PACK
"The world's gone to the wolves. Lima's gone to the ghettos. And the new alpha at the Dalton School for Werewolves needs a sub." Klaine. MAJOR AU. OCs, OOC, slight D/s themes, attempted NON-CON, Language.
Disclaimer: Glee doesn't belong to me in any way, shape, or form.
A/N: Sooooo many thanks for the feedback! You guys are all super awesome. *bow down* Reviews are like, crack to me. Sweet, heavenly, peanut-buttery crack. And if there are any questions I'll try to answer them, as long as nothing is spoiled.
This chapter was originally the first half of chapter two, but both halves were getting too long so now they've been turned into a chapter each. So the ending to this chappie might be a bit strange, sorry! It'll be in chapter four that the main plot/conceit starts kicking into gear.
Warnings in advance that Dom!Blaine is somewhat cold here (I played up the more repressed, stiff, super-serious parts of his canon personality), but I hope that makes more sense later on.
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You were Marguerite in her boudoir, bare-shouldered, unmoved, numb in a white gown of silk and petal, hands stumbling for a book, any book, that you would not read. The man's father had pleaded, and your heart had pleaded, and only love had won.
You were Greta Garbo, playing Marguerite, bare-shouldered, unmoved, in a dressing chair of cream and ivy, poised without, fluttering within, a hummingbird of marblestone. Curls saying you were waiting for a man, eyes saying you were waiting for nothing at all.
You were the camera watching Greta, watching Marguerite, with shutters wide open. The light at your back. The crowd at your feet. Hush.
In the room above, they were still arguing.
- around guns! How could you -
- thought I could spend some time with him. I - never see him -
Because you don't want to spend time with him. You're always watching football, or - or -
I do! Just - not - tea parties or dolls or - or dress up, for chrissake. How am I supposed to -
You're his father. Let him lead.
That's - the problem - you let him do whatever the hell he wants -
He's different from other kids. He's precocious. All his teachers say so. He's -
- A boy, Elizabeth, you can't just - dress him in skirts - let everyone make fun of the kid -
So hunting? Hunting's your solution? What the hell's the problem then!
You were still staring at the wall when they paused. The lamp was pulling long shadows out from your face and smearing them on the walls like a bratty preschooler, dabbing something gross. Something macabre. You rolled the word around in your mouth and it tasted like sawdust but you liked the way it stuck to your gums, the way it caught in your throat. You knew the word because you were precocious.
I just don't want him to suffer later. In middle school - high school -
The weird thing about suffering, was, everyone could cause it, but no one could share it. There was this kid in your homeroom who the other kids shrieked over, especially the girls, and Danny Mills maybe, but mostly everyone. The kid, Danny Mills would point out in a very loud Grown-Up voice, had greasy hair and smudgy fingers and was wearing the same shirt yet again, which was even more gross because he'd get snot all over his sleeves every time he wiped his nose, which was all the time. Secretly you agreed, and then you felt like crap because it was bullying and bullies were losers, like dad said. Danny Mills was a loser. (It was just that, one time, you'd stayed behind to help the teachers make Joseph's Technicolored Dreamcoat (you were the best sewer at your school), and you looked out the window and saw a figure standing by himself on the steps, scuffing his sneakers, swinging his body on the rails with his right arm, then his left. When you were out at eight Danny was still there and the knowledge that he was a loser didn't make you feel so good anymore.)
You couldn't share the rabbit's suffering because you didn't know anything about dying, but you shrieked and beat your dad's legs with your fists anyways. Tantrums always got you things, but this time it didn't. It couldn't. Your dad tried to cheer you up with jokes about dinner but it just made you feel bad for him too. There was something sad and heavy in your chest that you couldn't talk about, couldn't find the words to.
See, suffering was everyone's own thing. Your thing. Your dad's thing. (And your mom's thing. And Danny Mills' thing. Kinda like the planet models that were in your science class, floating around in their orbits.) Everyone floated around in their own orbit, unable to touch, unwilling to leave. You didn't know why but a lot of things made you sad the way they did no one else, and the things that made you happy didn't make anyone else.
Like: That time you were so pleased with the yellow boa and polka dot sundresses that Sandy passed down to you when she'd finally grown too big for them. You'd made up your own fashion show. You were striking a Marilyn pose, hips jutting out, lips more poised than pouting - and then you saw your dad in the mirror. You should've said something, but no one did. Instead you watched his back get smaller and smaller as he went back up the steps. Back through the well-worn halls, back to the room he never left. Watched him sink in his armchair, turn on the tv, turn up the volume, over and over again, and wait for the shouting and cheering from the Buckeyes game to drown out the silence.
Chapter Two: Camille
Karofsky's jerk of surprise almost pushed his dick through. It was Kurt's instinctive body-flinch that saved him. With the goal so close in his sights, Karofsky's focus had condensed, sharpened to a single, rapier's point - and now that point cracked.
"Motherf***er! You fucking -!"
"Actually, my name's Blaine." Ludicrously mild, even good-humored. As if this amused him, this merry fuckin' day; oh and, wasn't the weather nice? "But if you don't mind, I'll skip the pleasantries."
It was coming from somewhere around the bleachers behind him, above. Kurt tried to twist his head to look and found it terribly disorienting even though Karofsky's grip on his jaw had slacked for the moment, leaving his neck aching in relief for small mercies. The sky was painfully bright.
To his left there was a soft thud, like a cat's landing.
"We don't have much time, so – well, let's get this over with. You . . . might want to pull up your pants."
Karofsky's head snapped in the intruder's direction. Beneath him Kurt could feel the instant he relaxed, the tension draining from those linebacker shoulders almost in a rush. Could feel the grin as the werewolf leaned back on heavyset thighs, the curl of lips flashing canine teeth. "You again. Whatcha doing here, new kid."
New kid. The name snagged - a floating strand, a fleeting memory - and Kurt realized who it was. Curly hair. Yesterday.
Oh, fuck. As if it weren't enough to simply (ha!) get raped, now he had a wannabe rescuer who was about to stroll into a suicide by three hundred pounds of highly enraged, All-American wolf. A wolf that had just been cockblocked from taking a sub in heat. Kurt couldn't deny that he was pretty fucking grateful for the interruption - he'd been prepared, in his mind, but you couldn't really prepare, just huddle inside over the soft flesh of your belly and pray most of the walls stayed standing - but no fleshie could possibly help. Not on their own, at least. He could only hope that this Blaine wasn't stupid enough to show up without calling the police first.
"I didn't call the police," Blaine said.
(A breathless laugh surged, snapped in Kurt's throat.)
"Then get lost." Impatience was nudging back in Karofsky's voice. His erection was still pressed against Kurt's exposed thighs, unabashed, unflagging all this time; a bitter, unwanted weight. "Or get in line." If the words suggested different, the tone made it clear: he had no intention of sharing.
"Where I come from," said the new kid, slowly, as if feeling out unfamiliar words, "We duel alone. No interferences. Let the sub go."
Duel?
The sharp bark that ripped from Karofsky's throat was torn between a wheeze and a laugh. "Fuck, I don't know what the hell you smokin', kid," the werewolf chortled, shaking his head in an exaggerated show of disbelief. His massive body didn't budge. "But that's some funny shit. You wanna – what, duel me? You mean, like, fight? me?"
"I prefer not to," was the dry reply. "I'd prefer to simply kill you. But a duel's fairer, and it yields the same results."
That set off another round of barely-contained snickering. Kurt didn't know whether to join him or cry, he was so dazed. In the last few minutes a thick fog of what-the-fucks had descended on him. A big black hole of what-the-fuck-are-you-DOING, swallowing his thoughts. Stuporing his tongue. Populating the fertile gardin à la française of his mind with teletubbies. (So who's been on the cray-cray, tonight!
in a Jay Leno voice, for crap's sake, a Jay Leno.) What brought him out was, the sensation, a feeling that wouldn't go away: he was cold. Shivering, in fact. A faint but persistent breeze was stroking his naked stomach and brushing thighs that were dewy with sweat. And that was because where was once the grimy unwanted heat of sweat and arousal and bodies flush against each other, now was only absent space, empty air: Karofsky's boner had softened. The werewolf's focus had fled. There was a crazy bastard with a death wish begging for attention.
The laughter, finally, tapered. With mocking gentleness, a huge bearlike hand patted Kurt's cheek.
"He one of your pack, Kurt? You spreadin' for him too?" At Kurt's recoil: "Aw, don't be like that. He's cute. I can't wait to mess with that pretty face already." Then the were was slowly, horrifyingly, buckling his jeans, getting up.
"Let him go, Karofsky." Kurt's voice was so hoarse. "He's obviously mentally defective. Not even you can beat up a retard."
Karofsky dismissed him with a shrug. "Hey, they can take a warning or two. It's a good life lesson." He took his time stretching in a casual, extravagant display that suggested a well-nourished musculature beneath the baggy Letterman jacket. The change must have cured him of his old chubbiness; though not, Kurt noted sourly, his temper, his cruelty, or his premature balding.
"You weren't," he rasped, "this way before." His legs were folding shut with the clumsy instinct of a newborn colt.
"Maybe it's the wolf." Karofsky's response was mild. After a pause, he shook his head as if to brush off stray leaf-bits, or to clear it. "Seriously? Don't pretend you know me, Hummel." Then he was reaching down to drag Kurt several inches off the pavement by the gray cardigan that had scrunched up around his collarbone.
"You. Don't. Move." Punctuating each word with a meaty finger.
As if Kurt could outrun him. As if Kurt could outrun any were. It was nine years of frustration he had to swallow back down his throat.
But if Blaine could distract him -
In the attic of his mind, something rose, fluttered. The first impulse was hope.
The second was something like shame. This Blaine might really be another werewolf like Karofsky seemed to think he was, but he was still half the football player's size. If he really were a fellow were then it was probably Kurt's fault that he was even here, enticed to delusion; the pheromones of heat could do things to men, even to the nice guys who were more likely to espouse the benefits of yoga and third-age feminism than grab for the nearest hole every time they popped a boner. Near Quinn's heat, he'd seen other males in the pack suddenly start at each others' throats over the remote, or challenge Finn at the dinner table with plastic forks in flights of bravado. There'd be a classmate's blood on his hands if Kurt couldn't get help.
(It was just that - Blaine had seen him.
- like this - )
Kurt closed his eyes.
The navy trousers were rough against his skin when he pulled them up. The boxers with them. Fingers still numb and ghostly from blood deprivation fumbled, cursed the metal clasp. He forced his upper body up and bit his lip at the sudden stream of fall wind that skittered across his back, across bare skin scratched tender and raw by asphalt. Then he shoved down the crumpled shirt and cardi - too carelessly, almost in a fit of anger - and that was worse. Fuck. Breathe, Kurt.
Covered, now, but not enough. Not enough to warm him. Not enough to breathe blood back into dead legs, and run for it. Shout for help. Get the fuck away from horny mutts, forever, if he could help it. Because he was beginning to realize that this - this fever, flu, whatever - really was the first tentative budding of his heat, a seed that had lain dormant for sixteen years until it could pick the absolute worst moment to throw a surprise party. Hip hip. Hooray.
Aw, Kurt. Aren't you happy with your gift?
When he opened his eyes, the scene was almost romantic: straight out of American Beauty, plastic bags and all, or the inane freshman poetry of some postmodern hipster who'd only ever lived in Ohio, and never gone higher than weed. The September sun was casting a sort of wan reddish glow to the trashcans. The litter. The pavement, cracked in places by tufts of weed and grass and neglect. The yellowed walls, graffiti-ed, that graced the back of McKinley with ironic haikus and impolite intimations about Principal Figgins and the sexual habits of certain cheerleaders; its real heart.
There was a fence to climb, in front. There was the soccer field, in the back. If he thought he could outrun Karofsky.
The new kid was standing in the shadow of the bleachers, his face too hidden to discern anything beyond the sweep of dark curls clinging close to pale cheekbones. He held himself like a lean street busker, waiting, favoring one side as if missing the familiar weight of an old guitar. His hands hung loosely at the sides of dark denim jeans that looked a little long for him. They were probably of the same height, or maybe he was even shorter than Kurt; their eyes had matched too easily, yesterday. Karofsky, cracking his knuckles in a gesture he probably thought was way cool thanks to generations of lazy Hollywood hacks, hunkered over him like The Hulk.
Karofsky probably lived for these moments. Karofsky was the type of guy who preferred it when his victim wore heels, and stood a foot shorter.
This was just insane.
"Look. Blaine, right?"
Curly Hair shifted, a nearly imperceptible yield in gravity.
Kurt gave a loud sigh. Let it hang in the air. Held a slender hand up to the sunlight, studied the nails. "Can I just say, you're being ridiculously rude Blaine. You can't just barge in and interrupt us. Ever heard of this little thing called knocking?"
"I thought -" Blaine began.
"You thought wrong. Karofsky and I have an understanding. Ok? Now shoo."
"It doesn't look like -"
"I'm a masochist," Kurt said.
Blaine quieted.
"Don't tell. Now can you just please, for chrissake, just - leave?"
Keeping the hysteria from his voice was harder than he'd hoped. But - he'd succeeded. There was a moment that followed that stretched terribly long - where Blaine seemed to weigh the advice, reluctant but unable to find a reply - and then, thankfully, to turn -
- and smash his fist in Karofsky's jaw, because suddenly the werewolf was down, howling, clutching it in shock with both hands.
It was a burst of violence no one could have expected. It was a blow to Kurt's system, unprepared; snatching his breath, stumbling his feet.
It was a move so fast, he hadn't even seen the blur.
"I'm not caught up on my kinks," Blaine was saying. "But I'm not too shabby with my left." He was looking at Karofsky.
"You - !" Came the snarl. Outrage sloughed off the werewolf in waves. Fingers callused but cautious touched a chin that was slowly darkening with dying veins. They jerked away as if scalded. "Oh, you're going to get it now, you fucking faggot -"
"Get up," Blaine said.
Karofsky's leap was wild: the charge of a linebacker immodest of his physical gifts, or of a wolf wounded and half-blind in anger. The intent was to crush the smaller man through the most obvious path: sheer mass and inertia. Haul him to the ground, where there was no way Blaine could get up.
Except - Blaine wasn't there. Or rather, he was behind him - slamming an elbow into his back, seizing momentum over raw naked strength, sending the bigger man sprawling to the pavement in a graceless heap. Stepping aside in one neat, unhurried move, with a nonchalance born of negligence. Or confidence.
The crunch of bones meeting asphalt shuddered through Kurt.
Karofsky was kneeling on the ground holding his wrist, yowling something unintelligible. Pain and fury mingled in his shout. Then he shut up, abruptly. The thick wrist lifted, twisted, gingerly but on its own; no damage had been done, save the baring of weakness.
His jaw, squared and reddish, flexed – once, twice. His tongue pushed around his cheeks, feeling the teeth. His expression rearranged itself; as if the pieces had been jolted and were now falling in a new, unfamiliar order.
His gaze, when he looked up, held wariness.
"Pretty boy. You're not half bad." The words were light but Karofsky's grin was mirthless. "So who's your pack? Who d'ya run with?"
"Get up," Blaine said.
Kurt could see the prominent vein that split Karofsky's neck bulging as he stood. The red of his precious Letterman jacket was scratched in places, here and there, carelessly. With that humbling, brought about with such humiliating insouciance, the air had shifted. Not to a place of surprised relief, no, but an even deeper unease.
Blaine had scored the first point. This insult could not be overlooked.
Yet Karofsky didn't flip like a frenzied bull, desperate to gore some flesh and dye horns red in isolated streets. This time, with a composure Kurt had not expected from such an exemplar of recent Cro-Magnon ancestry, he didn't charge, or even advance. Instead the position he assumed was like Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man, a prizefighter, maybe less drunk, maybe less Irish - fists held up, shoulders swaying, weight shifting restlessly from leg to leg, back to front and back. "Okay. You wanna play. All right. All right, come on - let's see your best shot." The challenge rushed out eager, panting, but serious.
Blaine, lean, steady as a lamppost, watched him for a moment without reply.
Then: "okay" –
– and the breath that Kurt didn't know he'd been holding all this time expelled in a rush. Without bothering to raise his guard, Blaine stepped close - or must have, Kurt couldn't follow - because it was still Karofsky who lunged first, spying the chance -
And it was Karofsky who stumbled, balance swept, arms grasping the air. In that same instant he pivoted around and swung at the man who'd taken up a position several paces behind him, hands still held at his sides, impassive – but he might as well have been groping for a fickle breeze. With steps so light they appeared almost weightless, Blaine simply – tilted – like a dreidel on a kitestring – and it was a fleeting after-image the first fist went through. Then the follow-up. Then the next, and this time Blaine seized the arm.
Kurt thought, I'm not the only one who can't follow his movement.
This was something, utterly, inhuman. Blaine looked as if he could barely be bothered, as if he were trying to tickle-fight a puppy while doing his math homework and side-eying Tyra at the same time (ok, that was Kurt - from first impressions Blaine was probably more of a Bear Grylls man). The dark curls crowning his head like an olive wreath had hardly ruffled out of position. His feet hadn't conceded more than five or six paces; circular ones, regaining their original stance.
His eyes had yet to leave Karofsky this whole time. His mouth was a flat line set in stone.
Opposite him, Karofsky, so much bigger, so much more mass to swing and miss and gamble away its own force, was gasping at the end of that exchange. He'd worn himself out. When he shook his head, sweat flew off like water from a dog's back.
He turned to Kurt, who stepped back in surprise, and said, "Not bad, Hummel. Got yourself an alpha here."
Then he added: "Hope he doesn't find out how bad I tore you, you fucking slut."
Kurt's mouth opened, but had no chance to reply. There was a sound - horrible, awful - like the crack of a gun - and then he saw it, the white jacket sleeve bent at an impossible, monstrous angle -
"What the - "
- Karofsky was still staring at it, mouth agape, too dumbfounded to even register the pain -
There was not only speed that separated them. This was not a fair fight. This was, like Kurt had predicted, a swift massacre. But the one doing it, the one leaving his opponent humiliated in the dirt, bloody, bruised, a piece of meat, was not Karofsky.
"We should just end this now," someone was saying. Blaine - all this time his voice had stayed so even. So preternaturally calm. He was still standing there leaning casually on the back leg, head cocked slightly to the right, measuring the opponent before him, weighing his threat, finding it worthless. Behind him his hand was reaching for something under his white sportsjacket.
When Kurt saw what it was, the cry tore unbidden from this throat.
"STOP!"
He'd already leapt up. Blaine turned, hesitated, caught off guard at this intrusion from the most unexpected quarter - and that stutter gave Kurt the faintest sliver of time to knock it out of his hands. It skidded across the pavement - once, twice, loud as an anvil's heartbeat - and sat there, an ugly, blackish thing.
"Run!"
Karofsky looked at him.
Ears roaring, heart strangling his chest: "I said, RUN!"
It was like a huge gasp poured into him in that instant. Karofsky's head jerked, eyes widened - looked at Blaine, looked at the gun, twisted into something unreadable - and then he was scrambling up, arms flailing, and running for the field.
Silence.
It was in that lull where the two of them just stood there and watched him go that time slowed . . . unwound . . .
. . . plucked from the sky a different, higher register; a frequency without color, or sound, or warmth. The chill was in the bones of his feet. The tips of his fingers, the farthest reaches of his skull. Breathe and he would see it before him: obscuring the shadows, the litter, the leaves, the yellowed plaster, the fence that filtered a quiet sunlight. All echoes of a distant drummer.
Beyond the vanishing tumble of fleeing footsteps, the world was falling, mute, into his heartbeat.
It was relentless, that urge to curl within himself. To burrow down in the deep, and howl. But he wouldn't – couldn't – move. There was something in his chest and it was voiceless and screaming and it could never be allowed to get out. He hated Karofsky, he truly did, the dirt-breather had tried to rape him – but he hadn't wanted – hadn't even thought of – death. Dying.
Hurting.
Watching.
Those kinds of things. He closed the shutters.
When the world became clearer and the sky became lighter his legs were still quivering, slightly. That was not surprising. That was the heady spike of so much adrenaline rinsing out of him, out through his toes and into the cracked asphalt of a miserable little town that just never ended for him. He rubbed his palms against them and the grime and sweat smeared the soft scratchy linen of his trousers.
That was something else though. That warm wetness on his lips, pressing into his mouth. That was the taste of something salty and bitter – and deeply unwanted –
(you swore)
But then Blaine spoke.
"Well he's not coming back anytime soon."
"You - !" The bubble pierced. In the next breath Kurt found himself rounding on the crazy bastard, the crazy, trigger-happy, superhumanly fast bastard who was just standing there with nothing in his face. "How could you - a gun - you were going to shoot him -"
"You shouldn't have stopped me," the man said. He was already striding forward to where the gleaming thing lay on the pavement.
"And let you kill him?" Kurt gaped at his back. The wind felt cold on his cheek. He brushed it with the back of his hand. "What are you, some kinda -"
"I'm not." The reply was cool. "It's not what you think." He was wiping the gun on his jeans.
Kurt couldn't help the step forward. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you're some kind of -"
"I can assure you I'm not -"
"- psychotic - murdering -"
"I'm not!" The vehemence - coming from a man who'd only been so composed - actually shocked Kurt into stumbling a step back, hand flying to his mouth.
Blaine was breathing harshly. He'd spun around, but immediately dropped his gaze. The lean planes of his jacket couldn't hide the rise and fall of his chest; nor the tautness in arms suddenly gone rigid.
A shadow flit across his face. For a moment, it said: Kurt wasn't the only one shocked.
The moment vanished.
"I'm not."
Kurt watched him swallow. Saw how the sharp lines of his shoulders, running down to tensed hands, tracing long angular fingers, trembled - resisted - and finally, helplessly, relaxed. Then Blaine was straightening his jacket with a neat and familiar calm, as if he had given nothing away that was essential, but a small slip in footing.
"I'm not a murderer, Kurt. This isn't a real gun," holding out the black thing as if offering it to Kurt, who only grimaced. "They're tranqs."
The skepticism must have showed on Kurt's face. Blaine slid it back in his jeans, and turned to him again. "Look, I needed to knock him out and get him to the police. I couldn't risk letting him get back to his pack, or –"
"You said you wanted to kill him."
"I – " Blaine stopped. His jaw moved. His eyes, which Kurt could see now were a startling tawny gold, flicked up to the sky. "Just – listen to me. I'm not really a student at McKinley -"
"You don't say." Deadpan.
". . . I had a mission. It involved Karofsky. That was why I was tracking him earlier. After I saw . . . . you and him – I changed it, and screwed it up. That's my fault. But I never planned on killing him."
"Wait. Hold up. Mission? Oh that's just glorious. What are you, the furry mafia?" With a scornful laugh teetering on the tip of his tongue – but as the words came out they formed, Kurt discovered, a disturbingly well-fitting suggestion.
It was not quite a circumstance he thought would ever arise in his sixteen years on Lima, Earth. There was, for one, the gun; lethal or not. People didn't just walk around with tranq guns unless they happened to be particularly gung-ho zookeepers or professional date rapists.
Then there was the fighting skill he'd witnessed, for another. That was just so . . . absurd that it must've been the result of years of training by legions of uptight blacksuits, creepy scientists, government machinations and a distant father. (Like many other things, this was learned from Dark Angel). Karofsky was no pushover, everyone at McKinley knew that, but he'd been exposed as pure fodder here, on his own grounds. The most basic and physical. Kurt had seen Finn fight before too and Finn fought well, a raw, rumbler's style, more experienced than Kurt liked, and physically blessed even for an alpha; but it was easy to tell that his speed and fluidity and economy of movement came nowhere close to this man, who'd moved like a fencer, silk on steel, with terse strikes and deliberate grace.
I'd prefer, he'd said, to simply kill you.
"What? No." The man who called himself 'Blaine' looked almost confused. He had a strong jaw, but a young face. A boy's face. Then he shook his head and released a small, unexpected laugh, which made him look even less like the Godfather and more like the teenager from yesterday; but its timbre was, to Kurt's mind, somewhat pained.
Blue eyes narrowed. A slim finger began to tap on his lips.
"So. In New York - Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss. Prada sunglasses. But for the sophisticated arrondissements of Lima, Ohio - only windbreakers and last year's Levi's will do."
"Kurt, I'm not a mobster." (But the hands flew to the jeans, self-conscious.)
"Then why were you planning on killing him?"
"Because –" Blaine stopped when he realized he'd been had. Then he leveled a look at Kurt that was not, surprisingly, obviously homicidal.
"Look, I'll explain everything later. It's a long story and we don't have the time right now. I don't think you've reached your full heat yet, but you're close and we've got to get you out of here. How long has your fever been going on?"
He was authoritative. He was a were, and a male, and Kurt remembered this for the first time.
The finger stilled over his mouth.
Blaine, in a quieter voice: "I'm staying at a hotel right now. I can buy you another room there, while you're in your heat."
The offer was immediately suspicious. Honestly, what was a guy this young doing in a hotel? Unless he really were a hitman sent on a mission to stalk Dave Karofsky, which would be the most mind-boggling thing to happen to Lima since the white people came.
Kurt paused; rewinded.
There were several mystery doors to open here, each plastered with a Vogue cover.
Behind the first was the optimistic suggestion that Blaine really was your friendly neighborhood superhero, albeit a rather unimaginative one in a tracksuit and an incredibly lame cover as a high school student in a small yet criminal town. He closed this because Blaine seemed neither friendly nor neighborly, nor were werewolves usually on the conventional side of the law; and because Gemma Ward's forehead made him squirm a little.
Behind the second was the warning that this was a man who, having vanquished the previous challenger, had won a prize, and wished to claim it at his leisure. From what Kurt knew of werewolf politics, this made an uneasy amount of sense. Quinn's comfortable standing within their pack was an anomaly: she and Finn and several of the others had grown up together as friends forged by internal as much as external forces, and Finn himself was . . . unconventional for an alpha (spineless in Santana's own words, but most of hers were not worth the spit it took to say them). In the larger, more conventional packs with their own social structures, subs were supposed to be well in the gutters. Or even on the outside, drifting at the edge like strays leashed to their alpha.
To their alpha's beds, that is, though not confined to them. In fact – and this made Kurt's stomach vaguely bulimic – according to online lore, they were supposedly available to the whole pack, like sex slaves in one of those creepy fundamentalist, inbred cults. (The whole pack! It was hard to imagine holding hands with even one boy, much less . . . well, several. It couldn't possibly be – comfortable. Or hygienic.)
So that was a lot worse than harems or concubinage or any of those other old human customs that celebrated male sluttiness, probably because packs were made more of wolves than men. Because too many of his kind were beastly animals that existed to support Sarah Palin's career (both the hunting and the political), subs were protected neither by pack law nor moral standards nor some higher conscience. The most they could hope for was to be prized as an expression of their alpha's dominance, which was yet another cringe-inducing example of wolvish logic about the seriousness of the size of one's dick. That was why Finn had gotten so nervous when rumors whispered that one of the larger Akron packs had seen the passing of their last sub: the rewards, subject to negotiation, had started with more zeros than they saw in a year.
It was all stirrup-pants levels of barbaric. His unwilling body could bring this "Blaine" either money or prestige. The counter was that the man could've simply shot him with the tranqs and carried him off, which he hadn't done yet (alright, there was still time for that). So Blaine wanted him willing, for some reason.
The hard way, Kurt thought, or the easy way.
Then there was the heat, which made things even worse. Made them more – immediate. More in focus. It meant that Blaine would want to satisfy himself first in the uncomplicated, masculine sense of the word, before bearing him back like a caveman sharing a successful hunt. There would be no difference between him and Karofsky save a smoother face, and a preference for clean sheets over asphalt.
Kurt bit his lip.
Yet . . . strangely enough . . . so far his heat hadn't affected the other man at all. He hadn't tripped over himself to help Kurt up, just for a touch. He hadn't wandered close to his space, in the hopes of catching a scent. He hadn't let his gaze even glance much less linger over Kurt's body, despite what was bared for so long – too long – before.
Kurt rubbed his arms. Maybe Blaine was a Kinsey zero, or just pitifully impotent. But was it really possible that the one werewolf in Lima who happened to rescue him would also be suffering from a case of incurable erectile dysfunction? Kurt's luck was the sort that tended to preserve his virginity, but even this was a bit of a stretch.
What he did know was that not all rapists were like Karofsky, Neanderthals whose only M.O. was the bash to the head. Some hunters preferred another kind of hunt. And Blaine's tone was far too gentle, and his face too handsome, like he convinced underage boys to go back to hotels with him all the time.
Underage boys he'd just rescued. Kurt made a face; turned it over in his head. If this were Finn the kid would be skipping back home with a bag of Doritos, a free Buckeyes shirt, and a new hatred for Disney songs.
But this was not Finn. This was someone with "missions", guns, unknown makers.
This was someone to be held at arm's length, with a handkerchief.
The problem was – there was nowhere else to go. That was a pretty big freaking problem. A Kardashian-derriere kind of problem. He had no money, but he couldn't stay outside for long. The risk of poachers and other weres being drawn to his scent was too high, and the consequences . . . well, they were only rumors, for all he knew, but he couldn't take that chance. There was only the apartment, but he couldn't go back to it – (maybe not ever) – not with what was likely a hurt and angry and vengeful Karofsky on the loose. His scent could be covered, with the small sacrifice of smelling like his Spanish teacher for the rest of his life – but if Karofsky and his unknown pack ever stumbled on him with Finn and Quinn and the others, all of them were finished. Especially Finn, the idiot, because he'd try to fight.
There really was no other choice. He kept his voice haughty, the eyes cool. "Why should I trust you?"
"You don't have a choice," Blaine said.
Not only was the man an untrustworthy criminal cyborg-assassin, he was an exasperating untrustworthy criminal cyborg-assassin.
"I know it looks . . . sudden. But the hotel will have other people there. If I try anything you don't like, you can shout for help." The hint of a smile was gone. "Kurt, we need to go."
"I won't be any more pliable," Kurt said, "if you use my name."
Blaine's mouth didn't twitch. "Okay," he said, after a moment had passed.
Kurt wasn't done though, for some reason. He didn't even know what he wanted to say, it was just that he wanted to say it. What filter he had in his mind didn't apply below.
"Karofsky . . . He –"
He hesitated, unsure of his footing. Waved a hand vaguely, helplessly, in the direction of the soccer field. ". . . He wasn't like this – before. Still a total dick, yes, and a bully – but not a total . . . monster. I mean, he was juvie, and now he's like, forty years without parole."
He pushed on: "It has to be the Change. He got it over the summer. It seems like it practically – well, mutated him."
"Most Change for the worse," Blaine said.
There was something about the way he said it. Kurt searched for it in his face. It was fruitless, of course, and it felt rather like spearfishing in Lake Placid from the height of a helicopter.
"So . . . he's way more beastly and dangerous now. Okay. I'm well aware of that. I just don't think it's . . . wise or socially appropriate to go around waving a gun. Tranqs or not." Kurt crossed his arms, shifted his feet. "People will get the wrong idea."
"I know." Blaine was watching the field. "It's just for protection, in case we need it. Don't worry, I'm not going to whip it out every other corner."
There was nothing else to stall with.
"All right, then. Lead the way, James Bond." With a hefty roll of the eyes. "Oh and – fair warning. Try anything, and I'm told I scream like Whitney Houston. On a bad day."
He made a grand gesture for the other man to lead, a superlatively gay flourish of the wrist. Blaine didn't see it since he was already moving ahead, but Kurt allowed himself to be led anyways. His legs were still heavy. His neck was still sore. There was nowhere else to go, and as he followed him out it felt uncomfortably like an invisible leash.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
"No. Absolutely not. I knew you were a deplorable boor, but to sink to this - "
"It's either this or White Castle." The Audi shut down with a click and a purr. "I'm not happy about it either, but we're not heading straight to the hotel with you smelling like this. It's not safe."
Blaine had yet to look at him since they'd entered the car. If this was what he was plotting, well – he probably didn't dare.
From the moment they drove out of McKinley, the man had brought up and held to the stubborn notion that Kurt's heat-scent made a trail that other werewolves would track to their hotel. (Like an irresistible line of crack, Kurt had suggested, which didn't even tug out the faintest smile.) Besides bringing up the disturbing image of every wolf in Lima congregating downtown to lay siege to their building, that meant that they had to stop somewhere and find a way to cover it. But instead of offering to drive to the mall and chivalrously pay for Kurt's Chanel and Cartier, his gentlemanly companion had the inspired suggestion of transforming him into the finest of high dining experiences.
"McDonald's."
"Yes."
". . . Whew! Not bad, Blaine. For a second there, I thought you were humorless."
". . . No. Really, I think McDonald's is our best bet."
". . ."
"We have to blend in. That's the whole point. The thing about McDonald's is the fact that everyone who enters McDonald's comes out smelling like McDonald's." Blaine paused. "So that's everyone in Lima."
"The mall, Blaine. The mall. I can pick up some Givenchy there and come out smelling like a human being rather than a Happy Meal." Kurt folded his arms over his seatbelt. If it was an argument Blaine wanted . . . well, Kurt was already arranging his chess pieces.
"It's over forty-five minutes away. That's too far."
"I can wait."
"I can't."
Kurt opened his mouth. Closed it. Blaine was staring straight ahead, where the knuckles of his hands were clenched white around the wheel.
So he wasn't unaffected.
The urge to look – down was not hard to resist. The pine hovering outside his window had turned unbearably interesting. Caught between the aggressively bright lights of the McDonald's in front of them and the tiny enclosure of a car that had suddenly become deeply awkward, Kurt halted, still holding his piece; looked again at the chessboard, at the mess it'd become.
The temptation to nibble his nails was strong. He sunk deeper in his seat. Picked words. Discarded them. It was like choosing between Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus, he thought morosely; whoever won, humanity lost.
But he had his hair on the line, not to mention years of consistent and rigorous exfoliation. So it was only after much protest and cursing of Blaine's future generations and chances of hair preservation that he found himself dragged inside the golden arches - abandon all hope, ye who enter here - and into the men's restrooms, which were thankfully empty (because there was nothing sketchy about two men entering the restroom together to play with their food). Blaine disappeared for a moment, leaving the sharp order to stay, and returned with several paper bags translucent with grease and bulging with what appeared to be mounds of glistening french fries, several Big & Tasty's, a dozen Big Macs, and the slow and irreversible decline of Western civilization.
He also returned with more tribute: a pair of faded baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and a windbreaker of some unmentionable green shade that ought to have been arrested for either public obscenity or inciting euthanasia.
Kurt helpfully pointed this out to him.
Blaine, because he was an evil Mafioso cyborg with a vendetta against clothing, made some sounds that implied that he would like Kurt Hummel to dump his fashion-friendly outfit in a McDonald's restroom in order to put on some clothes he happened to have in his car trunk in order to blind little children.
Kurt had moral standards.
"This. Is. Disgusting, Blaine or whatever-your-real-name-is. Not only do you wish me to smell like an obesity timebomb, clearly you want me to look like an obesity timebomb. One that was born in West Virginia."
"Your clothes already have your scent all over them. You'll be much safer if you change. And you'll barely be outside the car, it's like two steps from the parking lot to the hotel." Blaine thrust the items at him with the urgency of a man faced with a toddler on the verge of bawling. He had the habit of plowing through to his point without even the courtesy to be struck by one's wit.
He even pulled away, the bastard, before Kurt could shove it all back.
"This is an insult to my dignity, Blaine. My dignity! You happen to be in clear violation of the Geneva Convention." The countertop wasn't big enough to hold both the food and the clothes, so with a huff he set down the latter. (The counter was probably hideously germy, but so were the clothes.) Then he shot Blaine a look. "Though I suppose that doesn't matter to someone who dresses like a 1970s Soviet housewife."
Those dark brows had the gall to raise an innocent fraction.
"Don't you dare look amused. This is – my hair – and all that grease . . . it's – UGH!" Kurt threw his hands up in the air. "How do you even come up with these things? What is it, the CIA? 'Torture on a Budget' 101?"
"Two steps. No will notice, ok?" With the briefest quirk of the lips.
Kurt placed his hands on his hips. "Oh you are hard to break down, Mr Blaine. That's what you get for being top of the class, I suppose. Well, guess what – I'm not doing it! You'll have to bring out the waterboards before I step out in public –"
"Just – just put it on, ok? Seriously, it's for your own safety."
Kurt muttered something about where Blaine could stick his safety. (This was actually, he thought with some cheer, very Finn, with the sighing coming next – which was good – because it meant that he would soon give up under all the haranguing, and the prospect of more of it – )
"Put it on. Then we can go back, and you can sulk in your room."
Kurt snorted. "And what of the lovely eau de grease and pasteurized cow bladder? I thought I was supposed to be repulsing blind people too."
"Yes. You will. Drive them to tears, and everything. But change first, and I'll dump your old clothes out back." Blaine had the patience of a man who'd likely experienced little siblings. A herd of them.
Kurt rolled his eyes, flicked them up to the ceiling. It was dim and yellowish. "Ha! Make me."
Blaine reached for the t-shirt.
"Don't you dare –"
He couldn't help himself. He wasn't thinking. In the next instant he made a grab for the shirt –pushed Blaine back, lightly, instinctively, with his other hand – and found it caught in a hard grip.
He'd forgotten.
They stared at each other.
It was as unyielding as iron. He could see how it could deliver a strong hook. Break a man's arm.
Up close, Blaine's eyes were clear pools of amber.
Kurt swallowed.
Then he was being released, sharply, as if the touch burned him – and Blaine was jerking back, faltering, pulling his hands away in sharp arcs.
"I – "
The air was not – healthy. It was difficult to breath. Words were hard to form.
Kurt took a step back.
Blaine's gaze slid past him. He had already regained his position. He had done this with a natural grace. He was holding his palms up, and his face blank. And he was saying, with a slight, curt nod to show there was no anger:
"I'm sorry. That was my fault, it's a reflex."
How could he be so calm, when Kurt's pulse was still racing?
Fear, Kurt thought.
One of us gets assaulted, while the other assaults.
One of us flicks a limp wrist, while the other crushes them.
One of us is a sub, and the other –
"I won't do it again," Blaine was saying. Quietly spoken, but the words carried in this restroom's small chamber. The light was dim and his fingers were elegant and long, like a musician's.
They had been callused, on his wrist.
A throat cleared. "I'll be waiting for you outside." Then Blaine was striding past him without giving him a second glance, or the chance to reply. Kurt was left staring at the mirror, wide-eyed, looking at himself, looking at the shutting door, looking at the arm still cradling his wrist, which couldn't move, yet didn't hurt. The yellow light cast weak shadows on the soft young contours of his face.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Cont'd in Chapter Three...
A/N: Whew, glad that's over with! I hate writing action, and I'm terrible at it. It's good practice for me but generating tension and making things exciting is, like, not my thing yet – it just ends up feeling like nothing important happens *lol*
Don't worry, Blaine doesn't actually have bad/undapper fashion sense. :P