Glee!fic: Sunrise
Sunrise, a Glee! fairy tale. No, really.
Disclaimer: If the series actually did start obeying the laws of fairy tales I would be simultaneously happy and terrified. Not mine, guys.
Rating: PG-13, some blood, some discussions of sex and sexuality.
Summary: Once upon a time there was a prince, or two, and a curse, and the inevitability of the sunset.
Too Long Note: I read too many fairy tales as a child and am psychologically scarred; everything wrong in my life can be attributed to The Tin Soldier and how my grief may never, never heal. Because these weren't just fairy tales, these were the creepy book of *old* fairy tales I found at my Nana's house, new enough that most stories had happy endings but old enough that the ugly sisters still cut pieces off their feet to fit them in the glass slipper, and trailed the blood behind themselves. So I am narratively doomed towards fairy tales, and occasional blood, and an obsessive need to write ten trillion happy endings to make up for The Tin Soldier and oh god I am tearing up just *thinking* about it. Also! Kurt! I am so sorry I hurt you again please don't let the karma get me I have a weekender coming up I need to be able to *dance*. I promise to write happy things for you. Involving cookies. You know I love you really. (Please?) LAST THING: Do you know what the best thing about writing set in a fairy tale land is? You can write in ANY DIALECT OF ENGLISH YOU BLOODY WELL CHOOSE. *throws arms triumphantly in air* I don't think I'd realised how exhausting trying to write in someone else's voice was until I wrote this =P
The sun hasn't risen yet. It will, so soon that all the morning is an inheld breath for it and odd birds sing in hope and need scattered through the forest, it will rise, it will rise and drain this mist out of the air, it will rise and set the dew turning the ferns grey like the ghosts of leaves abruptly bright and shining, morning like a promise. But right now the world is a hollow dark, a drained dark in the eerie not-light of pre-dawn, the world is an indrawn breath, and the Lord of Dalton Hall is taking his son hunting.
His son, who has no real heart for the hunt, has 'forgotten' his bow. There are servants with dogs deeper in the forest, beating animals out of their hiding, and he listens to the sound of their panic and thinks, Run, run, run. There is more to life than getting shot for sport. Run.
The Lord's horse swings with shock as a hare shoots from the undergrowth, its crazed zigging run neatly angling around the arrow the Lord sends thumping into the loam before it vanishes again, ferns shivering in its wake, casting dew into the leafmould with an audible patter of water. The son thinks, Run fast, little hare. Good for you.
Birds sing in panic, dogs bark in the dark. They can hear hooves. The son pulls himself higher in his saddle to see, heart sinking inside him, as the Lord raises his bow already taut and through the mist ahead it bursts onto the path gleaming in the dark, breath snorting in the cool air, delicate head shaking away from the dogs behind it, so bright that for one second, the son thinks he's seen a unicorn.
It's a deer. It's a white hart, young enough that its antlers are yet just stubs but its coat is silver in the dark, and as it sees them its head shakes back again, its eyes huge and startled on them, its nostrils twitching in fear. Its long slim legs skitter the path. And it leaps, as fast as the arrow the Lord looses which buries itself in a tree trunk while the white hart runs past his horse, building speed, brilliant and bright as lightning chasing the ground, past the son whose horse rears as he catches the reins up and his mouth opens and it is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, that running white deer in the mists of almost-dawn, as his father raises another arrow.
The white hart throws itself off the path and into the forest and all its muscles bunch underneath its shining coat to leap a bank.
The Lord looses the second arrow, straight and true and quick as death.
The hart leaps, for half a second as weightless as an angel.
The arrow takes it through the hind leg.
Its body twists unnaturally upwards as it falls, turning it shoulder-first to plough down the steep bank like a dropped white boulder, while the son without thinking urges his horse after it, even before it can hit the ground, even before the crash of its impact and that so-human cry of pain can reach him.
He has no heart for hunting but he loves to ride, and he and his horse know each other like their own hand and hoof: they take the bank sideways on, slowing their momentum as they descend, crashing fern and bramble aside, shattering twigs and sending last year's autumn leaves flying again, while overhead the birds are a cacophony now as the sun cracks through the world in sudden shocking patterns of gold on the forest floor, stretching the shadows out enormous. And there at the bottom of the bank, on its side, limbs splayed clumsily and an arrow sticking obscenely up from its thigh as it breathes quick and tight and sharp and high -
It's not a hart.
The Lord calls down to him while his son stares for one second too stupid to get out of the saddle, did it hit, did he hit it, and on the forest floor in the crazy-dancing light the leaves let through, a boy lays on his side fingers clawed in the loam, face white with pain, lips pale with shock, breathing fast and shallow and staring right through Blaine with fear.
*
Blaine gives his horse to a servant to take the boy back to the house, while his father goes ahead to wake the doctor. He walks back with the servants, holding the leash of two excited dogs, while Sam, one of the stable hands, tells him that it's the blacksmith's son. The blacksmith's son is strange and aloof and not exactly popular in the village, though why he's walking the forests before the sun's even risen is a mystery even by his standards.
Blaine pats a dog's side as it wriggles against his legs and remembers, as clear as if it's happening again in front of him, seeing the arrow hit the hart, seeing the arrow in the boy's leg. He doesn't say anything.
By the time they get back through the gates of Dalton the sun is getting high and his fencing tutor is there, and while he wants to go to the servant's wing where they've brought the boy to get the arrow out, he can't defy both his father and his tutor. Especially not his tutor, since he defies his father in his head every day of his life, but Wes is already standing in his immaculate white in the ballroom, reflected like a swan in the glossy parquet, épée poised and subtly dangerous. So Blaine changes into his fencing whites and the fourth time Wes jabs him neatly through his non-existent defence, he does it hard enough to bruise. Blaine staggers back, hand on his mask, and he can tell by Wes's shoulders how resigned he is. "I was going to say that you are not paying as much attention as you might but I'm beginning to realise that you aren't paying any attention at all, are you?"
Blaine pulls his mask up, pushes the sweaty hair out of his eyes. "Not. Not particularly, no, sorry."
Wes sighs, pushes his own mask back, as neat and unruffled as the swan-reflection following him on the floor. "Would you like to talk about it?"
"I . . . this morning I was hunting with my father, and -" I saw him shoot a white hart. "- and he shot a boy from the village, by accident."
"I heard on my way in." Wes walks to a little sofa at the edge of the ballroom, cream fabric, carved polished wood, and Blaine follows him still feeling mostly numb, apart from the bruise right on his solar plexus which hurts enough to let him know that not paying attention during Wes's lessons will never be worth it. "Is he alright?"
"I don't. Know yet." They sit side by side and Blaine puts the corked point of his épée to the floor, twirls it. Its reflection dances bright on the wood. Wes, he shot a deer. I saw it hit the deer. But at the foot of the bank -
He keeps remembering the boy's eyes looking right through him, near blind with pain and shock, and how utterly white his face was, like all the blood had already left him. Almost as white as that hart springing through the forest, white as morning snow, white as a winter moon, white as alabaster on the grave. White as a fresh shroud.
Wes says, "I sense that you won't actually learn anything this lesson."
Blaine swishes his blade a bit, shakes his head. Wes sighs, stands, props his own blade over his shoulder. "You've had a shock. You need to clear your mind. Without internal calm you'll never get anywhere with a sword, Blaine."
"So I'll suck forever, then." Blaine says, slumping back on the sofa, looking gloomily up at him.
"You're better than you think you are. You have high standards."
"And you keep completely whipping me."
"I have exceptionally high standards." Wes says, and Blaine cracks a grin before it fades again.
"Do you . . . my father was shooting - trying to shoot a white deer. It came really suddenly out of the dark, it was just there, and he shot and then - then it was just gone, and -" Wes I saw the arrow hit the deer. "And I don't - I - think -"
"You've had a shock. Your mind is confused and you always get too involved. You shouldn't take it so badly, Blaine. You didn't do anything wrong."
I saw it. I saw it. ". . . I feel like I've gone mad."
Wes sighs. "The blacksmith's son . . . from what I've been told, he doesn't really belong in that village any more than you do, Blaine. The future Lord is isolated by privilege. And . . ."
Blaine watches his face. "'And'?"
". . . I'm saying too much. Stand up, we'll try some exercises. Try to empty that overstuffed head of yours."
"Last week you called it underpopulated."
"Let's try to get it into proportion for once, shall we?"
*
It's the afternoon, and the sun is past its peak.
Heading to his rooms to wash and change, mask under one arm and wearing at least two more bruises for his wandering mind, Blaine sees from the window over a staircase the blacksmith walking out through the courtyard, cap held clenched in one hand. A servant walks with him, one of the cooks, touching his shoulder, saying something. Blaine looks at his hunched back and guilt is like carrying a bucket of ice water in your stomach, sloshing more loose every time you move.
(I was born up here and he was born down there and luck doles the rest of it out; he has to walk away and accept that we might have lamed or killed his son, and we can just paper over it with money we'll never miss and in a week's time it'll never even be spoken about again, not in this house . . .)
If he's leaving, does that mean the boy's alright, or -?
He waits for a servant to pass on the staircase he's not meant to use before he slips up it, out onto a window ledge he's really not meant to use, out onto the rooftop he is really not meant to use. But he can run along there to the window onto the servant's landing, quiet because his mother and sisters took half the servants with them for the season in the city, leaving Blaine and his father behind to bond, and accidentally shoot a boy (deer) in the leg.
He creaks his way down the corridor, testing doors onto empty rooms. He finally opens one onto a carved screen between the door and the bed, and he can tell this is the room, can sense the stillness of another person, not just empty air. And he can smell it, the meaty smell of blood, and that underlying smell of whatever the doctor used to clean the wound, acerbic as vinegar. He closes the door behind himself, and stands there still.
The room is silent.
He swallows, and pads for the screen, squeaks a board underfoot and winces but hears no responding movement. He raises a hand, hesitates for a second then knocks, gently, twice on the wood, and hears a little shift of sheets behind it. He says, "Hello?" and risks peering around it. "Are you -?"
Beside the bed there's a table with a bowl, some neatly rolled bandages, a jug of water and a beaker, and a brown glass bottle of that sharp-sour vinegar scent. The thin curtains are open, casting daylight into the room and across the bed, the bed occupied by the boy, wearing a borrowed nightshirt. His eyes are closed but not relaxed, his entire face tight with pain, a little sheen of sweat over his face, the flush of fever absurdly bright against his skin so white like he bled himself empty out of that wound.
And Blaine stands silent, breath stilled, heart slowed, and thinks, No. That is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And then ashamed, he pushes the thought to the cluttered back of his mind, and closes a door on it.
The boy's eyes open, and he blinks slowly, turns his head a little and makes an effort to focus on Blaine. He blinks again, closing his eyes for a long second, then draws a breath in and says, his voice dry and low but softly clear, "You'll have to forgive my manners. I would bow, but."
"Hi, I'm - Blaine. I was there this morning, my father . . ."
My father shot a deer, and now your leg is bandaged.
"I'm so terribly sorry," the boy breathes, and presses his lips together, and swallows, "for getting in the way of your sport. I will be sure to thank your father for only shooting me in the leg."
"Would you like some water?"
One of the boy's hands curls in the sheets, and he laughs a raw little laugh. "I don't see much point, personally. It seems like a waste of water."
Blaine picks up the jug, pours into the beaker. "Can you drink lying down or do you need me to help you to sit?"
The boy licks his lips, and closes his eyes again. This close Blaine can see they're pale green, and glassy with fever. "Thank you, but you really needn't bother. If I'm lucky I'll be dead by this time tomorrow. I'm beyond needing pity, really."
"It's not - pity. And you're going to be fine. I know Dr Figgins is a bit of an idiot but people usually don't die, he's more use than the village herbwife-"
Not a laugh this time, just an amused, if that is the word for it, breath through the nose. "You could have left me on the forest floor, it would have been kinder. I'm so sorry, where are my manners. You could have left me on the forest floor it would have been kinder my lord." His head tilts a little against the pillow. "I wish, I wish, I wish . . ."
Blaine stands there holding the beaker, feeling like maybe nothing will ever make sense again, because he saw a deer get shot and here's this boy saying nothing Blaine can understand and ever since he got up in the absurd dark before dawn today, nothing has felt normal. He says, "You shod my horse last time he threw a shoe, right? Behind the smithy. He really liked you."
The boy opens his eyes again, that strange sea green, too bright against the white of his skin. "Brown gelding, two white feet. Lovely thing. Stood like a lamb, would've turned a cartwheel for a sugar cube."
Blaine grins. "He's been great ever since. Thanks. What's your name?"
The boy looks up at him, looks confused now, and still vague with fever. "I wouldn't worry about remembering it if I were you."
"I'm Blaine. Have I said that? You're . . ."
He blinks, making a visible effort to focus on Blaine's face. "Kurt."
"Kurt. Hi. Will you do something really nice for me, because I'm needy like that?"
"What . . . ?"
"Just swallow, carefully, little sips." He slides a hand in under his head, his hair a little sweat-damp between his fingers, cupping and lifting his skull enough to get the beaker to his mouth. The boy - Kurt - drinks in a series of increasingly hungry swallows, and lets his head be settled back to the pillow. "I have no idea," he whispers, "why you're doing this."
"Because - because you need it. And my father shot you and I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry about that. And-" Because you're extraordinarily attractive and I'm a pervert, but let's not talk about that. "And - can I ask you a question?"
Kurt's eyes follow his face, at least a little curious now. "I don't see how I can stop you, really."
"I . . ." Blaine turns the beaker in his hand, puts it back on the table. "I . . ." This is going to sound crazy, and the boy, Kurt, is going to think he's insane. "I saw that arrow hit the deer. I saw it. And I don't understand - how it got in your leg."
Kurt blinks, slow, sleepy, drained. "Well," he says. "That came sooner than I thought."
"Kurt . . . ?"
He closes his eyes, shifts on the bed a little, his face tight with pain before he relaxes again exhausted. "Two years ago a magician came through the village with a travelling theatre, do you remember? They came here, to the Hall, to perform for your family. The magician did some tricks in the village square first. He-" He licks his lips again, and Blaine fills the beaker again, but Kurt just sighs. "He was a silly little bald man, with - breath like his teeth were the gates to Hell."
"I remember him." The play had been awful, the boy playing the female lead's voice was in the process of breaking and Blaine had sat with a hand over his mouth for most of the performance not to laugh out loud. The magician had been alright, though. Blaine didn't know how he did those tricks, gunpowder and coloured chemicals probably, he'd made dragons light up in the air. That had been good.
Kurt closes his eyes. "He came back to the village, after the performance. Drunk. And he found me sweeping out the forge and he offered-" The laugh sounds like it hurts him. "-to buy me, for a night. Three silver pieces." He opens his eyes, his mouth tight. "If I had a price, my god it would be higher than that. Who the hell does he think I am. And I laughed at him. Mostly because - because of everything. Because he scared me and because everyone thinks - the things they shout - that I wouldn't mind, that any man can propose anything he likes because why should I say no when I'm -" He swallows like it hurts. "I laughed in his face. I stopped when he grabbed my arm."
Blaine's stomach has clenched in, queasy. "He -"
"He cursed me." Kurt lifts an arm, slow and shaky, and puts his hand over his face. "He had some real magic in him after all. He cursed me for not wanting him, not letting him. Every time the sun goes down I change, and when it rises, I change back. Yes, your father shot a deer. And yes, that arrow got cut out of my leg. So." Blaine sees a tear roll out from under his hand, vanishing behind his ear, and his voice has got uneven. "So what happens next?"
"What . . . ?"
"Presumably you tell your father. You could sell me into a circus, or have me burned for witchcraft, or haul me down to the dungeons for it. Does this place have dungeons or just wine cellars?" His hand falls from his face and his eyes flit about the room, tears caught in the lashes. "Or do you not tell people? Let them walk in on a deer in the bed? Let them scream and panic and kill me? Or let them wait for the morning to burn me -"
"No-"
"They hardly need an excuse to kill me down there, god knows this is enough - you could have left me, you could have just left me on the forest floor, I'd have more chance out there with an arrow in my leg than waiting for the night to come here -"
Blaine wets his lips, and wants desperately badly to touch him, his hands just want to be on his arm, on his shoulder, he wants to wipe the tears off, he wants - he's supposed to not want these things. "I - when I first saw you in the mist -" Kurt blinks, and with a trembling hand wipes his cheeks off, and Blaine swallows. "I thought you were a unicorn."
Kurt laughs, sudden and startled, and the smile stays while he looks dazed up at Blaine. "A unicorn. My god. I've been called some things but never that."
"I'm not going to tell anyone. I'll . . . I'll work something out. They won't find out. I can - help."
"Help," Kurt says, like he's unused to the word. "How?" And then, more tightly, "Why?"
"Because." Too many reasons. "Because I will. You're feverish, lay down. Are you cold? I'll find some blankets. Rest. I'll make it alright. Just make it through the night, I'll - I'll think of something. Trust me."
"Trust you." Kurt blinks at him, his eyes all dizzy with fever, his skin too shiny, his body quivering on the bed. "As if it's fair to say that like I have a choice."
*
Trust me.
Because two years ago, another noble family stayed here while they travelled east, and they watched that performance with us, and I thought I'd found a friend. Because their son was smart and funny and interesting and I liked talking to him and spending time with him and watching him laugh and just watching him really, being around him and watching him, and sometimes being able to make him smile.
Because when they moved on my father wanted to talk to me, privately, about duty and youth and inappropriate feelings and What Is Not Done.
Because I was so stupidly naïve, the talk was nearly over before I even understood what he meant. And I felt so shocked. And so sick. So so sick. Because he was right, even if I hadn't noticed it and I might not have noticed it for years if he hadn't told me. Because -
There are words for it, Blaine knows a lot of words for it, but none he'd want to use about himself. Or about that boy in the bed upstairs, while Blaine digs out blankets and books and a lamp from his room. He understands what Kurt hadn't said in as many words. He looked into his eyes and understood what he couldn't say. Why should I say no when I'm -
And what was Blaine supposed to say, kicking a chest closed and juggling the clumsy pile in his arms as he heads back for the servant's landing, through the proper corridors this time. What was he supposed to say? 'Hey, me too, neat'? 'You're not alone, I'm exactly the same'? 'Are you aware that you're probably the most beautiful human being in the world'?
As if it's fair to say that like I have a choice.
He remembers the deer, bright as moonlight, flying down the forest path, graceful and quick and clean. And he remembers the boy in the bed, drained with pain and fever, anticipating nothing now but more pain and then death, because his secret will be out as soon as the sun sets tonight. Unless Blaine can do something, think of something, anything. Blaine's kept his own secrets as well as he can so far, but can he really protect another boy's as well?
A servant steps aside on a staircase to let him pass. "Can I - sir -"
"It's fine! No problem!" He stumbles a bit on the bottom of the staircase and heads off again, blankets juggled in his arms. Back into the servant's quarters and he can't work out how to open the door with his arms full like this, frowns at it for a long second before it opens on its own, and Dr Figgins nearly walks into him.
"Young master! You are - what are you doing?"
"I - brought some blankets. And books. In case he gets bored."
Dr Figgins looks back into the room. "Can he read?"
Blaine hadn't actually thought to ask that yet. "I can read to him if not."
"It's very - considerate of you, young master, but you don't need to . . ."
"It's fine, I'm bored without my sisters anyway, I need the company." He smiles, because he gets away with a lot if he just smiles and goes ahead with it, and slips into the room around him. Dr Figgins stands there with his mouth open, then follows him back in.
Kurt's lying on his side, hand over his eyes, curled up on top of the sheets; his rebandaged leg is shaking. He lifts his head as Blaine walks around the screen and sucks his breath in, reaches down to pull at the sheets to cover himself, laying there just in a nightshirt, long pale legs like -
Well, like a young white hart.
Blaine puts his pile down on the chair in the corner of the room, reaches to help and is rewarded with a little growl from Kurt, pulling determined at the sheets with his teeth clenched in pain. "You could knock. I don't care if it's your palace and your damned domain, you could knock."
"Sorry. Sorry, my sisters say that too."
Kurt manages to wrench the sheets back over himself and Dr Figgins flutters back over, pulling the sheets up, pushing Kurt back down again. "Stop moving the leg. You keep pressing more blood out, we're wasting bandages."
"Excuse - me, I'm sure." Kurt pants, and lets his head slump back into the pillows again. "How painfully inconsiderate that I keep bleeding everywhere after someone shot me."
Dr Figgins huffs, and snaps the sheets down properly. "You should show some respect, they could have sent you back to the village instead of caring for you under their own roof-"
"I am so ungrateful when people cripple me," Kurt says, glaring fury at him, his hands shaking as well now.
"No, I think Kurt's right, I think all the obligation goes one way here," Blaine says. "We really hurt him. It's fine now, doctor, I can take care of him. Are you thirsty again?"
Kurt closes his eyes, closes his fingers in the sheets. "It shouldn't -" His breath gulps in his throat. "Should it hurt like this? Did you leave half the arrow in there-?"
Blaine looks at Dr Figgins. "Do you have anything for the pain?"
"I can make him sleep. But those drugs are for when your mother gets her headaches."
"My mother will survive her headaches."
Kurt clutches at the sheets. "Why didn't you leave me there, I could have died already-"
"Don't talk like that," Blaine says quietly, unfolding a blanket, laying it over him. "Don't."
*
The fever lasts the day. Blaine reads to him, even when he's perfectly aware that Kurt's asleep and can't hear a word of it. He reads, slow and steady, because Kurt's head tilts to him when he does, his eyes open vaguely, he blinks dazedly at him and slips back under the fever again. Dr Figgins comes back to check on the bandages again later in the afternoon, tuts at the blood, and Blaine glances out of the window where the sun's getting low.
He can't avoid dinner with his father. He plays the guilt card, he talks about how bad he feels about it, fully beginning to consider it himself now - what can the rest of Kurt's life be like, if he does live through this? How will he make a living lamed in one leg? And it's their fault, and Blaine feels awful, and -
And his father looks at him with narrowed eyes and can't say out loud that he doesn't trust Blaine in the room with that strange boy from the village, that boy everyone sneers over, the rumours must have reached even him by now. He can't say it out loud because there's a servant stood by with the wine, and because Blaine can tell that he feels guilty for it too even if he won't say that. He shot a boy in the leg, and he can keep saying that he doesn't know what the hell the boy was doing out there before the sun came up in the middle of his hunt, but - but he still shot him, still stared down at him shocked and bleeding on the ground, and he's the same age as his own son. He has a heart, Blaine knows that. Blaine might not be what he wants in a son but he still tries for him. Somewhere in there, there's a heart . . .
Back in Kurt's room as the sun is falling, falling now and the shadows loom in the thick heavy light, Blaine tells Dr Figgins he'll keep an eye on him, he'll fetch him if Kurt needs anything. And smiles. And closes the door behind him. And pushes the chair up underneath the handle.
On the bed Kurt grips at the mattress in little spasms, sunk in fever and sleeping draughts, whispering things Blaine can't hear. And Blaine is scared of the sun going down, as he lights the lamps and wets his lips and stands by, nervous and waiting. He's scared of what might happen, scared of someone hearing, scared that he can't help - just scared, always scared, he's been scared for the last two years, ever since he found out that he's wrong and all alone in it. He's not alone now, but it's not fair to need anything from Kurt when Kurt is so helpless and so alone himself. What right does Blaine have to turn Kurt into something that gives Blaine meaning? Kurt is himself, and dealing with his own isolation, and even if they share something Blaine can't pretend to understand what Kurt's life is like anymore than Kurt would probably understand the loneliness and the guilt and the shame of Blaine's . . .
He goes to the window, to check on the last drop of bloody sunlight sinking under the horizon. And the bed creaks, and something gasps in so deep, huge bellows-lungs, and he turns to see -
The white hart, lifting its small fine head, the bed too narrow for it now. It bucks its neck up, makes a low breathy noise of distress and Blaine thinks, God, oh god, it's too big, what can I -?
It lifts itself on its awkward forelegs and falls with a crash to its side again, moaning its pain, shaking the bed; Blaine hurries to it, touches its neck - too hot, and flinching under Blaine's hands - and whispers, "Okay it's okay it's -"
It's not Kurt. He thought it would be, he thought he'd look into its eyes and still see Kurt, but all he sees are the bottomless black and incomprehending eyes of a deer. Its nostrils twitch and flare, it stares at him in terror, sheets fallen and bunching down its back. It smells, like fur, like the night outdoors, it smells feral and strong, but not unpleasant. "God oh god oh god," Blaine whispers, because what the hell is he supposed to do.
The deer tries to lift itself again, moans again when it can't. The pulse beats visibly in the side of its neck, hard and fast against its silvery fur. Blaine grabs a blanket, lays it out over the floorboards, gets behind the white hart and finds its wounded leg, gets his arms underneath and grits his teeth and lifts for it. The deer scrapes its hooves on the boards getting down from the bed, Blaine has to scramble on after it on his knees still supporting that useless, too-hot leg in his arms, god it's heavy, before dropping off the other side of the bed on his knees again to let its leg down. The deer thumps the boards to lay on its side on the blanket, mouth open, panting hard, eyes rolling to Blaine without any recognition in them. Not Kurt. It's an animal. Blaine understands the curse, now - Kurt doesn't just lose the shape of his body, he loses the shape of his mind when he changes, becomes - this, and yes it's beautiful but not the way Kurt is, not some proud and lovely boy but a wild and wordless animal . . .
Blaine touches its back, too hot but it's shivering, its fur star-silver and raised under his palm. He pulls the blankets down from the bed, lays them over its back as he would for his horse, and the deer thrashes its neck back and stares at him, nostrils flared, trapped and terrified and hurt and not understanding. "It's okay," he whispers, and strokes its shivering flank, remembers that that's Kurt's - Kurt's 'flank' too but the deer just shifts its leg a little, and stares at him shaking. "It's okay. I won't hurt you. It's okay."
It makes a low noise in its throat, and Blaine strokes its side some more through the blankets. "Okay, it's okay, it's okay."
The white hart pants, and lays where it's fallen. Blaine licks his lips, touches its snout, finds the nose dry. Is it like a dog, is that a bad sign? He leans over the bed for the water jug, wets his palm and offers it, and a tongue thick and rough and hot against his skin licks it dry. He cups more water in his palm. The deer licks. "That's better," Blaine murmurs, and the deer licks until it loses interest, coughs low in its chest and turns its head away. Blaine wipes his hand dry on the edge of the sheets, strokes down its neck. "That's better."
It flicks one pale elegant ear, and yawns, dark eyes slipping closed.
Blaine gets up to fetch the book, and sits in the cupped shape the white hart's body offers. It's cold on the floorboards but the deer's skin is so hot, and there are spare blankets to pull around himself. "Where were we up to? Zeus and Europa. Which is either about a rape or about bestiality, but it's not so nice a story either way. Nice isn't always the same as good when it comes to stories, though." He pats the deer's side. "You're still beautiful as a deer but very differently beautiful, which is something to be grateful for. There's perversion and then there's perversion, you know?"
The deer lays its delicate head on the floor, ears drooping back, eyes blinking liquid black. Blaine settles his weight into its shoulder, gradually sinking his body lower, and reads, quietly, into the dark.
*
Part II.
Disclaimer: If the series actually did start obeying the laws of fairy tales I would be simultaneously happy and terrified. Not mine, guys.
Rating: PG-13, some blood, some discussions of sex and sexuality.
Summary: Once upon a time there was a prince, or two, and a curse, and the inevitability of the sunset.
Too Long Note: I read too many fairy tales as a child and am psychologically scarred; everything wrong in my life can be attributed to The Tin Soldier and how my grief may never, never heal. Because these weren't just fairy tales, these were the creepy book of *old* fairy tales I found at my Nana's house, new enough that most stories had happy endings but old enough that the ugly sisters still cut pieces off their feet to fit them in the glass slipper, and trailed the blood behind themselves. So I am narratively doomed towards fairy tales, and occasional blood, and an obsessive need to write ten trillion happy endings to make up for The Tin Soldier and oh god I am tearing up just *thinking* about it. Also! Kurt! I am so sorry I hurt you again please don't let the karma get me I have a weekender coming up I need to be able to *dance*. I promise to write happy things for you. Involving cookies. You know I love you really. (Please?) LAST THING: Do you know what the best thing about writing set in a fairy tale land is? You can write in ANY DIALECT OF ENGLISH YOU BLOODY WELL CHOOSE. *throws arms triumphantly in air* I don't think I'd realised how exhausting trying to write in someone else's voice was until I wrote this =P
The sun hasn't risen yet. It will, so soon that all the morning is an inheld breath for it and odd birds sing in hope and need scattered through the forest, it will rise, it will rise and drain this mist out of the air, it will rise and set the dew turning the ferns grey like the ghosts of leaves abruptly bright and shining, morning like a promise. But right now the world is a hollow dark, a drained dark in the eerie not-light of pre-dawn, the world is an indrawn breath, and the Lord of Dalton Hall is taking his son hunting.
His son, who has no real heart for the hunt, has 'forgotten' his bow. There are servants with dogs deeper in the forest, beating animals out of their hiding, and he listens to the sound of their panic and thinks, Run, run, run. There is more to life than getting shot for sport. Run.
The Lord's horse swings with shock as a hare shoots from the undergrowth, its crazed zigging run neatly angling around the arrow the Lord sends thumping into the loam before it vanishes again, ferns shivering in its wake, casting dew into the leafmould with an audible patter of water. The son thinks, Run fast, little hare. Good for you.
Birds sing in panic, dogs bark in the dark. They can hear hooves. The son pulls himself higher in his saddle to see, heart sinking inside him, as the Lord raises his bow already taut and through the mist ahead it bursts onto the path gleaming in the dark, breath snorting in the cool air, delicate head shaking away from the dogs behind it, so bright that for one second, the son thinks he's seen a unicorn.
It's a deer. It's a white hart, young enough that its antlers are yet just stubs but its coat is silver in the dark, and as it sees them its head shakes back again, its eyes huge and startled on them, its nostrils twitching in fear. Its long slim legs skitter the path. And it leaps, as fast as the arrow the Lord looses which buries itself in a tree trunk while the white hart runs past his horse, building speed, brilliant and bright as lightning chasing the ground, past the son whose horse rears as he catches the reins up and his mouth opens and it is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, that running white deer in the mists of almost-dawn, as his father raises another arrow.
The white hart throws itself off the path and into the forest and all its muscles bunch underneath its shining coat to leap a bank.
The Lord looses the second arrow, straight and true and quick as death.
The hart leaps, for half a second as weightless as an angel.
The arrow takes it through the hind leg.
Its body twists unnaturally upwards as it falls, turning it shoulder-first to plough down the steep bank like a dropped white boulder, while the son without thinking urges his horse after it, even before it can hit the ground, even before the crash of its impact and that so-human cry of pain can reach him.
He has no heart for hunting but he loves to ride, and he and his horse know each other like their own hand and hoof: they take the bank sideways on, slowing their momentum as they descend, crashing fern and bramble aside, shattering twigs and sending last year's autumn leaves flying again, while overhead the birds are a cacophony now as the sun cracks through the world in sudden shocking patterns of gold on the forest floor, stretching the shadows out enormous. And there at the bottom of the bank, on its side, limbs splayed clumsily and an arrow sticking obscenely up from its thigh as it breathes quick and tight and sharp and high -
It's not a hart.
The Lord calls down to him while his son stares for one second too stupid to get out of the saddle, did it hit, did he hit it, and on the forest floor in the crazy-dancing light the leaves let through, a boy lays on his side fingers clawed in the loam, face white with pain, lips pale with shock, breathing fast and shallow and staring right through Blaine with fear.
*
Blaine gives his horse to a servant to take the boy back to the house, while his father goes ahead to wake the doctor. He walks back with the servants, holding the leash of two excited dogs, while Sam, one of the stable hands, tells him that it's the blacksmith's son. The blacksmith's son is strange and aloof and not exactly popular in the village, though why he's walking the forests before the sun's even risen is a mystery even by his standards.
Blaine pats a dog's side as it wriggles against his legs and remembers, as clear as if it's happening again in front of him, seeing the arrow hit the hart, seeing the arrow in the boy's leg. He doesn't say anything.
By the time they get back through the gates of Dalton the sun is getting high and his fencing tutor is there, and while he wants to go to the servant's wing where they've brought the boy to get the arrow out, he can't defy both his father and his tutor. Especially not his tutor, since he defies his father in his head every day of his life, but Wes is already standing in his immaculate white in the ballroom, reflected like a swan in the glossy parquet, épée poised and subtly dangerous. So Blaine changes into his fencing whites and the fourth time Wes jabs him neatly through his non-existent defence, he does it hard enough to bruise. Blaine staggers back, hand on his mask, and he can tell by Wes's shoulders how resigned he is. "I was going to say that you are not paying as much attention as you might but I'm beginning to realise that you aren't paying any attention at all, are you?"
Blaine pulls his mask up, pushes the sweaty hair out of his eyes. "Not. Not particularly, no, sorry."
Wes sighs, pushes his own mask back, as neat and unruffled as the swan-reflection following him on the floor. "Would you like to talk about it?"
"I . . . this morning I was hunting with my father, and -" I saw him shoot a white hart. "- and he shot a boy from the village, by accident."
"I heard on my way in." Wes walks to a little sofa at the edge of the ballroom, cream fabric, carved polished wood, and Blaine follows him still feeling mostly numb, apart from the bruise right on his solar plexus which hurts enough to let him know that not paying attention during Wes's lessons will never be worth it. "Is he alright?"
"I don't. Know yet." They sit side by side and Blaine puts the corked point of his épée to the floor, twirls it. Its reflection dances bright on the wood. Wes, he shot a deer. I saw it hit the deer. But at the foot of the bank -
He keeps remembering the boy's eyes looking right through him, near blind with pain and shock, and how utterly white his face was, like all the blood had already left him. Almost as white as that hart springing through the forest, white as morning snow, white as a winter moon, white as alabaster on the grave. White as a fresh shroud.
Wes says, "I sense that you won't actually learn anything this lesson."
Blaine swishes his blade a bit, shakes his head. Wes sighs, stands, props his own blade over his shoulder. "You've had a shock. You need to clear your mind. Without internal calm you'll never get anywhere with a sword, Blaine."
"So I'll suck forever, then." Blaine says, slumping back on the sofa, looking gloomily up at him.
"You're better than you think you are. You have high standards."
"And you keep completely whipping me."
"I have exceptionally high standards." Wes says, and Blaine cracks a grin before it fades again.
"Do you . . . my father was shooting - trying to shoot a white deer. It came really suddenly out of the dark, it was just there, and he shot and then - then it was just gone, and -" Wes I saw the arrow hit the deer. "And I don't - I - think -"
"You've had a shock. Your mind is confused and you always get too involved. You shouldn't take it so badly, Blaine. You didn't do anything wrong."
I saw it. I saw it. ". . . I feel like I've gone mad."
Wes sighs. "The blacksmith's son . . . from what I've been told, he doesn't really belong in that village any more than you do, Blaine. The future Lord is isolated by privilege. And . . ."
Blaine watches his face. "'And'?"
". . . I'm saying too much. Stand up, we'll try some exercises. Try to empty that overstuffed head of yours."
"Last week you called it underpopulated."
"Let's try to get it into proportion for once, shall we?"
*
It's the afternoon, and the sun is past its peak.
Heading to his rooms to wash and change, mask under one arm and wearing at least two more bruises for his wandering mind, Blaine sees from the window over a staircase the blacksmith walking out through the courtyard, cap held clenched in one hand. A servant walks with him, one of the cooks, touching his shoulder, saying something. Blaine looks at his hunched back and guilt is like carrying a bucket of ice water in your stomach, sloshing more loose every time you move.
(I was born up here and he was born down there and luck doles the rest of it out; he has to walk away and accept that we might have lamed or killed his son, and we can just paper over it with money we'll never miss and in a week's time it'll never even be spoken about again, not in this house . . .)
If he's leaving, does that mean the boy's alright, or -?
He waits for a servant to pass on the staircase he's not meant to use before he slips up it, out onto a window ledge he's really not meant to use, out onto the rooftop he is really not meant to use. But he can run along there to the window onto the servant's landing, quiet because his mother and sisters took half the servants with them for the season in the city, leaving Blaine and his father behind to bond, and accidentally shoot a boy (deer) in the leg.
He creaks his way down the corridor, testing doors onto empty rooms. He finally opens one onto a carved screen between the door and the bed, and he can tell this is the room, can sense the stillness of another person, not just empty air. And he can smell it, the meaty smell of blood, and that underlying smell of whatever the doctor used to clean the wound, acerbic as vinegar. He closes the door behind himself, and stands there still.
The room is silent.
He swallows, and pads for the screen, squeaks a board underfoot and winces but hears no responding movement. He raises a hand, hesitates for a second then knocks, gently, twice on the wood, and hears a little shift of sheets behind it. He says, "Hello?" and risks peering around it. "Are you -?"
Beside the bed there's a table with a bowl, some neatly rolled bandages, a jug of water and a beaker, and a brown glass bottle of that sharp-sour vinegar scent. The thin curtains are open, casting daylight into the room and across the bed, the bed occupied by the boy, wearing a borrowed nightshirt. His eyes are closed but not relaxed, his entire face tight with pain, a little sheen of sweat over his face, the flush of fever absurdly bright against his skin so white like he bled himself empty out of that wound.
And Blaine stands silent, breath stilled, heart slowed, and thinks, No. That is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And then ashamed, he pushes the thought to the cluttered back of his mind, and closes a door on it.
The boy's eyes open, and he blinks slowly, turns his head a little and makes an effort to focus on Blaine. He blinks again, closing his eyes for a long second, then draws a breath in and says, his voice dry and low but softly clear, "You'll have to forgive my manners. I would bow, but."
"Hi, I'm - Blaine. I was there this morning, my father . . ."
My father shot a deer, and now your leg is bandaged.
"I'm so terribly sorry," the boy breathes, and presses his lips together, and swallows, "for getting in the way of your sport. I will be sure to thank your father for only shooting me in the leg."
"Would you like some water?"
One of the boy's hands curls in the sheets, and he laughs a raw little laugh. "I don't see much point, personally. It seems like a waste of water."
Blaine picks up the jug, pours into the beaker. "Can you drink lying down or do you need me to help you to sit?"
The boy licks his lips, and closes his eyes again. This close Blaine can see they're pale green, and glassy with fever. "Thank you, but you really needn't bother. If I'm lucky I'll be dead by this time tomorrow. I'm beyond needing pity, really."
"It's not - pity. And you're going to be fine. I know Dr Figgins is a bit of an idiot but people usually don't die, he's more use than the village herbwife-"
Not a laugh this time, just an amused, if that is the word for it, breath through the nose. "You could have left me on the forest floor, it would have been kinder. I'm so sorry, where are my manners. You could have left me on the forest floor it would have been kinder my lord." His head tilts a little against the pillow. "I wish, I wish, I wish . . ."
Blaine stands there holding the beaker, feeling like maybe nothing will ever make sense again, because he saw a deer get shot and here's this boy saying nothing Blaine can understand and ever since he got up in the absurd dark before dawn today, nothing has felt normal. He says, "You shod my horse last time he threw a shoe, right? Behind the smithy. He really liked you."
The boy opens his eyes again, that strange sea green, too bright against the white of his skin. "Brown gelding, two white feet. Lovely thing. Stood like a lamb, would've turned a cartwheel for a sugar cube."
Blaine grins. "He's been great ever since. Thanks. What's your name?"
The boy looks up at him, looks confused now, and still vague with fever. "I wouldn't worry about remembering it if I were you."
"I'm Blaine. Have I said that? You're . . ."
He blinks, making a visible effort to focus on Blaine's face. "Kurt."
"Kurt. Hi. Will you do something really nice for me, because I'm needy like that?"
"What . . . ?"
"Just swallow, carefully, little sips." He slides a hand in under his head, his hair a little sweat-damp between his fingers, cupping and lifting his skull enough to get the beaker to his mouth. The boy - Kurt - drinks in a series of increasingly hungry swallows, and lets his head be settled back to the pillow. "I have no idea," he whispers, "why you're doing this."
"Because - because you need it. And my father shot you and I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry about that. And-" Because you're extraordinarily attractive and I'm a pervert, but let's not talk about that. "And - can I ask you a question?"
Kurt's eyes follow his face, at least a little curious now. "I don't see how I can stop you, really."
"I . . ." Blaine turns the beaker in his hand, puts it back on the table. "I . . ." This is going to sound crazy, and the boy, Kurt, is going to think he's insane. "I saw that arrow hit the deer. I saw it. And I don't understand - how it got in your leg."
Kurt blinks, slow, sleepy, drained. "Well," he says. "That came sooner than I thought."
"Kurt . . . ?"
He closes his eyes, shifts on the bed a little, his face tight with pain before he relaxes again exhausted. "Two years ago a magician came through the village with a travelling theatre, do you remember? They came here, to the Hall, to perform for your family. The magician did some tricks in the village square first. He-" He licks his lips again, and Blaine fills the beaker again, but Kurt just sighs. "He was a silly little bald man, with - breath like his teeth were the gates to Hell."
"I remember him." The play had been awful, the boy playing the female lead's voice was in the process of breaking and Blaine had sat with a hand over his mouth for most of the performance not to laugh out loud. The magician had been alright, though. Blaine didn't know how he did those tricks, gunpowder and coloured chemicals probably, he'd made dragons light up in the air. That had been good.
Kurt closes his eyes. "He came back to the village, after the performance. Drunk. And he found me sweeping out the forge and he offered-" The laugh sounds like it hurts him. "-to buy me, for a night. Three silver pieces." He opens his eyes, his mouth tight. "If I had a price, my god it would be higher than that. Who the hell does he think I am. And I laughed at him. Mostly because - because of everything. Because he scared me and because everyone thinks - the things they shout - that I wouldn't mind, that any man can propose anything he likes because why should I say no when I'm -" He swallows like it hurts. "I laughed in his face. I stopped when he grabbed my arm."
Blaine's stomach has clenched in, queasy. "He -"
"He cursed me." Kurt lifts an arm, slow and shaky, and puts his hand over his face. "He had some real magic in him after all. He cursed me for not wanting him, not letting him. Every time the sun goes down I change, and when it rises, I change back. Yes, your father shot a deer. And yes, that arrow got cut out of my leg. So." Blaine sees a tear roll out from under his hand, vanishing behind his ear, and his voice has got uneven. "So what happens next?"
"What . . . ?"
"Presumably you tell your father. You could sell me into a circus, or have me burned for witchcraft, or haul me down to the dungeons for it. Does this place have dungeons or just wine cellars?" His hand falls from his face and his eyes flit about the room, tears caught in the lashes. "Or do you not tell people? Let them walk in on a deer in the bed? Let them scream and panic and kill me? Or let them wait for the morning to burn me -"
"No-"
"They hardly need an excuse to kill me down there, god knows this is enough - you could have left me, you could have just left me on the forest floor, I'd have more chance out there with an arrow in my leg than waiting for the night to come here -"
Blaine wets his lips, and wants desperately badly to touch him, his hands just want to be on his arm, on his shoulder, he wants to wipe the tears off, he wants - he's supposed to not want these things. "I - when I first saw you in the mist -" Kurt blinks, and with a trembling hand wipes his cheeks off, and Blaine swallows. "I thought you were a unicorn."
Kurt laughs, sudden and startled, and the smile stays while he looks dazed up at Blaine. "A unicorn. My god. I've been called some things but never that."
"I'm not going to tell anyone. I'll . . . I'll work something out. They won't find out. I can - help."
"Help," Kurt says, like he's unused to the word. "How?" And then, more tightly, "Why?"
"Because." Too many reasons. "Because I will. You're feverish, lay down. Are you cold? I'll find some blankets. Rest. I'll make it alright. Just make it through the night, I'll - I'll think of something. Trust me."
"Trust you." Kurt blinks at him, his eyes all dizzy with fever, his skin too shiny, his body quivering on the bed. "As if it's fair to say that like I have a choice."
*
Trust me.
Because two years ago, another noble family stayed here while they travelled east, and they watched that performance with us, and I thought I'd found a friend. Because their son was smart and funny and interesting and I liked talking to him and spending time with him and watching him laugh and just watching him really, being around him and watching him, and sometimes being able to make him smile.
Because when they moved on my father wanted to talk to me, privately, about duty and youth and inappropriate feelings and What Is Not Done.
Because I was so stupidly naïve, the talk was nearly over before I even understood what he meant. And I felt so shocked. And so sick. So so sick. Because he was right, even if I hadn't noticed it and I might not have noticed it for years if he hadn't told me. Because -
There are words for it, Blaine knows a lot of words for it, but none he'd want to use about himself. Or about that boy in the bed upstairs, while Blaine digs out blankets and books and a lamp from his room. He understands what Kurt hadn't said in as many words. He looked into his eyes and understood what he couldn't say. Why should I say no when I'm -
And what was Blaine supposed to say, kicking a chest closed and juggling the clumsy pile in his arms as he heads back for the servant's landing, through the proper corridors this time. What was he supposed to say? 'Hey, me too, neat'? 'You're not alone, I'm exactly the same'? 'Are you aware that you're probably the most beautiful human being in the world'?
As if it's fair to say that like I have a choice.
He remembers the deer, bright as moonlight, flying down the forest path, graceful and quick and clean. And he remembers the boy in the bed, drained with pain and fever, anticipating nothing now but more pain and then death, because his secret will be out as soon as the sun sets tonight. Unless Blaine can do something, think of something, anything. Blaine's kept his own secrets as well as he can so far, but can he really protect another boy's as well?
A servant steps aside on a staircase to let him pass. "Can I - sir -"
"It's fine! No problem!" He stumbles a bit on the bottom of the staircase and heads off again, blankets juggled in his arms. Back into the servant's quarters and he can't work out how to open the door with his arms full like this, frowns at it for a long second before it opens on its own, and Dr Figgins nearly walks into him.
"Young master! You are - what are you doing?"
"I - brought some blankets. And books. In case he gets bored."
Dr Figgins looks back into the room. "Can he read?"
Blaine hadn't actually thought to ask that yet. "I can read to him if not."
"It's very - considerate of you, young master, but you don't need to . . ."
"It's fine, I'm bored without my sisters anyway, I need the company." He smiles, because he gets away with a lot if he just smiles and goes ahead with it, and slips into the room around him. Dr Figgins stands there with his mouth open, then follows him back in.
Kurt's lying on his side, hand over his eyes, curled up on top of the sheets; his rebandaged leg is shaking. He lifts his head as Blaine walks around the screen and sucks his breath in, reaches down to pull at the sheets to cover himself, laying there just in a nightshirt, long pale legs like -
Well, like a young white hart.
Blaine puts his pile down on the chair in the corner of the room, reaches to help and is rewarded with a little growl from Kurt, pulling determined at the sheets with his teeth clenched in pain. "You could knock. I don't care if it's your palace and your damned domain, you could knock."
"Sorry. Sorry, my sisters say that too."
Kurt manages to wrench the sheets back over himself and Dr Figgins flutters back over, pulling the sheets up, pushing Kurt back down again. "Stop moving the leg. You keep pressing more blood out, we're wasting bandages."
"Excuse - me, I'm sure." Kurt pants, and lets his head slump back into the pillows again. "How painfully inconsiderate that I keep bleeding everywhere after someone shot me."
Dr Figgins huffs, and snaps the sheets down properly. "You should show some respect, they could have sent you back to the village instead of caring for you under their own roof-"
"I am so ungrateful when people cripple me," Kurt says, glaring fury at him, his hands shaking as well now.
"No, I think Kurt's right, I think all the obligation goes one way here," Blaine says. "We really hurt him. It's fine now, doctor, I can take care of him. Are you thirsty again?"
Kurt closes his eyes, closes his fingers in the sheets. "It shouldn't -" His breath gulps in his throat. "Should it hurt like this? Did you leave half the arrow in there-?"
Blaine looks at Dr Figgins. "Do you have anything for the pain?"
"I can make him sleep. But those drugs are for when your mother gets her headaches."
"My mother will survive her headaches."
Kurt clutches at the sheets. "Why didn't you leave me there, I could have died already-"
"Don't talk like that," Blaine says quietly, unfolding a blanket, laying it over him. "Don't."
*
The fever lasts the day. Blaine reads to him, even when he's perfectly aware that Kurt's asleep and can't hear a word of it. He reads, slow and steady, because Kurt's head tilts to him when he does, his eyes open vaguely, he blinks dazedly at him and slips back under the fever again. Dr Figgins comes back to check on the bandages again later in the afternoon, tuts at the blood, and Blaine glances out of the window where the sun's getting low.
He can't avoid dinner with his father. He plays the guilt card, he talks about how bad he feels about it, fully beginning to consider it himself now - what can the rest of Kurt's life be like, if he does live through this? How will he make a living lamed in one leg? And it's their fault, and Blaine feels awful, and -
And his father looks at him with narrowed eyes and can't say out loud that he doesn't trust Blaine in the room with that strange boy from the village, that boy everyone sneers over, the rumours must have reached even him by now. He can't say it out loud because there's a servant stood by with the wine, and because Blaine can tell that he feels guilty for it too even if he won't say that. He shot a boy in the leg, and he can keep saying that he doesn't know what the hell the boy was doing out there before the sun came up in the middle of his hunt, but - but he still shot him, still stared down at him shocked and bleeding on the ground, and he's the same age as his own son. He has a heart, Blaine knows that. Blaine might not be what he wants in a son but he still tries for him. Somewhere in there, there's a heart . . .
Back in Kurt's room as the sun is falling, falling now and the shadows loom in the thick heavy light, Blaine tells Dr Figgins he'll keep an eye on him, he'll fetch him if Kurt needs anything. And smiles. And closes the door behind him. And pushes the chair up underneath the handle.
On the bed Kurt grips at the mattress in little spasms, sunk in fever and sleeping draughts, whispering things Blaine can't hear. And Blaine is scared of the sun going down, as he lights the lamps and wets his lips and stands by, nervous and waiting. He's scared of what might happen, scared of someone hearing, scared that he can't help - just scared, always scared, he's been scared for the last two years, ever since he found out that he's wrong and all alone in it. He's not alone now, but it's not fair to need anything from Kurt when Kurt is so helpless and so alone himself. What right does Blaine have to turn Kurt into something that gives Blaine meaning? Kurt is himself, and dealing with his own isolation, and even if they share something Blaine can't pretend to understand what Kurt's life is like anymore than Kurt would probably understand the loneliness and the guilt and the shame of Blaine's . . .
He goes to the window, to check on the last drop of bloody sunlight sinking under the horizon. And the bed creaks, and something gasps in so deep, huge bellows-lungs, and he turns to see -
The white hart, lifting its small fine head, the bed too narrow for it now. It bucks its neck up, makes a low breathy noise of distress and Blaine thinks, God, oh god, it's too big, what can I -?
It lifts itself on its awkward forelegs and falls with a crash to its side again, moaning its pain, shaking the bed; Blaine hurries to it, touches its neck - too hot, and flinching under Blaine's hands - and whispers, "Okay it's okay it's -"
It's not Kurt. He thought it would be, he thought he'd look into its eyes and still see Kurt, but all he sees are the bottomless black and incomprehending eyes of a deer. Its nostrils twitch and flare, it stares at him in terror, sheets fallen and bunching down its back. It smells, like fur, like the night outdoors, it smells feral and strong, but not unpleasant. "God oh god oh god," Blaine whispers, because what the hell is he supposed to do.
The deer tries to lift itself again, moans again when it can't. The pulse beats visibly in the side of its neck, hard and fast against its silvery fur. Blaine grabs a blanket, lays it out over the floorboards, gets behind the white hart and finds its wounded leg, gets his arms underneath and grits his teeth and lifts for it. The deer scrapes its hooves on the boards getting down from the bed, Blaine has to scramble on after it on his knees still supporting that useless, too-hot leg in his arms, god it's heavy, before dropping off the other side of the bed on his knees again to let its leg down. The deer thumps the boards to lay on its side on the blanket, mouth open, panting hard, eyes rolling to Blaine without any recognition in them. Not Kurt. It's an animal. Blaine understands the curse, now - Kurt doesn't just lose the shape of his body, he loses the shape of his mind when he changes, becomes - this, and yes it's beautiful but not the way Kurt is, not some proud and lovely boy but a wild and wordless animal . . .
Blaine touches its back, too hot but it's shivering, its fur star-silver and raised under his palm. He pulls the blankets down from the bed, lays them over its back as he would for his horse, and the deer thrashes its neck back and stares at him, nostrils flared, trapped and terrified and hurt and not understanding. "It's okay," he whispers, and strokes its shivering flank, remembers that that's Kurt's - Kurt's 'flank' too but the deer just shifts its leg a little, and stares at him shaking. "It's okay. I won't hurt you. It's okay."
It makes a low noise in its throat, and Blaine strokes its side some more through the blankets. "Okay, it's okay, it's okay."
The white hart pants, and lays where it's fallen. Blaine licks his lips, touches its snout, finds the nose dry. Is it like a dog, is that a bad sign? He leans over the bed for the water jug, wets his palm and offers it, and a tongue thick and rough and hot against his skin licks it dry. He cups more water in his palm. The deer licks. "That's better," Blaine murmurs, and the deer licks until it loses interest, coughs low in its chest and turns its head away. Blaine wipes his hand dry on the edge of the sheets, strokes down its neck. "That's better."
It flicks one pale elegant ear, and yawns, dark eyes slipping closed.
Blaine gets up to fetch the book, and sits in the cupped shape the white hart's body offers. It's cold on the floorboards but the deer's skin is so hot, and there are spare blankets to pull around himself. "Where were we up to? Zeus and Europa. Which is either about a rape or about bestiality, but it's not so nice a story either way. Nice isn't always the same as good when it comes to stories, though." He pats the deer's side. "You're still beautiful as a deer but very differently beautiful, which is something to be grateful for. There's perversion and then there's perversion, you know?"
The deer lays its delicate head on the floor, ears drooping back, eyes blinking liquid black. Blaine settles his weight into its shoulder, gradually sinking his body lower, and reads, quietly, into the dark.
*
Part II.