#vampireisabitstrong

Blaine drops the die. The pieces leap into the air when the cube hits the board. It somersaults across and tumbles to a stop, but before Blaine reads his roll, Kurt announces it.

“Five! Wonderful! Now, move your piece. Go on.”

Blaine shakes his head at Kurt’s excitement as he relocates his piece.

“… three … four … five! Good boy! Now …” Kurt sniffs, preparing to ask his question with a fair degree of grandiosity “… this is for the green wedge.” He rolls the ‘r’ on the word as if to make it sound that much more important. He plucks a card from the box on his side of the game board. Even though his vision is exemplary, he holds it up to his eyes as if it requires the utmost scrutiny. “Name the largest freshwater lake in the world.” Once the question passes over his lips, he flicks the card into hiding, presumably to keep Blaine from cheating by reading the answer on the opposite side, which Kurt had been covering anyway with his long, bony fingers.

Blaine rolls his eyes. The question is ridiculously easy. “Lake Superior. Kurt! Come on! I think you’re letting me win.”

“Nonsense. You’re a bright boy.” Kurt returns the card to the box, sliding it in carefully amongst its compatriots with an unnecessary push of his index finger. These cards are academic, and painfully obedient. They return themselves to their spots on their own just fine. They even put themselves in order when the game is finished, depending on which subject won the day. Of course, no one knows for certain what order that is.

The cards refuse to tell.

“That’s because I have a brilliant teacher.” Blaine beams with pride. “And yet you, the smartest person I have ever met, only have one wedge in his game piece.”

Kurt tuts his tongue in disgust and thrusts his nose in the air. “And listen to how you insult me.”

Blaine’s eyes become painfully wide. If there is one thing he would never intentionally do, it’s insult his caretaker. “How did I insult you?”

“You called me a person. I haven’t been a person for hundreds of years.”

Blaine chuckles. It’s difficult to tell sometimes when Kurt is kidding. “Fine. The smartest vampire I have ever met.”

“I am the only vampire you have ever met, young man,” Kurt reminds him. “But that’s not the point. I have no wedges because I am not landing on any wedge spaces. But you are.”

“A-ha. So how come every time I land on a wedge space, I get a question that even a first grader could answer?”

“You’re also a very lucky boy,” Kurt says, hiding the subtlest hint of a smile behind the know-it-all wink he gives. Kurt tries to pick up the miniscule green wedge, but his long fingernails get in the way. An attempt to then pick up the wedge with just his fingernails fails equally as spectacularly. But when Blaine looks down at his game piece, the wedge has settled in as if it had always been there. Blaine runs the pad of his index finger over it, even though it’s the farthest thing from his mind.

“I don’t know why I need to learn all of this stuff anyway,” he mumbles. “Isn’t this out-world learning? I mean, I read, I write, I know my numbers. That’s all I need being in here. Who cares about the Colosseum and the pyramids, the capital of Uruguay and the source of the Nile River? I’m never gonna see them.”

“Oh, you never know.” Kurt collects the die to roll his turn, patting Blaine on top his head of curly hair. “There may come a time when you’ll want to venture outside our gates. And then all of this out-world learning, as you call it, will serve you well.”

Blaine looks up from his game piece with a vague but mixed expression. “Leave?” Blaine’s teeth chatter around the word. “You w-want me to leave?”

Kurt hears the hesitation in Blaine’s voice, the mounting fear, and his chest clenches around a heart that no longer exists.

Kurt knows Blaine as well as any mind can know another. Blaine came to live in the cemetery when he was but a toddler on chubby legs, searching for a place of safety. Kurt remembers that night … vividly. He hopes that Blaine doesn’t think about it too often, but not a day goes by that Kurt has not. He wasn’t present to receive Blaine when the boy arrived, but he has glimpsed enough from the thoughts of others to piece together an accurate recollection of the evening’s events.

From the mind of Will Schuester, the self-appointed mayor of their ghostly hamlet, Kurt saw a dark figure enter Blaine’s house. The boy’s family had lived across the rarely traveled road that separates the town of the living and that of the dead. The single, black asphalt strip, littered with decaying flora on the cemetery side but clean as a church pew on the opposite, is a stark delineation between the lively city and the outlying graveyard. Most of the ghosts in the graveyard choose not to look farther than the street, the memories of their former lives too painful to dwell upon, so why Will chose that one night to peek across, Kurt will never know. But he is grateful the man did, even if he would never tell him as much.

From the mind of Will’s wife Emma, the woman who used to be the high school guidance counselor in Lima over two hundred years ago, Kurt had seen a crying Blaine stumbling through the cold, walking barefoot over broken twigs and sharp stones to reach her outstretched arms. She couldn’t leave the grounds to get to him – none of the dead could – and she fought back tears while she coaxed him, trying to assure him that he would be safe once he reached the protection of the grey stone wall.

But it was from the mind of Brittany S. Pierce - a pretty, blonde resident who had been killed in a car accident and buried recently at the time - that Kurt saw the whole dastardly deed unfold. A gangly man with a shock of red hair atop his narrow head had entered Blaine’s home for no reason that Kurt knew and murdered Blaine’s whole family – mother, father, brother, even family pets: one loyal dog who had tried his hardest to warn his masters but, sadly, never got a single bark out; and a lonely little love bird who had lost its mate a few months earlier. Hers was the only happy ending to the tale since, after her demise, she was lonely no more.

Brittany’s girlfriend, Santana Lopez, who had perished in the car crash alongside her, supplied for Kurt a name - Rick “The Stick” Nelson, a local thug.

Once Blaine made his way through the cemetery gates, its magic shielded the boy from the eyes of Rick, who came lurking not minutes later in search of the child, determined to leave none alive. The inhabitants of Gethsemani Cemetery fell in love with Blaine immediately, and granted him freedom of the graveyard so that he may stay with them and be safe. But it was Kurt, Keeper of the Crypt and Guardian of Gethsemani, who decided to call the young boy Blaine. Blaine Anderson for, in their tiny township of Lima, Ohio, Anderson was the very first of the surnames listed in the phone book.

Kurt felt it fitting since Blaine was the first living human to ever inhabit their humble patch of grass and stone.

As much as Kurt tried to make a home there for the child – installing Blaine in Kurt’s own decrepit crypt and supplying him with all of the comforts he could manage - Kurt never felt that the graveyard was an appropriate place for a child to be raised. But there was no one for him, no remaining family that Kurt could find, no safety outside their walls, and it was declared by unanimous decision that Blaine should stay until more suitable arrangements could be made. It became Kurt’s job (also by unanimous decision) to come up with those “more suitable arrangements”. And he tried. But as time went on, it was easier to keep Blaine with them than to search for help elsewhere. Kurt prayed that over time Blaine would simply long to leave the graveyard and venture out into the world. Kurt prepared him as best he could for the day, teaching him math and languages and history and art. He cultivated Blaine’s natural talent for music, a passion they both shared, and told him stories of all the wonders he had seen traveling. Over time, Kurt became more than Blaine’s caretaker. He became Blaine’s closest companion.

Ironically, Kurt was the main reason why Blaine wanted to stay.

And therein lay a bigger conundrum, for Blaine wasn’t who he appeared to be. On the outside, he was a boy of around thirteen when, in reality, he was actually quite a bit older. There’s a certain magic to cemeteries. Since life stops there, on occasion, so does time. A century could zip by in the matter of a blink, and those within would measure it as only a day. As Blaine lived within the boundaries of this magic, he became affected by it, too.

He may look thirteen, but he definitely didn’t feel thirteen. He often described himself as an old soul, but that was to cover his confusion. There are so many things about himself that he doesn’t understand.

All he does know is that he has no wish to leave the graveyard.

And he especially has no wish to be parted from Kurt.

“I never said that I wanted you to leave,” Kurt amends. He closes the die in his fist, preparing for his turn. He had wanted to keep this conversation lighthearted, but it has begun to cloud like the indigo sky overhead.

“But, you think I should,” Blaine clarifies as if Kurt doesn’t understand his own thoughts. “A---alone? I … I don’t want to go alone. If I leave here, I want to go with you.”

Kurt smiles as best he can. He is, admittedly, a little out of practice, but he has become more acquainted with his long, lost grin the more he spends time with Blaine.

“We’ll see,” he says to pacify him, though in the depths of his cavernous chest, he feels it’s not possible. Blaine is human. Kurt is a vampire. In the storybooks, those kinds of relationships don’t end well. In real life, less so. “Who knows what the future holds.”

Little did Kurt know that those would be the truest words he has ever spoken in any of his life times.

***

“Have you seen today’s paper?”

Kurt sighs as if the start of this conversation might be the end of his sanity … what’s left of it, anyway.

“To which paper are you referring?” he says, not properly acknowledging the man who persists on thrusting a daily paper beneath his nose. Kurt can tell from just a glance that it was once crumpled, then flattened, and folded so many times that it’s almost completely unreadable. That won’t be an obstacle for him, of course, but it offends him that Will didn’t at least try to find him a cleaner copy. “The New York Times? The Chicago Tribune? Variety?”

“The Lima Gazette.” Will drops the paper on Kurt’s lap, forcing him to accept it whether he wants to or not.

“Hmph. I stopped reading the paper in this town ages ago,” Kurt grumbles, shoving the thing away.

“Be that as it may, I think you may want to read today’s.”

“And why would you think that? Is there a sale on vests at Sears? That may be of interest to you, but not to me.”

“Page ten, upper right,” Will instructs, tapping the paper with his index finger.

Kurt groans and picks up the paper. Will obviously has a spider gnawing at his craw and won’t be satisfied until Kurt reads what he wants him to read. Not that any of that is Kurt’s concern, except now he’s curious. He flips to page ten, folds the paper back, and begins to read.

“Rick “The Stick” Nelson …” Kurt speak the name with a growl that sends a few poltergeists out on the prowl scurrying back to their caves “… alleged murderer, found dead.” Kurt scans through the article, less interested in the details than the fact that this despicable man is gone. “Gunshot wound to the head … no leads … discovered in his car late Saturday evening. Ah, well. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man. Goodbye and good riddens.” Kurt reads through the article again, a bit more carefully the second time, when a vile thought occurs to him. His eyes flick up to Will’s face with a hint of urgency when he doesn’t find the information he’s looking for. “They’re not burying him here, are they?”

“No. I asked around. They’re interring him in a family crypt over in Columbus.”

“I didn’t know he had any family to mourn for him.”

“He doesn’t. The crypt will be empty aside from him. The rest of his family had long made arrangements to be buried elsewhere. They even had the bodies of their dead relatives removed. They wanted nothing to do with him. No one knows where they’ve gone.”

“Dead and alone,” Kurt muses with a grim smile. “Quite fitting seeing as he took everyone that Blaine loved away.”

“Not everyone.”

Kurt peers curiously at Will through red-pupiled blue eyes. Will looks back at Kurt with a sympathy and compassion so bittersweet it makes Kurt want to vomit - a sensation he hasn’t endured in centuries. Once that subsides, Kurt becomes bemused.

“I don’t think I quite catch your meaning there, Schuester.”

“You know, Kurt, you were never meant to spend forever here, either.” Will gazes out over the moss-covered headstones and crumbling statues, some so weathered and worn that they’ve begun to melt into the earth, untended, forgotten. “You can come and go as you please, but you remained here for him.”

“Where would I go? Hmm? All of my clothes are here,” Kurt jokes. The truth is he hasn’t a stitch of his personal effects left save what he wears on his person, which he changes from time to time without telling a soul where he gets the replacements.

“You can go with Blaine,” Will suggests. “Keep an eye on him. You seem to be quite attached to him.”

Kurt tilts his head, puzzled over the way Will punctuates the word attached, making it stand out, seem more important than it should be. “I don’t completely grasp what you’re implying, Will, but what I do grasp, I don’t think I like.”

“You love him,” Will says significantly. “In your own way. And, I think that, for as far as he knows, Blaine loves you, too.”

“All the more reason for him to leave this place” - Kurt gazes murderously at the newspaper, the words upon it melding into pitch black voids - “and for me to stay behind.”

“You’re always telling Blaine about the world beyond our cemetery and how he should finally experience it; that happiness for him lies outside our borders. But don’t you think you deserve a chance at happiness, too?”

“My life is done,” Kurt says with a finality that starts a chill breeze howling through the trees.

Will shrugs. “So it is … as you once knew it. But perhaps you can start a new life, so to speak. Find happiness again.”

“With Blaine?” Kurt asks, offended, not at the thought of finding happiness with Blaine. If Kurt could love, and he wasn’t sure that he could anymore, he might admit to loving Blaine. It was a definite possibility. It’s the notion of him finding happiness at all that Kurt finds ridiculous. In life, the very universe seemed dead set on ripping everything good away from him – his mother and father, a beloved stepbrother, his career, and finally, his future.

So, if he finds happiness with Blaine, it would mean that he first had to die a horrible, gruesome death; wander the world suffering the pangs of his insatiable thirst; remain in isolation for hundreds of years; live off of the blood of rats and vermin; exist in the dank and the shadows, just to find it?

That seems like a cruel joke.

No. Kurt is unnatural, so any feelings that Kurt has for Blaine are unnatural.

And Blaine would be better off without him.

But instead of tell Will any of that, Kurt shakes with quiet laughter. Will sighs in disappointment.

“Just about everyone here would do the unthinkable to be in your shoes, Kurt,” Will says. “In my opinion, you’d be an idiot not to take advantage of it.”

Kurt stands from the bench he’d been sitting on pondering the same sentiment, convincing himself of its absurdity before Will even arrived. But having this little talk with Schuester has all but made up his mind. Kurt tosses the paper back at him and sneers. “Duly noted, mayor.”

***

It’s midnight on a Tuesday when Blaine breaks down and goes in search of Kurt. The only reason Blaine knows it’s Tuesday is because he’s been counting the days. Not long after their game of Trivial Pursuit, Kurt disappeared, melted into the shadows inside his crypt, and hasn’t materialized since. It isn’t uncommon for Kurt to leave the cemetery and be gone for days at a time. Even weeks. But after the subject of their last conversation, Blaine has become afraid that he might not see Kurt again for longer and Blaine doesn’t want that. His days are boring without Kurt to talk to, to play games with, to read books to, to sing with. Kurt has the most intriguing voice. Beautiful and haunting. Even when Kurt isn’t around, Blaine hears his voice in his head so clearly, it’s almost as if Kurt resides there, among the hills and valleys of Blaine’s brain, singing his elegiac songs and basking in the moonlight of Blaine’s mind.

Blaine circles the graveyard twice – once jogging from east to west, and the second time, from west to east. He investigates every crypt and mausoleum, crawls inside a few empty graves, then checks behind the headstones. By the time he’s done, he has collected half the cemetery on the sleeves of his sweater and the knees of his jeans, and yet he doesn’t find head or tail of Kurt. From the top of the highest hill where Kurt’s crypt stands, Blaine sees Will Schuester standing by the wall of the cemetery, staring out into the street, and decides to see if he knows anything.

“Mr. Schue! Mr. Schue!”

Will turns from his watch to see Blaine race down the embankment. Sometimes Will thinks he catches a glimpse of the man Blaine is, but then the clouds shift, the moonlight hits his eyes, and Blaine is a boy again.

“Yes, Blaine.”

“Where’s Kurt?”

“He went on an errand, I suppose.”

“Will he be back?”

And there, Will has no answer. He had hoped that Kurt would be back soon, but there was no way of knowing with him. Like most things that walk the Earth without a heartbeat, vampires have no concept of time. Plus, vampires don’t have a reputation for being the loyalist of creatures. Will thought he knew how Kurt felt about Blaine, but he may have taken Kurt’s affection for granted.

Maybe he felt nothing aside from obligation for Blaine.

“Did he leave … because of me?” Blaine asks after Will’s silence.

“Yes,” Will confesses. “But not in the way that you think.”

Blaine frowns down at his filthy shoes. If Kurt were there, he wouldn’t stand for the condition of his shoes. He’d make Blaine clean them immediately, Lord only knows why. But it’s a reminder that Kurt isn’t there – not to tell him to clean his shoes, not to do anything. “How do I make him come back?”

“You can’t make anyone do anything, I’m afraid,” Will says sadly since he, too, had been wondering the exact same thing. The residents of the graveyard had summoned Kurt before. Could Will do it now? Would Kurt answer the call? “You can only give him the time to decide whether or not he wants to.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, more melancholy than ever. What if Kurt decides not to come back? Blaine can’t imagine the graveyard without him.

Blaine can’t imagine his life without him.

“And … what do I do in the meantime?”

“What would Kurt tell you to do?”

“He would tell me to learn. To study. To prepare myself for the next step in my life. But … I don’t know what that step is.”

“Well” – Will puts a hand to Blaine’s shoulder – “maybe in order to go forward, you need to go back.” He gives Blaine a fond smile, then goes back to staring over the wall.

Back to where? Blaine wonders. Back to the beginning? Back to the beginning for Blaine would be Kurt’s crypt, the place where he was first brought when he came to the graveyard, the place where he has learned everything so far that he knows. Blaine trundles his way up the hill and locks himself inside. And while he’s there, he reads. He reads about world history and science, about music and art. He reads every magazine Kurt keeps, every newspaper stacked in the corner, the oldest of the lot at the very bottom disintegrating into the floor. Blaine reads and he waits - waits to talk to Kurt, waits to apologize, waits to do whatever it takes to make Kurt stay.

***

Kurt does eventually come back, and when he does, it’s on a Thursday. Not the Thursday immediately following. It takes more time than that. Kurt would have called what he was doing soul searching if he had one. But it was more along the lines of life searching. He traveled to his old haunts – not the places he’s lurked as a vampire, but the places he frequented as a human. Places that held within them specters of his once daily life, privy in some way or another to his hopes and dreams – his childhood home (now the parking lot of a strip mall), his father’s shop, the university he attended.

He searched for life’s meaning … and why he should want one with Blaine.

He found himself, after much reminiscing, in the back alley where he had been changed. He imagined Blaine there, slightly drunk, pressed against the wall by one like himself, his life altered for all eternity.

He saw himself as the one to do it, to betray Blaine’s trust and give him this dark gift in defiance of his wishes – the way it was given to him.

Because Kurt saw himself as the baddest of the bad. He had the potential to become the evil that had spawned him. It was inside him. It had eaten away his innocence, hollowed him out and then filled him from head to toe with venom. Blaine had run from a horrible stroke of destiny, one that would have ended his life, but by leaving the cemetery with Kurt, wasn’t Blaine risking that same thing all over again? Outside the walls that had protected Blaine for so many years from the beast who had slaughtered his family, he would be away from the protection of the graveyard. And that was fine. All humans were. But most of those humans didn’t invite demons into their homes.

Blaine would be.

But Blaine has faith in Kurt, faith in the vampire who fed him, clothed him, tucked him in at night, and sat with him when he felt scared.

Maybe Kurt should start having faith in himself, too.

He didn’t have it yet. No amount of traveling around the world could give that to him. He’d need to find it inside himself, and fast, considering the way Blaine runs to greet him, barreling down the hill the second Kurt walks through the cemetery gates as if he’d been gone a year.

Had he been? Kurt doesn’t know. He should probably find out.

“You came back,” Blaine pants, smiling ear to ear.

“Yes, I did.” Kurt says. “I always do.”

“I don’t … I didn’t know,” Blaine admits. “This time, I wasn’t so sure.”

“I’m sorry, Blaine,” Kurt says with honest remorse, “but I needed some time. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“And?”

“And I feel that you should leave this cemetery, Blaine. Today, if not sooner.”

Blaine’s eyes explode open, his jaw dropping till it hangs to his chest. “To---today?”

“Yes, Blaine. You are old enough to step outside these walls and start a new life. It’s time.”

Blaine shakes his head, the heart inside him pounding like the pistons of a runaway train. Where would he go? What would he do? How would he survive? But more importantly:

“If I leave … I’ll be alone.”

Kurt smiles. It warms his entire face. It looks almost human. “No, you won’t, because I’ll be going with you.”

Blaine’s eyes don’t decrease in size. They might even get bigger. “You … you will?”

“Yes.” Kurt reaches out a hand and closes Blaine’s mouth so that the ghouls circling the ground beneath his feet don’t get any ideas. “I’ve grown rather … attached to you, to borrow a phrase. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not all that fond of being alone, either. Besides, you’re not the only one here who needs a change of scenery.”

“Ho---how did you decide this?” Blaine stammers, still in shock. “When? Why?”

“Those are all fabulous questions,” Kurt says. “But I think that they will be better answered once we leave here and I show you a few things.”

“We’re going to travel?” Blaine asks, as apprehensive as he is excited.

“For a bit. I have secured us a means of transportation.” He waves ambiguously over his shoulder to a large, black vehicle. At first glance, Blaine thinks it looks a bit like a hearse, with its long rear and tinted windows (for Kurt’s comfort during the day). His stomach twists into knots thinking of riding in it. He’s never ridden in a car before. And now he’s going to be traveling in one … with Kurt. “If you don’t mind, of course. If you would rather leave without me, I know of a family who would be more than willing to take you in.”

The family in question is Kurt’s own, descendants he visited, introduced himself to, and flattered just enough to ensure that they would take Blaine in if need be. But Blaine starts shaking his head before Kurt’s sentence is done.

“No,” he says. “I want to be with you. I don’t want to live with anyone else.”

Kurt is as relieved as he is worried by Blaine’s eager answer. “So be it.”

The news of Kurt and Blaine leaving spirals around the graveyard with the speed of a spectral stallion. The residents of the cemetery, every single one, rise from their graves and gather at the gates to say goodbye to the boy they’ve grown to see as their own. Even though Kurt took on the bulk of the responsibility, everyone had a part in his raising. Emma was like a mother to him; Will, like a father. Brittany taught him how to dance, and Santana taught him to play poker. Another ghost by the name of Beiste taught him how to box. So even if Blaine had decided to leave alone, he wouldn’t actually be.

He’d be taking a piece of everyone from Gethsemani with him.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, taking his hand, “before we leave, there’s something I want you to know.”

Blaine, taking deep, calming breaths, doesn’t look at Kurt, too focused on what he’s about to do to turn his head and speak at the same time. “Yes?”

“While I was out and about, I came across your real name. Would you like me to tell it to you?”

Blaine thinks about that. His name is an important thing. It’s a connection to his past, to people who once loved him. He should honor them by knowing it. But, then again, the name he has was given to him by those who raised and loved him. They’re just as much Blaine’s family as his mom and dad and brother were.

There’s no use dwelling on the past. Nothing he can do will bring his family back, or change who he is.

Will had said that sometimes moving forward meant going back.

But not this time.

“I know my name isn’t Blaine,” he says, “but I don’t want any other. Blaine is the name I know. You gave it to me, and … it suits me. It suits who I am. I may not have started out my life as Blaine Anderson, but that’s who I grew up to be. I don’t want to be split in two.”

“If that’s what you wish.”

“Yes. That’s what I wish.” Blaine stalls a moment longer. He knows that he is about to embark on a great adventure, but it still terrifies him. “Will you ever tell me the story of your life?”

“I will,” Kurt says. He understands Blaine’s fear. It’s the same fear he felt the night he opened his eyes to find he was no longer human. It’s the fear of change. But all things change. Blaine needs to embrace the change in order for him to live. “But first, we must go to a place that is more appropriate for the telling.”

This cemetery where Blaine has lived is just a small corner of the world. Blaine knows that. He looks over the wall. He’s been looking at that wall for most of his life. It’s been the edge of his universe. He has tried to see it through the eyes of the mourners who visit, the ones who come on birthdays and holidays, or after church on Sundays. They come out of respect, out of obligation. If it were up to them, they probably wouldn’t come at all. They look at this slate-colored stone, covered in slimy green moss, continually moist even when the air is dry, and see their own mortality.

But Blaine sees home. This chipped and broken wall has been his white picket fence.  He looks past the wall at the sidewalk, silvery beneath the moonlight, sparkling like the star laden sky. Dust moved by the wind paints swirls across its surface. Invisible fingers seem to move it, creating an almost perfect reflection of the Milky Way. It’s beautiful, undeniably, but it’s also the unknown. And in the same way that old, gloomy graveyards frighten the living, the unknown terrifies Blaine.

He swallows hard.

“Do you really think that life out there is better than life in here?”

“Yes, my child,” Kurt replies. “It has to be. For all of the life in the world lies beyond theses gates. Alas, there is no life in here.”

It was for Kurt once. It would have been for Blaine. Neither can retrieve what has been lost, but maybe it could be if they start over together.

“Are you ready, Blaine?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Then. On the count of three. One … two …”

“Three,” Blaine finishes.

Kurt takes the first step, but Blaine’s step follows his so closely, it seems like they walk through the gate together. They step over the threshold onto the white sidewalk and the spell of the graveyard is severed. Blaine grows a few inches in height, and by about fifty pounds. He is broad shouldered, muscular. His hair is longer, but retains its curl. His face adjusts by angles, sharpening at the jaw and the brow. But his eyes – his inquisitive gold eyes – remain much the same. They have seen mostly sorrow, and don’t have an acquaintance with the world aside from books and newspapers.

That is something that Kurt has longed to change for many, many years.

On the other hand, when Kurt steps over the threshold, he begins to shrink, no longer the towering, grey-skinned monster Blaine has grown so fond of.

Kurt’s skin becomes pale, and there is little red remaining in his ice blue eyes.

When they look at one another, they seem roughly the same age.

“What … what just happened?” Blaine asks, astonished by the man standing in front of him - not the man holding his hand, but the one he sees in the reflection of Kurt’s black SUV.

The man who is himself.

“Blaine,” Kurt says gently, “you are not a boy of thirteen. You only perceived yourself that way. You came to the graveyard to hide, and that is how the graveyard hid you. In truth, you are a man of twenty-two … as was I when I became a vampire. And it is from this point that you and I begin.”

“I will miss this place,” Blaine says. “It’s been my home, and everyone in it has been my family.”

“Well, that’s the thing about homes and family,” Kurt explains, idly straightening Blaine’s cuffs, fixing the wrinkle in his collar. “Good or bad, you carry them with you. But the good thing about this home is it’s a place you will someday return to.”

“Promise?”