Notes: Warning for character death that happened in the past.
"Oh, Sebastian," Kurt says, peeking out from behind Blaine's body, "do you have to be so dramatic? You could have just said hello like a normal person."
"Hello, beautiful," Sebastian mimics, his eyes glued to the porcelain puppet as if he's the only one in the room. "Good to see you in one piece again." After an awkward silence, he shifts his gaze - and a threatening smile - to Blaine. "Hello, Blaine."
"Hello, Sebastian," Blaine responds in a similarly menacing tone. "Nice of you to finally join the land of the living." He reaches back, protectively wrapping his fingers around Kurt's wrist. Sebastian watches Blaine react, his green eyes darkened by his open disregard for the human in front of him.
"Oh, I've always been here," Sebastian explains, winking at Blaine, the movement accompanied by an off-putting clacking sound as wood meets wood. "Hiding out, watching you two get acquainted …" His eyes switch to Kurt again. Kurt's gaze drops down and away.
Blaine isn't thrilled at this effect Sebastian seems to have on Kurt – how Kurt suddenly looks like he wants to hide from the wooden puppet's judgmental stare. "So why didn't you talk to us then?"
Sebastian seems amused by the tension that has started to build in the room at his presence. "I was waiting for the right time. I'm an actor at heart. I wanted to make an entrance."
Blaine sits higher to shield Kurt from view. Undaunted, Sebastian rolls his head on his neck 180 degrees to circumvent him, the joint creaking as wood and wires grind together. While Blaine fights to hide his disgust over the wooden puppet's head extending on his contorted neck, Sebastian's smile turns into a sneer.
"Don't I get an emotional welcome?" he jeers at Blaine, but with a thread of genuine hurt meant for Kurt. "I heard you sing and talk incessantly to our little Kurt back there. Don't I get any sweet sentiments? Heartfelt confessions? What do I get?" Sebastian's voice rises in pitch, covering what could have been tears if he had been human. But with a blink of his clacking eyelids, his teasing tone returns, his anguish erased. "Aren't you happy to see me, Blaine? Did you dream about me? I've been traumatized, too, you know."
Blaine's eyes narrow at the wooden puppet, whose smile, Blaine suspects, was painted purposefully like a smirk – untrustworthy and insincere. Blaine doesn't want that to color his perspective. Sebastian has been traumatized, probably more so than Kurt, but it's hard to sympathize with someone who seems to despise you for no reason.
But Kurt's reaction is one that Blaine simply does not understand. Kurt wanted Sebastian put back together, but now he doesn't want anything to do with him. It could have been out of a sense of obligation that Kurt wanted Sebastian fixed, but Blaine had felt there was something else. Something unspoken.
If Kurt doesn't regret this decision, Blaine sure as heck is starting to.
Sebastian's head turns back round to normal and he frowns. "Could I at least get my other arm and my legs?" He raises the one arm Blaine managed to attach before he fell asleep and waves his hand in front of his face. "It would be nice to be able to walk upright. Or do you only grant that privilege to pretty puppets you wanna fuck?"
"Sebastian!" Kurt pipes up, crawling out from behind Blaine's body. "Watch your language!"
Sebastian smiles when he sees Kurt – not the sneer he gave Blaine, but a true smile. It makes Sebastian look human, the way Kurt's smile does for him.
"There's my Kurt," Sebastian says. "I'd wondered where you went."
"I'm not your Kurt," Kurt fires back, quietly but firmly.
Blaine, watching this interaction with the intensity of a kid watching his first horror flick, can't help when he yawns, but he's exhausted. He looks at his cell phone on the floor, rubbing his eyes to make the numbers on the screen come into focus.
It's barely two in the morning. They'd been asleep for about four hours before this all began.
God but it felt like so much less.
"Okay" - Blaine puts his hands up - "I think we got off to a bad start here." He fixes Sebastian with a smile he hopes conveys something close to an apology even though he doesn't feel it. "Why don't I go ahead and give you your arm and legs, and then I can set us up in our own rooms. I don't know about you guys, but I seriously need to sleep on a mattress. My joints are killing me."
Both puppets shoot him incredulous looks. It takes him a moment to get why, but when he does, he chuckles sheepishly. "Right. Sorry."
Blaine looks at Kurt gazing back at him with worried eyes and cups the puppet's cheek with his hand. He hears wood slide against wood - Sebastian rolling his eyes.
"This is really touching and all," he says, drumming his fingertips against the floor, "but I'd really like my legs back now."
Blaine drops his hand from Kurt's cheek, fingertips tracing feathery lines down porcelain skin as Kurt cranes his neck to follow. Blaine stands, unwinding stiff muscles until he's upright. Then he bends over to pick up Sebastian, hoisting the one-armed puppet into his embrace and cradling him carefully.
Sebastian bats his eyes. "Now isn't this cozy?"
Blaine walks Sebastian over to the love seat and promptly drops him onto the cushions.
"Hey!" the puppet screams, scrambling with one arm to sit upright. "I may not be made of porcelain but I'm still breakable!"
"Sorry." Blaine doesn't curb his clipped tone since Kurt has retreated to the kitchen and is well out of earshot. "I slipped."
Sebastian watches Blaine gather his other arm and the wire and start fitting it onto his body. Except it doesn't. Not now. Blaine had lined them up a few times before, just to make sure this was the correct arm, and it slid into place like a dream. But now it feels like it's actively fighting him.
No. Sebastian is actively fighting him.
"This is your arm," Blaine grunts. "You could help me out a little."
"Now why would I do that," Sebastian asks, "when you're trying so hard to steal the only thing in the world I've ever wanted?"
Blaine's eyes snap up. "What-?" he utters as Kurt returns, a glass of Coke in his hand. He walks over to the dining room table, his smile starting long before then. Blaine sees Sebastian's expression transform again to one of longing, dreamlike, until Kurt walks straight up to Blaine with scarcely a glance at the wooden puppet.
"Here" - Kurt hands the glass to Blaine - "I thought this might help keep you awake."
"Thanks." Blaine takes the glass and takes a sip before setting it down on the table, not missing the way Kurt licks his lips when he put the cup to his mouth. Kurt heads for the sofa to take up his sewing again, glancing at Blaine one more time, his smile widening when he sees Blaine looking back at him. Sebastian scowls between them, but he holds his tongue until Blaine bends over his shoulder.
"I don't know what you think is going on between you and Kurt, but it's all in your head."
Blaine has a defense all ready for that remark, but he remains tight lipped, keeping his own fears about the state of their relationship locked safely away.
"Not that it's any of your business," he says, "but it's none of your business."
"Smooth, tiger. But in all seriousness, you and Kurt are never going to happen."
"And why do you think that?" Blaine keeps his voice low, peeking behind him to make sure Kurt hasn't caught wind of their discussion.
"Because it's absurd!" Sebastian snickers, eyes glued to Blaine's face for a reaction. Blaine doesn't give him one. He pulls the wires in his shoulder joint tight and moves on to his left leg. "You and him? You're human! He's a puppet! What kind of relationship can you two have?" He wiggles his eyebrows, but again, Blaine ignores him. He doesn't want to give Sebastian the satisfaction of knowing just how much he's getting to him.
And he is getting to him.
He lays the puppet back on the love seat, cringing internally at how intimate it feels.
"Worthwhile relationships aren't all about sex," Blaine argues.
"Yeah, well, they are a little."
"And what would the two of you do together?" Blaine pulls the wires tighter than necessary, wishing on some level that it hurt. "You sure don't have anything to work with." Blaine knocks on Sebastian's wooden crotch for good measure, smirking when Sebastian jolts, propping himself up on his elbows like he might try to take a swing at him.
"Is everything all right over there, guys?" Kurt asks from his seat on the sofa, his needle poised mid-stitch, glass eyes assessing their faces one at a time.
"We're all good here," Blaine reassures him. "What do you say, Sebastian? Are we all good here?" Blaine's smile at Sebastian borders on devious, and the wooden puppet looks mildly taken back.
"Yeah," Sebastian says. "We're fine, Kurt. Just … getting my legs fixed. Everything's kosher."
"Good," Kurt says, returning to his sewing, humming to himself.
Blaine and Sebastian's eyes meet again, their plastered smiles disappearing.
Blaine tugs the wires in Sebastian's left leg and ties them off. "Why don't the two of us play nice? For Kurt's sake."
Sebastian's wooden face becomes a slideshow of emotions, but he settles on the plastic façade that passes for polite.
It doesn't fool Blaine in the slightest.
"Sure, tiger. Whatever you want. I'll play nice …"
Blaine nods, turning to the table for Sebastian's right leg, stopping to take a long drink from his glass of soda. Sebastian's eyelids narrow, shooting daggers at the back of Blaine's neck.
"… for now."
Blaine fixes Sebastian's leg in silence with the painted eyes of the puppet simultaneously glaring at him and watching Kurt sew. At one point, Abigail leaps onto the love seat, overjoyed at seeing her owner. Sebastian actually laughs when he sees her.
It's difficult for Blaine to admit but it's a pleasant sound.
"Abby!" Sebastian says, stroking her back with great care. She climbs onto his chest and rubs her face against his cheek. "You're such a clever girl," he mutters. "Such a smart little girl." The cat purrs so loudly, Blaine can feel it vibrate Sebastian's wooden body.
"That should do it," Blaine says around his third yawn, tying off the wires that secure Sebastian's right leg to his hip joint. "Now, just a dab of pottery glue …"
"Pottery glue?" Sebastian pulls himself up to a sitting position. "Do I look like pottery to you?"
"No, but it worked miracles on Kurt. Maybe it'll do the same for you." Blaine uncaps the tube. Sebastian rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time, and Blaine bites his tongue hard to keep from saying something in front of Kurt that he might regret. "Unless you want to stay splintered. It's your choice."
Blaine puts the cap back on the tube, but a hard hand on his arm stops him. Blaine raises an eyebrow. An irritated Sebastian holds his arms out straight, waiting. Blaine relents and applies the glue – not quite as precisely as he had with Kurt, but it is going on four in the morning. Blaine has had about as much of Sebastian's snark as he can handle for one day, and the sun has yet to rise.
"All right." Blaine wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. "That's it. I'm done. I've got to go to bed."
Kurt slips his needle into the fabric of the pants he's been hemming and sets them down on the cushion beside him. Then he stands and walks over to the love seat.
"He looks pretty good." Kurt takes Sebastian's wrists and lifts his arms to examine his shoulder joints. Blaine watches Sebastian's eyes follow Kurt's every move with a peculiar sort of admiration. Kurt turns his attention to Blaine, and that admiration snuffs out. "You do incredible work."
"It's nothing, really," Blaine says, fighting his unease at their new house guest.
"You're damn right it's nothing," Sebastian grouses, pulling his wrists from Kurt's grasp and folding his arms across his chest. "If tying some knots and a little glue is all it took, I could have gotten a first grader to do it for me."
Blaine hears Kurt sigh beside him. Sebastian turns his head toward the sound but Kurt is staring at his feet. Sebastian was an overbearing enough presence when he was motionless and silent, but now it's worse. He's vile and insulting, with a bizarre affection hiding beneath his cynical exterior that he's fighting hard not to show. But there's also a connection between him and Kurt. Blaine can feel it spiraling around them. They have history. A past.
But more than anything, Blaine wants to be Kurt's future.
"Can't you just say thank you?" Kurt pleads quietly.
"That's not necessary," Blaine says.
"No," Sebastian says, unwilling to let Blaine sweep in and get the upper hand by being humble. "Thank you, Blaine, for putting me back together. I'm in your debt."
It takes a lot for Blaine to keep from making an unimpressed face. "I'll remember that," he says as pointedly as he can. "Let's head to bed," Blaine suggests, ignoring the murderous glare coming from Sebastian's eyes.
"Yes!" Kurt agrees. He hurries to the sofa to collect his pants. "That sounds like a marvelous idea!"
"Yes," Sebastian grumbles as he prepares to stand for the first time in decades. "Capital plan. Excellent."
Blaine and Kurt give Sebastian a wide berth as he wobbles to his feet and takes a few tentative steps forward, holding out his arms for balance. Blaine stands nearby, ready to help in case he falls.
Sebastian glares again.
Blaine throws up his hands.
"Come on." He puts a hand to the small of Kurt's back and leads him ahead, willing to let Sebastian fall and spend the night sprawled out on the living room floor if he's going to act like a brat.
But being made of wood and not porcelain, Sebastian gets his footing quicker than Kurt had, the soles of his feet providing a certain amount of grip. He follows the couple to a pair of doors standing side-by-side on the far end of the house.
"This is my brother Cooper's room," Blaine says, opening the first door a crack. "He has a king-sized bed."
Kurt brightens at the thought of occupying the room right next to Blaine's. Blaine doesn't seem to notice, but Sebastian does.
He notices, and immediately thinks of a way to exploit it.
"Thanks, Blaine!" he says. "It'll be nice being so close to your room. In case I get nightmares in the middle of the night." Sebastian sniffs dramatically, putting a hand to his chest. "If you don't mind, that is, Kurt. I'm sure there's another room you can sleep in around here somewhere. Maybe on the other side of the house?"
"Of course, Sebastian," Kurt says timidly. "If that's what you want. I wouldn't want you uncomfortable."
Blaine watches the exchange with interest. He doesn't like to judge books by their covers, so to speak, but he's had enough experience with bullies to figure Sebastian out. He can blame his actions on Andrew all he wants, but the truth is that Sebastian doesn't need to be a bully because he was bullied. But Kurt is letting himself be bullied, and Blaine isn't sure exactly why. Kurt thinks he owes Sebastian, that's clear, but there has to be something more to it than that.
Blaine puts an arm around Kurt's waist and pulls him towards the second door. "My brother's got some old clothes hanging in the closet I think might fit you, but other than that, if you need anything at all, go ahead and knock. We'll help you out."
"We?" Kurt stares dumbfounded into Blaine's hazel eyes.
"Yeah," Blaine says. "I've got a bunk bed in my room. I thought that, maybe, you could have the top bunk. Or the bottom. Whatever you want. But the truth is, I'm kind of used to having you around." Blaine smiles shyly. "I don't think I could sleep without you. Would you like to join me?"
Kurt's mouth falls open. Sebastian's mouth snaps shut.
"Yes," Kurt says. "Yes, I think I would like that."
"Great." Blaine turns the knob and lets the door swing open. He bows at the waist, gesturing inside the room. Kurt giggles as he accepts Blaine's invitation, hugging his sewing tight to his chest. Blaine walks in after him and shuts the door, ignoring the puppet in the hallway seething at his back.
Blaine and Kurt awkwardly approach the bed. Blaine stops once he reaches the frame, but Kurt continues on to the other side, depositing his sewing on Blaine's desk as he goes.
"So you can pick a bunk …" Blaine reaches up and pats the top mattress, focusing on the plain white sheet that covers it "… or …"
"Or …?"
"Or you could sleep on the bottom bunk … with me? I thought, like last night …"
"I think that would be lovely," Kurt says, saving Blaine from any further awkwardness.
"Good. That's … that's good." Blaine turns off his lamp and slips beneath the blankets while Kurt shimmies underneath. Blaine stares at the ceiling, suppressing the urge to giggle like a doofus every time he feels Kurt move, knowing that he's lying beside him.
But as happy as he is – and at this moment, he's happier than he's been in a long time – the thought of Kurt kowtowing to Sebastian kills him.
He has to know why.
"Kurt?"
"Yes?"
"Could you explain to me this thing between you and Sebastian?" Blaine asks too quickly, afraid that if he doesn't get the words out in one breath, he won't ask at all.
Kurt reaches across the bed beneath the blanket. He finds Blaine's hand and slips his into Blaine's grasp.
"Can I … can I explain it to you another time?"
Blaine regards Kurt, glass eyes staring blankly up. He looks so melancholy all of a sudden that Blaine doesn't have the heart to press him.
"Of course," he says. "You can tell me when you're ready. Or not at all. It's your decision. I'll respect it."
"Thank you, Blaine," Kurt says in a sleepy voice. "I appreciate that."
Their fingers lace together, and at the touch of Kurt's palm against his, Blaine falls asleep.
It feels like being dropped off a rollercoaster, or skydiving without a parachute, when Blaine finds himself locked in a memory that's not his own.
That's where he is now.
Flat on his tailbone on the soft earth, he stares up at a sky full of stars completely unfamiliar to him. He's not sure exactly where he is or why he's there, but he's lying beside a shed behind a Victorian house, nearly identical to the one he's renovating minus the cartoonish paint job. The lights are on upstairs, and he hears the hum of voices - two people having an argument. There's a clash of wood against wood, then a bottle shatters. He bolts to his feet, staring up at the lit window shrouded by sheer curtains, diffusing golden light from within. The silhouettes of two men come into view, one trying to hold the other upright while he sways back and forth, nearly falling to the floor regardless. They're only shadows against curtains to his eyes, but they look so familiar, Blaine knows whatever purpose he has here, that's where he needs to be.
Instantaneously, he ends up in the room. He doesn't really practice the skill, it just seems to be a part of who he is. He knows he needs to be there, he wants to be there, and he's there.
He's standing in a bedroom, and for a moment, he's confused. It looks exactly like Kurt's bedroom in the Victorian house he's renovating, but he knows he's not there. Similar theater posters hang on the walls, a Singer sewing machine sits in the corner, a dress form beside that wears a half-finished suit … a suit that resembles the one Blaine had thrown in the trash.
The one Kurt didn't want to wear.
Andrew made Kurt's room in that San Diego house a replica of the room he lived in back in the 20s, down to the mahogany furniture.
He'd remembered all these details, recreated them for when he brought Kurt back.
Blaine hears the springs on the mattress whine and sees Sebastian lying back with Kurt straddled over him. He's holding onto Kurt's upper arms, wrinkling the shirt Kurt is wearing as Kurt struggles to be free of him. Blaine wants to rush forward, wants to pull Kurt off of him, but he stops. He can't do a thing. This isn't his memory. Whatever this is, it's already happened. But Kurt doesn't seem too concerned with the antics of his drunk friend, extricating himself easily from Sebastian's grasp.
"You have to stop doing this to yourself," Kurt says. "You're going to drink yourself to death one of these days."
"Wh-what the fuck do I care?" Sebastian slurs. "It'd be better than playing second fiddle to a God fucking puppet for the rest of my … for the rest of my life!"
Blaine watches Kurt struggle to sit Sebastian up. He succeeds somewhat, but the moment he lets go, Sebastian falls backwards on the pillows. Kurt shakes his head.
He doesn't try again.
He walks over to the dresser, passing close by Blaine. He's dressed in a pair of tailored black slacks with a white dress shirt tucked in and a black pin-striped vest. He looks beautiful – his skin soft, his pink lips tempting, his blue eyes icy and unamused. He heads for a basin on the dresser and pours water from a pitcher into it. He drops a cloth in the basin, gives it a moment to absorb. He wrings it out and carries it back to the bed, placing it on Sebastian's forehead.
"Nothing says you're going to be playing second fiddle to Sammy," Kurt reassures him, patting the cloth down. "You're a smart boy, Sebastian. You have your whole life ahead of you."
"Yup." Sebastian groans at the sound of his own voice in his ears. "Do you know I applied for early admission to five different colleges, and I haven't heard back from a single one? Not even a no, thank you, we hate you, fuck off?" He shakes his head, wincing from the mistake of moving. "Oh, I'm a smart boy, all right. A smart boy who's going to be playing with puppets for the rest of his life." He sighs. "It doesn't matter. He hates me anyway."
"He doesn't hate you," Kurt says. "I think he just wants you to take the act more seriously."
"But I can't take it seriously, Kurt! It's his life, not mine!"
"You know, Sebastian" - Kurt lays beside him on the bed and stares at the ceiling - "I know you don't think you have a say in your own life, but you do. You really do."
"That's easy for you to say." Sebastian turns on his side and drapes an arm across Kurt's middle. "You're not saddled by the ghost of Vaudeville past hovering over your head."
Kurt runs a hand up Sebastian's arm, stopping at his shoulder to knead. "Meaning?"
"Meaning my father isn't your father. You can leave anytime you want. You can go wherever you want. You're not tied down to this horse and pony show."
"I don't intend on staying here forever. In a few more years, I'll have enough money saved that I …" Kurt lets the sentence drop. Sebastian looks at him with unfocused eyes that can't seem to decide which image of Kurt they should be looking at.
"Saved up for what?"
"Well," Kurt starts after a hard swallow, "to move to New York. Try and make it big on the stage."
Sebastian gasps – a sound Kurt misinterprets for mocking.
"I could do it! There are musicals opening all the time out there! My friend from Lima – Rachel – she moved there with her intended last year, and she's been in the chorus of three musicals already! Or I could go to Hollywood. Maybe try to be in a motion picture."
"Traitor," Sebastian mutters, but not vindictively.
Kurt smiles. "You're probably right. But my point is, we don't have to do this forever."
"Really?" Sebastian inches closer to Kurt, his eyes flicking over Kurt's lips in that same way Blaine has done so many times before. "And what do you think I should do?"
"Start over," Kurt suggests. "Make a life that's your own. One you can be proud of."
"A-ha," Sebastian scoffs. "And how do you recommend I do that?"
"You can start by telling your dad how you feel." Kurt slides away when he notices how close Sebastian's face has come to his. Sebastian slumps back, his expression changing to that mask of condescension he wears so easily.
"You're such a simpleton, Hummel," Sebastian spits in Kurt's face. "Such a Goddamned simpleton." He swings his feet off the edge of the bed, pushing himself upright, and lets the wet cloth on his forehead fall to the floor. He sways unsteadily, grabbing onto the bedpost for stability. "Such a simpleton … and that's why you're never going to be famous."
Sebastian's drunken muttering gets interrupted by a crash of bottles breaking and cursing from downstairs.
Kurt gets up, too, and stares Sebastian square in the face. "Maybe I am a simpleton, but I'm a simpleton who's going to get out of here and never look back. Unless you want to die here, you need to grab your chance … before it's too late."
Sebastian stares Kurt down, thinking of some vicious remark, some comment so crippling it will cut Kurt down for good. But he gives up instead, turns his head toward the window with a forlorn expression on his face. "I'll pass."
Kurt blows by Sebastian with a force that shoves him back down onto the bed.
"Coward."
He breezes straight through Blaine's body and marches down the stairs. Blaine waits a moment before he follows, watching Sebastian curl in on himself on Kurt's bed. He grabs one of Kurt's pillows and pulls it against his chest, burying his head into it and breathing in deep. Then, in the new silence, Sebastian begins to cry.
Blaine backs out of the room, his eyes holding on to the image of a broken Sebastian, of what he can see of the boy's face as he sobs. It spears Blaine straight to his soul.
He knows how Sebastian feels.
The room, with its lantern still lit, begins to darken in his mind, and he knows he's no longer supposed to be here. He turns and makes his way down the stairs to watch the scene already in progress - Kurt helping another drunk man off the floor, rolling his eyes as if to say, "Great. Another melodramatic idiot."
"It's over," the older man moans, sounding remarkably like his son upstairs. "Done. All done. The last nail has been hammered into the coffin. Our lives are over!"
"What is it?" Kurt asks, setting the man on his feet. "What's done?" Andrew tries to walk. He barely takes a step before he falls forward. Kurt rushes to intercept the man before he lands on his face.
"Vaudeville," Andrew says. "Vaudeville's dead."
Stunned, Kurt almost drops him. "What!? It can't be!"
"Well, it is, son." Andrew leans on Kurt as he makes his way to his chair. "It's all these new fangled talkies. They did it. They killed us, boy."
A cloud of guilt crosses Kurt's face over his thoughts of wanting to break into movies, but it passes. Kurt kneels at Andrew's feet.
"What are you going to do now?" he asks. If Andrew notices that Kurt says you instead of we, he doesn't show it.
"I don't know, my boy." Andrew puts a hand on Kurt's and pats it gently. "I just don't know."
Kurt looks into the fireplace, watches the flames he'd lit dance over the logs they're consuming.
"You know," he starts out, and Blaine gets a distinct feeling of déjà vu. This is how the conversation upstairs with Sebastian started out. Blaine is beginning to see a picture of a young boy who tried so hard to keep this disjointed family together, "I hear that some of those motion picture studios are filming Vaudeville acts …" Kurt pauses, gauging Andrew's reaction. The man doesn't seem to be listening. For a second, Blaine thinks he might have fallen asleep. But then his head pops up and he stares at Kurt with an incredulous look on his face.
"If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, that's … that's blasphemy!" he yells, sweeping an arm and knocking over an end table, sending books and papers sliding over the floor. "How can we join their ranks when they've destroyed our livelihood?"
Blaine catches sight of one black book – a journal. It spins as it travels underneath the chair, but Blaine can see the first three numbers: 193-.
"If this is the way things are headed," Kurt says carefully, "maybe we should go with the flow."
Andrew shakes his head, covering his eyes with his hand.
"Mr. Smythe, these movies that they're making … they're going to be around for ages," Kurt explains. "You will be remembered long after we're all gone. People will be watching your act for generations to come. They'll be able to tell their children and their grandchildren about the great Andrew Smythe."
Andrew sighs but he doesn't speak, considering Kurt's words.
Or saddened by them.
"No, no. It wouldn't work," he decides. "I can't do anything else. I've lived on greasepaint and sawdust my entire life. It's all I know. I'm a creature of habit, Kurt, and this dog's too old to learn any new tricks."
Kurt nods, jaw clenched tight.
When he opens his mouth to speak, Blaine is sure it's to tell Andrew that he's leaving.
And perhaps it was, but he has second thoughts.
"Why don't I go make us some tea? Sober you up a bit. Lord knows your son could use some sobering up, too …" Kurt slips his hand from beneath Andrew's and stands.
"All right," Andrew says softly. "If you think that's best." Blaine can't help noticing that the man's eyes look awfully clear as they follow Kurt's footsteps, watch him disappear into the kitchen.
Blaine wants to join Kurt, but he has a strong feeling there's something here that he needs to see.
Andrew gets up from his chair rather steadily and starts cleaning up the overturned table. There are pictures and letters all over the floor. Blaine comes up behind the man and watches him sort through them. Andrew picks through the letters first and Blaine reads the first few lines of each one – foreclosure notices from the bank, repo letters for everything from his car to their furniture, a hock slip for his wedding ring, a bank statement with more negative signs than numbers.
Andrew was so far in debt there seemed to be no way for him to dig himself out.
After those, there were letters written to Andrew from Kurt's dad asking, "How has my son been? When will I hear from you? Here is the money you requested. Please let me know when my son gets over his illness. I'm sorry the doctor's bills are so high but I'll send you anything I can."
Blaine's skin begins to crawl as he reads Kurt's father's pleas over and over.
Andrew Smythe, the detestable asshole he was, had been scamming Kurt's dad for money.
Blaine's hands clench at his sides, his eyes burning with hate. Just when Blaine's loathing of Andrew couldn't get any stronger, couldn't run any deeper, the final letter shatters every ideal Kurt has built up in him that Andrew might be any shred of a decent human being.
It's a letter from Stanford University.
Dear Andrew Smythe:
Congratulations! We would like to extend an offer of early admission to your son, Sebastian Smythe, to our university for the upcoming spring semester!
Andrew gathers the letters together and wrings them in his hands, throttling them and then tossing them into the fireplace.
"You bastard!" Blaine breathes, hands shaking as he looks down at the hunched over man. "You evil, good-for-nothing, son-of-a …!"
A kettle whistling splits the air. Andrew's head pops up toward the kitchen to see if Kurt is coming with his tea. When he doesn't appear, Andrew picks up a poker and stabs at the mash of burnt paper, pushing it deeper into the flames, upsetting the logs so that the top one teeters in its attempt to hide the evidence. Both Andrew and Blaine turn their heads at the sound of footsteps, but they bypass the living room and fade up the staircase.
Blaine figures Kurt probably brought a cup of tea to Sebastian first to make sure he was okay.
Andrew has the same idea.
He gathers up the photographs next. He looks through them quickly, photo after photo of Sebastian and Kurt from years past – playing ball in the yard, performing on stage, swimming in a pond, walking down the street hand-in-hand. He reaches beneath the chair and grabs his journal. He opens the book to the middle, sticks the photos in the spine, and places the book back on the table by the fire.
"My family," he says, sitting in his chair. "No one is going to split up my family. Not even you, Sebastian. You're not leaving and taking my Kurt with you. I won't let you."
Blaine hears a thud from above them. Andrew's eyes shut, entirely unconcerned about the goings on above his head.
Moments later, he's fast asleep.
Blaine can't look at him. He can't look at the man who is so intent on living out his own dying dream that he's willing to destroy the lives of his son and the boy he's sworn to take care of, and can still sleep soundly.
There's only one place Blaine wants to be right now, one person he wants to be with, even if that person is a memory.
Blaine hurries up the staircase to Kurt's room. He hears another thud before he gets there. He peeks his head in and sees Kurt pulling off Sebastian's socks after having taken off his shoes. After the socks, he moves up to Sebastian's neck, loosening his tie.
Sebastian's eyes open, his hands lifting to hold Kurt's wrists. Kurt ignores him and continues with the necktie.
"Run away with me," Sebastian whispers. "We'll go to Hollywood, or New York, or anywhere you want. Let's just … let's just be together …" With eyes fixed on Kurt's face, he rolls his head slightly and places a kiss on Kurt's hand. Kurt sighs, stopping with the ends of Sebastian's tie in his hands.
"I love you, Sebastian," Kurt says. "I do but … not the way you love me. I'm sorry."
Sebastian's eyelids close and his head falls to the side, a single tear slipping down his cheek.
"Oh, Seb …" Kurt lies down beside the boy on the bed, the tea forgotten. He presses his forehead to Sebastian's and closes his eyes. "What am I supposed to do with you?"
Blaine watches a tear roll down Kurt's cheek, a match to Sebastian's, which has already dried into his skin. Blaine begins to see. This is where Kurt's guilt comes from. This is why he feels so obligated to Sebastian.
Sebastian loved Kurt. Kurt didn't love him back.
Blaine doesn't know how long he spends staring at the two before he smells smoke rising up the staircase. He turns in the doorway and sees it billow higher and higher. He hears a sniff as the smell registers with Kurt, too, and he sits up in bed. He climbs over the edge and heads for the staircase with Blaine close behind.
"Mr. Smythe?" Kurt calls down, coughing as the smoke finally hits him. "Mr. … Mr. Smythe?" Kurt covers his nose and mouth with his arm and makes his way down the stairs.
The living room is almost entirely engulfed in flames.
"Mr. Smythe!" Kurt finds the man passed out in his chair. A single lit log sits on the floor not too far from his feet, the fire spreading quickly as it eats its way over the hardwood floor.
"Sebastian!" Kurt yells as he rushes into the living room, hopping around patches of fire. "Sebastian, wake up!"
Kurt gathers Andrew up under his arm and lifts him to his feet, dragging him through the living room and out the front door as if the old man weighs nothing.
Blaine doesn't consciously follow them but in the blink of an eye he's outside. Kurt lays Andrew down on the ground, the older man coughing up a mouthful of spit and ash.
Kurt looks around them in the dark, desperate for any sign of Sebastian.
"Mr. Smythe! Mr. Smythe, I don't see Sebastian! I don't think he got out!" Kurt looks back as the old Victorian surrenders to the fire. His heart races. The windows to the upstairs bedrooms are the only ones not aglow with orange flame. If Sebastian is upstairs, he might still be okay. But he's running out of time. "You stay here! I'm going to go get him!"
Kurt prepares to run but Andrew reaches out a hand and grabs him. Kurt looks into the man's soot-stained face as he shakes his head.
"Leave … leave him," he says, his raspy voice competing with the fire to be heard.
"What!?" Kurt's eyes go wide. "No! We … we can't leave him! He's your son!"
"No. You're my son, Kurt. You always have been."
Kurt stares at Andrew, stunned by the man's insanity. "No, I'm not," he says sternly.
"You've been a far better son than …" Andrew stops there, clears his throat. "Let him go, Kurt. Let him go the way his mother did, and then maybe they can be together … and Sebastian will finally be happy."
"No!" Kurt tears his arm from Andrew's grasp and runs back into the house with cries of, "Leave him, Kurt!" echoing behind him. Blaine races after him. The heat from the fire assaults his skin, the flames blind him. Every solid object in the house has been reduced to waves of black without definition or color. He hears a scream – Kurt's voice calling out Sebastian's name through coughs and pleas of Please, get up! Please, Sebastian! I can't carry you!
"I'm coming!" Blaine yells into the fire even as flames keep him backed into the doorway. "Kurt! I'm coming! Just … hold on!"
I'll go with you, Sebastian! I'll go to New York with you! I promise, just please … get up … I … I can't … brea-
Blaine hears a crack, like the break in a massive tree during a harsh storm. It's loud enough to make his ears ring. The ceiling gives way, and what was once the second floor falls with a tremendous crash down to the first, beams and supports blockading the doorway, sealing the boys inside.
Sirens fill the air, the roar of fire engines racing down the street towards them.
Fire engines that will never reach them in time.
"Kurt!" Blaine hears Andrew yell in a panic. "Kurt! No!"
As the image dissolves and the heat from the fire fades, it's not Andrew's voice Blaine hears calling out Kurt's name anymore. It's his own voice - his mouth dry, his throat burning. After a second of silence, another voice joins his.
"Blaine?" The voice sounds foggy and far away. Blaine wants to get to it, to hold it, to belong to it. He runs toward it in his mind. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. "Blaine?" A hand shakes his shoulder. "Wake up, sweetie. Wake up."
Blaine can't make his eyes open, and in his mind, he's running in the dark.
"Blaine, I need you to wake up."
Blaine reaches for the hand on his shoulder and closes his fingers around it. Touching it forces new images to flood his mind:
Kurt lying in the cellar, broken in a hundred irreparable pieces.
Kurt dressed in a fine suit with sorrow-filled eyes.
Kurt sighing with his head stuck out the window of Blaine's car.
Kurt lying in the sun, his porcelain skin glowing with soft, golden light.
Kurt pressing cool lips against Blaine's skin.
"Wake up," Kurt whispers.
Blaine's eyes fly open and he's staring at Kurt – puppet Kurt.
"Blaine?" Kurt puts a hand behind Blaine's head and strokes his hair. "What's wrong?"
Blaine can't speak, his heart pounding so hard he feels physically ill. The blankets on his side of the bed have been shoved off his body and his skin is covered in sweat. And even though he's in his own room, surrounded by four unburnt walls, his sinuses reek of wood smoke every time he breathes in.
"You died … you died in a fire," Blaine pants, his voice raw.
Kurt flinches, but he doesn't move away. "Yes," Kurt says calmly. "Yes, I did."
Blaine's heart races so fast his whole body feels ready to explode. "Do you remember?"
"I sort of do. Not entirely. It was a notion … or a nightmare. But now that you say it out loud like that, I know it's true."
A sea of revelations flood Blaine's brain.
"You saved Andrew's life. You tried to save Sebastian's."
Kurt's lips twitch as they attempt to smile. "I tried. I really did try. But the fire spread so fast, we got caught up in it."
Blaine watches Kurt relive the memory in his mind and curses to himself. Without intending to, he invaded Kurt's privacy. It was like he read Kurt's diary, only worse. He was there, he saw it all – he didn't have the right.
"I'm sorry." Blaine shivers as the sweat cools on his skin and his heartbeat slows to a normal pace. "I didn't mean to. It just … happens."
"No …" Kurt reaches for the blanket and drags it up over Blaine's body, tucks it in around him. "It saves me trying to find the words to tell you …"
"... that Sebastian loves you?" The words slip out before Blaine can stop them. Kurt keeps tucking, pushing gently on Blaine's shoulders to lay him back down.
"Yes," Kurt says, "but I didn't love him. Not that way." Kurt cards his fingers through Blaine's curls, pulling tangles loose while Blaine thinks back on everything he saw, the tragedy of Kurt's life ending before his eyes.
"What does it feel like to die?"
"I don't really remember. The feeling of dying, I mean. That moment when you go from being to not being anymore." Kurt pauses. "I remember being scared, knowing I was going to die. But then I wasn't scared anymore. I guess at that point I was gone and nothing else mattered. I remember being apart from my body, moving away to something bright and glorious. I could feel it at my back, and as much as I wanted to go to it, I couldn't. There were too many people I needed to see. Too many people I wanted to take care of."
"Andrew?" The name leaves a bitter taste on Blaine's tongue.
"Yes." Kurt winds an arm around Blaine's waist. Blaine scoots forward, and Kurt snakes another arm beneath Blaine's neck. "And my dad. He came to the funeral. I saw him there. He looked so lost. I wanted to go to him, to apologize, to tell him I should never have left him, but the funny thing was, I knew he would be fine. Sebastian's dad … he blamed himself so much for what happened to us. I couldn't leave him. Despite everything, he took care of us."
Blaine thinks over the memory of that night, of everything that happened while Kurt was upstairs talking to Sebastian.
"How did you know about the letters?" Blaine yawns, leans his head into Kurt's chest. "From your dad, from Stanford …"
"Sebastian's dad told me." Kurt runs his fingers up Blaine's back. "When he was putting me … putting this puppet body together. And when he performed the spell, we shared some of his memories. All spells have a price, and this one … it forces you to confess your deepest secrets. We saw everything, heard everything. That's how we found out."
And without meaning to, Blaine's heart splinters … for Sebastian.
The room goes still. Kurt waits for Blaine to say something, ask another question.
Several minutes pass and still nothing.
"Blaine?" Kurt looks into the face of the boy in his arms. His eyes had fluttered shut a while ago. He breathes in deep, relaxed, asleep but not completely at peace. Kurt rests his cheek atop Blaine's head, in the nest of his curly hair. What he wouldn't give to feel Blaine's hair tickling his cheek, or to smell his shampoo. Blaine makes a small noise and moves in closer, and Kurt shakes any thoughts of self-pity from his head. He has too much to look forward to in this new life to spend time lingering on his regrets. He presses a kiss to the top of Blaine's head and lets himself fall into that place that's not exactly awake for him, not exactly asleep, but lets him ponder the possibilities of this new life, this new world, this new boy.
This new chance for love.