Glee!fic, fantasy AU: And See Further pt III
And See Further, mage!AU, part III and complete. Woo! Follows In the Dark, Close Your Eyes, part I and part II.
Disclaimer: The characters are mine the way that the crown jewels are mine. In that they aren't.
Rating: R pretty much entirely for violence. I don't reach for violence casually so, just saying.
Warnings: We are still pretty much spoiler-free because we're crazily AU. There is, yeah, some violence, and there is a character 'death' though um, the quotes are there for a reason, ahem ^^;
Summary: Seeing further.
Sick swimming black and everything sounds too much, his own breathing loud as agony in his ears. He feels through himself, finds the damage, concussion, ugly, his body hunches and he hears a soft moan in his own throat as he soothes the hurt down in his head.
Then everything's black again, and silent.
Noise again, voices and worry, there's a hand on his shoulder and Mercedes' voice says tightly, "Kurt? You waking up? - Kurt's waking up!"
He opens his eyes, and his breath comes shaking, and the panic of the magic in the room is the first thing he's aware of. Voices tight with pain and shock and fear, and all the magic knitted and anxious and sparking. He feels out -
Mercedes' leg is broken. Finn's collarbone is cracked. Quinn is unconscious and bleeding from the throat. Tina's arm, Mike has two broken ribs and a concussion. Brittany's nose, Santana's wrist and arm, Puck's skull -
He wakes for the third time, cheek to the floorboards, and a hand is rubbing his shoulder and Mercedes sounds like she's crying. "-okay okay okay don't try to heal anybody don't try to do anything just - just sit tight, okay, it's gonna be okay -"
He stares at something he can't understand, some bright line of light horizontal to the vertical plane he's too close to. He tries to say something and it comes out like a lump of cotton, confused. Mercedes rubs his back and chokes on a breath and says thickly, "Just don't try to heal anyone, okay, just - just don't do anything -"
Ridiculous order to give. Kurt swallows with too little spit, and feels through his groggy head, feels through his aching body, gods there's hardly a bone that doesn't feel like it's been snapped and reset in him - his breath shivers in, shudders out, and he feels through the magic of the room again. Mostly, his coven is unhurt, now. Bruises and scrapes Kurt has no strength to help right now. Finn is awake, picking himself up with Brittany's help, and Kurt manages to get a confused hand up, bangs his knuckles off the floor, gets it to his face so he can groan into it. Everything . . .
He blinks at that line of light that he can't understand, and then draws his breath in, sets his hands to the floor, pushes. "Don't don't are you okay-?" Mercedes says in panic, as Kurt gets himself clumsily off the floor, blinking and dazed, the world turned back to its proper angles. That line of light stuck in a vertical surface - isn't: what it is is Blaine's sword, bright in the light from the fire, stabbed into the horizontal surface of the floor.
Kurt stares at it, then turns his head (the world swings overenthusiastically in to meet him) to scan the room.
He says, voice coming like a kitten falling down a step, "Where's Blaine . . . ?"
Mercedes' breath has gone very still. Kurt blinks around the room, pushes himself to sit, wobbly and weak, has to put his hands to his head because it feels like it's going to roll off his neck. "Where's Blaine?" he says, and can't understand - all of his coven and where is his - ?
Mercedes says, "You need to lie down or something, you just did way too much magic all at once, okay -"
"Where's Blaine?" He tries to push himself upright and ends up on his side again, choking on frustration, shoving himself up on weak-folding arms. "Where is he, where the hell is -"
Santana takes Brittany's arm, wraps her other arm around her waist, leads her away from Finn. "The dhampir took him. Oh what the hell are we just not gonna tell him, like he can't guess, like he just went out for milk or something? If it was Britt I'd want to know!"
The entire world, in that second, rings like a bell, silent and shaking Kurt's whole body through. His magic tightens and collapses, all around him, the particles drop like a gasp, quivering and helpless, tadpoles on dry land -
He swallows, and his hands scrape into fists against the floor.
He gets his knees under himself, gets up on one leg, then the other. He grips the pillar to haul himself upright, closes his eyes and sucks his breath in, draws his magic tight, he does not have the time to recover from a head injury. He heals it, too quick, he doesn't care. The world is clearer. Tina is crying into Mike's robes, and Puck's face is bloody. Mercedes has his arm, is saying, "Kurt, just-" but Kurt's magic whirls around him, sparking as it spins, and she backs off startled. He walks over and puts both hands around Blaine's sword handle, has to grit his teeth to yank it free. He staggers back and the sword droops his arms, always too heavy, how does Blaine make it look so effortless like a bird launching into air -?
Quinn on the floor, white-faced and robes bloodstained, the hare gently nosing her cheek, whispers, "What are you . . . ?"
"He'll need this." The sword tip drags along the floor as Kurt walks for their bags, his and Blaine's the only ones left there on a table; his jaw tightens until it hurts at the sight of Blaine's green cloak folded on top of his pack, he has to blink so hard and fast to hold it in. He swings the cloak over his shoulders, picks up that clumsy sword again, and walks to the doorway. Mercedes whispers, "Kurt he'll kill -"
"Shut up." The door slams open under his magic, and Kurt hears someone scramble behind him as he walks out into the snow.
"Hey!" Finn yells, chasing him into the street. "Kurt what the-"
He tries to grab Kurt's shoulder and Kurt's magic flares, and he pulls his hand back shocked. Kurt keeps walking. "Go back inside. You're recovering from a broken collarbone, go rest."
"Dude, so are you!"
"I'm fine."
"Kurt this is - what the hell are you gonna do, go fight him? You're a healer!" Finn runs to get in front of him, so Kurt has to stop walking because it's that or bull right into him. He throws his arms out, says, "This is stupid! I know you're not thinking right right now-"
"Get out of my way."
"- Kurt," Finn's voice croaks low and broken like he desperately doesn't want to say this, "Kurt, he's dead already, you know he's dead already, don't get yourself killed because - he wouldn't've wanted-"
Finn staggers back as Kurt's magic burns around him, and Kurt's breath is too quick in his nose. "Get out of my way."
Finn sets himself more stubborn on the road. "You can't go on your own, on your own against a dhampir? You're a healer, you can't even fight it!"
"I'm not leaving him. You know I'm not leaving him to that thing."
"Gods-" Finn grabs at his hair, staring at Kurt with his face too pale. He hesitates, then says, low and raw, "Let me come with you. You can't, on your own you can't, you just-"
Kurt's face tightens. "I should drag you along, like you could help? Finn, I can't protect Blaine and you and me, not against that thing, I can't. You would be nothing but a burden. Go back to the coven. They need you more than I do."
Finn blinks like he's trying not to cry. "Kurt this is insane you can't-"
He knows how insane it is, standing in the snow carrying his lover's sword, his body already trembling with overuse and his magic too tight, too much, and his heart squeezed down so small inside it feels as hard as diamond. "Finn, I have to," he whispers. His hands tighten on the sword. "He's here because of me. All of this is because of me -"
"He's dead, you know he's dead-"
I'm not going to be the one who kills them.
"No he's not," Kurt says, his voice cracking on its edges. He starts walking again, passes Finn who starts to scrabble after him in the snow but Kurt says, "No. Go back to the coven, Finn. You're worse than useless to me against him, you'll just make it more dangerous."
"You think he'd ever forgive me if I let you get killed 'cause of him-?"
Kurt stops, and pushes his shield out until it hits Finn's magic and acts like a wall, scraping Finn's boots backwards through the snow. He says, low and rough, "Don't make me have to stop you following me."
There's silence, after that. Kurt stands still for a while, sword too heavy in his hands, then draws a breath in and sets off again. He can see where the dhampir's been, the path of the magic, the space where it's thinner, where the particles haven't settled back yet. He spreads his own magic, slowly, casts a palimpsest, holding the usually fluid, active particles still in the air as if captured in amber. It's hard to cast over so huge a space, but he needs to be able to follow that monster, he needs the path to be clear in the dark.
Finn calls after him, helpless and small, "Kurt . . ."
Kurt just keeps walking, blinking hard, sword scraping the cobbles under the snow.
*
He's cold, is the first thing he's aware of. Every muscle aches with it: cold.
Then the thickness in his head asserts itself, ugly and demanding, he can't get away from it. He swallows, and on the first attempt his eyes don't open at all. He draws his breath in, tries to put a hand to the floor to steady himself but his palm slips, and his wrist banging the floor hurts sharp enough to snap his eyes open, breath catching in. Blaine blinks fast, and lifts his head.
The dhampir, sitting incongruously on a patchwork-blanketed bed against the wall, one leg crossed over the other, looks at Blaine over the top of a book and says, "Oh, you're awake. For a while I thought you were even weaker than you looked and I killed you by accident. Thank you for not dying."
Blaine can't even feel scared he's so confused and drowsy. He pushes himself, weak and awkward, to sit. One of his wrists is chained to the wall - he's in some kind of log cabin, and the peg holding the chain is hammered deep into the wood, there'll be no pulling it loose - and the other wrist is bandaged, and blood is clotting through it.
And Blaine understands why, and swings his head against the wall and throws up.
The dhampir puts the book down and stands up. "God, I wish you hadn't done that. The smell takes forever to air out."
Blaine chokes, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, still too sick and his head too tight and too heavy. "The hell," he whispers, and looks around the room, tries to think, how can he escape? Log cabin, one closed door, windows shuttered against the night, fire burning too low in the grate. He jerks the chain on his wrist but he might as well try to drag a castle, there's no moving it even if he wasn't so weak. He touches his forehead and his hand is shaking, he's cold and sick, the sweat makes him feel colder. "What did you -?"
The dhampir walks over, folds his arms and examines him from overhead. "This is why humans really should stay out of mages' business. You're just too ignorant to survive, aren't you?"
"What did you do? Where's - the coven, what did you-"
That mage in the bed, his whole coven dead, Blaine's heart feels like it's frozen, Kurt -
"Oh god, they're fine, their little healer will fix them up all nice and shiny again. We've probably got a little time to kill while he's doing that, so how about you tell me something interesting before you die? Even talking to a human kills the time a little."
Blaine tugs at his chained wrist again, swallows, puts a hand to his head as the sickness rises and droops again. "Why am I here?" He jerks his wrist harder. "Why aren't I dead? What the hell do you need me for -?"
"Well, bait." the dhampir says. "That healer's stupid but he's not stupid enough to come looking for me without some reason. You, you have no idea, you are such a little gift, this is the best opportunity I'll ever get. It's like fate. It almost makes up for being frozen solid for however many stupid centuries."
Blaine draws his breath in, lets it loose. He's not dead, not yet, and it doesn't sound like Kurt is (the last he saw of him was Kurt's head being smashed into that pillar by the dhampir, Kurt dropping like a dead body, before Blaine surged forward and lost all thought), though Blaine hopes to god that Kurt has the sense not to come rescue him. While he works things out, the best thing he can do is keep the dhampir talking. It's probably best not to think what happens when the dhampir gets bored of him.
"Why do you," Blaine says, glaring up at him, "oh great and terrible monster that you are, need me? Kurt wouldn't risk his neck to come after me." He realises that's not true even as he's saying it. "Why the hell do you want him-?"
"Oh come on," the dhampir says. "A mage powerful enough to keep his magic around a dhampir? Do you have any idea how rare that is? I couldn't resist, I need to see what happens."
"What happens when?" Blaine says, and strains at the chain again, but no link in it feels like shifting.
"When I turn him." Blaine's head snaps back to the dhampir's, and the dhampir smiles. "Which I couldn't do if it wasn't for you. Bravo, little pet. Well done. You do have some use after all."
Blaine stares at him, his entire body wanting to shake.
The dhampir turns away, walks back to the bed and sits again, crossing his legs and arms. "Do you know how you turn someone into a dhampir?"
Blaine swallows, hard. "Blood."
"I drink theirs, and they drink mine. But it's not enough, you can't just hold their nose and pour it down their throat, they have to want it."
"Kurt never would."
"Of course he would. You are really so ignorant, aren't you?" The dhampir grins, tapping one foot at the air. "I've only ever met one other mage that powerful. And I wanted to see what happened if I turned her, so I set about torturing her until she would take anything, anything, over another second of that. Only then the silly bitch killed herself. Did he tell you they can do that? Mages, they do something with their magic, just quietly snuff themselves out. Suicide is only ever a spell away. She chose death over eternity, like, pft." He shrugs. "Mortals are just really, really stupid."
The cold is on the inside now, fear like freezing inside him. "So . . . you chose 'eternity', when someone turned you?"
"I chose turning," the dhampir says, rubbing his throat with a palm. "I went looking for my transformation."
Blaine stares at him. Eventually, because there's nothing else in the world he can say, he says, "What?"
The dhampir rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "Okay, long story, my sister's fault. The mages came for her. I mean, her, I was the favourite son, I was the one that mattered, but they came and they took her for their shabby little college and their pathetic magic. I mean-" The dhampir bristles and his elbows wriggle, sharp like stones striking. "Where the hell is the justice, your little sister coming out a mage and leaving you just a human, like she has a right to the magic -?"
"So you - you were jealous of your sister so you got yourself turned into a monster?"
"Monster," the dhampir snorts. "Um, I'm immortal? I'll be young and handsome and powerful forever. I don't expect you to understand, you don't even understand what 'forever' means. But yes. I went and got myself more power than she had. And you get a bonus with it," he says, grinning. "You get more benefit than I ever knew. It takes your troubles away. When you turn, it blows out all those nagging little thoughts you have. You can stop giving a crap about petty little mortals who're hardly worth their existence they die so soon anyway. So I went to her college and killed everyone she knew and then killed her. Which taught her pretty decisively not to think that she's better than me."
If there was anything left in him, Blaine could throw up again. He just swallows, and stares at the dhampir, and thinks about Kurt and Kurt's magic and oh god, he feels so cold.
*
Kurt's boot catches in the wet hem of his robes, and he hits the ground elbow-first. He hunches there for a moment, panting, and there's no Blaine to catch his arm, no Blaine to help him up. He grits his teeth, sets his hands to the frozen surface of the snow, pushes himself back up. The sword shears against snow so solid with cold it might as well be metal off metal, as Kurt stands a little lopsided, sword hanging from one hand, heart thumping too hard inside him, very alone in the frozen wilderness in the night.
The stars overhead are so huge and so bright, and the magic shows that thin path the dhampir walked over the white, dragging Kurt's lover with him.
He lets his breath drop loose, tries to breathe it in more slowly. He feels through his body, awkwardly - he didn't mend the collarbone quite right, and he screws his face up while he shifts his shoulder and fixes it, pain like a trap biting the bone. He closes his eyes, and shudders, feeling the cold even through the cloak, and for a second the want to cry tightens in his throat but he lifts his head instead, gasps his breath out white and stares at the magic, blinking hard until it stops blurring, until he's swallowed the tears right down. He doesn't have the time to feel sorry for himself. There are things to do.
Blaine.
He watches the drift of the magic over the snow, slow and sharp-angled with cold, and his words come out in a cloud of white; "I need your help."
The magic floats, silent in the night. Kurt swallows.
"I know you can hear me. I know you're there, I know you can hear me. I - I need your help, you know I do, against that thing - please, it took -"
He stops, swallows again and it hurts, and he rubs one frozen hand with another frozen hand around the handle of Blaine's sword.
"I know what that thing does to you," he says to the magic, the slow silent sea of magic everyone in the world wades through and only they few mages ever see. "I know you can't help it, I know it's something it does to you. But I need - please, as much as you can, any single particle is one more particle, I have to be able to save him, please."
The magic is silent, though its slow, slow turn is now focusing around Kurt, like the sun at the centre of an enormous galaxy of tiny, tiny comets.
"I - don't know why you chose me. I don't know why . . . I don't know, maybe it isn't choice, I didn't choose either. It's not like that, is it?" He looks at his hands on the sword handle, the burning of the magic in his aura, how fierce and strong it is when he feels anything but right now, he feels small and alone and petrified but it's not like he can let that stop him. "Life just is, and you just - cope, as best you can. You just try to help as much as possible and hurt as little as possible. And - and I didn't choose this. Do you - I know you understand. I didn't choose to fall in love with him. I didn't choose to need the right magic for him. He needs to be safe. Do you understand - ? The world is a better world with him in it, I'd do anything to keep that true, to keep him - I didn't choose healing, as soon as I healed him it was all I knew I could ever do -"
The stars are silent, and the snow is silent, and the magic in its slow ice-angled turning orbits Kurt, and is silent.
"I have to save him," Kurt whispers. "I know you know that. And I - I don't know, maybe that's why you chose me. Not for me at all, because of him, because I have to save him, and he's worth saving. I don't know. I don't even choose this, do you know that? Going to fight a dhampir alone in the cold in the night, you think I'd choose this? This just - I have to. You know I have to. Please help me, anything you can do, one more particle is one more chance of him not dying, please."
The empty snow says nothing back, but Kurt can feel the magic.
"I know what it wants to do to me," he says, his voice cracking so alone in the night, and he swallows the want to cry again. "I know. I - please. Because you know what I'll make you do if I - neither of us want to be that -"
He breathes, slowly, and shifts his grip on the sword.
"You know. You know all of this anyway, you know me. I know you know him." He takes a quick breath. "Please help us. It's the only . . . please."
He squeezes his hand around the sword, numbed with cold, and starts walking again, through the path where the magic goes thin, where he can see the empty place ahead.
*
"Well, I was picking them off like a fox in a hencoop," the dhampir says conversationally, while Blaine is trying not to freak out, trying not to come to pieces with panic and fear, stuck in a room with a monster who just drank his blood from his wrist and is now telling him the most insane, sickening story of how his crazed brain works, and Blaine is hurting his fingers trying to surreptitiously scrabble the manacle loose. "I'd been trapped in the damn ice for so long, you just feel like you need to stretch, you know? But there's only one ranger left now, and I need at least some of the townspeople alive to drink. And I'm a craftsman, anyway. It's not enough just to kill them, you want them to feel it. Feel the fear, feel the rage. Fear mostly, I like when they fear. So I'm working on the ranger. Get him with nothing left to lose, see what he does next, your mages really interrupted my little project . . ."
The dhampir scratches the underside of his throat, thoughtfully, and Blaine drops the chain, teeth clenching with frustration, he can't break it with his bare hands, he's not a mage. He closes his eyes, swallows, finds some strength to get some words out.
"What about that coven? They didn't do anything to you. They were just passing through and you butchered them."
"Mages are vermin," the dhampir says, foot kicking irritably. "Nothing but annoying little rats. After that silly bitch I tried to turn, a bunch of hydromages came and froze me into the mountain. I don't even know how long I was stuck like that for. What kind of person does that? Leaves someone stuck with nothing but their own thoughts for hundreds of years? Do they have any idea how bored I got?"
". . . how did you . . . if you were frozen, how did you get free?"
"Handy little avalanche cracked the ice open. The world must have missed me."
"No-one missed you," Blaine says coldly. "Who would miss you? You murdered the people who would have cared about you-"
"God you're boring. I can see why a wet little healer would want you."
"He won't let you turn him! He would never be you, he would never be a soulless-"
"Oh god, you are irritatingly stupid, do you know that? Of course he will. You're here."
Blaine's mouth opens and stays open.
"He won't kill himself," the dhampir says. "Whatever I do to him, he won't just die to escape it because you're here, and he's pathetic enough to want to save you from me. Because while I make him long for immortality just to escape how much mortality can really, really hurt, what I will be whispering into his ear the whole time is what I'm going to do to you if he dies. So he has to stay alive, he has to, until the turning starts looking like a much better option . . . I don't know why mortals need persuading. Who wouldn't live forever? Idiots."
Blaine whispers, "He would never."
"Of course he will. The best thing about healers is you can almost kill them as much as you like, and I find that brutal sexual violence will make anyone wish for anything else eventually. And I mean, he's not exactly my type, but it's not even like it's really about that, is it? I wish it'd been that cute little seer though, she'd be more fun, but you can't have everything. So they say."
Blaine whispers, "He would never."
He thinks about Kurt, Kurt who laughs so beautifully, Kurt who faced a faery armed with nothing but his own courage and won, Kurt who burns like a star, Kurt who kisses Blaine like he can hardly bear how much he loves him, Kurt who, with all the magic in the world, chose healing. Blaine knows Kurt. The rest of humanity he doesn't have a clue but he knows Kurt, what Kurt is and what he can be, and Kurt could never be that thing. He can't - bring himself to think about that creature hurting him, he can't, he can't bear it, but it won't happen because Kurt wouldn't let it. Kurt is so much stronger than this thing, it has no idea, it hasn't got a clue, Kurt fold to that monster? Doesn't it know who he is?
He feels sick but he feels sturdier. "He would never be you. He would never, never be you."
"Mostly I'm just curious what a dhampir with magic would be like. There's never been one before, it'll be interesting at least. The other thing-" He laughs, suddenly, runs a hand back through his hair and grins at Blaine. "You have no idea, when you turn, how hungry you are. You mortals don't know the meaning of it, we starve every day of our afterlives, I could drain you right now if I didn't need you to murder him with, god I could drink you dry." The dhampir swallows, and Blaine tries not to follow the movement of his throat as it stares at Blaine, tries not to let the drying of his mouth show on his face. "So that healer will wake up undead and starving like he's never known it, and I've got his first meal leashed to the wall waiting for him. If he's not insane by the time I'm done making him beg for immortality over one more second of pain, he's going to be messed up pretty much to hell by the time he drinks you dead. I just want to see what he'll do next. An insane mage-dhampir, god only knows, what he could do to that coven . . ."
"He would never," Blaine believes it, he does, despite anything and everything, scared until he feels sick but he believes this. "He would never, never, be you."
The dhampir's eyes narrow. "And what exactly do you mean by saying it in that tone of voice?"
That's when the door blows in off its hinges.
Blaine scrambles his legs closer to himself as the heavy wooden door slams into the floor and cold air blows in, and particles of magic burning bright enough for Blaine to see them. Kurt walks in, wearing Blaine's cloak and dragging his sword in one hand, the tip of it scraping along the floorboards. Kurt looks at Blaine, white-faced, breath hushing ghostly around him from the bitter-black night outside, then looks across at the dhampir and says roughly, "I believe that you have something of mine."
"Told you," the dhampir says, slapping his hands off his legs and standing up. "I kind of can't believe you actually came here all the same, just, wow. Is he really that good a lay?"
Kurt ignores the dhampir, leans Blaine's sword against the wall and says, "Are you alright?"
Blaine blurts, "He wants to turn you-"
"I know," Kurt says, dusting his hands off. "It's fine. It's not going to happen. Are you alright?"
". . . not gonna lie, I've been better."
"I'll get you out of here." Kurt promises, quietly. "Don't worry about anything."
The dhampir says, "Pardon me, boys, um, do you want to pay attention to the guy who could kill the both of you in under two seconds, maybe?"
Kurt glances across at him, eyes narrowing in contempt. "You have no idea what you've done."
"- I have no -? You just - walked into a dhampir's den! You're a healer! What the hell are you going to do, cure a cold at me, how the hell could you fight me?"
"You're right," Kurt says, and shrugs. "Of course I can't fight you. I couldn't possibly hurt you, we both know that that's not going to happen." He flicks his hands out, shaking his robe sleeves back from them. "I'm a healer." He glares at the dhampir, and Blaine feels the hairs on the back of his neck shiver upright at his face. "I'm going to heal you. I'm going to heal you good."
The dhampir, for the first time, looks uncertain. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You're a human who got turned." Kurt's eyes flit about the dhampir and he licks his lips, and Blaine sees his magic burn brighter around him; not so strong as it should be, but strong enough, Blaine believes that, believes in Kurt, strong enough. "Some monster did something to you. So I'll heal it. Make you human again. Make you better."
". . . you arrogant little shit. Heal me. Like there's something wrong with me-"
The dhampir takes a step but Kurt's hands are already up and Blaine sees the magic flare, burning vicious gold. The dhampir chokes at the ceiling, a gasp of dead breath, and Kurt's breath sucks in sharp; neither of them seem able to move, while the magic tightens around them, slow-twisting blinding bright, like pieces of the sun. Blaine swallows, jerks his tethered wrist, clenches his jaw and he can't do anything, while Kurt's magic burns and the dhampir's pale skin is beginning to glow a shivery gold, like the magic's got in underneath his bones . . .
The dhampir makes a noise, some breathless noise inside himself, for the first time frightened.
But Kurt loses his breath so suddenly, with a horrible little sound like something just cracked inside him. Blaine sees the magic falter and then the dhampir hisses, long and harsh, and the light of the magic snaps off. Kurt crumples to his side, palms hitting the floor, dry-heaving and trying to cover his eyes with trembling hands, and the dhampir staggers after he's released, shakes his head and then strides at Kurt fists clenching.
"You arrogant little shit, heal me, fix me -"
His foot swings and Kurt's magic sparks, but not fast enough. The noise that explodes from him when the dhampir kicks him in the side, knocking him from his knees (oh god its strength it could splinter bones like matches) is so high and sharp it sounds like he's been punctured.
"There's nothing - wrong - with me -"
Kurt's magic spits and breaks, the noises he's making, he can't get a breath to draw a shield together, if that thing keeps kicking him he'll -
Blaine yanks at his wrist, throws his legs out, forces a boot down his heel with the other boot; with it hanging off his toes he aims and swings back and kicks with all his strength. The launched boot cracks into the back of the dhampir's head mid-kick and its arms windmill, it nearly staggers over Kurt who makes a wet choking noise and throws a hand up.
Healers can't do aggressive magic, but all mages can put up shields. Kurt throws a shield up so hard and so fast and expanding so violently that all Blaine sees is a blur of bright gold and then the back wall of the cabin explodes, the roof groans, cracks and tilts inwards, snow and shattered wood collapse and puddle against that sudden gaping window in the wall. There's no sign of the dhampir, as wood creaks and moans and another section of roof hits the ground, snow hissing down with it. Kurt just threw it across a room and through a wall and god knows how much further. Kurt -
Kurt hacks into his hands, makes a gasped groaning noise and shakes the hand out, blood flecking the floorboards. He pushes himself up on trembling arms and wipes his mouth off, swallows and staggers himself to his feet, arms wrapped tight around himself and head down. Blaine chokes, "Kurt-"
Kurt stretches his body awkwardly, his face tight with pain before he can settle his shoulders steady again. He looks to the side, picks up Blaine's sword and walks to him. The chain holding his wrist snaps so suddenly Blaine jumps, and then Kurt lurches to an awkward kneel in front of him, leaning on the sword. "Blaine, are you -?"
He touches Blaine's cheek and Blaine feels magic, cool-warm and whispery over his head, and then tightening in the skin of his wrist, underneath the bandages. Kurt's eyes are unfocused before he blinks, and his breath drops out of him. Blaine catches his shoulder, feels his body sag, feels the hard running of his heart pushed too hard. He gets his hand around Kurt's on the sword handle. "Okay okay okay," he whispers. "Oh god are you okay -?"
Kurt laughs his breath out, and lifts his head pale but steadier. "I've been better. He hurt you -?"
"He hurt you first."
"It's not a competition," Kurt points out, and takes his hand from under Blaine's on the sword. He closes his hands around Blaine's mended wrist, while Blaine grips the sword and feels so much better for having that back. "I - I need your help. I can't, on my own I can't, I thought I could but I can't, I didn't understand-"
"Tell me what you need. Quickly, that thing won't stay down long."
Kurt swallows, nods. "I can heal it," he says, and Blaine is in that moment frozen by his eyes, so innocently, absolutely summer sky blue, you'd think they were never any other colour at all. "It's possible, I felt that it was possible. But -" He sucks his breath in. "What I'm healing is its soul, it doesn't have a soul anymore, it can't feel properly like that, it doesn't, it can't care. And I - when I got close to healing it -" He lifts Blaine's hand, puts it against his own chest over his straining heart, mouth wobbling a little. "I felt like I didn't care either."
Blaine says quietly, "You have to feel its pain to heal it."
Kurt nods, his hands unsteady on Blaine's wrist. "I can do it. I can. But when I felt - when I realised I didn't care about you - I thought I would pass out. I can't, it doesn't have to turn me if I screw this up, I'll do that to myself. So I need you -"
Blaine whispers, "Anything anything -"
"- I need you to be my soul for me." He stares into Blaine's eyes, licks his lips. "Do you remember against Dave, in my dream? You just - kept me me, you reminded me who I really am - I need you to do that. I need you to remind me how - I love you, I do, I care about you more than anything else in this world, so much more than myself, can you-?"
"Of course I will."
". . . I'm going to run the magic through you," Kurt says, lower now, his face gone so serious that Blaine understands that this is serious. "I - actually do not know if this will work. But if I can make us - loop it through us - if you just feel for me while I can't, I won't forget myself, you would never let me, I know who I am because of who you are-"
"Of course. Anything."
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes." Staring right into his eyes, sure as steel. "You know I do."
Kurt squeezes his wrist, swallows again, nods. And there's a crunch of snow and broken wood, and the dhampir hauls himself back in through that shattered wall by a hand. He says, "You're actually beginning to irritate me now, healer."
Kurt's hand fits through Blaine's, and he stands, Blaine standing behind him, sword in one hand. Blaine with a sword and Kurt with his magic and both of them with each other, they can do this. They can do anything. Kurt's hand squeezes Blaine's, and Blaine squeezes back, as Kurt's magic glows so Blaine can see it all around him, as it begins to rise, to lift and turn slow, slow around them like the first breath of an oncoming storm.
"You think I'm irritating," Kurt snorts. "You hurt my entire coven because you're too damned cowardly to face me at even half capacity, you knew I'd have to heal them before I came after you-"
"You know," the dhampir says, beginning to look really pissed off now, "the mice really shouldn't call the wolf 'cowardly'."
"I don't even have half my magic against you and you still didn't want me to be able to fight back, and I'm a healer. I dread to think how you must quake over facing warlocks."
"This conversation's going to look very different to you when I'm dislocating every bone in your body, healer."
Blaine feels -
Kurt's palm against his is warm, in that softly buzzing way that magic is, and he draws his breath softly in as the warmth buzzes its way into his skin. He looks down, sees light shine through his hand like Kurt's illuminated his bones, spreading up his wrist, that soft, rippling, waking feeling of Kurt's magic seeping into Blaine's body.
Kurt just watches the dhampir's eyes, and says, "I'm not afraid of some human stupid enough to get himself turned and then scared enough of a healer to try to hobble him before he can face him. I've fought faeries. What the hell do you think you are to me?"
"I think that I'm someone who's going to make you repeat that speech," the dhampir says, lip beginning to twitch, "when you have to gargle it out through your own blood."
The magic has passed out through Blaine's shoulder now, he can feel his whole chest illuminated with it, sucks a quick breath in as if going underwater and suddenly it's his whole body, he feels like a forest in spring, he feels like he's blossoming with light. He whispers, mostly to make sure he still can talk, "If this goes wrong you have to kill me - you have to, before he can -"
And Kurt's hand tightens on his and he doesn't say a word, but Blaine understands it like he's spoken it to Blaine's ear, If you ever say that again then I will kill you.
Blaine blinks and blinks, and his limbs have gone oddly heavy, his mouth feels too slack to speak now, there's only the magic holding him upright and to Kurt. He feels through his body, finds -
Finds that he can feel through Kurt's body too.
He blinks and blinks, dazzled, he can see the magic like he's looking through Kurt's eyes, none around the dhampir and Kurt a fierce, small beacon of it. He can feel breath at a rhythm that isn't his. He can feel a heartbeat, strained and quick but steady. He thinks, Kurt?
It's not that simple. He feels deeper, beyond words, to the lower level of the things that are behind the words: Kurt -
He presses out for him, for everything he is, and feels back a wash of warmth, drawing the breath into his chest, he feels loved. He feels like everything that he is is contained in Kurt's hands and is safe, there. He can feel what Kurt feels for him, oh god, Kurt's love enclosing him like an embrace trembling with intensity. And he knows that this is what Kurt means every time he says 'I love you' and Kurt tells him that every day -
He presses back, on the same level of feeling, he feels as if from a distance his own hand around Kurt's, This is how I love you.
Like you could put your heart into my hand and I would cup it warm and safe. Like you are the centre of the whole shining universe. Like you make my life make sense. Like everything you are is so perfect I could cry from it, joy so much it's on the edge of pain, Kurt.
Kurt breathes, so slowly, and Blaine feels back something he can only translate as, Wow.
Blaine feels back a grinning little burst of, I know.
The dhampir says, eyebrows lowered, "What did you just do to your little human pet?"
"We," Kurt says, and stops, and Blaine can feel the difficulty of Kurt's trying to speak like this, they've come to some tangled space beyond speech, you need an I to speak and right now they're folded in with each other like their own laced fingers. "I," Kurt grits out. "Ngh. We. Are going to heal you now." He lifts a hand. "Get ready to feel better."
The dhampir strides forward fast too fast and Kurt's magic (Blaine feels it like a leap in his own chest) flares -
The dhampir is pinned three feet away (close enough to see frustration flare his nostrils) and Blaine can feel what Kurt's doing, can understand what he's doing like he's doing it himself, how it's something like a shield holding the dhampir still so Kurt can work. He can also feel the dhampir after a second's swayed surprise strain at it, and his knees want to fold with it, he would go down out of sheer shock of its strength but for Kurt's magic holding him rigid - neither of them have enough of their mind together to fall over right now. He feels Kurt's breath, feels Kurt feeling his breath, as Kurt reaches into the dhampir and oh god Blaine feels how cold it is in there.
Kurt, he thinks, no, he tries again, feels it, Kurt -
He can feel Kurt's breath begin to shake. Hollow -
No, Blaine thinks, feels it through, No, you're not, you're not, you are -
He tries to feel it, for Kurt, everything Kurt is. Images, moments come back to him and he passes them along; Kurt's hands over his eyes the first time they met, See what I see and the whole world changed forever; Kurt's kiss, what it still and always will do to Blaine, like a songbird set free in his chest; Kurt's wit, too quick for anyone's good, the way he can walk away before anyone realises the insult; Kurt's walk, that easy swinging way he walks like his body loves to move; Kurt's fingers running along a line of barley as they walked a path between fields further south; Kurt walking with Tina and Mercedes, busy with gossip and life -
Is it working? he thinks, tries to feel it, tries to press the question through to Kurt. Is it working -?
Yes, he feels back, Kurt's yes like something opening inside Blaine, like a flower blooming. - please -
Kurt offers him a fraction of second of what he feels now, inside the dhampir, the chasm, the infinity of emptiness, the cold, the void Blaine has to fill. Blaine feels a breath suck in (his? Kurt's?) and presses back all the warmth in the world, that isn't you, you aren't empty, you are so so so much more -
You talk in your sleep sometimes and when my head's on your chest it wakes me up and I can't hear what you're saying, it's just so adorable I want to laugh. I know when you're watching the magic, I can see how beautiful you find it on your face. You ask me if I want to include anything in letters to your father, you always tell me when he says hi to me. You watch people, you pay attention to people. You love people, you care so much, every time you hurt so that they don't have to, you are so, so good . . .
please from such a distance, cold and lost in a gaping empty place, Kurt so small and Blaine strains after him with himself, with Kurt's self, desperate.
You are the bravest person I have ever met. Those rare times you laugh with your whole body, you throw your head and your eyes close - I love you. The way you stretch when you wake up, every part of your body. You trust me. I know you trust me, I know -
He feels the flit of Kurt's memory, the fear he'd once had of this, finding Blaine in his own nightmare, Blaine inside a mind he was ashamed of. He didn't know, then, how beautiful Blaine would find it, all he felt was his own bleakness, nothing there to love. Blaine feels for a second his fingers tight through Kurt's, feels back, You can trust me you can trust me there is no part of you I don't find beautiful you are beautiful -
i am small and lost
You are the greatest soul I have ever known and you are always, always exactly you
small and empty blaine
Strong and sure and you will never fail, never fall, never, you would never let it happen
blaine
I love you. You love me. Do you want to feel how you love me?
please
Like -
Blaine presses it back, the beauty of it, being loved by Kurt. How safe he feels forever, he will always be cherished, always be wanted, he will never feel alone because Kurt loves him; he can be strong and determined and he can be braver than he ever knew for Kurt; his capacity for joy has exploded to fill the whole world, not the shallow smile-people-want-you-to he used to have but oh god isn't a world where Kurt loves him the most precious thing imaginable - ?
please
Like all of life is a miracle because Kurt loves Blaine, like that's why the world exists. Like he never really saw the stars before Kurt loved him, like Kurt's love makes the whole world clear for the first time. You love me, he feels it through to Kurt, oh god I know, I know you love me, I never knew love was supposed to be like this, I know how you love me, you need me and I will never never leave you -
(From a million miles away the dhampir staggers, Kurt's shield just cracked, no strength to heal and hold it up at the same time but the dhampir doesn't lunge at them, just lurches drunkenly backwards, hands to its head, moaning as something wakes and grows warm inside it.)
I feel it like the sun in a morning, warm and there and forever, you love me and I am proud and sure and happy for it, Kurt, Kurt Kurt Kurt -
Please, Blaine.
Blaine gets a second of it, the effort of it, like Kurt is holding the world on his back, every part of him strained to break. Please, Kurt feels, shaking with it, and Blaine feels back like an awed whisper, I can feel your heartbeat.
(The dhampir squeezes its head, shrieking at the floor, "Stop it stop it get out of me-" with its fingers clawing its scalp.)
You do feel it. Blaine struggles with his and Kurt's hands, drops his sword and it clangs off some distant floor, puts his palm to Kurt's back, feels the palm on his own back, warm. You love me. You couldn't forget this. I know you never would, you would never do that to me, stop loving me. You love me, don't you?
A heart beats, a body breathes against a palm.
Yes. All of Blaine's world is that word, that affirmation, that knowledge. Yes. I do.
(The dhampir screams, tripping over the debris of the broken wall as it falls back, flinging its body around to run -)
All the world turns gold.
Part II of part III ^^;
Disclaimer: The characters are mine the way that the crown jewels are mine. In that they aren't.
Rating: R pretty much entirely for violence. I don't reach for violence casually so, just saying.
Warnings: We are still pretty much spoiler-free because we're crazily AU. There is, yeah, some violence, and there is a character 'death' though um, the quotes are there for a reason, ahem ^^;
Summary: Seeing further.
Sick swimming black and everything sounds too much, his own breathing loud as agony in his ears. He feels through himself, finds the damage, concussion, ugly, his body hunches and he hears a soft moan in his own throat as he soothes the hurt down in his head.
Then everything's black again, and silent.
Noise again, voices and worry, there's a hand on his shoulder and Mercedes' voice says tightly, "Kurt? You waking up? - Kurt's waking up!"
He opens his eyes, and his breath comes shaking, and the panic of the magic in the room is the first thing he's aware of. Voices tight with pain and shock and fear, and all the magic knitted and anxious and sparking. He feels out -
Mercedes' leg is broken. Finn's collarbone is cracked. Quinn is unconscious and bleeding from the throat. Tina's arm, Mike has two broken ribs and a concussion. Brittany's nose, Santana's wrist and arm, Puck's skull -
He wakes for the third time, cheek to the floorboards, and a hand is rubbing his shoulder and Mercedes sounds like she's crying. "-okay okay okay don't try to heal anybody don't try to do anything just - just sit tight, okay, it's gonna be okay -"
He stares at something he can't understand, some bright line of light horizontal to the vertical plane he's too close to. He tries to say something and it comes out like a lump of cotton, confused. Mercedes rubs his back and chokes on a breath and says thickly, "Just don't try to heal anyone, okay, just - just don't do anything -"
Ridiculous order to give. Kurt swallows with too little spit, and feels through his groggy head, feels through his aching body, gods there's hardly a bone that doesn't feel like it's been snapped and reset in him - his breath shivers in, shudders out, and he feels through the magic of the room again. Mostly, his coven is unhurt, now. Bruises and scrapes Kurt has no strength to help right now. Finn is awake, picking himself up with Brittany's help, and Kurt manages to get a confused hand up, bangs his knuckles off the floor, gets it to his face so he can groan into it. Everything . . .
He blinks at that line of light that he can't understand, and then draws his breath in, sets his hands to the floor, pushes. "Don't don't are you okay-?" Mercedes says in panic, as Kurt gets himself clumsily off the floor, blinking and dazed, the world turned back to its proper angles. That line of light stuck in a vertical surface - isn't: what it is is Blaine's sword, bright in the light from the fire, stabbed into the horizontal surface of the floor.
Kurt stares at it, then turns his head (the world swings overenthusiastically in to meet him) to scan the room.
He says, voice coming like a kitten falling down a step, "Where's Blaine . . . ?"
Mercedes' breath has gone very still. Kurt blinks around the room, pushes himself to sit, wobbly and weak, has to put his hands to his head because it feels like it's going to roll off his neck. "Where's Blaine?" he says, and can't understand - all of his coven and where is his - ?
Mercedes says, "You need to lie down or something, you just did way too much magic all at once, okay -"
"Where's Blaine?" He tries to push himself upright and ends up on his side again, choking on frustration, shoving himself up on weak-folding arms. "Where is he, where the hell is -"
Santana takes Brittany's arm, wraps her other arm around her waist, leads her away from Finn. "The dhampir took him. Oh what the hell are we just not gonna tell him, like he can't guess, like he just went out for milk or something? If it was Britt I'd want to know!"
The entire world, in that second, rings like a bell, silent and shaking Kurt's whole body through. His magic tightens and collapses, all around him, the particles drop like a gasp, quivering and helpless, tadpoles on dry land -
He swallows, and his hands scrape into fists against the floor.
He gets his knees under himself, gets up on one leg, then the other. He grips the pillar to haul himself upright, closes his eyes and sucks his breath in, draws his magic tight, he does not have the time to recover from a head injury. He heals it, too quick, he doesn't care. The world is clearer. Tina is crying into Mike's robes, and Puck's face is bloody. Mercedes has his arm, is saying, "Kurt, just-" but Kurt's magic whirls around him, sparking as it spins, and she backs off startled. He walks over and puts both hands around Blaine's sword handle, has to grit his teeth to yank it free. He staggers back and the sword droops his arms, always too heavy, how does Blaine make it look so effortless like a bird launching into air -?
Quinn on the floor, white-faced and robes bloodstained, the hare gently nosing her cheek, whispers, "What are you . . . ?"
"He'll need this." The sword tip drags along the floor as Kurt walks for their bags, his and Blaine's the only ones left there on a table; his jaw tightens until it hurts at the sight of Blaine's green cloak folded on top of his pack, he has to blink so hard and fast to hold it in. He swings the cloak over his shoulders, picks up that clumsy sword again, and walks to the doorway. Mercedes whispers, "Kurt he'll kill -"
"Shut up." The door slams open under his magic, and Kurt hears someone scramble behind him as he walks out into the snow.
"Hey!" Finn yells, chasing him into the street. "Kurt what the-"
He tries to grab Kurt's shoulder and Kurt's magic flares, and he pulls his hand back shocked. Kurt keeps walking. "Go back inside. You're recovering from a broken collarbone, go rest."
"Dude, so are you!"
"I'm fine."
"Kurt this is - what the hell are you gonna do, go fight him? You're a healer!" Finn runs to get in front of him, so Kurt has to stop walking because it's that or bull right into him. He throws his arms out, says, "This is stupid! I know you're not thinking right right now-"
"Get out of my way."
"- Kurt," Finn's voice croaks low and broken like he desperately doesn't want to say this, "Kurt, he's dead already, you know he's dead already, don't get yourself killed because - he wouldn't've wanted-"
Finn staggers back as Kurt's magic burns around him, and Kurt's breath is too quick in his nose. "Get out of my way."
Finn sets himself more stubborn on the road. "You can't go on your own, on your own against a dhampir? You're a healer, you can't even fight it!"
"I'm not leaving him. You know I'm not leaving him to that thing."
"Gods-" Finn grabs at his hair, staring at Kurt with his face too pale. He hesitates, then says, low and raw, "Let me come with you. You can't, on your own you can't, you just-"
Kurt's face tightens. "I should drag you along, like you could help? Finn, I can't protect Blaine and you and me, not against that thing, I can't. You would be nothing but a burden. Go back to the coven. They need you more than I do."
Finn blinks like he's trying not to cry. "Kurt this is insane you can't-"
He knows how insane it is, standing in the snow carrying his lover's sword, his body already trembling with overuse and his magic too tight, too much, and his heart squeezed down so small inside it feels as hard as diamond. "Finn, I have to," he whispers. His hands tighten on the sword. "He's here because of me. All of this is because of me -"
"He's dead, you know he's dead-"
I'm not going to be the one who kills them.
"No he's not," Kurt says, his voice cracking on its edges. He starts walking again, passes Finn who starts to scrabble after him in the snow but Kurt says, "No. Go back to the coven, Finn. You're worse than useless to me against him, you'll just make it more dangerous."
"You think he'd ever forgive me if I let you get killed 'cause of him-?"
Kurt stops, and pushes his shield out until it hits Finn's magic and acts like a wall, scraping Finn's boots backwards through the snow. He says, low and rough, "Don't make me have to stop you following me."
There's silence, after that. Kurt stands still for a while, sword too heavy in his hands, then draws a breath in and sets off again. He can see where the dhampir's been, the path of the magic, the space where it's thinner, where the particles haven't settled back yet. He spreads his own magic, slowly, casts a palimpsest, holding the usually fluid, active particles still in the air as if captured in amber. It's hard to cast over so huge a space, but he needs to be able to follow that monster, he needs the path to be clear in the dark.
Finn calls after him, helpless and small, "Kurt . . ."
Kurt just keeps walking, blinking hard, sword scraping the cobbles under the snow.
*
He's cold, is the first thing he's aware of. Every muscle aches with it: cold.
Then the thickness in his head asserts itself, ugly and demanding, he can't get away from it. He swallows, and on the first attempt his eyes don't open at all. He draws his breath in, tries to put a hand to the floor to steady himself but his palm slips, and his wrist banging the floor hurts sharp enough to snap his eyes open, breath catching in. Blaine blinks fast, and lifts his head.
The dhampir, sitting incongruously on a patchwork-blanketed bed against the wall, one leg crossed over the other, looks at Blaine over the top of a book and says, "Oh, you're awake. For a while I thought you were even weaker than you looked and I killed you by accident. Thank you for not dying."
Blaine can't even feel scared he's so confused and drowsy. He pushes himself, weak and awkward, to sit. One of his wrists is chained to the wall - he's in some kind of log cabin, and the peg holding the chain is hammered deep into the wood, there'll be no pulling it loose - and the other wrist is bandaged, and blood is clotting through it.
And Blaine understands why, and swings his head against the wall and throws up.
The dhampir puts the book down and stands up. "God, I wish you hadn't done that. The smell takes forever to air out."
Blaine chokes, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, still too sick and his head too tight and too heavy. "The hell," he whispers, and looks around the room, tries to think, how can he escape? Log cabin, one closed door, windows shuttered against the night, fire burning too low in the grate. He jerks the chain on his wrist but he might as well try to drag a castle, there's no moving it even if he wasn't so weak. He touches his forehead and his hand is shaking, he's cold and sick, the sweat makes him feel colder. "What did you -?"
The dhampir walks over, folds his arms and examines him from overhead. "This is why humans really should stay out of mages' business. You're just too ignorant to survive, aren't you?"
"What did you do? Where's - the coven, what did you-"
That mage in the bed, his whole coven dead, Blaine's heart feels like it's frozen, Kurt -
"Oh god, they're fine, their little healer will fix them up all nice and shiny again. We've probably got a little time to kill while he's doing that, so how about you tell me something interesting before you die? Even talking to a human kills the time a little."
Blaine tugs at his chained wrist again, swallows, puts a hand to his head as the sickness rises and droops again. "Why am I here?" He jerks his wrist harder. "Why aren't I dead? What the hell do you need me for -?"
"Well, bait." the dhampir says. "That healer's stupid but he's not stupid enough to come looking for me without some reason. You, you have no idea, you are such a little gift, this is the best opportunity I'll ever get. It's like fate. It almost makes up for being frozen solid for however many stupid centuries."
Blaine draws his breath in, lets it loose. He's not dead, not yet, and it doesn't sound like Kurt is (the last he saw of him was Kurt's head being smashed into that pillar by the dhampir, Kurt dropping like a dead body, before Blaine surged forward and lost all thought), though Blaine hopes to god that Kurt has the sense not to come rescue him. While he works things out, the best thing he can do is keep the dhampir talking. It's probably best not to think what happens when the dhampir gets bored of him.
"Why do you," Blaine says, glaring up at him, "oh great and terrible monster that you are, need me? Kurt wouldn't risk his neck to come after me." He realises that's not true even as he's saying it. "Why the hell do you want him-?"
"Oh come on," the dhampir says. "A mage powerful enough to keep his magic around a dhampir? Do you have any idea how rare that is? I couldn't resist, I need to see what happens."
"What happens when?" Blaine says, and strains at the chain again, but no link in it feels like shifting.
"When I turn him." Blaine's head snaps back to the dhampir's, and the dhampir smiles. "Which I couldn't do if it wasn't for you. Bravo, little pet. Well done. You do have some use after all."
Blaine stares at him, his entire body wanting to shake.
The dhampir turns away, walks back to the bed and sits again, crossing his legs and arms. "Do you know how you turn someone into a dhampir?"
Blaine swallows, hard. "Blood."
"I drink theirs, and they drink mine. But it's not enough, you can't just hold their nose and pour it down their throat, they have to want it."
"Kurt never would."
"Of course he would. You are really so ignorant, aren't you?" The dhampir grins, tapping one foot at the air. "I've only ever met one other mage that powerful. And I wanted to see what happened if I turned her, so I set about torturing her until she would take anything, anything, over another second of that. Only then the silly bitch killed herself. Did he tell you they can do that? Mages, they do something with their magic, just quietly snuff themselves out. Suicide is only ever a spell away. She chose death over eternity, like, pft." He shrugs. "Mortals are just really, really stupid."
The cold is on the inside now, fear like freezing inside him. "So . . . you chose 'eternity', when someone turned you?"
"I chose turning," the dhampir says, rubbing his throat with a palm. "I went looking for my transformation."
Blaine stares at him. Eventually, because there's nothing else in the world he can say, he says, "What?"
The dhampir rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "Okay, long story, my sister's fault. The mages came for her. I mean, her, I was the favourite son, I was the one that mattered, but they came and they took her for their shabby little college and their pathetic magic. I mean-" The dhampir bristles and his elbows wriggle, sharp like stones striking. "Where the hell is the justice, your little sister coming out a mage and leaving you just a human, like she has a right to the magic -?"
"So you - you were jealous of your sister so you got yourself turned into a monster?"
"Monster," the dhampir snorts. "Um, I'm immortal? I'll be young and handsome and powerful forever. I don't expect you to understand, you don't even understand what 'forever' means. But yes. I went and got myself more power than she had. And you get a bonus with it," he says, grinning. "You get more benefit than I ever knew. It takes your troubles away. When you turn, it blows out all those nagging little thoughts you have. You can stop giving a crap about petty little mortals who're hardly worth their existence they die so soon anyway. So I went to her college and killed everyone she knew and then killed her. Which taught her pretty decisively not to think that she's better than me."
If there was anything left in him, Blaine could throw up again. He just swallows, and stares at the dhampir, and thinks about Kurt and Kurt's magic and oh god, he feels so cold.
*
Kurt's boot catches in the wet hem of his robes, and he hits the ground elbow-first. He hunches there for a moment, panting, and there's no Blaine to catch his arm, no Blaine to help him up. He grits his teeth, sets his hands to the frozen surface of the snow, pushes himself back up. The sword shears against snow so solid with cold it might as well be metal off metal, as Kurt stands a little lopsided, sword hanging from one hand, heart thumping too hard inside him, very alone in the frozen wilderness in the night.
The stars overhead are so huge and so bright, and the magic shows that thin path the dhampir walked over the white, dragging Kurt's lover with him.
He lets his breath drop loose, tries to breathe it in more slowly. He feels through his body, awkwardly - he didn't mend the collarbone quite right, and he screws his face up while he shifts his shoulder and fixes it, pain like a trap biting the bone. He closes his eyes, and shudders, feeling the cold even through the cloak, and for a second the want to cry tightens in his throat but he lifts his head instead, gasps his breath out white and stares at the magic, blinking hard until it stops blurring, until he's swallowed the tears right down. He doesn't have the time to feel sorry for himself. There are things to do.
Blaine.
He watches the drift of the magic over the snow, slow and sharp-angled with cold, and his words come out in a cloud of white; "I need your help."
The magic floats, silent in the night. Kurt swallows.
"I know you can hear me. I know you're there, I know you can hear me. I - I need your help, you know I do, against that thing - please, it took -"
He stops, swallows again and it hurts, and he rubs one frozen hand with another frozen hand around the handle of Blaine's sword.
"I know what that thing does to you," he says to the magic, the slow silent sea of magic everyone in the world wades through and only they few mages ever see. "I know you can't help it, I know it's something it does to you. But I need - please, as much as you can, any single particle is one more particle, I have to be able to save him, please."
The magic is silent, though its slow, slow turn is now focusing around Kurt, like the sun at the centre of an enormous galaxy of tiny, tiny comets.
"I - don't know why you chose me. I don't know why . . . I don't know, maybe it isn't choice, I didn't choose either. It's not like that, is it?" He looks at his hands on the sword handle, the burning of the magic in his aura, how fierce and strong it is when he feels anything but right now, he feels small and alone and petrified but it's not like he can let that stop him. "Life just is, and you just - cope, as best you can. You just try to help as much as possible and hurt as little as possible. And - and I didn't choose this. Do you - I know you understand. I didn't choose to fall in love with him. I didn't choose to need the right magic for him. He needs to be safe. Do you understand - ? The world is a better world with him in it, I'd do anything to keep that true, to keep him - I didn't choose healing, as soon as I healed him it was all I knew I could ever do -"
The stars are silent, and the snow is silent, and the magic in its slow ice-angled turning orbits Kurt, and is silent.
"I have to save him," Kurt whispers. "I know you know that. And I - I don't know, maybe that's why you chose me. Not for me at all, because of him, because I have to save him, and he's worth saving. I don't know. I don't even choose this, do you know that? Going to fight a dhampir alone in the cold in the night, you think I'd choose this? This just - I have to. You know I have to. Please help me, anything you can do, one more particle is one more chance of him not dying, please."
The empty snow says nothing back, but Kurt can feel the magic.
"I know what it wants to do to me," he says, his voice cracking so alone in the night, and he swallows the want to cry again. "I know. I - please. Because you know what I'll make you do if I - neither of us want to be that -"
He breathes, slowly, and shifts his grip on the sword.
"You know. You know all of this anyway, you know me. I know you know him." He takes a quick breath. "Please help us. It's the only . . . please."
He squeezes his hand around the sword, numbed with cold, and starts walking again, through the path where the magic goes thin, where he can see the empty place ahead.
*
"Well, I was picking them off like a fox in a hencoop," the dhampir says conversationally, while Blaine is trying not to freak out, trying not to come to pieces with panic and fear, stuck in a room with a monster who just drank his blood from his wrist and is now telling him the most insane, sickening story of how his crazed brain works, and Blaine is hurting his fingers trying to surreptitiously scrabble the manacle loose. "I'd been trapped in the damn ice for so long, you just feel like you need to stretch, you know? But there's only one ranger left now, and I need at least some of the townspeople alive to drink. And I'm a craftsman, anyway. It's not enough just to kill them, you want them to feel it. Feel the fear, feel the rage. Fear mostly, I like when they fear. So I'm working on the ranger. Get him with nothing left to lose, see what he does next, your mages really interrupted my little project . . ."
The dhampir scratches the underside of his throat, thoughtfully, and Blaine drops the chain, teeth clenching with frustration, he can't break it with his bare hands, he's not a mage. He closes his eyes, swallows, finds some strength to get some words out.
"What about that coven? They didn't do anything to you. They were just passing through and you butchered them."
"Mages are vermin," the dhampir says, foot kicking irritably. "Nothing but annoying little rats. After that silly bitch I tried to turn, a bunch of hydromages came and froze me into the mountain. I don't even know how long I was stuck like that for. What kind of person does that? Leaves someone stuck with nothing but their own thoughts for hundreds of years? Do they have any idea how bored I got?"
". . . how did you . . . if you were frozen, how did you get free?"
"Handy little avalanche cracked the ice open. The world must have missed me."
"No-one missed you," Blaine says coldly. "Who would miss you? You murdered the people who would have cared about you-"
"God you're boring. I can see why a wet little healer would want you."
"He won't let you turn him! He would never be you, he would never be a soulless-"
"Oh god, you are irritatingly stupid, do you know that? Of course he will. You're here."
Blaine's mouth opens and stays open.
"He won't kill himself," the dhampir says. "Whatever I do to him, he won't just die to escape it because you're here, and he's pathetic enough to want to save you from me. Because while I make him long for immortality just to escape how much mortality can really, really hurt, what I will be whispering into his ear the whole time is what I'm going to do to you if he dies. So he has to stay alive, he has to, until the turning starts looking like a much better option . . . I don't know why mortals need persuading. Who wouldn't live forever? Idiots."
Blaine whispers, "He would never."
"Of course he will. The best thing about healers is you can almost kill them as much as you like, and I find that brutal sexual violence will make anyone wish for anything else eventually. And I mean, he's not exactly my type, but it's not even like it's really about that, is it? I wish it'd been that cute little seer though, she'd be more fun, but you can't have everything. So they say."
Blaine whispers, "He would never."
He thinks about Kurt, Kurt who laughs so beautifully, Kurt who faced a faery armed with nothing but his own courage and won, Kurt who burns like a star, Kurt who kisses Blaine like he can hardly bear how much he loves him, Kurt who, with all the magic in the world, chose healing. Blaine knows Kurt. The rest of humanity he doesn't have a clue but he knows Kurt, what Kurt is and what he can be, and Kurt could never be that thing. He can't - bring himself to think about that creature hurting him, he can't, he can't bear it, but it won't happen because Kurt wouldn't let it. Kurt is so much stronger than this thing, it has no idea, it hasn't got a clue, Kurt fold to that monster? Doesn't it know who he is?
He feels sick but he feels sturdier. "He would never be you. He would never, never be you."
"Mostly I'm just curious what a dhampir with magic would be like. There's never been one before, it'll be interesting at least. The other thing-" He laughs, suddenly, runs a hand back through his hair and grins at Blaine. "You have no idea, when you turn, how hungry you are. You mortals don't know the meaning of it, we starve every day of our afterlives, I could drain you right now if I didn't need you to murder him with, god I could drink you dry." The dhampir swallows, and Blaine tries not to follow the movement of his throat as it stares at Blaine, tries not to let the drying of his mouth show on his face. "So that healer will wake up undead and starving like he's never known it, and I've got his first meal leashed to the wall waiting for him. If he's not insane by the time I'm done making him beg for immortality over one more second of pain, he's going to be messed up pretty much to hell by the time he drinks you dead. I just want to see what he'll do next. An insane mage-dhampir, god only knows, what he could do to that coven . . ."
"He would never," Blaine believes it, he does, despite anything and everything, scared until he feels sick but he believes this. "He would never, never, be you."
The dhampir's eyes narrow. "And what exactly do you mean by saying it in that tone of voice?"
That's when the door blows in off its hinges.
Blaine scrambles his legs closer to himself as the heavy wooden door slams into the floor and cold air blows in, and particles of magic burning bright enough for Blaine to see them. Kurt walks in, wearing Blaine's cloak and dragging his sword in one hand, the tip of it scraping along the floorboards. Kurt looks at Blaine, white-faced, breath hushing ghostly around him from the bitter-black night outside, then looks across at the dhampir and says roughly, "I believe that you have something of mine."
"Told you," the dhampir says, slapping his hands off his legs and standing up. "I kind of can't believe you actually came here all the same, just, wow. Is he really that good a lay?"
Kurt ignores the dhampir, leans Blaine's sword against the wall and says, "Are you alright?"
Blaine blurts, "He wants to turn you-"
"I know," Kurt says, dusting his hands off. "It's fine. It's not going to happen. Are you alright?"
". . . not gonna lie, I've been better."
"I'll get you out of here." Kurt promises, quietly. "Don't worry about anything."
The dhampir says, "Pardon me, boys, um, do you want to pay attention to the guy who could kill the both of you in under two seconds, maybe?"
Kurt glances across at him, eyes narrowing in contempt. "You have no idea what you've done."
"- I have no -? You just - walked into a dhampir's den! You're a healer! What the hell are you going to do, cure a cold at me, how the hell could you fight me?"
"You're right," Kurt says, and shrugs. "Of course I can't fight you. I couldn't possibly hurt you, we both know that that's not going to happen." He flicks his hands out, shaking his robe sleeves back from them. "I'm a healer." He glares at the dhampir, and Blaine feels the hairs on the back of his neck shiver upright at his face. "I'm going to heal you. I'm going to heal you good."
The dhampir, for the first time, looks uncertain. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You're a human who got turned." Kurt's eyes flit about the dhampir and he licks his lips, and Blaine sees his magic burn brighter around him; not so strong as it should be, but strong enough, Blaine believes that, believes in Kurt, strong enough. "Some monster did something to you. So I'll heal it. Make you human again. Make you better."
". . . you arrogant little shit. Heal me. Like there's something wrong with me-"
The dhampir takes a step but Kurt's hands are already up and Blaine sees the magic flare, burning vicious gold. The dhampir chokes at the ceiling, a gasp of dead breath, and Kurt's breath sucks in sharp; neither of them seem able to move, while the magic tightens around them, slow-twisting blinding bright, like pieces of the sun. Blaine swallows, jerks his tethered wrist, clenches his jaw and he can't do anything, while Kurt's magic burns and the dhampir's pale skin is beginning to glow a shivery gold, like the magic's got in underneath his bones . . .
The dhampir makes a noise, some breathless noise inside himself, for the first time frightened.
But Kurt loses his breath so suddenly, with a horrible little sound like something just cracked inside him. Blaine sees the magic falter and then the dhampir hisses, long and harsh, and the light of the magic snaps off. Kurt crumples to his side, palms hitting the floor, dry-heaving and trying to cover his eyes with trembling hands, and the dhampir staggers after he's released, shakes his head and then strides at Kurt fists clenching.
"You arrogant little shit, heal me, fix me -"
His foot swings and Kurt's magic sparks, but not fast enough. The noise that explodes from him when the dhampir kicks him in the side, knocking him from his knees (oh god its strength it could splinter bones like matches) is so high and sharp it sounds like he's been punctured.
"There's nothing - wrong - with me -"
Kurt's magic spits and breaks, the noises he's making, he can't get a breath to draw a shield together, if that thing keeps kicking him he'll -
Blaine yanks at his wrist, throws his legs out, forces a boot down his heel with the other boot; with it hanging off his toes he aims and swings back and kicks with all his strength. The launched boot cracks into the back of the dhampir's head mid-kick and its arms windmill, it nearly staggers over Kurt who makes a wet choking noise and throws a hand up.
Healers can't do aggressive magic, but all mages can put up shields. Kurt throws a shield up so hard and so fast and expanding so violently that all Blaine sees is a blur of bright gold and then the back wall of the cabin explodes, the roof groans, cracks and tilts inwards, snow and shattered wood collapse and puddle against that sudden gaping window in the wall. There's no sign of the dhampir, as wood creaks and moans and another section of roof hits the ground, snow hissing down with it. Kurt just threw it across a room and through a wall and god knows how much further. Kurt -
Kurt hacks into his hands, makes a gasped groaning noise and shakes the hand out, blood flecking the floorboards. He pushes himself up on trembling arms and wipes his mouth off, swallows and staggers himself to his feet, arms wrapped tight around himself and head down. Blaine chokes, "Kurt-"
Kurt stretches his body awkwardly, his face tight with pain before he can settle his shoulders steady again. He looks to the side, picks up Blaine's sword and walks to him. The chain holding his wrist snaps so suddenly Blaine jumps, and then Kurt lurches to an awkward kneel in front of him, leaning on the sword. "Blaine, are you -?"
He touches Blaine's cheek and Blaine feels magic, cool-warm and whispery over his head, and then tightening in the skin of his wrist, underneath the bandages. Kurt's eyes are unfocused before he blinks, and his breath drops out of him. Blaine catches his shoulder, feels his body sag, feels the hard running of his heart pushed too hard. He gets his hand around Kurt's on the sword handle. "Okay okay okay," he whispers. "Oh god are you okay -?"
Kurt laughs his breath out, and lifts his head pale but steadier. "I've been better. He hurt you -?"
"He hurt you first."
"It's not a competition," Kurt points out, and takes his hand from under Blaine's on the sword. He closes his hands around Blaine's mended wrist, while Blaine grips the sword and feels so much better for having that back. "I - I need your help. I can't, on my own I can't, I thought I could but I can't, I didn't understand-"
"Tell me what you need. Quickly, that thing won't stay down long."
Kurt swallows, nods. "I can heal it," he says, and Blaine is in that moment frozen by his eyes, so innocently, absolutely summer sky blue, you'd think they were never any other colour at all. "It's possible, I felt that it was possible. But -" He sucks his breath in. "What I'm healing is its soul, it doesn't have a soul anymore, it can't feel properly like that, it doesn't, it can't care. And I - when I got close to healing it -" He lifts Blaine's hand, puts it against his own chest over his straining heart, mouth wobbling a little. "I felt like I didn't care either."
Blaine says quietly, "You have to feel its pain to heal it."
Kurt nods, his hands unsteady on Blaine's wrist. "I can do it. I can. But when I felt - when I realised I didn't care about you - I thought I would pass out. I can't, it doesn't have to turn me if I screw this up, I'll do that to myself. So I need you -"
Blaine whispers, "Anything anything -"
"- I need you to be my soul for me." He stares into Blaine's eyes, licks his lips. "Do you remember against Dave, in my dream? You just - kept me me, you reminded me who I really am - I need you to do that. I need you to remind me how - I love you, I do, I care about you more than anything else in this world, so much more than myself, can you-?"
"Of course I will."
". . . I'm going to run the magic through you," Kurt says, lower now, his face gone so serious that Blaine understands that this is serious. "I - actually do not know if this will work. But if I can make us - loop it through us - if you just feel for me while I can't, I won't forget myself, you would never let me, I know who I am because of who you are-"
"Of course. Anything."
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes." Staring right into his eyes, sure as steel. "You know I do."
Kurt squeezes his wrist, swallows again, nods. And there's a crunch of snow and broken wood, and the dhampir hauls himself back in through that shattered wall by a hand. He says, "You're actually beginning to irritate me now, healer."
Kurt's hand fits through Blaine's, and he stands, Blaine standing behind him, sword in one hand. Blaine with a sword and Kurt with his magic and both of them with each other, they can do this. They can do anything. Kurt's hand squeezes Blaine's, and Blaine squeezes back, as Kurt's magic glows so Blaine can see it all around him, as it begins to rise, to lift and turn slow, slow around them like the first breath of an oncoming storm.
"You think I'm irritating," Kurt snorts. "You hurt my entire coven because you're too damned cowardly to face me at even half capacity, you knew I'd have to heal them before I came after you-"
"You know," the dhampir says, beginning to look really pissed off now, "the mice really shouldn't call the wolf 'cowardly'."
"I don't even have half my magic against you and you still didn't want me to be able to fight back, and I'm a healer. I dread to think how you must quake over facing warlocks."
"This conversation's going to look very different to you when I'm dislocating every bone in your body, healer."
Blaine feels -
Kurt's palm against his is warm, in that softly buzzing way that magic is, and he draws his breath softly in as the warmth buzzes its way into his skin. He looks down, sees light shine through his hand like Kurt's illuminated his bones, spreading up his wrist, that soft, rippling, waking feeling of Kurt's magic seeping into Blaine's body.
Kurt just watches the dhampir's eyes, and says, "I'm not afraid of some human stupid enough to get himself turned and then scared enough of a healer to try to hobble him before he can face him. I've fought faeries. What the hell do you think you are to me?"
"I think that I'm someone who's going to make you repeat that speech," the dhampir says, lip beginning to twitch, "when you have to gargle it out through your own blood."
The magic has passed out through Blaine's shoulder now, he can feel his whole chest illuminated with it, sucks a quick breath in as if going underwater and suddenly it's his whole body, he feels like a forest in spring, he feels like he's blossoming with light. He whispers, mostly to make sure he still can talk, "If this goes wrong you have to kill me - you have to, before he can -"
And Kurt's hand tightens on his and he doesn't say a word, but Blaine understands it like he's spoken it to Blaine's ear, If you ever say that again then I will kill you.
Blaine blinks and blinks, and his limbs have gone oddly heavy, his mouth feels too slack to speak now, there's only the magic holding him upright and to Kurt. He feels through his body, finds -
Finds that he can feel through Kurt's body too.
He blinks and blinks, dazzled, he can see the magic like he's looking through Kurt's eyes, none around the dhampir and Kurt a fierce, small beacon of it. He can feel breath at a rhythm that isn't his. He can feel a heartbeat, strained and quick but steady. He thinks, Kurt?
It's not that simple. He feels deeper, beyond words, to the lower level of the things that are behind the words: Kurt -
He presses out for him, for everything he is, and feels back a wash of warmth, drawing the breath into his chest, he feels loved. He feels like everything that he is is contained in Kurt's hands and is safe, there. He can feel what Kurt feels for him, oh god, Kurt's love enclosing him like an embrace trembling with intensity. And he knows that this is what Kurt means every time he says 'I love you' and Kurt tells him that every day -
He presses back, on the same level of feeling, he feels as if from a distance his own hand around Kurt's, This is how I love you.
Like you could put your heart into my hand and I would cup it warm and safe. Like you are the centre of the whole shining universe. Like you make my life make sense. Like everything you are is so perfect I could cry from it, joy so much it's on the edge of pain, Kurt.
Kurt breathes, so slowly, and Blaine feels back something he can only translate as, Wow.
Blaine feels back a grinning little burst of, I know.
The dhampir says, eyebrows lowered, "What did you just do to your little human pet?"
"We," Kurt says, and stops, and Blaine can feel the difficulty of Kurt's trying to speak like this, they've come to some tangled space beyond speech, you need an I to speak and right now they're folded in with each other like their own laced fingers. "I," Kurt grits out. "Ngh. We. Are going to heal you now." He lifts a hand. "Get ready to feel better."
The dhampir strides forward fast too fast and Kurt's magic (Blaine feels it like a leap in his own chest) flares -
The dhampir is pinned three feet away (close enough to see frustration flare his nostrils) and Blaine can feel what Kurt's doing, can understand what he's doing like he's doing it himself, how it's something like a shield holding the dhampir still so Kurt can work. He can also feel the dhampir after a second's swayed surprise strain at it, and his knees want to fold with it, he would go down out of sheer shock of its strength but for Kurt's magic holding him rigid - neither of them have enough of their mind together to fall over right now. He feels Kurt's breath, feels Kurt feeling his breath, as Kurt reaches into the dhampir and oh god Blaine feels how cold it is in there.
Kurt, he thinks, no, he tries again, feels it, Kurt -
He can feel Kurt's breath begin to shake. Hollow -
No, Blaine thinks, feels it through, No, you're not, you're not, you are -
He tries to feel it, for Kurt, everything Kurt is. Images, moments come back to him and he passes them along; Kurt's hands over his eyes the first time they met, See what I see and the whole world changed forever; Kurt's kiss, what it still and always will do to Blaine, like a songbird set free in his chest; Kurt's wit, too quick for anyone's good, the way he can walk away before anyone realises the insult; Kurt's walk, that easy swinging way he walks like his body loves to move; Kurt's fingers running along a line of barley as they walked a path between fields further south; Kurt walking with Tina and Mercedes, busy with gossip and life -
Is it working? he thinks, tries to feel it, tries to press the question through to Kurt. Is it working -?
Yes, he feels back, Kurt's yes like something opening inside Blaine, like a flower blooming. - please -
Kurt offers him a fraction of second of what he feels now, inside the dhampir, the chasm, the infinity of emptiness, the cold, the void Blaine has to fill. Blaine feels a breath suck in (his? Kurt's?) and presses back all the warmth in the world, that isn't you, you aren't empty, you are so so so much more -
You talk in your sleep sometimes and when my head's on your chest it wakes me up and I can't hear what you're saying, it's just so adorable I want to laugh. I know when you're watching the magic, I can see how beautiful you find it on your face. You ask me if I want to include anything in letters to your father, you always tell me when he says hi to me. You watch people, you pay attention to people. You love people, you care so much, every time you hurt so that they don't have to, you are so, so good . . .
please from such a distance, cold and lost in a gaping empty place, Kurt so small and Blaine strains after him with himself, with Kurt's self, desperate.
You are the bravest person I have ever met. Those rare times you laugh with your whole body, you throw your head and your eyes close - I love you. The way you stretch when you wake up, every part of your body. You trust me. I know you trust me, I know -
He feels the flit of Kurt's memory, the fear he'd once had of this, finding Blaine in his own nightmare, Blaine inside a mind he was ashamed of. He didn't know, then, how beautiful Blaine would find it, all he felt was his own bleakness, nothing there to love. Blaine feels for a second his fingers tight through Kurt's, feels back, You can trust me you can trust me there is no part of you I don't find beautiful you are beautiful -
i am small and lost
You are the greatest soul I have ever known and you are always, always exactly you
small and empty blaine
Strong and sure and you will never fail, never fall, never, you would never let it happen
blaine
I love you. You love me. Do you want to feel how you love me?
please
Like -
Blaine presses it back, the beauty of it, being loved by Kurt. How safe he feels forever, he will always be cherished, always be wanted, he will never feel alone because Kurt loves him; he can be strong and determined and he can be braver than he ever knew for Kurt; his capacity for joy has exploded to fill the whole world, not the shallow smile-people-want-you-to he used to have but oh god isn't a world where Kurt loves him the most precious thing imaginable - ?
please
Like all of life is a miracle because Kurt loves Blaine, like that's why the world exists. Like he never really saw the stars before Kurt loved him, like Kurt's love makes the whole world clear for the first time. You love me, he feels it through to Kurt, oh god I know, I know you love me, I never knew love was supposed to be like this, I know how you love me, you need me and I will never never leave you -
(From a million miles away the dhampir staggers, Kurt's shield just cracked, no strength to heal and hold it up at the same time but the dhampir doesn't lunge at them, just lurches drunkenly backwards, hands to its head, moaning as something wakes and grows warm inside it.)
I feel it like the sun in a morning, warm and there and forever, you love me and I am proud and sure and happy for it, Kurt, Kurt Kurt Kurt -
Please, Blaine.
Blaine gets a second of it, the effort of it, like Kurt is holding the world on his back, every part of him strained to break. Please, Kurt feels, shaking with it, and Blaine feels back like an awed whisper, I can feel your heartbeat.
(The dhampir squeezes its head, shrieking at the floor, "Stop it stop it get out of me-" with its fingers clawing its scalp.)
You do feel it. Blaine struggles with his and Kurt's hands, drops his sword and it clangs off some distant floor, puts his palm to Kurt's back, feels the palm on his own back, warm. You love me. You couldn't forget this. I know you never would, you would never do that to me, stop loving me. You love me, don't you?
A heart beats, a body breathes against a palm.
Yes. All of Blaine's world is that word, that affirmation, that knowledge. Yes. I do.
(The dhampir screams, tripping over the debris of the broken wall as it falls back, flinging its body around to run -)
All the world turns gold.
Part II of part III ^^;