Fic: "Until My Dying Breath", Chapter Nine: Part Two -- Kurt/Blaine Vampire AU.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Epilogue
Click here to go back to part one.
--
- gasping choking dragging in air, his back arching up spasmodically with his mouth hanging open and spluttering in an attempt to breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe. The air is raw and sharp and painful as it fills up his lungs, pulling it inside all at once as the sound of himself desperately sucking in air jolts through the still room. Blaine rolls onto his side, clutching at his chest and panting raggedly as oxygen floods his lungs and brings him awake again after the overwhelming emptiness of the nothing he was yanked from. He chokes the air down wetly, pressing his cheek against cool fabric as breathe breathe breathe need to breathe begins to lessen and become appeased by the swallows of sweet oxygen that feel like salve to his wrecked, sore body.
Awareness is back again, coming over him in fits and starts as the frantic need falls into the background. Of the space in the room and the soft bed beneath him and the smell of something amazing, amazing hanging in the air. Faint but incredible in a way that makes his stomach clench and twist and hollow out in horrible pain.
There is no pain in his neck, though. Or his hand, or his arm, and there’s something wrong about that - but he’s too disoriented to remember why, exactly, that’s important.
Abruptly, Blaine becomes tremendously and irreversibly aware of sound. All around him and so loud, and he has no idea how he didn’t notice it all before. Sounds of traffic like thunder outside, blaring horns and shouted words and the humming of car engines all mixing together to create a cacophony so loud he can barely process anything else. He slams his hands over his ears but pulls them away when the slow pound of blood in his palms rings loud and overwhelming, clutching at himself and breathing desperate hard into the sheets beneath him. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, holding himself all together until he can make sense of it, put it together like a puzzle, wrap his head around the overwhelming noise of the world outside the window that blares in his ears.
After a few seconds, it eases itself to the background. Not gone, per se, just - not the most important thing anymore.
Slowly, slowly, Blaine is able to focus on the noises closer to home.
Small insects and animals in the walls; rats and spiders and flies all nestled up and unseen, hidden in holes and burrowed deep into drywall. The creaking of floorboards and people talking and moving and breathing and blood flowing in the apartments above and below and around. The neutral buzz of appliances in the other room, their ever-constant tones ringing in his ears.
And finally, Blaine is able to wrap his mind around the loudest noise of all. Someone in the room with him, their slow breathing quivering and laboured and like an explosion of noise beside him.
“Blaine?” comes a wavering voice, strained and worried and relieved, a drawn-out noise in the air that makes him wince with its closeness. Blaine squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the echoes of the word to stop clanging in his ears like gunfire in a metal room. It does, after a second, and very gradually it all becomes more manageable. Comprehensible, and real. “Blaine?” comes the voice again, wrung-out as though the person has been crying, and suddenly the bed creaks and groans underneath another person’s weight. There are hands cradling his shoulders, rolling him into his back, and he can feel the warmth of a body kneeling next to him.
And all at once, a name is sounding in Blaine’s head like the tolling of a bell.
Kurt.
Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt Kurt.
Blinking back against how much more harsh and vivid the light seems to be through his eyelashes, Blaine slowly opens his eyes.
The face above him is blurry, at first. Absurdly distorted and wrong, and Blaine screws up his face in annoyance. Blindly, he reaches up and grabs hold of his glasses, ripping them off his face. They fall onto the bed next to him, and when he blinks the world comes crystal clear around him; sharp and detailed in a way he has never seen it before.
Kurt is hunched over him, his pale face streaked with wetness and his eyes shining with stark, unconcealed relief. The angles and curves of his face, usually so beautiful and icy and controlled, are stained with uneven blotches and slack with too much emotion. Kurt’s grip on Blaine’s shoulders is tight, his hands shaking almost imperceptibly but for the fact that it feels as though Blaine’s whole world has been dialled up. His eyes are red-rimmed and swollen.
When Blaine inhales through his nose a moment later, though, that incredible smell lingering in the room hits him so hard he can’t focus on anything else. He almost groans out loud at how incredibly, unbelievably good it is; warm and animal and tantalizing, hanging in the air and emanating from a pile of discarded sheets in the corner of the bedroom. It smells familiar, somehow, too. It makes his senses burst and stand on edge, makes his stomach growl with horrible hunger.
It takes Blaine too long to realize that Kurt’s mouth is moving, forming words; a steady stream of too-fast too-high too-wavering words that force him to focus.
“... was so scared,” Kurt whispers shakily, licking his lips and looking as though he’s barely holding himself back from snagging Blaine up and pulling him into his arms. He looks a complete mess, Blaine realizes distantly; his hair is all askew, and he’s paler than usual, and it looks as though he’s been crying for hours. “Never done that before, and I - I didn’t know how long it was supposed to take. And I got you cleaned up but you wouldn’t wake up, you wouldn’t, and. And I didn’t know if I took too much blood before I made you drink, I lost control, and I was so scared that you wouldn’t come back to me.” Kurt hesitates, looking down at Blaine below him uncertainly. “Are... are you okay? Blaine, are you -?”
But Blaine’s whole body is aching - keening - for that wonderful smell that tugs at his nostrils and incites his senses, he wants it, he needs it. He’s hungry, so hungry, as though he hasn’t eaten anything for weeks and his stomach is hollow and useless and he imagines hot blood flooding his mouth and groans. He’s empty, empty inside and desperate, and his body is aware of exactly what he needs as though the knowledge has been hard-wired into his brain.
Before he fully realizes what he’s doing, Blaine throws himself up and against Kurt’s body with such force that it sends them both tumbling off the bed in a flurry of limbs and startled shouts. They land with Kurt falling hard on his back and Blaine all akimbo on top of him, scrabbling to move so that they’re lined up as he scrapes his nails over Kurt’s skin - it doesn’t feel cold at all, it’s warm and pleasant and wonderful - so that he can mouth frantically at the crook of Kurt’s neck.
“Kurt,” Blaine whines, letting out a drawn-out groan as he bites down hard. He scrunches up his face in frustration. It smells wrong, under Kurt’s skin. Not right, not what he needs, but close. Close enough that he keeps rubbing his face against Kurt’s clothed shoulder, nuzzling hard and tearing through the fabric with his nails. Beneath him, Kurt’s face is frozen in a rictus of shock. Blaine keeps talking anyways, the words escaping his lips in an unstoppable flurry. “Kurt, I’m hungry. So hungry, I need it, let me have it, I want it -”
For a long second, Blaine can feel Kurt tense in absolute disbelief beneath him. Before -
“Oh my god,” Kurt laughs after the long pause, throwing his head back against the floor as Blaine nuzzles and nips determinedly at his neck. It’s a short burst of sound, saturated with sagging relief, the edge of the laugh catching with growing delight and amusement. Kurt lets out a huffed little exclamation of surprise, and Blaine feels a hand come up to rest on his back. “Oh my god, Blaine, you’re ridiculous.”
Absently, Kurt rubs a hand over his back. Blaine barely notices, though. Keeps suckling at the skin of Kurt’s throat as though it can give him what he needs, what his whole body is pining for.
Laughing, Kurt grabs him by the back of the neck and wrenching Blaine’s head up for a kiss. Tongue and teeth and dirty, revelling in his mouth, and Blaine kisses back until he can’t stand it anymore and bites down hard on Kurt’s bottom lip, a sharpened tooth slicing easily through the skin and spilling blood slowly onto Blaine’s tongue.
“Ow!” Kurt yips, surprised and sounding slightly affronted, as Blaine wraps his lips around the open wound and sucks. His whole body is coiled up like a spring, bursting with anticipation to have the horrible hunger twisting at his insides sated. The feel of hot blood coating his tongue and filing his mouth feels good, yes - but it’s not right. Not right, not good, not nearly enough. Kurt’s blood is empty, somehow. It feels nice and tastes nice but it’s wrong, doesn’t have what Blaine needs, and he whines piteously against Kurt’s mouth and sucks down harder until Kurt gently pushes him away with superior strength.
“That won’t work,” says Kurt calmly, stroking a hand through Blaine’s curls. He’s staring at Blaine in the exact same way he did in the alley all those months ago; as though he’s a marvel, a miracle. Something that can’t possibly exist but does, defying the laws of reality and presented like a gift right into Kurt’s lap. Staring at his face, running his eyes over the edges and features as though trying to learn them all over again. It would make Blaine preen and feel a hot rush of pleasure at the attention except that he can’t focus, can’t concentrate, can only feel the awful ache of emptiness in his stomach. “That doesn’t work, Blaine, it has to be human.”
“Kurt,” Blaine begs, digging his nails hard into Kurt’s arm.
A slow, overjoyed twist works its way at the edge of Kurt’s mouth. The cut is still bleeding, the skin cut and open from the bite, but not very much.
“Would you like something to eat?” asks Kurt slyly, his sculpted eyebrows raising in flirtatious question as he smiles up at Blaine with slightly too much glee in his expression.
“Yes,” Blaine growls out, something low and anticipatory twisting in his stomach. He grabs Kurt by the arm , grasping his hand dragging him up onto his feet as he stands, and oh. Even half-crazed and desperate to feed, Blaine feels strong. Almost sends Kurt stumbling from how enthusiastic he is, and it makes a hot spark shoot up his spine. The surprised happy delicious glint in Kurt’s eyes once they’re both steady on their feet is just too perfect. But the promise of something to make the aching emptiness in his stomach ease up is too important to ignore, and they quickly rush about getting ready to leave the apartment.
Kurt must have cleaned Blaine up while was out; there’s no blood drenching his skin, and his ruined sleep shirt has been removed and discarded. Apparently, though, Kurt didn’t bother to redress him. Blaine shucks the plaid pyjama pants that somehow avoided getting bloodstained with frenzied efficiency, not bothering to fake modesty. He quickly puts on a pair of jeans Kurt brought from his apartment and a button-up shirt Kurt made him from scratch. Kurt discreetly wipes away the wetness from his cheeks as Blaine dresses, and almost at once then the two of them are out the door and into the hallway.
They’re fast, together. So fast that it should make his head spin, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t, and that’s incredible beyond belief.
Socks on, then shoes. Blaine reaches out to grab one of the coats off the hat rack by the front door, but his hand wavers in mid-air. He hesitates, suddenly not sure if he’ll even need a coat at all. The memories are there, still; the night that he met Kurt in the alleyway, the night on the park bench. His mind can recall with perfect precision the way Kurt’s bare arms had practically shone in the lamplight, the way that the cold hadn’t seemed to affect him at all.
But even though Blaine can see it all playing out in his head, it almost feels as though it happened to someone else. He can remember what happened, remember what he felt, but... he can’t make himself relate to any of it. It’s almost as though all of it was a dream that Blaine is only now waking up from.
His hesitation is cut short when Kurt stands after lacing his tall boots to grab what must be his own coat off the rack.
“You don’t need it,” he explains airily, throwing his own coat over his shoulders. “But you’ll stand out if you don’t have one, trust me.”
Blaine nods, grabs his coat, and flings it hastily over his shoulders. Kurt opens the front door - and without even a backward glance, the two of them walk out of the apartment.
It takes too long to get outside, the awful twisting gnawing hunger clawing at his insides as Kurt leads him out. Through the hallways, down the stairs, and the whole time wonderful smell of blood beneath skin wafts under the cracks of the apartment doors and makes Blaine whine with desperation.
“We can’t get in there,” insists Kurt firmly, lips pursed, tugging at Blaine’s hand and leading him along with sharp efficiency. Blaine’s eyes linger over the numbered doors of the apartment, and the smell is so strong he can almost taste it. “We can’t get in, come on, outside, so close -”
Down the last of the stairs, through the plush lobby, past an elderly doorman with knobbled knees beneath his handsome uniform. Kurt’s hand is strong and soft and delicate and indomitable around Blaine’s own as he pushes open the main doors to the apartment complex, ushers them outside -
- and into the white, flurried landscape of the city at night amid fluttering gales of winter snow. Blaine freezes mid-step, eyes wide and even the horrible hunger forgotten as he stares in amazement at the street in front of them.
It’s all so much; so much detail and intricacy he has never noticed before as he sees the world through new eyes. This is a nice neighbourhood, he can tell at once; well-kept and clean and even slightly commercial. A few people are rushing here and there even though the sky is dark, wrapped in coats and with scarves pulled snug around their necks to keep out the cold. Glove-covered hands stuffed into the protection of pockets as they rasp and shiver so loud against the frigid air, but even though Blaine is only wearing a button-up shirt under a wool coat in the middle of New York in winter he doesn’t feel the cold. Snowflakes drift down and land on his cheeks, his nose, his eyelashes; they feel pleasant, and cool, but not uncomfortable at all. It is as though that part of his brain has simply been switched off; he stares blankly at his bare hands, the fingers not numb or stiff at all from the air.
The people walking by all leave their mark on the snowy sidewalks, crushing the snow down beneath their feet and leaving wet, freezing slush that turns black against the darkness of the concrete. But the tumbling, twisting gusts of falling white flakes light up the night sky and the tall buildings around them far more than the streetlamps and bright signs could ever accomplish on their own. It looks like a Christmas card; the perfect picture of the urban holidays, splayed out in front of them like a film set.
Blaine has been inside Kurt’s apartment for a long time, and he did know that - but somehow he had never actually expected the world to keep moving without him. Time passing and seasons changing had seemed so distant. So far away. For a moment, Blaine strangely finds himself wondering whether or not Christmas has already passed. He shakes his head sharply, not sure why something like that could even matter.
The smell - blood, so close, right here for him, right here - hits him with renewed fervour, making his mouth water and his fingers twitch as the almost-taste of it, out here in the open with no doors or barriers between them, rushes through his body. The people in the street are rushing right and left, not paying any attention at all to two normal-looking young men standing on the sidewalk. There are men, and women, and even a few children clinging to their parents’ hands through pairs of thick mittens.
And all at once, Blaine stands and looks and stares - and properly sees the people in front of him.
And they’re nothing.
Even through the hunger, Blaine knows it. Can feel it; the pounding, utter certainty that those things don’t matter. They smell like animals, they sound like animals; grunting little noises from the cold and loudloudloud footsteps and too-fast breathing that makes him stand straighter and stare. It’s like watching rats scampering around in a maze. Skin wrapped over bone and muscle and sinew and organs and blood like a little package, walking and talking and gesturing and none of it means anything at all.
And oh, god, the way they smell. Blaine closes his eyes and breathes in deeply through his nose, slumping wordlessly against Kurt’s shoulder as he stands and inhales it all in. He can smell the blood in them, flowing in their veins and concentrating in necks and wrists and thighs and absolutely reeking of life. Before, Blaine sometimes used to make a game out of people watching and speculating; guessing what people were thinking just by looking at them, or what they liked, or what they did with their lives.
But now the people walking around him simply don’t register on that level anymore. They register as animals; they register as food.
It all smells like the most decadent feast in the world, all laid out for him to come and take and drink and have. His stomach growls angrily, twisting and clenching, and he lets out a deep breath before turning and walking down the sidewalk in a random direction. Kurt follows behind, his hand still clenched in Blaine’s tight grip.
“Not too close to the apartment,” Kurt warns in a low voice that Blaine would never have been able to perceive, before; the words would have been drowned out by the drone of the wind or the sounds of traffic. Instead, Blaine can hear that high, beautiful voice as clearly as though Kurt were whispering right in his ear.
“Hungry,” Blaine reminds him, voice catching, because it’s almost the only thing he can say. It’s the only thing left, now; the only thing he can feel now that the shock and confusion of it all is wearing away. The horrible wrenching hunger, and the watering desperation in his mouth, and the way the emptiness inside makes him feel like he’s going insane.
“I know,” Kurt reassures him, speeding up so that he’s the one of them in the lead. They walk hard and fast down the sidewalk, putting more space between them and the apartment as the cars rush by beside them. “I know, I remember. We won’t worry about being fussy right now, okay? We’ll just get the first -”
They turn off into a side road, and Kurt abruptly cuts himself off. He puts a hand on Blaine’s chest, stopping him in place, as they both look down the narrow, poorly-lit little corridor off the main road.
The snow is falling a little harder now, thickening in the air and making everything whiter and more obscured. The side street is practically deserted; it’s all residential apartment buildings, any doormen tucked inside against the snow and cold. But a single figure, bundled up in a heavy coat to the knees and a knitted cap with flaps pulled down right over long hair is walking slowly away from them. It’s a woman; Blaine can tell, partly by the way she walks and holds herself and looks from a distance but oh, god, even by the way she smells. It smells feminine, somehow, even though Blaine doesn’t quite understand how he knows that.
Kurt raises a silent finger to his lips, but Blaine hadn’t been intending to say anything anyways. His voice is caught in his throat, already salivating as his stomach rumbles low and painful. Letting go of Blaine’s hand and without looking back at him, Kurt begins to walk quicker. Striding purposefully, silently down the road; his feet don’t make a sound in the soggy snow as he heads toward the lone figure hunched against the wind. Blaine doesn’t know how to mimic the lack of noise - not really - but he follows as quickly and quietly as he can, using every last bit of self-restraint to stop from charging in right now.
Twenty feet away.
Fifteen feet away.
Ten feet away, and she’s so close Blaine can barely hold himself back. His stomach aches and clenches and twists as every instinct in his body tells him to go feed take have want now kill, but Kurt is still moving silently closer so he holds himself back, makes himself wait for just one more second.
They’re just a few steps away from the open maw of an alley when Blaine mis-steps, his boot crunching in a patch of crisp snow with a noise that is audible even over the wind. She stops walking, starts to turn around with a startled look in her eyes, but Kurt is too quick for her. Hand darting out with brutal speed, Kurt violently snags the woman from behind; wraps a solid arm around her waist and brings the other one up to slam over her mouth.
“Hel -!” she shrieks before Kurt’s palm seals down over her lips and cuts her off, eyes wide and green and terrified as she struggles and bucks and lifts herself off the ground trying to break free. Her knitted hat falls to the ground and into the snow as she shakes her head back and forth, long blonde hair flying everywhere, clawing at Kurt’s hand over her mouth with painted-purple nails in an attempt to dislodge it so she can scream.
It’s no good, though, because Kurt is strong and hard and unmovable as he plucks her off her feet and carries his struggling burden into the secretive dark of the alley, away from prying eyes looking out windows and down onto the street below. Kurt’s face is so utterly calm and purposeful as he holds her still and drags her into the alley, not surprised or bothered or startled by anything, and something heated twists along the hunger in Blaine’s stomach at the sight of him.
And, oh, her fear. Rolling off her in thick waves; panic and hysteria and terror, absolute terror. It smells heady and intoxicating, makes the hunger roar and crash against Blaine’s insides like waves over sharp rocks. The girl - and it is a girl, not a woman, no more than twenty - has wide-blown eyes and her whole body is shaking, shaking hard and he can feel her tremors through the air. Can smell the taste of her blood pounding in her veins, hear her heart slamming against her chest in terror as she struggles and lets out muffled cries.
Standing behind the girl with one hand around her waist and the other over her mouth, Kurt holds her in place as Blaine stands in front of them; and as Blaine watches, Kurt forcibly turns her head to one side and exposes the pale, freckled length of her neck.
And she - it - is a thing. Blaine can smell that; can feel it even stronger than he did with the people on the main street. It smells like an animal; it smells like food.
“Here you are,” Kurt purrs, licking his lips as he locks eyes with Blaine over the sobbing shape between them. Blaine stares at the girl’s exposed throat, the lean muscles of it tensed with struggle. He can feel where the main artery is; pulsing and beating frantically beneath the skin right there. He inhales deeply and the smell of food hungry need it want it make him growl out loud. Blaine cocks his head to one side, the growl still coming low in his chest as he stares at the stretched skin and needs to break it open so badly it hurts. His face twists, and shifts, and changes in a way that should feel unnatural but doesn’t, it doesn’t, and Kurt’s expression shifts into something practically giddy with excitement. His eyes are shining, and the girl is still struggling, and Blaine runs his tongue over his teeth and feels them sharp and jagged in his mouth.
“Help yourself, beautiful,” says Kurt sweetly, exposing even more of her neck to him as she shrieks beneath his hand. “Aren’t you hungry?”
And that is all it takes.
Vibrations rumble in his throat as Blaine growls, launching himself forward and falling onto the girl like a starving man on a feast. He grabs at her and shoves his face into her neck, finds the main artery where it’s pulsing beating shuddering under the thin skin and bites down hard, ripping through skin and sinew and groaning with bliss as hot, perfect wetness gushes into his mouth and down his chin. The girl is screaming, audible even through Kurt’s hand but Blaine can barely hear her; can only feel the incredible heat of the blood as he swallows it down in greedy, messy gulps. It’s hot, so hot, burning and searing as it scorches his way down his throat in a way that makes him seal his lips over the wound and suck to get more of that unbelievable heat inside of him.
He drinks, and drinks; can feel his eyes rolling back in his head, keeps sucking as Kurt whispers soft little words of encouragement and the girl’s struggling gets weaker and weaker beneath him. Where his little taste of Kurt’s blood had seemed empty and useless on his tongue, the girl’s blood is full. Full and right and good, so good, the most amazing thing he’s ever tasted. Metallic and animal and earthy and sharp, the same taste blood has always had but somehow delectable. It’s filling him up, making the horrible aching emptiness and hunger of his stomach vanish. Flooding his limbs with strength and control and power, so much power, and Blaine snarls and bites down harder, increasing the suction from his mouth as the girl goes limp. Sagging into Kurt’s grasp and Blaine just keeps drinking, pulling it all down, digging his teeth in like a rabid wolf and having.
“Slow down,” Kurt warns him quietly, and Blaine would snap at him to give him a minute if it wasn’t for the subtle change in taste. He frowns, sucking harder as the blood starts to become more reluctant to dredge up into his mouth. It tastes... off, and then strange, and then foul; he jerks himself backward, spitting a mouthful of it into a pile of snow and gagging slightly at the taste.
“Wha -?” Blaine asks, furrowing his nose in confusion.
“Dead man’s blood,” Kurt explains quickly, wrinkling his nose in silent sympathy. He glances down at the weight in his arms before he effortlessly lifts and tosses the girl’s slack, dead body into one of the dumpsters along the side of the alley. The corpse impacts the three quarters-full dumpster with a crunch of mixed refuse being impacted. One of the girl’s arms catches on the edge of the bin, dangling over the edge. They’ll have to shove it in properly before they go. “Not quite so nice to eat, I think you’ll find. Stale.”
The taste is already fading, overwhelmed by how good the rest of it had been. Blaine can feel the hot flush of the girl’s blood sitting inside, filling him with heat and energy. Mouth hanging open, Blaine reaches up and touches his face; it’s back to normal, looking human again, but he feels... strong. Charged and full and real in a way he’s never felt; in a way he’s never been before now.
There is power, raw and dark and insidious, humming along his skin and in his blood and in the drumming of his slow-beating heart. Blaine stares down at his hands in disbelief, giddiness welling up inside and building and finally releasing in a burst of uncontrolled laughter.
“Kurt,” Blaine laughs, rubbing a hand over his face and letting out a giddy burst of air. “Kurt, I feel amazing.”
A broad smile steals over his face and stays there, making him grin wide. He does feel amazing, though; it’s true, so true; he’s never felt so good before in his life. Blaine feels healthy for the first time in recent memory; truly healthy, not just the strength or the blood or the senses. Everything feels fresh and rejuvenated, reborn and powerful in a way he can feel right down to his bones. There is no fear or pain to hold him back; not anymore.
He feels... he feels satisfied, and in control, and so incredibly certain of himself. Not pretending; not putting on a front to fool his parents or his classmates or an audience or himself. Really, really himself; right here and right now, he feels more like Blaine than he ever has before. And he can have absolutely anything he wants in the world and no one would ever have the power to tell him no.
Blaine’s mind flashes back briefly to the weak, drained little thing he’d been only a few hours ago; begging and sobbing and pleading for something pointless, and he feels a sudden rush of disdain so strong that it almost makes him shudder.
“You look amazing,” says Kurt quietly, and Blaine finally looks up from his hands - fully mended, the bones in his fingers fixed and repaired by death in the same way that his neck and forearm had been - to meet Kurt’s gaze.
Standing right in front of him in the alley amid the soft drifts of snow that manage to make it down into the small corridor of space, Kurt looks so beautiful that it almost hurts to look at him. His startling eyes are locked right on Blaine’s, holding them in place as he stares and watches and knows. There is pride there, in his gaze. Pride and delight and pleasure and something soft and sweet beneath it all that makes Blaine’s insides twist in an amazing, validating, precious way.
But something is niggling at the back of Blaine’s mind. He glances sideways at the dumpster; at the arm of the dead girl dangling over the edge, her fingerless glove-clad fingers stiff from the cold as they hang in mid-air.
“Was I like that?” asks Blaine softly, tilting his head as he stares at the nothing nothing nothing shell of a human being he just emptied. Because the girl, and the people in the street, and all the people in the world - not a single one of them matters. He can feel that, now. Finally knows what Kurt has been talking about all this time. They’re less, so much less than the two of them are. Weak and helpless and stupid and nothing, buzzing around like flies and not seeing any of the world for what it truly is. He licks his lips, feeling snowflakes catching on his eyelashes. “Was I... was I nothing?”
“No.” The denial is quiet, but immediate, and it recaptures Blaine’s attention at once. He turns his head back, dragging his eyes away from the nauseating reminder of what he used to be.
And all he can see is Kurt. Standing there in front of them, shaking his head back and forth in tiny motions as infrequent snowflakes fall around him. Even though it’s dark, Blaine can see every miniscule shift of expression on Kurt’s ethereal face. His eyes are that perfect bright blue surrounding swirls of yellow; they never flooded with red as Blaine ate, he realizes, because Kurt’s stomach is still full and contented with Blaine’s own blood and the thought makes a sharp spark of arousal jolt down his spine. Kurt’s eyes are shining, slightly, but he blinks hard against it as he stands and stares and looks at him.
Kurt is looking into his eyes as though trying to find something in their depths; examining and searching, his delicate brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. And after long, long moments, Kurt’s eyes widen - and he relaxes. All of the tension seeping out of his body and into the night air, his eyes filling with desperate relief as he finds whatever he was looking for.
“You weren’t like that to me,” says Kurt again, his voice shaking hard as he stares into Blaine’s eyes bottomless relief mirroring back at him. “Not even in the beginning.” Kurt hesitates, licking his lips - and lets out an enormous exhale of breath. “It’s you,” he whispers, barely audible, and heat floods through Blaine’s belly.
“Kurt,” Blaine groans, low in his throat, something hot and intense and wonderful twisting in the base of his stomach. Because Kurt is the single most beautiful, incredible entity Blaine has ever met, and he saw Blaine when there was nothing in him to see. Picked him out among hordes of useless nothings under his feet and chose him, chose to make him special and strong and his. Didn’t kill him but kept him. Something desperately, frenetically possessive wells up inside of Blaine, then, makes him gasp - and then they’re both stepping forward and clutching at each other, their lips meeting in a frenzied kiss.
They’ve done this so many times before, but it couldn’t be more different like this. Blaine pushes right back against Kurt’s touch, reaching up to grab Kurt’s face and pull him in closer. Blood from Blaine’s mouth smears against Kurt’s, turning them red and dark and making Kurt hesitate and then groan wantonly as he licks up the excess. He opens Kurt’s mouth with his own, taking the kiss hard and fast and deep and revelling in every newly amplified detail. Learning Kurt’s mouth again, sliding his tongue in and mapping the contours of his mouth as the girl’s blood slides along their tongues. There is nothing cool or chilled about Kurt’s touch; not anymore, and the press of Kurt’s skin is warm and real against him. They’re the same, finally the same; Blaine digs his fingers into the stiffness of the styled hair at the back of Kurt’s neck and tugs him even closer, almost moaning out loud at the way he can perceive Kurt’s shiver of pleasure in his fingertips.
They kiss feverish and long and hard; tongue and teeth and no holding back. Their tongues slide together, needy and taking and claiming each other. Blaine bites down on Kurt’s bottom lip, the corner still slightly frayed but already healing, and when Kurt groans out loud at the sharpness of his touch he swallows the noise down greedily. This is perfect, incredible; the way things have always supposed to be between them, and he just didn’t know it. There is palpable relief in the way Kurt kisses him; all openness and adrenaline, and something tells him that Kurt hasn’t been so vulnerable in front of anyone for a long, long time.
But there is absolutely nothing in Blaine that wants to seize the opportunity and hurt him. Nothing that wants to hurt or claw or fight. Because Blaine understands now, just like Kurt said he would.
And there is nothing - nothing - that could ever make him let Kurt go.
All at once, Kurt abruptly reaches his arms up and around Blaine’s neck, hitching himself up off the ground, his weight on Blaine’s shoulders. Right away, Blaine responds with almost-instinctive speed. Wrapping his arms around Kurt’s middle, holding him up off the ground so that Kurt can wrap his legs around Blaine’s waist. And once Kurt is safely tucked up into Blaine’s arms he purrs with satisfaction against Blaine’s mouth. If Blaine was still human, the position would never work; his stature is too small, and his upper body strength would never be enough. As it is, though, a wave of triumphant delight washes over him at the realization that he can hold Kurt off the ground. Kurt doesn’t feel heavy in his arms; he can feel his substance, but it’s somehow all so very easy.
It’s hard to focus on kissing him like this, though, so Blaine spins them around and slams Kurt’s back against the alley wall. Doesn’t need to be gentle because he knows Kurt can take it; knows that there is nothing delicate about him, and the fact makes him feel flushed and excited. Kurt cries out in surprise and pleasure as his back collides with hard brick, throwing his head back and exposing his gorgeous pale neck. Blaine takes the opportunity to lean in and suck hard against that perfect skin, relishes the feeling of Kurt’s fingers twisting in his curls and urging him to suck harder.
“It’s you,” Kurt gasps, bucking up against him and trusting Blaine to take the motion in stride and keep him pinned there, hard against the wall with his legs around Blaine’s middle, his slow pulse irresistibly erotic beneath Blaine’s tongue. “God, Blaine, you’re you. You’re -” he sucks in a breath as Blaine nips hard against the skin, practically laughing. “-you’re you. More you, better you. Finally you, the way I knew you would be, god, Blaine -”
“It’s me,” Blaine breathes over Kurt’s throat, sliding his tongue over the beautiful skin that finally doesn’t feel cold anymore. He breathes in deeply through his nose, revelling in the incredible smell of Kurt all around him. Beneath the smells of normal life and products and below the skin, how Kurt smells. Something tells him that the way Kurt’s smell tugs at his consciousness and makes Blaine want to cling to him and never never never let go must be something specific and special to Kurt himself; he smells like forever, smells like perfect, like home. “It’s me, it’s me, you found me, it’s me.”
Tiny flecks of snow fall around them like blinking eyes in the night, and the darkness provides a comfort so deep and intrinsic that it feels like surrendering into an embrace. They kiss, clinging to each other with clawing nails and too-tight grips that speak of need and want and finally. Blaine can feel the raw power in his veins; the strength, the speed, the sharpened senses finally beginning to settle into glorious place. The monster hiding under his skin that was never a monster at all.
With his stomach full to bursting and Kurt kissing him back viciously from where he’s pinned up against the alley wall, he knows that the two of them have the whole world at their fingertips.
And for the first time in his life, Blaine is finally free.
Chapter Ten