Author's Note:
This chapter is from Blaine's point of view, who's sorting out his life.
Happy reading, and do tell me what you're thinking, I love chatting with my readers.
Chapter 13: Building a New LifeBlaine woke up the morning after leaving the hospital feeling perfectly happy and content.
He was snug, warm and comfortable in Kurt's arms. No more constant beeping around him. No hurried footsteps in the hallway. No. He'd actually gotten a good night's rest this time.
And the best thing of all was that he got to stay with Kurt.
He'd dreaded having to go to a penthouse he didn't know, except from the other Blaine's memories. He'd dreaded having to confront the ex-fiancé again.
Thanks to Kurt, he wouldn't have to, at least not straightaway. He gained some extra time to heal and recover from this whole ordeal, and to think about this new life and the direction he wanted it to take. Who did he want to be and what did he want to do?
One thing was certain: he didn't want the life the other Blaine had been so desperate to escape from. Always rushing from one obligation to another, never having a minute to yourself, never having a decent night's sleep, your whole day planned to the second by other people pulling the strings. No amount of riches of fame was worth such an existence.
Blaine didn't want a penthouse, designer clothes and a fancy car. He didn't need any of that.
What he needed was a meaningful existence. A job he would take pleasure in doing. Relationships that weren't calculated affairs, always thinking about how the other person could boost your career, but real friendships. And most importantly: someone to love and share his life with.
Blaine lifted his head off Kurt's chest to look at his bed-mate, who was still sleeping soundly, and he couldn't help smiling.
He was so thankful for Kurt and his unwavering support. Switching from the 1920s to about a hundred years later took some getting used to, and Kurt had been there for him every step of the way. Even while Blaine had still been a ghost, Kurt had taken time to explain anything that had baffled Blaine, and shown him how to use appliances and the internet.
He'd also been a great help in adjusting to this new life, helping him call people and arrange things, but there was still so much more to do.
Blaine needed to figure out how to deal with the whole Sebastian problem. The guy still lived in the penthouse, though he should have moved out weeks ago. He also still used a credit card tied to Blaine's bank account, and he still drove around in a car that belonged to Blaine. He probably thought Blaine would never dare cut him off or throw him out.
"We'll see about that," Blaine murmured grimly.
"Hmm?"
Kurt opened his eyes the tiniest fraction and blinked at Blaine sleepily.
Blaine shook his head. "Go back to sleep, love, it's early. I was talking to myself."
Kurt needed no more invitation to bury himself deep under the covers and doze off again. Unlike Blaine, he wasn't an early bird.
Blaine grinned, thinking of all the mornings he'd seen Kurt get up, stumbling around with his eyes barely open and with an impressive bedhead, never truly waking up until he'd had his first cup of coffee. How lovely it was to get so close to a person that you got to know all these little details about them. Like how they liked their coffee, and what bakery sold their favourite cheesecake …
Another thing Blaine knew, though, was that Kurt would not appreciate being woken again by Blaine wriggling or talking to himself. So he regretfully extracted himself from Kurt's embrace and slipped out of bed.
By the time Kurt arrived in the kitchen, Blaine had his coffee ready for him, and was cracking eggs in a pan to make sunny-side-ups on toast. He'd also figured out what to do about Sebastian and what he wanted to do with his life.
After breakfast, he asked Kurt if he could take him to The Dalton.
Kurt looked at him with an expression that was half pity, half exasperation, and said slowly, "Uhm, Blaine, I don't think we'll be able to go back."
Blaine furrowed his brow. "What?"
"I know you wanted to say goodbye to your mother, and you probably want to see your Kurt again, but I'm afraid my time-travelling days are over. The curse is broken."
Blaine's mouth fell open in surprise, and it took him a while to get himself together enough to answer. "Uh, okay. That wasn't the point at all. I promise. I get that I live here now, and I'm fine with that."
Kurt lifted his right eyebrow, so Blaine hastened to add, "Really."
"So why do you want to go there? I warn you, the building is in bad shape. It's fallen into disrepair, the whole street."
Blaine absorbed that information and then said, "So much the better."
His answer clearly perplexed Kurt, but instead of asking questions, he shrugged and put his shoes and coat on. "I'll get us an Uber."
When they got out of the car, Blaine saw that Kurt hadn't exaggerated. All the buildings in the street looked awful. Still, nothing that couldn't be fixed. Blaine had helped Cooper build his house, and had done many repairs on the old house where he'd lived with his mother and the farm where his grandmother had lived in Kentucky. He knew the difference between a building that had a few broken windows but was structurally sound and a building that would have to be completely demolished and rebuilt. The situation here was nowhere near that bad.
Blaine hopped inside The Dalton on his crutches and inspected the staircases and the rooms on the ground floor.
"What are you doing?" hissed Kurt, who seemed ill at ease.
"Deciding if it's worth buying," Blaine said. "Looks like it."
"Buy it? I get that you have tons of memories from working here, but what would you do with a hotel?"
Kurt wrinkled his nose in the cutest way as he looked around at the mess. "Plus, it looks awful, Blaine."
Blaine smiled at him and explained, "I can renovate it. And I need a place where I can perform, seeing as I won't be welcome elsewhere."
"Oh."
"And it will cost less in this sorry state. I could probably buy this whole street at a bargain price."
"What would you want a whole street for?"
Blaine hopped outside again to take a closer look at the other buildings. "They're all shops. I could renovate them and rent them out. You could use one to sell the clothes you're designing. Look, this shop belonged to the tailor in the olden days. Want to check it out?"
Kurt put a hand above his eyes and peered into the part of the shop window that wasn't boarded up. "Lots of grime and dust here, too, but the counter and the shelves seem in good condition. And is that an old Singer sewing machine in the corner?"
"Let's check it out," said Blaine, and went in, followed by Kurt. Their first impression turned out to be correct. The outside of the shop looked dilapidated, but the inside was still in good condition. What's more, the tailor seemed to have sold his shop with everything still in it. There was the sewing machine Kurt was so excited about, mannequins in one corner and bolts of fabric in another.
"Good quality," said Kurt upon touching them.
Blaine beamed at him. Yes, this plan of his was beginning to sound better and better.
Once they were back home, Blaine started up his laptop and looked up the realtor who was selling The Dalton. As he'd surmised, the same realtor also had all the other buildings from that street in his portfolio. Brilliant. That guy could expect a call on Monday morning.
K & B
That Monday, Blaine met up with the realtor, and found out that the reason why the street was in such bad condition was because it all belonged to just one owner, Mrs. June Dolloway, and she only wanted to sell all the buildings as a whole and on condition they would all be restored to their former glory.
"Between you and me, she's nuts," said the realtor. "She's been sitting on that property for years, and it's steadily losing value. I don't think she'll ever find someone who'll take the whole lot off her hands and restore everything."
Blaine decided to pretend he wasn't interested in the whole street but willing to compromise. "Maybe Mrs. Dolloway was waiting for me to come along. It's the hotel I wanted, really, but I will agree to the lady's terms if she will come down on the price."
It took a few days of bargaining, and long, long discussions with both the realtor and the proprietor, but Blaine got what he wanted: the whole street at a bargain price, and the lady he bought it from even promising to hook him up with people from the Historic Preservation Grant Program. "The buildings are in a historic district, so you can apply for a grant to rehabilitate them."
To raise the money to buy and renovate all the buildings, the realtor was to sell Blaine's penthouse as well as his house in LA and his apartments in London, Rio and Paris.
Mrs. Dolloway told Blaine that she trusted him to raise the money soon, and that as far as she was concerned, he could already get started on the renovations. "Consider it all yours now, lad. I can't wait to see the street again as it looked when I was a little girl."
Blaine arranged for his house in LA to be emptied and everything to be put in storage until he could go there and sort things. He also had the locks changed.
The apartments in London, Rio and Paris were minimally furnished, because he'd only used them occasionally. That meant all he had to do was to contact a cleaning agency and after that a locksmith to change the locks there too, after which the keys were to be brought to the realtor's local branch.
That only left the penthouse, and that pickle was less easy to solve, seeing as Sebastian lived there and refused to leave.
He contacted his lawyer, Mr. Burke, to explain the situation.
"And you say the penthouse is legally yours?" asked Mr. Burke.
"It is. I'm the owner, and I'm looking to sell the place, so I want my ex out. I told him our relationship is over and asked him to leave weeks ago, but he won't budge."
"Is this penthouse Mr. Smythe's legal residence?"
Blaine shook his head. "No. He's still registered as living with his parents."
"That should make matters easier, then. I'll send Mr. Smythe a letter by registered mail telling him he must leave the premises by the end of next week or else we will see him in court."
Blaine agreed to this course of action. Of course, it was possible that Sebastian would never even read the letter and just chuck it straight into the bin. But if he chose to stick his head in the sand, that was his problem, not Blaine's.
It surprised Blaine that he hadn't had an irate phone call from Sebastian yet. He'd called his bank and closed the credit card that Sebastian had been using. Unless his ex-fiancé had another credit card tied to his parents' bank account, that left him without resources to pay for his lavish lifestyle. Yet he hadn't heard a peep.
As Mrs. Dolloway had urged him to, he got started on his renovation plans right away, applying for building permits and the grants from the Historic Preservation Grant Program, as well as looking for contractors.
When two more weeks had gone by, and Sebastian should have left according to the terms of Mr. Burke's letter, Blaine knew he could no longer postpone a confrontation, and he headed to the penthouse. By now, the cast was off his leg, and the rest of his injuries had healed too, though some scars and aches would stay forever.
He was relieved to notice there were no more paparazzi around the building. Maybe they'd grown bored of waiting for him to arrive.
He nodded affably to the doorman and asked, "Is Mr. Smythe in?"
The doorman shook his head. "Rosa went to clean your place this morning, sir, and he wasn't there. I haven't seen him go by either. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him the past two weeks. There's this registered letter for Mr. Smythe the postman keeps bringing around, and every time I have to tell him there's nobody in. I haven't seen you in a long time either, sir."
"I've been in hospital," Blaine explained.
He entered the penthouse with trepidation, but as the doorman said, Sebastian wasn't there. He hadn't packed up his things, though. The walk-in closet still held his polo shirts, blazers and collection of expensive sneakers. Sebastian's game room was also still as Blaine remembered it. No way would he have left his custom-made chair and game computer behind when moving out.
So where was Sebastian?
Blaine took the elevator downstairs to the garage, and checked whether his cars were still there. The Tesla was, but the sleek sports car that Sebastian had favoured was gone.
Would he be staying with his parents? Blaine knew better than to call the Smythes, but luckily, he had the telephone number of their housekeeper, with whom Blaine had always been a favourite.
"Maria? This is Blaine."
He was interrupted before he could say more, seeing as Maria had heard about his "accident" and wanted to know if he was doing well now. He assured her that he was almost back to normal and thanked her for caring so much. Before he could ask about Sebastian, Maria was telling him she hadn't seen him in ages and that she missed him and wanted him to come over to the Smythe mansion soon.
Blaine cringed. Yeah, no, that was not happening. Ever again.
"Tell me, dear, how is Sebastian doing?" Maria asked. "He seemed… in bad spirits when he last came to visit."
"When was that, Maria?"
"Two Sundays ago. You should tell him to sleep more. And drink less."
"Was he… intoxicated?"
"Drank like a fish the whole day. 'Another, Maria. Bring me another!' And he wouldn't eat anything, though I made those spicy tamales he loves."
"Oh?"
"Though maybe it's because his father was badgering him to finally find a job and do something with his life. 'We won't always be around to support you. You need to make something of yourself.' As if Sebastian is ever going to do anything useful. That boy will always think charm will get him anything he wants."
Blaine stifled a snort.
"And then he would not stay the night, and drove off while it was pouring rain."
Uh-oh. That did not sound good.
"I was actually calling you, Maria, because I haven't seen or heard from Sebastian since before he went to visit his parents. We broke up, you see. Things didn't work between us anymore. But there's something I wanted to talk to him about, only I can't reach him. That's why I wanted to know if he was maybe staying with Mr. and Mrs. Smythe for a longer period. But now… With him driving off mad and drunk… I'm scared something has happened to him."
There was silence for a beat.
Then Maria said, "You think maybe he drove into a tree?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," Blaine said. "Usually, he's found quickly, though, and brought to the hospital, because it happens in the city. But out in the country, people may not find him until it's too late. Could you maybe send your husband and his assistants to go looking for him?"
"Yes. Yes! Gustavo! Gustavo, I need you, NOW!"
The connection broke off abruptly, and Blaine knew that Maria would rustle up her husband and form a search party.
He had a bad feeling about this. Sebastian always seemed to have the luck of the devil, but maybe this time it had run out.
That evening, he found out he was right. When he turned on the news, one of the items was about Sebastian. The sports car had been found overturned on a grass verge close to the borders of the Smythe property. Sebastian must have been dead at once.
Blaine felt a mixture of anger and regret and guilt.
Anger that Sebastian hadn't died in one of his previous accidents, before he made life so impossible for Blaine's great-grandnephew that he lost his will to live.
Regret that this was how it ended. That Sebastian, who was so young and had everything going for him, would just throw his whole existence away in a fit of pique, because he was allergic to work and didn't like his father prodding him about it.
And guilt, because if not for the break-up, Mr. Smythe might not have urged his son to find a job, leading to the accident.
"Is that your Sebastian, on the news?" Kurt asked. When Blaine nodded, Kurt added, "Ruined his own life now too. Tragic. Still, this should make matters easier for you. You don't need to worry about the penthouse anymore. And the paparazzi will probably leave you alone too."
Blaine passed a hand over his face and sighed. "I'm sure you're right, Kurt, but at the moment, I can't really focus on stuff like that. Could you… Would you… just hold me?"
Kurt opened his arms, and Blaine buried his face against his chest and let himself be comforted by Kurt's familiar feel and smell.
"I'm going to miss this," Kurt sighed, "when you move out. I like having you for a roommate."
That burst Blaine's happy bubble at once, and he tensed in Kurt's embrace. Oh. Right. Now that Sebastian and the paparazzi were no longer a problem, he was expected to move out, was he?
He invited Jessica to have lunch with him the following day, and after telling her all his news, he mentioned, "Kurt is expecting me to move out."
Jessica quirked an eyebrow. "Well, yeah. Your leg's healed, and it looks like the paps aren't interested in you anymore. So you can totally move out. Somewhere closer to the renovation works you're about to start."
Blaine blinked at her.
Jessica tapped her fingers on the table impatiently. "What's the matter? Out with it, Anderson, I don't have all day."
Blaine shrugged. "I thought… when I moved in with Kurt… that it meant something. That we were in a relationship."
Jessica's eyes widened. "Are you guys fucking?"
"No! No. But…"
"But you want to! You totally want to! I called it! Kurt was all, 'No, I'm not Blaine's new boyfriend, no, he's in love with someone else', and then when I prodded further to know who, he said it was someone who looked a lot like him. So what did you do, give the guy such oblique hints that you liked him that he couldn't even figure out it was him you meant?"
Jessica took one look at Blaine's flabbergasted face and cackled. "You totally did! Oh, you idiot! Tell you what, Kurt likes you right back, I'm sure of it, so you put your big boy pants on and tell him about your feelings before you move out."
Blaine nodded, still speechless.
He didn't say much anymore during that lunch, his brain still processing the information that somehow Kurt thought he was still hung up on his first love. Still. After spending all those weeks with Kurt as a ghost, and then as a man. After baring his heart to Kurt, sharing his hopes and dreams with him, cuddling him, sharing a bed with him. Was Blaine supposed to think that meant nothing?
That evening, when Kurt came home, Blaine was looking up rentals on the internet.
"Huh," said Kurt, "I thought you'd want to buy something outright, instead of renting. Did you or did you not buy a whole street on a whim?"
Blaine chuckled. It sounded off, and Kurt noticed.
"Hey… What's wrong?"
Blaine turned around and took Kurt's hands in his. "Kurt… I… I have never felt so at home with anyone as I have with you. I have never opened up to anyone as I have with you. And if you feel the same way, I'd like for us to look for a forever home together. I don't want to buy a place where I don't get to live with you."
He waved at the computer screen. "This… This is just temporary. Because you're expecting me to move out. But I want you to know that I see my future with you. That I want to wake up next to you. That I want to share my life with you. I thought you knew that already. But it seems I had to say it out loud. I really am clueless at romance. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never been in a true relationship before. But I want to. With you."
Kurt stood stock-still and said nothing for the longest time. Then he murmured, "I thought you were in love with my great-grandfather?"
Blaine sighed. "He was my first love, and I will always have fond memories of him. But I promise you it's you I love now. You with your cheesecake addiction and your love for really bad television."
"Hey!"
"You with your pats for every dog you meet in the park. You with your beautiful designs and your witty Vogue columns. You with your talent and your drive and your kind heart. You with your endless curiosity, your flights of imagination and your wicked sense of humour. You're wonderful, and I love you, Kurt Elizabeth Hummel."
Kurt's lip trembled, and he let out a shaky exhale before saying, "I love you too."
Blaine pulled Kurt in by the waist and kissed him, soft like a whisper at first, but it quickly gained intensity, until they had to gasp for breath, their foreheads against one another and their hearts pounding.
"I love you," Blaine repeated, looking into Kurt's eyes, and stealing another kiss.
Kurt's smile grew and grew until Blaine just had to kiss him again because he felt so happy.
Blaine had no idea how much time had passed when Kurt drew back and asked, "Why haven't you said anything before?"
"I didn't know I had to!" said Blaine. "Honestly, when you told me I'd get to stay at your place, I thought you were just making official what I'd been feeling for weeks."
"What?"
"You came to visit me at the hospital every day. You doted on me like I was your husband. Even before that, when I was a ghost, you treated me like I was alive. Like I was a person you were interested in, and cared for. So I thought…"
"… I was asking you to move in? For good?"
Blaine ducked his head. "That was presumptuous of me."
Kurt put his thumb and index finger close to each other. "Just a little, yeah."
"Then you invited me to your bed."
Kurt spluttered. "You make it sound like…"
"And we sat much closer on the sofa than I would with an acquaintance or friend. We cooked together, we did the household chores together. It certainly felt, to me, as though we were in a relationship. Maybe nowadays, all that can be shared by just friends, but for me, it meant something."
Kurt looked at the floor, and then up at Blaine again. "Uhm… To be honest, it felt like more than friendship for me too, but I didn't dare hope… I knew you might grow to care for me in time, but I wasn't expecting that moment to come so quickly. I thought it would take years, if it ever happened at all."
"Oh, Kurt… It barely took me a week. You're amazing. You shine so brightly that you're all I can see."
Blaine gathered Kurt in for a hug, feeling close to tears all of a sudden, but relieved that he'd unburdened his heart now and that his love was returned.
They ended up in bed, where Blaine delighted in taking his time to discover every inch of Kurt's body, without having to fear interruptions.
Kurt was very vocal, all gasps and moans and giggles, and that, too, was a new experience for Blaine, who was used to biting down every sound he wanted to make during sex.
It was so freeing to be able to be open and loud and messy. To laugh and moan and whisper to his heart's content, to try out new things, and afterwards to get his cuddle on for as long as he wanted.
They ate a very late dinner when their growling stomachs forced them out of bed, after which they cuddled up on the sofa, so wrapped up in each other it was impossible to tell where the one left off and the other began.
"Blaine?"
"Yes?"
"Stay with me? We can look for a place together, as you wanted."
Blaine smiled and kissed Kurt's fingertips. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here with you."