Blaine had imagined. He spent most of the morning sitting around while the judge heard other cases, and there were some delays that pushed his appearance back by about twenty-five minutes. By the time he was standing before the judge, his lawyer next to him and his father (he was going to kill Cooper) sitting a few rows back in the courtroom, he felt as if he could either throw up or pass out at moment’s notice.
A minute or so in, the judge asked him how he wished to plead. That was the moment that concerned Blaine the most. His lawyer had said that he knew the judge and that the judge appreciates honesty. With Blaine’s situation, honesty meant lying and pleading guilty, because the sentence would almost certainly be more lenient.
Blaine looked up at the judge. He was younger than Blaine had expected, probably in his late thirties or early forties, and that alone was a bit of a comfort. Surely he had to know that the undercover cop was also a guy-or he would soon, at least-but the younger age gave him hope that the judge wasn’t as homophobic as most of Ohio.
“Mr. Anderson?” the judge prompted, an annoyed clip evident in his tone.
“Oh, uh,” Blaine hesitated. The next word was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to say, and actually vocalizing it went against his better judgment with every fiber of his being. He sucked in a deep breath and just let the words tumble from his mouth. “Guilty, your honor.”
The rest of the hearing went by in a blur. Blaine saw people talking, he heard the words that were being spoken, but he couldn’t have repeated them if his life depended on it. The next thing Blaine really registered was the judge calling a recess for lunch until his next case, and his lawyer pulling him out into the hallway, a smile plastered on his face.
“That went better than we could have hoped!”
Blaine blinked at him. It had? “Really?”
His lawyer looked up him and down. “You have no idea what happened in there, do you?”
“Uh…” Blaine looked down at his feet. “No?” he said, trying to turn it into a question.
“That’s okay, kid,” his lawyer replied with a chuckle. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, you avoided jail time, which I’m positive you wouldn’t’ve done had you plead not guilty.”
Blaine nodded. That was exactly as expected. “But?”
“You were given the maximum fine-$500-and ordered to do two hundred hours of community service.”
“That’s not all that bad.” He had gone above and beyond the community service requirement in high school, and he had considered rushing a service fraternity in college but decided he should focus on his education instead. The money was a bit much, but that was a small price to pay to avoid going back to jail.
“No,” his lawyer agreed. “There is a bit more-you remember that the law requires a minimum three month license suspension for any solicitation convictions involving a motor vehicle?”
Blaine nodded again. That was something they had gone over at their meeting earlier in the week. “And?” he prompted.
“The judge seemed reluctant to do it, but he ordered a three month suspension. You did good, kid.”
“Thank you,” Blaine said sincerely. “I really appreciate all you’ve done.”
The other man waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You’re Michael’s son.”
“Still, thank you,” Blaine said. He hated having things handed to him because he was an Anderson. He loved his family, but he wished he could be known as something other than Michael and Joan Anderson’s younger son.
Blaine was glad to be scheduled to work that night. It meant he could avoid Cooper for a little while longer, and Roni was always good for a distraction.
He was lucky that Cooper’s apartment was so close to the bar, because the walk really wasn’t that bad. He ended up getting there right when his shift was supposed to start, though, and Roni tossed a wet rag at his head the moment she saw him.
“Hey!” he yelled out at her, grabbing the alcohol-soaked rag out of the air just before it would have hit his face. “What was that for?”
“You’re late.”
He glanced up at the old clock above the door to the back room. “By forty seconds.”
“I need a smoke.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “When do you not?”
“Just get your pretty little ass back here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Blaine replied, giving a little salute. He whipped the rag at her as she passed, and she flipped him off in return.
He looked around the bar and noticed it was more empty than usual for a Friday night, though it was still early. Amy wasn’t there, since she and the rest of the college community were back home with their parents for another week or so, and only about half of the stools along the bar were occupied. He walked along, saying hello to everyone and asking if anyone needed any refills. There was a mix of familiar and new faces, as was the norm, and Roni came back in quickly because it was so cold out.
“Enjoy your cancer stick?” he asked her teasingly when she returned. He detested smoking, but normally he didn’t make comments like that; it was just the nature of his relationship with Roni that brought out the worst in him.
“Oh, fuck off,” she huffed, rejoining him behind the bar. “What crawled up your ass and died today, huh?”
Blaine shrugged and wondered if his mood really had been that obvious before he replied. “Just a stressful day,” he said, deciding not to bring up the morning’s events if he could help it. He hadn’t mentioned the arrest to anyone he hadn’t had to, and he didn’t plan on changing that.
Roni looked him up and down and then poured a shot of vodka. “Drink,” she said, sliding it over to him. “You look like you need it.”
Blaine downed the shot, glad that she hadn’t pressed the issue.
By midnight, he had taken three more shots (two on his own and one that Roni had pressed into his hand with a scowl and a “get your act together”). He moved down to the end of the bar that Roni had been stationed at most of the night so that he could grab a clean rag to wipe up a spill down at his end. He spun around, flashing a smile at the regulars down at that end, and had to do a double take when he noticed the quiet man who was almost hidden behind the draft dispenser.
No way. No fucking way.
He hurried back on down to his end of the bar and almost ran face first into Roni in the process.
“Seriously, get a grip, Anderson,” she said, lifting a hand up to ruffle his hair. Normally he would have cared, but instead he just nodded and moved past her and used the rag to take care of the spilled beer. His mind was too focused on the fact that that stupid, horrible, ridiculous, gorgeous police officer was sitting less than ten feet from him.
Why Blaine? Was his life not enough of a mess as it was?
He groaned and wrung the rag out over the sink, hanging it over the edge when he was done. He could totally handle this. He had handled it so far, hadn’t he? He’d just stick to his side of the bar and pretend like the seat behind the draft dispenser was empty and that would be that. Simple.
“You okay?” Roni asked. Blaine had no idea when she had made her way over to this half of the bar, but he nodded. “Good. I need another smoke.” She turned without waiting for a response and was out the door before he could put the words together to protest.
He groaned inwardly but put on a smile anyway. After clearing away two empty beer bottles and getting their owners’ new drinks, he took a deep breath and made his way back down to the other end to check on everyone down there. Maybe the guy had left while Blaine had been having his panic attack.
He went all the way down to the other end of the bar first, but no one down there needed anything. He worked his way back, until finally he couldn’t help but notice the outstretched hand waving an empty glass in his direction. Blaine sucked in a deep breath and went over. “Another?” he asked, collecting the glass and dumping it into the sink of water underneath the bar top. He focused on the way it sunk down beneath the surface, doing anything he could to avoid looking at the man’s face.
“Please,” came the reply, and Blaine couldn’t help himself; he looked up. The cop really was as stunning as Blaine had remembered from the coffee shop two weeks ago. His skin was pale but radiant, and he had his hair styled in that of-course-I-look-like-this-when-I-get-out-of-bed way that Blaine was a complete sucker for. He was sporting a perfectly tailored light pink dress shirt, which Blaine had to admit was less in-your-face but just as equally sexy as that mesh tank top he had first seen him in.
“Um,” Blaine said oh-so-eloquently, trying to bring his mind back to the fact that this man was a cop who had gotten him arrested recently, not to mention the fact that he was at work. “What were you drinking?”
“Gin and tonic,” the man said, and either he was a really good actor or he had no recollection of Blaine. Blaine really hoped it was the latter.
“Coming right up!” He mixed the drink quickly and brought it back over. “Here you go!”
The guy smiled over at him. “Thanks,” he said, trailing off in that way that people do when they’re trying to get you to tell them your name without actually having to ask you for it.
“Blaine,” he supplied for him. He wasn’t sure why he did it, other than that he liked getting to know his customers and he liked when they got to know him as well. It was just habit.
“I’m Kurt,” the cop replied, holding out his hand for a handshake. Blaine shook it, making sure his grip was firm and surprised that Kurt did the same. A good handshake was so hard to come by; it was something his father had told him since he was a young child but also something he had come to learn from experience as he had grown older.
“Nice to meet you,” Blaine said, his Anderson upbringing kicking in.
“Believe me,” Kurt replied, “the pleasure’s all mine.”
Roni came bustling in then, rubbing her hands together to warm them up from the cold. She planted one on either side of Blaine’s face and he backed away from her-and away from Kurt in the process-to get away. “What was that?!”
She smirked. “It’s cold outside.”
“No kidding!”
“Thought I could maybe shock some sense into you, too,” she said, lowering her voice.
“Seriously?” Blaine shook his head in disbelief. “I am completely fine.”
Roni tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “If you say so.”
“In fact, I do,” Blaine replied, turning his back on her and returning to his end of the bar-the safe end of the bar, the one without Kurt. He refilled two drinks and closed out someone’s tab, and he was taking a moment to breathe when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
He pulled it out and saw that he had a text from Cooper. He double checked to make sure that none of the customers needed anything before swiping his finger across the screen to read it.
Two hundred hours, huh?
Blaine pressed the button to lock his phone a little harder than necessary and shoved it back into his pocket. Really, it wasn’t that bad of a message, but it meant that his parents and brother had been talking and that was never good. He poured himself another shot-this time a double-and downed it, mentally adding it to the tally of how much he was going to owe for the evening.
The night wound down after that, and Blaine noticed that Kurt ordered another drink at last call and took his time drinking it, so that he was the last customer there while he and Roni worked on cleaning up. Blaine really tried not to watch Kurt; he had no claim to him and he told himself that he really didn’t care what the other man was doing.
Instead, he swallowed in surprise when he looked over and saw Kurt sucking the last bit of his drink through a straw. He had never seen someone practically fellate a straw like that, and that was saying something, considering how many drunken college students he saw on a regular basis. He felt his throat go dry, and he turned around, right into Roni.
“Whoa there,” she said, grabbing his shoulders and stepping back so that her arms were straight. She looked over his shoulder at Kurt and then looked back at Blaine’s face. “I’ve got everything here. Go get ‘im,” she said just loudly enough for him to hear.
“What? I don’t-“
“Go.” She spun him around and gave a little shove before going back to cleaning up.
“So,” Blaine said as he approached Kurt. He grabbed his empty glass, tossed the straw in the trash, and tossed the glass into the sink. “I, uh, don’t really… Um. Are you doing anything now?”
Kurt had started to smile before Blaine had finished talking, but it wasn’t like he was making fun of Blaine. It was more of a flirtatious smile.
What on earth was Blaine getting himself into?
“Nope,” Kurt said brightly. “Was that an invitation?”
Blaine could feel himself blushing. “If you want it to be.”
“Good, because I do.”
Blaine let out a shaky breath. “Just, uh, let me go grab my coat, okay?” He turned and went into the office, trying to talk some sense into himself. He couldn’t believe he was really doing this. Kurt looked beyond handsome, but he was a cop-a cop who thought he was desperate enough for sex to pick up a prostitute.
He shook his head to clear it and checked his phone, seeing only the text from his brother, and he slipped his coat on before heading back toward the main room of the bar. Roni passed him just inside the doorway.
“Be safe,” she said with a wink, sliding her hand down one of the back pockets of his jeans.
“Roni…” he warned, but she removed her hand and slapped his ass, an innocent smile plastered on her face.
“Be safe,” she repeated, then continued on into the office to finish closing up.
Blaine decided to ignore her and headed back out into the bar. “Hey,” he said, nodding at Kurt.
“Hi,” Kurt replied. He stood up and finished wrapping his scarf around his neck. “So, where to? Know of any place close by? I don’t think either of us should probably be driving,” he added with that melodic laugh Blaine had heard at the café by their apartment.
“Um,” Blaine said, trying to think of any place that would be open this late. He couldn’t come up with anything, so he said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, my place is just a few blocks away.” He bit his lip, hoping he wasn’t being too forward.
“I’d like that,” Kurt said shyly. His slight nervousness reminded Blaine of the man he had given a ride to, though it seemed out of character for a police officer, in or out of uniform.
They walked quickly, not wanting to be outside in the below-freezing temperatures for any longer than necessary. They spoke a little bit on the walk, Blaine purposely steering the conversation away from their jobs. He learned that Kurt was a year older than him, and he had the sharpest tongue of anyone Blaine knew when he brought up the latest celebrity divorce.
Before he knew it, they were inside the apartment, Blaine taking Kurt’s coat and scarf to hang them up in the hall closet while Kurt took a look around.
“Pokeahotass?” Kurt asked, gesturing down toward a DVD case that had been left on the coffee table. On the cover was a picture of a naked woman with giant breasts and dark brown hair who was bent forward with a buff man entering her from behind. “Really?”
“Oh my god,” Blaine said, rushing to flip the case face-down. “I’m going to kill my brother.”
“Your brother, huh?” Kurt rolled his eyes in disbelief.
“Yes, my brother. He lives here, too. You really don’t think a self-respecting gay man would have a framed poster of Jessica Rabbit, do you?” he asked, gesturing to the wall behind the couch.
“I guess not.” He stepped toward Blaine and they stared at each other for a moment, neither wanting to be the first to break the tension that was suddenly hanging like a curtain between them. Eventually, Kurt gave in and took the last step to close the distance between them, his soft lips finding Blaine’s own.
Blaine moaned and deepened the kiss. He had been so focused on his semester of student teaching that he hadn’t done this in far too long, and his body reacted predictably.
“Okay?” Kurt asked as he pulled back for air.
Blaine couldn’t do anything but nod before leaning back in. They kissed for a minute more, but Blaine couldn’t take the wait any longer. “Bed?” he asked, tugging up on Kurt’s shirt to untuck it from his pants.
“Bed,” Kurt agreed. Blaine moved his hands up to Kurt’s shoulders and pulled him along, moving backwards into the hallway and then his bedroom. He wondered if Cooper was asleep as they passed his room, but he quickly decided that whatever he heard would be payback for what Blaine had endured a few weeks ago.
Blaine pushed the door closed behind them as he finished working Kurt’s shirt out of his pants.
“You too,” Kurt said, tugging at the bowtie around Blaine’s neck.
Blaine murmured in agreement, undoing the buttons on the front of Kurt’s shirt. He slid the garment off his shoulders and tossed it onto the chair next to his dresser. Blaine’s own shirt and bowtie quickly joined it, and he pulled Kurt back toward him, enjoying the heat of skin against skin.
Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine, and the feel of tight muscles surrounding him was wonderful. He leaned up to find Kurt’s mouth again, letting his hands roam over the firm skin of the other man’s back. Kurt was doing the same to him, and he was the first one to dip his hands lower, resting in the pockets of Blaine’s jeans. Blaine moaned into his mouth, but Kurt pulled back, an amused smirk on his face.
“Prepared, are we?” he asked, slipping his hands out of Blaine’s pockets and dangling a wrapped condom between them.
Once he killed his brother, he was so going to murder Roni, too.
Part 3