Fic: "Until My Dying Breath", Chapter Nine: Part One -- Kurt/Blaine Vampire AU.
Hey, everyone! Thank you so much for your patience with this chapter, as always. I know that a lot of you have been anticipating what happens in this particular installment for a while, and I'm very excited to share it with you!
Thank you so much for supporting me with this fic, everyone! It's by far the longest thing I've ever written ever, and your support means so much to me. <3
Title: "Until My Dying Breath" -- Chapter Nine
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Vampire AU with all the unpleasantness that entails. Dubious consent, violence, pain, bloodplay, blood drinking, sexualized violence, grotesque descriptions, dark setting, fear, minor past character death, intense dark emotions, brief contemplation of suicide in a previous chapter, mugging, murder, kinda-suicide, tremendously unreliable narrator. Warnings on a chapter by chapter basis.
Length: 13,300-ish for this chapter
Story Summary: On his way home from campus to his apartment on the Upper East Side, Blaine Anderson happens to come across a beautiful young man with bewitching blue eyes. It doesn’t take long, though, for everything Blaine thought was real to fall to pieces. For his world to dissolve into a twisted dance of fear and heat and blood.
Notes: Here it is, guys! :3 Thank you all so much for your wonderful support in letting me get this far with this fic; you guys keep me motivated and excited about this story and I'm so glad to be able to share it with you. <3 I truly appreciate your feedback, and I'm excited to hear what you think!
For those interested, my tumblr is here. It's where I tend to post updates about how chapters are progressing, as well as other fannish things. :3
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Epilogue
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The whole world lurches to a stop, shuddering to a halt as time hangs between them like a lead weight. Everything is frozen in stasis, a moment of shocking clarity that seems to stretch on without end. It’s only a second - enough time for nothing more than a single inhale and exhale of breath - but in Blaine’s mind, it twists and stretches and lasts for what seems like forever. Eyes wide and breath trapped in his throat, Blaine sits in the armchair and stares in front of him as though it is physically impossible for him to look away. His forearm is smeared with thick streaks of his own blood, and the frayed mess the punctures have made of the soft skin of his underarm throb and ache and sear with jolting, brutal pain.
But Blaine barely even registers how much it hurts, or the warmth of the blood as it oozes and slides along his skin. Everything is drowned out by the adrenaline pounding in his ears as he stares in front of him at the beautiful, horrible, world-ending sight of Kurt in front of him.
Kurt’s eyes - his beautiful, incredible eyes that Blaine has come to love despite every survival instinct in his body - are bled through with a sickening red like congealing blood. Standing in front of him like death in human form, hands shaking at his sides with elegant fingers clenching and nails visibly biting into his palms. Kurt’s features are all stretched and pulled, too long too harsh too sharp like a distorted photo that was developed wrong; the sight of him is jarring, doesn’t make sense against the normalcy of the rest of the room. His head is tilted to one side, tension and potential energy straining in his limbs, his posture.
And Kurt’s eyes are fixed on the side of Blaine’s neck, raking over the exposed stretch of skin as he shudders and his jaw tightens. His gaze holds the two of them in place, rigid and frozen. Keeps them prisoner in this moment, waiting and holding and stretching on and on as they stare at each other with unseeing eyes.
It’s not enough. Kurt’s words from a few moments ago are a physical presence between them; a footprint in the air that leaves Blaine numb and uncomprehending as sticky blood oozes over his fingers from where he has them pressed against the wound on his forearm. It isn’t enough anymore.
When the full meaning of Kurt’s words hits him, the world kick starts back into normal speed with the abruptness of a car engine revving back to life. It’s not enough it’s not enough it’s not enough anymore, and the numb shock rushes out of Blaine’s chest in one hard burst as fear slams into him like a physical force.
“No,” says Blaine weakly, but the word snags in his throat and only makes it out into the air as a tiny, strangled little noise. He licks his lips, jolts of red-hot panic bursting behind his eyelids like solar flares and terror rupturing in the base of his stomach. His arm aches, his own blood slippery beneath his fingers. He swallows hard, unable to take his eyes off of Kurt in front of him. “Kurt... Kurt, you don’t -”
“I can’t wait anymore,” says Kurt, tilting his head to one side in a measuring, predatory way. His voice is high and sharp and strangely calm as he stares at Blaine’s neck as through barely restraining himself from ripping his throat out right then and there. He blinks, eyes unfocused and posture rigid, and his eyes never leave Blaine’s neck. After a very dangerous moment he shakes his head - and a little bit of the red ebbs out of his eyes. Features softening and relaxing infinitesimally as something ever-so-slightly more human comes back into his face. Kurt looks down at Blaine with a taut expression, lips pressed tight together. He almost looks pained. “It’s too much, Blaine. It’s time.”
This was always going to happen. Always, no other option. Absolutely everything in Blaine’s life for so long has been leading up to this; spiralling toward it like an inevitable conclusion. There is no other way any of this could have possibly gone. Every moment, every touch, every single breath that Blaine has taken since that moment in his apartment weeks ago, when Kurt first crossed the barrier and kissed him sweetly and chose to draw everything out - all of that has been nothing more than living on borrowed time. Blaine has been waiting for this with horror in his heart for so long, waiting and expecting and anticipating and knowing.
This is the only way that any of this could ever, ever finish.
It doesn’t matter, though, because Blaine isn’t ready.
“Please,” says Blaine softly, shaking his head and pushing back into the armchair. He’s pale, and sick, and weak from blood loss but he’s alive. Still alive. Still able to think and feel and remember and love his family and be afraid and everything, all of that, is about to be taken away from him. So much worse than being killed, because death is final and it happens to everyone and then it’s over. It doesn’t drag on, a sick parody of humanity lingering and killing and walking around with his face and his voice but nothing on the inside. Nothing that makes him real; that makes him who he is.
But there is no one waiting in the wings to save him. No one in the world who knows where he is except for Kurt; no last-minute way to escape despite the odds.
And so Blaine begs. Throws away the last bit of pride like it’s something inconsequential, walls falling down and his face crumpling as he shakes his head back and forth and begs. For a few more weeks, or days, or hours to be who he is before he’s twisted up and corrupted and turned into something he never wanted to be.
“Please,” says Blaine again, shaking his head hard and his eyes stinging as sinking awful terror fills his chest and weighs him down. He searches Kurt’s eyes; finds them steeped saturated with red, yes - but there is the barest hint of blue around the edges that he clings to like a lifeline as he speaks. “Kurt, please. Don’t do this, I’m - I’m frightened. I’m scared, so scared. You - you have to remember what it was like. Being scared, I know you remember -”
“I know,” says Kurt quickly, blinking away a little bit more of the red as he swoops down into Blaine’s space and strokes a pale, shaking hand down the side of Blaine’s face. He wrenches his eyes away from Blaine’s neck, seemingly forcing himself to look Blaine in the eyes. He’s breathing hard. “I know, Blaine. It’s okay, it’s just - it’s going to be all done soon. All done, and it’ll just be over -”
“I don’t want this,” says Blaine, clutching at Kurt’s arm and shaking his head as a sob clutches at his throat. Makes his words weak and choked as he drags in air and tries one last time. “I don’t, Kurt, please-”
“You will,” Kurt assures him, and his voice is strained as he leans in and presses a kiss to Blaine’s cheek. And then another to his forehead, his brow, the side of his nose. Peppering them over his face with lips that won’t stop shaking as his hand grows tight and painful on Blaine’s face, digging into this skin and holding him close. “You will, I promise, just - I can’t wait. Blaine, I can’t stop myself, it has to happen now. You’ll be fine, it’s okay. You’ll be better.”
Lips press against his skin, soft and kind and insistent, and noise is bubbling inside of Blaine like boiling water. The pressure increasing as the words choke in his throat, fighting to escape, and he can’t think can’t breathe can’t hold back. Months of being chased and played with and fucked and strung out make the pleading words dissolve into nothing.
And all at once there are other words, wrenching themselves out of Blaine’s throat in a wailing, angry scream.
“Stop it!” Blaine yells, strangled and shouted and pained, point blank with Kurt’s face pressed right up against his. Kurt freezes in shock, some of the franticness of his movements stalled as he jerks away, blue eyes wide with surprise.
But Blaine can’t feel worried, or surprised, or even revel in the rare fact of catching Kurt off his guard. Can’t feel horrified or anxious or scared of what Kurt is going to do, because this is the end and he’s tried so hard but he just can’t anymore. Face screwed up and throat thick and horrible, Blaine wrenches his face out of Kurt’s limp grasp. He shoves himself back harder into the chair, all reservations gone. Horrible emotion - fear, anger, sadness, hurt, frustration - screw at his insides, and he just can’t anymore.
“Stop it,” Blaine spits out, shaking his head and feeling incongruent betrayal throbbing hot beneath his skin. He can’t fight back physically -could never fight back physically - but a million angry words are welling up like blood from a fresh wound. “Don’t you fucking talk like that, just... stop. Stop lying to me.” Blaine chokes out a breath that comes out more like a sob than anything else, voice swelling back up into a yell. “You don’t have to do this. You never had to do this, Kurt. Never. This isn’t something you had to do, it’s your choice. You could have left me alone, or done it right away, or explained. But instead you - you dragged it out and made it last and make me suffer, and you never ever had to.”
“Blaine,” says Kurt warningly, voice lowered and lips drawn tight.
“And you can’t even admit it!” Blaine shouts, shaking his head and blinking hard against the wetness in his eyes. “You - you pretend to be something human but you’re not, Kurt. Pretending to care about me but you don’t, you’re - you’re sick, and awful, and you’re killing me.”
“I’ll bring you back,” says Kurt, voice clipped and sure of himself.
“Whatever you bring back won’t be me!”
Kurt’s mouth falls open in silent shock, and Blaine doesn’t know where all of this is coming from. Doesn’t know how he rediscovered his courage after such a long time of being submerged in hopeless silence, but right now all he can feel is anger. Because Blaine bends, and bends, and tries to please people and makes things work and can be pushed almost to the end of the world. But when he finally hits his breaking point, it is like a dam breaking. He lets the anger fill him up, make him strong; for a second, he can forget the horrible sickness in his stomach, the weakness in his limbs. Because this is last time he’s ever going to be able to feel this way again; there’s never going to be another opportunity.
“It won’t be me,” Blaine says again, his skin feeling hot and flushed despite how cold he’s been for so long. “Whatever... whatever thing you bring back? That won’t be me. It might look like me, and talk like me, but it won’t - it won’t. You’re killing me, Kurt. You’re killing me and you won’t be able to have me back.”
“It will be you,” Kurt snaps, but Blaine thinks he can hear the slightest waver of uncertainty in his voice. He shakes his head.
“You don’t know that,” says Blaine, sadness seeping into the words, and all at once he just feels tired. He slumps against the chair, the anger flowing out of him like water through cupped hands, and all that remains is a terrible, aching sadness. “Kurt... if you do this, and what comes back is me... then how do you know I won’t hate you for what you did?” Something incredibly painful flashes across Kurt’s face, and Blaine keeps going. “How do you know that when you... when you turn me,” he says, voice catching on that word. He takes a breath. “How do you know that when you turn me, I won’t want to leave you? And what will you do then - keep me locked up in your apartment forever like before? Kill me? You’ve planned out everything; tell me you’ve never considered that this won’t work.”
In front of him, Kurt’s face is frozen in an expression of silent agony. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but stops before any sound can escape. Blaine scans his face, feeling exhausted and desperate but still looking for some hope, some chance. Kurt looks down at the space between them, blinking and letting out a little breath of air. Blaine’s breath catches in his throat as he sits and stares and waits.
After a moment, however, Kurt looks up - and his eyes are like iron gates. Impenetrable and hard, and ruthlessly closed off.
“I have to take that chance,” says Kurt, and it feels like icy water being poured over Blaine head. Kurt reaches a hand forward, resting a hand on the side of Blaine’s face. His whole body is taut and tense like a bowstring about to snap. “I have to try,” says Kurt again, his voice firm and his hand shaking. “If I don’t, I’ll kill you. I won’t be able to stop, and I won’t let you die. I won’t... I won’t let you get away from me, not like that.” He strokes his thumb too-hard over Blaine’s cheek, and hopeless certainty is building in the base of Blaine’s gut. “I remember what this was like, Blaine. I do. But it ends. It ends and you wake up and everything is different. I... I tried to make this special for you. But now it’s time to stop.”
There is only one more thing left that Blaine can think of to say; one last desperate attempt thrown out like a lifesaver into a storm. Hopelessness filling him up like lead and Kurt’s nails digging into the side of his face from holding himself back, Blaine opens his mouth to speak.
“Don’t be like him,” Blaine whispers, wincing as Kurt’s brow furrows in confusion. The words feel small and pointless as soon as he speaks them out loud. He keeps going anyways, has to keep going because this is the last chance he’s going to get. “Don’t... don’t be like the man who turned you, Kurt. Please.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Abruptly, the world is yanked right out from underneath him. Blaine shouts in surprise at the sudden feeling of weightlessness as the room spins, clutching at Kurt’s chest where the other man has given up any kind of pretence and snatched Blaine right up into his arms. Roughly, without finesse or any of the gentle care that he usually holds him with, and he’s too weak from blood loss and sickness to even pretend to struggle. Grabbing him and gripping too-tight as he walks them down the hall with purposeful strides, not seeming to care when he jostles Blaine around in his arms.
And Blaine doesn’t have to see Kurt’s face to know how absolutely, sickeningly furious Kurt is.
“Shut up,” Kurt snaps in a high, ice-cold voice. His whole body is practically vibrating with anger. Taking them both into the bedroom with almost-stomping footsteps, shaking his head back and forth.
They reach the closed door to the bedroom, and Kurt grips Blaine’s body extra-tight in one arm and slams his free hand into the flat of the door. His palm impacts with a horrible breaking sound, bursting it open to crash against the wall with a violent cluttering crack that reverberates throughout Blaine’s whole body. Blaine squeezes his eyes shut, his heart spasming and screaming in his chest. Kurt is taking him to the bedroom. Where Blaine woke up all those indistinct weeks ago, where this whole little setup started. Kurt is taking him to the bedroom so that he can do this on the bed; do it properly, to lay him down and bleed him dry.
The crash of the door still reverberating along his skin, Blaine opens his eyes. Musters all of the courage still left in his near-useless limbs, gathers it up like spinning straw and holds it close in his chest.
“How are you different?” Blaine manages to ask, small and determined and not really begging anymore. Just... quiet and out loud, and asking. Really, genuinely asking. Not because he thinks it will help - the way that Kurt’s nails are digging down and cutting into his skin makes his whole body clench and shake with the realization that this is it, this is the end, it’s over.
No; Blaine asks because he wants to understand while he’s still him.
Without hesitating, Kurt takes those last few footsteps toward the bed before half-throwing, half-dropping Blaine onto it. The sheets are messily tucked in and easily mussed because Blaine was the last one here, not the hospital-corner precision that Kurt always uses. Blaine’s body bounces weakly on the mattress before Kurt is crawling on top of him, slamming Blaine’s hands above his head and pinning him to the bed with no effort at all.
“You don’t get it,” Kurt growls, grip painfully tight on Blaine’s wrists. Everything is narrowing down and getting faster, speeding up and it’s so close so close so close oh god. “You don’t get it, you never get it, you -”
“Then explain!” Blaine yells up at him, utterly helpless and pleading and desperate. The world is spinning and lilting violently, his glasses skewed from the force of being thrown onto the bed. His heart won’t stop pounding uselessly in his chest, and the sound roars loud in his ears. “How are you different from him, Kurt? How?”
“Because I care about you!”
The words are screamed right in his face, the noise loud and piercing in Blaine’s ears. Kurt’s face is screwed up with upset and anger but Blaine can’t even think. Can’t feel, can’t see, can’t do anything but gape soundlessly beneath him.
Kurt keeps going, leaning down close and breathing hard as he keeps on yelling. “I care about you, you moron. Is that what you need to hear?” His lips are twisted in a sneer, and his whole body is shaking above him with emotion and restraint. “Spelled out like that, simple and stupid and nothing and words? Are you really so oblivious that you can’t tell?” He growls, low and hard and dangerous as his eyes narrow. “Even when you’re - when you’re stupid and breakable, I care about you.”
Utterly stunned and with no idea at all what to say, Blaine lies and stares up at Kurt with eyes as wide as saucers. Staring right into Kurt’s face, so close to his, and for the first time Blaine notices some of the smaller signs of agitation in his expression. His usually-immaculate hair is in complete disarray; mousey and brown and everywhere, absolutely everywhere sticking up at odd angles and looking as though it hasn’t even been groomed today. There are dark circles under Kurt’s eyes, standing out sharply against the pale of his skin. He looks sunken in; exhausted, and strained, and as though he is about to snap and break and shatter at any moment.
He looks starving, and Blaine doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed that before.
But Kurt doesn’t pause. Doesn’t stop talking, doesn’t give him any time for this to sink in; just keeps shouting right into Blaine’s face, speaking too-quickly. His voice keeps catching, snagging as it gets higher and higher as he speaks.
“I’m not made out of stone, Blaine. I can’t - I can’t feel things the way you do, but I’m not empty.” He sneers, the expression catching along the line of his lips in an ugly, sharp way. “You turned my world upside down, do you even know that? You, and the way you fucking smell, and the way you - your everything, I - I can’t -”
Kurt cuts himself off, shuddering hard and seeming to hold back a yell of frustration. He shoves down hard onto his grip on Blaine’s wrists, making the bed rock and Blaine’s wrists ache. He can’t even feel it, though. Can’t feel the pain at all through the shock. Kurt is overflowing with words like a cup that has run too full and simply has to pour over the edges, words flowing out of him like a river.
“You’re special, I told you that,” says Kurt, the same irritation seeping into his voice that always happens when he accuses Blaine of not listening. He shifts uncomfortably above him, his grip on Blaine’s wrists loosening. “You’re special, I found you, I waited. I - I never thought I’d find anyone ever. I never wanted to find anyone, but you...” Kurt shakes his head, letting out a sharp burst of laughter. “I chased you for almost two months, Blaine. Two months. I lingered, and waited, and thought about you for every second of every day, and I kept you in my home for over a month, and - and I’m making you like me. Do you think I’ve ever done this for anyone else?” He laughs, hard and exposed. “Of course I’m attached, you idiot. I’m not - I’m not taking the first pretty thing I found and turning into something to own. Not like he did, it’s different, we’re different and you just can’t see it.”
He stares down at Blaine angrily, as though expecting him to say something. But Blaine can’t speak. Can’t open his mouth, can’t do anything except lie beneath him on the bed and gape as the words wash over him. As they burn and sear like corrosive fluid.
“You can’t understand while you’re like that,” Kurt mutters bitterly when Blaine doesn’t respond, sitting back on his heels and shaking his head as he gestures to Blaine’s body. There is sadness and frustration and strain in every line of his body. “There’s nothing I can say to make you feel any better, Blaine. And... and you’ll never understand it, not like this. Soft and human, you’re like flies. You can’t understand, you’re not made to. You’re nothing, I know that, I know that, but...” he trails off uselessly, snapping his hand through the air in a violent gesture. “But you will be more. Once I do this... you’ll be you.”
The words don’t make any sense - Kurt is taking something away from him, not giving him something - but Kurt is already leaning back in close. Not pinning Blaine down, not anymore, just... pressing their foreheads together. Close, and tender, and so much like a lover. His skin is cool against Blaine’s, and he raggedly strokes a hand through Blaine’s hair as they press together.
“But I can’t wait anymore,” says Kurt quietly, shaking his head. He’s shivering, or maybe Blaine’s shivering - they’re too close to be able to tell. “I can’t, it’s not enough. You taste too good, and I’m... I’m starving, I’m so hungry, and you’re so weak and tired and small and I’ll kill you. I won’t be able to stop myself, I’ll just - I’ll keep drinking until I kill you, and that’s not going to happen. I’m not letting you die before we even start, you idiot. I won’t.”
Kurt takes a deep breath, his body stiffening with resolve as he moves away. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again Blaine can see that there is murky red seeping in along the outsides.
“I’m not sorry,” says Kurt, voice empty and hollow and beautiful as his features sharpen and his eyes darken and he holds himself tighter. Straighter, coiled up; holding himself back from striking. “I won’t lie to you, and I’m not sorry, but... I’ll try to make it quick.”
They stay like that, for a moment. Both of them breathing hard and holding still and waiting for Blaine to say something.
Sprawled on his back and staring up into Kurt’s eyes - watching them bleed through with more and more red like crusted blood - Blaine’s mind whirls and stutters soundlessly at everything Kurt just shouted at him. At what has been spoken, and what hasn’t been spoken, and the concepts and ideas that still hang outside his reach but are close, now. Closer than ever, just beyond his fingertips.
There is no life for him outside these walls; not anymore. Not like this. There is no way for him to recover from this, or bounce back, or prolong this from happening for any longer. Blaine’s body is so, so weak by now. Wrung out and covered in cuts and wounds, drained and toyed with and made so empty compared to what he used to be. He’s sick and dizzy and has been for days, turned into something hollow and pathetic and not capable of anything real.
Logically, none of what Kurt said should change anything. None of it should make him feel differently at all.
Everything hangs in the air for endless, lingering moments. Time drags on as a hundred cuts and wounds strain to make their pain known, the frayed skin of Blaine’s arm throbbing dully above it all. The two of them wait, tangled together in the bed where so much has happened between them; heated moments and whispered words and teeth slicing through thin skin. And Blaine’s mind isn’t racing; instead it’s slowing, winding down as it finally wraps itself around the only real conclusion.
When Blaine nods, the movement is so small that it would almost be imperceptible to anyone but Kurt’s eyes. He blinks hard against the stinging in his eyes, inclining his head again in a barely-there acknowledgement. And he never takes his eyes off of Kurt’s beautiful, monstrous, incomprehensible face.
“Make it quick,” says Blaine quietly, his whole body shaking as he turns his head to one side - and exposes the marred length of his neck to Kurt. Because nothing Kurt said should make any difference but it does, it really does, and even though tears are leaking down his cheeks there is something bolstered and brave inside Blaine’s chest. Reassured, and settled, and all of this is as inevitable as the setting sun. As unavoidable as day fading into night, and this is as close to acceptance as he’s ever going to get.
“Yes,” Kurt exhales, breathy and all at once and not relieved but close. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
But instead of slamming his mouth against Blaine’s neck right away - crashing through skin and tearing him to pieces, ending everything right here right now - Kurt edges back. He sits back and extends his hand, palm up, to where Blaine is still lying on the bed.
“Come here,” says Kurt, his eyes so red but his teeth still human and flat and small, so small inside his mouth. Blaine takes his hand; lets himself be tugged up and into Kurt’s arms. Lets himself be held, Kurt’s eyes scraping over his skin as he looks over Blaine’s face, body, his eyes for what feels like the last time.
“Blaine,” Kurt breathes quietly, licking his lips and sounding so, so desperate. He holds Blaine gently, carefully, stroking his thumb almost reverently over Blaine’s neck - before pulling him close and kissing him. Sliding their lips together as though they were made to fit together this way, and Blaine just lets his eyes fall closed and kisses instinctually back.
The kiss is soft, and sweet, and one last time like this. Weak and worn but his skin still hot and his heart still human, Blaine shudders beneath the onslaught of sensation. Groaning, Kurt sucks softly at Blaine’s bottom lip as his hands shake from restraint. Pulling him close and holding Blaine against his chest like he’s fragile, like he’s made out of glass; as though if he were to stop focusing even for a second, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back. It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane; just barely protected from the onslaught, so close that Blaine can feel it.
And it’s temporary. So, so temporary but there isn’t any point in being frightened anymore.
The world narrows down to the softness of Kurt’s cool lips pressed against his, the quietly desperate pressure of his tongue. Blaine leans into the touches, his whole mind numb with shock and certainty. The hollowness in his stomach is endless, and the fear is so large and incomprehensible that he simply cannot feel it anymore.
For one sweet and incredibly precious moment, Blaine’s mind goes blank.
Until Kurt breaks the kiss with sharp abruptness, pulling back with a hiss as he digs his fingers through the curls at the side of Blaine’s head.
“This is going to hurt,” says Kurt coldly, the words hard and high and empty, and Blaine’s blood runs cold. He doesn’t look Blaine in the eye as he speaks, staring down at the space between them instead. There is a shiftingchurningtwisting in the air, and Blaine’s stomach turns to lead when he realizes that he can feel Kurt’s skin rippling and changing in the split second as his face twists and becomes something inhuman.
And without waiting a single second longer, Kurt - not the monster, not a creature, but Kurt - clenches his hand in Blaine’s hair, wrenches Blaine’s head to one side, and buries his face in Blaine’s throat.
Pain, bursting shining bleeding ruptures through Blaine’s neck as Kurt’s mouth fastens too-wide over the muscle and sinew and skin and bites down, teeth sinking in viciously hard and ripping him open. Happening so fast, but he can feel everything. It sears and wrenches and it hurts, it hurts, every nerve in his body screaming and the only thing he can feel the horrible sickening crunching pain as teeth tear into his throat. Sharp as knives and cutting him, slicing him, and Blaine’s mouth is hanging open and everything is vibrating pounding bursting. He’s being torn apart, hot wetness bursting out from the wound as sticky blood pours into Kurt’s mouth, over his tongue, running down the side of Blaine’s chest.
There’s a sound, strangled and choked-off and wailing, a horrible sound like a banshee that’s ringing in Blaine’s ears and it takes him too long to realize that it’s him. He’s shouting, screaming as his body struggles and thrashes with instincts too primal and deep to be ignored, trying to get away from the pain, to make it stop and the sobbing wail is drowned out by the horrible sounds of visceral growls against his neck as Kurt bites down harder and drinks deep. He’s been light-headed for days but now the world spins, slanting and tilting violently as incomprehensible pain pulses and radiates from his neck, fills up his whole body as hands grip him tight and the room tilts -
- and Blaine is just a kid, chubby and ruddy and with a big grin that stays on his soft face like it was born there. He runs through the playground at the park, kicking up sand beneath his feet with every short step and throwing it up into the air so that it falls down like rain. It’s sunny, bright, the shining red of the painted monkey bars and tall slide and swing set gleaming proudly as the other boys and girls scurry left and right and play and have fun. Giggling and shrieking when he almost loses his footing but manages to pull himself up again, rounded little sneakers pounding on the ground and feeling hot and happy just from being here. Everything is so big and there’s so much, so much out here, and it’s all the best and he never wants to do anything other than play here forever.
“Blaine!” he hears a voice call out, very close, and he turns just in time before his father slides his hands under Blaine’s armpits and tugs him right off the ground and into the air.
“Daddy!” he squeals, looking back into his father’s young face. Moustached and dark-haired and smiling a rare smile, because daddy usually has to work and doesn’t get to take him to the park very much and today is special. His dad leans forward and presses a quick, scratchy kiss against Blaine’s softly rounded cheek and Blaine laughs at the shock of it, and everything is easy and simple and it always, always will be.
And then his father takes a quick look around them, gets a private little look on his face - and begins to spin them around.
It feels like Blaine is flying. He lets out a scream of delight and his father laughs a rare laugh out loud, spinning him around like a helicopter. In a circle, around and around and Blaine tilts his head back and lets the momentum carry him harder, raising his hands in the air like he’s a bird that needs to flap its wings. It’s fast and fun but he never worries that his father will drop him, because his hands are big and strong and steady and would never, ever let him fall -
- and Kurt is pulling at the wound with his mouth in brutal, heartless sucks that send agony shooting down his neck, his limbs, everywhere. He screams until it forces all the air from his body, until there’s no more sound coming but his mouth hangs open in horror and shock and pain, oh god the pain, and Blaine is still weakly trying to get away from the source of it even with Kurt’s mouth locked onto his neck and his arms an immovable mountain around him, holding him in place and making him stay and it hurts, everything soaking up with blood that Kurt’s mouth misses as he drinks and drinks and gorges himself and finally doesn’t have to hold back any longer.
Blaine scrabbles helplessly at Kurt’s shoulder with one hand, mindlessly trying to make something happen but he doesn’t know what because it’s happening now it’s happening now it’s over it’s over it’s over. Kurt reaches up to grab the offending hand, grips it hard to make him stop trying to get away and it’s too hard too hard too hard straining pulling, and he whimpers and struggles and screams when Kurt grips too tight and there’s a horrible, sickening sound as a few of Blaine’s fingers strain and strain and finally break with a snap -
- Blaine is fifteen and happy and all right again, finally all right again, his strong fingers wrapped around the hand-held microphone as he bounces and bounds around the stage and belts his heart out to a crowd of several hundred people. Leading them all and the centre of attention as blue and red-clad boys bop and sing in perfect harmony behind him, and it’s all come together like a well-oiled machine. Because last year was awful, just awful (everyone shouting names and whispering threats and then finally getting cornered with his date outside the Sadie Hawkins dance where he was scared, so scared, more scared than he’s ever been in his life, and then broken bones and black eyes and so, so helpless) and Blaine had honestly thought it could never get any better.
But now he’s here, at Dalton. Where the Council picked him out of a crowd of nervous sophomores and told him to get up and sing, and he has never felt more at ease with who he is.
The Warblers fall in line behind him as he lets out a long, loud note and throws his head back, sweat pouring down his forehead and the back of his neck, the stage lights hot and blinding in a way that makes him feel like something extraordinary. He belongs here; can be the person he’s always wanted to be here where everyone is looking. The Warblers spin around and grin and point out at the crowd in perfect unison as they sing about don’t ever look back and young forever and adrenaline is bursting in Blaine’s chest in ecstatic explosions as his body moves to the beat and he can’t stop smiling and his voice soars like a bird above everyone else’s -
- he’s weak, now, so weak. Barely clinging to consciousness as the world tries to jolt and slide away from him. Pain, so much pain, he should be dead by now he wants to die he wants to die, wants it to be over and there’s no way his body can take much more of this. His neck is numb with how much it hurts, the pain too big to get his head around as a mouth slurps and sucks and blood soaks through the sheets and his hand dangles, useless and broken, between them. Everything is greying out, dimming at the edges, growing less sharp and distinct, and it’s all fading sliding numbing as his eyes roll back in his head and his limbs start to go limp. He barely registers the feeling of a mouth detaching itself from his neck.
The sound of a high voice hissing quietly in pain reaches his ears, but Blaine is too close to unconsciousness. Doesn’t see Kurt raise one elongated fingernail and scrape it across his own wrist, opening the skin and making slow-flowing blood burst from beneath pale skin.
But Blaine is brought back to reality just enough to choke and whimper when he feels a hand grip his jaw too-tight, forcing it open, and the torn underside of Kurt’s wrist gets shoved against his lips.
“Drink,” he hears Kurt’s voice order him, sounding distorted and heavy as though through a thick fog. He gags and gurgles as sickening metallic blood bursts into his mouth, spluttering and choking as he swallows some of it but the rest escapes his mouth and dribbles down his chin. Everything hurts, everything, and he can’t breathe and Kurt won’t let him move and the blood just keeps flowing into his mouth, gagging him, making him choke. “Drink.”
It’s all getting thicker and heavier and harder and Blaine doesn’t even think about swallowing, his damaged throat working weakly to gulp down Kurt’s blood as his body shivers on the precipice of unconsciousness and his hand screams and the side of his neck is a wounded mass of flesh and sinew. He drinks until his lips can’t move anymore and it all turns too dark to think, and the pressure at his mouth is gone and the pain at his neck is back again as Kurt latches back onto his neck.
- the day he moved out of his parents’ house and went to New York, stomach twisting with uncertainty and doubt and pre-emptive loneliness that hung on his limbs like a weight. The way his mother had cried and said she was proud, darling boy, so proud and his dad had clapped him on the back and got in the car with him and all of his things and drove him to the airport and neither of them had spoken in the entire drive there -
his heart gets slow like a winding down toy
the floating numbness is a blanket
white noise and nothing and sliding away
- living alone in the city and letting all the confidence slip through his fingers like water, the person he wanted to be dead and gone and left behind in Ohio, and the shell of himself existing in and out every day through exams and essays and undergrad and law school. The person that he actually is buried underneath, deep inside where no one can see -
cold so cold too cold
can’t feel the pain, can’t feel the ache
just the touch of Kurt’s mouth on his neck
an anchor out at sea
- until he turns the corner of the alley and there he is, bright blue eyes and pale skin in the dark, his destiny come to find him and take him home.
the life leaves his body
and the world dims down to nothing
and it doesn’t
hurt
anymore.
Click here to continue to part two.
Thank you so much for supporting me with this fic, everyone! It's by far the longest thing I've ever written ever, and your support means so much to me. <3
Title: "Until My Dying Breath" -- Chapter Nine
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Vampire AU with all the unpleasantness that entails. Dubious consent, violence, pain, bloodplay, blood drinking, sexualized violence, grotesque descriptions, dark setting, fear, minor past character death, intense dark emotions, brief contemplation of suicide in a previous chapter, mugging, murder, kinda-suicide, tremendously unreliable narrator. Warnings on a chapter by chapter basis.
Length: 13,300-ish for this chapter
Story Summary: On his way home from campus to his apartment on the Upper East Side, Blaine Anderson happens to come across a beautiful young man with bewitching blue eyes. It doesn’t take long, though, for everything Blaine thought was real to fall to pieces. For his world to dissolve into a twisted dance of fear and heat and blood.
Notes: Here it is, guys! :3 Thank you all so much for your wonderful support in letting me get this far with this fic; you guys keep me motivated and excited about this story and I'm so glad to be able to share it with you. <3 I truly appreciate your feedback, and I'm excited to hear what you think!
For those interested, my tumblr is here. It's where I tend to post updates about how chapters are progressing, as well as other fannish things. :3
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Epilogue
--
The whole world lurches to a stop, shuddering to a halt as time hangs between them like a lead weight. Everything is frozen in stasis, a moment of shocking clarity that seems to stretch on without end. It’s only a second - enough time for nothing more than a single inhale and exhale of breath - but in Blaine’s mind, it twists and stretches and lasts for what seems like forever. Eyes wide and breath trapped in his throat, Blaine sits in the armchair and stares in front of him as though it is physically impossible for him to look away. His forearm is smeared with thick streaks of his own blood, and the frayed mess the punctures have made of the soft skin of his underarm throb and ache and sear with jolting, brutal pain.
But Blaine barely even registers how much it hurts, or the warmth of the blood as it oozes and slides along his skin. Everything is drowned out by the adrenaline pounding in his ears as he stares in front of him at the beautiful, horrible, world-ending sight of Kurt in front of him.
Kurt’s eyes - his beautiful, incredible eyes that Blaine has come to love despite every survival instinct in his body - are bled through with a sickening red like congealing blood. Standing in front of him like death in human form, hands shaking at his sides with elegant fingers clenching and nails visibly biting into his palms. Kurt’s features are all stretched and pulled, too long too harsh too sharp like a distorted photo that was developed wrong; the sight of him is jarring, doesn’t make sense against the normalcy of the rest of the room. His head is tilted to one side, tension and potential energy straining in his limbs, his posture.
And Kurt’s eyes are fixed on the side of Blaine’s neck, raking over the exposed stretch of skin as he shudders and his jaw tightens. His gaze holds the two of them in place, rigid and frozen. Keeps them prisoner in this moment, waiting and holding and stretching on and on as they stare at each other with unseeing eyes.
It’s not enough. Kurt’s words from a few moments ago are a physical presence between them; a footprint in the air that leaves Blaine numb and uncomprehending as sticky blood oozes over his fingers from where he has them pressed against the wound on his forearm. It isn’t enough anymore.
When the full meaning of Kurt’s words hits him, the world kick starts back into normal speed with the abruptness of a car engine revving back to life. It’s not enough it’s not enough it’s not enough anymore, and the numb shock rushes out of Blaine’s chest in one hard burst as fear slams into him like a physical force.
“No,” says Blaine weakly, but the word snags in his throat and only makes it out into the air as a tiny, strangled little noise. He licks his lips, jolts of red-hot panic bursting behind his eyelids like solar flares and terror rupturing in the base of his stomach. His arm aches, his own blood slippery beneath his fingers. He swallows hard, unable to take his eyes off of Kurt in front of him. “Kurt... Kurt, you don’t -”
“I can’t wait anymore,” says Kurt, tilting his head to one side in a measuring, predatory way. His voice is high and sharp and strangely calm as he stares at Blaine’s neck as through barely restraining himself from ripping his throat out right then and there. He blinks, eyes unfocused and posture rigid, and his eyes never leave Blaine’s neck. After a very dangerous moment he shakes his head - and a little bit of the red ebbs out of his eyes. Features softening and relaxing infinitesimally as something ever-so-slightly more human comes back into his face. Kurt looks down at Blaine with a taut expression, lips pressed tight together. He almost looks pained. “It’s too much, Blaine. It’s time.”
This was always going to happen. Always, no other option. Absolutely everything in Blaine’s life for so long has been leading up to this; spiralling toward it like an inevitable conclusion. There is no other way any of this could have possibly gone. Every moment, every touch, every single breath that Blaine has taken since that moment in his apartment weeks ago, when Kurt first crossed the barrier and kissed him sweetly and chose to draw everything out - all of that has been nothing more than living on borrowed time. Blaine has been waiting for this with horror in his heart for so long, waiting and expecting and anticipating and knowing.
This is the only way that any of this could ever, ever finish.
It doesn’t matter, though, because Blaine isn’t ready.
“Please,” says Blaine softly, shaking his head and pushing back into the armchair. He’s pale, and sick, and weak from blood loss but he’s alive. Still alive. Still able to think and feel and remember and love his family and be afraid and everything, all of that, is about to be taken away from him. So much worse than being killed, because death is final and it happens to everyone and then it’s over. It doesn’t drag on, a sick parody of humanity lingering and killing and walking around with his face and his voice but nothing on the inside. Nothing that makes him real; that makes him who he is.
But there is no one waiting in the wings to save him. No one in the world who knows where he is except for Kurt; no last-minute way to escape despite the odds.
And so Blaine begs. Throws away the last bit of pride like it’s something inconsequential, walls falling down and his face crumpling as he shakes his head back and forth and begs. For a few more weeks, or days, or hours to be who he is before he’s twisted up and corrupted and turned into something he never wanted to be.
“Please,” says Blaine again, shaking his head hard and his eyes stinging as sinking awful terror fills his chest and weighs him down. He searches Kurt’s eyes; finds them steeped saturated with red, yes - but there is the barest hint of blue around the edges that he clings to like a lifeline as he speaks. “Kurt, please. Don’t do this, I’m - I’m frightened. I’m scared, so scared. You - you have to remember what it was like. Being scared, I know you remember -”
“I know,” says Kurt quickly, blinking away a little bit more of the red as he swoops down into Blaine’s space and strokes a pale, shaking hand down the side of Blaine’s face. He wrenches his eyes away from Blaine’s neck, seemingly forcing himself to look Blaine in the eyes. He’s breathing hard. “I know, Blaine. It’s okay, it’s just - it’s going to be all done soon. All done, and it’ll just be over -”
“I don’t want this,” says Blaine, clutching at Kurt’s arm and shaking his head as a sob clutches at his throat. Makes his words weak and choked as he drags in air and tries one last time. “I don’t, Kurt, please-”
“You will,” Kurt assures him, and his voice is strained as he leans in and presses a kiss to Blaine’s cheek. And then another to his forehead, his brow, the side of his nose. Peppering them over his face with lips that won’t stop shaking as his hand grows tight and painful on Blaine’s face, digging into this skin and holding him close. “You will, I promise, just - I can’t wait. Blaine, I can’t stop myself, it has to happen now. You’ll be fine, it’s okay. You’ll be better.”
Lips press against his skin, soft and kind and insistent, and noise is bubbling inside of Blaine like boiling water. The pressure increasing as the words choke in his throat, fighting to escape, and he can’t think can’t breathe can’t hold back. Months of being chased and played with and fucked and strung out make the pleading words dissolve into nothing.
And all at once there are other words, wrenching themselves out of Blaine’s throat in a wailing, angry scream.
“Stop it!” Blaine yells, strangled and shouted and pained, point blank with Kurt’s face pressed right up against his. Kurt freezes in shock, some of the franticness of his movements stalled as he jerks away, blue eyes wide with surprise.
But Blaine can’t feel worried, or surprised, or even revel in the rare fact of catching Kurt off his guard. Can’t feel horrified or anxious or scared of what Kurt is going to do, because this is the end and he’s tried so hard but he just can’t anymore. Face screwed up and throat thick and horrible, Blaine wrenches his face out of Kurt’s limp grasp. He shoves himself back harder into the chair, all reservations gone. Horrible emotion - fear, anger, sadness, hurt, frustration - screw at his insides, and he just can’t anymore.
“Stop it,” Blaine spits out, shaking his head and feeling incongruent betrayal throbbing hot beneath his skin. He can’t fight back physically -could never fight back physically - but a million angry words are welling up like blood from a fresh wound. “Don’t you fucking talk like that, just... stop. Stop lying to me.” Blaine chokes out a breath that comes out more like a sob than anything else, voice swelling back up into a yell. “You don’t have to do this. You never had to do this, Kurt. Never. This isn’t something you had to do, it’s your choice. You could have left me alone, or done it right away, or explained. But instead you - you dragged it out and made it last and make me suffer, and you never ever had to.”
“Blaine,” says Kurt warningly, voice lowered and lips drawn tight.
“And you can’t even admit it!” Blaine shouts, shaking his head and blinking hard against the wetness in his eyes. “You - you pretend to be something human but you’re not, Kurt. Pretending to care about me but you don’t, you’re - you’re sick, and awful, and you’re killing me.”
“I’ll bring you back,” says Kurt, voice clipped and sure of himself.
“Whatever you bring back won’t be me!”
Kurt’s mouth falls open in silent shock, and Blaine doesn’t know where all of this is coming from. Doesn’t know how he rediscovered his courage after such a long time of being submerged in hopeless silence, but right now all he can feel is anger. Because Blaine bends, and bends, and tries to please people and makes things work and can be pushed almost to the end of the world. But when he finally hits his breaking point, it is like a dam breaking. He lets the anger fill him up, make him strong; for a second, he can forget the horrible sickness in his stomach, the weakness in his limbs. Because this is last time he’s ever going to be able to feel this way again; there’s never going to be another opportunity.
“It won’t be me,” Blaine says again, his skin feeling hot and flushed despite how cold he’s been for so long. “Whatever... whatever thing you bring back? That won’t be me. It might look like me, and talk like me, but it won’t - it won’t. You’re killing me, Kurt. You’re killing me and you won’t be able to have me back.”
“It will be you,” Kurt snaps, but Blaine thinks he can hear the slightest waver of uncertainty in his voice. He shakes his head.
“You don’t know that,” says Blaine, sadness seeping into the words, and all at once he just feels tired. He slumps against the chair, the anger flowing out of him like water through cupped hands, and all that remains is a terrible, aching sadness. “Kurt... if you do this, and what comes back is me... then how do you know I won’t hate you for what you did?” Something incredibly painful flashes across Kurt’s face, and Blaine keeps going. “How do you know that when you... when you turn me,” he says, voice catching on that word. He takes a breath. “How do you know that when you turn me, I won’t want to leave you? And what will you do then - keep me locked up in your apartment forever like before? Kill me? You’ve planned out everything; tell me you’ve never considered that this won’t work.”
In front of him, Kurt’s face is frozen in an expression of silent agony. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but stops before any sound can escape. Blaine scans his face, feeling exhausted and desperate but still looking for some hope, some chance. Kurt looks down at the space between them, blinking and letting out a little breath of air. Blaine’s breath catches in his throat as he sits and stares and waits.
After a moment, however, Kurt looks up - and his eyes are like iron gates. Impenetrable and hard, and ruthlessly closed off.
“I have to take that chance,” says Kurt, and it feels like icy water being poured over Blaine head. Kurt reaches a hand forward, resting a hand on the side of Blaine’s face. His whole body is taut and tense like a bowstring about to snap. “I have to try,” says Kurt again, his voice firm and his hand shaking. “If I don’t, I’ll kill you. I won’t be able to stop, and I won’t let you die. I won’t... I won’t let you get away from me, not like that.” He strokes his thumb too-hard over Blaine’s cheek, and hopeless certainty is building in the base of Blaine’s gut. “I remember what this was like, Blaine. I do. But it ends. It ends and you wake up and everything is different. I... I tried to make this special for you. But now it’s time to stop.”
There is only one more thing left that Blaine can think of to say; one last desperate attempt thrown out like a lifesaver into a storm. Hopelessness filling him up like lead and Kurt’s nails digging into the side of his face from holding himself back, Blaine opens his mouth to speak.
“Don’t be like him,” Blaine whispers, wincing as Kurt’s brow furrows in confusion. The words feel small and pointless as soon as he speaks them out loud. He keeps going anyways, has to keep going because this is the last chance he’s going to get. “Don’t... don’t be like the man who turned you, Kurt. Please.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Abruptly, the world is yanked right out from underneath him. Blaine shouts in surprise at the sudden feeling of weightlessness as the room spins, clutching at Kurt’s chest where the other man has given up any kind of pretence and snatched Blaine right up into his arms. Roughly, without finesse or any of the gentle care that he usually holds him with, and he’s too weak from blood loss and sickness to even pretend to struggle. Grabbing him and gripping too-tight as he walks them down the hall with purposeful strides, not seeming to care when he jostles Blaine around in his arms.
And Blaine doesn’t have to see Kurt’s face to know how absolutely, sickeningly furious Kurt is.
“Shut up,” Kurt snaps in a high, ice-cold voice. His whole body is practically vibrating with anger. Taking them both into the bedroom with almost-stomping footsteps, shaking his head back and forth.
They reach the closed door to the bedroom, and Kurt grips Blaine’s body extra-tight in one arm and slams his free hand into the flat of the door. His palm impacts with a horrible breaking sound, bursting it open to crash against the wall with a violent cluttering crack that reverberates throughout Blaine’s whole body. Blaine squeezes his eyes shut, his heart spasming and screaming in his chest. Kurt is taking him to the bedroom. Where Blaine woke up all those indistinct weeks ago, where this whole little setup started. Kurt is taking him to the bedroom so that he can do this on the bed; do it properly, to lay him down and bleed him dry.
The crash of the door still reverberating along his skin, Blaine opens his eyes. Musters all of the courage still left in his near-useless limbs, gathers it up like spinning straw and holds it close in his chest.
“How are you different?” Blaine manages to ask, small and determined and not really begging anymore. Just... quiet and out loud, and asking. Really, genuinely asking. Not because he thinks it will help - the way that Kurt’s nails are digging down and cutting into his skin makes his whole body clench and shake with the realization that this is it, this is the end, it’s over.
No; Blaine asks because he wants to understand while he’s still him.
Without hesitating, Kurt takes those last few footsteps toward the bed before half-throwing, half-dropping Blaine onto it. The sheets are messily tucked in and easily mussed because Blaine was the last one here, not the hospital-corner precision that Kurt always uses. Blaine’s body bounces weakly on the mattress before Kurt is crawling on top of him, slamming Blaine’s hands above his head and pinning him to the bed with no effort at all.
“You don’t get it,” Kurt growls, grip painfully tight on Blaine’s wrists. Everything is narrowing down and getting faster, speeding up and it’s so close so close so close oh god. “You don’t get it, you never get it, you -”
“Then explain!” Blaine yells up at him, utterly helpless and pleading and desperate. The world is spinning and lilting violently, his glasses skewed from the force of being thrown onto the bed. His heart won’t stop pounding uselessly in his chest, and the sound roars loud in his ears. “How are you different from him, Kurt? How?”
“Because I care about you!”
The words are screamed right in his face, the noise loud and piercing in Blaine’s ears. Kurt’s face is screwed up with upset and anger but Blaine can’t even think. Can’t feel, can’t see, can’t do anything but gape soundlessly beneath him.
Kurt keeps going, leaning down close and breathing hard as he keeps on yelling. “I care about you, you moron. Is that what you need to hear?” His lips are twisted in a sneer, and his whole body is shaking above him with emotion and restraint. “Spelled out like that, simple and stupid and nothing and words? Are you really so oblivious that you can’t tell?” He growls, low and hard and dangerous as his eyes narrow. “Even when you’re - when you’re stupid and breakable, I care about you.”
Utterly stunned and with no idea at all what to say, Blaine lies and stares up at Kurt with eyes as wide as saucers. Staring right into Kurt’s face, so close to his, and for the first time Blaine notices some of the smaller signs of agitation in his expression. His usually-immaculate hair is in complete disarray; mousey and brown and everywhere, absolutely everywhere sticking up at odd angles and looking as though it hasn’t even been groomed today. There are dark circles under Kurt’s eyes, standing out sharply against the pale of his skin. He looks sunken in; exhausted, and strained, and as though he is about to snap and break and shatter at any moment.
He looks starving, and Blaine doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed that before.
But Kurt doesn’t pause. Doesn’t stop talking, doesn’t give him any time for this to sink in; just keeps shouting right into Blaine’s face, speaking too-quickly. His voice keeps catching, snagging as it gets higher and higher as he speaks.
“I’m not made out of stone, Blaine. I can’t - I can’t feel things the way you do, but I’m not empty.” He sneers, the expression catching along the line of his lips in an ugly, sharp way. “You turned my world upside down, do you even know that? You, and the way you fucking smell, and the way you - your everything, I - I can’t -”
Kurt cuts himself off, shuddering hard and seeming to hold back a yell of frustration. He shoves down hard onto his grip on Blaine’s wrists, making the bed rock and Blaine’s wrists ache. He can’t even feel it, though. Can’t feel the pain at all through the shock. Kurt is overflowing with words like a cup that has run too full and simply has to pour over the edges, words flowing out of him like a river.
“You’re special, I told you that,” says Kurt, the same irritation seeping into his voice that always happens when he accuses Blaine of not listening. He shifts uncomfortably above him, his grip on Blaine’s wrists loosening. “You’re special, I found you, I waited. I - I never thought I’d find anyone ever. I never wanted to find anyone, but you...” Kurt shakes his head, letting out a sharp burst of laughter. “I chased you for almost two months, Blaine. Two months. I lingered, and waited, and thought about you for every second of every day, and I kept you in my home for over a month, and - and I’m making you like me. Do you think I’ve ever done this for anyone else?” He laughs, hard and exposed. “Of course I’m attached, you idiot. I’m not - I’m not taking the first pretty thing I found and turning into something to own. Not like he did, it’s different, we’re different and you just can’t see it.”
He stares down at Blaine angrily, as though expecting him to say something. But Blaine can’t speak. Can’t open his mouth, can’t do anything except lie beneath him on the bed and gape as the words wash over him. As they burn and sear like corrosive fluid.
“You can’t understand while you’re like that,” Kurt mutters bitterly when Blaine doesn’t respond, sitting back on his heels and shaking his head as he gestures to Blaine’s body. There is sadness and frustration and strain in every line of his body. “There’s nothing I can say to make you feel any better, Blaine. And... and you’ll never understand it, not like this. Soft and human, you’re like flies. You can’t understand, you’re not made to. You’re nothing, I know that, I know that, but...” he trails off uselessly, snapping his hand through the air in a violent gesture. “But you will be more. Once I do this... you’ll be you.”
The words don’t make any sense - Kurt is taking something away from him, not giving him something - but Kurt is already leaning back in close. Not pinning Blaine down, not anymore, just... pressing their foreheads together. Close, and tender, and so much like a lover. His skin is cool against Blaine’s, and he raggedly strokes a hand through Blaine’s hair as they press together.
“But I can’t wait anymore,” says Kurt quietly, shaking his head. He’s shivering, or maybe Blaine’s shivering - they’re too close to be able to tell. “I can’t, it’s not enough. You taste too good, and I’m... I’m starving, I’m so hungry, and you’re so weak and tired and small and I’ll kill you. I won’t be able to stop myself, I’ll just - I’ll keep drinking until I kill you, and that’s not going to happen. I’m not letting you die before we even start, you idiot. I won’t.”
Kurt takes a deep breath, his body stiffening with resolve as he moves away. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again Blaine can see that there is murky red seeping in along the outsides.
“I’m not sorry,” says Kurt, voice empty and hollow and beautiful as his features sharpen and his eyes darken and he holds himself tighter. Straighter, coiled up; holding himself back from striking. “I won’t lie to you, and I’m not sorry, but... I’ll try to make it quick.”
They stay like that, for a moment. Both of them breathing hard and holding still and waiting for Blaine to say something.
Sprawled on his back and staring up into Kurt’s eyes - watching them bleed through with more and more red like crusted blood - Blaine’s mind whirls and stutters soundlessly at everything Kurt just shouted at him. At what has been spoken, and what hasn’t been spoken, and the concepts and ideas that still hang outside his reach but are close, now. Closer than ever, just beyond his fingertips.
There is no life for him outside these walls; not anymore. Not like this. There is no way for him to recover from this, or bounce back, or prolong this from happening for any longer. Blaine’s body is so, so weak by now. Wrung out and covered in cuts and wounds, drained and toyed with and made so empty compared to what he used to be. He’s sick and dizzy and has been for days, turned into something hollow and pathetic and not capable of anything real.
Logically, none of what Kurt said should change anything. None of it should make him feel differently at all.
Everything hangs in the air for endless, lingering moments. Time drags on as a hundred cuts and wounds strain to make their pain known, the frayed skin of Blaine’s arm throbbing dully above it all. The two of them wait, tangled together in the bed where so much has happened between them; heated moments and whispered words and teeth slicing through thin skin. And Blaine’s mind isn’t racing; instead it’s slowing, winding down as it finally wraps itself around the only real conclusion.
When Blaine nods, the movement is so small that it would almost be imperceptible to anyone but Kurt’s eyes. He blinks hard against the stinging in his eyes, inclining his head again in a barely-there acknowledgement. And he never takes his eyes off of Kurt’s beautiful, monstrous, incomprehensible face.
“Make it quick,” says Blaine quietly, his whole body shaking as he turns his head to one side - and exposes the marred length of his neck to Kurt. Because nothing Kurt said should make any difference but it does, it really does, and even though tears are leaking down his cheeks there is something bolstered and brave inside Blaine’s chest. Reassured, and settled, and all of this is as inevitable as the setting sun. As unavoidable as day fading into night, and this is as close to acceptance as he’s ever going to get.
“Yes,” Kurt exhales, breathy and all at once and not relieved but close. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
But instead of slamming his mouth against Blaine’s neck right away - crashing through skin and tearing him to pieces, ending everything right here right now - Kurt edges back. He sits back and extends his hand, palm up, to where Blaine is still lying on the bed.
“Come here,” says Kurt, his eyes so red but his teeth still human and flat and small, so small inside his mouth. Blaine takes his hand; lets himself be tugged up and into Kurt’s arms. Lets himself be held, Kurt’s eyes scraping over his skin as he looks over Blaine’s face, body, his eyes for what feels like the last time.
“Blaine,” Kurt breathes quietly, licking his lips and sounding so, so desperate. He holds Blaine gently, carefully, stroking his thumb almost reverently over Blaine’s neck - before pulling him close and kissing him. Sliding their lips together as though they were made to fit together this way, and Blaine just lets his eyes fall closed and kisses instinctually back.
The kiss is soft, and sweet, and one last time like this. Weak and worn but his skin still hot and his heart still human, Blaine shudders beneath the onslaught of sensation. Groaning, Kurt sucks softly at Blaine’s bottom lip as his hands shake from restraint. Pulling him close and holding Blaine against his chest like he’s fragile, like he’s made out of glass; as though if he were to stop focusing even for a second, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back. It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane; just barely protected from the onslaught, so close that Blaine can feel it.
And it’s temporary. So, so temporary but there isn’t any point in being frightened anymore.
The world narrows down to the softness of Kurt’s cool lips pressed against his, the quietly desperate pressure of his tongue. Blaine leans into the touches, his whole mind numb with shock and certainty. The hollowness in his stomach is endless, and the fear is so large and incomprehensible that he simply cannot feel it anymore.
For one sweet and incredibly precious moment, Blaine’s mind goes blank.
Until Kurt breaks the kiss with sharp abruptness, pulling back with a hiss as he digs his fingers through the curls at the side of Blaine’s head.
“This is going to hurt,” says Kurt coldly, the words hard and high and empty, and Blaine’s blood runs cold. He doesn’t look Blaine in the eye as he speaks, staring down at the space between them instead. There is a shiftingchurningtwisting in the air, and Blaine’s stomach turns to lead when he realizes that he can feel Kurt’s skin rippling and changing in the split second as his face twists and becomes something inhuman.
And without waiting a single second longer, Kurt - not the monster, not a creature, but Kurt - clenches his hand in Blaine’s hair, wrenches Blaine’s head to one side, and buries his face in Blaine’s throat.
Pain, bursting shining bleeding ruptures through Blaine’s neck as Kurt’s mouth fastens too-wide over the muscle and sinew and skin and bites down, teeth sinking in viciously hard and ripping him open. Happening so fast, but he can feel everything. It sears and wrenches and it hurts, it hurts, every nerve in his body screaming and the only thing he can feel the horrible sickening crunching pain as teeth tear into his throat. Sharp as knives and cutting him, slicing him, and Blaine’s mouth is hanging open and everything is vibrating pounding bursting. He’s being torn apart, hot wetness bursting out from the wound as sticky blood pours into Kurt’s mouth, over his tongue, running down the side of Blaine’s chest.
There’s a sound, strangled and choked-off and wailing, a horrible sound like a banshee that’s ringing in Blaine’s ears and it takes him too long to realize that it’s him. He’s shouting, screaming as his body struggles and thrashes with instincts too primal and deep to be ignored, trying to get away from the pain, to make it stop and the sobbing wail is drowned out by the horrible sounds of visceral growls against his neck as Kurt bites down harder and drinks deep. He’s been light-headed for days but now the world spins, slanting and tilting violently as incomprehensible pain pulses and radiates from his neck, fills up his whole body as hands grip him tight and the room tilts -
- and Blaine is just a kid, chubby and ruddy and with a big grin that stays on his soft face like it was born there. He runs through the playground at the park, kicking up sand beneath his feet with every short step and throwing it up into the air so that it falls down like rain. It’s sunny, bright, the shining red of the painted monkey bars and tall slide and swing set gleaming proudly as the other boys and girls scurry left and right and play and have fun. Giggling and shrieking when he almost loses his footing but manages to pull himself up again, rounded little sneakers pounding on the ground and feeling hot and happy just from being here. Everything is so big and there’s so much, so much out here, and it’s all the best and he never wants to do anything other than play here forever.
“Blaine!” he hears a voice call out, very close, and he turns just in time before his father slides his hands under Blaine’s armpits and tugs him right off the ground and into the air.
“Daddy!” he squeals, looking back into his father’s young face. Moustached and dark-haired and smiling a rare smile, because daddy usually has to work and doesn’t get to take him to the park very much and today is special. His dad leans forward and presses a quick, scratchy kiss against Blaine’s softly rounded cheek and Blaine laughs at the shock of it, and everything is easy and simple and it always, always will be.
And then his father takes a quick look around them, gets a private little look on his face - and begins to spin them around.
It feels like Blaine is flying. He lets out a scream of delight and his father laughs a rare laugh out loud, spinning him around like a helicopter. In a circle, around and around and Blaine tilts his head back and lets the momentum carry him harder, raising his hands in the air like he’s a bird that needs to flap its wings. It’s fast and fun but he never worries that his father will drop him, because his hands are big and strong and steady and would never, ever let him fall -
- and Kurt is pulling at the wound with his mouth in brutal, heartless sucks that send agony shooting down his neck, his limbs, everywhere. He screams until it forces all the air from his body, until there’s no more sound coming but his mouth hangs open in horror and shock and pain, oh god the pain, and Blaine is still weakly trying to get away from the source of it even with Kurt’s mouth locked onto his neck and his arms an immovable mountain around him, holding him in place and making him stay and it hurts, everything soaking up with blood that Kurt’s mouth misses as he drinks and drinks and gorges himself and finally doesn’t have to hold back any longer.
Blaine scrabbles helplessly at Kurt’s shoulder with one hand, mindlessly trying to make something happen but he doesn’t know what because it’s happening now it’s happening now it’s over it’s over it’s over. Kurt reaches up to grab the offending hand, grips it hard to make him stop trying to get away and it’s too hard too hard too hard straining pulling, and he whimpers and struggles and screams when Kurt grips too tight and there’s a horrible, sickening sound as a few of Blaine’s fingers strain and strain and finally break with a snap -
- Blaine is fifteen and happy and all right again, finally all right again, his strong fingers wrapped around the hand-held microphone as he bounces and bounds around the stage and belts his heart out to a crowd of several hundred people. Leading them all and the centre of attention as blue and red-clad boys bop and sing in perfect harmony behind him, and it’s all come together like a well-oiled machine. Because last year was awful, just awful (everyone shouting names and whispering threats and then finally getting cornered with his date outside the Sadie Hawkins dance where he was scared, so scared, more scared than he’s ever been in his life, and then broken bones and black eyes and so, so helpless) and Blaine had honestly thought it could never get any better.
But now he’s here, at Dalton. Where the Council picked him out of a crowd of nervous sophomores and told him to get up and sing, and he has never felt more at ease with who he is.
The Warblers fall in line behind him as he lets out a long, loud note and throws his head back, sweat pouring down his forehead and the back of his neck, the stage lights hot and blinding in a way that makes him feel like something extraordinary. He belongs here; can be the person he’s always wanted to be here where everyone is looking. The Warblers spin around and grin and point out at the crowd in perfect unison as they sing about don’t ever look back and young forever and adrenaline is bursting in Blaine’s chest in ecstatic explosions as his body moves to the beat and he can’t stop smiling and his voice soars like a bird above everyone else’s -
- he’s weak, now, so weak. Barely clinging to consciousness as the world tries to jolt and slide away from him. Pain, so much pain, he should be dead by now he wants to die he wants to die, wants it to be over and there’s no way his body can take much more of this. His neck is numb with how much it hurts, the pain too big to get his head around as a mouth slurps and sucks and blood soaks through the sheets and his hand dangles, useless and broken, between them. Everything is greying out, dimming at the edges, growing less sharp and distinct, and it’s all fading sliding numbing as his eyes roll back in his head and his limbs start to go limp. He barely registers the feeling of a mouth detaching itself from his neck.
The sound of a high voice hissing quietly in pain reaches his ears, but Blaine is too close to unconsciousness. Doesn’t see Kurt raise one elongated fingernail and scrape it across his own wrist, opening the skin and making slow-flowing blood burst from beneath pale skin.
But Blaine is brought back to reality just enough to choke and whimper when he feels a hand grip his jaw too-tight, forcing it open, and the torn underside of Kurt’s wrist gets shoved against his lips.
“Drink,” he hears Kurt’s voice order him, sounding distorted and heavy as though through a thick fog. He gags and gurgles as sickening metallic blood bursts into his mouth, spluttering and choking as he swallows some of it but the rest escapes his mouth and dribbles down his chin. Everything hurts, everything, and he can’t breathe and Kurt won’t let him move and the blood just keeps flowing into his mouth, gagging him, making him choke. “Drink.”
It’s all getting thicker and heavier and harder and Blaine doesn’t even think about swallowing, his damaged throat working weakly to gulp down Kurt’s blood as his body shivers on the precipice of unconsciousness and his hand screams and the side of his neck is a wounded mass of flesh and sinew. He drinks until his lips can’t move anymore and it all turns too dark to think, and the pressure at his mouth is gone and the pain at his neck is back again as Kurt latches back onto his neck.
- the day he moved out of his parents’ house and went to New York, stomach twisting with uncertainty and doubt and pre-emptive loneliness that hung on his limbs like a weight. The way his mother had cried and said she was proud, darling boy, so proud and his dad had clapped him on the back and got in the car with him and all of his things and drove him to the airport and neither of them had spoken in the entire drive there -
his heart gets slow like a winding down toy
the floating numbness is a blanket
white noise and nothing and sliding away
- living alone in the city and letting all the confidence slip through his fingers like water, the person he wanted to be dead and gone and left behind in Ohio, and the shell of himself existing in and out every day through exams and essays and undergrad and law school. The person that he actually is buried underneath, deep inside where no one can see -
cold so cold too cold
can’t feel the pain, can’t feel the ache
just the touch of Kurt’s mouth on his neck
an anchor out at sea
- until he turns the corner of the alley and there he is, bright blue eyes and pale skin in the dark, his destiny come to find him and take him home.
the life leaves his body
and the world dims down to nothing
and it doesn’t
hurt
anymore.
Click here to continue to part two.