Alliance - Chapter 1/Dalton Mafia fic
Dalton mafiaverse; Kurt enlists the protection of local organized crime thugs when the stress he's enduring at school bleeds into his family life. Potential squicks - gun usage, violence, Blaine being in his late twenties while Kurt is still a teenager.
--
Blaine's face broke into a smile the minute the kid set foot in his office. If he were any other man, he might've thought he was being set up for a practical joke. He couldn't have been more than 16, wide-eyed, features charmingly childish, and he stood with his back held rigidly against the closed double-doors as if he thought he needed a formal invitation to sit.
"I have chairs," Blaine suggested.
The kid looked offended by the smirk Blaine wore at his expense. When he answered, his head twitched and swiveled, possessed by a venomous attitude, hands gesturing dismissively. "Sorry, didn't want to disrupt the Godfather-esque atmosphere. I'm sure it's important to you."
Wes had relayed to him in delight how tenacious Kurt Hummel had been in his campaign to speak with Blaine. A liaison wasn't going to cut it, nor an assistant, nor even a friend. He'd talk to Blaine Anderson, and only to Blaine Anderson, no matter how long it took him or what hoops he'd have to jump through.
Jacob's instructions were painfully clear on that point - the men who surrounded Blaine wouldn't be nearly as cooperative with, as he put it, 'some Lima dweeb in second-hand McQueen and his trouble with a pituitary case,' but Mr. Anderson himself was known for the occasional alliance with those who seemed hopeless and unimportant.
Kurt could've tried to manipulate his way into Blaine's office every day for a decade. It could've become a habit the Dalton family either learned to tolerate or eventually put a tragic stop to. Either way, Wes would've relayed the information to Blaine each time, day after day, attempt after attempt. That was his job. Blaine insisted on being aware of even the most mundane goings-on outside his private circle, particularly if those goings-on included his name appearing on the mouths of strangers.
It was this attention to detail that eventually awarded Kurt his victory. Blaine was intrigued by the thought of an acne-prone teenager in sagging clothes and dirty sneakers pretending to understand what he did for a living, wanting to see him, knowing the business that ran beneath the veins of its community-oriented disguise. He ordered Wes to peer into Kurt's history and, barring any problematic associations in his past, send him an invitation. What an unexpected surprise to see this, a young man with the face of a child and the bite of a slick little snake. You'd have to forgive him for being amused.
Blaine let the remark pass unchallenged. He pointed at the wingbacked chair in front of his desk, tried again, silent but smiling, requesting compliance with an expression of faint entertainment.
Kurt's shoulders relaxed on approach, but never all the way - he was performing, though whether for Blaine's benefit or his own was unclear.
"I don't mean to seem ungrateful," Kurt offered as he sat. It wasn't an apology.
Blaine's face was full of welcome, not at all the stern, gray-skinned criminal Kurt imagined. "I wouldn't think so. You've put an awful lot of effort into being here just to insult your host."
Kurt twisted out a half-laugh, rueful and sarcastic, one shoulder reaching up in shrugged submission to circumstance. "You're not the easiest person to get in touch with. I didn't have much choice but to be a pest."
"Curiosity got the better of me, I have to admit. You're not my usual . . . demographic?"
"Well. I have a problem," Kurt said, simply, directly. "You're supposed to make problems go away. So."
It was almost too much for Blaine to stand. You're supposed to make problems go away. His bluntness, his utter lack of shame, his pillow-cheeked little face reciting words that might've lept off a movie script; it was almost too much for Blaine to stand. He ghosted a palm in front of his mouth to hide the pleasure he was taking from their encounter, surreal as it was.
"What's your name?" He knew it already, but wanted to hear it from him. So much of a man's self-worth rested in the way he said his name.
"Kurt Hummel." And Kurt Hummel didn't underestimate his self-worth in the slightest. He'd been thrown off course, not off himself.
"Tell me about your problem, Kurt. And why you think I can help you."
It wasn't until Kurt began his explanation that Blaine stopped smiling. His distress was visible, smothered under a polished exterior but shining through the cracks, and he was less confident relaying the story, eyes dancing, discomfited. His demons were in the room with him when he spoke about them.
"It's this guy, this heathen I go to school with. He's been harassing me non-stop for weeks, no matter what I do. At first it was nothing, petty stuff. Name calling, he shoved me around a few times, that was it. But that seems like it was a lifetime ago, by now. I can't remember what it was like to go to school and not leave in worse condition than when I got there."
Blaine cleared his throat to disguise the hard shift in his demeanor. He burned with frustration to hear it, worse, to imagine, the sharp-tongued boy in front of him helpless with hands on him, hands he didn't invite and wasn't strong enough to bat away on his own. It was a flaw in his psychology, he attached to the rambunctious runts in the litter, or the confident underdogs, or the charismatic movie character he knew was doomed to die before an hour was up.
It only worsened from there. He watched, helpless himself, as the stiff composure Kurt clothed himself with began to crumble, and word by word, slip away. He explained between frustrated pauses that the progression of Dave's bullying was so slow, sometimes he couldn't tell where the lines blurred between hateful words and harder and harder shoves. He told Blaine about the argument, the kiss, the death threat, and his father's unhealthy involvement. He told him about a recent 'accidental' elbow thrown into his face after the lunch bell, which caused Kurt's nose to bleed, but made him terrified to risk the bathroom being empty and Dave following him inside if he tried to clean up beyond what a napkin and the water fountain could manage.
He could've told anybody that Dave had done it on purpose, someone would've believed him. But since he'd called him out in front of their fathers and the principal, Dave had caught him alone, off school grounds, only once, and once was enough to convince Kurt that he was capable of uglier things than acting as if he'd strike in the hallway just to watch Kurt flinch, or finding a way to hit or trip him without getting into trouble for it.
What was the point in involving anybody else, particularly his friends, who'd be just as incapable of making a difference? He'd been quieter since then, and even went so far as to blame his bloody nose on a stubborn locker. He might've continued until the stress broke him down if not for Jacob's invasions of privacy and inhuman talent for knowing everyone that lived within a 100-mile radius of Lima. He'd make an exquisite paparazzo one day.
And there he was, after a week of bothersome faxes and phone calls, to remove the toxic element that was ruining his life and holding his father in a state of constant worry by extension.
Whether or not two teenagers killed each other over sexual identity in a hicktown nearby was of absolutely no consequence to the Dalton family. Blaine's father would've dictated, coolly, unbothered, that it wasn't worth anybody's time. His guidelines for stepping in on behalf of someone struggling were considerably stricter than Blaine's, who was known for a comedic streak of compassion that he and his father argued over constantly in their mild-mannered way.
After so many years of conversations like these, Blaine could see himself improving, could recognize when he opted for the well-being of his reputation and his family over that of a stranger with a sad face. He was making progress, and he should've been able to send this kid away.
Instead, he found that he'd leaned forward several inches, felt the concerned gathering of his brow, and heard himself extend a word of patience when Kurt let free a few tears in conclusion.
"My dad made a scene with the principal about a month ago, and, for like a minute, they expelled him, but it didn't stick. His family fought it. He was back in school the next day, and it's just. It's worse since then. It's just getting so much worse, and he's getting more clever, and he's furious. I don't know what to do anymore. I can't do this for another year. I can't do it for another week."
Blaine was quiet for a moment. Kurt mistook it for awkwardness at his crying, and rushed to piece himself back together again, but Blaine only ached a little more for the display. He wanted to tell him it was alright, to be upset, to take his time, but it wasn't his place, and it certainly wasn't his job. Kurt would pretend he was fine, now, and Blaine would pretend it didn't matter either way.
He sank back into his chair to illustrate the necessary distance between their perspectives - tricks from his father, subtle, psychological. "What's the solution, then? What do you want from Dalton?"
"Anything," Kurt answered desperately. "Anything, I don't care. Scare him, get his family sent away, I don't care. Nothing's worked. I've tried talking, I've tried yelling, the school board revoked his suspension, I'm out of options. You can get through to him. I know you can."
Cost vs. benefit, Blaine thought. Obliging Kurt wouldn't exactly inconvenience him, but it wasn't enough not to be inconvenienced. He needed to be compensated. On the surface it was a losing gamble, he'd make a school he'd never heard of a little safer for a teen he'd never met before, and walk away empty-handed. But Blaine was an opportunist, and he'd learned that everyone, no matter how insignificant they may seem, can be useful when they owe you something. Even this high-strung sophomore with his light, permissive voice very likely had a hidden purpose, an ability to be utilized, a connection to be exploited.
He wondered just the same, watching Kurt's nervous appraisal of the room and seeing the tight pinch of his troubled forehead, whether or not he understood what he was inviting, and whether it was an invitation he was accepting for the right reasons.
"Are you sure," Blaine asked, just after deciding to step in, "that I'm the one you're looking for?" It was multifaceted, a request for permission, a reminder of what enlisting the aid of he and his men might mean, not only in practice, but in return.
Kurt heard the challenge as keenly as he heard the promise of his life no longer belonging to the fear David Karofsky wielded over him daily. He stopped pretending such an interest in his surroundings and looked Blaine in the eye, unwavering, unblinking. He shed his soft skin and sat exposed, as solid as his potential benefactor, challenging him right back - it was Dave who'd made him this way, but he was not a boy born to be broken, not as innocent as he looked, not as easily defeated as it seemed.
A current passed between them, reciprocal, nameless.
"Absolutely."
--
Blaine's face broke into a smile the minute the kid set foot in his office. If he were any other man, he might've thought he was being set up for a practical joke. He couldn't have been more than 16, wide-eyed, features charmingly childish, and he stood with his back held rigidly against the closed double-doors as if he thought he needed a formal invitation to sit.
"I have chairs," Blaine suggested.
The kid looked offended by the smirk Blaine wore at his expense. When he answered, his head twitched and swiveled, possessed by a venomous attitude, hands gesturing dismissively. "Sorry, didn't want to disrupt the Godfather-esque atmosphere. I'm sure it's important to you."
Wes had relayed to him in delight how tenacious Kurt Hummel had been in his campaign to speak with Blaine. A liaison wasn't going to cut it, nor an assistant, nor even a friend. He'd talk to Blaine Anderson, and only to Blaine Anderson, no matter how long it took him or what hoops he'd have to jump through.
Jacob's instructions were painfully clear on that point - the men who surrounded Blaine wouldn't be nearly as cooperative with, as he put it, 'some Lima dweeb in second-hand McQueen and his trouble with a pituitary case,' but Mr. Anderson himself was known for the occasional alliance with those who seemed hopeless and unimportant.
Kurt could've tried to manipulate his way into Blaine's office every day for a decade. It could've become a habit the Dalton family either learned to tolerate or eventually put a tragic stop to. Either way, Wes would've relayed the information to Blaine each time, day after day, attempt after attempt. That was his job. Blaine insisted on being aware of even the most mundane goings-on outside his private circle, particularly if those goings-on included his name appearing on the mouths of strangers.
It was this attention to detail that eventually awarded Kurt his victory. Blaine was intrigued by the thought of an acne-prone teenager in sagging clothes and dirty sneakers pretending to understand what he did for a living, wanting to see him, knowing the business that ran beneath the veins of its community-oriented disguise. He ordered Wes to peer into Kurt's history and, barring any problematic associations in his past, send him an invitation. What an unexpected surprise to see this, a young man with the face of a child and the bite of a slick little snake. You'd have to forgive him for being amused.
Blaine let the remark pass unchallenged. He pointed at the wingbacked chair in front of his desk, tried again, silent but smiling, requesting compliance with an expression of faint entertainment.
Kurt's shoulders relaxed on approach, but never all the way - he was performing, though whether for Blaine's benefit or his own was unclear.
"I don't mean to seem ungrateful," Kurt offered as he sat. It wasn't an apology.
Blaine's face was full of welcome, not at all the stern, gray-skinned criminal Kurt imagined. "I wouldn't think so. You've put an awful lot of effort into being here just to insult your host."
Kurt twisted out a half-laugh, rueful and sarcastic, one shoulder reaching up in shrugged submission to circumstance. "You're not the easiest person to get in touch with. I didn't have much choice but to be a pest."
"Curiosity got the better of me, I have to admit. You're not my usual . . . demographic?"
"Well. I have a problem," Kurt said, simply, directly. "You're supposed to make problems go away. So."
It was almost too much for Blaine to stand. You're supposed to make problems go away. His bluntness, his utter lack of shame, his pillow-cheeked little face reciting words that might've lept off a movie script; it was almost too much for Blaine to stand. He ghosted a palm in front of his mouth to hide the pleasure he was taking from their encounter, surreal as it was.
"What's your name?" He knew it already, but wanted to hear it from him. So much of a man's self-worth rested in the way he said his name.
"Kurt Hummel." And Kurt Hummel didn't underestimate his self-worth in the slightest. He'd been thrown off course, not off himself.
"Tell me about your problem, Kurt. And why you think I can help you."
It wasn't until Kurt began his explanation that Blaine stopped smiling. His distress was visible, smothered under a polished exterior but shining through the cracks, and he was less confident relaying the story, eyes dancing, discomfited. His demons were in the room with him when he spoke about them.
"It's this guy, this heathen I go to school with. He's been harassing me non-stop for weeks, no matter what I do. At first it was nothing, petty stuff. Name calling, he shoved me around a few times, that was it. But that seems like it was a lifetime ago, by now. I can't remember what it was like to go to school and not leave in worse condition than when I got there."
Blaine cleared his throat to disguise the hard shift in his demeanor. He burned with frustration to hear it, worse, to imagine, the sharp-tongued boy in front of him helpless with hands on him, hands he didn't invite and wasn't strong enough to bat away on his own. It was a flaw in his psychology, he attached to the rambunctious runts in the litter, or the confident underdogs, or the charismatic movie character he knew was doomed to die before an hour was up.
It only worsened from there. He watched, helpless himself, as the stiff composure Kurt clothed himself with began to crumble, and word by word, slip away. He explained between frustrated pauses that the progression of Dave's bullying was so slow, sometimes he couldn't tell where the lines blurred between hateful words and harder and harder shoves. He told Blaine about the argument, the kiss, the death threat, and his father's unhealthy involvement. He told him about a recent 'accidental' elbow thrown into his face after the lunch bell, which caused Kurt's nose to bleed, but made him terrified to risk the bathroom being empty and Dave following him inside if he tried to clean up beyond what a napkin and the water fountain could manage.
He could've told anybody that Dave had done it on purpose, someone would've believed him. But since he'd called him out in front of their fathers and the principal, Dave had caught him alone, off school grounds, only once, and once was enough to convince Kurt that he was capable of uglier things than acting as if he'd strike in the hallway just to watch Kurt flinch, or finding a way to hit or trip him without getting into trouble for it.
What was the point in involving anybody else, particularly his friends, who'd be just as incapable of making a difference? He'd been quieter since then, and even went so far as to blame his bloody nose on a stubborn locker. He might've continued until the stress broke him down if not for Jacob's invasions of privacy and inhuman talent for knowing everyone that lived within a 100-mile radius of Lima. He'd make an exquisite paparazzo one day.
And there he was, after a week of bothersome faxes and phone calls, to remove the toxic element that was ruining his life and holding his father in a state of constant worry by extension.
Whether or not two teenagers killed each other over sexual identity in a hicktown nearby was of absolutely no consequence to the Dalton family. Blaine's father would've dictated, coolly, unbothered, that it wasn't worth anybody's time. His guidelines for stepping in on behalf of someone struggling were considerably stricter than Blaine's, who was known for a comedic streak of compassion that he and his father argued over constantly in their mild-mannered way.
After so many years of conversations like these, Blaine could see himself improving, could recognize when he opted for the well-being of his reputation and his family over that of a stranger with a sad face. He was making progress, and he should've been able to send this kid away.
Instead, he found that he'd leaned forward several inches, felt the concerned gathering of his brow, and heard himself extend a word of patience when Kurt let free a few tears in conclusion.
"My dad made a scene with the principal about a month ago, and, for like a minute, they expelled him, but it didn't stick. His family fought it. He was back in school the next day, and it's just. It's worse since then. It's just getting so much worse, and he's getting more clever, and he's furious. I don't know what to do anymore. I can't do this for another year. I can't do it for another week."
Blaine was quiet for a moment. Kurt mistook it for awkwardness at his crying, and rushed to piece himself back together again, but Blaine only ached a little more for the display. He wanted to tell him it was alright, to be upset, to take his time, but it wasn't his place, and it certainly wasn't his job. Kurt would pretend he was fine, now, and Blaine would pretend it didn't matter either way.
He sank back into his chair to illustrate the necessary distance between their perspectives - tricks from his father, subtle, psychological. "What's the solution, then? What do you want from Dalton?"
"Anything," Kurt answered desperately. "Anything, I don't care. Scare him, get his family sent away, I don't care. Nothing's worked. I've tried talking, I've tried yelling, the school board revoked his suspension, I'm out of options. You can get through to him. I know you can."
Cost vs. benefit, Blaine thought. Obliging Kurt wouldn't exactly inconvenience him, but it wasn't enough not to be inconvenienced. He needed to be compensated. On the surface it was a losing gamble, he'd make a school he'd never heard of a little safer for a teen he'd never met before, and walk away empty-handed. But Blaine was an opportunist, and he'd learned that everyone, no matter how insignificant they may seem, can be useful when they owe you something. Even this high-strung sophomore with his light, permissive voice very likely had a hidden purpose, an ability to be utilized, a connection to be exploited.
He wondered just the same, watching Kurt's nervous appraisal of the room and seeing the tight pinch of his troubled forehead, whether or not he understood what he was inviting, and whether it was an invitation he was accepting for the right reasons.
"Are you sure," Blaine asked, just after deciding to step in, "that I'm the one you're looking for?" It was multifaceted, a request for permission, a reminder of what enlisting the aid of he and his men might mean, not only in practice, but in return.
Kurt heard the challenge as keenly as he heard the promise of his life no longer belonging to the fear David Karofsky wielded over him daily. He stopped pretending such an interest in his surroundings and looked Blaine in the eye, unwavering, unblinking. He shed his soft skin and sat exposed, as solid as his potential benefactor, challenging him right back - it was Dave who'd made him this way, but he was not a boy born to be broken, not as innocent as he looked, not as easily defeated as it seemed.
A current passed between them, reciprocal, nameless.
"Absolutely."