It's 2015, and the world finally ends with a snap like a dry twig.
Lucifer leans down and slowly touches Blaine's cheek. Kurt can't see either of their faces from here, but he can see the way Cooper's body moves with a gentle deliberation that Cooper never had. Lucifer wears him well.
Lucifer's hand moves over Blaine's face, closing his eyes Kurt supposes, and lays his hands over his chest. He carefully takes out the rose from his label, and lays it on Blaine's body. Then he looks up at the sky and starts to laugh.
There is a part of Kurt, behind the haze of white noise, that remembers how easy it would have been once to heal Blaine. Death was no obstacle. He raised Blaine Anderson from death once before, knit him together with his will and his grace until his very being danced in between Blaine's cells. Once, Kurt could have saved him. But, he thinks vaguely as he slowly sinks down to the ground, he never could actually save Blaine. That was the whole problem. He could never be everything Blaine wanted him to be.
He's grateful, in a way, that it's all finally over. He didn't have to break his promise. He never said goodbye to Blaine, even when maybe he should have.
Kurt looks away from where Lucifer is still laughing. It's an odd hollow sound that echoes around the empty garden.
Kurt thinks that Blaine would have wanted him to keep fighting. He looks vaguely down at the gun in his hand, and then back at his last brother. All alone once again, only this time on Earth rather than in the Pit. Kurt wonders if it makes a difference, having a bigger and more beautiful cage. He doubts it. Blaine was the best kind of cage.
Kurt looks up at the sky instead of at where his brother stands over Blaine's body. It's beautiful out today. Barely a cloud in the sky. He hopes his brothers are safe somewhere, maybe building a new Kingdom of Heaven. He prays for Blaine's soul. He doesn't pray for his own. He knows how his story ends. He always did.
Kurt drops his gun. He doesn't need it anymore.
"Who is this woman?" Kurt gapes, shoveling a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Blaine tries not to wince at the way bits of popcorn come flying right back out. "And how can I meet her to worship her as my new god?
"That's Beyonce," Blaine laughs, not because Kurt's ridiculous (although he is) but because it's so weird to hear Kurt so casually mention worship and god. Blaine's been tiptoeing around the issue, driving careful circles around churches (which is way harder than it seems, he'd totally underestimated how religious America is apparently) and jumping every time he saw someone with a cross around their neck.
"She is fabulous," Kurt breathes as he watches Beyonce sing about putting a ring on it.
"Mhmm," Blaine hums, polishing his best silver knife. He barely pays attention as the music video ends and Kurt starts flipping around trying to find his new god again. What makes him finally jerk back to earth is the unmistakeable sound of "We got a situation up in here!"
"Oh my god," Blaine drops his iron blade and nearly dives onto the couch. "Is that Jersey Shore?" He grabs the remote from Kurt before Kurt can even think about changing the channel.
"Is she sick?" Kurt asks, brows wrinkled as he contemplates Snooki. "Why is she that color?"
"Because she's suffering from the inescapable human condition known as reality tv show-it is." Blaine can't look away from the absolute train wreck currently playing out across the screen. It's barely been 30 seconds and he already wants to weep for humanity. He blindly grabs a handful of popcorn from Kurt and stuffs it into his mouth. "They all are. Just watch."
Kurt does, and when the episode ends Blaine manages to rouse himself just long enough to start feeling self-conscious. He hasn't watched reality TV like this in years, not since his father caught him sitting in front of Say Yes To The Dress. His dad had just looked at him, and then walked out like maybe he could pretend that he didn't just see his son watching such a gay show. Or maybe that he didn't have a second son at all.
"Sorry," Blaine looks down at where he's still holding the remote. He passes it over to Kurt. "You can change the channel if you want."
Kurt gives him the mother of all glares, and Blaine seriously wants to know who the hell taught an angel to look so bitchy because Blaine sure as hell didn't. "Are you nuts?" He asks, "I need to know if Snooki's baby comes out orange too!" He turns back to the TV and flaps a hand at Blaine. "Now be quiet, it's coming back on." He blushes just slightly as he glances at Blaine. "Do you think the Situation will take his shirt off again?"
Blaine feels a little light headed at how easy this all feels. "Definitely," he says faintly. He grins, and laughs a little from the sheer joy at being able to ogle a hot guys abs on terribly reality TV with his boyfriend. It feels like something out of a dream, except Blaine's never had one this wonderful before. His dreams are filled with fire, and chains, and the Rack back in Hell where Alastair carved burning sigils into his flesh and licked the blood away. For a moment, Blaine is afraid that he's died and that this is his Heaven – watching awful TV with Kurt and eating microwave popcorn. It wouldn't be so bad. But then he remembers that when he dies, he's definitely not headed for Heaven and so he knows this has to be real. It's weirdly comforting. This is it for him, all the happiness he's ever going to get is right here and that's… that's okay. More than okay.
"I was surprised to see him with it on to be honest," Blaine confides, slinging an arm around Kurt and marveling at the easy way Kurt leans into it – the way they fit together. Blaine would suspect Kurt of having engineered him that way when he brought Blaine back to life, but he knows Kurt would never disrespect one of his Father's designs like that.
He kisses Kurt's temple and smothers a laugh into Kurt's hair when Kurt gasps in scandalized joy as Snooki rips out JWOWW's hair extensions.
"Cut it off," Blaine says curtly.
"But-" Kurt says helplessly. "But-"
Blaine shoves the razor at him. "Just do it." Kurt holds the razor like it's a particularly garish piece of faux-fur, with the very tips of his fingers. He can't help but think of the way Blaine's hair used to look spread out against their pillow, the way Kurt would clutch at it when they fucked, the way it felt against the pads of his fingers when he tried to massage the worries from Blaine's temples.
Blaine's eyes soften ever so slightly. "It's dangerous like this Kurt. A croat could catch it."
"That's what gel is for," Kurt insists, even though he knows even as he says it that it's the wrong thing to say.
"Yeah?" Blaine says, raising an eyebrow. "And where am I supposed to get gel? We don't even have enough toilet paper Kurt."
"Don't remind me." Kurt shudders, but only to try and make Blaine laugh at his fastidiousness. Instead, Blaine's lips flatten. Kurt looks away. Blaine doesn't think it's funny when he's a silly, impractical angel anymore. He forgets sometimes. It's so hard remembering things now that he's human. The knowledge that he had was never meant to fit inside a human brain, and it gets all jumbled up inside him. Sometimes he looks up at the rain and suddenly remembers the way Barachiel's laughter split the sky with light. But most of the time he forgets, the knowledge seeping out of him in drips and drabs until he realizes that he can't remember his own name anymore. He has to get Blaine to write it out for him. He tattoos it onto his heart, right next to the anti-demon possession spell that Blaine carved into his skin.
Blaine starts to walk away, but Kurt pulls him back down. Blaine is stiff in his arms. He's skinner, starved the way all the survivors are, and his elbows knock against Kurt's painfully. They don't quite fit anymore. But then Blaine sighs and turns his head until his nose fits against Kurt's. He just breathes, and Kurt breaks.
"Okay, okay." He shoves Blaine off him, because if he's going to cut off Blaine's beautiful curls he needs to just get it over with. But Blaine looks shocked as he stumbles out of Kurt's embrace, as though Kurt had hit him or something. Then his face closes off, and he just hands over the scissors and turns around so the only thing Kurt can see is the gentle curl of his hair. They drip down his neck as Kurt cuts. Soon the floor is littered with Blaine, and Kurt knows that no matter how much he sweeps he'll never be able to get rid of it all. It'll get ground into the floor until it becomes a part of the house, and everywhere that Kurt steps he'll be touching Blaine.
Blaine doesn't move to kiss him when he's done, and Kurt stands there frozen, scissors dangling from his fingers as he stares at his handy work. Blaine looks good with short hair. It brings out the angles in his face. He looks almost like a statue. Kurt hesitates, waiting for Blaine to lean in and kiss him. Blaine just looks at him, before finally clearing this throat and looking away.
"I guess I'll go back to my room."
Back? He thought… Kurt turns around abruptly to put away the scissors. There his now, he thinks viciously, proper payment for his services. It doesn't matter what he thought, since Blaine obviously didn't mean to try and rebuild any bridges. He was stupid to think that Blaine asking him for help was meant to be some kind of olive branch. Obviously Blaine just wanted the person best suited to the task. His perfect Alpha leader.
"Don't get high tonight, we're going on a raid tomorrow and you can't be fucked up."
Kurt grips the back of his chair to stop himself from whirling around and punching Blaine right in his self-righteous face. Weeds makes him feel like he's flying again, makes everything crystallize around him until he can finally remember who he's supposed to be. Blaine used to help him remember, but now Blaine just ignores him when he tries to talk to him about Heaven. His lip curls. Blaine just ignores him whenever he doesn't need him to do something for him. And now that he can't use his angelic powers anymore, those times are even fewer and farther in between. Kurt bites his lip to stop himself from laughing. He doesn't know why he wants to, but he can feel it bubbling up in his gut and eating away at him like acid.
Kurt doesn't turn around until he's sure Blaine's gone. As soon he's alone, he reaches for his bong. He needs to remember what it was like to fly.
Blaine rubs his non-firing hand over raw wood, drives the splinters in with his thumb until they'll take an age of poking and prodding to get out. When he's satisfied with it, he finds Kurt.
"What?" Kurt glares at him with red eyes. It's been months but it's still a shock every time to see Kurt with his hair hanging lank and dirty. Blaine's not hurting for reminders that the world's gone to shit and his angel's lost his ability to fix himself up with a thought, god he's not, but every time he looks at Kurt it's like the end of the world all over again. It's even more jarring than the smell of marijuana that hangs about him like perfume nowadays. Blaine remembers the way he used to smell like burning ozone every time he entered a room, so very inhuman that his very pores reeked of it. Now Kurt just smells like sweat and weed and, far too often, blood.
"Splinters." Blaine mutters, looking away from the corner where he knows Kurt keeps his drugs. If he doesn't see them, he tells himself, he's not obligated to get into a fight with Kurt about them all over again. He knows by now that there's no point. Kurt just accuses him of trying to take away the only things he has left that make him feel like he's flying again. Blaine always ends up giving up and storming out anyway. He's not here for a fight tonight. "Help me out?" He holds out his hand. It hovers in the air between them.
Kurt snorts. "You did that to yourself," he sneers. "So get them out yourself." He walks over to his corner, and Blaine looks away from his retreating back. As long as he doesn't see it happening, he tells himself, he doesn't have to try to stop it. He doesn't have to fail to stop it. "We all have to dig ourselves out of the holes we jumped into."
The last thing Blaine hears before he walks out the door is the click of a lighter. He gets Tina to take the splinters out, and when it's done he lets her kiss him. He kisses her back, falls into the comfort she's more than willing to give, and wonders what he was expecting to happen.
"They're dead weight." Blaine says, and sweeps toy cars out of his trunk with one arm.
Kurt doesn't say anything. He knows it's true, and had been the first one to bring up the fact that Blaine was spending valuable space in his trunk on toys. But it still makes him flinch when he hears them hit the ground.
That night he sneaks out and buries them. They've stopped burying their dead a long time ago, setting mass pyres ablaze that act as simultaneous salt and burns as well as acting as a distracting beacon for anything that might come looking for them.
But Kurt can't bear the thought of the cars being trodden underfoot, of being broken by people who don't understand that the white lambhorgini is from when Blaine saved two sisters from a wendigo or that the silver Ford Fusion was the last car Blaine ever bought – sneaking it under Kurt's pillow while he slept off the wounds from the demon they'd banished back to hell. He digs with his fingernails, because he didn't think to bring a shovel. His fingers crack and bleed, but he just buries the blood too. It's important that the cars at least get a final resting place, even if no one but him ever knows that they do.
It's an awful ache in the small of his back that reminds him that he's human now – he can't waste time and energy on fits of useless emotion like this. He digs a little longer anyway, because he's watched over funerals to know that they're for the living. The dead don't care anymore, even if they're still walking around.
He thinks about saying last rites over them, but in the end he just walks back to the motel to get ice for his back. Blaine carefully uses the tip of his knife to remove every bit of dirt from under Kurt's fingernails, because he knows how much Kurt hates that feeling of mess.
They don't fuck, because even if Kurt had been in the mood his back certainly wasn't, but Blaine lets Kurt cuddle into his side and listen to his heartbeat until they both fall asleep.
"Dang it!" Blaine swears.
"What is it?" Kurt nearly bowls Blaine over in his concern, patting him all over to try and find a wound. "Are you okay?" He peers into Blaine's eyes.
"Uhm," Blaine licks his lips, his eyes suddenly dry. "Splinter?" He says weakly, showing Kurt the side of his ring finger, where a little nub of wood from his shovel shoved itself under the thin skin there.
"Oh," Kurt blushes, pulling away. He licks his lips, and Blaine tracks the motion with his eyes. He surreptiously rearranges his shovel. Kurt's voice goes high and haughty as he says "You humans are so fragile, can't even handle a shovel without hurting yourself."
Blaine has to bite back a laugh at the way he can practically hear Kurt's feathers ruffling. "And yet somehow we've managed to survive for a couple thousand years," he teases, loving the way Kurt won't look at him. From this angle, he has a perfect view of the way the tips of Kurt's ears are turning pink.
"Practically nothing," Kurt sniffs. "Just a blink of an eye for us. You'll be gone before you know it."
Blaine feels the smile drip off his face. "Yeah," he says. "I guess we will." He begins shoveling again. She may have been an angry ghost, but everyone deserves to rest in the end. It's the only real light at the end of the tunnel that any of them get. "You'll just keep on going won't you though?" Blaine doesn't know if that's comforting, that Kurt existed for so long without him, and will for so long after. It should be; there's supposed to be something nice in constancy right?
"Come on," Blaine says, smiling so hard his muscles hurt. "We'll stop for burgers on the way."
Kurt licks his lips, but this time seeing it just makes Blaine want to hurt someone. He wishes that the hunt had been for something more challenging than a run-of-the-mill salt-and-burn. He wishes that it had been something he could hit.
"You mean I'll get a burger, and you'll get one of your salads." Kurt says lightly. Maybe it's meant to be an apology, or maybe comforting, or maybe it's nothing but Kurt lusting over greasy fast food with a fervor that would make Famine himself raise an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Blaine sighs. "I'll meet you in the car." He goes back to burying Sarah Fitzpatrick. He doesn't watch Kurt walk away.
It is a Thursday when Kurt takes his first sip of alcohol. He thinks it is appropriate, and somewhere deep inside himself he despairs and he wonders what angel has taken over his duty. Perhaps they cannot spare any, and Thursday goes unguarded. He slugs back his first tequila shot so that he can excuse the tears in his eyes on the burning.
Because it does burn. He had felt it before as an angel, but now it floods through his veins and burns his belly like Hellfire. He can't control his esophagus, and he coughs hard enough that he nearly bends over double.
"Whoa," Blaine's hands are warm as they touch the back of his neck. "Are you okay Kurt?"
"I am so not okay," Kurt whispers between gritted teeth, "Are you okay?"
Blaine doesn't answer. Kurt supposes that's answer enough. Once, he thinks, he would have just had to will it and he could have seen the whole of Blaine's soul to know the answer. But then, he thinks as he motions to the bartender for another shot, he never could really see the whole of Blaine's soul, could he? And that's why he's here, in this miserable hellhole of a human body. He knocks back the shot as soon as the bartender sets it in front of him. Hell itself had been easier. At least then, he was sure of his mission. Now he's not sure of anything.
As if to remind him just how shaky his world really is, when he looks up there are 3 Blaines, all wavering in and out of existence in his vision. He reaches out a wobbly hand, hoping to sew him back together as he did before, before he remembers that he can't anymore. His hand falls to his lap, fingers curled up towards the sky.
"I think you've had enough," the Blaine on the right says. Kurt shakes his head at him, and then at the other two Blaines. "Definitely had enough," it's the Blaine in the middle who speaks this time.
"You don't understand." Kurt rips himself out of Blaine's arms even though a part of him wants to curl up inside Blaine's bones and never leave. "It's Thursday," Kurt tells him. Blaine just grunts at him. "It's Thursday," Kurt insists. It's suddenly important that Blaine understand. Because it is Thursday, and Kurt has just watched a girl die in his arms because he couldn't heal her from the wounds the vampire ripped into her throat. Once, he could have. Once, it would have been his duty, as the angel of Thursday, to welcome her into Heaven. Once, he would have been gentle as he took the girl's soul from her reaper and brought her to her Heaven.
He doesn't know if there's a new angel of Thursday, and he doesn't know if anyone has come to greet that girl's soul – to watch over her and lov her like Kurt would have. He keeps imagining her waiting for him, cold and alone at Heaven's gates. He reaches for another shot before he remembers that Blaine brought him to back to their motel.
"It's Thursday," Kurt says again. His throat hurts, and he thinks he might have been talking for a while. He doesn't really remember. He also doesn't remember moving, but he's definitely back at the motel room and not at the bar anymore. That's another thing that's different. Kurt has never forgotten anything, not over 6 millenia. Now he can barely remember his own name.
"Kurt." Blaine rubs his forehead.
"Blaine," Kurt says staring at him, because even if he forget everything else he would never forget a single thing about Blaine. Kurt touches the soft skin of Blaine's throat with trembling fingers. He can't see Blaine's soul anymore, and that's the worst part of everything. It should be the fact that he can't protect people anymore, and he hates himself for the fact that it's not, but he's never been able to be anything but crazy when it came to Blaine. "It's Thursday."
"It's Thursday," Blaine repeats. A muscle jumps in his jaw.
"My day." Kurt grabs Blaine's collar, yanks him down until he can see himself reflected in Blaine's wide eyes. He looks mussed and crazy and oh so human. "This was my day. I should have been there. She should have been under my protection."
"Oh." And there, there is the understanding in Blaine's eyes that Kurt's been searching for. Suddenly, Kurt doesn't want it anymore. He curls up into himself. He thinks about leaving the bed, but he has never slept alone. Before, he didn't need to sleep and since becoming human he's always had Blaine wrapped around him like a new pair of wings. He stares up at the ceiling. It's beige and cracked and exactly the same as every other motel he's stayed at so far. He's almost impressed at the symmetry.
"Kurt," Blaine's voice is soft, his hands softer as they card through Kurt's hair. "You were there for her here at least. She didn't die alone." It's clumsy comfort, but Kurt grabs at it with both hands.
"Is that enough?" Kurt hates how young he sounds. He is older than the planet on which he lies, he shouldn't sound like a child needing to be told that the monsters under the bed aren't real. Especially when he knows they are real.
Blaine's quiet for just long enough that Kurt knows he's thinking about lying. "No," Blaine finally admits. "But it's more than nothing." That really shouldn't be comforting, Kurt thinks wryly to himself, and yet it is. Cold comfort, but comfort none the less.
Kurt's almost fallen asleep when Blaine says, "I wouldn't want to die alone." He turns over, so he can look at Blaine. Blaine's hair is wild and curly, still wet at the ends from where he's washed out the gel. He looks like a man. Not the Righteous Man. Just… a man, sharing Kurt's bed. He also kind of looks like a puppy, and Kurt has to smother the most ridiculous urge to giggle and pet Blaine's curls. The urge dies at Blaine's next words anyway. "When I die, I want you to be there." He grips Kurt's hand hard enough to hurt. "You promised you'd never say goodbye to me." And now Kurt can see the Righteous Man, who will burn this world to the ground with the fire behind his eyes. "You promised," Blaine repeats, and it feels like one of God's Holy Commandments, settling heavy in Kurt's stomach.
"I'm never saying goodbye to you," Kurt finishes, whispering the words against Blaine's lips. Blaine shudders at the touch, then grabs him suddenly. He's ferocious as he tears at Kurt's clothes, barely managing to prep Kurt with two fingers before sliding in.
"I love you," Blaine says between gritted teeth as he drives into Kurt, who arches up under him and stares in wonder at Blaine's eyes. "I love you so much Kurt, god, I love you." He buries his face into the junction between Kurt's neck and shoulder. "You can't leave me, I can't – I can't do this without you. I'm nothing without you."
Kurt grips Blaine's shoulders and fans his fingers out against the bones of Blaine's shoulder blades like he can turn them into wings for Blaine to fly away on. "You're not nothing," Kurt says helplessly, because how can Blaine not see that he's everything? It's Kurt who's nothing now, who's not an angel anymore and can't heal or fly or even welcome souls to Heaven. He drags his fingernails down Blaine's back, leaving long red marks so that Blaine won't ever forget him. He's useless now, Kurt thinks as he sucks bruises into Blaine's neck. He's a liability. If he really loved Blaine, he would get away as fast as he can so that Blaine doesn't get killed one day trying to protect Kurt.
But he promised, so he just pulls Blaine down until they can't physically get any closer. He kisses him so hard their teeth clack together, and when he comes he sees the stars he can no longer touch.
Blaine watches the light catch in Kurt's hair as he bends over Blaine's hands. His mouth is dry, and his pants are way too tight for what's actually happening.
"Stay still," Kurt murmurs. His eyelashes cast pale shadows on his cheeks. Blaine has to look at him in pieces, at the shadow of his eyelashes and the way his hair curls just a little at the back of his neck and the pale hairs dusting his knuckles, because if he tries to look at everything before him gets overwhelmed and has to close his eyes.
"I'm almost done," Kurt reassures him, and the plink of wood in metal punctuates his words. "Maybe this'll teach you to watch how you fall next time you're in horrible old house with rotten floorboards." He puts the tweezers down and smirks at up at Blaine.
"Maybe," Blaine echoes. Kurt still looks at him with big, soft eyes like he's something amazing, like he's something worth saving. It sends Blaine reeling, makes him dizzy with something that catches in his throat. Blaine can feel himself falling as Kurt looks at him, that softness still dancing around his eyes. Kurt catches him, just like he always has. His lips are so soft, Blaine thinks helplessly. It's their first kiss since Kurt rebelled from Heaven for him. He doesn't taste like burning ozone anymore. He just tastes like Kurt. Blaine's no virgin, but he feels clumsy as he presses little closed mouth kisses to Kurt's lips.
When they break apart to breath, he leans his forehead against Kurt's. His face hurts from how hard he's smiling. He can barely feel it though, he so fucking happy. He didn't even know it was possible to be this happy. It feels almost obscene, and he fights to straighten his face, but then Kurt kisses him again and he loses the battle before it's even really begun. He pushes Kurt down into the bed, they glory in the fall together.
Kurt has no idea what he's doing, but Blaine doesn't either. Not really. There have been guys before Kurt, but it's not the same. When he holds Kurt, Kurt looks up at him with so much naked wonder that Blaine has to kiss him or he'll start crying. Blaine kisses Kurt, and thanks God for this one perfect moment in his life. He doesn't need anything else, he promises. This is enough for his whole life. As long as he can just keep Kurt, he prays, then nothing else matters.
Blaine collects toy cars like some people collect stamps. Kurt asks him once why he doesn't, in fact, collect stamps – they would take up far less room in the already cramped trunk, and they would be useful in case Blaine ever needed to send a letter.
"Come on Kurt," Blaine laughs, waving a tiny Ford at him cheekily. "Who sends letters anymore? You might still like scrolls, but most people have moved onto emails by now."
Kurt sniffs. He used to love watching the monks in Ireland spend an age on every letter in their manuscripts, inking out the words like they were being drawn out of their very soul. Typing is so gauche in comparison. Blaine kisses his temple and calls him the original hipster. Kurt isn't sure what that means so he decides to take it as a compliment.
"Besides," Blaine rolls the Ford up Kurt's arm. "They are useful. They tell me where I've been, and where I'm going."
Kurt side-eyes him. "How can they tell you where you've been and where you're going?"
Blaine doesn't answer him. Instead he picks up a miniature cherry red convertible and says, "I got this in the first town I ever did a salt and burn totally my myself. Blue Springs, Nevada." Blaine patiently tells him the story of each car, and Kurt commits it to memory. Once, he could have told you the name of every star, for they were all his brothers. Now he's forgotten so much – the human brain wasn't meant to hold the universe. He fills up his mind with Blaine instead, and promises himself that he'll never forget a single car.
Blaine teaches him how every town no matter how small, has children. And where there are children, there will be toys. Blaine lines up his toys like soldiers and smiles at the promise of future generations. For the first time, Kurt wonders what it would have been like to have taken a female vessel. Blaine's child would be so beautiful.
Kurt whispers that into Blaine's clavicle that night, sweaty and exhausted after having made love for hours, and Kurt watches Blaine's eyes as they shutter close. He doesn't understand why talking to Blaine about being a father would scare him so much. Blaine shoves away from him without word, and doesn't come back. Kurt lies there, because he's still almost an angel but he's still human enough to want Blaine to come crawling back to him. He didn't do anything, Kurt whispers into his overheated pillow. What the hell is wrong with Blaine? Kurt just wanted to dream a little, to imagine a beautiful future to distract him from the one he knows is coming.
When Blaine does finally come crawling back the next morning, he smells of cheap booze and cheaper perfume. Kurt aches for his blade, for the healing cleanse of his grace to smite this tiny, insignificant town from the earth and to burn Blaine away in cinders.
But he gave all that up, and so all he can do is slam his fist into Blaine's jaw. It hurts like hell.
"I gave everything for you," Kurt rages as he slams Blaine against the headboard. Blaine is smaller than him, but Kurt is painfully aware that now, as he is, Blaine is stronger than him. Blaine is letting Kurt punish him and that just infuriates Kurt more. "And this is how you repay me?" He brands Blaine with his fury, biting and scratching almost deep enough to draw blood, and wishes for his grace so that he could melt his touch into Blaine's skin again – not just into his shoulder but to his heart and his face and his cock and to every inch of skin until no one would ever be able to look at him without knowing he was Kurt's. Kurt fucks Blaine against the bed, holds his head down so he won't have to look him in the eye as he drives him into hard enough that he feels it in his bones.
Blaine just takes it, and it whips Kurt on as though Kurt were the helpless one. Kurt realizes, with a sinking feeling, that maybe they both are. He weeps into Blaine's back, and watches the muscles spasm as the salt in the tears hits the scratches. Viciously, Kurt hopes it hurts. He drags another hand down Blaine's back to watch his marks bloom red in his wake and hopes they scar.
Then he kisses them softly, even as he pounds into Blaine hard enough that the bed rocks with it. He doesn't want that to be his legacy. He doesn't want to be just another scar for Blaine to carry. He gentles a little after that, and for some reason that's what makes Blaine start to cry. He can feel the sobs as he pushes into Blaine as slowly as he did the first time, back when he was so naïve and worshipful. Kurt kisses Blaine's back muscles as they spasm with Blaine's quiet sobs.
Blaine doesn't apologize, and neither does Kurt.
The next day they slaughter a wendigo. Kurt tells Blaine how Native Americans used to read the future in sacred smoke.
"What do you see?" Blaine asks, and carefully, cautiously, links their pinkies together. Kurt rests his face in Blaine's neck, next to a hickey someone else left. He closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of ashes and sweat. He kisses Blaine's neck gently, and then pushes away and doesn't say anything.
"You're really good at that," Blaine says, and winces at the shock bleeding into his tone. "I mean, not that I didn't think you would be it's just, well, you know."
"Why," Kurt asks. In his hands, the needle flashes like a silver fish through his coat. It's mesmerizing. "Is it because I am not human?" The needle pauses, tip glinting under the fluorescent lights of their run down motel room. Blaine grimaces. Maybe not a fish, more like a sea snake.
He sits down next to Kurt, watches Kurt turn just so slightly towards him without even seemingly to realize it. Kurt's eyelashes cast delicate shadows on the ridges of his cheekbones. He feels like he's glowing with happiness, his breath catching his throat as he looks at Kurt. It's a painful, terrifying feeling and he can't bear to look away in case it vanishes.
He hums a few bars of music to center himself as he thinks about how to proceed without sending Kurt off in a huff. Kurt gets awfully bristly about random things, puffing up like an angry kitten. It always makes Blaine want to coo at him, which of course definitely does not make Kurt any happier. A dark world aches for the splash of the sun, oh oh
Kurt raises an eyebrow to tell him he's been taking way too long with his answer. He has to cough to dislodge the lump in his throat. "Well, yeah. I didn't realize angels would sew much," he says as casually as he can, as though the sheer domesticity of the scene hadn't sent him reeling. Blaine smiles a little as Kurt resumes his sewing.
He touches the tiny, perfectly even stitches with one finger. It's so weirdly homey, watching Kurt put his coat back together. For a moment when he walked in, it was like catching a glimpse into another world. He daydreams about all the ways they could have met. Bumping into each other at school maybe. For a moment, he can almost see the way Kurt would have smiled, a little shy, as he asked for directions to class.
"It is not so different from my duties," Kurt observes. "Sewing you back together was considerably more difficult. Your body had decayed greatly."
Blaine jerks back. His legs are shaky when he stands. Kurt watches him, head cocked slightly to the side. Blaine doesn't think he's ever looked more alien, even when he was standing in a barn with Blaine's blade buried in his chest and huge black wings splayed through the air.
"Yeah," Blaine says lamely after a moment. "That's true." He sits down again, but this time on the chair opposite the bed. He looks away and stares at the peeling wallpaper. "I forgot you did that."
Kurt begins to sew again. Blaine tries to look back at him, but his eyes keep looking for something that's not there. Eventually he gets out his guns and starts cleaning them.
It's been 23 days since Blaine touched him. When he says that to Rachel though, she just frowns, confused and mimes touching her own shoulder.
"I know he touched me," Kurt says, voice heavy with the moonshine that Rachel serves up in her old singing trophy cups. "But he hasn't touched me touched me. Every time I try to do more than tap him on the shoulder he just freezes up and practically runs away from me." Kurt decides not that when Blaine kept insisting he was busy Kurt had painstakingly put together a calendar of optimal sex times. Blaine had stared at him, and for a moment his lip had twitched and Kurt had recognized it. Before, he would have laughed and clapped Kurt on the shoulder, one thumb rubbing the sensitive skin by his clavicle, as he told Kurt to never change. But then Blaine's mouth hardened, and Kurt knew that Blaine was remembering just how much he'd changed. Kurt had almost burned the calendar, but resources were too low for those kinds of dramatics so instead of he'd carefully rolled up the paper to save for blunts.
Rachel touches his head tenderly. Once, she had held his Grace and they had been one. That connection doesn't go away, even if neither of them have any Grace left in them anymore.
"He doesn't want me anymore," Kurt says. His voice cracks like a teenager's and hot fury suddenly burns through him. Once, his rage would have razed cities. Now all it does is make his eyes wet and his voice crack. He can't do anything.
Rachel's ancient clock chimes 2, and he taps his nose twice. He can't control the world the way he used to, but he can at least control this. "He just keeps shoving me away and trying to talk about things." Things like giving up his alcohol and pills. He rips out thread hanging from his sleeve. Blaine already took away his best anchor, and now all he wants to do is take away the only things still keeping Kurt together. "How am I supposed to keep fighting when he won't even hold me?" He means it to come out with all the righteous fury he has left in him, but he hears the question quaver in the air.
He rests his head against the bar and let's Rachel run a hand through his hair. When he closes his eyes he can almost pretend it's Blaine. When they cleaved together Kurt felt closer to God than he ever did singing His praises. Loving Blaine was the best part of him, the one last holy act he had left. He gave up Heaven long ago. Now he truly has nothing if he doesn't have Blaine. "Maybe he just got off on having an angel fuck him." Even as he says it, he regrets it. He knows that that's not true. Blaine loved him. Kurt could see it in the brightness of his soul. Blaine had loved him even though he wasn't even human. He doesn't say the second part of what he was thinking. That maybe Blaine had loved him because he wasn't human. And now he was just another dirty human struggling to find a quiet place to shit before the croats caught up.
He doesn't mean to say it but it crawls out of his throat anyway, the question that's been haunting his dreams ever since Blaine stopped touching him. "Doesn't he love me anymore?"
Rachel makes a low grunting noise deep in her chest, and Kurt pretends that she's telling him it's all going to be okay.
"What's wrong?"
Kurt shakes his head. Blaine wants to shake Kurt until the answer falls out his ears. He's helpless like this. He has no idea what angel health is like. What if Kurt's been getting sick and Blaine just didn't know what the symptoms looked like. What if one of the demons they'd been fighting got in a good hit and Kurt hadn't been able to heal it properly? Kurt shakes in his hands, and Blaine wants to rip him apart so he can figure out how to fix him. He presses his lips against Kurt's to try and gentle himself but he ends up just breathing in Kurt's pants.
"What's wrong Kurt?" Kurt still doesn't answer. Blaine's voice gets louder and louder and finally he thunders with his father's voice as he shouts "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Kurt straightens at the sound, a soldier down to his very soul. Blaine hates himself for the way Kurt's face shuts down, but he shunts that aside for now. Kurt's safety comes first.
"It's my wings." Kurt voice is flat enough that for a second, Blaine's honestly sure he must have misheard that.
"Excuse me?"
"Don't pretend," Kurt hisses as he shoves him. "You heard me."
"Well, what's wrong with them?"
Kurt looks away and then looks back at him. "They're wounded. I need you to bandage them."
"What?" Blaine has no idea how that's even possible. Kurt's wings were made out of light and grace, so bright they burned through the air and left nothing but afterimages behind. How the hell is he supposed to bandage that? He can feel himself start to hyperventilate. How the hell is he supposed to fix this?
"You fucking heard me," Kurt snarls at him. Almost as soon as it's out, his eyes widen and he hunches his shoulders. He doesn't apologize, but Blaine can see how much he wants to. He'll never say it though, not seriously. The first time they fought, Kurt sang Blaine a lullaby when he woke up from a nightmare, but he never actually apologized. It's just how Kurt is, Blaine thinks. It's that though that lets him finally take a breath.
"How do I help?"
Kurt gets up and walks away, and for one heart pounding moment Blaine think he's leaving. But then he's back, with a med kit in his hands. Despite himself, Blaine can feel the disbelief crawl across his face. Seriously. How is he supposed to slap a band-aid on light?
Kurt stands in front of him so Blaine has to crane his neck to look at him.
"Do you know what I am?"
Blaine knows that Kurt wants him to say 'an angel.' But that's never been what Kurt is to him. "You're Kurt." His lips curl up into a smile automatically as he says it. It feels like it's been ages since he said Kurt's name, even though he yelled it barely 2 minutes ago.
For a moment, Kurt smiles at him and looks almost shy. His cheeks turn pink as he looks down, his lips pressing together as he tucks his chin down to hide the smile there. Blaine reaches out to touch him, and then remembers himself. He doesn't do that anymore. He's not going to let Kurt turn him into just another bottle to dive into. He reaches for the med kit instead.
"You're an angel."
Kurt lets him take the med kit without looking at him. He looks out the window and stares at the sky. Blaine knows he must be looking at Heaven. He's probably regretting staying here on Earth, where the only time he can fly is with a bong.
"A poor example of one now." Blaine flinches. He knows it's his fault that Kurt's being dragged down to his level. It's his fault that Kurt's suffering. He knows he should just reach out and hold Kurt, let Kurt use him however he needs to in order to feel better. But he can't. Not when he still loves Kurt so fucking much. He can't let Kurt kiss him when he knows that Kurt's just chasing another high to try and feel alive the way he used to. He won't do that to what they used to be.
"Your point?" Blaine says, rougher than he means to. He has to lock his knees to keep from stepping closer to where Kurt's wrapping his arms around himself. Kurt's shaking a little bit, and Blaine doesn't know whether it's from pain or withdrawal. They haven't been able to find any liquor in a while. Blaine'd had to wrestle the rubbing alcohol from him the last time they went this long without finding a drink.
"My point," Kurt bites out, "is that I'm still an angel, but only barely. And what angels are is Grace. We are light and intent and Divine Purpose. Celestial wavelengths condensed down into human cells. I'm… losing that."
"So what does that mean?"
"It means that my wings are dying." Blaine sucks in a breath that rattles between his teeth. Black spots dance across his vision as he tries to remember how to breathe.
"Are you dying too?" His voice doesn't shake. He's asked that question, more or less, too many times since the world started ending for it to waver now. Most of the time the answer is yes.
"Yes." Blaine never understood what despair meant until he saw Kurt's eyes. "I'm dying. This body is dying around me and someday I'm" Kurt's whole body spasms as he sobs just once. "Someday I'm going to die, Blaine. My wings are going to drop off and die and then I'll really truly be human. And then I'll die someday. Someday soon probably, considering the world." Tears drip down Kurt's cheeks, but he doesn't sob again.
Blaine saw Kurt cry once as an angel. He was weeping, he said, for his brothers. Then, the tears had slid down his face like rain snaking down the side of a statue. It had looked like something out of a movie, not a strand of hair out of place as Kurt's eyes sparkled with tears and just made him look more beautiful.
Now Kurt's shaking as he turns a blotchy red, tears and snot dribbling down his face as he turns away. Blaine breaks.
"Kurt." In two steps, he's wrapping his arms around Kurt and burying his face in the back of his neck. He holds them tight together, so close he can feel the shivers from the sobs that Kurt's keeping trapped in his chest. Blaine squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip until he tastes blood to keep himself from crying. He can't let himself break completely. He knows if he does then he'll never be able to do what he needs to do to keep fighting in this literally-god-forsaken world. If he breaks now, then all of Kurt's sacrifices will have been for nothing.
So he lets go, and says "show me your wings" instead of "oh god please don't cry, I love you so much Kurt." Kurt knows anyway, he thinks. Kurt's always known how much Blaine loves him. Kurt told him once that Kurt could see it in his very soul. Kurt turns away from him as he sinks to the ground. Slowly, laboriously, he brings out his wings. He closes his eyes as he does it, as though maybe if he doesn't see the damage, it's not there. Blaine's mouth twists into an ugly smile. How very Kurt. Blaine keeps his eyes wide open so he can catalogue every single wound.
And there are a lot.
In a glance, Blaine can see that there's really no point in wasting the bandages. Kurt's wings are literally rotting away in front him, feathers drifting away to melt into nothing. He can see angry red flesh and can feel the heat of infection even from where he's standing. Blaine realizes that Kurt wasn't just being overly dramatic. His body really is dying around him.
Blaine hesitates. There's no way he can save the wings. Even just the fact that he can actually see them rather than just their shadow tells him how far gone they are. They're practically vestigial at this point. The smart thing to do would be to just tell Kurt that they need to be cut off now, before the infection gets worse. It'll hurt more now, but Kurt will be stronger for it. If you don't prune plants, they'll get overrun and slowly die. Sometimes loss is necessary.
"Blaine?" Kurt's not looking at him, staring straight ahead. He sounds so tired. He's still got a crusted bandage wrapped around his arm from where some friendly fire wounded him. "Blaine?"
Blaine crouches down until he can touch Kurt's wings. He doesn't touch Kurt. He doesn't do that anymore, he reminds himself. He can't. But he lets himself be gentle as he wraps bandages around Kurt's wings. He worships at Kurt's back as he slowly binds Kurt back together with the last of their clean white bandages. They stand out starkly against the inky blackness of Kurt's wings. Blaine brushes the downy soft feathers, watches them part under his hands. He can feel them quivering, feverishly hot as they stretch out for him.
He pours every bit of love that he has into this one last act of gentleness. The world around them is Hell, with demons and devils walking around in stolen skins. He can't afford to be gentle anymore. This is the last time, he promises himself. He can feel the tears prickling his eyes as he performs these last rites.
Finally, it's time to tie off the last bandage. He strokes the rough cotton, rubs his thumb over a feather that pokes out obstinantly from where he tried to tie it down neatly.
'I love you so much,' he thinks, and pats the bandage just once. "You're done," Blaine says, and leaves so he can go meet Tina and plan their next raid.
"We're going to die." Kurt says flatly. There's no point in sugar coating it. Blaine's leading them into no-man's zone. You can barely see the map under all the red pins representing the croats.
Sam doesn't disagree with him, which, from Blaine's right hand, is practically a ringing endorsement. Kurt tries not to hate Sam too much for being Blaine's new right hand. It's hard to muster up the energy to do much nowadays, what with the booze dulling everything down to a pleasant blur, but Sam's stupidly beautiful mouth generally does the trick anyway.
"It's our only shot." Blaine doesn't disagree with him either, and it's that that makes Kurt stop examining his nails and actually look at Blaine. Blaine always fights him on that. Blaine always insists that there's hope, something worth fighting for. And for them to keep fighting, they kind of need to be alive.
Blaine looks back at him. He looks old, Kurt thinks with a shock. When did he get those lines on his face? There's a scar on his cheek that Kurt doesn't remember him getting. His hands itch to reach out and touch it, see if it's smooth under his fingers and how that compares to the stubble that's taken up permanent residence on Blaine's cheeks. Blaine stares unblinkingly back at him. Kurt's horrified to realize that he can feel tears starting to prickle his eyes. It's just that he can't remember the last time they looked at each other. It feels like one of them is always turning away.
"Are you coming or not?" Blaine asks. It's directed at the entire group, but he's still looking at Blaine.
Kurt can't stop the pained smile from creeping over his face. "Of course," he says, "I'm never saying goodbye to you."
Blaine closes his eyes as though Kurt's hit him. "Okay, thanks guys. I'll see you tomorrow." Kurt stands up, but lets everyone else trail out before him.
Blaine walks past him, and for a second Kurt thinks… well, that's it then. He contemplates running after Blaine, maybe throwing him against the wall, biting his lip until he bleeds and remembers that he's still alive for one more night. Kurt can't make his feet move But then he hears the door lock. From the inside.
He doesn't turn around. He's suddenly sure that if he does, then it'll all have been some kind of trick and Blaine will be gone. Kurt's trembling, and he doesn't know why.
"Kurt." And oh, it's been so long since Blaine said his name like that. Kurt closes his eyes to try and stem the tears that tremble on his eyelids at the sound. It wraps around him like a blanket. It always used to amaze him, how much love Blaine could fit into one tiny syllable, when he used to spend eons and millions of verses trying to sing his love for his Father.
"Blaine." He can't help but turn around, reaching out blindly for Blaine who meets him right in the middle. "I thought – I thought –"
"What?" Blaine whispers against his neck, squeezing him so tightly that Kurt can't tell whose heart is thumping so loudly. "What did you think?"
Kurt's taller than Blaine, but he curls himself him and bites down the delicate clavicle peeking out of Blaine's shirt. "I thought you didn't love me anymore," he says, so softly he's almost mouthing it into Blaine's skin. He fists Blaine's shirt, trying to pull him closer even though there's no more space between them.
"Fuck," Blaine breaths. "Oh Kurt, how could you ever think I didn't love you? I love you so much Kurt, oh god I love you so much." Kurt can feel hot tears dripping down his neck, sliding down his spine to pool in the curve of his back. "Everything I'm doing, I'm doing so that everything you gave up won't have been for nothing. I can't –" His voice cracks, "You gave up everything for me, and I couldn't do anything for you. I had to make myself harder so that I would be able to fight the way I needed to. I had to, I had to save the world for you."
And oh, it's so Blaine to think like that that Kurt can't help but laugh against Blaine's neck.
"I thought you stopped loving me," Blaine whispers into Kurt's hair. His hand slowly moves up Kurt's back, under his shirt, running his fingers over all the scars that Kurt's collected since Blaine stopped touching him. "I thought you blamed me for everything you lost, and that you stopped loving me."
"I did blame you," Kurt said, because they're going to die tomorrow so if he doesn't say it now then when? "But I never stopped loving you. I wished I could," he admits, "but I never ever did. Not for one second." Blaine kisses his temple. It's wet, and Kurt shudders at the feeling but he just burrows deeper in Blaine's arms. "You stopped touching me, and I hated you so much for taking away the last good thing I had. But I didn't stop loving you. I didn't stop." He repeats that over and over again, because it's true and why did that stop mattering? When did loving Blaine become something he resented? When did he stop reaching out to Blaine, and then getting angry when Blaine did the same?
"I stopped touching you because I thought you were just using me. You just closed your eyes when we were together, like you couldn't bear to look at me, but you still wanted me to hold you. I thought… I thought that I was just another kind of bottle to you, a dream for you play in to avoid the real world and the real me. I hated it so much when you would talk about pretend worlds, or drink or get high to pretend you were flying again. It always felt like you were trying to get away from me. Like you regretted me." It comes out all in a rush, like Blaine knows how precious each second is now that they're so obviously numbered. Before they could both always tell themselves that there would be time to talk later. But now there just isn't, and there's no pretending otherwise.
"We should have talked before," Kurt says simply.
"Yeah," Blaine sighs.
"One last night," Kurt whispers, tilting his head so he can look Blaine in the eyes. "I don't want to pretend anymore. I just want you."
Blaine rubs his thumb over Kurt's cheekbone. "You were always my dream." His face is so tender, so open and vulnerable with love in a way that it hasn't been for years, that Kurt has to kiss him before he breaks apart.
They hold each other until morning, making love for the first time in years. Kurt doesn't want to fall asleep, but he does, worn out and shaking in Blaine's arms. Blaine kisses him like he's something precious, something worth saving. It sends Kurt reeling, makes him dizzy with something that catches in his throat. He could feel himself falling asleep as Blaine watched him with so much naked wonder in his eyes that Kurt couldn't help but nestle into him as he fell. Blaine caught him, like he'd been ready to all this time.
When Kurt wakes up, he's alone. Blaine's already gone to get the troops ready for their next and last run against Lucifer. Their one last-ditch attempt to save the world. Kurt runs his hands over the pillow, thinking that this one last night has been enough. He frowns as his hand hits something hard.
He pulls out a picture frame. It's him. His mouth is open as he sings something, his eyes closed as he turns away from the photo, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. Kurt can't remember anyone taking that photo. Blaine must have done it without him knowing, hiding his love away like some kind of shameful secret.
Maybe it should make him angry, that Blaine pulled away without talking to him because he thought he knew what was best for both of them. But he's been angry for so long. Blaine's probably been angry just as long, he thinks as he traces the contours of his own face. He betrayed Blaine as much as Blaine betrayed him. Kurt scrubs at his face tiredly. They've both been so angry and alone, and all for no reason.
Kurt puts the photo back, even though he knows no one's going to come back for it. He doesn't have any pictures of Blaine to put next to it. It doesn't matter, he tells himself, because the real Kurt and Blaine will be next to each other.
He goes outside to meet Blaine. It's time for this all to end.
oh take me back to the start
Kurt stares at Blaine, who stares back with huge eyes.
"Kurt," Blaine whispers, and it sounds like the prayers Kurt knows he stopped making years ago. "Kurt please." He's not shouting anymore, all that righteous anger evaporating to leave simple human desperation. "We need you." Blaine swallows, and Kurt can see the cells in his throat shift and the muscles stretch and the atoms drift in that one gesture. "I need you."
Kurt can see how this plays out. He is angel and he stands upon the sands of time and he watches where they fall. Time works differently for his kind. Kurt knows how this story ends, in blood and loss and pain. There is nothing any of them can do to change it. No matter what he does, he knows, they will always end up there. They're just spinning their wheels in a cage, fooling themselves into hoping that maybe if they just run fast enough they can outrace Fate.
He takes Blaine's hand anyway. There is never any world in which he can not take Blaine's hand. "I'm never saying goodbye to you," he promises. Angels were created to love. Kurt loves Blaine with a terrible fierceness that no human should ever have to endure. Despite that, Kurt's fingers close around Blaine's in a cage that neither of them will ever escape from. He doesn't think they could ever even try. Blaine's smile is so beautiful Kurt knows, deep in his grace, that everything his Father ever created was building towards this moment. They will be the most beautiful thing his Father has ever created, and they will burn bright enough that even his Father will have to turn away. Kurt smiles as he kisses Blaine, because he's so happy that it can't be contained in one tiny human body. "Never."