Into the Dark (2/2)
Title: Into the Dark (2/2)
Author: blasthisass / goldenwarbler
Rating: R
Summary: Vampire!AU: It's been ten years since Kurt came across the two secrets that Blaine had striven to keep hidden. Ten years since he learned of the reason his life had collapsed in on itself when he was seven years old and came across his best friend dragging the life out of another living being through that pulsing vein in his neck.
Ten years since Kurt has been chasing after Blaine, trying to write the balance of life and death and now that they've finally made it full circle to Lima, Ohio, he thinks the chance has finally come, the chance to end it all.
Disclaimers: No one is mine. Move along now.
Warnings: none for this chapter
Spoilers: None
It was late when he got back to Dalton, his body numb, his mind unaware of the route, his father’s words twisting themselves around his head in a complicated, nauseating dance.
He didn’t know if he believed it. How could he?
He thought it would be harder to find Blaine, to sneak in the dorms to talk to him, but he saw him almost the instant he stepped out of his car into the parking lot and started making his way toward the dorms. Saw one boy pressing another against a brick wall near the side of the main building, the former’s face buried in the neck of the latter. The latter’s neck stretched taunt, his head back against the wall and mouth open, short little gasps of air escaping.
Kurt would have normally flushed, eased away out of embarrassment at interrupting such a moment but in that instant he froze, his eyes wide and his body cold and unfeeling. At the stilling of his quick steps, the latter boy’s head lolled to the side, his long blonde hair falling into his eyes, which stared at Kurt, cool and dark and lifeless.
“Blaine.”
He felt as though there were a crack running through his heart as the second body stiffened, pulling away and allowing the one he’d been pressing up against the wall to crumple to the ground like a broken marionette.
His face was half shadowed by the building next to him when he looked at Kurt, but even in the distance he could see it. The animalistic shine in Blaine’s eyes, reflected toward him like that of a nocturnal animal. The stain of thick red liquid that slid past his parted lips, sharp incisors shining, and carved a harsh rivulet from the corner of his lips to his chin.
It was all Kurt could take in as his world stilled to a halt and he stumbled several paces back before turning on his heel and sprinting back to his car.
~
The breath in his ear was like an adrenaline rush, thrusting life back into his muscles. He whirled around on his heel, his weapon arm flying up and firing a shot into the air before him. He inhaled sharply at the crack of the gun, the vervain dart that flew through the empty space behind him, the thud as it embedded itself into the wall.
He took a step backward from where the voice had sounded in his ear a second ago, his heart pounding.
“You’re late, you know.”
He spun toward the voice, firing another shot in its direction, the force of the blast from his weapon sending him stumbling backward, the dart flying toward its target.
He was about to fire another one, his mind a blur except for the slim figure in front of him and the press of the trigger against his finger, but he froze, blood running cold as the creature before him didn’t move except to flick his wrist quicker than Kurt could blink and tilt his head to observe the tiny dart caught between this thumb and pointer finger.
“Are these vervain darts?” Blaine murmured, his glance moving slowly from the object held carefully in his grasp to Kurt and in the instant that his eyes settled on Kurt he felt petrified, his legs filled with cement and sinking him into the floor and it was all he could do to stare angrily at Blaine, at the weapon held so casually between his fingers. “That is . . .” he continued, his voice low and silky smooth, like he were pulling the world into an unwary slumber. “Very clever. I applaud you, finally getting clever.” He spoke casually, free hand leaning against the drink cart, as though Kurt had popped in for a spot of tea and the tone jolted Kurt, fueled his anger and raised his weapon arm.
He’d barely flexed his trigger finger when a pain shot through his wrist, the vice-like grip of a hand curling around it as Blaine suddenly appeared against his back, breath hot in his ear and hand crushing muscle and bone together until Kurt gave a pained exclamation and his hand released the gun.
The instant it began its fall toward the carpeted floor the pressure from around Kurt’s wrist disappeared and Blaine was back on the other side of the room, leaning casually against the dining room table, twirling the gun easily between his long fingers. Kurt could feel his body clenching in anger at the sight of it, his eyes narrowing and his hands furling into fists at the heat of rage bubbling in his core and he forced himself not to move, to stay where he was, gaze so harsh and hateful that if looks could kill, Blaine would have been eviscerated, vampire or not.
Blaine simply looked at him sternly as they stared from opposite sides of the room, his gaze disapproving and even holding in it the slightest hint of disappointment, but it wasn’t the expression of the Blaine that Kurt had once known. It was terrifying in its openness, the kind that had been hidden behind a mask when Kurt had first met him. It simmered with reality, with a hungry heat, glowing like embers above the curve of his smirk, something of a natural bloodlust and evil in it. He’d discarded the uniform and sat instead in a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt, the deep V of it falling low over his chest, the slim fabric clinging to his muscles. His curls were clean and natural, forming small ringlets. He looked like a dream and Kurt almost felt himself falling into it, that strange heady haze, but for the look in his eyes, the expression on his face as he gazed at Kurt. Like he could devour him whole at any given moment.
“It’s not like you to be such a terribly rude houseguest, Kurt,” Blaine murmured after a moment, his gaze boring into Kurt, the fire in his eyes like a paralytic, draining his body of the ability to move. He shifted his weight onto his feet, which Kurt just then noticed were bare, and placed the dart gun carefully on the drink cart, his tan finger curling around the bottle of dark red liquid and tipping it onto a liquor glass. “Arriving late to dinner, trying to shoot me before we’ve even had a proper chat.” Kurt felt his throat close up at the thickness of the liquid that stained the sides of the bottle as it was poured out. Blaine set it down and picked up the glass, bringing it to his lips and holding it there as his eyes unraveled the threads of life that held Kurt together. “I know for a fact your parents raised you better.”
“You leave them out of this!” Kurt growled, his vocal chords finding their strength and the thoughts that were raging through his mind shot out, bitter, angry and slicing through the air like a knife.
Blaine looked unaffected, only his smirk intensifying as he drank long and deep from his glass, the thick liquid sticking to the sides as he set it down again. He tilted his head to observe Kurt, like curious animal ascertaining its prey and his tongue darted out to lick the dark liquid from his lips.
“Well, well, it finally speaks,” he said after a beat, tongue moving over his bottom lip to keep the harsh color of red from lingering like a stain.
“I’m not the ‘it’ in the room,” Kurt snapped back.
He inhaled sharply as Blaine’s gaze hardened, a sharp snap resounding throughout the room as Blaine’s grip on the tumbler in his hands tightened, a crack splitting through its delicate frame. Kurt could feel the chill of fear spreading through him truly for the first time, like the anger that blazed suddenly in Blaine’s eyes, killing his easy demeanor, was working to cover the room with frost.
He stood with his fists clenched, his gaze carving a hole throughout Kurt’s chest. Kurt would have thought that time had frozen, had dissolved into nothing had it not been for the forced, completely controlled movement of Blaine’s chest as he inhaled and the brief trickle of blood that was squeezed out from his clenched fist, two drops of it falling to the carpet near his feet.
Blaine blinked as the crystalline blue of Kurt’s eyes dropped to his hand, the hate in his face relaxing unconsciously at the sight of the blood. It seemed to jerk him out of his own anger and his fist unclenched as he raised it, face twisting into an unreadable expression as he watched the wounds cut into his palm by the force of his own nails heal quickly.
As though a spell were being lifted, Kurt could feel his blood moving again as Blaine stood quietly looking at his palm. He’d been caught off guard, had allowed himself to be lured in, thrown by the easy power that Blaine had always displayed since Kurt had found him out, but as he stood now, his attention off of Kurt, he was able to think again. And his mind raced, mapping out plans and scenarios. He could get Blaine to lose focus, he just had to work the situation correction. He just had to keep him distracted.
Had to keep himself distracted.
The instant Kurt had taken a step neared to the table, Blaine’s eyes flew to him, catching the movement with a narrowed gaze. Kurt swallowed but continued moving, taking long, slow footsteps to the other end of the table, placing the solidity of the old wood between them. “You knew I was coming,” he said finally, his voice low, his mind racing with the need to fill the silence while he thought. “How did you know I was in Lima?”
It was a moment after the sound of his voice reached Blaine that the cocky, confident persona of the vampire returned. Kurt swallowed at the long, hard look that Blaine had given him, his eyes unreadable, but the examination passed and he smirked, pouring the blood from the cracked glass into a new container. “Really, Kurt, your naiveté surprises me.”
Kurt stopped, his drawn brows unfurling into an expression of confusion. “Excuse me?”
Blaine smirked, starting to mimic Kurt’s walk around the table. The action jolted through Kurt as innately predatory and he moved backward, keeping his eyes trained on Blaine and as much of the table between them as possible. Blaine raised an eyebrow at the action as he walked, the hunter in him swimming in his eyes as he swirled the liquid in his glass around. “Should I tell you what you thought would happen here tonight?” he asked coolly, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s. “You assumed life would be like books and movies and you’d have your . . . grand little moment of victory,” he continued, his voice harsh with sarcasm, free hand waving through the air as though to shatter his words. “I’m sure you admired the poetry of it all, didn’t you, the romanticism? Everything fitting into patterns and you finishing it all where it began.”
Kurt stopped again, his feet sinking into the carpet. “What?” he whispered, his voice hushed as the reality of Blaine’s words gripped him.
“Though . . . really, if you wanted to ‘end it where it began,’ we’d really have to go to Paris,” Blaine mused, his voice slightly mocking, laughter riding on its vibrations as they echoed throughout the now-silent room. “If you want to get technical about it. Oh, now there’s a thought!” Kurt jumped, his heart skipping violently as Blaine slapped a hand down on the table, the metal of the ring on his left pointer finger echoing loudly. “We should go to Paris,” he said, his voice not quite the volume of a shout, but his eyes glittered, like it was all a game. “You and me and Paris. Oh, the things I could show you,” he purred suddenly, a spark blazing in amber abyss of his eyes as he gazed at Kurt.
“I would never-”
“I’ll even go first and let you think you’re chasing after me,” Blaine interrupted. “If that’ll make you feel better . . . keeping up the façade . . . this little game of cat and mouse . . .”
“I’m not playing with you.”
Blaine pursed his lips, looking like he was trying to keep the smirk on his face from widening further. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?” he murmured thoughtfully.
Kurt bristled at the endearment, the way it dripped from Blaine’s lips like water from the walls of a sewer. “Why are you here?” he asked, a forced calm in his voice, his eyes taking in each of Blaine’s movements, each time he looked away to take a sip, each patterned action that would follow.
“Darling, I live here.”
Kurt’s hand twitched, his blood boiling. “Don’t play dumb. Why did you come back?”
He saw Blaine’s eyes dart to the movement of his hand, the barely restrained jolt of adrenaline that threatened to send his grip flying to the weapons carefully concealed under the rough leather of his jacket. Blaine contemplated the article of clothing for a beat before speaking. “What can I say, Kurt.” There was a moment of silence before Kurt’s name was uttered, Blaine’s tongue curling around it, drawing out the sound of the u before the hard ending fell like a stone. “Two months since I last saw you. Maybe I missed you, my dear, and I knew you couldn’t resist.”
“Resist what?”
“I already told you. The romanticism of it all.”
Kurt’s eyes widened, aware that Blaine was watching him carefully to see his reaction. To see the quickening of his pulse, the fading of color from his face like the spread of frost over a window. The realization that there was no upper hand to be lost, no satisfaction to be had from catching a creature that had always meant to be found.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry, the sides of it scratching together painfully, the friction like sandpaper when he swallowed. Blaine smirked at this, still swirling the blood in his glass, like a connoisseur trying to air out a glass of wine. In the silence, he spoke again, eyes trained on Kurt. “You should thank your father for me, by the way. If you see him.”
It was the ‘if’ that did it, that froze Kurt’s heart. “What have you done to him?”
Blaine looked offended, his gaze narrowing angrily again. “I haven’t done anything to him. If anything, he’s done me quite a service, keeping that idiot of a headmaster that Dalton’s found itself from rounding up the village and charging up here with pitchforks a la Beauty and the Beast.”
Kurt almost didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to play that game, the one where Blaine lured him in, little by little, with vague snippets and hints that forced one to demand answers. “What do you mean?”
Blaine laughed coldly, frowning at his empty glass, the tiniest residues of red-liquid still clinging to its sides. When he looked up, Kurt felt his stomach sink. “Haven’t been a very good son, have you?” Blaine murmured, the reprimand touched by a hint of his mocking tone. “Must not have been, if your father is so desperate to see you that he keeps . . . well, I suppose the one person he wants dead alive. All on the chance that you’d follow me.”
Kurt’s lip curled unpleasantly. “‘The one he wants dead.’ You mean my mother’s murderer.”
A quick flash of fire. “If you wish. I was trying to be delicate.”
The expanse of the table was between them, the candles lit along its length flickering and illuminating Blaine’s eyes. Kurt could almost feel the heat of the fireplace behind him, even though the ashes in it lay cool and dry.
Kurt inhaled, his eyes sweeping over the distance between them, his hand straying toward the edge of his jacket. “‘Delicate?’” he repeated softly, his voice low and harsh. Blaine’s eyes remained on his, never flashing toward the movement, frozen as though he were holding his breath. Kurt laughed suddenly, short and soundless. “I have no need of your fucking delicacy. Not when I plan to slaughter you like the fucking animal you are-”
His hand was inside his jacket, curving around the wood of the stake hidden inside it when his back hit the bricks of the fireplace with a sickening crunch. He let out a cry of pain, hand inside his jacket captured in that same, vice-like grip. His free hand flew to strike out at the body that had thrust him against the wall, but it too was captured, fingers curling around it so tight that he was afraid that his wrist would snap. Blaine pressed close against him, pinning both his arms to his sides.
“I could destroy you,” Blaine hissed in his ear, that odd, terrifying strain of rage triggered in him. Kurt growled angrily, trying to wrench his body free but Blaine moved his arms swiftly upward, pressing them hard against the wall above Kurt’s head, the rough cut of brick biting into the soft skin of his wrists. “You don’t even know how easily I could do it, all the ways I could fucking break you. I could shatter you between my thumb and forefinger before you could even blink.”
“What the hell are you waiting for, then?” Kurt snarled back, and something shifted in the white-hot fire burning in Blaine’s eyes. “Go ahead and kill me, then, if it’s so damn easy.”
His voice dissolved into a gasp of pain, his head flying back against the wall as his pinned wrists were squeezed, nails pressing hard into the soft flesh. He could feel his own pulse pounding under the skin, against the hard pressure of Blaine’s palms. When he opened his eyes, his breath caught in his throat and something hot stirred in his chest.
He couldn’t place them, those burst of fury, the heat forcing Blaine’s rage to overflow but it was like the fire had been removed from under a pot of water soon after it was brought to a boil. Their faces were so close that Kurt could see his own reflection, torn between the dangerously driving anger of revenge and the inescapable fear of an inevitable end. He realized that it was the first time in years that they were so close. No whispered words behind his ear that disappeared as though dispersed by the wind the minute Kurt turned around; instead, he was faced with head-on entrapment, the time altering sea of green and gold in Blaine’s eyes that held him frozen in place, anticipating the fulfillment of old promises.
It stirred something in the very pit of Kurt’s soul and in a flurry of hate he pushed it down.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Blaine said finally, his gaze flickering between Kurt’s bared teeth and his narrowed eyes. His voice was low, like boiling water being brought down to a simmer. The sudden expression in his eyes was closed off and unreadable. “At least . . . not yet.”
“No better time than the present,” Kurt growled, though his throat clenched at the thought of what he was, in essence, demanding.
Blaine didn’t answer, standing so close that Kurt could feel the heat of him, the way it engulfed him and drown him in the emotions that were fighting for dominance in the pit of Kurt’s stomach. It wasn’t even physical heat, the touch of his hands cooler than usual against Kurt’s wrists. It was something in his presence, something overbearing and heart-stuttering. He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s but it was almost as though he couldn’t see the boy right in front of him.
“I could smell you,” he said suddenly, the statement so quiet and unexpected that Kurt started, his body jolting. He made a pained noise as Blaine’s grip around his wrists tightened, as though expecting him to jerk away. He was shorter than Kurt but something about his presence seemed to make him taller, make him hover over Kurt.
“What?” Kurt stuttered, his blood cold and freezing in his veins. “You . . . in the parking lot, I . . .”
Blaine didn’t answer. His inhales were deep, like the proximity was intoxicating and he was trying to capture Kurt’s scent, but each time his lungs filled his breath stuttered and he let it out quickly, almost like a gasp. “So you were in the parking lot, then,” Blaine murmured, his eyes moving from Kurt’s face to the long line of his neck. Kurt jerked his head back as Blaine moved forward, but it only worked to expose more of his neck to the vampire. Blaine exhaled shakily, his breath hot against Kurt’s pulse point. “I thought I sensed someone, but I didn’t see you. No . . . it was on the staircase . . . some guy bumped into me practically reeking of you.” He inhaled, face close so close to Kurt’s skin that Kurt could almost feel the air compressing between them. “So good, just imagine how you must taste . . .”
Kurt’s breath stuttered and his entire body stiffened at the soft scrape of sharp canines against the surface of his skin, not hard enough to break it, but their presence was sufficient to send shivers down Kurt’s spine. Blaine let out a guttural groan, his hands flexing against Kurt’s wrist and the little vervain-laced charms hanging from the long chain around Kurt’s neck felt heavy against his chest, as though it were trying to make him feel guilty.
~
Blaine’s blazer clad shoulder was warm against his own as he sat and watched Pavarotti flitting around his cage.
“Hey, listen, I’m sorry that your . . . inauguration into the Warblers hasn’t been quite the one you expected,” he said finally, brushing his fingers against the bars of the cage and looking sad when Pavarotti chirped loudly and fluttered a couple of inches away.
Kurt shrugged, leaning back into the plush leather of the Dalton couches. “I wasn’t really expecting that much, to be honest. My only expectations were that I wouldn’t get tossed into lockers while I was here and so far those have been fulfilled, so I’m not complaining.”
Blaine chuckled softly, still gazing with an inexplicable somberness at the little golden bird. After a moment he licked his lips and sat back, reaching into his pocket. “Here, I got you something.”
Kurt’s brow furrowed in surprise, heart stuttering a little as Blaine’s fingers brushed against his own when handing over the small box that had been withdrawn from the pocket of his blazer. ”What’s the occasion?” he asked, cursing silently when his voice came out far more breathy than he would have liked.
Blaine shrugged, not quite looking at Kurt. “No occasion. I just saw it and I thought of you.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow inquisitively before pushing up the lid of the box. “Oh,” he breathed softly, his fingers reaching automatically for the long silver chain and lifting it from the box, eyes drawn to two small charms attached to it, one a little silver cage, the other a flying bird. He let out a happy exhale, running a finger delicately over the intricate detailing of the tiny, antique-like charms. “Pavarotti is golden,” he joked softly, glancing up at Blaine with dancing eyes.
“But I figured you’d think that a golden chain would make you feel like those fat, creepy European mafiosos,” Blaine responded easily, his hands twitching anxiously in his lap. His gaze was still trained on Kurt’s hands, as though he were uneasy looking Kurt directly in the eye. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” Kurt murmured, one hand reaching up to loosen his tie. Blaine swallowed heavily, turning away from the movement to gaze at the real-sized cage on the table in front of him.
“Can I say something?” he asked as Kurt popped open the top handful of buttons of his shirt.
“Hmm?”
“I know . . .” Blaine started, his fingers intertwined over the harsh polyester of his uniform pants. “I know that you feel right now like Dalton is a prison. Like . . . it’s caging you in, away from the person that you are but . . . I’m not going to say that it’s not like that. That it’s a haven free of cages. It can be that, but only if you . . .” he paused, his lips in a tight line, his jaw stiff, “if you need it to be and you allow it. And somehow I feel like you and I are different enough that you won’t let it ensnare you.”
Kurt’s brow furrowed in confusion and he didn’t quite know what to say. So he settled on a soft, “Blaine,” and waited for the boy to respond. When Blaine didn’t move, he murmured, so softly that he was afraid he would have to repeat himself, “Blaine, look at me?”
Blaine seemed to steel himself and when he looked Kurt smiled at him, holding up the end of the chain that was wound around his neck before dropping it under the unbuttoned fabric of his shirt. “Thank you.”
Blaine relaxed almost instantly, his eyes trained on the exact spot where the charms were resting against Kurt’s undershirt before he finally looked Kurt in the eye. “You’re welcome.”
~
Kurt squeezed his eyes shut against the memory as, against his skin still, Blaine muttered, “Are you frightened, Kurt?”
Kurt’s stomach clenched as Blaine pulled back to fix him with a hard look. “I’m not afraid of you,” Kurt spat out, glaring at Blaine, but his breath threatened to stutter over the lie under the intensity of Blaine’s gaze.
“Yes, you are,” Blaine countered quietly, ignoring the way Kurt exhaled and his arms flexed uselessly against the wall. “I can smell fear on you. Can feel it rolling off your body in waves, so thick and heavy they could knock a house over. It makes my mouth water,” he muttered, pausing for a beat before saying, almost to himself, “It almost covers it.”
“What?”
Blaine shook his head and his jaw clenched in anger, but it was a different thread of frustration from that one that had propelled Kurt’ against the wall. It seemed to lift walls and the battle in Blaine’s eyes was startling. It was the first time that Kurt had realized the stiffness of Blaine’s body, the soft quiver of muscle that had appeared with proximity, like he was holding himself back from something. “Sylvester thinks you’ve been compromised,” he whispered, almost accusingly, ignoring the way that Kurt’s eyes widened. “That’s why she pulled you off my trail, isn’t it?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Sweetheart, if you’d been around since the computer was invented you’d also know how to break into systems to find the information you need. She’s wrong, though, isn’t she?”
Kurt swallowed hard, not even realizing the opportunity to fight back as both his wrists were enclosed by only one of Blaine’s hands, the other dropping down to take a firm grip of his chin. His lip curled in defiance, but he didn’t say anything.
Blaine’s eyes were fixed on his lips thoughtfully, but his gaze was so heated that it seemed to be the sole cause of the beads of sweat that ran from behind Kurt’s ear down the line of his neck. “She’s wrong because she thinks it’s new, but . . . it’s not supposed to be. I was supposed to make sure you weren’t. I don’t know why it didn’t work . . .”
“Almost covers what?”
“Your lust.”
Kurt exhaled sharply and tried to twist his head away from Blaine’s grip, but Blaine held him in place, eyes seeing straight into him. “I don’t want-”
“Don’t you, though?” Blaine continued and Kurt was surprised to hear how wrecked his voice was, how desperate. “You always did. Even when I warned you not to and I can’t . . . I tried not to be selfish with you, but I can’t-”
Kurt wanted to stop him, to break away and force him to explain what he meant but almost without warning Blaine was too close to focus on, his breath washing over Kurt’s lips in short, heated bursts and he couldn’t move, couldn’t twist away from it even after Blaine’s hand had dropped from his chin to press into the wall. Blaine hovered impossibly close to him, his presence felt from all sides even from behind closed eyelids and even though he couldn’t know it from experience, he could almost taste Blaine in each breath he took. He could feel his muscles shaking, quivering with the effort to keep distance. He didn’t know what broke his resistance, whether it was the flex of Blaine’s hand over his wrist or the small, desperate little noise he made but suddenly Kurt was letting out a grunt of frustration and Blaine’s lips were hard against his.
He stiffened almost immediately at the contact, trying to pull back but his head collided against the wall as Blaine followed him, his tongue thrusting harshly into Kurt’s open mouth and desperate as he was to stop it, Kurt couldn’t. Couldn’t restrain the strength of the feeling that finally won the battle inside him, the clenching of his heart and the explosion of heat in his veins. Couldn’t keep in the groan that escaped him at the swiping thrust of Blaine’s tongue, at the press of his body along the length of Kurt’s and he suddenly wanted to touch, to run his hands over toned muscle and barely warm flesh but he could do nothing but battle with his tongue, his arms ever fastened above his head, Blaine’s free hand on his cheek.
Blaine growled, the rumble possessive and animalistic and he sucked Kurt’s tongue into his mouth, sucking hard on it before doing the same with Kurt’s bottom lip, scraping his teeth against it possessively.
Kurt gasped, the hard lines of Blaine’s body pressing him against the wall, but a moment later, pleasure turned to a sharp, stinging pain and his mouth was flooded with the taste of warm, coppery liquid as Blaine pulled back sharply, his body falling as far away as it could without having to let go of Kurt.
Kurt tried to control his breathing, to gain back his anger and hate but all he could feel was heat and the smallest thread of fear when he looked at Blaine and saw his terrified gaze trained on the cut he’d torn into Kurt’s bottom lip.
“Blaine?” he said, startled at the way that the name fell from his lips, at the stark realization that it was years since he’d actually addressed the creature as such.
Blaine didn’t look up, his gaze frozen as though he were hypnotized, shocked that he felt no pain from drinking Kurt’s blood. He let out a noise as Kurt’s tongue darted out instinctively. Kurt tried to twist away as Blaine’s hand rose toward his face again, but his fingers pressed hard into Kurt’s cheek, his middle and pointer fingers making a slow, tantalizing swipe across the blood lingering on Kurt’s lips.
He held up the blood-coated fingers in front of his face, his breath stuttering as he looked at him. The hand not holding Kurt was shaking as Blaine stared at it, the blood that he’d never allowed himself, his eyes wide and fearful. Before Kurt could say anything, Blaine’s hand was raised to his lips, his tongue darting out tentatively at the red liquid before he closed his eyes, his expression anguished and defeated before he put both the fingers in his mouth, tongue swirling around them in pleasure as he licked the red liquid from it.
“Blaine, please,” Kurt murmured, both aroused and terrified at the image in front of him, not even know what he was pleading for. Blaine’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his own name, his eyes so dark that Kurt couldn’t make out the color of his irises.
Without any further warning Blaine was back against him, his mouth ravaging Kurt’s. Kurt groaned in shock against it, the vibrations echoing from him through Blaine’s body. His hands were released as both of Blaine’s came up to frame his face, Blaine’s grip hard as he held Kurt in place, half kissing him, half sucking the blood from the wound that he’d accidentally made.
Kurt moaned, his eyes screwed shut at the pressure of Blaine’s body, at the almost painful pull of blood leaving his system. He should have tried to push Blaine away but all he could think to do with his hands was to grip Blaine’s biceps through his shirt as he kissed back, as he sought the feeling that he had been repressing for months, for almost years. The one that Blaine had attempted to erase from his memory ten years ago. The one that wasn’t supposed to linger in every crevice of his body.
He gasped, the need to pull away for air strong and his head flew back. Blaine growled hungrily, his lips leaving small stains of red along Kurt’s jaw as he returned to that place against Kurt’s neck, his breath hot and his teeth sharp. He dragged his tongue against Kurt’s pulse point, sucking the skin hard, but when the first penetration of skin occurred he broke away with a gasp, pushing away from the wall to stumble back several steps.
He looked at Kurt as though he had been betrayed, the animalistic lust in his eyes fading into something so fearful that Kurt was dumbfounded, so shocked that he couldn’t muster the strength to find his way back to his hatred.
A small droplet of blood fell from the sharp points of Blaine’s teeth, falling onto his lip and snaking its way down the side of his mouth.
“You fucking fool,” Blaine growled angrily and with two steps he was back in front of Kurt, his hand reaching for the collar of his shirt and jerking off the chain hiding under it. He grunted in pain as the metal burned him and he tossed it aside in his frustration. “You could have done it you know. You could have fucking gotten me but you stopped drinking vervain. You idiot.” For the first time that night fury truly burned Blaine’s eyes and Kurt couldn’t even find it in himself to be afraid as the numbing feeling of understanding infiltrated his very core. “I should slaughter you right now,” Blaine snarled softly, closing the distance between them. “But I won’t. Not until you beg me for it. Because I’m tired, Kurt. I’m so fucking tired of being selfless. All my life, but no more.” Kurt didn’t move, his heart pounding so hard he was sure the sound of it filled the room. “I told you once before, I can’t give you what you want from me. But I will kill you, Kurt. When you want what I want.”
They were almost nose to nose and Kurt could the pupils of his eyes flexing as he compelled Kurt to understand. “You want to bring me back,” he whispered back, his voice hushed with a thrilling horror.
Blaine’s jaw clenched and something sad passed through his gaze. “When it’s my turn to be selfish. Until then, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The only answer he received was the lightning-fast movement of Blaine’s hands as they thrust Kurt’s head back against the bricks of the fireplace with a resounding crack and all the light vanished from the world.
~
”Kurt, stop!”
“Let go of me!”
“Kurt, let me explain!”
Kurt started as Blaine appeared before him, the blood around his mouth wiped into the dark blue of his blazer. “Don’t bother! You . . . I can’t believe you . . . he was right about you, you killed her!”
He missed the flash of confusion in Blaine’s eyes, his vision clouded in his fury. “Her?”
“You killed her. You tore her out of my life and I swear to God I will never forgive you for it,” Kurt growled, not even finding it in himself to be afraid anymore, to remember the crumbled body of the boy lying several feet behind him.
Blaine stilled looked puzzled, confusion mixing with an unnatural devastation in his expression before his eyes widened and he looked at Kurt as though seeing him for the first time. “Kurt, I . . . Oh . . .” he breathed. “Elizabeth.”
“I’m surprised you stopped long enough to learn her name,” Kurt snarled angrily. “Did you stop for a little chat before murdering her like an animal?”
“Kurt-”
“I’m going to kill you,” Kurt continued, his voice strong with determination that seemed to stab through Blaine like a stake. “If it’s the last thing I do, I swear to God-”
His voice cut off with a grunt as his back hit the Navigator. At the force of impact he stuttered, as though all the feelings he’d had for the boy-no, creature-in front of him came flooding back.
He could see the moment Blaine saw them, the way his eyes widened and in a flash he was in front of Kurt, fingers flicking the buttons of Kurt’s shirt open to grab the chain he had gifted Kurt with and drop it on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his pupils constricting, something in them wiping all thoughts from Kurt’s mind. “I tried to protect you from this. I’m sorry. I wish I could let you remember me the way I was. I wish . . . I could let you keep loving me. I’m so sorry, Kurt.”
Kurt opened his mouth to say something, some words at the back of his mind, but he blinked and when he opened his eyes Blaine was gone.
~
Blaine could sense the moment Kurt regained consciousness inside the house. He could feel him over the movements of men within the living room, could hear him untangling himself from the blankets that had been laid over him and making his way downstairs. Could sense his emotions, the ones that struck Blaine painfully in the heart. The ones that Blaine had tried to rid them both of, but that had instead become embedded in their very souls, untouchable and unbreakable.
Through the roof he could hear the voice of that damned headmaster and the council, crawling like ants searching for him. Cold hear Kurt’s weary footsteps down the staircase and the minute they spotted him, running to him with instincts torn between attacking him for information and making sure he was okay. He could heard it when Kurt’s weak voice told them they were wasting their time. That Blaine was no longer there.
He wondered if he was meant to be rejoicing that they could anticipate each other’s actions so well still.
He heard the sound of the front door opening and the skid of Kurt’s boots on the loose stones of the driveway as he came to a quick halt, eyes widening at the Impala parked in front of the house. The one that he hadn’t left there but that he was too tired not to simply collapse into, his body wrecked with emotion. Blaine watched him from his position on the roof of his own house, his gaze sad and his heard clenching painfully in his chest.
He could almost sense what Kurt was thinking as he sat silently in the dark car. He could hear the clink of the little bottles of vervain that were hidden in the glove compartment of the Impala as they were pulled out and examined before being thrust angrily back, unopened.. The rustle of the note that had been left pinned to the dashboard, the white of its paper stained by the sleek cursive of black in.
Every time you come you ask me the same question, but you search for fiction in a world ruled by reality. You ask me why I did it, but I’ve already told you. So the fault is yours for searching for something vicious in me when it was her. When I did it because she asked me to. Because she wanted me to save her.
It was when the strength of his hearing caught the soft strands of Kurt’s tears carving rivulets into his cheeks, his breaths coming out in short, desperate sobs, his entire being weary with the fight that was continually raging between his heart and the remainder of his instincts, that Blaine shut himself off and took a step back into the shadows of the roof, turning his back and escaping into the darkness with a heavy heart.
Author: blasthisass / goldenwarbler
Rating: R
Summary: Vampire!AU: It's been ten years since Kurt came across the two secrets that Blaine had striven to keep hidden. Ten years since he learned of the reason his life had collapsed in on itself when he was seven years old and came across his best friend dragging the life out of another living being through that pulsing vein in his neck.
Ten years since Kurt has been chasing after Blaine, trying to write the balance of life and death and now that they've finally made it full circle to Lima, Ohio, he thinks the chance has finally come, the chance to end it all.
Disclaimers: No one is mine. Move along now.
Warnings: none for this chapter
Spoilers: None
It was late when he got back to Dalton, his body numb, his mind unaware of the route, his father’s words twisting themselves around his head in a complicated, nauseating dance.
He didn’t know if he believed it. How could he?
He thought it would be harder to find Blaine, to sneak in the dorms to talk to him, but he saw him almost the instant he stepped out of his car into the parking lot and started making his way toward the dorms. Saw one boy pressing another against a brick wall near the side of the main building, the former’s face buried in the neck of the latter. The latter’s neck stretched taunt, his head back against the wall and mouth open, short little gasps of air escaping.
Kurt would have normally flushed, eased away out of embarrassment at interrupting such a moment but in that instant he froze, his eyes wide and his body cold and unfeeling. At the stilling of his quick steps, the latter boy’s head lolled to the side, his long blonde hair falling into his eyes, which stared at Kurt, cool and dark and lifeless.
“Blaine.”
He felt as though there were a crack running through his heart as the second body stiffened, pulling away and allowing the one he’d been pressing up against the wall to crumple to the ground like a broken marionette.
His face was half shadowed by the building next to him when he looked at Kurt, but even in the distance he could see it. The animalistic shine in Blaine’s eyes, reflected toward him like that of a nocturnal animal. The stain of thick red liquid that slid past his parted lips, sharp incisors shining, and carved a harsh rivulet from the corner of his lips to his chin.
It was all Kurt could take in as his world stilled to a halt and he stumbled several paces back before turning on his heel and sprinting back to his car.
~
The breath in his ear was like an adrenaline rush, thrusting life back into his muscles. He whirled around on his heel, his weapon arm flying up and firing a shot into the air before him. He inhaled sharply at the crack of the gun, the vervain dart that flew through the empty space behind him, the thud as it embedded itself into the wall.
He took a step backward from where the voice had sounded in his ear a second ago, his heart pounding.
“You’re late, you know.”
He spun toward the voice, firing another shot in its direction, the force of the blast from his weapon sending him stumbling backward, the dart flying toward its target.
He was about to fire another one, his mind a blur except for the slim figure in front of him and the press of the trigger against his finger, but he froze, blood running cold as the creature before him didn’t move except to flick his wrist quicker than Kurt could blink and tilt his head to observe the tiny dart caught between this thumb and pointer finger.
“Are these vervain darts?” Blaine murmured, his glance moving slowly from the object held carefully in his grasp to Kurt and in the instant that his eyes settled on Kurt he felt petrified, his legs filled with cement and sinking him into the floor and it was all he could do to stare angrily at Blaine, at the weapon held so casually between his fingers. “That is . . .” he continued, his voice low and silky smooth, like he were pulling the world into an unwary slumber. “Very clever. I applaud you, finally getting clever.” He spoke casually, free hand leaning against the drink cart, as though Kurt had popped in for a spot of tea and the tone jolted Kurt, fueled his anger and raised his weapon arm.
He’d barely flexed his trigger finger when a pain shot through his wrist, the vice-like grip of a hand curling around it as Blaine suddenly appeared against his back, breath hot in his ear and hand crushing muscle and bone together until Kurt gave a pained exclamation and his hand released the gun.
The instant it began its fall toward the carpeted floor the pressure from around Kurt’s wrist disappeared and Blaine was back on the other side of the room, leaning casually against the dining room table, twirling the gun easily between his long fingers. Kurt could feel his body clenching in anger at the sight of it, his eyes narrowing and his hands furling into fists at the heat of rage bubbling in his core and he forced himself not to move, to stay where he was, gaze so harsh and hateful that if looks could kill, Blaine would have been eviscerated, vampire or not.
Blaine simply looked at him sternly as they stared from opposite sides of the room, his gaze disapproving and even holding in it the slightest hint of disappointment, but it wasn’t the expression of the Blaine that Kurt had once known. It was terrifying in its openness, the kind that had been hidden behind a mask when Kurt had first met him. It simmered with reality, with a hungry heat, glowing like embers above the curve of his smirk, something of a natural bloodlust and evil in it. He’d discarded the uniform and sat instead in a pair of black jeans and a T-shirt, the deep V of it falling low over his chest, the slim fabric clinging to his muscles. His curls were clean and natural, forming small ringlets. He looked like a dream and Kurt almost felt himself falling into it, that strange heady haze, but for the look in his eyes, the expression on his face as he gazed at Kurt. Like he could devour him whole at any given moment.
“It’s not like you to be such a terribly rude houseguest, Kurt,” Blaine murmured after a moment, his gaze boring into Kurt, the fire in his eyes like a paralytic, draining his body of the ability to move. He shifted his weight onto his feet, which Kurt just then noticed were bare, and placed the dart gun carefully on the drink cart, his tan finger curling around the bottle of dark red liquid and tipping it onto a liquor glass. “Arriving late to dinner, trying to shoot me before we’ve even had a proper chat.” Kurt felt his throat close up at the thickness of the liquid that stained the sides of the bottle as it was poured out. Blaine set it down and picked up the glass, bringing it to his lips and holding it there as his eyes unraveled the threads of life that held Kurt together. “I know for a fact your parents raised you better.”
“You leave them out of this!” Kurt growled, his vocal chords finding their strength and the thoughts that were raging through his mind shot out, bitter, angry and slicing through the air like a knife.
Blaine looked unaffected, only his smirk intensifying as he drank long and deep from his glass, the thick liquid sticking to the sides as he set it down again. He tilted his head to observe Kurt, like curious animal ascertaining its prey and his tongue darted out to lick the dark liquid from his lips.
“Well, well, it finally speaks,” he said after a beat, tongue moving over his bottom lip to keep the harsh color of red from lingering like a stain.
“I’m not the ‘it’ in the room,” Kurt snapped back.
He inhaled sharply as Blaine’s gaze hardened, a sharp snap resounding throughout the room as Blaine’s grip on the tumbler in his hands tightened, a crack splitting through its delicate frame. Kurt could feel the chill of fear spreading through him truly for the first time, like the anger that blazed suddenly in Blaine’s eyes, killing his easy demeanor, was working to cover the room with frost.
He stood with his fists clenched, his gaze carving a hole throughout Kurt’s chest. Kurt would have thought that time had frozen, had dissolved into nothing had it not been for the forced, completely controlled movement of Blaine’s chest as he inhaled and the brief trickle of blood that was squeezed out from his clenched fist, two drops of it falling to the carpet near his feet.
Blaine blinked as the crystalline blue of Kurt’s eyes dropped to his hand, the hate in his face relaxing unconsciously at the sight of the blood. It seemed to jerk him out of his own anger and his fist unclenched as he raised it, face twisting into an unreadable expression as he watched the wounds cut into his palm by the force of his own nails heal quickly.
As though a spell were being lifted, Kurt could feel his blood moving again as Blaine stood quietly looking at his palm. He’d been caught off guard, had allowed himself to be lured in, thrown by the easy power that Blaine had always displayed since Kurt had found him out, but as he stood now, his attention off of Kurt, he was able to think again. And his mind raced, mapping out plans and scenarios. He could get Blaine to lose focus, he just had to work the situation correction. He just had to keep him distracted.
Had to keep himself distracted.
The instant Kurt had taken a step neared to the table, Blaine’s eyes flew to him, catching the movement with a narrowed gaze. Kurt swallowed but continued moving, taking long, slow footsteps to the other end of the table, placing the solidity of the old wood between them. “You knew I was coming,” he said finally, his voice low, his mind racing with the need to fill the silence while he thought. “How did you know I was in Lima?”
It was a moment after the sound of his voice reached Blaine that the cocky, confident persona of the vampire returned. Kurt swallowed at the long, hard look that Blaine had given him, his eyes unreadable, but the examination passed and he smirked, pouring the blood from the cracked glass into a new container. “Really, Kurt, your naiveté surprises me.”
Kurt stopped, his drawn brows unfurling into an expression of confusion. “Excuse me?”
Blaine smirked, starting to mimic Kurt’s walk around the table. The action jolted through Kurt as innately predatory and he moved backward, keeping his eyes trained on Blaine and as much of the table between them as possible. Blaine raised an eyebrow at the action as he walked, the hunter in him swimming in his eyes as he swirled the liquid in his glass around. “Should I tell you what you thought would happen here tonight?” he asked coolly, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s. “You assumed life would be like books and movies and you’d have your . . . grand little moment of victory,” he continued, his voice harsh with sarcasm, free hand waving through the air as though to shatter his words. “I’m sure you admired the poetry of it all, didn’t you, the romanticism? Everything fitting into patterns and you finishing it all where it began.”
Kurt stopped again, his feet sinking into the carpet. “What?” he whispered, his voice hushed as the reality of Blaine’s words gripped him.
“Though . . . really, if you wanted to ‘end it where it began,’ we’d really have to go to Paris,” Blaine mused, his voice slightly mocking, laughter riding on its vibrations as they echoed throughout the now-silent room. “If you want to get technical about it. Oh, now there’s a thought!” Kurt jumped, his heart skipping violently as Blaine slapped a hand down on the table, the metal of the ring on his left pointer finger echoing loudly. “We should go to Paris,” he said, his voice not quite the volume of a shout, but his eyes glittered, like it was all a game. “You and me and Paris. Oh, the things I could show you,” he purred suddenly, a spark blazing in amber abyss of his eyes as he gazed at Kurt.
“I would never-”
“I’ll even go first and let you think you’re chasing after me,” Blaine interrupted. “If that’ll make you feel better . . . keeping up the façade . . . this little game of cat and mouse . . .”
“I’m not playing with you.”
Blaine pursed his lips, looking like he was trying to keep the smirk on his face from widening further. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?” he murmured thoughtfully.
Kurt bristled at the endearment, the way it dripped from Blaine’s lips like water from the walls of a sewer. “Why are you here?” he asked, a forced calm in his voice, his eyes taking in each of Blaine’s movements, each time he looked away to take a sip, each patterned action that would follow.
“Darling, I live here.”
Kurt’s hand twitched, his blood boiling. “Don’t play dumb. Why did you come back?”
He saw Blaine’s eyes dart to the movement of his hand, the barely restrained jolt of adrenaline that threatened to send his grip flying to the weapons carefully concealed under the rough leather of his jacket. Blaine contemplated the article of clothing for a beat before speaking. “What can I say, Kurt.” There was a moment of silence before Kurt’s name was uttered, Blaine’s tongue curling around it, drawing out the sound of the u before the hard ending fell like a stone. “Two months since I last saw you. Maybe I missed you, my dear, and I knew you couldn’t resist.”
“Resist what?”
“I already told you. The romanticism of it all.”
Kurt’s eyes widened, aware that Blaine was watching him carefully to see his reaction. To see the quickening of his pulse, the fading of color from his face like the spread of frost over a window. The realization that there was no upper hand to be lost, no satisfaction to be had from catching a creature that had always meant to be found.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry, the sides of it scratching together painfully, the friction like sandpaper when he swallowed. Blaine smirked at this, still swirling the blood in his glass, like a connoisseur trying to air out a glass of wine. In the silence, he spoke again, eyes trained on Kurt. “You should thank your father for me, by the way. If you see him.”
It was the ‘if’ that did it, that froze Kurt’s heart. “What have you done to him?”
Blaine looked offended, his gaze narrowing angrily again. “I haven’t done anything to him. If anything, he’s done me quite a service, keeping that idiot of a headmaster that Dalton’s found itself from rounding up the village and charging up here with pitchforks a la Beauty and the Beast.”
Kurt almost didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to play that game, the one where Blaine lured him in, little by little, with vague snippets and hints that forced one to demand answers. “What do you mean?”
Blaine laughed coldly, frowning at his empty glass, the tiniest residues of red-liquid still clinging to its sides. When he looked up, Kurt felt his stomach sink. “Haven’t been a very good son, have you?” Blaine murmured, the reprimand touched by a hint of his mocking tone. “Must not have been, if your father is so desperate to see you that he keeps . . . well, I suppose the one person he wants dead alive. All on the chance that you’d follow me.”
Kurt’s lip curled unpleasantly. “‘The one he wants dead.’ You mean my mother’s murderer.”
A quick flash of fire. “If you wish. I was trying to be delicate.”
The expanse of the table was between them, the candles lit along its length flickering and illuminating Blaine’s eyes. Kurt could almost feel the heat of the fireplace behind him, even though the ashes in it lay cool and dry.
Kurt inhaled, his eyes sweeping over the distance between them, his hand straying toward the edge of his jacket. “‘Delicate?’” he repeated softly, his voice low and harsh. Blaine’s eyes remained on his, never flashing toward the movement, frozen as though he were holding his breath. Kurt laughed suddenly, short and soundless. “I have no need of your fucking delicacy. Not when I plan to slaughter you like the fucking animal you are-”
His hand was inside his jacket, curving around the wood of the stake hidden inside it when his back hit the bricks of the fireplace with a sickening crunch. He let out a cry of pain, hand inside his jacket captured in that same, vice-like grip. His free hand flew to strike out at the body that had thrust him against the wall, but it too was captured, fingers curling around it so tight that he was afraid that his wrist would snap. Blaine pressed close against him, pinning both his arms to his sides.
“I could destroy you,” Blaine hissed in his ear, that odd, terrifying strain of rage triggered in him. Kurt growled angrily, trying to wrench his body free but Blaine moved his arms swiftly upward, pressing them hard against the wall above Kurt’s head, the rough cut of brick biting into the soft skin of his wrists. “You don’t even know how easily I could do it, all the ways I could fucking break you. I could shatter you between my thumb and forefinger before you could even blink.”
“What the hell are you waiting for, then?” Kurt snarled back, and something shifted in the white-hot fire burning in Blaine’s eyes. “Go ahead and kill me, then, if it’s so damn easy.”
His voice dissolved into a gasp of pain, his head flying back against the wall as his pinned wrists were squeezed, nails pressing hard into the soft flesh. He could feel his own pulse pounding under the skin, against the hard pressure of Blaine’s palms. When he opened his eyes, his breath caught in his throat and something hot stirred in his chest.
He couldn’t place them, those burst of fury, the heat forcing Blaine’s rage to overflow but it was like the fire had been removed from under a pot of water soon after it was brought to a boil. Their faces were so close that Kurt could see his own reflection, torn between the dangerously driving anger of revenge and the inescapable fear of an inevitable end. He realized that it was the first time in years that they were so close. No whispered words behind his ear that disappeared as though dispersed by the wind the minute Kurt turned around; instead, he was faced with head-on entrapment, the time altering sea of green and gold in Blaine’s eyes that held him frozen in place, anticipating the fulfillment of old promises.
It stirred something in the very pit of Kurt’s soul and in a flurry of hate he pushed it down.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Blaine said finally, his gaze flickering between Kurt’s bared teeth and his narrowed eyes. His voice was low, like boiling water being brought down to a simmer. The sudden expression in his eyes was closed off and unreadable. “At least . . . not yet.”
“No better time than the present,” Kurt growled, though his throat clenched at the thought of what he was, in essence, demanding.
Blaine didn’t answer, standing so close that Kurt could feel the heat of him, the way it engulfed him and drown him in the emotions that were fighting for dominance in the pit of Kurt’s stomach. It wasn’t even physical heat, the touch of his hands cooler than usual against Kurt’s wrists. It was something in his presence, something overbearing and heart-stuttering. He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s but it was almost as though he couldn’t see the boy right in front of him.
“I could smell you,” he said suddenly, the statement so quiet and unexpected that Kurt started, his body jolting. He made a pained noise as Blaine’s grip around his wrists tightened, as though expecting him to jerk away. He was shorter than Kurt but something about his presence seemed to make him taller, make him hover over Kurt.
“What?” Kurt stuttered, his blood cold and freezing in his veins. “You . . . in the parking lot, I . . .”
Blaine didn’t answer. His inhales were deep, like the proximity was intoxicating and he was trying to capture Kurt’s scent, but each time his lungs filled his breath stuttered and he let it out quickly, almost like a gasp. “So you were in the parking lot, then,” Blaine murmured, his eyes moving from Kurt’s face to the long line of his neck. Kurt jerked his head back as Blaine moved forward, but it only worked to expose more of his neck to the vampire. Blaine exhaled shakily, his breath hot against Kurt’s pulse point. “I thought I sensed someone, but I didn’t see you. No . . . it was on the staircase . . . some guy bumped into me practically reeking of you.” He inhaled, face close so close to Kurt’s skin that Kurt could almost feel the air compressing between them. “So good, just imagine how you must taste . . .”
Kurt’s breath stuttered and his entire body stiffened at the soft scrape of sharp canines against the surface of his skin, not hard enough to break it, but their presence was sufficient to send shivers down Kurt’s spine. Blaine let out a guttural groan, his hands flexing against Kurt’s wrist and the little vervain-laced charms hanging from the long chain around Kurt’s neck felt heavy against his chest, as though it were trying to make him feel guilty.
~
Blaine’s blazer clad shoulder was warm against his own as he sat and watched Pavarotti flitting around his cage.
“Hey, listen, I’m sorry that your . . . inauguration into the Warblers hasn’t been quite the one you expected,” he said finally, brushing his fingers against the bars of the cage and looking sad when Pavarotti chirped loudly and fluttered a couple of inches away.
Kurt shrugged, leaning back into the plush leather of the Dalton couches. “I wasn’t really expecting that much, to be honest. My only expectations were that I wouldn’t get tossed into lockers while I was here and so far those have been fulfilled, so I’m not complaining.”
Blaine chuckled softly, still gazing with an inexplicable somberness at the little golden bird. After a moment he licked his lips and sat back, reaching into his pocket. “Here, I got you something.”
Kurt’s brow furrowed in surprise, heart stuttering a little as Blaine’s fingers brushed against his own when handing over the small box that had been withdrawn from the pocket of his blazer. ”What’s the occasion?” he asked, cursing silently when his voice came out far more breathy than he would have liked.
Blaine shrugged, not quite looking at Kurt. “No occasion. I just saw it and I thought of you.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow inquisitively before pushing up the lid of the box. “Oh,” he breathed softly, his fingers reaching automatically for the long silver chain and lifting it from the box, eyes drawn to two small charms attached to it, one a little silver cage, the other a flying bird. He let out a happy exhale, running a finger delicately over the intricate detailing of the tiny, antique-like charms. “Pavarotti is golden,” he joked softly, glancing up at Blaine with dancing eyes.
“But I figured you’d think that a golden chain would make you feel like those fat, creepy European mafiosos,” Blaine responded easily, his hands twitching anxiously in his lap. His gaze was still trained on Kurt’s hands, as though he were uneasy looking Kurt directly in the eye. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” Kurt murmured, one hand reaching up to loosen his tie. Blaine swallowed heavily, turning away from the movement to gaze at the real-sized cage on the table in front of him.
“Can I say something?” he asked as Kurt popped open the top handful of buttons of his shirt.
“Hmm?”
“I know . . .” Blaine started, his fingers intertwined over the harsh polyester of his uniform pants. “I know that you feel right now like Dalton is a prison. Like . . . it’s caging you in, away from the person that you are but . . . I’m not going to say that it’s not like that. That it’s a haven free of cages. It can be that, but only if you . . .” he paused, his lips in a tight line, his jaw stiff, “if you need it to be and you allow it. And somehow I feel like you and I are different enough that you won’t let it ensnare you.”
Kurt’s brow furrowed in confusion and he didn’t quite know what to say. So he settled on a soft, “Blaine,” and waited for the boy to respond. When Blaine didn’t move, he murmured, so softly that he was afraid he would have to repeat himself, “Blaine, look at me?”
Blaine seemed to steel himself and when he looked Kurt smiled at him, holding up the end of the chain that was wound around his neck before dropping it under the unbuttoned fabric of his shirt. “Thank you.”
Blaine relaxed almost instantly, his eyes trained on the exact spot where the charms were resting against Kurt’s undershirt before he finally looked Kurt in the eye. “You’re welcome.”
~
Kurt squeezed his eyes shut against the memory as, against his skin still, Blaine muttered, “Are you frightened, Kurt?”
Kurt’s stomach clenched as Blaine pulled back to fix him with a hard look. “I’m not afraid of you,” Kurt spat out, glaring at Blaine, but his breath threatened to stutter over the lie under the intensity of Blaine’s gaze.
“Yes, you are,” Blaine countered quietly, ignoring the way Kurt exhaled and his arms flexed uselessly against the wall. “I can smell fear on you. Can feel it rolling off your body in waves, so thick and heavy they could knock a house over. It makes my mouth water,” he muttered, pausing for a beat before saying, almost to himself, “It almost covers it.”
“What?”
Blaine shook his head and his jaw clenched in anger, but it was a different thread of frustration from that one that had propelled Kurt’ against the wall. It seemed to lift walls and the battle in Blaine’s eyes was startling. It was the first time that Kurt had realized the stiffness of Blaine’s body, the soft quiver of muscle that had appeared with proximity, like he was holding himself back from something. “Sylvester thinks you’ve been compromised,” he whispered, almost accusingly, ignoring the way that Kurt’s eyes widened. “That’s why she pulled you off my trail, isn’t it?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Sweetheart, if you’d been around since the computer was invented you’d also know how to break into systems to find the information you need. She’s wrong, though, isn’t she?”
Kurt swallowed hard, not even realizing the opportunity to fight back as both his wrists were enclosed by only one of Blaine’s hands, the other dropping down to take a firm grip of his chin. His lip curled in defiance, but he didn’t say anything.
Blaine’s eyes were fixed on his lips thoughtfully, but his gaze was so heated that it seemed to be the sole cause of the beads of sweat that ran from behind Kurt’s ear down the line of his neck. “She’s wrong because she thinks it’s new, but . . . it’s not supposed to be. I was supposed to make sure you weren’t. I don’t know why it didn’t work . . .”
“Almost covers what?”
“Your lust.”
Kurt exhaled sharply and tried to twist his head away from Blaine’s grip, but Blaine held him in place, eyes seeing straight into him. “I don’t want-”
“Don’t you, though?” Blaine continued and Kurt was surprised to hear how wrecked his voice was, how desperate. “You always did. Even when I warned you not to and I can’t . . . I tried not to be selfish with you, but I can’t-”
Kurt wanted to stop him, to break away and force him to explain what he meant but almost without warning Blaine was too close to focus on, his breath washing over Kurt’s lips in short, heated bursts and he couldn’t move, couldn’t twist away from it even after Blaine’s hand had dropped from his chin to press into the wall. Blaine hovered impossibly close to him, his presence felt from all sides even from behind closed eyelids and even though he couldn’t know it from experience, he could almost taste Blaine in each breath he took. He could feel his muscles shaking, quivering with the effort to keep distance. He didn’t know what broke his resistance, whether it was the flex of Blaine’s hand over his wrist or the small, desperate little noise he made but suddenly Kurt was letting out a grunt of frustration and Blaine’s lips were hard against his.
He stiffened almost immediately at the contact, trying to pull back but his head collided against the wall as Blaine followed him, his tongue thrusting harshly into Kurt’s open mouth and desperate as he was to stop it, Kurt couldn’t. Couldn’t restrain the strength of the feeling that finally won the battle inside him, the clenching of his heart and the explosion of heat in his veins. Couldn’t keep in the groan that escaped him at the swiping thrust of Blaine’s tongue, at the press of his body along the length of Kurt’s and he suddenly wanted to touch, to run his hands over toned muscle and barely warm flesh but he could do nothing but battle with his tongue, his arms ever fastened above his head, Blaine’s free hand on his cheek.
Blaine growled, the rumble possessive and animalistic and he sucked Kurt’s tongue into his mouth, sucking hard on it before doing the same with Kurt’s bottom lip, scraping his teeth against it possessively.
Kurt gasped, the hard lines of Blaine’s body pressing him against the wall, but a moment later, pleasure turned to a sharp, stinging pain and his mouth was flooded with the taste of warm, coppery liquid as Blaine pulled back sharply, his body falling as far away as it could without having to let go of Kurt.
Kurt tried to control his breathing, to gain back his anger and hate but all he could feel was heat and the smallest thread of fear when he looked at Blaine and saw his terrified gaze trained on the cut he’d torn into Kurt’s bottom lip.
“Blaine?” he said, startled at the way that the name fell from his lips, at the stark realization that it was years since he’d actually addressed the creature as such.
Blaine didn’t look up, his gaze frozen as though he were hypnotized, shocked that he felt no pain from drinking Kurt’s blood. He let out a noise as Kurt’s tongue darted out instinctively. Kurt tried to twist away as Blaine’s hand rose toward his face again, but his fingers pressed hard into Kurt’s cheek, his middle and pointer fingers making a slow, tantalizing swipe across the blood lingering on Kurt’s lips.
He held up the blood-coated fingers in front of his face, his breath stuttering as he looked at him. The hand not holding Kurt was shaking as Blaine stared at it, the blood that he’d never allowed himself, his eyes wide and fearful. Before Kurt could say anything, Blaine’s hand was raised to his lips, his tongue darting out tentatively at the red liquid before he closed his eyes, his expression anguished and defeated before he put both the fingers in his mouth, tongue swirling around them in pleasure as he licked the red liquid from it.
“Blaine, please,” Kurt murmured, both aroused and terrified at the image in front of him, not even know what he was pleading for. Blaine’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his own name, his eyes so dark that Kurt couldn’t make out the color of his irises.
Without any further warning Blaine was back against him, his mouth ravaging Kurt’s. Kurt groaned in shock against it, the vibrations echoing from him through Blaine’s body. His hands were released as both of Blaine’s came up to frame his face, Blaine’s grip hard as he held Kurt in place, half kissing him, half sucking the blood from the wound that he’d accidentally made.
Kurt moaned, his eyes screwed shut at the pressure of Blaine’s body, at the almost painful pull of blood leaving his system. He should have tried to push Blaine away but all he could think to do with his hands was to grip Blaine’s biceps through his shirt as he kissed back, as he sought the feeling that he had been repressing for months, for almost years. The one that Blaine had attempted to erase from his memory ten years ago. The one that wasn’t supposed to linger in every crevice of his body.
He gasped, the need to pull away for air strong and his head flew back. Blaine growled hungrily, his lips leaving small stains of red along Kurt’s jaw as he returned to that place against Kurt’s neck, his breath hot and his teeth sharp. He dragged his tongue against Kurt’s pulse point, sucking the skin hard, but when the first penetration of skin occurred he broke away with a gasp, pushing away from the wall to stumble back several steps.
He looked at Kurt as though he had been betrayed, the animalistic lust in his eyes fading into something so fearful that Kurt was dumbfounded, so shocked that he couldn’t muster the strength to find his way back to his hatred.
A small droplet of blood fell from the sharp points of Blaine’s teeth, falling onto his lip and snaking its way down the side of his mouth.
“You fucking fool,” Blaine growled angrily and with two steps he was back in front of Kurt, his hand reaching for the collar of his shirt and jerking off the chain hiding under it. He grunted in pain as the metal burned him and he tossed it aside in his frustration. “You could have done it you know. You could have fucking gotten me but you stopped drinking vervain. You idiot.” For the first time that night fury truly burned Blaine’s eyes and Kurt couldn’t even find it in himself to be afraid as the numbing feeling of understanding infiltrated his very core. “I should slaughter you right now,” Blaine snarled softly, closing the distance between them. “But I won’t. Not until you beg me for it. Because I’m tired, Kurt. I’m so fucking tired of being selfless. All my life, but no more.” Kurt didn’t move, his heart pounding so hard he was sure the sound of it filled the room. “I told you once before, I can’t give you what you want from me. But I will kill you, Kurt. When you want what I want.”
They were almost nose to nose and Kurt could the pupils of his eyes flexing as he compelled Kurt to understand. “You want to bring me back,” he whispered back, his voice hushed with a thrilling horror.
Blaine’s jaw clenched and something sad passed through his gaze. “When it’s my turn to be selfish. Until then, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The only answer he received was the lightning-fast movement of Blaine’s hands as they thrust Kurt’s head back against the bricks of the fireplace with a resounding crack and all the light vanished from the world.
~
”Kurt, stop!”
“Let go of me!”
“Kurt, let me explain!”
Kurt started as Blaine appeared before him, the blood around his mouth wiped into the dark blue of his blazer. “Don’t bother! You . . . I can’t believe you . . . he was right about you, you killed her!”
He missed the flash of confusion in Blaine’s eyes, his vision clouded in his fury. “Her?”
“You killed her. You tore her out of my life and I swear to God I will never forgive you for it,” Kurt growled, not even finding it in himself to be afraid anymore, to remember the crumbled body of the boy lying several feet behind him.
Blaine stilled looked puzzled, confusion mixing with an unnatural devastation in his expression before his eyes widened and he looked at Kurt as though seeing him for the first time. “Kurt, I . . . Oh . . .” he breathed. “Elizabeth.”
“I’m surprised you stopped long enough to learn her name,” Kurt snarled angrily. “Did you stop for a little chat before murdering her like an animal?”
“Kurt-”
“I’m going to kill you,” Kurt continued, his voice strong with determination that seemed to stab through Blaine like a stake. “If it’s the last thing I do, I swear to God-”
His voice cut off with a grunt as his back hit the Navigator. At the force of impact he stuttered, as though all the feelings he’d had for the boy-no, creature-in front of him came flooding back.
He could see the moment Blaine saw them, the way his eyes widened and in a flash he was in front of Kurt, fingers flicking the buttons of Kurt’s shirt open to grab the chain he had gifted Kurt with and drop it on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his pupils constricting, something in them wiping all thoughts from Kurt’s mind. “I tried to protect you from this. I’m sorry. I wish I could let you remember me the way I was. I wish . . . I could let you keep loving me. I’m so sorry, Kurt.”
Kurt opened his mouth to say something, some words at the back of his mind, but he blinked and when he opened his eyes Blaine was gone.
~
Blaine could sense the moment Kurt regained consciousness inside the house. He could feel him over the movements of men within the living room, could hear him untangling himself from the blankets that had been laid over him and making his way downstairs. Could sense his emotions, the ones that struck Blaine painfully in the heart. The ones that Blaine had tried to rid them both of, but that had instead become embedded in their very souls, untouchable and unbreakable.
Through the roof he could hear the voice of that damned headmaster and the council, crawling like ants searching for him. Cold hear Kurt’s weary footsteps down the staircase and the minute they spotted him, running to him with instincts torn between attacking him for information and making sure he was okay. He could heard it when Kurt’s weak voice told them they were wasting their time. That Blaine was no longer there.
He wondered if he was meant to be rejoicing that they could anticipate each other’s actions so well still.
He heard the sound of the front door opening and the skid of Kurt’s boots on the loose stones of the driveway as he came to a quick halt, eyes widening at the Impala parked in front of the house. The one that he hadn’t left there but that he was too tired not to simply collapse into, his body wrecked with emotion. Blaine watched him from his position on the roof of his own house, his gaze sad and his heard clenching painfully in his chest.
He could almost sense what Kurt was thinking as he sat silently in the dark car. He could hear the clink of the little bottles of vervain that were hidden in the glove compartment of the Impala as they were pulled out and examined before being thrust angrily back, unopened.. The rustle of the note that had been left pinned to the dashboard, the white of its paper stained by the sleek cursive of black in.
Every time you come you ask me the same question, but you search for fiction in a world ruled by reality. You ask me why I did it, but I’ve already told you. So the fault is yours for searching for something vicious in me when it was her. When I did it because she asked me to. Because she wanted me to save her.
It was when the strength of his hearing caught the soft strands of Kurt’s tears carving rivulets into his cheeks, his breaths coming out in short, desperate sobs, his entire being weary with the fight that was continually raging between his heart and the remainder of his instincts, that Blaine shut himself off and took a step back into the shadows of the roof, turning his back and escaping into the darkness with a heavy heart.