chapter xiv

By the time Kurt stumbled upon the castle, the bottom half of his trousers were in tatters, and the only reason his feet had survived was because Kurt was wearing his black Doc Martens instead of loafers. Most of his muscles ached – he went on fairly regular shopping sprees but he felt like he'd been walking for a lot longer than that. He almost cried again, though this time from relief, when the castle popped up in front of him out of nowhere.

But, just like the lake, just like the forest, the castle was different; its structure was no longer derelict; the wood and stone was smooth and fresh and strong, even as vines clung to the sides, and it all looked so very clean. And the most terrifying and unnerving difference was the dim glow emitting from the still-cracked-open door and through the high-placed window slits.

Kurt bit his lip and looked around nervously, but nothing was moving and no one seemed to have noticed him. He crept forward and peered through the gap in the door, and caught a quick glance of people before wrenching himself away with a gasp.

His pulse thundered in his ears and his breathing came too loud, but no one came looking for him, no one sounded an alarm or started shouting for an intruder, and eventually, his panic abated into a low current at the back of his mind. Slowly, he looked through the door again. There were still people there – had they always been there, invisible in the light? or had they just appeared one day like himself and Blaine? – but they didn't seem to notice Kurt even as he cautiously slipped through the crack in the door and entered the hallway.

As Kurt took in his surroundings, something niggled at him as off. It could be the walls – whereas before they were bare but for unlit torches and random bolts, now there were gruesome, beautiful tapestries in fine condition and flickering flames which only served to deepen the shadows, and the paints were restored to their full glory. It could be the oppressive almost-silence – there was no noise coming from the dining hall or the kitchen, and there was only a faint whisper of feet against stone that suggested more people that Kurt couldn't see.

It was probably the fact that Kurt was the only one with a real shadow; the others barely had more than a mere wisp in the torchlight.

Kurt suppressed a shudder, but he couldn't ignore the chill of panic resettling along his spine.

You're here to find Blaine, Kurt reminded himself, and it was only then he could force himself to move his feet. He followed the same route as when the two boys had first explored the castle, through the dining hall (dozens of people, some listlessly wandering, most sitting at the polished wooden tables and staring at nothing), the kitchen (empty but for one small child looking sadly at the stove), the courtyard (teeming with people despite the darkness, all of them silent), and the garden, where the pond was full and the bridges and gazebo in perfect condition.

As he made his way slowly through the castle, even venturing up the stairs with barely a hesitation, Kurt forced himself to look at every single person he passed; but not once did he see loose black curls and hazel doe eyes and a uniform identical to his own. He wondered if he should ask someone but the thought was frightening enough that Kurt couldn't help but whimper at it.

No one even glanced his way. Kurt eventually unfroze and, heart thumping in his stomach, loudly cleared his throat. Once again, he was ignored completely.

Kurt didn't know for how long he explored the castle, how long he stood on the outskirts of a popular area and stared at unknown faces of all age and race and feature until they blurred into one, but eventually, he became tired. Not physically – but he was exhausted from his fruitless search, and he ached with how much he missed his family and friends and the thought of how worried they must be for slid down against a wall, buried his head in his knees, and cried.

After running out of tears, Kurt attacked his search with a renewed vigour. He was done feeling sorry for himself – his mom dying, being bullied from three years old, losing the only connection to his best friend, Karofsky, the transfer. Oh, sure, it was discouraging that Kurt never saw the same face twice, that he was convinced he'd looked in every corner, and he hadn't spoken aloud in what felt like years, but he was going to find Blaine if it was the last thing he did. He followed every staircase, walked every corridor, hauled open every door, and peered behind every tapestry just in case there were any secret passages. He even took the time to clean himself up in the pond surrounding the gazebo so Blaine wouldn't freak out too much when he saw him.

And, eventually, he was rewarded. On the ground floor, far from anything which could be inferred to be a communal living space or heavy-flowing area by owner, guest or servant, a door opened into a flight of stairs which led down into darkness.

"Blaine?" he tentatively called down, his throat dry. Unsurprisingly, there was no reply.

Kurt rolled his shoulders and then stood on his toes to pull one of the torches from the wall. It was a struggle; the bolts were just high enough so that Kurt almost dropped it on him – which wouldn't have ended well, because it probably would have burnt him – but before too long, Kurt was holding the rough, heavy wood. The flame was unexpectedly, welcomingly warm, and Kurt allowed himself a few moments to close his eyes and soak it in before he descends the steps.

Barely five steps down, the only light is from the torch; Kurt could see maybe half a foot in either direction. He breathed in deeply, cautiously reached out to balance himself against one of the cold walls, and slowly, slowly, slowly continued. His feet hardly touched the stone steps, but still the light tap, tap, tap echoed with Kurt's shallow breaths, and more than once Kurt swore he felt something brush against his skin. The first time, Kurt almost dropped the torch, and then he almost burnt his hand in his haste to catch it. There was nothing behind him; even when he held the torch out at arm's length, the only things he could see were uneven steps and narrow walls. So Kurt swallowed, regathered his courage, and ignored the instincts that were screaming for him to turn back.

He had a feeling he wouldn't be able to wake up without Blaine anyway. The last thing he could remember before opening his eyes by the Lake was singing Coming Round the Mountain in the paediatric unit. Obviously, he hadn't fallen asleep; therefore, the woman must have done something to him – cast a spell or a curse or a chant or whatever, at this point, Kurt would believe anything. Maybe he would even reevaluate his whole stance on religion when he woke up.

For how long had he been walking down this staircase? It felt like an age; his knees and shins and feet ached; his arms were sore from carrying the torch, and not even holding it in both hands helped to alleviate the pain; his clothes and hair were not completely dry. If it weren't for the change in the air, how it grew colder and damper and heavier, Kurt would think a trick were being played on him.

Carefully, Kurt sat down and balanced the torch between his knees so he could tear one of the buttons from his shirt. It took a few sharp tugs which nearly dislodged the torch, but mass-produced stitching was no match for teeth. He stood again just as carefully though much slower, his arm immediately protesting holding the heavy torch by itself because the other hand was tightly clutching the loose button.

It took three seconds and two dozen heartbeats for the tink of the button to echo back up the steps to Kurt. He couldn't remember how to translate that into metres – or if this method of measurement could even be used for anything that wasn't a well – but at least he now knew that at least there wasn't a sudden drop ahead.

He could only hope he was nearing the bottom of the steps, although for the first time, he wished he wouldn't find Blaine. For his best friend to have been down here for he knew how long was heartbreaking.

Several moments passed. Kurt tried to keep track of his heartbeats but they were too fast and his concentration too unfocused, and so he lost count after a mere five. He came across and threw the button twice more, trying to keep his strength and trajectory the same, but then it bounced off a curve in the wall and disappeared. And Kurt was left with no choice but to follow the bend and wonder how deeply he'd come.

His own pulse and steps and breath seemed interminably loud in his ears, and that is why it took so long to realise that it wasn't only his breaths he could hear. Somewhere in front of him there was someone else, their breath jagged and uneven and coloured with an animalistic whine. It sounded large and dangerous – oh, god, what if it was another of those creatures? Kurt had . . . killed one before, but that was entirely accidental, and he was already injured. If he died here, would his body die as well? Would all his hope and work go to waste, leaving Blaine here alone forever? He hoped – prayed, God help him, if He really existed – that Carole would help his dad through this.

A painful, plaintive cry snapped Kurt from his terror. Animalistic, yes, but also curiously familiar. Heart-wrenchingly, optimistically familiar. And not too far away, although the echo made it difficult to be certain.

With his heart pounding against his chest, battering away all the stubbornly clinging fear and denial, Kurt picked up the pace. He was steady on his feet despite his shaking legs, and it seemed like hours and seconds before his foot forcefully met the floor instead of another step. The pain rocketed up his leg and he staggered with a yelp, but even as he gained his balance he was looking round wildly, tilting the torch as far away from his body as he could.

The staircase was in a corner of a room. It probably wasn't a particularly large room; the light reached the opposite walls, even though it was faint, and it caught upon polished metal devices hanging off the walls.

But Kurt didn't notice the room's size or the torture decorating the walls because the light had also been caught on vertical poles splitting the room in two; and on the other side of those poles was a twitching lump on the floor – a twitching, person-shaped lump with curls on top of its head.

"B-Blaine?" he said, voice cracking and shaking. He carefully crept closer, eyes darting every which way to find the door to the cell and to make sure nothing was going to attack him.

The lump came fully into the light; Kurt saw black curls, the same slacks and shirts that filled his closet and school corridors, and before he had even fully processed, he had wrenched open the unlocked cell door, had dropped the torch along the way, and was lain across Blaine's body. "Blaine, Blaine," he said, tears falling onto Blaine's cheeks because he was here, and his chest was moving without a ventilator, and Kurt hadn't failed. Blaine's eyelids twitched and he groaned, and Kurt caressed his best friend's cheek and held him close.

Kurt had no idea how to wake up again, or how to take Blaine with him, but they were together again. Everything would be okay.

End notes: Finally! Blaine's back! Because it's been so long since his last appearance, here are two teasers for you about chapter xv: 1. lots of Klaine interaction – seriously, lots and lots and lots of it; and 2. the chapter will end with a twist. (In other words: there'll be something good when I start up again in a week or two.)