This is a long, meaty chapter from Kurt's POV again, in which Brittany tells Kurt what to do to bring Blaine back - and then he does :-) Enjoy!
As always, a heartfelt thank you to my beloved beta hkvoyage and the artist who made the glorious cover art for this story, cc-graphics.
Chapter 5: Making the Puzzle CompleteAfter school, Kurt followed Brittany to her house and said no when she offered to make out with him. "You're with Santana now, Britt. And I'm gay, remember?"
Brittany shrugged. "You have the softest lips of any boy I've ever kissed, and you're a really good kisser, too."
Kurt smiled at her. "Thanks, I guess."
Brittany led him into her bedroom, plopped onto her bed and patted the space next to her until Kurt sat down there. She started up her laptop, while blathering on about Lord Tubbington and how he was a mafia boss now, trafficking drugs, and she was really scared he'd end up shot one day.
The website loaded, and Kurt blinked a little at the overload of colour and the shimmering letters.
"We need the erasing potion," Brittany mused. "Where is it? Oh, got it!"
The new page she took him to was purple, and the letters were gold. Kurt had to squint to make sense of what he was reading. It was straightforward enough, though: the promised effect of the potion was to make a person disappear. No traces of them would be left on earth if after the person had drunk the potion, their essence was destroyed by vacuuming it up.
The sales pitch sounded very matter-of-fact and cheery, but it made Kurt shudder and feel queasy. How could someone just wish another person away? Want to erase their existence? Who had done that to Blaine?
"That's what happens when you use the potion correctly," Brittany said. "But your true love isn't really gone, so I guess we'd better look at the page about bringing back people that got erased by accident."
"By accident," Kurt repeated, rolling his eyes.
Brittany hummed in assent, still smiling happily, and clicked on the right page. "So if you want to bring back an erased person, you have to capture their essence. Store it in objects that meant something to them. Like… A picture of their girlfriend. A trophy they've won. Their favourite video game. And then you wait for their true love to turn up and collect all those objects to make the puzzle complete and bring the person back to life.
Kurt frowned. "You mean… Blaine is IN all of those items? Part of him?"
Brittany nodded. "Yep. I guess you have one of them with you, or Blaine wouldn't be able to follow you around like this."
Kurt's hand flew to his throat. "The bow tie, I guess. I think it used to be Blaine's. I… I saw him wearing it. I get these… flashes. I see him. The past him. Touching those items seems to trigger memories of him."
Brittany beamed. "That's good! Now all you have to do is make sure you find all the objects, bring them all together, and then there's a ritual you have to complete."
"A ritual?" Kurt's voice went up a few octaves.
"Don't worry, you won't have to kill a chicken," Brittany reassured him.
Kurt's eyes widened. "That… That makes me feel loads better."
Brittany gave him a radiant smile. "What you have to do is prove that Blaine is wanted. That he belongs here on earth. With you."
"Well, of course he does," Kurt said. "But how do I prove it?"
"You find a way to make all those objects that have a bit of Blaine in them mean something for the both of you. Blaine lost his life by drinking the potion, so the only way he can come back is if you share your life with him."
Kurt blinked. "So if I bring him back, we're both going to die young because I've given him half of my life?"
Brittany laughed. "No, no, that's not how it works. Your life span won't change. It's just that Blaine will be with you for the rest of your days. His life will be tied to yours. He can't live without you."
"So when I die he does, too?" Kurt asked.
"Yep. But it's more than that. You can't break up with him, either. If you bring him back, he'll depend on you and your bond with him. If you cheat on him or fall in love with someone else, Blaine will disappear again, and it will be for good. He'll be lost forever."
"Huh," Kurt said. "So basically, it's like being married. 'Till death do us part and all that?"
Brittany beamed. "Exactly!"
"Right. No pressure, then."
Kurt got up from the bed and paced the floor, thinking hard. He did feel a connection with Blaine. He obviously had an eye for fashion, he was as much of a Harry Potter nerd as Kurt himself, he'd struggled with coming out just as much as Kurt had, and he was funny and intelligent and musical. But was that enough for Kurt to tie himself to Blaine for the rest of his life?
A snide voice in the back of his head sniggered. Like you have so many other options… Cute boys queuing around the block for you, huh?
There was that, yes. The only boy who'd shown any interest in Kurt so far was a closeted jock that kept bullying him. But in little over a year, Kurt would be leaving Ohio. He had plans. Big ones. He was going to New York, and there, he would find gay guys aplenty. Was he going to give that all up for a boy that would only stick around because Kurt was his only option? Was it even fair on Blaine to bind him to Kurt that way? The choice was all up to Kurt. Blaine wasn't able to say no. Or was he?
"Britt, is Blaine with me right now?" Kurt asked.
Brittany, who had been petting Lord Tubbington, looked up. "Hmm? Oh… Yes. Yes, he is. He's looking a bit scared."
A wave of protectiveness slammed through Kurt. Did Blaine think Kurt would reject him? That Kurt didn't want him? No, no, no! He had to talk to Blaine. He had to explain.
"Okay. So. Blaine." Kurt looked around, and then huffed in frustration. "Ugh, this is weird. All right. Blaine, would you be okay with me finding all those items and bringing you back? You've heard Brittany. It would mean that you're stuck with me forever."
Brittany giggled and clapped her hands in glee. "He says yes! And he looks so happy!"
Kurt nodded and swallowed, his throat suddenly bone-dry and his palms sweaty. "In that case, I should warn you that I'm very stubborn. And judgmental. And I have a moisturising routine that takes over half an hour every night. And I have body issues. You haven't been watching me undress at night, have you?"
Brittany happily supplied Blaine's answer. "No, he hasn't."
"I've never… I've never had a boyfriend," Kurt continued.
"He's only been with me," Brittany added. "You're lucky, he's a very good kisser."
"And to be honest, this whole 'true love' thing and lifetime commitment scares the hell out of me," Kurt went on. "I mean, I'm not even seventeen yet. I'm still in high school. I've never so much as kissed a boy. And now I'm supposed to promise myself to you for life? How can we make that work? High school romances never last. But if we don't last, you disappear. That's… That's just…"
And then, he felt Blaine. He felt Blaine envelop him with reassurance and trust and affection, and he let out a shaky breath. "Thanks. I needed that. So, you're saying we can do this? All right, then. Better get home and look for those other items."
K&B
Though Carole wondered why her stepson was devoting his evenings to cleaning their new house from top to bottom that week, she knew better than to mention it. The first night, the thorough cleaning only seemed to frustrate Kurt, and he grumbled under his breath when Burt told him to go to bed.
The following evenings, Kurt was happier. He walked around the house with a skip in his step, humming, and he didn't sound mutinous when Burt went upstairs to knock on his door and tell him it was bedtime.
On Wednesday, Burt was frowning when he came back to the living room, though.
"What's wrong?" Carole asked.
"Kurt found a guitar in the attic."
"Oh…"
"He's all pleased about it, but I think we should contact Pam and see if she wants it back. It looks expensive."
"Right. Want me to call her?"
"Please."
Carole smiled at her husband, pecked him on the cheek and went looking for her handbag, rummaging in it until she found her phone and Pam's card.
Burt ran a hand over his head and sighed. "Kurt's not gonna like it if Pam wants it back."
"Let's not borrow trouble, honey. Let's see what she says first."
Pam picked up the phone after the first ring, and seemed pleased to hear from Carole, wanting to know if they were settling in all right and if the gardener had come at the agreed upon time and had done his work well. It took a full five minutes before Carole could get a word in edgewise, but eventually, she managed to tell Pam about the guitar. "We've found a few other things lying around, but those were small things – candy in the tree house, and a magnet, I think, and a book, but Burt thought the guitar was valuable, so if you'd like it back, you can come pick it up."
"Aww, it's nice of you to tell me, but actually, that guitar was Blaine's. My youngest son. He was the only one in the family who played the guitar, and now he's gone, so it's really no use to any of us. Are any of your children musical?"
Carole laughed. "Yes, both of them, though Finn is more of a drummer, and Kurt a singer. But Kurt seemed happy with the guitar. He's the one who found it."
"Well, then, by all means, let him keep it. I still have Blaine's guitar lesson books somewhere. I could drop them off tomorrow afternoon if you're at home?"
The next day, Carole and Pam had tea together, talking about their children, about Carole's first husband and about Pam's divorce.
When the front door slammed, Carole automatically called out, "Finn, don't slam the door. And take your shoes off. And hang up your coat."
Finn came into the kitchen, closely followed by Kurt. "Hey, Mom, I'm starving! Can I have… Oh! Hey…"
"Hello, Finn," said Pam. "Hello, Kurt. I hear you found Blaine's guitar yesterday?"
Kurt shot an accusatory look at Carole.
"I brought you the lesson books Blaine used when he just started out playing," Pam continued.
"Oh… That's… Thank you!"
"You're very welcome, sweetie, it's not like they're any use to me."
Pam helped herself to another cookie. "I love these. Tastes very much like my own recipe, but the peanuts and the chocolate chips you've added give it a nice crunch."
"Thank you," Kurt said. "I like tinkering with recipes."
"Blaine would have loved these," Pam sighed.
K&B
Kurt let out a happy sigh as he sat down at his desk after fetching his scrapbook and materials. Brittany had told him to carve out a space for Blaine in his life, and to use the found objects to forge a connection between him and Blaine. He'd been thinking long and hard about it, and he'd started with the cookie tin, trying out different peanut butter cookie recipes until he found the one he liked best.
He'd filled the tin telling Blaine, "I promise to bake you your favourite cookies as often as you'd like me to, though you may have to fight Finn for them."
Kurt still couldn't see Blaine, but he'd felt his gratitude and longing, and he'd giggled. "Yep, I know, they're not much use to you while you're a ghost, but I'm working on that."
The costume he'd found high up in his closet had been easy for Kurt to sort out, too. It looked like a superhero costume, so Kurt had consulted Sam at school and had been sewing a costume of his own.
"When you're back, you can join Sam's superhero club," Kurt had told Blaine. "And I can join too, if you want me to."
The excitement that had come his way then had nearly knocked Kurt over, so he guessed Blaine liked that idea.
Likewise, Kurt had sketched and then sewn a bow tie similar to Blaine's favourite, but with the colours flipped. The fabric was silver, and Kurt had embroidered black stars on it.
"You get to pick," Kurt had promised. "One of them will be yours, and one of them will be mine. They belong together, like we do. Yin and yang."
Blaine had reacted strongly to that, too. Affection had curled around Kurt like a hug.
Kurt had read and re-read the diary dozens of times to figure out what he was supposed to do about that item, and finally, it had come to him as he was chuckling at a bucket list a young Blaine had compiled. The sky had certainly NOT been the limit for Blaine, who'd listed that he wanted to be the first human on Mars, that he wanted to meet at least one alien race and that he wanted to discover a new planet or star.
"Well, I think this is a bit too ambitious, but I could make us a new bucket list, of all the things I want to do with you."
And then Kurt had heard how that sounded and blushed furiously. "Uhm… I… I didn't mean it like that… I meant… Just… Fun activities, like baking together, or going shopping. Or going to see a play. Visiting New York. You like New York, right? It's my dream city. I want to live there when I'm older."
Blaine seemed to find Kurt's rambling explanation amusing, but made sure to send him a reassuring vibe as well.
Scouring the house from top to bottom, Kurt had found over half a dozen photographs of Blaine, so he'd started a new scrapbook, using childhood photos of himself as well. The scrapbook showed Kurt and Blaine growing up. The first two pages held baby photos, after that came the toddler stage and the kindergarten pics, all the way up to middle school. The photos of Blaine stopped there, but Kurt, undeterred, had added his own high school pictures and then drawn a portrait of Blaine as he imagined the boy would look like now on the page next to them.
The rest of the scrapbook was mapping out their future – Kurt had sketched prom tuxes and boutonnières, drawn the both of them in graduation gowns, then glued in pictures of apartments in New York and places to visit, like the Gapstow Bridge. That was where he'd gotten so far.
Next up is us getting our degrees and finding a job we love. What would we do for a job?
Kurt found himself unconsciously doodling dresses, and stopped for a moment, smiling at the designs, and then adding a sketch of himself right smack in the middle, pins in his mouth and a tape measure around his neck. Okay, that was him sorted out. What about Blaine? Something with music…
A vision of Blaine playing a grand piano flashed through Kurt's mind, and he pictured him as a concert pianist, his hand already drawing the outlines of the piano. Yet, instead of drawing Blaine behind the piano, Kurt absent-mindedly sketched him dancing and singing as he'd seen him do in the video Finn had found when he'd knocked everything off the hat shelf in the hallway. Yes, Blaine would be a performer, one way or another. That suited him.
Kurt's eye fell on the guitar lesson books Pam had given him, and sighed. All right, that had been enough scrapbooking for the day. He needed to teach himself how to play the guitar, and find a fitting song to serenade Blaine with. He'd tried copying what he saw on YouTube, but found it difficult. And the strings hurt his fingers, ouch! But he had to make this work. He had to prove to Blaine that he welcomed every aspect of him, even if it wasn't Kurt's thing at all.
"As soon as you're back, you can take over the guitar playing," Kurt said to Blaine. "And we can sing together. I'd love to duet with you. But for now, it's me that will have to do it. I'll sing to you in glee club. I'll find a way to make the song fit into the assignment of the week."
He looked at his desk, piled with all the hidden treasures he'd unearthed, and chewed on his lower lip. The only items left to figure out were the magnet and the Harry Potter book. But what could he do with those?
Kurt took the magnet in his hands and flipped it absent-mindedly, over and over. A heart for Mother's Day. He could go to the cemetery and leave it on his mother's grave, but that wouldn't really prove his connection with Blaine. No. The shape was right, but the message on it was all wrong. Could he maybe change it?
"Blaine? Would you mind terribly if I repainted the magnet?"
Kurt took a sticky note and doodled a heart on it, and wrote K + B inside.
"Like this? Would that be okay? Yes, I know, I'm cheesy sometimes."
Kurt didn't feel any objection from Blaine's part, so the next afternoon, he repainted the magnet and stuck it back onto the fridge.
Burt raised an eyebrow when he saw the revamped magnet. "Something you want to tell me, kiddo?"
Kurt grinned at him. "Nope."
"You sure, bud? 'Cause if you have a boyfriend, you know I want to meet him, right?"
Kurt rolled his eyes. "I'm the only out guy at school, Dad."
"You could have met him on the internet. Or at the Lima Bean. Or at the mall, where you spend all my money."
"Mm-hm… No. Tell you what, Dad. As soon as I have a boyfriend, you'll be the first to know. All right?"
Kurt curled up on the sofa with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, happily losing himself in the story. When he'd read it cover to cover, though, he still didn't have a clue what he could do to make this book significant for Blaine and himself.
He sulked all the way through his night-time moisturising regime, and got into bed still thinking hard. He tossed and turned, but couldn't fall asleep. Bits and pieces of the story and his thoughts about them were going through his mind randomly.
Too bad those Time-Turners don't exist for real… I'd go back in time and save Blaine…
And then Kurt sat up, his eyes shining, because no, he couldn't do it in real life, but he COULD write the story. A self-insert fanfic. Would that work?
It took Kurt several weeks, but his Harry Potter fanfic finally took shape, and he really threw himself into it, describing everything he'd want to do if he'd end up at Hogwarts somehow, and his romance with Blaine, though they were in rivalling houses, and then Kurt saving Blaine heroically from a fate worse than death.
As he was writing the epilogue, Kurt sighed, "I really hope this will work. Oh, hang on… Blaine, tell me… I did find everything, didn't I? This was the last item to figure out, right?"
Blaine's excitement and happiness slammed into Kurt with so much force he almost fell over.
"I'll take that as a yes. I'm nearly done, sweetie, and then I'll read it to you."
Reading out the whole story to Blaine took Kurt a few more nights, but when at last he reached the end, he heard clapping. He snapped his head up, and yes, there was Blaine, bouncing on the balls of his feet, beaming through his tears and looking at Kurt with such heart-eyes that Kurt instantly felt a lot more certain about this whole undertaking.
"It worked!" Kurt breathed, afraid to move or blink for fear that Blaine would disappear again.
"Yes," Blaine smiled. "I'm visible again."
And then Kurt suddenly had an armful of Blaine, who was hugging him tightly and whispering "Thank you!" over and over.
As a rule, Kurt didn't take kindly to having his personal space invaded, and certainly not by strangers, but though he stiffened for a moment, he didn't push Blaine away. He forced himself to relax, and tentatively put his arms around Blaine.
It still felt so surreal. One moment, he'd been all alone, reading out loud to an imaginary friend of his, and the next, Blaine had been there. He was real. He was alive. And he was Kurt's. Bound to him now, for all eternity. An instant boyfriend.
How did you meet Blaine? Oh, I just dreamed him up…
A giggle escaped him, and he buried his nose in Blaine's curls and just inhaled deeply to centre himself and calm down. Blaine smelled and felt divine, his head fitting in the crook of Kurt's neck just right, as if he was made for it.
Kurt felt something warm trickle down his neck, and he drew back to see Blaine crying.
"Blaine, sweetie, are you okay? I know you didn't have much of a choice in this, and I know I'm far from perfect, but I did ask you…"
"No, no, I'm not sad. They're happy tears. I'm just… So glad to be back. And you are perfect. To me you are. I'm over the moon that it's you I get to spend my life with."
Blaine's expression was so earnest and admiring that Kurt's heart skipped a beat.
And then Kurt noticed the time, and he yelped. "It's three in the morning! We need to sleep! It's a school day tomorrow."
Blaine shuffled with his feet, dropping his eyes to the floor. "Oh… Uhm…"
"I'll lend you some pyjamas and a toothbrush, and you can kip with me, just this once. Oh, unless your parents don't want you back? I'm sure I can convince Dad to let you stay. We've had other friends stay with us. Sam has lived at our place for months, because his parents were working out of state."
"No, no… It was only my father who wanted me gone. My mom and Cooper want me back all right. That's why they hid my stuff for you to find."
Five minutes later, they were in Kurt's bed, and Kurt was expecting not to get a wink of sleep, but he was out in seconds.
He woke up to a loud throat clearing.
Kurt blinked an eye open and saw his dad in the door opening, glaring at him. "Get dressed and come to the kitchen, please."
Kurt nodded, groggy with lack of sleep.
Why is Dad so angry?
And then the blanket on top of him moved and let out a pleased hum, and Kurt's eyes widened.
Blaine! Oh… That's why.