A/N Inspired by this (goo. gl / OhBmNZ) picture and its comments
We Will Be Young Forever
Cleaning out the attic remained perhaps the most boring job his parents had ever made him do. Spending the sunny Saturday afternoon crawling around the cramped space, moving boxes was not how he had pictured his day.
After a while, he came across a small, wooden box hidden away in a corner. Opening the object involved being greeted by a large cloud of dust. Coughing at full volume he reached into the box and pulled out a stack of old photographs. He flipped absentmindedly through them, not really interested before his eyes caught a glimpse of something.
Going back a few pictures he found a faded auburn picture of a gorgeous boy. No, not gorgeous. The boy-he was angelic. Blaine didn't understand how to describe such a perfect being. He had pale, cream colored skin, brown, styled hair and eyes so expressive they seemed almost bottomless.
The beautiful boy in the picture was familiar, but Blaine couldn't place him anywhere in his memories. Turning the photo around, Blaine found writing across the back of the picture. "March 15, 1942, we will be young forever." He froze. He recognized the shape of the letters. There was no mistaking the fluent curve, present throughout the whole of his scribble. The script belonged to him.
But how could that be? The picture claimed to be 70 years old. Blaine simply could not have written it. He hurried through the rest of the pictures, looking at each of them with piqued interest, but only the picture of the boy had his writing on.
He put the pictures back in the box and put it where he had first found it. Even though he tried not to think about the mysterious photo Blaine found his gaze wandering towards the corner where the box stood in the shadows every few minutes. This continued until he finished cleaning a few hours later, but he did not open the box again.
He knew their house was old, so it was very possible the box had been there since the pictures were taken. The house had been in his family for generations, so perhaps the signature scribble belonged to another relative. He was pretty sure handwriting could be inherited. That was the most probable explanation. His handwriting was similar to one of his grandparents. Blaine realized he didn't believe the notion, but he was willing to take any reason that might not conclude in him being downright crazy.
He had been determined to find out more about the photo, but as the years passed Blaine thought less about the picture still safe in the old box, hidden away in a dusty corner of the attic. The next time he recalled the image he had grown into a young adult.
After finishing high school, Blaine moved to New York, deciding to follow his dream of studying musical theatre. Everything seemed to go well for Blaine; he loved New York, he had amazing friends and no one cared about him being gay, but somehow, something seemed to be missing. He couldn't put his finger on what, but it felt like somebody significant missed the important points of his life.
A few weeks after he turned 20, Blaine came home to Westerville for a while. He consumed time by meeting up with a few of his old warbler friends, though most of them had moved away from Ohio. He knew that no matter how many years he spent in New York, he'd always want to come home to Ohio for a few days. He didn't think he would ever be able to live in the place again, but it was a wonderful break from the hectic life of New York.
The last night of his visit he found himself walking without purpose, visiting familiar places and discovering new ones he had never seen. Having wandered down an unfamiliar street he came across a tall, rusty gate. The area looked like the cemetery Blaine's grandparents were buried in, though it had been years since he had visited their graves.
Pushing open the creaky gate he walked through rows of gravestones, some of them looking like they had been there for hundreds of years, which they might in fact have been. Others looked like they had been put up just a few weeks earlier.
In the middle of the graveyard stood a big stone statue of an angel crying without a sound into its hands. The statue looked old. Blaine didn't spare the angel any thought and moved forward.
He stopped in front of an old grave, kneeling to read what it said. The name, now unreadable due to the letters torn down by years of weather and wind, became hard to read. He managed to make out a date of birth and a date of death. The person lying in the grave underneath had died soon after turning 23, 70 years earlier.
He never quite understood what happened next. One second he rested on the ground, staring at the torn down grave in front of him, and in another the whole area seemed to disappear. Looking around he noticed a lot of the graves seemed to be missing, and the section where the old graves had been earlier seemed to contain shiny new ones.
The sun shone bleakly and a light breeze tickled his cheek. He turned around and noticed the creaking gate was no longer creaking. Instead, he took in the entrance opening and closing with ease.
"Where did you come from?" enquired a light voice from behind him.
Spinning around he came face to face with a young boy, around his age. Blaine recoiled. He knew that face. The boy from the photo stood before him. The photo he had found in his attic all those years ago. "I-I don't know," said Blaine without pause, because he had no idea how this was possible for him to be here. Perhaps by chance he had slipped and hit his head on one of the gravestones and slipped into a coma, his parents crying by his bedside. That did seem the most plausible explanation.
"Where am I?" he probed.
The boy from the picture looked at him without conviction. "You didn't escape from the asylum did you?"
Blaine blinked. "What? No, of course I didn't!"
The boy nodded a little, not looking convinced. "Uh-huh," he said, just as skeptical as before.
"To answer your question, you're in the Westerville cemetery," he said, and caught Blaine's attention. "What? I can't be! I was just there, and it looked nothing like this!"
A look of comprehension seemed to cross the boy's face, and his features lit up with excitement. "Did you see it?"
Blaine looked skeptical. "Err, see what, exactly?"
The excitement never left the boy's face. "The angel, of course!"
If the boy thought Blaine was crazy earlier it was nothing against what Blaine thought now.
"The angel?" queried Blaine with a sigh. Was the guy going to start preaching about god?
"The weeping angel," he said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "That sent you back in time."
Blaine started backing away. The boy plainly needed help, and Blaine didn't think he was the most qualified person in the world to give it to him.
"Um, so, yeah, you've been interesting to talk to and all, but I think I'm gonna go now," said Blaine, still backing away.
"No, wait!" the boy yelled, voice panicked. "I-I can explain, I promise! Just-don't go."
Blaine stopped. "Okay, explain."
Blaine crossed his arms with impatience as the boy looked around nervously. There was no one there except for them, and he seemed to find it safe. "What year is it?" he questioned, puzzling Blaine.
"2012, of course."
The boy shouted in triumph, his grin wide. "I knew that I'd be right! I always am!"
Blaine frowned. "You knew what? That the year's 2012? Is that what you wanted to find out? I sure hope that didn't come as a surprise to you."
"I knew you were from the future. It's 1942." He said matter-of-factly.
Blaine gaped at him as he felt another wave of the urge to get the fuck out of there. "How is that supposed to convince me you're not insane?" queried Blaine, fighting to stay put.
"Look around you. You said it yourself; this place doesn't look like 2012. You just came from that year, after all."
Blaine looked around again, and he had to admit the boy did seem to detect everything. The graveyard looked nothing like it had when Blaine had been there. He looked towards where the angel had stood. "What happened to the statue?" he asked.
The boy frowned, following Blaine's line of sight. "What statue?"
"I remember a statue of an angel… right here," he said, pointing to the spot. "Definitely hasn't been built yet." Blaine couldn't believe he had just said that. Did he actually believe he had gone back in time?
"A statue. Of. An. Angel?" asked the boy, too shocked to answer. "What did it look like?" he said in the end, shaking himself out of his frozen state.
Blaine shrugged. "Well, an angel, pretty old, so I guess it had been there for a while. Oh and it looked like it was crying."
"Are you honestly that stupid?" said the boy.
"I'm not stupid!" said Blaine in indignation.
The boy rolled his eyes. "There was a weeping angel in the cemetery and you turned your back? No wonder you ended up with me. Stupid creature probably wanted me to knock some sense into you. The Doctor told me this might happen."
"What doctor? What would happen?"
The boy groaned, annoyed. "Not a doctor, the Doctor. And he warned me the angels might be sending someone here. They seem to enjoy hooking people up." The boy's voice held a bitter tone that Blaine hadn't noticed before.
"What, so you mean, you're not from here?"
The boy shook his head. "No, I've been here for around two years. I came from 2010, when I was 19."
Blaine's eyes widened. "You've been here two years? Alone?"
He nodded. "I've been here for two years, yes, but I haven't been alone. Well, I haven't been alone all the time. The Doctor visits me once in a while, but he says he can't bring me home. He says a paradox will form if I even attempt going back..."
"Who is the Doctor? What's his real name? Is he some kind of spy or something?"
The boy snorted at the top of his voice. "Or something," he said, his tone full of sarcasm.
Blaine shivered. He wore a thin jacket, which didn't fit the weather here. Even though it was unseasonably warm (or so he thought. He wasn't sure what month they were in, but if he had to guess he'd say they were somewhere in late February or near the beginning of March), the breeze was cold and sharp, and he was not dressed to be outside in a frosty cemetery. Looking to the boy – who hadn't bothered to give him his name yet – he saw that he was dressed more appropriately, wearing a thick jacket that would protect him from the wind.
"We might not want to take this conversation here," he said, looking around nervously once more. "Why don't we take this somewhere more private," he suggested. Blaine hesitated. Was he about to trail a complete stranger to his home after he had just told him he had travelled 70 years back in time?
"Relax, if I wanted to kill you I'd have managed by now," said the stranger with a soft smile playing at the corner of his lips.
"Or you may just be waiting until we're alone," said Blaine pragmatically, but he smiled. As the boy turned to leave Blaine followed, figuring if he should die at least it would be more comfortable than dying in the cold.
They walked for a few minutes before coming to a standstill in front of a huge house. Looking up and down the street, a spark of recognition flew through Blaine. This was the street where his house stood. Turning a little to the left he found the construction. It looked almost just like he remembered, though not quite as old as Blaine was used to.
The boy noticed his stare and answered one of the many questions he hadn't had the time to ask. "That's where the Anderson family lives. They're nice."
Blaine nodded. "Yeah… I can tell."
"How?" he asked, puzzled.
"That's where I live," said Blaine, his head bent in slight indication towards the house. "Or, that's where I'm going to live, I guess."
"Oh?" he asked, his surprise evident. Blaine nodded. "So that would be your great grandparents living there now right?"
After thinking for a second Blaine nodded again. "Yeah, I guess so. The house has been in my family for generations, after all."
"Huh," the stranger's only reaction, but he seemed to look at Blaine in a different manner.
They didn't speak until they stood inside the house. It looked similar to Blaine's own house which, he supposed, wasn't strange, considering they were in the same street.
"Whose house is this anyway?" asked Blaine once they moved into the living room and sat down on the couch there.
"My great grandmother's," he said. "She passed away, and my grandmother moved to Lima, but she didn't have the heart to sell the place."
Blaine looked around once more, and took in the bare walls and the coldness seemed to seep into every corner of the room. This wasn't a home, just a simple house.
"And you're lived here for two years? Alone?" Blaine asked in disbelief.
The boy shrugged. "More or less, yeah. The Doctor stops by from time to time but he never lingers."
Blaine frowned. "Now will you tell me who the Doctor is?"
The boy nodded. "Let's get all the introductions out the way. I'm Kurt," he said, holding out his hand.
Blaine shook it for a short time, marveling at how soft his hand felt. "Blaine," he said with a small smile playing on his lips.
"All right, so yeah, the Doctor," said Kurt, not wasting a second.
"Who is he?" asked Blaine.
"He's a 1000 year old time traveler. Who's also an alien."
"Ha-ha, very funny. Seriously though, who is he?"
Kurt's look of seriousness didn't budge an inch. "I told you. He's an alien. He travels through time and space, and chances are, without him, you wouldn't even be here. None of us would."
"So he's the reason I'm here at this current time?"
Kurt shook his head. "Yes, but no, I'm saying he's saved the world more than once."
Blaine blinked. "So what were those-the statues that brought us here?"
"Angels. Weeping angels."
"Okay, but what are they? Are they aliens too?"
Kurt nodded absentmindedly, running a hand over his neck. "Yeah, and they have the best defense mechanism in the world too." Kurt sighed when Blaine opened his mouth to ask. "They turn to stone when you so much as glance at them. They're fast though. If you even blink they'll get you."
Blaine ran a hand through his hair. This was a lot to take in. A few hours ago he'd been in the future, walking around, and now he was stuck in 1942. How the hell had this happened, and how the hell was Blaine not freaking out? He couldn't begin to understand why, but somehow, the fact he managed to find the boy from the picture made all the puzzles start to fit together.
Kurt spent the rest of the day giving Blaine a whole lecture about the Doctor and the angels, and did his best to answer Blaine's questions. "How come you understand all of this? I mean, how much could the Doctor have told you if he just stops by from time to time?"
Kurt rubbed the spot on his neck again. "I've had a lot of time to read," he replied.
When the night came, Blaine spent it on the couch. Kurt attempted giving him a room but Blaine didn't want to stay an entire night in one of the cold rooms that hadn't been used for years.
"There's no way for us to go back?" Blaine asked at dawn.
Kurt shook his head, fumbling through some cabinets in the kitchen, pulling out things and placing them on the table. "Not that I've found," he responded.
"Do you need any help?" Blaine asked, and Kurt shook his head once more.
"No, just stay there. I've got it."
Blaine took in the kitchen, which, like the rest of the house looked much the same as his parents' kitchen back home. It sported a welcoming glow Blaine couldn't explain, seeing as a family hadn't lived in the house for a while. "Maybe it isn't the room," he thought. "Maybe it's Kurt."
He had no idea where the thought had come from but he turned his gaze to the mysterious boy standing by the counter with his back to him. His brown hair, no longer styled like it had been earlier, but hanging down as an alternative, and Blaine imagined how Kurt would look if he turned around. He could picture Kurt's bangs covering his expressive eyes. Blaine sensed himself falling, and he couldn't give a damn.
As Kurt turned around to face him he shot him a soft smile Blaine's suspicions were confirmed. He was falling hard, after just one day, and he had no way of stopping the emotions engulfing him. Kurt seemed to notice the chemistry too, and though neither of them could explain how they formed such a connection, they didn't question it.
Kurt told Blaine he had arrived on March 1, which meant it was only two weeks until the mystery date on the back of the picture. He hadn't told Kurt about the mystery event, and decided to see what happened when the date arrived.
After five days full of laughter, smiles and walking together, Blaine once more caught Kurt's hand pressing over what he learned to be a long, white scar on his neck. "Kurt, can I ask you something?" he asked quietly, running his fingers through Kurt's hair. Kurt hummed softly, and Blaine took that as a yes. "Where did you get the scar on your neck?"
Kurt stiffened, eyes instantly alert as he sat up from where he'd been lying on the couch with his head in Blaine's lap. "I-" he said, hand self-consciously placed over the side of his neck, eyes downcast. "Let's just say people here aren't any more tolerant than the people in our time," he said.
Blaine gasped. "What happened?" he asked, anger burning in his stomach at the thought of anyone hurting Kurt.
"Some guys, they-they cornered me, almost immediately after I arrived here. They beat me up pretty bad, and if someone hadn't found me I would probably have died." The bitterness in his voice returned, and Blaine couldn't really blame him. "Can we not talk about this?" asked Kurt softly, eyes shut and hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"Of course, I'm sorry for even bringing the topic up, I should have been able to tell how upset you'd get, I just-" Blaine didn't know how to finish that sentence, but he didn't have to, because Kurt's lips were on his, and the words that had been about to fall from his mouth were forgotten as Kurt's lips moved against his own.
They didn't move from the couch for hours, and the rest of Blaine's questions lay forgotten in the back of his mind.
More days ticked by, and Blaine had almost been able to forget about the imminent date. Almost. Of course he didn't know something special was going to happen, but he had a feeling, and it wasn't a good one. So when Kurt came down from the attic on March 15 holding a Polaroid camera in his hands, Blaine swallowed down the lump in his throat and smiled broadly at Kurt.
They spent the day outdoors, taking pictures of everything of interest they came across. They took pictures of each other and of their surrounds. Blaine held the camera steady as he took a picture of Kurt, who was staring into thin air. As the picture developed, Blaine gasped. This was it. He had created the picture he had found in his attic a few years ago.
Kurt moved around him to look at the picture too. He smiled softly. "You got my good side," he said approvingly.
Blaine smiled, kissing Kurt's cheek. "That would imply you had a bad side."
Kurt laughed loudly, a sound that made Blaine feel warm and cuddly inside.
"There's just something I need to do," said Blaine once they entered Kurt's house. Blaine took the pictures and sorted them into two piles. One pile with all the landscape pictures, and one with the pictures of them. He found the latest picture he had taken of Kurt and found a pen to scribble something on the back.
Kurt looked curiously over Blaine's shoulder and smiled fondly at him. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Blaine looked at him. "I've got to take care of something," he said, kissing Kurt's lips lightly while gathering one of the piles and stuffing them into an envelope. The other pile he held out for Kurt to take. "Hold on to these, will you?" he asked, and Kurt nodded, a perplexed expression on his face as he took the pictures and stuffed them carefully inside his jacket.
Blaine disappeared out the door and down the street, stopping in front of what was to become his house. He slid the envelope into the mailbox and looked up towards the house. There was light in the windows and he could see the young girl who had to be his grandmother sitting in the living room. He stared at her for a minute before heading back towards Kurt's house.
He identified at once something bad took place when he returned. The lights flickered, and Blaine could not find Kurt anywhere. He went into the kitchen, and found a hastily scribbled note on the table. "Blaine. I don't know if you were aware this was going to happen or if it just happened by accident. I'm hoping for the latter because I don't think I could handle you leaving me. The angels are here, Blaine. Get out of the house, and run. Don't look back. There's no hope for me, Blaine, so don't go looking. By the time you read this I'll already be gone. Please, Blaine. Get out. Just run."
Blaine didn't wonder about the angels. He had no idea how they had found them but honestly he didn't care. Kurt was gone. His Kurt. Kurt, who he had been looking for forever. Tears had started falling without Blaine's knowledge, and they were smudging the letters where they landed on Kurt's note. He heard a sound behind him, and spun around. The angel was right in front of him, hand stretched out only inches from his face. Even if he had wanted to Blaine couldn't have run. He stood frozen on the spot, staring at the angel. He knew he didn't want to spend another second without Kurt. He blinked, and everything went black.
