The funeral was originally booked for one week later, but by then, Kurt could barely get up out of bed in the morning. Burt knew he couldn’t let his son fester on this – if you could really call it festering – but he also knew he had to give him time.

Kurt had only planned to sleep in Finn’s bed for a few nights after the incident, but when his brother started reaching out, grappling for the only other warm body he could reach and murmuring a muffled Blaine, Finn didn’t have the heart to wake him up.

It wasn’t long, though, before everyone in the Hummel-Hudson family decided that Kurt needed a clean break.

So he went back to school, Rachel and Mercedes in tow, and cleared out his locker. He sat through the remembrance assembly quietly, his fingers subconsciously reaching up to ghost over the space where a small K&B necklace used to lie, and felt nothing.

A month later, he visited Blaine’s grave.

It was simple, white marble with vividly coloured flowers placed all around it, and looked slightly out-of-place amongst the other headstones, which were either slightly grey from weathering or bore the scars of a permanent marker from some idiot kid.

Kneeling down, he supressed the urge to re-organize the flowers into something a little more tasteful, gently slid his hand over the engraved message, and slid a small envelope to rest on the side of the headstone before walking away.

____

I love you.

I really can’t tell you why I’m writing this, because I don’t think about what I do lately. I don’t really think I have the room to. But I’ve heard this can help me, so I guess I’m doing it anyway.

You know I don’t believe in God, Blaine. I don’t believe in Heaven.

But I know you wouldn’t just leave me here. I believe that.

So I know you’re reading this, somewhere. I miss you. I miss you so much, Blaine. It hurts. I see your eyes when I wake up, and then I can’t concentrate on anything for the rest of the day. You’re in my dreams, and you’re always sad. You ask why I left you to die. I can’t breathe when I think about you.

I have to stop. I have to forget you, as best I can. For both of us. I’m so sorry, but I have to be able to breathe, Blaine. So I guess this is goodbye.

Yours,

Kurt

____

“He’s getting better.”

Burt looked up, surprised to see Finn standing before him, holding a glass of milk like it was poisonous. Guessing Kurt’s warm milk conversation attempts had made Finn less than favourable of milk itself, he took the cup from him. Finn’s shoulders sagged visibly with relief, and he sat across from Burt.

Resting the glass on his leg – to be honest, he didn’t like the stuff too much, either – Burt muted the TV.

“Whataya mean?” He asked, turning a little more towards Finn.

Finn had settled a little more into his chair, his large frame relaxing into a curved shape.

“I mean, he’s not crying anymore. He looks happier.” He smirked. “He yelled at me for leaving my socks on his bed last night.”

Burt smiled back at him – it did seem like his son was getting better.

Sometimes, it seemed like he didn’t miss Blaine at all. Burt knew he did, though, and that was painful for everyone. But he was getting better. He was healing.

And for now, that was all that Burt needed.

Two flights downstairs, however, Kurt had never felt worse.

His space heater was cranked up to the last notch, but he was still shivering. Grabbing yet another blanket, and wondering whether he had some sort of head flu, he curled up and switched on his TV.

There was nothing on, though, so he let the sound of chattering newsreaders fade to background noise and lied down, leaving his mind relatively empty; in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea.

Because despite his father’s best efforts, nothing short of brainwashing him could get him to stop thinking about Blaine.

“I wish you were here.”

–choking gasping god oh god dirt bugs flesh–

It was the one picture he’d managed to salvage, the one of him and Blaine at his Junior Prom, that he was talking to. He kept it on his bedside table, and he found that if he woke in the dead of night, haunted by visions of gold-hazel eyes, it was the only thing that lured him back to sleep.

Sometimes, he kept it to convince himself that it had all been real.

–and oh god i’m buried buried i’m alive but I must be dead– 

 The quiet echo of footsteps, and a quick glance up showed him standing before Kurt, dapper as ever, but somehow different, changed.

Like he’d just seen the sun for the first time.

Then there was sitting and ohgodshithe’sholdingyourhandstaycool, and then oh, there you are, I’ve been looking for you forever, and then hands and mouths and tongue and I thought we were’s and-

-and god the pain, how didn’t he notice it before, burning white-hot to the tips of his fingers burning buried alive god why never never never-

-Mercedes then Finn then you and fuck no no, i’ll never say goodbye to you, never-

-and dammit just say it you idiot he knows it and I love you-

-pausing freaking swallow coffee and I love you too-

We have a whole bunch of firsts to start crossing off our lists.

Isn’t now the time to take risks? While we’re still young?

-oh god metal slicing cutting moulding and it all still burns-

I can’t stand to be apart from the person I love.

-ripping, tearing apart like a badly-sown quilt, destroyed and remade until perfection is reached-

And you are the love of my life.

-and then calm, and everything stopped and it was almost eerie and then lungs oxygen room to move think live-

And for the first time since he left Scandals, climbing out of the ground like some corpse, Blaine Anderson was breathing freely.

__

His movements were jolted, stilted; like he was a puppet operated by a broken machine, tendrils of white-hot heat firing through his nerves like little knives – not painful, exactly, but like that feeling of numbness coming back into feeling itself, like reverse pins and needles scattering through his body until the clear, crisp night air came into focus around him.

In a way, Blaine was still numb, somehow filtered from the world around him; every tree, every headstone had a kind of musky glow that had nothing to do with the fog, and it took a few seconds before he realized he was moving.

Slow, calculated steps ahead of himself, a toddler learning to walk all over again, and then he was running, some great ferocious beast unleashed as he sprinted forward, overstepping and falling a few times before finding a rhythm and running again and cackling towards the sky – because he could run, he could run and jump and scream and love all over again, and by all counts he was alive-

-sirens and screams, flashing lights and the smell of copper in the air, glass embedded oh god I’m going to die-

And Blaine was on his knees, the reminder of that night becoming branded in the back of his throat, bile rising up and tears rising even faster, falling shamelessly without warning, as if you could warn for this kind of thing-

“Need a hand?”

His head jolted up at the voice, slightly sultry with an undertone of class, and he flinched from the sudden pain.

-neck snapped to the side, hanging off the collarbone-

He would’ve screamed, would’ve tried to run, but he was suddenly barely able to breathe, his lungs somehow shrinking and bursting at the same time, the world winding down to nothing but lack of air and blinding black and the figure above him.

“I would offer mine, but I don’t really see the point,” continued Sebastian, straightening out a cuff on his arm, “-considering yours is about to fall off.”

And then the world stopped spinning, and he was numb again, and everything matched up – the pain, the lights, the flashbacks, and Blaine was left with the sudden revelation the Sebastian spoke the truth.

Because by all counts, Blaine was dead.

Looking down, he felt no bile rising in his throat as he realized that the stench of rotting flesh was coming from him; it had to have been [H1] at least been a month, he realized, since his skin had felt life, felt vitality and oxygen flowing unrestrictedly.

His shirt was torn open, and in the middle laid a gaping wound, pus and oh god actual flies skitting around his mangled stomach, obviously quite a bit confused as to how their meal was moving.

There was no need to vomit, or to cry, or to breathe anymore – simply because his body couldn’t support the function.

But that didn’t stop Blaine from trying – and feeling like Death itself when he couldn’t – to feel for his heart through his newly distorted chest.

It wasn’t beating; it was barely even there.

And then, somehow, he could cry.

Sebastian was still there, surrounded by the earlier musky glow that had left everything else.

“What do you want?”

The words were out of Blaine’s mouth before he even entertained the notion of talking.

Sebastian looked somehow surprised; almost impressed by the fact that Blaine was speaking.

He paused before answering.

“I want to help you.”

Blaine looked up, surprised as well. He’d expected to kill you or a favour or your first-born child, but not this. He was dead, and unless Sebastian was secretly some kind of Grim Reaper – oh god shit I take it back, please don’t be that – then he couldn’t really offer Blaine anything but moral support; which, in itself, wasn’t really a good idea.

“You want to help?” Blaine’s tone was raspy.

Sebastian sighed, looking down, eyes averting Blaine’s.

“I want to-” he started.

“-but you can’t.” Blaine finished.

He could almost see the rejection coming, feel it tangible in the air, moments before it arrived.

“No.”

And then Blaine was angry, angry enough to shove himself upwards and stagger towards Sebastian like there was still alcohol whirring through his system, winding and wrapping until his brain was drunker than his body.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he snarled. “What makes you think you can help me?”

Sebastian, for his part, was still calm; and, scarily enough, remained so after Blaine gathered the nerve to throw a few punches. It was like hitting a wall, and after a few minutes Blaine began to feel un-numbness break through his knuckles all over again.

He stopped, sagging to the ground and resting his hands heavily on his knees, closing his eyes.

After – what, hours, days, years? – Sebastian began speaking again.

“You’re right. I want to help you, but I can’t; no-one can, Blaine.”

Cautious of looking at his own body – Blaine could feel the actual skin drooping from his face at this point – Blaine opened his eyes, surveying the endless black that surrounded him and Sebastian without really taking anything in.

“Then why are you here, Sebastian?” His voice was monotone, an almost unconscious choice of action, drifting into nothingness.

However, a short, bitter laugh pulled him from drifting anywhere.

“I don’t really think now is a time for humour.” Blaine spat, looking up at Sebastian.

“I’m not laughing at you.”

“Then what’s so fucking funny?”

“Nothing.”

Blaine was just on the border between confused and I don’t care that this is completely unjustifiable, a lot of things are, I’m going to punch you in the face when Sebastian spoke again.

“I’m not Sebastian.”

Blaine was completely on the right side of the border as he hit Sebastian hard enough to topple himself over, and then he was up again, hitting and hitting and looking like he was doing some kind of damage, finally, before someone was screaming stop, oh god, please, stop, and it took Blaine a second to realize it was him.

So he stopped, sagging backwards but refusing to sit down again.

“I won’t punch you again – but you have to explain.”

“Okay.”

Sebastian paused.

“I look like Sebastian because he’s the most likely person who would be here – in your opinion, anyway. In reality, I’m not actually anything.”

“So I’m imagining you?”

“No, you’re not.”

He - they paused, their face becoming grim.

“You’re dead, Blaine. You can’t really imagine anything as detailed as me.”

“Then how are you – what – dead – I – what?”

“I’m – just to be politically correct, I’m possessing you, okay?”

“What?”

“I’m possessing–“

“No, I heard you, just – What are you, a demon?”

“Thanks for phrasing it so nicely.”

“So you are?”

“This could almost be comical if you weren’t being such an obnoxious bitch, Blaine.”

“How am I being a bitch?”

“It was sarcasm.”

“Well, thanks for your sarcastic support, Seb – what do you call yourself, anyway?”

“Bob.”

“Wh- Bob? Why Bob?”

“I heard it was the most common male name.”

“But I don’t know any Bobs’!”

“You do now.”

Blaine scowled.

“Why’d you pick me? Why aren’t I still dead?”

S– Bob, Blaine reminded himself, looked almost sincere before answering.

“I don’t know where I came from, exactly – but somewhere, in the back of my mind, there’s this little voice that tells me about this place, that someone must’ve told me about before I came here.”

They paused.

“Some say there is a line between life and death; an in-between, if you will, that holds the souls that have left something behind that is too powerful to die. There are many things we think are important in life - but there is no amount of money or status that can outrun death.”

“I think I know where you’re going with–“

“–can you just shut up and let me talk?”

“Fine.”

“It’s love. The only thing that holds strong enough in the in-between is love.”

Blaine could feel the world coming into sharper focus, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“So there has to be someone out there who loves you enough to wish you back.”

He’d been trying to avoid thinking too much, but at that moment, only one thing was his mind, stretching and building until it was perfectly clarified.

Kurt.

“Blaine, if there is, you have to listen to me right now. I can’t control you for much longer. You’ll be dead in a day or two, at most.”

Blaine looked up, vision clouding with tears.

“What do I do?”

“You have to let something fully possess you. Let a demon completely inside you.”

Blaine stood, choking on his words.

“N-no, you can’t just expect me to let something like that–”

“Do you want to see your boyfriend again?” Bob cut in sharply.

The truth hung in the air between them like a hangman’s noose.

More than anything.

“Then suit up, Blainey. We’re about to rock your world.”

The darkness was somehow detaching itself, closing in on Blaine, flooding his vision and flowing into his system, blood pulsating through veins, skin tightening,

 –the tell-tale pulse beating rapidly under his outstretched palm–

A beating heart.

Blackness flooding his brains and organs and blood and Blaine was screaming, bones cracking back into place and blackness in his eyes, burning darker than the night sky ever could, darker than the bottom of the ocean, and far, far darker than the dirt he was buried in less than an hour ago.