Fanfic: Helplessness Blues (1/?)
Media: Fic.
Title: Helplessness Blues
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): Very AU, future-fic, mention of rape, mention of homophobia.
Word Count: Around 1,805
Summary: Blaine Anderson is a thirty year old lawyer who is still in the closet. Kurt Hummel is the top lawyer in Ohio and thrives on winning his cases, but there is something they are both missing: each other.
Title taken from this.
/blaine/
His breath is cool yet his tone is heated, with the words “case dismissed” lingering over his lips as he repeats it to himself. With that, Blaine Anderson throws a book to the floor a huge thump causing the opposing side to jump. “This is garbage!” Blaine mumbles under his breath, loosening his tie and grumbling curse words while his client is taken away in handcuffs, this is the third time in two months this has happened. Kurt Hummel stands directly across from him, briefcase in hand, a smug smiling creeping over his face, before exiting the courtroom he links eyes with Blaine and he winks.
Blaine decides then that this is war.
Law school was never his choice. It was his father’s; he would say “real men” were lawyers. Of course, that was the family profession; he should have expected his father to advertise it in such a way. Blaine never wanted that for himself, though, he dreamt of being a writer. He secretly loved romances. Stories that pulled you in and kept you within their grip. Stories that broke your heart, glued it back together, then broken it again. Stories that made you cry. Yes, Blaine Anderson was a man who cried. Well, he did it a lot actually. During the day he put on a mask, a front, becoming the sarcastic and headstrong lawyer that the world wanted him to be. Becoming somebody he definitely was not. The day would end and he would find himself going into his empty house. No wife, no kids, just him.
It would be that he would cry.
/kurt/
Kurt Hummel liked winning. This was for a lot of reasons. The main one? He liked being respected. It was no secret Kurt was gay, but he was also the most successful lawyer in Ohio. That was a huge achievement in his eyes, after years of being told he wouldn’t amount to anything during high school. Kids at school would laugh at him for saying he wanted to be a lawyer, no Broadway? They would say. No New York? You would fit in there. Oh, what about San Francisco? Lots of gay bars there. He took their standards and threw them in the fire. He became who he wanted. He should be happy. He was happy. Sometimes, sometimes he was happy. Then night would come along, his success would escape him and he would realize he was alone. His bed was cold and sometimes after a long day in court…his heart felt cold too.
/blaine/
He experimented in high school. There was a boy, light hair and subtle green eyes, who would pull him into janitor’s closets and kiss him breathless. Blaine remembers him often. There were small moments when they would sleep together and he’d awake the next morning to the sun shining on the other boy’s face. He hasn’t felt like that since. That scares him more than anything.
It’s Saturday when his secretary, Tina, brings in a case folder. She makes a face and tries to get his attention before speaking: “There’s a boy here, Tyler Moore, here is his file…” She hands it to Blaine, “I’ll go get him?” He’s unsure of why she is acting so weird so he nods in her direction as a signal. Then he sees him. Tyler Moore just turned eighteen but looks no older than sixteen, wearing the tightest jeans he’s ever seen and on top of it all he’s wearing a beret. Blaine has to try not to role his eyes.
“Hi.” Tyler extends his hand to Blaine, his voice higher than he expected.
“Hello.” He shakes his hand, “So, uh, what do we have here?”
Tyler looks at him through long lashes, blinking upward at him as Blaine tries to look at his file. He pulls out the pictures inside it, his eyes widening. The boy in front of him is featured in each photo, all taken from different angles, blood covering his face, bruises laid out along his body. He looks so fragile and broken there, but the boy in front of him looks so shiny and new.
“How?” Blaine manages to say, scrunching his eyebrows together.
“I have to wear makeup to cover all of the scars.” The boy runs his hand over his face, tan colored smears left on his finger tips. Blaine feels a little teary eyed. “I’m suing and I wouldn’t mind if he went to jail..the cops believed his story then, he said it was a fight that I started. Unless if being yourself, being gay, is throwing the first punch…I didn’t start it.”
Blaine’s mind is racing with thoughts that he doesn’t understand, he has sat in rooms with parents of a child who died because of a drunk driver, he’s been there for trials of police officers being murdered, trials where a man strangled his family to death. None of that ever affected him the way this kid is affecting him. He’s blinking back tears and that’s not what lawyers are supposed to do. “Who is this guy?” He jesters at the photo of the man in the case file.
“This guy…is my father.”
/kurt/
“I need you to show them that I think gay is great.” Says the scruffy man sitting in the chair before him. Kurt looks over the file questionably, what if he’s lying and he did do this?
“Who is your sons lawyer?”
“Blaine Anderson.”
Kurt tilts his head back to laugh; at this point he doesn’t even need the full story of the case, hearing Blaine’s name is enough.
“Alright, I’ll help you.” He says, shutting the case folder and piling it on top of the rest of the cases he has lined up.
“That’s it?” Henry is his name; he certainly doesn’t fit the standard that a Henry should, beer belly and all. But if this an Anderson case, then it’s a Hummel case. Nothing is better than winning in Kurt’s eyes, and Blaine’s an easy win.
“That’s it.”
/b&k/
They’re sitting at a round table, the room overly brown and the coffee is old and smells like it too. Blaine is regretting wearing a suit because its summer, his curls are fighting the gel in his hair and he feels likes he’s covered in sweat. Then there’s Hummel.
“Hey.” He says this so innocently, his smirk appearing once again, “Good luck.” He clicks his tongue and looks away. Their clients are late.
“You know, I’m shocked you took this case.” Blaine manages to finally say this without thinking that maybe he is pressing for too much information.
“Why? Because I’m gay?” Kurt rolls his eyes, “Gay people like money too, just an FYI.”
“I just thought, because you’re gay, you would be more against a man beating his child because he is gay.”
The color drains from Kurt’s face as he realizes that was what Henry Moore failed to mention about the case. They stare at each other for a few minutes, the air around them thick with emotion.
“I thought his son was just…another teenage asshole.”
“Well, he is. But…there’s just a lot to his story. There are so many pictures of what that filthy fucker did to him.” He shakes his head and scuffs under his breath, eying Kurt’s hand that is just so close to his. He wonders if he should touch it.
“Wait.” Kurt pauses, “Oh! Oh! I get it. You’re trying to make me drop the case! I bet he started that fight, he could be gay, but he started that fight Anderson.” Kurt gets up from the table and glances at his watch, “Looks like they aren’t coming.”
“Hey, Kurt, wait.” Blaine reaches to touch his shoulder; he wants him to know the truth, he doesn’t know why it matter so much but it does.
“Don’t touch me.” He hisses, “You know, Anderson, that was pretty low playing on my emotions like that. Even for a scumbag lawyer like you.”
And then Blaine is alone in the brown room. His throat feeling tight and his hands shaky. He waits another hour then takes off, pulling over on the way home to cry into his steering wheel.
The truth was Kurt believed Blaine. He didn’t like the feeling it gave him, deep in his stomach, so he tried lying to himself. Blaine was a lawyer after all, lawyers liked to lie. But there was that look. The look they shared that made him feel like breathing was no longer necessary. He spends the night looking at the pictures Blaine was referring to, the boy reminds him so much of himself. It’s hard for him to look at them, read his side of the story, and piece it all together. Then there is a phone call.
“Hello?” Kurt clears his throat after he says this, his voice sounding groggy, it is 1:30 am anyways.
“Hi.” Blaine?
“How did you get my number?” He’s suddenly intrigued.
“A friend of a friend. That’s beside the point…I wanted to um, talk.” Blaine sounds so soft, it makes him feel funny as he listens.
“At 1:30 am?”
“Yes, well, I just got a phone call myself, from the hospital.”
“Oh? Is this to do with the case?” Kurt stands up and walks into his kitchen, opening the fridge and realizing it’s so empty. “Do you by any chance deliver pizza?” Blaine laughs, Kurt smiles.
“God, I shouldn’t laugh. Tyler, my client, he’s in the hospital. The case is taken away from us…his dad is well, going to prison most likely.”
Kurt’s eyes widen, “Wait, what? That….”
“He raped Tyler. This wasn’t the first time, apparently. I had no idea…but they have evidence so, our case... doesn’t exist anymore.” Blaine says this with an underlying sigh; it feels weird talking to Kurt like this, they aren’t yelling in each other’s faces, the sarcasm is barely there either. It feels...good?
“Oh.” Kurt says quietly, “I’m…sorry for doubting you.” Why is it so hard to say that?
“You know, I don’t blame you. I don’t really scream ‘I care about gay people’ you know?”
Kurt laughs, “Actually, I always kind of pegged you as…closeted. It’s a little suspicious the whole idea that you’re almost thirty and never seem to have a wife or girlfriend at benefits with you.” He bits his lip, “Oh geeze, is that really wrong of me to say? It probably is.”
“No...Actually, it’s not.”
If Blaine were in the room, he would have seen the look that Kurt had just made. His eyes glimmering their innocent blue as they ignored the subject and went on talking.
“About that pizza…in the morning I may deliver.”
“See you then.”
He ends the call and collapses in the couch.
Blaine finds himself smiling in his sleep.
They dream of each other.
(TBC)
Title: Helplessness Blues
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers (if any): None.
Warnings (if any): Very AU, future-fic, mention of rape, mention of homophobia.
Word Count: Around 1,805
Summary: Blaine Anderson is a thirty year old lawyer who is still in the closet. Kurt Hummel is the top lawyer in Ohio and thrives on winning his cases, but there is something they are both missing: each other.
Title taken from this.
/blaine/
His breath is cool yet his tone is heated, with the words “case dismissed” lingering over his lips as he repeats it to himself. With that, Blaine Anderson throws a book to the floor a huge thump causing the opposing side to jump. “This is garbage!” Blaine mumbles under his breath, loosening his tie and grumbling curse words while his client is taken away in handcuffs, this is the third time in two months this has happened. Kurt Hummel stands directly across from him, briefcase in hand, a smug smiling creeping over his face, before exiting the courtroom he links eyes with Blaine and he winks.
Blaine decides then that this is war.
Law school was never his choice. It was his father’s; he would say “real men” were lawyers. Of course, that was the family profession; he should have expected his father to advertise it in such a way. Blaine never wanted that for himself, though, he dreamt of being a writer. He secretly loved romances. Stories that pulled you in and kept you within their grip. Stories that broke your heart, glued it back together, then broken it again. Stories that made you cry. Yes, Blaine Anderson was a man who cried. Well, he did it a lot actually. During the day he put on a mask, a front, becoming the sarcastic and headstrong lawyer that the world wanted him to be. Becoming somebody he definitely was not. The day would end and he would find himself going into his empty house. No wife, no kids, just him.
It would be that he would cry.
/kurt/
Kurt Hummel liked winning. This was for a lot of reasons. The main one? He liked being respected. It was no secret Kurt was gay, but he was also the most successful lawyer in Ohio. That was a huge achievement in his eyes, after years of being told he wouldn’t amount to anything during high school. Kids at school would laugh at him for saying he wanted to be a lawyer, no Broadway? They would say. No New York? You would fit in there. Oh, what about San Francisco? Lots of gay bars there. He took their standards and threw them in the fire. He became who he wanted. He should be happy. He was happy. Sometimes, sometimes he was happy. Then night would come along, his success would escape him and he would realize he was alone. His bed was cold and sometimes after a long day in court…his heart felt cold too.
/blaine/
He experimented in high school. There was a boy, light hair and subtle green eyes, who would pull him into janitor’s closets and kiss him breathless. Blaine remembers him often. There were small moments when they would sleep together and he’d awake the next morning to the sun shining on the other boy’s face. He hasn’t felt like that since. That scares him more than anything.
It’s Saturday when his secretary, Tina, brings in a case folder. She makes a face and tries to get his attention before speaking: “There’s a boy here, Tyler Moore, here is his file…” She hands it to Blaine, “I’ll go get him?” He’s unsure of why she is acting so weird so he nods in her direction as a signal. Then he sees him. Tyler Moore just turned eighteen but looks no older than sixteen, wearing the tightest jeans he’s ever seen and on top of it all he’s wearing a beret. Blaine has to try not to role his eyes.
“Hi.” Tyler extends his hand to Blaine, his voice higher than he expected.
“Hello.” He shakes his hand, “So, uh, what do we have here?”
Tyler looks at him through long lashes, blinking upward at him as Blaine tries to look at his file. He pulls out the pictures inside it, his eyes widening. The boy in front of him is featured in each photo, all taken from different angles, blood covering his face, bruises laid out along his body. He looks so fragile and broken there, but the boy in front of him looks so shiny and new.
“How?” Blaine manages to say, scrunching his eyebrows together.
“I have to wear makeup to cover all of the scars.” The boy runs his hand over his face, tan colored smears left on his finger tips. Blaine feels a little teary eyed. “I’m suing and I wouldn’t mind if he went to jail..the cops believed his story then, he said it was a fight that I started. Unless if being yourself, being gay, is throwing the first punch…I didn’t start it.”
Blaine’s mind is racing with thoughts that he doesn’t understand, he has sat in rooms with parents of a child who died because of a drunk driver, he’s been there for trials of police officers being murdered, trials where a man strangled his family to death. None of that ever affected him the way this kid is affecting him. He’s blinking back tears and that’s not what lawyers are supposed to do. “Who is this guy?” He jesters at the photo of the man in the case file.
“This guy…is my father.”
/kurt/
“I need you to show them that I think gay is great.” Says the scruffy man sitting in the chair before him. Kurt looks over the file questionably, what if he’s lying and he did do this?
“Who is your sons lawyer?”
“Blaine Anderson.”
Kurt tilts his head back to laugh; at this point he doesn’t even need the full story of the case, hearing Blaine’s name is enough.
“Alright, I’ll help you.” He says, shutting the case folder and piling it on top of the rest of the cases he has lined up.
“That’s it?” Henry is his name; he certainly doesn’t fit the standard that a Henry should, beer belly and all. But if this an Anderson case, then it’s a Hummel case. Nothing is better than winning in Kurt’s eyes, and Blaine’s an easy win.
“That’s it.”
/b&k/
They’re sitting at a round table, the room overly brown and the coffee is old and smells like it too. Blaine is regretting wearing a suit because its summer, his curls are fighting the gel in his hair and he feels likes he’s covered in sweat. Then there’s Hummel.
“Hey.” He says this so innocently, his smirk appearing once again, “Good luck.” He clicks his tongue and looks away. Their clients are late.
“You know, I’m shocked you took this case.” Blaine manages to finally say this without thinking that maybe he is pressing for too much information.
“Why? Because I’m gay?” Kurt rolls his eyes, “Gay people like money too, just an FYI.”
“I just thought, because you’re gay, you would be more against a man beating his child because he is gay.”
The color drains from Kurt’s face as he realizes that was what Henry Moore failed to mention about the case. They stare at each other for a few minutes, the air around them thick with emotion.
“I thought his son was just…another teenage asshole.”
“Well, he is. But…there’s just a lot to his story. There are so many pictures of what that filthy fucker did to him.” He shakes his head and scuffs under his breath, eying Kurt’s hand that is just so close to his. He wonders if he should touch it.
“Wait.” Kurt pauses, “Oh! Oh! I get it. You’re trying to make me drop the case! I bet he started that fight, he could be gay, but he started that fight Anderson.” Kurt gets up from the table and glances at his watch, “Looks like they aren’t coming.”
“Hey, Kurt, wait.” Blaine reaches to touch his shoulder; he wants him to know the truth, he doesn’t know why it matter so much but it does.
“Don’t touch me.” He hisses, “You know, Anderson, that was pretty low playing on my emotions like that. Even for a scumbag lawyer like you.”
And then Blaine is alone in the brown room. His throat feeling tight and his hands shaky. He waits another hour then takes off, pulling over on the way home to cry into his steering wheel.
The truth was Kurt believed Blaine. He didn’t like the feeling it gave him, deep in his stomach, so he tried lying to himself. Blaine was a lawyer after all, lawyers liked to lie. But there was that look. The look they shared that made him feel like breathing was no longer necessary. He spends the night looking at the pictures Blaine was referring to, the boy reminds him so much of himself. It’s hard for him to look at them, read his side of the story, and piece it all together. Then there is a phone call.
“Hello?” Kurt clears his throat after he says this, his voice sounding groggy, it is 1:30 am anyways.
“Hi.” Blaine?
“How did you get my number?” He’s suddenly intrigued.
“A friend of a friend. That’s beside the point…I wanted to um, talk.” Blaine sounds so soft, it makes him feel funny as he listens.
“At 1:30 am?”
“Yes, well, I just got a phone call myself, from the hospital.”
“Oh? Is this to do with the case?” Kurt stands up and walks into his kitchen, opening the fridge and realizing it’s so empty. “Do you by any chance deliver pizza?” Blaine laughs, Kurt smiles.
“God, I shouldn’t laugh. Tyler, my client, he’s in the hospital. The case is taken away from us…his dad is well, going to prison most likely.”
Kurt’s eyes widen, “Wait, what? That….”
“He raped Tyler. This wasn’t the first time, apparently. I had no idea…but they have evidence so, our case... doesn’t exist anymore.” Blaine says this with an underlying sigh; it feels weird talking to Kurt like this, they aren’t yelling in each other’s faces, the sarcasm is barely there either. It feels...good?
“Oh.” Kurt says quietly, “I’m…sorry for doubting you.” Why is it so hard to say that?
“You know, I don’t blame you. I don’t really scream ‘I care about gay people’ you know?”
Kurt laughs, “Actually, I always kind of pegged you as…closeted. It’s a little suspicious the whole idea that you’re almost thirty and never seem to have a wife or girlfriend at benefits with you.” He bits his lip, “Oh geeze, is that really wrong of me to say? It probably is.”
“No...Actually, it’s not.”
If Blaine were in the room, he would have seen the look that Kurt had just made. His eyes glimmering their innocent blue as they ignored the subject and went on talking.
“About that pizza…in the morning I may deliver.”
“See you then.”
He ends the call and collapses in the couch.
Blaine finds himself smiling in his sleep.
They dream of each other.
(TBC)