Glee!fic, Big Moon Rising pt VI
Big Moon Rising part VI of VII, puppyverse. Because I wrote 17,000 words of superhero fic in two days and now I feel nauseous from it. Please encourage me to finish *this* before I get further embroiled in capes and secret identities and whatnot? ^^;
Disclaimer: Give it to me for like, two days, see what I do to it, oh my god, if it were mine I would fix *so much* <3 (I can't write snappy dialogue the way they do when they get it right, but at least I have some concept of how a character arc *works* =P)
Rating: R, and we won't be getting higher than an R. It will become apparent why in this chapter, ahem.
Summary: Not even the only pack in the world.
Note: Sorry for the delay ^^;
Blaine would so much rather be the wolf that day.
The last text he gets from Kurt on the night says, It's going to be alright xx, which could mean any number of things. It could mean Kurt's resolved everything and things are going to be alright, which Blaine does believe Kurt is amazing enough to pull off on his own. It could mean things aren't alright but they will be at some point, which may very well be true. It could mean that Kurt is just reassuring Blaine because, stupid pup that Blaine's been, he's spent too long now acting like Kurt's purpose is to reassure Blaine, look after Blaine, like they're not in this together, like Blaine needs reassurance more than honesty, like he demands that. He's not going to do that to Kurt anymore. Or, come to that, to himself.
It would still be quite nice to be reassured, though.
He would rather be the wolf; caught between so many what ifs the human can hardly concentrate. The truth of what's happening is probably somewhere between all of these things and that's troublesome, for the human, it can't be easily captured by easy human concepts, easy human words, there's dis-ease in recognising that ambiguity. The wolf wouldn't mind it. The wolf accepts what is, it's the human who angsts over which box 'what is' fits into.
That last text came too late to keep pestering Kurt for more information. He laid on his side on top of his bed, fingers and thumb slowly playing that scrap of Kurt's shirt between them, before he woke to the room still dark, sun not yet risen, and his alarm clock chirpily telling him it's time to get up anyway. Stupid February.
He gets an email from Kurt, just before he sets off for school. Kurt's dad wants him to come over tonight so they can talk. Kurt signs off with DON'T WORRY XX which is basically a giant flag for 'there is something to worry about', which makes Blaine worry. Of course there's something to worry about. Kurt's dad is scary.
He would so much rather be the wolf. He thinks and thinks about what might happen, what they might . . . he doesn't want to talk, the wolf hates talking, why do humans make understanding each other so difficult? There's a person, pack or not, and you trust them or not (you trust your pack), and why do they need to understand anything else? There's Kurt, he trusts Kurt, he wants to be next to Kurt all the time, why does he have to understand anything else?
Because if anyone found out then Blaine doesn't know what would happen. Because they can't never be further from each other than the length of a leash, that isn't what people who've known each other for a week and a half do. Because there's a wolf at Kurt's school who alternates between sexually harassing Kurt and just harassing Kurt and he could turn at any moment and Kurt can't tell his dad and how the hell is Blaine supposed to help?
His inner wolf whines, and wags its nervous tail.
And tonight he goes to face the father of the wolf who made Blaine roll over and bare his throat at the first glance, a man he can smell distrusting him, the only pure human he's ever met and still sensed the wolf in. Tonight he goes to face the wolf father.
Oh, he would so much rather be the wolf . . .
*
He won't even look me in the eye. It's weird.
(Oh god I've destroyed your family, your dad won't even look at you anymore I've ruined everything oh wait okay there actually could be another male you're referring to here, okay.)
Karofsky?
I think he and I have reached a certain understanding about our wolves. It's strangely liberating.
(Not getting shoved around, not getting poison spat at you every day, yeah, I can empathise.)
Well, you *are* very dominant.
Alphas usually only mate with other alphas, did you know that?
(Three realisations click in stunningly quick succession.)
Oh god I realised what that sounded like as soon as I sent it oh my god. Oh my god. *Sorry*
(And the smile, afterwards, comes so wide and so real.)
You don't have to be sorry. I think it's adorable.
Really?
(How can someone so, so strong still be so, so fragile?)
I think *you're* adorable.
I don't even know what to say to you sometimes, Blaine.
(Because only someone so strong could ever allow themselves to be that fragile.)
So, Karofsky's not bothering you.
No. Keeps his head down and hurries by. I feel guilty.
(You - what? You feel so many things I can't keep up.)
You feel guilty he's not treating you like crap anymore?
I don't know. He's confused and scared, don't you remember what it's like?
(I don't want to remember what it's like.)
He's angry and unpredictable and dangerous.
When it's the new moon we should try again.
(The wolf agrees. I don't - want to.)
We can play it by ear.
I don't want to leave him on his own. Are you still ok to come over tonight?
(For you? It's always going to be yes.)
Yes, of course :)
*
Blaine straightens his tie and blazer on the doorstep, runs a hand over his hair like it might have dislodged between the rear view mirror and the front door, and then knocks. He hears thumping from inside, the calling through the door of a voice he knows like a wolf-song run up his spine, and then there's Kurt's eyes, Kurt's smile, Blaine wants to hug and spin and dance and kiss him, Blaine wants everything with him.
He doesn't know who reached out for whose hand, but they're gripping each other tight and Kurt's eyes are fixed on his, Blaine can see the rapid wagging of his inner wolf's tail. Blaine swallows, thinks about checking over his shoulder to make sure the street's empty, thinks, Screw it, and leans up and kisses him.
Kurt closes his eyes, breathes, kisses back.
When they part Kurt's smiling, and he squeezes Blaine's hand. "Come inside."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes. It was - a strange day, not a bad one. Dinner's about ready, are you hungry?"
Carole's working a shift and Finn's girlfriend is here (an incredibly pretty blonde girl called Quinn, with something just dangerous enough in her eyes that Blaine really does use his very best manners), so there's no talk of wolves at the table. Blaine can feel Quinn weighing him up and more than that he can sense silent observation from Kurt's father, not aggressive, just intent, which keeps him quiet. Mostly Kurt and Finn talk, bicker, laugh. For stepbrothers they make really good brothers, maybe blood's the least important part of a family after all. Blaine smiles and listens and adds something whenever Kurt looks at him as if prompting him or checking on him, which is pretty often.
After dinner Blaine helps Kurt clean up while Kurt's dad insists Finn and Quinn go catch a movie or something, his treat, which gets them out of the house. Blaine's just passing Kurt the salad bowl when the front door clicks closed behind them: alone, and no escaping it now. Kurt just keeps on stacking cutlery into the salad bowl, face as calmly imperious as ever. Blaine follows his lead. Maybe - alphas usually mate with other alphas - they are in this together, but he's on Kurt's territory and they both have to obey Kurt's father right now, which does not involve sitting in the corner with his arms around his legs and face in his knees, the human equivalent of the cringing down with his ears back and tail between his legs which he still sort of wants to do.
Kurt touches his arm before he picks up his little stack of crockery and heads through for the kitchen, just a second's touch, just a slight press of it's okay. Blaine picks up his own stack and follows him.
Kurt's father comes into the kitchen and waves a hand at them. "Leave the dishes, we need t'talk. Sit down."
Kurt glances at Blaine, puts everything neat by the sink and Blaine reads from his body where he's going to sit so he can easily slip himself in next to him. It's like - the wolf in him presses its ears back, brings them upright again - it's like following the line of his shoulder to know which side of the deer to approach. Pack. Kurt's muscles speak to him, even when he's silent, even when they're not making eye contact.
Mr Hummel sits at the opposite side of the table, hands clasped a little awkwardly on top of it, and Blaine looks directly at him as much as he dares to. There's not much of Kurt in him - Kurt either resembles his mother more or else considers genetics beneath him and simply is exactly as he wants to be regardless - apart from his eyes, in this lighting both the same greyish green like mossy stones, and little mannerisms (they both press their palms together with nerves for a second, and then both make themselves put their hands down calm, apparently without noticing the other do it). Mr Hummel gives an open-handed shrug at them both and says, "We need to have a talk about boundaries. I'm responsible for my son and apparently you're some sort of package deal now, so all three of us need t'talk this out."
"Mr Hummel, I'm sorry about last night. I should have called you, I know, it just - it was urgent."
"What I'd like to do," Mr Hummel says slowly, "is get us clear on exactly those situations where you do call, so we don't have to keep going through these 'I'm sorry's."
"Yes. Of course. I'm sorry."
He can sense from Kurt's shoulders his slightly raised hackles and he knows why, knows that Kurt is restraining himself from snapping at his father in Blaine's defence right now, and it's warming and unsettling and delightful, in a very pure sense of the word. Blaine keeps himself from smiling. Just. Kurt's father looks them both over again, Blaine sitting very upright and attentive, Kurt with one elbow crooked on the table in front of him just enough to raise the muscles in his arm, and he says, "First thing I want you to understand is why I'm sayin' all this, 'cause I don't know if you two get it."
"We know, Dad. We live in a state full of farmers with shotguns, we get it."
"No. You don't." Blaine watches Mr Hummel's eyes as he leans forward a little in his seat, and taps at the table for emphasis as he talks. "Because yeah, some hick farmer sees you, they're gonna shoot first. But it ain't just that. You don't get shot, someone's still seen you. An' if they catch you - or if they trail you back home - have you ever thought what would happen?"
"Dad . . ."
"They would take you away. You get that? I don't know if it'd be - be scientists or the FBI or goddamn men in black but I know they won't leave you with me. Either of you, they'd drag you out from your families at gunpoint if they had to. No way in hell they'd let you keep your own life. They wouldn't trust you at your schools with all those kids, not after that school attack, they wouldn't care what you said, they would - I don't even know, Kurt, do you get that I don't know? They might cart you off an' do crazy experiments on you for all I know -"
"Dad-"
"- an' you think I could bear it? I know you think I'm bein' overdramatic. I'm not. You don't know people, Kurt. You still think if you trust 'em then they'll do the right thing, and I am telling you now, some of them won't. Some people do not give a crap about you. Some of them just don't care, an' some of them want to hurt you. This isn't me being a jerk, keeping you smothered like this. This is serious. This is your life. Both of you."
Blaine's mouth has gone dry.
He should say, Mr Hummel. He should say, There's something I need to tell you. He should say. He should say -
He remembers before he came out to his parents, the knowledge that he could not too light in his brain, too giddy, he wanted to grab after it like a kite, sail off with it, not look back. But then he said the words that hammered him into his situation, heavy as iron, he said them with a cottony tongue and numbed lips, said them and the tracks of his life clunked with solid metal reverberations onto the course he can't switch back from now. He remembers that, and what fear really is, and he can't speak. He should; he can't. Under the table Kurt's ankle leans to touch his, Kurt who can sense something wrong in him, and Blaine swallows his dry spit down and keeps his back straight and with the shame of his cowardice filling the blood vessels in his face, he says nothing. They wouldn't understand. Mr Hummel wouldn't understand; Kurt who despite every provocation has never hurt another human being in his life couldn't possibly understand.
How much of that wolf can you really trust . . . ?
Mr Hummel resettles his cap on his head and Kurt has his arms folded now, his head tucked in a little, watching him intently. "Talk me through the wolf thing," his father says. "You want to change more. That's what you're telling me?"
Kurt's mouth opens, but then he's silent and looks at Blaine, who tries to act like he can still feel his face, and takes a little breath in before he speaks. "We - the wolf is very - integrated. Some things . . . some things it can make more sense of than the human can."
More confident just for a fractured sentence from Blaine, Kurt's voice comes soft but sure. "Dad, I - I don't know how much I held it down all these years just because . . . because I was afraid of it, because I do know what would happen if people found out, Dad, I do, believe me. And I didn't want to leave you on your own. I knew - I knew you didn't want me to change, and that was a reason not to change all on its own, I - was scared of it for a long time. But I can't be scared like this, not forever, it's who I am. I know I didn't choose it but I didn't choose anything, did I? It's just what I have to deal with now and, and it's not, I don't hate it. Dad, I don't. There are times it's so much better. I -"
Blaine watches Kurt's face, while he struggles with his words, until Kurt takes in a little breath and says hoarsely, "Dad, sometimes I love being it. Sometimes - I just do. I'm sorry. It's just -"
His father says quietly, "Don't be sorry."
"- it just feels right. And I don't want to get any of us in trouble but I - need -"
"Okay. Okay. I - Kurt, I only ever didn't want you to change to keep you safe."
"I know."
"I never thought you were some kind of monster. I have not ever thought that, you know I know you, you know I've never . . ."
Very rough and very low, "I know." and Blaine touches his arm, then shies his hand back nervously in front of Kurt's father. Kurt gives him a quick tight smile, and presses his ankle closer against Blaine's; Blaine settles his socked foot over Kurt's, feeling Kurt's foot flex and then relax under his.
Mr Hummel sits there with his arms folded looking at them both for a long time, and then his jaw works back and forth once, and he says, "So you're gonna be turning more. That's fine, in the house. So long as you're in your room an' not gonna be walked in on that's one hundred percent fine. But outside?"
Kurt looks at Blaine. Blaine opens his mouth, hesitates, speaks very slowly to give himself time to think. "I've never run into problems out in the countryside. There's so many fields and forests, and we can smell people long before they see us. I - a couple of times I've bumped into people, but they just thought I was a dog."
"I suppose it does help if you're carrying a squeaky toy," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine rolls his eyes, pokes Kurt's foot with his.
Mr Hummel says, "You turn just anywhere?"
"No. I have safe places. You need spare clothes there, just in case, and somewhere waterproof to store them. There's a couple of places in deep woodland I can just take my car. People go out hiking all the time, no-one's ever questioned my car out there. I promise I am trying to be responsible, sir."
"Good. 'cause if you get seen it's trouble for him too. I . . . Kurt, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this. Out there . . ."
"Dad, the wolf is - so, so aware of everything happening, we couldn't possibly be snuck up on. I mean, it's the new moon this weekend and - I can still hear your heartbeat." He licks his lips, and Mr Hummel has gone very still. "We would be safe. We would keep each other safe. We . . . pack looks out for each other."
Mr Hummel looks back at Blaine, who feels his ears wish they could lie flat. "So how'd you 'bump into people' if you're so good at seein' them first?"
"Ah . . . the first time I was, um, it was raining and I was chasing a squirrel." Kurt laughs out loud and Blaine glances across at him already grinning, before he tries to stifle it. "Rain makes scents confused and you can't hear things so well, I ran out in front of a guy, I guess a farmer. I don't know if he got a good look at me, he probably thought I was a dog or something. Um, the second time was campers. I -" He rubs his nose, keeps his embarrassed eyes on the tabletop. "They were cooking sausages and I was really hungry."
He hears the choke of laughter in Kurt's chest. "Oh my god. You went and begged for food?" Blaine looks at the ceiling and Kurt's foot pokes at his, his voice sly with sarcasm. "Did you do tricks?"
"Okay," Mr Hummel says. "First of all, no more going up to campers. Whatever they're cooking."
"No. Sir. Of course not."
Kurt says under his breath, "What if they have Snausages?" and Blaine stands on his foot.
"Second, no going out in the rain, not if it's not safe. Not ever. You get that you only have to slip up once."
"Yes sir." He's not Blaine's father, which in a way makes Blaine's automatic obedience make so much more sense.
"Third, I need to take a look at these places of yours. See where's safe an' where there might be - issues."
"Yes, sir. I can - this weekend maybe we can . . ."
"I could take a look at some of them with you tomorrow night," Kurt says. "I can tell you which ones he definitely won't like to give us fewer to check later on."
"Fourth," he says, harder, so they both look up at him. "I'm still not saying yes. I'm sayin' we're thinking about it. I want you to have a life, Kurt, I want you to be happy, but I want you to be alive to do that. So if I don't think it's safe, it doesn't happen. We'll clear the basement out for you or something but I don't want you out as a wolf if that's all people'll see when they look at you."
Blaine wants to say, But.
But:
Moon high in the sky, cold air and hard earth underfoot. The way wind feels in fur, the scent of a creek ahead and the instinct of thirst, clear and sharp as the edge of glass. The instinct to run, the urge and ecstasy of it, every scent of the night poured over the snout with such blessed clarity - there are no good and bad smells to a wolf, just smells, stronger, weaker, more interesting, more demanding. The sense of rightness, the sense of wholeness -
And Kurt at his side, Kurt there to orbit, Kurt to chase and flee and play with, to run alongside and trust in and be trusted by, the sense of Kurt with him, Kurt his pack, Kurt nearby, Kurt.
Mr Hummel can't say no. He can't say never again. Because Kurt will obey him, and where does that leave Blaine?
Kurt says, "What if we had collars?"
Both Blaine and Mr Hummel say simultaneously, "What?"
Kurt shrugs. "On our own we look like wolves. But wearing collars? We're just someone's dogs got off their leashes, broke out of the back yard." Kurt tilts his head at Blaine, narrows his eyes. "You'd look good in something red."
"Blue." Blaine says automatically, picturing Kurt's endless white fur. "Silver tag."
Mr Hummel rubs his eyes like he doesn't believe what's happening in front of him.
"We could put your cell number on," Kurt says. "If anything happened, if anyone found us we'd wag our tails and sit and heel and they'd call you."
Mr Hummel says, "I am not saying yes. You do not even think about the wolf outside this house until I actually say yes."
"We could get them this weekend. While you think about it."
"Kurt. I am gonna be thinking about it. It is not an automatic yes."
"Are we done? We can look at them online, designers make pet accessories now."
"I want one of those bone-shaped tags."
"Sit." Mr Hummel barks, and it's embarrassing how quickly they both do again, before they look at each other and try to stifle the laugh. Mr Hummel does not look amused. "One last thing. I - I read through those wolf behaviour books again. On. On - this is no easier for me, you know that? This is not a conversation I want to be having." He shifts his cap about on his head by the eyeshade, then fists his hands on the table to keep them still. "I read up about - mating behaviour."
"Dad!"
"Mr Hummel I reall-"
"You think I wanna be having this talk?" He looks at Blaine. "Your parents sit you down about this stuff yet?"
Blaine's mouth flaps and he shakes his head. "I - I - no. They, um, sex education for gay kids is sort of thin on the ground and -"
Kurt has his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed tight closed and is making a low whining noise like he wants to be anywhere anywhere anywhere else.
"- and, they really wouldn't, they wouldn't want to, so I found some educational websites. I - didn't think to look up the wolf aspect."
"Well, I did. Kurt can you take your -" He reaches across the table to pull Kurt's elbows, to get his hands off his ears. "You think I wanted to bring this up? You think I wanted to have this conversation? Let's keep this brief and to the point so we can all get on with pretendin' like it never happened, okay? Apparently your wolves sometimes think louder than the people do, we already know that. All I wanted you two to know is that anything the wolf - wants, the person better be damn sure about too. Because to wolves - it doesn't matter to animals the way it matters to us. It matters to us because - it should matter to you because you matter. Don't - throw your body after the wolf. You two haven't known each other long, an' if you're serious about each other, if you care about each other, you're gonna want to be . . . comfortable. An' you'll wanna know . . . he's comfortable too." He takes a long, slow breath, making himself get through this, and Kurt's sitting with his arms wrapped close around himself, head lowered and eyes uneasily upraised to his father, and Blaine's keeping very still. No-one around this table is currently very 'comfortable' at all, but . . . "You two mean a lot to each other so don't wreck that for something that's not worth it. Take care of each other. Remember this is something you're doing to your - mind and your heart as well as your body, don't do something either one of you or the both of you might regret. Don't hurt each other with something that should be good for you." They don't look at each other. They don't have to, they can read the tension of each other's bodies; embarrassment, and certainty in only very particular directions, and a very little touch towards each other of undeniable curiosity. Mr Hummel swallows. "Don't go chasin' the wolf's wants. Especially not under my roof. You understand?"
Blaine whispers, "Yes sir." and Kurt says, "Can we go upstairs now?"
Mr Hummel throws a defeated hand in the direction of the staircase. "Bedroom door stays open, Kurt."
Kurt rolls his eyes, stands up - Blaine follows him to stand, a little uncertainly - and takes a breath at the ceiling, makes himself meet his father's eyes again. He smiles, a little tightly. He says, "Thanks, Dad." and grabs Blaine's hand, pulls him for the doorway. Blaine finds a strange sort of smile for Mr Hummel. It's forced because it's difficult, but it is meant. It's uncomfortable, and it promises that he's taken what he said very seriously. And it is, in a way that catches in his chest because he knows that no-one else is ever going to realise that he needs these things, grateful.
The very forced half-second's twitch of a smile he gets back means far, far too much to him.
In Kurt's room Kurt moans and flumps face down on his bed, hiding himself in his pillow. "Sorry," he moans through it, muffled, and Blaine - after a second's hesitation after that talk - sits on the mattress next to him, and touches his shoulder, presses his palm warm over it, rubs a little.
"Kurt. It's okay."
Kurt's shoulders wriggle, then he sits up and looks at Blaine, really stares at him like he's trying so hard to work out - "I like you," he gets out, like it's difficult. "I really do, Blaine, I, you know I - I really do -"
"I know." Blaine rubs his shoulder again, the comforting curved bone of it. He smiles. "I like you too."
Kurt's face compresses and then releases and he says, each word as contained and careful as a stone dropped into water and raw as it comes out of his throat, "I'm not ready to have sex."
Blaine opens his mouth. Blaine closes his mouth. Blaine stares at how hypnotically dark Kurt's eyes have gone, green-blue - blue-green? - and he makes himself think, and he says, "I'm not either."
Kurt looks like he might cry. "Really?"
"Kurt - I wouldn't - no, I'm not. And I would want you to be comfortable. I don't see how I could want to do something with you that you didn't want to do. So it's - I know you don't want me to say it's your decision, but-"
Kurt says quietly, "This is."
"Yes."
"Yours too."
"Yes. When we're both ready . . . if it's right, we'd know."
Kurt swallows, and holds Blaine's eyes, and nods. And - his smile begins, shy but coming so real with his eyes on Blaine like that, and Blaine finds his hand, slips his fingers through his, stares mystified into his eyes - how can it be like this, still so much, so, so far now from the full moon? - and he kisses him. Kurt's palm cups his cheek.
New moon in a few short days. They're almost as human as they'll ever be.
It's the human as well as the wolf.
*
After school, before they go to check on a couple of Blaine's 'places' - that he gets to share these places with Kurt at all, let alone with the potential of visiting them as wolves, is far too exciting for him, his inner tail wags endlessly - they head to the big retail park on the edge of town, for the pet store. Blaine inhales as they walk through the sliding doors where the screeches of birds echo from the high ceiling, side by side and not holding hands. He smells small mammals and their bedding, briny fish food, meaty dog treats sending his mind reeling, he knows things smell more near the full moon but how could anything smell more than this?
Puppies. He can smell puppies. Kurt makes a cooing noise and grabs his sleeve, pulls him over to the clear pen of little snuffling yellow labs, who come tripping over their paws and tails to scrabble up the sides at them, whining and barking, crazy with curiosity for these two humans who must smell so strange. Cats shuffle away in their pens as they pass, crouched low with ears back, but the puppies yap and whimper and wag their tails so hard they stagger and Kurt leans over and beams at them. Blaine reaches in to pet them and Kurt catches his elbow. "Dog hair on your blazer."
"I have a clothes brush in my car."
Their little wet snuffly noses and their tiny needly puppy teeth and their velvety little ears and their big, excited, melted chocolate eyes - "I would take you all home with me," Blaine promises them earnestly, as one grabs his cuff and tries to shake it like a rat, knocking itself off its paws in the process. "Yes I would you are so -"
"We came here to shop," Kurt says, tugging his arm. But he gives a little finger-rippling wave to the puppies who watch them go, tails whirring madly, giving throaty little whines that mean no, don't go!
"We could get a dog," Blaine says, his palm tingly from how soft puppy-fur feels.
"Mm, it's not like we could really get a cat," Kurt says, and then they both stop, and their eyes meet for a swallowing second before flicking away.
The wolves know that pack is forever. The humans sometimes forget that they're not meant to know that, that they're not supposed to be planning at seventeen for their pets, their future, their shared life.
They stop in front of the collars, and for only a moment they're awkward, Kurt playing with the catch on a tartan one before Blaine picks out a red collar with silver bones studded around it and says, "Found mine!" so he laughs out loud, and puts a hand over his mouth.
"You cannot be serious."
"Nope. I love it. Do they have one of those machines here that stamp your tag?"
Kurt hangs the tartan one again. "You can't have your own name on it. I certainly can't get my own name on mine, my dad does not need a 'dog' with his son's name to collect from the pound."
"So we'll pick names. What about . . . this one?"
Kurt glances across from wrinkling his nose at a skull and crossbones collar to the plain blue one Blaine's unhooking, leather a rich deep blue like that jacket of Kurt's, so blue it makes the sky look pale, with a round silver tag like a full moon. "Hmm," Kurt says, taking it from him, turning it. "What sizes do these come in? We need to make sure they're big enough."
"That one would be perfect. Bring out your eyes."
Kurt flicks him an approving little glance and walks his fingers through the hanging collars. "Get the largest to be sure. I really don't want it biting in on my neck. Too much damn fur."
At the checkout the girl doesn't even question their purchase but they're quite giggly by then as the sheer absurdity of buying themselves collars really begins to settle in. Blaine is suggesting names for them. "Spike. Fang. Fury."
"Fluffy," Kurt admonishes him with, marching for the machine by the entrance. "Pass me yours."
"You're choosing my name?"
"I have the perfect one."
Blaine unhooks the little bone-shaped tag from the collar and drops it into Kurt's hand, and Kurt squints at the instructions, feeds in some money and sets the tag in. He puts a hand over Blaine's eyes while he types one-handed, and Blaine laughs, and settles his hand over Kurt's on his face; he doesn't feel afraid, unable to see with Kurt there.
Blaine's new tag has a cell number and STITCH engraved in it. He bursts out laughing, and Kurt's cheeks are already flushed with holding it in; they laugh until they're breathless, and Blaine says, "I would never have thought -"
"It's perfect." Kurt says confidently. "You are destructive in the very best way."
Blaine desperately wants to hug him. He settles for hooking Kurt over by the shopping bag, and slipping enough of his collar out to get to the tag. "Now something for you. What would you be called?"
Kurt frowns at the ceiling. "I'd be my dad's dog. What would he call a dog?"
"What does he call you? Any embarrassing nicknames as a kid?"
"I bet you got 'squirt'."
Blaine rolls his eyes, pokes Kurt in the arm. "Only from my brother. Spill. I bet he still calls you it, he loves you, what does he call you?"
Kurt is still keeping his eyes on the ceiling, pink-cheeked, and his mouth is compressed with trying not to let it crooked with laughter. "'Buddy'."
Buddy and Stitch. Blaine's going to write it in all his school notebooks, with happy little hearts everywhere.
*
There's the farm track he's already shared with Kurt, and his secret passage in Dalton (Kurt tells him that an air vent is not a secret passage, but Blaine can't let the concept go that lightly). They drive to check out the overgrown end of the reservoir - kids go there to make trouble and make out anyway, but there's a slightly more private part it's more effort to get to through the thorn bushes - before they pull into the track off the highway, tyres gritting and popping over the gravely ground. There's a bank of trees to hide the car behind and an old fox den Blaine found to stuff a bag of clothing in, but -
There are already people there. A little gang of them in the rising dusk, too dark to see much below the trees with the sky eerie electric blue high overhead, as the car rolls to a halt. Blaine sits with his hand on the key after cutting the engine, metal clicking and cooling, and he says quietly, "Maybe we should leave."
It doesn't matter that they're wolves and that their teeth are specifically designed to slice through flesh and muscle. They're two gay kids in Lima, in the middle of nowhere, and it's getting dark, and there's some indeterminate gang out there, and Blaine feels the rise of the wolf inside, fingers squeezing the steering wheel, the rise of the wolf to keep Kurt safe. But Kurt's head is up and alert, and he says quietly, "Blaine." and Blaine -
Notices the way those bodies outside are standing.
(Body language speaks to the wolf, and their bodies say, Wolves.)
Kurt is breathing slowly but quite hard. He says, "I'm getting out of the car."
"Kur-"
"They're on our territory."
It's not testosterone talking. Kurt's voice doesn't say 'and we're going to chase them the fuck off our territory'. Kurt's voice just says, This is what is, and this is how we deal with it. Wolf-rules. He unsnaps his seatbelt and Blaine closes his eyes, and thinks, He said 'our' territory.
He feels a little braver, freeing himself from his belt and opening the door.
There are four human shapes in the gloom and a wolf comes trotting up to them, a dark grey wolf, Blaine's nostrils twitch, a bitch. They're all wolves, even the ones in human shapes. She stops in front of them, ears up and dark eyes on them as Kurt closes his door and folds his arms, head tilted to glare a little at the gathering in front of them. Blaine closes his door and stands there as easy as he can all things considered, keeping his mouth relaxed and eyes on the gang. He neither trusts nor fears them, particularly. He just watches them.
The wolf's tongue hangs out and she turns away, and as she trots she - unfolds, comes up into the shape of a naked girl stretching her hands high over her head, padding to another girl in the dark who hands her a bundle of clothing. She says, "They're wolves."
"Mm-hm. That's the one who owns the clothes? Don't know about him though."
"I think I might've smelled that on a hydrant or two," the tallest of the shapes in the dark says, and smiles.
Wolves see better than humans in the dark but they're very near the new moon, practically nothing but human now, and these guys have an advantage on them, if their packmate - the girl slipping a shapeless black short-sleeved sweater on over her hair, stepping carelessly into a pair of panties in front of them - has scented them in her wolf form. But it's really not so dark that Blaine isn't very aware of the tallest guy's gaze on him; it prickles all the way through his shoulder blades. He looks evenly back at him, says, "Hi. That was my bag, yes. I take it you guys are new in town."
There is, after all, no reason not to be friendly. There's reason to be wary - they don't walk away from the car, and Blaine is very aware of the way Kurt is watching that other wolf watch Blaine, he can sense the rise of Kurt's hackles in the hair on his own skin - but there's no reason not to be friendly. Not yet, at least.
"We're passing through," the tallest wolf says - there are two other guys, and that girl's slinked a long dark skirt onto her waist now, while the other girl curls an arm in around her hip. "Believe me, we don't intend to hang around with the yokels in hicksville longer than we have to. We just -" How he smiles - "thought we smelled some potential around here."
It's Kurt who says, steady in the dark, "Some 'potential' for what?"
"Well we'll find out, won't we?" the tallest wolf says sweetly. "We're always willing to recruit more wolves."
Kurt says like it's the end of a discussion, "We already have a pack."
"Okay, a wolf and his bitch don't make a pack, you need a little bit more than that." He's not looking at Kurt, he's still looking at Blaine. "I've scented you around, haven't I? Now, you smell like potential." Blaine can feel his eyes look him up and down. "You smell like potential all over."
It takes a second after the in-breath for him to know what he's going to say, flattery, embarrassing to admit, warms his stomach, but mostly he feels uncomfortable. "We - we're not passing through, this is where we live, so if you guys are moving on then the best we can do is, um - penpals?" He tries to smile, to lighten the situation a little, because he can sense something heavy in Kurt and this guy is looking at him really, really intently, and Blaine tries not to make it obvious how hard he's working to scent him, to work out -
He smells like that kind of interest.
Oh.
Kurt says, "We heard a howl the other night."
He doesn't look away from Blaine. "I'm sorry, I thought I made it obvious that we're recruiting wolves, we're really not interested in a dog. What about it? You could take a run with us. See where the night leads us."
"I - um." In the dark, the blush won't show; wolves can smell it, though. "We really did hear you howl the other night, what were you - was that for us?"
He shrugs. "Just summoning my pack. Telling them I found us somewhere new to play."
Kurt's voice comes hard. "A boy at my school got bitten. Was that you? You just bit some guy -?"
"Oh, him, he could be interesting." the tall wolf says dismissively, and then to Blaine, "Can you stop him yapping? You know you really should learn to control your-"
Blaine closes his hands into fists. "I think it's pretty obvious to you guys that Kurt's my alpha and whatever he says goes for both of us. And we do have a pack. And you bit a guy, he's completely - why would you -?"
"We're recruiting wolves," he says, head a little cocked now, still watching Blaine. "So, your poodle's called Kurt, and I'm Sebastian. And you are?"
It's partly hard-ingrained manners, and partly unignorable wolf etiquette: the wolf whom you scent also scents you. "Blaine." comes out between his teeth, and he can feel the vibration in Kurt kept controlled, the strain held steady in him. Kurt can control more than this, but faced with five unknown wolves -
Kurt says, "We have a pack. You're on our territory. If you're passing through, pass through."
"So who's your pack?" Sebastian says, finally looking at Kurt who blinks but looks evenly, stonily back. "Mommy and daddy and all the other little poodles? And they understand you, do they, they understand the wolf of you? Well, not the wolf of you, but someone like him -" Back to Blaine, whose shoulders hunch a little, too much attention - "You think they're pack? They're humans. They're apes. You're a wolf, they're not pack, you're not a dog." Blaine's mind flickers to the collars on the back seat of the car and his ears burn. "I've scented you around," Sebastian says, hands slipping into his pockets, smiling at Blaine. "I did my research and I sniffed this place out, and the only two wolves within a hundred miles of here are you two, if we are counting the bichon frise over there. So, that narrows it down to one of you two who put three guys in high school in the hospital a couple of years ago, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't the lapdog. Was it?"
He's looking at Blaine, and Blaine isn't breathing.
(His mind is silenced. It's his muscles, his taut straining muscles who set up the scream of no no no no not in front of Kurt not in front of Kurt no no no -)
"I'm recruiting wolves." Sebastian says, watching him so intently. "You know what you are. You know what's wild in you. They can't be your pack, you're not domesticated, cute as the bashful schoolboy thing you've got going is. You're a wolf, and when they cross you they learn that hard, and you know what their blood tastes like. So walk away from the pup. Seriously, if he's your alpha -" He slinks a smirk across at Kurt - "I have a lot I can teach you about dominance."
Kurt steps forward.
Every wolf there feels it, Blaine does, his entire body cups its cringe, the four wolves behind Sebastian all stiffen. Kurt's lip curls, his eyes are narrowed and too-light, his hands are fisted at his sides. "Wolf," he spits, contempt like a bite. "What the hell would you know about wolves? You smell like dry cleaning and too much cologne, you're about as wild as if you just stepped out of the groomers -"
"Don't make me turn, Lady, I really don't want to rip your throat out in front of-"
Kurt's shoulders settle and his spine is straight and Blaine's inner wolf is on its belly in the leaves, he can feel the other wolves reeling. Sebastian's body is still, but Blaine can smell the sweat on him. Kurt says, "You smell like Craigslist." and lifts his head, regal in the dark. "Get off my territory. Get away from my pack. Don't make me turn, don't make me laugh. Do you think wolves give threats? Wolves mean it. Take your bad horror fiction fantasies of what werewolves are out of my state, I really don't want to have to smell any more sad delusion and you reek of it."
Sebastian's body's turned to Kurt now, and his eyes are on Kurt, his attention all on Kurt and he's very still, apart from his hands coming from his pockets and working at his sides. Eventually he says, "You know what, this far from the full moon you smell so much of human it makes me feel a bit sick. So how about we pick this up the other side of the new moon, when you can actually smell enough to know how much I mean it, and my wolf can pull your throat out without my human retching too much at how fruity you taste."
Kurt just glares unimpressed back, his wolf a sturdy presence all around him, while Sebastian looks at Blaine and says, "I'll see you around. If you need to wash his perfume off you, maybe roll in the blood of a couple more humans." and he turns, walks off into the trees along the highway. His wolves fall into line behind him, glancing back at Kurt, keeping their backs bent away from him. Kurt just watches him go, breathing slow and very tight; it's dark enough that within seconds they can't see them, and after only a minute more they can no longer hear them cracking twigs and shifting leaves. And Blaine puts his hands on the car's hood to hold himself upright, cold metal under his hands and ringing in his ears and he's going to be sick.
Kurt falters, all the alpha seems to fall back like he snapped his fingers and he's just Kurt again, just a boy in the falling dark, and he says, "Blaine?"
Blaine stares at the hood of his car, colourless in the dusk, and in his muscles and in his mind it throbs like his panicked heartbeat, three guys in high school, roll in the blood of -
"Blaine," Kurt says, walking around the hood. Blaine snaps his head up teeth bared and then - stops himself, appalled, and Kurt just stands there, holding his own arms close against himself, watching Blaine steady but tense. "Blaine?"
He swallows, and his hands curl into fists against the metal. "I - would have told you. I would have, eventually, we only just - I didn't -"
Kurt just watches him, lips a little parted, eyes tracing Blaine's face like he can see right through it and it's breaking his heart.
"I'm not - Kurt I'm not, I'm not, I'm not -"
"I know," he says quietly, and steps forward, steps forward again and touches Blaine's jagged, flinching arm. "Blaine, I know."
"You don't. He -"
Kurt looks into his eyes, and it's dark and there's not much of a moon, but Blaine can see the flicker of light in them all the same, quiet sad light inside. He says, very softly, "That attack at that school."
"I'd only - I didn't know what I was doing, I - I thought they would - I was scared, I was so scared and it all just -"
"Blaine, it's oka-"
"It is not okay! How the hell is it okay? Do you know what I did to them? One of them lost an eye, one of them nearly bled to death, the other guy's hand's never going to -"
Kurt closes both hands on Blaine's arm and says to him quietly, soft almost-singing in the dark, "It's okay. I'm not scared. I just want to understand."
"You should never have let me near your family," Blaine spits back at him. "Do you know what I am? I could have killed them while you slept, you, I could have -"
"You wouldn't do that."
His breath snorts on rage, fear, loathing. "You don't know me."
Kurt says, "I love you."
It steals the angry breath out of him. It leaves his lungs hollow.
They're far from the full moon, and almost as human as they'll ever be. And Blaine looks at Kurt's pale face in the dark, his slow steady breathing, the pride and the acceptance in how he holds his jaw; this is the human enacting of a wolf concept. This is Kurt laid on the floor with his throat laid bare. This is Kurt's way of saying, I don't care, I trust you because -
Because we're pack, the wolf says.
Because I love you, the human says, watching Blaine with eyes quietly aware that he's owed nothing back for that admission, that all he's done is hold out a vulnerability for Blaine's sake and he has to be okay with whatever happens next, because there's no taking it back. It's said. It's written there on Kurt's heart whether he wants it or not, etched blood-livid inside him and now out in the world as well, handed to Blaine as a bright gory flag of vulnerability, I love you.
Blaine swallows. Kurt's hands are still on his arm. He says, his mouth dry, "I love you too."
Kurt's fingers close a little more on his arm, and he nods, just once, holding Blaine's eye. And Blaine's muscles begin, just begin, to let themselves go. The past matters now only in how they share it. The future is what the pack decides.
*
In the car Blaine stares at the steering wheel, and plays with the keys hanging from the ignition. "I didn't even know, I'd never turned before. We were coming up to a full moon, I'd have found out soon enough anyway, but . . ."
Kurt watches him, quietly intent, arms folded around himself not too tight. Blaine plays with his keyring, the particular unmusical clicking of too-light metal.
"There was this Sadie Hawkins dance, at my old school, before Dalton. And I had - just come out." He squeezes his eyes closed for a second. "And I went with the only other out gay guy in the school, just as friends. And when we were waiting for my dad to come pick up us . . . it was dark, we were walking to the parking lot, and three . . ." He swallows. "Three guys were waiting for us. They -" He stops playing with the keys. "I know what they would have done."
Kurt is silent, just watching him. Blaine stares at the keys, the dull gleam of them in the dark.
"We were coming up to the full moon. We tried running away but I heard them bring him down and heard them - hit him, and laugh, and then I tripped and someone had my shoulder and I -" The violence of that first turning, his body wrenched away from him, his mind gone, over the edge of fear into insanity; all he really remembers is the dark, and fear, and oh god why did Sebastian have to say it, the taste of it. "I was scared. I was so, so scared, Kurt, there were three of them and - and it's on the news all the time what happens to - to kids like us -"
"I know," Kurt whispers. "I know. I'm so sorry."
Blaine swallows again. "I don't know what happened. I turned. I -" He jerks his head to the side, eyes closed like he's trying not to see it again. "There was - screaming and - I don't know. I changed back - further in the parking lot, between two cars, I could hear them - one of them crying and a girl had started screaming and - and I was on my knees naked and -" Bile rises. "- I could taste -"
Kurt touches his wrist, whispers, "I'm so sorry."
"I sort of - it was like being in a nightmare. I knew what had happened, because it was the only thing that could have happened, it didn't matter that it was insane because - because everything was insane. I didn't turn any of them, I know you must - I didn't. I wouldn't have been able to work out how if I'd wanted to, I just -" He knows what he did. "I just hurt them. I changed back. It seemed the safest thing to do, I didn't want to be - me. I crept back over - there were people trying to help them, calling an ambulance, but I'd chased them off some way from where they jumped us, I must have - I must have chased them, oh god." He rubs his forehead with a hand, and Kurt strokes his elbow, whispers, "It's okay, it's okay."
"I crept back, picked up as much of my clothing as I could, I had to leave my jacket, the wolf can't carry . . . I, I dumped it all in a creek and I ran. I ran home. Back to my room. My cell was in my jacket, it . . . everything was a mess. I had to wash the blood off myself." He remembers the rusty colour of the water pouring down the shower's drain, he can still smell it. "I told my mom there'd been some trouble with some guys, I'd lost my jacket, she had to call dad, he wouldn't know where I was. By then there were police and ambulances and . . . Kurt they could have died. One of them nearly did. I could have -"
"You didn't. They didn't die. And they could have - Blaine, they could have hurt you."
"That doesn't make maiming them right. It doesn't make nearly killing them right -"
"No. It's just a fact, as much as everything else that happened is." Kurt runs his hand up and down Blaine's arm, thumb stroking gently at the tight line of muscle. "Scared wolves fight. You couldn't have controlled it. I don't know what I would do if - I don't know. Scared wolves fight. It wasn't something you chose."
Blaine's - never thought of it in those exact words before. 'It wasn't something you chose.' It was something he undeniably did; now he considers that that doesn't mean he chose to do it. He opens his eyes, stares at nothing in the dark, while the witchcraft of Kurt's words work in his mind; he didn't choose to do that, he didn't then and he wouldn't now, he would never, never choose that . . .
Kurt rubs his arm, says in such a cracked little voice, "I'm so sorry, you had to - I'm so sorry, Blaine, I can't imagine . . ."
"My parents heard about the attack and wanted me out of that school. I didn't argue. I've never been back." He opens his eyes, puts his hand over Kurt's on his arm. "I'm glad you had your dad. I'm glad you've never - never been on your own."
"I've been lucky." Kurt's mouth is too tight. "I've been spoiled."
"No. You deserve to be taken care of."
Quietly, "Don't you?"
Blaine's silent, then says, "I . . ." He swallows and puts his hand over his mouth for a second, because he remembers too much what it tastes like, sour in his spit. "I was so scared for that first full moon. What I might turn into. What kind of a monster I might . . ."
"You're not a monster. We're not monsters."
"I'm never going to be someone who didn't do that."
Kurt takes his wrist, says so softly, "Blaine." and lifts his hand, sets it at his own throat, palm to his pulse, fingers and thumb spread around his neck. He says, "I know who you are."
Blaine stares at his fingers on Kurt's white neck, Kurt's hand on his wrist, feels how calm Kurt's pulse is under his skin. It's a wolf thing. Is it? The human feels unsettled all the way through to be trusted too much, he shakes his hand free and folds his arms and Kurt touches his side again, leans in across the seat and hugs him. "I know who you are," he says into his shoulder. "Don't I? Is there anything else you want to tell me, so you know that I know and I'm still here and I'm still in love with you and I'm not going anywhere?"
Blaine turns his head a little, nose skimming into Kurt's hair, and he breathes in hard for the scent of him, gets his arms around Kurt too. "No." he mumbles. "Don't go anywhere."
"I won't."
"I love you too."
"I know. I know." Blaine squeezes his arms closed around him, pulling to get him closer, scent and press of him and he needs him. "I'm not going anywhere," Kurt sings to him, softly. "I'm not leaving you. I won't. I'm never saying goodbye to you."
Blaine holds on, and he doesn't feel like a monster, not holding Kurt. He feels like a boy who's been too scared for far too long. Kurt's heartbeat pressed in hard to his side he feels very human, very animal, very alive. He feels like he needs too much but, holding Kurt, he feels like he might actually get what he needs, this time.
Inside the car they hold each other. Outside it's dark, and there are wolves.
Part VII
Disclaimer: Give it to me for like, two days, see what I do to it, oh my god, if it were mine I would fix *so much* <3 (I can't write snappy dialogue the way they do when they get it right, but at least I have some concept of how a character arc *works* =P)
Rating: R, and we won't be getting higher than an R. It will become apparent why in this chapter, ahem.
Summary: Not even the only pack in the world.
Note: Sorry for the delay ^^;
Blaine would so much rather be the wolf that day.
The last text he gets from Kurt on the night says, It's going to be alright xx, which could mean any number of things. It could mean Kurt's resolved everything and things are going to be alright, which Blaine does believe Kurt is amazing enough to pull off on his own. It could mean things aren't alright but they will be at some point, which may very well be true. It could mean that Kurt is just reassuring Blaine because, stupid pup that Blaine's been, he's spent too long now acting like Kurt's purpose is to reassure Blaine, look after Blaine, like they're not in this together, like Blaine needs reassurance more than honesty, like he demands that. He's not going to do that to Kurt anymore. Or, come to that, to himself.
It would still be quite nice to be reassured, though.
He would rather be the wolf; caught between so many what ifs the human can hardly concentrate. The truth of what's happening is probably somewhere between all of these things and that's troublesome, for the human, it can't be easily captured by easy human concepts, easy human words, there's dis-ease in recognising that ambiguity. The wolf wouldn't mind it. The wolf accepts what is, it's the human who angsts over which box 'what is' fits into.
That last text came too late to keep pestering Kurt for more information. He laid on his side on top of his bed, fingers and thumb slowly playing that scrap of Kurt's shirt between them, before he woke to the room still dark, sun not yet risen, and his alarm clock chirpily telling him it's time to get up anyway. Stupid February.
He gets an email from Kurt, just before he sets off for school. Kurt's dad wants him to come over tonight so they can talk. Kurt signs off with DON'T WORRY XX which is basically a giant flag for 'there is something to worry about', which makes Blaine worry. Of course there's something to worry about. Kurt's dad is scary.
He would so much rather be the wolf. He thinks and thinks about what might happen, what they might . . . he doesn't want to talk, the wolf hates talking, why do humans make understanding each other so difficult? There's a person, pack or not, and you trust them or not (you trust your pack), and why do they need to understand anything else? There's Kurt, he trusts Kurt, he wants to be next to Kurt all the time, why does he have to understand anything else?
Because if anyone found out then Blaine doesn't know what would happen. Because they can't never be further from each other than the length of a leash, that isn't what people who've known each other for a week and a half do. Because there's a wolf at Kurt's school who alternates between sexually harassing Kurt and just harassing Kurt and he could turn at any moment and Kurt can't tell his dad and how the hell is Blaine supposed to help?
His inner wolf whines, and wags its nervous tail.
And tonight he goes to face the father of the wolf who made Blaine roll over and bare his throat at the first glance, a man he can smell distrusting him, the only pure human he's ever met and still sensed the wolf in. Tonight he goes to face the wolf father.
Oh, he would so much rather be the wolf . . .
*
He won't even look me in the eye. It's weird.
(Oh god I've destroyed your family, your dad won't even look at you anymore I've ruined everything oh wait okay there actually could be another male you're referring to here, okay.)
Karofsky?
I think he and I have reached a certain understanding about our wolves. It's strangely liberating.
(Not getting shoved around, not getting poison spat at you every day, yeah, I can empathise.)
Well, you *are* very dominant.
Alphas usually only mate with other alphas, did you know that?
(Three realisations click in stunningly quick succession.)
Oh god I realised what that sounded like as soon as I sent it oh my god. Oh my god. *Sorry*
(And the smile, afterwards, comes so wide and so real.)
You don't have to be sorry. I think it's adorable.
Really?
(How can someone so, so strong still be so, so fragile?)
I think *you're* adorable.
I don't even know what to say to you sometimes, Blaine.
(Because only someone so strong could ever allow themselves to be that fragile.)
So, Karofsky's not bothering you.
No. Keeps his head down and hurries by. I feel guilty.
(You - what? You feel so many things I can't keep up.)
You feel guilty he's not treating you like crap anymore?
I don't know. He's confused and scared, don't you remember what it's like?
(I don't want to remember what it's like.)
He's angry and unpredictable and dangerous.
When it's the new moon we should try again.
(The wolf agrees. I don't - want to.)
We can play it by ear.
I don't want to leave him on his own. Are you still ok to come over tonight?
(For you? It's always going to be yes.)
Yes, of course :)
*
Blaine straightens his tie and blazer on the doorstep, runs a hand over his hair like it might have dislodged between the rear view mirror and the front door, and then knocks. He hears thumping from inside, the calling through the door of a voice he knows like a wolf-song run up his spine, and then there's Kurt's eyes, Kurt's smile, Blaine wants to hug and spin and dance and kiss him, Blaine wants everything with him.
He doesn't know who reached out for whose hand, but they're gripping each other tight and Kurt's eyes are fixed on his, Blaine can see the rapid wagging of his inner wolf's tail. Blaine swallows, thinks about checking over his shoulder to make sure the street's empty, thinks, Screw it, and leans up and kisses him.
Kurt closes his eyes, breathes, kisses back.
When they part Kurt's smiling, and he squeezes Blaine's hand. "Come inside."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes. It was - a strange day, not a bad one. Dinner's about ready, are you hungry?"
Carole's working a shift and Finn's girlfriend is here (an incredibly pretty blonde girl called Quinn, with something just dangerous enough in her eyes that Blaine really does use his very best manners), so there's no talk of wolves at the table. Blaine can feel Quinn weighing him up and more than that he can sense silent observation from Kurt's father, not aggressive, just intent, which keeps him quiet. Mostly Kurt and Finn talk, bicker, laugh. For stepbrothers they make really good brothers, maybe blood's the least important part of a family after all. Blaine smiles and listens and adds something whenever Kurt looks at him as if prompting him or checking on him, which is pretty often.
After dinner Blaine helps Kurt clean up while Kurt's dad insists Finn and Quinn go catch a movie or something, his treat, which gets them out of the house. Blaine's just passing Kurt the salad bowl when the front door clicks closed behind them: alone, and no escaping it now. Kurt just keeps on stacking cutlery into the salad bowl, face as calmly imperious as ever. Blaine follows his lead. Maybe - alphas usually mate with other alphas - they are in this together, but he's on Kurt's territory and they both have to obey Kurt's father right now, which does not involve sitting in the corner with his arms around his legs and face in his knees, the human equivalent of the cringing down with his ears back and tail between his legs which he still sort of wants to do.
Kurt touches his arm before he picks up his little stack of crockery and heads through for the kitchen, just a second's touch, just a slight press of it's okay. Blaine picks up his own stack and follows him.
Kurt's father comes into the kitchen and waves a hand at them. "Leave the dishes, we need t'talk. Sit down."
Kurt glances at Blaine, puts everything neat by the sink and Blaine reads from his body where he's going to sit so he can easily slip himself in next to him. It's like - the wolf in him presses its ears back, brings them upright again - it's like following the line of his shoulder to know which side of the deer to approach. Pack. Kurt's muscles speak to him, even when he's silent, even when they're not making eye contact.
Mr Hummel sits at the opposite side of the table, hands clasped a little awkwardly on top of it, and Blaine looks directly at him as much as he dares to. There's not much of Kurt in him - Kurt either resembles his mother more or else considers genetics beneath him and simply is exactly as he wants to be regardless - apart from his eyes, in this lighting both the same greyish green like mossy stones, and little mannerisms (they both press their palms together with nerves for a second, and then both make themselves put their hands down calm, apparently without noticing the other do it). Mr Hummel gives an open-handed shrug at them both and says, "We need to have a talk about boundaries. I'm responsible for my son and apparently you're some sort of package deal now, so all three of us need t'talk this out."
"Mr Hummel, I'm sorry about last night. I should have called you, I know, it just - it was urgent."
"What I'd like to do," Mr Hummel says slowly, "is get us clear on exactly those situations where you do call, so we don't have to keep going through these 'I'm sorry's."
"Yes. Of course. I'm sorry."
He can sense from Kurt's shoulders his slightly raised hackles and he knows why, knows that Kurt is restraining himself from snapping at his father in Blaine's defence right now, and it's warming and unsettling and delightful, in a very pure sense of the word. Blaine keeps himself from smiling. Just. Kurt's father looks them both over again, Blaine sitting very upright and attentive, Kurt with one elbow crooked on the table in front of him just enough to raise the muscles in his arm, and he says, "First thing I want you to understand is why I'm sayin' all this, 'cause I don't know if you two get it."
"We know, Dad. We live in a state full of farmers with shotguns, we get it."
"No. You don't." Blaine watches Mr Hummel's eyes as he leans forward a little in his seat, and taps at the table for emphasis as he talks. "Because yeah, some hick farmer sees you, they're gonna shoot first. But it ain't just that. You don't get shot, someone's still seen you. An' if they catch you - or if they trail you back home - have you ever thought what would happen?"
"Dad . . ."
"They would take you away. You get that? I don't know if it'd be - be scientists or the FBI or goddamn men in black but I know they won't leave you with me. Either of you, they'd drag you out from your families at gunpoint if they had to. No way in hell they'd let you keep your own life. They wouldn't trust you at your schools with all those kids, not after that school attack, they wouldn't care what you said, they would - I don't even know, Kurt, do you get that I don't know? They might cart you off an' do crazy experiments on you for all I know -"
"Dad-"
"- an' you think I could bear it? I know you think I'm bein' overdramatic. I'm not. You don't know people, Kurt. You still think if you trust 'em then they'll do the right thing, and I am telling you now, some of them won't. Some people do not give a crap about you. Some of them just don't care, an' some of them want to hurt you. This isn't me being a jerk, keeping you smothered like this. This is serious. This is your life. Both of you."
Blaine's mouth has gone dry.
He should say, Mr Hummel. He should say, There's something I need to tell you. He should say. He should say -
He remembers before he came out to his parents, the knowledge that he could not too light in his brain, too giddy, he wanted to grab after it like a kite, sail off with it, not look back. But then he said the words that hammered him into his situation, heavy as iron, he said them with a cottony tongue and numbed lips, said them and the tracks of his life clunked with solid metal reverberations onto the course he can't switch back from now. He remembers that, and what fear really is, and he can't speak. He should; he can't. Under the table Kurt's ankle leans to touch his, Kurt who can sense something wrong in him, and Blaine swallows his dry spit down and keeps his back straight and with the shame of his cowardice filling the blood vessels in his face, he says nothing. They wouldn't understand. Mr Hummel wouldn't understand; Kurt who despite every provocation has never hurt another human being in his life couldn't possibly understand.
How much of that wolf can you really trust . . . ?
Mr Hummel resettles his cap on his head and Kurt has his arms folded now, his head tucked in a little, watching him intently. "Talk me through the wolf thing," his father says. "You want to change more. That's what you're telling me?"
Kurt's mouth opens, but then he's silent and looks at Blaine, who tries to act like he can still feel his face, and takes a little breath in before he speaks. "We - the wolf is very - integrated. Some things . . . some things it can make more sense of than the human can."
More confident just for a fractured sentence from Blaine, Kurt's voice comes soft but sure. "Dad, I - I don't know how much I held it down all these years just because . . . because I was afraid of it, because I do know what would happen if people found out, Dad, I do, believe me. And I didn't want to leave you on your own. I knew - I knew you didn't want me to change, and that was a reason not to change all on its own, I - was scared of it for a long time. But I can't be scared like this, not forever, it's who I am. I know I didn't choose it but I didn't choose anything, did I? It's just what I have to deal with now and, and it's not, I don't hate it. Dad, I don't. There are times it's so much better. I -"
Blaine watches Kurt's face, while he struggles with his words, until Kurt takes in a little breath and says hoarsely, "Dad, sometimes I love being it. Sometimes - I just do. I'm sorry. It's just -"
His father says quietly, "Don't be sorry."
"- it just feels right. And I don't want to get any of us in trouble but I - need -"
"Okay. Okay. I - Kurt, I only ever didn't want you to change to keep you safe."
"I know."
"I never thought you were some kind of monster. I have not ever thought that, you know I know you, you know I've never . . ."
Very rough and very low, "I know." and Blaine touches his arm, then shies his hand back nervously in front of Kurt's father. Kurt gives him a quick tight smile, and presses his ankle closer against Blaine's; Blaine settles his socked foot over Kurt's, feeling Kurt's foot flex and then relax under his.
Mr Hummel sits there with his arms folded looking at them both for a long time, and then his jaw works back and forth once, and he says, "So you're gonna be turning more. That's fine, in the house. So long as you're in your room an' not gonna be walked in on that's one hundred percent fine. But outside?"
Kurt looks at Blaine. Blaine opens his mouth, hesitates, speaks very slowly to give himself time to think. "I've never run into problems out in the countryside. There's so many fields and forests, and we can smell people long before they see us. I - a couple of times I've bumped into people, but they just thought I was a dog."
"I suppose it does help if you're carrying a squeaky toy," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine rolls his eyes, pokes Kurt's foot with his.
Mr Hummel says, "You turn just anywhere?"
"No. I have safe places. You need spare clothes there, just in case, and somewhere waterproof to store them. There's a couple of places in deep woodland I can just take my car. People go out hiking all the time, no-one's ever questioned my car out there. I promise I am trying to be responsible, sir."
"Good. 'cause if you get seen it's trouble for him too. I . . . Kurt, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this. Out there . . ."
"Dad, the wolf is - so, so aware of everything happening, we couldn't possibly be snuck up on. I mean, it's the new moon this weekend and - I can still hear your heartbeat." He licks his lips, and Mr Hummel has gone very still. "We would be safe. We would keep each other safe. We . . . pack looks out for each other."
Mr Hummel looks back at Blaine, who feels his ears wish they could lie flat. "So how'd you 'bump into people' if you're so good at seein' them first?"
"Ah . . . the first time I was, um, it was raining and I was chasing a squirrel." Kurt laughs out loud and Blaine glances across at him already grinning, before he tries to stifle it. "Rain makes scents confused and you can't hear things so well, I ran out in front of a guy, I guess a farmer. I don't know if he got a good look at me, he probably thought I was a dog or something. Um, the second time was campers. I -" He rubs his nose, keeps his embarrassed eyes on the tabletop. "They were cooking sausages and I was really hungry."
He hears the choke of laughter in Kurt's chest. "Oh my god. You went and begged for food?" Blaine looks at the ceiling and Kurt's foot pokes at his, his voice sly with sarcasm. "Did you do tricks?"
"Okay," Mr Hummel says. "First of all, no more going up to campers. Whatever they're cooking."
"No. Sir. Of course not."
Kurt says under his breath, "What if they have Snausages?" and Blaine stands on his foot.
"Second, no going out in the rain, not if it's not safe. Not ever. You get that you only have to slip up once."
"Yes sir." He's not Blaine's father, which in a way makes Blaine's automatic obedience make so much more sense.
"Third, I need to take a look at these places of yours. See where's safe an' where there might be - issues."
"Yes, sir. I can - this weekend maybe we can . . ."
"I could take a look at some of them with you tomorrow night," Kurt says. "I can tell you which ones he definitely won't like to give us fewer to check later on."
"Fourth," he says, harder, so they both look up at him. "I'm still not saying yes. I'm sayin' we're thinking about it. I want you to have a life, Kurt, I want you to be happy, but I want you to be alive to do that. So if I don't think it's safe, it doesn't happen. We'll clear the basement out for you or something but I don't want you out as a wolf if that's all people'll see when they look at you."
Blaine wants to say, But.
But:
Moon high in the sky, cold air and hard earth underfoot. The way wind feels in fur, the scent of a creek ahead and the instinct of thirst, clear and sharp as the edge of glass. The instinct to run, the urge and ecstasy of it, every scent of the night poured over the snout with such blessed clarity - there are no good and bad smells to a wolf, just smells, stronger, weaker, more interesting, more demanding. The sense of rightness, the sense of wholeness -
And Kurt at his side, Kurt there to orbit, Kurt to chase and flee and play with, to run alongside and trust in and be trusted by, the sense of Kurt with him, Kurt his pack, Kurt nearby, Kurt.
Mr Hummel can't say no. He can't say never again. Because Kurt will obey him, and where does that leave Blaine?
Kurt says, "What if we had collars?"
Both Blaine and Mr Hummel say simultaneously, "What?"
Kurt shrugs. "On our own we look like wolves. But wearing collars? We're just someone's dogs got off their leashes, broke out of the back yard." Kurt tilts his head at Blaine, narrows his eyes. "You'd look good in something red."
"Blue." Blaine says automatically, picturing Kurt's endless white fur. "Silver tag."
Mr Hummel rubs his eyes like he doesn't believe what's happening in front of him.
"We could put your cell number on," Kurt says. "If anything happened, if anyone found us we'd wag our tails and sit and heel and they'd call you."
Mr Hummel says, "I am not saying yes. You do not even think about the wolf outside this house until I actually say yes."
"We could get them this weekend. While you think about it."
"Kurt. I am gonna be thinking about it. It is not an automatic yes."
"Are we done? We can look at them online, designers make pet accessories now."
"I want one of those bone-shaped tags."
"Sit." Mr Hummel barks, and it's embarrassing how quickly they both do again, before they look at each other and try to stifle the laugh. Mr Hummel does not look amused. "One last thing. I - I read through those wolf behaviour books again. On. On - this is no easier for me, you know that? This is not a conversation I want to be having." He shifts his cap about on his head by the eyeshade, then fists his hands on the table to keep them still. "I read up about - mating behaviour."
"Dad!"
"Mr Hummel I reall-"
"You think I wanna be having this talk?" He looks at Blaine. "Your parents sit you down about this stuff yet?"
Blaine's mouth flaps and he shakes his head. "I - I - no. They, um, sex education for gay kids is sort of thin on the ground and -"
Kurt has his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed tight closed and is making a low whining noise like he wants to be anywhere anywhere anywhere else.
"- and, they really wouldn't, they wouldn't want to, so I found some educational websites. I - didn't think to look up the wolf aspect."
"Well, I did. Kurt can you take your -" He reaches across the table to pull Kurt's elbows, to get his hands off his ears. "You think I wanted to bring this up? You think I wanted to have this conversation? Let's keep this brief and to the point so we can all get on with pretendin' like it never happened, okay? Apparently your wolves sometimes think louder than the people do, we already know that. All I wanted you two to know is that anything the wolf - wants, the person better be damn sure about too. Because to wolves - it doesn't matter to animals the way it matters to us. It matters to us because - it should matter to you because you matter. Don't - throw your body after the wolf. You two haven't known each other long, an' if you're serious about each other, if you care about each other, you're gonna want to be . . . comfortable. An' you'll wanna know . . . he's comfortable too." He takes a long, slow breath, making himself get through this, and Kurt's sitting with his arms wrapped close around himself, head lowered and eyes uneasily upraised to his father, and Blaine's keeping very still. No-one around this table is currently very 'comfortable' at all, but . . . "You two mean a lot to each other so don't wreck that for something that's not worth it. Take care of each other. Remember this is something you're doing to your - mind and your heart as well as your body, don't do something either one of you or the both of you might regret. Don't hurt each other with something that should be good for you." They don't look at each other. They don't have to, they can read the tension of each other's bodies; embarrassment, and certainty in only very particular directions, and a very little touch towards each other of undeniable curiosity. Mr Hummel swallows. "Don't go chasin' the wolf's wants. Especially not under my roof. You understand?"
Blaine whispers, "Yes sir." and Kurt says, "Can we go upstairs now?"
Mr Hummel throws a defeated hand in the direction of the staircase. "Bedroom door stays open, Kurt."
Kurt rolls his eyes, stands up - Blaine follows him to stand, a little uncertainly - and takes a breath at the ceiling, makes himself meet his father's eyes again. He smiles, a little tightly. He says, "Thanks, Dad." and grabs Blaine's hand, pulls him for the doorway. Blaine finds a strange sort of smile for Mr Hummel. It's forced because it's difficult, but it is meant. It's uncomfortable, and it promises that he's taken what he said very seriously. And it is, in a way that catches in his chest because he knows that no-one else is ever going to realise that he needs these things, grateful.
The very forced half-second's twitch of a smile he gets back means far, far too much to him.
In Kurt's room Kurt moans and flumps face down on his bed, hiding himself in his pillow. "Sorry," he moans through it, muffled, and Blaine - after a second's hesitation after that talk - sits on the mattress next to him, and touches his shoulder, presses his palm warm over it, rubs a little.
"Kurt. It's okay."
Kurt's shoulders wriggle, then he sits up and looks at Blaine, really stares at him like he's trying so hard to work out - "I like you," he gets out, like it's difficult. "I really do, Blaine, I, you know I - I really do -"
"I know." Blaine rubs his shoulder again, the comforting curved bone of it. He smiles. "I like you too."
Kurt's face compresses and then releases and he says, each word as contained and careful as a stone dropped into water and raw as it comes out of his throat, "I'm not ready to have sex."
Blaine opens his mouth. Blaine closes his mouth. Blaine stares at how hypnotically dark Kurt's eyes have gone, green-blue - blue-green? - and he makes himself think, and he says, "I'm not either."
Kurt looks like he might cry. "Really?"
"Kurt - I wouldn't - no, I'm not. And I would want you to be comfortable. I don't see how I could want to do something with you that you didn't want to do. So it's - I know you don't want me to say it's your decision, but-"
Kurt says quietly, "This is."
"Yes."
"Yours too."
"Yes. When we're both ready . . . if it's right, we'd know."
Kurt swallows, and holds Blaine's eyes, and nods. And - his smile begins, shy but coming so real with his eyes on Blaine like that, and Blaine finds his hand, slips his fingers through his, stares mystified into his eyes - how can it be like this, still so much, so, so far now from the full moon? - and he kisses him. Kurt's palm cups his cheek.
New moon in a few short days. They're almost as human as they'll ever be.
It's the human as well as the wolf.
*
After school, before they go to check on a couple of Blaine's 'places' - that he gets to share these places with Kurt at all, let alone with the potential of visiting them as wolves, is far too exciting for him, his inner tail wags endlessly - they head to the big retail park on the edge of town, for the pet store. Blaine inhales as they walk through the sliding doors where the screeches of birds echo from the high ceiling, side by side and not holding hands. He smells small mammals and their bedding, briny fish food, meaty dog treats sending his mind reeling, he knows things smell more near the full moon but how could anything smell more than this?
Puppies. He can smell puppies. Kurt makes a cooing noise and grabs his sleeve, pulls him over to the clear pen of little snuffling yellow labs, who come tripping over their paws and tails to scrabble up the sides at them, whining and barking, crazy with curiosity for these two humans who must smell so strange. Cats shuffle away in their pens as they pass, crouched low with ears back, but the puppies yap and whimper and wag their tails so hard they stagger and Kurt leans over and beams at them. Blaine reaches in to pet them and Kurt catches his elbow. "Dog hair on your blazer."
"I have a clothes brush in my car."
Their little wet snuffly noses and their tiny needly puppy teeth and their velvety little ears and their big, excited, melted chocolate eyes - "I would take you all home with me," Blaine promises them earnestly, as one grabs his cuff and tries to shake it like a rat, knocking itself off its paws in the process. "Yes I would you are so -"
"We came here to shop," Kurt says, tugging his arm. But he gives a little finger-rippling wave to the puppies who watch them go, tails whirring madly, giving throaty little whines that mean no, don't go!
"We could get a dog," Blaine says, his palm tingly from how soft puppy-fur feels.
"Mm, it's not like we could really get a cat," Kurt says, and then they both stop, and their eyes meet for a swallowing second before flicking away.
The wolves know that pack is forever. The humans sometimes forget that they're not meant to know that, that they're not supposed to be planning at seventeen for their pets, their future, their shared life.
They stop in front of the collars, and for only a moment they're awkward, Kurt playing with the catch on a tartan one before Blaine picks out a red collar with silver bones studded around it and says, "Found mine!" so he laughs out loud, and puts a hand over his mouth.
"You cannot be serious."
"Nope. I love it. Do they have one of those machines here that stamp your tag?"
Kurt hangs the tartan one again. "You can't have your own name on it. I certainly can't get my own name on mine, my dad does not need a 'dog' with his son's name to collect from the pound."
"So we'll pick names. What about . . . this one?"
Kurt glances across from wrinkling his nose at a skull and crossbones collar to the plain blue one Blaine's unhooking, leather a rich deep blue like that jacket of Kurt's, so blue it makes the sky look pale, with a round silver tag like a full moon. "Hmm," Kurt says, taking it from him, turning it. "What sizes do these come in? We need to make sure they're big enough."
"That one would be perfect. Bring out your eyes."
Kurt flicks him an approving little glance and walks his fingers through the hanging collars. "Get the largest to be sure. I really don't want it biting in on my neck. Too much damn fur."
At the checkout the girl doesn't even question their purchase but they're quite giggly by then as the sheer absurdity of buying themselves collars really begins to settle in. Blaine is suggesting names for them. "Spike. Fang. Fury."
"Fluffy," Kurt admonishes him with, marching for the machine by the entrance. "Pass me yours."
"You're choosing my name?"
"I have the perfect one."
Blaine unhooks the little bone-shaped tag from the collar and drops it into Kurt's hand, and Kurt squints at the instructions, feeds in some money and sets the tag in. He puts a hand over Blaine's eyes while he types one-handed, and Blaine laughs, and settles his hand over Kurt's on his face; he doesn't feel afraid, unable to see with Kurt there.
Blaine's new tag has a cell number and STITCH engraved in it. He bursts out laughing, and Kurt's cheeks are already flushed with holding it in; they laugh until they're breathless, and Blaine says, "I would never have thought -"
"It's perfect." Kurt says confidently. "You are destructive in the very best way."
Blaine desperately wants to hug him. He settles for hooking Kurt over by the shopping bag, and slipping enough of his collar out to get to the tag. "Now something for you. What would you be called?"
Kurt frowns at the ceiling. "I'd be my dad's dog. What would he call a dog?"
"What does he call you? Any embarrassing nicknames as a kid?"
"I bet you got 'squirt'."
Blaine rolls his eyes, pokes Kurt in the arm. "Only from my brother. Spill. I bet he still calls you it, he loves you, what does he call you?"
Kurt is still keeping his eyes on the ceiling, pink-cheeked, and his mouth is compressed with trying not to let it crooked with laughter. "'Buddy'."
Buddy and Stitch. Blaine's going to write it in all his school notebooks, with happy little hearts everywhere.
*
There's the farm track he's already shared with Kurt, and his secret passage in Dalton (Kurt tells him that an air vent is not a secret passage, but Blaine can't let the concept go that lightly). They drive to check out the overgrown end of the reservoir - kids go there to make trouble and make out anyway, but there's a slightly more private part it's more effort to get to through the thorn bushes - before they pull into the track off the highway, tyres gritting and popping over the gravely ground. There's a bank of trees to hide the car behind and an old fox den Blaine found to stuff a bag of clothing in, but -
There are already people there. A little gang of them in the rising dusk, too dark to see much below the trees with the sky eerie electric blue high overhead, as the car rolls to a halt. Blaine sits with his hand on the key after cutting the engine, metal clicking and cooling, and he says quietly, "Maybe we should leave."
It doesn't matter that they're wolves and that their teeth are specifically designed to slice through flesh and muscle. They're two gay kids in Lima, in the middle of nowhere, and it's getting dark, and there's some indeterminate gang out there, and Blaine feels the rise of the wolf inside, fingers squeezing the steering wheel, the rise of the wolf to keep Kurt safe. But Kurt's head is up and alert, and he says quietly, "Blaine." and Blaine -
Notices the way those bodies outside are standing.
(Body language speaks to the wolf, and their bodies say, Wolves.)
Kurt is breathing slowly but quite hard. He says, "I'm getting out of the car."
"Kur-"
"They're on our territory."
It's not testosterone talking. Kurt's voice doesn't say 'and we're going to chase them the fuck off our territory'. Kurt's voice just says, This is what is, and this is how we deal with it. Wolf-rules. He unsnaps his seatbelt and Blaine closes his eyes, and thinks, He said 'our' territory.
He feels a little braver, freeing himself from his belt and opening the door.
There are four human shapes in the gloom and a wolf comes trotting up to them, a dark grey wolf, Blaine's nostrils twitch, a bitch. They're all wolves, even the ones in human shapes. She stops in front of them, ears up and dark eyes on them as Kurt closes his door and folds his arms, head tilted to glare a little at the gathering in front of them. Blaine closes his door and stands there as easy as he can all things considered, keeping his mouth relaxed and eyes on the gang. He neither trusts nor fears them, particularly. He just watches them.
The wolf's tongue hangs out and she turns away, and as she trots she - unfolds, comes up into the shape of a naked girl stretching her hands high over her head, padding to another girl in the dark who hands her a bundle of clothing. She says, "They're wolves."
"Mm-hm. That's the one who owns the clothes? Don't know about him though."
"I think I might've smelled that on a hydrant or two," the tallest of the shapes in the dark says, and smiles.
Wolves see better than humans in the dark but they're very near the new moon, practically nothing but human now, and these guys have an advantage on them, if their packmate - the girl slipping a shapeless black short-sleeved sweater on over her hair, stepping carelessly into a pair of panties in front of them - has scented them in her wolf form. But it's really not so dark that Blaine isn't very aware of the tallest guy's gaze on him; it prickles all the way through his shoulder blades. He looks evenly back at him, says, "Hi. That was my bag, yes. I take it you guys are new in town."
There is, after all, no reason not to be friendly. There's reason to be wary - they don't walk away from the car, and Blaine is very aware of the way Kurt is watching that other wolf watch Blaine, he can sense the rise of Kurt's hackles in the hair on his own skin - but there's no reason not to be friendly. Not yet, at least.
"We're passing through," the tallest wolf says - there are two other guys, and that girl's slinked a long dark skirt onto her waist now, while the other girl curls an arm in around her hip. "Believe me, we don't intend to hang around with the yokels in hicksville longer than we have to. We just -" How he smiles - "thought we smelled some potential around here."
It's Kurt who says, steady in the dark, "Some 'potential' for what?"
"Well we'll find out, won't we?" the tallest wolf says sweetly. "We're always willing to recruit more wolves."
Kurt says like it's the end of a discussion, "We already have a pack."
"Okay, a wolf and his bitch don't make a pack, you need a little bit more than that." He's not looking at Kurt, he's still looking at Blaine. "I've scented you around, haven't I? Now, you smell like potential." Blaine can feel his eyes look him up and down. "You smell like potential all over."
It takes a second after the in-breath for him to know what he's going to say, flattery, embarrassing to admit, warms his stomach, but mostly he feels uncomfortable. "We - we're not passing through, this is where we live, so if you guys are moving on then the best we can do is, um - penpals?" He tries to smile, to lighten the situation a little, because he can sense something heavy in Kurt and this guy is looking at him really, really intently, and Blaine tries not to make it obvious how hard he's working to scent him, to work out -
He smells like that kind of interest.
Oh.
Kurt says, "We heard a howl the other night."
He doesn't look away from Blaine. "I'm sorry, I thought I made it obvious that we're recruiting wolves, we're really not interested in a dog. What about it? You could take a run with us. See where the night leads us."
"I - um." In the dark, the blush won't show; wolves can smell it, though. "We really did hear you howl the other night, what were you - was that for us?"
He shrugs. "Just summoning my pack. Telling them I found us somewhere new to play."
Kurt's voice comes hard. "A boy at my school got bitten. Was that you? You just bit some guy -?"
"Oh, him, he could be interesting." the tall wolf says dismissively, and then to Blaine, "Can you stop him yapping? You know you really should learn to control your-"
Blaine closes his hands into fists. "I think it's pretty obvious to you guys that Kurt's my alpha and whatever he says goes for both of us. And we do have a pack. And you bit a guy, he's completely - why would you -?"
"We're recruiting wolves," he says, head a little cocked now, still watching Blaine. "So, your poodle's called Kurt, and I'm Sebastian. And you are?"
It's partly hard-ingrained manners, and partly unignorable wolf etiquette: the wolf whom you scent also scents you. "Blaine." comes out between his teeth, and he can feel the vibration in Kurt kept controlled, the strain held steady in him. Kurt can control more than this, but faced with five unknown wolves -
Kurt says, "We have a pack. You're on our territory. If you're passing through, pass through."
"So who's your pack?" Sebastian says, finally looking at Kurt who blinks but looks evenly, stonily back. "Mommy and daddy and all the other little poodles? And they understand you, do they, they understand the wolf of you? Well, not the wolf of you, but someone like him -" Back to Blaine, whose shoulders hunch a little, too much attention - "You think they're pack? They're humans. They're apes. You're a wolf, they're not pack, you're not a dog." Blaine's mind flickers to the collars on the back seat of the car and his ears burn. "I've scented you around," Sebastian says, hands slipping into his pockets, smiling at Blaine. "I did my research and I sniffed this place out, and the only two wolves within a hundred miles of here are you two, if we are counting the bichon frise over there. So, that narrows it down to one of you two who put three guys in high school in the hospital a couple of years ago, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't the lapdog. Was it?"
He's looking at Blaine, and Blaine isn't breathing.
(His mind is silenced. It's his muscles, his taut straining muscles who set up the scream of no no no no not in front of Kurt not in front of Kurt no no no -)
"I'm recruiting wolves." Sebastian says, watching him so intently. "You know what you are. You know what's wild in you. They can't be your pack, you're not domesticated, cute as the bashful schoolboy thing you've got going is. You're a wolf, and when they cross you they learn that hard, and you know what their blood tastes like. So walk away from the pup. Seriously, if he's your alpha -" He slinks a smirk across at Kurt - "I have a lot I can teach you about dominance."
Kurt steps forward.
Every wolf there feels it, Blaine does, his entire body cups its cringe, the four wolves behind Sebastian all stiffen. Kurt's lip curls, his eyes are narrowed and too-light, his hands are fisted at his sides. "Wolf," he spits, contempt like a bite. "What the hell would you know about wolves? You smell like dry cleaning and too much cologne, you're about as wild as if you just stepped out of the groomers -"
"Don't make me turn, Lady, I really don't want to rip your throat out in front of-"
Kurt's shoulders settle and his spine is straight and Blaine's inner wolf is on its belly in the leaves, he can feel the other wolves reeling. Sebastian's body is still, but Blaine can smell the sweat on him. Kurt says, "You smell like Craigslist." and lifts his head, regal in the dark. "Get off my territory. Get away from my pack. Don't make me turn, don't make me laugh. Do you think wolves give threats? Wolves mean it. Take your bad horror fiction fantasies of what werewolves are out of my state, I really don't want to have to smell any more sad delusion and you reek of it."
Sebastian's body's turned to Kurt now, and his eyes are on Kurt, his attention all on Kurt and he's very still, apart from his hands coming from his pockets and working at his sides. Eventually he says, "You know what, this far from the full moon you smell so much of human it makes me feel a bit sick. So how about we pick this up the other side of the new moon, when you can actually smell enough to know how much I mean it, and my wolf can pull your throat out without my human retching too much at how fruity you taste."
Kurt just glares unimpressed back, his wolf a sturdy presence all around him, while Sebastian looks at Blaine and says, "I'll see you around. If you need to wash his perfume off you, maybe roll in the blood of a couple more humans." and he turns, walks off into the trees along the highway. His wolves fall into line behind him, glancing back at Kurt, keeping their backs bent away from him. Kurt just watches him go, breathing slow and very tight; it's dark enough that within seconds they can't see them, and after only a minute more they can no longer hear them cracking twigs and shifting leaves. And Blaine puts his hands on the car's hood to hold himself upright, cold metal under his hands and ringing in his ears and he's going to be sick.
Kurt falters, all the alpha seems to fall back like he snapped his fingers and he's just Kurt again, just a boy in the falling dark, and he says, "Blaine?"
Blaine stares at the hood of his car, colourless in the dusk, and in his muscles and in his mind it throbs like his panicked heartbeat, three guys in high school, roll in the blood of -
"Blaine," Kurt says, walking around the hood. Blaine snaps his head up teeth bared and then - stops himself, appalled, and Kurt just stands there, holding his own arms close against himself, watching Blaine steady but tense. "Blaine?"
He swallows, and his hands curl into fists against the metal. "I - would have told you. I would have, eventually, we only just - I didn't -"
Kurt just watches him, lips a little parted, eyes tracing Blaine's face like he can see right through it and it's breaking his heart.
"I'm not - Kurt I'm not, I'm not, I'm not -"
"I know," he says quietly, and steps forward, steps forward again and touches Blaine's jagged, flinching arm. "Blaine, I know."
"You don't. He -"
Kurt looks into his eyes, and it's dark and there's not much of a moon, but Blaine can see the flicker of light in them all the same, quiet sad light inside. He says, very softly, "That attack at that school."
"I'd only - I didn't know what I was doing, I - I thought they would - I was scared, I was so scared and it all just -"
"Blaine, it's oka-"
"It is not okay! How the hell is it okay? Do you know what I did to them? One of them lost an eye, one of them nearly bled to death, the other guy's hand's never going to -"
Kurt closes both hands on Blaine's arm and says to him quietly, soft almost-singing in the dark, "It's okay. I'm not scared. I just want to understand."
"You should never have let me near your family," Blaine spits back at him. "Do you know what I am? I could have killed them while you slept, you, I could have -"
"You wouldn't do that."
His breath snorts on rage, fear, loathing. "You don't know me."
Kurt says, "I love you."
It steals the angry breath out of him. It leaves his lungs hollow.
They're far from the full moon, and almost as human as they'll ever be. And Blaine looks at Kurt's pale face in the dark, his slow steady breathing, the pride and the acceptance in how he holds his jaw; this is the human enacting of a wolf concept. This is Kurt laid on the floor with his throat laid bare. This is Kurt's way of saying, I don't care, I trust you because -
Because we're pack, the wolf says.
Because I love you, the human says, watching Blaine with eyes quietly aware that he's owed nothing back for that admission, that all he's done is hold out a vulnerability for Blaine's sake and he has to be okay with whatever happens next, because there's no taking it back. It's said. It's written there on Kurt's heart whether he wants it or not, etched blood-livid inside him and now out in the world as well, handed to Blaine as a bright gory flag of vulnerability, I love you.
Blaine swallows. Kurt's hands are still on his arm. He says, his mouth dry, "I love you too."
Kurt's fingers close a little more on his arm, and he nods, just once, holding Blaine's eye. And Blaine's muscles begin, just begin, to let themselves go. The past matters now only in how they share it. The future is what the pack decides.
*
In the car Blaine stares at the steering wheel, and plays with the keys hanging from the ignition. "I didn't even know, I'd never turned before. We were coming up to a full moon, I'd have found out soon enough anyway, but . . ."
Kurt watches him, quietly intent, arms folded around himself not too tight. Blaine plays with his keyring, the particular unmusical clicking of too-light metal.
"There was this Sadie Hawkins dance, at my old school, before Dalton. And I had - just come out." He squeezes his eyes closed for a second. "And I went with the only other out gay guy in the school, just as friends. And when we were waiting for my dad to come pick up us . . . it was dark, we were walking to the parking lot, and three . . ." He swallows. "Three guys were waiting for us. They -" He stops playing with the keys. "I know what they would have done."
Kurt is silent, just watching him. Blaine stares at the keys, the dull gleam of them in the dark.
"We were coming up to the full moon. We tried running away but I heard them bring him down and heard them - hit him, and laugh, and then I tripped and someone had my shoulder and I -" The violence of that first turning, his body wrenched away from him, his mind gone, over the edge of fear into insanity; all he really remembers is the dark, and fear, and oh god why did Sebastian have to say it, the taste of it. "I was scared. I was so, so scared, Kurt, there were three of them and - and it's on the news all the time what happens to - to kids like us -"
"I know," Kurt whispers. "I know. I'm so sorry."
Blaine swallows again. "I don't know what happened. I turned. I -" He jerks his head to the side, eyes closed like he's trying not to see it again. "There was - screaming and - I don't know. I changed back - further in the parking lot, between two cars, I could hear them - one of them crying and a girl had started screaming and - and I was on my knees naked and -" Bile rises. "- I could taste -"
Kurt touches his wrist, whispers, "I'm so sorry."
"I sort of - it was like being in a nightmare. I knew what had happened, because it was the only thing that could have happened, it didn't matter that it was insane because - because everything was insane. I didn't turn any of them, I know you must - I didn't. I wouldn't have been able to work out how if I'd wanted to, I just -" He knows what he did. "I just hurt them. I changed back. It seemed the safest thing to do, I didn't want to be - me. I crept back over - there were people trying to help them, calling an ambulance, but I'd chased them off some way from where they jumped us, I must have - I must have chased them, oh god." He rubs his forehead with a hand, and Kurt strokes his elbow, whispers, "It's okay, it's okay."
"I crept back, picked up as much of my clothing as I could, I had to leave my jacket, the wolf can't carry . . . I, I dumped it all in a creek and I ran. I ran home. Back to my room. My cell was in my jacket, it . . . everything was a mess. I had to wash the blood off myself." He remembers the rusty colour of the water pouring down the shower's drain, he can still smell it. "I told my mom there'd been some trouble with some guys, I'd lost my jacket, she had to call dad, he wouldn't know where I was. By then there were police and ambulances and . . . Kurt they could have died. One of them nearly did. I could have -"
"You didn't. They didn't die. And they could have - Blaine, they could have hurt you."
"That doesn't make maiming them right. It doesn't make nearly killing them right -"
"No. It's just a fact, as much as everything else that happened is." Kurt runs his hand up and down Blaine's arm, thumb stroking gently at the tight line of muscle. "Scared wolves fight. You couldn't have controlled it. I don't know what I would do if - I don't know. Scared wolves fight. It wasn't something you chose."
Blaine's - never thought of it in those exact words before. 'It wasn't something you chose.' It was something he undeniably did; now he considers that that doesn't mean he chose to do it. He opens his eyes, stares at nothing in the dark, while the witchcraft of Kurt's words work in his mind; he didn't choose to do that, he didn't then and he wouldn't now, he would never, never choose that . . .
Kurt rubs his arm, says in such a cracked little voice, "I'm so sorry, you had to - I'm so sorry, Blaine, I can't imagine . . ."
"My parents heard about the attack and wanted me out of that school. I didn't argue. I've never been back." He opens his eyes, puts his hand over Kurt's on his arm. "I'm glad you had your dad. I'm glad you've never - never been on your own."
"I've been lucky." Kurt's mouth is too tight. "I've been spoiled."
"No. You deserve to be taken care of."
Quietly, "Don't you?"
Blaine's silent, then says, "I . . ." He swallows and puts his hand over his mouth for a second, because he remembers too much what it tastes like, sour in his spit. "I was so scared for that first full moon. What I might turn into. What kind of a monster I might . . ."
"You're not a monster. We're not monsters."
"I'm never going to be someone who didn't do that."
Kurt takes his wrist, says so softly, "Blaine." and lifts his hand, sets it at his own throat, palm to his pulse, fingers and thumb spread around his neck. He says, "I know who you are."
Blaine stares at his fingers on Kurt's white neck, Kurt's hand on his wrist, feels how calm Kurt's pulse is under his skin. It's a wolf thing. Is it? The human feels unsettled all the way through to be trusted too much, he shakes his hand free and folds his arms and Kurt touches his side again, leans in across the seat and hugs him. "I know who you are," he says into his shoulder. "Don't I? Is there anything else you want to tell me, so you know that I know and I'm still here and I'm still in love with you and I'm not going anywhere?"
Blaine turns his head a little, nose skimming into Kurt's hair, and he breathes in hard for the scent of him, gets his arms around Kurt too. "No." he mumbles. "Don't go anywhere."
"I won't."
"I love you too."
"I know. I know." Blaine squeezes his arms closed around him, pulling to get him closer, scent and press of him and he needs him. "I'm not going anywhere," Kurt sings to him, softly. "I'm not leaving you. I won't. I'm never saying goodbye to you."
Blaine holds on, and he doesn't feel like a monster, not holding Kurt. He feels like a boy who's been too scared for far too long. Kurt's heartbeat pressed in hard to his side he feels very human, very animal, very alive. He feels like he needs too much but, holding Kurt, he feels like he might actually get what he needs, this time.
Inside the car they hold each other. Outside it's dark, and there are wolves.
Part VII