Fic: "Until My Dying Breath", Chapter Five: Part Two -- Kurt/Blaine Vampire AU.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Epilogue
Click here to go back to part one.
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When Blaine gets home - long before the sun has tucked itself behind the skyscrapers, thank goodness; he’d been very carefully with his timing - he can feel the anxiety of having a mission clenching at the base of his stomach. Like something out of a spy movie. Except he’s never had any of that kind of training and his confidence in his ability to wheedle out any kind of information feels small and scrunched up inside his chest. He doesn’t feel as frightened has he used to, ever since he met Amita; doesn’t feel like the world is ending every night, and he thanks whatever omnipotent force might be out there for that. But it doesn’t make waiting for Kurt to come and taunt him, coax him, purr at him through the door or into his ear any less wearing. Doesn’t stop his whole body from tensing and drawing taut as he waits.
He works through the evening as anticipation builds slowly in his chest; makes himself dinner, eats it mechanically, and sets himself up on the living room couch with his phone on the table to wait to see if Kurt tries to contact him. He tries to get a little bit of homework done; stares at the empty Word document on his laptop and attempts to entice words out of his head and onto the page, because this paper is worth too much of his mark to make something up the night before and he has to be able to do this. After homework largely proves itself to be a lost cause, he reads through a couple of Amita’s articles instead. First “Reconciling Terminology: Comparing Ancient Tales of Demons, Spirits, and Ghouls with the Modern-Day Vampire”, followed by “Garlic, Holy Water, and Crucifixes: Tracing the Development of Vampire-Killing Lore throughout History”.
As Blaine reads, he finds himself understanding more than ever why Amita chose to devote her life to studying these creatures, even when she could never discuss them as anything more than legends: it’s practically impossible for Blaine to focus on anything else, nowadays. His assignments and readings go ignored while he pours over lore and legends every night, finding translations of Russian fairytales and comparing equivalent myths from Malaysia, Iran, India. Trying to sort through supposed first-hand accounts and determine if they’re legitimate or false or something in between. If Blaine were paid to fixate on vampires in the same way Amita had been, he could make himself quite a living out of it.
As it is, his real obligations just keep on slipping more and more by the wayside anyways.
Nervousness and anxiety twist in the base of his stomach, and every little noise makes him jump and reach for his phone with his heart in his chest. Again and again, Blaine goes over potential ways to introduce a discussion about time and age in his head, rehearsing potential conversation segues until the words lose all meaning. He doesn’t have to do this, he reminds himself. If there’s no way to ask, he won’t: he’ll wait for another night instead. The reassurance does nothing to temper the anxiousness.
Eventually, Blaine flicks the television on when his eyes begin to grow too heavy to read anymore. Sharpening stakes as he watches first a news program, followed by a few re-runs of some makeover program or other that he can barely register the name of. He sits and waits and watches for hours, half-sleeping and half-waking, until the sky begins to lighten outside his windows and he realizes that Kurt isn’t coming tonight. Kurt does that every once and a while; to fuck with Blaine’s nerves, he’d always thought. Even though the realization that Kurt isn’t coming should feel like a balloon of anxiety deflating inside of him, all Blaine feels is frustrated and exhausted and reluctant to close his eyes for fear of the so-real visions of blood and pain and dying, dying, dying every night behind his eyelids.
When he finally goes to sleep, it’s six in the morning and he sleeps through two classes the next day.
And the opportunity to actually try his hand at getting information out of Kurt doesn’t come until tomorrow night.
It’s only one in the morning when Kurt arrives. Blaine is sitting on the ground in front of the door when it happens, his back slumped against the wooden barrier. There is a thin green blanket that usually lives over the back of the couch puddled up instead around his legs; every winter like clockwork, he manages to forget how chilly his building gets when the nights begin to stretch longer and longer. Cross-legged and slumped, Blaine sits and waits with his eyes closed to shut out the world. Awake, yes - but drifting. With the phone on the floor a few feet away with a discarded printed-off article Amita had recommended next to it, he lets his mind edge along unconsciousness as he waits for something to happen.
All of a sudden, he feels his whole body tensing up before he fully processes why. The hairs on his forearms stand on end, the skin exposed to the air where the sleeves of his pyjama shirt are rolled up. Something hot and sharp sparks along his spine, and then -
“Hello again, pretty,” hums Kurt’s voice through the door, right behind him, languid and warm and slippery as it washes over him. Blaine jumps instinctively at the suddenness of it, his eyes snapping open and pushing himself to sit up straighter against the door. Startled anticipation tingles along his fingertips, even as borrowed courage makes his spine feel hard and strong like steel.
The sound of Kurt’s high, beautiful voice in his ear over the phone or through the meaningless barrier of the door... it used to be everything. His whole world, narrowed down to a single point in space and time. Nowadays, Blaine tries to tell himself that he can almost detach himself from it on some base level. Hover above what Kurt says, or does, or makes him feel in some crucial way. He isn’t entirely sure whether it’s true or not.
Regardless of whether or not any opportunity will present itself to coax any information out of him, Kurt has made it abundantly clear that he fully expects Blaine to participate in their parodies of conversations through whatever medium they might take place. To sit mute and obstinate is to order the execution of some stranger out in the dark, and Kurt is responsible for enough death and pain and grief on his own without Blaine to help him along.
“Hello,” says Blaine quietly, licking his lips. He takes a deep breath, holding the air inside and making it warm before he exhales it back over his saliva-damp lips. Tilting his head back to rest against the door, he tugs the blanket higher up over his knees and waits for the inevitable response.
The long, drawn-out scraaaaape of fingernails resonates through the door, and Blaine sucks in a quick breath. Kurt is dragging his nails down the wood exactly where Blaine’s head is rested against the other side; he can feel the vibrations, hear the sound so very loud and clear and right there. He clenches his fists, refusing to move because to react would be a concession. The sound and feel of it comes again a few seconds later, Kurt’s fingernails hard and deep and insistent as they dig slow grooves into the wood.
After a moment, too, Blaine becomes aware of something else. There are deep, shuddering breaths coming from right outside as well. It’s unmistakably Kurt, breathing in air hard through his nose and releasing it through his mouth. The sound is so close that Kurt must be practically pressed up against the wood; in and out, in and out. Pulling in air and releasing it almost reluctantly into the night; every time Kurt exhales, he lets out a little almost-sigh.
“Did you miss me last night, beautiful thing?” Kurt’s voice drifts through the door, heated and close and so sly that Blaine can practically envision the coy grin on his pale, angelic face. The image drifts in front of his eyes for a moment, unbidden, and he squeezes his eyes shut to will it away. “I did miss you, Blaine, although I must say that I managed to have a rather fabulous time despite how very boring you’re still insisting on being.”
The best way to get information is to do what he wants, Blaine reminds himself, shoving a hard through his hair as another scrape of nails on wood sends visceral sparks of irritation and unpleasantness through his insides.
“I... yes. I noticed you didn’t come,” begins Blaine cautiously, trying his best hand at civility. Kurt lets out an amused little titter of a laugh in response, his voice so close that Blaine can practically taste it.
“Interesting choice of words,” says Kurt salaciously, and a combination of mortification and frustration twist in Blaine’s chest. He feels his lips tighten, hand clenching in the blanket around his middle at the taunt. From behind him, Blaine can hear another deep inhalation of dragged-in breath.
“Have I ever told you about smell, Blaine?” continues Kurt, blithe and heady and utterly unconcerned with whatever Blaine’s reaction to his insinuation might be. “God, smell. Every person smells different, you know. Smells and tastes ever-so-slightly unique.”
“Do they?” asks Blaine stiffly, suddenly very much aware of the way Kurt is breathing. In through his nose, out through his mouth. Deep and hard lingering, as though cherishing the air he takes in. Blaine’s skin prickles, and something curls up and tucks in on itself inside of him.
“Mmmm,” says Kurt, scraping a single nail idly down the frame. “From diet and lifestyle and everything boring, obviously. But there’s also something personal about it. Something real and inherent and them about the way a person smells.” There’s a pause, and Kurt makes a low, pleased sound. “The boy I found last night smelled good,” he says, and Blaine squeezes his eyes tight shut.
He hates this part the worst, he thinks. The nameless corpses that Kurt strews across his mind; the little details that make their way into his treacherous dreams.
“I’m very particular, I admit it,” Kurt continues, almost as though sharing a piece of particularly juicy gossip. “What can I say? There’s no need to settle for anything less than the best, don’t you agree? Mmmm.” There is a pause, and Kurt’s breaths grow even more ragged. Closer, as he whispers against the wood. “We danced...” The slide of hand up the firmness of the door, stroking over it like a lover. “...and fucked...” Words so close they may as well be ghosting along Blaine’s ear, and he wraps his arms around himself in the emptiness of his apartment. “... and then I opened up his pretty neck and tasted him on the inside.”
Every single one of the reasons Blaine had been looking forward to speaking to Kurt again have completely slipped away from him. His own breaths are coming in shuddery, jagged little bursts; his heart is beating rabbit-quick in his chest. And Blaine knows that Kurt can hear it; can hear and smell what he’s doing to Blaine’s body, how he’s making him feel. Can perceive it the way ordinary people can see things with their own two eyes; is probably basking in how very easy it is for him to shatter Blaine’s world to pieces.
The fear is back again, as though it had never been pushed aside by false courage. Skittish and sharp and horrible inside Blaine’s chest.
“And the whole time I thought about you, beautiful thing,” says Kurt, soft and intense. The gentle smoothing of a hand against the wood. “Always you. About how you’re going to taste when I finally get to have you.”
There is a sinking feeling in Blaine’s stomach. Despite the fact that Kurt cannot see him, Blaine feels suddenly and utterly exposed to him.
“What do I smell like to you?” Blaine asks quietly, eyes open but heavily lashed as he stares blankly at the empty space of his apartment. The words sneak out from between his lips before he can fully process them or stop himself.
And through the door, Kurt groans. It’s a high, helpless noise; desperate and wanton in a way he so rarely hears the man sound. There is the small, muted thud of weight colliding with the door behind him, and for a moment Blaine wonders if Kurt is sitting against the door on his side, too.
“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt whispers, inhaling deeply and letting out another breathy groan. His tone is practically obscene, and Blaine’s treacherous cock twitches between his legs. Conditioned by the dreams that he himself creates. “... I don’t think there are words to describe it,” Kurt finishes after a pause, voice high and strained, and Blaine shivers with a horrible mix of emotions he forces himself not to examine too closely.
They sit like that, the pressure of Kurt’s body on his side of the door against Blaine’s back, and do not speak for what feels like forever. As hard as he tries, Blaine can’t seem to calm his heart rate back into something normal. It’s a stalemate, like this. A tie between them that can’t be broken. Kurt so close that it feels as though he could crawl inside of Blaine’s brain if he wanted it, but unable to cross those few precious inches across the threshold.
Eventually, though, Kurt lets out a chuckle. “But now, aren’t I being self-centred?” The vibrations of his laughter resonates through the door, and Blaine can feel them against his back. Absently, Blaine notes that he could move if he wanted. Stand up and walk away, go sit on the couch or on a chair and put some distance between them. For some reason, however, he can’t make himself stand. Kurt’s voice is getting back some of its trademark carelessness; the air of certainty that is so familiar to him. “I haven’t even asked you how you’ve been, Blaine, how very rude of me. You only have so long to live this little life of yours, pretty thing. I should at least give you the courtesy of feigning interest.”
And all at once, the stalemate between them is broken. It feels as though the bottom drops out of Blaine’s stomach.
“Don’t,” Blaine pleads quietly, giving his head a shake and feeling his curls twitch around his ears. “Kurt -”
“Tell me about your day, pet,” says Kurt firmly, and there is a rigidity to his voice that wasn’t there before. An insistence. This time, it isn’t a suggestion.
Feeling wound tight and breakable, Blaine lets out a frustrated sigh and frowns even though he knows that Kurt can’t see him. There is really only one option in terms of things that Blaine can talk about; everything important in his life is secret and covert and hidden away. School is the only thing that Blaine can possibly bring up.
Disturbingly, it takes him far longer than it should to remember what, exactly, he’s been doing in his classes lately; so much of his life has shifted to circle around his newfound friends in the past few days, and it’s worryingly hard to remember the contents of the classes that he sits through but doesn’t absorb anything from.
The nails scratch down the doorframe again, hard and sharp in reminder, and Blaine feels irritation jolt along his stomach.
“... classes are going well,” Blaine begins for lack of anything else to say, grasping at straws for details in his head. “We have a difficult professor in my constitutional law class, but he was in a good mood today. That was nice, I guess.”
Through the door, Kurt lets out a derisive snort; Blaine can practically envision him rolling his eyes. “Dry, boring old documents,” he sneers, and it’s disturbing how easily such a beautiful voice can be twisted and distorted into something ugly. “How very pedantic of you. Is all of that really what you’re fighting so hard for, Blaine? Trying to discern some meaning out of meaningless scraps of paper written hundreds of years ago-”
In retrospect, Blaine has absolutely no idea where the words come from. Before his mind can come anywhere close to catching up with his mouth, he cuts Kurt off mid-sentence:
“Maybe you know a bit more about that time than I do,” Blaine blurts out, almost accusingly, the words tripping off his tongue all speed and bravado and bluntness - before his eyes blow wide with sudden terror. He claps a hand over his mouth, full well knowing that Kurt can hear the action, and squeezes his eyes tight in disbelief at himself. He clenches his body together and down into the ground, willing himself to disappear.
“... excuse me?” comes Kurt’s voice after what feels like a very long pause, high and tight, and Blaine wishes he could melt into the floor. This - oh, god, this is definitely not what Amita meant by subtle. Or what Jack meant by safe.
You were going to wait for the right time, you complete moron. Not shout out the first thing that came into your head when the topic even vaguely came up, fucking hell.
Pushing his back against the solidity of the door, Blaine waits with bated breath for Kurt to explode at him. To snap and sneer, or even worse to calmly stand and leave and go out into the night to slaughter someone for his stupidity, his insolence. He can feel his courage shrinking down and shrivelling up inside of him, the fear pulsing through his chest and oh god please don’t kill anyone because of this please please please please please -
“I just mean,” Blaine blurts again, hand flying off his mouth as he rushes to elaborate, to dig himself out of the hole he’s already managed to put himself in. The words trip all over each other in their haste to leave his mouth, and why doesn’t he ever think before he speaks? “- the constitution wasn’t all that long ago, you know? Just a few hundred years, really, the seventeen hundreds are practically modern, and I figured you might know more about it because -” the word won’t leave his lips, not in front of Kurt. “Because you’re -” he tries again, and it’s just getting worse and more awful and he’s digging himself even deeper.
He cuts himself off before he can do any more damage. Blaine’s heart is pounding in his chest, and he can feel anxious sweat prickling at his forehead. He bites down hard on his lower lip as Kurt stays silent, doesn’t say anything at all behind him. He’s still there - Blaine can hear him breathing, calm and quiet - but he’s not saying anything and oh, god. He knows.
He knows, Blaine thinks in a blind panic, already scrabbling to think of what to do. He knows I’ve been talking to someone, knows that we’re planning something, he knows he knows he knows he knows -
There is a shifting sound from behind him: Kurt is moving, standing, and Blaine jerks his head sideways to look at his phone and wonders how long he should wait after Kurt leaves to call Amita. To panic, and babble, and have someone to apologize to for all of the mistakes he makes.
“Pretty thing...” says Kurt after an interminable stretch of time, speaking the words in a wondering sort of tone. He sounds utterly amazed at the question; or maybe just surprised, or maybe angry, Blaine’s whole body is vibrating too hard for him to be able to tell. “Are you... angling for a story?”
“Kurt,” Blaine chokes out, voice coming out weak and frightened. Using his name to show that he means it. “Kurt, please -” he says, because maybe if he begs nicely enough Kurt will have mercy.
But the rest of his sentence gets cut off by the incongruous, completely unexpected sound of Kurt laughing.
Really laughing, honestly laughing, like someone who just can’t hold it in. Long, high peals of laughter through the door, mirth ringing in Blaine’s ears like in a hollow space, and for a moment he’s worried that Kurt might wake one of his neighbours up.
“Blaine,” Kurt chuckles, and the confusion is so thick in front of Blaine’s eyes that he can barely see. He blinks, suddenly aware of the hardness of the floor beneath him and the chill of the cold in the air, and has absolutely no idea what to feel. “Blaine, you don’t have to be scared. I know that I should find your lack of tact annoying, pet, but it really is so very sweet. Stupid, yes, but sweet.” He lets out another little titter of giggles. “Lovely one, I’m not hiding anything from you; you’ve just never asked.”
“What?” Blaine asks in utter disbelief, holding his whole body ramrod still just in case this is Kurt’s idea of a joke. Give him a false sense of hope before going off to kill someone, or something equally cruel. “You’re not angry? That I’m... curious. About your past.”
“Like I said, I’m not hiding anything from you,” says Kurt slowly, as though stating a blatantly obvious fact of life. He drags a few fingernails idly down the doorframe, but Blaine barely notices. “I thought that much would be obvious by now. You’ve just never asked me about that particular subject before.”
“... oh,” says Blaine quietly, stupidly, feeling the tight knot of nervous anxiety start to loosen inside of him. The unbelievable luck of it feels like a punch to the chest, and he hears himself let out a breathy noise somewhere between a nervous laugh and being winded. He presses his lips together determinedly, not trusting himself not to say something at this point to fuck everything up.
Because from the sounds of it, and completely unbelievably... Kurt actually seems to be willing to talk about himself. To discuss his history, completely willingly.
Blaine feels as though he might just pass out.
“How old exactly do you think I am, though?” asks Kurt dryly, sounding at once amused and strangely offended. He scoffs, letting out a high little huff of annoyance. “I always thought that eternal life in death was the best anti-aging skincare regimen out there, but apparently I was wrong. How flattering of you to say I look like I’m over a hundred.”
“Um,” says Blaine helplessly, raising his hands into the air in defeat despite the fact that Kurt cannot see the gesture, because he definitely doesn’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t get him or someone else in trouble. Distantly, it occurs to him that he and Kurt are having a conversation again. Just... talking, like two ordinary human beings with nothing else between them, and it’s so surreal it makes his head spin. He keeps his silence, though, because Kurt might just be offering him everything Amita and Jack wanted him to find out on a silver platter, and even he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It doesn’t help, though, that Kurt’s comment has very much caught him off guard. Even his preliminary research had practically beaten him over the head with the fact that vampires can live for great stretches of time, although nothing seemed to come to a consensus on exactly how long. Although Blaine has never ardently dwelled or theorized about Kurt’s life before he became what he is, there has always been something timeless about him that made Blaine’s mind instinctively stretch back to long-bygone eras.
Whenever his mind had drifted in that direction - on the edge of sleep or when he was so tired in class that the professor’s words lost all meaning and turned into incoherent streams of syllables in his ears - it was always with the assumption that Kurt had to be few hundred years old, if not more than that. His mind had always conjured up details like elegant ruffs around Kurt’s long, pale neck; powdered wigs and Mozart and elaborately fine clothes that would have taken hours to assemble properly. Hapsburgs, at the very least, if not sooner.
But if Kurt is balking at the idea of him being around in 1787... well. That notion seems suddenly very unlikely.
“When were you...?” Blaine trails quietly, not sure of the proper phrasing or if the sentiment is polite at all. Asking ‘when were you killed’ sounds awkward and rude inside his own head, at least. Kurt’s hinted at it before, but during their coffee meet up a few days ago Amita had confirmed for him that vampires are made, not born.
At some point in the past, Kurt was human. Alive. A person, like him. Blaine wonders what he was like, back then; if there are any similarities between Kurt then and Kurt now.
There is a long, weighing pause. Blaine imagines Kurt pondering and considering exactly what he intends to say, how he intends to say it. There is the sound of an idle hand stroking up and down the doorframe. And then -
“Anschluss,” comes Kurt’s voice through the door at last, the word taking on a sudden and unexpected pronunciation as what can only be Kurt’s natural accent tugs at the vowels. The sound of it is unexpected and foreign on the air, and it takes Blaine longer than it should to place where he knows the word. “Do you know what that is, pretty? Did they teach you about it in school?”
“The... the unification between Austria and Germany during World War Two, isn’t it?” Blaine asks uncertainly, trying to dredge up memories from high school and the couple of History classes he took in the first and second year of his undergrad. And god, that’s almost recent compared to what he’d been assuming before.
“Did you have any family in the war, pretty?” Kurt asks, sounding distracted.
“My great-grandfather died in it,” says Blaine, shrugging even though Kurt cannot see him.
“Interesting,” says Kurt, audibly perking up. “Normandy? Okinawa?”
“Liberation of Manila,” Blaine states, dry and flat, and Kurt seems to understand.
“Mmm, of course,” Kurt hums, sounding vague. His voice has taken on an almost light quality; vaguely distant and airy as he speaks. At once, there are a hundred questions that Blaine wants desperately to ask - but he remains silent. Keeps his lips pressed together and his back pressed against the door as he waits, tugging at his sleeves and adjusting the blanket over his lap to have something to do with his hands. Blaine waits - and after a pause, Kurt rewards him by continuing.
“My mother died when I was eight years old,” he begins, voice slow and calm. Matter-of-fact. “She was from a fairly well-off family; very well-educated for the time. She spoke English and French fluently, learned history and philosophy. But she fell in love with my dad, and that... well. That was the end of that.”
“Your father wasn’t well off?” asks Blaine, his natural inquisitiveness sneaking up on him before he has a chance to wonder whether or not asking questions is a good idea. Kurt doesn’t react badly, though; just lets out a little chuckle.
“Definitely not,” says Kurt, and for a second Blaine thinks he might hear something fond in his voice. He’s enjoying telling his story, Blaine realizes at once. Having someone to talk to about it. “He worked in train repair, after he came back from the Great War; not a master mechanic, just a grunt man. It was slightly skilled work, at least, so there was never any shortage of jobs for him to do even when things got hard. But... no. He never made very much money.”
There is a sudden noise on the doorframe from right behind him, and Blaine is expecting to for it to be the scraping sound again - but that doesn’t come. Instead, the sound of distracted long fingernails going tap-tap-tap against the wood fills Blaine’s ears. It’s consistent, steady; seeming to drive the narrative onward.
“We lived in Vienna while I was growing up,” Kurt continues. “In such a completely working class neighbourhood. My mother raised me to speak English and French - the ‘languages of the great powers’, she always said. She was always so cosmopolitan to me - to everyone, where we lived.” There is a pause, a slight hitch in breath over the phone that Blaine can’t quite tell whether or not he has imagined it. “When she died... when she died, I became my father’s everything. I was suddenly his whole world, and he was mine.”
“I’m sorry,” Blaine mutters softly, automatically, before he can remember who he’s speaking to. Kurt lets out an ugly snort of laughter.
“It was over eighty years ago, pretty,” Kurt bites, a hint of bitterness twining along the words as he snaps out the endearment. Blaine winces, reprimanding himself for... for what? For feeling sympathy for a little boy who lost his mother? “I’m fairly certain I’m past it by now.”
Arms twisted around his middle, Blaine doesn’t say anything. He remains silent, and after a while Kurt continues.
“It probably seems stupid to you,” Kurt continues knowingly, and Blaine can practically hear the sound of him rolling his eyes, it’s so apparent in his tone. “Knowing everything that was happening at the time. But for me, it was just... life. The ways things were. If things in the city were tense, or uncertain, I certainly didn’t notice at all. It was beyond my concern; I had my own problems. Teenagers always do, you know, and they always seem like the end of the world.”
“Like what?” Blaine asks. The fingernails tap-tap-tap harder against the doorframe.
“I don’t know,” says Kurt. “Normal things. My dad was teaching me how to repair a steam engine. I wanted the newest fashions of coats and shirts and hats, but I couldn’t always afford them. The boys in my neighbourhood didn’t like me: they thought I was... feminine. And strange, and broken. Kid stuff, you know. Normal.” He lets out an amused little sound, high and twisted. Blaine shivers instinctively at the noise. “And after the Nazis came in, my life kept going in very much the same way.”
“Really?” asks Blaine, marvelling for a second at the absurdity of hearing someone who looks so much younger than him describe events from so far in the past. The things Kurt is describing so nonchalantly are narratives taught to every child in every school. Blaine’s eyebrows furrow together, and he frowns. “Things... didn’t change?”
Kurt makes a vague, indistinct sort of noise and huffs out a breath of air.
“I guess?” says Kurt, and Blaine can practically hear the shrug in his voice. “A few people left our neighbourhood without much warning. Some people were happy about the unification; other people were angry. It was all just politics, and I couldn’t really care. Politics was an unfriendly arena for me. And my dad was a practical, simple man: he didn’t care who was in government as long as he and I were safe and sound and looked after. It didn’t matter.”
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. The sound is drumming in Blaine’s brain, the tiny beat of it pounding in his ears as he listens.
“No,” says Kurt, making a thoughtful noise at the back of s throat. “Really, the only reason I really started to notice the change was because of the influx of German soldiers into Vienna. We lived near one of the main train stations, you see, and there were always soldiers coming and going. Nice boys, mostly. Friendly. That’s what they never tell you in the history books, Blaine; all of the worst things in the world are done by very nice people.” He pauses, hesitating. “But... there was one boy in particular. Who was... not. Not so nice, no.”
Blaine tenses, straightening up his back against the door. His skin is prickling. He tries to force himself to relax, but fails; it feels as though every single one of his nerves is on edge.
“It was never anything obvious,” continues Kurt, sounding calm. “Nothing he couldn’t justify, and never anything we would report him to his superiors for. You can’t report someone for always being around, can you? Or for staring, or for making you feel... unnerved. Exposed.” He lets out a little laugh. “Not when you’re a boy. Not in that time. But... he was always there. All the time, even when he wasn’t on duty. Watching me. It... made me feel scared, even though I didn’t really know why.
“My dad... suspected, I think,” says Kurt contemplatively, voice sounding far away. “He... well. He wouldn’t tell me why - it wasn’t something you talked about, god, no - but he told me to be careful. To watch my back around him.” Tap-tap-tap-tap, and Kurt lets out a little huff of air. “One day, the soldier even arrived at our door. Made excuses about needing to look at papers and barged his way inside, and there was nothing we could do. He rooted through our things - my mother’s old jewellery, even, and the kitchen - while he made noises about paperwork and licenses even after we’d proven that everything was in order. He stayed in my room the longest: emptying drawers of my clothes onto the ground, and checking under my mattress, and even shaking out my books as though he could find something hidden inside. When he finally left, I was shaking and I didn’t even know why. Just that he frightened me more than anyone else ever had.”
Every muscle in Blaine’s body is straining toward the closed door, desperate to hear more. He licks his lips, every second of silence feeling like a bottomless chasm in the night.
“And then, all at once, he stopped coming,” says Kurt at last, letting out a laugh. It is a small, unpleasant noise. “We assumed he had been stationed somewhere else, and we were so relieved. I was so relieved. We were safe again, no matter what was going on in the rest of the world. My dad and me, in our little broken home. Out of harm’s way.”
“But he hadn’t been stationed somewhere else,” says Blaine quietly, and it’s not really a question. Kurt purrs, and the sound of a fingernail scraping down the doorframe makes Blaine’s eyes widen. Kurt makes a low, heated noise his throat.
“Smart and gorgeous, I see,” he says, letting out a little breathy noise that makes Blaine’s blood feel cold. “I’m a lucky man.”
Keep him on track. Keep him talking.
“What happened?” Blaine asks quickly, not bothering with finesse when they’re so close. Kurt makes a wounded little noise that drifts through the door, but after a moment the tap-tap-tap of his fingernails begins to build up again. Slow, but gathering speed.
“One night,” says Kurt, the tapping getting faster, “I was walking home. It was late, and I was alone. I wasn’t being careful, not anymore: the solider was gone, and I thought I was safe.” Wet sounds; Kurt, licking his lips. Blaine wonders if it hurts him, to think about this. If Kurt can even feel hurt over anything, anymore.
“I turned the corner,” Kurt says, voice picking up speed. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. “And... there he was. He looked... different. Sharper. Harder. But the way he stared... god, it was the same.”
Kurt lets out a tiny, empty laugh. “I know it must be hard for you to believe, pretty thing, but when I was human? I was the farthest thing from a fighter. If my words weren’t going to be enough to save me, I... I would freeze. My body, my mind, everything. I would... lock in place, as though I could avoid whatever was going to happen by going limp like a doll.” He says the words contemptuously. “I saw him, and I froze, and when he came toward me I didn’t even try to run away, or struggle. He was bigger than me, and faster. A soldier. I figured he would hit me, maybe threaten me a little, and then leave. It would be my word against his if I struggled, and I was no one, Blaine. My word against his, and my word didn’t mean anything at all.
“When he grabbed me, I was scared. When he kissed me... god, I was terrified, more terrified than I’d ever been and so stunned, but I still didn’t try to pull away.” The tapping is almost frenetic now; a sharp juxtaposition against the calmness of Kurt’s voice. “And when I felt his face distorting and twisting against my lips...” There is a loud slam that rocks its way through the door, and Blaine jumps and sucks in a startled breath. It sounds like Kurt’s fist. The tapping of the fingernails is gone, now. Everything seems so much quieter than before.
“I tried to run,” says Kurt, and his voice sounds very empty. “I really did. But you know it was already too late.”
Blaine remembers the ease with which Kurt had trapped the drunk man up against the wall, and an image of Kurt, younger-looking and less sharpened by murder and monstrosity, flashes across Blaine’s eyelids. Warm and real and human and alive, innocent and helpless as he’s murdered in a cobblestone street. The image makes Blaine recoil violently, and he shudders.
“I don’t remember much, after that,” says Kurt simply. “I remember... pain. Pain in my neck, and fear. Screaming for my life, and how easily he held me in place while it happened. I remember the taste of his blood in my mouth and how he ordered me to swallow, and I was so scared. I remember more pain, and the world fading, and then... shouts. Yells and cries from the people in the houses, I think, and fire and blood and then everything was gone.” There is a pause. “When I woke, hours later, I was alone. On a cold, hard table with no one around. In the town morgue, I realize now. And everything was so cold. The boy... he was young - had just been changed when he found me, I think - and he was still weak enough that the people outside had able to find a way to kill him before I woke.”
There is a long spell of silence., and Blaine begins to come back to himself. The whole room has faded away as Kurt’s been speaking; reduced to the singular sound of Kurt’s beautiful and terrible voice behind him.
When Kurt speaks again, he sounds... distant. Preoccupied. Miles and miles away from the two of them.
“It was... cruel, the way he did it,” says Kurt slowly, and there is a pain in his voice that Blaine doesn’t understand. “Out in public, where he could be found. Where there was any possibility of him leaving me alone like that. It wasn’t fair.” Another pause, and when Kurt continues there is something sombre and insistent in his voice. “I wouldn’t do it like that.”
“But...” says Blaine in quiet disbelief, shaking his head and blinking hard. “You... you weren’t angry at him for doing it at all? He... he killed you, Kurt. That doesn’t make you angry?”
“Why would it?” Kurt asks, and the utter lack of comprehension in his tone makes Blaine feel sick to his stomach. The sound of a nail being dragged down the doorframe is back, frustrating and sharp, and it digs at Blaine’s brain. “He made more than I was. He made me better. I don’t regret that this happened to me, Blaine. Yes, it would have been nice if it could have been... could have been special, and perfect, and meaningful. It... some of the circumstances could have been... nicer, it’s true. But I don’t feel angry at him for making me what I am.”
“What else?” Blaine asks quickly, hands tightening in the blanket on his lap.
“... pardon me?”
“You said that the circumstances could have been better,” says Blaine, the detail plucked out in his mind as though highlighted in a textbook. “How? What else went wrong?”
For a moment, Blaine thinks he’s gone too far. “Typical,” Kurt snaps. “I give you a gift and all you want is more, you’re so greedy -”
“You said you weren’t hiding anything from me,” Blaine interjects quietly, barely more than a whisper, and Kurt stops talking. Blaine leans his head back against the door, holding his breath and thinking that he must have pushed his luck, that it isn’t going to work - when Kurt begins to talk again.
“When I woke up, I was cold and alone and confused. I was hungry - hungrier than I’d ever been before, it was all I could see. All I could think about. I had no idea where I was, or what had happened, and all I wanted to do was go home.” There is a hint of irony in his tone as he lingers over that last word. The silence is so thick that it feels like a palpable force. “So... I did.”
It takes Blaine long, long seconds before he finally realizes what is significant about that sentence. When it hits him, something distant and painful and unthinkable grips at his chest. His stomach twists, and images of his own parents flash in front of his eyes. His father’s solid hand in his as a child; the way his mother always smiles as though her world is lighting up whenever she sees him after a long separation.
“You didn’t,” Blaine denies quietly, shaking his head and closing his eyes.“... your dad.”
For minutes that stretch on forever, Kurt remains silent on the other side of the door.
“He invited me in as soon as he saw me,” intones Kurt finally, that musical voice twisted up in something thoughtful. Distant, and vague. As though remembering something from a dream. “He was so relieved, and confused, I was so hungry. I was his everything, Blaine, and he was mine. And it was over so quickly.” He hears Kurt let out a tiny breath of air. “Sometimes I think I regret it, now. Sometimes I don’t. It’s hard to tell.”
And there is absolutely nothing Blaine can say in response. There is a sick feeling in his stomach, and his whole body feels sweaty and dirty despite the chill.
Hearing that story... hearing about Kurt as a human... Blaine had pitied him. For long minutes, lulled by the sound of his sweet voice crooning through the door, Blaine had pitied him. Had tried to look between the lines to search out any remaining humanity still hiding inside - only to be met with this. This brutal, awful reminder of exactly who he is talking to.
Kurt, who wants to kill him. Kurt, who doesn’t care about the people he murders.
Kurt, who killed and fed from his own father.
“Won’t you open the door for me, Blaine?” says Kurt abruptly, seductive and heated in a way that makes Blaine’s stomach clench. He imagines finding the people who gave him life - who raised him, and loved him - and killing them. He tries to imagine not knowing if you cared. “You don’t have to invite me in, I promise. I just want to see your pretty face. It’s been so long, lovely. I’m pining for it.” The nails scratch down the door in one single, drawn-out drag of noise. “I gave you my story, Blaine,” Kurt whispers. “Won’t you give me something so small in return?”
“Please,” Blaine pleads quietly, squeezing his eyes shut. He’s not sure why he says the word, knows full well it won’t achieve anything.
So he is completely stunned when Kurt acquiesces without a fight.
“All right,” says Kurt quietly, neutrally, and the sounds of shifting weight and fabric make it sound as though he’s standing up. There is the single slide of a hand over the wood of the door - as well as the strangest noise that accompanies it. Soft, and brief; almost as though Kurt has pressed his lips briefly against the wood. It’s a quiet sound; so very quiet that Blaine thinks he must be imagining it. “Good night, beautiful thing. Dream of me.”
And all at once, Kurt is completely gone. Blaine can feel it as much as he can hear it; the absence of Kurt rings loud and obvious in the hallway. He lets out a breath of air, clutching at his middle and shaking.
By all rights, Blaine should feel triumphant. Victorious, for getting all of the information and facts and dates and places he could have wanted and more.
Instead, he curls up against the door, blinks hard, and prays to whatever gods there might be for the sweet void of dreamless sleep tonight.
--
Over the course of the next week, the sometimes-gatherings with Amita degenerate into full-out war meetings. Starting on the morning after Kurt shared his story with him, Blaine starts coming to the bookshop every day without fail. The contents of the table at the back of the stacks begins to resemble war plans more and more with every passing day; strewn with ancient and modern books alike, stakes and bits of crafting material, and even a map of the Five Boroughs. They put in an order online for weapons that look as though they’ve been plucked right out of a medieval period drama. Battleaxes and real swords; all small enough for any one of them to carry and use, but strong and tried and true tools for incapacitating things that don’t want to be killed.
During the visits, Jack brings them tea and snacks every few hours like clockwork, frowning over the frames of his glasses and staring at their handy work with something like apprehension. Blaine can tell, without the older man even speaking a word, that he was much more comfortable with their talk of killing and fighting when it was more abstract.
In contrast, Amita becomes practically frenetic with focus and intensity. Her hair seems to become less and less styled every time Blaine arrives at the bookshop door; degenerating from straightened, manicured tresses to messy buns and braids that leave small hairs escaping and trailing along her face.
“He’s young,” Blaine catches her muttering under her breath at one point, flipping through a leather-bound book like a woman possessed. There’s a fire in her eyes as she speaks; a slight frenzy to her movement. “He’s younger than we thought, we can do this. I can do this.”
After the first few days, Blaine even starts skipping classes on days where it would otherwise be impossible to have enough sunlight to meet. It doesn’t matter, though. None of it matters because they’re so close; so close it hurts to finding a way, to Blaine being free again. So close he can feel it humming in the marrow of his bones.
The next weekend, Jack has to travel out of state for a few days’ worth of book-buying. The plan is for Blaine to come by as soon as the sun will allow; the shipment of weapons should be coming in fairly soon, and Amita wants to go over some of the handling with him. The basics, in case he ever needs to use them. They’ve been starting to work out specifics, in the past few days; ideas of when and how and where that they throw out to one another like bones to pick for vultures.
In less than a month, they’ve decided, they want to have some concrete plan of attack. The idea of a real plan bursts in fissures along Blaine’s mind throughout the hours of the day; unbelievable, and incredible, and so close.
When Blaine arrives at the bookstore, sun shining weakly though the early afternoon mist to the air, he heads on up the staircase and past the cheerful ‘Open!’ sign without any preamble. This has all very much become his routine; climb the stairs, push the door inside, and begin the day’s discussions on South Eastern vampire lore and slaying myths, or the potential value of decapitation, or stories about trapping demons and whether or not that information could possibly be of any help to them. He heads up the creaking wooden stairs two at a time, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the old building. Without hesitating, he pushes open the door when he reaches the top.
“I’m here!” Blaine calls out to the bookstore, immediately winding away the scarf where he’s wrapped it around the bottom half of his face. The skin that had been exposed to the cold feels raw and slightly numb, and he’s grateful to be inside. “Amita, I’m here!” he shouts again, pausing when there isn’t any response.
Over the next few seconds, it occurs to Blaine that there is something... off. Something different about the store today that he can’t quite put his finger on. He freezes in place, eyes darting around the familiar sight of the bookshelves, the tables and chairs, the open door at the back, the handsome wooden floors. Everything seems to be in place; the electric lights overhead fill the space with its usual brightness, and it looks almost identical to the last time he was here. But there is a stillness to the shop that feels... unnatural. Wrong.
There’s no one at the front desk, Blaine realizes, brow furrowing. Every time he has ever come to visit before, either Amita or Jack have been stationed at or nearby the front desk. With Jack out of town, Amita should be there. There isn’t anyone else to do it, and she wouldn’t leave the front abandoned with the door unlocked.
Irrational apprehension is starting to prickle at his skin; it’s daytime, he tells himself, it’s safe. He takes a few steps forward. The floorboards creak beneath his feet; heavy and ancient and loud in the strange stillness.
“Amita?” Blaine calls out again, voice coming out less steady than he was expecting it to. He takes a few more steps forward before something catches his attention. It’s a splash of colour on one of the far bookshelves; a tiny smear of bright red along the bottom of the wood where it doesn’t belong. Liquid. Dripping.
And all at once, it occurs to Blaine what felt wrong about the space before: the only light inside is artificial. There are curtains drawn across every window.
The world has been yanked out from underneath him. Stark terror shooting up and down his spine, fireworks going off behind his eyes, Blaine stumbles forward to where the tiny smudge of red is, hoping and praying and please please please oh god, no, please -
When he turns the corner to stare into the tiny cranny between two sets of shelves, the sight that meets his eyes makes his hand fly up to cover his mouth. His stomach twists and churns and the world spins around him, unreal and falling away as he stares.
For a second, Blaine’s mind cannot process the sheer amount of red. Red everywhere, red all over everything; smeared and spilled across the floor, splattered and soaking into books, drenching everything in sight. The blood is bright and liquid, for the most part; fresh and new and viscous, except in patches where it’s starting to clot and thicken and turn to horrible brown.
There are shapeless chunks that have been spread around amidst the blood. Shapes don’t make any sense until he looks closer and realizes that they’re body parts, like something from a butcher shop window. Torn away and strewn about, devoid of any meaning when separated from the human body itself. The largest one is in the back corner; a horrible lump of torn flesh and muscle and clothes that is utterly unrecognizable to his eyes. The smell of blood and raw meat hits his nose like a physical force, and Blaine clamps his hand over his mouth harder and forces down a retch as his stomach twists and his eyes stay wide and all-seeing. His knees feel weak and his legs are boneless beneath him, but he can’t look away; can’t drag his eyes away from the carnage in front of him.
Wake up, he yells at himself through the haze. Wake up, wake up, wake up, please god wake up.
But this is no dream, and he can’t force himself awake. Can only watch, and look, and stare in abject horror at the slick mess of what used to be a human being.
Amid the muddle of skin and flesh, Blaine’s eyes fixate on a single detail. A shape that he knows, but doesn’t want to recognize. Snapped away and with white bone peeking out from the end, limp and lifeless on the ground.
It’s a human arm attached to a hand; light brown skin with long, bright red fingernails and a golden wedding band on the ring finger.
The sound of a door slamming comes, loud and sudden and shocking, from behind him. Heart slamming in his chest, Blaine spins around with his eyes still wide and disbelieving, and -
And Kurt is standing there, right in front of the door that is the only way in or out. Hair styled in a messy, casual way; dressed in a shirt and jacket and soaked, absolutely soaked, in blood. His whole body is covered in splashes and smears of brown-red; steeped into his clothes in great swathes. His face, strangely, is practically clean; there are only the tiny splatters and spots across his perfect pale features, not a massive smear around his mouth. Instead, Kurt’s lips are decorated with a delighted, ecstatic grin. Stretching his smile wide across his face, eyes sparkling and bright and blue.
He’s here. In person, in real life; not over the phone or behind a barrier, but real and murderous and in front of him right now. There is absolutely nothing between them.
When he speaks, Kurt’s voice takes on a high, sing-song quality; like a child winning at hide and seek after a very long game. Smirking and self-satisfied and very, very pleased with himself.
“Got you,” says Kurt, his lips stretched into a wide, sinister smile as he tilts his head and stares, and there is nowhere left for Blaine to run.
Chapter Six