Fic: "For Which I Have to Howl" Chapter Two, Kurt/Blaine
ETA: Oh, god, you guys. This is seriously what I get for attempting to post something at 4:30 in the morning, half asleep and wanting it to be up RIGHT NOW: 80 zillion little formatting errors. Apologies for the translation fail, as well! I meant to have that double checked before I posted anything, but I was so tired that I forgot last night and just crashed instead. X_X Thank you for putting up with me, seriously.
Title: For Which I Have to Howl -- (Part 2/5)
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine (Side pairings: Tina/Mike, Finn/Rachel, and Puck/Quinn. Highlight for spoiler pairings:unrequited Karofsky/Kurt, eventual sexual but non-romantic Puck/Kurt)
Rating: NC-17 overall (R for this chapter)
Warnings: One a chapter by chapter basis! Disturbing themes, violence, werewolves.
Length: 9,300 for this chapter
Spoilers: This is an AU, so not really. But elements from the entire series thus far have been pulled in.
Story Summary: Werewolf AU. Tension is rising in the pack, and having the very-human Kurt Hummel come to visit his brother and boyfriend is putting a strain on everyone. Having Blaine and Kurt mate should help the problem, but the process proves to be more complicated - both physically and emotionally - than either of them could have imagined.
This Chapter: "When they reach the front door, Kurt leans in and gives him a goodbye kiss. The contact is brief, merely a quick touch of lips to lips. The wolf inside of him still paws and keens at the contact, wanting to be allowed to touch, to take."
Notes: Thank you so much all the lovely feedback, guys! It's so wonderful to hear from you, and it makes me much less nervous about posting something so unlike my standard fare. :) I hope you enjoy!
Chapter One
The two of them rise early the next morning in order to usher Kurt out of the motel unnoticed, the new morning air brisk and damp. Dangling human flesh in front of a group of werewolves the day before the full moon is bad enough, but doing so on the day of the full moon is certifiably insane. Urges become practically impossible to resist when the promise of a shining, maddening rounded moon is practically tangible in the air; as he walks Kurt down the stairs and to the door, Blaine is actively concentrating on not slamming the slender boy against the closest wall and having a repeat of last night.
Blaine has always been fairly good at restraint. He’s had lots of practice; first when he was growing up, and then later with the Warville pack. It is only since meeting Puck’s pack, since finding Kurt, that he has begun to understand that losing control every so often can be acceptable - or even beneficial - as long as it happens within a safe environment. But considering the hurry, Blaine decides that now is most definitely the time for self-control. He manages to keep the urges firmly within his own head; to act the gentleman he sometimes wishes he could still be.
When they reach the front door, Kurt leans in and gives him a goodbye kiss. The contact is brief: still sexy in its intimacy, but merely a quick touch of lips to lips. The wolf inside of him still paws and keens at the contact, wanting to be allowed to touch, to take. Blaine very pointedly does not put his hands on Kurt’s waist, does not pull him in close and trail bites along the length of that pale neck. A moment later Kurt pulls away. There is a slight flush in his ever-pale skin, and his light brown hair is askew from sleep. His lips are wet.
It never fails to shock Blaine how very innocent Kurt can look, considering the things they do together. Considering what they intend to do together.
I am going to mate with this boy, Blaine thinks stupidly. The hair on his arms stands on edge at the thought.
“Bye,” says Kurt in that beautiful voice of his, high and clear and ever-so-slightly delicate. He is looking very thin in one of Blaine’s t-shirts; though Kurt had brought an overnight bag, but had been ushered upstairs too quickly the previous night to be able to grab it from his truck. Blaine doesn’t mind; the sight of Kurt wearing his clothes is enough to make something hot and satisfying twinge deep in his stomach.
Looking distinctly rumpled, Kurt continues, “I’ll only be staying at the motel in town just for the one night, okay? I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon; give you guys a chance to sleep off some of the aches and pains. And if you need me before then, you can always text me.”
This makes Blaine laugh. “Kurt, I’m pretty sure I’ve dealt with the change before. On a fairly regular schedule, in fact.”
“I wasn’t talking about the moon,” says Kurt, voice soft and private. Kurt places a hand on Blaine’s arm, and shivers run up and down Blaine’s spine. “Good luck with Puck,” he says, squeezes, and then turns to head toward his ancient blue truck. The vehicle looks nothing like Blaine would ever imagine a car of Kurt’s to appear. It is old and worn, and there is absolutely nothing trendy about it. It is these inconsistencies that make Kurt so irresistible, so maddening.
Before he can do something stupid, Blaine shuts the front door in order to block out the sight of Kurt, in sinfully tight pants, walking away down the path. He can still hear Kurt’s footsteps, gentle and delicate on the concrete.
“Bye,” Blaine whispers unnecessarily, closing his eyes and biting down on his lip to keep from barrelling after Kurt down the driveway. It takes a long moment for the need to pass, but he weathers it out. Clutches the doorknob so hard he almost dents it, focusing on breathing in and out.
Kurt Hummel wants to mate with him. Kurt, who is beautiful and funny and drives ten hours to see him at least two times a month without fail. Who can hold his own in a sniping fit with Santana when her eyes are almost entirely bled through with yellow and her claws are literally at the ready. Who smells so good - so tantalizingly, toe-curlingly good - that on a day like today, breathing in the smell of his hair is enough for Blaine to groan and bite his lip in order to stop from coming in his pants.
Who can deal with Blaine’s... condition, and everything it entails.
The fact that this... incomprehensible boy wants to irrevocably tie their lives together - to let Blaine protect him, and keep him, and have him for the rest of their lives...
It leaves Blaine trembling.
Once Blaine can conceivably move again without potentially throwing the door open and chasing Kurt down, he lets go of the doorknob and heads down the wide main hallway to see if Puck is awake yet. It cannot be later than six in the morning: the house feel s unnaturally silent without the padding of bare feet or the conversation of his packmates. But Puck is an early riser, and Blaine wants to have this conversation as long before sunset as possible. He doesn’t trust himself to remain calm and concise with the wolf practically clawing at his skin, so close to escape.
The door to Room 103 is open. This is a safety precaution more so than any open display of comfort. Anything that allows the pack leader to recognize and respond to potential danger faster, even if only infinitesimally, is a good thing. Blaine only has to glance into the darkened room to see that Puck and Quinn are still curled up in bed together. The blonde’s back is cuddled up to his chest, and one of Puck’s large arms is draped over her swollen belly.
And then Blaine notices that Puck’s eyes are open. Staring right at him over Quinn’s delicate shoulder, alert and ready. Puck raises his eyebrows, gives Blaine a significant look; Blaine shakes his head, embarrassed at being caught intruding into the pack leader’s private space. But before Blaine can gesture at him to go back to sleep, Puck is already in motion. He skilfully extracts himself from his mate, then pads silently across the darkened room.
Blaine opens his mouth to speak but Puck fixes him with a stern look, nodding his head almost imperceptibly toward Quinn. She is still curled into the blankets with her small, pink mouth slightly open. Instead, Puck turns and leads them down the first-floor corridor until they reach a small separate common area with a few wobbly-looking chairs and a stained coffee table. Without a word, Puck closes the door - and then grabs one of the chairs and turns it around, straddling the seat and leaning both arms on its back. He arches one dark eyebrow.
“I really didn’t mean to wake you up,” insists Blaine, slightly awkward as he lowers himself onto the other rickety chair. “This can wait until later if you want to go back to bed.”
“It’s fine,” replies Puck, shrugging casually. “I haven’t really been asleep for at least a half hour, and I could practically smell your nervous energy ever since you woke up. You’re vibrating with it, man.”
The comment makes Blaine feel even more uncomfortable. Truth be told, even after living under the Puck’s roof for the past two years, Blaine still doesn’t really know the alpha very well. Up until yesterday, the only serious one-on-one conversation he’d ever had with Puck had been on the day of his arrival. Frantic and practically shaking from repressing the wolf, begging to be allowed to become part this unusual family.
Blaine had lived with the Warville pack for three years, having been taken under their wing in the wake of being turned. Wes, the Warville alpha, had been detail-oriented and observant. Sharp-tongued. The slim man had emphasized the importance of unity and uniformity in the face of struggle. The need to restrain the wolf, to lock it up both physically and mentally - to inhabit one of a sea of matching uniforms and cells.
But Blaine is a naturally rule-abiding person, and since joining Puck’s pack - this strange, diverse group of outcasts united together by a single condition - he hasn’t had much cause to converse privately with the pack leader. Blending in comes far too easily to Blaine, however much it might hurt him in the end.
He shifts, wincing as the cheap, plasticy upholstery squeaks beneath him. “I thought you might want to know that I talked to Kurt.”
“Cool,” Puck nods, expression serious. “What did you guys decide?”
“We figured that mating was the best available option.” When Puck does not immediately respond, Blaine continues. “I mean, Kurt’s not ready to turn, but this will be a good way to protect him when we’re not together. He’ll be that little bit stronger, heal a little bit quicker.”
Puck’s head is tilted slightly to the right, an unreadable expression on his face - and Blaine can’t stop himself from rambling. “I’ll be able to keep tabs on him this way, which will be nice. I understand that the mating process -”
“Why do you talk about him like that?”
Blaine blinks. “What?”
“Like you know what’s best for him better than he does.” Puck tilts his head to the other side. “Why do you talk about Kurt like he’s some delicate flower that needs your protection?” The words are blunt. Puck’s eyes are fixed on Blaine’s own. They are steeped in yellow; commanding and concentrated.
“I don’t - I...” Blaine trails off, caught unprepared. This is nothing like how he had imagined this conversation would go.
“Because he isn’t, you know.” Puck is still staring at him. His posture is relaxed-looking, sprawled over the chair; but Blaine can smell the slight tension in his body. “Hummel is a lot of things, but ‘weak’ isn’t one of them. He may not be wolf, but he’s one fierce fucker nonetheless.”
“I know that Kurt’s strong, Puck. Of course I know -”
“Do you want to know how I first met Kurt?”
The question catches Blaine entirely off-guard. The sum total of his knowledge of Finn and Kurt’s entry into the pack has been gleaned from Kurt’s own descriptions. Finn’s first transformation, the attack on their parents, the six months the two of them spent wandering alone, finding the pack. Broad strokes, as though small details like when and where and how were too painful to think about. Blaine had understood that feeling far too well.
But the chance to know more about Kurt’s past is too much to turn down, and he feels himself nodding in response.
“It was raining - pissing buckets, cats and dogs, all that crap. I was tracking down a feral wolf we’d all sensed at the last full moon - completely wild and all alone, going mad from locking itself up when it needed to run, to fight, to play. The rain was making finding the smell difficult, but I finally cornered them in this massive barn. I could smell the wolf inside, all human fear and repressed instincts. There was a hint of something else - something subtler - but it didn’t seem important. So I busted the doors down.”
Puck lets out a laugh; his expression remains hard, but a hint of amusement has seeped in. “The first thing I noticed was this tiny, pissed off little shit glaring at me down the barrel of a loaded rifle. He had his finger on the trigger - he meant fucking business, man - and his presence was so large in my mind that I barely noticed the big, hulking dude beside him.
“And you know what Hummel said?” Blaine shakes his head, and Puck continues with great emphasis. “He says, ‘get the fuck away from us’. Just hisses it at me, loud and mean and serious as hell. There I am, twice his size, just having broken down a fucking bolted barn door with my bare hands - and this skinny little runt is completely willing to kill me or go down trying.” Puck shakes his head. “I swear, even though all my instincts were telling me that Finn was the one we’d been looking for... for a moment, I had no idea which one of them was the wolf and which one of them was the human.”
Puck holds his eyes. Holds them, locked and still, and eventually Blaine has no choice but to blink and look away. The pack leader lets the sign of submission rest unspoken in the air before continuing to speak.
“Anderson, I’m not against the two of you taking the plunge. In fact, I think it’s a damn good idea. But you don’t have to pretend like you’re doing this to keep him safe, or because to keep track of him or some shit. Yeah, those might be factors. But in the end, you’re mating with Kurt because you want to. Because you want him to be entirely yours. To have him, and keep him, and to give yourself over to him in return. There’s nothing wrong with that, dude, and it’s insulting to both of you to pretend that you’re doing this for all these crock-of-shit- ‘noble’ reasons.”
Blaine’s face is burning. He cannot look at Puck, cannot make himself look up from the ground. The linoleum here is an ugly shade of brown. There is an oddly-shaped stain next to his left foot.
There is the noise of chair legs scraping against the floor, followed by footsteps. Then, Puck’s broad hand is clapping down on his shoulder. The touch is firm, but kind in its own way.
“You’re allowed to want this, Anderson. It’s okay to be a little selfish sometimes; Hummel can take it. We clear on that?”
He nods, looks up at the pack leader. Puck really is enormous, he thinks, glancing at the well-defined muscles in his extended arm. Blaine’s own body is nothing to sneeze at - toned and compact, since the wolf doesn’t like to settle for anything less than outstanding physical health. But the Puck exudes a specific energy; a dark, strong presence that demands respect and gives it in return. This dark, indescribable charisma is something that Wes simply never had.
Puck is smiling, a confident stretch of lips over teeth that manages to show off his slightly sharpened canines. “Good,” he says. “Then congratulations, man. Mating with Quinn was the best decision I ever made, and I hope yours goes as well as ours did.”
And, winking, the pack leader claps Blaine on the shoulder one last time - and strides out of the room. Blaine is left sitting on the rickety chair, new information swirling through his head and the haze of the near-moon beginning to grip his heart.
-
When Blaine had been living with the Warville pack, full moons had practically been ritualistic in nature. The Warville pack was stationary; it had made its home in the same rural stone-hewn building in Pennsylvania for generations, posing as an all boys’ academy complete with matching uniforms. Every month the pack would into the basement, where individual reinforced cells had been added in subsequent renovations. Before the change, each pack member was supposed to intone a traditional passage, begging that the wolf pass them by. There were no windows in the basement; Blaine had transformed in a room the size of a walk-in closet without even the satisfaction of seeing the moon hanging in its terrible fullness.
In retrospect, it is no surprise that spending three years with the Warville Pack left Blaine so wrecked, such an uncontrollable ball of anxiety. That pack had been repressive to the point of cruelty; harsh and unforgiving in its rules and restrictions.
In contrast, Puck’s pack is mobile, malleable. The entire group relocates every few months; across the country, into Canada, anything to avoid drawing attention. Its members are encouraged to visit other packs during the month if they so desire. New arrivals are a fairly common occurrence, and are always met with friendly teasing and quick acceptance: Sam Evans has only been with them for four months, but in some ways it feels as though the blonde-haired boy has always been there. They may not always like each other, but love and acceptance are never in short supply.
Experiencing the full moon as a pack instead of partitioning each other off, letting the wolf be restrained by the firm hand of the alpha instead of cold stone and metal bars - it all serves to make the wolf inside of them more complacent. By the end of his stay with the Warville pack, Blaine had actually felt as though his body was in danger of combusting with the unbearable tension of the wolf beneath his skin.
The few times a wolf had escaped from the Warville academy, too, had been... brutal. Tragic. By letting the entire pack roam together, they police each other in a far more effective manner than walls or bars ever could.
After he had joined, Blaine had finally stopped feeling as though he was slowly going insane.
Instead of solemn and ceremonial, trooping out together into the woods for the full moon with this pack always makes Blaine feel buzzed with excitement - as well as slightly awkward. No matter how much they care for each other, in the final half-hour before moonrise there is very little on anyone’s mind except for the thrum of the moon’s ghost in the sky, the wolf straining at their skin. It makes for stilted conversation. Generally their hike into the woods is steeped in anticipatory silence, broken only by the plodding of their feet on the earth and the occasional interjected comment.
Tonight, however, Finn Hudson makes a point of hanging back to talk to him as the pack walks through the foliage. His eyes are bright yellow, but Blaine knows his own must be as well. There is little to be done about that with the moon so close he can practically taste it on his tongue.
“Hey,” says Finn, falling into step beside Blaine. Neither of them are wearing shoes; there is simply no point. “I wanted to say thanks. For, you know. Looking after my brother yesterday.”
Considering the decision he and Kurt reached last night, the irony of another wolf thanking him for protecting his prospective mate is not lost on Blaine. But Puck’s warning from this morning are still fresh, and he tries to choose his words carefully.
“Of course,” says Blaine, reaching up to push his unruly curls out of his eyes as they walk through the darkening woods. “Kurt is the most important person in the world to me: I’ll always be there for him when I can.”
“Wish one of us could have got there a little bit faster,” grumbles Finn, glaring over at where the bulky form of Karofsky is visible pushing his way through the trees.
“Me too,” admits Blaine, and Karofsky’s scent stands out in his mind amid the cacophony of woodland smells. It makes his hackles rise.
Finn shrugs. “Anyways, dude, you’re pretty cool. Just wanted to let you know.” He claps Blaine on the shoulder, then jogs forward to rejoin Rachel. The brunette had been looking back anxiously over her shoulder during the entire exchange, and Blaine suspects she had been a motivating factor in Finn’s sudden decision to communicate via words for once. Finn is nice enough, but not the most on top of things sometimes.
When the pack reaches a suitable clearing, and with the moon only minutes away from showing its face, they all begin undressing as if on cue. The sight of his brothers’ and sisters’ nakedness is practically clinical, and they all rush to slip the garments into plastic bags. Mike Chang, as the most agile all of them, gathers the bags and hangs them from the branch of a high tree before scurrying down the trunk again. No point in ruining a set of clothes every month, after all.
And now they are a rough circle of beige smears against the green and brown woods, standing with their arms crossed or hanging by their sides as they all wait for the inevitable. Blaine can feel the wolf pushing against his skin, straining to be released - to howl, and run, and be free. His head is beginning to pound with the closeness of the moon, and every hair on his body is standing on end. Hands and feet already beginning to ache, Blaine closes his eyes and feels himself tilting on the edge of the change.
It is a surprise when he feels a small, feminine hand slip inside his own and give it a reassuring squeeze. He opens his eyes, turns - and sees Brittany, smiling at him reassuringly, blonde hair hanging loose over her naked shoulders. Blaine begins to smile back before -
Pain. Agony agony agony, stretching breaking folding straining - oh God, oh God, and the once gently-squeezing hand is tearing at the bones and muscles of his hand. He can barely feel it, though, because his insides are burning, bursting - organs stretching and reforming, ceasing to function, and he can actually feel his heart stop beating before it begins to twist and pull and take a new shape. His blood is boiling beneath his melting skin.
A noise, pulsating in the woods, like some sick parody of a choir, is all around him - a chorus of shrieks and wailing cries, and Blaine can’t even scream because his vocal chords are stretching, broken, snapping. He isn’t standing anymore, legs unable to remain standing through the pain even if they weren’t broken and twisting in a hundred different places, and he is distantly aware through the painpainpain oh, please pain that he is now on the ground with his head buried in his hands. He opens his mouth to sob but no sound comes out.
His claws dig into the ground as his heart begins to beat again, faster than before. The pain is still hard and sharp, but now at least comprehensible. He buries his muzzle into the ground to ride out the last few waves. Coarse black hair is bursting up from beneath his skin. He lets out a long, low growl as his vocal chords finally reattach themselves and begin to work once more.
The bones snap into place and begin to heal. The twisting skin finally settles into place.
And Blaine Anderson is gone. Shoved beneath the surface, submerged for the night. Instead, there is the Wolf. Black and compact, a twisted entity of sharp teeth and taut muscles ready to spring.
The Wolf blinks as the pain finally ends, seeing through newly-canine eyes. Ears twitch. It begins to push itself up until it is standing on all fours, leaves crunching beneath strong paws. The smell of the Wolf’s brothers and sisters is musky and warm and comforting; they are all around, standing and shaking.
One of them, a rugged brown wolf that is the largest of the group - leader, alpha, friend - sits back on its haunches and tilts its head back toward the sky, toward the moon (beautiful moon, shiny moon) and letting out a long, drawn out howl. Howling for the pain, for the night sky. For what has been unleashed and what has been restrained.
Once by one they all do the same, sitting back and howling at the sky. The jagged croon of their communal cry shatters the silence of the night.
And that is when the smell hits. Sharp and defined amidst the murky musk of the woods, that stands above everything else. It makes the Wolf keen and paw the ground, slobbering with want and need and hunger. The Wolf throws its head up, snuffling desperately at the air to catch more of the scent.
So good, delicious. Want it, want to take him have him rip him bite him. Crunch the bones and claw him open, make him red and bright and roll in his blood.
The smell is old, and distant. Hasn’t been here in hours.
Can track him. Find him, bite him, tear him open, make him mine.
Determination and frantic need pumping through its blood, the Wolf bolts. It runs through the trees, drool flying off as it reaches inhuman speed. Branches smack across its muzzle, its body, but the Wolf barely feels the impact. Its paws pound on the ground, a hammering rhythm of need.
Have to find him. Have to break him, crunch his neck and watch blue eyes go out and -
The Wolf yowls as something enormous and solid slams into it, sending the it flying to the ground. It struggles and lashes out, snarling and biting at the immovable force pinning it there - before realizing that it is the rugged brown alpha. The Wolf whimpers, still fighting weakly against the restraint, but its desperation is leaking out.
The alpha growls, claws digging into the Wolf’s back. It hurts, but the Wolf can’t get away - alpha is bigger, and stronger, and knows what is best. Obedience is already replacing the need to kill pounding in the its blood.
Alpha. Leader. Have to obey. Knows what to do. Have to obey.
Slowly, carefully, the alpha moves away. That smell still claws at the back of the wolf’s mind, but the need to obey the alpha is more important, more immediate. It doesn’t stand right away, instead remaining curled up on the forest floor. Whimpering and waiting for some sign of permission. It comes when the alpha nips at the back of its neck, barking playfully.
Rising to all fours, the wolf sees its brothers and sisters gathered all around once more. Their bodies are a many-coloured cluster of brown, black, grey, and white. Their eyes all shine out, yellow and ready to run and play and fight beneath the moon.
A burly grey wolf gambles up and yips playfully at their shaken comrade, and all at once the Wolf is among the pack again. Playing and scrapping beneath the light of the moon, their howls breaking the still night. Eventually one of them catches the scent of deer and they are off, charging as one through the trees.
They throw themselves into each other and try to forget that desperate need thrumming inside. Try to forget the satisfaction that can only come with human blood, with clawing beneath soft skin and feeling the crunch of bone between teeth.
It works.
But only barely.
--
When Blaine wakes, he is himself again.
Lying naked in a crumpled heap on the forest floor, bits of twig and stone digging into his tender skin, it feels as though something very important has been taken away from him. The wolf is still there inside of him, now curled up and content from its night of freedom in the dark. But the uncontrollability that comes with the full moon - the boundless energy, the unhindered pursuit of urges, the animalistic freedom to roam - is gone. Blaine knows it will be back in a month’s time, but being back to his usual self so suddenly always leaves him feeling jarred and empty.
The very early morning sun is just beginning to peek through the trees. All around him, Blaine can hear the quiet groans and hisses of discomfort as his packmates begin to wake and try to stand. He shifts, and the movement makes him groan: his whole body aches. Ignoring the pounding in his head as well as the sensation that every part of his body has been torn apart and sewn back together, Blaine struggles to pull himself onto trembling legs.
“Come on, Shortstuff. Up you get.”
The words come from right above him. Looking up, Blaine sees Santana standing next to him with a hand outstretched. She looks very much worse for wear, brown eyes heavily bagged and bloodshot. There are tiny scratches and cuts all over her naked body from the forest floor, and several large smears of blood from wounds that no longer exist. Her long hair is heavily matted with earth, leaves, and blood. Despite the cocky voice, her outstretched hand is visibly shaking.
She looks almost exactly how he feels.
Blaine takes her hand, lets Santana pull him to his feet with far less ease than usual. It hurts to stand, but Santana’s grip is firm and helps him weather out the worst of the pain. Despite her sharp words and apathetic attitude, sometimes Blaine suspects that the feisty Latina cares far more about the pack than she ever lets on. He notices that she is looking at something behind him, and he turns to follow her gaze to where Artie is helping Brittany to her feet. The blonde is smiling brightly in spite of her own discomfort.
“All right, guys,” says Puck, one of his arms wrapped around a weak-looking Quinn. Her swollen belly looks enormous compared to the rest of her body, which has determinedly remained stick-thin through her pregnancy. “Our stuff’s only a five minute walk from here. Let’s move out, and we’ll be home within the hour.”
Their slow pace means that it takes closer to ten minutes to reach the clearing they had transformed in the night before. Every part of Blaine’s boy hurts, and exhaustion makes his eyelids heavy and his steps sluggish. It is tempting - so very, very tempting - to stop walking and lie back down on the ground again. Just for a minute. Just to rest his eyes. The knowledge that Puck will not let him sleep here - will shake him and yell at him to put one foot in front of the other, damn it - stops him.
When they reach the clearing, Mike climbs up once more to recover their clothes. He is much slower this time around, and Tina watches nervously as he drags himself up the tree at one-third of last night’s pace. Rachel has fallen asleep, and Finn has her tiny body scooped up into his arms. It must hurt to hold her there - his arms must be screaming at him to put her down - but the large boy makes no outward show of discomfort.
Once they are finally clothed, they drag themselves as a group back to the house. The slide of fabric feels strange and wrong against Blaine’s skin. The only thing he can think of is how good it will feel to collapse into bed, to go to sleep after such a very long night. The fantasy of burrowing himself into the blankets and shutting his eyes is the only thing that keeps him moving.
When the pack finally makes it back to the motel, they wordlessly split up to return to their own rooms. The sun is just barely higher than it was when Blaine woke up, so it must have only been a half hour’s walk - but it feels as though they have been marching through the woods for hours. Blaine’s thighs scream at him as he ascends the stairs to the third floor, and he can barely keep his eyes open to see which room is his own. Body and mind alike feel completely wrecked.
When Blaine falls into bed a few moments later, he is asleep before his head touches the pillow. He lies there, sprawled on top of the blankets.
And dreams.
Blaine is inside the kitchen in his family’s old house - the one they lived in before his father’s business took off and a three-bedroom in the suburbs was no longer appropriate for persons of their influence. The curtains are the same ugly blue-and-white plaid, the floor the same brown linoleum. Blaine hasn’t thought about this kitchen in years, can barely believe he still remembers what it looked like.
( After they moved, the new kitchen had tile floors. They were cold and hard, and when his five-year-old self would have a tumble onto them, it would hurt and he would cry but the house was too big for his parents to hear him.)
Everything seems larger than it logically should, and Blaine realizes that he is very small. Looks down at his hands and see the fat, soft hands of a toddler. He is sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, chubby legs dangling off the side. It’s an unsafe place for a child his age, but it doesn’t seem to matter right now.
His mother is there, stirring the contents of a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Her hair is lacquered straight, like it always was. The wild frizziness tamed down with bottles of glossy straightening fluid. She is smiling as she stirs the bowl, her soft brown eyes sparkling with love and affection as she looks at her son.
(The wedding band on her finger is low-key and inexpensive, nothing like the diamond-encrusted replacement Blaine’s father would buy for her a few years later.)
Blaine’s mother smiles at him and he giggles. She walks toward him, and the smell of the contents of the bowl fills his noise. They’re making chocolate chip cookies. He shrieks in excitement, waving his fat little hands in the air.
(They never cooked together after they moved into the new house. There were people for that.)
She picks up a small spoon from the counter, scoops up a bit of cookie dough, and hands it to him. He licks it happily off the spoon as his mother runs a hand through his curly hair.
“So beautiful, my darling boy," Marita Anderson whispers in her native Filipino. He gurgles happily around the spoon, and the smell of cookie dough and her old drug-store perfume mingle in the air.
-- the smell of perfume clogging the Wolf’s nose, cloying and taunting and sickly sweet as it claws at the door. The woman is shrieking, sobbing, in a language it doesn’t understand as it snarls and throws its body against the door -
Blaine realizes that he is older now, bigger. He can feel that his own hair is slicked back into a style so close to being straight and neat, but unable to conceal a hint of curl. He looks down and sees that he is wearing a distinctive green-and-black school uniform, which means he must be somewhere between fifteen and sixteen years old. He only attended that particular academy for a few years before having to be pulled out and transferred for extenuating circumstances.
He looks up, and sees his father sitting in front of him in a large wing-back chair. It dwarfs him; William Anderson had always been a small man, but his size belied a commanding presence that age and money only strengthened. They are in the study of the new house, its walls lined with shelf after shelf of books no one ever opened and a roaring fire in the grate.
(No one ever bothered to light the study fire in real life. Too much work, too much bother, when you could just turn up the electric heat they’d paid so much to have built into every room. But it feels thematically appropriate for it to be lit.)
His father’s mouth is moving, but there is no sound coming out. There is a bit of greying hair at his temple. He doesn’t seem to notice that his words aren’t being spoken.
And then, William’s deep voice fills the air - separate from the movement of his lips, like a poorly-dubbed foreign film. Unsynchronized and jarring.
“ ... need for discretion...should be more careful... or are you trying to embarrass me?... don’t need to flaunt this little character flaw for the world to see, Blaine...”
With a shock, Blaine recognizes this particular speech. They are from after the Sadie Hawkins dance, when he’d been sent home from the hospital after being attacked for daring to attend with another boy. His eye stings in pain, and Blaine reaches dazedly up to feel that it is clearly blackened. He touches his nose and that, sure enough, is broken. He looks down, and sees his left arm is in a cast.
(They’d screamed obscenities at both of them as they’d kicked and punched them into the concrete. Faggots. Cock-suckers. Fairies. Each word punctuated with another burst of pain as they’d curled up on the ground and tried to shield themselves from the blows.)
“... have you transferred... can’t happen again, you understand... need to try harder to fit in...”
Years later, Blaine will realize that his father is only saying these things because he loves him. Because the idea of his son growing up in a world of people who hate him and want to hurt him is so terrifying that it makes his father cold and hard and denying.
But right now, the words hit him just as powerfully as they did so many years ago. His lip trembles, and he wants nothing more than to bury his face in his hands and cry. To run out the door, away from his father - all straight-backed and composed and disappointed.
-- all composure gone, now, when the door finally splinters and gives way. The man is petrified, fear rolling off of him in thick delicious waves, his face a rictus of incomprehensible terror. The Wolf snarls. The man moves in front of the sobbing woman anyways. He stands, back hard and straight in some kind of strange rebellion. He looks right into the eyes of the Wolf before it launches itself up and -
Blaine wakes with a start, gasping and shouting and already choking on the bile rising in his throat. He gags and throws himself out of the bed, ignoring the stiffness in his legs in the rush to get to the bathroom. He makes it just in time, clutching at either side of the porcelain bowl as he wretches into it. Chunks of half-digested raw deer mingle with bright yellow bile, and the taste of the meat as it comes up again makes him shudder and heave even harder.
Because no matter how hard he tries to forget, he can still remember the taste in his mouth when he woke up after his first full moon. His whole body wracked with pain as he blinked his eyes open and found himself covered from head to toe in his parents’ gore, their blood clotting and crusting on his skin. Pieces of their bodies strewn all over the living room floor.
He cannot forget how he stared at the scene - like something out of a slasher horror only real, too real, so real - and began to laugh. Bubbling up from within his twisted and wrecked body, building from tiny gasps into uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. How he laughed with tears running down his face and his head buried in his hands and all the while telling himself to wake up, just wake up, it will all be okay if I wake up -
The neighbours had found him like that. Laughing and sobbing, naked body soaked in blood and meat and bone. Clawing at his own face and arms and chest, stammering nonsense and wailing into the morning stillness.
Something in his mind had snapped that night, and it hadn’t fully mended until he met Kurt all those years later.
Blaine spits one last time into the foaming yellow-red-clear mess, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He closes the lid and flushes with trembling hands, standing up unsteadily as the water rushes in and takes away the evidence of his terrible, terrible guilt. He rinses his mouth with water, and then brushes his teeth. Once, twice, three times. Until the taste is gone and all that remains is the soreness of his throat.
This happens after every full moon, after all. Blaine is used to it by now.
The standard-issue clock on his bedside table flashes 8:37am as he strips off last night’s clothes and pulls on an old pair of pyjama pants he’d folded and left on a chair last night for this purpose. Blaine crawls back into bed, this time actually taking the time to wrap the blankets around his body.
And then he closes his eyes and thinks about Kurt.
Kurt, whose nose wrinkles when he gets upset. Who is finicky about hygiene, and leaves cupboard doors open when he shouldn’t, and sometimes looks at his brother with such undiluted affection that it makes Blaine’s heart ache.
Kurt, who is so beautiful it makes Blaine wonder how he can possibly be real. Who makes Blaine better than he is; who can tell when he needs to be held back or left to run free, and has taught him that it’s okay to let go as long as Kurt is there to catch him. Who smells so good it makes Blaine’s mouth water. Whose chiming laugh always makes Blaine smile.
Blaine knows he doesn’t deserve to have Kurt’s love, but he clings to it desperately anyways. Blaine loves Kurt; the wolf wants to hurt him. But once the ritual is complete, the wolf will know its mate. Will want to keep Kurt safe instead of claw, bite, and tear.
Because if that happened again to someone he loved...
Blaine knows he isn’t strong enough to survive it.
The realization that last night was the very last time that the wolf will be sent into a frenzy at the smell of his own boyfriend - that by next month, he and Kurt will be safely mated - makes Blaine’s whole body relax and his mind begin to fog. Makes the thoughts of gore and blood and terrible, terrible guilt fade.
He falls asleep envisioning himself as the wolf, wrapped protectively around Kurt’s pale naked body. Keeping them both safe, and happy, and warm.
--
By the time Blaine drifts awake again the afternoon sun is tickling his eyelids. Looking to one side, he blinks his eyes open to see that the clock is now flashing 12:32pm. He can hear the motel’s occupants slowly waking up across all three floors, stretching out their tired limbs or burying their faces determinedly back into the covers. Blaine lies on his back, tangled up in the slightly rough motel sheets, and rubbing his eyes until his vision is clear.
Kurt and I are going to mate in one month, he thinks. Instead of the anxiety this sentence would have brought him yesterday, the notion fills him with excitement. With absolute certainty.
He feels... lighter. As though some sort of weight as been lifted from him. Because he knows that this is the right choice, now. And all they can do is prepare for it.
It is with that thought in mind that Blaine rolls out of bed, dresses, and makes his way down to Mike and Tina’s designated bedroom.
The current Cohen-Chang-Chang residence (and really, thinks Blaine as he pads down the hallway, how do they even come up with these couple nicknames? ) is currently located in Room 211 of the Woods’ Edge Motel. As one of the only two mated couples in the pack, Tina and Mike have chosen to room together instead of separately in every place the pack has stayed since Blaine has been a member. When he reaches their door, he takes a moment to listen for movement. When he is satisfied that they are awake (and not currently having sex, although that would be brutally masochistic on both their behalves at this point), he knocks on the door.
There is a pause, followed by Tina’s voice as she shouts ‘coming!’ and the sound of footsteps. She opens the door a few moments later, looking weak but happy in a long blue dressing gown.
“Morning,” she says, leaning against the doorframe and smiling. Blaine can hear a television playing softly in the room behind her. “Or afternoon, I guess. What’s up?”
“Good morning,” says Blaine politely, feeling slightly discomfited. He likes Tina and Mike, but they tend to keep to themselves. Having to move outside his comfort zone toward his fellow pack members is making him realize how little he knows about them outside the full moon. “I have a... sort of historical question that I think I need your help with. Is now a bad time?”
“Not at all!” Her enthusiastic increase in volume makes them both wince, and she backtracks. “Well, maybe a little bit. Come inside and tell me about it, and we’ll really get down to work when we’re both feeling better?” Blaine nods gratefully, and Tina moves out of the doorway to allow him inside.
Like Puck and Quinn, Tina and Mike share one of the motel’s larger ‘honeymoon suites’ instead of the small single bedrooms the rest of them tend to occupy. Despite the slightly skeevy name, the room is in no way different except for the slightly larger dimensions and the addition of a small living room-style area. Mike is sitting on the rosy pink couch with his legs up on the coffee table. He is wearing a pair of boxer shorts with a blanket wrapped loosely around his shoulders, looking for all the world like a Cirque Du Solei performer on downtime. His extremely thin and well-defined body is emphasized by how very little of it is covered.
Mike smiles at him, waves, then turns back to watching some sort of cooking show on low volume. Tina leads Blaine over to the quasi-study area, where a small breakfast nook has been surrounded by several boxes of books.
In Blaine’s experience, most werewolves are predominantly concerned with the here and now. Practical questions such as ‘how do I avoid getting caught by hunters?’ or ‘where am I going to go to transform tonight?’ tend to occupy the forefront of most wolves’ minds. Even with the Warville pack, residents had been encouraged to put their time and energy into practical activities instead of dwelling on the past. Painting and singing were popular pass-times, as were more modern creations such as television or the internet.
By contrast, Tina is infamously obsessed with werewolf lore and history. Whereas most of them find looking to their species’ past a rather depressing venture, Tina’s fascination with such dark and twisted stories and accounts has earned her a special place as the pack’s pseudo-historian. For years far longer than her youthful appearance would indicate possible, she has collected dusty first editions and hunted for their accompanying translations. Her collection is impressive by now, filling up several boxes with physical books as well as many other snippets of information on her computer hard drive.
The ongoing joke is that it is a rite of passage for Tina Cohen-Chang to corner new pack members, usher them into dark corners, and proceed to grill them about every notable story, legend, or first-hand tale they can think of. All the while frantically writing in a little black booklet, nodding every so often and asking for dates and locations.
Tina gestures for him to have a seat, so Blaine pulls up one of the two chairs and lowers himself into it. He can still hear the host of the program Mike is watching in the other room, directing the viewer to be careful when blanching the beans for fear of creating a soggy end product. The small girl moves to the other chair, and sits down.
There is an uncomfortable pause, and it takes a few moments of Tina staring expectantly at Blaine for him to realize that she is waiting for him to ask his question.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he begins tentatively, dragging the words out in order to give himself the time necessary to figure out how to phrase this. “But something has come up, and... and I think that Kurt and I need your help with something.” Tina raises a dark eyebrow. “Kurt and I are mating next month,” Blaine continues boldly, “and I want to know what to expect.”
There is a beat.
The squeal of utter delight that Tina unleashes at this revelation would be enough to make a normal human being wince at the best of times. As it is, he and Mike recoil at the sound, hands flying up to their ears. Tina looks miraculously unaffected.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Tina shrieks excitedly, eyes wide and hands flying excitedly into the air. Her face is bright with shocked enthusiasm. “Oh my god, Blaine, that is the best thing I’ve heard in absolute ages! You two are perfect for each other, and Kurt’s been coming here for so long to be with Finn, and now he can finally properly belong, and Blaine. The sex.” Her eyes roll slightly back into her hair as she says this last part. “Just... it’s indescribable. First you get super-intense-mating-sex, and then after that you get rawr-you-belong-to-me-sex, and -!”
“Tina!” exclaims Mike, horrified, and Blaine cannot help but grin.
“Oh, the whole pack can hear us when we go at it, and you know it,” she says, waving her hand dismissively at her mate’s objection to her casual discussion of their sex life. “It’s not like he doesn’t already know that it’s mind-blowing. But now he gets to experience it.”
“Still,” insists Mike, cheeks bright red, but he is grinning as well. He switches off the television and comes over to join them, clapping a hand on Blaine’s shoulder in a way that reminds him distinctly of Puck. He wonders if this is the inbuilt male werewolf expression of happiness at the news of an upcoming mating. “Congratulations, man. Mating’s pretty sweet, not gonna lie.”
“And it’s going to be with Kurt, too!” exclaims Tina, eyes sparkling and looking as though all of her dreams have come true at once. Distantly, Blaine wonders how his very-much-a-human boyfriend has managed to form a closer bond with half of the members of his pack than he has. Suddenly, a scandalized look crosses her face. “Oh my god, Blaine, does Puck know?” There is a beat and Tina gasps, looking even more horrified. “Does Finn know?”
Blaine cannot help himself; he lets out a loud, long laugh. Having members of his own pack - people he trusts with his life, with the most vulnerable part of himself - supportive of this massive decision makes him feel giddy in a way he hasn’t felt in days.
“Of course Puck knows!” chuckles Blaine, an enormous grin plastered across his face. “It was his idea to begin with. And Kurt’s coming back some time this afternoon, and he’s going to let Finn know then. It only seems right for Finn to find out from his brother, yeah?” They nod, and Blaine forces his face into a more serious expression. “But seriously, guys. The reason I’m telling you this before even Finn knows is because of the whole... human thing.”
A look of worried understanding washes over Tina’s face, but Mike still looks confused.
“What do you mean?” asks the slim boy, pulling the blanket more firmly around himself as an afterthought. None of them are particularly bothered by seeing each other’s nudity or exposing their own anymore, so the gesture is one of habit more than consideration.
“Kurt’s human,” says Tina, voice soft, reaching over to press a hand to Mike’s blanket-clad thigh. “Which means that the mating ritual is going to be... a little bit different than it was with us.”
Mike nods, looking solemn. Tina turns and focuses her words back toward Blaine.
“I know I have some records and accounts around here somewhere - I remember reading about the human/werewolf mating process before. But, Blaine... it’s really rare, historically speaking. Generally, if wolves have spouses before they turn...” She trails off, looking uncomfortable.
“They usually kill them during their first full moon, yeah. I know.”
“Or they can’t quite deal with that whole ‘evil creature of the night’ thing,” Tina continues quietly, looking gloomy.
There is a long pause. Lost in thought, Blaine is startled when he feels a soft hand reach over and squeeze his own. Tina is smiling gently at him over the table.
“I’ll look into it for you, okay? There are definitely some records in this mess -” She gestures at the messy boxes of books. “- and I’m betting there’s some info hidden online, as well.”
“I can help,” pipes up Mike, looking determined to recapture the cheerful mood of a few minutes ago. “I’m a champion note-taker.”
“We’ll find out exactly how the process is different for you two than it would be for a pair of wolves, and we’ll find the safest way for this to happen.” Tina smiles and gives his hand another squeeze. “This is a happy thing, okay?”
Blaine blinks hard, and a real smile crosses his face. “Thanks, guys,” he says, and really means it. “Your help means so much to me. To Kurt, too.”
At that, Tina perks up noticeably. “When’s Kurt coming back? I need to give him a hug and tell him congratulations in person!”
There is no telling how the other members of the pack will react to the news. Perhaps with coldness, or resentment, or confusion. But the knowledge that these two at least will support their decision leaves Blaine with a warm feeling of affection spreading through his chest.
“Soon,” says Blaine. Almost as soon as the word leaves Blaine’s mouth, the three of them tense. They can all feel that a car is driving down the ‘condemned’ road to the motel, perhaps half a minute away. None of them move for a long moment - before it comes close enough into range for all three of them to recognize the tell-tale low squeal of Kurt’s truck.
“Speak of the devil!” laughs Tina. “Are you going to go meet him?”
“I’ll give him a little while to talk to Finn, I think.” And to deal with the fallout, if there is any.
“Want to watch the rest of this episode while you wait?” asks Mike, looking enthusiastic again. “Jamie’s making green beans and chicken, Indian-style.”
“You don’t even cook!” huffs an exasperated Tina, giving her mate a playful slap on the shoulder. “Believe me, Blaine, I’ve tried to make him. Complete lost cause. Every time it’s his turn to help with dinner, he desperately tries to trade chores with me. It’s pathetic.”
Mike huffs, indignant. They all laugh and pile onto the ugly motel couch, sitting slightly too close to each other to watch the last few minutes of the episode. When it ends, they start another. Mike slings an arm around Tina’s chest, and she sprawls so that her feet are resting on Blaine’s lap. It’s comfortable and fun, and makes Blaine grin as they watch Jamie Oliver chop vegetables and gesture at the camera.
It feels like family, he realizes.
And that... that fills him with too many emotions to fully understand. The same grief and anger that petrified his life for three years; the self-hatred, the guilt. But there is also hope. Hope that a new family can be made for him here with these people he might never have met in another life. And happiness that he has found a home here.
Blaine releases a long, deep breath - and settles back against the couch to watch.
Chapter Three
Title: For Which I Have to Howl -- (Part 2/5)
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine (Side pairings: Tina/Mike, Finn/Rachel, and Puck/Quinn. Highlight for spoiler pairings:unrequited Karofsky/Kurt, eventual sexual but non-romantic Puck/Kurt)
Rating: NC-17 overall (R for this chapter)
Warnings: One a chapter by chapter basis! Disturbing themes, violence, werewolves.
Length: 9,300 for this chapter
Spoilers: This is an AU, so not really. But elements from the entire series thus far have been pulled in.
Story Summary: Werewolf AU. Tension is rising in the pack, and having the very-human Kurt Hummel come to visit his brother and boyfriend is putting a strain on everyone. Having Blaine and Kurt mate should help the problem, but the process proves to be more complicated - both physically and emotionally - than either of them could have imagined.
This Chapter: "When they reach the front door, Kurt leans in and gives him a goodbye kiss. The contact is brief, merely a quick touch of lips to lips. The wolf inside of him still paws and keens at the contact, wanting to be allowed to touch, to take."
Notes: Thank you so much all the lovely feedback, guys! It's so wonderful to hear from you, and it makes me much less nervous about posting something so unlike my standard fare. :) I hope you enjoy!
Chapter One
The two of them rise early the next morning in order to usher Kurt out of the motel unnoticed, the new morning air brisk and damp. Dangling human flesh in front of a group of werewolves the day before the full moon is bad enough, but doing so on the day of the full moon is certifiably insane. Urges become practically impossible to resist when the promise of a shining, maddening rounded moon is practically tangible in the air; as he walks Kurt down the stairs and to the door, Blaine is actively concentrating on not slamming the slender boy against the closest wall and having a repeat of last night.
Blaine has always been fairly good at restraint. He’s had lots of practice; first when he was growing up, and then later with the Warville pack. It is only since meeting Puck’s pack, since finding Kurt, that he has begun to understand that losing control every so often can be acceptable - or even beneficial - as long as it happens within a safe environment. But considering the hurry, Blaine decides that now is most definitely the time for self-control. He manages to keep the urges firmly within his own head; to act the gentleman he sometimes wishes he could still be.
When they reach the front door, Kurt leans in and gives him a goodbye kiss. The contact is brief: still sexy in its intimacy, but merely a quick touch of lips to lips. The wolf inside of him still paws and keens at the contact, wanting to be allowed to touch, to take. Blaine very pointedly does not put his hands on Kurt’s waist, does not pull him in close and trail bites along the length of that pale neck. A moment later Kurt pulls away. There is a slight flush in his ever-pale skin, and his light brown hair is askew from sleep. His lips are wet.
It never fails to shock Blaine how very innocent Kurt can look, considering the things they do together. Considering what they intend to do together.
I am going to mate with this boy, Blaine thinks stupidly. The hair on his arms stands on edge at the thought.
“Bye,” says Kurt in that beautiful voice of his, high and clear and ever-so-slightly delicate. He is looking very thin in one of Blaine’s t-shirts; though Kurt had brought an overnight bag, but had been ushered upstairs too quickly the previous night to be able to grab it from his truck. Blaine doesn’t mind; the sight of Kurt wearing his clothes is enough to make something hot and satisfying twinge deep in his stomach.
Looking distinctly rumpled, Kurt continues, “I’ll only be staying at the motel in town just for the one night, okay? I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon; give you guys a chance to sleep off some of the aches and pains. And if you need me before then, you can always text me.”
This makes Blaine laugh. “Kurt, I’m pretty sure I’ve dealt with the change before. On a fairly regular schedule, in fact.”
“I wasn’t talking about the moon,” says Kurt, voice soft and private. Kurt places a hand on Blaine’s arm, and shivers run up and down Blaine’s spine. “Good luck with Puck,” he says, squeezes, and then turns to head toward his ancient blue truck. The vehicle looks nothing like Blaine would ever imagine a car of Kurt’s to appear. It is old and worn, and there is absolutely nothing trendy about it. It is these inconsistencies that make Kurt so irresistible, so maddening.
Before he can do something stupid, Blaine shuts the front door in order to block out the sight of Kurt, in sinfully tight pants, walking away down the path. He can still hear Kurt’s footsteps, gentle and delicate on the concrete.
“Bye,” Blaine whispers unnecessarily, closing his eyes and biting down on his lip to keep from barrelling after Kurt down the driveway. It takes a long moment for the need to pass, but he weathers it out. Clutches the doorknob so hard he almost dents it, focusing on breathing in and out.
Kurt Hummel wants to mate with him. Kurt, who is beautiful and funny and drives ten hours to see him at least two times a month without fail. Who can hold his own in a sniping fit with Santana when her eyes are almost entirely bled through with yellow and her claws are literally at the ready. Who smells so good - so tantalizingly, toe-curlingly good - that on a day like today, breathing in the smell of his hair is enough for Blaine to groan and bite his lip in order to stop from coming in his pants.
Who can deal with Blaine’s... condition, and everything it entails.
The fact that this... incomprehensible boy wants to irrevocably tie their lives together - to let Blaine protect him, and keep him, and have him for the rest of their lives...
It leaves Blaine trembling.
Once Blaine can conceivably move again without potentially throwing the door open and chasing Kurt down, he lets go of the doorknob and heads down the wide main hallway to see if Puck is awake yet. It cannot be later than six in the morning: the house feel s unnaturally silent without the padding of bare feet or the conversation of his packmates. But Puck is an early riser, and Blaine wants to have this conversation as long before sunset as possible. He doesn’t trust himself to remain calm and concise with the wolf practically clawing at his skin, so close to escape.
The door to Room 103 is open. This is a safety precaution more so than any open display of comfort. Anything that allows the pack leader to recognize and respond to potential danger faster, even if only infinitesimally, is a good thing. Blaine only has to glance into the darkened room to see that Puck and Quinn are still curled up in bed together. The blonde’s back is cuddled up to his chest, and one of Puck’s large arms is draped over her swollen belly.
And then Blaine notices that Puck’s eyes are open. Staring right at him over Quinn’s delicate shoulder, alert and ready. Puck raises his eyebrows, gives Blaine a significant look; Blaine shakes his head, embarrassed at being caught intruding into the pack leader’s private space. But before Blaine can gesture at him to go back to sleep, Puck is already in motion. He skilfully extracts himself from his mate, then pads silently across the darkened room.
Blaine opens his mouth to speak but Puck fixes him with a stern look, nodding his head almost imperceptibly toward Quinn. She is still curled into the blankets with her small, pink mouth slightly open. Instead, Puck turns and leads them down the first-floor corridor until they reach a small separate common area with a few wobbly-looking chairs and a stained coffee table. Without a word, Puck closes the door - and then grabs one of the chairs and turns it around, straddling the seat and leaning both arms on its back. He arches one dark eyebrow.
“I really didn’t mean to wake you up,” insists Blaine, slightly awkward as he lowers himself onto the other rickety chair. “This can wait until later if you want to go back to bed.”
“It’s fine,” replies Puck, shrugging casually. “I haven’t really been asleep for at least a half hour, and I could practically smell your nervous energy ever since you woke up. You’re vibrating with it, man.”
The comment makes Blaine feel even more uncomfortable. Truth be told, even after living under the Puck’s roof for the past two years, Blaine still doesn’t really know the alpha very well. Up until yesterday, the only serious one-on-one conversation he’d ever had with Puck had been on the day of his arrival. Frantic and practically shaking from repressing the wolf, begging to be allowed to become part this unusual family.
Blaine had lived with the Warville pack for three years, having been taken under their wing in the wake of being turned. Wes, the Warville alpha, had been detail-oriented and observant. Sharp-tongued. The slim man had emphasized the importance of unity and uniformity in the face of struggle. The need to restrain the wolf, to lock it up both physically and mentally - to inhabit one of a sea of matching uniforms and cells.
But Blaine is a naturally rule-abiding person, and since joining Puck’s pack - this strange, diverse group of outcasts united together by a single condition - he hasn’t had much cause to converse privately with the pack leader. Blending in comes far too easily to Blaine, however much it might hurt him in the end.
He shifts, wincing as the cheap, plasticy upholstery squeaks beneath him. “I thought you might want to know that I talked to Kurt.”
“Cool,” Puck nods, expression serious. “What did you guys decide?”
“We figured that mating was the best available option.” When Puck does not immediately respond, Blaine continues. “I mean, Kurt’s not ready to turn, but this will be a good way to protect him when we’re not together. He’ll be that little bit stronger, heal a little bit quicker.”
Puck’s head is tilted slightly to the right, an unreadable expression on his face - and Blaine can’t stop himself from rambling. “I’ll be able to keep tabs on him this way, which will be nice. I understand that the mating process -”
“Why do you talk about him like that?”
Blaine blinks. “What?”
“Like you know what’s best for him better than he does.” Puck tilts his head to the other side. “Why do you talk about Kurt like he’s some delicate flower that needs your protection?” The words are blunt. Puck’s eyes are fixed on Blaine’s own. They are steeped in yellow; commanding and concentrated.
“I don’t - I...” Blaine trails off, caught unprepared. This is nothing like how he had imagined this conversation would go.
“Because he isn’t, you know.” Puck is still staring at him. His posture is relaxed-looking, sprawled over the chair; but Blaine can smell the slight tension in his body. “Hummel is a lot of things, but ‘weak’ isn’t one of them. He may not be wolf, but he’s one fierce fucker nonetheless.”
“I know that Kurt’s strong, Puck. Of course I know -”
“Do you want to know how I first met Kurt?”
The question catches Blaine entirely off-guard. The sum total of his knowledge of Finn and Kurt’s entry into the pack has been gleaned from Kurt’s own descriptions. Finn’s first transformation, the attack on their parents, the six months the two of them spent wandering alone, finding the pack. Broad strokes, as though small details like when and where and how were too painful to think about. Blaine had understood that feeling far too well.
But the chance to know more about Kurt’s past is too much to turn down, and he feels himself nodding in response.
“It was raining - pissing buckets, cats and dogs, all that crap. I was tracking down a feral wolf we’d all sensed at the last full moon - completely wild and all alone, going mad from locking itself up when it needed to run, to fight, to play. The rain was making finding the smell difficult, but I finally cornered them in this massive barn. I could smell the wolf inside, all human fear and repressed instincts. There was a hint of something else - something subtler - but it didn’t seem important. So I busted the doors down.”
Puck lets out a laugh; his expression remains hard, but a hint of amusement has seeped in. “The first thing I noticed was this tiny, pissed off little shit glaring at me down the barrel of a loaded rifle. He had his finger on the trigger - he meant fucking business, man - and his presence was so large in my mind that I barely noticed the big, hulking dude beside him.
“And you know what Hummel said?” Blaine shakes his head, and Puck continues with great emphasis. “He says, ‘get the fuck away from us’. Just hisses it at me, loud and mean and serious as hell. There I am, twice his size, just having broken down a fucking bolted barn door with my bare hands - and this skinny little runt is completely willing to kill me or go down trying.” Puck shakes his head. “I swear, even though all my instincts were telling me that Finn was the one we’d been looking for... for a moment, I had no idea which one of them was the wolf and which one of them was the human.”
Puck holds his eyes. Holds them, locked and still, and eventually Blaine has no choice but to blink and look away. The pack leader lets the sign of submission rest unspoken in the air before continuing to speak.
“Anderson, I’m not against the two of you taking the plunge. In fact, I think it’s a damn good idea. But you don’t have to pretend like you’re doing this to keep him safe, or because to keep track of him or some shit. Yeah, those might be factors. But in the end, you’re mating with Kurt because you want to. Because you want him to be entirely yours. To have him, and keep him, and to give yourself over to him in return. There’s nothing wrong with that, dude, and it’s insulting to both of you to pretend that you’re doing this for all these crock-of-shit- ‘noble’ reasons.”
Blaine’s face is burning. He cannot look at Puck, cannot make himself look up from the ground. The linoleum here is an ugly shade of brown. There is an oddly-shaped stain next to his left foot.
There is the noise of chair legs scraping against the floor, followed by footsteps. Then, Puck’s broad hand is clapping down on his shoulder. The touch is firm, but kind in its own way.
“You’re allowed to want this, Anderson. It’s okay to be a little selfish sometimes; Hummel can take it. We clear on that?”
He nods, looks up at the pack leader. Puck really is enormous, he thinks, glancing at the well-defined muscles in his extended arm. Blaine’s own body is nothing to sneeze at - toned and compact, since the wolf doesn’t like to settle for anything less than outstanding physical health. But the Puck exudes a specific energy; a dark, strong presence that demands respect and gives it in return. This dark, indescribable charisma is something that Wes simply never had.
Puck is smiling, a confident stretch of lips over teeth that manages to show off his slightly sharpened canines. “Good,” he says. “Then congratulations, man. Mating with Quinn was the best decision I ever made, and I hope yours goes as well as ours did.”
And, winking, the pack leader claps Blaine on the shoulder one last time - and strides out of the room. Blaine is left sitting on the rickety chair, new information swirling through his head and the haze of the near-moon beginning to grip his heart.
-
When Blaine had been living with the Warville pack, full moons had practically been ritualistic in nature. The Warville pack was stationary; it had made its home in the same rural stone-hewn building in Pennsylvania for generations, posing as an all boys’ academy complete with matching uniforms. Every month the pack would into the basement, where individual reinforced cells had been added in subsequent renovations. Before the change, each pack member was supposed to intone a traditional passage, begging that the wolf pass them by. There were no windows in the basement; Blaine had transformed in a room the size of a walk-in closet without even the satisfaction of seeing the moon hanging in its terrible fullness.
In retrospect, it is no surprise that spending three years with the Warville Pack left Blaine so wrecked, such an uncontrollable ball of anxiety. That pack had been repressive to the point of cruelty; harsh and unforgiving in its rules and restrictions.
In contrast, Puck’s pack is mobile, malleable. The entire group relocates every few months; across the country, into Canada, anything to avoid drawing attention. Its members are encouraged to visit other packs during the month if they so desire. New arrivals are a fairly common occurrence, and are always met with friendly teasing and quick acceptance: Sam Evans has only been with them for four months, but in some ways it feels as though the blonde-haired boy has always been there. They may not always like each other, but love and acceptance are never in short supply.
Experiencing the full moon as a pack instead of partitioning each other off, letting the wolf be restrained by the firm hand of the alpha instead of cold stone and metal bars - it all serves to make the wolf inside of them more complacent. By the end of his stay with the Warville pack, Blaine had actually felt as though his body was in danger of combusting with the unbearable tension of the wolf beneath his skin.
The few times a wolf had escaped from the Warville academy, too, had been... brutal. Tragic. By letting the entire pack roam together, they police each other in a far more effective manner than walls or bars ever could.
After he had joined, Blaine had finally stopped feeling as though he was slowly going insane.
Instead of solemn and ceremonial, trooping out together into the woods for the full moon with this pack always makes Blaine feel buzzed with excitement - as well as slightly awkward. No matter how much they care for each other, in the final half-hour before moonrise there is very little on anyone’s mind except for the thrum of the moon’s ghost in the sky, the wolf straining at their skin. It makes for stilted conversation. Generally their hike into the woods is steeped in anticipatory silence, broken only by the plodding of their feet on the earth and the occasional interjected comment.
Tonight, however, Finn Hudson makes a point of hanging back to talk to him as the pack walks through the foliage. His eyes are bright yellow, but Blaine knows his own must be as well. There is little to be done about that with the moon so close he can practically taste it on his tongue.
“Hey,” says Finn, falling into step beside Blaine. Neither of them are wearing shoes; there is simply no point. “I wanted to say thanks. For, you know. Looking after my brother yesterday.”
Considering the decision he and Kurt reached last night, the irony of another wolf thanking him for protecting his prospective mate is not lost on Blaine. But Puck’s warning from this morning are still fresh, and he tries to choose his words carefully.
“Of course,” says Blaine, reaching up to push his unruly curls out of his eyes as they walk through the darkening woods. “Kurt is the most important person in the world to me: I’ll always be there for him when I can.”
“Wish one of us could have got there a little bit faster,” grumbles Finn, glaring over at where the bulky form of Karofsky is visible pushing his way through the trees.
“Me too,” admits Blaine, and Karofsky’s scent stands out in his mind amid the cacophony of woodland smells. It makes his hackles rise.
Finn shrugs. “Anyways, dude, you’re pretty cool. Just wanted to let you know.” He claps Blaine on the shoulder, then jogs forward to rejoin Rachel. The brunette had been looking back anxiously over her shoulder during the entire exchange, and Blaine suspects she had been a motivating factor in Finn’s sudden decision to communicate via words for once. Finn is nice enough, but not the most on top of things sometimes.
When the pack reaches a suitable clearing, and with the moon only minutes away from showing its face, they all begin undressing as if on cue. The sight of his brothers’ and sisters’ nakedness is practically clinical, and they all rush to slip the garments into plastic bags. Mike Chang, as the most agile all of them, gathers the bags and hangs them from the branch of a high tree before scurrying down the trunk again. No point in ruining a set of clothes every month, after all.
And now they are a rough circle of beige smears against the green and brown woods, standing with their arms crossed or hanging by their sides as they all wait for the inevitable. Blaine can feel the wolf pushing against his skin, straining to be released - to howl, and run, and be free. His head is beginning to pound with the closeness of the moon, and every hair on his body is standing on end. Hands and feet already beginning to ache, Blaine closes his eyes and feels himself tilting on the edge of the change.
It is a surprise when he feels a small, feminine hand slip inside his own and give it a reassuring squeeze. He opens his eyes, turns - and sees Brittany, smiling at him reassuringly, blonde hair hanging loose over her naked shoulders. Blaine begins to smile back before -
Pain. Agony agony agony, stretching breaking folding straining - oh God, oh God, and the once gently-squeezing hand is tearing at the bones and muscles of his hand. He can barely feel it, though, because his insides are burning, bursting - organs stretching and reforming, ceasing to function, and he can actually feel his heart stop beating before it begins to twist and pull and take a new shape. His blood is boiling beneath his melting skin.
A noise, pulsating in the woods, like some sick parody of a choir, is all around him - a chorus of shrieks and wailing cries, and Blaine can’t even scream because his vocal chords are stretching, broken, snapping. He isn’t standing anymore, legs unable to remain standing through the pain even if they weren’t broken and twisting in a hundred different places, and he is distantly aware through the painpainpain oh, please pain that he is now on the ground with his head buried in his hands. He opens his mouth to sob but no sound comes out.
His claws dig into the ground as his heart begins to beat again, faster than before. The pain is still hard and sharp, but now at least comprehensible. He buries his muzzle into the ground to ride out the last few waves. Coarse black hair is bursting up from beneath his skin. He lets out a long, low growl as his vocal chords finally reattach themselves and begin to work once more.
The bones snap into place and begin to heal. The twisting skin finally settles into place.
And Blaine Anderson is gone. Shoved beneath the surface, submerged for the night. Instead, there is the Wolf. Black and compact, a twisted entity of sharp teeth and taut muscles ready to spring.
The Wolf blinks as the pain finally ends, seeing through newly-canine eyes. Ears twitch. It begins to push itself up until it is standing on all fours, leaves crunching beneath strong paws. The smell of the Wolf’s brothers and sisters is musky and warm and comforting; they are all around, standing and shaking.
One of them, a rugged brown wolf that is the largest of the group - leader, alpha, friend - sits back on its haunches and tilts its head back toward the sky, toward the moon (beautiful moon, shiny moon) and letting out a long, drawn out howl. Howling for the pain, for the night sky. For what has been unleashed and what has been restrained.
Once by one they all do the same, sitting back and howling at the sky. The jagged croon of their communal cry shatters the silence of the night.
And that is when the smell hits. Sharp and defined amidst the murky musk of the woods, that stands above everything else. It makes the Wolf keen and paw the ground, slobbering with want and need and hunger. The Wolf throws its head up, snuffling desperately at the air to catch more of the scent.
So good, delicious. Want it, want to take him have him rip him bite him. Crunch the bones and claw him open, make him red and bright and roll in his blood.
The smell is old, and distant. Hasn’t been here in hours.
Can track him. Find him, bite him, tear him open, make him mine.
Determination and frantic need pumping through its blood, the Wolf bolts. It runs through the trees, drool flying off as it reaches inhuman speed. Branches smack across its muzzle, its body, but the Wolf barely feels the impact. Its paws pound on the ground, a hammering rhythm of need.
Have to find him. Have to break him, crunch his neck and watch blue eyes go out and -
The Wolf yowls as something enormous and solid slams into it, sending the it flying to the ground. It struggles and lashes out, snarling and biting at the immovable force pinning it there - before realizing that it is the rugged brown alpha. The Wolf whimpers, still fighting weakly against the restraint, but its desperation is leaking out.
The alpha growls, claws digging into the Wolf’s back. It hurts, but the Wolf can’t get away - alpha is bigger, and stronger, and knows what is best. Obedience is already replacing the need to kill pounding in the its blood.
Alpha. Leader. Have to obey. Knows what to do. Have to obey.
Slowly, carefully, the alpha moves away. That smell still claws at the back of the wolf’s mind, but the need to obey the alpha is more important, more immediate. It doesn’t stand right away, instead remaining curled up on the forest floor. Whimpering and waiting for some sign of permission. It comes when the alpha nips at the back of its neck, barking playfully.
Rising to all fours, the wolf sees its brothers and sisters gathered all around once more. Their bodies are a many-coloured cluster of brown, black, grey, and white. Their eyes all shine out, yellow and ready to run and play and fight beneath the moon.
A burly grey wolf gambles up and yips playfully at their shaken comrade, and all at once the Wolf is among the pack again. Playing and scrapping beneath the light of the moon, their howls breaking the still night. Eventually one of them catches the scent of deer and they are off, charging as one through the trees.
They throw themselves into each other and try to forget that desperate need thrumming inside. Try to forget the satisfaction that can only come with human blood, with clawing beneath soft skin and feeling the crunch of bone between teeth.
It works.
But only barely.
--
When Blaine wakes, he is himself again.
Lying naked in a crumpled heap on the forest floor, bits of twig and stone digging into his tender skin, it feels as though something very important has been taken away from him. The wolf is still there inside of him, now curled up and content from its night of freedom in the dark. But the uncontrollability that comes with the full moon - the boundless energy, the unhindered pursuit of urges, the animalistic freedom to roam - is gone. Blaine knows it will be back in a month’s time, but being back to his usual self so suddenly always leaves him feeling jarred and empty.
The very early morning sun is just beginning to peek through the trees. All around him, Blaine can hear the quiet groans and hisses of discomfort as his packmates begin to wake and try to stand. He shifts, and the movement makes him groan: his whole body aches. Ignoring the pounding in his head as well as the sensation that every part of his body has been torn apart and sewn back together, Blaine struggles to pull himself onto trembling legs.
“Come on, Shortstuff. Up you get.”
The words come from right above him. Looking up, Blaine sees Santana standing next to him with a hand outstretched. She looks very much worse for wear, brown eyes heavily bagged and bloodshot. There are tiny scratches and cuts all over her naked body from the forest floor, and several large smears of blood from wounds that no longer exist. Her long hair is heavily matted with earth, leaves, and blood. Despite the cocky voice, her outstretched hand is visibly shaking.
She looks almost exactly how he feels.
Blaine takes her hand, lets Santana pull him to his feet with far less ease than usual. It hurts to stand, but Santana’s grip is firm and helps him weather out the worst of the pain. Despite her sharp words and apathetic attitude, sometimes Blaine suspects that the feisty Latina cares far more about the pack than she ever lets on. He notices that she is looking at something behind him, and he turns to follow her gaze to where Artie is helping Brittany to her feet. The blonde is smiling brightly in spite of her own discomfort.
“All right, guys,” says Puck, one of his arms wrapped around a weak-looking Quinn. Her swollen belly looks enormous compared to the rest of her body, which has determinedly remained stick-thin through her pregnancy. “Our stuff’s only a five minute walk from here. Let’s move out, and we’ll be home within the hour.”
Their slow pace means that it takes closer to ten minutes to reach the clearing they had transformed in the night before. Every part of Blaine’s boy hurts, and exhaustion makes his eyelids heavy and his steps sluggish. It is tempting - so very, very tempting - to stop walking and lie back down on the ground again. Just for a minute. Just to rest his eyes. The knowledge that Puck will not let him sleep here - will shake him and yell at him to put one foot in front of the other, damn it - stops him.
When they reach the clearing, Mike climbs up once more to recover their clothes. He is much slower this time around, and Tina watches nervously as he drags himself up the tree at one-third of last night’s pace. Rachel has fallen asleep, and Finn has her tiny body scooped up into his arms. It must hurt to hold her there - his arms must be screaming at him to put her down - but the large boy makes no outward show of discomfort.
Once they are finally clothed, they drag themselves as a group back to the house. The slide of fabric feels strange and wrong against Blaine’s skin. The only thing he can think of is how good it will feel to collapse into bed, to go to sleep after such a very long night. The fantasy of burrowing himself into the blankets and shutting his eyes is the only thing that keeps him moving.
When the pack finally makes it back to the motel, they wordlessly split up to return to their own rooms. The sun is just barely higher than it was when Blaine woke up, so it must have only been a half hour’s walk - but it feels as though they have been marching through the woods for hours. Blaine’s thighs scream at him as he ascends the stairs to the third floor, and he can barely keep his eyes open to see which room is his own. Body and mind alike feel completely wrecked.
When Blaine falls into bed a few moments later, he is asleep before his head touches the pillow. He lies there, sprawled on top of the blankets.
And dreams.
Blaine is inside the kitchen in his family’s old house - the one they lived in before his father’s business took off and a three-bedroom in the suburbs was no longer appropriate for persons of their influence. The curtains are the same ugly blue-and-white plaid, the floor the same brown linoleum. Blaine hasn’t thought about this kitchen in years, can barely believe he still remembers what it looked like.
( After they moved, the new kitchen had tile floors. They were cold and hard, and when his five-year-old self would have a tumble onto them, it would hurt and he would cry but the house was too big for his parents to hear him.)
Everything seems larger than it logically should, and Blaine realizes that he is very small. Looks down at his hands and see the fat, soft hands of a toddler. He is sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, chubby legs dangling off the side. It’s an unsafe place for a child his age, but it doesn’t seem to matter right now.
His mother is there, stirring the contents of a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Her hair is lacquered straight, like it always was. The wild frizziness tamed down with bottles of glossy straightening fluid. She is smiling as she stirs the bowl, her soft brown eyes sparkling with love and affection as she looks at her son.
(The wedding band on her finger is low-key and inexpensive, nothing like the diamond-encrusted replacement Blaine’s father would buy for her a few years later.)
Blaine’s mother smiles at him and he giggles. She walks toward him, and the smell of the contents of the bowl fills his noise. They’re making chocolate chip cookies. He shrieks in excitement, waving his fat little hands in the air.
(They never cooked together after they moved into the new house. There were people for that.)
She picks up a small spoon from the counter, scoops up a bit of cookie dough, and hands it to him. He licks it happily off the spoon as his mother runs a hand through his curly hair.
“So beautiful, my darling boy," Marita Anderson whispers in her native Filipino. He gurgles happily around the spoon, and the smell of cookie dough and her old drug-store perfume mingle in the air.
-- the smell of perfume clogging the Wolf’s nose, cloying and taunting and sickly sweet as it claws at the door. The woman is shrieking, sobbing, in a language it doesn’t understand as it snarls and throws its body against the door -
Blaine realizes that he is older now, bigger. He can feel that his own hair is slicked back into a style so close to being straight and neat, but unable to conceal a hint of curl. He looks down and sees that he is wearing a distinctive green-and-black school uniform, which means he must be somewhere between fifteen and sixteen years old. He only attended that particular academy for a few years before having to be pulled out and transferred for extenuating circumstances.
He looks up, and sees his father sitting in front of him in a large wing-back chair. It dwarfs him; William Anderson had always been a small man, but his size belied a commanding presence that age and money only strengthened. They are in the study of the new house, its walls lined with shelf after shelf of books no one ever opened and a roaring fire in the grate.
(No one ever bothered to light the study fire in real life. Too much work, too much bother, when you could just turn up the electric heat they’d paid so much to have built into every room. But it feels thematically appropriate for it to be lit.)
His father’s mouth is moving, but there is no sound coming out. There is a bit of greying hair at his temple. He doesn’t seem to notice that his words aren’t being spoken.
And then, William’s deep voice fills the air - separate from the movement of his lips, like a poorly-dubbed foreign film. Unsynchronized and jarring.
“ ... need for discretion...should be more careful... or are you trying to embarrass me?... don’t need to flaunt this little character flaw for the world to see, Blaine...”
With a shock, Blaine recognizes this particular speech. They are from after the Sadie Hawkins dance, when he’d been sent home from the hospital after being attacked for daring to attend with another boy. His eye stings in pain, and Blaine reaches dazedly up to feel that it is clearly blackened. He touches his nose and that, sure enough, is broken. He looks down, and sees his left arm is in a cast.
(They’d screamed obscenities at both of them as they’d kicked and punched them into the concrete. Faggots. Cock-suckers. Fairies. Each word punctuated with another burst of pain as they’d curled up on the ground and tried to shield themselves from the blows.)
“... have you transferred... can’t happen again, you understand... need to try harder to fit in...”
Years later, Blaine will realize that his father is only saying these things because he loves him. Because the idea of his son growing up in a world of people who hate him and want to hurt him is so terrifying that it makes his father cold and hard and denying.
But right now, the words hit him just as powerfully as they did so many years ago. His lip trembles, and he wants nothing more than to bury his face in his hands and cry. To run out the door, away from his father - all straight-backed and composed and disappointed.
-- all composure gone, now, when the door finally splinters and gives way. The man is petrified, fear rolling off of him in thick delicious waves, his face a rictus of incomprehensible terror. The Wolf snarls. The man moves in front of the sobbing woman anyways. He stands, back hard and straight in some kind of strange rebellion. He looks right into the eyes of the Wolf before it launches itself up and -
Blaine wakes with a start, gasping and shouting and already choking on the bile rising in his throat. He gags and throws himself out of the bed, ignoring the stiffness in his legs in the rush to get to the bathroom. He makes it just in time, clutching at either side of the porcelain bowl as he wretches into it. Chunks of half-digested raw deer mingle with bright yellow bile, and the taste of the meat as it comes up again makes him shudder and heave even harder.
Because no matter how hard he tries to forget, he can still remember the taste in his mouth when he woke up after his first full moon. His whole body wracked with pain as he blinked his eyes open and found himself covered from head to toe in his parents’ gore, their blood clotting and crusting on his skin. Pieces of their bodies strewn all over the living room floor.
He cannot forget how he stared at the scene - like something out of a slasher horror only real, too real, so real - and began to laugh. Bubbling up from within his twisted and wrecked body, building from tiny gasps into uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. How he laughed with tears running down his face and his head buried in his hands and all the while telling himself to wake up, just wake up, it will all be okay if I wake up -
The neighbours had found him like that. Laughing and sobbing, naked body soaked in blood and meat and bone. Clawing at his own face and arms and chest, stammering nonsense and wailing into the morning stillness.
Something in his mind had snapped that night, and it hadn’t fully mended until he met Kurt all those years later.
Blaine spits one last time into the foaming yellow-red-clear mess, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He closes the lid and flushes with trembling hands, standing up unsteadily as the water rushes in and takes away the evidence of his terrible, terrible guilt. He rinses his mouth with water, and then brushes his teeth. Once, twice, three times. Until the taste is gone and all that remains is the soreness of his throat.
This happens after every full moon, after all. Blaine is used to it by now.
The standard-issue clock on his bedside table flashes 8:37am as he strips off last night’s clothes and pulls on an old pair of pyjama pants he’d folded and left on a chair last night for this purpose. Blaine crawls back into bed, this time actually taking the time to wrap the blankets around his body.
And then he closes his eyes and thinks about Kurt.
Kurt, whose nose wrinkles when he gets upset. Who is finicky about hygiene, and leaves cupboard doors open when he shouldn’t, and sometimes looks at his brother with such undiluted affection that it makes Blaine’s heart ache.
Kurt, who is so beautiful it makes Blaine wonder how he can possibly be real. Who makes Blaine better than he is; who can tell when he needs to be held back or left to run free, and has taught him that it’s okay to let go as long as Kurt is there to catch him. Who smells so good it makes Blaine’s mouth water. Whose chiming laugh always makes Blaine smile.
Blaine knows he doesn’t deserve to have Kurt’s love, but he clings to it desperately anyways. Blaine loves Kurt; the wolf wants to hurt him. But once the ritual is complete, the wolf will know its mate. Will want to keep Kurt safe instead of claw, bite, and tear.
Because if that happened again to someone he loved...
Blaine knows he isn’t strong enough to survive it.
The realization that last night was the very last time that the wolf will be sent into a frenzy at the smell of his own boyfriend - that by next month, he and Kurt will be safely mated - makes Blaine’s whole body relax and his mind begin to fog. Makes the thoughts of gore and blood and terrible, terrible guilt fade.
He falls asleep envisioning himself as the wolf, wrapped protectively around Kurt’s pale naked body. Keeping them both safe, and happy, and warm.
--
By the time Blaine drifts awake again the afternoon sun is tickling his eyelids. Looking to one side, he blinks his eyes open to see that the clock is now flashing 12:32pm. He can hear the motel’s occupants slowly waking up across all three floors, stretching out their tired limbs or burying their faces determinedly back into the covers. Blaine lies on his back, tangled up in the slightly rough motel sheets, and rubbing his eyes until his vision is clear.
Kurt and I are going to mate in one month, he thinks. Instead of the anxiety this sentence would have brought him yesterday, the notion fills him with excitement. With absolute certainty.
He feels... lighter. As though some sort of weight as been lifted from him. Because he knows that this is the right choice, now. And all they can do is prepare for it.
It is with that thought in mind that Blaine rolls out of bed, dresses, and makes his way down to Mike and Tina’s designated bedroom.
The current Cohen-Chang-Chang residence (and really, thinks Blaine as he pads down the hallway, how do they even come up with these couple nicknames? ) is currently located in Room 211 of the Woods’ Edge Motel. As one of the only two mated couples in the pack, Tina and Mike have chosen to room together instead of separately in every place the pack has stayed since Blaine has been a member. When he reaches their door, he takes a moment to listen for movement. When he is satisfied that they are awake (and not currently having sex, although that would be brutally masochistic on both their behalves at this point), he knocks on the door.
There is a pause, followed by Tina’s voice as she shouts ‘coming!’ and the sound of footsteps. She opens the door a few moments later, looking weak but happy in a long blue dressing gown.
“Morning,” she says, leaning against the doorframe and smiling. Blaine can hear a television playing softly in the room behind her. “Or afternoon, I guess. What’s up?”
“Good morning,” says Blaine politely, feeling slightly discomfited. He likes Tina and Mike, but they tend to keep to themselves. Having to move outside his comfort zone toward his fellow pack members is making him realize how little he knows about them outside the full moon. “I have a... sort of historical question that I think I need your help with. Is now a bad time?”
“Not at all!” Her enthusiastic increase in volume makes them both wince, and she backtracks. “Well, maybe a little bit. Come inside and tell me about it, and we’ll really get down to work when we’re both feeling better?” Blaine nods gratefully, and Tina moves out of the doorway to allow him inside.
Like Puck and Quinn, Tina and Mike share one of the motel’s larger ‘honeymoon suites’ instead of the small single bedrooms the rest of them tend to occupy. Despite the slightly skeevy name, the room is in no way different except for the slightly larger dimensions and the addition of a small living room-style area. Mike is sitting on the rosy pink couch with his legs up on the coffee table. He is wearing a pair of boxer shorts with a blanket wrapped loosely around his shoulders, looking for all the world like a Cirque Du Solei performer on downtime. His extremely thin and well-defined body is emphasized by how very little of it is covered.
Mike smiles at him, waves, then turns back to watching some sort of cooking show on low volume. Tina leads Blaine over to the quasi-study area, where a small breakfast nook has been surrounded by several boxes of books.
In Blaine’s experience, most werewolves are predominantly concerned with the here and now. Practical questions such as ‘how do I avoid getting caught by hunters?’ or ‘where am I going to go to transform tonight?’ tend to occupy the forefront of most wolves’ minds. Even with the Warville pack, residents had been encouraged to put their time and energy into practical activities instead of dwelling on the past. Painting and singing were popular pass-times, as were more modern creations such as television or the internet.
By contrast, Tina is infamously obsessed with werewolf lore and history. Whereas most of them find looking to their species’ past a rather depressing venture, Tina’s fascination with such dark and twisted stories and accounts has earned her a special place as the pack’s pseudo-historian. For years far longer than her youthful appearance would indicate possible, she has collected dusty first editions and hunted for their accompanying translations. Her collection is impressive by now, filling up several boxes with physical books as well as many other snippets of information on her computer hard drive.
The ongoing joke is that it is a rite of passage for Tina Cohen-Chang to corner new pack members, usher them into dark corners, and proceed to grill them about every notable story, legend, or first-hand tale they can think of. All the while frantically writing in a little black booklet, nodding every so often and asking for dates and locations.
Tina gestures for him to have a seat, so Blaine pulls up one of the two chairs and lowers himself into it. He can still hear the host of the program Mike is watching in the other room, directing the viewer to be careful when blanching the beans for fear of creating a soggy end product. The small girl moves to the other chair, and sits down.
There is an uncomfortable pause, and it takes a few moments of Tina staring expectantly at Blaine for him to realize that she is waiting for him to ask his question.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he begins tentatively, dragging the words out in order to give himself the time necessary to figure out how to phrase this. “But something has come up, and... and I think that Kurt and I need your help with something.” Tina raises a dark eyebrow. “Kurt and I are mating next month,” Blaine continues boldly, “and I want to know what to expect.”
There is a beat.
The squeal of utter delight that Tina unleashes at this revelation would be enough to make a normal human being wince at the best of times. As it is, he and Mike recoil at the sound, hands flying up to their ears. Tina looks miraculously unaffected.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Tina shrieks excitedly, eyes wide and hands flying excitedly into the air. Her face is bright with shocked enthusiasm. “Oh my god, Blaine, that is the best thing I’ve heard in absolute ages! You two are perfect for each other, and Kurt’s been coming here for so long to be with Finn, and now he can finally properly belong, and Blaine. The sex.” Her eyes roll slightly back into her hair as she says this last part. “Just... it’s indescribable. First you get super-intense-mating-sex, and then after that you get rawr-you-belong-to-me-sex, and -!”
“Tina!” exclaims Mike, horrified, and Blaine cannot help but grin.
“Oh, the whole pack can hear us when we go at it, and you know it,” she says, waving her hand dismissively at her mate’s objection to her casual discussion of their sex life. “It’s not like he doesn’t already know that it’s mind-blowing. But now he gets to experience it.”
“Still,” insists Mike, cheeks bright red, but he is grinning as well. He switches off the television and comes over to join them, clapping a hand on Blaine’s shoulder in a way that reminds him distinctly of Puck. He wonders if this is the inbuilt male werewolf expression of happiness at the news of an upcoming mating. “Congratulations, man. Mating’s pretty sweet, not gonna lie.”
“And it’s going to be with Kurt, too!” exclaims Tina, eyes sparkling and looking as though all of her dreams have come true at once. Distantly, Blaine wonders how his very-much-a-human boyfriend has managed to form a closer bond with half of the members of his pack than he has. Suddenly, a scandalized look crosses her face. “Oh my god, Blaine, does Puck know?” There is a beat and Tina gasps, looking even more horrified. “Does Finn know?”
Blaine cannot help himself; he lets out a loud, long laugh. Having members of his own pack - people he trusts with his life, with the most vulnerable part of himself - supportive of this massive decision makes him feel giddy in a way he hasn’t felt in days.
“Of course Puck knows!” chuckles Blaine, an enormous grin plastered across his face. “It was his idea to begin with. And Kurt’s coming back some time this afternoon, and he’s going to let Finn know then. It only seems right for Finn to find out from his brother, yeah?” They nod, and Blaine forces his face into a more serious expression. “But seriously, guys. The reason I’m telling you this before even Finn knows is because of the whole... human thing.”
A look of worried understanding washes over Tina’s face, but Mike still looks confused.
“What do you mean?” asks the slim boy, pulling the blanket more firmly around himself as an afterthought. None of them are particularly bothered by seeing each other’s nudity or exposing their own anymore, so the gesture is one of habit more than consideration.
“Kurt’s human,” says Tina, voice soft, reaching over to press a hand to Mike’s blanket-clad thigh. “Which means that the mating ritual is going to be... a little bit different than it was with us.”
Mike nods, looking solemn. Tina turns and focuses her words back toward Blaine.
“I know I have some records and accounts around here somewhere - I remember reading about the human/werewolf mating process before. But, Blaine... it’s really rare, historically speaking. Generally, if wolves have spouses before they turn...” She trails off, looking uncomfortable.
“They usually kill them during their first full moon, yeah. I know.”
“Or they can’t quite deal with that whole ‘evil creature of the night’ thing,” Tina continues quietly, looking gloomy.
There is a long pause. Lost in thought, Blaine is startled when he feels a soft hand reach over and squeeze his own. Tina is smiling gently at him over the table.
“I’ll look into it for you, okay? There are definitely some records in this mess -” She gestures at the messy boxes of books. “- and I’m betting there’s some info hidden online, as well.”
“I can help,” pipes up Mike, looking determined to recapture the cheerful mood of a few minutes ago. “I’m a champion note-taker.”
“We’ll find out exactly how the process is different for you two than it would be for a pair of wolves, and we’ll find the safest way for this to happen.” Tina smiles and gives his hand another squeeze. “This is a happy thing, okay?”
Blaine blinks hard, and a real smile crosses his face. “Thanks, guys,” he says, and really means it. “Your help means so much to me. To Kurt, too.”
At that, Tina perks up noticeably. “When’s Kurt coming back? I need to give him a hug and tell him congratulations in person!”
There is no telling how the other members of the pack will react to the news. Perhaps with coldness, or resentment, or confusion. But the knowledge that these two at least will support their decision leaves Blaine with a warm feeling of affection spreading through his chest.
“Soon,” says Blaine. Almost as soon as the word leaves Blaine’s mouth, the three of them tense. They can all feel that a car is driving down the ‘condemned’ road to the motel, perhaps half a minute away. None of them move for a long moment - before it comes close enough into range for all three of them to recognize the tell-tale low squeal of Kurt’s truck.
“Speak of the devil!” laughs Tina. “Are you going to go meet him?”
“I’ll give him a little while to talk to Finn, I think.” And to deal with the fallout, if there is any.
“Want to watch the rest of this episode while you wait?” asks Mike, looking enthusiastic again. “Jamie’s making green beans and chicken, Indian-style.”
“You don’t even cook!” huffs an exasperated Tina, giving her mate a playful slap on the shoulder. “Believe me, Blaine, I’ve tried to make him. Complete lost cause. Every time it’s his turn to help with dinner, he desperately tries to trade chores with me. It’s pathetic.”
Mike huffs, indignant. They all laugh and pile onto the ugly motel couch, sitting slightly too close to each other to watch the last few minutes of the episode. When it ends, they start another. Mike slings an arm around Tina’s chest, and she sprawls so that her feet are resting on Blaine’s lap. It’s comfortable and fun, and makes Blaine grin as they watch Jamie Oliver chop vegetables and gesture at the camera.
It feels like family, he realizes.
And that... that fills him with too many emotions to fully understand. The same grief and anger that petrified his life for three years; the self-hatred, the guilt. But there is also hope. Hope that a new family can be made for him here with these people he might never have met in another life. And happiness that he has found a home here.
Blaine releases a long, deep breath - and settles back against the couch to watch.
Chapter Three