Fic: Dresden Hollows 5/7
Five.
Puck is waiting for them on the front steps of the house when they get back, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. “Any luck?” he shouts above the wind. They shake their heads in unison and Puck's face falls. Blaine can see his mouth form numerous expletives before he turns and props open the door for them to enter.
Dinner is sombre that night. Constance and Toby are eating in their rooms and everyone else has abandoned the rule about dressing for dinner and are sitting around in jeans and t-shirts, Brittany even going so far as to come down in a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a hooded sweatshirt, her newly acquired dog sleeping in the front pocket. After they've eaten, she produces a shoebox covered in coloured construction paper and trails of glitter glue and passes out crookedly cut slips of paper.
“I was disappointed to find no name suggestions in my box,” she chastises. “I don't think any of you are taking this seriously.” She looks around the table, pausing for a beat on each person. “My dog is going through something, and he needs all of your help.”
“We're trapped here and she's worried about that little rodent?” Kurt grumbles under his breath. Still, he smiles at Brittany when she drops a pen and a slip of paper on the table in front of him.
Blaine stares down at his own paper, grateful for the distraction. He's not sure what to call a dog- he was never allowed to have one as a child. He glances over at Kurt, who seems to be having similar trouble, staring down at his paper with a furrowed brow and twirling his bright pink gel pen between his fingers. Blaine looks around at the others, a group of misfits with mismatched clothes and unkempt hair, and that's when inspiration strikes him. He jots down the name and folds the paper in half, then gets up from his chair to walk around the table and slide it into Brittany's brightly decorated shoebox.
Everyone retires to their rooms rather than grouping in any of the common areas after dinner. There is an air of exhaustion and a sort of acceptance spreading throughout the house. They can't do anything about their situation at the moment, so they're all sitting tight and waiting. Waiting for what, Blaine isn't sure. The tension is tight like an elastic band about to snap. His only worry is that when it does, someone will be stung in the process.
He and Kurt trudge up the staircase to Blaine's room without discussing where they're headed. Blaine is pleased to find that Kurt is comfortable enough to climb onto his bed and curl up amongst the pillows. “I never thought I'd ever want to leave once I got here, but I want to go home,” Kurt says.
Blaine swings back and forth on one of the bed posts for a moment before crawling onto the bed next to Kurt. He knows exactly what he means. After being outside today, after having hope and losing it so quickly, he's beginning to worry that they may be trapped in the valley without contact with the outside world for an inordinate amount of time. Then he remembers Artie telling him the day before that the owners of the property are on the outside and well aware of the fact that their guests are trapped beyond the impassable road. He used it as further proof that they have been orchestrating everything since even before they arrived, but Blaine takes it as a glimmer of hope. Jan was a smart, kind lady and he's sure that she is working arduously to get them out of here. After a moment, he relays this thought to Kurt and is rewarded with a smile and a peck on the cheek.
He watches Kurt's serene face. He has a little dimple in one cheek when he smiles a certain way. After a moment of staring, Blaine leans in and presses a light kiss to the dimple, and then another to the one in Kurt's chin for good measure. When he inches back he feels Kurt's arms wind around his neck, and he's reeled in, his lips landing directly on Kurt's own this time.
Kurt is very vocal, letting out little hums and moans of pleasure as they kiss and run their hands over each other's backs and arms and waists and hips. It's getting warm in the room, Blaine notices, and not just the natural sort of warm that comes with the exchange of body heat. He's loath to pull away, but he forces himself to, worried that a candle flame has caught something and started a fire.
What he finds, instead of the smoke he had been expecting, is steam. It's pouring from the doorway of the ensuite bathroom as though someone has just taken an extremely hot shower without turning on the fan.
“What the hell?” Kurt says. He sits up woozily as Blaine slides off the bed to go investigate.
The small bathroom is filled with steam.
“It looks like a sauna in here,” Kurt says, coming up behind Blaine. “Maybe the ghost is worried about your pores.”
Blaine huffs a laugh and turns to pull Kurt against him. He notices something on the mirror, streaks of clarity- lines in which he can see their reflections in sharp relief, as opposed to the foggy, dewy blobs they seem in the rest of the mirror. Something has been drawn on the fogged up surface.
“It looks like a map.” Kurt walks into the bathroom, head titled to one side as he examines the mirror. “Blaine?”
Kurt calls after him as he hurries back into the main room to grab a pen and paper from the bedside table so he can copy it before it fades away with the steam, which is already dissipating at a rapid rate.
“Look,” Kurt says as Blaine starts hastily scribbling out the lines and intersections as they appear on the mirror. “It says 'Jack'. That must be Jack Dresden's room.”
The drawing is definitely a map. The way the rooms are drawn, it looks like it might even be a map of the wing of the house in which they are staying. And that would mean...
“Brittany's room,” Blaine says, finishing the last line as the drawing fades from the mirror as if being sucked away, leaving behind only Blaine and Kurt standing and staring at themselves with wide eyes and pale faces. “The room that says 'Jack' is the room Brittany is staying in. Which means this one...”
“...is the one with the star drawn in it. Do you suppose the star is like a little 'you are here' on a map, like the ones at malls?”
Blaine shrugs. “Maybe.” He thinks there might be more to it than that.
Kurt's eyes widen further and he turns away from his reflection and grasps one of Blaine's hands. “Remember on the first night? Your friend Brittany said he stood over her while she was trying to sleep until she told him to go away. That would make sense if it was his bedroom!”
He nods at Kurt, an idea forming in his mind. “I want to find Emma,” he says. “And ask her about this.” He thinks she might have some insight. About the star drawn on his room, and also about the cross drawn on the door across the hall from Jack Dresden's old room. The door that leads to the attic.
Emma confirms that they were correct. It is a map of the west wing and the room Brittany is staying in was, in fact, Jack Dresden's bedroom. She hesitates before explaining the star drawn on his room, looking at Blaine and biting on her bottom lip.
“It was odd for the Dresdens to put up guests in the family wing of the house, but that summer all information tells us that they did. Evelyn Parker stayed there, in your room, along with her friend Rose Howard, whom the Dresdens were hoping to marry Jack off to.” She hesitates again, a guilty look spread across her face. “I always worry about those who stay in Evelyn Parker's room. They seem to get more frights than any of the other guests.”
“I'm fine, Emma,” he assures her. “Really. Other than a few tricks with candles and my razor disappearing, it hasn't been that bad.” He pauses for a moment, then asks her what he is really burning to know. “Why do you think there is a cross drawn on the door to the attic?”
Her eyes flit nervously between him and Kurt, and then the nearest doorway. “Probably because he was supposed to be meeting Evelyn up there the night that she died, I would guess. But I don't know for sure. If Jack left you that drawing...” She trails off and shakes her head. When she smiles at them this time, it doesn't reach her eyes. “I don't know, boys. Best not think about it too much. Jan will get that road fixed and you'll be on your way in no time.” She makes an excuse about needing to clean up a mess in another room, and rushes away.
Blaine has a need to find out why this map was left on his bathroom mirror. Was it left for him randomly, simply because he had been the one chosen to stay in the room that once housed Evelyn Parker? Or was there another reason? Whoever had left it there had done it while Kurt was in the room, when they could have waited until Blaine was alone. Was Kurt somehow important to this as well? He has an idea. He wants to talk to Jack Dresden, and he figures the best place to find him is probably in his own room.
He knocks on Brittany's door several times, but receives no answer.
“She's probably with Santana,” Kurt muses, and so they try the door. It isn't locked. The knob turns in Blaine's hand and he pushes the door gently open only to hear Santana yell.
“Jesus, you two! If it wasn't obvious to even the blind, deaf and dumb that you're both raging queens, I'd suspect you get your jollies barging in on me and Britts getting our mack on! Beat it!”
“I apologize,” Blaine tells her. Kurt is covering his eyes with one hand and trying to pull Blaine away and out the door with the other. But Blaine doesn't want to be removed from the room. He feels as though he has to do this. That Jack Dresden, or whoever it is, wants him to. But he can't tell Kurt this, can't say it aloud at all. It sounds too nuts.
“I need to ask Brittany about the man she saw in this room. Have you seen him since, Britt?”
Brittany pops up from under Santana, her hair an absolute rat's nest. “Oh yeah,” he says. “He's always hanging around. Wait a bit longer and he'll turn up again.”
“No, how about don't,” Santana growls.
Blaine holds out his key. “Look, you guys can take my room, okay? I promise that Kurt and I won't bother you all night. I just really want to talk to your ghost, Brittany.”
Brittany smiles and bounces out of the bed, straightening her clothes. She seems pleased that someone finally believes her.
Santana is not so happy with the situation. She snatches the key from Blaine's hand, promising to mess up his sheets real good, then follows Brittany outside and across the hall.
“You're okay with this, right?” Blaine asks, turning to Kurt before shutting the door behind the girls.
Kurt nods and hastily pulls up the blankets on the bed. “God knows what they've done on those sheets,” he says with a grimace. He leaps up onto the messily made bed and pats the mattress next to him.
Blaine joins him, looking around at the dim room. There is only one candle burning under the window.
“And now we wait,” Kurt says.
“And now we wait,” Blaine agrees.
They grow bored after an hour.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks with a giggle. “Why are you flailing your hands around like a crazy person?”
“They're shadow puppets!” Blaine tries to sound offended, but the farce doesn't hold up when he begins to laugh, dismantling his shadow puppet butterfly. “Didn't you ever make shadow puppets as a kid?”
Kurt shakes his head. “I'm an only child and my mom died when I was eight. My dad isn't really a shadow puppet kind of a guy. He taught me how to change the oil and rotate tires instead.”
“At least those are useful skills. My shadow puppets can't even charm cute boys,” Blaine says with a put upon sigh. Kurt laughs again. “I used to make shadow puppets with my older brother, but he mostly spent the time telling me how shoddy my attempts were and taking over with his superior ones.”
“Aww, poor baby!” Kurt pouts out his bottom lip, leaning in to give Blaine a kiss. “You know,” he says when he leans back, “we could continue what we started outside. Because I don't think Jack is coming to see us anytime soon.”
“Is that right?” Blaine is smiling when he stills Kurt's nodding head with his hands and presses their mouths together.
It doesn't take long to get back to where they'd been outside in the mud and rain. Kurt is making little hums of pleasure as Blaine kisses over his throat and runs a hand along his waist. He slips it up under his shirt, caressing his stomach, fingers running through the soft hair. Kurt moans and pulls Blaine's face back up, reattaching their lips.
Blaine's hand wants to wander downwards to where he can see the hard bulge in Kurt's jeans, but he's not sure if that would be moving too fast and the last thing he wants is to scare Kurt off. Kurt soon makes his decision for him, bucking his hips when Blaine's fingertips dip beneath the waistband of his jeans, and so he slides his hand down and squeezes Kurt's cock through the fabric.
“Oh God,” Kurt gasps, and bucks his hips again. “I have not known you long enough to be doing this.”
Blaine pulls back immediately. “Do you want to stop?”
Kurt's eyes are heavy lidded. He watches Blaine for a second, licking his bottom lip. “Hell no,” he finally replies, then attaches his mouth to the pulse point on Blaine's neck and rolls over on top of him.
Blaine lets out a surprised laugh which cuts off abruptly when Kurt thrusts against him, their cocks sliding together. But jeans are so restrictive. He wishes they would just disappear.
He runs his hands along Kurt's back and over his ass, squeezing the muscular flesh and pushing down for more friction. Kurt moans again and Blaine lets his legs fall open, wrapping them around Kurt's hips and crossing them at the ankles. Kurt begins to thrust more quickly, his breath harsh in Blaine's ear. Blaine feels light and happy. He can hear the wind pick up, the rain pounding hard against the windows, and his mind is blank of everything but the pleasure in his body and the fact that he's very close to coming in his pants like a teenager.
Somewhere in the house a clock begins to strike the hour. Blaine doesn't count the tolls, but there are a lot of them. “Midnight,” says Kurt's rough voice in his ear, and the he sucks on the lobe and Blaine feels orgasm approaching white and hot.
The wind blows more fiercely, making the windows rattle in their panes. “Kurt, Kurt,” Blaine gasps, and there is a piercing crash and all he can feel is air and tiny specks of cold dotting all over the parts of his body that are not covered by Kurt's.
“The window, the window,” Kurt is saying. He's pulling away and all Blaine wants is to drag him back.
But he's right. The centre window has broken inwards, the curtains standing out straight as the wind thrashes them around. They are being pelted with stinging raindrops and tiny shards of glass. The last thing Blaine sees is the way they sparkle and shine against the bedding, and then the lone candle is snuffed out by the wind and he sees nothing else.
Kurt tugs him up off the bed as it begins to rattle and slide minutely across the floor. Along the far wall, the dresser is banging and the end table is scraping across the floor towards the door. There is no reason for it to be moving in that direction; the wind is certainly not pushing it that way. The only reason Blaine can think of is that someone is trying to trap them inside the room.
He jumps up from the bed, pulling Kurt with him and rushes for the door just as the large, heavy wood dresser makes a break from the wall and begins to follow the end table towards it. They hurry to reach it first, Blaine's hand bringing up against the end table as they go. It feels hot to the touch and he gives it a shove, sending it skittering back. It hits the corner of the bed and the last thing he hears is the wood splintering and then they are out in the hallway, Blaine forcing the door shut behind them.
Things in the hall are not much better. As Kurt and Blaine try to catch their breath, the wind outside bangs against the windows at the top of the stairs and the settees and tables begin to slide forward, the chandeliers shaking violently in the ceiling above them. Blaine feels himself being hauled out from beneath one just as a section of it breaks off and smashes on the floor. Kurt grabs Blaine by the hand and they try to run, but there is an armoire that Blaine has never seen before blocking the way to his room. The chandelier at the head of the grand staircase is shuddering and looks about to fall. They turn and turn again, in a perfect circle, trying to decide what to do.
That's when Blaine sees the door to the attic. Feeling as though they are being chased, he leads Kurt in that direction, hoping the door is not locked. They need somewhere to hide until the others come to help them. As long as the others aren't in similar situations in their own rooms.
The door yields when Blaine gives it one forceful shove, and they stumble into the musky darkness, Blaine's knees bringing up against a low stair. They huddle into the narrow space and walk up a few steps so that they are able to close the door behind them.
It's quiet. Blaine takes several deep breaths, hearing Kurt do the same beside him. As they slowly climb the remaining steps, the candles in a hanging chandelier light themselves, followed by several ancient wall sconces.
Blaine's eyes adjust to the sudden light and he glances over at Kurt's terrified face. He looks pale and shaky. Blaine moves in closer and takes his hand.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” Kurt whispers. “The candles. We're not alone.”
Blaine nods and backs down the stairs, but when they reach the door, it's stuck shut. The knob turns over and over in his hand and he yanks and yanks, but the door will not budge.
He shares another look with Kurt and together they climb the stairs again. Someone went through a lot of trouble to get them up here. Blaine is only hoping their reasons are not malicious. May or may not be malevolent, he hears Brittany say. He sincerely hopes it is the latter.
As they reach the top of the narrow staircase and enter the first and largest of the attic rooms, Blaine can hear a low scraping sound like rock on rock. Kurt gasps next to him and drops his hand. Blaine fumbles, trying to grab it back, but Kurt is walking away from him. He follows, watching as Kurt kneels down, coming up with a box.
“Blaine,” he says. “Look at this!”
They set it down on the dusty floor and gently pry it open. It's full to the brim with papers. As they shuffle through, Blaine sees stacks of letters tied together with faded ribbons, photographs and slips of paper so old that they are nearly worn clean.
“Emma mentioned these to Artie,” Blaine whispers to Kurt. “She said notes and pictures and letters were left in her room one by one. And that he wouldn't take them away until she had read them.”
Blaine takes a stack of the letters and settles beneath one of the wall sconces where he finds the best light. Kurt sits in the middle of the room and looks through the old black and white and sepia toned photographs.
“She was so beautiful,” is the last thing Blaine hears Kurt say, and then he's lost in the world of Jack and Evelyn.
Dearest Darling Evelyn,
I hope my letter finds you well. I have been receiving all of the New York papers hoping to catch a glimpse of you in the entertainment section. I grow excited when I see even just your name mentioned in a review or an article about a party. It seems as though the entire city is as enamoured with you as I am.
But how I miss you! I long to see you smile and hear the delicate lilt of your laughter. Nothing- not my phonograph nor the live bands that are hired by my youngest sister to entertain us- can make such beautiful music as you.
Rose has written to say she will come for the summer, as she has been invited by my parents via hers. She says she will bring you along as her most special of friends so that we might meet and see each other for many weeks. I hope you are able to come, my dear. It is killing me not to see you. I was hoping to take the train into the city again next month, but my mother's poor health is keeping me here at present. She seems to use this excuse whenever she senses I am pulling away from her. Soon I will no longer fall into these traps she sets. I feel so smothered by them all.
Please consider coming to the Hollows for the summer with Rose. My sister Marion is planning parties like you won't believe and it will be ever so fun. We can take walks through the gardens and the woods and I will have the cook make all of your favourites, for I am the cook's favourite and have some pull in that area. Tell me what you wish for and I will do everything in my power to give it to you.
Much love,
Jack
He sees movement and looks up from the papers. Kurt is standing and walking away, out of the room. Blaine wouldn't be startled by this in and of itself, but something seems off to him. For one thing, though he hasn't known Kurt for more than a few days, he still knows enough about him to realize that he would never treat old photographs of someone he admires in the way he is now doing. They are trailing behind him as he walks, drifting from his grasp in twos and threes and fluttering to the dirty floor.
“Kurt?”
Blaine's second warning is the fact that Kurt does not answer him, though he calls out his name several times.
He's on his feet and following close behind in a heartbeat and reaches Kurt just as he's opening another door in the adjacent room. As he sees Kurt unlatch the old lock and turn the handle, it strikes Blaine suddenly that he knows exactly where this door will lead and he has never been more certain of anything in his life as he is of the fact that he does not want to go there. He takes Kurt gently by the shoulders and says his name again, but he is shrugged off.
Behind the door he can feel the night air and see the vague, shadowy shape of another staircase. “Kurt, we can't go up there,” he says. He reaches out to take Kurt by the shoulders again, his grip firm this time, but he is thrown backwards into the wall. He sucks in a breath and feels for the solidity of the floor to help right him once more. By the time he's back on his feet, Kurt has disappeared from view.
“Kurt! Come back!” The wind swallows his plea as he follows Kurt out onto the roof.
They are on the widow's walk. Blaine can make out Kurt's form a few feet in front of him amidst the crumbling stone and dark sheets of roofing. The rain has quieted to a drizzle, but it stings as it hits Blaine in the face all the same. He inches slowly in Kurt's direction. Kurt looks as though he is in a daze, meandering to the far corner of the widow's walk seemingly without purpose. Blaine doesn't want to startle him; the railing is old and likely not sturdy.
“It wasn't an accident,” he hears Kurt say, his voice an eerie monotone. “They broke the railing.”
Just as the words leave Kurt's lips there is a tremendous flash of lightning, illuminating the scene in front of him. The railing is indeed broken; it lays snapped and rusted only feet in front of Kurt, the spires sticking up worryingly all around. Perfect to fall on. Perfect for conducting the lightning that is once again lighting up the night sky above.
“Kurt, come on now,” Blaine is saying. “It's not safe. We have to get inside.”
He inches minutely forward, cursing under his breath that he can't think of a better plan.
“She tripped and fell and died. They did it on purpose. They overheard us talking, knew I would leave with her. They couldn't have that. If she fell then I couldn't leave. So they had the maid stall me and I was late and she fell and fell and screamed.”
“Kurt.” Blaine is shaking now, his heart pounding so loudly that he can hear it, the sound keeping time with the steps he takes towards Kurt. “What are- Kurt, don't go any further.”
The lightning flashes again, a clap of thunder following close behind. The lightning's close. Are you all morons? Puck's voice chastises in his head. He needs to get Kurt away from the edge so he can try to carry him back inside.
“It wasn't an accident,” Kurt says again. “Wasn't an accident.”
Blaine is in reaching distance now. He takes a deep breath, arms outstretched, but Kurt lunges forward suddenly, away from his grasping hands. He's so close to the edge now.
“No, Kurt, don't go that way,” Blaine pleads. “Please.” His voice is thick with unshed tears. There is another flash of lightning, bringing into stark relief the grinning face of a gargoyle who sits high on the ledge of a nearby chimney.
The thunder rumbles through the sky and Blaine can feel it deep within his bones. He sucks air in, tasting earth and ozone, then springs forward, grabbing Kurt around the middle and tackling him to the roof. Kurt doesn't try to fight him off as he had been expecting, just lays there with blank eyes staring skyward, droplets of rain beading on his waxy skin and in his eyelashes. “It wasn't an accident,” spilling over and over from his lips.
The power flickers to life as Blaine is leading a still groggy Kurt out of the attic door. The electric lights are blazing all around them. Every bit of furniture is still in its proper place and the chandeliers are all intact and hanging from the ceiling as they should be. The hallway is silent and serene as though nothing ever happened.
They go to Kurt's room. Kurt is shaking violently and has still not said a word since waking from his stupor. Blaine is desperate to get him warm and safe. After a hot shower and a change of clothes, they fall asleep wrapped up together under a mound of blankets.
When Blaine wakes in the morning, Kurt is watching him. He checks Kurt's eyes, but they are clear; he seems alert.
“What happened?” Kurt whispers. His lips are quivering, so Blaine leans in to quiet them with a gentle kiss.
“I'm not even sure,” he answers. “I think Jack-”
Kurt's long, pale fingers shoot out from under the covers and rest against Blaine's lips. He is shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Don't say his name.”
Blaine nods and Kurt retracts his fingers, his eyes downcast. “I can't remember, but please don't say his name,” he repeats in a whisper.
# #
Kurt is quiet and seems to be trying to piece things together as they walk down the hall to Brittany's room. The door stands ajar and there is activity inside- Brittany and Santana doing their makeup in the large oval mirror.
“But the window-” Kurt stops himself and looks to Blaine, who shrugs infinitesimally and says good morning to the girls.
Kurt wanders over to the window, garnering strange looks from Santana. He seems lost, his fingers running over the fabric of the curtains as he watches outside. Blaine waits for Santana's remarks, his ire already prickling at the back of his neck and readying his tongue to retort, but after a second she furrows her brow and looks back at her reflection, uncapping a tube of lipstick.
Blaine joins Kurt by the window. Kurt gives Blaine a covert look, then lifts the curtain for him to see- imbedded all over the deep wine fabric are fine shards of glass, shimmering in the rays of the sun.
# # #
“We have Kurt Hummel, fellow guest here at Dresden Hollows on what was meant to be a three day stay, but has turned into a much longer one.” Kurt looks away from Artie and over to where Blaine sits in the corner. He offers him a small smile of encouragement and Kurt turns his attention back on Artie.
“And what has your experience been like, Kurt? What encounters have you had with the great beyond?”
“I told you I don't remember what happened out there on the roof, Artie,” he says. His voice is strong and he straightens in his seat. Blaine feels a sense of relief flood him. Kurt has been quiet and standoffish over the past few days, ever since the incident on the roof, as they've taken to calling it. As the rain stopped and the road was mended, they welcomed back Jan and finally got to meet Liz, as well as the Forresters, the tardy couple who missed all of the action, but Kurt had not been himself. He sat next to Blaine and ate and drank and listened to the others' stories, never once offering up any of his own.
“I don't remember any of what Blaine told me happened up there. Nothing after we got into the attic. But there is-” He stops and shakes his head, as though shaking the thought away.
“There is what?” Artie pushes.
Kurt stares down at his hands for a long, silent moment, then looks back up, directly into Artie's camera. “There's a vision I keep having. Maybe it's a dream, maybe a memory, I don't know. In it I- I can hear her; she's screaming. She screams and he runs and runs. To the top of the stairs, to the roof. But she's already broken. She's already on the ground. There is a light shining on her from a window down below and he- I can see her body, the blood pooling around her. He collapses on the widow's walk and blacks out, and then it all happens again. Over and over and over and over. That's all he ever sees.”
Kurt stops, his chin trembling and his eyes wet. “And what would any of us do if that was our fate?” he says.
# # #
previous next
Puck is waiting for them on the front steps of the house when they get back, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. “Any luck?” he shouts above the wind. They shake their heads in unison and Puck's face falls. Blaine can see his mouth form numerous expletives before he turns and props open the door for them to enter.
Dinner is sombre that night. Constance and Toby are eating in their rooms and everyone else has abandoned the rule about dressing for dinner and are sitting around in jeans and t-shirts, Brittany even going so far as to come down in a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a hooded sweatshirt, her newly acquired dog sleeping in the front pocket. After they've eaten, she produces a shoebox covered in coloured construction paper and trails of glitter glue and passes out crookedly cut slips of paper.
“I was disappointed to find no name suggestions in my box,” she chastises. “I don't think any of you are taking this seriously.” She looks around the table, pausing for a beat on each person. “My dog is going through something, and he needs all of your help.”
“We're trapped here and she's worried about that little rodent?” Kurt grumbles under his breath. Still, he smiles at Brittany when she drops a pen and a slip of paper on the table in front of him.
Blaine stares down at his own paper, grateful for the distraction. He's not sure what to call a dog- he was never allowed to have one as a child. He glances over at Kurt, who seems to be having similar trouble, staring down at his paper with a furrowed brow and twirling his bright pink gel pen between his fingers. Blaine looks around at the others, a group of misfits with mismatched clothes and unkempt hair, and that's when inspiration strikes him. He jots down the name and folds the paper in half, then gets up from his chair to walk around the table and slide it into Brittany's brightly decorated shoebox.
Everyone retires to their rooms rather than grouping in any of the common areas after dinner. There is an air of exhaustion and a sort of acceptance spreading throughout the house. They can't do anything about their situation at the moment, so they're all sitting tight and waiting. Waiting for what, Blaine isn't sure. The tension is tight like an elastic band about to snap. His only worry is that when it does, someone will be stung in the process.
He and Kurt trudge up the staircase to Blaine's room without discussing where they're headed. Blaine is pleased to find that Kurt is comfortable enough to climb onto his bed and curl up amongst the pillows. “I never thought I'd ever want to leave once I got here, but I want to go home,” Kurt says.
Blaine swings back and forth on one of the bed posts for a moment before crawling onto the bed next to Kurt. He knows exactly what he means. After being outside today, after having hope and losing it so quickly, he's beginning to worry that they may be trapped in the valley without contact with the outside world for an inordinate amount of time. Then he remembers Artie telling him the day before that the owners of the property are on the outside and well aware of the fact that their guests are trapped beyond the impassable road. He used it as further proof that they have been orchestrating everything since even before they arrived, but Blaine takes it as a glimmer of hope. Jan was a smart, kind lady and he's sure that she is working arduously to get them out of here. After a moment, he relays this thought to Kurt and is rewarded with a smile and a peck on the cheek.
He watches Kurt's serene face. He has a little dimple in one cheek when he smiles a certain way. After a moment of staring, Blaine leans in and presses a light kiss to the dimple, and then another to the one in Kurt's chin for good measure. When he inches back he feels Kurt's arms wind around his neck, and he's reeled in, his lips landing directly on Kurt's own this time.
Kurt is very vocal, letting out little hums and moans of pleasure as they kiss and run their hands over each other's backs and arms and waists and hips. It's getting warm in the room, Blaine notices, and not just the natural sort of warm that comes with the exchange of body heat. He's loath to pull away, but he forces himself to, worried that a candle flame has caught something and started a fire.
What he finds, instead of the smoke he had been expecting, is steam. It's pouring from the doorway of the ensuite bathroom as though someone has just taken an extremely hot shower without turning on the fan.
“What the hell?” Kurt says. He sits up woozily as Blaine slides off the bed to go investigate.
The small bathroom is filled with steam.
“It looks like a sauna in here,” Kurt says, coming up behind Blaine. “Maybe the ghost is worried about your pores.”
Blaine huffs a laugh and turns to pull Kurt against him. He notices something on the mirror, streaks of clarity- lines in which he can see their reflections in sharp relief, as opposed to the foggy, dewy blobs they seem in the rest of the mirror. Something has been drawn on the fogged up surface.
“It looks like a map.” Kurt walks into the bathroom, head titled to one side as he examines the mirror. “Blaine?”
Kurt calls after him as he hurries back into the main room to grab a pen and paper from the bedside table so he can copy it before it fades away with the steam, which is already dissipating at a rapid rate.
“Look,” Kurt says as Blaine starts hastily scribbling out the lines and intersections as they appear on the mirror. “It says 'Jack'. That must be Jack Dresden's room.”
The drawing is definitely a map. The way the rooms are drawn, it looks like it might even be a map of the wing of the house in which they are staying. And that would mean...
“Brittany's room,” Blaine says, finishing the last line as the drawing fades from the mirror as if being sucked away, leaving behind only Blaine and Kurt standing and staring at themselves with wide eyes and pale faces. “The room that says 'Jack' is the room Brittany is staying in. Which means this one...”
“...is the one with the star drawn in it. Do you suppose the star is like a little 'you are here' on a map, like the ones at malls?”
Blaine shrugs. “Maybe.” He thinks there might be more to it than that.
Kurt's eyes widen further and he turns away from his reflection and grasps one of Blaine's hands. “Remember on the first night? Your friend Brittany said he stood over her while she was trying to sleep until she told him to go away. That would make sense if it was his bedroom!”
He nods at Kurt, an idea forming in his mind. “I want to find Emma,” he says. “And ask her about this.” He thinks she might have some insight. About the star drawn on his room, and also about the cross drawn on the door across the hall from Jack Dresden's old room. The door that leads to the attic.
Emma confirms that they were correct. It is a map of the west wing and the room Brittany is staying in was, in fact, Jack Dresden's bedroom. She hesitates before explaining the star drawn on his room, looking at Blaine and biting on her bottom lip.
“It was odd for the Dresdens to put up guests in the family wing of the house, but that summer all information tells us that they did. Evelyn Parker stayed there, in your room, along with her friend Rose Howard, whom the Dresdens were hoping to marry Jack off to.” She hesitates again, a guilty look spread across her face. “I always worry about those who stay in Evelyn Parker's room. They seem to get more frights than any of the other guests.”
“I'm fine, Emma,” he assures her. “Really. Other than a few tricks with candles and my razor disappearing, it hasn't been that bad.” He pauses for a moment, then asks her what he is really burning to know. “Why do you think there is a cross drawn on the door to the attic?”
Her eyes flit nervously between him and Kurt, and then the nearest doorway. “Probably because he was supposed to be meeting Evelyn up there the night that she died, I would guess. But I don't know for sure. If Jack left you that drawing...” She trails off and shakes her head. When she smiles at them this time, it doesn't reach her eyes. “I don't know, boys. Best not think about it too much. Jan will get that road fixed and you'll be on your way in no time.” She makes an excuse about needing to clean up a mess in another room, and rushes away.
Blaine has a need to find out why this map was left on his bathroom mirror. Was it left for him randomly, simply because he had been the one chosen to stay in the room that once housed Evelyn Parker? Or was there another reason? Whoever had left it there had done it while Kurt was in the room, when they could have waited until Blaine was alone. Was Kurt somehow important to this as well? He has an idea. He wants to talk to Jack Dresden, and he figures the best place to find him is probably in his own room.
He knocks on Brittany's door several times, but receives no answer.
“She's probably with Santana,” Kurt muses, and so they try the door. It isn't locked. The knob turns in Blaine's hand and he pushes the door gently open only to hear Santana yell.
“Jesus, you two! If it wasn't obvious to even the blind, deaf and dumb that you're both raging queens, I'd suspect you get your jollies barging in on me and Britts getting our mack on! Beat it!”
“I apologize,” Blaine tells her. Kurt is covering his eyes with one hand and trying to pull Blaine away and out the door with the other. But Blaine doesn't want to be removed from the room. He feels as though he has to do this. That Jack Dresden, or whoever it is, wants him to. But he can't tell Kurt this, can't say it aloud at all. It sounds too nuts.
“I need to ask Brittany about the man she saw in this room. Have you seen him since, Britt?”
Brittany pops up from under Santana, her hair an absolute rat's nest. “Oh yeah,” he says. “He's always hanging around. Wait a bit longer and he'll turn up again.”
“No, how about don't,” Santana growls.
Blaine holds out his key. “Look, you guys can take my room, okay? I promise that Kurt and I won't bother you all night. I just really want to talk to your ghost, Brittany.”
Brittany smiles and bounces out of the bed, straightening her clothes. She seems pleased that someone finally believes her.
Santana is not so happy with the situation. She snatches the key from Blaine's hand, promising to mess up his sheets real good, then follows Brittany outside and across the hall.
“You're okay with this, right?” Blaine asks, turning to Kurt before shutting the door behind the girls.
Kurt nods and hastily pulls up the blankets on the bed. “God knows what they've done on those sheets,” he says with a grimace. He leaps up onto the messily made bed and pats the mattress next to him.
Blaine joins him, looking around at the dim room. There is only one candle burning under the window.
“And now we wait,” Kurt says.
“And now we wait,” Blaine agrees.
They grow bored after an hour.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks with a giggle. “Why are you flailing your hands around like a crazy person?”
“They're shadow puppets!” Blaine tries to sound offended, but the farce doesn't hold up when he begins to laugh, dismantling his shadow puppet butterfly. “Didn't you ever make shadow puppets as a kid?”
Kurt shakes his head. “I'm an only child and my mom died when I was eight. My dad isn't really a shadow puppet kind of a guy. He taught me how to change the oil and rotate tires instead.”
“At least those are useful skills. My shadow puppets can't even charm cute boys,” Blaine says with a put upon sigh. Kurt laughs again. “I used to make shadow puppets with my older brother, but he mostly spent the time telling me how shoddy my attempts were and taking over with his superior ones.”
“Aww, poor baby!” Kurt pouts out his bottom lip, leaning in to give Blaine a kiss. “You know,” he says when he leans back, “we could continue what we started outside. Because I don't think Jack is coming to see us anytime soon.”
“Is that right?” Blaine is smiling when he stills Kurt's nodding head with his hands and presses their mouths together.
It doesn't take long to get back to where they'd been outside in the mud and rain. Kurt is making little hums of pleasure as Blaine kisses over his throat and runs a hand along his waist. He slips it up under his shirt, caressing his stomach, fingers running through the soft hair. Kurt moans and pulls Blaine's face back up, reattaching their lips.
Blaine's hand wants to wander downwards to where he can see the hard bulge in Kurt's jeans, but he's not sure if that would be moving too fast and the last thing he wants is to scare Kurt off. Kurt soon makes his decision for him, bucking his hips when Blaine's fingertips dip beneath the waistband of his jeans, and so he slides his hand down and squeezes Kurt's cock through the fabric.
“Oh God,” Kurt gasps, and bucks his hips again. “I have not known you long enough to be doing this.”
Blaine pulls back immediately. “Do you want to stop?”
Kurt's eyes are heavy lidded. He watches Blaine for a second, licking his bottom lip. “Hell no,” he finally replies, then attaches his mouth to the pulse point on Blaine's neck and rolls over on top of him.
Blaine lets out a surprised laugh which cuts off abruptly when Kurt thrusts against him, their cocks sliding together. But jeans are so restrictive. He wishes they would just disappear.
He runs his hands along Kurt's back and over his ass, squeezing the muscular flesh and pushing down for more friction. Kurt moans again and Blaine lets his legs fall open, wrapping them around Kurt's hips and crossing them at the ankles. Kurt begins to thrust more quickly, his breath harsh in Blaine's ear. Blaine feels light and happy. He can hear the wind pick up, the rain pounding hard against the windows, and his mind is blank of everything but the pleasure in his body and the fact that he's very close to coming in his pants like a teenager.
Somewhere in the house a clock begins to strike the hour. Blaine doesn't count the tolls, but there are a lot of them. “Midnight,” says Kurt's rough voice in his ear, and the he sucks on the lobe and Blaine feels orgasm approaching white and hot.
The wind blows more fiercely, making the windows rattle in their panes. “Kurt, Kurt,” Blaine gasps, and there is a piercing crash and all he can feel is air and tiny specks of cold dotting all over the parts of his body that are not covered by Kurt's.
“The window, the window,” Kurt is saying. He's pulling away and all Blaine wants is to drag him back.
But he's right. The centre window has broken inwards, the curtains standing out straight as the wind thrashes them around. They are being pelted with stinging raindrops and tiny shards of glass. The last thing Blaine sees is the way they sparkle and shine against the bedding, and then the lone candle is snuffed out by the wind and he sees nothing else.
Kurt tugs him up off the bed as it begins to rattle and slide minutely across the floor. Along the far wall, the dresser is banging and the end table is scraping across the floor towards the door. There is no reason for it to be moving in that direction; the wind is certainly not pushing it that way. The only reason Blaine can think of is that someone is trying to trap them inside the room.
He jumps up from the bed, pulling Kurt with him and rushes for the door just as the large, heavy wood dresser makes a break from the wall and begins to follow the end table towards it. They hurry to reach it first, Blaine's hand bringing up against the end table as they go. It feels hot to the touch and he gives it a shove, sending it skittering back. It hits the corner of the bed and the last thing he hears is the wood splintering and then they are out in the hallway, Blaine forcing the door shut behind them.
Things in the hall are not much better. As Kurt and Blaine try to catch their breath, the wind outside bangs against the windows at the top of the stairs and the settees and tables begin to slide forward, the chandeliers shaking violently in the ceiling above them. Blaine feels himself being hauled out from beneath one just as a section of it breaks off and smashes on the floor. Kurt grabs Blaine by the hand and they try to run, but there is an armoire that Blaine has never seen before blocking the way to his room. The chandelier at the head of the grand staircase is shuddering and looks about to fall. They turn and turn again, in a perfect circle, trying to decide what to do.
That's when Blaine sees the door to the attic. Feeling as though they are being chased, he leads Kurt in that direction, hoping the door is not locked. They need somewhere to hide until the others come to help them. As long as the others aren't in similar situations in their own rooms.
The door yields when Blaine gives it one forceful shove, and they stumble into the musky darkness, Blaine's knees bringing up against a low stair. They huddle into the narrow space and walk up a few steps so that they are able to close the door behind them.
It's quiet. Blaine takes several deep breaths, hearing Kurt do the same beside him. As they slowly climb the remaining steps, the candles in a hanging chandelier light themselves, followed by several ancient wall sconces.
Blaine's eyes adjust to the sudden light and he glances over at Kurt's terrified face. He looks pale and shaky. Blaine moves in closer and takes his hand.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” Kurt whispers. “The candles. We're not alone.”
Blaine nods and backs down the stairs, but when they reach the door, it's stuck shut. The knob turns over and over in his hand and he yanks and yanks, but the door will not budge.
He shares another look with Kurt and together they climb the stairs again. Someone went through a lot of trouble to get them up here. Blaine is only hoping their reasons are not malicious. May or may not be malevolent, he hears Brittany say. He sincerely hopes it is the latter.
As they reach the top of the narrow staircase and enter the first and largest of the attic rooms, Blaine can hear a low scraping sound like rock on rock. Kurt gasps next to him and drops his hand. Blaine fumbles, trying to grab it back, but Kurt is walking away from him. He follows, watching as Kurt kneels down, coming up with a box.
“Blaine,” he says. “Look at this!”
They set it down on the dusty floor and gently pry it open. It's full to the brim with papers. As they shuffle through, Blaine sees stacks of letters tied together with faded ribbons, photographs and slips of paper so old that they are nearly worn clean.
“Emma mentioned these to Artie,” Blaine whispers to Kurt. “She said notes and pictures and letters were left in her room one by one. And that he wouldn't take them away until she had read them.”
Blaine takes a stack of the letters and settles beneath one of the wall sconces where he finds the best light. Kurt sits in the middle of the room and looks through the old black and white and sepia toned photographs.
“She was so beautiful,” is the last thing Blaine hears Kurt say, and then he's lost in the world of Jack and Evelyn.
Dearest Darling Evelyn,
I hope my letter finds you well. I have been receiving all of the New York papers hoping to catch a glimpse of you in the entertainment section. I grow excited when I see even just your name mentioned in a review or an article about a party. It seems as though the entire city is as enamoured with you as I am.
But how I miss you! I long to see you smile and hear the delicate lilt of your laughter. Nothing- not my phonograph nor the live bands that are hired by my youngest sister to entertain us- can make such beautiful music as you.
Rose has written to say she will come for the summer, as she has been invited by my parents via hers. She says she will bring you along as her most special of friends so that we might meet and see each other for many weeks. I hope you are able to come, my dear. It is killing me not to see you. I was hoping to take the train into the city again next month, but my mother's poor health is keeping me here at present. She seems to use this excuse whenever she senses I am pulling away from her. Soon I will no longer fall into these traps she sets. I feel so smothered by them all.
Please consider coming to the Hollows for the summer with Rose. My sister Marion is planning parties like you won't believe and it will be ever so fun. We can take walks through the gardens and the woods and I will have the cook make all of your favourites, for I am the cook's favourite and have some pull in that area. Tell me what you wish for and I will do everything in my power to give it to you.
Much love,
Jack
He sees movement and looks up from the papers. Kurt is standing and walking away, out of the room. Blaine wouldn't be startled by this in and of itself, but something seems off to him. For one thing, though he hasn't known Kurt for more than a few days, he still knows enough about him to realize that he would never treat old photographs of someone he admires in the way he is now doing. They are trailing behind him as he walks, drifting from his grasp in twos and threes and fluttering to the dirty floor.
“Kurt?”
Blaine's second warning is the fact that Kurt does not answer him, though he calls out his name several times.
He's on his feet and following close behind in a heartbeat and reaches Kurt just as he's opening another door in the adjacent room. As he sees Kurt unlatch the old lock and turn the handle, it strikes Blaine suddenly that he knows exactly where this door will lead and he has never been more certain of anything in his life as he is of the fact that he does not want to go there. He takes Kurt gently by the shoulders and says his name again, but he is shrugged off.
Behind the door he can feel the night air and see the vague, shadowy shape of another staircase. “Kurt, we can't go up there,” he says. He reaches out to take Kurt by the shoulders again, his grip firm this time, but he is thrown backwards into the wall. He sucks in a breath and feels for the solidity of the floor to help right him once more. By the time he's back on his feet, Kurt has disappeared from view.
“Kurt! Come back!” The wind swallows his plea as he follows Kurt out onto the roof.
They are on the widow's walk. Blaine can make out Kurt's form a few feet in front of him amidst the crumbling stone and dark sheets of roofing. The rain has quieted to a drizzle, but it stings as it hits Blaine in the face all the same. He inches slowly in Kurt's direction. Kurt looks as though he is in a daze, meandering to the far corner of the widow's walk seemingly without purpose. Blaine doesn't want to startle him; the railing is old and likely not sturdy.
“It wasn't an accident,” he hears Kurt say, his voice an eerie monotone. “They broke the railing.”
Just as the words leave Kurt's lips there is a tremendous flash of lightning, illuminating the scene in front of him. The railing is indeed broken; it lays snapped and rusted only feet in front of Kurt, the spires sticking up worryingly all around. Perfect to fall on. Perfect for conducting the lightning that is once again lighting up the night sky above.
“Kurt, come on now,” Blaine is saying. “It's not safe. We have to get inside.”
He inches minutely forward, cursing under his breath that he can't think of a better plan.
“She tripped and fell and died. They did it on purpose. They overheard us talking, knew I would leave with her. They couldn't have that. If she fell then I couldn't leave. So they had the maid stall me and I was late and she fell and fell and screamed.”
“Kurt.” Blaine is shaking now, his heart pounding so loudly that he can hear it, the sound keeping time with the steps he takes towards Kurt. “What are- Kurt, don't go any further.”
The lightning flashes again, a clap of thunder following close behind. The lightning's close. Are you all morons? Puck's voice chastises in his head. He needs to get Kurt away from the edge so he can try to carry him back inside.
“It wasn't an accident,” Kurt says again. “Wasn't an accident.”
Blaine is in reaching distance now. He takes a deep breath, arms outstretched, but Kurt lunges forward suddenly, away from his grasping hands. He's so close to the edge now.
“No, Kurt, don't go that way,” Blaine pleads. “Please.” His voice is thick with unshed tears. There is another flash of lightning, bringing into stark relief the grinning face of a gargoyle who sits high on the ledge of a nearby chimney.
The thunder rumbles through the sky and Blaine can feel it deep within his bones. He sucks air in, tasting earth and ozone, then springs forward, grabbing Kurt around the middle and tackling him to the roof. Kurt doesn't try to fight him off as he had been expecting, just lays there with blank eyes staring skyward, droplets of rain beading on his waxy skin and in his eyelashes. “It wasn't an accident,” spilling over and over from his lips.
The power flickers to life as Blaine is leading a still groggy Kurt out of the attic door. The electric lights are blazing all around them. Every bit of furniture is still in its proper place and the chandeliers are all intact and hanging from the ceiling as they should be. The hallway is silent and serene as though nothing ever happened.
They go to Kurt's room. Kurt is shaking violently and has still not said a word since waking from his stupor. Blaine is desperate to get him warm and safe. After a hot shower and a change of clothes, they fall asleep wrapped up together under a mound of blankets.
When Blaine wakes in the morning, Kurt is watching him. He checks Kurt's eyes, but they are clear; he seems alert.
“What happened?” Kurt whispers. His lips are quivering, so Blaine leans in to quiet them with a gentle kiss.
“I'm not even sure,” he answers. “I think Jack-”
Kurt's long, pale fingers shoot out from under the covers and rest against Blaine's lips. He is shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Don't say his name.”
Blaine nods and Kurt retracts his fingers, his eyes downcast. “I can't remember, but please don't say his name,” he repeats in a whisper.
# #
Kurt is quiet and seems to be trying to piece things together as they walk down the hall to Brittany's room. The door stands ajar and there is activity inside- Brittany and Santana doing their makeup in the large oval mirror.
“But the window-” Kurt stops himself and looks to Blaine, who shrugs infinitesimally and says good morning to the girls.
Kurt wanders over to the window, garnering strange looks from Santana. He seems lost, his fingers running over the fabric of the curtains as he watches outside. Blaine waits for Santana's remarks, his ire already prickling at the back of his neck and readying his tongue to retort, but after a second she furrows her brow and looks back at her reflection, uncapping a tube of lipstick.
Blaine joins Kurt by the window. Kurt gives Blaine a covert look, then lifts the curtain for him to see- imbedded all over the deep wine fabric are fine shards of glass, shimmering in the rays of the sun.
# # #
“We have Kurt Hummel, fellow guest here at Dresden Hollows on what was meant to be a three day stay, but has turned into a much longer one.” Kurt looks away from Artie and over to where Blaine sits in the corner. He offers him a small smile of encouragement and Kurt turns his attention back on Artie.
“And what has your experience been like, Kurt? What encounters have you had with the great beyond?”
“I told you I don't remember what happened out there on the roof, Artie,” he says. His voice is strong and he straightens in his seat. Blaine feels a sense of relief flood him. Kurt has been quiet and standoffish over the past few days, ever since the incident on the roof, as they've taken to calling it. As the rain stopped and the road was mended, they welcomed back Jan and finally got to meet Liz, as well as the Forresters, the tardy couple who missed all of the action, but Kurt had not been himself. He sat next to Blaine and ate and drank and listened to the others' stories, never once offering up any of his own.
“I don't remember any of what Blaine told me happened up there. Nothing after we got into the attic. But there is-” He stops and shakes his head, as though shaking the thought away.
“There is what?” Artie pushes.
Kurt stares down at his hands for a long, silent moment, then looks back up, directly into Artie's camera. “There's a vision I keep having. Maybe it's a dream, maybe a memory, I don't know. In it I- I can hear her; she's screaming. She screams and he runs and runs. To the top of the stairs, to the roof. But she's already broken. She's already on the ground. There is a light shining on her from a window down below and he- I can see her body, the blood pooling around her. He collapses on the widow's walk and blacks out, and then it all happens again. Over and over and over and over. That's all he ever sees.”
Kurt stops, his chin trembling and his eyes wet. “And what would any of us do if that was our fate?” he says.
# # #
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