Fanfic: Black Ties and White Shirts [3/6]
Title: Black Ties and White Shirts
Media: Fanfic
Author: longlost10
Rating: PG-13 [warning for violence]
Characters: Kurt and Blaine (Special appearances from Sue and Warblers)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Spoilers: N/A
Word Count: 3,897
Summary: A series of mysterious disappearances around the Ohio region provokes the CIA to send in agents to investigate. Kurt Hummel, a junior agent from when he was younger, is chosen to go on the mission.
Additional Notes: Inspired by these two gifs (one and two). Unbeta'd.
Previous chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
The next morning came too early. The light streamed through the cheap fabric that the hotel passed as window curtains and fell on his face. A soft moan escaped his lips as he pulled a pillow over his head. His agenda for today was simple: find the place where Sue was keeping the boys and get them out.
He didn’t know how to do that just yet. In fact, he hadn’t thought much of it. Last night he had stopped talking to the Commander and just passed out. He sat up and stared at the foot of his bed helplessly. He was too tired for this.
Kurt threw off the blanket and started to go around his room, getting dressed. His shorts kept riding up on him so he angrily pulled them down. The CIA must have gotten the wrong size or something, which was weird because they were normally spot on when an act involved being creepy.
Today he decided he wasn’t going to deal with the suit and tie. He was going to look nice, but he wasn’t going to flash that he was an agent to the world. He instead dressed very simply in a pair of jeans and a fleece pullover. It wasn’t going to be too cold, but he didn’t want to wear that damned suit.
Once he was dressed, he left the room and started off down the street, already knowing where his feet were taking him. There was one place he could go right now that could point him in the right direction towards the boys.
He was going back to school.
It didn’t take him long to get back to the high school and because he woke up with the sun rather than an alarm clock, it was still early, barely any students roaming the hall. Kurt recognized no one until he reached Sue’s office. He heard her yelling inside, so he quickly ducked behind a locker and held his breath.
“How dare he mess with my t-shirt cannons? We bought them with the Cheerio budget! Of course they can’t use it for the hockey team!” Luckily, her footsteps of furry seem to be going off into the other direction, so Kurt risked a peek around the corner. “Hockey isn’t even a real sport!”
Sue’s right leg was all he saw before she completed her turn around the corner. He knew his time was limited- she’d probably yell at whoever was and then come right back to her office to do who-knows-what. Without a second thought, he jumped up and slipped into the room.
It was a bit messier as he remembered it being. Sure, he had only been a proper Cheerio for a month or so if his memory served correctly, but her office was prominent in his mind. How could it not be? She invoked fear into every McKinley student... anything of hers was bound to stick in their minds.
He took to her desk which was covered in papers and slipped on his glasses. “Pull up a map and give me my current location.” He said, already carefully shifting through the papers. He was looking for a map, an address, anything that could tell him the location of the missing boys.
Finally, he found what he was looking for- a scribbled handwritten address in the corner of a paper. He focused his glasses on the corner before saying “analyze” and going back to going through the paper mess on her desk. She must be getting stressed to cause such a mess; the desk didn’t scream ‘power’ at all.
It only took a moment later, but a small electronic beep sounded near his ear as the map in the corner of his glasses changed. The address would lead him across town and, as the glasses printed out details of the building, to what seemed to be a warehouse.
“I don’t care what they are saying they’re not allowed to go into my Cheerio closet!”
The voice was all too familiar to him. Sue was probably in the hall and he didn’t want to be found rummaging through her stuff. Funny enough, that didn’t seem like a good idea at all. Quickly, he climbed onto the desk and reached up, moving a ceiling tile off of its grooves.
Flexing his arms first, he jumped up and grabbed hold of the air shaft that was right next to the hole he made. Kurt pulled himself up and lay on the vent, knocking the tile back into place right as he heard footsteps in the room below him.
He was about to move and work his way out of the building as he heard Sue pick up her phone off of its cradle. Suddenly, he was still as a statue, straining his ears to hear the muffled conversation.
“Keep them working. You know my Cheerios... use their training schedule on those kids. We need them in tip top shape for the competition.” There was a moment’s silence as she listened to the person on the other end. “How am I supposed to know what song they’re supposed to sing?” Her voice was rising. “Pick something off of the top 40 for all I care.”
This didn’t sound good. He had been a Cheerio for a while and if they weren’t in the shape that Sue wanted them to be in, odds were that they’d be forced to do pretty extreme things to get there. It couldn’t be healthy for the boys.
“If they won’t listen to you, then make them run. Lock them in their room. Refuse to give them food. Just make them work!” There was another click and he knew that Sue hung up on the person on the other end.
Now this was verging on abuse. He didn’t know how many of these boys refused to dance and sing or whatever their caretaker wanted them to do, but their punishment were severe.
He moved as quickly as he could on the air vent to get away from her office. He wanted to hear no more of her actions, her plot. He wanted to get the boys out of there and go back to New York, a city that wasn’t Lima.
Using a mental map of the high school he remembered, he found his way to the men’s bathroom. He moved a ceiling tile and jumped down, landing gracefully on his feet. Kurt could hear more people outside and while he could wait for the bell to ring for him to leave unnoticed, he had no patience today.
He was about to go to find a way out when he saw his reflection in a mirror. He was dusty and his hair was messed up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package. It was like a ketchup pack except on the front it said ‘hair gel’. He walked over to the sink and got started.
Once he was done, he moved over to the window, picked the lock, pushed it open and pulled himself out. Now convinced he looked a bit better than he did earlier, he started walking off campus. He brought his wrist to his mouth and spoke into it, hoping the others would answer. “Can I have a car or something? I need to get across town.”
“We have something even better,” said a voice in his ear. “Look to your left.”
Kurt furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s just a bike rack.”
“The blue one is yours. It’s equipped with weapons. The handbook is being streamed to your glasses now. Read at your own leisure.”
He stared at the bike for a moment- it was clearly his. It wasn’t locked up and it was his favourite colour. And it was there when he walked onto campus this morning. He knew this school- no one just left an unattended bike on the rack overnight.
But if it was all they were going to give him, he wasn’t going to argue. His case must be a laughing stock. How can he ask for more when no one at headquarters took him seriously?
It was going to be a long ride so he took it off of its place, threw his leg over the seat and started peddling. He thought back on what the voice in his ear said. Read the handbook at his leisure. Kurt briefly wondered what they thought he was doing during the day- sunbathing by a pool?
As he waited for a red light, he brought up the handbook and glanced at it quickly, specifically at the weapons arsenal. There were a few really awesome weapons concealed in it which made him worry about accidently setting them off. There was an automatic gun, smoke pump, LED lights to blind someone... whoever made this was surely a genius.
About thirty minutes later, with twenty of those minutes being him following a map on his glasses, he reached the address that he found on Sue’s desk. He had gone at a steady pace so he wasn’t too sweaty, but he was winded between the distance and the dodging crazy drivers and all. It just made him remember how he could do that in his sleep back when he was training... and that he needed to go to the gym more often. Or do more yoga and Pilates. Either one; probably the latter two.
He dropped the bike behind a bush and climbed into a tree where he took in the building he was about to break into.
It was at least three stories tall with large windows every few feet on the second and third floors. The ground floor, however, had small windows that were hard to look in, or out, from. He focused on his sunglasses and tried to bring up a map of the building.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t too helpful. It had been a textile factory a while back and had been abandoned a few years ago. There were a few hallways here and there, but it seemed to be mostly open space, catwalks and a few offices. The only bit of useful information was that no one had purchased the building and that meant that Sue was using it illegally.
He mentally added trespassing to her growing list of serious crimes.
If he moved slightly, he could see some air vents which he figured he could enter the building that way. Coming into the front door wasn’t exactly the smartest thing to do. In fact, he was pretty sure that was rule number one on the agent handbook he got when he first started.
But he glanced at the front door anyway, something had caught his eye. First it was a shine off of a mostly bald head, but then it was the bright colours of the outfit.
An oddly vivid lime sweater was worn over the neck over a light pink shirt with a pair of tan pants. There was only one person Kurt knew who had the guts to walk outside in a getup like that, and sure enough, Sandy Ryerson was walking up the path and disappeared into the building.
Kurt nearly fell out of the tree.
What the hell was the man, more flamboyant than Kurt ever was at his worse (okay, so they both lacked social grace to a certain extent), doing here? He didn’t think the other man was here for no good reason- Sue probably recruited him to do her bidding. She liked lackeys.
He slowly climbed down the tree and skirted his way around the building until he found a gutter. Sighing slightly at his perfectly moisturized hands briefly, Kurt took hold of the drain pipe and started to climb.
It wasn’t hard. He could do all sorts of weird things, especially with poles and pipes, since high school. Being an agent only meant he had to do it in a suit or with different conditions. Example: Instead of a smooth pole, he was climbing one with gagged metal and screws sticking out every few feet. Not to mention all the rust.
He was going to do some serious moisturizing later tonight, he realized as he reached passed the second row of windows. Almost there.
Kurt spared a glance below him and swallowed his gut. He wasn’t exactly afraid of heights, but he didn’t exactly start climbing without any support or safety harness. He was afraid of dying at only nineteen more than anything. When he grabbed hold of the roof’s edge and pulled himself over, he fell on his back, let out a happy chuckle and waited a minute before getting to his feet and running over to the roof door.
Out of an inner pocket of his fleece, he pulled out a simple bobby pin. He got on his knees, stuck the pin into the slot and started working. This was no agency trick, clearly. He picked this up from Finn over the last few years when they lived together. It was impressive how much Kurt learned from the other boy.
After almost no time at all, the lock was picked and he stick it back into his pocket, this time carefully turning corners and making sure his shoes didn’t make too much noise. It was dark inside, but he slipped on his sunglasses anyway.
“Give me the map with heat signatures.” He whispered as he descended a flight of stairs into a hallway. He was momentarily afraid that the microphone on the glasses wouldn’t pick up his request, as his whisper was barely above a loud breath.
But it did and soon enough a small neon green schematic was brought up in front of his eyes. There was no technology available to him that was accurate enough to match a heat signature to a particular person, so he was stuck with looking at red blobs. Nevertheless, the map was more than he could have asked for- a multilevel, 3D depiction of the building.
What caught his eye was a red dot approaching a group of them on the first floor. He identified that one as Sandy, although it was rather useless to label that one as it disappeared into a mess of red a few seconds later. It probably wasn’t an issue. If his hunches were right, he’d always be able to tell Sandy’s signature apart from the boys one way or another.
His own location was a small flashing blue dot in a corridor a few turns away from where the rest of the red ones. Kurt carefully walked down the hall, keeping a half eye on the map in front of him, along with the red dots. He was one hallway away from the first giant room when he started to hear some words.
“Okay boys!” Kurt closed his eyes, mentally sighing at the man’s slightly falsetto tone. “Get in positions and we’ll get started for today. You still haven’t managed to get in sync the second verse’s choreography in Bye Bye Bye.” He raised his eye brow, listening hard. They were doing N*Sync? Well, that was different... and retro.
There were audible protests. Many of them yelling at Sandy; saying how tired they were, how horrible the song choice was and how tacky his outfit looked today. Without knowing the details about their condition, he couldn’t help but agree to their last statement. While Kurt was known for being eccentric sometimes, the lime green sweater he saw the man wearing was a bit too much.
Carefully, he turned the corner and peeked into the large room. The dozen boys were all dressed in the same sort of outfit- a grey button up shirt and black pants. Thankfully whoever dressed them had at least some sort of style. Not much, but some. They matched slightly. Their hair was all messed up, though, and some of them seemed to be sporting bruises on their faces- one even had a black eye. Kurt wondered how they were going to fix that if they were really just making these boys perform for sectionals... probably just clever makeup.
“Why don’t you just get people who want to work for you to sing? Clearly we don’t want to.” A black boy said angrily. “And everyone knows that a performer’s heart has to be behind their performance or else it’s complete shit.” Kurt’s heart swelled at the boy’s words. That had to have been the most truth he heard from someone in quite some time.
Sandy smirked and walked closer to the boy, lowering his voice so Kurt had to strain his ears. “Well, you see, it doesn’t always work out that way.” Then he backed up and spoke louder. “The thing is... my supervisor said I could take any action to make you guys work and get better.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small black box that Kurt couldn’t make out from the distance. “Do you know what this is?”
The same boy rolled his eyes and sighed. “Something that you’re going to hurt yourself with?”
The older man glared at the boy and stroked the black box. “This... is called a taser.” He said, pointing it at the boy. With a small motion of his hand, two prongs shot out and latched onto the boy, who fell to the floor, losing control of his body.
Kurt watched in horror at the events unfolding. He knew why he didn’t recognize the taser at first- the Scouts were trained with more sophisticated taser guns that weren’t as readily available to the public as the old fashion, more dangerous ones.
Sandy dropped the taser to the ground and let the boy deal with pulling out the prongs from his body once it stopped convulsing. He then turned to the rest of the boys, who all looked horrified at the older man and were now standing relatively together.
“Are you guys going to get the choreography right this time?”
Despite the question being asked, a silence followed that was only broken by the occasional, minute noises made by the black boy getting to his feet.
“Well?”
“Yes, sir.” The answer was scattered through the group, spoken with a bit of fear.
“Then get to it!”
With that, the boys took off in different directions. It was clear that they weren’t trying to escape; they were hurrying in their directions uneasily looking over their shoulders at Sandy. Soon, risers were brought in and set up along with a boombox that was plugged into a wall.
The man watched this all with his hands behind his back as the boys positioned themselves on the risers. Once the boys were completely still (except for the boy with the still-twitching hand), he walked over to the boombox and pressed a button.
As soon as the music started, the boys began moving, singing when they had to, in a beautiful sort of way. There was one that caught his eye- one of the ones that wasn’t beaten as badly. He had dark hair that looked like it was sleeked back a few days ago, but he hadn’t managed to either shower or get his hands on hair gel lately. He was smiling, despite his awful working, and living, conditions, and despite a small limp, was dancing flawlessly.
Kurt’s mouth went dry as he watched this one boy twirl on the spot, pointing to the imaginary audience in front of them. The only thought that passed through his mind was That’s cute. The boy got a solo and his voice rang in his ears, causing his knees to shake with nervousness despite being a full story and a half above the performers. He watched in awe and envy for a while before the song ended and the heads of the boys went down, signalling the end of the routine.
He had been blown away with the boys, with that one boy that took his breath away in one twirl of his body. Sandy, on the other hand, did not seem so impressed. In fact, he seemed downright angry at the performance, and expressed this verbally as the boys started to relax. “That was horrendous! Ethan, what made you think that you could sing that tenor part? We agreed you were a baritone, so that’s what you sing! Do you get that?”
A boy standing on one of the back risers nodded and hung his head, staring at his shoes.
“And you, Blaine! What have we talked about you doing your own dance moves?” Was that charming twirl something that wasn’t supposed to have occurred? It would be a shame if it wasn’t supposed to be there. It made Kurt’s heart swoon in every enjoyable way. “Everyone to the gym; work on cardio so you can sing and dance! I don’t want to see you guys struggling to catch your breath between verses this afternoon...” Sandy said, rather aggravated. The boys started to get off the risers before the man stopped them once more. “Everyone but Anderson.”
The boy who had captured Kurt’s attention, the one who’s name was apparently Blaine Anderson, was patted on the back a few times by others as they left the room. The glasses told him the gym was somewhere directly under him, according to the heat signatures. Luckily, their voices didn’t reach him, and all he could hear where the two people who demanded every ounce of attention he had.
Blaine walked up to the man who had called him out and looked up at him rather innocently. “Yes, sir?”
“You did wrong, Mister Anderson.” Sandy said, beckoning him over to a room slightly out of Kurt’s current view from the hallway’s entrance. Blaine followed him, almost dragging his heels as Kurt moved out of the shelter of his shadowed hallway onto the catwalk that it was attached to. He quickly ducked behind a few metal barrels and watched the scene unfold. “You know the protocol.”
Sandy’s words seemed to wash over Blaine as his naive smile started to fade, replacing it with a look of potential terror. “But sir, I didn’t mean-”
“What you did or didn’t mean is irrelevant because your actions proved otherwise. Now, get down.” The man’s words echoed in the free space where they were previously dancing. Kurt moved slightly to get a better look. Sandy was undoing his belt and slowly taking it out of his belt loops.
He took a shaky breath- he knew what was coming and braced himself for Blaine. The crack of the leather hitting the skin echoed in his ears, long after the echo ended in the room. The echo was soon joined by a second crack. Then a third. Even though the boy was wearing clothes, the improvised whip was surprisingly effective.
Blaine cried out after the fourth hit. There was a pause and he saw Sandy turn the belt around, the belt buckle now being the part hitting the boy’s flesh. Crack, scream. Crack, scream. This mantra continued for a while until the sobbing became constant.
Sandy walked out of view and came back, holding some sort of wooden thing. Something he didn’t recognize but he could easily identify its purpose. Kurt lowered his head below the barrels and closed his eyes as tight as they would go, doing all he could to try to block out Blaine’s screams.