Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/436383.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Glee
  Relationship:
      Blaine_Anderson/Kurt_Hummel
  Character:
      Kurt_Hummel, Blaine_Anderson, Brittany_S._Pierce, Blaine's_Father
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Historical, Alternate_Universe_-_World_War_II,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Book/Movie_Fusion
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-10-29 Updated: 2011-12-04 Chapters: 3/4 Words: 18165
****** Thirteen ******
by daltoned
Summary
     Kurt is sent away to Ealing to stay with his aunt for two weeks.
     Whilst there he discovers a temperamental clock and a disappearing
     garden—and a beautiful boy from the 1940s. (AU of "Tom's Midnight
     Garden" by Philippa Pearce.)
Notes
     Written for Dawn's birthday.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Kurt pressed his fingertips to the cool glass of the car window and sighed
heavily, staring out at the empty fields they were driving past. His iPod
playlist had long since stopped, but he kept one earphone in in the hopes that
it might dissuade conversation.
No such luck. "So, Kurt," his aunt Anne said cheerily, glancing in the rear-
view mirror at him, "what sort of things are you interested in, then?"
Kurt briefly debated ignoring her, pretending that he was listening to music
and couldn't hear her, but two weeks was going to be a terribly long time if he
made things awkward now. "Fashion," he replied, although he was sure to keep a
reluctant tone in his voice. "Music. Singing."
"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "You'll get on well with Lily, then."
Because Kurt was so interested in getting on with his aunt's girlfriend.
"Right." Kurt turned his eyes back to the window, watching in mild distaste as
they drove past a herd of cows. His thumb brushed back and forth over the
screen of his iPod, the rhythmic rasp soothing his frazzled emotions. Goddamn
Finn and his habit of catching contagious diseases—namely whooping cough—right
at the start of their summer break.
"I'm afraid there's not really much to do at the flat," Anne said, her tone
apologetic. "We can get you an oyster card, though, so I guess you can
entertain yourself around the city, if you like shopping."
Kurt smiled tightly at her, then returned his attention to the external
scenery, where they were just merging onto the M1.
Anne didn't seem to have picked up on his apathy, because she continued to
talk:
"I'm not saying that the flat isn't nice—it's lovely, don't get me wrong—but
there's not exactly a lot of space. We're looking into moving somewhere with a
garden, but the economic climate is hell at the moment, as I'm sure you know,
so it's really just not working out."
Again, Kurt considered ignoring her, but this time manners won out. "I'm sure
I'll be fine. It's only for two weeks, after all."
Anne gave him a nervous smile and then reached for the radio. "How about a
little music, eh?"
Kurt bit his lip as the dulcet sounds of Katy Perry blasted through the car. He
fumbled for his iPod and—not-so subtly—put his other earphone in as well.
This was going to be an interesting stay, he could tell.
--
The flat was situated in an old manor house, long converted into a block of
flats. The stone walls were grey and lifeless, the pillars either side of the
front door weather-worn. At the front were ten parking spaces—cramped and with
little space for turning, Kurt noted, as Anne carefully and somewhat awkwardly
manoeuvred the Ford Anglia into a spot close to the wall of the house. Kurt
winced at an unidentifiable scraping sound, and shot Anne a nervous look, which
she didn't seem to see.
"Here we go," she announced, still with that cheery tone in her voice. "Home,
sweet home."
"Yeah." Kurt gave her a dubious look. "It looks...nice."
"It's better inside, just you wait and see." She opened the driver's door,
pushing it until it rested against the side of the house, then squirmed out
through the tiny gap. Pulling open Kurt's door, she smiled sunnily. "It's a
good thing you're so skinny, or we might have a problem here."
We still might have, Kurt thought to himself, eyeing the bare six inches of
space he had to fit through. He pulled out his headphones, wrapping them around
his iPod and shoving it in his jacket pocket. Holding his breath and sucking in
his stomach, he wriggled through the gap, the door mechanisms digging
uncomfortably into his back.
Anne smiled again—and damn, that smile was really starting to unnerve Kurt—and
hurried around to the back of the car to open up the boot and grab Kurt's bags,
handing Kurt one before slamming the boot shut.
Kurt followed her through the front door, which squealed somewhat alarmingly,
and into a gloomy entrance hall. There was a dusty chandelier hanging from the
ceiling, a tangle of wires wrapping around it to the singular bare bulb
emitting its feeble light into the long hall. Kurt took a step forward and his
boots squeaked slightly on the checkerboard-style floor, the surface slippery
with dust and a fine layer of grime. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"The landlord doesn't like to get people in to take care of the house," Anne
explained, also looking slightly disgusted by the state of the entrance hall.
"He's a grumpy old so-and-so—keeps to himself, away at the top of the house.
I've only ever seen him twice. He's an odd fellow, but the rent's cheap and he
had no problem with Lily and I."
Kurt was starting to re-evaluate how interesting this stay might be. He hadn't
originally factored in filthy mansions and crazy landlords, to say the least.
A dull ticking was emanating down the hallway, a hollow echo that made
something clench uncomfortably in Kurt's chest. He paused, looking around.
"What's that?"
Anne waved a hand. "It's just the old grandfather clock. Ignore it; it's a
bloody loud thing but it never strikes the right hour."
As if to prove her words, a loud chiming started up; six strikes that left
Kurt's ears ringing. He checked his watch, the luminescent hands glowing in the
half-light, to see that it was approaching noon. "Why doesn't the landlord get
it fixed? Or get rid of it?" After all, it was the only item of furniture in
the hallway; everything else had clearly been stripped away, leaving rough
marks on the paintwork of the walls. He could see faint outlines of paintings
lining the walls, now that he looked closer.
"He's rather particular about his clock," Anne said. "It's screwed into the
wall, and the nails have rusted in, or I'm pretty sure he'd have it upstairs
with him." She took Kurt's arm, steering him through a side-door. Kurt only got
a glimpse of a shadowy clock down the end of the hall, next to a narrow door
with a rusted handle and peeling paint, before Anne was ushering him up a
narrow flight of stairs.
At the top of the stairs were two doors, small white cards with numbers and
names stapled on. "We're in 1B," Anne said, knocking on the left-hand door with
a sharp, precise knock. "Lily's in; she's just getting lunch sorted. Salad and
sandwiches okay with you?"
Kurt nodded, but was interrupted from answering by the door swinging open and a
small lady with a cloud of fluffy blonde hair grinning up at him. "You must be
Kurt!" she said, sounding delighted. "Anne's told me so much about you!"
Barely restraining himself from raising an eyebrow and giving the small woman
an incredulous look—already she reminded him of a yappy dog—and instead
stitched a polite smile on his face. "It's lovely to meet you," he said,
offering a hand, which she took and shook enthusiastically. Kurt winced
involuntarily at the death grip she gave him, and was somewhat relieved when
she let go in order to usher them in through the door.
Inside, the flat was small but cosy; the wooden floors were well-swept and all
the rooms brightly lit, a welcome contrast to the front hall and stairwell. The
kitchen doubled as the front hall, Kurt saw, with a large table dominating most
of the space. Anne dumped Kurt's bag on it, next to a well-stocked bowl of
fruit, and gave her girlfriend a hug and a peck on the cheek. "Lunch ready?"
"Just about," Lily chirped, scurrying back over to the worktop, where Kurt
could see three plates piled high with Caesar salad and sandwiches. "I didn't
know what you'd want in your sandwiches, Kurt, dear, so I thought you could put
whatever you liked in them." She gave him a brilliant smile, showing all of her
tiny, pearly-white teeth. Kurt blinked at her. "There's cheese and ham and
other stuff in the fridge, so do help yourself. What would you like to drink?"
Kurt awkwardly placed the bag he was holding on the table. "Um, water's fine,
thanks."
"Are you sure? That's terribly boring, dear—we have lemonade and coke and
juice, if you prefer." Lily gave him a concerned look, as if Kurt's preference
of water was something deeply disturbing to her.
Kurt frowned. "Water's fine, thanks," he repeated.
Lily didn't lose her worried expression, but she sighed and filled a glass all
the same. "Just take a seat, dear," she said. "Anne, darling, could you set the
table?"
Anne gave Kurt a small smile and moved to do as she was told, setting out
cutlery with a precision Kurt found somewhat unsettling. Kurt sat down,
painfully wishing for the warm familiarity and comfort of his own kitchen, with
him and Carole in the kitchen together whilst Finn and Burt watched TV out in
the living room. He looked around him, at the brightly lit surfaces and white
walls, and felt a wave of homesickness wash over him.
--
Kurt's room was small, but with a large window taking up most of one wall. Kurt
frowned upon seeing it. "Why are there bars across the window?"
Anne shrugged. "There were bars there when we moved in, and the landlord hasn't
given us permission to remove them."
Kurt carefully placed his bags on the bed, which was narrow and pushed against
the wall, a tartan rug covering the foot. "At least there won't be any burglary
attempts, although the neighbours may think that you're housing a juvenile
delinquent," he joked feebly.
Anne smiled slightly at the joke, but Kurt could see that his humour had fallen
flat. "The bathroom's the door next to yours, and don't hesitate to ask us if
you need anything, okay?"
Kurt nodded.
"We usually have breakfast around seven, but if you want to sleep in then
there's cereal in the cupboard over the sink." Anne gave Kurt a tight smile
before leaving the room, closing the door behind her with a quiet 'snick'.
Kurt sighed and perched on the edge of the bed. The sunlight fell through the
window, painting the floor with stripes. His pocket vibrated; he dug in it to
retrieve his phone, where he saw a text lighting up the display.
From: Finn
sry abt this dude. hope londons ok.
Kurt sighed again, and looked around the bedroom—at the pot of patchouli on the
side table, at the bars on the windows and the poky five-by-seven foot space.
To: Finn
yeah it's okay. get better soon. K xx
Second later, his phone lit up again—this time with a text from Mercedes.
From: Mercedes
finn says you're in london already. text me pics!! you'd better buy some nice
new outfits, white boy.
Kurt didn't bother responding to the text. He tossed his phone down on the
duvet and flopped back across the bed, his head pressed uncomfortably against
the wall. He was probably messing up his hair, but he couldn't be bothered to
care; it was hardly like he was going to be going out in public.
The distant chiming of the clock reverberated up through the house, confidently
striking eleven times. Kurt rolled his eyes; his watch read seven pm. That
clock was going to keep him up all night, he knew.
--
Sure enough, Kurt was still awake when his watch ticked over to one o'clock in
the morning. He lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and counted the strikes
of the grandfather clock: one, two, three, four...
He sighed to himself. What was wrong with striking once, like a normal clock
would?
...five, six, seven, eight...
The clock continued to strike, as if to show its defiance against Kurt's
derision.
...nine, ten, eleven, twelve--
Thirteen?
He frowned. Surely clocks couldn't strike thirteen, even as madly wrong as this
clock was? Had he miscounted? He must have done; the lack of sleep surely
getting to him. He shook his head and turned over, burying his face in his
pillow and trying to get rid of the ringing from his ears.
Yet the echo of the chimes stayed with him, an irritation bouncing around his
skull. The silence now seemed expectant, the entire house holding its breath
and the dark pressing in on Kurt, whispering the word 'thirteen'over and over
again. 'Thirteen, Kurt. Thirteen.'
Kurt growled in frustration, sitting up. Before, the clock may have struck the
wrong hour, but at least they had been real hours. There was no thirteenth
hour—it was either twelve or one, with no in-between. There was no thirteenth
hour on the clock face, either; the hands would be pointing to one, Kurt was
sure of it.
He lay down and pulled the duvet up over his head, squeezing his eyes shut and
trying to ignore the adrenaline suddenly coursing through his body. Thirteen.
"Fuck this," he said suddenly, sitting up again. "I'm going to go see what the
clock says." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his ankles poking out
long and bony beyond his too-short pyjama bottoms. He reached for the red
hoodie slung over the back of the chair at the end of the bed, pulling it over
his head and running his fingers through his hair automatically. He stuffed his
feet into his doc martens, internally mocking what a terrible outfit this must
all look. Pyjama bottoms, a designer hoodie and doc marten boots; a winning
combination, for sure.
Carefully, and as quietly as he could in his boots, he crept to the door of his
room and out into the kitchen, tip-toeing past Lily and Anne's room and to the
front door of the flat. He took a banana from the fruit-bowl to wedge the door
open after himself, before slipping out of the door and down the stairs.
The hall was even darker by night, the light-bulb now switched off, thereby
leaving the hall in almost utter blackness. Kurt could just about see the white
tips of his boots as he slowly walked down to the end of the hall, following
the noise of the ticking. He should have brought his phone for light, he
realised now; there was no way he would be able to see the clock face in this
oppressive darkness. Come to think of it, what was he doing trying to look at
the clock face anyway? He knew the time; he knew that it was just past one am.
Why did he need to see the clock face?
He shook his head, sudden irritation coursing through him—and slipped on the
dusty floor, falling to the ground with an 'oof', the impact driving all the
air from his lungs and jolting his very bones. He groaned, sitting still for a
moment. His head was spinning slightly, his back aching painfully. "Fuck," he
groaned. "I'm such an idiot, god."
Slowly, he got to his feet again, attempting to brush down his pyjama bottoms
in the black. He sighed, looking around him hopelessly. "And now I have no clue
where the door is. Great."
He started to inch his way towards where he assumed the nearest wall was, and,
when his hands came into contact with it, started to work his way in what he
hoped the direction of the door was, trying not to think about what spiders and
mites might be hiding on the walls he was currently running his fingers along,
or what state his clothes were most probably in right now.
"Aha!" he murmured, when he felt the ridge of a doorjamb under his fingertips.
He patted around, looking for the door handle. He wrapped his fingers around
it, twisting and tugging as once motion, and pulled it open to be faced with a
beautiful, moon-lit garden. He gaped for a moment, bewildered, and took a step
through it, his boots sinking into the soft, dewy grass. Hadn't Anne said that
there wasn't a garden? Or did she just mean that the garden didn't belong to
them?
Kurt took another step forward, glancing around in confused wonder. This garden
was akin to those one would find attached to some great mansion, not at the
back of a block of flats in Ely, in the middle of a rather crowded group of
houses. Kurt frowned; hadn't he seen just a concrete yard through his window,
facing onto a row of semi-detached houses? He turned around and looked up. Sure
enough, there were the two barred windows; his bedroom and the bathroom. The
house looked cleaner by night, as if the moonlight had cleansed it of its
London grime and general dilapidation.
About ten metres away from Kurt, across the expanse of lush grass, crouched a
greenhouse, the moonlight gleaming along the steel frame and off the glass
roof. Above it was a tree, a twisted and gnarled thing spreading its arms up
into the sky with its cloud of leaves and twigs poking out here, there and
everywhere. From this angle, it looked as if the moon was nestling in the tree-
top, a mother bird with her flock of stars.
Kurt smiled to himself at the imagery and shivered at the biting cold that
suddenly crept under his hoodie in a gust of chilly wind. It was unseasonably
cold for July; the night air was frigid and blustery, the stars staring down in
all their frozen glory.
He hurried back into the house, making a mental note to explore the garden in
the morning. He stopped when he closed the door behind him, frowning at the
sudden light in the hall. Had somebody turned the light on? He looked to where
he expected the bare light bulb to be shining away boldly, but instead saw a
gleaming chandelier, light sparkling from the crystal. And since when had there
been crystals on the chandelier?
Kurt looked around him, noting the sudden cleanliness of the floor, and the
paintings lining the hallway. In the nearest one, a dark-headed family posed—a
father, mother and son, their expressions solemn and their clothing vaguely
1930s-esque. Kurt raised his eyebrows. "Okay, I have got to be dreaming this. I
just fell asleep upstairs and none of this is real. It's just my imagination
going haywire again," he told himself firmly. He pinched his thigh, digging in
his nails. "Ow ow ow fuck, my imagination is vivid."
The door to the staircase opened, a blonde-haired girl in her late teens
entering the hall, carrying a wicker basket filled to the brim with laundry.
Kurt frowned at her clothing; unless he was sorely mistaken, she seemed to be
dressed as a maid in a white apron, cap and cuffs, the black skirt slightly too
long for her. She didn't seem to notice Kurt, being so intent on her mission,
so he cleared his throat to alert her of his presence. If it was a dream, she
surely must be in it for a reason, so he might as well talk to her.
But instead of reacting with surprise, she completely ignored him. In fact, she
looked over at the corner where Kurt was standing without seeming to notice
him, and walked straight on, towards a door that Kurt was pretty sure hadn't
been there before.
However, instead of walking through the door and closing it behind her, she
started to fade the moment her fingers touched the doorknob. It wasn't as if
she was passing through the door; she merely seemed to become transparent and
fade from view. Kurt gaped. Within seconds, she was gone, without the slightest
suggestion that she had been there at all.
Kurt looked around him again, and caught the family portrait in the middle of
fading from view as well; his eyes snagged on the face of the little boy, his
bright eyes and oddly-shaped eyebrows remaining even when the rest of the
portrait was all-but gone—and then they, too, disappeared from sight.
Kurt swallowed. "Okay," he said to himself, slowly, "that was weird. My brain
is really weird."
The light from the chandelier started to flicker and fade, too; Kurt cursed to
himself and hurried towards the door to the stairwell, making the most of the
light as it dimmed, sputtering before finally going on. His boots started to
slip on the dusty floor again just as he reached the door and pulled it open,
almost falling through into the stairwell.
He shook his head, blinking hard to try and clear his head. "Back to bed it is,
then," he muttered, before starting back up the stairs to the flat.
--
In the morning, Kurt woke up feeling as if somebody had smacked him over the
head with a cricket bat. He groaned, closing his eyes again.
His alarm beeped, a tinny, incessant sound that felt like it was driving nails
into Kurt's skull. He flapped a hand out for it, but only succeeded in knocking
it off the bedside table. He muttered a few choice words and rolled over,
reached down an arm to search for it on the floor. His fingers brushed against
his boots, instead, and he grimaced at the wet he felt on them.
Wait a minute.
Wet?
Kurt sat up properly, wriggling off the bed to pick up his doc martens and
examine them. The toes were covered in wet dirt, and, as he ran a finger over
one, a couple of broken blades of grass. He frowned, holding up a blade to
examine, as the night's events came flooding back. "What the...?" He shook his
head, whimpering slightly as that caused the pounding in his head to
increase—and what the fuck, had he been drinking last night without realising
it?
There was a knock at his door. "Kurt?" Anne asked.
"I'm up," Kurt called back, his voice croaky. "Give me half an hour to get
myself sorted."
"The bathroom's free if you need it," she said, followed by the sound of her
footsteps moving away.
Kurt fell back against his pillows and frowned at his boots. He should probably
go check out the garden after breakfast, get to the bottom of this mystery. In
the meantime, however, he needed to go through his moisturising regime—strange
occurrences and dreams were hardly going to get in the way of proper
skincare—and get dressed. He collected his wash things and padded out of his
room, heading into the bathroom to take a shower.
He was in the middle of getting undressed when a thought occurred to him.
Shirtless and in just his pyjama bottoms, he wandered towards the window,
pulling the blinds aside to peer out through the bars. Sure enough, there was
just a small, concreted-over courtyard out the back, dustbins lining the high
brick wall. In the corner, there was the tree Kurt remembered from last
night—hunched and with gnarled fingers poking into the air through its crown of
leaves. There wasn't a blade of grass in sight. "Huh," Kurt said to himself,
letting the blinds fall back into place. "That's weird."
--
That evening, Kurt stayed awake on purpose and, when his watch ticked over to
eleven pm and the grandfather clock struck five, crept out into the kitchen and
made himself a cup of instant coffee, trying to keep the clink of the spoon
against the mug as quiet as possible in the silence of the kitchen. He took it
back to his bedroom to sip slowly, allowing the caffeine to infiltrate his
blood and jolt his brain into wakefulness, wrapping his fingers around the cup
and appreciating the warmth in the cool of the night.
Sure enough, the steady chimes of the grandfather clock echoed throughout the
house at one am--thirteen strikes, Kurt noticed again, counting them one by
one. He slipped his boots on again once more, this time with socks on
underneath, and pulled his hoodie over his head. Grabbing his phone for light--
he was prepared this time--he slipped from his room and out of the flat, again
wedging the door open with a banana from the fruit-bowl. The hallway was as
dark as the night before; this time, however, Kurt turned his phone on, the
light almost blinding in the darkness.
He was almost at the door when the hallway began to flood with light once more,
the light bulb flickering on and then disappearing, crystals fading into
existence and the dust and grime on the marble floor vanishing with every step
Kurt took. Sure enough, the portraits were back--although this time there was a
new one, another family one in which all three family members looked distinctly
older; the boy was closer to Kurt's own age than he had been before, Kurt
noted.
The garden door opened like before, but this time it opened into daylight, the
sky blue and with wisps of cloud dragged across it like strands of hair. Kurt
took a cautious step outside, his boots sinking into the dewy grass again.
There was still a crispness to the air; a chill that permeated through Kurt's
hoodie and made goosebumps jump up on his skin. He could hear a dog barking in
the distance; a flock of birds wheeled and soared in the air. All in all, it
looked like any other garden might do.
"What are you doing here?" A voice from behind Kurt asked.
Kurt wheeled around, eyes wide, to take in the boy standing in the hallway. He
was shorter than Kurt, with a tumble of dark curls and oddly-triangular
eyebrows. He was the boy from the paintings, Kurt realised, and shit, he could
see Kurt.
The boy frowned at him. "You're not one of the servants," he said suspiciously,
narrowing his eyes. He looked quite threatening, with his heavy eyebrows drawn
together. "Are you here to steal?"
"No." Kurt frowned. "How come you can see me?"
The boy gave him a strange look. He walked towards Kurt, hands in the pockets
of his grey trousers. He was wearing a navy blazer with red piping, an
embroidered crest with the letter D on it on the breast pocket. Around his neck
was a loosely knotted red and blue striped tie, a crisp contrast to the white
of his shirt. "Of course I can see you," he said, sounding confused. "Why
wouldn't I able to?" A look crossed his face, like something horrific had
occurred to him. "Wait, are you a ghost or something?"
Kurt crossed his arms defensively. "I think you're the ghost, rather."
The boy wrinkled his nose. "I'm not a ghost, unless ghosts have to go to
boarding school."
So that was his uniform, then, Kurt guessed. "Well, then," Kurt said briskly.
"I'm Kurt. Kurt Hummel." He stuck out his hand.
The boy took it, still looking suspicious and slightly confused. "Blaine
Anderson," he said, shaking Kurt's hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm sure. What
makes you think that I'm a ghost?"
"Um," Kurt said, "nothing? It doesn't really matter."
"Okay," the boy—Blaine—said doubtfully. "So if you're not here to steal, then
what are you doing here?"
Kurt shifted uncomfortably. Shit, what should he say? "I...I got lost," he said
after an awkwardly long pause.
"In my back garden?" Blaine raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
"Um. No?"
Blaine rolled his eyes. "Well, you'd better scarper unless you want my dad to
catch you and hand you over to the police."
"The police?" Kurt squeaked before he could stop himself.
Blaine gave him an almost amused look, tilting his head to one side slightly.
"You're not very bright, are you?" he observed, without cruelty in his voice.
Kurt bristled. "I'm perfectly intelligent, thank you very much. I'm sorry for
being surprised when somebody threatens me with arrest."
"You are trespassing," Blaine pointed out. "That's a crime, last time I
checked."
Kurt blushed. "I didn't really mean to," he said, looking around him. "Like I
said, I got lost. And, um, I don't really know how to get home."
Blaine sighed, expression definitely verging on amused now. He held out a hand,
which Kurt stared at in surprise before taking somewhat hesitantly. "Come with
me," Blaine said, leading him into the garden once more. "I know somewhere we
can talk."
Blaine's hand was warm in Kurt's, and slightly sweaty. Kurt bit his lip, trying
to beat down the fluttering in his stomach. Now was most certainly not the time
to be getting excited over a boy holding his hand.
Blaine stopped at the base of the tree and gestured up to a branch about a foot
above their heads. "Up you go, then."
Kurt stared at him in horror. "I am not climbing a tree," he said, disgust in
his voice. "These boots were not made for tree climbing in the slightest."
Blaine rolled his eyes. "Look, do you want my father to catch you or not?"
"I'm not climbing a tree," Kurt said again. He tugged his hand away from
Blaine's and folded his arms. "No way in hell am I climbing a tree."
--
"See, it's not so bad," Blaine said cheerfully, patting Kurt on the knee. He
swung his legs, looking far too pleased with himself for Kurt's liking. "I
won't let you fall."
Kurt glared at him. "I don't usually make habits of climbing trees with strange
boys," he said with his haughtiest tone.
Blaine just laughed and brought one leg up to rest his chin on it, wrapping his
arms around his knee as he looked at Kurt with large, bright eyes. "So, tell me
what you're doing in my garden. The full story, please. None of this 'getting
lost' business, because I think we both know that that's not true."
Kurt picked at the bark by his thigh and considered how to start talking. It
all seemed so unreal and silly in the daylight, with Blaine sat warm and
comfortable beside him. It sounded ridiculous even in his own head. "It's
probably not the best idea to be telling you this whilst we're up a tree," he
said finally, glancing up to meet Blaine's eyes. "Or be telling you it at all,
really."
Blaine made a humming noise at the back of his throat, still watching Kurt with
warm hazel eyes. "Go on."
"I...I think I might have, um, time-travelled," Kurt said awkwardly, looking
down at his legs and then regretting it because shit they were a long way up.
He swayed slightly, but then a hand on his knee steadied him and he looked up
into Blaine's calm face again.
"Go on," Blaine said, sounding completely unruffled by this revelation.
Kurt frowned at him. "Shouldn't you be a little scared by the crazy boy talking
about time travel?"
Blaine shrugged. "Probably. But I did watch you appear out of thin air, so it's
most likely all one big delusion brought on by an awfully long train journey
back from school."
Taken aback, Kurt blinked at him. "Okay," he said, "so, um, I think I've time-
travelled, because there was this clock, you see, and it struck thirteen so I
went to have a look and then there was this garden and a maid and I think I've
probably travelled about sixty years in time."
Blaine's eyes widened at that, and he let out a long, low whistle. "Damn. So
what's the future like? Actually, no, don't answer that." He squeezed his eyes
shut for a moment. "Um, so how long are you here for?"
Kurt shrugged. "It was only minutes, last time. It's already been about half an
hour, so I could go at any minute, I guess." Blaine nodded, as if storing the
information away for a later date. Kurt was starting to be able to see the
branches of the tree through him, he realised; he was fading already. "I think
I'm going," he said softly, reaching out to brush his fingers against Blaine's
arm.
Blaine looked at him, a surprising depth of sadness in his eyes, for a boy he
had met bare minutes ago. "I can see."
"I'll be back. I hope."
Blaine made to catch his hand, but their fingers passed through each
other—whose passed through whose, Kurt couldn't tell. Blaine drew his hand
back, clasping it with his other in his lap as he let his leg fall down, feet
kicking listlessly. "I hope to see you again," he said, smiling sadly.
"Yeah," Kurt said, the sky darkening rapidly and the air cooling. "Me too."
And then he was left alone perching on a branch of a tree, in a small concrete
courtyard enclosed by a high brick wall, surrounded by dustbins and weeds, in
the middle of the night in his pyjamas.
---
It seemed like too much to hope for, that the garden would be there three times
in a row—that Blaine would be there again—but Kurt still lay awake in bed that
night, listening intently for the moment that the clock struck thirteen,
tensing every hour, just in case it struck early—or not at all.
The thirteenth strike did come, however, and Kurt immediately slipped from his
bed, already in his hoodie and socks, wrestled his feet into a pair of
Converses, then hurried out of the flat and down the stairs into the hall,
where the chandelier was already lit and the sounds of a gramophone could be
heard through the other closed door—the door that no longer existed, in Kurt's
time. He hesitated outside it, wondering if Blaine was behind it—if anything
was behind it at all, even—before he heard a boy's voice singing out in the
garden, singing along to the record on the gramophone. It's a song Kurt had
never heard before, a jazzy tune with a fast beat, but the voice singing
outside sounded familiar.
He wandered over to the garden door and pushed it open, looking out across the
grass to where he could see Blaine up in the branches—and sure enough, he was
singing out, his voice bright and warm. Kurt stood in the door for a moment,
letting Blaine's voice wash over him, a soothing sound that made Kurt's stomach
do weird flip-flops and attempt to escape up his windpipe.
Blaine didn't see him, his eyes closed as he belted out the chorus of the
song—Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, with anyone else
but me; No! No! No! Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,
'til I come marchin' home!
Kurt smiled, starting across the grass as Blaine continued with the song, his
voice slightly rough but undeniably happy. He waited quietly until the song
finished, enjoying watching Blaine rock out by himself, legs swinging freely
and face expressive, even with his eyes closed.
"That was really good," he said loudly, grinning when Blaine startled and
looked down at him in astonishment. He stopped grinning, however, when Blaine
windmilled his arms and lost his balance, pitching over backwards to land with
a hard thump on the grass. "Shit—Blaine—!" He almost fell over his own feet in
his hurry to get to where Blaine was groaning and attempting to sit up, his leg
twisted under him at an odd angle. "No, no, don't sit up—no, don't sit up, I
said—"
"Ow," Blaine said plaintively, lying back down on the ground and looking up at
Kurt with a pained yet wondrous expression on his face. "Hi, Kurt."
"You idiot," Kurt chastised, carefully touching Blaine's leg. "This is why you
shouldn't go climbing trees."
Blaine bit his lip and started to struggle into a sitting position, his face
contorted into a grimace. Kurt rocked back on his heels and helped him with
gentle hands on his arms, worry and guilt coiling in his gut like vile snakes.
Blaine prodded at his ankle, wincing as he did so. "I think I've twisted it,"
he said, sounding mournful.
"Be grateful it wasn't your neck," Kurt snapped, his tone more worried and less
acidic than he had intended. He squeezed Blaine's bicep before letting go. "Do
you need help getting into the house?"
Blaine considered it for a moment, flexing his foot. "I think I'm okay," he
said, already starting to try to get to his feet. Kurt made to help him all the
same, but was interrupted by a panicked shout from the inside of the house.
"Blaine!" The girl that Kurt had seen before was rushing across the grass, her
long blonde hair flying around her face and her skirts flapping around her
heels.
Blaine sighed and flopped back against the grass. "I'm okay, Britt," he called.
"Just a sprain."
The girl dropped to her knees beside Blaine and touched his ankle gingerly,
paying Kurt no attention. "Lord Tubbington toldyou that you would probably fall
out of that tree, but you ignored him," she said sternly, long fingers gentle
as she unlaced his shoe and pulled it off, as well as the sock beneath. Kurt
sucked in a breath when he saw how red Blaine's ankle was, and how it was
swelling already.
Blaine made a face down at it. "I'm fine, Brittany." He shot Kurt a curious
look, evidently wondering why Brittany hadn't seemed to notice him, but didn't
call attention to it. "And tell Lord Tubbington that I'm sorry and I'll try to
not fall out of the tree again."
"Lord Tubbington?" Kurt asked, but Blaine ignored him and just gave Brittany a
sheepish smile.
"I think I'm going to need ice on this," he admitted. "Can you run and get some
for me? I'll be in my room."
Brittany nodded, her face serious. "The fairy's going to help you up there,
isn't he?"
Blaine blinked and Kurt sucked in a gasp, the sting of the slur all-too
familiar. He was about to get up, but Blaine frowned slightly at him and he
stayed in place, crouched awkwardly over Blaine. "What fairy, Britt?"
"The one who visits the garden," she said, as if it were obvious. "I can't see
him, but I know you can because I saw you talking to him before. It's fairy
magic, I think. He doesn't want me to see him because he's here for you, not
anyone else." She turned to address the empty air to the other side of Blaine
from where Kurt was crouching. "I left your fairy ring undamaged. Lord
Tubbington wanted to eat the mushrooms, but I stopped him."
Kurt raised an eyebrow and looked down at Blaine. "She thinks I'm a fairy?"
Blaine shrugged, his expression becoming increasingly more pained. "Um, could
you go get that ice for me, please, Brittany?"
She nodded, leaping to her feet as gracefully as a cat, and almost sprinted
back into the house.
Blaine made a groaning noise and pressed his head against Kurt's arm. "I'm
thinking I might need that help now, I'm afraid. And sorry about Brittany.
She's a sweetheart, but she operates in her own little world that I don't quite
understand."
"I admit, I am curious to know who Lord Tubbington is," Kurt said, helping
Blaine up and wrapping a firm arm around his waist. "You can lean on me, if you
want," he added needlessly.
Blaine hissed through his teeth as they took their first step towards the
house. "Lord Tubbington's the kitchen cat," he said through gritted teeth.
"She's rather taken with him."
"I can tell," Kurt said dryly, holding Blaine tighter when Blaine whimpered
slightly. "Do you need me to go slower?"
"I'm fine," Blaine gasped, his face very pale.
"Because you sound absolutely perky and ready to run a marathon." Kurt eyed the
distance between them and the door, relieved to see that it was only a few more
feet. "Where's your room, by the way?"
Blaine nodded up at the windows above them. "First floor. It's the one with the
bars on the windows." He laughed, although the sound was weak and tinged with
pain. "It used to be my nursery. My parents never did seem to understand the
difference between 'nursery' and 'prison'."
"My room has bars on the window, too," Kurt said thoughtfully. "The bathroom,
too. Maybe they're the same room."
"You live here?" Blaine halted, looking at Kurt in surprise. "Like, here? In
the future?"
"My aunt lives here," Kurt hesitated, thinking about the time period and the
40's and the homophobia back then, "with her...friend."
Blaine shot him a curious look at the hesitation, but then they were at the
garden door and Kurt had to try and hold the door open whilst helping Blaine
through and they were an embarrassing tangle of limbs as they both went to open
the door at the same time. Kurt ended up with a mouthful of gelled hair and
Blaine's face smushed against his collarbone.
"Um," Blaine said, pulling away from Kurt as if he'd been burned, his face
bright red when previously it had been pale with pain.
Kurt flushed. "Sorry about that. I was trying to get the door for you." He
reached out to steady Blaine when he teetered, off-balance. "Careful—you don't
want to fall again."
"I'm fine," Blaine said yet again, his cheeks still stained red. "And thanks.
I'm sorry for being so clumsy."
Kurt chuckled, standing back to let Blaine hop into the hall, although he left
his hand on Blaine's arm—to steady him, he swore; it wasn't that he liked the
feel of Blaine's bicep flexing under his palm, not in the slightest.
They were half-way up the stairs when things started to fade around Kurt once
more: a blue-painted vase, the paintings on the walls, the sounds of the
gramophone still playing downstairs. Blaine looked at him when Kurt made a
noise of distress. "Kurt? What is it?"
"I think I'm going," Kurt said, trying to hurry Blaine up the stairs faster,
hoping he could get Blaine into his bedroom before he was completely gone.
Blaine laid his hand over Kurt's and squeezed it, before picking up his pace
and instantly almost stumbling. "It seems that I have no co-ordination today,"
he said ruefully, clinging onto Kurt like his life depended on it. He pulled
himself upright again, Kurt's hoodie bunched in his fingers. Kurt felt it when
Blaine's fingers fell through—it felt like a breeze had touched the skin at the
small of his back, sending prickles up his spine.
He looked to Blaine in panic, but saw that Blaine was already fading, figure
braced against the wall. "Sit down," he said, having to speak louder to make
himself heard. "Wait for Brittany to help you."
Blaine nodded, the movement blurring his features into nothingness. Kurt stood
alone on the stairs and watched as the light dimmed around him and the carpet
vanished from beneath his feet, Blaine disappearing into thin air like smoke
over water.
Then, with trembling hands, he walked the last few steps by himself and
returned to bed, not bothering to take off his hoodie (although he toed off his
Converses). He curled up under the blankets and breathed in the scent of
Blaine, which was already vanishing fast from the fabric of his hoodie.
He fell asleep as the grandfather clock chimed once more.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Kurt was already opening the garden door when the grandfather clock struck
thirteen that night. This time, the sunshine didn't startle him when he blinked
up into what appeared to be a midday sky, the sun small and high in the frosty
periwinkle-blue. The air had a cool, crisp feel to it, and the ground felt
frozen and hard beneath his feet as he turned in a circle, looking around.
Every time the garden sprang into life around him, he felt the same sense of
tingling wonder rush through him, leaving him giddy and somewhat breathless.
The sound of a window opening caused him to turn around and look up at the
house. Blaine had his bedroom window as open as he could, the bars restricting
him from opening it fully. "Kurt!" he called, waving down and grinning. "Come
on up!"
Kurt hurried back inside and up the stairs, glancing at each of the portraits
on the walls as he passed them. There were a lot of men with bushy eyebrows
similar to Blaine's, their faces stern and their clothes dating back into what
Kurt could only assume were the early 1800s.
At the top of the staircase were three doors; the first one was open, and that
was the one through which Kurt could see Blaine sat on his bed, a pair of
crutches by his side and his foot tightly bandaged. Blaine looked up when he
heard Kurt's footsteps, a grin lighting his face once more. "I wasn't expecting
you for a few more weeks," he said, sounding delighted, waving Kurt in through
the door.
Kurt ventured through, looking around at Blaine's bedroom—twice the size of
his, he noted, and he could only assume that it included what was, for him, the
bathroom. "How long's it been?" he asked, standing awkwardly in the middle of
the room.
Blaine rolled his eyes at Kurt's discomfort and patted the bed covers beside
him. "Sit down, you chump." He shifted further up the bed slightly to give Kurt
space, but remained close enough for their elbows to brush together. "It's only
been three days." He tipped his head to the side, pursing his lips
thoughtfully. "Maybe you knew that I was bored and needed company."
Kurt relaxed onto the bed slightly, although he was unable to ignore the voice
in his head shrieking about being sat on a bed with a boy and what would your
father think? "Maybe the clock is psychic and knew," he said with a smile. "I
certainly don't have any control over it."
Blaine gave him a curious look. "The clock?" he asked.
"The grandfather clock in the hall," Kurt said. "It strikes thirteen every
night—"
"Strikes thirteen?" Blaine sounded doubtful. "How is that even possible?"
Kurt shrugged, and then gestured to himself and the room. "How is any of this
even possible?"
Blaine hummed in acknowledgement, wriggling further back up the bed so he could
swing his leg up onto the pillows, resting his head in Kurt's lap. Kurt tensed
slightly, not quite sure how to react. Blaine closed his eyes and sighed.
"That's better," he said, sounding satisfied. "My foot was killing me."
"Okay," Kurt said cautiously. He leaned back slightly, propping himself up on
his hands so as to have something to do with them. "But yeah, the clock strikes
thirteen every night and then all of this appears around me, when I go down to
the garden."
"That's pretty cool," Blaine said, already sounding sleepy. He yawned, bringing
a sluggish hand up to cover his mouth as he cracked an eye open to peer up at
Kurt. "Your lap is really comfortable, by the way."
Kurt blinked. "Thanks, I guess?"
"It's a compliment, don't worry," Blaine assured him. "It means that you're an
awesome cuddler."
Kurt blushed, looking away. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Uh-huh." Blaine's eyes were closed again, his face slackening as he started to
drift off. Within seconds, soft snores were leaving his slightly-open mouth.
Kurt stared down at Blaine, not entirely sure what he was supposed to do with
the sleeping boy in his lap. Should he wake him up? Move him? Let him be?
Awkwardly, he brought up a hand to pet at Blaine's hair, glad for the lack of
hair gel. Blaine's curls were soft and springy under his fingertips, his hair
somewhat in need of a cut with ringlets tumbling all over the place. Blaine
made a little muttering noise at the contact, and shifted closer to Kurt, nose
perilously near Kurt's crotch. That decided it for Kurt. Slowly, being sure not
to disturb him, he lifted up Blaine's head and slipped out from beneath him,
drawing his legs up and away from Blaine so that they were lying parallel
instead, Blaine's head lolling onto Kurt's shoulder.
Kurt stared up at the ceiling, noting the differences between Blaine's room and
his own. The larger space and the extra window made a large difference;
Blaine's room seemed lighter and airier, less cramped and poky. The white-
washed walls were the same, although Blaine had a polished oak floor where Kurt
had a worn carpet. In the corner of the room stood a tall closet with intricate
carved panelling, and the mirror directly opposite the bed afforded Kurt a view
of Blaine and himself curled up together. He tried to ignore the fluttering in
his stomach at that, reminding himself that Blaine had just fallen asleep and
people fell asleep with their friends all the time.
Sleep was tugging at his eyelids, however, as it was well into the early hours
of the morning for Kurt, and he gradually drifted off into a gentle haze of
sleep, the warm press of Blaine's body at his side both a distracter and a
comfort.
--
Kurt awoke alone, curled up on top of the covers of his own bed at the flat. He
blinked blearily at the fingers of sunlight stretching their way across the
floor, and raised his arm to check his watch. 6:03am. He let his arm flop back
down onto the covers, sleepily debating the pros and cons of climbing under the
covers and returning to slumber.
The cool breeze tickling his calves eventually decided it for him. He rolled
over, tugging at the duvet until it covered him properly and shut his eyes
again, ignoring the fact that his feet were on his pillow and his head was
nearly dangling off the foot of the bed.
With his eyes closed, however, he was only more aware of the lack of Blaine's
body next to his own, the bed feeling empty and cold. He groaned in frustration
and threw an arm over his face. The boy from the past was already under his
skin, after just three meetings.
Kurt was screwed.
--
"That old grandfather clock has been striking the strangest hours recently,"
Anne said over breakfast that morning. She poked at her eggs with her fork,
frowning slightly. "I almost feel like I should just call somebody in to fix
it, but the landlord would probably chuck us out for messing with his precious
clock."
Kurt shrugged, ignoring the squirm of panic in his gut at the suggestion, and
took a sip of coffee. He swallowed it before saying, careful to keep his voice
casual, "I don't know. I think it's quite charming, to be honest."
"Charming?" Lily raised an eyebrow. "That's one way of putting it."
Kurt smiled slightly. "It makes me think of how long that clock's been here,
yet it still strikes every hour."
"Whether it strikes the right hour or not is another matter." Anne sighed and
put down her fork, eggs untouched. "No, you're right. It's none of my
business."
"Do you know who lived here before, anyway?" Kurt asked lightly, taking another
sip of his coffee.
Lily looked surprised at his question. "Why do you ask, dear?"
He shrugged again. "Just curious, I guess."
"I don't really know," Anne said, "although the landlord is so attached to that
clock that I assume he must have lived here for quite a while. Maybe even
before the house was converted into flats."
Kurt frowned into his coffee. That couldn't be right. Blaine's family had lived
here before the house was converted into flats, surely? "Do you know where I
could find out more?" he asked, only just remembered to keep a tone of polite
frigidity in his voice at the last minute.
Anne shook her head, returning to her eggs, but Lily looked thoughtful. She
propped her chin up on her hands. "You could always try the London Metropolitan
Archives," she said. "If you're interested, I could drop you there on my way to
work tomorrow."
Kurt barely managed to suppress his grin. "That would be fantastic, thank you."
He got to his feet, leaving his coffee half-drunk. "Anyway, I need to dash—I
was planning on getting some hardcore shopping in today, so I should probably
hurry."
He all but bounded back into his room—Kurt Hummel didn't bound, after all—and
went instantly to the window, looking out through the bars into the courtyard
below.
"I'm going to find out who you are, Blaine," he whispered to the tree down
there. "I'm going to find you."
--
Kurt didn't even get halfway down the stairs that night before everything was
melting into place around him. It seemed to get quicker and quicker each time,
as if the clock remembered better where everything went with practise.
He could hear shouting coming from the open door downstairs, the one that no
longer existed in Kurt's day.
"I will not have people talking about this family!" a gruff voice roared, deep
and abrasive to Kurt's ears. "At the moment it looks like I can't even control
my own son, and I will not have that."
"Father, I'm keeping up my grades perfectly at Dalton." Blaine's voice. "I'm on
the track team and the football team, and the Warblers are extremely well-
regarded by universities as a valid extra-curricular."
"You're wasting your time on that silly choir and everybody knows it. Poofters,
the load of them, and I will not have my only son throw in his lot with them."
A creak, as if he had sat down in a desk chair. "You will give the council your
resignation as soon as you get back. Am I clear?"
"Yes, sir," Blaine said, his voice quiet and choked.
"Don't look like that, boy. I'm doing what is best for you—someday you'll see
that. How's that girl of yours? Rachel what's-her-name?"
Kurt felt like he'd been sucker-punched in the stomach, closing his eyes and
turning his face to the wall. Of course Blaine was straight. He'd been foolish
to get his hopes up only to get them shot down again. He started to turn,
intending to make his way back upstairs and not see Blaine, only to realise
that he had no way of leaving—he was stuck here until the clock decided it was
time for him to leave. He swallowed, hard, and then sat down on the stairs,
clasping his hands and listening to the argument tearing on behind that door.
"...not interested in dating, Father," Blaine was saying, painfully earnest as
ever. "I want to focus on my grades and make sure I get into university. I
don't have time for girls."
"Don't be stupid, boy," his father grunted. "Girls are what make boys men. I
keep telling you that Quinn Fabray would be a perfect match, but you don't
listen to me."
"We aren't a good match," Blaine said. He sounded tired and beaten down, Kurt
thought, feeling a twinge of sympathy. "We have nothing in common, and nothing
to talk about."
"She's a perfectly nice girl. I don't see what's wrong with her."
Blaine sighed, impatient. "There's nothing wrong with her. There's just
nothing right, either."
"That's disappointing, Blaine." His father harrumphed. "I need to get back to
work now, so just think about it, will you?"
"Yes, sir," Blaine said, and he was so quiet that Kurt had to strain to make
out his words.
The door opened, and Kurt caught a glimpse of a wood-panelled office, a large
desk dominating the majority of the space, before Blaine shut it behind him and
sagged against the wall. He tipped his head back, exposing the long line of his
throat, and squeezed his eyes shut.
Kurt got to his feet, dusting off his pyjama bottoms. "Daddy problems?" he
asked, leaning on the banister. (He still found it weird that the hallway had
expanded to include the stairwell, in Blaine's time, but he thought it far
nicer than the poky stairwell that existed in 2011.)
Blaine looked up in surprise, the pinched expression leaving his face when he
saw Kurt. "You could say so," he sighed, straightening up and walking over to
the stairs. "How could you tell?"
"I don't know—the shouting and arguing gave me a hint, though." Kurt smiled at
him, hopping the last few steps down to the foot of the stairs. "Inside or
outside?"
Blaine glanced over at the garden door. "The tree?"
Kurt gave him a stern glare. "The last time you were up there, you fell out of
it and sprained your ankle."
Blaine shrugged, reaching out to grab Kurt's hand and tug him towards the
garden door all the same. "That's only because you surprised me. If you're with
me then you can't surprise me, can you?"
Kurt laughed, taken by surprise. "Your logic is as infallible as ever, I see,"
he said, hearing the fond tone in his own voice.
"Precisely." Blaine held open the door for him with a mock-courteous bow.
"After you, good sir."
Kurt shook his head, unable to hold back his smile. "You are such an idiot."
"That's why you love me," Blaine chirped, slinging an arm around Kurt's
shoulders and dragging him over to the tree. "Now, you have to tell me all
about the music in your time, okay? I figure that that's one of the safest
questions I can ask, and..."
--
Kurt had thought that it might be weird to look at Blaine, knowing what he now
knew, but Blaine's cheerful smile and tackle hug drove all thoughts of war and
death from his mind.
"It's been days, Kurt," he whined, although Kurt could feel Blaine's smile
against his neck. "The longest time yet, in fact."
"Nothing to do with me, I assure you." Kurt hugged Blaine back tightly for a
moment, then stepped back and looked at him, tilting his head and fixing a
mock-serious expression on his face. "I think I can see a grey hair, though."
Blaine gasped playfully, hands flying to his hair. "You cannot!"
"Can too." Kurt grinned impishly, leaning back against the tree and folding his
arms. "So how long's it been this time?"
"Nearly a month," Blaine said, looking injured. He reached out to take Kurt's
hand—something he often did, Kurt had noticed. "I was lonely, Kurt."
"I swear you were at boarding school, though," Kurt objected. "You could hardly
have been lonely."
Blaine pouted. "Fine. Well, then, I was lonely for you, Mr Pedantic."
Kurt felt the blush working its way up his neck, but he ignored it. "Flattery
will get you everywhere, Mr Anderson."
Suddenly, from out of the blue, there came a horrible screeching and wailing
sound, splitting the air and making Kurt jump in fright.
Blaine's grip on Kurt's hand tightened. "Air raid siren," he muttered, looking
up into the sky with a filthy glare. "We should probably get inside the
shelter."
"Shelter?"
"It's out in the apple orchard," Blaine said, already leading Kurt over to a
gap in the hedge at the side of the garden that Kurt hadn't noticed before.
"The only cool thing about it is that it's called an Anderson shelter. Nothing
to do with my family, though. Anderson's a pretty common name."
The siren was still yowling. Kurt winced at the ear-splitting quality of it,
covering an ear with his free hand. "Is it always this loud?"
"Pretty much."
To the side of the orchard stood a low structure sunk into the ground with a
corrugated iron roof. Kurt vaguely recognised it from his History classes as
being the most common type of bomb shelter in the Second World War, and that
was when it sank in.
This was an air raid.
With bombs.
Very, very real bombs, time-travel or not.
Panic started to claw its way up his throat, making his heart beat in triple
time and his palms to sweat. He felt sick.
Blaine looked at him in concern. "Are you okay?"
Kurt nodded mutely, pretty sure that if he opened his mouth he would be sick.
Blaine bit his lip, clearly unconvinced. "It's quieter in the shelter," was all
he said, however, and Kurt was grateful for the fact that he didn't try to
comfort Kurt with feeble platitudes. He squeezed Kurt's hand once before
dropping it, crouching down to push the door open. He looked over his shoulder
at Kurt and gave him a crooked smile. "It's not much in here, but it's safe
enough."
Kurt clambered in after him, ducking his head in order to get through the small
entrance. Inside, it was cool and dim, the air slightly damp against Kurt's
skin. Kurt could hear Blaine rummaging around beside a dark shape, and heard
the click of a torch—light flooded the shelter, allowing Kurt to see what was
inside.
The floor was packed mud and dug about four feet down into the ground, and two
low-slung bunks were pushed to either side of the shelter, which was about six
foot in length—Kurt's dad could lie down on the ground and have his head
against one wall and his feet against the door.
Blaine sat back on his heels and smiled at Kurt, his features oddly lit by the
torch. "You can sit down, if you like," he said, nodding at the bunk. "We'll
probably be here for a couple of hours or so." He straightened up and started
trying to hook the torch into an oddly shaped wire brace hanging from the
ceiling of the shelter—evidently some sort of self-devised light.
Kurt nodded tersely and perched on the edge of a bunk, wrapping his arms around
his torso. He could hear the siren still wailing—although, like Blaine had
said, it was a lot quieter inside the shelter.
Blaine settled down beside him, close and warm and comforting. Kurt could smell
the washing powder on his clothes, the scent of his soap and the already-
familiar smell of Blaine himself. Blaine reached out and rested a hand on his
knee, meeting Kurt's eyes with a warm expression. "It'll be okay, I promise."
He smiled. "After all, if the house is still standing in your time, then it's
hardly going to be destroyed now, is it?"
Kurt closed his eyes and allowed himself to huddle closer to Blaine. Blaine's
words made sense, although all he could think about was the images from his
History classes in school—bombs falling through the air, the whirr of planes in
the sky overhead, fires erupting throughout cities. He thought back to the
records he had found at the London Metropolitan Archives, about Blaine
Anderson in Courier New on the untouched pages of the records. He thought about
the words soldier printed in block capitals under Occupation. He thought about
the picture attached to the file; Blaine, only a little older than he was now,
dressed in a soldier's uniform and cap, bright smile on his face and twinkle in
his eye.
Then there was an arm being wrapped around him and Blaine's voice, soothing in
his ear; "It's all right, Kurt. Just breathe. Just an air raid."
No, they weren't going to die today, but Blaine was going to die someday, Kurt
knew. He turned his head into Blaine's chest, breathing in the scent of Blaine
and soap and washing powder.
"I think I have some toffees in here, if you want one," Blaine said
thoughtfully, remaining wrapped around Kurt. "I didn't finish my tuck box this
term, and I think I left it in here the other day." He pulled away from Kurt
and rolled off the bunk, kneeling down on the floor—Kurt winced at how the mud
must surely be ruining the knees of his trousers—and rooting around in what
sounded like a metal container. "Aha!" His head popped up again, grinning in
excitement. "Brittany didn't feed them to Lord Tubbington after all." He
unwrapped one from its brown paper wrapper and offered another one out to Kurt.
"Want one?"
Kurt took it, unwrapping it with somewhat unsteady fingers, and put it in his
mouth. The toffee was sweet and hard, sugar melting on his tongue into a sticky
syrup. "Thanks," he managed to say around the sweet.
"No problem." Blaine sat back down next to him and sucked happily at his sweet,
making loud slurping noises that caused Kurt's ears to flush red. "I usually
read a book when I'm in here," he admitted in a conspiratorial tone. "Sometimes
I get so sucked into it that I don't even hear the all-clear and Brittany has
to come fetch me."
Kurt frowned. "Where is Brittany?" he asked, slurring around the toffee.
"In the cellar, I think. It's too far for her to get out of the kitchens and
get here in time, so she usually just goes down into the cellar and waits
there." Blaine shrugged, bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged. He leaned
back on his hands and looked up at the ceiling of the shelter, at the rust
marks and dirt encrusted onto the corrugated metal. "It's usually just me in
here, to be honest. Father's at the bank a lot and Mother has a lot of friends
she visits."
"So you just stay in the house by yourself?" Kurt asked. The Anderson shelter
was cool, causing goose bumps to rise on his arms despite his thick hoodie.
"Don't you get bored?"
Blaine shrugged. "I read a lot, and play piano. Sometimes I help Brittany in
the kitchen or around the house, although my father says I'm not meant to." He
cocked his head, suddenly listening intently. The siren had changed sounds
already, a rising scale that echoed in the shelter. "That's quick," he
observed. "It's usually a couple of hours before the all-clear sounds."
"Maybe it was a false alarm?"
"Maybe." Blaine considered it for a moment, then shrugged, pushing himself off
the bed and reaching up on tip-toes to unhook the torch from the ceiling brace.
As he did so, his shirt and tank-top lifting to bare a stretch of pale olive
skin, smooth and stretched over the jut of a hipbone. Kurt averted his eyes,
feeling strangely embarrassed. Blaine flicked off the torch and dropped it on
the bunk bed, reaching out to take Kurt's hand in the sudden dark. "How much
longer do you have, do you think?"
"A few minutes, maybe? I don't know." Kurt allowed Blaine to tangle their
fingers together and lead him from the shelter, blinking in the abrupt
harshness of the daylight. As if to back up his words, things were already
starting to go misty around the edges, Blaine's hand suddenly much lighter in
his own.
Blaine seemed to have noticed it as well, because he looked down at their
linked hands in concern. "You're going, aren't you?" he asked, sounding oddly
sad.
"I think so." Kurt squeezed his hand before letting it go, not wanting to feel
his hand pass through Blaine's.
Blaine nodded and stepped back. "You'll be back, though?" He looked small and
young in his ill-fitting clothes, the brown of the tank top too dull for him,
the crisp white of the shirt too cold.
Kurt smiled at him. "If I can." He glanced over his shoulder to see the
Anderson shelter completely fade away, the orchard trees fading too. "Shit," he
said suddenly. "I need to get back to the house." He broke into a run, seeing
the hedge already starting to turn into a fence, a trampoline melting into
being two feet away on his right. He found the gap in the hedge as it was
starting to grow over, jumping through wooden slats seconds before they became
corporeal. He didn't dare to look back at Blaine, knowing that he, too, would
be gone, fading into the ether.
He was ten foot from the garden door when a brick wall stopped him in his
tracks. "Crap," he groaned, clutching his shoulder where he had taken the brunt
of the blow. "Fuck."
Kurt was now stood at the end of somebody's garden in the early hours of the
morning, looking like a vagrant in his pyjamas and a hoodie, with a six foot
brick wall standing between him and his warm bed.
He stepped back and looked up at the top of the wall, a bare foot above his
head. There was a spindly tree growing further down, branches just about
bending over the top and mingling with the branches of the other tree—Blaine's
tree, Kurt called it in his head.
Maybe...
He reached up and tested swinging his weight on the lowest branch. It held his
weight, although it bent a worrying amount. He could do this. Carefully, he
swung his body up onto the branch, waiting for it to stop swaying before he
stood, clinging to the trunk, and reached for the next, which would get him
over the wall and into the branches of Blaine's tree.
He was sat astride the top of the wall when a light flicked on, up on the top
floor of the house. Kurt froze, watching as a figure appeared at the window: an
old man with craggy eyebrows and no hair, staring down at Kurt with what looked
to be a glare.
"Fuck," Kurt whispered again. This was, no doubt, the infamous landlord, and he
probably wouldn't be best pleased to see Kurt clambering over the yard wall in
the middle of the night.
He stayed still, hoping against hope that he hadn't been noticed—that the old
man's eyes were poor enough to not spot him. After what seemed like a lifetime,
but had probably only been a couple of minutes at most, the man moved away from
the window, although the light remained on.
Quickly, aware that he probably only had seconds before the landlord returned
to the window, Kurt scrambled down the tree, dropping the last few feet to the
ground and nearly running back into the house and up the stairs, back to the
flat.
--
Anne was frowning when Kurt walked into the kitchen that morning, a piece of
paper in her hands. "Know what this is?" she asked, holding it up to show Kurt.
Kurt's heart stopped. It was a small scrap of paper, blue-tack still affixed to
the back, with a single sentence scrawled across it in blue fountain pen.
Might want to get back quicker next time.
"Kurt?" Anne looked at him in concern when he froze in his tracks. "Do you know
what this is?"
"No," he said, doggedly keeping his voice even and casual. "No clue."
--
Blaine was perched in the tree once more when Kurt found him that
night—day—whatever. He grinned sunnily at Kurt when he saw him approaching. "I
didn't think you were going to show up today," he said, pocketing something
that flashed in the sunlight and nimbly jumping down to the ground. "It's only
been a week."
"Has it?" Kurt asked curiously, looking around at the garden. "It's sunnier
than it was, last time."
"That's just English weather for you, I suppose." Blaine grinned, bouncing on
the balls of his feet. "I've got something to show you." He beckoned Kurt
closer and Kurt, intrigued, followed him around the back of the tree. He
gestured to a spot a little above eye level, where he had carved the shaky
letters B.A. into the bark of the tree. "I'm marking all of the trees that I've
climbed, starting with this one." He dug in his pocket, bringing out a sleek
silver penknife, which he proudly showed to Kurt. "My father bought me this, as
a reward for my report card this term. I wanted a new pen, but this is just as
good, I guess." He was flushed with excitement, his eyes sparkling.
Kurt smiled, reaching out to take the knife and examine it. "It's lovely," he
said perfunctorily, as he had no real knowledge or understanding of knives, and
no wish to learn, "but you really shouldn't be carving into trees."
Blaine stopped bouncing. He frowned at Kurt, confusion crinkling his brow. "Why
not?"
"It's not good for the tree. It's like cutting into a person's skin." Kurt
handed the penknife back to him and settled down on the drier earth at the base
of the tree, bringing his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around
them. He leaned back against the tree trunk and stared up into the pale sky,
appreciating the fragile warmth the weak sunlight afforded.
Blaine flopped down beside him, leaning heavily against Kurt and resting his
head on Kurt's shoulder. Kurt bit his lip at the fluttering sensation that
simple action started up in his stomach, and patted Blaine's head awkwardly,
wrinkling his nose at the hair-helmet of hair gel Blaine was wearing. Blaine
sighed heavily, warm and ticklish against the side of Kurt's neck. "If I
promise not to carve into any other trees, will you add your initials to this
one?"
Kurt weighed up the ethics of carving into a tree against the childish glee of
having his initials next to Blaine's, and groaned. "You're not going to let up
until I do, are you?"
Blaine grinned, wide and puppy-like. "Please?"
Kurt huffed. "Fine." He got to his feet, dusting off his pyjama bottoms—and he
should probably dress up more for these meetings, he thought absently—and took
the penknife when Blaine offered it. "Where do you want me to put it?"
Blaine leaned back against the tree and stretched his legs out in front of him,
looking up at Kurt with a smile. "Next to mine?"
Kurt rolled his eyes, ignoring the blush that burned his cheeks and ears. He
pressed the blade of the knife against the bark, pushing hard to get it to
break the surface. He hissed at it when it stuck, having to brace his shoulder
against the tree to press harder. Slowly, he carved out the letters K.H., the
strokes of the letters harsh and angular against the wobbly curve of Blaine's
B. When he finished, he stared at his work with an odd sense of accomplishment
curling in his belly; he knew that it was wrong to carve into trees, but he
couldn't help the thrill that it sent through him to see his and Blaine's
initials side by side.
"You know what it's missing?" Blaine said, his head twisted at an awkward angle
to look up.
Kurt tipped his head to one side, considering. A heart, he thought privately.
"What?"
Blaine sprang up, nimble as ever, and took the penknife from Kurt's hand.
Skilfully and with a steady hand, he added in a plus sign, between their names,
so that it read B.A.+K.H. instead of B.A. K.H.
"Hey," Blaine said, nudging Kurt in the ribs, "you know whose name our initials
spell?"
Kurt frowned, looking at the letters which were proudly inscribed in the bark.
"No...?"
"'Bach'," Blaine said, sounding pleased with himself. He leant into Kurt, his
body warm and heavy against Kurt's side as he wrapped an arm around Kurt's
shoulders.
"They do not," Kurt objected. "Last time I looked, my name started with a K,
not a C."
Blaine laughed, a warm, mellow sound that sent electricity sparking through
Kurt's veins. "But Bach made the most beautiful music," Blaine said with a wide
grin, "just like us. C'mon, it's close enough, surely?"
Kurt smiled in spite of himself, twisting his head to look at Blaine. He noted
the sparkle in his eyes, the curve of his jaw, the way his eyebrows wiggled up
and down when he got excited. He noted the pink of his lips, the faint stubble
on his jaw, the length of his eyelashes.
Blaine noticed him staring and paused, a self-conscious flush working its way
up his neck. "What?"
"Nothing," Kurt said, unable to keep a smile off his face.
Blaine's flush crept up even further, painting his cheeks with a rosy blush.
"You're staring," he said softly, eyes flickering down to Kurt's lips.
Kurt felt his heart rate pick up, a thrumming at the base of his throat that
threatened to choke him. "So I am," he said, keeping his voice hushed.
Blaine's arm tightened around him almost imperceptibly, before slipping down to
loop around his waist. Blaine bunched his fingers in the back of Kurt's hoodie,
the pressure of his touch sending delightful shivers up Kurt's spine. Blaine's
tongue flickered out to wet his lips, and Kurt eyes tracked the motion. He felt
over-sensitive, raw and trembling with wild energy that threatened to overwhelm
him. Blaine was so close; Kurt could smell him, the warm, husky scent that
seemed to reach out and envelop Kurt in comfort.
Without even realising it, he had pressed closer to Blaine, until there were
scant inches between their faces, their chests brushing together. Kurt reached
out to wrap his fingers around Blaine's tie, unable to take his eyes off
Blaine's face.
"What are we doing?" Blaine asked quietly, his warm breath skating over Kurt's
lips. Kurt could feel him trembling, and it soothed him to know that Blaine
felt the same way too.
"Sshh," Kurt murmured, before leaning in to press his lips against Blaine's.
Blaine stiffened momentarily—Kurt felt his heart lurch in fear—before melting
into Kurt with a soft sigh and kissing back, his hand that wasn't curled into
Kurt's jumper coming up to cup his jaw instead.
Blaine tasted good, Kurt thought, as he let his mouth fall open slightly—just
enough to taste Blaine properly. He tasted of the sweets they had shared
earlier; sweet and slightly tangy.
Blaine pulled back then, his face completely flushed and his eyes dark and
slightly shocked. "Um," he said, and Kurt couldn't take his eyes off Blaine's
lips and how red and wet they looked. I did that, Kurt thought to himself,
allowing a frisson of delight to course through him.
Kurt unwound his fingers from Blaine's tie, but didn't move away. Blaine's hand
dropped to Kurt's shoulder, a pleasant weight that sent tingles up the side of
Kurt's neck.
"Wow," Blaine said after a moment of just standing there, feeling the pound of
their heartbeats.
"Yeah," Kurt agreed.
"We should do that again."
"Ye—mrphh—!" Kurt's hands went automatically to Blaine's hair, but his fingers
tangled in the gel and he growled into the kiss in frustration. Blaine let out
a tiny whimper at that and pressed in closer, kissing him more frantically
until Kurt felt dizzy and like he never, ever wanted to stop doing this. He
felt rough bark at his back, and absently surmised that Blaine must have pushed
him against the tree, out of sight of the main house. A good thing too, he
realised—Blaine would probably look just a little insane, making out with thin
air.
Reluctantly, the lack of oxygen getting to him, Kurt pulled back. "I haven't
got much longer," he said, dropping another quick kiss on Blaine's mouth. "The
clock's going to strike at any moment."
Blaine whined and wrapped himself around Kurt, burying his face in Kurt's
shoulder. Kurt laughed slightly, petting at Blaine's back. "I'll be back, don't
worry," Kurt said, his attempt to sound reassuring thwarted by the
breathlessness Blaine invoked in him by nuzzling at his neck. "I'm hardly going
to be kept away."
Blaine stayed very still for a moment, then peeled himself away from Kurt with
dread in his eyes. "What if you can't come back?" he asked, his voice breaking
slightly on the last word. "What if that's it? If our time has run out?"
Kurt ignored the panicked clench of his stomach at that and instead reached out
to wrap his hand around the back of Blaine's neck again, brushing his thumb up
and down comfortingly. "It's going to be alright," he said gently, locking his
eyes with Blaine's and feeling his heart skip at a beat at the glow he saw in
those hazel eyes. "I promise. Whether it's a week or a year, I'll be back,
I swear."
As if to punctuate his words, the striking of the clock started up again;
another thirteen tolls that were taking him away from Blaine once more. Kurt
pressed another, frantic kiss to Blaine's lips, trying to engrave into his mind
the memory of how Blaine felt and tasted, before straightening up. "I have to
go."
Blaine caught his hand, fingers warm and fitting so perfectly with Kurt's own.
"I love you," he said fiercely, his eyes glowing with a passion Kurt had never
seen before. "I know it's early to say it but it's true. I love you." He
swallowed. "And it's okay if you don't want to say it, I swear, but I just
wanted you to know."
Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand, looking at this stupid, wonderful boy who had
captured his heart in such a short space of time. "I love you too," he said,
refusing to be hurried by the impatient calling of the clock.
And with that, he tore his hand away and hurried, half-running, to the back
door and that grimy hallway and his life that seemed so much duller without
Blaine there to light it up with bright colours. As he reached the door, he
glanced back to see Blaine stood beneath the tree, a heartbreaking expression
on his face and a downcast slump to his shoulders. Kurt dug his fingernails
into the palms of his hands, the sting barely noticeable compared to the pain
in his chest. "I love you," he repeated, just loud enough to Blaine to hear.
"And I promise that I'll be back."
Blaine just nodded, already fading from Kurt's sight. The greenhouse was
nothing but a faint blur in the distance, a brick wall springing up into
existence. The only thing left was the tree, still as gnarled and twisted as
ever.
Kurt bit his lip, blinking away the tears that were burning at the back of his
eyes, and shut the door behind him, the hall enveloping him in its gloom once
more.
*****  Thirteen *****
"You said that you'd be back."
Kurt started to reach for Blaine, only to drop his hand to his side when Blaine
stepped back from him, his eyes wet and angry. "I didn't know," Kurt said
softly, his voice feeble in the still of the night air. "I'm sorry. I didn't
know."
"Three months, Kurt." Blaine swallowed, looking away as if he couldn't stand to
look at Kurt. His hair was wet, damp curls sticking to his forehead and only
just starting to spring up again, and his tartan pyjamas were worn at the cuffs
and hems. "Three months, you left me here waiting—every night, I would wait for
you, and you never came."
Kurt's eyes stung, his throat burning. There was a lump in his throat, stopping
the words he wanted to say from getting out. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I
can't control it."
"Well maybe you should try," Blaine spat back, spots of pink high in his
cheeks. "How long has it even been for you? Days? Hours?"
Kurt closed his eyes, turning away. This hadn't been what he had anticipated
for tonight; he had anticipated sweet kisses and talking, up in the tree or in
Blaine's room—not standing apart in the cold night air, the grass crunchy with
frost beneath their feet and angry hurt lashing back and forth between them.
Blaine's next words were quiet, choked. "Did you even have time to miss me?"
Kurt opened his eyes and met Blaine's gaze. "Of course I missed you," he
whispered, hands reaching out for Blaine automatically. He felt a tight knot in
his stomach loosen when Blaine stepped forward slightly, taking Kurt's fingers
in a loose grip. "I missed you so much," he continued, "you have no idea. I
swear I would have come back to you sooner, if I could have done."
Blaine's grasp on his hands tightened, pulling Kurt closer towards him. Neither
of them said anything, their heads bowed close enough for them to be breathing
the same air. Kurt carefully reached up ran a hand through Blaine's hair,
scraping his fingernails against Blaine's scalp until he felt Blaine relax
against him, his weight warm and somehow familiar. "Sshh," he soothed, feeling
something wet against his neck—tears or drips from Blaine's hair, he couldn't
tell. "I'm here now. I promised as much."
Blaine made a soft sound against his neck, and then surged up to meet Kurt's
mouth in an even softer kiss, a brief brush of their mouths. Kurt wound his
fingers in Blaine's hair, tilting his head to re-capture Blaine's mouth,
kissing him deeper and firmer, trying to express all of his emotions through
his tongue and lips.
Pulling back, he studied Blaine's face carefully. Blaine had more stubble now,
he noted, letting go of Blaine's hair to stroke along the line of Blaine's jaw.
"Every night?" he asked.
Blaine closed his eyes and leaned into Kurt's touch, the expression on his face
intense. He looked as if he were trying to memorise the sensation of Kurt's
fingers on his skin, as if he were terrified it would be the last time he might
feel it. "Every night," he murmured. His eyelashes were long and dark, fanning
out like dusky feathers against his cheeks.
Kurt swallowed hard, pulling Blaine closer against him, until he could feel
Blaine's heart beating in his own chest. "I'm sorry," he said again, hands
returning to Blaine's hair. Blaine made a broken sound and slipped his arms
around Kurt's waist, his hold almost bruising in its desperation. Kurt pressed
a kiss to Blaine's cheek, letting the touch linger. He swallowed again,
allowing the surge of possessive, protective emotion to fill him, alien as it
was. "I'm never saying goodbye to you," he promised. "Never."
--
He doesn't get the chance to say goodbye that night, anyway. They fall asleep
wrapped around each other, and when Kurt wakes up, he's alone.
--
Blaine's bedroom was quiet in the still of the dark, the only sound that of
their breathing—regular and soothing. When Kurt closed his eyes, the dark
behind his eyelids no different to the dark in Blaine's room, he could feel
himself being lulled into a dozing slumber by the hypnotic in-and-out, in-and-
out, in-and-out.
"Kurt?" Blaine's voice broke the stillness.
He made a murmur of affirmation.
"Do you ever want to know what happens in the future?"
Kurt was wide awake again. "Not particularly," he said slowly, not entirely
sure what Blaine was getting at but having a sneaking suspicion that he might.
"I don't usually think about things that are impossible, to be quite honest."
"No but, if you were given the opportunity to know, would you?"
Inexplicably, Kurt could somehow tell that Blaine was looking at him with that
intense look in his eyes. He reached out and rested a hand on Blaine's chest,
hand rising and falling with every inhalation and exhalation. After a long
pause, one weighted with expectance, he answered: "I don't think so."
"But wouldn't it be nice to know that, whatever you did, you would always be
doing the right thing? Because it was already laid out by fate?" Blaine asked.
Kurt could feel the vibrations of his voice rumbling through his chest, tingles
shooting down Kurt's arm up to his heart, which started to beat quicker in
response.
Kurt closed his eyes again. Somehow, it seemed better that way: like he was the
one with control of the light, as if, upon opening his eyes, it would be light
again even though he knew better. But then the word SOLDIER flashed across his
mind's eye again and he opened his eyes once more. "I think that would be
terrible," he said, his voice rough. "You'd be like a lamb led to the
slaughter."
"I'm not talking about me personally," Blaine objected, although it fell flat.
Kurt smiled softly. "Liar."
"You've looked, though, haven't you." It wasn't a question.
Kurt swallowed around the tightness in his throat, painful heat welling in his
gut; an invisible stab wound nobody but he knew was there. "Yeah," he admitted.
There was no point lying to Blaine.
"I don't want to know, do I?"
His eyes burned, and Kurt was surprised when a hand touched his cheek and he
could feel the slick of tears. Blaine thumbed at his mouth, a gentle caress;
Kurt could feel the rasp of the whorls of his fingerprint against his lips.
"I was aiming for your cheek, but I got your mouth instead," Blaine said after
a beat. "Sorry."
Kurt chuckled. It was a wet sound, but it rang true. "If it's any comfort, the
file was incomplete. I can't really tell you much."
"I guess it won't really tell you if I was happy, would it?"
Kurt didn't respond to that. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and wished for
the tears to come to ease the ache in his heart; but just when he wanted them
to come, they didn't.
Contrary buggers.
--
"Have you seen the apple orchard?" Blaine asked conversationally as they lay on
their backs on the warm summer grass, stems shorn short and bristling with dry
heat. Kurt turned his head to look at him, feeling the prickle of the grass
against his head. Blaine was looking back at him with a small smile steady on
his face, his eyes glowing honeyed gold in the afternoon sun.
"No, I don't think so," he said, breath hitching in his throat when Blaine's
smile widened.
Blaine sat up, brushing grass from his trousers. "Come on, I'll show you," he
said, getting to his feet and offering Kurt a hand up. "The apples won't be
ready for another month or so, but there are some good climbing trees further
back."
"I had hoped that you'd learned your lesson about tree climbing." Kurt raised
an eyebrow dryly. "Don't tell me you're angling for a broken neck this time."
"Ah, but that would be counterproductive," Blaine said with a cheeky grin. "I
wouldn't be able to kiss you if I did that."
"Cheeseball," Kurt said fondly, reaching out to take his hand and squeeze it
tight.
"That's why you love me." Blaine led him past the greenhouse and around the
corner to the high wall enclosing the right side of the garden. There was a
narrow iron gate fixed into a gap in the grey stone, rust discolouring the
joinings and corners. Blaine lifted the latch with his free hand, Kurt wincing
at the screeching noise the eroded latch made, and tugged Kurt through. "The
good trees are further back--they were planted too closely together, so they
sort of grew into each other." He grinned. "It makes a jolly good castle,
though."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "What are you, four?"
Blaine planted a wet and noisy kiss on Kurt's cheek, before leaning in close
and saying, "Ah, but a four-year-old wouldn't be doing this." He kissed him,
hot and open-mouthed and messy, their bodies pressed flush against each other.
Kurt could feel the thrumming of Blaine's pulse, matching the beat of his own
in perfect time. Blaine slid a hand up the back of Kurt's hoodie, hand hot
through Kurt's flimsy t-shirt, and pressed in even closer, so that Kurt could
feel the contours of Blaine's chest against his own, lightly muscled from what
Kurt could only assume was years of sports at school. Blaine's tongue licked
deeper into his mouth, demanding and impatient; and when Blaine flicked his
tongue against Kurt's teeth, Kurt felt his knees shake and his stomach wobble
and he moaned into the kiss in an embarrassingly wanton manner, his own hands
sliding up under Blaine's shirt to dig his fingertips into the jut of Blaine's
hips. Blaine hissed and kissed harder, breathing noisy and erratic, before
pulling back and pressing their foreheads together, free hand coming up to
cradle Kurt's face. "You," he said, between ragged gasps, "are amazing." He
closed his eyes, overwhelmed. "You have no idea what youdo to me, Kurt. No
idea."
Kurt could feel the hot line of Blaine against his hip, he only now realised,
with an answering ache in his own crotch. He blushed scarlet and shifted back,
moving their pelvises apart so that they were no longer indecently rubbing up
on each other. He bit his lip and ducked his head. That was a bad move, he
realised, because then he was staring at the tent in Blaine's grey wool
trousers and shit, he had done that. Him, not anyone else. He had done that to
Blaine just by kissing him. He knew instinctively, then, that were he to reach
out and slip his hand into Blaine's underwear, Blaine would let him—would jerk
up into his grip and gasp his pleasure into Kurt's ear in fact, hard and heavy
and so hot in Kurt's palm. Kurt would be able to watch Blaine come undone
against him and know that it was because of him, that nobody else had ever seen
Blaine like that, just him.  
Kurt very nearly reached out to follow up on his thoughts, in fact, before it
occurred to him that Blaine might want to do the same to him and what if Blaine
didn't like what he saw? Blaine was muscular and well-proportioned and gorgeous
and Kurt was tall and gangly and baby-faced and pale and had soft curves to his
hips that didn't go no matter how much running he did. Blaine would probably
take one look at him and laugh awkwardly before pulling away and suggesting
they go listen to some music instead. And then Kurt might not come back again
and the last thing they would have would be awkward attempts at hand-jobs in
Blaine's orchard in the middle of the afternoon and that wasn't what Kurt
wanted. If he was going to do it, then he was going to do it properly, damn it.
Kurt licked his lips and met Blaine's eyes, which were still dark with lust but
regarding Kurt with a worried expression. "You were going to show me your tree-
castle?" he said, aiming to keep his voice light but it came out roughened and
deep instead. He winced in embarrassment; Blaine probably thought he was some
pervert who sounded like a porn star from just a kiss,Jesus.
"Yeah," Blaine said, sounding slightly dazed, his gaze fixed on Kurt's mouth
once more. His cheeks had a high flush on them, his lips full and bruised red.
He licked his lower lip, just once, teeth dragging painfully slowly over the
soft, plump flesh, and Kurt felt himself twitch in his pants. He tore his gaze
away, feeling embarrassment creep over him. He shifted uncomfortably, wishing
he could adjust himself in his pants—thank god his pyjamas were loose-fit—and
licked his own lips, relishing the tingle.
Blaine didn't take Kurt's hand again, for which Kurt was grateful—he didn't
know if he would be able to stop himself from making a fool of himself if he so
much as touched Blaine again—and instead led him through the lines of apple
trees to the far end, where two trees had grown together into a tightly-knit
knot of branches and leaves. Only a handful of apples grew on these trees, and
they were small and brown and dried-up, wrinkled skins torn and blackened in
places.
Blaine stopped at the foot of them. He rested a hand on the trunk of the centre
one, his touch gentle and almost reverent. "These trees are my favourite, I
think, because they won't give any fruit and they appear all mangled up and
useless to the outside world, but they're the strongest trees out there.
They've been through all sorts of weather and storms and never dropped a
branch." He smiled at Kurt, a soft look in his eyes. "They're a bit like us,"
he said, looking back up into the tangled branches. "They hold each other up."
Kurt followed his gaze up into the cloud of branches and leaves, a bright-eyed
blue-tit fluttering away and a responding chatter come from a nest high up.
"That's rather deep," he said after a moment. The tension was thick in the
air—both sexual and emotional—and he felt raw and sensitive all over, like his
nerve endings were flaring up at the slightest thing and his brain was
translating everything into a hugely over-emotional event.
When Blaine looked over at him, Kurt was surprised to see a flash of horror on
his face. "What's wrong?" Blaine asked, wide-eyed with panic. "Was it too much?
It was too much, wasn't it? I'm sorry, I'm sorry—we can just go and laze on the
lawn again if you want, I don't mind, I'm sorry—"
Kurt shut him up with a gentle kiss, close-mouthed and chaste. He could feel
the wetness on his cheeks from the tears he hadn't even realised he had been
shedding. "I'm not sad, dumbass."
Blaine blinked at him, eyelashes long and dark around his hazel eyes. He looked
confused. "Then why are you crying?"
Kurt shook his head. He reached out to curl a hand around the back of Blaine's
neck, but didn't lean in to kiss him. "Because I'm happy. Despite everything,
I'm happy."
Blaine kissed his cheek, kissing away the tear-tracks. Kurt could see Blaine's
own eyes starting to shine wetly, tears clumping on his lashes like dewdrops on
a downy feather. "I know what you mean," he said quietly, words brushing across
Kurt's mouth in warm puffs of air. "I'm happy, too."
--
Kurt bit back a gasp as he stepped outside that night. All around him, snow
covered every surface, twinkling in the moonlight. He took a step forward, the
crystals crunching underfoot, and glanced up at the clear midnight sky.
"Kurt," Blaine's voice whispered from behind him, back in the hall. Kurt turned
and smiled at him, feeling the familiar curl of happiness at seeing him. Blaine
padded over in his slippers, a dark blue dressing gown wrapped around his lean
frame.
"What are you doing awake?" Kurt took his hand, pulling him in close for a hug.
Blaine pressed a quick kiss to his cheek then broke away, jerking a thumb
towards the kitchen door. "I was going to get a drink," he said, "it's a good
thing it took me so long to find my slippers, then, or I might've missed you."
"I was going to go wake you up," Kurt admitted. "Probably with handful of snow,
though."
Blaine laughed, the sound loud and bright in the silent house. Kurt 'ssshhh'ed
him, pressing a finger to his lips. "You'll wake everybody up."
Blaine shrugged. "My mother is most likely dead to the world, and Father's away
on a business trip to Cambridge." A wicked grin stole across his face, a glint
appearing in his eyes that Kurt could see even in the half-light from the moon.
"So you were going to wake me up with a handful of snow, huh?"
"Seemed too good an opportunity to miss," Kurt said casually, trying not to
smirk. "I bet you scream higher than even I do."
Blaine chuckled. He reached out to curl a hand around Kurt's elbow, propelling
him out the door into the snowy garden again. "Willing to make a bet?"
Kurt sniffed, lifting his chin. "A Hummel never backs down from a bet," he
said, mustering his snootiest tone.
Blaine's grip tightened, fingertips digging into the soft crook of his elbow.
He pulled Kurt in closer, looking up into his face with a mischievous smile.
"So what do I get if I win?"
Kurt could feel the familiar tingle of heat low in his stomach, coupled with
the blush already prickling up his neck. He licked his lips, heart rate picking
up when Blaine's eyes tracked the motion. "Who says you win anything? Or that
you're even going to win, for that matter?"
Blaine tilted his head slightly, their faces now close enough for their noses
to brush, mouths scant centimetres apart. "I think I should win something."
Kurt would barely have to move to kiss him, but he held still. "That's assuming
that you have the slightest chance at winning."
"Ooh," Blaine mocked, warm breath brushing over Kurt's face. "Confident, are
we?"
"With good reason." Kurt's pulse was fluttering away at the base of his throat.
Tingles were shooting up his arm, fanning out from where Blaine was touching
him and sending shivers down his spine. He held his breath, waiting.
Blaine's eyes flickered up to meet his. They were hot and dark, practically
smouldering in the half-light. His grip tightened almost imperceptibly on
Kurt's arm, and he swayed in even closer to Kurt, pressing their torsos
together and wrapping his other arm around Kurt, hand flattened to the small of
Kurt's back. "Can I kiss you?" he asked, breath brushing across Kurt's mouth in
a gentle caress, suggestive of what was still to come.
"No complaints here," Kurt said, hearing the breathless crack in his own voice
but somehow unable to care. He let his eyes close, all of his senses tingling
and hyper-aware of Blaine's close proximity. He could feel Blaine's heartbeat
through his shirt, fast and regular and oh-so comforting.
Blaine chuckled softly, and breached the gap to touch their lips together; just
a quick, chaste meeting of mouths, dry and warm. "I missed kissing you," he
said, pulling back to look into Kurt's eyes, quiet and close and serious and
Kurt's. "I missed you."
Kurt wrapped a hand around the back of Blaine's neck, leaning their foreheads
together and closing his eyes to absorb the feel of Blaine. "I know," he said,
and he didn't say me too or I know how you feel because the former would pale
in comparison and the latter would be a barefaced lie. It had been one day for
him. One day. Twenty-four hours. One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes.
Eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds. 
Blaine's nose was cold when he nuzzled it against Kurt's cheek. "I love you,"
he murmured, tucking his face in the crook of Kurt's neck, breath hot against
Kurt's chilled skin.
This, at least, Kurt could answer. "I love you too," he said, feeling the
weight of the words on his tongue, rolling around his mouth, smooth and round
like cherry pips. He could taste Blaine on his tongue still; an indescribable
taste like peppermint and coffee with faint, undertones of cinnamon.
He could feel Blaine's smile against his neck. "Do you love me enough to
forgive me for something?"
Kurt felt his stomach clench, then shiver and fall apart. "What?" he asked,
dread wrapping cold fingers around his heart and leaving a hot-cold, sickened
sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Blaine pulled away, and Kurt was confused by the playful twinkle in his eyes.
"For this." He leaned down and grabbed a handful of snow, tossing it into
Kurt's face.
Kurt gasped and shrieked and blinked the frozen crystals out of his eyes,
clumps sticking to his eyelashes. "You're going to pay for that, Blaine
Anderson," he said, wiping his face with his sleeve. His skin stung from the
cold, but it was a pleasant sting that made his cheeks tingle.
"You'd have to catch me first," Blaine retorted, already springing away from
Kurt and ducking behind the tree, a smirk on his face.
Kurt bent and picked up a handful of snow, hissing as it chilled his fingers.
"Oh, you're on."
--
"I didn't know if I would get to see you again before Christmas," Blaine
murmured, skating his thumb over the back of Kurt's hand.
Kurt exhaled heavily, shifting closer to drop his head onto Blaine's shoulder.
He breathed in the warm scent of Blaine. "I think the clock's getting a little
temperamental."
"Sodding thing." Blaine turned his head to press a gentle kiss to Kurt's hair,
his lips lingering, as if he was trying to memorise the sensation. "I don't
know if I love it or hate it, to be quite honest."
Kurt hummed in agreement and let his eyes droop shut, feeling Blaine's warmth
radiate through him and leave his skin tingling—but not from the chill of the
snow, which lay in a fine layer on the grass, slightly crunchy to the touch.
There was a crispness to the air that nipped at Kurt's fingers and nose, but
the liquid head pooling in his stomach kept the cold at bay.
"My trousers are getting wet," Blaine said after a moment of comfortable
silence, sounding slightly annoyed.
"Want me to move?" Kurt offered, not bothering to lift his head or even open
his eyes. He felt Blaine's lips on his hair again.
"No." Kurt felt the answer rather than heard it: Blaine's mouth moving hotly
against his scalp, the word breathed into his hair and sending vibrations
through his body. A squirmy feeling started in his belly, his pulse suddenly
loud in his ears.
A light flicked on inside the house, the light pouring out into the garden in
strips across the snow.
"Shit," Blaine said softly. His entire body vibrated with tension, an electric
thrum. "We must have woken Mother." He sprang to his feet, his dressing gown
covered in wet patches of melted snow, his cheeks flushed and his hair mussed
from sleep and playfighting. He looked at Kurt in consternation, eyes wide.
"She's going to wonder why I'm not in bed."
Kurt bit his lip, his side cold now that Blaine had left. "You should probably
go back inside, then."
Blaine hesitated still. "You could...come with me. Upstairs, I mean."
Kurt stared at him, a knot of panic in his chest. Was Blaine suggesting what he
thought he was thinking? "What?"
Blushing, he toed at the ground with a sodden slipper, carefully not meeting
Kurt's eyes. "I don't mean to do anything, just...I don't want to leave you
outside in the cold."
"I'll be gone in a bit," Kurt pointed out, feeling a pang of guilt when
Blaine's face fell at his words, eyes closing off and back stiffening. He
picked at the snow, unable to look at Blaine's face; he focussed on how soft
the snow looked but how it bit at his fingertips, sticking wetly to his skin.
"Go, Blaine."
Blaine took a cautious step closer. "Can I kiss you goodbye?" he asked,
sounding as if he expected Kurt to say no or yell at him and reject him. When
Kurt looked up, his eyes were wet, lashes long and dark. "I...this might be it,
Kurt." He shook his head, swallowing hard and closing his eyes as if in pain.
"Can I kiss you, one last time? Please?"
This might be our last chance.
Kurt nodded, a broken and abrupt movement, then lurched to his feet, Blaine
reaching out to steady him and draw him close. Kurt's stomach flipped at the
warm brush of his skin. "It's not you, I swear," he said, leaning their heads
together and breathing in the scent of Blaine. "It's me. I just...I can't,
okay? Not yet."
Blaine pulled back, a frown creasing his forehead. "What?" He looked utterly
perplexed.
Kurt felt his cheeks heat up. He ducked his head. "I'm not ready for...that."
Blaine still looked non-plussed.
Kurt's cheeks were on fire, he was sure of it. "You know."
"I'm pretty sure I don't, actually," Blaine said, wrapping his fingers around
Kurt's wrist and holding it against his chest. Kurt could feel the beat of
Blaine's heart, could imagine the life flowing through Blaine's body.
Kurt groaned. "Sex."
Blaine's mouth dropped open in a manner that Kurt would most likely have found
comical had he not been willing the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
"Kurt, what? You thought I was suggesting—you know, that?"
"You weren't?"
"No!" Blaine shook his head furiously. He looked the picture of embarrassment.
"I just meant to hold each other."
Kurt scrubbed a hand over his face and laughed awkwardly. "Oh."
Blaine touched Kurt's cheek, looking deep into Kurt's eyes with a bashful
expression. "I'm not exactly ready, either, don't worry."
Kurt chuckled, albeit nervously. "That's good, then. Good to know we're on the
same page."
"Yeah." Blaine rubbed at the back of his neck, still red-faced. "So, uh, are
you coming up?"
"Of course." Kurt smiled and dropped a kiss on Blaine's cheek. "Need you ask?"
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