Fic: "Until My Dying Breath", Chapter Six -- Part Two. Kurt/Blaine Vampire AU.

[emilianadarling]

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Epilogue

Click here to return to part one.

--

When Blaine wakes up from dreams of lips dripping with blood in a room with books piled to the ceiling, his eyes feel tight.
It’s partially from the tears, but mostly because he fell asleep with his contacts in. He blinks at the itchiness of it, forcing himself not to rub as he pushes himself up on the couch and stares at the darkened room. It’s night time now, he can tell from the windows; no hints of dim light peeking through the edges. After a long moment, he flicks the side table lamp on. Blinks at the walls in the lit room. Sits, and stares, until he carefully manages to stand on sturdy legs and heads for the bathroom down the hall.
He takes out his contacts, brushes his teeth, uses the toilet. Heartbeat fixed and rhythmic as it beats in his chest, like the calm after a storm, and his hands as steady as the foundations of buildings. He washes the worst of the gel out of his hair, too, from where it’s crusted and uncomfortable from being slept on.
As soon as his glasses are perched on his nose and he can see again, Blaine walks calmly back into the living room and checks his phone. No missed calls, no new text messages. Eight forty five at night, and no one has knocked on his door. Blaine can feel his thick eyebrows raise up into his hairline at the surprise of it: even past hysterical, he had assumed that Kurt would come running as soon as the sun had set. Come to collect. His lack of an appearance is unexpected, but not entirely unheard of: in the past, leaving him alone for long stretches in order to leave him unstable and unnerved had been one of his favourite games. He places the phone on the table, sits back down on the couch.
For the next fifteen minutes, Blaine thinks very calmly and very seriously about killing himself.
Not in vague, dramatic terms, but in specifics. Thinks slowly and meticulously through the little intricacies of which method would be fastest, and easiest, and would hurt the least. He carefully runs his mind over his apartment, tabulating what he has right now that could be helpful. There’s a third of a bottle of sleeping pills that his father urged him to get when he was in second year and was so anxious that he couldn’t close his eyes at night, and there are a few knives in the kitchen. They would need sharpening, most of them, but they would be effective enough. There are razor blades in the bathroom, too. A few bottles of chemicals under the kitchen sink, including a container of Drano that’s at least half full.
It would be easy, he thinks. He could definitely do it. It would be better than letting Kurt turn him into something that walks, and talks, and looks like him but isn’t. Into something with his face and his voice and his body that isn’t him at all. Better than a life of forever-death, and violence, and revelling in gore and pain.
Because when Kurt catches him (not if, when, Blaine knows that now), whatever creature he turns Blaine into and keeps by his side like a trinket wouldn’t be him. Everything that makes him Blaine - his emotions, his humanity... all of that would be stripped away. The only thing left a sharp, cruel shell of what he used to be, kept around for Kurt to pet and fuck and be his pretty thing.
Dying, at least, would be over quickly. It wouldn’t drag on for decades and centuries. Death is a human experience: not everyone lives, but everyone dies. He would rather die now, human, than live forever as a mockery of one.
For five whole minutes, Blaine becomes stuck on the idea of slitting his wrists and bleeding out on the living room floor. The flesh slashed and blood pooling onto the hardwood floors, everything growing dimmer and fading into peace with Kurt still trapped outside and unable to get to him. Helpless to pull him back from the edge, or finally have the blood he’s craved and smelled and longed after for so long. Blaine thinks about dying, slipping away, and taking the one thing Kurt wants with him when he goes.
In the end, though, it’s Blaine’s own selfishness that stops him from walking into the kitchen and picking up the first sharp knife he sees.
Because more than anything else, it occurs to him that if Blaine kills himself, Kurt will take it out on others. Isn’t above taking out his revenge even once Blaine is dead and cold and rotting on his living room floor; would want vengeance at having his favourite toy stolen away from him. Kurt would pay him back by going after the people Blaine knows, and likes, just like he took it out on Amita. People like Jack, or students at the NYU campus. And he just... can’t. Can’t, after all of the mistakes he’s made and all the way’s he’s caused people harm. Can’t knowingly let that happen.
But the time has passed for holing himself up in his apartment. It can’t last, and it won’t work, and Kurt will find a way to get him out of here.
In the end, running is the only logical option.
If he runs, there is still hope. There’s a chance - however small it might be - that he can still get out of this alive. That he can have all the things he’s been desperately clinging to: can see his family again, finish school one day, have a real life. There’s no hope left here in the city; nothing left for him to hold onto and wait to be picked off for. If Blaine runs, he can put Kurt off just that little bit longer. Can make things a last bit frustrating for Kurt if he buys the ticket and hops on the first plane out once the sun is up: to South Africa, India, Japan. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s far away.
There is nothing Blaine can do for the people who have already been killed. For Amita, or the nameless strangers in the streets. But this way, he can lead Kurt away from New York. Across the world and away from the living people he cares about.
If he runs, Kurt will chase him. He always keeps his promises.
Blaine lets out a deep breath, straightens his back - and opens his eyes. A tiny, flickering light of hope is burning in his chest again. Dim, and small, and so close to being smothered by a blanket of grief and pain and despair, but at least it’s something.
Slowly at first, but gathering steam like an oncoming train, Blaine starts to think about the things he’s going to need. He’ll have to book a flight as soon as possible, the cost doesn’t matter at all. Supplies, too: a backpack full of clothes and pictures and food and a few of the stakes that didn’t save Amita’s life. The wisest choice would probably be to head to Eastern Europe, where the densest vampire lore is from; the best chance of finding someone to help him probably lies there.
Blaine is just getting to his feet when a loud, angry buzzing noise comes from the ground. Startling, Blaine stares down at his phone lighting up on the ground as the ringtone bursts forth in incessant, whining pangs. Steeling himself, Blaine picks it up and looks at the screen - and it’s Kurt, of course, could never be anyone other than Kurt. The only surprise is that he waited so long after sunset to call.
All Blaine has to do is get through tonight. One night, that’s all. One night of whatever Kurt can throw at him - insults, or vague threats, or angry screams at the audacity he had to run away. After that, it will be too late for Kurt to get to him easily.
There is almost nothing Kurt can say that can make that much of a difference anymore.
Steeling himself, Blaine lets out a breath - and presses the button. Holds the phone up to his ear, standing between the coffee table and the couch, preparing himself for whatever might come next.
“Hello,” Blaine says neutrally into the receiver, trying to not put any emotion into the word at all. He wanders over to the kitchen as he speaks, determined not to allow Kurt to get a rise out of him. Let Kurt get bored of him, it’ll be easier that way. He wraps his free arm around himself as though trying to ward something off, bracing himself for the inevitable fury to come.
“Your parents have a lovely house,” says Kurt conversationally, calmly, and the whole world Blaine has carefully reconstructed falls immediately and grotesquely away beneath him. He sucks in a breath, stumbling backward as though physically struck and repeating the words over and over in his head. He can feel his own eyes growing wide, his head spinning like a top.
That means... that can only mean...
No. No, no, no, no, no. Anything but that, anything. Not them. Not this.
“... what?” Blaine asks, voice impossibly small, and all of the steely confidence and careful ambivalence is gone, so gone. That tiny light inside his chest put out with a hiss, and he wants this to be a trick so badly it physically hurts.
“It really is nice, though,” Kurt continues, as though he’s talking about the weather and not something so awful it’s making bile rise in the back of Blaine’s throat. He listens hard, clinging to every word and nuance in desperation. That doesn’t prove anything, not those words. Could be lying, could be making it up. From the sound quality, Kurt is outside somewhere. “Love the extended front porch. And the little stone mushrooms in the flower beds, oh. How terribly chic.”
The bottom falls out of Blaine’s stomach, and he clutches at the kitchen counter in order to keep standing. His knees feel weak and his legs useless beneath him.
“How,” Blaine stammers, voice already shaking and weak, and Kurt laughs bitterly into the receiver.
“Oh, it’s wasn’t hard, if that’s what you’re thinking, ” says Kurt breezily, a hint of steel beneath the lightness. “Andersons, in Albany, moved within the past few years. One fake phone survey to every Anderson in the white pages asking about post-secondary education, and your mother really was so very happy to talk about you. Nice woman. Very willing to give out personal information over the phone.”
“Kurt,” Blaine chokes out, clutching at the kitchen counter so hard his knuckles are turning white. Stark, hot terror is thrumming through his whole body. He needs to know - right now - that they’re still okay. That they aren’t... that Kurt hasn’t already... “Just... please. Please, tell me you haven’t -”
But Kurt cuts him off at once, not letting him get another word in.
“What do you think the chances are that your mother would let me in if I knocked?” asks Kurt, sounding curious and snide and sharp. But all Blaine can feel is the enormous, incomprehensible flood of relief that rips through him at the fact that his mom and dad are alive. In danger so real it makes him feel feint, but alive. Still alive. He clutches at his chest through his t-shirt, breathing hard. For the first time, Blaine can hear the underlying coldness in Kurt’s voice. “It’s only nine o’clock, and I can see them moving inside. I certainly don’t look very dangerous, do I, Blaine? Too delicate to be dangerous. I wonder: if I knocked on her door and told her my car broke down and I needed to use the phone, do you think they would let me inside?”
“Kurt,” Blaine whispers quietly, shaking his head back and forth and blinking hard against the stinging in his eyes. They’re counting on him, relying on him to get them out of this. On the edge of the blade without knowing it, and everything Blaine says is absolutely crucial. Images are flashing in front of his eyes; his mother’s smile, the way his father’s face scrunches together when he laughs. The scene at the bookstore, blood and body pieces splashed across the floor. “Please, Kurt, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” Kurt asks, faux-confusion dripping from every syllable. Hard and cold and sharp enough to cut, and all at once Blaine realizes that this is Kurt angry. Truly angry, beyond shouting or yelling or confrontation, and his blood runs cold. “Don’t tear your parents limb from limb? I suppose you’re right: I don’t particularly feel like playing human to get inside right now. Why don’t I just light the house on fire instead? Smoke them out, rip them up, nice and easy. I’ll be generous and keep you on the line so you can listen to them scream.”
“Please,” he whimpers, voice cracking and straining as he tries to keep himself together. To stop from falling into a million pieces. Blind terror is bubbling up inside of him, and every atom of his being is straining frantic desperate to stop this from happening. Please, god, stop this from happening.
He squeezes his eyes tight, body sliding onto the linoleum with his back against the cabinets before he can even process what’s happening. He squeezes his knees to his chest, hand clutching the phone hard to his ear. Something wet drips down his cheek, and he shoves it away. “I’m begging you, Kurt, please. They... they don’t deserve that. I love them. You don’t have to -”
“What did you think I was going to do? ” Kurt snaps, temper flaring and words rushing together. “Sit around and wait for you to poke your nose out again? Playtime’s over, Blaine. No more second chances.”
“Kurt,” Blaine whispers quietly, brokenly, but Kurt won’t let him speak.
“You know, I could have had you a hundred times over,” Kurt sneers, and Blaine curls in tighter into himself. “But I drew it out, held back. Let you get it out of your fucking system. This is the absolute last time I let you slip through my fingers, Blaine. No more holding back, starting with Mommy and Daddy.”
“Whatever you want!” Blaine bursts out desperately, the words finally escaping from inside. Something shatters inside his chest; fragmenting and dissolving up, crushed underfoot into grains of fine sand. He lets out a ragged, sobbing breath into the receiver; tears are streaming down his face now. He drags in a gasping, drowning breath. “Please, please, I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll give you me, Kurt. No more hiding, or running. I’ll h-hand myself over. Willingly. You can have me forever, just like you wanted. Just... just don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them, Kurt, please.”
Any other words dissolve quickly into broken, wracking sobs and mingled words of desperation. Please and anything and yours, all yours that he murmurs into the phone like offerings, meaning every single one of them. Because there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that Blaine will not do to stop this from happening. To keep the two people he loves more than anything still breathing, still standing, still alive. Kurt can threaten to kill him, or turn him, or anything else in the world and Blaine will still turn himself over without a second thought.
Because if Kurt does this, nothing else will ever matter again. He might as well be dead, because he’ll never be able to feel anything other than empty. Blaine pleads until there are no more words, nothing else to say, and all he can do is cling to the phone and wait on shaking edge for Kurt’s response.
The silence on the other end of the line stretches on forever, and now that all the words have dried up Blaine can’t breathe for how the fear wrenches and twitches and spasms inside. It clenches at his heart, tugs at his chest, and he’s falling apart as he waits. Eventually, after a silence that seems to last forever, Kurt speaks again.
“What I want,” Kurt articulates slowly, precisely, “is for you to let me in. Tonight, Blaine. No more fighting, no more running, no more hiding away. No tricks. You let me in, I let them live.” He lets out a stiff breath into the receiver. “No more fucking around, Blaine. There are so, so many things I can do to hurt you, dearest. So many more things than you can imagine. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Blaine chokes out, clapping a hand over his mouth as sobs of mixed despair and desperate, desperate gratitude well up inside. Shaking and shuddering and clutching at the phone so hard it hurts before he moves the hand away again. “Whatever you want, it’s yours. You can have everything, I’ll be good. Just...” His voice grows thin, wavering. And there is no going back from this, not ever again. “Just don’t hurt them, and I promise you I’m yours.”
A pause - followed by a small, pleased little noise. “You beg so prettily,” says Kurt quietly, distractedly, and Blaine feels a shiver ripple over his skin. “I’ll be there in three hours. Any funny business - anything at all - and I stop being so nice.”
“Can I,” Blaine starts shakily, licking his lips and smearing the tears off of his face with his damp hand. “Please, Kurt, can I call them?” He can practically feel Kurt tense up angrily over the phone, and he rushes to elaborate. “Not - not to tell them to run, I know you could find them. I’m not going to risk anything with this. I just,” he gasps wetly, swallowing hard. “I just want to say goodbye.”
“... fine,” Kurt says after a moment, and for the briefest of seconds Blaine thinks he hears something less than brutal in his voice. A hint of something far away - but it’s gone as soon as he speaks again. Replaced with hard efficiency. “Be there when I get there, pretty. Three hours.”
There’s a click, and then silence, and it’s several long seconds before he realizes that Kurt has hung up on him. He sits there, crumpled on the ground with the phone still pressed against his ear and ringing out dead silence as he listens, and breathes, and tries to wrap his mind around it. The whole kitchen is blurry, swimming in water, and when he blinks more tears splash down onto his crumpled, ruddy face. Blaine’s bottom lip is trembling, whole face scrunching up and his whole body shaking as he opens his mouth - and shatters.
He cries, and cries, face buried in his hands like a small child left alone in the dark and afraid, so afraid. Messy, wet gasps for air and desperate sobs that make his chest hurt, not dignified and not pretty and certainly not restrained. Snot running down his face and eyes swelling up, red and puffy, face wet and hot and all composure finally lost. Clutching at himself and wailing, unrestrained, into the night.
There’s no backing out of this. No loophole to worm his way through. Alone on the cold linoleum of the kitchen floor, Blaine unravels. Falling apart at the seams and coming undone at last, no more holding back and clutching at himself to stay together. Undone, unwound, all heaving bawls. And it’s all over, all done.
Every second he spends breaking down, falling apart, is a second that takes away from how long he has left to live. In three hours, Blaine is going to die. To stop being alive, in any way that matters. Drained and taken over and everything stripped away, gone forever and never coming back.
He manages to pull himself back from the edge after about twenty minutes, trying desperately to pull himself back into one piece. Forcing his breathing to steady and smearing away the tears and snot alike with his sleeves, slowing the shudders and shakes until he’s almost normal again. His throat is thick and sore, but after another five minutes he can speak properly again.
Three hours is all he has. Less than that, now. Two hours and thirty-five minutes.
Two hours and thirty-five minutes isn’t a lot of time, and he needs to make it count.
Without needing to look it up, Blaine takes a deep shuddery breath in - and dials the number. Holds the phone up to his ear as it rings, breath caught in his throat until -
“Hello?” comes his mother’s voice over the line, warm and bright and familiar, slightly accented, and Blaine slams a hand over his mouth to stop a sob from escaping. Push it down, don’t think about it, keep it together. “Can I help you?”
Taking a deep breath to steady himself - can’t let on that anything is wrong, has to stay natural - Blaine lets it out, licks his lips, and speaks.
“... mom?” he asks quietly, hoping his voice sounds normal. Not thick and slurred with emotion. But he’s been crying for so long, and it’s hard to pretend to be okay when okay is the farthest thing from him. “It’s...it’s me.”
Marita Anderson lets out a delighted noise. “Darling boy!” she cries out excitedly, and he can see her face lighting up in his mind. It makes him bite down on his lip, hard, and shudder helplessly on the floor. “William!” he hears her shout off to one side, and his whole stomach lurches with another reminder of pain, and guilt, and so much sadness that he can’t even comprehend it. “It’s Blaine! He’s calling to say hello!”
“Blaine’s on the phone?” he thinks he hears his father say in the background, muffled and distorted with distance. It’s still his voice, though. His father’s voice, low and calm with a hint of excitement at hearing from him, and his stomach lurches.
This is the last time he is ever going to hear his parents' voices. He’ll never see them in person again; won’t ever get to see the way his father’s eyes crinkle up when he laughs. Will never get to hug his mother again. This, right now, is the last time they will ever hear their son. His mom and dad won’t get to watch walk across the stage as he graduates, or go to his wedding, or become grandparents. After tonight, Blaine is going to disappear into the night, and his parents are going to be left wondering at happened to him for the rest of their lives.
And so he clings to every word, digging his nails into every syllable. Trying to commit them to memory; to burn this last conversation into the lines of his mind like a brand. Maybe, if he holds on very tight, he’ll be able to remember that they loved him after Kurt turns him. Will be able to remember how much he loves them right now, because his chest feels like it’s sinking with the weight of love, and care, and regret.
“Where have you been, sweetheart, you haven’t been responding to my e-mails,” Marita chastises him in an affectionate rush, words gathering speed in the way they always do when she’s excited. Distantly, guilt clenches in Blaine’s chest at the sudden awareness of how little he’s spoken to his parents in the past month. Barely at all, barely even thought about them, and now... now he’ll never get to talk to them again. “Or my phone calls, and I know that you’re busy, Blaine, but we do fret about you. Well,” she laughs breezily, the sound tinkling over the phone in abandon, and he replays the sound of it over and over in his head; holding it close and telling himself to never forget that sound, not ever. “I fret about you, you know I can’t help it. Your father knows that you’re fine, it’s just finals coming up and it’s winter and he’s always telling me to give you your space. But I can’t not worry, darling, it’s just in my nature, you know that.”
“I know,” he says weakly, letting out a small laugh into the receiver at hearing her ramble. It’s always been this way, as far back as he can remember; his mother, burning and bright like the sun, and his father the rock that keeps her grounded. “You... you always used to say that worrying was in your blood.”
“...Blaine,” says Marita slowly, dragging his name out in an almost warning fashion. She sounds concerned and slightly suspicious, and makes a loud tsking noise into his ear. “Are you okay, love? You sound all snuffly.”
“I’m fine,” Blaine says quickly, swiping away some of the wetness on his face and swallowing hard to get rid of some of the phlegm clogging up his throat. His voice is coming out stuffed up and thick, as though he’s pinching his nose. “I just have a bit of a cold. That’s all.”
“Beloved,” she responds in a low, dismayed voice. Blaine tries to focus on keeping himself together. On getting through this conversation without letting on, without making them worry. They deserve to go one more night thinking everything is okay, safe in their little world. A world where there are no monsters coming to get you, and no bad things waiting in the shadows; a world where he’ll get to grow, and live, and become old as they watch. “You can always come up here and take a night off, you know? Bring your books on the train and stay for a weekend; get rested up at home. That should make you feel better right away, yes? I can make all of your favourites!”
“That sounds amazing,” he says quietly, throat thickening. He clamps down on the pressure rising in his chest. “How... how about next weekend. I can come by next weekend and stay at the house with you two. Would that work? Would you like that?”
“Oh! Oh, I would love that, Blaine,” Marita says, surprised and excited; he hasn’t gone up to visit them in far too long, and his heart pangs at her excitement over a visit that is never going to happen. She lets a little excited noise into the phone. “It will be so wonderful to see you. But now you must tell me how school is going! Your father said this was going to be a hard semester for you, and you must tell me everything I’ve missed.”
It has always been this way, with his parents and news: William Anderson is good at handling business deals over the phone, but any kind of remotely personal conversation over a long distance tends to result in his father awkwardly trying to hold up his end amid many long pauses. His dad... his dad is quiet, and steady, and passive in a way that makes it hard to talk to him. Ever since Blaine moved out all those years ago, he has always conveyed everything of substance to just his mother when he calls home. Blaine can only assume that she passes on the information to his dad later on; he always seems to know what’s happening with him when he comes back for visits.
It’s just something his parents have always done - a little tick of their relationship - but here and now, the invitation to tell his mother everything makes him squeeze his eyes shut and let his head fall back against the cupboard door. He takes a few deep breaths.
“Okay,” Blaine says after a moment, managing to make the word sound as normal as possible. “Well... you know how winter in New York City is...”
For as long as he can manage, Blaine tells his mother mostly-fake updates. And as always, Marita Anderson is a receptive and enthusiastic an audience: she hums, and sucks in sympathetic breaths when he mentions upcoming exams, and laughs loud and high and clear when he manages to force a joke out about his apartment’s heating that he knows for a fact she’s heard a million times before. When his chest feels too tight and his voice to thin to keep going about things that will never matter again, he manages to steer her into talking about how she’s been for the past little while.
For twenty minutes, Blaine sits on the cold linoleum floor, one arm wrapped around himself and the other clutching at his phone as though it’s a lifeline, and simply listens to his mother’s voice. She babbles happily about anything and everything he can wheedle out of her: about the new treatments they’re having done to the windows in the spring, and putting the garden to bed, and some kind of drama with one of the ladies she lunches with. He listens to her get excited about the Christmas party that William’s firm is hosting in December, telling him that I know it seems long way away, beloved, but if you can buy a green tie sometime soon we’ll all be able to match and do you remember last year with Mr. Elton’s secretary and the punch bowl? Oh my lord, how we all laughed!
Blaine sits, and listens, and makes all the right noises in all the right places as he holds every word she speaks in the palms of his hands like precious gems.
When Marita finally starts to make noises about the time, Blaine clears his throat to get rid of the lump there.
“Mom?” he asks, and his lip and hands are shaking for a whole other reason. This... this shouldn’t matter anymore, it can’t matter, except...
Except that it does matter.
And he would rather ask now than continue to exist forever without ever knowing.
“Can I... can I talk to dad for a minute?” he asks, before he can lose his nerve. She makes a pleasantly surprised noise, and he can hear her call out to her husband from off to one side. There are bugs under Blaine’s skin, making his fingers twitch and his breathing stutter. It feels as though something very small and very, very defenceless has curled up in his chest.
Rustling noises. The phone changing hands. And then -
“Blaine?”
It is impossible to convey the hot mess of emotions that hit him like a blow to the stomach at the sound of his father’s voice in his ear. Dread and determination, desperation, and a terrible, terrible sadness down out everything else for a long moment, and he sucks in a sharp breath. Blaine swallows hard in order to keep silent, the quiet rumble of the word still ringing in his ears, and stares determinedly up at the ceiling.
There are so many things he wanted to ask his father about, one day. When he was a kid, Blaine had always imagined the day when the two of them would finally figure one another out; finally be on the same page. That, at some point in the future, he and his dad would find a way to be closer, to relate to each other the way fathers and sons are supposed to. When he would grow up and magically become the person his father always wanted him to be: impressive, and contained, and not the rudderless fuck-up that he is. Blaine had always fantasized about it: coming home to visit one day, years from now, and he and his dad would look at each other and just know.
He’s never going to have that day, now. Never going to have any of the one days he always dreamed about.
So this...
This is just going to have to be enough.
“Hi, dad,” says Blaine quietly, his voice coming out unadorned and vacant when he finally manages to speak. There’s a shifting sound, and Blaine can almost picture his father adjusting himself awkwardly in his chair in the living room. Phone conversations have never been his dad’s strongest suit. Not with family. Not with his son.
“... how are you doing? ” William Anderson asks after a slightly too-long pause, the words stunted and short, and Blaine takes a deep breath.
“Dad, I -” he starts off unsteadily, feeling his voice crack and stopping before it becomes audible. He coughs slightly, sniffing. “I... I have to ask you something.”
“Of course,” comes William’s voice in his ear, low and confused and uncertain, and Blaine has no idea whether he sounds good or okay or not okay, but he can’t care. Can’t back out now. He has to know.
“Okay,” says Blaine. He blinks hard, swiping his tongue over his lips from where they’ve gone dry. “It’s just...” Quavering, feeble words in the air. “...I’ve been having a bit of a hard time. At school, this year, and.” He drags in a shaky breath. “And I... I don’t...” He can feel his eyes start to water again, burning unpleasantly as he tries to get the words out. “... I don’t know if I can do this.”
There is a pause over the line that sits in Blaine’s stomach like a weight.
“... Blaine, ” begins his father after a moment, cautious and slow. “...I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I don’t,” croaks Blaine, the words hitching but he keeps going anyways. “I don’t know if I can do this, dad. Law school, and New York, and I don’t... I don’t want it. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted it.”
He can hear William shifting awkwardly over the line again. “Blaine,” he says, sounding taken aback and concerned, but still restrained. “Everyone has bad semesters, it isn’t easy -”
“I know,” chokes Blaine, the words hitched and thick. He face feels hot and crumpled as he scrubs his hand over his eyes to catch the tears that are spilling out freely now. He isn’t even bothering to hide it anymore, not holding back; voice tiny and childlike as the tears catch at it, dragging in big gulps of air as he tries to speak. Doesn’t remember the last time he cried where his father could hear him. “I know, but dad, it’s not... it’s not just this semester. It’s every semester, and it’s just - it’s killing me.”
“Blaine,” comes William’s voice, shocked and weak and lost over the line. “Blaine, you don’t-”
“Why do I have to feel this way?” he asks desperately, hot despair sliding down his face and off his chin as he shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. The words pouring out of his mouth have been trapped inside of him for years - since his first year, when he was away from home and lonely and so, so alone in the city that swallows you whole - and now they’re spilling out like a damn bursting. Rushing out of him because there’s nothing to hold him back, not anymore. No reason to let them linger and rot away at his insides like they’ve been doing for so long. “Why can’t I just be what you want me to be, daddy?” Blaine asks, voice snagging and catching violently, and it is the question that has defined so much of his life. “I want so b-badly to make you happy, and I’m never going to be who you want, and -”
“Blaine,” says William, firm and hard enough to cut him off mid-sentence, and Blaine’s whole body falls forward and curls inward as his small frame shudders with sobs. Eyes pressed shut and holding himself tight and crying, just crying, crying about this in the way he never allowed himself to do. In the way he never, ever let his dad see because he’s always wanted to be the perfect son and he never was, he isn’t, and now he never will be. Gasping wetly and unable to stop himself, unable to hold back, and his father doesn’t say anything for so, so long.
When Blaine can finally breathe again, he opens his swollen eyes with difficulty and chokes out little half-gasps into the empty kitchen. He can hear his dad over the line, there but not talking, not saying anything, and he never should have brought this up never never never not ever -
“Do you know why your mother and I pushed for you to go to law school?” his dad asks after a long, impossible pause. He sounds... tense, and held together, and there is something in his tone that Blaine’s can’t identify. He shakes his head weakly, bottom lip scrunching up, before he realizes that William can’t see him.
“No,” Blaine whispers, voice tiny and wrecked and useless. The pain is dull and worn from crying, now. Weathered at like rocks smoothed from the current. His sleeves are damp with tears, and he sniffs. “Because you thought I could handle it.”
“Because we want you to be happy more than anything,” William emphasizes, a tremor in his voice, and Blaine’s breath catches in his throat. Mouth falling open and staring blankly at the cabinets in front of him. “I thought you knew that. Blaine... I know that I had a hard time, when you were growing up. With the fact that you... that you’re gay. But it’s only because...” He lets out a breath that vibrates into the receiver. “Because all we’ve ever wanted - all I’ve ever wanted - is for things to be easy for you.”
“I don’t...” Blaine trails weakly, at loss. He and his dad... they don’t talk about this either, not really. About the elephant in the room for the entire time he was in high school and for a little bit after; the reason he never mentioned boyfriends or dating if he could possibly, possibly help it. It’s another topic that never gets broached, and yet... here his dad is, bringing it up freely without even being prompted.
“It was so hard for us, before you were born. You know... about my parents. And how they were about your mother.” There is anger there, hidden beneath the surface. Simmering and buzzing and not forgotten. Never forgotten. “It was so difficult for us, and I just wanted for you to not have to deal with that like we did.” William laughs, catching Blaine off guard. “Obviously, now I know that I went about that badly. But, Blaine... being an artist... it’s hard, and rough, and the whole world is against you. I just figured that - you’re talented, and bright, and if you could do something more stable and still be happy, that would be better. It would make things easier for you.”
“I - dad -” Blaine manages haltingly, throat strangled and his eyes filling up again.
“So if dropping out of law school will make you happy,” says William, letting out a breath. “Then take some time, think about it, and do it. You can always come back later to finish if you want, or try something else. ” He inhales sharply, and when he speaks again Blaine can hear the waver in his voice. “You could never disappoint me, Blaine. You’ve always been the person I wanted you to be.”
“Dad,” he sobs, hand over his mouth and shaking his head. Whole face pulled together and clenching as helpless, ragged tears choke their way out of him and shake his whole chest.
“I love you,” comes his father’s voice, strong and solid and thrumming with quiet conviction, and Blaine’s heart stops because he can count on two hands the number of times he has heard his father say those words to him. “I will always love you. There is nothing - nothing - that you could ever do to make me stop loving you.”
And Blaine cannot speak. Cannot form words, cannot form thoughts. Can only press the phone to his ear and choke on his own tears as he listens to his dad’s steady breathing over the phone. In and out, in and out, simple and straightforward, and of all the hundreds of ways that conversation could have gone he never, ever dared to dream that it could be anything even remotely close to what that was. To what that meant.
He has no idea how long he sits there, his father’s words pounding in his chest like a heartbeat and just as warm and alive, as his sobs begin to slow and ease and finally, finally stop. The entire time, William stays on the line: listens silently, and steadfastly, and Blaine thinks that most people would try to be comforting. Say there there and it’s okay and everything is going to be all right, but it’s not in his father’s nature and it doesn’t matter. Because no empty, meaningless words of comfort could possibly mean more than what his father has already told him tonight.
When Blaine can finally breathe normally again, he lets out a shuddery sigh into the receiver - and his whole body slumps back against the cabinet bonelessly. Blinks, eyelashes clumped and throat sore and his heart infinitely, infinitely lighter.
“Are you all right?” William asks, not patronizing or strange about any of it. Just... calm, and easy. As though everything that just happened is matter-of-fact, usual, and not like it’s something that has been dreaming hopelessly of hearing him say for years.
“Yeah,” breathes Blaine, pressing his lips together but unable to stop the tiny, choked little laugh that escapes. “Yeah, I’m... I’m good.”
“Why did you never bring this up before now?” asks William softly, voice a bit rough, and Blaine’s whole chest tightens and constricts. He bites down on his bottom lip, mind still spinning from the entirely unexpected direction the conversation has taken.
“...I don’t know,” he admits after a minute, shrugging his shoulders and swiping a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why, now. It was... there was never the right moment.” There was never going to be the right moment, and now he is so grateful - so incredibly, incredibly grateful - that he made that moment happen. Because he doesn’t have much time, but that... Blaine can cling to that knowledge of what could have been. Can hold it in his heart and try to take it with him when he goes. “I... thank you, dad. For... for what you said about... I...” Blaine gives his head a shake, cutting himself off before he starts to ramble. His father has never been one to abide rambling. “Thank you.”
“I meant it,” says his dad quietly, unfalteringly, before letting out a little rumble of laughter. “Do you want to say goodbye to your mother before you head off?” It’s a question with two meanings: woven underneath is I know you don’t want her to know you’re upset, can you manage?
In response to both questions, Blaine lets out a little noise of affirmation. “I’d like that,” he admits, and he can hear the sound of his dad standing up. Calling out to his wife, letting her know that he’s going off the phone. Before he can pass off the phone, however -
“I love you, dad,” he blurts, all in a rush, and it feels more final than anything else ever could. He can hear William stop his steps, can hear his father let out a little breath of air.
“Goodnight, Blaine,” he murmurs warmly, and passes the phone over to his mother.
The two of them exchange goodnights, and I love yous, and goodbyes, and then... it’s over.
But not quite.
With legs that are stiff and sore and cramped from being curled up underneath him on the hard floor, Blaine grabs hold of the counter above and pushes himself unsteadily onto his feet. He sways there for a moment, hanging in time and space as he stares down at the now black-screened phone in his hand. He blinks; and the tears haven’t stopped, not really. They keep coming, unremarkable and warm as they smear down his cheeks. But there isn’t the same desperation there as before.
It feels... it feels as though a tight knot of pressure has been released inside of him. As though something that he’s been keeping sealed up, secret and hidden and straining to escape, has finally come free. There’s a lightness there that he hasn’t felt in years. Not since being in high school, and getting up on stage and opening his mouth and connecting with a whole room full of people.
The dread is still there; the resignation, the sadness. The knowledge that he only has an hour and fifty minutes left. But it doesn’t hurt in the same, all-consuming way that it did before the phone call: sharp and horrible and sickening, flooding and pounding through him with every breath. Instead, it is manageable. Distant, almost. Something he can wrap his head around.
There are still things that Blaine has to get done, before it happens. Now isn’t the time for grieving; it’s the time for finishing.
With surreal meticulousness keeping the panic vague and abstract, Blaine walks across the room and collects the supplies that he’s going to need. A stack of paper from his desk, his nicest pen. A mostly-full box of envelopes from a cupboard and some stamps that he finds in his kitchen drawer. When everything is laid out before him on the coffee table he sits down on the couch, lets out a bracing breath - and begins to write his final letters.
He begins with a letter to his parents. It takes the longest to write out of any of them by far, and two initial rough drafts full of crossed-out words and scribbled-in additions before he writes out the final version. It’s a strange headspace that he finds himself in as he carefully weights what to include against what to leave unwritten. It’s almost too logical and reasoned for the subject matter, although the tears keep streaming steadily and gently down his face as he writes. They splash on the page like little watermarks of grief, and he doesn’t try to hold them back. Lets them come freely as he puts his final message to his parents onto the page.
As his mind slogs carefully through phrasing and scribbles it all out onto the paper - the apologies, the unspecific explanations that don’t say anything of substance - he wishes he had nicer handwriting. It’s an odd thing to fixate on, perhaps: the way he writes has always been cramped and scratchy. He wishes for a rounded, handsome scrawl: something elegant and important-looking. But this is just going to have to do.
When he finishes, the letter to his parents is two single-sided pages long. He signs his name at the bottom - I love you both for always, Your Blaine - before putting it aside to allow the glistening ink to dry properly.
The next two letters come fairly quickly: one for Wes and one for David. Another one to Jack, and that... that one is harder. Words of deepest condolences and grief, and honesty, and the knowledge that nothing can ever make up for what he did. After that, he folds each letter carefully: pressing his fingers along the crease and sliding them across, then tucking each one into an envelope. His smartphone has the addresses and postal codes for everyone, and he carefully scratches the necessary information on each envelope. Once everything is sealed, and stamped, and ready, Blaine lets out a shaky breath. He stands, pulls on a coat over his clothes and slips on his shoes - and leaves his apartment.
He almost expects Kurt to burst out at him as soon as the door swings open, or as soon as he reaches the bottom floor, or as soon as he walks out into the night. But it doesn’t happen. It’s been so long since Blaine has been out at night that he’s almost forgotten what it feels like. The chill on his face, the smell of the city like this. Frost on the ground, and his breath in the air, and he should feel colder than this with only a coat but his whole body is numb to it. It’s only a short walk from his apartment to the nearest mail box, but being outside at night feels more final than anything else Blaine has done so far.
Resignation and slow, steady acceptance fill the base of his stomach, heavy and dull and certain as the night. There is no point in hiding anymore. In trying to pretend that he can avoid this, that he can be safe.
This was always going to happen. There was never any other way his life could have gone, he knows that now. From the very first time Kurt laid eyes on him in that alley all those weeks ago, Blaine’s been living on borrowed time. Blaine had only ever been fooling himself whenever he considered life beyond Kurt, because that was never going to happen.
There was never going to be an after, not for him.
The people in the street don’t stare at his face, still streaked with tears that he hasn’t bothered to wipe away. They’re New Yorkers, and they’ve seen at all, and Blaine has nothing to be ashamed of anymore. The wetness makes the cold sting even sharper against his skin, but Blaine welcomes it: it’s the last time he’s ever going to feel truly cold again.
The letters will be delivered in the morning, but by then it will already be over for him. He feels a distant pang in his chest as he deposits them into the mail box, and then... they’re gone. Out of his reach and far away, his words speaking out to the people he cares about once he isn’t around anymore. Unfocused, Blaine stares at the mailbox for a long, long time before turning on his heel and heading back home for the last time.
There are still ten minutes left when he unlocks the door to his apartment and goes back inside. And Kurt is on his way, rushing toward Blaine like an oncoming train that he can’t throw himself out of the way from. He strips off his coat, kicks off his shoes. When he turns back to face the door, how very near it is comes rushing up and collides with his chest. Everything vital that he needed to achieve, the last bit of himself he needed to send into the ether - it’s done. Done and gone, and the minutes ticking down until Kurt arrives on his doorstep.
Since the night he found out what Kurt was, Blaine has felt fear in more ways than he ever thought it possible for a human being to experience. In terrified bursts of adrenaline, in dull dread that lasted all through the night, in bone-deep anxiety that sunk into his whole life and stretched out across days and weeks. He has felt fear that is red hot, and simmering, and mixed with disgusted lust and repulsion and grief and everything in between. Since that night in the alley, Kurt has left him weak and worn and frayed around the edges, clinging to sanity and control with white-knuckled fingers.
But he has never felt anything like this. This slow, determined procession toward the inevitable. Like a funeral dirge in his mind, slow voices chanting and bringing him closer and closer to finality. Rhythmic and measured and wrapping around him, the sinking knowledge of the end like a physical presence inside his body.
Wetness slides down without his permission or his acknowledgement as he stares at the door, nothing dramatic or exaggerated about it anymore. The tears simply are, just like the heavy desolation and certainty inside. Blaine breathes deeply and slowly, the sound only hitching slightly as he wraps his arms around himself and exists in this space that once seemed so safe to him. But these are just walls, and floors, and air - he doesn’t know how he could ever have imagined they could keep out his destiny. He was never made to be a lawyer, or a parent, or a performer. He was never made for more than this.
The minutes tick by, slow and thick and cold, and all the time he has left is slipping through his fingers. With only a few minutes left and the emptiness filling him up like mud and growing panic shooting up and down his spine, Blaine closes his eyes - and tries with one last, desperate effort to reach out to something larger than himself in the darkness.
He has never been a religious person. Raised by a lapsed Catholic mother and an atheist father, he has never had much reason to believe in a God who always seemed so foreign and distant and full of condemnation for what he couldn’t help but be. But for a few precious seconds as he stands and waits for death - or as good as death, deeper than death - to arrive at his doorstep... he pretends. Pretends that he can feel something holding him close, something greater than he is. Some unseeable force reaching out to slide its hand into his; to stay with him through his last lingering moments by himself.
The illusion vanishes only a moment later into the night, leaving him as alone and empty and cold as ever.
And a few seconds later, he can hear the subtle shift in the air as Kurt arrives outside his door.
Something lurches inside, like a car coming to a sudden halt. The tears are still coming down his face; sliding down his neck and soaking into the soft neckline of his t-shirt. Blaine takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily - and opens the door without being prompted.
Not one minute late and not one minute early, Kurt is standing there right in the doorway. With the door open and exposing him like something out of one of the many nightmares from the last few weeks, only Kurt is far too real and present and now to ever be a dream. Sharp and dangerous and achingly, achingly beautiful in a dark button-up shirt with a long, light scarf wrapped fluidly around his neck; he must have gone home to change out of the bloodstained clothes that had dripped and slopped all over the bookstore floor. His head is titled to one side and his eyes, blue and bright and burning, lock right onto Blaine’s as soon as the door is opened. Everything about his features is unnatural in a way that has haunted Blaine’s dreams for weeks; the curve of his cheek, the paleness of his skin, the delicate arch to his eyebrows.
And there has been a part of Blaine - a mad, unthinkable part that he’s been trying to silence and smother and ignore for so long - that has longed for this. That hasn’t just wanted an end to the fear and the pain and the exhaustion and the loneliness, but has been waiting with bated breath for him. For Kurt. For this unreal, unimaginable man to come out of the shadows and make his world fade away into nothing.
“It’s time,” says Kurt quietly, gaze lingering over the wetness on Blaine’s face before flicking down to ghost over Blaine’s body like a caress. He shudders helplessly, swallowing hard.
“I know,” Blaine whispers, lip trembling. He takes a deep breath, takes a few paces backwards into the room as the door rests ajar. And Kurt stares at him as he moves; deliberately, and intently, and a shiver whispers over his skin. The whole world rests on the edge of a cliff for a long second, hovering over the precipice and suspended in the air as thought weightless. And then...
“You can come in,” murmurs Blaine, the words clinging to his lips as they escape out into the air, and the world spirals over the edge and into the abyss.
Slowly, gradually, a smile spreads over Kurt’s lips. Close-lipped and still looking straight at him, spun through with gathering satisfaction. As though those unremarkable, everything words are all he has ever wanted to hear. Leisurely, eyes sliding up and down over the place where the invisible barrier once stood, Kurt takes a single careful step across the threshold.
And after so long, Kurt is finally inside. Inside his apartment, the false safety of its walls utterly swept away once and for all into nothing. Wonderingly, Kurt looks around the space as he sees it from the inside for the very first time. Standing still as his eyes do all the moving, sliding through the front room before they finally come back to rest on Blaine again. He takes another step forward, footstep soft on the hardwood, closing the space between them.
Blaine doesn’t budge. Keeps standing in place as feeble shivers run along his skin and the tears come down his face. Slowing down now, not nearly as many as before: just the occasional bit of wetness that escapes and edges down over his raw face. Because there is absolutely no difference between Kurt inside his apartment and Kurt touching him and Kurt killing him. There’s no need to shy away or jerk back because Kurt’s already here. Has already made it past the last line of defence, and there is nothing stopping him from taking anything he wants now. Touching him or not touching him, it doesn’t matter. Close up or far away, Blaine had no control over anything anymore.
“No more begging?” Kurt asks, clearly trying to sound merely curious. But there is a high tightness in his voice that belies his excitement: a breathy, tense quality to his movement as he comes closer and closer until they are standing right in front of one another.
“There isn’t any point,” says Blaine simply, swallowing and shrugging his shoulders. The sinking feeling has expanded within him, reaching out to every corner of his body. Filling up his limbs and pulling him down.
“There isn’t,” Kurt agrees softly, his eyes lingering over Blaine’s face, his lips, his exposed arms, his bare neck. Breath hitching and fully clothed, Blaine feels more vulnerable and uncovered than he ever has in his life. But he still doesn’t pull away, doesn’t flinch: he promised not to fight anymore, after all. And it will all be over in a minute. Kurt licks his lips greedily, taking another step right into Blaine’s personal space and -
And their bodies are touching for the first time in over a month. Just the barest, slightest brush of their chests and arms as they stand and Kurt breathes in deep, his eyes rolling back in his head as he pulls Blaine’s smell deep into his lungs. Kurt is taller than he is, and Blaine feels practically encompassed by his body even though they’re barely touching at all. He gasps, but doesn’t move away: there simply isn’t any point. Kurt will take whatever he wants whether Blaine struggles or not, and he promised to do this willingly.
When Kurt moves in toward him, Blaine braces himself for the sharp pain of puncturing fangs in his neck. His whole body clenches in terrible anticipation, freezing and squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the pain to burst through him -
But instead, all he feels is the shock of a soft touch as Kurt moves in, reaches up a hand to rest along the back of his neck - and pulls him into a gentle, aching kiss.
The hand strokes along the back of his neck, caressing the skin there as Kurt presses their mouths together with hushed intensity. Tilting Blaine’s face up against him, and the cool, soft touch of Kurt’s lips against his, salty and damp from tears, is like something out of a memory. Blaine’s eyes fly open in surprise at the contact that is so far away from what he had been expecting, hands spasming and clenching into fists at his sides and whole body tensing up for long moments. But Kurt’s eyes are closed and peaceful as they kiss, and Blaine feels fingers edge gently through the now-dry curls at the base of his neck. Feels Kurt inhale deeply against him, and his hands unfurl at his sides. He relaxes into the kiss, letting his eyes flutter closed once more; giving into the touch at last. Giving himself over, with everything that means.
Against him, Kurt groans headily at the surrender, his other hand sliding up to curl around Blaine’s waist and pull him in closer. Blaine complies, leaning up into the chaste touch of lips to lips that is so different from that night on the park bench. This... this is electrifying, quietly possessive and deeply intimate; so utterly dissimilar from the hungry claiming of that grotesque, twisted, desperate contradiction of a night. Their first kiss had been full of ignorance and illusions, teaming with a million realities that could never come to pass.
Now, inside Blaine’s chest, the part of him that has yearned for this for so long unfurls and expands outward. Filling him up with dizzy, wistful satisfaction at finally, finally, being able to let go.
When Kurt pulls away, Blaine hears himself make a quiet, pitiful noise into the night.
“Mine,” Kurt whispers intensely, as though it’s the most important thing he’s ever said. Looking down at Blaine with darkened eyes, his breath ghosting along Blaine’s damp lips. “All mine.”
But as soon as they’re no longer touching, Blaine can feel the panic welling up inside of him again: making his fingers twitch and his eyes water, heart clenching in grief and pain and frantic anxiety to do this, to make it finished, make it done.
“Do it,” Blaine chokes out hopelessly, reaching up with violently shaking fingers. He tugs at the neckline of his shirt and turns his head, exposing a long stretch of bare neck. His whole body is wracked with helpless shudders, and his squeezes his eyes shut. Everything has been leading up to this moment, and now that it’s here waiting any longer is just too much. “Do it, please, just - get it over with.”
There is a long pause before he hears Kurt move again. And then -
The tender, caressing touch of Kurt’s hand against his cheek. It stays there for a long time, and eventually Blaine opens his eyes again cautiously.
“Beautiful thing,” Kurt murmurs quietly, voice full of gentle affection as his thumb strokes over Blaine’s cheek. “My beautiful, beautiful Blaine.”
He presses their foreheads together, and confusion is thrumming through Blaine’s body like a whisper. Kurt’s hand strokes over his cheek, fingers lingering sweetly over the skin. After long, endless moments, Kurt moves his head away. His eyes are dark, heavily lidded and lashed as he looks down at Blaine with sweet patronization in the lines of his face.
“Did you really think that I would chase you so hard, and for so long, only to have this be over in a split second?” Kurt breathes against his lips, and Blaine’s eyes widen.
Without any other warning, Kurt’s hand is balling up and crashing into his skull with a crack that makes the world flash white. It’s like an explosion of brightness and sharp pain behind his eyelids, and Blaine can feel his body crumple sideways through the haze. The ground is rushing up to meet him, speeding towards him as his eyes roll back and he slips away into the blackness of unconsciousness.

Chapter Seven