Armistice, Part 7
PART SIX
“Have you ever seen this movie before?” Kurt asks as he bounces onto Blaine’s bed to sit comfortably beside him. Blaine shakes his head as the DVD menu for Rent comes up, and Kurt looks vaguely offended. “I thought you liked musicals.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen or heard of many,” Blaine murmurs, “My dad doesn’t - my parents don’t like them, so.”
Kurt gives him the strangest perplexed look and says, “Is it because you’re gay? Your dad doesn’t like you watching musicals?”
Blaine looks down, averting Kurt’s gaze. “I’ve tried to explain to him that - that my being gay isn’t caused by musicals, and I don’t like them ‘cause I’m gay, but - he doesn’t get it. He’s never understood, so.”
Kurt nudges Blaine and kisses the corner of his mouth and says, “It’s okay. C’mon. Relax.”
Blaine does his best to, and smiles, settling back on the bed as a stage is illuminated on screen and the music chimes in, beginning, “Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes...”
Blaine’s gaze goes from the screen, wanders down onto Kurt. On screen, they’re singing, “How do you measure a year in the life? How about love? Measure in love...” Kurt’s smiling, enthralled, and Blaine is captured as he always is by how beautiful Kurt looks when he’s happy. More beautiful than usual. Once more, Blaine is stunned that he’s got this guy for his boyfriend. His first boyfriend and he’s perfect. “...Seasons of love...”
~***~
Blaine’s first action is to cross out to his car and bring in his bags, and then he showers whilst Castiel rests. He figures the angel doesn’t need it, so he takes the liberty of using up all thirty minutes of the hot water. He stays in there even as it runs cold, one hand braced on the wall as water cascades over him, getting in his eyes but he just blinks it away to refocus on the tiles.
He has an old song stuck in his head. Not terribly old in years, he thinks, not the oldest song he knows, but it’s old for him, something from when he was a teenager. It’s a peaceful sort of song. He thinks it’s from a musical. Something Kurt would’ve shown him, probably.
Blaine smiles bitterly to himself as the cold water batters the knots in his back. When he was a teenager - well, when he was fifteen, his biggest problem was homophobia. At the time, it was so very significant; his father resented his sexuality, and at his first high school he was teased and bullied. He moved from a public school to a private one when he was viciously beaten. Of course, if he were a normal guy, with a normal life, these would still be things that haunt him.
In the scheme of things now, they’re almost easy to deal with. Instead of the haunting memories of bullies teasing and hurting him, it’s all the times he’s nearly died, the times he’s nearly lost a limb, been kidnapped and maimed by some awful creature... All the times those things have happened to Kurt.
The song leaves his head, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the noise of the shower. Blaine sighs and shuts off the shower, stepping out and drying himself off, pulling back on his clothes before he steps out barefoot into the motel room.
Castiel is conscious, standing aimlessly in the center of the room. Blaine shuts the bathroom door. “You’re awake,” he remarks. “I thought you’d still be out for the count.”
“My injuries were numerous but minor,” Castiel responds, and Blaine frowns at how even his clothing no longer has holes in. Seeing his look, Castiel fingers the lapels of his trench coat and explains, “The same powers that lend me the ability to travel, to render somebody in a deep sleep, to...transport people, also give me the ability to cleanse and replenish.”
“So you’re better now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Blaine walks level with Castiel and faces him and asks him, directly, “Have you never loved somebody you shouldn’t?” Castiel’s eyes widen a little. “Or loved at all? Were you so truly incapable of understanding where Quinn was coming from, of understanding her emotions? Understanding emotions full stop, Cas?”
Castiel straightens his shoulders. “It is not our job to feel like that. We have a purpose, a goal. She failed.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Blaine retorts, and Castiel refuses to meet his eyes. That alone is new, and tips Blaine to the idea that something is off here. The angels are odd - they’ll either look directly at you, or they won’t at all, but they’ll never simply refuse to look you in the eye. Castiel’s eyes flicker everywhere now. “Tell me the truth, Cas.”
“There was - there is a charge of mine,” he grumbles. “A - a boy. A man who did great things for this planet, more than you could ever know. But I am an angel. He is a man. There is a line that is not to be crossed.”
Blaine blinks in disbelief. “You understood her and still you killed her.”
Castiel looks sharply at Blaine. “I could never understand why she would fall in such a manner.”
“But you understood how she felt.” Blaine folds his arms. “You understand what it’s like to love someone like that.”
“She betrayed her entire family,” Castiel says coldly. “I have made mistakes. But each time, I have come true. I know where my loyalties lie and I know that they are not with the human pleasures, with creating new life.”
“So where do your loyalties lie?” Blaine asks quietly, observing him. “With him? Your charge?”
“Him and his kin,” Castiel admits, catching Blaine’s eye. “But I know they are not my only charges. And they are not my only duty. I have responsibilities.”
Responsibilities. That reminds Blaine of what his own responsibility is, his true purpose here, and suddenly swallowing is difficult, his chest a little tight, and before he can stop himself, he’s grabbing Castiel’s coat sleeve desperately and begging, “You have to help me. I can’t find Kurt like this. Every omen that I find - every - every omen, - when I follow them, I’m still two steps behind - I can’t - I won’t be able to - please.”
He forces himself to swallow and blinks back tears. He’s cried so much as of late, too much. “Please help me find him. I don’t know what to do.”
Castiel seems startled, the expression, for once, clear on his face, and he says, “Give me a moment.” He vanishes, and Blaine is suddenly holding nothing, and oh, that’s a bit weird. He sways on the spot and steps back, flexing his fingers and shoving them into his pockets.
He’s just seating himself on the edge of the bed when Castiel re-appears, and says, “Summon the demon Ronove. I interrogated several lesser demons just now for information on Kurt’s location. They tell me that Ronove will be able to point us in the correct direction.”
Blaine falls back onto the bed and says, unable to keep the pure confusion from his voice, “What? How did - you were only gone for a minute?”
“Time isn’t as linear as you humans would like to imagine,” is all that Castiel says, and then he steps closer and says, “I trust you are capable of summoning demons with names.”
Blaine stares at him. “No, actually. Killing them is more my forte.”
Castiel looks as though he would roll his eyes if he were capable of any true expression, and says, “I will help you.”
“How gracious of you,” Blaine can’t help but mutter as Castiel clears a bedside table and drags it out, vanishing briefly then returning a few times, each time bringing different items: a black bowl, a silver knife, a small vial of oil, and a small bottle of holy water respectively. “You could’ve just asked me for the holy water and the knife. What’s the oil?”
“Myrrh. I didn’t want to inconvenience you,” Castiel says, and then he’s producing a knife, and he says, “Especially as I require something from you anyway. Your blood.”
Blaine pales.
He hates blood rituals. He hates a lot of things about hunting, really. He has no idea how this has been his profession for years.
“Seriously?” he groans.
Castiel narrows his eyes. “There is everything serious about this. You wish to find Kurt. We can find the demon this way.”
Blaine hesitates. Whilst yes, he had suddenly been overcome and distraught and begged Castiel for help and immediately gotten that help, he’s...concerned. This seems too easy. Too convenient. It couldn’t possibly work out. He swallows. “I don’t know. Are you sure?”
“The ritual works on angels and demons alike,” Castiel assures him, tipping the water and myrrh oil into the bowl, stirring them together with the tip of the knife. “It will work.” He holds out his hand and Blaine reluctantly extends his arm. Castiel drags him over the bowl, and slices fast - Blaine grits his teeth but winds up crying out anyway, flailing in an attempt to get away as Castiel squeezes his arm, drawing out as much blood as possible.
Cas finally lets him go, and Blaine grumbles as he goes to one of his bags to patch up the injury. “This best fucking work,” he curses, glaring at the angel and holding his arm protectively to his chest as he fishes out the necessary items.
“You should prepare a Devil’s Trap,” Castiel calls when Blaine is just about to wipe clean his wound. He grumbles again, drops his things to bed and just ignores the pain to instead fetch a spray can from the depths of another bag.
He hops onto the bed, using them and a chair from the corner of the room in order to get around, painting the pentacle and sigils that form it on the ceiling. Big enough, hopefully, that where ever this Ronove materialises he will be inside it and instantly trapped.
“Did Kurt know how to summon demons?” Blaine asks, hopping down from the bed and sitting himself in the chair.
“Yes,” Castiel says simply. “I taught him.”
Blaine feels a pang of jealousy that he knows he shouldn’t have. He was always the student, though, and never the teacher, never got to teach Kurt anything, but here Kurt has learned blood rituals from an angel. “Oh.” He tenses. “Was Kurt, the uh, the charge that you - ?”
Castiel looks down and Blaine thinks for a moment he looks a little sad. “No. My charge is the elder of two brothers. A righteous man who -” he pauses, then stresses, "Very different from Kurt.”
He relaxes. “What was he like?” Blaine queries softly, genuinely interested.
Castiel gives him a look that clearly displays he won't get an answer to that, then gestures at the bowl of liquid and begins chanting in Enochian.
There’s a burst of light and black smoke, and Blaine ducks back from it as the smoke slowly vanishes - no, not vanishes, Blaine realises, but is rather being inhaled through the nose and mouth, back into the body standing before them in the trap.
The demon Ronove sets the end of a thick staff down, holding it tightly in his hands and leaning on it, observing Castiel and Blaine. “Hello.”
“Ronove,” Castiel growls, and the demon looks at Cas sharply.
“Oh, angels,” he tsks, with an oddly fatherly air about him. A terrible father, mind. It gives Blaine the chills. “Such purposeless creatures. Soldiers, but not very good ones. You follow your orders so to the letter that you forsake sanity and reason.”
“That’s rich coming from a demon,” Castiel growls. Blaine looks between them.
“Very rich,” Ronove nods, “by the standards of our usual kind. Mindless, most, which is why I exist. I’m a teacher, you know.” His face hardens. It’s a rather kind face, too, tan and a little rough around the edges but handsome all the same. “And you pulled me from tutoring. Why?”
“We have questions,” Castiel starts, but Blaine cuts in.
“I have questions.” He steps forward. Ronove directs his glare at him. Blaine glances at Castiel. “You can go.”
“I can help,” Castiel says, almost sternly, but Blaine shakes his head. He doesn’t particularly want Castiel to see this. He’s not going to be proud of it. “Good luck,” Castiel relents, and then vanishes.
Blaine steps from out of the Devil’s trap and then throws a chair at Ronove, who drops his staff and catches it deftly. “Take a seat,” Blaine says, and the demon glances up at the ceiling and scowls before he obeys, swinging the chair down and sitting himself onto it. Blaine produces his knife, the knife, and waves it at Ronove. He focuses for a moment, pushing away everything that he knows could stop him from going through with this (namely, morals, and a sense of heart, and a human soul), and then he says, “Now, you say you’re a teacher. So I guess that means you’re smarter than most demons, aren’t you?”
Ronove eyes the knife and nods slowly. “So that means you know what this is, right?” Blaine gestures with the knife.
Ronove nods again. “That thing can kill me.”
“So you know that you should really just sit tight and not attempt to escape that meat suit or hurt me else I’ll stick you in the throat before you can get too far, yes?” Ronove glowers and nods once more.
Blaine smiles. “I’m glad you understand.” He steps close to Ronove and swings down, driving the knife into his thigh. The demon howls and writhes, and Blaine twists it a little and says, “You’re just gonna sit here and look after my knife for a second, got it?” Ronove tenses up and goes still, and Blaine fetches from his bag a length of rope and secures him to the chair with it.
“Now,” he murmurs, clasping his hands on Ronove’s shoulders and leaning down to whisper in his ear, “I’m gonna ask you some stuff. And for every question you lie on, for everything you say wrong, I’m gonna carve a little bit more. Maybe I’ll feed you a cute concoction of holy water and salt, hm?”
“What do you want?” Ronove grumbles, and then yelps when Blaine yanks the knife from his thigh and circles around in front of him. Blaine folds his arms.
“I want the location of the demon possessing my friend.”
“Specific,” Ronove laughs, and Blaine raises his eyebrows and finds his gun.
He shoots the demon in the right kneecap; he barely gets a blink in response. “Tickles,” is the comment that Ronove makes.
“My friend is Kurt Hummel,” Blaine tells him, digging through his bags and finding a flask of holy water. “He’s possessed by someone. I hear that you probably know who that someone is.” He tucks the holy water under his arm and bends in front of Ronove and grabs his ankle, pulling it up and yanking his leg out straight. “So, do you?” He looks down on Ronove coolly.
Ronove hesitates, just long enough for Blaine to decide that’s not good enough. “Oh, man. I shot you, didn’t I? That must’ve kinda hurt, right? Best...deal with that.” He goes at the wound with the knife at the first, purposefully gouging it worse, and then sighs, “Gee. I just can’t figure out how to get that bullet out of your leg. Maybe I should clean it, huh? I should clean that nasty stab on your thigh, too.”
He smiles and tucks the knife into his waistband then tips holy water onto the wounds.
Ronove screams.
“So who did you say was possessing my friend?” Blaine asks over the sound, blinking slow and deliberate as he watches the demon.
“Balaam,” Ronove pants, screwing his eyes up. “His name is Balaam. He is...one of our Princes.” The name matches up with the one the demon Sunshine gave him. The title, though - our Prince most definitely translates to Prince of Hell. Blaine resists frowning. Hell has an odd system. There are kings and princes and all manner of demons with titles, but it’s chaos all the same. Ronove narrows his eyes, gathering his strength back somewhat it seems, and he tells Blaine, “You’ll never defeat him. You can’t.”
“I dunno,” Blaine says, and he drops Ronove’s leg to fetch salt that he then pours onto the wounds. He gets stuck in, despite the churning in his stomach - he pushes the salt into the wounds, crams it in, and Ronove howls like a demented animal, writhing. “You should really just cooperate. I thought for a minute you actually might, you know? You seemed to recognise that I really will just...kill you.”
“I don’t know that you have the guts,” Ronove sneers through pain.
“I have plenty of guts.” Blaine tilts his head. “So do you, for that matter. Literally. I could just slice your belly open and coat it in salt. Or maybe something more subtle, like force salt and holy water down your throat... I'm sure I even have some iron nails lying around.”
Ronove glares at him.
Blaine carelessly slices down his cheek. “Who are you even wearing? He’s not very teacher-ly.”
“A dentist,” Ronove murmurs, almost conversationally, looking himself up and down. “His name was Carl, I do think.”
Blaine turns his back on Ronove to place the knife, salt, and holy water on the bed. He sighs and takes a brief moment to collect himself.
See, torture is one of the worst things, to Blaine. There are endless horrors he has encountered in his life time, but a lot of them pale in comparison to a hunter who’s riled, a hunter who’s torturing. He feels like he always knew it would get to this point, but that doesn’t mean he wanted it. He wishes he could’ve just tracked Kurt and found him, but that was proving - well, it was proving impossible.
But he’s not this cold. Not even to demons. He’s doing his best to keep up the facade, but it’s difficult to keep up a mask and pretend this isn’t bothering him. If it weren’t for the methods he’s using, the salt and the holy water and the knife, he’s sure it would be worse for him than for Ronove.
He turns back and smiles heartily at the demon, then eyes the demon’s staff at his feet. Hm. That being said, maybe it’s time for a change of tactic.
He scoops it up and tests it, heavy in his palms. “This is pretty neat.” He peers at it. It’s mostly smooth, but near one end, there are a bunch of sigils carved intricately into the wood. “Oh,” Blaine muses. “It’s magic.”
He twists it, and gives it a few test swings through the air, and says, “Does that mean this’ll work on you?”
Blaine raises it up and swings it hard, and Ronove is yelling, “No! No!” when it cracks into the side of his head. His neck then snaps back, and Blaine notes the ugly noise the staff had made once it had contact. Ronove gradually lifts his head, and looks at Blaine, and he finally sees a spark of fear there.
“Tell me about Balaam,” Blaine says, simply, and he lifts the staff threatening when Ronove looks hesitant. “Tell me what he’s doing or I will kill you.”
Ronove pauses. “Will you let me go if I tell you everything?”
Blaine, too, pauses, then nods.
Ronove takes a deep breath and says, “He’s going to Westerville.” He lets out a barking laugh, “Something to do with your friend, a significance of the location, but mostly he just plans to kill people.” Blaine blinks. Ronove quirks an eyebrow at him. “What, do you think all big demons have end-of-the-world plans? No, no. Balaam just... He just wants to body his legions and ravage the earth.” Ronove laughs. “He just wants to destroy things.”
“Where in Westerville?” Blaine demands, and he raises the staff threateningly.
Ronove answers quickly, “A school. A private school. I don’t know the name.”
Blaine freezes up, even if only for a moment. He knows where the demon is going. Oh, god, he knows, and the knowledge makes him shake. He puts the staff down and breathes in, and then he draws his knife.
Ronove eyes him, “Let me out now. You said you wouldn’t kill me. Let me out.”
Blaine bites his tongue, just lightly catching it between his teeth. Frankly, he can’t risk Ronove coming after him for revenge. “You’re dead anyway once Balaam finds out about this.” He grabs the demon by the hair, and jams the knife up - through the bottom of his jaw. It makes a sick noise, and Blaine shuts his eyes when he yanks the knife out.
It takes him an hour to clean up the room and then load his things into the car, and he does it carelessly. He has better, more important things to do than clean up the evidence of a dead body but when it comes down to it, Blaine realises that he has nowhere to go with the body. He agonises, standing over it where he’s laid it on one of the beds. Then he remembers how Castiel had just vanished Quinn’s corpse, and so he calls the angel, who - to Blaine’s surprise - appears in front of him before the phone even rings a third time.
“Hey,” Blaine mumbles gruffly, awkwardly hanging up the phone and tucking it away. Castiel looks down at the body, expectant, and Blaine says, “He gave up the information I needed.”
“What did he tell you? We should leave immediately.”
Blaine swallows. “I have to do it on my own.” Castiel narrows his eyes, and Blaine says, “Please just - if you want to help, just...clean this up.”
He makes determined strides to the room door, and Castiel follows him, reaching out to touch his shoulder, imploring in a very human way, “Blaine, Blaine.” He stops and turns his eyes to Cas reluctantly, and the angel huffs out a frustrated breath at him. “You could be killed. You have no idea what danger you might be up against.”
“It’s a demon,” Blaine says, plainly, as though that’s as simple as this whole thing is.
“You are not a fool,” Castiel hisses. “You don’t know how powerful this demon could be. You will either go in there and succeed, or you will fail miserably, and both you and Kurt will die.”
Blaine swallows, mouth suddenly dry, and he drags his tongue over his lips, trying to find the right words, and finally, what comes out without him even meaning for it to is, “That’s the idea.” Castiel narrows his eyes at him. Blaine shifts, and yes, the meaning comes to him, what everything boils down to, what he must have always known when he started out on this but never thought about.
He leans to tell Castiel very carefully, very clearly, “See, the thing about me and Kurt is that I can survive without him. I did for years before I met him, and I have done for the past couple of years, you know? We broke up. We grew apart, but we still kept in touch. I know that I can cope just fine without him being around. I'm sure if he was dead, I'd find a way to cope.” Blaine looks down, unable to meet Castiel’s eyes now, and says, “But I don’t want to have to do that, to cope, not at all. I don’t want to learn how to live my life without him. I don’t want to go week by week without any phone calls from him, without waking up next to him.”
He swallows hard and he turns, going to the door, opening it and moving to step out, but he looks back to the angel standing still in the room and says, “So if Kurt isn’t coming back, neither am I.” Blaine pauses. “Thank you for everything, Cas."
Castiel’s forehead creases and he says nothing as Blaine shuts the door behind him.
PART EIGHT
“Have you ever seen this movie before?” Kurt asks as he bounces onto Blaine’s bed to sit comfortably beside him. Blaine shakes his head as the DVD menu for Rent comes up, and Kurt looks vaguely offended. “I thought you liked musicals.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen or heard of many,” Blaine murmurs, “My dad doesn’t - my parents don’t like them, so.”
Kurt gives him the strangest perplexed look and says, “Is it because you’re gay? Your dad doesn’t like you watching musicals?”
Blaine looks down, averting Kurt’s gaze. “I’ve tried to explain to him that - that my being gay isn’t caused by musicals, and I don’t like them ‘cause I’m gay, but - he doesn’t get it. He’s never understood, so.”
Kurt nudges Blaine and kisses the corner of his mouth and says, “It’s okay. C’mon. Relax.”
Blaine does his best to, and smiles, settling back on the bed as a stage is illuminated on screen and the music chimes in, beginning, “Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes...”
Blaine’s gaze goes from the screen, wanders down onto Kurt. On screen, they’re singing, “How do you measure a year in the life? How about love? Measure in love...” Kurt’s smiling, enthralled, and Blaine is captured as he always is by how beautiful Kurt looks when he’s happy. More beautiful than usual. Once more, Blaine is stunned that he’s got this guy for his boyfriend. His first boyfriend and he’s perfect. “...Seasons of love...”
~***~
Blaine’s first action is to cross out to his car and bring in his bags, and then he showers whilst Castiel rests. He figures the angel doesn’t need it, so he takes the liberty of using up all thirty minutes of the hot water. He stays in there even as it runs cold, one hand braced on the wall as water cascades over him, getting in his eyes but he just blinks it away to refocus on the tiles.
He has an old song stuck in his head. Not terribly old in years, he thinks, not the oldest song he knows, but it’s old for him, something from when he was a teenager. It’s a peaceful sort of song. He thinks it’s from a musical. Something Kurt would’ve shown him, probably.
Blaine smiles bitterly to himself as the cold water batters the knots in his back. When he was a teenager - well, when he was fifteen, his biggest problem was homophobia. At the time, it was so very significant; his father resented his sexuality, and at his first high school he was teased and bullied. He moved from a public school to a private one when he was viciously beaten. Of course, if he were a normal guy, with a normal life, these would still be things that haunt him.
In the scheme of things now, they’re almost easy to deal with. Instead of the haunting memories of bullies teasing and hurting him, it’s all the times he’s nearly died, the times he’s nearly lost a limb, been kidnapped and maimed by some awful creature... All the times those things have happened to Kurt.
The song leaves his head, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the noise of the shower. Blaine sighs and shuts off the shower, stepping out and drying himself off, pulling back on his clothes before he steps out barefoot into the motel room.
Castiel is conscious, standing aimlessly in the center of the room. Blaine shuts the bathroom door. “You’re awake,” he remarks. “I thought you’d still be out for the count.”
“My injuries were numerous but minor,” Castiel responds, and Blaine frowns at how even his clothing no longer has holes in. Seeing his look, Castiel fingers the lapels of his trench coat and explains, “The same powers that lend me the ability to travel, to render somebody in a deep sleep, to...transport people, also give me the ability to cleanse and replenish.”
“So you’re better now?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Blaine walks level with Castiel and faces him and asks him, directly, “Have you never loved somebody you shouldn’t?” Castiel’s eyes widen a little. “Or loved at all? Were you so truly incapable of understanding where Quinn was coming from, of understanding her emotions? Understanding emotions full stop, Cas?”
Castiel straightens his shoulders. “It is not our job to feel like that. We have a purpose, a goal. She failed.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Blaine retorts, and Castiel refuses to meet his eyes. That alone is new, and tips Blaine to the idea that something is off here. The angels are odd - they’ll either look directly at you, or they won’t at all, but they’ll never simply refuse to look you in the eye. Castiel’s eyes flicker everywhere now. “Tell me the truth, Cas.”
“There was - there is a charge of mine,” he grumbles. “A - a boy. A man who did great things for this planet, more than you could ever know. But I am an angel. He is a man. There is a line that is not to be crossed.”
Blaine blinks in disbelief. “You understood her and still you killed her.”
Castiel looks sharply at Blaine. “I could never understand why she would fall in such a manner.”
“But you understood how she felt.” Blaine folds his arms. “You understand what it’s like to love someone like that.”
“She betrayed her entire family,” Castiel says coldly. “I have made mistakes. But each time, I have come true. I know where my loyalties lie and I know that they are not with the human pleasures, with creating new life.”
“So where do your loyalties lie?” Blaine asks quietly, observing him. “With him? Your charge?”
“Him and his kin,” Castiel admits, catching Blaine’s eye. “But I know they are not my only charges. And they are not my only duty. I have responsibilities.”
Responsibilities. That reminds Blaine of what his own responsibility is, his true purpose here, and suddenly swallowing is difficult, his chest a little tight, and before he can stop himself, he’s grabbing Castiel’s coat sleeve desperately and begging, “You have to help me. I can’t find Kurt like this. Every omen that I find - every - every omen, - when I follow them, I’m still two steps behind - I can’t - I won’t be able to - please.”
He forces himself to swallow and blinks back tears. He’s cried so much as of late, too much. “Please help me find him. I don’t know what to do.”
Castiel seems startled, the expression, for once, clear on his face, and he says, “Give me a moment.” He vanishes, and Blaine is suddenly holding nothing, and oh, that’s a bit weird. He sways on the spot and steps back, flexing his fingers and shoving them into his pockets.
He’s just seating himself on the edge of the bed when Castiel re-appears, and says, “Summon the demon Ronove. I interrogated several lesser demons just now for information on Kurt’s location. They tell me that Ronove will be able to point us in the correct direction.”
Blaine falls back onto the bed and says, unable to keep the pure confusion from his voice, “What? How did - you were only gone for a minute?”
“Time isn’t as linear as you humans would like to imagine,” is all that Castiel says, and then he steps closer and says, “I trust you are capable of summoning demons with names.”
Blaine stares at him. “No, actually. Killing them is more my forte.”
Castiel looks as though he would roll his eyes if he were capable of any true expression, and says, “I will help you.”
“How gracious of you,” Blaine can’t help but mutter as Castiel clears a bedside table and drags it out, vanishing briefly then returning a few times, each time bringing different items: a black bowl, a silver knife, a small vial of oil, and a small bottle of holy water respectively. “You could’ve just asked me for the holy water and the knife. What’s the oil?”
“Myrrh. I didn’t want to inconvenience you,” Castiel says, and then he’s producing a knife, and he says, “Especially as I require something from you anyway. Your blood.”
Blaine pales.
He hates blood rituals. He hates a lot of things about hunting, really. He has no idea how this has been his profession for years.
“Seriously?” he groans.
Castiel narrows his eyes. “There is everything serious about this. You wish to find Kurt. We can find the demon this way.”
Blaine hesitates. Whilst yes, he had suddenly been overcome and distraught and begged Castiel for help and immediately gotten that help, he’s...concerned. This seems too easy. Too convenient. It couldn’t possibly work out. He swallows. “I don’t know. Are you sure?”
“The ritual works on angels and demons alike,” Castiel assures him, tipping the water and myrrh oil into the bowl, stirring them together with the tip of the knife. “It will work.” He holds out his hand and Blaine reluctantly extends his arm. Castiel drags him over the bowl, and slices fast - Blaine grits his teeth but winds up crying out anyway, flailing in an attempt to get away as Castiel squeezes his arm, drawing out as much blood as possible.
Cas finally lets him go, and Blaine grumbles as he goes to one of his bags to patch up the injury. “This best fucking work,” he curses, glaring at the angel and holding his arm protectively to his chest as he fishes out the necessary items.
“You should prepare a Devil’s Trap,” Castiel calls when Blaine is just about to wipe clean his wound. He grumbles again, drops his things to bed and just ignores the pain to instead fetch a spray can from the depths of another bag.
He hops onto the bed, using them and a chair from the corner of the room in order to get around, painting the pentacle and sigils that form it on the ceiling. Big enough, hopefully, that where ever this Ronove materialises he will be inside it and instantly trapped.
“Did Kurt know how to summon demons?” Blaine asks, hopping down from the bed and sitting himself in the chair.
“Yes,” Castiel says simply. “I taught him.”
Blaine feels a pang of jealousy that he knows he shouldn’t have. He was always the student, though, and never the teacher, never got to teach Kurt anything, but here Kurt has learned blood rituals from an angel. “Oh.” He tenses. “Was Kurt, the uh, the charge that you - ?”
Castiel looks down and Blaine thinks for a moment he looks a little sad. “No. My charge is the elder of two brothers. A righteous man who -” he pauses, then stresses, "Very different from Kurt.”
He relaxes. “What was he like?” Blaine queries softly, genuinely interested.
Castiel gives him a look that clearly displays he won't get an answer to that, then gestures at the bowl of liquid and begins chanting in Enochian.
There’s a burst of light and black smoke, and Blaine ducks back from it as the smoke slowly vanishes - no, not vanishes, Blaine realises, but is rather being inhaled through the nose and mouth, back into the body standing before them in the trap.
The demon Ronove sets the end of a thick staff down, holding it tightly in his hands and leaning on it, observing Castiel and Blaine. “Hello.”
“Ronove,” Castiel growls, and the demon looks at Cas sharply.
“Oh, angels,” he tsks, with an oddly fatherly air about him. A terrible father, mind. It gives Blaine the chills. “Such purposeless creatures. Soldiers, but not very good ones. You follow your orders so to the letter that you forsake sanity and reason.”
“That’s rich coming from a demon,” Castiel growls. Blaine looks between them.
“Very rich,” Ronove nods, “by the standards of our usual kind. Mindless, most, which is why I exist. I’m a teacher, you know.” His face hardens. It’s a rather kind face, too, tan and a little rough around the edges but handsome all the same. “And you pulled me from tutoring. Why?”
“We have questions,” Castiel starts, but Blaine cuts in.
“I have questions.” He steps forward. Ronove directs his glare at him. Blaine glances at Castiel. “You can go.”
“I can help,” Castiel says, almost sternly, but Blaine shakes his head. He doesn’t particularly want Castiel to see this. He’s not going to be proud of it. “Good luck,” Castiel relents, and then vanishes.
Blaine steps from out of the Devil’s trap and then throws a chair at Ronove, who drops his staff and catches it deftly. “Take a seat,” Blaine says, and the demon glances up at the ceiling and scowls before he obeys, swinging the chair down and sitting himself onto it. Blaine produces his knife, the knife, and waves it at Ronove. He focuses for a moment, pushing away everything that he knows could stop him from going through with this (namely, morals, and a sense of heart, and a human soul), and then he says, “Now, you say you’re a teacher. So I guess that means you’re smarter than most demons, aren’t you?”
Ronove eyes the knife and nods slowly. “So that means you know what this is, right?” Blaine gestures with the knife.
Ronove nods again. “That thing can kill me.”
“So you know that you should really just sit tight and not attempt to escape that meat suit or hurt me else I’ll stick you in the throat before you can get too far, yes?” Ronove glowers and nods once more.
Blaine smiles. “I’m glad you understand.” He steps close to Ronove and swings down, driving the knife into his thigh. The demon howls and writhes, and Blaine twists it a little and says, “You’re just gonna sit here and look after my knife for a second, got it?” Ronove tenses up and goes still, and Blaine fetches from his bag a length of rope and secures him to the chair with it.
“Now,” he murmurs, clasping his hands on Ronove’s shoulders and leaning down to whisper in his ear, “I’m gonna ask you some stuff. And for every question you lie on, for everything you say wrong, I’m gonna carve a little bit more. Maybe I’ll feed you a cute concoction of holy water and salt, hm?”
“What do you want?” Ronove grumbles, and then yelps when Blaine yanks the knife from his thigh and circles around in front of him. Blaine folds his arms.
“I want the location of the demon possessing my friend.”
“Specific,” Ronove laughs, and Blaine raises his eyebrows and finds his gun.
He shoots the demon in the right kneecap; he barely gets a blink in response. “Tickles,” is the comment that Ronove makes.
“My friend is Kurt Hummel,” Blaine tells him, digging through his bags and finding a flask of holy water. “He’s possessed by someone. I hear that you probably know who that someone is.” He tucks the holy water under his arm and bends in front of Ronove and grabs his ankle, pulling it up and yanking his leg out straight. “So, do you?” He looks down on Ronove coolly.
Ronove hesitates, just long enough for Blaine to decide that’s not good enough. “Oh, man. I shot you, didn’t I? That must’ve kinda hurt, right? Best...deal with that.” He goes at the wound with the knife at the first, purposefully gouging it worse, and then sighs, “Gee. I just can’t figure out how to get that bullet out of your leg. Maybe I should clean it, huh? I should clean that nasty stab on your thigh, too.”
He smiles and tucks the knife into his waistband then tips holy water onto the wounds.
Ronove screams.
“So who did you say was possessing my friend?” Blaine asks over the sound, blinking slow and deliberate as he watches the demon.
“Balaam,” Ronove pants, screwing his eyes up. “His name is Balaam. He is...one of our Princes.” The name matches up with the one the demon Sunshine gave him. The title, though - our Prince most definitely translates to Prince of Hell. Blaine resists frowning. Hell has an odd system. There are kings and princes and all manner of demons with titles, but it’s chaos all the same. Ronove narrows his eyes, gathering his strength back somewhat it seems, and he tells Blaine, “You’ll never defeat him. You can’t.”
“I dunno,” Blaine says, and he drops Ronove’s leg to fetch salt that he then pours onto the wounds. He gets stuck in, despite the churning in his stomach - he pushes the salt into the wounds, crams it in, and Ronove howls like a demented animal, writhing. “You should really just cooperate. I thought for a minute you actually might, you know? You seemed to recognise that I really will just...kill you.”
“I don’t know that you have the guts,” Ronove sneers through pain.
“I have plenty of guts.” Blaine tilts his head. “So do you, for that matter. Literally. I could just slice your belly open and coat it in salt. Or maybe something more subtle, like force salt and holy water down your throat... I'm sure I even have some iron nails lying around.”
Ronove glares at him.
Blaine carelessly slices down his cheek. “Who are you even wearing? He’s not very teacher-ly.”
“A dentist,” Ronove murmurs, almost conversationally, looking himself up and down. “His name was Carl, I do think.”
Blaine turns his back on Ronove to place the knife, salt, and holy water on the bed. He sighs and takes a brief moment to collect himself.
See, torture is one of the worst things, to Blaine. There are endless horrors he has encountered in his life time, but a lot of them pale in comparison to a hunter who’s riled, a hunter who’s torturing. He feels like he always knew it would get to this point, but that doesn’t mean he wanted it. He wishes he could’ve just tracked Kurt and found him, but that was proving - well, it was proving impossible.
But he’s not this cold. Not even to demons. He’s doing his best to keep up the facade, but it’s difficult to keep up a mask and pretend this isn’t bothering him. If it weren’t for the methods he’s using, the salt and the holy water and the knife, he’s sure it would be worse for him than for Ronove.
He turns back and smiles heartily at the demon, then eyes the demon’s staff at his feet. Hm. That being said, maybe it’s time for a change of tactic.
He scoops it up and tests it, heavy in his palms. “This is pretty neat.” He peers at it. It’s mostly smooth, but near one end, there are a bunch of sigils carved intricately into the wood. “Oh,” Blaine muses. “It’s magic.”
He twists it, and gives it a few test swings through the air, and says, “Does that mean this’ll work on you?”
Blaine raises it up and swings it hard, and Ronove is yelling, “No! No!” when it cracks into the side of his head. His neck then snaps back, and Blaine notes the ugly noise the staff had made once it had contact. Ronove gradually lifts his head, and looks at Blaine, and he finally sees a spark of fear there.
“Tell me about Balaam,” Blaine says, simply, and he lifts the staff threatening when Ronove looks hesitant. “Tell me what he’s doing or I will kill you.”
Ronove pauses. “Will you let me go if I tell you everything?”
Blaine, too, pauses, then nods.
Ronove takes a deep breath and says, “He’s going to Westerville.” He lets out a barking laugh, “Something to do with your friend, a significance of the location, but mostly he just plans to kill people.” Blaine blinks. Ronove quirks an eyebrow at him. “What, do you think all big demons have end-of-the-world plans? No, no. Balaam just... He just wants to body his legions and ravage the earth.” Ronove laughs. “He just wants to destroy things.”
“Where in Westerville?” Blaine demands, and he raises the staff threateningly.
Ronove answers quickly, “A school. A private school. I don’t know the name.”
Blaine freezes up, even if only for a moment. He knows where the demon is going. Oh, god, he knows, and the knowledge makes him shake. He puts the staff down and breathes in, and then he draws his knife.
Ronove eyes him, “Let me out now. You said you wouldn’t kill me. Let me out.”
Blaine bites his tongue, just lightly catching it between his teeth. Frankly, he can’t risk Ronove coming after him for revenge. “You’re dead anyway once Balaam finds out about this.” He grabs the demon by the hair, and jams the knife up - through the bottom of his jaw. It makes a sick noise, and Blaine shuts his eyes when he yanks the knife out.
It takes him an hour to clean up the room and then load his things into the car, and he does it carelessly. He has better, more important things to do than clean up the evidence of a dead body but when it comes down to it, Blaine realises that he has nowhere to go with the body. He agonises, standing over it where he’s laid it on one of the beds. Then he remembers how Castiel had just vanished Quinn’s corpse, and so he calls the angel, who - to Blaine’s surprise - appears in front of him before the phone even rings a third time.
“Hey,” Blaine mumbles gruffly, awkwardly hanging up the phone and tucking it away. Castiel looks down at the body, expectant, and Blaine says, “He gave up the information I needed.”
“What did he tell you? We should leave immediately.”
Blaine swallows. “I have to do it on my own.” Castiel narrows his eyes, and Blaine says, “Please just - if you want to help, just...clean this up.”
He makes determined strides to the room door, and Castiel follows him, reaching out to touch his shoulder, imploring in a very human way, “Blaine, Blaine.” He stops and turns his eyes to Cas reluctantly, and the angel huffs out a frustrated breath at him. “You could be killed. You have no idea what danger you might be up against.”
“It’s a demon,” Blaine says, plainly, as though that’s as simple as this whole thing is.
“You are not a fool,” Castiel hisses. “You don’t know how powerful this demon could be. You will either go in there and succeed, or you will fail miserably, and both you and Kurt will die.”
Blaine swallows, mouth suddenly dry, and he drags his tongue over his lips, trying to find the right words, and finally, what comes out without him even meaning for it to is, “That’s the idea.” Castiel narrows his eyes at him. Blaine shifts, and yes, the meaning comes to him, what everything boils down to, what he must have always known when he started out on this but never thought about.
He leans to tell Castiel very carefully, very clearly, “See, the thing about me and Kurt is that I can survive without him. I did for years before I met him, and I have done for the past couple of years, you know? We broke up. We grew apart, but we still kept in touch. I know that I can cope just fine without him being around. I'm sure if he was dead, I'd find a way to cope.” Blaine looks down, unable to meet Castiel’s eyes now, and says, “But I don’t want to have to do that, to cope, not at all. I don’t want to learn how to live my life without him. I don’t want to go week by week without any phone calls from him, without waking up next to him.”
He swallows hard and he turns, going to the door, opening it and moving to step out, but he looks back to the angel standing still in the room and says, “So if Kurt isn’t coming back, neither am I.” Blaine pauses. “Thank you for everything, Cas."
Castiel’s forehead creases and he says nothing as Blaine shuts the door behind him.
PART EIGHT