Glee!fic, AtOG: Grey part 19
Grey part 19, AtOGverse, superhero!AU. Please be patient with me tonight because I am a writer of very little brain, I've got a pill-damped migraine going on and between meteors and my body clock being a fucker, I barely slept last night ;_; So, please alert me to formatting borkage, and I'm sorry if I owe any comments, I'll try to be with you soon!
Disclaimer: Oh yeah I totally own Glee that's why I have to go whining to my department for train fare to get to a conference and be intimidated by proper philosophers. Yeah ¬_¬
Rating: R for swearing, you *know* I can't get through a page without that.
Warnings: Part one lists the lot, bear those in mind; main warning for this chapter is just STRESS though o_0
Summary: Families are difficult. Sometimes they make that worth it.
On the edge of a building he lets his hood down, takes a baby wipe from his belt and cleans the lower half of his face off, because he would like to drink something that doesn't taste of burnt theatre. He tries to lift his water canteen but his hands are shaking, and he has to wait a moment, concentrating on the metal in his hands, holding it tight, feeling the tension in his knuckles and straining fingertips.
Shaking is better than ghosting. He hates fire.
When he thinks he can lift it without spilling it down himself, adding to what's already a wet cold mess of a costume, he tries to drink it in little sips. All that heat though, his scorched throat, he's feeling greedy for water, and he offers it to Phalanx as much to make himself stop gulping it as to get him rehydrated too.
Phalanx sits there with his legs dangling, hands clasped between his knees, staring into space.
The Ghost's hand lowers, eventually. He swallows, and takes another baby wipe to clean some more of his face, and then his gloved palms, still not entirely steady. He looks at his costume, his soaked and filthy costume, stained with soot and ash and charcoal, and thinks, Really, superheroing in pale grey, what were you thinking?
Phalanx stares at the building opposite them, breathing.
The Ghost pops open a compartment on his belt and says, "Would you like a mint?"
Phalanx stares at that building, then blinks, and lifts his head. "Wh - ?"
The Ghost rattles the tin at him. Phalanx stares, and then puts a hand over his eyes, grinning, a little; his teeth look so white against the soot smudged all over him. He holds a hand out and they both contemplate how dirty the glove is, and then the Ghost says, "Open." and drops it right onto his tongue. He drops one into his own mouth too, to try to cut through the bitter flavour still in there, like he just smoked a couple of packets of cigarettes steeped in petroleum.
Phalanx swings his heels a little, and says, "He could have told anyone down there."
"He wouldn't do that," the Ghost says, tugging out another baby wipe. "Look at me."
Phalanx looks at him and by his expression what he's expecting is a very serious, stern sort of reassurance; what he gets is a baby wipe smudged down the sides of his nose, and over his eyes. He closes his eyes and wrinkles his nose up, and the Ghost says quietly, "He wouldn't do that. He's not stupid. He wouldn't blurt it out to anybody like that."
"You don't know him."
"No-one could be that stupid."
"You don't know him," Phalanx says flatly, and screws his face right up, squirming like a ticklish child when the Ghost cleans across his mouth, and then offers him the water canteen. "What if . . . what do I do if he tells Mom?"
"Do you think he would? Before he spoke to you?"
Phalanx swallows a mouthful of water, licks his lips and visibly regrets it, taking another quick gulp to clean his mouth out again. "No," he says. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I never . . . I didn't want to tell him because I don't know what he'll do. I knew I couldn't risk . . . I have literally no idea what he'll do."
The Ghost takes the canteen back, takes the last mouthful and clips it back to his belt. "There's only one way we'll find out," he says, quietly.
Phalanx looks at the building opposite, and swings his legs.
The Ghost watches his face for a moment, then looks down at his costume again, and wipes at it. He doesn't know why, it's beyond saving. He has spares, and he'll make another; Phalanx's is darker and baking soda and vinegar might get the smell of smoke out of it . . . at least he doesn't have to find a way to do it all behind Rachel's back now, whenever he came in smelling of smoke he never did have a good excuse for her before. It was always handy then to have a cop stepbrother with an apartment he could wash a costume in without anyone finding it weird that the place smelled of smoke for a while, given what Finn was expected to deal with on a night.
Brothers can be very useful, sometimes.
"I don't know what he'll do," Phalanx says, without looking at him. "I never know what he'll do. He always . . . he wasn't around enough when I was a kid, we hardly ever saw each other, when we did he always seemed to be, be playing the part of being a brother, like he didn't really believe in it enough. And, I don't know, this last year, we've got . . . we've been closer. He's been . . . he was really good that time you were hurt, um, he really helped me out then, he was great." He looks at his clasped hands, and swings his heels. "It's like he actually knows how to be a brother now. Like it's not acting anymore. And now . . ."
The Ghost brushes his sodden cloak out, and he's beginning to get truly cold, now, skin feeling tender and scorched under the clinging cold material of the costume. "I know families are difficult," he says softly. "I know it's always different, for every family. But I know he loves you. I don't think he'd do anything to hurt you. I know he's probably - confused, I know it doesn't make much sense from the outside, what we do, we just . . . we have to explain it to him or what's he going to think?"
"What would you think?"
"I'm not the person to ask, really," the Ghost says, because he always has had a tenuous grasp on that questionable concept of 'normality'. "Okay, let's get this out of the way, what's the worst case scenario?"
Phalanx says dully, "He tells my mom and she freaks out and the secret gets out and everyone knows and everyone we know is in horrible danger and then they're dead and then we're dead, the end."
". . . okay. Um . . . how likely do we rate that, as a possibility? Because we do have the option of talking him out of doing that."
"I don't know."
"When my dad found out . . ." He looks to the side, away from Phalanx; he knows exactly what happened when his dad found out. "I'm not saying it was easy, because it wasn't. And I'm not saying it's ever since then been simple because it can't be, we didn't make simple choices, this always was going to be difficult. But - in a way - I know it's selfish - in a way I'm glad he knows. I'm glad he knows . . . just, if every time I almost died doing this, the next time I see him, I'm just glad I'm not the only one who knows how important . . ." He trails off, throat too sore in that moment to continue, until he coughs a little. "I hated lying to him. And it's like I got him back, once we'd, we'd reached our equilibrium. Because he actually knows me now. He knows what I do, he knows who I am, he actually loves me and not just whatever he thought I was with only half the story. And Phalanx . . . I do believe he loves you. And I do believe that if you speak to him, he'll listen, he'll hear this. And maybe then he really can be your brother." He looks at him, at Phalanx looking back at him, smoke-stained and tired and so worried in the eyes, Blaine who is so bad at worrying. "He'll be your brother, not just the brother of whoever he thinks you are. Because . . . because being a hero is a very big part of who you are. He should know that you're this brave and this strong and that you save people's lives. It's as much part of who you are as, as that guy in his bedroom on the internet, isn't it . . . ?"
Phalanx says, low and very rough, "I love you."
It's probably the most disgusting tasting kiss they've ever shared, and the Ghost still puts a wet and blackened hand to his face, and treasures it. Then Phalanx helps him up, and they clean up each other's costumes and faces a little more, as best they can right now, and the Ghost closes his fingers in Phalanx's hair, bumps his forehead to his under the hood. "I love you," he whispers to him.
"I know."
"Are you ready?"
He's silent, and then he nods his head. The Ghost closes his eyes, forehead to forehead, and whispers, "Very brave soldier."
He takes his hand, and they walk for the edge of the building, to head back to Blaine's apartment - back to Cooper's apartment - to deal with whatever life will be from now on, forever.
*
They can't smell a thing over the burnt smell of themselves, hand in hand and invisible in the elevator, up to Cooper's floor. Phalanx keeps his fingers fitted through the Ghost's, palm to palm, he knows his own hand's too tense, all his arm muscles are tight and he can't stop it.
He's not afraid of touching him right now. There's just too much else to be afraid of to care.
The Ghost tugs his hand a little question as they approach Cooper's door, and Phalanx just tugs them on, and he comes calmly after him. Through the wood and Phalanx blinks in the apartment - the light's on, Cooper must be in as they fade back into view, and he looks at the Ghost looking at him, as the door to Cooper's bedroom opens.
He walks out, in clean clothes and bare feet, rubbing a towel over his wet hair before he stops and stares at them. His face is really hard to read. Phalanx remembers another day in this apartment, another morning, when Cooper walked in and Phalanx - Blaine - didn't know his face, for the first time; and now again he doesn't really look like Cooper, but hell, dressed like this, does he look like Blaine . . . ?
He takes a breath, and says, he doesn't know what to say, ". . . hi, Cooper."
Cooper pulls the towel off his head, and stares at them. The Ghost squeezes his hand, and Blaine squeezes back.
Cooper drops his wet towel on the back of the sofa, which Blaine always tells him not to, and takes a breath, and folds his arms. For a few seconds he just looks at them, at Blaine mostly, quite purposefully not looking at the Ghost. Then he says, "So are you going to tell me what the hell, Blaine?"
He breathes. "We . . ."
"Do you have any idea how dangerous -"
"Yes, Cooper, we're pretty clear on how dangerous it is, thank you."
"And you - like that -" He waves a hand at them, filthy in their superhero costumes, the Ghost holding his cloak up a little so it doesn't trail dark water on the pale carpets. "You - how long?"
"It's been, um," Blaine looks at the Ghost, who looks more afraid right now than Blaine feels. "It's been a year and a half? I think. I mean, I had the powers for longer -"
"Since when?"
"Since, um, high school, I . . ."
Cooper rubs at his damp and spiked hair with both hands, staring at him. Then he says, "You didn't tell me."
"I didn't know what to tell you! I didn't exactly like that I had them, I was scared of them, it wasn't until - it wasn't until him that I was okay with -"
The Ghost lowers his head a little, and squeezes Blaine's hand, and breathes. And then he lifts a hand and, slowly, lowers his hood so he's just Kurt, Kurt with fire-styled hair, all the heat and water has turned it into dark-blotched quills like a porcupine's back. He doesn't lift his head, hood down. He just holds Blaine's hand, and stares at the carpet.
Cooper looks at him, then, in a way Blaine doesn't understand.
He says, still without looking at Blaine, "Does Mom know?"
"No-one knows. No-one except, except him and the people who have to. Cooper, I couldn't tell you, it's not like I wanted to lie -"
"Why the hell couldn't you tell me -?"
"Because it's dangerous! People want us dead, they would seriously do anything to get to us and do you think I could risk you getting dragged into all-"
"I am dragged into all this! You're my brother, you live with me! What, you think I'd just go out looking for a supervillain to tell that my little brother - this is insane. This is just, this is insane, you don't do this."
"Cooper, I do, we do, we . . ."
"This is completely . . . you could have been killed. Tonight, in that fire, you could have been . . ."
He squeezes Kurt's hand. "So could you, Cooper, why the hell did you tell him to bring you up last - ?"
"Because I don't have kids or nieces or a girlfriend waiting for me to come home safe, okay! What am I supposed to do, shove myself to the front of the queue, screw everyone else?"
Blaine's shouting, now, it's coming up his throat too hard and it hurts, "I need you to come home safe!"
Cooper throws his hands up as if they don't have time for this. "You don't get to tell me a thing about how dangerous it was, they have professionals to deal with these things for a reason, Blaine -"
"You were perfectly happy being rescued by superheroes until you knew it was us! Anyway he is a professional, you know he's been doing this for years, Coop-"
Cooper looks at Kurt, who stiffens under his eye, but doesn't lift his head. He takes a shaky little breath like he might be about to say something, but he doesn't. He holds Blaine's hand, and swallows, silent.
And Cooper says, and his voice is shaking on so much fury, "You just had to drag him into it."
Blaine says, "Cooper, I followed him from Ohio, you know I'm the one who -"
Cooper's shouting, now, stabbing a finger at him, "You are the most easily-led idiot on the planet and you'd do anything if someone convinced you it was cool and he -"
"He didn't do a thing! I went looking for him, he didn't do -"
Cooper shoves off from the sofa and strides at Kurt, who lifts his head but doesn't actually move. "You had to drag him into -"
Blaine doesn't even think about it, because Kurt isn't the Ghost, Kurt doesn't even defend himself, Kurt just goes still under attack like a sacrifice waiting to happen and he's got nothing but Blaine. Blaine's between them before he's realised what he's doing and roaring back at his brother, "I swear to god if you touch him I will break your jaw -"
Silence, the silence of an inbreath, poised on the second before someone lifts a fist.
And a hand touches Blaine's back, gentle. Kurt's voice says, very soft and shuddery, "Blaine. It's alright."
"None of this is alright!" Cooper yells at them. "What the fuck, you can't be a superhero! This doesn't make any sense!"
"Cooper I'm standing right in front of you like this and you - why the hell can't I be a superhero - ?"
Cooper digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, moans, "Because Mom will go insane." and stumbles around the sofa, sits, heavily. "What the hell, Blaine, Jesus Christ, you could have died."
Kurt's hand presses Blaine's back, and he breathes, and that's all he needs to keep his knees steady. ". . . if we hadn't been there then you would have died. Do you even get that? I know, I know it looks . . . but we know what we're doing, as much as anyone can, this is what we do, we . . ."
Cooper rubs his face, and says, "It doesn't make any sense. You got mugged a while back, superheroes don't get -"
Blaine clears his throat. "We didn't get mugged."
"Y- what?"
"We didn't get mugged. We, um. It was just after that . . . that thing on the bridge, we had to explain how bruised up I was somehow, we . . ."
"- you lied to me?"
"Believe it or not," Blaine says, rolling his eyes to the wall while Kurt's fingers curl on his back, "we didn't want you to worry."
Behind his hands, Cooper starts to laugh. It strangles high and cuts off, and he's still for a moment, then he takes a breath and looks up at them. "I watched that on the news."
Blaine closes his eyes, opens them. "I know."
"You never said."
"It was supposed to be a secret, Cooper."
"You . . ." Something drops, clicks into another space behind his eyes, and he looks at Kurt, still tensed a little behind Blaine's shoulder, still hunched up small in his sodden, filthy cloak. "I got in that morning and you'd been . . ."
Kurt swallows, and whispers, ". . . supervillain. Not him. Never him." Even more softly, "I'm sorry."
Cooper closes his eyes for a second, summoning up old memories, making things make sense. "How the hell did you get hit by a car last year if you could just let it go right through -"
"Cooper," Blaine says, wearily.
"What?"
"Supervillain," Blaine says, and Kurt's hand grips at his belt from behind.
"What?"
Blaine shrugs, and Kurt whispers, again, "Sorry."
Cooper drops his head back against the sofa cushions, says to the ceiling, "How much of anything you've ever told me was actually true?"
"Well," Blaine says, aiming for lighthearted, "my name really is Blaine, um . . ."
"You have pictures of him all over your room."
"I had to leave them up, I didn't want you to think I'd changed. Plus, well, you know, he's hot."
Kurt laughs behind him, startled, then ducks his head and mumbles, "I'm sorry."
Blaine puts an arm around his waist, tugging him closer. "Stop saying that. Please. You know I made my choices too, you know it's not your . . ."
Cooper looks back at them, just looking exhausted. "It was always you? 'The Ghost'?"
Kurt watches him from behind Blaine's shoulder, and nods, just a little, starts to say, "S-" and stops. Blaine rubs his side.
"It was always him." he says, quietly. "He didn't make me do anything, he never asked me to do a thing, Cooper. He told me not to. About a hundred times. But I - I wanted to do this, I did, I wanted to help people. And as soon as I knew him . . . I don't want to, I don't know if it was love at first sight because I, my bedroom was already covered in pictures of him." Kurt's hand curls at the back of his belt. "But as soon as I knew him I knew. I just . . . neither of us planned for this. It just seemed like the only thing we could do that made any sense while we were doing it." He looks at Kurt, and Kurt looks back, like he's waiting to hear what Blaine says next, like he's okay with Blaine's wording of all of this. "And neither of us ever wanted to lie to anyone, all we wanted was to help people. And I wanted to be with him. I wanted to protect him. I still do," to Kurt's eyes, as he looks back, so silent and so trusting. "I do."
"Okay, so," Cooper says, still just looking like even trying to understand this is tiring him the hell out, "the guy keeping New York safe from monster lizards and angry supervillains and nuclear bombs . . . that was you."
Kurt looks at the wall, and gives an embarrassed sort of shrug. "And him," he says softly. He says everything softly, of course, because Kurt has a soft sweet voice always getting him called 'ma'am' on the telephone, and he also happens to kick an enormous amount of evil-doing ass, which Blaine does know people take their time getting their heads around.
Cooper looks at Blaine, and says, slowly, ". . . nuclear bomb . . . ?"
Something cold on his spine; "That was not a good night."
Cooper scrubs at his face some more, and Blaine does appreciate that this is, this is, well, this is exactly what it is, and almost impossible to really grasp. "You moved to New York," Cooper says, plaintively, "you went out and you found him and you talked him into taking you on as a sidekick -"
"He's not my -"
"I'm not his -"
"- and you convinced him to date you and -" Cooper's voice strangles high. "Are you sure we're not living in one of your dreams?"
Blaine - gives a little choked laugh, and Kurt hangs on to his belt, while Cooper rubs his face again, and looks bewildered up at him. "You go out and . . . what do you do?"
"Um . . . most of it's quite petty stuff. Muggings and carjackings and, we call a lot of ambulances for drunk people and homeless people and . . . we're just kind of there. Sometimes there are supervillains." He glances at Kurt, and puts his hand over Kurt's on his belt, takes it so he can just hold it. "Sometimes they come looking for us. We - make enemies, doing this, the mob's still pretty keen on killing him, Cooper you can't tell anyone -"
Cooper waves a hand at him. "I can keep a secret, Blaine."
Blaine takes a little breath of, Um . . . and Cooper looks up, says, "I can keep a secret. I've kept enough of yours."
"When have you ever kept a secret for me?"
"I didn't tell anyone you were gay before you were ready."
"I - didn't tell you I was gay before I was ready!"
"No," Cooper says, "but you did cut pictures of boy bands out of magazines and hide them in your sock drawer, squirt."
Blaine's silent for a second, then says, "Oh."
Cooper just gives him an eyebrows-raised look, and Blaine thinks it's the first time that he's really properly considered the world from Cooper's viewpoint. Because Cooper blusters through life so loudly that it's so easy to attribute no real thought to him at all; but if everyone's paying attention to all the noise you're making, maybe it's actually quite easy to keep quiet the things you need to . . . Blaine shifts his hand in Kurt's, and Kurt holds back firmly, and strokes with his thumb at the side of Blaine's, just enough pressure to soothe.
Blaine says, "Why were you going through my sock drawer?"
"So you decided to become a superhero," Cooper says. "You spent all that time ogling superheroes on the internet and you decided you wanted to be one, that's how it works? What, was he holding auditions for a sidekick?"
Blaine says, "I'm not his sidekick." at the same moment that Kurt murmurs, "He's not my sidekick." and then they look at each other.
"You're super." Cooper shifts his jaw a bit, thinking it through. "When did you know? There were those laws, back . . ."
"Uh . . . after that dance, the . . . when my, my friend got attacked."
"What do you do? What does he do, he makes like shields -"
"I make 'like shields', Cooper." Blaine waves his hand and closes himself and Kurt off for a second, a ball of green hexagons, and lets them fall again. "I can do other stuff with them too."
"How do you fight supervillains with shields?"
"I get inventive."
"He's very good," Kurt says to Blaine's boot, and Blaine squeezes his hand.
Cooper's still thinking, very hard, like it really is an effort. "That time you hurt your leg . . ."
"I . . ." He knows how this sounds. "I got shot. I'm fine now. Obviously."
"You got shot."
Kurt closes his eyes. Blaine pulls at his hand, says, "I was careless, it won't happen again. It hasn't happened since, has it?"
Cooper says, "You get shot and you don't want me to tell Mom. This is actually something that could get you killed, you don't think she deserves to know?"
"What do you think she'll think?" Blaine says, a little desperately. "Because I don't know, Cooper, so if you know how she's going to react then I'd really like to hear it actually because I haven't got a clue. And I just don't want to worry her, she lives a hundred miles away, she just doesn't need to know -"
"'Phalanx'," Cooper says, thoughtfully.
"He made the costume for me. When I wouldn't go away." Blaine smiles at Kurt's face, and Kurt still looks - he doesn't know, very afraid, like he's intruding, like he's terrified of what might happen next. Because to Kurt, of course, it's not Kurt's dorky brother Kurt's dealing with, it's Cooper Anderson, the man he drops cutlery in front of. "He's amazing like that."
Cooper gives Kurt another long look, like he's really considering it. "How are you a superhero when you're - really, really klutzy, like -"
"He's actually not," Blaine says, as Kurt's mouth opens and clops closed. "We just need an excuse for every time he - actually you have been kind of clumsy recently," Grinning, and swinging his hand a little, and Kurt's smile in that second has a horrible fixed quality to it, teeth clenched.
"You - I can't - I really need a moment with this." Cooper rubs his hair back again, and looks so bewildered. "My - how can you be a superhero, every night you're not at his you two vanish for an early night at like nine-"
"Cooper."
". . . you sneak out on me?"
"Um."
"I - seriously need to - I need a moment, like, a night, I need to sleep on this, I can't work out . . . that you do this, Blaine, this is . . . you're hardly big enough to ride on rollercoasters and you -"
"Cooper."
"And you . . . it was you?" Kurt looks up, looks down again embarrassed. "Getting everyone out and . . . that thing, the thing where you threw me down in really gross water and shielded me from a burning ceiling coming down?"
Kurt nods at the floor, and Blaine's hand bites his defensively tight as Cooper stands up, and walks over to them, and offers him a hand.
"That was good. Thank you. For saving my life."
Kurt looks up, very nervously, very grubby and muss-haired and very, very anxious, and he looks at Cooper's hand, and nervously offers his own. Cooper shakes it hard and Kurt squirmingly performs an embarrassed little bobbing sort of curtsey, and Cooper laughs, and hugs him - Kurt starts and lets himself be hugged and released - and then Cooper looks down at his now filthy 'fresh' clothing and says, "The hell with it." and hugs Blaine hard.
It's nice being hugged, even if Cooper does still scuff his hair mercilessly when he does it. "We are gonna have words."
"I know. Don't tell -"
"I know. Jeez, look at you." Cooper holds him out at arm's length and tilts his mouth, still just looking bewildered. "My little brother, the superhero."
Blaine says, very uncertainly, "Are we okay?"
"I don't even know who 'we' are right now, Blaine, because this time yesterday you weren't a superhero -"
"I kind of was, actually."
"- and I need to work stuff out, this is . . . even . . . I mean, you're super, Jesus, you could have - told me. When we were kids. I know - the stuff that's in the news sometimes, I know the stuff people say about supers, I really would've . . ."
His throat fills, his eyes get hot, he croaks, "I know," and something twists so hard in his guts that he never - "I was just - I was scared, Cooper -"
"Don't be scared of me." Cooper tugs him in with an arm around his neck again, off-balance and staggering in the hug. "I'm not scary. Not to you."
"You once chased me around the house in a Dracula mask."
"That was funny!"
"I was three! I was traumatised!"
"That was funny! We had fun!"
They both jump at Kurt's sudden laugh, and then he puts a hand over his mouth, says, "- sorry. I'm sorry. Just - it must have been nice. Growing up . . . I only got a brother when I was already, um, it just must have been nice, growing up together." He rubs his arms, standing there in his clinging-gross Ghost costume, hip a little tilted, smiling nervous and apologetic. "Wasn't it?"
Blaine looks at Cooper, and thinks about what family means to Kurt, and what he's beginning to realise it means to him, what the people who matter always mean: that no-one lives forever, and you forgive whatever you can, and you love them as hard as you can, for as long as you can, because what the hell else can you do?
Cooper says, "You need to go get cleaned up." He steps back, and looks down at his own palms and inner arms, dark grey now from Blaine's charred costume. "You're contagiously disgusting right now. And I need to go wash up again and catch some beauty sleep because I have like five interviews in the morning about my brush with fiery death -"
It gulps in Blaine. "Cooper you can't tell journalists -"
"Oh god, how dumb do you think I am?" Cooper says, waving them towards Blaine's bedroom. "You reek like barbecue. Go wash up. And stop worrying, jeez, I don't need to tell Mom, you're here."
"Cooper -"
Leaning out of his bedroom doorway now, "What?"
". . . I'm glad you're not dead."
". . . yeah. You too, squirt. You're not - going out, again, tonight."
Blaine looks at Kurt, looks at his costume, says, "No." They're disgusting. By the time they're even halfway clean it'll be almost time for them to call it a night anyway.
"Neat," Cooper says, and closes the door. And Blaine takes a breath, slow, and lets it go, lets Kurt tug him - still holding his cloak up with one hand like he's his own bridesmaid - towards his own bedroom, his own shower.
Once they're in there Blaine blinks out of the trance he's in, looks up at Kurt and manages a tight smile, and lifts his hand to unpeel Kurt's mask. He laughs then, startled, at the bright white mask of clean skin around his eyes, against the grubby grey rest of him; Kurt rolls his eyes, and unpeels Blaine's mask from his nose and up. He whispers, "Are you okay?" and Blaine puts his arms around his hips, nods, puts his head on his shoulder and squeezes; Kurt closes the hug, holds him close and runs a gloved hand through his hair, murmurs to him, "He just needs to let it sink in, anyone would . . ."
Blaine nods to his shoulder, while Kurt strokes his hair back, holding him close. It's weird, Blaine needs the time to let it sink in too, because Cooper . . . knew, Cooper knew, and never told anyone, didn't even demand any answers from Blaine. Blaine didn't know that Cooper even could be in any way subtle, in any way understanding of someone else's needs like that. It's not only Cooper who's got a brother it turns out he barely knew, it's not only Cooper whose brother wears a mask, even if Cooper's coming off after that fire didn't leave him with a weirdly patterned face, when he catches sight of himself in the mirror he looks . . .
"You shower first," he says to Kurt, lifting his head and rubbing Kurt's back between the shoulder blades, through the hang of the wet cloak. "Okay?"
"Are you sure?"
"You need to warm up, you're soaking. It's okay, go on."
He hardly looks like Kurt, hair so filthy and weirdly clumped and spiked, face still so dirty apart from his raccoon's eyes. "Okay," he whispers, and kisses him, on the mouth and quite quick and chaste, before he unhooks his cloak and picks his way through to the bathroom, obviously very aware of how squelchy and gross the costume must be to wear right now.
Blaine climbs out of his and into some very old clothing while Kurt showers, rolling the costume up and stuffing it in a few layers of plastic bags to try to keep the smell in. He washes his hands and arms in the kitchen sink, though there's less soot where the costume covered, there's just sweat and clammy skin to deal with. Then, barefoot in boxers and still feeling disgusting, he perches on the very edge of his desk chair, and boots up his desktop.
It's already on the internet. Some audience members already evacuated must have got the distant photographs of the Ghost bringing actors out through the sidewalk, and Phalanx coming out of the lobby behind the firefighter carrying a little girl with that woman - her mother? - tearful and desperate at her side. It's never stopped being weird, seeing pictures of himself coming up on the internet like this, seeing the discussion about what 'must' have happened, it all feels so disconnected from him, they talk about him like he's not really a person who can sit at his desk all fire-stained and reeking with his hand on the mouse watching them do it. Like he's less real than a person, like he's a symbol but not a guy. Like . . .
He looks around, slowly, at the clippings that act as wallpaper in this room, the Ghosts all over the walls and around his monitor, the photographs, the newspaper articles, the magazine pieces, the odd bits of Hallowe'en decorations he's kept.
He spends some time consolidating files between two folders, neatly tapping notes from classes together and indexing them correctly away while Kurt doesn't sing in the shower, maybe he's just too tired for it. He begins at the monitor, unpeeling carefully so as not to damage anything, slipping everything into plastic wallets to keep it safe. He loses track of time; there's a lot of it all. Eventually, the shower shuts off in the next room.
Kurt comes out squeezing his hair in a towel, saying, "I had to shampoo three times -" and then stops. Blaine stops too, hands up to get the top corners of that poster loose, and he looks at the room as if for the first time, notices how bare it all looks now, bleak and Ghostless, empty and strange. The lack of Ghosts makes him realise that the opposite of 'haunted' is alone.
Kurt looks around the walls, says, "I suppose he knows, now."
Blaine lowers his hands, shrugs awkwardly. "I kind of get that it's always been weird to you."
"I don't know," Kurt says, looking around, gently towelling his hair dry. "It was . . . I suppose sometimes I did feel like I was competing with who-the-hell-ever that bastard on your walls was . . ."
Blaine laughs, and reaches up again for the poster, but Kurt says, "You can keep that one."
Blaine looks across at him. Kurt shrugs now, towel in his hands. "I've kind of gotten used to it," he says.
Blaine leans back, and grins. "It's a very tasteful shot." he says.
"Mm. Artistic. I like the black and white."
Blaine looks over the poster's shades of grey, and wonders for half a second if it's alright to say it before he just says, "Your ass looks fantastic in it."
Kurt's smile twitches with the effort of not expanding. "Mm-hm. Go get a shower, Blaine, you're grey."
"Oh my god, I'm infringing on your colour scheme."
"Don't think I won't sue you just because you're pretty." Kurt says, flapping the towel at him. "Go. You're unclean, you're going to get it all over everything, go."
Later - quite a while later, given how long it took Blaine to get it all out of his hair - he huddles in under the covers next to Kurt, and they sit shoulder to shoulder in Blaine's strange bleak room, bare pale walls and even their voices seem louder, less cushioned, so they whisper, Blaine cross-legged, Kurt with his arms tucked around his folded-in ankles.
"You need a new hobby."
"I think the superheroing's enough."
"You could print some of your photos to put up, they're really good."
"Is it that bare? It is that bare, isn't it?"
"Tina might give you some prints if you ask nicely."
"I like the idea of printing some of mine. I could replace all those pictures of you with pictures of you."
"Are you okay?"
"Maybe I should paint it. Yeah. Yes. I don't know, I think so. - he's quiet."
"I know we forget it sometimes, but almost dying is quite traumatic. He probably does need some peace tonight."
"I suppose it wears you out. Almost dying."
"That would explain why we're always so tired."
"That and the two AM bedtimes every night of the week."
"Blaine."
"Mm?"
"I love you."
"I love you too. I don't regret any of it. Do you know that? Whatever . . . whatever happens, whatever he . . . I don't regret it. Not any of it." He bumps his shoulder off Kurt's. "Not even the worst parts of it, I think the good parts outweigh those by a lot."
"I do too," Kurt whispers, head low and tucked in a little, looking across and up at him. Blaine kisses him on impulse, then he just might as well kiss him again now he's started, but before the third a yawn catches his jaw wide open and Kurt laughs, and drops his hand from Blaine's cheek.
"We might as well take the early night since we've got it."
Shuffling down under the covers, glancing at that one poster left on his wall - fleeting Ghost and his beloved grey city still as stone all around him, and now Blaine knows him he sees it differently, not just a man in a cloak fleeing over a rooftop but the Ghost running maybe just for the joy of it through New York, because he loves that city better than his own body, he loves that city like he loves light and breath, he loves his home - before Blaine turns the lamp off. Their bodies settle down, and in the dark, Blaine thinks, thinks . . .
What do I do if he's not okay with it?
Kurt's knuckles run down his arm, and then a kiss lingers on his shoulder. "Whatever happens," he whispers. "It's your life. It's your decision. Whatever . . ."
His throat gets rough, and he says to the darkened ceiling, "I know."
"He loves you, Blaine."
"I know."
"That's all it'll be. Whatever he . . . whatever it is. It'll just be because he loves you."
He closes his eyes, takes a breath, says, "I know."
Kurt's fingers pick out a curl from his hair to tug. "Not the same way I do."
"I seriously hope not."
Kurt laughs, softly, and strokes his shoulder some more. "Go to sleep."
He has no idea what the morning will be like. He has no idea what Cooper's thinking. He has no idea what's going to happen in a few hours. He has no idea . . .
When he shifts on the mattress a little, he feels Kurt's body shift and settle again with him, still awake.
And then it's the morning, and Kurt's not in the bed.
*
Phantomphi's baby!ghostlanx series continues with blanket (slash cloak) fort adorableness, AAAHHHHHH
Reblog if you’ve ever been rescued by the Ghost. Let Figgins know what an assbutt he’s being. We love you, spooky <3
Reblog if you've ever been rescued by Phalanx. (let the new guy get a look in!)
Reblog if you've ever been rescued by the most courteous gay supercouple in New York, and fuck the right wing media asshats. SUPERBOYFRIENDS ARE SUPER
Reblog if you got rescued by supers, 'cause people being bigots to them never made them treat us the same way - *thank you*, people with powers!
Thank you you guys!! The ghost was really quiet but he seemed really nice and I saw Phalanx outside, thank you for rescuing us all! I love that show but I don't know if it's worth getting roasted over! xxx
JEBUS I panic when they're in danger like that but the Ghost looks weirdly cute in the gas mask??
Well he looks kind of cute in everything <3
Are you my mummy?
I had tickets for that in TWO DAYS if I'd only gone tonight I could have been there and been rescued by them omg I know I'm not supposed to want to risk my life like that but superboyfraaaaanns ;_;
Bet he wishes he was still in the dark cloak after crap like this his poor costume :(
I hope they're taking it easy after that, it looked really scary - go wash up and have a quiet night, superboyfriends! No-one wants to be rescued by boys who smell of barbecue ;)
photos from that fire: help. helpppp ;_;
I can *smell* it from my apartment!! I'm really glad they're both ok, and everyone who was in there, it looks really bad! <3
Things I can't right now: any and all
omg that means the Ghost rescued Cooper Anderson, he's like SO HOT I am straight on my way to the kink meme to request myself something naughty . . .
HAhahahahahhahahahahah 'straight'
Firefighter's statement says Phalanx rescued that little girl which is the cutest image I can't even, no, you don't understand, I CAN'T
Is Draxie online, is she taking prompts? Because Phalanx rescuing little girl = me ded
no puckzilla :/
Maybe the fire started when they got there cause they're so HOT. DO YOU GET IT HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA yeah
not but seriously will someone take a Cooper Anderson/Ghost prompt??
*
Kurt wakes before the alarm, which is typical, and lays there where he's curled in to Blaine's back, forehead to his shoulder, nuzzled in like it's safe there. They have to get up and go to work. They have to get up and go to work and face Cooper. They have to . . .
He stays curled up where it's safe, shielding Blaine's back.
But he can hear movement out in the lounge, and - and -
And he does have to have Blaine's back. He does have to. Because it doesn't matter that Blaine made his choices, that Blaine is most decidedly not his sidekick, that Blaine is an adult and makes his own decisions; there's still a wedge between him and his brother, and that wedge is depressingly superhero-shaped, and which one of them put the whole superhero idea into the other's head again . . . ?
The thought of going out and facing Cooper makes him feel queasy, the room seems to sway while he stays still. The thought of standing in front of Cooper Anderson who might be furious by now at everything Kurt . . . because what does it look like, to Cooper? It looks like what it is really could be argued to be; that Blaine besottedly followed the Ghost from Ohio, tracked him down and pleaded for a chance to become a superhero too - a chance to put his neck on the line every night of his life, a chance to get hurt over and over again, a chance to get himself possibly killed - and the Ghost said, Sure, fine, why not, and took him as a shield at the cost of Blaine's safety, and god if he was half a superhero shouldn't he have told Blaine 'no' every single time?
He knows some of the things that this has cost Blaine. And he knows that he doesn't know some of the things it's cost him, which is the even worse thought.
Be brave. In theory you are a superhero; be brave.
He picks himself carefully off Blaine's back, he knows which movements wake Blaine and which merely rock Blaine in his sleep like a cradle. He unhooks Blaine's robe from the back of the door - if he ever is welcome back in this apartment again, he really needs to bring one of his own, he doesn't know why he hasn't so far except that he likes how Blaine's robe on him smells of Blaine - and stands with his hand on the door handle, and closes his eyes, and breathes.
Then he turns it.
Cooper's in the kitchen, humming, making eggs. Kurt's nose twitches hungry at the scent of coffee and Cooper turns taking a breath in to sing something at him and pauses at the sight of Kurt, not Blaine. Kurt takes the opportunity to check over his shoulder and softly close the door, and says, quietly across the room, "He's still asleep."
Cooper nods, and begins humming again, begins making exaggeratedly 'quiet' movements, spatula in the pan. Kurt creeps over, very anxious with only Cooper's back to read, and stops at the edge of the kitchen squeezing his hands together nervously. For a second, he doesn't think his voice will come. "Can I . . . would you like me to do that . . . ?"
"Hm? No, no I'm good! Sit down, there's eggs and I made coffee -"
". . . I . . ."
Cooper begins enthusiastically dishing up scrambled eggs. "My agent already called, I have fourteen interviews, apparently getting rescued by a superhero is pretty big news!"
Cooper bangs the plate down on the breakfast bar and looks at Kurt, who realises that he's still standing there squeezing his squirming hands at his sides to try to keep them from giving him away too much, inside the robe like it's a cloak, one of his ankles up and twisting nervously, and he gives a very wobbly smile, because he does know what he looks like: like not a superhero, not according to anyone's standards.
Cooper beams. And Kurt realises exactly why this feels as weird as it does, because this is the first time that Kurt could possibly have been of any interest to Cooper Anderson. Or, the first time that the Ghost is of interest to him, anyway, as he pulls the seat out for Kurt still grinning too much and Kurt very uneasily takes it, gets out in not too much of a squeak, "Thank you." and sits, and looks at the eggs to avoid looking at Cooper's big grin.
Cooper slides a cup of coffee up to his hand. "Did you sleep well?"
"I, um." He looks down at the fork, and suddenly doesn't dare to pick it up in case he ghosts it with Cooper paying this much attention to him. "Did you?"
Cooper turns his back to Kurt to put the pan back on the stove and Kurt tests the cup of coffee first because he needs that coffee, and his fingers obediently fit to the ceramic. Oh thank god.
Cooper sits opposite him too quickly, and Kurt jumps, almost jolts his coffee. "So," Cooper says, watching Kurt's face which is probably all the way to firetruck red now. "The Ghost of New York."
He swallows, and bites his bottom lip inwards for a second, and he is actually terrified, and he actually does jump off buildings sometimes but this is petrifying. He says, and his voice is far too shaky, "I didn't actually choose the . . ."
"Congratulations on the secret identity, I actually did not have a clue."
He could almost smile, and looks down at his plate. "I'm not what people expect."
"And he actually went out and actually found you."
"He's very resourceful."
"So, he said you met when he spilled your coffee."
"That - actually is true, that was the first time he met, um, just me." Kurt takes a quick little sip of oh god coffee and licks his lips. "He'd already - stepped in to help me once, in a mask, he, um, he got in the middle of a fight between me and Puckzilla. He . . . um, he hit his head and I took him to a doctor and brought him back here. I really didn't expect to ever see him again."
"When was this?"
"He had a black eye for a while after it, it was September the year before last . . . ?"
"Black eye. Black eye." Cooper squints with the effort of memory. "He said he'd got hit by a guy on a bike."
"I told him not to," Kurt says, to his eggs. "Becoming a superhero, I - I really did. I didn't want him . . . I didn't want him getting hurt, I didn't want him . . . I never want him . . ."
Cooper laughs, too sharp, and Kurt jumps. "And he just walked right into you on the street and spilt your coffee. He always was way too lucky for his own good."
Kurt smiles nervously, and puts his coffee cup down, and risks the fork. It comes up in his fingers, cool metal, a small miracle. He pokes at the eggs.
"I know you want him to be safe," he says, his voice too frail and he doesn't dare to look at Cooper, not yet. "I want that too, I promise I do. But I can't . . . I can't make those decisions for him, I tried to, it doesn't work, he . . . if he wants to do this then I can't stop him, and he's so good, I mean, he's so good, he's saved so many people, he - he's saved my life. So many times I lost count. I hardly even notice him doing it anymore, it's just what he does, he - he protects me, and . . ." He takes a breath. "I would have died, last year, without him. There were some - bad things, some really bad things, and he, if it wasn't for him . . . I don't actually want to die." He whispers to the eggs. "I know it can hardly look like that to people watching us do this, we don't want to die, we want to help people and it's dangerous but we work hard to make sure we're safe and - and we just can't think about the danger most of the time because we have things to do and - and it's just what we do. I don't know what else we're supposed to do. We have - we can do this thing, this . . . weird thing we can do but - but it's hard to understand why you have it if you can't - do something with it -"
His hand is too tight on the fork. He makes his fingers loosen and makes himself look up at Cooper, who's lazily cupping his coffee and watching him, shrugging when Kurt looks up. "You know what I think?" Cooper says.
Kurt stares at him, hypnotised, and shakes his head.
Cooper takes a long drink of coffee and says, "I still have not got a fucking clue."
Kurt - snorts, a little, grins and looks down and finally begins eating the eggs, which are overcooked by his standards but damn it he's hungry. "How the hell," Cooper says to the air, "are you supposed to deal with your kid brother being a superhero? I still remember him in a onesie, he used to run screaming out of the room every time this pasta sauce commercial came on, he was terrified of . . . and now he's this massive nerd on the internet all the - huh, so, I guess you really don't mind him wasting his life on the internet looking at pictures of your ass, huh?"
Kurt looks at the ceiling and says, "He assures me that it's not only pictures of my ass."
"Yeah, he would say that." Cooper says glumly. "My little brother, the superhero. In all that armour . . ."
"He's brave," Kurt says quietly. "He protects people."
Cooper shakes his head, slowly. "This is gonna take me weeks to . . ."
Kurt closes his eyes, takes a breath, lets it loose. He says, "I know it's your decision what you . . ."
"Yeah. But then, it's his decision what he does, isn't it?"
Kurt looks up at him. Cooper looks back, and shrugs. "That's what I keep coming back to. He's a grown-up. Despite appearances. I don't get to decide his life for him, he does that, I just . . ."
Kurt picks up his coffee, because he almost always feels safer from behind a cup of coffee. "I'll keep him safe," he promises, and means it so much, this promise is set in every bone in his body. "As much as I can, if it kills me, I'll keep him safe. I would die to protect him, I mean that, I -"
"Try not to do that though?" Cooper says, and shrugs again. "It would mess him up. And you've been good for him. He's happy."
Shifting his fingers on the coffee cup, testing his own solidity, breathing, ". . . I hope he is."
"Did he ask for your autograph the first time he met you?"
Kurt plays with his eggs, shakes his head biting the grin to try to make it smaller. "No. He did actually introduce himself to me as my 'number one fan' though."
Cooper barks his laugh, and it's then that the bedroom door opens, and Blaine looks blearily out, messy hair from sleeping on it damp and dark eyes not really awake yet. "What?" he says, sounding sleepy and aggrieved. "Why are you laughing?"
"Good morning, Blaine!"
Kurt holds a hand out for him. "Cooper made eggs," he says, and actually watches the second in which Blaine remembers what happened the night before, suddenly sickly awake and looking between Kurt and Cooper, silent and unmoving. Kurt twitches his smile, encouraging, and Blaine looks at Cooper again and then slinks over to Kurt, who runs a hand down his arm to take his hand, and smiles. "I need to get a shower," he says, and Blaine looks at his face very warily. "Finish this for me?"
He gets Blaine into his seat and pulls the robe off, lays it around his shoulders instead, chugs the last of his coffee and plants a coffee-warm kiss on Blaine's cheek, glancing still a little wary at Cooper, giving a nervous little smile before he hurries off for the bathroom, hands working anxiously in front of his chest.
He makes it all the way into the shower before he puts a hand right through the dial to turn it on. He closes his eyes. He breathes, long and slow. He tries again. Third time, his fingers actually hit solidity, catch and touch and stay, like he's real.
He has never, never been good at mornings.
*
Blaine looks warily up at his brother, who beams back at him, Blaine never trusts Cooper when he's happy. He gives the plate a look, thinks, Did he put something in the eggs? and then realises that they're Kurt's eggs, they're probably clean, Cooper likes Kurt. Cooper likes people in direct proportion to how much they like him. Cooper and Blaine have always had a complicated relationship.
"'Phalanx'," Cooper says.
Blaine stabs some egg with the fork. "He chose it," he mumbles to the plate. "I like it, though. It feels right."
Cooper nods, mouth pouted thoughtful, and checks his cell. "Whoa, I have to go. There's coffee in the machine, don't go out tonight before I can - see you, okay - ?"
He's already snagged a jacket and Blaine swings on the stool, calls, "Cooper -!"
Shrugging the jacket on near the door, "What?"
"You can't - tell -"
"Jeez, Blaine, no, I know, I do grasp the very basic parts of the secret identity, I just - Jesus you've got a secret identity." Cooper mashes his face into his hands again, massaging his forehead hard. "This is gonna take months of . . ."
"Are you going to, um, Mom . . ."
Cooper takes a long breath, through his hands. Then he lifts his head and says, "You know what? I have no idea what she'll do either. So I think, maybe -"
"Please -"
"Not, uh, yet. Phalanx." Cooper's giving him a considering look, beginning to nod. "My agent was talking about getting me the gig as the Ghost if they ever made a movie. If they could work around whatever legalities that would involve."
Blaine stares back at him, just sort of dumbfounded by this. ". . . you didn't - tell me."
"I didn't want to make your head explode over something that might not happen. You've always been kind of excitable about him."
"Thanks, Cooper." Blaine looks at his brother, and thinks, Yes, Cooper does look like the movie version of the Ghost. Taller, more conventionally attractive, more 'masculine'. Put him in the costume and he'd make a good Hollywood Ghost. It would just be incredibly fucking weird for Blaine and his boyfriend is all.
"I don't know," Cooper says, musing it over. "I think I'd like to play Phalanx more, maybe." He grins. "Cool armour."
Blaine's still staring. There's just a slightly more wavery quality to it, now. He coughs, and squeezes the fork in his hand, and says, "I . . . oh."
"Of course really I'm too tall for the part and I'd need a hell of a wig but -"
"God, just go do your stupid interviews."
"But I think I could bring a genuine pathos to it! Plus you'd get to see way more of my face without that hood in the way all the time -"
"Have a nice day, Cooper!"
"You too, Blaine!" with the cheery sincerity of someone who doesn't trouble himself to process sarcasm, and he lets the door bang behind himself, already humming loud.
Blaine gets himself a cup of coffee and goes to sit in his bedroom, picking over the mess of the internet the morning after the night before, waiting for Kurt to come out of the bathroom; he feels like he needs a hug, just to be sure that everything really is okay, and Kurt always, always has a hug for him.
*
"Anderson brothers - and boyfriend - bonding activity!"
"Why are we watching this?"
"Because I am supportive of all the things my little brother finds important!"
"Thanks, Cooper."
"Plus I'm up for the part of a boxer and this is good research."
". . . why didn't you just ask me if you wanted to know about boxing?"
"I need to see how the professionals do it, Blaine!"
". . . thanks, Cooper."
"What . . . fight is this . . . ?"
"Ali and Frazier. Greatest ever recorded."
"Am I going to . . . I don't think I'm going to like this."
"You said you wanted to know more about boxing."
"I think maybe I'm better off not oh my god oh my god they can't do that to each other why isn't anyone stopping them -"
"Kurt, it's okay, they're sportsmen, they're professionals."
"This is not a sport!"
"Kurt, put the cushion down."
"No! I can't believe you do this! I don't like that you do this!"
"Kurt I'm fine and you're a superhero, we see worse than this every night of the week -"
"I don't usually sit and waoh my god no no turn it off I don't like it Blaine I don't like that you do this -"
"You do like a million martial arts -"
"None of them look like that!"
"Hey Kurt, if you don't want to watch, how about you make us some more popcorn?"
"Cooper don't use my boyfriend like a Kurt don't just do what he -"
"It's okay it's fine I don't want to be god can't you turn the sound on it down or something - ?"
"Brotherly bonding! This is great!"
"What just happened that sounded really bad what just happened - ?"
"Kurt, don't start crying, everyone's fine -"
"So I'd be mostly shirtless for the part, good to know."
"Everyone's absolutely fine Kurt I'm turning the sound down on it right now -"
"And sweaty. I'd get to be very sweaty, and kind of bruised. Women like that, you know."
"Ugh, Cooper. Kurt no no it's okay -"
"I'm just going to I just I -"
"Kurt - damn it."
"How many rounds is this?"
". . . fourteen."
"Huh. Well, that's enough bonding for tonight! Don't you have a boyfriend to go after and a city to defend?"
". . . thanks, Cooper."
"Hey. Blaine."
"What, Cooper?"
"Any time."
". . . thanks."
Part 20
Disclaimer: Oh yeah I totally own Glee that's why I have to go whining to my department for train fare to get to a conference and be intimidated by proper philosophers. Yeah ¬_¬
Rating: R for swearing, you *know* I can't get through a page without that.
Warnings: Part one lists the lot, bear those in mind; main warning for this chapter is just STRESS though o_0
Summary: Families are difficult. Sometimes they make that worth it.
On the edge of a building he lets his hood down, takes a baby wipe from his belt and cleans the lower half of his face off, because he would like to drink something that doesn't taste of burnt theatre. He tries to lift his water canteen but his hands are shaking, and he has to wait a moment, concentrating on the metal in his hands, holding it tight, feeling the tension in his knuckles and straining fingertips.
Shaking is better than ghosting. He hates fire.
When he thinks he can lift it without spilling it down himself, adding to what's already a wet cold mess of a costume, he tries to drink it in little sips. All that heat though, his scorched throat, he's feeling greedy for water, and he offers it to Phalanx as much to make himself stop gulping it as to get him rehydrated too.
Phalanx sits there with his legs dangling, hands clasped between his knees, staring into space.
The Ghost's hand lowers, eventually. He swallows, and takes another baby wipe to clean some more of his face, and then his gloved palms, still not entirely steady. He looks at his costume, his soaked and filthy costume, stained with soot and ash and charcoal, and thinks, Really, superheroing in pale grey, what were you thinking?
Phalanx stares at the building opposite them, breathing.
The Ghost pops open a compartment on his belt and says, "Would you like a mint?"
Phalanx stares at that building, then blinks, and lifts his head. "Wh - ?"
The Ghost rattles the tin at him. Phalanx stares, and then puts a hand over his eyes, grinning, a little; his teeth look so white against the soot smudged all over him. He holds a hand out and they both contemplate how dirty the glove is, and then the Ghost says, "Open." and drops it right onto his tongue. He drops one into his own mouth too, to try to cut through the bitter flavour still in there, like he just smoked a couple of packets of cigarettes steeped in petroleum.
Phalanx swings his heels a little, and says, "He could have told anyone down there."
"He wouldn't do that," the Ghost says, tugging out another baby wipe. "Look at me."
Phalanx looks at him and by his expression what he's expecting is a very serious, stern sort of reassurance; what he gets is a baby wipe smudged down the sides of his nose, and over his eyes. He closes his eyes and wrinkles his nose up, and the Ghost says quietly, "He wouldn't do that. He's not stupid. He wouldn't blurt it out to anybody like that."
"You don't know him."
"No-one could be that stupid."
"You don't know him," Phalanx says flatly, and screws his face right up, squirming like a ticklish child when the Ghost cleans across his mouth, and then offers him the water canteen. "What if . . . what do I do if he tells Mom?"
"Do you think he would? Before he spoke to you?"
Phalanx swallows a mouthful of water, licks his lips and visibly regrets it, taking another quick gulp to clean his mouth out again. "No," he says. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I never . . . I didn't want to tell him because I don't know what he'll do. I knew I couldn't risk . . . I have literally no idea what he'll do."
The Ghost takes the canteen back, takes the last mouthful and clips it back to his belt. "There's only one way we'll find out," he says, quietly.
Phalanx looks at the building opposite, and swings his legs.
The Ghost watches his face for a moment, then looks down at his costume again, and wipes at it. He doesn't know why, it's beyond saving. He has spares, and he'll make another; Phalanx's is darker and baking soda and vinegar might get the smell of smoke out of it . . . at least he doesn't have to find a way to do it all behind Rachel's back now, whenever he came in smelling of smoke he never did have a good excuse for her before. It was always handy then to have a cop stepbrother with an apartment he could wash a costume in without anyone finding it weird that the place smelled of smoke for a while, given what Finn was expected to deal with on a night.
Brothers can be very useful, sometimes.
"I don't know what he'll do," Phalanx says, without looking at him. "I never know what he'll do. He always . . . he wasn't around enough when I was a kid, we hardly ever saw each other, when we did he always seemed to be, be playing the part of being a brother, like he didn't really believe in it enough. And, I don't know, this last year, we've got . . . we've been closer. He's been . . . he was really good that time you were hurt, um, he really helped me out then, he was great." He looks at his clasped hands, and swings his heels. "It's like he actually knows how to be a brother now. Like it's not acting anymore. And now . . ."
The Ghost brushes his sodden cloak out, and he's beginning to get truly cold, now, skin feeling tender and scorched under the clinging cold material of the costume. "I know families are difficult," he says softly. "I know it's always different, for every family. But I know he loves you. I don't think he'd do anything to hurt you. I know he's probably - confused, I know it doesn't make much sense from the outside, what we do, we just . . . we have to explain it to him or what's he going to think?"
"What would you think?"
"I'm not the person to ask, really," the Ghost says, because he always has had a tenuous grasp on that questionable concept of 'normality'. "Okay, let's get this out of the way, what's the worst case scenario?"
Phalanx says dully, "He tells my mom and she freaks out and the secret gets out and everyone knows and everyone we know is in horrible danger and then they're dead and then we're dead, the end."
". . . okay. Um . . . how likely do we rate that, as a possibility? Because we do have the option of talking him out of doing that."
"I don't know."
"When my dad found out . . ." He looks to the side, away from Phalanx; he knows exactly what happened when his dad found out. "I'm not saying it was easy, because it wasn't. And I'm not saying it's ever since then been simple because it can't be, we didn't make simple choices, this always was going to be difficult. But - in a way - I know it's selfish - in a way I'm glad he knows. I'm glad he knows . . . just, if every time I almost died doing this, the next time I see him, I'm just glad I'm not the only one who knows how important . . ." He trails off, throat too sore in that moment to continue, until he coughs a little. "I hated lying to him. And it's like I got him back, once we'd, we'd reached our equilibrium. Because he actually knows me now. He knows what I do, he knows who I am, he actually loves me and not just whatever he thought I was with only half the story. And Phalanx . . . I do believe he loves you. And I do believe that if you speak to him, he'll listen, he'll hear this. And maybe then he really can be your brother." He looks at him, at Phalanx looking back at him, smoke-stained and tired and so worried in the eyes, Blaine who is so bad at worrying. "He'll be your brother, not just the brother of whoever he thinks you are. Because . . . because being a hero is a very big part of who you are. He should know that you're this brave and this strong and that you save people's lives. It's as much part of who you are as, as that guy in his bedroom on the internet, isn't it . . . ?"
Phalanx says, low and very rough, "I love you."
It's probably the most disgusting tasting kiss they've ever shared, and the Ghost still puts a wet and blackened hand to his face, and treasures it. Then Phalanx helps him up, and they clean up each other's costumes and faces a little more, as best they can right now, and the Ghost closes his fingers in Phalanx's hair, bumps his forehead to his under the hood. "I love you," he whispers to him.
"I know."
"Are you ready?"
He's silent, and then he nods his head. The Ghost closes his eyes, forehead to forehead, and whispers, "Very brave soldier."
He takes his hand, and they walk for the edge of the building, to head back to Blaine's apartment - back to Cooper's apartment - to deal with whatever life will be from now on, forever.
*
They can't smell a thing over the burnt smell of themselves, hand in hand and invisible in the elevator, up to Cooper's floor. Phalanx keeps his fingers fitted through the Ghost's, palm to palm, he knows his own hand's too tense, all his arm muscles are tight and he can't stop it.
He's not afraid of touching him right now. There's just too much else to be afraid of to care.
The Ghost tugs his hand a little question as they approach Cooper's door, and Phalanx just tugs them on, and he comes calmly after him. Through the wood and Phalanx blinks in the apartment - the light's on, Cooper must be in as they fade back into view, and he looks at the Ghost looking at him, as the door to Cooper's bedroom opens.
He walks out, in clean clothes and bare feet, rubbing a towel over his wet hair before he stops and stares at them. His face is really hard to read. Phalanx remembers another day in this apartment, another morning, when Cooper walked in and Phalanx - Blaine - didn't know his face, for the first time; and now again he doesn't really look like Cooper, but hell, dressed like this, does he look like Blaine . . . ?
He takes a breath, and says, he doesn't know what to say, ". . . hi, Cooper."
Cooper pulls the towel off his head, and stares at them. The Ghost squeezes his hand, and Blaine squeezes back.
Cooper drops his wet towel on the back of the sofa, which Blaine always tells him not to, and takes a breath, and folds his arms. For a few seconds he just looks at them, at Blaine mostly, quite purposefully not looking at the Ghost. Then he says, "So are you going to tell me what the hell, Blaine?"
He breathes. "We . . ."
"Do you have any idea how dangerous -"
"Yes, Cooper, we're pretty clear on how dangerous it is, thank you."
"And you - like that -" He waves a hand at them, filthy in their superhero costumes, the Ghost holding his cloak up a little so it doesn't trail dark water on the pale carpets. "You - how long?"
"It's been, um," Blaine looks at the Ghost, who looks more afraid right now than Blaine feels. "It's been a year and a half? I think. I mean, I had the powers for longer -"
"Since when?"
"Since, um, high school, I . . ."
Cooper rubs at his damp and spiked hair with both hands, staring at him. Then he says, "You didn't tell me."
"I didn't know what to tell you! I didn't exactly like that I had them, I was scared of them, it wasn't until - it wasn't until him that I was okay with -"
The Ghost lowers his head a little, and squeezes Blaine's hand, and breathes. And then he lifts a hand and, slowly, lowers his hood so he's just Kurt, Kurt with fire-styled hair, all the heat and water has turned it into dark-blotched quills like a porcupine's back. He doesn't lift his head, hood down. He just holds Blaine's hand, and stares at the carpet.
Cooper looks at him, then, in a way Blaine doesn't understand.
He says, still without looking at Blaine, "Does Mom know?"
"No-one knows. No-one except, except him and the people who have to. Cooper, I couldn't tell you, it's not like I wanted to lie -"
"Why the hell couldn't you tell me -?"
"Because it's dangerous! People want us dead, they would seriously do anything to get to us and do you think I could risk you getting dragged into all-"
"I am dragged into all this! You're my brother, you live with me! What, you think I'd just go out looking for a supervillain to tell that my little brother - this is insane. This is just, this is insane, you don't do this."
"Cooper, I do, we do, we . . ."
"This is completely . . . you could have been killed. Tonight, in that fire, you could have been . . ."
He squeezes Kurt's hand. "So could you, Cooper, why the hell did you tell him to bring you up last - ?"
"Because I don't have kids or nieces or a girlfriend waiting for me to come home safe, okay! What am I supposed to do, shove myself to the front of the queue, screw everyone else?"
Blaine's shouting, now, it's coming up his throat too hard and it hurts, "I need you to come home safe!"
Cooper throws his hands up as if they don't have time for this. "You don't get to tell me a thing about how dangerous it was, they have professionals to deal with these things for a reason, Blaine -"
"You were perfectly happy being rescued by superheroes until you knew it was us! Anyway he is a professional, you know he's been doing this for years, Coop-"
Cooper looks at Kurt, who stiffens under his eye, but doesn't lift his head. He takes a shaky little breath like he might be about to say something, but he doesn't. He holds Blaine's hand, and swallows, silent.
And Cooper says, and his voice is shaking on so much fury, "You just had to drag him into it."
Blaine says, "Cooper, I followed him from Ohio, you know I'm the one who -"
Cooper's shouting, now, stabbing a finger at him, "You are the most easily-led idiot on the planet and you'd do anything if someone convinced you it was cool and he -"
"He didn't do a thing! I went looking for him, he didn't do -"
Cooper shoves off from the sofa and strides at Kurt, who lifts his head but doesn't actually move. "You had to drag him into -"
Blaine doesn't even think about it, because Kurt isn't the Ghost, Kurt doesn't even defend himself, Kurt just goes still under attack like a sacrifice waiting to happen and he's got nothing but Blaine. Blaine's between them before he's realised what he's doing and roaring back at his brother, "I swear to god if you touch him I will break your jaw -"
Silence, the silence of an inbreath, poised on the second before someone lifts a fist.
And a hand touches Blaine's back, gentle. Kurt's voice says, very soft and shuddery, "Blaine. It's alright."
"None of this is alright!" Cooper yells at them. "What the fuck, you can't be a superhero! This doesn't make any sense!"
"Cooper I'm standing right in front of you like this and you - why the hell can't I be a superhero - ?"
Cooper digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, moans, "Because Mom will go insane." and stumbles around the sofa, sits, heavily. "What the hell, Blaine, Jesus Christ, you could have died."
Kurt's hand presses Blaine's back, and he breathes, and that's all he needs to keep his knees steady. ". . . if we hadn't been there then you would have died. Do you even get that? I know, I know it looks . . . but we know what we're doing, as much as anyone can, this is what we do, we . . ."
Cooper rubs his face, and says, "It doesn't make any sense. You got mugged a while back, superheroes don't get -"
Blaine clears his throat. "We didn't get mugged."
"Y- what?"
"We didn't get mugged. We, um. It was just after that . . . that thing on the bridge, we had to explain how bruised up I was somehow, we . . ."
"- you lied to me?"
"Believe it or not," Blaine says, rolling his eyes to the wall while Kurt's fingers curl on his back, "we didn't want you to worry."
Behind his hands, Cooper starts to laugh. It strangles high and cuts off, and he's still for a moment, then he takes a breath and looks up at them. "I watched that on the news."
Blaine closes his eyes, opens them. "I know."
"You never said."
"It was supposed to be a secret, Cooper."
"You . . ." Something drops, clicks into another space behind his eyes, and he looks at Kurt, still tensed a little behind Blaine's shoulder, still hunched up small in his sodden, filthy cloak. "I got in that morning and you'd been . . ."
Kurt swallows, and whispers, ". . . supervillain. Not him. Never him." Even more softly, "I'm sorry."
Cooper closes his eyes for a second, summoning up old memories, making things make sense. "How the hell did you get hit by a car last year if you could just let it go right through -"
"Cooper," Blaine says, wearily.
"What?"
"Supervillain," Blaine says, and Kurt's hand grips at his belt from behind.
"What?"
Blaine shrugs, and Kurt whispers, again, "Sorry."
Cooper drops his head back against the sofa cushions, says to the ceiling, "How much of anything you've ever told me was actually true?"
"Well," Blaine says, aiming for lighthearted, "my name really is Blaine, um . . ."
"You have pictures of him all over your room."
"I had to leave them up, I didn't want you to think I'd changed. Plus, well, you know, he's hot."
Kurt laughs behind him, startled, then ducks his head and mumbles, "I'm sorry."
Blaine puts an arm around his waist, tugging him closer. "Stop saying that. Please. You know I made my choices too, you know it's not your . . ."
Cooper looks back at them, just looking exhausted. "It was always you? 'The Ghost'?"
Kurt watches him from behind Blaine's shoulder, and nods, just a little, starts to say, "S-" and stops. Blaine rubs his side.
"It was always him." he says, quietly. "He didn't make me do anything, he never asked me to do a thing, Cooper. He told me not to. About a hundred times. But I - I wanted to do this, I did, I wanted to help people. And as soon as I knew him . . . I don't want to, I don't know if it was love at first sight because I, my bedroom was already covered in pictures of him." Kurt's hand curls at the back of his belt. "But as soon as I knew him I knew. I just . . . neither of us planned for this. It just seemed like the only thing we could do that made any sense while we were doing it." He looks at Kurt, and Kurt looks back, like he's waiting to hear what Blaine says next, like he's okay with Blaine's wording of all of this. "And neither of us ever wanted to lie to anyone, all we wanted was to help people. And I wanted to be with him. I wanted to protect him. I still do," to Kurt's eyes, as he looks back, so silent and so trusting. "I do."
"Okay, so," Cooper says, still just looking like even trying to understand this is tiring him the hell out, "the guy keeping New York safe from monster lizards and angry supervillains and nuclear bombs . . . that was you."
Kurt looks at the wall, and gives an embarrassed sort of shrug. "And him," he says softly. He says everything softly, of course, because Kurt has a soft sweet voice always getting him called 'ma'am' on the telephone, and he also happens to kick an enormous amount of evil-doing ass, which Blaine does know people take their time getting their heads around.
Cooper looks at Blaine, and says, slowly, ". . . nuclear bomb . . . ?"
Something cold on his spine; "That was not a good night."
Cooper scrubs at his face some more, and Blaine does appreciate that this is, this is, well, this is exactly what it is, and almost impossible to really grasp. "You moved to New York," Cooper says, plaintively, "you went out and you found him and you talked him into taking you on as a sidekick -"
"He's not my -"
"I'm not his -"
"- and you convinced him to date you and -" Cooper's voice strangles high. "Are you sure we're not living in one of your dreams?"
Blaine - gives a little choked laugh, and Kurt hangs on to his belt, while Cooper rubs his face again, and looks bewildered up at him. "You go out and . . . what do you do?"
"Um . . . most of it's quite petty stuff. Muggings and carjackings and, we call a lot of ambulances for drunk people and homeless people and . . . we're just kind of there. Sometimes there are supervillains." He glances at Kurt, and puts his hand over Kurt's on his belt, takes it so he can just hold it. "Sometimes they come looking for us. We - make enemies, doing this, the mob's still pretty keen on killing him, Cooper you can't tell anyone -"
Cooper waves a hand at him. "I can keep a secret, Blaine."
Blaine takes a little breath of, Um . . . and Cooper looks up, says, "I can keep a secret. I've kept enough of yours."
"When have you ever kept a secret for me?"
"I didn't tell anyone you were gay before you were ready."
"I - didn't tell you I was gay before I was ready!"
"No," Cooper says, "but you did cut pictures of boy bands out of magazines and hide them in your sock drawer, squirt."
Blaine's silent for a second, then says, "Oh."
Cooper just gives him an eyebrows-raised look, and Blaine thinks it's the first time that he's really properly considered the world from Cooper's viewpoint. Because Cooper blusters through life so loudly that it's so easy to attribute no real thought to him at all; but if everyone's paying attention to all the noise you're making, maybe it's actually quite easy to keep quiet the things you need to . . . Blaine shifts his hand in Kurt's, and Kurt holds back firmly, and strokes with his thumb at the side of Blaine's, just enough pressure to soothe.
Blaine says, "Why were you going through my sock drawer?"
"So you decided to become a superhero," Cooper says. "You spent all that time ogling superheroes on the internet and you decided you wanted to be one, that's how it works? What, was he holding auditions for a sidekick?"
Blaine says, "I'm not his sidekick." at the same moment that Kurt murmurs, "He's not my sidekick." and then they look at each other.
"You're super." Cooper shifts his jaw a bit, thinking it through. "When did you know? There were those laws, back . . ."
"Uh . . . after that dance, the . . . when my, my friend got attacked."
"What do you do? What does he do, he makes like shields -"
"I make 'like shields', Cooper." Blaine waves his hand and closes himself and Kurt off for a second, a ball of green hexagons, and lets them fall again. "I can do other stuff with them too."
"How do you fight supervillains with shields?"
"I get inventive."
"He's very good," Kurt says to Blaine's boot, and Blaine squeezes his hand.
Cooper's still thinking, very hard, like it really is an effort. "That time you hurt your leg . . ."
"I . . ." He knows how this sounds. "I got shot. I'm fine now. Obviously."
"You got shot."
Kurt closes his eyes. Blaine pulls at his hand, says, "I was careless, it won't happen again. It hasn't happened since, has it?"
Cooper says, "You get shot and you don't want me to tell Mom. This is actually something that could get you killed, you don't think she deserves to know?"
"What do you think she'll think?" Blaine says, a little desperately. "Because I don't know, Cooper, so if you know how she's going to react then I'd really like to hear it actually because I haven't got a clue. And I just don't want to worry her, she lives a hundred miles away, she just doesn't need to know -"
"'Phalanx'," Cooper says, thoughtfully.
"He made the costume for me. When I wouldn't go away." Blaine smiles at Kurt's face, and Kurt still looks - he doesn't know, very afraid, like he's intruding, like he's terrified of what might happen next. Because to Kurt, of course, it's not Kurt's dorky brother Kurt's dealing with, it's Cooper Anderson, the man he drops cutlery in front of. "He's amazing like that."
Cooper gives Kurt another long look, like he's really considering it. "How are you a superhero when you're - really, really klutzy, like -"
"He's actually not," Blaine says, as Kurt's mouth opens and clops closed. "We just need an excuse for every time he - actually you have been kind of clumsy recently," Grinning, and swinging his hand a little, and Kurt's smile in that second has a horrible fixed quality to it, teeth clenched.
"You - I can't - I really need a moment with this." Cooper rubs his hair back again, and looks so bewildered. "My - how can you be a superhero, every night you're not at his you two vanish for an early night at like nine-"
"Cooper."
". . . you sneak out on me?"
"Um."
"I - seriously need to - I need a moment, like, a night, I need to sleep on this, I can't work out . . . that you do this, Blaine, this is . . . you're hardly big enough to ride on rollercoasters and you -"
"Cooper."
"And you . . . it was you?" Kurt looks up, looks down again embarrassed. "Getting everyone out and . . . that thing, the thing where you threw me down in really gross water and shielded me from a burning ceiling coming down?"
Kurt nods at the floor, and Blaine's hand bites his defensively tight as Cooper stands up, and walks over to them, and offers him a hand.
"That was good. Thank you. For saving my life."
Kurt looks up, very nervously, very grubby and muss-haired and very, very anxious, and he looks at Cooper's hand, and nervously offers his own. Cooper shakes it hard and Kurt squirmingly performs an embarrassed little bobbing sort of curtsey, and Cooper laughs, and hugs him - Kurt starts and lets himself be hugged and released - and then Cooper looks down at his now filthy 'fresh' clothing and says, "The hell with it." and hugs Blaine hard.
It's nice being hugged, even if Cooper does still scuff his hair mercilessly when he does it. "We are gonna have words."
"I know. Don't tell -"
"I know. Jeez, look at you." Cooper holds him out at arm's length and tilts his mouth, still just looking bewildered. "My little brother, the superhero."
Blaine says, very uncertainly, "Are we okay?"
"I don't even know who 'we' are right now, Blaine, because this time yesterday you weren't a superhero -"
"I kind of was, actually."
"- and I need to work stuff out, this is . . . even . . . I mean, you're super, Jesus, you could have - told me. When we were kids. I know - the stuff that's in the news sometimes, I know the stuff people say about supers, I really would've . . ."
His throat fills, his eyes get hot, he croaks, "I know," and something twists so hard in his guts that he never - "I was just - I was scared, Cooper -"
"Don't be scared of me." Cooper tugs him in with an arm around his neck again, off-balance and staggering in the hug. "I'm not scary. Not to you."
"You once chased me around the house in a Dracula mask."
"That was funny!"
"I was three! I was traumatised!"
"That was funny! We had fun!"
They both jump at Kurt's sudden laugh, and then he puts a hand over his mouth, says, "- sorry. I'm sorry. Just - it must have been nice. Growing up . . . I only got a brother when I was already, um, it just must have been nice, growing up together." He rubs his arms, standing there in his clinging-gross Ghost costume, hip a little tilted, smiling nervous and apologetic. "Wasn't it?"
Blaine looks at Cooper, and thinks about what family means to Kurt, and what he's beginning to realise it means to him, what the people who matter always mean: that no-one lives forever, and you forgive whatever you can, and you love them as hard as you can, for as long as you can, because what the hell else can you do?
Cooper says, "You need to go get cleaned up." He steps back, and looks down at his own palms and inner arms, dark grey now from Blaine's charred costume. "You're contagiously disgusting right now. And I need to go wash up again and catch some beauty sleep because I have like five interviews in the morning about my brush with fiery death -"
It gulps in Blaine. "Cooper you can't tell journalists -"
"Oh god, how dumb do you think I am?" Cooper says, waving them towards Blaine's bedroom. "You reek like barbecue. Go wash up. And stop worrying, jeez, I don't need to tell Mom, you're here."
"Cooper -"
Leaning out of his bedroom doorway now, "What?"
". . . I'm glad you're not dead."
". . . yeah. You too, squirt. You're not - going out, again, tonight."
Blaine looks at Kurt, looks at his costume, says, "No." They're disgusting. By the time they're even halfway clean it'll be almost time for them to call it a night anyway.
"Neat," Cooper says, and closes the door. And Blaine takes a breath, slow, and lets it go, lets Kurt tug him - still holding his cloak up with one hand like he's his own bridesmaid - towards his own bedroom, his own shower.
Once they're in there Blaine blinks out of the trance he's in, looks up at Kurt and manages a tight smile, and lifts his hand to unpeel Kurt's mask. He laughs then, startled, at the bright white mask of clean skin around his eyes, against the grubby grey rest of him; Kurt rolls his eyes, and unpeels Blaine's mask from his nose and up. He whispers, "Are you okay?" and Blaine puts his arms around his hips, nods, puts his head on his shoulder and squeezes; Kurt closes the hug, holds him close and runs a gloved hand through his hair, murmurs to him, "He just needs to let it sink in, anyone would . . ."
Blaine nods to his shoulder, while Kurt strokes his hair back, holding him close. It's weird, Blaine needs the time to let it sink in too, because Cooper . . . knew, Cooper knew, and never told anyone, didn't even demand any answers from Blaine. Blaine didn't know that Cooper even could be in any way subtle, in any way understanding of someone else's needs like that. It's not only Cooper who's got a brother it turns out he barely knew, it's not only Cooper whose brother wears a mask, even if Cooper's coming off after that fire didn't leave him with a weirdly patterned face, when he catches sight of himself in the mirror he looks . . .
"You shower first," he says to Kurt, lifting his head and rubbing Kurt's back between the shoulder blades, through the hang of the wet cloak. "Okay?"
"Are you sure?"
"You need to warm up, you're soaking. It's okay, go on."
He hardly looks like Kurt, hair so filthy and weirdly clumped and spiked, face still so dirty apart from his raccoon's eyes. "Okay," he whispers, and kisses him, on the mouth and quite quick and chaste, before he unhooks his cloak and picks his way through to the bathroom, obviously very aware of how squelchy and gross the costume must be to wear right now.
Blaine climbs out of his and into some very old clothing while Kurt showers, rolling the costume up and stuffing it in a few layers of plastic bags to try to keep the smell in. He washes his hands and arms in the kitchen sink, though there's less soot where the costume covered, there's just sweat and clammy skin to deal with. Then, barefoot in boxers and still feeling disgusting, he perches on the very edge of his desk chair, and boots up his desktop.
It's already on the internet. Some audience members already evacuated must have got the distant photographs of the Ghost bringing actors out through the sidewalk, and Phalanx coming out of the lobby behind the firefighter carrying a little girl with that woman - her mother? - tearful and desperate at her side. It's never stopped being weird, seeing pictures of himself coming up on the internet like this, seeing the discussion about what 'must' have happened, it all feels so disconnected from him, they talk about him like he's not really a person who can sit at his desk all fire-stained and reeking with his hand on the mouse watching them do it. Like he's less real than a person, like he's a symbol but not a guy. Like . . .
He looks around, slowly, at the clippings that act as wallpaper in this room, the Ghosts all over the walls and around his monitor, the photographs, the newspaper articles, the magazine pieces, the odd bits of Hallowe'en decorations he's kept.
He spends some time consolidating files between two folders, neatly tapping notes from classes together and indexing them correctly away while Kurt doesn't sing in the shower, maybe he's just too tired for it. He begins at the monitor, unpeeling carefully so as not to damage anything, slipping everything into plastic wallets to keep it safe. He loses track of time; there's a lot of it all. Eventually, the shower shuts off in the next room.
Kurt comes out squeezing his hair in a towel, saying, "I had to shampoo three times -" and then stops. Blaine stops too, hands up to get the top corners of that poster loose, and he looks at the room as if for the first time, notices how bare it all looks now, bleak and Ghostless, empty and strange. The lack of Ghosts makes him realise that the opposite of 'haunted' is alone.
Kurt looks around the walls, says, "I suppose he knows, now."
Blaine lowers his hands, shrugs awkwardly. "I kind of get that it's always been weird to you."
"I don't know," Kurt says, looking around, gently towelling his hair dry. "It was . . . I suppose sometimes I did feel like I was competing with who-the-hell-ever that bastard on your walls was . . ."
Blaine laughs, and reaches up again for the poster, but Kurt says, "You can keep that one."
Blaine looks across at him. Kurt shrugs now, towel in his hands. "I've kind of gotten used to it," he says.
Blaine leans back, and grins. "It's a very tasteful shot." he says.
"Mm. Artistic. I like the black and white."
Blaine looks over the poster's shades of grey, and wonders for half a second if it's alright to say it before he just says, "Your ass looks fantastic in it."
Kurt's smile twitches with the effort of not expanding. "Mm-hm. Go get a shower, Blaine, you're grey."
"Oh my god, I'm infringing on your colour scheme."
"Don't think I won't sue you just because you're pretty." Kurt says, flapping the towel at him. "Go. You're unclean, you're going to get it all over everything, go."
Later - quite a while later, given how long it took Blaine to get it all out of his hair - he huddles in under the covers next to Kurt, and they sit shoulder to shoulder in Blaine's strange bleak room, bare pale walls and even their voices seem louder, less cushioned, so they whisper, Blaine cross-legged, Kurt with his arms tucked around his folded-in ankles.
"You need a new hobby."
"I think the superheroing's enough."
"You could print some of your photos to put up, they're really good."
"Is it that bare? It is that bare, isn't it?"
"Tina might give you some prints if you ask nicely."
"I like the idea of printing some of mine. I could replace all those pictures of you with pictures of you."
"Are you okay?"
"Maybe I should paint it. Yeah. Yes. I don't know, I think so. - he's quiet."
"I know we forget it sometimes, but almost dying is quite traumatic. He probably does need some peace tonight."
"I suppose it wears you out. Almost dying."
"That would explain why we're always so tired."
"That and the two AM bedtimes every night of the week."
"Blaine."
"Mm?"
"I love you."
"I love you too. I don't regret any of it. Do you know that? Whatever . . . whatever happens, whatever he . . . I don't regret it. Not any of it." He bumps his shoulder off Kurt's. "Not even the worst parts of it, I think the good parts outweigh those by a lot."
"I do too," Kurt whispers, head low and tucked in a little, looking across and up at him. Blaine kisses him on impulse, then he just might as well kiss him again now he's started, but before the third a yawn catches his jaw wide open and Kurt laughs, and drops his hand from Blaine's cheek.
"We might as well take the early night since we've got it."
Shuffling down under the covers, glancing at that one poster left on his wall - fleeting Ghost and his beloved grey city still as stone all around him, and now Blaine knows him he sees it differently, not just a man in a cloak fleeing over a rooftop but the Ghost running maybe just for the joy of it through New York, because he loves that city better than his own body, he loves that city like he loves light and breath, he loves his home - before Blaine turns the lamp off. Their bodies settle down, and in the dark, Blaine thinks, thinks . . .
What do I do if he's not okay with it?
Kurt's knuckles run down his arm, and then a kiss lingers on his shoulder. "Whatever happens," he whispers. "It's your life. It's your decision. Whatever . . ."
His throat gets rough, and he says to the darkened ceiling, "I know."
"He loves you, Blaine."
"I know."
"That's all it'll be. Whatever he . . . whatever it is. It'll just be because he loves you."
He closes his eyes, takes a breath, says, "I know."
Kurt's fingers pick out a curl from his hair to tug. "Not the same way I do."
"I seriously hope not."
Kurt laughs, softly, and strokes his shoulder some more. "Go to sleep."
He has no idea what the morning will be like. He has no idea what Cooper's thinking. He has no idea what's going to happen in a few hours. He has no idea . . .
When he shifts on the mattress a little, he feels Kurt's body shift and settle again with him, still awake.
And then it's the morning, and Kurt's not in the bed.
*
Phantomphi's baby!ghostlanx series continues with blanket (slash cloak) fort adorableness, AAAHHHHHH
Reblog if you’ve ever been rescued by the Ghost. Let Figgins know what an assbutt he’s being. We love you, spooky <3
Reblog if you've ever been rescued by Phalanx. (let the new guy get a look in!)
Reblog if you've ever been rescued by the most courteous gay supercouple in New York, and fuck the right wing media asshats. SUPERBOYFRIENDS ARE SUPER
Reblog if you got rescued by supers, 'cause people being bigots to them never made them treat us the same way - *thank you*, people with powers!
Thank you you guys!! The ghost was really quiet but he seemed really nice and I saw Phalanx outside, thank you for rescuing us all! I love that show but I don't know if it's worth getting roasted over! xxx
JEBUS I panic when they're in danger like that but the Ghost looks weirdly cute in the gas mask??
Well he looks kind of cute in everything <3
Are you my mummy?
I had tickets for that in TWO DAYS if I'd only gone tonight I could have been there and been rescued by them omg I know I'm not supposed to want to risk my life like that but superboyfraaaaanns ;_;
Bet he wishes he was still in the dark cloak after crap like this his poor costume :(
I hope they're taking it easy after that, it looked really scary - go wash up and have a quiet night, superboyfriends! No-one wants to be rescued by boys who smell of barbecue ;)
photos from that fire: help. helpppp ;_;
I can *smell* it from my apartment!! I'm really glad they're both ok, and everyone who was in there, it looks really bad! <3
Things I can't right now: any and all
omg that means the Ghost rescued Cooper Anderson, he's like SO HOT I am straight on my way to the kink meme to request myself something naughty . . .
HAhahahahahhahahahahah 'straight'
Firefighter's statement says Phalanx rescued that little girl which is the cutest image I can't even, no, you don't understand, I CAN'T
Is Draxie online, is she taking prompts? Because Phalanx rescuing little girl = me ded
no puckzilla :/
Maybe the fire started when they got there cause they're so HOT. DO YOU GET IT HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA yeah
not but seriously will someone take a Cooper Anderson/Ghost prompt??
*
Kurt wakes before the alarm, which is typical, and lays there where he's curled in to Blaine's back, forehead to his shoulder, nuzzled in like it's safe there. They have to get up and go to work. They have to get up and go to work and face Cooper. They have to . . .
He stays curled up where it's safe, shielding Blaine's back.
But he can hear movement out in the lounge, and - and -
And he does have to have Blaine's back. He does have to. Because it doesn't matter that Blaine made his choices, that Blaine is most decidedly not his sidekick, that Blaine is an adult and makes his own decisions; there's still a wedge between him and his brother, and that wedge is depressingly superhero-shaped, and which one of them put the whole superhero idea into the other's head again . . . ?
The thought of going out and facing Cooper makes him feel queasy, the room seems to sway while he stays still. The thought of standing in front of Cooper Anderson who might be furious by now at everything Kurt . . . because what does it look like, to Cooper? It looks like what it is really could be argued to be; that Blaine besottedly followed the Ghost from Ohio, tracked him down and pleaded for a chance to become a superhero too - a chance to put his neck on the line every night of his life, a chance to get hurt over and over again, a chance to get himself possibly killed - and the Ghost said, Sure, fine, why not, and took him as a shield at the cost of Blaine's safety, and god if he was half a superhero shouldn't he have told Blaine 'no' every single time?
He knows some of the things that this has cost Blaine. And he knows that he doesn't know some of the things it's cost him, which is the even worse thought.
Be brave. In theory you are a superhero; be brave.
He picks himself carefully off Blaine's back, he knows which movements wake Blaine and which merely rock Blaine in his sleep like a cradle. He unhooks Blaine's robe from the back of the door - if he ever is welcome back in this apartment again, he really needs to bring one of his own, he doesn't know why he hasn't so far except that he likes how Blaine's robe on him smells of Blaine - and stands with his hand on the door handle, and closes his eyes, and breathes.
Then he turns it.
Cooper's in the kitchen, humming, making eggs. Kurt's nose twitches hungry at the scent of coffee and Cooper turns taking a breath in to sing something at him and pauses at the sight of Kurt, not Blaine. Kurt takes the opportunity to check over his shoulder and softly close the door, and says, quietly across the room, "He's still asleep."
Cooper nods, and begins humming again, begins making exaggeratedly 'quiet' movements, spatula in the pan. Kurt creeps over, very anxious with only Cooper's back to read, and stops at the edge of the kitchen squeezing his hands together nervously. For a second, he doesn't think his voice will come. "Can I . . . would you like me to do that . . . ?"
"Hm? No, no I'm good! Sit down, there's eggs and I made coffee -"
". . . I . . ."
Cooper begins enthusiastically dishing up scrambled eggs. "My agent already called, I have fourteen interviews, apparently getting rescued by a superhero is pretty big news!"
Cooper bangs the plate down on the breakfast bar and looks at Kurt, who realises that he's still standing there squeezing his squirming hands at his sides to try to keep them from giving him away too much, inside the robe like it's a cloak, one of his ankles up and twisting nervously, and he gives a very wobbly smile, because he does know what he looks like: like not a superhero, not according to anyone's standards.
Cooper beams. And Kurt realises exactly why this feels as weird as it does, because this is the first time that Kurt could possibly have been of any interest to Cooper Anderson. Or, the first time that the Ghost is of interest to him, anyway, as he pulls the seat out for Kurt still grinning too much and Kurt very uneasily takes it, gets out in not too much of a squeak, "Thank you." and sits, and looks at the eggs to avoid looking at Cooper's big grin.
Cooper slides a cup of coffee up to his hand. "Did you sleep well?"
"I, um." He looks down at the fork, and suddenly doesn't dare to pick it up in case he ghosts it with Cooper paying this much attention to him. "Did you?"
Cooper turns his back to Kurt to put the pan back on the stove and Kurt tests the cup of coffee first because he needs that coffee, and his fingers obediently fit to the ceramic. Oh thank god.
Cooper sits opposite him too quickly, and Kurt jumps, almost jolts his coffee. "So," Cooper says, watching Kurt's face which is probably all the way to firetruck red now. "The Ghost of New York."
He swallows, and bites his bottom lip inwards for a second, and he is actually terrified, and he actually does jump off buildings sometimes but this is petrifying. He says, and his voice is far too shaky, "I didn't actually choose the . . ."
"Congratulations on the secret identity, I actually did not have a clue."
He could almost smile, and looks down at his plate. "I'm not what people expect."
"And he actually went out and actually found you."
"He's very resourceful."
"So, he said you met when he spilled your coffee."
"That - actually is true, that was the first time he met, um, just me." Kurt takes a quick little sip of oh god coffee and licks his lips. "He'd already - stepped in to help me once, in a mask, he, um, he got in the middle of a fight between me and Puckzilla. He . . . um, he hit his head and I took him to a doctor and brought him back here. I really didn't expect to ever see him again."
"When was this?"
"He had a black eye for a while after it, it was September the year before last . . . ?"
"Black eye. Black eye." Cooper squints with the effort of memory. "He said he'd got hit by a guy on a bike."
"I told him not to," Kurt says, to his eggs. "Becoming a superhero, I - I really did. I didn't want him . . . I didn't want him getting hurt, I didn't want him . . . I never want him . . ."
Cooper laughs, too sharp, and Kurt jumps. "And he just walked right into you on the street and spilt your coffee. He always was way too lucky for his own good."
Kurt smiles nervously, and puts his coffee cup down, and risks the fork. It comes up in his fingers, cool metal, a small miracle. He pokes at the eggs.
"I know you want him to be safe," he says, his voice too frail and he doesn't dare to look at Cooper, not yet. "I want that too, I promise I do. But I can't . . . I can't make those decisions for him, I tried to, it doesn't work, he . . . if he wants to do this then I can't stop him, and he's so good, I mean, he's so good, he's saved so many people, he - he's saved my life. So many times I lost count. I hardly even notice him doing it anymore, it's just what he does, he - he protects me, and . . ." He takes a breath. "I would have died, last year, without him. There were some - bad things, some really bad things, and he, if it wasn't for him . . . I don't actually want to die." He whispers to the eggs. "I know it can hardly look like that to people watching us do this, we don't want to die, we want to help people and it's dangerous but we work hard to make sure we're safe and - and we just can't think about the danger most of the time because we have things to do and - and it's just what we do. I don't know what else we're supposed to do. We have - we can do this thing, this . . . weird thing we can do but - but it's hard to understand why you have it if you can't - do something with it -"
His hand is too tight on the fork. He makes his fingers loosen and makes himself look up at Cooper, who's lazily cupping his coffee and watching him, shrugging when Kurt looks up. "You know what I think?" Cooper says.
Kurt stares at him, hypnotised, and shakes his head.
Cooper takes a long drink of coffee and says, "I still have not got a fucking clue."
Kurt - snorts, a little, grins and looks down and finally begins eating the eggs, which are overcooked by his standards but damn it he's hungry. "How the hell," Cooper says to the air, "are you supposed to deal with your kid brother being a superhero? I still remember him in a onesie, he used to run screaming out of the room every time this pasta sauce commercial came on, he was terrified of . . . and now he's this massive nerd on the internet all the - huh, so, I guess you really don't mind him wasting his life on the internet looking at pictures of your ass, huh?"
Kurt looks at the ceiling and says, "He assures me that it's not only pictures of my ass."
"Yeah, he would say that." Cooper says glumly. "My little brother, the superhero. In all that armour . . ."
"He's brave," Kurt says quietly. "He protects people."
Cooper shakes his head, slowly. "This is gonna take me weeks to . . ."
Kurt closes his eyes, takes a breath, lets it loose. He says, "I know it's your decision what you . . ."
"Yeah. But then, it's his decision what he does, isn't it?"
Kurt looks up at him. Cooper looks back, and shrugs. "That's what I keep coming back to. He's a grown-up. Despite appearances. I don't get to decide his life for him, he does that, I just . . ."
Kurt picks up his coffee, because he almost always feels safer from behind a cup of coffee. "I'll keep him safe," he promises, and means it so much, this promise is set in every bone in his body. "As much as I can, if it kills me, I'll keep him safe. I would die to protect him, I mean that, I -"
"Try not to do that though?" Cooper says, and shrugs again. "It would mess him up. And you've been good for him. He's happy."
Shifting his fingers on the coffee cup, testing his own solidity, breathing, ". . . I hope he is."
"Did he ask for your autograph the first time he met you?"
Kurt plays with his eggs, shakes his head biting the grin to try to make it smaller. "No. He did actually introduce himself to me as my 'number one fan' though."
Cooper barks his laugh, and it's then that the bedroom door opens, and Blaine looks blearily out, messy hair from sleeping on it damp and dark eyes not really awake yet. "What?" he says, sounding sleepy and aggrieved. "Why are you laughing?"
"Good morning, Blaine!"
Kurt holds a hand out for him. "Cooper made eggs," he says, and actually watches the second in which Blaine remembers what happened the night before, suddenly sickly awake and looking between Kurt and Cooper, silent and unmoving. Kurt twitches his smile, encouraging, and Blaine looks at Cooper again and then slinks over to Kurt, who runs a hand down his arm to take his hand, and smiles. "I need to get a shower," he says, and Blaine looks at his face very warily. "Finish this for me?"
He gets Blaine into his seat and pulls the robe off, lays it around his shoulders instead, chugs the last of his coffee and plants a coffee-warm kiss on Blaine's cheek, glancing still a little wary at Cooper, giving a nervous little smile before he hurries off for the bathroom, hands working anxiously in front of his chest.
He makes it all the way into the shower before he puts a hand right through the dial to turn it on. He closes his eyes. He breathes, long and slow. He tries again. Third time, his fingers actually hit solidity, catch and touch and stay, like he's real.
He has never, never been good at mornings.
*
Blaine looks warily up at his brother, who beams back at him, Blaine never trusts Cooper when he's happy. He gives the plate a look, thinks, Did he put something in the eggs? and then realises that they're Kurt's eggs, they're probably clean, Cooper likes Kurt. Cooper likes people in direct proportion to how much they like him. Cooper and Blaine have always had a complicated relationship.
"'Phalanx'," Cooper says.
Blaine stabs some egg with the fork. "He chose it," he mumbles to the plate. "I like it, though. It feels right."
Cooper nods, mouth pouted thoughtful, and checks his cell. "Whoa, I have to go. There's coffee in the machine, don't go out tonight before I can - see you, okay - ?"
He's already snagged a jacket and Blaine swings on the stool, calls, "Cooper -!"
Shrugging the jacket on near the door, "What?"
"You can't - tell -"
"Jeez, Blaine, no, I know, I do grasp the very basic parts of the secret identity, I just - Jesus you've got a secret identity." Cooper mashes his face into his hands again, massaging his forehead hard. "This is gonna take months of . . ."
"Are you going to, um, Mom . . ."
Cooper takes a long breath, through his hands. Then he lifts his head and says, "You know what? I have no idea what she'll do either. So I think, maybe -"
"Please -"
"Not, uh, yet. Phalanx." Cooper's giving him a considering look, beginning to nod. "My agent was talking about getting me the gig as the Ghost if they ever made a movie. If they could work around whatever legalities that would involve."
Blaine stares back at him, just sort of dumbfounded by this. ". . . you didn't - tell me."
"I didn't want to make your head explode over something that might not happen. You've always been kind of excitable about him."
"Thanks, Cooper." Blaine looks at his brother, and thinks, Yes, Cooper does look like the movie version of the Ghost. Taller, more conventionally attractive, more 'masculine'. Put him in the costume and he'd make a good Hollywood Ghost. It would just be incredibly fucking weird for Blaine and his boyfriend is all.
"I don't know," Cooper says, musing it over. "I think I'd like to play Phalanx more, maybe." He grins. "Cool armour."
Blaine's still staring. There's just a slightly more wavery quality to it, now. He coughs, and squeezes the fork in his hand, and says, "I . . . oh."
"Of course really I'm too tall for the part and I'd need a hell of a wig but -"
"God, just go do your stupid interviews."
"But I think I could bring a genuine pathos to it! Plus you'd get to see way more of my face without that hood in the way all the time -"
"Have a nice day, Cooper!"
"You too, Blaine!" with the cheery sincerity of someone who doesn't trouble himself to process sarcasm, and he lets the door bang behind himself, already humming loud.
Blaine gets himself a cup of coffee and goes to sit in his bedroom, picking over the mess of the internet the morning after the night before, waiting for Kurt to come out of the bathroom; he feels like he needs a hug, just to be sure that everything really is okay, and Kurt always, always has a hug for him.
*
"Anderson brothers - and boyfriend - bonding activity!"
"Why are we watching this?"
"Because I am supportive of all the things my little brother finds important!"
"Thanks, Cooper."
"Plus I'm up for the part of a boxer and this is good research."
". . . why didn't you just ask me if you wanted to know about boxing?"
"I need to see how the professionals do it, Blaine!"
". . . thanks, Cooper."
"What . . . fight is this . . . ?"
"Ali and Frazier. Greatest ever recorded."
"Am I going to . . . I don't think I'm going to like this."
"You said you wanted to know more about boxing."
"I think maybe I'm better off not oh my god oh my god they can't do that to each other why isn't anyone stopping them -"
"Kurt, it's okay, they're sportsmen, they're professionals."
"This is not a sport!"
"Kurt, put the cushion down."
"No! I can't believe you do this! I don't like that you do this!"
"Kurt I'm fine and you're a superhero, we see worse than this every night of the week -"
"I don't usually sit and waoh my god no no turn it off I don't like it Blaine I don't like that you do this -"
"You do like a million martial arts -"
"None of them look like that!"
"Hey Kurt, if you don't want to watch, how about you make us some more popcorn?"
"Cooper don't use my boyfriend like a Kurt don't just do what he -"
"It's okay it's fine I don't want to be god can't you turn the sound on it down or something - ?"
"Brotherly bonding! This is great!"
"What just happened that sounded really bad what just happened - ?"
"Kurt, don't start crying, everyone's fine -"
"So I'd be mostly shirtless for the part, good to know."
"Everyone's absolutely fine Kurt I'm turning the sound down on it right now -"
"And sweaty. I'd get to be very sweaty, and kind of bruised. Women like that, you know."
"Ugh, Cooper. Kurt no no it's okay -"
"I'm just going to I just I -"
"Kurt - damn it."
"How many rounds is this?"
". . . fourteen."
"Huh. Well, that's enough bonding for tonight! Don't you have a boyfriend to go after and a city to defend?"
". . . thanks, Cooper."
"Hey. Blaine."
"What, Cooper?"
"Any time."
". . . thanks."
Part 20