A/N: This series of stories, which includes A Long Night and Love Bites, has been fairly light on the angst and more about jealousy than anything else. This one is much darker. Warning for vampires, blood, talk of a heart condition, rape is mentioned but not described, violence, blood, consensual biting, PTSD, angst, anxiety, nightmares, and hurt/comfort.
The footsteps that follow Kurt are inhuman. They put him on edge, keep him on alert. Warning bells sound off in his brain, but he shuts those out. Ignoring his body's primal instinct toward self-preservation is nearly impossible, but he needs to. He has to keep his mind on his goal. Only one thing matters right now, and time is running out.
He might already be too late.
They arrive at the loft – a dreary walk-up in Bushwick that one of Kurt's high school friends used to rent. It's in a huge building, a converted store house, and currently between occupants. No body lives there. Kurt and Sebastian are squatting until they can move in to their new apartment. This loft is empty, quiet, and out of the way. Kurt is thankful for the timing. He wouldn't dare bring this creature anywhere near their real apartment. Once this is over, Kurt wants this monster gone.
Kurt's even considering staking him when the deed's done, just to be sure. Kurt doesn't know if he can bring himself to kill a man, but he has to keep reminding himself that this isn't a man. This thing stopped being a man a long time ago. As for the specifics, Kurt thinks he can drive a piece of wood through his heart if he can take him by surprise.
He might be fooling himself, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes it look so easy.
To avoid being seen, they enter through the alleyway off a side street, climb up the fire escape, and in through the window.
Kurt doesn't see Sebastian right away, lying in the dark, but he can hear him - the sound of raspy breathing driving nails into Kurt's heart. Sebastian whimpers Kurt's name, weakly interspersed with murmurings of gibberish and strained gasps for breath.
Sebastian's gotten worse.
He's actively dying.
"Sebastian!" Kurt races through the lengthening shadows to his boyfriend's body, dropping to his knees at Sebastian's side. Kurt is scared to touch him. Sebastian's pale face, drawn and overly-angular due to dehydration, looks like it might shatter with another of his shuddering breaths. Kurt gently places a palm to Sebastian's cheek. His skin is ice cold, but wet from constant sweating as he fights to breathe. He barely moves beyond muscle spasms he can't control. His mouth hangs open, his lips dry and blue. He doesn't say anything that makes sense, but from his strangled moans – moans from lungs so bereft of oxygen they sound like they're being scraped from inside his ribcage - Kurt knows Sebastian is in profound agony. Kurt lifts Sebastian in his arms and holds his boyfriend's body to him. Inside his head, he screams, trapped in a cage of his own helplessness, while the creature stalking the room, almost forgotten, looks on with intense amusement.
How? Kurt cries silently, rocking Sebastian in his embrace. How can a beautiful, active, healthy boy like Sebastian be dying?
But he wasn't healthy. He never was. Kurt has only discovered that secret over the past year.
Sebastian has always been in the habit of holding his cards close to his chest, and even though Kurt is his closest friend, there's a lot Sebastian didn't tell him. He thought he was protecting Kurt. He figured that if they were going to have only a short time together, he'd rather it be spent without Kurt stressing over his health, scared that every day would be his last. Kurt was Sebastian's escape – his private paradise away from the horrible truths in his life.
That's why Sebastian didn't tell Kurt about his heart condition. Kurt found out on his own, one night while they were having sex in the backseat of Kurt's Navigator. They had been out in the freezing night air for hours, Kurt naked in Sebastian's lap, riding him so hard he thought his shocks might give out, when Sebastian went into cardiac arrest. Sebastian joked that he was perfectly healthy until that night, but Kurt knew. While he sat by Sebastian's bedside in the hospital, holding his boyfriend's hand as he slept, Kurt put the pieces together. When he finally saw the whole picture, when he took the odd things, the incomprehensible things, and put them into perspective, he figured out the secret that had been there in front of him the whole time.
Why an athletic guy like Sebastian would resign as lacrosse team captain, and then end up excused out of P.E. altogether. He had said it was because his parents wanted him to focus more on his studies – that they'd heard competition for admission to Yale was projected to be particularly steep for his graduating class - but Kurt knew that couldn't be true. Sebastian was, obnoxiously, a 5.0 student, poised to be valedictorian. And lacrosse was one of Sebastian's all-time favorite sports. He lived to play, but he gave it up without so much as an argument or an after-the-fact bitchfest. How could he let go of one of his passions so easily?
Shortly after, Sebastian left The Warblers, citing the same bullshit reason, but Kurt had noticed him getting short of breath during his solos, and having to sit out during dance routines, till he was basically consigned to swaying in the background.
Then Sebastian started going home for the weekends instead of staying at the dorms the way he normally did. He laughed it off, saying it was because his father was having 'mortality issues' after turning fifty, but that was only partially true.
Sebastian's parents were spending as much time with their son as they could.
Kurt liked Sebastian's parents for the most part. He knew they thought he wasn't good enough for their son, but they never made him feel that way to his face. They may have even liked him a little, at least for making their son happy. But when he found out that Sebastian had this condition and his parents weren't doing more to find Sebastian a donor heart, Kurt became furious.
Kurt knew little of what it actually took to get ahold of a human heart, that not only would someone have to die, but that they'd have to be a match and their family would need to be willing to have their loved one cut up and taken apart. Kurt assumed rich, affluent people like the Smythes could pretty much order one up. As it is, their money got Sebastian bumped up the list, but it couldn't do much else if there wasn't a heart available.
They were playing the waiting game, hoping the dice would roll in their favor, but Sebastian wasn't about to sit around and wait out his turn.
It nearly broke Sebastian's parents when Sebastian told them he didn't want to stay in Ohio - that he wasn't going to sit on a lanai at the Smythe estate and wait for his heart to give out. He wanted to live his life, and he wanted to live it with Kurt.
He didn't ask for their permission or their blessing.
Two weeks after graduation, Kurt and Sebastian packed a few bags, hopped an American Airline flight, and winged their way out to the coast.
Now here they are, in the city of their dreams, making their way on their own…
…and Sebastian is dying in Kurt's arms.
A creak of the floor boards reminds Kurt that another harbinger of death lurks near, and he steels himself to confront it.
"Can you do it?" Kurt calls blindly to the creature prowling behind him. He can feel the vampire's eyes on him, scraping over him, raking like sharpened claws down his skin. "Can you help him?"
The vampire loiters nearby, strolling the space, looking the walls up and down as if he's considering making this loft his new lair. He comes around into the light and smiles down on them. Kurt doesn't like the way he looks at them, like they're unimportant, like they don't matter.
Like they're cattle for the slaughter.
Maybe a wiser man wouldn't have made a deal with this devil, but Kurt has run out of options (not that he had many to begin with), and he'll do anything to help Sebastian.
Anything, without question.
"Of course I can," the vampire says, running a hand over his hair. He has mud brown hair, matching brown irises surrounding red demon pupils, and a highly forgettable face. He's the kind of man who would blend into a crowd, disappear in a sea of faces. Outside of being a vampire, there is nothing remarkable about him. "But will I is the question."
"You said you would," Kurt argues, struggling to keep himself in check. His temperament wanes between terror and anger, both fueled by adrenaline. Keeping his cool is harder than he thought, even with the eyes of death staring at him, way more interested in the vein popping out of Kurt's neck than the man gasping for life in his arms. "You promised."
"Yeah, but now I might be changing my mind." The vampire turns his back on them and focuses his attention out the window, at the empty street and sidewalk below, at the utter lack of people.
"Well, how do I get you to change it back?" Kurt spits out, his teeth locked to stop him from cursing.
The vampire walks from one end of the enormous room to the other. He draws out each step, feeding off Kurt's impatience, thoroughly enjoying the tension he's creating, before he gives Kurt an answer.
"What will you give me to change him for you?"
Kurt sits back on his heels, holding Sebastian protectively to his chest, staring at the monster, completely appalled.
"I…I already saved your life, remember?"
Kurt found the vampire by accident while walking to Duane Reade's under the pretense of looking for something there that would relieve Sebastian's pain. They had already taken too many trips to the ER, had too many overworked doctors tell them that there was nothing they could do, nothing that wouldn't damage his heart worse. His only option would be to go home, back to Ohio, and let his parents admit him to a hospital while they waited for a donor, but as far as Sebastian was concerned that wasn't a solution. His future would still be uncertain.
Sebastian was adamantly opposed to the idea, but Kurt was a day away from giving in when disaster struck.
Part of Sebastian's heart had started to shut down. Kurt didn't even know such a thing was possible.
Kurt didn't know what to do. He could call an ambulance, but he knew Sebastian didn't want that. Sebastian didn't want hospitals. He had told Kurt several times that if he was going to die, he didn't want to die in a hospital. He wanted to die in Kurt's arms. Kurt didn't want to go against Sebastian's wishes, but he couldn't sit idly by and watch his boyfriend die. So he told Sebastian he would start at the pharmacy and work his way from there.
Sebastian looked naïvely hopeful, but Kurt knew the pharmacy would be useless.
It was mostly an excuse. He might eventually end up at the pharmacy - that wasn't a lie - but he had another plan in mind. He took a different route than usual, a more dangerous route, through a part of their neighborhood he would never purposefully walk alone, day or night. He wanted to give something a try – something admittedly stupid, unless it worked. Then it would be brilliant.
Kurt had heard rumors of vampires hunting in the city – rumors he didn't believe in the slightest, but there were so many of them floating around from neighbors to friends and students at school that it gave him cause to wonder.
Urban legends are a cultural phenomenon, but some legends have bits of truth to them.
He walked back and forth in that neighborhood for close to an hour, past lines of abandoned brownstones, scolding himself for this ridiculous waste of time. He didn't know what he expected – red eyes hiding in the dark, a pale face leaping out at him from the shadows, Bela Lugosi in a dime-store plastic cape with a white shirt and black tuxedo slacks underneath, saying, "I vant to suck your blood" with a vague accent and a comical lisp.
He completed one last circuit. He hurried his steps, eager to be out of that Godforsaken part of town, thankful that he hadn't been jumped by real live human monsters and beaten to death, when he heard a horrifying growl – a growl that set every hair on his body on end - and Kurt knew. He knew because his rational brain – the part of him that always ran to the rescue whenever he was scared – had left him. It might have tried to convince him that what he was hearing was a feral dog, or his imagination playing tricks on him, and he might have agreed. But he heard the growl again and something in his head, some kind of old world instinct, kicked in, telling him to run as fast as he could and hide. In that second, when he made the conscious decision to defy all reason in order to hunt down a killer, he knew the rumors weren't just rumors. He felt it in his soul.
This wasn't a feral dog and it wasn't his imagination. True evil existed in the world, and it was waiting for him about two hundred feet to his left.
Kurt stood on the sidewalk and debated. He could ignore it, rush off to his destination and buy another three bottles of OTC pain relievers that would do nothing to help the man he loved, feed him pill after pill until his body refused to swallow and watch him slowly die in agony, or Kurt could put himself in mortal danger and possibly, finally get a solution to the problem.
It only took him a second to decide.
Kurt entered the alley, darkness enveloping him the moment he strayed from the orange street lights. He followed the faint sound of screaming, the rattling of chains, the snarling and the hissing, knowing with every step that desperation had forced him into insanity, but that's the definition of love. He picked his way through the trash and the filth in search of a way in. He found a doorway with no door, blocked by a thin, haphazardly balanced sheet of plywood. He gripped the splintered edges carefully and moved it aside, sliding it up against the inner wall. Through scattered rays of moonlight, he could make out a forest of steel girders forming a circle - the skeleton keeping this crumbling building upright until the city got around to tearing it down. He heard a metallic clatter and a frustrated snarl from beyond the beams, the pulling of something powerful trying to break free, and Kurt knew he was in the right place.
Lucky him.
He toed his way through piles of debris, the remains of drywall, broken two-by-fours, displaced cement blocks and bent rebar, hoping that he wouldn't step on something rusted and pointy that could go through his shoe and into his heel. His foot hit a patch of fresh oil – or fresh blood, he couldn't see anything but the sheen where the moonlight reflected off it – and slid, bringing down an avalanche of small rocks and pebbles.
Then the growling stopped.
"Who…who's there?" a low voice called. It was menacing in its calm and only passably human, hoarse, with a layer of rage hidden underneath. After Kurt heard it, he couldn't force his feet to move. "Come closer," the voice said. "I won't hurt you."
The grim chuckle that followed those words didn't fill Kurt with any amount of confidence.
Kurt heard the creature sniff the air, an animalistic gesture that turned Kurt from plain paralyzed to solid stone.
"I can smell you," the voice growled. Kurt hadn't come out from behind the pillar where he stood, fifty feet from where he knew the vampire stood, and he suddenly didn't know if he could, his need to turn and run overwhelming. "If I can smell you, then I can find you, so you might as well come out."
Kurt's body shook. He could find him. The monster could find him, and he didn't mean here in this building. Anywhere in the city. This monster could find him. After tonight, whether Sebastian lived or died, Kurt wouldn't be safe. Kurt realized he might as well walk out into the moonlight and be done with this, if his life was already forfeit. He bit his tongue hard to keep from screaming. He felt every inch of bodily control leave him. He was afraid that he might actually piss himself.
The vampire sniffed the air again.
"You're wearing Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio…the last meal you ate was a spinach salad with grilled chicken, uncured bacon, and blue cheese dressing…"
Kurt swallowed hard and took a step. His foot almost didn't land on flat ground, or he was about to pass out. Either way, he nearly ended up face down on a pile of broken glass.
"You wear way too much hairspray…you're dating a man…the last time you had sex together was over a week ago…" The vampire chuckled hauntingly. "Sorry about that, mate."
The vampire sniffed again. Kurt couldn't do it. He couldn't stay in hiding while this animal figured him out, decoding him like a message, uncovering him like an offering. He stepped out into the open and saw the monster fully…and the monster saw him.
More to the point, Kurt saw his glowing crimson eyes and his white fanged smile.
"And your blood type is AB negative."
Bathed in silver light, the vampire had been chained beneath a gaping hole in the vaulted ceiling.
He had been left out here in the open on purpose. He had been left here to die.
Kurt didn't know anything about vampires – real vampires. Only the stuff he saw in movies and read in stories. But weren't vampires supposed to have phenomenal superhuman strength? Why didn't he break out of these chains? Who put him here? Who condemned this creature to death?
Who would be condemned to death by letting this creature free? Innocent women and children? People who used to live in this neighborhood before it was picked clean by this monster?
Kurt couldn't think about that. As horrible as it sounded, he couldn't care about anyone else. This vampire was the only way Kurt could see to save Sebastian's life. He knew he might die trying, but he had to at least try. He didn't have the time to find a nicer vampire, if such a creature existed.
Besides, if Kurt died, he'd like to believe that he'd be with Sebastian again anyway.
Unless the vampire turned him.
Kurt saw the vampire watching him, the way his hungry eyes followed him.
No. It wouldn't turn him. This thing was out for blood.
"Is it visiting hours already?" the vampire asked, the frustration gone, replaced by a morbid delight as his eyes drank Kurt in. "Or did you come here to gawk?"
"Are you…a vampire?" Kurt asked. His voice sounded scared, immature, and he wished he could take his question back and ask it over, but life hadn't been fair to him much so far. Why would that change now?
"That I am," the vampire said with a laugh.
"Then…then I have a proposition for you." Kurt attempted to make himself taller by sticking his nose in the air, trying to give off an air of confidence.
The vampire smirked at him. He wasn't buying it.
"And what is that?" he said, shrugging his shoulders to readjust his heavy chains. Kurt saw them bow his body. Something about them - crisscrossed over his chest, wrapped around each arm, circling each leg, attached to a collar around his neck and then locked to the beams behind him - kept him prisoner.
"I'll set you free, but then you have to do something for me."
The vampire looked at Kurt and scoffed, shaking his head. He took a step closer and Kurt, either feeling exceptionally brave or too tired to realize that he was being foolish, didn't take a step away. Almost nose to nose, Kurt saw the vampire better, his cheeks hollow, every bone and ridge showing, the skin beneath his eyes sagging and dark.
He looked sickly, emaciated.
He looked like Sebastian.
"I don't have to do anything for you, princess," the vampire said, sounding disgusted. He shuffled, almost limping backward, trying to escape the light. But he couldn't. The chains were wrapped tight. He couldn't move from the ray spotlighting him.
"No, you're right," Kurt said, feeling a more secure plan forming in his head. "You don't. I can just sit here and watch you turn into a pile of ash. I mean, that's what's going to happen when the sun rises in about six hours, right? I'm sure it's spectacular to see."
The vampire grit his teeth and bared his fangs. He didn't like being mocked.
"You're starving, aren't you?" Kurt postulated out loud. "That's how they caught you. That's how they tied you up. You're weak, and that's why you can't break free." Kurt said it matter-of-factly, trying to give the monster the appearance that he knew what he was talking about, that he knew just what he was getting into by walking in here.
Kurt figured that, like most predators, this vampire could probably smell his fear. He shouldn't be fooled by this act. Regardless of whether he agreed to Kurt's terms or not, he won't trust Kurt.
That was fine, because Kurt didn't trust him, either.
"I can get you fed," Kurt said, not liking the way those words sounded coming from his mouth, knowing that the blood he was offering up was Sebastian's. "Then you can come back here and exact revenge on whoever did this to you."
He liked those words even less. He vomited in his mouth saying them.
But whatever the vampire thought, whether he trusted Kurt or not, Kurt's openness to help him massacre the people who did this to him caught his attention.
"Fine," he said, smiling wickedly with vengeance on his mind. "Get me out of these chains and I'll do you a solid."
Kurt stared at the vampire blankly, at the chains encasing his body. He didn't think he'd get this far. Now that he had, he had no idea of how to get the monster free.
The vampire saw this and rolled his eyes.
"There's some bolt cutters," he said, gesturing with his head to his left, "in that pile over there, out of my reach."
"Ah," Kurt said, racing over, feeling the weight of time pressing down on him.
He found the bolt cutters easily. It seemed that they had been left in full view of the vampire as a final fuck you. Whoever did this was too cocky. They didn't count on a bystander passing by. Kurt returned with the cutters, holding them awkwardly out in front of him. He approached the vampire quickly, his brain screaming at him to stop, to turn around, to go back to the loft and think of another way.
But there was no other way.
He had allied himself with death. All he had left was to hope that he did the right thing.
"So, it's the boyfriend you're not fucking that's dying, right?" the vampire surmised, watching Kurt try to cut the links with trembling hands.
"What makes you say that?" Kurt asked, wondering why he was acting aloof if the vampire was going to find out anyway.
"Because no one's stupid enough to go looking for vampires unless someone they love is dying…or they're dying…" The vampire paused and sniffed, dangerously close to Kurt's wrist. "And you smell deliciously healthy to me."
The vampire licked his lips and Kurt felt a lump rise to his throat. What was he doing? After he got these links cut, this creature could do anything to him, to Sebastian. Even famished, he was probably stronger than Kurt. And wasn't that when an animal was at its most deadly – when it was starved for food? He could be tricking Kurt into leading him back to Sebastian so he could tear them both apart.
"Come on," the vampire said when Kurt hesitated, when he got so lost in the fear of his own stupidity that he stopped cutting the chains, "you're saving my life. We're friends now. I'm just starting a little conversation. You know, to put your mind at ease."
Kurt could have laughed out loud, but he didn't want to offend the blood thirsty monster with the razor sharp fangs mere feet from his neck.
"Yes," Kurt said, starting on a new row of links. The chains loosened and the vampire moved his arms. One row fell to the floor with a loud bang and Kurt almost fumbled the cutters. "It's my boyfriend. He has a heart condition. He won't last the night."
"Does he love you?"
That question stopped Kurt again. Of course, Sebastian loved him. Without a shadow of a doubt he loved him. But why would this creature want to know?
"Come on, princess," the vampire said, stretching his arms, another chain dropping to the floor. "You said he's only got the night. You're wasting time."
Kurt hated to admit that the vampire was right. Even if he was playing him, he was right. Sebastian didn't have any time, not for Kurt to be a coward.
"Does he love you?"
"Yes," Kurt answered, reaching out and pulling off two rows of chains himself. "Yes, he does."
The vampire smirked again. It was darker than the first, less playful. It looked like a warning.
"I guess we'll see, won't we?"
The vampire brought his arms in and flexed, groaning with the effort. What remained of the chains ripped, links popping, the metal binds falling away.
There he stood, unfettered, free because of Kurt. Whatever he did after tonight, whatever blood he spilled, would be entirely on Kurt's hands.
He looked at Kurt as that revelation dawned on Kurt's face, turning him white from his skin down to his core.
"Well then," the vampire said with a wink, "let's go save your boyfriend." The vampire motioned for Kurt to lead the way. With his heart reluctant to beat, content instead to sink into his stomach and boil, Kurt walked ahead with a cold-blooded killer following behind.
Kurt knew the vampire couldn't be trusted, but he held out hope.
He used to believe that hope was for children and fools.
Turned out, he was right.
"Yeah, I know, I know," the vampire says, taunting him, "but now I'm thinking this little favor might be worth more than that."
Kurt shakes his head in confusion. How can something be worth more to him than his own life?
"Okay, whatever. Can we negotiate that after? He doesn't have much time."
The vampire is in front of Kurt before he can blink, foreheads pressed together, the rank smell of blood on his breath filling Kurt's sinuses without him even breathing in.
"Say you'll give me anything I want if I save your boyfriend here."
Kurt swallows hard. Is he really willing to make that kind of promise? Sebastian's hand clamps over Kurt's with a surprising strength, a strength that should have long since gone from his body. Kurt looks down into his eyes – wide, unseeing, dilated, close to being lifeless.
"Yes!" Kurt agrees, feeling the strength seep out of Sebastian's body as his grip loosens. "I'll give you anything! Anything you want! Just please! Please save him!"
The monster smiles and Kurt's heart stops.
"Your wish is my command, princess."
The vampire takes Sebastian from Kurt's arm and holds him upright by his biceps. With no pretense of gentleness, he bites down on Sebastian's neck. Sebastian's mouth drops open, far enough to make his jaw unhinge, his eyes flying wide, the twist of a silent scream contorting his black lips. His body goes rigid, arms trying to bat at the creature clamped down on his neck.
"Please," Kurt cries, reaching out an arm to pull the vampire off, his fingers hovering close but not touching. "Don't…don't hurt him! Please, just…Sebastian! I love you, Sebastian! I love you! Just be still. It's almost over."
The monster opens a cut on his own wrist and directs a stream of thick, stagnant blood into Sebastian's open mouth. Then he lets Sebastian go, his body dropping hard to the wood floor. Kurt races forward to catch him before he hits the ground but the monster doesn't let him, standing between them, blocking his way.
"Oh, no, precious," the animal growls, his lips shiny, his chin stained red. "It's nowhere near over. In fact, the fun is just beginning."
"Wha-what do you mean?" Kurt stammers. The vampire raises his arms, stretching them out, bending them, looking down at his hands, seeing something Kurt doesn't see.
He doesn't see it in the vampire's hands, but he starts to see it in his face. His hollowed out cheeks begin to take shape, the dark circles beneath his eyes disappearing, his sagging skin tightening.
He's regaining his strength.
If Kurt had any thoughts about staking him, his chance is long gone.
"I'm not a charity, sweetheart," the vampire says, his voice smoother, eerily seductive. "You got something…"
Kurt's eyes shift to Sebastian writhing on the floor, still in agony, not looking any better than before, worse now for the gaping hole in his neck.
"He'll be fine," the vampire says, moving an inch to block Kurt's view, "but now I need something. You've got to pay me."
"Of-of course," Kurt says, nodding nervously with anxious tears in his eyes, a knot growing in his stomach. "Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. I have money."
The vampire laughs.
"I don't need your money."
The knot in Kurt's stomach takes a hard twist.
"Well, do you need…do you need…blood?" he asks, unable to rectify with his head that he actually asked that question.
"Nah," the vampire answers, wiping a hand over his lips, his eyes darting down to look at Sebastian on the floor. "I just ate."
"Okay." Kurt raises an eyebrow, giving his body permission to move, to find an escape, feeling himself being circled like prey for a wild cat. "Then what do you want?"
The vampire stops moving, the blood red smile on his face growing till the edges touch his eyes.
"You."
"Me?" Kurt squeaks. "But I…I'm not ready to be a vampire."
The thought had entered his head. If Sebastian was going to be a vampire then, of course, Kurt wanted to be a vampire, too. But not yet. Not when he had his dreams of graduating college and becoming a Broadway star. When he'd had enough of that, when his star began to fade, then he had every intention of joining his boyfriend.
"That's not what I mean either." It's with the speed of lightning that the vampire reaches out a hand and grabs Kurt around the neck, squeezing tight, nails digging in. "There's not a lot of willing ass to be had out on the streets. I mean sure, I fuck where I eat, but sometimes it's no fun fucking someone who's going to die anyway. You'll be around long enough to scream for me, won't you?"
"I…" Kurt chokes. "No, I…"
"I can kill you," the vampire says. "But I'll kill him first. Rip his throat out and let him bleed, and when he's done bleeding, I'll take his head off. Then, I'll take you apart piece by piece, joint by joint, while you're still alive. It's your choice."
The knot twists again. Kurt's stomach lurches, acid searing his throat, but he swallows it down. Things might go much worse if he vomits in this monster's face. His muscles wither, leaving nothing attached to his bones to keep him standing.
"B-but…b-but Sebastian…" Kurt whimpers.
"Oh, he's going to be dying for hours..." The grotesque creature squeezes, driving sharpened nails deeper into the skin of Kurt's neck, bringing him to his knees. The vampire smiles with white teeth and gums blood red. "We've got ourselves plenty of time."
Kurt loses the ability to move long before the vampire decides he's done with him. There's a moment when the monster's face goes blank. He looks almost bored and he lets go. Or maybe, Kurt will realize years after, it's because he feels the rising of the sun that he leaves Kurt's body and gets dressed to leave. Every muscle inside Kurt throbs, and he's positive a bone or two is broken. All he is in this moment is pain. Pain and damage. That's all that exists. Even without a mirror to look at, he knows how wrecked he is – one eye swollen shut, purple finger-shaped bruises on his throat, bites and scratches on every inch of skin, some that will require stitches. His throat stings when he swallows, raw from screaming, torn from being forced to suck the animal off. He doesn't know what he'll tell Sebastian. Hopefully he'll have time to come up with a believable lie…as soon as the vampire leaves.
If he leaves.
Kurt prays he leaves. Kurt doesn't even believe in a higher power, but he starts praying hard.
Kurt can't hear Sebastian anymore. He hasn't made a noise for hours. Kurt rolls his head and looks in his direction, body lying in the shadows, still as death.
It hits Kurt with a new wave of pain and nausea.
Sebastian is dead. For all intents and purposes, the man that Kurt loves is dead.
Kurt did that.
And sometime tomorrow night, more people will die.
Kurt did that, too.
Maybe it would have been better if the vampire had killed Kurt. Sebastian may be a monster like the one pulling on his shirt, lips curling in a self-satisfied grin, but Kurt gave up part of his humanity, too.
His he exchanged willingly.
"You both belong to me now," the vampire announces, zipping up his jeans. "Remember that, princess. If he ever turns you into a vampire, I'll be coming after you. Then you'll really be mine." Kurt blinks up at him with his one good eye. Maybe there's a hint of defiance in the way Kurt stares because the vampire bears down on him, crouching low and grabbing Kurt's chin. He lifts Kurt up to meet his face, crushing Kurt's jaw in his grip. "And if you think your boyfriend can protect you, remember who changed him," the vampire whispers. "I'm older, I'm stronger, and my blood runs through his veins." The vampire squeezes hard and Kurt hears a crack. "He won't have a chance."
He shoves Kurt onto his back and stands, licking his lips as he takes one last leisurely look at Kurt sprawled on the floor. Kurt grabs blindly for his shirt, more shreds of material than an actual garment anymore. The vampire laughs, a full body laugh, tossing his head back. He heads for the window, glorying in his renewed strength, ready to leap into the night. He stops on the ledge and blows Kurt a kiss.
"Thanks for the party, handsome. Give your pretty boyfriend my regards."
"N-no…no, please…"
Sebastian opens his eyes. He hasn't been sleeping, but lying beneath Kurt's body is soothing in a way he can blessedly still remember.
"Kurt?"
"N-no," Kurt whimpers, sleep-heavy lips chewing on the words to get them out, "get off of me…"
"Kurt? Baby?" Sebastian runs a hand up and down Kurt's arm. "Wake up."
"Pl-please…leave me alone…"
Tears wet Kurt's cheeks. Sebastian sees them in the dark, shimmering in the moonlight coming through the blind slats.
"Okay, sweetheart…" Sebastian climbs out from under his boyfriend, "I need you to wake up now."
"No…" Kurt flails, throwing his head back and forth, arms pushing out against the empty air. "Leave me…leave me alone!"
Sebastian shakes Kurt gently, calling to him with as human a voice as he can manage, not the low, beastly growl his voice has started to become. "Kurt…Kurt, wake up. Kurt…" He puts a hand to Kurt's cheek, pressing his palm against his boyfriend's skin. It has a dramatic, startling effect. Kurt's eyes fly open and he screams, a sound of pure terror filling their room.
"Kurt! Kurt, it's me!" Sebastian says through Kurt's wail. "It's Sebastian! Look at me!"
Kurt's eyes look straight at him, but for long seconds they don't see him. They flick around, unfocused, unblinking, caught somewhere between the monster's fangs driving into his shoulder and the worried expression of the immortal man who loves him.
"Sebastian," Kurt mouths, not having a voice left to say the word properly. "Is it…is it you?"
"Yes, baby." Sebastian presses a soft kiss to Kurt's lips. "Yes, it's me."
Kurt throws his arms around Sebastian's neck and holds him, sobbing into his shoulder.
"Oh, sweetheart," Sebastian coos, his voice slipping back into that vampiric hiss he hates so much. "Baby. Are you alright?"
"Yes," Kurt mumbles, sniffling. "Yes, it's…it was a nightmare. That's all. But it's over."
Sebastian runs his fingers through Kurt's hair, massaging lightly.
"You have those nightmares a lot, Kurt," Sebastian says, hugging Kurt tighter when he feels his boyfriend pull away. "How can I help, Kurt? How can I make the nightmares go away?"
Kurt looks up into Sebastian's face, at his pale as porcelain skin (a designation that used to belong to Kurt, but Sebastian's skin deserves it more, as smooth and perfect as it is with the pallor of death), at his eyes that still hold a shadow of the deep green they once were, at his lips that are no longer plush, but which Kurt still can't get enough of. Sebastian's brow furrows, as if he's trying to read Kurt's mind.
"Sebastian," Kurt says before Sebastian can ask again, "would you…would you bite me?"
"Do you mean, you want me to change you?" There's an undeniable look of excitement in Sebastian's eyes. He's wanted to change Kurt for a while. He imagines the moment in his mind, more intimate than sex, bringing them closer than they have ever been.
But the suggestion puts Kurt in a panic.
"No!" Kurt jumps, frantic heart beating, drumming hard. Sebastian's eyelids narrow, pupils becoming two red pinpoints, staring down at him. Those fiery pupils unnerve Kurt, bring back a deeply embedded fear, and he has to remind himself that the nightmare's gone. The monster's not there. This is Sebastian. His Sebastian. The love of his life, but with similar eyes. Sebastian could never turn into an animal. Sebastian would never hurt Kurt. "No…just…you know…small bites…the way you do. I just want to feel close to you."
Sebastian climbs over him, undoing the buttons to his Henley, pulling the collar open with great precision and care.
"You're going to tell me one day, right?" Sebastian asks, nuzzling close to Kurt's ear, unnaturally frigid skin sending a chill racing through Kurt's body. "You're going to tell me why you whimper…why you wake up screaming?"
"Maybe," Kurt replies quietly, teasing while he fights back tears, "but not tonight, okay? I just want to forget about it for now. Will you help me?"
"Anything," Sebastian says, clearing a spot on Kurt's neck, running his fingertips lightly over it, preparing to take a bite. "I'd do anything for you. I owe you my life. I owe you my everything." A single tear rolls down Kurt's cheek. Sebastian watches it, tracking its progress along Kurt's skin with curious eyes. "You know, whatever it is you're afraid of, you can tell me. I'll keep you safe. I'll protect you."
Kurt nods, forcing a smile.
"I know," he says. "I know you'll always protect me. But, let's not talk now. Please."
Sebastian nods, opening his mouth against Kurt's throat. Kurt gasps as Sebastian's fangs sink smoothly into his neck.
"I love you, Sebastian," he moans, holding Sebastian's head against him, crying softly in the dark.
I love you…but you can't protect me from this.